Propaganda must be limited to a few simple themes and these must be repeated again and again. – Adolf Hitler
Back in antediluvian times we had these plastic discs called “records”; they were a lot like CDs except bigger and usually (though not always) black. They held a lot less music than CDs do, and because they were played via the barbaric expedient of actually dragging a diamond-tipped needle along a long spiral groove etched into their surfaces, they were subject to damage which might cause the needle to jump grooves (thus skipping portions of songs) or even worse, to jump backward and thereby play the same phrase of music over and over and over and over and over and over again until one either moved the needle or became infuriated enough to hurl the disc against the wall, shattering it into a number of vinyl shards.
OK, so I’m kidding just a bit; most of my readers are old enough to remember vinyl records, and even those who aren’t have probably seen them in movies or at your parents’ houses. But when I was trying to think of a title for this essay and “broken record” leaped to mind, it occurred to me that some of my readers under 30 might not have an instant understanding of the phrase as we senior citizens do. It was a common expression at one time: “he sounds like a broken record” was immediately understood by almost everyone to mean that the person so described tended to repeat himself both mindlessly and endlessly. In this case, it’s the moronic gypsy whores myth: you know, the claim that there is a Lost Tribe of Gomorrah some 40,000 or more strong who are “trafficked” around the globe in pursuit of major sporting events. Nobody ever sees them come or go, and nobody knows where they sleep or work; the high cost and low availability of hotel rooms at such events has no effect on these mysterious harlot nomads, who move like shadows, live in invisible tents and caravans and then vanish into the dust like Bradbury’s Autumn People until the next mega-competition. Repeated debunking has no more effect on those who repeat this nonsense than it would on a skipping record; they’ll just go on and on and on in the same old groove until jarred out of it by physical force.
Perhaps that force is on the way, at least for the London Olympics; though the BBC has generally embraced trafficking hysteria, it must be given credit for publishing an article by Mario Cacciottolo which references several of the studies I’ve linked in the past and includes passages like this:
…Tessa Jowell, who once told the Commons about her determination to combat sex trafficking at London 2012, now admits that “current intelligence would suggest that we are unlikely to see large scale trafficking into London as a result of the Games”…Jowell also says that it is “hard to know” whether the lack of evidence for Games-related trafficking “was a result of the measures that were put in place” by her officials “or whether the threat simply hasn’t materialised”…[and] a Met Police Authority report on SCD9 published in October 2011 said the “intelligence currently held does not support any increase in prostitution in the Olympic Boroughs and actually shows a decrease in some locations”…Conservative London Assembly Member Andrew Boff has compiled the Silence on Violence report which also says there is “no strong evidence that trafficking for sexual exploitation does in fact increase during sporting events”. He also says raids on brothels were increasing as the Olympics approached…Sarah Walker, of the English Collective of Prostitutes, echoes this view, saying recent frequent police raids on east London brothels represent a pre-Olympics crackdown…Another group representing sex workers, x:talk, is calling for a moratorium on arrests, the detention and deportation of sex workers until the end of the Olympics…
Dr. Brooke Magnanti also wrote on the subject, but because she is a retired call girl herself and doesn’t have to be politically correct, she didn’t mince words or quote weaselly politicians as the BBC article did:
You might be wondering…why there isn’t sex trafficking during these events. The answer is simple. Criminals may be criminals, but organised crime does not exist for the purpose of being evil. It exists to make loads of tax-free dosh. Does it make financial sense for sex trafficking to occur at these events? With London rents skyrocketing around the venues, with the Home Office plans to tighten border security, with the police already well misinformed about the magnitude of the trafficking problem, you’d have to be mad to pursue this as a business plan. There was perhaps a time, back in the 90s, when sex trafficking in some parts of Eastern Europe might have netted you some cash if you already had the distribution network, but it’s not the case now. Add to that a large proportion of the UK native population willing and legally able to exchange money for sex and you’d be laughed out of Dragon’s Den for even suggesting it as a goer…
In spite of all this, we are still treated…with the same old guff such as stories that sex trafficking ‘almost doubled’ during the Athens Olympics. In this particular case, ‘almost doubled’ means that the number of reported incidents was 181, a 90% increase over the previous year. So yes, they did ‘almost double’. However…in the year before the Athens Olympics, the reports of sex trafficking at 95 represented 0.45% of all prostitution in Greece. And after the Olympics? 0.86%. Less than 1% of prostitutes in Greece were trafficked both before and after the Olympics…Let’s say in the year 2008, there was 1 death in all of Scotland from a vending machine falling on someone. Then let’s say a year later, in 2009, there were 2 such deaths. While it would be technically true to say that the number of vending machine accidental deaths ‘doubled’, is this a fair representation of the data? Is this a significant trend that is likely to continue?…The change from 1 to 2 in a given year seems clearly attributable to chance…
She then goes on to point out that when police are given extra money and told to find “trafficked women”, but there are few or no trafficked women to find, they harass consensual sex workers instead. Hence, x:talk’s call for a moratorium on arrests which was mentioned in the BBC article, Magnanti’s article above and another in The Guardian which quoted her. X:talk has drafted a petition asking the Mayor of London and police officials to stop this pointless, dangerous political exercise and leave sex workers alone, at least until the end of the Olympics, and I’d like to join x:talk and Dr. Magnanti in asking that you consider signing it. Perhaps together we can jar the needle out of the groove for now, at least until the next time the record is placed on the turntable for the next major sporting event.
One Year Ago Today
We often discuss the advantages of decriminalization for sex workers, but “If It Were Legal” examines ways in which it would benefit clients and academics.
It should also be pointed out both that the Greek figures were for the whole of the year of the Olympics, and for the whole of Greece and not just Athens, and that the Olympics stimulated the creation of the Greek anti-trafficking machinery.
And as we know, once police are give money and rhetoric to “fight trafficking”, it’s simply amazing how many “traffickers” they manage to find.
Well of *course* they find some. Allow me to relate a Parable: *imagine El Indio’s mexican accent, if you wish*
“A number of small town officials become concerned that there was an epidemic of bears coming into the woods nearby to crap; deterring tourism, creating a health hazard and treatening the local population.
The town’s only hunter says “Nope, ain’t no strange bears in them thar woods. Know every bear m’self, man and boy. Just the usual bears, yepyep”
The village council, having heard rumours of itinerant bears from other towns, disregard the hunter’s evidence; he’s only one man, after all.
The council contact the CIA. a number of very well trained, serious men with absolutely no sense of humour investigate the woods for six months (almost shooting the hunter three times) and report back; ‘We, the CIA, have conducted an extensive multi-million dollar sweep, and have found no evidence of unusual non-local mammalian genus Ursa activity.’
Unconvinced, the council send in the FBI. The Senior Local field agent and his team spend two months combing the woods. They report back saying ‘The FBI can confirm that there are no strange bears in the woods at this time. Further, there have been several incidents of locals looking for strange bears almost shooting each other, and the population is now living in hysterial fear of ‘filthy rabid bears. Here is the bill for the investigation.’
The council are desparate; they have spent almost all of the town’s winter budget, they have found no itinerant bears, and the local elections are two months away.
They Call the Local Police Department. The Sherriff assures them that he’s their man, and them bears are as good as dead, yessiree bob.
The LPD go into the woods. There is a great deal of shouting and crashing. Three hours later the LPD come out of the woods with a badly beaten Racoon, three scuffed up Beavers and a Mountain Lion that was just passing through; who all say:
‘OKAY! We admit it, we’re bears from out of state, we crap all over the woods! Just stop beating the fuck out of us!’
The Council reward the LPD and pat themselves on the back, since their tough stance on bear trafficking has proved to be a highly effective policy in this crucial election run-up.”
Enjoy 🙂
the reason why trafficking hysteria is so popular is partly due to the fact that people cant imagine that a woman would choose freely to become a sex worker,its either extreme poverty or slavery,not to mention that many people equate sex work with slavery,because to them its the selling of body and even soul.i once heard a woman speak on the sex trade and she used veronicas franco letter to a mother who thought of making her daughter a courtesan and her charity work as a bright example of how even the most pampered women in the sex industry were miserable.i always thought she celebrated being a courtesan,but apparently sooner or later she felt miserable.anyway,i think that the work of women who are out as sex workers like dr magnanti will help wash away the prejudice and inform people about the sex trade from the perspective of an insider.
Franco was unhappy in her later years because she lost most of her property and fortune in the plague of 1575-77 and was tried for witchcraft in 1580 (largely because she was a courtesan). She was also an intelligent woman who realized that the heyday of her profession was over and the tide was turning against them, and therefore thought it best to dissuade new entrants. In this respect she was like the modern sex worker rights advocates who point out that prohibitionist laws make our lives far harder than they have to be.
i is said that she wrote her first will in 1564 and after six years she wrote another. in the first she left everything to her unborn child if it were a girl ,her women servants and other women in order to have dowries, apparently so that they wont become prostitutes or courtesans and in the second will she says that if two prostitutes want to change their lives some money will go to them.also,in 1563 she encouraged a law that made it illegal for mothers to support themselves through the prostitution of their daughters,her mother was the one that led her into the profession.i thought it was possible for her to be miserable about being a courtesan when she had lost everything and the world was turning against them,but this was in the beggining of her life as a courtesan.
Remember “Revolution Number Nine”? “Number Nine … Number Nine … Number Nine …”
Only thing is – unlike the hysterical broken record of human trafficking, at least the Beatles found a cleaver way to use their “broken record” (actually a “loop”) and embed in it … “Turn Me On, Dead Man!” – if you played it backwards.
WAIT!! Maybe the trafficking skeermeisters will be more intelligible if we play their words backwards!!?? 🙂
I keep hearing “raspberry soup.”
Signed the petition a few days ago.
Ah records. I had one as a kid of Jack and the Beanstalk that used to skip and say, “Fe Fi Fo Fum. I smell …. I smell …. I smell … I smell …” My brother and I though that was the funniest thing in the history of humanity.
The broken record is deliberate, BTW. It’s the part about repeating a lie often enough so that it becomes the truth.
Agreed, hence the Hitler epigram. 🙂
Hi Maggie,
a bit off topic. But have you seen 50 shades of grey has become the top selling kindle book? Mummy porn.
I guess it is being read by all those “strong and independent and empowered women” who need a man like a “fish needs a bicycle”. The sales of this book prove that vast numbers of women really do want to be dominated by a man they see as much more powerful…..something us men were lied to about all our lives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2164886/Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey-best-selling-Kindle-online-book-time-Amazon-sales-topping-1m.html
Peter, I’m posting this to you just to cheer you up – as it appears Karol Markowitz may be on “our” side. 😀
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/men_never_could_have_it_all_pfI1pufaM6BWGwdGUBZu9K
Also – regarding women and domination – there’s a few things at play here …
“Domination” is often taken to be synonymous with “Subordination” and no one likes to go on record as “volunteering” themselves for “subordination”. Sooo, don’t expect for there to be a huge contingency of women out there screaming “WE WANT TO BE DOMINATED DAMMIT!!” 😀
Second … Women who want to be “dominated” can probably be divided into at least two groups – those who only want to be dominated in the bedroom and those who want to be dominated everywhere. I think most of those women are in the former category rather than the latter and, I must say that while I am extremely turned on by the former and I try to run as fast as I can from the latter. I have no desire to direct a woman what I want her to cook for me – I’ll cook my own stuff – she won’t make it the way i like it anyhow. Same goes for most other things. I like women who are at least as smart as I am (a very low bar, I admit) and I really like women who are smarter than me.
My dream woman is a woman who is a rocket scientist and gives me perfect advice on what to do in every situation – and she does this for me simply because she cannot live without my expert domination of her in bed!
Maggie says this woman don’t exist on planet Earth. 🙁
This is a bit off-topic but I’ve been seeing a number of child trafficking stories on the news lately. The first one was on CNN (http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/20/u-s-midwest-in-crosshairs-of-child-sex-trafficking-fight/) which was the usual trafficking story, the twist was that child traffickers were invading the Midwest. The story which was on TV even stated that there were 10’s of millions of them.
Another more recent one was that there was a big FBI roundup of child traffickers, they had arrested less than 100 nationwide. I think it was in this story they stated that the FBI said that the average age of entry was 12. The funny thing was that of the girls they showed the youngest one was 17 and most of the others were over 18.
Yeah, that’s the latest iteration of the FBI’s “Operation Cross-Country”; I’m still gathering intel on this one but here’s my report on the last one, which will probably be very similar.
I do not have it first hand but have been told that in the UK if a prostitute from, say the Ukraine, is in the UK illegally she is given the option of saying she is trafficked or not. If she says no she is sent back. If she says yes she is given a welfare house, welfare payments, and english lessons to get a real job.
I would be interested to know if I have been misled on this point. It sounds pretty true to me. Welfare is totally out of control in other areas such as women kicking husbands out.
You have not been misled. It’s one of the big problems with “anti-trafficking” laws: claiming to be “trafficked” is heavily incentivized, so of course women are going to claim they’re trafficked to avoid jail or deportation.
Hi Maggie,
thanks for the confirmation. I know to be skeptical of what I am told but that certainly rang true to me.
I’m watching Olympic trials now. If I turn up the volume, I can just hear the Lost Tribe setting up their tents.
I know this is anecdotal, but I am still going to share it as demonstrates that the problem does exist. I am from a Ukrainian background and am still in touch with my family there who mostly live in small villages in the western part. I have heard three stories in the last two years from them about women from their village who have been trafficked into the sex trade. One of them was murdered because she tried to escape. So personally, I find it a bit offensive that you are labelling people who are concerned about trafficking to be “hysterical”. We should be “hysterical” about this problem as we are talking about the real suffering of human beings. I am sure if this happened to someone you know or love you would not be so dismissive of this very terrible human rights abuse.
So, if you find presents under your tree, does that prove Santa Claus put them there? Just because certain facts exist does not prove the truth of any narrative, no matter how ridiculous, which incorporates those facts. Even if you had proof for these stories (which you admit you don’t, since they’re hearsay), that wouldn’t prove the existence of vast, invisible criminal conspiracies abducting and moving a number of people greater than the entire population of Australia without the “authorities” of any country being able to find them, let alone stop them. I’ve met communists, but that doesn’t prove the Red Scare was valid; neither does the fact that children are sometimes murdered prove the existence of gigantic Satanic conspiracies. And the sooner you learn this, the less people will be able to take advantage of your emotions to trick you into giving them money or coerce you into supporting racist, sexist laws that violate the rights of millions of people whose existence can actually be proven. And those laws DO affect people I know and love, including myself; THAT is the real and very terrible human rights abuse.
Hi Maggie,
“And those laws DO affect people I know and love, including myself; THAT is the real and very terrible human rights abuse.”
Correct…the REAL human rights abuses is via the legislation of countries.
My Dad tried to tell me that the Australian guvment was not a criminal cartel and that he was not affected by the things I speak of. He is 75 now.
I said to him. “You paid a mortgage and you paid taxes for most of your adult life. Guess what? Mortgages are fraudulent and taxes are voluntary. Now. If you were not paying a mortgage and not paying taxes how much more time would you have spent with your beloved wife? THAT was the crime committed against you. And you don’t even know it.”
That shut him up pretty fast.
Mortgages and income taxes. Neither need to be paid.
THAT is the “crime against humanity” in the west.
I take out a loan, and it’s fraudulent to say I have to pay it back?
You should never be “hysterical” about solving ANY problem. Hysterics never solved a problem – you solve problems calmly – and you use logic and cold, hard, truthful facts to determine exactly how you’ll solve them.
You also recruit intelligent volunteers to your cause – and you don’t do that by inventing wildly inflated numbers and statistics and pushing far-out, unbelievable stories. You don’t do that by demonizing men who patronize sex workers – who almost universally would condemn forced sex work.
This is the problem in the modern world. People just flat out lie and make up their wild facts and expect everyone to come running to help them (of course, they don’t really want any help – they want MONEY – they ALWAYS want money! 😉 )
As far as the death in the Ukraine – we don’t know the facts of that. I’ve known at least 10 people who’ve died in car accidents … so let’s ban autos?
Truthfully, I am such a sucker for women and kids that I’d gladly join any trafficking “rescue” operation if I thought there were actually mob-type trafficking cartels that existed out there. I have no doubt that some women are forced into sex work – but in almost all cases it’s being coerced by someone they know – a boyfriend, a husband, a brother … not a huge cartel of bandits moving women around in cattle cars.
“Truthfully, I am such a sucker for women and kids that I’d gladly join any trafficking “rescue” operation if I thought there were actually mob-type trafficking cartels that existed out there.”
Me too. Probably most of the people who read this blog. We need to remember that when we hear that this celebrity or that corporation is speaking out or spending money on the fight against those huge trafficking cartels. These celebrities or corporations may not be evil or racist or any of that other stuff. Some are, sure, but others may just be like you or me. If they actually believe it’s going on, then of course the better people they are the more they are going to want to do something about it.
We need to explode the myth, and yes, when somebody is a charlatan we need to call them on it. But some of them are only saying and doing what we would be saying and doing if we believed the myth. Or, to bring it home: what we would be saying and doing were it true.
Hi Elle,
in the west a man can have his children stolen, his house stolen, his business destroyed, his future income garnished and be thrown in jail if he so much as SPEAKS about this in public.
In Australia an estimated 4,000 men commit suicide each year due to this criminal abuse.
Guess what? No one is “hysterical” about this abuse of men. So why should we be “hysterical” about the abuse of women? You wanted to be treated like men……this is what it looks like. Men have been criminally abused for thousands of years.
One word. “Conscription”
By the way?
The woman who helped me save my life when I was suicidal is Ukrainian. She is the second most lovely (meaning all round personality) I have ever met in my life. You do seem to breed lovely women in the Ukraine. Meeting this woman was like meeting someone from another planet. She was kind and caring to me when I was suicidal even though we had just started dating, and I mean just dinners and talking. Not “dating” as americans use it.
I was very disappointed when we split. I tell a lot of young men about my good experience with her and suggest to men in the west they are well advised to check out Ukrainian women. The vast majority of men, far from wanting women “sex trafficked”, would like to find a really nice woman like this one and settle down and have a family. I talk to such young men often. I am even participating on a radio show now about this topic.
I am working on getting the World Passport working and a mechanism such that work permits are not needed for our members. Then the millions of young men in the west who very much want to be a loving husband and father will be able to leave the west where they face so much persecution and travel to places like the Ukraine to live and have at least a chance of finding a good woman to have a family with.
Finding a good woman to have a family with is a hopeless task in the west. That is what we are telling young men.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bill122460
Another hearsay fact for you. The escorts I speak with generally find the demand for their services go down during sporting events, like cup finals. Now could this be because the large number of trafficked women causing a surfeit of supply. Or is it that the blokes have been in the pub too long and all have brewers droop. Or maybe an escort is not in demand, but a quick shag of a imprisoned women is more in order.
Why is it football matches, Olympics we hear about trafficking, but not 2 week long tennis festival of Wimledon? Expect those attending Wimledon are considered fat to genteel to want to quench their thirst for sex with harlots.
The demand does go down, but it’s not because of “trafficked slaves”; it’s because older fans bring their families along (thus eliminating the opportunity to call a hooker), while younger fans have spent so much on overpriced tickets, rooms and travel they have nothing left to spend on women. Oh, plenty of these young men call, all right, but 1) they think they’re going to get something for nothing; 2) they claim to have the money and then when the girl gets there she finds they have none; or 3) she gets there and finds there are ten of them in the room who have scraped the price together between them and think she’s going to go with all of them for that one fee. The Bayou Classic was so notorious for these sorts of shenanigans most escorts wouldn’t even call on during it; some would even leave town for the weekend.
The trafficked ladies was tongue in cheek comment. I forgot the family event, good point.
Well, it may be a lie but it’s an useful one. Police gets more funding, politicians see their popularity raises (they are fighting a social problem, that no one can measure so they will never fail), and feminists have something to support their war on whores. So, whats the problem?
Oh, the own hookers, I forgot. Well, who cares?
[…] raids; but what about £500,000 expended on brutal tactics at a time when everybody knows there are hordes of “trafficked women” about, namely the Olympics? Surely that’s enough for Ms. May? Apparently […]
[…] Maggie McNeil details the myth: […]