And so at last the year has arrived. Five years ago today in “Crystal Ball“, I wrote this:
…major moral panics only tend to last about 20 years…about the time it takes a generation to grow from infancy to adulthood (during which time a lot of the “leaders” who enable such panics die off or at least retire, and young liberals who reject their elders’ crusades on general principle come into power)…Given this pattern, the “human trafficking” hysteria should be dead by the end of this decade…official designation of it as a “world-wide problem” occurred in 2000 and the genuine hysteria did not begin until about 2003…If things run according to form, we can predict that…skepticism about “trafficking” (especially in regard to its conflation with sex work) will slowly increase, and by about 2015 it will be possible for a major media outlet to publish articles critical of both the statistics and the very concept. By 2017 public funding for anti-sex worker hate groups will begin to dry up, and by 2019 or 2020 we should expect it to virtually disappear from public discourse except for a wave of books and documentaries by “experts” who couldn’t be bothered to speak out against it while it was going on but are happy to make a quick buck from it after it’s safely over…
As regular readers already know, the first part of my prediction has occurred right on schedule; articles critical of “sex trafficking” nonsense started to appear in 2013 and increased in 2014, and by 2015 were fairly common in major publications such as Reason and the Washington Post (whose fact checker, Glenn Kessler, has been hammering at it for two years now). This year even USA Today, the government-funded NPR and the Journal of Ireland got in on the act, and pro-decrim, anti-hysteria articles regularly appear in small newspapers all over the world. As of this year media outlets are asking activists to comment on raids and stings, and the increasing desperation of prohibitionists is like the stink of fear; they’ve even backed down from most of their stupider claims, and you may have noticed we haven’t heard very much “Super Bowl sex slaves” nonsense this time around (though the repeatedly and thoroughly debunked “average age of 13” is still popular). So if my track record holds, sometime in the next 12 months we should see the level of government funding for anti-sex worker hate groups begin to dry up; we’ll be able to tell by their increased pleas for funding and press releases about how vital their work is and how they need the public to help more, plus an increased number of fundraisers (with increasingly silly premises) and perhaps even more money from sociopaths like Swanee Hunt to try to close the gap. All through 2018 the hysteria should die down dramatically, and by the end of 2019 only the most fanatical will still be talking about it and the majority of the public will be looking for something else to panic about.
So, by three years from now (four at the outside), we’ll be able to get through a day without having to hear fetishists like Nick Kristof non-consensually foisting their nasty wanking fantasies of gang-raping traumatized 13-year-olds in bondage upon us. Cops and politicians may still prattle about it for a while, but once they realize nobody actually cares any more, that will soon fade away. Unfortunately, the laws spawned by the panic will still exist and will continue to be used to destroy the lives of sex workers and our clients and families until decriminalization is achieved a decade or two from now; then sometime in the mid 2030s we’ll begin to see people railroaded into prison on bogus “trafficking” charges released, as the victims of the Satanic Panic have been over the past three years or so. I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be around to see that, but many of you will be. And when it happens, please remind people that I said this, and use it as an example to fight the next moral panic, whatever it may be.
I think you have a little to learn from me. The same people who have made this hysteria all the way go back to the 1960s. They started the attacks on pornography, like Playboy on news racks. Yikes! Can’t have that. But the same people – MacKennan, Hughes, Farley – are mostly in their 60s. The scary part is that they have their own recruiting process. Read Christina Hoff Sommers. Many of the Women’s Study courses, and the books they use, are perfect for proselytizing a new generation of anti-sex fanatics. Weitzer, Kempadoo, Agustin, etc, have nothing like that. And with the help of the US Gov this hysteria might be more self sustainable that the run of the mill hysteria.
And I think you have a LOT to learn about me if you honestly believe I didn’t know all that already. Your historical perspective is too narrow; try going back to the early Victorian Era is you want a REAL perspective on US prohibitionism.
Maggie you inspire a good argument. Of course you know the background of the elder leaders of the anti-sex feminists. But it is their association with extreme women’s study programs that is their issue’s path to longevity. So too is the small role moderate feminists have in those programs. I do not agree this polarization over the issue of sex work will quietly go away as you suggest, but it is only my opinion. The real wild card is the huge change in media since Victorian times. Modern media provides the path to continue to feed a hysteria.
I am a grad student / researcher in Bangkok. I fear the internationalization of coordinated attacks on sex work as looking dangerously successful. Per Kempadoo the anti-sex feminists came dangerously close to including all prostitution – all – under the UN definition of trafficking in 2004 in the same way anyone under 18, consenting or not, is automatically defined as trafficked. And the spread of the Nordic model might only be gathering steam. There is much to fear! We all have plenty to do and it often appears that our point of view is not winning.
When you interact with us in comments please remember you are mostly “singing to the choir”. We should all be helpful to each other when possible. The comment section is where those of us with little opportunity to interact about what we believe to join with you in healthy dialogue. Again, just my opinion.
Keep up the good work! Yes to decriminalization!
Exactly. The pendulum keeps swinging, but eventually winds down. The effort to ban alcohol is the classic model. We’re now seeing efforts against LGBTQ folks begin to be relegated to the fringe, and a rising move to allow pot and other drugs.
As for sex work, I predict that the road to decrim will likely begin when officials in some cities decide to grant automatic immunity to any sex worker who reports a violent crime. From there, de-facto decrim at the municipal level as police and prosecutors choose to exercise “enforcement discretion”, most likely from being pressured by a growing movement. There will be fits and starts, but like domestic partnership and needle exchange, it will encourage folks to rethink the issue and add their voices in support of full decrim across the board — most likely through the courts, all the way to SCOTUS.
So far so good. Lets hope it continues like this, although I think it will. The thing that worries me though is “the majority of the public will be looking for something else to panic about”. The average person does understand nothing about how things actually work and can do tremendous damage when panicked.
Why worry about it? It’s not like it’s not going to happen. We even know what it’ll be; sex-related, narcotic-related, youth-related, religious, or some combination of all of the above, just as it’s been the beginning of time. Since we’re probably about to see the Drug War ramped up again, and religious hatred is a near constant, all we need is some novel problem involving youth and their sexual practices and we’re all set to continue scraping bottom.
“until decriminalization is achieved a decade or two from now”
You expect humanity (civilized or otherwise) to still be around a decade or two from now?
Of course. It’s historically-illiterate chauvinism to think that the collapse of one empire means the end of the whole species. The world didn’t end when Rome fell, and it won’t end when Washington falls, either.
I’d feel more reassured by that (and I’d really like to be optimistic and not disillusioned and cynical like this) if the Romans had had nuclear weapons.
Not to mention, the Russian/Chinese/Iranian/North Korean/whateverian Empire that will inevitably replace America (if we don’t nuke the world first) will be no friendlier to sex workers (and freedom in general) than what preceded it.