It seems like having more men that don't think it's particularly professional to pay women for sex on a work trip would have the same effect. :/

It's been my personal (anecdotal) experience that men act differently in a situation where it's an even mix of men to women, vs. an almost (or especially in a completely) male environment. Yes, I think it's very possible the results of that trip would have different with a different gender ratio present.

I didn't see it the way they did. The Daily Show's view reminds me of people saying that affirmative action getting more black people into colleges is good for white people. Actually, it's good for black people and the betterment of all society, so why make a point of how good for white students having black students around is?

I don't believe Collins and Maloney were thinking of Secret Servicewomen's influence on Secret Service men, I believe they were thinking of Secret Servicewomen not being nearly as likely to dishonor their countries and Obama's administration with a shameful display of gendered and racial colonialism that was these high-ranking guests using Colombian prostitutes. Women police officers get a lot less complaints across the board than men police officers and a lot of that has to do with the white and masculine skew of police officers causing intersectional entitlements.

The only real issue here is 1. Did they use government funds for hookers or was it out of their own pocket (hotel room and per diem not withstanding), and did they try and cheat that prostitute. You pay what you agree to pay gentlemen, those are the rules. The issue of prostitution itself is our own problems with our American Puritanical background. As long as the prostitute herself was paid for out of personal funds and the act didn't jeopordize the mission, who cares.  Granted, anyone who has held a security clearance knows that any romantic entanglements can be used as leverage by intelligence agencies in order to get information or turn a source, but that is another more complicated conversation. 

 Having more women in power changes institutions.  One or two token women can't change an entrenched culture but, as study after study has shown, when women control 30% or more of a board or committee, they are able to affect the overall culture of any institution.  I'm not surprised Maloney was the one to say this.  She wrote a book discussing the "30% rule" as it's called. 

I don't like your title or the way you're belittling this issue.  The tone of this piece equates powerful men using and abusing prostituted women and children in desperately poor nations with choosing the wrong fork at a dinner party. 

It would still occur.

I'm a woman who was in the military overseas, and the ratio of men to women was and is still unbalanced, and it's common knowledge that in places where prostitution is legal, like Germany and the Netherlands, and places where it's not, like the Philippines, it happens all the time when you have a group of men with money and without partners present. It's more difficult to get to know someone who doesn't speak your language and develop a relationship than to go to the red lights or the boats on a Friday night.

The issue to me, though prostitution is legal in Colombia, is that the Secret Service agents are tasked with protecting the President, and involving oneself with prostitutes can affect the possibility of being blackmailed or coerced. It's a little different than an Army private going to the red light district for an hour, because it's a security risk. And it's a little different in a with cartel control of the sex trade and trafficking. There should have been instructions: "DO NOT CONSORT." 

I also suspect a misunderstanding could have been possible - some of the agents picking women up and then being told, "Thanks, now I expect to be remunerated because this wasn't a date," hence the complaint over not being paid. Which if true, is just... the agents should have known the local area enough to know better.

Of course, these people don't even understand that you have to be heard and respected in order to have influence.

(oh by the way, was I the only one to think that Jessica was written a bit stereotypically?)

My comment was not meant to de-legitimize your observation, but to expand your righteous disgust to a larger framework of work

" Do you really not see the difference between selling work and selling control over your own body?"

-I think it is a very fine line.  There are many kinds of employment that are exploitative and the kinds of sex work that would seem to me to be free, only seem to be free because of values that would render all work free.

In that sex work would be validated by being non-coercive and freely of the choice of the worker.

When work of any kind does not meet this standard we should be suspect of it. 

Does this video not play into the racist stereotypes of African-Americans as wild and crazy partiers? Did anyone else see that?