The latest news about sex is filled with fake problems, fake outrage, and fake solutions. And with Communism no longer believable as the most dangerous force in the world, American leaders have substituted sex traffickers and homosexuality as the major threat to our civilization.
Arizona’s Public Health Crisis: Porn
The supposed crisis of pornography has arrived in Arizona. Apparently, lawmakers don’t realize porn has been in Arizona for a while now—while its economy was booming, its teen pregnancy rate was declining, and its violent crime rate was dropping.
As I exposed in my 2006 book Americas War On Sex, the Phoenix City Council dismantled Phoenix’s safe and healthy swing club community almost twenty years ago by declaring it a public health emergency—which meant it could pass laws without holding hearings or citing actual facts.
In a repeat of that cynical display of fear and ignorance, the Arizona legislature has claimed similar non-existent problems to justify its “solution”—a reduction in the acceptability and use of pornography.
Without any actual data—just “common sense” and a few bizarre anecdotes—Arizona’s legislature is stating that porn consumption by individuals leads to the social disease of sex trafficking. That’s right: Joe Tucson, sitting in his basement jacking off to porn created by consenting adults just making a living, is responsible for evildoers enslaving people trafficked around Arizona each year.
Oh, and how many? Of course, one is too many, but it’s not 100,000, or 20,000, or even 3,000. It’s a few hundred at most.
Arizona’s resolution declaring a public health crisis, similar to ones in a dozen other states, was written by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. The group, formerly known as Morality in Media, contends that porn use leads directly to acts of exploitation. To support this fact-free nonsense, NCSE proudly quotes the porn addiction movement, which cynically labels pornography actresses victims of sex trafficking. They can then simplistically claim that porn consumers drive the demand for sex trafficking. Fact-free nonsense.
Massage Parlor Sting Nets Billionaire, Little Else
Billionaire Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was charged this week with two misdemeanor counts of soliciting prostitution at a Florida massage parlor.
So were 150 other guys, but of course you haven’t heard about them. The cops have used Kraft’s fame to draw attention to their sleazy work. The public is now so blase about prostitution stings (which is all this was), that to get any attention (and future police funding) it has to be dressed up as a massive sex trafficking bust (which it wasn’t).
Palm Beach district attorney Dave Aronberg initially claimed that Kraft’s arrest was part of busting an international human-trafficking ring. This of course invited everyone to wring their hands, demanding that Kraft be treated like any other criminal who’s destroying the lives of innocent young women—“modern-day slavery,” as Aronberg put it.
The truth is far less interesting. There were arrests for prostitution and use of money made from prostitution (which they call “money laundering,” which sounds scary and carries big penalties), but that’s it. Pretty small fish caught with millions of state and federal taxpayer dollars.
Aronberg’s press conference was a parade of hypotheticals, describing the women as “trafficking victims” and saying that all this slavery could happen anywhere. The good news, which fear-mongers like Aronberg never mention, is that actual sex trafficking in the U.S. is quite rare, and it doesn’t happen all over the place.
Meanwhile, the D.A. admits that no one has been charged with trafficking, and that neither Kraft nor anyone else has been charged with sex with a minor. But, Aronberg insists, it “could” happen right here in southeast Florida. Yes, along with a meteor crashing into Miami. It could, theoretically, happen.
Some locals are outraged that a “good man” like Kraft—who has actually donated $100 million to charity in his lifetime—should have his reputation smeared in this way. Even Geraldo Rivera said this was a “grossly unfair smear” of Kraft. When the king of salacious news criticizes salacious news, that’s really something.
Frankly, though, I’m also concerned about the little guys caught up in the sting. The guy who may lose his job as a school janitor, the guy whose kids won’t be allowed to play on their soccer team, the guy whose marriage will be permanently damaged. But show me a guy who pays $75 for a blowjob, and I’ll show you a self-righteous moral entrepreneur who thinks that guy should lose whatever piece of the American dream he has.
Framing that sanctimonious, corrupt zealotry as helping poor trapped girls is like dressing up predatory, militaristic capitalism as wholesome anti-communism. I’m talking about you, United Fruit Company, U.S. Marines, Iran-Contra coverup. It’s hypocrisy to the nth degree.
By the way, these heroic cops and immigration agents took six months to complete their operation. If the womens’ “slavery” was so horrifying, why not rescue them sooner? Why did it require repeat visits by undercover agents and the building of trivial misdemeanor charges against dozens of men before these “heroes” decided to intervene?
Vatican Makes Noise, Does Nothing
Last week, Pope Francis gathered 190 Catholic leaders in Rome for a heavyweight Vatican summit on the ongoing problem of priests and bishops having sex with children (and nuns).
Unfortunately, the four-day conference on “protection of minors in the church” accomplished nothing other than the photo-op of “see how seriously we’re taking this.” While Executive Director Pope Francis issued a 21-point paper, there were no actual steps taken to change anything. Indeed, parents and other believers have no more reason to trust the Church today than they did last year.
While the Church gives lip service to protecting kids, it is still attempting to limit its financial and legal liability. And as usual, it is more concerned about theological purity than real-world responsibility or innovative thinking.
And so these rich, powerful men charged with comforting a billion poor people are actually debating—literally—if homosexuality is what’s driving the sexual sickness of the Church. They are still less concerned with the tens of thousands of documented rapes and the thousands of documented coverups than they are with which orifice loving couples use during sex, or whether thirty-year-old adults are having sex without being married.
As long as the Church sees sex as wrong, bad, and dirty except when confined to extremely narrow circumstances, its own executives, teachers, and priesthood will be recruited specifically from a population of people who are sexually obsessed and strangled. The Church will never wipe out the sexual sickness of its leaders and representatives because that sickness is a central feature of Church teaching, not an anomaly.
Methodist Church Affirms Same-sex Ban
The United Methodist Church has voted to strengthen its ban on gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriages, a decision that could split America’s second-largest Protestant church.
This week’s conference reaffirmed current church policy that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” The vote, 53% to 47%, reflects the increasing political power of non-Americans within the twelve-million member Church. In many of these countries homosexuality is a crime; every Christian denomination in those countries has declined the privilege of welcoming gays into its bosom.
Lest Americans feel too smug, note that only 60% of American Methodists believe homosexuality should be accepted. If a religious order can’t conceptualize humans as far larger than their mere sexual orientation, it can’t really be taken seriously when it talks about transmitting divine wisdom or it claims to understand transcendence. Spirituality is supposed to be grand; religions obsessed with sexual pollution trivialize our lives and aren’t worth supporting or following.
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