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Algernon Moncrieff

(5,781 posts)
Sun Sep 14, 2014, 11:21 PM Sep 2014

Cracked: 5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America (Warning - disturbing content)

Last edited Mon Sep 15, 2014, 12:17 AM - Edit history (1)

Complete article

Cracked's Warning

NOTE: We don't have a policy of putting trigger warnings on articles, but if there exists anywhere on Earth an article that needs such a warning, here it fucking is. In fact, if this doesn't disturb you, there is a good chance you are a crazy person.[/]

-snip-


The next question that's flashing through your mind is probably, "Why didn't you tell someone?"

I did -- I was just 6 years old when I (accidentally) mentioned something about my "uncles" to a teacher -- I just said something like: "My uncle's came over and we had fun," because those were the words my mom always used. If you think at this point a SWAT team raced to my house and busted everyone, you and I live in different worlds. What happened instead was the teacher called my mom, and she talked her way out of it somehow. When I got home, she beat me up, I think to block out her entire Terrible Person Bingo card.

What a crazy, unusual situation, right? If you saw it in a scripted movie, you'd think the writer should go see a therapist. But here's the truth: human trafficking (forcing someone into labor or sex acts against their will) is a $9.5 billion industry in the USA -- to pick a random comparison, that's four times what the Burger King chain takes in. Recent stats found 83 percent of sex trafficking incidents in the U.S. involved victims that were U.S. citizens, and nearly half of those were minors -- just like I was. It's estimated that right now 300,000 kids are in this situation or are at risk. Just this June, the FBI freed 168 kids who'd been sold into sex slavery across 106 American cities. Since 2008, at least 4,000 kids have been freed from similar operations. Six years. So, yeah, my story is as isolated an incident as the existence of Walmart stores.

Some of the victims are runaways, some just have awful parents. All of them are invisible, as far as mainstream society goes. That's how this stuff hides; I was a chameleon good student and industrious worker with various part-time jobs, with a secret life in forced prostitution. That first part was important to my mother -- keeping up appearances, looking like the "good girl."

29 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Cracked: 5 Things I Learned as a Sex Slave in Modern America (Warning - disturbing content) (Original Post) Algernon Moncrieff Sep 2014 OP
It's estimated that right now 300,000 kids are in this situation (Sex Slaves) BlueJazz Sep 2014 #1
Nothng funny about it RobertEarl Sep 2014 #2
That figure is widely quoted but is clearly wrong Jim Lane Sep 2014 #16
more than just a few hundred magical thyme Sep 2014 #19
wonder if anyone here would want to have a conversation that these Tuesday Afternoon Sep 2014 #3
Thanks - I added an OP line warning Algernon Moncrieff Sep 2014 #5
Given the attitudes and Tuesday Afternoon Sep 2014 #21
Jesus.. I had no idea it was so pervasive... SomethingFishy Sep 2014 #4
Big Time! n/t deafskeptic Sep 2014 #20
Kick!!! Heidi Sep 2014 #6
This is sickening. NealK Sep 2014 #7
No surprise. freshwest Sep 2014 #8
Not a jury in the country would convict her... DRoseDARs Sep 2014 #9
+1000 Blue_Tires Sep 2014 #15
ALL my high school guidance counselors were worthless as shit. Frank Cannon Sep 2014 #18
Kicking back to the top. ChazII Sep 2014 #10
It's become a big problem in Stockton, CA, now the gangs are heavily involved. mackerel Sep 2014 #11
Reminded me of this book. proverbialwisdom Sep 2014 #12
Vanity Fair did an article about this a while back. It is a darkness that has a long history. whttevrr Sep 2014 #13
It's Tacitly Reinforced by "Welfare Reform" daredtowork Sep 2014 #14
Thank you so much for posting that. Recursion Sep 2014 #17
And once again, Cracked, a website that cut its teeth making dick jokes NuclearDem Sep 2014 #22
+1... SidDithers Sep 2014 #24
Like "The Daily Show" Algernon Moncrieff Sep 2014 #27
K&R nt riderinthestorm Sep 2014 #23
Jesus, that's disturbing Prophet 451 Sep 2014 #25
How did Crack substantiate her story? It reads like bad fiction. snagglepuss Sep 2014 #26
I'd ask "Cracked" Algernon Moncrieff Sep 2014 #28
CRACKED used to be MAD's poorer cousin Art_from_Ark Sep 2014 #29
 

BlueJazz

(25,348 posts)
1. It's estimated that right now 300,000 kids are in this situation (Sex Slaves)
Sun Sep 14, 2014, 11:38 PM
Sep 2014

I usually try to add some humor with my posts on DU. Not this one. It's just so depressingly sad and sick, I just want to cry.

 

RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)
2. Nothng funny about it
Sun Sep 14, 2014, 11:50 PM
Sep 2014

How in the hell can people be so damned nuts to do this to children?

Some, I guess, because that is the way they were brought up. The only way I see to break that chain is to make it all come out in the open by making it perfectly good to have children be able to talk about it via sex education in our schools. Hiding sex education hides these terrible crimes.

 

Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
16. That figure is widely quoted but is clearly wrong
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 03:13 AM
Sep 2014

It comes from a study about how many children might be at risk for such exploitation. From a Village Voice article giving more detail:

"The numbers presented in these exhibits do not, therefore, reflect the actual number of cases in the United States but, rather, what we estimate to be the number of children 'at risk' of commercial sexual exploitation," they wrote, underlining their words for emphasis.

Who, then, is at risk?

Not surprisingly, the professors find that any "outsider" is at risk.


More specifically, the "at risk" category, to get up to 300,000, includes all runaways (although most are gone less than a week), transgender kids, female gang members, and kids who live near the Mexican or Canadian borders and have their own transportation.

For the Voice's detailed analysis, see "Real Men Get Their Facts Straight".

Although the study is widely quoted for its estimate of 100,000 to 300,000 children at risk, and usually misquoted as if that were the number in sexual slavery, one of the coauthors of the study takes a different view. He estimated that the number of children kidnapped and put into sex slavery is "a few hundred." (The article isn't clear whether this is per year or total.)

Obviously, even few hundred is a few hundred too many, but at least it's not 300,000.
 

magical thyme

(14,881 posts)
19. more than just a few hundred
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 09:49 AM
Sep 2014

"Since 2008, at least 4,000 kids have been freed from similar operations. Six years."

Average 667/year freed plus some number not found.

Tuesday Afternoon

(56,912 posts)
3. wonder if anyone here would want to have a conversation that these
Sun Sep 14, 2014, 11:54 PM
Sep 2014

"Uncles" were not *privileged* .....

Also = You might want to consider a Trigger Warning in the Subject Line of your OP.

Thanks.

Algernon Moncrieff

(5,781 posts)
5. Thanks - I added an OP line warning
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 12:19 AM
Sep 2014

Admittedly, I figured the title served as it's own kind of warning, but you can't be too careful.

Tuesday Afternoon

(56,912 posts)
21. Given the attitudes and
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 10:26 AM
Sep 2014

ignorance about this subject that I have witnessed previously on here, one can never be to sure or safe.

We have had to provide a lot of education on this topic.

Thank you for understanding and bringing this OP to DU.

Kick.

SomethingFishy

(4,876 posts)
4. Jesus.. I had no idea it was so pervasive...
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 12:01 AM
Sep 2014

And to have to find out from Cracked? Man our priorities are so fucked up.

 

DRoseDARs

(6,810 posts)
9. Not a jury in the country would convict her...
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 01:42 AM
Sep 2014

...if she put a bullet in the head of her stepfather, mother, and every last person she went to for help in that small town that ratted her out to her parents.

Frank Cannon

(7,570 posts)
18. ALL my high school guidance counselors were worthless as shit.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 06:06 AM
Sep 2014

I could easily see them behaving this way, particularly in rural "family values" America, where all the leaders know everyone else and ANY controversy is quickly swept under the rug.

This makes me terribly sad.

ChazII

(6,203 posts)
10. Kicking back to the top.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 01:50 AM
Sep 2014

The Super Bowl will be played in Phoenix this year. An acquaintance of mine had a daughter who was kidnapped in a gang related dispute and sold to sex traffickers. The daughter was held and forced to work as a prostitute and yes her pimps to her and several other girls to a Super Bowl. The police departments will be watching for girls and boys in this situation. It is horrible and sadly the daughter ended up dead a few years later.

mackerel

(4,412 posts)
11. It's become a big problem in Stockton, CA, now the gangs are heavily involved.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 02:07 AM
Sep 2014

There was a City Councilman there who saw a couple of his former students got busted for pimping these little kids. He put together a city resolution to bring awareness to it. I hope more City Councils openly discuss it because it is happening in every city in this country.

Does anyone know who the clientel are? I wish the people that pay for this stuff could get exposed big time.

whttevrr

(2,345 posts)
13. Vanity Fair did an article about this a while back. It is a darkness that has a long history.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 02:19 AM
Sep 2014

May 24, 2011...

In this other article one of the young girls is tricked into slavery by an aunt...

In the fall of 2003, after turning 18, Gwen headed down to Hartford to visit her Aunt Lucy, her mother’s sister. Her aunt, in turn, introduced her niece to Brian Forbes. “She told me he was a really nice guy and stuff,” Gwen said. Employing a technique not unlike the “love-bombing” used by cults, Brian Forbes began to wine and dine her. “He was really nice,” Gwen recalled. “You know, he could give me, you know, anything I wanted.” Pimps refer to this trust-building courtship phase as “seasoning,” and they can be extremely patient. Forensic pediatrician Dr. Sharon Cooper, a specialist in treating juvenile victims of sex trafficking, terms the process “grooming.” Girls acquainted with “the life” call it “spitting game.” Forbes, Scates notes, was a master at singling out, on the high-school campus or at the shopping center, the vulnerable girl with abysmal self-esteem. “And,” she says, “he sensed what lines would be most effective on which girl.”


It's horrific anywhere, but damn...

Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/05/sex-trafficking-201105?currentPage=all

Even as celebrity activists such as Emma Thompson, Demi Moore, and Mira Sorvino raise awareness about commercial sex trafficking, survivor Rachel Lloyd publishes her memoir Girls Like Us, and the Senate introduces a new bipartisan bill for victim support, the problem proliferates across continents, in casinos, on streets, and directly into your mobile device. And, as Amy Fine Collins shows, human trafficking is much closer to home than you think; victims, younger than ever, are just as likely to be the homegrown American girl next door as illegally imported foreigners. Having gained access to victims, law-enforcement officials, and a convicted trafficker, Collins follows a major case that put to the test the federal government’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act.


A 13 year old for $500...

Continued (page 3 of 8)

Then, one day in December 2003, at a sleazy motor inn on the Berlin Turnpike—an 11.2-mile time-warp stretch of asphalt, lined on either side with at least 37 other no-tell motels—Paris remitted Forbes $1,200, and the girls, court documents show, were his. Buying girls like livestock is not unusual. Cheryl, a gems girl, at about 14 was sold by one pimp, “Love,” to another pimp, “Junior,” for $600. The New York City Police detective Wayne Taylor—convicted in July 2008 for the attempted kidnapping of a 13-year-old—purchased his thrall for $500 from a Brooklyn “pimp partner.” In fact, the price for an adolescent female slave is far lower than it was in the mid–19th century, when, adjusted to today’s dollar, the going rate was roughly $40,000, the price of a car.


What a nightmare...

daredtowork

(3,732 posts)
14. It's Tacitly Reinforced by "Welfare Reform"
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 02:25 AM
Sep 2014

Ever since Welfare Reform of the 1980s, welfare is structured not to be survivable. It's not in direct cash, it's regular, it's not enough for regular housing so you essentially have to become homeless first to get on it, there is no means to pay utility bills or acquire basic necessities, and no subsidy for transportation. The system is filled with mandates of appointments and documentation but no way to pay for them. In some cracked GOP mind this means that a person will "choose" to work (even though they can't even take a bus to get to work) rather than the impossible situation of welfare. Otherwise, leaving it impossible will drive the undesirables away or even quietly kill them off.

But people just don't lay down and die like that. People tend to do what they can to survive. They turn to begging, prostitution, and crime. The work under the table - even as slaves in exchange for a place to stay.

The State knows this happens because it's the only thing that can happen. People can't exist in non-time and non-space. They aren't conveniently disappearing. They haven't risen in revolution yet, either. Somehow they are getting a roof over their head and getting basic necessities without getting those things through a taxpayer funded social safety net. The taxpayers are happy about that! Everyone wins except the poor guy that gets robbed on a corner. But perhaps when he hands over his wallet he should regard it as the cost of doing business, because for every 1 person that takes the risk of taking what they need, a hundred will meekly submit to slavery and his tax savings will more than make up what he lost on that corner.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
17. Thank you so much for posting that.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 04:17 AM
Sep 2014

Trafficking is my wife's brief and it's something we both care about very much. I wish more people understood how serious this situation is.

 

NuclearDem

(16,184 posts)
22. And once again, Cracked, a website that cut its teeth making dick jokes
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 10:40 AM
Sep 2014

does a better job covering a serious issue than most of the media.

SidDithers

(44,228 posts)
24. +1...
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 11:52 AM
Sep 2014

They're really good at serious social commentary, as well as humour.

Cracked.com is so much more than the paper magazine it was in the 60's, 70's and 80's.

Sid

Prophet 451

(9,796 posts)
25. Jesus, that's disturbing
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 01:25 PM
Sep 2014

I mean, I knew there were modern sex slaves but when I see those ads for someone who wants to be a "full-time submissive", I just figured it was some kinky people looking for playmates (and I'm sure that most of them are).

snagglepuss

(12,704 posts)
26. How did Crack substantiate her story? It reads like bad fiction.
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 06:11 PM
Sep 2014

This is not in any way to dismiss the problem. I just have doubts as to whether this particular story is real.

Algernon Moncrieff

(5,781 posts)
28. I'd ask "Cracked"
Mon Sep 15, 2014, 07:36 PM
Sep 2014

The story is compelling, but I'd agree that it's been stylized to fit Cracked's editorial format.

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