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Posted by Melissa Norbeck

Well, maybe we can just make a few changes. What is wrong with our country?
Quite a few things come to mind: two of them are health care and greed. The health care issue here in the US is ridiculous. Some people don¹t have problems with health care and health insurance, but many do. And so what if one man has insurance and can get his teeth cleaned every six months when the child down the street just died because she doesn¹t have health insurance or enough insurance. Why is health care the way it is? Greed, plain and simple.
The higher-ups care more about money and less about helping people. Sometimes I really feel things are so bad (war, health care, greed, violence, global warming, animal cruelty, etc… that the world just needs to end and start over.

I think it¹s amazing that we the people stand for as much as we do. Supposedly we live in a Democracy ­ NOT. We do have freedom of speech, but that can only get us so far. We do what we¹re told, and that¹s the way it is. I¹ve been saying for a long time how I feel we do not live in a Democracy, and, ironically enough, I just came across a new word: Plutonomy = an economy that is largely influenced by the wealthy; where things are divided into two parts: the wealthy and the rest of us. That is definitely America.

It¹s a damn shame that people like teachers and cops -those who serve others and don¹t make much money as is- are taking pay freezes. When was the last time you heard of a CEO or someone who worked for a health insurance company or pharmaceutical company take a pay freeze?

America is the best country in the world but also the most corrupt. I wish
people worried about others not only themselves. To quote Michael Moore, I refuse to live in a country like this, and I¹m not leaving!

Posted by John Grant

Those of us who participated in the September 12th march on the Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills Mall recall the arrest of Cheryl Biren, along with six others. I remember Biren there taking photos, it turns out, for OpEdNews.Com, a news and opinion blog site. Biren was doing her job covering the event when she was arrested by Philadelphia police.
The AEC is a tax-funded, $13 million experimental store selling the US Army as a brand to kids as young as thirteen. It employs violent computer games (“war porn”) and shooting simulators with human targets to entice mall-crawling kids into joining the military — at a time the economy is staggering from a lack of jobs. The Center is controversial and raises serious questions about how we educate our youth in today’s world and how well we equip them to analyze information in a critical fashion. 

Many of us “free-lance” or “independent” or, let’s go all the way, “radical” journalists regularly encounter the kind of difficulty Biren ran into covering the AEC march, since police departments are more and more taking it upon themselves to decide who is a legitimate journalist and who isn’t. 
When cops decide who and what constitutes a real journalist they end up permitting only those working for the mainstream, corporate media, people with corporate ID cards, pre-arranged police permits, backup staff at the office, expensive equipment, van drivers and someone to get them coffee. Anyone on a tight budget and sympathetic to the ideas expressed by demonstrators at marches like the one at the AEC are seen as loose cannons and, naturally, suspect in the eyes of the police. And since no one in the mainstream, corporate media has much interest in covering such demonstrations — well, you can see the problem.

In my case, I was there and I took some photos. I, then, chose not to challenge the cops and I left as they began pushing people out the doors. My timidity, of course, is precisely what the police approach is meant to encourage. Any reporter who stayed behind to assert their first amendment right to witness and report the arrests was subject to arrest. This is what Biren did.
We see this sort of thing a lot these days; it’s a variant on the Facts On The Ground strategy. Act first — deal with the repercussions later. The police make an arrest to eliminate a journalist, no matter how illegal the action might be, then they drop the charges and employ public relations later. During the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia, the city paid out millions in lawsuit settlements for illegal arrests. On January 13, the Philadelphia DA followed this pattern and dropped all charges against Biren – four months after her arrest and an uncertain amount of grief and legal expenses later.

The 1st Amendment outlaws “abridging” the “freedom of the press.” It does not say “freedom of the well-paid, corporate press with police permits.” When the 1st Amendment was written there were no press badges; all the bureaucratic hurdles and mazes came later. 
A.J. Leibling added this famous nugget to the mix: “If you really want freedom of the press you have to own one.” Leibling could not have foreseen the age we live in, but, now, with the advent of the internet and the capacity for virtually anyone to fashion a news blog and get out there and cover news, Leibling’s observation may be more than just a witty remark.
Maybe it’s time for those of us on the left to take a hint from James Bopp Jr., the right-wing conservative lawyer from Terre Haute, Indiana, behind the recent Supreme Court case that opened the flood gates to corporate money in campaign ads. He calculated the whole thing and designed the case to obtain the decision recently dropped on American democracy like a bomb. He is now about to launch a similar case aimed to eliminate any and all restrictions on corporate funding of political campaigns.

Maybe it’s time we tip our hats to the Bopps of this culture and do some original legal thinking of our own — pull off our own “Bopp coup” in the courts — to establish that the police cannot use prejudice or whim as a basis to decide who shall report on and document their actions and who shall not. As long as a reporter is cooperative, not violent or not actively participating in whatever the cops are focusing on, it should be made clear in law that sympathy for a cause or action being covered by a reporter is not a valid reason to lump that reporter in with those being arrested. 
It’s an important Constitutional question. Can a government police force quash, silence or prevent a reporter from doing his or her job by making a phony arrest? It happens so much these days it has become part of the fabric of our times, and it contributes to the distancing of citizens more and more from the decisions and actions of their government.

As the recent corporate funding case suggests, the current Supreme Court tends to come down on the side of money and power. But the Constitution clearly does not require a reporter be equipped with money or power, or more to the point, to be connected to a corporation. Current police practice in cases like Biren’s amounts to the harassment and silencing of reporters for failing to have the proper political “juice” behind them.
If the democratic vistas of the internet we hear so much about are real, then all a reporter needs to legitimately assert 1st Amendment rights is a pen & pad, a camera and a blogsite. 
To borrow the famous film line from The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”

Photos Copyright John Grant 

Posted by Melissa Norbeck

Decisions, decisions. Vanilla or chocolate? Tea or coffee? Pancakes or French toast? We are all faced with decisions in our lives, and we are forced to come up with answers to questions daily. But to wear, or not to wear, animal products is the question at hand. Deciding not to wear animal products really needs to be a conscious effort. In the picture from my last post, I wore “leather” boots, and someone asked the question that I knew would come up. Are my boots real leather? I knew the question would arise because when I was choosing my outfit, my mom also mentioned the boots. However, my boots are definitely all man-made material.
Ironically enough, I just went to see The Nutcracker Saturday at the Academy of Music, and PETA was outside handing out pamphlets about wearing fur. Years ago when people went to the Academy of Music, they got all decked out in their mink coats and diamonds. It’s not really like that anymore; still it was reassuring to see their presence. My aunt and I just had a conversation a few months back about wearing fur, and she thinks that people should not even wear fake fur. I disagree because there are now different options to choose from where people can still look just as good wearing faux fur and faux leather that they don’t have to wear the real thing.
The poor animals (cats, dogs, rabbits, fox, raccoons, etc…) whose fur is robbed from them, are skinned alive; how horrible that must be; just unimaginable. A problem is that many of the fur products are mislabeled, and people really don’t know what they’re buying. However, real is real, and it is expensive, so a person knows when he/she is buying real fur because of the cost. But many times the real fur is labeled with something like jackal when it is really cat or dog. So it is better to not buy real fur at all. I also have my list of companies who do not test on animals and try to only buy shampoo and makeup and things like that from those companies. I feel it is our duty to help animals; they have no voice and no choice – we are their voice, and we have the power of choice!

Posted By Melissa Norbeck
Animal Paintings by Joanne Hoffman

Animal cruelty is a matter I feel passionately about. Cruelty toward animals should not exist; there needs to be stiffer punishments which actually fit the crimes. Cruelty comes in many varieties: the selling of fur (cats, dogs, rabbits, etc… the animals are stuffed and piled into crates and then skinned alive), fighting of dogs, killing of wildlife, slaughtering of horses, clubbing of seals, testing on animals, and the everyday torture and neglect of family pets, just to name a few.

A big problem is over population. Between five and ten million stray cats and dogs live on the streets in America. And people are still allowing their dogs and cats to have more litters. It comes down to responsibility. The average lifespan of a stray animal is less than two years. That is an unnecessary, short, and brutal existence. To quote Bob Barker, “Help control the pet population. Have your pet spayed or neutered.”
Another form of cruelty is the killing of animals for human consumption. I have been a vegetarian for the past 17 years. I cannot make people stop eating meat, but the inhumane and cruel ways animals are killed need to stop.

More examples of cruelty: McDonald’s scolds its chickens alive. Ringling Bros. Circus beats its animals. Pigs receive no pain relief when they have their teeth removed with wire cutters. Chickens have their sensitive beaks cut off without painkillers. (Research has proved that chickens are smarter than dogs, cats, and even some primates.) Veal calves are confined to crates so small they can’t even turn around. Many companies test their products on animals. Companies need to work toward cruelty-free methods. And when it comes to fighting, people choose to fight, animals don’t.

Animals depend on us for almost everything, and we as human beings owe it to them – to protect them, to take care of them, and to not purposely put them in harmful situations. There needs to be justice. The animals do not deserve this treatment. There is just no reason for the torment and the torture, no reason at all.

The Humane Society, PETA, ASPCA, and World Wildlife Fund are just a few of the organizations who have been helping animals live better lives.
When we stop the killing and the suffering of our animals, we can restore the humanity!

Posted By John Grant

It was sad watching Barack Obama cave in to the militarists on the war in Afghanistan. One, he didn’t have to give his speech on the war at West Point, which was 100% Bush; he could have given it at some location symbolic of the dire need to invest in America’s many domestic problems. Where exactly did Obama go wrong? From a progressive vantage point, he seems to have made a classic pact with the devil in order to reinforce his political capital. A writer I knew wrote a book called The Liberal Dilemma in which he outlined the problem everyone on the left faces in this country. How adamantly does one stick to one’s progressive ideals (and remaining marginalized without power) versus how much does one compromise those ideals in order to obtain power (in order to actually accomplish much-needed reforms.) Last night, Obama went too far on the compromise end of this continuum and may have fallen off the continuum entirely. 

Garry Wills, below, expresses the betrayal well. The item, at bottom, about Dan Senor’s support of the speech shows just how far he went. I met Dan Senor in the Green Zone in Baghdad in December 2003, where he was a high-powered Bush flak supporting the Iraq War who sat in with several other Green Zone warriors on a meeting our veteran and military family group had with Paul Bremer’s assistant. Senor was interested in us, he said, because a visit by the parents of soldiers in a hot war zone was “unprecedented,” something reminiscent of Russian mothers taking buses to visit their sons in places like Chechnya. Senor is now co-author of a book in stores reveling in Israel as a modern free-enterprise miracle, an “exceptionalist” argument that totally dismisses Palestinian rights. That someone like Dan Senor is supportive of Obama’s decision to escalate in Afghanistan only underlines that the decision was a bad one.

It will now take time to tell how really bad the decision is to send 30,000 more young American targets into a doomed war. John McCain said, “the worst thing we can do in Afghanistan is pursue half-measures.” To me, that means either heed the hard historic realities of counter-insurgency warfare and go all-out and send in 500,000 plus troops equipped with our most super-lethal weaponry and unburdened with moral concerns for killing civilians — or use our intelligence and diplomatic powers to remove our military forces and take a different tact. Trying to have it both ways like Obama has done is only doing exactly what we did in Vietnam — escalating the violence to avoid the really hard decisions and advance the crisis to a later date. As Stanley Karnow wrote about the war in Vietnam, our escalation decisions were about the “prestige of the American government” and not about “winning,” since McNamara and others knew early on that was impossible. That Obama chose West Point to give his speech only emphasizes how much “the prestige of the American government” — and especially the prestige of our post-Vietnam brotherhood of generals — played in his decision. He seems to have employed his well-known intellectual and analytic powers to bolster his political position in a war culture rather than using those powers and his bully pulpit to extricate the nation from the disastrous legacy of the Bush/Cheney period. He took the easy road. Tragically, it could have been different, and he could have given an altogether different speech outlining why, for our own good as a nation, we cannot afford this war any longer — and how we are going to honorably extricate our military without abandoning the Afghan people. He would have had to concede a hit on our “prestige,” but in the end it would have gone down in history as a “profile in courage” just like Kennedy’s when he stood up to Curtis LeMay in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We in the peace movement now have our work cut out for us to continue to speak truth about this doomed war and to hold the Obama’s feet to the fire on his declared July 2011 withdrawal.

…..I first met Bob Shell at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York city while attending a Photography Expo at the Jacob Javits Center back in 1995. At the time, Bob was the editor in chief of Shutterbug, one of the largest photography publications in America. We were introduced at the convention by a mutual friend, Reiko Ikeda a representative of MegaPress, a photography syndication group based in Tokyo. I was represented by Miss Ikeda as was Bob, so the three of us decided to meet back at Bob’s hotel after various convention activities to meet for drinks and dinner. I also asked Bob to review a portfolio of photographs that I brought along with hopes that Bob would review the pictures for an editorial he would later publish in Shutterbug magazine.

After that initial meeting in New York, Bob and I became friends. He lived and worked in Radford, Virginia, so we spent most of our time, over many years communicating by phone about photography and related matters. A regular part of our conversation centered around the use of various cameras and lighting techniques each of us employed when working with models.

There was a particular model that Bob mentioned quite often, her name was Marion Franklin. They developed a friendship and eventually became lovers. Ms. Franklin enjoyed being photographed by Bob and enjoyed modeling for him on numerous occasions. She apparently was a big fan of my book Obsessions, a result of Bob’s earlier recommendation to find a book publisher. We talked often about making a trip down to Radford to photograph Marion, as well as other models that Bob frequently worked with in the Radford area.

That trip was never meant to be. On June 3, 2003, Marion died during a photo shoot at Bob’s studio. He was later prosecuted, and convicted in September of 2007. He is presently serving a 32 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and other charges.

Bob and I communicated numerous times after Marion’s death. He explained the tragic events of that fateful day and implored his innocence of the charges levied by his claims of an overzealous prosecutor who won conviction by jury trial on September 3, 2007.

After Bob’s conviction, I lost track of him for a while. I scoured the internet trying to figure out where he was sent to serve his sentence. A year passed and then a couple of things happened in the fall of 2008. I received an email from a friend of Bob’s, who also believes that he was wrongfully convicted. I was contacted because Bob had been asking about me and sought my help. I responded in kind, still believing in his innocence, I conferred with several of my attorney friends for advise and a course of action to have Bob’s case reopened.

At around the same time, I became friends with a renowned private investigator who has since offered support in having a closer look at Bob’s case. We have already uncovered various problems with the prosecutions case, especially in the area of mitigation and will keep readers informed of our course of action over the coming months. The habeas corpus clock is ticking for Bob. He has already exercised most of his standard appeals. Short of clemency from the governor of Virginia or a new trial, Bob is imprisoned for life unless someone that believes in his innocence takes action. To learn more about Bob’s case log on to www.bobshelltruth.com. TW

Posted by John Grant

This ran in the Philadelphia Daily News yesterday, and so far it has received the usual array of lunatic and blood-thirsty responses about “all you liberals” who want to coddle terrorists. Sorry, but America and Americans can handle the truth and it’s time reasonable citizens stood up and demanded it be given to them directly and in full. The issue is not fear of Muslims; the issue is our misguided and wasteful wars.  
JG

Getting the Fort Hood murders right
By John Grant
Op-ed, Philadelphia Daily News, November 18, 2009

REFERRING to post-9/11 anti-Muslim reaction and the Bush administration’s rush to war, Susan Sontag said: “By all means, let’s mourn together. But let’s not be stupid together.” The 13 murders by Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, seem to be provoking a similar strain of stupidity in American politics.

Once the shooting occurred, theories began whipping around like confetti in the wind. At this point, only Hasan really knows why he went postal. But some incendiary clues are flying around in this storm.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) made news by wasting no time to declare on Fox News that the murders were “the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.” This was after he said, “It’s premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan.”

Then there’s Justin Raimondo, editorial director of Antiwar.com, upset at the “touchy-feely” talk about Hasan’s job counseling soldiers for post-traumatic stress syndrome. “There was nothing wrong, psychologically” with Hasan – his act was “rational” and due to his anti-war attitudes as a Muslim. “It is perfectly possible,” Raimondo wrote, “Hasan was recruited into al Qaeda, a ’sleeper’ to be awakened at the right moment.”

These men were both pouring gasoline on the embers of 9/11, when we should be tamping down the madness. Instead of whipping up another Muslim demonization cycle or misguided support for armed anti-war resistance, we should take a deep breath and, with Sontag’s words in mind, ask ourselves how the nation got bogged down in an endless War on Terror and two counterinsurgency wars of occupation.

This time, let’s try something new and try to understand the thing rather than acting like a bull pawing the dust in front of a red cape. Let’s put Hasan on trial, and let’s be as open as possible and share information with the American people as we do it. The obsession for secrecy established by the Bush administration is something Americans have the strength to back away from. To paraphrase a famous quote, Americans can handle the truth.

If Hasan exchanged e-mails with someone connected to al Qaeda, fine. But let’s finally have the courage to honestly assess just what the heck the al Qaeda boogeyman really is.

Many very smart people have for a long time seen it as an overblown network of dangerous people – angry at things the U.S. and its western allies have done in their lands.

Let’s try something new and take people like Osama bin Laden at their word. For instance, bin Laden has written that his goal is to make us spend ourselves into bankruptcy. If that’s true, then let’s suck it up and not escalate our war in Afghanistan.

Let’s remove our troops and help facilitate a stable relationship between India and Pakistan, a bitter rivalry that contributes hugely to Afghanistan’s instability. This would advance regional stability much better than more troops and predator drones. Being a military provocateur in the region aggravates the India-Pakistan problem and does nothing to lessen the grotesque corruption that plagues Pakistan.

As for Hasan, for our own good, let’s ask how an otherwise reportedly decent man who at least initially seemed eager to serve his country was put in a bind that led to mass murder. And let’s do it even if he exchanged e-mails with people who Lieberman calls “Islamic extremists.”

Belief is not illegal here. Acts are. It does no reasonable American any good to turn Hasan’s crime into a witch hunt that provokes more hatred.

Co-workers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center reportedly thought Hasan was “psychotic,” suggesting the military was remiss in not discharging him. In hindsight, it’s clear he should’ve been dealt with.

But if we’re going to purge soldiers for psychotic behavior, let’s not focus only on those opposed to our wars. Considering Abu Ghraib and other atrocities, it’s clear there are plenty of psychotics in our ranks friendly to wars in Muslim countries.

Beyond all the reaction, there’s a profound lesson in the narrative of Hasan. We need to be coolheaded, fair-minded and smart enough to recognize it.

Why was there no apparent avenue for someone like Hasan with such a clear and pronounced moral conflict vis-a-vis U.S. war policy to be classified as a conscientious objector? His government-paid skills could have been used somewhere other than a war zone in a Muslim country.

The fact of heinous murder is easy to grasp in Hasan’s case, and he’ll pay dearly. The more difficult but possibly more useful lesson may be in how and why U.S. war policy is able to turn an apparently decent man into a bloodthirsty killer.

John Grant is a Vietnam vet and member of Veterans for Peace. E-mail: grantphoto@comcast.net .

…..Things couldn’t have been going better for Charles Hall in the mid 90s. A talented writer/creative director working for one of the leading advertising agencies in the country, Chiat Day Advertising in New York City. A creative person in that position worked on multi million dollar advertising campaigns with expense accounts to bring to fruition their ideas to promote and sell a variety of blue chip products.

Charles invited friends over to his girlfriend’s loft to celebrate his 30th birthday, listen to some music, one of his many pleasures outside of his love for advertising. The following day he received a phone call that would change his life. Someone attempted to rape a friend of his at the party. The tragedy became a rallying cry to take creative action, a public service campaign was born entitled; THIS IS NOT AN INVITATION TO RAPE ME. Charles pooled his resources in the advertising community to draw attention to the hideous criminal act of that evening, raising awareness to force people to think about their sexual conduct and the ramifications of improper behavior.

Charles contacted a group of photographers to join him in bringing awareness to his cause, by contributing photographs that would appear in a variety of popular culture magazines. The contributing photographers were Ellen Von Unwerth, Daniella Federricci, Moshe Brahka, Mario de Lopez, Walter Chin, Howard Schatz and Tony Ward.

Charles was very successful in getting his message across and years later 2007/08 was invited by the government of Scotland to launch the campaign overseas.

The studio is pleased to announce that Charles Hal, now a professor at the VCU Brandcenter, in Richmond, Virginial is at it again, this time bringing the campaign to the city of his birth Philadelphia, with the generous support of The Ortner Center for Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. A new series of images will be produced and exhibited at the Fox gallery and around campus from February 17th to March 5, 2010. Anyone that is interested in helping us support Mr. Hall in his effort’s please contact the studio at tony@tonyward.com.

….The studio was recently invited to attend a charity event to raise awareness of the international scourge of sex trafficking of children, to be held in Philadelphia at the Salt Art Gallery, on November 14th, 2009. Ms. Kristin Huggins, a former student of Temple University is part of a group of young women who volunteer their time and energy to raise funds to thwart this growing international problem. Kristin took some time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions about the cause for our readership.

TW: How did you become involved in History Starts Now?

KH: The movie Traffic brought this issue to the center of my conscience, and when I heard about the charity, History Starts Now. They put out a casting call for models to walk in their Fashion Gives Back yearly event.  They ended up needing me for more volunteering, and I signed up to help organize their events. History Starts Now’s focus is twofold: spreading awareness of the enormity and horror of this crime, and raising money to fight this problem legally. We feel that the most effective way to stop sexual slavery is through the legal system. Very few buyers are successfully prosecuted. Less than ten percent of all arrests related to this crime are the clients, and over 61 percent of cases pursued are thrown out of court. Until the demand for underage prostitutes is curtailed, our nation’s children are at risk. One organization we work with on these issues is Redlight Children’s Campaign, which is headed by attorney, NYU professor, and Priority Films founder, Guy Jacobson. While people often hear of these crimes occurring in Southeast Asia, Columbia, and Eastern Europe, the media often overlooks how many American kids are victimized each year. History Starts Now’s primary focus is American children.

TW: I hear about it all the time in the news these days, which likely make’s the issue more like a pandemic, it’s spreading across many borders.

KH: According to Unicef, over 2 million children and young women are implicated worldwide in sex trafficking. Interpol considers this to be the third largest international criminal activity, but other groups feel it is second only to drug trafficking. Estimates on the revenue generated vary widely, as so much goes untracked. Anywhere from 9 to 20 billion is generated each year from sex trafficking.

TW: What is the age range of the victims of this type of crime? 

KH: In America, the average age of entry is 12 to 14 years old. Victims under 10 are less common but definitely exist within our own country’s borders. According to a study by Shared Hope International,  the average age of entry correlates to the average age of runaways. The most common form of underage prostitution is survival sex; the victim feels compelled to perform sexual acts for food, shelter, or some other “necessity.”  One Nevada treatment center discovered that roughly 30% of the victims they encountered were originally pimped by a family member. A 2006 Shared Hope International report financed by the U.S. Department of Justice proclaimed that incest was a training ground for underage prostitutes; some agencies claimed over 70% of all child prostitutes they encountered were sexually abused. Over 90% were supposedly physically abused.

TW: Which criminal element or organized crime group is at the head of the trafficking or are there a number of groups in the US and abroad?

KH: There is no singular crime entity at the root of this industry. There are many. In America, gangs often connect with female runaways, systematically hooking young women on drugs, while offering them “protection.”  When they feel their victims are dependent on them, they force these young women to prostitute themselves in exchange for drugs and “protection.” 
The pimp model is common. Their handlers often have a dozen adolescents that they manage, relying on a network of fellow pimps and facilitators to make their operations feasible and profitable.  Sex traffickers communicate to each other, letting each other know where they can sell without police interference. Facilitators include taxi drivers that direct customers to the location of victims, government and law enforcement officials that create, sustain, and enlarge loopholes, making these crimes profitable, and online websites that encourage pedophilia fantasies, harvesting the next generation of customers, often directing them to in-person stimuli.
Another significant trend  in this dark industry is moving the “merchandise” off the streets, making use of the Internets cloak of anonymity.Children are circulated through circuits, usually specific truck stops, hotels, and motels that have been scoped out. Facilitators help to connect potential customers to the pimps, thus preventing crackdowns by local law enforcement. Minors in group homes and foster care are targeted, often being lured in by an older boyfriend/friend promising love and affection.

TW: Does the crime impact primarily females or males as well?

KH: American boys are also victimized in this industry.  In the book, For Money or Love: Boy Prostitution in America, Robert Lloyd estimated that 300,000 boys are being trafficked right now in America. Referred to as chickens, they have similar profiles as their female counterparts, including a history of incest, mental, and physical abuse. While they are usually in “gay” capitals. it isn’t unheard of in small towns.

Sexual abuse plays a huge role in creating boy prostitutes. On average, their first sexual experience, typically with an older male partner, is at 9.6 years old. Most enter the business after running away, feeling conflicted over their supposed sexual identity, and unable to turn to their parents for guidance. Sadly, about half of these boys are thrown out for their “sexual identity”, when in fact, they were usually coerced into their initial encounters by sexual predators.