That Hickenlooper, always stealing my ideas. First the brewpub, now this. Two days after he announces his run for President, he goes live with "his" idea to legalize prostitution. It was a bold, and risky move, to be sure. No guarantee that even his fervent supporters would go for it. They're middle-of-the-road Democrats, not Polyamorous fire-juggling circus people who just got back from Burning Man. But the thing is, he stole it from me. Yep, back in 2011 I had a dream about Denver's new Mayor legalizing blowjobs, wrote a blog about it, got a lot of theoretical support for the idea and then... Mayor Handjob, I mean Hancock got elected and well we all know what happened. Since then, I've been educated about sex-workers' rights and why all of this should be legalized in the first place but my point is- ME. I was first.
So what was this earth-shaking dream?
Well, it's about jobs, people. Bottom line.
I dreamt that I was returning to Denver after a long trip overseas, and the mayoral election had happened about a month before. I had heard that a woman was elected for the first time and that she was very liberal and innovative, but that's all I'd heard. Walking from my flight's gate to baggage claim, I noticed that the airport looked different. Some of the newsstand and toiletry shops had been replaced, and the shoe-shine booths now had curtains or cubicle-like walls around them. Except there was no shoe-shining going on in those booths. In fact, riding on one of the escalators, I had a perfect bird's eye view of EXACTLY what was going on. Several men were sitting in what looked like barber's chairs, fully clothed from the waist up- some with their boxers still on, quite nonchalantly receiving oral sex from scantily-clad, attractive young women and men. A sign on the booth said, "Introductory Special! $20!"
In the dream, I went over to the woman who was standing just outside the booth, shouting "Twenty Dollars to Make you Holler!" like a carnival barker, and asked her just what was going on. Not in a prison-warden kind of way, just in a curious and slightly aghast kind of way. She explained very matter-of-factly that as one of her first acts, the new mayor legalized blow-jobs much in the same way that medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado, and new businesses were popping up all over. They were thrilled to get a space at the highly-coveted airport concession, where a steady stream of customers flowed by nearly 24-hours a day. The proprietor pointed to a storefront across the way that was currently being remodeled as their permanent space. "Once that's finished we can accommodate over 20 customers at a time- but we'll also have these little kiosks scattered around the airport, on every concourse, for those people that are in a hurry." Next door to their space, another storefront was being remodeled, apparently for the same purpose. Next to that was a McDonald's.
"Looks like you already have competition," I remarked to the woman.
"Yeah," she said, "But we're not too worried- they weren't able to get the license for kiosks, and quite frankly, we're better." She smiled. I nodded.
Then in the dream, I was suddenly heading home in a taxi, and along the way, in every strip-mall, historic block and new-lofts-with-retail-below, jobs were being created, and in fact, done. And not just on Colfax.
I gaped. Then I woke up.
And as I said, it took me a few minutes, but I started to realize what a huge economic boom and social cure-all legalized blow-jobs could become. Much in the same way that "medical" marijuana dispensaries have filled every empty, or floundering, commercial space in Colorado and employed thousands of previously unemployable stoners, the BJ biz could employ, rather than incarcerate, thousands of feckless young men and women. In my real, waking life I remember a police officer from District 6 speaking at a neighborhood meeting on the plague of prostitution in our area. He stated quite clearly that most of the "johns" were married, suburban dads looking primarily for oral sex, ostensibly because their wives wouldn't perform that service. Their impound lot was overflowing with Johns' cars because of this, and the jails were overflowing with prostitutes who would be back on the streets, working, within 24 hours of getting arrested. Besides, he said, when they cracked down on street prostitution, the hookers would just go to the massage parlors for "jobs," and when the police cracked down on the massage parlors, the hookers would just go back to the streets. It was like squeezing a balloon, he said.
Because of Denver's somewhat lax prostitution laws, there wasn't much they could do.
At the time we were living half a block off Colfax Avenue, in a lovely little neighborhood between City Park and the main drag, which was used in the summers by prostitutes and their customers. Our alley was a popular place for business. Every morning we would walk out to our car and find used condoms stuck to the asphalt, mere inches from our back gate. We were lucky though. Some of our neighbors would come home and find a couple or two in the act on their front porches. One was even told to "wait a minute" when he politely asked them to leave.
My former husband and I started joking that as the host house, we should get a cut. Maybe leave a locked box nailed to the back fence, with little envelopes for monetary deposits- on the honor system of course- just like the State Parks do?
But seriously. Even though we don't live there anymore, and the worst of the prostitution was over by 2004 (economic downturn, don't ya know), apparently the problem-solving part of my brain has been hard at work on this dilemma ever since.
For those of you who've been living under a rock, or up in Ward, or somewhere other than Colorado since 2008- this legalizing of Medical Marijuana thing has really taken off. Much more so than those of us who voted for it thought it would. Dispensaries now outnumber Starbucks in Denver, and they're showing no signs of slowing down.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it's not that hard to get a medical marijuana prescription. As a result, there are zillions of customers, millions of dispensaries, and billions of dollars being made right here in the Centennial State- in the middle of an otherwise limp economy. One might even call it flaccid.
I've mentioned the previously vacant commercial properties that now house thriving businesses, and the employment opportunities provided by medical marijuana outlets; the retail staff, the growers, the bakers of yummy MJ treats, the modern-day geishas at the ready to make your whole experience more pleasant... but really all that would pale in comparison to legalized blow-jobs.
First off, the regulation would have to be tighter, for obvious health reasons. So, "monitors" for every bj performed would be on duty, ideally a person with some nursing experience, to make sure the blower and the jobber were using every hygienic precaution. I don't have any experience with dental dams, but apparently, they work. Whatever. Once this is legalized, necessity is the mother of invention, and I'm sure the future Bill Gates or Martha Stewart of BJ safety is out there somewhere, waiting to realize his/her moment.
Then there are the service providers themselves. Of course, they'd have to be at least 18 (preferably 21), disease free, non-smokers, non-meth heads, etc etc.... so we'd need a whole new regulatory agency, armed with kajillions of doctors and nurses and so forth, to license these people. These young men and women (or old, if you get off on that) would be making decent wages, in a safe environment, rather than working the streets or throwing their lives away in corporate America*. (where they would be doing much the same thing, mind you, except not paid as well, and treated much more poorly.) Last but not least, there would be the cashiers and "teasers," or people working to keep the cash flow of these places up and steady.
I'm not even mentioning the tangential revenue generated by advertising firms, sign-makers, lingerie boutiques, barber-chair retro-fitters, and manufacturers of anti-bacterial moist towelettes. The potential benefits to our economy simply cannot be dismissed or spat out as distasteful. Personally, I would not partake and hope my significant other wouldn't either, but I can't imagine a kiosk or storefront could be any grosser than a thousand used condoms stuck to our parking space every day.
In order to revitalize the country and rebuild our former greatness, we need a "Whatever it Takes" mentality, that thinks outside the box.
It's time to get serious about jobs. As Hedwig would say, "mostly the jobs they call 'blow'." Or as I frequently mutter under my breath, "Use your fucking imaginations, people." Put aside that Puritanical facade for 5 minutes and think about all the children going hungry tonight because their mom or dad's job got shipped to Mexico or Asia by some insensitive corporation.
Imagine instead a thriving, local economy that is based on real connections with people and literally throbbing with life. After all, this is about jobs.
