Imagine at the age of 16 being sex trafficked by a pimp named “cut-throat.” After days of being repeatedly drugged and raped by different men, you were purchased by a 43-year-old child predator who took you to his home to use you for sex. You end up finding enough courage to fight back and shoot… Continue reading Cyntoia Brown and the Commodification of the Good Victim
Tag: anti-trafficking hypocrisy
Surviving As Working Class After Backpage
Content warning: This post contains discussion and accounts of trafficking, debt bondage, and exploitation, both in the context of sex trafficking and trafficking in another industry. There are also brief references to experiences of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, custody loss, structural violence from criminalization, and violence against sex workers. In the last four… Continue reading Surviving As Working Class After Backpage
Activist Spotlight: The Migrant Sex Workers Project On Borders and Building Movements, Part Two
I interviewed Toronto’s Migrant Sex Workers Project co-founders Elene Lam and Chanelle Gallant as well as Migrant Sex Workers Project member Kate Zen over video chat. The first part of that conversation, edited and condensed for posting, is here. The group’s vital representation of a population often absent from sex worker activism inspired me. I… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: The Migrant Sex Workers Project On Borders and Building Movements, Part Two
What The Rentboy Raid Tells Us About The Gendered Rhetoric Of Trafficking
Tuesday morning, Homeland Security and Brooklyn police raided the offices of Rentboy.com, arresting its CEO and several current and former workers, seizing six bank accounts, and freezing the website in what the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release bragged was a raid on the “largest online male escort service.” Coming right on the heels of… Continue reading What The Rentboy Raid Tells Us About The Gendered Rhetoric Of Trafficking
Celebrity And The Spectacle Of The Trafficking Victim
With Amnesty International’s announcement that its membership will vote on a policy of decriminalization of prostitution this weekend and subsequent protests from celebrities, there’s been considerable verbal diarrhea spewed from the mouths of rich people on the topic of “privilege.” Sex workers like me—people who have the time and energy to advocate for human rights—have… Continue reading Celebrity And The Spectacle Of The Trafficking Victim