The Sheriff of Denton County, Texas, has charged 17 people in connection with online prostitution. One of them is the musicologist Peter Mondelli, who reportedly approached a woman online for a sexual encounter, only to find cops waiting with cuffs when he arrived at the assignation point.
Mondelli, a specialist in nineteenth-century music, French opera, media history, and critical theory, has been suspended from his position as associate professor at the University of North Texas College of Music. Mondelli was recently promoted to be chair of the two important governance positions, the graduate research committee and the faculty personnel committee. He is now on leave of absence until the case against him is resolved. Because he was part of the group at UNT that tried to get Professor Jackson fired for an academic article.
Creepy is a better adjective. Hence, this is not surprising. If the police wants to stop human trafficking, then they should go after the human trafficking rings themselves, the traffickers themselves and more relevant, the actual real clients soliciting actual real prostitutes.
Here, there was no actual trafficked human involved, it was some fictictious virtual avatar on a screen. How are any of the real trafficked human victims helped? They are all still out there being exploited. How are the human traffickers punished? How has the real human trafficking ring been dismantled? There are legitimate sex workers, and there are legitimate clients who seek out their legitimate services, and these stings catch only them.
Human trafficking rings rely on demand from American men. Texas law enforcement is acting correctly. It was a joint operation with Homeland Security.
