Verbal Construction

During jury duty yesterday, I admired the striking views of downtown Denver from the new Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse. The view to the north falls spectacularly on Diamond Cabaret, Troy Lowrie’s flagship skin club. How fitting that Denver’s only memorial to Benjamin Barr Lindsey stands opposite the porn king’s palace.

Judge Lindsey established Denver’s juvenile court system. His flair for drama won him fame and lifelong enemies. Lindsey opposed the Ku Klux Klan at a time when Denver’s mayor, Colorado’s governor, and many influential people were members. He raised hell about selective enforcement of prohibition laws, charging that the Denver DA prosecuted the poor but allowed the rich to drink illegal booze with impunity. The Catholic Church condemned Lindsey because he advocated “companionate marriage” — marriages that could be dissolved by husband or wife at will, and in which procreation was optional.

Lindsey chronicled his battles with public corruption in the book The Beast, a national bestseller in 1910. From the statehouse to city hall, and from the courts to the cops in the streets, Denver was in the grip of what Lindsey called “The Beast,” an alliance of private interests engaged in unchecked criminality.

Exposing The Beast is like playing a game of connect the dots. As each line is drawn, a clearer and clearer picture emerges. Lindsey wrote:

It is not a picture in a picture puzzle. It is a fact in a fact puzzle. …To some it has appeared to be a house cat merely; and it has purred to them very soothingly, no doubt. But some have come upon its claws, and they have been rather more than scratched. And others have found its teeth, and they have been bitten — bitten to the soul. …It lives upon us — upon the best of us as well as the worst — and the daughters of the poor are fed to it no less than the sons of the rich.

Lindsey’s Beast is relentless dehumanization and violence in the service of corporate interests and power – all of it aided by complicit public officials.

Maybe you’ve been following the story of Troy Lowrie. The Denver porn baron was arrested in a prostitution sting on Colfax Avenue in July. The charges were dismissed by the city attorney in August.

Lowrie appeared on CBS4 to proclaim his innocence and repair his reputation. I wrote that Lowrie’s version of events contradicted the police report. I pointed out Lowrie’s ties to Denver power broker Steve Farber.

Radio host Peter Boyles invited me on air to talk about it. Lowrie called Boyles and told a convincing tale of police misconduct and lies. He planned to sue the city, he said.

Denver Police released an audio recording of Lowrie’s arrest. The audio did not support Lowrie’s claims. Also, Lowrie had been arrested for a prostitution-related charge in 1990.

In 2006, investigators from the Minneapolis Police Department reported witnessing sex acts and drug dealing in Lowrie’s Denver strip clubs. Denver Police claimed that they hadn’t noticed any violations. A Denver Police spokesman told the Rocky Mountain News: “We routinely go into these clubs and check them out to make sure they’re in compliance.”

Despite routine checks by Denver Police, however, accused-pimp Germaine “Jell-O” Wallace was able to operate a prostitution ring out of Lowrie’s strip clubs and others in 2010. A rape complaint against Wallace brought the strip-club prostitution ring to police attention. (Wallace is facing felony charges for pimping and pandering. By contrast, Denver Players pimp Scottie Ewing was given a slap on the wrist for tax evasion.)

Lowrie’s VCG Holding Corporation operates strip clubs and distributes violent pornography on the Internet. Lowrie transferred shares of VCG stock to his private charitable foundation. Using the proceeds from this gift of porn, Lowrie gives money to public schools and charities for at-risk youth.

In August, Lowrie’s foundation was the presenting sponsor of Tennis With The Stars, a charity event to benefit youth programs. For the past four years, Lowrie has participated in the event with notable community leaders such as then-Mayor John Hickenlooper, congressional candidate and Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, and Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey.

Despite Lowrie’s prostitution bust and allegations of criminal activity in Lowrie’s clubs, and the “dirty money” origins of Lowrie’s charitable gifts, Morrissey obviously had no qualms about sharing marquee billing with Lowrie in August.

And that’s how it is. Politicians happily accept campaign contributions from Lowrie. Socialites and community leaders celebrate Lowrie and legitimize his business by pretending that it’s “just like any other.”

In Denver, sleaze, philanthropy, and political influence are purposefully intertwined.

Sadly, this is an old story. In the final chapter of The Beast, Ben Lindsey wrote:

I shall be called a traitor to the community because I have tried to expose the traitors in the community; and the traitorous newspapers of the community will be the first to raise the cry. I shall be called “a blackener of the fair name of Colorado” because I have named the men who have corrupted, debauched, and prostituted Colorado – for no men hate the light more than the men who profit by the crimes which the light discloses. Heaven help them! – Heaven help us all.

Some have objected to my calling Denver porn baron Troy Lowrie a pornographer. Strip clubs aren’t pornographic, some insist.  Perhaps not.  Even so, a quick visit to the website of Lowrie’s VCG Holding will show you that streaming internet porn is a big part of Lowrie’s business.

The site proclaims itself “the World’s #1 Adult Theater.” Movie categories include: “Genital Punishment,” “Tit Punishment,” “Grannies,” “Midget,” and “Smothering.” Movie titles available for instant viewing include:

Amateur Assault
New Teen Whores
Elastic Assholes
Teenage Gangbang
White Slave Girls
Scream for Mercy
Seducing Grandma
Kitten Gets a Beating
My Teen Swallows
Men in Pain
Baby in Chains
F*ck My Mom

Is this healthy sexuality, or sexuality at all? Much of it can be described accurately as sexualized violence, in my opinion. Keep in mind that depending on jurisdiction it’s unlawful for people under the age of 18 (or 21, depending) to view this material.

Several schools and youth programs have accepted financial gifts from the Lowrie Family Foundation, a private charity that Lowrie funded with a gift of VCG Holding stock in 2007. Since then, the Lowrie Family Foundation has made gifts to:

Girl Scouts of America
Glendale YMCA
Arvada West Football
Mitchell Elementary School
Bell Middle School
I Have a Dream Foundation
YMCA
George Washington High School
Denver Lutheran High School
Douglas County Youth Athletic Club
Golden High School
Rocky Mountain Childrens Foundation
Wiggins High School

This information was disclosed in forms 990 filed by the Lowrie Family Foundation. Click to see full PDFs of these disclosures: 2007, 2008, 2009.

It’s admirable, perhaps, that Lowrie is devoted to “giving back” some of his porn profits to high schools and youth programs. It’s worth pondering, though, what exactly Lowrie takes from the community in the first place.

Detail from a CBI background check obtained by Lisa Jones from the Colorado Department of Public Safety on August 30, 2011. Click the image to see it better.

Click here for PDF of the entire CBI background check.

Denver porn baron Troy Lowrie was arrested in a Denver prostitution sting on Colfax in July. The charge of furthering prostitution was dismissed by the city attorney. Since then, Lowrie has claimed that Denver police and people working for the city attorney’s office lied, and that false police reports were filed. He has consistently portrayed himself as a good man wronged by scurrilous accusations motivated by discrimination because he made his fortune in the pornotainment industry.

I’d like to point out that this is not Lowrie’s first arrest for a prostitution-related offense in Colorado. According to public records, Lowrie was arrested for soliciting prostitution in Arvada in 1990.

UPDATE: Lowrie was arrested last year for driving under the influence, weaving, and possession of a gun while intoxicated in Westminster. The lane-usage violation charge and the drunk w/gun charge were dismissed by the DA. According to the record, Lowrie is guilty of driving while ability impaired. “Alice” said in the comments below that this information is reason for Golden High School to terminate Lowrie’s employment as a coach who works with minors, aside from allegations involving prostitution and Lowrie’s pornography business.

Additional arrest information from a CBI background check on Troy Lowrie.

Prostitution charges against Denver porn baron Troy Lowrie were dropped. Some might be tempted to suggest that Lowrie’s campaign contributions to Denver Mayor Michael Hancock played a role in the city attorney’s decision to dismiss the case. The city attorney is a mayoral appointee, after all.

I suspect that the web of power and privilege in Denver is a tad more complicated and insidious. The Lowrie case is a textbook illustration.

In an exclusive interview with CBS4 after the charges were dropped, an aggrieved Lowrie asked for his reputation back. He and his attorney offered a version of events completely at odds with the police complaint. CBS4 didn’t bother to note the glaring discrepancies. Lowrie’s attorney said that the city attorney agreed with Lowrie’s version of events — discounting the work of Denver Police. (Are Denver cops really that lousy at their jobs? Does the city attorney routinely ignore police work? Hello. This is a news story.)

Please watch the video. It’s not a news report. It’s a Pity Poor Troy Lowrie piece, portraying him as a good man wronged. It’s pure spin, intended obviously to rehabilitate Lowrie’s (alleged) image as an upstanding member of society.

Why on earth would a legitimate news outlet allow itself be used so shamelessly as Lowrie’s self-serving public-relations tool?

To understand why, you have to be aware of the incestuous interrelationship of money, media, politics, and philanthropy in Denver.

Troy Lowrie serves on the board of directors of the American Transplant Foundation, a charity founded by powerbroker Stever Farber of law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The law firm represents Lowrie’s VCG Holdings. The firm also represented Mayor Michael Hancock, most notably regarding allegations that the mayor was a john of the Denver Players prostitution ring.

Hancock’s Chief of Staff Janice Sinden serves with Lowrie on the board of directors of the American Transplant Foundation.

Another notable name among the foundation’s directors is Walt DeHaven, CBS4′s general manager. Perhaps you’ll recall that media critic Jason Salzman praised CBS4 for refusing to report the prostitution allegations involving Hancock. Dehaven is married to PR maven Wendy Aiello, one of the high-profile community leaders who publicly endorsed Hancock for mayor.

Lowrie is tied to Farber, Hancock, Sinden, DeHaven, and Aiello in a web of mutual self-interest. Lowrie’s pornotainment lucre supports Farber’s foundation, law firm, and political candidates. In turn, Farber et al have a stake in maintaining Lowrie’s upstanding reputation. If Lowrie were convicted of furthering prostitution, it would reflect badly on Farber’s philanthropic foundation and those involved with it.

Presumably, all are friends, too, and friends tend to do favors for friends. But that’s not my gripe.

What bothers me is that most Denver voters are unaware of all this. They don’t know that city hall top dogs, Denver’s elite socialites, and Denver’s established media are interwoven by multiple relationships involving money and influence. I’d go so far as to claim that these relationships and interests take precedence over public interest, as illustrated by Lowrie’s case.

As I wrote in a previous post:

In Denver, selective enforcement of anti-prostitution laws and selective media coverage don’t expose and abate criminality. They protect privilege. They protect the people in power.

Who dares to pursue that story in this little fishbowl town?

Victory Theater in Denver circa 1969 by John Whitworth. From the DPL Western History Collection.

This post is about Troy Lowrie, the Denver strip-club and pornotainment baron, political donor and philanthropist who was busted in a prostitution sting on Colfax Avenue in July.

I know — I went from writing about rosaries and Mother Cabrini on this blog to chronicling prostitution as it intersects with Denver politics. City hall wishes the issue of prostitution would go away. For this reason alone, the topic is worth exploring. Also, misogyny bothers me — normalized, “acceptable” misogyny bothers me even more — and when people say, “Misogyny? What misogyny?” my head explodes.

Plus, I’ve been reading Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines. It’s an eye-opening, infuriating analysis of the cruelty, degradation, and ubiquity of modern pornography. I admit that I have a risqué sensibility, but I had no clue about current trends in porn prior to reading this book. Dines dissects how our culture has been “well groomed to accept pornography as a part of everyday life rather than as an industry that produces a system of images that debases and dehumanizes women and men.”

Back to Troy Lowrie. 5280 profiled him in September 2005 as a strip-club king with a heart of gold. Lowrie expanded the lucrative skin empire he inherited, and gained legitimacy by investing “a small fortune” in strategic charitable gifts. According to the article, Lowrie often puts his young daughter on stage “to present the oversize cardboard checks at charity events.” One such check went to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. From the 5280 article:

“Daddy,” [Lowrie] recalls [his daughter Gabrielle] saying, “if people say it’s wrong for you to do this, well, is it wrong?” Lowrie told her no, it wasn’t wrong. “And it means we can do things like give $100,000 to find a cure for cancer.” What Lowrie didn’t tell Gabrielle was that in each of the strippers, he saw a bit of his mother.

Grab your hankie.

“My mom tried to raise me,” [Lowrie] says. “But she didn’t have any help. She couldn’t do it alone.” Matter-of-factly, he adds, “The day a woman comes in to fill out an application here [at the Diamond Cabaret] is usually a low point. No one says, ‘I’m at the top of my game, now I’ll be a stripper.’” Lowrie knows many of the young entertainers work his tabletop stages only to feed their own kids. He stages “Dreamgirls Workshops,” seminars that provide tips for boosting income but also teach life skills like balancing a checkbook. “They should leave us better than the day they came here,” Lowrie says. “That’s the way this business should work.”

Isn’t that beautiful? How can anyone accuse Lowrie of misogyny or exploitation of women? He’s trying to help. He loves women. Never mind that several women working at one of Lowrie’s clubs said they were fired when they became pregnant, as Westword reported in 1999.

There are a couple of creepy messages conveyed by Lowrie’s “philanthropy,” aside from the overall message that money buys social esteem, regardless of the source of one’s income.

First, there’s the whole madonna-whore dichotomy thing. Money earned from the skin of strippers becomes righteous when it’s given to “madonnas,” women battling breast cancer. Lowrie sets up his own daughter as a madonna — a virginal girl who presents gifts in a kind of psychological money laundering. Presto. Dirty profits from dirty women are made clean by association with clean women for clean purposes.

After all, Lowrie could insist that his strippers present the checks to charity. They have more to do with making the gifts possible than Lowrie’s daughter. But no.

Second, there’s the way Lowrie resolves the fundamental cognitive dissonance of his industry: Profiting from the bodies of women who are at a low point in their lives is exploitive; but trying to make the women “better” and giving money to charity is good. Therefore, exploiting women is good as long as you “teach life skills” and give some of the profits to charity. Apparently, members of Denver’s philanthropic community have bought into this rationalization, too.

Lowrie profits from gender rules and norms that disadvantage women. His “philanthropic” efforts do nothing to challenge this system. It’s disingenuous at best to portray Lowrie as a friend of women.

In the 2011 municipal election, Lowrie contributed at least $45,000 to failed mayoral candidate Chris Romer. Opponent James Mejia cited this as one of Romer’s demerits, but the issue didn’t gain traction. Lowrie also contributed at least $3,000 to the campaign of now-Mayor Michael Hancock. But again: Ho hum. The spoils of misogyny grease the wheels of Denver politics and no one bats an eye.

The Denver Post’s account of Lowrie’s July prostitution bust didn’t bother to mention his role as a high-profile donor in the municipal election. A month earlier, the paper had strategically delayed publishing allegations that Mayor Hancock was linked to the Denver Players prostitution ring. The paper’s failure to mention Lowrie’s ties to local politicians is perhaps another example of selective nonreporting to protect Denver’s power elite from embarrassment.

When a Denver Public Works crew was caught on camera during work hours taking off their shirts and posing for pictures with strippers at Lowrie’s Diamond Cabaret recently, news reports didn’t mention Lowrie or the new mayor’s connection to Lowrie. One TV station pointed out that Diamond Cabaret is a block from city hall. Either it was brazen of the crew to park their truck at a strip club just across Colfax from the mayor’s office, or they had no worries about being reprimanded. Like, maybe, they thought their behavior was totally acceptable.

From philanthropists to politicians to public workers, it seems that Denverites have been “well groomed to accept pornography as a part of everyday life .”

I do have to give The Denver Post credit for publishing details about Lowrie’s arrest:

At 2:15 p.m. July 13, Lowrie allegedly approached a female undercover Denver police officer who was working in a prostitution sting and engaged the officer multiple times, according to the complaint against him. Driving a black Hummer, Lowrie allegedly circled the block, whistled, waved and honked to get the officer’s attention….Lowrie allegedly told the officer he owned PT’s and asked her to “work for him.”

What a prince.

Strange things have happened in “HandcockGate.” Some people are reluctant to comment openly on the scandal — perhaps because of good taste, but more likely because of self-protective instincts. By “scandal” I mean allegations that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was a john of the Denver Players prostitution ring.  Media weirdness, efforts by city hall to circle the wagons, and lingering questions are all part of the story.

If you’ve been following along, you know that CompleteColorado.com’s Todd Shepherd recently told radio snarker Peter Boyles that he went dumpster diving at Hancock campaign headquarters. He found a handwritten note saying that Greg Moore, editor of The Denver Post, had assured the campaign that the prostitution allegations would not be published prior to the election. Shepherd said that he recovered a stack of other items from the trash, including an un-cashed check from a campaign donor.

So far, Denver news media have responded with silence. As a consumer of news, I want to give Shepherd a gold star for pursuing an important story about lies, cover ups, and collusion. At the same time, I wish he would dish the whole story in a coherent narrative rather than offer dribs and drabs for radio chat.

Meantime, media critic Jason Salzman harps on the importance of not talking about the story. He objects to Edward Nottingham being mentioned, as if it’s irrelevant that the former federal judge resigned his post amid allegations that he was a Denver Players john. Salzman congratulates Channel 4 for keeping mum altogether.

Salzman is the same media watchdog who in 2008 urged Denver journalists “to focus their investigative powers elsewhere, and spare us interviews with prostitutes.” Sex workers can ID johns and corroborate assertions from pimps, right? Not according to Salzman: “The story had little credibility, because the only source was the prostitute, who inherently lacks credibility.” (emph. mine)

Sex workers and pimps are off-limits as witnesses or news sources, but politicians are to be taken at their word. Based on this standard, allegations regarding Hancock are unproven “junk.”

Chuck Plunkett, who investigated the Hancock story for The Denver Post, operates on a similarly biased standard. In 2009, he confessed that he and The Post “missed” the John-Edwards-love-child story: “We didn’t attempt to ‘hide’ the story. We just gave a human being the benefit of the doubt, knowing full well that if he was guilty of the acts the Enquirer claimed, it would come out eventually, and in mainstream outlets as well — including ours.” (emph. mine)

Plunkett and The Post sat on the Hancock story because they opted to give human being Hancock the benefit of the doubt over presumably lesser human beings: Pimp Scottie Ewing , reporter Todd Shepherd, and the Denver Players documents.

It speaks well of Plunkett’s own personal decency that he assumes others to be decent, too. But he’s deluded if he doesn’t recognize this assumption as bias.

Bias and double standards abound. For example: In May, Denver police charged a pimp named Jell-O with “a Class 3 felony count of pimping and felony counts of pandering.”

By contrast, Denver police declined to charge Denver Players pimps Scottie Ewing and Brenda Stewart with anything at all. Instead, the feds charged them with tax evasion.

“It’s easier to prosecute for tax evasion than the actual crime itself,” a Denver police spokesman told The Denver Post.

Well, it’s easier sometimes for some offenders.

Likewise, some johns are convicted and subjected to public humiliation on JohnsTV for their $20 attempted purchase on Colfax. But a well-connected, influential john at Denver Players can breathe easy knowing that his $300 appointment is a secret that the cops, feds, and Denver news media are willing to keep.

In Denver, selective enforcement of anti-prostitution laws and selective media coverage don’t expose and abate criminality. They protect privilege. They protect the people in power.

Who dares to pursue that story in this little fishbowl town?

A truth not self-evident, hence the banner. From the DPL Western History Collection, I think.

Pot and prostitution seem to be hot topics at summer gatherings. I wish I had a snappy, barbecue-friendly way to express how appalled I am that the two are regarded as equivalent or interrelated “vices.”

In 2005, Denver voters legalized marijuana possession. Despite recent backlash and threats from the federal government, voters don’t appear to regret their decision. Similarly, local voters pooh-poohed allegations linking Denver Mayor-elect Michael Hancock to a high-profile prostitution ring.

Some wonder if it’s time for Denver to decriminalize prostitution, too. Why not turn Denver into a free-smokin’, free-lovin’ Amsterdam on the Platte?

I wish I knew how to dismantle the belief that women should be “free” to prostitute themselves. People say it so smugly, as if all women must inevitably accept this “truth.” I bristle because it’s ignorance masquerading as enlightenment.

Hard to say “patriarchal bargain” over a paper plate full of mayonnaise-rich salad and not sound strident, though. Similarly, I squirm in silence when people claim that objections to prostitution are, in fact, puritanical objections to sex and sexuality.

Where to start? I’m in favor of sex between and among adults who enthusiastically consent to have sex with one another. And guess what: This is already legal! (Except in places where the sex lives of gay and lesbian people are criminalized by anti-sodomy laws and such. Booo.)

Consensual adult sex requires no inducement or barter other than an exchange of explicit consent. And it’s legal!

By contrast, sex work is labor for pay at best, and coercion, exploitation, rape, or slavery at worst. See the difference?

One is voluntary recreation; the other is a job or a crime. Vive la différence!

Back in the day, I practiced Buddhism with a woman who worked as a freelance dominatrix in her apartment off Hollywood Boulevard in L.A. When I dropped in to chant the sutra with her, she’d fold up her torture equipment and stow it in a closet. From what I heard, she was good at her job, and was hired to do disturbing things. One of her johns paid her to hurt him so badly he would vomit.

I’ve often wondered: Who are these guys? Who deems himself entitled to buy access to someone else’s body for sex?

Not everyone, obviously. I think johns are people with unexamined self-loathing combined with a sense of unassailable prerogative.

A 2008 study of Scottish punters (men who buy sex) suggests that johns express fundamental delusions about sex work and an overall sense of entitlement to use others (usually women) to satisfy their own wants. Punters’ attitudes are not confined to interactions with sex workers, but extend to other women as well.

To me, this is why a politician buying sexual access is a big deal: It speaks volumes about the politician’s attitude of entitlement vis-à-vis others who lack power, resources, and choices equal to his own. And, fair or not, I surmise he must hate himself in some corrosive, perhaps unacknowledged way.

But what can anyone do about prostitution other than sigh? Anti-prostitution laws that marginalize, demean, and silence sex workers are misdirected, I think.

How would decriminalization help, other than to validate and normalize a system in which people commodify sexual access and treat others as if they’re merchandise?

According to one study legalization does not resolve the harm of violence, drug use, disease, exploitation, trafficking, and money laundering related to prostitution. Maybe John Schools are a step in the right direction. We’ll see.

So imagine that we’re at a barbecue. You say, “Women should be free to engage in prostitution,” as if it’s a matter of bestowing liberty and human rights, and you’re not being ironic.

Any honest response from me would be inappropriately confrontational in an atmosphere of grilled bratwurst.

Legalization isn’t progress or freedom; it’s capitulation to punter prerogative.

It’s not surprising that people who possess or endorse prerogative also tend to champion the “rights” of others to cater to it. People should be “free” to respect and serve prerogative as long as they’re not free to abolish it? Hilarious.

Smash the patriarchy and pass the pickle relish.