"Catching Johns" New Times article

[jcmiami1]

http://time.com/sex-buyers-why-cops-across-the-u-s-target-men-who-buy-prostitutes/

[BaronArtz]

Interesting article, thanks for posting. 'It would be a legal way to kill yourself', said Kimmy. That gave me the chills.

 

I am just playing with the guys I know for now.

[jcmiami1]

Interesting article, thanks for posting. 'It would be a legal way to kill yourself', said Kimmy. That gave me the chills.

 

I am just playing with the guys I know for now.

I definitely agree!

[BaronArtz]

I definitely agree!

 

Glad you agree. But it also shows that intimidation is working ... for now, at least.

[jcmiami1]

The sting is all about prevention of the exploitation and human trafficking of women and minors who are "forced" and "coerced" into prostitution. I can understand that 100% and I'm all for it. Now for - male - escorts/prostitutes such as those on Rentboy, Rentmen, Backpage etc. Maybe I'm just naive I never got the impression of any type of coercion - but these guys were doing it for extra cash and for some it was their career and only source of income. Yea for others, sadly, its to make money to buy drugs and fuel their addictions.

So it appears everyone is now being clumped into the same group. I think it's best to use caution now because you never know who is in the other side of your screen - sad but true.

[Wolfer]

Jcmiami1: you've excellently voiced my own thoughts on the subject.

 

Are there any reports on stings on gay Johns?

 

I was planning a trip to the USA (I'm from Europe) and have some meetups. But this has got me a bit scared. :/

[jcmiami1]

Jcmiami1: you've excellently voiced my own thoughts on the subject.

 

Are there any reports on stings on gay Johns?

 

I was planning a trip to the USA (I'm from Europe) and have some meetups. But this has got me a bit scared. :/

I'm looking into it haven't seen anything on "gay johns" but if they shut down Rentboy you know that's next or maybe happening now. I think it's best to read reviews of known guys in your area here in forums and go with them. I wouldn't go with unknown not reviewed guys at this time anyways in any site.

[Muscle Lover 2]

The scariest thing is that, if you have written reviews, you've sort of admitted everything, right?

[+ stevenkesslar]

The scariest thing is that, if you have written reviews, you've sort of admitted everything, right?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay_in_United_States_law

[+ WmClarke]

http://time.com/sex-buyers-why-cops-across-the-u-s-target-men-who-buy-prostitutes/

 

So the article says: ...and in many cases their car will be towed, which is another $500, plus a towing fee that’s usually between $200-300.

 

Um....why? Just to add to the monetary impact of the arrest? If you're parked legally, why tow the car? Bad reporting or bad policing?

[+ stevenkesslar]

http://time.com/sex-buyers-why-cops-across-the-u-s-target-men-who-buy-prostitutes/

 

I think it makes sense to at least scan the two articles that are linked in the TIME article above that make the case against decriminalization. And also to keep in mind that anybody who says there is any simple solution or "one size fits all" solution is full of it.

 

The more important of the two articles is the one in World Development which TIME says "found that as a general trend, countries with legalized prostitution have more human trafficking." If you like masturbation, you should really like this article, because it is to me a great example of intellectual masturbation:

 

http://www.lse.ac.uk/geographyAndEnvironment/whosWho/profiles/neumayer/pdf/Article-for-World-Development-_prostitution_-anonymous-REVISED.pdf

 

If you don't want to scan it, this excerpt - an "estimation equation" on page 70 - tells you something about the article's limits:

 

y = x + b1Prostitution + b2Xi + b3Region + ei;

 

The formula is so out there and theoretical it probably didn't even cut and paste right, but my reason for including it is that mostly the article discusses very theoretical economic models, not reality. If this is the case for the status quo, I don't buy it. I think the easier, arguably simplistic, way to understand this is just think of two real countries - Sweden and Denmark. In Sweden there is (it is argued) less decriminalized prostitution, because they decriminalized it for (mostly female) prostitutes and cracked down on (mostly male) johns. In Denmark, there is (it is argued) more decriminalized prostitution, because they made it easier for both sides of the transaction to do what they wanted to do. I'm not sure even those things are proven, as opposed to argued. But it makes common sense that things would work out that way - decriminalization will likely increase both supply and demand, like in Denmark. But if you punish men who hire prostitutes, it will decrease demand, like in Sweden. I know I'm long-winded, but I just said it way more clearly and concisely than the scholarly article did.

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/human-trafficking-persists-despite-legality-of-prostitution-in-germany-a-902533.html

 

The other article, in Der Spiegel, is less important in that it is largely anecdotal, but more moving in that it is real. A big chunk of it discusses a Romanian prostitute, Alina, a migrant sex worker. She wanted to get out of Romania, in part because of her father, "who drank and beat his wife, and sometimes abused his daughter, too." Prostitution was her ticket out. She chose it. Arguably, she got out of the frying pan and into the fire. While she claims she is not being beaten by her pimp, she says it is not necessary to beat her because he knows where her family lives. So even though she and other prostitutes could go to the police, who could use evidence provided by them to bust the pimps, they instead lie to the police for the pimps, because .... why? She needs the money? A tragic life in Germany is better than a tragic life in Romania? The article doesn't really say. It does reach a sweeping conclusion summed up by a headline: "Unprotected: How Legalizing Prostitution Has Failed." Fair enough, but does that mean that if Alina were a migrant sex worker in Germany and prostitution were re-criminalized, she would be somehow better off? I don't think so. It would mostly give her one less bad option.

 

My take is this: whether she is a prostitute or not, whether she is in Germany or Romania, whether the abuser is her father or her pimp, the real issue is that Alina is "unprotected" from violence and intimidation. I doubt most Germans have a huge amount of sympathy for a Romanian prostitute. Any more than most Americans would have a huge amount of sympathy for an illegal using prostitution to stay and earn money in the United States.

 

You can use either article to argue that prostitution is morally wrong, and decriminalizing it will lead to more of it. But you can't really use either article to say that decriminalizing prostitution leads to more violence, or disease, or abuse.

 

Now read examples of what led the World Health Organization to promote decriminalizing prostitution:

 

http://www.who.int/gender/documents/sexworkers.pdf

 

How about if in Los Angeles, over half of all street-based sex workers were raped by "men in uniforms?" How about if in New York, over 70 % of sex workers were being "beaten by the police?" How about if in Chicago, Miami, and Houston the sex worker community was the center of a "concentrated epidemic" of HIV transmission? Take out the names of US cities and that is, according to WHO, what was happening in, respectively, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Russia. I take this fact sheet with a grain of salt, in part because it's dated, and in part because I don't know that anyone really knows how bad the violence really is. Mostly, however bad it is, it is happening globally in a context of criminalized prostitution. There's no clear evidence anywhere that decriminalizing prostitution makes it worse. Even Alina's choice, in her own words, is between a father who beats his wife and abuses his daughter, and a pimp who doesn't beat her, but intimidates her. It is a horrible set of options.

 

One more article that is worth scanning:

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-the-prostitution-bill-will-increase-violence-against-sex-workers/article19704999/

 

This was written by a woman activist in Canada who opposed the "decriminalization" bill that actually became law, which follows the "Nordic model" and targets johns. She supported a different decriminalization model. I think it captures the essence of what a meaningful debate on this issue should be about. The author's main concern is promoting what she calls an "anti-violence" strategy. She acknowledges that some of the women who engage in sex work, who could be viewed as victims, like Alina in the story above, "will engage in prostitution because of limits on their options." She's right: prostitution is going to happen, whether it is criminal or not, and whether society approves of it or not, because the people doing it see it as their only choice.

 

If you only read the last sentence, what it suggests is that the most critical issue for debate is not about whether the law increases or decreases prostitution. It is whether the law increases or decreases violence. I agree with her on that.

 

Whatever you think about The Travel Act, it actually got that part right. Crimes like prostitution carry maximum 5 year terms, but crimes that involve violence carry 20 year terms. We ought to prioritize fighting crimes that have victims, and that involve violence.

 

The unifying thread of all these articles to me is that while the debate about decriminalization is important, it is also a huge distraction. No one I've talked to thinks any state or local jurisdiction is about to decriminalize prostitution. Most places are cracking down, as the TIME article says. The real debate right now is how we target the resources we have available to deal with what you can either call the oldest profession in the book, or the oldest problem in the book.

 

To me, there really isn't even much room for debate there, either. Even people who mostly see prostitution as a problem will admit that it ain't going away. So why not instead focus on making it as professional and safe as we can? I totally agree with the OP's conclusions.

[+ stevenkesslar]

So the article says: ...and in many cases their car will be towed, which is another $500, plus a towing fee that’s usually between $200-300.

 

Um....why? Just to add to the monetary impact of the arrest? If you're parked legally, why tow the car? Bad reporting or bad policing?

 

Danny did a good job of giving me a quick education on this one on the phone the other night, after which I went into research mode. Thanks, Danny.

 

The emoji, by the way, relates to how I felt about what I read, not about how I feel about Danny, who is a prince.

 

http://reason.com/blog/2015/08/28/asset-forfeiture-for-sex-workers

[+ stevenkesslar]

Know I'm in verbal diarrhea mode, but 4 more good articles, all of which focus on comparing how this works in Nordic countries that might be assumed to be more similar to the US than some of the countries in the WHO report, where criminalization of prostitution seems to breed violence and disease.

 

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/30/sex-trafficking-countries-take-different-approaches-to-same-problem/

 

http://factsaresacred.ie/politics/has-demand-for-prostitution-declined-in-sweden/

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/why-amsterdams-prostitution-laws-are-still-failing-protect-empower-women-1467733

 

http://www.thecultureist.com/2014/07/02/red-means-stop-truth-behind-amsterdams-rosseburt/

 

The first article suggests that what I said in the post above is correct. If you want less prostitution, do what Sweden did. If you want more, do what Denmark did. Again, this does not directly have anything to do with violence or disease. I'd say it's just common sense. You also have to factor in that none of this tells us what might happen in the US. I'm assuming that if women are being trafficked into Europe, it's a no brainer given the laws that they'll be trafficked to Denmark, not Sweden. Just like it's a no brainer that because Mexico is geographically contiguous with the US border, smuggling by coyotes will happen more in the US than Canada, and more in Texas than in Maine.

 

The second article actually argues that there is no measurable decrease in prostitution in Sweden as a result of the Nordic model. I have no idea whether the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, the original source of the data, is a credible organization. But their numbers, if true, suggest both reported cases and convictions are trending up, not down. Leading the author to this obvious conclusion: "...it’s surprising to see significantly higher numbers for the most recent years, if the law really has the deterrent effect claimed by its supporters." If nothing else, it suggests that cracking down on johns is not a magic solution, and the the oldest profession in the world will always be the oldest profession in the world.

 

The final two articles focus on Amsterdam, which sounds like anything but a rose garden. In fact, both authors, who are women, make it sound like a nightmare that would make the movie "Hostel" look tame by comparison. I don't know that I buy everything these authors say, but they both paint compelling pictures. To me, the title of the first article says a lot:

 

Why Amsterdam's Prostitution Laws are Still Failing to Protect or Empower Women

 

I am completely ignorant about whether the claim the headline makes is true. But speaking for myself I can say this. Whatever the policy on prostitution is, it ought to be about protecting and empowering women, especially women sex workers, as well as children.

 

At the very least, what is happening in Amsterdam's brothels comes up short. 13 sex workers murdered in brothels? 10 to 15 men per day? Numerous rape attacks? Being forced to bear witness to a real snuff movie? I've been a male escort for 15 years, and the only thing I've seen that sounds even remotely like that was in movies like "Hostel."

 

If these articles are even half right, I wouldn't want to work in brothels like these. I wouldn't want to be pimped out in brothels like these. I wouldn't even want to live near brothels like these. Frankly, they sound sickening.

 

Which is the point. As one article I read pointed out, there is no such thing as an "Internet brothel." I've never actually had sex on the internet, and I don't know how anybody could. What Rentboy and lots of other websites actually did and do was move male and female escorts off the streets, and give them safer ways, without pimps, to do whatever they do.

 

That is why the 22 page complaint does not indict Rentboy for promoting drugs, for forcing men (or boys) to have sex 10 to 15 times a day, for murdering anyone, for raping anyone, or for snuffing anyone, which is what these articles indict the brothels of Amsterdam for. The closest Rentboy seems to have actually come to any of that, from what I've heard, is they promoted some really effective non-profit organizations that worked for harm reduction and had good anti-violence programs.

 

The closest the complaint could get to indicting Rentboy for sex is to attack gay men broadly for their sexuality. Frankly, I find that sickening, too.