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29 Law & Ineq. 451 (2011)
Would a Cop Do This: Ending the Practice of Sexual Sampling in Prostitution Stings

handle is hein.journals/lieq29 and id is 455 raw text is: 451 Would a Cop Do This?: Ending the Practice of Sexual Sampling in Prostitution Stings Phillip Walterst Introduction Imagine a society that criminally punished women who for hire or without hire offer their bodies to indiscriminate intercourse with men.' Constitutional issues aside, one concern that immedi- ately arises is how to enforce such a law. If these wicked women and the men (victims?) who liaise with them were sufficiently wily to hide their activities from prying eyes, and if the political will to eradicate this behavior existed, undercover sting operations might be the most viable solution. Of course, to put this scheme into ac- tion, the government would have to find police officers, or civilian agents, with enough civic pride to be willing to accept the indis- criminate offer of a woman's body for sexual intercourse. Assum- ing the availability of such men, how much accepting would they have to do to prove the government's case? Alternatively, imagine a society with a narrower definition of prostitution, one which requires engaging or offering or agreeing to engage for hire in sexual penetration or sexual contact.' Fur- thermore, it might even punish clients of those engaged in prosti- t. J.D. expected 2012, University of Minnesota Law School. 1. United States v. Bitty, 208 U.S. 393, 401 (1908). The Court, per Justice Harlan, continues: The lives and example of such persons are in hostility to the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement. Id. (quoting Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 45 (1885)). Such a definition of prostitution, while seemingly archaic and unacceptable to a contemporary audience, is not confined to the distant past. For example, in 1979 the Supreme Court of Alaska struck down a statute defining prostitution as the giving or receiving of the body by a female for sexual intercourse for hire under the state constitution's equal protection clause. Plas v. State, 598 P.2d 966, 967 (Alaska 1979). While gender neutral, North Carolina's statutory definition of prostitution still includes offering or receiving of the body for indiscriminate sexual intercourse without hire. N.C. GEN. STAT. § 14-203 (2010). 2. MINN. STAT. § 609.321(9) (2010).

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