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While those actions are indicative of a possible sting, they are also equally indicative of a scam artist. "She" might have been some guy (male) in a boiler room somewhere just trying to scam people out of their money. The avoidance of any form of contact where you could see that the person you were conversing with electronically was not the person from the photo, while requesting payment up front, fits the scam artist method as well.

> even though I never wanted to pay her.

> I met someone on Grindr who was really cute and she asked for payment upfront. Then I said that makes me nervous and I’d like to get to know you first, just a regular date.

So even after a woman asked you to pay her (for what?), you decided would still like to date this woman? And you expected to convince her to stop being a prostitute during the date?

> I met someone on Grindr who was really cute and she

There are women on grindr???

With gay spaces one big issue is often critical mass.

I would suspect that for MTF individuals that Grindr would be one of the few places with a critical mass of both people they are looking for and people looking for them, even if that's not really the intended or main target audience. From what I understand, trans individuals have a hard time on other dating apps because their profiles get reported a lot for being "misleading" (which is a whole debate that I'm not getting into)

> even though I never wanted to pay her

You wanted a prostitute but didn't intend to pay?

If you're just looking for a hookup, the first hint of a money demand should have been met with "nope, not interested in pay-for-play". And drop them.

>They tried to pressure me in the moment to create criminal behavior where there was none. And then I would go to prison and probably be killed,

what state are you in where paying for a prostitute would get you sent to prison?

Why would you be killed in prison - for getting a prostitute?

So someone asked you for money in exchange for sex, you agreed to meet up with them, and now feel outraged that the police may have tried to arrest you for engaging in illegal activity. Do I have that right?

Possible it was a sting but much more likely you were just being scammed. I guess depends on the country but in the US it is not illegal to pay someone to hang out with you. Idk how they would try and prosecute you after you said "sure I'll pay you but I'm not paying for sex I'm paying for you to have dinner with me"

* And then I would go to prison and probably be killed, certainly changed and damaged mentally for the rest of my life.*

My very limited understanding is that the vast majority of these sting cases are dismissed as entrapment and are largely about dissuading others from attempting to solicit in the future. Are there any lawyers on that could speak to this?

Not a lawyer (sorry), but just from following the news it does seem pretty clearly about putting a chilling effect on the marketplace (buyers and sellers, but especially sellers) through fear.

Aka ‘making an example’ of someone. The buyers in particular only seem to get named in specific high profile cases or when the authorities feel it’s really out of hand and they need to do something drastic.

Similar to drugs frankly.

Unlike drugs, it seems extremely rare for anyone involved to actually get more than token jail time unless they are a very large scale madame/pimp (and jail is not, generally, prison).

There's something really hilarious and ironic about the statement "Our society is deeply sick" in the context of the rest of your comment.

What?