NOW Magazine: The Key Word In Legalizing Sex Work Is 'Consenting Adults'.

Dec 13, 2017

NOW Magazine: The Key Word In Legalizing Sex Work Is 'Consenting Adults'.

A response to Valerie Scott's article 'In Defense Of NOW Magazine'
This post has not been approved by Media Co-op editors!

I was reading a recent article by Valerie Scott on behalf of Sex Professionals Of Canada in NOW Magazine, defending the magazine's sizable section of escort ads.  For the most part an entertainment magazine focusing on local shows and artists, NOW generally has progressive messages in it's editorials and their stance on sex work is in line with that.

I've written multiple times in favor of legalizing sex work in the past, I was very briefly in the trade in my teens, and my position remains the same as it always has been. Consenting adults have the right to make these decisions for themselves. So I agree in principle with Valerie Scott, herself an independent sex worker, but the danger is in the details. 

The problem is that NOW Magazine uses a system that makes it easy for the predatory element to traffic young people against their will.

It's not even a matter of not knowing, when I lived in Toronto in 2012 I looked through the open source escort catalogue that took up several pages of any given issue of NOW and there were pictures of girls that were clearly underage and the capitalization of the word YOUNG and FIRST TIMES were barely veiled admissions they were talking about underage girls. According to police, the phrase 'NEW IN TOWN', usually capitalized, is a widely used code for early teens and pre-teens. 

This is something that has been brought up in the past, yet NOW continues to allow ads that seem very blatantly to be about underage girls. 

If you look through the online classified section on the NOW website, you find ads with messages like these, which seem to spell out underage human trafficking just on the surface. These are from today (Dec. 13, 2017). Several of the ads say 'NEW IN TOWN', but there are others that seem to indicate underage persons, in addition to some other, non-age related exploitation issues;

Promise REAL Young, Best Service, Pretty Asian Girls

Young And Ready, Choose Your Pretty Girl

5 Young Girls And Table Show, Korean/Thai/Japan Nuru Massage

This seems to contradict Valerie Scott's assertion that "NOW does not “facilitate human trafficking.”. 

It's not a 'necessary evil' either, it would not be that difficult for NOW staff to at least glance at the ads for obvious cues, 'dogwhistles' or whatever that very clearly indicate that the subject of the ad is likely an underage person and not print that ad. 

 

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