Johns

I watched a program on how good people are making it their life's work to save prostitutes and get them off the streets and into a decent life.  Once again I wondered about the "johns", the males who pay money to use these girls for their own sexual satisfaction, not caring what circumstances have made the prostitutes available to them.

It's no secret that the world is full of males who are married or in normal relationships but who still want to buy and use a prostitute.  What is it in their psyche that allows a man to use a woman, sometimes even a child, as a piece of meat?  Without a large supply of "johns" there would be no pimps and no prostitutes.

I'm picking on the males and not the females because people who avail themselves of prostitutes are usually male.  They come from all walks of life...police officer, clerk, lawyer, judge, priest.  They come from all levels of wealth.  They can be the nice man who delivers the mail or bags your groceries.  I think it would be difficult to find out what drives these men to use a prostitute because they are all so different.  Of course, sexual pleasure is one drive but where is the conscience of a mature man when he hires a teenage prostitute to service him?  I think that's what bothers me the most...why does his conscience not stop him from using and abusing the prostitute?

Some of these prostitutes have been in the game for so long they have destroyed their looks.  But some men don't care and will still pay for them.  They obviously don't hire a prostitute because they're lovely.  Some are disasters of human beings and most are on drugs but they would never have sunk so far in life without the men who are willing to pay to use them.

Maybe it is the world's oldest profession and one that will go on forever.  Maybe the johns are biologically driven and most will never develop that conscience I spoke of but what about that child prostitute?  Surely we can teach our males that some lines should never be crossed.  Surely we can save more of the children.

I saw that one city publishes the names and photos of every "john" arrested and that might decrease the numbers.  Public shaming might be the only thing that will work.  Leave those poor, damaged prostitutes alone in their misery and hit the johns extra hard by arresting them and making their identity public.  The prostitutes may be criminals in a sense but their pimps and johns definitely are the ones committing the worst crimes.

The next time you condemn a prostitute keep in mind that it's the pimps and johns who deserve your worst contempt.