I’m reading articles about Elliot Spitzer’s announcement following his being identified as a client of a prostitution ring and I’m seeing very little commentary about the women in the story.

In one radio report, a friend says she was shocked and speaks of him (Spitzer) talking of his wife and daughters with pride. Well, this is precisely what I want to know: how, can a man with three daughters go to prostitutes? Does he not see the connection? These women too have fathers and families who love them and don’t want to see them exploited and used for sex.

And these are not just any prostitutes; this is an exclusive prostitution ring, known as Emperors Club VIP. The Washington Post writes: It charged well-heeled clients as much as $5,500 an hour for “exclusive, beautiful, educated companions of fine family and career backgrounds” while ensuring “privacy and discretion when dating and traveling,” according to the company’s Web site.

This sentence set off a small explosion in my brain.

Since when are beautiful, educated women of fine family and career backgrounds prostitutes?

Since when?

Statistically, the more education a women has, the less possibility she has of getting married. So, are we to become spinsters or prostitutes? What do educated men of fine family and career backgrounds do? (We know the answer to this don’t we?)

Beautiful yet simple-minded girls from the wrong side of the tracks just aren’t good enough for these men? They will only feel good about themselves if they can degrade and exploit one of those “uppity” educated women (but beautiful as well). And of course the high price tag makes them feel all the more powerful—how sexy.

Let me remind you again that this guy has THREE daughters.

Four people from Emperors Club VIP have been arrested. Justice will not be served until their clients are arrested as well. There will no gender equality until we punish and stigmatize the men who employ prostitutes as much as we do the women. An article in Salon actually says that he might have “politically” survived this scandal if he hadn’t “made his reputation as a crusading state attorney general who was more zealous than the Securities and Exchange Commission in prosecuting Wall Street misdeeds.” Yes, how typical—the guy makes the requisite apology with his shocked wife by his side (it only works with her by his side mind you) and all can be forgiven.

As a Democratic Party activist, I want politicians like him out. There is no place for hypocritical misogynists amongst progressives and certainly no place for them in public office.