Finally... some sanity about the Super Bowl Hooker Myth

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-0...-up-in-dallas/

The alarm bells reached peak decibel in November, when Dallas Police Sergeant Louis Felini told the The Dallas Morning News that between 50,000 and 100,000 prostitutes could descend on the metroplex for the Super Bowl. The call to outrage had sounded.




His estimate was astonishing. At the higher figure, it meant that every man, woman and child holding a ticket would have their own personal hooker, from the vice presidential wing of FedEx to Little Timmy from Green Bay.
And if you believed a study commissioned by the Dallas Women's Foundation, the hordes would include 38,000 underage prostitutes. Doe-eyed beauties from the Heartland would be peddled like Jell-O shots at the Delta Phi soiree.
Official Dallas would not be caught flat-footed. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the FBI pledged extra manpower to fight "human trafficking." The Arlington Police Department put up billboards near Cowboys Stadium. They featured flashing photos of busted johns, warning visitors: We don't take kindly to perverts like you, son.
Even the Shapiro Law Firm leaped in. Noting that an estimated 40,000 hookers showed up in Dallas for the NBA All-Star game last year, it wanted to make sure that, should a hedge fund manager find himself ensnared in naked compromise, "our attorneys provide experienced defense for sex crimes, including the solicitation of a prostitute."
The city was gearing up for a massive invasion of skanks and sex fiends. It would be like Normandy, only with way more plastic surgery—the largest single gathering of freaks and pedophiles the world has ever seen. At least outside of a Vatican staff meeting.
But if Dallas is like any other Super Bowl—or Olympics or World Cup, for that matter—today's four-alarm panic will tinkle as softly as a servant's bell by next week. All evidence says that America's call girls will be at home, watching the game of TV, just like you and me.
Judging by Super Bowls past, the mass migration of teenage sex slaves is nothing more than myth.
Read between his very terse lines, and you can tell that Brian McCarthy isn't happy. He's a spokesman for the NFL. Every year he's forced to hear from mopes like yours truly, wondering why his customers are adulterers and child molesters.
The routine is the same in every Super Bowl city. The media beats the drum of impending invasion, warning that anywhere from 15,000 to 100,000 hookers will soon arrive. Politicians lather on their special sauce of manufactured outrage. Cops and prosecutors vow stings and beefed up manpower.
By implication, the NFL's wealthiest and most connected fans—captains of industry and senators from Utah—will be plotting a week of sexual rampage not seen since the Vikings sailed on Scotland. And they must be stopped.
"This is urban legend that is pure pulp fiction," the NFL's McCarthy says. "I would refer you to your local law enforcement officials."
So that's what we did. Meet police Sergeant Tommy Thompson of Phoenix, which hosted the 2008 Super Bowl. "We may have had certain precincts that were going gangbusters looking for prostitutes, but they were picking up your everyday street prostitutes," Thompson says of his vice cops. "They didn't notice any sort of glitch in the number of prostitution arrests leading up to the Super Bowl."
Conspicuously noted: He doesn't recall a single arrest of an underage girl.
Perhaps Phoenix was an anomaly. So let's go to Tampa, host of Super Bowl 2009. Police spokeswoman Andrea Davis says her department ran special operations on the sex trade. They came up empty. "We didn't see a huge influx in prostitutes coming into Tampa," she says. "The arrests were not a lot higher. They were almost the same."
Now it could be that both departments are incompetent, mistaking tens of thousands of women in fishnet stockings for a very large synchronized swimming team. So let's travel to Europe, where the hooker influx for the World Cup is routinely pegged at 40,000. If anyone's going to break the record for the world's largest orgy, it's the Godless Eurotrash, right?
Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup. U.S congressmen warned the promiscuous Krauts that fleshly opportunism would not be tolerated. So the government spent millions of euros to crush human trafficking. No one could say the Germans were perv enablers.
But apparently 39,995 of the blasphemers had carburetor trouble in Prague and never showed. The final Cup tally for forced prostitution arrests: 5. German brothels couldn't even report a surge in business. And a further study by the Swedish government ruled "the 40,000 estimate was unfounded and unrealistic."
There don't appear to be solid figures for last summer's South African Cup, but anecdotal evidence says the sex business was slow.
The only concrete numbers we have: Museums showed record attendance.
This isn't to say that the sex trade isn't alive and well. It is. Nor is it to imply there are no such thing as teen prostitutes. There are. The problem is that most of what we believe remains fixed in a blaxploitation film from 1973, where menacing pimps named Lester beat their weeping charges with diamond-encrusted canes.

There's going to be a news piece on WFAA Channel 8 tonight at 10 pm about the influx of prostitutes for the Super Bowl.

I like your post Juan Pablo, but keep in mind that the Observer is the most liberal rag I have ever read and their writers take one side. In addition, the Observer owns backpage so there could be an agenda there. The Observer dedicates nearly 20 pages to strip clubs and prostitution towards the end of the publication. Couple that with backpage and their connection - I would not take that article at face value.

that doesn't make sense nitwitboy. why would the observer, who stands to make a lot of money for ads, play down the hyped-up story (myth in my opinion) of all these girls coming into town? seems they would benefit by encouraging out-of-town girls to flock to our fair city and place ads)

i've always thought the numbers were vastly inflated. seems i'm not the only one that thinks so, as the article indicates.

i mean come on... do the math. it just doesn't add up.

JPdM

inflametion...

I like your post Juan Pablo, but keep in mind that the Observer is the most liberal rag I have ever read and their writers take one side. In addition, the Observer owns backpage so there could be an agenda there. The Observer dedicates nearly 20 pages to strip clubs and prostitution towards the end of the publication. Couple that with backpage and their connection - I would not take that article at face value. Originally Posted by Nitwitboy

Since they referenced their sources, you could always verify what they wrote. Unless you disbelieve they actually contacted the people they reference, then it makes zero difference what their political leanings are. Facts cannot depend on who reports them.

Judging from the ads on various websites, I bet less that 1000 come to town

Juan Pablo I really do agree with you. The number is all crap and we all know how sources go - Much like an expert witness in court; you can find anyone to refute anothers testimony. That said, I am not disputing the article but rather why Observer chose to tackle it. They are implcit in the prostitution business in the metroplex. I know it does not make my arguement but rather I find it odd that they would choose to dispute anything on this topic. On a side note, I find it ironic that Dallas is so concerned about the prostitue infection coming to the metroplex and yet even without the superbowl, this city is so rich in adult entertainment. I have lived all over the country and I am from Los Angeles and nowhere I have been is so plentiful as Dallas. I often wonder what Dallas PD agenda really is.

A search of visiting profiles in P411 came up with under 30.

I wonder what the street walker count will be. I also wonder where they are going to stay since even the shithole motels in Arlington are sold out.

Good post, JP.

The writer does have excellent style. The article makes for a great read.

But, here is the question. Why in the world would certain factions of the community be throwing out such ridulous claims?

SL

gee i don't know... maybe asking the state for funds to combat the supposed influx of the unwashed hoards? getting the state to give them a shitload of money to combat a non-existent problem so they can pay their officers an exorbitant amount of overtime pay and maybe buy some equipment that they don't, and never have, needed? or just making the locals feel unsafe so they feel the local constabulary is actually doing something to make their pretty little suburban world safer... keeping in mind there will be an election day sooner or later.

and newspapers that want to sell copies, and ad space, surely don't want to run headlines such as ... "nothing to see here people... no influx of hookers at all!' that won't sell many papers. but bogus claims of thousands and thousand of girls, and thousands of underage girls being traffciked sell papers. and local monopoly-owned news orgs like the the DMN, owned by the greedy and corrupt Belo Corporation, would stoop to any level to make a buck.

just my thoughts...but i'm a cynical bastard.

JPdM

Yes the 100,000 is hype. A typo, lots of those going around. Or maybe the law folks are upset that not enough tutes(typo on purpose) showed up for them to play with.

Or perhaps half of the total crowd coming into town for the game or related events is paying for the other half to come. That gets us to 120,000 payees and payers.

Oh wait, lets not forget to include that pimp(guy) at the nfl experience that brought somebody that likes like a wife or girlfriend and/or a number of under age people that are walking around disguised and acting like a family but are really working and looking for new business on the sly. Yep I bet that adds up really quick.

But wait don't forget all those parties going on all over the place this week. If we count everybody at each party and then add them to the total of all the other stuff we can reach 500,000 or more. Because you just know that each and every woman going to those just has to be working. And a few of the guys must be working also just to keep from discriminating those that swing that way.

And just to be clear, almost everything above this line is just hype.

I would imagine that a number of gals are brought in on exclusive deals just like taking a gal on vacation like a cruise or a trip to the Virgin Islands. But I can't see it adding up anywhere near the typo number.

100 I can see. 1000 as a very high side number.

Maybe they ate counting in all the WAGS of the players and high end ticket buyers / guest that are coming to the games as prostitutes.

A lot of ticket buyers may actually want a little side action, but they're all primarily coming to see a football game!!! Most are coming with family/friends. They're fucking cheeseheads and Iron City beer drinkers. They're great people, but still, I'm just saying...