The American press gets raw on German prostitution laws

This post on the Atlantic Review illustrates the press dissonance between Germany and America has two sides -- or backs, should I say? Americans just don't understand, either -- at least when it comes to legalized prostitution. I have to admit, we have this weird deal with it. America was established by Puritans that got kicked out of Europe for having bizarre beliefs, ones that they were willing to colonize a remote, unforgiving wilderness in pursuit of. Thus begins the saga of a country that still sins as much as or more than any of its compatriots, but still insists on calling it sin. Can't spell "godless" without "God," I guess.

Though our figures of consumption can't be any lower, percentage-wise, there is this moral high ground that Americans tend to take with prostitution. As beautiful and charming as they are in person (our girls tend to need drugs and that's about it), it's an ingrained "no, thanks" for most of our uptight asses. It might be our income bracket or the principle of the thing, I don't know. As for the girls, they tend to want as much money as possible for their time, and when they're off duty, they become another person: which makes them exactly like every other German employee ever. But, though I can see the benefit of screwing you as clearly as a company could benefit from screwing its workers, that doesn't mean that either of us should.

But whatever, I'm an American and there's my moral high ground. Get back to me in 20 years. The point is, even I can't resist sounding off like these papers do, and the result is: we look dumb, and we're also insulting the intelligence of another nation -- with ignorance instead of tenacity, though they're both effectively the same. If we could dismount the high horse for a minute, we might see that legalizing prostitution has officiated and humanized something that will always be with us, while protecting the people who find themselves in the profession, and granting them some assurance that they won't end up dead in a dumpster when they fall in with the wrong customer. And it's hasn't inflamed the German drive for Gesäß -- well, at least not any more than anything else.