Hotels and Hookers and Soldiers, Oh My!

I was shocked, shocked!!, I tell you, to discover a top tier fleet of our military men have been discovered to have employed the services of prostitutes-- common hookers, trollops, tramps, strumpets, whores-- yes, all of that! Thank God our esteemed senators and congressmen will not take this lying down, er, without a fight. It's obvious to our leaders someone needs a spanking, er, discipline. Talk about blowing the job! Na, I mean screwing up. Er, making a mess, ahhhh! Doing the wrong thing!!

I have a couple of colleagues who are themselves former military. They weren't on any special assignment on their course of duty. They're just the foulmouthed Vietnam Vet types. They don't understand how this could have happened either. They, and all the other GI's they knew, always, always, always paid their hookers! They never would have let this business spill out into the hallway of the hotel!!

Hmmm. I guess military macho men have been enlisting the services of the local working girls for quite some time. I guess that would be why there were posters way back when, warning military boys about the dangers of hiring the job done. It's just too damn bad we didn't have the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, right wing, pro-family, pro-life, pro-jesus, anti-everyone else leadership we enjoy at present to step in and take control of those horny bastards way back then.

In all of this I don't for a moment mean to condone the actions of the Secret Service in Columbia. But I do think prostitution is one of those activities that has been here forever and will continue forever. I think that, rather than use this event to fashion a media play about Obama's naughty, naughty Secret Service, why isn't this being used to make a play about the plight of women in that trade? Why isn't this being used as an opportunity to talk about protecting sex industry workers? What would it take to make this event into a discussion of legalized prostitution with health and safety standards for the women and men involved? Is the only value to be found in this episode is as a partisan campaign tool for a bunch of self-serving bums in Washington? Probably. Once again, members of an ethically compromised branch of the American government are using women for their own selfish purposes.