If we [can’t] get the prohibition on sex work repealed, we [will] never end up hanging on to our abortion rights…it’s the same piece of property. – Margo St. James
Dutch “authorities” narrow the bottleneck again and will no doubt be surprised when illegal prostitution increases: “The city of Amsterdam…will raise the legal age of prostitutes from 18 to 21 and…close brothels during the early morning hours…Amsterdam says it wants to decrease the number of sex workers…to fight crime generated by prostitution…”
Yet another example of what real sex slavery looks like:
A sex worker who was…held hostage for two…days broke her legs and back when she jumped out a sixth-floor window…Benjamin Gaston and Johnny Jackson have been charged with kidnapping and raping the…woman…Gaston…stole her cellphone, money and identification…hit her and held a pillow over her face, telling her, “You’re…working for me and making me money.” The next day, [she] was taken to another apartment…where there were six or seven additional men waiting to have sex with her, including Jackson…The woman tried to escape…by using her jacket as a rope…[but] fell to the ground…
I just love it when they feed on one another. In Stockholm, “Police…were surprised…to find that a man they had arrested for buying sex from a prostitute was the duty prosecutor to whom they were obliged to report the crime…”, and in New York, “Officer Luis Gutierrez…was on duty when he allegedly offered a prostitute money…[but she] was an undercover cop…”
Bitcoin is now the world’s best-performing currency:
…The number of coins in circulation grows very slowly–there are about 10.8 million…now, and that will increase to 21 million by 2140…growth…[can’t] keep up with demand and so the value of the currency [grows]…The U.S. dollar value of a Bitcoin is up from…$4.87 [a year ago]…to $31.09 today. It has appreciated by over 100% from the end of 2012 alone, when the quoted price was $13.48…And it’s also going mainstream, reports in the Guardian and Forbes suggest…
The Forbes article reports that “Silicon Valley Bank…and…Coinlab….will [soon] allow North America-based…users to directly convert money from dollars to bitcoin, without having to pay the hefty transaction fees associated with transferring money abroad…”
Spanish police were puzzled when thirty Romanian whores they “rescued from exploitation by a network of pimps” immediately returned to work; “none of [them] asked for protection or availed themselves of assistance…to return to their country” despite police claims of beatings and debt bondage. Meanwhile, Filipino “authorities” continued their weird crusade against “cybersex”: “…police raided…[an] alleged…cybersex den…[and] rescued 12 [young men]…“They referred to themselves as ‘chatters’ because they chat online…as they perform sexual acts in front of the web cam,” said…officer…Romano Cardiño…”
Dennis Green admits he offered another man $20…for sex…[but his] defense…could have a far-reaching impact…legalizing prostitution in Ohio…Scott Nazzarine, Green’s public defender…believes there’s no way what Green did can be deemed a crime in today’s society. He compares it to other acts that at one time were illegal – premarital sex, the sale of sex toys, abortion, contraception…but now are legal, protected rights…“It’s about privacy rights and constitutional rights and the government’s intrusion into them…Any justification for prostitution laws is just a pretext for morality”…
Nazzarine is of course totally right and the judges know it, but I don’t think this is the case that will do the job because there’s still too much hypocrisy afoot. Still, this won’t be the last one, and eventually individual rights must triumph just as they have in other sexual matters.
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women is the only large “anti-trafficking” organization which fights the use of bogus statistics and conflation of sex work with exploitation; it’s calling for papers for its Anti-Trafficking Review on the topic “Following the Money: Spending on Anti-Trafficking” …“Lacking is analysis of…anti-trafficking funds – where they come from, who they go to, what they are meant to do, what they actually achieve, and indeed whether they are needed.” Two of the suggested topics are analysis of the motives behind “anti-trafficking” funding and questioning ties to law enforcement.
A baby…who got immediate treatment now has no detectable [HIV] in her blood…within 30 hours of birth…she…got a cocktail of three drugs at a dose normally reserved for more advanced cases…There is still virus in [her] body. But…it doesn’t seem to be able to spread from one cell to another…[or damage her] immune system…
Emi Koyama exposes journalists who knew the falsity of the “average age of debut in prostitution is 13” myth for three years, yet kept repeating it anyhow: “While I was glad to see that The Oregonian now officially acknowledges that there is no basis for this…everything…Janie Har…wrote…was already in my three-year old blog post…[written after] I first read the claim…in [Oregonian reporter Elizabeth] Hovde’s column…” Emi details her July 2010 correspondence with Hovde, in which the reporter acknowledged her analysis but made excuses rather than issuing a retraction. Then finally, last Saturday,
…The Oregonian acknowledges that the claim is baseless! (But why is it rated “half-truth”…and why did they not mention any other study that contradict 12-14 claim?) I have a feeling that Janie Har read my blog post…she mentions the same Shared Hope report and points out the same problems…If she did read my blog, why did she not speak with me or give me credit…The Oregonian had the opportunity to stop perpetuating the myth for almost three years, and yet failed to do so as recently as this January.
While Janie Har’s column is to be commended, The Oregonian and Hovde need to take responsibility for their part in the falsehood…
While I was in New York last week, Secret Lives and A Natural History of Rape arrived as gifts from reader “M”. Thank you very much, both for the books and the good wishes!
When Melissa King [aged out of] the Delaware foster care system at 18, she did some porn, entered some pageants, and enrolled in college…Last November, King was crowned Miss Delaware Teen USA…[but] she gave up her crown after an explicit video…surfaced on an amateur porn website…Now she’s being publicly shamed by former friends and international news organizations…Pageants and porn are…two sides of a very thin sexual boundary. And for a young, pretty girl who’s strapped for cash…only one of [them offers it] up-front…
Melissa Gira Grant continues a strong run of good articles with “Unpacking the Sex Trafficking Panic” in Contemporary Sexuality, the newsletter of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT). When sex-worker-penned items criticizing a popular narrative appear under the imprimatur of a relatively-conservative organization, it’s clear the tide has begun to turn. Also, here’s a good interview with veteran activist Tracy Quan by Caty Simon on Tits and Sass; I promise, I’m not just linking it because it mentions me.
In this interview with Bitch magazine, Margo St. James discusses the beginning of the sex worker rights movement, how the neofeminists turned mainstream feminism against us, “sex trafficking” hysteria and the future of sex worker activism.
“Dear Prudence” gives what I think is a reasonable response to an unconsciously-bigoted man wondering if he should “out” a sex worker friend to his other friends. Unfortunately, the graphics give the impression that the woman goes around looking like a Hollywood streetwalker when in reality, the uptight questioner’s issue is that she looks just like any other woman.
Much Ado About Nothing (TW3 #44)
An escort who appeared on a video claiming that Sen. Robert Menendez…paid her for sex has told Dominican authorities that she was instead paid to make up the claims and has never met or seen the senator…a local lawyer had approached her and a fellow escort and asked them to help frame Menendez…That lawyer has in turn identified a second Dominican lawyer who he said gave the woman a script and paid her to read the claims aloud…
The “Facebook pimps” myth just keeps growing and growing, which really isn’t a surprise since it combines three of the moral panics du jour: “sex trafficking”, gangs and the evil, evil internet. This sort of thing has been happening for as long as there have been exploitative men and naive, sheltered girls with romantic delusions; it’s not a “trend”, not limited to Facebook and not an international conspiracy. CNN also fails to understand that three cases in a country of 300 million do not an epidemic make, and that 18 isn’t “underage”.
Yet another example of judges ignoring a law’s unconstitutionality on the grounds that those challenging it have not been sufficiently harmed by it:
The Supreme Court…[dismissed] a challenge to a…federal law that allows…interception of electronic communications…[on the grounds] that the lawyers, journalists and human rights organizations that brought the suit cannot prove they have been caught up in the surveillance and thus may not challenge [it]…the 5 to 4 ruling did not touch on…constitutionality…and challengers said it will be almost impossible now to get that issue before a court…
An even more thorough refutation of the moronic prohibitionist claim that sex is somehow different from every other human activity:
“The assumption that liberal prostitution laws lead to an increase in human trafficking is refuted. On the contrary…since…liberalisation, there has been more police activity but…significantly less suspects, convicts and victims. That’s…an indicator that…disentanglement of prostitution from criminal environments is increasingly successful.” – Volker Beck, MP…“In the year 2000…[German officials] registered…926 victims. In the year 2011, there were 640. This equates to a decrease of just under 31 per cent. If one compares the figures…in 2003 [a year after the prostitution law was passed] and 2011, one sees a certifiable decline of just above 48 per cent”…The…German government thus refutes the claim by Neumayer, Cho and Dreher that legalised prostitution increases human trafficking…
More evidence of the evangelical Christian basis for “sex trafficking” mythology and a look inside the perverted minds of prohibitionists:
In the fight against sex trafficking, the Church needs to address the root causes – the ideas…that break the linkage sex has to love, responsibility and children, [said] Lisa Thompson…of…the Salvation Army…Thompson asked [her audience] not [to] divorce…sex trafficking from…prostitution [because]…all prostitution dehumanizes women…”God did not create any woman for the purpose…that she be a cum receptacle. God did not create the female to be a human being that [johns] are basically masturbating into…sex was never intended to be a job, so let’s not use the language of ‘sex work'”…
That Thompson had to deny that sex work is work is a very good sign indeed.
I have long held that professional sex workers need to develop a code of ethics just as other professions have, not only for moral reasons but in order to push back against “authorities” who think they are more qualified than we are to set standards for work they’ve never done. So I was pleased to hear that the Australian Sex-Positive Sex Industry Association (ASPaSIA) is working on just such a code, and I’ll report on it at full length once it’s finalized later this month.
Labour TD, Eamonn Maloney, said he did not accept the [claims] in the report on the [Magdalene] laundries…“They…made lots of money,” he said…adding that most commercial laundries in the 1940s and 1950s closed because of competition from the Magdalenes. “Not only has the church as yet to apologise for their role in operating these prisons, they do also have a role…in compensating people,” he said…The Government has so far refused to say what contribution, if any, it will seek from the orders…
If you don’t destroy the SWORD of prohibition – then it WILL be used against you. Gun control laws … drug laws … cigarette laws … all of Bloomberg’s “nanny laws” are enforced with that sword.
Michael Weinstein and AHF hardest hit.
I’m so glad that they’ve caught another one of these beauty pagent girls who have sex. Those girls aren’t supposed to have sex, you know? They’re a birthday cake no one is allowed to eat you know!
Does this mean I don’t have to pay speeding fines anymore? I mean – since the government can’t prove I’ve sufficiently harmed them with my accelerator pedal. I think they should have to wait until I kill someone and they have to clean up the mess.
W … T … F … OVER!!!???
Whoa … “potty mouth” alert.
(and I’m turned on!)
This is one of the few times I hate being a man. You women – if you don’t like the person inside the guy you don’t want anything to do with him. Me? I think Lisa Thompson is pretty fucked up on the inside but on the outside? She could be my “receptacle” any time!! Physically – she’s a smoking hot woman. Hopefully one day the demon possessing her will be exorcised from her body so I won’t feel so guilty about this crush I have on her!!
(I’m BAD – I KNOW!!)
“The Government has so far refused to say what contribution, if any, it will seek from the orders…” But you can damn well count on it not paying compensation itself.
How much does it cost to enter beauty pageants? That’s entry fees, clothes, makeup, and travel expenses. I’d guess that if a young woman with no family support can afford it, she must have an income larger than a recent high-school graduate can earn except by porn or prostitution.
Depends on the level she’s entering into. Miss Bumfuck Township pageant probably doesn’t cost much. But to get on track to the national and (if applicable) international pageants, it is a pretty penny. And that’s just the basic, stated fees for the pageant itself. Then there’s costumes, hair, makeup, cosmetic surgery, rehearsals (for talent portions, if applicable), etc. Then transportation and traveling costs. THEN there’s the bribing/schmoozing of officials, which I hear is especially bad in Venezuela and Colombia where there are extremely high stakes for winners of the pageants.
The NYT ran an article about a year or two ago about the two different Miss Colombia pageants: the mainstream one that is pretty much restricted to the upper middle-class (ie. predominantly white/very light mestizo-mulatto); and the one held among a network of low-income neighborhoods and slums (predominantly darker mestizo-mulatto and black). To be perfectly honest, the girl from the low-income pageant was much prettier. I have that article bookmarked somewhere so I’ll post it a little later.
Hannah Betts in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hatred-prostitutes-feminists-brutality?INTCMP=SRCH
(apologies if you’ve referenced this elsewhere.)
Yep, in today’s Cliterati column.
Doh! Not much gets past your eyes, does it? 😉
Amsterdam – the petty and cruel prohibition-by-stealth has been a huge failure. From the City’s own website:
“Unlicensed escort agency activities were made illegal on 1 February 2008. Research shows that the escort industry in the city has grown significantly in recent years in Amsterdam, and has possibly even doubled in size. The introduction of escort industry licensing provides the local authorities with a tool for fighting abuse in the sector. A national licensing system for the escort industry is currently being prepared.”
There was also an attempt to illegalize sex with undocumented migrants.
An Ounce of Prevention – There is a recently developed therapeutic vaccine against HIV which achieves up to a tenfold reduction of viral load in infected people. The effect lasts about half a year, but is very promising all the same; if researchers can increase the HIV-specific T cell response, we could see the effect extended to years at a time.
Déjà Vu – Thompson combines the worst of prudery and porn in her statements, and she is wrong about prostitution not being considered a job in biblical times.
Great quote from Margo St. James; and I still don’t understand why most women don’t understand that if there is any limitation on their bodily freedoms, there will eventually be complete prohibition on their bodily freedoms: the same is true for men.
This SCOTUS is known to avoid tough choices by focusing on standing. Standing is important: I can’t bring a gay marriage case to the SCOTUS because I’m not trying to marry a dude. But yeah, they get carried away with it sometimes.
The prostitute isn’t a cum receptacle because the cum is contained within the condom. The Christian point of view has generally been that sex is for making babies, and the woman must receive the cum for that to happen. Somebody needs to learn a few choice facts before commenting on this subject again (I’m looking at you, Lisa).
Every new victory in the war against AIDS (and let’s please keep our domestic metaphorical wars focused on diseases from now on, please) is a victory worth celebrating.