Given that large numbers of prostitutes operate independently without panderers, it would be difficult to characterize prostitution as inherently rooted in subjugation. – Gail Heriot
The half-life of sex radiation must be over 40 years:
…[73-year-old] Jaqueline Laurent-Auger was a teacher at the Montreal private school, Le Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf…but…the school [fired] her [because]…as a young actress…in France, she starred in a handful of erotic films…[including] Le Journal intime d’une nymphomane (1973) and Dany la ravageuse (1972). In a statement, school officials maintain that “We’re not talking about paintings or sculptures of naked bodies produced with artistry and aesthetics in mind. There are erotic scenes destined for an adult audience…”
The headline makes the contagion sound voluntary and evokes the “dirty whore” myth: “…a [Liberian] sex worker…suffering from Ebola…passed the deadly disease to [Floson Louise]…who unknowingly spread it to seven other soldiers…the army barracks are being decongested to ease the spread of the disease…”
I’m really pleased to see black intellectuals writing about this:
…the movement against “modern-day slavery” deploys non-racial language to…[solidify] the existing racial regime…and…is inordinately preoccupied with women’s sexual victimization…the focus on white women…working in commercial sex recalls the…late nineteenth and early twentieth century…[panic over] the “white slave trade”…the moral authority that anti-slavery mobilizes today partly stems from the memory of black liberation that it implicitly draws upon—all the while explicitly distancing itself from black historical struggle…
[Darren Vann of Gary, Indiana]…may be a serial killer who has killed…as far back as 20 years ago…Vann…was arrested…[for the murder of] Afrika Hardy…[after she] did not return from [an] appointment [with Vann, a friend]…went to track her down and found her dead from strangulation. Once in custody Vann…admitted…Hardy’s murder and led police to the bodies of six other women, all in abandoned houses…[officials were] unable to say whether the other victims were sex workers…
Since when do “scientists” treat patients?
Scientists have treated…the first patient with internet addiction disorder brought on by overuse of Google Glass. The man had been using the technology for around 18 hours a day – removing it only to sleep and wash – and complained of feeling irritable and argumentative without [it]…he had also begun experiencing his dreams as if viewed through [its] small grey window. The existence of internet addiction disorder…is hotly debated among psychiatrists. It was not included as a clinical diagnosis in the 2013 update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders…
It is not “hotly debated”; OCD is not “addiction”, no matter how much money-hungry scammers want to rebrand it as such.
A Birmingham [Alabama] police officer arrested earlier this month on child sex abuse charges is now charged with rape of an adult woman. Joshua Herbinger…was not in any kind of…relationship with the [victim]…In the earlier case…Herbinger was charged with four counts of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old…
One of the members of the US government Commission on Civil Rights openly criticized “sex trafficking” hysteria in a dissent with the Commission’s predetermined rubber-stamp “findings”, and may have cited yours truly in it:
…terms like “sex trafficking”…obscure more than they enlighten, because there is little agreement on what they mean…claims that the Super Bowl is a magnet for sex traffickers appear to be more myth than fact…In the late 19thcentury, Great Britain was also swept by a wave of hysteria over “white slavery“. In time, the panic spread to the United States…the Heriot dissent decries the tendency to view the complexities of so-called “international labor trafficking” as something inherently sinister…There is plenty of opportunity for fraudulent or coercive behavior in these transactions. But there is also opportunity for gain by the most vulnerable of the world’s people, trapped in poverty…
Why 90% of whores prefer to work illegally than submit to licensing:
…Dancers and managers at a Washington state strip club are…suing to stop their county from releasing their names, photos, and other identifying information to a man who has filed a public records request…because strippers in most areas of Washington must obtain an “entertainer’s license”, their identities are a matter of public record…it’s entirely likely [David A. Van Vleet]…is a crazy stalker or an anti-sex nutjob. Maybe both…it’s hard to imagine many non-nefarious reasons for requesting personal information on a wide swath of individuals in a sensitive job…
…M.C. Nanaiah , chairman of the [Indian] expert committee to suggest measures for safety of women and children has favoured a wider discussion on legalisation of prostitution…to prevent rapes…
The “Juju sex slaves” myth just keeps on going like a zombie:
Juju “magic” may seem strange, mythical and other-worldly but it is a problem that is all too real when it comes to the sex trafficking of women from Nigeria…Trafficking expert Siddharth Kara from Harvard University said: “[Juju] exerts a kind of control that’s so much more potent than chains or locking someone up. It’s control of the spirit which is far more powerful and insidious”…
Westerners have our own Juju faith in self-declared “experts” like Kara, a charlatan whose degree of ignorance is astonishing even in a field dominated by charlatans.
One of the nation’s most respected rabbis…[is] accused of placing a camera in the women’s…area of a sacred bath…Barry Freundel is a…leader in the Modern Orthodox movement…with controversial opinions on everything from abortion to homosexuality. He…was known to take a strict position on morality, [saying]…just weeks ago: “The lack of sexual morality…pervades this society…Pornography and its accessibility is wrecking marriages”…
Daily Beast writer (no giggling, now) says Denmark doesn’t have enough reasons to lock people up yet:
…A new law on the table in Denmark proposes to make sex with animals…illegal. The Danish law currently states that humans can have sex with animals as long as the animal doesn’t suffer…[but] how would one know if an animal enjoyed human sex?…If the law passes…only Finland, Hungary and Sweden will remain lawless…[the bill’s sponsor] is…concerned that…Denmark…could become the [Mecca] of animal sex tourism…
I’m not sure what’s sillier, the writer’s conflation of “doesn’t suffer” with “enjoy” or her idea that “human sex” is fundamentally different from other mammals’ copulation.
How many moronic prohibitionist plays can the market bear?
Tony-award winning playwright…Sarah Jones…has been publicly “workshopping” her newest one woman show, entitled Sell/Buy/Date…The play is really one insult after another…Everybody was a “prostituted woman” except for a Russian male pimp who self-described as a sex worker. And the sex worker rights activists are caricatured as dimwitted and undereducated supporters of Sarah Palin…Jones seems to be under the impression that the sex worker movement is funded by big corporate interests…Jones’ monologues [are set in an imaginary future dystopia] where…prostitution could not possibly exist…emergency medical treatment will be necessary to cure male porn addicts…However, magically, there will be a “re-sensititization” of men by forcing them to watch Thelma and Louise…
…a 30-year-old female sex worker [has been sent] to prison for at least nine years under Germany’s “preventive detention” law, because she has shown a pattern of not disclosing to clients that she was living with HIV before they chose to have condomless sex with her…
The Course of a Disease (TW3 #337)
Sex workers in Northern Ireland are overwhelmingly opposed to…a law that could criminalise those who pay for prostitutes…only 2%…are in favour of the so-called “Swedish model”…61%…thought [the]…law…would make them less safe. And…only 16% of…clients…said such a law would make them stop seeking to pay for sex…
Unfortunately, facts don’t concern politicians.
Damned If You Don’t (TW3 #343)
A man arrested in a police operation to harass and jail gay men was not only abused and threatened: cops also stole his property, trashed his reputation and seriously jeopardized his career. “Charles S. Couch…is suing the city [of Manhattan Beach, California]…Chief Eve Irvine and five police detectives, seeking $5 million in damages for mental distress, aggravation and loss of work. He is being represented by civil and gay rights attorney Bruce W. Nickerson, who specializes in litigation surrounding police sting operations…”
It turns out COAST is even sleazier than I thought:
…The majority of the board members of COAST’s backing group, the Association of Club Entrepreneurs (ACE), have been sued by their own employees for violations of labor law including wage theft, intimidation, charging debt-inducing illegal fees, and even sexual harassment…one of COAST’s co-founders, Michael Ocello, got involved in anti-trafficking efforts after the Illinois club he owned was raided by federal agents…
The ridiculous claim that 42% of all UK sex workers are male derives from a bad study which makes two false assumptions: that each sex worker takes out one and only one ad at a time, and that all sex workers use all advertising platforms equally. But that’s not the interesting thing about this article; it’s the fact that when men are the subject, agency is not denied and the word “trafficking” is nowhere to be found.
Women’s advocacy and drug-policy reform organizations are calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to “publicly renounce” enhanced criminal penalties for pregnant women. It’s an issue that’s been gaining more attention since the July…conviction of Lacey Weld…[who] was pregnant at the time she made (and used) meth…[and] received an extra six years of prison time…Many object to charging a pregnant meth user with “child endangerment” on the grounds that an embryo or fetus is not yet a “child”. But we also…[know] that heavy drinking and poor nutrition are much more dangerous to developing fetuses than exposure to meth…
The Somaly Mam Foundation…shuttered its entire operation…and urged its followers to support other anti-trafficking groups…The SMF website on Saturday appeared to be stripped of all its content except for the announcement on its homepage…
Of course, the same bunch have already started a new “rescue” scam.
A man who claims he can “cure” gay people…raped a teenage boy and threatened to kill him with his “warlock powers” if he told. Kentucky police have arrested…youth pastor Rex Allen Murphy…the 16-year-old [victim said Murphy]…told him…that by brushing his skin or shaking his hand…he could tell his sins…Murphy reportedly asserted he thought he would be able to help the victim with his “battle with homosexuality because he, too, had experimented with homosexuality”…
Five Women in Whitechapel (TW3 #437)
It was supposed to have been the definitive piece of scientific evidence that finally exposed the true identify of Jack the Ripper…However, the scientist who carried out the DNA analysis has apparently made a fundamental error that fatally undermines his case…it would mean his calculations were wrong and that virtually anyone could have left the DNA that he insisted came from the Ripper’s victim…
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #440)
…following the mass eviction of over 1,449 prostitutes from…Dolly…it would appear that Papua has become a destination of choice among a small portion of the evictees…Papua is by far the richest province in Indonesia in terms of natural resources, boasting some of the largest gold, silver, copper and timber reserves on earth…nouveau riche mining capital has ensured that sex workers in Papua are among the highest paid in Indonesia…
I’m going to use this subtitle for stories refuting the myth of the evil client:
A woman who was lured to Dubai by promises of a job [in a beauty salon] but was then forced into prostitution was rescued by her first customer when she burst into tears and told him her story…the victim [said]…“He…booked me a ticket back to Morocco and even drove me to the airport”…she was not allowed to leave the country because…her employment contract had not been cancelled, so she headed to airport police and told them the whole story…
The video about Cambodia is excellent and gets several points across. It definitely deserves a wide distribution.
I hope Laurent-Augur sues.
Unless there’s some important point that isn’t quoted here, I fail to see any problem with this police action. Indeed, one of the big drawbacks of a prohibition regime like the US’s is that our police might very well let her continue working in order to punish clients.
Clause 6 [the Swedish model] of Lord Morrow’s bill on trafficking etc, was passed a few days ago by our local legislature. The debate preceding it was televised; I watched some of it. Debate is really the wrong word, for it was mostly a repetition of pre-existing positions. It was clear that minds were closed, and that nothing would open them. Lord Morrow seemed to base his argument on stories and anecdotes, emphasising that of “Anna”; she was also featured prominently in the Irish edition of the Sun yesterday.
He and others dismissed the findings of researchers in N Ireland; the research was “flawed”. The researchers did indeed recognise limitations and the difficulty of getting accurate data. The inability of the researchers to separate their personal opinions from the findings was emphasised.
I also rewatched some of the Justice committee’s deliberations, and their interviews of individuals. [These are available on YouTube] It was clear that one tactic employed was to ambush people in the first question; this is described as testing the witness’s credibility. But only those whose views weren’t those of the committee were so treated.
The Justice committee produced a report of about 1200 pages, much of which is transcripts and written submissions. Gaye Dalton apparently gave a submission questioning the credentials of Rachel Moran; yet, I understand, most of this submission was not in the report.
Many now expect that the Swedish model will be introduced into the Republic of Ireland.