The actual number of people trafficked is so much less than the targets [governments] are supposed to meet, so they end up running around and accusing people of being victims of traffickers and sticking them in cages to try to satisfy this US hysteria. – Liz Hilton, EMPOWER Foundation
The highly dishonorable Prime Liar of Japan is at it again: “…Shinzo Abe…may revise Japan’s 1993 apology for forcing thousands of women to be sex slaves in the service of Japanese soldiers during World War II…an assertive, unapologetic Japan could antagonize much of Asia, especially South Korea…”
This woman takes the term “cougar” much too literally:
Police in Florida arrested an “extremely intoxicated” woman after she allegedly beat her boyfriend over bad oral sex…Jennie Scott, 50, assaulted her 32-year-old boyfriend, Jilberto Deleon…following a joint-oral sex encounter that ended…after Deleon “finished first and stopped pleasuring her”…In November, Raquel Gonzalez, also of Manatee County, was charged…after beating her boyfriend following a sexual encounter during which he climaxed and she did not…
Convenient and Inconvenient Victims
Another example of how prohibition harms all women: it allows “authorities” to claim prostitutes can’t be raped, then to accuse rape victims of prostitution: “…Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar came the nearest to calling the Park Street rape victim a sex worker when she described the February 5 incident not as a rape but as a ‘misunderstanding between a lady and her client’…”
Take especial note of the un-ironic use of the word “rescue” in this context:
At least 11 woman inmates…[who] were trafficked to Mumbai…[then] rescued and brought to [a destitute] home [escaped on New Year’s Eve]…West Bengal Minister for Women and Child Development…Sabitri Mitra denied any lapse of security at the home…”Inmates…have a tendency to escape…They have been trying to escape ever since they were brought here…”
As I predicted they would, members of the mainstream media are slowly beginning to wake up:
The situation was dire, police warned. The City of Atlanta was under siege by human traffickers. Some 1,000 Asian women and girls ages 13 to 25 were being “forced to prostitute themselves” in the city…To free them, police forged ahead with a $600,000 task force. Had agency leaders questioned the estimate, they would have found it defied common sense. If it were true, one in eight of the city’s Asians would have been sex slaves…it’s little wonder that the program had such poor results that it drew scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice. An initial report said Atlanta police had found more than 200 victims, but auditors could only confirm four…
Instead of quoting Polaris Project, Melissa Farley and the other usual suspects, this reporter went to “trafficking” skeptics Ronald Weitzer, Elzbieta Gozdziak, Charles Grassley and Meredith Dank. And while he still buys into the cops’ convoluted paradigm (for example, “Girls confuse investigators by calling pimps their boyfriends” instead of recognizing that the so-called “pimps” are their boyfriends), he also recognizes that Atlanta is the norm, not an exception: “Los Angeles…identified 49 victims and…Washington, D.C., found 51. Auditors confirmed none of them…”
I received two
more Christmas presents this week; Krulac sent me Flute of Sand, and another reader sent me Crisis and Leviathan. Alas, the seller neglected to include a card or packing slip with the latter, so I have no idea who sent it; if it was anyone reading this, please let me know via email or in the comments. Thanks very much to both of you!
First They Came for the Hookers…
If prohibitionists really want to “rescue” sex workers, why do they keep trying to stop us from getting other jobs? “Reality star Olivia Black has been fired from the cast of the History Channel’s Pawn Stars after…her…past on the soft-core site SuicideGirls.com was revealed in the National Enquirer…”
In the process of reviewing a new book on hallucinations by the brilliant Dr. Oliver Sacks, Michael Roth shows just how easily false memories are formed:
As a young professor, I traveled to Vienna…and…[visited] Freud’s old apartment and office, which had been converted to a museum. One rang a doorbell to be admitted, and I was shocked when the museum attendant greeted me by name…in German, calling me “Professor Doktor Roth” — or so I thought. My wife was right beside me, and she later told me that nothing of the kind had happened. The museum employee had merely told me the price of admission…I realized that what I’d heard so clearly was probably an auditory hallucination. I so very much wanted to be recognized in the house of Freud that I’d perceived something that wasn’t there at all…our brains call up simulated realities that are almost indistinguishable from normal perceptions…[and construct] a world that nobody else can see, hear or touch…
Ex-porn actress Monica Foster outs sex workers on her website, yet she recently placed this escort ad.
Prosecutors never hesitate to appeal when there’s political coin to be made at others’ expense: “The New Mexico Supreme Court has agreed to take up [the] case [of] ‘Southwest Companions,’ linked to former University of New Mexico president F. Chris Garcia and retired Fairleigh Dickinson University physics professor David C. Flory…prosecutors [appealed after]…District Judge Stan Whitaker found that an online message board is not a house of prostitution under state law…”
The Course of a Disease (TW3 #26)
Unsurprisingly, the woman who thinks other women must be “protected” from free will also believes free speech to be “dangerous”: “France’s women’s rights minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem… [demands] that Twitter help the French government criminalize ideas it dislikes…by [installing] ‘alerts and security measures’ to prevent tweets which French officials deem hateful…”
New York’s new video helpfully explains that the law doesn’t say what it says, but does require cabbies to magically divine whether a woman is “helpless”:
…Taxi officials yesterday released an anti-sex-trafficking video — mandatory viewing for all cabbies — that explains when it is and is not OK to transport a working girl. Picking up street walkers is fine, but driving helpless women around for pimps is not…The nine-minute video was created after the City Council approved an anti-sex-trafficking bill…and…prostitutes worried that the measure meant that cabbies would be too scared to pick them up…“Suspecting or knowing that someone is a prostitute does not give you the right to refuse that person a ride,” the video says…
“Save us from saviours” is the piercing refrain of a growing human rights movement demanding that sex workers be recognised as more than victims to be rescued…”Sex workers are discriminated against and their human rights unrecognised around the world, even where sex work isn’t illegal,” says Nadia van der Linde, co-ordinator of the Red Umbrella Fund, the first global grant-making mechanism set up to give sex workers more control of projects that directly concern them…The fund, which was launched in April 2012…will announce this month who will receive its first grants…Embracing a philosophy of “nothing for us without us”, the innovative fund is governed by sex workers, who sit alongside donor representatives on the committees that oversee and manage its work…
Miranda Kane, the escort turned stand-up comedienne, has written a new piece on “Selling Comedy vs. Selling Sex” which compares preparation, advertising, reviews and much more: “I get asked a lot about my security. In 7 years of escorting, I was never threatened, robbed, or found myself in any danger. In 7 months of comedy, I had two iphones nicked from my bag when I was on stage, venues and promoters not paying my pitiful fee, and several parking tickets…”
Spain’s Interior Ministry says police have arrested 17 people on suspicion of smuggling Nigerian women into Spain and forcing them into prostitution using threats including claims they would cast Voodoo spells on them if they didn’t comply…around 10 women had been brought into the country illegally using a small boat…
Rebecca Bernardo…posted a video on YouTube…[in which]…she…announces…”Hi, my name is Rebecca. I’m here to auction off my virginity”…she made the offer because she was desperate to help her ailing mother. She heard about Catarina Migliorini, a Brazilian woman who reportedly sold her virginity for $780,000…Migliorini has reportedly yet to finalize the deal and receive the money…[but] has received widespread publicity and modeling contracts — including a spread in Brazil’s version of Playboy…”I made up my mind right after my 18th birthday…when my mother suffered a stroke”…[which] left her…bed-ridden, unable to feed herself or go to the bathroom alone. Bernardo said she looked for jobs…but…the pay was minimal…A Brazilian TV network offered to pay for her mother’s medical expenses if Bernardo called off the auction. While she initially accepted…during a television interview, she later rejected it because the network would not pay for a house in a different town where she could “start a new life”…
CNN doubts the girl because she’d rather do a few hours of work than sign an exclusive (and probably sleazy) agreement with a TV network, which goes to show how perverse and dishonest CNN is on the subject of sex.
Radio Netherlands recently published an article called “China Can’t Duck the Issue of Prostitution” which correctly and concisely demolished every model of prostitution law except decriminalization, including the Dutch model; it even recognizes that a prostitute is no different from an economically dependent wife. However, the argument then bizarrely self-destructs in the conclusion:
…Free and consensual sexual relationships are obviously the ideal, but in reality there are many paid and involuntary sexual relationships between the sexes…if people choose to have an immoral lifestyle, they should not be punished by the law, regardless of how morally wrong they might be…The only effective means to curb…prostitution is…to make [it] socially unacceptable…
As Kristen di Angelo expressed it, “This is just how it is… but it shouldn’t be”. One of the women who appeared in the film American Courtesans went to the police after being terrified by an abusive stalker; they told her they could do nothing, but instead subjected her to a sting in which five cops in riot gear trashed her home and robbed her. Because obviously an escort who primarily works with the disabled is a dangerous criminal, but a possibly-deranged stalker is just a good citizen doing his civic duty.
Backwards into the Future (TW3 #52)
Though the Burmese government’s anti-sex work policies mimic those of Washington, Burmese journalists are not content to parrot those policies as their American counterparts do:
…Over 10,000 prostitutes…work in Rangoon, mainly in informal settings such as karaoke bars, nightclubs and guesthouses…they are among the most vulnerable citizens in Burma, facing widespread discrimination and abuse, often at the hands of authorities…Those who refuse or are unable to bribe the police face arrest and incarceration, sometimes in so-called “rehabilitation centres” intended to reform immoral behaviour…rape and sexual assault are a daily occurrence…police often use condoms as evidence of prostitution, even though the government formally banned the practice in 2011. Unsurprisingly, Burma has one of the highest HIV rates in Asia, with as many as one in three sex workers infected. Campaigners on HIV prevention have long called for harm reduction strategies to replace prohibitionist measures…But…some key actors are lagging behind. The US government, which recently earmarked $170 million in development aid to Burma, continues to enforce its so-called “anti-prostitution” pledge…It means that any organisations that refuse to condemn sex work – even though they often have the best access to vulnerable persons – are systematically excluded…
Thanks for another good post.
THAT is bald-faced propaganda designed to promote Marxist Chinese superiority in Asia! While I don’t agree that the Japanese PM should “revise” any apologies – no thinking person could ever believe that SOUTH KOREA is more “antagonized” by Japan than it is China and North Korea.
There’s a huge “rattling of swords” going on between China and Japan right now. I was in the middle of it last summer. This is not the time to start abandoning Japan – because the winner of that game is China if we do.
Now – let me say this. MANY of us in the U.S. Armed Forces have been, for decades, frustrated by Japan’s refusal to exert influence in Asia. This has required the U.S. to keep a constant presence there. Marines in Okinawa, Naval Bases on the Japanese Mainland – even Air Force Bases.
We can’t afford this – Japan is a modern nation – they help design some of our own weapon systems and they are capable of defending themselves and exerting influence within Asia as an ally should.
The problem though is, ironically – it was the U.S. that insisted that Japan ONLY have “self-defensive” forces. Japan’s Military is called the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces”. Their navy – the “Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force”. They need OFFENSIVE capable forces though.
The US would be fine with unleashing Japan from the conditions of surrender. However, a crushing defeat punctuated by two atomic bombs has had the effect of pacifying the Japanese people – they don’t really want to get involved in the balance of power issues of Asia.
But China does!
As far as this “apology” – what the fuck good was the initial “apology” even good for? Did it UNDO any atrocities? Did it erase any suffering resulting from the original acts? No – it did not. This namby-pamby – “you hut my feewings” kind of mentality is immature and not becoming of thinking adults.
Al Rupp – a friend of mine – was incarcerated for two years in a Japanese prison. He was starved, he was tortured. One of the favorite things the Japanese liked to do with him was to hold him down and run a bamboo shoot up the urethra of his penis. They did it repeatedly. As far as I know – the Japanese have NEVER apologized for it.
And – Al would have NEVER accepted the apology either – he forever hated the Japanese with a passion. I dare say the apology the Japanese gave to those women wasn’t even accepted by them.
Al is dead now. So are almost all of those women. It’s a different time and we need to move on. No one in Japan committed these acts – they’re gone or soon will be.
I agree with you about the apology qua apology; public “apologies” of this kind are worse than meaningless as such. However, in this case the apology accompanies an acknowledgment of the historical facts; Abe has repeatedly denied that any women were enslaved, insisting that every one of them was a prostitute who volunteered to be barbarically overworked, unpaid, abused and unprotected from disease. The reason the Japanese started enslaving women is that few sane whores agreed to the gig before the conditions were widely known, and none once the rumors got out. To pretend otherwise is to whitewash an atrocity, to smear the names of women who did not choose to be prostitutes, and to reinforce the stigma that whores are self-destructive freaks who will do anything for money.
I apologize for the rant – that statement sent me into hyperspace.
You’re right – the Japanese government was pretty barbaric back then and this guy should have just let the apology stand. I wonder if there is more to this story though? LIke – have some in South Korea asked for reparations for the acts? Or threatening to?
I don’t really see why Japan needs anything more, militarily, than the capability to defend themselves. In fact the more nations which restrict themselves to defensive capabilities only, the better I like it.
Maybe the good ol’ US of A should try a bit of that ourselves.
“MANY of us in the U.S. Armed Forces have been, for decades, frustrated by Japan’s refusal to exert influence in Asia. This has required the U.S. to keep a constant presence there.”
Google “military industrial complex”
Google “war is a racket”
I’ll stand my statement since I never mentioned the military industrial complex. You just seem to have inserted it there on your own to get on a soap box for your agenda.
War is a racket? Is that supposed to be some great enlightenment? I can even see the truth in that. However, BAD GUYS are a racket too sweetie and sometimes you have to make a tradeoff.
Exactly. What, exactly, “requires” the US to assert a military presence in asia besides this insane idea that the US should police the world? Given the ranting about “marxism”, I smell a libertarian gun-nut.
‘”If prohibitionists really want to “rescue” sex workers, why do they keep trying to stop us from getting other jobs? “Reality star Olivia Black has been fired from the cast of the History Channel’s Pawn Stars after…her…past on the soft-core site SuicideGirls.com was revealed in the National Enquirer…”’
I am a fan of the show. I may stop watching it because of this.
If you do, make sure you tell the network exactly why; they need to understand that bigotry against sex workers is not cool.
Given what the title on the show riffs on, this seems to me to be more than a little hypocritical of them.
Re: With Friends Like These
No kidding. Way to destroy your own argument: “The only effective means to curb…prostitution is…to make [it] socially unacceptable…”
“History has shown that it’s impossible to stamp out prostitution. If the law were to be tabled, it would violate people’s privacy and ignore their physiological needs and desires.”
Well, which one is it, folks? Is it a genuine physiological need and desire or is it socially unacceptable and “morally wrong”? They wouldn’t say the same about food.
As usual Aspasia and Maggie, brilliant and to the point. There is not–at least in the Western Democracies–a human traffkicking for sex problem. (See my OpEdNews article “Making Sex a Crime” for more on this subject.) There is however a sexual hypocricy problem in the Western Democracies, which uses false issues like human trafficking for sex in order to control the population. I am a staunch supporter for the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment so that adult women are no longer treated like children when it comes to how they use their body–whether it is abortion, or having sex for money, or running for political office. It would also permit men freedom with their bodies, including homosexuality if that is the sexual orientation that drives their libido.
It seems to me that between Roe v Wade and Lawrence v. Texas and maybe even Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (if a corporation is a person, a person is a corporation?) that prohibitions against prostitution are out, flat out.
Interesting?!! I shall have to give that one serious thought, although my initial answer is, “Only in a world of honest human beings.”
Re: First they came for the hookers…
Really? They fired her over being on suicide girls? That’s about as a tame as it gets. Well, at least she’s not backing down or pretending to be ashamed. Just looked it up and it seems like she’s posing again and asking for her job back.
(Also, 10 to 1 after firing her, they wanked to the pictures.)
Also: her past was too sleazy …. for a reality TV show about pawn shops? My mind is bent.
Shelter homes in the district have earlier been in the news for the wrong reasons when the body of a mentally deranged women inmate was found buried inside a home after being raped and killed.
Whyever would a reasonable person want to escape from such ‘care?’
When I was in Japan there were two political groups that drove around buses with expanded steel mesh covering the windows and sporting a big Public Address system. They’d pull up to the curb at a street corner and their advocates would pile out while their speaker would climb up on the roof and address the ‘crowd.’
The PA was set to distortion levels and so the ‘speech’ was pretty much incomprehensible but the ‘crowd’ was enthusiastic, clapping and shouting in support while the regular Japanese passers-by entirely ignored them.
This would continue for 5 or 10 minutes and then the speaker would climb off the roof and the ‘crowd’ would climb aboard the bus presumably to head for their next ‘demonstration.’
These were the Nationalists and the Communists. Their attire was the same – they both seemed to be wearing Mao-inspired jackets (which made no sense for the Nationalists – at least to me) and the only way you could tell them apart since you couldn’t understand their speeches was that the Nationalists had a Rising Sun Flag and the Communists had a red flag with some design in the center.
I wonder if this Prime Minister is a member of that party. If so, well, Yikes!
Nope, doesn’t look like it. He’s a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. I assumed that he was a Nationalist because part of the Nationalist program lies in retracting the apologies for Japanese atrocities abroad during WWII – including the comfort women. That’s why I thought he was a Nationalist as I didn’t think an LDP type would embrace that.
Those guys are a HOOT aren’t they? They’ve been doing that since I first traveled to Japan way back in ’83. I had no clue they were Marxist or Nationalists but I have walked through their “protests” and found them to be very well mannered and very enthusiastic. It’s funny – they just drive up to a place, get out … fire up the PA, hoot and holler, and then pack it all back in and head to the next site. I don’t even know if they have a rhyme or reason to it!
Yeah they were pretty funny. Even political conflicts in modern Japan tend to be very polite. The only reason I picked up on the difference was that a Japanese student explained the two groups and told me what to look for.
Perhaps they are simply chanting “four legs good, two legs bad!”
😉
Related to your two-legs meme, whenever the japanese kids would stare and point and call me a gaijin (foreigner) I would insist that I was a Nihonjin (Japanese) and I’d tell them that I could prove it. They’d come over and I’d ask them how many legs I have.
In Japanese, there is a word form we referred to as a counter and in the case of cylindrical objects the counter word was “hon.” The word for two in Japanese is “Ni” and so the gradeschoolers would reply, “NiHon. So then I’d say, see? I’m a Nihonjin. And they’d look at me like I was completely stupid because the characters that represent “NiHon” (Two Legs) and Nihon (Japan) are completely different and only a stupid gaijin couldn’t tell the difference.
You could always tell the students who had been around foreigners a lot because they would laugh at the pun – and then their schoolmates would look at them like they were as nutty as the gaijin.
A friend of mine lived in Japan for a time, and whenever the children would call her “gaijin” she would insist they call her “gaijin-san”.
We’d play similar game. In polite conversation, there are two forms, exalted and common and you are always supposed to use the common in reference to yourself and the exalted in reference to the other person. So, for example, base word “iru” which means to live or exist has a common version, “oru” and and high version “itasu” so in reference to yourself, you would say “orimasu” and to the other you’d say “itashimasu.” We’d invert that and use the verb conjuage forms the other way around. Of course they’d politely try to correct us but that entailed using the polite form to refer to us which we would of course “mirror.” Just playing the role of the stupid gaijin that didn’t understand Japanese.
And yes, referring to yourself as “San” is a “mistake” of the same order. So she was getting the double whammy there by insisting a generic phrase be made a personal name AND attaching an honorific to it. When I did it for laughs, I’d use the honorific “Sama” which is reserved for nobility, priests, and deities.
that should be verb conjugate forms…
and a followup; If I were introducing myself, I would say, “Andrew to moshimasu” (I humbly call myself andrew) and they would reply, “Hajememashita, Andrew-San” (I am pleased to meet you, Mr Andrew) where they are adding the honorific in addressing me.
I am of course reading all of this, and will read it over again.
I’ve had people explain to me the significance of the various Sailor Moon characters used of the suffixes: Rei calls Usagi simply “Usagi,” instead of “Usagi-chan” like the others do; Haruka and Michiru also don’t use suffixes when addressing each other; Diana (who is from the future) always calls Usagi “Usagi-sama,” and so on. If you don’t know this stuff, a lot is lost.
And that’s with subtitles. There’s no point in my trying to watch it raw.
Sexually frustrated women assaulting their boyfriends? Are we supposed to believe that? Since some surveys indicate the majority of women are sexually dysfunctional, and I believe female sexual dysfunction is usually permanent and life-long, it’s hard to imagine any woman blaming her partner for her dysfunction. http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/faking-orgasm-to-hide-sexual-dysfunction/
We used to have a regular poster here who always gave a woman thirty orgasms. Every time.
I sent the following comment on the Pawn Stars website:
I have been a fan of Pawn Stars for years. I have thoroughly enjoyed the show. I especially like the historical items. I even visited the shop on one of my many trips to Las Vegas.
I plan to stop watching it because of the way Olivia was treated.
I find it incredible a business that buys and sells firearms, cannons, and mortars without a hint of conscience chooses to fire Olivia because she did was many attractive women have been doing since the beginning of time.
I have not seen the pictures Olivia posed for and frankly I don’t care if I do see them. No one is harmed by an image. Something we cannot say about the elements of carnage that is bought and sold at Gold and Silver.
I hope you get a lot of correspondence from others who feel as I do and restore Olivia to her rightful position.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Maggie, I see a little box of text that reads: “Ex-porn actress Monica Foster outs sex workers on her website, yet she recently placed this escort ad.” But I don’t see any ad or link in the vicinity.
Perhaps your browser blocks “sexually explicit” pictures? If you could see the picture and click on it, you’d be taken to this site…which if I’m right, you won’t be able to see, either.
Haha, no, I work for a porn company, so about 30% of my browsing is devoted to the “sexually explicit.” I’ve noticed this kind of thing a couple of times in the past… Maybe you’re using a separate pic host for the dirty stuff? It’s a mystery.
Not at all! All my pics are hosted right here in WordPress; the address for this one is http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/monica-foster-escort-ad.jpg
I got Peryton, Ultra Dolphins, and Guulvorg wrong. I hang my head in shame and now seek a cleric who can cast Atonement.
That was from your Twitter, but I had to take the quiz, and I had to confess.
Against Their Will
A hint, people: if you have to drag the princess away kicking and screaming, and she keeps trying to get away from wherever you’ve taken her, maybe she was a damsel NOT in distress, until YOU distressed her. Just a thought.
First They Came for the Hookers
So remember, ladies: you can’t be a Pawn Star if you were a [accent on] pawn stah[/accent]. Ironic, no?
So, cabbies don’t have the right to refuse a prostitute a ride, unless they’re required to refuse her a ride. And of course the cabbie will know which is which because… um…
If I were a very, VERY wealthy man, I could see myself helping Rebecca Bernardo and her mother simply as a good deed. But no matter how rich I am, I can find a less expensive virgin. Rebecca is lovely, but so are a lot of women.
I’ll get a little more caught up tomorrow.
Seems I had a bad case of “tomorrow never comes” here. Oh well, tomorrow is today, so here I go.
Radio Netherlands seems to be taking the attitude that you can’t make prostitution illegal, but you can make it unpopular. Good luck with that one.
She was better off with the stalker: there was only one of him, and if she killed him in self-defense, there’s a chance a jury would recognize that.
I’m not quite nationalistic enough to assume that if the US would just see the light and quit with the whole anti-prostitution thing, the rest of the world would wake up just like we did. But good Lord, would it hurt? For once, WE could be the country people point to and say, “Well, it worked for them.”
OK, at least now I’m in the current year. Onward and upward, to the fut… present!