• And in other adorable animal news, the NYT City Room blog covers the story of Molly the calf, who escaped the slaughterhouse and is now living with her boyfriend on a 60-acre farm in Suffolk county. • A 32-year-old Muslim dentist living in the UK faces a charge of misconduct for refusing to treat female patients unless they donned headscarves. • Musicians are reacting in different ways to the use of music as a weapon of torture. Bands like Rage Against the Machine and Massive Attack are trying to get music banned as a form of torture, while Jonathan Mann has set the words of recently released memos on waterboarding to music. • Susan the Scientist is being billed as the next Bill Nye the Science Guy. Click here to watch one of Susan's educational videos. • A hospital in Canada is now able to offer breast cancer screening and results in the same day. • A new website named Momicillin promises mothers temporary relief from "crankiness, confusion, self-doubt, body-aches, memory loss, fatigue or general malaise due to excessive exertion or repetition during job-related activities. These activities may include, but are not limited to: binky finding, goop removing, conflict negotiating, facial contorting"... you get the idea. • According to a Washington-based nonprofit, there are 1.7 million kids in America with an incarcerated parent. This interesting article discusses the difficulties of growing up with family in prison. • Soft, decadent, luxurious four-ply toilet paper is the latest victim of the recession. • In case you still care about celebrities and their charitable causes, here is the first entry in Sienna Miller's travelogue from the Congo. • A woman from North Carolina recently returned a stolen terracotta fragment of ancient Roman ruins that her husband pocketed when they were on vacation in Italy 25 years ago. • A spokeswoman from HBO said that they would cancel "Cathouse" before letting Drew Peterson appear on the show. However, a spokesperson for the Bunny Ranch says they're still talking to Peterson. • Samantha Orobator, the pregnant Briton being held in prison in Laos on charges of drug smuggling, may return to the UK to serve her sentence if she is convicted by Laotian courts. British officials are "pleased with the prisoner transfer agreement." •

Earlier: Father Gives Daughter Bikini Waxes, Rides To Work At A Brothel
•Dad Who Waxes Daughter's Bikini Area Returns To Tyra

But according to Professor Roger Matthews, the life of a prostitute is anything but glamorous. "It's abuse and a life of hell," Matthews, a professor of criminology at London's South Bank University tells the Guardian. Matthews has been studying street prostitution for almost two decades and has just published a book called Prostitution, Politics and Policy, outlining his arguments against so-called "liberal" approaches to the sex trade. The "liberal" approach, explalins the the Guardian, "is to think of the trade as simply another form of work, to be 'non-judgmental' in dealing with it, and to set up areas, such as 'tolerance zones', where women can work without fear of arrest."

Matthews disagrees with this viewpoint because he believes that it continues to encourage johns to buy sex and that prostitution, no matter what, is a lose/lose scenario for almost all the women involved. "The women involved in prostitution - particularly street prostitution - are not only among the most victimised group in society, but many of them are multiple victims. If the term 'victimisation' is to have any meaning, then those involved in prostitution must be prime candidates," he argues. He's even against brothels like the Bunny Ranch, because, "When governments are seen to be endorsing prostitution, it leads to a massive expansion of the trade, both legal and illegal." Adds Guardian writer Julie Bindel: "Women working in legal brothels in Nevada, for example, have spoken about how prostitution under such a regime feels like 'legalised rape', and that no laws can remove the stigma of selling sex."

So what does Matthews suggest governments do in order to help prostitutes? He wants to decriminalize prostitution for the women, make consequences worse for the johns, and fund programs to help women find jobs so they can leave hooking behind altogether. He also wants to start studying the men who pay for sex, about whom very little is known. ("The available research indicates that the motivation of many men is relatively low, and that in the vast majority of cases it would not take much to deter them from paying for sex," he says.) Regardless of the available research, I have a hard time believing that prostitution will disappear, no matter what kinds of legislation is passed. While decidedly unglamorous in its gritty reality, prostitution still retains that odd patina of glamor, and sometimes people [men and women alike] want no-strings-attached nookie. It ain't the oldest profession for nothing.

Whorehouses And American Nostalgia [Economist]
'It's Abuse And A Life Of Hell' [Guardian]