Sex Workers Are a Diverse, Not Desperate, Group

Jack the Ripper and the 19th Century’s Sex Workers in London

Jack the Ripper was the “nickname” journalists in 19th century London gave to a serial killer who preyed on prostitutes. At that time prostitution was not illegal in London and there were scores of women selling sexual services. There were women who charged high prices, who were comfortably situated in housing and they therefore had a place to invite clients. Women without financial backing worked the streets. They had to find a hidden spot in public to perform sexual services. These women could not offer comfort so they had to charge less. The same is true in downtown Honolulu, especially in the early 2000’s before the community took pains to remove the streetwalkers. The difference between a streetwalker and a call girl is expressed in the names. The lower status women walk the streets, the call girls can receive callers in person or are summoned by receiving phone calls.

How does a woman reach the point of being without help and resources? Addiction. In London 100% of the streetwalkers in the area targeted by Jack the Ripper were addicted to alcohol. Today, there are streetwalkers on those same avenues and 100% of these sex workers are heroin addicts. Let me be sure to clarify my remarks by stating that not all sex workers are addicted. Yes, there are women who engage in sex work but in general, they consider it something they do on the way to doing what they really want to do. People scoff at the notion that people could just dabble in sex work but they do. And, sex workers do not always work out of desperation. Sometimes they save money and invest in stocks. Or, they get plastic surgery. Can you really say a woman is being taken advantage of if she is saving for a tummy tuck.?

There are exigency circumstances that are not directly related to addiction, such as a woman being unable to find regular employment because of her record. I have even heard of women who left downtown Honolulu but return to work the street a few times a month to stay current with the goings on and to be a familiar face to guys who drive around often but do not always pick up a worker.

I received the criticism that I am misrepresenting sex workers as down and out and that’s not always true. There can be no denying that there is addiction driven prostitution that both genders adopt only bc they use drugs. They would never have considered prostitution anything more than something you read about in a blog. That was before drugs. But after people become addicted there are very few ways to make money that take as little time as 15 minutes, after which a person can dash off to score dope. They spend all the money on drugs then hit the street again. The practice of spending every penny on dope is what makes it impossible to keep a place or replace a stolen phone. It is this addiction driven prostitution that I primarily expose.

Another misrepresentation I do not want to commit is downplaying the danger of sex work, especially on the mainland where hundreds, maybe thousands, of sex workers are killed along interstate highways, and not to stereotype long distance truckers, it’s believed that predators discover the possibilities for truck drivers to snatch a woman no one will miss from one jurisdiction and dump her body in another jurisdiction where police do not know she went missing elsewhere. The lack of communication between law enforcement in different areas is a big weakness in policing in the United States and every full time predator knows this It would be impossible to get away with these actions on any of the Hawaiian islands. People will find out someone’s missing and people will know about the predators. If we have anonymous murders in Hawaii, I have never heard about them. However, the former chief of police and his wife, the head prosecuting attorney have both gone to federal prison this year(seriously) so we cannot exactly trust our authorities to tell the truth.