Fascists, prohibitionists, and other violent busybodies…can always be counted on to use every power at their disposal to inflict as much suffering as possible on those weaker than they are. – “NYE 2022“
As I first predicted over a decade ago, “sex trafficking” hysteria did not end quietly, but instead violently imploded. In “The Widening Gyre” I referred to the moral panic as “an increasingly-erratic cultural meme spinning wildly out of control, whose far-flung debris is going to cause a lot more damage before it finally disintegrates”, and boy was I right; though we no longer have to endure endless parades of lackwits with tape over their mouths, and cops’ public masturbation to the “gypsy whores” myth in Super Bowl host cities is more likely to evoke mockery than parroting these days, the toxic fallout of the collapse is everywhere, and will likely poison the social ecosystem for many years to come. Of course all the terrible laws the hysteria spawned will stay on the books, just as the terrible laws spawned by its previous incarnation a century go (such as 1910’s Mann Act) are still around for the government to oppress people with. And though the surviving QAnon offshoot of the panic is largely the realm of Trumpists, it’s far too late for belated debunking by prohibitionist media such as The New York Times (which eagerly promoted “sex trafficking” hysteria when it served their authoritarian goals and funneled money into its coffers via clickbait) to have any real curative effect on the paranoid poison which has permeated every part of Western society and may yet engender still-worse laws. But in the long run, the most dangerous effect of “sex trafficking” hysteria may result from its shifting of the Overton window. The “white slavery” hysteria of the previous century shifted the public perception of sex work from something which, while distasteful to many, was recognized as normal and even necessary, to a “social evil” which could be eradicated by state violence; similarly, “sex trafficking” rhetoric, by casting women as permanent children wholly unable to view sex pragmatically or even plan travel or place ads without male assistance, paved the way for the ongoing erosion of many of women’s hard-won rights which has already resulted in the widespread recriminalization of abortion across much of the US, the sexual infantilization of women in Canada and much of Europe, and a worldwide war on porn which has made ambitious censorship and surveillance schemes acceptable to useful idiots worldwide. Where this will end, it’s impossible to say, but one thing is sure: however destructive a wildfire may be, it’s at least possible to fight it when there aren’t hordes of fools running around throwing lit matches everywhere they go.
