A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every profession has its superstitions, and those falling under the general heading of entertainment – acting, sports, music, sex work and others – are among the worst. Athletes have various taboos about their equipment and some won’t change their clothes during a winning streak; actors won’t say the phrase “good luck” or mention the play Macbeth backstage for fear of drawing down disaster; musicians often have lucky charms or pre-show rituals. Since one of the greatest harms which can befall a whore is to be arrested, there are a plethora of magical rituals, formulae or prohibitions which are used by the superstitious to ward off that probability. Not one of these has even the slightest basis in reality, but many swear by them and cannot be convinced that they do absolutely nothing to reveal a cop, prevent arrest or serve as a defense in court.
Probably the most common of these superstitions is the “cop test”; many hookers believe that there are certain things a cop is not allowed to do (such as take off his shoes, display his penis, feel her tits, etc), and therefore if a man will do one of those things he isn’t a cop. Probably the most absurd of these is also the most common: it is believed (by many drug users as well as whores) that if a cop is asked the question “are you a cop?” or “are you affiliated with law enforcement?” or whatever, he has to answer truthfully. These tests are doubly ridiculous because even if they were true in the first place (which they aren’t), a cop could still simply lie in the police report and in court to say he didn’t do whatever it was he wasn’t supposed to do. This is why that other common ritual, the payment ceremony, is just as useless as the cop test: if you let a cop in your door or walk into his, it doesn’t matter whether he hands you the money in an envelope or a roll, whether you count it in front of him or not, whether you pick it up or leave it lying on the nightstand, or even whether he gives it to you at all; the police report will say you agreed specifically to perform certain sex acts for a set sum, no matter what you actually did or said. As the expression goes, “you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride”; if you meet a cop and he wants to arrest you he will do so, even if you aren’t even a hooker, and no magical formula will prevent that.
The notion that certain rites, gestures and words will protect those who use them from malevolent beings is an ancient one, as is the complementary idea that these creatures cannot do perfectly ordinary things that humans can do with ease. Vampires cannot pass running water, go out in the daytime or enter a house without permission; they are revealed by mirrors and repelled by crosses and garlic. Devils cannot pass through certain magical inscriptions and must abide by the letter of any pact to which they agree. Fairies are repelled by salt and iron, and can only gain power over mortals who venture away from known paths or break certain rules. Why do people believe these things? Why were the monsters of folklore not basically unlimited and virtually unstoppable like those in so many modern movies, and why do people insist on believing that the power of modern villains is bounded by these same kinds of mystical geases and taboos? It’s because we need to sleep at night. Vampires, devils and faeries were very real to our ancestors, unlike the fictional villains of modern movies; you know very well that Jason and Chucky and Freddy Kreuger and the alien aren’t real, so it doesn’t matter if there are no limits on their power. But if you believed that they were real, and you lived in a thatched cottage that wouldn’t keep out a determined dog (much less a werewolf), you had better believe there were rules the monsters had to follow and wards to keep them away, or else you’d live in a perpetual state of fear.
Modern harlots are like those peasants of earlier times; we are surrounded by powerful predatory fiends lying in wait to pounce on the unwary victim in order to drag her off to their lair. So it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that many of us choose to believe that there is a mirror or incantation that will dissolve their disguises and reveal the corrupt beasts beneath, or a charm that will offer protection to the one who knows how to use it. Unfortunately, we are at a disadvantage in comparison to our ancestors: while their magical wards never failed because the monsters they were intended to foil never truly existed in the first place, the threats to our freedom and safety are very real…and the magical formulae to which we cling are utterly powerless against them.
Now I know that there ARE visible signs of woman’s sexual arousal, even though they are not as visually obvious as male erection. I’m talking about vaginal secretions, clitoris, nipples hardening, skin reddening, pulse speeding up, contractions during orgasm and so forth… How do you manage those, if “manage” is the right word at all? Some of the more sensitive men would not be fooled, and would in fact be thwarted by a pretended pleasure while the more subtle signs are not there. Or is it possible to say that even when acting out you do feel a measure of sexual arousal, but you are just not into it emotionally, and that is what you mean by “concentrating erotic energies”? Do you ever feel arousal and experience orgasm at all while working? I’m asking because I’ve read some sex workers testimonies on Reddit, and many do say that they enjoy the sexual experience that they have with clients. Also, as someone for whom the sexual pleasure of the woman I’m with is very important, I’d like to ask this: have you encountered clients for whom your arousal and orgasm was important? Clients that asked to please you and give you orgasm as part of the session? I, for example, love giving cuni, and love giving orgasms and pleasing, without that the experience for me would be of very little value. How would you manage that?
Almost none of the signs you mention occur in every woman. Lubrication, for instance, varies greatly from one woman to another; some flow like a river at the slightest provocation, while I’ve always been a bit on the dry side even when quite aroused. Nipples don’t always become erect without direct stimulation, and even when they do often lose erection during the plateau stage; the erection of a small, thickly-hooded or recessed clitoris is very difficult to detect without closer inspection than most guys will attempt. Though more than 50% of women show a sex flush (reddening), that means almost 50% don’t and it’s less pronounced in a colder room (and most clients keep their hotel rooms fairly cold in New Orleans). I hardly think anyone who isn’t Kryptonian is going to casually notice his companion’s pulse, and speeded-up respiration is easily faked. But there are the orgasmic contractions…which I learned to fake in my late teens, so well I can fool other women. So the answer is no, I’ve never encountered any clients I couldn’t fool. Obviously, some of them must have suspected, but that would be true even if my super-fakery were absolutely indistinguishable without an EEG machine; some men are just going to be suspicious and that’s that. It may be that most women aren’t as good at faking it as I am, but that’s OK because most men aren’t remotely sensitive enough to tell the difference between a good, professional fake and the real thing.
All that having been said, I did sometimes get excited with clients, and I did sometimes climax. Being paid for sex is a turn-on for me; usually the effect was subtle, but under the right conditions with the right man it could be quite pronounced, enough to make me more orgasmic than I might otherwise be. I’m sure the same is true for lots of other sex workers as well, though of course some of them are prone to exaggerate the degree or frequency of arousal for marketing purposes. I think it’s safe to say, however, that the average escort doesn’t really enjoy the sex with the average client.
The majority of men do want the woman to enjoy the experience, but because most women require more than mere physical stimulation that’s not as straightforward a process for women as for men. I once explained it this way:
Males are highly achievement-oriented; their self-esteem depends upon being competent, and being perceived as virile and sexually potent is as important to the average man as being perceived as beautiful and desirable is to the average woman…The competitive, result-oriented male mind sees female orgasm as the target, the goal, the finish line of the “game” of sex, so his sexual pleasure is greatly enhanced if he can “score” it. However…it isn’t that simple. For many women orgasm is more like hunting than it is like football; it’s not just a matter of aiming a shot with proper force and accuracy into a static area, but rather of hitting a moving target which may or may not elect to show itself on that occasion…And that’s only speaking of lovers; with clients orgasm is even more elusive, and indeed for some girls never shows its face in a commercial situation at all. But this typical female condition is completely alien to the average man; he just can’t comprehend that the right combination of moves and techniques could through no fault of his own somehow fail to achieve what it was intended to achieve…
There’s another factor to that as well. Remember, the man chooses the escort, not vice-versa; furthermore, the session must revolve around what will please him…which is not necessarily what will please her. Cunnilingus is a perfect example; in common with many men you love giving it, and in common with more women than you probably think (especially among escorts) I don’t like it very much. Some women, in fact, hate it with a purple passion. So, what’s an escort who’s there to provide a good time supposed to do when a guy says he loves it? Tell him the truth if she hates it? Of course not; it would ruin the whole experience for him. As a rule, whores can’t stand it when clients keep harping on the “I want to please you” thing, because it can make it a lot harder for us to do our jobs. What if she’s a size queen and he’s average? What if she likes being pounded very hard and he’s too overweight or short-winded to accomplish that? What if she’s kind of submissive and a man refusing to lead is actually a turn-off? What if she’s primarily lesbian? What if she’s just anorgasmic and isn’t going to climax no matter what he does?
A sex worker is a kind of entertainer; she is there to provide a kind of interactive show for you. It is, ultimately, an illusion; it no more matters how she “really” feels, or what she “really” likes, or whether she is “really” excited, than it matters that Penn and Teller aren’t “really” making things vanish or appear or transmogrify into something else. That analogy is useful in another way as well: Obsessively concentrating on minor physiological cues of arousal and worrying that you aren’t truly pleasing your hooker is like going to a magician’s show and concentrating so much on “catching” the trickery that you can’t enjoy the performance you paid top dollar for. Just sit back, relax, and let your entertainer entertain you…and if you can’t, I respectfully suggest that this particular art may simply not be to your liking.
A tyranny based on…deception and maintained by terror must inevitably perish from the poison it generates within itself. – Albert Einstein
Nassau County, New York has wholeheartedly embraced the evil quackery of “end demand” with the exuberance of a broke hooker going into a multi-hour call with her favorite client. But there the similarity stops; while the latter interaction is a moral, ethical, peaceful, consensual and mutually-beneficial one, the men upon whom District Attorney Kathleen Rice violently forced her loathsome attentions were deceived, brutalized and humiliated, and the only people who benefited were Rice (who scores brownie points with neofeminists), the police department (which scores stolen money and other property), and the individual vice cops (who gain the sadistic joy of harming others and fodder for later masturbatory fantasies). But if Rice and her sleazy accomplices thought they were going to win public praise for their asinine exercise in the victimization of citizens, they were badly mistaken; even the fourth-grade-level “humor” in the name of their “operation” (“Flush the johns”, get it? Get It? GET IT???!!??? DO YA, HUH? GET IT??!!!? HAW HAWHAW YUK YUK YUK!!!!) has received at least some small measure of the universal scorn it deserves from anyone older than ten. Though sex worker rights activists always criticize large “sting” operations, the outstanding malodorousness of this one inspired some outstanding responses from our allies. Jacob Sullum of Reason, whose support is always vocal and unwavering, had this to say:
It is hard to imagine a bigger waste of law enforcement resources than “Operation Flush the Johns,” the month-long sting that resulted in 104 arrests announced by…District Attorney Kathleen Rice…These men, whose names and photos Rice eagerly disseminated, were arrested…[for] a trumped-up version of a phony crime. If anyone committed a real crime here, it was the cops, who lured these poor horny bastards to a hotel room under false pretenses, only to lead them away in handcuffs…[for]…patronizing a prostitute in the third degree. Think about that for a minute. There is no such thing as patronizing a pornographer in the third degree, patronizing a liquor dealer in the third degree or patronizing a race track in the third degree…because New York’s legislators have decided to allow these consensual transactions, even though moralists take a dim view of them, while prohibiting the voluntary exchange of sex for money. That dictate entails some pretty arbitrary distinctions. If two people meet through an online ad, one buys the other a nice dinner and they have sex afterward, they have committed no crime. But if two people meet through an online ad and have sex, after which one of them hands the other $100 so she can buy herself a nice dinner, they may both be subject to arrest…Rice defends punishing these men for words they allegedly said to fake prostitutes by arguing that she is thereby protecting real prostitutes from risk…yet…the prostitution ban that Rice enthusiastically enforces makes sex workers vulnerable to abuse by traffickers, pimps…customers…police and courts…black markets created by such edicts are dangerous places characterized by fraud and violence, in contrast with the honesty and peace that tend to prevail in legal versions of those very same markets…anti-prostitution crusaders…refuse to acknowledge…the role they play in creating the victims they claim to be saving.
…Why was this suddenly such an important crime to focus on?…[only] 39 people had been arrested on such charges in Nassau County … over the past decade. More than 100 in a month shows a pretty serious change in emphasis, and one that goes beyond this sting, and beyond prosecuting customers. In 2012, 26 cases involving prostitution charges were resolved in Nassau. This year there have already been 140 prostitution arrests…Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice has never shied away from the spotlight. In fact, she…seems drawn to it like a moth to a porch lamp…
And here’s one from the newest “Friend of Whores”, Cathy Reisenwitz:
…I guess the presumption of innocence isn’t a thing in Nassau County? Even if they evade prison time, this arrest will haunt them for the rest of their lives. And let’s not forget that their children and wives have been humiliated right along with them. And for what? The string comes as a result of “complaints about prostitution in hotels”…what business is it of anyone’s if a man contacts a woman…and meets her…for sex?…And while the police and DA are arresting and prosecuting over this victimless crime, they don’t have enough time to prosecute the gang-rape of a young girl with an IQ of 50 in a Nassau County public school…
…My first problem is the use of the word “John.” In all my years as a sex worker, I have never once heard a hooker call her client a John. I’ve never really swapped tales…with outdoor workers, but I’m not sure if those ladies even refer to clients in such a degrading, dehumanizing way. The only people I’ve ever heard use the term were either anti-sex work civilians or police officers, two groups who generally don’t draw distinctions between the individuals involved in the sex trade, either as customers or providers. I hate the term “John” because…stripping clients of their individuality contributes to the stigma surrounding my profession: if the men who pay for sexual services aren’t individuals with normal human needs, it’s okay to demonize [those]…who cater to those needs…On a related note, it really, seriously bothers me to see these mugshots publicized. People go to sex workers for a number of reasons–because they are ashamed of their desires, because they don’t have time to pursue relationships…because their partners are unwilling or unable to fulfill certain fetishes, because they are too awkward to approach nonprofessional women. Absolutely none of the reasons that motivate most men to patronize sex workers are a cause for public shaming and humiliation…it’s sordid, tacky, and frankly vicious and so far as we know, none of the men pictured did anything to deserve such punishment…
Rice is of course trying to win the votes of moralists and ignorant women; her Swedish-flavored rhetoric casts her in the role of the “savior” of women victimized by men’s dirty, evil lust, and she’s even spoken up against the use of condoms as “evidence”. But fewer and fewer people are buying it, and perhaps this vicious attack on an activity a large fraction of the electorate enjoy from time to time will backfire on her. It’s long past time to flush politicians like Rice, and the brutal repression of human needs and desires they champion, down the same filthy commode in which support for the Drug War is already circling before vanishing into the sewer where they both belong.
The greatest enemy of individual freedom is the individual himself.
– Saul Alinsky
As most of you probably realize, in order to keep this blog going I need to do an awful lot of reading on the internet every day. Readers send me many links, I discover some myself, and I get loads of them from Twitter; for every item which I eventually share as a link, a TW3 item or a full column there’s another I simply “retweet” and still another I pass over completely. Most of this latter category are simply things in which I’m not interested, or things in which I don’t think my readers would be interested, or things I’ve already shared, or new items that nonetheless cover ground I’ve already covered. And sometimes I disagree with the author’s spin, yet don’t find it so wrong that I feel the need to shoot it down. But there are others (and I’m sorry to say far too many others) which I can’t even finish reading because of their declamation of absurdities, their overuse of meaningless shibboleths, or their adherence to wholly obnoxious fads; my eyes glaze over, I close the window by feel (because my eyes are glazed over, of course), and I move on and try not to accidentally open any of the numerous repeats of the link in other tweets declaring it brilliant or profound or whatever.
A large fraction of these oh-so-annoying words, phrases and ideas derive ultimately from Marx, generally (though not always) by way of feminism. Even if I didn’t regard Marxism as an abomination against the individual, and even if it were not a failed social experiment, I would still find it bizarre that so many people who identify primarily as sex worker activists (though not many who identify first as sex workers) espouse it. First of all, despite the modern re-interpretations to which some Neo-Marxists subscribe, it is very clear that Marx considered prostitution to be a “disease” of capitalist society which would no longer be permitted in the communist paradise (presumably because the commune would magically make the sex drives and relative attractiveness of men and women equal). Every communist state has criminalized sex work and punished it harshly, even brutally; under Mao women caught whoring were sent for “re-education”, and though the regime declared in 1958 that prostitution has been “eradicated”, the “re-education centers” remained full and top party officials had access to that which was officially declared not to exist. Furthermore, neofeminism is really nothing but a form of Neo-Marxism with a few parameters redefined, and as we all know the neofeminists are no friends of whores. Yet all too many posts by sex worker activists go on and on about “Patriarchy” (the neofeminist version of “bourgeoisie”) and “capitalism” and blah blah blah blah until whatever they were trying to say is drowned out by nonsense.
Now, it is true that some people use the word “capitalism” to mean plutocracy or fascism (the marriage of government and big business). But that’s not the way those about whom I’m complaining use it; it’s clear from context they resent having to work for a living, and imagine some pie-in-the-sky Utopia in which people only work as much as they want to at whatever job they like, and yet somehow things still get made and the toilets still get cleaned. This is a fantasy for children, not a serious topic of discussion for sane adults; yet there they are bleating away with rubbish like “surviving under capitalism”, as though they imagine it was any easier under feudalism, barter systems, tribal communism or other economic systems. The very concept of a Utopia is impossible; it’s certainly not a topic on which an activist for the most pragmatic of trades should be wasting her time. And to do so with paradigms borrowed from people who would like nothing more than to see that trade abolished is as counterproductive as anything I can think of.
But the most appalling of these sins of content is one which seems to have become a new fad in the past few months; some sex worker activists now also declare themselves misandrists. To them I say, “please go home and find something else to do.” The campaign for sex worker rights must be grounded in the right of all people to be free to do as they like with their own bodies; it is incompatible with centrally-planned economies, incompatible with dogmatic systems of thought which demand orthodoxy, and certainly incompatible with the idea that it’s laudable to hate some people for an accident of biology. And how in Aphrodite’s name is someone supposed to provide a proper sexual service to a person she professes to hate? The very idea is asinine. I can understand burnout; I can accept that a hooker might so tire of sex with men, and with the offensive behavior of bad clients, that she decides to swear off of socializing with them after retirement. But that’s not the same thing as hating men, and the latter has no place in a movement which will absolutely never in a million years succeed without the cooperation of the men these ridiculous women profess to “hate”; that sort of attitude belongs in the prohibitionist movement, not ours. I’m not sure why the people I speak of can’t see the self-defeating nature of these negative beliefs and dogmas; those who embrace them are, figuratively or literally, sleeping with the enemy.
Senate employees and contractors who believe they may have inadvertently accessed or downloaded classified information via non-classified Senate systems, should contact the Office of Senate Security for assistance. – Senate Security Office memo, June 7th, 2013
A busy week this time around, both in links and in my life; I’m striving diligently to get ahead because I’ll be only able to do minimal work for the first three weeks of July. And on top of everything else, I discovered this little surprise in my truck last Saturday, which as you can imagine has required me checking on them at least three or four times a day. Anyhow, our top contributor this week was Radley Balko, with the first six links and the first video below them; keep in mind this exercise in “fun with fascism” portrays cops, not soldiers. The second video (an honest campaign ad) is from Kevin Wilson (who also provided “crazy ants” and “drugstore”), and the others between the videos were supplied by Cheryl Overs (“ERB”), my cat (“griffins”), Jesse Walker (“surprises”), Gideon (“never call cops”), Krulac (“workers’ paradise”), Lenore Skenazy (“truancy”), and Glenn Greenwald (“NSA”).
This is not just about sex trade workers…The government’s coming in through the back door…to tell you what you can and cannot do in the privacy of your home with another consenting adult. – Terri-Jean Bedford
…The purpose of the sting operation was to discourage sex providers and customers from engaging in the illegal transaction, which often is linked to child sex abuse, robbery, assault and drug use, Lt. Det. Cord Wood of the Corvallis [Oregon] Police Department said…“To gauge the number of thefts, assaults and robberies (associated with prostitution) is difficult because I really believe those are under-reported”…
Because obviously someone named for 128 cubic feet of chopped fibrous cellulose must be an expert in a trade he’s never practiced.
Just another reminder that though Al Franken claims to be an advocate of liberty, he’s actually a devoted supporter of the police state: “I can assure you, this is not about spying on the American people…I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us…There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know.” Because tyranny isn’t “bad” as long as you wave a flag while stomping on people’s faces.
The Supreme Court of Canada’s looming consideration…has led to vigorous debate about the merits of the “Swedish model”…[which] perpetuates…stigma, discrimination and violence…and institutionalizes an adversarial relationship between sex workers and the police. Less discussed is the model of sex work employed in New Zealand….[where] sex workers are covered by legislation that protects them from exploitation while accessing labour laws to promote their welfare and occupational health and safety…There is no substantiated evidence of trafficking despite repeated efforts by the immigration department…
Birmingham [Alabama] residents have voiced concerns over a billboard that suggests young women date a sugar daddy if they’re in search of a summer job. Alexa James…[said] she wants the arrangements.com billboard taken down…”I-20 has now become the superhighway of human trafficking…Make a stand, call the mayor’s office, call your state representative.” The service is an online dating site that facilitates mutually beneficial arrangements…and…has no plans to remove the billboard.
Yet again: As long as government actors have excessive power over individuals, this will keep happening:
…two [Georgia] sheriff’s deputies…pleaded guilty…for their part in a scheme to send an innocent woman to prison…Judge Bryant Cochran solicited sex from [Angela Garmley] in return for legal favors. Shortly after Garmley filed her complaint, she was arrested…and charged with possession of methamphetamines…Since this scandal broke, three women who worked in Cochran’s court have filed a separate lawsuit…claiming Cochran sexually harassed them…
…a…19-year-old Omaha woman…[said] Deputy Cory Cooper made her perform oral sex after pulling over a vehicle containing her and her boyfriend on a marijuana violation…Cooper told the boyfriend to walk to the lake to dispose of the marijuana…then turned his attention to the woman…she said she felt like she had no choice…
…a settlement…will remove from the sex offender registry approximately 700 individuals who had been required to register solely because of a Crime Against Nature by Solicitation (CANS) conviction…“The lingering injustice, resulting from over 20 years of discriminatory enforcement of this law at police and prosecutors’ whims, will now finally come to an end,” said Andrea Ritchie, co-counsel to [the Center for Constitutional Rights] in Doe v. Jindal and Doe v. Caldwell…
When most people think of sex trafficking…they immediately think of stereotypical images. Like that of a vulnerable girl exploited by a pimp…But…[it] is more often about young people who are homeless, yet turned away from crowded shelters. About teens exploited by family members (or kicked out of the house for being gay or transgender)…In other words: systemic factors that have little to do with the actions of predators…one group of advocates long clamored for classified-ad sites, like Craigslist or Backpage, to be abolished — holding on to false hopes that eliminating these platforms would eliminate exploitation…the data I’ve seen suggests that this approach is neither effective nor productive…
…commissioner…Charity Katanga has warned that police will arrest…sex workers who have…started migrating from Kitwe to Livingstone ahead of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) general assembly in August…Mrs Katanga said the laws of Zambia…are clear…“If we do not find appropriate charges to slap on them, we will throw them in jail. If they are migrating to Livingstone, we will also ‘migrate’ so that we can deal with them ruthlessly”…
Growing up in a strict Irish Catholic family, Laura Lee was lined up for a respectable career as a lawyer. But after watching a film…she wanted to become a call girl. Aged 19…[she] took on a Saturday job at a massage parlour. Now 35 and mum to a 12-year-old daughter, Laura campaigns for sex workers’ rights…
Brothels were targeted by…police…who accompanied social workers to help potential victims…Customers and employees were taken onto the street and questioned at seven saunas…officers are pursuing inquiries relating to several serious sexual offences…police said: “Three people…have been charged with drugs offences…and it is estimated that assets worth in excess of £500,000 have been seized”…Since the country’s eight forces came under the single Police Scotland umbrella, regional variations in policy have surfaced…Edinburgh’s apparent sanctioning of prostitution had created a climate whereby city officials had to defend perceived leniency on the practice…
That £500,000 theft gives away the motive, and this demonstrates what I said Thursday about policies vs. laws.
…Der Spiegel published a…deeply flawed report…about…[sex] trafficking…Prostitution…has been legal in Germany since 1927…the new prostitution law of 2002 changed some aspects pertaining to the legal relationship between sex workers and clients and some criminal law provisions. It recognized the contract between sex workers and clients as legal and introduced the rights of sex workers to sue clients unwilling to pay for sexual services already provided. In addition, sex workers received the right to health insurance and social security…What is misleadingly called the ”legalization“ of prostitution is actually the recognition of sex work as labor. However…some states actually never implemented the new law…Most states…declare…[so many restrictions] prostitution [is] de facto illegal…sex work is not allowed for non-EU nationals…who…are thus…excluded from the law [and] therefore [cannot be protected by it]…
Internet and telecom companies will be ordered by the Government to block “harmful” content…Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, has summoned the bosses of companies such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook to a summit…at which she will demand…industry-wide co-operation to prevent the…sharing of harmful material…[including] illegal porn, images of child abuse, material that could incite religious or racial hatred and so-called “suicide websites”…Possible new measures include greater use of online filters; making public Wi-Fi more “family friendly” so children cannot access harmful material…ensuring all companies sign up to industry guidelines and setting up permanent bodies to monitor content…
Because obviously, government is best-equipped to judge what’s “harmful”, and if the filters just happen to block educational and political content, too…well, omelettes and eggs and all.
The federal government…told a judge it will…comply with his order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions. The decision ends a years-long fight between…Obama’s administration, which had argued that age limits for the morning-after pill are common sense, and women’s rights groups, which insisted the drug should be made…freely available…
Anti-sex groups claim the decision “takes away the rights of girls’ parents”…to ruin their daughters’ entire lives for one mistake.
Rob Arthur alerted me to the fact that Ricardo Cortés has written and illustrated a short, FREE primer on jury nullification entitled “Jury Independence Illustrated”. Please read it, download it and disseminate it as widely as possible; it’s time people were reminded of their power to overrule the rulers.
Drowning was the cause of death for Terrilynn Monette, the missing…teacher whose body was discovered in Bayou St. John…more than three months after…[disappearing] early on March 2…she…had been drinking, and…told friends…that she planned to sleep in her car for a while before driving to her apartment…
I lived near that bayou for years; there is nothing to stop a tipsy, exhausted woman from driving off the street and into it, without any help from Russian Mafia sex traffickers.
One of Bolivia’s sex workers organizations, Organización de Trabajadoras Nocturnas (OTN), has called for the legalization of sex work in Bolivia and for sex workers to be granted retirement benefits and health insurance…The OTN has 50,000 affiliates, 80 percent of whom work in nightclubs…ONAEM (Organización Nacional de Activistas por la Emancipación de la Mujer), a major national women’s emancipation organization…supports [their] demands…
…Scarlet Alliance…is urging the Federal Government to expand [a] controversial visa to cover foreign escorts…Jules Kim…said sex workers were just as skilled as other workers allowed to fly into Australia on the four-year work visas…The Immigration Department…said sex workers were not considered “skilled” because the job did not require a degree or diploma…but Scarlet Alliance…said overseas sex workers would be vulnerable to…exploitation unless they could apply for a long-term work visa…
In an incident that underlined the harsh treatment often meted out to Chinese sex workers, a…female police officer was “punched in the face” and “dragged” from a hotel room during a botched anti-vice operation…Ms Wang…had been visiting her daughter in…Zhengzhou…when police unexpectedly appeared at the door…she told the men she was also a member of the police…but her pleas fell on deaf ears…
As Sarah explained, the Paisley branch of respected human rights group Amnesty International made the bizarre decision to endorse Scotland’s attempt to impose the Swedish model despite clear proof that it harms sex workers. When Wendy Lyon informed Amnesty of this, the organization immediately demanded the branch revoke its endorsement and, as Melissa Gira Grant explains, has now issued (for the first time) a clear pro-decriminalization statement: “What…Paisley Branch have done – perhaps entirely despite themselves – is to push Amnesty International to state their opposition to the criminalisation of sex workers and of adult consensual sex more clearly….sex workers in Scotland and around the world…can now claim Amnesty International in their corner.”
The glorious gifts of the gods are not to be cast aside. – Homer, Iliad (III, 65)
Every June I’ve published a story of Aella, a young Amazon warrior of the mythic past; the first one was “A Decent Boldness” and the second “A Haughty Spirit”. And though you might be able to enjoy this one without having read those, you’ll probably understand what’s going on a lot better if you get to know the lady’s previous history first.
Asteria send me guidance tonight, for I am afraid.
I who alone of this living generation travelled West to the very end of the Earth, bathed in the waters of Keto and returned to tell the tale; I who walked in the ancient places of our people, rescued my dearest friend from the hands of barbarians and protected us both from the beasts of the wilderness; I who lived among strangers for five years and brought much of the learning of the Outer World back to the Motherland: I am more frightened than I have ever been since earning the title of warrior. For tomorrow, I must face the Council of Elders, thirteen grey old veterans of battles fought before my mother was born, and defend my conduct before them.
But for the life of me, O Blessed Goddess, I cannot fathom why what I did should have shocked the others so. True, it was a new idea, but what of that? Why was I brought home through so many dangers if not to share the knowledge and the ideas of our sisters across the sea? Harmothoe says my mind was addled by my time in Man’s World, but she’s simply jealous because I returned from my journey with enough wealth to buy a farm and enough slaves to work it, while she’s stuck toiling on our mother’s place. I offered to lend her my slaves this winter to clear new land, but that won’t win her the respect and admiration I’ve enjoyed since my return, nor an invitation to visit the Queen’s palace next month so that I can tell her of my adventures. Of course, if the hearing goes against me tomorrow I may see her sooner than that, though as a prisoner rather than an honored guest.
And all this fuss over something so completely stupid. Are not health, strength, beauty, wisdom and skill at arms gifts of the goddesses? And are we not to use those gifts to improve our places in the world? Don’t the more beautiful and distinguished among us have greater choice among the Scythian men at the Spring Festival? After all, our Princess Penthesilia is the daughter of their King Arius, not of some lowly tradesman; our Queen sought out the best sire available when she was ready to bear the child who would succeed to her throne. And though I am not of noble blood, yet my company was highly sought by the men this year for the same reason my Amazon sisters have sought it since my return: though men and women differ in many ways, we all love a good story and many of both sexes seek to borrow prestige by association when they cannot win it for themselves.
But all that attention was a mixed blessing; with so many men competing to mate with me this year, how was I to choose one? I’m no mere girl to be impressed by a handsome face, and my experience in Man’s World taught me that many a great athlete is also a great fool. I thought on this as I watched the games and partook in the feasting, and it occurred to me that the best approach would be a practical one. After all, our motives for mating with the Scythian men are wholly pragmatic in the first place; it stands to reason a pragmatic means of choosing a mate is in order as well. And one can never have too much wealth, so what could be more sensible than simply announcing that the man who gave me the most generous gift would be the one who could lie with me? I thought it was a wonderful idea, and the men responded with enthusiasm; the winner gave me six snow-white kine and an equally-beautiful bull. But to hear my sisters, one would’ve thought I had drunk myself silly and puked on the banquet table. The next day it was the talk of the town, and by the end of the week…well, here I am.
Goddess, I suppose You know all this already, but it never hurts to summarize; besides, I want You to understand how I saw the matter. Mother says I’ve disgraced our family, and Aunt Laomache says it just goes to show why Amazons shouldn’t associate with outsiders any more than is strictly necessary. Granny is the only one who was helpful; she says what this demonstrates is that long periods of peace aren’t good for us, because when there isn’t anything real to fret about people make a big deal out of nothing, and in the absence of an actual enemy they invent imaginary bogeys to get worked up about. She also said that the council only summoned me to shut up the prattlers, and that if they were truly concerned I would be spending the night under guard rather than lying in my own bed. Also, Elder Dioxippe is Granny’s best friend, and Granny told me that she had talked it over with her and at least several of the Council were equally unimpressed with the gravity of my so-called sin; she predicted they would direct me to apologize to my family and sacrifice one of the kine to Astarte, and that would be the end of it.
I certainly hope so, but I can’t help worrying. And that’s why I’m praying about this to You instead of Themis or Metis; there’s no justice in this situation, it seems like thinking logically is what got me into this fix, and perhaps divine inspiration is what’s needed to get me out. If my punishment is as light as Granny thinks it’ll be, I’ll make a special gift to You; I think I might have conceived by the generous one, and if it’s a girl and I name her for You, she will be a constant reminder of Your grace.
And also of the fact that most people have no respect for pragmatism.
“Good morning, Pooh Bear,” said Eeyore gloomily. “If it is a good morning,” he said. “Which I doubt.” – A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
I sometimes feel as though I’m becoming the Eeyore of the sex worker rights movement, the resident wet blanket who reacts to every bit of seemingly good news cheered by other advocates by letting them know exactly why it’s not as good as they think it is. Now, that’s not really true because my overall outlook is that sex worker rights are inevitable; however, there are bound to be a huge number of individual developments between now and then, both good and bad, and I think it’s important to recognize which are which. Take this one, for example:
…In a letter…to Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, said his office would not use possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution or loitering for the purpose of prostitution. “Accordingly…the collection and vouchering of condoms as evidence by members of your department…should immediately cease.” Advocates for sex workers have argued that officers’ use of condoms to support their arrests discouraged prostitutes from using condoms, presenting a public health risk. A 2012 report by…Human Rights Watch found that such arrests sowed a fear of carrying condoms among sex workers…the Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the department agreed that “it is not necessary to seize condoms as evidence of the intent of an individual to engage in prostitution.” But…[he] added: “We do not rule out their evidentiary value when going after pimps and sex traffickers. If there is a bowlful of condoms in a massage parlor, we want our officers to be able to seize them as evidence against the trafficker.” While prosecutors are generally wary of excluding whole categories of evidence, there is a growing consensus that condoms should not be part of prostitution cases that do not involve sex trafficking…Nassau County…prosecutors already reject condoms as evidence, even in more serious cases. “It was very important to me to also extend the ban to traffickers,” said Kathleen M. Rice, the…district attorney. Without it, she said, “traffickers will refuse to hand out condoms to their workers and in fact prohibit their use”…
While advocates were cheering this two weeks ago, my immediate reaction was “In other words, they’re just going to label more cases as ‘trafficking’ now.” That’s already happening all over the country, not just New York; what was once recognized at simple prostitution is now being shoehorned into the “trafficking” narrative so cops can brag about heroically “rescuing” women, prosecutors can score the bigger points inherent in felony convictions and both can steal money and goods from those so accused. Nor does a lack of evidence have any effect; even when sex workers testify that they were not coerced, prosecutors simply discount their testimony as “false consciousness”. Most hookers are not idiots; we can read what is plainly written on the wall. When prosecutors say they will continue to use condoms as evidence of “trafficking” and then demonstrate that they intend to call most if not all sex work “trafficking”, the net effect is no change whatsoever.
And that’s not even the worst of it. This action is a classic political dodge, exactly the same as the one used in San Francisco two months ago; making this a policy rather than a law allows it to be suspended at any time, which will be as soon as the heat is off. Once the media forgets about the issue, the policies will quietly be rescinded as needed. Of course, they don’t even need to do that; both San Francisco and New York still pretend that cops arresting whores is for our “protection” from those evil “traffickers” we’re too weak and childlike to “escape”. Even the Nassau County DA quoted in the story, who might seem sympathetic, refuses to get it; she has aggressively pursued an “end demand” strategy which casts sex workers as the “victims” of evil clients rather than rational actors in a business transaction, and pretends big, bad “traffickers” are forcing workers to do bareback, when it’s actually their personal decision. I predict a lot more district attorneys will make similar announcements this year; it’s an easy way for them to feign concern for us while conducting business as usual and getting the feds to pay for it.
There’s one small glimmer in this gloom: apparently, the American media pay enough attention to Human Rights Watch for its reports to become big news, and that news exerts sufficient PR pressure for governments to at least make a show of changing their policies; besides the condom report, a recent one on the dreadful harm the sex offender registry inflicts upon young people has likewise attracted considerable media attention and may soon result in a few of the braver politicians making displays of concern. But while HRW is officially pro-decriminalization and last month openly called for it in China, the only thing it has so far asked of American “authorities” is a restriction of the sort of evidence they use to harass us; that will be changing soon, and I am told a full report on the injustices inflicted on sex workers in this country is forthcoming (complete with an explicit demand for decriminalization in the US). Media coverage of that might engender a political pretense of looking at decriminalization which would be, as Eeyore put it, “Amusing in a quiet way…but not really helpful”; however, the resulting public discourse would help to shine light on matters the prohibitionists would prefer to remain obscure…and that would be a cause for optimism.
At menopause, my wife’s libido went to zero, but she won’t take hormone replacement therapy due to fear of cancer. She has refused sex for well over 3 years, and though she says she understands the stress I experience when denied sex, she doesn’t want it so I can’t have it. And though she’s ultra-responsible in other aspects of her life, this is an exception. We’ve been seeing a marriage counselor for years, and just 2 months ago she told me, “You know, it is never going to get better.” I believe my wife when she says she loves me, but it’s a strangely limited love; we can cuddle but not caress. When I hold her, I have the sensation of being high on a mountaintop, breathing the rarefied air. So, how does a responsible, caring, active, intelligent woman reconcile her decision to terminate all sexual activity with a man she still professes to love? How can someone who is so expert at understanding the consequences of her actions on others ignore something that she knows is incredibly important to me?
The problem is manifold but it has three main components. First, modern Western women are taught a somewhat-milder version of Robin Morgan’s definition of rape: “I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire.” Now, most women don’t go nearly as far as Morgan, and in fact a large fraction don’t like initiating at all. However, they do believe the part which says that the only valid reason for a woman to have sex is “her own genuine affection and desire”; they might not go so far as to call other sex “rape”, but they do believe there’s something wrong with it, that it’s somehow deficient, defective, disgusting or at least déclassé. This is part of neo-Victorianism; Victorian women were taught that good women only had sex to please their husbands and have babies, while women now are taught that good women only have sex to please themselves or have babies. In both cases, a large spectrum of female sexual behavior is branded as “wrong”, and modern women have just as much difficulty rejecting that repressive dogma as their great-grandmothers did.
Next, American Protestant Christianity has long taught that sexual needs are actually not needs at all, but only desires; by and large, Americans dependably (out loud, at least) reject the fact that sexual deprivation has deleterious physical and psychological effects, despite the fact that most people have either experienced them or observed them firsthand. This has been enshrined as a tenet of faith by neofeminists; they not only insist that men don’t need sex, but teach that anyone who acknowledges the facts is a “rape apologist” who believes that any given individual man is somehow entitled to free sex from any given individual woman. Because of American anti-sex culture nobody has the gonads to stand up to them and pronounce their beliefs utterly bat-shit crazy, and so even though most American women aren’t neofeminists the idea that sex is more akin to watching TV than to eating is a popular one.
Lastly, you must remember that the catechism of androgyny is extremely widespread; many people truly believe that all differences between men and women are the result of “socialization”. They ignore primate studies, deny differences in brain architecture, and pretend sex hormones have no effect on behavior despite the fact that it’s incontrovertible that they do. And once a person buys into this myth, it’s easy to deny (as many do) that men typically need more sex than women and suffer worse effects from sexual deprivation. Though “social construction” dogmatists pretend belief in neutral norms, the fact of the matter is that they overwhelmingly believe that female norms are standard, and that typical male behavior is a pathological deviation from those norms.
What this boils down to is that your wife doesn’t know how important sex is to you, or else she unconsciously denies it. Her behavior tells me she subscribes to all three of these beliefs to one degree or another: You don’t really need sex no matter how much you say otherwise; she doesn’t need it, therefore you don’t either since men and women are the same…and if you really loved her you wouldn’t push, because duty sex is perverted. You’re right when you say she didn’t choose to be this way; she was taught it just as we’re all taught bigoted attitudes and propaganda useful to maintaining the status quo. I’m sure she really does love you, but she honestly believes giving you sex is as unnecessary and undesirable as acquiescing to your suggestions she learn to water-ski despite being afraid of the water. She has told you point-blank that she will not provide you with any more sex; it would therefore be best for all involved if you make your own discreet arrangements and leave off trying to get it from her, since the effort merely creates conflict and produces no positive results.
A [San Antonio, Texas] jury…acquitted Ezekiel Gilbert of murder in the death of a 23-year-old Craigslist escort…Lenora Ivie Frago…died about seven months after she was shot in the neck and paralyzed on Christmas Eve 2009. Gilbert admitted shooting Frago…but said the intent wasn’t to kill. Gilbert’s actions were justified, [his lawyers] argued, because he was trying to retrieve stolen property: the $150 he paid Frago. It became theft when she refused to have sex with him or give the money back…Frago walked around his apartment and after about 20 minutes left, saying she had to give the money to her driver…[who] was [allegedly] Frago’s pimp and her partner in the theft scheme. The Texas law that allows people to use deadly force to recover property during a nighttime theft was put in place for “law-abiding” citizens, prosecutors…countered. It’s not intended for someone trying to force another person into an illegal act such as prostitution…
That article, which was reasonably objective by the low standards of modern American journalism, was not the one which was bruited about the most, however; that honor went to Gawker‘s“Texas Says It’s OK to Shoot an Escort If She Won’t Have Sex With You”, whose inflammatory headline masked its essentially-similar content. Jezebel’s take on the matter, “How an Insane Texas Law Made It Legal for a Man to Kill a Prostitute”, carried it another step farther away from the real issue at hand, but Huffington Post won the obfuscation hat trick with “Ezekiel Gilbert Acquitted Of Murdering Woman Who Wouldn’t Have Sex”, a headline which almost completely obscures the real point. But before we expose the moral putrefaction which made this deplorable outcome possible, let’s dispense with a few other distractions.
One: This is not about Texas per se, no matter how much regionalists are trying to make it so; nor is it about “American gun culture” or any other such crap. Pretending it’s about that is an unhelpful distraction from the real issues at hand, and therefore NOT A WELCOME TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENT THREAD. Nearly every place in the world would excuse behavior not materially different from Gilbert’s as long as “authorized” people are shooting at those designated as criminals, and arguing about which specific circumstances justify it is a red herring.
Two: I don’t really feel comfortable with using a woman who at first glance appears to be either an extortionist or a really inept cash-and-dash artist as a poster child for violence against sex workers. No, petty theft doesn’t deserve death, but at the same time it’s really stupid, dangerous and unethical to go into a strange place alone with a strange man and attempt to cheat him (if Gilbert is telling the truth, which is by no means certain). This is not “victim blaming”; it’s insisting that discussions be grounded in reality rather than some imaginary Utopia where life is fair.
Three: To those who insists that Gilbert was essentially trying to rape Frago, because escorting is a legal business and it says right there in the ad that “money exchanged is for time and companionship only” and “this is not an offer of prostitution”: Please shut the fuck up. You are an idiot, you’re not helping, and you need to reread the last line in the item above and then get a life.
Four: No, it really doesn’t matter that she had a vagina and he had a penis; the advantage of a gun is that it removes physical size and strength from the equation. The core issues here would be exactly the same if a female drug user had shot a male drug dealer for selling her a bag of cornstarch for $150 instead of the heroin she was promised.
That last conveniently introduces the real issue here, the rotten core of this whole rotten situation. In Texas (as in most of the United States), the exchange of money for sex is illegal in and of itself. I’ll clarify that for international readers: in the US, just talking about something or agreeing to do something completely legal suddenly becomes illegal if certain taboo magic words are spoken or even implied. Let that sink in: no evidence of any kind is necessary, just the cop’s accusation. And it swings equally both ways: a policewoman can accuse a man of soliciting her just as easily as a male cop can accuse a woman, and the chosen victim will be arrested and “named and shamed” with no due process whatsoever, just on a cop’s say-so. Furthermore, in Texas and ten other states, prostitution can be a felony (i.e. the same class of crime as assault, rape, grand theft, manslaughter, etc); under rapidly-spreading “end demand” and “sex trafficking” laws, hiring a hooker can be as well (with a potential for decades in prison and other serious consequences). In Craigslist-style hooking, there’s no screening in either direction; both parties know the other could be a cop, and that makes both of them understandably nervous…possibly nervous enough to walk around for twenty minutes and then lose one’s nerve, and possibly nervous enough to get trigger-happy.
And that’s just the beginning of the rot. Consider that the prohibitionists have been spreading anti-whore lies for a very long time; we’ve been “degenerates” or “monsters” for centuries, “criminals” for one century and the victims of brutal “pimps” (who may also be international gangsters) for over a decade now (there was an alleged “pimp” right outside, remember?) Which of these overlapping myths did the jurors believe? The law used by Gilbert’s defense was enacted to allow homeowners to defend themselves against robbery, which Texas law pretends is no worse a crime than compensated sex. The defense portrayed Gilbert as a man facing a “criminal” defined by Texas law as being at least as anti-social as a burglar, whom neofeminist prohibitionists have painted as being desperate, emotionally crippled and dominated by brutes. Prosecutors like to select jurors who display strong “law and order” attitudes; it appears to me that this time, they succeeded better than they had hoped because the jurors simply refused to see the “criminal” Frago as a victim. But before you condemn them as sociopaths, let’s try a thought experiment: go back to number four above. Can you imagine a big outcry in that situation? If both participants in that incident were black, can you even imagine it becoming a national news story, let alone a source of outrage? And if Gilbert had been wearing a certain blue costume, and his victim had been young and male, and the so-called “crime” had involved buying drugs rather than buying sex, it might never have made it into the San Antonio Express-News as anything other than a line item under the heading “police reports”.
This is the putrid heart of the whole stinking business. Though we may disagree on the particulars (such as allowed levels of provocation and lethality), most people will agree that individuals have the right to defend themselves against criminals. But when “authorities” and other dangerous busybodies stretch the definition of “criminal” to include people engaged in voluntary transactions, then spread propaganda in order to convince the populace that individuals so engaged are criminals in a true and meaningful sense rather than a merely arbitrary one, and then pass laws so dangerous and repressive that those individuals fear for their safety and actual criminals are drawn into the resulting black market, is anyone surprised when twelve ignorant people with no personal interest in the matter can be swayed by whichever of two important-looking men makes a more convincing argument? Because that’s exactly what happened here, folks: in matters of great complexity, when neither of the sides seems terribly sympathetic, our legal system is on exactly the same moral level as trial by combat; the contest is decided by the relative skill of the opponents rather than the salient facts of the question to be decided. As long as we allow and even encourage our governments to criminalize private, consensual behaviors with no clear victim and no actual corpus delicti, lots more people are going to be senselessly killed and lots of senseless killers are going to get away with it. And no hypocrite who supports such a system has any business whatsoever complaining about that inevitable and highly-predictable outcome.
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Every profession has its superstitions, and those falling under the general heading of entertainment – acting, sports, music, sex work and others – are among the worst. Athletes have various taboos about their equipment and some won’t change their clothes during a winning streak; actors won’t say the phrase “good luck” or mention the play Macbeth backstage for fear of drawing down disaster; musicians often have lucky charms or pre-show rituals. Since one of the greatest harms which can befall a whore is to be arrested, there are a plethora of magical rituals, formulae or prohibitions which are used by the superstitious to ward off that probability. Not one of these has even the slightest basis in reality, but many swear by them and cannot be convinced that they do absolutely nothing to reveal a cop, prevent arrest or serve as a defense in court.
The notion that certain rites, gestures and words will protect those who use them from malevolent beings is an ancient one, as is the complementary idea that these creatures cannot do perfectly ordinary things that humans can do with ease. Vampires cannot pass running water, go out in the daytime or enter a house without permission; they are revealed by mirrors and repelled by crosses and garlic. Devils cannot pass through certain magical inscriptions and must abide by the letter of any pact to which they agree. Fairies are repelled by salt and iron, and can only gain power over mortals who venture away from known paths or break certain rules. Why do people believe these things? Why were the monsters of folklore not basically unlimited and virtually unstoppable like those in so many modern movies, and why do people insist on believing that the power of modern villains is bounded by these same kinds of mystical geases and taboos? It’s because we need to sleep at night. Vampires, devils and faeries were very real to our ancestors, unlike the fictional villains of modern movies; you know very well that Jason and Chucky and Freddy Kreuger and the alien aren’t real, so it doesn’t matter if there are no limits on their power. But if you believed that they were real, and you lived in a thatched cottage that wouldn’t keep out a determined dog (much less a werewolf), you had better believe there were rules the monsters had to follow and wards to keep them away, or else you’d live in a perpetual state of fear.
