The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick. – L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz
Many reasonably-intelligent people in the media and even academia are afflicted with a curious kind of farsightedness; they can see events of the near past (say 25-150 years) with clarity, but are completely unable to recognize their resemblance to modern ones. The example that leaps immediately to mind is “sex trafficking” hysteria, which as I’ve previously demonstrated bears a remarkable similarity to the Satanic Panic and is virtually indistinguishable from the “white slavery” hysteria; Furry Girl has also pointed out its resemblance to the “crack” panic of the 1980s. Furthermore, the bizarre, exaggerated stories told by “sex trafficking survivors” look very much like the “recovered memories” of self-proclaimed victims of extraterrestrial visitors and Satanic cults. Yet somehow, even people who understand the concept of moral panics cannot identify the “trafficking” myth as one of them. It’s not unlike the way that people recognize tyranny in politicians of the opposing party, but not in those from their own party, or who fail to comprehend that the War on Drugs is no different from Prohibition of the 1920s.
But the example I’d like to address today is yellow journalism, which is the substitution of sensationalism, scaremongering, scandal and bogus research for real reporting and ethical journalism. The term is most closely associated with flamboyant newspapers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the majority of articles on the subject concentrate wholly on that time, as though it were a phenomenon relegated to the past; in actuality it has become the norm, with once-respectable media outlets such as CNN, the New York Times and the BBC competing with each other to publish the most lurid, judgmental and fact-free stories on sex work and many other issues.
Case in point: National Geographic. It would be difficult to imagine a more staid publication, but the TV network which bears its name is simply awful; the few times I’ve watched it I’ve been appalled at the number of errors, distortions, omissions and what I must presume to be outright lies in its programs. One year ago today I reviewed an episode of its Taboo series ambitiously entitled “Prostitution”, only to discover that its director and writer appear to have been at cross purposes:
…the single most common form of prostitution in the Western world, namely escorting, was entirely ignored in favor of lurid concentration on a very small fraction of the American market. The director seems to have leaned a little on our side…[but] the writer leaned the other way: Every negative statement about prostitution was expressed as a fact, while every positive one was said to be an opinion. Statements about the terrible conditions of their lives made by the Bangladeshi prostitutes and the American streetwalkers were reported with the word “is”, while statements made by the legal Australian and Dutch prostitutes were reported with the word “claims”. In other words we hear that the streetwalker is miserable, but the Aussie brothel girls only claim to be happy. It’s a subtle bias, but one a less-critical viewer would absorb without noticing.
This ambivalence seems to be the norm at NatGeo (the network’s attempt at a “hip” nickname for itself); Amanda Brooks recently agreed to appear in another of their shows entitled “Sex for Sale: American Escort” (apparently an attempt to make up for our omission from the Taboo episode). After being “assured…this was a stand-alone documentary focusing on the US and the legal issues surrounding prostitution”, Amanda agreed to spend two (unpaid) days with them, and this was the result:
…I watched it in horror. The title alone let me know this was not a serious documentary examining criminalization in the US. In fact, they barely mention criminalization or its effects. They don’t bother to figure out that criminalization is the reason for a lot of the pushback they receive when trying to interview agencies…My role was “blink and you’ll miss it,” which was a bit of a relief by the end. The “undercover” harassment of random agencies in Vegas was nauseating. I have no love for escort/stripper agencies in Vegas but this show actually made me feel sorry for the people who were just running a business…The supposed pimp-daddy in shades interviewed by Mariana [van Zeller] appears to be a hobbyist indulging in what’s known as “role-play.” Even [my photographer] thought the guy was fake and she doesn’t deal with pimps, hobbyists or agencies…Focusing the “hidden” camera on the one girl’s boobs was completely uncalled for, especially given the victim-y slant of the whole show. Exploitation is exploitation, whether it’s a pimp, client, or “hidden” camera. What turned my stomach the most was the Vegas escort they interviewed/exploited. Though they obscure her face, at one point they show her site and it was recognizable…I felt ripped off, for sure. On the other hand, I was also relieved that I didn’t play a more-prominent role in this disaster. The CNBC documentary I did in 2008, while it ruffled some feathers over its display of websites, treated us with a lot more respect overall and had as balanced a view as it’s possible to get with mainstream media. I’m still very happy with that documentary. This effort was not that. Not even close…
It used to be that one could tell the difference between articles in respectable news sources and those in the tabloids. But what real distinction is there when the BBC distorts and exaggerates a story in exactly the same way as the New York Daily News?
In this small Mexican town that sends sex slaves to New York, little boys dream of growing up to be pimps…The town of 10,000, about 80 miles from Mexico City, is Mexico’s undisputed cradle of sex trafficking, one end of a pipeline that leads directly to our city’s streets. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s New York field office arrested 32 sex traffickers last year; 26 of them were from Tenancingo. It’s a family business, and through the decades, the pimps have perfected methods to coerce women into sexual slavery using romance, lies and the threat of violence. Over the last 20 years they have branched out of Latin America, sending sex workers to New York and other U.S. cities, experts said…Each family sends its youngest and most handsome men across Mexico to pose as salesmen with nice clothes and fancy cars, Munoz Berruecos said. They woo rural women waiting at bus stops or taking Sunday strolls in the park. Once the women are seduced, they are coerced into prostitution. The women are held inside the Tenancingo “security houses” — where some say they were repeatedly raped. If they have children, the kids are kept in the town for leverage after they are dispatched to red-light districts. Some go to Mexico City. Many end up in Queens, where johns can order them for delivery by calling numbers advertised on cards, key chains or bottle openers, authorities say…Officials said each prostitute they bring to New York — where they service up to 35 johns a day — nets the traffickers about $100,000 a year…
Here’s Dr. Laura Agustin’s debunking of the BBC version of the same story. I only have two things to add in regard to the Daily News version: note that the number of clients per day has now ballooned to 35, and consider the repeated iterations of (unnamed) “experts said” and “authorities said” (one of Frank Mott‘s defining characteristics of yellow journalism is “a parade of false learning from so-called experts”). Despite the paper’s blatant exploitation of women to sell advertising you won’t hear a word from “feminists” about it, or about the stereotypes of female stupidity, gullibility and muddle-headedness this sort of story promotes; for neofeminists, that’s OK if it makes men look like monsters and whips up anti-sex sentiment in the hoi-polloi. And for the media, lying is OK if it rakes in cash, even if that means drowning the reputation won by the hard work of previous generations of reputable journalists in a sea of yellow ink.
35 clients a day. If one doesn’t sleep, eat, or clean up that’s 1.4 an hour. Unless one is working a party, that’s pretty much impossible. You just can’t schedule clients that tightly without chaos. Things happen. There are no shows, clients run late, or occasionally early. My best non-party/event day was 12, and the scheduling was crazy that day. And it was a very long day.
Besides, if you multiply that number times the supposed number of the women, well, seems like a whole lot of men in NYC are getting laid daily. My bull shit meter is ringing like crazy.
But hey, why let facts get in the way of a story that might produce ratings?
Wait, it’s even stupider than that; this is supposedly outcall in New York City! So that means that these magical vans are carrying the zombie hookers through traffic fast enough to do that many as well!
Widespread mathematical literacy would halt this kind of garbage in its tracks, but unfortunately most Americans (including most educated ones) are mathematically illiterate.
They cite these bullshit numbers for “Ewwwwwww” factor only. Sex is “dirty” so anyone who does it 35 times in rapid succession with different men is “REALLY DIRTY” … and any guy who is willing to jump into that melee is an unthinking and self-destructive pervo.
I don’t know what the big deal is since clean up is a norm in between clients. If there is no clean up – a client can tell pretty quick and that kind of brings the “gravy train” to a rapid halt.
Yeah, the AG in my state crusading against child sex slaves has so far produced one case involving adult women, and that they served up to 15 clients was repeated by the media as sensational proof of their severe abuse. Whether the women were being paid appropriately for their work, if they got reasonable lunch breaks, etc. is irrelevant because the story and political agenda is more important than the actual rights of the women
“Sex is “dirty” so anyone who does it 35 times in rapid succession with different men is “REALLY DIRTY” ”
Consider me totally filthy. I’ve done that, and more, several times. It was great fun.
Well, I guess you and I are “wired” differently as I don’t see a problem with it either. You have an advantage on me though – I can’t quite get through 35 in a day! 😛
Maybe 3.5??? 😀
Sex is “dirty” so anyone who does it 35 times in rapid succession with different men is “REALLY DIRTY” …
If so, consider me filthy. I’ve done, and more. It was great fun.
Some of you girls make me feel soooo inadequate 🙁
Oh, pooh. At the mechanical level, male participation is performance, but female participation can be as minimal as endurance.
I was thinking of the competition between Messalina and Scyalla, though Messalina only had 25 lovers. Even so, any male is bound to feel diminished by this. Endurance, you say; but Messalina enjoyed it, and was looking for more. Don’t you see how the male ego can be damaged by this? What is this, matriarchy? 😉
Yes, but Messalina was a Julio-Claudian psycho; she was Caligula’s cousin, for Venus’ sake!
My father loved National Geographic when he was a kid. Especially the staid pictures of Japanese pearl diving girls. We hadn’t managed to give the Japanese “the gift of shame” at that point and no one had explained to them the vital importance for civilization that the female body be covered up at all costs. In fact, National Geographic showed lots of foreign countries that didn’t follow our sexual mores and was very popular with the lads.
Even now in Japan, the fact is that they don’t really understand this Western concept that the human body is evil and shameful. They also don’t really get the idea that sex is also evil and shameful. This causes some cultural misunderstandings now and then. Probably some neofeminist NGOs need to be sent over to fix them.
Fortunately both Puritanism and neofeminism remain quite marginal in Japan.
I wouldn’t be so sure about that… They’ve seem to have gotten at least one foot on the “drawings are people too” bandwagon. See also, the “2011 Tokyo manga ban”. (It’s not a “Ban” ban, but it’s a law that allows the Tokyo government to declare a particular manga to be “unsafe for children” and require that it can only be sold in adult bookshops, which is an economic death sentence for most series. The standards for what constitutes “unsafe for children” are suitably (for this kind of legislation) vague and leave a lot of wiggle room for the censors to block anything they don’t like (as you’d expect), and while it only applies to Tokyo, the market is so huge that it amounts to a de facto national ban on unfavored publications.
Yes, but this is a new wrinkle in an old problem. Ever since the occupation, Japanese erotica has been censored with things like digital mosaic and black bars. The battle is between the artists who try to get away with whatever they can and the censors who go whichever way the political winds are blowing.
On the other hand, I think the Soaplands and short time hotels will remain open for the near future.
Can someone explain to me the supposedly bizarre culture of Los Vegas escorting? I’ve never been to Los Vegas but I keep hearing reports of how strange the whole thing is. Supposedly the escorts have these weird rituals they use to spot cops including demanding that clients “strip down” to parade rest as soon as they enter a hotel room before a single word is said or money exchanged?
I have a friend in San Diego who visits Vegas a lot and he mentioned that Vegas is “too hard” for paid sex. He didn’t elaborate.
Oh and also – on the “NatGeo” stuff – this really doesn’t surprise me because “NatGeo” buys into every single “scaremongering” theory in existence including one that is my absolute favorite to giggle at. I won’t mention it though.
By the way – I crossed into the artic circle last night – and here it is JUNE and it’s so cold I can’t find my nuts!!!
The Police and attorney general are forcing prostitutes to lie about being forced.
The Denver Colorado Police (and other Police departments around the country) receive grants from the Federal government for fighting Sex Trafficking. When they don’t find any forced against their will prostitute victims – They make them up, so that they won’t lose funding.
Denver Colorado vice Lieutenant Aaron Sanchez: “Prostitutes are not friendly. It’s not like you’re talking to a child-abuse victim or a fifteen-year-old sex assault victim who wants to cry out and wants to explain what happened or is just scared. These girls just flat out say, ‘Nope, that’s not what’s happening.’
“We have to help them realize they are victims,” Denver vice Lieutenant Aaron Sanchez says.
So… the police are trying to invent victims? Where no victim exist?
The prostitutes say that no one is forcing them and the police don’t believe them?
So the police want the prostitutes to lie? and the police are forcing the prostitutes to lie about being forced?
Article Link:http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/10/human_trafficking_denver.php
This Denver Post article link below says: “Defense attorney Maureen O’Brien said that in cases where a prostitute is willingly engaging in the business, she has an incentive to allege force or coercion against a pimp to avoid charges herself. O’Brien thinks calling pimping “human trafficking” could change judges’ perception and has the potential to boost prison sentences.” http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19225280
Are the police taking away and questioning the woman against her will? So… actually it’s the police who are forcing the woman, not the pimp?
This doesn’t make sense, Police and lawyers trying to get prostitutes to lie about being forced. Lying is bad, telling the truth is good. – I also thought lying was against the law.
Last week in Ottawa they arrested some teenage girls who had apparently pimped out some other teenage girls. They’re being charged with a list of appropriate charges but trafficking is on the list as well. That’s the one getting all the press. My impression of trafficking somehow always involved more crossing of borders though than crossing the street.
My comments on that story will appear in tomorrow’s column.
Despite the paper’s blatant exploitation of women to sell advertising you won’t hear a word from “feminists” about it, or about the stereotypes of female stupidity, gullibility and muddle-headedness this sort of story promotes;
Of course not! Because those stereotypes are being played up “for our own good” but not as the butt of a male joke so that’s ignored. And besides, the only objectionable female stereotype according to the True Feminists ™ is that of beautification because it is always only for male attention, which is bad and icky and wrong and stupid. There’s a LOLCat that mocks this situation:
I watched that Taboo episode. Yeah, it wasn’t good. It could have been much worse, but yeah.