BAC

Maybe I've missed it, but I can't find anything talking about Aaron Brooks, and why he's not competing. Is he injured? Is he done? Did he become a missionary? I'm assuming injury since he was supposed to be at the Flo event in Feb and pulled out.

I like Gilman and I'm inclined to chalk this up to DGAF, but don't forget, he was scheduled to go to the May 11, 2024 Olympic qualifying tournament as a back-up for Lee in case he got hurt just beforehand. That would've been after the 4/28/24 missed "whereabouts." He talks in this video here about how he pissed off Cody by basically telling him at the last minute that he wasn't going, when Cody was already overseas with Zain. His explanation why is pretty murky, and it sounds like he was apologetic to Cody about it later. Is that sequence of events consistent with Gllman not giving a F after trials and just checking out mentally? Yeah. Is it also consistent with him smoking some weed or whatever after trials, then having an "Oh crap" moment when he realized he still needed to show up as a backup in May in case Lee screws up his knee again, so he suddenly decided to make himself scarce rather than endure the embarrassment of a flunked drug test? Yeah. Do I care? No, not really, though either way, I'm sure a lot of us would've cared had Lee tweaked his knee just before that qualifier.

I dunno. He would have lost in the first round to Valencia but for a last second brain fart by Aden. I honestly think Mendez beats him 4 times out of 5. Had a nice run at WTTs but I don’t think he is the answer at 65kg. I think McKenna takes him in 3 if not 2.

According to this, they the US average height is just a tiny bit higher than Russia/Hungary.

Nice work brother. I have no great answers, but I'll offer a theory. 65kg, in general, has one of the highest concentrations of talent, but even more so outside the US, since the average person is smaller outside the US. If you look it up you'll see the US average height/weight is higher than all the countries you listed above, save Poland. As a result, that's the weight range where a lot of other countries' best wrestlers are, so it's most competitive. It's concentrated there in the US too, just not to the same extent as other countries.

I don’t think there has ever been a match between 2 4x’ers, much less against a 4x’er and a 5x’er. New record today: 9 combined NCAA titles on the same mat, and a combined 9-0 in NCAA title runs. I don’t know who wins but how can you not be stoked for this?

I hear you brother. The rules are the rules, even the dumb ones, and it's his job to know them -- and you'd have hoped he'd avoid criminally risky behavior so close to a competition. Funny thing is, I doubt Snyder himself agrees with a word of what I'm saying. I'm not personally bothered by what he did, I don't think any of it should be prohibited by USAW or Safesport or the law, but I'm guessing Snyder himself absolutely agrees it should be a Safesport violation and illegal, and that he'll say as much.

All very good points, and I agree. Thanks.

Hope you didn't get any "reward" for it from the missus. Cuz that's "sexual exploitation" if you haven't heard.

What do you want me to rephrase? I literally wrote, "The Safesport Code is pretty clear that solicitation for prostitution is a violation." Then I made the point (repeatedly) that it shouldn't be. Am I really being that unclear?

I read the same section but I interpret it differently. Since there is no comma after "prostituting," I interpret that word as linked with "trafficking" and modifying "another person." In other words: "Engage(s) in (1) solicitation of prostitution, or (2) prostituting or trafficking another person" (numbers mine). So if you're a john or a pimp, you're in violation, but if you're an escort, you're cool. Sounds like you're assuming he had a felony conviction, and I don't think that's the case. You may be right though. FWIW, I don't think theft should be a Safesport violation (because, while more problematic than solicitation, it still lacks a nexus to safe participation in sport), but it certainly should keep you from being an investigator.

All good points and I agree. My issue is this shouldn't be a Safesport violation at all. Excluding someone who engages in a consensual sexual act with an adult, compensated or no, isn't making anyone safer. I'm not familiar with the typical penalties, but if it's true that this sort of violation only results in a warning or probation, then that's all the more reason they shouldn't have this mandatory "interim suspension" which is deeply harmful to both the athlete and to USA Wrestling, which is going to fare worse at Worlds as a direct result of Safesport's ill-considered policies, delays, and unjustified "interim suspensions."

I don't know about you, but I had no idea that he could be suspended for something like that. Even when news of the arrest came down, it didn't occur to me that anyone would be so preeningly moralistic as to suspend him over entirely private consensual conduct. It wasn't until news of the Safesport suspension came out, and my looking at their rules, that I realized that yes, appallingly enough, in fact they DO very clearly claim the right to punish you if solicit sexual favors for compensation, even if you aren't convicted of it. There's not even an exception for doing it where it's entirely legal. It's "sexual exploitation," they say. Shoot, just last month I was giving my wife crap that I hadn't gotten any in a while. She mentioned I hadn't mowed the lawn. I mowed the lawn. I got some that night. Don't tell the church ladies at Safesport!

You mean someone got off and money was exchanged? Quick, someone file a Safesport complaint to investigate!

I agree that they can't rule on something in a way that conflicts with a judicial ruling, but that's not what happened here. It isn't like some judge said, "I've looked at the facts Mr. Snyder and I conclude that you are NOT guilty of solicitation, only of disorderly conduct." Rather the prosecutor just chose to reduce the charges to get a guilty plea. He was never found not guilty of solicitation. That gives SafeSport the window they need to investigate the conduct as originally charged. And, despite my railing against Safesport in the preceding post, I actually do agree that this is what the rule should be, as a general matter. Imagine for a moment that some youth wrestling coach is charged with sexual abuse of minors. But there's problems with the prosecution: maybe the statute of limitations has passed, or the kid is too scared to testify, so the prosecutor, figuring something is better than nothing, accepts a guilty plea for disorderly conduct. Would you, as a wrestling parent, want Safesport to be allowed to look at what the real facts are and make a decision (e.g. a ban) based on those real facts, not the plea? I'm guessing you would. Here I'm just annoyed because even accepting that Safesport is allowed to look at original solicitation charge, there's nothing in the charge that is remotely within Safesport's proper purview, as there's no victim, and no conduct showing it's harmful for him to be in the sport. It's just moral judgment, nothing more, and hypocritical moral judgment at that. Our world team is going to be worse because of their idiocy.

What's interesting about the guys going to OSU is that their entertainment value. I doubt there's three guys who are more fun to watch in the 2026 class than Forrest and the Raney, who are all massive risk takers and don't mind giving up points as long as they score more. Vega and Lockett have flash too, as to a couple of the others. You may not like them, but they're going to be one of the most entertaining teams to watch.

Unfortunately it probably won't. The Safesport Code is pretty clear that (a) solicitation for prostitution is a violation, and (b) pleading to a lesser charge won't preclude them from finding a violation for what you were charged with. I doubt the public release of information has helped Snyder's cause. It's utterly ridiculous that the Safesport people have taken it upon themselves to claim jurisdiction over such matters. There's no victim. They need to worry about conduct where there's an actual victim, and stop sticking their nose into other peoples' bedroom to see what consideration was exchanged between two consenting adults. We don't need the morals police telling us who can and can't be on the world team. For an added dose of irony, prostitution itself is *not* a Safesport violation. Only solicitation. If the woman had paid Kyle to give him head instead of the other way around, he'd have been fine. Kyle's only hope is they adjudicate it quickly and let him off with an admonishment. But the odds of that are basically zero, as Safesport is famous for its foot-dragging and indefensibly slow handling of cases. On top of that, they're in turmoil after firing their CEO a few weeks ago, when it was learned he'd covered up the fact that their investigator was arrested for stealing money from a drug bust (apparently THAT crime is OK), which came out when he was later arrested for rape. (Details here.) Don't count on Safesport getting their act together before the weekend. Hope Snyder keeps his head up and comes back strong, and Safesport gets the reform it badly needs.

Might want to check your sources. The police report doesn’t say that so it’s probably made up. Ads for stings are usually out in the open so they can nab as many people as possible. Only reason the cops would turn to the dark web is to pose as a child prostitute, and if that’s what happened the charges would be far more serious.

The research is pretty uniform that the underage/coerced women are NOT going to be found in some easily-found online ad, available by text, meeting at her hotel. It's a myth. You might get a cop, you might get a gun in your face, but actual coerced prostitutes are rare and certainly won't be found there. Federal laws criminalizing online providers have driven them offline (e.g. ID requirements), and hotel bookings are too expensive and leave a paper trail. They're apt to be on the street or secreted away in some sleazy pimp house, to the extent they exist at all. You're also moving the bar a little bit, seemingly requiring more than consent, when you refer to escorts being in an "appropriate headspace" as opposed to "sketchy." Look, they're pretty much *all* a bit sketchy, or they probably wouldn't be doing this. They're not exactly future Nobel Laureates, if you know what I mean. For some it's a need (only way to feed a kid, or a drug habit), for others they'd just rather work 5 hours in bed than 50 hours at McDonalds for the same money. But it's still consensual and they are knowingly engaging in the act. As such I can't say it's immoral to partake.

Nah you're good. My point is that the term "trafficking" is often used in a more expansive way than how you cited it, in order to make it sound like all escorts are victims of some sort. They aren't. You'll see a lot of definitions of "trafficking" as some form of "traveling for the purpose of sexual exploitation," which is short for "escorts who travel." Actual forced prostitution is much less common, and generally has moved offline from the backpage/craigslist to the street/underworld. I haven't seen anything saying that Snyder's done this more than once, but unless he is traveling in those seedier circles, which seems doubtful if he's answering an online ad to meet at a hotel, it's highly unlikely he's encountered this.

Yeah, I dunno about that. If you're really tight on money, and need to take a second job as an Uber driver at nights to make sure you can pay your rent and feed your kid, would you want customers to not hire you since they don't want to "take advantage of a guy who is in a very bad spot"? Are they really doing you a favor and acting righteously if they're avoiding you for that reason? I agree with the general idea that when you text someone offering an illegal act, you never know for sure what you're going to get. (Snyder just found this out the hard way.) But I just think it's a little bit self-righteous to say a john is doing *the escort* a favor by not calling her. I'll bet she'd disagree.

I think we can probably agree here, for the most part. Anytime something's outlawed, it is going to attract some related criminal elements, making that corner of the world a bit more unsafe, sleazy and sketchy. And you're right that the criminalization itself, not the act, is the driver here. Your reference to "women who have no choices" is a bit strong, but if your point is that it includes a lot of women who simply have no other way to get the money that they need (e.g. to feed/house themselves or their kid), then I agree. I'm just not willing to say it's immoral to support such women. To the contrary, I think society should stop stigmatizing them for doing what they must to get by, and should legitimize it with decriminalization, registration, STD/drug testing, taxing... but I digress.

I respect that we may have different views on this, but personally, I don't buy the "what he is doing directly supports trafficking" argument. As mentioned elsewhere, I think people are using "trafficking" so broadly (i.e. escorts traveling) that it's just a shorthand for the sex industry as a whole. If sex with an in-state escort is OK, then just because she traveled from out of state doesn't suddenly make it immoral. I would agree with you if Snyder was supporting the nonconsensual trafficking of women, including women who are forced, underage, or mentally ill. I'm sure there's some seriously shady places you can go to do just that, but I sort of doubt Snyder knows where to find them. According to the police report, he got her number from an online ad, texted her, and they met at a hotel. It's generally agreed in research circles that this is just not where underage or compelled prostitution is found these days. The most I'm willing to say is that it's wrong to break the law, even when, as here, the law is idiotic. But it's the mildest of transgressions in my book, about on par with ripping off a mattress tag.

That's fine. Not looking to argue. But consider doing your homework or read the studies I linked. What you think you know, may not match very well with the reality of the situation.

There's a lot of data on my "very small percentage" comment. One of the more reputable studies was run by the NIH. For prostitutes who were 18 or older, 4.6% reported being "coerced, threatened, pressured, misled, tricked, or physically forced into trading sex." The number goes up to 21% for prostitutes under 18. Study here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7305278/. There's also a number of studies that have found that since Congress passed the wildly regressive FOSTA-SESTA laws, these coerced/underage prostitutes are now working the streets, and aren't advertising online (See e.g. NIJ study here: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/unconventional-wisdom-research-shakes-assumptions-about-sex-trafficking-clues). The "good news", I guess, is that the online ads have cleaned up, but the bad news is that underage sex traffickers are now much harder to catch, and victims harder to save. As for "how it's possible to minimize trafficking," see my other posts. First you need to understand what's included in "trafficking" before you have this conversation. It isn't just "people being taken against their will," which is a real problem, but rare (see above). Rather, "trafficking" is often used to include escorts traveling for work in conjunction with others -- which of course is virtually *all* escorts. It's a term used to demonize, when it's actually just describing virtually the entire sex industry, in which the vast majority are participating voluntarily. Although there's a lot of data on this, there's also a lot of bad data. You need to look at actual reputable peer-reviewed journals, not advocacy groups or people trying to sell stuff. For example, your website above is published by a company that sells software to police departments looking to crack down on prostitution (see https://deliverfund.org/about/). Take a wild guess what financial incentive is? If you really care about the subject, I suggest you do some homework about how best to destigmatize the women who *want* to be in that industry, and how best to identify and help those who are underage or otherwise *not* there voluntarily. Once you do that, you'll understand where my posts are coming from.