PROTECT, DON'T PROSECUTE

EDITOR: The article "Incarcerate the Victim" [March 22, Jonah Spangenthal-Lee] illustrates both the unfairness and futility of treating juvenile prostitutes as criminals. Placing the teen in question in Echo Glen or Naselle Youth Camp—or her own protection, no less—reeks of paternalism, especially when offending adults receive no commensurate sentence for patronizing these youth.

To recognize that these teens are victims, I worked with Seattle City Council President Nick Licata in drafting and then introducing Senate Bill 5718. The measure calls this crime what it really is, commercial sexual abuse of a minor, and would fund programs to help these youth with medical, social, and education services to help get them off the streets. It also would increase certain penalties for those who patronize these youth. The bill passed the senate unanimously and is now being considered by the house of representatives.

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle

DANCING WITH INSECTS

DEAR STRANGER: The dream piece by Trent Moorman on Jesse Sykes ["Spectral Beings," March 29] is excellent. I read it and couldn't take my eyes from the page. I was waiting to see what you guys were going to run on Sykes, and this is perfect. Everything else I've read about her has been humdrum. This is out of nowhere. Moorman is a writer first and foremost. He has cadence and pacing that draw. He's keen, entertaining, informed, loose, and tied in. Most of all, though, he's unpredictable, and that is what I like about him more. More Moorman!

James Segundo

SWIMMING WITH SYKES

EDITOR: Hello and wow. I must write to tell you how much I like Trent Moorman's Jesse Sykes article. That is some cunning shit. I am a big Jesse fan and was skeptical—but this was perfect. I don't mean to be critical, but some writing by the nature of informative journalism is stuffy. However, Trent had me from the get-go. The way he engages the thought behind Jesse's lyrics showed me new things. He invented and played with metaphors for the sounds that left me feeling exactly the way her music does. I swam in the whole article and have not stopped thinking about it.

Daniel

LET'S GET REAL

ERICA C. BARNETT: In your recent viaduct article ["Yes and Hell Yes," March 22] you state, "That mitigation plan predicts that 41,000 car trips would be absorbed by transit or simply disappear." I hear this a lot. Do you know how traffic disappears? People say, "You know, it just isn't worth it to go from my house to the other end of town today."

I definitely support mass transit, increased city density, lower housing prices so people can live near their jobs, combined trips, and carpooling. This will help keep existing traffic manageable as the unavoidable population growth occurs.

But "forcing people out of their cars" means making people too miserable to drive from one place to another. Frankly, I do not want to live in a city like that. When all the rich people decide to move into the city to avoid all that gridlock, and all your editorial staff has to end up living in Burien and commuting to your offices in Renton (two hours), don't come crying to me.

Matthew Reichlin

SEX OFFENSE

EDITOR: I enjoyed Eli Sanders's piece on Erik Mart ["The Offender," March 29]. I'm sorry that the system has so mishandled Mart's case, punishment, and treatment. I'm also sorry that he was apparently molested by his father and that society never addressed it.

But I feel even more sorry for the two women he assaulted. I can imagine the absolute terror they must have felt and, later, the furious anger at the audacity of their assailant.

I think this country has severe punishments because we have such severe crimes. But, if we're going to "rate" sexual crimes on a scale, obviously the more violent or repeat offenders should get a higher rating. But how is raping a child more wrong than raping a 30-year-old woman or a 70-year-old retiree? And this is where the problem of sexual assault runs headlong into the issue of feminism and the institutionalized objectification and dehumanizing of females. Until just a few decades ago, sexual assault was considered okay in certain situations.

Today, outside of the U.S., rape is the norm, not the exception, in dozens of countries. Women and children are bought and sold as sex slaves in Russia and other Eastern European countries. In South Africa, Egypt, and Mexico the incidence of sexual assault—including child molestation and incest—is calculated in minutes, not annually.

If our judicial system is taking a ham-fisted approach to the treatment of sexual predators, it's still better than what most foreign governments do: nothing, partly thanks to misogyny.

M. Murphy