Oh My God. I have been out of commission for a few days doing my civic duty…Jury Duty! So I haven’t been blogging. Actually I haven’t been blogging or saying much on this topic lately because not much has been going on. The law passed last November with pressure to “Help the Women and Children” and this past week we helped them…by arresting them.
Nick Horton has an excellent article at the Providence Daily Dose about the Raids
Until the details of the arrests come out, it will be impossible to say for certain whether there is any evidence of human trafficking in the spas where the arrests occurred. All three of the women were released by the judge on bail, meaning that the state did not hold any of them for interrogation as part of a human trafficking investigation or place them in protective custody as potential victims of trafficking. Proponents of the legislation previously argued that arresting women for indoor sex work would allow the state to remove them and protect them from dangerous situations.
Details of the arrests came out today in the Providence Journal. Previously I was incorrect when I said there were no translators. That was what I had heard “through the grapevine”, but the Journal reports:
Federal immigration officials and advocates from Day One, a sexual assault and trauma resource center in Providence, also interviewed the women who were working at the spas to determine if they are victims of sex-trafficking, Correia said. The law allows victims of sex trafficking to be granted immunity from prosecution.
“We weren’t able to get any information to lead us to think they were being held against their will,” Correia said.
As for the OMG moment of today, I decided to see what the men were saying about what was going on in the spas. I went back to a website where they rate the women. Think of this website is the 21 century version of a men’s bathroom wall. You can’t believe half of what is said on this website, it is not for those who value women as more than sexual objects. On www.usasexguide.info if you check the forums in Rhode Island you will see a very interesting conversation going on started by one user named “Donna Hughes”. Now, I don’t believe this is the real Donna Hughes, but some of the people in the site did believe that it was and what followed was crazy. What is very ironic is the fact that the real Donna Hughes uses this board for her primary if not only source for research on the AMPS in Rhode Island. I guess this should teach both sides one very valuable lesson…always check your sources!
happy endings? You Can't Clap with One Hand 
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tara, did you see Edward Achorn’s Projo masterpiece from about a week ago which quoted the sexguide website? He again puts Donna hughes on the moral pedestal, and there’re some pretty interesting reader comments.