Commentary: Smut Peddlers

Tuesday, Nov. 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Smut peddlers bother me, too, for a number of reasons. First, it's the location. They often leave several pamphlets rolled up and stuck in the various nooks and crannies of the Las Vegas Review Journal and Sun boxes, as well as the other boxes, that are in front of the Foley Federal Building, where I get my mail.

I had had a post office box there for about 2 years before I noticed any sexually explicit material there. One day I glanced at the newspaper boxes that are in front of the building to read the headlines, (I'm an incurable headline reader,) and there was this naked lady staring at me from the folds of a catalogue. There are no casinos on that block, and no cabarets. This is a government building where many people, including professional women, conduct their daily business.

These materials are out of place there, (if they are in place anywhere.) The nature of that sort of intimate service is intrusive and demanding of people's attention, and I don't want to think about female sexual services being offered in the same environment where I am functioning as a business adult. It's intimidating, and it leaves women vulnerable and reduced in status to servants, while at the same time compared to young and beautiful bodies that are offering themselves up for whatever use or fantasy.

In short, as offensive as this material is to everyone, it is especially offensive to older women. It's frustrating to attempt to make some sort of difference in the way women are treated in the marketplace only to have our sexual identity so markedly flaunted, and to our disadvantage, at that.

It is truly an invasion of privacy that should not have to be dealt with to this degree. The alternative, of course, is to ignore it, but that takes an initial conscious effort to block out parts of the environment that I don't want to block out.

A class-action suit should be considered by an organization that can afford it, with emotional distress being cited as cause. And citizens groups such as the PTA or local church groups, or any such local group of decent citizens should make their presence known on the Strip.

A large organized group of citizens could effectively demoralize the smut peddlers, if the campaign were run correctly, simply by putting in a few shifts of taking the material and throwing it away. It could all be sold to a recycler. The take at the end of such a day would probably be a fairly impressive amount of newsprint and, if the citizens army were diligent enough, the peddlers wouldn't make much from it.

They wouldn't be quite so anxious to give it to just anybody. But complaining about it just seems to fan the flames of their enthusiasm. Everyone in the city benefits from the tourist trade, not just them.

We owe it to the young women who are so employed by them to find out if they really are 18 years old, and if they really are just talking on the phone or giving massages. And we need 100 percent cooperation from the police.

Sheriff Jerry Keller tells us that we have the finest police force in the world, surely this is an area where they could conduct themselves in a purely objective manner that would make the area proud of them. If we are in fact in the midst of a huge illegal prostitution ring, then we have to face that responsibility as a community.

The victims of prostitution are the prostitutes. They don't live very long. They have very low self-esteem, and are often beaten and killed by their customers and their supervisors.

Their best and finest hope is often to marry one of the men who has totally subjugated them. I suspect that the "feminist element" of the "sex workers" are at best fooling themselves, although I admit that I am fairly ignorant of the situation.

But it's time we stopped pretending that the situation isn't coming to a crisis. At what point do we take the reins, and accept the responsibility? Does legalized prostitution work better for a community, and for the women who are at risk within?

I believe that there was a time when the mob policed this activity. I'm not a mob fan, but if they served this purpose, then it is one area that is in dire need of someone's attention.

The casinos have to accept some of the burden for court cases and fancy lawyers. And they have to take the needs of their high-rollers and balance those needs with the needs of the community. If casinos are, in truth, healthy for a community, then here and now is a place to demonstrate that.

I was glad to see your column, Ruthe. I feel odd and judgmental throwing away armfuls of pamphlets on a regular basis, but until the community as a grass roots effort rejects the premise that anything goes in Las Vegas, we have to accept the fact that anything does.