Editorial
Sex, Part II
Last week, your visionary scribes here at the Nashville Scene suggested that the city abandon its well-meaning, but bound-to-fail, effort to regulate the city’s massage parlors, strip clubs, and sexually related video and book stores. Instead, we advised our city fathers to legalize all sexually related businesses, including massage parlors that are actually houses of prostitution. In return, the managers of the sex businesses would have to agree to geographically segregate themselves in what would amount to a sex zone, or what many refer to as a ”red-light district.“ We suggested this red-light district be placed in the fairgrounds.
Phone calls in favor of our proposal have been running approximately four-to-one.
Last week, we failed to explore other beneficial consequences of such a plan, which we would like to address now.
♦ The city does not now allow the sale of alcohol in strip bars. Under the Scene plan, however, the city would allow the sale of alcohol in the establishments, but would take all of the revenue.
♦ Under the bill that Metro Council has passed to regulate sex establishments, no currently operating sex business can be required to move. Under the Scene plan, however, all sex businesses would move since it would be in their best interests, thus cleaning up the entire area of town south of Broadway, which currently suffers from a sex blight.
♦ All personnel working as prostitutes would be required to undergo frequent health tests to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, which would actually reduce the spread of such diseases in the population.
♦ Other revenue possibilities include the money from rent that the operators of the sex businesses would pay at the fairgrounds, and the licenses that the businesses would be required to buy to operate.
♦ While we don’t want to be like Atlanta, let’s face it: Traveling biz pigs love the strip clubs there. Just think of the new convention business we would start landing.
Regulating sex is an impossibility. It simply cannot happen. Clamping down on it will only make it move somewhere else. Allowing it to happen, but confining it geographically, is the only solution. It’s not as crazy as it sounds.
