Escorts, lawyers and human rights activists criticize the rentboy.com arrests
There is growing criticism of the arrest and criminal charges leveled against staff of the rentboy.com website.
On Tuesday, federal agents from the US Department of Homeland Security, assisted by the NYPD, raided the offices of rentboy.com in New York and arrested seven members of staff, including the site’s chief and founder, Jeffrey Hurant. All were subsequently charged with promoting prostitution.
Homeland Security are involved because the alleged criminal activities cross state and national borders. However, the involvement of the agency has surprised many.
Florida-based attorney, Norm Kent, who is also the editor of South Florida Gay News said in a strongly-worded op-ed that the arrest should spark, ‘unified national outrage.’
‘Less than a week after ISIS beheaded an archaeologist in Syria, Homeland Security has beheaded Rentboy.com in New York,’ he writes.
‘This task is not within the purview of their core mission and purpose. It is a traitorous act by the very agency designed to secure our safety, protect our borders, and guard us against terrorist threats. Instead, they used your money to guard you against a young man with a tight butt. Outrageous.’
‘Rentboy may be the world’s largest gay prostitution site ever, but it is not a sex trafficking site where people are exploited against their will or abused by pimps or mercenaries.
‘If there is a story here, it is not about gay men seeking hookups. It is about a national security agency so misdirecting its energies, efforts and equipment that we should all be astonished and appalled.’
Others have agreed that it is far preferable for escorts to advertise their trade through online websites rather than promotes their services in other ways.
Writing on Gawker a male escort who says he has been advertising his services on rentboy.com off and on for the past 11 years said, ‘The people who worked at Rentboy were there for ages. People stayed because they believed in what they’re doing. They’re making this kind of work safer for people.
‘You very rarely hear about pimps in 2015. There was a time 30 years ago where that’s how everybody worked.
‘Rentboy has made this a safer business to be in. It’s much easier to pick up and put down since you’re not tied to a pimp. If you get a day job or want to move or get in a relationship, there’s no one there telling you that you can’t because you have to keep working. It gives sex workers total freedom.’
Ricci Joy Levy, Executive Director of the Washington-based Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance agreed, and said in the statement that the case had wider implications for other websites.
‘As the government continues its relentless and often unconstitutional harassment of sites advertising legal adult services, more and more human rights are violated and more individuals are placed at risk.
‘Make no mistake, law enforcement officials are attacking those involved in the escort industry for exercising their constitutional rights to free association, free expression, and free assembly.
‘The criminalization of prostitution interferes with sex workers’ fundamental right to bodily autonomy, to work and to be free from violence.
‘The impact of government actions in the ongoing War on Sex, including attacks on sites like Rentboy.com, is the systematic elimination of constitutionally protected civil liberties and the infringement of human rights.’
The rentboy.com staff arrested and charged were released on bonds ranging from $50,000 to $350,000. Lawyers representing the arrested who spoke to reporters on Tuesday indicated that they intended to fight the charges as a First Amendment issue.
Jay Michaelson, for the Daily Beast suggests Rentboy may have been targeted for getting ‘cocky … categorizing advertisers by sexual services (as described in the government’s almost pornographic court documents), sponsoring events for sex workers and porn stars, and, basically, flaunting it.’
Nevertheless, he too says people should be, ‘should be outraged by this mass arrest, which highlights the absurdity and tragedy of the current legal regime.’
He also points out that earlier this month, Amnesty International voted in favor of the legalization and regulation of sex work, to help cut down on trafficking and protect the human rights of those involved.
Amnesty declined to offer a statement on the Rentboy.com arrests when approached by Gay Star News. Someone who was prepared to comment was Alex Feis-Bryce, Director of Service at the UK-based National Ugly Mugs scheme – a project that supports sex workers when they are victims of crime.
Feis-Bryce says he knows British-based escorts who used rentboy.com to advertise, and, ‘There is a certain tragic irony that this raid by US Department of Homeland Security comes just days after the adoption of the Amnesty International policy calling for the decriminalization of sex work.
‘People sell sex for a variety of reasons but, without wanting to generalize, queer people have a long history of being denied rights, job opportunities and access to mainstream services.
‘For many, sex work has been key to their survival. This is a blatant and unjustified attack on the rights of sex workers.
‘As identified by Amnesty International in their extensive research, criminalization of buying or selling sex puts sex workers’ livelihoods at risk and forces them to work in dangerous conditions which has serious adverse effects on their health and safety.
‘Many sex workers enjoy the control, freedom and independence brought by advertising online and this strikes at the very heart of their human rights.
‘At a time when queer people are being regularly subjected to harassment and trans people are being brutally murdered throughout the world, the fact that the US Federal resources are being spent in this way raises serious concerns over what their priorities are.
‘Once again, law enforcers are more concerned with targeting marginalized people than actually fulfilling their responsibilities and protecting them.’
The post Escorts, lawyers and human rights activists criticize the rentboy.com arrests appeared first on Gay Star News.
David Hudson
www.gaystarnews.com/article/escorts-lawyers-and-human-rights-activists-criticize-the-rentboy-com-arrests/
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