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Archive for September, 2013

Building a Current

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2013| 7 Comments »

Each time a man stands up for an ideal…or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.  –  Robert F. Kennedy

Almost two years ago I started pointing out signs of the impending collapse of “sex trafficking” hysteria, and early last year provided a rough sketch of how things might play out via comparison with the collapse of the Satanic Panic over a course of about five years (from the first outspoken skepticism among mainstream journalists about 1987 to the general collapse in 1992).  Last summer I began chronicling examples of the increasingly bizarre and extreme rhetoric which heralds the disintegration of a panic, and also of the increasingly-widespread turn toward advocacy for decriminalization among reasonable people.  And now a few journalists are beginning to join the chorus of skeptics, either by writingThe Walls of Jericho Fallen Down by Gustave Dore (1866) pro-decriminalization and/or anti-“trafficking” hysteria articles themselves, or by providing a platform for sex worker rights advocates to do so; their number is small right now, but it’s growing, and before too much longer the volume of their voices will be sufficient to begin the process of destroying this edifice built on lies and ignorance.  Some examples are one-offs, like this one from the Sacramento News and Review which I missed in February, but which is too good not to share:  the lede is “Religious do-gooders and grant whores flock to human-trafficking causes, subjected to spotty oversight,” and it just gets better from there:

…Ever since “human trafficking” caught fire as a tear-jerking buzz term about five years ago, it’s swept up people’s imaginations…[detective John] Sydow said…“I don’t know where [“trafficking estimate”] numbers come from, frankly. There’s some serious extrapolation going on”…The local FBI task force says more than 250 children have been recovered in the Sacramento area over the past seven years.  More than 90 percent of these kids were in some form of foster care.  Still, the dizzying guesswork has proven effective in whipping up a frenzy of interest and financial investment, especially for well-meaning community groups that aren’t always subject to formal monitoring…When I bring up the inordinate amount of attention and financial resources child sex trafficking is getting compared to homelessness, poverty, hunger or any other stale social issue, [“rescue” NGO leader Jenny] Williamson is quick to agree…“We are riding the wave of the soupe du jour, if you will, of social issues,” she [said], noting that Halle Berry and Ashton Kutcher have embraced trafficking like Bono once embraced AIDS in Africa. “In five years, it’ll be something else.”

I’m pleased to hear that the head of at least one “trafficking” NGO agrees with my analysis of the timetable for the end of the hysteria.  But while writer Raheem Hosseini doesn’t seem to have written anything else on the subject, we’ve seen Tim Worstall’s work before and he seems determined to be a valuable ally in trashing “trafficking” nonsense:

…a piece in The Guardian…[claims] some 100,000 Vietnamese women [are] employed in nail bars…then forced into prostitution in the evenings…When all police forces in the UK did detailed investigations into brothels, street walkers and escort agencies they were unable to find one single person in the entire country who could be prosecuted for forcing someone into sex slavery…given that the population is 60 million odd, 50% of which is female, the claim of 100,000 Vietnamese nail salon workers is that one in every 300 of the women in Britain is a Vietnamese nail salon worker…and there’s only 1,512 nail salons in the country.  We really would notice if each and every one of them had 10 Vietnamese employees…if each of these trafficked Vietnamese women is put out to work on the streets each night and has three customers…then one in one hundred of all Englishmen is having sex with a trafficked Vietnamese manicurist each and every day.  These are just not believable numbers:  they’re obviously wrong to anyone with even the vaguest pretensions to being able to understand the world around them…

I also debunked that story two weeks ago in an article for Cliterati (which contains links and relevant quotes if you’re interested).  This particular “trafficking” tale was so absurd it was even debunked by another Guardian department, supporting my standing prediction that the paper will be among the first major ones to officially come out against the hysteria.  But in the meantime, there are a few publications both online and off which have either picked up the banner or at least occasionally give space to sex worker activists like Norma Jean Almodovar:

…All the rationales for prohibiting prostitution could apply to the work and life experiences of millions of women in many other types of labor…the US government claimed that in 2006, there were an estimated 673,000 college women raped.  Should those shocking statistics be used to forbid women from obtaining a higher education?…Prostitution abolitionists…hypothesize that “prostitution is like rape”…If [that is so]…why is there “proactive” enforcement of prostitution laws if the prostitute has not claimed to be a victim?  For all other violent [crimes]…a victim must first report the crime before the police are permitted to begin an investigation…but…the primary reason that so-called “vice laws” are extremely harmful to society…is because such laws always have and always will engender corruption…There are so many “law” breakers whose only “victim” is themselves…that such laws…can only be enforced arbitrarily and selectively…If cops stopped enforcing all other laws, such as rape, robbery, domestic violence and even murder, to devote all their time and energy to arrest only those violating “vice” laws…and prosecutors [pursued] no other criminals…and we emptied out all the prisons and jails of serious predators, there would still not be enough resources to enforce “vice” laws without cops and prosecutors selectively deciding which prostitutes, madams or clients, which drug users…or…poker players…ought to be arrested, prosecuted and punished…

Incidentally, Norma Jean has recently released a monumental (246-page) study entitled The Truth About Cops, Prostitutes, Sex Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation, crammed with reams of data on nearly every facet of the question.  She wants it to be disseminated as widely as possible, so please feel free to download it and share it with anyone who might be interested.

Teton Dam failureNearly everything I see about “sex trafficking”, from the increasing absurdity of the claims, to the increasing tyranny of the laws, to the increasing courage of the skeptics, convinces me that we are on track to see the end of the hysteria by 2017 despite the efforts of governments to continue it.  The collapse of the panic is only the beginning; the laws which criminalize sex work or most of its aspects in most countries are a vestige of the previous “sex trafficking” panic of a century ago, and there are still people rotting in prison or entrapped on “sex offender” registries due to their convictions during the Satanic Panic.  Even after the hysteria is over, the work of undoing the damage it caused will continue for decades, probably beyond the lifespan of everyone reading this today; but before the recovery can begin, the orgy of destruction has to end.  And though the citadel of prohibition may today seem impregnable, even the mightiest wall must yield to the force of a million ripples joined into one great current.

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Guest Columnist: Aspasia Bonasera

Posted in Guest Columns, Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2013| 15 Comments »

I’m sure regular readers already know Aspasia, who is not only a regular reader and frequenter commenter, but a blogger whom I’ve linked on several occasions.  In a recent correspondence she told me about Oshún; since I’m very interested in the subject of whore goddesses, I was immediately intrigued and asked if she would do this essay, and she graciously consented without any arm-twisting.

Like so many other young women these days, I began to research the old myths of ancient goddesses from all around the world during my early to mid twenties.  I was always drawn to sex goddesses like Oshún, Aphrodite, Inanna, etc.  We’re all kindred spirits, if you please.  Their personality traits, especially those of Oshún and Aphrodite, are very similar: graciousness and generosity (and you’d do well not to anger them), unabashed femininity, sexuality, and sensuality.  They display absolute authority over the power of sexuality, which was understood to be the complex thing it is and certainly not a frivolity as our anti-sexuality culture deems it to be.  In the pantheon of ori (divine beings) in which Oshún is a member, she is the third most powerful after the Father God Obatalá and Mother Goddess Yemayá.  Like them Oshún has a sacred color, yellow, all her own; all other orisha (spirits or gods) must share colors.  Oshún isn’t known to many people outside of the Caribbean, Brazil or the Yoruba people found primarily in Nigeria and Benin (though they can also be found in Ghana and among the Krio of Sierra Leone); however, she is known and revered everywhere in the Latin Caribbean and South America where the Yoruban people were taken during the slave trade.  In Cuba, where Oshún has been syncretized with Santa Cecilia (patroness of music) and La Virgin de La Caridad del Cobre, she is known as Our Lady of the Caridad del Cobre with a feast day of September 8th.  Cobre means copper in Spanish, and the precious metal figures prominently in the representation of Oshun.

OshunBesides copper, Oshún also favors gold and all things shiny and yellow; this is similar to Aphrodite, who also favors gold and is often (though not always) depicted with golden hair.  Tied around Oshún’s hips is a gourd filled with her honey, which she smears on the mouths of men whom she is trying (and always succeeding) to win over; she also smears it upon her own naked body, a frank reference to lovemaking.  Similarly, there are stories concerning Aphrodite sharing her goldenness with lucky men she has chosen to be hers…for a time.  Both goddesses are sea-born in some fashion with names that reflect those origins: Aphrodite (Greek for “foam-born”) rose from the sea and Oshún was named after the deep “O” sound the Earth made causing a boulder to fall into the water, which made the “shun” sound…or so one patakí (parable) of her naming tells us.  She is the goddess of the “sweet” waters and indeed has a river named after her.  Oshún is most revered as a goddess of sexuality, sensuality, beauty, love, money, joy, music… la dolce vita.  She is the “Divine Epitome” of all that is wonderful about women and femininity, and is renowned for her beauty; in Cuba she is known as La Bella Mulata (“The Beautiful Mulatto Woman”).  A patakí explaining the change in Oshún’s physical appearance in Cuba tells us that she changed her appearance to better blend in with the diverse racial mixture found there; her skin color changes from dark brown to golden honey-brown, the latter being another symbol in the representation of Oshún.

But I always noticed something missing from the typical feminist writings on sex goddesses: their whore aspect.  All of the sex goddesses, with their consummate love-making skills, also have a connection to money or money-like objects or symbols and yet somehow, following the feminist mindset, never the twain shall meet.  Not even within the same goddess!  The PC revisions of these goddesses are a disservice to them and to any who want to know about them, even if they don’t feel the same strong pull to their service that I do.  Oshún Panchagara is the whore aspect of Oshún.  As with Aphrodite, modern-day revisionists avert their eyes from her frankly sexual and overtly whorish aspects and give it a gloss and polish that is absolutely misplaced.  I only found out about Panchagara through a book I recently acquired in which a Cuban santero (a male practitioner of Santería; female santera) priest and “son of Oshún” (all followers of Oshún are considered her children) not only mentions this aspect but celebrates it.  Baba Raul Canizares writes in Oshún:  Santería and the Orisha of Love, Rivers and Sensuality:

In one of her avatars, Oshún Panchagara, she is depicted as a Holy Whore, “La Santa Puta”.  This is a controversial aspect of the orisha, rejected as a New World fabrication by modern-day Yoruba revisionists and African-American feminists who feel their goddess is being degraded by depictions of her as a prostitute.  These people are actually projecting their own prejudices and morality into the equation.  In reality, prostitution has not always been viewed as degrading or immoral.  In fact, temple prostitutes, including the famous “vestal virgins” [sic] of ancient Rome, have featured prominently in the history of ancient religions.  On and off, prostitution has been legal in Cuba until the late 1960’s.  It is only natural that, just as every other profession has a patron saint, prostitutes also enjoy this privilege.  In her aspect as Panchagara, Oshún is at her most rambunctious, coquettish, and wild.  Panchagara is La Bella Mulata on Steroids, a woman very much in control who chooses who she’ll bless with her sexual favors.  Panchagara is in no way a victim, as those who object to her claim, but an empowered female who has chosen prostitution on her own terms and for her gain.  Oshún Panchagara has been an inspiration to women who for whatever reason have had to engage in prostitution; she demonstrates that a human being’s sense of self-worth need not be affected by what he or she does for a living.

There is little about Panchagara online, at least nothing as honest as Canizares’ statement.  The PC aversion to her frank sexuality, which Canizares also hits upon, can be found here in this article where a modern-day African-American female follower of Oshún seems to have a bad reaction to the “wrong” expression of sexuality as shown by other daughters of Oshún.

Panchagara completes the totality of Oshún.  Unabashedly sexual and sensual, a love for money (she was impoverished at one time, resulting in an aversion to being poor), confident in her beauty and allure…that is Panchagara and most every other sex worker I know!  As una bella mulata myself, I have a strong kinship with Panchagara.  While I am not a santera, I worship Oshún in my own way.  She is an endlessly fascinating goddess and saint.  Baba Raul Canizares and Migene Gonzalez Wippler are both Cuban and have a wealth of knowledge of Oshún in the Santería/La Religion Lucumi tradition, which is the one that has influenced my worship of Oshun the most.  Panchagara is an aspect of Oshún that must not be left out.
Oshun by Selina Fenech

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Links #166

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2013| 11 Comments »

If you wake at night and see her, her clothes be blowing back, even in a room where there is no wind.  And you know she’s marked you for killing.  –  Anonymous Miami child, describing the she-demon called “Bloody Mary”

Just in case you’ve ever wondered who provided links that aren’t credited (and I’m sure at least a few of my more academically-inclined readers may have):  either they’re ones I found myself while doing my regular scans for material, or else I received them directly from their authors (whose names appear on said articles, natch).  Top honors this week go to Aspasia, who contributed not only the links above the first video, but also tomorrow’s guest column.  The first video was provided by my husband, and the links below it by Cthulhuchick  (“headline”), Lucy Steigerwald (“Dyatlov Pass”), Popehat (“welcome”), Jillian Keenan (“Hamlet”), Jasper Gregory (“nutritionists”), Cliterati (“boobies”), Thaddeus Russell (“government”), Cop Block (“hijab”), and Jolene Parton (“mythology”).  And if you don’t know who Harrison Bergeron is, this will help.

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#336)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2013| 23 Comments »

The Swedish model, in its mission to eradicate sex work, is by definition an unapologetic mission to eradicate sex workers.  –  Nine

A War for PeaceUkraine is Not a Brothel

…a new documentary screening at the Venice Film Festival has revealed that Femen was founded and is controlled by a man.  Ukraine is not a Brothel…by…Kitty Green, has “outed” Victor Svyatski as the mastermind behind the group.  Mr Syvatski is known as a “consultant” …[but]…“It’s his movement and he hand-picked the…prettiest girls because…[they] get on the front page… that became…the way they sold the brand,” [Green] says… “These girls are weak,” [Syvatski] says in the film…“They show submissiveness, spinelessness…and many other factors which prevent them from becoming political activists”…

Harm Magnification

…PEERS Victoria Resource Society quietly closed the doors to its drop-in centre and shut down its most incremental program…PEERS will continue its daytime and nighttime outreach services, but only 10 per cent of its current 515 clientele have been matched with service providers…executive director Marion Little…says the decision …[is] due to the…new [British Columbia] provincial integrated case management system…[which requires] many more administrative steps…clients…would now be required to issue a full name and social insurance number just to access services…“we were losing so much staff time to administrative roles…we could…no longer afford our own services,” said Little…

Elephant in the Parlor

OK, now this politician/hooker story is news:

An investigation into a fire that gutted the home of a former escort…[focused on]…Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams…Sarah Garibay…showed police text messages from Adams saying he was jealous of her other lovers…Yet she said she does not believe Adams set fire to her home…“Someone is trying to smear him and they’re using my name to do it”…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

Their next study will attempt to determine if water is really wet:

…married men are more likely than women to have extramarital affairs, as well as to seduce someone else’s partner…New research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin…suggests men’s ability to resist temptation is no stronger or weaker than that of the ladies.  But it gets overridden more often because of the intensity of men’s desire…

Stand-Up GuysDave Barry

In a column on humorist Dave Barry’s surprising depth and wisdom, Lucy Steigerwald quotes a 1994 interview he gave to Reason magazine:

…I saw one of these real-life cop drama shows…[where] the whole show consisted of this [undercover cop entrapping]…prostitutes…Meanwhile…the other cops, these fat men with walkie-talkies, are laughing…because…they are about to enforce the law and protect society…This poor woman–I don’t know whether she’s feeding her drug habit or feeding her kids or whatever.  And the cops are so proud of themselves…It just made me sick to see this.  To treat these people who are trying to make a living…this way, and to be proud of it…we’re all supposed to watch this and feel good about it.  It’s just disgusting…

Confined and Controlled

…St. Louis [Missouri]…Alderman Jeffrey Boyd…posted this tweet…“A constituent suggested legalizing…Brothels What do you think?”  The woman who made that suggestion said she wanted to be taken seriously and offered it as a way to protect women in her community.  “These are human beings, and you can do something to help them,” said Joyce Glaspy…[she] conceded that most folks in St. Louis won’t agree with her, but said a brothel would provide security for these women and get them off the streets…

Whatever They Need To Say

In Bangladesh, as in the Netherlands, “morality” is being used as an excuse to evict sex workers so developers and their government cronies can profit:

…“If anybody thinks that these evictions took place out of some moral issues and that we are doing some criminal activities, then they are wrong…[it was] to grab our land”…[said] Joya Shikder…of the Sex Workers Network…“Usually after evicting, the government hands over Tk10,000 and a sewing machine…in the name of rehabilitation…the department does not even bother to know whether we can sew or not”…

Worse Than I Thought

The cancer keeps spreading:  “[Virginia state] Sen. Mark Obenshain…wants to make human trafficking a standalone felony offense…add offenders engaging in commercial sex with a minor to the sex offender registry and extend asset forfeiture laws to human trafficking…” Saving in the Name of Scrub

Dirty Laundry

This excellent article about Ruhama’s efforts to persecute Irish sex workers was transcribed (in English) from the print edition of Rabble by the Spanish-language blog El Estante de la Citi:

…According to [Ruhama]…it’s “prostituted women” and never “work”…they’re [not] very concerned with trafficking…when it’s young Asian men…[sitting] in weed growhouses…but they’re not having sex so it doesn’t matter right?  They believe all sex workers are abused and…only Ruhama…can represent [them]…Ruhama…[says] prostitution is…violence against women and the Swedish law has been great at reducing prostitution and trafficking…[but] the Swedish government admitted…that they actually hadn’t a clue how much prostitution there was…and the Swedish police have reported that trafficking has grown significantly since that…law was brought in…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #42)

Dr. Graham Ellison continues his fight against the imposition of the Swedish disease on Northern Ireland:

…Dr Graham Ellison…is working on a research project on sex work regulations in Berlin, Manchester, Prague and Belfast…one of his co-researchers is Dr Susan Dodillet…[who says] Sweden’s sex purchase law has made sex workers more vulnerable…like Dr Ellison, she favours…decriminalising prostitution…in 2002 new [German] laws put the sex trade almost on a par with other work.  One exception…is that the unemployed cannot be penalised for refusing [sex] work…However, prostitutes can claim  unemployment  and sickness benefit and brothel owners must provide the same…rights as other employers…Dr Ellision added…”a senior officer in the Berlin Kriminalpolizei who [investigates] organised crime…was emphatic that trafficking for sexual exploitation [is] not a significant problem.  Generally, the more you criminalise something the more you drive it underground and into the hands of gangsters”…

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #43)

Laws and interventions aimed at reducing human trafficking by targeting commercial sex workers can…actually endanger their health and result in human rights violations, experts say…Part of the problem…is that anti-trafficking programmes often take the form of “raid and rescue” missions…[which] invade privacy and…scatter…networks of sex workers who, in some cases, had implemented successful sex worker-led health programming…“rescue raids of sex establishments have exacerbated violence against sex workers and compromised their safety,” say the World Health Organization  (WHO) and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cakemany many rules

…Four exotic dancers are suing Fantasy Gentlemen’s Club in Grand Junction, Colo., claiming the club’s owner violated…minimum-wage laws…Fantasy…took such a large cut of…tips that dancers sometimes made less than $7.25 per hour…“The case is fundamentally one of…exploiting workers that are vulnerable because of the stigma that’s attached to what they do,” Mari Newman, the [dancers’] attorney [said]…Kevin Eardly, the owner of the club…characterized the suit as a shakedown by a group of disgruntled strippers…

Absolute Corruption

…Fran Keller and her husband Dan…are each serving 48 years on multiple sexual abuse charges…“We were supposed to have buried children…or flown them to Vegas, California and Japan…we had an airstrip in back of the house, dinosaurs and sharks in the pool.  It was just so farfetched that I had no idea anyone could believe such stories.”  The Kellers were caught up in the 1980s-era hysteria surrounding satanic [sic] ritual abuse…popularized on daytime talk shows [and] lurid paperbacks…Nearly two dozen years after their conviction, [they] have filed a Writ of Habeus Corpus that could lead to the end of their prison sentences…

Theatrics

Fraudulent recruitment, debt bondage, abusive conditions, threatening workers with deportation…but it’s never called “trafficking” when politically-connected companies do it:

…twice this summer…more than 150 Jamaican guest workers who clean luxury Florida hotels and condos walked off the job…They…borrowed to pay recruitment fees of $2,000 to $2,500, counting on promises of full-time work and good housing.  But…the cleaning company packed as many as 15 people into unfurnished two-bedroom apartments, for…as much as $5,000 a month.  Charges for rent and required extras like $70 for a T-shirt “uniform” reduced the workers’ net pay to subminimum levels, sometimes even zero, and…paychecks repeatedly bounced…Guest workers…are tied by law to the employer who sponsored their visas, which means that if they are found too “difficult” for any reason — including asking that their rights be respected — the employer can…deport them and blacklist them from receiving future work visas…

MonstersIslan Nettles

Islan Nettles was out…with friends when a group of young men…learned she was a transgender woman and began taunting and maliciously beating her—right in front of a police precinct in Harlem…[the 21-year-old] was punched in the face, knocked to the ground and beaten until she lost consciousness…she…fell into a coma…[and later] died…Nettles’ alleged assailant, Paris Wilson, was booked on a misdemeanor assault charge and freed on $2,000 bail…Nettles’ death was officially ruled a murder…[but] Wilson has not yet been arraigned on any murder charges…

Somewhere in the Middle

The mainstream media touted another bogus client study last week; this one used a single Backpage ad placed twice in each city, and thus (unsurprisingly) generated wildly-varying figures for their “estimate” of the fraction of men who buy sex.  The design presumes that all clients use Backpage and that all men will respond to a generic ad for one particular type worded by ignorant amateurs; it’s like counting the pigeons near one statue at some random time and using it to estimate the number of all birds in the whole city.  The academic behind this is the ethically-retarded Dominique Sepowitz of Arizona State, who has a history of reporting her survey subjects to the cops; her department is also involved in “Project ROSE”, which entraps streetwalkers and then offers them a “choice” of jail or Bible-based brainwashing.  And who funded this bogus “study”?  Try the Phoenix Police Department, Arizona State’s “Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention”, and Asstoon & Dumi’s THORN.  In other words, it’s about as trustworthy and reliable as anything from Melissa Farley or the Schapiro Group.

What a Week! (TW3 #322)

As bad as things are in the US, at least sex workers aren’t executed here:

Kim Jong-un’s ex-girlfriend was among a dozen well-known North Korean performers who were executed by firing squad…Hyon Song-wol…a singer with the Unhasu Orchestra, was among those arrested on August 17 for [selling pornographic videos of themselves]…All 12 were machine-gunned three days later, with other members of North Korea’s most famous pop groups and their immediate families forced to watch.  The onlookers were then sent to prison camps…

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine

Here’s a good introduction to the horrors of the Swedish model by Nine of Feminist Ire, illustrated by the way the policies led to Petite Jasmine’s death:

…Prohibitionist campaigners…portray Sweden’s stance on sex work as progressive, and assert that sex workers themselves are not targeted…They’re painted as victims to be pitied and rescued…[but] as with religion-cloaked homophobia, this distinction makes little difference to those on the receiving end…Police stake out sex workers’ homes and workplaces, clandestinely film them, and subject them to invasive searches.  Sex workers are often forced to testify in court, but have the rights of neither victim nor accused…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #329)

imaginary trafficking victim“A film by three students in Plymouth is being used nationally to teach people about child sexual exploitation…the film…is the fictional story of…a 13-year-old sex trafficking victim, who is kidnapped and forced into prostitution after being groomed online”…UK authorities have little choice but to use a film about fictional “sex trafficking” victims, because they can’t seem to find any real ones.

Opting Out

…Parliamentary servers have registered tens of thousands of attempts to access porn every month with over 100,000 attempts last November alone…A…spokesperson said…the figures may have been enlarged by “automatic links” and “pop up” windows.  “We are not going to restrict Parliamentarians’ ability to carry out research,” they added.

But restricting the citizens’ ability to carry out similar “research” is A-OK.

King of the Hill (TW3 #335)

“According to Homeland Security, Texas is the second largest human trafficking state…” Because third place ain’t good enough for Texas!

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Buttons, Bags & Banknotes

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2013| 65 Comments »

This essay first appeared in Cliterati on August 4th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.

Second-wave feminism in the UK has, like the first wave of the 19th century before it, devolved into a solution in search of a problem.  In many English-speaking countries there are plenty of women’s rights battles to be fought, such as the brutal campaigns against abortion access in the US and a wide variety of vital issues in India.  Even in Britain, there are a number of major problems it would be appropriate for feminists to address, but there’s a catch: they largely involve marginalized groups like sex workers and transwomen whom the remaining second-wavers consider to be enemies, or else nonwhite women they just don’t care about.

Prohibition threatSo just as the first wavers devolved from successfully crusading against the horrid Contagious Disease Acts to campaigning against things which made middle-class white women uncomfortable (including alcohol, sex work and masturbation), so second-wavers have followed up the monumental victories of the twentieth century with screaming about trivia.  While transwomen are hounded to death, they obsess about the number of women’s pictures on banknotes.  While sex workers are stripped of rights and repeatedly victimized by police, they aid the oppression by trying to criminalize our clients and destroy our means to work legally.  And when we dare to challenge their war on us, they demand social media give them a means by which to censor us.

Yes, I realize that the rationalization used to demand the Twitter “report abuse button” was the horrible rape- and death-threats hurled against Caroline Perez, leader of the bank note campaign.  I also realize that A) it’s already illegal to credibly threaten someone, and the proof of that is the arrest of Perez’s worst abuser despite the lack of a button; B) Twitter already has a means of reporting serious abuse, but it requires effort and is therefore difficult to exploit for coordinated mass reporting campaigns against targeted individuals; and C) Any quick and easy means of reporting abuse can also be misused by the many for silencing the few, such as the aforementioned exclusionary feminists silencing sex worker and transgender rights activists.  When those with a history of attack, oppression and exclusion say they need a certain weapon for defense, you can be as certain as the sun rising in the east that it will also be used for offense; in fact, you can be sure that the offensive use is the intended one, and defense is simply the socially-palatable excuse.

magazine coverThe truth of this bait-and-switch tactic is revealed by the reaction of the “Lose the Lads’ Mags” campaigners to the news that a group representing the country’s largest retailers have now demanded that publishers encase the magazines in “modesty bags” to hide their covers.  The crusaders’ original pretense was that “magazines and newspapers with naked women on their covers…[discriminate against]…employees uncomfortable with images of naked and near-naked women…”; if that were the real issue, the bags are an obvious solution because they remove the supposed offending stimulus (namely the pictures) from the workers’ environment.  But this is not and never was the actual, narcissistic, censorious reason for their demand:  those urging the stores to “Lose the Lads’ Mags” do not want these magazines to exist at all, anywhere in the world, whether within their line of sight or not; they believe that their privileged bourgeois feelings take precedence over everyone else’s rights, just as the temperance crusaders of a century ago did.

Third-wave feminism is generally inclusive, diverse and respectful of women’s individual choices, with the result that many if not most third-wavers find second-wavers embarrassing at best; many other women prefer to avoid the term “feminism” altogether, largely because of the sort of behavior described above.  Second-wave feminism is therefore aging and shrinking; many more of its devotees die off every year than new ones join, and within a generation it will vanish entirely as a social influence.  And given second-wavers’ fixation on their own petty concerns to the exclusion of those affecting women in general or humanity as a whole, that’s definitely for the best.

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Jane Shore

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on September 5, 2013| 15 Comments »

Proper she was and fair…yet delighted not men so much in her beauty, as in her pleasant behaviour.  For a proper wit had she, and could both read well and write, merry of company, ready and quick of answer, neither mute nor full of babble, sometimes taunting without displeasure and not without disport.  –  Charles Ross, Richard III

All through history, many a famous or important man has met his downfall through careless or indiscreet relations with whores; I’ve featured the stories of many of them in these columns, and I’m sure you can think of a few on your own without my assistance.  But sometimes it happens the other way around, and a whore is ruined by her association with the wrong client; Elizabeth “Jane” Shore was one such case, though the beauty and charm which had placed her in harm’s way eventually secured her escape from it again.

Jane Shore (18th century engraving)She was born in London about 1445 to John and Amy Lambert; her father was a wealthy dry-goods dealer who helped to finance King Edward IV’s wars against his Lancastrian cousins, and so the future courtesan was exposed from a young age to noblewomen from whom she learned courtly manners.  She was also well-educated, and though these preparations may seem to have been meant to prepare her for her future profession, it was actually unintentional; in fact, the constant and ardent attention paid her by wealthy and important (but married) men (including William Hastings, later King Edward’s Lord Chamberlain) seems to have inspired the Lamberts to choose a husband for her hastily and unwisely.  She was married sometime after 1460 to a wealthy goldsmith named William Shore, but the marriage was a loveless one; in fact, it appears to have been a sexless one as well, because the grounds for her eventual annulment was that the marriage was never consummated.  Given his wife’s beauty and the fact that he never remarried, it seems safe to conclude that Shore was a closeted homosexual; he certainly never interfered with Elizabeth’s social life, and sometime soon after Edward’s restoration to the throne in 1471 she became his mistress.

Though Edward IV was a notorious womanizer, Elizabeth quickly became his favorite; he described her as “the merriest harlot in the realm” and after the annulment of her marriage in 1476 he formally extended his protection to William Shore.  This favor was probably asked of him by Elizabeth, who unlike most royal mistresses used her influence not to gain favors or gifts for herself, but instead to win mercy for deserving men who had incurred the royal wrath.  As Sir Thomas More wrote of her many years later, she “never abused [her influence] to any man’s hurt, but to many a man’s comfort and relief.”  Even the Queen, whose name was also Elizabeth, liked and accepted her; in fact, it is likely that she changed her name to Jane around this time as a show of deference to her.  This nobility of character won the lasting respect of the King; though he generally discarded his mistresses as soon as he tired of them, he remained close to Jane until his death on April 9th, 1483.

It was after that death that her troubles began, however.  She briefly became the mistress of the late King’s stepson, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, but it was not long before William Hastings renewed his two-decade-old suit and she took up with him instead.  She also remained friendly with the Queen, and carried messages between her and Hastings.  The subject of these messages was undoubtedly her brother-in-law, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who had been declared “Lord Protector” over her young sons (and the kingdom) by the dying Edward IV.  Anyone who is familiar with Shakespeare knows why the Queen was afraid:  Richard immediately imprisoned the young princes “for their own protection”, then had them declared illegitimate and set about destroying everyone whom he thought might be loyal to his brother and the boy Edward V.  On June 13th he accused Jane and the Queen of trying to destroy him via witchcraft at Hastings’ request; the women were imprisoned, while Hastings was immediately beheaded in the courtyard of the Tower of London.  In some way which is unclear to history, Richard was persuaded to relent slightly on the witchcraft charges; they were never pursuedThe Penance of Jane Shore by William Blake (c. 1793) against the Queen, and Jane’s charge was reduced to “promiscuity”.  She was forced to do penance by walking through London barefoot in her petticoat, carrying a candle and singing hymns.  But if Richard hoped to humiliate her by this treatment, he was sorely disappointed: the crowds who had gathered to gawk were instead struck by her beauty, moved to pity by her condition and impressed with the dignity she displayed during her ordeal.

One of the admirers she won that day was Thomas Lynom, Solicitor General to the newly-crowned King Richard III.  After her penance Jane was confined in Ludgate prison, where Lynom visited her often and soon fell in love with her.  He asked the King to free her so he could marry her, and though Richard tried to dissuade him from what he considered a foolish action (and even wrote a letter to John Russell, the Lord Chancellor, asking him to persuade Lynom to give up the idea), he eventually gave his permission; Jane was pardoned, married Lynom, and bore him a daughter named Julianne.  And though Lynom lost his high position in August of 1485 (after Henry Tudor defeated Richard and became Henry VII), he got a new (though lower) government job, and Jane lived the rest of her days in middle-class comfort.  Sir Thomas More met and befriended her in her old age, and wrote that she was still a merry companion with a quick mind and a tender heart, and that one could still discern traces of her youthful beauty.

She died at last in 1527, at about the age of 82, and was buried at Hinxworth Church in Hertfordshire.  Some biographies erroneously claim that she spent her declining years in poverty, but this is not so; it is the fate of her character in an Elizabethan play named The True Tragedy of Richard III, which predated Shakespeare’s treatment by several years.  This confusion of historical dramas with history is not unusual; historians are still trying to untangle the historical Richard III from his wholly-villainous portrayal by Shakespeare and other Tudor dramatists.  Jane is mentioned frequently (as “Mistress Shore”) in the Richard III of Shakespeare, and is a major character in many other works of the period (plays, novels and even poems).  There was also an 18th-century drama about her life, and three different silent movies (though oddly enough, no talkies).  But as we have so often seen in the lives of the courtesans, truth is stranger than fiction, and real historical events more fascinating than the attempts of authors to improve on them.

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Utopia

Posted in Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , on September 4, 2013| 65 Comments »

Recently I clicked on a link which I thought would lead me to an article about human sexuality, but when it opened my eyes were bombarded with very explicit pornographic images which I was not prepared for, was not desirous of seeing, and did not seek out intentionally; I got unwittingly exposed to graphic porn images when not looking for them.  What do you see as a fair, ethical and legal way to stop this?  I think an opt-in option for internet consumers who want to access porn is a good idea…for those of who do not opt-in, then those images will be nowhere on our screens.  That is my idea. I’d like to hear yours.

Utopia mapThe world is not a perfect place; it never has been, and it never will be.  Scientists will point to entropy, and metaphysicians will tell you that there wouldn’t be much point in a perfect world because it would have to be wholly static, frozen in its perfection.  Obviously everyone knows this, and yet perfectly reasonable people will waste incredible amounts of time and energy arguing about what the “feminist Utopia” or the “libertarian Utopia” or the “progressive Utopia” or whatever would be like.  Now, if this were just one of those intellectual games like, “If we were all cheeses, what kind of cheese would you be?” that would be just fine and dandy, but I’m afraid it isn’t; for example, many women who should have more sense will go on and on about how women “shouldn’t” have to worry about being raped…yet they don’t say a word about how men “shouldn’t” have to worry about being robbed, or poor people “shouldn’t” have to worry about paying the bills, or people of any kind “shouldn’t” have to consider the possibility of being blown to Kingdom Come by some fanatic trying to draw attention to his cause.  The fact of the matter is that there are bad people in the world, and desperate people, and unbalanced people, and any of them might potentially doom you (or at least hurt you very badly) every time you step outside of your house.

Now, the chances of being attacked on any given day aren’t all that high, and in fact they’re getting lower all the time; furthermore, there are measures one can take to protect oneself which are vastly more effective than whining “but I shouldn’t have to defend myself!” or delegating the task to some paternalistic government which will almost certainly fail to do its job because the police can’t be everywhere at once.  Oh, it’s certainly possible to make the police more effective simply by increasing their number and powers; however, that automatically restricts freedom at the same time, as Americans are discovering to their chagrin.  The only way to ensure you don’t get attacked when you step outside your house is, unsurprisingly, not to step outside of your house…but that makes for a pretty boring existence, a rough approximation of that static Utopia I mentioned above.  An infant in a playpen guarded by parents and a nanny 24 hours a day is about as safe as any human can be, but he can’t explore much of the world.  And an insect sealed in amber is so well-protected it can exist changelessly for tens of millions of years…dead, of course, but one can’t have everything.

The internet is like a world of its own, with a nearly-infinite number of places to explore.  And just like the real world, some of the people there aren’t very nice and some of the things one might find are unpleasant.  Every time I drive to town I risk seeing dead animals on the highway or bumping into folks with extremely poor hygiene; the internet has its equivalents of these things, too.  And just as in real life, the only sure way to be safe from attack or offense is to stay indoors, i.e. off of the internet.  Yes, it’s possible to delegate the task to some paternalistic government which will almost certainly fail to do its job because the censors can’t stop everything; it’s also possible to make the filters more effective simply by increasing their number and powers, but (as I explained at length in Friday’s column) that automatically restricts freedom at the same time.  See, the problem is that computers, like police, are incredibly stupid and literal-minded: both of them will always fail to do a lot of what they are intended to do, while simultaneously doing a lot of bad things they were not supposed to.  And there is absolutely no way to stop this (in either case) because, as I said at the beginning, the world is neither perfect nor perfectible.

Lois Lane #25The only “fair and ethical” solution is the same for both the virtual world and the real one: every individual has to choose the balance of safety and freedom which is right for him, and refrain from trying to impose his choice upon others.  If some woman wants to live in a sanitized bubble where she’s protected from rape and everything else (except by the guards, of course), that’s her choice, but I prefer to interact with others freely without Big Brother watching.  If some man wants to shut himself off from physical human contact and restrict all of his interaction to the internet (where he cannot be physically harmed), bully for him; I prefer to risk getting sunburnt, stung or scarred.  And if you choose to install readily-available internet filtering software and allow it to make the decisions about what you’re allowed to see, be my guest; just don’t expect me to accept it on my computer, or to pay for your voluntary narrowing of your own experience.

(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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Fever Dream

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2013| 28 Comments »

Fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever.  –  Voltaire

Pestilence by Judas (2013)As I’ve pointed out many times, moral panics do not gradually increase in intensity and then fall off just as gradually; they are more like virulent illnesses which increase in intensity until there’s an almost complete breakdown of the system they infect, followed by a comparatively-rapid recovery after the crisis point.  Some of my readers are skeptical of my prediction that we’re nearing the end of the hysteria; they point out that things seem to be getting worse, not better.  But as I said on New Year’s Day:

This doesn’t mean that things will get steadily better from now on; in fact, they may get worse in some ways…In “The Widening Gyre” I referred to the “trafficking” myth as “an increasingly-erratic cultural meme spinning wildly out of control, whose far-flung debris is going to cause a lot more damage before it finally disintegrates”, and now that it has entered this last and most dangerous phase we should expect to see a lot more people hurt even as ever-larger numbers of people speak out against it ever more vocally.  Because it’s a useful tool of social control and a versatile excuse for tyranny, governments (especially the US government) will work hard and invest huge sums to continue the panic well beyond the time when it would have died naturally; that, however, can only work for so long, and once the edifice of prohibition starts to collapse the US will no more be able to halt the process than the communists could stop the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

I recently ran into an example of this governmental exploitation of the hysteria in a Tennessee newspaper; though it bears the declarative title “Human Trafficking: Reality in Franklin County”, it would be hard to imagine an article more disconnected from reality.  Not only does it make the usual bizarre and unbelievable claims supported by bogus, discredited and misattributed “statistics”; it does so in a way that makes the motives of the cops and other “authorities” vomiting out this filth incredibly transparent to anyone not locked in the throes of “trafficking” fever.  I apologize for the extreme choppiness and lack of logical arrangement in the rest of this column; the source material really is that bad (as you can see for yourself) and the only way to correct that would be to rewrite it entirely.

Franklin County ranks high in human trafficking cases, with more than 100 incidences…in a two-year period, according to a 2011 study.

Quoting a thoroughly-debunked study so extreme it’s used as anti-American propaganda is always a good way to open a “sex trafficking” article.  Quick synopsis: the study’s claims are totally unsupported by local police records.

…sex trafficking is not something that just happens in other parts of the world.  It is happening in the United States, in Tennessee and in residents’ own backyards…

The Profession of Faith is also obligatory.

Recorded statistics show the multi-billion dollar industry of human trafficking has grown to the second largest crime industry in the world.

“Recorded statistics” show exactly the opposite, but this evidence-free and demonstrably ridiculous claim is another classic opener.

…The reason for the higher numbers in Franklin County is two-fold.  One reason…is…proximity to the Georgia Border.  Karen Karpinski…[of] End Slavery TN…said…“Atlanta is one of the top cities in the U.S. for minor trafficking”…

King of the Castle by William Kurelek (1958)As I’ve documented in posts labeled “King of the Hill”, practically every city, town and village in the US claims to be a “major center” of “sex trafficking”, and the statement is always rationalized by some irrelevant feature like the presence of major highways or rivers, proximity to another place, remoteness from other places or whatever else “officials” can think of.  The most astonishing part is that there are no statistics on “sex trafficking”, not even bogus ones; these claims to being the “top hub” or whatever are often attributed to the State Department or FBI or some other “authority”, but they’re literally made up, and based upon nothing.

Karpinski went on to say, “TBI quoted a recent report from the Shaperio [sic] Group out of Atlanta…”

Here’s a look at that Georgia “study”, more about the Schapiro Group’s methods, and one more article for good measure.  “Charlatanry” would be a mild term for their work; “criminal misrepresentation” is a bit closer to the truth.

…The high number of reports in the county could also be attributed to the fact that Franklin County is uniquely qualified to recognize and tackle human trafficking…Police Chief Dennis Young explained… “This is not that we have more of these crimes, but instead it shows that we are more proactive in finding and rescuing these children”…

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”  –  Abraham Maslow

…“child pornography has become a billion dollar industry”…

This is a very common claim; however, it’s difficult to imagine how it could be true given that most child porn is traded on the internet with no money changing hands, and the majority of the images have been circulated amongst pedophiles for decades.  While there is certainly a market for new material (generally produced in the developing world), even the most generous legitimate estimates place the size of that market in the tens of millions, not the billions.  I’m sure everyone can agree that legal adult porn is a vastly-larger market, yet even it was never as large as the popular narrative claims and has dramatically shrunk in the past few years due to free content on the internet.  But now we’ve reached that transparent motive I mentioned at the beginning:

Drugs are a major contributing factor in the sex trafficking industry and local law enforcement officials realize that stopping the flow of drug related crimes could help reduce the occurrence of human trafficking.  Young stressed the importance of…[creating] an environment where drugs cannot exist…It is not uncommon to see cases of children being traded for sex in drug cases…

Here’s the real reason for this massive pile of bullshit.  Small counties in rural Tennessee aren’t going to get much in the way of federal “anti-trafficking” funds (compared to large cities) no matter how absurd their claims; this whole boondoggle is just a way to whip up flagging support for the failed drug war by implicating drug dealers in the currently-popular moral panic.  Hysteria takes a shortcut around the rational brain, so most readers will never even notice that desperate addicts doing desperate things has absolutely nothing to do with the supposed “sex trafficking industry”, any more than cops murdering dogs has anything to do with organized military actions.  Even so, the (unnamed) reporters apparently feel the need to bury this deep in the bowels of the story; they continue on after it with more bogus and misattributed statistics, then repeat the propaganda that the FBI’s “Innocence Lost” pogrom against over a thousand adult sex workers “focused” on “rescuing children” (in reality, underage hookers were locked up and criminally charged).From Dance Hall to White Slavery  Next, it dwells on Tennessee’s new “anti-trafficking” laws in loving detail (including the one that allows the state to abduct the children of sex workers or clients) before wandering off into one of the inane and fantastical pimp classification schemes so popular with the “law and order” variety of “trafficking” fetishist; this particular one has elements that appear to be updated versions of the lurid masturbatory fantasy that “white slavers” frequently abducted naïve young women from dance halls.  And given their identical origins in the sickness of prohibitionism, I’m sure there were “authorities” in the 1920s who told their frenzied disciples that bootleggers were mixed up in the “white slave” trade as well.

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Denunciation

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , on September 2, 2013| 126 Comments »

It was so much easier to blame it on Them.  It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us.  If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault.  If it was us, what did that make Me?  After all, I’m one of Us.  I must be.  I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them.  No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them.  We’re always one of Us.  It’s Them that do the bad things.  –  Terry Pratchett

When people are confronted with information which challenges their views or contradicts their preconceptions, their first (and all too often, only) response is usually to deny it; as Maier’s Law states, “If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.”  Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the less people know about important, complex issues, and the more helpless they feel about them, the less they want to know about them:

…In one study, participants who felt most affected by the economic recession avoided information challenging the government’s ability to manage the economy…[but] did not avoid positive information…co-author Aaron C. Kay [said]…“people tend to respond by psychologically ‘outsourcing’ the issue to the government, which in turn causes them to trust and feel more dependent on the government.  Ultimately, they avoid learning about the issue because that could shatter their faith in the government”…

not listeningOf course, it isn’t only governments that people delegate their moral and intellectual responsibilities to in this fashion; any “authority” will do, and countless individuals rely on religion (including secular religions like feminism and Marxism) to do the hard thinking for them.  When such a person is confronted by a difficult issue, he falls into a defensive psychological posture and holds up whatever fragment of dogma he needs to shield his psyche from the disturbing truth.  And he will continue to repeat it, and to deny the facts directly before his eyes, until the disturbing thought can be entirely banished or buried.

When the offending concept or phenomenon is something remote, something which only affects other (preferably faraway or very different) people, the parroting of catechism is very effective.  As long as those who are hurt by one’s beliefs and policies can be rationalized as “not like us”, it’s easy to justify almost any degree of barbarism, and if they can be demonized as a threat to Our Treasured Way of Life, any number of atrocities is acceptable to neutralize the existential threat.   But when the messenger is of the in-group a more potent remedy becomes necessary if the comfortable state of ignorance is to be maintained:  he must be ostracized from the group, excised like a tumor, lest in-group defensiveness shield him from criticism and thereby allow his ideas to be heard.  There was an example of this recently in a new comment on an older column; a reader took exception to this statement:

Feminists are fond of equating all rape with aggravated rape, but as one who has experienced both I can tell you that simply isn’t true; aggravated rape is terrifying because of the possibility of death or disfigurement, but “date rape” – in other words, unwanted sex which occurs in the context of a voluntarily-entered sexual situation – isn’t nearly as bad.  It’s highly unpleasant and may even be painful, but it’s not the worst thing that can happen to a woman.

Nobody who read that in a year found it controversial enough to respond to, but when one finally did she found herself in a cognitive dilemma:  as a woman and a rape “survivor” I am member of a member of two of her “us” groups, yet here I was uttering blasphemy; she therefore had to either deeply consider my statement, or else expel me from her notion of “us”:

Sometimes I wonder if the author of this blog is a real woman – maybe this “Maggie” person is a guy masquerading as a woman, because we woman [sic] know that date rape really is as bad as rape by a stranger.  And that guy you’ve known *could* turn violent – you just never know.  Whether it’s being raped by a stranger or a guy you’ve known and trusted, it’s all hideous.  I should know: I’ve experienced both.

Obviously, she chose the latter, and the possibility that there might be all sorts of evidence of the absurdity of her accusation never entered her mind.  More accurately, it couldn’t enter her mind; this kind of rejection is an emotional process rather than an intellectual one, and thus is not subject to interruption by the possibility that it might make one look like an ignoramus.  It’s an extremely common phenomenon; every day we hear or read people rejecting the idea that so-and-so is a “real” member of whatever group, because no “real” whatever would say such a thing.  This isn’t to say that such conclusions are never true; the first clues to “Alexa di Carlo” being a fake were the numerous things “she” said that real escorts simply couldn’t believe were coming from a real escort.  But the exposure of “Alexa” was an intellectual process involving considerable time and detective work, not a ridiculous assertion reflexively made to protect a cherished belief.  The most common (and most foolish) example is probably the term “pseudo-intellectual”, which is generally used to imply that one so labeled can’t really be an intellectual because he disagrees with the one doing the labeling.

denunciationUsually, the person questioning another’s group identification is himself a member of the group, but that isn’t always the case; when it is otherwise, the attempt at excision is less an automatic defense mechanism and more a calculated strategy (often by a group acting in concert).  Sometimes the “defended” group is one for which they feel sympathy, and the person they wish to exclude somehow jeopardizes that sympathy; for example, witness the clique of journalists and the cabal of politicians who want to refuse Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden the honorable title of “whistleblower” on the spurious grounds that they blew the whistle on abuse and corruption the politicians didn’t want exposed.  At other times, the group is one the denouncers wish to cast into a particular role in order to advance their agenda, and the individual member is perceived as an obstacle to selling that stereotype to the general public; I’ve written about prohibitionists who wish to deny that sex worker advocates are “representative” sex workers (or even vilify us as “pimps”) because we vocally and actively refute their myth that all sex workers are broken dolls who don’t know what we’re doing and need the prohibitionists to speak for us.  But the practice isn’t restricted to oppressors; as Chi Mgbako pointed out, even well-meaning people do it:

When many people think of…victims of human rights abuse, they often conjure up stereotypical images of passive and powerless people…waiting to be saved.  The biases underlying these notions can lead some human rights advocates to favor “perfect victims” in advocacy and publicity campaigns, and…to disregard injustices faced by other marginalized individuals who may inspire more ambivalent and complicated responses from the public.  The privileging of “perfect victimhood” is misguided because all people have human rights regardless of subjective determinations of “worthiness”…the danger of the…construct is illustrated by…society’s failure to view economically disenfranchised black men as victims of the devastating “war on drugs”…

No matter what the motive, and whether the process is conscious or unconscious, the attempt to forcibly reassign an individual from one “box” to another in the minds of others is not only offensive to the truth and potentially injurious to the reputations of others; it also tends to make the denouncer look like a fool at best and a manipulative liar at worst, and may in the long run damage whatever cause he’s attempting to promote.

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Links #165

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2013| 18 Comments »

There’s a certain color someone uses that I won’t mention that tells me someone’s been demonized.  Everything that I talk about is based on numbers, is based on studies, which is what you do…when you’re a scientist.  –  Jerry Mungadze

Another good week for general links, though I’m glad it wasn’t quite so heavy on topical ones; if I start getting too many more of those I’ll have to expand to two TW3 columns, and I’m really not anxious to do that yet.  Our leading contributor for the week was Jesse Walker, with everything down to the first video; that one and “cat physics” were supplied by Mike Siegel.  The second video is just footage from a probe on the Martian surface of Phobos eclipsing Deimos, and was provided by Antonio Lorusso; the links between the videos are courtesy of Popehat (“science”), Aspasia (“nanotechnology”), Brooke Magnanti (“tentacles”), Franklin Harris (“haters”), Cthulhuchick (“Azathoth” and “canyon”), Mistress Matisse (“menstruation”), my husband (“allergies”),  Mike Riggs (“presence” and “prohibition”), Dean Clark (“taboo”), Cop Block (“never call cops”, “legless” and “bicycle”), and Radley Balko (“SWAT”).

From the Archives

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