Who needs misogynists when you describe women engaged in sex work as “objects” whose humanity “can be forgotten”? – Maddie Collier
The greatest special-effects artist of all time has passed away at the age of 92. His movies are among my all-time favorites, and no digital creature has ever entertained me as much as Ray’s masterful puppetry still does. And even though he’s been retired for 32 years, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that the world will be just a little less magical without him.
…[An] unnamed 14-year-old used his iPad to find…Dareka R. Brooks through a website used for sexual hookups…believing [her] to be a sex worker, [he] invited her to his…home, [where she]…pepper-sprayed the boy and made off with his piggy bank and the…iPad…Brooks was tracked down a short time later…and arrested after she used the iPad…Brooks was charged with armed robbery…[but] the…boy will not face charges for solicitation.
I suspect the cops’ “kindness” means the boy’s family is well-connected.
Dr. Laura Agustín on “Good-time girls and other non-professionals taking money for sex“:
Formalised money-sex exchanges get the attention and conflict…lots of other exchanges are ignored, a line is drawn between commercial and non-commercial sex. But that line is imaginary. Many people who expect to be compensated for their company will never call themselves sex workers or escorts…
A Colorado woman was convicted of prostitution for answering a personal ad; after trying to talk her into having sex in a parking lot, a disguised cop “shoved a fistful of cash in front of her face and issued a command: ‘TAKE IT!’…Moments later, the car was surrounded [by] ‘Guns and guys in black with masks on’…the prosecution focused on the word ‘roses’ in the Craigslist ad…” Maybe if this sort of thing starts to happen more often, amateurs will start to wake up to the fact that anti-whore laws harm everyone.
My Body, My Choice (Holiday Leftovers)
[For] five years…[William Coleman has been] force-fed…Starving himself…is the only way he has to…protest his conviction. Not eating is his only available free speech act…He and his lawyer have gone to court to stop the force-feedings, but a judge ruled against him in March…Coleman is…[not at] Guantánamo…where a mass hunger strike of 100 prisoners has brought…force-feeding to American newspapers, if not American consciences…but…in Connecticut…Guantánamo is not an anomaly. Prisoners…are routinely and systematically force-fed every day…force-feedings…are considered torture by most of the world’s medical and governing bodies…yet most media outlets continue to portray feeding tube use as a “complex ethical debate.” It’s not. Competent prisoners go on hunger strike because they have something to say and no other way to say it. Prison officials choose not to hear — and silence them with tubes…
A Hialeah [Florida] police sergeant…Tomas Muñoz…has been suspended with pay after being…charged with cocaine possession and carrying drug paraphernalia…he told reporters…“I met a girl — she happens to have a pimp, and we fell in love…And he doesn’t let her be free. This came about because he set the whole thing up.”
He “doesn’t let her be free”, except to fuck cops. For free.
A Tale That Grew in the Telling
American’s mathematical illiteracy goes clear up to the White House, whose spokesman recently claimed that almost 4% of school-age American girls have become “child sex slaves” since the beginning of the panic a decade ago. Also of note: since the government was unable to shut down Backpage via unconstitutional censorship demands, it is now claiming that it intentionally gave up trying.
Another step in the right direction:
Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) have announced…a new journal devoted to the study of pornography. Porn Studies, to be edited by Professor Feona Attwood of Middlesex University and Dr Clarissa Smith of the University of Sunderland, will be the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts…
…Thousands of sex workers in Sonagachi have lost their lifelong savings…in Ponzi schemes…”about [30 million rupees] has been lost”…[said] Bharati [of Durbar Mahila Samanaya Committee]…Till 2004-05…sex workers [only] deposited their earnings and took loans…[at] Usha Bank…but…7-8 agents [who] were sacked by [the] Bank…continued to operate in the red light area. “Sex workers were easily trapped because the agents were well known to them or were their relatives…” [said a bank officer]…Bharati says, “We…repeatedly issued warnings…But you can’t stop anyone…hell bent to invest her hard earned money in schemes promising much higher returns.” The Durbar has recently launched a massive awareness programme…
Workers’ Paradise vs. Gold Diggers
…Dongguan…has a population of about 7 million and a reputation as the Chinese capital of sex…Between 500,000 and 800,000 people – some 10 per cent of Dongguan’s migrant population – are in some way employed in the world’s oldest profession…[including] 300,000 sex workers…[but] authorities are now…trying to push prostitution off Dongguan’s streets with a crackdown…
Note that the word “trafficking” is entirely absent:
A company within Sweden’s home care services…mistreated migrant workers by making false promises about work conditions…Hassan…said that his official job offer stated that he would be employed full-time by…TPS Vårdteam…with a monthly wage of 26,500 kronor ($4,000)…”In the beginning I didn’t get any work at all…Then I had to work seven days a week….[for] only…8,000 kronor per month”…the company had not paid in any taxes at all for Hassan…
End demand for home health care!
Tulsa, Oklahoma’s sleazy war on whores reaches a new level of evil:
Tulsa police have…charged 23 individuals under a state law that permits a felony to be filed when a person suspected of prostitution is arrested within 1,000 feet of a church or school. “It’s just a nightmare,” said defense attorney, Charles Kania…a “scarlet letter on their foreheads that follows them forever”…The felony charges are part of a stepped-up effort by police to get tough on prostitution…Sgt. Todd Evans said…”Most of Tulsa is within a thousand feet of a church or school”…[and] police have sometimes opted to book individuals under another statute that makes it a felony to utilize a computer to violate any state law…
…Active Blessing Uganda…[promised that children] would get an education and live a better life…instead [they were] denied basic rights and exploited…76 children, aged between four and 16 years, have been rescued from the alleged human traffickers…the children are malnourished…do domestic work…in return for food and when they fall sick…are not cared for…the parents [were]…always prevented…from visiting…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (TW3 #49)
On May 22, the American Psychiatric Association will release the…DSM-5…[practicing psychotherapist] Gary Greenberg, one of the book’s biggest critics, claims these disorders aren’t real — they’re invented…The Book of Woe: The Making of the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry is his exposé of the business behind the creation of the new manual…
The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn (TW3 #137)
A powerful statement from Filipino sex workers:
…Being poor in the Philippines…means…no matter how much you believe things to be wrong you must believe it to be right when the rich, your master (amo)…[says] so…That…[is] why it was not difficult for the feminist (abolitionists) to appropriate our voices and to start…speaking for themselves in our name…For years, we could only stand , mouths gagged, as we watched our new “amos” build their careers speaking for other underprivileged and “mindless” women in their list who they claim do not have the ability to speak for themselves…We…do not understand the arrogance by which they have anointed themselves our saviors…what we want is save ourselves from them instead…we really do not care about “patriarchy”, “commodification” and other words they spew. Those matters don’t bring food on our table nor pay for our rent. All we are interested in is to work undisturbed…It is time to tell the world that only sex workers [can] speak for sex workers…
Held Together With Lies (TW3 #316)
Wendy Lyon does her usual thorough job ripping apart a bogus study:
Last month saw the publication of the EU’s first Trafficking in Human Beings report, which…is (properly) littered with disclaimers…Unfortunately…the press release…[went] for the handy soundbite…so we’ve been deluged with headlines like “Human trafficking increased by 18%” when…the report doesn’t show it did any such thing…if all the statistics were accepted as readily as the “18% increase” has been, it would be a little bit inconvenient for some…Contrary to what we’re constantly told by the anti-trafficking movement, the most recent figures make it hard to discern any link between trafficking and the legal status of sex work. The Dutch rate is very high, but the Cyprus rate is higher – and Cyprus has much stricter laws than the Netherlands…Romania, where sex work itself is illegal, is nearly as high. Hungary (legal), Portugal (legal) and Lithuania (illegal) are tied for last. Austria and Germany are also relatively low – in fact, Germany and Sweden are tied, at 0.8 per 100,000. And the German rate has remained more or less constant over the three years surveyed, while Sweden’s has quadrupled…But sex workers’ rights advocates shouldn’t leap on those figures, either, because truthfully the whole report is pretty hopelessly undermined by its methodological weaknesses…
Sometime…[in] April, an Ohio transgender woman was…stabbed repeatedly and then tied to a concrete block and cast into a pond. She was left with no clothes below the waist, perhaps to shame her…But…insensitive stories by the local press…[wrote] about [her] as if she were a bizarre spectacle, not a victimized human being…the Cleveland Plain Dealer…used a mugshot of [Cemia] Acoff instead of the other readily available photos…the [headline which now reads]…“Oddly dressed body found in Olmsted Township identified,” originally said “oddly dressed man,” (you can see it in the url; it was changed after readers and activists protested)…the story [also] refers to her as Carl Acoff (her birth name) and uses a male pronoun...[a follow-up] story…details what she was wearing…lists old petty “crimes”…[and refers to the] hormones [she was carrying as] “dangerous drugs”…
Maddie Collier’s response to Rakhi “pop stars cause sex trafficking” Kumar is well worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a sample:
…The anti-sex trafficking cause is already thick with moral panic, misinformation, and ill-informed, PR-boosting celebrity activists, and you’re cluttering the already-diminished discourse with further nonsense….[which spawns] attitudes and policies that actively harm sex workers. You are ignoring the freely-available perspectives and requests of real-life sex workers because they interfere with your romantic notion of the Prostituted Woman as a forlorn, passive victim who needs to be saved. If you engage with sex workers before you form a view on what’s oppressing them, you might find that criminalisation and stigma are higher-priority concerns than mythical drug-dealing pimps wielding persuasive charm and Beyoncé’s hotpants…
Anatomy of a Boondoggle (TW3 #317)
The newest excuse for police rape of sex workers is that Asian massage parlors are “sophisticated”:
…an undercover police officer…[repeatedly paid for sex] over five months…in a fight against prostitution and human trafficking. Officers say such methods led to…[their raiding] two businesses [and] arresting…four alleged prostitutes and two alleged pimps. But the methods…were criticized…by legal…experts and women’s advocates as excessive, unnecessary and misapplied…prostitutes can be arrested and charged in Indiana as soon as an agreement to pay for a sex act is made…Plus…if the women indeed had been…working…against their will, the sex acts they performed on the officer only contributed to their humiliation, exploitation and degradation…Aaron Dietz, head of the…Task Force…which conducted the nine-month sting, said…the sophisticated nature of the prostitution ring required officers to take more extreme measures…Dietz and others wanted to emphasize that it was not a pleasurable experience for the officer, but entirely necessary. “No one…really wants to go into these…It’s something that’s ethically and morally very trying, so I’d do anything to keep guys out of there.”
You’d do anything? Then how about advocating for decriminalization, you fucking filthy liar?
I have to wonder how Mr. William Coleman’ ex-wife sleeps at night, assuming that his assertions are true.
Via the combination of amorality and an overdeveloped sense of privilege which afflicts so many modern Americans. If it’s all about her, he “deserves” to suffer for whatever imagined ill he inflicted upon her. She may have even convinced herself by now that her story was true; as I’ve explained before, that isn’t difficult to do.
That’s sad about Ray Harryhausen, I have some of his films… though on video tapes that I need to replace with DVDs.
It’s funny, give a girl $300.00 for an hour, and you are both breaking the law. Buy a girl a car for a longer engagement, and you are both fine.
A lot of US cops haven’t gotten the memo (or have gotten the memo and choose to ignore it as long as the actual laws haven’t changed) that sex workers are the victims of commercial sex and not the victimizers any more.
Still, given that most cops know that both constructions are a total fantasy, they probably just don’t want to change their approach only to have to change it back in a few years.
“Dietz and others wanted to emphasize that it was not a pleasurable experience for the officer, but entirely necessary,” you know I find it… interesting… that these cops were apparently able to physically perform in such an “unpleasant” situation.
I’m sure they hated every minute of it.
Regarding the Beyonce story, of come up with a good test for people like Rakhi Kumar: Is it ever morally ok for a woman to wear fishnet stockings, or must they be banned for the good of the female gender?
Ray Harryhausen never sold out to those Japanese Monster Porn douchebags i can tell you!
Why are we force feeding people in Gitmo? Let them die.
Because we are not YET ready to say “Regardless of how deeply you feel your revolutionary fervor, if you shoot at or bomb Americans, bad things will happen to you and we don’t really give a goddamn.”
Which is a pity, because such an attitude would go a long way to reducing the various Islamic Radical groups back to their natural status of fanatical but small and unimportant bands of hill bandits.
Except that there’s zero evidence against any of the strikers, which is exactly why they haven’t been tried. I’d rather take my chances with radical bomb-setters than with the absolutely certain evil of a tyrannical government; the latter is a far greater and far more consistent source of evil.
Yeah but Maggie – I’d rather take NO chances and see a bit of Roman style vengeance implemented here which, as csp points out – would fix the problem. It would fix the problem because the Romans ALWAYS fixed the problem until they lost their stomach for fixing problems – which took a few hundred years.
I’m all for visiting the most horrific kind of war on these idiots – devious and brutal and no remorse.
When you are in a fight – you fight no holds barred … absolutely no mercy. You want everyone watching you to say … “That dude is sick – I don’t ever want to fuck with him”.
It means you get in fewer fights.
Most boys learn this in grammar school and junior high – at least I did.
It’s also the most humane thing to do – because it will mean fewer jihadists racing to the cause in the future – which means fewer people we have to kill to protect ourselves.
Yeah, and where they visited their most profound vengeance for many years was on their political enemies and Italian neighbors. The Romans didn’t lose their stomachs for horrible punishment. They just bled the Italian peninsula so white of manpower that the legion Cicero took to Asia Minor in 52 B.C.E. was the last legion raised in Italy until Galba was Emperor, 12 decades later. The romans didn’t wuss out, it’s harder to get mercenary soldiers to pillage and burn their relatives, neighbors, fellow tirbesmen, etc., than it is if they are total strangers.
I’d rather not live in the Roman Empire, thank you very much.
How the hell do you know that they’re jihadis? If you’ve got the evidence, you should turn it over to the government, because they sure as hell don’t have it.
A libertarian wanting to live in the Roman Empire…
Because if they die, it will be reported and people will ask “why did they kill themselves thus?” The government doesn’t want those questions asked; tyrants tremble in fear of martyrs, who are among the few people with the power to harm them.
You and I sometimes disagree Maggie, but in this you are absolutely right. We must force the tyrants and their lackeys–witting or not–to face the reality they have created.
By taking the side of the jihadists?
These are jihadists you know. They believe in, and are SET UPON visiting the most tyrannical forms of control over all the people of the world. No matter how badly you view the US government as “tyrants” let me assure you – these jihad’s make the US government look like choirboys.
I mean – do we seriously debate whether or not homosexuals and transgendered persons should be executed in this country?
Well …
They do.
Abuse of the other. They are foreign jihadist fighters. They are foreign close to jihadist. They are American close to jihadist in foreign country. They are Americans in America who associated with jihadist.
That’s how far down the slope we are with suspension of civil liberties.
But death count from right wing and left wing tdomestic terrorism outnumbers death from foreign action.
So the next step down the slope is no due process for militia members that attack government or abortion facilities.
And the next is people who associate with those people. And the next are people who call themselves libertarians like those people.
This is the real slippery slope. And you are arguing for a faster slide.
How is it taking their side to treat them humanely, if dispassionately? In WWII the Nazis were just as fanatical, had the heavy weaponry to back it up, and even had many in the US under their sway with organizations like the German-American Bundt. Yet we still brought their POWs to the lower 48 and housed them (under watchful eyes) until such time as they could be returned to their country. I’m sure the communities where the POW camps were located were less than pleased, but we were still able to prosecute our war aims and more importantly deny the Nazis a propaganda opportunity. (I remember reading a book about WWII POWs which quoted one German soldier held in America as saying “When Germany wins the war, our treatment here will be a point in your favor.”)
What happened in the intervening years? I’d argue that we (and the leaders we claim to select) lost the ability to make rational decisions, or even the ability to make decisions period.
So we defeat the jihadists by acting as bad–or worse–than they do? The iindividuals who are being wrongfully imprisoned at Guantanomo should released immediately–with a public apology from the President and compensation from the government. The others should be brought to the United States, and tried in a Federal Court with Federal rules, not some fancy-shmancy “military tribunal.” This is the real definition of being a free individual: granting another the same rights that you enjoy, no matter how different they are, no matter how heinous the crime, and risking that there might not be the outcome that you hope for.
Krulac, Fred Phillips, the Aryan Nations, and the Nation of Islam (among others) argue for that sort of treatment for homosexuals and transgenders. And their are people in Congress who I have to wonder whether or not they have identical beliefs.
I’m sorry, that’s Fred PHELPS. Brain fart.
It’s a power/control thing, more than preventing martyrs (although that may factor into it). WE now control their lives and their deaths; the detainees aren’t permitted to make the decision to die. It’s the same reason that death row inmates are kept alive against their will.
Of course, President Obama has admitted that at least 50 of the detainees can’t be tried, and can’t be released. So, the U.S. is becoming a more hypocritical and inept ‘Evil Empire’ than the U.S.S.R. was. At least in that evil empire, the detainees would simply be sentenced to mental institutions for indefinite periods, and they wouldn’t bother to go through a pretense of questioning them.
Has nothing to do with power / control. Has everything to do with the fact that the US has lost it’s stomach to protect it’s citizenry – in fact, the US citizenry, by and large, figures it’s invincible or something and doesn’t need protecting.
You and the others will learn otherwise one day Bruce.
I’d ask whether it’s a case of losing stomach, or if the way of “protecting the citizenry” (as currently practiced by the US government) is inept at best, counterproductive at worst. Indeed, you recently said that people in government are dumb while people in business are smart. If we take that as true, why should we have trusted the government with something as important as the response to a disaster like 9/11?
Do you trust the government’s word that every one (EVERY one) of the remaining Gitmo prisoners was an incorrigible jihadi at the time of capture who cannot wait to go back to the battlefield? Because I’m not arguing that they are all innocent, simply that we need to make a decision instead of allowing Gitmo to continue to be a rallying cry for our enemies.
Regarding your claims about the US citizenry, aren’t more and more people choosing to arm themselves because they don’t trust the government or police to protect them and believe they are actively plotting against them? If so, that doesn’t seem to jibe with the idea that people think they are invincible and don’t need protecting.
The Hydra’s Teeth in Jason and the Argonauts is simply iconic. (Never mind that the film mangles the myth.)
The final quote in the story ‘Anatomy of a Boondoggle’ should be awarded some sort of prize.
“If one gal decides to take a better career path,” he said, “then we’ve won.”
I wasn’t aware that ‘sex trafficking victim’ was a listed career path. Maybe it’s bundled in with ‘unpaid housekeeper’ and ‘slave orderly in a home care facility’. Perhaps the police should be investigating the career counselers who advise young people to take up these professions?
Heh, heh. Well, here you see the thing.
The vice cops continue to think of prostitutes as evil criminals. They understand that the sex trafficking stuff is just for the press. They are probably just as happy to arrest customers too but in a way they are more honest than neofeminists.
They don’t pretend that the prostitutes are victims without agency, they see them as criminals who chose to break the law which makes them fitting prey for the police. (Or rather they do pretend that the neofeminist dogma is correct, in the most shoddy, lazy, slipshod act of pretending they could come up with. Really how difficult is it to say, “If one woman is saved from sex trafficking, then we’ve won?” He totally gave the game away there.)
Really, though, it could make for a hilarious video parody of standard career counselers. “Well, Cindy-Lou, given your grades and general attitude towards men, sex, and money, it’s pretty clear that your best option for the future is to become a sex trafficking victim.” “Gosh, Mr. Bailey, what’s that?” (Insert cheesy 70s porno music here…)
Street officers, as opposed to vice cops, tend to pretty much ignore prostitution. When you have real crimes (burglary, robbery, assault, murder…) to deal with, most vice-related crimes seem pretty trivial.
I think I’ve seen that movie!
The Maddie Collier quote you started this article with is exactly what I mean when I say evil starts with turning human beings into things, not when you control them. Control is the second step…sometimes.
The Harryhausen video is kind of jerky, at least on my computer. It makes the animation appear cruder than it actually is. (But at least the live actors make it clear that the jerkiness is part of the video, and not the animation.)
I’ve been to Tulsa lots of times. While reading the story, my immediate thought was ‘Isn’t everywhere in Tulsa within 1000 feet of a school or church?’ And then the cop said the same thing.
I agree that the world will be worse off without Ray Harryhausen. But his work is always with us.
The kid is either well-connected or for once the police see how this would be a PR disaster. They usually aren’t very good at seeing that, though.
These women who think it isn’t prostitution if you only do it a few times, or if you don’t have a pimp, or whatever, need to know that neither the law nor public opinion in general make these distinctions.
When there are supposedly millions upon millions of whores roaming the continent, and the cops only catching dozens in any given city, there’s a lot of pressure to find (or manufacture) more hookers. And women who are not hookers need to realize that they are not immune, just because they are not personally exchanging sex for money.
Prisoners don’t take up hunger strikes lightly. If prisoners are refusing to eat, there’s a reason.
I keep finding myself saying things like this, but…
Because of course if I owned a slave, in violation of various laws and statutes, well of course I’d let her out to have a boyfriend. Who’s a cop. Hey, what could go wrong?
While I’m glad to hear (OK, read) about Porn Studies, I have to wonder if it’ll be like the other slanted studies we’ve seen already.
Wait a minute…
So, these ponzi* schemes focused exclusively on sex workers? Is that why they got away with it?
So now China thinks it will work. Well hell, ain’t they already doing prohibition with drugs?
Maybe Sweden could just pass a law to make it illegal to be sick? I mean, since they’ve been so successful with other law to control reality?
More tomorrow.
* My spell checker tried to “correct” this to “Fonzie.”
I did it again: “tomorrow” became “two days later.”
Well I’ve said it before: Oklahoma might as well be Texas most of the time.
One can’t help but wonder if the children would’ve been better off in the hands of stereotypical sex traffickers, who at least would have kept them well-fed and clean so as to be more attractive to the thundering herds of sex tourists who apparently love noting in life more than fucking a terrified, enslaved child.
You know, my faith in humanity isn’t the highest, but damn. Also, I sure can write a long sentence!
The thing is, there really are psychiatric disorders. But then there’s fashion. And monied influence. And politics (or do I repeat myself?).
“only sex workers [can] speak for sex workers”
Which kind of makes sense, you know?
So banning something people want and which other people are willing to sell them, doesn’t make the something go away. Well yeah.
Neither the media now the general public has caught up to transgender and others who break the binary male/female absolutes.
She managed to be funny, call out Kumar on his non-facts, and make her own points all while being a total Beyoncè fangirl. BTW, I’ve heard Beyoncè suggested for the (on-and-off) remake of the movie Barbarella. I’d go for that, except that I’ve been told that Bey absolutely will not do nudity. Sorry, but that’s a deal-breaker, or should be. If you don’t show the goodies, then how the heck can you be Barbarella?!
Oh wait… it looks like it’s going to be a TV movie. OK, cast Beyoncè.
“It’s not like I actually enjoy blow jobs, you know. I had to fake my erection the whole time… all nine times. Had to fake my orgasms too… every time. Over and over. God, the things I do for this city!”
Somehow, I’m not buying this, and dude, you can keep that ski lodge in Honolulu, too.
[…] the ages of 12 and 14 years old are victims of the child sex trade in this country” or “100,000 American children are…sold into a life of sex slavery every year”, and by last year it was usually something like “300,000 children at an average age of […]