Trump supporters gather outside courthouse and ask: Who among us hasn’t paid for sex?

Donald Trump has not been accused of paying for sex, but several supporters protesting outside of his trial on Monday wanted to make it clear that they have. It seems the crowds that come out to protest the persecution of the former president are getting smaller, and weirder

…

Today, however, the crowd had thinned to a handful of true believers and true characters – those who don’t leave their house without a giant flag, a bullhorn, and an offensive T-shirt they made themselves.

It’s not only that the crowds are getting smaller, it’s that they are getting significantly weirder.

Of the people willing to step up to a microphone outside the courthouse and defend Mr Trump for allegedly paying off a porn star to hide his alleged affair from prospective voters, two offered something of a wild defence: that they opposed the charges because they too had paid for sex on more than one occasion, and assumed most men had done the same.

It didn’t matter to them that Mr Trump is not being accused of paying for sex, but rather accused of having embarked on several extra-marital affairs and falsifying business records over payments made to hide those affairs from the voting public in 2016.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not so sure that the author wasn’t taken in by a Yes Men style prank. Because honestly, that sounds like satire and the satire wasn’t coming from the author of the article.

minorcoma,

Reality has become indistinguishable from satire.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I agree, but I think there are hints here and there.

For example-

“What do you think I do in Thailand, just sit in a chair?” he asked, incredulously. “That’s what we do as men, you know?”

Thailand isn’t really famous for it’s ciswomen prostitutes…

deranger,

Thailand isn’t really famous for it’s ciswomen prostitutes…

Uhh, what? Yes it is.

snooggums,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

That isn’t what they are famous for.

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

They’re famous for that too.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

If you say so…

vice.com/…/a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-thailands-…

deranger,

That doesn’t refute my point. Thailand has ladyboys, sure, but there are easily 10x the number of female sex workers. It’s one of the most well known cis sex tourism destinations.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I think you’re confused. I’m not talking about the reality, I’m talking about why I think this is a hint that it’s satire.

Asafum,

But they’re saying why it shouldn’t be taken as satire, because in reality that is a place you go to for ciswomen too.

I’ve rotted my brain enough in the past trying to figure out what Trump reality is by watching Fox news that I can’t be bothered to rot it anymore, but I’d bet that fox or Newsmax is twisting this as “Trump unfairly being brought to court for paying for sex” which is why these jokers are out there arguing that “we all do it.” Kind of like the “locker room talk” from his first election that supposedly all guys do… :/

Diplomjodler3,

Isn’t that a crime in the US? Did these people just confess to crimes? But of course they’re “conservatives” so it’s OK.

Lucidlethargy,

It’s actually fully legal in some areas. Vegas comes to mind.

irreticent,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

Actually, prostitution is not legal in Clark County (where Las Vegas is). It is legal in the rest of Nevada, though. The sex workers that advertise in Vegas are based just outside of the county lines and travel into the city when called. The cops pretty much just look the other way so it seems legal there.

BruceTwarzen,

Not if you film it.

frezik,

IIRC, the person who owns the production company can’t be the one getting it on. Even that’s probably not enforced much.

lost_faith,

What an amazing little carveout, and since almost everyone has a phone with a camera…

IamSparticles,

This was the plot of an episode of Boston Legal. I wouldn’t assume it would actually hold up in court. In the story a professor of sex studies had paid a prostitute to answer some interview questions for a study, and he “got carried away”. But he was filming it, so they argued that he was actually making a pornographic film, which is protected speech.

snekerpimp,

Not a crime everywhere in the US, cat houses are still around in Nevada. I’m assuming the gentlemen making these statements frequented a couple cities in that state to come to this assumption.

Satisfaction,

It’s just locker room talk

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

If you’re rich, they let you do it.

Worx,

TBF, I wouldn’t want people to be persecuted just for saying out loud that they did a crime. Imagine if I went outside today and shouted, “My house doesn’t have a secondary fire escape and is therefore outside building regulations!”. Should I then be investigated for committing a crime, or should someone just tell me to shut up and stop shouting in the middle of the road?

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I would say it depends on the type of crime and the amount of detail. If you say out loud, “I murdered John Smith last Tuesday” and John Smith had been murdered last Tuesday, I think you should probably get investigated for the murder of John Smith.

If you say “I’ve had sex with a prostitute” but don’t go further than that in terms of any details, definitely not.

heavy,

Slow down, I think nuance might not be well understood by this person.

Worx,

Hence why I picked such a banal example :)

TrickDacy,

Oddly specific, weird example

Worx,

Haha definitely not relevant to me 😅

I was just struggling to think of an example of a crime which wouldn’t warrant investigation. Flying Squid has a good example further down of confessing to a murder which had just happened, which would need to be investigated probably

Tyfud,

Home ownership be like

Infynis,
@Infynis@midwest.social avatar

Maybe this person should be investigated

TrickDacy,

Haha yeah you’d expect an example to be something somewhat close to a thing that people would actually say.

dogslayeggs,

Not everywhere. Prostitution is legal in Nevada (just not within the city limits of Vegas).

RememberTheApollo_, (edited )

Well, let’s legalize prostitution. Regulate it, tax it, legitimize it.

Conservatives: hell no, we can’t have that depravity and vice. We need to punish women for sex outside of marriage. Oh, yeah…and no abortions for them either. (Unless it’s my daughter or mistress)

danc4498,

Oh yeah, and make it more difficult for those trapped in their situation to get out of it.

RememberTheApollo_,

Gotta keep women in their place and under control, even if we say it’s the wrong place. It’s all about control and restricting their autonomy.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

hey producing more slave class is important to. its not just about the women.

FiniteBanjo,

I see this sentiment a lot from the uneducated crowd, but unfortunately human trafficking seems to increase whenever sex work is legalized so I cannot condone it.

RememberTheApollo_, (edited )

“Uneducated”

I think you need to do some reading, friend. Human trafficking is already a big problem. Legitimizing sex work and regulating it removes t some of the incentives to operate behind the scenes, just like legalizing pot, and frankly you get rid of the whole under-age thing because no government entity is going to allow that.

S/he’s right.

FiniteBanjo,

I wish it were true, but it’s really not. Human trafficking increases in both countries that legalize sex work and also countries where the humans are trafficked from. Tons of studies over many decades illustrate the cold hard truth.

RememberTheApollo_,

Well, damn…you’re right. TIL.

…harvard.edu/…/does-legalized-prostitution-increa…

The study’s findings include:

Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legalized prostitution report a greater incidence of human trafficking inflows.

The effect of legal prostitution on human trafficking inflows is stronger in high-income countries than middle-income countries. Because trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation requires that clients in a potential destination country have sufficient purchasing power, domestic supply acts as a constraint.

someguy3, (edited )

The problem with these case studies are that they are small. If you don’t know what’s what and your pimp tells you it’s illegal and you can’t go to the police, you might believe them. If it’s widely and commonly known that it’s legal and that the police will actually help you, then that will change the results. That and if you throw the weight and resources of, oh let’s say, DEA marijuana enforcement against human trafficking, that will also change the results.

FiniteBanjo,

Your theory is not supported by data. Massive amounts of data collected over decades.

frezik,

Human trafficking is there, anyway. The victims tend to be afraid, because they’re forced to do otherwise illegal things, and therefore don’t want to come forward. So what often happens under legalization is that a whole bunch of victims suddenly come out, which is now recorded as an increase in human trafficking.

FiniteBanjo,

So you’re saying it’s okay to torture and rape even more women and children because there were already women and children being raped and tortured anyways? I’m not seeing the logic, mate.

Studies show increases in the country where humans are sourced from, not explainable by “victims suddenly coming out”.

frezik,

No, try to read more carefully.

FiniteBanjo,

No, you try to read more carefully.

nkat2112,
@nkat2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

Royally ratioed.

FiniteBanjo,

As if 20 down arrows would change how I feel about human trafficking.

HuntressHimbo,

It might have encouraged you to notice that they are saying that the increase you are talking about is likely a statistical anomaly caused by the depressive effect sex work being illegal has on victims coming forward.

Put simply, sex work being illegal is beneficial to human traffickers because it keeps victims from seeking help. If you are a victim of a crime you’re more likely to come forward when you are not likely to get charged yourself for the trouble of being trafficked.

FiniteBanjo, (edited )

I’ve already explained that the victims coming forward does not account for the increase in human trafficking from countries where they’re being sourced from. Plus, it’s not just a 5% uptick, in many cases the number is several times or magnitudes higher than before legalization of prostitution.

What is happening is demand is being created far faster than domestic supply.

ThirdWorldOrder,

Seems to be working well in the Netherlands, mate.

FiniteBanjo,

Not according to the Netherlands, mate.

nationaalrapporteur.nl/…/dadermonitor-mensenhande…

According to them, Human Trafficking more than doubled over the observed period. They also saw despite the higher number of victims the number of suspects decreased.

Also a 2022 report in English shows the trend continued strong: dutchrapporteur.nl/…/annual-figures-human-traffic…

TenderfootGungi,

If we are going to make it illegal, we really need to flip the laws and make it illegal to hire one. This would give those in the business a legal way of asking for help.

frezik,

Not sure what you mean. Soliciting a prostitute is already illegal in most states.

rasmus,

Well in Sweden it’s legal to sell but illegal to buy

ThirdWorldOrder,

It makes my head hurt how ridiculous conservatives are and how they spin things. They’re only making their lives harder. Imagine the amount of tax revenue that could be collected from legalizing prostitution.

someguy3,

Let’s say it together: they don’t actually care about fiscal responsibility.

aesthelete,

It’s obvious that they don’t because they only ever work one variable (spending) of the fucking equation:

spending - income = deficit

Even if you stop all of your spending entirely, you’ll remain in debt forever if you never have any income, so it’s a losing way to fix the problem, but that won’t stop them or their idiot voters from insisting upon it.

NauticalNoodle,

Their only consistency is inconsistency.

UnderpantsWeevil,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not a homogenous group. You’ve absolutely got libertarians on one end, wanting to dissolve the state and legalize a market for children as sexual commodities on one end. And then you’ve got the Holy Rollers on the order end, who think coffee and cigarettes need to be next on the chopping block.

They formed an alliance of convenience to crush the labor movement. But now they are very awkward bedfellows.

snooggums,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Also conservatives: Yeah, we still pay for sex. Rules only apply to other people.

Revan343,

They legitimately believe it should be fine to pay for sex, but should be illegal to be paid for sex.

Bristlecone,

Most sex workers are women, so it tracks

slurpeesoforion,

I wonder how Lindsey feels.

Daft_ish,

You should take a look at some of the jons they pick up in prostitution stings. Overnight in jail for soliciting a prostitute and church the next day.

Revan343,

Well yeah, they probably need to go to church after all that sinning.

I couldn’t give a fuck about their religious proclivities, I’m more concerned with how they vote

Daft_ish,

Polling tells us they are one and the same.

jjjalljs,

That old post that posited conservatism is “ingroups to protect, outgroups to bind” was really on the mark.

nkat2112,
@nkat2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

True! Isn’t there a famous quote related to that? Trying to recall…

jjjalljs,

The original is from here: crookedtimber.org/…/liberals-against-progressives…

I think it was just some guy on the Internet, but it’s a compelling description.

snownyte,
snownyte avatar

They're mad that they had to pay for sex because they expect to get their wee-wees wet for free.

danc4498,

Just like Jesus from his pedestal… Let whoever amungst us hasn’t paid for sex throw the first felony.

snooggums,
@snooggums@midwest.social avatar

Actually Jesus said “Let whoever among us who hasn’t falsified business records throw the first felony.”

The paying for sex was a mistranslation.

dogslayeggs,

It’s an easy mistranslation to make, especially when you had a large group of scholars reading hundreds of accounts of stuff that happened hundreds of years earlier written in several different languages and deciding which stories were “real” and worth putting in one book. Then a thousand years later you had another group of people translating THAT.

I’m surprised there aren’t more stories about Jesus falsifying his business records after trying to cover up a sex scandal.

SquishyPandaDev,
@SquishyPandaDev@yiffit.net avatar

FFS he is not in trouble for paying for sex. He is in trouble for paying hush money using campaign funds. Good lord, conservatives are so brainwashed

NABDad,

Just like Clinton wasn’t in trouble for the blowjob. He was in trouble for lying about it under oath. But everyone who talks about it now says he got impeached for a blowjob.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

Exactly. He got impeached for lying about questioning unrelated to the investigation on him after the actual subject of the investigation bore no fruit.

Asafum,

It’s exactly why Republicans cried “purgery trap” when people wanted to have Trump testify as president. They knew what they did during the Clinton investigation and just assume Democrats would somehow “force” Trump to lie about something completely unrelated…

The Clinton investigation was over real estate and somehow made it’s way over to blow jobs.

disguy_ovahea, (edited )

I just had this argument with a friend of mine. It’s even legal to pay someone to sign an NDA. The charges are “Falsifying business records in the first degree.”

It’s not a “hush-money trial” it’s “criminal business fraud.”

SkybreakerEngineer,

Don’t forget election interference

disguy_ovahea,

That’s a separate trial in Georgia. He also has the classified documents case tried in Florida.

ickplant,
@ickplant@lemmy.world avatar

The Stormy Daniels case is also about election interference. He interfered in the election by paying to conceal critical information that may have changed voters’ minds.

disguy_ovahea,

Where do you see that in the charges? I read through them all and didn’t see it.

ickplant,
@ickplant@lemmy.world avatar

It’s not in the charges, it’s the nature of the case. This isn’t my opinion but that of legal expert from the podcast Legal Scrutiny. And they know their shit.

disguy_ovahea,

I could see conviction in this case being used as evidence in the election fraud trial, but he’s not being tried by a federal prosecutor. It’s a criminal trail brought up by the State of NY.

the_crotch,

I mean, this is right out of the liberal playbook. They’ve been screaming for 30 years that Clinton was impeached for a blowjob. He wasn’t. He was impeached for purjury, trying to cover up the blowjob. Same shit different party.

YurkshireLad,

The fact that the article leads with “SKETCH” makes me think it’s satire.

MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown,

TIL “sketch” has an additional meaning in UK English.

Thanks!

YurkshireLad,

Is Skit the North American equivalent?

MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown,

Skit and sketch can be used interchangeably in reference to a short performance, usually comedic, but they do not have any particular connection to current events other than current events are often good material for parody.

We do not use either word in the context of satirical writing.

DarkGamer,
DarkGamer avatar

Trump, champion and hero to the lowest common denominator

crusa187,

Chud Life Baby 😎

Yes, let’s legalize and give protections to all the sex workers.

Chuds: No, not like that!!

DudeImMacGyver,

Me, I haven’t.

Ioughttamow,

This, isn’t the onion?

FiniteBanjo,

I had the same reaction last week when a bunch of GOP reps starting speaking in tongues on the floor.

harrys_balzac,

That made my physically ill when I read about it. That’s some serious theatrics and/or mental illness.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

Satire is dead, reality killed it.

echodot,

Most countries remove their moron politicians. The United States just allows them to remain president until the end of term.

CileTheSane,
@CileTheSane@lemmy.ca avatar

3rd world countries like the US have all sorts of backwards politics.

Daft_ish,

Ok but like we know you already have the incel vote on lock down.

n0m4n,

Melania pays and pays and pays…

ripcord,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Like, she is paying some dude on the side and you’re implying she does it all the time, or…?

n0m4n,

She is married to Donald. Every day of her life, she pays.

WhiskyTangoFoxtrot,

I really don’t care, do U?

ivanafterall,
ivanafterall avatar

If they're paying for it, they're not following his advice, which is to take it by force.

Sam_Bass,

That statement alone tells you all you need to know about his people

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