Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds. – Samuel Johnson
In physics, every action results in an equal and opposite reaction. But in human relations, actions often result in vast overreactions. Such was the case with Hollywood denizen Ashton Kutcher, who had a very public meltdown on Twitter late last Wednesday night in response to a Village Voice article which criticized the spurious “child sex trafficking” mythology he and his wife have used to make themselves look like great humanitarians (a sadly typical practice in today’s Hollywood). Kutcher apparently didn’t realize that newspaper reporters and others who have to work for a living actually go home at night rather than obsessively checking Twitter 24 hours a day, because he spat out one message after another, apparently growing increasingly angry that nobody from Village Voice was responding to his ranting.
The next morning, reporters responded while Kutcher was apparently still asleep, offering to check the “facts” Kutcher claimed to have to support his trafficking mythology; they also asked him “Is money for ‘awareness’ programs that whip up fervor over mythical numbers really better than actual treatment for homeless teens?” and stated, “Here’s why @aplusk’s mythical sex slave numbers matter: activists use them to target legal adult freedoms, not underlying teen problems.” When Kutcher eventually awoke, he obviously had no reasonable answers and therefore launched into another tirade, this time “tweeting” to several large Village Voice advertisers (namely American Airlines, Domino’s Pizza and Disney),” “Hey @AmericanAir are you aware that you are advertising on a site that supports the Sale of Human Beings (slavery)?” and “Hey @disney @dominos Are you aware that you are advertising on a site that owns and operates a digital brothel?” As if that “digital brothel” crack weren’t enough to convince you of Kutcher’s real prohibitionist agenda, try this one on for size: “Hey @villagevoice speaking of data, maybe you can help me… How much $ did your ‘escorts’ in you classifieds on backpage make last year?” and “Hey @villagevoice speaking of Data… How many of your girls selling themselves in your classifieds are you doing age verification on?” The snide tone and prohibitionist jargon is very telling, and since Ashton feels compelled to put scare quotes around the name of my profession I’ll return the favor: Hey Ashton, why is it OK for you, your wife and other “actors” to make millions playing sex workers, but not for us to make tens or hundreds of thousands actually being sex workers?
American Airlines folded to pressure from this “actor” immediately, withdrawing its advertising from Village Voice at Ashton’s command, and Domino’s appears to be thinking about it. Radley Balko of The Agitator cancelled his American Airlines bonus miles credit card as soon as he found out about it, and I call upon my readers to not only boycott American Airlines but to send them emails explaining why you’re doing so; Domino’s needs to be similarly admonished against obedience to narcissistic, megalomaniacal “actors” lest they follow suit. And please, ask others of like mind to join us; it’s about damned time people understand that almost 450,000 American whores and 6.78 million regular customers can no longer be ignored, marginalized and demonized.
Backlash against prohibitionist lies is well-established in Europe; on July 3rd I referenced Laura Agustín’s report that public funds from European countries in which prostitution is legal had been squandered on a ridiculous ad campaign promoting the “Swedish Model” for all of Europe. Well, apparently at least some people in high places had similar opinions, because on the same day I published that column, Agustín reported that the following question was submitted to the European Parliament last Friday (July 1st):
Can the Commission explain if EU funds have been used directly or indirectly to finance an abolitionist “Campaign to put an end to prostitution in Europe” and “Together for a Europe Free from Prostitution”, promoting a “Europe free from prostitution” and calling on “individuals, national governments and the European Union to take concrete actions”, substantially on the basis of the Swedish model of legislation on the issue and with the aim of abolishing prostitution, which is presented as a form of violence against women? Have notably Progress funds been used for this? If so, can it explain how EU funds can be used to promote a certain legislative model, notably on a matter where Member States have different policies and sensitivities on the matter? If EU funds have been directly or indirectly used, if a campaign is launched to legalize prostitution and sex work or to promote a different legislative model, would the same EU funds be eligible for it? If not, why? Will the Commission request that EU funds are given back, if the campaign is funded without the Commission knowledge?
Agustín points out that the current European Commissioner for Home Affairs is Swedish, and has made her anti-whore bias clear in recent speeches; it will be interesting to see if these prohibitionists either get their comeuppance or (even better) be forced to fund a series of pro-decriminalization ads as the above-quoted question proposes. Incidentally, while you’re on Laura’s site you might read her comments on the whole Ashton Kutcher thing; regular readers may remember that Kutcher and other “actors” living out a fantasy of expertise rudely and childishly insulted Laura (a real expert on migrant labor and sex work) at a BBC event last December, thus once again demonstrating their monumental hubris and even more monumental cluelessness.
What would you expect of Kelso?
I really wish that actors would stick to acting, and keep their “philanthropy” to themselves.
Apparently Kutcher didn’t think that depriving the V V of advertisers, it only makes them more reliant on the backpage advertising. Really smart move, dude.
I liked the one that said @VillageVoice I only PLAYED stupid on TV.
He may have only played stupid on tv, but reading his blog response any time he attempted to quantify something such as the number of books he has read on human trafficking, his quoted quantity is always “countless”. Countless books, Countless victims he has spoken with, Countless teen victims being sold on backpage. Apparently numbers are not important to him at all, or maybe Kelso just can’t wrap his brain around 827, which is the number of juvenile prostitution arrests in the 37 major cities that were studied. (or was it thirty six?) That doesn’t sound countless to me. 827. Count them. Each of them.
Now I would like to see the number of over 18 prostitution arrests, arrests that diverted police attention away from one of those 827. I would like to see the actual number of dollars directed toward arresting consenting adults.
I also posted a challenge not only to Ashton Kutcher and his supporters, but anyone at all to identify one single post on backpage.com advertising an underage prostitute. I have advertised there for three years, in cities across the country. I have never seen an ad for an underage girl. And if he is so sure they are there, why won’t he show us one?
I think he knows from Punk’d how to set up scenario’s…. why not call one of these underage prostitutes, book an appointment and as soon as he is alone with her, run out the door with her over his shoulder and be the hero that he is pretending to be?
Oh, right, that would be that other guy Demi used to fuck that played the heroes. Now she is married to the guy that played in No strings attached. Hypocrite. Stop trying to be a hero Ashton, you’ll never be Bruce.
One clarification…
I do realize that minors are found to be involved in prostitution. Some of them may have been discovered through advertisements on backpage, but my point is that there is no way in hell that there was an ad posted on backpage advertising minors.
It is no different than aol chat rooms resulting in pedophiles meeting with minors. We see it on “To catch a predator” all of the time. Do we shut down aol?
Do we outlaw alcohol to keep it out of the hands of minors? Charlie Glickman wrote Imagine if we found children working in a sweatshop, do we outlaw sewing? Migrant farm workers are lied to, coerced, indentured and worse, do we outlaw farming?
I’ve used those arguments myself; moralists insist on pretending that sex is somehow intrinsically different from all other human activity. 🙁
Well, at the very least its a heluva lot more fun
Here are some more interesting reads on the subject.
Melissa Gira was probably the most concise about the problem with Kutcher’s feel-good ego-stroking. Could have been written with a bit more clarity for the civilians, but otherwise nailed the subject.
And for sheer awesome, TitsAndSass cannot be beat. Watch her bring the pwnage again and again with her mad l33t skillz.
Maggie —
Yeah turning the “at risk” estimate of one study into a definitive range of estimates for actual US underage prostitutes is outrageous. As well as you’ve explained, the “at risk” estimate is highly inflated. They count all runaways as at risk, male and female even though most return home in a week. They include all underaged girls close to the US borders at risk because of unprosecuted prostitution on the other side of the border. Ridiculous.
Do you have a good estimate for the number of actual underaged prostitutes at any one time?
Yep. As I explained on January 24th, there are fewer than 16,000 prostitutes below age 18 in the U.S. at any given time, and the average age at which underage girls start prostitution is 16; young, but hardly “children”. Of those, 84% have never as much as met a pimp. Take a look at my “Handy Figures” link in the right column (just below the “Ask Maggie” box) for a plethora of numbers like that.
Quick question, but how do we know 18yr is the cutoff point for “undersage” prosititues in some of thse studies?
After all depending on the law in question the definition of minor goes as high as 25yrs of age, in the case of health insurance for ‘children’ enrolled in college. Or 21 in the case of alchohol comsumption.
Also how amny of the 16-18 ‘underage’ prostitutes are in jurisdictions where 16 is the legal threshold to engae in consentual sex?
We don’t, and it isn’t. The Schapiro Group used 22 as the cutoff age in one of its studies, and Estes & Weiner included girls old enough to work in strip clubs. And considering that the average age at which underage prostitutes begin is 16, that would mean roughly half are above their local age of consent (roughly a quarter are 17).
Kucher is taking Charlie Sheen’s spot on Two and Half Men.
Good role for him – he’s playing the “half a man” role.
LOL! 😀
Celebrities are just so used to having their egos stroked over every “selfless” cause they get involved in, they completely lose their minds when someone doesn’t react with fawning flattery. Think of all the interviews AK and DM have had where someone told them how wonderful their foundation was, how sensitive they were blah blah blah. As I said elsewhere, this was the 2010’s answer to “We are the World” — a campaign designed to make celebs feel good about themselves rather than work a complex problem.
Sorry guys. It’s the internet age. ET’s interview is not the only source of info. Eventually, you’re going to get found out.
The infuriating thing is that all this effort and money could be doing some good. There are ways to more effectively fight the underage prostitute problem. But by conflating it with illegal immigration and adult prostitution, they’re probably going to make the problem worse as those involved will go after the low hanging fruit of illegals and adult whores rather than concentrate on the much more difficult problem.
No problem can be solved unless it’s understood first, and Americans are too heavily invested in the Cult of the Child right now to admit that adolescents are neither “children” nor “innocent” and are perfectly capable of getting themselves into trouble without adult assistance. As long as Americans keep buying into the delusion that all or even most prostitution (whether underage or not) is forced, they’ll keep supporting “solutions” that do more harm than good, like medieval physicians bleeding a patient to death on the basis of an incorrect theory of imbalance in the bodily humors.
Thank you for leaving the link to American Airlines Media Relations. Addresses for Kutcher and Domino’s would be excellent.
You’re welcome, Tim. I tried finding Domino’s address, but they don’t seem to have a regular one (just one of those forms on their website). So for them, it seems it’ll have to be Twitter, telephone or the form.
Here’s the email I sent American Airlines:
Readers, here’s a great chance to engage in guerrilla warfare, courtesy of Furry Girl!
I like to point out to you. that the BBC is baised it pay by the uk taxpayer with oneside view. and can be pro-UN. and ohter.
http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/
[…] anti-whore fervor in the name of “rescuing” us…by hunting us down, persecuting our customers, closing down our advertising venues, ruining our lives and painting us as mental defectives who don’t know our own minds and can […]
I don’t have any problem with actors or other celebrities advocating for causes which they understand. Many an alcoholic has been helped because some famous so-and-so was willing to discuss his or her own problems with alcohol.
But fame is no substitute for knowledge. If you don’t know about a subject, you don’t know about it, and the fact that fans hang on your every word doesn’t change the fact that you don’t know about the subject. This is where Kutchter is on prostitution: he doesn’t know the facts. Everybody and his dog will know what he says about it, because he’s Ashton Kutcher. He’s still wrong.
If Mr. Kutcher will take the time and make the effort to become knowledgeable, he can be a powerful voice to help underage prostitutes and, who knows, maybe adult prostitutes and their adult clients as well. Right now, it doesn’t look like he’s willing to do that.
The trick is to call out the prohibitionists on their vacuous moral crusades. Illustrate how concern for women are furthest from their minds.
That tends to work.
Actually, I’m working on a column about that right now; it’s scheduled for the 23rd.