Our ambition is really to do as little as possible. – Mats Löfving, Stockholm Chief of Police
If I believed in astrology, I would suspect there had been some unfavorable aspect this week in whatever house or constellation rules police, because I could’ve made this column twice as long and yet featured virtually nothing but horror stories about police brutality and other misbehavior. But despite what the more cynical among you may think, I’m really not trying to upset y’all on purpose; I therefore picked a representative selection and will leave the rest of them to be discovered by a Google search if you’re looking for something to make yourself depressed, angry or both. Our top contributor this week was Jesse Walker, whose selections appear above the Fangoria music mix (which he he also supplied). Joyce Arthur provided the first link below the music, Radley Balko the next two, Popehat the fourth and Walter Olson the fifth; Brooke Magnanti supplied the video and the last link above it. The video is a demonstration of how much American education has declined since 1946; it’s a short film on menstruation produced by Walt Disney Studios, who wouldn’t get anywhere near any sex-related topic nowadays for fear of “controversy”.
- A clever sci-fi short-short in the form of a Twitter tech support complaint.
- Teacher punished for reminding students of their constitutional rights.
- The first generation of terminators is on the way.
- Cops threaten ten-year-old girl with “criminal damage” charge for chalk hopscotch grid.
- Cops murder asthmatic for refusing to assume a position he knew would be fatal.
- Another advantage of life in a workers’ paradise: toilet paper raids.
- Stockholm police ignore rioters, but ticket cars they’ve burned.
- Soviet board games, 1920-1938.
- Where did cops come from?
- The man who believed he was undead.
- Cop murders man for urinating beside a road.
- Cops beat 77-year-old blind man for the “crime” of waiting for a bus.
- Cops beat 14-year-old boy for (literally) looking at them the wrong way.
- Fanatics care only about their causes, never about actual human beings.
From the Archives
- I’m obsessed with crossdressers and paranoid about young women; would an older escort be more understanding?
- Nell Gwyn was born in a brothel and became an actress, a courtesan and mistress to Charles II.
- When I was 12 a strange man helped me escape what might have become a sexual assault.
- I was in a long relationship with a prostitute, and now I feel guilty when I hire escorts. Why?
- Another African country whose anti-whore rhetoric strongly resembles that of the US.
- Zimbabwe’s quest to cut off its collective nose to spite its collective face.
- The disgusting truth about Sweden’s policies of “female empowerment”.
- How Jezebel and other social constructionists give feminism a bad name.
- Why some project their own twisted needs and self-hate onto whores.
- Prohibitionists try to stop sex worker rights advocates with violence.
- An old prohibitionist trick in a new guise: activism via sock puppetry.
- You’ll recognize the rhetoric in this 1985 Satanic Panic documentary.
- Profile of a German sex worker officially trained to help the disabled.
- Don’t go on a call without someone reliable knowing where you are.
- Another advantage to decriminalization: access to the legal system.
- How does a sex worker still desire to make love with her partner?
- How can a man get a driver job with an escort service or brothel?
- An early episode in government attempts to control the internet.
- Why sugar baby relationships are both sensible and rewarding.
- Is having sex for donations to a third party still prostitution?
- The continuing death-spiral of Nicholas Kristof’s reputation.
- The most complained-about advert in the UK since 1995.
- Did you ever have a client who physically repulsed you?
- Irish prohibitionist claims “prostitution isn’t about sex”.
- Yet another actress pretending she isn’t a whore.
- A neofeminist fantasy of pure, psychotic hatred.
- The American pariah caste begins to fight back.
- The Super Psychic Mind Probe powers of cops.
- Do working girls really appreciate gifts?
- A two-part look at my favorite poems.
- Why do you use the word “whore”?
- Are most clients easy to please?
In reading the link (No Other Option) it confirmed what I had heard once before, that certain men are repulsive, and you put that aside bothers me, I see that as not being willing and that is one reason I’ll never hire a sex worker.
So do you ask your dentist, doctor, masseur, etc. if you repulse them before accepting their services? Should medical personnel only be required to give the kiss of life to people that they find attractive?
I’m fairly sure that rubbish disposal workers are repulsed by what they have to handle, so by the same logic you shouldn’t “force” them to take away your household waste.
A dentist repairing my teeth, a doctor curing my ills or a masseuse rubbing my back is in no way like two people engaged in the most personal of acts.
Many, many people disagree with you on both counts. There’s a big difference between “I feel sex is personal” (subjective) and “sex is the most personal of acts” (objective). An opinion, even a popular one, is not a fact.
Loading body parts onto a Helo in Afghanistan is fairly repulsive. Yet, your tax dollars “hire” men in uniform to do it all the time.
The big difference here is this … those guys have no choice but do it – and they never say … “no”. Worse, they’re “bullet catchers” – if the government you sanction tells them to sacrifice their life for something – they have no choice but to comply.
Sex Workers have a lot more autonomy – and most all are free to say … “Uhm no, I’m not seeing you”.
No one hired me to kill for my country, I volunteered, I asked to join. Again this has nothing to do with two people engaged in the most personal of acts.
No it has everything to do with it. You and I were volunteers and rendered our services for the government that rules over us (sometimes not so benignly) …
Sex workers – by and large – are volunteers exactly in that same fashion … the difference is – the DO have the ability to tell men … NO and they can QUIT anytime they wish.
What is the penalty in war time for a solider who refuses to do his duty?
If you look at it, and use the same standards the human traffickers use – soldiers are the most hard core trafficked individuals in the world. We even have our own version of “underaged slaves”.
There is NO parallel that you can apply to sex work that you can’t also apply to governments and their armies.
I had quiet a different reaction to the link. While reading it, it brought tears to my eyes from reading about Maggie’s experiences with disabled men. She’s a real angel.
Thank you! 🙂
(Some) Men really don’t understand women, do they?
I can only speak for myself, Maggie, but I certainly have never felt you were trying to upset me with stories like this. I’m constantly fighting a mental battle when I read these stories. One side is the naïve ‘it can’t possibly be this bad, and surely there’s positive change somewhere in the future,’ while the other side is the cynical ‘yes, it is that bad, and it’s only going to get worse.’ If I’m not careful, the cynical side then fast forwards to the point where we’re in “V for Vendetta” territory, where the government and insurgency are fighting ever-escalating battles as civilization crashes down around them and innocent people who wished nothing more than to be left alone are caught in the crossfire.
If anything I upset myself, because I don’t like what I see yet I know I don’t possess the physical or mental abilities to affect change outside my little piece of the world.
Toilet paper is destabilizing the Venezuelan government? Damn – why don’t they just confiscate more assets from the oil companies? LMFAO!!
The link on where cops come from is wildly inaccurate. The guy claims that police forces were invented in post Civil War company towns. In fact, any urban area is going to have guys patrolling the street, usually in uniform. For Heaven’s sake, the government organized watchmen and patrols in ancient China, in the Roman Empire, and in Ancient Greece.
It is possible to argue that we have too many police with too much power without making stuff up.
Am I the only one who, while watching the video about menstruation, heard “there comes a time, somewhere between the ages of 11 and 17, though 13 is average…” and laughed?
It all makes sense now; the folks pushing all the “trafficking” nonsense are really just getting worked up about menarche!
Not an expert on women’s periods … so don’t yell at me but … haven’t studies claimed that girls begin their periods now at younger ages than they did in the past?
Although I’ll admit – 17 seems extreme for even pre-historic girls.
Menstruation generally comes earlier with a higher proportion of body fat; greater childhood obesity tends to lead to earlier menarche. In pre-industrial cultures daughters of nobles generally matured much earlier than daughters of peasants, and 17 wasn’t that unusual in those times. Even nowadays it happens from time to time; a friend of mine born in 1970 and of normal weight didn’t start hers until 16.
Trivia footnote on the story “Warning lands Batavia teacher in hot water” —
Batavia IL schoolteacher John Dryden was censured by school authorities for informing students of their 5th Amendment right not to answer a questionnaire.
The schoolteacher’s namesake, John Dryden (1531-1700) was relieved of his title as England’s poet laureate in 1688 because he declined to swear a loyalty oath to Mary II and William III & II.
Dryden was a major inspiration for Alexander Pope, whose popular satires became a thorn in the side of English royalty and their sycophantic scribblers.
May the latter day John Dryden’s students find similar success.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it stutters.
The Fangoria Track is quit good. I recognized the themes to Zombie, Christine, and the funky grape dance/disco theme from Friday the 13th Part III. As a matter of fact, I have those on CD. Can Jesse Walker tell me what horror movies the other songs came from? 🙂
Links. I’ll come back to it. And now, I’ve finished off May!