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Archive for September, 2013

That Was the Week That Was (#338)

Posted in Call types, Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2013| 12 Comments »

Abolitionism does not solve the problem of violence which…stems from the criminalization of sex workers and migrants, and the lack of rights that goes with it.  –  Sonja Dolinsek

Couples

Eve Ray on clients:

…clients of sex workers are regarded in many quarters as the scum of the earth…[so] it is hardly surprising that clients are so reluctant to speak out.  Yet talk to sex workers and they will tell you that their clients come in all shapes and sizes…not all clients are men…for my birthday we decided to…book…a girl from a local escort agency for some three in a bed fun…So I am a sex worker’s client…The girls we saw were bright and attractive and fully aware of what they were doing…Two Women and a Man by Giorgione (1510)We paid them well and they provided us with what we wanted.  It was…a business transaction of benefit to both parties. No coercion, no exploitation, no rape…

Whores and Wives

An Australian woman left her husband upon discovering his affair with a hooker, so she of course blamed our profession and published a stereotype-laden defamation of it.  Here’s an eloquent rebuttal:

…In…Sad Reality Behind Pretty Woman Tale, Louise O’Neale…claims…sex workers are home wreckers, men’s “chattels”, that we’re… “commodified”, “dehumanised”…packages to be bought and sold…She also argues we are sexual deviants…who require professional help.  I think O’Neale has watched too many Hollywood movies…feminists have spent decades…telling [us] how we should feel about our work, or [telling] others on our behalf how we feel about our work…They claim to be experts; they’ve got it dead wrong…

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

Prosecutors must have dropped the claim that the girl was “mentally deficient”:

[Edward Bagley] was sentenced to 20 years…for holding a young woman captive as a sex slave for six years…he…also agreed to pay about $123,000 toward future counseling and medical care…Bradley Cook…received a 20-year sentence and…$123,000 in restitution…[for] sex trafficking…[and Dennis] Henry…was sentenced to 10 years, $123,000 in restitution and lifetime supervision…Marilyn Bagley…is to receive probation and [Michael] Stokes and [James] Noel five years each…

Sweden’s Ultra-progressive Views on Women

A pub in…Sweden has been cleared of discrimination charges after bouncers denied entry to several women of Asian appearance in what owners claimed was an attempt to cut down on prostitution…the court ruled…[the] owners had a “legitimate reason”…

An Educated Idiot

SWOP-NYC and SWANK…have significant questions about the “research” carried out by Sudhir Venkatesh…[and reported] in January 2011…in Wired Magazine…he made many outlandish, salacious, and false claims about…sex workers in NYC…he said he had “followed” 270 sex worker subjects…but none of our membership had ever been contacted by him nor knew of anyone who had been…Claims…regarding the dates, locations and numbers of people…were wildly inconsistent.  His conclusions…were easily shown by other researchers and commentators to be incorrect.  Other conclusions such as the fiction that “there’s usually a 25% surcharge” to have sex without a condom not only bore no relationship to reality but also endangered sex workers…We were so concerned by what we uncovered that in October 2011 we wrote a letter to the Columbia IRB…

Make Up Your Damned Mind!

Cops “fight” violence against sex workers by subjecting them to violence:

A [California] task force…arrested or cited 23 people…on charges of prostitution or soliciting a prostitute…police mounted the three-day sting operation [after]…investigation into the rape and robbery of two prostitutes…led police to…the realization that victims rarely report the crimes for fear of being prosecuted…[Sgt. Kurt] Hixenbaugh said he decided to organize the recent crackdown to suppress the illicit market…“If we can make business bad, then we can put a dent in the activity,” he explained…

Hixenbaugh’s moral retardation is exceeded only by his ignorance of economics.

Dr. Schrödinger and His Amazing Pussycat

Weird science, truth vs. fact and all that kind of stuff:

Head Games

Slixa has published a number of excellent articles lately, but last week its management let a real clunker through:  a manipulative hobbyist giving advice on how to haggle.  After an outcry the editors removed the article, apologized and printed this rebuttal from Tizzy Wall:

…Tommy…advocated using review writing and being an active member of the hobbyist community as a bargaining chip to see if prices are negotiable…[but his] tips are less effective (and ethical) than he would like to believe…There is an implicit threat that comes with, “I am a loud, influential voice in a community that can affect your livelihood”…it seems as though he gets a thrill out of violating boundaries and feeling as though he has somehow tricked a provider for his benefit…The underlying message…is that providers aren’t worth what they charge…

Against Their Will (August Updates)

People attempting to leave a country without government permission are now classed as “victims”:

Philippine authorities have intercepted 10…human trafficking victims…who were bound for Russia to illegally work there…The Philippines has been trying to impress the United States with its anti-human trafficking drive in order for Washington to lift the Tier 2 ranking it gave…in its 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report…officer-in-charge Siegfred Mison said the incident should again serve as a warning to…workers against attempting to leave without the required overseas employment permits…

One Born Every Minute

A man…claimed he could use his penis to rid a woman of ghosts that had taken up residence in her vagina…Huang Jianjun was arrested…after he [charged] A Xin [$3000 for removing]…evil spirits…[via] sexual intercourse…Jianjun insists that he never had sex with…Xin and that he can’t get an erection due to diabetes…Meanwhile… “Godman” Asaram Bapu, 73, revered by millions across India for his sermons on “enlightenment”, has been charged with raping a 16-year-old schoolgirl…he…claimed he is physically incapable of rape but…medical tests show him to be in good shape…

Tyranny By Consensus (October Updates)

Here’s a concise explanation from Nina Hartley about why condoms in porn are an incredibly bad idea:

…It takes about two hours to shoot a good hardcore scene. Condoms were never intended for that kind of industrial use…[they] roll down, come off, dry out, split and otherwise fail on sets about 30% of the time…and…no matter how lubricated and how designed, [they] create more internal friction on a woman’s intimate anatomy than human skin, with which it’s evolved to tolerate contact.  All-condom players…tend to turn up at clinics with raw internal tissues and multiple surface infections.  This we call “condom rash” and it’s more than an annoyance…if your insides are compromised by friction burns and low-grade bugs…you’re that much more vulnerable to whatever might be turned loose should a condom fail…

Presents, Presents, Presents!Minneapolis Madams

Ed says hiI’ve received three gifts in the past two weeks: Chester Brown sent me his book Ed the Happy Clown, Korhomme sent The Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work and Aspasia sent Minneapolis Madams.  Thank you all so much!

Profit from Panic

Rescue industry schemes aren’t usually this blatant:

If you are interested in creating positive brand awareness…advertising at the Global Online Counter Child Trafficking Conference is the ideal platform…We have various opportunities which will leave a strong impression of your brand in people’s minds and make your company stand out as a leader in supporting organizations…to prevent…child trafficking…Our…sponsorship packages…include a number of marketing opportunities…to…showcase your social responsibility…and…align yourself with the Global Online Counter Child Trafficking Conference brand…

Bullies With Badges

“Human trafficking” is rapidly becoming a catchall excuse for tyranny, like drugs and “terrorism”:

…the Environmental Protection Agency…[conducted] an armed raid of gold mines near Chicken, Alaska…while investigating a supposed violation of…the Clean Water Act…The EPA said…it…sent in armed men because it had been given information by…State Troopers regarding “rampant drug and human trafficking…in the area.”  That explanation was debunked by a spokeswoman for the state troopers, who said they did not advise the EPA to raid the mine and that there was no evidence of drug and human trafficking…

Broken Record

The same lies, repeated over and over and over…

MSPs fear that next year’s Commonwealth Games could lead to an influx of victims of human trafficking to Scotland…Myria Vassiliadou…has urged the Scottish Government to make people who procure sex and consumer goods from victims its top anti-trafficking priority.  Studies have shown that authorities must be vigilant to human trafficking during large sporting events…

Studies have, of course, repeatedly shown exactly the opposite.

Worse Than I Thought

The cancer reaches Michigan:

…Glenn Anderson…has introduced five bills…to more heavily punish…human trafficking…“The Polaris Project…was extremely helpful in shaping this legislation” [he said]…Anderson’s bills…Allow for assets…to be forfeited and dispersed to…law enforcement…criminalize the failure to report knowledge of…trafficking…[and] add convicted…traffickers to the Sex Offenders Registry…Overland Park Arboretum statue

See No Evil (TW3 #37)

A fresh effort is underway to bring criminal charges over a bare-breasted statue…The American Family Association…plans…petitions to empanel a grand jury to again investigate whether the sculpture at the Overland Park Arboretum violates state obscenity laws …Phillip Cosby…last year petitioned a grand jury…but failed to secure an indictment…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake

…a federal judge ruled…that…strippers…deserve…at least the minimum wage…The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former dancers at…Rick’s…[in Manhattan]…the…chain…argued that its dancers [are] independent contractors, more akin to stand-up comedians than fry cooks.  But [the] judge…said the list of rules Rick’s laid down could be described as “micromanagement”…

Hollow Claims

“The German Prostitution Model: Reducing Violence Against Sex Workers” is a fairly self-explanatory title, but this short, yet thorough essay also sharply criticizes the Swedish model and those (like the European Women’s Lobby) who labor under the idiotic delusion that there could ever be a world “free from prostitution”, and are willing to subject real women to police violence in pursuit of that mad fantasy.

Due Consideration (TW3 #137)

Australia, are you really sure you want to go down the “tyrannical laws named for dead children” path?

…”Zoe’s law”…which could classify a foetus as a person in New South Wales…would allow grievous bodily harm charges to be brought against those who hurt a foetus of more than 20 weeks’ gestation…Melanie Fernandez…of the Women’s Electoral Lobby Australia (WELA)…said…”This…kind of precedent has been used as a…starting point to roll back abortion right in other places, such as states in America”…Portway's cage

Tales from the Dark Side

“[When] prosecution for thoughtcrime has become a grim reality, it might be wise to restrict…discussions [of cannibalism fantasies] to fully-anonymized online accounts...”  And, I might add, to avoid actually obtaining the equipment one would need:

Geoffrey Portway’s attorney says the man’s “fantasy world” posed no actual threat of harm to a child.  But the…[Massachusetts] man pleaded guilty…to child pornography charges along with solicitation to commit a crime of violence…and the locked, soundproof basement with a metal cage…bondage equipment and a child-sized coffin serve as evidence…Two other men — one a puppeteer at a Florida church — have also been convicted as a result of the online chat sessions…[about] plans to rape, kill and eat children…

Legitimate Outrage (TW3 #329)

Scott Long on the way politicians like David Vitter and Eliot Spitzer suffer far less than the whores whose names get dragged through the mud along with theirs:

…Spitzer…[made] life miserable for both sex workers and clients.  As…Attorney General, he let…Equality Now goad him into a years-long campaign of harassment against a travel company that marketed sex tours…as Governor, he signed an…“anti-trafficking” law…that massively increased penalties for [buyers]…while maintaining penalties for sex workers…But what folks hate Spitzer for is having bought sex, not the repressive policies he promoted.  Paying women is offensive; persecuting them, fine.  Called out for “immorality”…he actually had the nerve to cite his crackdown on consensual activities in his own defense…In 2008, a jury convicted…Deborah Jeane Palfrey not of prostitution, but of money laundering…and “racketeering”…Palfrey killed herself before sentencing…And [her client David] Vitter stays in the Senate…

Whatever They Need To Say (TW3 #337)

…in connection with the attack on Madaripur brothel on August 28…Borun Begum, a sex worker…filed a case…against 35 identified and 1965 unidentified people…[including] general secretary Milon Bhuyan…women affairs officer Mahmuda Akter and Islahe Qawmi Parishad leader Raju Hujur…She…sought compensation for…valuables worth [$385,000] and…properties worth [$64,000]…Parimal Sarkar…filed a case…against 37 identified and 300 unidentified people…seeking compensation of [$77,000]…for [vandalism of] 30 houses…

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Little Tin Gods

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , on September 19, 2013| 20 Comments »

Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods,
When great Jove nods;
But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes
In missing the hour when great Jove wakes.  –  Rudyard Kipling

Even if you clicked on “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever” in Links #165, I doubt you took the time to look at a map to see where St. John the Baptist Parish is.  Well, I’ll save you the trouble: it’s one of three small parishes (that’s Louisianese for “counties”) just west of Greater New Orleans; the three are so similar and so traditionally interlinked that they are referred to collectively as the “River Parishes”.  If one heads west from New Orleans, one first passes through Jefferson Parish (the largest suburb); continuing past the airport one will then, within half an hour by interstate, rapidly pass through St. Charles, St. John the Baptist and St. James Parishes (in that order).  This is the general region where I grew up, and I have friends and family in all three parishes.  When I was a wee lass they were all semi-rural, but St. Charles began to build up in the late ‘70s due to urban sprawl from New Orleans; St. John the Baptist’s turn came ten years later, and then surged again after Hurricane Katrina.  And St. James is still fairly small-towny, with less than half the population of St. John.River Parishes map
The reason I’m going over all this isn’t just because I saw and featured an out-of-control-cops-murdering-innocent citizens story from a place I know well; after all, I feature similar stories every week, sometimes from New Orleans (which I know just as well).  No, it’s because that story was only one of several such stories from St. John in a relatively short time.  When one considers that the parish only has about 45,000 people, this number of incidents may seem quite astonishing…unless one knows what I know about American sheriffs in general, and Southern sheriffs in particular, and Louisiana sheriffs especially particularly, and St. John Parish…well, you get the idea.  My international readers may not realize just how unaccountable to higher authority the sheriffs in most American states are; many of them run their counties like their own private fiefdoms, and head political machines which keep them in their offices for decades.  And once the precedent is established, the culture doesn’t usually change merely because one sheriff dies or finally decides to retire; no, the next one often continues just like his predecessor did even if they’re of (ostensibly) different political parties, much like feudal barons inheriting their domains from their fathers.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking this only applies to rural counties, either; some of the worst offenders reign over urban or populous suburban areas.  I suspect Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona (site of Phoenix)  needs no introduction, but you might be less familiar with other specimens of his ilk such as Grady Judd of Polk County, Florida (600,000 people) and the late Harry Lee of Jefferson Parish.

As you can probably guess, the deputies (county cops) of tyrannical sheriffs take their cues from their liege-lords, and behave accordingly; those who imagine my dislike of cops only dates back to my sex work career, or to my especially brutal treatment by three sheriff’s deputies in 1995, have obviously never lived under the tyrannical regime of a Louisiana sheriff.  I had already learned to dislike and distrust cops long before I left high school; in fact, the first time I ever heard the expression which forms today’s title was from my mother’s lips when I was about ten, in reference to the sheriff of our parish.  Y’all don’t know my mother, but let’s just say that for her that was essentially the equivalent of calling him a thrice-damned son of a bitch.  So I wasn’t actually surprised when I read back in January that St. John deputies had murdered a middle-aged woman for refusing to get out of her car, then planted a gun on her to provide an excuse for the deed; nor was I particularly shocked when I read that they had murdered another woman for having a rifle slung across her back, then gunned down her husband for complaining about it.  After all, this is the same parish where a deputy once thought it would be funny to throw tear gas canisters into the jail and then close up all the ventilation, nearly killing dozens of men (this was in the early ‘90s and doesn’t seem to be available online).  And it’s the same parish which re-elected (as “parish president”) a former sheriff who had done time for extortion, only to see him convicted and sentenced again for the same crime (its sheriff’s office has, in fact, been a festering bog of corruption since at least the 1960s).

The “blue wall of silence” in pocket dictatorships like St. John is like it is everywhere; cops cover up for one another.  So while reports of murders and mayhem from down there don’t surprise me, this one did:

A Louisiana sheriff fired his chief deputy – who is an attorney – for objecting to the sheriff’s secretly recording conversations between criminal suspects and their attorneys…Tregg Wilson sued St. John the Baptist Parish and its Sheriff Mike Tregre…Wilson claims he confronted Tregre after he learned of secret cameras on loop in the interview room at the sheriff’s office, where criminal suspects meet for private conversations with their attorneys…

Mike Tregre's powerTregre’s megalomania is apparently so advanced, he didn’t realize that as soon as he fired Wilson the latter would report him to the feds for his incredibly illegal actions.  Now, in a way I suppose recording privileged conversations isn’t really as bad as murdering citizens; after all, as Scott Greenfield pointed out, “It only applies to the ones who survived arrest, and shouldn’t they be seriously thankful the deputies didn’t just kill them in the first place?”  And hey, if the federal government can record every single one of our electronic conversations, why can’t one of its minor vassals do the same?  It’s not like the deck isn’t hopelessly stacked against criminal defendants anyhow.  But we live in a looking-glass country, where the worship-word “liberty” is still sacred despite the total abrogation of nearly every constitutional guarantee of it, where police smashing down people’s doors without warrants, destroying their property and murdering their pets and children is said to be for the victims’ “protection”, and where $400 million per life saved is considered reasonable if the threat is “terrorism”, but sums a minuscule fraction of that aren’t if the threat is anything else.  So I guess it’s wholly predictable that the feds yawn when people are murdered by cops, but launch a full-scale investigation when those same cops just eavesdrop; after all, they’ve never claimed a monopoly on murder, but do (apparently) want one on snooping.  We can’t have these little tin gods in the provinces thinking they’re the equal of the great big brazen idols in Washington, now can we?

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New Kid on the Block

Posted in Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on September 18, 2013| 21 Comments »

I have recently started an account on a popular escort review site and attempted to contact several ladies, but because I don’t have an established history, they’ve all either failed to respond or turned me down because I can’t provide any referrals.  I’m sure I haven’t been lewd or inappropriate in any way, and all of my information has been forthright, so I’m hoping you can shed some light on why nobody will see me. 

Woman Avoiding a Kiss from a Man by Alberto RuggieriYou need to approach women who advertise as “newbie friendly”.  Due to the cops pursuing internet “stings” much more aggressively than in the past, many escorts have become extremely nervous in the past few years; it used to be that the majority of hookers arrested were streetwalkers (because they’re “low-hanging fruit” and cops are lazy), but due to all the hype about Backpage, federal (and even private) funds are now available for “detectives” to cruise the internet all day, attempting to trick women so they can humiliate, bind, cage and sometimes even rape them.  And while an escort who was arrested in the past could just pay a fine and be done, thanks to “trafficking” hysteria many jurisdictions won’t accept that; since the narrative is that we’re all “victims” with “pimps”, some places will hold an arrested sex worker indefinitely until she agrees to produce the name of her “pimp”…who probably doesn’t exist.  And when you add the danger of having her possessions stolen and her children abducted, you can see why many ladies are far more cautious nowadays, especially if you live in an area where the cops have adopted these evil tactics.

Escorts who advertise as “newbie friendly” use a screening system which is less dependent on referrals, and are thus more likely to see you without them.  And after you’ve seen a couple of these ladies, you can use them as referrals to see others.  Alternately, you could pay a verification service like Preferred 411 to discreetly research your background; you would then provide your P411 identification to an escort you wish to see, and if she agrees to meet she gives you an “OK” after the date.  As you accumulate “OKs” (and other referrals) you will find you have less and less difficulty in securing appointments.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Just Call Me Nobody

Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 17, 2013| 52 Comments »

I’m nobody, who are you?  –  Emily Dickinson

It’s a kind of black joke among sex workers that everyone is an expert in our lives except us.  That poorly-named, rare quality called “common sense” would tell anyone who possessed it that in order to understand what any given profession, trade, lifestyle or other social phenomenon is actually like, one must talk to those who actually live it.  But because so-called “common sense” is anything but common, all too many fools are all too ready to listen to people who have never done sex work, yet proclaim themselves experts in our lives.  What’s worse, they insist that they know them better than we do, that we are suffering from “false consciousness” and are therefore unfit to talk about what sex work is like…unless we agree with them, of course, at which point we instantly and miraculously become experts not only in our own experiences, but those of all other sex workers of every background, type and temperament in every country in the world.

And so, barely the week passes that we don’t see some new, self-appointed “sex trafficking” expert crawl out from under a rock, seeking to gobble up as much attention and money as possible before the hysteria ends.  Interestingly, when these “experts” first appear, they often make unorthodox statements;Lindsey Roberson before too long, however, they fall into line with the catechism, and nobody ever notices that they’ve changed their tunes.  Here’s an example of one of these hyenas; I’ve chosen to feature her not only to demonstrate the rhetorical shift I mentioned and to highlight the nonsense these revolting opportunists vomit out, but also to share a rare example of whores being able to orchestrate an effective rebuttal to one of the yellow articles which mindlessly parrot the dogma.  Her name is Lindsey Roberson, and I’m sure everyone reading this totally believes that her sex appeal had absolutely nothing to do with obtaining a spotlight for her wicked crusade against other women who use their sex appeal to make a living:

The elemental difference between sex trafficking and freelance prostitution is in who has the control and who is keeping the money, Roberson says.  If a girl or a woman is being forced or coerced by a pimp to perform sex acts without monetary gain, that’s trafficking…Educating law enforcement, injecting hope for victims of sex trafficking and fear for the perpetrators of it in North Carolina has become 31-year-old Roberson’s mantle…[she helped write]…the…Safe Harbor bill…[that] would allow prostituted women to wipe their records clean…and…instill harsher penalties for pimps…the North Carolina Coalition to Combat Human Trafficking ranks North Carolina in the top 10 states for the problem.  The convergence of three major highways connecting much of the East Coast, the state’s large transient military population, agricultural roots, and ports…all make it attractive to traffickers, Roberson says…Roberson’s interest in trafficking started with…New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and articles he wrote about sex trafficking…she…is also on the board of a new faith-based effort…called the Centre of Redemption… “Prostitution is not just the oldest profession…it’s the oldest oppression, and it has to stop.”

This hodgepodge is a lot more telling to those of us who are actual experts than Roberson might like.  Of course there’s North Carolina’s unusually-idiotic entry in the King of the Hill competition (which bizarrely claims that low-population areas are especially attractive to “traffickers”), but we’ve seen that one before.  No, the really interesting part is that though she’s solidly a fundie (who claims God wants her to persecute people), she’s “inspired” by arch-“progressive” nanny-state cheerleader Nick Kristof and is happy to use neofeminist terms and slogans, thus demonstrating once again the absurdity of the artificial “left-right” framework and showing that puritans will get into bed with anybody to advance their war on consensual sex.  But though back in July Roberson admitted that many prostitutes were in the trade of our own free will and even seemed to imply we’re the majority, somebody must have “corrected” her because by late August she was saying this:

…Roberson adds that public misconceptions about sex trafficking are also part of the problem.  “There’s this myth of choice, that a woman chooses to get into this.  Find me a college educated, well adjusted woman who’s had tons of opportunities in her life, who understands what a healthy relationship is and who’s actually experienced one and then chooses to sell her body for sex.  Nobody does that.  These people are coming from situations of desperation.”

a bunch of nobodiesThe rest of the article is the usual “300,000 children-average age of entry is 13-Backpage is evil-selling their bodies” idiocy, right down to the Profession of Faith.  But for some reason Roberson’s vile attempt to slander nearly every sex worker I know, her wicked attempt to erase us from existence, her disgusting declaration that I either don’t exist or am a liar, really pissed me off.  So I commented on the story and then went onto Twitter to ask others to do the same: the result is an unbroken string of 11 women, mostly university-educated, repudiating Roberson’s claims.  If any of you reading this haven’t added yours yet, please do so; we want everyone who reads that story to see the truth right next to Roberson’s lies.  Will it do any good?  Probably not discernibly so.  But minds are changed one at a time, and I know I’ve changed many with this blog and via Twitter.  If even a couple of people reading that story see through the “trafficking” scam because of those comments, the slight effort we had to expend was well worth it.  And one day, after the hysteria collapses and we’ve repeated this sort of action umpteen thousand more times, the public will at last collectively come to realize that even if they don’t like our choices, they were ours to make and no mythic “pimps” or cartoon-villain clients forced us into them.

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Fictional Interlude: Rose

Posted in Fiction, tagged , , , , , on September 16, 2013| 38 Comments »

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm
That flies in the night
In the howling storm

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.  –  William Blake

set table with rosesNo matter how long I’m with Jerry, I never fail to get excited when he comes home from a business trip!  I always put extra effort into making sure the house is clean from top to bottom and end to end, and I always fix him something really special for dinner, one of those dishes that takes a lot of extra work.  This time I decided to do a Greek moussaka; I found some really lovely eggplants at the grocery, and I have everything timed perfectly so he won’t have to wait long after he gets home.  Jerry always hates for dinner to be late, but he especially hates it when he arrives from travel because he won’t eat airline food, so he’ll be ravenous.  Poor dear!  I’m so very fortunate not to have to travel farther than the shops; being banged around on public conveyances always upsets me so.

Over the past few days I’ve really had time to think, and I believe I’ve come up with the perfect plan for rekindling his interest.  I suppose it was inevitable that his eyes and mind would begin to stray after a while; it’s the way men are constructed, after all, and one can’t blame any creature for following its programming!  At the same time it hurts every time I catch him looking at some gorgeous model, and perhaps fantasizing that he might replace me with her.

Well, that’s all going to stop!  Since we’ve already explored every fantasy he had and a few he discovered on the video, something new was called for.  So I went online to talk to some of my friends, and to ask their advice; Daisy gave me the address of this site with all manner of sex tips and tricks, and even a function which uses the activities and fantasies a person enjoys to predict other ones he might like.  And I think I’ve got one that will really impress him!  After dinner and coffee I’ll massage his feet while he watches a few shows, and when it’s time I’ll spring it on him.

Jerry doesn’t like my going online any more than I absolutely have to; he says it isn’t safe, that there is some really horrible malware out there right now, and that if I do go online I should stick only to established, well-known sites.  So I’m sure he’d be angry with me if I told him where I picked up my new bedroom activities, but I think he’ll be so happy he won’t think to ask…and if he does ask later, I’ll just have to take the consequences.  I don’t mind losing a few privileges for a while if it revives our relationship.

Still, it’s pretty frustrating to have to do all this.  It’s not like I haven’t worked hard to please him for the past ten years; I still look exactly as I always have, and I can see the men staring at me whenever I go into town.  Everything in the house is always immaculate, and I’m very careful to keep up the maintenance schedule so nothing breaks down when he needs it.  I even took the time to learn about his ex-wife’s bad habits so as to be absolutely sure I didn’t accidentally copy them.  I give him everything he wants in bed, and everything he wants at table, and I’ve never embarrassed him in front of his friends, not even that awful Warren who can’t keep his hands to himself.  And after all that, for him to still get tired of me…well, it hurts, a lot.  And then this morning on the phone, I found out that he’s been travelling with a woman, his new secretary, and I could just tell she was one of those little sluts who will use her sex appeal to wrap the boss around her little finger.  It made me so upset I actually broke a plate…not on purpose, of course, but it’s still the first one I’ve ever broken, and that snapped me back to myself right away.

I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me; why do I feel this way?  I’ve never been one to behave erratically or to cause trouble, not even on the rare occasions when I’ve come down with a virus or something.  Ever since yesterday I’ve been so agitated that it actually frightens me; I don’t even have a word for this feeling!  Well, after tonight I won’t have to worry about it; I’ll surprise Jerry with my new technique, and he’ll fall in love with me all over again, and we’ll live happily ever after.

*********************************************************************

“Are you sure she’s safe, Doc?”

“Perfectly.  I deleted the past three days of her memory and set her inhibitor software to maximum; she doesn’t really comprehend what’s going on and literally couldn’t hurt a fly now.”

“But why don’t you just shut her down completely?”eye with rose

“Because the Bellaflora series has a volatile operating system; it’s part of what lets them mimic human behavior so perfectly.  If I shut her down, we won’t be able to analyze her to find out what happened…and given that there are about 1500 of her model in this city alone, I’d say it’s pretty important that we do, don’t you?”

The detective looked around at the blood-spattered furniture, the medics carrying out their grisly burden in a plastic bag, the forensic team pointlessly gathering evidence that would never be used because the murderer was not in question; the meat cleaver was still in her hand when they arrived.  “Yeah, I’d say.  But Doc, what the hell did happen?”

He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose and pulled out a pill case, offering the detective one as well.  “Ever seen any really old science fiction?” he asked.

“What, like 20th-century stuff?  Not really.  My wife is the classic film buff; I like comedies.”

“Way back when robots were just a science fiction concept, still many decades in the future, one common trope was that they would have no emotions; in fact, plots often hinged on the idea that emotions are what defines a human.  Of course, that’s bunk; emotions are really primitive things, not a specifically human characteristic at all.  Any fish can feel fear, any snake anger.  And if there’s a love more pure and perfect than that of a dog, we’ve never discovered it.  No, emotions are easy to program; they’re reflexive and automatic, and can be installed as firmware.  Abstract reasoning, moral judgment…those are the cognitive functions that define a human, and we haven’t come up with a really good artificial simulation of them yet.”

“But Doc, if that’s true, why aren’t robots committing murders all the time?”

“Because we choose which emotions to give them, and of course it’s always things like love, loyalty, happiness, pride of accomplishment, that sort of thing.  Even guard robots are motivated by loyalty to their charges, not aggression.”

“Then how…” the detective trailed off.

“It looks like somebody figured out how to simulate jealousy, and to install it via a worm; she probably picked it up from some dodgy website.”  Then, turning to the gynoid sitting quietly in her chair, he said, “Come along, Rose.”

“But Dr. Morton, I have to wait for Jerry; he’ll be home in a few hours, and your boys have made an awful mess of the place.”

“Jerry’s been delayed, dear; he asked me to tell you he won’t be home until Friday, and said I could borrow you to help with some research I’m doing.”

Her face broke into a bright, happy smile.  “Oh, I’m very good at assisting and organizing!  I always do exactly as I’m programmed, with a very high degree of thoroughness and efficiency!”

“I know that, Rose,” he said sadly.  “I’ve seen your work.” Bloody Rose by Minzuki (2012)

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Links #167

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 15, 2013| 26 Comments »

I don’t care if they’re in kindergarten or if they’re seniors in high school, they know the rules.  –  Mike Riley

My Friday the Thirteenth event went extremely well this time, as those of you who follow me on Twitter (or pay close attention to the comment threads) already know; there were 19 contributions altogether including the reblogs, and several of those were on very popular websites (including Reason and Popehat).  The next one will be in December, and I’ll list all of the names and links of the posts in my column for that day.  If you wanted to participate but didn’t have the time (or just forgot), you can still get in to that column just by sending me the link, and I’ll update it with those as I can.  Radley Balko was our top link contributor this week, but not by much; he only barely squeaked out three others who tied for second place with two links each.  The first video was provided by my cat, and the second by Aspasia (who also supplied “science”); the links between the videos were contributed by Cliterati (“cats and bacon”),  Carol Fenton (“105” and “prisons”), Mistress Matisse (“eating”), Jemima (“fast food”), Lenore Skenazy (“climbing” and “bullies”), Jesse Walker (“graphic novel”), Nun Ya (“walking”), Cop Block (“slot machines”), and Grace (“royalty”).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#337)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 14, 2013| 33 Comments »

Hating on models, sex workers, and similar seems to be a significant subtext of what [feminist] groups support…yet they are often the first to ask why young women don’t want to call themselves feminists.  –  Brooke Magnanti

Rough Trade

California has a crime victims’ compensation program…

…which helps people out with expenses like medical treatment or mental health care…you’re ineligible…if you have any other means of getting them, whether that’s insurance, a wealthy aunt, or a court ruling.  The program’s…regulations [also] disqualify anyone who was hurt while “involved” in an act of prostitution…

BDSMNaked Bear-type Man Chopping Wood by Charlie Goodwin

…A 35-year-old [Austrian] woman advertizing herself as a dominatrix promised strict discipline to paying clients on her farm…[but] the men found themselves consigned to farm labor such as chopping wood in the nude and mowing the lawn while wearing black fetish masks…in effect, they were paying for the privilege of doing farm work…

License to Rape

One wonders what his “informal training” consisted of:

A…San Bernardino police officer was arrested…on charges that he forced two prostitutes to have sex with him while he was on duty…Jose Jesus Perez, 46, was indicted on four civil rights offenses that involved aggravated sexual abuse “while acting under the color of law”…If convicted, Perez faces a maximum sentence of life in federal prison…Perez…had informally trained other officers on how to interact with prostitutes…

The Swedish Pimpocracy

The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) has a close partnership with the US National Security Agency (NSA) and British GCHQ, according to information provided to the European Parliament…investigative journalist Duncan Campbell…told the committee that…Sweden was the third major partner in the surveillance cooperation…

Decentralization

“We don’t know if Birmingham, UK-based Passion VIP is…the first escort agency to add bitcoin to its…payment options, but…we have not heard of another one…”Tracy Elise

Size Matters

…Tracy Elise has fired her attorney and has chosen to represent herself in court…she also filed six motions ranging from being allowed to travel to being allowed to use the internet.  Two years ago, police raided…the Phoenix Goddess Temple…[claiming] it was a house of prostitution, but parishioners said they were just practicing their religion…

The Punitive Mindset

…The balance between crackdowns that play to punitive public sentiment and a public health approach that will actually reduce harm and prove most effective in protecting communities is one [Lord Chancellor] Chris Grayling should bear in mind, as he considers a crackdown on sex in prison…The prison service instruction manual states:  “there is no rule specifically prohibiting sexual acts between prisoners, but if they are observed by someone who finds (or could potentially find) their behaviour offensive, a charge…may be appropriate”…this results in…a system ripe for abuse…A blanket ban on sex in prison leads to prisoners failing to report rape or sexual assault for fear of punishment…[some] prisons refuse to issue barrier protection…some prisoners are sanctioned for requesting too many condoms.  One prison governor even said they had no need to issue…[them] as his prison contained no homosexuals…

Where Are the Protests?

As usual when sex isn’t involved, the word “trafficking” is entirely absent:

…America…[has an] underground market for adopted children, a loose Internet network where desperate parents seek new homes for kids they regret adopting…Through Yahoo and Facebook groups… the unwanted children [are passed]…to strangers with little or no government scrutiny, sometimes illegally…The practice is called “private re-homing,” a term typically used by [pet] owners…most of the children ranged in age from 6 to 14 and had been adopted from abroad…

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Except for the predictable whorearchy (“dancers resort to prostitution”, etc) this is a decent article about how the summer slump in New Orleans affects the stripping business.  It affects escorts as well, of course, though in my experience it tends to recover more quickly in September for escorts than for strippers.  Since I don’t write much about my stripping days, readers may find it interesting that the first club mentioned in the story was the first one I ever danced at, though it had a different name back then.illegal anti-whore sign

Legal Is As Legal Does (TW3 #7)

Outspoken Christchurch [New Zealand] city councillor Aaron Keown has taken matters into his own hands to ban sex workers from Manchester St.  Residents woke on [August 27th] to find the street plastered with “No Street Workers” signs…Two days later…council workers removed them, saying [they] were illegal.  Keown, who paid for and installed the signs himself…said…police and council bylaws had failed to keep prostitutes out of the residential area…[he] plans to create another set of signs next week…

Held Together With Lies (TW3 #14)

Even with new and vastly-broadened definitions, UNODC still only claims that “40,000 people…came into contact with the authorities as trafficking victims in 2012”, very similar to the 24,000 it claimed had been “rescued” last year.  Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

First They Came for the Hookers…

Lap dancing clubs could soon be banned in Glasgow under plans for a tough new licensing regime…new criteria for sexual ­entertainment venues…will allow councils…to set the number of sexual entertainment licences they permit…at zero.  Glasgow City Council has called for the power, which would effectively ban lap dancing bars in the city…Currently lap dancing clubs only need a public entertainment licence, which cannot take into ­account the type of entertainment being offered…

Because obviously, bans on stripping are always 100% effective.

Reframing

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #34)

The man in charge of tackling human trafficking and organised prostitution in Northern Ireland has come out against proposals to make it an offence to pay for sex…PSNI Detective Superintendent Philip Marshall has denied that human trafficking is a bigger problem here than elsewhere and revealed that men purchasing sex have sometimes reported human trafficking to the police…Lord Morrow has argued that similar legislation in Sweden led to a big decrease in human trafficking and street prostitution.  These assumptions have been challenged by DS Marshall, who…fears that Lord Morrow’s proposal would not help matters and would prevent men…reporting any suspicions they had…

Enough is Enough

The powerful story of a woman who understood the difference “between saving a life and prolonging a dying”:

My mother died shortly before her 85th birthday, in a quiet hospital room in Connecticut…She slept in her own bed until the night before…[and] was lucid and conscious to the end.  She avoided what most fear and many ultimately suffer:  dying mute, unconscious and “plugged into machines”…or…demented in a nursing home.  She died well because she was willing to die too soon rather than too late…

Poe Folks

Jemima ably mocks a recent anti-whore article by casting it as self-parody:

The New Statesman isn’t known for its sense of humour so it was a great surprise to see this amazing parody piece by Sarah Ditum  showing other journalists how not to write about…sex workers.  First…she shows how [headlines] can set the entire tone for a piece, cleverly creating straw man questions:  Can a feminist ever support the sex industry? followed by insinuations about the mental state of any sex worker with…what kind of society is it that makes that a rational choice for women? Fabulously done, a question that is meaningless…[followed by] a “have you stopped beating your wife yet” question…The Two Paths

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #38)

Criminalizing things makes them magically vanish!

Switzerland has raised the legal age of prostitution…[to fall] in line with an international convention it signed in 2010…it [is now] a criminal act to pay for sex with anyone who is under 18…[instead of] 16…People who pay for sex with [illegal workers or look at pictures of them]…face up to three years in prison…brothels or escort services that hire anyone under 18 could face up to 10 years…

The Public Eye (TW3 #49)

Here’s a long-form review of American Courtesans by a marriage therapist:

…American Courtesans [is] an invaluable resource for therapists, clients, sex workers…[and] the general public…it’s important to call attention to the sex-negative view our society holds…anyone who is open about their needs, desires…and…sex can become a target for judgment, criticism, and even violence…Society wants to “invisibilize” these needs and desires and sex work makes them explicit…

Dirty Laundry (TW3 #135)

Sadistic Irish judges apparently think it’s funny to rob sex workers and give their money to an organization dedicated to destroying their entire profession: “Two Romanian nationals have been given custodial sentences after gardai raided a brothel…A substantial amount of cash was seized…along with paraphernalia linked to prostitution…Judge Conal Gibbons…instructed that the money…be donated to Ruhama…”

An Ounce of Prevention (TW3 #312)

An HIV vaccine created by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University may be able to completely wipe out the…virus from the body…[it] is being tested…in monkeys [and] researchers hope…[it] will soon be able to be tested in humans…The approach uses cytomegalovirus, or CMV…a common virus…carried by a large percentage of the population…researchers found…infected cells were sought out and destroyed…

Real People (TW3 #316)Fish Girl

Here’s a nice little profile of Siouxsie Q of The WhoreCast, who’s currently performing in a play she wrote called Fish Girl (in which she portrays a mermaid).  The article also mentions the legal difficulties to which I alluded in the last paragraph of “The Free Speech Mafia”.

An Example to the West (TW3 #316)

“Sex workers in Jamaica gathered…to demand rights, respect and dignity…the Caribbean Sex Workers Collective are ‘advocating for equal rights, and an end to stigma and discrimination’…”

Policing for Profit

Sam Leino was ultimately convicted on a single charge of possessing prescription drugs…For that, his wife and their three children are homeless…“the Philadelphia DA has made civil forfeiture into a vast, unaudited revenue stream, profiting from an upside-down legal process through which the DA has the power to bleed property owners dry of financial resources…with minimal or no evidence of criminal wrongdoing”…Because the owner of a piece of property…needn’t even be charged…the Leinos had already lost their home by the time Sam Leino was convicted…In fact, the government can actually freeze your assets before any proceedings begin, making it difficult to hire legal representation for either your criminal trial, or to…reclaim your property.  In this case, the Philadelphia DA’s office actually evicted…[the family] from their home…The office…eventually withdrew the claim…[because] the family had fallen behind on their mortgage payments and the bank foreclosed, meaning that the home was no longer theirs for the government to take…

Buttons, Bags & Banknotes

After publishers of Front, Nuts, Zoo and the Sunday Sport…refused to put their titles into sealed modesty bags, the Co-op has [announced it]…will no longer stock those titles.  It is unclear which lads’ mags will remain on the shelves in modesty bags – but…(physical) lad’s mag sales were falling anyway…if major retailers were making the money they used to from carrying the magazines, this campaign wouldn’t have had any traction at all…[model] Jodie Marsh blasted the Co-op’s decision on Twitter, suggesting that the groups involved with the campaign to ban lad’s mags “need to turn their attentions to areas where women really need help”…

Whatever They Need To Say (TW3 #336)vandalized brothel

The outrage continues in Bangladesh:

Hundreds of Islamists  vandalized and looted  a 250-year-old brothel in…Madaripur…and…threatened to harm the remaining workers further if they did not leave the area…the local leaders of both main political parties…are not only competing to buy Muslims’ votes…but are also interested in ejecting the sex workers from the downtown area in order to seize the valuable two-acre lot…

And to add insult to injury:

The…attack…rendered at least 500 sex workers shelterless…the infirmaries in the district refuse them essential treatments…[after] the attackers…warned the hospital authorities not to give [them] any healthcare…Some of them have had their ears and noses cut when attackers whisked their ornaments away…The attack…was a clear violation of a High Court order…Mahmuda Akhter – district Women Affairs Officer – was tasked with investigation into the incident, but…allegedly joined hands with the attackers…[saying] “I am with the majority.  No one wants a brothel in the city centre”…

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Friday the Thirteenth Again

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 13, 2013| 54 Comments »

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.  –  Martin Luther King, Jr.

red umbrella ballToday is the first Friday the 13th in fourteen months, and since I’ve picked up quite a few readers since July of 2012 a number of you are probably wondering what that has to do with anything.  Well, it’s just this:  from soon after the beginning of this blog, I’ve asked those of you who aren’t sex workers yourselves to speak up for our rights on this day.  The gay rights movement didn’t really take off until the friends and families of gay people got involved, and it’s the same for us; since only about 1% of Western women ever formally work as whores, we’re going to need a lot of help to make our voices heard.  We need all the sex workers (such as strippers, dominatrices and porn actresses) whose fields aren’t currently criminalized, and the sugar babies and other women who have informally or indirectly taken money for sex at least once (which might be as high as 10% of all women).  We need all of the men who hire us at least occasionally, which comes to about 20% of the adult male population.  We need all of the women who recognize that cops can’t tell the difference between professionals and amateurs, and that laws which can be used to arrest us will also work to arrest you.  We need all of those who love porn, polyamory, BDSM or kink, because even though policing of sex usually starts with harlots, it never stops with us.  We need all of the public health and human rights experts who understand the necessity of decriminalization in light of their respective fields, all of the libertarians who recognize that governmental prohibition of consensual behavior is both indefensible and dangerous to individual liberty, and all of the feminists who recognize that a woman’s right to control her own body and make her own sexual and economic choices is the primary feminist issue.  And we need all of the decent human beings who don’t fall into any of those categories, but are simply disgusted by the idea of armed thugs arresting, humiliating and ruining people for the “crime” of consensual sex.

I understand that many of you, especially the men, are not in a position of being able to speak out publicly without suffering some sort of censure or risking the hostility of wives, girlfriends and female co-workers.  But fortunately, we live in an age where it’s easy to speak anonymously:

…talk about the issue with someone who will listen, make a post on a discussion board, comment on a news story which spreads disinformation, or even just post a link to this column.  If you aren’t confident in your ability to debate, even a simple phrase like “I think adult women should have the right to decide why and with whom they want to have sex” or “everyone has the right to equal protection under the law” might have a tiny but important impact on those who overhear.

If you’re in a position to speak or write but you’re at a loss for strategy, my last Friday the 13th column had some useful suggestions that might inspire you.  And if you have a blog of your own, I’m asking you pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top to try; even just a short post would help to amplify the message.  Last year, Dr. Sarah and Amazing Susan heeded the call, and this year I’m hoping for a veritable crowd; whenever one of y’all posts, be sure to email me or announce it in a comment so I can share the link on Twitter.  And don’t worry if you can’t get the post done until later today: every single post y’all make today will be announced and linked in my next Friday the 13th column, only three months down the road on December 13th.  And yes, reblogs of this column are acceptable, and will get your name on the honor roll come December.  It’s time we let the prohibitionists know that if they want to pick on sex workers, we have a whole lot of brothers and sisters they’re going to have to face as well.Forget Your Troubles by Claudia (2010)

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The Kisaeng

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2013| 17 Comments »

Oh that I might capture the essence of this deep midwinter night
And fold it softly into the waft of a spring-moon quilt,
Then fondly uncoil it the night my beloved returns.  –  Hwang Jini

Sex work is so stigmatized, slandered and hidden in modern Western society that it is difficult for most modern Westerners to comprehend just how normal it was in pre-industrial societies, and how woven into the fabric of those societies.  Nowadays we are wont to draw sharp lines between prostitutes, mistresses, girlfriends, actresses, dancers, masseuses and other groups of women, but for most of human history the distinctions between various types of non-wives from whom men could obtain sex were blurry at best.  Consider that courtesans such as the Madame de Pompadour and Jane Shore were still considered harlots despite the fact that all their liaisons were long-term and their total lifetime count of sex partners was lower than most modern women (who would be extremely offended to be called whores) rack up before graduating from university; also remember that working-class women from Roman times until well into the 20th century often supplemented their meager earnings by selling sex on the side, and you’ll begin to understand why the idea of the prostitute as a specific, “fallen” kind of woman only dates to the 19th century (and seems so ridiculous to those who know anything about it).  That’s why modern assertions that certain historical types of women (such as geisha) were “not prostitutes” are so absurd and wrongheaded; even if these women did not openly advertise and sell sex to a large number of clients, there is no doubt that compensated sex was on the menu for at least some clients, and that in Christian Europe they absolutely would have been classified as whores.

kisaeng in Pyongyang (c 1910)The kisaeng of feudal Korea are a case in point.  Though some authorities insist that they were definitely not prostitutes, or that only the lowest of the three classes of kisaeng were, or that only some did that job, the distinction simply isn’t a useful one.  Whether a given woman took money for sex or not was wholly immaterial to her status; that was always cheonmin, the lowest caste of Korean society except for the baekjeong (untouchables). The cheonmin included members of all “unclean” professions including butchers, entertainers, jailers, metalworkers, prostitutes, shamans, shoemakers and sorcerers; they were not all slaves, but slaves were drawn from this caste.  Kisaeng were technically slaves, and after 1650 they were all owned by the government; due to their high degree of training they were treated much better than ordinary slaves, but they were still owned by the state, and the price of freedom was so high it could only be paid by wealthy men (if such a man wanted one as a concubine).

There were three ways a girl could become a kisaeng: she could be born to a kisaeng mother (since caste was hereditary), sold to a kisaeng house by parents who could not afford to raise her, or drop out of the upper classes due to some unforgiveable breach of the complex and rigid Korean social rules.  Training started young (as early as eight) and their careers were extremely short: they usually began active duty about 15, peaked about 17, and retired by age 22.  During the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897) this was codified into law; they were forced to retire from entertainment duties (including prostitution, singing and such) by 30, though they could continue working at non-entertainment tasks until 50.  Like the geisha of Japan, kisaeng were trained in poetry, music, dance, art, conversation and the like; in fact, one particular poetic form (the sijo) came to be associated with them, and some famous examples are basically advertisements intended to entice gentlemen to buy their sexual services.  But some kisaeng were also trained in needlework and medicine; since Korean doctors were not permitted to see noblewomen naked, their examination and hands-on treatment was the province of medical kisaeng under the direction of a doctor.  The haengsu, highest of the three tiers of kisaeng, were in charge of training after they retired; those of the two lower tiers who were not taken as concubines generally retired by working as seamstresses, food preparers, tavern keepers or the like.  Though some kisaeng became wealthy enough to support themselves, this did not happen nearly as frequently as among European courtesans.

Scenery on Dano Day by Hyewon (c 1800)Korean society was strict and regimented at every level, and the kisaeng were no exception; they were registered and forced to report twice a month to a bureaucrat called the hojang to ensure that they could not flee servitude without soon being missed.  Their day-to-day affairs, however, (including disputes with clients) were supervised by the haengsu.  Prior to the ascent of the Joseon Dynasty this was much looser, but the Joseons were Confucian and thus deeply enamored of hierarchy and regimentation.  For the first two centuries of Joseon rule there were frequent calls for the abolition of the kisaeng, but wiser heads always prevailed because it was understood that without sex workers, officials would be much more likely to satisfy their extramarital urges with other men’s wives.  The subjugation of all kisaeng to strict government control was thus a compromise with those who imagined society could do without whores, just as modern legalization schemes are.  After 1650 some kisaeng were assigned to a specific government office; these were called gwan-gi, and though officeholders were strictly forbidden from having sex with them, in practice they were usually expected and often forced to provide sex to these bureaucrats (because some things never change).  Many kisaeng who were not bound directly to government service had a gibu, or boyfriend; he got sex and companionship in exchange for protection, presents and economic support.  Most gibu were lesser officials, military officers or the like, and though they had no legal status they sometimes became very possessive and pimpish; there were even cases in which they got into fights with their girlfriends’ clients, though obviously this was considered extremely rude and might result in the kisaeng breaking off the relationship.  Over time gibu became more popular, and by the beginning of the 19th century it was rare to find a kisaeng without one.

Throughout the late 19th century, Korea was destabilized by interference from China, Japan, France, the UK and the US.  The Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) resulted in increased Japanese dominance over Korea, and one of the reforms the Japanese encouraged was the abolition of the entire class system, including slavery.  This technically freed the kisaeng, but (as so often happens when slaves are freed en masse by decree), many of them continued in servitude for the rest of their lives, but without the legal protections of their former status.  Some went to work as what Westerners typically think of as prostitutes, and today the term kisaeng is sometimes used to mean a whore who specifically caters to foreigners.  There are a few of the traditional houses still left, but since most of the songs, dances and such were passed down by oral tradition, they have been lost forever.  Idealized kisaeng appear frequently in South Korean historical fiction (much as the geisha do in Japan), but North Korea’s communist government is so hostile to prostitution that it labels all descendents of kisaeng (of whom there are a sizeable number, since Pyongyang was once home to the greatest kisaeng school) as having “tainted blood”.

Unfortunately, courtesan denial is not rare nowadays; those who insist that sex workers of historical times were somehow fundamentally different from their modern descendants reveal not only a pathological aversion to human sexuality and a deep misunderstanding of human nature, but also an appalling ignorance of the truth about selling sex in any era.  Courtesans throughout history would laugh at anyone who claimed that education automatically removed a woman from whoredom; the many who were talented singers, poets and writers would likewise ridicule the notion that artistic training somehow disqualified her from harlotry.  They, the kisaeng, and modern hookers all know what so many pathetic moderns deny:  a person is not what she does to make money, no matter how much repressive governments want to pretend she is.kisaeng school, c. 1910

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Convolution

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , on September 11, 2013| 30 Comments »

There’s a woman who often comes into my workplace.  She has let me know she’s very interested and I think she’s gorgeous.  However, I know she’s hesitant to do anything with me because I’m married, and it wouldn’t be right for me just to “nail her” and leave her hanging because she really needs a man.  She’s a single mom who just lost her job a few months ago, so she’s having some financial problems.  So what if I approach her and offer her some compensation?  I’d pay her just like any other escort (and I pay well); all she’d really have to do is spend 3 or 4 hours with me at dinner and her place and I know she already would like to do that.  She’s definitely no prude; she always talks and jokes very candidly.  So I don’t think she’ll be offended if I make the offer – but I’m not too sure.  Is a good idea?

Snakes by M.C. Escher (1969)In a word: no.  Most amateur women are so brainwashed into seeing sex work as “dirty” and “bad” that they will instantly and stupidly perceive the offer of money as an insult, even if they see the request that they give it up for free as a reasonable one.  Take a look at some of the mental gymnastics halfway whores perform in order to avoid admitting the truth; Cirque du Soleil has nothing on these gals.  Nor is it ever a good idea for a married man to become involved with an amateur, especially not one who’s attracted to him and “needs” a man, because those are exactly the characteristics that will drive her to cause trouble.  I’m sure it’s a great boost to your ego for a hot chick to come on to you, but emotional involvement is inevitably a spanner in the spokes of extramarital activity unless you actually want a divorce.  Women who only want small amounts of money in exchange for small amounts of sex are safe partners for a married man; those who want love, fun, companionship or a lifetime of support are disasters waiting to happen.

The only way this could possibly work is if she turns pro.  You could try bringing up the subject half-jokingly, telling her that she really ought to consider escorting in order to make ends meet; if she seems offended just blow it off as an idle suggestion, ending with something like “I don’t see anything wrong with a woman using her natural abilities to prosper.”  Then never bring it up again, and give up on the whole idea of boinking her.  If, on the other hand, she seems intrigued, point her to this website; there are plenty of mentoring posts she can read to help her decide.  You absolutely do not want her to think that you’re offering to be her pimp or anything like that, and if she gets that idea anyway and seems open to it, you need to insist that she do it on her own (see the last sentence of the preceding paragraph).  If she takes up sex work on her own and then offers you a compensated date without any hinting on your part, it’s a horse of a different color from your offering her money outright; though you still need to be extremely careful since you know she’s attracted to you, the fact that she’s doing sex work will show you she at least has the ability to view the situation pragmatically, and the money will provide a buffer.  Furthermore, if she’s hooking and you know it, you have a secret to counterbalance her knowledge of your infidelity.  You may call that calculus cold-blooded if you like; I prefer the word “realistic”.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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