Somewhere, some document says I am entitled to the pursuit of happiness. I can’t think of many things that make most people happier than sex. – “Bacchus”
The US should be proud to be in such august company:
A Russian lawmaker intends to draft a bill introducing fines and community service for using the services of prostitutes. The existing draft suggests…significantly harsher sanctions for married men and women. Oleg Mikheyev…said…his suggestions would help to combat prostitution more effectively [because of “end demand” dogma]…He [incorrectly claimed] that similar measures had worked in…Sweden and Norway…
After two years of waffling, Amnesty International appears ready to finally get off the fence about decriminalization. And the usual cast of Hollywood airheads is very unhappy about it:
Amnesty International says its proposed policy “is based on the human rights principle that consensual sexual conduct between adults…is entitled to protection from state interference”. It cites many examples in which criminalization increases risks to sex workers…”This policy does not change Amnesty International’s longstanding position that trafficking into forced prostitution should be criminalised”…the proposed policy states…[this] prompted a letter of protest from more than 400 [prohibitionists]…including actors Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway, Angela Bassett, Kevin Kline, Emma Thompson, Lisa Kudrow, Lena Dunham, Kyra Sedgwick, and director Jonathan Demme…The proposed policy will be addressed at Amnesty International’s international council meeting next month in Dublin, Ireland…
You can be as bigoted as you like, as long as you blame it on whores:
…Alecsandra Puflea tried to check into a room at the Holiday Inn Express in Hull with her boyfriend…but…was turned away after the receptionist found out she was from Romania. The 22-year-old criminology and forensic science graduate…had booked the room online…The hotel introduced a policy of [discrimination]…after other Romanian women were found to be using the rooms for prostitution…the hotel has now apologised to her and is reviewing its policy…
A police chief in a small island village in Ohio looked the other way when one of his officers used “roofies” to drug and rape two female cadets, then threatened the victims and covered up the crime, two federal lawsuits allege…the women charge that [Robert] Lampela, 53, wouldn’t allow them to file criminal complaints after they were…attacked in 2003 [in the town of Put-in-Bay]…Lampela…harassed them repeatedly when they complained, held a gun to one cadet’s head at her home and said he was the “God of Put-in-Bay and could make or break” their careers. When one of the cadets allegedly got a verbal confession from their attacker, Lampela responded that “No whores are going to take down my department,” and “Who do you think they will believe, you or the chief of police?” Lampela was [finally] arrested in February…
The Michigan State Police claim few cases of human trafficking were reported last year…despite widespread publicity from elected officials and new laws aimed to combat the issue…only three [accusations] of human trafficking were [made] statewide in 2014…the…state Attorney General[‘s]…spokeswoman, Andrea Bitely…said the nature of human trafficking makes it difficult for law enforcement to…distinguish…victims from criminals…
If that last line doesn’t enrage you, I don’t know what would.
The Galway Races are set to turn sordid as…more than 50 hookers will descend on the city to coincide with one of the biggest events in Irish sport. Plainclothes gardai will be on duty throughout the week in a bid to clamp down on prostitution…Escorts…as young as 18 are advertising on sordid websites, with 30-minute rates starting from €60 upwards, and hourly rates from €120. All-night packages are also available for €2,000 or more. Ruhama…[pretends] the influx of hookers is orchestrated by criminal gangs….[and] that men who pay for sex at the festival are helping to fuel organised crime…Up to 150,000 punters are expected to descend on Galway Racecourse over the course of the festival…
Kerry Porth describes her experience with a disfigured client:
…James…had severe scars from burns and skin grafts that covered 40% of his body…when he was 14 years old, his family home caught fire…he ran back in to save his sister by lowering her out her window…He continued to see me every few weeks for about 18 months. During that time he told me about dating situations where young women had reacted in terrible ways to the sight of his scars, even though he had told them why he had them. I wanted to find those girls and slap them. I encouraged him to keep trying – that one day he would find the right woman. And then one day he did…and…[came to] see me one last time to say…thank you for…convincing him that he wasn’t disgusting…
What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? (#321)
The largest review of the available evidence on the…HPV vaccine Gardasil, has found no evidence of any serious short-term or long-term safety issues. Bringing together the findings from clinical trials, post-licensure studies and data presented at scientific meetings but not yet published, the researchers focused particularly on autoimmune diseases, nervous system disorders, anaphylaxis, blood clots and stroke – but none of them is caused by the vaccine, they found…
The more female sex workers feel connected to their colleagues, the less they engage in risky transactions with clients who refuse to wear condoms, according to a new study urging the Conservative federal government to repeal its anti-prostitution law. The study…found a third of the 654 Metro Vancouver sex workers interviewed over a three-year period reported being coerced into letting a client perform vaginal, anal or oral sex without a condom in the previous six months…The ability of sex workers to organize and protect themselves will continue to be severely hampered by…Bill C-36…which…pushes such workers into more dangerous areas and activities so they can protect their clients…
As I said, “nothing more than a concern troll“:
…a series of articles published in The New York Times purported to expose rampant labor abuses in New York City nail salons. Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir claimed to have interviewed more than 100 employees of such salons and found that manicurists working long shifts for as little as $10 per day was the norm. Public response was swift and emotional, sending the Internet-outrage-spiral into full force and even influencing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pass emergency regulations for nail salons…But as with so much high-profile message journalism recently, the Times article seems based on dubious facts and broad generalizations. In The New York Review of Books, Richard Bernstein challenges many of the claims on which Nir’s narrative is based…Nir [claimed]…that “Asian-language newspapers are rife with classified ads listing manicurist jobs paying”…just $10 per day. Bernstein and his [Chinese] wife found this surprising, so they started combing through the employment ads in those papers themselves. What they found…was a lowest rate of $70 per day plus tips, and many…up to $110…
“Crucified” is a much stronger word than I would use for this nearly-toothless rebuke:
A federal judge crucified…Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart [for his]…attack…on Backpage.com…Backpage sued Dart after he coerced Visa and Mastercard to refrain from doing business with the classifieds portal. Dart labeled the company a “sex trafficking industry profiteer“…because of its adult ads. Backpage claimed…that Dart’s actions amount to “an informal extralegal prior restraint of speech”…[and] Judge John Tharp Jr. agreed…ordering the sheriff to cease the attacks…The judge added that “Dart’s informal lobbying of the credit card companies violated the First Amendment by imposing an informal prior restraint on the advertisements hosted by Backpage.com”…The judge did not immediately order Dart to retract the letters…more litigation is expected…
If You Want Something Done Right…
The only important nugget of information in this article:
Neal Falls, the suspected serial killer slain by an escort in West Virginia, may have…[been] involved in serial slayings in eight other states—Nevada, Illinois, Ohio, New York, Oregon, Texas, Kentucky, and California…
The rest is the typical garbage which appears so often in stories about such psychopaths: he had a weird online profile, came from an abusive family, was a loner, had a puppy, etc.
Sad that someone as intelligent on sex workers remains so stubbornly ignorant in regard to vaccine issues. Maggie choses to list a Forbes article to “prove” Guardasil is safe, but doesn’t bother to read the many comments, all well-referenced that dispute the Forbes “journalist’s” regurgitation of the “study.”
Meanwhile, Maggie is quick to dispute and debunk (accurately) the utter horseshit studies on trafficking.
Maggie, time to come in from the cold. Apply that same intelligence to looking at the mounds of studies and documentaries on Guardasil and other over-vaccination procedures.
What is this persistent stupidity with regard to vaccinations? Effectiveness and risks are well known for basically all vaccines in use, except some very new ones and for very rare side-effects. The autism-lie has been completely exposed for what it is. The epidemic benefits of even vaccines with known and not so unlike side-effects are known and a rational balance can be struck for these. This is risk-management and it is very well understood how to do it.
Are these people that have zero understanding of what is going on and what is real or not, but that are unable to admit their own incompetence?
Well, here is news for these people: You are going to die! If you are not vaccinated for something that you have a real chance of contracting, chances are you are going to die earlier and in a more unpleasant fashion.
It’s very rare that I exercise my property rights to stop a discussion on this board, even on the rare occasion when I think one side or the other is full of shit or trying to raise a tempest in a teapot. But this time I’m going to make an exception: no dumb anti-vax bullshit on my blog, please. And no further responses TO anti-vax bullshit, either. All further comments on this topic will be deleted; I’m burying this stupid fucker alive, no matter how much dirt it takes or how long it screams.
“…[this] prompted a letter of protest from more than 400 [prohibitionists]…including actors Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway, Angela Bassett, Kevin Kline, Emma Thompson, Lisa Kudrow, Lena Dunham, Kyra Sedgwick, and director Jonathan Demme…”
Which evidences, one more time, that incredible talent or success in something nor that even likeableness as a person doesn’t equal ability to hold or express a rational opinion about everything.
What’s most amusing to me is this protest issuing from women who DO willingly sell their bodies in the industry we call Hollywood (whose mindset is perhaps best summarized by the quip attributed to director Alfred Hitchcock, “I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.”)
Apparently it’s always “trafficking” when the other bitches, poor victims, do it; but when I’M doing it, it’s “my willingly chosen profession”.
They make a living by looking good and they’re always going to express the opinions that make them look good to the public. It’s just a way to promote their own image.
This reminds me of a funny line in one of the GTA video games that went something like: actors make great politicians; they’re the best liars, they do it professionally.
“That last line doesn’t enrage you, I don’t know what would.”
Well, Michigan recently convicted a 17 year old girl as a “trafficker”, merely because her pimp made her drive the car used to transport the other victims. So they really can’t tell the difference between a victim and a criminal.
And the sad and brutal irony of this is, when she gets out of prison, she will have no choice but to prostitute herself to survive, since no one in a million years will hire her with a conviction like that.
The story about the burnt client made me sad and sick inside. I wouldn’t mind slapping those girls myself.
That story didn’t make me sad, but it did really move me as it shows what a good sex worker can do for her clients. I do feel a bit sorry for her client but it looks like it worked out in the end when he gained more confidence from seeing her and eventually found himself a girl friend who accepted him as he is.
‘ ….more than 50 hookers will descend on the city….. Up to 150,000 punters are expected…’
So roughly 3,000 customers per hooker in one week? Yeah, that sounds plausible.
A “punter” is also a person who gambles on horses. The reason that seeing commercial sex providers is called “punting” in some circles comes from the earlier horseracing sense. You put down your money, and you never really know if you are backing a winner or a loser. If it doesn’t turn out so great, you don’t get your money back. Just suck it up and move on to the next one.
“Escorts…as young as 18 are advertising on sordid websites, with 30-minute rates starting from €60 upwards, and hourly rates from €120. All-night packages are also available for €2,000 or more.”
This reads oddly like an ad.
The rates seem ok and whether a website is “sordid” is something that lies in the eye of the beholder. And 18 year olds count as adults. If anything, this illustrates problems on the side of the critics.
“The study…found a third of the 654 Metro Vancouver sex workers interviewed over a three-year period reported being coerced into letting a client perform vaginal, anal or oral sex ”
Dysphemisms again. You cannot be “coerced” into “letting” somebody do something. It’s a contradiction in terms.
Probably the actual wording was more like “convinced” and money was involved.
This type of critic will use any lie, no matter how transparent, to attempt to warp reality. If they ever got an unfiltered view of reality, their minds would probably implode.