It's bad enough that politicians in most Western countries insist on criminalizing prostitution despite the fine and highly ambiguous line which differentiates it from what often passes as "romance", but what possible rationale can there be for sending undercover cops into gay adult-video stores to cruise their customers, and then proceed to charge these men for allegedly selling sex?
Police are allegedly using handsome young undercover cops to cruise middle-aged gay men, offering to go home with them for consensual sex. As they leave the store together, the cop offers to pay the man for the sex, confusing the victims who can't imagine why the younger man would make such a proposal. Then, as they walk out of the store, the victim, despite never having agreed to any exchange of money, is surrounded by undercover cops, handcuffed and charged with prostitution.
[...]
Robert Pinter, a 52-year-old gay man who was arrested for prostitution at the Blue Door in the East Village on Oct. 10, spoke at the town hall meeting. He said a young man — a 29-year old undercover cop who, Pinter said, looked even younger — cruised him in the store. He was "charming and persistent, and we agreed to go home for consensual sex, but as we were leaving he said, 'I want to pay you $50 [to have sex].' I didn't respond, but I thought it was strange," Pinter recounted. As the men left the store, Pinter said, a group of men who did not show police identification pushed him against the wall.
"I thought I'd been set up by a gang," he said. "I asked them why they were doing this to me. I was totally clueless. They handcuffed me and said, 'Why the f--- do you think we're arresting you — loitering for the purpose of prostitution.'"
Putting aside the improbability of any prostitute using a video store - even an adult video store - as a place to look for business, who in his right mind believes any young, good-looking man would need to pay an older and less attractive one to have sex? You don't have to be gay to see that such a scenario is absurd on the face of it.
Most of those quoted by the article's author treat this story purely as an "gay discrimination" problem, but while I think this is indeed part of the problem, I also believe that the issue merits wider consideration, as the root of the problem is that there is actually very little separating an attempted pick-up from so-called "solicitation" - and in Mr. Pinter's case, this amounts to nothing more than an unprompted offer to pay for something he'd already agreed to do for free. Those who see no problem with the police acting in such a manner, saying to themselves "it's a gay problem and I'm not gay", should consider how easy it would be for, say, an offer to take an attractive woman shopping or out to dinner, could be interpreted as a veiled effort to pay for sexual services in kind - and that is indeed what such male overtures usually do amount to, if we're being completely honest with ourselves (what is the difference between a woman who insists on being bought dinner at an expensive restaurant before agreeing to sex, and a woman who requests that the same sum be paid to her in cash?).
The gay men being arrested in this Manhattan sting are simply coming up against the hard reality behind all the political posturing over prostitution: anti-prostitution laws are not about "protecting women", keeping "the community" safe or any of the other nonsense apologists make on their behalf, but using the force of the law to control the private sexual lives of others of whom the majority does not approve, whether they be gays receptive to being cruised in adult video stores, or straight men looking for sex without having to go to bars and nightclubs to get it.
PS: An entrapment story in which the victim is a straight male. It would be a great mistake for heterosexuals to write this issue off as just a "gay problem".
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