[Anita Sarkeesian]…has the same paternalistic views that many feminists have regarding sex workers—that they need to be rescued, saved; that they would never actually choose this line of work, but rather, were led or coerced into it by a man. – Princess Kora
…Niki Cross…was forced into sexual slavery as a teenager. She’s now sharing her story and…working with other victims. “I didn’t realize I was being sold. I just thought I was being raped over and over and over…at least 10 a day.” Cross…was lured by a man to Akron, Ohio, with promises of a singing career. Instead, she was chained in an attic, drugged and sold as a sex slave for a year, until she managed to escape one night…and…was taken in by Chrissie Murphy. The two went their separate ways, until a friend of a friend recently reconnected them nearly 40 years later…
Sex workers in video games are nothing new, but a game whose developers want to promote empathy for whores rather than just exploiting us as a game mechanic definitely is: “[In] The Oldest Game, currently in development, [players assume] the identity of a sex worker in one of three Canadian cities…the objective…is to make as much money as possible while staying safe, which creates a difficult, no-win scenario…to show the very real constraints sex workers experience…”
Meanwhile Anita Sarkeesian, who has insulted and infantilized sex workers in order to promote her particular brand of pop-neofeminism, is getting a taste of her own medicine from a sex worker:
…Princess Kora…[has] found a way to profit from Sarkeesian’s detractors. Two weeks ago, the 29-year-old PhD student and veteran sex worker launched an adult webcam series called “Boob Frequency,” a parody of [Sarkeesian’s YouTube channel] Feminist Frequency…Kora dresses in Sarkeesian’s typical uniform of hoop earrings and a plaid shirt, only she leaves most of the buttons undone and exposes a generous portion of her substantial cleavage…She also mocks Sarkeesian by “whining about exploitation and oppression”…hordes of Gamergate supporters have come flocking to her webcam channel…and…“Boob Frequency” has garnered several hundred subscribers…
Russia has listed [transgender status]…fetishism, exhibitionism and voyeurism…as “mental disorders” now barring people from driving…because Russia has too many road accidents…Russian psychiatrists and human rights lawyers have condemned the move…Valery Evtushenko at the Russian Psychiatric Association…said some people would avoid seeking psychiatric help, fearing a driving ban…
Under Every Bed (All Traffick, All the Time)
The increasing grandiosity of the Bakken oil field trafficking subsection of “sex trafficking” mythology will probably get an entire chapter to itself in my book. Here’s an “investigative series” which manages to run for an entire week without actually investigating the topic, at least not by the usual meaning of that word; it’s just the typical hodgepodge of ridiculous, unsupported claims, wildly exaggerated numbers and cop wanking fantasies without the slightest shred of proof or even a single interview with an actual sex worker. Truly astonishing, even by the low standards of yellow “sex trafficking” journalism.
Even for Arizona, referring to the same old lies which have been circulating for years as “new statistics” is a pretty bold (not to mention stupid) move; some of the intended audience must recognize the claims as not remotely “new”, and even if they still believe such factors contribute to the erosion of the mythology:
New statistics show how big the problem is in Southern Arizona…A third of runaway girls are approached by a sex trafficker within 48 hours…the average age of victims…is just 13 years old…Human sex trafficking is a $9.8 billion business…During a sporting event like the upcoming Super Bowl…girls can be sold to as many as 45 buyers in a night…
A group of young Melburnians say they are exposing paedophiles [sic] grooming underage girls on dating app Tinder by creating a fake profile…of a 15-year-old girl they called “Imogen”. The group say they secretly filmed her conversations with men online where she tells them her [false] age and then subsequent face-to-face meetings…The creators [are all 21 or older, including the one who]…pretended to be “Imogen”…cyber safety consultant Susan McLean said the experiment [is]…”absolute stupidity. I can see this ending terribly for everyone involved”…
One can only hope so.
A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#502)
Another good way to give lies weight in the minds of the Great Unwashed: embed them in an infographic.
Well, it’s like this. You wanna get by in the entertainment industry you gotta be prepared to do a few favours. That’s showbiz.
Oh, I dunno. I can think of a few RPGs with non-judgmental takes on self-empowered sex workers. And thieves. And assassins. And homicidal psychopaths with huge war axes.
So can I. In fact I can think of several examples and not all of them older.
One slight nitpick. In the article about the dating app Tinder, you (or the person who quote) puts a “sic” next to “pædophile” implying that it has been mispelled. Since the same quote refers to “Melburnians”, I assume it is referring to Australian users of the app, in which case they would be using British English and “pædophile” would be correct.
However, I unwilling to do a Google search on that word to see if it indeed IS the correct British spelling. Either way, if “entrapment” is a crime under Australian law, the moralists using this ploy are going to be hurt badly. Unless they are cops, of course.
I’m fully aware of the differences between UK/Commonwealth and US spelling conventions, thank you. The correction was not for the British spelling, but for the labeling of ephebophiles (men attracted to adult women below the arbitrary legal age of majority) as “pedophiles” (men attracted to children, ie people who have not yet reached puberty). Hope that clears it up for you.
Thank you. I stand corrected.
Speaking of “pedophilia”, and in case you misunderstand the quotation marks I definitely mean “pedophilia (sic)” rather than actual pedophilia, here’s a story from the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/he-was-abused-by-a-female-teacher-but-he-was-treated-like-the-criminal/2015/01/09/3f2e7980-96d5-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html?hpid=z2
Anybody with common sense would realize that this is neither a young man abused by a female sexual predator nor is it a case of a young woman abused by a juvenile sexual predator. It’s simply a young man in the throws of puberty having consensual sex with a woman who happened to be his teacher. Do I think it’s appropriate? Of course not—but I don’t think it’s abuse either.
In case the link doesn’t work for you Maggie, the title of this opinion piece is “He was abused by a female teacher, but he was treated like the perpetrator” by Simone Sebastian on January 9, 2015.
I was intrigued by the infographic. I want to make a copy and stick pins in it based on your collection of trafficking claims collected in King of the Hill. However, I note that the two routes through the western US correspond to Asa Whitney’s proposed southern route for the transcontinental railway – which led to the Gadsden Purchase – and the actual route completed in 1869. My theory is that the original route was intended as a trafficking route but with the discovery of gold in California it seemed more lucrative to traffic workers to the gold fields. It looks like we can add a centuries old government conspiracy to all the rest of the fear mongering (insert ironic smiley icon here)
Bunnyranch.com attracting more visitors than Amazon.com? Such easily refuted lies are going to be their downfall.
Amazon.com – global rank 6th, U.S. ranking 3rd.
Bunnyranch.com – global rank 237,998th, U.S. ranking 58,443rd.
I also thought that was a bizarre claim to make. But hey, whatever lie attracts the clicks, right?
Indeed. Politics is after attention, not truth. In fact, truth is best avoided in politics, as it later could get inconvenient. Why else do politicians even use specially crafted language that prevents them from accidentally saying anything true.
Well what can you expect from TV news? “Statistics have been invented for years on a topic that most of you wouldn’t even look at if it didn’t have ‘sex’ in the title, and we’ve taken a break from reporting another warm winter day to actually research the claims” will be too boring to sell dishwasher detergent ad space in Tuscon.
[…] The Honest Courtesan, Maggie McNeill notes a human trafficking propaganda infographic by Haisam Hussein that includes this map, which shows sex trafficking hot […]