Bits and Pieces (Part Two)

The best propaganda omits rather than invents. –  Mason Cooley

Many prostitutes, myself included, feel that if the public were to know the truth about our lives, were to understand that we aren’t all that different from our amateur sisters and don’t see our work as all that different from anybody else’s, that most of the opposition to decriminalization among reasonable people would vanish.  And that, of course, is why the prohibitionists are so dedicated to spreading as much disinformation as possible; since they can’t silence us, they instead hope to drown out our voices in a sea of noise.  A great deal of what prohibitionists claim isn’t exactly false, it’s just extremely incomplete; pimps do exist, and so do sex slaves, traffickers, underage streetwalkers, whores who work to support drug habits and those who hate their jobs, women who feel humiliated in sex work and all the other things prohibitionists blather about.  The problem is that they prattle so loudly, aggressively and continuously about the 10% that many people in the English-speaking world know absolutely nothing about the 90%.

One example is the case of a genuine sex trafficker recently convicted in the UK; the BBC reported on the story, but conveniently “forgot” to mention that he was initially reported by a client who called the police after the pimp sent him a 13-year-old girl.  “There’s no way at all you could have mistaken her for an adult.  It made me feel sick,” the man said.  “I thought about what I should do and I realized I had no other option but to call the police.”  This is exactly what advocates of decriminalization keep saying!  In the U.S. or Sweden, this man would have been arrested had he tried to report the exploitation of that girl, and in fact under a recently-passed British law he could be arrested there as well; it is now against the law in the UK to “promise to pay for sexual services from someone coerced”.  Since he did not know the girl was underage until he saw her, he would have broken the law unknowingly and could therefore not have reported the traffickers for fear of arrest and subsequent public humiliation.  The prohibitionists’ moral crusade against whores aids and abets the trafficking of underage girls, and because governments and media (or in the case of the BBC, government-sponsored media) lie by omitting this vital fact there is no public outcry against the monstrous conspiracy between governments and other organizations to protect traffickers in order to further the persecution of consenting adults.

Another example is the proposed “Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010“, which contains lots of noble-sounding propositions like “cooperation agreements with organizations serving runaway and homeless youth” and “a verification process that includes arrangements with state child welfare agencies to allow minor victims of sex trafficking immediate access to State-administered medical care.”  It also, however, contains the following: “specialized training for law enforcement officers and social service providers” (whatever that may mean), “prevention, deterrence and prosecution of sex trafficking offenses” (i.e. federal money for stings of voluntary adult prostitutes as in “Operation Cross-Country”), and “law enforcement protocols to screen all individuals arrested for prostitution for victimization through sex trafficking” (i.e. tactics local cops can use to coerce arrested prostitutes into finking others out through threats of federal persecution).  The act is a Trojan Horse, designed to take the anti-whore witch hunt to a new level.  If you’re a voting person, you might consider calling your congressman and voicing your opposition, for all the good it’ll do.

I’m sorry if that sounded cynical, but considering the behavior of the U.S. and other governments toward Julian Assange, can you blame me?  Politicians are well-known for being two-faced, but on the issue of internet censorship American politicians have raised duplicity to an art form.  For the past several years we’ve been subjected to their sanctimonious lectures about internet censorship in countries like China, while they simultaneously work to grant themselves the power to shut down websites at will and conspire to shut down Wikileaks via denial-of-service attacks, pressure on companies such as Amazon, Paypal, Visa and Mastercard and a campaign to crucify its founder Assange with what looks suspiciously like a “honey trap”.  Read that story carefully; Assange is not accused of rape as the American media claim, but of a Swedish misdemeanor called “sex by surprise” whose maximum punishment is a fine of about $715 US.  For an offense which is basically legalese for “broken condom”, he was put on Interpol’s most wanted list and subjected to an extremely expensive extradition process.  Remember what I said about “universal criminality”?  Once there are enough laws in place, everyone is guilty of breaking some of them every single day, then it becomes merely a matter of finding one which applies to someone a government (or in this case, many governments) want to silence.  Of course, it’s probably better to pick an accuser who isn’t so flaky that she runs off to the Middle East and drops her complaint as soon as her motives are questioned.  Oops!

It was literally days after the British news media broke the “sex by surprise” story before the American media stopped calling the accusation “rape”.  Since I can’t believe the mainstream American outlets literally did not know the truth, I can only assume that they purposefully chose to lie by using the emotionally-loaded word “rape” in order to whip up anti-Assange sentiment in the U.S.  And it has worked on some people; I’ve seen a few feminists up in arms about the general lack of sympathy for Assange’s accusers among opponents of Big Brother.  Well to those women all I have to say is this:  Don’t try to play the “rape card” on me, honey, cause I’ll trump you five times over.  I have been raped, several times, and I can assure you I wasn’t laughing and socializing with my rapists the next day, nor did it take me several days to “realize” I had been violated; even the European group Women Against Rape agrees with me that the whole thing stinks on ice.  If Assange is really guilty of this offense, let him send Sweden a check for the fine, as one can do with traffic tickets.  But that won’t be allowed because this arrest has NOTHING to do with women’s rights, a broken condom or Assange being a selfish ass in bed, and EVERYTHING to do with revenge for embarrassing those in power.

Michael Copps

It’s sad and frightening to see the American media ganging up on someone whom reporters of previous generations would’ve idolized, but unfortunately most of the American media now follows the Torsten Ove philosophy of reporting on government: “Thanks, but I’ll stick with the lies and distortions.” And one can’t totally blame them; the U.S. government has been leaning pretty hard on broadcasters not to rock the boat, and under a new plan proposed by FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, broadcasters would be reviewed every four years and would have to prove to the FCC that they have “made a meaningful commitment to public affairs and news programming” during that time.  Does anyone else feel that chilly wind?  No wonder so many people have abandoned broadcast news for internet outlets.

But since it is Yuletide, I really don’t want to leave y’all on a down note; with that in mind, here’s a story about a weird new perversion which is apparently sweeping the globe.  Since this “orgy lite” is apparently legal, maybe hookers should start advertising “exclusive private cuddle parties”; after all, sometimes our clients don’t want sex either.