Differences between the White Slave Act of 2000 world and ours.
Let’s start with the big one. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. In this universe, it reads:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted or by act of congress, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
For those not up on the amendments to the US Constitution, the “or by act of congress” part in section 1 isn’t there in the real world.
History:
The White Slave Act of 2000 universe history is the same as the “real world” history up to the end of WWI. The flu pandemic that swept the world after the end of WWI, in addition to the death and suffering it brought, also caused a mutation to the human genome, which really didn’t manifest it’s self until the next generation (i.e., the parents of the baby boomers). This mutation caused the birth sex ratio to change from 1.05 males per female live birth to 0.066 males per female live birth. Given the other factors (mainly that more young males die than young females, for numerous reasons) this makes the overall sex ratio, in general, to be 1:15 male:female. This ratio is worse in some parts of the world (Eastern Europe and Latin America being the chief places). Oddly, the mutation did not seem to have as a pronounced an effect in African populations (and the US African-American population). Another effect of the mutation was a slight increase in the amount of testosterone in males, leading to a slight increase in male aggression and a slight decrease in the hormone in females. This led to a slight increase in female passiveness.
The 1920-1950’s went mostly as they did in the real world. The changes started happening in the 1960.
Major points of difference:
Kennedy was not assassinated in 1963. He was reelected in 1964. Nixon still wins in 1968, however.
North Vietnam, instead of attempting a guerrilla war to “liberate” the south, attempted a conventional invasion in 1964, much like North Korea did in 1950. This led to a massive US/UN operation, much like in Korea, which, like Korea, resulted in an “armed truce” with the armistice being declared in 1968. Needless to say, this had a considerable effect on the US political scene. Basically, the anti-war movement never got started.
The increase in the amount of testosterone in the baby boom (and post baby boom) generation had several effects. One was to increase the death rate of young males because, well, young males tend to do dumb things, ranging from higher accident rates to an increase in violent crime. Another was to increase, by about a factor of 3, the number of gay men. (from a historical rate of about 7% to just under 21%). This led to the “Gay pride movement” being the primary ”Gender politics” of the 1960s and 70s, not the feminist movement. Gay marriages were made legal in most states by the mid-80’s, and nationwide by 1988.
Another major change was that the “Rockefeller” branch (aka the “liberal” branch) of the Republican Party took power of the party. This led to the Republican Party (” The Party of Lincoln”) having a much stronger role in the civil rights movement. However, the party did this to offset the loss of white male voters (due to the rapidly changing number of men and women entering voting age). The Republican Party became the party of social conservatives of both sexes and males in general, regardless of race.
The Democratic Party, having not had the anti-war movement, and having had the civil rights movement co-opted away from it in the mid-1960’s, staying the party of the blue-collar workers and some rural areas. This had the effect of the Republican Party taking control of the Federal Government roughly 10 years before it did in our world, and keeping control far longer than they did in the “real” world. This is of little consequence in the context of these stories, as neither party resembles our political parties, other than by name.
When the US Supreme Court had the pornography cases brought before it, instead of ruling as they did here, they did a complete legalization of porn, however the states and Congress could limit children’s access to it. Congress responded with the first of a series of “Sin Taxes”, the “Porn” tax, which raised the price of X-rated movie tickets by roughly 50%.
Congress also directed the FCC to come up with regulations for dealing with it. The result was that:
“Free TV” (read broadcast TV or basic cable) had quite stringent rules and content restrictions put in place. This makes showing things even as tame as beauty pageants a bit tricky. Network TV is very family-friendly.
“Premium TV” (read subscription based or Pay Per View channels) could show anything they felt like. These two resulted in very bland network TV and the rise of things like “The Torture Channel” or “Cable Snuff Network” in the cable and satellite markets.
The success of the “Porn Tax” resulted in several other “Sin Taxes” being put in place, mainly on things like tobacco, alcohol, selected types of cars and boats. When the size of the illegal slave importation problem, (mainly women from Eastern Europe and Latin America) was shown to congress, many people looked at the actual text of the 13th amendment, which combined with the current craze of creating “Sin Taxes” to control “social issues”, resulted in the White Slave Act of 2000. This act, it thought, would, because of the high costs, stop or slow the slave trade. The act also includes penalties for being a non-registered slaver, which could be a capital crime. They neglected to consider that the porn and sex industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and that people will pay a lot when sex is involved.