Don't Bet Against a Sporting

HOW SOILED DOVES TRIED TO BEAT THE ODDS AGAINST HYPOCRISY AND POLITICIANS

- JAN MACKELL COLLINS

For several decades, Hollywood has had a fine time portraying shady ladies of the past. From the illustrious Miss Kitty of CBS’s Gunsmoke, to the disreputable wenches on HBO’s Deadwood, viewers have been given a taste of how prostitutes lived and what they went through. Unfortunately, neither of these shows, nor others like them, portray the prostitution business as it really was: a vicious cycle wherein women with no other way to make money broke the law to sell their bodies for sex, paid off numerous government officials in order to remain in business and died unrecognized for their unseen, unappreciated good deeds. In reality, such women were viewed as debaucherous troublemakers, home wreckers and fallen women who lured young men into their lairs and did unspeakable things with them for cash. Rarely did someone happen to point out that the law’s habit of collecting money from business establishments that were illegal was in itself, a crime.