The wave that is the Jeffrey Epstein saga crested this year. As much as I hate to admit the fact, tawdry as it is, that saga actually touches important issues and so is worth commenting on. I’ll devote a few pieces to it, each on a different aspect of l’affaire Epstein. This first one is perhaps the simplest and most straightforward.
Let’s be clear; the countless words written and spoken about Epstein and his ugly and sometimes illegal doings only pretextually involve concern for underage women selling sex. Any suggestion to the contrary is a sham. The well-being of the young women is nothing more than a journalistic “hook,” i.e., the thing the writer hopes will grab readers’ attention. And, as a hook, the wealthy and powerful paying underage girls for sex is about as good as it gets. Add “trafficking” and you have a sure winner.
But whatever we learn in the end, all the attention is not about the welfare of the young women involved.
How do I know? Easy.
Right now in this country, over a hundred thousand minors – female and male – are selling sex. They do so often out of need, sometimes out of desperation. Every city has kids plying the sex trade on its streets and essentially never is there any outcry. There’s a reason why the Epstein business gets so much ink and air time, but concern for adolescent sex workers isn’t it.
So what do we know about the underage sex trade? Who are these adolescent sex workers, what are their lives like and what do they think about their situation? More to the point, how does all that compare/contrast to the young women of the Epstein saga?
Back in 2008, researchers at John Jay College conducted a study of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in New York City. It estimated that there were almost 4,000 such child prostitutes on the streets of the city at the time. It went on to add that,
The United States Department of Justice estimates that the number of children currently involved in prostitution, child pornography, and trafficking may be anywhere between 100,000 and three million.
These are street hookers, not “escorts.” They aren’t paid to attend fancy parties with the rich and famous. Think Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver.”
Almost three-quarters of the youth (approximately 70%) found customers on the streets.
[M]ore than half (51%) said that they went to customers’ apartments and almost half (45%) said that they used hotels throughout the city.
To a great extent, they did so in a state of apprehension.
Many of the youth reported contending with violence at the hands of customers, pimps, and other CSEC youth on a daily basis. Customers posed the greatest threat, as some told harrowing stories of being kidnapped and held hostage by customers.
Almost half of the sex workers were male.
The final sample… was 48% female, 45% male, and 8% transgender;
Female clients made up a significant percentage of the total.
Eleven percent of the girls and 40% of the boys said that they had served a female client, but only 13% of the boys said that they exclusively served female clients.
Essentially none of them were “trafficked.”
We did not find that market facilitators, or pimps, were key actors for initiating youth into the market (8%) or controlling them once they were in the market. Only 10% of the sample (6% of the boys and 14% of girls) reported that they had a market facilitator at the time of the interview…
Girls, boys, and transgender youth all reported high percentages of their friends´ as responsible for their entry (46%, 44%, and 68% respectively)…
Although several said that they felt peer pressure´ to join in, their narratives were generally less about being pressured to participate in CSEC markets as they were about economic necessity, fascination, and curiosity with what appeared to be an emerging lifestyle.
And most of them wanted out of the business, but couldn’t find an exit.
Many of the youth expressed deep concerns about finding legal employment and making as much money as they were currently making; more than half (60%) identified finding stable employment as necessary for them to leave their current life.
Besides employment, 51% cited education and 41% cited stable housing as necessary for them to leave their current life.
And many simply had nowhere else to go.
Less than 10% of the youth said that they could go to a parent if they were in trouble. Furthermore, only 17% said that they could rely on other family members or family friends to help them out, and another 17% said that they had no one´ who could assist them in times of trouble or doubt.
Those are the kids toward whom the press pays essentially no attention. Day after day, year after year, hundreds of thousands of underage sex workers run the streets pretty much at the mercy of circumstances – no family, little money, not much education – to complete silence all across these United States. And the conditions of their lives are almost certainly worse and more dangerous than those of the young women on Epstein’s island.
So, whatever else may be true about the whole, sordid Epstein saga, the response of the press, Congress, social media, etc., has nothing to do with the welfare of underage sex workers. If ever you thought it did, drop the notion now. If they cared about youth sex workers, they’d have mentioned it long ago.
So what’s it actually all about? I’ll delve into that next time.
This article originally appeared at The Word of Damocles.
