It seems Senator Kirk and the Cook Co. States Attorney have their sights on Backpage. I often thought how BP survived while CL adult services perished. Thoughts?

-- Modified on 3/11/2014 5:41:47 PM

Will any providers recognize the guy in the picture?  Too bad we'll never know...

Human nature will not be changed any time soon. People want that they want. And that being said, BP may close down and another site where escorts can advertise will pop up. And senators Kirk and Durbin can both go take a long walk off a short pier.

Maybe the providers can chime in on this. But is trafficking really this epidemic they make it seem in the U.S.?

I swear, if a blonde/white girl goes missing in America, you hear about it for several years, they make "made for TV" movies about it, etc. I can't imagine thousands of girls are being swept up off the streets and forced to work as slaves. It just seems if girls were going missing all the time, you would hear more about it.

I guess it happens overseas, but I can't imagine it's really a huge U.S. issue. I understand there are pimps on BP and I personally don't like that sort of setup, but in all fairness, a pimp/provider setup is not trafficking, it's just pimping.

Anyway, I hope I'm right and trafficking is mostly just a media hype story. But curious if anyone has seen stories/episodes of trafficked girls that make them think this is a huge issue.

That was very insightful, thank you.

Economic slavery exists, but its far bigger than just AMPs. Its not "sexy" to talk about kids and adults forced into agriculture or factory work against their will. So they pretend the sex work is the only problem.  

But just because a woman is asian (or Latina or Bulgarian)  and giving you a happy ending doesn't mean she's a sex slave. My favorite MP is full of mature English-speakers that drive late model cars.  

Frankly, I feel this is a creation of two guaranteed political winners: xenophobia and slut-shaming. I've made the individual decision to avoid sexworkers where I don't feel there's freedom to consent, but that should by my responsibility, not Mark Kirk's.

Politicians always take on hot button issues in order to boost their relevancy, especially during election years.  This is no different.  And once again they try to appeal to public emotion and outrage by using "trafficking" to blanket the whole industry.  Yes trafficking exists, but it is a much smaller percentage of the industry then they say it is.  They know as well as we do that going after a site like BP is just the tip of the iceberg and that they won't ever stop prostitution, internet, street or otherwise.  To really stop trafficking takes actual time, money and law enforcement effort, which they are not willing to commit, so it will be short lived (once again).  It would be nice for once if politicians actually tried to attack real issues at the core, not just be reactionary all the time and band-aid issues.  Time to start a campaign to end politicians.

When they are teenagers with no Adult guidance in their lives, they run away to find someway to feel needed. When they have parents that are into Drugs and Alcohol, the teens are not monitored or watched to make good choices.  

This is why you might not hear about it, most police will not help parents that are on their last rope caring for a rebel teen. The police think they are just acting out.  

Just putting in my two cents  
JC

Thanks for the reply.

I wasn't trying to be dismissive of it, I just got the feeling it was over hyped. Don't get me wrong, I feel that pimping in the traditional sense still involves abuse and coercion, but naming it something else to sound worse and gain attention hurts the cause in the long run because eventually people figure it out, and you lose credibility on the issue. Then people tune out all together. Sort of a boy who cried wolf scenario but with degrees. Like decades ago when people told kids that smoking weed would make you go crazy and be a junkie, then people smoked weed and realized it didn't happen, then they become suspicious of any anti drug message. Inflating the danger always hurts your message in the long run, because people figure it out, then tune out.

 

I became good friends with one of my former ATF's, who in her "real life" worked at a shelter for pimped and trafficked women.  The shelter was very progressive: after getting the girls away from their pimps, pushers, etc. she would teach them to set up a website and work for themselves (only the ones that were still interested in staying in sex work).  Her center was quite busy, and there was no shortage of ladies to be rescued.  Even worse, these ladies not only suffered physical and psychological abuse, but the pimps charged them for housing, food, protection, advertising (ha!), etc. and in most cases the ladies OWED money to the pimps even after working all day and night.    

There is probably a difference between forced prostitution which I suspect is a lot more rare, and what I saw going on in her rescue center.  Most of the ladies that came into the rescue center may have started out in sex work of some kind as a choice (maybe for food, maybe for drugs, or maybe encouraged by a boyfriend to do so) but then got stuck in the cycle that the predatory pimps and traffickers have setup for themselves.  Some foreign women came here knowing they would be sex workers, but were told they would be "free" after paying their "debt" (which of course is never paid since all of the "charges" keep the debt from ever being reduced).  It is a lot worse than just "economic slavery" and that kind of thing does need to be addressed, and is pretty common especially with BP and Craigslist.

So, I don't really have a problem with taking these operations (the pimps and traffickers) down, just like I wouldn't have a problem with taking down a forced labor shop (these exist too, still).   But you really have to be careful because it is so easy for the media and politicians to try to paint all sex work as being a part of that.  Rather than focusing on the evils of pimps and traffickers who lie, cheat, beat, coerce, drug and enslave sex workers  .. the focus of these opportunists is on the sex workers.

The government has nothing better to do then to spend our tax dollars on the sex industry when there are far more other important topics & crisis they could focus that money on...  

Also These sex traffickers need to give it a rest!! Assholes!!!

If providing was just straight out legal, conditions for sex workers would be better. The politicians and churches, including the churches whose clergy have abused and molested tens of thousands of children for decades, are just as, if not more, responsible for the trafficking of children as "pimps."

I don't know anything first hand or anything like that - but yes trafficking is real. I saw the special on the news, they said they busted 30 some people that were basically under age and being pimped. Trafficking is very real, it is just something that most people turn their heads from.  

Personally, I don't use BP anymore because 1. I knew this would happen eventually and 2. it just isn't my kinda crowd.  

So I kinda think it is good that they are doing it. I am all for stopping human trafficking and people being pimped or taken advantage of. As long as they leave us consenting adults alone, then I'm for it.  

Maybe I am just falling for the media hype, but I have just seen way too many trafficking movies to not believe that it is real. "Art imitates life". So if it wasn't happening their wouldn't be movies about it. Whenever I watch a trafficking movie it makes me sick to my stomach. I can sit and watch Saw and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the like, all day and not even flinch. But put on a trafficking movie, or a movie where a young girl is getting raped and I want to vomit.