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cooperbh · 03-25-2011, 10:19 PM

(03-25-2011 09:50 PM)takeitdown Wrote: I think there's a good chance the girl was a prostitute who saw dollar signs. I don't trust media reporting of hardly anything.

However, I think you have a naive view of the sex trade. Lots of these kids didn't have a lot of choices to make. Many were abused sexually and beaten by a father or stepfather, with a mother who wouldn't defend them and had to get out, at 13, or 14, or 15. There aren't a lot of right choices if your parents are horrible people and hang you out to dry.

Once there, we've all seen how much more it costs to live than it seems. And again, there are few choices. Many, in that situation, will take to hooking, as it's the only means of money, and they'll try to pretend it's what they want, out of a need to feel control or power over some part of their lives.

A lot of people out there doing that have been sexually abused, and it does a horrible number. Be around a few of these people and you'll see how it crushes a part of them for life, and really alters their world view.

Now imagine, you've tried to strike out for yourself, get away from your parents, and you turned one trick, or got in with a guy who you thought was your boyfriend, but then starts getting you to sleep with his "friend" for money (often how these things start out)...what do you do? You're emotionally a mess, you don't have a place to live if you leave him, you can't go back home to your abusive dad, you're out of good choices.

I'm all for personal responsibility, but I grew up poor and saw people whose choices were to quit school at 14 to support their family because their mother was injured, or ignore their mother and two younger sisters and "go get theirs" by getting an education. I respect the man who stops at 14 and supports his family by working 15 hours a day. But that man is doomed to poverty because he lacks an education, and his back will probably be shot in 10 years.

This girl may well have just seen dollar signs afterward...and honestly, that was my first thought as well. It's just that I don't like everything being attributed to bad choices. As much as America is a land of freedom and all of that, some poor kids simply are left with choices, but none of them good. I've known these people and feel for the ones I don't know. When I first started being around middle class people, and seeing how hard it was for them to mess up, and how hard it was for people I grew up with to get out....I started to understand how people think we all have all these choices. They had them. It doesn't mean everyone did. I know it's hard to imagine a world where your dad was never around, your mom made minimum wage, and if the car broke down she lost her job and everyone went hungry...and that's if the mom was a good woman and stood behind her responsibilities...but a lot of people live that way. They're generally the ones who end up at these places.

You said it much better than I did.

Unfortunately, you'll probably be labled a "bleeding heart lib" for it - which is not an insult, BTW. It simply implies that your ability to reason is totally overwhelmed by an uncontrollable emotional hypersensitivity. It's a political party, I believe.

Anyway, +1.

Beef · (This post was last modified: 03-25-2011 11:16 PM by Beef.)

(03-25-2011 09:50 PM)takeitdown Wrote: I think there's a good chance the girl was a prostitute who saw dollar signs. I don't trust media reporting of hardly anything.

However, I think you have a naive view of the sex trade. Lots of these kids didn't have a lot of choices to make. Many were abused sexually and beaten by a father or stepfather, with a mother who wouldn't defend them and had to get out, at 13, or 14, or 15. There aren't a lot of right choices if your parents are horrible people and hang you out to dry.

Once there, we've all seen how much more it costs to live than it seems. And again, there are few choices. Many, in that situation, will take to hooking, as it's the only means of money, and they'll try to pretend it's what they want, out of a need to feel control or power over some part of their lives.

A lot of people out there doing that have been sexually abused, and it does a horrible number. Be around a few of these people and you'll see how it crushes a part of them for life, and really alters their world view.

Now imagine, you've tried to strike out for yourself, get away from your parents, and you turned one trick, or got in with a guy who you thought was your boyfriend, but then starts getting you to sleep with his "friend" for money (often how these things start out)...what do you do? You're emotionally a mess, you don't have a place to live if you leave him, you can't go back home to your abusive dad, you're out of good choices.

I'm all for personal responsibility, but I grew up poor and saw people whose choices were to quit school at 14 to support their family because their mother was injured, or ignore their mother and two younger sisters and "go get theirs" by getting an education. I respect the man who stops at 14 and supports his family by working 15 hours a day. But that man is doomed to poverty because he lacks an education, and his back will probably be shot in 10 years.

This girl may well have just seen dollar signs afterward...and honestly, that was my first thought as well. It's just that I don't like everything being attributed to bad choices. As much as America is a land of freedom and all of that, some poor kids simply are left with choices, but none of them good. I've known these people and feel for the ones I don't know. When I first started being around middle class people, and seeing how hard it was for them to mess up, and how hard it was for people I grew up with to get out....I started to understand how people think we all have all these choices. They had them. It doesn't mean everyone did. I know it's hard to imagine a world where your dad was never around, your mom made minimum wage, and if the car broke down she lost her job and everyone went hungry...and that's if the mom was a good woman and stood behind her responsibilities...but a lot of people live that way. They're generally the ones who end up at these places.

I don't have a "naive view of the sex trade". You have just pigeon-holed yourself into one view because of YOUR experiences.

Not every prostitute was sexually abused by their father. They're simply not all victims. Some of them chose to or made choices that lead them to become one all on their own. You & Coop are asserting that this girl had no choices in this when neither of you have a clue if that's the truth. You're just spouting statistics & assumptions & ignorantly placing here where YOU want. And even though you don't know, you're insisting, as if it's a fact, that this is what must have happened so therefore she is not responsible for anything that's happened to her.

Now if you don't understand how obtuse & foolish that is, you're hopeless & I'll think very little of you. Not that you care.

In the end, I'll stick to my gut, you stick to yours. I'll think you're gullible & you'll think I'm naive. So be it, we'll agree to disagree & be done with it.

Edit: And I thought more about the other stuff you said & I can't disagree more about people not really having choices. I know you've lived it & seen it, but there have been many many people in the worst of the worst conditions persevere & become successful. Have you ever heard of people like Chris Gardner & Rosa Parks? This PROVES it's possible. It may be the most difficult thing in the universe to do, but it's possible if you choose to face the challenge & not let it beat you. It's only an excuse to act like there's absolutely no choice for people at the bottom. There is, it's just incredibly, incredibly hard.

Beef · 03-25-2011, 10:58 PM

(03-25-2011 10:04 PM)cooperbh Wrote: No, wholesome innocent virgin victims don't usually run away from home & choose to cavort with the likes of drug dealing women beating pimps. Most sex industry workers (an estimated 75%) lose their virginity before the age of 14 as victims of sexual abuse. If you wanna know why an underage girl might run away from home and find herself living on the street doing everything possible to stay alive, there you go.

I highly doubt that your kids have have been victims of such abuse, so it's not surprising that they know right from wrong and make sound choices.

I'm sorry, but any woman who has been physically abused is a victim. Period. I don't care if she is a prostitute or a prom queen. Spare me the faux outrage over being referred to as someone who accepts such abuse. You've been loudly demonstrating that acceptance from the first time you said of the underaged girl who showed up to LT's hotel room beaten and drugged, "She's no victim."

How in the hell is she anything but?

You do NOT know if this girl falls in the 75% of sexually abused or the 25% who are not. You don't know this, period.

THAT is the point.

And I do not condone abuse of any kind, so stop trying to say I do. It's not cool.

Saying that I don't think she's a victim, that I think she's taking advantage of a situation for greed of money, that she's responsible for ultimately being in this situation, does NOT mean I "accept" abuse of another human being. And by trying to spin it that way, you've stepped over the line.

takeitdown · (This post was last modified: 03-26-2011 12:12 AM by takeitdown.)

(03-25-2011 10:44 PM)Beef Wrote: I don't have a "naive view of the sex trade". You have just pigeon-holed yourself into one view because of YOUR experiences.

Not every prostitute was sexually abused by their father. They're simply not all victims. Some of them chose to or made choices that lead them to become one all on their own. You & Coop are asserting that this girl had no choices in this when neither of you have a clue if that's the truth. You're just spouting statistics & assumptions & ignorantly placing here where YOU want. And even though you don't know, you're insisting, as if it's a fact, that this is what must have happened so therefore she is not responsible for anything that's happened to her.

Now if you don't understand how obtuse & foolish that is, you're hopeless & I'll think very little of you. Not that you care.

In the end, I'll stick to my gut, you stick to yours. I'll think you're gullible & you'll think I'm naive. So be it, we'll agree to disagree & be done with it.

Edit: And I thought more about the other stuff you said & I can't disagree more about people not really having choices. I know you've lived it & seen it, but there have been many many people in the worst of the worst conditions persevere & become successful. Have you ever heard of people like Chris Gardner & Rosa Parks? This PROVES it's possible. It may be the most difficult thing in the universe to do, but it's possible if you choose to face the challenge & not let it beat you. It's only an excuse to act like there's absolutely no choice for people at the bottom. There is, it's just incredibly, incredibly hard.

I got out. I've run multiple successful businesses. I'm held out as one of those who "made it." I know it can be done...it's just that I understand more than most how hard it can be. And how much luck plays in. And you're right, it's possible...it just sucks for someone (like Rosa, like Chris) to have to be exceptional just to get to ok.

Mainly, it's a matter of odds. If only one of a thousand are making it out of a certain area, there's always a chance...but they don't have the same choices. I tried to give you a concrete one from my experience, of a 14 yr old boy, who had to choose between providing for his family, or continuing his education. He already was working full time and going to school...but that wasn't enough. I think he made the right choice in dropping out to work two jobs, so his little sisters would have food on the table. I also know that people who haven't "been there" will say he's poor because he made bad choices. I like to let people know sometimes there aren't great choices...or more to the point....you have to be so extraordinary to move past those choices...he would have had to work 15 hrs per day, pursue his GED, get into a JUCO and hope his sisters are old enough to help out working, etc. Most things are possible, I just like for people to understand that out of some circumstances, people have to be extraordinary just to get to ok. Whereas with a middle class upbringing, if yu're just ordinary, you're fine. You have to make bad decision after bad decision to really be down a bad path.

The classic case is a DUI. When I was growing up, about 80% of people were below the poverty level, and that's just what I knew. But it also meant something like getting pulled over after drinking 4 beers set off a domino effect. Your license may get suspended, you owe a 2k fine, etc...and to these people just barely scraping by, they can't drive, they lose their job, can't pay the fine, and it all goes downhill. Now, when I started being middle class elsewhere, I was amazed to see tons of people got DUIs, they just paid it, they had many alternatives to get to work, etc. They both made bad choices, but the same bad choice was catastrophic to one set of people, and not a big deal at all to the other.

This is not to say that people have no chances, it's to say we shouldn't expect that people have to be extraordinary just to get a fair shake.

I'm held out as one of those examples you used, and I've never liked it. They used the fact I did well to claim they didn't need to improve the schools (though I had to learn everything on the side, and most of the teachers were actually incorrect in their teachings), and things of that nature. I didn't like being held as an example of why it's ok to keep things as they are because takeitdown made it.

I went straight from that to kids that had everything and had gone to Harvard, etc., and was amazed at how much they thought they had made it there on their own, and everyone started out equal. I've been very grateful for getting out, and know a couple of pieces of bad luck could have left me astray.

I'm a weird mix, I guess, because I'm very pro personal responsibility, and I'm pro business/markets, I just think most people don't recognize how easy they've had it, and how hard it is for some just to stay afloat. The people I worked with often couldn't hold a candle in native intelligence and gumption to some I grew up with, but these middle classers were living the good life, and my friends were in factories and prison.

So, I hold people responsible, but I also have little respect for the people who think we all start on anywhere near equal footing...and who simply don't realize just how easy it is to not make it if you start off badly. It's too easy to say "anyone can make it out with work." We need to acknowledge that some people need a better start, and that you shouldn't have to be an extraordinary 1/1000 person just to make it to an ok life if you grow up in certain places. I don't care for me, because I got lucky, and was lucky to have been born where tests and things were very easy for me. I care for the smart people who couldn't make it out, despite hard work, and the dullards who had well off parents slightly dismissing them as "people who made bad choices."

I'm not trying to pigeon hole you as the latter, because I don't know you. I just know a lot of those people. Of course they don't know how much they take for granted, because they've never had to live the other way.

Clarification: I'm in no way calling myself any of the 1/1000, extraordinary, etc. things. I was lucky. Shit made sense to me. But kids with 130 IQs and good work ethics were falling by the wayside, and that shouldn't be how it is.

Back to the girl...we don't know if she was in the 75 or the 25...but it helps to know that that's how a lot of this gets started. There are the occasional stupid suburban girls who start heroin and go down a bad slope, but mostly, these trades are made of people who've had a damn bad shake.

Sorry for the novella. People just expect that since I made it out, I'm in the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" class, but I realize how lucky I was, and most of the people saying pull yourself up by the bootstraps never had to. Ultimately, that's what you gotta try, because no one's going to do it for you, but often it just won't work.

takeitdown · 03-26-2011, 12:10 AM

(03-25-2011 10:44 PM)Beef Wrote: I don't have a "naive view of the sex trade". You have just pigeon-holed yourself into one view because of YOUR experiences.

Not every prostitute was sexually abused by their father. They're simply not all victims. Some of them chose to or made choices that lead them to become one all on their own. You & Coop are asserting that this girl had no choices in this when neither of you have a clue if that's the truth. You're just spouting statistics & assumptions & ignorantly placing here where YOU want. And even though you don't know, you're insisting, as if it's a fact, that this is what must have happened so therefore she is not responsible for anything that's happened to her.

Now if you don't understand how obtuse & foolish that is, you're hopeless & I'll think very little of you. Not that you care.

In the end, I'll stick to my gut, you stick to yours. I'll think you're gullible & you'll think I'm naive. So be it, we'll agree to disagree & be done with it.

Edit: And I thought more about the other stuff you said & I can't disagree more about people not really having choices. I know you've lived it & seen it, but there have been many many people in the worst of the worst conditions persevere & become successful. Have you ever heard of people like Chris Gardner & Rosa Parks? This PROVES it's possible. It may be the most difficult thing in the universe to do, but it's possible if you choose to face the challenge & not let it beat you. It's only an excuse to act like there's absolutely no choice for people at the bottom. There is, it's just incredibly, incredibly hard.

And as a quick reply, I'm not saying this girl had no choice...because I don't know here.

I was just painting a picture of a lot of people who didn't have good choices, so it's easier to not just brush aside. She may have had professor parents and been a royal f up. But a ton of these people had a smorgasbord of choices, all of them bad.

Beef · 03-26-2011, 12:15 AM

Look, I agree with you & absolutely respect what you've gone through & the fact you persevered. I can't tell you how commendable that is. You're a gem, know that.

But back to my point... IT IS POSSIBLE. That's it. People who start out with the worst of possible worst DO have a chance to make it out if they choose to. It has happened before, so it is 100% possible. Whether it's 1/1000 or 1/1000000000000, that's irrelevent. It's possible with the right choices.

takeitdown · (This post was last modified: 03-26-2011 12:44 AM by takeitdown.)

(03-26-2011 12:15 AM)Beef Wrote: Look, I agree with you & absolutely respect what you've gone through & the fact you persevered. I can't tell you how commendable that is. You're a gem, know that.

But back to my point... IT IS POSSIBLE. That's it. People who start out with the worst of possible worst DO have a chance to make it out if they choose to. It has happened before, so it is 100% possible. Whether it's 1/1000 or 1/1000000000000, that's irrelevent. It's possible with the right choices.

We agree in part. It is possible. I think where we disagree is that it is all up to the person. When the odds are stacked against you that heavily, let's say it's one in ten thousand. If you make all the right choices...you've given yourself a MUCH better chance, but it's still probably 1 in 10. Luck plays in more than people like to think, and more than I want it to.

It's possible, but it's not all under the control of the person. And that's hard to say as a control freak. But, all you can do is do your best to give yourself the best odds. It doesn't help to whine about it. I just throw it out there some, as I know many have never lived anything like it, and it's a hard concept to grasp if you haven't...and I know many have had it far far worse than me.

I just don't like to see where some people have a 1/100,000 chance, and others a 9/10 chance at birth, because it's obviously not fair...but that's life, and there's no way to make it fair.

Edit: I didn't mean to take this so political or social or whatever. I come on to argue about much less important stuff like lateral agility of RBs. I don't argue politics often because people get annoyed with someone who stands up for the poor, but tends toward violence a bit, and believes in small businesses, etc. Apparently those things don't go together...but they all go from where and how you're raised.

EditEdit: Good to talk with you regardless.

cooperbh · 03-26-2011, 01:36 AM

(03-25-2011 10:58 PM)Beef Wrote: You do NOT know if this girl falls in the 75% of sexually abused or the 25% who are not. You don't know this, period.

THAT is the point.

OK, here's what we do know:

1) The girl in question had visible bruises on her face, according to both the police report filed after she was rescued as well as the deposition given by LT himself.

2) The paroled killer scumbag who pimped the girl out admitted to drugging and beating her.

3) The above facts are indisputable.

And THAT - and ONLY THAT - is the point. What in the living fuck does it matter if she is in the 75th percentile or the 25th percentile?

SHE. WAS. ABUSED. This was confirmed in a court of law. You can either condemn it, deny it or justify it.

So, which is it?

***phocis850*** · 03-26-2011, 01:58 AM

I believe the question should be asked to LT on why he would have sex with anyone (no matter the age) that has been beaten or drugged.

Coop, just because a scumbag admits to something doesn't mean the scumbag did it. LT is waking free thanks to him. LT should be in jail for having sex with an underage girl. He could also have been charged with beating and drugging up someone.

Here's my take. LT did more than he's leading on. He paid the guy to confess for him. That guy goes to jail for a few years and gets out with a HUGE wad of cash in his pocket. Track that guy in a few years and get the real story.

So, I'm not sure that my take happened, but because of LT's money, it makes it plausible. This interview seemed like he has happy to get away with it.

Beef · (This post was last modified: 03-26-2011 02:02 AM by Beef.)

(03-26-2011 01:36 AM)cooperbh Wrote: OK, here's what we do know:

1) The girl in question had visible bruises on her face, according to both the police report filed after she was rescued as well as the deposition given by LT himself.

2) The paroled killer scumbag who pimped the girl out admitted to drugging and beating her.

3) The above facts are indisputable.

And THAT - and ONLY THAT - is the point. What in the living fuck does it matter if she is in the 75th percentile or the 25th percentile?

SHE. WAS. ABUSED. This was confirmed in a court of law. You can either condemn it, deny it or justify it.

So, which is it?

Wait, so a pimp gave drugs to & beat up one of his prostitutes!?!? *GASP* Yeah, that never happens. Whore's on drugs with bruises, there's just no other way to explain it. You must be right. It can't possibly be her fault & she's a poor little innocent victim. I can fully understand why you insist you're right & this is 100% fact. There's no way these folks are lieing. They're actually really good quality people just dealt a bad hand in life & it's absurd to think she put herself in that situation.

In fact, all prostitutes who get beat up by their pimps should be given free health insurance by the government & a monthly stipend that they can use for buying drugs. You see, since the money is from the government, they can't blame themselves, they can only blame the government. It's fucking brilliant.

And you know what else we can do? Every prostitute can go to the police & file charges for sexual abuse against their fathers & uncles, no proof needed of course, because as we all know, every one of them is guilty & at fault for forcing their daughters to runaway & be pushed into prostitution. Every single one of them.

Man, you have enlightened so many of us to the truth about whores. You could be President.