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walkitouthttp://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-29/news/real-men-get-their-facts-straight-sex-trafficking-ashton-kutcher-demi-moore/
And earlier blog coverage:
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/a-tale-that-grew-in-the-telling/
Every little bit, here in the US and also in the UK, people get very agitated about sex crimes. Generally speaking, sex crimes are committed by family members and/or neighbors/friends against children, with stranger perpetrators being way, way down the list. In the mix is a lot of activity that some people consider criminal and other people do not, such as children below the age of consent engaging in sexual activity with each other. The idea that some fraction of our adult acquaintance sexually molests children they have access is repulsive, so we tend to focus on the Clear Bad Guys. You can debate the merits of this as public policy (altho it's quite safe, based on the past, that we won't). What is NOT OK is to pretend that numbers based on the full range of activity actually describe that very, very, vanishingly rare Stranger Perp (or Perv, as the case may be).
Back in the nineteenth century in Britain (IIRC), Parliament saw estimates of the number of prostitutes that were really quite amazingly high. It turned out they were counting any woman who might be having sex outside of marriage. We've been through a few rounds of "white slavery" nonsense here in the US; this is just another one of the same. I've been rolling my eyes at the coverage for months now; I'm overjoyed to see a couple exposes. Perhaps not the _best_ choice of words . . .
And earlier blog coverage:
http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/a-tale-that-grew-in-the-telling/
Every little bit, here in the US and also in the UK, people get very agitated about sex crimes. Generally speaking, sex crimes are committed by family members and/or neighbors/friends against children, with stranger perpetrators being way, way down the list. In the mix is a lot of activity that some people consider criminal and other people do not, such as children below the age of consent engaging in sexual activity with each other. The idea that some fraction of our adult acquaintance sexually molests children they have access is repulsive, so we tend to focus on the Clear Bad Guys. You can debate the merits of this as public policy (altho it's quite safe, based on the past, that we won't). What is NOT OK is to pretend that numbers based on the full range of activity actually describe that very, very, vanishingly rare Stranger Perp (or Perv, as the case may be).
Back in the nineteenth century in Britain (IIRC), Parliament saw estimates of the number of prostitutes that were really quite amazingly high. It turned out they were counting any woman who might be having sex outside of marriage. We've been through a few rounds of "white slavery" nonsense here in the US; this is just another one of the same. I've been rolling my eyes at the coverage for months now; I'm overjoyed to see a couple exposes. Perhaps not the _best_ choice of words . . .