Nothing is more horrible than my self in the mirror of hysteria. – Karl Kraus
As I’ve often pointed out, moral panics don’t slowly subside; on the contrary, they pick up speed as they go, with the claims growing ever wilder and the official responses growing ever more extreme, until they fly apart and hurl debris in every direction. In the terminal stages of such a panic, many of those who failed to voice their skepticism in the early days are at last moved to open their mouths; however, others double down and continue to vomit out whatever evil nonsense the hysterical narrative demands, with their eyes bulging and froth flying forth from their lips. Domina Elle sent me this prime example of the genre in early December, but once I started trying to edit it down for inclusion in a news column I realized it deserved to be shared in all of its bizarre, moon-barking glory. The lunacy starts with an egregiously mixed metaphor in the incredible headline, which declares “human trafficking” both a “highway” and an “empire”; Hamlet, eat your heart out.
Whether it’s for sex or labor, labeled human trafficking or slavery…human beings in this country still live and die toiling under force, fraud and coercion every day to fulfill criminals’ wealth, power and sexual fantasies. And it turns out Denver is a human-trafficking hub, a place where newsworthy, exploited little girls combine with forgotten boys to make up a roughly $40 million industry…In the last 11 years, the FBI’s Innocence Lost National Initiative brought together more than 400 law-enforcement agencies nationwide to collaborate with communities to recover and assist more than 3,400 children…The initiative resulted in roughly 1,450 convictions…
Sexual fantasies are involved, all right, but they aren’t those of criminals; they’re in the sick minds of cops and FBI agents who are happy to destroy the lives of peaceful adults in order to fulfill them. I’m not sure where that ridiculous “3400 children” number comes from, but the actual number of underage sex workers, mostly 16 or 17 (the real meaning of “exploited little girls”) who have been arrested (the real meaning of “recovered”) since the beginning of the lugubriously-named “Innocence Lost” pogroms is less than 1200, and a slightly-higher number of men charged with “pimping”; given that the conviction rate on these bogus charges is roughly 4%, that makes the number of convictions somewhere below 100. Of course, that’s only pimping convictions; given that over 15,000 adult sex workers (all women; male sex workers are charged as pimps) were also arrested in these operations, 1450 convictions wouldn’t be at all surprising. But to equate throwing adult women into prison (for having sex for taboo reasons) with locking up slavers goes beyond dishonesty into the realm of Stalinesque evil.
…Human trafficking stands as one of few issues in this country nobody can call “polarizing.” It’s fucking horrible. The end. That the people we sell here in the United States think their circumstances are normal, are terrified to leave or don’t know they’re victims or survivors…doesn’t make this acceptable, it makes it…modern slavery…
Translation: The “authorities” are the arbiters of what is normal, and if you disagree that you’re a victim or a “survivor”, we’re going to label you as one anyway and “rescue” you by subjecting you to a terrifying deception, tearing you away from your life and locking you in a cage until you learn to accept our opinion without question.
…No 13-year-old girl — the average age of recruitment for a female prostitute — or 12-year-old boy dreams of becoming a prostitute, raped 20 to 48 times a night…Seven years after recruitment, studies show he or she will most likely be dead…
Though the “average age” idiocy has remained the same, note that the number of clients (labeled “rapes” here) per night is now fluctuating wildly; some “trafficking” porn lists numbers as high as 110, while others claim numbers more within the bounds of reason, like 5. This one splits the difference with a range of 20 (ridiculous) to 48 (wholly absurd but not an egregious violation of physical laws). I’m still trying to track down the origin of the “average life-span of 7 years” myth; given that another commonly-circulated idiocy is that the average whore dies at 34, one wonders how fanatics can subtract 13 from that and arrive at 7. But I guess math isn’t important when FEELS are at stake. And I’m not even going to comment on the saccharine pap that what children “dream” of has any bearing on adult employment opportunities.
“Regardless of what…some people actually experience in real life…There’s a lot of victimization, whether it’s rape, beatings, torture, you name it…isn’t it pretty reasonable to assume maybe people are being forced…to be in it rather than volunteering to be in it?”
Denver cop Dan Steele says you shouldn’t believe what actual sex workers tell you; his wanking fantasies involve raping and torturing whores, therefore we’re all enslaved. Q.E.D.
…They’re sold on a circuit…[that] brings the exploited into towns for male-dominated events and operations such as conferences, sports games and construction or mining projects…
Note the denial of women’s agency; we “are sold” and “are brought” rather than traveling under our own power, because of course women are too stupid to make our own business and travel arrangements. So was I “trafficked” on my tour “circuit” last summer? Or did I magically gain the ability to use Priceline once I stopped “selling my body”?
…“We’re in the middle of the country, and that makes us a destination state but also a transit state,” says [“trafficking” profiteer Amanda] Finger. “With I-25 and I-70 connecting us to the coast or to the borders, we sit right in the middle of a lot of action…”
King of the Hill! Have you figured out yet that “trafficking” fans will claim anything as an excuse to declare a given city a “hub”?
…With a rough total of 1.5 million human trafficking victims at any given time in the United States alone…
Where does this number come from? What relationship does it have to “300,000 trafficked children” and “30 million slaves worldwide”? Does the author of this mess, Brandy Simmons, know or care? Given the abysmal level of mathematical ability she demonstrated above, I somehow doubt it.
…Human trafficking is in your food, clothes, neighborhood, your favorite ethnic food restaurants…
Ethnic restaurants, natch. But Brandy isn’t a racist, no sirree; it’s not her fault that McDonald’s doesn’t “traffick” people. Except that it does.
…many cases…begin…with a simple call from someone whose “gut feelings” about a person or situation proved right…
They’re of course “proved right” by the cops arresting whoever’s accused. So if you see something, say something!
…Some studies say an average sex worker will have 800 sex partners in a year…
That’s actually pretty reasonable; I averaged about 700 a year and street girls do more. But does Brandy do the basic math to recognize it doesn’t jibe with her claim of 20-48 per night (i.e. 7300 – 17,500 per year)? Please tell me you don’t need me to answer that.
…“We have 12-year-old boys being recruited to be pimps, just like we have 12-year-old girls being recruited to be victims,” says [“trafficking” profiteer Brad] Riley…“When a 12-year-old has seen tens of thousands of images that objectify a woman, that [creates]…this appetite that’s not appropriate or healthy or respectful to women. When that 12-year-old gets to be 25, it’s much easier for him to be a buyer, and a trafficker will prey on that”…
Yes, Brad says sexy TV commercials cause “sex trafficking”; savor the neofeministy, end-demandy goodness. Do we really need to research Brad to find out how he feels about porn, glamour modeling, or even miniskirts? No, I don’t think so. And I wouldn’t be shocked to find he’s anti-abortion as well; after all, we’ve gotta “protect” women from going down that human highway to the underground “sex trafficking” empire, even if we have to “traffick” them into prison to do it.
