Morality cannot be determined by genitals. – Masruchah
“The Inside of the White Slave Traffic”, from 1913. Enjoy, and marvel at how little the “sex trafficking” narrative has changed in a century.
Here’s a glossary of the many types of sex workers in 1920s Berlin, including streetwalking dominatrices with extremely specific specializations:
The very first thing foreigners noticed in Berlin was its thousands of prostitutes, on the streets, in hotel lobbies, and seated at cafés and clubs. How many women made their living selling sex in Berlin during the Golden Twenties is impossible to calculate, but estimates range from a low of 5,000 to the oft-published figure of 120,000 (not including the city’s estimated 35,000 male prostitutes). It all depended on one’s definition of the term…Altogether there were seventeen distinct varieties…
A New Orleans police officer who was…booked with forcible rape was indicted…on additional sex crimes…Desmond Pratt Sr., a longtime homicide detective, was indicted on one count of sexual battery of a 15-year-old in 2001 and one count of carnal knowledge of a juvenile in 1997 or 1998…
Here’s actress Jada Pinkett Smith’s entry into the clueless celebrity division of “sex trafficking” fandom: “Rape for Profit”, a “documentary” based on the premise that “there is a growing problem in major U.S. cities where girls as young as 12 years old are bought and sold as many as 15 times a night to service the desires of men. Experience the shocking truth and follow several heroes as they fight this modern-day slavery and stop the next generation of buyers…” Yes, this was released in 2013, not 1913; I know it’s hard to tell.
You’ve got to admire his chutzpah:
The…mayor [of Salvador Mazza, Argentina]…Carlos Villalba…was arrested…during a raid on a brothel as part of a case investigating human trafficking…[protestors] demanding that the mayor resign…threw eggs at the building where the town officials were meeting, and even traded blows with a group of municipal employees…the mayor said he believed he was at a family home…not in a brothel…
Lack of Evidence (April Updates)
A plan by the Education Agency of Prabumulih, South Sumatra, to include virginity tests as part of its high school admission requirements has drawn the ire of legislators and education experts, who say that such an exam is a violation of personal space and an obstruction to a student’s right to an education. H.M. Rasyid, the chief of Prabumulih’s Education Agency…[said] increasing instances of premarital sex and prostitution among female students prompted the move…
Kansas City FBI agents have scrutinized allegations that an online relationship led to Councilman Michael Brooks being blackmailed into getting city tax dollars for a community event that never occurred…Brooks is a married father of four and a Baptist minister…[who] went to the FBI to report…[that a] woman he was involved with tried to extort $60,000 from him…[after] they…exchanged lurid pictures…
Regular readers know that I dislike grotesque euphemisms for genitalia and sex acts, but love the history of language; apparently the latter is stronger than the former, because I thought y’all might appreciate these two charts of slang terms for both male and female genitalia over the past 800 years. The Timeglider platform takes a bit of getting used to, but I figured it out in a few minutes so I’m sure you can as well.
Emasculated Icelandic journalist is absolutely shocked to discover that prohibition of consensual behavior doesn’t work any better in Iceland than it does anywhere else; he goes to a “champagne club” and pays for a stripper, then when he leaves claims to have been “flooded with a range of emotions from disgust, anger and shame, but they settle at simply feeling sullied.” Retired call girl and blogger tells him that he isn’t fooling anyone but his neofeminist overlords, and maybe not even them.
San Francisco’s celebrated, unionized and worker-owned peep show the Lusty Lady will close its doors…on September 2nd…due to a lease dispute…the group had negotiated a lower rent…months ago. A new lease was signed and notarized by the co-op but not immediately returned by the landlord. After a few months paying the lower rent, the landlord apparently reneged and went back to the higher rent, which the club didn’t have room for in their budget. The landlord put off new negotiations until [August 19th, then]…notified [them that] they had to be out…[in] two weeks…”if someone out there has a miracle up their butt” they are encouraged to reach out to the Lusties at LustyLadyPR@gmail.com…
…Zurich…unveiled a sex drive-in which local authorities say will enable them to keep closer tabs on prostitution…the nine so-called “sex boxes” are located in a former industrial zone…[and] will be open daily from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am, and only to drivers, who must be alone in their vehicle if they want to pass the gate…they will have to follow a marked route along which up to 40 prostitutes will be stationed. Once they have negotiated a rate, they will drive to one of the…boxes…[which] will be equipped with alarms, allowing the prostitutes to make rapid contact with police if they are in danger…Zurich has spared no effort to encourage the prostitutes and their clients to leave the city centre and use the new site, making it as pleasant as possible…To avoid putting off clients, city authorities said they had no plans to install video surveillance or deploy police at the site permanently. Social workers and security guards will be on hand, however…
Older press releases say most local hookers support the plan; as Laura Agustín points out, however, any attempt at regulation creates some bottleneck:
…whenever this sort of plan arises…numerous street workers simply refuse to transfer their activities to the regulated zones, which are always far away from bustling areas if not in downright deserted ones. Instead, they move into some other commercial/residential neighbourhood, where the cycle begins again…
An Example To the West (TW3 #39)
…over…100…teenage boys…whose mothers are [sex workers]…will be part of 14 [soccer] teams [in Kolkata]…the winners of the tournament, organised by DMSC, will receive soccer-related gear. Surojit Bhattacharya and Bishwajit Nandi, two children of sex workers left August 2 for Poznan, Poland to represent India in the Homeless World Cup that began August 10…
I don’t know if anyone at the American Jewish World Service read my critique of Ruth Messinger’s statements about sex work and “trafficking”, but they’ve prepared a splendid document called “Sex Worker Rights: (Almost) Everything You Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask”, in which neither I nor several other activists could find a single fault (and believe me, we were looking). Bravo, AJWS; welcome to the ranks of true allies!
Backwards Into the Future (TW3 #41)
Malawian lawyers recognize “avails” laws as relics of the “white slavery” hysteria; why can’t American ones get that?
…no provision in the Malawi Penal Code criminalises the selling of sexual services…yet…some police officers in Malawi appear to be operating under the assumption that sex work is illegal…based on an interpretation of [a] section…which prohibits a woman from living on the earnings of prostitution…The [law]…can be traced back to 1912…[and] unsubstantiated allegations of women being trafficked to colonies for the purpose of prostitution…
Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #51)
There has been a development in the porn industry’s lawsuit to overturn the Los Angeles “condoms in porn” law:
…Judge Pregerson has decided that condoms in porn do not violate the First Amendment…[but] much of Measure B does violate the Constitution…he has…[removed] the County’s ability to [charge a fee for,] suspend or revoke [a filming] permit…[or] conduct warrantless searches of producers…a fine or criminal penalties could not be imposed without a judicial hearing. The Court also…[found] that Measure B does not define adult films sufficiently since…activities such as kissing…could possibly transmit disease…
Tauriq Moosa on sex workers and the disabled:
…sex workers’ services shouldn’t only be recognised in the light of people with disabilities, but people with, say, psychological hangups, and so on…This doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with people who choose sex workers because they “can’t get” anyone without paying for it – just as people don’t “resort” to online dating…seeking out sex workers is nothing to be ashamed of; it’s not wrong, or indicative of being a failure, deviant or a slightly off human being. However we find fulfilment, as long as we are not harming others, shouldn’t be an issue and we should celebrate that there are people, like sex workers, helping and facilitating this…
The North Carolina law banning registered sex offenders from commercial social networking sites…that children can use is unconstitutional because it’s vague and violates free speech, the state Court of Appeals ruled…unanimously in vacating the additional felony conviction of a registered offender…[who] created a profile…on Facebook…
First she had no last name, then we were told it was “Tyler”; now as the Topless Tunisian announces she’s leaving Femen, I think we’re at last getting the real one:
Amina Sboui…was arrested in Kairouan [on] May 19…after she tagged the word FEMEN on the wall of a cemetery. The group then held several protests to support her…but now that she’s been released after more than two months in prison, Amina has decided to leave FEMEN, calling it “Islamophobic”…[she also said] “I do not know the movement’s sources of funding. I repeatedly asked Inna [Shevchenko]…but she refused to give clear answers…What if it was Israel that funded it?”…
I find the repeated usage of the word “victim” herein to be especially grating:
Kaitlyn Hunt…was arrested again…Under the conditions of a pretrial court order, Hunt was forbidden from contacting the victim…[and] was offered a plea deal to lesser, nonsexual charges…[but] the state attorney’s office withdrew that offer…following allegations that Hunt repeatedly met with the victim and sent sexually explicit photos via the Internet…
Given that Sam Woolfe believes that sex workers are dominated by “pimps, drug dealers and traffickers”, that we’re diseased and too stupid to care for our own health, that our work is “degrading”, and that legalization increases “sex trafficking”, one has to wonder what the “legalization” he advocates would look like. And given that he apparently had the time and inclination to fill his head with bogus studies and made-up statistics, one is at a total loss to understand why he wasn’t able to locate the readily-available debunking of the garbage he spouts in this asinine article, or to simply consult with someone who actually knows something about the subject before writing it.
Ashley Madison is at it again, and the credulous media are still swallowing their ads as “press releases”. This time it’s ABC-TV’s Good Morning America show, opening wide for the claim that the average woman who joins the site is in bed with some “lucky” dude about 36 hours after joining; hiding in that comparatively-minor assertion’s shadow is the whopper that 40% of the site’s members are female (though in all fairness, we don’t know how Ashley Madison defines the words “member” and “female”).
But Brandon Wade of Seeking Arrangement is not to be outdone; he wrote a “press release” touting the claim that 40,000 of the aspiring sugar babies on his site are teachers, and got the Daily Caller to buy it…thus plugging into the teacher fantasies of many a would-be sugar daddy, of whom there are undoubtedly more than a few among the Caller’s readers.
…Alexis Wright…doesn’t have to answer questions from prosecutors at the trial of alleged client…Donald Hill…Justice Roland Cole ruled Wright didn’t have to testify after her attorney argued her testimony could open her up to prosecution on new charges, including federal crimes and perjury…
Ashley Madison – what is this male delusion that you can have free sex without risk.
I’m into this on ECCIE right now where some of the guys are touting the “FWB” thing they claim they can find on social media – like FaceBook!
You can find sex on FaceBook alright – but you can also find a WHOOOOLE lot of trouble. Ask my cousin – who’s FB girlfriend outed him to his wife AND his entire church!!
Uhm … then again, maybe I’m the last guy on the planet who should lecture people about “free sex”. But honestly – I don’t go looking for it and would much rather pay the girl. I don’t know how many girls did me for free when they could have made some significant money if they weren’t so offended at the prospect of taking money in exchange for sex.
Sounds like one of those 60s happenings to me.
“Sex drive: Please give generously”.
Didn’t think you’d be on that, krulac.
Had you tagged as a speed freak myself.
You got me pegged. SPEED is one of my addictions. I have a 1984 Honda V65 Magna that will still do 130 mph. You will not catch me on any given day on I-10 with the speedometer indicating ANYTHING south of 110 mph. 😉
I rode Harley’s for years and I still own a Road King … so I can ride around and look pretty, I guess. But you will not find me at any Harley gathering like Sturgis. I much prefer the Honda V4’s and I’ll soon be purchasing at VF1200.
My main speed machine was a Suzuki Katana GS1000X, one of the first five to arrive in Australia.
But the one that stole my heart was a clunky 1958 Royal Enfield Bullet 350 that I spent six months riding around India on. Flat out at 80 km/h with a tail wind, but any faster on Indian roads would have been suicide on a road bike.
Mr Sasha jets around in a Kawasaki Z1000. And that is the sum total of my knowledge of motorcycles. 😀
“I do not know the movement’s sources of funding. I repeatedly asked Inna [Shevchenko]…but she refused to give clear answers…What if it was Israel that funded it?”…
Um, what if it was?
This lass seems to be one taco short of a combination plate.
Umm, maybe because she is – among other things – a Tunisian patriot and does not want to be seen to be a tool of those many of her compatriots consider to be enemies of their country.
Would it be wise for Israeli activist groups to accept funding from Saudi Arabia?
I note that Amina continues her topless protests but now in conjunction with a Tunisian anarcho-feminist group.
You go girl!!!
Smells like she’s been reading too many Islamist conspiracy theories.
Note that she doesn’t say she thinks the money comes from Israel. What she says is:
If you’re part of an activist organisation – especially one with motives as dodgy as FEMEN’s – you need to know who’s paying the piper.
I too would have jumped from any activist organisation I had been in that refused to disclose its funding (and I outright refused to join any that took the government shilling).
You’ve gotta know who you’re really fighting for.
Barely four months ago I attended an anarchist activist meeting in Sydney that was visited by a very articulate and passionate Iranian refugee who was trying to gain our support for an anti-Iranian government protest she was organising.
A couple of us smelled a rat because we had never heard of her group before and because a couple of the slogans she used rang some rather unsavoury bells. So we checked out her group with some members of the Iranian opposition we had known for over a decade (Communists and Bahais).
Sure enough, we were informed that her group was part of the MEK – who receive funding from Mossad and the US State Department. (Just over a decade ago their prime backer was Saddam Hussein and they were on the US SD list of terrorist organisations).
In activism, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
I don’t get it. Just because her group got money from the Great Satan and the Baby Satan, that means they’re not worth supporting?
Yes, the fact that her group are stooges of any government organisation means they don’t get backing from anarchist groups.
But beyond that, MEK is a cult run by a husband and wife team that slaughtered a village full of civilians in Iran and ran torture camps in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war.
They have carried out false-flag bombings on behalf of Mossad in Lebanon and several analysts believe that the incompetent attacks on Israeli diplomats in India, Thailand and Georgia were also MEK false flaggers.
Since they got considerable State Department backing (not long after the attacks on the diplomats as it happens) they have been flat out trying to take-over or undermine Iranian opposition groups in the US, UK and here (probably elsewhere as well).
Sydney anti-authoritarian activists have been working with Iranian opposition groups for decades and have good relationships with them. They would have nothing to do with us again if we started supporting MEK.
Yet somehow you’re naive enough to believe that COMMUNISTS aren’t “stooges” of other governments?
Not that it matters – anarchist support isn’t the most valuable thing in the world.
The MEK is not classed a terror org by the US. It used to be – then again so was Japan, kind of.
The MEK receives US support because it has, and continues to supply us with valuable information on the Iranian nuke weapons program. After the SNAFU in Iraq – I would think that accurate info on WMD’s is a GOOD thing but, again this is just one more source of bitching for the “peace by magical means” crowd.
That said, the only Iranian opposition worthy of civilian support is, I believe, the Iranian Democratic Union, founded by the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. It’s goals are RADICAL, considering this is Iran we’re talking about …
Krulac, I think perhaps you are the only person in the world who thinks the MEK data on the Iranian nuclear program is valuable – except perhaps for propaganda purposes.
They were the source of the dodgy laptop, remember?
Even the State Department has expressed strong reservations about MEK supplied intelligence and the CIA says its rubbish.
Regarding the Iranian Communist Party, if they are receiving government support from anywhere it must be Bangladesh or the Sudan. These guys can’t even afford a cup of coffee.
But yeah, if they were ever asked “Hey, where did that $2.10 in your change jar come from?” and they said “Kim Jong-un sent it so we can save up for a nuke” we’d drop them like hotcakes.
We actually check out the other activist and rebel groups we know of in Sydney you know – though we do use dodgy, extremist, left-wing sources like Jane’s and Stratfor.
What the State Department says PUBLICLY about the data the MEK has furnished on Iranian WMD’s is one thing … and has no bearing on what they are actually getting from them. Unlike anarchists … the U.S. doesn’t have a policy of letting it’s enemies know everything it’s getting.
The fact remains – you have a former terror organization that is NOW almost fully supported by the U.S. government – what the hell happened to make this change? The U.S. generally doesn’t go around supporting people who are committed to it’s downfall – well we didn’t until Obama came along and started supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and AQ in Libya and Syria.
Obviously the MEK is cooperating with the U.S.and providing vital information.
And by the way … you will NEVER stop supporting Communists because you are leftists who are committed to the downfall of Western Civilization – just as they are.
You are concerned for our support of the MEK – because you say they may have killed some American soldiers.
But you aren’t concerned about the Taliban – an organization that provided AQ the cover to kill over 3,000 innocent American civilians.
Your concerns don’t quite match up here – so I think what you’re really concerned about is the MEK cooperation with the U.S. If the MEK started getting support from the Taliban tomorrow – I’ll bet you a hundred bucks you guys would reverse your opinion about them and start supporting them.
Well, some people have suggested it’s quid pro quo for the false flag attack on Israeli diplomats in Bangkok, Delhi and Tbilisi.
Personally I don’t think the evidence implicating MEK in those attacks is strong, but it’s stronger than for anyone else. It sure wasn’t VEVAK and accidentally blowing yourself up with your own bomb is practically a MEK signature.
Anarchist groups very rarely support communists and never when they’re in power. We know our history.
Oh yeah, I forgot.
MEK also assassinated several US servicemen (embassy guards) in the 1990s and carried out failed attacks on US diplomatic staff.
During the Iran hostage crisis – before they fell out with the Iranian regime – MEK were among the student groups who stormed the embassy and were counted as among the most fanatical among them with regard to treatment of the hostages.
But hey, the US State Department has forgiven them so it would be churlish to hold that against them.
And Japan attacked Pearl Harbor – yet now they are friends. What is your point?
This is why anarchists will never be successful. You guys seem to not understand that you have to deal with “bad players” occasionally to effect change and reach your political goals.
The same could be said of Libertarian “purists”.
You’re always going to be “outplayed” by your opposition.
Always.
You could be right there krulac.
You could sure make a strong argument that the anarchist uprisings in Krondstadt, the Ukraine and Spain were all crushed because they refused to play ball with the Marxists.
But if you can only defeat your enemy by becoming them there’s not much point to the battle, is there?
The US should have thought about that when they fought the Nazis.
Too late now.
The point is SURVIVAL … which is the MAIN POINT of life itself.
If my enemy intends to exterminate my tribe – then you had better believe I will move to exterminate HIM. If he wishes to use gas chambers to exterminate my people – then, if left with no other alternative – I will use the same to exterminate him.
There is nothing “honorable” about marching into the gas chambers with your principles intact. The point of life is survival. You do the very best you can to uphold your principles – but at a certain point – the gloves have to come off.
And all this “peach through magic” stuff … yeah, it’s just ensuring that we have to do something MUCH WORSE later to survive.
What is your point on the Nazis? We didn’t declare war on the Nazis, they declared it on us. The same thing for the Japanese. There was nothing about WWII that we asked for. The Japanese military establishment made moves, starting a decade earlier, to take over the Japanese government and mobilize the entire nation for war against the west. This is well documented.
By the way – we have not “become” the Nazis by any stretch of the imagination.
The U.S. has NEVER .. NOT EVER rivaled the atrocities the Japanese committed during WWII. Specifically – over 200,000 Chinese killed by Imperial Japanese Forces in Nanking in a matter of WEEKS. Tell me where we even approached that kind of slaughter? And don’t say Hiroshima and Nagasaki – those two bombs represented a net SAVINGS on human life that would have been sacrificed with a full invasion of the Japanese home islands.
When’s the last time we beheaded anyone? Or actually – those fools in AQ don’t even know how to behead properly – it’s more like “hacking” off heads.
When’s the last time we mutilated little girls on their way to school?
We’re in Afghanistan – and the people in Afghanistan who UNDERSTAND what transpired during the AGE OF REASON are glad we’re there. Those are the only sane people in the country and therefore, the only people who’s opinion really matters to me – the rest being barbarians.
We do our best to protect civilians over there – the Taliban slaughter them.
Read Dakota Meyer’s book – the Marine who was awarded the CMoH for one of the bloodiest battles in Afghanistan.
http://www.amazon.com/Into-Fire-Firsthand-Account-Extraordinary/dp/0812993403
We did not support his unit adequately during that firefight because the fucking guys in the rear were fearful of hitting civilians – civilians that had already evacuated the battle field.
Meyer’s entire fire team were KILLED. He tried to save them … but every time he went in he found wounded and dieing AsKars (Afghan Army) that he couldn’t pass up. In short – he saved the lives of the AsKars at the expense of his American comrades. He states in the book … “I got the Medal of Honor for failing”. He didn’t fail … he saved many Afghan soldiers.
You cannot argue that we are the same as the Nazis – or the beheaders. We simply are not. You’d have to be a complete lunatic to believe otherwise.
Even setting aside your A-bomb bullshit – the Japanese had been trying to negotiate surrender for two months before Hiroshima – the Tokyo and Hamburg fire bombings killed more than both A-bombs combined.
And if you do the math – as Howard Zinn did in the mid 90s – America emerges as the clear gold-medallist in slaughtering civilians in the 20th Century. The only other Evil Empire that came close was your Tweedle-dum across the Bering Strait, the USSA or USR or whatever it called itself.
And so far in the 21st there is no-one else even remotely in your league.
Because napalm and white phosphorous is so much more civilised.
As is fucking up injections of lethal chemicals so the convicted (and perhaps innocent – thank you the US legal system) prisoner dies in agony over 20 minutes.
Do you guys realise those folk you nuked in 1945 are the only other OECD members so barbaric as to still execute people?
But you aren’t trying hard enough there. You’re only number five in judicial executions worldwide – though you go to number two if you count extra-judicial killing by law enforcement.
You’re just going to have to work at it if you want to beat your peers in China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen.
But hey, I know that Americans believe in the intrinsic natural right of all people to life so I guess it’s OK to kill them in record numbers after mouthing that platitude.
Hell no! You guys are civilised. You taser them instead.
And as we all know – barbarians = targets.
Just last night on the radio I heard about some real war heroes in Afghanistan.
Seems an Australian unit had secured an Afghan village and set up a CP in the main building in the middle of town. They received orders to move out so the USAF could flatten the building they were in – which happened to be the town’s only clinic and was flat up against a bunch of residential compounds full of women and children.
The Australians refused orders to move for four days until the requests had stopped coming and they thought the pointless desire to destroy the most important building in a non-hostile town – almost certainly killing non-combatants in the process – had passed.
Not quite up to the standards of the New Zealand unit that wiped out an American platoon that was massacring Vietnamese villagers but at least they did something to resist the barbarians.
The point about the Nazis isn’t about fighting them or about who declared war. It’s about adopting their tactics.
Terror bombing has never, ever worked to ‘shock and awe’ populations into turning on their governments. Quite the contrary in fact. Yet the US has used it over and over again since 1942 and is now set to make the same mistake in Syria – which will doubtless cause any waverers to rally around Assad.
In the meantime, all the images of collateral murder are turning more and more people worldwide against the US, guaranteeing more blowback in the future.
It’s not your freedoms we hate, it’s your tactics.
The behaviour of the Nazis is, at least in part, what led to the Fuhrerbunker gotterdammerung. They were initially welcomed into much of eastern Europe as liberators and it was only when people realised what treatment they could expect that resistance firmed up. If they’d treated Soviet POWs half decently they would have kept getting the sort of surrender rates they saw in the opening phases of Barbarossa.
And of course Dresden and Hamburg were payback for Coventry and Rotterdam.
What the US (and Israel) fail to realise is that they cannot stay on top forever. No-one can. And when they fall all of those war crime chickens will come home to roost.
The “tactics” of the Nazis was genocide – the U.S. have not adopted their tactics. Hey – the Nazi’s fired guns too … and so do we … OOPS – I guess that makes us Nazis? Not!
Sorry – but we don’t do terror bombing – you’re talking right out of your ass there. Everything we do has to go through some goddamn lawyer in the rear and I know that because I’ve been on the trigger bro.
Murder?? Again – your anti-western sentiments are rising to the surface – better beat that back down because you’re proving to everyone that you are exactly what I say you are – simply a “nay-sayer” who likes nothing about the world and would just like to see western civilization burn because you’re bored and want to see something torched. This is the sum total of anarchist mentality.
And, that’s a day you’ll welcome because YOU STAND firmly with the beheaders.
Enjoy that – and let me know … how that works out when they’re running your life and have you licking their boots – IF they allow you to survive.
America has repeatedly bombed civilian areas with the expressed intention of turning the population against its leadership (remember ‘shock and awe’, Operation Desert Fox and the air attacks on Serbia during the Kosovo war). That’s terrorism dude, and it’s against the Geneva Convention.
The Nazis had their lawyers OK a lot of what they did too.
Unluckily for them they lost and a lot of those lawyers were lined up at Nuremberg along with all the other war criminals.
One day America will lose and then the Boston war crimes trials will start.
America’s failure to prosecute war crimes committed in her name or to turn it over to somebody who will is a black mark against our nation and an embarrassment on the world stage. It’s the biggest reason I didn’t vote for Obama in 2012.
This is why I stopped supporting Amnesty International, when their president started saying that Guantánamo was like the Soviet Gulags. It’s the sign of someone whose moral compass is irreparably skewed.
Well at least you’ve spotted it Sasha.
It’s not too late to try to fix it.
Maybe you could start by donating to organisations that condemn war crimes again.
“this was released in 2013, not 1913; I know it’s hard to tell.”
I don’t find it all that difficult; the two eras’ hysterics mangle the English language in very different styles. For one thing, the writing in the 1913 panic tended to be marginally more literate.
RE: Big Sister
Those seem like some high rates; 20,000 ISK for a 15 minute dance is $166 (US) an hour for 60,000 ISK is almost $500. The former seems more out of whack than the latter, though.
Prohibition always drives prices up, so it sounds quite plausible to me.
I actually own a pair of red boots with black laces. I will make a note to keep away from any Prussian centenarians, lest they get the wrong idea about me.
Kudos to the AJWS. It raises a question in my mind. In Europe, Jews are a still a stigmatised minority in many places. Is there this stigma in the US? And, does it take one stigmatised minority to recognise the rights of another one?
re Lack of Evidence – Interesting that Sumatra is promoting oral and anal sex. Well, at least it will avoid teen pregnancy.
“40,000 of the aspiring sugar babies on his site are teachers”
The advantage of this claim is probably more that it plays into the hands of the media looking for salacious gossip rather than the fantasies of aspiring Sugar Daddies. (Thus putting the Website on TV without expensive AD buys.)
The media would love it if this were true, and if they could personally out and destroy the teaching careers of all 40,000 of these imagined teachers, especially if they had both teacher pictures and sexy pictures of the same women to show on their broadcasts. Of course, the good thing is that it is totally made up so nothing to fear.
Teachers, you see, are supposed to fall on the Madonna side of the dichotomy, and the media concludes that it needs to act as the enforcement division for this.
I visit Maggie’s site again today and now I’m in a foul mood reading about all the bullshit the “sex trafficking” busybodies are spouting. I wonder if they and the media hacks like Anderson Cooper really believe what they are spouting is true or is this really a moral crusade in disguise.
My knowledge of Malawi is pretty thin. I know it was extremely puritanical back when Hastings Banda was in charge, but I know nothing about how their views on sexual matters may have changed since then. I kind of assumed they were still really conservative, so I was really thrilled to read that.
Sadly, they may just decide that the lack of a specific law was some horrible oversight, and rush to enact some real prohibitions now.
It was interesting to read the mention of Slut Walk in that piece on Icelandic strip clubs. From the sound of it “anti-trafficking” was a major theme of the Reykjavik march, with its organisers claiming the “abolition” of strip clubs as a major feminist victory, and preaching the need for further criminalisation. That seems very different to the slut walks in the USA, where there were often sex workers marching and speaking at the events.
I’ve seen people hold up slut walks as proof of the global popularity of tolerant, sex-positive feminism, but I guess that depends on the state of feminism in the countries where they take place.
Reminds me of the ‘Reclaim the Streets’ marches we organised in Sydney in the 1980s and 90s.
They were originally not only about making urban streets – especially at night – safe from unlicenced violence but also from police violence. The marches themselves were often broken up violently by police.
But when they spread to other Australian cities – notably Hobart and Perth – they turned into pro-police marches with participants calling for greater police presence on the streets.
Makes you ashamed to be Australian. Where’s Ned Kelly when you need him?
Ah, an extra! Just watched Pretty Baby and the DVD has no extras at all. Maggie’s blog always has extras. 🙂
Here We Go Again
I did look up stuss. A variant of the card game faro. Faro gave such good odds to the gambler (as opposed to the house) that many houses wouldn’t cary it. Stuss was a bit more favorable to the house. It’s seldom played anymore.
The “system” and all the marriages and such seem to be a convoluted way of doing things. The story is much the same today, but trimmed of some of the unneeded complications.
Here’s something that got me: “After paying her debt to society, Annie finds a respectable job.” According to this story she was an innocent victim. She shouldn’t have any “debt to society” to have to pay. Bah, the story made no sense then and it makes no sense now.
Terminology
Reminds me of anncient Rome!
Acting and Activism
Well, they’re following the script in making the girls ever-younger (12 instead of 14), but they’re backing off the ever-increasing number of customers a night (15 is way down from 50).
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
A brothel!? I thought it was just a really kinky family!!
Girls, Girls, Girls!
I have to say, ”if someone out there has a miracle up their butt” is a wonderful phrase.
Not sure why it’s taken me so long, but it has. Ah well.
An Example To the West (TW3 #39)
We in the US still haven’t caught up to the rest of the world in health care or sex ed, but even there we have signs of changing attitudes. So just because a lot of countries start to see the light on prostitution doesn’t mean that we will for another decade or so after them, but even so, things will change. Too slow by far, but they will change.
So Close and Yet So Far
Good on the American Jewish World Service!
Backwards Into the Future (TW3 #41)
It does help if law enforcement is restricted to enforcing laws which actually exist.
Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #51)
IOW, the law is too broad, too vague, and too heavy-handed. Well, we knew that, but it’s nice to see that judges can see it too.
Skin To Skin
We often see the rules change where disability is involved. We say that people shouldn’t get government assistance, they should go get a job, dammit! Unless the person is truly disabled, and then we see that they can’t just “get a job.” Of course some people pride themselves on their heartlessness (though they don’t generally phrase it that way because it sure as hell doesn’t sound like anything to be proud of if you do), but most of us would say that, for instance, a legless, armless, deaf, blind person shouldn’t be expected to do exactly what a fully able-bodied person does. If he can, great, but we usually don’t require that sort of exceptionalism.
So it isn’t that surprising that our knee-jerk “PROSTITUTION BAD!” reflex hesitates a little when disabilities become involved.
OK, I’ll see what (if anything, I know me) I can get done tomorrow. Just saw Star Trek and have some mixed feelings about that, which is to be expected.
The End of the Beginning
Huh. Looks like overly broad, vague, and heavy-handed is still in fashion.
Ad Absurdum
Yeah, that “the victim” stuff is pretty annoying. Apparently, when Hunt turned eighteen and shouted SHAZAM! not only did she instantly go from ALL CHILD to ALL ADULT, but the younger girl suddenly became dumber, unable to consent to the sex she was able to consent to a day before. Then again, I guess that sex with an adult would be different than sex with a child. I’m guessing here, but that twenty-fourth hour is a BIG DEAL.
And now, surprise! it’s time for me to read Surprise!
[…] sumthin sumthin. However, over at The Honest Courtesan Maggie outs Michael Brooks’ dick as an aggressive prick. The Honest Courtesan easily garners more daily hits and – by far – a more sophisticated […]