December 26, 2002:
San Francisco, Financial District, early evening. Light drizzle from a sad gray sky drifts and gusts between tall buildings.
Leaning on a column of the Transamerica tower, young prostitute, blonde, twenty, shagged short hair. Lovely, except for the painful-looking black eyes where someone within the last few days has punched her good. Whoever it was wasn't kidding around.
Sees you staring, steps forward into the drizzle. Stands close, almost face to face, politely says, "Good evening sir."
You shake your head. "This is bad," you tell her, pointing to her war wounds. "There must be other ways."
She looks at her feet. She's ashamed, or she's a mighty fine actress.
To her surprise, and to yours, you lean forward and kiss her tenderly on the cheek. As you walk away she stands staring, open-mouthed, while light drizzle from a sad gray sky drifts and gusts around her lonely young face.
Gender. I wouldn't have responded with so much protectiveness toward a male prostitute.
The destructiveness of the evil current of Puritanism which runs through American culture like a sewer channel. Puritanism views social problems such as prostitution, and medical problems such as drug addiction, as personal ethical lapses: junkies and prostitutes deserve the fates that await them as though they were judgments from Heaven. Societies with a higher level of civilization view these problems more rationally as social or medical ills which can be mitigated via compassion and enlightened social policy. In France, where prostitution is legal, and where prostitutes are able to form unions for self-protection, there's much less violence against them than in America. In Holland, where heroin addiction is treated as a medical issue, junkies receive drugs and clean syringes from public infirmaries, ending the crime associated with expensive illegal drug habits. In both of these societies incidence of HIV infection via prostitution or drug addiction is quite small compared to the U.S. This woman would probably be alive today if she'd been born in Europe. She's dead because she had the bad luck to be American.