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Archive for December, 2010

Yule

Posted in History, Holidays, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , on December 21, 2010| 8 Comments »

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging;
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging;
Not only green when summer’s here,
But also when ’tis cold and drear.
O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!
Thy leaves are so unchanging! –  Traditional translation of the German “O Tannenbaum”

Tonight is the night of the winter solstice, which will occur at 11:38 GMT; it is the longest night of the year, and tomorrow is thus the first day of winter.  The sun appears directly overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn today, so for those in the Southern Hemisphere it’s actually the first day of summer!  But since most human cultures arose in the Northern Hemisphere (including most of those who now inhabit the Southern), our traditions about this time all derive from the apparent aging and “dying” of the sun and the cold weather and dead vegetation which follows for the next several months.

The ancients were in awe of the natural world; they did not have access to the information since accumulated via centuries of observation and inquiry.  The weakening of the life-giving sun and the death of vegetation was thus very frightening to our distant ancestors, and they developed rituals to ensure that the sun would be “reborn” and the vegetation return.  In a number of cultures evergreen trees were considered symbols of hope for the return of spring, since they alone of all plants stand steadfast through the cold of winter.  In some cultures evergreen branches or small trees were brought into the house to remind the family that spring would indeed come again, and these were sometimes adorned with candles to symbolize the returning sun.  These were of course the first Christmas trees, and we still practice the custom though few modern people remember why.

As human civilization matured and people became confident that the sun would return as he always had throughout recorded history, these rituals took on a joyful character and blossomed into celebrations, usually marked by feasting, music and drinking.  The celebrations often included the giving of gifts as an act of sympathetic magic to encourage Nature to once again give mankind Her gifts in the spring.  And because these festivals were intended to celebrate the return of the sun rather than mourn its demise, many of them were eventually shifted to days or even weeks after the solstice (such as Chinese New Year, which can occur as late as early February).  Our modern Christmas holiday occurs on the day which was once the Roman festival of Sol Invictus (more on that Saturday), and its traditions are a fusion of Roman ones with Celtic and Northern European ones.  The Germanic version of the festival, called Yule, was so much like the Christian one of Christmas that the two simply flowed into one another when the Germanic and Scandinavian countries were Christianized, and to this day the words “Yule”, “Yuletide”, etc are popularly synonymous with “Christmas” in many countries.  Most modern pagans refer to the festival by its Germanic name, so without further ado I present our regular holiday feature, a short essay by my friend JustStarshine on the spiritual significance of the day:

The Significance of Yule

Through the ages faiths have linked the solstice with the birth of their god/gods.  In the past the descent into darkness, with no certainty that the wheel would turn or that light and life would ever come back to the world, was a time of fear and uncertainty and made  those of different beliefs adopt similar ways attempt to placate their gods/goddesses with gifts to ensure that the wheel would turn and life would go on.  These would take the form of lighted bonfires, offerings made of greenery and red berries, decorations of the living areas and gifts exchanged to show generosity of spirit.

We do the same today and many people would be surprised at the pagan origins of some of these practices.  One example is the Yule Log.  Traditionally this log had to be searched for or given as a gift – but never bought.  Placed on the hearth it would be decorated with seasonal greenery, doused in cider and flour and then ignited using a piece of log save from the previous year.  It would be kept burning and then allowed to smoulder for twelve nights before being completely extinguished, with a piece of the log being kept safely for use in lighting the next year’s log. Today pagans without an open fire will often use a small log, seasonally decorated and sprinkled with flour, with three holes bored in it to take three small candles.  This symbolises the sentiment without the need for a hearth.  Alternatively, there is the chocolate log, which can be decorated with three candles and consumed over the twelve days of Yule.

For witches the ritual of Yule celebrates the birth to the Great Mother of the new Sun King, sometimes called the Child of Promise, the Child of Hope or the Star Child, who grows one year each day up to the end of the celebration of Yule – 12th Night.  We light a candle to the newborn sun and rejoice that we share in the renewal of life with all creatures.  Although we no longer have the uncertainty of whether the wheel will turn and the darkness gradually recede we still drink a toast to the fact that the longest night has passed.

I ask that God (however you conceive Him, Her, Them or It) bless all my readers with health and prosperity in the new solar year, and that all your winters (both literal and figurative) be mild ones filled with the hope of renewal.  Blessed Be!

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December Updates

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2010| 20 Comments »

In poison there is physic, and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well. –  William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2 (I, i)

A collection of links, comments and items relating to previous columns.

The Biggest Whores (September 6th)

In this column I reported that Craigslist had bowed to governmental pressure and blocked its adult services section from being accessed in the United States, though it was still available to everyone outside the reach of American censorship.  But now the website has apparently bowed to pressure from the Canadian government and prohibitionist groups and removed the section entirely, thus allowing all those who advertised in it to return to posting free and unmonitored ads in other sections of the website.  An article in yesterday’s New York Post reported:

The popular classified ad website Craigslist has pulled the adult services section from its websites around the world; the section has been removed from international Craigslist sites in Canada, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa.  The adult services section was removed from US Craigslist sites in September after complaints from 17 states that it facilitated prostitution.  The section was replaced on US sites with the word “censored,” but its removal from international sites came without announcement or comment from Craigslist.  A spokeswoman for the site declined to comment on the removal of the section.

Craigslist apparently believes this will silence the fanatics, and it certainly may as the crusaders move on to annoy Backpage.  Of course, it’s also possible that a few of them will recognize that most of the whores who advertised on Craigslist are still there in the personals, massage, etc as they used to be and demand that Craigslist control them, such as by creating a ghetto in which their ads can be confined and then requiring payment so courts can order the info turned over to them.  Oh, wait, that’s what they just forced them to close.  Oops.

Think of the Children! (September 30th)

In this column I wrote:

The dogma of [the Cult of the Child] preaches that children are as emotionally fragile as soap bubbles and the merest hint of sexual imagery before puberty can cause irreversible trauma; its adherents also believe that teenagers (whom they equate with “children”) should be lied to, spied on or even criminally prosecuted to prevent them from engaging in any kind of sexual behavior, and some even believe that adults should not be allowed any form of entertainment or reading material which is inappropriate for even the youngest child, on the grounds that a child “might see it” and thereby be petrified as if he had looked into the eyes of the Gorgon.  Child cultists can be recognized by their stated belief that any degree of tyranny is acceptable “if it saves even one child,” and by their fondness for promoting unconstitutionally broad legislation lugubriously named after dead little girls.

Until the Cult of the Child again goes into decline, you can be sure we’ll keep seeing proposed legislation of this type.

Yesterday (October 20th)

In this column I opined:

What’s going to be needed [to achieve decriminalization] is for some big moneybags like Bill Gates to get behind sex worker rights so we can advertise and thereby attract a bunch of empty-headed Hollywood stars who are looking for a new cause to adopt.  In the minds of the hoi-polloi, the opinion of one celebrity who knows nothing about the subject is worth the life-experiences of a thousand veteran whores, and once the cause becomes “sexy” enough all of a sudden people will be coming out of the woodwork to support it.

Here’s a case in point from yesterday’s MTV News.  Neither Lady Gaga nor Katy Perry have horses in this race; they’re not in the military, they’re not homosexual and they’re not male.  Yes, it affects lesbians too, but let’s be honest here; the opposition to the repeal of DADT came overwhelmingly from men for reasons which should be obvious.  Yet somehow, the public considers the opinions of pop-tarts with no personal experience in the issue to be more important than those of activists who actually know what they’re talking about.

Something Rotten In Sweden (November 13th)

In this column I talked about the rise of “Swedish Model” rhetoric in American police departments; by pretending that all whores are degraded victims, they can hide the outrageous sexism of prostitution laws from the gullible.  One example of this infiltration is the increasing popularity of  “john schools”, government programs which hire brainwashed ex-streetwalkers to scream neofeminist victimization propaganda at men arrested for soliciting prostitutes.  Brandy Devereaux recently published a column in which she reports on a recent proposal for one of these so-called “schools” in Colorado, then explains her ideas of what a real “john school” might be like.

Barbie (December 5th)

In my column on Barbie I mentioned that I played with mine as though she were an action figure, and then I saw this hilarious spoof advertisement for toys that, unfortunately, do not actually exist.  For those who slept through 19th-century English lit, I should mention that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte avoided the Victorian prejudice against female authors by publishing their works under the male pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Not So Different (December 8th)

For years now internet escorts have employed sites like Date Check to screen potential clients, and now our amateur sisters have gotten into the act with some of the very same sites, proving once again that the line between prostitution and dating is far too fine to justify criminalizing the former but not the latter.  And just as governments think escorts are mental incompetents who must be protected from ourselves, so they apparently think the same about women who date online; New York’s “Internet Dating Safety Act” now requires dating sites to post common-sense safety tips, like “meet in a public place,” for those who are too dimwitted to be dating without a chaperone in the first place.  And the nanny state being what it is, I’m sure other states (and eventually the federal government) will follow New York’s lead.

Bits and Pieces, Part Two (December 10th)

For weeks there have been conflicting stories about what Julian Assange has actually been accused of, but now Sweden has finally bothered to release a report detailing the exact claims.  Assange calls the case a “smear attempt” filled with “incredible lies,” but even if the report is exactly true (and it may very well be), that doesn’t change the fact that Sweden, as pointed out in Saturday’s column, doesn’t expend nearly this much energy catching alleged rapists who have not embarrassed governments.

The Red Umbrella (December 17th)

I don’t really approve of the concept of “hate crimes”; after all, if a man kills me just because I’m in his way I am no less dead than if he kills me because he hates me.  But if we’re going to have any “hate crime” laws at all, it’s only fair that whores be among the protected groups because, as we discussed on Friday, we get far more than our share of violence.  Well, the city of Liverpool is now treating violence against sex workers as a “hate crime”; what a difference from the United States, where the police themselves are among the worst perpetrators of that very same crime!

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A Yuletide Fictional Interlude

Posted in Call types, Fiction, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , on December 19, 2010| 11 Comments »

As my regular readers know, once a month I publish a little fantasy tale whose protagonist is a whore.  These have mostly been stories of conflict and courage, but since this is Christmas I wanted to do something a little different; this one is probably best described as “whimsical”, perhaps even (dare I say it?) “cute”.  Some may find it a little bittersweet.  Please don’t judge it too harshly; while most of my stories are multi-layered pastries, this is just a Christmas cookie.  If you like it (and even if you don’t), you may be interested in my other stories.

Christmas Belle

Dear Maggie,

You’ve been pressing me for an explanation for months now, and since you are my best friend I believe I owe it to you.  Everybody thought they were funny with their jokes about “Saint Noel” until somebody realized that I was giving most of my income away, and in the past few months I seem to have developed a sort of aura which genuinely intimidates some customers.  Well, I’ll tell you how it started; you probably won’t really believe me, but I swear it happened just as I’m going to tell it to you.

I don’t need to tell you how much I love Christmas; I was born on Christmas Day, and I’ve always paid my bills in advance all year so I have plenty to give to charity in the Christmas season. My stage name isn’t “Noel” by accident, you know!  Well, on the day after Christmas last year I had an appointment which started out wrong by all reasonable standards; I don’t do same-day appointments, and I never work Christmas week, and he had no references whatsoever.  But when I checked my emails that morning, feeling lazy and just a little depressed as I always do that day, it stood out from the other messages in my inbox:

Dear Noel,

I know this is very short notice, but I’ll only be in town tonight and you come very, very highly recommended.  I’d love to spend the evening with you, and I’m more than willing to pay extra for having inconvenienced you.  Please let me know as soon as you can, and I’ll understand if the answer is no.

Very Truly Yours, Peter

All in all, it was no different from lots of other emails I get, but somehow I knew this was not a typical appointment request, and my intuition told me he was fine.  But even so, I’m no dumbbell; I replied asking for references and a phone number.  Within minutes he shot this back:

Dear Noel,

I’m afraid I don’t do this very often, and the last lady I visited has long since retired.  My phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, and if it would make you feel more comfortable we can meet for tea this afternoon first (I’ll pay you for that time as well, of course).  Thank you for considering me!

Very Truly Yours, Peter

I searched the phone number and it turned out to be a prepaid one; he could be anybody.  But my instincts told me he was a sincere and lonely gentleman and that I wouldn’t regret meeting him.  So I picked up my phone and called the number.

“Hello?”  What a strange voice he had!  Definitely an older man but with an odd timbre, and I couldn’t place the accent at all.

“Peter?  This is Noel.”

He couldn’t hide his excitement.  “Noel!  I’m so glad you called!  I apologize for the irregularity of my request, but as I said I have to leave town in the morning.”

“That’s all right,” I said; “I usually don’t see people this week, but you seem very nice.  You said I came highly recommended; did you mean by reviews or by a personal friend?”

“By my employer, actually.  He’s never seen you professionally, but he’s familiar with your reputation.”  The conversation went on for a while; he was unswervingly polite, asked no leading questions, did absolutely nothing to set off even the smallest warning bell.  And I have to admit my bank account could definitely use an all-nighter with a bonus right then!  So I decided to go for it, and we set the appointment for 5 PM; he reminded me to dress warmly and asked me to wear comfortable shoes.

He was extremely punctual, and when I opened my door I could see why he had requested flats; as short as I am, I was still a head taller than he was!  He was somewhere in middle age, with a full but perfectly-groomed beard and dark, smiling eyes.  He had a swarthy complexion, yet didn’t really have the features or accent of an Arab, and he wore a three-piece suit of dark green velvet in a very old-fashioned cut; I could see a watch chain at his vest pocket and he had a Homburg hat in one hand and a pot of poinsettias in the other. All in all, he presented quite a spectacle! I invited him in, gave him a hug, thanked him for the flowers and placed them on my table; I then asked if he would like something to drink but he declined politely, and handed me a very small gift-wrapped box. It was surprisingly heavy for its size; I sat down next to him, opened it and found it contained my fee…three one-ounce Maple Leaf coins, which at current gold prices is a generous gift even for an all-nighter.  He smiled at my astonishment and suggested I put them in my safe before we went out.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you it was my best professional date ever; we went to my favorite restaurant and he urged me to order whatever I wanted, and we didn’t leave for a long time.  Not that the staff minded; he was an amazingly charismatic little gentleman who called the waiter by name, thanked him for his service and sent a complimentary note to the chef.  After dinner we had coffee and dessert, and I noticed his generous tip was left in old silver certificates.  When we finally left the restaurant we walked downtown for a while, looking at the decorations and listening to the Christmas music coming from the audio systems of shops and cafes; once we came across some kids building a snowman and neither of us hesitated to pitch in and help.

Eventually we got back to my place, and though it was past eleven and we had walked for what must’ve been miles in the snow I wasn’t tired at all; my hands and feet were frozen but my heart was warm, and I asked him to relax by the fireplace as I made cocoa.  Then we sat there for hours, sipping cocoa and eating Christmas cookies; we talked about morality and altruism, about consensual reality and the power of belief, about planes of existence and the truths that often lurk behind legends, and other such topics.  And then at some point we cuddled up together quietly before the fire, and I fell asleep in his arms.

When I awoke he was nowhere to be found; he had quietly cleaned up the cups and plates while I slept and stolen away sometime before dawn, leaving nothing but a short note:

Dearest Natalie,

There are no words in any human tongue to describe what a wonderful time I had last night.  I work very hard all year, and my holidays are rare; thank you for helping me to relax and for affording me the company of such a beautiful soul as yourself.  With your permission I’d like to see you again next year on this same day.

Very Truly Yours, Peter

As I looked at the note, two things dawned on me; the first was that he had addressed me by my real name, though I had never given him any other than “Noel”.  And the second was that, though he was obviously totally satisfied with the date, neither of us had at any point completely disrobed.

Ever since then I’ve been inspired to try to keep the Christmas spirit all year long, and though it’s been tough at times it’s also been tremendously rewarding.  Yes, I’ve given a lot of my money to charities, but I make so much that even the part I keep is more than most people outside our profession earn and the feeling I get in return is better than anything I could get from more jewelry or another designer dress.  Well, a few days ago I got another email from Peter; his boss has heard of my efforts and is so impressed that he’s offered me a full-time job.  The money’s not as good as in escorting, and I’ll have to move way up north, but I’ll be part of one of the biggest charitable organizations in the world and the fringe benefits are literally fantastic.  I’ll miss you sweetheart, but don’t worry; we can exchange emails as often as you like, and I’ll come to visit every December 26th.

Love, Natalie

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The Swedish Pimpocracy

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2010| 31 Comments »

Since the most powerful social forces emanate from women it is women who must be controlled in order to control society. –  Maggie McNeill

You’ll have to forgive my act of epigrammatic masturbation; though I prefer not to make a habit of quoting myself, in this case I couldn’t find a better one to illustrate this column because it sums up my point:  the government of Sweden doesn’t really give a damn about individual women; it just uses women and feminist rhetoric to implement a plain old-fashioned tyranny while hiding under the cloak of “enlightenment”.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the infamous “Swedish Model” of prostitution law we’ve discussed a number of times before; this bit of legalistic skullduggery pretends to be “feminist” by making the act of selling sexual services completely legal, yet criminalizing the purchase of sex.  To the slow-witted or neofeminism-addled this may seem to “protect” women, but it actually does nothing of the kind because it attempts to rob whores of their livelihood by cutting off their income stream; once a hooker is identified as such by the police she can even be placed under observation, thus acting as unwilling bait for the entrapment of her customers.  Even worse is the principle upon which this model is based; all prostitution is legally defined as coercion, essentially a type of rape. Since no force is involved and the prostitute gives consent, the law basically classifies all whores as legal incompetents who are not qualified to give consent.  Just as any sex between an adult man and a girl below the age of consent is classified as him “raping” her even if she initiates the act, so hiring a prostitute is classified as a crime because, like the underage girl, the whore is not legally empowered to give consent.  Women in Sweden are thus defined as perpetual minors who are neither able to consent to forms of sex the government disapproves of, nor to be punished for violating the law (just as an underage girl is not liable in a statutory rape case).

Of course, narrow-minded neofeminists who are more concerned with denying men sex than with winning justice for women praise Sweden for this abomination and many of them are trying fervently to get similar systems implemented in their own countries.  But perhaps their praise for Sweden and their conviction that it’s some sort of feminist paradise might be lessened if they realized just how dismal the country’s record on actual rape is.  As Naomi Wolf reported in Wednesday’s Huffington Post:

Sweden has HIGHER rates of rape than other comparable countries — including higher than the US and Britain, higher than Denmark and Finland — and the same Swedish authorities going after Assange do a worse job prosecuting reported rapes than do police and the judiciary in any comparable country.  And these are flat-out, unambiguous reported rape cases, not the ‘sex by surprise’ Assange charges involving situations that began consensually.  Indeed, the Swedish authorities — who are now being depicted as global feminist sex-crime-avenger superheroes in blue capes — were shamed by a 2008 Amnesty International report, “Case Closed“, as being far more dismissive of rape, and far more insulting to rape victims who can be portrayed as ‘asking for it’ by drinking or any kind of sexual ambiguity — than any other country in their comparison group.  As Amnesty International put it in a blistering attack:  “Swedish Rapists Get Impunity.”

Wolf goes on to point out that of all reported rapes in Sweden, fewer result in any legal proceedings at all than do comparable cases in the US, Finland and Norway; “a woman who has been raped in Sweden is ten times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than she is of getting any kind of legal proceeding on her behalf undertaken by Swedish prosecutors.”  What’s more, during the same period (1983-1993) which saw an increase in neofeminist prohibitionism schemes in parliament, Swedish rape rates increased; since 1993 (when neofeminists almost unanimously unified behind what we now call the “Swedish Model”, finally enacted in 1999) the rape rate has quadrupled, yet the conviction rate is much lower now than it was in 1965 (when active debate on gender equality began and prostitution was not viewed as an equality issue).  And though neofeminists in other countries turn a blind eye to this outrage, normal Swedish women have largely resigned themselves to it; a 2007 study showed that only 5-10% of rapes in Sweden are reported, as compared to the 13-30% rate in the U.S. and U.K.  Of the Swedish incidents which are reported, fewer than 13% resulted in legal action of any kind, and less than 10% of those actions result in conviction.  Expressed in raw numbers, of the roughly 30,000 women who are raped in Sweden each year, only 20-30 will ever see their attackers punished to any degree.

These facts tend to make Sweden’s aggressive pursuit of Julian Assange for far less serious sex charges rather suspect; as I said in my column of December 10th, “the whole thing stinks on ice.”  And there’s a lot of ice in Sweden.  Many American supporters of Assange have attempted to portray his treatment as persecution by militant feminists in the Swedish government, but the fact of the matter is that there aren’t enough real feminists in the Swedish government to fill my bedroom.  Female Swedish parliamentarians are almost unanimously neofeminists, biologically female control freaks who will not hesitate to sell out their sisters for political power.  And the Swedish government only “promotes” feminism as a domineering pimp “promotes” a whore:  As a commodity to be bought, sold or traded for its own purposes. Sweden views women as a natural resource to be exploited in much the same way as it exploits timber, hydropower and iron ore, and its leaders only mouth platitudes about “equality” to keep female Swedish voters happy so they can stay in power.  Its dismal record on rape and its tyrannical efforts to reduce whores to slaves of its bloated welfare state demonstrate that Sweden doesn’t actually care about the welfare of individual women, but rather only about the political support of women collectively.  As Wolf states near the end of her column:

Finally, remember that in the Assange case it is the State rather than the women themselves that is bringing the charges.  The Swedish state — which has proven, in politically neutral cases that merely involve actual assaults against women — such a shameful custodian of raped victims’ well-being.

Many intelligent women (including the European group Women Against Rape and one of my favorite bloggers, Furry Girl) recognize the pursuit of Julian Assange for what it is:  A politically-motivated persecution of a man who embarrassed several of the most powerful governments on Earth, using rape as an excuse in order to win the support of silly, gullible women (including, apparently, a number of the staff at Jezebel).  As Katrin Axelsson points out in the linked Women Against Rape article, this is no different from the old Southern practice of lynching uppity black men for looking at white women.  It’s not a defense of women, but rather an exploitation.

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The Red Umbrella

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 17, 2010| 18 Comments »

I picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught. –  Gary Ridgeway

December 17th was the first day of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which I’ll discuss at greater length in my Christmas column.  But that was a festive, “eat, drink and be merry” sort of celebration which is one of the direct ancestors of our modern Christmas festivities, and as such has nothing to do with the solemn observance modern sex workers hold on this day, the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.  On this day we remember our sisters who have fallen victim to violence in the past, and work to raise public awareness about the violence which continues against us over much of the world every day due to the marginalization and discrimination which is the inevitable result of the prohibition of our profession.

The story of this day begins on July 8, 1982 when Gary Ridgeway murdered his first victim, a 16-year-old prostitute named Wendy Lee Coffield, and dumped her body in the Green River near Seattle; his next four victims were also disposed of in the same way over the next several weeks, earning him the nickname by which he is best known:  The Green River Killer.  Over the next two years he killed more than 48 women, most of them prostitutes, but then slowed down dramatically in 1985 once he started dating the woman who was later to become his third wife.  Though Ridgeway was suspected of the killings and was actually brought in for questioning twice (in 1984 and 1987), police largely dismissed testimony of prostitutes and didn’t exactly pursue the case with due diligence; as a result Ridgeway was released to continue murdering periodically until at least 1998.  He was finally arrested and charged with many of the murders in November of 2001, then in 2003 confessed to 48 murders as part of a plea-bargain to avoid the death penalty (he later confessed to killing about 40 other women whose remains have never been recovered).  On December 18th, 2003 he was sentenced to 48 consecutive life sentences plus 480 years.  When Ridgeway finally confessed Dr. Annie Sprinkle felt the need to memorialize his victims, so she contacted SWOP founders Robyn Few, Stacey Swimme and Michael Foley and together they planned a vigil at San Francisco City Hall on the eve of Ridgeway’s sentencing.  This was the first Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, which has since grown into an international observance with events and vigils in a number of cities around the world.

The red umbrella was first used as a symbol by Venetian prostitutes for a demonstration against human rights abuses in 2001; it was then adopted in 2005 by the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) as a symbol of resistance to discrimination.  After this it was natural that the red umbrella become associated with the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers as well, and it appears in the event’s logo; in the last few years the red umbrella has become the symbol of sex worker rights and resistance to oppression.

As we’ve discussed many, many times in the past, violence from the police, bad customers and monsters like Gary Ridgeway, Jack the Ripper, Steven Wright and Maury Travis is all too common a part of the lives of prostitutes, most especially streetwalkers; too many men who don’t even have the excuse of sociopathy consider whores to be disposable, “non-persons” against whom assault, robbery or rape is permissible.  A large part of the reason for this is the suppression of our trade; the laws criminalizing our profession allow weak-minded men (and even some women) to convince themselves that since we are “criminals” we don’t deserve to be treated like human beings, and the attitude of both the law and the police makes it difficult to impossible for sex workers of any kind, especially prostitutes, to even be heard by the police much less have crimes against us investigated.  Hookers who dare to report rapes, robbery or other brutalization may even be arrested and subjected to further brutalization (including rape) at the hands of the police.

It’s impossible to overstate the extent of the problem; of the 160 columns I’ve published since July, 27 have referred to some sort of violence, threat of violence or other victimization against whores; you might consult the columns of July 25th and 26th, August 4th, 6th, 17th, 25th and 27th, September 11th, 24th, 28th and 29th, October 3rd, 5th, 14th, 19th and 29th, November 2nd, 4th, 6th, 12th, 14th, 16th and 27th and December 3rd, 7th, 8th and 14th if you have the stomach for it.

The news media are also full of it; here’s a report from New York on a possible new serial killer, at least one of whose victims appears to have been a prostitute.  This one is about police violence against sex workers in Cambodia, and here’s an article and video of a woman being beaten by Sudanese  police for “adultery and brothel-keeping.”  And that’s just what I could find scanning a few websites Tuesday afternoon.

As long as our profession continues to be criminalized or de facto criminalized via “legalization”, these chronic abuses will continue; this day is therefore not merely one of memorial, but one to raise public awareness about the rights of sex workers and to speak out for decriminalization.  Go to the SWOP website and read more about this annual observance; public events are scheduled in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Brussels, Belgium; Chicago, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Hong Kong; Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario; Lake Worth, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; London and West Yorkshire, England; Montreal, Quebec; Nairobi, Kenya; New York City; San Diego and San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Tucson, Arizona; Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia; and Willimantic, Connecticut (details available on the SWOP site).  If you don’t live in or near one of those places you can still participate by organizing your own informal gathering with sex worker friends; donating to the Sex Workers Outreach Project, Desiree Alliance, St. James Infirmary or other sex worker aid organization; spreading the word about the day; talking about the topic to people you feel may be receptive; or even just carrying a red umbrella.  And to start you off, here’s a video called “Bad Rehab”, produced by the Asian-Pacific Network of Sex Workers to protest the abuse perpetrated against Southeast Asian prostitutes by police and “rescue” organizations.

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Lack of Evidence

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2010| 20 Comments »

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock. –  Emma Goldman

I’m often asked where I get the inspiration for a column every single day, and I must admit that it isn’t always easy; sometimes I struggle with it for a long time before I can think of anything (and I’m afraid that shows sometime).  But other times, it just drops into my lap; this is one of those times.  On Monday, Amanda Brooks published a new column, and in a comment to it I wrote: “That’s the main reason I tend to harp so much on the fact that prostitution is a continuum stretching from party girl to porn star and from wife to streetwalker, with the vast majority of non-celibate heterosexual women falling somewhere in there and not necessarily remaining in one place within it forever. It’s why I tend to use words like ‘whore’, ‘prostitute’, ‘harlot’, ‘hooker’, ‘escort’ and ‘sex worker’ interchangeably, and it’s also why the legal basis upon which prostitution law rests is so highly dubious.”  With that rolling around in my head I then took a look at Brandy Devereaux’s site and today’s column was born once I read her commentary on this story:

Myrtle Beach police arrested a 48-year-old woman on a prostitution charge after officers working undercover said she agreed to perform a sexual act for $100, according to a police report.  Diana Ceham Ahmad, 48, was charged with second-offense prostitution during an undercover police investigation about 5:45 p.m. Saturday in the area of Ninth Avenue North and Kings Highway, police said.  An officer, who was driving an undercover vehicle, saw Ahmad walking in the area of 12th Avenue South and Yaupon Drive and when he stopped she got inside the vehicle, according to the report.  The officer wrote in his report that she told him she could use $100 and she “could borrow $100” from him while she winked her left eye.

So in Myrtle Beach (and no doubt many other places here in the Land of the Free), winking is evidence of prostitution.  In Detroit, not wearing a bra and/or panties serves a similar function, and in many places it’s having more than one condom in one’s purse.  And for a woman to appear alone on a street has been used as evidence since the beginning of prohibition over a century ago.  Cops are not allowed such ridiculous excuses for “evidence” for any other “crime”, so why are they allowed it for prostitution?  It’s because it is the only human activity which is legal to perform for free but not for directly-negotiated pay, so physical evidence is impossible.  There is no body, no stolen goods, no bruises; even DNA evidence recovered from a hooker’s skin could only suggest sex had occurred, not prostitution.

Prostitution is to my knowledge the only “crime” which is entirely defined by its motive; in all other cases I can think of motive only influences the degree of the crime (and its sentencing) rather than defining it.  Motive can sometimes provide an excuse for an otherwise-unlawful behavior (e.g., self-defense can excuse homicide), but in the case of sex all other motives but direct payment are considered legal.  I say “direct payment” because as I have pointed out many times before (most recently on November 21st), indirect payment is not illegal, and whores who obtain marriage licenses can even use the court system to collect their fees!  In order to prove a charge of prostitution the court must have evidence that sex was openly offered for money, yet escorts never do that (and as the “wink” story shows, some streetwalkers don’t either).  In order to get around this obstacle cops simply lie, but because some judges might frown on evidence-less perjury outside of a “sting” setting, it becomes necessary to admit absurdities such as winks, condoms and bralessness as “evidence”.

But just as a lot of sex for money isn’t defined as prostitution, so a lot of things defined as prostitution aren’t sex for money.  As I pointed out in yesterday’s column a client paying for a two-girl show is no different from the rationale behind porn being legal, yet girls have been “stung” and arrested by cops arranging such shows.  Some guys don’t want sex at all, and many of the women arrested by NOPD using the “do you have a condom?” scam weren’t even sex workers of any kind.  One would think such abuses would arouse the ire of feminists everywhere, but nope; they’re much too busy fighting consensual sexual activities like prostitution, BDSM or porn to bother with police arresting random women on the street or lifting up their skirts to see if they’re wearing underwear.

The only methods which can be used to prosecute prostitution – stings, police perjury and ridiculous “evidence” rules, together with the fact that prostitution laws almost universally target women for persecution – create a civil rights nightmare, so as you might expect the American Civil Liberties Union is firmly opposed to them.  Here’s the official ACLU position:

The ACLU supports the decriminalization of prostitution and opposes state regulation of prostitution.  The ACLU also condemns the abuse of vagrancy or loitering laws or licensing or regulatory schemes to harass and arrest those who may be engaged in solicitation for prostitution.  While there are both male and female prostitutes, laws against prostitution most frequently refer to, or are applied to women.  Despite the statutory stress on female prostitution, the ACLU’s policy is applicable to prostitutes of both sexes….

Such laws have traditionally represented one of the most direct forms of discrimination against women.  The woman who engages in prostitution is punished criminally and stigmatized socially while her male customer, either by the explicit design of the statute or through a pattern of discriminatory enforcement is left unscathed.

Prostitution laws are also a violation of the right of individual privacy because they impose penal sanctions for the private sexual conduct of consenting adults.  Whether a person chooses to engage in sexual activity for purposes of recreation, or in exchange for something of value, is a matter of individual choice, not for governmental interference.  Police use of entrapment techniques to enforce laws against this essentially private activity is reprehensible.  Similarly, the use of loitering and vagrancy laws to punish prostitutes for their status or to make arrests on the basis of reputation and appearance, is contrary to civilized notions of due process of law.

Since the ACLU policy is that prostitution should not be made criminal, solicitation for prostitution is entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.

The ACLU reaffirms its policy favoring removal of criminal penalties for prostitution and in support of total sexual freedom among consenting adults in private.

Given this stand, I do have to wonder why the ACLU hasn’t volunteered its services for a test case; I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to find an educated, well-spoken escort caught in a “sting” who would be willing to be the “poster child” for such a case.  I found this statement at Procon.org, a site which places arguments for and against various issues in adjacent columns. As one might expect, the “pro” opinions on this subject  are generally based in privacy and civil rights, while the “con” arguments rely on bogus statistics, neofeminist “degradation” rhetoric  and conflation of voluntary adult prostitution with “trafficking” and underage girls.

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Ho, Ho, Ho!

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2010| 10 Comments »

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything goes. –  Cole Porter

It’s time for another collection of short articles about various things of interest; think of today’s column as a collection of provocative little presents from Maggie’s fishnet Christmas stocking.  The first one is a seriously big deal; if it pans out it’ll be the best Christmas present the medical community has given mankind in many years:

HIV-Positive Man Cured in Berlin

Doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood announcing that Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient,” appears to have been cured of HIV infection thanks to a stem cell transplant he received in 2007 as part of a his treatment for leukemia.  The doctors stated that the results of extensive testing “strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved.”  Brown is the first person to ever be declared cured of HIV, and his case shows the way toward a potential cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.

And just last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010; recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.  It’s too early yet to say that AIDS has been cured, but the millions already infected and those (like sex workers and medical professionals) who have higher-than-normal risk definitely have reason to hope that a cure may finally arrive in the next few years.

Definitely Not the Worst Pickup Line Ever

As I’ve mentioned before, Jezebel tends to sit on the fence between third-wave feminism and the last remnants of second-wave feminism; its editorial staff seems to give considerable leeway to contributors, and some unfortunately have the tendency to write articles which exude the unmistakable dead-fish smell of neofeminism. I’ve noticed the writer of the following article (reprinted verbatim) in particular has a strong tendency to rely on rhetoric which was already pungent in 1991 and has grown ever-more-foul in the intervening two decades:

We’re referring to the words allegedly spoken to Mark Wahlberg at some party for The Fighter.  According to the NY Daily News, a “young beauty” approached Wahlberg in the “VIP Section” of the Top of the Standard bar.  Her line? “Well, I’m the single girl and you’re the married man.”

Wahlberg allegedly “wasn’t amused,” and we don’t know why he would be, since it wasn’t remotely amusing. What it was, in fact, was depressing, degrading and reliant on archetypes that we wish didn’t exist.  And while we’ve described it as an abysmal line, there’s always a chance it’s worked in the past — which is more depressing still.

For all we know, Wahlberg’s PR is pushing the story to highlight his upstandingness (and really, you shouldn’t get special credit for normal, decent behavior) but that’s not where our interests lie.  Young beauty, whoever you are: you are better than this.  You shouldn’t be defining yourself in relationship to the nearest man, and you shouldn’t buy into a world that pits “mistresses” archaically against wives.  We hope that seeing this item will serve as a wake-up call.  You’re not “the single girl” — you’re a person!  A person with opinions and history, and value.  You deserve to be not just in the VIP section, but in the VIP section of life!

First off, it’s only a “pickup line” if a man uses it; the female equivalent is called a “come-on”.  But even if the two are considered together, this does not remotely even make it into the running to be considered to be nominated as among the worst pickup lines of this month, let alone ever.  My nomination for that honor would have to be, “Let’s  joust; my pork sword versus your clam salad.”  Yes, that was a real line, spoken by a guy I actually knew and overheard by another friend.  What makes it even more astonishing is that it actually worked; I guess low female self-esteem is a horny-but-clueless guy’s best friend.

The rest of the piece is so judgmental and indicative of rigid, indoctrinated thinking that it is – to paraphrase the article itself – “depressing, degrading and reliant on rhetoric that we wish didn’t exist.”  The author clearly believes herself to be “better” than the young half-hooker who solicited Wahlberg, yet says the girl is better than “this” (meaning her profession).  But you’re right about one thing, Ms. Neofeminist; she is a person with opinions, history and value, just as every other prostitute is.  We don’t “define ourselves in relationship to the nearest man”; it is YOU who are doing that by “defining” her in relation to a potential customer even though you know nothing else about her, and you shouldn’t buy into a world that pits “feminists” archaically against whores.

Funny Shows

These are just a couple of funny slideshows which are only tenuously related to this column by the “Video Girl Barbie” entry in “Toys Not To Get Kids for Christmas” and the “Free Hugs” entry in “Obvious Traps”.  Think of them as stocking stuffers.

Another Whore Who Thinks She Isn’t

The ex-porn starlet ex-wife of actor Kelsey Grammer, infuriated over his divorcing her for a younger woman, now plans to blackmail him with a sex videotape demonstrating “just how twisted his sexual appetite is” in order to extort a larger alimony payment than the court assigned her.  A woman demands money that she would not have if she hadn’t sex with a man; why isn’t this illegal again?  Oh, yeah, that marriage license thing, which makes prostitution legal.  I don’t remember anything about it making blackmail legal, though, so why hasn’t this sleazy trollop been arrested and charged with attempted extortion?

Hooters, Japanese Style

This article talks about “maid cafes”, Japanese establishments in which guys pay girls to give them a GFE without the sex.  This is of course exactly what many of our clients want as well, and it’s a very old tradition in Japan; really, the girls are like low-rent modern descendants of geishas (who as you may remember replaced the oiran by practicing then-modern entertainments instead of archaic ones).  It’s also not all that different from the being-sweet-and-cute-for-money procedure practiced by strippers and Hooters girls.  Still think there’s a clear line between illegal prostitution and legal professions which dance all around it?  What is it that defines prostitution?  If it’s penetration, what about hand jobs?  If the guy doesn’t climax, is it still prostitution?  What about police busts in which neither sex nor any conversation about it occurs?  How about guys who just want to watch a girl masturbate or play with another girl?  If a guy comes in his pants during a lap dance, is it prostitution?  How about a Las Vegas escort who gets a quickie wedding with her client, does a all-nighter and then gets an equally quick divorce in the morning?  How about the Muslim temporary marriage, which can be as short as one night?  And if a ex-porn starlet blackmails her ex-husband with video of him clapping and chanting “lubbu-lubbu”, is it illegal?

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Bad Jobs

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2010| 23 Comments »

I’ll be  a prostitute, that’s what I’ll be.  You get to pick your customers, and you get paid for it.  Now, that sounds like a lot of fun, doesn’t it? –  Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld) in Lord Love a Duck

Like so much of the propaganda directed toward our profession, the claims about its difficulty contradict each other.  For centuries prohibitionists have called us “lazy”, implying that our job is so incredibly easy it’s actually antisocial.  Christian reformers have tried to reclaim whores by teaching them the virtue of “honest work” (i.e. slave-wage drudgery resulting in premature aging) and the Nazis classified prostitutes as arbeitsscheu (“work-shy”) and sent them to concentration camps where they could be worked literally to death.  Neofeminists and trafficking fetishists, on the other hand, claim the exact opposite: that our work is inherently humiliating and degrading, and that no sane person would consent to it unless enslaved or otherwise coerced.  As is usual with extreme statements, both are wildly exaggerated; the truth is that for all but the very lowest strata of our profession, prostitution is a job like any other.  It has its good aspects and its bad aspects, but for those of us who choose it the good points (high income, freedom, independence, rewarding experiences with good customers, ego gratification and variety of work) greatly outweigh the bad ones (uncertainty of income, unpleasant customers, and the risks of disease, rape and persecution by cops).  As I have said before, it’s not for everyone, but what job is?

With the “Swedish model” and trafficking fetishism in ascendancy one hears the “inherently degrading” brand of nonsense more often these days; pompous control freaks who have never done as much as a single call use terms like “horrible” and “soul-destroying” to describe work they know absolutely nothing about, and silly women who work menial jobs for a pittance (or don’t work at all) comfort themselves by imagining that they’re better than we are.  The truth, as I discussed in my column of November 9th, is that as a group prostitutes have unusually high self-esteem, and studies conducted among legal prostitutes (such as this one from Australia) demonstrate that the vast majority of the profession who are not imprisoned, drug-addicted streetwalkers (the only whores neofeminist “researchers” ever bother to study) have rates of job satisfaction comparable to those of women in “regular” jobs.  You want to know what an “inherently degrading” job really looks like?  Health magazine recently published a list of the ten most depressing jobs in America; 7% of the general population have experienced a major depression in the past year, but members of each of these professions experience measurably higher rates than that.

The single most “soul-destroying” job in the US is not harlotry, but rather working in a nursing home or day-care center; 11% of people in such jobs have experienced major depression in the past year.  This is probably because the very old and the very young are needier than even the worst escort client, and unlike the latter they are often unable to express appreciation for the difficult, often unpleasant work.  You think getting screwed by an old, fat dude is disgusting?  Try changing his adult diapers and cleaning his bedsores for less than a tenth as much money, and being unable to refuse service to him without losing your job.

Those who oppose “inherently degrading” jobs should take aim at waitressing; 10% of foodservice workers in general and 15% of waitresses in particular report a major depression this year.  Waitresses’ customers are ruder than ours, their shifts are much longer, they have to kowtow to everybody and their pay is often below minimum wage…and Uncle Sam adds insult to injury by taxing their tips whether they get them or not.

I’d be willing to bet a free session that a high percentage of rabid prohibitionists are social workers, so perhaps their rhetoric about our jobs being so awful derives in part from projection.  10% of social workers per year suffer from at least one serious episode of depression, and they suffer from violence almost as often as sex workers do but for about a third of the annual income before taxes.  And like waitresses, nursing home workers and day-care providers they work long hours and have no control over client selection.

Doctors, nurses, therapists and other healthcare professionals have comparable incomes to ours, but have to deal with sick, injured or dying people every day and often cannot alleviate their symptoms in one visit as we can.  Add to that long hours, ungrateful patients and the constant threat of malicious lawsuits and you’ll see why roughly 10% of them were depressed at some time this year.  Well, at least many of them get more respect from governments than many of us do.

The depression rate is 9% for people in creative fields such as artists, writers, entertainers, etc.  Part of this is almost certainly due to the artistic temperament, but a lot comes from the same kind of income uncertainty whores experience (and as with us, bad reviews can be devastating).  Unlike hookers, however, creative people often work grueling hours and cannot count on at least some sales; if a prostitute does not succeed in attracting clients she doesn’t work, but a writer may work for months on a project and yet never make a penny from it.

Maybe Melissa Petro should have stayed a hooker; teachers suffer depression far more often than we do, make far less money and have absolutely no choice of clients whatsoever.  Imagine if most of a whore’s customers were unappreciative and did not really want to be with her, yet she was blamed for their failure to achieve climax.  Add to that mountains of ridiculous and unnecessary paperwork and several levels of pimps over her, including a “prostitution board” staffed almost entirely by non-prostitutes which could fire her because her clients’ relatives objected to her having been a teacher when she was younger.  Talk about exploitation…

Administrative support staff (i.e. middle managers, executive secretaries etc) constitute textbook examples of a “thankless job”; when things are good their bosses are credited, but when things go wrong they’re the ones who are blamed.  They have to take orders from above and respond to demands from below, and have very little power to do anything about it. Contrast that with escorts’ lives and you’ll see why they get depressed far more often than we do.

Maintenance and grounds workers are like medical staff without the glamor and high pay; they deal mostly with problems, and work weird and often inverted schedules.  They are also often alone, and like retail clerks their hours may vary wildly with the seasons.  Prostitutes have most of those issues as well, but we make a lot more money and get a lot more praise from our clients than do janitors.

Accountants, brokers and other financial advisors are among the few professionals on this list who make more money than call girls do, but they’re also a helluva lot more stressed than we are.  If I goofed up a client might fail to reach orgasm, but if an investment counselor goofs up his client could lose millions and if a CPA goofs up his clients may be audited by the IRS or even accused of tax evasion.  And though whores are affected by the bad economy, we aren’t blamed for its effects on our clients.

Tenth on the list are salespeople, whose depression rate is lower than the others we’ve discussed but still measurably higher than the 7% average.  If hookers really did have higher rates of depression than others, this is the category we would fall into because we are essentially independent saleswomen, marketing our own services.  Commissioned salespeople have uncertain incomes, long hours, no benefits and high seasonal variation in business volume.  Many have to travel for long stretches and live alone in hotels away from friends and family.

Of course, all of these jobs are better than unemployment; 13% of unemployed people have suffered a major depressive episode this year, about twice the national average and higher than any of these jobs except waitressing.  Yet the prohibitionists actually want you to believe that being unemployed and/or on welfare is actually better than our lucrative, often pleasant job with flexible hours!  Brandy Devereaux recently wrote on this very subject, and since she’s already said it at least as well as I could I’m going to leave you today with a link to that column.

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Liar, Liar

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 13, 2010| 14 Comments »

Liar liar pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire! –  Traditional children’s taunt

Poor, innocent Derrick Burts says he was misled by the porn industry; he claims that he was never really informed of the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and that he contracted HIV during oral sex in a gay porn shoot in Florida.  He claims that the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) told him that they’d traced his infection to a “known positive” but wouldn’t tell him who it was, and denied AIM’s public statement that he contracted HIV through personal activity.  “That’s completely false,” Burts said Tuesday (December 7th );  “There is no possible way.  The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend.”  He claims that AIM warned him against contacting the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), and that he only went (anonymously, of course) to an AHF center in Los Angeles on November 24th after AIM “neglected” him:  “AIM promised they would help me set up a doctor and get treatment,” he said.  “They did none of that.”  He claims that he never identified himself as “Patient Zeta” (the code name used to protect his privacy until he outed himself last Tuesday), but was so pleased with the care he received from AHF that he contacted the organization and offered to speak out in favor of mandatory condom use in porn:  “AIM likes to state that testing is enough.  That’s completely false,” he said, adding that before he tested positive for HIV he had also contracted chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes.  “It’s very dangerous,” he said of adult film work.  “It should be required that you wear a condom on the set.”  All in all, he claims lots of things which might make established industry procedures look pretty bad…if he wasn’t such a poor liar.

Dick Butts rentboy adIn my column of December 9th I insinuated that Burts’ so-called “girlfriend” is actually a “beard”, slang for a woman used by a gay man who for some reason wishes to pass himself for straight; I also wrote, “His claim that AIM told him that he contracted HIV through oral sex (despite the fact that, as I have said before, there has never been a single documented case of oral HIV transmission) is even less credible than his claim…that he wasn’t screwing other guys outside of film sets.”  At the time, that was just an educated guess fueled by instinct; now I have proof thanks to this article published in the LA Weekly yesterday.  Behold the ad “Derek Chambers” (Burts’ gay porn stage name) placed on Rentboy, a gay escort site, in which he promises a “hott session” [sic] and boasts that he is “AIM tested”.  So much for “The only person I had sex with in my personal life was my girlfriend.”  Raise hands, who still believes he contracted HIV on a film set?  It’s pretty obvious that Burts is a conniving little liar whose dangerous off-camera choices endangered everyone he worked with, but when the piper’s bill arrived he tried to stick AIM with it.  And given AHF’s sleazy tactics and Burts’ proven disinclination toward veracity, does anyone believe that this coat-turning was as innocent and selfless as it was represented to be?

Governments, however, care nothing about truth and are perfectly happy to hop into bed with anyone who promises them even the smallest particle of increased power; AIM was shut down by California and Los Angeles County officials  the morning after Burts and AHF held their press conference.  The following is paraphrased from a story which appeared in the LA Weekly on Thursday (December 9th):

The Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM) was served with a cease and desist order today and Los Angeles County authorities shut it down, according to California public health spokesman Al Lundeen.  The shutdown comes on the heels of an HIV-positive performer’s outcry against the clinic and industry, though the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), who sponsored Burts’ press conference, claims there is no direct connection between the events:  “It truly is a coincidence that this took place the same day [sic] as Derrick Burts came forward to tell his story,” said Michael Weinstein, the president of AHF.

Steven Hirsch, founder of Vivid Entertainment (the country’s largest adult studio), said Vivid would continue with production despite AIM’s closure.  “We have been in contact with AIM and believe that the current situation is temporary and will be quickly remedied.  There are other alternatives that we can utilize in the meantime and will do so.  We believe the current system of testing works.  Our productions will proceed as scheduled.”

Lundeen confirmed this view, saying that AIM submitted an application for a state community clinic permit in June after the state told AIM officials that such a license was required.  He said the clinic’s application for a license was denied on Tuesday, but that the grounds for denial were a lack of proper paperwork, including a “transfer agreement” that would tell the state it had an agreement with an area hospital to accept patients it wasn’t qualified to treat.  Lundeen made it sound as if AIM would be up and running soon and that its denial was based on a minor technicality.  “We’re working with the facility to meet the requirements under the law as quickly as possible,” he said.

Michael Weinstein

But even if Weinstein and his group truly had nothing to do with AIM’s closure, he was quick to seize upon it to advance his agenda; he called on porn producers to shut down shoots while this mess is worked out, and insisted that the city’s film permitting organization, FilmLA, stop issuing permits to porn productions and that the county shut down all existing productions in the name of “safety.”  He especially demanded that the city of Los Angeles deny film permits to the biggest studios, including Vivid and Hustler.  “This is the touchstone moment,” he said. “This is the tipping point.  The adult film industry needs to be shut or use condoms starting today…the people who come out flagrantly and say we’re never going to use condoms, like Larry Flynt and Steven Hirsch, they should never issue permits to them,” Weinstein said.

The state requires technically does require porn performers to use condoms, but the industry has resisted because customers don’t like seeing them and California workplace health officials have said they don’t have the resources to enforce the law.  And while Burts claims he got HIV on-set, some people have come forward to note that he’s offered his services as a male escort.  The last HIV scare in porn, in 2004, happened when an actor claimed to have contracted the virus from a heterosexual film shoot outside of AIM’s testing protocols — in Brazil.  Some doubted that story as well.

If it’s true that AIM’s license was denied due to a technicality, why the grandstand play?  Was it really necessary to send cops to shut down a clinic due to incomplete paperwork?  Can any reasonable person believe that it was due to mere happenstance that an application pending since June just happened to come up for review the day a patient accused the clinic of wrongdoing, and that it was somehow in the public interest for Los Angeles County to ostentatiously humiliate AIM with third-world dictatorship tactics rather than simply having a secretary call them to say, “Hey, we need one more document to complete your application; can you fax that over today?”  It’s pretty obvious that decisions are being made behind the scenes which will strongly affect the industry, yet as so often happens with sex workers those who have the ear of authorities (in this case, AHF) presume to speak for us yet never bother to consult us about what we might actually want.  With this in mind, St. James Infirmary is hosting a community forum for adult film performers this Thursday night, with an eye toward giving them a voice in the process; though I doubt the state and county will be easily persuaded from the course they seem set upon, at least the lies of Burts, Weinstein and company won’t go completely unchallenged.

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Mecca

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2010| 11 Comments »

A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. –  Walter Bagehot

I’m sure it cannot have escaped your notice that as soon as some prohibitionist law seems to be in danger of being struck down, the Chicken Littles who support it will invariably claim that the jurisdiction considering the change “will become a Mecca for” whatever it is the law prohibits.  Oregon was going to become a “suicide Mecca”, California was going to become a “Mecca for marijuana”, and now Ontario is going to become a “prostitution Mecca”.  Of course, it never happens, but why doesn’t it?  And more importantly, why would anyone care if it did?  Tourism is big money, so why wouldn’t people want their city, state, country or whatever to become a Mecca for something and thereby bring in lots of cash?

In the United States, Nevada was the first state whose leaders asked themselves the question, “Why don’t we want people coming here from all over to gamble and visit whores?”  After all, their money’s as green as anyone else’s, and it isn’t as though Nevada had much else to recommend it to anyone other than miners.  So the leaders legalized gambling and prostitution there, and now this largely-desert state is the 16th richest in the US despite being only the 35th most populous; considering that it’s one of the three without a state income tax, I’d say most Nevadans are pretty happy that their state became a Mecca for gambling.

It is not, however, a Mecca for prostitution, nor is New Zealand despite similar dire predictions when it was decriminalized there seven years ago, nor was Rhode Island despite prostitution being legal there for three decades (until an unholy cabal of cops, politicians and trafficking fanatics succeeded in recriminalizing it last year).  There is no evidence that the number of prostitutes per capita increased in any of those places (obviously, the absolute number increased in Nevada as the transient population increased), nor that unusual numbers of working girls from nearby prohibitionist states have flocked to those areas; as I’ve mentioned before, the biggest hooker glut in the US is in the Dallas, Texas area, despite the fact that Texas is staunchly prohibitionist.  To be sure there are a good many non-Nevadans working in Nevada brothels, but there are also plenty of non-Nevadans working in every other part of the state’s vast hospitality industry; it is not the legality which has attracted these prostitutes but rather the money.

That’s certainly not unusual; workers in any industry go where the money is.  So if the number of customers (and therefore the demand for whores) had increased in Nevada or New Zealand or Rhode Island, obviously whores would have come in from surrounding areas to answer that demand.  Yet that did not happen; even the high transient population in Las Vegas (which supports a proportionately large number of escorts) is overwhelmingly drawn there by the gambling and other entertainment, not the prostitutes.  The reason for that is obvious to any intelligent hooker, but obviously not to the Mecca-prophets:  Quality escorts are not cheap, so most of our clients are established men; such men are generally married, and most wives are less than understanding about their husbands’ need for sexual variety.  In other words, most men who could afford to travel to another state or country just to go whoring have wives in tow, and most men young enough to be unmarried lack the funds for such adventures.  Yes, of course there are exceptions to both rules, but these are not common enough to sustain a higher volume of business.  Most men employ hookers surreptitiously, in their home towns during work hours or in other cities while on business trips.  In other words, not even ambitious harlots have the luxury of operating only in places where it’s legal; we have to work where the customers are, and that’s all over.

Another reason prohibitionist predictions about hordes of gypsy hookers following sporting events or migrating to the newest “Mecca” never materialize is that whores are, as I have said hundreds of times, no different from other women, and most women dislike moving far from family and friends.  To be sure touring escorts travel extensively, but they generally still have someplace they call home.  And yes, some women are indeed willing to permanently relocate for a job, and hookers are no exception.  But the idea that vast numbers of prostitutes will move someplace they might not otherwise wish to live merely because their trade has been decriminalized there is based in the tired old propaganda about our not being like other women; it assumes most of us would be willing to leave home and family for parts unknown merely to chase a buck, and in most cases that simply isn’t true.

Furthermore, statistics show that when prostitution is decriminalized in an area even the number of local prostitutes remains relatively constant; indeed, in New Zealand it seems to have decreased, though that’s probably due to zealous overestimation by cops and prohibitionists when it was still illegal.  In other words, women who are going to be whores do so whether it’s illegal in their region or not; criminalization doesn’t deter women from entering prostitution, and decriminalization doesn’t inspire girls who would not otherwise have entered the trade to do so.  Prostitution laws therefore have no demonstrable deterrent value whatsoever, because the illegality of the profession has no observable effect on women’s choice to practice it.  The fact that so many men fail to recognize this demonstrates how little they understand women; though we are generally less physically aggressive than are men (which is why so few of us commit violent crimes), we are usually far more pragmatic and are therefore less likely to obey arbitrary laws which make no sense to us.  A few men understand this aspect of female behavior quite well; Robert A. Heinlein once wrote “Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws,” and Montaigne wrote “Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.”  But Rudyard Kipling expressed it best in “The Female of the Species”:

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for tact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

Kipling points out that since it is ultimately on women’s shoulders that the future of the species rests, Nature has made us more pragmatic – and often more ruthless – than men.  Put more succinctly, a woman with two children to feed, clothe and house and no husband to help her does not have the luxury of obeying a stupid, arbitrary law written by men which says that she can’t get money to support them in the way which works best for her and doesn’t hurt anyone.  The Judeo-Christian tradition has used this observable female tendency to argue that women are “morally inferior” to men, but which sex commits the majority of actual crimes (theft, assault, rape, murder, etc)?  It certainly isn’t us “morally inferior” females.  A woman is more likely to rely on her own internal moral compass than on laws imposed from outside, which is why the vast majority of the female prison population in any country are incarcerated for consensual crimes such as prostitution, drug use, etc – in other words, things which are arbitrarily defined as “criminal” but are not in any real sense evil.

Essentially, prostitution law punishes women for not being men; the whore is an outlaw because she will not submit to external, paternalistic authority which forbids her using her natural advantages to improve her situation.  And if one considers which culture is nowadays most closely identified with the brutal subjugation of women to a law-obsessed patriarchy, it’s a bit ironic that prohibitionists are so fond of predicting that any place without such tyranny will turn into a “Mecca”.

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