The reality is that the law has made it more difficult for women in prostitution. – Anniken Hauglie
You think we should tell this “lobby group” that Australian governments already know they’re lying, or just let them waste their money? “A sex industry lobby group in Tasmania is pushing for the introduction of laws which penalise the clients of prostitutes…Dr Christy Giselsson from the Nordic Model Australian Coalition, says the group believes changing the focus of the legislation would reduce the demand for sex workers. ‘For example in Sweden it’s been shown to halve street prostitution’…” In any case, someone definitely needs to tell this reporter that Swedish Model proponents are NOT “sex industry lobby groups”.
Another example of politicians wasting other people’s money to fight a legal sex business: “Fighting plans for a brothel at Narellan last year came at a cost of almost $60,000 for Camden Council but councillors described the battle as a fight they had to have…Mayor Greg Warren (pictured) said the council’s position to refuse the sex premises reflected the concerns of the community…owner Greg Hall said the money…could have been better spent on community projects. ‘There are thousands of places it could have been spent than to waste it in court for a decision we all knew was going to get through anyway,’ he said…”
Detroit school officials plan to fight the scourge of “sexting” by searching students’ phones and computers:
School officials in a Detroit suburb announced they may search student cell phones and laptops, in an effort to tackle the problem of teenage “sexting”…The rule did not result from any particular incident, but was “just a matter of being proactive,” [said] Rich Machesky, Troy’s assistant superintendent…Students could refuse a search request…in which case the district would contact the child’s parents instead…The ACLU is concerned over how broad the policy is and whether school officials would then hand off students’ phones to the police…While sexting is not illegal…kids who text can be prosecuted under child pornography laws and can be sentenced with 20 years in prison if convicted. Even having sexually explicit photos on your phone is a four-year felony…
Because obviously nude pictures are far more dangerous to “children’s” lives than spending 20 years in prison.
Anyone who’s ever lived in New Orleans knows about Hubig Pies, tasty little treats which come in a large variety of flavors and put other commercial snack pastries to shame. Unfortunately, their century-old factory burned down before dawn on July 27th and it may be quite some time before it’s rebuilt. This video may be of interest to my readers because it provides an extended example of the “Yat” dialect spoken by a woman who sounds like a very typical New Orleans character.
Two stories from different Australian states demonstrating the weird situations that arise from legalization. The first is from Queensland, and updates an item from the original column: “A sex worker has won an anti-discrimination case against motel owners in a Queensland mining town who refused to rent her a room…[she] had stayed at the motel 17 times in two years until [the] owners…discovered…she was bringing clients to her room…[her] lawyer argued many people used the telephone or internet at the motel for business, and a bed was no different.” The owners argued that the worker’s activities were “disturbing” other guests, which is of course nonsense if she had been there 17 times before without incident. Furthermore, how is paid sex any more “disturbing” to other guests than giveaway sex?
The second item is from a town in Victoria, where sex work is legal but “brothels” (the term is defined so loosely it can mean virtually anything police want it to mean) must be licensed:
Police suspect an illegal brothel has been operating in a residential street…[in] Bendigo…[they] raided a house…and took a woman back to the station for questioning…“We believe she’s a sex worker involved in an illegal brothel at that address,” [a detective] said. “We’re waiting for a Chinese interpreter to come so we can interview her”…[a neighbor] was concerned about the well-being of the [sex worker]…“She’s very friendly – a lovely young lady.”
According to a comment on the story, Bendigo is practically the only city in Victoria without a brothel, which may explain why its government feels the need to harass women on technicalities.
Perhaps one day we’ll arrive at the point where, “He was so desperate to raise money he actually opened a legal business!” sounds as ridiculous to most people as it does to me:
A New Zealander was so desperate to fund his dream to compete in the London 2012 Olympics that he opened a brothel…[after] Logan Campbell…lost his bid for Olympic glory in Beijing in 2008, he was too strapped for cash to take his [taekwondo] career to the next level and train full-time…So…to make the $200,000 he needed to go to London, he opened a 14-room brothel in Auckland. Campbell…wants to repudiate the perception that he was a pimp selling women on a street corner. New Zealand decriminalised prostitution in 2003. “I sold the brothel so I don’t really want to talk about it now, OK?” he said. “It’s a legal business in New Zealand. It’s completely different from other countries in the world…No one was forced into the industry, and they’re not doing it because they are in poverty because we have a really good welfare system”…
It’s a start; now we need to work on getting similar sentences for the thousands of real cops who regularly do the same thing. Note the incredible concluding sentence: “A man who faked being a Texas law officer and demanded free sex from a prostitute has been sentenced to 35 years in prison…The woman submitted to [Raul Garza III] but later called police when he allegedly wanted suggestive photos of her 10-year-old daughter. Garza…testified he never committed a crime and just refused to pay the prostitute.”
Most of this overblown and sensationalistic article is just repetition of the usual “sex trafficking” myths and exaggerations combined with the characteristic cop-culture strutting and bragging, but it’s notable for the accusation that the Department of Justice is “ignoring child sex trafficking victims” because it isn’t creating enough of them to support the hysterical predictions. That sound you hear is me clapping quite slowly.
While it’s nice to see an article actually leading off with the truth about sex work around major sporting events, I feel I must comment on this historian’s absurd exaggeration:
…Georgina Perry, who works at Open Doors, a support project…[for] East London prostitutes…says the Olympics are never good for the sex trade. “All the studies show there’s no increase in sex workers,” she says of past Olympics…Gone, it seems, are the good old days for your average harlot when the best athletes gathered. “Prostitution was a huge deal in the ancient Games,” says historian Tony Perrottet, author of The Naked Olympics: The True Story of the Ancient Games. The original festival attracted 40,000 sports fans — all male — to the remote religious sanctuary. “Brothel owners … brought in teams of beautiful girls from around Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor.” Any good prostitute would try to get to the Olympics, and earn in five days what would normally take her a year to make…
This is nothing but another permutation of the stupid “50 clients a night” idiocy. It is simply not physically possible for any full-time whore to make in 5 days what she could make in 360, unless perhaps she came from some rural district where she usually only got one client a day, managed 12 per day at the Olympics (difficult but doable), and charged six times her usual fee.
Metaupdates
Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#13)
Behold the lawhead psychosis in action:
Cash-strapped Nadya Suleman…has turned to various X-rated money-making ventures to help pay the bills – all with the encouragement of Orange County (Calif.) Child Protective Services. “They’re on my side–they’re supporters,” Suleman [said]…“It’s ironic. Once I talked with a CPS worker in regards to the adult stuff, she was like, ‘Are you really doing that?’ Well, it’s not illegal. More power to you!’ So it was almost like a green light–like, ‘Do what you need to do to take care of your family’”…A rep for the Orange County…Social Services Agency…[said] “The law allows a wide latitude in parenting styles and in parenting vocations. I don’t think that anybody would ever want it any other way. So as long as children remain free from harm or danger…then the Social Services Agency would not become involved.”
Unless the mother is a whore, of course, which automatically makes her less fit than Octomom.
The Course of a Disease in TW3 (#26)
Norwegian study demonstrates that the Swedish Model causes “sex trafficking”:
Prior to the 2009 Sex Purchase Act, Norway had one of Europe’s smallest and least organized markets for prostitution. Women…voluntarily…sold sex…without the interference from any pimp. The introduction of the law has made this process more complicated, according to a report in the Stavanger Aftenblad…”The women are very vulnerable towards the police and to a greater extent on the network and support that pimps can offer,” said [researcher] Guri Tyldum…”The criminalization intended to demonstrate that prostitution is not wanted in Norway. The risk is that the most dangerous and serious form of prostitution that remains,” she said…Norway’s Ministry of Justice has announced an evaluation of the sex purchase act.
This is not only what we’ve said for over a decade, it’s the inevitable result of putting the desire to “send a message” above the needs of real people.
The Notorious Badge in TW3 (#27)
Upon reading this I was irresistibly reminded of Sarah Woolley’s article:
I felt really exposed. It didn’t hit me until the first moment where the scene called for me to expose myself, because what came over me was such shame. Which was weird, because they weren’t my breasts, and it was what I had signed up to do….I started to cry, and if you look closely at those scenes when I’m opening my blouse, I’m smiling, but not in my eyes…I was just feeling really emotional and trying to hide it.
Boo fucking hoo. Women like this (Jessica Alba is another one) piss me off to no end. If you’re such a prudish twit you supposedly “cry” from partial nudity with FAKE TITS, I have a suggestion: restrict yourself to playing nuns, and leave the sex worker parts to grown women.
Good news for Simon Walsh, but I have to wonder how this would have turned out had the same thing happened in America:
A man who was tried this week…for possessing images of “extreme” sexual acts has just been cleared on all counts…David Allen Green, solicitor and legal correspondent for the New Statesman, said: “This was a shameful and intrusive prosecution which should never have been brought. It was bad law to begin with, but a good man has had his sex life examined in open court for no good reason. There are serious questions for the CPS to answer about bringing this prosecution.”
This Week in 2011
The bittersweet experience of “Leaving the Life”; “authorities” using their power to rape whores; “The New Victorianism”; the effects of defining everything as “violence against women” or “human trafficking”; what it looks like when individuals behave as “authorities” do; and the truth about “safe harbor” laws.
This Week in 2010
Cops’ weird anti-condom neurosis; “How To Be a Stupid, Greedy Whore”; why hookers should never let clients turn off the lights; how self-proclaimed “feminists” have been betraying women for 130 years; and a two-part column about regular clients.
