Sex work is the most pervasive profession for a reason: acquiring human connection is essential for life. – Jerome Nichols
Most cops think they’re nobles, but this one thinks he’s King David:
A Cowetta County, Georgia District Attorney, Peter Skandalakis…has said that his office will not pursue charges against an officer who used his special badge powers to have several men arrested and thus detained while he dawdled their romantic partners. Luthersville Police Department Officer Eric Mischel became involved in several affairs with women in relationships with men whom he violated…Even though an investigation has revealed a mountain of unscrupulous and unlawful behavior, he will not be charged because D.A. Scandalous says he was unable to find evidence that he broke his oath of office…
A few of my favorite lines from “6 Reasons to Hire a Sex Worker“:
…a good sex worker will do their best and that’s more than you can expect from a lot of volunteer sex partners…Pros are professionals; they know what they’re doing and make more money when you have fun. The better sex they offer you, the more likely you are to return…Sex workers have experience and wisdom to share with you. They can offer you lessons in an afternoon some people take years to acquire…You’d never say no a driving lesson before getting your license…
Somehow I doubt this will stop morally-retarded politicians (pardon the redundancy):
…OSHA now requires all employers under its jurisdiction provide employees with restroom facilities…According to the new guidelines, “Restricting employees to using only restrooms that are not consistent with their gender identity, or segregating them from other workers by requiring them to use gender-neutral or other specific restrooms, singles those employees out and may make them fear for their physical safety. Bathroom restrictions can result in employees avoiding using restrooms entirely while at work, which can lead to potentially serious physical injury or illness.” The new memo states employers must accommodate their employees based on which gender that employee identifies with…
For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#34)
…millions of…sex workers…[are] anxiously waiting for [India’s] highest court to hand down a ruling which they hope will finally clarify the age-old profession s legal status. Soliciting is illegal in India along with running a brothel and pimping, but the law, an archaic throw back to British colonial times, is vague on prostitution itself. Sex workers are hoping the Supreme Court’s ruling will force the government to decriminalise the industry. They say they are tired of being randomly targeted by police and sent to correction homes where they say conditions are worse than jails…
Please, David Rosen, become a prohibitionist; if your attempt to hurt us is as totally wrong as your attempt to “help”, it’ll be a great pro-decrim argument:
…The real victims of commercial sex industry are the women, girls and some young men who are forced (or “choose”) to work in the sex trade. These people most often live in poverty, have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse, lack affordable housing, have limited education, [and] have few job opportunities…The decriminalization of prostitution can help bring sex workers — the real victims of this “victimless” crime— out of the social shadows so they could secure labor rights, unemployment benefits, health care and life insurance…sex trafficking has reached epidemic proportion, with between 100,000 and 300,000 people annually at risk. The Department of Homeland Security reports the average age for a girl sex worker at between 12-14 years and 11-13 years for boys. The decriminalization of prostitution can help contain sex trafficking…
Another entry in the “climate change causes ‘sex trafficking’!” genre:
Pope Francis said he…believed the United Nations needed to play a central role in the fight against global warming…“the trafficking of human beings…has been created by climate change,” the pope said. The remarks followed a day-long meeting of mayors from around the world…hosted by the Vatican…and…began by hearing [lurid tales] from two Mexican women who [claim to be] victims of modern-day slavery…
Unfortunately, this Pope seems to have completely swallowed the “sex trafficking” myth.
Just in case you don’t believe cops & politicians are completely out of touch:
An assistant district attorney in…Oklahoma lived rent-free in a house confiscated by local law enforcement under the practice of asset forfeiture. His office paid the utility bills. He remained there for five years, despite a court order to sell the house at auction. Another district attorney used $5,000 worth of confiscated funds to pay back his student loans. These are just a few of the gems unearthed during a recent hearing on Oklahoma authorities’ liberal use of asset forfeiture to take property from suspected criminals and spend it on personal enrichment…State Sen. Kyle Loveless…has sponsored a bill to…prohibit asset forfeiture unless a suspect was actually convicted of a crime, and stipulate that the money go to the state’s general fund…Unsurprisingly, cops are desperate to preserve the practice…We can’t stop people from having drugs unless we are allowed to steal more money has to be one of the least-convincing arguments for maintaining the drug war…
Your periodic reminder that Dennis Hof is a revolting excuse for a human being:
…Dennis Hof…has started an exploratory committee to pursue a run for US Senate in Nevada, and created a plan to end sex trafficking…he plans to run on the libertarian ticket…Sex trafficking is an American epidemic far more dangerous than Ebola…and…the third biggest black market industry after drugs and arms trafficking…Hof…believes his experience with legal prostitution proves that decriminalizing the oldest profession would end one of the world’s biggest human rights issues…
Hof has never spoken in favor of decriminalization; he speaks in favor of legalization, and regularly implies that women are too stupid and weak to have sex for our own reasons without crony pimps holding our leashes. He’s a “libertarian” like I’m a socialist.
It isn’t only in the US that black women are routinely profiled as whores:
…on July 8th…the hotel staff at [the] five-star…Mövenpick Hotel [in Dubai] refused to serve [a Nigerian woman named Hanna Fanni ]…when she visited the hotel’s popular West Beach Bistro & Sports Lounge with her black American friend…“They suspected us of being prostitutes…solely because of the colour of our skin. I have lived here for 10 years and have never been treated in such a disrespectful and despicable manner…First the waitress refused to serve us and then a security guard ordered us to leave the hotel. At one stage he was ready to engage with us physically…he kept telling us that the bar didn’t allow unaccompanied women…[but] there were several tables occupied by women. When I pointed to them, he said he was merely following orders…I showed [the bar manager] my business card…his face contorted in panic as it dawned on him that they had racially profiled the wrong people. But instead of making amends, he said the security guard had asked us to leave as some black women had come in earlier and solicited their guests”…the hotel tried to make amend but they were so humiliated they had to leave…
Prohibitionists cut into street workers’ income by hanging around them:
They are a band of Christian soldiers who walk Akron’s streets looking for prostituted women. Their sole goal is to pray that the weighty chains that bind these women to their lifestyles will be severed. To tell them that there is a God who is mightier than their pimps. And to say that He loves them for who they are — not because they can turn tricks. The men and women who make up this army are part of RAHAB, a nonprofit ministry of hope. To make themselves more accessible to those who are forced to sell their bodies, they work out of a house on the east side of Akron. They say the girls who have been coerced onto the streets…are victims. And the…mission is to help them recover from the atrocities of human trafficking…
Backpage.com is suing the sheriff in Chicago over his successful campaign to urge credit card companies to cut ties with the classified ads company…[the] lawsuit…[alleges] that…Thomas Dart…[is] censoring the company and its customers’ right to free speech…“Sheriff Dart’s actions to cripple Backpage.com and all speech through the site are an especially pernicious form of prior restraint,” the complaint says. “He has achieved his purpose through false accusations, innuendo, and coercion, whereas, if he had brought suit directly or Cook County had attempted to pass a law to shut down the website, Backpage.com would have had a fair opportunity to respond and defeat such efforts, given well-established law”…
Unfortunately, the writer felt compelled to counter SWOP’s statements with anti-whore propaganda:
…”I’m a sex worker. I’m not coerced. I’m not trafficked. I’ve been a sex worker my entire life,” [said Liz] Coplen…of the Sex Workers Outreach Project in Tucson. Coplen said many women enter…sex work to make money. The women on these sites range from college students, to single moms, to professionals with a side job. Their clients also run the gamut, from police officers…to doctors, lawyers, soldiers and college professors…
News that hackers are threatening to expose the personal information of the affair website AshleyMadison.com’s 37 million users undoubtedly has its members panicking. The rest of us, though, are thinking, “Thirty-seven million?” That is a whole heck of a lot of people who are looking to have affairs—roughly equivalent to the entire population of Poland. But…only 2.3 million of those members are active users…(Think: The population of Queens, New York.) Disparities between total members and active users are typical with dating sites. PlentyOfFish boasts 100 million registered users…but 3.6 million active daily users…OkCupid has 10 million active users…one in 10 dating profiles…are fakes made by scammers or spammers. The rest are users who joined a given site and are no longer active—maybe they found love or just gave up on the whole proposition…
Be fair Maggie.
Yes, the journalist does include testimony from someone who claims to have been sex trafficked. But regardless of the exaggerations and outright lies permeating the public discourse I think you would agree that sex trafficking does exist. So I for one would be inclined to give the woman the benefit of the doubt unless evidence to the contrary emerges.
But more importantly there’s nothing in the article that suggests the pope puts undue emphasis upon sex trafficking. Rather he speaks of people trafficking in general. His quoted statements focus on “the growth of black market labour and no-contract work” as well as other disruptions to the social fabric that are increasing pressure on the impoverished and otherwise marginalised.
It seems a no-brainer to me that climate change – in conjunction with increasingly rabid border control policies – will provide a huge boon to those who seek to exploit people desperate to escape intolerable circumstances. And while sex trafficking represents only a small portion of that exploitation it seems likely to me that it will increase alongside other related abuses.
Yes, the hysterical disinformation put out by CATW and its ilk do a grave disservice to both sex workers who are in the industry of their own volition and those under varying degrees of coercion. But knee-jerk attempts to shout down anyone who even indirectly alludes to sex trafficking does no one any favours and only lends credibility to CATW claims they’re facing a pimp orchestrated propaganda machine.
That’s because it isn’t your livelihood she’s trying to destroy, nor your patrons she’s trying to cage; I’m less inclined to give opportunities to avowed enemies. She wants me to believe she was “sex trafficked”? Fine, let her prove it rather than just claiming it. I can tell a roomful of slackjawed true believers I was abducted by space aliens, but that doesn’t make it so; the burden of proof is on the one making the extraordinary claim, not the one who says “prove it”.
Why on earth would you assume she’s trying to destroy your livelihood (unless you’re already starting with the assumption she’s lying).
That would be like a television presenter assuming all those who accused Jimmy Saville of sexual abuse are trying to eliminate his job.
All “survivors” trotted out by prohibitionists to speak in public can be counted on to parrot the party line. I don’t care what she wants deep down in her heart; I care about that bomb she’s carrying toward me and mine. So she’s lying until she proves she isn’t.
Maybe you’ve got some background info I don’t but nothing in the story you link to indicates she was ‘trotted out by prohibitionists’. Except inasmuch as the conference was hosted by the Vatican. But hell, I’ve spoken at a conference hosted by the NSW Attorney General’s Department (sharing a podium with a particularly odious leader of a “Crime Victim’s Rights” group) and no-one seemed to assume I was an apologist for the justice system here.
The story is about human trafficking in general. She gets second billing to another woman who claims to have been forced into indentured labour.
BTW, if you do the math you’ll see she was only claiming to have had about two ‘clients’ per day. A very modest one compared to your usual CATW cats-paw.
Oops. I misread. She’s claiming close to 20 clients/day.
OK Maggie, you’ve got a point.
Thank you. It’s not the only red flag; her narrative is very much in the tradition, though it lacks a car-dragging incident.
For a short time while living in Thailand I had a Japanese girlfriend. Almost everywhere we went both tourists and Thais alike assumed she was a Thai sex worker I had hired and treated her accordingly (which was sometimes courteously, more often patronisingly and occasionally with naked contempt). That was the major factor that caused us to break up.
I’ve met several mixed race couples (including married ones) who suffer similar treatment both in Australia and abroad. Even when he was in his fifties and his Filipina wife in her forties a former business partner of mine and his spouse dealt with constant thinly veiled suggestions she was a ‘mail order bride’. Actually they met when she’d already been granted Australian residency and was working as an actuary in a multinational insurance company.
Even a then Premier of NSW and his wife, a successful Chinese-born businesswoman, faced that kind of racism in both the parliament and the media.
There was a bit of a brouhaha in the UK quite recently; a hotel guest was accused of being a sex worker by the staff. She was Romanian, and wasn’t. But just being Romanian seems to be enough to label women.
Not sure who Jerome Nichols is and where you got that quote of his from, though I’d be interested in reading more of him, but as a john, off and on over some 3 decades, I will quite readily agree with the sentiments expressed, particularly regarding the provision of quite essential “human connection”. While it seems too easy at times to overly tout or romanticize the profession – I think it has its share of pathologies like most other human behaviours, even including motherhood – I think it is still rather important to emphasize the many benefits of the profession – to all concerned. As I had suggested in a tweet exchange with an escort and an agency (of sorts):
Periodically think that more that a few sexworkers sell themselves short by not recognizing those aspects to their profession. Which probably goes doubly for many of those outside of it.
The epigrams on News & Links columns always come from one of the items in the column.
Thanks. I frequently don’t have the time to more than skim your posts for things that might leap out at me – sipping from the firehose and all that – so that is good to know for future reference.
But did read Nichols’ post and may weigh in there to provide some moral if not financial support. As you’ve credibly argued, the cause of decriminalization if not legalization can benefit from the support of friends, relatives, and clients of sexworkers – part of the destigmatization process.
“Their sole goal is to pray that the weighty chains that bind these women to their lifestyles will be severed. To tell them that there is a God who is mightier than their pimps.”
So what does God need *you* for? There can be no clearer proof that “pimps” are mostly mythical than that god-botherers can interfere with trade without being stabbed by one.