Adult services censored on Craigslist
Online classified service Craigslist's decision to censor its adult services section could be a model for other websites, a leader in the fight against prostitution ads said Saturday.
"This step is very much in the right direction," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who spearheaded a letter from 17 attorneys general who recently banded together to urge Craigslist to discontinue its adult services section...
"These prostitution ads enable human trafficking and assaults on women," said Blumenthal. "They are flagrant and rampant. Craigslist has lacked the wherewithal or will to effectively screen them out."
The section that usually reads "adult services" on Craigslist was replaced by the word "censored."
...In their letter, the attorneys general highlighted an open letter, which appeared as a Washington Post ad, in which two girls said they were sold for sex on Craigslist...
Earlier this month, [CNN's Amber] Lyon interviewed a woman named "Jessica" who sells sex on Craigslist. The woman said a Craigslist ad was "the fastest, quickest way you're for sure going to see somebody that day."
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I see you’ve now gotten around to requesting an interview with me or a company spokesperson, 90 days after you ambushed our namesake and founder, Craig Newmark, following his May 20th talk on veteran’s affairs and other issues unrelated to craigslist, at a conference in Washington.
You knew Craig was not in management or a company spokesperson, but setting CNN’s ethical code aside, you sidestepped company channels in favor of ambushing our semi-retired founder, complete with a misleading “set up” for your surprise questions. Now that CNN has aired your highly misleading piece dozens of times, mischaracterizing your stunt as a serious interview on this subject, and you’ve updated your “bio” to showcase this rare jewel of investigative journalism, you’re ready to try actually interviewing the company itself on this subject.
There is a class of “journalists” known for gratuitously trashing respected organizations and individuals, ignoring readily available facts in favor of rank sensationalism and self-promotion. They work for tabloid media. Your stunt has veteran news pros we know recoiling in journalistic horror, some of them chalking it up to a decline in CNN’s standards, which is unfortunate...


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Three Awards in Commemoration of Norma Hotaling Norma Hotaling (1951-2008), founder of the SAGE, transcended homelessness, addiction and prostitution and transformed her suffering into an opportunity of hope for others. Trafficked into prostitution when she was a child, she was trapped in it for eighteen years. After she escaped, she was determined to create exit strategies for others like her. She spent the next eighteen years of her life creating a safe haven for victims of prostitution and sex trafficking. Calling attention to inequalities in the criminal justice system, she developed new policies and programs to focus on the demand side of sex trafficking. In commemoration of her passing we offer three awards which pay tribute to her legacy by recognizing individuals carrying on this important work. Together we can celebrate Norma and honor those who are carrying on her vision. The Norma Hotaling Awards
Eligibility Requirements
About the Awards Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award: The Survivor-Centered Service Provider Award shall be given to a person who has overcome hardship and life struggles similar to those of Norma Hotaling. Successful candidates will have demonstrated leadership in overcoming their own circumstances, while at the same time working to make a positive difference in the lives of others hurt by the commercial sex industry. Just like Norma Hotaling, nominees to this award must stand out for their commitment and dedication to helping victims become survivors. Demand-Reduction Award: The Demand Reduction Award shall be given to a person focused on eradicating demand.The ultimate success or failure of the effort to end sex slavery is contingent upon our ability to effectively reduce the demand for commercial sex. A key criterion for evaluating nominees for this award will be their ability to reach today's youth, especially young men and boys, to educate them about the harm caused by the commercial sex industry. Nominees to this award need to have a proven ability to reach young minds, and to affect cultural and attitudinal change. Nominees who have developed innovative ways to educate the general public as to how demand creates and fuels sex trafficking also will be given consideration. Josephine Butler Award: The Josephine Butler Award shall be given to a person working to change law and policy on sex trafficking. Josephine Butler (1826-1906), a British feminist and evangelical Christian, was ahead of her time in the fight to end commercial sexual exploitation of women and children.Concerned with ensuring the welfare of women and girls trafficked into sexual servitude, she spear-headed a twenty year campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts in England and other countries.The Acts were regressive laws that degraded and further exploited those already trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. Butler also worked to make the harm of sex trafficking visible. She is best known for founding the International Abolitionist Federation, an early international anti-slavery organization. Nominees to this award will have demonstrated an ability to affect change in law and policy that clearly advances the abolition of sex trafficking. Deadline to Apply Please send all nomination applications before October 1, 2010. Anyone can nominate, or self-nominate, by filling out an application.All applications are considered based on the eligibility and requirements of each award. Send applications to awards@globalcenturion.org. Click here to download the application form. Award recipients will be announced and notified on December 17, 2010 on the memorial day of Norma Hotaling's passing. |
Sold on Craigslist: Critics say sex ad crackdown inadequate
"Most of the young women we've worked with who have been exploited online talk about Craigslist," said Andrea Powell of the anti-trafficking group The FAIR Fund. "Craigslist is like the Wal-Mart of online sex trafficking right now in this country."
...A 20-year-old identified only as "Jessica" works out of low-rent hotels on Washington's busy Interstate 95 corridor. She posts ads mid-morning for $10 and says she earns up to $250 from each man who answers and shows up. She told CNN her "man" -- her pimp -- was good to her, but that the vast majority of the females who post ads are run by pimps who force them to have sex with as many as a dozen men a day.
She said many of the prostitutes give everything they earn directly to the pimps. If they don't, they're beaten...
According to internet research firm the AIM Group, Craigslist this year is expected to earn a third of its revenue -- more than $36 million -- from its adult services section alone.
From the introduction at Reuniting:
This is a three-part YouTube series we helped create, based on the audiobook, Things You Didn't Know About Porn.
It's an unsettling fact that by age 11 most boys have been subjected to pornographic images. Yet few materials on the subject address such a youthful audience. If you're a parent, it can be surprisingly difficult to find a good way to discuss pornography. You don't want your child to see sex as "forbidden" or "dirty", but no matter how sex-positive you are, you sense that porn isn't the best way to gain a sex education.
Scientifically based and non-religious, Things You Didn't Know About Porn describes some potential pitfalls of porn use in simple, easy to understand terms. It draws a parallel between junk food and porn, and explains why these activities have the potential to "train" the brain, and become unhealthy habits. This lets youngsters make more informed choices about all potentially addictive substances and activities.
There’s a dirty secret in the LGBT community. One we rarely discuss, but one that affects thousands of queer teens every year: homelessness. According to a report by The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 26% of LGBTQ youth were kicked out of their homes when they came out. A disconcerting 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ...
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says, “LGBTQ youth are three times more likely to participate in survival sex.” “Survival sex,” Lowrey explains, “is one strategy for survival involving the sex industry — either exchanging sexual acts for money or for food and shelter.” These teens’ barriers to health care access make HIV and STDs a particular challenge.
In “Framing Federal Policy to Benefit LGBTQ Homeless Youth,” Kicked Out contributor Richard Hooks Wayman addresses the simple steps adults can take to help curtail the epidemic of youth homelessness within the queer community:
There is a role for the LGBTQ community to play in ending youth homelessness—a role for advocacy, a role for sustained giving to youth services, and a role in reaching out and building relationships with vulnerable queer youth. LGBTQ adults can ensure that vulnerable, homeless youth are not assaulted in street environments and not recruited into the commercial sex industry through strip clubs and prostitution. LGBTQ adults have the opportunity to reflect on their own behaviors and consumption patterns by not supporting businesses or venues that encourage the sexual exploitation of youth through erotic dancing, escort services or prostitution.Click for the full article
The Weight of Smut
As the impressively depressing cover story “America the Obese” in the May issue of The Atlantic serves to remind us all, the weight-gain epidemic in the United States and the rest of the West is indeed widespread, deleterious, and unhealthy--which is why it is so frequently remarked on, and an object of such universal public concern. But while we’re on the subject of bad habits that can turn unwitting kids into unhappy adults, how about that other epidemic out there that is far more likely to make their future lives miserable than carrying those extra pounds ever will? That would be the emerging social phenomenon of what can appropriately be called “sexual obesity”: the widespread gorging on pornographic imagery that is also deleterious and unhealthy, though far less remarked on than that other epidemic--and nowhere near an object of universal public concern. That complacency may now be changing. The term sexual obesity comes from Mary Ann Layden, a psychiatrist who runs the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She sees the victims of Internet-pornography consumption in her practice, day in and day out. She also knows what most do not: Quietly, patiently, and irrefutably, an empirical record of the harms of sexual obesity is being assembled piecemeal via the combined efforts of psychologists, sociologists, addiction specialists, psychiatrists, and other authorities.
Young people who have been exposed to pornography are more likely to have multiple lifetime sexual partners, more likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the last three months, more likely to have used alcohol or other substances at their last sexual encounter, and--no surprise here--more likely to have scored higher on a “sexual permissiveness” test. They are also more likely to have tried risky forms of sex. They are also more likely to engage in forced sex and more likely to be sexual offenders...
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