Bipartisan fascists go after Backpage et al

[Jolly_Penguin]

Jolly, I suspected you found the same data site that I did because you came up with a similar or maybe the same figure for average annual earnings for prostitutes that my link contained.

I don't recall presenting any figure for average annual earnings of prostitutes. I may just be failing to recall that I did and I'm not up for reading through the whole thread, but I really don't think I did, since I can't generate such a number to any great accuracy off hand even now. I don't know what the average prostitute makes. That was never my point. My point was that many of them make quite a lot; enough to put themselves through schooling and I have met a number of them. I am gym friends with one who consistently makes $600 on Friday and Saturday nights merely as a stripper who does no "extras" (sex stuff). The "extras girls" make far in excess of that. Mind you, these are all young hot women and not ragged old women living in the street, so that may be a biased sampling - but the point is that they DO exist (and who are you to tell them they can't do this?).

I also now note that my impression is from Canada (and from those we interviewed in bringing the court challenge, which may not be representative) and yours is from the USA (and I am guessing tilted towards the abused or trafficked ones). I suspect that's the case with your experience since you have the impression that such a high number were sexually abused and that such a high number started so young. I really don't think that's true. Many yes, but not THAT many. If it were that many I wouldn't have met and interviewed so many who don't match that.

It’s a shame that you are unwilling or unable to consider that your sample pool of prostitutes you interviewed is also quite small or to consider whether everything they told you was factual.

May I suggest that rather than telling me what I'm willing or unwilling to do, you ask me? I am totally in agreement that my sample size was small and may not be very representative, but the disparity in what I have encountered with these women and what you have claimed is so vast that I know you can't be correct in the above, at least not here in Canada. Your point about if they were telling me the truth would be a better one regarding what they tell Derec as a customer than what they tell me as a court officer (lawyer) taking a sworn statement to be used at the highest court in the nation.

And lets agree that ANY number of sex trafficking victims and/or underage prostitutes isn't acceptable. Nobody should be sex trafficked or abused. Any number of farm workers or garment workers being trafficked or enslaved is also not acceptable though, and that's no reason to ban legal agriculture or fashion.

Then there is the evidence we looked at regarding safety of women and men who work as sex workers. If they are going to work the job whether it is legal or not (and they will), can we agree that their safety matters? Can you see how cutting off or reducing their means of screening clients, pushing them out on the streets instead of working out of brothels with protection and/or regulation, etc will put them in more danger?

And then there remains the freedom of choice argument, as strong or as weak as it may be. At the end of the day an anti-prostitution law is a law telling a woman what she may and may not do with her body. I don't see why that should be any less potent here than in the abortion arguments, especially since here there is no unborn being killed.

 

[bilby]

Who are those people? How does their error in any way undermine my reasoned arguments for a legalised and regulated sexual services industry?

Why, in short, should I or anyone else care about this red herring?

- - - Updated - - -



Nobody needs to.

That's not a reason for nobody to be allowed to.

Bilby, actually there are a lot of people who do need to in order to survive. Teenage runaways for example. Trafficked individuals who are forced.

As I've said multiple times in this thread and other similar ones, I honestly assumed that legalization would reduce trafficking of unwilling prostitutes, but apparently, that is not what happens. THAT is the reason I am against legalization: increased trafficking of unwilling sex workers.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

There's nobody in Australia who has to become a prostitute in order to afford an education. That was the scenario you introduced, and to which I responded. To then jump to a discussion of poverty presumably in a different country, and certainly in a different demographic, where sex work is illegal and/or necessary for survival, is not conducive to reasoned discussion.

Don't strain yourself when shifting those goalposts.

I was responding to your post about people--well, women, putting themselves through college by prostituting themselves. I assumed you meant Australia since that would be a system you are actually familiar with.

I'm pretty sure I didn't introduce that idea. I know it's a pretty common fantasy for men who like to think well of themselves.

I said that I know one person who did this.

She tells me that it is quite common in Brisbane since sex work was legalised here.

The difference in demand between male and female prostitutes makes it an option for many women; most of whom don't decide to take it. And for very few men, who as a result generally don't get the choice at all.

There's no fantasy involved here. Nor was I making a recommendation that anyone should choose to do this. It's a straightforward account from a person I have no reason to distrust, who made a choice that was lucrative and which she was glad to have as an option.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly how good is the money if one must turn 3,583.3 tricks/year-or almost 10 a day-- to earn those 'big bucks?'

Even at average of $30 a pop (bottom of the market) that volume of work would earn you six figures. Note of course that most hookers charge significantly more than that, and thus can see fewer clients per day.
And note that say a cashier at Walmart or even somebody educated like a social worker or an adjunct lecturer earns several times less than $100k.

A sex worker charging an average of $120 (still pretty low considering many escorts charge more than $300/hr) needs only 500 clients a year to make $60k which is roughly the median household income in the US. And 500/year is only a little more than one a day.

I really don't know where you get your numbers.

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

It should bother any rational person that there are crack whores who are slaves to their drug addictions so that they prostitute themselves to people who don't care that they're addicted and want to take advantage of that.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hey, I was only using the info on the link I provided. Frankly, I have serious doubts about the $215K per year. No methodology is given so I can't comment. I presented the link the first time so I assumed everybody who was interested would actually perform their own due diligence. My bad.

Here's the link: https://www.statisticbrain.com/prostitution-statistics/

BTW, the estimate of the percentage of prostitutes who were abused as children is the lowest I've seen. Usually the percentage is estimated at 90-95%.

Other tidbits: number of times a prostitute has unprotected sex/year: 250.
Average age a female prostitute becomes a prostitute: 15.

Frankly, I doubt that the majority of sex workers charge $300/client/session. I'd wager that $60 is closer to the mark for most of them.

Since you are being all accountant and all, you also need to consider the expenses that go into maintaining a prostitute in condition fit to work.

Your data is garbage.

1) There's a major hodge-podge of US vs world data there. That's completely unjustified and my first thought would be they had simply gathered tidbits from various sources, but:

2) Note that the "source" is "Source: Statistic Brain Research Institute (Online / Direct Response Mail)". Nothing about how the data was collected. Nothing about error margins. You can make a report this good every time you take a dump and wipe your ass.

3) Note that the majority of tricks in that data are somewhere short of intercourse. That $60 figure makes a lot more sense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They laundered the money, Tom, which is reason#3 they are in trouble. Reason#1 is the child sex trafficking and Reason#2 is being involved in illegal activity. I know that Derec has a problem with the fact that prostitution in the US is illegal but it just is (for now?). And I know Derec will continue to engage in illegal activity that he thinks is unfair and continue to advocate that he and BackPage shouldn't get into trouble. But they should be in trouble, both of them actually.

BTW, I ran into a claim that the "money laundering" was about working around the government freezing them out of being able to simply use credit cards like most places.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

It should bother any rational person that there are crack whores who are slaves to their drug addictions so that they prostitute themselves to people who don't care that they're addicted and want to take advantage of that.

Yes, it should. Glad to see that nobody here has said otherwise.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

It should bother any rational person that there are crack whores who are slaves to their drug addictions so that they prostitute themselves to people who don't care that they're addicted and want to take advantage of that.

Yes, it should. Glad to see that nobody here has said otherwise.

That isn't freedom.

 

[bilby]

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

It should bother any rational person that there are crack whores who are slaves to their drug addictions so that they prostitute themselves to people who don't care that they're addicted and want to take advantage of that.

It should.

But it has nothing to do with legal brothels, which do not employ drug addicts at all - for much the same reasons that legal bars don't buy liquor from backwoods moonshine distillers.

It would be a quick way to lose your licence to operate, while reducing dramatically the reputation of your business, for no gain whatsoever.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

She's looking at crack-whore prices, not escorts.

It should bother any rational person that there are crack whores who are slaves to their drug addictions so that they prostitute themselves to people who don't care that they're addicted and want to take advantage of that.

It should.

But it has nothing to do with legal brothels, which do not employ drug addicts at all - for much the same reasons that legal bars don't buy liquor from backwoods moonshine distillers.

It would be a quick way to lose your licence to operate, while reducing dramatically the reputation of your business, for no gain whatsoever.

The scope of this thread is not merely about legalization. It started about Backpage which has pimps, hookers, and johns using it, including child sex traffickers. Many of the prostitutes have drug issues. As documented earlier Backpage knew child stuff was going on but auto-edited ads to remove keywords such as "Amber alert," and then pushed the transactions through. In any case, if legalization doesn't solve the problem of crack heads prostituting themselves and johns who take advantage of that non-thinking process to provide sex for money, then two things: people will still complain about not having that "freedom" and the Backpages of the world would still be in trouble for providing a hookup space for it. Those BackPage places, not caring to follow laws, would still be money laundering to hide the non-regulated crack and child sex like they did. Some other hookup space interested in following laws would not.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I don't think anybody here is advocating for the freedom to take advantage of people who are in a "non thinking process". That would be sex without consent and therefore rape.

We already have laws against rape. So leave consenting adults alone, yeah?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I don't think anybody here is advocating for the freedom to take advantage of people who are in a "non thinking process". That would be sex without consent and therefore rape.

We already have laws against rape. So leave consenting adults alone, yeah?

Drug addicts are in a non-thinking process when they turn tricks. That is absolutely what was going on with backpage much of the time and much of the time with prostitution. Drug addicts cannot make rational decisions and get stuck in a rut where they have to turn tricks for money. Persons addicted to some kinds of highly addictive, extreme drugs that destroys the brain cannot hold down a normal job. Once again, denying these people "freedom" to prostitute themselves will be labeled fascism and Backpage was taking advantage of these situations and worse, child sex trafficking. Legalizing prostitution will not make that go away and might even be a red herring and derail with respect to the original op. Backpage and Derec should respect and follow US law unless they are in a situation where they must survive by not following laws. Derec further needs to be less entitled to break US laws while calling us fascists and be more empathetic.

 

[Toni]

Hey, I was only using the info on the link I provided. Frankly, I have serious doubts about the $215K per year. No methodology is given so I can't comment. I presented the link the first time so I assumed everybody who was interested would actually perform their own due diligence. My bad.

Here's the link: https://www.statisticbrain.com/prostitution-statistics/

BTW, the estimate of the percentage of prostitutes who were abused as children is the lowest I've seen. Usually the percentage is estimated at 90-95%.

Other tidbits: number of times a prostitute has unprotected sex/year: 250.
Average age a female prostitute becomes a prostitute: 15.

Frankly, I doubt that the majority of sex workers charge $300/client/session. I'd wager that $60 is closer to the mark for most of them.

Since you are being all accountant and all, you also need to consider the expenses that go into maintaining a prostitute in condition fit to work.

Your data is garbage.

1) There's a major hodge-podge of US vs world data there. That's completely unjustified and my first thought would be they had simply gathered tidbits from various sources, but:

2) Note that the "source" is "Source: Statistic Brain Research Institute (Online / Direct Response Mail)". Nothing about how the data was collected. Nothing about error margins. You can make a report this good every time you take a dump and wipe your ass.

3) Note that the majority of tricks in that data are somewhere short of intercourse. That $60 figure makes a lot more sense.

Please note that I linked my source, and disclaimed and disputed some of the claims. Further that I used a calculator to demonstrate that the ‘average income’ of a US prostitution was very likely inflated, even using a $300/trick figure.

I use links so that people can evaluate for themselves the data and any claims or reasoning I assert. Some posters such as yourself will simply make claims or dispute claims or dreasoning or even data without offering any supporting evidence.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hey, I was only using the info on the link I provided. Frankly, I have serious doubts about the $215K per year. No methodology is given so I can't comment. I presented the link the first time so I assumed everybody who was interested would actually perform their own due diligence. My bad.

Here's the link: https://www.statisticbrain.com/prostitution-statistics/

BTW, the estimate of the percentage of prostitutes who were abused as children is the lowest I've seen. Usually the percentage is estimated at 90-95%.

Other tidbits: number of times a prostitute has unprotected sex/year: 250.
Average age a female prostitute becomes a prostitute: 15.

Frankly, I doubt that the majority of sex workers charge $300/client/session. I'd wager that $60 is closer to the mark for most of them.

Since you are being all accountant and all, you also need to consider the expenses that go into maintaining a prostitute in condition fit to work.

Your data is garbage.

1) There's a major hodge-podge of US vs world data there. That's completely unjustified and my first thought would be they had simply gathered tidbits from various sources, but:

2) Note that the "source" is "Source: Statistic Brain Research Institute (Online / Direct Response Mail)". Nothing about how the data was collected. Nothing about error margins. You can make a report this good every time you take a dump and wipe your ass.

3) Note that the majority of tricks in that data are somewhere short of intercourse. That $60 figure makes a lot more sense.

Please note that I linked my source, and disclaimed and disputed some of the claims. Further that I used a calculator to demonstrate that the ‘average income’ of a US prostitution was very likely inflated, even using a $300/trick figure.

I use links so that people can evaluate for themselves the data and any claims or reasoning I assert. Some posters such as yourself will simply make claims or dispute claims or dreasoning or even data without offering any supporting evidence.

I'm saying the quality of those stats is basically zero. Disputing some of the claims simply means you didn't like what they said--the real problem is that none of what they said means anything.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'm saying the quality of those stats is basically zero.

Your claim is pretty unreliable. If you disagree with one of the numbers, do you have a better source of information with a different number?

 

[Toni]

Please note that I linked my source, and disclaimed and disputed some of the claims. Further that I used a calculator to demonstrate that the ‘average income’ of a US prostitution was very likely inflated, even using a $300/trick figure.

I use links so that people can evaluate for themselves the data and any claims or reasoning I assert. Some posters such as yourself will simply make claims or dispute claims or dreasoning or even data without offering any supporting evidence.

I'm saying the quality of those stats is basically zero. Disputing some of the claims simply means you didn't like what they said--the real problem is that none of what they said means anything.

No, disputing some of the claims or data means I actually engaged my reasoning powers (and a calculator), compared some numbers to other data from many sources over many years I’ve been following this issue and then offering up data, source, and my reasoning as transparently as I could.

YOU and some others dispute data and assertions and reasoning because you don’t like them

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

YOU and some others dispute data and assertions and reasoning because you don’t like them

I don't think that's so. We gave you good reasons why the other study you posted is flawed. I'm not bothering to look at this new data you are linking to since you yourself say you don't believe it so there is no point.

 

[laughing dog]

YOU and some others dispute data and assertions and reasoning because you don’t like them

I don't think that's so. We gave you good reasons why the other study you posted is flawed.

Your reasons were flawed - as have been pointed out many times. Demanding perfect data is a rather unattainable standard in these circumstances, but when one uses flawed and imperfect data (as the pro-legalization crowd does) while demanding an unattainable standard from those with whom they disagree, an additional element of hypocrisy arises.

 

[Toni]

YOU and some others dispute data and assertions and reasoning because you don’t like them

I don't think that's so. We gave you good reasons why the other study you posted is flawed. I'm not bothering to look at this new data you are linking to since you yourself say you don't believe it so there is no point.

But I DO think that is what you have done—multiple times and what Loren does continually, often without actually reading my posts and certainly not the links. Rarely is there anything like data or a link to a study to
counter what I’ve posted. And Loren’s clinging to an extremely small and flawed ‘study’ about accidentally legalized prostitution in Rhode Island doesn’t come close to being rigorous or anything other than some supposed correlations. For people who purport to be data driven and tech savvy, there is little evidence of such.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

But I DO think that is what you have done —multiple times and what Loren does continually, often without actually reading my posts and certainly not the links. Rarely is there anything like data or a link to a study to
counter what I’ve posted. And Loren’s clinging to an extremely small and flawed ‘study’ about accidentally legalized prostitution in Rhode Island doesn’t come close to being rigorous or anything other than some supposed correlations. For people who purport to be data driven and tech savvy, there is little evidence of such.

This yet again is projection. What if I told you that this is what YOU have done - multiple times, often without actually reading posts and not engaging in what is said by people in this thread? And why SHOULD anyone read links to data that you say you yourself don't accept? That's just silly. And no, not because you are a woman (I know you'll make that accusation again). You even tried to pass that data off as something I was supporting, as if it was my data when you attacked it. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Moreover, it isn't even relevant to any claims people here have made. I think you are projecting arguments into people they haven't made. I tried to address that above but you didn't respond to that.