The Orlando Sentinel reports welcome news on February 28:
Orlando Weekly to stop accepting adult-services ads – state drops chargesMeanwhile, the Valley Advocate continues to sell “Massage/Escort” ads. Here’s from the February 28 issue:
…Orlando Weekly Inc., which had been accused of aiding prostitution through its advertising, made the deal with prosecutors, who dropped 18 charges against the company, including a count of racketeering…
The agreement came during a brief hearing before Orange County Circuit Court Judge Tim Shea and closes the file on “Operation Weekly Shame,” the undercover operation launched by the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation in 2005…
The three employees were arrested in October on charges they promoted prostitution by selling classified advertising to escort services. Each faced multiple counts of aiding in the commission of prostitution and a single count of deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution. MBI officials say the newspaper helped design ads that wouldn’t draw the attention of law enforcement. Undercover agents posed as “sellers of prostitution” and made it clear they were involved in illicit business…
As part of the agreement, Orlando Weekly also has to pay the nearly $10,000 investigative costs…
If you’re looking for a legitimate massage, do you really need to know your masseuse is 34C or 40DD? The Advocate has recently been acquired by the company that owns the Gazette, so ask the Gazette’s publisher, Aaron Julien, to terminate this kind of advertising now. Contact him here.
See also:
Orlando Sentinel: “3 from Orlando Weekly’s staff charged with aiding prostitution” (10/20/07)
MBI Director Bill Lutz said the unusual arrests had nothing to do with the newspaper’s freedom of speech.
“I don’t see a First Amendment issue here,” Lutz said. “This is strictly an advertising company making money off of prostitution.”
…MBI has made 80 prostitution arrests since 2003 connected to advertisers in the Weekly, the agency said…
“We’ve never called anyone dealing with these ads who was not providing prostitution services,” [Cmdr. Paul Zambouros] said.
Orlando Sentinel: “Weekly’s publisher: Arrests are payback” (10/23/07)
“When the video comes out, it will be telling because our officers tell them about specific sex acts they perform for money and ask how they can get that across better to their clientele,” Zambouros said…
“First Amendment rights do not protect anyone from committing a crime,” he said.
MSNBC Investigates Human Trafficking and Prostitution in the US; Valley Advocate Advertises “Foreign Fantasies” Where “Everything Goes”
While MSNBC is busy investigating the sex industry, the Valley Advocate is busy making money from it. The Massage/Escort ads in the 1/10/08 edition below include an advertisement of “FOREIGN FANTASIES” where “Everything Goes”. The acronym GFE presumably stands for “girl friend experience”, which MSNBC says means “sex without condoms”.
“New York Press No Longer Marketing Arm for Prostitution/Trafficking”
Another Victory for NOW-NYC: New York Magazine Drops Sex Ads
The National Organization for Women had accused New York of being a “marketing arm of the organized crime world of prostitution and human trafficking” because of classified ads at the back of the magazine with such tag lines as “Asians Gone Wild” and “Asian Dreamgirls”…
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
A Canadian Report on Prostitution and Pornography concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average…
In one study, 75% of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide. Prostituted women comprised 15% of all completed suicides reported by hospitals…
The Village Voice Earns $80,000/Month from Prostitution, Sex Trafficking and other Adult Ads (explicit language)
All in all, there are over 5,000 ads in the adult category, and that’s just for the New York metro. If pimping on a grand scale is what it takes to keep Village Voice Media in business, this “progressive” conglomerate has outlived its usefulness.
Ask the Valley Advocate’s New Owner to Drop the Sex Ads
Prostitution Research & Education: How Prostitution Works
S.M. Berg: “Hey, progressives! Cathouse got your tongue?”
Belltown Messenger: “Greed, Lust and Ink”
…the only motivation for running escort ads in the first place is unbridled greed-and these supposedly liberal publications can’t have it both ways when defending the rights of society’s underdogs in their editorial content…