Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs. – Marlene Dietrich
I’ve noticed a definite trend in the “gypsy whore” and “sex trafficking” hype around Super Bowls over the past few years; the three-word version is “less and later”. For the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas, the panic was already in full swing by November, and the claims were both grandiose and stated as a certainty. It’s impossible to guess how much money was wasted on this police theater, but considering that it involved eleven different “law enforcement” agencies (including the FBI) over a two and a half week period, and two dozen extra staff being “brought in” (which means travel, hotel and per diem x 24 x 18), I’m sure you can imagine. And all this to catch how many “human traffickers” out of supposedly thousands? One. Not an international gangster, either, but an ignorant wannabe pimp who got the idea from the police/media hype just a few days before the event. The number of arrests made by this “task force” – 133 in all – was extremely typical for Dallas, especially considering that only about half were prostitution-related. And so the cops were forced to rig the statistics and make ludicrous claims about the weather and the efficacy of their “preparations” in order to save face.
Indianapolis officials seem to have learned something from Dallas; though nobody other than sex workers, a few academics and a very small number of journalists dared to question the hysteria out loud while it was happening, the egg on Dallas officials’ face was hard to miss and some Indianapolis officials were a little gun-shy. Though attorney general Greg Zoeller started beating the drum in July and held his first press conference in September, the police chief of Indianapolis was unimpressed, several reporters called the story into question and Snopes officially listed it as a debunked myth. And when the imaginary “traffickers” and their white slaves failed to materialize, officials quietly let the matter die in order to save themselves the embarrassment (though Chicago sheriff Tom Dart later bizarrely claimed that a crusade which netted only 565 victims over ten days in eight states [a mere 7 per state per day] was somehow Super Bowl-related).
Since this year’s game was in New Orleans, naturally I was especially interested in how the hysteria would develop; however, November and December came and went with only the most perfunctory idiocy from police officials. The first article I considered worth mentioning was from the January 7th Baton Rouge Advocate and, while the reporter allowed herself only token skepticism, the comment thread was overwhelmingly dismissive of the myth. The police “crackdown” didn’t really start until January 14th, and the FBI used its existing “Innocence Lost” program rather than establish a special operation just for the Super Bowl. Furthermore, the ritual repetition of the myth-narrative didn’t begin in earnest until February 1st, thus virtually closing the window of opportunity in which debunkers could get responses into print before the game on February 3rd; most tellingly, the “authorities” waited until after the event to hold their big press conference, so they would know exactly what kind of yarn to spin:
In an effort to combat the rampant sex trafficking that authorities say has historically accompanied the Super Bowl, a multi-agency task force arrested 85 people during the week leading up to Sunday’s game in New Orleans. Those arrests represented just “the tip of the iceberg” of a growing problem, State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said at a news conference…Operation Innocence Lost, carried out by the New Orleans Police Department, State Police, FBI and Department of Homeland Security…netted arrests on charges of human trafficking, prostitution, pandering, narcotics and weapons charges, authorities said. Fifty-three people were arrested in the New Orleans area, while 32 were nabbed in the Baton Rouge area…Authorities booked at least two men on charges of sex trafficking and rescued five women who were allegedly brought to prostitute in New Orleans against their will. Two were trafficked from Oklahoma; two were brought from Georgia, [said Capt. Doug Cain, a State Police spokesman]…Details on the fifth victim’s story were scarce because she was 17 years old, so she is considered a minor by federal authorities…four other children were rescued in the operation, police said, however they were not themselves being sexually exploited. Two of the children, ages 10 and 11, were found by New Orleans police officers and state troopers during a sting operation. The children were waiting in a car outside a New Orleans location where their mother was prostituting, Edmonson said. “The looks in those kids’ eyes was so sad…They thought this was normal.” The children are now in custody of the state Department of Children and Family Services…The other two children were rescued from a similar situation in Baton Rouge…The FBI will continue to provide services for the victims…
Okay, let’s get this translated. First, note the implication that all 85 arrests were both Super Bowl and prostitution-related; in fact only 53 were in New Orleans, and only seven of that 53 were for anything to do with prostitution. The total number of “traffickers” arrested? Two, and you can bet that means they were either drivers or boyfriends of those five “rescued” (in other words, arrested and jailed) women. Note that “trafficked” from Oklahoma or Georgia actually means the arrested women had drivers’ licenses from those states; they could have been living in New Orleans for up to a year rather than being recently trucked in like produce. The most troubling detail is the state abduction of the children, who will now be condemned to the nightmare of “child protective services” (possibly forever) because “authorities” disapprove of their mothers’ work. If those women are “victims” as claimed, how can they justify aggravating that victimization by stealing their children? But they don’t want us to think about that; to paraphrase Edmonson, “The filth coming out of these cop’ mouths is so disgusting…They really think persecuting people for consensual behavior is normal.”
Still, it’s good to see this ugly annual drama beginning to fade; next year we can probably expect it to be smaller still, and for there to be an even larger number of critics. The next Super Bowl is to be held in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and this autumn I plan to start encouraging New York City-area sex worker rights organizations (of which there are several) to make pre-emptive strikes on the mythology by calling press conferences and presenting reports (of which there are many), thus demonstrating once and for all that “Super Bowl sex trafficking” is nothing but a perverse masturbatory fantasy and an excuse for devoting extra money and manpower to the War on Whores.
I had some runs ins with a anti whore mens organisation who were claiming that the Super Bowl is the largest event for sex trafficking in the world, their hysteria was frightening in it;s intensity
And I don’t understand why NFL fans don’t get upset when they’re labelled, collectively, as a bunch of pediphiles.
Because: to deny the charge of witchcraft proves that you are a witch.
I wonder what effect the 3-4 studies examining this issue in the last few years have had. They find, basically, that there is no detectable increase in the number of workers and that existing workers are generally inconvenienced by such large events and the resulting police antics.
“”If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.” – N.R.F. Maier
Every “cop” show on TV has to throw in a comment about “trafficking” almost every week. If you believed them you would think that even the terrorists are too busy kidnapping and selling little girls to make bombs.
Someone should do a forensic audit of the money flows related to the anti-trafficking industry.
i think said it right………… Follow the $$$. the sleazy reading public/media…$$$ the cops $$$$
If they are arresting people for pandering, how come they haven’t arrested Nancy Grace, who felt that it was national news when a mother hired a couple of strippers for her son’s sweet sixteen party?
‘Edmonson said. “The looks in those kids’ eyes was so sad…They thought this was normal.” ‘
One of most confusing quotes I have ever read.
Cops should have found a dog to shoot or at least tased the mom to put the correct look in their eyes.
They make a huge deal of the kids.
The kids WERE NOT in the room with Mommy and her clients. There was another adult female that accompanied and she was watching the kids – maybe in the car, I don’t know. Initially I heard they were discovered in a different room of the hotel.
I also heard that they got pretty damned terrified when the police found and took them.
BackPage in NOLA area went CRAZY during Mardi Gras with women coming from all over the place advertising for sex. BackPage, by and large = Amateurs. One of the top girls in NOLA made the announcement … “This shit is too crazy New Orleans – I’m going on a working vacation out of town and will return after Mardi Gras!!” She was tired of all the drunks and “no call / no shows”.
Pros left town – or did calls out of town in the ‘burbs. Amateurs flocked into the city – and ended up regretting it I think.
I don’t know of anyone who had their shit in one sock who got busted. It was all BackPage girls who are clueless about what they’re doing.
In July we have “Naughty in N’awlins” … that’s a swinger fetish thing so I suspect we’ll all be run through the “trafficking” drill again when that happens.
And remember that domestic violence was supposed to spike during the Super Bowl as well. It was much ballyhooed by the neofeminists until one enterprising reporter actually did some fact-checking and it wasn’t so. Suddenly everyone points fingers says they’re innocent in repeating the myth, and the whole things jumps down the rabbit hole of moral panics never to be spoken of again.
Yep. I did a column on that a while back called “Ban the Super Bowl“.
I hope the tribe is buying up a lot of warm clothes. When they descend like locusts by the hundreds of thousands on Sochi next February…
Maggie, have you run the numbers on this? Putting aside that most people coming into town for a Super Bowl or suchlike are with their families, it seems to me that the hooker population of any major American city is more than capable of dealing with any hypothetical surge in clientele from a sporting event. 100,000 visitors into a 2 million person MSA is a population surge of about 5%. Even if you were to assume that those men are much more likely to avail themselves of a prostitute, you’re still talking a customer surge of maybe 10% or something. That would barely be noticeable.
You know, looking at the numbers like that reveals an interesting undercurrent to the gypsy whore myth. I think they severely underestimate the level of sex work going on in a city at any time; thus the assumption that a 5% surge in population means a huge explosion in sex work. There is an unstated assumption that the good normal citizens of any city would not possibly hire an escort. No, sir. It’s all those evil out-of-towners!
Actually, studies show what I was saying anecdotally several years ago: there’s actually a slight decrease in business during major sporting events, probably due to competition (I’ll bet TV ratings are lower during them as well).
That’s interesting. I think you’re probably that “event tourists” already have enough excitement built into their agenda.
I was thinking about it some more and, apart from opportunism, it seems like the driving logic is that since restaurants and hotels see a surge in business during a major event, certainly whores must as well. But tourists have to use hotels and restaurants It seems to me that, with sex work, local demand would be a larger factor than tourists (depending on the city obviously). And even if you were going to hire a hooker in a strange city, you’d be much more likely to hire an established local at a reputable agency than a “gypsy whore”.
I did some math on this in the comments of a previous column; I believe it was one centering around the Republican convention. I think I matched the estimated increase in demand and same for supply and basically said, “that’s crazy”. The rates of hiring for attendees would have to be astronomical for the numbers to work.
Plus, Republicans prefer to confine their screwing to the economy.