In 1997, Indle King Jr.’s wife divorced him. King had beaten her head against a wall, and she sought and got a protective order to keep King away from her. King felt victimized by the divorce settlement (still does, probably).
King’s first wife had been what people call a mail-order bride. So King went back to the internet and found a new wife, Anastasia Soloviev from Kyrgyzstan. Two years into their marriage, 20-year-old Anastasia King had realized that she married an abusive monster, and was seeking a divorce. Not wanting to pay a second divorce settlement, King recruited his friend Dan Larson to help him murder Anastasia. King, a big man, sat on Anastasia’s chest to hold her down while Larson strangled her.
They dumped Anastasia’s body. Then the newly-single King went back to the internet to find his third mail-order bride.
Fortunately, Anastasia’s body was found before King could close that transaction. King wound up getting a 27-year sentence (newspaper accounts say King’s testimony on his own behalf cleared up any doubt the jury was feeling). The trial was big news in Washington state, where Anastasia had lived, and the issue came to the attention of Washington Senator Maria Cantwell and Representative Rick Larsen. As a result, Congress this month passed The International Marriage Broker Act, which requires potential mail-order brides to be informed if their suitors have criminal histories or have had domestic violence complaints taken out against them.
Actually, there’s a lot more to the legislation; Bean, posting on her blog for the first time in months, describes the legislation in detail. There’s too much for me to sum up, so go over there and read her post. From Bean’s post:
Bean also discusses the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The most disturbing bit? In 2000, Congress created a class of visas – the “U visa” – for witnesses to and victims of “rape, torture, trafficking, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, abusive sexual contact, prostitution, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation” and a variety of other crimes. U visas are needed; they can give crime victims a way to avoid the impossible choice between staying with an abusive criminal or being deported.
Five years after Congress passed the U visa law, however, the law might as well have never been passed. Why? Because the Bush administration has refused to release rules for U visas, meaning that no one can get a U visa. (Women who would qualify for a U visa have been getting by with halfway measures and year-to-year visas in the meanwhile – if they’re lucky.) Sheer incompetence, or cold-hearted indifference? Who can even tell anymore?
UPDATE: See Ginmar’s post on this subject, as well.
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Twenty seven years? That’s it, I’m back to Berkeley and we are really ceceeding this time, this country is too evil to live in.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole “mail-order bride” industry closed down.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole “mail-order bride” industry closed down.
Difficult. What are you going to do, make it illegal for people to (say they’ve) fallen in love and want to be together? Immigration law is already a snake’s nest of contradiction and byzantine process. It’s hard to see how any new rules would ever be enforceable.
A short while back, I asked Amp for an article on this subject. Here’s the reason for my interest:
My best friend, Ron, is married to a Filipino woman. She’s not a MOB; she was here (Scotland) as a student when they met, but his relationship with her put him into the filipino community in my home city, and through him, brought me into contact with it. This comunity appears to consist overwhelmingly of MOBs and their husbands. (I don’t know how many of them are, but there are very few adult Filipino men.)
A short while ago I asked him to explain how this worked. He seemed a little embarrassed at the question, but he answered honestly in my opinion. Of course this is just his opinion, and filtered through me.
According to him, British men (presumably it’s the same elsewhere in the West) who are unattractive to western women (he also suggested that maybe I should get one. Cheers Ron), often approaching middle age, and not particularly wealthy by western standards can get a woman who is young, very pretty, great in bed, relatively passive, and willing to fullfill the traditional role of a wife. He said that many of the women are virgins on their wedding nights. (How that makes them good in bed, I’m not sure.)
In return, money flows back to the Filipino family who are very often in dire poverty. So it’s an economic deal. I didn’t ask how much money, typically, would go to the family, or how that side of the deal is enforced. (I can’t imagine that there’s a written contract.) But it’s very important that the money does get sent back. He said that the women know that in many cases they will be basically sacrificing themselves for their family. On a couple of occasions at community events I’ve been rather obviously sized-up by unattached female family members presumably on tourist visas. I’ve no doubt that they know the score, and still regard it as a deal worth taking.
Even before I had read anything about it here, or done any other research, I thought this arrangement was a recipe for domestic abuse. He agreed that this did happen, but thought that maybe 60% of the marriages were successful, (which compares favourably with intracultural marriage in Britain.)
Solely my opinion now: It’s clear that ‘the community’ acts as a support network for many of these women. In another conversation with one rather obnoxious husband, he lamented that “you don’t just marry your wife, you marry the whole community”. He also complained about the expense. (He was clearly wealthy even by western standards, and was hosting a party for the comunity at the time, so I’d say that he was probably honouring his side of the deal, even though he was whinging about it.) What is not clear to me, is how many women aren’t supported, how many are isolated, either though choice (not many, I’d imagine) or by their husbands, and what (if anything) the community can do about it.
On the surface, the community looks like a picture of intercultural harmony. This is probably not the complete picture; I’ve no reason to believe that they would show their dirty laundry to me, nor do I have a sense of how big a pile there might be. But neither is complete the picture painted by women’s rights activists, of women coming across dreaming of western opportunity only to awaken to a nightmare of isolation and abuse.
The problem with the issue of mail-order brides and abuse is that while I don’t want abusive husbands to be able to hold deportation over their wives’ heads, I also don’t want to have people who want a “quickie path” to U.S. residence to be told that “just marry someone, and if you want out, you can claim he abused you.” Or alternately, a woman who wants to get into this country but who doesn’t want to be married for a long period of time could delierately marry an abuser so that she could leave as soon as he got violent.
The major reason I would think that the government is reluctant for MOBs to make it easy to get asylum for domestic abuse is to avoid people exploiting loopholes to get “quickie residency.” [At least, that’s why I would be cautious about making asylum easy].
Of course, considering how little the Bush admin cares about reducing illegal immigration from Mexico, it is more difficult to see them motivated by such concerns, so perhaps misogyny is the explanation here.
[Of course, for someone who wants open borders or at least fewer immigration restrictions than we have now, this may not be seen as a problem].
In any case, severely restricting the purchase of mail-order brides would, in my opinion, reduce this dilemma greatly.
Which brings up the fact that I find I curious that the mail-order brides should be informed of a potential husbands’ domestic violence record, but domestic violence does not disqualify one from ordering a mail-order bride. It seems to me that someone who wants to get into the U.S. badly enough might marry someone even if she knew he was abusive, so I’m not certain that “informing” the brides provides anywhere near enough protection.
Wow, Daran. What you describe sounds like a description of prostitution. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Thanks.
Glaivester, what do you think are the chances of this happening?
… a woman who wants to get into this country but who doesn’t want to be married for a long period of time could delierately marry an abuser so that she could leave as soon as he got violent.
It’s pretty much the same thing as playing Russian Roulette, only with a better chance of getting hurt or killed.
There are problems the law cannot solve, and this sounds like one of them.
How should the law “prohibit” MOB’s and still allow people who have legitimately “fallen in love” (or who wish to marry for some other reason) to marry? How to deal with women who want to get to the US or the West at any price for whatever reason, who then claim domestic abuse? How to keep ugly, geeky (but reasonably well-to-do) men from in effect “buying” a bride? Can we? Should we, between consenting adults?
Human beings being what we are, I have no doubt whatever that what Daran says is true: some of these marriages work out magnificently for all concerned, by any measure. There is nothing, after all, to keep the lovely young foreign woman from actually discovering loveable qualities in the ugly geeky man and genuinely coming to love him, and vice versa. I’m sure this doesn’t always happen (!) but I’m equally sure it happens sometimes. Love, as we have all observed, does not follow anyone’s rules.
The legal situation as described in the original post sounds pretty complicated to me, so that any woman who wanted to take advantage of any of this should have a specialist lawyer. Now, at a certain level I think more work for lawyers is a very fine thing, but I’m wondering if it’s a social good.
It’s pretty much the same thing as playing Russian Roulette, only with a better chance of getting hurt or killed.
Yes. But people play Russian Roulette, the real kind, all the time. Because something is obviously stupid and self-destructive doesn’t seem to eliminate it.
bean:
I think the people who were arguing against outlawing MOBs were actually arguing not against the new law, but against me, as I suggested that the practive of MOBs be outlawed or severely regulated. (#3 and #6)
Jake Squid:
It’s pretty much the same thing as playing Russian Roulette, only with a better chance of getting hurt or killed.
Actually, I think the chances of getting killed are not that great, and I think that there are a lot of people who would be willing to ge beaten up once or twice, even severely, in order to be able to live in the U.S.
My essential concern is that it should be a lot harder for someone to marry an American and then get a green card. I don’t think it should be automatic.
Jake Squid
I don’t think so. Prostitution is the exchange of sex in return for money, or some economic benefit. In the case of MOB, the deal is the exchange of the role-of-wife-and-homemaker for the role-of-husband-and-breadwinner. “Breadwinner” is extended to include supporting the woman’s family, but a lot of traditional western marriages involve looking after the inlaws too. Neither is it clear that love is absent from these marriages any more often than it is absent from traditional western marriages.
I’d say it was a lot closer to marriage than to prostitution.
I should also warn that this is a description of one community of one nationality in one city. It may play out differently elsewhere, or even for MOB with a different nationality here.
They may do, but I took my friends words as meaning that in the majority of them, the couple stay together, and aren’t beating each other up, or making life a misery for each other. I would describe that as “successful”, but not “working out magnificently”
I expect that some do work out magnificently. That description would apply to my friend’s marriage, assuming that they’re not concealing problems from me, which is always possible I suppose. However his is not a mail-order marriage.
Prostitution is the exchange of sex in return for money, or some economic benefit.
As has been pointed out for at least a century, if not more, where sex is required from the wife in return from economic support from the husband, marriage is a form of prostitution. Other labour may also be required from the wife – the job you sum up as “homemaker” – but intrinsically, traditional marriage is a narrowly-defined form of prostitution.
In Scotland it is illegal for a husband to rape his wife. However, I have to wonder if these women are aware that they have the legal right to refuse to have sex with their husbands, and, if they exercise that legal right, what happens to the economic support that their husbands have agreed to provide to them and to their families.
Amp, are you listening?
This is precisely the kind of remark I was referring to on the other thread, as the kind of “radical feminist” doctrine that doesn’t fly with me.
So shoot me, all you radfems, I just don’t take orthodoxies well, especially when they say things like this.
Jesurgislac is entirely entitled, of course, to hold this opinion. I won’t enlarge further on my opinion of this opinion.
Let me guess, Daran. You’re either not married at all, or have been married less than ten years.
Your idea that “working out magnificently” and having “problems” are mutually exclusive reveals that either you aren’t in the game at all, or haven’t been in it long enough to figure out where the goalposts are.
I’m not saying that all that is required is that the parties stay together and don’t beat each other up. (Well, sometimes that is all that is required, but not usually.) But marriage is as complicated as people are, and that is complicated indeed. What is “magnificent” in any given situation depends very much on the players involved.
I begin to believe that Susan has some sort of disorder when it comes to understanding written concepts. Here, let me point out the salient words for her:
…where sex is required from the wife in return from economic support from the husband, marriage is a form of prostitution.
See that? That is not saying that marriage is always a form of prostitution. It is saying that when a woman is required to engage in sex with her husband in order to gain his economic support, and only in that case, would it be considered a form of prostitution.
Sheesh!
Susan: This is precisely the kind of remark I was referring to on the other thread, as the kind of “radical feminist” doctrine that doesn’t fly with me.
What do you call it when a woman is required to provide sex in exchange for money?
So shoot me, all you radfems, I just don’t take orthodoxies well, especially when they say things like this.
And I don’t take well to being called a “radfem”, but there you go.
It’s hardly an “orthodoxy” – it’s just honest. In a marriage where the wife is not required to provide sex to the husband, it’s clearly not prostitution.
Daran can dress it up how he likes, but “Mail Order Brides” are a rather blatant form of marriage-as-prostitution: the difference (and it doubtless looks like a large difference enough to the women involved) is that the woman is only required to have one client, must live with that client and do other work for him, and gains certain legal rights. But the key point – the exchange of sex for money – is still there.
In a marriage where the wife is not required to provide sex to the husband, it’s clearly not prostitution.
See, I have a problem with the notion that sex is something the woman “provides” to the husband, rather than something both parties participate in and is expected/intended to be mutually fulfilling.
Whoops, missed the “not” there.
BTW, according to traditional Jewish law, it’s the husband’s duty to sexually satisfy his wife — not the other way around.
The Talmud even contains a table of men’s minimum performance requirements based on his occupation:
And that’s not an onus upon the wife; just a statement of what she has a right to demand.
Furthermore, if a man has an opportunity to switch jobs which would reduce his sexual requirements, his wife gets to choose whether she wants the increased money from a better job, or whether she prefers more frequent sex.
Les Riba, in case you missed it, it’s almost 2006. Any man who demands that his wife perform sexually for him in exchange for financial support is prostituting his wife. Forcing her to perform sexually against her will, whether that be through physical or financial coercion is rape.
Susan, why is it that when combining experience and doctrine to arrive at your viewpoints, you are speaking your mind– Yet when a radical feminist combines experience and doctrine to arrive at her viewpoints, it’s “orthodoxy ?”
You are, in fact, pushing an orthodoxy yourself, Susan. It’s just not one espoused by radical feminists.
Jesurgislac:
If you take that view, then my point was that MOB marriage – at least as it plays out in the Filipino community in one large Scottish city – is functionally closer to that form of prostitution commonly known as ‘marriage’ than that form commonly known as ‘prostitution’.
However, I don’t agree with your analysis; it appears to commit a fallacy of definition. Words are defined by usage, not by dictionaries. Dictionaries merely attempt to describe how words are used. If two things are functionally different, and a word is used to describe the first and not the second, then it is a defect of the definition of the word if it can be applied to the second thing.
The same applies to ad hoc definitions like my one quoted top.
Prostitution is functionally different from marriage. Marriage is a long-term, open-ended contract between three parties: the husband, the wife, and the State, which typically involve exchanges of value other than sex on the one side and economic benefit on the other. Prostitution typically involves two contracts: An open-ended contract between prostitute and pimp[1], and a short-term, closed-ended contract between the partnership[2] and the client, which involves only the exchange of sex on the one side, and economic benefit (usually money) on the other.
There are two significant variations on this theme: There may be no pimp, but all that means is that the prostitute undertakes that role for herself. Also the prostitute may be enslaved by the pimp, in which case there is only one contract – between pimp and client.
[1]or any other person or body which undertakes the role, including a procuress or a brothel.
[2]I do not intend to imply that prostitute and pimp have equal power. I can’t however, think of a better word to describe the typically unequal relationship between a pimp and a not-totally-enslaved prostitute.
Both the usage and the emotive load of the two words depends upon these functional differences. They are different words for different things. Calling marriage a “form of prostitution” appears to be no more than an attempt to recruit the emotive load of the latter word to disparage the institution of marriage. Marriage is certainly open to criticism, and it does provide a counterexample to the idea that society disapproves of all trades of sex for economic benefit, but it is inappropriate to call marriage prostitution.
Scotland has some very strange rape law, which I could discuss at length, but that would be rather off-topic.
My view is that adults should be allowed to negotiate their own relationship contracts, short- or long-term, and regardless of whether they are formalised as a marriage[3]. These contracts[4] typically include an agreement to have sex sometimes, and could (but usually do not) include an undertaking by one partner to be available for sex at any time.
[3]or Civil Partnership.
[4]Typically, of course, they are not explicitely negotiated, nevertheless they could be. If not, then the terms in the case of a marriage are explicit in the vows, or otherwise implied.
Some MRAs argue that rape in marriage is impossible. In their opinion, marriage is a binding agreement to have sex, thus meets the definition of consent: “to express willingness”. I do not agree, for two reasons. Firstly a general agreement to have sex does not imply agreement to have in any particular way or at any particular time. Such agreements are possible, as I noted above, but not typical. Secondly, while I agree that an agreement implies consent, it is not the same thing as consent. Consent – “expressed willingness” is an act of communication about the person’s state of mind at the time. If that state changes, and she communicates it, then de facto consent has been withdrawn, even though the agreement may (and probably is) still in place. The antifeminist argument confuses the contract with the performance of the contract. She may have (and probably has) consented (at the time of the contract) to sex at some time, and possibly (but probably not) to sex at a particular time or even at any time. She may also have (and probably has) agreed not to withdraw that consent. But she is still capable of withdrawing consent, and if she does, and he goes ahead and has sex with her anyway then, this is rape.
The antifeminist reply to this, is that it’s not rape (or if it is, then it’s justified), because he’s just taking what he is entitled to under the contract. My reply is that it is rape, and it’s not justified. The appropriate remedy for a breach of contract is by negotiation, or failing that, in the courts, not by committing criminal acts.
Historically, women’s role in marriage has been much more similar to slavery than prostitution. Married women have been (and still are in many places) denied political rights, property rights, parental rights, bodily autonomy rights. Prostitutes had at least some of those rights; slaves none.
Any time a man purchases a “wife”, he is prostituting a woman. Why would one argue differently? Who benefits from classing a bought wife separately from buying a prostitute?
Here are the things that Daran wrote that make an incredibly strong parallel to prostitution:
In return, money flows back to the Filipino family who are very often in dire poverty. So it’s an economic deal.
An economic deal. A contract in which Filipina woman provides sex and other services in return for monetary compensation. Seems like prostitution to me.
He said that the women know that in many cases they will be basically sacrificing themselves for their family.
She is selling her body to provide for her family. How is this not prostitution? Daran even used the word “sacrificing.” Marriage, in Western culture is not currently viewed as a sacrifice by the woman in return for monetary support to her family.
Daran made it crystal clear to me that this is a form of prostitution.
I see this as an example of women in desperate situations choosing the lesser of two evils to have a better life. US immigration law is a mess of red tape and impossible requirements, and these women see becoming a MOB as a means of escaping from extreme poverty, violence, and oppression beyond that experience by most American women.
I do not believe that it is right, and I can see that one possible remedy for the situation is to loosen immigration restrictions into the United States and other countries where MOB buisnesses flourish.
Discussing marriage as prostitution or MOB as prostitution (though I think I might be persuaded to this view myself) is only part of the problem. If the women signing up for these services had other legal alternative means of leaving their countries of origin then I think some of the MOB trade might just dry up.
Even better would be to attack the problem from both sides. Restricting how these services operate (regulations, reporting, and other rules) and opening or loosening immigration law. That deals with both sides of the equation: the demand (MOB services and the men that use them) and the supply (opening immigration law so that women may more easily immigrate). I’m not sure if that is a realistic way of looking at things or if I am only being naive.
Thanks for letting me post my rather disjointed thoughts about this subject.
I feel a strong urge to make a joke about “ass-drivers” and sex once a week.
Mendy:
The problem with loosening immigration restrictions is whether or not we want, or are able, to take in every person who wants to come to the U.S.
Bobby Hill: Why is there such a big fence, Dad?
Hank: Well, millions of people come to America in search of a better life, and we’ve decided we don’t need that many.
Bobby Hill: Did the Soupinusanphones come through the fence?
Hank: No, Bobby, Kahn applied the legal way. Sometimes the system fails us.
I realize that it is most likely an unworkable and unrealistic proposition, but it does provide a jumping-off point for discussion that is solution oriented.
I have a hard time in balancing my need to ensure that there is a safe, tolerable society for us to live in and keeping government small enough to avoid becoming “Big Brother”. In this instance, I am for stringent regulations on how these women are chosen, how the men are chosen, and how much time they must spend together to qualify.
I’m open to other ideas and opinions on the solution to this problem as it affects women and society as a whole.
Mendy:
A third possibility is to improve conditions in their home countries so that there no longer is the incentive to become MOBs.
Jake Squid:
(I’ve never given any thought to the gendered suffix to the word “Filipino”. Thanks for the correction.)
You write “sex and other services” as though it were primarily sex, and the ‘other services’ were ancillary to sex. That is not what I said, and not my understanding of the arrangement. Nor is the economic benefit the sole benefit that accrues to the woman.
There appear to me to be just two functional differences between the arrangement I have described, and traditional western marriages – the way the marriage is arranged (i.e. normally through a broker), and the flow of money to the family. In contrast, there are many functional differences between this arrangement and prostitution which I described in post 23.
Yes. Lots of people sacrifice themselves for their families.
The focus upon sex to the exclusion of everthing else is entirely yours. That tells us a lot more about Jake Squid than it does about mail-order marriage.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes prostitution isn’t so viewed by the prostitute. But marriage in western culture is often, perhaps usually viewed by one party as an agreement by the other to support them economically, while the other expects to be granted sexual relations. (Lis’s point about sex being a shared act is well taken, nevertheless, the fact that both expect to be granted sexual relations implies rather than contradicts the claim that each one expect this, and that therefore “the other” expects this.) If you view this as prostitution, then chances are most people on this blog either are or have been prostitutes or clients of prostitutes.
This is not what the word means, and not a useful analysis, in my opinion.
Q Grrl:
He doesn’t purchase a “wife”. He pays the broker for the introduction. The prospective couple then choose to enter into the arrangement, or choose not to.
Jesurgislac:
I’m not dressing anything up. I described how the arrangement works, as fairly as I could and as best I understand it. The focus upon the sex side of it is entirely that of the commentors here.
She lives with the man (the word “must” is yours; having a place to live is a benefit.) She works for them, just as he works for them. Often they have children together.
These men don’t want prostitutes. If they wanted prostitutes they could have prostitutes; the city’s big enough to have a red-light district. The point of going to a prostitute is that there are no ties for the client, once the deed is done and paid for. These men want those ties. They want wives.
The focus upon sex to the exclusion of everthing else is entirely yours. That tells us a lot more about Jake Squid than it does about mail-order marriage.
Geeze, dude. Fuck you, too. I’m trying to have a serious discussion about this. Just remember who flung the first insult.
Aside from that, it may surprise you to know that I, too, have known older, well-to-do, white men w/ Filipina wives or girlfriends or mistresses or kept women. It’s odd that, without exception, every one of these women is young, thin and beautiful by current US popular standards. What a coincidence, huh? Why do these men feel the need to find a wife from a country where women are even more obviously oppressed than in western culture? Do you doubt, for even one second, that if a putative Filipina wife decided she was no longer going to have sex with her wealthy western husband that the money would cease to flow from him to her family in the Phillipines? If you do, you are sadly mistaken.
If you can’t see the parallel to prostitution in your own comments, you are being willfully blind.
Daran,
Treating reciprocity in a relationship as a trivial case of dual non-reciprocity is extremely sloppy (judged kindly) and does not lead to good analysis. In fact, it leads to a fundamental blocking of good analysis, nearly on par with a failure to understand the concept of consensuality. In this passage, you seem to claim that any relationship in which both partners have a mutual expectation of sex and a mutual financial dependence is equivalent to a relationship in which sex is traded for financial support. This is such a contorted position that I have a very hard time believing that you actually hold it, and have a very hard time believing you aren’t simply putting forward a nonsensical argument because you dislike the association of your friend’s friends’ marriages with prostitution.
It is true that the mere coexistence of a one-sided expectation of sex and other services and an opposite directed one-sided expectation of financial support is not inherently equivalent to prostitution (that a one-sided expectation of sex and particularly a view that sex is something provided by the female partner to the male partner is fucked up, sexist, misogynistic and harmful is true even if it isn’t equivalent to prostitution, and this view of het sexuality is certainly strongly tied to the existence of prostitution). However, where both of these expectations exist, the slide into viewing these two one-sided expectations as an exchange will certainly frequently occur.
While you point out a variety of features of a group of forms of prostitution that are lacking in marriage, these features are also not found in all forms of prostitution. What is found in all forms of prostitution is treating sex as a good possessed by one person, which is traded to the other person in exchange for money or other goods or favors. Where a marriage also functions along these lines, it is worthwhile to point out that it shares this feature with prostitution, and that indeed such a marriage can be viewed as a form of prostitution. This may seem to you like an expansion of the definition of prostitution beyond what you are comfortable with, but it is an expansion of the definition that is based in an analysis of the two institutions and of particular instances, it is not simply an attempt to stick a pejorative label on an unrelated phenomenon. It is also not a new or shocking expansion of the definition to most feminists (whether or not they would fully agree with it or find it useful).
So, um, does your argument against the basic concept that non-reciprocality is fundamentally different than reciprocality, or your argument that no marriage could be akin to prostitution in any meaningful sense rise to the level that you are making anti-feminist arguments in an anti-feminist intolerant thread? Only Amp can say for sure, but self-moderation by people of good-will is the center point of effective discussion of the sort Amp favors. Your pointless dig at feminists in your first post makes me question your good intentions throughout this thread. I don’t think that you are trolling exactly, but you are certainly ensuring that feminist-feminist (or even feminist-non-feminist) discussion of MOBs doesn’t take place in this thread.
I agree that changing the country of origin would be a wonderful thing, but how would you go about doing that? It’s taken about 100 years for women here in the States to get to where we are. I’d be open to suggestions of how to make women in the Middle East and other countries more liberated.
Daran,
As an example of other forms of prostitution that fail your criteria, but that I think you would agree are prostitution:
Geishas, whose johns were (are) long term relationships including extensive companionship and entertainment services as well as sex.
Mistresses who are financially supported by their partner, and whose long-term relationships include extensive companionship services as well.
While there is (I suspect) a grey area beyond which financially supported mistresses would no longer be prostituted in your view, I think you will agree that there is also the other end where financially-supported mistresses blend into escort services (which can also involve long-term open-ended relationships) or personal ads seeking “generous” partners.
So your criteria of pimps (or mental pimps, which seems to me to be a dodge on your part, how do you evaluate whether someone is serving as their own pimp?) and closed-term one-off relationships as the defining features of prostitution seems to me to be clearly an inadequate analysis of the range of obvious forms of prostitution. Trading sex and other social relationships for money or other favors seems to be a better defining feature, particularly if done under conditions of social or economic inequality.
If you find the term prostitution too upsetting of a term to see used for something nice guys and their decent, upstanding wives do, perhaps you would prefer “transactional sex?” But then I guess part of your point was that more than just sex is being traded?
These men don’t want prostitutes. If they wanted prostitutes they could have prostitutes; the city’s big enough to have a red-light district. The point of going to a prostitute is that there are no ties for the client, once the deed is done and paid for. These men want those ties. They want wives.
Your understanding of prostitution is extremely limited and naive.
Perhaps the problem is the considerable elasticity of the job description of the role of ‘wife’. I used to work in the merchant marine, a job which, after periods of 80-100 work weeks, included some long vacations. Many of the men I worked with sneered at ‘Western women’ and would vacation in countries like Thailand where they were able to purchase a young and beautiful woman on a monthly basis. She would clean the house, shop, provide sex, remain agreeable and perform all the functions of a wife
for a remarkably small fee. Sometimes these guys would end up marrying these women and bringing them back to the US or, and more often, commuting from Thailand a couple of times a year . So, the question is, were these women wives or prostitutes or both?
Does a marriage ceremony immediately confer some sort of dignity on a relationship which is (to my mind) intrinsically denigrating? And, if so, what does that say about marriage as an institution?
The men I worked with didn’t want ‘ties’, they wanted someone willing to perform a number of functions as cheaply as possible without objections; they wanted a good deal.
Why did the writers of this law explicitly provide a provision in the law that exempts Match.com, FriendFinder, AsianFriendFinder, FilipinoFriendFinder, MSN Personals, and other large sites? Why was this provision necessary? They could have just LET IT BE and thousands of foreign women would fall under the law’s protection. The law states that matchmakers that do not match foreigners and Americans as the main part or their business and who charge equal fees to men and women are exempt. But these large mainstream sites allow folks to join for free! The paying member can make the contact. Therefore, thousands of foreign women (Match.com alone has more foreign women members than all international marriage brokers combined) join and wait for American men to contact them.
Can anyone explain this?
Here is something for the MRA’s to sink their teeth into
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/7/emw138739.htm
Promoters of the INTERNATIONAL MARRIAGE BROKER REGULATION ACT strategically link international matchmaking organizations with human trafficking rings in effort to gain bipartisan support.
Strategic linking of marriage brokers with human trafficking rings aids in gaining bipartisan support for law intent on eliminating international matchmaking companies and websites.
(PRWEB) July 4, 2004 — To gain bipartisan support for the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act, we endorse the strategies of (1) using “womens’ protection” as the main theme of the law; and (2) claiming that American-based marriage brokers are part of global human trafficking rings, however unfounded.
We also support provisions of the Act that will require brokers to conduct large quantities of consent verifications and background checks before American men can write love letters or make any contact with foreign women. These provisions will make it very difficult for American-based marriage brokers to organize those disgusting overseas introduction “parties” where women outnumber men 100 to 1. These provisions will also drive up costs to the point of putting most brokers out of business. In addition, this law effectively places “warning labels” on American men thus decreasing demand for them among foreign women over time.
Although this law is long overdue (and hopefully not too late), we welcome the Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2003 as a means to regulating the often arrogant and brazen international marriage broker industry. This industry has gone from the fringe to the mainstream. The American male population is now overly exposed to the message that it is acceptable to desire and actually marry women “unspoiled” by American materialism and most troubling, “uninfected” by American feminism. This message may impede the progress of feminism here at home and give American men the idea that it is acceptable to not respect feminist principles that took so long to instill upon them.
The marriage broker websites promulgate the “message” that American men are highly desirable outside the U.S. and can have access to women not intent on upholding over 30 years of hard won womens’ rights. These sites also offensively elaborate on the reasons for rejecting American women as part of a campaign to promote the desirablity of foreign women. We find this to be most appalling.
Certainly, the existence of this industry is indicative of the sad state of romantic relationships between men and women in North America; however, it by no means should be allowed to continue unregulated. Sites such as http://www.americanwomensuck.com and http://www.nomarriage.com are problematic enough.
Aaargh! I just accidently deleted a very short post by “Christy” (at least, I think that was the name) – my bad, I was intending to delete a spam post that was just below it, and I hit the “delete” button above instead of the “delete” button below.
Sorry!
Amp, no issues. I think this was the link and she wanted to show how the MRA’s are freaked over IMBRA.
Alice, the press release you quote seems to me to have been written by fans of the mail-order bride industry as either a hoax or a satire, and not written by actual supporters of the IMBA.
Thanks, Hilda! That’s it!
(But how did you know? Very mysterious!)
Amp
Yeah, maybe it was a hoax. But why would supporters go out their way to compose all that?
Also, regarding the issue of exemption under the law, why are so many foreign women being left out – that is, those who use Match and MSN? It seems like such a vast loophool was left intentionally open.
To call on generally all international matchmaking agencies like a kind of prostitution is not correct. The fee is not for ‘to buy a woman’, but it a fee to pay a broker to look for possible men and women to arrange meetings. The woman, but also the man can refuse proposals for a meeting anytime.
About the personal ads of MSN, Yahoo and others it must be noticed, that these are containing 10000s of ads from women living in the USA and Western Europe.
About the IMB bill:
1-
There is, of course, no law existing, which prohibits a male US citizen to search for and marry a foreign woman and to bring her back to the USA.
2-
Immigration rules and such IMB laws might delay the arrival of the foreign woman for some months, but cannot change the final result.
3-
International introduction services are very useful, as US citizens have only short vacation and to travel abroad is a very long trip and time-consuming. Introduction services make it possible to meet some women you can never meet by yourself, at a certain time at a certain place.
4-
In Asia, where I am living, unlike in the USA, introduction services for marriage are very common among the locals – nothing wrong with it.
It is not only for poor local women looking for rich foreign men.
It has nothing to do with the living standard of the man or the woman. Introduction services are existing legally in Thailand, Malaysia, China but also in Singapore, Hongkong and Japan.
It is difficult or almost impossible to control and to restrict male US citizens, who are looking for a foreign wife outside of USA.
Male US citizens might get on the internet and contact overseas introduction services, which have their offices and registration not in the USA.
I see much discussion, but basically nothing will change.
Johann Writes: To call on generally all international matchmaking agencies like a kind of prostitution is not correct.
That may be so, but not for the reason you give:
The fee is not for ‘to buy a woman’, but it a fee to pay a broker to look for possible men and women to arrange meetings. The woman, but also the man can refuse proposals for a meeting anytime.
That’s the way escort agencies work. A man who pays an escort agency is legally only paying for a meeting with a woman (or a man). Legally, if the man wants to have sex with the “escort” the agency provides, he has to arrange that separately with the “escort” at the meeting, and pay a further fee. Even so, a man may pay an international matchmaking agency a fee only to “find a woman”: that would not prevent these agencies effectively providing a form of prostitution, if their intended market is rich-by-comparison men who are looking for the kind of marriage that is sex/labor for cash.
In Asia, where I am living, unlike in the USA, introduction services for marriage are very common among the locals – nothing wrong with it.
It is not only for poor local women looking for rich foreign men.
And dating agencies are extremely common in the US and in other parts of the Western world, which are (or can be) introduction services for marriage. When two people who are equals are looking for a partner, this is a different situation from a well-off man looking to buy a woman who will provide him with services in return for economic support.
So many details. So much discussion. Yet, I have never seen an explanation or justification for the following:
IMBRA’s requirement that the men and agencies provide all sorts of paperwork for women to review for each man and the women must give permission to release her contact information BEFORE any man can write her an email to say hello. Why BEFORE? That is, how is saying hello just to find out if she is remotely interested in him harmful to the woman?
Aside from the remote possibility that he may get her mailing address and actually fly half way around the world to stalk her, what was the intent of the lawmakers regarding this provision?
Lee: Aside from the remote possibility that he may get her mailing address and actually fly half way around the world to stalk her, what was the intent of the lawmakers regarding this provision?
Because no man should object to it, except those who want to keep their identity a secret from the women they are pursuing. I can think of all sorts of reasons why a man would want to do that – not least, a man who is actually stalking a woman who lives in the same city as him, and contacts these agencies pretending to be in another country.
“Because no man should object to it, except those who want to keep their identity a secret from the women they are pursuing. ”
That could be said about any man meeting any woman anywhere by any medium. That is, I absolutely agree: he should not object to having his background looked over but:
1) why is this check required BEFORE a man can say HELLO? That is, it is not about him objecting, its about the TIMING, and
2) why is the woman not given a choice whether she wants this information before he can contact her? The law requires her to receive it before contact can be made.
Let me reverse the question, Lee. Why shouldn’t a woman know that a possible suitor has a record of criminal violence against girlfriends before she decides whether to correspond with him?
But she does have a choice. The law requires her to receive it, but it can’t force her to read it if she doesn’t want to.
1) why is this check required BEFORE a man can say HELLO?
“Let me reverse the question, Lee. Why shouldn’t a woman know that a possible suitor has a record of criminal violence against girlfriends before she decides whether to correspond with him?”
Yes, you are right, why shouldn’t she. Assuming that the lawmakers thought this way as well, why was SPECIFIC and DELIBERATE language included in the law that enables men who use Match.com and others large powerful matchmaking firms to avoid this disclosure requirement when pursuing foreign women living in third world countries? AND I do understand the words “marriage” and “broker” were created as propaganda labels and therefore not relevant to my question.
why is the woman not given a choice whether she wants this information before he can contact her?
To avoid allowing the agencies to treat asking for that information as a sign of a troublesome client. To avoid allowing the agency to stall or refrain from giving that information, with the hopes that maybe she’ll forget about it, or won’t get it until there’s an established relationship.
If it’s required, the question is very simple: did the agency comply with the law, or not? There’s no she-said-they-said about whether she asked or didn’t or whether they oopsed on the request.
Umm, the Lee posting here is the other Lee, not me. Amp, I thought you said you’d fix this?
Thanks, Amp!
Sorry, Lee. I can edit names after-the-fact (as I’ve now done here), but the software doesn’t allow me to prevent a new user from using a name that an old user is already using.
Lee (the other Lee), next time you post, please choose some other name, or some variation on “Lee” to distinguish yourself from the already-here Lee. Thanks!
* * *
Lee (another Lee, that is) wrote:
Because the goal of the legislation was to regulate mail-order-bride services, not to regulate dating services, obviously.
Just because you want to pretend that there’s no difference between match.com and chanceforlove.com (“The Russian woman’s attitude about herself is feminine. She expects to be treated as a lady, she is the weaker gender and knows it. The Russian woman has not been exposed to the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America. […] If you follow our simple rules you will end up with an excellent chance of winning a beautiful and loving companion for life.”), doesn’t mean that there is no difference.
In fact, if there were no difference – if the phrase “marriage broker” was nothing but hype – it would have been logically impossible for the legislation to distinguish between the two industries with just a couple of simple rules.
Alternatively, if the other Lee doesn’t make any changes (for whatever reason), then I could change mine, but I think that would make the old threads very confusing.
“In fact, if there were no difference – if the phrase “marriage broker” was nothing but hype – it would have been logically impossible for the legislation to distinguish between the two industries with just a couple of simple rules. ”
You are right.. the lawmakers made an effort to distinguish the marriage broker business model (and based on the quote from that website, a specific marketing model) from sites like Match.com. In addition, numerous organizations, substantial funds, hours of research, and massive lobbying, were probably thrown at this, as difficult as any law is to get passed these days. That is, there was a lot of thought and effort, not to mention three years of waiting for it to happen. The international matchmakers were now seen as a marriage broker “industry” unrelated to any other business model where men meet women.
With the industry finally isolated and singled-out, why didn’t the lawmakers outlaw it? All that effort, and its still allowed to exist? And with regulation that has to be monitored and enforced and adjusted from time to time. WHY? Aside from the brokers themselves, who would have put up a fight? And who would, and for what reason, come to the defense of a bunch of women-trafficking pimps?
Ampersand Writes:
January 8th, 2006 at 9:42 am
1) why is this check required BEFORE a man can say HELLO?
Let me reverse the question, Lee. Why shouldn’t a woman know that a possible suitor has a record of criminal violence against girlfriends before she decides whether to correspond with him?
———-
Ampersand,
I do not think, that this really is a problem for a man, why not. If I have no criminal record, then there is nothing to hide.
However I do not understand, why the man has no right to ask for the same information in return about the woman.
It is not always the American man, who is the bad guy. There is a lot of fraud, scum, cheat going on among foreign women to find a possibility to enter the USA. There are not even so few cases known, where the woman did not exist, where documents were a fake, where women were still legally married…
The law now regarding obligatory information is an one-way…from the man to the woman.
It should be both ways, by my opinion, and I am sure, most complaints about the bill would never come up.
My question: Why shouldn’t the man know in advance, if a certain foreign woman, who is interested into marriage and immigration into the US has a criminal record?
From posting 49, Jesurgislac Writes:
January 8th, 2006 at 6:52 am
And dating agencies are extremely common in the US and in other parts of the Western world, which are (or can be) introduction services for marriage. When two people who are equals are looking for a partner, this is a different situation from a well-off man looking to buy a woman who will provide him with services in return for economic support.
———————————–
I wonder, how you do define ‘equals’?
And how do you want to control or regulate this?
I do not think, that all marriages in the US and other Western world are between ‘equals’ regarding their economic situation.
There is NO law, which can prevent a rich man to marry a poor woman (or vice verse).
If this is an American woman or a foreign woman – I still do not see any difference.
Again, there is NO law, which can prevent an American citizen to marry a foreigner.
The situation isn’t as parallel as you’re implying.
He’s contacting her, not vice versa. So he’s able to decide “do I want this woman to have access to my records, or not?” If he decides not, he can choose not to contact her. He can decide to let her have his private info, or not to.
In contrast, the only way to allow him to have access to her records before he contacts her, is to have her records be open and accessible to any suitor who’s interested, rather than her deciding to make them available. She’d have no ability to decide who gets, or doesn’t get, her private info.
Keep in mind, however, that part of the process of getting a visa is having a complete background check, including criminal records. So although he doesn’t get to see her criminal background check before he says “hello,” he will at least get to see it before he says “I do.”
Mayeb they thought it was better to have the service legal and regulated than illegal and unregulated.
Ampersand Writes:
January 9th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
The situation isn’t as parallel as you’re implying.
He’s contacting her, not vice versa. So he’s able to decide “do I want this woman to have access to my records, or not?” If he decides not, he can choose not to contact her. He can decide to let her have his private info, or not to.
——————–
I have a question – I am really astonished to read that. Is it really so, that it is ALWAYS the American man, who is contacting the foreign woman first?
Matchmakers usually collect profils of men and women, and sometimes the man might contact the woman, or the woman might contact the man…
However, if you are using something like MSN or Yahoo, you never know, if the profil is correct or a fake. – It is said, that 80 percent are a fake or somehow untrue of both, men and women.
You can never trust any matchmaker. After you find your contacts, get on a plane and check it out yourself, before inviting an unknown woman to join you in Western countries. Just my opinion.
“Maybe they thought it was better to have the service legal and regulated than illegal and unregulated. ”
If it is made illegal, its is essentially banned from existence. There will always be a small underground version, whether brokers are kept legal or made illegal (banned). So why not just ban it since nearly all operate as websites and violaters (those remaining in business) would be very easy to track by monitoring the web (just like the banning of American-based sex tour operators which has already been accomplished in numerous states). By banning it, close to 100% of the volume of women being imported via American-based brokers would be eliminated.
The MOB industry is IMO creepy and very disturbing and should be banned. But, as that appears to be unrealistic right now, at least this legislation is a step in the right direction.
“The MOB industry is IMO creepy and very disturbing and should be banned. But, as that appears to be unrealistic right now, at least this legislation is a step in the right direction. ”
Why does it appear “unrealistic” to ban it? Just who would come to the defense of these women-trafficking pimp brokers anway? The ACLU??
I’m not sure how this law is going to do any good. There seems to be a big loophole:
“This legislation, as presently constituted, would exempt large companies like MSN Personals, Yahoo Personals, Match.com and others whose ‘primary’ business is not International Matchmaking. Although International Matchmaking is not the “primary” focus of these large companies, they advertise thousands of profiles of foreign nationals on their site and receive a substantial stream of revenue based on the promotion of international profiles”
So if Mr Bad Boy wants to avoid the paperwork, he joins Yahoo Personals which will be exempted from providing the required paperwork to the ladies.
Lets face it, the law is about putting a feather in someone’s political hat and has very little to do about protecting the foreign bride. Otherwise, the big boys who have the vast amount of traffic in the arena would also have to comply no matter what their main business source is. Congress must of been afraid of the Yahoo lawyers :).
Cheers.
“Lets face it, the law is about putting a feather in someone’s political hat and has very little to do about protecting the foreign bride. Otherwise, the big boys who have the vast amount of traffic in the arena would also have to comply no matter what their main business source is. Congress must of been afraid of the Yahoo lawyers.”
That is a fact…and not one person who supports every provision of IMBRA has ever made (or cared to make) a clear argument that the above is false. Although protecting the foreign bride was part of their agenda, there is another agenda that the original supporters of the law will never admit to: They absolutely HATE and are INFURIATED and AFFRONTED by the foreign matchmaking websites. That is, these websites have implications beyond the notion that they attract men who seek “to abuse” women.
That is, these websites have implications beyond the notion that they attract men who seek “to abuse” women.
Absolutely true. These websites have strong implications of prostitution. Many of us object to that. See the string of comments from #5 through #40 in this thread for a discussion of this issue.
“Absolutely true. These websites have strong implications of prostitution. ”
Certainly, the writers of IMBRA must have recognized that fact. After all, they are smart people.
Prostitution is not legal and therefore banned in almost 100% of counties in the United States.
So, then why didn’t the smart people who wrote the law simply ban the marriage broker business (which they spent countless hours defining and protesting against) along with the related websites that have strong implications of prostitution?
i got an idea… why don’t all men get chips implanted in their heads with there complete history, crimninal, marital, how many children he has… if he wants to contact a “foreign national” lady through a for-profit website you can scan his head and print the information and mail it to the lady. Of course we should not offer more protections to a foreign national outside the country than we do to the “illegal” foreign nationals in the country ( i am speaking of the estimated 1 million illegal single Mexican ladies in the USA). She would also get to scan my chip… oh i forgot, the American ladies do not get the same protection under H.R 3402 Subtitle D, so if i want to contact a single american lady she cannot scan my chip.. but i am sure in a few years that will also change… just like the scanners at the department stores that check prices you can have a chip scanners everywhere and run guys head througH it before they can say hi or get your phone number.. gee makes dating so attractive
The visa process now protects American men and foreign ladies through an extensive backround check before they can spend their lives together.. that is where the process belongs.. not in the getting to know you stage..
Before this legislation, the “extensive background check” was only done of the one immigrating to a new country – that is, to the woman. Nor do I see any logical reason why it’s wrong to have a background check at the earlier stage.
“Nor do I see any logical reason why it’s wrong to have a background check at the earlier stage. ”
I hope this will not be too difficult to answer – but a logical response would sure help me to understand, so if you dont mind..
1) Why do you think the lawmakers wanted women to have this information before, say, an email could be sent? Nevermind why its wrong or right, or justified or not – but just why? Go ahead, speculate. I sure can’t figure it out.
2) Related to 1, why couldn’t the woman just be made aware that a background check was available if she wanted it at any time, even before she made or allowed contact? Certainly, the lawmakers and everyone here are not a patronizing bunch and know these women can think for themselves. Is there a reason why this approach is not plausible?
Before this legislation, the “extensive background check” was only done of the one immigrating to a new country – that is, to the woman. Nor do I see any logical reason why it’s wrong to have a background check at the earlier stage
Goodness, this statement shocks me. Lets review. You join a dating service. You read a lady’s bio, it seems nice, it interest you so you want to contact her. At this stage, that is all you know of the lady–her bio. You have no idea if this lady is legit or not. In other words, she could be prowling the internet collecting personal information that could violate your privacy.
However, take the same scenario but this time it is 6 months later. You get to know the lady, fall in love and ask the lady to marry you….in other words, you are asking her to leave her country. You have to file for petition for marriage and that paperwork has to go to the U.S. embassy in her country. This is the appropriate time to officially disclose your personal background. It is only fair sense you are asking her to leave her country. Since the lady has full access to all the paperwork during the immigration process in her country, if she decides not to accept your petition for marriage she can turn it down….and she is still safe and sound in her country.
Do you see the difference??? Even in the traditional dating scene, most men date several woman before they find the one they consider Mrs Right. It is no different in the internet world. Men will engage in an introduction period with several woman until they find Mrs Right.
So the laws intent can still be executed, just don’t ask a man during the introduction stages to give his personal background to every lady he wants to meet. Disclose it at the appropriate time when he petitions the lady for marriage … she will have amble time to see the disclosure and decide if she wants to leave or not.
Why not take this privacy issue and bring it to the traditional dating world. You are in a club looking around. You see a lady you want to meet, walk up to her and ask her for her phone number…..she smiles and says, show me your paperwork first. Most of us wouldn’t tolerate this type of invasion of our privacy at initial contact with another person. Even more ironic, in a traditional dating scenario, a man could meet a lady, get her phone number, call her and ask her out for a date. At that date, the man is physically in the lady’s presence. Now tell me who is more at a danger during the introduction stage…the lady on a traditional date or a lady who is a thousand miles away.
The law is just bad………besides, it isn’t going to accomplish what it is intended to do. It does not regulate the big boys in the industry like Yahoo Personals, MSN, etc. This law should be an insult to any woman lib group if they take the protection of women’s safety seriously. The law has loopholes that let the bigger traffic sites of international dating to continue as is and promotes the off shore websites who ethics may be questionable.
So the law crushes the little guy whose numbers are minor in the international arena. While the possible threat of danger to a foreign lady has not changed one bit by this law. If the small sites are crushed it just means those who are seeking a bride will go to the bigger sites or off shore sites where they are not regulated.
As usual, the law’s hidden intent is about money and corporate America.
Oh well, that is my two cents.
And I still want to know, if anyone who supports this law wants to step up, the following –
WHY the lawmakers wanted women to have this information before, say, an email could be sent? Nevermind why its wrong or right, or justified or not – but just why? Go ahead, speculate. I sure can’t figure it out.
and if anyone here who supports the law is really brave, they can answer this as well –
Why is it “unrealistic” to ban marriage brokers? Just who would come to the defense of these women-trafficking pimps along with their websites that strongly imply prostitution? The ACLU??
Ignorance must be bliss….most are not women-trafficking pimps…..unfounded words sensationlized by the media and narrowed minded people like yourself.
Show me the evidence….you can’t!
i read this stream and one thing keeps digging at me… forget about whether you think website owners that post foreign nationals are “women-trafficing pimps” …. but my god that is a horrible statement and one that is unfounded, but understandable in todays “sensational” society. Hell, politicians have become experts in those sensational sound bites so why not join in..
If this country requires men to submit a backround and personal history check to a webmaster and a lady he doesn’t know, just to write or email her, this country has lost it’s way..
maybe it is that everyone is so busy working and trying to to make ends meet that they no longer care about their right to privacy… or maybe it is that your hatred of men that want to marry foreign nationals is so strong you do not care about their first amendment rights… i am not sure …
The bottom line is this … i cannot believe that anyone posting here thinks that another person has the right to your complete criminal backround and personal history just to speak with you… if you tell me you agree then i guess you are not concerned about your own right to live and breath in a free society..
It seems that you guys are still at it – trying to poke holes in this law. OK. Lets put this to bed. Especially the notion of when the foreign woman receives the man’s background information. There is a clear reason why the lawmakers wanted it this way and if you would have thought through it, you may have figured it out for yourselves. Here, let me help.
The law states that the background information must be supplied to the woman and she must provide permission for the broker to release her contact information for purposes of the man writing her a letter AND meeting her in person. Lets focus on the latter part while reading this from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, dated 12/7/04:
Jeanne Smoot, who is with the Tahirih Justice Center (they had a major role in the drafting of the law) says the romance tours sponsored by some international matchmakers … where typically 20 men travel overseas to mingle in socials with hundreds of foreign women … are “akin to a cattle call.”
Now, don’t you think Tahirih and numerous others who have a problem with these imbalanced social events that are more likely akin to a harem wanted this practice to continue? If there are 20 men, there may be as many as 300 women and I bet you that most of the women never had prior contact, by email or otherwise, with the men. Sounds fun? Too bad, because now the party is over. Think about it. The new law will require that each woman receive the background information for each of the 20 men – that is the broker would have to manage 6,000 release forms…just to have a party.
So, now that you know the reason, stop asking and leave the folks here to move onto other more pressing concerns.
Being that I work in this industry I can tell you that nobody gets into this country without being interviewed extensively. One does not simply “order” a bride, those days are long gone. Today you must prove that you have carried on an extensive relationship, met several times, and corresponded at least a year. The man must then go through a background check and interview seperately.
The main problem I have with this Act is that it doesn’t work both ways. Does anyone here have any idea how many Russian women extort money from men through these services? Just google any scam site and you’ll find thousands of examples where women have either stolen money or completely duped idiotic, lonely men into sending away their inheritance. Why doesn’t the woman have to get a background check? Because the law always assumes that women are either not smart enough to be cunning or that the women are more innocent because they don’t have the same capacity for violence as a man. So if you think this is a feminist piece of legistlation you’re sadly mistaken. In government, women are not capable of the same things as men. You’re not equal.
Also, the law is so broadly defined that essentially any dating service in the US is now liable to provide background information on every male member, a prospect that will drive most companies out of business. I know at my agency we don’t tolerate any type of unsavory conduct or activity. We primarily give bandwidth for men and Russian women to talk and get to know each other. Nobody gets shipped anywhere. We merely organize dates that are quite expensive and supervised until the woman feels safe with the man. Only when she has informed her agency that she’s comfortable will they be alone together.
In the end I think that this law will only be one of many unenforceable laws because of it’s broad wording. If anyone thinks that this only pertains to the selling of contact information, you haven’t been paying attention in the last 50 years. Laws like this are a gateway that allow the judges or the various investigating agencies to pry further into a company or individual’s practices. Sure it may say that they’re only going after the selling of information, but after they’ve confiscated all of your PC’s for 12 months and found nothing you’re still out of business.
Nobody wants a woman or anyone else to be abused but creating massive sprawling laws without precedent aren’t going to stop that from happening.
Oh, and a question for the current Administration- what ever happened to finding that Osama fellow?
Well Alice thanks for your insight, and for dismissing us as idiots. The problem with your little example is it that you are talking about one example, and one example that does not address what most of these websites are about. There are hundreds of websites that only deal with providing contact information of people, and do not treat women like “cattle” .. Legitimate and caring people that have mom an pop websites sharing contact information of people that want to “talk” .. they are caught in the dragnet of this marriage broker law.. i am sorry this is not a pressing concern for you.. but that does not mean the argument has no merit..
here is what the law really says
A) In general.–The term “international marriage broker” means a corporation, partnership, business, individual, or other legal entity, whether or not organized under any law of the United States, that
charges fees for providing dating, matrimonial,
matchmaking services, or social referrals between United States clients and foreign national clients by providing personal contact information or otherwise facilitating communication between individuals from
these respective groups.
if you provide contact information you are a marriage broker.. whether the two will ever meet in person makes no difference..
Yossarian writes:
As the Act itself says (describing the situation before the Act is passed):
So, in fact, although it’s not identical both ways, it does work both ways.
Yossarian writes:
That’s simply not true.
Here’s how the act defines marriage brokers – and unlike Mike, I’m quoting the complete definition from the Act.
Clearly, the exceptions make it possible for dating services to exist without being affected by this law.
And Mike, Alice was quite correct that the law applies to contact by either letter or an in-person meeting. Here’s the relevant text from the Act:
I have to say, I’m not impressed with how accurate either of you have been, Mike and Yossarian.
Alice, you cite one incident the law effect. Individual rights and privacy are pressing concerns. Sorry you don’t think so.
Ampersand, you are correct in cititng the law. But how do you think they’ll tell if someone is in compliance, wait for a disgruntled woman to drop a dime? No, we have already researched and found out that the State department has allocated millions to investigate each marriage agency. Having a little background in law enforcement myself, I can tell you that this means one thing- raids.
Again, you can quote me the specifics of the law all you want, it’s all the same when your door is kicked in by the Feds.
They will essentially raid the top five businesses and confiscate all computers on the premesis. Normally any kind of effective data mining will take no less than 8 months. Be assured that the Feds will take 12. By then, guilty or not, the compliant agencies will be out of business.
Because most of the top 10 dating services that specialize in international dating have thousands of customers, it would require roughly $10k to ensure that each paying member is checked. March 5th is not when the law takes effect, it’s the launch point for the raids. We know that they’ve been watching us since the end of December but we’ve done nothing wrong. Incidentally they did the same thing with Medical Marijuana laws when they repealed them. The repeal date doesn’t mean you have to stop doing it then, that just when they’re going to come after you.
And Ampersand, I realize that the woman gets a background check for the K1. I was referring to the fact that if she wants a man’s personal information she doesn’t get a background check. That’s when scams usually take place. She sends a letter asking for money and it follows from there. Incidentally, have you ever seen the Ukranian version of a background check? Probably not.
Oh, and socials? I’ve witnesses several in my time and it’s nothing like a harem. The local agencies post fliers around town like a nightclub, normally attracting either party girls or professionals. The men are usually from England, American, Germany, and a few other industrialized nations. It’s then an awkward staring contest while the pros work the room and try to pick up on one of the guys. In the end there’s usually about 75 men looking sad and the rest of the women looking bored. They’re really quite pathetic and not as popular as they were in the 1980’s. Kind of like Pete Burns’ band Dead or Alive.
So in the end, whatever- we’ll adapt and continue to do what we do. Nobody’s ever been hurt through our service, lost any money, or gone away pissed off. We simply get people together and make sure that they want to be together. Moscow is not the 3rd world. It’s more expensive to visit there than Paris and the people there are absolutely wonderful and generous. The women using our service come of their own free will and leave when they want, just like any online dating service in the States.
“Oh, and socials? I’ve witnesses several in my time and it’s nothing like a harem. The local agencies post fliers around town like a nightclub, normally attracting either party girls or professionals. ”
Well, well. Isn’t that revealing. Of course, the writers of IMBRA were very aware of that since they had scouts sent into the field. Its actually called sex tourism and illegal in many states for American men to travel for purposes of engaging in this activity. In this case, however, it would have taken years to gather enough evidence so the smart lawmakers solved the problem by requiring background checks before ANY form of contact can be made – to throw a wrench in the business practice. Now, each girl at the entry to the club would have to sign off on each man’s background information – before they can even show themselves, or wave to, or make eye contact with, or…whatever. I can’t even begin to describe the shear glee all the womens’ groups, that helped write IMBRA, are having knowing that they found a way to put the brakes on these parties.
On the issue of why the larger dating sites were made exempt:
In the IMBRA law, there is an exception to the definition of “International Marriage Broker (IMB)” for the following:
“(ii) an entity that provides dating services if its principal business is not to provide international dating services between United States citizens or United State residents and foreign nationals and it charges comparable rates and offers comparable services to all individuals it serves regardless of the individual’s gender or country of citizenship.”
Section 833 (e)(4)(B)(ii).
Match.com, Yahoo.com, MSNBC.com, and other similar mega-dating sites fit into this exception. Their high-paid lobbyists helped to get this exception carved out for them by this law’s drafters.
Good. Now we all understand that one.
bean Writes:
“As I clearly wrote in my post about this (and I think it should have been pretty clear in what Amp wrote), this law does not outlaw International Marriage Brokers, mail-order brides, or international marriage of any kind.”
Agreed, as per the letter and on the surface of the law. However, most of us on this blog will be happy to know that the law will regulate most US based brokers out of business, and its good that the lawmakers found a way to do just that.
The lawmakers first choice, as it would have been anyone’s who despises the marriage broker industry, was to outlaw it. That is, a law that shut down US based marriage brokers and (if bold enough) made it illegal for American men to utilize brokers operating in foreign countries. Eliminating the brokers is a MUCH more effective way of ending the negative stereotyping found on marriage broker websites and the ability of American men to contact foreign women who seek marriage as an escape from povery.
Its a well know fact, and the writers of IMBRA knew, that it took numerous years to shut down just one sex tour operator, Big Apple Tours, that was based on Queens, New York. Why? Because it is a legitimate business that was merely organizing vacation tours for men and once in the foreign country, it was very difficult to prove that Big Apple was pimping the local women.
The IMBRA folks crafted the law in such a way that would minimize resistance and thus speed the law along (although it did take three years) while accomplishing the desired effect of putting the brokers out of business. After all, who, aside from the brokers themselves, would protest all the background checks and consent verifications? The brokers protested not because they were against background checks; they protested because they would lose male clients due to privacy concerns (including the majority who have clean records) and the logistics of following the law would be so difficult that they would not be able to operate profitably. They are right.
Here is some early evidence of whining protest –
http://www.tlcworldwide.com/newlaw/home.php
By the end of this year, there will be a substantial decline in the number of US based marriage brokers. Congratulations to the lawmakers.
Your ignorance keeps shining through. Just like there are a few bad men, so are there a few bad sites. The hypocrisy in your argument are the exemptions in the law. It allows sites like Yahoo, MSN, match.com to continue as is. Before you argue that these sites primary focus are not international dating, you need to take a look at the numbers. A site like yahoo whose primary focus may be domestic dating, yet even if their international dating was 10% of their business, that 10% is a huge membership base compared to smaller international dating sites. Yahoo, match.com, MSN, etc has more male members meeting ladies overseas then all the smaller online dating sites combined.
All your law is doing is putting the smaller business site out of buiness and driving male clients to sites like yahoo. I guess under your law, ladies from other countries will have the privilege of being abused from memers of the larger sites. Stupid!
Nope, your goal was not to protect immigrant women, your goal and the goals of the lobbyists for larger sites was to put the smaller sites out of business. Otherwise, the requirement of the law would of applied to the larger sites who may have versified business backgrounds but are the biggest traffic of international dating.
And you are constantly quoting a few cases. Why not look at domestic violance whose numbers are much larger. Next you will have men having to provide background information if he walks up to a lady to ask her for her phone number.
Worse you don’t want to listen to reason. I, as most men are, are against violance towards women no matter where they are from. It is the law’s execution of having to provide personal back ground information to every lady that may catch his eye on the net we object to. Are you not as concern about a male U.S. citizen’s privacy? I would glady disclose all my background inforamtion to a lady I got to know and I was asking her to leave her country to marry me. But to ask every man to do so during the introduction stage is an invastion of privacy. But I don’t expect you to understand this because your agena to protect immigrant women is a forest to your real agenda to invade male privacy and put the small business owner out of business. Your true intentions are obvious.
So stop with your lies and hypocrisy.
sorry i have been away to miss more fun. Alice, you are really funny. Do you even know what the full definition of a marriage broker is according this law? A “marriage broker” is a site that gives out an address, telephone number, email or in anyway facilitates communication between American men and foreign nationals. They are lumped together with agencies that take men to foreign countries and get half naked women to parade in front of them. You don’t see the difference? Of course you see the difference you are just to stubborn to admit it.
So “Nick’s Asian Penpals” is a marriage broker because he runs a for-profit website that charges for the contact information on foreign nationals. Of course any of your big dating sites that do the same thing get an exemption because they can claim the foreign market is not their specialty.
So are you willing to write to your Senator and tell him or her that yahoo and MSN need to stop posting foreign nationals, or should we just stop American men from viewing them? Which is it?
My God we wouldn’t want a man from the USA to fall in love with a poor woman just so she can “escape from poverty”. Not everyone falls in love with someone from his or her same economic class, and it doesn’t always mean that the person has bad intentions.
Your one size fits all approach just doesn’t hold water when it comes to this issue, any your goal of stopping foreign women from coming to this country and getting married is a pipe dream. The numbers will keep increasing because ignorant laws have a way of being ignored, and prosecutors have better things to do than prosecute websites that post penpals..
Oh me oh my. Resistance!
Look what these guys are cooking up. Forget it, its futile. Between NOW and their backers at Match.com, MSN Personals and Yahoo Personals, you don’t stand a chance.
http://www.filipinalady.org/international-marriage-broker-regulation/index.php?sid=4776f31b9ca9b5be6596443de869d1a8
WOW N.O.W. update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE READ!!!!! As of Jan 28, 2006. This law is only the beginning. We need to fight it now to stop the cancer from spreading. Now that this law is on the books, it won’t stop here. N.O.W. has both the Federal and State politicians behind them. With the IMBRA law in effect, N.O.W. has their foot in the door to try to get more laws passed to levy against an IMB website and their clients. Including special taxes by the state and federal governments. A phone conversation with a N.O.W. representative indicated next they will ask states to levy a special tax. In other words, like cigarettes, a special tax that will make us raise our membership prices and doing business impossible (next it will be required to get some kind of insurance). If you don’t believe it, wait a year from now. Even though this law is in effect, fighting it now may stop the spread of cancer this law will impose. The more requirements implemented because of this law, the harder it will be to fight. We need more then 2, 3, 4, 10, 12, IMBs fighting this, we need HUNDREDS. N.O.W. has thousands. We need all IMBs and their members who believe in freedom of choice to stop the spread of an unfair and unconstitutional law. N.O.W.’s cancer is upon us and spreading — Sign the petition, get others to sign the petition, IMBs get your members to sign the petition, write your congressman, DO something OR next our Love will be TAXED. Our WORDS alone won’t stop this cancer — our only chance is to ACT or GIVE IN to N.O.Ws power to convince politicians that their way is the BEST way.
“Forget it, its futile” .. sure thing Alice.. that would be the easiest thing to do.. but all it takes is one judge to look at the law and declare it is unconstitutional.. if the backers of this law REALLY cared about protecting immigrant women from a life of abuse they would have written the law so it applied to all sites, big and small… N.O.W. sold out to the yahoo’s and the match.com because they knew they would fight back.. how many lawyers do you think work for yahoo? give you a hint… too many
So the dragnet is nothing more than a broken fish net, and N.O.W. is no better than a crooked politician trying to secure another term in office.. at least we have learned something today
It goes on and on and on
http://internationalmarriagebrokers.com/index.html
Large matchmaking companies may have made political contributions and used lobbyists to make themselves excempt from the Marriage Broker Act. In an attempt to gain market share in the growing Latin and Asian singles market.
Behind the scenes negotiations went on between the largest US Dating Companies and Feminists to make large US based dating companies exempt before the Marriage Broker Act was passed. This alone is evidence that unfair business practices have taken place to pass this new law. The largest US dating companies with deepest pockets helped craft a law in their favor to get rid of the smaller international dating companies that are in the way of the larger American dating companies market share. Effectively, the small international dating companies are clogging up the seach engines. The new law makes the a few select large American companies exempt from this new Marriage Broker Act because their core business in US dating. The fastest growing dating market in the United States is Latin and Asian singles. 90% of the Latin and Asian singles market is controlled by small mom and pop type dating websites. The new law is aimed directly at them in a backroom political move to take market share.
Now these smaller companies are being persecuted in an organized and illigal effort to take their market share of the 700 million dollar dating market. Feminist groups have sponsored a law to help put small international dating companies out of business. The original purpose of the law was to help protect foreign women which is clearly not the goal in its unconstitutional state. By making lake US dating companies excempt, it defeats the purpose of the Marriage Brokers Act. The law was passed Christmas eve as members of congress were eager to go home to their families. Small Latin dating companies are now deemed “Enemies of the State” by US law. Its all about money. The next question would be how many people involved in passing this law have stock in the larger American dating companies and will benefit from the Marriage Broker Act.
One can almost hear the Looney Tunes theme playing in the background.
I wanted to comment on one side effect of the law that nobody ever mentioned.
After two months of marriage to a Russian woman my friend Bill called me and asked to help him and his wife with translation of an important issue. Both came to see me the next day. Both said that they were happy, but Luba, Bill’s wife was unhappy that the petition for the change of her status from fiancée to a permanent resident was not approved yet. She suspected that Bill never filed that petition. Bill was adamant that he did file and has no control over the rest of the process. Luba asked me in Russian if she could file the petition by herself, without Bill’s involvement. I answered her that it was not possible unless she was abused. “Did he abuse you?” I asked her in Russian. She answered: “No”. I said, then you have to be patient and wait until you receive the answer from the immigration services. The only reason why you are able to get your legal status in the US is because you married a US citizen. You can not self petition.”
They left and seemed to be satisfied. I was happy that I could help. Little did I know.
The very next morning I received a call from Bill. He told me that the police issued a restraining order for him, because Luba filed a claim that she was abused one day before our conversation took place. Luba moved to a free shelter using the services of free criminal, immigration and divorce attorneys. I came to the criminal court hearing to testify as a witness. I had no doubt in my mind that Luba’s scam was so obvious that it would never work. Again, little did I know.
Several months later Luba triumphantly received all her legal paperwork. As I write this she is visiting Russia for two or three months. I suspect, that her next step will be to bring her Russian boy friend here, to the USA. Also, she is sharing her hands-on experience of getting US citizenship with her numerous friends in Russia and USA. She is very thankful to American feminists for providing her this great opportunity to live in the best country in the world without inconvenience of being married, albeit for only two months in her case. At the same time, I suspect, that Bill’s record is not something he is anxious to share with those foreign women that he will attempt to say Hi in the future. The law does not leave him a chance to explain the truth before producing the records. Not to mention, that now the law left him only two more attempts to file for a fiancée visa. “Three strikes and you are out!”
Has anybody ever attempted to research a number of fraudulent abuse claims? I know that Luba mentioned that she met and made friends with a couple other girls from the shelter. They also chose this easy way of getting their legal status. Also, a mother of a Ukrainian bride told my friend in Kiev that while visiting her daughter in New York she saw an instructional film in Russian that explains what medications to use in order to induce bruises, what numbers to call and what phrases to memorize in English when choosing claiming an abuse as a way to receive American citizenship.
And this is only the beginning. With this law that invites women to file abuse claims by legitimizing an image of American men as predators and abusers it is only the matter of time until all shelters will be flooded with “abused” women. Real abuse cases — especially abuse of American women who do not have much to gain from filing false claims — will be falling through the cracks and not dealt with properly. Government budget to maintain free shelters will be growing. The industry of lawyers pushing through the immigration paperwork of the “abused” women will grow and it will become the most lucrative profession. After all, they can not loose cases under the current law. Luba’s case is a perfect example. Keep on supporting the law.
By the way, Luba was so surprised when she saw me in the court testifying in Bill’s defense. She called me the same evening and said, that she expected me to be on women’s side. After all, American women are supposed to hate American men. Bravo the Law! It proved Luba right in the eyes of many Russians who are convinced that American men want to marry Russian women because American women hate them. The law explains why. Ladies, beware of American men. Check their records. It can be comparable with the road sign: “Buckle up! It is the law to wear a sit belt on American made cars only” Feel free not to wear your sit belt if you drive a foreign car.
moscownights, I’m pretty sure the bulk of posters on this thread don’t care about an American man’s rights. That’ll teach him for trying to get married to anyone outside of the country.
The ultimate irony here is that the totally illegal marriage services in Russia and other parts of the world will flourish without the legitimate American businesses to compete with. Mission Accomplished N.O.W. You’re helping human trafficing like nobody else.
P.S- Our company is still thriving under this law, as we’ve already made the transition for compliance. You lose again suckers.
Yeah, I was about to call shinannegans too. The law is heafty but it’s not 100% air-tight, despite what Alice would like to believe. Some of the top defense lawyers in the country have already pointed out numerous faults that will eventually be overturned.
Since you are doubting the story I would refer you to Leesburg, VA District Court. I have the case number and the full names of both Bill and Luba. I am sorry that the story sounds fantastic to you and you are dwelling on the time-line to prove that it never happened. If I were not involved in it myself, I would have never believed it either. I was not the only person, who testified on Bill’s behalf. One other couple who knew Bill and Luba came to Court to testify. Please e-mail me directly and I will give you all the details and even Bill’s phone number for you to get the exact dates from him personally. I stand behind every word in this story.
I know one Russian man who lives in Maryland. He used a web site to meet and marry a Russian woman from Russia. After a few months his new wife filed false abuse charges and the man was taken out of his own house on a restraining order. He had a heart attack and became paralyzed. He is currently under the care of his elderly parents. In the meantime his wife has possession of his house and uses time to get her legal status in this country as an abused woman.
By the way, this status is considered to be very honorable among Russian ex-wives. It opens the doors to free lawyers, citizenship, job placement and what not. One Russian woman received a proposal to remarry from a very desirable American young man. She said “no” to him in order not to loose the status of an abused woman. It is hard to get it back again once you remarry here and are no longer a “vulnerable mail-order-bride”.
This morning I received a call from one other Russian man whose Russian Internet wife filed false abuse charges and his case in currently in Virginia court. He asked me if we can start a support group of American men – victims of false abuse charges.
If you need to know the time-line of this call, it was between 11 and 12 noon today, February 2, 2006. I do not know the time-line of a paralyzed man story, but I know for sure that typically real predators and abusers do not get paralyzed after an act of real abuse.
I am sorry that you do not see the seriousness of the situation. It reminds the meaning of the expression “Silence of the Lambs”
Moscownights, your claim to have a case citation would carry more weight if you gave the case number. And your claim to be willing to provide the number to anyone who emails you would carry more weight if you provided an e-mail address.
Yes, abusers never suffer heart attacks.
It is one of the great advantages of being an abuser. Sadly, it doesn’t protect against cancer.
To be protected against cancer, it is necessary to murder cats.
Not cats, Charles – kittens. Baby kittens, no more than 4 weeks old.