Sex panics from Snuff films to White Slavery

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Sex panics from Snuff films to White Slavery

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

You cannot go a day without some news source trumpeting sex trafficking as an epidemic and the new slavery, or a local newspaper clamin their city is the capitol of the sex trade. Of course like any trendy cultural panics, these have roots that go back decades, with fears Latin American drug cartels lurking malls to seduce white suburban teenagers into being prostituted at the Superbowl replacing fears of Italian candy store owners or Jewish pimps lurking nickelodeons to abduct naive Anglo Saxon girls.
http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/snuff-films-white-slavery-and-trafficking-americas-history-hysterical-sex-fear

quote:

Of all the myths about porn, sex and crime to get a footing in popular culture, the belief in snuff films is one of the most improbable, yet enduringly resilient. For decades, journalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and anti-porn crusaders talked about snuff films as if their reality had been as firmly documented as the address of the White House.

Forty years after the idea of snuff films was sold to America via a cheap marketing gimmick by filmmakers Michael and Roberta Findlay, the facts are easily accessible: unless you count a few videos made by serial killers for their own enjoyment or terrorist groups who post the decapitations of journalists to the Internet, no actual snuff films have ever been found. But the idea was easily sold to Americans because it told them their deepest fears were true�their widespread anxieties caused by radical changes in sexuality and gender roles in the post-1960s era and even deeper fears driven by racism.

The Findlay's 1976 film Snuff was originally a cheap horror film from Argentina called Slaughter. The two spliced a new ending into the original movie that ostensibly showed the film crew murdering a woman. Later, they sold the whole thing with the tagline: "The film that could only be made in South America�where life is CHEAP!"

The Findlays did not invent the idea of the snuff film, but they certainly breathed life into it. The rumors had been there for years, but their film appeared to bring snuff out of the realm of speculation and into the light of proof. Snuff films became a horror with actual breadth and depth. Even if that solidity was transformed into vapor as soon as it was examined, it was substantial enough to help fuel decades of anti-porn political activism and anti-sex work law enforcement.

The idea of snuff films may have been terrifying, but as marketed by the Findlays, it was also strangely comforting, particularly to white, middle- to upper-class Americans. It validated everything they suspected about the foreign cultures outside their own borders: they valued life less; they were sexual predators with no respect for women; and the well-being of American society demanded vigilance against them.

The story of snuff movie hysteria is just a single link in a very long chain of moral panics around sex and sex work which stretches back centuries. In 1910, the same sexualized racism that would later make it so easy to believe in snuff films culminated in the passage of the White Slave Traffic Act, more infamously known as the Mann Act. Just as the snuff film craze demanded that Americans be vigilant against South American culture and other �Third-World� areas where "life was cheap," the white slavery hysteria of the late 19th and early 20th centuries fed on fear of immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia. Chicago reformer Ernest A. Bell saw a particular threat in the ownership of ice-cream parlors by foreigners:

One thing should be made very clear to the girl who comes up to the city, and that is the ordinary ice cream parlor is very likely to be a spider's web for her entanglement�The only safe rule is to keep away from places of this kind, whether in a big city like Chicago or in a large country town. I believe that there are good grounds for the suspicion that the ice cream parlor, kept by the foreigner in the large country town, is often a recruiting station, and a feeder for the �white slave� traffic.

Like many others, Bell saw the fight against trafficking as not merely as a problem for law enforcement, but as an existential clash of cultures:

Unless we make energetic and successful war upon the red light districts and all that pertains to them, we shall have Oriental brothel slavery thrust upon us from China and Japan, and Parisian white slavery, with all its unnatural and abominable practices, established among us by the French traders. Jew traders, too, will people our [red light districts] with Polish Jewesses and any others who will make money for them.

The crusades against white slavery are an excellent example of how conservative impulses can nestle at the heart of liberal movements. Bell and his contemporaries who pushed for the passage of the Mann Act weren't the latter-day equivalents of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter; they were part of the so-called "Progressive Era," which laid the groundwork for the labor protections which the GOP has spent the last 30 years assiduously dismantling. Melinda Chateauvert, author of Sex Workers Unite: A History of the Movement from Stonewall to Slutwalk, describes the movement against white slavery as being led in part by "proto-feminists" who wanted increased economic opportunities and suffrage for women.

Or some women, at least. The movements of the Progressive Era were notorious for excluding � and sometimes scapegoating � people of color, and the anti-traffic movement was no different. Framing the problem as "white slavery" erased not only women of color who were doing sex work, but the entire black American experience of slavery.

"[T]hey lifted the idea of slavery as African-Americans had experienced it, and claimed it was analogous to what �white women� or �white girls� were experiencing in becoming part of the sex industry," Chateauvert said when I talked to her. "So there's also a racial element to it in the sense that they were denying the realities of antebellum slavery in the United States. Which�continues to haunt us in the idea that we keep using the term 'modern slavery' as though, again, [sex work] is analogous to what was going on then."

But the problem, as Chateauvert says, is that there is no analogy to be made between antebellum slavery and the realities of sex work, now or in the Progressive Era. "You cannot analogize the two at all," she says. "There's not an entire government and citizenship that is bound and determined to enforce [sex work]. So, to analogize that is a very racialized understanding and cynical use of what the word slavery really means."

The legacy of the Mann Act was also highly racialized. While it may have been penned to quell nativist fears about predatory Italians, Jews and Chinese, it primarily turned out to be a weapon against African-American men, especially those who had relationships with white women. Jack Johnson, the first African-American boxer to hold the U.S. heavyweight championship, was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act for driving a white woman he was involved with across state lines. In 1959, rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry was sentenced to five years in prison for driving an underage Apache girl across state lines; she was arrested for prostitution several weeks after they parted company.

The Mann Act remains law to this day, and its scope has expanded. Amendments to the law have made it gender-neutral and added clauses addressing child pornography. Its persistence and its origins in the mythology of white slavery show something important about how laws against sex work are made. Despite the compassionate rhetoric surrounding them, and the pleas of reformers that society has a duty to the vulnerable, they are more often than not shaped by something entirely different: The status quo's need to defend their own privilege against populations that they see as alien, strange and growing in power.

One thing that made the myths of white slavery and snuff films seem so fearsome was that they weren't just stories about bad people doing bad things. They depicted vast networks of deliberate, organized evil preying on society's most innocent. There are actual videos of murders by serial killers or terrorists, but things like that are distinct from what made the idea of snuff films so horrifying. A true snuff film would be one where the victim is specifically kidnapped and murdered in order to make the film and distribute it through a vast, secret criminal network. Similarly, white slavery would necessarily involve a nightmarish web of kidnappers and pimps working cohesively in a well-organized criminal subculture. Far more than mere fear of violent crime, the existence of snuff films and white slavery would reveal a shadowy, near-omnipotent �other� infiltrating respectable society.

The case of Monica Jones is an example of that same fear at work in the modern world. A black transgender woman attending Arizona State University in Phoenix, Jones was arrested in May 2013 on the nebulous charge of "manifesting prostitution." According to the city of Phoenix, that can include repeatedly trying to talk to passerby, gesturing to passing cars, or trying to determine whether someone is a police officer. In Jones's case, she allegedly �manifested prostitution� when she accepted a ride home from a bar. The person offering the ride was an undercover officer, and she was handcuffed as soon as she got into the car.

Jones was arrested as part of a sting operation called "Project ROSE" which sends more than 100 officers to sweep the streets of Phoenix for suspected prostitutes five weekends a year. Her arrest is a prime example of the issues around criminalizing sex work. First, trans women of color are disproportionately targeted in sweeps like Project ROSE. Enforcement of local vice laws relies heavily on profiling, and as in the early days of the Mann Act, some bodies and genders are more likely to be criminalized than others. Many cities even now continue to consider condoms to be valid evidence of intent to engage in sex work. In some areas, the combination of being trans, a person of color, and carrying condoms can add up to a criminal act in itself.

A 2012 study of the LGBTQ community in Jackson Heights, Queens, found that 59 percent of transgender respondents had ben randomly stopped by police. In contrast, only 28 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents said they had. According to the study:

Many transgender interviewees reported being profiled as sex workers when they were conducting routine daily tasks in the neighborhood. They commonly reported stops that seem to be without basis but in which the police officers involved later justified the stop by charging the person with prostitution-related offenses because condoms were found in their possession. These arrests were frequently accompanied by verbal and physical abuse.

Second, operations like Project ROSE rarely present themselves to the public as punitive law enforcement. Instead, their mission is to "rescue" sex workers. In Jones's case, she wasn't taken to jail. The officers led her, in handcuffs, to a local church where she was assessed for the Dignity Diversion Program, run by Catholic Charities. Her cell phone was taken from her. And she was not allowed legal counsel while she was questioned by a Project ROSE volunteer and a city prosecutor.

Technically, the Phoenix police department claims that people who are swept up by Project ROSE aren't arrested. Instead, it's called "contact." Those caught in the sting are given the (notably limited) choice between arrest and a six-month diversion program. Like most law enforcement toward sex work, the philosophy behind Project ROSE seems to be that sex workers need to be rescued � whether they want to be or not. Oddly, "rescue� in this context � from local operations like Project ROSE to federal programs like the FBI's annual Operation Cross-Country � almost always involves some form of arrest and prosecution.

Last year, I interviewed the late Shannon Williams, a member of the Bay Area Sex Work Outreach Project (SWOP-Bay). According to her, such operations are more likely to endanger sex workers. "Every study ever done asking sex workers about violence they've experienced, the majority of the violence they experience is from the police," she said. "The majority of the violence that sex workers experience is directly related to the fact that they are criminalized. So, if you're really worried about the violence that sex workers experience, decriminalize sex work, and that will solve two major problems. One, the police will no longer see us as criminals that they can abuse and treat like crap. And two, when other people abuse us, the police will take it seriously because they won't see us as criminals involved in our own abuse."

Trafficking is the latter-day equivalent to white slavery hysteria. Sex workers like Monica Jones are, by default, seen as people who have been trafficked and have no agency of their own. Once again, the media and certain activists have constructed a narrative of Eastern European and Asian countries engaging in a massive, illicit trade of sex slaves in the United States. As in the early 1900s, the threat of trafficking seems to make it imperative that Americans protect themselves against an existential threat from outside cultures.

It would be ignorant and irresponsible to claim that trafficking, sexual or otherwise, doesn't exist. However, the term is used so broadly that it's difficult to disentangle it from the mass of sexual and nativist fears that it's become associated with in popular culture. Trafficking is now an all-too-convenient excuse to tighten immigration laws and crack down on sex work of all kinds.

"My standard line is that if you're concerned about trafficking, change the immigration laws," Chateauvert says. "If you're concerned about people who work on the streets and do sex trade, why don't you work [to ensure] a living wage. The problem is not the sex industry per se. The problem is the laws that create the situations that enable coercion. We don't want to approach it that way, because that's too big a systemic addressing of the problem."

In their own way, her words are also reminiscent of the Progressive Era. In her 1910 essay The Traffic in Women, Emma Goldman critiqued the way that white slavery was used to ignore talking about the costs of more mundane forms of exploitation:

The procurer is no doubt a poor specimen of the human family, but in what manner is he more despicable than the policeman who takes the last cent from the street walker, and then locks her up in the station house? Why is the cadet [an archaic term for pimp] more criminal, or a greater menace to society, than the owners of department stores and factories, who grow fat on the sweat of their victims, only to drive them to the streets? I make no plea for the cadet, but I fail to see why he should be mercilessly hounded, while the real perpetrators of all social iniquity enjoy immunity and respect.

History does tend to repeat itself, but it doesn't have to. Whole libraries of sex work laws have been written and enforced because lawmakers listened to nothing other than their own fears and paternalism. The result is a system that, while purporting to protect and �save� sex workers, actually makes them more vulnerable in myriad ways. Our lawmakers should instead try listening to the wants and needs of the workers themselves. Perhaps then sex workers will get real protection, and justice.

# ? Mar 29, 2015 21:22

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 20:50

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Borneo Jimmy posted:

You cannot go a day without some news source trumpeting sex trafficking as an epidemic and the new slavery, or a local newspaper clamin their city is the capitol of the sex trade. Of course like any trendy cultural panics, these have roots that go back decades, with fears Latin American drug cartels lurking malls to seduce white suburban teenagers into being prostituted at the Superbowl replacing fears of Italian candy store owners or Jewish pimps lurking nickelodeons to abduct naive Anglo Saxon girls.
http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/snuff-films-white-slavery-and-trafficking-americas-history-hysterical-sex-fear

I'm not seeing the evidence that sex trafficking isn't epidemic. Even the article you're posting doesn't actually challenge this point; it just whines about how it's racist wrongthink to worry about it.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 02:11

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

Silver2195 posted:

I'm not seeing the evidence that sex trafficking isn't epidemic.

The numbers thrown around have been repeatley debunked. http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-29/news/real-men-get-their-facts-straight-sex-trafficking-ashton-kutcher-demi-moore/

# ? Mar 30, 2015 02:44

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Borneo Jimmy posted:

The numbers thrown around have been repeatley debunked. http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-29/news/real-men-get-their-facts-straight-sex-trafficking-ashton-kutcher-demi-moore/

Huh. Not surprising to see an inaccurate statistic spread as a result of journalists misreading a study. Having said that, the Village Voice is being disingenuous as hell in assuming that arrests for child prostitution in a handful of cities is much more accurate a metric.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 03:18

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Borneo Jimmy posted:

The numbers thrown around have been repeatley debunked. http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-29/news/real-men-get-their-facts-straight-sex-trafficking-ashton-kutcher-demi-moore/

The numbers, like numbers for any criminal and illicit activity, are highly debated. There's huge discrepancies in the valuation and amounts of drugs in the US. Doesn't mean we don't have a big ol' drug problem.

That article doesn't use a better methodology.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 03:22

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

There's always hyperbole and panic, but the real truth of sex trafficking is definitely understated in the media, unless a white suburban girl is shanghaied into it. Then it's Liam Neeson, but there's no Liam Neeson for foster kids.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 03:33

Samog: Dec 13, 2006; At least I'm not an 07.

i read on the internet that prostitution is actually good. pretty solid proof that trafficking is not real, i think

# ? Mar 30, 2015 08:28

Goatse James Bond: Mar 28, 2010; If you see me posting please remind me that I have Charlie Work in the reports forum to do instead

Samog posted:

i read on the internet that prostitution is actually good. pretty solid proof that trafficking is not real, i think

I know you're taking the piss but there's a big difference between nominally willing prostitution (ie just economically coerced), actually willing prostitution, and sex work you are not allowed to quit.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 08:56

Baudolino: Apr 1, 2010; THUNDERDOME LOSER

GreyjoyBastard posted:

I know you're taking the piss but there's a big difference between nominally willing prostitution (ie just economically coerced), actually willing prostitution, and sex work you are not allowed to quit.

In both cases tough you have to ask yourself how consensual the sex truly is tough. I could never hire a prostitute simply because i have no sure way of telling the difference between literal sex slave Elena from Romania and Elena the Exchange student who only sells her body when she wants beer Money. The moral hazard is just too great, and even if the prostitute is "merely" econmically coerced it`s still pretty close to rape.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 16:39

TheImmigrant: Jan 18, 2011

Homosexuals are trying to convert our children.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 18:04

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

I went to get drinks with friends, and I suspect that my bartender was being economically coerced to serve his "customers". I'm on the phone with the police, what should I tell them?

# ? Mar 30, 2015 19:57

Beaters: Jun 28, 2004; SOWING SEEDS
OF MISERY SINCE 1937
FRYING LIKE A FRITO
IN THE SKILLET
OF HADES
SINCE 1975

In the 1930s reformers cited white slavery as a concern related to the "marihuana" problem.

From EA Rowell's book, On the Trail of Marihuana, The Weed of Madness (1939):

quote:

Marihuana is sometimes used as a means to white
slavery. While we were lecturing in the smaller towns
about a large Midwestern city recently, we heard repeated
rumors of girls' having mysteriously disappeared.
It was feared they were in the metropolis, the
victims of white slavers. Frantic mothers, whose
daughters had disappeared, told the sheriff strange
stories of rumors connected with marihuana.

One Saturday night, accompanied by a squad of
deputies, the sheriff raided the disreputable houses of
the city, and found some of the missing girls "working"
there. Almost without exception, their stories
revealed marihuana as the bait and cause of their
downfall.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 20:02

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

SedanChair posted:

There's always hyperbole and panic, but the real truth of sex trafficking is definitely understated in the media, unless a white suburban girl is shanghaied into it. Then it's Liam Neeson, but there's no Liam Neeson for foster kids.

That one right there is the saddest part of all.

I do find the article interesting, even if I don't fully agree with all of its conclusions. Russia for instance, is a terrifying boogieman of sex slavery, and I'm wondering where I get that from. Mexico is seen as nearly as bad, but I think that's due to the cartel actions in the news lately. Do people really see immigrants like that still? It doesn't really make much sense.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 20:18

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Kaal posted:

I went to get drinks with friends, and I suspect that my bartender was being economically coerced to serve his "customers". I'm on the phone with the police, what should I tell them?

Not really comparable. I am in favour of legalised prostitution, because I think it will better allow coercion in sex work to be properly addressed, not because I think human trafficking is not a problem.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 21:04

eSports Chaebol: Feb 22, 2005; Yeah, actually, gamers in the house forever,

Wait so should we try to help victims and minimize harm to sex workers, or blame them and call them whores? I'm skeptical that a writer comparing a real problem like sex trafficking to a fake non-existent problem like snuff films really cares about harm reduction more than moralism. Yes, we should address immigration restrictions used as a means of coercion, primarily through liberalization and amnesty rather than restriction, but we also should criminally pursue traffickers and pimps even if we legalize or decriminalize sex work. We should also tell bible thumpers and people like the writer in the OP to gently caress off.

I don't even think one can ideologically say a particular legal model is best because this is a pragmatic problem that requires a situational approach to attain the beat outcomes for sex workers and other migrants facing coercion. Of course in reality few people care about them because they aren't a constituency, and they are additionally otherized, dehumanized, and condemned.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 21:29

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

eSports Chaebol posted:

Wait so should we try to help victims and minimize harm to sex workers, or blame them and call them whores? I'm skeptical that a writer comparing a real problem like sex trafficking to a fake non-existent problem like snuff films really cares about harm reduction more than moralism. Yes, we should address immigration restrictions used as a means of coercion, primarily through liberalization and amnesty rather than restriction, but we also should criminally pursue traffickers and pimps even if we legalize or decriminalize sex work. We should also tell bible thumpers and people like the writer in the OP to gently caress off.

I don't even think one can ideologically say a particular legal model is best because this is a pragmatic problem that requires a situational approach to attain the beat outcomes for sex workers and other migrants facing coercion. Of course in reality few people care about them because they aren't a constituency, and they are additionally otherized, dehumanized, and condemned.

The US is pretty bad about just punishing all parties involved with prostitution rather then trying to get the women/girls out of the life, but when you get runaway teens who get drawn into the life from a pimp they love there's no chance they're going to testify against him when they get arrested.

There's a great documentary called Very Young Girls that covers one woman's organization and attempts to bring these girls out of the life, including housing them to help them get their lives together, and while the cameras were rolling several of the girls would use their cellphones to call up their old pimps and try to meet back up and talk about how much they missed them.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 21:41

boner confessor: Apr 25, 2013; by R. Guyovich

Alternet is real hit or miss but that article is extremely cavalier about grouping sex workers and sexually exploted persons together in the same category.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 23:12

Bushiz: Sep 21, 2004; The #1 Threat to Ba Sing Se; Grimey Drawer

The conflation of "sex work" and "sex trafficking" is so complete and confounding in the american discourse that unless you're actually a sex worker, I immediately dismiss any opinion on it.

# ? Mar 30, 2015 23:20

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

eSports Chaebol posted:

I don't even think one can ideologically say a particular legal model is best because this is a pragmatic problem that requires a situational approach to attain the beat outcomes for sex workers and other migrants facing coercion. Of course in reality few people care about them because they aren't a constituency, and they are additionally otherized, dehumanized, and condemned.

Many sex worker advocacy organizations support the decriminalization model used by New Zealand

Kaal posted:

I went to get drinks with friends, and I suspect that my bartender was being economically coerced to serve his "customers". I'm on the phone with the police, what should I tell them?

Look for the signs, is the bartender avoiding eye contact, overly tired in class, has a new tattoo or an older boyfriend?

Borneo Jimmy fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Mar 31, 2015

# ? Mar 31, 2015 00:27

Samog: Dec 13, 2006; At least I'm not an 07.

Kaal posted:

I went to get drinks with friends, and I suspect that my bartender was being economically coerced to serve his "customers". I'm on the phone with the police, what should I tell them?

a thread about prostitution is maybe the worst possible place to make an argument against the existence of economic coercion

# ? Mar 31, 2015 02:50

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Samog posted:

a thread about prostitution is maybe the worst possible place to make an argument against the existence of economic coercion

I think the argument is more that economic coercion is omnipresent, rather than that it doesn't exist.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 08:24

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Samog posted:

a thread about prostitution is maybe the worst possible place to make an argument against the existence of economic coercion

A thread that starts off with a big long article bashing the idea of portraying prostitutes as "economically coerced victims who are basically white sex slaves" is actually the best possible place to make those sorts of arguments. "Economic coercion" as a concept seems strangely limited to prostitution, in spite of it clearly applying to every single human occupation. You never really see it used in other fields, legal or illegal, even when it might be useful to progressive advocates. This is because it's a bunk concept that acts as a stand-in for a bunch of politically-incorrect morality arguments about prostitution.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Mar 31, 2015

# ? Mar 31, 2015 08:30

Party Plane Jones: Jul 1, 2007; by Reene; Fun Shoe

Talmonis posted:

Russia for instance, is a terrifying boogieman of sex slavery, and I'm wondering where I get that from.

Probably has something to do with Russia being one of a handful of countries outside of Africa or failed states to have not criminalized child pornography and the scope of Russian mob connections outside Russia itself.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 08:34

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kaal posted:

A thread that starts off with a big long article bashing the idea of portraying prostitutes as "economically coerced victims who are basically white sex slaves" is actually the best possible place to make those sorts of arguments. "Economic coercion" as a concept seems strangely limited to prostitution, in spite of it clearly applying to every single human occupation. You never really see it used in other fields, legal or illegal, even when it might be useful to progressive advocates. This is because it's a bunk concept that acts as a stand-in for a bunch of politically-incorrect morality arguments about prostitution.

Economic coercion is pretty much the mainstay argument about many progressive arguments. For example, about why right-to-work sucks: because employers have greater economic coercive power than employees.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 11:17

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Party Plane Jones posted:

Probably has something to do with Russia being one of a handful of countries outside of Africa or failed states to have not criminalized child pornography and the scope of Russian mob connections outside Russia itself.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 13:07

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Obdicut posted:

Economic coercion is pretty much the mainstay argument about many progressive arguments. For example, about why right-to-work sucks: because employers have greater economic coercive power than employees.

But that's precisely it - it's a completely different interpretation of the concept of economic inequality when you get away from sex work. You'd rarely see even the most radical progressives saying that employees in anti-union states are being economically coerced, equating that with literal slavery, and arguing that the employers should be imprisoned and the "victims" should be sent to social workers. You'd rarely see people saying, "Well I don't want to be part of even the hint of economic coercion, so I don't go anywhere that allows tipping". "Economic inequality" is certainly a mainstay progressive concept. "Economic coercion", as it is practiced in regards to sex work, is unique.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Mar 31, 2015

# ? Mar 31, 2015 15:24

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kaal posted:

But that's precisely it - it's a completely different interpretation of the concept of economic inequality when you get away from sex work.

It's not really that different, no. Where do you see the difference?

quote:

You'd rarely see progressives saying that employees in anti-union states are being economically coerced, equating that with literal slavery, and arguing that the employers should be imprisoned and the "victims" should be sent to social workers.

You'll see progressives saying that employees who are illegal immigrants are being economically coerced, equating that with slavery (though, that'd be rare, they'd more draw an analogy to the position of blacks in the south post-Civil War, but anyway) and arguing that employers of illegal immigrants out to be imprisoned and the victims sent to social workers. Economic coercion is a very frequently used concept. You asserted:

Anyway, progressives don't have a coherent position on sex work. There's a deep division.

You said:

quote:

"Economic coercion" as a concept seems strangely limited to prostitution, in spite of it clearly applying to every single human occupation. You never really see it used in other fields, legal or illegal, even when it might be useful to progressive advocates.

This is false. Economic coercion as a concept is not limited to prostitution, but included in progressive protests against a ton of other stuff, including employment of undocumented workers, ordinary workers, etc. You're now claiming you mean some particular aspect of the reaction to this form of economic coercion, and I'd say it is true that some progressives treat economic coercion that results in repeated rape differently from economic coercion that doesn't, and I don't really have a big problem with that.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 15:29

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Obdicut posted:

You'll see progressives saying that employees who are illegal immigrants are being economically coerced, equating that with slavery (though, that'd be rare, they'd more draw an analogy to the position of blacks in the south post-Civil War, but anyway) and arguing that employers of illegal immigrants out to be imprisoned and the victims sent to social workers. Economic coercion is a very frequently used concept.

What "progressive" are you talking to that thinks employers of undocumented immigrants should be imprisoned and the immigrants should be sent to social workers? That's not a very progressive idea. There is discussion of illegal trafficking and slavery in regards to undocumented immigrants, but typically when the coercive force is a coyote workhouse and all the things associated with that (physical abuse, imprisonment, the language barrier, withholding documents, etc.). There's few progressives who would make those types of claims about someone who is a normal service worker but doesn't have legal documentation. Certainly I wouldn't make the claim that the undocumented guys working the kitchens throughout California and Oregon are "coerced slaves", and neither, apparently, would you.

quote:

This is false. Economic coercion as a concept is not limited to prostitution, but included in progressive protests against a ton of other stuff, including employment of undocumented workers, ordinary workers, etc. You're now claiming you mean some particular aspect of the reaction to this form of economic coercion, and I'd say it is true that some progressives treat economic coercion that results in repeated rape differently from economic coercion that doesn't, and I don't really have a big problem with that.

You're simply engaging in equivalency, which isn't a very useful thing to do. It's quite clear that sex workers are treated uniquely when the concept of "economic coercion" gets introduced, and that indeed "economic coercion" as an idea is quite specific to the topic of prostitution. This makes it quite distinct from the concept of "economic inequality". Time and again, you'll see some well-meaning progressives trying to tell sex workers - regardless of what the sex workers say - that they're economically coerced, that they're victims, that they're being forced into a job that they otherwise would never be willing to do because of its unspecified moral hazard. That's a completely different dialogue from the one directed toward other types of the working poor. If you can't see the difference there, at least as presented in a conceptual form, then you're unequipped to be discussing these sorts of issues.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 31, 2015

# ? Mar 31, 2015 15:45

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kaal posted:

What "progressive" are you talking to that thinks employers of undocumented immigrants should be imprisoned and the immigrants should be sent to social workers? That's not a very progressive idea.

Oh, I think where we may be talking at cross-purposes is that i"m not claiming this of all employers of undocumented aliens. However, in the cases where the economic coercion results in an abusive and highly exploitative environment, then definitely.

To be clear, you don't think that someone who hires undocumented aliens and then uses economic coercion in order to deny them raises and disallow them from leaving should be put into prison? I bet you do, and that's economic coercion.

quote:

There is discussion of illegal trafficking and slavery in regards to undocumented immigrants, but typically when the coercive force is a coyote workhouse and all the things associated with that (physical abuse, imprisonment, the language barrier, withholding documents, etc.).

There's also a discussion of just using the undocumented status and the threat of deportation.

quote:

You're simply engaging in equivalency, which isn't a very useful thing to do. It's quite clear that sex workers are treated uniquely when the concept of "economic coercion" gets introduced, and that indeed "economic coercion" as an idea is quite specific to the topic of prostitution. This makes it quite distinct from the concept of "economic inequality". If you can't see the difference there, at least as presented in a conceptual form, then you're unequipped to be discussing these sorts of issues.

As I said, I do think prostitution is treated differently because economic exploitation in sex work winds up with lots of people getting raped. I do think that makes it different, because we generally regard rape as different from other physical assaults and injuries. As I said, I think that you can argue against this viewpoint, but it's hardly some weird, bug-eyed inconsistency, it's based on the fact that we tend to hold rape and sexual abuse to different standards than physical abuse. If you want to argue about that, go for it..

# ? Mar 31, 2015 16:20

Kaal: May 22, 2002; through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

Obdicut posted:

Oh, I think where we may be talking at cross-purposes is that i"m not claiming this of all employers of undocumented aliens. However, in the cases where the economic coercion results in an abusive and highly exploitative environment, then definitely. To be clear, you don't think that someone who hires undocumented aliens and then uses economic coercion in order to deny them raises and disallow them from leaving should be put into prison? I bet you do, and that's economic coercion.

That isn't economic coercion at all, since the coercive element is the abusive boss and lack of documentation, not the paycheck. The word for what you're describing is blackmail, and it's completely separate from the idea of economic coercion.

quote:

As I said, I do think prostitution is treated differently because economic exploitation in sex work winds up with lots of people getting raped. I do think that makes it different, because we generally regard rape as different from other physical assaults and injuries. As I said, I think that you can argue against this viewpoint, but it's hardly some weird, bug-eyed inconsistency, it's based on the fact that we tend to hold rape and sexual abuse to different standards than physical abuse. If you want to argue about that, go for it..

Again, this sort of objection is founded upon concepts that are tangential to the concept of economic coercion. Yes, prostitutes who are being constantly raped are being exploited - but at that point it isn't "economic coercion" so much as it is simply physical coercion. The concept of economic coercion is vested in the idea that sex workers are invariably victimized by circumstance and economic opportunity alone - absent any separate action by others.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 16:44

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 20:50

Obdicut: May 15, 2012; "What election?"

Kaal posted:

That isn't economic coercion at all, since the coercive element is the abusive boss and lack of documentation, not the paycheck. The word for what you're describing is blackmail, and it's completely separate from the idea of economic coercion.

Okay. The result is that they're coerced into an economic situation against their will. Can we agree on that?

quote:

Again, this sort of objection is founded upon concepts that are tangential to the concept of economic coercion. Yes, prostitutes who are being constantly raped are being exploited - but at that point it isn't "economic coercion" so much as it is simply physical coercion.

No. I'm talking about prostitutes who don't want to be prostitutes but don't have or feel they have any other economic option.

# ? Mar 31, 2015 16:49

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