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The Washington Post reports that an internet escort in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker who showed up at the woman's home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com. Neal Falls showed up with multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes. In Falls's pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage. Investigators are trying to determine whether Falls is responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada. "We are entering his DNA profile into CODIS, which is a national crime DNA database, to see if it matches any previous submissions from anywhere in the United States," says Steve Cooper, the Charleston Police Department's chief of detectives. "If his DNA has been located in any other crimes and his profile was entered into CODIS, there will be a match."
From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, he turned violent. "I knew he was there to kill me," says the victim who asked not to be identified. Falls pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. "When he strangled me he just wouldn't let me get any air. I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me." Local authorities are treating the shooting as an act of self-defense. According to Cooper, "when we find multiple sets of handcuffs, a machete, an axe, a bulletproof vest and container of bleach, the first thing that comes to an investigator's mind is, 'This is a serial killer kit.'"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Monday July 27 2015, @04:18PM
It is. There is no right to sell sex for money and there is a right not to be forced into prostitution. The whole happy hooker thing is a myth that people use to try and rationalize why it's OK to use people like that. But, look at the people who go into prostitution. It's hardly a who's who of successful people. I'm sure there are a few out there that wanted to do that as a job, but I can't buy the notion that it's the status quo or even common.
It's people that have no money, are on drugs, have self-esteem problems or are outright forced to.
Prostitution is a human rights problem and it's always been a human rights problem. I suppose there may be changes in the future that completely eliminate the people that are enthusiastic about selling sex from the industry, but I'm skeptical that it's even possible.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:31PM
And if both drugs and prostitution were legalized, they'd be able to get the healthcare services they need to quit drugs improve their self-esteem, and/or find a job. Instead, the current approach, having it illegal, is to lock them up. You really think the best way to go about it is to just lock up everyone with problems because they don't have your exact same moral code? How about we get these people the fucking help they need instead of throwing them into a box for months or years because two adults engage in a service transaction you don't like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:00PM
Your happy hooker myth statement is based on a practice that is illegal. A fair assessment about prostitution and the effects of it on the workers would require an analysis of legal prostitutes. Such analysis would also need to be compared against the physical and psychological assessments of other professions. I.e In almost any profession, you will have percentages of people who are happy, sad, feel exploited, etc, so you have to make sure that when studying *legal* prostitution, if the percentages are different just because of the sexual nature of the job.
And, even if such analysis exists, I am unsure how you can deal with the factor of societies' irrational views about sex, which can influence the mindset of those involved in sexual-based practices and professions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @10:25PM
So hop on a plane, come to New Zealand, and interview ours. Prostitution is legal, here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday July 27 2015, @06:48PM
You seem to have some cognitive dissonance going on here.
This is why the Bill of Rights was a big fat mistake. You seem to believe that it's required to obtain a legal entitlement granted by society for me to sell sex. While I'm most assuredly not a great example of somebody that could sell sex (I'd be lucky to make a nickel), there are plenty of people that could seemingly retire early in life from it. None of those people are required to obtain, from you and I, any kind of legal entitlement. Hence, why the Bill of Rights as written is a huge mistake.
As an American, and you will have to kill me to stop me, I reserve any, and all rights, not expressly prohibited by government, and government possess no rights, unless they are expressly defined by me and the rest of the people of America . Understandably, this puts me at odds with many aspects of my government. As a result I perform civil disobedience quite often, and would happily perform jury nullification in many situations. This is the way our freedom really works. I don't have to justify my need to sell sex, its correctness, its morality, etc. YOU on the other hand, need to convince the rest of us to create a prohibition to the behavior. That's going to need 19 metric butt-tons of science too, since you're talking about civil rights being abridged. Good luck, because the bar for ethics and integrity in removing basic human rights is in fact quite high.
In other words, you cannot grant me a right I already possessed, and you had no rights to take away. Just curious, but just what other "rights" do you think I need to obtain from you, and for what purposes?
Additionally, there is no specific right to not be forced into prostitution. Quite frankly, that sounds like an appeal to emotion. Similarly, I have a right not be to be force fucked with a cattle prod. However, that's just an interesting and rather dramatic interpretation of the basic human rights that are defined for us beyond the U.S Constitution even.
I understand your objection to prostitution as it occurs now, and I even share most of it. However, you are extremely off base with your assertion that sex workers need to petition you for rights to conduct their activities. Those rights were intrinsic in nature. You should be careful that you don't end up destroying other's rights in your zeal to protect them.
Just as prohibition of alcohol was completely incorrect, the prohibition against selling sex is likewise completely incorrect. Women have rights to make bad decisions, and men have rights to be debased pigs. Just as alcohol prohibition created environments highly conducive to crime and victimized people, any kind of prohibition against popular activities will fail .
Whether you like or not, regulation is the answer to this problem, not activities in the shadows. Ohh, as far as the damage from prostitution.... human beings find endless ways to abuse and use each other for their own selfish purposes. The relationships between a hooker and a john is a two-way street of two people abusing each other, and by no means the only example of a toxic relationship.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @08:58PM
all of that anarchist crap only to state that regulation is the answer? fuck off lolbertarian ancap
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:06AM
Well, considering that its what the 9th and 10th amendments say...
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Monday July 27 2015, @08:15PM
It's not a myth. There do exist "Happy Hookers". This isn't to claim that it's common, but I've known a couple. *I* think they were making bad decisions, but they didn't agree. That said, they *were* in their early 20's. I suspect a few years later they regretted their actions...but I considered that their choice.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 28 2015, @05:28AM
by selling their bodies. A particularly well known one in Naples put both her children through university that way.
I know three different strippers who are very devoted mothers to their children. Two have four, the other just one, still an infant.
I met a graduate student when she offered me a Private Dance at a gentlemen's club.
The very first female I ever met who knew about conway's game of life was also a stripper. I did pay for her private show.
For quite a long time I puzzled iver all the young portland women who know about conway's life. Turns out PSU comouter science and electrical engineering are into it.
I purchased the wares of a completely legal swiss lady of the evening who owns a manor on a countryside estate. Unfortunately for me, when I responded to her ad because she "speaks English", I took that to mean that we could have a nice chat as well.
Prostitution is legal in England but I dont care to have English spoken to me anymore.
It is legal in Canada.
It is legal in the rural parts of Nevada.
It is legal in Mexico. I know this because five of my mother's friends hoped to spend the daybshopping in Tijuana butnthey police arrested them all, then forced them to purchase prostitution licenses.
It was legal in japan until it was occupied by the US after world war II. It is still widely practiced there but I understand it is hard for Americans to obtain.
America was founded by religious zealots. We dont make sense to people from other countries.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Francis on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:12PM
I'm not surprised that there are some, I'm sure there are also hitmen that do it to put their children through school. I know that during the days of the Jewish Mafia that a lot of that was focused on getting their kids better opportunity. Which is a large part of why it largely doesn't exist in the US any more. No clue as to whether or not it exists in other parts of the world.
Anyways, people like to trot out these examples as if they're the norm, and I have a really hard time buying that. People like that would be very hard to prosecute and would probably not even be worth the effort.