Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” – C.S. Lewis
In the nearly a year since I started this blog, I have acquired many regular readers, and a fair percentage of them have blogs of their own; as one might expect a number of these blogs are on the subject of sex work and/or are written by sex workers. But though I have a number of these linked in my right column, for some reason (whether kismet, spiritual affinity, psychological compatibility or some obscure effect of chaos theory) I have ended up in a tighter relationship with three of these: in alphabetical order, Brandy Devereaux, Emily Hemingway and Kelly James. We read each others’ columns, link each other frequently and tip each other off to developments in the world of whoredom. It’s certainly possible, even likely, that other ladies will eventually join what my husband calls the “coffee klatsch”, but for right now it stands at we four (whom Kelly defines as “co-conspirators of pure debauchery”). What I’d like to do today is simply call attention to one recent post by each of these ladies so as to demonstrate not why I like them (that’s just because they’re all sweethearts with wonderful personalities), but why I respect them as bloggers and encourage y’all to read them.
“In the mega-operation against trafficking in The Hague declared 157 of them prostitutes no victim. Police and rescue disagree. ‘All 157 prostitutes by the police during the evening and night has spoken, stated that they not victims of trafficking and that they work voluntarily.’”
Well BY GOD we can’t believe hookers! That would force them to admit that they just wasted a whole hellofalota taxpayer money! Besides, we all KNOW that they are lying to protect their pimp… hmhmmm… yea that’s it.
And her reaction to a Dutch law that states trafficking victims get asylum while illegal aliens are deported:
Oh! I can stay in the country and work legally if I admit I’m a foreigner trafficked in. Versus being deported back to my crappy country where I have to hide without any police protection. Hmmm. Where do I sign up to be trafficked again?
Then on the amnesty issue:
As I discussed somewhere previously… aha here… I have concerns in regards to asking for temporary amnesty so that sex workers can “feel” free to report information that may lead to the Long Island serial killer dipshit. A few issues/questions/concerns besides those I’ve mentioned before:
1) How temporary would the amnesty be? Until the killer is caught? What if he is never caught? Two months perhaps? The little fucker will lay low until the temporary amnesty is over and just restart his twisted spree.
2) So if amnesty is granted, can I move to Long Island to work?
3) If amnesty is granted (*there is a Meatloaf song starting to repeat itself in my head*), don’t you think Mr. I-like-to-kill-prostitutes will just go across state/jurisdiction lines?
4) If that happens (obviously the dude isn’t stupid so I can totally see that happening) are you going to grant amnesty in the surrounding states too?Hell let’s just grant long term amnesty across the nation! Oh wait, wouldn’t that be decriminalization basically? Gee, we can’t do that! It sends the wrong message!
*Knock on the door* Oh look… Bad Brandy!
“Bad Brandy” is the usually-sweet blogger’s not-so-nice alter ego. I’m not going to spoil what follows by partial quotes; you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
And then there’s Emily, who like me prefers not to show her face; she doesn’t focus as narrowly on sex work as Brandy and I do, and the result is well-considered posts like this one from April 8th:
Arguably the best invention to grease the wheels of liberty since the gun, is the video phone. No longer must we be subjected to a policeman’s testimony being a freshly scrubbed-and-shaved-and-pressed man with his shiny, shiny badge and nifty uniform, saying in his very bestest Andy Griffith impersonation what he wishes had really happened (“You see, Your Honor, I was just coming from teaching a bible study group when the Chief asked me to respond to a call of a woman in a hotel room. I, of course, did not get naked nor did I demand or receive sexual services, because that would be wrong and against all my mother taught me. When the suspect attempted to forcibly remove my clothing while loudly insisting she would perform a “blow job” if I gave her $20, I noted that her speech was erratic and used my 14 years of exemplary service on the force to deduce that she was doing illegal drugs…”)
Now we get treated to regular episodes of Caught On Tape…It seems some people think truth is a controlled substance, however. Coincidentally, they are often the same people who think You’re Making Me Look Bad is an arrestable offense. Thus do we find that a public servant on a public sidewalk or thoroughfare, speaking in a normally audible voice and (best part) videotaping the encounter himself via his dashcam, is afforded an extraordinary degree of “privacy”. Not too surprisingly, it isn’t illegal to videotape an officer kissing babies or walking a little old lady across the street. No, you’re only illegally violating their privacy when you catch them shooting people, beating up kids, harassing the public and other examples of crass thuggery.
Surprise, surprise….the rights of whores are being violated. Big fucking deal unless you just so happen to be a whore, right? Think again. Historically, prostitutes are among the first but hardly the last members of oppressed societies subject to persecution and loss of their basic human rights. For example, prostitutes were among the first to be imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps along with others classified as “asocials“; they were considered either “work shy”, “mentally ill”, or “hereditarily diseased” and therefore their detainment in labor camps for so called purposes of rehabilitation was widely supported by the German public in the early days of Nazi rule. However, detainment turned to sterilization which turned to “euthanasia”…All in all, between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime was responsible for the mass murder of approximately 17 million individuals, of which 6 million were Jews…
…“No Humans Involved” (NHI) is a term that has been used by law enforcement to categorize crimes against individuals of the lowest social status such as prostitutes, drug users, gang members, vagrants, and the like, indicating that such individuals are not classified as human beings and therefore not endowed with the inalienable right to life enjoyed by the rest of society, that the murder and torture of such individuals can be overlooked because they are not human; that they are unworthy of personhood and relegated to the basic status of laboratory animals – their lives are worth nothing…No Humans Involved. Like a dead raccoon in the road. Slightly distasteful but you just keep on driving and don’t bother to look back. How deeply and irreparably is this mentality engraved into the psyche of our entire society? Consider the happenings of the past decade surrounding Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib…
Do yourself a favor; take a look at these ladies’ blogs. Don’t worry, they’re not as fanatical as I am so they don’t post every day (though Brandy comes close). And if you enjoy reading their work as much as I do, you might also consider the other blogs I have listed in the right column under “Whorish Media” and “Friends of Whores”.