Beware of purity workers [who are]…ready to accept and endorse any amount of coercive and degrading treatment of their fellow creatures in the fatuous belief that you can oblige human beings to be moral by force. – Josephine Butler
Two new items, ten updates and four metaupdates.
Lysistrata
Aristophanes’ comedy depicts an Athenian woman who convinces the women of both Athens and Sparta that the only way to end the Peloponnesian War is to withhold sex from their husbands; in the play, as in real life, the problem is getting all the women to cooperate. The ridiculous sex strike American activists plan for April 28th is foredoomed to failure (as if a one-week strike could have any effect anyhow) because the wives of those making the objectionable laws won’t be participating, and even if they did the politicians would simply go to their regular pros. But if all the whores cooperated…
…The largest trade association for luxury escorts in the Spanish capital has gone on…strike…for bankers until they go back to providing credits to Spanish families, small- and medium-size enterprises and companies…a…spokeswoman [said] “…We have been on strike for three days now and we don’t think they can withstand much more.” She has revealed that bankers have made some pitiful attempts to use their services by pretending to be engineers or architects…The bankers reportedly became so desperate that they even decided to call in the government for mediation…
Zero Information
Well, not zero exactly, but I couldn’t resist my first title beginning with “Z”.
A man who police say sometimes poses as a female prostitute to flag down motorists was arrested…Terrence Elliott…had been warned several times in the past few weeks…But Elliott was also found with a…crack pipe…and…charged with possession of drug paraphernalia [and]…loitering…
What the hell does this mean? Is Elliott a drag prostitute, or does he dress in drag to rob or panhandle? News stories are a lot more informative when they actually contain information.
Updates
Feminine Pragmatism (April 7th, 2011)
Because this was practically inevitable, she was a fool for waiting until her marketability dried up:
At the height of her fame…Octomom aka Nadya Suleman was offered a lot of money to show her body. Vivid even offered her a $1 million deal to star in one of their films. At the time…[she] swore she would never do nudity. But dignity doesn’t feed 14…babies so…she [started] doing fetish photoshoots and now…topless shoots…However, she’s not commanding the same price she used to. TMZ reports that days away from being foreclosed upon, Nadya has decided to go naked for…Closer. Sources say she only made $10,000…
Subtle Pimping (April 8th, 2011)
…On Friday, March 30th…[the] 2012 Hooker Beauty Pageant…[will be held] in Hollywood…According to…[organizer] Natalia Fabia, the word “hooker” could be loosely defined as (excuse the pun) “someone who sells one’s talents and abilities, talent, or name for money, (but it also means) a rad, strong, talented, tough, colorful, independent, stylish, and beautiful woman.” This pageant is Fabia’s platform for highlighting real women in Hollywood’s music and art scene…
Umm, how about highlighting real hookers – or more specifically, our mistreatment? I googled Fabia and found no statements about sex worker rights or decriminalization, and nothing about part of the proceeds from her “hooker art” or publicity stunts going to hooker organizations, hooker rights advertising, outreach to street hookers…in short, she’s pimping our image.
Down Under (June 9th, 2011)
Australia continues to be what Sweden wants so desperately to be: the world leader in demonstrating the proper way to deal with prostitution:
[A new study shows that]…New South Wales…is the best place in the world [for]…prostitutes…”Jurisdictions that try to ban or license sex work always lose track as most of the industry slides into the shadows,” [said]…Professor Basil Donovan…of [the] Kirby Institute… “In NSW, by contrast, health and community workers have comprehensive access to and surveillance of the sex industry. This has resulted in the healthiest sex industry ever documented.” The report, prepared for the NSW government, found…[that most] sex workers surveyed also reported being “well adjusted and comfortable with their occupation”…
The Crumbling Dam (October 14th, 2011)
Today the Ontario Court of Appeal delivered a landmark decision on …prostitution laws…All five judges…found that…the provision restricting “common bawdy houses” is grossly disproportionate and overbroad, and…that the provision restricting “living on the avails”…is overbroad because it would criminalize non-exploitive relationships…However, three of the five…upheld the provision criminalizing communicating for the purpose of prostitution, holding that the purpose of the provision…is legitimate and must be weighed against the harms it causes…The…decision will most certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada…
Here’s the full decision. If there’s any justice in the universe, the Supreme Court will not only uphold the decisions of both lower courts overturning the bans on brothels and avails laws, but also reinstate Justice Himel’s decision overturning the “communicating” law.
Elephant in the Parlor (October 23rd, 2011)
Not news, but I want to catalog as many of these as possible:
…John Edwards is denying a report that he used the services of a prostitute in New York…a call girl for…Anna Gristina told investigators she had sex with Edwards for money back in 2007…“Mr. Edwards categorically denies that he was involved with any prostitute or service”… said…a statement. “These allegations are false, defamatory, and he puts those who would publish or repeat them on notice that they acting [sic] with actual malice”…
I’m publishing and repeating them, and I fully admit malice toward career politicians, especially those who bear a huge part of the blame for America’s sky-high medical bills.
Divided We Fall (November 16th, 2011)
Gay activists could’ve demonstrated a commitment to supporting sex worker rights this week when “[Malaysian]…Deputy Minister…Datuk Mashitah Ibrahim…said…’The (LBGT) issue…can lead to prostitution, drug abuse, psychological problems and also mental illness…Part of the LBGT problem is caused by natural reasons, such as being born with two private parts…’” but instead many of them were just as indignant about being compared to prostitutes as they were with the mental illness and hermaphrodite stuff. I guess once you win your rights in the West it’s OK to join in with stigmatizing other groups who haven’t yet, just to show you’re part of the gang.
See No Evil (November 26th, 2011)
An inability to tell fantasy from reality would normally be considered evidence of psychosis, but in law enforcement it’s a job requirement:
…the Canadian government [has] dropped all criminal charges against Ryan Matheson, [an] American…charged with…child pornography [due to] Japanese comic book images on his laptop…Matheson accepted a plea deal…[in] which he admitted to “a non-criminal regulatory offense…”
Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29th, 2011)
I got three new presents this week! Ted sent me The Science of Fear by Daniel Gardner, and Gumdeo sent me the movie New Orleans and a Cuddly Cthulhu! Thank y’all both so much for thinking of me!
The Course of a Disease (February 16th, 2012)
Apparently Canadian neofeminists, angry at their inability to infect their native land with the Swedish Disease, have decided to poison the well in a country which is already sickening:
[Canadian MP Joy Smith] has taken it upon herself to encourage Knesset members [via email] to support recent legislation…which will make paying for sex services a criminal offense…“Israel now has the opportunity to pass progressive legislation and to be a leader in the fight against this form of modern slavery,” Smith wrote in the email. “I urge you to support MK Zuaretz’s bill and help make Israel a country that others aspire to emulate. The world is watching and waiting for Israel to take this important step and eliminate the demand to purchase sex…”
Obviously, Israeli reporters don’t bother to check their facts any more than American ones do; this one erroneously states that “most” Western countries have adopted some form of the Swedish Model, and swallows the easily-debunked prohibitionist lie that most prostitutes are coerced.
Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)
Apparently, the American federal government believes it’s only OK to grope people if one puts on a uniform and does it without their permission: “[Bryant Jermaine Livingston, a TSA] manager at [Dulles International Airport] has lost his job after being arrested on prostitution-related charges…” The story explains that Livingston was running a kind of cheap temporary brothel in a hotel room, stupidly returned to the same hotel and was ratted out to the Gestapo of Montgomery County, Maryland by the irate manager.
Metaupdates
J’accuse in November Updates (Part Three) (November 4th, 2011)
“in France…it’s OK to be a whore as long as you have no friends, family, employees, assistants, managers or other human contact other than customers”, and if you’re an official who has embarrassed Paris one too many times, you can be charged with the horrible crime of helping legal workers to conduct their legal business: “…Dominique Strauss-Kahn…is under investigation for “aggravated pimping” for his alleged participation in a prostitution ring in France…”
Whores in the News in Further Developments (November 18th, 2011)
It’s now official; the government will steal $6.4 million from the former owners of Escorts.com. As usual, the state’s claims read like an FBI drama, with heroic cops “investigating” hardened criminals; in reality, the feds botched an attempt to take over the site surreptitiously in order to use it to entrap thousands of escorts and clients. The bogus “money laundering” charge was just a way for them to recoup their losses; despite FBI claims to the contrary, federal judges have repeatedly ruled that “facilitating prostitution” is not a federal crime and websites are not responsible for the content of ads.
Sex, Lies and Busybodies in That Was the Week That Was (February 4th, 2012)
Sean McBride, AKA “John Curtis”, has resigned as head of “The Grey Man”. After it was discovered that a group of Thai children the group claimed to have rescued from “sex traffickers” were in fact ordinary village schoolchildren, Curtis issued a series of increasingly-absurd and self-contradictory “explanations” (including one on this blog), mostly based on a paranoid fantasy that a competing “rescue group” had conspired with the Thai government to discredit him. But after new revelations that McBride routinely lied about the age of “victims” and the number “rescued”, he stepped down voluntarily before he was thrown out. Good riddance to bad rubbish; let’s hope every one of the con artists who profit by the persecution of whores is similarly exposed, and soon.
Knights Erroneous in That Was the Week That Was (#12) (March 24th, 2012)
I’m pleased to see the number of voices raised in criticism of Nick Kristof’s anti-whore crusades is growing; ever-larger numbers of writers are pointing out the absurdity of the claims made by “trafficking” fetishists and calling attention to the harm this moral panic inflicts on women. I suspect The Guardian will be one of the first major media outlets to officially denounce the hysteria; it’s published a number of articles on the subject, most recently last Monday:
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is on the move and his latest target is the Village Voice. This attack appears to be part of a broader campaign to shut down the sex industry and to rescue and rehabilitate women and girls working in it. Kristof’s allies range from women’s rights organizations to religious organizations…the critical lens applied to Kony2012…must [also be applied]…to the crusades against sex trafficking…when women and girls are “rescued” by the anti-trafficking organizations, they may be taken to state-run rehabilitation homes that have jail-like conditions. Human rights and sex worker organizations have long documented what rehabilitation might mean for a sex worker: overcrowded conditions, a lack of healthcare, and violence at the hands of the police and guards…
It’s wonderful to see statements like these in a large newspaper, and even more heartening to read the many supportive comments beneath.
One Year Ago Today
In “March Q & A” I answer questions about cunnilingus, men pretending to be women online, and the sex drives of middle-aged escorts.
This whole contraception issue is ridiculous and it’s the Dimmocrits who got women spun up about it. I don’t like Republicans – but THEIR whole issue was a church / state issue of FORCING the RCC to provide contraception coverage for its employees even though they have religious objections (and have always had religious objections) to doing so. I don’t know a single Republican who has an objection to Hewlett Packard or Ford providing contraception to its female employees and I challenge anyone to name one. It was all about FORCING churches to do something they have a religious objection to.
It doesn’t say much for the intellectual depth of the liberal constituencies that they are so easily misdirected by idiotic pols.
It’s the choice of the employer whether or not to cover contraception in its health care plans and MANY DO. There is no need to get the government involved to mandate it (well, if the SCOTUS doesn’t find this abomination known as “ObamaCare” unconstitutional – then the government will have to I suppose, having usurped the entire health care industry). Contraception is COVERED for military women because we demand that those women plan their pregnancies so that they do not interfere with deployments. Unplanned pregnancies in the military place stress on the “team” concept and, I would submit – they also do so in the civilian business world. Businesses would find themselves better off from a human resource standpoint if they covered it.
And … by the way. My wife has gone through menopause … and we all know women who can’t have children. Should the employer pay for contraception for THESE women? That’s how insurance works you know – and that’s one of the damn reasons it’s so prohibitively expensive.
By the way I heard probably the BEST argument made before SCOTUS this week on the unconstitutionality of the ObamaCare mandate. The mandate forces young people and other healthy people to enter into the commerce of health care against their will. And then, it also FORBIDS them from purchasing the type of health insurance that is MOST ECONOMICAL to them – catastrophic (major medical) insurance. In fact, it OUTLAWS this kind of insurance!
Although you make some good points, I can’t agree completely. Mostly, because I know that most (if not all) of those plans cover Viagra and other similar drugs with little to no co-pay. If women getting birth control is bad and against their principles, then why is it okay to pay for Viagra for a healthy 60-year old widower? Is it okay for unmarried men to fornicate but not for women? Either cover both types of drugs or neither.
Plus, I totally agree that if I am the church secretary for my little Baptist Church, it might be absurd for me to get “sex-positive” insurance. -wink-
BUT if I am a atheist nurse working for the only hospital in town, that employs 500+ people, and is the only place for a nurse to work… And the hospital gets federal tax money for the care it provides… Then, no. If they are benefiting from tax money, then they should have to play by the same rules as IBM and GE.
And as far as ObamaCare goes… Sheesh, it doesn’t really make any sense to force 25 year-olds to pay into a retirement system that will be broke by the time they retire. AKA Social Security. Also Medicare! The 25 year-olds are prepaying for the medical care they’ll get when they are 65!!
I know I would’ve rather spent that money on beer when I was 25. And yet we do. If ObamaCare gets knocked down, then can we outlaw Social Security and Medicare? I hope so, not looking forward to paying into it forever and then not get any benefits.
Social Security will still be there for you. You might have to be a bit older to get it (because people are living longer), but maybe not (because productivity is going up, like it always does). The real problem is that the “lock-box” keeps being raided. Then it has to be replenished out of regular taxes, because it was raided to avoid having to either cut spending or raise taxes.
But it’s utterly fixable, and it will be there for you, and for me, and for my nieces and nephews.
I sure hope so, Sailor, but it doesn’t change the fact that most young people would not willingly save for retirement so the Gov’ment forces them to, because it’s benefits all of us eventually.
No diff from ObamaCare–Youngsters won’t choose to do it (need beer money! hee, now I want a beer) BUT access to basic health services is cost-effective to all of us in society–from fewer productive days lost to the cost difference between treating strep throat at the ER vs. the family doctor’s office.
One way to contain costs is to spread them out to a larger healthier pool and not allow insurance companies to ‘cherry-pick’ only healthy people to insure. Oh, and those not cherry-picked? Get covered by Medicaid, which leaves the taxpayer on the hook.
BTW, as a long-time lurker, I’ve been reading your comments forever, and you are awesome.
Gawrsh!
And yeah, spread out the risk, enforced savings (and also something for the very poor who have nothing to save), and so on. The mandate was a Heritage Foundation idea, but now it’s ultra-lefty socialism. I suspect it’ll be gone soon and replaced by something else, probably a tax.
I’m not used to being awesome. It feels good. 😉
I agree he’s awesome!
Well of course my girlfriend thinks I’m awesome. So does my mom and my youngest nephew.
But thanks. And to let everybody in on a secret: I think you’re pretty awesome yourself, Laura.
Lysistrata – the R.T. article makes reference to how “the lack of legislation regulating the escort sector makes it very difficult for the government to intercede in the conflict.”
Yes, since Spanish escorts not subject to any regulation whatsoever, they can’t be blackmailed, legally harassed, registered, taxed, forcibly tested and so on; which gives them power, as this story shows. The bankers would have it much easier if the escorts were at a legal disadvantage.
Above the Law: Poetic justice. Maybe we all should start crying “rape,” as Amy Alkon did, when molested by TSA thugs.
Lysistrata :
Now we know why bankers need such enormous bonuses.
And when are they going to start charting escort service activity in relation to the performance of the economy in the FT and Economist?
Sex, Lies and Busybodies:
A group of prostitutes should “rescue” Sean McBride, ship him to some third world country and chain him to a sewing machine.
Right next to Somaly Mam and Nicholas Kristof. And don’t forget the dirty water and gang rape; I’m sure they’ll all agree it’s for their own good.
Speaking of presents, my new friend n/a sent me the movie “Manhunter” as promised and sent it very quickly once he got the right link to my Amazon wish list! I’m enjoying it greatly as haven’t watched it in ages. My last copy was on VHS and it was worn out like 99% of my VHS movies are (I have less than 10 that’ll still play OK. The others had to be thrown out which tore me up). For n/a:
Molly: You’re talking – about doing exactly what you said you’d…
Will Graham: This killing… it’s gotta stop.
Molly: William… you’re gonna make yourself sick or get yourself killed.
-this is 1 of the reasons I love the character of Will Graham so much. He’s willing to risk upset and even injury to himself to get the serial killers. He knows that justice is real (I know this from 1st hand experience also along with other MVS) and worth the risks to get it. I didn’t think I’d make any friends when I started posting here, to be honest. It’s always great to have your thoughts contradicted in positive ways!
Hey if taxpayers bailed out the bankers, then at least some of that money went to escorts! Heehee. At least it ‘stimulated’ something.
See No Evil
Just for the record, all of my various ecchi pics of the various Sailor Senshi are from points in their lives when they are at least one hundred years old. They just look young because they are immortal. We clear on that? Good.
The Crumbling Dam
About dam time.
Lysistrata
Too bad the Occupy movement never thought of that!
Knight Erroneous
The great Satanic conspiracy had to get to utterly ridiculous, wouldn’t-put-that-crap-in-a-cheap-movie levels before it was denounced. There are still people today, intelligent men and women, who believe that stuff. There will always be somebody who believes the whole trafficking canon, and thus somebody will always be able to make a buck off of it.
OMG!! Genius! Quick call the Occupy Movement and get them to reach out to the sex workers in their community.
Although it probably would not work in some cities–like St. Louis, small, strictly Catholic and highly hypocritical.