Selling sex is not inherently harmful or dangerous. Criminalising it would be. – Alex Bryce
Prevalent discourse would have you believe that sex workers are problems to deal with, or victims to “save”. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, when you ask sex workers about their job satisfaction and working conditions – as a study led by Leeds University just has – the majority of them are happy…91 per cent of sex workers described their work as “flexible”, 66 per cent described it as “fun” and over half find their job “rewarding”…this came as no real surprise to other sex workers or experts in the field, who are well aware that the common view of sex workers is wrong…
…A bill championed by Senator John Cornyn…would…[impose] additional fines on people convicted of sex…trafficking, child pornography and other crimes…The second bill, put forward by Senator Amy Klobuchar…would give…grants to states that adopt “safe harbor” laws…A…measure that would help ensure housing and services for homeless juveniles [was] introduced [by]…Patrick Leahy…
Elizabeth Nolan Brown presents a worldwide roundup of Sex Worker Rights Day events. It’s great to see the media outside of the demimonde beginning to notice these observances; it’s only one step from there to actually recognizing that we’re saying something.
Ethiopian scriptwriter and film director Hermon Hailay says she grew up close to prostitutes. “I know them as young, beautiful women, mothers, sisters and friends…I always wanted to tell their story, because I know it well. As a kid, I did not see the shame in what they do”…her latest film, Price of Love…follows the life of a young taxi driver who…falls in love with a prostitute…his mother…also earned her living from prostitution…
Elizabeth Nolan Brown explores the history of artificial sex partners, from dolls to sex robots; she even explores the ethical and psychological implications of robot whores that I’ve examined so many times under this heading.
“Here are 9 social panics that gripped America, were totally false, and did lasting damage” trumpets the headline. Guess which one is conspicuous by its absence?
Cities that host international sporting events…ignore an ugly reality behind the spectacle: the exploitation of women and children shipped in to cater to the sexual proclivities of spectators, says the general secretary for the Canadian Council of Churches. “Human sex trafficking goes with national and international sporting events,” Karen Hamilton said…“And…Toronto is hosting the Pan Am Games this summer”…Scholarly studies of human trafficking also reinforce Hamilton’s contentions regarding human trafficking…in regard to sporting events…
…a new adult site…Hump the Bundle…raised nearly $15,000 …[but] they can hardly find any charities willing to take their money…So far, Hump the Bundle has managed to partner with the Foundation for Sex Positive Culture, which promotes sex positivity through art and advocacy, Able Gamers, which develops better video games for disabled people, and Angels Giving Tree, an organization that gives holiday gifts to needy children. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. Just this week, Hump the Bundle received the following rejection by email: “After speaking with our legal and communication teams, we have decided that we will not pursue this offer”…
It’s really good to see the mainstream media beginning to question the hysteria:
…sex trafficking…has become…a Christian cause célèbre…Many…compare their work to the 19th-century abolitionist movement against chattel slavery…But…the better comparison may be to the “white slavery” panic…[which] engaged both feminist and Christian activists…[and] focused primarily on protecting female virtue—often depicting prostitution as “slavery”…women being forced…was mostly malarkey…“rescuing” supposed slaves has…been criticized as paternalist, moralist, and ineffective. Then there’s the numbers of the forcibly “enslaved,” which seem to be wildly overestimated…
“The notion of choice…by women.” Yes, that phrase is actually in here:
In his…PBS documentary, A Path Appears…Nicholas Kristof says it’s time we acknowledge sex trafficking as an American problem, and that we take a hard look at prostitution and the notion of choice, especially by women…average age…12 to 14…self-esteem problems…predators…sneak in…recruiters lurk in bus depots, homeless shelters and foster care facilities…
One tiny nitpick. The French don’t add accents for their words to be snobby or make life difficult for English-speakers using keyboards. They are written to show how to pronounce words correctly. If the person who uses the word “célèbre” isn’t pronouncing it the way the French do, then there is no reason to use the accent marks.
For this reason, in English I believe it is more correct to use “resumé” instead of “résumé” because in English the first “e” isn’t pronounced the same as the second in French. We say “re-zhoo-MAY” instead of “RAY-zhoo-may.” Of course, “resume” is becoming the more normal spelling because many English speakers are too lazy to write any accents at all.
Accents, diacriticals etc are aids to spoken pronunciation; originally, when books were first common, you either read it aloud, or if you were posh, had a reader to do it for you. If you come across ‘resume’, how do you know whether ‘resume’ (carry on as before) or ‘resumé’ (CV) is meant?
English pronunciation is sometimes difficult from the spelling. Not just the multiple ways of saying ‘ough’ but in simpler things such as lead (go before) or lead (the metal). Then compare ‘met’ with ‘mete’. The second ‘e’ in ‘mete’ determines the pronunciation—as in ‘mat’ and ‘mate’ and dozens of others.
While we have 26 letters in the alphabet, we use around 42-44 phonemes, accents are one way to assist us.
Yup. The only reason I commented in that post was that I doubted that the person who replicated the French accents was pronouncing the word the same.
@korhomme
If you count the number of people who learn English not just as a native language but as a second or foreign language (I’m not sure what the distinction between the latter two categories is), there are probably more people around the globe who speak English than Chinese. But I’m not sure if English is quite as easy as we congratulate ourselves. Do the lack of accents in English along with the plethora of phonemes actually make English harder for non-natives to learn than French or German?
What I find odd in English is that sometimes different sounds can be spelled the same. For instance ”lead” that is pronounced ”led” or ”leed” depending on what you are talking about. This seems to defeat the purpose of a written language, as I’m sometimes not sure how to pronounce a word that I see for the first time (there’s probably similar examples in French, but I’m too used to it to notice).
I wish that I had a good answer as to why this is so. I suspect that it is a by-product of absorbing so many words from so many different places. I do know that even for native speakers, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of homophones and it’s not because of software like “Auto-Correct.”
Anyway, I’d rather that nobody spoke English or that this great language would die out and be forgotten than one person be persecuted because somebody was terrified of sex.
Regarding the last entry by Nick Kristof. Hate to give the guy some credit, but I think it’s better to refer to adolescents who have sexually matured as young women than to call all women—regardless of age—girls. Well, calling them “girls”—if that’s the term they want to use is fine. It’s TREATING them as girls, and not just any girls but toddlers, that’s offensive.
And for the record, calling a 14 or a 17-year old a “young woman” does NOT mean necessarily condoning or approving that she have sex with older men. They might not be fully mature yet, but they’re at the age when they can start making important decisions for themselves.
Ironic about the Pan-Am games (and by extension, the Olympics) because the scuttlebutt is the athletes everyone cheers are commonly getting it on; well-toned young people grouped in one place- guess what happens next? As for hump the bundle- I will gladly take their money. I’m noble like that.
It’s baffling that no one advocates for the criminalization of sporting events. Not only are they the number 1 cause of human sex trafficking, they also promote the sexist notion that men are physically stronger than women. (In case people didn’t notice, I was being sarcastic…)
…plus, of course, EVERYONE KNOWSSSSSsssss, since the steroids-are-coming-for-YOUR-kids! hysteri- er, that is, “scandals”, beginning in 1988, that professional sports are an EPIDEMIC-OF-ILLICIT-AND-SOCIETY-DEVASTATING-DRUG-USE. Merely driving past a sporting event might send your poor children into a steroid rage. I mean, it’s common knowledge that illegal drugs and sex ALWAYS go together, so do the math, America! Well, okay, yes, you can use your calculator, but…LET’S STOP THIS NOW!
Or, for that matter, colleges. One in four! One in four! There’s more crime on your average campus than there is in the entire rest of the country, and it seems no one cares. If that figure is true, then the colleges should be shut down, or post-secondary education should be fully sex segregated.
Regarding the Nick Kristof article: he trivializes and obfuscates the issue of runaways but suggesting that they run away because they “get into a fight with Mom”. No, kids run away because of real sexual and physical abuse.
Kristof is such a scumbag.
Kids run away from sexual and physical abuse at home, but let’s not talk about that. /sarcasm
Re: 9 social panics
The reason sex trafficking wasn’t included in the list is that it’s still an ongoing hysteria. Only when it’s safely in the past, like maybe 20 to 30 years in the future will someone write a similar article including it then.
I know you’re probably not interested in this, but seeing that it revolves around sex:
https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/43531-youtube-the-truth-about-sex-facts-you-wont-believe-are-true/
Did you see the comments to the Kristof article? One of them was VERY astute in saying that military recruiters pick up recruits in the very same way pimps pick up girls. Unless I am completely and totally naive, I love that comparision.