Althouse: If Tiger Woods used prostitutes...

December 14, 2009

If Tiger Woods used prostitutes...

... he should go to jail. Right?

54 comments:

Grim said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/14/09, 10:15 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Right - and the prostitutes should, too.; 12/14/09, 10:15 PM
Roux said...: Right after Elliot Spitzer and a bunch of other politicians.; 12/14/09, 10:16 PM
Methadras said...: $15K? Does she look like she's worth $15K for a romp? She isn't ugly that's for sure, but not for $15k. Tiger, what the fuck is wrong with you man? More money than sense?; 12/14/09, 10:23 PM
David said...: "The Triumph of the 5th Amendment" (A Meditation on the Constitution by Tiger Woods).; 12/14/09, 10:24 PM
Unknown said...: But, Ann, you don't understand. Prostitution is a victimless crime and a holdover from our uptight Puritan forbears. Tiger did nothing wrong.

Hugh Hefner and Jesse Ventura said so.

Huh? What do mean... his wife and family?

Slightly OT: an ad at the link for AT&T that says, "Less Is More". El Tigre should have listened.; 12/14/09, 10:29 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I bet Tiger created more jobs in Vegas (underprivileged woman no less) than that i trillion dollar monstrosity called the Obama Stimulus.

Tiger was a walking job creation sensation ;) no pun intended.; 12/14/09, 10:29 PM
Michael Haz said...: Were they actually prostitutes? Or were they women hired to decorate a party room, some of whom voluntarily had sex with Woods. Their compensation was the same as other women in the room who didn't have sex with Woods.

That's not to say that what Woods did was okay, but to question the notion that the trollops were prostitutes.; 12/14/09, 10:31 PM
Skyler said...: Being criminally liable to go to jail is not the same as "should go to jail."; 12/14/09, 10:31 PM
Michael Haz said...: If they were prostitutes, even though they were only paid to be in a party room, why wasn't Hugh Hefner arrested a long, long time ago?; 12/14/09, 10:32 PM
William said...: Take a look at what he paid $15,000 for. Perhaps Spitzer wasn't the world's biggest chump....High priced hookers do not look like Victoria Secret models. That kills all the fun of being wealthy.; 12/14/09, 10:35 PM
knox said...: Jeez, the more that comes out, the more he's goes past reckless and just veers into weird and even grosser.; 12/14/09, 10:36 PM
Michael Haz said...: How much jail time did Charlie Sheen get for paying Heidi Fleiss for sex? None.; 12/14/09, 10:37 PM
Michael Haz said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/14/09, 10:39 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Hasn't Tiger suffered enough?

I think a prosecution would be a misuse and abuse of the justice system.; 12/14/09, 10:39 PM
XWL said...: It's going to be hard to prove in court, and seems like the higher the price for the escort, the less likely the customer will face legal sanction. Social discomfort, and loss of prestige seem just as severe, though, as the poor schlub caught with a $50 street walker (if not more so, given that a poor schlub has less to lose than a Tiger Woods or Eliot Spitzer).

A twist in the Tiger Woods saga I find interesting is that when it was mere domestic battery and/or DWI the authorities were attempting to investigate, they couldn't get in the Woods compound without a warrant.

But, get an anonymous complaint with regards to children, and suddenly they're compelled to submit to having a social worker poke around their manse.

Seems when it's 'for the children' common sense, the constitution, and due process are all thrown out the window.; 12/14/09, 10:39 PM
Beth said...: Yeah, he can share a cell with Vitty-Cent (David Vitter).

But sadly, the hookers go to jail, the johns don't.; 12/14/09, 10:50 PM
Ray said...: High priced hookers do not look like Victoria Secret models.

I can guarantee that most guys that use hookers aren't worried about their looks, assuming they're vaguely attractive. I'm assuming the biggest draw is NSA, uninhibited sex, without the entanglements of a relationship. And there are certain things you might want to do, just not to/with with the mother of your children.; 12/14/09, 11:14 PM
GSW said...: No, he shouldn't, nor should anyone else.

However, suffering a serious decline in income due to loss of endorsements, as well as becoming a social pariah? Definitely.; 12/14/09, 11:25 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Girlfriend last weekend was explaining escort services to me. She has a friend who has used them, and tells her that she could (still) get $5k a night if she wanted to. I find that ludicrous.

But worse, that often doesn't immediately come with sex. Apparently, it can take a week to get the woman in bed, all that time wining and dining her, and showing her off to others. The build up is supposedly part of the allure.

Part of the absurdity of that is that with women in their 40s, there seem to be a lot who are on the 3 date plan - if they are still dating the guy on a third date, they have sex.

I wouldn't go so far as to argue that prostitution is victimless, but here in Nevada, where it is legal and heavily regulated in many of the counties (not Las Vegas or Reno though), legal prostitution seems to work just fine. The problem, from my point of view, is its illegality, and not its immorality. It is because it is illegal that the women get exploited.; 12/14/09, 11:45 PM
Jen said...: Mind your own business. It's convenient when it's a Republican. Humans are complicated. Glass Houses.; 12/14/09, 11:49 PM
Anonymous said...: No, he shouldn't. The only ones who should go to jail for engaging the services of a prostitute are those bible-thumping assholes of the right, and in their case the charge should be hypocrisy, which is a far more serious moral crime than the non-crime of prostitution.; 12/14/09, 11:56 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/spitzer_babe_answers_4duaVqTCJHA38suGawuaiM; 12/14/09, 11:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Incidentally, and meta-dentally: You, Ann Althouse, are the MASTER of comment bait. All bloggers everywhere should bow down in honor before you!; 12/15/09, 12:00 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Maybe he should have taken up shopping. Or something like shopping.; 12/15/09, 12:05 AM
blake said...: Should J. Riordan go to jail for the hypocrisy of commenting while abhorring Althouse for posting comment bait?; 12/15/09, 1:15 AM
blake said...: If breaking the law is the criteria for going to jail, then we should all be in jail, yes?; 12/15/09, 1:17 AM
Ralph L said...: The high price isn't (just) for her body, it's for her silence.; 12/15/09, 1:25 AM
Bender said...: It is because it is illegal that the women get exploited.

Every other area of the sex industry is legal though. And porn and stripping are filled with used, abused, and broken women. The sex industry is inherently, by its very nature, exploitive. The legality or illegality of it have nothing to do with it.; 12/15/09, 2:24 AM
Anonymous said...: "He should go to jail, right?"

No.

He is, of course, a sad victim of their feminine wiles. Only the dirty, dirty home-wrecking whores should go to jail.; 12/15/09, 4:18 AM
LoafingOaf said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 12/15/09, 6:14 AM
LoafingOaf said...: Prostitution is a victimless crime

It's not a victimless crime on the street/crackho level. More debateable on the high class call girl level.

But I support prosecutors going after Tiger Woods and his wife Elin. The cops and prosecutors would go after others for a drunk-driving accident. And, there is some evidence that Elin was committing an assault with a deadly weapon in front of children.

I support prosecuting to the hilt. Because, in the America of today, people across America are being caught up in our insane criminal justice system and being prosecuted to the hilt by insanely out-of-control prosecutors. We're setting a world record for the % of our citizens behind bars or sucked into the criminal justice system.

I can't speak about the media humiliation Tiger is suffering. I guess it's blowback from the media hype he enjoyed all those years. But with respect to the criminal justice system, he got treated special. It's time the rich and famous get abused by America's criminal justice system the way average Americans are. Since average Americans are living in a country that feels like a police state nowadays, let the rich and famous have the same. Arrest him. He was obviously DUI. First degree misdemeanor in my state. Lock him up.

The prosecutors trained by our esteemed law schools nowadays seem to be on a mission to lock up more citizens than any country on earth, so lock up Tiger too.

Fuck it. In some neighborhoods of America, it's unusual if you haven't been locked up on some bullshit. So, equal under the law, let's spread the hideous American justice system all around.; 12/15/09, 6:18 AM
KCFleming said...: "So, equal under the law, let's spread the hideous American justice system all around."

Yeah, because the way to fight overzealous and unnecessary prosecutions by an unbridled State is more overzealous and unnecessary prosecutions by an unbridled State.

Fits in with the whole fight race and class discrimination through State enforced race and class discrimination idea from the left.

Envy is destructive enough, but made mountainous worse by calling it justice.; 12/15/09, 6:38 AM
KCFleming said...: Methadras said...
"$15K? Does she look like she's worth $15K for a romp?"

If he had waited for the Christmas sales, he might have gotten it for 20% off.

Clearly not much of a shopper.; 12/15/09, 6:42 AM
Scott M said...: Legalizes prostitution then allow men to sue over the fact that there aren't anywhere nearly enough high-paying prostitution jobs out there (hetero) and that for every $1 a female prostitute makes, men only make $.10.

Let the feminists stew on that one for a couple of years.; 12/15/09, 7:13 AM
Roux said...: Prostitutes are paid to uh.... go home and be quiet. Mistresses not so much.; 12/15/09, 7:32 AM
Tank said...: No. They should repeal the laws and let adults do what they want with their own bodies.

Incidentally, to Woods, $15K is like a couple hundred dollars to you and m.; 12/15/09, 7:37 AM
cryptical said...: I think $15k to Tiger was more like pocket change to us. The man was making $100 million a year or so.

That model that he supposedly paid? I'd like to give her my 2 cents worth...; 12/15/09, 8:15 AM
Peter Hoh said...: If Tiger made $100,000,000 last year, then the $15,000 hooker cost him 0.015 percent of his income.

For someone with a $100,000 income, a similar expense would be $15.00.; 12/15/09, 8:24 AM
Tank said...: Well, there you go. Sounds like a petty disorderly persons thingy at $15.00.; 12/15/09, 8:33 AM
Kirby Olson said...: If he did it in Nevada, would it be legal, even if the woman was from New York State? Or would that fall into the Mann act (which ironically deals generally with WOMEN who are transported across state lines for use in a commercialized sexual encounter).; 12/15/09, 9:08 AM
Anonymous said...: "If Tiger made $100,000,000 last year, then the $15,000 hooker cost him 0.015 percent of his income.

For someone with a $100,000 income, a similar expense would be $15.00."

This has got me wondering how the actual $$$ transaction was handled?
Certainly not cash. Credit card? If the girls were freelancing how did they get their fees?; 12/15/09, 9:15 AM
former law student said...: I agree that Woods should share a cell with Spitzer.

What's up with hiring hookers anyways? I can see if some groupie wanted to put Tiger's notch on her bed post bad enough where he simply yielded to temptation. Chicks dig good-looking, athletic, world famous, billionaires. But paying to have sex is just sad, especially for a theoretically happily married man.; 12/15/09, 9:26 AM
Robert Cook said...: Some commenters have already pointed out that you pay a prostitute for her silence as much as for her sexual services. The Rat Pack put it more pithliy: in a perhaps apocryphal story, someone asked one of the Rat Pack--Joey Bishop, Dino, Frankie, Sammy D., Peter Lawford--one of them, "You guys are famous, rich, handsome! Women throw themselves at you wherever you go. Why would you need to hire a prositute for sex?"

The person who was asked the question replied, "You're not paying for the sex; you're paying for them to go away the next morning."

From the point of view of a public figure, this makes perfect sense.

Should Woods be jailed for his use of prostitutes? No. And neither should the prostitutes. Perhaps pimps should be prosecuted, for enforced servitude or slavery or something, but an adult acting autonomously to perform sex with another adult in exchange for money should be free to do as he or she pleases.; 12/15/09, 9:43 AM
E. W. Childers said...: Prostitution is a victim less crime. Adultery on the other hand...; 12/15/09, 9:45 AM
former law student said...: You're not paying for the sex; you're paying for them to go away the next morning."

Except they don't. Or at least they don't stay away -- they wait to sell their stories to the tabloids.

Elin is the victim here -- Tiger decided to abandon his wedding vows and find women who sell their bodies to all comers. A caring husb; 12/15/09, 10:00 AM
former law student said...: Don't know what happened there. A caring husband would wait a week to have sex with his own wife.; 12/15/09, 10:01 AM
Paddy O said...: I'm waiting to hear what Andy Williams has to say on this.; 12/15/09, 10:50 AM
Joe said...: And, there is some evidence that Elin was committing an assault with a deadly weapon in front of children.

No there isn't. Not a shred. It's just made up bullshit (and quite obvious to me, part of the initial attempt to do damage control on Tiger's behalf, though not on his request.)

* * *

So if the relationship is purely sexual and the man buys dinner for the woman is that prostitution? I think there are plenty of high priced call girls who have way more integrity than women hooking up with a sugar daddy.; 12/15/09, 10:56 AM
Staff said...: Tiger did see providers one of them was featured on this review site MPReviews.com

When guys have that much money they can't help themselfs.; 12/15/09, 12:06 PM
careen said...: They changed policy in some nordic country - forget which one now. For once, they started going after the guys and sending the women/girls to social services.

HUGE double-digit drop in prostitution in a very short period of time as a result.

I was stunned. I never thought anyone would do it, much less a nordic country. I thought it was legal in most of Northern Europe .; 12/15/09, 2:40 PM
Peter Hoh said...: I don't understand it, but it appears that there is a certain allure to that which is illegal and immoral.

Here's someone else whose sexual appetites paved the way for his own destruction.; 12/15/09, 4:12 PM
Anonymous said...: If the girls were freelancing how did they get their fees?

Cash.; 12/15/09, 5:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Spike Lee, Charles Barkley, and Michael Jordon are lamenting Tiger's new unlisted phone number; he needs to talk to his bro's, they believe, to guide him through the tsunami of get-down, be-cool, bitch-slappin' adultery.; 12/16/09, 10:07 AM