Every decision I’ve ever made, including the decision to be a prostitute, is linked to a desire to be free. – Gabriela Leite
Sex worker rights activist Gabriela Leite died of cancer on October 10th at the age of 62. She organized the first Brazilian whores’ convention in 1987, then in 1992 founded a rights NGO named Davida; in 2010 she ran for the Brazilian congress (as depicted in the documentary A Kiss for Gabriela). Though she lost the election she won tremendous respect, and a bill to eliminate the contradictory provisions in Brazilian prostitution law was recently named in her honor. She was one of the greats, and will be sorely missed in the sex worker rights community.
Police in Florida have begun…recording license plate information from cars that drive through areas frequented by sex workers and sending a letter to that individual’s home…[including] a close-up image of the license plate and…reminders about the potential for sexually transmitted diseases…Authorities speaking to the media seemed to assume that someone’s mere presence near illegal activity presumes their guilt…
Charlotte Shane’s scathing review of Sudhir Venkatesh’s new book Floating City levels many of the same criticisms I and others have already made against the duplicitous sociologist (such as his total ignorance of the history of sex work, his dreadfully-low “estimates” of our income, etc). But it also contains many telling observations about his character flaws:
…when one of his subjects is assaulted, and her co-worker asks that he not report it: “I stood there, frustrated…What should I do? Go along with them or call the damn police like a normal person? I didn’t want to get sucked into their criminal value structure and end up doing the wrong thing.” This alarming response encapsulates…[his] problem. The desire to avoid arrest after suffering a brutal assault is a sensible one…but Venkatesh can’t wrap his head around it…he is “normal” and they are deviants…his responses are the right ones and theirs are not…Venkatesh clings to the notion that sex work is inherently, unavoidably risky, regardless of the legal and cultural circumstances…when the issue of…legalization…is raised, it’s only to dismiss it…
Not An Addiction (May Updates)
Crypto-moralists are once again trying to pretend that fatty foods are addictive, but as Jacob Sullum points out:
…the study’s findings could just as truthfully be summarized… “Research Shows That Heroin and Cocaine Are No More Addictive Than Oreos.” Putting it that way would have raised some interesting questions about the purportedly irresistible power of these drugs, which supposedly justifies using force to stop people from consuming them. But the researchers are not interested in casting doubt on the empirical basis for the War on Drugs…they are trying to build an empirical basis for the War on Fat…if the neurological effects of Oreos make them impossible to resist, how is it that most people manage to resist them, consuming them in moderation or not at all?…
Whether the infection is biological or technological, it’s always the same:
…Symantec…found…that hackers…target…religious sites at a much higher rate: “…religious and ideological sites…have triple the average number of threats per infected site than adult/pornographic sites. We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners…have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free – it’s not good for repeat business”…
Ex-vice madam Natalie Rowe has had her home raided by police days before she will make new claims about her relationship with Chancellor George Osborne…12…officers…with a battering ram burst into her London flat…[at] dawn…claiming they were acting on a tip-off…no drugs were found in the two-hour search…“WHY did one officer involved in the raid ask me whether I was about to publish my memoirs and WHY did a police inspector tell me I’d be opening a ‘whole can of worms’ if I complained?”…
Meanwhile, in Japan, “Yuka Fujisawa was arrested…for…sticking needles in gentlemen’s genitals for money…Fujisawa’s ‘needle play’ was performed on consenting adults, so her arrest is purely for the act of drawing blood without a medical license…”
Beleaguered former…MLA Mike Allen has received a rare note of support…from the Alberta Sex Workers. Mr. Allen was one of 13 men caught in a St. Paul, Minnesota-area sting in July…He…could face up to a year in prison and a $3,000 fine. “Alberta sex workers wish to assure MLA Mike Allen…that his activities…would be lawful, private and welcome in Alberta…sex workers in Mr. Allen’s riding…want him to continue as their MLA. We feel he made a mistake taking his business out of Alberta to puritan…Minnesota, but sex workers in his constituency are still pleased to have an MLA who values the services they offer”…
How many more kids have to be sacrificed on this loathsome altar? “A popular 15-year-old student has committed suicide after he reportedly faced expulsion and being placed on the sex offenders’ register simply for streaking at a high school football game. Christian Adamek, from Huntsville, Alabama, hanged himself on October 2, a week after he was arrested…”
I hope this keeps happening, so pole dancers will be forced to stand with sex workers rather than pretending they’re different: “…Swansea University [banned its]…Pole Fitness Society…[saying] ‘Pole fitness and pole dancing are a direct spin off from lap dancing…Everyone knows where it comes from…and that pole dancing is…specifically designed to sexually excite the watcher’…” Swansea has a long history of pearl-clutching over sex work.
The International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe has come up with a “tool kit” containing “information, ideas and resources…to help sex worker rights…organisations and activists…challenge…[the] Swedish model.” You can view and download the tool kit and its associated worksheets here, or visit the ICRSE website to download one individual section at a time.
Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (TW3 #7)
This short interview with Dr. Heidi Hoefinger on her book Sex, Love and Money in Cambodia supports everything I always say about Asian bar girls, but the comments are illustrative of the deep state of denial in which “trafficking” fanatics exist: among them are the claim that a woman who spent ten years living among her subjects is “naïve” and the astonishing assertion that literally 99.99% of whores are coerced.
“A [California] Sheriff’s Department deputy…sexually assaulted a [woman] he…pulled over…[he offered to] let [her] go in exchange for sex…[but when she] declined …he [forced her anyway]…” The unedited original is almost incomprehensible for all the “alleged” and “unknown male” and passive voice; it even describes forcible rape as “sexual contact occurred”. And in Kentucky, “A sexual assault lawsuit has been filed against…Sheriff Rick Clemons…‘I’m upset. I’m very offended. I’m actually shocked’, said Clemons…” Cry me a fucking river.
Rupert Everett is supporting a campaign against proposals…to criminalise sex workers’ clients. The actor, who participated in sex work as a younger man is making a [TV] programme on the subject. He has signed an open letter by the English Collective of Prostitutes and Queer Strike…journalist Cary Gee and a whole range of activist groups…have all added their names too…Former New Zealand MP Tim Barnett, who sponsored the…Act which decriminalised prostitution, described the…way…[end demand] laws were used…“Half of those arrested were transgender sex workers who were identified as men”…
The noisome fruit of the “mandatory prosecution” tree:
…In an incident back in April, Joel Darvell, 36, allegedly choked his wife while drunk, causing his son to tackle him…Darvell allegedly pistol-whipped his son and then fired a .45 caliber round into the wall of their home. No injuries were sustained. Darvell was charged with assault…but [his] wife and children…refused to testify…Judge Michael Evans…[had them] dragged away…[to] jail…where they were held in cuffs and shackles…John Hays, who is representing Darvell’s wife…said…“The prosecutor wants to put the defendant in prison for over 20 years, and (his family members) really do not want that”…After 48 hours…the 13-year-old girl…broke…and…agreed to testify against her father. The son and mother…were made to agree…as well…
The Course of a Disease (TW3 #28)
Everyday Whorephobia interviews Morgane Merteuil of STRASS about the especially-revolting French version of the Swedish model:
…The law also proposes to fight…[advertising] websites…all the help…[for exploited migrants] is conditional on stopping sexwork…[and] working with an “agreed organization”; of course…sexworkers rights [groups] won’t be [among] them…if students do sexwork, it is because they don’t have the consciousness that this is “prostitution”; so the solution is to add lessons about the “objectification of the body” at school…
Somaly Mam has been caught in yet another huge lie:
…in January 1998, Ms. Mam was propelled…into the international media spotlight largely owing to the harrowing on-camera testimony of the young Meas Ratha…[who supposedly had] been promised a job as a waitress in Phnom Penh, but wound up a captive in a brothel…Sixteen years [later]…Ms. Ratha—now 32 years old and married—said her testimony…was fabricated and scripted for her by Ms. Mam…Ratha…said that she did not want to cause trouble for Ms. Mam’s NGO, which had provided an education for her, but that she could no longer continue a lie that had followed her for half her life…the fabrication of Ms. Ratha’s sex slave story is only the latest incident of false information to emerge from Ms. Mam and her organizations…
And how exactly does Somaly Mam “help” sex workers?
…Estée Lauder…has opened the Somaly Mam Beauty Salon…providing survivors of sexual slavery and human trafficking with…education and vocational training…in high-touch beauty services in hair care, makeup application and nail treatments…
Well, I guess it’s better than putting them to work in her fashion industry sponsors’ sweatshops.
These abuses always start with stigmatized groups, but never stop there:
[UK] police are to get the power to restrict the freedom of anyone they suspect of being a sex offender, even if the person has never been convicted of a crime…This can include limiting internet use, stopping the person from being alone with a child under 16 and preventing travel abroad. Anyone breaching the so-called Sexual Risk Order, which lasts for at least two years, could be jailed for up to five years…
WH Smith shut down its website…after it was revealed that a search for the term “daddy” brought up hardcore pornographic ebooks featuring bondage and humiliation alongside stories for children. At least 60 pornographic ebooks…could also be found on Amazon, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble…WH Smith apologised to customers and said the “explosion” of self-publishing had left book retailers exposed to pornographic content…
They weren’t “exposed” to shit; they just had a poor website design and are passing the buck.
The Punitive Mindset (TW3 #337)
The governor of California pretends prison inmates don’t have sex with each other:
…Jerry Brown…vetoed a bill a that would have…required…condoms [to be] available in every California prison. Supporters…argued that [this] would help reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases among inmates, who have higher rates of HIV/AIDS…Brown…noted that family visitors are already allowed to bring condoms for…overnight visits…
Policing for Profit (TW3 #341)
A money-making venture to lure…drug buyers into Sunrise [Florida] to purchase cocaine from police has been halted…Mayor Michael Ryan…lay blame…on the [newspaper story exposing the racket]…Ryan did not express concerns about…[the busts taking place] in such public locations as parking lots and family restaurants…
Another UN agency has reaffirmed…support of sex workers in response to Equality Now’s anti-sex worker campaign…This leaves Equality Now starkly on the fringes of the global women’s movement, as organisations as authoritative as UN Women…assert…that sex work is work, not trafficking. The statement…also…[backs] safe workplaces – which come with decriminalisation – and the right to self-determination, including the right to stay in sex work…[this] precludes…the “Swedish model”…supported by Equality Now…which tries to drive sex workers from sex work (against their consent) through making it intolerably dangerous…
Re the pictures of license plates we had that for years in the UK, for red light districts and dogging areas, it is less popular now since a few brave sould challenged it in court, lets hope the same happens in the US
If you look at the link in the subsection title, you’ll see that in the original I was discussing the use of that tactic in Bradford. I’m glad to hear it was challenged in court; I’m not so sanguine about that working in the modern US police state, though.
What’s really sad about Christian Adamek’s suicide is I can’t say this was the irrational act of an mentally or emotionally disturbed adolescent. This was the rational act of somebody who knew that he was going to be branded an outcast for the rest of his life because some lawhead sincerely believes everyone at that football game was scarred for life because they saw someone’s penis. Was the woman who streaked at the President’s Cup branded a sex offender? If there were any justice, the principal of this high school would be serving the sentence he was willing to inflict on this boy and Christian would still be alive.
Very well said. Were I the dictatrix, I would clear the “sex offender” registry of all who now populate it and replace them with every politician, judge, cop and prosecutor who thought it was a good idea. The only difference is that I’d probably have mercy and let most of them leave it after a decade.
I think that even for the people for whom the “sex offender” laws were originally intended, the punishment is too cruel and inhumane. If you really believe that after committing such a crime that someone can never be rehabilitated, then it would be for that person to live in a medical institution for the rest of their life away from children. Pedophiles are so demonized in our culture that it’s virtually impossible for any one to receive help before they commit a crime. It’s worse when society refuses to admit the psychological needs of sex and genuinely believes that any masturbation is actually hurting children not present.
If people are guilty of being sex offenders simply for their sexual nature of simply being human, who isn’t going to wind up on one of these lists?
The people that run this nation (and it isn’t us, by the way) would like to see us all made felons. They would then have a massive pool of near slave labor in for profit prisons, with no rights. It would also eliminate people off the voting roles.
“Mr. Allen was one of 13 men caught in a St. Paul, Minnesota-area sting in July after police allege he took a limousine to an area hotel where he planned to pay $200 to have sex with two women.”
I hesitate to add any criticism to Mr. Allen’s legal difficulties, but … $200 for sex with two women? $200? Sounds like an incredibly low rate to me. “Incredibly” meaning, the sort of rate that donut-munching porktards would dream up for a sting against, well, foolish individuals. My late father used to tell me that “you can’t cheat an honest man,” meaning that people who are always looking for the best of it are vulnerable to deception because their greed spurs them on to foolishness. I wonder if this isn’t a case in point.
One of my first serious boyfriends (I was 19, he was 28) used to express it as “Nobody can take advantage of you unless you have larceny in your heart.”
Oh, how I wish that was true.
PWW, I think that neither my old father nor Maggie’s old boyfriend were suggesting that it’s totally impossible to cheat an honest person. I think they just meant that larcenous people are much easier to cheat.
I’m sure that anyone at all can be cheated.
For a big city like that, yes, sounds low. But where I live in Indiana, threesomes for $200 can be done. And in Europe, even lower: identical twins for about $70.
There was a bust here recently with police posing as escorts, and the guys busted had offered between 60 and over 1,000, so, yes, lots of cluelessness out there.
Adamek’s suicide … I have a serious problem here in linking “cause and effect”.
Cuz, if we’re gonna do it here – then we have to do it everywhere – which probably means Shauna Grant’s suicide was a result of her work in the porn industry – ergo, porn “killed” her.
There’s a girl in the news who was “cyber-bullied” … she committed suicide and although the girls that did it to her were ass hats – they didn’t kill the girl, the girl killed herself.
The Submarine USS LOS ANGELES had a suicide that was blamed on the Chief of the Boat – yeah, he fucked up – but he didn’t pull the trigger.
That same suicide was cited as a reason that Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Boorda committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest on the Washington Navy Yard.
I’ve personally been through worse that most of these cases – I’m still here. I expect that human beings should have resiliency – and suicide is an indicator to me of a flaw in an individual – when committed under circumstances like this.
That’s not to say that putting a guy on the sex offender’s list for streaking isn’t grotesque … it certainly is.
You need to distinguish between ‘suicide’ and ‘felo de se’. The latter is killing yourself while sane; think of it as a self-inflicted euthanasia. Suicide, in the way we usually think of if, happens when the balance of a person’s mind is disturbed. This is a legalistic description for ‘depression’. Depression is a very common mental illness; by some estimates it will be the most common health problem by 2020. People who are severely depressed do not think rationally; suicide, for them, is an escape from their unbearable reality. (People who are moderately depressed often have a much more realistic outlook on life than ‘normal’ people, who tend to look at things through rose-tinted spectacles.)
Around 1 in 10 men can expect at least one episode of mental illness in their life; for women, the figure is about 1 in 4. Mental illness, like prostitution, is very stigmatised; it is an irrational fear of the unknown and the unaccepted.
Illness, physical or ‘mental’ can strike at any time; neither is a ‘flaw’. Many people do the ‘right’ thing, eat well, take exercise and so on, yet still get cancer or heart disease. We do not say these people have a ‘flaw’. We probably don’t know why they became ill; the most we often can say is that it was ‘bad luck’.
No matter how much resiliency you have, you cannot escape a physical illness just by thinking about it; neither can you escape a mental illness by ‘pulling yourself together’ and ‘getting over it’.
krulac, your comments above are unworthy of you. To stigmatise people in this way is totally wrong headed. Such people need sympathy, support and treatment, in the same way that people with physical illness do. Alas, many people with depression are very good at hiding their real feelings; often, these are apparent only when they commit suicide.
The kid was threatened by his principal of being branded a sex offender for life. That means that he probably not only would not be able to go to college or get any job at all, and that the only place he would be legally able to sleep would be underneath a fucking bridge. I think if Adamek had not killed himself and chose to fight it, I think his family would have had a fighting chance to win, particularly as national attention focused on the stupidity of Alabama’s indecency exposure laws. But I can’t fault the kid for making that choice. This wasn’t an act of depression but the sane act of someone who understood the horror of what these “sex offender” laws really mean.
This had nothing to do with the suicide on the Los Angeles and in my opinion, it wasn’t suicide—it was murder. The principal was as guilty for this kid’s death as much as if he had held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Re: Rupert Everett’s programme.
I was actually approached by the producer of this programme to participate in it. I turned it down for many reasons, the least of which is that I don’t fully trust media interactions as a sex worker. As well as the fact that this programme is for a UK audience and I can only speak to my experience as a sex worker in the USA. And I simply don’t want to be the focus of media scrutiny. Ever.
You made the right decision. It’s fine in the UK where you won’t have to worry that the local LEOs enjoy BBC America or something…
I think I would be like “Sex work? …There must be a mistake…eh…we sell cookies here…Mr Burns’s old-fashion extra chewy…”
Monty Burns’ Frozen Pudding Wagon. 😛
I think you made a wise decision, you can’t control where it the documentary is exhibited. Also it seems an odd documentary even for channel 4 because there is no threat of any party trying to criminalise prostitutes clients in Britain in the near future. I know the Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade under that Christian fundamentalist loon and Labour MP Gavin Shuker, proposed it, but he’s a complete nobody. His report was filed in the nearest waste paper basket bin and he was recently demoted. From what I can see the documentary would be another self-serving vehicle for a failed actor. Rupert Everett still blames his lack of success on homophobia in the the acting profession… yeah, if you say so Rupert!
In a follow-up to the Christian Adamek story, state prosecutors in Alabama have publicly stated that streaking does not lead to the sex offender registry. Even if it wasn’t their idea, to me it smells like “cover your ass.” For anyone who is interested, there is a petition at Change.com to have Sparkman High School Principal Michael Campbell fired for his role in Christian’s death.
The comments under that Reason article are classic. A choice selection:
And my personal favorite:
Libertarianism is a form of Marxism? Jews aren’t white? (Sorry, “White”?)
Oh stop, my sides are splitting.
How foolish: that article was in last week’s TWTWTW column, but I posted a comment here. Apologies.
Well, here’s the thing. The initial rationale for sex offender registries was that they were for hard core child rapists and serial rapists. The really bad guys who needed watching. But just as any censorship effort always extends from the hard core child porn to eventually encompass everything that includes a picture of a naked man or woman, having sex or not, sex offenders extended to include streakers and people who get caught peeing in public for whatever reason. You have pointed out in this very column that “These abuses always start with stigmatized groups, but never stop there” in terms of going after sex workers of various stripes.
Maybe we could prevent a lot of the damage caused by these laws and law enforcement mechanisms by recognizing that mission creep is a commonplace phenomenon among them, and campaign to make laws less subject to it. Not sure exactly how that would work, but it might greatly decrease the general level of human misery if we could find a way to do it. Or at least create an awareness in the general public that it’s a problem. Perhaps this might be a place to build a bridge between progressives and conservatives. Conservatives understand mission creep as it applies to gun laws, that’s why they oppose any laws that limit access to firearms. Progressives understand mission creep as it applies to sexual stuff, especially censorship of sexual stuff. If both could be united around the general goal of limiting mission creep, it could forge a coalition that would sweep the middle. Because everybody understands the insanity of putting such dire legal penalties on a 14 year old streaker that he commits suicide.
More on that Oreo cookie thing: bad methodology = bad result: ‘Unfortunately, the researchers from Connecticut College who ran this study, led by Professor Joseph Schroeder, never actually tested this hypothesis.’ Maybe they worked at Muppet Labs and tested on poor Rizzo.
Bonus Item: from UK sitcom Father Ted – cake with added cocaine, anyone?