Women and children are being sold in newspapers and over the internet. This is not speculation, it is the truth. When online and print services advertise sex for sale, more often than not, they are advertising people who may be held against their will. They are subject to unspeakable conditions and forced to have sex with multiple people a day. They make very little or no money at all and they are afraid to go to authorities for help.
Contrary to popular belief, these are not women who have made an educated decision and have control over their own bodies. These are not students who need money to pay their way through school. These are women and young girls forced or coerced into giving a few seconds of satisfaction to men who are thought to be innocent. Law enforcement investigations have shown that descriptors in sex ads such as “barely legal” and “young” delineates the availability of minors for sex.
It seemed as if no one cared until a woman was murdered by a man who solicited her services from Craigslist. Craigslist finally decided to get rid of their “Erotic Services” category in their ad space. But, it seems SF weekly has picked up all of their leftovers. Now they are feuding about it like children who fight over a cookie before dinner- “Johnny got to eat a cookie before dinner last night, how come I can’t?”
The author of an article about this particular topic mused that, “Maybe Craigslist was unfairly targeted over sites like Backpage.com because of its limelight status after the Craigslist Killer. And maybe weeklies and Craigslist should find a way to peacefully coexist, because we all want the same thing: a free society where horny but harmless johns can pay for blow jobs from our advertisers.” If only that were the case. The fact is that these ad sites and newspapers are just as guilty for pimping out these women and young girls as the men who sell them outright. They should be punished as well. Ignorance is no excuse. There are far too many studies and investigations that go on for them to be ignorant. People need to be aware that this is not about a man’s right to buy sex if he can’t get it through a relationship. This is about a culture that is fostering the notion that it’s hard out here for a pimp, so the media needs to make it easier. When will we as a people be outraged enough to make it a whole lot harder for pimps and johns alike to buy sex from these victims? How are we standing idly by while these perpetrators commit such vile offenses? If these women and girls were truly given the right to their own bodies, there would be far less sex ads.
