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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
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| Jeannie Timpke, right, owner of the G-Spot lingerie modeling business on Northeast 82nd Avenue, speaks to a skeptical group of neighbors and police at the Madison South Neighborhood Association meeting held last month. MEMO PHOTOS: TIM CURRAN |
In an interview with the Memo prior to the meeting, Timpke explained her concerns. Although there were just a few businesses such as hers a few years ago, there are now more than 100, most run by men, “and at least 50 shouldn't be in business.” Many owners demand that their employees submit to sexual abuse, or even sexual intercourse, as a condition of employment, she charged. They are regularly cheated out of their wages. Owners encourage them to give customers whatever they want, including prostitution. They sometimes work shifts that last “for days on end,” she said.
Prior to the meeting, MSNA Chair Dave Smith warned Timpke that most association members would consider her business to be part of the 82nd Avenue problem. The G-Spot women “show themselves in front of only 5 percent of the people who'd see them in a strip bar,” she told the Memo. “This is just fantasy. There's no touching. If the girls are engaged in prostitution, they can't work for me. There are (surveillance) cameras in the rooms.” In contrast, she said, some businesses actually advertise the fact that they do not have cameras or surveillance devices in rooms. “What does that do to the safety of the girls?” Timpke asked. It's more than speculation; several sex workers have been raped and beaten on the job at other businesses in recent months, she claimed.
At the G-Spot, “I have girls who've worked for me for a long time,” she said. “You work when you want to work. Some of them are in school, and I work around their schedules. I'm proud when they're able to advance themselves.”
Asked what she'd like to see change, Timpke called for criminal background checks of owners of such businesses, “and that would eliminate a lot of people who shouldn't be in the business.” She would also like to see more education of sex workers as to what their rights are. Asked what she was seeking from the MSNA she was vague, saying that she wanted to “start a dialogue” but not elaborating to what end.
Those present at the meeting were polite but skeptical. Police Sgt. Dave Dollager of East Precinct told Timpke that in his experience most women in the sex trade “have been abused as children. I've interviewed hundreds of women, and this has been a consistent element.” To recover from this trauma, these people need to leave the sex industry and abusive situations, he said. “I wouldn't advise an alcoholic to work as a bartender, and I wouldn't advise someone who's been (sexually) abused to work in a place like yours.” He added, “There's a high correlation between the johns looking for prostitutes and the customers of businesses like yours.”
“They're going to work somewhere,” defended Timpke. Current regulations say, in effect, that street prostitution is a problem, “but it's okay if you take it indoors. It's not okay,” continued Timpke. Those at the meeting encouraged her to contact Geri Williams of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement or the Council for Prostitution Alternatives to seek solutions to prostitution other than operating a lingerie modeling business.
Two weeks later, Williams told the Memo that Timpke had not contacted her. She was skeptical of the claim that G-Spot women were not engaged in prostitution off the job site. “How could she know?” Williams asked. A former prostitute herself, she echoed Dollager's assessment of such sex-related businesses.
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