I’m hungry, I don’t need respect, I don’t need honour, I just want three meals a day. – Elderly Korean sex worker
A teacher who describes note-passing as “scary”? The jokes write themselves.
A…woman has been charged with prostitution at the Tewksbury [Massachusetts] Public Library…a…plain clothes detective claimed Brittany Macintyre…handed him a pen and…paper. The two passed notes back and forth until she allegedly asked for $60 in exchange for a sex act…one library patron [said] “I’m quite shocked because a lot of kids come here and I’m a teacher, so it’s pretty scary”…
Koreans could once be sure that their children would look after them in their old age, but no longer…As a result, some elderly women are turning to prostitution…”Bacchus Ladies” [are] older women who make a living by selling tiny bottles of the popular Bacchus energy drink to male customers. But often that’s not all they’re selling. At an age when Korean grandmothers are supposed to be venerated as matriarchs, some are selling sex…they invested their savings in the next generation. In a Confucian society, successful children are the best form of pension. But attitudes here have changed just as fast as living standards, and now many young people say they can’t afford to support themselves and their parents…The government…is scrambling to provide a welfare system that works [but] in the meantime…[the elderly] have no savings, no realistic pension, and no family to rely on…
A neuroscientist who claimed to have fathered 58 children while running [an]…insemination service preyed on three women desperate to become mothers by sexually assaulting them…during the…process…[Professor Gennadij] Raivich told one alleged victim she had to give him oral sex repeatedly in order to get a sperm sample. He told another she was more likely to get pregnant if she orgasmed…
…Michael Weinstein [spoke to]…the press…on the…condom mandate bill…armed with what he claimed to be the smoking gun that justified his campaign to force condoms down performers’ throats…a survey done by the UCLA School of Public Health which, according to Weinstein, proved that there was a “public health danger” involving porn performers…Weinstein presented this “pictographic”
which attempted to…paint a picture of porn performers as oppressed, drugged out, abused, exploited, and basically unable to think for themselves…[so] the state absolutely had to step in and rescue them with condoms…Both AVN’s Mark Kernes and The Real Porn Wikileaks have done fine efforts to debunk this agitprop, but there are some points that even their efforts do manage to miss which deserve additional attention…
A Procrustean Bed (First Updates of the Year)
The evil clownishness continues:
[Rhode Island Senator] Gayle Goldin…is urging her…colleagues to…reject [a “sex trafficking” bill which]…conflates sex trafficking with prostitution…the bill as written could mean that [a] cab driver [who carries a whore to a call could be convicted of] sex trafficking…Goldin said [a] slight change [to her original wording] has fouled the intent of the legislation. It “would mean that the penalties intended specifically for the traffickers could also be used to penalize sex workers themselves,” she [wrote]…
This is absurd on so many levels:
The Roman Catholic sisters whose convent fence-line is mere inches from a flashy new strip club…were unable to prevent the business from opening last year. But they haven’t given up…and…the Village Board of Melrose Park voted to join the nuns…in a lawsuit against…Club Allure…and the Village of Stone Park, which granted its license to operate…One of the main arguments in the lawsuit is expected to center on a provision of state law that…prohibits such businesses from operating within 1,000 feet of a place of worship…
I don’t know what’s more pathetic, Rachel’s idea of “big events” or her mathematical illiteracy:
Soon hundreds of thousands will pack [Omaha, Nebraska] for the College World Series…any big event…creates a bigger opportunity for…prostitution…Rachel Davis escaped such a life 15 years ago…[and] now helps others get out…“During…the world series…the Olympic Swim Trials, the Berkshire meeting…quotas…go up to $2,000 a night”…
…Among those arrested [in a Sacramento, California sting] was the Rev. John Oselsky…who…stopped at a fast food parking lot…to purchase a meal when he was approached by two women who knocked on his vehicle window…Oselsky…speaks fluent Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian. But his English is not good…Oselsky never…offered money [and] had [only] $13 in his wallet…
An Example To the West (TW3 #39) 
Brazilian prostitutes…played a football match …in World Cup host city Belo Horizonte…to raise awareness about sex workers’ rights…the women set up an impromptu pitch using traffic cones for goalposts and played to the enthusiastic cheers of onlookers. The prostitutes, calling themselves the Naked Football Club — though in fact they played in the green and yellow uniforms of Brazil — teamed up with the visiting evangelicals from the United States to take on a local university team…
Libertarianism Happens To People
…Mark Shurtleff…Utah attorney general…set up a unit…[which] sent armed police to raid businesses that were suspected of employing undocumented workers…Shurtleff…also…[over]saw a dramatic increase in the use of SWAT teams and…opposed an important ballot initiative to rein in the abuse of civil asset forfeiture…[now] Shurtleff…[is] under investigation for allegedly violating campaign finance law…and…”accused law enforcement agents of using ‘Dirty Harry’ tactics when they searched his house, breaking through his door and pointing automatic weapons at his children…“
…Chris Atchison…[has] been studying [sex workers’ clients] for about 20 years…[and] doesn’t think…there is…such a thing as a “typical john”…”People who purchase sexual services come from all walks of life…[and] all racial and ethnic categories…they don’t all [have]…identical reasons or…identical needs…Some…are physically disabled. Some of these individuals have great social stigmas, social-anxiety disorders. And some are individuals who…just…are lacking a partner, a widower, and so on and so forth…most [clients] would never hurt their escorts, from whom they mainly seek “companionship”…
Check Your Premises (Hysteria on Parade)
Another warped view of touring:
…Taken from one hotel to the next, she’s been forced to have sex with men for money again and again. And there are many more like her. Hundreds of young women and girls are coerced into doing this on any given day, police…say. Most are…sent along what’s commonly described as The Pipeline, which takes them to cities such as Montreal, here to Ottawa and all the way to Windsor. Shipping girls along circuits such as The Pipeline is a crucial component to a trafficker’s success. The constant movement helps pimps avoid police detection, isolates the women and girls from their family and friends, and attracts a larger clientele by offering up fresh-faced girls…
Backwards into the Future (TW3 #352) 
…dozens of prominent legal experts…are calling for the abolition of the police-run “custody and education” system, which…resembles the “re-education through labor” system in all but name, and has no basis in Chinese law…which forbids the state to deprive citizens of their freedom without any basis in legislation. The first…facilities began to be built in 2002, in line with a 1993 directive from…the State Council, which ordered that those found engaging in sex work should be given “legal and moral” education, subjected to tests for sexually transmitted diseases and organized to take part in productive work…a person can be incarcerated by police for up to two years without trial for involvement in the sex industry, whether as a sex worker or a client…
Another excellent essay from Felicia Anna:
…the [Dutch] minister of Justice Ivo Opstelten presented…the government’s…new campaign against human trafficking…[with] an overview of the results of the last campaign…[which] got 392 anonymous tips…[this was] 93% more…then the years before…[but] 392 reports out of 20,000 estimated legal working prostitutes in Holland isn’t very much. In fact, it’s only about 2%…while the police [claimed] in their own ‘report’ “Schone Schijn“…that it was somewhere between 50 and 90%…of those 392 reports…the police only decided to investigate 250…a whopping 28 arrests where made, which comes down to about 7% of the total amount of reports…This means that only 7% of the reports leads to an actual arrest, and…93% of the cases are false alarm…In short, people report it much more then before, but the actual number of people arrested has not changed at all…
A mysterious group of business people will spend up to $5 million campaigning against…”Operation Choke Point”…The United States Consumer Coalition says the…operation unfairly targets legal businesses by choking off their access to banks and third-party payment processors…Brian Wise, a partner in the Washington strategic communications shop Wise Public Affairs, began forming USCC at the beginning of the year. A Facebook site was launched in March, and the group has stepped up its media campaign…[to] highlight…business that…have been hurt by Choke Point…
Tennessee moves to criminalize smoking during pregnancy:
When newborn babies begin to withdraw from powerful drugs, they shriek at a high, telltale pitch. Cut off from the substances they ingested through their mothers, they convulse, projectile vomit or writhe from skin-scorching diarrhea. Their tiny bodies shudder violently…Tennessee…has made its mark in trying to understand what triggers the painful symptoms in babies going through nicotine and opioid withdrawal. Researchers and insurers alike are looking for ways to reach out to and treat pregnant women with addictions…
“The Somaly Mam Foundation has pledged to change its name following the resignation of its founder…executive director Gina Reiss-Wilchins says the organisation has ‘been working tirelessly to chart the best path for…rebranding, renaming, and re-launching our organisation’…” Meanwhile, there’s a petition for the New York Times to fire Nick Kristof for his lies and his perpetuation of Mam’s scam. But as Dr. Laura Agustin points out, it’s a mistake to concentrate on Mam and Kristof:
…if some [donors] do stop funding SMF, they will simply shift support to other similar institutions engaged in the same cause…And some new figure with the ability to stir feelings will eventually emerge from the hundreds of groups now dedicated to sex trafficking…The current fuss about Kristof and Mam reproduces the cult of personality that caused trouble in the first place. To focus on individuals is to avoid addressing structures. A couple of self-promoting showoffs pale beside proliferating government machinery that now churns out salaries and prestige for thousands worldwide caught up in a movement based on fraud.
…In what was billed as a national day of action, rallies against the government’s new prostitution legislation were [held] in several cities…Dozens of demonstrators gathered around red umbrellas…in a downtown Toronto park to speak out against the proposed law, which would…”simply move sex workers out into more isolated and more marginalized areas of the city”…said Jean McDonald, head of…Maggie’s …She said that…the Conservatives are “spitting in the face” of the Supreme Court’s landmark prostitution decision and ignoring the vital input of sex workers…
Noah Berlatsky on Chong Kim and Eden:
…Breaking Out, an anti-trafficking organization, announced that [it]…had been unable to confirm [her tale and]…is contemplating legal action against her. Kim’s supposedly true story was the basis for a 2012 film, Eden…the…exploitation tropes…are clustered about so densely and insistently that it’s hard to believe anyone missed them. There are women-in-prison shower scenes…The trope of giving prisoners kittens to love is straight out of Caged from 1950…There’s also some S&M fetish (again a staple of the genre), and…stylized violence a la Tarantino…To just point out the most obvious issue, the movie details a copious number of murders, several of them committed by the main character herself. This is standard issue for a Hollywood film, but in real life, this amounts to mass murder, including the killing of multiple law-enforcement personnel…where’s the massive investigation? Why is this being covered in an entertainment review, rather than on the front page?…
TRPWL presented a catalog of the many inconsistencies in Kim’s story, including her omission of the fact that she was convicted of fraud in 2009.
Re: “The Korean grandmothers who sell sex” by Lucy Williamson, BBC
While I welcome journalists making the effort to actually listen to people selling (and buying) sex in South Korea, I don’t think we necessarily need more reports about the “dingy warren of alleyways in central Seoul”.
Jongno, the district where Jongmyo Park is located, is smack in the middle of downtown Seoul, an area that is undergoing swift modernisation, and just because some alleyways are narrow – and thus dark – doesn’t make them dingy.
Images of Jongno: https://www.flickr.com/search?sort=relevance&text=jongno
But then again everything related to selling and buying sex apparently must be described in such a way, just as “love motel” must be put between inverted commas and described as having “narrow corridors” and “grey rooms”, like there are no sky-high property prices that makes business owners cram as many rooms as possible into their hotels, and as if there aren’t lavishly decorated love hotels all over South Korea. Of course the cheaper ones, which the elderly buying and selling sex and comfort around Jongmyo Park can afford, might be less pleasant; that doesn’t mean, however, that they are as unsanitary as Williamson’s report alludes.
I happened to live in a love hotel-turned-international guest house in Jongno for a month as early as 2003, when the area wasn’t nearly as gentrified as it is now, and I survived just fine. Love hotels can be an affordable option to stay, whether you need a place to have sex with your partner because you still live with your family, or simply a roof over your head if you can’t afford one of the more expensive guest houses or hotels. Love hotels are love hotels. Dingy hotels are dingy hotels.
Images of Korean love hotels: https://www.flickr.com/search?sort=relevance&text=korea%20love%20hotel
The significant piece of information in Williamson’s report is that some police officers privately stated that crackdowns against sex businesses are not the solution and that they believe a shift in policy is needed in South Korea. But about crackdowns and their impact on sex workers (or their clients, for that matter) we learn little to nothing in this report.
By the way: the constitutional court has been mulling over the constitutionality of the Anti-Sex Trade Law ever since a Seoul court asked to review it in January 2013. The review was supposed to be completed within 6 months but there’s no way of knowing when a ruling can be expected.
“Prostitution at the Korean Constitutional Court” http://www.thekoreanlawblog.com/2013/01/prostitution-at-korean-constitutional.html
Williamson describes young people in South Korea as saying – which to me sounds as if she was questioning if it is true – that “they can’t afford to support themselves and their parents in Korea’s fast-paced, highly competitive society”. As a matter of fact, around “9.63 million South Koreans are earning less than [US$1,530] a month, chiefly from labor or their own small businesses” and “the actual median income is predicted to be even lower if individuals with relatively low earnings who were not subject to taxation – such as farmers, fisherman, and day laborers – are factored in.”
“10 million people nationwide earning only around $1,500 per month” http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/641651.html
In addition, youth unemployment surpassed 10 percent as of February 2014, and “for those aged 15 to 29, the employment rate is barely above 40 percent”.
“Korea suffers youth unemployment blues”
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140406000323
As I said above, I sincerely welcome journalists making an effort to engage with people selling and buying sex in South Korea. Yet, I can’t help but to feel that the end product of what might have been well-intended looks pretty much like poverty porn: the title, the description of the environment, the image that suggests that the young generation cares more about consumer electronics than the elderly – it all adds up to a quite superficial view on a complex situation.
For anyone interested to read more about elderly prostitution in Jongmyo Park, here’s a 2-part report by a Korean newspaper.
[1] http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/584863.html
[2] http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/585888.html
Help me out here …
On Tennessee’s pregnancy / drug thingie … you’re connecting it to cigarette smoking but I don’t see that mentioned in the link you’re sharing. Additionally – I Googled and found at least one TN lawmaker who said the law wouldn’t apply to smoking and drinking … only cocaine and heroin? I know you research this stuff first so can you clue me in on this connection to smoking?
I may have missed something because I’m burnt out today. The chicks in the gym begged me to do the “Power Core” workout with them. I thought it would be a good way to look at some nice asses on some hot girls – but it turns out I spent most of time trying to catch my breath and not look like an idiot. I managed to do the former – not the latter! LOL
“the painful symptoms in babies going through nicotine and opioid withdrawal” seems pretty clear to me.
And you believe that?
No I didn’t believe it … that’s why I asked you about it. I always trust you over Google. 😀
This actually WAS a legit question, Girlie. T’wern’t no shot loaded in it! LOL
At least with the older sex workers in Korea, most of the discussion is on economic aspects, rather than on lurid myths.
The Brazilian soccer game is good publicity, normal women doing normal things – much like the Miss Prostituta pageants they have been doing:
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2013/10/1349995-18-year-old-is-elected-miss-prostitute-2013-in-belo-horizonte.shtml
Canada’s Liberal party has announced that it will oppose C-36. Mere opportunism or a substantive advance?
everything the Liberals say and do in opportunism. All the opposition parties have declared their opposition to C-36. But with a parliamentary system, short of an early election letting the bill die on the order paper, the only option we have is going to be a court challenge. The Conservatives keep denying reality on this bill.
@gumdeo Fair point on that. Still thought her explanations for the lack of economic support for the elderly fell short.
I’m a bit mathematically challenged by the poster. It says that 11% tested positive for gonorrhoea, and 15% tested positive for chlamydia. And then it says that 24% tested positive for gonorrhoea or chlamydia. The poster doesn’t give further details which might explain how this mathematically impossible situation might have arisen. Can anyone help me out?
The math is garbage, just like all anti-sex work “statistics”.
I used to teach people how to read an academic paper. I stressed that when they came to something that “didn’t add up” their response should be to bin the paper and move onto the next one. If the authors were unable to get their sums right, as here, the rest of it wasn’t worth reading. Harsh, but it eliminated so much of the junk.
That’s actually perfectly correct if you consider the possibility of testing positive for both. The combination of the two sets would then be less than the sum of the two.
Which should not be taken to mean that I otherwise buy any of their numbers.
It doesn’t say both, and if 11% or 15% tested positive, then surely only a maximum of 11% could be positive for both.
Breaking out the Venn diagrams…
(11% gonorrhoea)(2% both)(15% chlamydia) = 24% gonorrhoea or chlamydia, assuming the or was inclusive.
If memory serves “or” can mean one of two things: 1. “and/or”
2. “not both”
But still, the numbers make no sense.
I extended my comment above to a longer post.
“Poverty Porn – In Response to Lucy Williamson, BBC Seoul Correspondent”
http://researchprojectkorea.wordpress.com/2014/06/22/poverty-porn/
[…] trafficking” to credulous, slack-jawed audiences who prefer their BDSM porn in disguised form. Much has been written about the fraud named Eden and the chief perpetrator of the scam, Chong Kim; applying the same […]