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Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

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Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#31

Post by giraffe_lady »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wired piece mentioned: > The government indictment that triggered Lacey and Larkin’s arrests, United States v. Lacey, et al., includes 17 “victim summaries”—stories of women who say they were sexually exploited through Backpage. Victim 5 first appeared in an ad on the platform when she was 14; her “customers” made her “perform sexual acts at gunpoint, choked her to the point of having seizures, and gang-rape…

> and legitimate consensual sex work What is legitimate consensual sex work? For those of us who don't transact with prostitutes, all we know about this is a stream of narratives we've seen on tv and in film. Julia Roberts falling for Richard Gere, or Maggie Gyllenhall refusing to have a pimp "manage" her. Yet, I remember reading one account of a porn actress, who despite signing all the paperwork, waivers and contra…

It's the same consent I and probably also you have with working for money: coerced into it by the threat of penury and/or state violence. I choose the best of the options available to me, based on the other constraints in my life. As do sex workers.

They are subject to the same coercive pressures, and their constraints are individual to them as everyone's are to themselves. Consent is simply the wrong framework for understanding decisions made under life and death consideration. In the same way a machinist's anger at their on the job maiming is righteous, a sex worker can consider any or all encounters to be rape. Just because they've chosen to be there doesn't mean they want to be.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#32

Post by lapestenoire »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #27
fasthands9 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like discussions around sex trafficking are weird. By legal definition they facilitated sex trafficking. Perhaps they could argue they are better than Average Joe Pimp, but Average Joe Pimp is also going to say he was kinder or more fair than Average Bob Pimp. It seems like everyone accepts face value numbers of sex trafficking when trying to make a point about how widespread the issue is - but then except mos…

> By legal definition How's that? Like, if McDonald's unknowingly sells a Big Mac to a hungry sex trafficker, have they facilitated sex trafficking? What if they do know he's a sex trafficker, but he's not currently dragging any women behind him with chains? Does he like have to be in flagrant possession of captive victims for it to be "facilitating"? The legal definition, such as it is, is lame and rather loose. And…

I think you managed to disprove your point.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#33

Post by maxbond »

rayiner wrote: post #25
maxbond wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

> Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions You’re starting with a libertarian premise most people don’t accept. The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves. Society has a role to play to help people make good choices and to make it hard for…

> The vast majority of the world accepts that it’s proper to restrict individual freedom even to protect people from themselves.

As do I, and I said as much (I'm not a capital-L Libertarian, I meant it as an adjective). I argued this exceeded reasonable bounds.

I'm surprised to learn it's that unpopular, but I am comfortable arguing an unpopular position.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#34

Post by [deleted] »

lapestenoire wrote: post #32
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By legal definition How's that? Like, if McDonald's unknowingly sells a Big Mac to a hungry sex trafficker, have they facilitated sex trafficking? What if they do know he's a sex trafficker, but he's not currently dragging any women behind him with chains? Does he like have to be in flagrant possession of captive victims for it to be "facilitating"? The legal definition, such as it is, is lame and rather loose. And…

I think you managed to disprove your point.

[deleted]

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#35

Post by thaumasiotes »

zer8k wrote: post #17
fasthands9 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like discussions around sex trafficking are weird. By legal definition they facilitated sex trafficking. Perhaps they could argue they are better than Average Joe Pimp, but Average Joe Pimp is also going to say he was kinder or more fair than Average Bob Pimp. It seems like everyone accepts face value numbers of sex trafficking when trying to make a point about how widespread the issue is - but then except mos…

I also don't know how you can differentiate "consensual" from "non-consensual" sex work. 1. They say "no im not exploited" because they are afraid 2. They say "no im not exploited" because they are not exploited You gain no information from interviewing them. No vice unit has the resources to do a top secret clearance level check on them to confirm externally they are not exploited. To act like the two can simply be…

Slavery is even more illegal than pimping. How do you differentiate consensual work from non-consensual work?

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#36

Post by Vicinity9635 »

worik wrote: post #24
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Wired piece mentioned: > The government indictment that triggered Lacey and Larkin’s arrests, United States v. Lacey, et al., includes 17 “victim summaries”—stories of women who say they were sexually exploited through Backpage. Victim 5 first appeared in an ad on the platform when she was 14; her “customers” made her “perform sexual acts at gunpoint, choked her to the point of having seizures, and gang-rape…

I live in a jurisdiction where sex work is decriminalised. Trafficking does still occur. But it is a very small part of the scene. The difference it has made to workers is huge . Once they were at risk from pimps, clients, and cops. Now if pimps or clients bother them they go to the cops, and the cops protect them. As they should. As they do for shop keepers, plumbers, and computer programmers. Make no mistake: Havin…

>Make no mistake: Having a law against sex work encourages, and subsidises, trafficking.

Super dark take: Hey, it worked to make drugs more profitable, why not sex work?

I remember when it passed and pretty much every ordinary American was surprised and hadn't asked for it. It seemed to come out of nowhere with no news coverage that I was aware of and nobody was a fan.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#37

Post by themitigating »

myshpa wrote: post #5

“unlike virtually every other website that is used for prostitution and sex trafficking, Backpage is remarkably responsive to law enforcement requests and often takes proactive steps to assist in investigations.” - DOJ "In short, contrary to the public narrative you may have heard, Backpage worked closely with federal law enforcement to actually stop sex trafficking (and not just take it down, but to track down the p…

But they refused to do the same for consensual sex work

Isn't that also a crime in almost the entire US?

It's also where sex trafficking comes into play. How would you know consent was given by a sex worker? People who are trafficked to work as prostitutes are often blackmailed and threatened.

Right now there's massive paranoia about this because it's being used as an election tactic but prostitution and sex trafficking are somewhat linked

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#38

Post by vorpalhex »

maxbond wrote: post #22
vorpalhex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, we tried drug decriminalization in the theory that decriminalization meant people could seek help. Instead of more people getting help, fewer did because the stick had been removed. [0] We should ask, well, does sex trafficking happen more or less in areas where prostitution is legal? That'll give us a good indicator of the effects of decriminalization. We have a great study on this [1]. Decriminalization ma…

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

Well I quoted a Harvard review of a Swedish study, and yours is an Iranian study that seems to have no peer review. Also your metastudy uh, agrees with mine:

> The last critics would be that full decriminalization has not resulted in reduced trafficking victimization, but led to growth trafficking inflows

> Lastly, I'm just more inclined to listen to sex workers and trafficking victims about what they would help than to look at descriptive statistics.

Have you.. talked to any trafficking victims? Any sex workers? And, why do you think a sex worker has the ability to write prescriptive legal policy? Drug addicts would like drugs to be legal, oil barons would like there to be no natural protection laws, prostitutes would like prostitution to be legal.

And what do you think has changed about sex trafficking and prostitution in 11 years?

> Fourth, once you've prohibited something, it's next to impossible to intervene to make that market safer.

Right because you squash the market. Decriminalization of drugs failed because the count of addicts soared and so did ODs. You have less sex trafficking when it is riskier to engage in any prostitution. This isn't rocket science. Arguing your trafficking victims should get better health care is worse than just having meaningfully less trafficking victims.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#39

Post by themitigating »

maxbond wrote: post #22
vorpalhex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluntly, we tried drug decriminalization in the theory that decriminalization meant people could seek help. Instead of more people getting help, fewer did because the stick had been removed. [0] We should ask, well, does sex trafficking happen more or less in areas where prostitution is legal? That'll give us a good indicator of the effects of decriminalization. We have a great study on this [1]. Decriminalization ma…

This is pretty silly, prohibition has been an obvious failure in both drugs and sex work. Firstly, it's a human rights issue, people ought to be able to engage in the commerce of their choosing with only reasonable restrictions. Prohibition is an unreasonable restriction, enforced according to a set of puritan morals that are no longer even popularly held. After all, alcohol is more addictive and more harmful than ma…

Thirdly, you're linking to a 2014 article about a 2012 study, which is ancient as far as an academic paper goes

Has there been some new release of prostitution, like a 2.0 where they updated the security to prevent abuse?

Stupid joke but nothing has really changed in that realm of things where a study that isn't that old would be invalid.

Re: Jim Larkin, Backpage exec, has died

#40

Post by thaumasiotes »

myshpa wrote: post #5

“unlike virtually every other website that is used for prostitution and sex trafficking, Backpage is remarkably responsive to law enforcement requests and often takes proactive steps to assist in investigations.” - DOJ "In short, contrary to the public narrative you may have heard, Backpage worked closely with federal law enforcement to actually stop sex trafficking (and not just take it down, but to track down the p…

> But they refused to do the same for consensual sex work and that is why the feds eventually came down on them like a ton of bricks, all while telling the media and politicians that it was for sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking is defined as sex work. There isn't a legal difference. That's why they're saying it.

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