What do you call men who take money from prostitutes? Magistrates. – Slogan from the English Collective of Prostitutes
Prohibitionists simply adore pimps. After all, if there were no pimps, it would be a great deal harder for them to convince Mr. and Mrs. Average that prostitution was something other than a victimless “crime”. But because pimps do exist, the antis (whether neofeminist, politician, cop, Christian or trafficking-fetishist) have a ready-made bogeyman upon whom they can hang claims that all prostitutes are “trafficked slaves”. There’s only one problem, though; there simply aren’t enough pimps to go around, even using the criminally vague standards favored by the antis. So in order to rectify this situation, some dedicated politicians have stepped into the breach in order to address this terrible pimp shortage by making money off of whores without giving them anything in return (which is as good a working definition of “pimp” as I can imagine).
This is nothing new; since at least Roman times many governments have set themselves up as pimps by charging disproportionately-high license fees (not to mention fines, taxes, etc) to prostitutes; in many of these jurisdictions the police were allowed to set and charge these fees at will, with the money going directly to the police (or to individual policemen). And of course many of these cops took the traditional pimp privilege of raping whores at will (and many still do). But modern governments prefer to do things more subtly, and besides there are those pesky human rights activists and civil rights attorneys running around everywhere interfering in traditional police privileges. So politicians are turning to more subtle (not to mention profitable) forms of pimping. The State of Nevada of course pioneered this more subtle modern approach, and I’ve discussed other recent efforts in previous posts on several dates. But here are two new examples, one an attempt to pimp an untapped market and the other a clever and sleazy maneuver by an aspiring politician.
The first came by way of the Associated Press last Thursday (March 31st) and continues the saga of condom fetishists attempting to force the porn industry to cater to their peculiar preferences:
California workplace safety officials have fined Larry Flynt’s Hustler Video and another porn producer for not using condoms on set to protect sex performers from exposure to disease. Hustler faces $14,175 in fines for three violations, including failure to provide condoms or other protective equipment, according to a Division of Occupational Safety and Health citation provided to The Associated Press Wednesday. Hustler “failed to ensure the use of appropriate personal protective equipment, such as condoms” to protect its employees from semen, vaginal excretions and blood in the course of producing adult videos, according to the citation. The current fines are based on the same section of state law that also requires hospitals to provide nurses with protective gear…Flynt has said in the past that audiences don’t want to watch porn in which actors use condoms. Hustler was also fined for failing to maintain a written injury and illness policies and for failing to provide workers with vaccines for hepatitis C. Hustler’s citation stems from a Sept. 14 inspection of a jobs site in response to a complaint from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation…Forsaken Pictures faces $12,150 in fines for similar violations. The fines were issued March 9…
To porn producers, fines of this size are like parking tickets to individuals: annoying, but not really harmful. And this exposes Los Angeles’ game, because if the fines were really painful the porn industry might decide to relocate, then the gravy train would stop. Clearly the state, city and county have no intention to bleed the industry heavily enough to actually hurt it; they’re just using the ridiculous complaints of Michael Weinstein and his condom fetishist pals as a convenient excuse to extract a few more pimp fees. If the authorities were really concerned about “protecting” porn actors, they’d be trying to do something about the privacy leak.
This sort of behavior from officials doesn’t get me angry; after all, it’s the sort of thing one expects from government officials. What does anger me is when a whore-turned-politician panders to trafficking fetishists by mouthing blatant lies in order to advance herself at the expense of her sisters:
…Ex-Madam Kristin Davis, who supplied high priced call girls for former Governor Eliot Spitzer, said she will jump in the 2013 New York City Mayor’s Race if the former Governor… makes a bid…“If Spitzer throws his black socks in the ring I may have to throw in my lacy brassiere” said Davis who once ran the most successful high end escort service in US history. “I had pretty much decided to focus on the sex trafficking issue and not to run for public office again,” said Davis. “I am working to take the GOLD program, put forward by an advocacy group in Miami to combat sex trafficking nationwide.” Davis kicked off Hope House, a New York based non-profit to fight the conscription of women into prostitution last month. “The women who worked for me chose to be sex workers,” said Davis. “80% of the women working as escorts are doing so against their will,” said Davis. “Until prostitution is decriminalized we must provide an escape from this life for thousands of young women”…
Back in February I called Davis on the carpet for her ludicrous claim that escorts make up only “5% of the world of prostitution…” and though she seems to have increased that to 20% she’s now blatantly claiming the other 80% are coerced, when she knows damned well that’s an outrageous lie. This obvious attempt to suck up to the prohibitionists makes me so freaking angry that I’m going to let Kelly James say the rest for me (courtesy of this link to her column of March 31st) before I say something even more unladylike than I already have.
