[Prohibitionists] aren’t really interested in rescuing or protecting anyone. They are profiting…off our deep social ambivalence with the realities of sex. – Remittance Girl
A father of three has been given a suspended sentence for attempting to rob and threatening to rape an escort at gunpoint because he needed money for Christmas. Liam McGran (49) later told gardaí he decided to rob the woman as he had been with her before and he knew she was small. He demanded money and threatened to rape the woman in her home as he pointed an imitation pistol at her. However the victim, who had a firearms licence and was knowledgeable about guns, recognised it as a fake and fought McGran off before he fled the apartment…The woman sustained scratches and bruises…He also pulled out some of her hair…
…the nail-salon industry in…America [is]…an avenue of opportunity for immigrant workers with low skills and little English. As Asian nail salons have proliferated—often offering manicures, pedicures, and acrylics at a fraction of the cost of high-end salons—immigrant women have trained and employed one another, providing new arrivals with a means of making a living, a way help out families back home, and a community. They have also helped drastically grow the manicure market, making what used to be only a luxury for the rich an affordable and accessible habit for middle-income Americans…But The New York Times this week presents a very different narrative of the nail industry. In a multi-part series by reporter Sarah Maslin Nir, the Times suggests that the real “price of nice nails” is an underclass of immigrant women subject to high rates of exploitation, abuse, fertility issues, and other health problems…In the apprenticeship system for that’s sprung up in nail salons, she sees only exploitation…But in the formal economy, cosmetologists of all sorts must pay to attend schools and certification programs, pay the government for a licence, and take internships or training programs before salons let them do hair/nails/makeup on their own. Is the apprenticeship system really so different? At least salon workers can still make tips while they train…One of the major impediments to doing so…is workers’ immigration status. They have trouble participating in the formal economy…because they are in America illegally…Nir fails to indict U.S. immigration policies for their poor conditions. Instead, she would actually [like to] see more government agents visiting the nail salons…
A…woman arrested in a Daytona Beach [prostitution] sting…died in her jail cell…because she did not get the care she needed as a known addict…April Brogan…complained of being “dope sick” when she was brought to the jail April 29…Two days later…[she] started vomiting and foaming at the mouth…Volusia County spokesman Dave Byron said…there was no breach of protocol…
This is turning into a full-blown black comedy:
Houston police and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are teaming up with [prohibitionists]…Prostitution is such a big problem during the annual oil and drilling convention…that police are stepping in to do something about it…the thousands of men in town for the convention…raises the demand for sex trafficking. So police went out…with [prohibitionists]…to walk around the Astros and Dynamo games…giving out [propaganda] flyers…”We do not tolerate anyone that is trying to buy a human being,” said Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia…
Articles recognizing “sex trafficking” as overblown hysteria are becoming far more common, and can be found in sources ranging from blogs:
…sex-trafficking – i.e. people who are kidnapped, enslaved and forced into sexwork against their will – isn’t quite the massive global problem campaigners want you to believe it is…anti-trafficking campaigners aren’t seeking to pressure law enforcement to enforce existing laws more forcefully (kidnapping and rape are already prosecutable crimes). They are blurring the lines between forced and voluntary sexwork, and it seems, when you examine their agenda critically, that their real desire is simply to criminalize all sexwork and label all sexworkers as exploited victims…
…to the Huffington Post:
…anti-trafficking groups have deliberately conflated trafficking with prostitution by…choice…anti-trafficking groups like the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women (CATW) not only spew wildly inflated statistics about the number of women and children being trafficked in the United States; they also argue that the vast majority of sex workers in this country are trafficking victims. And that’s simply not true. Studies show that most sex workers in the developed world are in the profession by choice, not because they are trafficked. Yet even federal and state agencies do not distinguish between consensual prostitution and actual trafficking cases…Indeed, anti-trafficking groups acknowledge that they now use the term, trafficking, for what used to be called pimping…
Under the banner “Sex trade is work,” Argentine prostitutes handed out symbolic invoices with prices for their sexual services in front of the Buenos Aires City Legislature, in an unusual campaign for a law to recognize their rights as workers. Health care, access to education, the right to freely practice their trade, trade union organization and the possibility of retirement benefits, basic rights that any other work would provide, are a dream for these women. Argentina does not regard prostitution as a legal activity, but does not ban it either, which is why around 80,000 prostitutes remain marginalized by public policy and face risks including fear of losing their homes, extortion and police persecution…The police, if not extorting bribes, harass them and occasionally launch violent operations to shut down brothels…A bill to regularize prostitution rests with the Argentine Senate, but may not be considered this year…
The Course of a Disease (#444)
Given that the BBC has until now belched up “sex trafficking” propaganda as though it were factual, it’s a slight improvement for it to pretend that the subject of client criminalization is one which can be “debated” by two opposing sides (neither one an actual sex worker). However, neither side does anything but spout talking points; the whole article is about as phoned-in a piece of tripe as ever got past a bored, hung-over editor.
…Four months after the…government brought into force new laws aimed at ending prostitution…the vast grey market for sexual services in Canada remains, unsurprisingly, intact. From Halifax to Victoria and everywhere in between, sex is still being bought and sold in Canada, according to sex workers, police departments, researchers, and common sense. But that doesn’t mean the industry…hasn’t shifted in response to the laws…sex workers in five cities…said uncertainty over the new regulations has pushed some clients away and made business harder for them…Chris Atchison, a research associate at the University of Victoria, doesn’t expect it to last. Atchison, who has spent almost 20 years studying men who buy sex, says what we’re seeing now is basically what happens anytime there’s any change to the laws around sex work…but the market doesn’t go away in the long run…the worry is that, as the industry recalibrates, it will reform in ways that are less open and thus less safe for sex workers and clients alike…
Two dominatrix pornographers have become the first adult filmmakers to fall foul of strict new regulations governing online pornography…a ruling from the television on demand regulator has found that videos from professional dominatrix Megara Furie and a Welsh dominatrix operating under the name Mistress R’eal were in breach of the new guidelines…
First They Came for the Hookers… (#527)
A lawyer representing adult entertainment venues says his clients will sue Georgia over the state’s new anti-trafficking law, which…is financed in part through a new tax on [strip clubs]…Alan Begner, whose practice represents nearly two-thirds of strip clubs in the capital city, said…“Nude dancing is protected under the U.S. and Georgia Constitutions, and speech cannot be taxed”…
The anti-human trafficking bill whose unanimous passage in the Senate last month was widely hailed as a triumph of bipartisanship includes language that could send publishers of…adult advertisements to prison, civil liberties advocates have warned…prosecutors don’t even need to prove prior knowledge, just that “the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to observe the person”…the preponderance of language in the bill would quietly advance a “tough on crime” agenda just as many Americans are clamoring for broad-based criminal justice reform and a softening of state attitudes toward non-violent behaviors…
The “sex trafficking” circus needs victims to die for the crowd’s satisfaction, and if a big, juicy one can’t be found, little scrawny ones will have to do:
Two women have been sentenced to federal prison terms in Massachusetts for their role in a sex trafficking ring that transported other women across state lines to engage in prostitution…Vanessa Grandoit…was sentenced…to one year in prison and five years of probation…Kairis “Lola” Sanchez…to 18 months in prison and five years of probation…The women acted mainly as drivers.