Author: Dr. Garth Mundinger-Klow (chair, Kinsey Institute for Sexual Research, Beverly Hills, CA)

About: An academic study by noted Sexologist Dr. Mundinger-Klow chronicling for the first time, in their own words, the men who pay for sexual favors. Who are these creatures? These sexual deviants? First-timers? The Aged? The truly perverted? In his exhaustive research, with copious notes and case histories, Dr. Mundinger-Klow discovers that the men who pay for it are truly among us. In all walks of life.

Additional: Dr. Mundinger-Klow, son of Drs. Gerda and Guenther, has done several original titles for us at the Olympia Press. This is his first book, with a glossary you'll kill for, and, of course, Case Histories.

Excerpt:

Zona Norte,

Tijuana's red light district (zona roja and “the zone of tolerance"), is three blocks from Avenida Revolucion, the heart of the heart of the tourist space. Local government is under constant pressure-from religious groups, international human rights organizations, and officials from both the United States and Mexico-to quash, or hide, the presence of prostitution (Associated Press). Underage drinking, the easy availability of drugs, and corrupt police officers add to putting a smudge of danger to the city. In an effort to make Tijuana more user-friendly to the common tourist, the local politicians attempted to force the streetwalkers (known as las parditas, or “the little ones who stand") to work only inside bars and brothels. This did not sit well with the thousands of women who make their money from working the streets of Zona Norte. A group of women called the Mary Magdalenas took up the call for action. Las Magdalenas had prior experience fighting City Hall and winning, despite the old saying you never can. A few years prior, when police ordered las parditas off the streets, the women threatened to go public with a list of community leaders who frequent the district. These politicians, needless to say, backed off. With this new group of las parditas, dubbed the “Marilyn Monroes,”

their faces covered with blue handkerchiefs, about 200 prostitutes gathered in La Coahuila, as the red-light district is known, and twice marched across the city in a show of civil disobedience that culminated with a threat to strip on the steps of City Hall. City officials backed down and offered a compromise.

It was a fittingly raucous standoff for a city trying to impose order in the area that helped give birth to its unruly reputation. Try as it might, Tijuana's efforts to create a new image reflecting its transformation into a thriving arts center and Mexico's land of opportunity inevitably collide with its colorful, often seedy past.

Las parditas are still a thriving source of tourist revenue. Prostitution is not legal in San Diego, or California, or anywhere in the United States except for the State of Nevada, and only certain counties-and there, under tight statutory regulations.

This was not the case for San Diego in the late 1800s/early 1900s. It was a port of call well-known to the sailors and merchant marines around the world, teeming with a plethora of brothels in an area called The Stingaree, now known as the Gaslamp Quarter, a space now popular for dance clubs, restaurants, and art galleries. There were dozens of brothels in the Stingaree, housing anywhere from three to twenty women in small rooms, which today have become SROs or have been converted into lofts. McKenna (1989: 5) notes that “saloons and dance halls thrived in the Stingaree as well as in the main business district” and “these social gathering places provided an atmosphere in which prostitutes could ply their trade.” Despite being a plentiful source of revenue, the increase of saloons and brothels began to ruffle the feathers of San Diego's conservative and righteous citizens.

As early as the late nineteenth-century, numerous newspaper articles and editorials called for the closing of the red light district. Some people, however, preferred to keep the women confined to the Stingaree. In 1890 Chief of Police Joseph Coyne made it known that it was “his intention of keeping the women of the lewd order who live at the lower end of second, Third and Fourth Streets within some sort of bounds....” Nine years later a city delegate proposed an ordinance to keep prostitutes south of H Street. It did not pass, but city officials took action on another front. In April 1900, they passed an ordinance to regulate the sale of liquor in saloons. Ordinance number 741 prohibited bartenders from selling liquor to patrons in rooms adjoining the bar. They also were forbidden to maintain alcoves with doors-the insides of these rooms must be visible from the bar. It eliminated private entrances to the saloon that were for women only. Women's restrooms were exempted. Clearly, city officials were trying to control the relationship between prostitutes and saloons (McKenna, 1989: 6).