[A] silly uberfeminist crusader…once called me a sex addict in a national newspaper…To some…[that] would be the gravest insult; to me it was the intellectual equivalent of claiming I am Father Christmas. – Brooke Magnanti
King of the Hill
The latest entry in the contest to claim bragging rights for “biggest sex trafficking hub in the United States”: “Reports from cities with federal Innocence Lost Task Forces lists Toledo [Ohio] as the third largest city for human trafficking and sex slavery…” Previous claimants include New York, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Phoenix, Arizona; and the entire state of Tennessee.
Updates
A southwest Missouri woman who says she shared her bed for years with her husband and his sex slave has decided she needs help defending herself against five federal charges. Marilyn Bagley… is charged with conspiracy, sex trafficking, forced labor trafficking, document servitude and use of an interstate facility to facilitate unlawful activity. She and her husband, Edward, are scheduled for trial in February.
Note that prohibitionist “feminists” had no comment on this: “Former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith…[who] founded Shared Hope International…said that efforts to stop the sell [sic] and trade of minors in the sex industry should be an extension of the ‘pro-life’ cause.”
“President Obama is not alone in the fight to end sex trafficking. Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino…[is] starring in a new Hollywood film, Trade of Innocents, following a sex trafficking ring in Cambodia.” Thanks, CNN; had you not told me that Obama wasn’t alone in pandering to hysteria, I would never have known.
Even some politicians in Zimbabwe have more respect for human rights than their American counterparts:
Zimbabwe Parliamentarians against HIV and AIDS…wants government to decriminalise commercial sex work…The Director of the Public Personalities against AIDS Trust, Tendai Westerhof, [also] condemned criminalisation of sex workers…“It is disappointing that the country still criminalises sex work…these people suffer a lot as a result of the discriminatory laws…They are raped and cannot report such abuses. As a result, they cannot access health services”…
Meanwhile, in South Africa, sex worker rights group SWEAT recently made a presentation in their parliament.
Though the Australian cops in this story subscribe to fashionable “end demand” malarkey, some of them also admit that client persecution harms streetwalkers:
As a crackdown on kerb crawlers in St Kilda intensifies, street sex workers could be moving…to…Dandenong or Footscray, or [using smartphone] apps to meet clients in unsafe areas. Police tried unsuccessfully for decades to curb the trade by targeting workers…But halfway through the new two-year strategy, they noticed that the switch to targeting clients was having unwanted consequences. ”If we do push them out of the area, they won’t necessarily all leave the industry – and they’ll either adopt online or they’ll go and work in another location”…said [Senior Sergeant Brad Daly]. ”We might be creating things that we haven’t thought of yet”…lawyer Vanda Hamilton works with more than 50 legal and illegal sex workers and said…she feared many were being forced into troubling scenarios. She said the only way to ensure safety was to follow New South Wales’ example by legalising street-sex work…”You’re never going to stop sex work, you’re just going to push it so far underground that you can’t help people”…
Guess what, Brad? Virtually none of them are leaving the industry; they’re just going where you can’t see them.
More of this, please (but where’s the ACLU?)
Less than a month after approving restrictions on Halloween activities by registered sex offenders, the city of Simi Valley has been sued…the…law bans Halloween displays and outside lighting every Oct. 31…[and] requires a sign on the front door in letters at least an inch tall: “No candy or treats at this residence.” Both the prohibition on decorations and the mandatory sign violate free speech rights, according to the lawsuit. A total of 119 registered sex offenders live in Simi Valley…None has been involved in crimes involving children on Halloween, according to police, who say they have no records of any such crime occurring in Simi Valley during Halloween trick-or-treating…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic
Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the newest, even stupider adjunct to “sex addiction”:
…The Daily Mail…claims [that young men] are addicted…[to] Viagra…[which unlike sex] is a pharmaceutical drug…[which] could [conceivably produce] physical dependency…[their “proof” consists of an]…interview [with] exactly one guy who uses Viagra a lot during sex…and…one…“psychosexual counselor”…who says this is “just a small sample of the problem”…Any studies…Any scientific research in any labs anywhere? Because I…don’t see any. At. All. Reading further down the article I see their real target:
porn “addiction”…[and] sexually empowered women…How dare the ladies express interest and enjoyment in sex! Why won’t we just lie back and think of England like we’re supposed to!?…
Mere days after I added it to my Amazon wishlist, a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, which I somehow never got around to reading before. Thank you so very much!
Hey, kids! Fight “human trafficking” for fun and profit! Implicate your neighbors! Persecute sex workers! Win big prizes! “To raise awareness of human trafficking…the Department of Justice and Equality in Dublin and the Department of Justice in Belfast will launch a photography and video competition for Third Level students…Research human trafficking and present your understanding of the issue through a photograph or short video…Winners of each category will receive…1st prize €1,000…2nd prize €500…3rd prize €250.”
Here’s an interesting article debunking the fallacious notion that some kinds of porn are more “positive” than others, that “erotica” is intrinsically different from porn and that men can be “taught” to reject the kind of porn they prefer in favor of the kind women prefer…argued from a marketing perspective rather than a traditionally psychological one. One important point: “Human minds are not passive and infinitely malleable receptacles prone to any form of socialization and learning. Successful marketers are well aware of this reality. Ideologues, including some academics in the ivory tower, have much to learn!”
Remember when controversy over contraception was only something we read about in history books or in reference to unusually conservative Catholics? I sure do. But over the last two decades that equine carcass has been dragged out of the glue factory and is once again being set upon by sex-hating control freaks trying to call attention away from the uncontrolled tumescence of government, national debt and the police state. The fact that the public obediently paid attention to this distraction has enabled lots of crazy people, including a group of nuns who produced an anti-contraception video chock full of propaganda because they obviously forgot that lying makes Baby Jesus cry:
Anne Elizabeth Moore and Melissa Gira Grant write:
This week Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn’s book Half The Sky premieres on PBS as a two-part miniseries, providing an opportunity for his audience to step into his well-worn white savior shoes…viewers will survey the lives of young women whom Kristof and WuDunn have chosen as the best ciphers for their agenda…to…“turn oppression into opportunity”…[by] proposing dubious schemes for advancing women’s rights—like arresting sex workers in order to “rescue” them from prostitution, or enthusiastically supporting the creation of “sweatshops” to accommodate sex workers and other women in the global south…
In response, Moore & Grant presented a “collective evaluation” of Nicholas Kristof, in other words excerpts from essays by Laura Agustín, Teju Cole and many others (including yours truly). The article is also mentioned in this Buzzfeed article, which shows the outcry is getting big enough for even the usually-oblivious media to notice.
Catarina Migliorini says that cooking, driving, reading and every other human activity magically become different things if one only does them once:
…A 20-year-old Brazilian woman is auctioning off her virginity for a one-time tryst on an airplane…Catarina Migliorini says she’ll donate some of the money to provide housing for poor families in her native Santa Catarina…the Internet bidding [has already] reached $160,000…[and] ends Oct. 15…Migliorini insisted in a statement to the Sao Paulo daily Folha that…”For me, it’s not prostitution…when someone does something once in his or her life, this is not considered a profession. If you take a picture and it comes out good, you are not a photographer because of it”…The Daily Mail reported that Migliorini is [also]…part of an Australian film project called Virgins Wanted. She’s getting $20,000 and a 90-percent cut of the auction price…
The HuffPo comments are, of course, predictably disgusting. Meanwhile, Slate presents this series of portraits of female Iranian singers, who are legally barred from singing on stage for a general audiences because it is “immodest”. This is not a hypothetical reductio ad absurdum; it is the natural result of busybodies having control over women’s interactions with men and attempting to draw imaginary lines between “good” and “immoral” behavior.
Rachel Aimee, one of the founders of the late $pread magazine, covers one specific aspect of the “sex workers as mothers” topic: deciding if, when and how to tell one’s children that one is a sex worker. She interviews an escort, a stripper, a dominatrix, a nude model and a sex educator, and though as you might expect she doesn’t reach a definitive conclusion, she presents a lot of worthwhile food for thought.
Metaupdates
Think of the Children! in TW3 (#11)
Another good, clean organization refuses charity from nasty, dirty whores:
A pornographic website has launched a fundraising effort for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, but the nonprofit says it wants nothing to do with the campaign…the…website said it would donate 1 cent for every 30 views of certain videos featuring breasts during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month…[but the Komen organization said] “We are not a partner, not accepting donations, and have asked them to stop using our name”…
Obviously, the Komen Foundation has not yet learned that they are supposed to care more about women’s health than about prudishness.
I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan in TW3 (#25)
Priya-Alika Elias imagines what it would be like if Homer, Shakespeare, Joyce, Tolkien and others wrote Cosmo sex tips. Alas, she didn’t do Lovecraft, but it’s still pretty damned funny.
Follow Your Bliss in TW3 (#37)
The…TSA…didn’t bother to do a background check on a priest who had been defrocked for molesting girls before they gave him a job, which included doing pat downs on children at Philadelphia International Airport. The Philadelphia Inquirer…reported that…65-year-old Thomas Harkins…has since been promoted from the…job that required him to pat down children and now oversees screening operations for checked baggage.
This Week in 2011
I answered questions on NBA policies, Wikipedia, gravatars and epigrams, discussed busybody control freaks who use women’s dignity as an excuse for oppression, introduced you to a young courtesan named Su Xiaoxiao, reported on a complaint to the APA about Melissa Farley’s numerous ethical violations, and shared short items on marital sex issues, Gardasil, a Sydney mega-brothel, a pervert cop, BDSM persecution, Edmonton’s attempt to create a bottleneck, a claim that the average hooker is 13, cops’ armed robbery of a strip club, AHF and an essay by Catherine Hakim.
This Week in 2010
I introduced the concept of “sex rays”, talked about my boob job, explained how criminalization exposes whores to danger from real criminals, discussed the families of sex workers, presented brief biographies of the five victims of Jack the Ripper, looked at the archetypal “hooker with a heart of gold”, and shared short items about Congress’ first attempt to control the internet and two creepy men’s attempts to sexually violate women unnoticed.
Hey! I’m all for legalizing ganja and all other drugs but I think they’re harmful and I don’t recommend anyone take them.
And by the same token, I’m all for unrestricted access to pron (porn) – but I don’t think it’s necessarily healthy for men.
Check this video out and tell me where he’s wrong. It’s Gary Wilson – he’s not for censorship of pron. I’m still researching his background to discover any hidden agenda he may have for this – but so far I’ve found nothing …
I don’t have time to watch a 16-minute video, but if any of his points are about “brain studies” or pretending that humans can be programmed like machines by “social conditioning”, he’s full of shit.
That having been said, I have repeatedly stated in this blog that I’m a strong believer in moderation, and that too much of ANYTHING – food, exercise, sleep, television, reading, sex, porn and even water – is harmful. But it isn’t the government’s job to decide how much is “too much” and to enforce its decrees by violence.
I’m wondering is this is the same Gary Wilson who wrote this?
“Therefore, a familiar mate—your spouse—appears less and less enticing. And finally, too much stimulation of the brain’s sex and mating circuitry obstructs the mammalian instinct toward monogamy.
The result? Indifference.”
Read more at http://goodmenproject.com/health/how-porn-can-ruin-your-sex-life-and-your-marriage/#3kAlw05kTHzuBQTF.99
If so, watch out. I read his article, and the experiments he’s citing are actual live female rats placed in cages with male rats, not some kind of “rat pornography.”
That would seem to rule out sex with females other than your spouse even more than it would rule out watching porn.
I’ll never get over the idea that people have that human males are anything other than naturally polygamous. Someone really should tell thousands of years of Eastern civilization that. But then, that’s why the Jesuits never made any headway with the Chinese Emperor, despite the fact that they were really good astronomers:
“Well, yes, you can read the Mandate of Heaven well but you want me to give up all my wives but one? Good day, sirs!” (Paraphrase, it’s much harsher in the original language, obviously.)
Yeah, drugs (including alcohol) are damaging to society, but the prohibition of them winds up being even more damaging. I think porn and sex work also fit this description to some extent. There are people hurt by sex work, just as there are people hurt by alcoholism and they can be used as examples in justifying prohibition. But overall, I think the damage caused by the prohibition is much greater.
Gary Wilson is an antiporn crank who uses cooked stats and phony arguments (such as porn causing “erectile dysfunction) to prove his “research”. Saying that he isn’t for censorship of porn is like saying that David Duke isn’t for reenstating slavery.
God, if I had only known… It’s not caused by health and other issues?
OK, I have to draw a line on this one “Saying that he isn’t for censorship of porn is like saying that David Duke isn’t for reenstating slavery.” David Duke is not, I repeat not, for reenstating slavery, and that, sir, is a scurrilous attack for which you should get on your knees and beg forgiveness from him and the God of truth. He is for Jim Crow; he is well past the scar of slavery, a scar he seeks to heal. He so rightly honors our past SCOTUS for their wise decision of “separate but equal” found in our Constitution between a consonant and a period. It was a just decision, sir, because it was there between that consonant and that period. SCOTUS found it, for shame you can not.
The slavery shit is, well, stupid, and I am so tired of it but it is so very satisfying for others. Republicans want slavery too, whatever form. Say it and so shall it be true. Say it twice and it is twice true because saying it once only makes it once true..
I’m reminded of an anecdote that, if memory serves, comes from George Bernard Shaw. At a party, he asked a rich socialite if she’d sleep with him for a million dollars. She said she would. He then asked her if she’d do it for twenty dollars. She replied, No, what do you think I am, a whore? He answered, We’ve already established that; we’re just dickering over your price.
Yes, I told that one in one of my early columns. But it’s always a good anecdote for retelling. 😉
In the versions I’ve heard, GBS was either in a train or at a dinner party. He offered £1000 — hardly dollars! — and she said she would think about it. When he reduced the price to £5 she asked “What sort of girl do you think I am?”, to which GBS replied “We’ve already established that, we’re just discussing the price.” Despite the many variations, it does seem just the sort of thing that GBS would say.
The version I read was placed in New York, which could explain the “dollars”. Then again, I read it some 30 years ago, so it could be my memory. 🙂
Society has had porn, well, probably since some cave man drew a “dirty” scrawl on the cave wall with charcoal. Think of all those big boobed female torsos the archeologists find. And if it causes erectile dysfunction, well, one can’t tell by our overpopulation problem.
It’s funny, originally pornography referred mainly to written texts. Nowadays, written texts are considered too tame to be pornography, and it’s mainly photographs and video.
I’ve never understood why people look around for psychological causes of erectile dysfunction. You should only do that after you’ve ruled out every possible physical cause. (Erections are complicated and involve both the endocrine and vascular systems. Nerve damage, for example from diabetes, is also a major contributor. My advice to anyone who doesn’t want to see a doctor, get fit first, then look at psychological causes. Though personally I’d at lease see a general practitioner if not a urologist.)
If I suddenly went blind, I wouldn’t assume it was hysterical blindness. I’d only go for that explanation after my doctors had ruled out all the physical causes.
Yep, ED is not a 30 second commercial.
RE: Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic
In the article from the Daily Mail it sounds like these guys who are using Viagra because of their anxiety of having sex with their girl friends need to first go visit with a whore and after that they can learn there’s nothing to worry about. Of course that’s one thing those psychosexual counselor’s aren’t about to suggest.
And that is sad. If you have enough NOx, you don’t need Viagra. Man up and think “The Longest Day”, you don’t have to let the church bells get in the way of hearing the message..
Apropos of the Daily Fail article about viagra “addiction” and the number of people they interviewed, I’m reminded of an anecdote which I’d like to think is apocryphal, but probably isn’t. The CEO of a company wanted to force through some change which was being resisted. So he conducted “research”, and told the board that “he had talked with a number of people” about the change. He’s said to have later admitted that he knew that zero is a number.
Apropos “The Handmaid’s Tale”: Not throwing (too many) stones at Margaret Atwood, but a lot of the basic plot was already done, and much better IMHO, by Robert Heinlein in the novella “If This Goes On-” (first published in 1941!). Maybe that colored my reading of the book 15 years ago, and cause me to remember it not-all-that-favorably. I didn’t particularly like the movie either, despite the considerable charms of the late Natasha Richardson. YMMV though…
“If This Goes On…” was actually the first Heinlein I couldn’t finish the first time around. I was 12 at the time, and had only read his juveniles before that. When I got to the part about sex being expected of the girls, I became agitated and put the book down; I think I just wasn’t ready for that at that age. When I came back to it in my twenties, I of course enjoyed it immensely and had a devil of a time figuring out what had upset me the first time around.
Never set a book by Heinlein down without finishing it, or Asimov except the “Foundation Trilogy”(no bragging, it’s just what I did between 10 and 15). I’m a short story guy so “Green Hills of Earth” is my favorite book by Heinlein. I noticed that “Handmaid’s Tale” was a bit derivative, but so many are whether intended or not, so I take each on it’s own merits.
Zamyatin’s “WE”, though placed in space, and Orwell’s “1984” have many similarities (“WE” was written in ’21, but Lenin IIRC had already set permission for Zamyatin to leave Russia before his death, possibly before his strokes started in ’22, but I may be giving Lenin too much credit as “WE” was scathing in terms of “the new Communist Man”) . Lucas with THX-1138 drew from the tradition of both as far I can tell.
One of the best derivative short stories I’ve read was “The Jump” by Stephen King. Based on Bester’s “The Stars My Destination”, King asked a simple question: when you jump, what’s in between? Usual King, it wasn’t god and it wasn’t good. Only those who didn’t make the jump all the way knew, and they wished they had never learned.
“once called me a sex addict in a national newspaper…To some…[that] would be the gravest insult; to me it was the intellectual equivalent of claiming I am Father Christmas. – Brooke Magnanti”
I like this woman; all men should like this woman. All men, dead, living, or in limbo, should like this woman. If you wonder why I’m so enthralled: my wife and I had an argument about frequency of sex (based on when we were in our twenties, we married in our middle-late thirties); she said no less than once a day and no more than three times; and I said five should be the average per day. The chasm was insurmountable. So go men and women…
> Here’s an interesting article debunking the fallacious notion that some kinds of porn are more “positive” than others…
While I agree with the other claims in the rest of the sentence, this is false. The article points out that porn will not be one-size-fits-all, especially across genders, and that the market isn’t interested in shoehorning because that cuts into profits.
The article did not address the question of the spectrum of effects that different kinds (whatever those kinds are) can have. It’s silly to suggest that all instances something with such a powerful effect have a completely uniform effect along any major dimension.
I’ve definitely been affected in the past, both positively and negatively, by my selections of what to watch, read, or think about, in several domains of my life. Porn is no different, in this regard, than any other element of culture. The argument that whole swaths of porn that are commonly labeled as negative by social constructionists are not actually negative would be a great deal more tenable than denying that any porn can possibly be negative.
Since I’m not sure what it means for porn to be positive or not, I guess I can’t say much about if some porn is or is not more positive than other porn.
This is one I think I read when you first posted it, Maggie, but I’m not sure, and I didn’t comment, so I hadn’t read most or perhaps any of the comments. Well, now I have.