[We] invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon…we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth. – David Hume
The states of Arizona and Washington appear to be competing for the dubious distinction of most prolific font of “sex trafficking” rhetoric. While Arizona tends to lead in terms of pure vileness of the filth it spews, Washington is the clear leader in the areas of deep absurdity and unintentional hilarity. Here are some choice excerpts from Washington’s latest bizarre anti-whore screed:
Bellevue has been in the spotlight…regarding a perceived uptick in sex trafficking and prostitution, but the police here say current events only highlight an issue that has long been prevalent in the…region…a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation of a Bellevue anesthesiologist for alleged sex trafficking and money laundering just [scratches] the surface of the regional problem with prostitution, said Bellevue Police Lt. Lisa Patricelli…”We can’t arrest our way out of this problem,” she said. [But] former Bellevue Police Chief Linda Pillo created the Vice Unit three years ago, to address complaints…regarding the influx of illegal Asian massage parlors…
The contradictions and nonsense are apparent right from the beginning. Prostitution is defined as a “problem”, and since it exits everywhere in the world and always has, the statement that it has “long been prevalent in the region” is a bit like saying “air has long been prevalent in the region”. Anywhere there are humans there will be sex work, and it only becomes a “problem” when officials define it as such. I love the way the cop’s truthful declaration that prostitution can’t be stopped by arresting people is immediately followed by the statement that the vice department in this supposedly whore-infested region is only three years old.
…the greater problem the Bellevue Police Department now faces are the multiple listings for sexual services on popular online ad sites, the most prominent being Backpage.com. Without a known strip in Bellevue where prostitutes are seen visually enticing customers, most transactions are happening online and behind closed doors…
As usual, we have the dogged refusal to comprehend that street work is not and never has been the majority of sex work, but it’s especially ridiculous here when we’re told that the lack of the issues which incense most middle-class people against street work (noise, litter, loitering, etc) constitutes a “problem”. Perhaps Bellevue is jealous of larger cities that have streetwalkers to persecute?
…the Bellevue anesthesiologist…is alleged to have aided his Thai girlfriend’s sex trafficking enterprise, renting out apartments and condos for prostitution and using backpage.com to advertise the women being used…Bellevue…offers a number of high-end hotels, upscale high-rise apartments and condominiums that are being used for…prostitutes, who charged up to $200 an hour for their services…a…vice detective said…”These are the ones where we would most likely see the foreign trafficked gals.” Prostitution is also a transient problem, he said, as many sex workers travel in circuits, staying a few days in one city before heading to another…
There’s so much to unpack here: the mention of the girlfriend’s national origin so as to evoke racist stereotypes and “sex trafficking” tropes; the clumsy dysphemisms like “circuits” and “women being used”; the apparent belief that $200/hour is a high fee; the inversion of the usual “sex trafficking” trope of “slaves” confined in cheap motels; and the startlingly xenophobic claim that businesspeople passing through a town for a few days on business constitutes a problem in and of itself. Yet in the very next paragraph this bigot with a badge expects the reader to believe he’s concerned with sex workers’ safety.
…Johns, known on the streets these days as “hobbyists”…
Yes, that’s the reporter once again assuming all sex work to be street work despite saying earlier that in this town virtually none is. Compared to the magnitude of ignorance implicit in this line, the “end demand” pap which follows is practically lucid.
…Carol Loya said she’s using her business, Truce Spa at the Westin Bellevue Hotel, to champion the healing side for sex trafficking victims…Escape to Peace is a global mission to end human trafficking…[that holds] workshops with high school students to decorate flip-flops for victims…Truce Spa also issues clients puzzle pieces – the symbol for human trafficking — for donations of three…bottles that are used to create candles to aid victims in relaxing their troubled bodies and minds. Loya said she hopes to put informative puzzle pieces up in storefront windows and other businesses around the area where traffickers are known to recruit…
The story goes out with a bang, assaulting our minds with a veritable cornucopia of stupidity. The idea that whores who make $200 per hour need donated flip-flops and don’t know how to relax would seem self-evidently ridiculous, but it’s very popular right now (especially among groups like the “Cupcake Girls“); donation of cheap, nasty used clothes is another recurring theme. But to me the crowning idiocy of this generous collection of doltishness is the claim that puzzle pieces are “the symbol for human trafficking”. Since when? I’ve been covering this beat for four years now, and that’s the first I’ve ever heard of it. But this sort of off-the-cuff confabulation is the rule rather than the exception in the rescue industry; while many of the fetishists are happy to regurgitate the same mildewed myths and tired tropes, those who seek to distinguish themselves often do so by inventing some new “fact” or at least embroidering on an old one. And none of the ersatz “journalists” who cover this rubbish ever notice that the so-called “experts” are just making it up as they go along.
… and the bankruptcy of our moral codes.
As far as Western philosophy goes, Hume’s my man. That quote is one reason why.
Perhaps the problem with prostitution in Bellevue is that police receive insufficient bribes from it. A dedicated vice squad should help with that.
One finding of the Wood Royal Commission into NSW police corruption was that dedicated crime squads promote bribery and corruption. At the time most armed robberies in NSW were being organised or green-lighted by the Armed Holdup Squad, the Motor Vehicle Squad was running a lucrative cross-border trade in stolen cars and the Vice Squad was acting as enforcers for the the criminal organisations that controlled much of Sydney’s illegal drugs, gambling and prostitution.
The ‘squads’ were all disbanded on the recommendations of Wood, only to be reformed under different names over the following decade – some with even more power and less accountability than their predecessors.
But who’s watching the Capuchin monkeys?
Clearly their needs to be some sort of sting operation by the police to curtail this.
What I hear you say? No profit in it beyond a bunch of grapes?
“The idea is that you can use money as a form of currency to exchange for goods or services, as in not just food. Well, one of the researchers, during the chaos event, observed how one of the monkeys exchanged money to another for sex. After the act was over, the monkey which was paid immediately used it to buy a grape…”
http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/
The monkeys?
What about the scientists!
They are clearly facilitators and traffickers (the monkeys didn’t get there by themselves you know). They are paid to write up this sort of primate pornography too. Goddamned pimps!
I urge everyone to contact their nearest anti-trafficking organisation and demand an immediate crackdown on science. Laboratories are clearly now hubs for the sex industry. And are they keeping the baby monkeys away from all of this disgusting behavior? Who will think of the children?
Soon after that, they would “rescue” the monkeys by stealing their tokens and having them abused by other monkeys.
I’ve got my protest banners ready.
End monkey sex slavery!
Grapes are rape!
Monkey money is the evil of all roots! (This one probably only works in Australia. Visitors are advised against telling Aussies how vigorously they root for their sports team.)
I’m sure PETA will support us on this. When they’re not too busy flashing their bods against the fur trade that is.
Thank you, gents. This made me LOL! Cabrogal, your ‘grapes are rape’ made me think of this skit:
Could you post a URL to the skit?
My internet connection prevents me from streaming but I may be able to download it then play the file.
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjk0_2IwdOE
Sorry I’m just seeing this now! I was signed in under my work name for about 12 days. Here’s the URL, hopefully this works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZoiJM1vlfc
>I’ve got my protest banners ready.
I read this as “protest bananas”. Carry on.
This may appall you but it was the best I could do in the time frame provided…this is the answer I submitted to Crowd Source as an answer writer. The question I will be paid for answering was/is “What information can be obtained from a massage parlor review?”
” Answer: The Massage Industry does not recognize the term “Massage parlor” as a legal enterprise or as an accurate depiction and representation of the massage profession. Due to the societal practice of double standards which conflate and abuse the massage profession and the spa industry which brought in 14.7 million dollars in revenue last year according to The International Spa Association, information obtained from a ‘massage parlor review’ is suspect. Check here ONLY if your first sentence gave the direct answer to the question. Do not check otherwise. Additional Details: Use of the word “parlor” is a historical nod to the Gilded Age. In the modern era, use of this term is suspect among spa industry professionals and among those professions broadly associated with the concepts of Spas in general. The International Spa Association or ISPA, represents a total of 20,183 spas around the world. Spa Finder and Conde Nast Traveller among others, provide reputable information and reviews of spas around the world from industry insiders and professionals. Spas provide a number of services in relation to wellness and broadly speaking, services related to cosmetology. These professionals are represented by a number of licensing, certifying, and educational organizations, public and private. If a consumer is seeking sexual services, they may wish to conduct quests for information in more discreet language that does not conflate and undermine industries that create global opportunity and jobs for many people around the world. Hospitality, Tourism, Cosmetology, Massage, Esthetics, Philosophy, Health, Wellness and associated fields are not the private preserves of sexual hedonists and are not open to linguistic colonization. Therefore information that utilizes this terminology will necessarily be conflicting and a source of conflict as long as it creates artificial divisions that can only be termed post modern from an industry and professional standpoint.”
Of course, I see my grammatical and style errors after the fact. I also see that I did not define massage as an industry in and of itself. There would be room to also note that lack of distinctions do sex workers no favors either…Crowd Source does not allow editing of submissions either…I was trying to shift the linguistic burden to punters and the clientele of sex workers. I don’t see any reason why sex workers have not gotten out from under the so called mystique of the experience they sell and created their own terminology. If the traditional system of relations between men and women is so oppressive why cater to it on a language level? Period?
Hahaha! My ATF is also a certified massage therapist (that’s her “cover” with her kids and family) and you better damn well believe I get a deep tissue massage every time I see her!!
And … I have NEVER had a better one than the one she provides! 😀
you disgust me and so does she for undermining my profession. It’s war plain and simple. If I did not respect Maggie for even using a blog title that has literary associations I would indeed use abusive language to describe exactly what I think of her and you for attempting to use womanhood and parenting as some means to dignify her lack of ethics regarding secular society. The inability and unwilling of the sex industry to adopt progressive terminology just exemplifies the problem as to why they remain beyond the bounds of civil discourse and remain marginalized. No one pities a thief. Ask a Jew since mockery and stereotypes are on the menu..but oh I forgot, you patriots were busy hunting Marxists and Muslims to begin with now weren’t you? Or was that the military juggernaut covering national religious hypocrisy by attacking liberalism as a bastion of homosexuals and identity politics? So many “jews” and so little time that anyone had to notice the racism and aesthetic engineering involved in Orientalism to begin with. Or am I think only one who noticed the ‘sudden’ rise of politicians with Hindu backgrounds and their inclusion into the conservative fold while Liberal ideas about Islamic pluralism burned?
Hmm. Could it be that you sometimes rub people up the wrong way?
Some Hindus I know might feel upset by the implication that they automatically seek to undermine Marxists, Muslims and/or Jews. Particularly a couple of Marxist politicians I met in Kerala. The most outspoken opponents of Hindutva I know of are Hindus.
So how should it be phrased in Newspeak? We all could use a laugh.
Am I missing something? 🙁
Ashley aka Borderlands is objecting to sex workers’ use of terms generally associated with her profession like “massage parlor”, stating that sex workers should be using some new (I think she used the term “progressive”) terminology so as to show proper respect for her more “legitimate” massage compatriots and so she won’t be confused with icky whores of the Asian Massage Parlor variety.
At least that’s what I got from her statement. But I’m still too new here to tell if you were just being sarcastic or not in asking whether you’re missing something or not, so I’m very literal. 🙂
I don’t have a very high opinion of people whose profession is traditionally associated with sex work (masseuses, actresses, burlesque dancers, etc) yet try to throw sex workers under the bus in a pathetic and selfish attempt to rewrite history.
Same here. The problem is that in order to distance themselves, they have to make “proper sex-work” a really, really bad thing, which it is not. That is hugely counter-productive, and if “proper sex-work” ever falls completely to the unsophisticated fear-mongers, they will be next.
Do you touch people for money? Given what I am inferring to be your world view you ought not talk about thieves but then again hypocrisy is the armour of the unsane.
If that were a valid criteria physiotherapists, barbers and pickpockets would be sex workers.
Why would they be sex workers? Where did I say that all people who touch people for money are sex workers? But, all of these people do touch people for money. Why does it matter what is being touched or what is doing the touching? Borderlands seems to think that a certified massage therapist that also specializes in lingam massage is an offense to what is an absurd reference to secular ethics. I am new here so I haven’t yet grasped the tone of the site but when I saw an attempt to express indignation by hurling vitriol aimlessly in (apparently) the defense of a poisonous world view, I spoke up.
Borderlands said:
Maybe they’re obliged to do so because they’re marginalized? Given that both the buying and selling of sex are illegal in the apparently and increasingly benighted United States of America, one might ask what else can they do but use euphemisms?
But while one might sympathize with your point about thieves – particularly as I’ve argued, in the context of Canada’s rather egregious Bill C-36 on criminalizing the purchase of sex, that “society shouldn’t necessarily be obliged to be much interested in reducing the hazards of jobs that it deems immoral or detrimental to the best interests of society” – the larger point is the question, “is money for sex morally wrong?” Which you seem, with your analogy, to have answered in the affirmative.
Well, they wouldn’t have to operate under cover of other work if sex work were legal.
Oh, if you think masseuses have it bad, try being an artist’s model.
Weird! That was the wildest segue I ever saw, from “Damn, I am sick of prostitutes calling themselves masseuses, is screws up my business” to undiluted racism, homophobia, and – um – disliking people because of their religion (what’s the word for that? “Bigotry” is too broad a term.)
Why should you be paid for your response? You didn’t answer the question. In your lengthy response you said the information is suspect. That vaguely tells the kind of information not what information.
The DEA investigates sex trafficking now?
What’s next? The Social Security Administration?
Well … at least all the Federal agencies have enough firearms ammunition to do the job. I hear the Department of Agriculture is competitively bidding out a contract for automatic rifles with night vision capability to handle all those evil farmers who are selling illegal unpasteurized milk after working hours!!
Or maybe they need those rifles to go after those poor “milkmaids” who work nights as Backpage Babes! LOL
the clumsy dysphemisms like “circuits”
Here’s another contradiction of theirs: they claim sex workers, not traffickers making sex workers do this but implying the sex workers themselves, move around every few days. Yet, they’re trafficked and enslaved. I never cease to be amazed at how many times that blatant contradiction is trotted out in these “anti-trafficking” reports. We sex workers are just so abused and tightly controlled that we have no opportunity to escape from pimps and traffickers….except for when we drive around by ourselves and get on airplanes and trains at crowded transportation hubs filled with hundreds of thousands of travelers that we could appeal to for help. Nope.
They hypnotise you, aspasia. If you insist on believing you have agency you just won’t get it.
You know that guy who was waving a pocket watch in front of your eyes just before you felt compelled to make that comment. He is your pimp.
Or did he give you a post-hypnotic suggestion to forget he was there?
Yep. I think it’s called “false conciousness”, when you think you are not oppressed by work that allows you to choose your own hours and leaves you easily able to pay the rent and maybe even save a little.
Like a walking whorebomb.
But, but, but…Stockholm syndrome! Bottom bitch! We don’t know we’re victims!