As the semester has come to a close, I decided to treat myself to a (cheap) deep tissue massage-- a college degree seems to equate more with debt than financial security, so I had to be wise in my search. I began my online search for "cheap massage in San Francisco" and came across links to sex parlors and sex trafficking in San Francisco.

I'm all too familiar with the continued prevalence of prostitution in the Bay Area. I was taught not to judge or be over critical of prostitutes since I knew women who were single mothers, struggling to pay the bills while the fathers of their children were incarcerated. I sometimes find myself trying to speak up for these women: do you really think these women enjoy selling their bodies?

With this in the back of my mind, I continued searching for my reasonably priced massage. For a bit of audio stimulation, I decided to listen to Barack Obama talk about problems with our economy as jobs are being exported. Just then I thought, well, if we're exporting jobs, then what are we importing in return?

People.

I'm not solely referring to the brain drain in countries including the Philippines where nurses are trained domestically and end up working in the U.S. Nor am I focusing on the influx of international students in our graduate science and engineering classes while our country has failed to adequate education and capture the interests of our own youth in the math and sciences. No, this time, I am focusing on sex slaves, more specifically, sex slaves in San Francisco.

My friend jokingly asked me if San Francisco was "heaven." She knew that my progressive views were generally accepted in San Francisco, while they may have been heavily criticized elsewhere. When I share my ideas with social circles in the Bay Area, at times, it seems like I'm preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, in this same progressive mecca, I've learned that there still exists over eighty sex parlors. Not one, not two, but over eighty sex parlors within the seven by seven square feet parameters of San Francisco.

In college, my involvement in recruitment and retention organizations confirmed by belief that education is a right, not a privilege. As I bury my heads in the books, then resurrect from my hibernation in the library cubicles as summer approaches, I can't help but think about my sister down the street. My sister who left her family, crossed the ocean, only to end up living in a brothel, ironically within one the most progressive cities and one of the most affluent nations in the world.

Here's some food for thought on sex trafficking in San Francisco and what local government is doing to address this issue:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/06/...