Representatives hypocrytical, irresponsible

As far as female pimps go, I think Deborah Palfrey, a.k.a. the “D.C. Madam,” has gone above… As far as female pimps go, I think Deborah Palfrey, a.k.a. the “D.C. Madam,” has gone above and beyond the call of duty in defending the good name of her working girls. Although she was charged with racketeering and money-laundering in conjunction with operating a house of prostitution, Palfrey insists that her now-defunct business “Pamela Martin and Associates” was not a sex-trafficking business, but rather an adult “fantasy firm” that catered to the whimsical flights of fancy of some of Washington D.C.’s most high-end clientele. To assert her point more thoroughly, Palfrey provided ABC News with the names and phone numbers of thousands of those V.I.P. clients in hopes that the men would come forward to back her up and prove that her business was sex-free.

Among these names was that of State Department official, Randall Tobias. Tobias did not give ABC the chance to reveal his patronization of Palfrey’s firm; on April 28, Tobias preemptively resigned for “personal reasons” after admitting that he had received “massages” from some of Palfrey’s employees.

Tobias’ situation is a hypocritical mess. Throughout his government career, he had been entrusted with the task of promoting abstinence-only sex education programs and coercing foreign countries into denouncing prostitution in order to receive AIDS funding from the U.S. I’m inclined to be cynical about the glaringly obvious irony in Tobias’ state of affairs. But in order to do so, I would have to ignore two huge aspects of the whole ordeal.

First, this guy’s life is ruined. He is unemployed, unemployable, and though he may have built quite a nest egg during his lifetime, you cannot save up respect, and he has definitely lost a lot of that. I find myself pitying Tobias rather than thinking of him with scorn. Please don’t misunderstand me; I am not in any way condoning prostitution. I don’t think it’s OK. I hate the idea that we live in a world where some women need to sell their bodies in order to survive and some men are in the position where they feel psychologically unfulfilled without illicit sex trafficking. And even if Tobias and Palfrey are telling the truth, and the “Associates” of “Pamela Martin and Associates” are really just female escorts, I am still saddened by the fact that they are being objectified and treated as teaser trailers of some unattainable fantasies. Still, I feel bad for the guy. He’s human.

Second, Tobias’ situation is illustrative of an inherent societal problem that I find it hard to focus my attention solely on him instead of extrapolating it to the whole structure. Palfrey’s insistence that there are a number of clients inside the Washington bureaucracy as well as in the higher caste of the capitol is unsettling. And if her claims are true, then shouldn’t those people come forward? Maybe not to defend Palfrey’s claims of sexlessness, but at least to admit that their behavior falls on the side of poor judgment. If any of the other names on the list are men like Randall Tobias, men who are appointed or elected to positions with a substantial amount of influence, should we not hold them publicly accountable?

Institutionally, these people are making the policies that define the things we can do or the ideas we are taught, yet they are approaching them with a hypocritical nonchalance, as seen in Tobias’ case. And as public icons and representative faces of the government, are they not obliged to present themselves and behave in ways that are straightforward and respectable?

Everyone is entitled to his or her own belief system, but seeing as we live in a republic, we must forgo certain aspects of those belief systems in order to better serve the general public. It is the job of people like Randall Tobias to take a consensus of the way Americans would wish to present themselves and embody that in his everyday life, as well as in his policy-making.

Perhaps my cynicism around the situation faded when I realized that Tobias’ behavior reflects the ideals of a society of which I am a part. I consider myself to be a proud American, and yet I am not proud of those Americans who are the foremost representatives of our nation’s persona. I applaud Tobias for being upfront, even if I find his initial behavior obscene, and I hope that Madam Palfrey’s list does a good amount of scaring skeletons out of the closets of other clients.

But if I had to choose between full disclosure from every person on that list or the list scaring those men into more honorable behavior in the future, I would have to choose the latter, even if the few bits of cynicism left in me kick themselves for it.

E-mail Cassidy at cbg11@pitt.edu if your name is on the D.C. Madam’s list and you want to come clean.