Kamala the hypocrite

[Toni]

Oh, you definitely are.

Yes, we have discussed this several times, and yet you do not learn.

I always assumed that legalizing prostitution would reduce the very serious negative impacts of sex work on sex workers but my readings don't support that.

That's because you tend to read prohibitionist propaganda that defines "trafficking" as much broader than forcing somebody into prostitution. For example, one of the sources you posted a while counted all women who move to a different country and start working as a sex worker (including those who do it by choice) as trafficking victims. That obviously egregiously exaggerates sex trafficking. Imagine if same criteria were used for food service industry! You'd have to conclude most workers were trafficked.

Second, legalizing sex work gives law enforcement better opportunity to fight sex trafficking because they are no longer busy setting up stings to catch consenting adults. But it is still up to local law enforcement and prosecutors to use those savings to increase enforcement of real sex trafficking. But don't use local government neglect of this as an argument why people should be prosecuted just for engaging in sex work.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly, what if legalization does not reduce sex trafficking? Not ruining lives of people not involved in sex trafficking under the guise of fighting it is a good in itself. Increasing freedoms of people is a good in itself. That's what being a liberal is all about, supporting freedoms of others even if you yourself do not engage in that lifestyle and even if you disagree with it.

And yes, I've read about all sorts of different models. That's why I oppose it.

No, you oppose because you are moralizing sex work as distinct of any other human endeavor.

That's why I think it is immoral: not because I believe that sex outside the sanctity of marriage (or some such) is bad but because selling sex involves what I deem unacceptable risks to usually very young workers who are not necessarily willing. Or who didn't enter that line of work willingly but having been forced into that life for much of their adolescence simply cannot think of themselves in other ways or as good for anything else.

You may not think sex outside of marriage is immoral, but I think you have strong feeling that sex in exchange for money is immoral. That's why you oppose it so strongly, completely out of proportion to reality. You accept that in other industries abuse will happen, and that it is unavoidable to a certain extent. You may seek better regulation or better enforcement, but you do not wish to criminalize any other industry except sex industry. I think that is because you are very emotionally invested in that issue.

I posted multiple links, Derec, which stated the words that BackPage would guide customers and certainly accepted from customers that indicate the person being prostituted was underage. Come on: if I can figure it out, I'm sure that any employee of Back Page could as well, not to mention the customers looking for young girls.

I said that I would look at those links once you have addressed the problems I have identified with your interpretation of the WaPo article - it doesn't say what you claimed itsaid . You don't get to engage in a Gish Gallop of links.

You are coming from the perspective of someone who uses those services, not someone who is providing those services. You don't have the same perspective as a prostitute. Please don't pretend that you do have.

Neither do you for that matter. Most sex workers oppose your prohibitionist attitude.
But I did not claim I had the sex worker perspective. I was saying that my perspective is not illegitimate just because I occasionally engage sex workers.

Derec, the average age at which a prostitute begins to work in the sex industry is 15. The words average and 15 should horrify you. It does me.

This sentence of yours was in response to my analogy with keeping gay sex illegal. By the way, same "think of the children" nonsense has been used to propagandize against gay sex as well.
To comment on what you wrote about the average:
- [citation needed], preferably not from a prohibitionist propaganda piece
- If average is really 15, we should take measures to prevent that.
- Even if the average is 15, how does that justify persecuting adult sex workers and their clients?

A 16 year old is a minor. In many states, a 16 year old cannot consent to sex and in other states can only consent to sex with someone within a very narrow age difference--not adults. This is to recognize that teens have sex with each other but a teen having sex with an adult is in an inherently unequal position and is extremely likely to be exploited and used for the adult's purposes rather than allowed to grow up and develop into an adult as they should be.

That has zero to do with my point. Which was that there is a difference between a minor being forced by somebody to engage in sex work and a minor deciding to engage in sex work herself. I do not think a 16 year old should be allowed to be a sex worker, but at the same time only the first one is a sex trafficking victim. So not even age can prove that a person is victim of sex trafficking.

A 16 year old may have secondary sex characteristics and may menstruate but a 16 year old is not physically mature. Certainly not mentally, intellectually, cognitively, socially or intellectually mature. They ALL deserve the chance to grow up and get a decent education and enough nurturing and guidance to make decent decisions for themselves.

Most 16 year olds are physically mature, but you are right on mentally. Again, I do not think a 16 year old should be allowed to engage in sex work. I am just saying that if a 16 year old makes a profile selling sex services by herself, who exactly is trafficking her?

Derec, I don't understand why you equate pederasts with gay people as though that is actually part of a continuum.

I am not. I am saying that many people have conflated pederasty and homosexuality in order to argue against homosexuality just like you conflate child sex trafficking with adult sex work.

Pederasty is simply a part of child prostitution, albeit often without bothering to actually pay the abused boy.

As you acknowledged in the second part of your sentence, the term is not about prostitution. It is child abuse of boys by men. It has little to do with homosexuality in general, but it has been connected with homosexuality for propaganda purposes. Just like you do with child trafficking and adult sex work.

Boys as well as girls are turned out or are forced to work as prostitutes BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO BE HIRED FOR OTHER WORK and are on the streets because they ran away (often from sexual abuse), were thrown away (again, abuse is a common theme) or were abandoned for a variety of reasons. They should not have to place their bodies and their future reproductive health on the line for someone else's sexual pleasure.

I do not think you will find anybody here who disagrees.
At the same time, it is wrong to use existence of child abuse by gay men to condemn gay men or gay sex in general.
Just like it is wrong to use existence of child prostitution to condemn all sex work and people who engage in it.

You don't want to read about what these kids go through? That's on you. Because you'd rather be able to keep your fantasies alive than deal with reality.

Again, I will read those links as soon as we deal with the first link you posted.

Note also that I have, before it got shut down, browsed through plenty of listings on Backpage. I have not seen any advertisements for minors. I don't deny some of them existed, but they are a small percentage of the overall volume. You have harmed adult sex workers, who now have more difficult time contacting prospective clients, to ineffectually deal with a problem which, albeit real, represented a very small fraction of the Backpage sex ad volume.

Probably gonna try to reply to the rest of this thread tomorrow. And I hope you will finally deal with your misinterpretation of the WaPo article so I can read the others...

I'm not going into this with you.

The average age of an individual at the time they enter the sex industry is 15.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Here's a different analogy. The Catholic Church has a lot of problem priests. Therefore, they should enact policies to stop the problems of child molesting, if it means banning something such as the celibacy doctrine, then so be it.

The better analogy would be that there are pedophile priests, so we should ban Catholicism, shut down the catholic church, and arrest the Pope when next he visits.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Here's a different analogy. The Catholic Church has a lot of problem priests. Therefore, they should enact policies to stop the problems of child molesting, if it means banning something such as the celibacy doctrine, then so be it.

The better analogy would be that there are pedophile priests, so we should ban Catholicism, shut down the catholic church, and arrest the Pope when next he visits.

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad. Saying priests must be married would be an overreach that is not too broad.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Here's a different analogy. The Catholic Church has a lot of problem priests. Therefore, they should enact policies to stop the problems of child molesting, if it means banning something such as the celibacy doctrine, then so be it.

The better analogy would be that there are pedophile priests, so we should ban Catholicism, shut down the catholic church, and arrest the Pope when next he visits.

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad. Saying priests must be married would be an overreach that is not too broad.

But that's working with the assumption that priests not being able to have sex is a key component in child molestation. I don't see why that would be the case. For instance, the Southern Baptists and a number of other institutions also have a child molestation and cover up problem, but their ministers are both allowed and encouraged to get married. Minor league sports have a child molestation and cover up problem, but the coaches involved don't take any vows of celibacy.

The Catholics just seem to be a larger organization than the rest with a better ability to cover things up and move abusers around.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad. Saying priests must be married would be an overreach that is not too broad.

But that's working with the assumption that priests not being able to have sex is a key component in child molestation. I don't see why that would be the case. For instance, the Southern Baptists and a number of other institutions also have a child molestation and cover up problem, but their ministers are both allowed and encouraged to get married. Minor league sports have a child molestation and cover up problem, but the coaches involved don't take any vows of celibacy.

The Catholics just seem to be a larger organization than the rest with a better ability to cover things up and move abusers around.

Solving a problem and mitigating it are two different things. Banning prostitution wouldn't solve the problem of slavery either.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Here's a different analogy. The Catholic Church has a lot of problem priests. Therefore, they should enact policies to stop the problems of child molesting, if it means banning something such as the celibacy doctrine, then so be it.

The better analogy would be that there are pedophile priests, so we should ban Catholicism, shut down the catholic church, and arrest the Pope when next he visits.

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad. Saying priests must be married would be an overreach that is not too broad.

That's the whole point of the analogy and why it is apt. Banning all prostitution to shut down underage prostitution and forced prostitution; Banning all Catholicism to shut down pedophile priests.

The "Priests must be married" thing would be more analogous to "Prostitutes must be licensed" or something.

We're talking about making a whole industry (prostitution) illegal, not regulating it or requiring something specific of its practitioners (ie, they get married or licensed).

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad. Saying priests must be married would be an overreach that is not too broad.

But that's working with the assumption that priests not being able to have sex is a key component in child molestation. I don't see why that would be the case. For instance, the Southern Baptists and a number of other institutions also have a child molestation and cover up problem, but their ministers are both allowed and encouraged to get married. Minor league sports have a child molestation and cover up problem, but the coaches involved don't take any vows of celibacy.

The Catholics just seem to be a larger organization than the rest with a better ability to cover things up and move abusers around.

Solving a problem and mitigating it are two different things. Banning prostitution wouldn't solve the problem of slavery either.

But you'd need to demonstrate that the actions taken to mitigate the problem would actually mitigate it. For instance, would allowing priests to get married be the equivalent of requiring seatbelt use to lower accident fatalities (a rational solution which actually impacts the problem it's designed to solve) or would it be the equivalent of building a wall across the Mexican border to lower illegal immigration and drug trafficking (an irrational solution which doesn't actually impact the problem it's designed to solve)?

Similarly, sex slavery is still a big issue in all the places where prostitution is banned and all the sex workers' rights groups seem to be of the opinion that it's the worst and most dangerous way to try and regulate the industry. Take the rub-and-tug places like where Kraft was just arrested in. Up here in Toronto, those places are licensed by the city and inspected to ensure everything is above board and the ladies there are in constant contact with regulators and police. Down in Florida, there were a bunch of women locked in a room, sleeping on dirty mattresses and eating off of hot plates on the balcony while Triad members are a phone call away to kill their family back in China if they get out of line. Now, I'm certainly not trying to imply that the latter type of place doesn't exist up here, but there are other options available if consenting adults want to have sex without the whole "Well, I guess I'll rape a sex slave today" thing added in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm pretty sure that anybody willing to use their brains would know with absolute certainty that I oppose all forced labor. Despite what my kids might have said about 20 years ago, in reference to their household chores.

1) Who is saying you support forced labor? This sounds like a strawman.

2) You suffer from a very common failure--mixing up the intent of a position with the effect of the position. I have been saying that your position about prostitution has the actual effect of harming women even though that is not your intention.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not going into this with you.

The average age of an individual at the time they enter the sex industry is 15.

Even if true that has little to do with Backpage. Those are girls who ran away from home and fell under the control of a pimp. Those aren't the ones that are going to be on Backpage.

 

[Toni]

I'm not going into this with you.

The average age of an individual at the time they enter the sex industry is 15.

Even if true that has little to do with Backpage. Those are girls who ran away from home and fell under the control of a pimp. Those aren't the ones that are going to be on Backpage.

Yes. They were.

What underage girls do you think Backpage was advertising?

 

[Toni]

I'm pretty sure that anybody willing to use their brains would know with absolute certainty that I oppose all forced labor. Despite what my kids might have said about 20 years ago, in reference to their household chores.

1) Who is saying you support forced labor? This sounds like a strawman.

2) You suffer from a very common failure--mixing up the intent of a position with the effect of the position. I have been saying that your position about prostitution has the actual effect of harming women even though that is not your intention.

You suffer from a delusion that makes you believe that you can identify other people's problems while you are 100% blind to the fact that you are the one with a lot of issues. A lot a lot. A lot a lot a lot.

You work on you. How about that?

 

[Derec]

So, it looks like Kamala Harris or somebody in her campaign is lurking on here.
Kamala Harris thinks sex work should be ‘decriminalized’

She is still wrong for FOSTA and shutting down Backpage and other advertisers, but it's a start. I guess I am no longer #neverKamala, cautiously.

 

[Derec]

And two minutes after you leave, the pimp comes in and takes the money, gives the hooker a "bump" of heroine and tells her to get back to work.

What "heroine"? Wonder Woman or Cpt. Marvel?
But seriously, in that case the pimp should be arrested. Same if any other worker is exploited.

Yeah, that's a real consensual relationship. But of course, you're only favoring independent hookers, right? So how do you verify?

How do you verify the people who picked or cooked your food were not coerced? Best ban all food business too!

 

[Derec]

Agreed. But there is a certain hypocrisy factor to it. Its like when a Republican "Family Values" senator got caught having gay sex in the 90s.

Not sure which Senator you have in mind, but I do recall Larry "wide stance" Craig from the 2000s. Or that well-known pastor who did meth with gay escorts.

 

[Derec]

Stop joking about it. Do it. It would work. Let Trump run against himself until then. The anti-trump sentiment would be high and it wouldn't much matter who you put up against him.

Not nearly that extreme, but isn't that what Dems did (inadvertently) by nominating Clinton? That governor from a backwater state of Arkansas was little known and managed to fly under the radar for most of the campaign season. He didn't start winning a lot of states until second week of March.

 

[Derec]

Backpages was a business run by people who can make choices. Vackpages refused to obey the law. Telephones and the internet are technology that makes no choices and cannot refuse to obey laws. Hence your analogy fails.

Not Backpages. Not Vackpages. It's Backpage. Singular, like laughing dog and not laughing dogs.

And the whole point of Backpage was user-generated ads. FOSTA changed the law to make hosts of internet content liable for stuff users post on it. Dan Savage summed up some of the ill effects of FOSTA on internet freedom going beyond ads for sex work, but he is horrible of citing sources during his monologues. But I do know Electronic Frontier Foundation is very much opposed to that legislation.

 

[Derec]

That is unproven - repeating an unproven claim does not make it any more valid. She responded specifically to the call to ban late term abortions. There is no evidence she has adopted this a general principle.

She invoked a general principle. That is proven by the tweet itself.
It was hypocritical precisely because she hadn't adopted it.
However, there is now some evidence she is evolving on the issue. Obviously somebody on her campaign is reading here.

 

[Derec]

I'm pretty sure that anybody willing to use their brains would know with absolute certainty that I oppose all forced labor.

And yet you do not demand that participants in any other industry be criminalized even if they themselves do not engage in forced labor.

Which, in fact, is one of the reasons that I oppose prostitution and believe that Harris was absolutely right to go after Back Pages.

I think she was very wrong, and her reasoning "it's an online brothel" was also wrong. However, she seems to be evolving a little on the issue, to her credit.

I guess that you, like Derec, are uninterested in actually reading links I posted about girls who were trafficked.

I do not deny there is trafficking. But it is also exaggerated by those who want to ban sex work for other reasons.
That said, I have no problem that people who force people into prostitution (or any other work) should be prosecuted. But that is very different than what you demand.

Why do you (and Derec) think that the sex industry is a special case/exception?

We do not. It should be treated as any other industry. Regulate sensibly. Prosecute real wrongdoers diligently. But leave regular folks alone.

 

[Derec]

The operative phrase "just like" is false. It isn't just like.

I say it is. Busy-bodies trying to police people's sexual autonomy.

Adult men are adults who have an equal relationship and then consent to actions between themselves.

Many relationships and hookups there is desperation (people pairing off around closing time or whatever) and imbalance of power/wealth.

Prostitution starts with an imbalance in relationship where a "consumer" wants something, may be desperate to get it and a "worker" either is also desperate to get something such as drug addicts or doesn't want it at all such as people trapped or trafficked, including children or immigrants.

What's wrong with "wanting something"? As long as one can decide for themselves what to do to get what they want.

And you basically admit the dishonesty I have pointed out before - that people from other countries are automatically counted as "trafficked" regardless of whether they are engaging in sex work freely or not. Why don't you do that with other industries? Many immigrants work in food service, incl. illegal immigrants. Are they all "trafficking victims" or do you reserve that for immigrants who give blow jobs even if they freely choose to do that for money?

You even go so far as to lump immigrants together with children, as if they did not have adult agency.

For example, this business with the Patriots owner. Chinese immigrants trapped.

Yes, let's talk about Kraft. He was charged with solicitation. That in itself should not be a crime. The state is not even alleging he is connected to any trafficking.
Now, if there is any trafficking going on, perpetrators should be perpetrators should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But simply having Chinese immigrant masseuses/prostitutes does not mean they were trafficked. The question should be - were they forced or not?
Note that while the Florida prosecutors still maintain there was trafficking, they are saying the women Kraft was getting happy endings from were not trafficked.
And, if there were really trafficking victims here, it is quite perverse for police to not free these women right away, but instead to sit on the joint for months just so they could ensnare 150 customers. It would be like police was sitting on a cocaine ring where people are forced to work as cutters and mules, just so they could catch more end users.

By the way, if Kraft is convicted, I hope he pursues the case all the way to SCOTUS. A decision saying that governments cannot ban consensual adult sex work called Kraft v. Florida would sit nicely next to other privacy rights rulings like Lawrence v. Texas, Roe v. Wade or Griswold v. Connecticut.

A lot of "consumers" of back page were also victims of these fake male pimps because the consumers would get taken for a ride, trapped, and money stolen, lucky to get away with their lives.

Some people selling furniture were also robbed when selling on these ad sites. Obviously selling items should be criminalized, because there is no other way to go after bad apples.

This:

A study of 200 street prostitutes documented a high prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in their family of origin, during the drift into prostitution and as part of prostitution.

Note that this is about street prostitutes, lowest rung of the industry. How many people on the bottom of other industries have similar problems?
And should people using drugs or drinking too much alcohol not have a chance to earn money? Is drug addicts and alcoholics working evidence that that whole industry should be banned?

is not equivalent to gay men.

Not that different really.
Should gay sex be banned because of a correlation with alcohol and drug use too?

Here's a different analogy. The Catholic Church has a lot of problem priests. Therefore, they should enact policies to stop the problems of child molesting, if it means banning something such as the celibacy doctrine, then so be it.

Better analogy would be wanting to ban Catholicism. Both are overly broad responses to a problem that harm many more people than they help.

 

[Derec]

I'm not going into this with you.

Because you can't.

The average age of an individual at the time they enter the sex industry is 15.

Assuming that this stat is true (and I doubt it very much), what does that have to do with my argument?
I do not propose allowing 15 year olds to enter sex industry. Note that prohibition, which you support, has not prevented minors from doing sex work. So why do you think continuing to persecute people who hire for example a 25 year old grown ass woman will help any 15 year olds?

- - - Updated - - -

No that isn't a better analogy because while it is overreaching it is far too broad.

Banning consensual adult sex work is also overreaching and far too broad. So the analogy fits perfectly.