village voice cover story: "white girls with big asses, man"

Can't believe he agreed to pose for that

Use of the term "the big lie" is rarely a good look.

that article is fishy. so maybe 100,000-200,000 is a very high estimate. then what? do we not worry about child trafficking? do we not object to it. the voice article just denounces kutcher et al and leaves it at that.

Exactly. Even if it's not tens of thousands of underage girls being prostituted through their site, some are and whatever screening mechanisms they have are evidently not particularly effective. There's no real attempt to engage with the problem, other than rubbishing the unrealistic estimates of well-meaning people.

I know some people involved in the sex industry and they're pretty sensitive about this subject - they view the reports of trafficking and exploitation as moralistic propaganda to keep their work illegal. They're great people, and actively involved in doing things that benefit the sex worker community, but there's a definite wilful blindness there as well as a tendency to ascribe dubious motives to some excellent outreach programmes for exploited women.

well there is a difference between a woman who chooses to go into prostitution (even if the broader scenario involves diminished economic opportunities etc.) and a 15-year-old who is forced into prostitution under continual threat of violence.

the whole issue is rather complex i'll admit. but we agree that the voice's response is very dodgy and self-serving.

Absolutely. Even if they felt they needed to come out to tackle what they view as myths about the sex industry, the "real men" and "big lie" tone is completely off.

"real men" is a play off of something ashton said iirc

yeah "real men don't buy girls" was his anti-trafficking tagline iirc

shamed out of human trafficking

yeah that seems like an amazingly ineffectual campaign -- i'd imagine folks who would pay to have sex with young teenagers have other issues besides fragile masculinity.

Any campaign fronted by Ashton Kutcher's probably going to be fairly ineffectual outside the frat-bro market and fragile masculinity might, at least, have some play there.

"village voice front-and-center web site story: 'white girls with big asses, man'"
― amateur!!!st, Monday, August 16, 2004 2:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's more of a backstory, really.
― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, August 16, 2004 2:19 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol ILX when it was mostly people in their twenties. Wow @ us

ps. some white girls have always had big asses.
― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, August 16, 2004 11:36 AM (twelve years ago)

The Dallas alt-weekly's page count seems to have dropped by almost half since they stopped advertising escorts.

"emobutt"!!!!
Kill me now.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, August 16, 2004 5:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because I misread that as "elmobutt".
― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, August 16, 2004 5:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink