Good Riddance Backpage.com! You Were the Fuel That Helped to Make the Sex Trafficking Machine Run

Posted by Dennis Hof on January 10, 2017

Backpage.com, the number one resource in America that facilitates hookups between unscreened customers and illegal prostitutes–including forced child prostitutes–has shut down its adult services section.

To which I say, good riddance scumbags!

It was recently revealed that Backpage.com moderators were instructed to routinely delete incriminating words from the website’s ads, and that the site filtered out terms like “teenage” and “school girl” so that it would be less-obvious that the site was a tool for sex traffickers seeking to use Backpage.com’s vast reach to advertise sex with minors. After a brutally incriminating report from a Senate panel and mounting pressure from the government, Backpage.com closed its adult ad section, crying “censorship,” and vowing to continue to fight for its right to exist.

Well, I have a message for Backpage.com CEO Carl Ferrer: Give it up! It’s over!

Change Is On The Horizon

The revelation that the people who run Backpage.com are morally bankrupt individuals who, through their business practices and procedures, worked to support sex traffickers for years, speaks volumes about the dangers of not having regulated prostitution throughout the United States. It’s time to take a good, hard look at the cesspool that is the illegal prostitution industry, and start to change things for the better.

There are really no such things as “escort agencies,” “sugar dating” websites, and the like — these are merely fronts and euphemisms used by criminal pimps, sex traffickers, and unregulated prostitutes to hide from the law. Well, this week we learned that they can’t hide forever.

I strongly believe that law enforcement will continue its assault against the illegal sex industry, and that the days of our elected officials “looking the other way” and allowing prostitution to illegally occur in the casinos of Las Vegas, the hotels of New York City, and in every dark alley and abandoned building across this great land, will soon be over. There is too much at stake for Spitzer-like officials to practice hypocrisy while children are being exploited.

The shuttering of Backpage.com will mark the beginning of the crumbling of America’s modern illegal prostitution infrastructure, and reinforce the necessity that prostitution be legalized throughout the United States, beyond the rural areas of Nevada where regulated prostitution has proved to be a successful, safe, and sustainable socio-economic construct for consenting adults desiring to engage in pay-for-play sex.

Legalize prostitution across America. Do it. Now! Legal Nevada brothels have been operating for nearly fifty years, proving that regulated prostitution works. It works to ensure that no underage person is employed as a prostitute. It works to assure that no person engaging in legal prostitution has any chance of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. And it works to protect the safety and health of the adults who participate in this age-old trade.

Take prostitution off the streets and away from the child traffickers and put it in the hands of lawful businesspersons like myself. Let the end of Backpage.com be the beginning of a new age in adult entertainment, and mark a future where sexual adventure is legally available to adults everywhere – while our children sleep safely at night.