The Female Solution?

Where are they off to? DEA agents on the move. (Image: YouTube screen grab)

United States Drug Enforcement Agency guys reportedly attended sex parties sponsored by Colombian narcotraffickers.

In early 2013, Honduras' ambassador in Bogotá resigned after revelations of sex parties with prostitutes inside the embassy.

A few years ago, US Secret Service agents started an international scandal by hiring prostitutes in Cartagena during the run-up to an international summit meeting in Cartagena.

The key factors here? Machismo and testosterone.

A New York Daily News cover about the
Cartagena Secret Service scandal.

Hiring prostitutes and attending sex parties may or may not be wrong, depending on your moral code.
But they certainly do generate scandal, and they can place agents in compromising situations and make them vulnerable to blackmail and extortion.

Fortunately, there is an easy solution to these male-generated problems: Hire only female agents and officials.

Women are of course not immune to sexual improprieties. But the endless parade of prominent men apologizing and resigning for involving their private parts with the wrong people suggests to me that there's something uniquely male behind this.

On the other hand, removing men from all responsible positions in government, business and even science might be difficult. And the U.S. government's solution: imposing a zero tolerance policy for paying for sex, might also be unrealistic, considering how ingrained the sex-and-partying culture appears to be.

Or, perhaps U.S. government bureaucrats believes they can re-engineer human nature and stop thos macho guys, far from wives and girlfriends, from noticing exotic women?

Perhaps a more realistic policy would be to accept commercial sex as a realistic part of male behavior, legalize and destigmatize it, so that it ceases to become a potential source of blackmail and extortion. That might, at the same time, also improve working conditions for the prostitutes involved as well as making it possible to ensure that those working women are not also on the tab of spies, narcos or terrorists.

And, while they're in the business of decriminalizing behavior, why not also consider decriminalizing drugs, as well. That would eliminate the whole need for those corruptible DEA agents in the first place.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours