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Archive for November, 2013

Suspicious Minds

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , on November 20, 2013| 24 Comments »

I’m a widow who’s been in a relationship with a widower for two years; he has a successful business and is very well-off and very good to me, and though neither of us had a very good sex life with our deceased spouses we have really made magic together.  But for the past few months, things have cooled between us; the sex is still really good but somewhat less frequent, and his behavior has become odd.  Due to his business he’s gone for about half of every week; this never used to bother me, but while I was unpacking his case from his last trip I found a bottle of Viagra, and some of them had been used.  When I have sex with him now, he never wants anything but anal; he can’t come any other way.  He gets a lot of junk texts on his phone from gay dating websites; he just deletes them and says he doesn’t know why they’re being sent to him.  All this started after he hired a gay male friend of mine, and I have come to believe the two of them are having an affair.whispering men  I sometimes find the two of them talking in whispers, and they stop when I come into the room; one night recently I went to bed during one of the friend’s visits and awoke about three in the morning to find the two of them sitting close together in the garden, talking in hushed voices.  The next day he came by work and avoided me, rushing out without saying hello; we used to be close friends, but now he avoids making eye contact.  I want to trust my boyfriend, but it’s difficult given the circumstances.

I wish I could tell you that you’re only being paranoid, but I really don’t believe that you are.  If I were in your place, I would be just as suspicious as you are; all of these things do seem to point toward your boyfriend having an affair with your friend.  His sexual difficulties, his evasiveness, the way he and the friend seem to be sharing a secret, the fact that the friend is now uncomfortable around you, and the gay solicitations…together, they add up to something that doesn’t look good.  Despite the social gains made by gay people in recent years, there is still a great deal of stigma attached to homosexuality among older people, and even younger ones in many countries; it would therefore be no surprise for your boyfriend to be in denial about his attraction to other men.

Obviously, you’re going to have to talk to him about it somehow, but I think we both know he’s going to deny it because that’s what most men do when they’re caught.  I suggest you really think about how to confront him before actually doing it; try to plan this so you are as calm and rational as possible.  It’s almost certainly going to turn into an argument, so you need to prepare for that, but try not to let it degenerate into a screaming match; let him know how you feel, and watch how he reacts.  You will probably be able to tell by his reactions and what he says whether your suspicions are correct, even if he keeps denying it.  After that, you’ll have to make a decision based on what he says and what you discover; I can’t tell you what the “right” decision is, because you have to decide that for yourself, but one way or another this has to be resolved.  As the old song goes, “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds”; either you have to deal with the suspicion, accept the situation, or move on from the relationship, because it isn’t fair to either of you for things to continue like this.

(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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Why I Wait

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , , on November 19, 2013| 22 Comments »

To avoid doing anything, wait for the right circumstances.  –  Mason Cooley

I’m sure my regular readers have noticed that, though I usually feature news items y’all send me within a week or so, there are times when I don’t even mention them in passing (much less feature them), even if they seem to be something right up my alley.  Indeed, sometimes a dozen or more of you will send something to me, and that’s on top of all the times I see it on Twitter, yet I stubbornly refuse to give it as much as a nod.  And when it does happen, some of you probably ask yourselves, “What is up with that?”  Well, today I’m going to explain it, with the help of a recent example of the phenomenon.

bovine excrement meterThe one-word explanation is “instinct”.  As many have remarked, my bullshit detector is pretty finely calibrated; I can usually sense it no matter how expertly it’s hidden, and I can often produce an analysis of the exact breed and variety of the bull and tell you what he was eating besides.  But at other times, I’m just not conversant enough with the background or good enough with math to figure out exactly what’s wrong with the story in question; I still know that it’s wrong, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.  And so rather than rush to report something everyone else is nattering and opining about, and thereby look like an idiot when it’s invariably debunked, I just sit back quietly and wait for the other shoe to drop.

This particular case in point started back in July, with the publication of an article in Marie Claire which rehashed the perennial legend that young Japanese people have lost interest in sex (remember when the “herbivores” were taking over a few years ago?)  Well, nobody noticed this new one (because it was Marie Claire, after all) until author Abigail Haworth rehashed it in the Guardian one month ago today…and then it took off, being quoted and discussed in many other media outlets.  Needless to say, none of them bothered to do any original research to confirm the story; as in the case of “sex trafficking”, the parrots in journalists’ clothing at Time, Huffington Post, Slate and many other rags mindlessly reported the original, with the high level of critical analysis one might expect from a toddler or a spambot.  I knew it was garbage from the get-go; Japan has one of the largest and most diverse sex industries on the planet.  It equated dating with having sex, like the American researchers who obsess about “correcting” the large discrepancy between the fraction of men who cheat and the fraction of women, because they refuse to recognize that the majority of male cheating is carried out with whores rather than cheating wives.  Furthermore, it claimed that a low birth rate was somehow evidence of lack of sex, as though the reporter had dispatched her story from some past era before the invention of reliable contraception.  However, I was still reluctant to weigh in; I’m not an expert in Japanese culture, so it was conceivable that there was something beyond those two obvious errors that I was overlooking.

As it turned out, on this occasion I had been overcautious.  The debunkings which started appearing a week later came to the same conclusions I had, with very little more to add; I had simply underestimated the institutional cluelessness of the modern media.  In Global Voices Online, Keiko Tanaka quoted a number of criticisms of the piece, including one which pointed out that Haworth cannot read Japanese and was therefore at the mercy of a tiny number of sources.  And in Bloomberg, William Pesek wrote:

…The real issue is that many avoid traditional, committed relationships out of doubts…based on economics rather than culture.  If low libido were strictly societal, why do the Czech Republic, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan have fertility rates as low as Japan’s?  I don’t see the global media characterizing those countries as sexless freak shows spiraling toward extinction…Part of the problem is cherry-picked data.  Take the 2011 survey…on which sex-drought stories are often based.  Its finding that 61 percent of unmarried men and 49 percent of single women between 18 and 24 of age weren’t in any kind of romantic relationship is mentioned up high.  Rarely cited is this fact on Page 2 of the report:  almost 90 percent of respondents intend to marry someday.  And…71 percent of unmarried Americans aren’t in committed relationships [either]…Japan’s low birthrate…is a result of exorbitant living costs, elevated stress and diminished confidence…

So there you have it.  Though both of those articles did add details of which I was unaware, I could have commented on the matter without hesitation and been largely right on.  Ah, well; at least I’ll have a resource to refer back to the next time the “asexual Japanese youth” canard starts making the rounds again in 2017 or thereabouts. sex is gross

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Crumbling House

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 18, 2013| 27 Comments »

The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.  –  Herbert Agar

The Road of Lost InnocenceEven ignoring the immorality of using lies to support one’s agenda, there is another major problem with the tactic:  unlike the truth, lies are unable to stand on their own.  Facts are what they are; even if they are neglected, forgotten, buried and denied they continue to exist, waiting to be uncovered again.  Events produce effects, and the evidence of those effects may not always be obvious to those interested in hiding the truth; it simply rests wherever it falls, awaiting a future day of discovery.  A lie, on the other hand, is like a wooden house in a wet climate: without constant maintenance it will soon begin to rot and fall apart, and if there are forces actively working against it that day will come sooner rather than later.  Unfortunately, it is the nature of human folly that most of our species prefer comfortable lies to uncomfortable truths, and even when those lies start to collapse many will ignore the process until the roof falls in on their heads…at which point they will invariably insist it was due to sabotage by their enemies rather than to the inherent unsoundness of the construction.

Somaly Mam has built an elaborate edifice of lies in which to house her extremely profitable business, and has never been terribly concerned about those she has hurt in the process.  In my column “Schadenfreude” I wrote,

…Cambodian police, aided and abetted by Somaly Mam (who is herself financed by money from neofeminists, religious fanatics, trafficking alarmists and the garment industry), have conducted a series of high-profile brothel raids and streetwalker sweeps, often accompanied by Western journalists like Nicholas Kristof who are interested in advancing their careers and reputations by pandering to “trafficking” hysteria.  None of these people care one iota about the lives, needs and desires of women; “rescuing” whores is to them nothing but a means to their own personal ends, and after the cameras stop rolling or Kristof stops “tweeting”  they are no more interested in these women’s welfare than they would be in the container which held a portion of recently-consumed food.  The “rescued victims” are thrown into filthy, crowded cells at Somaly Mam’s “rehabilitation centers” where they are beaten, robbed, gang-raped and starved while their “savior” hobnobs with celebrities and receives accolades from anti-whore fanatics.  Young girls who submit to brainwashing become…“poster children” and older ones are sent as slaves to sweatshops, while those who refuse are simply left to rot unless they can escape.  Groups like Human Rights Watch have repeatedly protested this horrific abuse, and sex worker rights groups have released short documentaries like “Caught Between the Tiger and the Crocodile” or videos like “Somaly Uh Uh” in order to alert Westerners to the atrocities their ignorant and ill-considered jihad against harlotry has enabled…

Long ProsBut in the two years since that essay, Mam’s jerry-built structure has begun to crumble.  First, it was revealed that women she had claimed in her press releases as underage and coerced were neither, and those she claimed to have been murdered or abducted by “traffickers” were alive and well.  Her ex-husband also revealed that their daughter, whom Mam claimed “had…been kidnapped and gang-raped in revenge for her mother’s activism …had simply run off with her boyfriend”; the daughter, who lives with her mother, has confirmed that.  A year ago it was revealed that Long Pros, a young woman whose eye had supposedly been gouged out by a “pimp”, and whom Mam had exploited as an “anti-trafficking” poster child, had never been involved in sex work and had lost her eye to a tumor.  Just last month Meas Ratha, Mam’s very first iconic “trafficking victim” at the beginning of her crusade in 1998, said she could no longer live a lie; she admitted that (like Long Pros) she had never been a sex worker, and that “her testimony…was fabricated and scripted for her by Ms. Mam.”  Former “rescued sex slaves” who worked for Mam’s organization AFESIP have reported endemic sexual harassment and even rape by male bosses, especially two named Phana and Ou Sophan (the latter one of Mam’s relatives); those who reported them were fired and anyone who sided with the victims was disciplined.  And in a recent interview, Mam’s ex-husband disputed even her own claims of having been “trafficked”:  “She was a prostitute.  Was she abused?  Yes.  Was she trafficked?  I doubt it.  No one has proof.”

As you might expect, Mam’s organization denies everything.  She “misspoke” when she made false accusations of murder and rape.  A spokeswoman who insisted that Long Pros’ parents, doctors and medical records were all wrong told reporters, “you are now bullying victims of sex slavery.”   The reaction to Meas Ratha’s revelation was, “We don’t know why, nor will we speculate on why Meas Ratha has allegedly made [these] claims,” accompanied by an accusation that the paper which reported the story “has never been historically fair with Somaly” and is involved in a “witch hunt”.  “Trafficking” fetishist Nicholas Kristof, one of the major proponents of Mam’s legend, doesn’t care; his assistant told a reporter, “Nick isn’t going to give a comment because it seems the reports are unrelated to the reporting and writing he has done on Somaly Mam.”  And not one of the Hollywood stars, American politicians or fashion-industry moguls who have feted, promoted and bankrolled Mam and her exploitative “foundation” have seen fit to distance themselves from her or to publicly demand an explanation.  It won’t be long before they’re forced to do so by increasing media attention,Somaly Mam and Nick Kristof but I don’t expect much fanfare; they’ll just quietly exit the collapsing building, dust off their expensive designer clothes, and move on to the next celebrity fad without so much as a word of apology to those who have been brutalized, marginalized and infantilized by the wicked schemes of the greedy, unscrupulous woman they have enabled for over a decade.

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Links #176

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2013| 8 Comments »

The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch; ain’t no way out.  –  from “How To Sing the Blues”

This was a relatively quiet week for links, and I’m glad to say that I haven’t yet seen much unseasonably-early Christmas stuff yet (though I did have to re-activate the email filter which automatically deletes anything with the words “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” in the subject line).  I’m nearly finished with my book, and the cover art should be here in the next few days; I’ve also been working on some other extracurricular stuff I’m sure y’all will like, which will be announced as it’s released.  Everything down to the first video is from Radley Balko; the video itself is from Aspasia, and the second video (a short film from 1966 on the making of 2001:  A Space Odyssey) is from I Am Curious Blue.  The links between the videos were contributed by Szusa (“Greek music”), Brooke Magnanti (“Prince”),  Mike Siegel (“update”), Neil Gaiman (“Heisenberg”), Walter Olson (“ice”), Rick Horowitz (“Circle K”), and Jesse Walker (“python”).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#346)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2013| 24 Comments »

The current trafficking panic is fundamentally a modern myth that has been re-created from the “white slavery fears” of the 19th century to further moralist or political agendas.  –  John Davies

Think of the Children!

“Law-enforcement agencies have…shut a suspected bawdy house located just metres from a daycare and one block from a southeast Calgary school…Paradise Spa…has been a problem venue for more than a decade, police said…”Michael Ford  SEX NEAR A DAYCARE AND A SCHOOL!!!!!!  The fiends!

License to Rape

“…[Alabama cop] Michael Ford was sentenced to…89 years…[for] incest…sexual abuse…sodomy and…sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old…he…offered no apology…the sentences will run consecutively…”

Lack of Evidence

…[New York City] Police arrested Felicia McGinnis, 26, after spotting her talking to passersby…while wearing a “black pea coat, skinny jeans and platform shoes”…“Any…fashion magazine would display plenty of women similarly dressed,” wrote Judge Felicia Mennin… “such outfit hardly demonstrates the wearer’s proclivity to…prostitution…characterization of…jeans as ‘revealing’ because they ‘outlined the defendant’s legs’ seems more to be expected in the dress code of a 1950s high school than a criminal-court pleading”…

Above the Law

A [Zimbabwean] prostitute…has claimed that civil servants…constitute…the majority of the industry’s clients, but [are] notorious for using…threats to [avoid] paying…most soldiers [use] verbal threats…while police officers [threaten arrest]…

The Schizoid State

Notice that a “child” magically becomes a “woman” the instant she’s accused of a crime:

Prosecutors in Texas have accused a 17-year-old woman of recruiting her…”easily manipulated” friends to provide [paid] sex for Michael “Money Mike” McIntosh…the friends were as young as 14.  The alleged teen madam is charged with compelling prostitution…

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan (TW3 #25) stupid food sex tips

Apparently, the “sex advice” in Men’s Health is almost as moronic as that in Cosmo!  Here’s another hilarious list of 15 useless, impracticable, ridiculous or just plain dumb suggestions from these clueless magazines.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #31)

They “believe it’s a means of making money” because it is.

…Elizabeth Ngonga has said…”Many girls and boys engage in sex-tourism, which they believe is a means of making money. It’s very sad spotting teenage girls and boys roaming beaches with foreigners”…Ngonga called on the government [of Kenya] to create laws that will enable police…to access tourist cottages [without warrants]…She [also] urged the government to ban foreigners from walking with bikinis and pants…

Show and Tell

…Doriana Silva is seeking $20 million from Ashley Madison…she was…promised a starting salary of $34,000 plus benefits…to create 1,000 “fake female profiles”…to lure men to the new Brazilian Ashley Madison site – and given only three weeks to complete the work…“The purpose of these profiles is to entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website…They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison – or any real human beings at all”…Silva developed severe pain in her wrists and forearms…and…the company has refused to grant her workers’ compensation or insurance…

Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #47) the future of porn in California

Could any non-bureaucrat actually consider this with a straight face?

Draft regulations currently being considered…would…not only require condoms during intercourse but also prohibit ejaculation onto the genitals, mouth or eyes, and instruct employers to provide [porn] performers with protective eyewear to avoid ocular contact with semen…The 21-page document suggests several other regulatory changes…like providing “plastic coverings or other disposable materials to facilitate cleaning of the work area”…

End Violence, Not Demand

From a memorandum submitted to the UK Parliament by migration expert Dr. John Davies:

…the assumed link between demand for sexual services and consequential harm…is not evidence based…sex work migration…is often undertaken to try and surmount…structural obstacles to…desired mobility…There is a widely disseminated proposition that…prostitution is a demand-driven industry…which…fuels forms of induction…[this] is apparently based on unreformed Keynesian economic theory…and …should not go unchallenged…sex work…is often a commercialised extension of a pre-existing, common domestic and barter behaviour…[as such] it…is more likely to be represented by Say’s economic laws, rather than any form of rigid Keynesian theory…

Well worth reading in its entirety.

Sex Workers Against Trafficking (TW3 #139)

From the Journal of Public Health:  “DMSC-led interventions to remove minors and unwilling women from sex work account for over 80% of successful ‘rescues’ reported in West Bengal…the proportion of minors in sex work in Sonagachi declined from 25 to 2%…”binmen snooping in rubbish

Checklist

I’m sure the Stasi gave very similar training in spotting threats to the state:  “Binmen and taxi drivers are among those to be trained in spotting victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland…‘Anybody in contact with the public…may…be helpful’…”

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #314)

…Two studies…in Australia and Thailand…have revealed consistent findings of authorities’ use of stereotypes…airport authorities identify a woman arriving on a tourist visa as a potential sex worker…through scrutinising women’s luggage…”sexy” clothing…leads to further questioning of women as potential victims of trafficking or unauthorized sex workers…

Naked Truth (TW3 #314)

Shereen El-Feki on the pragmatism of sex work and how HIV is forcing Arab “authorities” there to stop pretending they can make it vanish by forbidding it:

In the Arab region, it is easier to talk about sex when it is wrapped in a white coat of public health.  HIV…provides a way of prompting authorities to address the realities of sexual life, including sex work.  But a medical lens offers less than 20/20 vision, and the broader political, economic, and social conditions that make women turn to sex work in the first place…can be overlooked…But beyond public health, few women’s rights groups in the region want to talk about sex work, let alone actively engage with and empower…sex workers.  The Arab world is very far from accepting the sort of sex worker collectives, such as those in India and elsewhere in the Global South, which equip women to defend their rights…

Sadly, so is the United States.Samantha Azzopardi

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

At the beginning of last week, Irish “trafficking” fetishists were enjoying the wanking fantasy of a new “14-year-old trafficking victim”.  By the end of the week, reality threw cold water on it:  “The mystery girl [has been] identified…as an Australian adult [with] a previous conviction for deception in her native country…Samantha Azzopardi…was…believed [to be] aged 14 to 16…but…is actually 25…[and has] up to 40 different aliases…”

First They Came for the Hookers (TW3 #317)

After cops wasted taxpayer money to trick strippers, the women were forced to endure the childish giggling of morons in court, a refugee from a high-school newspaper’s writeup of the ordeal and a dried-up prude of a judge forcing them to endure a year of anti-sex brainwashing.  Because obviously there is no actual crime in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Comfort Zone (TW3 #320)

This excellent article about the “rescue industry” exposes its racist and moralistic motivations and demonstrates how it hurts those it “saves”:

For almost three years Sine Plambech…[of] the Danish Institute for International Studies, has followed 30 [deported] Nigerian women…the European categorisation of who is a victim and who is an illegal alien is arbitrary and unsystematic…“The ones who receive assistance have…[learned] what to say…If you say that you went to Europe to earn money for your family, you knew that you would sell sex and you bought the illegal papers yourself, then you probably won’t get help.  If you say that you didn’t know you were going to sell sex, you get help”…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #324) Buying Sex

The National Film Board of Canada improperly financed a Swedish model propaganda film named “Buying Sex”, and Alan Young (the main attorney in Bedford vs. Canada) is understandably upset:

…I was recruited to participate in this film on the basis that it would serve to inform and educate the public about…the ”Bedford” case…However…it became apparent that the filmmakers’ intent was to trivialize the constitutional challenge and…attack…my character and integrity…excerpts…were carefully edited to make…our commentary appear vacuous and self-serving…the filmmakers have manipulated and used both the NFB and myself to advance…the claims of abolitionists, and…to promote the adoption of the ”Swedish model”…into the Canadian legislative landscape.  The only reason the filmmaker chose to include the constitutional challenge…was to make the film appear topical and Canadian, and to secure close to $1,000,000 in NFB funding…

Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #324)

Change “Botswana” to the name of any American state:

Botswana recently [announced]…that prostitutes will either be detained if they are locals or deported if they are foreigners…Alongside regular crackdowns…the Health ministry will put out messages against sex work [on] billboards…Newspaper adverts, articles, posters, flyers, radio and television adverts on sexually transmitted infections and dangers of sex work will also be used.

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #327)

Buried in an article about Japan’s move toward legalizing casinos:  “…law enforcement has already started cracking down on sex clubs and affiliated businesses in entertainment areas in preparation for the Olympics…”

Buttons, Bags & BanknotesRewind & Reframe

A growing clamour to tackle sexually explicit pop videos will find a new voice this week with the launch of a campaign group to demand cinema-style ratings on lewd content aimed at teenage and pre-teenage girls…Rewind&Reframe [is] a joint project run by the pressure groups End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan and Object…A petition is also being started to call on the [UK] government to act…

Little Tin Gods

Just two percent of counties in the United States are responsible for more than half of the country’s executions since 1976…and…85 percent of the remaining…counties…have not had a single…execution in over 45 years…The top 10 counties…are: Los Angeles County, Calif.; Harris County, Texas; Philadelphia County, Pa.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; Riverside County, Calif.; Clark County, Nev.; Orange County, Calif.; Duval County, Fla.; Alameda County, Calif.; and San Diego County, Calif…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (TW3 #338)

With the judgment against Rick’s in New York, this was only a matter of time:

An exotic dancer is suing Bourbon Street strip club Rick’s Cabaret on claims the business refused to pay wages and siphoned off tips to hundreds of its women performers.  Kelly Moncheski, a former dancer, filed a lawsuit…on behalf of other former employees…The lawsuit claims that Rick’s…improperly classified dancers as independent contractors…and…forced [them] to share tips with the owners…the company dictated…how long they should work, what to wear, and how to groom themselves…

Across the Pond (TW3 #344)

I can’t really see why this is a bad thing:

The council are considering scrapping the need for Edinburgh’s saunas to apply for a licence…all the venues could keep operating and only be subjected to the usual public health and trading standards regulations which every business has to abide to…Sex workers’ charity Scot-Pep have criticised the move, saying it has been forced on the council by Police Scotland’s crack-down.  They are concerned about the implications for the safety of sex workers…

Celebrities (TW3 #345) Dennis Hof

The revolting Dennis Hof demonstrates more of the whorearchistic, misogynistic, trafficking-panic supporting and wholly opportunistic behavior that earned him a place in my Hall of Shame:

Upon hearing reports that Justin Bieber was seen leaving a Brazilian brothel…Dennis Hof is making a public appeal to him to stop risking his health and instead spend time with the ladies of his seven legal brothels in Nevada.  “I was shocked to hear that Justin might have put his health and safety at risk in a Brazilian brothel…condom use with Brazilian prostitutes is voluntary and unregulated…[and] Brazil has a rampant child sex trafficking problem, second only to that of Thailand…”

He goes on to basically say that sex workers are too stupid and criminal to be trusted to monitor our own health without state compulsion.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #345)

Caty Simon interviews Jaclyn Moskal-Dairman of SWOP Phoenix; Dairman explains how Monica Jones was specifically targeted and entrapped by Phoenix police, discusses the true reasons for “diversion” programs, and discusses the ethical nightmare of Project ROSE in particular.  How bad is it?  Take a look at this report from Al-Jazeera, which unlike US media corporations is under no political pressure to spread “trafficking” hysteria, and is in fact emerging as a persistent critic of the narrative.

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Fictional Interlude: The Other Side

Posted in Fiction, Perception, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2013| 9 Comments »

The eye sees not itself but by reflection.  –  William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (I,ii)

regressionI’ve been thinking a great deal about reflections of late.  Not just in the literal sense, but also in a figurative one; I mean, we all spend so much of our lives reacting to things, don’t we?  One action or situation causes something else to react to it, to reflect from it as a beam of light reflects from a mirror.  Take my mum, for instance; had she not been born in a Victorian bordello, would she have become such an awful prude?  And had she been less tightly-wound, would I have been so loose?  She was like a left-handed reflection of my grandmother, and I in turn a reverse-image of her.  Granny’s actions made her a wealthy woman, and my mum’s aversion to using what she considered a tainted legacy inadvertently preserved it all for my sister and I; then I in turn was shaped in part by not ever having to worry about money.  Each generation reflecting from the one before it, endlessly into the past and future, like the row of images one sees when one faces two mirrors toward one another…an endless corridor stretching out in either direction, forever.

Near the end of the Twenties Granny decided she was too old for that sort of thing, and really couldn’t keep up any more.  The place had declined quite a bit since its heyday in the Mauve Decade, but it was still very lucrative and could no doubt have supported Mum in fine style.  But she would have none of it; though she had followed Granny into the business as expected, she never really embraced it, and as my sister Julia reached school age Mum began to fret about the effect of bringing her up in “that kind” of environment (meaning the same one she had been brought up in; my mother was not the most logical of women).  She and Granny had a terrible row, and she stormed out with Julia; they didn’t speak again for several years.  Granny sold the business, bought a lovely little place in a small village in Lincolnshire and retired to go bird-watching and fuss with roses.  Mum opened a millinery shop, eventually married and was blessed with her only legitimate offspring (meaning me) in ’36.  Undoubtedly she intended that I would never meet my grandmother, but Hitler had other plans; when it came time to evacuate us things were hastily patched up, I was given into the custody of Julia (who was seventeen then), and the two of us were bundled out to the country for the duration.

Looking back on it now, I can’t remember thinking of Granny as anything other than an absolutely marvelous old lady who was never too strict about how many biscuits I might have before tea.  What I mean is, she seemed much of a muchness with the friends’ grandmothers I had known in London, only more attentive to me (as was to be expected).  Nor did I sense anything odd about the relations between she and Mum when the latter came up for one of her frequent visits, though I do remember asking Julia why Dad never came up with her, and never receiving a satisfactory answer.  Granny passed peacefully in her sleep in November of ’44; not long after that Julia (who had long since returned to London) married an American bomber pilot, and after the war they moved to California.  Then in ’51 Dad (who was ten years older than Mum) succumbed to a heart attack, and that left me alone with an increasingly pious, frustrating and overprotective Mum who seemed to believe that demons were lurking behind every lamp-post and plotting to steal my virtue.  I couldn’t get out of the house soon enough to suit me, and I’m a bit ashamed to say that I was less sorry than is proper when she followed Dad via stroke in ’63.

Highgate 1963So there I was: barely twenty-seven, beautiful and rich; good business sense runs in the family, and my mother’s business was so healthy its sale more than tripled the trust fund Granny had established for me twenty years before.  Most importantly, I was unencumbered by anything remotely resembling a chaperon.  As you might expect I went a bit mad, but only socially: when it came to money, I was just as hard-headed and shrewd as Mum and Granny had been.  Though I was willing to spend a bit more on a Highgate townhouse than was strictly prudent, I wasn’t about to buy all sorts of new furniture when there was plenty of lovely stuff in storage, much of it things from Granny’s brothel that she had been unwilling to lose when she sold it.  And one of those items is the reason for my waxing philosophical of late, and for my writing this.

As I said there were many fine pieces, including some genuine antiques.  And one of them was a huge mirror, large enough to cover most of the wall of a small chamber.  I say “mirror” because that’s what it evidently was, though the glass had apparently undergone some curious degeneration which turned it a murky black.  An expert pronounced the frame Elizabethan, but of a most peculiar design; he said it was almost unheard-of for one so large and so old to have survived with the glass intact, and offered me a ridiculous sum for it.  But I was absolutely in love with it and had no need of more money, and I was sure this must have occupied some parlour in my Granny’s old brothel.  The fact that it was useless as a looking-glass was immaterial; it was gorgeous and started many a conversation at my frequent parties.  And that was even before the glass cleared.

It had occupied my wall for several years when the change came.  One night, several of us were sitting on the floor dropping acid, when there was suddenly a strange shift in the appearance of the glass, as though one patch of the blackness had been suddenly stripped away and light was coming through from behind it.  The rest rapidly cleared, and then I saw the image of two people in the glass…that is, two people who were not among those in the room.  I immediately called my friends’ attention to it, but the view was gone as suddenly as it had appeared; however, it was now a perfectly normal, utterly clean reflective surface.  The next day I put the fleeting glimpse of strange figures down to the action of the psychedelic, but the change in the glass was no hallucination: it now reflected the room as though I had replaced the darkened pane with a new sheet of glass.  And that, in fact, is what the antique dealer angrily accused me of when I called to ask him how such a thing could happen; he angrily stormed out and cautioned me against wasting his time again in future.

My friends were not so irate as the expert when I told them what had happened, but were no more willing to believe; everyone insisted I was just trying to create a sense of mystery, or hinted that I had been doing too many drugs or watching too many Hammer films.  So I stopped trying to convince anyone, and had almost stopped worrying about it when early one morning, while my guest was still upstairs asleep, I wandered into the room and once again saw the image of people – three of them this time – who were absolutely not there with me, despite the fact that I was absolutely sober.  And though I use the word “people”, it was clear that these were not wholly human; they resembled us in much the same way as one breed of dog looks like another one: same general features, yet unmistakably different.  The vision persisted for only a minute, and by the time I had made up my mind that this was not a figment of my imagination it once again showed only a normal reflection.

The phenomenon repeated itself infrequently and irregularly over the next few years.  I was afraid, but not to the point of having it crated up again; after all, they were just images, startling but harmless, and Granny had apparently displayed it for decades without mishap.  Furthermore, that was an era of exploration and expanding of consciousness; I was convinced that the images were a psychic manifestation rather than a supernatural one, perhaps an attempt at communication by beings from some other dimensional plane.  But the glimpses of that world remained sporadic and wholly unpredictable, and eventually they began to unnerve me so much that I decided to return the glass to the state in which I had found it, stored in a dark crate.

I have not looked upon it in over thirty years now, and to be honest I hadn’t even thought about it in over a decade; that may seem strange to you, my dear, but you must remember that it was a very different time in many ways.  But in the process of going over my affairs, I saw it listed in my notes and realized I should tell you about it, since you’ll be inheriting it soon.  I’m almost eighty now, and though modern medicine allowed me to survive the event which killed my mother (and no doubt hers), sooner or later I must succumb.  You may decide to write this off as an aberration of your senile old Granny who did far too many drugs in her youth, and perhaps you’d be right to; it may be that it was my imagination after all.  But before you decide to display it or sell it, consider this: What if the appearance of the mirror, whether black or reflective or a window into an alien world, is controlled from the other side?  And during those long periods when we can’t see them…Ghost Behind the Glass

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Hwang Jini

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2013| 21 Comments »

Mountains are the same as in the old times,
But streams are never the same;
They keep flowing day and night,
So they can not be the same.
The men of fame are like the streams;
Once gone, they never return.  –  Hwang Jini

My column on the kisaeng, theHwang Jin Yi movie poster Korean equivalent of geisha, opened with a sijo poem by Hwang Jini, the most famous and beloved of her profession.  In recent years, she has essentially become the archetypal kisaeng, and as in the case of Western courtesans her life has provided the inspiration for novels, a television show  and a movie; of course, these fictional treatments are considerably embellished and dramatized, and it’s difficult to tell history from folk legend from deliberate “improvement”.  In this case, the task is further complicated by the dearth of English-language sources on the subject, but there is still enough to enable a sketch of a most unconventional woman of almost superhuman charisma who made her own way in a society where that was simply not allowed.  Hwang Jini’s extraordinary presence and strength of will is a large part of why modern Korean women find her so fascinating; she is a splendid example of what I call an archeofeminist, a woman who uses her femininity to advantage rather than rejecting it.

She was born about 1506 in Kaesong, which lies in what is now North Korea.  Her mother, Chin Hyungeum, was of the cheonmin caste, but her exact profession is unknown; some sources say she was a kisaeng herself, though this seems unlikely given her poverty.  She was, however, extraordinarily beautiful, and attracted the attention of a young yangban (nobleman) named Hwang Chinsa, who took her as a mistress for a time.  They had one daughter, Jini, who from a very early age was recognized as exceptional both in beauty and in musical skill; it is said that she made the decision to become a kisaeng after a young man killed himself or pined away over her, and she realized such powerful appeal would win her fortune.  Now, it is very likely that the decision to send her to a kisaeng house was actually her mother’s; training started very early (sometimes as young as eight), so it hardly seems credible that she was already breaking hearts and making major life-decisions at such a tender age.  However, the very fact that the legend portrays her as choosing her own destiny demonstrates the strength of the impression she made on people.

In Jini’s day, Confucianism was still solidifying its hold on the upper class, and different schools of thought were still vying for control.  Though the kisaeng were technically of slave status, the government did not claim ownership of them until almost a century after her death; she therefore enjoyed a freedom later generations of kisaeng were denied.  After her training was complete she set out to earn a living, taking up almost immediately with a gibu named Yi Saeng.  Though some gibu were jealous or behaved pimpishly, this does not seem to have been the case with Yi Saeng, who appears to have been almost a father-figure to her.  The two took a long sightseeing trip to Mount Kumgang, with Jini (who by then was using her stage name, Myeongwol [“Bright Moon”]) obtaining their needs via casual prostitution.  This story illustrates several important points about her character: first, her ability even at so young an age (she was probably about 15 then) to deal with men as an equal, the hallmark of all great courtesans; second, her willingness to use her sexuality to obtain what she wanted; and third, her total lack of artificiality.  The latter was her most striking characteristic: she spoke her mind freely, with little of the formality which was the norm in Korean society; she generally went without makeup at a time when most kisaeng painted their faces elaborately; and she often dressed attractively but plainly, with very little jewelry.

Hwang Jini (portrait from Korean textbook, c. 1910)But her beauty, personality, intelligence, musical talent and skill at poetry allowed her to seduce men almost without conscious effort, and when she actually applied herself she was practically an irresistible force.  One of her conquests was a misogynistic government official named So Seyang, who bragged he would keep her for a month and then dismiss her without regret; at the end of the time he begged her to stay and she refused, composing a poem to tell him goodbye.  Another of her famous clients was a noted musician named Yi Sajong, with whom she is said to have lived for six years; given the extremely short professional lives of the kisaeng, this was presumably in her thirties, after she had made her fortune.  And a fortune it was; though it could not compare with the wealth of a yangban or even that of a successful European courtesan of her time, it was more than enough to support her in comfort until her death in 1560.  One of the reasons for this success was her ability to deal with men in a completely unsentimental manner, which allowed her to always pursue the most lucrative arrangement available without hesitation or regret; this has been romantically explained as the result of a tragic love affair in her youth resulting in an inability to fall in love again, but that is almost certainly a mere fiction invented by male biographers unable or unwilling to grasp just how pragmatic a whore can be.

There was only one man in her life who seemed to rise above the level of friend or valued client, and that was the philosopher Seo Kyung Duk, under whom she studied for a time.  He was the only man said to have been impervious to her charms, and though she may have at first viewed him as a challenge she eventually came to admire his strength and steadfastness:  she is known to have described him as one of the “three wonders of Kaesong”, the other two being the Pakyon Falls and herself (modesty was clearly not among her virtues).  Though she left her home at a young age, she returned for a number of visits over the years; it was a place of great natural beauty, and her appreciation for such is demonstrated not only in her poetry and her trip to Mount Kumgang (at a time when she could have been occupied far more productively), but also in the fact that she asked to be buried in a simple grave on a riverbank in Kaesong.  She wished to die in the same way she had lived:  practically, honestly, and without the ceremony and pretense which was the norm in her society.

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Let Me Help

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2013| 35 Comments »

I have been reading your blog for quite a while now and I have found it very educational and refreshing.  However, I have been trying for some time to understand your view on trafficking.  I absolutely understand your disdain for people who assert that no educated person could ever choose the life of a prostitute, and I understand that most people who work for anti-human trafficking orgs assert that every single sex worker needs to be saved from herself, pimps, and the ones who buy her services.  Obviously this isn’t the case; I know that there are plenty of people who enjoy sex work and indeed choose it as a career AND lead happy, healthy lives with fulfilling relationships.  However, I work with underage girls who have been through terrible coercion, often from a very young age; these are the kind of people I wish to help.  Law-enforcement officers do not know how to tell coercive situations from non-coercive ones, and more often than not, they end up harassing and criminalizing both the women who choose the life and those who do not.  I am in a position to educate law-enforcement, firefighters and the like, and would like suggestions on doing this.arrested streetwalker  I need to address the problem, who it affects, how to recognize it, and how to stop it…AND actually address that there are people who choose prostitution – and they are not the ones we are trying to “save.”  Also, what organizations apart from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) do you know to have honest, fact-based studies on numbers, ages etc…?

If every organization were like GAATW, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.  Unfortunately most are not, and use “trafficking” as a disguise for attacking consensual sex.  Furthermore, governments use it as an excuse to restrict the migration of people from the Global South while pretending not to be racist, which would be reason enough to refuse the narrative even if it weren’t being used as a cloak for prudes.  I’m very much against coercion, but unfortunately the “trafficking” paradigm is fatally flawed; it is far too wrapped up in hysteria and applied to far too many different things to be a useful descriptor.

I think the three best columns which explain my views on the subject are “Rhinoceros”, “The Power of Myth” and “Thought Experiment”, but the one resource you most need to read is Dr. Laura Agustín’s Sex At the Margins.  Dr. Agustín has worked with and studied migrants for twenty years, and her insights are extremely valuable.  One thing she points out repeatedly, and which cannot possibly be stressed enough, is that those who want to help others must pay attention to what those people say about their experiences.  The most damaging narrative which has crept into the “trafficking” paradigm, and which in the opinion of many has rendered it useless, is the idea that outsiders have both the ability and the right to decide for migrants what is best for them.  It’s similar to the “payday loan” controversy in the US; it’s all well and fine for white middle-class people to call those who offer such loans “predatory” and “exploitative”, but unless they’re willing to provide those short-term loans to those who need them at a less-usurious rate of interest, their criticism is just noise.  It’s all well and fine for people in the wealthiest nation on Earth to say, “oh, what awful conditions these migrants endure; clearly they must have been tricked because I would never agree to that.”  No, maybe they wouldn’t, but they weren’t raised in a rat-infested slum with no toilet and no clean water where the best job offers $1 a day.  Migrants are just as rational as educated white folk, and their decisions are just as considered.  Remember all those people who drowned trying to get to Europe last month?  Most of them couldn’t swim, yet they took that chance because they wanted to get the hell out of East Africa.  Those in the Global North often risk their lives just for a thrill, or work grueling hours to win a coveted position; how can they fail to comprehend that others are willing to endure a great deal for a chance at the kind of life we take for granted?

brown victim cat thank-you danceThe idea that migrants are somehow different from Americans who relocate for jobs, and that “debt bondage” is any different from student loans and a mortgage, is at its heart racist and xenophobic.  And the idea that migrants (or anyone who sells sex) are childlike retards who must be “rescued” from their own decisions is as shockingly disrespectful to them as any racial stereotype in an old movie.  It is not possible to “rescue” people from their own decisions; “authorities” who try are often confused and surprised when those they “rescue” use the first available opportunity to escape from the kennels in which their “saviors” have confined them.  Being picked up, caged and done to without permission is for stray dogs and cats, not human beings, yet well-meaning “anti-trafficking” organizations do this sort of thing all the time.

The single most important advice I can give you, and which you can give those you train, is to listen to the people you wish to help.  Don’t say “I will do this for you”; instead ask “What can I do for you?”  And then pay attention to what they say, without talking over them or saying, “Oh, but that can’t be right” or “Here, let’s do this instead.”  If the answer is “Nothing”, then all you can do is walk away and leave them with your phone number.  You can’t force them to want what you want, or to do things your way; all you can do is give them whatever help they actually need enough to ask for.  They are not children or stray animals; they are human beings, and experts in their own lives.  Would-be helpers cannot force anyone to accept their idea of what’s right, nor use “false consciousness” doubletalk or “Stockholm syndrome” psychobabblevoiceless cat to cover up the desire to impose their will on those they perceive as “exploited”.  Just because you wouldn’t do something, doesn’t make it the wrong decision for that person, and vice-versa.  For example, though I’ve supported friends’ decisions to use anti-depressants, I’ve always refused them myself even in very deep depressions; just as nobody has the right to strap me down and forcibly inject me with these drugs “for my own good”, so “anti-trafficking” people have no right to “help” people against their will, no matter how much they might believe it’s the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, there are a number of terrible laws in the US which prevent people who really are being coerced or exploited from doing anything about it; they would rather stay in the US for really bad pay than be deported to their homelands where they make absolutely nothing.  Punitive American policies are another problem:  Americans love blame-assigning and brutal, crushing punishment, so even when migrants get in trouble they often refuse to blame those who helped them cross the border or find work.  Under current policies, these people are shut off from help if their basic human decency stops them from submitting to the ugly demands of “authorities” that they rat others out by turning them over for criminal prosecution and probable deportation.  In the case of sex work, the deck is totally stacked against a reasonable response:  US law insists that all whores are either villains or victims, and some states insist that it’s always the latter.  So when a woman is “rescued” and the cops demand she reveal her “pimp”, there is about a 92% chance she will be unable to comply; some desperate or frightened women invent a “pimp” who doesn’t exist, while others choose a victim to turn over so they themselves are not jailed.  Until these bad laws are changed, there is absolutely nothing would-be “helpers” can do except to make themselves available to those who are so badly mistreated they would rather face prison or deportation than continue in their present condition…and that’s only a minuscule fraction of those who might very well accept help if it were not tied to incarceration, deportation or subjecting others to the tender mercies of the police.

As for solid “trafficking” numbers, there aren’t any.  I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth; as long as any given activity is underground, under the radar or “off the grid”, it is absolutely impossible to produce anything more than (educated or wild) guesses.  I can give you prostitution age and number estimates based on similar countries in which sex work has been decriminalized, and I can tell you that just about every survey of sex workers who are accessible to researchers shows a coercion rate of less than 2%.  But obviously “authorities” cannot accurately measure people who fear them, so every figure such “authorities” produce can only be bogus.  Even government numbers for people who are “rescued” or charged with “trafficking” are worthless for the reasons I’ve detailed above:  they represent the opinion of the police or other government actors, not the opinion of the people classified as “victims” or “perpetrators”.  The only way we will ever know how many people are involved in exploitative labor (whether border-crossing is involved or not) will be to remove all the consequences and perverse incentives for lying about it or misrepresenting it, and to take away from “authorities” the power to brand others with a label they would never apply to themselves. migrants in detention

(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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Guest Columnist: Brooke Magnanti

Posted in Guest Columns, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 12, 2013| 112 Comments »

Today’s guest columnist probably needs no introduction for most of you; under her stage name Belle de Jour she wrote a well-known blog which turned into books and eventually a TV show, Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  Dr. Magnanti is a forensic scientist (she did sex work while in graduate school), and now brings her scientific training and analytical mind to bear as a writer on sex work, sex in general and other related issues.  So without further ado, I’ll surrender the floor to her. 

Hooters protestFor those living outside of the UK, it can be tough to comprehend the seeming stranglehold a certain type of second-wave feminism has on the mainstream media there.  Issues like, say, feminists objecting to Hooters might raise some local interest in the media if they happened in the States; whereas here they’re as apt to gain national attention.  Similarly, campaigns like the “Lose the Lads Mags” and “No More Page 3” efforts gain remarkable amounts of column inches compared to the number of lives these issues actually affect.  As a Southern girl who grew up in the very town that was home to the first Hooters, the only truly offensive thing about Hooters in Britain is the absence of the deep fried pickles that the menu promises.  But hey, mainstream feminism and I have long since parted ways; I accept that.

The benefit and drawback of working in such a small media bubble is that everyone knows everyone.  It’s fair to say that with most British journalists working for all of the national papers at some point or another, and with everyone reading the same papers and websites anyway, you are never really only “preaching to the choir”.  But not only are other journalists watching, so is the world.  In times past the public could hardly ever enter the conversation in any meaningful way.  Social media has of course changed all that.  And it’s this fact that seems to have taken the second-wavers by surprise:  they have been slow to realise that thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and so on, their previously one-way conversations are no longer one-way.

One of the perennial targets of second-wave feminists has been trans women who, along with sex workers, are frequently accused of not being “real” women, being tools of the patriarchy, and so on.  The great strides made in public recognition and social acceptance run up against a brick wall when talking to the average second waver.  If it was a matter of a small minority of British feminists, that would be a problem, but not an insurmountable one.  When these feminists have a considerable presence in the media, however, the issue of transphobia takes on very different and worrying overtones indeed.

This ongoing issue came to a head last year, when Suzanne Moore (who then wrote for the Mail and the Guardian, a dual role on far ends of the mainstream political spectrum all but inconceivable outside the tiny world of British media) found herself on the receiving end of some pointed criticism about an offhand remark about “Brazilian transsexuals“.  Trans people and allies of course spoke up.  Called out for her insensitive – not to mention, inaccurate in the context – use of language, Moore doubled down on her stance, controversially tweeting that trans women “cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me,” a remark that many who were on the fence about whether her initial remarks had been purposely transphobic found far, far beyond the pale.

JulieBurchill_2394027bIf it had only been Suzanne, or if the story had ended there, perhaps it would be long forgotten by now.  But her friend and fellow second-wave feminist Julie Burchill poured oil on the flames of controversy with a column that raised every last hackle on anyone who supported the rights of trans men and women.  As I wrote in the Telegraph at the time, it’s a way of thinking that we should be leaving behind in the name of solidarity for all women. This is after all the 21st century.

The backlash against Burchill’s comments was so great, and the condemnation so universal, that many second-wavers have since taken pains to distance themselves from the old ideology that characterised trans women as not “real” women.  A recent Soho Skeptics debate about trans, for example, attracted widespread criticism.  Participant and entrenched second-waver Julie Bindel, who was on the panel, took to Twitter repeating that she had long since apologised for any offensive remarks made about trans women (see for example her interview with Paris Lees for Meta Magazine) and anyway, can’t they all just move on now?

The question of how far Bindel and others like her have moved on, though, is still up in the air.  Recently, I noticed some discussion on the timeline of Sarah Brown, a Liberal Democrat councillor and trans activist living in Cambridge.  In 2008, Sarah jokingly suggested taking a leaf from Dan Savage’s playbook.  Savage, who is famously outspoken on gay rights issues, once managed handily to nick the name of one of US politics’ biggest homophobes – Rick Santorum – and repurpose the name to mean the mixture of lube, semen and faecal matter that can follow anal sex.  Savage’s effort was so successful that Googling the word “Santorum” now gives you his definition rather than the politician’s site.  As far as cheeky, media-aware activism goes, Savage hit it out of the park.  Sarah therefore suggested appropriating the name of Bindel (who up to that point had no problem associating herself with transphobic remarks in public) to mean the smegma-like discharge that sometimes accompanies a trans woman dilating her vagina post-surgery.  Some five years later, Bindel took exception to this, and tweeted about it.  Bindel claims to have been victimised by the blog, and also, to have apologised for any past transphobia.

Sarah_Brown_(politician)But has she turned over a new leaf, really?  An anonymous source contacted me. This source happened to follow what was going on in Bindel and Brown’s public timelines, but also followed Julie Bindel on Facebook, and pointed out that a different conversation was happening there.  So while on the one hand Bindel was objecting loudly on Twitter, claiming her transphobic phase was long in the past, Facebook was telling a very different story indeed.  First Bindel suggested her Facebook fans make complaints to Cambridge council, in an attempt to have Sarah removed from her job.  Considering that the blog in question was written well before Sarah entered politics, it’s unclear how this would be relevant to her current position, but anyway.  Still more shocking were the quotes and comments Bindel’s Facebook lamentations attracted.

Karen Ingala Smith, the Chief Executive of nia, a group dedicated to ending violence against women, posted that Sarah Brown was a “vile creature“.  Keeping in mind the extremely high rates of violence suffered by trans women, this would seem to be a particularly callous remark.  But this pales in comparison to the comments of Julie Burchill – she of the Suzanne Moore controversy, and a very high-profile journalist indeed in Britain:  “What a bunch of fucking rotters.  I’d like to shove their bad wigs down their stupid throats!”

I don’t mind telling you I choked on my tea when I read that.

What the Facebook exchange goes to show is that if anything has changed in second-wave feminism, Bindel, Burchill, et al have yet to get the memo.  (It must have been lost in the post alongside the one reminding people that things you say on Facebook aren’t really all that private.)  But then for sex work activists like me, the discovery that the public and private faces of such people are adjusted precisely for their audience comes as no surprise.  And still less surprising is the incredibly violent imagery they employ in convincing themselves (and their sadly many followers) that some women deserve the violence that the second wave feminists do absolutely nothing to prevent.

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Remembrance

Posted in History, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2013| 21 Comments »

Four things greater than all things are, —
Women and Horses and Power and War.  –  Rudyard Kipling, “The King’s Jest”

Ninety-five years ago today, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the armistice that ended the First World War went into effect; the anniversary was immediately established as Armistice Day among all the Allied nations.  Though it retains that name in France and Belgium, it was changed after the Second World War to Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, and its function was expanded to memorialize those who died in any war.*  And because ever since men first marched off to war, whores have followed very close behind, it has been my custom every year on this day to commemorate some aspect of that relationship.

WWII nose artIn the last century, however, there has been an unfortunate and growing tendency for officials to pretend that this relationship either does not exist, or that it does exist but is somehow pathological.  The Vietnamese and Ouled-Nail prostitutes who served as nurses during the siege of Dien Bien Phu have almost been erased from history, as have the women of Honolulu’s tolerated brothels who served the same function after Pearl Harbor and entertained the Navy for the rest of the war.  The French like to pretend that women who survived by providing services to the occupying Nazis were somehow different from the others who were forced to deal with them; the Japanese still deny the extent or even the existence of the military brothels in which they enslaved (mostly Korean) women for the “comfort” of their troops.  And the American military establishment continues to demand that its men avoid the company of professionals no matter how much this policy angers the host country or how many sexual assaults result from it, thus prioritizing the wishes of prudish fanatics above the health and happiness of the troops of both sexes.

Of course, this sort of pompous idiocy is only possible between serious wars; while they’re going on, politics takes a back seat to reality and the necessity of dealing with the sexual energy of fighting men can no longer be subordinated to the bluenosed sensibilities of repressed civilians.  The military governor of Hawaii did everything he could to make the hookers of Honolulu happy; Hitler ordered that his troops be issued blow-up sex dolls; the American authorities distributed condoms; and the Japanese resorted to the abominable “comfort women” scheme (which was also used in reverse form, with Japanese whores for American troops, during the first year of the occupation).  Women were also a vital part of the entertainment provided by the American USO; not sexual services, obviously, but even the sight of a Hollywood sex symbol like Rita Hayworth or “All-American girl” like Judy Garland, or the opportunity to talk to or dance with a pretty girl,HMS Jane went a long way for those men starved for female affection and company.  And while those women could not accompany the men into battle, their pictures certainly could: the iconic pinup of Betty Grable  was merely the most famous of the hundreds of photos and illustrations of feminine pulchritude which brightened barracks, bunks, tents and even the noses of bombers.  On British planes, those paintings were often of Jane, a shapely Daily Mirror comic-strip character who would always somehow manage to lose her clothes by the last panel, usually in some incredibly unlikely fashion; Christabel Leighton-Porter, the model upon whom she was based, also posed for nude photos which were literally dropped in bundles to the troops to increase morale.

Obviously, none of this could happen today; Western countries in general (and the US and UK in particular) are paralyzed by a neo-Victorian aversion to sex which preaches the ludicrous catechism that young, healthy men can simply be ordered to be asexual.  Pinups and sexy art are branded “sexual harassment”, and officers are expected to enforce these schoolmarmish decrees.  But all things must pass, the bad as well as the good; these hysterical attitudes will eventually vanish as anti-sex culture fades, and warriors of the future will be shocked to learn that their grandfathers were prohibited from enjoying the simple joy of cheesecake art, and punished for seeking a balm for their stress in the arms of willing professionals.

*Technically, in the US this function is served by Memorial Day (at the end of May), while Veterans Day honors all veterans, living and dead.

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