FBI Busts Consenting Adults for Having Sex -- Don't They Have Anything Better to Do?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




The Nation / By Joanna Chiu

FBI Busts Consenting Adults for Having Sex -- Don't They Have Anything Better to Do?
The stories of consensual adult sex workers, who are often the targets of police busts, are missing in all the hysteria about sex trafficking and underage prostitution.

November 8, 2010 |


Last summer, a sex worker from San Francisco called a client she found through Craigslist and they made plans to meet in the best hotel of a small Southern town. Shortly after they stepped into the hotel room, police stormed in to join the FBI agent who had posed as the client, and arrested the sex worker as part of a nation-wide sting which targeted venues such as “truck stops, motels and the Internet,” according to an FBI report on Operation Innocence Lost. Operation Innocence Lost focuses on rescuing children forced into sex work, but has arrested hundreds of consensual adult sex workers since its inception in 2003.

“They kept me in the hotel room and tried to interrogate me for more than three hours, but I refused to talk to them,” recalls the sex worker. A year later, after spending approximately $5000 on bail and legal fees, she continues to work as an escort, although she is traumatized from her arrest:

“Now I feel paranoid and jumpy in ways that might be too extreme. I still have nightmares where FBI and police are chasing me. I just wanted to run and hide and be somewhere safe. I’m generally easygoing, but my emotions have been all over the place.”

While the FBI’s Operation Innocence Lost is supposed to focus on the exploitation of minors, according to attorney Sienna Baskin from Urban Justice, “in the process (it) arrests hundreds of consensual adult sex workers.” Urban Justice’s Melissa Broudo also observes that the rate of sex worker arrests have risen during the past few years as a result of increased police and FBI activities:

In terms of trends, police often go to sex workers’ stroll districts to arrest many (sex workers) at once in a van. There’s been many false arrests of transgender women, and I certainly have met some people who have been arrested for selling sexual services over the Internet.

The stories of consensual adult sex workers, like the aforementioned woman from San Francisco, who was 39 years old and planning on exiting sex work to start her own business at the time of her arrest, are missing from the mainstream media coverage and leads to a low level of public awareness about the consequences of police and FBI “anti-trafficking” and “child rescue” activities. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/sex/148776/fbi_busts_consenting_adults_for_having_sex_--_don%27t_they_have_anything_better_to_do/

[niceypoo]

1. Sex workers?

Try white slavery

[marmar]

2. Huh?

[Rebubula]

4. Unless...

....they were forced into this...it is simply a sex worker. These are not street walking, crack addicted teenage runaways. These are adults that choose to make a lot of money for doing something that people will pay for.

Your prudish attitudes do not alter the fact that people will pay for sex and other people will take that money. It does not make it slavery.

Certainly not something I would want my daughter to be engaged in (nor do I want her to be a Republican or work in sales) - but it is not slavery.

[niceypoo]

9. Prudish?

I worked with victims of human trafficking when I at the http://www.theirc.org/">IRC. Your ignorance on this issue is disgusting.

http://www.theirc.org/our-work/anti-trafficking-initiative

http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/children-for-sale-on-craigslist/">Children for Sale on Craigslist

This might come as news to you, but most women who advertised sex for sale ads on Craigslist were being pimped, that is why it was closed.
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/craigslists_closure_cuts_online_sex_ads_by_half

[leveymg]

5. "White slavery" - wow, that term takes one back

to Ole Virginia - to when her modesty was unfaded . . .

Blanche DuBois: I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
Mitch: I guess we must strike you as being a pretty rough bunch.
Blanche DuBois: I'm very adaptable to circumstances.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. I hate to break it to you --

but there are plenty of adult women who choose this line of work for a variety of reasons, usually the very good money, hours, and flexibility. Are some women forced into sex work against their will? Sure, but many, many more make this their work voluntarily.

Personally, I think that sex work should be legalized here in CA as it is in Nevada. Like pot, regulate it and tax it.

[niceypoo]

7. Street hookers have pimps

You know this, right? There is a term for it: White Slavery

Human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a major cause of contemporary sexual slavery.

[Raster]

8. Not all street hookers have pimps. Some function as an independent entity.

There are also males who are sex workers.

[niceypoo]

10. Most have pimps

And those who do not are beaten up repeatedly or just kidnapped.

[Dr.Phool]

3. I hought Ashcroft was gone.

Er, I meant Gonzales.