We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school. – Commissar Larry Boyd
Thanks to Savannah Sly’s offering to fill in for me tonight at the hospital, I could relax a little, finish up this column and get to sleep. Since nobody shared any videos I found especially interesting this week, I dug up this old Dr. Demento Show tune I thought y’all might enjoy. The links above it are from Radley Balko (“serve” and “libertarianism”), Franklin Harris (“state”), Laura Lee (“headline”), Cassandra Fairbanks (“suspicious”), and Popehat (“jaywalking”).
Two [Wisconsn]…women face criminal charges as part of what Oshkosh police call an online prostitution ring. Bailey M. Feustel, 20…and…Michelle J. Wescher, 23, [are] charged with prostitution by engaging in non-marital sexual intercourse, which carries a maximum sentence of nine months in prison…
In January…Joshua Grubbs of Case Western, published…powerful research showing that seeing oneself as a porn addict was predicted not by how much porn one views, but by the degree of religiosity and moral attitudes towards sex….believing oneself is addicted to porn actually causes pain and psychological problems, in contrast to the idea that identifying as a porn addict is a part of a road to recovery…seeing oneself as a porn addict was strongly correlated with depression, anxiety, anger and stress…
According to a new paper, having intercourse with sex robots — a technology that’s not quite there yet, but easy to imagine in the decades to come — is unethical. “I started thinking, ‘Oh, no, something needs to be said about this,’” Kathleen Richardson…said of her early research into sex robots that recreated what she called the “prostitute-john” relationship. “This is not right…extending relations of prostitution into machines is neither ethical, nor is it safe…the development of sex robots will further reinforce relations of power that do not recognise both parties as human subjects”…Richardson — with Erik Billing of the University of Skövde in Sweden, the co-creator of the Campaign Against Sex Robots — [pretends] that she is not anti-sex…
A high school teacher in Ohio resigned…after her second life as an Internet porn star was exposed…Kristin Sundman worked as an assistant band teacher at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent. But in her free time, the 31-year-old was better known online as “melodyXXXtune”…
Indiana’s attorney general…Greg Zoeller [pretends] that the demand for adult sex workers “fuels” child sexual exploitation somehow. Nevermind the fact that most people seeking consensual sex with adults wouldn’t dream of raping children; they’re all deviants in Zoeller’s mind…”We need something that sends [a] message”…said Zoeller, who is proposing the creation of a mandatory minimum sentencing requirement for those who attempt to pay for sex in any way…the tougher penalties…may also include…[stealing the accused’s] cars…Expect to see more of this nonsense around the country, soon—the folks at the National Association of Attorneys General have been salivating at the chance to throw more people in our already-overcrowded jails…Florida last year became the first to stipulate a mandatory minimum sentencing requirement for solicitation. Anyone convicted of a second solicitation offense must be sentenced to at least 10 days in jail and attend classes where they will receive counseling for sex addiction and be reeducated to see the evils of consensual commercial sex.
…The Lifeboat Project in Central Florida designed the ACT (Awareness Combats Trafficking) app. It’s designed as a fun game directed mainly to 11 to 14 year olds. But within the very interactive game lies a very serious message. One part of the app asks the user to go through and identify potentially dangerous people in a mall…“For me as a survivor I was triggered so I had to leave the room while they were presenting it, because the examples were so real life,” said [“rescue” shill Katarina] Rosenblatt…State leaders like the app so much, they want to make it part of the curriculum in Florida schools…“I think it’s an excellent idea that very [sic] child should automatically have built into their phone,” said Rosenblatt…
…Jack Williams of Alabama, where it is technically illegal to sell sex toys except under special circumstances, is trying to do with a bill that would levy a whopping 40 percent tax on “sexually-oriented materials” restricted for sale to adults in the state…Williams [pretends] the legislation…could bring in as much as $20 million…
A woman in Hawaii is pleading guilty to sending her husband in New Jersey more than half a million dollars she earned working as a prostitute. Khemwika Ernst pleaded guilty…to…conspiracy…and filing false tax returns…Ernst and her husband were indicted in March…Michael Ernst shot and killed himself a month later…
…Whether it’s a witness who wants to be helpful or one who has something to hide, the bottom line is that eyewitness statements are inherently unreliable and erratic. Sometimes it depends on conditions …Other times, it comes…from police pressure. We know that witnesses get it wrong, and that it convicts the innocent. But once they are locked into a statement it’s even more difficult to get them admit any error. In fact, they become more adamant about what they saw, heard, or said when none of it may be remotely true…while there are studies and experts on these innate problems, many courts won’t allow that testimony…because they have have determined that juries “should know” that eyewitnesses can be untrustworthy…Eyewitness testimony is outrageously inaccurate and biased, even under very controlled circumstances…
Ireland is set to publish a bill…which will criminalise the purchase of sex, despite the recent vote by Amnesty International that sex work and prostitution should be decriminalised…The new legislation…has been described as a “huge step backwards” and likened to Ireland’s controversial blasphemy laws, which were enacted in 2009…
…the man paid me what I was owed— $2,500—in bank checks. I’d never even seen a bank check before. I was so tired that I didn’t argue…Needless to say, the checks bounced…I felt humiliated that night, that morning—so I kept what had happened to myself…It took me four hours after reading Mitchell’s article to connect the disgust I felt to the fact that I’d experienced what she called “theft of services” …suddenly thinking of some random stranger who had ripped me off nearly a decade ago—someone I felt less strongly towards than I felt towards some random writer named Mary Mitchell, because I have always expected more from women than I have men…
I knew this day would come; I just didn’t expect it to come anything like this. There is just no way I can get a column out on time today. After driving all day Wednesday and spending all day yesterday at the hospital trying to navigate the Byzantine complexities of the medical admissions system, I am exhausted and desperately in need of sleep. As regular readers know I’ve been staying with Jae in her hospital room for weeks, sleeping in an uncomfortable chair/bed thing and being awakened repeatedly throughout the night as she gets up or needs something; I’m totally worn out. Tonight Savannah Sly volunteered to stay with her, so I’ve just come home for some much-needed shuteye (until the next doctor has a question I need to answer) and I just can’t spare the time to write the post I intended to write, which will now appear Monday. So forgive me for my first miss, dear readers; I promise not to make a habit of it.
I think married men should be off limits for prostitutes. Why don’t you care about other women?
How do you propose whores determine a man’s marital status, demand he produce his certificate of bachelorhood? You do realize a married man looks exactly like an unmarried one, don’t you? Frankly, it’s not our responsibility to determine which men are married, just like it isn’t a bartender’s job to guess which of his customers may belong to a religion that forbids drinking. If a man wants to have extracurricular sex he’s going to, and there’s nothing his wife or any whore within driving range can do to stop that; even if we had some sort of professional code against providing services to married men, they’d simply lie and say they weren’t married. However, it would be really stupid for us to make such a code, even if it could somehow be enforced; for one thing, married men make up easily 75% of our clients, and for another you wouldn’t actually WANT us to stop seeing them, even though you believe that you do. As I wrote almost five years ago in “Harm Reduction“,
…at least two-thirds of married men will at least occasionally seek extramarital sex. No woman has any way of knowing whether the man she chooses will be a member of the minority who is able to resist temptation, so if she defines a “successful marriage” as one in which her husband never strays she is playing Russian Roulette with at least four bullets. But if she defines it as one in which her husband’s probable infidelities cause no overt damage, difficulty or social consequences, all she need do is keep him from getting involved with amateurs…whores allow men to cheat in a managed fashion and thereby minimize harm to their wives and children. Far from being a “social evil” as it usually referred to in the United States, prostitution is a positive good because it provides a controlled outlet for male sexual impulses which might otherwise cause tremendous problems, including (but by no means limited to) rape and broken marriages. While it’s true that for a wife to discover her husband has been patronizing whores might damage their marriage, would an affair or constant pressure for unwanted sex do any less?…
Insecure women may refer to sex workers as “homewreckers”, but in fact we save far more marriages than we destroy because we allow men to manage the sexual impulses their wives either can’t or won’t cater to, and which they would otherwise follow into affairs which might indeed wreck the home. Finally, married men are the safest of clients; they have good boundaries and aren’t likely to get obsessed, fall in love or turn into stalkers. They come to us precisely because they want to stay married, so they choose to dally with women who are absolutely not going to jeopardize their marriages by getting involved with them.
Crowding what I do into the larger umbrella of “sex work,” without its own name, makes it seem as if I’m supposed to experience what I do as shameful. – Charlotte Shane
I’ve called myself a prostitute for about as long as I’ve been one…it felt like the most accurate term given the service I provide, and I like the solidarity of it, the refusal to kowtow to class-related stigma or what is sometimes called the “whorearchy”…I believe the difference between “escort” and “prostitute” is that one term relies on euphemistic window dressing while the other is unapologetic and unashamed…I’m at odds with the party line in this stance, though…Increasingly, prostitute is…regarded as a slur…Taking euphemisms on permanently and in a political context, outside of marketing material or work-related correspondence, feels to me like ceding way too much power. The state forces me to use certain language to protect myself in some contexts; I don’t want to willingly employ that language in all others…
Authorities say Roy Akins went to Backpage.com and agreed to pay a prostitute $180 for sex. When the unidentified woman showed up at his…home…Akins…pulled a gun. I imagine most prostitutes in this situation would have run straight to a pimp. But after leaving Akins’ home…the…woman called the police…I’m grateful [Akins] isn’t being accused of snatching an innocent woman off the street…the way this case is being handled makes it look like sex trafficking is a legitimate business…because this incident is being charged as a criminal sexual assault — when it’s actually more like theft of services — it minimizes the act of rape…For law enforcement to put what happened to a Backpage.com prostitute on a par with [real] rape victims…is an insult.
A few observations:
“I imagine most prostitutes…would have run straight to a pimp.” I’ll leave you to imagine what she’s doing while she “imagines” this.
Note the conflation of sex work and sex trafficking, and the badge-licking idolization of the clownish tyrant Tom Dart.
For another example of a woman using the “theft of services” slur, see the original of this title.
Given that last line, would Mitchell be more sympathetic toward the rape of a prostitute like me, who advertises somewhere other than Backpage?
Lisa Marie Carroll, 34, was charged with one misdemeanor count of prostitution…Police [pretend] that she offered to perform various sex acts…for [specific] pricing…”I did not agree to have sex with that cop…I’m an escort companion and go on dates and sometimes clients make a donation and that doesn’t have to do with sex”…[a sleazebag cop accompanied her] to her room where…they both undressed and laid in bed. The [cop then tried to get her to commit to specific prices for specific acts] “And I said, ‘No, honey. This is not how this works'”…A little while later, [the cops invaded] her house…
She’s lucky; many Pennsylvania cops rape women in order to arrest them.
…After winning a majority government in 2011, the Harper government quickly…introduced mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession…despite warnings from current and former law enforcement from the United States…and respected Canadian drug policy experts…the Harper government has waged a costly war against Insite…[and] established 26 new requirements…that are costly, onerous and designed to prevent future sites from opening. Then…the…government…reintroduced the old laws [that the Supreme Court had struck down] and introduced a prohibition on the purchase of sex and the explicit advertising of sexual services for the first time in Canadian history. Despite a great deal of florid rhetoric about the government’s desire to ensure the safety of sex workers, the real intent behind the new laws was memorably stated by Senator Donald Plett: “Of course we don’t want to make life safe for prostitutes; we want to do away with prostitution. That’s the intent of the bill”…
…a…new Canadian study…concludes the average porn user holds, if anything, more egalitarian views regarding women than non-users. Many pornography aficionados might even be “useful allies” in women’s struggles for equality in work, income and public office, the researchers…argue…Taylor Kohut…and his colleagues analyzed data from 35 years of the General Social Survey…the 23 per cent who reported having watched an “X-rated” movie in the previous year were no more or less likely than porn abstainers to identify as feminists, or voice support for the traditional family. And the blue-movie watchers expressed on average more positive attitudes toward women in positions of power, and less negative attitudes toward abortion and women in the workforce than those who refrained from pornography…
…had there been a sequel to [Pretty Woman], it would have been salacious. We would watch Richard Gere struggle with the fact that his girlfriend was a confirmed whore and had been with hundreds, maybe even thousands of men…There would be a scene at a dinner party when other women were whispering about Julia Roberts, all of them knowing that she could be found at one time on Hollywood Boulevard spreading her legs for any man with $200 in his pocket…I have been poor…and never once was selling my ass an option…When you make a choice to work in the sex industry…you are immediately shrinking your dating pool…I would never subject myself to a How-was-your-day,-honey? conversation with a partner who took anonymous loads for a living…
A young man from Indiana who had consensual sex with a 14-year-old girl who told him she was [17] has been removed from Michigan’s sex offender registry pending his resentencing. Zach Anderson [who was 19 at the time]…spent 75 days in jail after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. He was given a five-year probation that banned him from using computers or the Internet and also had faced 25 years on Michigan’s sex-offender registry. But…Anderson’s lawyer successfully argued prosecutors failed to remain neutral on a key part of the plea deal, which would have erased Anderson’s record if he stayed out of trouble…Anderson’s resentencing will be Oct. 21…
What “crime”? He had consensual sex with a physically-adult woman he believed to be a peer. The concept of strict liability is an abomination in any civilized society.
At the click of a mouse, almost anyone can buy a girl online, anytime…ads with identical phone numbers can be traced to other cities…a sign, police say, that the women are on the move with their traffickers. Some ads even state “only in town for three days, special.” That’s the pattern of traffickers, always on the move, according to…Charlie Benton, who is known locally as the foremost law enforcement expert on sex trafficking. The ads give no clue, though, which women are being forced to sell themselves or are under 18. And the men who often answer the phone aren’t about to volunteer that information…
Yes, that’s what touring looks like to the warped mind of a pig obsessed with BDSM masturbatory fantasies involving adolescents. Guys, have you EVER called an independent escort’s ad and had a man answer? Ever? It’s almost idiotic enough to distract the reader from the FBI agent asking for more money to fulfill his sick dream of attempting to entrap and cage literally every single escort on Backpage.
…You may not approve of prostitution, and many quite reasonably do not. It raises serious, ethical questions. Having sex with people for money is degrading. It transforms an intimate and private act into a commercial transaction. It can pose a threat to those involved, especially women…
…Gesnerson Louisius…was slammed in the back of his head with a bar of soap stuffed inside a sock. Six inmates pinned him down, and one grabbed him by his throat, as two others dragged him across the carpeted floor by his ankles…The young prisoners, between the ages of 18 and 20, kept demanding that he pay them money to stop the beating, but Louisius refused…The extortion ritual is so common and well known by both inmates and corrections officers that it has a name. It’s called a “test of heart”…Hakiem Blount, 18, grabbed a broom and began pushing it into Louisius rectum…as far up as he could push it…there were no video cameras in the room, and the one corrections officer assigned to the dorm that afternoon was inexplicably nowhere to be found…Louisius…lost a lot of blood. His rectum was ruptured and he underwent an emergency colostomy…he…served out the rest of his three-year prison term while wearing a colostomy bag, and had five or six surgeries in prison that likely cost Florida taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars…
The Professional Association Erotic and Sexual Services [of Germany] (BesD) criticises the draft bill by the Ministry for Family Affairs for a “Prostitutes Protection Law” in the strongest terms…the BesD concludes, “A law that pretends to aim at strengthening the right to self-determination of a group of people but then denies them the maturity to make their own decisions, attempts to paternalistically ‘protect’ them from those decision, needlessly interferes with their basic rights, and that, quasi in passing, also creates regulations to save society from this group of people, allegedly in need of protection, via arbitrarily expandable ordinances…should be rejected in its entirety.” Instead, the association calls for a complete decriminalisation of sex work…
Candida Royalle is the kind of sex positive, free-speech-friendly artist and advocate that…is…relatively rare in feminist circles…[she] founded the (now defunct) nonprofit Feminists for Free Expression (FFE), which described its mission as “working to preserve the individual’s right to read, hear, view and produce materials of her choice without the intervention of the state ‘for her own good'”…The group opposed speech-censoring legislation; defended free speech in court cases, on college campuses, and in the media; and opposed the book, movie, and music banning efforts that were popular at the time. Royalle and FFE’s other leaders believed that “freedom of expression is especially important for women’s rights” and that the suppression of sexist messages “will neither reduce harm to women nor further women’s goals”…
There is very little I find more annoying than going to all the trouble to make a complex plan…only to have it cancelled at the last minute due to some unforeseen (or even worse, eminently foreseeable) circumstance outside of my control. When I wrote the last diary column, we were planning to move Jae home on Wednesday…and that plan had to be cancelled. Now once again, we were planning to move her on Wednesday…only to hit another snag. To make it worse, this time I had to actually lay out money for the plan, and if it falls through several people will be put into a bind. As of this writing just a few hours before post time, I still have no idea what’s going to happen; maybe we’ll be taking Jae home tomorrow, and maybe we won’t. And given how badly she wants to go home, I haven’t had the heart to tell her that she might not be going just yet. So keep your eyes on Twitter; I’ll let y’all know as soon as I know. I just hope next Tuesday I don’t have to write another column much like this one.
One of my readers is a long-time client of whores who’s very incensed by the prohibitionists’ demonization of men like him; he therefore wanted to write about the various ladies he’s seen, and I decided to give him a place to share that.
About a year after my wife’s menopause and plummeting libido ended all sexual activity in my marriage I started seeking sex workers. A professional sex worker was a better solution than an affair; I love my wife and don’t blame her for what happened to her body and her feelings, plus I felt it was safer and saner to see pros than to risk entanglements with amateurs. I don’t really crave variety, so I like to find one sex worker I like and continue seeing her until she leaves the business. The following is a description of all the ladies I’ve loved and learned from.
My first was Kate, a single mom in her 40s with a well-paying job in health care administration. But she wanted to send her son to a very exclusive prep school, so she set up a website and began escorting. Her minimum date was 4 hours, and she was by far the best GFE I have ever encountered. Kate was well educated, extremely smart, and very determined; she and I had many long discussions over the years, on a wide range of topics. Eventually her son graduated from the prep school and attended an Ivy League college, majoring in the same branch of science I work in; Kate introduced us and I mentored him, using my connections to make sure he got interviews and opportunities. Once her son was established in his career, Kate married one of her wealthier clients and retired from escorting; she still works in her health care profession and manages a busy social calendar heavy on organizing charitable events. We stay in contact and I count her as a friend. After Kate I met Mary, whose day job was in the insurance industry; she wanted the income from escorting to help her establish herself in real estate. She owned a number of properties, and the escorting income let her make repairs and improvements or pay the mortgages when there were extended vacancies. I saw Mary for 9 years, by which time her investments had paid off to the point where she no longer needed to escort; she then moved to another city to be closer to her children and grandchildren. We remain in contact and still see each other once in a while.
After Mary, I went through a period where I had more than one regular, because the ladies I liked were difficult to schedule with. One of them was Ami; she was a whip-smart IT professional and a marathon runner, and she just escorted because it was a turn-on to her. She didn’t really need the money and was extremely low-volume; in fact, she would only see me when we could schedule it around her busy work and training schedule. But because her motivation was sexual, she lost interest after menopause; we still meet for coffee from time to time. Another was Jane, who lived in another city that I visited several times a year for business; we didn’t discuss her work, income or motivations, but I believe her total income was several times mine (and I consider myself well paid). Jane was well-connected in the escort world, so whenever we couldn’t get our schedules to sync up she would connect me with low-volume UTR escorts (mostly part-timers)that she knew. I never really enjoyed those experiences as much as I did my time with Jane or Ami, though; I just didn’t have a connection with any of them as I did with my regular ladies. About four years ago it became much more difficult to get in touch with Jane, so I assume she retired; she’s the only one of my regular ladies I’m out of contact with, and I wish it were otherwise. After Jane I met Candy, a full-time sex worker supporting two children (one with special needs); one of her other clients recently proposed, though, so she has told me she will be retiring soon.
I feel enriched by my experiences with these wonderful women; I’ve learned valuable things about myself and about life that I never would have known otherwise. None of these women would stand for being labeled “exploited”; all were fiercely independent and proud to be living life on their own terms, using their intelligence and understanding of men to improve their lives. In over 20 years of seeing sex workers, I’ve never met or heard of a pimp; none of them had ever experienced any violence except at the hands of the police, and the only drugs involved were prescriptions for our aging bodies. I think any of them would have bitch-slapped anyone who tried to “protect” or “save” her. The control freaks who want to dictate what I and a consenting adult woman can do in her bedroom like to pretend that clients view sex workers as “toilets” or “collections of orifices”, but my experience is completely opposite: Their professional services and care help me in countless ways. I’m happier, less stressed, and more focused when I can have satisfying sex every week or two; I am more productive at work, sleep better, and am more engaged with my friends and family. In fact, I’m quite certain that my marriage was saved by my decision to seek the services of sex workers; when I’m celibate my judgement becomes impaired and my sexual fantasies and dreams become distorted to the point of being disturbing. Without sex workers I almost certainly would have started an affair, made inappropriate advances, or filed for divorce to get “official” permission to seek partners for sex. Long-term marriage is an economic institution, and my wife and I are healthier, happier, and wealthier than any of our siblings precisely because we remain married while they divorced. I’m grateful to the sex workers I’ve known for their part in that outcome, and they have continued to enrich my life long after the financial and sexual relationship has ended.
I thought this sampler of “Dutch angle” scenes, called to my attention by Matt Welch, was quite interesting. The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker (“superhenge” and “driver”) and Michael Whiteacre (“LSD”).
A Scottsdale, Arizona private school kicked out a five-year-old boy the day before starting kindergarten…because his dad once worked in porn. Jay Grdina is now a millionaire CEO of Dolce Bevuto…But before moving into the “lifestyle beverage” industry, Grdina ran the website ClubJenna.com with ex-wife Jenna Jameson…Grdina no longer works in the adult industry, and he also remarried (model Erin Naas) and had two children. Grdina told TMZ that the family enrolled their son Jayden at Scottsdale Christian Academy (SCA) in May after a six-month process of applications and interviews…
For anti-prostitution campaigns pushing for the criminalization of the sex industry, “slavery” has been decontextualized from Black struggle and repurposed to describe [sex work]…Mobilizing slavery in this way has always seemed a deeply disrespectful appropriation of Black suffering, disrespectful both to our deceased ancestors and to our still-endangered lives as Black folks. But by hijacking the terminology of slavery, even widely referring to themselves as “abolitionists”, anti-sex work campaigners have not only (successfully) campaigned for funding and legal reform; but they do so without any tangible connections to historical or current Black political movements against state violence. Indeed in pushing for criminalization, they are often undermining those most harmed by the legacy of slavery…
…Fall River…stings were sporadic and usually only targeted the would-be customers. “That’s the wrong approach,” Fall River Police Chief Daniel S. Racine said…undercover [pigs] are now frequently, almost on a weekly basis, driving unmarked vehicles while patrolling areas known for prostitution activity…looking for both the street prostitutes and the johns, and arresting them. “We’re looking to deter prostitution on both ends, the supply and the demand,” said Racine, who acknowledged that the police department will not completely eliminate what is often called the world’s oldest profession…[a clueless business owner] said…“A lot of the customers are from out of town, and I don’t want to give them that image of Fall River, as if that’s the type of neighborhoods we have, because it’s not”…
In other words, he wants “that type” of neighborhood “cleaned up” so as to prove it never existed.
…Suzy Favor Hamilton…was a three-time track and field Olympian who had been featured in magazines and who also had a loving family – so fans were shocked in 2012 when she was outed as a high-end escort in Las Vegas. In her new memoir, Fast Girl, Hamilton says that her bipolar disorder, which had not yet been diagnosed, caused her shocking behavior. “My bipolar was driven toward sex. It could have been driven towards drugs and alcohol, or gambling. I found sex was the biggest high to fuel my mania, which is common with bipolar people,” Hamilton tells People…
Sex workers and charities across Scotland are rallying behind an MSP’s proposal to decriminalise prostitution in the country…HIV Scotland and NUS Scotland have championed the MSP’s consultation, as has Scot-Pep, the sex worker-led charity that advocates for the safety, rights and health of people who sell sex in Scotland…The proposed bill would permit sex workers to work in groups of up to four…laws against soliciting and kerb-crawling would be scrapped…Sex workers would also be permitted to have joint finances with family members or flatmates…
…as part of a probe into the rape of a Canadian tourist at police headquarters in Paris…all 120 police officers and civilian staff who were present in the building on the night the rape took place…are being tested over three days…Investigators are trying to find a match for a so far unidentified DNA sample taken from sperm found during the victim’s medical examination…
The [Rentboy] crackdown may have felt unprecedented to some, but it’s the public’s response that’s new. When law enforcement targets sex workers and the websites they use, mainstream outlets and organizations tend to give them a pass. But with Rentboy, that script has flipped…media and advocacy groups who don’t typically bring a political analysis to sex work responded to the raid primarily as an anti-gay attack, while also calling for an end to the policing of sex workers. Some American LGBTQ organizations in particular have rallied around the political nature of the raid—in a way women’s rights groups in the United States, when women sex workers are targeted in similar raids, have not. In fact, it might be the relative silence of women’s rights groups on the Rentboy raid that has provided space for sex workers’ rights to become the main focus of the story…
…Ashley Madison created tens of thousands of fembots to lure men into paying for credits…To the Ashley Madison “guest,” or non-paying member, it would appear that he was being personally contacted by eager women. But if he wanted to read or respond to them, he would have to shell out for a package of Ashley Madison credits, which range in price from $60 to $290. Each subsequent message and chat cost the man credits. As documents from company e-mails now reveal, 80 percent of first purchases on Ashley Madison were a result of a man trying to contact a bot, or reading a message from one…company executives were in a constant battle to hide the truth. In emails to disgruntled members of the site, and even the California attorney general, they shaded the truth about how the bots fit into their business plan…
The Rentboy raid sparked a conversation among LGBT organizations who noted that similar, heterosexual-geared sites advertising escort services did not meet similar fates…Sasanka Jinadasa…[of] HIPS, Inc…[says] “Targeting sex work is an indirect way of targeting the LGBT community without calling it outright discrimination”…Becky believes regulating the sex industry…would provide more protection…[Nick] Kinkand…[bloviated] “A lot of people’s biggest complaint about sex work is the fact that there are these women or children that are being trafficked into the country to do this…If it were to become legal, it would reduce that, because…instead of going to…the street corner where these people…have diseases or something, I can go to a reputable place and see a reputable person”…
The most astonishingly-stupid statement in all that astonishing stupidity is the idea that straight escort sites aren’t targeted by cops.
Men who pay for sex may be more inclined to sexual violence and have less empathy for women, according a study that madeheadlineslastweek. But…the study’s lead researcher was Melissa Farley, founder and director of…a nonprofit with the stated goal of abolishing prostitution. The research was funded by a grant from Hunt Alternatives, a private organization with the stated goal of “combating the demand for purchased sex”…
Thargelia…made her onslaughts upon the most influential men [of her time]. – Plutarch
In these harlotographies, I try to alternate between modern ones (who died in the 20th or 21st centuries) and those of earlier times. Unfortunately, even those of earlier times tend to have lived in the Renaissance or later; a precious few date to medieval or classical times, and none at all from earlier. As I wrote in my biography of Thaïs,
…it seems as though Rhodopis of the 6th century BCE may be about as early as I’m able to go; her life story is a mixture of fact, surmise and legend, and though we know the names of earlier whores…they are largely inhabitants of the sphere of legend. This is really not so surprising when one considers that we know little more than the names and dates of most kings from earlier times, and virtually nothing about anyone else unless they had some impact on the affairs of kings…
Most of the hetaerae I have discussed lived in or near the time of Alexander, and a couple (Aspasia and Lais) were born in the 5th century BCE. As Thargelia flourished only half a century or thereabouts after Rhodopis, y’all probably won’t be surprised at how little is known about her, but since what is known is quite fascinating, I wanted to share it with y’all. Like Aspasia, she was from Miletus; like Lais, she is sometimes considered to be two different women with the same name; and like Thaïs, her claim to fame is bound up in the story of the Greco-Persian conflicts that dominated the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. But while Thaïs gleefully witnessed the collapse of the Persian Empire from the train of its conqueror, Thargelia was born a Persian subject and worked to sway Greek opinion toward the Empire when the Wars were just beginning.
Here’s what we know with a fair degree of certainty about Thargelia: she was an exceptional beauty with an exceptional brain and devastating powers of persuasion who managed to bring more than a few of her powerful and influential lovers over to the Persian side. Her name is also the name of an important spring festival of Apollo and Artemis, celebrated in prehistoric times (like so many ancient Greek festivals were) with human sacrifice; it probably had the same sort of ring in her culture that the names “May” or “Easter” might have in ours. Hippias of Elis claimed that she had been married fourteen times, but this seems highly unlikely; he may have garbled reports about the number of important clients whose support she won for Darius. Other accounts claimed that she married Antiochus, ruler of Thessaly, and ruled for thirty years after his death; the latter is known to be false because it was Antiochus himself who ruled for 30 years, and he was succeeded by Thorax of Larissa. She was eventually assassinated by an anti-Persian politician from Argos whom she had used her influence to imprison.
It’s such a pitifully meager amount of information, yet it’s enough to inspire the imagination: given a few more years to work, who knows how many great men she would have lured into the Persian camp? And had that happened, Darius’ invasion of Greece might have gone very differently…and with it the entirety of European history. In a world where that unnamed Argive had been killed rather than merely imprisoned, Thargelia might have been the most influential whore in history instead of a mere footnote.
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