KrasProst
JRL 3474, #9
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 
From: "Wladislaw George Krasnow, PhD"  
Subject: Womack/Luryi on Prostitution

Helen Womack, a gentle reporter of The Independent, was too genteel in
writing an apologetic letter to Yuri Luryi (JRL3463, #6) who, on the
surface, defended the "honor" of Mother Russia against Womack's alleged
anti-Russian bias (JRL 3463).

Thus, potentially valuable debate, as to whether prostitution is on the
rise in Russia,  was reduced to a cliche-like conclusion that "the
oldest profession exists everywhere" (which should be the premise of any
reporting).

>From my impressions--and I have been traveling extensively in
Russia--the prostitution there is not only on the rise, but has
tragically sky-rocketed in recent years. Ideally, one would want to have
statistics from someone like Murray Feshbach, but in the absence
thereof, we need objective reporting. By attacking Helen did Yuri
succeed in intimidating others?

The rise of prostitution in rural Russia cannot be primarily blamed on
the young women whose desperate economic situation drives them to sell
their bodies. It is rather a consequence of political prostitution among
the impotent men in power in the Kremlin who have sold their souls to
placate the Western sponsors of their misbegotten reforms. It is these men, 
not the young helpless women, nor prostrated Mother Russia, that Yuri 
defends, intentionally or not.