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Amazon and Microsoft Directors Charged in Prostitution Sting (kiro7.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A director from Microsoft and a former Amazon director have been charged with promoting prostitution after an investigation into Seattle-area sex trafficking, according to a local news report. Investigators say the director of worldwide health for Microsoft submitted over 70 reviews of prostitutes that he had allegedly hired since April 2012, according to the report, while the director of software development at Amazon, who worked on Fire TV, "allegedly hired prostitutes at least 29 times through The Review Board and TheLeague.Net, according to court documents." Both men have pleaded not guilty and are free on $75,000 bail, part of a group of 19 people now facing criminal charges. "These defendants, we allege, were absolutely devoted to the commercial sexual exploitation of vulnerable, powerless immigrant women," King County Prosecutors said in January, adding that the women, who were forced into prostitution to pay off debts to organized crime bosses in Asia, are not being charged.
Last January a Seattle newspaper reported that one alleged brothel owner "previously had made his living off illegal marijuana grows, but moved into prostitution when the drug was legalized."
Last January a Seattle newspaper reported that one alleged brothel owner "previously had made his living off illegal marijuana grows, but moved into prostitution when the drug was legalized."
Everyone knows Amazon and Microsoft are in bed together to screw over consumers.
It sounds like these guys committed "patronizing a prostitute", which is a misdemeanor:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/defa...
They've been charged with "promoting prostitution"( being a pimp), which a felony:
http://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/defa...
The human trafficking is quite real and large scale. While it's enabled by anti-prostitution laws which make it easier to hide sex slavery, that doesn't make the exploitation any less reprehensible, nor does it mean that the Johns have no moral responsibility for it. The law should be changed to fight trafficking, but until then these guys are despicable because they quite likely realize what's going on.
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"Can anyone provide any real evidence to disprove these facts?"
I can't disprove that your head is a giant cabbage either, but in this case that would be a pretty good guess.
Yes. Unfortunately, most of the recent bills passed to fight actual slavery (including sex slavery) have been used to fight sex work instead.
With legalized prostitution, it is much easier to help actual trafficking victims escape. This is the real harm of conflating trafficking/slavery with sex work.
As this article titles: The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs. And the results will be just as disastrous, for "perpetrators" and "victims" alike.
http://reason.com/archives/201...
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
Where I live, prostitution is legal. And, until, a few years ago, it was legal at 16. You know what brothel-owners _and_ customers though about 16 year olds working as prostitutes? To young, too inexperienced, too self-centered, and generally unfit for the job. They did not want them. Hence there were only very rare instances of 16 year olds trying it in the first place. The whole thing about "most starting at a very young age" is a blatant lie, as there is no demand. The actual average age of starting is around 21 in the US and ones starting below 18 are very, very rare. Same with "women being forced into it". This works so badly that even the Italian Mafia has stopped doing it ages ago. The ones forced into it are not doing a good job (obviously) and hence fetch prices so low the whole thing is more hassle than it is worth. In addition, the person reporting a prostitute forced into it to the police is usually her first or second customer, because men are not total scum and notice when something is amiss.
The things you apparently believe are the outgrow of perverted and deranged fantasies, not any accurate description of actual reality.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Why is prostitution illegal at all?
One of the most common lines is "prostitution exploits women" -- if that's the case, then why are prostitutes arrested? Wouldn't they then be the victims? At least in the EU that seems to be emerging model, with Sweden and now France making accepting money for sex not illegal, but paying money for sex illegal. But that's very recent, and not generally reflective of long standing practices and criminal law.
A more enduring answer seems to be that it's merely reflective of anti-sex morality, the same mindset that used to criminalize pornography, birth control and made sodomy and adultery actual crimes. Although most all of those things have mostly stopped being illegal, as society on balance has become accepting of sex as recreation -- sodomy and adultery laws have mostly been overturned or aren't enforced anymore, singles bars, Craigslist/Tinder/Grindr, etc. And also, in not the not so distant past, society was more tolerant of prostitution -- brothels operated more openly -- despite a generally stronger social prohibition on sex outside of marriage.
I think prostitution remains illegal -- with the public justification shifting in spite of general acceptance of sex outside of wedlock -- because women don't like prostitution. Despite the general changes in attitude about sex outside of marriage, women still see sexuality as a significant bargaining chip in social relations with men. Legalized prostitution thus represents a threat to women's bargaining status in relationships.
If men can buy sex whenever they want it for only money, women lose a significant bargaining advantage in relationships with men. Their sexuality no longer represents a scarce good or service and they can no longer structure their relationship demands around controlling access to sex. Which seems really ironic, since women often loudly decry being seen as "sex objects" and want to be valued for their intelligence or other personality traits, yet it seems as in spite of that, women continue to see their sexuality as primary tool in attracting and maintaining mail interest in relationships.
You would think that *women* would want prostitution legal, though, because it would in theory act as a kind of filter for men they wish to engage in more substantive relationships with. It would, in theory, make the pool of men they encounter to more likely be interested in non-sexual aspects of a relationship, reducing the effort needed to filter men who falsify their intentions in order to gain sex.