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July 14, 2014

Exposing the 'Purrverse' Truth Behind Sex Trafficking Stings

LOS ANGELES—Kitty Stryker posted a angry screed to The Frisky today that gives the lie to the justification that is always given when law enforcement resources and tax-payer money are used to take down sites like MyRedBook.com and arrest sex workers for trying to stay safe while earning a living. "It’s interesting that every single time an adult site is shut down," she writes, "'child prostitution rings' or 'sex trafficking' are cited as the reasons. Companies like Google throw down big money to support these anti-trafficking measures, even though the statistics suggest the money lines the pockets of organizers more than it helps at-risk populations. "I hear how we must think of the children," she adds, "yet when you look at the statistics of who gets arrested, it’s vulnerable adults who end up in handcuffs. Teenagers who go into sex work are often assumed to have less agency than they do, studies have suggested — sex work provides a sustainable survival method for many homeless youth, male, female, trans and cis. So if they are not all in the danger anti-sex work feminists want us to believe they are, who is getting caught in these police webs?" She answers, in part, by citing a conversation she had with "one woman who was arrested for sex work in 2010. The cops used money that was earmarked for child trafficking to instead waste man-hours chatting her up over several days before coming in for the sting." The woman told her, "They basically dicked around with me for days over email. He said he had never seen anyone before and didn’t have references but was willing to meet up with me at a cafe for a meet n’ greet. Honestly? He spent so much time writing that I thought what fucking cop would have the time. There was no way that they could have mistaken that I’m on my own and of age — it’s obviously not a way to target children or pimps." The arrest process her friend went through was even more humiliating. “Oh my god, there were five cops, multiple cars," the friend recounted. "It was a big ordeal. I was like seriously? This much time, this many people, all for little ol’ me? And they leered, arguing over who got to escort me to the car. The cops asked me so many other really rude and inappropriate questions like … if I was pregnant, if I had any STDs, when my last period was. They took 15 bazillion pictures of all my condoms, trying to shame me. The sheriff was even wearing a shirt with some sort of weird misogynist sexual innuendo." She added that the cops never even asked her if she had been coerced into sex work. Stryker adds, "In short, no, I do not trust the police have my best interests at heart, and I’m a privileged white cisgendered woman. Basically, it seems to me that California is determined to ensure that women who go into sex work die on the streets, at the hand of an abuser who will go unpunished, or in jail. That would, of course, include me, and many people I know …. particularly the trans women and women of color." Even more cynically, she caustically observes, "Between this and the mandated condom bill, AB1576, I’m so grateful that anti-sex work feminists care so deeply for our wellbeing that they’re pushing sex workers to desperation by removing our only methods of making money without any solutions for how to survive financially. It’s great to see how they’re happy to offer us makeup and cupcakes but not practical resources like job connections, education funding, and medical support. What could possibly go wrong?" Her palpable anger leads her to conclude, "The next time you read some hysteria about child prostitution stings, look at who gets arrested and how the arrests go down. At-risk people are put at more risk by these measures, and it needs to be exposed for what it is — supporting, not women and children, but the corporate, patriarchal status quo."

 
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