I don't know how many times I have to hear people tell me to relax for getting upset and/or telling them what I think they're saying is offensive.

When my friend told me about some "faggot" trying to hit on him and I told him how I felt about people using words like that, he told me to chill with the political correctness because we were just having a casual conversation and that I know he doesn't hate gay people so I should have "just let it slide".

Trafficking people should be, but prostitution as we define it legally hurts the people being hurt by the entire system the most. New York Magazine has an article worth reading on the subjectLink If Lucilia were a 13-year-old Chinese girl smuggled to New York and made to work in a Queens brothel, she would not be seen, in the eyes of the authorities, as a prostitute at all. She would be a sex slave, a victim of human trafficking, and if she had the good fortune to be discovered by the police, she would be given federal protection and shielded by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. But she’s not.

In this city, a U.S. citizen like Lucilia is seen by the law as a prostitute. The federal law technically applies, but local law- enforcement follows state law. And according to state law, she is a victim, yes—of statutory rape, since the legal age of consent in New York is 17. But since the rapist paid money for the privilege, she’s also a criminal, subject to arrest, prosecution, and incarceration, no matter how young she is.

What makes a 13-year-old Latina from Brooklyn a criminal and a Chinese (or Mexican, or Cambodian) girl a victim?  

</blockquote>

 But politicians don't want to change the laws for fear of being seen as "soft" on crime, but who are the laws hardest on?

The article reports that girls are prostituting themselves at younger ages (the girl this article focuses on is only 13), but that their pimps teach them to use an alias and pretend to be at least 16 (this case was in New York City where once you're 16 you're considered an adult in the law) in order to make it easier to get out of jail and....right back to working on the streets.

<blockquote>If Lucilia had been picked up three years ago not by the precinct cops but by the FBI, her life could have been entirely different. She would have been brought to a women’s crisis shelter. She would not have been prosecuted. She would have been given therapy and other services. If she were here from another country, she would have been given a temporary visa and refugee status. In this separate-but-unequal legal system, Lucilia’s only real crime was being born an American citizen.

Robert J. Flores is the head of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice. He is a former Manhattan A.D.A. who now administers the federal funds that fight the sex trafficking of minors in New York. “There’s a suggestion that this is a type of prostitution,” he says. “It’s not. It’s really the commercialized rape of our children.” Yet even he backs off from anything that looks like decriminalization. “We don’t want to see child prostitution legalized,” Flores continues. “The fact that this conduct remains illegal serves as a warning for everybody, including the teenagers, that they are doing something that’s wrong. But that does not equate with treating that child as an offender.”

Except, of course, that it does. </blockquote>

 This is almost the same as arresting people for merely using drugs, except ofcourse MUCH worse, but why do we continue to criminilize those who least deserve it? It's not only that we aren't helping them by doing so, but we're actually exacberating the problem, causing young girls to be live under these horrifying conditions even longer (if they live through it) and minimizing the chances for a return to a normal life anytime in the future. It also doesn't help stop "prostitution" or trafficking in anyway.

So, what's the point of prostitution being a crime? Anyone?

Human papillomavirus affects approximately 20 million people at this moment. Fifty percent of people will develop it at some point in their lives (eighty percent of women). It includes 100 different strains or types and over 30 of those strains are sexually transmitted. For many people, HPV will go away on its own but for many it can lead to many kinds of cancers, which are often fatal and very common in women, especially young women.

The Vaccine protects people from the most common strains of the virus and can currently be administered to people aged 9 to 26. Many insurance companies will cover the costs (I just found out mine did) and if the insurance won't, it cost 360 dollars in total--not exactly cheap but for those who can afford it, worth the cost.

My doctor asked me quite randomly if I wanted to get the vaccination because my insurance covered it and since this is the last year I know for sure I will be insured (not to mention the timing was perfect being that my last shot wil lbe scheduled for the end of the year right before I get cut off), I decided to take it.

I can not understand why parents in certain school systems are against having this vaccination be a part of mandatory school vaccinations. Prevention is always a smarter tactic, even from a financial perspective. But the most common (or at least loudest) objections I've heard to the proposal had to do with "morality"--the common fear among extremely conservative parents that giving their children anything to protect them from the potential dangers of sex is encouraging them to behave promiscuously.

Besides the fact that I don't agree with that reasoning, after receiving the shot today, it made me think, 'why do they even need to tell their children it has to do with sex'? I know that might sound stupid in a way and I don't think keeping any one in the dark about anything is ever the best way to go, but if that's their main concern, it can easily be solved by just not telling them what exactly it's for. Wouldn't a simple, it's a protection for common causes of cancer suffice?

The main thing I remember about getting my childhood vaccinations was the fear of the needle. I may have asked my parents or doctor what it was for and/or what that disease was but I can imagine them explaining it was for a type of cancer without going into the sexual aspects of it would have satisfied me..especially if I was only 11 or 12 years old (which they said is the best age although it CAN be given as young as 9).

And for the record it was the least painful shot I've ever received in my life (both the actual shot itself and the lack of soreness afterwards) and I didn't run out of my doctor's office to make a booty call because I had it even though I was aware that it helps protect against common STD's.

I really just don't get some people. Is ideaology really more important than their child's life?