So glad for Matisse's voice of reason, as ever. She's been steadfast on this, even back in the Backpage-crusade days.

Only in Seattle. Heart's in the right place, but colossally wrongheaded nonetheless.

Whenever "feminists" and anti-sex conservatives team up, I smell a rat. Actually, a gigantic mutant rat. Catherine McKinnon and Hudnut banning Playboy in Indianapolis, anyone?

But if they can't stigmatize sex workers, it forces them to look at their own lives. And looking into that abyss is more damning than most of them can handle.

What would the Stranger do without its ad revenue? Sex work is holy work!

Might wanna correct that word "prosector" in the first [non-italicized] ¶. A prosector is one who dissects for anatomical instruction or pathological examination.

@2 - NOT only in Seattle. This anti-sexwork crusade-y "save the victims! (With a police raid!)" stigmatization is happening worldwide to some degree, and *definitely* country-wide in the US. The recent multi-state FBI "sting" operation was alleged to be "saving" children trafficked into the sex trade, but yielded few if any actual children (they claim 168-3,600), and many, many arrests and property confiscations from legit sex workers all over.

I was hoping to hear from Seattleblahs. As a former sex worker, she probably has a lot to bring to the conversation....

There's just some blue streak in this country that that ignores the facts and preaches a bullshit morality that just creates more victims. And they always enlist the police in their moral crusades, which costs money and takes away from real crimes. There in lies the rub.

The Nation just had an article about this in its current issue:

http://www.thenation.com/article/180835/…

@1: So glad for Matisse's voice of reason, as ever.

I second that.

Just about as useful as boycotting Russian vodka right, Dan?

"But these movements are victim-focused and not everyone in this industry is a victim."

Cool. You can also say that not everyone in the domestic, garment and agricultural labor industries are victims, either, so that essentially says nothing. And a march to end demand isn't victim-focused. It's a march to spotlight the consumer side of the equation.

It's also a bit blue sky'n'bunnies naive to assume every client of a sex worker is an ethical one, willing to bother checking for signs of coercion or drug addiction or physical abuse or "job contentedness"--everybody has off days at work, right?

I get that people want their sex work-cake and to eat it, too, but I also think this is a hugely complicated ethical, not moral, issue. There are people who are sex trafficked. There are people who are trafficked into labor. This is not zero sum and trafficking on all fronts needs to be confronted and stopped. There are also people who genuinely want to work in the sex, domestic, garment and agricultural labor industries--right on, let's further their workers' rights. But let's not do that if we're just going to pretend that there are no victims because it makes us uncomfortable to think about the unethical consumers and criminal enterprises who create them, specifically in the first outta those four.

Hmm...something about that one must different somehow...

Thank you for caring about the issue of local human trafficking, Dan. It would be great if you could also hear from the women of Organization for Prostitution Survivors. They are founded and led by survivors of prostitution and trafficking in our city. They work every day with women right here in Seattle who are trying to leave the life or move on after the trauma they've been through. They were there helping to lead the Men's March on Saturday.

Seattle Against Slavery is an anti-trafficking organization, so listening to the views of trafficking survivors like these is what we do. They believe men buying sex is a driving force behind trafficking and the violence they have personally experienced. You should hear their voices, too, if you want to know what commercial sex really looks like in Seattle.

Even in places like The Netherlands and Germany where prostitution is legal, there is rampant trafficking and violence against prostituted women. The people at the march on Saturday think that cost is just not worth it for men buying sex. We are clearly not in favor of police further victimizing women in prostitution, and the police working on trafficking cases are instead focused on holding the buyers and traffickers accountable for the violence and harm they cause.

We are partnering with local and national organizations to raise awareness about the massive and hidden violence of commercial sex. We believe that even age-old norms should be changed when they harm and oppress others, and that saying racism, domestic violence, homophobia, or slavery have always been around isn't a good argument for not fighting those, either.

If you don't believe trafficking is big part of prostitution in Seattle, you should take a look at "Who Pays The Price," a study where Dr. Debra Boyer identified hundreds of cases of underage girls being sold for sex right here in King County. Each case was a real human being who was trafficked. Our coalition of women and men, volunteers, survivors, advocates and counselors work to prevent the horrors of local sex trafficking for people like the ones in that study. We also work just as hard to address issues of local labor trafficking, another violent and brutal crime.

We hope others care enough to hear from the survivors who experience the violence and harm of prostitution and trafficking, not just the few who are lucky enough to avoid it.

It seems so obvious that the best way to combat out sex trafficing and prevent underage sex work is to legalize and regulate. The vast majority of people looking to hire sex workers don't want to contribute to either of those problems, but since all sex work is unregulated and illegal it can blend in and people accidently end up with an underage sex worker or someone who was trafficked. If it were legal and people could check to see the sex worker they wanted to see was properly liscensed or whatever, they would be able to avoid people who are underage or trafficked, severly undercutting the demand for underage or trafficked sex-workers. It would also allow law enforcement to focus their attention on actual victims, who would be much easier to differentiate from willing sex workers in a legalized and regulated system. That would be the obvious solution if you were actually trying to prevent victimization instead of just being anti-sex (and particularly against sexual liberty for women).

Yes maybe 1 in 500 arrests are real victims that are paraded in the media for the scam of children and sex trafficking victim industry. There are $millions in funding going to the scam of the victim industry. Much of it supplied by the Hunt (as in oil) sisters.

Yes go help the real victims for which already have laws like kidnapping and sexual assault.

The FBI is so ashamed of the data they no longer publish the 90%+ that are consenting adults. We have in Phoenix huge stings and media hype dragging out the 1 in 500 real victims.

Most of the world has decrim consenting adults, Canada a good example. In the recent case the friend of the Court brief of Ms Farley and her irk was totally discredited with her fake self serving agenda based research most of the anti groups use in their scam about children and trafficking.

Again, yes there are a few real victims yet 90%+ of arrests are private consenting adults. A huge waste of police, court, defender resources that only makes criminals of college gals, women trying to support their children etc which is legal in almost all the world except the U.S. for in private consenting adults.