Is prostitution now considered trafficking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

This is based on your vast experience trying to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I first really started widely hearing the term sex trafficking about 10 years ago. Prior to that, I considered sex trafficking to be where victims were essentially kidnapped and forced into prostitution. It's pretty evident that the term is now used for situations that are less coercive than what I had previously assumed.

So are most forms of prostitution now considered trafficking? And would the pimps of yesteryear (prior to the 2000's) now be labeled traffickers?

It's force, fraud or coercion. Not just coercion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

This is based on your vast experience trying to?

DP. According to this paper, 88% would like to leave the profession but can't.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9698636/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

I went to HS with two girls from totally ordinary UMC families with no abuse history at all, and both started doing amateur paid porn and escort work while in college, just for the money and the thrill of it.

No pimps, no coercion, nothing. Just because they were having fun and making quite a bit of untaxed income. At one point I even considered it myself, but I was too scared someone who knew me would find out and tell my parents.

How did they market themselves as prostitutes to rich men? Did they just wander around country clubs and expensive nightclubs and offer their services? You know, in between classes.

I got to know the inner workings of some strip clubs a while ago. The dancers were from every conceivable background. Some actually were college students & grad students. Sometimes fairly famous porn actors would work as strippers when things were slow for them. Quite a few did nude modeling (print, internet). It was known that for the right price quite a few could be had for an evening or longer (eg, well-off guys would take a few of them on vacation to Miami or Las Vegas for a week). And many of the most popular were just really attractive suburban wives & mothers.

To answer the question of how ordinary middle-class college students working as sex workers would meet wealthy men, I would say a common way would be at strip clubs. There are all sorts of men at them, including pro athletes & other guys with money to burn.

Lol, found the strip club regular. “Got to k is the inner workings” I am howling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

This is based on your vast experience trying to?

DP. According to this paper, 88% would like to leave the profession but can't.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9698636/

That paper is from 1998, and interviewed 130 prositutes (likely those on the streets only) in one city (San Francisco). Not a representative sample both of the industry in SF, but also for the US overall.

Not only that, but the data is hardly relevant to today. Back then, the internet was not widely used; the first iPhone was 10 years away from being introduced, etc.

The sex work industry is drastically different now, in particular because of the internet and ability to find clients online and to offer services remotely.

Here's a study from this year, in Barcelona. Sample size about 75:
https://phys.org/news/2025-04-women-sex-survival.html

In that one, it shows 30% of the sample were victims of "trafficking or exploited" but the issue is the majority of their sample were undocumented immigrants so they came to Spain to work illegally, and probably didnt' have many other work options without papers. I'd say that's not really representative of the sex work industry in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

This is based on your vast experience trying to?

DP. According to this paper, 88% would like to leave the profession but can't.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9698636/

That paper is from 1998, and interviewed 130 prositutes (likely those on the streets only) in one city (San Francisco). Not a representative sample both of the industry in SF, but also for the US overall.

Not only that, but the data is hardly relevant to today. Back then, the internet was not widely used; the first iPhone was 10 years away from being introduced, etc.

The sex work industry is drastically different now, in particular because of the internet and ability to find clients online and to offer services remotely.

Here's a study from this year, in Barcelona. Sample size about 75:
https://phys.org/news/2025-04-women-sex-survival.html

In that one, it shows 30% of the sample were victims of "trafficking or exploited" but the issue is the majority of their sample were undocumented immigrants so they came to Spain to work illegally, and probably didnt' have many other work options without papers. I'd say that's not really representative of the sex work industry in the US.

The US is full of undocumented workers. Not sure why you think that would be unusual in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

This is based on your vast experience trying to?

DP. According to this paper, 88% would like to leave the profession but can't.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9698636/

But all the problems would disappear if sex-work were decriminalized.

Bans on prostitution are misogynistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

I went to HS with two girls from totally ordinary UMC families with no abuse history at all, and both started doing amateur paid porn and escort work while in college, just for the money and the thrill of it.

No pimps, no coercion, nothing. Just because they were having fun and making quite a bit of untaxed income. At one point I even considered it myself, but I was too scared someone who knew me would find out and tell my parents.

How did they market themselves as prostitutes to rich men? Did they just wander around country clubs and expensive nightclubs and offer their services? You know, in between classes.

Ummmmm.....the Internet?

Ummm … maybe now … but no they do hang out at high stakes lol aces like hotel bars and managers will recognize them and throw them out of nice places.

They are either independent, work with a handler, or work with an escort agency. This idea that all these women are victims of pimps and are being trafficked is nonsense. Yes, it happens and some women are taken advantage of, but it's a small minority.

It is not a small minority. The vast,Vast majority of women working in the industry are trafficked and down trodden and addicted to drugs. The women who are NOT are a very, very small slice of the sexworker population. I was an escort and even at 15k a night and travel time it is ROUGH. And 99.9 percent of sex workers won't command that, the are the 10 buck blow job hookers. You must be a delusiknalman because se work is all a round terrible but to think the average American prostitute is pulling in money is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

I went to HS with two girls from totally ordinary UMC families with no abuse history at all, and both started doing amateur paid porn and escort work while in college, just for the money and the thrill of it.

No pimps, no coercion, nothing. Just because they were having fun and making quite a bit of untaxed income. At one point I even considered it myself, but I was too scared someone who knew me would find out and tell my parents.

How did they market themselves as prostitutes to rich men? Did they just wander around country clubs and expensive nightclubs and offer their services? You know, in between classes.

Ummmmm.....the Internet?

Ummm … maybe now … but no they do hang out at high stakes lol aces like hotel bars and managers will recognize them and throw them out of nice places.

They are either independent, work with a handler, or work with an escort agency. This idea that all these women are victims of pimps and are being trafficked is nonsense. Yes, it happens and some women are taken advantage of, but it's a small minority.

Cite your source(s) for this claim.

I know both escorts and people who frequent escorts, both in the US and abroad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

I went to HS with two girls from totally ordinary UMC families with no abuse history at all, and both started doing amateur paid porn and escort work while in college, just for the money and the thrill of it.

No pimps, no coercion, nothing. Just because they were having fun and making quite a bit of untaxed income. At one point I even considered it myself, but I was too scared someone who knew me would find out and tell my parents.

How did they market themselves as prostitutes to rich men? Did they just wander around country clubs and expensive nightclubs and offer their services? You know, in between classes.

Ummmmm.....the Internet?

Ummm … maybe now … but no they do hang out at high stakes lol aces like hotel bars and managers will recognize them and throw them out of nice places.

They are either independent, work with a handler, or work with an escort agency. This idea that all these women are victims of pimps and are being trafficked is nonsense. Yes, it happens and some women are taken advantage of, but it's a small minority.

It is not a small minority. The vast,Vast majority of women working in the industry are trafficked and down trodden and addicted to drugs. The women who are NOT are a very, very small slice of the sexworker population. I was an escort and even at 15k a night and travel time it is ROUGH. And 99.9 percent of sex workers won't command that, the are the 10 buck blow job hookers. You must be a delusiknalman because se work is all a round terrible but to think the average American prostitute is pulling in money is crazy.

Your flat out wrong and no way in hell is someone paying you 15k to suck their balls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of prostitution is sex trafficking. It’s very rare to find a sex worker who is not being coerced.

I went to HS with two girls from totally ordinary UMC families with no abuse history at all, and both started doing amateur paid porn and escort work while in college, just for the money and the thrill of it.

No pimps, no coercion, nothing. Just because they were having fun and making quite a bit of untaxed income. At one point I even considered it myself, but I was too scared someone who knew me would find out and tell my parents.

How did they market themselves as prostitutes to rich men? Did they just wander around country clubs and expensive nightclubs and offer their services? You know, in between classes.

Ummmmm.....the Internet?

Ummm … maybe now … but no they do hang out at high stakes lol aces like hotel bars and managers will recognize them and throw them out of nice places.

They are either independent, work with a handler, or work with an escort agency. This idea that all these women are victims of pimps and are being trafficked is nonsense. Yes, it happens and some women are taken advantage of, but it's a small minority.

It is not a small minority. The vast,Vast majority of women working in the industry are trafficked and down trodden and addicted to drugs. The women who are NOT are a very, very small slice of the sexworker population. I was an escort and even at 15k a night and travel time it is ROUGH. And 99.9 percent of sex workers won't command that, the are the 10 buck blow job hookers. You must be a delusiknalman because se work is all a round terrible but to think the average American prostitute is pulling in money is crazy.

You're talking about some skanks in da hood. Sure, a decent percentage of them are on drugs and taken advantage of in one way or another. Not sure if they are "trafficked."