He was standing on the train when he saw this:

A young woman, maybe 18, was standing against the opposite door. She slapped her daughter, who looked to be about 4. I looked away. Then she hit the child again. And again, and again.
(...)
She had a friend with her, perhaps 16. And when the child cried, the friend hit her, too. Five smacks now and counting - from two people.

This was all very public. People were watching them and I was watching the people while also watching the hitting. Someone, please, say something.

Hits 6, 7, 8. Harder.

On a subway full of people, Halperin (a self-described "54-year-old white Jewish guy") was watching a much-younger African-American woman abuse a child, and was hoping that someone, anyone would stop her.

But they didn't. So he did.

"Stop hitting that child!"

Who said that? Stepping toward her, I took a dive off a sky-high cliff - and there was no way back.

"Who are you to tell me not to hit my kid? She's my kid!"

"Don't hit that child again or I will call the police!"

"I will hit my child if I want. I know how to hit my child. Go ahead and call the police!"

Since the confrontation halted the abuse, Halperin ended the confrontation, comforted to see an older, African-American woman start a quieter conversation with the mother.

A woman sitting nearest to the young mother started a quieter conversation with her. I could not hear the entire thing, but it was clear that this woman, in her 50s, was counseling her on how to handle an unruly child without hitting.

"You don't know me," the younger woman said to the older one. "You don't know my child."

Although the woman's posture might have just been public defensiveness and bravado brought on by being corrected by older people in public, it certainly doesn't seem like she knew there was anything wrong with her behavior — but neither Halperin, the woman or the two other dudes who congratulated him for saying something contacted the police.

Most people — those on the street as Liv Tyler drove by (not to mention the paparazzos who took the shots) and those in the subway car with Halperin — don't want to get involved. They don't want to be yelled at, humiliated in public, to confront issues that, too often, fit within stereotyped roles. Halperin expresses discomfort at the racial politics of the situation, but what about the issue of their difference in age? Other questions:. How far do you go to stop a child abuse you're forced to witness in public? And when do you get the cops involved?

Complaint Box | Defending a Child [NY Times]

Related: Liv Tyler Rushes To Help A Troubled Baby! [Celebuzz]

Bakewell's argument is that, since time immemorial, men liked to fuck women without actually having to deal with them, and making it into a monetary transaction suits those needs pretty well. She says:

There is, whether we like it or not, a compelling need for many men to have sex without strings, sex with a stranger that is over and done with once the cash has changed hands. Throughout history they have found ways of doing so, whether with sacred temple maidens or in the garrison brothels set up to serve fighting armies. We can chase it up and down the legal ladders, hound it down dark alleys and squalid bedsits, but its persistence tells us that we won't eradicate it. So let's face up to the fact and make paying for sex legal.

Bakewell takes issue with the British government's initiatives to crack down on street prostitution (arguably the least-regulated form with the highest incidence of coercion) and on their efforts to ramp up penalties on men that patronize trafficked women. In her mind, making the whole thing legal and then regulating it is the best (and most feminist) way to go about it, objectification-objections be damned.

Of course, she undermines her argument on two counts. First she argues that regulating brothels will allow residents to keep prostitution out of their neighborhoods — though she points out that a law that deregulated the lap-dancing cafes ended up doubling their number and giving locals little control over having them in their neighborhoods. Second, she says, "I want to see a world where women have enough self-esteem to stand up for themselves against exploitation and abuse." Is sex work not exploitative? Does decriminalization prevent abuse? Does legalizing what some argue is the objectification of women lead to less exploitation and abuse of women in society? Those are difficult arguments to make. Bakewell, having met a handful of regulated Dutch prostitutes and having found them not terribly fucked up, thinks that such is the case. The women at Nevada's brothels might tend to disagree with her description of regulated sex workers:

These particular women - like those I met at a lap-dancing club - weren't the sad dregs of humanity. They had a robust attitude to their lives, a lively street intelligence and an eagerness to better themselves.

Apparently, since Bakewell has found a clatch of well-adjusted strippers and sex workers, we can decriminalize it and stop worrying so much about trafficking and the reasons (or abusers) that drive women into prostitution?

That said, I think there are plenty of good, solid reasons to decriminalize the selling of sex, not the least of which is the ability to then regulate sex work (which Bakewell touches on, albeit briefly). There are also good arguments in favor of the state's interest in criminalizing the buying of sex, and in favor of ramping up punishments on the men that patronize women without giving a thought about whether they are being coerced (since, let's be honest, they're already treating them as objects). But let's not argue that feminists are wrong that sex work is part of the objectification women — because we're not wrong — or that trafficking isn't an important issue that deserves lots of attention, or that there aren't sex workers who are exploited and abused even within legalized systems. That's just willful blindness and unhelpful to the argument — sort of like the men that have sex with trafficked women.

Paying For Sex — What's So Wrong With That? [The Times]

Related: No Federal Prostitution Charges for Spitzer [NY Times]
Election Summary - November 4, 2008 [San Francisco Department Of Elections]

Earlier: To Regulate, Or Not To Regulate: Regarding Prostitution, That's Still The Question
UK Suggests That Men Who Patronize Trafficked Prostitutes Be Prosecuted
Recession And Sex Work