s to go for help. Even Catharine MacKinnon has found a way to reconcile herself to the idea of getting married. Why can't prostitution be similarly transformed? Still, Chapkis isn't so naive as to see prostitution as benign. There are no easy generalizations about sex workers' lives, she says: "I interviewed street prostitutes who feel powerful and in control and are making a lot of money, and I met many high-class call girls who hate their jobs." Either way, Chapkis is certain that the only option is decriminalization, which would prevent prostitutes from getting arrested. "I'm as concerned as any of the abolitionists to deal with the problems of prostitution -- violence, drug use, poverty," she says. "But you can't solve those problems by further criminalizing prostitution, driving it further underground. [That makes] it more difficult for women to access what help there is." Which is where a lot of prostitutes' organizations stand, too. Tracy Quan, director of the Prostitutes' Organization of New York (PONY), a support group of more than 300 sex workers, has been in the movement to decriminalize prostitution since 1975. "Prostitutes are just a part of the whole mix of society, whether people like it or not," she says. "Prostitution must be treated like an industry." But many workers are careful to distinguish between decriminalization and legalization, which would create new laws and regulations governing the industry. That, many sex workers and advocates believe, would only place additional demands on women whose lives are difficult enough already. Carmen, a 28-year-old who has been a sex work...
