While there’s a thick “rescue” sauce smeared all over [modern prostitution law], the “punish the dirty whores” attitude is still obvious. – Marijke Vonk
BDSM carries a stigma nearly as heavy as that of sex work, and indeed is still criminalized, semi-criminalized or quasi-criminalized in many parts of the US. But up until the recent release of DSM-V, it was also classified as a mental illness and could thus be used by “authorities” as an excuse for all manner of rights violations, including abduction of one’s children. Here’s a thorough article in the Atlantic on the 30-year fight to “de-classify kink as a psychiatric disorder”, largely accomplished by the efforts of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.
The Free Speech Coalition…denounced the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s proposed California ballot measure over mandatory condoms on the porn set and said that, if enacted, the act would likely amount to a new “Prohibition” for adult filmmaking. AHF’s statewide proposal not only would make condoms mandatory on the set, but it would require adult filmmakers to be licensed and subject them to additional record-keeping requirements beyond 18 U.S.C. § 2257…FSC CEO Diane Duke’s said that AHF’s proposal…would destroy the industry as most know it and drive existing producers underground…
A…Russian policeman who raped and murdered 22 women…has been jailed for life…Mikhail Popkov, raped and axed or stabbed the victims late at night in the Siberian city of Angarsk after offering to give them lifts in his police car…the victims…included a teacher, a shop assistant and several prostitutes…One had been decapitated and another’s heart had been removed, while it is reported he had sex with some of the bodies after killing them…Two other women managed to survive…but suffered serious injuries…[Popkov] described himself as a “cleaner” who was purging the city of prostitutes…The murders [started in] 1994 [and ended abruptly]…in 2000, when…he became impotent and contracted syphilis…
They actually thought “sex trafficking” was a more credible explanation than jealousy:
Residents in a block of flats were horrified when they complained that the water tasted “funny” – and were told that the unusual flavour was due to the rotting corpse of a young woman in the water tank…Carmen Yarira Noriega Esparza…was last seen leaving her gym in…Mexico City in February last year…Police are now focusing their enquiries on her relationship with a wealthy businessman who was paying the rent for her flat, and who she had recently dumped…The week before she was supposed to move out of the flat, she vanished and had not been seen since…A police spokesman said…”We had…been looking into suggestions that she may have been taken by a gang involved in the sex slave business. It appears that was not the case.”
Backwards Into the Future (#137)
Sweeping laws that could see gays, prostitutes and drug injectors enjoy full rights while cutting back on what the media can say about them are in the offing…For example, it will be criminal for police to profile [them]…using their sexual activity…The groups want a policy which makes it possible to have them represented by their own in oversight bodies…They also recommend…a law that protects the confidentiality of their medical data…barring the media from identifying them and the places they work from. This could mean it may be illegal to [out] prostitutes during police swoops or investigative pieces…
Sign of the decline of the “gypsy whores” myth: it’s only weeks before the Super Bowl and we’ve barely heard a peep from the Arizona moon-barkers yet.
Prostitutes and the people who pay for their services…could face harsher punishments. Phoenix City Council members are set to discuss…a mandatory jail booking for anyone arrested…and requiring “John school” for anyone convicted of soliciting a prostitute…A man who directs the current “John school” expects a surge in prostitution during the Super Bowl timeframe…”These are guys that are used to being in control…they’re used to having things their own way,” [Dr. Jon] McCaine [bloviated ignorantly]…It is unclear whether, if approved, the changes would be in effect by Super Bowl weekend…
This long, thorough article by Marijke Vonk on the facts about Dutch sex workers has a lot to recommend it, but I found these figures especially interesting:
– 90% don’t even know anyone who is being forced
– 93% like or are neutral about their colleagues
– 92% have never experienced violence at work
– 86% is happy or even very happy with their job
– they see 10 to 30 customers per week
– 84% like their customers
– 80% never experienced any trouble with a customer ever
– 90% feel unrepresented in politics
– 90% feel government does not protect their interests
– 95% claim politicians have no idea what is going on in the sex industry
On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#441)
Two ex-dancers are suing the Portland strip club Casa Diablo for back pay and damages for alleged harassment—including unwanted touching—by patrons and the club’s employees. Matilda Bickers and Amy Pitts…each performed at Casa Diablo for about two and a half years…[they] allege Casa Diablo—billed as the city’s only vegan strip club—failed to pay them a minimum wage, took a 30 percent cut of their nightly tips, and fined them as much as $40 if they showed up late and $70 for missing a shift. Even their performances could bring penalties—for example, $10 if they didn’t undress quickly enough on stage…Portland…dancers, social workers and lobbyists are crafting legislation that may clarify employee status for Oregon dancers…
Imagine being such a control freak that you would be willing to disrupt your own life and do an unpleasant job solely for the opportunity to inflict violence on other people for having private, consensual sex in a way you don’t like:
…Joy Smith has decided, now that the controversial prostitution law is in full force in Canada, her job in Parliament is done…and…she will devote herself full-time to [prohibitionism]…She never intended to be an MP but rather a school principal…“I’m not a very good politician. I’ve never been attracted to it but I’m really glad I did it…the reason I went to Parliament was to stop human trafficking. What I want to do now is continue that work”…Smith [imagines]…that sex work can’t be consensual, that all prostitution is human trafficking…
A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#503)
Mark Draughn thought that stupid “trafficking hotspot” map looked familiar:
“…The other data source is a map of every McDonald’s location in the United States. Note that every single sex trafficking hotspot corresponds to a cluster of McDonald’s restaurants. The conclusion is obvious: McDonald’s food is turning our women into whores!…”
I hope the Super Bowl doesn’t take all the sex workers away from where I live…
The figures that Marijke Vonk quotes come from an academic study which is in Dutch. I can’t workout how large the sample size was. Can anyone help?
I’ll ask Marijke to drop by and comment.
If I am reading it right, the total number of respondents is 94.
Thank you. That number or respondents, 94, could be seen as limited (particularly by those with an agenda), and thus as a not very representative sample. As usual, finding hard, accurate and reliable facts about what’s going on, and what people’s views are, is very difficult.
Also, the study itself is solely about the Wallen in Amsterdam, which of course is the most famous RLD in the Netherlands, but it’s certainly not the only one, not even in Amsterdam itself (it leaves out the Singel area, which, though smaller, is still significant). Not to mention, that no escorts, club workers or streetwalkers were interviewed. So one more reason, unfortunately, why this survey is not necessarily representative for all sdex workers in the Netherlands.
“Casa Diablo—billed as the city’s only vegan strip club”
Thank you for the laugh.
Wait — there’s an alternative possibility. We might have our cause and effect reversed here. Maybe the sex workers are exercising their clients vigorously while simultaneously depleting their wallets, resulting in “spikes” of demand for cheap, high-calorie food. In other words, those whores are turning the men into Big Mac eaters!
In that case, how do you explain the McDonald’s clusters in prostitution-free cities (according to the map) such as Portland, Minneapolis, and Dallas? Clearly McDonald’s evil scheme has not yet taken hold in these bastions of female chastity.
I dunno; give me time, and I’ll come up with something. Whether it involves burgers trafficking women, or women trafficking burgers, my narrative will definitely center on traffick. It’ll be a real traffick jam!
No, no, no… come up with a humorous, and plausible, third factor that causes both (like the real answer mentioned in the linked article – population density is the third correlation that matters). Like I see how all the “clumps” in both maps are on/near interstate highway routes. So interstate highways cause sex trafficking AND a desire for big macs. Close the highways and end obesity AND sex trafficking!
Years ago, I read an academic article about how trainee managers in McDonalds were expected to maintain themselves. This included the requirement to remain in the freezer for several hours after the other members of the team had left for the night, counting the frozen bits and pieces that form the mainstay of their offerings, yet remaining attentive to the requirements of their local managers. Only if a trainee could pass such a test could he or she expect to progress to a higher plane. Yet this article clearly shows how such managers are abusing their terms and conditions of service, and endangering the products for which they are responsible by engaging in activities, which while entirely consensual, can only lead to a significant rise in the temperature in the freezers, with the consequent despoliation of those produces for which they are responsible. I’m sure that McDonalds will take al such actions are necessary to preserve their image as a wholesome purveyor of healthy, nutritious, vitamin packed, low-fat, and organic comestibles. (To say nothing about their profit margins.)
Joy smith-I wish I could say good riddance to bad rubbish, but undoubtedly she will be sticking around like a bad rash trying to get her slice of the 20million dollar prohibitionist pie the cons are serving up. Rot in hell, BITCH
On the unraveling of her evil I present http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/212/majority-disapprove-of-bill-c36/
the most interesting stat here is with the engaging the services of a prostitute question in the 10% who prefer not to answer. We can most likely assume they mean yes but don’t want to look bad to the people asking the question
I wonder how quickly Bill C-36 can be brought back before the Supreme Court — and when (not if) they strike it down, whether it will just be enacted again with a “notwithstanding” clause. It sounds like the voters need to clean house.
Please pardon my ignorance of the Canadian legal and political system, but can you explain why it’s such a lock that the CSC is going to strike this down? How long were the original laws on the books before they were struck down, leading to Bill C-36? I’m guessing years, if not decades. And, as you say, if the legislators are just going to keep reenacting the law, why would the court waste its time?
As glad as I was to hear that the CSC struck down those laws in the first place, I was wondering why they did so. Are Canadian justices all that different from those in the US or other countries? And isn’t the CSC part of the reviled “system” that is designed solely to comfort the comfortable and silence the afflicted, can never be changed, and therefore must be destroyed? Why are we giving them so much credit?
Hello, Maggie. In one of the articles u have brought us, its spoken about “john schools”. That institution is unknown in the countries of spanish culture, can u write a post about them? Or maybe u have already done that and u can give me the links about that specific topic.
There’s not a lot to tell, except that Spanish-speaking people are fortunate not to have them. What they are is classrooms where disgruntled ex-whores who have been brainwashed by the prohibitionists scream at clients who have been captured by the police. They deny the agency of all whores, spout fake statistics and tell lurid prohibitionist lies about “pimps” and 50 rapes a night. There is absolutely no evidence that such exercises in moralism accomplish anything other than making prohibitionists, cops and politicians feel good.
Thx u very much for the links, Maggie! Hey, are they really former sex workers? I ask u this question bcause some women that claim to have been victims are not. I dunno If u have hear about David Jiménez. He is a journalist of a very important nespaper here, called El Mundo. He wrote last year about Somaly Mam telling that she was a liar.
There is not translation into english of this article but if u want I can translate it:
http://www.elmundo.es/cronica/2013/11/10/527e800b63fd3d4e3a8b4575.html