Jean O'Hara

Betty Jean O'Hara (1913 in Chicago, Illinois – 1973 explained the "10 commandments" for prostitutes and told any infraction would lead to them being removed from the islands. They were then taken to the police station, where they were fingerprinted and photographed. From there she was taken to the brothel where she was to work in Hotel Street.

After a few months she had saved a considerable sum. She decided to live outside the red-light district and rented a house near Waikiki Beach with her friend Betty. After the vice squad objected as prostitutes were not supposed to live outside the red-light district, the two women moved to the Pacific Heights area. After the vice squad again objected, O'Hara and Betty went to Kauai and worked in one of the three brothels there, which serviced mainly plantation workers. By this time the military had set a fixed price for prostitute's services. O'Hara is credited with inventing the "bull pen" system where a single prostitute would work three rooms in rotation: In one room a man would be undressing, in a second room the prostitute would be having sex, and in the third room the man would be dressing. With price controls circumventing the laws of supply and demand, O'Hara's system sped up the process and allowed each prostitute to see many more 'johns' every day.

In 1944 O'Hara was charged with trying to murder the husband of a fellow prostitute. The trial attracted much publicity and the jury only took 5 minutes to acquit O'Hara. After the trial she quit the sex industry. The book was later re-published under the title Honolulu Harlot. The 1956 Jane Russell film, The Revolt of Mamie Stover was based on O'Hara's life in Honolulu (Mamie Stover was an alias O'Hara used).

O'Hara had married a 'local boy' named Norager. Years later she tried to kill him in San Francisco by ramming him against a tree with her car. O'Hara died in 1973.