Heck yes. Many sex workers are voluntary sex workers, are paid and are of legal age. Many voluntary sex workers also enjoy their work. Many sex workers are also involuntary sex workers (many of whom are not of legal age to consent) which is where the human trafficking comes in. Human trafficking often involves crossing borders in secret, and also often through coercion and threats of violence and death. They are also often not paid, promised passports that never come, or held captive in slavery. Human trafficking is also sometimes far more complicated than what Iāve laid out here, with people knowingly choosing sex work to move to another country to escape violence, support their families, and sometimes becoming employed in a different industry. I encourage you to do some googling.
So he, like, totally denies it?
I donāt think this is about sex work. I see it more as a fine example of RHIP. (rank has its (white) privileges) Hereās another great example of a rich guy flying from New England to Florida in his private plane to get a hand job (he could have done it himself), then getting busted, (if it was you or me, weād be in jail), then gets back on his private plane and flies to the super bowl to watch a game, and now he gets invited to visit the White House to hang out with his buddy, Cadet Bone Spurs.
The amount of gall these folks have is out on display. drumph was right, he could shoot someone and not lose a vote.
And if we donāt care about it - no one will.
All other things being equal (which they are not in a Trump whitehouse) I would think it would be fine for Kraft to go to the superbowl celebration for his team. The crime heās accused of is relatively minor, though I think the optics of it is particularly gross, given his ample opportunity to seek service at a place with clearerā¦labor practices. But to me itās akin to letting a petty criminal out of jail for their kidās birthday party, and seems like a fine idea.
The fact that itās in the whitehouse changes the context. add that to the context of Trump doing whatever the fuck for whoever the (incredibly rich) fuck he wants, and the backdrop of his impenetrabl(y stupid and cynical) army of evangelical supporters, of course, it makes me want to puke.
Well thatās sort of the point isnāt it, you canāt tell. So if a punter goes anyway, theyāre fine with it being full of trafficked sex slaves.
That is absolutely right but the reality is that in our present world, the likelihood is that any given sex worker is going to be either underage, trafficked, brutally pimped or all of the foregoing.
Any given sex worker might not be but as a punter there is no way of knowing either way.
So really the only safe assumption is not to play.
I agree the coverage is more than the average Joe would get but Iād say itās national news because this person is a national figure. His stature and reputation is greater than Joe Schmoe from Idaho. Correspondingly, when he says something or does some positive act for which he wants praise, newspapers print it. It would be odd (even wrong) if they didnāt print it when he fucks up.
And this of course.
Soā¦ moral people need to base their purchasing on the likelihood of rewarding human trafficking. Fair enough, I suppose. Looks like purchasing vegetables and fish is worse than purchasing handjobs, per what I saw here. And, IIRC, tomatoes are the worst for slavery/human trafficking. I recall a story about that industry being rife with victims.
Oh, and I will say, having followed Brooke Magnanti on Twitter for several years, that I donāt really expect much accurate data from anyone on the sex industry. Too much shame, hype, proselytizing everywhere. Hard to have any good data about it, really.
This story was posted by Xeni who has a history of consistently supporting sex workers. The only reason she posted this is because itās Kraft and Trump. When itās people you donāt like, sex work is shameful. When itās people you do like, then sex work should respected. Itās just politics.
Maybe he should invite Cindy Yang as well, as sheās being āpersecuted for her political beliefsā, and not, you know, sex-trafficking or selling access to the President.
That excuse, āpoliticsā, has become a Republican mantra-- as if committing actual crimes is a secondary issue. If Trump says McCabe has a bias because his wife is a Democrat, then should Trump only be investigated by Republicans? Thatās a bias too.
That would accord with my understanding too.
I think there are very few genuinely morally āgoodā choices open to us. All our activity as human beings is ultimately built on the suffering of somebody or something somewhere. All we can do is try and be aware of the suffering we cause and try to minimise it to whatever level we feel able to and accept the moral burden of what weāre doing rather than close our eyes to it.
Itās not great but I think it is all we can aspire to.
The point I responded to was:
how is Kraft or anyone else for that matter supposed to know what places are potential sex trafficking spots vs ones that arenāt.
as if not knowing whether it was a trafficking spot was somehow relevant.
I suppose I was trying to suggest that taking that attitude is being reckless as to whether it is a trafficking location and that if someone patronises such an establishment, they should do so in the knowledge and acceptance that they are most likely engaging with and supporting some fairly horrible people (to be clear, Iām not referring to the sex workers themselves there).
If knowing that they are happy to pay to get their rocks off, that is their moral issue to work out just as buying cheap tomatoes out of season or buying cheap clothes made by exploited women in firetraps in Bangladesh orā¦, orā¦, orā¦ is mine.
I donāt think people should get to say to themselves and their peers " I know that some people in some massage parlours are trafficked and held as slaves but I didnāt know whether this was one of them so I thought it was fine."
Which is my point. It is news because of who is involved. Should it be news? Maybe not.
Certainly from most BBāers perspective Iād say the consensus seems to be, who cares? The answer to that I suppose is that āconservativesā claim to care. Except when they donāt.
So, yes, it is politics. That does not make it irrelevant or wrong.
Thereās a lot I donāt like about it, but itās all a swirling morass thatās hard to pull coherent threads from, so Iām just going to freestyle it.
Trump is the president, which means heās the chief administrator of the law in the US. The law says that what Kraft did is illegal. Trump may not think there is anything wrong with it, but heās in charge of administering the law. If he thinks thereās nothing wrong with it, he should be pushing congress to make it legal. Which makes me think of congressā¦ how many of them have paid for sex? And that makes me think of drugsā¦ how many congress people use drugs? If they were actually subject to their own laws and we arrested all the democrats smoking pot and all the republicans paying prostitutes* there would be 5 people left in congress. So weāve got a population being imprisoned for what their leaders do. And the Kraft/Trump connection is just flaunting that. Kraft isnāt donating money to politicians to try to get prostitution made legal, heās donating money to politicians who support the mass incarceration strategy in America but he doesnāt think he should but subject to that policy.
Plus Kraft is supposedly against human trafficking, but he should know the connection between human trafficking and prostitution. There are steps someone as rich as Kraft could take to reduce the risk of participating in human trafficking. He could easily find someone to hire for sex who he could verify was not being coerced, but he chose to act on the convenience of the moment instead. I would not hold someone else who is not as rich as him accountable in the same way here.
Then thereās the whole Cindy Yang thing which completely blows my mind.
* Obviously lots of Rās do drugs and lots of Dās hire sex workers.
It is relevant. If the local pizza place owner has great pizza but it turns out was a pedophileā¦would you lambaste all those who bought pizza there as being complicit in his crimes?
I can absolutely get on board with āwhat a jackass/moron he was for this. He has the means to find a more reputable and reliable source of sex work needsā¦he should have not gone to a massage parlorā. Absolutely a credible and reasonable stance to me. But anyone trying to equate that he somehow is complicit in sex traffickingā¦bullshit.
Iāve now seen articles stating how he is a cheater. On who? Heās been a widower for 5 years now.
Iāve seen articles stating how he frequents massage parlors all the time. Since when? What evidence suggests this in any way?
Iāve seen articles talking about how he knows exactly what is what and knew this place was seedy/questionable. How? Heās 77 for christs sake and have you listened to him? Heās not the sharpest nail in the box anymore, heās a figure head for the Pats as his son and Belichick actually run the team.
I have all sorts of outrage for the guy when it comes to his political affiliations as much as anyone else. And I can absolutely get behind trying to uncover the woman who owns this place and her ties to trafficking and how to shut it down. But the idea that itās pearl clutching time that a 77 yr old widower who went to a massage parlor and got a hand job is fucking ludicrous.
I agree with all of that. Entirely.
And if instead of Kraft caught in this it were say Seth Meyers, Colbert, or Samantha Beeā¦we would want to gloss over their role in it and get to what is importantā¦the protection of sex workers, prevention of human trafficking, and not bother with āOh my word, they solicited a prostitute?!? grab mah pearls, fetch me some watahā¦I feel faint!ā
ādespiteā is in the headline twice.
Hereās hoping this story has a happy ending.
Yes. A sex worker should have a choice and the experience should be consensual. Human trafficking victims donāt have a choice, and it isnāt.
Iāve never solicited the service of a sex worker, so far.
That said, I follow a few on social media, listen to podcasts, etc. So Iām not a bible clutching, finger pointing, sin decrier either. And I feel like I have some good feedback on the oldest profession in the world from some of the people engaging in it.
I believe people who are interested in performing sex work should have a right to do so safely and legally. You think a pimp could stay in business if it were safe for a sex worker to go to the police? Fuck no. Fear of the law is the pimpās greatest ally.
Iām against forcing people into sex work to line your own pockets. Iām also against capitalism, which follows that same spirit.
If (the hypothetical) you did want to solicit a sex worker, rather than making an assumption, you could always try to get to know your sex worker, instead of treating them like a temporary semen receptacle who you would rather not look at once youāve orgasmed.
If it turns out the one you were considering is being forced to do it, you can try to get them help; just know that they are going to jail too. And their pimp/trafficer has the money to make bail first.
Iād say that is entirely different. Plus, Iām not lambasting him. Iām seeking to suggest that your choice of that particular defence for him was not a good one. You can and evidently do disagree. Fair enough, enough said.
Again I donāt say complicit. But I do say, prepared to be complicit. Unconcerned about being complicit. Sufficiently desirous of his handjob not to care about being complicit.
Agreed.
I donāt see how thatās relevant. Heās sharp enough to arrange to go to the place and make the arrangements for the handjob.
Quite frankly thatās more than I know how to do.
Again, I think the only relevant thing there is that this is the sort of thing that Trump and his supporters claim is cause for hand-wringing and pearl-clutching (really, given the topic those terms start to look a little naughty) and yet while they will happily advocate ostracisation and other obvious expressions of moral opprobrium on some people, when it comes to their people (however classified) itās all Christian forgiveness and āwe are all sinnersā.
And there would hopefully be places pointing out the hypocrisy of that.
Honestly I wouldnāt think much of any of them going to a massage parlour for sex either. Supporting underground economies is support organized crime. I feel like itās one thing when weāre all in it together - buying drugs from a local drug dealer is paying into a dangerous crime syndicate, but you and your drug dealer are both just pieces in an undemocratic system. When there is a huge wealthy disparity it starts to look a lot more like the purchaser is part of the system of oppression rather than a partner in living through it.
For sex work the issues is far more immediate since the thing being illegally sold is the actual person you are interacting with. If you are willing to pay $500, $1000 or more an hour I find it impossible to believe that you canāt get sex workers who are definitely not being coerced. Thatās a rate that Meyers or Colbert or Bee could pay, itās a rate that Kraft doesnāt even have to think about paying.
All of this is obviously filtered through a personal bias where I find wealth to be an unpleasant characteristic and want to see excessively rich people brought low.
Waaaaaay off topic, but buying drugs from Pfizer isnāt making the world a happy place either. Itās paying into a dangerous drug syndicate.
If you have the finances to afford to pay someone $500+ an hour for sex, what are the odds youāre a good person to begin with? A person who gives a figurative fuck for the person you are about to literally fuck? Moā money, fewer morals.
Thatās without factoring in how some people ā powerful people ā can be twisted to the point where knowing the person theyāll be āenjoyingā doesnāt want to be there just adds to the thrill.
Expecting them to follow due diligence when selecting their sex workers is aiming pretty high, I think.
Iām with you there.
Supporting sex workers and being critical of johns who patron businesses synonymous with trafficking is actually the same goal.
Speaking of politics/favoritism, Id suspect if Kraft was just an ordinary john sitting in jail right now, most of the āwhatās the big dealā Kraft supporters wouldnāt care to defend john with such certainty.
Yes, and Trump is the third point of this triangle.
Yeah see, Orangtastrophy has heard of this thing called a āhand jobā and wants to ask if that is something that he can do for himself. And whether if he talks about it it will make him more or less popular.
