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Archive for August, 2012

That Was the Week That Was (#32)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2012| 29 Comments »

The reality is that the law has made it more difficult for women in prostitution.  –  Anniken Hauglie

Down Under

You think we should tell this “lobby group” that Australian governments already know they’re lying, or just let them waste their money?  “A sex industry lobby group in Tasmania is pushing for the introduction of laws which penalise the clients of prostitutes…Dr Christy Giselsson from the Nordic Model Australian Coalition, says the group believes changing the focus of the legislation would reduce the demand for sex workers.  ‘For example in Sweden it’s been shown to halve street prostitution’…”  In any case, someone definitely needs to tell this reporter that Swedish Model proponents are NOT “sex industry lobby groups”.

Business Opportunity

Another example of politicians wasting other people’s money to fight a legal sex business:  “Fighting plans for a brothel at Narellan last year came at a cost of almost $60,000 for Camden Council but councillors described the battle as a fight they had to have…Mayor Greg Warren (pictured) said the council’s position to refuse the sex premises reflected the concerns of the community…owner Greg Hall said the money…could have been better spent on community projects.  ‘There are thousands of places it could have been spent than to waste it in court for a decision we all knew was going to get through anyway,’ he said…”

Saving Them From Themselves

Detroit school officials plan to fight the scourge of “sexting” by searching students’ phones and computers:

School officials in a Detroit suburb announced they may search student cell phones and laptops, in an effort to tackle the problem of teenage “sexting”…The rule did not result from any particular incident, but was “just a matter of being proactive,” [said] Rich Machesky, Troy’s assistant superintendent…Students could refuse a search request…in which case the district would contact the child’s parents instead…The ACLU is concerned over how broad the policy is and whether school officials would then hand off students’ phones to the police…While sexting is not illegal…kids who text can be prosecuted under child pornography laws and can be sentenced with 20 years in prison if convicted.  Even having sexually explicit photos on your phone is a four-year felony…

Because obviously nude pictures are far more dangerous to “children’s” lives than spending 20 years in prison.

They All Axed For You

Anyone who’s ever lived in New Orleans knows about Hubig Pies, tasty little treats which come in a large variety of flavors and put other commercial snack pastries to shame.  Unfortunately, their century-old factory burned down before dawn on July 27th and it may be quite some time before it’s rebuilt.  This video may be of interest to my readers because it provides an extended example of the “Yat” dialect spoken by a woman who sounds like a very typical New Orleans character.

Legal Is As Legal Does

Two stories from different Australian states demonstrating the weird situations that arise from legalization.  The first is from Queensland, and updates an item from the original column:  “A sex worker has won an anti-discrimination case against motel owners in a Queensland mining town who refused to rent her a room…[she] had stayed at the motel 17 times in two years until [the] owners…discovered…she was bringing clients to her room…[her] lawyer argued many people used the telephone or internet at the motel for business, and a bed was no different.”  The owners argued that the worker’s activities were “disturbing” other guests, which is of course nonsense if she had been there 17 times before without incident.  Furthermore, how is paid sex any more “disturbing” to other guests than giveaway sex?

The second item is from a town in Victoria, where sex work is legal but “brothels” (the term is defined so loosely it can mean virtually anything police want it to mean) must be licensed:

Police suspect an illegal brothel has been operating in a residential street…[in] Bendigo…[they] raided a house…and took a woman back to the station for questioning…“We believe she’s a sex worker involved in an illegal brothel at that address,” [a detective] said.  “We’re waiting for a Chinese interpreter to come so we can interview her”…[a neighbor] was concerned about the well-being of the [sex worker]…“She’s very friendly – a lovely young lady.”

According to a comment on the story, Bendigo is practically the only city in Victoria without a brothel, which may explain why its government feels the need to harass women on technicalities.

The More the Better

Perhaps one day we’ll arrive at the point where, “He was so desperate to raise money he actually opened a legal business!” sounds as ridiculous to most people as it does to me:

A New Zealander was so desperate to fund his dream to compete in the London 2012 Olympics that he opened a brothel…[after] Logan Campbell…lost his bid for Olympic glory in Beijing in 2008, he was too strapped for cash to take his [taekwondo] career to the next level and train full-time…So…to make the $200,000 he needed to go to London, he opened a 14-room brothel in Auckland.  Campbell…wants to repudiate the perception that he was a pimp selling women on a street corner.  New Zealand decriminalised prostitution in 2003.  “I sold the brothel so I don’t really want to talk about it now, OK?” he said.  “It’s a legal business in New Zealand.  It’s completely different from other countries in the world…No one was forced into the industry, and they’re not doing it because they are in poverty because we have a really good welfare system”…

Above the Law

It’s a start; now we need to work on getting similar sentences for the thousands of real cops who regularly do the same thing.  Note the incredible concluding sentence:  “A man who faked being a Texas law officer and demanded free sex from a prostitute has been sentenced to 35 years in prison…The woman submitted to [Raul Garza III] but later called police when he allegedly wanted suggestive photos of her 10-year-old daughter.  Garza…testified he never committed a crime and just refused to pay the prostitute.”

Finding What Isn’t There

Most of this overblown and sensationalistic article is just repetition of the usual “sex trafficking” myths and exaggerations combined with the characteristic cop-culture strutting and bragging, but it’s notable for the accusation that the Department of Justice is “ignoring child sex trafficking victims” because it isn’t creating enough of them to support the hysterical predictions.  That sound you hear is me clapping quite slowly.

Broken Record

While it’s nice to see an article actually leading off with the truth about sex work around major sporting events, I feel I must comment on this historian’s absurd exaggeration:

…Georgina Perry, who works at Open Doors, a support project…[for] East London prostitutes…says the Olympics are never good for the sex trade.  “All the studies show there’s no increase in sex workers,” she says of past Olympics…Gone, it seems, are the good old days for your average harlot when the best athletes gathered.  “Prostitution was a huge deal in the ancient Games,” says historian Tony Perrottet, author of The Naked Olympics:  The True Story of the Ancient Games.  The original festival attracted 40,000 sports fans — all male — to the remote religious sanctuary.  “Brothel owners … brought in teams of beautiful girls from around Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor.”  Any good prostitute would try to get to the Olympics, and earn in five days what would normally take her a year to make…

This is nothing but another permutation of the stupid “50 clients a night” idiocy.  It is simply not physically possible for any full-time whore to make in 5 days what she could make in 360, unless perhaps she came from some rural district where she usually only got one client a day, managed 12 per day at the Olympics (difficult but doable), and charged six times her usual fee.

Metaupdates

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#13)

Behold the lawhead psychosis in action:

Cash-strapped Nadya Suleman…has turned to various X-rated money-making ventures to help pay the bills – all with the encouragement of Orange County (Calif.) Child Protective Services.  “They’re on my side–they’re supporters,” Suleman [said]…“It’s ironic.  Once I talked with a CPS worker in regards to the adult stuff, she was like, ‘Are you really doing that?’  Well, it’s not illegal.  More power to you!’  So it was almost like a green light–like, ‘Do what you need to do to take care of your family’”…A rep for the Orange County…Social Services Agency…[said] “The law allows a wide latitude in parenting styles and in parenting vocations.  I don’t think that anybody would ever want it any other way.  So as long as children remain free from harm or danger…then the Social Services Agency would not become involved.”

Unless the mother is a whore, of course, which automatically makes her less fit than Octomom.

The Course of a Disease in TW3 (#26)

Norwegian study demonstrates that the Swedish Model causes “sex trafficking”:

Prior to the 2009 Sex Purchase Act, Norway had one of Europe’s smallest and least organized markets for prostitution.  Women…voluntarily…sold sex…without the interference from any pimp.  The introduction of the law has made this process more complicated, according to a report in the Stavanger Aftenblad…”The women are very vulnerable towards the police and to a greater extent on the network and support that pimps can offer,” said [researcher] Guri Tyldum…”The criminalization intended to demonstrate that prostitution is not wanted in Norway.  The risk is that the most dangerous and serious form of prostitution that remains,” she said…Norway’s Ministry of Justice has announced an evaluation of the sex purchase act.

This is not only what we’ve said for over a decade, it’s the inevitable result of putting the desire to “send a message” above the needs of real people.

The Notorious Badge in TW3 (#27)

Upon reading this I was irresistibly reminded of Sarah Woolley’s article:

I felt really exposed.  It didn’t hit me until the first moment where the scene called for me to expose myself, because what came over me was such shame.  Which was weird, because they weren’t my breasts, and it was what I had signed up to do….I started to cry, and if you look closely at those scenes when I’m opening my blouse, I’m smiling, but not in my eyes…I was just feeling really emotional and trying to hide it.

Boo fucking hoo.  Women like this (Jessica Alba is another one) piss me off to no end.  If you’re such a prudish twit you supposedly “cry” from partial nudity with FAKE TITS, I have a suggestion:  restrict yourself to playing nuns, and leave the sex worker parts to grown women.

Prudish Pedants in TW3 (#31)

Good news for Simon Walsh, but I have to wonder how this would have turned out had the same thing happened in America:

A man who was tried this week…for possessing images of “extreme” sexual acts has just been cleared on all counts…David Allen Green, solicitor and legal correspondent for the New Statesman, said:  “This was a shameful and intrusive prosecution which should never have been brought.  It was bad law to begin with, but a good man has had his sex life examined in open court for no good reason.  There are serious questions for the CPS to answer about bringing this prosecution.”

This Week in 2011

The bittersweet experience of “Leaving the Life”; “authorities” using their power to rape whores; “The New Victorianism”; the effects of defining everything as “violence against women” or “human trafficking”; what it looks like when individuals behave as “authorities” do; and the truth about “safe harbor” laws.

This Week in 2010

Cops’ weird anti-condom neurosis; “How To Be a Stupid, Greedy Whore”; why hookers should never let clients turn off the lights; how self-proclaimed “feminists” have been betraying women for 130 years; and a two-part column about regular clients.

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The Pearls Ain’t Free

Posted in Miscellaneous, Music, tagged , , , on August 10, 2012| 10 Comments »

The bars are temples but the pearls ain’t free.  –  Tim Rice, “One Night in Bangkok”

Doing the “Five Star Fridays” columns over at The Agitator last month inspired me to publish a new whore songs column, and recently watching several movies set in brothels inspired me to concentrate specifically on songs about them.  Previous columns featured “Texas Has a Whorehouse In It”,  “Next”, “La Grange” and “Midtown Asian Sex Spa”; in addition, “Take Off With Us” portrays a sort of airborne brothel.  But until now I’ve skipped what may be the most famous song about a brothel for the simple reason that the most popular version of it isn’t about a brothel at all.

The House of the Rising Sun, AKA Rising Sun Blues (Traditional)

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun.
It’s been the ruin of many a poor girl and me, O God, for one.
If I had listened what Mama said, I’d be at home today.
Being so young and foolish, poor boy, let a rambler lead me astray.
Go tell my baby sister never do like I have done
To shun that house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun.
My mother she’s a tailor, she sewed these new blue jeans.
My sweetheart, he’s a drunkard, Lord, Lord, drinks down in New Orleans.
The only thing a drunkard needs is a suitcase or a trunk.
The only time he’s satisfied is when he’s on a drunk.
Fills his glasses to the brim, passes them around.
Only pleasure he gets out of life is hoboin’ from town to town.
One foot is on the platform and the other one on the train.
I’m going back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain.
Going back to New Orleans, my race is almost run.
Going back to spend the rest of my days beneath that Rising Sun.

The song is quite old; its tune (and possibly its theme) go back to 18th century England, and the lyrics above date to the 19th-century American South.  The Animals’ version is of course the most famous, but it changes the singer’s gender and therefore necessarily the character of the House (which becomes a gambling den) and the drunkard (who becomes the singer’s father rather than lover).  Interestingly, enough people remembered the old lyrics that the reputation of the Rising Sun as a brothel persisted despite the fact that in the Animals version it certainly isn’t one.  Here’s the oldest known recording of the original version (made by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1937; the performer is a 16-year-old Kentucky girl named Georgia Turner).  And here’s the Dolly Parton version from 1981, with new lyrics to make the meaning more obvious.

Many people have wondered if there was ever a real New Orleans brothel named the Rising Sun, but the only answer I can give is a firm “maybe”.  City records list a “Rising Sun Hotel” at 535 Conti Street, which opened in 1801 and burned down in 1822; archaeologists excavating the site in 2005 discovered a large number of makeup containers and liquor bottles, and a document search revealed an 1820 newspaper ad recommending the place to “discerning gentlemen”.  The guidebook Bizarre New Orleans claims that the brothel was at 1614 Esplanade Avenue, ran from 1862 to 1874 and derived its name from its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant (Mary Ann Rising Sun).  One final candidate is 826-830 St. Louis Street; workmen restoring the building in the late 1980s discovered vintage postcards of semi-nude women and a ceiling mural of a rising sun with three cherubs.  The owner, Darlene Levy, says “the house was a bordello operated by a succession of different madams for many years” before her husband bought it, but has no records to back up the claim.

The most famous New Orleans brothels were those in Storyville, and this song (as featured in the movie New Orleans) dramatizes the closing of the district by Executive Order from Woodrow Wilson in 1917:

Farewell To Storyville (Clarence Williams)

All you old-time queens, from New Orleans, who lived in Storyville
You sang the blues, tried to amuse, here’s how they pay the bill
The law step in and call it sin to have a little fun
The police car has made a stop and Storyville is done

Pick out your steamboat, pick yourself a train
(a slo-ow train)
Pick out your steamboat, pick yourself a train
(a slo-ow train)
They made you close-up they’ll never let you back
(won’t let you back)
Go buy your ticket or else you walk the track

No use complaining, blue skies follow rain
(the cold old rain)
No use complaining, blue skies follow rain
(the cold old rain)
Just say farewell now and get your one last thrill
(your one last thrill)
Just say farewell now, farewell to Storyville

(No use complaining, blue skies follow rain)
(the cold old rain)
(No use complaining, blue skies follow rain)
(the cold old rain)
(Just say farewell now and get your one last thrill)
(your one last thrill)
(Just say farewell now, farewell to Storyville)

Finally, here’s another song from Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel; the brothel described herein is not a real one, but rather a product of the singer’s rather megalomaniacal imagination.  This song was banned from the BBC in 1967 because of the drug references and the line, “authentic queers and phony virgins”.

Jacky (Jacques Brel; translated by Mort Shuman)

And if one day I should become
A singer with a Spanish bum
Who sings for women of great virtue
I’d sing to them with a guitar
I borrowed from a coffee bar
Well, what you don’t know doesn’t hurt you
My name would be Antonio
And all my bridges I would burn
And if I gave them some they’d know
I expect something in return
I’d have to get drunk every night
To talk about virility
With some old grandmother who might
Be decked out like a Christmas tree
And though pink elephants I’d see
Though I’d be drunk as I could be
I’d sing the song they sang to me
About the time they called me Jackie
If I could be for only an hour
If I could be for an hour every day
If I could be for just one little hour
Cute, cute, cute in a stupid-ass way!

And if I joined the social whirl
Became procurer of young girls
Then I would have my own bordellos
My record would be number one
And I’d sell records by the ton
All sung by many other fellows
My name would then be Handsome Jack
And I’d sell boats of opium
Whiskey that came from Twickenham
Authentic queers and phony virgins
I’d have a bank on every finger
A finger in every country
And every country ruled by me
I still know where I’d want to be
Locked up inside my opium den
Surrounded by some Chinamen
I’d sing the song that I sang then
About the time they called me Jackie
If I could be for only an hour
If I could be for an hour every day
If I could be for just one little hour
Cute, cute, cute in a stupid-ass way!

Now, tell me wouldn’t it be nice
That if one day in Paradise
I sang for all the ladies up there?
And they would sing along with me
We’d be so happy there to be
‘Cause down below is really nowhere
My name would then be Jupiter
And I would know where I was going
And then I would become all knowing
And my beard so long and flowing
If I became deaf, dumb and blind
Because I pitied all mankind
And broke my heart to make things right
I know that every single night
When my angelic work was through
The angels and the devil too
Would sing my childhood song to me
About the time they called me Jackie
If I could be for only an hour
If I could be for an hour every day
If I could be for just one stinkin’ hour
Cute, cute, cute in a stupid-ass way!

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Whatever They Need To Say

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2012| 27 Comments »

They use thought only to justify their injustices, and speech only to disguise their thoughts.  –  Voltaire

It’s easy to tell when a crusade of some sort is based in hate, bigotry, greed or other motivations the crusaders prefer to hide:  supporters of the exact same campaign in different times and places invent widely-varying justifications for the same meddling and harassment, and those excuses often directly contradict one another.  I don’t need to tell regular readers that anti-whore schemes are a perfect example; with the rise of secularism in the 19th century Protestant interpretations of Christian morality were no longer sufficient grounds for persecuting consensual sexual activity, so the prohibitionists came up with all sorts of “objective” and even “scientific” excuses for the bans:

…Some argued that all whores were driven to the trade by extreme privation or forced into it by pimps, while others claimed it was due to “laziness” and a desire to avoid “real work”.  But the most popular view of all was that whores were atavisms, throwbacks to a more primitive human type…since prostitutes were primitive they were also stupid, and thus incompetent to make their own decisions; this of course was used to excuse tyranny like the Contagious Disease Acts…because the government could claim it was forced to arrest, incarcerate and “rehabilitate” prostitutes “for their own good”… Except for the modern replacement of “nature” arguments (whores are born defective) with “nurture” arguments (whores are made defective early in life by sexual abuse), the propaganda is [still the same]…non-prostitutes with no personal experience of normal female sexuality…claim that it’s impossible for a normal woman to choose prostitution, and that all of us are driven to it by extreme privation or forced into it by “pimps” or “traffickers” …we are all victims of child abuse or rape, all drug addicts, blah blah blah.  Many prohibitionists openly call us stupid, selfish and neurotic, and even the ones who don’t insist that we’re incompetent to make our own decisions…

The false and arbitrary nature of such claims are particularly obvious when cops talk about the issue, because so many of them can’t seem to make up their minds about which paradigm to use; the results are sometimes hilarious and, one would imagine, embarrassing to the more intelligent sort of prohibitionist:

Deputies arrest[ed] a [touring escort from Canada as]…part of a continuing effort to crack down on what many don’t realize is a dangerous crime…Lt. Chris Reeves with the vice-narcotics unit [said]…“we get a lot of calls from, people’s husbands, daughters, wives that are not working the streets that have to walk to get groceries are getting solicited for sex from these Johns that are roaming the area…People think it’s a victimless crime, however when they are taking HIV, hepatitis home to their spouses or their significant others, that’s a big crisis.”  Reeves says some of the prostitutes are victims of human trafficking.  “A lot of them are beaten and abused.  A lot of these are young girls that have gotten hooked on drugs”…

Reeves can’t seem to make up his mind about whether escorts are ruthless gangsters or pathetic victims, not to mention his conflation of touring escorts with streetwalkers and the “diseased whore” myth thrown in as well.  Large American police departments have mostly shifted to the “victim” model in order to capitalize on the “sex trafficking” hysteria, but it’s somewhat different in Bangladesh:

The red light district in Madaripur city is thought to have been in operation for at least 150 years, and the sex workers believe [a] sudden wave of protests [has been] orchestrated by developers trying to take over the valuable land.  Last month, about 10,000 people led by a new Muslim group called Islahe Kaom Parishad (the National Reform Council) rallied outside the rambling complex to call for it to be shut down and the 500 sex workers evicted…It is legal as it dates back to before Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, but is now being targeted by hardline activists…[who are] lobbying city authorities on the grounds that the brothel corrupts the town’s young men and must be razed.  Sex workers believe the activists are organised by businessmen linked to local politicians, and they report a campaign of intimidation including an explosive device found recently on the site and two attempted arson attacks.

“We told the authorities that we won’t leave the place.  Our job is lawful.  We also don’t have any underage sex workers here,” said Momo Rani Karmakar, head of the Madaripur sex workers’ union.  “We’ve inherited the place from our grandmothers, some of them are still alive.  We are like a family here.  It’s a conspiracy to grab our land worth [hundreds of thousands of dollars],” she said…government officials say any final decision on redevelopment is still pending.  A committee, led by the regional deputy administrator, has been set up and has tried to open talks to encourage rehabilitation of the sex workers…But the sex workers told AFP that they don’t want to leave or switch to other jobs…[they] allege that the real reason behind the protests is the ambitions of a prominent Muslim family who are already erecting a multi-storied building next to the brothel.  The Parishad group deny such claims and say they are acting to protect Islamic morals.  “The brothel is the main source of criminal activity in the region,” group secretary Ali Ahmed Chowdhury told AFP.  “It runs illegal wine shops.  Under-aged girls are bought and sold and it’s a big source of the drug trade.  It’s shameful work.  It is not a profession”…

Though Western-style trafficking rhetoric is tacked on at the end there, it’s clearly an afterthought to the main excuse that evil harlots are corrupting the public morals.  In the end, the excuse doesn’t matter; whether the motivation is furtherance of anti-life, vengeance for imagined wrongs or just plain greed, prohibitionists will say whatever they need to say to trick others into going along with their personal jihad.

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Childish Things

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2012| 42 Comments »

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
–  1 Corinthians 13:11

The human race as a whole has developed and grown, just as an individual human develops; this growth is reflected not only in the accumulated wisdom of our species and the level of our collective behavior, but also in the number of individuals capable of mature thought.  I’m sure that even in the most ancient times there were isolated individuals who were vastly more morally developed than their fellows, and as they lived and taught or recorded their thoughts they were able to pass their wisdom on to be absorbed and built upon by the wise and perceptive of later generations.  But it’s also true that many humans still function at a very childish level, and since the insecure need to control others is one of the most primitive and immature of human traits it is inevitable that the least developed of humans are disproportionately represented in positions of power.  Another large fraction function in a sort of moral adolescence:  they are able to grasp some mature concepts quite well, yet in other areas are still hopelessly childish.

Take tribalism, for example; far too many people are unable to function as free individuals and so seek identity as a small part of some greater whole.  Some accept a ready-made identity as part of whatever race, class, religion or ethnicity they were born into, or in some cases fell into by virtue of genes or chance (the GLBT community, the disabled community, etc); others adopt some other subculture, religion, party or “-ism” later in life.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with taking pride in one’s heritage, or enthusiastically embracing a cause, group or philosophy; what I’m talking about are those people whose individuality, if they had any to start with, vanishes wholly into the group identity so that they scarcely have a thought or publicly-stated belief which is not included in the group’s scriptures or passed out like cheap adhesive name tags by its leadership.  Such people never notice the inconsistencies in their prepackaged doctrines, and if the leaders’ positions change over time you can bet the rank and file will parrot the new catechism with equal enthusiasm.  Furthermore, they will attack those they are told are their ideological enemies even in areas where their beliefs approach or even overlap those of the “enemy”; anyone who has ever read any comment threads on Huffington Post will understand what I’m talking about.  Philosophical consistency means no more to this sort of person than the fact that he has no real personal stake in “his” team means to the rabid sports fan; what is important is the group identity as a Christian, Democrat, feminist, etc.

Worse and more foolish still is the belief that a nonhuman thing, either material or immaterial, can be “bad”.  Like children or primitive people who ascribe magical properties to “lucky” or “taboo” objects, rituals or even cracks in the sidewalk, all too many moderns imagine that plant matter or technological devices can be intrinsically evil; that certain words or images can be literally harmful to children or even to grown men and women; that the mere action of taking a photograph of a naked person (or in some cases, even a clothed child) is intrinsically inimical; that certain forms of human interaction can mystically harm the participants even if they freely choose to engage in the activity and suffer no physical damage; that magical vestments or talismans can grant power over other people or absolve the wearer of moral culpability for his actions; that official pronouncements from anointed leaders can make things vanish; and even that being given a spell-scroll of one variety can make a “dangerous” action into a beneficial one, while being given a different kind of rune-inscribed parchment can make an innocuous action evil.  Worst of all, those who reject the taboos of other identity groups never even think to question those of their own group, no matter how much alike they appear to the dispassionate observer.

No matter how much the human race matures, there will always be some individuals who believe in this kind of nonsense, but that’s OK; problems only arise when the children in power hire armed thugs to confine everyone else in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with them.  Once we had a set of rules we all agreed to live by, but somewhere along the line the bullies started to cheat and everyone else was either too scared, too involved in their partisan squabbles or too invested in the system to say anything about it, so here we are.  None of us, no matter how dispassionate or logical, is entirely free of irrational beliefs, and because we are all different there will always be a plethora of those beliefs.  That’s why we should all insist that laws, public policies and official actions be based on facts rather than faith, and reason rather than emotion; though we will still disagree on the interpretation of those facts (and even, in many cases, what they are), such conflicts are inescapably tethered to the concrete in a way that hogwash about evil weeds, cursed weapons and unholy words could never be.  It’s time to set aside childish things, and start dealing with one another like grownups.

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The Lion and the Ox

Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 7, 2012| 32 Comments »

One law for the lion and ox is oppression.  –  William Blake

Concepts based in reality tend to be specific; the terms used to describe those concepts are for the most part unambiguous, and tests can be designed to determine if some object or phenomenon falls into the sphere delineated by the term.  But politics is based in emotional manipulation, not reality; those who invent political agendas want them to be as vague and elastic as possible so that any person or thing opposed by those behind the agenda can easily be fit into the paradigm without having to redesign it and risk triggering skepticism in those who are to be led.  “Human trafficking” is just such a framework, which is why it should be rejected by thinking people everywhere.  It’s true that some people use it to mean one very tight, clear-cut concept, but they are a small minority among the millions who use it to mean nearly anything they want it to mean.  Today we’re going to look at the various people and actions which are routinely crammed into the “human trafficking” circus tent; some people use the term to mean only some of these things, while others use it to mean others and some use it for any and all of them, and there’s never any way of knowing what any given speaker is thinking.

All of the following are referred to as “human trafficking” by one group or another:

1)  Women crossing borders to work without proper documentation.
2)  Transporting people across a border illegally.
3)  Transporting undocumented immigrants within a country.
4)  Providing forged papers or otherwise facilitating illegal migration.
5)  Helping migrants to find someone who can transport them or otherwise facilitate migration.
6)  Recruiting people to work in another country, whether honestly or dishonestly.
7)  Lending money for migration, whether at a fair rate or a usurious one.
8)  Hiring undocumented migrants, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
9)  Helping undocumented migrants to find work.
10) Giving advice to undocumented migrants on any issue involving transportation, employment or avoiding “authorities”.
11) In countries with some legal form of prostitution, hiring any foreign sex worker.
12) Performing any illegal form of sex work.
13) Owning any kind of illegal or semi-legal sex business, even where no coercion exists.
14) Patronizing any kind of illegal sex business.
15) To prohibitionists, any kind of sex work at all, or running or patronizing any sexually-oriented business, even where such businesses are legal.
16) Under some legalization and criminalization regimes, providing work space, living quarters or transportation to prostitutes even if they are working legally.
17) Under the Swedish model, hiring a legal prostitute.
18) Interacting with an underage prostitute in any way other than reporting her to the police.
19) Abducting someone into an exploitative situation, except under color of law; if police or members of “anti-trafficking” NGOs lie, trick, intimidate, rob, beat, torture, chain, transport, cage and rape sex workers it is referred to as “rescue” rather than “trafficking”.
20) Marriage brokering.
21) Arranging surrogate motherhood contracts.
22) “Sex tourism”, even if the sex seller is not a full-time prostitute or receives gifts instead of cash.
23) Anything a prosecutor can shoehorn into the local law, including kidnapping or attempted rape.

I’m sure there are others, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.  Similarly, “trafficked persons” can mean any of the following:

1)  Voluntary migrants who cross borders to work illegally on their own or with the assistance of peers.
2)  Voluntary migrants who cross borders to work illegally, with the assistance of smugglers or other facilitators; whether these contracts are fair or openly exploitative by Western standards (yet often no worse than those of some legal American businesses), and whether their recruitment methods are honest or dishonest, are immaterial to the “trafficking” paradigm.
3)  Voluntary migrants who cross borders to work legally, but then become “illegal” through some kind of change in condition and continue to work illegally, with or without the help of facilitators.
4)  Voluntary adult sex workers, either domestic or foreign, with or without management of any kind.
5)  Women who come into a country on valid visas and then do sex work on the side or leave the exploitative and woefully-underpaid (but legal) work they came in to do for the higher wages and vastly better conditions of sex work.
6)  Female gang members of any age who do any kind of sex work.
7)  Underage sex workers of any kind, with or without management, coercion or even transport.
8)  People who are tricked or abducted into some kinds of exploitative labor.
9)  Surrogate mothers.
10) Women who enter arranged or “mail-order” marriages.
11) People who have sex with tourists in exchange for cash,  gifts or expensive entertainment.

And all of the following are referred to as “human traffickers”:

1)  People who provide transportation or other facilitation to voluntary illegal migrants, whether their arrangements are fair or exploitative, mutually beneficial or coercive.
2)  People who trick or abduct others into exploitative work without government permission to do so.
3)  Migrants who help or give advice to other migrants.
4)  People who hire undocumented immigrants.
5)  Husbands or other adult male companions of female migrants.
6)  Brothel or escort service owners under criminalization regimes or legalization regimes which prohibit such businesses; to prohibitionists, all brothel or service owners.
7)  Pimps, including non-exploitative ones.
8)  Anyone without a badge who transports any illegal sex worker from one place to another.
9)  Under criminalization or the Swedish model, any client of a prostitute.
10) Under some legalization regimes, two or more prostitutes who work together for safety.
11) Couples who hire surrogate mothers.
12) Tourists who have sex with locals.

Yet, all of these things are supposed to be described by one paradigm, and that one is commonly referred to as “slavery” by many of its proponents; they also tend to claim that “trafficking” is controlled by vast criminal cartels despite a total lack of evidence for such a far-reaching conspiracy.  This is like calling everything from a tricycle to the space shuttle a “ship”; the term is so vague, so flexible, so nonspecific that the listener cannot be sure what the speaker actually means when he uses it…which is exactly what those who promote the hysteria want.

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August Movies

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| 16 Comments »

…and then they all went to the seashore.  –  Ilya (Melina Mercouri)

We recently watched several movies, three of which were sent to me as gifts by readers (I picked up the last one on a double-feature disc at Big Lots for $3).  If you’re interested in seeing other reviews I’ve done in the past two years, take a look at my filmography page.

Never On Sunday (1960)  Ilya is the most popular whore in Piraeus, the port of Athens; she entertains the sailors by swimming near the ships, and every Sunday she has an open house with music and food for her friends and clients.  She loves her life until she meets Homer Thrace, a moralistic American busybody who views her as a symbol for the decline of Greece and sets about trying to “save” her, with his efforts bankrolled by a local landlord who would love to see Ilya out of the business so she stops trying to organize the other whores in a rent strike against him.  My description cannot possibly do this movie justice; you just have to see it for yourself.  It’s one of those films that just makes you feel good, and unlike most American films on the subject it does not end with the “rescue” of the “fallen woman”, but rather a declaration that Ilya and her life are just fine as they are.  Highly recommended!

New Orleans  (1947)  This movie is worth seeing for the performances by jazz greats including Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, “Kid” Ory and Woody Herman, but it could’ve been so very much better than it was that I just can’t give it a good review.  First of all, though the first half of the movie takes place in Storyville, the face and fate of the District is whitewashed (both figuratively and literally).  The film tries to make it seem as though the District was mostly casinos and music clubs with prostitution as but one seedy component (that the other businesspeople look down on); in reality the music and bars revolved around the brothels.  Here, the District is closed down by local pressure from “society” snobs; in reality, most New Orleanians were happy with the system and the pressure was externally applied by the prudish Secretary of the Navy.  And though the story should’ve been about the inhabitants of Storyville it’s instead a sort of “Lady and the Tramp” thing where a Yankee opera singer falls in love with the “scoundrel” club owner.  And though I love the song “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans”, once or twice would’ve been enough.

Pretty Baby  (1978)  This movie, which presents a far more realistic view of life in Storyville than New Orleans does, is a perfect example of how much more repressive and anti-sexual our culture has become; there is simply no way it could be made in the United States today.  12-year-old Brooke Shields is Violet, the daughter of a prostitute who was born and raised in a brothel; though her virginity is auctioned off at the end of the first act it’s made clear that she was working before that, though “only for French” as her mother (Susan Sarandon) tells a client.  And does this life “destroy” her or make her into a pathetic, empty husk of a girl?  Nope; her life is normal to her, and her loss of virginity a rite of passage which is celebrated by the whores and the other kids alike.  The beauty of the movie is that it is neither judgmental nor glamorized; director Louis Malle presents the events dispassionately and leaves the viewer to make his own judgments about the relative morality of the people and events depicted therein.  All in all, a much better film than I expected, and if Brooke Shields had continued to develop her acting skills from the extraordinary promise and screen presence she displays here, she would’ve become a superstar rather than a relatively minor actress.

Taste the Blood of Dracula  (1970)  The 4th Hammer Dracula film begins with an extended scene in which three respectable gentlemen visit an exclusive brothel and meet the disinherited son of a nobleman who dabbles in black magic, but appears to mostly use it for supporting himself by playing pimp.  The three have a sort of secret club dedicated to experiencing every exciting, forbidden thing they can think of, and the pimp promises to show them a black mass but in reality tricks them into reviving Dracula from the powder into which he crumbled after his destruction at the end of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.  As in most of the Hammer Dracula outings, Christopher Lee has so few lines he probably memorized them in ten minutes and the plot is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese; furthermore, the ending of this one is almost completely inexplicable.  But as usual, the sets and costumes are gorgeous, the women more so, and the sexual undertones are…well, if you like Hammer films, you already know.

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Ghost of the Agitator

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2012| 44 Comments »

Freedom and whores are the most cosmopolitan items under the sun. – Georg Büchner

Well, I’m done with my guest blogging gig at The Agitator; the August crew started on Wednesday, and there will be a third group in September.  It was a great experience for me; though it meant a lot of extra work, it allowed me an opportunity to get the message out to a much larger crowd than usual.  Radley suggested I use the opportunity to plug my blog as well, and that worked out fabulously:  I broke traffic records three times in the first week of guest blogging, and the high point now stands at 4959 visits on July 10th (which was quite a nice anniversary present!)  Some of those turned into new regular readers, to whom I bid a warm welcome; I think y’all are going to enjoy it here.

Speaking of enjoyment, I discovered a new source of it while guest blogging:  constructing links columns.  Radley does one nearly every day, so I continued his tradition by publishing three of them a week; as you may have noticed over the past few Sundays, I had fun thinking of “teaser” phrases intended to make y’all curious enough to click the links.  So much fun, in fact, that I’m loath to give it up, so I won’t; as part of my gradual decrease in workload I will henceforth post a links column each Sunday.  This will not replace the “That Was the Week That Was” columns, but will instead act as a supplement to them; the items featured there will mostly be non-hookery things I found interesting that week, and a few sex work items presented without much comment.  If you’ve enjoyed the last few Sunday columns, these will be more of the same except presented without introductory comments in most cases.  And since I can compose the columns during the week while going about my usual internet-canvassing, I can essentially decrease my workload by 14% while still giving y’all a column every day and providing fodder for interesting comment threads.

I only published one new column over there this week, “The Differences That Aren’t”; it’s an answer to those who feel I’m being disingenuous when I say that sex is no different from any other human activity.  I also published two links columns, whose contents are below:

And last but not least, here are a few items I’ve collected since Tuesday:

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That Was the Week That Was (#31)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2012| 50 Comments »

The technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.  –  Eric Hoffer

Celebrities

I’m very glad I never had this kind of celebrity as a client:

…[a] woman [called] Tiffany told TMZ she had “no issues” with [accused Aurora spree killer James] Holmes…”He was really nice…He felt bad that I wasn’t getting more customers while in Colorado, so he called a few days later and we met up again”

Hooker Humor

I could just as well have filed this one as “The More the Better”:

…Miranda Kane is…telling her tales of life as an escort…“My past career was comedy – I am just new to standing up and telling people about it,” she said.  The 31-year-old certainly has enough material to draw from for Coin Operated Girl…“I was really big – about 25 stone – and I was never without a date,” she explains.  But it would never go further than just one night.  “For men, it is like riding a moped.  You really want to ride one but you would be embarrassed if your friends saw you”…when the recession hit – which led to the market being flooded with women offering similar services – combined with a loss of weight, she decided it was time for a career change…it is not just the chance to hear a modern take on the world’s oldest career which should bring people through the doors, but the chance to save a bit of money…“It’s £145 cheaper an hour than my normal rate,” she smiles.  Coin Operated Girl at the Camden People’s Theatre from Monday, August 6, until Wednesday, August 8, at 9pm…

O, Canada!

Though increasing numbers of Canadians support decriminalization, many Canadian politicians are just as disgusting and dishonest as their American brethren:

The war against human traffickers that prey on our youth is now out in the open.  Those profiting from the recruitment of…women and girls into the sex trade…[are] targeting Canadian high school students since they can no longer import young women from abroad to sexually exploit…Many of these victims are terrified to talk about the reality of their experiences, and are effectively muzzled by coaching, manipulation and abuse…All around the globe…women and girls are forced into…the sex industry through coercion, threats, deception, or fraud…The average age of entry into prostitution in Canada is between 12 and 14 years of age.  It’s impossible to believe that these young girls and boys are making a rational choice to sell their bodies to 20-40 men a night…Canadians must send a strong message to the pimps…that our children will not be bought or sold.

It’s good to see the claims of these fanatics growing ever more extreme, bizarre and impossible; when the hysteria is over their fall will be that much harder.

HIV-Positive Man Cured in Berlin

…Two men…[with] HIV and cancer have been seemingly cleared of the virus…more than two years after receiving bone marrow transplants, HIV can’t be detected anywhere in their bodies.  These two new cases are reminiscent of the so-called “Berlin patient,” the only person known to have been cured of [HIV] infection…Both men…endured…treatment for lymphoma, both had stem cell treatments and both had stayed on their HIV drugs throughout… The donor cells, it appears, killed off and replaced the infected cells.  And the HIV drugs protected the donor cells while they did it…

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea

When will people learn that governments’ use of laws always exceeds the stated purpose of those laws?

Four sex workers from [New Delhi]…have challenged a government eviction order…”There is thus no legislative guidance on the implementation of [the anti-brothel law, so]…absolute discretion is vested on the police administration…[which] has resulted in arbitrariness in action and abuse of power and authority”…the women claimed that they had been staying in the area for decades and not involved in business of running any brothel…”The act never intended to penalise prostitution per se, except in public places…but aimed at curbing…organised prostitution,” the petition said…

Counterfeit Comfort

People are condemned to the “sex offender” registry for many trivial offenses or things that shouldn’t even be crimes, but this is Kafkaesque even by those standards:

In May 2007, my husband and I were asked to assist an acquaintance in putting down a 14-year-old dog…the [owner’s] teenaged daughter…protested the plan vehemently…the day before the planned euthanasia, [police said] the girl had accused him of touching her…since [then] we’ve been fighting a legal system that, without notice, has curtailed our ability to travel, to obtain life insurance, even to petition for redress…police needed no corroboration for the charge; the accusation alone was sufficient, and jail time…was expected…a private investigator…proved the accuser wrong.  But…with a minor, it’s all inadmissible…the county [said it] would accept a no-contest plea, but that my husband would still be a registered sex offender for at least 10 years and possibly for the rest of his life.  If he didn’t take it, a court date would be set in five to six months, and some jail time would be expected.  We were given five minutes to decide.  My husband pleaded no contest…

Since then, the Devoys have had to endure constantly-escalating registration requirements and finally started an organization called Reform Sex Offender Laws of Virginia.

Surplus Women

This happened three years ago, but was called to my attention by Krulac last week; just imagine the uproar if he had said “woman” instead of “hooker”.  But you know, NHI and all.

See No Evil

The sick American mind at work again, seeing sex where it isn’t and imagining that pictures are magically dangerous to their subjects:

…Lauren Ferrari posted a photo on Facebook of her 5-year-old pretending to nurse her 2-year-old.  Within 24 hours, Facebook took the picture down…Stefanie Thomas of the Seattle Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children…[opined] that Ferrari’s decision to post the photo was “poor parenting” because it’s impossible to control where that photo might end up…it wasn’t the first time the site has deleted photos of young girls pretending to breastfeed…Last summer…[alarmists] were outraged [about a nursing doll they claimed]…sexualizes children…Tessa Blake…  [argues] it is natural for girls to mimic their moms.  “My daughter has been lifting up her shirt and ‘nursing’ her babies for years.  Are you suggesting this is shameful?  What if she feeds her doll with a bottle?  Is she not being a kid then, or is it just the breast that’s the problem?” Blake asked…


Presents, Presents, Presents!

A big “thank you” to regular reader Pat Murphy, who sent me a copy of Ronald Weitzer’s new book Legalizing Prostitution.  I still don’t know the screen name or contact info of the reader who sent me Prince of Darkness, so whoever it was please let me know!

The Course of a Disease

Though few politicians support it, “sex trafficking” fetishists have succeeded in exposing Denmark to the Swedish rot.  Sex worker advocates there are reasonably confident that it hasn’t a chance, so what makes this article notable is the reporter’s attitude:

…despite a report from Norway showing that making it illegal to buy sex in that country…has not resulted in a decrease the number of sex workers…[and has made them] the victims of more violence…[a] parliamentary group…remains focused on criminalising the sex for hire business…”Making it illegal to be a john is a baseless ideological process,” [said] Christian Groes-Green, an assistant professor at Roskilde University…”If they are having problems dealing with real political issues, bringing back the sex debate is just good politics”…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs

“Sri Lanka police will conduct surprise raids on hotels and guest houses in the country to detect whether underage children are used for prostitution and other sexual acts…”  Because, hey, who cares about property rights and tourists’ privacy?  It’s for the children!

Prudish Pedants

In the UK as in the US, some porn is arbitrarily deemed illegal due to a vague and wavering line; in Britain it’s “extreme pornography”, defined as “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character” or if it portrays “an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals”:

…the Crown Prosecution Service…[argues] that images of fisting should be classified as “extreme pornography” with the risk to the defendant of three years in custody [and] inclusion on the sex offenders’ register…for [an] image…of [a legal] activity…the Prosecution must prove that the act of fisting is “likely to result in serious injury to a person’s anus”…Before being arrested and charged with these offences, Simon [Walsh] was a successful professional and politician…who, amongst other things, prosecuted police officers accused of disciplinary offences.  After being charged, Simon lost both professional and political positions, despite the fact that no pornography was found on any of his work…[or] home computers…the police had to “interrogate” Simon’s personal email account (server) in order to discover a few images they deemed questionable.  This…contaminated the only source of evidence; making it impossible to identify whether images attached to emails had in fact been opened and viewed…

Note the emphasized line, especially in light of the fact that the images were in an incoming email and may not have been opened.  In other words, it’s highly likely that the police simply sent the images to him, then pretended to “find” the “evidence” as they do with planted drugs.

Whorearchy

Only other peoples’ kind of sex work is bad!  Ours isn’t even sexual!

The owner of a Saskatoon exotic dancing business [argues that]…the new…licensing bylaw for adult services…is discriminatory.  “We provide entertainment, not sexual favours,” said Bella Kaje, owner of KJ’s Party Favors…”I don’t like what they’re categorizing us with…and…these obscene amounts (for a licence) is more…discrimination” …An adult service agency licence…will cost $500 [plus] $200 for each renewal…[then] $250, plus $100 for each renewal, for [each] performer…[or employee, including] drivers and receptionists…

Meanwhile, across the pond:  “Council officials say they will check up on a new ‘tantric temple’ centre which offers clients massages from women in G-strings…owners are insisting that no sexual services will be carried out…”  Because erotic massages from naked people aren’t sexual services.

Gingerbread House

Birds of a feather, and all that:  “Jerry Sandusky’s ‘The Second Mile’ wants to divert…$2 million dollars in assets…to the Arrow Child and Family Ministry…[in order to prevent] victims from seeking to liquidate his organization’s assets as civil cases are pursued against him…”

Metaupdates

Wise Investment in TW3 (#23)

Yet another gun to the internet’s head is turned aside:

…Section 230 says that websites aren’t liable for third party content…[and has therefore] become the foundation for the entire user-generated content industry…Despite [the] enormous social benefits…state legislators [frequently] consider enacting laws that conflict with Section 230…the Washington state legislature enacted one such law in an overzealous effort to shut down online child prostitution…[but] in Backpage and Internet Archive v. McKenna…a federal judge rejected the Washington legislature’s efforts, turning the case into a major victory for…user-generated content…

This Week in 2011

The erosion of “innocent until proven guilty”, a short biography of the Athenian hetaera Aspasia, and a Canadian town buys a strip club; also, answers to questions about “doggie style”, what happens when a client finishes quickly and whether a whore and client can ever be friends.  “August Updates (Part One)” contains items about a book of vulva pictures, cops harassing strippers and streetwalkers, and the beginning of decriminalization in India; “Part Two” discusses invented “sex trafficking” victims, rising STI rates in older amateurs and South Korean whores fighting for their rights.

This Week in 2010

“Genesis of a Harlot” is the three-part story of how I slowly grew toward sex work and “The Only Working Girl in New Orleans” the three-part story of what happened after Hurricane Katrina; “Phryne” was a famous Athenian hetaera, and “Whores and Wives” discusses the varied reactions wives have to discovering their husbands have employed hookers.

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Shift in the Wind

Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 3, 2012| 21 Comments »

When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong.  The minority are right. – Eugene V. Debs

Did you feel the wind on sex worker rights change direction last week?  Because it did, for the better and perhaps for the foreseeable future.  It’s been a long time coming; the internet has made blogs like this one and many others possible, and platforms like Twitter have given a voice to sex workers who find writing difficult, and exposed readers who might never have visited a blog like this one to those voices.  To be sure, it’s also given the prohibitionists another way to spread their lies far and wide, but given that they already had the mainstream media it’s been far less of a boon to them as it has been to us.

But people still have a way of not listening until the existence of a problem is shoved into their faces, all too often by tragedy.  In Canada and the UK, murders and other violence against sex workers have pushed reasonable people (and even many unreasonable ones) toward decriminalization, but in the United States it seems to be AIDS which is doing the job.  Many health officials have been pointing out for decades that criminalization encourages the spread of HIV, and though prohibitionists have tried to hijack that message toward the Swedish Model, “sex trafficking” hysteria and “end demand” charlatanry, decriminalization has slowly become the default position among health officials, even in countries with full or partial criminalization regimes.  This trend culminated just a few weeks ago in a UNAIDS commission of experts in health and health law recommending absolute decriminalization of sex work and the sex industry everywhere, thus repudiating criminalization, legalization, the Swedish model, the Nevada model and all other such schemes at one stroke.

Shortly after the release of that report came the International AIDS Conference, whose leaders were clearly embarrassed and apologetic for the United states’ high-handed and asinine refusal to allow sex worker delegates into the country to attend the gathering; the executive director of UNAIDS said it was “outrageous…[that] when we have everything to beat this epidemic, we still have to fight prejudice, stigma, discrimination, exclusion, criminalization.”  An American politician, Representative Barbara Lee of California, actually fought to have sex workers allowed at the conference, and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said, “If we’re going to beat AIDS, we can’t afford to avoid sensitive conversations, and we can’t fail to reach the people who are at the highest risk.”  Clinton is no supporter of sex worker rights; though she has often used the term “sex worker” rather than the prohibitionist term “prostituted woman”, she has also been as ardent a promoter of “trafficking” hysteria as anyone.  But she is a political animal, and if she is beginning to make sex-worker-rights-like sounds it’s because she senses that it’s politically safe or even advantageous to do so.

Though American sex worker rights activists (who were already in the country and therefore much more difficult to silence) made several protests at the conference, the real coup was scored by activists in India who organized – without the help of any government, charity or “rescue” organization – a “Sex Worker Freedom Festival” in Kolkata, held at the same time as the main conference and connected to it by internet; this gathering attracted worldwide media attention, made vital contributions to the AIDS convention from the far side of the planet, and generally made US officials look both foolish and impotent.

But an article in the Guardian – in a section endowed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, even – showed the impact that the “alternative conference” had; even its title was cause for celebration:  “Indian Sex Workers are a Shining Example of Women’s Empowerment”.

When…Pathways of Women’s Empowerment…began its search for inspiring examples of empowerment, in 2006, few might have imagined it would take us to a collective of sex workers in a town in the heart of Maharashtra in India.  But the stories…I heard when I visited the Sangli headquarters of the Vamp collective not only summed up some of the most important lessons we were learning in the programme…they were also among the most impressive.  “If I’d been married, I would have been HIV positive by now,” says one of Vamp’s stalwarts, Shabana, reflecting that married women are far more vulnerable than she is as a sex worker, unable to insist on condoms with their husbands as she does with her clients.  And her face breaks into a smile as she describes the life she leads:  the freedoms she enjoys, her choice of clients, and the autonomy and empowerment she has…

It is all too often assumed that disempowerment leads women to sell sexual services – as a last resort, as the ultimate step before destitution, and out of coercion rather than choice.  The sex workers I met in Sangli, however, made it quite clear that being in business – they refer to their work as dhanda, meaning business – was not something they did out of desperation.  Some had been married and returned to sex work full of pity for those women who had to put up with the privations and lack of freedom marriage brings.  Some had tried other jobs, and found them tiring, exploitative and badly paid, echoing the findings of the first pan-India survey of sex workers.  Sex work was, for them, an occupation they spoke of with pride, despite the stigma…

Vamp’s mission is to change society.  Rather than treating sex workers as victims to be rescued or rehabilitated, it demonstrates the power of collective action as a force for women’s empowerment, mobilising sex workers to improve their working conditions, and claim rights and recognition…

The article also contained a link to a short documentary about three members of VAMP, “Save Us from Saviors”, which you can watch below.  Of course, the comment thread was full of the usual “prostitution is exploitation”, “women are pathetic victims” and “think of the children!” rubbish, but the wind is shifting…and before too many more years, those who hold such opinions will find themselves just as much out in the cold as those who mindlessly hate other sexual minorities do today.

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Too Young To Know

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2012| 29 Comments »

Most adults would not dream of belittling, humiliating, or bullying (verbally or physically) another adult. But many of the same adults think nothing of treating their adolescent child like a nonperson.  –  Laurence Steinberg

I’ve written before about the “Cult of the Child”, that strange Victorian belief system which has made a comeback in the past few decades and teaches that children exist in what cultists term “innocence”, a state of divine grace which can only be violated by direct or indirect action of adults.  The die-hard child cultist imagines that if children (and their definition of that term extends far beyond that Nature uses) could somehow be kept from “bad influences”, they would be pure, asexual little angels until granted the right to be otherwise by the adults who own take care of them.  Furthermore, child cultists believe that the longer childhood is extended, the better; many parents are now working assiduously to carry it at least into college.

This is insanity; in pre-industrial cultures people assumed adult responsibilities as soon as they could, usually by about 14, and in those cultures there was no such thing as adolescent rebellion.  Indeed, the concept of adolescence itself is a relatively modern one, dating to the establishment of compulsory education and child labor laws in the late 19th century.  And though I don’t think anyone wants to see 8-year-olds working on assembly lines again, it isn’t necessary to restrict teenagers as we do in order to prevent that.  Though these laws are intended to protect teenagers, there is considerable evidence they have the opposite effect; as psychologist Robert Epstein explains,

…infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed…In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil…But [in the West] young people can’t own things, can’t sign contracts, and they can’t do anything meaningful without parental permission—permission that can be withdrawn at any time…They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent…American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults…and even twice as many as incarcerated felons…[there is] also…a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction.  The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show.  What’s more, since 1960, restrictions on teens have been accelerating…

I’m not arguing that teens should be given adult responsibilities as soon as they hit puberty; modern culture is too complex for that now.  But what I am saying is that Americans as a group suffer from the peculiar delusion that if a little of something is good, a LOT of it is better; if you believe that, how about a nice plate of salt for dinner?  Some restrictions on teens are helpful to them, but equating them with toddlers helps no one, neither the teens nor the parents who are held legally liable if they are somehow unable to control young people who may be just as competent, intelligent, resourceful and strong-willed as they are.  And nowhere is this more true than in the area of sex; it is the hormones of puberty that drive young people to have sex, not knowledge or culturally-induced “sexualization”, yet Americans are committed to the self-destructive delusion that if we keep teens in ignorance about sex they’ll stay “innocent” and never think of having it themselves (in exactly the same way dogs, cats and other animals remain celibate for life unless humans teach them to have sex).

With rare exception, teen runaways leave home for a reason; they’re not lured away by “bad influences” or abducted by “traffickers”, but rather pushed away by factors such as physical or sexual abuse or parental rejection of their homosexuality or transsexuality.  But because our laws define people under 18 as chattel, they can be arrested by cops and forced back into the situation from which they fled, or else sentenced to “child welfare” systems so horrible many of them return to the street as soon as possible.  Child labor laws keep them from getting regular work (and such work would expose them to capture by police anyway), which leaves them with roughly three alternatives:  theft, begging or prostitution; the latter is nearly always the easiest and most lucrative.  The “trafficking” dogma is based in the “innocence” fallacy:  the child cultists want to believe teenagers could never think of prostitution on their own, but this is total nonsense; teen runaways don’t need to be forced or indoctrinated into a form of exchange which predates the human species, and in fact (as revealed by a recent DoJ-funded study) 90% of them are not.  Yet, nearly all current programs for dealing with teen prostitutes are based on exactly the opposite assumption, and if such a girl denies she has a “pimp” she is assumed to be lying.

Anyone who buys the “trafficking” narrative (or its underlying assumptions) might not understand why I was so critical of disguised prisons like “Freedom Place”, but even those who recognize it for what it is might rightly ask, “What’s the alternative?”  Here are a few ideas that have been suggested by sociologists, human rights activists, sex worker rights activists and others who have looked at the issue from a harm reduction perspective rather than from a moralistic or legalistic agenda:

1)  There is no material difference between sex for compensation and sex for social reasons except that those who fall into the latter are less likely to use condoms or good judgment.  So, the state needs to pick an age of consent and stick to it, thus eliminating criminalization of motives for having sex.  This is not to say that the state shouldn’t set some higher age at which a brothel or escort service can legally hire a girl, as long as the state recognizes that doing so means that the only sex work an underage teen can do will be on the street, and that the law isn’t going to stop her if that’s what she intends to do.

2)  Stop pretending sex is some horrible, life-destroying thing; treat AoC violation like any other status offense such as underage drinking, and place the consequences equally on the minor and whoever assisted her.  Furthermore, strict liability (i.e. penalties are inflicted even if the accused can convince a judge or jury he honestly didn’t know he was breaking a law) is an abomination no matter what the crime.

3)  Stop pretending that people under 18 are “innocent children”; if the state intends to criminalize sex below a certain age, it needs to do so and eliminate the legal fiction that teens are literally unable to give consent.  When a young adult is held responsible for violating a law (however arbitrary or unjust in her eyes) she can deal with the consequences, but pretending she’s a passive victim denies her agency and subjects her to indefinite confinement and open-ended, dishonest punishment.

4)  Recognize that 90% of underage whores sell sex to survive, because laws prohibit their doing any other profitable work and applying to any standard job would expose them to arrest and return to whatever situation they’re running away from. They don’t hook because some “pimp” abducted them from their perfect, loving parents; they hook because they ran away from some awful situation and they’re hungry, cold and dirty.  If the state really wants to reduce the number of runaways selling sex, it should establish (or allow charitable organizations to establish) drop-in shelters where runaways can come for food, a shower and a bed without fear of arrest.  If you allow such shelters to confine the young people, or let even one cop ever walk through that door or hang around outside to harass them, the project is doomed.

5)  If the state wants to reduce the number of runaways in the first place, it’s going to have to make it easier for minors to lodge civil complaints against parents for sex abuse and other serious mistreatment, seeking not criminal penalties but emancipation against parental approval; this should be granted not on factual findings, but on the basis of competency tests.

This isn’t a perfect world, and nobody is suggesting that any of these suggestions will create a Utopia in which no teen ever suffers or is exploited ever again.  The philosophy of harm reduction is that rejecting compromise solutions because they “send a bad message” sacrifices real human lives on the altar of an unattainable perfection, and that the greatest good we can hope for is to establish policies which reduce the harm from people’s own (perhaps unwise) actions, and eliminate the harm inflicted by the brutal and mindless enforcement of ill-considered and moralistic laws.

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