Fast away the old year passes,
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses,
Fa la la la la, la la la la. – Traditional Christmas carol
It’s hard to believe that another year and 365 columns have gone by since I wrote my last New Year’s Eve post. At that time, I was worried about running out of steam and even thought I’d decrease my rate of posting, but by February I had hit on a few strategies which made the process both easier and more flexible (such as pre-posting columns days ahead if I know I’ll be busy or away from home), so I’ve been able to continue at the same rate without burning out. And let me tell you, I’m really glad I managed it; I really feel like what I’m doing here is important and I’d like to keep up this pace for as long as possible.
But the ability to persevere in the effort is nothing without the motivation, and a lot of that comes from y’all, my readers. Every week I receive numerous complimentary comments and emails, plus a plethora of links and attributions all over the internet (and that means all over the world). That started in earnest only a few weeks into the year, largely due to my efforts at debunking the trafficking mythology in general and the “Super Bowl sex slave invasion” in particular. But it would’ve only lasted the proverbial fifteen minutes if not for the unflagging loyalty and tireless support of my readers; please don’t ever think your kind words, enthusiastic participation and topic suggestions are superfluous, because they mean more to me than you can possibly know.
2011 was a strange, eventful year; it started with the aforementioned Super Bowl hype, fed by a general explosion of “sex trafficking” hysteria which was accelerated by endorsements from a number of second and third-rate celebrities. One of these, Ashton Kutcher (along with his soon-to-be-ex-wife, Demi Moore) started a really stupid anti-prostitute ad campaign supported entirely by misinformation, and when called on it by the Village Voice he responded with a rather absurd tirade on Twitter which called unwelcome attention to his advisor’s disregard for facts. And though the campaign against Backpage which Kutcher championed has gained in popularity, the fact that it hasn’t a legal leg to stand on has robbed it of any real relevancy. Yellow journalism on the subject from CNN, the New York Times, Newsweek and Huffington Post reached new lows, but other media outlets support our rights and study after study after study after study confirms what prostitutes and our advocates have been saying all along.
Witch-hunts against sex workers of all kinds, carried out by busybodies who are almost entirely fueled by American dollars, driven by American State Department propaganda and threats and encouraged by self-promoting journalists, continued unabated around the world, while some other jurisdictions preferred to persecute men and infantilize women by promoting the “Swedish Model” of anti-prostitute law (or rhetoric) and/or schemes derived from it, and still others simply resorted to robbing sex workers or their associates or clients instead. Several sex worker rights organizations have fought these crusades via ad campaigns that demonstrate sex workers are not victims or slaves but ordinary people, and several lawsuits defending the sexual rights of individuals have been filed.
While American police departments continue to harass and rob strip clubs and waste tremendous sums pursuing high-profile campaigns against escorts and our advertising venues, New York police have made no progress whatsoever in finding the Long Island Killer except to decide that he’s one man and probably a cop. And of course there was the usual mixed assortment of politicians who were caught with their pants down.
Moral panics always get worse before they get better, so I don’t think we can expect things to improve anytime soon; however, they can only go so far, and perhaps by this time next year we’ll at least have passed the climax of the hysteria. And that, I think, is a worthwhile subject for a New Year’s toast.
>”New York police have made no progress whatsoever in finding the Long Island Killer except to decide that he’s one man and probably a cop. ”
Which is why we won’t see much progress. Cops don’t go after cops, especially one “only” killing hookers.
I really appreciate your blog. You’re the voice for so many of us who cannot write as well as you do. Like you did in your previous job, you’re using your talents.
It’s important that some voices rise against the “no- tolerance”, anti-sex, anti-women, anti-men trends in society today. You’re doing that, and good on you for it.
Have a very happy new year.
Thanks so much for the vote of confidence, Comixchik; it’s good to know my efforts are appreciated. 🙂
Ah, your slipping, Maggie. There’s several words in that post that are black rather than blue and don’t have lines under them….
Happy New Year to you too!
xx
LOL! It is a bit link-heavy, isn’t it? 😉
It’s been an enlightening year following your blog, Maggie. In 2010, I was moderately against prohibition. Now, I’m adamantly against prohibition, even angry about it. A big part of the appeal is that your personalize your blog so readers feel like they know you — a little :). It’s much easier to demonize sex workers when you don’t know any (or don’t know you know any). The more exposure we can get of who whores really are, the harder it will be for the prohibitionists to bash them. Bigotry thrives in a epistemic bubble.
Baseball writer Bill James once said that progress often comes disguised as its opposite. Institutionalized racism wasn’t invented in the 1960’s; that was when we stopped putting up with it. Political corruption wasn’t invited in Watergate; that was when we stopped putting up with it.
The stuff you blog about was getting almost zero attention just a few years ago. Rescuers could brutalize women with impunity; cops could harass whores without anyone noticing and politicians could declaim from the pulpit without fear of dispute. But there’s a growing pushback exposing the rotten underbelly of the anti-prostitution movement. Let’s hope in 2012, we push the loathsome corpse of prohibition a little further toward its eventual grave.
In my opinion, the most important way to fight prohibitionist rhetoric is to demonstrate that sex workers are regular people, not really different from anyone else. If I had to boil my whole blog down to one sentence, that would be it.
Contrary to much popular hype, the Mayans did not predict that the world will end on December 21st, 2012. Their calender sets that date as the end of one cycle, and the beginning of another.
I don’t put much stock in such predictions, prophesies, and prognostications. But wouldn’t it be something if December 21st, 2012, signaled the peak of prohibitionist freaking out? And why not?
Here’s wishing everybody on these boards, from Laura, to Maggie, to Joyce and Peter, for all that we see them no more, and all the rest of you and of us, a happy year to come, and many more after that.
Here’s wishing everybody on these boards, from Laura, to Maggie, to Joyce and Peter, for all that we see them no more, and all the rest of you and of us, a happy year to come, and many more after that.
I second that sentiment.
Joyce seemed like an interesting lady, it’s a shame she no longer comments here.
I agree it’s a shame about Joyce, but can also understand the reasons why she quit posting (which she was open about which was great). She’s my fellow MVS and it was obvious from her posts that she’d done some recovery work and she also GIVES BACK which is wonderful. She talked on here about helping abused kids. She could have taken the easy way out and done nothing but talk, lived in bitterness and hate, thought all who had any similarity to her abuser were just like them, etc. She also brought up unpopular stuff like having the standard in a relationship of no lies was not only possible but a great thing, reasons some women hate prostitution, etc.
Joyce became angry at me for refusing to censor other’s posts which were not hostile and deleting one of hers which was ugly, vicious and added nothing to the discussion. Essentially she wanted to be free to say what she liked however she wanted to say it, while censoring others with whom she disagreed; obviously I couldn’t agree to that.
I didn’t know that anything of hers had to be taken down until now. I’m sorry to hear that. But, I also stand by what I said in that it can’t be denied how she’s done some recovery work plus helps the world get better instead of talking. She could have easily taken the easy way out.
It was only one, but she took it very personally.
Despite the bad shit in this year and the year before, here’s to a good year, maggie and everyone else on this ol’ blog. 🙂
*is somewhat drunk*
Only somewhat? Dude, I’m disappointed! 😛
But Happy New Year to everyone!
A long walk home and something to eat reduced me from “drunk” to “somewhat”, otherwise all this would have unintelligible gibberish. 😛
That’ll do it! I vividly remember doing that one New Year’s Day, when we (Chicago) actually had snow on the ground… Nothing like the blinding whiteness of freshly fallen snow to kick you out of a drunken stupor.
It may amuse y’all to know that, due to the fact that I don’t weigh much (132#/60 kg) and don’t drink very often, I have very low tolerance for alcohol. I never actually get drunk, but after about two glasses of wine I get very dizzy and have to lie down or suffer the unpleasant consequences. Well, on New Year’s Eve my husband decided to open a bottle of champagne he brought from Europe several years ago, and we enjoyed it with cheese crackers and black olives. By 12:30 the room was spinning and I announced that “my body says it’s time to lie down now”, so I went off to bed immediately. Apparently, my husband found it very endearing and teased me about it the next day. 😉
Aww!
I have a ridiculously high threshold for alcohol and I pride myself on the fact that I never act like less of a lady– learned how to do that in my posh sorority. 🙂
Happy New Year, people.
I just found this absurd site; I want to know what Maggie thinks of it.
It’s absurd – I’ve never read a more biased, unrepentantly sexist collection of half-truths and manufactured anger before.
http://radicalhub.wordpress.com/
It’s really insane. These people resent having to be human. It really gets their goat.
Maggie, happy New Year.
LMAO!!!
Why did I know there would be adoration of Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin on the front page. Not to mention seething hatred/butthurt of Sasha Grey?
Happy New Year, Maggie, and to everyone else here.