I'm heading home, driving up Biscayne, minding my own business. It's late on a weekday evening and I've just seen a show at the Great American Music Hall. There she is: a good-looking hooker calling me over. I've always been attracted to hookers and dancers and models and porno stars and such. I see hookers whenever I can, which isn't much because I'm so poor. I'd see them every day I could afford it.

   I wasn't looking for sex, and besides, I had just spent my monthly entertainment allotment on music. But ... she's looking really good and dressed to kill, and it doesn't cost anything to talk. I pull over.

   "What do you want honey? Straight or French?" she asks.

   "I'm afraid I don't have much money," I say.

   "How much ya got?" she responds.

   "I'd be lucky if I could scrape up $20, and I don't like car dates," I answer.

   "That's enough and my hotel's paid up," she says. "Pull over there."

   I pull over, but instead of the girl, an ugly street guy sticks his head in my window, flashing a badge at me.

   "You're under arrest for soliciting prostitution, turn off the engine," the cop says.

   "No, wait, she was soliciting me!" I protest.

   About five minutes later a different ugly guy gives me a paper and says, "read this."

   The paper says something like: "You have been arrested for prostitution. You may qualify for the FFOP (First Offender Prostitution Program) which will allow you to be released now and you will not have a criminal record upon completion if you enroll in the program within 10 days for a $500 fee."

   The first ugly guy comes back and says, "So, you want to sign this warrant and enroll or go downtown and get booked?"

   Duh.

   A few weeks later I'm at the Hall of Justice at 9 a.m. on Saturday for my eight-hour course, known in the trade as johns school. There're about 50 of us, all middle-class white men. I wonder if the poorer guys are rotting away in jail somewhere, or if the Asian guys who use the massage parlors go to "school" on alternate days.

   The prosecutor in charge of this type of crime is in the first class. He tells us about the "carrot" (that fact that we will not have a criminal record after being good for a year) and the "stick" (what they'll do to us the next time they catch us with a prostitute.) The stick part is pretty glum, but to add emphasis he calls on Sgt. ... let's call him Sgt. Rock.

   The next time, Sgt. Rock tells us, it's in the paddy wagon with a vomiting drunk, an eight-by-eight holding cell crammed with violent criminals and so on. And this is before the conviction, which he assures us is a shoe-in. It gets worse. After an hour of this, we get a five-minute break.

   Next, it's the health department's turn. The lesson seems to be this: The hooker on the corner is a bigger risk than the lady at the party (maybe not much, though), and you better practice safe sex with both.

   We get another five-minute break. Next up is the ex-hooker assault. First one gets up, then another, then another. It's all the same: their real mother was a junkie, the father was in the pen, the uncle raped her at 7, the sister started prostitution at 12, the brother got her hooked on heroin at 15. But it's us son-of-a-bitch johns who have ruined their lives.

   I'm beginning to see a pattern, and it's not the one these girls see. But who am I to figure things out? I'm learning from these women that hookers don't like their johns or men in general and certainly don't like sex.

   But I haven't found this to be the case at all. The girls I have sex with usually enjoy it, and enjoy my company. We sometimes spend time together after the date and the money is all over and finished. They seem to enjoy being part of the sex industry and like being able to turn men on.

   This sorry, hateful band before us got into prostitution for all the wrong reasons -- and they give it a bad name.

   Sgt. Rock reads a few letters from ex-hookers thanking him for saving their lives. What's this? A tear? Sgt. Rock, the toughest guy on the vice squad, is getting choked up! He lets the saved-again ex-hookers berate us for another half-hour, then is composed enough to excuse us for lunch.

   After lunch, it's the local merchants and residents turn. We learn that the Tenderloin could be a great place to live and raise children except for us johns bringing the prostitutes and pimps and dope there. The place is a war zone, that's true, and I wish I could help them. I would transport their homes and businesses to a safe place, maybe next door to one of those legal brothels in Nevada. Yeah, that's a much mellower place than Capp Street.

   Next is the psychologist, who tells us that there's nothing modern science can do for johns outside of extensive therapy. All the same, he gives us some guidelines on how to keep out of jail: Make sure you don't have any cash when you pass through a red-light district and plan a route that doesn't take you by any ATM machines. Really, this is his advice!

   Finally, it's over and class is finished. As most of us are filing out, cursing under our breath, about eight jerks are lined up taking turns reprimanding themselves to Sgt. Rock and the saved-again ex-hookers and begging their forgiveness. Sgt. Rock and his entourage are nodding solemnly, knowing that once again they have saved a small part of the world.