The idea that [no coerced prostitutes] ever indicate their plight to any of the hundreds of thousands of men who make up their clientele, or that if they do none of those men reports it to police, is simply fantastical. No one with any experience of real live human beings could possibly believe it. – Tim Worstall
…For the past two decades, parents who’ve lost children in horrible ways have tried to memorialize them in law…But…support for… “apostrophe laws”…is waning…recession…made officials…hesitant to increase costs…from…more prisoners and longer sentences…the drop in the crime rate…made tougher laws…less politically compelling…[and] the lower-hanging fruit has been picked…
“A [West Australian] businesswoman claims…police have stopped her repeatedly…in the crackdown on street prostitution. Rebecca Williams says…officers…[demanded] to know what she was doing and [checked] her identification…” Of course she’s wholly clueless, protesting that she doesn’t “look like a prostitute”.
Must…resist…snark…
A [Las Vegas] police officer is facing five counts of soliciting…while he was investigating crimes of prostitution…Investigators followed [Peter] Connell for months and witnessed him…visiting the apartment of Mary Anne Moore, who had previous prostitution arrests…
Somehow, I Doubt He Thought This Through
A man…dialed 999 to complain about a prostitute’s looks…[saying] he “wished to report her for breaching the Sale of Goods Act”…Officers…sent…a letter warning him about wasting police time…
A young Muslim woman miscarried after being attacked by two Parisian champions of women’s rights: “first [they] tried taking her headscarf off and later cut off her hair…After she screamed out that she was pregnant, one of the attackers started kicking her in the stomach…[shouting] that the veil was no longer acceptable in France…”
This article entitled “Faith Groups Oppose Legal Prostitution Because They Care About Women’s Lives” is just the usual collection of sin-and-degradation prohibitionist control freak myths; the comment thread, however, is a thing of beauty.
Mind Reading (November Updates)
Why do so many politicians think sex overrides the Constitution?
Pierce County [Washington] might make it illegal for suspected prostitutes and their customers to attempt to detect undercover officers…by “exposing oneself or asking another to do so; by asking to be touched sexually; or by requesting to touch or touching another sexually”…
Notice what words we aren’t seeing here:
Agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided [several] 7-Eleven shops in New York and Virginia…Nine store owners and managers have been arrested on charges of harboring and hiring undocumented immigrants…the raids are a part of an investigation into human smuggling, identity theft and money laundering…authorities described the alleged situation as a “modern day plantation system“…
…Suyima Torres…[died 10 hours after receiving buttocks injections] at…Cuerpos Health and Aesthetics on April 11…she…was rushed to the hospital…by the center’s owner, Ruth Planas…the Venezuelan doctor who performed the surgery…is thought to have fled the country…Torres died only 16 days after…20-year-old Dailen Garcia, received butt implants from the same facility…[and] was hospitalized …for vision problems and bleeding lungs…
Reader George sent me a copy of Meet the Fokkens and a gift card, with the suggestion I use it to buy the movie Diamond Men (which I did). Thank you so much, George!
Texas jailers…”repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates”…[who’ve now] sued Live Oak County and its…jailers Vincent Aguilar, Israel Charles Jr. and Jaime E. Smith…All three…were arrested in August 2010 and charged with sexual assault…Smith and Aguilar are in…prison…”these guards would withhold food and water, engage in physical abuse, restrict privileges and verbally and emotionally abuse the women – even threaten to kill them in order to compel their compliance”…
In which we learn that nail parlors are havens of “sex trafficking”:
…the advocacy group ECPAT estimates 100,000 minors are forced into prostitution or pornography each year — but no one knows how vast the problem is because it’s under reported and underground, said Kathy Maitland of the Michigan Abolitionist project…”It’s the second-largest-growing activity in our country”…She says Michigan is especially vulnerable because of a large agricultural industry…and its location along an international border…Lt. Wendy Reyes…said…”If we had more manpower we…could get online…and find these victims”…trafficking is often linked to online and street prostitution, ethnic restaurants, masseuse businesses, pornography and nail salons…iEmpathize founder Brad Riley…called…the proliferation of pornography…a “super fuel” that promotes trafficking…
Beside the usual rampant illogic, mathematical illiteracy, blatant racism and “King of the Hill” foolishness, you’ve got to love Wendy’s claim that cops need to web surf all day to “find victims”.
French footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema go on trial in Paris…accused of paying…Zahia Dehar…for sex in 2008 and 2009…Algerian-born Dehar, now 21, has since become designer Karl Lagerfeld’s muse and protégée, launching her own lingerie line…State prosecutors have requested that the case be dropped, however, arguing the footballers did not know Dehar was a minor…
“A…top [TSA] officer…[named Miguel Quinones] was arrested on child pornography charges after items were seized from his locker at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport…” As explained in the referenced column, the TSA is well-known for attracting pedophiles.
“Twenty-two female escorts were arrested last week during a two-day sting in…Denver…The women were advertising on two websites — DenverBackPage.com and Preferred411.com…” Despite the involvement of the FBI’s lugubriously-named “Innocence Lost” project, note that verified professional adult escorts were targeted via P411; these cops had no illusions they might find “trafficked children”. In fact, the sting was enabled by one creating a fake profile and then arranging several “coffee dates” with escorts and asking for “OKs”, which the escorts gave in violation of P411 rules; their accounts were suspended for their negligence in enabling predatory monsters to hurt other sex workers. Ladies, ONLY give OKs to men you actually see behind closed doors; how can you possibly know whether a man is dangerous if you’ve only seen him in public?
A scathing demolition of the horrendous “study” which claimed legalized prostitution increases “sex trafficking”, and also of the “sheer implausibility of the claims that 30% of all prostitutes are trafficked…”:
The…scare campaign…over “sex trafficking”…becomes a complete and total mess…because [campaigners confuse]…the transport of unwilling people…into forced prostitution…and…the illegal movement of willing people across borders to enter the sex trade…people from poorer countries…wish to…move…to richer countries. And such is the system of immigration laws that many of them will be unable to do this legally…
Cathy Reisenwitz also had a few things to say:
…The Guardian recently quoted UK solicitor general Oliver Heald QC describing “victims” of trafficking as people who pay a lot of money to escape their home countries and then are forced to pay it back…That’s not slavery, it’s indentured servitude, and it accounts for two-thirds of immigrants to America from the British Isles in the 17th century. Anti-prostitution and anti-immigration campaigners have hijacked the term “human trafficking” to describe any instance of a person crossing a border to do sex work…It requires buying into the rather insulting idea that women aren’t capable of choosing to leave their homes and do sex work abroad…once you establish that women aren’t capable of making their own choices, you can justify taking all kinds of rights and liberties away from them…
Corrections officials are refusing to remove a sex offender’s name from the state’s public database, defying [the] order…[of] The Court of Appeals [which] ruled…that [Robert Merle Haines Jr.] should not be named on the…registry because [it] did not exist at the time of his crime and registration would be a form of retroactive punishment, which the Maryland Constitution doesn’t allow. Corrections officials say federal…requirements prevent them from complying with the ruling…
…Minnesota’s Sex Offender…Task Force…[is] redesigning the…program…each of the state’s 687 committed sex offenders [costs]…about $120,000 a year…with…50 more…each year…The task force came into existence as part of a lawsuit filed by the committed sex offenders, who argue the…program is unconstitutional because…no one is actually treated and released, thereby creating an indefinite incarceration system even after the offenders have served their criminal [sentences]…
Another Small Victory (TW3 #317)
As expected, the “anti-prostitution pledge” was struck down in the SCOTUS. This is not actually a victory for sex worker rights in the big picture; it was decided wholly on first-amendment grounds and the “allies” were at best ones of convenience. If you’d like to read more about the details and implications, I recommend Melissa Gira Grant, Popehat and Mike Siegel.
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #318)
If anyone really believes this is anything but an attempt to save face, I have some lovely beachfront property for sale:
For the first time, the State Department on Wednesday declared China and Russia among the worst offending countries…a designation that will lead to sanctions against both…the…2013 report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP)…officially downgraded China, Russia, and Uzbekistan to the lowest possible rating…along with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe…
What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? (TW3 #321)
The prevalence of dangerous strains of the human papillomavirus…has dropped by half among teenage girls in recent years, a striking measure of success for a vaccine…that was introduced only in 2006…The magnitude of the decline…surprised…experts because only about a third of teenage girls in the United States have [received]…the full course of three doses. By comparison, vaccination rates in…Denmark…Britain [and]…Rwanda…[have] reached 80 percent…
When this happens in India, it’s a media circus; in Sweden…{cricket sounds}: “Six teenage boys aged 15 to 17 were convicted on Friday after raping a 15-year-old girl in…Stockholm…The case was the third…gang rape to take place in the Stockholm area…this year…”
Despite the annoying visuals and a few clumsy phrases in the first third, this is an excellent argument against prohibition of sex work.
Where are the Victims? (TW3 #322)
A novel attempt to use New York State’s sex trafficking law…ended with mixed results…as the men were convicted…of promoting prostitution and of money laundering, but…acquitted of…sex trafficking…The law defines trafficking based on the methods the pimps use to control the prostitutes, rather than whether the prostitutes view themselves as victims…prosecutors…presented an expert to testify that women working as prostitutes are often not aware that they are victims. But three of the women themselves testified for the defense…and…were upset…at the…[suggestion] they were not to be believed…
Consider for a moment the incredibly dangerous precedent a prosecution victory would have set; state “experts” would be allowed to define any person as a victim in any crime regardless of that person’s viewpoint.
“The owner of a Lawrence [Massachusetts] massage parlor coerced employees to perform sex acts on…customers, some of whom were videotaped without the clients’ knowledge…Authorities said Barron used the videotapes to blackmail employees to keep working for her…” Dear ethically-challenged sex business owners: Stop videotaping clients, you moron. See, there’s this thing called “evidence”…
More egregious use of “pimp” mythology to justify Nevada’s draconian “sex trafficking” law:
Because of their age, they will have difficulty working inside most [hotels]. For most, that means hitting the streets under the eye of a pimp and more experienced prostitutes. And the more they must rely on the pimp, the more difficult it is to pry them from his clutches…So when Assembly Bill 67 surfaced…earlier this year, the police welcomed it as a way to send a message to pimps that there would be a higher price to pay for running young girls…
Once again: teens don’t turn to sex work because a “pimp” abducts them from their loving families, and 84% of them have never as much as met one.
“It requires buying into the rather insulting idea that women aren’t capable of choosing to leave their homes and do sex work abroad…once you establish that women aren’t capable of making their own choices, you can justify taking all kinds of rights and liberties away from them…”
Mark me down as a grouch, but for years I have fought, and occasionally given in to, the temptation to say to various kinds of maternalistic Feminist “If women are as stupid and malleable as you claim, please explain to me why I should listen to you (a woman), and why you should have the right to vote.”
On the occasions when self restraint has failed, the responses have been entertaining, but intellectually void.
Civilization has long denied women’s sexual agency. We’re “victims”, we’re “trafficked”, we are “taken advantage of”. We aren’t seen as capable of making choices as to sexual behaviour on our own.
And it’s rubbish.
I think that a lot of that is a matter of denying agency of all kinds to everybody but a tiny ruling minority. The idea that the ‘common people’ had any rights that the Ruling Class had any obligation to respect is fairly new. I’m not saying that recent attempts to ‘keep women down’ weren’t specifically targeted; they were. Just that the pattern is a little different over time, which is important to interpretation.
The disgusting thing about the present is that some of the worst offenders are women. It makes little sense unless you think of it through the lens of the old ‘Ruling Class vs everybody else’ business. Riling Class women are learning that they can’t keep control of Ruling Class men if the men are free to go looking in the Lower Orders without the old ‘shame’ of slumming.
They always have been … in spite of this great “myth” that some ominous patriarchy has been tormenting and holding women back.
Today – women control half the money and ALL the pussy in the world. Fuck, in my world – they control about 90% of the money – I write the checks sure, but it’s usually to meet some demand of a female in my life. Please – enough of this “powerless” meme – they are not powerless and never have been.
Unless other men are markedly different than I am – they will do ANYTHING for consensual sex with a halfway decent looking woman. I’ve never forced a woman into sex – but I have a feeling it’s not as good that way as it is when she freely gives herself. And to get her to do that you have to give her certain things she wants. I do not think I am a particularly “enlightened” male on this fact and I don’t think I’ve discovered something that men in centuries long past didn’t know.
Yes … women have taken a subservient role throughout history and often were denied the same rights that men had. However, let’s not pretend that most women, themselves, didn’t buy into those restrictions.
Even in the Muslim world – the horrible way they treat the women has the approval of MOST of the women – who buy into that nonsense based on idiotic religious notions.
Mormonism is a great example too. In the early 1800’s when the religion was founded, it was entirely a religion of voluntary converts. The Mormons had no problems with attracting plenty of women to buy into the sexual deviancy that infested the early Mormon church. No, I’m not talking about polygamy – I’m talking about the way women were traded and sold amongst the elders of the church or quite simply stolen from the lesser “saints”.
And yeah – plenty of examples there in the Christian world too.
It’s interesting how often the splinter sects of Christianity that America produces go in for polygamy. I know of Mormonism (of course), but also the Oneida Colony of New York, and the Branch Davidians. The Amana Colonies seem to have been monogamous, but I wonder how many others there are.
I don’t think it’s really a religious phenomenon at all. Only a few men are so twisted as to be willing to enslave women, but at least in America, those who do generally invent a “religious cult” to do it in — because even today, it allows them to isolate themselves and their victims without the law taking as much notice as it would otherwise.
The reason it works as well as it does is that mainstream religion used to be that oppressive, and the Muslims still are. I don’t think it’s bias to be wary of those groups; Islam has yet to go through a Protestant Reformation.
There are whole denominations for Christian LGBT people: http://gays4jesus.blogspot.com/2010/06/assemblies-of-god-gay-pentecostals.html These include Pentecostal denominations and Pentecostals are traditionally 1 of the most conservative denominations in Christianity. There’s also a gay Baptist denomination. There are also Christian polyamory people (I’m 1 of these). I don’t know of any specific groups of Christian polyamory people yet, but hope to find some in my research. Even without a specific organized group the Christian polyamory people DO exist and all individuals within that count. These Christians need to be talked about because, unfortunately, there’s info that’s very behind the times being put out online and off. An example of this is the belief that if you come out to your clergy about being gay, etc., you’re automatically shunned, screamed at, kicked out of your church, etc. My experience alone disproves this.
RE: Profound Ignorance (TW3 #310)
I still can’t get over that the wasn’t even any trafficking data in their study.
But there were good wishes and honest feelings, Kevin, and surely that’s enough basis for laws which will restrict the rights of millions of people worldwide? After all, if laws aren’t to make the privileged, middle-class white Western minority feel good at everyone else’s expense, what are they for?
The ends do not justify the means, but the results can … or they can discredit them entirely.
I note with interest the comment by chas13, 5:00 PM on June 17, 2013, in reply to read the letter, 3:47 PM on June 17, 2013:
> “Your third paragraph leaves much unsaid and has many inaccuracies. For > many women there is no ‘consensual’ sex’ – it’s as simple as no > prostitution= no Hydro bill that month, or food; or drugs” >
Would chas13 say the same about Doctors, lawyers, dentists? Would they say the same about rubbish collectors, or street cleaners? These people are also “forced to work” in order to pay their “Hydro bill that month, or food; or drugs”.
When confronted in Vienna last week by a person who insisted that street based migrant sex workers were being forced to work, and were therefore trafficked, as they needed money to pay the rent, pay for food, etc. I said to him that if that was true, then it would also be true of other occupations, such as street cleaners, check out operators, and rubbish collectors, etc. He denied this, and then said that migrants in Austria weren’t allowed to do those jobs. I then pointed out that it therefore appears to be a problem with their immigration laws, if a person is allowed to immigrate, but not to work, and therefore has to resort to sex work in order to pay the bills, etc., and is not a problem with their extremely flawed laws on sex work.
The reply from read the letter is spot on though.
BTW, in relation to migrant sex workers, here’s some research from NZ: http://www.communityresearch.org.nz/research/occupational-safety-and-health-of-migrant-sex-workers-in-new-zealand/
Calum
Calum, in which linked item did this letter appear? I rarely read comment threads any more!
” ethnic restaurants, masseuse businesses, pornography and nail salons”
Do I detect the hand of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu here?
Rick Perry (Governor of Texas) might seem like a clown in some respects but he has pretty decent instincts. He thought everybody would naturally want their kids to be vaccinated against HPV. He was wrong, as it turned out, but I respect the his naive first assumption.
In the history of bad ideas, plastic butt implants stand out. Because you have to sit on them!!! At the very least they will start to relocate themselves to where you never intended.
Fun fact: What category of female professionals is most likely to have tit-enhancement? Trial lawyers.
Oooh, I dropped my pencil. I need to bend down to pick it up!
calum,
I ran across a similar argument on an anarchist website that unless an action was unconstrained by any factor it was not voluntary. So, working in McDonalds in order to have money to eat was a form of coercion.
Pie-in-the-sky, neurologically-ignorant, Utopian foolishness like that is why I refuse the label “anarchist” and am very sparing with identifying as a minarchist. These days I’m starting to lean toward “agorist” more, since collectivists insist on willful misrepresentation of the term “libertarian” (and to be fair, some who embrace that term make such demonization easy).
Basic income. Enough to get by, though not enough to live the high life. No more “working hard at a job you hate just to get by,” though “working to improve your standard of living” would remain.
[…] a cop if he’s a cop, “act sexy”, go out after dark without a male chaperone, or even just “look like a prostitute” are regularly arrested and charged with having sex for a reason some people don’t […]
Think of the Children!
I’d be glad to see an end to apostrophe laws. Even the parents themselves, in some cases, have come out against them. I’d love the reason for the end of such laws to be that they’ve simply gone out of fashion.
The Enlightenment Police
Now, who’s the terrorist again? I wonder if the Save the Unborn Crowd give a damn about this.
The Crumbling Dam
Wow. An intelligent comments thread in a prostitution article NOT on a prostitution blog. Wow.
Mind Reading
Since these magical cop-detection techniques don’t work, why do the police want to get rid of them? Is this some community where it does work? Do the cops just want to avoid the annoyance?
Above the Law
And it’s all OK because it’s only happening to bad people. Well, that’s what we’re supposed to believe when there’s rape in men’s prisons.
The Widening Gyre
So don’t eat at restaurants run by them furriners! They’re up to no good! When you eat that pad Thai, you’re hurting the children!! Hey, let’s just kick all the non-white people out of the country.
God, the xenophobia and racism is thick as sun-dried shit in that one.
Follow Your Bliss
Let’s see…we give people the job of feeling up anyone they want, including children… and then a lot of pedophiles apply for that job. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that there are pedophiles working for TSA.
Onward!
Q & A (TW3 #134)
Right. It’s not only the cops who need to follow their own rules.
The End of the Beginning
It’ll be interesting to see how this Maryland thing plays out in court, if it ever plays out in court.
The Mills of the Gods
It’s just assumed that a prostitute gives most of her money to her pimp. It isn’t even considered that anything else might be true. The argument that “we all pay for it” is probably the weakest argument available, because even if you can get ordinary people to go along with it (which you won’t, because ordinary people are not impressed by an academic’s ability to outsmart himself), it just shifts the argument to “it’s OK to trade THIS for sex but not to trade THAT for sex” for one reason or another, such as the idea that it’s more acceptable to buy a CHANCE for sex than to just flat-out buy sex, or that gifts are more personal than cash. The argument needs to be that people should not be forbidden to buy or sex sex, directly, whether or not “we all pay for it” and just avoid that mess altogether.
Where are the Victims? (TW3 #322)
A lot of bad precedents have been being set lately.
And on to Hussies, skipping lightly over LINKS on the way.
Where I comment on The Mills of the Gods above, I have a sentence where there is a set of quotation marks with nothing inside. I do this from time to time, to my embarrassment. This should have read:
The argument that “we all pay for it” is probably the weakest argument available, because…
Re: “The more the better”
As the trial of Ribéry and Benzema is ongoing, this article from the judiciary chronicle from “Le Monde” had to make me smile!
http://prdchroniques.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/01/21/michetonneuse-starfuckeuse-subtile-semantique-du-monde-de-la-nuit/
Here is a (rough) translation: (my comments under [brackets])
“Michetonneuse”, “Starfuckeuse”, the subtle semantics of the night world
Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema were not present on Monday, January 20th to face the criminal court . “For professional reasons,” said their lawyers. Zahia Dehar, the young woman with whom they are accused of having had compensated sexual intercourse while she was minor, also considered that she had much better to do than to tell her story to the court. The other defendants in this case are two managers of a Parisian bar, an part-time prostitute, a self-proclaimed players’ agent and Abousofiane Moustaïd, the friend of everyone.
“I’m a friendly guy,” he told Président Denis Couhé. Abousofiane Moustaïd’s life changed the day, he says, when he “was revealed by ‘la Nouvelle Star’ [i.e. the French ‘X-factor’], Your Honour.” Farewell the suburbs of Lyon and his job as a steward, welcome to the world of Parisian nights. Its all cool reputation opens the discos’ doors and “afters” of the morning, where the heroes of reality-TV and those who aspire to be fill up with useful friends, between two glasses of champagne.
Abousofiane Moustaïd’s sense of human relations does wonders, and soon he becomes “Abou” for everyone, then gets promoted as “party organizer”. His phone contact list and Facebook account are filled with women’s names ending in “a” – Zahia, Nadia, Dorra, Sashia, Sephora – young, pretty and willing, that sometimes accompany him in Cannes during the Festival. “I’m a ladies’ man, Your Honour. It is true that being with stars helps a little bit. I’m not Quasimodo but I’m not Brad Pitt either, huh … ” And as “Abou” likes to help, he introduces his lady friends to those who are bored alone at night.
“Prostitutes?” asks the president.
Abousofiane Moustaïd takes offense: “Not at all! You have to live in the world of the night to understand, Your Honour. There is a new generation of girls! …”
And he goes into a long explanation and subtle semantics: “There’s first, if I may use a word which is, uh, a little…
– Oh ! Go on! The court’s used to all kind of things… sighs the Président.
– Well, ‘starfuckeuses’. ‘Star’ as star, and ‘fuck’ is English, it means they … like, uh, with the stars …
– And to which purpose?
– Well, it’s like a resume, Your Honour. Brad Pitt, John Doe …”
He continues: ” And then there are the ‘michetonneuses’.
– Care to explain?
– The definition, Your Honour, this is a girl who, unlike ‘starfuckeuse’, is more interested in … material things. For example, be offered a Vuitton bag, travel … With the crisis, few girls would say no. Well, ‘starfuckeuse’ can also be a ‘michetonneuse’. But it has nothing to do with a prostitute [of course not 😉 ]. Nothing. A ‘michetonneuse’ has some tact!”
The mobile phone of “Abou”, under examination during the investigation, shows that he was often approached by “friends” who were ordering girls, “tepus [‘whores’ in French slang]”. The Président reads a few text messages: “Send a slut.
– Ah, slut does not mean prostitute, Mr Judge. Slut is a sexy way of dressing up.”
The tapping of Abousofiane Moustaïd’s phone and the testimonies of several of his “friends” also indicate that he regularly levied a percentage on the priced services he helped to organize. The penal code calls it pimping.
“I introduced them, they sometimes helped me out with a few notes, that’s all! A pimp is someone who forces girls and takes everything!”
The Président reads his definition. “Having helped to, assisted, protected, benefited from the prostitution of others.” He adds: ” I always thought that such session could have an educational side.”
To be continued on Tuesday, Jan. 21 .
Did this guy ever wear a purple hat? No? Well then of course he’s not a pimp. Next case!