Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? – Juvenal, Satire VI (line 347)
Collectivism depends on the principle that individuals restrict their individual freedoms in favor of some collective good, but who determines what is “good” and what is “evil”? Whose view of reality is the “correct” one? If some authority has the power to define certain individuals as victims no matter what the reality of the situation, and to act to “protect” those so defined whether the individuals so “protected” want it or not, what happens to individual freedom? And who polices these “authorities” to keep them from abusing their powers to “protect” others from their own free choices? We’ve talked before about prohibitionists’ claims that “happy hookers” like the many well-adjusted whores who frequent this blog are all “in denial” because our realities conflict with their theories; well, now they’re rolling out “Stockholm Syndrome” to explain why those the “rescuers” declare to be “trafficking victims” fail to be grateful and don’t remember events as their “rescuers” would like them to. From Laura Agustín’s column of April 5th:
At the BBC World thing in Luxor I got publicly annoyed when other panelists wanted to talk about brainwashing of victims. Now Stockholm Syndrome is given as reason those rescued from trafficking situations may not react as rescuers want them to…It really does not get more sinister than this. This theory, utterly free from any cultural context and presented as a method for identifying victims of trafficking…[allows] no ideas of individual agency or resistance…[nor any] possibility that migrants or sex workers have any understandable or meaningful loyalty to people that assisted them to travel or get work. There is no allowance here for survivors’ having colluded in situations that ended up going bad.
They define Stockholm Syndrome as a ‘psychological mechanism of self-protection when a victim attempts to protect herself from more traumatic psychological experiences’ (Carver, 2001-2007). Excerpts:
. . . The characteristics of Stockholm syndrome confirm the common indicators of female sexual exploitation and female victims of trafficking…
• Emotional bonding with the captor/abuser
• Seeking approval from the captor/abuser
• Depending on the captor/abuser for security and purpose of existence
• Befriending and caring for the captor/abuser
• Resenting police and authorities for their rescue attempts
• Losing one’s own identity in order to identify with the captor/abuser
• Seeing things from the perspective of the captor/abuser
• Valuing every small gesture of kindness, such as letting them live
• Refusing freedom even when given the opportunityThey give sub-categories that allow them to disbelieve a victim-survivor’s refusal of help:
Learnt hopelessness attributes (Seligman, 1995)
• Disability to organise one’s own private life.
• Victim can avoid being helped, refuse offers of a supporting organization, and de-evaluate provided support…
One has to admire the diabolical cleverness of these fanatics (in the same way one might admire the fiendish ingenuity of those who devise tortures). If “authorities” accept this “diagnosis”, anything and everything any sex worker says which disagrees with prohibitionist dogma can be viewed as “evidence” of her being brainwashed and therefore incompetent to make decisions for herself. But why stop with sex workers? Any woman who says anything contrary to neofeminist dogma must be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome as well! You ladies who prefer to stay home rather than compete in the Rat Race? You’re brainwashed, because obviously if you were in your right mind you would prefer to be an androgynous corporate unit. You enjoy looking pretty? Nope, Stockholm Syndrome; “sane” women chop their hair off, refuse to depilate and wear men’s clothes. The possibilities are endless…
Fortunately, there are already signs of the collapse of the “trafficking” witch hunt, so vigilant civil rights activists and even well-informed members of the general public may soon raise public outcry against this sort of dangerous dogma (I hope). Here’s another Laura Agustín column, this one from April 7th; it includes her commentary on a story from The Wall Street Journal debunking the “epidemic” of child abduction:
…The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes 18 as the magic moment for becoming adult, thereby reducing teenagers to children who are supposed to be innocent and happy. But teenagers do leave home all over the world, and sometimes they are running away from something bad and it makes sense to run. Runaways can get into trouble, as a Nevada public radio programme discussed last November, in the wake of an FBI scare initiative with the dumb name Innocence Lost. But sensible people know that adolescence is not the same as childhood and that childhood means different things in different places and times – in terms of the right to work, marry, vote, join the military, drink and have sex. As for selling sex, stories about Poland’s piggies and mall girls and Japan’s compensated dating (enjo kosai) show how conventional that can be amongst teenagers. I can hear some people now saying, no but we are talking about real trafficking, like in West Africa. Well, researchers on supposed child trafficking there have questioned it, too. This story from The Wall Street Journal should calm a lot of people’s worst fears: few children are abducted/kidnapped/shanghaied/trafficked.
Study Undermines Kidnapping Fears
By Sean Gardiner, 7 April 2011, The Wall Street JournalThe fear that a child could be snatched away by a stranger nags at many parents. But a new report examining cases from last year shows that…it is extraordinarily rare for children to be taken by someone they don’t know. The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services said Wednesday that 20,309 children were reported missing statewide last year. Just one of them was confirmed to have been abducted by a stranger…The vast majority of the missing children—almost 94% of last year’s total—were runaways. Most of them were teenagers.
The state maintains the Missing and Exploited Children Clearinghouse, a database tracking lost children since 1987. While stranger abductions raise alarm, they are uncommon. A spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said a 2002 Department of Justice study, the most recent national numbers available, showed that of approximately 797,500 children reported missing over the course of a year, 115 were kidnapped by strangers. In New York, there were 196 reported cases of child abductions statewide last year, less than 1% of all missing-children reports. Of that number, 188 of the kidnappers were family members, and six were family friends. Two cases involved stranger abductions…but one of…[them] was at a later point determined to be a runaway…In the other case, a 14-year-old girl was taken by a middle-age man in Rochester. She was safely recovered.
“While every parent is understandably and rightfully concerned that their child could be abducted, the fact of the matter is that stranger abductions in New York state are, thankfully, rare occurrences,” said Sean Byrne, the division’s acting commissioner…Paul Browne, spokesman for the New York Police Department…said that 96% of the missing-children cases reported to police were eventually closed, generally because the child returned home.
For those who have difficulty with math, these figures mean that in the United States, only 0.014% of all “missing children” are abducted by strangers (of which only some might potentially be sex traffickers). The vast majority (99.986%) either left home under their own power or with a relative or acquaintance. The equation of “missing” with “exploited” in the name of the government-funded database is therefore revealed as something equivalent to renaming our country “The United States of America and Wake Island”.
The “authorities” would like to force sex workers into a special “protected” group (just as they do with teenagers, though with even less basis in fact), to define us as mentally incompetent children without any more ability to make decisions for our own lives than infants have. This allows those “authorities” to then make decisions for us, to restrict us from any degree of control over our own lives, to pathologize anything we might want which goes against the desires of those “authorities”, and to criminalize anyone with whom we choose to associate in a way our keepers disapprove of. And the only ones who can prevent this, the only group with power to guard the self-appointed guardians, are those members of the public who make the effort to do so.
That is one of my favorite quotes.
I thought it especially appropriate in this context because, those it’s now used as a general statement, in the original Satire it specifically referred to a man trying to enlist other men to keep watch over his wife so she wouldn’t cheat while he was away on a journey. 🙂
Oh, yes. I get this all the time. “You have an MBA and you’re at home with your children?” It’s fun to watch the logic get twisted as they try and argue their way into making ME an idiot.
Gosh, an MBA. You must be supersmart! You worked in banking and finance? Gosh, you must be pretty knowledgeable. You taught business at the university? Wow, you must really understand your subject.
You stay at home with your kids rather than park them in daycare 60 hours a week? Wow, you’re pretty stupid. You walked away from your career to raise a family? Wow, you have no clue how the world works. You trust your husband to love you and care for you? Wow, you’re a fucking clueless moron.
So which is it? Super smart and knowledgeable, or stupid clueless moron?
*roll eyes*
Why can’t people just fuck off? Seriously.
In my experience, most people use the word “smart” to mean “in agreement with me.” 🙁
“Raising kids and keeping a Home? Yep, that’s a full time job for at least one person, right there. Thank goodness you can afford to do it!”😁
As a former captive. Looking at the definitions of Stockholm Syndrome, they are so ubiquitous that they could slap the definition on anyone that has ever been captive. I’m not sure even Jack Bauer on 24 could escape it.
A few that crossed my mind.
• Seeking approval from the captor/abuser
This is one that would apply to a huge majority. Approval from the captor/abuser tends to equate with a reduction or respite from being harmed. Approval is usually gained by doing what the captor/abuser wants. Thus the choice is do what the captor wants or piss the captor off and pay the price. Despite what movies, tv, and experts who have never been captive would argue. There is a limit to how much abuse anyone can stand up to. Thus unless their captivity is like 2 hours, everyone will eventually fall into this category. Even the expert neofeminists who have this idea they would spit in their captors face and die before caving in to the captor. Let them try it.
* Depending on the captor/abuser for security and purpose of existence
Hmm, if one is captive. This tends to go without saying since your purpose of being has been reduced to very limited options. Pretty much your purpose of existence becomes not getting killed or hurt by virtue of not doing anything to piss off the captor.
• Resenting police and authorities for their rescue attempts
From the perspective of a former captive prostitute. Rescue attempts from the authorities and police didn’t have a big desire factor because it meant being arrested and trading one captor for another. The idea in the back of ones mind tends to be a hope that somehow you can get out of the situation without being arrested and made into a captive of the state.
* Valuing every small gesture of kindness, such as letting them live
This one truly amuses me. I don’t even know that it needs an explanation.
• Refusing freedom even when given the opportunity
This is a classic. The offer of freedom is almost always a mindfuck. Since it is illegal to hold someone captive and or abuse them. The likelihood of being given a get out of captivity free card that is legitimate is really small because the captor/abuser doesn’t want to become captive to the police for their crimes. Captors have played this game forever. You’re free to leave……….. Maybe you fall for that once. Usually once is enough to convince you it is a mindfuck. Another torture. Offer you what you most covet. Many people aren’t sympathetic to Patty Hearst because she was given opportunities to escape after 57 days of captivity, torture and rape. Instead of taking freedom she
“joined” the SLA. Smart move since freedom would have been at best being viewed as a betrayer who needs fierce punishment for actually taking the offer. At worst it means death. Well, thinking in hindsight, I’m not sure death is the worst. But that’s another psychology.
Anyone held captive can be defined with stockholm syndrome. I can’t see a scenario where someone wouldn’t do at least a few of the above bullet points. Thus neofeminists know they can use Stockholm Syndrome at will because everyone qualifies.
I’ve been diagnosed by neofeminists as having Stockholm Syndrome. Because I’m a bad victim. I saw the neofeminists breaching ethics constantly ironically doing things very similar to the captors/abusers they allege to be fighting. Did I/do I suffer Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t know. What I did suffer was a legitimate need to not incur any more violence from my captors than I was already suffering. Thus I did everything I was told to do and tried to do it right. Neofeminists have implied my cowardice for not standing up to my oppressor. Shrug….
Super smart! Wow, Jill. How do you live through that and not punch anyone who would criticize you in the face?
My brother has adapted a familiar saying and it springs to my mind at this moment:
“What doesn’t kill you hurts like a motherfucker, and then eventually makes you stronger”.
Jill, I think these neofeminists Laura is discussing aren’t even talking about real captives but about people they CLAIM are captives, such as women working in brothels or for an escort service or who paid someone to transport them across a border for work. The fanatics brand someone a “victim” and then use “Stockholm Syndrome” to negate her statement that she is a voluntary sex worker. 🙁
So what kind of ‘syndrome’ does a woman have who chooses sex work but has never worked for a brothel or escort service. Are there ‘excuses’ for us?
Oh I know! DENIAL syndrome.
@Maggie. I agree. Although the definition of Stockholm Syndrome is so broad it could be and is applied by the neofeminists to virtually anyone. Which is totally abusive in itself because they are denying the experience and feelings of the person they are falsely attaching Stockholm Syndrome to for no other reason then to advance their political goals and stroke their egos.
Not only that, but by labeling everybody as having Stockholm Syndrome,* they marginalize it for anybody who really does.
As I understand SS (and do understand that I’m no expert; not only am I not a shrinkologist, I don’t trust the motherfuckers**), it means you identify with your captor, that you don’t want to be separated, that you would reunite if you had the chance. Not just that you try to please your captor, but that you like your captor.
And the bullet points listed don’t reflect that. As Jill says, they can reflect a simple desire to avoid being hurt again.
* OK, not everybody, just everybody who won’t toe the neofeminist line.
** Or have they abandoned the idea of motherfucking, and desire for the same, as the explanation of so many things?
LOL No, Freud diagnosed everyone with Oedipus Complex but nobody does that now unless we have valid reason XD
@Andrea,
The most vocal critics of me have almost always been the people with the least actual knowledge of situations like I was in. Let them walk a day in my shoes. Just one. Then we’ll see what they criticize. I”d even make it easier than that for my critics. Let them go through just one of my experiences. Let them try a gig that went wrong and see how well the endure it and maintain their mighty principles.
I don’t need to walk a mile in your shoes to understand. I don’t need to imagine your circumstances to hear. I just need to listen.
I wish more people could listen. I have just recently found this blog, but I swear to God I have more in common with escorts than I do with average women on the street.
I’m not romanticizing your job (how could I, reading your posts, Jill?) but I do feel that marginalized women get treated the same, no matter why they are marginalized. Reclaiming the center feels like a fight, but really, it’s more about finding some place quiet and listening to other women. Listening to their honesty and their stories and their almost always hilarious interpretations of what anyone else would call horror.
I love this blog!
Andrea, I’m glad you’re here, and I deeply appreciate your compliments! 🙂
“I just need to listen.”
That DOES it! I’m in love…
I love what you wrote. Because the key to understanding is listening. It is what those so vocally critical of me and others advocating sex worker rights don’t want to do. Instead the critics want to talk. They don’t want to hear. What little they do listen to is for something to tear apart.
I totally agree with you that marginalized women get treated the same regardless of why they are marginalized. I didn’t mean to come off as expressing mine was worse. It wasn’t my intent.
Although I wouldn’t trade what I’ve suffered for less even if I could. I truly hope that I learned humanity from my own suffering and oppression and that it taught me to be someone who does listen. I don’t know that I would have learned anything about humanity had I lived a life without the things that I have seen. I certainly wouldn’t have learned it from family.
I don’t want anyone to be marginalized. I would like to see a day that it is eliminated and that we can all equally respect each other, hear each other and find ways to build with each other.
@ Jill I didn’t mean to come off as expressing mine was worse. It wasn’t my intent.
You didn’t come across like that at all!
@bdevereaux 🙂
Now, off topic, but how do I get a hovercard?
See that symbol where the hovercard would be? Click on it and you’ll be taken to the Gravatar site, where you can add an image and other info. 🙂
I love you guys. Can’t think of anything else to add 🙂
Don’t you know, Maggie, by disagreeing with the Feminist position, you’re obviously falsely identified, and possibly suffering from stockholm syndrome? Clearly, you’re insane.
Therefore everything you say must be dismissed and you need to be forced into treatment.
(Feminists will lead us straight to the Gulag: all collectivist social models do; it never fails).
I totally agree, Gorbachev; collectivism is the greatest evil ever spawned by the mind of man, because it specifically defines individuality as wrong and reduces humans to cattle to be herded, branded and slaughtered when the masters declare it is time to do so.
In Feministland:
Freedom = women tied to an eternal 9-5 grind working paper-pushing jobs to pay down their urban-consumer-lifestyle debt.
Slavery = all other choices.
G Edward Griffin has a lot to say about collectivism.
http://www.freedom-force.org/