Making It Up As They Go

[We] invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon…we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.  –  David Hume

The states of Arizona and Washington appear to be competing for the dubious distinction of most prolific font of “sex trafficking” rhetoric.  While Arizona tends to lead in terms of pure vileness of the filth it spews, Washington is the clear leader in the areas of deep absurdity and unintentional hilarity.  Here are some choice excerpts from Washington’s latest bizarre anti-whore screed:

Bellevue has been in the spotlight…regarding a perceived uptick in sex trafficking and prostitution, but the police here say current events only highlight an issue that has long been prevalent in the…region…a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation of a Bellevue anesthesiologist for alleged sex trafficking and money laundering just [scratches] the surface of the regional problem with prostitution, said Bellevue Police Lt. Lisa Patricelli…”We can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” she said.  [But] former Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo created the Vice Unit three years ago, to address complaints…regarding the influx of illegal Asian massage parlors…

The contradictions and nonsense are apparent right from the beginning.  Prostitution is defined as a “problem”, and since it exits everywhere in the world and always has, the statement that it has “long been prevalent in the region” is a bit like saying “air has long been prevalent in the region”.  Anywhere there are humans there will be sex work, and it only becomes a “problem” when officials define it as such.  I love the way the cop’s truthful declaration that prostitution can’t be stopped by arresting people is immediately followed by the statement that the vice department in this supposedly whore-infested region is only three years old.

…the greater problem the Bellevue Police Department now faces are the multiple listings for sexual services on popular online ad sites, the most prominent being Backpage.com.  Without a known strip in Bellevue where prostitutes are seen visually enticing customers, most transactions are happening online and behind closed doors…

As usual, we have the dogged refusal to comprehend that street work is not and never has been the majority of sex work, but it’s especially ridiculous here when we’re told that the lack of the issues which incense most middle-class people against street work (noise, litter, loitering, etc) constitutes a “problem”.  Perhaps Bellevue is jealous of larger cities that have streetwalkers to persecute?

…the Bellevue anesthesiologist…is alleged to have aided his Thai girlfriend’s sex trafficking enterprise, renting out apartments and condos for prostitution and using backpage.com to advertise the women being used…Bellevue…offers a number of high-end hotels, upscale high-rise apartments and condominiums that are being used for…prostitutes, who charged up to $200 an hour for their services…a…vice detective said…”These are the ones where we would most likely see the foreign trafficked gals.”  Prostitution is also a transient problem, he said, as many sex workers travel in circuits, staying a few days in one city before heading to another…

There’s so much to unpack here:  the mention of the girlfriend’s national origin so as to evoke racist stereotypes and “sex trafficking” tropes;  the clumsy dysphemisms like “circuits” and “women being used”; the apparent belief that $200/hour is a high fee; the inversion of the usual “sex trafficking” trope of “slaves” confined in cheap motels; and the startlingly xenophobic claim that businesspeople passing through a town for a few days on business constitutes a problem in and of itself.  Yet in the very next paragraph this bigot with a badge expects the reader to believe he’s concerned with sex workers’ safety.

…Johns, known on the streets these days as “hobbyists”…

Yes, that’s the reporter once again assuming all sex work to be street work despite saying earlier that in this town virtually none is.  Compared to the magnitude of ignorance implicit in this line, the “end demand” pap which follows is practically lucid.

…Carol Loya said she’s using her business, Truce Spa at the Westin Bellevue Hotel, to champion the healing side for sex trafficking victims…Escape to Peace is a global mission to end human trafficking…[that holds] workshops with high school students to decorate flip-flops for victims…Truce Spa also issues clients puzzle pieces – the symbol for human trafficking — for donations of three…bottles that are used to create candles to aid victims in relaxing their troubled bodies and minds.  Loya said she hopes to put informative puzzle pieces up in storefront windows and other businesses around the area where traffickers are known to recruit…

The story goes out with a bang, assaulting our minds with a veritable cornucopia of stupidity.  The idea that whores who make $200 per hour need donated flip-flops and don’t know how to relax would seem self-evidently ridiculous, but it’s very popular right now (especially among groups like the “Cupcake Girls“); donation of cheap, nasty used clothes is another recurring theme.  But to me the crowning idiocy of this generous collection of doltishness is the claim that puzzle pieces are “the symbol for human trafficking”.  Since when?  I’ve been covering this beat for four years now, and that’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.  But this sort of off-the-cuff confabulation is the rule rather than the exception in the rescue industry; while many of the fetishists are happy to regurgitate the same mildewed myths and tired tropes, those who seek to distinguish themselves often do so by inventing some new “fact” or at least embroidering on an old one.  And none of the ersatz “journalists” who cover this rubbish ever notice that the so-called “experts” are just making it up as they go along.