Hating on models, sex workers, and similar seems to be a significant subtext of what [feminist] groups support…yet they are often the first to ask why young women don’t want to call themselves feminists. – Brooke Magnanti
California has a crime victims’ compensation program…
…which helps people out with expenses like medical treatment or mental health care…you’re ineligible…if you have any other means of getting them, whether that’s insurance, a wealthy aunt, or a court ruling. The program’s…regulations [also] disqualify anyone who was hurt while “involved” in an act of prostitution…
…A 35-year-old [Austrian] woman advertizing herself as a dominatrix promised strict discipline to paying clients on her farm…[but] the men found themselves consigned to farm labor such as chopping wood in the nude and mowing the lawn while wearing black fetish masks…in effect, they were paying for the privilege of doing farm work…
One wonders what his “informal training” consisted of:
A…San Bernardino police officer was arrested…on charges that he forced two prostitutes to have sex with him while he was on duty…Jose Jesus Perez, 46, was indicted on four civil rights offenses that involved aggravated sexual abuse “while acting under the color of law”…If convicted, Perez faces a maximum sentence of life in federal prison…Perez…had informally trained other officers on how to interact with prostitutes…
The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) has a close partnership with the US National Security Agency (NSA) and British GCHQ, according to information provided to the European Parliament…investigative journalist Duncan Campbell…told the committee that…Sweden was the third major partner in the surveillance cooperation…
“We don’t know if Birmingham, UK-based Passion VIP is…the first escort agency to add bitcoin to its…payment options, but…we have not heard of another one…”
…Tracy Elise has fired her attorney and has chosen to represent herself in court…she also filed six motions ranging from being allowed to travel to being allowed to use the internet. Two years ago, police raided…the Phoenix Goddess Temple…[claiming] it was a house of prostitution, but parishioners said they were just practicing their religion…
…The balance between crackdowns that play to punitive public sentiment and a public health approach that will actually reduce harm and prove most effective in protecting communities is one [Lord Chancellor] Chris Grayling should bear in mind, as he considers a crackdown on sex in prison…The prison service instruction manual states: “there is no rule specifically prohibiting sexual acts between prisoners, but if they are observed by someone who finds (or could potentially find) their behaviour offensive, a charge…may be appropriate”…this results in…a system ripe for abuse…A blanket ban on sex in prison leads to prisoners failing to report rape or sexual assault for fear of punishment…[some] prisons refuse to issue barrier protection…some prisoners are sanctioned for requesting too many condoms. One prison governor even said they had no need to issue…[them] as his prison contained no homosexuals…
As usual when sex isn’t involved, the word “trafficking” is entirely absent:
…America…[has an] underground market for adopted children, a loose Internet network where desperate parents seek new homes for kids they regret adopting…Through Yahoo and Facebook groups… the unwanted children [are passed]…to strangers with little or no government scrutiny, sometimes illegally…The practice is called “private re-homing,” a term typically used by [pet] owners…most of the children ranged in age from 6 to 14 and had been adopted from abroad…
Except for the predictable whorearchy (“dancers resort to prostitution”, etc) this is a decent article about how the summer slump in New Orleans affects the stripping business. It affects escorts as well, of course, though in my experience it tends to recover more quickly in September for escorts than for strippers. Since I don’t write much about my stripping days, readers may find it interesting that the first club mentioned in the story was the first one I ever danced at, though it had a different name back then.
Legal Is As Legal Does (TW3 #7)
Outspoken Christchurch [New Zealand] city councillor Aaron Keown has taken matters into his own hands to ban sex workers from Manchester St. Residents woke on [August 27th] to find the street plastered with “No Street Workers” signs…Two days later…council workers removed them, saying [they] were illegal. Keown, who paid for and installed the signs himself…said…police and council bylaws had failed to keep prostitutes out of the residential area…[he] plans to create another set of signs next week…
Held Together With Lies (TW3 #14)
Even with new and vastly-broadened definitions, UNODC still only claims that “40,000 people…came into contact with the authorities as trafficking victims in 2012”, very similar to the 24,000 it claimed had been “rescued” last year. Is anyone seeing a pattern here?
First They Came for the Hookers…
Lap dancing clubs could soon be banned in Glasgow under plans for a tough new licensing regime…new criteria for sexual entertainment venues…will allow councils…to set the number of sexual entertainment licences they permit…at zero. Glasgow City Council has called for the power, which would effectively ban lap dancing bars in the city…Currently lap dancing clubs only need a public entertainment licence, which cannot take into account the type of entertainment being offered…
Because obviously, bans on stripping are always 100% effective.
The Course of a Disease (TW3 #34)
The man in charge of tackling human trafficking and organised prostitution in Northern Ireland has come out against proposals to make it an offence to pay for sex…PSNI Detective Superintendent Philip Marshall has denied that human trafficking is a bigger problem here than elsewhere and revealed that men purchasing sex have sometimes reported human trafficking to the police…Lord Morrow has argued that similar legislation in Sweden led to a big decrease in human trafficking and street prostitution. These assumptions have been challenged by DS Marshall, who…fears that Lord Morrow’s proposal would not help matters and would prevent men…reporting any suspicions they had…
The powerful story of a woman who understood the difference “between saving a life and prolonging a dying”:
My mother died shortly before her 85th birthday, in a quiet hospital room in Connecticut…She slept in her own bed until the night before…[and] was lucid and conscious to the end. She avoided what most fear and many ultimately suffer: dying mute, unconscious and “plugged into machines”…or…demented in a nursing home. She died well because she was willing to die too soon rather than too late…
Jemima ably mocks a recent anti-whore article by casting it as self-parody:
The New Statesman isn’t known for its sense of humour so it was a great surprise to see this amazing parody piece by Sarah Ditum showing other journalists how not to write about…sex workers. First…she shows how [headlines] can set the entire tone for a piece, cleverly creating straw man questions: Can a feminist ever support the sex industry? followed by insinuations about the mental state of any sex worker with…what kind of society is it that makes that a rational choice for women? Fabulously done, a question that is meaningless…[followed by] a “have you stopped beating your wife yet” question…
Criminalizing things makes them magically vanish!
Switzerland has raised the legal age of prostitution…[to fall] in line with an international convention it signed in 2010…it [is now] a criminal act to pay for sex with anyone who is under 18…[instead of] 16…People who pay for sex with [illegal workers or look at pictures of them]…face up to three years in prison…brothels or escort services that hire anyone under 18 could face up to 10 years…
Here’s a long-form review of American Courtesans by a marriage therapist:
…American Courtesans [is] an invaluable resource for therapists, clients, sex workers…[and] the general public…it’s important to call attention to the sex-negative view our society holds…anyone who is open about their needs, desires…and…sex can become a target for judgment, criticism, and even violence…Society wants to “invisibilize” these needs and desires and sex work makes them explicit…
Sadistic Irish judges apparently think it’s funny to rob sex workers and give their money to an organization dedicated to destroying their entire profession: “Two Romanian nationals have been given custodial sentences after gardai raided a brothel…A substantial amount of cash was seized…along with paraphernalia linked to prostitution…Judge Conal Gibbons…instructed that the money…be donated to Ruhama…”
An Ounce of Prevention (TW3 #312)
An HIV vaccine created by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University may be able to completely wipe out the…virus from the body…[it] is being tested…in monkeys [and] researchers hope…[it] will soon be able to be tested in humans…The approach uses cytomegalovirus, or CMV…a common virus…carried by a large percentage of the population…researchers found…infected cells were sought out and destroyed…
Here’s a nice little profile of Siouxsie Q of The WhoreCast, who’s currently performing in a play she wrote called Fish Girl (in which she portrays a mermaid). The article also mentions the legal difficulties to which I alluded in the last paragraph of “The Free Speech Mafia”.
An Example to the West (TW3 #316)
Sam Leino was ultimately convicted on a single charge of possessing prescription drugs…For that, his wife and their three children are homeless…“the Philadelphia DA has made civil forfeiture into a vast, unaudited revenue stream, profiting from an upside-down legal process through which the DA has the power to bleed property owners dry of financial resources…with minimal or no evidence of criminal wrongdoing”…Because the owner of a piece of property…needn’t even be charged…the Leinos had already lost their home by the time Sam Leino was convicted…In fact, the government can actually freeze your assets before any proceedings begin, making it difficult to hire legal representation for either your criminal trial, or to…reclaim your property. In this case, the Philadelphia DA’s office actually evicted…[the family] from their home…The office…eventually withdrew the claim…[because] the family had fallen behind on their mortgage payments and the bank foreclosed, meaning that the home was no longer theirs for the government to take…
After publishers of Front, Nuts, Zoo and the Sunday Sport…refused to put their titles into sealed modesty bags, the Co-op has [announced it]…will no longer stock those titles. It is unclear which lads’ mags will remain on the shelves in modesty bags – but…(physical) lad’s mag sales were falling anyway…if major retailers were making the money they used to from carrying the magazines, this campaign wouldn’t have had any traction at all…[model] Jodie Marsh blasted the Co-op’s decision on Twitter, suggesting that the groups involved with the campaign to ban lad’s mags “need to turn their attentions to areas where women really need help”…
Whatever They Need To Say (TW3 #336)
The outrage continues in Bangladesh:
Hundreds of Islamists vandalized and looted a 250-year-old brothel in…Madaripur…and…threatened to harm the remaining workers further if they did not leave the area…the local leaders of both main political parties…are not only competing to buy Muslims’ votes…but are also interested in ejecting the sex workers from the downtown area in order to seize the valuable two-acre lot…
The…attack…rendered at least 500 sex workers shelterless…the infirmaries in the district refuse them essential treatments…[after] the attackers…warned the hospital authorities not to give [them] any healthcare…Some of them have had their ears and noses cut when attackers whisked their ornaments away…The attack…was a clear violation of a High Court order…Mahmuda Akhter – district Women Affairs Officer – was tasked with investigation into the incident, but…allegedly joined hands with the attackers…[saying] “I am with the majority. No one wants a brothel in the city centre”…
Who needs sex workers when you take matters into your own hands?
Hang on a minute.
Isn’t human trafficking a bigger problem everywhere than elsewhere?
Blow jobs for $40 bucks? I don’t think so.
There is YEAR ROUND prostitution going on in most of the clubs. It’s kind of like major league baseball – where you have some doing steroids and some not. Well, in a strip club in NOLA – SOME of the girls are “hooking” and the rest aren’t. I don’t visit strip clubs for sex because it seems kind of “dirty” to me – sweaty girl, sweaty me, etc.
I only worked a couple of nights in a stripbar and I was on the door the whole night – but I did, for old times sake, get a few lap dances when i got off shift. None of the girls offered me sex though.
There’s also a contingency of girls who don’t “hook” in the bar but WILL meet you after she gets off shift in some other location.
If there was more public modelling and acceptance of this sort of thing we wouldn’t be hearing the clamour for legalised (i.e. commercialised and bureaucratised) euthanasia.
IMHO the latter is the anathema of the former in which the dying person or their family are struggling for greater control in their denial of the fact of death and even further handing the whole process over to the medical establishment.
Terry Prachett is one of my favourite living authors. And he has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Upon receiving the diagnosis, he flew to Switzerland, and set plans in motion so that he could control his ending, (because, you know, every author wants to craft the ending just so) Another thing I greatly admire about him.
So many critics of sex work just don’t seem to get something very important about it. For many men, it’s not just the sex of the moment they are buying. They are buying memories, adventures. They are buying the role of the male porn star while they can replay in their own little movie in their head anytime they please. Missing this is major.
Many men are very achievement orientated. They want new experiences. Giving that to them makes for a special session, one that they will still remember when they are very old. I considered my work to be giving them a smile at 80 when they remember.
I love Pratchett too.
But no-one controls their ending comixchik.
Imagining you can do so just makes it more likely you’ll hand over control to people who don’t really care about you. Whether that’s an ICU team or that utter creep Ludwig Minelli who runs Dignitas.
I would disagree; it’s not difficult to choose when to die as long as one isn’t afraid of doing it oneself. The problem lies in the handing over of control to someone else.
But how much ‘control’ is there in making such a choice.
Does anyone ever choose to die or do they choose to try to avoid suffering, humiliation or terror they are unable to face?
I don’t reckon anyone jumps.
They’re all pushed.
That said, I would certainly stand up for the right of anyone to choose suicide, just as I would stand up against those who would try to ‘Soylent Green’ them by convincing them they are a ‘burden’ or condemning them to a miserable, depersonalised existence as their only alternative.
And I would sure stand against any attempt to plug our hospitals, nursing homes and disability care institutions into a state or corporate run system of killing, no matter how ‘stringent’ the alleged safeguards.
The euthanasia business attracts some really sick puppies – such as Minelli and Philip Nitschke. They are the sort of people we need to keep well away from those who are vulnerable and facing serious illness or death.
Plenty. We are all constrained by material existence; saying certain choices are less “free-willed” because the consequences are more serious is a slippery slope. The only choices we can legitimately call “not free” are those in which one is dramatically worse than the other, like Eddie Izzard’s “cake or death”. I guarantee you that if I’m confronted with a choice between a quick death via a .40 caliber slug into my own head, or a slow, agonizing torture controlled by sickness or sadistic “authorities”, I’ll have no hesitation about it.
Yeah, but that’s the point really isn’t it?
It may be, say, an escape from control by external authorities but it’s a pretty pale substitute for exercising actual control.
And if you’re really in control of the one thing that really matters – yourself – then even falling into the hands of the sickness and sadistic authorities can’t really touch you. Not that I’d imagine I’ll ever develop that level of self-control.
(BTW, when I first read your comment I thought it said “sickness and sadness authorities”. I like that so much I’m going to appropriate it whether you said it or not).
I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
–Woody Allen
“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.”
– also Woody Allen
My thoughts are that people who want to “choose” how they die are actually more afraid of death – because they want to negotiate less painful or traumatic “terms” for their exit.
I’m good with the roll of the die. Sure, I hope for a death that kind of “punctuates” my life – the way I’ve lived it. But that’s the excitement of life I think – not knowing.
You been reading my mind again, krulac?
Where did I put my tinfoil hat?
I fully support a person’s right to end his or her life – I’m just saying it’s not for me and I don’t consider those people to be “courageous”.
My uncle, my favorite one, died this year of brain cancer that stemmed from colon cancer. He was stage 4 already when they detected his colon cancer.
His last year was miserable – but he fought … he suffered greatly and wasted away to a fraction of the man he was – and in the end he lost the battle …
But he fought.
I have a cousin with bone cancer right now – that’s a result of breast cancer – she’s fighting too … and it’s horribly painful for her. But she fights.
Death is the last thing we experience – and just like life – it’s not an “equal” affair. I have a great uncle who lived to be 94 years old and I swear you could not tell that guy was 94 he was active. Drove himself everywhere – moved like a man half his age and quick witted … a wonderful speaker. Then he went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up. Now that’s the ideal way to go but that’s not going to happen everyone. We have to play the cards we’re dealt I believe.
Agree completely, except inasmuch as I don’t know if suicide will be for me until it comes to the crunch I guess.
It’s damned near been for me a few times in the past.
Bipolar I gets you into the habit of trying to delay acting on impulses.
Either that or its gets you dead.
Courage has nothing to do with it either way (ending or enduring) unless someone else is involved. In other words, putting up with horrible pain in order to continue working to put your last kids through school is courageous; so is killing yourself so you won’t drain your family’s finances with your medical bills. Killing yourself to avoid pain or enduring pain because you’re afraid to die are not courageous; it’s an inapplicable term in such cases.
Choosing to terminate one’s life when in full possession of your mental faculties is sometimes called felo de se, to distinguish it from suicide when the balance of the mind is disturbed by anxiety, depression etc. The latter group needs help, and certainly not censure.
I’ve chosen to live forever, and thus far, it’s working out great.
It usually does, for a little while.
According to a particularly unlikely view of the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics it always works out for everyone.
Basically, timelines are constantly splitting infinitely and your consciousness will inevitably follow one in which it continues to exist.
I’m not sure I’d want my consciousness to exist forever in a body that claps out completely in little over a century though. Sounds like a good working definition of hell.
EXACTLY!! You get it!!
‘Thou mayst not kill
But needst not strive
Officiously
To keep alive’
And they complained about it?
😛
I’m guessing their name is going to be mud in the BDSM community.
but if they are observed by someone who finds (or could potentially find) their behaviour offensive, a charge…may be appropriate”…
This is absolutely hysterical.
“Yes Warden, I’d like to complain about what I saw… One man sodomizing another in the laundry room, and that OFFENDED me.”
Yup, can’t see that leading to any sort of negative reprisals AT. ALL. /sarc
But, their feels, Sasha. Their FEELS!
Learned this week in Sexual Assault Training that, within in the DoD – a simple touch is now considered a sexual assault if the person being “touched” believes it is.
In a video – they showed a man touching a woman ON THE SHOULDER as an example of sexual assault.
A black lady in the video said that sex had to be “completely wanted” by a woman – “I mean, I’m on fire, I want you, let’s get it on”. Anything short of that is … yep – RAPE!!
Said these very kinds of sexual assaults will often “haunt” people for life. That’s funny – I get sexually assaulted (by that definition) at least five times a night working at the bar – from all the drunk girls who walk in and grab me and start kissing me (on the lips – and sometimes with tongue). I let ’em do it – because the crowd likes it. I had no clue I wasn’t supposed to “enjoy” this.
Where do I make a complaint and collect my money?
Oh here we go again with the SEXUAL ASSAULT WILL RUIN YOU FOREVER AND EVER mindset.
I can’t believe this is what the Department of Freaking DEFENSE is teaching people.
Unreal.
And so it goes when you let a bunch of bureaucrats come up with a definition of rape. They are going to cover their asses, and extend their authority, by establishing the most encompassing standard.
Look, I know when I’ve been raped. And it’s not when you tap me on the shoulder. Nor is it when you tell me a dirty joke, or make a comment about my body.
I’m an adult. I can tell you to piss off if you’re bothering me.
Wow – good reading – a dizzying array of topics. Thanks.
Rough Trade
I posted a link to a petition about this. I’m not surprised that you’d already addressed it. And I’m glad you did; it needed to be addressed.
BDSM
Here in the States there are people paying for the experience of doing farm work. I wrote a little something where in a very comfortable future, parents were paying to send their kids to a sort of summer camp where they would build fences and walls and stuff, without robots. Actual farm work didn’t occur to me (though dinosaurs did). The present exceeds my vision of the future (except for the lack of dinos, and I got that idea from a TV show).
Size Matters
I think there are ways around the “it’s really a house of prostitution!” thing, if a jury will not be overcome by the thought of dirty, dirty sex. Of course, she shouldn’t have to find ways around it; whether it’s a house of prostitution or not shouldn’t matter. But we are all stuck living in this world as we try to make a better one.
Reframing
As honest a trailer as some I’ve seen.
Poe Folks
Let’s say I know (I might or might not actually) a lad who told me that a friend of his said he was going to do something icky. Thus, prostitution is bad.
As good an argument for banning the ancient profession as I’ve read anywhere, but that’s only because there aren’t any actually good arguments for same.
Uncommon Sense (TW3 #38)
I’m not commenting so much on the story as on that wonderful little poster which shows how obedience makes your life wonderful.
First off, everybody’s life has more than two directions it can go.
Secondly, if your whole life is set before you sixteenth birthday, and you happen to have made a “wrong turn” just before that birthday, then hey, I guess it’s all over. Might as well go for broke, sister, sister, ’cause honorable grandmotherhood is now out of the question!
Thirdly, I don’t know who made that, but unfuck them. Collectively.
An Ounce of Prevention (TW3 #312)
It is inevitable that AIDS will be beaten, eventually. All diseases are physical problems, and physical problems can be engineered into submission. But the sooner “inevitable” and “eventually” get here, the better.
An Example to the West (TW3 #316)
One part of the world after another, and now Jamaica! It’s like a wave sweeping the world, only it’s a good wave instead of a destructive one.
Policing for Profit
Waitaminit… so the BANK is immune from this? I’m guessing that if YOU or I had purchased this home, the cops still would have gotten it.
Well, I’m not two full month behind anymore. Except for LINKS, of course. I need to start considering how I’m going to deal with that after I’ve caught up with everything else.
[…] che si parli di una sorta di compensazione per le loro vecchie vittime o del loro tentativo di tenere tutte le sex workers sotto il loro controllo ancora una volta. Ma posso sperare che abbia degli effetti deleteri verso la sua credibilità tra le persone […]