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climbs inside and the car speeds
away.
Selma Avenue (Hollywood):
Jim, 16,
is not a runaway. He commutes by
bus on weekends from Glendale, a
city a short distance northeast of
Los Angeles, where he lives with his
parents. Right now his eyes are
somewhat glazed, his speech dis–
jointed. He is stoned on Quaalude.
a hypnotic drug.
"Do your folks know what you're
doing- hustling here in Holly–
wood?"
"Naw. They don't care- they just
think l've gone out to see a movie or
somethin'."
"What about your drug habit?"
"They don't know. Too dumb
about drugs,
1
guess. I've been
stoned like I am now right in front
of them and they never said no–
thin'."
Jim has been hustling for "about
six months."
"Why? What made you do it?"
Sometimes you get a sensational
reason such as child beating or ne–
glect. Or maybe incest, the
mod~rn
family's most secret sin. Studies in–
dicate that many chickens and
chicken hawks were sexually abused
as children by parents or relatives.
Or maybe you'll hear about families
ripped apart by divorce, or alcoholic
parents. More often, the reasons are
the more traditional ones of "lack of
communication" or "we don't get
along." Occasionally, delinquent
youths have no apparent reason for
their behavior. By all conventional
standards, they have perfeGtly de–
cent families. Which happens to be
the case with Jim.
"1 dunno," he replies.
The reporter throws out all of the
aforementioned reasons. Jim shakes
his head. "My folks are all right. 1
got nothing against them." He
pauses a moment, and then adds,
' 'I'm here because there's a lot of
money to be made. I'm here to get a
piece of the action."
The reponer leaves Jim lo his
"action." Time is money for him.
And time is short. By the time a
male prostitute is 23, 24, 25 , he is
too old to sell himself for sex; the
cars will no longer stop. He will only
be left to offer, literally, free sex,
and eventually he may end up pay-
18
ing sorne other youth for sex. The
story will have gone full circle. The
victim will become the villain.
Washington, D.C. (House
of
Repre–
sentatives).
Sgt. Lloyd Martín testi–
fies before a House subcommittee:
' 'A child who has been sexually
abused will frequently turn to pros–
titution, pornography, narcotics or
other criminal activity, or will be
encouraged to engage in this activ–
ity by ao abusing adult after having
outlived his novelty as a sexual part–
ner ."
New York, New York.
Dr. Densen–
Gerber, still on the warpath: "At
this stage of life, between eight and
twelve, the child is getting work
gratification. This is when the child
learns how to study, learns how to
feel good about himself. lf you in–
terfere with that and tell him the
way to feel good about himself is
through sex ... these kids [will)
learn that's the way to cope.
"And that's why we have the high
incidence of over 40 percent of
prostitutes who were sexualized as
children and why our maJe patients
[in the Odyssey drug rehabilitation
program) are homosexually sodom–
ized.' '
Dr. Densen-Gerber, Sgt. Uoyd
Martín and others who have been
dealing with the sexual exploitation
ofyoung people have screamed long
enough and loud enough to arouse
public outrage and action all the
way from local communities to the
halls of Congress. Police in cities
across the country have cracked
down on the peddling of child por–
nography.
At last count, three states have
adopted new statutes to punish
adult traffickers in such smut. And
legislatures in at least 23 other states
are debating similar tough propos–
als. Bilis have been introduced into
Congress. The FBI and the U.S.
Postal Service have initiated investi–
gations.
As a result of all the publicity and
uproar, kiddie porn started dis–
appearing from the shelves of adult
bookstores around the country in
March and April. But, in many
cases, customers could still obtain it
under the counter. When probing
reporters wrote headline sto ries
about that, vendors refused to sell it
to anyone they didn't know.
But the smut is still there, still
available, and still selling. Officer
Doug Elder of the Los Angeles Po–
Jice Department points out that
what stores have on their racks for
public view and what they can pro–
cure for their steady customers can
be quite different.
"If they know you're not the heat
[police] or the press, they can get
you all the chicken films , books,
slides or magazines you want," he
says. "This is a big business. A
magazine half the thickness of
Play–
boy
will sell for anywhere from
$7.50 to $15 a copy, and a 50-foot
super 8mm film runs anywhere from
$50 on up." It costs about $1.50 to
$2 to produce the magazine. $4 to
$5 to make one film.
The fact of the matter is, pornog–
raphy doesn't abide by any law of
man or God. The only law it con–
sistently obeys is the law of supply
and demand.
The
demand
for kiddie porn by
hundreds of thousands of sexual de–
viales is strong-very strong. No law
can suppress it.
And the
supply
of young people
who can be seduced into meeting
the demand is inexhaustible. Al
least one million children run away
from home every year in the United
States. Perhaps two million. Nobody
knows the exact numbers. They
come to the big cities like New
York, Chicago, or Los Angeles with
no skills, no job prospects, and little
or no money. There is only one way
for them to survive: " Drop their
pants or pull up their dress," as Sgt.
Martín puts it.
Dr. Densen-Gerber estimates that
at least 300,000 boys between the
ages of eight and sixteen become
involved in the production ofporno–
graphic books, films and magazines,
and prostitution. She speculates that
another 300,000 girls in the same
age category may be involved.
What can be done about the sex–
ploitation of young people? In the
next issue of
The Plain Truth,
we ' ll
take a look at the complex social
and psychological issues involved
and proposals for dealing with the
problem.
O
(To Be Continued)
.
The
PLAIN TRUTH October-November 1977