Friday, February 22, 2019

Sex Trafficking in Jupiter, not Mars

A couple of years ago, there was a conspiracy theory averring that there was a sex trafficking ring sending child slaves to Mars. While that is utter bullshit, there was a sex trafficking ring operating out of Jupiter, and one of its highest profile clients is in deep doo-doo. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged with soliciting prostitution in a strip-mall 'day spa'.

The real horror here is that the women working in the 'spa' were lured to the US with the promise of jobs, coerced into performing sex acts in order to pay off an 'indenture', and housed in the building. I'm not big on moralizing, and generally believe that sex work should be legalized and regulated, but I am a firm believer in consent, so any legalization would have to involve investigations to prove that coercion was not involved. It's all about harm mitigation in my estimation.

Kraft is a hypocrite, the kind of guy who publicly donates to anti-trafficking groups, then goes to a seedy rub-and-tug place to purchase the services of a sex slave for $79/hour. One would think that a billionaire like Kraft could afford to hire a high-priced call girl, but I suspect that the seediness and coercive nature of the place appealed to his baser instincts.

Kraft is also a friend and supporter of Donald Trump, who seems to pal around with sex offenders to an alarming degree. This flies in the face of the conspiracy theory based on assertions that Trump is arresting sex traffickers and pedophiles. While some right-wingers are claiming that Kraft was entrapped by a hostile NFL management, I imagine that other Trump worshipers will claim that he became friends with Epstein and Kraft in order to (forgive me) penetrate their inner circles. Hope springs eternal among dead-enders.

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