Some people in the libertarian camp want prostitution to be legal. Two locals probably wish it was right now.
Like drug use, paying for sex is sometimes called a victimless crime because no one does something against his or her will, and no one is injured, at least one hopes.
Furthermore, prostitution usually is a consensual act in which two people agree on a price – and libertarians love nothing more than two individuals voluntarily agreeing, without government interference, on an exchange of money for products or services.
If prostitution was legal, libertarians would be angry as hell if any level of government decided the pay-per-pow industry should be subject to rent control.
This ideal state of freedom sounds great. It looks great, too, if you live in power centers like Washington, D.C., where a few hundred dollars can get you a buxom blonde, a slinky brunette, a creamy redhead, or a Congressman.
They probably have all their original teeth, too, with the possible exception of the Congressman.
The reality, however, doesn’t look so good. Consider, for example, Aja Alexis Ann Mincey, 31, of Myrtle Beach, who was charged with second-offense prostitution on Tuesday.
I’m not judging Mincey’s guilt or innocence, or her possibilities with a makeover from a professional cosmetician, but I did notice she lacks something those D.C. hookers are sure to have: a good wax job on the upper lip.
In a police photo on The Sun News website, Mincey looks like she is behind on her facial care.
I’m not the first to think so. A commenter below the online article said, “Looks to have a nice mustache started.”
Another commenter replied, “Yes sir, that is a ‘five o'clock shadow’ she/he has going on there.”
Stranger still, the man arrested with her, 49-year-old Carmen George Isella of Surfside Beach, appears fairly clean shaven. Seeing his photo, you wouldn’t notice a faint shadow on his upper lip if you weren’t looking for it.
I’m a little concerned about the basis for the arrest of Isella and Mincey. What’s the harm in sitting together in a car? Then again, when the cops found them, they were parked at the far end of a hotel lot at 2 a.m., and they weren’t (yet?) guests of the hotel. So, they both were also charged with trespassing.
I guess I understand the trespassing charge -- private property and all that.
But I’m not sure what should matter to me about prostitution, at least from a cops-and-courts standpoint (I’ll worry about their immortal souls later). Would more people really take their chances with pubic lice if prostitution was legal? And even if more people did, so what? I’m not chancing it, not even with a powerful, well-connected Congressman.
Then again, how different is a first-date hookup? Plenty of people date with no pretense of a long-term, committed relationship. One buys dinner, or maybe just drinks, and they sleep together, and they move on.
Here’s a hypothetical situation, a possible analogy.
Two cops enter a restaurant. They approach a table of two. Observing no wedding rings, finding different last names on the driver’s licenses, the cops attach lie detectors to both individuals.
The cops ask, “Did you decide upon this date with the intention of exploring a possible long-term, committed relationship?”
If the lie detector suggests the answers are “no,” the couple will spend the rest of their date at the police station.
- Colin Foote Burch
