Spa's gone, and Kevin Zurschmiede's tiresome white male smirks proliferate as Amanda Beam returns to the topic of the sex trade.

In Amanda Beam's News and Tribune column on Tuesday, she picked up right where she left off last week -- and where she left off last week was very instructive, indeed.

Meanwhile, KZ apparently thinks the crisis has passed. This belief is mistaken. I recommend that he issue a statement taking ownership of SpaGate, apologize for his insensitivity, vow to be more vigilant in the future, and move on. He stands to lose nothing by masquerading as a human.

Otherwise, I'll be compelled to spend the weeks from now through November 3 reminding him of it. I might just do that anyway.

Beam: Bless the broken road.

When you are a writer, certain stories affect you in unforeseen ways. First and foremost, the goal of a columnist is to change readers’ minds, or at the very least educate the public about certain issues.

Once in a while, though, research into a subject transforms the opinion of the journalist instead. Learning about the realities of human trafficking has caused this kind of change in me.

If you had asked before I embarked down this journey what my views were on prostitution in America, I would have answered that as long as the sex workers weren’t being coerced or trafficked, then I had no interest in what women do in their own lives. That’s the libertarian in me.

Boy, was I wrong. Prostitution makes victims of its workers, many of who had been traumatized to begin with.

Mayoral paperwork filed, Zurschmiede suddenly becomes aware of human trafficking.

ON THE AVENUES: Got spa? Time for CM Zurschmiede to reel in the years.

Amanda Beam's column about human trafficking and the sex trade, and Kevin Zurschmiede's spa denial.

Amanda Beam's column about human trafficking and the sex trade, and Kevin Zurschmiede's spa denial.

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Why the foot soldiers and not the generals?

Jeffersonville police busted a massage parlor last week, and five women were arrested for prostitution. Their mug shots appear on OSIN’s website.

Five women arrested for prostitution in Jeffersonville; Owners of ‘massage parlor’ may face charges, by Matt Thacker (News and Tribune)

The owners of the business, Ivan Deleon, 36, and his wife, Jeana Kaufman, 37, of Floyds Knobs, will likely face charges for promoting prostitution, according to police.

In the abstract, an in a declining nation like ours that prides itself on limitless capitalism, there is no compelling reason to care about buying and selling sex, except that in reality, there are considerable elements of coercion, exploitation, human trafficking, drug addiction and sheer desperation present in the majority of these transactions.

Given this, it troubles me that in the aftermath of the police raid, it is the five women whose faces appear in the paper, even though at the moment, they only have been charged with a crime, and not yet convicted of wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the massage business’s owners (i.e, the pimps), while named, avoid the ignominy of being photographed and placed in the equivalent of the public stocks for derision by stone wielders eager to find the glass houses.

But this is sex in America, after all , and as has been the case over long centuries, the Puritan imperative foisted on humanity by religious monopolists must be appeased by blaming the victims. It disturbs me.

The reality behind the scenes at the Asian massage parlor.

In response to a question from a reader.

Asian Massage Parlors

Women found in brothels disguised as massage parlors typically live on-site where they are confined and coerced into providing commercial sex to 6 to 10 men a day, 7 days a week. These locations, often known as Asian Massage Parlors, or Korean Massage Parlors (AMPs or KMPs), operate as commercial-front brothels that claim to offer legitimate services such as massage, but they actually primarily provide commercial sex. The victims are most often Asian women, both documented and undocumented. Massage parlors frequently operate in strip malls, office buildings, and sometimes, residential homes, in urban, suburban and rural areas in almost all 50 U.S. states.

Wickens does the Torquemada Twist.

Silly me. I keep expecting that ROCK might someday advocate the reclamation of the economy, or tackle the negative impact of malnutrition in children, or even consider the growth problem of chain-think's decimation of small business, but no, nothing that truly impacts all citizens and not just the ones deploying their scriptures as cruise missiles.

Instead, the organization increasingly is a PR platform for the Wickensian cult of personality. That's too bad, but so very American in nature that there's little to do about it except laugh over a Progressive Pint ... until they get bored with sex and come for us, because in the end, one of the two oldest professions is fermentation.

National issue brings a major negative impact to River City! Tune in tonight at 11PM!

Tune in tonight to WHAS 11 at 11PM as ROCK President Bryan Wickens is interviewed about the growth problem of prostitution in Louisville advertised through Craigslist.

For more information on how ROCK is working to build stronger communities and families in our region and across the nation - call our office at (502) 297-9892 or visit us at www.myrocktoday.org.