In Louisiana hookers get jail time. But is there a 'John' law?

[caption id="attachment_10907" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Sign warning about prostitution"][/caption]

Carol Forsloff - Every day in Louisiana and other parts of the country police circle the wagons and pick up an assortment of
ladies of the evening and put them in jail. In the meantime the fellows
they solicit go free.  Is that fair?

The penalties for prostitution in Louisiana are strict.  Prostitution is, according to LA R.S. 14:82:

(1) The practice by a person of indiscriminate sexual intercourse with others for compensation.

(2)
The solicitation by one person of another with the intent to engage in
indiscriminate sexual intercourse with the latter for compensation.

B. As used in this Section, “sexual intercourse” means anal, oral, or vaginal sexual intercourse.

C.
(1) Whoever commits the crime of prostitution shall be fined not more
than five hundred dollars or be imprisoned for not more than six months,
or both.

(2) On a second
conviction, the offender shall be fined not less than two hundred fifty
dollars nor more than two thousand dollars or be imprisoned, with or
without hard labor, for not more than two years, or both.


(3) On a third and subsequent conviction, the offender shall be
imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not less than two nor more
than four years and shall be fined not less than five hundred dollars
nor more than four thousand dollars.

Now
these are the usual and customary laws related to prostitution.  Since
the women make their living for years, and often to support drug habits,
they can get into that third category in a relatively short time with a
minimum of two years in prison.

According
to an article in January of the Louisiana Weekly women are said to have
few options. Most of them are black, live on the street or in abandoned
houses or trade sex for a place to sleep.  One of those who works in
helping get these women off the street was reported as saying, "The
women we work with, they don't call it sex work," she said. "They don't
know what that means. They don't even call it prostitution. They call it
survival."

But
what about those who frequent prostitutes as their johns?  The only
reference to a "john law" in Louisiana is specifically John Law.  Who or
what is John Law?

History records John Law (1671 - 1729) as a "reckless, and unbalanced, but most fascinating genius" as Alfred Marshall (1923: p.41) called him, with "the pleasant character mixture of swindler and prophet" as  Karl Marx
(1894: p.441) added.  A Scottish economist,  gambler, banker, murderer,
royal advisor, exile, rake and adventurer, the remarkable John Law is
renowned for more than his unique economic theories.   His popular fame
(infamy?) rests on two remarkable enterprises he conducted in Paris: the
Banque Generale and the Mississippi Scheme.  His economic fame rests on
two major ideas: the scarcity theory of value and the real bills
doctrine of money. "

What
a casual review of the facts reveal is in Louisiana man's fancy turns
out to be the woman's poor folly. That's because it turns out there is
no "john law" in quite the same way for men as for women.  Men can go on
with their lives, after frequenting prostitutes even in high places,

including Congress.