A fool is very dangerous when in power. – Denis Fonvizin
Two new items, twelve updates and one metaupdate.
End Demand
More Bizarro behavior from Zimbabwe:
A Zimbabwean politician has…[suggested] the spread of HIV can be curbed if women…deliberately make themselves…unattractive. Morgan Femai…said the measures were required because men were finding it difficult to resist well-dressed, attractive women…“…I propose…a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven…they should also not bathe because that is what has caused all these problems.” Senator Femai also appeared to suggest female circumcision would help stop the spread of disease…“Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that…because it is conducive for bacteria breeding”…another…Senator, Sithembile Mlotshwa…recently suggested men be injected with drugs that reduce their libidos.
She also called for prisoners to be given sex toys to satisfy their sexual desires.
You may laugh or cry, but are these suggestions really any more stupid than Western “end demand” rhetoric?
Femme Fatale
Updates
Lying Down With Dogs (November 24th, 2010)
Another example of the strong resemblance between anti-whore policies in the US and Uganda:
…police authorities in…Gulu…raided [a sex worker drop-in centre] and arrested two staff and three members of the Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA)…This raid…appears to be part of a deliberate strategy by the Gulu Police to play tough…[it] is in direct violation of the rights of…human rights defenders at WONETHA…“they are accusing us of promoting prostitution…of sleeping with other women and recruiting girls into prostitution.” All five arrested advocates were finally charged with “Living off the earnings of prostitution,” an accusation that they vehemently denounce…
Compare with attacks against Backpage and other advertising venues for “facilitating prostitution”.
Law of the Instrument (August 26th, 2011)
“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail,” wrote Abraham Maslow; Wendy Lyon writes at length on how Irish authorities who desperately need “human trafficking” cases to justify their crackdowns are using the label for everything from undocumented immigration to attempted rape.
The Crumbling Dam (October 14th, 2011)
Organized persecution of Canadian whores continues to crumble in the face of the recent court decisions; under the embattled law, even a landlord who knowingly rents an apartment to a hooker could be prosecuted for “brothel keeping”, but one Vancouver charity openly violates it anyway:
…Janice Abbott, CEO of the Atira Women’s Resource Society, said tenants of…housing complexes for low-income women are entitled to the same rights as any other renter…even if they are sex workers…when Atira opened Bridge Housing in 2001…there was no conscious decision to create a safe…space for women to do sex work…[but] Atira decided not to question the women’s guests… “They’re paying rent and it’s their home and they get to do everything all the rest of us take for granted in our homes, which is have guests come and go, among many other things”…
The article also mentions that “…the City of Vancouver has proposed a new…policy…indicating that consensual adult sex work is not an enforcement priority for the police and that their priority should be ensuring the safety of sex workers.” Apparently, Toronto feels the same way:
…The Toronto Police Service confirmed…the force has put “on hold”…sweeps in which female officers pose as street prostitutes to arrest men willing to pay for sex…spokesman Mark Pugash said…the decision…is based on the force’s reluctance to use “finite” resources to arrest people when so much “uncertainty” currently surrounds prostitution laws…[however] investigations into illegal massage parlours, brothels and escort agencies will carry on as usual…City Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti…[criticized] the policy…”When you’re sleeping with a prostitute, you’re probably sleeping with 150 guys at the same time”…
It’s good to see officials brushing aside politicians spouting the “dirty whore” myth to justify imposing their personal morals on others.
Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (October 27th, 2011)
Another female academic dares to tell the truth about prostitution in East Asia:
Kimberly Hoang…won the American Sociological Association’s…award for her doctoral dissertation on sex work in Vietnam. The winning entry, New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam, was based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Ho Chi Minh City, where Hoang worked as a bartender and hostess in four bars that catered to different groups of clients…Hoang’s research “highlights not just the structure and practices of sex work in Vietnam, but demonstrates how it serves as a vital form of currency in Vietnam’s political economy.” In her nominating letter, [sociology professor Raka] Ray called the dissertation “a stunning piece of work” by “an absolutely fearless and creative thinker,” adding that Hoang had done “the sort of fieldwork few others dare”…
Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4th, 2011)
Contrary to what you may have heard, the upcoming 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not greatly increase the number of things labeled as “addictions”; in fact, it entirely eliminates the word “addiction”: “Instead, they are labeled ‘use disorders’…[because the] group thought the word…was less pejorative and stigmatizing.” I’m willing to bet it’s also to put a stop to pop psychologists’ labeling everything an “addiction”:
Despite substantial pressure…the…workgroup rejected proposals to recognize addictions to sex, food, the Internet, and caffeine…[workgroup chairman Charles O’Brien, MD] said…emphasis on scientific justification precluded listing them…”We looked at sex addiction, but there was no science at all. None.”
Another positive change is the replacement of DSM-IV’s false dichotomy of “drug abuse” and “drug dependence”:
…research conducted in recent decades pointed to substance-related problems as occurring on a continuum, such that the abuse-dependence distinction was purely arbitrary…[a new] requirement [is] that the patient…demonstrate craving for the particular substance…[which is] the key symptom that separates addiction from mere heavy use…
Legal Is as Legal Does (December 14th, 2011)
Here’s a generally objective article on prostitution in Turkey which demonstrates the problems of legalization. The country has licensed brothels since the late days of the Ottoman Empire, but it will surprise none of my readers to hear that 97% of Turkish harlots prefer to work illegally than to be registered and subjugated to politically-connected brothel owners who keep their employees in conditions virtually indistinguishable from slavery. This government-approved abuse is now being used by Islamist politicians to justify closing all brothels and forcing the girls onto the street, thus establishing the state as their pimp by setting them up for fine-garnering police “crackdowns”.
Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29th, 2012)
This week, Rob Arthur sent me a copy of his book You Will Die, and a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a DVD of The Wicker Tree, writer/director Robin Hardy’s “re-imagining” of his classic, The Wicker Man. My sincere thanks to both of you for thinking of me!
Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)
The police have always used sexual assault as a weapon of oppression, but in the US the tactic was generally reserved for sex workers; however, as police brutality and immunity from prosecution have increased, amateurs have been on the receiving end as well. Female Occupy protesters are now reporting being repeatedly groped by cops:
…No doubt it’s partly…to brutalize those you think are weak, and more easily traumatized. But another reason is, almost certainly, the hope of provoking violent reactions on the part of male protestors…Soldiers who oppose allowing a combat role for women almost invariably say they do so not because they are afraid women would not behave effectively in battle, but because they are afraid men would…become so obsessed with the possibility of women in their unit being captured and sexually assaulted that they would behave irrationally. If the police were trying to provoke a violent reaction on the part of studiously non-violent protestors, as a way of justifying even greater brutality and felony charges, this would clearly be the most effective means of doing so…
An Example to the West (April 3rd, 2012)
In the US, “feminists” encourage police to persecute sex workers; in India such behavior provokes protest marches:
Women’s groups and progressive organisations in India are shocked that Ms. Anu Mokal, a pregnant sex worker in Satara, was beaten up by police inspector Dayanand Dhome on April 2, along with her friend Ms. Anjana Ghadge. Three days later, on 5th April, she suffered a miscarriage…[the women] were bringing dinner for their friend…in the…hospital…[when] Dhome accused them of soliciting and when they refuted it abused them and called them liars. Dhome and his subordinates started beating…[and kicking] them and said that women like Anu are a ‘shame’. Her pleas that she was four months pregnant fell on deaf ears…Women’s organisations are outraged that…no action has been taken against the policemen…Anu…feels that the [incident is]…not taken seriously because she is a sex worker. In fact, the police had the audacity to tell these women that sex workers cannot be mothers…
Hard Numbers (April 20th, 2012)
While Western Australia continues its self-destructive drive toward the Swedish Model, South Australian politicians apparently comprehend the concept of “evidence” and are moving toward decriminalization:
…Status of Women Minister Gail Gago and former minister Steph Key [spoke about]…Bills aimed at decriminalising prostitution. Ms Key aims to introduce her Bill…on May 31 – the eve of International Whores’ Day…It would decriminalise all forms of prostitution…but retain soliciting as an offence where it occurred in the presence of other people…Minors would be banned from sex work and there would also be provisions making it an offence to practise unsafe sex…Ms Key believes there is growing support for the move…
The Pygmalion Fallacy
(May 6th, 2012)
It’s good to see that at least one tech writer has his eyes partially open on the subject of sexbots; though this article by Sebastian Anthony still buys “sex trafficking” myth, it at least understands that any gynoid real enough to please a normal man (as opposed to one with a robot fetish) is also real enough to be considered a sentient being with rights.
Mother’s Day (May 13th, 2012)
After a journalist made shockingly clueless statements about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, Christopher Ryan (co-author of Sex At Dawn) published a reaction which echoes many of the same points I made in this column:
NPR’s Scott Simon…suggests that the real scandal may be the original decision to hold the Summit…in Cartagena…”Why were world leaders meeting in a place with legalized prostitution?”…there are a host of very ugly realities often associated with prostitution…But all these things are mitigated by legalization, and Simon wasn’t suggesting the meeting shouldn’t have been held in a place where prostitution exists, but in a place where it’s legal…Simon asks, “Would you want someone you love to live that way?” No, probably not. But…I wouldn’t want someone I love working in a steel mill or a coal mine, either…nor…sent off to distant deserts…in defense of jingoistic abstractions…But nobody’s proposing that we make industry [or] the military…illegal…we gain nothing from legally prohibiting the expression of human nature, and what we lose is…the opportunity to…mitigate the damage…If someone you love chose to work as a prostitute, would you rather she had legal and medical protection, or would you prefer she be forced into the shadows…That’s the question we need to be asking.
Metaupdates
Against Their Will in August Updates (Part Two) (August 4th, 2011)
Add Malaysia to the list of countries the US State Department encourages to violently persecute whores: “In 2008 the US…gave Malaysia the lowest rating in its annual Trafficking In Persons Report…Now nearly all brothels…have been shut. Sex workers are forced to work in dangerous and difficult conditions on streets throughout the capital. For its violent efforts to suppress the sex industry the US Government raised Malaysia to tier 2 level in its 2009 TIP report.”
One Year Ago Today
“A Procrustean Bed” explains how a new Massachusetts law defines women as helpless infants and men as international gangsters.
I actually prefer the more recent “When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like your thumb”. It’s a lot more descriptive of what is actually happening these days.
Legal Is as Legal Does – The problem with legalisation is that the law makers will never legislate purely for the good of the prostitutes. If the laws also aim to get them off the street and into prescribed ghettos, as well as to provide commercial opportunities for the politicians’ financial backers, then disaster (for the prostitutes) is almost guaranteed.
The Pygmalion Fallacy – The writer said “Sexual predators, instead of abducting victims, will be able to order a sexbot to spec; if they want a robot that looks like a young child, or a wrinkly geriatric, so be it.”
Sadly, since even line-drawn Manga of underage looking girls is being banned and made illegal in many countries, a pedo-droid would most likely be banned as well.
However, he was right to point out the “uncanny valley” problem. An android that is – almost – perfect would probably be too creepy to be sexy.
One glaring error I see in a lot of “futurism” is the weird and totally unprecedented assumption that current social hangups will continue for decades or centuries into the future. A writer of 1888 who presumed Victorian straight-lacedness was going to continue indefinitely would have been mighty shocked had he lapsed into a coma and awakened 35 years later. The current prudery and hysteria over “sex trafficking” and “pedophilia” will look as absurd and horrible by 2050 as the “Red Scare” looks to us.
You might enjoy this Maggie, it’s a set of French cigarette cards from 1910 imagining what things would look like in the year 2000:
http://www.ufunk.net/en/insolite/en-lan-2000-le-futur-imagine-en-1910-avec-24-illustrations-retro/
My father bought it for me in book form as a child, with commentary by Isaac Asimov.
Some of those really aren’t that far off, conceptually speaking, though they betray the same unrealistic optimism about the capabilities of robotics that still infests futurism. You might also enjoy these 1902 French trading cards featuring “The Women of the Future“.
Ah, I do love the French! Thanks Maggie.
Which Red Scare?
The 2nd one; McCarthy Era.
There are these notable exceptions. I guess a lot of my mores were shaped by what Heinlein wrote in his later career. Well, I still find incest icky, but otherwise he did present the idea that there is nothing wrong with something like sex work, in itself, quite well. And that what wrongs might exist are the same you get with anything illegal, and would probably mostly disappear if it was not only legal but also seen as a normal job, in the vein of something like giving massages, or therapy, for that matter.
The evidence from places like New Zealand and New South Wales is that you’re absolutely right. In places where it’s decriminalized, sex work has no greater problems than those in any other line of work dealing with the public such as massage, food service, grooming, social work, reaching, etc. The greatest danger to sex workers in every country is from people who want to make or keep it illegal, or who benefit from its prohibition.
I had my first massage the Saturday before last (birthday present!). There were signs all over the place saying that if a client makes a sexual comment, the session ends immediately.
That lead me to thinking — legalizing prostitution would separate massage from “massage plus” and help legitimize regular massage by clearing demarcating massage and sexual massage.
There’s nothing “illegitimate” about “sexual” massage, either; either a man wants a “happy ending” or he doesn’t. Simple. If a theater doesn’t want to offer Milk Duds it can put up a sign saying, “no Milk Duds”, but it shouldn’t be able to appeal to the government to suppress the theaters that do sell them.
I learned to give massages when I was about 14 years old, and have been told by so many people (of both sexes) that I’m the best masseuse they’ve ever encountered (including “licensed” ones), I assume there must be some truth in it. And every full massage I’ve ever done on anybody, client, lover or friend, has followed the same basic procedure, and if the recipient want sex afterward it’s a totally separate process in my mind. However, the recipient is always nude unless he has some kind of hang-up about it, and I’m usually nude unless he has some kind of hang-up about it, because it allows me to do my freaking job more efficiently. Furthermore, I sit on the recipient’s back or legs for the first part of the process, and if it’s a full-body rub it includes the largest muscle in the body, the gluteus maximus, which a “licensed” masseuse is FORBIDDEN TO TOUCH in many states because it’s “sexual”. I strongly suspect that the main reason so many people proclaim my massages superior is due not to my technique per se, but because I do what needs to be done without regard for arbitrary distinctions between “sexual” and “non-sexual” activities imposed by busybodies.
Thanks for the update’s, Maggie.
By the way – the picture you have of Sherry Jackson in this column – her eyes look EXACTLY like the eyes at the top of your blog!
By the way – she’s still hot!
http://www.hollywoodchicago.com/sites/default/files/13SherryJackson.JPG
Oh – forgot – yeah the dude that died in the strip joint – WHAT A LUCKY BASTARD!! Punching out on the clock with a naked woman or two in his lap! That’s got to be Vishnu’s way of saying … “Well done my son – enjoy Nirvana, you have EARNED it!!”
Trekkies sometimes compared me to her when I was in my early 30s. 🙂
They did? Really? That’s so horrible!!!!:: 😛
I’ve thought of going to a Trek Convention in costume often. Of course – it would have to be a convention in California somewhere since they have the best conventions of every kind. And, of course, the costume would have to be as a Klingon. 😛
“The Honour is to Serve” 😎
About End Demand – wow!
I read that Wired article, a few things struck me:
1. The author of the article seems to hate prostitutes. I have no idea if he has any experience with one, but this is the telling line:
“Still, there’s a lot to be said for robostitutes. Instead of heading down to the local red light district and engaging in dangerous coitus with a prostitute that might be infested with a veritable smorgasbord of STDs, you could book a session with a sterilized-between-tricks prostibot. ”
Wow. Such an insulting an degrading view. I used to haunt the local Red Light district in my younger days and thankfully I didn’t have such a negative view of the women I spent time with there. (I’ve also never had an STD, despite having had sex with lot’s of prostitutes. Doesn’t surprise me, though I’m sure the author of this article would be upset about it, angry at me even. Sadly for him god never decided to punish me for my sinful, wicked ways. Perhaps we ought to move past the idea of diseases as punishment for sin?)
Also, why doesn’t this apply to all women?
Believe it or not, any woman (or man) can be a disease vector for STDs, There seems to be an underlying anti-humanism that I find troubling in our society, especially with regard to sex.
2. Despite liking the Star Trek episode “I, Mudd” and reading “Helen O’Loy” years ago, the idea of sex with a robot has never appealed to me. But then, I never get fooled by Eliza (primitive AI program that has been known to fool some humans) either. Did you know that retired call girl Tracy Quan has participated as a human confederate in Loebner prize attempts to create AI programs that could fool humans? http://edge.org/memberbio/tracy_quan
3. Of course, we get this line, ” if they want a robot that looks like a young child, or a wrinkly geriatric, so be it.” This kind of thing is de rigeur in any article about prostitution, the goal being to tie men who want to have sex with adult women to pedophiles as often as possible.
Of course, I started spending time in the Red Light District when I started my career in software. Just combine high pressure death march projects that include a minimum of free time with tons of money just piling uselessly up in the bank that you have no time to spend on anything fun and you’ll understand the appeal. Dating is hard work and few women will put up with being constantly stood up for dates because of “the project.” (At least, I never met any that liked being stood up constantly.)
I imagine that a large number of readers of Wired end up similarly, its a common problem in software: lot’s of money/almost no free time/normal human desires. (Although if they are anything like me, they also find Wired’s shallow, lowest common denominator view of technology grating.)
The “Dirty Whore” myth is a venerable one with a lot of staying power despite the fact that it’s total nonsense. Honestly, I read that bit as a case of “the lady doth protest too much”, considering that the rest of the article indicates an understanding of the whore-client relationship. Methinks somebody’s trying to feign ignorance, though he has it not.
It’s the same in other fields as well. Food pathologists handle a huge amount of samples, infected with Salmonella, Listeria, Enterobacter etc., and due to the use of disinfectants, latex gloves (and sometimes face masks), we have very low levels of infection.
Simpletons do not understand that the number of risky contacts is what matters, not the total number of all contacts.
I think the reason there is no equivalent “Dirty John” myth (despite the fact that if one myth is true the other ought to be. Good for the goose is good for the gander) is that it would encompass too much of the male population. (Including, at various points in history, Kings, Presidents and other notables.)
Sure, I’d put at least even money that he had spent time in the Red Light district.
Kimberly Hoang is a BABE! If the next generation of sex robots can look like her…
OK I’m mixing updates, but day-yum she’s hot!