The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. – Hubert Humphrey
Remember SOAP, the trafficking hysterics who use special bars of soap to fight “human traffickers” hiding in hotel lavatories? They’re the ones whose founder claims she was “trafficked” from her upper-middle-class family home every night for two years (without anyone ever noticing) and forced to prostitute herself, yet was freed every morning to attend school and never showed any signs of sleep deprivation. Well, if you can believe that, their claims about “sex trafficking” at the Republican Convention are positively realistic in comparison:
As Tampa readies for the estimated 50,000 people coming for the Republican National Convention, Marilyn Garcia has her mind on another, unreported number. Big events like this draw big money…which is why she expects hundreds, even thousands, of women will be brought to the area strictly for sex. “We just don’t know,” she says of the number. “What we do know is that an event of this size means we’ll have a substantial number (of women) being trafficked. And that’s just something not talked about.”
Let’s allow yet another iteration of the gypsy whores myth to pass without comment just this once, because I have a more important question: On which planet do “trafficking” fanatics live, where their favorite subject is “not talked about”? Because on this planet it’s talked about incessantly, despite their endlessly-repeated claim that it isn’t.
…Garcia…is…the founder of The Rachel Project, a faith-based initiative to help “recover and restore” trafficked and exploited victims. She’s urging the faith-based community to join in promoting awareness of the problem, which the National Human Trafficking Resource Center calls a $32 billion criminal enterprise, second only to the illegal drug trade.
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center is…what’s the right phrase? Ah, I have it; “full of shit.” As Ann Jordan pointed out, “Evidence for this claim either does not exist or is impossible to locate…it is not unusual to hear statements that claim to be about trafficking but are really talking about smuggling…It would certainly make more sense to say that smuggling is the third largest source of organized crime profits…” Note also the promotion in the past year from “third largest” to “second largest”.
Human trafficking is defined as a form of “modern-day slavery” where people profit from the control and exploitation of others. They use force, fraud or coercion to gain control of others…
Actually, it’s defined as all sorts of things, but described as “modern-day slavery” even when it isn’t, which is usually.
…The Rachel Project will join forces with TraffickFree and other trafficking “abolitionist” advocates…Volunteers are asked to take part in a training session on how to look for signs of human trafficking…that also aims to place thousands of bars of soap in motels. Each bar’s label will be printed with a hotline number for victims, to help them flee from a life that many cannot break away from out of fear. The project, called SOAP Outreach, is part of a national campaign founded by a human-trafficking survivor…
I find it quite interesting that the article’s author, Michelle Bearden, uses scare quotes liberally throughout the story, especially around words like “rescue” and “abolitionist”. I sense a skeptic without the position to write about this in the way she’d prefer.
…”You have to go where they’re at, and do it in a way where it won’t draw any suspicion,” Garcia says…
After all, nothing is as innocuous as soap emblazoned with a bright red label packed with lurid “human trafficking” text.
…Selling sex has gotten a lot easier, thanks to the Internet. Many strip clubs and sex-for-hire services put images of women on the Web; some offer live chats with prospective clients. It eliminates the fear of being caught soliciting in public, Garcia says…
Because before the internet (wait for it) all whores were streetwalkers.
“A lot of these transactions are made before the event even comes to town,” she says. “The buyers know where to find these services. They place a call, order 20 women for a private party, and the deal is done. It’s a lot harder to get caught in the act these days, because so much of the business is done out of the public eye.”
A bit of perspective: The biggest party I ever catered was 8 girls, and it took two agencies collaborating to manage that. This is the same sort of inflation as 50 customers a night, hundreds of thousands of “trafficked children”, etc.
…While Tampa Police spokesperson Andrea Davis says there wasn’t a noticeable uptick in sex-for-hire arrests during the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, an FBI spokesman fully expects an increase in trafficking with the upcoming convention. “It’s a trend we’ve seen over the years. It has nothing to do with the specific event, and everything to do with the number of people attending it,” says Tampa FBI spokesman David Couvertier. “It’s no secret these pimps seek large venues to bring in their ‘products.’ This is a rich environment for their type of activity.”
Except that they don’t, and it isn’t.
…Garcia didn’t know about human trafficking – which also includes men and children forced into either labor or commercial sex – until she visited Thailand in 2006. That’s when she saw something unimaginable: women tagged like cattle, with male customers selecting their victims by number…
There are also claims of barcodes and other such rubbish. Only one problem: with the exception of a single girl in Madrid this past March, nobody has ever seen a picture of these supposed tags and tattoos; furthermore, the Spanish case is clearly an example of life imitating artifice because these absurd tales have been circulated by the “trafficking” hysterics for at least six years now.
…As she began researching the shadowy industry, she learned it was a worldwide enterprise, with an estimated 27 million people trapped in some form of slavery in over 160 countries…
Here’s how that number, larger than the entire population of Australia, was invented. But the fanatics don’t want you thinking about that too much, which is why the rest of the story is, as usual, a single lurid “sex trafficking” narrative presented without any corroborating evidence whatsoever:
…Telisia Espinosa, 36, a member of Christian Family Church…shares her harrowing experience as a prostitute by speaking at churches, conferences and other events. She was…19, working as a dancer in a Miami strip club, when a handsome, well-dressed man walked in and began watching her intensely…one day he asked if she liked to travel. Of course, she told him…Soon after, he asked if she was willing to leave with him. She didn’t ask where they were going; she just packed her bags and got in his car…For nearly five years, she traveled the country with the man. She says her daily quota was $1,000, which means she had sex up to 20 times a night…
…She confirms the reports traffickers are drawn to big events…
Clearly, the unsubstantiated claims of one attention-seeking religious fanatic are far more credible than the anecdotal evidence of hundreds of whores which are backed up by numerous research reports saying exactly the same thing.
…”He took me to the Indianapolis 500,” she says. “It brought in a lot of out-of-town men, and we worked from a strip club across the street…”
That’s right, pimped streetwalkers work out of strip clubs! What, you didn’t know that?
As I’ve said before, I’m actually glad to read this kind of garbage. The mythology of every moral panic always gets more extreme toward the end, for reasons which should be obvious. Paradoxically, the increasing absurdity of the claims eventually causes ordinary people to abandon the panic, thus undermining its support and causing it to collapse. Already we’re seeing more news articles questioning hysterical claims, and ever-larger numbers of internet commenters are linking my posts and those made by many others. The “sex trafficking” mythos is spinning wildly out of control, and it won’t be long now before it tears itself to pieces.
>She was…19, working as a dancer in a Miami strip club, when a handsome, well-dressed man walked in and began watching her intensely…one day he asked if she liked to travel. Of course, she told him…Soon after, he asked if she was willing to leave with him. She didn’t ask where they were going; she just packed her bags and got in his car…
Ok, so she’s a total idiot… Just packing her bags and getting in a car with a man she doesn’t know to go somewhere, she didn’t ask. Or she’s a liar. Or both. But we should listen to her?
Once the “faith-based”, i.e. “Non-reality based” people get involved, forget facts. They have faith, reality doesn’t enter into it.
And so a man can go to a new city, go on the internet, and contract with a woman for sex? That’s how it works. Except the woman usually isn’t forced, she’s in the business.
I think one has to be in a certain kind of mental … uhm… place, if your reaction to such a proposal from a stranger is “Yes! Sure! What could possibly go wrong?” Hell, I’ve done a lot of foolish stuff of my own but that’s just … silly.
That, or you’ve seen one too many bad romance movies and had a smack on the head. Hell, I dunno, maybe I’m just a no fun stick in the mud but her story illustrates perfectly the sorts of things people willingly get up to with sometimes tragic or headline feeding results.
Based on a combination of bad choices, bad luck, and circumstance she likely had a shitty run of it during those years/months/time. I’m not going to downplay that aspect of her story. She likely didn’t have a pleasant time. But of course, in the end, it really wasn’t her doing those things (it never is) or being that person. It wasn’t her fault. Not really. It was because of someone else. That man.
The victim vultures are there to fan those flames of guilt, self-hatred, and denial. They guide in understanding “how it really was.” They explain the stark black and white of it and reinforce who the good and the bad people are in these narratives. There always has to be a “bad guy” in simple morality stories. And it’s often the guy.
Of course in real life there’s a shit load of color and complexity and well, life.
Too often people can’t face the consequences of their acts and choices. I wonder if these people understand that they are being used as pawns in the self-ownership wars. If they do, I wonder if they care.
Sometimes the “mental place” is a place of desperation. If one feels that life can’t get any worse, then going somewhere unknown with a complete stranger seems as good an option as any. I am not saying Telisia’s story is valid, but I know very very similar stories that are.
Even just simple math would seem to debunk the notion of a traveling exodus of whores going from event to event. Tampa has a population of roughly 350,000. Adding 50,000 is a 14% increase in (temporary) population. If you simply use the New Zealand prevalence estimates (which, really, are the I’ve seen), then there should be something like 500 active whores in Tampa at any given time ([350,000/2]x[0.00285]), encompassing escorts, streetwalkers, massage parlor girls, etc, etc. Sound about right?
Say SOAP’s conservative “estimate” is sound and there are “hundreds” (500?) traveling whores moving to Tampa – that’s a 100% increase in supply to account for a 14% increase in demand (assuming politicos aren’t any more or less likely to frequent professionals). What if it’s “thousands”? Well at 5,000 traveling whores, that’s a 1000% increase in supply to match a 14% increase in demand. That’s one traveling whore for every 10 conference attendees (if we assume half of them are women it gets even worse; 1 traveling whore for every 5 male attendees). For these estimates to be true, you have to believe that 10% of the attendees (or 20% of male attendees) are going to hire the services of a professional during the brief window that they’re in town.
Then there’s just the fact that past studies examining population influx and sex worker influx during such events, there’s a great-big, whopping nothing. As the authors of “Sex work and the public health impacts of the 2010 Olympic Games” (Deering et al, 2012) put it in their abstract; “There were no significantly increased odds in perceived reports of new (0.999), youth (0.536) or trafficked SWs (zero reports) in the Olympic period.”
The only way SOAP’s estimates make sense, is to believe that the average male politico is literally hundreds and hundreds times more likely to hire a professional than his non-politico counterparts on any randomly sampled day.
Precisely. These beliefs are not based in fact or reason, but in dogma, and therefore don’t have to be any more believable than the parting of the Red Sea. It’s like the “50 clients a night” foolishness, which is not only impossible under the claimed conditions but is over three times higher than the average claimed number (15 per night) of less than a year ago. (How much you wanna bet this results from someone mishearing a spoken “fifteen” as “fifty”?) Incidentally, I used those New Zealand numbers to make a number of estimates myself in “Numerology“.
I lived in Augusta GA for a while and this ‘story’ was always circulated around Master’s time. The numbers were hysterical b/c it’s really hard to get accomodations that time of year and it would really make the fixed costs of the workers high. Outside of that, year after year I’d have customers come in and get drunk, ask where they could get some ‘company’ and every year it was the same, bribe one of the more desperate strippers, head over to the Osaka spa (which had one girl working and a line out the door at Master’s time) or troll the ghetto. Seems bizarre guys wealthy enough to go to the masters for a few days of fun would be reduced to trolling the ghetto if they had a plethora of gypsie whores. And then one day it all started to make sense
That sort of movement would either require several of their own planes, cars on Amtrak, or a convoy of thousands of coach busses. You know, shit that gets attention no matter how “well-funded and secretive” those cackling, mustache-twirling, ubervillain traffickers are.
Because a substantial number of IndyCar fans are sexual deviants who particularly like screwing slaves. Not only that – but they’re cheap perverts too – only paying $50 a pop (remember she had to make $1,000 per day and did that in 20 calls).
Because Republicans are sexual deviants who prefer slaves too.
But, let’s be fair and balanced – because North Carolina is gearing up for all those Democratic pervo’s who’ll be hitting Charlotte for their National Convention …
http://nation.foxnews.com/sex-trafficking/2012/08/02/sex-trafficking-expected-spike-during-democrat-convention
^^THAT THERE is HILARIOUS! Notice how they interview Charity Magnuson (sex trafficking expert) outside in the middle of the woods. What the fuck is she doing out there? Looking for sex slavers sneaking their “product” into North Carolina?
“Beeee Vewy, Vewy, QUIET … I’m hunting twaffickas!”
I also like how they say that basically – sex slavery takes place in low rent motel rooms – but ALSO in very expensive and posh hotels oh and … also … even in RENTAL HOMES in suburbs converted into temporary brothels!
What the fuck? Then why is Charity Magnuson out there stalking around in the woods?
I guess the answer is – BECAUSE SEX SLAVES ARE ALL AROUND US – EVERYWHERE!! You just don’t see them because they have all been trained in the Ninja art of INVISIBILITY!
Oh – and by the way … again … Democrats appear to be pervos!
This is the idiocy of people – they don’t realize these trafficking scaremongers are smearing them! Why doesn’t someone with the GOP or DNC just say … “Hey man look – our people aren’t perverts who like to pound slaves – especially underage ones! Quit saying that shit!”
Damn you, I was already still laughing from your bugs bunny quote when I clicked on your link. $20.00 says Charity is also a Wiccan who just got finished with a ceremony going sky clad. WTF is up with the woods like you said. At least it’s funny
Hi there-
Im the supposed Wiccan doing the interview. Just wanted to let you know, the woods was Fox News’ idea, and the overdramatization of the issue pisses the good activists off too. I am not sure if you have ever had to deal with media on any issue, but of course they are under pressure from their editors to come up with a “sellable” story and often take issues way out of context to make them sellable to their editors and the general public. In this interview, the journalist kept on asking me to give dramatic numbers on how many people were going to be trafficked into Charlotte during the DNC.
While sex trafficking occurs in the US, it is a very small problem compared to what is happening overseas (as I always say during presentations.) I also make sure to stress that there is a difference between trafficking and prostitution.
We are an all volunteer organization – meaning no paid staff – so we do not need to exaggerate to raise money. This is actually why people do that, which irritates the rest of us because it de-legitimizes the rest of us who actually know what we are talking about and really work with victims/survivors of human trafficking. Let me know if you have more legitimate questions.
Thanks!
Charity
Considering some of the crap FOX News has pulled (showing images from one rally and claiming it was another comes to mind), I can believe the woods were their idea.
I know that people who “need to Believe” , will grab anything that is remotly
real sounding. It is ashame for them as they will believe anything that comes along and gives them a false since of comfort.
“They’re the ones whose founder claims she was “trafficked” from her upper-middle-class family home every night for two years (without anyone ever noticing) and forced to prostitute herself, yet was freed every morning to attend school and never showed any signs of sleep deprivation.”
You know what this sounds like to me? It sounds exactly, and I mean exactly, like an alien abduction story.
Ooops – never mind. You already made exactly that point in the post you link to. 🙂
Now that you mention it, it totally does.
Too true. But hell, even alien abduction victims report time loss and show some physical signs of missing sleep and physical contact. This is even beyond that!
“Garcia didn’t know about human trafficking – which also includes men and children forced into either labor or commercial sex – until she visited Thailand in 2006. That’s when she saw something unimaginable: women tagged like cattle, with male customers selecting their victims by number.”
Yes the women in Thailand wear number tags – who could read name tags in nightclub disco lighting or a dozen feet away behind the glass of the massage parlour “fishbowl”?
But these “victims” have iPhones and spend most of their free time texting and Twittering. Many also have day jobs and regularly go home to visit their families bearing loads of cash and household appliances.
Is that what she’s talking about? Good grief! It was so distorted I didn’t even recognize it! I used to keep goats and many of my neighbors have cattle, so I was picturing the numbered ear tags which are used to identify individual specimens.
It is not just clubs. There are also establishments that have the girls sitting along the wall with “numbers” for them to be chosen by customers.
Maggie, as much as the issue may be “overly-hyped” in the US, there is an issue worldwide. It may not exist here in the US (yet, or ever) but do not act so sure of yourself until you have actually been out in it.
P.S. I have only read two of your blog posts, so if I need to eat my words on your lack of “world experience” I will. But, it seems like you want to transpose yours and other US women’s experience to other countries where the similarities break down, and, in the process, take public attention away from something that could very well be a significant problem.
As you’ll see when you read more, it’s not a significant problem; it is a normal set of phenomena that are being defined as a problem for racist, sexist and xenophobic reasons, mainly to pathologize the migration of people from the developing world. But as I said, you’ll discover that for yourself soon enough.
“While Tampa Police spokesperson Andrea Davis says there wasn’t a noticeable uptick in sex-for-hire arrests during the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa, an FBI spokesman fully expects an increase in trafficking with the upcoming convention. “It’s a trend we’ve seen over the years.”
Someone is lying.
Their is a really funny article on cracked about moral panics, http://www.cracked.com/article_17040_the-6-most-insane-moral-panics-in-american-history.html
I’m still a bit terrified about the after effects of the masturbation panic, not the least of which is the rampart and pointless circumcision obsession in the US.
Yeah that’s why we circumcise here alrighty … to keep little boys from masterbating!
/facepalm
Actually … we do it here to show our solidarity with Israel. 😀
As opposed to … oh say, the Scandanavian nations … which have about a ZERO percent circumcision rate but the highest Anti-Semitism in the Western World. They’re also all on the “Swedish Model”.
Actually, that’s a good point – since if it were proven that circumcision harmed men – the practice would be adopted in Sweden as a sacrament!!
Hey – it’s as good a theory as all these other “tin foil” theories I’ve heard!
עבור ישראל!
Your forgetting the most important side effect, and the reason its still common practice here: Decreased sensitivity! You can’t have people enjoy sex too much, they might do something crazy!
But don’t tell Sweden- they might do forced circumcisions to sex offenders! With NO anesthesia! You know, like Kellogg recommended for all those dirty masturbaters.
There’s been no decrease in sensitivity proven there SD.
I just reread the Wikipedia on “circumcision” – it’s a very long article and it’s very balanced. I didn’t see any negatives to circumcision. Yes, they did have one study that said it decreased sensitivity … but it was refuted by other studies. That study also said … “Circumcision makes sex less enjoyable to both partners” – which, that right there is a bald-faced lie because I doubt many women can even tell the difference between cut and uncut when it’s erect and inside them. Remember – not all foreskins are created equal and many uncircumcised men look “circumcised” when they are erect.
The argument is that somehow the “glans” becomes less sensitive because it doesn’t have the foreskin covering it 24/7 and so the overstimulation leads to desensitivity. It makes sense as a theory … however … my own anecdotal experience proves this to be false. Often, after I climax – I have to be totally “still” for at least half a minute because the glans is so sensitive … almost electrically sensitive … that the slightest movement causes me to giggle like I’m being tickled. I really don’t think it could get any more sensitive than that. If it were that sensitive during sex I wouldn’t be able to perform at all!
And besides – would not also frequent, and aggressive masturbation lead to desensitivity? No one’s trying to stop that though are they?
And, I just completely don’t “get” this fascination Europeans have with circumcision in America. I mean, as an American – I get told all the time that I should stay out of the “affairs” of Europeans – they don’t like when we meddle in their affairs – but I don’t remember us ever telling them what they should be doing with their cocks … which is exactly what they seem to be doing to us.
And, I have had sex with European women from countries where circumcision is RARE. They didn’t seem to mind. Admittedly, they were “surprised” at the “unveiling” – one told me … “Wow, I’ve never seen one!” … but she had a grin on her face like she was ready to dive into it.
If circumcision really decreases sensitivity, how come so many men are afraid of coming too quickly? If the average uncircumcised man was really more sensitive than the average circumcised one, he’d come as soon as he put it in. I have never noticed any difference in demonstrable sensitivity between circumcised and uncircumcised men, and I daresay my sample size was more than large enough to adequately judge.
“What, not 50? Slacker.”
😀 😀 😀 😀
Goodness gracious, we in Tampa are about to be mobbed by sex workers ?. I warned the world about this about a year ago and am still waiting for the vice sweeps on Nebraska Ave to herald the law enforcement escapades in advance of the Repubs arriving. The uberhysterical moralists are waiting with media camera crews to identify anyone entering Joe Redners area and the AMPs. None of the established providers that I know are anticipating a significant increase in business, but are raising the fees. That oughtta tell you something
If I pick up anything newsworthy I will let you know.
Well I copped to it before, but after reading a Crime So Monstrous I read Natasha’s and I was duped. Which really makes me feel stupid now b/c I’ve lived in several big cities and the stories never matched up with wht I saw. Even in Thailand, itw as parents largely selling their kids not these mysterious pimps. in any case, each time you post something like this, I feel all the more stupid for falling for it. Better late than never and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one you’ve convinced Maggie, so keep it up (obviously I’m not the only one – far from it )
You’re not stupid, Bill; you are just a good person who doesn’t expect people to lie to you in order to promote an agenda. Also, when you discovered more data, you changed your mind; that is NOT a sign of stupidity, but in fact the opposite. 🙂
I wonder, with increased media spotlight and hysteria, if this thole “traveling whore caravan” will become a self fulfilling prophecy at some point? 😉
Hey, I’ve even learned some history I didn’t know before today. I followed Maggie’s links that eventually led to Theresa Flores’ traffickfree.com website.
Ms. Flores apparently has a license from the State of Ohio to offer counseling services, and an education in same. So, I must presume she was born sometime in the 20th century.
Yet, in her “testimony” pages I found this gem [relevant text boldfaced by me]:
Lets see. No law against kidnap. Check.
No law against interstate transportation of kidnapee. Check.
No law against rape. Check.
No law against forcible drugging. Check.
No law against battery. Check.
I wonder in what century her experience actually occurred.
Maggie wrote:
The National Human Trafficking Resource Center is…what’s the right phrase? Ah, I have it; “full of shit.”
I believe the French call that, mot juste.
Never believed any of the garbage these people have been spewing and their attempts at research is a huge joke. Glad there are people like you who are finally calling them on it. Keep up the good work!
Awesome job calling them out is right, maybe us non trafficked women need to pack up for the next Republican party so we can make our own quota’s! If only we could pay taxes and work legally with rights, maybe we could help some of that defecit out…. the 35 million she’s talking about is probably just the tax money half the country would be paying out if we legalized it in one years time!
Hooplah.
The “sex trafficking” mythos is spinning wildly out of control, and it won’t be long now before it tears itself to pieces.
I sure hope you’re right, and you probably are. The sooner the better, though I worry about whatever takes its place. Maybe it’s time to get all scared of Dungeons & Dragons again.
StormDaughter, I read the thing at Cracked. My favorite line in the whole thing was this: “If you forget the rigidly enforced social rules, the racism, bad haircuts and constant threat of nuclear annihilation, the early 50s were a pretty sweet time to be a kid.”
About the magically trafficked girl servicing rapists all night and going to school all day without showing signs of sleep deprivation: I’m occasionally writing about a middle-school girl who fights crime at night and goes to school during the day. I had to come up with some way for her to not need much sleep before I could suspend my own disbelief. My explanation involves ghosts and “spirit energy.”
Theresa Flores seems to have no explanation at all.