What’s Trafficking Got To Do With It: The Media and the Cleveland Kidnappings

By

-

May 14, 2013

Last week in Cleveland, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Amanda Berry escaped from Ariel Castro’s “house of horrors” where he imprisoned the women in a nightmare of rape and torture for almost a decade. Castro has been arraigned on four charges of kidnapping and three charges of rape. The courageous women escaped with the help of Charles Ramsey, a neighbor who broke into the home after hearing Berry’s screams. A charismatic man, Ramsey became an instant celebrity after declaring he knew “something was wrong” when he saw that a “pretty little white girl ran into the arms of a black man.”

Everything about the Cleveland kidnapping case—from Ramsey’s critique of race to the captive women’s histories of abuse—has stirred important conversations about domestic abuse, sexual abuse, police incompetence, and race. Unsurprisingly, for those of us who follow trafficking hysteria, it’s also inspired a lot of talk about sex trafficking.

Continue

Off the Street (2011)

By

Elle

-

October 12, 2011

I was excited to read and review Off the Street. The true story of Las Vegas vice cop Christopher Baughman, leader of the Pandering Investigation Team (PIT) and Human Trafficking Task Force, it seemed like the perfect read for a sex-work-loving, law enforcement supporter such as myself.

The story begins when a prostitute on the Strip is beaten for two days by her pimp, who’s also the father of her son. Baughman becomes her crusading investigator, despite the victim’s objections to leaving her attacker. Baughman seems to understand the cycle of violence and abuse with which he’s so familiar, and acknowledges the woman’s reluctance to assist in the case. He acknowledges that there are indeed “bad” cops:

“I understand that the power of the badge can only amplify qualities in a person. For instance, a good man with a badge can only amplify qualities in a person. … There are others who carry a badge and feel an automatic sense of entitlement. They might bend over backward for some citizens, but declare in the same breath that any ghetto is just a self-cleaning oven. These men have also become my enemies. I have no use for them. They have dishonored their position, slighted the city I love and tarnished the badge that I carry.”

Continue

Conviction Unlikely for Judge Accused of Raping Prostitute

By

Elle

-

August 30, 2011

Can you say busted? The news articles are entitled “New Mexico Judge Charged with Raping Prostitute.” However, it seems the case isn’t so cut and dried.

In Bernalillo County, Judge Pat Murdoch is apparently well-known and highly respected for serving the 2nd Judicial Circuit Court in New Mexico for 26 years. Allegedly, he met and paid an unidentified woman for sex on at least eight occasions. The woman alleges that on at least two of those incidences, Murdoch “forced himself on her” and also “forcibly performed oral sex on her, despite her objections to oral sex.” After this occurred once, the woman returned for another meeting and secretly taped the next assault, which she then presented to undercover police.

Continue

Donut Ho: Sex Work In The Strangest Places

By

Bubbles

-

August 5, 2011

By now the New Jersey Donut Ho is national news. How couldn’t she be? She was allegedly turning tricks at a Dunkin’ Donuts. You couldn’t pick a place with more cops if you were working inside an actual police station. To summarize: A woman who worked the late shift at a DD in Rockaway, NJ would leave her post at the drive-though window to entertain customers in their cars. She was arrested (and released) after six weeks of undercover investigation, a typical waste of public resources on pursuing victimless crimes. Well, not victimless; if anyone has standing for damages in this instance, it’s her employer, yeah?

Her choice of venue was unusual and entrepreneurial, though she wasn’t the first person to choose a nontraditional venue for selling sex. Here’s some other stories about similar go-getters in the sex trade.

Continue

The People vs. Kimberly Kupps

By

Furry Girl

-

July 27, 2011

Though she’s been an adult entertainer since the 1980s, Kimberly Kupps is currently best known as half of the Florida couple who were arrested for shooting porn in the privacy of their own home. Like me, Kimberly operates her own independent porn site, so it’s a case that definitely caught my attention. Some sex workers mistakenly view porn as legal, easy, and even dismiss it as “sex work lite,” because supposedly, those of us who make porn don’t break any laws and face no risk. As a pornographer, even if you are trying to stay within the bounds of the law and don’t shoot anything “extreme,” you can find yourself dealing with an obscenity prosecution, as Kimberly and her husband have learned this summer.

The pair was arrested on June 3rd by their local Polk County Sheriff, who is going after them as a part of a war on porn to clean up the conservative area. (Sheriff Grady Judd is also facing a federal civil rights lawsuit for allegedly harassing another local woman for her atheist organization.) Kimberly and her husband are being represented by well-known first amendment attorney Lawrence Walters. Walters is donating part of his fee, but there are still plenty of costs being incurred with mounting a strong legal defense, so Kimberly has set up a defense fund. Although their computers were seized by the police, Kimberly recently took the time to do an interview with me from her iPhone.

Continue