At our recent meetup, politics came up, which it often does, but this time the topic was different. We talked about the new law passed by trump called FOSTA SESTA and how it was affecting american workers. Cara was very adamant about how on the surface the law looks good, but it has some serious drawbacks for the LGBTQI community. Rachel on the other hand, believed that collateral damage was worth it to protect children from sex trafficking. And finally there was Kaitie who just missed browsing through the missed connections section of craigslist for the good laughs it provided.
So what’s the deal anyways?
The new law passed in April banned all classified sites that allowed people to post ads for dates and sexual encounters. The site was used by sex workers who provided services like massages (and probably more), but the issue came because a small number of people were using the site to post ads for sex with minors, aka sex trafficking.
Cara argues that even though Craigslist Personals was taken down, sex traffickers will just use alternatives sites, read more, which will let them accomplish the same thing. At the same time, innocent sex workers, will also have a hard time finding safe work if they can’t post ads on sites like craigslist personals. Cara personally has friends in these positions, many of them are vegan and very nice people, sex work is a way for them to make extra money and make ends meet. Most of us were kind of surprised, weren’t her friends afraid of being attacked or harmed? “They are actually very selective”, Cara explained, “They only take clean clients that look nice and smell good, then form long-term relationships”. Well you learn something new everyday, instead of being called prostitutes, these workers prefer to be called escorts.
Rachel and Cara did most of the talking at the meeting, Rachel argued that if even one child is in danger, these sites should be held accountable. She’s really done the research and came armed with facts that left Cara taken aback. For one, an estimated 47 children enter into sex trafficking every day. Most of these children are brainwashed or threatened with violence if they do not carry out the work orders created by pimps. Cara softened a bit after this new knowledge, but she continued to argue that criminals were using craigslist personals in ways it wasn’t meant to be used (she’s also pro guns).
Kaitie had a bit different view on the situation. She neither used craigslist personals for hookups or dating, but she used it as a place for finding a good laugh. She said that in her spare time she would sometimes browse the missed connections and personals section for a quick laugh. “Many of these posts were are so ridiculous and scandalous, but in a funny way.” She recalled one M4M ad, meaning a male for male ad, something very popular on craigslist personals. In the ad one male was looking for a jogging partner, he had a pug dog that would join their runs, and after all the exercise he offered to help you ‘warm up’ *winky face*. We all got a good laugh out of that. After hearing Rachel’s argument though, Kaitie was on her side and said that she agreed the site is better off taken down, she’d get her laughs elsewhere.
All in all, it was a bit off topic and we didn’t discuss much about veganism like we usually do. We also discussed what meetup we’d do next and decided on some Vegan DIY arts and crafts. Sign up on our meetup page VeganSocietyNevada to get notifications of all the events. Right now were on a bi-monthly schedule, but may increase if we get more visitors! Leave a comment below to let us know what you thought of our craigslist personals chat, and what your opinion is.