Protest Scheduled at HBO Corporate Offices

A picket line will be in place at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue at the Manhattan headquarters of HBO (1100 Sixth Avenue) on Thursday, April 24th between 12:30pm and 2:30pm. The reason for the protest is the HBO reality show Cathouse - The Series, which is set in a brothel in Nevada. As explained by Norma Ramos, Co-Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, and the originator of this action, "HBO is creating a culture of acceptance of sexual exploitation, and it needs to take responsibility for that."

Ramos isn't the only one who feels that way. Her organization will be joined by ECPAT-USA, Prostitution Research and Education (PRE), Equality Now, the New York Chapter of the National Organization of Women, and Queens Council Member John C. Liu. Also present will be Victor Malarek, the award-winning Canadian journalist who authored The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trades (2003), which was based on his interviews with traffickers and their victims compiled over a two-year period. More recently, Malarek weighed in with a March 12th Op-Ed in the New York Times penned with Melissa Farley (writer of Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections) in response to the Eliot Spitzer story entitled, The Myth of the Victimless Crime.

The Cathouse series has been spawned off from a "documentary" which aired on HBO in 2002, and was followed up with Cathouse 2: Back in the Saddle (2003). This, I presume, is the curious reason that the HBO website features a profile about the show on its Documentary Films link. The closing tag line of, "So come on in, take a seat at the bar and prepare yourself for a singular experience," does not have the tenor of film festival fare. The opening sentences are even gamier. "Welcome to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch. Outside the gate, it looks like a normal bar, but inside you are greeted by a line-up of beautiful, scantily clad women." Another page promoting the Best of Cathouse states, "HBO delves into its Cathouse vault to mine the most memorable scenes starring the hottest girls, and wildest moments, from six glorious years...a solid-gold tribute to the best little whorehouse on TV!" Considering that HBO has presented such films as Spike Lee's examination of Hurricane Katrina in When the Levees Broke, Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, and Rory Kennedy's Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, you have to wonder what the suits at HBO were thinking.

Dorchen Leiderholdt, founder of CATW, has a clear-cut point of view about the motives of the subscription cable giant. She said, "HBO cynically labels 'Cathouse' as a documentary, when in fact it packages prostitution as entertainment." Clicking around the Internet for feedback on the show, I connected with the comments of numerous devotees who gave it a top rating of 10. Posts ran consistent with the following sample (spelling corrected), "This show is absolutely phenomenal...It's like every man's fantasy wrapped up in a TV series." Leiderholdt's assessment was unmistakably on-target.

Taina Bien-Aimé, Executive Director of Equality Now, said of HBO, "It's a question of corporate responsibility. The media has glamorized and normalized prostitution and exploitation. All you see is the happy hooker who is giving a guy a good time." With the show featuring pimps in the role of managers, and prostitution in a legalized brothel as a form of work, it sidesteps the minefield of issues that abound in the multibillion-dollar sex trafficking industry. As Bien-Aimé pointed out, "Viewers watching this show are only seeing a narrow part of the story." That other narrative includes violence, degradation, and a PTSD rate for prostituted women that is equivalent to what is experienced by war veterans. For the audience members who dismiss these concerns with the disclaimer that the "Bunny Ranch" is a legal business in Nevada, they may want to ponder the equation that Bien-Aimé puts forth, "Legalizing prostitution makes the government a pimp."

Council Member John Liu, who has been involved in the anti-trafficking movement for the past two years told me, "When HBO puts these kinds of shows on, it serves to trivialize the problem of modern day slavery - which is on the rise." Liu has sponsored and advocated for legislation in the City Council to crack down on human trafficking. "There are too many places of prostitution all across the metropolitan area," he said, adding, "New York City is an international capital of the world. It is a major destination for sex trafficking."

"The pattern of programming at HBO is on the wrong track," Ramos asserted. She continued, "Hopefully the new president of HBO entertainment, Susan Naegle, will be open to rethinking whether HBO should be in the business of promoting prostitution." When I spoke to Ramos, she was drafting an open letter to HBO Chairman/CEO Bill Nelson and the HBO Board of Directors, expressing her concerns.

There will be a press conference held in conjunction with the demonstration. Hopefully, media in attendance will gain insight into the import of matters that must not be ignored. If you don't see any coverage, read Bob Herbert's January 15, 2008 piece, "Politics and Misogyny." You can always count on him to get it right.

Comments

[Cutout]

HBO executives should be airing EASTERN PROMISES a film that deals with the sexual enslavement of young girls brought to this country from in this film Russia. It is a devastatingly wrenching look at the sex trade particularly how its tentacles reaches into all level of society.

[tkk]

This is a good cause. Good Luck! If men would behave we wouldn't have all these sex problems, got that guys?

[biglover]

Men are never going to "behave"/ Fuggeddaboudit

[vickitrina]

Perhaps it's time for HBO to step up to the plate and speak to illegal prostitution, where all victims are left behind, and most most of the criminals are ignored. Oh right, that might not look so pretty bookended by Big Love and John Adams.

[Ides]

Um...24+ year old strippers selling sexual favors for thousands of dollars an hour from a pre-approved list of techniques and activities with regular testing for STDs? What does that have to do with sexual trafficking?

This is the prostitution equivalent of people banning the domestic growth and sale of marijuana because gangsters in Colombia sell marijuana.

I guess we should protest beer and whiskey because Al Capone blew up a little girl with a suitcase during prohibition....

[mediamarv]

One word:

Isabella Soprano

[Lon]

There is something curious about this protest. The show being protested has been on for a number of years, and in fact predates the Katrina documentary, so how does it show HBO's standards falling since they released that documentary.

I agree it would not be a bad thing if HBO did more to contrast the situation at the Bunny ranch with what prostitution is in more normal cases. That would let people make up their own minds as to whether the Bunny Ranch should be considered to be a nice looking front for the rest of prostitution or a better alternative to illegal prostitution.

But there were too comments above which stood out as kind of strange. One was taking the comment that the Cathouse reality show was pure male fantasy as indicating that that was a bad thing. Why should HBO not dedicate some of its airtime to pure male fantasy? It would not be a bad thing for them to devote some time to pure female fantasy either. They are an entertainment channel after all.

Also, it is silly to think that legalizing prostitution makes the government into a pimp. The de facto status should be legalization, and things should only be made criminal if there is a good reason for it. The government collects taxes on all kinds of businesses, and is not thereby playing the role of a pimp in those businesses. People should not ponder that particular equation because it is nonsense.

[jrb35]

"t would not be a bad thing for them to devote some time to pure female fantasy either."

They did. It was called Sex in the City and it sucked. (No pun intended.)

[DrFelch]

.. Simply put, prostitution is not pretty, it is not the nicest business in the world, legal or illegal, but it will always exist, and when legalized, it reduces or eliminates all of the ills which are legitimately mentioned by advocates and in this article. Universal legalized prostitution in the USA would almost totally eliminate
the human trafficking for sex workers in this country, because it would take all the money out of it for the traffickers and pimps, and put that money in the pockets of the sex workers. Ms. Yerman needs to take a little trip out into the real world and find out about what goes on down on the street, and how different that is from how things happen at the "Moonlight Bunny Ranch"., She comes off as a well to do privileged woman who wants to make decisions for all the other unfortunate females whether they like it or not.

[RedDogBear]

DrFelch, right on. I was going to say pretty much the exact same thing. I'm a strong believer in feminism but for me feminism includes letting consenting adults do whatever they want.

[DrFelch]

. There is a clear difference between legal sex workers and those who have been victims of human trafficking and exploitation. Prostitution will always exist. When it is legalized, it reduces the double and triple victimization of the women. Illegal prostitution subjects women to abuse by pimps, johns, police, the courts and various criminals and sex predators. Legal prostitution presents problems, to be sure, but at least the cops and courts are out of the picture, and the women are tested, and protected from abusive johns. As far as the government becoming a "pimp", well, it has a nice rhetorical flair for a cheap ad hominem attack, but the government -as-pimp will not beat and abuse the women, or take the entirety of their earnings, as "real" pimps do. It is a false equivalency, and a dumb cheap shot.

[rich3324]

We need more places like the Moonlight Bunny Ranch. The women come and go of their own free will,they recive 50% of the fees, they are tested for STD's.

[IndependentTogether]

Actually, the women on Cathouse aren't victims or slaves, they are legal sex workers. I understand that you object to the negative imagery, but the legal sex industry isn't going anywhere. If you want to rally against human trafficking or illegal prostitution or spousal abuse, I have your back. However, protesting HBO over Cathouse seems counterproductive.

[devadasi]

Sorry but as a feminist I can't agree with you here. Illegal prostituion like prohibition doesn't work, like the war on drugs, doesn't work. The HBO show in question is featuring legal prostituion, the oldest profession in the world, and all the political correctness in the world is not going to change that. Prostitution is here to stay.

[vickitrina]

Is it possible that a more socially-responsible HBO could finance a documentary on the flip-side, prostitution where all victims are left behind and criminals go free? That might not be well-tolerated, particularly when book-ended by Big Love and John Adams.

[southsideirish]

Here. Here.

[joeholla]

now i might be a little libertarian but i see a clear difference between legal & regulated prostitution and sex trafficking.

one is a transaction of sex for money by consenting adults.
The other is kidnapping, rape, indentured servitude or slavery.

Its akin to comparing soldiers killing other soldiers on the battle field and civilian murder in the streets. In one case both parties willingly assume the risks involved where as in the other case it is a one sided aggression. I personally may find the idea (killing or sex work) amoral but some people choose to engage in it.