“It was just sex!”

A recent discussion about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s travails elicited the ‘it was just sex’ comment.

The idea that a young woman, a girl really, a few years short of adulthood, had been groomed to be a plaything for the rich and famous, effectively a toy, able to be discarded at anytime, forced to have sex with men older than her parents, was dismissed with ‘it was just sex’, is just normal stuff that people engage in sparked an interesting response.

That comment really misses the point of the exploitation Virginia Giuffre and the nameless many more young women were subjected to. During the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell it was claimed that over a hundred vulnerable young women, some as young as 14 years, were groomed to be sex toys for both Maxwell and Epstein and from there, passed around to whoever happened to be at a private gathering of rich and famous men. The promise of wealth and educational opportunities used as a lure to ‘help’ the young women out of the financial difficulties they had, but also using blackmail to ensure compliance from those invited to the parties.

Maxwell has described the young women she groomed as ‘nobodies’, ‘trash’. They were disposable people, able to be used by rich and powerful men, dehumanised as commodities, to be discarded when they have served what ever purpose they were put to.

The young women were effectively sex slaves.

(An aside: The never ending news around Bruce Lehrmann continues today, as he loses his appeal against his being ‘defamed’ by Channel 10 over the woman he is said to have raped, in Parliament House in 2019… And he claims he did not rape her, nor the woman he picked up at a strip club in Toowoomba. The sense of entitlement in the refusal to accept that when a woman does not say yes, it’s OK to have sex, just because he is who he is?)

No doubt more will be revealed when the Epstein files are released late in December. And no doubt (as is already happening) some of those powerful men will run for cover, deny any wrong doing, but the discourse around Epstein seems to paint all associates with a very nasty brush.

Grooming and trafficking young women for sex is not uncommon. In the book Ten Types of Human, Dexter Dias tells of a young Russian girl who worked as a cleaner in a hotel who was to be transferred to a luxury hotel in Moscow, but not as a cleaner or maid, but to be trafficked as a prostitute, the recommendation for the promotion came from the young woman’s supervisor, as with the Epstein girls, groomed for service, they were initially targeted by a woman whom they thought they could trust.

The young man who was to drive her to Moscow was ‘employed’ by a drug dealer, to pay for his debts.

Vulnerable people are targeted to be used by people in positions of power. Nothing new here, it has been that way seemingly for ever.  

The exploitation of vulnerable people is slavery.

Another discussion, this time dealing with poverty, homelessness and linked social issues, drugs and alcohol abuse and other linked social issues was dismissed with ‘people make their choices’, but it came from a person who has lived a privileged life, enjoying the benefits of wealth and social position.

So people choose to be poor? People choose to be homeless? Do people choose their vulnerabilities?  (Did the person raising that ‘choices’ argument choose to be in the privileged position she enjoys, or was that happenstance, luck, good fortune?)

Another story in Ten Types of Human is of a father in Nigeria who sells his own ten-year-old son into slavery so the rest of the family can afford to eat, to survive for a short while. Desperation drives people to make ‘choices’ which allow them to be exploited, and there are far too many who are ready to take on the role of exploiter. It is an ongoing catastrophe, one right under our noses, in our faces, yet invisible to most people. But business opportunities, profit opportunities, entertainment opportunities to the many who capitalise on the exploitation of others are apparent, if only we care to look, to question.

It is estimated that about 49.6 million people today are enslaved, of them about 6.3 million are subjected to forced sex, prostitution. There are more people enslaved today than at any previous time in history, and the exploitation covers a wide range of activities, and in the consumer driven world of today it seems that we cannot avoid supporting the enslavement of the most disadvantaged.

Open the computer, or turn on the phone and advertisements for Temu, and other on-line markets fill the screens, products so cheap, they really are very, very affordable, especially clothing, fashion items, all so cheap they are ‘throw away’ items, wear them once, don’t bother washing them, just bin them. No thought is given to how these items can be so affordable, but even just a moments reflection should ask that question, and perhaps, just maybe come up with an answer that the people making these goods are being exploited, working is sweat shops in far flung places, far from the gaze of anyone who cares. Just get on line and fill the wardrobe with disposable clothes.

I am assured that it costs very little to live in the places some of these items are made. Really? The claim can rarely be supported except through hear-say rationalisations.

The bombing of a ‘scam centre’ near the border of Thailand and Myanmar involved the freeing of around 1500 workers, many believed to be victims of human trafficking. According to an ABC report, the scam ‘industry’ which has formed on the Thailand/Myanmar border has more than 120,000 people working in it. People trapped in a criminal underworld from which it is difficult to escape.

A recent speech by the philosopher, A C Grayling at the Melbourne Writers Festival included a snippet about a young, rich man visiting Athens about 2500 years ago, and seeking out Socrates for a discussion, asking whether virtue is teachable. Socrates said he did not know, but asked the young man what he thought virtue was, and as he searched for a definition, Socrates challenged him until finally the young man decided he really could not define it. At that point, Socrates welcomed him into the philosopher’s corner, admitting that answers to what virtue is, under whatever circumstance, are really hard to find, and there is no one size fits all answer.

I found that particularly interesting in the context of how vulnerable people are used and abused, and how we can react to what are ‘questionable’ situations.

In the discussion on the sexual abuse of young women, the oldest profession, prostitution, was mentioned. Where prostitution is illegal, why is it that it is the prostitute who is the criminal, not the client? Could it be that those laws are written by men?

Much the same in dealing with illegal drugs. There is a senior politician in Western Australia who has been seen using cocaine. The sale and distribution of cocaine, as with most other ‘recreational drugs’ is illegal, but personal use is not. The question of virtue, if the drug is only available through a criminal network, is purchasing it supporting that criminal network? It may be interesting should that politician will be involved in writing laws that deal with drugs and criminality.

It is too easy to point the finger at the rich and famous, but how close is that sort of corruption to each of us?

This may strike close to home, when a product we purchase is so cheap that we question how it could possibly be manufactured, distributed and sold at a price which is ridiculously cheap, could it be that people vulnerable people were employed at virtually slave conditions, should we think before we buy, question how it can be that the product is so cheap?

To obsess over the crimes of Epstein and Maxwell is one thing, the people who are mentioned in the infamous files will have their comeuppance, they will face some form of punishment, whether it is the shame of that association, or to have their titles stripped from them, but they are just the tip of an iceberg.

Consumer driven capitalism has exploited the vulnerable throughout its history, the age of colonialism saw slavery as an important part of wealth generation for those who had the power to enslave, the continued fight to reduce wages, ‘the cost of living crisis’ which is laid at the foot of various governments in power, yet by shifting production to cheap labour markets and relying on importation rather than manufacturing, sees the available jobs as being in the service industries, baristas, chefs, waiting staff, care workers for the aged, Uber drivers, food delivery services, part time and casual employment without the hard fought for benefits that were seen as rights when we actually had ‘real jobs’.

The divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is widening, and the ‘haves’ have no real regard for the ‘have nots’, they are there to be exploited, whether as sex toys, or as prostitutes controlled by a criminal underclass, or the deification of the richest people on the planet who kowtow to the whims and fancies of the current President of the United States.

It was ‘just sex’ is dismissive of the abuse of the young women chosen because of their vulnerability, able to be groomed and exploited, to be discarded when no longer needed. It denies those young women the dignity which SHOULD be inherent in their being humans, but the same is true wherever people are exploited, their vulnerability because of poverty sees many trapped into work situations making ‘stuff’ to be sold at unbelievably low prices though Temu or other such online makes places. Or to scam people in online interactions but only to benefit the controllers, the criminals who effectively imprison the operators.

It was not ‘just sex’, just as the bargain picked up online at an unbelievably low price is not fair trade, it is the exploitation of vulnerable people, and just because we do not see them, all we see is the computer or phone screen with the product we are buying, it is still exploitation and our willingness to participate lends approval to that exploitation.

Possibly interesting thoughts as we embark on filling the stockings and buying up the gifts under the Christmas tree.

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