Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Myths Return

And they're just as wrong and dangerous this time around.

Is the Super Bowl a magnet for sex traffickers? Nope, and it never has been. But no matter how many times this wretched rumor gets debunked, some gullible members of the media insist on trotting it out anew every year.

This year, it's the Associated Press and Time doing their part to poison the discourse, with an article warning that Uber drivers and hotel maids must be on high alert for this sham epidemic.

Luckily, a huge range of press has already thoroughly torn apart this nonsense in years past. Here are some of Reason's contributions to the genre:

• "Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Myth Gives Good Cover for Federal Security Theater" (2018)
• "No Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Hordes in Houston" (2017)
• "There's No Tidal Wave of Sex Slaves Descending on the Super Bowl" (2016)
• "Super Bowl 'Sex-Trafficking Stings' Net Hundreds of Prostitution Arrests" (2016)
• "The Mythical Invasion of the Super Bowl Hookers" (2014)

But don't just take our word for it! Here are a range of other journalists and outlets debunking the super-bowl sex trafficking myth:

• "Research Debunks Myth of Super Bowl Sex Trafficking, Improves Media Narrative" (The University of Texas at Austin/The Anti-Trafficking Review, October 2019)
• "'Misinformation Used to Increase Policing': Experts Dismiss Super Bowl 'Sex Trafficking' Myth" (Law & Crime, February 2019)
• "Is There Really a Huge Upsurge in Sex Trafficking Over Super Bowl Weekend?" (Slate, February 2019)
• "Atlanta Police Chief pushes back on reports of sex trafficking arrests" (11 Alive, February 2019)
• "Sexual slavery and myth-making at the Super Bowl" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 2019)
• "ICE promises to protect Super Bowl from nonexistent human trafficking threat" (Vice, 2018)
• "The Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Myth: Is it the crisis it's cracked up to be?" (Sports Illustrated, 2017)
• "Minnesota ramps up for a mythical Super Bowl sex trafficking rampage" (City Pages, 2017)
• "5 Sex Workers Speak Out On The Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Myth" (The Establishment, 2016)
• "The Myth of Super Bowl Sex Trafficking Obscures Real Issues" (San Jose Inside, 2016)
• "Massaging the Super Bowl's Sex Trafficking Stats" (SF Weekly, 2016)
• "Does sex trafficking increase around the Super Bowl?" (Politifact, 2015)
• "The Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Story That Just Won't Die" (The Atlantic, 2014)
• "The Truth About the NFL, the Super Bowl, and Sex Slavery" (Deadspin, 2014)
• "Just in Time for February, the Myth of Sex Trafficking and the Super Bowl Returns" (Village Voice, 2014)
• "Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics" (The Washington Post, 2014)
• "The Super Bowl and Sex Trafficking" (The New York Times, 2014)

Even the Polaris Project (one of the biggest purveyors of bad statistics dressed up as "human trafficking awareness") has stopped relying on this particular rumor. The "reality is that sex trafficking happens during the Super Bowl with the same frequency as it does every single day," the group says.

Outside of some reporters with dubious judgement, the only people who are still earnestly pushing the idea that sporting events like the super bowl are hotbeds of human trafficking seem to be 1) politicians who have made a name for themselves stirring up crime panic, 2) state prosecutors, who like to use the prospect of "sex slaves" to justify ramping up their routine vice stings during the big game, and 3) the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for whom the panic dovetails nicely with their efforts to round up immigrants and promiscuous women. But poke any "Super Bowl sex trafficking sting" headline from the past decade and all you'll find is a bunch of sex workers and their customers arrested for trying to hook up with another consenting adult.

At this point, there's simply no excuse for any reporter, politician, or other entity to repeat the Super Bowl Sex Trafficking lie. Those that do are either wholly incapable of basic research and reading comprehension or willfully trafficking in misinformation.

Comments

[loveconstitution1789]

Americans just need to enforce that the federal and state government currently have zero constitutional authority to ban products or services.

Prostitution laws = unconstitutional and therefore illegal
Drug laws = unconstitutional and therefore illegal

[Naaman Brown]

How dast you?!? The Commerce Clause makes government meddling mandatory. The government can and must ban commerce in goods and services that affect public safety and the common welfare. The 1950s Kefauver Committee studies established that the comic book industry engaged in Seduction of the Innocent of American into crime, mayhem, and homosexuality by titles like Crime and Punishment, Vault of Horror, & Batman. In the name of the public good, the comic book industry was forced to adopt a self censorship code, saving 1950s America from the scourge of juvenile delinquency and the menace of the teenage sex deviant.

[Rossami]

The Feds cannot ban a product or service, yes (with some limits). Regarding the states, however, that's simply untrue as you've been told repeatedly. The US Constitution is written on the principle of enumerated powers. In contrast, states retain "general police powers" (unless their own constitutions restrict them) and can ban anything they like for any reason or none.

[loveconstitution1789]

Your citation keeps falling off, as you have been repeatedly told.

States dont have Plenary Powers, as you have been told repeatedly.

Therefore states have state Constitutions to grant and restrict powers of their state governments.

[loveconstitution1789]

I would school you on the 10th Amendment but I seem to recall sending you into a tailspin last time you said some unsupported nonsense about states having plenary police powers.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

[Rossami]

That's just funny. You challenge me for a citation, then provide exactly the source I would have pointed you to. The states are independent sovereigns with the federal government. This principle is encapsulated in Tenth Amendment when it says that the powers not granted to the feds (and not explicitly prohibited to the states) are reserved to the states respectively.

The fact that some powers are explicitly withheld from the states is not relevant to the general question of whether the states have plenary powers on all the things that were not withheld. It's also irrelevant that the Tenth is ambiguous about whether the remainder are reserved "to the states respectively, or to the people". That clause merely recognized that states could (and did) strike different balances on the question within their respective state constitutions.

It's not a "tailspin" to call you out for your own fundamental misreading of the Tenth Amendment.

By the way, since you don't like my explanations, maybe you'll do better with this one. (See the "Historical Background" section.) Note: While the context of this article is specific to public health, the principles do apply more broadly.

[loveconstitution1789]

You left the part about the powers reserved TO THE PEOPLE.

Hahaha. You dont have a citation. Hahaha

I remember now. You actually didnt know what plenary power means so you just kept saying states had general police powers.

Hahaha. States can do whatever they want. Hahaha. The states can just make a law that all residents have to stay in their homes and can never leave. People have no power over the state. Hahah

[loveconstitution1789]

Misreading of the actual words of the 10th Amendment. Haha.

The people dont get powers. Hahahaha.

[loveconstitution1789]

The Proper Scope of Police Power

Because this is the law governing lawmaking, those who make the laws that are to govern the people should not be able to change the laws that govern them.[...]
Originally, the obvious places to look were state constitutions to see what powers a particular state had been granted.(p 432)

Given that no provision of the written Constitution specifies the power of states over their citizens, any such doctrine of state power must be a constitutional construction-but one that is consistent with the equal protection of liberty rights, privileges or immunities retained by the people explicitly protected by the text.

Strictly speaking we are not seeking a doctrine of what powers are delegated to states under the Constitution. We are seeking a doctrine to identify those powers that the people of the states may, if they choose, delegate to their state governments by means of their state constitutions without violating the Constitution of the United States. Any assessment of the power held by a particular state must begin by examining its constitution.(p.475)

[Rossami]

Now I remember why I gave up trying to explain things to you the last time this came up. Your reading comprehension sucks. I did not leave out "or to the people" - I explicitly said that it doesn't mean what you think it does. Briefly:

States have plenary police powers and can do anything they want UNLESS:
1. their own constitution prevents it (the "or to the people" clause of the 10th amendment)
2. it is a power granted to the feds (the federal preemption clause)
3. it is a power explicitly restricted from the states (dormant commerce, incorporation doctrine, etc.)

But since you don't like my explanation AND want to ignore the cite I already gave you, I'm sure you can point to a definitive citation supporting your own idiosyncratic interpretation of the federal system. Odd that you haven't provided it yet despite ranting (incorrectly) that I haven't provided one.

[loveconstitution1789]

You didn't remember you posted a bunch of garbage before, which is why you were right around following me with more nonsense and still wont cite shit to support your position.

US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health is your link? No legal specialists at all because there are none to support what you claim.

Your link discusses health and quarantine powers of the state NOT absolute police powers. Hahaha. Bookmarked for the future when you bring up this retarded bullshit again.

[Earth Skeptic]

Hey, if the retards who claim to be reporters could not cut and paste from what other retards wrote last year (or what other retards wrote on Twitter last night) what would they do?

[NashTiger]

Not nearly as wrong as dangerous as the myths this publication pushes several times daily re: Iran

[Rich]

Super Bowl Sex-Trafficking Myths

Nice band name.

[Naaman Brown]

There is a bigger issue than sex trafficking at the Super Bowl.

The illustration for sex trafficking at the Super Bowl shows a lamppost, a gal, a guy in a car. It appears that the street corner does not have a curb and the sidewalk is on the same level as the street.

What incompetents are in charge of streets, sidewalks and storm drainage in that town? They can afford a super bowl arena but can't give the taxpayers competently designed infrastructure? Priorities, darnn it!

(Personally I suspect there is less sex trafficking during Super Bowl because men are distracted by football.)

[Rossami]

Actually, it shows the road several inches higher than the sidewalk. Maybe she's actually standing in a drainage ditch? A disturbingly flat and even drainage ditch that also has a whopping great electrical light powered through it?

[ErictheRed]

Not to mention the photo is either from GB or OZ. I don't think the host the Stupid Bowl this year.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

What I want to know is where I can get a car with such thin A-pillars and roof. Current car pillars are so thick they can hide pedestrians in crosswalks and cars across intersections.

[Dillinger]

convertible Vega? i think the Monzas had square eyes

[MVP]

See if Autotrader has any old AMC Pacers for sale...

[Granite]

How the fuck is he driving? His steering wheel seems to be positioned for left handed driving in Europe, but his headlights are on the back of his car. Do they not have red tail lights in Europe? Or is he in reverse?

The only thing I learned from this is that fake news can be detected when cartoons are used as evidence supporting or dramatizing said news.

[D-Pizzle]

Simple logic debunks this myth. Men are too busy beating their wives on this day to hire sex slaves.

[Naaman Brown]

That is funny. Citing another Super Bowl myth to debunk a Super Bowl myth. Myth cancels myth.

[Don't look at me!]

A swing and a myth!

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Sex trafficking (outside of Islamic communities) is largely mythical, anyway. The Hysterical Feminist Left dug up the Victorian era 'White Slavery' panic and ground the serial numbers off. It was nonsense in the Victorian era. It was nonsense is when it was revived in the Edwardian era. It's nonsense now. Many historians propose that it was driven largely by uptight middle class wives who feared competition from sex-for-hire. I expect they will draw similar conclusions about thew current idiocy.

Now, radical Islamists do have a track record of abusing women for fun and profit (and Prophet). But the 'Sex Trafficking' hysterics won't, of the most part, attack the Islamic barbarians. They're too scared of them.

[Granite]

So you think these housewives create and support this panic and everyone else joins in to get a piece of the pie? I like this theory. It may work. I always figured it was another excuse to make laws and usurp freedom from everyone, but it seems under your theory, this is just a corollary.

Fucking housewives.

[Marshal]

This year, it's the Associated Press and Time doing their part to poison the discourse, with an article warning that Uber drivers and hotel maids must be on high alert for this sham epidemic.

This keeps happening with people fearing a return to the military draft also. Why can't we have a more responsible press?

[C. S. P. Schofield]

‘Responsible Press’ is a myth. Look into the history of the British Press, or the ‘yellow journalism’ in the US. What has changed is that people used to know, for the most part, that newspapers were biased. The idea that unbiased journalism existed, or was even possible, is one of the biggest lies the Progressives ever sold the public.

[Jeb Kerman]

"At this point, there's simply no excuse for any reporter, politician, or other entity to repeat the Super Bowl Sex Trafficking lie"

Other than to solicit favor with the police state.

[Longtobefree]

Clicks; you forgot clicks.

[Gregdn]

I'm old enough to remember when only conservatives were uptight about sex.

[Eddy]

I think it's been scientifically established that, during the Super Bowl, men hire hookers to watch the game with them, then when their wives object, beat up their wives. And force their kids to vape.

[Sevo]

And those are the guys who are fans of the winning team!

[TGoodchild]

So I should probably cancel my Super Bowl Hookers N’ Blow party. Rev. Kirk is going to be crushed.

[Echospinner]

Was thinking it was about a super hooker bowl. So you have two hooker teams and...
Maybe I should stop there

[Sevo]

Didn't Victoria's Secret feature a lingerie 'Bowl' game? Can't remember seeing it, but I'm sure it wasn't of the mud-wrestling class.
BTW, Bloomberg paid big for ads on the 9er's game today; I hope, like Steyer, he blows a ton on money to find out that just being a white billionaire ain't enough to do it.

[JonFrum]

"the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for whom the panic dovetails nicely with their efforts to round up immigrants and promiscuous women ..."

Promiscuous women? Huh? Better not tell USDHS about swinging and hotwifing. Or America's colleges.

[FS2000]

All the sex trafficking info is largely nonsense and nearly straight up fabricated. Honestly it just serves to obfuscate real instances of sex trafficking.

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