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Archive for April, 2013

That Was the Week That Was (#316)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2013| 25 Comments »

The truth doesn’t have a sound bite.  –  Hadil Habiba

A Whore in the Bedroom

While working as a high-class escort for nine years, Rebecca Dakin saw hundreds of married men turn to her to fulfill sexual needs not being met by their wives.  In 2009, she…became an infidelity counselor, using her experience…to teach women about how to satisfy their husbands…Dakin says that the number one reason men look outside of their relationships for sex is because they’re not getting enough of it at home…other reasons…include…feeling bored by the sex they receive…or feeling hesitant to share their intimate desires and fantasies with their spouse…

November Book Reviews

Thaddeus Russell lectures on A Renegade History of the United States at the recent New Hampshire Liberty Forum:

Barbie

The pathetic losers who believe young girls can perform complex calculations in their heads are at it again, informing us that if Barbie were both alive and life-sized she wouldn’t have room for intestines.  That’s ironic, because it’s obvious that doofuses who obsess about plastic dolls have no room in their heads for comprehending that the smaller any animal is, the more slender its proportions tend to be, and that kids don’t actually notice this kind of stuff in any case.

Real People

It’s surprising that this article on Bay Area sex workers (including Kitty Stryker and Siouxsie Q) who cater to the tech sector appeared on CNN, of all places; the phrase “human trafficking” occurs only once, in a very short passage about a vice cop.  Maybe a few people over there are starting to wake up (or just seeing the writing on the wall).  The same holds true in the next item:

Feminine Pragmatism

The anti-whore rhetoric in this New York Times piece about Afghan sex workers is minimal, and the word “trafficking” entirely absent:

…Mazar…is…Afghanistan’s unofficial capital of prostitution…[this is] partly [due]…to the city’s culture, which is considerably more forgiving of vice than is the rest of the country.  Alcohol, though still illegal, can be found without too much trouble.  Women…can be seen socializing with men in…public parks, a rare sight even in Kabul…In recent years, the city’s economy has flourished as its proximity to Central Asia and its relative peace and stability have transformed it into a trading hub…The sex trade has [always] existed in one form or another…even under the ultraconservative rule of the Taliban.  But officials here say the rapid spread of mobile technology has made the business easier to manage and harder to detect…Women…host clients in a series of apartments…The point of contact is typically a man who orchestrates the meet-ups by cellphone.  This has made the business tough to infiltrate for those police officials eager to crack down…[sex workers] are almost always impoverished and typically divorced or widowed, struggling to support a family…they risk death if they are discovered…

The Pro-Rape Coalition

Kamlesh Vaswani“The Supreme Court [of India] sought response from the government on a plea to block and ban porn sites on the internet, particularly those showing child pornography…The petition filed by Indore-based advocate Kamlesh Vaswani said watching obscene videos is not an offence but it is one of the major causes for crime against women…”  As we know, this is the exact opposite of the truth.

Where Are the Victims?

Even the police state seems unable to explain what legitimate public interest is served by jailing a 69-year-old quadriplegic polio victim who breathes through a ventilator for the “crime” of having sexual feelings.  In 2011 he was “convicted” of helping sex workers find safe clients by running a screening service, and apparently the terms of his probation demand he not be sexual in any way; unsurprisingly, he has been caught violating that condition twice so far.

We Told You So

…As part of a legal settlement, Tennessee-based Stop Child Trafficking Now…will agree to follow a list of requirements if it returns to Missouri…some of the stipulations include [detailing] how donated funds will be spent in the Kansas City area…[and] an accurate depiction of the organization’s accomplishments.  A 41 Action News investigation…followed the money trail and fact-checked some of SCTNow’s bold claims made on its website…hundreds of thousands of dollars [went] to fund private “special operatives” teams to gather undercover intelligence about child sex trafficking…[but] when pressed for more details, SCTNow could not point to a single case in the country where information lead to an arrest or prosecution…

Divided We Fall

The Gambia introduced…new laws…criminalising male prostitution [and] cross-dressing…Any man or boy who solicits, is “attired in the fashion of a woman” in a public place or who “practises sodomy as a means of livelihood or as a profession” now faces a hefty fine and jail term of up to five years…

Where’s the outcry from picket-fence gay activists? {sound of crickets}  I reckon they don’t want to be soil their newfound respectability by speaking up for drag hookers any more.prohibition beer raid

Change a Few Words

Dr. Laura Agustín on how all prohibitionism is the same:

…outlawing activities accomplishes only one thing…It tells citizens that government has decided something is Wrong…Sending A Message is the principle …behind the Swedish state’s…law against buying sex, and…behind all the [others]…who want the law for their countries.  Everyone wants to be seen to be Taking a Stand against immoral behaviour.  Try bringing evidence into the conversation and you will quickly learn how irrelevant it is; you can find Swedish promoters themselves saying things like We know it doesn’t work but we want to be in the forefront of Gender Justice…Any other claim about what prohibitionist laws achieve when they outlaw social activities like sex, drinking and drugs is not supported by evidence.  That’s because, after the law is passed and the message is sent, individuals deal with prohibition deviously…So buyers and sellers of drugs, alcohol and sex become creative, some of them maintaining a disapproving stance in public at the same time…

This is, of course, why self-reporting about paying for sex has become so absurdly inaccurate.

The Immunity Syndrome

A new Ohio law bans teachers from discussing “any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity” and allows parents to sue for “damages” if they claim a teacher has done so.  What exactly are “gateway sexual activities”, you ask?  The law doesn’t say, but we know that in Tennessee they include hand-holding.

An Example to the West

Add Latin America to the list of regions that do sex work activism more effectively than the US:

A new study, designed and carried out by the network of female sex workers in Latin America and Caribbean (REDTRASEX), has documented legislation that affects sex work – as well as detailing what this means in practice…independent sex work is not prohibited in any of the countries studied.  What is criminalized…is proxenetism (or ‘pimping’) and…“immoral” behaviours or disturbances to the peace or public order are applied in relation to sex work.  Furthermore…confusing sex workers…with trafficked persons…silences the legitimate voices of sex workers and actually blocks discussions on how to end human trafficking.  This creates a framework of legitimacy for police repression and state violence…[and] results in a culture of secrecy around sex work, increasing stigma and the vulnerability of sex workers…

The study is available in Spanish, and I’ll provide the English translation as soon as it’s available.

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (TW3 #14)

Gloria Steinem is at it again, now in collusion with rescue industry NGO Apne Aap:  “On April 18, human rights activists Gloria Steinem and Ruchira Gupta will kick off a two-day symposium at Smith College, ‘Trafficking Sex: Politics, Policy, Personhood’…”  Note the unintentional irony of prohibitionists borrowing the term “personhood” from their anti-abortion rights soulmates.

Held Together With Lies (TW3 #28)

Chicken Licken and company meet Foxy LoxyDespite a total lack of evidence (“[trafficking] convictions [declined] 13 percent”), Chicken Licken and other overly-excitable barnyard fowl ordered EU member states “to get a move on with adopting tough new rules against human trafficking or face sanctions as a first report on the problem showed ‘modern-day slavery’ worsening”.  Obviously math isn’t the typical politician’s strong suit, but one would think even they could comprehend that the larger estimates might have something to do with the fact that they “[broadened] the definition of the crime” two years ago; now they’re claiming “the trafficking business is second-only in illegal activity to the weapons trade”, up from the equally-bogus assertion that it was third.  Anyone want to take bets on whether it will rise to first before the hysteria collapses?

Wise Investment (TW3 #31)

“Texas lawmakers…[want to criminalize] advertisements soliciting prostitution…‘the Backpage Bill’…would make it a felony to buy such advertising and might press Backpage.com to get out of the business.”  It will do nothing of the kind and these politicians know it.  But because they don’t pay the cost of defending tyrannical and patently-unconstitutional laws, they’re perfectly happy to buy votes from control freaks at taxpayer expense.

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #41)

The news that “San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón has agreed to make a ban on using condoms as evidence of prostitution permanent” is good (though as a policy rather than a law it could be revoked at a moment’s notice), but dig Gascón’s bizarre and Orwellian claim around mid-article that criminalization and police harassment of women are for our “protection”.

Uncharted Seas

…we’ve been hearing it for years.  Gay marriage is a slippery slope!  A gateway drug!  If we legalize it, then what’s next?  Legalized polygamy?  We can only hope…let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage…Legalized polygamy in the United States is…constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive…we really can make our own choices.  We just might choose things people don’t like…Arguments about whether a woman’s consensual sexual and romantic choices are “healthy” should have no bearing on the legal process…It’s condescending, not supportive, to minimize them as mere “victims” without considering the possibility that some of them have simply made a different choice…

A Working System (TW3 #136)

A Sydney madam has been found guilty of keeping young Malaysian students in sexual servitude…Chee Mei Wong, 39, forced the six young women to work up to 20 hours a day in the Diamonds brothel…and ordered them to perform unusual sex acts against their will so they could pay ”debts”…

Something Rotten in Sweden (TW3 #138)ugly end demand propaganda

More on the ugly campaign of disinformation currently being waged by “End Demand Illinois”:

…Who are the organizers of this campaign trying to communicate with?  My suspicion is…people who already have a soft analysis of prostitution gleaned from watching 20/20…or true crime TV shows about sex trafficking busts…who is going to step up and be “in favor” of “modern day slavery” or “sex trafficking?” …I really want to know what it’s going to take for people to actually think about how complicated the sex trade is, and that it’s not all the same, and that ads that make us all the victims of overwhelming violence don’t do anything to actually improve our circumstances…

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (TW3 #313)

Remember, prostitution was recently re-confirmed as legal in India, but brothels are still illegal; it’s therefore a simple matter for cops to redefine a business as a “ring”, label women of 20 to 25 as “girls”, call their arrest a “rescue” and describe imprisonment under psychological torture as “rehabilitation”.  That way the money from the US and NGOs keeps rolling in.

The Story Behind the Story

…Fox 2000…[is] adapting Go the Fuck to Sleep for the big screen…the bedtime-story parody, written by Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Ricardo Cortés, has become something of a viral hit…It is unclear how the filmmakers plan to turn what is essentially a nursery rhyme with one punchline…into an entire feature- length film…

I hope this proves lucrative for Ricardo and also opens more doors for him.

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Under the Bus

Posted in Current Events, History, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , on April 19, 2013| 18 Comments »

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.  –  John Kenneth Galbraith

The Signing of the Declaration of Independence by Jonathan TrumbullAmong the enumerated grievances against King George III included in Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence was the following:  “he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere…the…King of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought & sold…” The delegates from the Southern colonies (predictably) objected; the words clearly condemned the institution of slavery, in which they were heavily invested.  Argument ensued, and the dissenters made it clear that if the offending passage were not removed, they would refuse to sign the declaration.  Faced with this threat, the declaration committee had little choice: either the slavery clause went, or the South did.  And so the slaves were, in modern idiom, “thrown under the bus”; their rights were sacrificed to a political deal to establish a new nation.  And though those men acted as they thought best, their choice erupted into the greatest bloodbath in American history only three generations later.

Though I can understand Galbraith’s point expressed in today’s epigram, I also recognize that it’s a bitter thing indeed to be a member of a group whose rights are sacrificed as part of a political deal brokered among a large group of governments with differing (and often conflicting) beliefs and concerns.  Furthermore, I wonder if choosing the unpalatable at the cost of inflicting the disastrous on one’s descendants is really the wise and moral decision.  The particular political deal I wish to discuss today is not remotely as momentous as the sundering of an empire, and the sacrifice lacks the enormity of consigning an entire race to continued slavery; I certainly hope the consequences are dramatically less severe than the devastation of the American Civil War.  But it’s a serious enough matter for those involved, and as a member of the group “thrown under the bus” I can’t help but resent being sacrificed for a deal from which we will reap no benefit.  Here’s how it was reported in the Guardian:

UN officials and activists expressed relief and delight over news that an agreement had been reached at this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)…After months of behind the scenes lobbying and two weeks of difficult negotiations in New York, the outcome document included strong agreements to promote gender equality, women’s empowerment, and ensure women’s reproductive rights and access to sexual and reproductive health services…the agreement was hard fought and civil society groups expressed “deep concern” over attempts by some conservative member states and groups to derail the process…NGO ActionAid…said… “A small but significant number of countries, led by Iran, Russia, Syria and the Vatican, have pushed hard to roll back language on women’s rights to where we were decades ago”…Vivian Thabet…[of] CARE-Egypt, said… “Women’s rights have become a kind of bartering chip to be traded away for political agendas that have little or nothing to do with the interests and wellbeing of women and girls”…The outcome document emphasised the need to end harmful traditional practices, including child marriage, and called on member states to ensure services were focused on marginalised groups, such as indigenous women, older women, female migrant workers, women with disabilities, women living with HIV, and women held in custody.  Protection for sex workers was understood to have been dropped…

thrown under the busThere it was, in the last sentence; if you blinked you may have missed it.  Several countries (including, you can be sure, the United States) opposed language calling on governments to end institutional violence and discrimination against sex workers, so we were simply bartered away in order to close the deal on some other contentious issue.  Perhaps it was the right thing to do in the long run;  after all, I have no idea what phrase or sentence my rights were traded for.  But I think I’m justified in being annoyed about that only being worth one sentence in the Guardian’s article and no mention at all in that of the Huffington Post (despite complaints about the lack of language protecting gay men in a document concerned specifically with the rights of women).  As a result, this is how I read the quotes from delegates and commentators:

“By adopting this document, governments have made clear that discrimination and violence against women and girls has no place in the 21st century.”  Except for discrimination and violence against sex workers, which are still quite welcome.

“We will keep moving forward to the day when women and girls can live free of fear, violence and discrimination.”  Unless they have sex for reasons with which we disapprove.

“The 21st century is the century of inclusion and women’s full and equal rights and participation.”  Except for the right to choose their own work.

“It sends a clear and unified message to the world that there is no place in any society for acts of violence against girls and women.”  Except for state violence against sex workers, naturally.

Perhaps I’m being unnecessarily harsh; after all, several UN agencies concerned with health have recommended absolute decriminalization of sex work and the sex industry everywhere, and advocates of human rights are all beginning to recognize the importance of our cause.  And as I said above, I have no way of knowing what our exclusion gained, nor can I read the minds of the negotiators; perhaps they were just as agonized as Jefferson and company, and signed us away for something they considered extremely important.  What’s more, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t do something similar: What if one day, I’m part of a team negotiating a decriminalization deal, and our political opponents say they’ll accept total decriminalization of indoor prostitution if street work remains criminal?  Will I turn down rights for the 90% on principle?  Or will I accept the deal, reasoning that we can more effectively work toward street work decriminalization from an improved legal position?

Goddess help me, I only wish I knew.

(This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 24th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.)

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Skittles

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, tagged , , , , , , on April 18, 2013| 17 Comments »

She had the most capacious heart I know and must be the only whore in history to retain her heart intact.  –  Henry Labouchere

Of all the grandes horizontals of the 19th century the one I feel I can understand the most, and for whom I have the greatest affinity, is Catherine Walters.  While other courtesans went through money like water, she was relatively thrifty; while others affected gaudy displays of jewelry and ostentatious wealth, she was known for her style and taste; while others made spectacles of themselves, she always behaved naturally; while others extracted all they could from their clients, her fairness earned her a number of lifetime incomes; while others exposed their clients in tell-all memoirs later in life, her discretion was legendary.  And while others used exotic stage names or titles that made them sound more like institutions than women, Catherine was simply “Skittles”, a nickname derived from her first job:  setting up pins in a Liverpool bowling alley named the Black Jack Tavern.

equestrian SkittlesShe was born on June 13th, 1839, the third of five children of Edward and Mary Ann Walters of 1 Henderson Street, Toxteth, Liverpool.  Her mother died giving birth in 1843, and her father was a customs official who eventually drank himself to death in 1864.  Beyond the bowling alley job, little is known of her early life except that she ran away from the convent school to which her father sent her sometime after her mother’s death, and that she also worked in her early teens for a livery stable, where she learned the equestrian skills that were her passport to success.  Though she was petite, charming and very beautiful (with grey eyes, long chestnut hair and an 18-inch waist), the fact that she could outride most men set her apart from other beauties and gained her the public and press attention a courtesan needed for advertisement in those pre-internet days.

She left Liverpool at the age of 16 as the mistress of Lord Fitzwilliam, who set her up in London and remained with her for two years; when he tired of her he gave her a gift of £2,000 and an income of £300 a year.  This set the pattern for her later relationships; her wealthy patrons knew that she would never reveal their names, and the annual payments they provided helped to ensure she was never tempted.  In fact, the £500 pension from her second lover, Spencer Cavendish (Marquess of Hartington and future Duke of Devonshire), was continued by his grateful family even after he died in 1908.  Of all Skittles’ admirers, Lord Hartington was the one who had the most profound effect on her life; their relationship lasted from 1858-1862, during which time he put her in a townhouse in Park Street, Mayfair, gave her a stable of thoroughbreds, introduced her to the tailors (Henry Poole & Co) she was to do business with for decades, and hired a tutor to give her the education she had missed.

The Shrew Tamed by Edwin Landseer (1861)It was during this time that she first became famous as a “horse breaker” on Rotten Row in Hyde Park; her beauty and skill attracted so many fans that she started drawing crowds of onlookers, and her clothes were so perfectly tailored (and skin-tight) that it was rumored she wore them without underwear.  Noblewomen and others who could afford it copied her style of dress, but even after she became a fashion trendsetter she never forgot her roots; the majority of her tailors’ bills were for maintaining and mending her clothes rather than buying new ones.  Her horsewomanship was admired by men and envied by their wives, and though she called herself “Anonyma” when riding in public everyone knew who she really was; she is mentioned by name in The Season by future poet laureate Alfred Austin, and she was said to be the model for The Shrew Tamed by Edwin Landseer (though that was actually a woman named Annie Gilbert, who resembled her).  Unfortunately, all this attention was seen by Hartington’s family as an impediment to his future in politics (which was, as it turned out, quite distinguished), so despite the fact that they had very strong feelings for one another he was obliged to break the relationship off in the autumn of 1862.

Skittles was quite upset by the end of what had been the happiest time of her life, and though she made no attempt to hurt Hartington she wanted to start over again somewhere else.  She eloped to New York with Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, but this relationship was short-lived and by early 1863 she had moved to Paris.  But while Cora Pearl and most of the other demimondaines of the time attracted attention by over-the-top theatrics, Skittles preferred just to be herself; her only really unusual behavior was driving her own carriage followed by two mounted grooms, all in impeccably-tailored outfits.  Her reputation for discretion had preceded her, however, and it is rumored that her clients during this period included both the Minister of Finance, Achille Fould, and Emperor Napoléon III himself.  One whose identity is known for certain is the diplomat and poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, who fell obsessively in love with her and was prone to jealous behavior which attracted unwanted attention; the affair ended when it was discovered by Lord Crowley, Ambassador to France and father of Blunt’s fiancée, who dismissed Blunt from his post and sent him back to England in disgrace.  Though he later married Lady Anne King-Noel, daughter of Ada Lovelace, he never did get over Skittles and wrote the poem “Esther” to her thirty years later.  Around that time he also began writing letters to her, and they became friends and corresponded until her death.

Catherine Walters by Pierre PetitWhen the Franco-Prussian War began she returned to London, and in 1872 moved to 15 South Street, Park Lane, where she lived for the rest of her life.  She returned to riding and hunting and instituted a tradition of Sunday afternoon tea parties for important men; future prime minister William Gladstone was known to have been a regular attendee, though it is unknown if he was a client.  Her most famous patron from this time was the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, who fell in love with her and sent her over 300 love-letters; after his infatuation waned he not only paid her an allowance, but also sent his own physician to care for her when needed.  A few years later the doctor reported to his royal patron that Skittles was grievously ill, and fearing she might die the Prince asked for the return of his letters; she gave them back without any fuss, and His Highness was so grateful he raised her pension.

At some point in the early 1880s, she began a relationship with Alexander Horatio Baillie which was serious enough that called herself Mrs. Baillie for the duration, but there is no documentary evidence that they were ever legally married.  She continued to see clients throughout the ‘80s, finally retiring about the age of 50 as a wealthy society lady.  Sometime after her retirement she had a love affair with the much-younger Gerald de Saumarez, whom she had first met years before when he was only 16 (and she 40), and though they parted as lovers after a time they remained friends ever after, and she left her entire estate (valued at £2764 19s 6d, over £60,000 today) to him when she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 5, 1920.  In her last few years she had become something of a recluse after being crippled by arthritis, but there is no evidence her mind was anything other than sharp until the very end.  Though she left no diary or memoirs which could have betrayed her clients after her passing, they and many others who knew her have painted a clear picture of her charisma, honesty, loyalty, fairness, good sense and capacity for love, and that is as fine a legacy as anyone could wish.

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Dry Run

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , , on April 17, 2013| 22 Comments »

Pam S. recently asked this question on an old column:

I totally agree with you that a wife should take care of her husband’s needs, but I’m having some technical problems that I don’t know how to solve.  I want to have sex for him even if I’m tired, but my body doesn’t cooperate – specifically, my vagina stays completely dry, which makes it quite painful.  I can do oral, anal (with lubrication), or whatever else he dreams up, but he isn’t too happy about this indication that it’s “duty sex” – and I can’t seem to find my “on button”.  Do you know of anything I can do about this?

I’ve always been on the dry side, and have carried a tube of lube in my purse since I was 16 just in case.  Obviously, you must not have that problem when you’re excited, so your husband notices if you have to lube up; that’s not an issue I ever had, since I needed lube either way.  That having been said, in my pre-commercial days I still found the experience a bit nicer if I could get into it; so when my first husband (Jack) would ask if I were in the mood and I wasn’t, I would reply, “No, but you go ahead and get started, and I’ll catch up.”

Now, if I couldn’t there wasn’t much way for him to tell, and that makes our situations a bit different, but I still think you can take a leaf from my book there.  How do you think it would work with him if you were just honest?  “Baby, I want to make love to you tonight, but I’m tired so my engine is cold; why don’t you help me warm it up first so I can get ready for you?”  Something like that.  Make sure you assure him that it’s not that you aren’t interested, but rather a physiological thing; most men do like foreplay anyway, so it’s likely he won’t consider that a hardship.  Now, I’m assuming here that there is something he can do which will get you wet even when you are tired; if that isn’t the case there are two other options.  The first one is, is there any fantasy you have which never fails to get you going?  Because thinking about it while you’re getting ready for bed might put you in the mood and make you more physically receptive.  If that doesn’t work, there’s the brute force approach:  a vaginal moisturizer like Replens.  It’s really intended for menopausal or perimenopausal women or those with issues due to medication or the like, but its non-hormonal so there’s no reason it shouldn’t work for you.  It’s very long-lasting (the Replens brand lasts for three days), so he doesn’t even need to know you’re using it; if he hints at sex or you just suspect he’s going to want it, you could sneak off to the lavatory and use it, then even if it’s hours before the two of you are intimate you’ll be ready to go.

Do let me know if one of those solutions works for you; if not we’ll see if we can’t come up with something else!The Mermaid in Desert by Mahirates (2007)

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Credit Where Credit is Due

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , on April 16, 2013| 32 Comments »

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  –  Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali (1931)A couple of months ago, a person I know online became very upset with me for disagreeing with her contention that it was possible to judge an idea by one’s attitude toward some person who supports it.  In other words, she insisted that because a person she thoroughly dislikes agrees with some position, that it was valid for her to discard the idea through a process of guilt by association.  This is, of course, one of the classic logical fallacies; human beings are complex creatures, and it’s inevitable that any given person will agree with any other person on something.  Just because Charles Manson enjoyed Beatles music does not make it bad, and I’m sure many abusive cops enjoy a nice dish of ice cream as much as I do.  Nor is this congruence limited to aesthetic judgments; people often arrive at the same position via completely different cognitive paths, or recognize a fact while drawing a completely divergent conclusion from it.  For example, Sheila Jeffreys correctly recognizes traditional marriage as a form of prostitution, yet bizarrely insists that this means marriage should be abolished!

It’s impossible to draw an equals sign between any person’s likability or moral character and the quality of his ideas, or between the value of an idea and the likability or moral character of any given person who espouses it; yet, people insist on doing this all the time.  Up until 70 years ago eugenics was a major tenet of the “progressive” philosophy, and it logically follows that if wise “authorities” can be trusted to dictate what people consume, say, see, hear, think and do in bed, they should certainly be allowed to control reproduction.  But once eugenics became associated with the Nazis, it was rejected from the “progressive” canon despite the fact that its place there is undeniable.  People also base their appraisal of someone’s character on the fact that he holds some or many of the same views as they do; again, that makes no sense.  While politics does make strange bedfellows, I refuse to grant someone my blanket approval merely because he and I have some common cause.

Even the most predictably ignorant, habitually wrong and thoroughly confused individual gets it right once in a while, and when that does happen it deserves recognition.  Pat Robertson deserves credit for statements opposing marijuana criminalization and young-earth creationism, Barack Obama for recognizing that the penny (like much of the government) is an obsolete waste of money, and Jezebel for actually publishing something funny and on-target for a change:

Colorado pastor…Kevin Swanson…[claims] “certain doctors and scientists…have…compared the wombs of women who were on birth control pill versus those who were not…and they have found that with women who were on the…pill there are these little tiny fetuses—these little babies—embedded into the womb…these wombs of women who have been on the…pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.”

ALARMING INDEED.  Intrigued by Swanson’s research, I consulted a respected doctor-scientist from my local university, and uncovered a whole bunch of other substances that have been found in the birth-controlled wombs of scarlet women:

Kevin Swanson Sketch by Cliff Roth (2-2-13)teeth
snails
other, smaller wombs
watermelon rinds
a grizzled undertaker
apples
Jimmy Hoffa
tiny living babies
a bar of soap with a hair on it
Desmond from Lost
pine cones
hot lava
pieces of curb
Turtle Man
eels
goblins
imps
Hitler’s mustache
a DVD of Scrubs, season 4
a portal to John Malkovich’s brain

I laughed especially hard at “other, smaller wombs”.  Unfortunately, the comments are just as off-cue and humorless as usual, but one can’t have everything.  I’m sure even Jezebel commenters are right sometimes, but of course the odds against more than a few of them being right at the same time are astronomical…which is exactly why ideas must be judged on their own merits rather than which or how many people espouse them.

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Fictional Interlude: Genius Loci

Posted in Fiction, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 15, 2013| 12 Comments »

The southwest furthers.
The northeast does not further.
It furthers one to see the great man.
Perseverance brings good fortune.  –  I Ching, hexagram 39

Every policeman in Central Headquarters had avoided the Chief Inspector yesterday; he had arrived at work in a nastier mood than usual, collected a number of files and then left on a trip to the capital to meet with the Commissioner of Police.  And though he had abominably maltreated everyone who had the misfortune to cross his path, nobody really blamed him because they knew the reason for that meeting.  And now, as the Chief Inspector waited to be called in to his superior’s office, he was fervently wishing that he could be almost anyplace but here.

Fortunately, he did not have long to wait; he was admitted to the beautifully-appointed office he had last seen just after his promotion five years ago and bowed deeply.  The Commissioner acknowledged him with a perfunctory nod, gestured toward a chair in front of his desk, and began speaking as soon as he was seated.

“As I told you in our communication yesterday, I have observed a most strange anomaly in the figures for prostitution arrests in your city,” he began, pointing at a computer screen to his left.  “You assured me that you could explain, but that it would be better for you to do so in person.  Accordingly, I have made time for you in my busy schedule.  Please proceed.”

The Commissioner always spoke that way.  He was a former Professor of Criminology, renowned for his erudition and problem-solving ability, and had been rewarded for years of distinguished service with this choice political appointment.  So although he was not a large man, he could be extremely intimidating, especially to a lower official with an apparently-insurmountable problem.  “Yes, sir.  Well, sir, I’m afraid I must begin by telling you that the situation is actually worse than the official figures make it appear.”

“Oh?” he asked, with the barest trace of annoyance.  “Considering that your city has the largest red-light district in the entire country, yet for the past several years has had the lowest number of prostitution arrests by a considerable margin, I am at a loss to understand how it could be worse.”

He swallowed hard.  “Well, sir, those arrest figures have actually been, ah, inflated somewhat.  They’re not even as high as reported.”

“And how many have there been, actually?” That last word was as menacing as a gun-barrel.

red-light district“Um, well, it’s been dropping for a long time, and in the past six months there have been very few, but then this month we reached an all-time low of, ah, none.”

“None whatsoever?”

“No, sir.”

“Considering that your performance of your duties has been exemplary in every other way, I am absolutely certain you have some credible explanation for your pronounced deficiency in this particular area.  As you well know, our foreign aid from the Americans requires the production of sufficient human trafficking arrests to satisfy their moral crusade.”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware of that, and when I first took over the post from my predecessor I noticed the numbers were quite low and resolved to correct the situation.  So I increased the number of raids, and instituted harsh discipline against any man caught taking bribes from the madams.  Yet still, the numbers kept shrinking, for no discernible reason.”

“What do you mean, ‘no discernible reason’?  Surely all the prostitutes didn’t mysteriously vanish?”

“But that’s just it, sir; it was as though they had.  Whenever I sent a squad out to raid a brothel, they found it locked and shuttered.  When officers were dispatched to a bar, they found only men drinking.  When they went to bring in street women, they found all the usual areas deserted.  Even when informants told us of activity taking place, it was not so by the time we arrived.  It was as though someone was warning them that we were on the way.”

“Obviously, the pimps and madams have a confederate inside your office.”

“That was what I thought at first, sir, so I tried not announcing the raids; I would just suddenly come in, order a group of men to follow me, and take them to the red light district myself.  I found the same thing that had been reported to me: locked doors and deserted streets.  I assumed that it was a trick, and that there was some secret way of gaining admittance; so we started breaking down doors, only to find the buildings empty.  Yet my informants told me they were doing a thriving trade again the next day, all doors and windows open.”

The Commissioner no longer appeared angry; now he was the professor again, considering the complexities of an abstruse problem.  “What did you do next?”

“I reshuffled the entire department, bringing new staff into my office and reassigning the entire vice squad.  Then I took officers from other divisions on the raids, to no avail; the numbers continued to drop.  Every arrest we have had in the past year was obtained by officers bringing in known prostitutes who were buying groceries, eating in restaurants or riding in public conveyances, or else beggars we charged with prostitution to hide our disgrace.”

“Do you have any theory at all to explain this strange phenomenon?”

“Yes, sir, but I was afraid to tell you lest you think me mad.”

Now the Commissioner was intrigued.  “Do go on.”

“Well, sir, I asked the same question of all my senior officers; I even promised a promotion to the one who could explain it.  Finally a group of them came to me one afternoon, and told me that they knew exactly what was responsible.”

He hesitated for so long the Commissioner finally spurred him on with, “Yes…?”

Chao Say Tevoda“It’s because of, um, a spirit.”

“A spirit?!?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you actually expect me to believe that the ghost of some dead prostitute is going around warning her colleagues about our raids in time for them to flee?”

“Well, not exactly, sir.  I mean, yes and no.  We don’t think she’s that kind of spirit.”  This time the Commissioner did not prod him, so he swallowed and went on.  “You see, sir, I was so desperate by this point that I was willing to try anything, so I brought in a priest to perform an exorcism.”

“A novel solution to a novel problem, but clearly it failed.”

“I’m afraid so, sir.  The priest went to the red-light district, and talked to the prostitutes, and performed some sort of spiritual investigation, including research in many books.  And then he came to me and said, ‘I cannot help you; this is not a restless spirit reluctant to be reborn, but rather the guardian spirit of the area.  As such, it would be wrong for me to attempt to drive it out even if I could.’  I know this priest, sir; he is a wise and holy man, and I trust his judgment on this matter.”

The Commissioner thought for a moment.  “This district has been associated with the flesh trade for centuries, yet nobody has ever seen this spirit before.”

“Well, sir, that’s not exactly true.  Part of the priest’s research was historical, and he showed me records telling that though the spirit has never appeared during a time when prostitution was tolerated, it has often been seen during periods of intolerance.  In fact, the priest warned me that the manifestations would become more powerful, and more dangerous to my men, should we persist in harassing the women and their business.”

The Commissioner grew quiet.  He turned in his chair to look out at the rain; then he rose and paced back and forth for a few minutes.  Several times he looked as though he were about to ask a question, then thought better of it.  After a while he sat down and worked on his computer, intently examining the data displayed on the screen.  Then he turned sideways in the chair again, fixing his eyes on one of the awards on his wall, and sat quietly for a time.  The Chief Inspector did nothing to disturb him; he merely prayed silently, grateful he had not been fired on the spot.

Finally, the Commissioner spoke.  “We will turn this to our advantage.  First, you will announce that the human traffickers have grown so dangerous, you can no longer allow representatives of NGOs to go into the red-light district unless accompanied by a police officer; if this spirit warns the prostitutes of our approach, that will allow us to later demonstrate to the Americans that we have ‘cleaned up’ the district, since there will never be any prostitutes about when they go to look.”

“A brilliant idea, sir!  But, won’t they want to see the women we’ve ‘rescued’?”

police arresting prostitutes“I was coming to that.  I will announce – completely unrelated to your announcement, of course – that we are expanding opportunities for women in the police force, and will begin actively recruiting them immediately.  This will also please the Americans, who will no doubt provide some grant to help us train them.  We will then disguise the new policewomen as prostitutes, send them out to the district, pretend to arrest them, and send them to a new ‘rehabilitation center’; we will keep NGO members away from the center due to ‘concern for the women’s privacy’ so they can’t discover that it is a false front.  Then we send the same women out again to be ‘arrested’ again, until we can credibly claim to have ‘rescued’ a large fraction of them.  The Americans will be happy; our government will collect more money; you will be lauded as a champion against trafficking; the prostitutes will be free to work in peace; the men will be able to hire them without fear of exposure; and the spirit will be placated.”

“Magnificent!  What a plan!” the Inspector cried, rising spontaneously to his feet.  “I am a fool for not having brought this problem to you sooner.”

“Nonsense.  You are a practical man, trained to deal with mortal criminals; it would be unreasonable of me to blame you for fearing my reaction.”

The Chief Inspector, now smiling like a child with a new toy, bowed excitedly, thanked the Commissioner again, gathered up his documents and set forth to implement the new plan, relieved of the burden under which he had struggled for so long.  And once he had gone, the Commissioner silently thanked the Buddha for a most interesting mental exercise and asked his secretary to bring him a pot of tea.

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Links #145

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2013| 10 Comments »

Every officer that signed off on this “no evidence” conclusion should be guarding the entrance to a petting zoo for the remainder of their careers.  –  Anonymous

The big news this week was the death of Margaret Thatcher, and I seem to be one of the few people on the internet who does not have some strong opinion about her one way or the other (she was a politician; ’nuff said).  But whether you loved her or hated her, you will probably enjoy the sight of a prime minister quoting Monty Python in today’s first video from Mike Siegel  (who also provided “nukes” and “cosplay”).  The second video is my all-time favorite comic strip imagined as a “dark, gritty” movie as per current fashion; it and all the links down to the first video were supplied by Radley Balko.  Other links between the videos were contributed by Jesse Walker (“new sun”), Luscious Lani (“girl and cat”), Mistress Matisse (“Anonymous”), and Kevin Wilson (“honest fat”).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#315)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2013| 8 Comments »

Sex workers have very special qualities.  They are skilled at giving pleasure in whatever way is required.  –  Tuppy Owens

All Shapes and Sizes

Why don’t journalists actually read what they’re writing about?

…In a study of 105 heterosexual Australian women, flaccid penis size, height, and shoulder-to-hip ratio all affected the women’s attractiveness ratings of life-size, computer-generated male figures…The penis effect was so strong that that the study’s authors…[theorized] that it may have driven the evolution of bigger penises in humans…Shoulder-to-hip ratio mattered the most, while both penis size and height mattered about the same amount…there were diminishing returns for everything.  That is, how much more attractiveness the figures gained for added height, penis size and shoulder-to-hip ratio decreased as those traits increased.  So the attractiveness difference between at 6’1″ man and a 6’2″ man is less than the difference between a 5’1″ man and a 5’2″ man.  For penis size, the dropoff in attractiveness gains started at about 7.6 centimeters, or three inches…

In other words, the study doesn’t show that most women are attracted to really big cocks; it shows that they tend to find really small ones unattractive, which isn’t at all the same thing.  And BTB, the theory that the comparatively-large human penis is a product of artificial selection is not remotely new; it’s also probable that the same process resulted in human women having prominent tits when we aren’t pregnant or nursing.

License To Rape

A small-town North Carolina cop raped a 13-year-old girl while on duty, and the town hired him without any…screening after he had raped an 11-year-old…Jaymin Lenwood Murphy was sentenced in December 2010 to 41 years in prison for sexual offenses against the two girls…The [13-year-old, who is suing the town]…says that Murphy “threatened her mother and herself with jail” so she “was too terrified…to report it to anyone”…

A War for Peace

Femen demonstrates how deeply it cares about women by physically attacking them at work:

I’ve previously pointed out Femen’s deep hypocrisy in claiming that it’s noble for a woman to use her sexuality for politics, but not as a means of earning a living.  But it’s actually worse than that:  “Each new recruit…has to show off her breasts to audition for the role…each member’s salary allegedly comes to around $1,000…”  In other words, they’re paid for using their sexuality; they’re sex workers dedicated to stopping other women from doing sex work.

Against Their Will

“Yesterday, Pak Kret police found the bodies of two girls floating near a pier in front of Kredtrakarn Protection and Occupational Development Center…the…girls…reportedly attempted to escape the Center by swimming across the Chao Phraya River…”  What this story does not make clear is that this was actually a prison for girls “rescued” from sex work, which explains why they were desperate to escape despite the absurd claims of “authorities”.

The Crumbling Dam

Joyce Arthur of FIRST shows what an anti-criminalization article by a non-sex worker should look like:

Within the next year, our Supreme Court may very well strike down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional because they place sex workers at risk of violence and abuse.  Are we ready for full decriminalization?  Or will society’s fear of the legal vacuum lead to a panicked rush to pass new legislation to criminalize or control sex work?  Most people know little or nothing about actual sex workers…because they’ve been fed negative and false stereotypes from movies and TV, sensationalistic news stories, “do-gooder” organizations that purport to rescue trafficked sex slaves, and various self-appointed “experts” whose views are informed mostly by shoddy research and propaganda.  The true experts on sex work have been speaking out more and more, however, and people are finally starting to listen to them…

The Course of a Disease

The Swedish rot reaches South America:

…the Argentine Congress started discussing…[a bill] to penalize anyone who buys sex…regardless of whether the person providing the sex is a consenting adult…No one would contest that actual sex trafficking is a problem in Argentina and that something should be done about it…

SexWorker Open UniversityJust call me nobody, then.  Coercion into commercial sex is rare everywhere, and the rare individuals who are so victimized aren’t helped by wrongheaded “something should be done” legislation.  Meanwhile, half a world away, the Scottish Trade Union Conference decided to screw a sex worker outreach event called “Sex Worker Open University” by cancelling the facilities it had agreed to provide at (almost literally) the last minute:

…the Scottish Trades Union conference…issued this statement:  “…the specific title of the event…was…“The Scottish Context:  Opposing Criminalisation of Clients”…a number of individuals and organisations contacted us to ask why we were taking this view…[which] is diametrically opposed to the position STUC…reached as a consequence of its democratic process…”  This suggests that a public meeting was somehow hidden, or that SWOU attempted to keep this information private…If a LGBTQ group wants to hold an event and homophobic groups phone to complain will they cancel the booking?  If a Muslim group hosts [an] event and…Islamaphobes demonstrate will the STUC refuse to offer support and solidarity?  Will their position always be with the oppressors rather than the oppressed?…[and] why does the STUC have a position that is against the best interests of the workers?  They say it was democratically reached but it was not voted for by the full membership, nor were the workers who would be effected consulted…

A False Dichotomy (TW3 #8)

Runaway maids are turning to prostitution in order to support themselves during their illegal stay in…Sharjah…518 prostitution cases and 10 human trafficking cases were recorded…[in the emirate]…in 2012.  Absconding maids topped the prostitution cases…[but] some…came to the country on a visit visa…to work illegally in the sex worker industry…

Handy Figures (TW3 #17)

As I’ve pointed out before, the tendency of recent studies to “find” that impossibly-low numbers of men hire whores has a lot more to do with social stigma and poor question phrasing than with reality; the General Social Survey‘s claim that only 14% of American men have ever paid for sex could only be true if the number of sex workers were a tenth what it is and we each only had two clients per week!  But though I respectfully disagree with Dr. Milrod about that survey’s data being credible, I have no respect for those who technically agree with me not because of logic or experience, but because the finding contradicts “trafficking” dogma!

Naked Truth

Laura Lee in the Independent on why the Swedish model is a bad idea:

…Rhoda Grant…is pushing…this measure because she believes that prostitution is…inherently harmful and dangerous.  I know from years of experience that for the vast majority of sex workers…that simply isn’t true…they made an informed choice to enter the industry and enjoy their work…Grant [stated] in…Glasgow Evening Times  [that] “People that use prostitutes are people who would rape and abuse.”  Not only is that statement false, it is also offensive in the extreme to every client I have ever met…the solution to the protection of those in the sex industry is complete decriminalisation …any further criminalisation of the sex industry will cost lives.

The Young and the Brainless

Judgy Bitch’s excellent take on the “teen girl pimp” case:

…some newbie traffickers scouted and groomed vulnerable girls on social media sites, lured them to a rough part of town, stripped them naked, took nude photos and then blackmailed the young victims into working as escorts.  And then took their money.  The girls who resisted were physically beaten.  The traffickers?  Two fifteen year old girls, and one sixteen year old girl…It doesn’t appear that any men, let alone black men, were involved on the pimping side of the equation in Ottawa, but that hasn’t stopped the media from trying to associate any instance of pimping with black men…and…who stepped in to help the girls being victimized?  Who took a stand and put a stop to what was going on?…Yeah, that would be the johns.  Men called up an escort service, looking for sex in exchange for money, and when they realized the girls were desperately underage and deeply emotionally upset, they intervened.  In [two cases] the john drove the young girl home…In a third case, the john flat out refused to have sexual contact with someone who was clearly a minor…

Mark LancasterOne Born Every Minute (TW3 #51)

Remember Mark Lancaster, the guy who tried to trick naïve coeds into having sex with him as a supposed “audition” for a sugar daddy referral service?  He’s being charged with…wait for it…”sex trafficking”.  Add that to your list of bizarre uses for this ever-expanding umbrella term.

Skin To Skin

It’s wonderful to see so many articles arguing that disabled people have the right to see sex workers  even if prohibitionists are upset by the idea:

A forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, Can Have Sex Will Have Sex…has been labelled “controversial“, but many mothers call the sex and disability helpline, which I run, worried that their disabled son is physically unable to masturbate and desperately needs an outlet…I really love the idea of sex workers giving disabled people the chance to be touched in a non-medical way, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to be held in a warm pair of arms and have their sexual dreams respected and lived out.

Number Puzzle

Another prohibitionist screed masquerading as reasoned argument is debunked by Feminist Ire:

In early March…the Huffington Post published…“Debunking The Myths: Why Legalising Prostitution Is A Terrible Idea”…by Jacqui Hunt, London director of Equality Now…despite its title, its scope is not limited to legalisation:  she believes decriminalisation is an equally bad idea.  At first glance, her article looks fairly reasonable and well researched, citing studies from various countries in which sex work has been legalised or decriminalised…[but] the ways in which…her claims have been made…undermine her credibility…because the primary source for her observations on New Zealand reveals a markedly different picture from the one she has chosen to paint, I’m given to feel that all of her claims ought to be thoroughly investigated…

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #314)

Clay Nikiforuk, the young woman harassed by US customs officials because they thought she was an escort, appears to “get it”:

There’s no doubt in my mind that one reason my story gained the attention it did was that it screamed “sexy” at every juncture…But another reason…is that…when bad things start happening to innocent, educated white people, they could happen to anyone — or rather, other privileged people…when sex and sexuality are criminalized, people are made illegal and their rights made moot…If I were a sex worker, I might have “deserved” the treatment I received, or my detainment might have “made sense.”  If I were from a minority group or were not as educated in the English language, my story might not have provoked the shock and outrage that it did.  And rather than receiving the reaction “That should never happen to anyone,” often the reaction I still get is “That should never have happened to you”…

Trafficking, Trafficking Everywhere! (TW3 #314)

What a sane, agenda-free sex work study looks like:

Migrant prostitutes…are in the sex trade for the money…research…in New Zealand has found…Catherine Healy…said…”The findings suggests there are no signs that migrant sex workers here are victims of trafficking” [despite US claims]…

57%: On student, work or visitor visa
86%: From Asia
26%: Came to New Zealand “to study”
35%: Knew someone living here
76%: Did sex work to pay household bills
5%: Could not refuse clients and did not have access to their passports

In other words, only 5% of migrant whores (themselves a minority of the sex worker population) could be described as “coerced” in any valid way.

Terrilyn MonetteThe Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

All over Lakeview, you’ll find signs asking people to be on the lookout for missing teacher Terrilyn Monette…[rumors claim] that the Russian Mafia moved into New Orleans shortly before the Super Bowl…to abduct women for human trafficking…NOPD…is trying to squelch the rumor…

If the NOPD didn’t want a stupid “sex trafficking” panic, it shouldn’t have participated in spreading one.

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China Dolls

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 12, 2013| 17 Comments »

This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 17th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.

A month ago today, the European Parliament passed a call for continent-wide censorship of sexual content, justified by a view of women more at home in Victorian thought than in the second decade of the 21st century.  Yes, I know you heard that the measure was defeated, but that’s because the Fourth Estate no longer bothers to perform the function so respected by 18th-century thinkers that they considered freedom of the press vital to liberty: namely, the task of keeping governments honest by publicly reporting on their sneaky doings.  The truth is that the EP overwhelmingly (368-159) enacted a resolution calling for women to be “protected” by our masters from words and images which could shatter our delicate little psyches, turning us into tragic, fallen, “sexualized” victims of evil men.  Now, this isn’t cause for panic (not yet, anyway); as Wired explains, European resolutions are not laws:

This kind of proposal…isn’t a binding resolution…it’s simply the European Parliament signalling that it agrees with the actions proposed by the lead author…of the report — in this case, Dutch MEP Kartika Liotard…these kinds of endorsements…are…taken by the European Commission as an indication of the opinion of the Parliament, and it then drafts bills accordingly.  If the Commission wants to introduce measures such as those found in the resolution, it’ll have a mandate for them…then the draft bill goes back to the Parliament to vote on, and if it passes then, it becomes a legally binding directive for EU member states to follow.Kartika Liotard

It’s hard to say exactly what the chances of the Commission acting on such a resolution are, because it varies from session to session; though the Parliament tends to rubber-stamp whatever resolutions come before it (passing 89% of them since 2009), the Commission often functionally ignores them.  For example, this is the second time a call for Protecting the Weaker Sex from Dirty Pictures and Words has passed this way:

…in 1997 the Parliament passed the “Resolution on Discrimination Against Women in Advertising” – which, while…less comprehensive than the latest report, does contain a clause that “calls for statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism”…that’s almost exactly the same wording as in the latest report is because…it explicitly “calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997″…it just updates it with extra clauses that take the web into account…

And thereby hangs the tale.  Though many reporters announced that the call for censorship had been rejected, the truth (as explained by CNET) is that it was simply hidden more effectively:

…[The] porn-blocking proposals…were buried within a report titled “Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU”…Amendments …removed certain explanatory text, but not the references to the [1997] resolution…which called for a blanket ban on pornography…While the explanation was removed, the effect was not, according to Swedish MEP for the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge…the 1997 resolution remains referenced, and therefore the call to ban “all forms of pornography in the media” remains intact.  Falkvinge said that striking out this text “has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report”…to make matters worse, when a handful of MEPs called on their citizens to e-mail their representatives in protest, the parliament’s own IT department  began to block these e-mails en masse from arriving in politicians’ inboxes…

Falkvinge and EngstromFurthermore, as reported in The Telegraph, “controversial proposals calling for the creation of regulators with the power to police the depiction of women in media were voted through.  MEPs voted for the establishment of ‘independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls’.”  And in order to circumvent legal safeguards against censorship, the resolution tries to pass the dirty job off on the private companies who control most modern communication:

…Christian Engström…deputy leader of the Swedish Pirate Party… [wrote on his blog] “This is quite clearly yet another attempt to get the internet service providers to start policing what citizens do on the internet, not by legislation, but by ‘self-regulation’.  This is something we have seen before in a number of different proposals, and which is one of the big threats against information freedom in our society.”  Engström worries that the resolution would refer just as much to naked pictures that people send each other as professional pornography, as well as any kind of pornography included in private communications via email or social networks — “an attempt to circumvent the article on information freedom in the European Convention of Human Rights”…

Though everyone commenting on the affair, politician and journalist alike, hasten to laud the aims of the resolution as commendable, they are actually anything but; as I pointed out above, they are rooted in the fallacious notion that women are intrinsically fragile, childlike beings who can be somehow harmed by words and pictures deemed by our “protectors” to contain sexual content, and that sexuality, rather than being a natural function of our bodies and minds, is something imposed on us from without via “sexualization”.  Those who believe in this ill-defined concept seems to imagine that if it weren’t for equally ill-defined bogeymen like “the Media” and “Patriarchy” subjecting girls to “sexualization” (often but not always qualified with the adjective “premature”), we would all grow up in a blissful, chaste state and never, ever, ever be interested in dirty, nasty sex…and that this would be a good thing.

China dollI’m sure most of my readers would disagree on both counts.  I didn’t need “sexualized images” to inspire fantasies and behavior I now recognize as sexual at an extremely young age, and I’m not remotely unusual in that regard.  Sexuality is not a social evil imposed on innocents from without, but a natural development of biological organisms driven from within by instinct, brain architecture and (starting as young as 10 for some) hormones.  I doubt many of y’all think of sexuality as an evil, or adult websites as something they need to be “protected” from by the diktats of self-appointed, self-important censors.  Women need to start speaking out against those who view us as china dolls to be protected from our own inherent weaknesses by being shut away from the world in glass cases.

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Theatrics

Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2013| 30 Comments »

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.  –  William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (III,iv)

The moral panic over human trafficking has grown more aggressively than most; in its earlier form, the Satanic Panic, it only barely got out of the United States.  But once the cultists metamorphosed into “criminal gangs”, two powerful and wealthy types of organizations recognized that the hysteria provided the perfect plot for media theatrics designed to disguise sleazy agendas which might have mobilized considerable resistance had they been openly revealed.  The anti-sex cabal of neofeminists and evangelical Christians use “trafficking” as camouflage for an anti-whore crusade, while governments use it as an excuse for tighter controls on immigration; the net result is an awful lot of money being invested into dramatic displays, and an awful lot of disinformation being spread through official channels, while real victims of exploitation are ignored.

Dudley Do-RightIn the US, “human trafficking” is practically synonymous with “sex trafficking”; though lip-service is paid to the existence of other forms of exploitation, virtually all of the money, manpower and press coverage is devoted to “sex trafficking”, which bogus statistics declare to be the most common form (with claims ranging from 60% to “almost all”, despite the insistence of other reports that it’s more like 10%).  This is due partly to the fact that most of the money either comes from or flows through prohibitionist organizations, and partly because sex sells in the media.  But there’s another, more sinister and far dirtier reason why so much attention is paid to whores who are not “enslaved” in any reasonable sense of the word, and so little to people who are clearly coerced and exploited:  modern Western economies depend upon dirt-cheap labor, so by harassing harlots they can make a great and entertaining show of “doing something” about exploitation while yet ensuring that the vegetables get picked and the garments get made.  Americans in particular leer over lurid accounts of “child sex trafficking” which is so rare as to be almost nonexistent, while ignoring widespread and pervasive sexual abuse among women who, if they were sex workers, would be called “trafficking victims”:

The majority of women farmworkers interviewed…by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Human Rights Watch had experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault, which ranged from verbal abuse to rape.  One…study…estimated that as many as 80 percent…have been sexually harassed or assaulted on the job…Women make up slightly more than 20 percent of U.S. farmworkers, and of these, the majority are immigrants from Mexico.  Women become migratory workers for the same reasons men do—in many cases, to escape rural poverty…“Generally, [the perpetrator] will have some kind of legal immigration status,” says Liz Maria Chacko, a supervising attorney at Friends of Farmworkers in Philadelphia.  “This gives them power over their victims”…lack of fluency in English makes the women even more vulnerable.  Their immediate supervisors, who tend to be their harassers, also tend to be bilingual.  If a woman complains, the perpetrator can directly present his case to the farm owner in English.  The woman who’s been victimized cannot…Chacko says owners often react defensively to accusations of harassment.  “The response we get is usually denial”…Women who are the victims of serious crimes, including rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment, are eligible to apply for a U-Visa.  But in order to qualify, they must cooperate with law enforcement—and thus risk deportation…

And when the US government itself is the “trafficker”, it’s even worse:

Alleging unpaid wages and repeated retaliation, McDonald’s workers in central Pennsylvania launched a surprise strike [on March 6th]…The strikers are student guest workers from Latin America and Asia, brought to the United States under the controversial J-1 cultural exchange visa program…[which] is officially intended to promote educational and cultural exchange.  But advocates allege that J-1, like the other guest worker programs that collectively bring hundreds of thousands of workers in and out of the United States each year, is rife with abuse…According to [National Guestworker Alliance (NGA)] the visiting students each paid $3,000 or more for the chance to come and work, and were promised full-time employment; most received only a handful of hours a week, while others worked shifts as long as twenty-five hours straight, without being paid overtime.  “Their employer is also their landlord,” said [NGA Director Saket] Soni.  “They’re earning sub-minimum wages, and then paying it back in rent” to share a room with up to seven co-workers.  “Their weekly net pay is actually sometimes…as low as zero”…management required [them] to be on call twenty-four hours a day, ready to show up for work at thirty minutes’ notice, and…workers have been subject to threats and retaliation for speaking up or turning down work.  [Striker Jorge] Rios said that…“they actually threatened one of our roommates by saying that they’re just a call away from sending him back to his home country”…

McDonald's BeijingLet’s see now; we’ve got people being misled about the conditions under which they’ll work, then paid starvation wages that are docked for “fees” so they can never get clear, and threatened with deportation if they complain…sound familiar?  Yet Nicholas Kristof, Polaris Project and the other “rescuers” who purport to care so much about victims are mysteriously silent on the issue, probably because they’re too busy trying to get sex workers and our clients arrested and our faces splashed across TV screens from coast to coast.  This is hypocrisy on an epic scale; either governments need to start paying attention to real labor exploitation (most of which doesn’t involve sex work) and cease harassing those who neither want nor need their “help”, or else drop the whole pretense and admit their real and ugly motives for funding “anti-trafficking” theater instead of simply ensuring the rights of all people, whether native or migrant.

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