We’ve reported on the troubles surrounding craigslist and prostitution ads. Apparently someone got fed up enough to start a rival company. That person is 27-year old Trevor Milton. I won’t vouch for the service but think one aspect is worth highlighting (from a July 14 press release):
Another “free” feature Upillar.com can lay claim to: Freedom from porn and sex listings. The company’s management team is committed to creating a safe environment that’s free from inappropriate material. “One of our core missions is keeping Upillar.com free from some of the less savory listings that have offended users and sullied the reputations of other online ad services,” Milton says. “We’re working hard to create the kind of environment that you won’t mind your 12-year-old clicking through.”
I have often said that creating a safe community involves individual and family decision, appropriate government protections and corporate responsibility. It’s nice to see one company recognizing the need for responsibility in the marketplace and taking a stab at making it happen.
Speaking of pillars, have you read Focus on the Family’s pillar on The Value of Male and Female yet?
If you’re looking for a good, constitutionally-sound ordinance to restrict sexually oriented businesses, look no further than Scott Bergthold of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Scott is the nation’s preeminent zoning law drafter for these types of businesses, having helped more than 200 communities get their laws in place. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that towns cannot ban sexually oriented businesses outright, but that they can restrict them based on harmful secondary effects that often congregate around such businesses. These typically include increased crime, decreased property values, and increased urban blight.
Most such ordinances place limits on a business’s hours of operation, location within a community and manner of operation. These time-place-manner restrictions tend to focus on reducing those secondary effects and aren’t arbitrary restrictions. However, even otherwise-valid restrictions cannot be passed for the wrong reasons. A number of communities have lost court battles because city council members cited the Bible as the basis for passing zoning ordinances.
Business TN has a great article about the work Scott does.
To contact him directly, visit www.adultbusinesslaw.com (Don’t worry, this website is safe for work.)
An amazing story broke this week highlighting the rescue of 50 children trapped in sex trafficking rings. The three-day sting involved the FBI and local law enforcement officials working under the Innocence Lost Initiative. Check out these numbers:
- 36 cities targeted
- 50 children rescued
- 60 traffickers arrested
- 631 other people arrested
Two points to consider:
1) Some experts who fight human trafficking estimate that the AVERAGE age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14–years old. Do you get this? The “Pretty Woman” is a mirage. The adult women in prostitution who are supposedly making an “employment choice” very likely are where they are today because someone preyed upon them as children.
2) Not all children will be saved, but some will be lost through political muddleheadedness. Professor Donna Hughes of the U. of Rhode Island makes a startling point about this nationwide sting: “No cities in Rhode Island were included in the investigation and crackdown. Rhode Island has been left out of this national FBI initiative—Innocence Lost–because we don’t have a prostitution law.”
Donna and others have been fighting to close the loophole in Rhode Island law allowing for indoor prostitution. Local police are unable to enter known brothels without probable cause of illegal activity. Without going inside, they can’t save children. It is a perfect cover for human trafficking. State lawmakers are duking it out in hearings as I write. Until such a law is passed, children being molested for money in Rhode Island have little hope of escape.
It may surprise no one that a Girls Gone Wild event in Yulee, FL. led to 16 arrests on charges of indecent exposure, obscenity and operating a sexually-oriented business. For years, this multi-million dollar porn franchise has encouraged young women to take off their clothes and/or engage in sexual activity on camera.
Hidden behind the films’ popularity is a great deal of unsavoriness—and I mean apart from the actual pornography. Trouble seems to follow the GGW tour bus like a bad groupie. Here are just three of the many, many news stories revealing these problems:
“Girls Gone Wild” founder charged with sexual battery
“Girls Gone Wild” founder fined $500,000
Spitzer Call Girl in ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Archives Was 17 (Did that act encourage her further into a world of pornography and prostitution?)
For the definitive behind the scenes story, read this one from the LA Times in 2006. But, be prepared. I have rarely been as angry as I was when I finished reading this article. Not for the faint of heart.
The man behind the “Girls Gone Wild” soft-porn empire lets Claire Hoffman into his world, for better or worse
Last week I wrote about a letter asking Attorney General Eric Holder for more federal obscenity law enforcement. Friday, the Department of Justice announced an indictment against a New Jersey-based pornographer, Barry Goldman, for sending allegedly obscene DVDs through the mail. According to 18 U.S.C. § 1461 and § 1467, that’s a big no-no. This investigation has been in the works for several years, but it is still nice to see the current DOJ leadership has allowed it to continue. Big thanks to Brent Ward’s team on the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force which helped pull this off.
In case anyone is offended that Barry was singled out for justice, the indictment lists some of the films in question: “Torture of a Porn Store Girl” and “Defiant Crista Submits.” I haven’t seen the films in question, but given the DOJ’s policy of only targeting the worst of the worst, it is safe to assume these were violent and degrading videos.
In his brutally honest book Getting Off: The End of Masculinity, Robert Jensen asks some crucial questions society must begin to answer, particularly those who would defend pornography’s place in the public square. He writes:
“If pornography is increasingly cruel and degrading, why is it increasingly commonplace instead of more marginalized? In a society that purports to be civilized, wouldn’t we expect most people to reject sexual material that becomes ever more dismissive of the humanity of women? How do we explain the simultaneous appearance of more, and increasingly more intense, ways to humiliate women sexually and the rising popularity of the films that present those activities?”
