Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. – Nadine Gordimer
Eleven updates and four meta-updates.
Who Did Your Tits? (October 1st, 2010)
Happy 50th birthday, silicone implant!:
…Timmie Jean Lindsey, 80…said she…[went to Dr. Frank Gerow of Houston, who invented the implants in 1962] because she wanted some rose tattoos removed from her chest, and he told her she was the perfect first candidate…“It wasn’t a big deal to me. I went from a B to a C cup. But it made men more aware of me. More men would whistle at me”…She said she feels fortunate she never experienced many of the side effects that plagued other recipients…
The reason she didn’t have any side effects, of course, is because lawyers hadn’t invented them yet.
An Older Profession Than You May Have Thought (October 12th, 2010)
Remember those cute little Adelie penguins? Well, it turns out that prostitution isn’t their only “perverted” sexual behavior; George Levick of the ill-fated Scott expedition also observed rape, sexual abuse of chicks, homosexuality and necrophilia. He was so upset by the whole thing that he recorded his findings in Greek so that they couldn’t accidentally be read by English speakers, and those facts were left out of the official accounts until very recently. I’m not surprised; any bird which practices “cash and dash” is capable of anything.
Another Example of Swedish “Feminism” (May 30th, 2011)
Did you read the one about the Swedish housewife who set herself up a BDSM dungeon in an abandoned bunker? It became news when two fishermen discovered it and called the cops. When Aftonbladet told her that many of her neighbors were scandalized she said, “I think it is because many are afraid. Sweden is not really such a free country when it comes to sexuality…” Sex workers and their clients wholly agree.
Surplus Women (September 27th, 2011)
Yet another maniac chooses his victims from among sex workers:
A Mississippi sheriff’s investigator hopes surveillance video from Bourbon Street in New Orleans will provide clues about the death of a strip club dancer whose dismembered body washed ashore on the Gulf Coast…22-year-old Jaren Lockhart reported for work Tuesday (June 5th) night and left early Wednesday. Her torso was found late Thursday in Bay St. Louis. Other body parts…were found later…Lockhart had been a resident of the Capri Motel…
The Capri is one of those dirty, scary places where only truly desperate girls live, so I suspect she was murdered by a client who promised her extra money to go off with him. At least the story seems to make some effort to treat her as a person rather than concentrating on her sex work as so many do.
See No Evil (November 26th, 2011)
…Phillip Cosby…objects to [a] donated statue at the Overland Park Arboretum [in Kansas City], because it portrays a woman…taking a photo of herself while her breasts are exposed…he has started an online petition…to start a grand jury investigation…he objects to the statue’s availability to children and is seeking a charge of promoting obscenity. Overland Park has posted signs at the park about the statue’s content but says it has no immediate plans to remove the sculpture.
A statue has no “content”; any “obscenity” is projected into it by dirty minds.
Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4th, 2011)
Regular reader Franklin Harris wrote a column on sex in film in which he stated:
Movies and television take a lot of heat for promoting supposedly immoral, promiscuous and irresponsible sexual behavior. But when it comes to movies that actually make sex their main focus, you may be left wondering why anyone has sex in the first place. Sex in these movies is awful, joyless and nothing good ever comes of it. On second thought, that does sound like a pretty irresponsible depiction of sex, just not the one we’ve been led to expect…despite depressing movies such as Shame and a few high-profile celebrity cases of suspect credibility, one fact remains: There is no such thing as sex addiction…[it] is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, and there is no scientific evidence it exists…
Harris also has sharp words for The Girlfriend Experience and points out the deep irony implicit in Hollywood’s typical condemnation of any kind of sex for pay. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see this sort of column becoming ever more common in mainstream media.
Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)
Another cop using his position for rape: “A former Hopewell [Virginia] police officer was convicted…of sexually abusing three women…In exchange for his pleas, a fourth charge of forcible sodomy was withdrawn by the prosecution. Baggett faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each count…” Notice that cops in these stories are nearly always described as “former” police officers, subtly implying that they were sacked out for their conduct, when in fact that only happened as a direct result of a probable conviction. Had the case been less clear, Baggett would still be a cop right now.
An Example to the West (April 3rd, 2012)
Sex workers in Thailand recently sent a letter to their Prime Minister asking him to stop licking Uncle Sam’s boots:
…Empower alleges that successive Thai governments have sacrificed the rule of law, their international human rights obligations and the well-being of migrant sex workers and their families, in an attempt to please the US government and satisfy the American anti trafficking agenda. We accuse the United States government of using the issue of human trafficking to coerce its allies into tightening border and immigration controls. The US agenda has also created a climate where women crossing borders are all seen as suspect “victims” of trafficking…Empower sees the Trafficking in Persons Report issued by the US State Department as subjective and bias [sic] against the Thai Entertainment Industry…
The Naked Emperor (May 15th, 2012)
Though danah boyd (who like e.e. cummings prefers her name uncapitalized) is generally critical of moral panics about kids and the internet, and has said that “the most deadly misconception about American youth has been the sexual predator panic”, she seems to have bought into sex trafficking hysteria…or has she? This article also seems subtly critical of anti-Backpage crusade; is she, like others, simply afraid to say the emperor is naked?
…when we as a society see technology being used in horrible ways, we want to blame and ban the technology…I know that technology is being used in the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. I also know that many people have responded to the visibility of “child sex trafficking” on commercial websites by wanting to shut down those commercial websites…my goal is to make sure that we understand what we’re doing so that we actually address the core of the problem, not just the most visible symptoms of it. Unfortunately, we know very little about how children are advertised, bought, sold, and exploited through the use of technology. There are plenty of anecdotes, but rigorous data is limited…
Read the article and let me know what you think: more research is good, but only if it’s conducted in an atmosphere of free inquiry; most of the projects she mentions make unwarranted assumptions and seem tailored to produce specific anti-sex work outcomes.
First They Came for the Hookers… (June 5th, 2012)
I really wish politicians would stop proving me right:
…the government says it will end giving work visas to foreign strippers once and for all…”The problem is, under the current Immigration Act we don’t have the legal authority to deny people visas based on the industry they’re working in,” [said] Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney…”Now we have the power, which we’ll [soon] begin using…to deny visas to people who we think…might have a high chance of trafficking or exploitation”…
Once again, “trafficking” rhetoric is really an excuse for bigotry.
R.I.P. Ray Bradbury (June 9th, 2012)
Anyone who’s read more than a token amount of Bradbury has noticed the libertarian ideas in his work, and in this extremely interesting essay by Ilya Somin of The Volokh Conspiracy he demonstrates that Bradbury was not alone: “Libertarianism is better represented in science fiction and fantasy than in any other literary genre. From Robert Heinlein to the present day, libertarian writers have been among the leaders in the field. Even many genre writers who are not self-consciously libertarian have often made use of libertarian themes in their work…”
Metaupdates
Welcome To Our World in February Updates (Part Two) (February 13th, 2011)
A UK organization is fighting for the sexual rights of mentally disabled people:
…Everybody has the right to have sex and relationships…however they choose. But some people in society, such as people with learning disabilities, aren’t always given the automatic right to have relationships and flourish as sexual beings. They have to persuade others to “allow” them to do it. FPA believes passionately that everyone has the right to enjoy sexual health…
I applaud FPA’s efforts; whores also know what it’s like to be denied the right to sex on our own terms.
The Scarlet Letter in TW3 (#19) (May 12th, 2012)
Another example of sex workers fighting oppression via civil courts:
…State-sanctioned forced HIV testing of sex workers also occurs [in places other than Greece]…But in Malawi…sex workers are fighting back…in 2009…police…forced [arrested sex workers] to undergo HIV tests…[and those] who tested HIV-positive were charged with “spreading disease dangerous to life,”…fourteen [of them] decided to sue the government and challenge the constitutionality of forced HIV testing…
Much Ado About Nothing in TW3 (#19) (May 12th, 2012)
Dania Suarez, the escort whose mistreatment kicked off the Secret service scandal, “has announced plans to open a non-profit organization to support women who have been affected by prostitution” just after turning down “a $500,000 pornography contract with Vivid” in favor of a TV documentary on her life. As long as she only works with women who genuinely want to leave the trade I’m all for it, but if she turns to “rescue” and/or starts mouthing “child sex trafficking” rubbish, she’ll be following Kristin Davis into the Hall of Shame.
Finding What Isn’t There in TW3 (#23) (June 9th, 2012)
Considering that prostitution is not illegal in either part of Ireland and that police found no “traffickers” or “victims” in their highly-publicized joint raid, all of the residences belonged to “innocent people”; I reckon what this article is trying to say is that half didn’t belong to the people named on the warrants:
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is facing a serious legal backlash after it emerged that as many as half the residences it raided as part of its cross-border anti-prostitution operation with gardai belong to innocent people…the PSNI is now facing a highly embarrassing and potentially very expensive legal fall-out from what appear to have been a series of botched raids based on intelligence that, in some cases, was at least a year out of date…
Though I feel bad for those who were raided, high-profile jackboot buffoonery like this only helps our cause in the long run, because it demonstrates the fact-free basis for police actions and results in ever more editorials like this one:
…”Rape for profit,” stormed Philip Marshall of the PSNI…Everyone would agree if he had freed dozens of sex-slaves and charged their traffickers…So far, though, the only people charged were three Polish girls, who…were…working willingly…is it really worth months of police time…to arrest and shame…three young people?…Or should we consider…offering prostitutes the protection of the law when they are abused or coerced?…Prostitution has always been with us…We can’t legislate it out of existence, but we could legislate to reduce its damage to the health and welfare of those involved.
One Year Ago Today
“June Miscellanea (Part Two)” reports on yet another censorship law, a decentralized online currency system, New York’s declaration that sexy dancing isn’t dancing and more extra-blog activities by yours truly.
Let’s buy old Phil a plane ticket to Lille, France so he can walk through the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille – his head will explode from all the nudity portrayed by the great artists of history. I went through that thing with my wife and when we came out she asked me what I wanted to do next. I said … “Seriously? I’ve been looking at naked women and animated copulations for three hours – what do you THINK I want to do now?”
And by the way – why did all the artists portray famous men with itty-bitty penises? Seriously – this is counterintuitive and I’m sure they weren’t actually THAT small. I’m reminded of the statue in Milan of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) – and uhm … sorry – but there’s nothing “Magnus” about that unit and I wonder why Pompey didn’t behead the artist who did the work. Seriously – why did they do this?
Sorry – but this deserves a follow-up to reiterate what a huge (actually tiny) disservice Pompey was done with that statue of himself. I’m not a huge fan of Pompey but seriously, the first time I saw that statue I had to hang my head in shame for the man. I mean, here is this LEGEND of Greatest Rome … and he’s standing there naked – striking physical specimen – except for ONE THING!! It’s like that old Sesame Street game where you try to guess what “object” doesn’t belong in the picture – you know what I mean?
Rumor has it that Caesar was stabbed to death and died at the foot of this statue – so not only was Pomey done a disservice when they tacked on this tiny wedding tackle – but apparently, to Caesar – it may have been the last sight he enjoyed on this planet.
Horrible … just Horrible.
Maybe the model he used was very cold.
According to what I heard, it’s because of Greek influence on art. And the Greeks were really open to homosexuality. Male Attractiveness wasn’t about pleasuring women, it was about being pleasured.
This influenced most art traditions so that being even modestly well endowed was viewed as vulgar. So shrinking the package was just other thing you did to make the guy looker better.
Though I have been reading Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, a book I got based on Maggie’s recommendation. In that, the reason is because the viewer and artist can view feminine beauty without having to acknowledge feminine power. The statues are as pretty as women but not able to do anything like have children or trick you with their feminine wiles. I think, I’m still reading it.
Either way, the answer is because being physically attractive to women didn’t matter to ancient people. What mattered was how much wealth and power you had.
That’s very interesting. It sure is funny how standards of beauty/handsomeness can change over time. The ideal used to be pale, now people flock to tanning salons, etc.
Here’s an article with an interesting hypothesis about the statue of David:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18386_7-mind-blowing-easter-eggs-hidden-in-famous-works-art.html
It’s funny – but I don’t buy it.
Getting back to Pompey – the sculpture of him is outstanding in every way physically. I highly doubt that Pompey was in that kind of shape – so obviously the artist(s) went out of their way to make Pompey look physically more substantial than he was in real life – and I don’t think that’s unusual. Certainly modern day politicians would have it this way if they commissioned statues of themselves.
That is … for ALL but one thing (apparently) – and it doesn’t compute in my mind why the artists, or the politicians themselves allowed these dinky packages. You COULD say – that they were trying to minimize the sexual and emphasize other things in the art – but I say “no” – because the tinyness draws attention itself. Why didn’t they just make these men “regular” size at the very least.
Can you imagine how big the lizard would be on any statue of George Bush or Sadaam Hussein (that they had a hand in commissioning)????!!
There’s an extract of Florence William’s book “Breasts: a Natural and Unnatural History” in today’s Guardian. A note says that Ms Lindsey’s implants have ruptured.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jun/16/breasts-breastfeeding-milk-florence-williams?INTCMP=SRCH
“The reason she didn’t have any side effects, of course, is because lawyers hadn’t invented them yet.”
That’s only half the story, sadly. Lawyers get their information from other physicians or surgeons, and obviously choose those with the most “appropriate” expert reports. But these experts always present themselves as total paragons of virtue (even if you know that they aren’t), and make the defendant out as totally incompetent. So, it’s not just the lawyers who are stabbing doctors in the back; it’s the doctors’ colleagues as well: the lawyers soon recognise which doctors stab the best.
Does “having breasts that don’t look anything like breasts” count as a side effect?
There is a book called something like “Aesthetic Plastic Surgery” written, if I remember correctly, by a Brazilian surgeon. In it, he describes the ideals for breast surgery. From the mid-point of the clavicle (collar bone) drop a vertical. Go 5° laterally, and 19 cms (?) down to position the nipple. It describes the diameter of the nipple (might have to be reduced in breast reduction surgery), though I don’t remember what the ideal is. And so forth, I don’t remember all the details, but it was very exhaustive and proscriptive. And yes, draw all these guidelines on the patient.
Modern aesthetic surgeons would try to include a degree of “droop” to make things look natural.
Short answer: yes.
I assume you mean due to a botched boob job?
If you’re asking me, I was just making one of my snide comments, though. I didn’t mean to call anyone out or anything. I’m sorry if I upset anyone.
“Botched” is a bit emotive; and this is all getting away from my “area of expertise” (I didn’t do this sort of surgery). Implants are sort of flattish before being inserted; one of the problems is that there can be fibrous contraction (“scarring”) around them, the sort of thing which is unpredictable and very variable. This converts the flattish implant into a sphere (a sphere having the smallest surface area for its volume) and this produces really very unnatural boobs. Whether this is “botched” or bad luck is debatable. It’s also possible to site implants badly, when they slip off to the side — particularly after reconstructive surgery — and this is clearly poor surgery.
What then should boobs look like? Venus de Milo? What consistency? And then there is the gravitational effect — which can be “corrected” ecause it imolies if “corrected” is an appropriate word (because it implies that there is an “ideal” form”).
That scarring causes what’s called “capsular contracture”; since the late ’90s the best implants have had textured surfaces which prevent the scar tissue from developing in long lines (which can contract and pull the implants into a globular shape). Those are of course the kind I have.
Battle of the implants, Eh? 😉
First this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kor38/7381515288/in/photostream
now this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kor38/7381512336/in/photostream
(And no comments about bellend, thanks.)
I’ve got two titanium screws in my left tibia plateau; does that count? 😉
Trumped! : I’ve only got stainless steel 🙁
I think they use titanium now so as not to set off metal detectors, which have become ubiquitous over here.
If I don’t set off the metal detectors at airports, I get worried (it has happened). Stainless steel is cheaper than titanium, and most people aren’t allergic to stainless steel (it’s the nickel in it). Titanium will also set off the metal detectors — depends a bit on how much you have in you (all/most metals set them off). Bits of the plate/screws were titanium — but set off the detectors (sometimes). It seems to depend on the sensitivity of the machinery. I’ve offered to go through naked, but always been turned down, as the operatives seemed to be scared of my body. It wouldn’t worry me, but then I’ve seen more naked bodies than most people have had cooked breakfasts. And I always ask for one of the girls to scan me up personally, but this wish has never been granted.
And I’ve said nothing about you having two screws against my single one (being an amateur, not a pro ;-))
I’ve seen some pretty bad jobs out there myself. One gal, you could see the creases in the implants (from the side) when she bent over and they hung out. Not appealing.
I’ve heard Brazillian doctors are miles ahead when it comes to making “natural” looking boobs. I don’t know if that’s true though – just something other guys have told me.
My wife is a “dance mom” – and there is something about “dance moms” and implants – they all want them. My wife doesn’t like the fact that her boobs don’t look like they did when she was 25. I don’t know – i still like them even though that’s true – they’re certainly a long way from being deflated.
Then again – I have never been a boob guy myself. I have dated everything from an “A-Cup” to a “Double D” or whatever and everything in between. Firm or floppy – I loved them all.
About the only time I thought there could be an improvement over what God installed was occasionally a thicker woman with small boobs – and implants could have helped the proportions. Other than that …
So they will come in illegally, at which point it will be called “trafficking”. What a bunch of idiots.
Exactly! Good point.
Danah Boyd wrote something a while ago that claimed that “most” sex workers are drug-addled abused victim types. I totally forget the link, but in the piece, she acknowledged that some sex workers like their jobs, but still insisted that the vast majority of us are abused and exploited. Fuck her.
That gives me my answer, then; obviously her statements on “predator panic” are a stopped-clock thing. 🙁
I think she’s one of those dime-a-dozen Alternet/Huffpo liberals who realizes that it’s in her political interest to throw an occasional bone to sex workers occasionally, but she knows that her (pageviews) bread is buttered on the side of trafficking and exploitation hype.
I had to dig up the link. Here’s danah boyd explaining the sex industry on HuffPo:
“If you live a privileged life, your exposure to prostitution may be limited to made-for-TV movies and a curious dip into the red-light district of Amsterdam. You are most likely lucky enough to never have known someone who was forced into prostitution, let alone someone who was sold by or stolen from their parents as a child. Perhaps if you live in San Francisco or Las Vegas, you know a high-end escort who has freely chosen her life and works for an agency or lives in a community where she’s highly supported. Truly consensual prostitutes do exist, but the vast majority of prostitution is nonconsensual, either through force or desperation. And, no matter how many hip-hop songs try to imply otherwise, the vast majority of pimps are abusive, manipulative, corrupt, addicted bastards.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danah-boyd/how-censoring-craigslist-_b_706789.html
A lot of sex workers were linking to this when it came out, which annoyed me. Yes, boyd agrees with us that shutting down Craigslist won’t stop forced sex trafficking, but she also paints us as forced victims in need of saving – from an enlightened upperclass white liberal like herself who wants to retrain us to work different jobs.
I honestly think some people just skim articles before they link them; they see “shut down Craigslist bad” and publicize away, missing the deeply bigoted and astonishingly ignorant content. And then I just want to shake them and scream, “READ this shit before you spread it around!”
According to boyd’s very loose parameters of nonconsensual prostitution, then I was definitely a nonconsensual retail worker (a “high-end” lingerie store) and a nonconsensual waitress (a “mid-range” restaurant). In places where I’m sure she and her equally enlightened upperclass liberal friends shop and eat without so much as a second look at the people servicing them.
Notice she colocates “through force” and “desparation”; and chooses words to convey an *absence* of choice.
The truth, if you get enough of a sample of actual prostitutes, is that the “coerced” ones are <1%, the "desparate" are *maybe* 20% (esp. those with drug addictions, for example, which tend to adversely influence good judgement and emphasise feeding the habit as the primary goal), and the *rest* are in the majority, exercising *their best choice of several options*.
The author finesses that away, presenting a full spectrum as “no choice”.
*gives sideye*.
I once read a libertarian science fiction that had both sex work and paganism. Though it was a war novel and the good, pagan, sex work positive heroes commit genocide level terror attacks for reasons that don’t really make a lot of sense.
Also they all used swords despite having space ship and firearms, and not just small back up swords, some had two handed swords or giant battleaxes. As an experienced Battlefield 3 player, I can assure you that mobility is key when using melee weapons in a gunfight and that swords simply add unnecessary weight. It is also an extremely bad idea to do that when bullets do more than lower your health by 25 percent.
The book is Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson.
…
Who did a cross over with John Ringo, who wrote… Let’s just that Kristof doesn’t write sex trafficking masturbation fantasies. I’ve seen what people write when they want to fantasize about rescuing underage sex slaves from evil brown people. It involves way more rewarding the hero with sex.
I didn’t realize how demonized male sexuality was until I started reading your blog. There is this one scene, just a few paragraphs and it’s probably the most horrifying thing I’ve ever read. And everybody skipped over it, laughing about how pandering it was to people who probably would never have any kind of healthy sex life. And nobody noticed it. I am not even sure it was all that far from reality. I have no idea how likely that would be to happen. I can’t say that some guy wouldn’t be turned on by that.
What bothers me more about that statue than the nekkid boobies or the fact that she seems to be in the early stages of sexting is the fact that SHE HAS NO FREAKING HEAD!
It’s not just that, Sailor… She’s been *chopped up*. Shudder.