We only have so many criminal justice dollars, and we need to apply them…toward the areas where we’re afraid of the perpetrators…We’re not afraid of prostitutes. We’re just mad at them. – John Whitmire
The female half of Masters and Johnson, the pioneering sex researchers, has died at the age of 88 (Dr. Masters died in 2001). Though she never got a degree, Johnson’s intelligence, insight and willingness to speak candidly about the female sexual experience allowed the duo to accomplish what Masters’ academic credentials alone could never have: a thorough exploration of the sexual responses of both men and women, with a strong emphasis on direct measurement rather than the omnipresent questionnaires of most latter-day sex research. Johnson’s importance to sexology cannot be overstated; it is not an exaggeration to say that modern women, in large part, are indebted to her for their current ability to openly discuss sex and sexual needs.
How much of this story about the “Starlet Bandits” (a gang of hookers turned bank robbers) is true, and how much a combination of moral panic, journalistic exaggeration and Tarantinoesque tale-telling from a pimp who wanted to be a star? There’s no way to tell, but I won’t be at all surprised to see it presented as a movie in about seven years.
Yet another “Operation Cross-Country” has resulted in the persecution of many hundreds of American sex workers. The FBI is crowing that it “rescued 105 child sex-trafficking victims” and arrested “150 pimps”, but in reality the young women claimed to be “rescued” were also arrested, as demonstrated by this video released by the FBI itself. As in the last couple of raids, officials are hiding the number of adult hookers busted in this vast boondoggle; however, if the proportions are the same as in the last case for which full figures are available, there were almost 1200 of them. Even the identities of the so-called “pimps” (most likely male sex workers, drivers, etc) and “rescued children” (some of whom might actually be the children of the arrested women) are in question because the FBI plays fast and loose with the facts. Consider that in the initial press release it was claimed that the youngest “victim” was 9 and another was so happy to be “rescued” she consented to an interview; later it came out that the youngest was 13 and the interviewee was actually an informant who has been working with them for years. I suggest you judge the veracity of the other claims by that measure.
Cathryn Berarovich, a sex worker who writes a column for The Gloss, interviews a streetwalker who has recently gone indoors via online advertising. Not only is the interview itself quite interesting, so is the story of how Cathryn met her.
What the Hell Were You Thinking?
Tizzy Wall (one of my pals from the Desiree conference) recently published “Safety Tips from Sex Workers”, in which she teaches amateurs how to use some of our screening tricks to keep safe:
Although meeting someone at a bar is not necessarily any safer, removing the ability to judge someone’s mannerisms and demeanor can understandably make the less tech-savvy nervous. Who knows if that hottie on Grindr is going to turn out to be scary? Even common dating sites like OkCupid host their fair share of creeps who can put the bravest of romance-seekers on high alert…Thankfully, the web offers a bevy of nifty little options that allow us to vet someone before a face-to-face meeting. You may not be able to screen just like a sex worker, but you can still get some use out of their tools. This may be the one (and only) time you find a sex worker giving tips rather than collecting them, so take note of these hard-earned harm-preventative measures that anyone can use…
…In…at least a dozen cases since 2011…[the Baton Rouge] Sheriff’s Office…used [Louisiana’s anti-sodomy law, which was struck down by Lawrence vs. Texas a decade ago]…to ensnare men who merely discussed or agreed to have consensual sex with an undercover agent…District Attorney Hillar Moore III said his office refused to prosecute…the cases…a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman…denied that investigators had been misapplying the…law [because it] remains among the state’s criminal statutes…Peter Renn, an attorney with Lambda Legal…said the pattern…suggests authorities are using the stings as a means to harass gay men…“This is basically like the police putting up a sign that says ‘Please sue me’”…
You know that quote that says insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results?
Kirkland police served a search warrant against the infamous online ad company backpage.com, seeking information about its alleged promotion of prostitution…at the Motel 6 in north Kirkland…State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced…he and 49 attorneys general are asking Congress to give them the power to fight online ads promoting prostitution…
Say, Bob, how’d it turn out last time y’all tried that? Oh, yeah, the State of Washington admitted it knew trying to hold websites responsible for third-party content was unconstitutional. But hey, the $200,000 the judge made y’all pay Backpage didn’t come out of your pocket, so it’s no big deal to you, right?
Law of the Instrument (TW3 #25)
Another case of “human trafficking” meaning whatever the “authorities” want it to mean: “Two men who were arrested…in connection to a large marijuana growing operation are now facing human trafficking charges…the pair brought a 15-year-old runaway girl from Southern California to their grow location [and] sexually assaulted her…” She was not forced to work in any way; in other words, this is a case of abduction and rape. Remember this next time you see “trafficking” statistics.
The Pro-Rape Coalition (TW3 #35)
Morality in Media’s campaign to get men’s magazines banned from military property has failed, sort of. While the Department of Defense stated categorically that “the department’s Resale Activities Board of Review previously…concluded those magazines do not meet the definition of sexually explicit material under the [Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996], and are permissible for sale”. However, Army and Air Force Exchange stores have announced they will no longer sell them:
…the decision…was not based on morality, but merely because the magazines were not selling, as people now get their pornography online…AAFES said it was permanently removing 891 magazines from its stock, including SpongeBob Comics and the Home Buyers Guide…to…create 33% more space in the stores to sell items such as DVDs and video games…
There is no word on whether the separately-run Naval Exchange stores are planning to do the same; SpongeBob was not available for comment.
Cleveland obviously couldn’t stand Toledo claiming to be the biggest “sex trafficking hub” in the region: “Ohio is a major pipeline for human trafficking, taking young, lost girls and turning them into sex slaves…the average age is now 12 for entry into this dark world…” I just love the expression “turning them into sex slaves”; it sounds so science fictional.
The predictable result of the years-long “crackdown” on street work in St. Kilda:
Members of the Victorian sex industry are calling on the state government to decriminalise street-based sex work after the death of a woman in St Kilda…Tracy Connelly, a 40-year-old sex worker known professionally as Kelly, was murdered in daylight…on July 21…Police said she had severe face and upper-body injuries and had suffered a “horrific” death…Janelle Fawkes…of…Scarlett [sic] Alliance, said by decriminalising street-based sex work, workers would look to police as protector rather than prosecutor, and thus feel safe to speak out when threatened or assaulted…
As previously explained, “The TSA attracts criminals and those with personality disorders that exaggerate control and sociopathic tendencies…”:
A former [Florida] police officer kidnapped a woman at gunpoint and raped her while he held her captive for several hours…Larry Kobielnik, 37…an officer with the [TSA] for 11 years…offered the 30-year-old a ride…then pulled out a handgun and a police badge, placed the woman in handcuffs and told her she was under arrest…[he then] drove her…to a house…where he raped her…he [eventually] fell asleep, allowing her to escape and record his car’s license plate number…
Here’s an interview with Kristen DiAngelo about her film, American Courtesans; it was screened at Desiree, but for some reason it was scheduled last in the evening (after two other movies I didn’t want to see), so I was not able to attend. The interview doesn’t cover any new ground for readers of this blog, but note the venue (MSN) and the positive attitude of the interviewer. Given some previous pro-decriminalization stuff from the Gates Foundation, perhaps Microsoft may eventually develop into a real ally.
Since prostitution is already legal in Spain, I’m guessing this campaign wants to ensure that no ridiculous “pimping” laws can be used to harass organizations which connect sex workers with disabled clients:
A Catalan organization which helps provide disabled people with sexual relations is pushing for “disability” prostitutes to become legal in Spain…Jaume Girbau…is…the engine behind Sex Asistent Catalunya…[which] wants the…government to…make sexual assistants legal as they already are in many countries across Europe, including Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Denmark. Some of these countries pay for the services with public funds…The group is already putting together the teaching material with the aim of offering those interested in
professional training a…university degree…
“Escape from the White-Savior Industrial Complex” is a simple parody of Nicholas Kristof’s Half the Sky FaceBook game, designed and programmed by a recovering Kristof groupie. Can you help Radhika escape “rescue”?
You know that Texas “diversion” program that’s supposed to be so bloody wonderful? One of things it does is teaches the women to blame themselves for the state’s criminalization of consensual behavior.
Amsterdam city council can continue with its policy of reducing the number of brothel owners in its red light district, the government’s highest advisory body…said…The city council began cleaning up the red light district in 2008 and has now introduced new zoning laws which make it possible to evict brothel owners who are uncooperative. The aim is to reclaim one of the oldest and most picturesque parts of the city by encouraging exclusive shops to open there…62 red light windows will have to close…
Pat Robertson seems to be slowly going sane:
…Pat Robertson said on his show…that he believes transgender people are real, and that there’s “no sin” associated with that. While Robertson’s entire comment isn’t perfect, it’s still surprisingly positive… “There are men who are in a woman’s body… it’s very rare but it’s true, or women that are in men’s bodies, and they want a sex change…I don’t think there’s any sin associated with that. I don’t condemn somebody for doing that.”
An Example to the West (TW3 #316)
Nicaraguan sex workers have…set up an office to assist in protection from abuse, violence and discrimination…Prostitution is illegal in Nicaragua but authorities often turn a blind eye to it…Retrasex is part of a Latin American and Caribbean network of 1,000 affiliates…[which] is fighting to change the vocabulary used by media and official institutions to…the term “sex workers.” The organization also seeks to influence social, health and education policy, as well as push for rights…
Steph Wilcock, another of my friends from Desiree, has unveiled her “Sex Workers Speakeasy” project, “the aim of [which] is to allow current and former sex workers a platform from which to express our experiences of working in an industry besieged by blame, discrimination, prejudice, and stigma.” It will consist of very short videos like the one at this link, which Steph made of me just before we went to the after-party on Thursday night; if you’re a sex worker who’d like to participate, Steph explains how following the video.
Screening prospective online dates …
I don’t know what Tizzy Wall recommends but I recommend that all women get ahold of a good Private Investigator. He (or she) will have the online tools to reseach the guy you’re interested in. In fact, you could do it yourself but you’d have to learn the ropes and find all the tools – and subscribe to them all (and they usually have a fee). A PI already knows the tools and subscribes to them. He charges by the hour and I can’t figure it would take him more than an hour. Ask up front though. PI’s don’t come cheap – but we’re talking about your safety here.
Porn in Military Exchanges …
It’s a battle we’ve fought for a long time. When I was active the going arguement was that we were now relying on women very heavily in the armed services – and these magazines “alienated” them or created a “hostile” environment. I don’t buy it – since young women these days can be more obscene than men. I just finished a job with a team of scientists, and one of them was a young girl in her 20’s who asked me repeatedly about the size of my “wedding tackle”. I am a complete gentleman always and never solicited such comments. They don’t bother me – but it’s interesting to me that she can ask that question of me but were the tables turned – I’d be fired for creating a “hostile environment” for her. Well that’s life I guess.
In any case – don’t expect the Navy to have bigger balls than the Air Force or Army – the Navy will cave on this like a house made of jello.
Pat Robertson …
Come on, he’s not “going sane” … dude has always been all over the plays. He spins around on the issues like a top and now that he’s losing his senility the RPM has only increased.
Oh, all my Master Chief buds who are still active duty say they are getting the shit beat out of them over Sexual Assaults. It’s like the number one concern they have these days. So yeah – pornographic magazines will be GONE GONE GONE in the Navy quite soon – and it will probably be the Command Master Chiefs leading the charge to ban it. Such is the Navy these days.
By the way … I still don’t understand the problem with sexual assaults. I never turned a blind eye toward a single one – and prosecuted them all to the furthest extent – even bordeline cases.
In one instance – I took a guy to CO’s mast for whipping out his penis at the “Desert Dome” in Bahrain and placing it on the back of the neck of a female Sailor. That’s all he did – and everyone, including the girl laughed at his tiny penis. He went off and crawled into a corner. She actually begged me not to take him to mast. Nope, I took him to mast and we didn’t fuck him up too bad – but a message had to be sent that it wouldn’t be tolerated.
I hope you also showed zero tolerance to those who sexually abused bathroom products.
These Sponge Bob Squarepants perverts have been getting away with all sorts of sick stuff for way too long.
Sponge Bob never said shit to me about being sexually assaulted.
And he and I are pretty good friends. 😀
But no, seriously … my philosophy was always … “the stupid shall be punished”. I HATE punishing EVERYONE for the misdeeds of the FEW. So I always told everyone that everybody got maximum freedom and wouldn’t be harassed … but the ones that fucked up would be “crucified” (and I used to use that exact word) as an example to others.
I mean – people make mistakes and I took that into account – but if someone who’s an adult broke the rules and knew better … well he got cruicified. And – by breaking the rules … I meant that someone got hurt … not that someone COULD have been hurt.
I had one of the lowest NJP rates in the Navy. Also – I went three fucking years without a single drug bust on my ship and that is PHENOMENAL.
I was able to do that by not only doing random testing – but doing frequent ANNOUNCED “unit sweeps” where EVERYONE is tested. I knew when Sailors were going to be most likely to use drugs … if we pulled into San Francisco on a Friday – I’d annonce right then that there would be a “unit sweep” on Monday when the ship left port. Same thing for every single port we hit in the Western Pacific. The goal was not to bust Sailors – I hated losing good Sailors who just made a bad decision over a weekend of liberty. But when they KNEW they were peeing in the cup on Monday morning – then they didn’t make bad decisions.
SURFPAC actually called me up to tell me I was doing too many “unit sweeps” and it was cost prohibitive. I told them I had three years of zero drug busts and they could go fuck themselves or tell the Master Chief of the Navy (MCPON) to give me a direct order to hault them. That was the end of that conversation … LOL.
Seems you did a good handling both the drug issue and the sexual assault issue. If there were more like you and less looking the other way, this wouldn’t be the big issue that it is.
By some weird cosmic coincidence, my step-grandmother also passed on last week, and her name was Virginia Johnson as well.
She was a real “steel magnolia” from Georgia. She was a secretary at the Navy department during WWII. I’m not sure she ever uttered the word “sex” in her life. (She was a mother of three.)
One aspect of Tracy Connelly’s death was the massive under-reporting by the mainstream media – notably the ABC.
One ABC radio station in St Kilda, 774, lost one of its own employees, Jill Meagher, to a sex murderer only a couple of months ago. That, of course, was headline news in every media outlet every day for weeks until the killer was caught.
It was only after a campaign of complaints by listeners that 774 gave Tracy more than a sentence or two at the bottom of the news updates for about half a day.
Hey, she was a junkie whore.
Who cares, right?
Pat Robertson is a Media Personality first and anything else second. That being the case, nothing he says should be granted any weight whatsoever, since his utterances are always calculated to keep his fame active.
I am troubled by the whole ‘Transgender’ issue, not because I consider the people ‘perverts’, but because I consider the whole range of surgeries involved unsatisfactory at best. At worst they seem to be a case of the surgeons preying upon an emotionally vulnerable population. I can understand and condone the desire to switch genders, but it isn’t possible now. I think it will be, maybe in my lifetime, but it isn’t now. And I have to wonder (any Transgendered persons with the experience: I would welcome your views) if a body non-functionally altered to appear to be the sex you experience yourself to be is an improvement on one that goes against what you feel, but functions.
Also; I don’t trust surgeons.
“”human trafficking’ meaning whatever the ‘authorities’ want it to mean”
Even the judge sentencing Ariel Castro called him a trafficker…while convicting him for murdering fetuses. Seems like the law in general is mortared together with bullshit
Many years ago, I also went through the earlier version of “unhooked”, in Chicago.
The case against me fell apart in court, as the cop on the stand couldn’t remember which lies he had told, and began to contradict himself. so the prosecutor asked for a recess and offered a deal, I could take the class or she would try to reclassify my charges as more serious.
The class was a joke, then. I was the only non-street girl in it. I ended up spending half the class teaching the others the ropes of not working on the street.
Sadly, most of them would never be able not to work the street. They lacked the looks, sophistication, skills. I’m not bragging. Back then there was way more of a difference, and you couldn’t “build a book” if you didn’t have what it took.
The class was a sad joke then, and it’s amusing to see now, so many years later, that it’s still the same.
Another thing that I noticed in the article interviewing the former street worker was the attitude- The few street workers I met quite shared it, that they didn’t do anything not “vanilla”. The few I talked to did mostly oral and hand jobs. Makes sense to me, as it would be difficult to get up to much else in a car.
One street girl I met ended up taking quite the attitude towards me. She felt herself so much “better” then me, as she only did vanilla.
I found it amusing that she considers letting a man suck her toes to be more vanilla than anal sex.
Does anyone have more details on the Cross-Country informant/interviewee?
I think the thing there was … does the informant actually exist or is this “informant” a sock puppet of the FBI’s imagination?
krulac,
It’s most likely a product of an FBI 302 report…
Bad Girls
Hey, there was already a movie about a gang of cheerleaders turned bank robbers.
Reading Between the Lines
I suppose it’s a good thing that they can’t keep their lies straight. So, is crime THAT low, FBI? Low enough that you can spare the money, manpower and time for these sweeps?
What the Hell Were You Thinking?
It makes sense: hookers meet people after talking to them on the phone or online, and they do it often enough that they’ve developed some skill at avoiding danger. Hooker or not, that kind of skill can come in handy.
Peeping Toms
|“This is basically like the police putting up a sign that says ‘Please sue me’”|
And I hope they do.
Law of the Instrument (TW3 #25)
You’d think abduction and rape of a minor would be enough. This sort of idiocy is how guilty people end up walking.
OK, a bit of Extreme Homes, a little Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, and I’ll be back for more.
BTW, Laura found me another treehouse show! That girl, she’s the best decision I ever made.
The Pro-Rape Coalition (TW3 #35)
When it comes to porn, we’re already living in a post-scarcity world. It’s only if you want something specific (like I wanted Devil Angel Jiburiru) that you have to pay for it, and then only if you insist on little things like subtitles and no pop-up ads.
Follow Your Bliss (TW3 #44)
I hate that creeps like this even exist. I am glad that they are often stupid enough to fall asleep and make the evidence needed to convict them so easily gathered.
The Public Eye (TW3 #49)
Microsoft would be one hell of an ally to have!
FarmVille (TW3 #138)
I might try again, but so far, the game doesn’t seem to work very well. May there’s something wrong with my connection or maybe I just suck at it, but the poor girl keeps getting conked in the head with books.
Coming and Going (TW3 #311)
One good thing about Texas: they have a state lottery. And if I ever win it, I’m moving the hell out of Texas.
Credit Where Credit is Due
It will be interesting to follow Pat’s continuing evolution.
An Example to the West
Best of luck to the Nicaraguan effort. Or rather, to the whole South of Us effort. Occasionally the US does learn something from other countries (our interstate highway system was inspired by the German autobahn). Let’s hope that this is one of those times.
Celebrity
That was a cool message, Maggie. Yes, this is another of many steps in the right direction. You know, if I lose a little weight and avoid heavy traffic, I might live long enough to see prostitution decriminalized, or at least legalized* in the USA.
* It took me the longest time to digest the difference, and sometimes I still burp.
[…] But despite the hype, the truth is that even operations framed as “john stings” or “child sex slave rescues” end up with the arrest and conviction of huge numbers of women; for example, 97% of […]