The common perception of sex trafficking involves a young, passive woman captured by an aggressive trafficker. The woman is hidden and waiting to be rescued by law enforcement. She is probably white, because, as the legal scholar Jayashri Srikantiah writes, the “iconic victim” of trafficking usually is depicted this way.

This is essentially the plot of the “Taken” movies, in which teenage Americans are kidnapped abroad and sold into sexual slavery. Such concerns fuel viral posts and TikTok videos about alleged but unproven trafficking in IKEA parking lots, malls and pizza shops.

This is not how sex trafficking usually occurs.

Since 2013, I have researched human trafficking in the midwestern U.S. In interviews with law enforcement, medical providers, case managers, victim advocates and immigration lawyers, I found that even these frontline workers inconsistently define and apply the label “trafficking victim” – especially when it comes to sex trafficking. That makes it harder for these professionals to get trafficked people the help they request.

So here are the facts and the law.

What Is Sex Trafficking?

The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 provides the official legal definition for sex and labor trafficking in the United States.

It makes “trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age” a federal crime.

In short, to legally qualify as sex trafficking, a sex act involving an adult must include “force, fraud, and coercion.” This could look like someone – a family member, a romantic partner or a market facilitator colloquially described as a “pimp” or “madam” – physically abusing or threatening another adult into sex for money or resources.

With minors, any and all sexual exchanges – that is, trading sex for something of value like cash or food – are considered sex trafficking.

How common is sex trafficking?

Data on human trafficking is notoriously messy and difficult to measure. Survivors may be hesitant to disclose their exploitation out of fear of deportation, if they are undocumented, or arrest. That leads to underreporting.

One way to approximate how many people are being trafficked in the United States is to consult federal grant reports, as suggested by anti-trafficking nonprofit Freedom Network USA.

For example, the federal Office for Victims of Crime served 9,854 total clients – some of whom identified as trafficked, others who showed “strong indicators of trafficking victimization” – between July 2019 and June 2020. The Department of Health and Human Services Office on Trafficking in Persons served 2,398 trafficking survivors during the 2019 fiscal year.

Data from the same office also shows that 25,597 “potential victims” of sex and labor trafficking were identified through calls to the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Again, this data is incomplete – if survivors have not accessed these particular resources or called these specific hotlines, they are not represented here.

What does sex trafficking look like?

As with other sexual crimes, like rape, sex trafficking survivors often experience violence at the hands of someone they know, not a complete stranger.

A study from Covenant House New York, a nonprofit focused on homeless youth, found that 36% of the 22 trafficking survivors in their survey were trafficked by an immediate family member, like a parent. Only four reported “being kidnapped and held against his or her will.”

Often, trafficking victims are younger transgender people or teens experiencing homelessness who exchange sex with others to meet their basic needs: shelter, economic stability, food and health care. Trafficking frequently looks like vulnerable people struggling to survive in a violent, exploitative world.

“They are creating sexual solutions to nonsexual problems,” says San Francisco-based researcher Alexandra Lutnick.

Under U.S. law, these youth are trafficking victims, because of their age. But they may reject the label, preferring terms like “survival sex work” or “prostitution” to describe their experiences.

Trafficking victims engaged in survival sex may well be arrested rather than offered help like housing or health care. If they cannot prove “force, fraud, or coercion,” or if they refuse to comply in a criminal investigation, they risk shifting from victim to criminal in the eyes of law enforcement. That can mean prostitution charges, felony offenses or deportation.

Such punishments are most commonly used against Black, Indigenous, queer, trans and undocumented sex-trafficking survivors. Black youth are disproportionately arrested for prostitution offenses, for example, even though legally any underage commercial sex is sex trafficking.

What Is the Difference Between Sex Work and Sex Trafficking?

Legally and in other meaningful ways, sex work and sex trafficking are different.

Sex work is consenting adults engaging in transactional sex. In almost all U.S. states, it is a criminal offense, punishable with fines and even jail sentences.

Sex trafficking is nonconsensual, and it is generally treated as a more severe crime.

Most sex workers’ groups acknowledge that sex work is not inherently sex trafficking but that sex workers can face force, fraud and coercion because they work in a criminalized, stigmatized profession. Sex workers whose experiences meet the legal standards of trafficking may nonetheless fear disclosing that to police and risking arrest for prostitution.

Conversely, sex workers can be mistakenly labeled by police and advocates as “trafficked” and find themselves in the custody of law enforcement or social service agencies.

What can be done?

Based on my research, reducing sex trafficking requires changes that might prevent it from occurring in the first place. That means rebuilding a stronger, supportive U.S. social safety net to buffer against poverty and housing insecurity.

In the meantime, trafficking victims would benefit from efforts by frontline workers to combat the racism, sexism and transphobia that stigmatizes and criminalizes victims who don’t look as people expect – and are struggling to survive.

Corinne Schwarz is an assistant professor of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at Oklahoma State University

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/sex-trafficking-isnt-what-you-think-4-myths-debunked-and-1-real-world-way-to-prevent-sexual-exploitation-158852

Now, as more and more Americans are vaccinated, some are saying all the sexual energy pent up over the past year will be unleashed, with Yale sociologist Nicholas Christakis predicting a summer marked by a surge in “sexual licentiousness.”

Women, however, might face backlash for exploring their post-vaccination sexuality. In a new study, we found that women – but not men – continue to be perceived negatively for having casual sex.

This stereotype persists even as casual sex has become increasingly normalized and gender equality has risen in the U.S. and much of the Western world.

Specifically, both men and women assume that a woman who has casual sex must have low self-esteem.

But that perception isn’t based in reality. So what might be driving this unfounded stereotype?

A Belief Held Across Religious and Political Divides

Although the idea that women’s sexual behavior is linked to their self-esteem is a common trope in film, television and even some relationship advice sites, we documented just how entrenched this stereotype is across six experiments published in Psychological Science.

In one experiment, we asked Americans to estimate the correlation between people’s sexual behavior and their self-esteem. We described those people as being a man, woman or simply as “a person,” without providing any information about their gender. We then described that man, woman or person as having a lot of casual sex, portrayed them as being a serial monogamist or provided no information about their sexual behavior.

We found that Americans tended to associate monogamy with high self-esteem, especially for women. More striking, they associated casual sex with low self-esteem – but only for women.

This belief was surprisingly widespread, and across our studies we found that both men and women hold it.

We wondered: Was this stereotype the product of sexist beliefs? Could it be due to participants’ political ideology or their religion?

But time and again, we saw that this stereotype transcended a number of markers, including the extent to which someone held sexist beliefs, their political views and their religiosity.

What If a Woman Says She Wants Casual Sex?

However, people might believe that women don’t want casual sex in the first place. For example, people might assume that women have causal sex only because they’re trying and failing to attract a long-term relationship. In fact, such beliefs do seem to influence the stereotype about women’s self-esteem.

Specifically, the more that Americans believed that women don’t actually want casual sex, the more these Americans tended to associate women’s casual sex with low self-worth.

This finding inspired another experiment. We wondered what would happen if we told participants that a woman was actually perfectly happy with her casual sexual lifestyle. Might that change their beliefs?

But even this factor didn’t seem to stop the stereotyping. Participants still saw these women as having low self-esteem. And they even perceived a woman described as having monogamous sex – but who was deeply dissatisfied with her monogamous sex life – as having higher self-esteem.

Here’s the kicker: Among our participants – the same ones who showed this stereotyping – we found virtually no association between their self-esteem and their own sexual behavior.

These findings are similar to those of psychologist David Schmitt, who conducted a survey of more than 16,000 participants drawn from all over the world, and also found little association between self-esteem and casual sex.

And in our study, it was actually the men who reported having more casual sex who also tended to have slightly lower self-esteem.

Do Our Stone Age Brains Play a Role?

So why do people hold this negative assumption about women who have casual sex – especially if it doesn’t hold water? The short answer is that we currently do not know, and associations between sex and self-esteem in the real world are complex.

Some people might wonder if the media is to blame. It’s true that women who have casual sex are sometimes portrayed as being somehow deficient. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Even if popular media perpetuates this stereotype, it still doesn’t explain why people would feel compelled to portray women this way in the first place.

Another possible explanation is that the stereotype extends from reproductive biology, in which men have historically had more to gain from casual sex than women, who – since they risk getting pregnant – often have to bear greater costs, on average, than men.

Yet today, newer technologies – like birth control and safe, legal abortion – allow women to have casual sex without being forced to bear some of those unwanted costs. Perhaps, then, our Stone Age brains have simply not yet caught up.

Whatever the origin of this stereotype, it’s likely to foster prejudice and discrimination today. For example, people perceived to have low self-esteem are less likely to be asked out on dates or elected to political office.

This stereotype might also have led to seemingly well-intentioned – but ultimately misguided – advice directed toward girls and women about their sexual behavior. There is a cottage industry built around telling women what sort of sex not to have. (Searching for books on “friendship advice” on Amazon yields fewer than 40 results, but searching for “dating advice” returned over 2,000.)

In Western society, women are rarely disparaged for breaking glass ceilings to become leaders, professors, CEOs and astronauts.

So why do they continue to be denigrated as they become increasingly open and willing to go to bed with others at their own whim, of their own accord?

Jaimie Arona Krems is an assistant professor of Psychology at Oklahoma State University

Michael Varnum is an associate professor of Psychology at Arizona State University

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/why-do-women-still-get-judged-so-harshly-for-having-casual-sex-160583

The internet has diversified forms of sex work, aided in the industry’s growth and interconnected previously unconnected types of sex work. Demand for amateur, non-studio-based porn has grown, expanding online pornographic industries like camming, in which performers interact with viewers. Online sex workers post content on specialized hosting sites. Other websites connect phone sex workers with new customers.

Some sites facilitate sugaring relationships, in which one person gives another money over time in exchange for a relationship lasting beyond a one-time encounter. On other sites, people can even sell used panties.

Especially during a global pandemic with more people out of work and searching for job opportunities, the modern sex industry is incorporating many new providers, customers and job possibilities.

Who Works in Modern Sex Industries?

Sex work has become more appealing to more laborers across social classes. In particular, online sex work has become more popular because it offers physical safety to those working fully online and minimizes risk to those laboring offline, has minimal requirements for employment and offers the potential for decent wages and autonomy.

These conditions create better work experiences. Sex worker Trip Richards said, “as a transgender man, … sharing my work on online platforms has offered me financial freedom and personal happiness I never thought possible and has allowed me to stay safe while pursuing my own goals as an artist, educator and activist.”

Online sex work is a better option than the poorly remunerated work available to some people. Many sex workers, especially those from marginalized groups, have told me they found it difficult or impossible to get or keep jobs in other industries, making sex work their only option to earn a living. People with disabilities and chronic illnesses who participated in my research on the camming industry highlighted online sex work as flexible labor.

In my field, researchers assign first-name aliases to those we interview. One woman whom I call Kim remarked that camming is “easier to work with bipolar disorder.” Amelia explained, “I have Crohn’s and was unable to hold down a regular job. … My parents had no money, and I felt guilty asking them for help.”

The sexual gig economy can be a refuge from the discrimination some people face in the nonsexual labor market. Natalie told me: “It’s hard to find full-time work even at a fast food place as a full-time trans female who is pre-op and not on hormone replacement therapy.”

Not all sex workers come from marginalized social positions. As more people have been struggling before and during the pandemic to make ends meet, more people are becoming open to working in sex industries.

What Do Sex Workers Earn?

In my study of the global camming industry, surveying and interviewing workers worldwide, full-time performers could earn US$ 10,000 a month. But those uncommonly high wages went almost exclusively to young, white, thin cisgender women.

“Cisgender” is an adjective derived from the Latin prefix meaning “on the same side as” and refers to people who identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. In general, trans men are men who were assigned female at birth; trans women are women who were assigned male at birth.

Most of the top earners are from the U.S., and spent years building a brand. But most cam models work part-time, and median earnings were US$ 1,000 a month overall, with trans women right at that average, but cisgender women US$ 1,250 and cisgender men US$ 350.

Online phone sex workers might charge US$ 2 per minute, earning them US$ 120 per hour, before the platform takes 30%. A model posting content on a subscription site might charge as much as US$ 15 per month, though these sites generally take between 20%-30%.

Escorts, who provide companionship offline, often charge the highest rates of sex workers online. But their rates don’t necessarily reflect their earnings. How much an escort might make depends on consumer demand and the number of clients they see each month.

Their schedules vary and they often do multiple types of sex work simultaneously. For example, Lenny told me, “I created an online persona, a profile for the purpose to offering escort services, selling homemade porn video clips, and an additional feature is webcamming, which I utilize by creating live sex shows to replicate what customers could experience during escort meetings face-to-face.”

What Are the Benefits of Online Sex Work?

Like other gig workers, sex workers do not receive benefits such as employer-provided health care, vacation or retirement packages in many countries. And they have to do a lot of administrative work: marketing, messaging with clients, planning shoots or shows, preparing legal forms and dealing with constantly changing legal requirements and stringent websites’ terms of service. However, sex workers describe other benefits.

Among workers in my camming study, 56.2% said they were not motivated to cam by money only. Carl told me, “The benefits of cam work are much the same as most independent jobs. You work at home on your own schedule and avoid the 9-to-5 daily grind.” Workers like Halona said that being an independent entrepreneur provides autonomy and allows for creativity, describing online sex work as “the job I feel least exploited for my labor.”

For some performers, this labor has allowed them to explore their sexuality, and as several said, they have “orgasms for a living.” Others told me the work had helped boost their self-esteem, was affirming and brought them pleasure. As Whitney explained,

“I have a physical disability [spinal muscular atrophy] … and had recently moved … I wasn’t working, and, honestly, I spent a lot of time at home bored and lonely. I started posting nudes on a social site and fell in love. I can remember being younger, watching porn, and thinking no one would want to see me doing that. With the support of my husband, I started camming. People did want to see me, and I really did love it.”

How Has the Internet Changed Working Conditions?

The internet has helped improve sex workers’ lives, including by keeping them safer. For those with internet access, escorts can screen clients online, making clients verify identity and provide references. Escorts develop and rely on online client review systems and community web forums, making them less dependent on exploitative third parties.

However, sex workers laboring offline and on the street remain at high risk. Continued criminalization of in-person sex work in the U.S. and other countries and governmental attempts at regulating sexual commerce online, limit consensual sex workers’ opportunities.

In 2018, a federal law made internet platforms legally responsible if they hosted user-generated content related to sex work, which led free advertising platforms like Craigslist to shut down their personals sections. Other online review forums shut down. Those changes reduced the ability of internet services to keep sex workers safe – even in countries where consensual sex work is decriminalized.

Angela Jones is an associate professor of Sociology at Farmingdale State College

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/sex-work-part-of-the-online-gig-economy-is-a-lifeline-for-marginalized-workers-160238

To estimate population, our team of paleontologists and scientists had to combine the extraordinarily comprehensive existing research on T. rex with an ecological principle that connects population density to body size.

From microscopic growth patterns in bones, researchers inferred that T. rex first mated at around 15 years old. With growth records, scientists can also generate survivorship curves – an estimate of a T. rex’s chances of living to a given age.

Using these two numbers, our team estimated that T. rex generations took 19 years. Finally, T. rex existed as a species for 1.2 to 3.6 million years. With all of this information, we calculate that T. rex existed for 66,000 to 188,000 generations.

From the fossil record alone, we had generated a T. rex turnover rate. If our team could estimate the number of individuals in each generation, we would know how many T. rex ever lived.

In ecology, there is a well-established relationship between body mass and population density called Damuth’s law. Larger animals need more space to survive – one square mile of grassland can support a lot more bunnies than elephants. This relationship is also dependent on metabolism – animals that burn more energy require more space.

Paleontologists have come up with a range of good estimates of T. rex’s body mass and have also estimated its metabolism – slower than mammals but somewhat faster than a large modern lizard, the Komodo dragon. With Damuth’s law, we then estimated that the ancient world held about one T. rex every 42.4 square miles (109.9 square km). That’s about two individuals in the entire area of Washington, D.C.

Now we had all the pieces we needed. Multiplying the population density by the area in which T. rex lived gives us an estimate of 20,000 individuals per generation.

Why It Matters

Once we figured out the average population size, we were able to calculate the fossilization rate for T. rex – the chance that a single skeleton would survive to be discovered by humans 66 million years later. The answer: about 1 in 80 million. That is, for every 80 million adult T. rex, there is only one clearly identifiable specimen in a museum.

This number highlights how incomplete the fossil record is and allows researchers to ask how rare a species could be without disappearing entirely from the fossil record.

Beyond calculating the T. rex fossilization rate, our new method could be used to calculate population size for other extinct species.

What Still Isn’t Known

Estimates about extinct animals always include some amount of uncertainty. Our estimate of T. rex population density ranges from one individual for every 2.7 square miles (7 square km) to one for every 665.7 square miles (1,724 square km). But surprisingly, the largest source of this uncertainty comes from Damuth’s law. There is a lot of variation in modern animals. For example, Arctic foxes and Tasmanian devils have similar body mass, but devils have six times the population density.

Further study of living animals could tighten up our estimates on T. rex.

We also don’t know fossilization rates of other long extinct dinosaurs. If we have many fossils of one species, does that mean they were more common than T. rex, or do we simply recover their fossils more often?

What’s Next

This study might lead to other hidden facts about T. rex biology and ecology.

For instance, we might be able to learn whether T. rex populations fluctuated up and down with Triceratops – similar to wolf and moose predator and prey relationships today. However, most other dinosaurs do not yet have the incredibly rich data from decades of careful fieldwork that allowed our team to tally up T. rex.

If scientists want to apply this powerful technique to other extinct animals, we’ve got some more digging to do.

Ashley Poust is a research associate in Paleontology at University of California, Berkeley

Daniel Varajão de Latorre is a Ph.D. student in Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/how-many-tyrannosaurus-rex-walked-the-earth-159041

The United States has pledged money to the global immunization effort but has so far resisted calls to donate surplus doses or share vaccine technology.

By July, the country could have an oversupply of 300 million coronavirus vaccine doses, according to a report by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, even while developing countries face a multi-year wait to vaccinate the majority of their populations.

Should the Biden administration, then, be actively working to improve access to Covid-19 vaccines globally?

“The short answer is: ‘yes it should, like now, immediately,'” said Ruth Faden, a Johns Hopkins University bioethicist and vaccine policy expert.

“The harder questions are the ‘how questions.’ That’s when things start to get more complex.”

Fundraising

The easiest way for the United States to contribute would be to pledge money to the global immunization effort, Faden said.

In February, the Biden administration pledged to give US$ 4 billion to COVAX, a global scheme by the World Health Organization to distribute coronavirus vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, more than any other country.

The country has already distributed US$ 2 billion of those funds, but is waiting on other countries to fulfill their own pledges before distributing the second half.

Even if COVAX were fully funded this year, it would be able to vaccinate only a quarter of the populations in the world’s 92 poorest nations, according to the Duke paper.

“I know that many countries are asking for the United States to do more, some with growing desperation because of the scope and scale of their Covid emergencies,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin told a virtual fundraising event for COVAX on Thursday.

Blinkin acknowledged the mounting pressure on the United States to help.

“We hear you. And I promise, we’re moving as fast as possible.”

Sharing Intellectual Property

Aid groups have also called on the Biden administration to wave international property rights for coronavirus vaccines so other countries have the ability to make their own.

Last week, Oxfam International published a letter signed by more than 100 former heads of state and Nobel laureates, urging the administration to act.

Arthur Caplan, the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, echoed the charity’s calls.

“I’d be giving that away immediately. There’s no reason in a plague to try and defend intellectual property given the needs of other countries,” Caplan said.

“Maybe some companies are nervous if you share, but I think we’ll be back with boosters and other ways for them to make their money anyway.”

Other experts argue that breaking vaccine monopolies with a temporary waiver of World Trade Organization intellectual property rules is unnecessary and could prove chaotic.

Donate Vaccines

Some aid groups and international leaders argue that wealthier countries such as the United States should be sharing their vaccine surplus now.

A letter backed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank, calls on the United States to donate 10% of its excess doses over the summer, and to bump it up to 50% by the end of the year.

French President Emmanuel Macron in February also called on the United States and Europe to donate 5% of their supplies to the global effort.

Two public health experts said, however, that donating doses would be “flawed”.

“We should start thinking about sharing vaccines with Michigan before we start sharing with Mauritius,” Caplan said.

The state of Michigan is facing the worst coronavirus surge in the nation, but has failed to persuade the federal government to give the state extra doses.

“Morally it’s right to try to assist your town, community, your neighbors, your country, before turning to others.”

Once hospitalization rates stabilize and herd immunity, when roughly 70% to 90% of a population is resistant to the virus, is reached, the United States can start a “serious sharing program,” Caplan added.

Loans

Alternatively, some experts are calling on the Biden administration to “loan” vaccines out to other countries, which it has already done to its neighbors, Mexico and Canada.

In March, the United States gave roughly 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been authorized for use elsewhere, but not in the United States, to Mexico and Canada.

The vaccines were given under a deal in which the United States expects to be paid back with doses in return later this year.

“That doesn’t actually reduce our overall supply, it’s more an issue of timing,” said Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

And timing is key, Udayakumar added, as the virus continues to mutate and new variants emerge.

“Even our health and our lives are not going to be protected unless we really take a global approach to turning a corner on the pandemic.”

Matt Lavietes is a journalist based in New York, NY. He joined the Thomson Reuters Foundation in November 2019 after working for Reuters U.S. General News team. Previous to Thomson Reuters, Lavietes worked at CNBC as an editorial intern.

This article was produced by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit them at https://news.trust.org/

“Magic” is often defined in the West as evil or separate from “civilized” religions like Christianity and also from the scientific observation and study of the world. But the irony is that magic was integral to the development of Christianity and other religions – and it informed the evolution of the sciences, too.

As an expert in ancient magic and early Christianity, I study how magic helped early adherents develop a Christian identity. One part of this identity was morality: the inner sense of right and wrong that guides life decisions. Of course, the darker side of this development is the slide into supremacy: seeing one’s own tradition as morally superior and rightfully dominant.

My work tries to return magic to its proper place as a part of the Christian tradition. I show how false distinctions between magic and Christianity were created to elevate ancient Christianity and how they continue to advance Christian supremacy today.

The Origins of Magic

In Western culture, magic is often defined in opposition to religion and science. This is problematic because all three concepts are rooted in colonialism. For centuries, many European scholars based their definitions of religion on Christianity, while at the same time describing the practices and beliefs of non-Christians as “primitive,” “superstitious” or “magical.”

This sense of superiority helped Europe’s Christian monarchies justify conquering and exploiting Indigenous peoples around the world in a bid to “civilize” them, often through extreme brutality. Imperialist legacies still color how some people think about non-Christians as “others,” and how they label others’ rituals and religions as “magic.”

But this modern understanding of magic doesn’t map neatly onto the world of the first Christians. “Magic” has always had many meanings. From what scholars can gather, the word itself was imported from the Persian word “maguš,” which may have described a class of priests with royal connections. Sometimes, these “magi” were depicted as performing divination, ritual activities or educating young boys who would take the throne.

Greek texts retained this earlier meaning and also added new ones. The famous ancient Greek historian Herodotus writes that the Persian magi interpreted dreams, read the skies and performed sacrifices. Herodotus uses the Greek word “magos.” Sophocles, a Greek playwright, uses the same term in his tragedy “Oedipus the King,” when Oedipus berates the seer Tiresias for scheming to overthrow him.

Although these two Greek texts both date from roughly the early 400s B.C., “magician” has different connotations in each.

Starting in the first century B.C., Latin authors also adapted the Persian term into “magus.”

While defending himself at trial for performing “evil deeds of magic,” the second-century philosopher Apuleius claimed he both was and was not a “magician.” He insisted he was like a high priest or a natural philosopher rather than someone who uses unsavory means to get what they want. What’s interesting here is that Apuleius uses one idea of high philosophical magic to combat another idea of crude, self-interested magic.

Christianity and Magic

The first Christians inherited these varied ideas of magic alongside their Roman neighbors. In their world, people who did “magical” deeds like exorcisms and healings were common. Such people sometimes explained religious or philosophical texts and ideas, as well.

This presented a problem for early Christian authors: If wondrous deeds were fairly commonplace, how could a group looking to attract followers compete with “magicians”? After all, Christian leaders like Jesus, Peter and Paul did extraordinary deeds, too. So Christian writers made distinctions in order to elevate their heroes.

Take the biblical story of Simon the magician. In Acts 8, Simon’s magical deeds entice the Samaritans and convince them to follow him until the evangelist Philip performs even more amazing miracles, converting all the Samaritans and Simon, too.

But Simon relapses when he tries to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, prompting the Apostle Peter to rebuke him. This story is where we get the sin of simony: the purchase of religious office.

As I’ve discussed elsewhere, texts like this do not depict real events. They are teaching tools aimed at showing new adherents the differences between good Christian miracle workers and evil magicians. The earliest converts needed such stories because wonder workers looked a lot alike.

Christianity and Morality

To some ancient people, stories of Jesus’ miracles probably didn’t seem far removed from the deeds magicians performed for money in the marketplace. In fact, the church fathers had to shield Jesus and the Apostles against accusations of practicing magic. They include Origen of Alexandria, who in the middle of the third century A.D. defended Christianity against Celsus, a pagan philosopher who charged Jesus with being a magician.

Celsus argued that the miracles of Jesus were no different from the magic performed by marketplace sorcerers. Origen agreed the two shared superficial similarities, but claimed they were fundamentally different because magicians cavorted with demons while Jesus’ wonders led to moral reformation.

Like the story of Simon the magician, Origen’s disagreement with Celsus was a means of teaching his audience how to tell the difference between morally suspect magicians who sought personal gain and miracle workers who acted for the benefit of others.

Ancient authors invented the idea that the miracles of Christians possessed inherent moral superiority over non-Christian magic because ancient audiences were as enticed by magic as modern ones. But in elevating Christianity above magic, these writers created false distinctions that linger even today.

Shaily Shashikant Patel is an assistant professor of Early Christianity at Virginia Tech

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/is-magic-immoral-it-played-a-role-in-the-development-of-early-christianity-157387

This belief asserts that while women and men are of equal value, God has assigned them specific gender roles. Specifically, it promotes men’s headship or authority over women, while encouraging women’s submission.

As a scholar of gender and evangelical Christianity who grew up Southern Baptist, I watched how complementarianism became central to evangelical belief, starting in the late 1970s, in response to the feminist influence within Christianity.

The Start of the Doctrine

In the 1970s, the women’s movement began to make inroads into a number of arenas in the U.S., including work, education and politics. Many Christians, including evangelicals, came to embrace egalitarianism and to champion women’s equality in the home, church and society.

In response, in 1977 evangelical biblical studies professor George Knight III published a book, “New Testament Teaching on the Role Relationship of Men and Women,” and introduced a new interpretation of “role differences.”

Other evangelical biblical studies professors, such as Wayne Grudem and John Piper, began to write about submission and headship in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, making the claim that women’s submission to men was not, as many Christians at that time believed, a result of the Fall in the Garden of Eden when Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit.

Rather, they argued, the requirement for women’s submission was part of the created order. Men, they explained, were created to rule and women were created to obey.

Southern Baptists Incorporate the Belief

Evangelical leaders began to hold secret meetings, conferences and evangelical associations to work out, and then promote, a fully developed framework for complementarianism.

In 1987, a group including Piper and Grudem met in Danvers, Massachusetts, to prepare a statement that came to be known as the Danvers Statement on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. It set out the core beliefs of complementarianism.

Among other things, the Danvers Statement affirmed the submissive role of women. It said, “Wives should forsake resistance to their husbands’ authority and grow in willing, joyful submission to their husbands’ leadership.”

The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood was created at the same time. The goal of the council was to influence evangelicals to adopt the principles of complementarianism in their homes, churches, schools and other religious agencies.

Within a decade, the council and the Danvers Statement began to have significant influence among evangelicals, particularly Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Entrenched Evangelical Beliefs

The Southern Baptist Convention soon incorporated these beliefs into its confessional statement – a document of generally shared beliefs. In an amendment in 1998 to the “Baptist Faith and Message,” the convention included the complementarian language.

The amended section on “The Family” stated, “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.”

For some, the theology of complementarianism became so deeply entrenched in evangelical belief that they came to see it as an essential doctrine of the faith. As Piper said in 2012, if people accept egalitarianism, sooner or later, they’re going to get the Gospel wrong.

While Moore has not entirely renounced complementarianism, she has now decried its use as a first-tier doctrine. First-tier doctrines are the ones that evangelicals believe people must accept in order to be Christians. For some evangelicals, however, complementarianism remains a litmus test for theological faithfulness, right alongside belief in God and acceptance of Jesus.

Susan M. Shaw is a professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/how-complementarianism-the-belief-that-god-assigned-specific-gender-roles-became-part-of-evangelical-doctrine-158758

The show, combined with other American entertainment widely available in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, shaped my perception of the United States long before I ever set foot in the country. Today, I call the U.S. home, and I have developed my own understanding of its complexities. I am able to see “Happy Days” as a nostalgic revival of an ideal, conflict-free American small town.

“Happy Days” was a product of Hollywood, which is arguably still the epicenter of the global entertainment industry. So recent news that the streaming service Netflix is opening an Italian office and will begin massively funding original local content with the intent of distributing it globally on its platform – following a strategy already launched in other European countries – struck me.

This could be a potentially game-changing move in global entertainment. And it might even change how the world perceives, well, the world.

Learning by Watching

I have explored the global media landscape from the privileged vantage point of Los Angeles for the past 15 years.

TV and movies are one way that people, as we go through life, make sense of the world, building on the archive of our personal experiences and opinions of other places.

Absent direct experience with a people or nation, we speculate on what we do not know. This process involves a variety of sources, including reading, Googling and accounts from somebody we trust. But often it is media that exposes people to other cultures, above and beyond our own.

TV and movies fill the knowledge gaps with powerful images and stories that inform the way we think about different cultures. If the media’s messages have consistency over time, we may come to understand these as facts.

But media portrayals may well be inaccurate. Certainly, they are incomplete. That’s because movies and TV series aren’t necessarily meant to depict reality; they are designed for entertainment.

As a result, they can be misleading, if not biased, based on and perpetuating stereotypes.

For example, there is no shortage of Italian and Italian American stereotypes in American entertainment. From the award-winning “Godfather” saga to the less critically acclaimed “Jersey Shore” TV series, Italians are often depicted as tasteless, uneducated, linked to organized crime – or all three.

Media Is a Window to the World

But the way people are exposed to media entertainment is changing. Today streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ and Disney+ collectively have 1 billion subscribers globally.

Being a relative newcomer in producing original content, Netflix cannot rely on a large library of proprietary content to feed its 204 million paid members in over 190 countries, as legacy Hollywood players can. So it is increasingly creating original productions, including a number of non-English language originals from places such as Mexico, France, Italy, Japan and Brazil.

We might call this an example of “glocalization of entertainment” – a company operating globally, adapting its content to meet the expectations of locally situated audiences across the world.

This is already the modus operandi, for example, of many popular reality TV shows. “American Idol” is an American adaptation of Europe’s “Pop Idol.” “The X Factor,” “Big Brother” and “Dancing with the Stars” have similarly international origins.

Now, however, glocalization comes with a twist: Netflix intends to distribute its localized content internationally, beyond the local markets.

It is not the global reach of Netflix’s platform per se that would break down old stereotypes. French critics panned the American-produced, internationally distributed Netflix series “Emily in Paris” for its cliched, romanticized portrayal of the city.

Emily in Paris was an American take on Paris, and French critics hated it.

Foreign TV executives must create shows for Netflix that both appeal to local audiences and have international potential, while remaining authentic in their portrayal of their country. If Netflix’s Italian team thinks “The Godfather” is what international audiences expect from Italy, international audiences may tune in – but Italians won’t.

To become truly international, Netflix would also have to foster the development of original local ideas not only in European countries with well-developed cultural industries but also in smaller countries and those with emerging entertainment industries, such as African nations.

Netflix’s Opportunity – and Challenge

A side effect of this strategy could be that Netflix upends the traditional way that media informs our understanding of foreign people and lands by more accurately representing these places.

But that’s a tall order, and it’s not, of course, guaranteed.

Netflix’s transformative potential comes from allowing local creatives to tell stories about their own cultures and then distributing them truly internationally. It will depend on the company’s willingness to implement this strategy in a consistent, sustained, inclusive and thoughtful fashion.

Over time, widespread exposure to a diverse array of international media content might change the way people in the U.S. and worldwide think and feel about other cultures they have never, and may never, come into direct contact with.

All it takes is one click – one choice to watch, perhaps even unknowingly, a foreign-produced series.

The way Netflix works, using algorithms to suggest content as viewers make selections, can prolong an initial exposure to and interest in foreign content. Artificial intelligence meant to feed us more of what we like may end up a surprising force for change, making us rethink what we thought we knew.

Paolo Sigismondi is clinical professor of Communication at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/netflixs-big-bet-on-foreign-content-and-international-viewers-could-upend-the-global-mediascape-and-change-how-people-see-the-world-156629

The long-standing conflation of sex work and trafficking have effectively led to their exclusion from not only government relief and protective measures but also from most private and philanthropic support. Yet the explicitness of the damage being done also presents us with an opportunity to turn the conversation around.

Coronavirus has opened a door for funders to increase their support for sex worker-led organizations and to advocate for an end to this harmful conflation once and for all. Now they must walk through it.

The Sex Work Donor Collaborative will be waiting on the other side to help them get their bearings. Founded in 2008, the collaborative was first convened to fundamentally change the structures of funding that defined anti-trafficking efforts.

In particular, the donor collaborative hoped to “increase the amount and quality of funding and non-financial support for sex worker rights and sex worker organizing”.

Members of the collaborative oppose exploitation of and violence against sex workers, regardless of the form they take, and recognize the distinction between sex work and human trafficking.

A Dangerous Conflation

Links between trafficking and sex work are often based on assumptions rooted in the stigma against sex work. The denial of sex workers’ agency, reinforced by the conflation of trafficking and sex work, has led many funders to prefer supporting organizations that claim to ‘save’ or ‘rescue’ sex workers over organizations that are run by them.

In turn, this perpetuates the exclusion of sex workers’ voices from philanthropic circles and makes funding sex worker-led organizations and networks incredibly difficult.

The damage caused by equating the two ideas together is plain to see. Anti-trafficking legislation and initiatives based in the conflation of sex work and trafficking have led to increased criminalization of sex workers’ clients and third parties, forced ‘rescue and rehabilitation’, exclusion of sex workers from services, discriminatory immigration laws and restrictions, and increased violence against sex workers.

The “anti-prostitution loyalty oath” (APLO) provision passed into US law in 2003 and embedded in the 2003 President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a particularly egregious example of this in practice.

This provision requires non-governmental organizations based outside the US to have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution” in order to receive PEPFAR funding.

The oath further prohibits recipient organizations from using the funds “to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking” and specifies that no funds “may be used to provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking”.

The negative impact of this oath have been extensively documented (see, for instance, the factsheets produced by Pathfinder International and CHANGE). Nevertheless, due to a (real or claimed) lack of knowledge and pressure from abolitionist women’s organizations that define all sex work as inherently exploitative, many philanthropic actors have chosen to follow the US government’s lead and refuse to support sex workers’ rights and sex worker-led organizations as well.

Enter Red Umbrella Fund

Red Umbrella Fund, a member of the Sex Work Donor Collaborative, was created to blaze a different trail. It was born following the first international exploration of funding for sex workers’ rights and health issues by Open Society Foundations’s Sexual Health and Rights Project in 2006.

Two years later, a dialogue on sex work and trafficking took place between donors, researchers, and activists in collaboration with the Global Network of Sex Work Projects and the Indian feminist human rights organization CREA.

These dialogues were intended to help donors make the distinction between sex work and trafficking, and to figure out more effective ways to support anti-trafficking efforts that affirm sex worker and migrant rights.

In other words: to develop a sex worker rights-based approach to anti-trafficking. In April 2012, Red Umbrella Fund was launched as a new, innovative global grant-making mechanism for, and by, sex workers.

Red Umbrella Fund released its 2020-2025 Strategic Plan on 14 September 2020, to coincide with International Sex Worker Pride Day. This plan reaffirms our vision to live in a world where sex workers are respected as human beings and as workers, so that all sex workers can live lives free from criminalization, stigma and violence.

For this vision to become reality, a more nuanced discourse among funders on the human rights approach to sex work and the harms of conflating sex work with trafficking is needed. Significant progress has been made over the past 20 years.

Recently the members of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, for example, voted to support the decriminalization of sex work.

Their statement made clear that they were joining “a growing number of human rights, health and anti-trafficking organizations demanding governments recognize sex work as work, and protect sex workers’ labor and human rights.”

But despite these advances the conflation between sex work and trafficking remains as alive as ever. And as long as it is there it will hinder progress in both the sex workers’ rights movement and the anti-trafficking movement.

One practical example of the obstacles it creates can be found in the simple bureaucratic act of registering an organization. As sex work continues to be criminalized in most of the world, sex worker-led organizations and networks face enormous challenges with registering their organizations with their governments.

This, along with the criminalization itself, prevents them from accessing funding even from donors interested in supporting their work

Funders can and must play a crucial role in turning the tide. With their help we can ensure the compatibility of anti-trafficking efforts with sex workers’ rights. In order to achieve impact, we encourage funders to:

Support the decriminalization of sex work,

Educate themselves on the difference between sex work and trafficking,

Meaningfully involve sex workers in their grant-making relating to sex workers’ rights,

Fund sex worker-led organizations and networks in line with their expressed priorities, including anti-trafficking efforts.

Paul-Gilbert Colletaz is the Coordinator of Red Umbrella Fund. Red Umbrella Fund, founded in 2012 as the first and only global fund guided by and for sex workers, seeks to create a world in which all sex workers live free from stigma, criminalization and violence. Visit our website – https://www.redumbrellafund.org/ – to learn more about us and to support our work.

This article appeared originally in Open Democracy – https://www.opendemocracy.net/

While 67% of U.S. adults support marijuana legalization, public knowledge about cannabis is low. A third of Americans think hemp and marijuana are the same thing, according to the National Institutes of Health, and many people still search Google to find out whether cannabidiol – a cannabis derivative known as CBD – will get them high, as marijuana does.

Hemp, marijuana and CBD are all related, but they differ in significant ways. Here’s what you need to know about their legality, effects and potential health benefits.

Hemp, Marijuana and Cannabinoids

Both hemp and marijuana belong to the same species, Cannabis sativa, and the two plants look somewhat similar. However, substantial variation can exist within a species. After all, great Danes and chihuahuas are both dogs, but they have obvious differences.

The defining difference between hemp and marijuana is their psychoactive component: tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Hemp has 0.3% or less THC, meaning hemp-derived products don’t contain enough THC to create the “high” traditionally associated with marijuana.

CBD is a compound found in cannabis. There are hundreds of such compounds, which are termed “cannabinoids,” because they interact with receptors involved in a variety of functions like appetite, anxiety, depression and pain sensation. THC is also a cannabinoid.

Clinical research indicates that CBD is effective at treating epilepsy. Anecdotal evidence suggests it can help with pain and even anxiety – though scientifically the jury is still out on that.

Marijuana, containing both CBD and more THC than hemp, has demonstrated therapeutic benefits for people with epilepsy, nausea, glaucoma and potentially even multiple sclerosis and opioid-dependency disorder.

However, medical research on marijuana is severely restricted by federal law.

The Drug Enforcement Agency categorizes cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance, meaning it handles cannabis as if there is no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Scientists don’t know exactly how CBD works, nor how it interacts with other cannabinoids like THC to give marijuana its added therapeutic effects.

Retail CBD

CBD comes in food, tinctures and oils, just to name a few. Here are some commonly used terms used to describe CBD products in the store.

While the terms “CBD tincture” and “CBD oil” are often used interchangeably, the two are actually different. Tinctures are made by soaking cannabis in alcohol, while oils are made by suspending CBD in a carrier oil, like olive or coconut oil.

“Pure” CBD, also called “CBD isolate,” is called that because all other cannabinoids have been removed. So have terpenes and flavonoids, which give marijuana its strong aroma and earthy flavor.

“Broad spectrum” CBD typically contains at least three other cannabinoids, as well as some terpenes and flavonoids – but still no THC. “Full spectrum” CBD, also called “whole flower” CBD, is similar to broad spectrum but can contain up to 0.3% THC.

In states where recreational marijuana is legal, the list of cannabis-derived products greatly expands to include CBD with much higher THC content than 0.3%.

There is no standardized dosage of CBD. Some retailers may have enough knowledge to make a recommendation for first-timers. There are also online resources – like this dosage calculator: https://dailycbd.com/en/cbd-dosage/

Consumers concerned about content and the accuracy of CBD products, which are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, can look for certification from independent lab testing or by scanning a QR code on product packaging.

Note that CBD oil is different from hemp oil – which comes from pressing cannabis seeds, and may not contain CBD – and hempseed oil, which is a source of essential fatty acids and contains no CBD. It’s a nutritional supplement, more like fish oil than CBD oil.

Legal Status

Another big difference among hemp, marijuana and CBD is how the law treats them.

Though 15 states have now legalized recreational marijuana, it remains illegal federally in the United States. Technically, those in possession of marijuana in a legal weed state can still be punished under federal law, and traveling across state borders with cannabis is prohibited.

Hemp, on the other hand, was made legal to grow and sell in the United States in the 2018 Farm Bill.

One would assume, then, that hemp-derived CBD should be federally legal in every state because the THC levels don’t surpass 0.3%. But CBD occupies a legal gray area. Several states, such as Nebraska and Idaho, still essentially regulate CBD oil as a Schedule 1 substance akin to marijuana.

Our recent study found that Americans perceive hemp and CBD to be more like over-the-counter medication and THC to be more like a prescription drug. Still, the average person in the U.S. does not view hemp, CBD, THC or even marijuana in the same light as illicit substances like meth and cocaine – even though both are classified by the DEA as having a lower potential for abuse than marijuana.

The current federal prohibition of marijuana, in other words, does not align with the public’s view – though state-based legalization shows that society is moving on without the blessing of politicians on Capitol Hill. U.S. recreational marijuana retail sales may reach US$ 8.7 billion in 2021, up from US$ 6.7 billion in 2016.

As interest in other cannabinoids, like cannabigerol, or CBG – which some are touting as the new CBD – continues to grow, so too grows the need for further medical research into cannabis.

Brandon McFadden is an assistant professor of Applied Economics and Statistics at University of Delaware

Trey Malone is an assistant professor and extension economist at Michigan State University

This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/cbd-marijuana-and-hemp-what-is-the-difference-among-these-cannabis-products-and-which-are-legal-154256