This essay first appeared on Cliterati on January 31st; I have modified it only slightly so as to fit the format of this blog.
Sometimes synchronicity (or coincidence if you prefer) helps me to make a point better than I could have made it myself. Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s essay “Skin To Skin”first appeared in Cliterati, this story was carried in The Sun and several other newspapers:
Prostitutes have been invited to a care home to have sex with disabled residents — sparking an investigation by the council. Hookers regularly go for “special visits” at Chaseley nursing home in Eastbourne, Sussex. They meet residents in a special room and a red sock is put on the door handle so staff know not to disturb them. Bosses say many physically and mentally disabled people have no other sexual outlet – and become so frustrated they often resort to GROPING staff…experts claim [access to sex is] a ”basic human right”…former manager Helena Barrow…said…“If we refused, we would not be delivering a holistic level of care.” Mrs Barrow, who now manages another care home in…Sussex, insisted residents always paid for the call girls themselves…A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said the local authority had been unaware of Chaseley’s policy of inviting prostitutes on site and “did not welcome” the idea. He said…“This has the potential to place vulnerable East Sussex residents at risk of exploitation and abuse.”
First of all, I applaud the caring people at Chaseley and their willingness to recognize that disabled people have just as much right to physical intimacy as everyone else, and that this right is no more removed by their residence in a care institution than any of their other rights would be; most of the comments on the story were also positive and supportive. The same cannot be said, I’m afraid, for the council, the newspaper (judging by the scare quotes around words like “therapeutic”) and a minority of the commenters, all of whom seem to believe that sex is not a need and that there is something lurid, amusing or even harmful about paying for sex. The council spokesman would never claim that the nursing home itself presented a credible threat of “exploitation and abuse” to “vulnerable residents”, but he thinks nothing of making the same specious claim about sex work, which is every bit as much a caring profession as nursing is.
While it is completely true that many of those who enter sex work are only interested in money, the same could be said about those who attend medical school. But this type of person will rarely be among the best in her profession, nor will she be the kind of practitioner who puts clients at ease and makes them feel that she genuinely cares about their welfare. In the case of sex work, those who are purely motivated by money are generally less successful and leave the profession sooner than those who view it as a calling; I reckon the equivalent in the medical field probably goes into administration, research or other areas involving less direct contact with patients. Those who feel drawn to the caring professions rather than simply settling for them, however, have many personality traits in common, and it shows in the considerable overlap between them. In the years I had my escort agency no fewer than three registered nurses worked for me (either for extra money or during sabbatical), and there were also a number of practical nurses, nursing assistants and nursing students; I myself worked as a nurse’s aide for about a year in the interval between my two degrees. I’ve also met or employed escorts who were studying medicine, veterinary medicine, psychology, physical therapy, radiology and social work, and spoken to more than one physician who did sex work while in university; in my experience, more sex workers have either worked in or studied some health-related field than any other area of expertise. Furthermore, a large fraction of my clientele were medical doctors, and I’ve never had a health professional react poorly or irrationally to my divulging my profession to them (though I have heard some sex workers say otherwise, especially in countries with a very pronounced whore-stigma).
Obviously, part of the reason for this must be that health professionals are much more comfortable thinking about, talking about and dealing with aspects of our physical nature than many others might be; they are less likely to be embarrassed by sexuality, and more likely to view sexual matters dispassionately and non-judgmentally. Also, health professionals and sex workers both are less likely to react strongly to biological factors that might disgust other people, and more able to put aside any revulsion or queasiness they do feel in order to get the job done. And successful practitioners in both fields either innately know, or have learned through experience, how to maintain the delicate balance between caring enough about their clients to want to help them, and remaining professionally detached enough to do be able to do their jobs properly without emotional complications. Good sex workers, like good health professionals, interact with their clients caringly, yet professionally; when they visit clients it is to take care of their needs, not to “exploit” them, “abuse” them or break up their relationships. Yes, there are unethical sex workers, but the same could be said of physicians. And when dealing with established members of either profession, one is no more likely to encounter improper behavior in the one than in the other.
This essay first appeared on Cliterati on January 27th; I have modified it only slightly so as to fit the format of this blog. I figured it might be a good idea to republish at least some of my Cliterati essays here so they can be discovered by future readers in the index.
Few people would deny the importance of skin-to-skin contact in the psychological, emotional and even physical health of the newborn infant; study after study since Harlow’s seminal work with Rhesus monkeys in the 1950s have demonstrated that even if all of a baby’s physical needs are met clinically and dispassionately, it will not thrive in the same way as one whose bare flesh is pressed against that of its mother. Indeed, in some cases an infant deprived of this contact will actually sicken and lose weight. As time goes on, the need becomes less critical; adults can survive without it for much longer periods than babies, and some people manage to go years without touching the naked skin of another person. But though an adult deprived of such contact is not likely to die, the effect can still be quite harmful; despite the denials of prudes and others who wish to control sexuality, physical intimacy with others is indeed a basic human need, and denying people the right to obtain it from consenting partners is a cruelty verging on barbarism.
In some countries, these statements would be wholly uncontroversial and it would be difficult to find a health professional, lay person or even politician who disagreed with them. But in others (especially the United States and United Kingdom) the idea of sex as more closely akin to food, sleep and shelter than to television watching is a politically unpopular one, and I won’t be at all surprised to see comments insisting that sex is no more vital to health than candy. I’m afraid I must politely disagree with them in advance; even in my private life I’ve seen too many examples of the erratic behavior of men long deprived of sex to ignore it, and as a sex worker I was privileged to be a regular witness to the profound restorative effects of simple human touch. The power was demonstrated to me most dramatically after Hurricane Katrina, when the male population in New Orleans outnumbered the female by a substantial margin and many a client was willing to pay me just to hold and touch him gently, without anything a literal-minded person would describe as “sex”.
For most healthy, socially-adept adults – especially women – the distinction is at best an academic one, because they have little or no trouble securing voluntary sex partners on a regular (or at least occasional) basis. But this is not so for everyone; some people (a highly disproportionate fraction of them male) have a great deal of trouble attracting partners willing to give them sex for the usual “socially acceptable” reasons such as love, lust, gratitude or even pity, leaving them unable to obtain it except by purchase. And if a society criminalizes that option (or creates so many impediments to commercial sex that it might as well be illegal), even that route is closed to the man who is too afraid of the police or social censure to take the risk.
Because of the movie The Sessions and the news of retired madam Becky Adams’ plan to open a brothel for the disabled, the topic of sex work and disability is a trending one right now; I’ve probably seen more articles on the subject in the last two months than I had in the preceding two years. And while I think this is an extremely important subject, I’ve written about it elsewhere and there are some very good charities (and in some countries, even government agencies) working diligently to raise public consciousness on the matter so that the skeptical can be helped to recognize that disabled people have the same need for intimacy as everyone else. What I’d like to call your attention to now is a fact that may seem obvious, yet tends to get lost in the shuffle whenever the topic comes up for discussion: not all disabilities are physical. In my first essay on the subject over two years ago, I primarily discussed physical disabilities such as paralysis, blindness, cerebral palsy and even extreme obesity. But in the months that followed the majority of men who wrote to thank me for speaking up for them, either in the comments or via email, suffered from “invisible” disabilities such as autism, stuttering, schizophrenia or even crippling social anxiety. Like those with more obvious problems they found it difficult or even impossible to interact with women in the way most men take for granted, and as a result relied on sex workers for that contact. A number of them asked my advice in finding the right sex worker for their needs, and one corresponded with me about his plans to travel to Nevada to lose his virginity in a legal brothel, and shared his joy with me afterward.
If someone were to seriously argue that it was wrong to pay for food, and that the restaurant business was by its very nature exploitative and demeaning, we would dismiss him as a crank or a lunatic; if a politician were to propose laws against the buying and selling of shelter, clothing, entertainment, medical care or other needs he would be ridiculed in the press and his chances for re-election would be seriously in doubt. Yet sex workers are attacked thus every day; our agency is denied, our clients and employees are demonized, our profession is ridiculed and the very real social value of our work is dismissed. And though we ourselves are the chief victims of this persecution, we should never forget that there are others as well: those people who rely upon us to provide a basic human need which, if not strictly necessary for mere biological survival, is nonetheless vital to make life worthwhile.
I was not the only one who left crying after being pressed to talk in detail about our…sexual experiences and desires…some of the audio we provided could have sounded like it belonged in a porn, rather than in a critique of it. – Beth Brigham
…the modern sex worker is believed to follow a…migratory path…the World Cup, the Grand Prix, the Super Bowl – all supposedly draw thousands of women offering paid sex. It’s…the kind of thing you could imagine in a dusty smut book, or serving as winky fodder for escort agencies and strip clubs in their seasonal marketing….we were told that during the 2012 Olympics, London was to be “flooded” with prostitutes, and that for the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, the city would host a “dark underworld” of illicit sex-for-sale. Like all fantasies, the “roving sporting sex workers” trope [is] mostly harmless…until seized upon by those who find it…politically useful…in London…police raided brothels, arrested sex workers, and threatened them with further arrest if they returned to their neighborhoods…A similar pattern…played out in New Orleans in the days before the Super Bowl…Fox News had a camera crew follow a team of volunteers as they attempted to rescue “sex slaves” from streets and strip clubs…With nearly any woman…a potential target…it may be a minor miracle that the New Orleans police department has reported only eight arrests…
…a survey by the Immigrant Council of Ireland has found…that by far the biggest fear about paying for sex was not that they would be caught but that they would have a bad experience or contract a disease…Of the 58 punters [who answered]…16 (27.5%) said they had [at some point changed their minds after meeting the prostitute]…“six stated…the person appeared controlled, five…because the person appeared unhappy, four…because the person appeared too young, two…because the person appeared unwilling, while two…because the person appeared intimidated, ‘hurt or injured’,”…Denise Charlton…said…“We have now heard from the buyers themselves that such laws would be a deterrent…We know too that the image of the happy, independent hooker which is being portrayed by those opposed to new laws is not the reality; 24% of buyers reconsidered a transaction because they believed the women and girls involved were controlled, unhappy, too young, unwilling, or intimidated.”
Beside the fact that 58 self-selected people is too small a sample to “conclude” anything, the figures suggest exactly the opposite of what Charlton claims. Only 27% have ever in their lives encountered such a girl (not 27% of all encounters); furthermore, their refusal testifies against the myth that men will eagerly hire coerced women, and finally the option of reporting those situations to the police would be closed by client criminalization, which is precisely the opposite of the stated goal of “protecting” sex workers.
This must-read profile of neofeminist anti-porn crusader Gail Dines by her ex-disciple Beth Brigham paints a chilling portrait of the brainwashing that goes on in “women’s studies” programs; the similarity to narratives from survivors of other cults is unmistakable, and Brigham’s observation that much of the prohibitionist myth of pimp “recruitment” and “exploitation” of girls more accurately resembles their own behavior is spot on.
…“Inventing Sex: The Short History of Sex Addiction”…published in the March issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture, isn’t an objective scientific study. It’s a paper by cultural historians at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, that attempts to document the growth of the concept of sex addiction…the paper’s pull-no-punches thesis [is]: “We argue that this strange, short history of social opportunism, diagnostic amorphism, therapeutic self-interest, and popular cultural endorsement is marked by an essential social conservatism–sex addiction has become a convenient term to describe disapproved sex.” Many of these points should be familiar, especially if you read my piece on sex addiction’s critics…
“The Push to Decriminalise Sex Work in Kenya” is a discussion paper from an African think tank which “explores the dangers associated with sex work, the protest movement in Kenya to decriminalise it, and the potential benefits of decriminalisation.” I’m sure you can guess what conclusion it reaches.
Efforts to collect DNA samples would expand to include any adult or juvenile arrested on a felony charge — and anyone convicted of a crime — under a budget proposal Gov. Scott Walker announced…Walker also announced plans…to allow GPS monitoring of certain people receiving first-time restraining orders who are found to be at higher-risk to cause serious harm…and…[an] increase for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to add five employees to investigate child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children…Walker’s plans to expand DNA collection…raised the ire of civil liberties advocates…
If politicians had any sense, they would wait for the outcome of trials involving similar laws before wasting millions on a program that might be recognized as illegal.
Upcoming erotic game Custom Maid 3D will be bundled with a very special controller…Ju-C Air…is a wireless masturbation toy that will respond and react in real time to your stroke speed and depth, making this motion control of a very particular sort. Those motions will also cause the in-game characters to react accordingly, too, with different characters reacting, um, differently…Ju-C Air…also has an analog stick and an action button as well as a right and a left click…[so] players don’t even have to take their hands off their penis while playing…
If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America’s slide through the nine rings of political hell. A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens…[it] maintains…control through the pervasive surveillance of peaceful citizenry, through a vast number of laws with draconian enforcement, and by converting rights into privileges that can be withheld…This describes America. Surveillance of daily life has soared; even the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the “right” of police to perform warrantless searches. A vast array of laws now dictate the minutia of life, from what you may not eat to the light bulbs you may not use as well products you must buy…A special police force called the Department of Homeland Security…functions without transparency or accountability. Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim…The difference between America and a communist regime lay in its institutional protection of the individual against the state. That difference no longer exists.
A southern Chinese province has stopped sending prisoners to labor camps, becoming the first in the country to take steps to phase out the much-criticized system…Yunnan’s top law enforcement official Meng Sutie announced…that the province will no longer send people to labor camps on the grounds of threatening national security, petitioning by causing unrest and smearing the image of officials…and…is suspending…sentences for people charged with other offenses, such as drug use and prostitution…
…Nevada Sex Trafficking Bill AB67 [redefines]…Pandering…and…Living from earnings of prostitute…as “sex trafficking,” thus carrying harsher penalties and requiring registration as a sex offender…Does [this] include…family members supported by…a woman working legally in a Nevada brothel? Pages 27-28 redefine terms so broadly as to apply to most consensual adult relationships, including marriage…“‘Prostitution’ means engaging in, agreeing to or offering to engage in sexual conduct with another person in return for a fee, monetary consideration or other thing of value…‘Sexual conduct’ means…any intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body or any object manipulated or inserted by a person into the genital or anal openings of the body of a person…” Is a medical doctor a prostitute for accepting money for a gynecological exam? Is the husband who drove his pregnant wife to the doctor a sex trafficker?…
Monto, in the heart of Dublin…was once the biggest…red-light district in Europe. Celebrated in song and story, it was where Leopold Bloom went for sexual humiliation and where a young Edward VII was said to have gone for some high-end thrills…At its height…1,600 women worked in Monto…but…within only a few years of the foundation of the State and the accession to power of the Roman Catholic church…War was declared on Monto. The new Catholic state stormed into action and a force of gardai…raided Monto at midnight on March 12, 1925, and literally threw the women working there out on to the street and into the Church-run slave-labour laundries…
New findings on Fredric Wertham, the fanatic who whipped up a moral panic over comic books and almost destroyed the industry in the early ‘50s:
…Wertham’s personal archives…show that the doctor revised children’s ages, distorted their quotes, omitted other causal factors and in general “played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics,” according to an article by Carol Tilley, published in a recent issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History. “Lots of people have suspected for years that Wertham fudged his so-called clinical evidence…but there’s been no proof,” Tilley said. “My research is the first definitive indication that he misrepresented and altered children’s own words about comics.” Wertham died in 1981 [but] his archives…weren’t made widely available to researchers until the spring of 2010…
This sort of prohibitionist behavior is already very familiar to regular readers.
…An NGO called “Women Hookers Organizing For Their Rights and Empowerment (WHORE) is treading the thorny path toward government recognition of this history-old job…[an advocate called] Tex said…there are about 500,000 sex workers in the country…“But we are not going for decriminalizing sex workers while criminalizing clients like the Swedish model…It didn’t even work there”…
The article is much better than the propaganda pushed by American journalists; it shows that opponents support criminalization of women and mentions UN support for decriminalization.
The Queensland police union is calling for tougher laws to send risk-taking pregnant women into safe houses in an effort to monitor their behaviour…[saying] the rights of an unborn child should be considered ahead of the mother…Union president Ian Leavers says the state should be able to intervene in cases where children are at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome and drug addictions…
This month’s story is a bit of a departure; it’s quite short, and there really isn’t a whore in it, but I think you’ll enjoy it anyway. The Muse whispered it to me one evening in early January and…well, I’ve explained how she is when she wants my attention, so here it is.
“How many of them do you think are out there?”
“I don’t know, sir; far too many for us to fight off, that’s for sure. I can hear them moving all through the tree line, and they’ve sent several scouts out into the open.”
The chieftain tried not to show his concern, but he knew the young warrior would sense his feelings anyway. “They could attack at any time.”
“I’m afraid so, sir, and if they do we’ll surely be overrun.”
“That must not happen,” he said firmly; “Our mission is to protect the domain from invasion, and we will not fail while I am alive.”
“No, sir,” said the young one, though he lacked his chief’s resolve.
The leader drew himself up. “There is no choice, then; we must call upon the gods for assistance, lest we fail in our sacred duty.”
“But sir, were we not taught that the Holy Ones hate to be disturbed?”
“Only without sufficient reason, and I feel this is more than sufficient. We cannot allow the infidels to defile this sacred soil with their filthy presence, and surely the gods will understand when they see our dilemma.” He turned to the others, who had drawn up behind him, and addressed them: “My people! We must lift up our voices to the sky, in the hopes that the gods may hear our prayer and look with favor upon us. We must ask them to smite our enemies, or we are surely lost!”
He then began the Prayer of Summoning, lifting his face to the moon and chanting the ancient rite. The others joined him, and together their shouts rose up toward the sky and spread out through the night. As if in answer the invaders began their own chant, crying out to whatever strange deities they worshipped in their rude and barbaric tongue.
Suddenly, the square was filled with a radiance like that of a tiny sun, and the form of the goddess appeared in their midst; she took no note of them whatsoever, but glided to the barricade and looked out into the darkness. When she beheld the enemy, she lifted her staff and Behold! She smote them with a thunderbolt! The people trembled, but they had faith that she would not turn the terrible power upon them; the same could not be said for the barbarians, who fled in terror lest her divine weapon destroy them all.
When they saw that the danger was over, the people rejoiced and performed a victory dance; the goddess then smiled upon them, and with a gesture spread before them delicious foodstuffs. And then she was gone as suddenly as she had appeared, and the people shared the feast and praised her goodness and generosity.
Today is Valentine’s Day, or as men like to call it, Extortion Day! – Jay Leno
A few Februaries ago my husband called me from the road one day to tell me what a fantastic wife I was, and how lucky he was to have me; I replied that although I wholly agreed with those statements, I was at a loss to understand what exactly had precipitated them in the middle of an afternoon when he wasn’t even nearby to observe my glory firsthand. He then explained that all his coworkers were talking about how they were going to catch hell from their wives for not being home on Valentine’s Day, and how their gifts were going to have to be that much more expensive to make up for it; this reminded him what a rational woman he had married, and he felt moved to express his gratitude.
Though Valentine’s Day is not one of the governmental or artificial holidays for which I have a strong aversion, it might as well be; as I explained two years ago it’s nearly as old as Christmas, and its origins are just as pagan and every bit as dark. But from the time of its repurposing as a celebration of romantic love in the late 14th century, it has become steadily more commercial; the first mass-produced greeting cards were valentines, and in the 1950s merchants began to market it as an occasion for giving flowers, chocolates, etc. Then in the 1980s, jewelers convinced American women that they “deserved” diamond jewelry on the day; at that rate it’s about time for another escalation, and I shudder to think what may be next (expensive “romantic” vacations, perhaps?) I’ve told every man in my life the same thing about the occasion: don’t buy into the hype. While I like getting thoughtful cards and might appreciate a small gift or being taken to dinner, I only want those if they’re heartfelt and freely given. An obligatory “gift” of a certain expected value which must be presented at a certain time in order to retain a woman’s sexual favors is not a love offering, but rather a whore’s fee. And while I obviously have absolutely nothing against that, I prefer for it to be an honest and consensual arrangement mutually agreed upon by two adults, rather than a coercive charade designed to mask the transactional nature of a sexual relationship.
Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return. – Genesis 3:19
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the solemn liturgical season of Lent; because Church doctrine formerly forbade the eating of meat (and other indulgences) during the season, “Fat Tuesday” was a sort of last goodbye to meat and other pleasures for the next six weeks. Even the word carnival (whose meaning has shifted a great deal in English, especially American English) was originally derived from the Old Italian carne levare, “taking meat away”. And though I’m no longer Catholic, I think the modern world has suffered for the lack of holidays like Ash Wednesday and the Day of the Dead, which were intended to remind us of our own mortality; certainly little tin gods and “safety”-hysterics alike could benefit from such rituals at least semi-annually. In keeping with that thought, today’s first video (which I discovered on EconJeff‘s website) is a reminder that even one of the great necessities of life can kill you.
Everything down to that video was provided by this week’s top contributor, Jesse Walker; those between the videos were contributed by Popehat (“Twitter felony” and “pulp generator”), Radley Balko (“forbidden fun” and “insane judge”), Dean Clark (“cops at play”), Amy Alkon (“imaginary weapons” and “TSA generator”), Nun Ya (“cop gropes woman” and “illiterate librarian”), Grace (“handicapped parking”), Aspasia (“spiders”), and Franklin Harris (“Mr. Rogers”).
Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living. – Chris Rose, 1 Dead in Attic
It’s just not possible to explain Mardi Gras to those who have never lived in the New Orleans area, because they absolutely will not get it. It’s not simply a matter of their never having experienced it, because mere attendance won’t put one into the proper state of mind; I daresay I could sit on a Vieux Carré balcony on Fat Tuesday, guessing whether each person who passed below was a local or a visitor, and achieve over 90% accuracy. It’s not simply that the visitors are the ones who are either stiff as boards or wildly out of control, nor the fact that most of them don’t wear costumes (I rarely did, either), nor the fact that most of the really obnoxious and/or disgusting drunks are hundreds or thousands of kilometers from home. All of those things are merely symptoms of the same general aura of Not-Getting-It-ness which manifests itself either in the belief that the holiday is just another excuse to get totally bombed out of one’s skull, or in that ultimate statement of Carnival Cluelessness, “How can a woman expose herself for a string of plastic beads?” Though the festival has a Christian excuse, it is (like Christmas) wholly pagan; indeed, much of its symbolism and customs have come down through the centuries from the Roman Saturnalia and even older celebrations, and Yule gives way seamlessly to Carnival on King Day. Carnival is also like Christmas in another important way; it is not a day but a whole season, and having the right spirit is far more important than the observation of any single ritual or combination of traditions. A person who goes through the motions during Yuletide but doesn’t have the “Christmas spirit” will not have a true experience of the festival, and the exact same thing is true of Mardi Gras. In a way, the spirit of Mardi Gras is the spirit of New Orleans, and anyone who is unwilling or unable to appreciate her style will never, ever be able to appreciate her signature holiday.
We have to learn how to come out of unclean situations cleaner than we were, and even how to wash ourselves with dirty water when we need to. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Though the Catholic Church had always held prostitution to be a “necessary evil”, this view started to change in the 13th century; the idea then arose that whores were “fallen women” who could be “reclaimed”, often by confining them against their will in order to “cleanse them of their sins” by penance, usually unpaid drudgery of the type generally performed by peasant women. Though most of the “Magdalene homes” where these women were imprisoned were closed during the Black Death, the practice was revived in the English-speaking world in the mid-18th century, then dramatically increased with the rise of the “purity movement” in the late 19th. Though they vanished everywhere else by the First World War, they survived in Ireland because the nuns who ran them had recognized that they could be run as profitable commercial laundries staffed by slave labor, many of whom were condemned to that condition by the Irish government from 1922 onward.
In 1993, the discovery of hundreds of bodies in unmarked graves on the site of a closed laundry triggered a public outcry which resulted in the closure of the last few in 1996. Over the next few years articles, television documentaries and a movie (The Magdalene Sisters, 2002) called more public attention to the long-ignored atrocities, and the outpouring of sympathy inspired many former inmates (who had previously felt too intimidated by the Church) to tell their stories. But though the Irish government admitted in 2001 that the women were abused by the nuns, it refused to apologize for its part in the outrage, to pay compensation or even to investigate the matter on the grounds that the laundries were “privately run”. Finally the group Justice for Magdalenes presented its case to the United Nations Committee on Torture in 2011, and on June 6th that body strongly urged the Irish government to set up an inquest. The government grudgingly capitulated, and the 1182 page report of that investigation was at long last released last Tuesday, February 5th. As you might expect from a governmental self-analysis, it attempts to whitewash and provide feeble excuses for the brutal enslavement of over 10,000 women:
The committee…to inquire into the Magdalene laundries has found clear evidence of state involvement in the religious…work houses. However, it notes that there was a legal basis for the way the state operated…more than a quarter of 10,000 women who entered the laundries were referred there by the state. But it paints a more benign picture of life in the laundries than may be popularly believed…The committee did not find physical abuse or torture…and there was no evidence that the women were sexually abused…
The prime minister then issued a mealy-mouthed “apology” which was basically the political equivalent of “I’m sorry you’re ugly”:
Enda Kenny…said he was sorry thousands of women had to live in austere conditions…after a report said the state was responsible for sending many women and girls to the laundries…“I am sorry for those people that they lived in that kind of environment…I want to see that those women who are still with us…that the state provides for them with the very best of facilities and supports that they need in their lives.” But, survivors quickly rejected his apology and demanded a fuller and more frank admission from government and the religious orders involved…Justice for Magdalenes said it welcomed the report’s central findings and said it ensured that it can no longer be claimed that these institutions were private and that the ‘vast majority’ of the girls and women entered voluntarily. The group added that it is calling on the Irish government to establish a transparent and non-adversarial compensation process that includes the provision of pensions, lost wages, health and housing services.
The government’s hypocrisy is most obviously revealed in the fact that it has not only continued to fund the anti-whore crusades of the two orders who ran the laundries (under their new guise, Ruhama), but also continued to collude with them in the persecution by attempting to impose the Swedish model on Ireland via a series of kangaroo hearings featuring “evidence” from the likes of Melissa Farley and the Skarhed report, and the total exclusion of sex workers and their advocates. The truth is, neither the nuns behind Ruhama nor the Irish government which enables their evil is sorry for their systematic mistreatment of whores and other women; they’re only sorry they got caught, and now they’ve regrouped and are starting the whole campaign over again.
Whorephobia…can manifest in various forms, including…rejection of a fellow…human being…projection of one’s own life experiences onto another…and in severe cases, frothing at the mouth…and feverishly campaigning for extreme punishment and prohibition of Whores and Whore-adjacent peoples, places, and objects. – Aspasia Bonasera
Another good article about sex work with disabled clients, this one a first-person account from reader Laura Lee. Due to the movie The Sessions this has become a very “hot” topic, which is good because it deals a strong blow to the “victimized prostitute” narrative. For more on the subject, here’s Becky Adams:
Interestingly, “sex trafficking” fetishists waited until Super Bowl Sunday to trot out their claims this year, probably to avoid the high-profile debunking which will soon be inevitable; the story was updated less than 38 hours after its initial appearance to include a reference to an article for which I was consulted last year and the opinion of Rachel Lloyd, a “sex trafficking” promoter who has criticized the rampant exaggerations and the “gypsy whores” myth. The main attraction is yet another soi-disant “survivor” spouting the typical tinned narrative (brutal pimp, 50 clients a day, etc), and there’s a bonus appearance by SOAP. The most interesting bit is this snapshot of “Chinese Whispers” in action: the story claims that “133 underage arrests for prostitution were made in Dallas during the 2011 Super Bowl,” when in actuality a very-typical 133 adult arrests of all types (not prostitution alone) were made in the 2½ weeks before the Super Bowl. The number of actual “pimps” arrested? One, an idiot who got the idea from the hype.
Atlanta’s police chief…George Turner has asked city council to approve a…banishment law…the first conviction would result in the accused prostitute being ordered not to return to the area they were arrested…upon second conviction, the accused prostitute would be banished from city limits forever…Larry Miller…said he supports anything that would put a dent in the prostitution plague…
Human beings are now a “plague” to be “banished” from an autocrat’s realm.
…I have never met a person even remotely like the stereotypical pimp, and yet I “know” they exist, largely because I have been told so over and over again. I’ve met streetwalkers, both drug-addicted and not; escorts and call girls, same; not one ever had what popular imagination would classify as a “pimp,” but then I keep getting told I’m not representative, so maybe the literally hundreds of…sex workers I’ve met are just “not representative” too?…Independent sex workers who organise their own affairs…Roommates who share a flat…escort agencies with a dozen or so girls…Massage parlour owners. Women whose house is used by other sex workers…People who set up message boards and internet forums…All of these are…called “pimps” by the anti-sex lobby. A guy in a crushed velvet suit on a street corner, keeping his girls high and working the neighbourhood? Not so many of those…
…Chee Mei Wong…[allegedly] ran the Diamonds brothel in …Sydney…between…2008 and 2010…[and] employed six women…who…were told they would have to work until they paid off the cost of their airfare, visa and course fees [around $5000]…Despite…having paid off their debt after a “short period of time” it is alleged Ms Wong threatened she would have their visas revoked if they left. But Ms Wong’s barrister Bruce Quinn said she…only worked at the brothel as…receptionist…[and] the matter was simply an “industrial dispute” and a “sham” created so the women could stay in Australia…
These sorts of conflicting claims are not unusual in contract disputes, and unfortunately many people are quick to accuse others of wrongdoing in order to divert government attention from themselves. The important thing is that nobody here was criminalized for her profession, and the same situation could have arisen in any industry employing migrants.
…U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple sentenced Christjan Bee of Monett, Missouri, to three years in prison for “possessing an obscene image of the sexual abuse of children…[namely] a collection of electronic comics, entitled ‘incest comics,’…[containing] multiple images of minors engaging in graphic sexual intercourse with adults and other minors”…In other words, he is going to prison for drawings; no actual children were involved at any point.
[Vincent Burroughs of] Oregon…has filed a lawsuit against an IRS agent…claiming he was coerced into [a sexual] relationship…Dora…Abrahamson contacted Burroughs about an audit…flirted with [him] over the telephone…offered him massages and sent him a photo of herself in her underwear…”She said that she could impose no penalty, or a 40 percent penalty, and that if he would give her what she wanted, she would give him what he needed”…
Mexican officials broke up a bizarre cult that allegedly ran a sex-slavery ring…The “Defensores de Cristo”…allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man who claimed he was the reincarnation of Christ…Followers were subjected to forced labor or sexual services, including prostitution…prosecutors were still trying to work out which of the detainees may be considered victims, and which were abusers…
Cult messiahs invariably have sex with female followers, and how is contributing sexual labor any different from contributing money or other labor as members of established religions do? But due to “trafficking” hysteria, it becomes “sex slavery” even though the “authorities” themselves admit that any assignment of “victim” and “abuser” status will be arbitrary.
Meet Doctor Maria Zulfiqar Khan…In her recent programme, she conducted a self-styled raid on a massage center in Lahore…and harassed the women…police [accompanied] her, but she played being in charge…we see women helplessly trying to hide their faces…[and Khan]…going through handbag of a lady…picking up a condom…and shouting…”what is this? what is this?”…Khan also plays being an interrogator…and…at one point, not agreeing to the answers…says sarcastically, “yeah right, tell that to the cops when they take you”…At the end of the programme…she visits [the] house of one of the girls…and…tells her audience “this man made [his] daughter a prostitute, what an animal he is”…
…police have a special inclination toward confabulation…[and] an incentive to lie…[they] shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so…Peter Keane, a former San Francisco Police commissioner…[decried] a police culture that treats lying as the norm…Gustin L. Reichbach of the [New York] Supreme Court…condemned a widespread culture of lying…in…drug enforcement units…the Bronx district attorney’s office was so alarmed by police lying that it decided to stop prosecuting people who were…arrested for trespassing at…housing projects…Numerous scandals involving police officers lying or planting drugs…have been linked to federally funded drug task forces eager to keep the cash rolling in…
The Indian Supreme Court’s waffling on decriminalization has emboldened prohibitionist legislators, who tried to quietly criminalize prostitution by defining all sex work as “exploitation” and therefore illegal under existing law. The National Network of Sex Workers has appealed to the President of India to veto this sleazy back-door scheme, but if he does not you can bet a court challenge will not be long in coming since Indian sex workers, unlike most in the United States, are unified to fight for their rights.
A minor war has broken out…in the village of Kiad [Saudi Arabia,] where large groups of hungry baboons from nearby valleys are attacking residences in search of food and drink…Adel Medini [said]…“The baboons are targeting empty houses and are well aware of what they are doing…They proceed according to studied plans. That’s why their attacks do not fail…a resident…[returns] to find his home in disarray. Some people…thought that thieves had…ransacked their houses…”
I really wish people who support legal prostitution would talk to actual sex workers or even just do a little research before writing articles which perpetuate ugly myths such as “It’s no longer just a drug-addled woman forced onto lonely street corners” (it never was), and “sex workers are likely reticent to draw attention to their illicit life by divulging STDs and surely no one checks customers for STDs”. The latter is an especially damaging myth because you can guess his proposed “solution” to this nonexistent problem: compulsory disease checks for registered whores (but not amateurs, who are free to spread disease at will).
The Kansas…Supreme Court ruled that exotic dancers are employees of the club where they work, not independent entertainment contractors…[at] Club Orleans [in] Topeka…dancers were required to pay non-negotiable “rent” for use of the stage and dressing rooms, as well as extra fees for the disc jockeys and bouncers…House rules governed what the dancers could do in their shows and the prices they had to charge for specific types of dances…The women were required to sign in with the bouncer at the beginning of a shift and weren’t allowed to leave…until the end of the shift…
In this book review, Harvey Silverglate made the same point I did yesterday:
In Unlearning Liberty, [Greg] Lukianoff…[presents many] examples of campus censorship …65% of liberal arts campuses have speech codes that violate…free speech norms…Lukianoff…persuasively argues that…contemporary campuses can be seen essentially as incubators for a future society governed by censorship of iconoclastic ideas and kangaroo courts that enforce those prohibitions…some…now sitting on the federal bench do not blanch when innocent citizens are convicted of violating statutes and regulations that no normal person could possibly understand [because] students…get accustomed to the administrative tyranny…and…don’t have much adjusting to do when they gain, and abuse, real power of their own…
Those who play with the devil’s toys will be brought by degrees to wield his sword. – R. Buckminster Fuller
Though the concept of the “slippery slope” can (and often is) used in a fallacious manner, it is wrong to insist (as government apologists often do) that it is always so. In the common law tradition, laws are defended from those who would challenge them by arguing precedent: demonstrating that a new law or practice strongly resembles others already in existence which have never been challenged (or better yet, withstood such challenges) constitutes evidence that the new act is also permissible. But there’s another factor, a psychological and moral one: once people get used to an idea, they’re much more likely to support laws that reflect that attitude. Sometimes this is a good thing; for example, now that the majority of Americans have either smoked marijuana themselves or know someone who does, support for its criminalization is waning. But it can also be a very bad thing: someone with a very negative opinion of a particular social group (such as homosexuals or sex workers) is unlikely to object very strenuously to laws criminalizing that group.
Yesterday, I discussed the way the state establishes precedents with demonized groups, then extends those precedents to everyone. Today we’ll look at the other side of the coin: the way people become comfortable with doing nasty things themselves, so that when the state simply turns custom into law and replaces social penalties with criminal ones, most people don’t even flinch. My first example is the public reaction to Julie Burchill’s awful hate-screed of a few weeks ago; for those who missed it, the neofeminist writer who said “prostitutes should be shot…for their terrible betrayal of all women” published an ugly, hateful rant against transgender people in the Observer, and the resulting firestorm was so intense the newspaper “unpublished” it the next day. Obviously, I have no love for Burchill and I was quite happy to see her reaping the whirlwind, but I found the deletion of her article very troubling, and people’s evident satisfaction over that deletion even more so. As I wrote in my Cliterati article “Speech and More Speech”,
…nearly everyone is closed-minded about something, and that’s why it is so vital that we not allow anyone’s speech to be censored: nobody is (individually or collectively) qualified to judge what ideas “deserve” to be heard. The test of our commitment to the free exchange of ideas, and therefore to social progress, lies not in our support for free speech for those who say things we like, or even for those who politely say things we don’t like; rather, it lies in our dedication to defending the right of people we don’t like to say horrible, offensive things with which we vehemently disagree…
Those who rejoice when a private corporation deletes a writer’s article, and would gloat if she were fired, are already receptive to the idea of censorship; enacting the practice into law and establishing censors to act “on behalf of the public” is only one step further.
…People in sexual situations that are both dangerous and potentially embarrassing need to be able to call for help, without fearing that they’re going to be publicly humiliated and that their call for help is going to be spread all over the Internet. How many kinky people…are going to read this story and be reluctant to call 911 when they’re stuck in handcuffs, when they have something stuck in their ass, when they can’t get a cock ring off, when they stumble in their bondage boots and break their nose? I don’t know anything about this priest, other than the fact that he got stuck in bondage gear and made a 911 call to help get him out…I don’t know if he preached sexual shame to his followers while secretly doing kinky stuff, or if he openly opposed the Church’s teachings on sexuality, or if in his public life he just stayed away from the whole topic…But I don’t think it matters…when he was stuck in handcuffs, he should have been able to call 911 without fearing that it would result in his massive public humiliation. His public shaming sends a really crappy message to anyone involved in unconventional sex: “If you’re responsible and take care of your safety by asking for help when you need it, from the people whose job it is to help you, you could easily wind up with your sexual practices becoming the laughing stock of the Internet”…
The “public records” excuse is increasingly used by the media to publicize things that aren’t anyone else’s business; it was bad enough when people who were accused of violent crimes were convicted in the media without benefit of a trial, then it spread to humiliating those accused of victimless crimes, and now it’s been extended to violating the privacy of those who, like the priest or the New York gun owners, aren’t accused of any kind of crime at all. People have grown so used to this that nobody thought much about it when cities started erecting billboards with the names and pictures of men accused of soliciting prostitutes, and the majority quietly accepts the most egregious violations of privacy; how much longer will it be before government agencies just save a step and start making all the information gleaned from their omnipresent surveillance available for anyone to see? Do you really want to live in a world where a complete police dossier on every friend, every neighbor, every co-worker, is only a few mouse-clicks away…and yours is equally accessible to everyone else?
Violating the rights of others is only acceptable in self-defense; it is not a toy for amusement or self-gratification. As such toys are successively adopted by groups, then formal associations and finally governments, they change from mere playthings into dangerous weapons; unfortunately, the transformation is so gradual that most never even notice until it’s far too late to return them to the box from which they should never have been taken in the first place.
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Sometimes synchronicity (or coincidence if you prefer) helps me to make a point better than I could have made it myself. Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s essay “Skin To Skin” first appeared in Cliterati, this story was carried in The Sun and several other newspapers:
Obviously, part of the reason for this must be that health professionals are much more comfortable thinking about, talking about and dealing with aspects of our physical nature than many others might be; they are less likely to be embarrassed by sexuality, and more likely to view sexual matters dispassionately and non-judgmentally. Also, health professionals and sex workers both are less likely to react strongly to biological factors that might disgust other people, and more able to put aside any revulsion or queasiness they do feel in order to get the job done. And successful practitioners in both fields either innately know, or have learned through experience, how to maintain the delicate balance between caring enough about their clients to want to help them, and remaining professionally detached enough to do be able to do their jobs properly without emotional complications. Good sex workers, like good health professionals, interact with their clients caringly, yet professionally; when they visit clients it is to take care of their needs, not to “exploit” them, “abuse” them or break up their relationships. Yes, there are unethical sex workers, but the same could be said of physicians. And when dealing with established members of either profession, one is no more likely to encounter improper behavior in the one than in the other.
