For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect. – Mason Cooley
It’s funny how much a news story can change once it hits the wire and is rewritten a couple of times. I was first made aware of this incident yesterday morning when the Human Scorch sent me a link to this coverage in Huffington Post, but that was trimmed to remove a couple of details which, while the public might not consider them important, make a big difference to whores. Here’s how it first appeared in the Las Vegas Sun:
A tourist says he was traumatized when Las Vegas police threatened to arrest him after he complained about an act of prostitution in his hotel room. Hubert Blackman of New York City filed a lawsuit this month against a Las Vegas company he identified as Las Vegas Exclusive Personals. The lawsuit says the business operates on Paradise Road. Blackman, a college student, said in an interview Thursday that he was on vacation and staying at the Stratosphere on December 17 when he called Las Vegas Exclusive Personals to arrange for a stripper to come to his room and dance for him. Blackman said the woman, who appeared to be in her mid 20s, stripped and performed a lap dance for $155 and a sex act for another $120.
He said that the next morning, he called Las Vegas Exclusive Personals to demand his money back, saying he was dissatisfied because the entertainer didn’t stay for the promised one hour and left after a half hour. Blackman said he also told the company he was incapable of making an informed agreement with the stripper because he was drunk at the time. Dissatisfied when Las Vegas Exclusive Personals didn’t arrange for a refund, Blackman said he contacted Metro Police and was told he faced arrest for such conduct and was advised to contact the Better Business Bureau.
Instead, after returning home he filed suit in federal court in New York, charging “An escort did an illegal sexual act on me during her paid service to me” and “I almost had gotten arrested.” Blackman said he now needs medical treatment for a mental condition related to the incident. In the suit, which he filed without an attorney, Blackman said: “I would like the court to close the business. I also would like to get my $275 payment back and a $1.8 million verdict for the tragic event that happened.”
In the interview Thursday, Blackman said it was the dancer who solicited the sex act — but he acknowledged he was aware at the time that prostitution was illegal in Las Vegas. The number listed in Blackman’s lawsuit is used by Hillsboro Enterprises, which says it’s been licensed for 17 years and provides adult dancers on a subcontractor outcall basis. Officials at Hillsboro said Thursday they were unaware of the lawsuit or of Blackman’s claims, but denied the company is involved in prostitution. They said if anyone calls looking to hire a dancer and indicates they’re looking for sex, they’re told prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas and all of Clark County.
The Vegas Sun article leaves the emphasis where it belongs: On the moron suing for “distress” caused by the POLICE threatening to arrest him after he called to complain. Huffington Post’s version makes it sound as though Blackman claimed the trauma was caused by the hooker staying for less than an hour. In other words, HuffPo’s rewrite makes it sound like a he said/she said issue when in fact it was a case of buyer’s remorse which he stupidly tried to escalate by calling the police (which raises his actions to the epic level of idiocy largely occupied by Darwin Award nominees and those who call 911 to report that their French fries aren’t hot enough).
Anyone who has ever owned an escort service has had to deal with dumbasses who spend too much while they’re drunk and then think they’re going to steal the money back; I’ve even heard of disreputable agencies using such incidents as excuses to steal money from girls (which IMHO qualifies them for a special place in Hell). Of course, customers who attempt such shenanigans neither realize nor care that if they were to actually succeed in getting their money back, a proper business transaction would thereby be transformed into a rape. The colossal, infantile egos of such individuals cannot comprehend that the world does not in fact revolve around them, and unfortunately our legal system encourages such thinking. “Waaaah, I did something stupid!” cries the American citizen; “it must be someone else’s fault!” In a properly-run country this would start a dialogue about the injustice and irrationality of prostitution law, but in the US it’s an excuse for a nuisance lawsuit.
But there are a few more details revealed by this coverage on The Smoking Gun, which was called to my attention by reader Alex Cresswell. I feel compelled to point out the underlying “whore as monster” rhetoric inherent in this psychotic whiner’s attempt to pretend a hooker more or less raped him (she “did an illegal sexual act on me during her paid service to me,” no doubt without his consent), and also the rather unhealthy mother-son relationship discernible between the lines. Other than that, I think the story speaks for itself.
Ha! You beat me to it. I came across the first article yesterday and today was reading several of the various reports on this guy, all of which were rewritten and failed to include all of the story. Another story which makes me just want to shake my head and sigh… kinda like the tripping fountain lady wanting to sue the mall security. Pretty soon everything sold (including sex) will be required to come with a warning label.
[…] to post something that Maggie McNeill beat me to. In order to not be redundant, just go read her post because she already said it better than I could have […]
Remember: just because people file these lawsuits doesn’t mean that they win. Yeah, I know that sometimes they do, but many times they do not.
Oh, he’ll never win; there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell. It really isn’t about the lawsuit, but rather about the mindset.
And they wonder why the court system is a circus. Shameful.
Ah, but he was drunk. So he can’t consent, even if he did, right? 🙂
This is the kind of thing that always strikes foreigners in America as weird — if there’s one thing that makes the country feel “exotic” and “otherworldly”, it’s this tendency to oversue for just about any reason. (Even in language: Americans often say “so what? sue me!”). I remember other Brazilians frankly surprised at the presence of “Wet Floor” signs on floors that were obviously wet. We’d say, “isn’t it obvious that the floor is wet? This can’t be for handicapped people because, if you can see and read the sign, you can see that the floor is wet!” Until one American enlightened us by pointing out this is probably extra care due to some lawsuit.
Funny that the land of self-reliance, of the lonesome cowboy, should also be the land of the frivolous lawsuits. Even the fact that most of them aren’t won doesn’t make it less surprising: those who file the lawsuit do so because they hope to win, don’t they? I suppose people are simply getting used to blowing any little bobo to catastrophic proportions, so that they can use the “we’re fighting for our rights!” mindset to energize themselves.
You’re probably right. 🙁
“Waaaah, I did something stupid!” cries the American citizen; “it must be someone else’s fault!”
If only he were intelligent enough to realize that he is insulting the intelligence of humankind as a whole (including his own).
And you’re right, this kind of pure ignorance is 100% cultivated by society.
Pathetic.
I sometimes joke about putting together a class action lawsuit against local police for causing residents to live in such fear it interrupts our daily lives. This real life example somehow makes my joke less funny.
Tonight at 6:00 PM Eastern Time Zone (7:00 Central, 8:00 Mountain, 9:00 Pacific, and probably replayed in Hawaii) CNN is running this thing called Selling the Girl Next Door. It looks like it’s going to be all about trafficking, underage girls, and the scary, scary Internet. It’s being replayed three hours after that, and another three after that. Probably again later in the week.
Just in case anybody’s interested.
Yep. And today’s column is about the article on their website which ties into it.
Ooo, goodles! I haven’t watched Selling yet, nor have I read your A Manufactured War, but I will do both upon the morrow.
I’ve also fallen behind reading 1984. Well, I’ve got the whole day free Monday.
You know, each time I think I’m going to write some hooker-related bit of short fiction, I end up writing some other hooker-related bit of short fiction. So no Vertilya tu Thorma, no Meriem Clayton (you can guess where I got that name), and no Lethni of the tail and fur. Instead we get Seraph and Astarte, relating to Tomboy and Hector Mendoza, respectively. So I don’t know what I’ll write next.
Maggie,
Being in the area, I had heard of this straight away. I found it laughable. My guess is this idiot has actually succeeded in getting REFUNDS from Independents, through scare tactics. It happened to me a few times, but never worked. These kinds of men seem impelled to try though.
Once a man told me he was calling the police and I said “No (I) am. He backed down and I left. One man actualy did call hotel security as I was calling the Agency. I was already in lingerie when he did not want to pay for FS, but get FS. Security came up. he was drunk and said “I paid her 300.00 for sex, but she wants 500.00 and I have had plenty of girls out here for 300.00 and got sex”. The police arrived and asked me if he had restrained me, struck me etc…I said no and that I am a LINGERIE MODEL. He paid and then wanted his moneyl back after I would not perform a sex act”. The agency had already called the police and said he was holding one of their models in the room, demading sex and we do not do refunds once we are in lingerie. I explained to the police that he was demanding a refund and blocking me from getting back into street clothes. The police made him stand in the hall while I got back into street clothes, packed and left. The agency called and he had been arrested. Too funny.
This Agency had always told them on the phone 300.00 plus a tip for your girl and the tips usually start around 100.00.
Never let them scare you. Go with your gut.
Joyce
Follow up note:
Judge tosses case
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2011/02/08/Judge-tosses-prostitution-refund-suit/UPI-40361297199659/
Raise hands, anyone who’s surprised. 😀
I’m not surprised. I would have been surprised at any other result. Our court system has its problems, but there are limits.