NFL team owner Robert Kraft was swept up in a bust of a sex-trafficking day spa

[steve_bank]

Trafficking and slavery avers to be common in so called massage parlors. Here in Seattle you can go online ,search on escorts, and get pictures of young Asian women.

If he wanted a real massage he could have gone to a real spa with licensed massage therapists, or paid one to go to him. Nobody goes to those places looking for a 'massage'.

Why don't all these wealthy guys go the traditional route. Find a willing young woman who will exchange lifestyle support for an exclusive sexual and companion relationship. The old term is sugar daddy.

You can go online to sites with live sex with young girls or sex acts for pay in foreign countries. I have not watched any oporn in a long term, once I realized the underlying abuse.

There are legal upscale brothels in Nevada know to be frequented by known people.

 

[RavenSky]

To be clear, this was not a case of a man having sex with a prostitute. This is a case of a guy raping a sex slave. When you go to one of these low end "spas", you know damn well that there's a very, very good chance that the women in there are being trafficked and you are committing an act of rape when you pay their kidnappers to have sex with them.

Kraft had every opportunity to take his business to a high end escort where there's essentially a 100% chance that you're paying a consenting adult in the industry willingly, but that would leave a much clearer trail back to him and he chose to focus on preserving his anonymity by going to the trafficking spot instead of taking advantage of all the other options available. That was a distinct choice on his part and he deserves to be held accountable for it.

This incident is not a discussion of the pros and cons of prostitution. It's a discussion about whether or not it's OK to rape people.

^^^ That

 

[Harry Bosch]

To be clear, this was not a case of a man having sex with a prostitute. This is a case of a guy raping a sex slave. When you go to one of these low end "spas", you know damn well that there's a very, very good chance that the women in there are being trafficked and you are committing an act of rape when you pay their kidnappers to have sex with them.

Kraft had every opportunity to take his business to a high end escort where there's essentially a 100% chance that you're paying a consenting adult in the industry willingly, but that would leave a much clearer trail back to him and he chose to focus on preserving his anonymity by going to the trafficking spot instead of taking advantage of all the other options available. That was a distinct choice on his part and he deserves to be held accountable for it.

This incident is not a discussion of the pros and cons of prostitution. It's a discussion about whether or not it's OK to rape people.

^^^ That

Ditto times 5. This really needs to be called out. There are more sexual slaves today than at any time in history.

 

[Derec]

There are more sexual slaves today than at any time in history.

Easy to make up a stat like that when you define "sex/human trafficking" too broadly.

"Human Trafficking" Has Become a Meaningless Term

The exact origin of the term "sex trafficking" is unclear, but according to Alison Bass, author of Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, it seems to have been developed by anti-prostitution feminists in the 1990s. Bass told me that "trafficking" was used especially to describe the migration of women from the collapsing Soviet Union to the United States. Donna Hughes's seminal 2000 article "The Natasha Trade" defined trafficking specifically as "any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation."

But anti-prostitution activists like Hughes often use “sexual exploitation” to include any kind of prostitution or sex work—in fact, Hughes insists in her article that "trafficking occurs even if the woman consents.” In other words, trafficking can include sex workers who decide to illegally or semi-legally migrate from Eastern Europe to the United States. This describes the majority of women who were said to be "trafficked," according to researchers Robert M. Fuffington and Donna J. Guy. "More often than not," they write in A Global History of Sexuality, "these women have engaged in some form of sex work in their home countries and see work abroad as a chance to improve their circumstances."

This is especially apropos when discussing these Asian massage parlors. According to this overly broad definition, these women are counted as "trafficking victims" regardless of consent, just because they are from places like Korea or China.

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^^^ That

You believe that all sex workers are "victims" anyway.

 

[Derec]

Trafficking and slavery avers to be common in so called massage parlors.

You have to be careful. If you read the Reason article I posted, there isn't necessarily any real trafficking going on at this parlor. It certainly hasn't been demonstrated. And if you read the New Republic article I posted, prohibitionists like to define trafficking very broadly, with basically any immigrant sex worker counting as "trafficking victim" in their eyes.

Here in Seattle you can go online ,search on escorts, and get pictures of young Asian women.

Not surprising. A lot of Asians live on the West Coast generally.

If he wanted a real massage he could have gone to a real spa with licensed massage therapists, or paid one to go to him. Nobody goes to those places looking for a 'massage'.

It depends. I've had good massages with happy endings, but in some places "massage" is just a fig leaf for sure.

Why don't all these wealthy guys go the traditional route. Find a willing young woman who will exchange lifestyle support for an exclusive sexual and companion relationship. The old term is sugar daddy.

It should be personal choice. And sugar daddy/baby relationship is prostitution really. What's the difference.

You can go online to sites with live sex with young girls or sex acts for pay in foreign countries. I have not watched any oporn in a long term, once I realized the underlying abuse.

What abuse? And what do you mean by "young girls"? 18 or 19? What's abusive about young adults making some money?

There are legal upscale brothels in Nevada know to be frequented by known people.

Sex work should be legal in every state.

 

[laughing dog]

You believe that all sex workers are "victims" anyway.

That is utter fucking nonsense. Her response was in response to the specific situation where the "masseuses" were not free to consent. Or do you wish us to assume you knew that, and are tacitly condoning rape?

 

[Derec]

To be clear, this was not a case of a man having sex with a prostitute. This is a case of a guy raping a sex slave.

First of all, 'rape' is a strong word. It should be reserved for people who know that the girls they have sex with are sex slaves. There is no indication of that here.
In fact, there is not any indication that women at this particular parlor were "sex slaves". Read the Reason article I posted. Furthermore, Kraft got his handjob form a manager. Even if there was trafficking, a manager would not be a victim of it.

When you go to one of these low end "spas", you know damn well that there's a very, very good chance that the women in there are being trafficked and you are committing an act of rape when you pay their kidnappers to have sex with them.

You need to be very careful with terms like "trafficking". Prohibitionists define it such that any immigrant sex worker is considered a victim of trafficking, consent be damned (see New Republic article I posted).
If somebody is forcing people to be sex workers against their will, they should be punished severely. However, you would have to show it that the women were indeed forced to enter and stay in the sex business. And I do not see any real evidence that the spa in Jupiter did that.

Kraft had every opportunity to take his business to a high end escort where there's essentially a 100% chance that you're paying a consenting adult in the industry willingly, but that would leave a much clearer trail back to him and he chose to focus on preserving his anonymity by going to the trafficking spot instead of taking advantage of all the other options available. That was a distinct choice on his part and he deserves to be held accountable for it.

As if high end escort services are not targeted by vice cops!

This incident is not a discussion of the pros and cons of prostitution. It's a discussion about whether or not it's OK to rape people.

It's definitely not ok to rape people. But it's equally not ok to assume Kraft was raping somebody just because the women are immigrants from China or because the prices are not quite astronomical for your liking. Should only rich men be allowed to get their rocks off with sex workers? Because you seem to think only "high end" escort services ($500/h or so) are legitimate.

 

[Derec]

That is utter fucking nonsense.

It's not. She and Toni and probably you too think of all sex workers as "victims".

Her response was in response to the specific situation where the "masseuses" were not free to consent.

That has not been shown. In fact, according to reason, the only charges filed against anybody in this case are garden variety prostitution charges, rather than any charges involving forcing anybody to perform sexual acts against their will.

Or do you wish us to assume you knew that, and are tacitly condoning rape?

I know what she was replying to. I called bullshit on her response because she is a prohibitionist anyway.
Nobody here condones rape. But getting a hand job from a masseuse is not "rape" just because the masseuse is Chinese.

 

[laughing dog]

It's not. She and Toni and probably you too think of all sex workers as "victims".

That is as valid as you think it is impossible to rape a woman.

That has not been shown. In fact, according to reason, the only charges filed against anybody in this case are garden variety prostitution charges, rather than any charges involving forcing anybody to perform sexual acts against their will.

So?

I know what she was replying to. I called bullshit on her response because she is a prohibitionist anyway.
Nobody here condones rape. But getting a hand job from a masseuse is not "rape" just because the masseuse is Chinese.

I call bullshit on your response because you are an inveterate rape apologist.

 

[Toni]

To be clear, this was not a case of a man having sex with a prostitute. This is a case of a guy raping a sex slave. When you go to one of these low end "spas", you know damn well that there's a very, very good chance that the women in there are being trafficked and you are committing an act of rape when you pay their kidnappers to have sex with them.

Kraft had every opportunity to take his business to a high end escort where there's essentially a 100% chance that you're paying a consenting adult in the industry willingly, but that would leave a much clearer trail back to him and he chose to focus on preserving his anonymity by going to the trafficking spot instead of taking advantage of all the other options available. That was a distinct choice on his part and he deserves to be held accountable for it.

This incident is not a discussion of the pros and cons of prostitution. It's a discussion about whether or not it's OK to rape people.

^^^ That

Ditto times 5. This really needs to be called out. There are more sexual slaves today than at any time in history.

No no no no no! Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Kamala Harris is a hypocrite and I am so ill informed to believe that there are sex slaves!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Derec]

That is as valid as you think it is impossible to rape a woman.

I never said anything approaching that. Prohibitionists, however, always claim that all sex workers are victims. That's their entire shtick.

So?

It shows that it is not even alleged that these women were sex slaves. So why do people in this thread continue to assume they were?

I call bullshit on your response because you are an inveterate rape apologist.

And you are an invertebrate (not a typo, you are a slug!) liar. I never defended rape.

 

[Toni]

I never said anything approaching that. Prohibitionists, however, always claim that all sex workers are victims. That's their entire shtick.


It shows that it is not even alleged that these women were sex slaves. So why do people in this thread continue to assume they were?

I call bullshit on your response because you are an inveterate rape apologist.

And you are an invertebrate (not a typo, you are a slug!) liar. I never defended rape.

Hey, Derec: Go back and look at your response #27 in this thread.

ld has a good point about you being a rape apologist.

 

[Derec]

No no no no no! Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Kamala Harris is a hypocrite and I am so ill informed to believe that there are sex slaves!!!!!!!!!!!

Read the New Republic article. Prohibitionists have defined "sex trafficking" so broadly that it doesn't mean anything at all.
Sure, there exist sex slaves, but you have not shown any of the women at this spa have been sex slaves.

Consider something else too: if the authorities really had believed that these women were enslaved, it would have been very cruel and callous to sit on the place just so they could arrest 150 customers on misdemeanor solicitation charges. Don't you think that if they had suspected sex slavery was going on that they should have shut it down right away and freed those women?

But no, the initial claims of "trafficking" do not appear to hold water anyway. But to you they are "slaves" because they are sex workers and you are a prohibitionist.

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Hey, Derec: Go back and look at your response #27 in this thread.

ld has a good point about you being a rape apologist.

Nothing remotely defending rape in that post, or any other. Saying that non-rape should not be called rape is not defending rape. Note, Kraft was only charged with solicitation. The owners of the spa have only been charged with prostitution related offenses, not any offenses that involve keeping people imprisoned or forcing them to do anything.

By the way, if somebody has sex with a sex worker and she turns out to be forced into it without the client's knowledge, I do not believe that this is rape or that he did anything wrong. I mean, would you extend it to non-rape situations?
If a villain tells a woman that if she does not have sex with X he will kill her family, and she goes to a bar X frequents and ends up sleeping with X, is X rapist because the woman had sex with him under duress or does your overly broad definition of "rape" only apply to customers of sex workers?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The questions about the police making no sex trafficking charges and making no effort to free the "victims of sex trafficking" are good questions. Of course, it's much easier to accuse Derec of being a "rape apologist" (a libelous claim which can be made with impunity given the mod bias here) than to actually address such points.

The moral outrage seems oddly constrained to this guy going to a rub and tug, and oddly we see no focus here on the actual enslavers and abusers of trafficking victims. Same happened in the other thread. I wonder why that is.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The questions about the police making no sex trafficking charges and making no effort to free the "victims of sex trafficking" are good questions. Of course, it's much easier to accuse Derec of being a "rape apologist" (a libelous claim which can be made with impunity given the mod bias here) than to actually address such points.

The moral outrage seems oddly constrained to this guy going to a rub and tug, and oddly we see no focus here on the actual enslavers and abusers of trafficking victims. Same happened in the other thread. I wonder why that is.

Well, those are two completely different issues. The police deprioritizing a crime isn't an excuse to commit that crime. For instance, if the cops decide that home robbery isn't a real problem so they're not going to assign officers to investigate reports of homes getting robbed, you're still just as much of an asshole if you break into people's homes and steal their stuff. The fact that there's a much lower chance of your getting arrested for it doesn't give you a justification to do it.

Similarly, the cops not giving a shit about the rape of sex slaves so that there's little personal risk involved in deciding to rape sex slaves doesn't change the fact that a customer is raping a sex slave. The condemnation of that behavior is real and legitimate regardless of what else is happening around the industry.

 

[Toni]

No no no no no! Haven't you been reading all the threads about how Kamala Harris is a hypocrite and I am so ill informed to believe that there are sex slaves!!!!!!!!!!!

Read the New Republic article. Prohibitionists have defined "sex trafficking" so broadly that it doesn't mean anything at all.
Sure, there exist sex slaves, but you have not shown any of the women at this spa have been sex slaves.

I thought you believed in using only 'good sources.' I guess by good sources, you mean ones you agree with.

Consider something else too: if the authorities really had believed that these women were enslaved, it would have been very cruel and callous to sit on the place just so they could arrest 150 customers on misdemeanor solicitation charges. Don't you think that if they had suspected sex slavery was going on that they should have shut it down right away and freed those women?

I do think that, but I also think that they would not have shut the place down if they didn't care that there was sex slavery going on or if that was out of the purview of their arrest warrants.

But no, the initial claims of "trafficking" do not appear to hold water anyway. But to you they are "slaves" because they are sex workers and you are a prohibitionist.

Your over emotional responses do not reflect the truth of the situation and are not a reflection of my opinions, no matter how many names you wish to call me.

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Hey, Derec: Go back and look at your response #27 in this thread.

ld has a good point about you being a rape apologist.

Nothing remotely defending rape in that post, or any other. Saying that non-rape should not be called rape is not defending rape.

You wrote the following:

First of all, 'rape' is a strong word. It should be reserved for people who know that the girls they have sex with are sex slaves. There is no indication of that here.

I won't address the fact that you are referring to the sex workers as girls and therefore acknowledging that they are not adults but I will address that rape is rape even if the rapist chooses not to acknowledge the legal status of his victim.

By the way, if somebody has sex with a sex worker and she turns out to be forced into it without the client's knowledge, I do not believe that this is rape or that he did anything wrong.

This is an example of you being a rape-apologist. According to you, the person who is enslaved must duly inform all those who pay money to rape her that she is indeed unwilling and/or under age or else the 'client' is to be held blameless. That's not how slavery works.

I mean, would you extend it to non-rape situations?

Say what???

If a villain tells a woman that if she does not have sex with X he will kill her family, and she goes to a bar X frequents and ends up sleeping with X, is X rapist because the woman had sex with him under duress or does your overly broad definition of "rape" only apply to customers of sex workers?

Forced sex is rape. It is rape whether drugs, alcohol or blackmail or threats of violence or other serious threats are used to induce cooperation.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

By the way, if somebody has sex with a sex worker and she turns out to be forced into it without the client's knowledge, I do not believe that this is rape or that he did anything wrong.

This is an example of you being a rape-apologist. According to you, the person who is enslaved must duly inform all those who pay money to rape her that she is indeed unwilling and/or under age or else the 'client' is to be held blameless. That's not how slavery works.

To add to this point, I'd say that the criteria should not be whether or not one "knows" that the person he's having sex with is a sex slave but whether he has a "reasonable expectation to believe" that the person he's having sex with is a sex slave. When you go into one of these low end spas, you go in with the previous knowledge about how they are often fronts for human trafficking and the conditions which the workers are subjected to and the threats made to their families back home if they don't perform. That is commonly known information which anyone who has done even the most trivially basic research into the industry is aware of.

When you have this information and you still decide to frequent them, you are doing so fully aware that there is a very good chance that you will be raping a sex slave that day. If you happen to get lucky and not end up raping a sex slave, that's like shooting your gun into a crowd and accidentally hitting a serial killer. Sure, it randomly worked out that you weren't the bad guy but that was in spite of your actions, not because of them.

 

[southernhybrid]

First of all, the legalization of sex work doesn't stop trafficking. At best it decreases it by about 10 percent, according to numerous articles that I've read. But, that's not the topic here. The topic is about sex trafficking of Asian women in what are often referred to as "massage parlors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-human-trafficking.html

She was 49, a recent immigrant and deeply in debt to a loan shark back home in China when she answered an employment ad three years ago that promised thousands of dollars a month, but offered no job description. She realized too late that she had been tricked into working at a massage parlor in Flushing, Queens, where besides kneading backs, she was expected to sexually service up to a dozen men a day.

Some of the clients were violent, and the boss charged $10 a day for her to sleep on a sofa in a room at the parlor where rats nibbled on her food. “The customers were very terrible,” said the woman, who, ashamed of the stigma of her former profession, asked that her name not be used. “After you perform a service, they would find an excuse to take the money away.” They would, she said, “do even worse things.”

In strip malls across the country, neon signs and brightly colored placards promise hot stones, acupuncture and shiatsu with photos of women or couples receiving relaxing shoulder rubs. But a traditionally Asian form of therapeutic relaxation with deep roots in big-city Chinatowns has spun off a different kind of massage parlor that has little to do with traditional remedies. It has exploded into a $3 billion-a-year sex industry that relies on pervasive secrecy, close-knit ownership rings and tens of thousands of mostly foreign women ensnared in a form of modern indentured servitude.

The frequently middle-aged women who work in parlors with names like Orchids of Asia and Rainbow Spa are often struggling to pay off high debts to family members, loan sharks, labor traffickers and lawyers who help them file phony asylum claims. In some cases, their passports are taken and their illegal immigration status keeps them further in the shadows, with some of them rotated every 10 days to two weeks between spas operated by the same owners. Forced to pay for their own supplies and even their own condoms, many women must sleep on the same massage tables where they service customers and cook on hot plates in cramped kitchens or on back steps.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/robert-kraft-trafficking-florida.html?module=inline

JUPITER, Fla. — Something was amiss at a massage parlor near one of the wealthiest barrier islands in Florida.

First, a health inspector spotted several suitcases. Then she noticed an unusual stash of clothing, food and bedding. A young woman who was supposed to be a massage therapist spoke little English and seemed unusually nervous.

The inspector reported her findings to the police. They would eventually learn that her suspicions were right: The women were not just employees: They were living in the day spa, sleeping on massage tables and cooking meals on hot plates in the back. Some of them had had their passports confiscated.

The inspector’s suspicions prompted a sprawling investigation across four Florida counties and two states — Florida and New York — over nearly eight months, resulting in the disruption of what authorities say was a multimillion-dollar human-trafficking and prostitution operation.

The sweep led to criminal charges last week against several rich, prominent men, including Robert K. Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots; John Havens, former president and chief operating officer of Citigroup; and John Childs, founder of the private equity firm J.W. Childs Associates.

Beyond the lurid celebrity connection, however, lies the wretched story of women who the police believe were brought from China under false promises of new lives and legitimate spa jobs. Instead, they found themselves trapped in the austere back rooms of strip-mall brothels — trafficking victims trapped among South Florida’s rich and famous.

“I don’t believe they were told they were going to work in massage parlors seven days a week, having unprotected sex with up to 1,000 men a year,” said Sheriff William D. Snyder of Martin County, whose office opened the investigation. “We saw them eating on hot plates in the back. There were no washing machines. They were sleeping on the massage tables.”

The women were shuttled from place to place — not only to nearby parlors but also across the state, said Sheriff Snyder. Sheriff’s deputies in Orange County, Fla., became involved in the investigation when women from the state’s Treasure Coast region were traced back to the Orlando area.

So, apparently there was plenty of evidence that the "massage parlor" was a cover up for a massive sex trafficking operation. I'm not opposed to well regulated legalization of sex work, but what happened in Florida was a totally different thing and it's very hard for me to believe that the men who used and abused these women didn't have a good idea of what was going on there. In fact, they would have to be clueless idiots not to have known or at least suspected what was going on, which in that case, they should have reported their suspicions to the police.

 

[laughing dog]

I never said anything approaching that

Yes you have.

It shows that it is not even alleged that these women were sex slaves.

That is utterly false. For all you know, the police are gathering more evidence to make that charge or that they have forwarded that evidence to state or federal authorities or that it is too difficult to convict someone on that charge.

So why do people in this thread continue to assume they were?

Probably from the reports that they had no access to transportation, and ate and slept there with no days off. Why do some people in this thread assume they are not?

I never defended rape.

Your denial of these sex slaves is an obvious example of defending rape.

 

[Toni]

First of all, the legalization of sex work doesn't stop trafficking. At best it decreases it by about 10 percent, according to numerous articles that I've read. But, that's not the topic here. The topic is about sex trafficking of Asian women in what are often referred to as "massage parlors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/massage-parlors-human-trafficking.html



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/robert-kraft-trafficking-florida.html?module=inline

The sweep led to criminal charges last week against several rich, prominent men, including Robert K. Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots; John Havens, former president and chief operating officer of Citigroup; and John Childs, founder of the private equity firm J.W. Childs Associates.

Beyond the lurid celebrity connection, however, lies the wretched story of women who the police believe were brought from China under false promises of new lives and legitimate spa jobs. Instead, they found themselves trapped in the austere back rooms of strip-mall brothels — trafficking victims trapped among South Florida’s rich and famous.

“I don’t believe they were told they were going to work in massage parlors seven days a week, having unprotected sex with up to 1,000 men a year,” said Sheriff William D. Snyder of Martin County, whose office opened the investigation. “We saw them eating on hot plates in the back. There were no washing machines. They were sleeping on the massage tables.”

The women were shuttled from place to place — not only to nearby parlors but also across the state, said Sheriff Snyder. Sheriff’s deputies in Orange County, Fla., became involved in the investigation when women from the state’s Treasure Coast region were traced back to the Orlando area.

So, apparently there was plenty of evidence that the "massage parlor" was a cover up for a massive sex trafficking operation. I'm not opposed to well regulated legalization of sex work, but what happened in Florida was a totally different thing and it's very hard for me to believe that the men who used and abused these women didn't have a good idea of what was going on there. In fact, they would have to be clueless idiots not to have known or at least suspected what was going on, which in that case, they should have reported their suspicions to the police.

What I believe is that the men didn't even think about the women they used and abused at all. Whether they were legal workers, whether they were willing participants didn't figure into the equation for the men. They weren't thinking about anything other than their own happy ending.

But if they did think about it, I don't believe it would have changed the men's actions at all, unless it was to demand more 'service' for less money.