GOP policies made it easier than ever for Matt Gaetz to prey on young women

In a column for the Daily Beast, sex worker Casey Thompson said it was no wonder that Matt Gaetz was reportedly able to find young willing women -- some of them possibly underaged -- who would exchange sex for money because the Republican Party has created a society where poverty is all too pervasive.

As Thompson notes, Gaetz and his friend Joel Greenberg stand accused of paying young women for sex using Venmo -- with Greenberg already pleading guilty to six felonies that include underaged sex trafficking -- and that has exposed an ugly secret about how young women in the United States struggle financially.

"The case rings awful to me not because of what Gaetz—who has denied any wrongdoing and said that he 'never, ever paid women for sex'—allegedly did, but because his political career and the political party he supports, which once claimed to care about 'family values,' helped create the economic circumstances in which the decision to f*ck men like him for tuition, or to cover the rent, is rational," she wrote before adding, "Minimum wage increases, subsidized child-care programs, and more state and federal funding for college would all decrease desperation—and that is what the Gaetzes of the world don't want, politically or personally. Life is better for such men when there are lots of struggling women."

Writing, "I've been a sex worker for 10 years, which means people think I think about sex all the time. In reality I think about money all the time. I think it's obvious that more people are selling sex now," Thompson explained that the GOP has for years created a system where women can be bought and sold for the pleasure of men of means like Gaetz.

"Gaetz insists that he didn't pay for sex, which suggests that he merely sent payments to his friend to pass on to women half his age who he then had sex with, which is totally different. The fact that he used Venmo, an app with a public feed where you must write a description of What the Money Is For, sends me. I will never get over it. Imagine doing the dumbest thing that could get you in the most trouble: now imagine making a flyer about it and thumb tacking it in the break room. Matt Gaetz, folks!" she wrote before getting to her main point.

"As long as lawmakers keep treating poverty like a personal failing that you can hustle your way out of, there will always be young women doing the best they can with G-strings as bootstraps," she accused. "The answer is not to crack down on Seeking, nor was it to ban Backpage. It's not even to punish or humiliate Republican creeps and hypocrites."

You can read more here.