California Pursues New Pimping Charges Against Backpage.com

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Look at the guy in the middle mug shot below. Holy cow, that guy was just charged with pimping on Christmas Eve. I had no idea that backpage.com was run by Santa. :eek:

The state attorney general is doubling down on pimping charges in her final days before resigning to take her seat in the U.S. Senate. Harris has alleged that more than 90 percent of Backpage's revenue — millions of dollars each month — comes from adult escort ads that use coded language and nearly nude photos to offer sex for money.
 
Coded language? Ha ha I figured it out in no time via Google! Nearly nude? Some are buck booty naked!
 
Why do these pervs always have a "Look" to them. The goatee is almost a dead giveaway.
 
They'll beat that case easily. It's the same thing on craigslist, why weren't they arrested? Because it's not the site owners that are posting the ads. It's not illegal to sell your time. What do you with that time is between the two people that paid and received payment.
 
It's legal for 3 guys to glaze a paid 18 yo starlets face if they are filming it and call it porn. But it is illegal for that same 18 yo woman to have a beer, or for anyone to have paid sex with her. If anyone deserves a beer, it's her.
Paraphrased Jeff Jeffries.
 
I wonder how a spell in jail for contempt of court would go down with the Senator?
 
pimpin-aint-easy-lg.gif
 
Riccochet said:
They'll beat that case easily. It's the same thing on craigslist, why weren't they arrested? Because it's not the site owners that are posting the ads. It's not illegal to sell your time. What do you with that time is between the two people that paid and received payment.
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Don't know though, there is a legal concept of "willful blindness". Is Backpage used for anything other than that? Whereas Craigslist was a mixed bag, where you could get snatched selling a used couch as well as selling snatch on a used couch, Backpage doesn't seem to be used by anyone else.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Don't know though, there is a legal concept of "willful blindness". Is Backpage used for anything other than that? Whereas Craigslist was a mixed bag, where you could get snatched selling a used couch as well as selling snatch on a used couch, Backpage doesn't seem to be used by anyone else.
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I use backpage often to buy and sell firearms.
 
"Ho! Ho! Ho!"

"Little Timmy has been good this year. Let's set him up with a fine present (interstate transportation, manager's fees and operational costs due upon delivery)."
 
Jim Kim said:
It's legal for 3 guys to glaze a paid 18 yo starlets face if they are filming it and call it porn. But it is illegal for that same 18 yo woman to have a beer, or for anyone to have paid sex with her. If anyone deserves a beer, it's her.
Paraphrased Jeff Jeffries.
Click to expand...

This is what is deemed Mala prohibita (in Latin) which translates as "It is harmful or wrong because the law forbids it" There are two types of laws, those which affect other people negatively and those which affect ourselves negatively. The later typically get the Mala prohibita. For example smoking pot, taking hash/herion, or drinking then driving would be Mala prohibita.

The reasons these laws are created is that in the end, they could have negative consequences outside yourself. For example: Taking illegal drugs means you are more likely to be dependent on the system for handouts, and will have a life of crime. So indirectly drug use results in a negative outcome for society.

With prostitution, there are risk:
1. Mental illness of both the client and the prostitute.
2. Sexually transmitted disease
3. Risk of physical abuse and trafficking.

When you are in the porn business, these types of risk are somewhat mitigated because they have to comply to some standards set forth by the federal law.

That said, a conviction here will be interesting. There has to be proof of exchanging sexual services and goods/money. It's not like a vice officer can down to the local corner and bust a group of guys talking to girls standing there looking like hookers. I think this is more of a shakedown to discourage others. Sort of a "I'm going to shake a few boxes to make the cockroaches scatter" concept.
 
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DigitalGriffin said:
This is what is deemed Mala prohibita (in Latin) which translates as "It is harmful or wrong because the law forbids it" There are two types of laws, those which affect other people negatively and those which affect ourselves negatively. The later typically get the Mala prohibita. For example smoking pot, taking hash/herion, or drinking then driving would be Mala prohibita.

The reasons these laws are created is that in the end, they could have negative consequences outside yourself. For example: Taking illegal drugs means you are more likely to be dependent on the system for handouts, and will have a life of crime. So indirectly drug use results in a negative outcome for society.
Click to expand...

Society is also partially responsible for that negative outcome, since they enforce the negative stereotypes / criminal status, and therein the path of drug addicts.

With prostitution, there are risk:
Click to expand...

Justification of prohibition of the second oldest profession based upon:

1. Mental illness of both the client and the prostitute.
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In my experience helping groups that try to give prostitutes a way out you'll find way less mental illness and more desperation and drug dependency. As a note, drug dependency is not tied to mental illness as often as people think. For the guys, it usually falls into getting sexual fantasies they want without trying to get it from the girlfriend or wife. After all many wives and girlfriends would absolutely freak out if their partner seriously asked them for a threesome (or other) fantasy to be fulfilled.

One of the biggest factors for prostitution being "popular" with women is that they're drug addicts. They figure out that by performing sex acts they can get their fix. They usually started having sex with their dealers for free hits, then the dealer's friends, and finally anyone else they could get to pay so they could get their drug money. This is actually something you can't attack by making prostitution illegal, but only by helping people get off drugs.

Another big factor is survival desperation. We have a shiat social safety net, and that leads many a person (minors who are runaways, and adults) to sell sex to survive. You want to fix this, fix the social safety net so people don't get desperate enough to sell their bodies for food and a place to sleep.

2. Sexually transmitted disease
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The joke being, of course, that by driving the practice of prostitution underground you're creating an environment where disease is far more likely to spread. Many a young person (who sold sex to survive) will tell a counselor that the first time they had unprotected sex was with a cop. Someone who purportedly knew they were underage when they demand the 15/16/17 year old girl bend over and have sex without protection, or go to jail. The fact that for the John's buying, it's in for a penny in for a pound. Why not demand unprotected sex if you feel like it? The gal needs the money, and you want to get off. It's already a crime fro her to be offering sex for money, and you're already a criminal offering money for sex, so you might as well get what you want. For the gal if you don't do it, there will be another who does. You need to eat and possibly a roof to sleep under.

By making it illegal it's maintaining an environment where the women have even less power, because they have less control over their clientele. If it was legal, they could more easily say no because it would be legal for them to just go onto the next guy with money. For the John's, you've created an environment where they get used to the idea they're already a criminal for asking, so why not ask for more? This self-reinforcing feedback loop where everyone is trapped by the illegality raising the stakes. Toss in the cops abusing the girls, and the fact the girls can't report a client doing something stupid without getting themselves arrested...

3. Risk of physical abuse and trafficking.
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Which is wildly overblown, as is how cops decide it. Example: In San Jose there was a lady arrested as a pimp and trafficker because it was her name on the lease of the apartment she and a couple others used to meet clients. Never mind the other women had their own webpages, with their own business names attached to the sites, or that the lady arrested with trafficking must've been trafficking herself too (all were of Asian descent) since she sold her body for money, she was a human trafficker. Let's take a look at why cops do this, along with the child sex sting bit. It's really easy, and I'll give you one guess:

Money.

For the local vice squads, or even regional task forces, that sweet money is everything. Obviously busting up a "trafficking ring" or someone "selling underage girls for sex" brings that sweet money into the coffers. There's a few local defense attorneys in the area I used to live that have taken it upon themselves to represent the kids pro bono. Why? Rampant abuse by police. Charge the victim with child pornography, child sex trafficking, et al., for the crime of selling themselves. You see the irony, I hope.

As far as abuse, it's awful hard to tamp down on it in prostitution when the girls can't even complain without being arrested themselves. Top it off with many prostitutes have had unpleasant run ins with the police where they were forced to service the cop for free or be charged criminally, and many are just suffering in silence. This means the abusive Johns KNOW they can do almost anything they want and get away with it.

When you are in the porn business, these types of risk are somewhat mitigated because they have to comply to some standards set forth by the federal law.
Click to expand...

The fact that it's legal to pay people to have sex on camera makes it a little easier to regulate, I'd say.

That said, a conviction here will be interesting. There has to be proof of exchanging sexual services and goods/money. It's not like a vice officer can down to the local corner and bust a group of guys talking to girls standing there looking like hookers. I think this is more of a shakedown to discourage others. Sort of a "I'm going to shake a few boxes to make the cockroaches scatter" concept.
Click to expand...

Oh and it'll be completely useless. There's at least 5 other sites just waiting to pick up the slack, many of which aren't based in the US or hosted in the US. This isn't even a holding action, it's closing the barn door about 199,999 years late. People will pay to have sex. People will sell sex. The exact form of payment has changed over the ensuing years, but it's always been happening.
 
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