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Archive for September, 2015

Once a Client

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , on September 10, 2015| 17 Comments »

Though you and your husband are divorced now, your marriage was successful for a long time.  How did you manage to transition from thinking of him as a client to thinking of him as something else?

2-headed girlThe short, pithy and only-somewhat-accurate answer is, “I didn’t”.  It’s very popular to imagine love as an emotion which transforms all relationships into something completely different, but that’s poppycock; the fact that I love Grace never changed the fact that she was my business partner, and it doesn’t change the fact that she is my property manager now.  Her role as my manager is separate and distinct from her role as a person I love, just as an accountant who prepares his wife’s taxes is no less her accountant simply because they love one another.  I honestly believe that the pretense this isn’t so is one of the most important reasons marriages fail so often nowadays.  As I wrote in “Housewife Harlotry“,

Just because a man is another man’s friend doesn’t mean he can’t also be his doctor or business partner, and if he thinks their friendship means he can neglect the economic relationship he will find that neither lasts very long.  Similarly, a woman who thinks that “love” means she can neglect her defining contribution to the marriage, sex, may strain both interactions (the love-relationship and the socioeconomic partnership) to the breaking point.

Even during the most intimate phase of our marriage, I absolutely never lost sight of our respective socioeconomic roles in the relationship: he provided me with income and I provided him with sex, companionship and other wifely contributions.  In other words, because he never actually stopped giving me money for my companionship, I never stopped being a whore and he never stopped being my client.  The fact that I loved him didn’t change that underlying relationship, just as the eventual dissolution of that relationship didn’t change the fact that I love him; they are two distinctly different things.  Likewise, I think it’s absurd and dangerous to conflate sex with love; just because I have sex with someone doesn’t mean I love him in any way, and just because I love someone doesn’t mean I want to have sex with her.  Human relationships which are more than superficial tend to be complex and multi-faceted, with different components and aspects.  And effacing the lines between those aspects, or conflating them with one another, nearly always results in harm to the aspects and usually to the whole relationship.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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In the News (#570)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

It’s basically a vice-squad operation writ large over the entire nation and imbued with overstated moral urgency.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

R.I.P. Candida Royalle Candida Royalle

Former porn star Candida Royalle, regarded as a pioneer for her work in front of and behind the camera, has died after battling ovarian cancer.  She was 64.  The actress — whose [legal] name [was] Candice Vadala — performed in more than two dozen adult films, but was best known for her work as a director… “Everyone assumes I was probably given a hard time by the adult film biz but they always treated me fairly, even if they at first doubted me,” she explained on her website.  “They’ve come to respect that I was the first one with vision and recognition of what would become the ‘couples’ market”…

A Load of Farley

Farley’s going to keep hawking this same snake oil until she croaks:

Last week, research making the media rounds declared that men who pay for sex are more sexually aggressive, pathologically masculine, and likely to commit sexual assault than other men…this study—led by noted anti-sex work activist Melissa Farley and funded by a group which aims to “eliminate” prostitution—comes with a host of important caveats before taking too seriously its purported conclusions…all participants live in Boston…The kind of people likely to be trolling newspapers and Craigslist for gigs and to be enticed to talk about their sex lives for cash may also differ in significant ways from the general male population…The claim that men who pay for sex are more likely to commit sexual violence is based not on their criminal pasts but on their answers to a number of personality questions and hypotheticals…on a 34-item questionnaire…it’s a stretch to say they’re “more likely to commit rape” and not at all the same as saying they have “a dark history of violence against women”…Farley has a long history of publishing research that casts prostitution in a negative light, frequently speaks about prostitution’s perceived ills, and has run an anti-prostitution advocacy group…for the better part of the past two decades. Its goal is “to abolish the institution of prostitution.”  The research was funded by a group with a mission to eliminate “men’s assumption of the right to prostitution” [and]…study authors thanked famous anti-pornography activist Catherine MacKinnon for her “invaluable” and “critical feedback regarding the summary and interpretation of these findings.”  In promoting this study, Farley casually calls strip clubs hubs of child sex trafficking and says things like, “We hope this research will lead to a rejection of the myth that sex buyers are simply sexually frustrated nice guys”…

Monkey Business

They’re on their way…

In April, a chimp in The Netherlands took down a drone being used to film the Burgers’ Zoo…researchers now say the video shows that the chimp planned out its actions in advance.  The drone had already flown by in a practice run, at which time it caught the attention of several chimps in the enclosure…And when it came back, they were ready:  Two females sat where the drone was going to hover, holding long twigs…their faces show exertion, but not fear — indicating that they were acting deliberately, and not flailing around in terror at the foreign object…

Sold Out 

The modern LGBT rights movement has been veering toward conservatism for some time, evidenced by its primary and overarching mission to finally achieve Marriage Equality…a civil rights movement which once championed our right to sexual liberation and a declaration of our right to be “different”…essentially withered into a call for assimilation…Promiscuity, probably the most common of vilified behaviors, is regularly regarded not as an individual’s command of their own sexual agency but instead an expression of their lack of self respect or sense of self worth, as something pitiable and damning.  Likewise sex work…is a shameful and exploitative act…blanket generalizations of “right” and “wrong” rule the discourse…

The Missing Word

I know I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find it:

A Pennsylvania judge convicted of sending young kids to juvenile detention centers in return for cash has been sentenced to 28 years in prison…Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking up to $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers in…Pennsylvania.  The disgraced judge became known for doling out harsh sentences for small, petty crimes in order to receive payment for each kid sent…

Crying for Nanny (#539)

“Induce sex trafficking”? That’s some serious bullshit there:

…Washington’s Supreme Court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against [Backpage] by three minors who say they were raped by adults who responded to ads on the site.  The ruling is at odds with other decisions that have held Backpage, Craigslist and other sites are immune from civil lawsuits based on crimes by users…Backpage asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed at an early stage, arguing that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes Web services companies from liability for acts by users.  But the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act doesn’t protect Web sites that “develop” objectionable content, as opposed to sites that merely “host” the content…”It is important to ascertain whether in fact Backpage designed its posting rules to induce sex trafficking,” Judge Steven Charles Gonzalez wrote for the majority…

Shifting the Blame (#553)

Nobody ever sold sex before Backpage!

…Backpage.com…now turns up in countless police reports…sex workers and those who exploit them for profit increasingly turn to the Internet to facilitate their activity…Research suggests many sex workers enter the trade as teenagers…and more than one third have had abusive or violent clients…The danger inherent in the trade was highlighted on July 2 when…34-year-old…Sanisha Johnson was…robbed and murdered by two Massachusetts men who arranged to meet her on Backpage…

Ashley Madison (#557) escorts-ca

Surprising no one:

Avid Life Media, the…parent company of…Ashley Madison, secretly operated an online escort service, recently leaked documents reveal.  The company was allegedly actively recruiting escorts for a separate “dating” website that was aimed at “sugar daddies”…escorts.ca…is similar to other online directories for escort services which have triggered anti-prostitution raids by US law enforcement authorities.  The website was reportedly leased though a shell company called Pernimus Limited…

Amnesty At Last

Kari Lerum on the Amnesty declaration:

…While celebrities typically capture more attention than scientists, Amnesty listened to the latter.  After two years of consulting with global health and human rights researchers as well as sex workers and victims of human trafficking, the largest and arguably most respected human rights organization in the world made its game-changing declaration.  Amnesty International will now develop policy on nation-states’ ethical obligation to decriminalize sex work…Immediately following the vote, CATW issued a press release declaring that Amnesty International…“deliberately excluded the voices and expertise of survivor-leaders and women’s rights organizations”…given the rigorous and prestigious research cited by Amnesty, in combination with a dearth of medical and academic researchers affiliated with either CATW’s board of directors or petition, this particular accusation may ring hollow…

Vendetta (#569)

The differences between the way this is covered by badge-lickers:

A coalition of dozens of law enforcement agencies arrested more than 1,000 pimps and sex buyers in a summer-long series of prostitution stings…known as the National Johns Suppression Initiative…A total of 39 law enforcement agencies across 18 states arrested 961 men trying to buy sex and 71 pimps or traffickers…Sheriff [Tom] Dart [said]…“These women and girls have been brutalized and exploited – and the most effective way to deter these heinous crimes is to target the demand.”  The Cook County Sheriff’s office has repeatedly attacked Backpage.com as a haven for pimps and traffickers…occasionally, officers encountered children while carrying out the stings…

…and the way it’s covered by rational people is both striking and instructive:

Every summer, police and prosecutors from around the country come together…to saddle men with criminal records for attempted sex…the months-long effort…turned up fewer than 75 individuals suspected of anything tangentially related to sex trafficking (including “pimping”, pandering or “promoting prostitution”).  But police were able to arrest nearly 1,000 men who indicated they might like to pay adult women for sex, along with an untold number of sex workers themselves…This summer’s Johns Initiative will net law enforcement a minimum of $189,170 in fines for the solicitation arrests alone…Dart claims they uncovered 308 sex-trafficking victims, including 258 adults and 50 minors.  But it’s hard to say what this really means, since all minors engaged in sex work are labeled de facto victims by police…and many police departments have started classifying sex workers of any age as trafficking victims—at least for public-relations purposes.  After the press releases come out, however, these adult and teen sex workers are all-too-often arrested if they refuse to cooperate with cops, and sometimes even if they do.  Pittsburgh’s Detective Ryczaj said arresting sex workers is “the kindest thing you can do for them,” because he thinks they’re mostly homeless, drug addicts, or mentally ill…

Little Boxes (#569)

A 46-year-old…from Charleston, South Carolina was arrested…after allegedly assaulting two women who pose painted and topless for tips in Times Square…Mark Walters took a picture with…20-year-old [Lourdes Carrasquillo]…then “became irate,” and “dragged” the woman to the ground by her hair. When…32-year-old [Maria Ruiz] attempted to break up the “fight,” Walters allegedly hit her in the right ear…Walters accused Carrasquillo of stealing his wallet before assaulting her, although cops have found no evidence to support this claim…in an unrelated incident, undercover officers arrested a desnuda [named Destiny Romero] after she allegedly agreed to perform oral sex on an undercover officer for money…

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Diary #271

Posted in Diary, tagged , on September 8, 2015| 2 Comments »

0907151507The second stage of Jae’s recovery is almost over.  In the first stage, she was unconscious under heavy sedation in the ICU, then last Tuesday her breathing tube was removed and she was allowed to awaken.  For the last week she’s been under observation so the doctors could determine what course of treatment would be needed to help her heal from her head injury; she’s also had to recover her mobility (muscles lose an amazing amount of strength when unused for two weeks) and regain her lung capacity, part of which was lost due to the collapsed lung and part due to a mild case of pneumonia she developed while on the ventilator.  But that’s now been cured and her lungs are mostly back to normal, and she’s been walking the length and breadth of the hospital several times per day (though always with me or a nurse’s aid in attendance in case she weakens or loses her balance).  Last Friday, she was moved from the ICU to a normal room, and has been making up for lost eating time by asking me to bring in all sorts of outside food such as pizza, cheeseburgers and hot dogs.  Her voice was at first nothing but a hoarse whisper, but now it’s become much stronger (though still raspy due to damage the breathing tube did to her vocal cords).  Still, she hasn’t much been in the mood to talk on the phone; as those who love her know, Jae doesn’t really like talking on the phone even when she’s healthy, and she spends a lot of time asleep while her body heals.

The doctor feels she’s ready to move on to the third stage, in-patient rehabilitation; she’s strong and alert enough to move, so he wants to put her in rehab back in Seattle, where she can be in familiar surroundings and visited by those she loves.  As a bonus, the facilities available in Seattle for this sort of injury are among the best in the nation, so her chances of full recovery are much, much greater than they would be in a lesser facility in unfamiliar surroundings.  So tomorrow, I’ll be putting her on a direct flight to Seattle with a friend who’s flying over to accompany her; I’ll drive my car back, and if we time things well I’ll be able to join her only a few hours after she checks into the hospital. Once I find out what the hospital’s visiting rules are and how many visitors a day Jae would like, I’ll tell y’all who’s going to coordinate that; I don’t want her overwhelmed, but I also don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by turning them away at the door.  So a visiting schedule administered by someone other than me is the best way to go.  And speaking of schedules, I’ll be starting to take appointments again on Monday, so if you’ve been holding off seeing me because of this, feel free to , so email me at the meetmaggie address and we can schedule for next week.

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Time Warp

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2015| 13 Comments »

When you have sex with someone, you give them a part of your soul.  – quoted un-ironically by Time

badge-lickingAfter the events of the last several weeks, a recent article in Time seems bizarrely anachronistic.  Now, long-form articles like this one aren’t written in days, but in weeks; it’s pretty obvious that this one was started on the other side of the watershed, and the passages about Amnesty may have been grafted on as an afterthought.  Because while many reporters these days are beginning to be skeptical of “sex trafficking” lies, this one swallows them like a local-paper stenographer.  While in the wake of the Rentboy raid, most large media outlets are beginning to view the shockingly sexist rhetoric of “sex trafficking” fetishists with more skepticism, Time  instead parrots neofeminist gobbledygook about “prostituted women” and evil men who “exploit” them by offering them pay for services rendered.  And while many stories now quote experts who have actually studied the violence inflicted by cops upon sex workers, this one instead quotes cops as though they weren’t pathological liars and licks badges with a fellatory gusto that is quite nauseating.  The article is much too long and derivative to bother quoting at length, but I would like to focus on a few of the more horrific passages.

The first subsection sets the tone by mindlessly repeating prohibitionist claims without an investigation whatsoever.  Even the slightest bit of research, for example, would have revealed the egregious lie behind Tom Dart’s “end demand” pogroms:  while the claim is that Tom Dart’s Chicago police operations now concentrate on clients and “help” sex workers, in fact felony convictions for sex workers have increased 68% since the start of the program, and now make up 97% of all prostitution-related felony convictions in Cook County. Furthermore, while it pays lip service to the recognition that transwomen are disproportionately represented among sex workers, it doesn’t mention Dart’s vile practice of charging trans sex workers as clients to boost the appearance of “ending demand”.  It relies heavily on stigmatizing language like “some men…grasp at the sexual cornucopia they think they are owed” to generate anti-client feelings, despite the obvious illogic in the idea that people who seek to buy a thing actually think they are “owed” that thing.  And it revels in the degradation of men who are treated as criminals for seeking consensual sex, an approach that would be vilified if it were discussing busts of gay men in bathhouses.

The next section is propaganda for the Swedish model on which “end demand” is based, but like all pro-Swedish articles does not mention that violence vs sex workers increases under that model; furthermore, it pretends that Dart’s “CEASE network” is an independent association of cities, when in fact it is merely a front for a private organization, “Demand Abolition”, run and funded by morally-warped multi-billionaire Swanee Hunt.  It also fails to mention that those who have attacked Amnesty’s support for decriminalization are not sex workers or objective researchers, but moralistic ideologues committed to suppressing the truth about the harm caused by the Swedish model, ideologues who repeatedly mischarachterize the model as “decriminalization” in order to fool the uninformed into thinking sex workers, Amnesty and other human rights organizations support it.  And as usual, it conflates legalization with decriminalization, then touts the problems of the former (which virtually no sex workers support) as though they occurred under the latter.

Tom Dart on fireNo article lionizing the revolting Tom Dart could be complete without praising his campaign against Backpage, which of course ignores the terrifying constitutional and practical implications of allowing a local politician to make decisions affecting not only the whole US, but the entire world...including countries in which prostitution is perfectly legal. And though it quotes Amnesty about the violence of some clients vs. sex workers, it totally ignores the far greater problem of police violence – including rape – against sex workers in criminalized and legalized regimes.  But of course, this makes perfect sense; if one is going to publish propaganda, one can’t be distracted by facts.  And if one’s going to publish a hagiography of a monster, one’s going to have to ignore or misrepresent the various evils and tyrannies for which he is responsible.

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Links #270

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I never thought I would be staring at my poop frozen in a freezer.  –  Eric

vaderI apologize for this column posting incomplete; Jae kept me very busy last night.  Here’s another animated GIF, this one from Matt.  You may have noticed from his previous contributions that he’s a huge Star Wars fan, and though the prequels don’t do much for either of us, we both thought this was pretty amusing.  The links are from Rick Horowitz (“protect”), Radley Balko (“something” and “laws”), and Popehat  (“together”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#569)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 5, 2015| 9 Comments »

If we let consenting adults have sex, who knows what else they’ll want permission to do?  –  The Onion

Reaction Formation

This is a pretty decent explanation of reaction formation:

…some of the people who rail against porn…or any of the other controversial items on the sexual smorgasbord…are actually turned on by the thing they decry.  They may not know it consciously, but being anti-whatever actually gives one a grand excuse for being immersed in whatever…many absexuals don’t truly understand what a strong erotic response they’re actually having…They just can’t seem to shut up about it.  And they get really worked up—I believe they go into the sexual response cycle when they begin to pontificate about the things they hate so much…

Saving Them From Themselves

Fayetteville, North Carolina, cops have charged 17-year-old Cormega Copening with sexual exploitation of a minor—his girlfriend, who is the same age—because the couple sent each other nude photos of themselves…There’s no evidence the photos were ever sent to anyone else, and police only became aware of them because they searched Copening’s phone for unrelated reasons that haven’t been specified.  Even so, the teen…faces decades on the Sex Offender Registry and up to ten years behind bars if convicted…Copening’s girlfriend—who remains unnamed in the news articles—is also facing charges…

Above the Law rapist cop Brian Tucker

Prince George’s County, Maryland has more than its share of predatory cops:

…State…trooper Brian Tucker…picked up [a]…woman…and the two decided to have sex…Tucker…drove the woman to an abandoned industrial area…and…the two had consensual sex before the trooper asked the woman if she wanted to have anal sex and she refused…Tucker put his service weapon to the woman’s head and anally raped her…

The End of the Beginning

More of this, please:

…In 2011 the city council of Lynn, Massachusetts, enacted an ordinance than prohibits certain categories of sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or park—exclusion zones that cover 95 percent of the town’s residential property…the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) of Massachusetts overturned the ordinance, concluding that it conflicts with the state’s scheme for regulating sex offenders after they are released from prison…”By requiring level two and level three sex offenders to move from their residences or face a civil penalty of $300 per day,” the opinion says, “the ordinance disrupts the stability of the home situations of sex offenders.  As a supervised and stable home situation has been recognized as a factor that minimizes the sex offender’s risk of reoffense, this disruption is inconsistent with the Legislature’s goal of protecting the public”…

Frequently Told Lies

A good dissection of the ridiculous pretense that every sex worker who wants decriminalization is “unrepresentative”:

…Accusations of unrepresentativeness in sex industry debates are most often deployed to silence – acting as full stops in the conversation.  They enable sex industry abolitionists to restrict the discussion to the topic of identity, miring it in issues of “representativeness” instead of exploring the substance of the representations being made.  This preoccupation may be partly why abolitionists seem to have such a poor grasp of the subtleties of sex industry politics…

January Q & A (#417)

There’s a word for men who exploitatively profit from sex workers without giving them anything in return:

…Brian Bates, known to many as the “Video Vigilante,” posted a video…on his JohnTV website…using a drone…the device he uses now costs about $2,000.  He also had to spend the equivalent of several 24-hour days learning how to fly the thing…Bates said he earns a living through posting his videos on YouTube and by licensing his footage to TV production companies all over the world…

Vendetta (#432)

This abomination will continue to be inflicted on ever-larger numbers of victims until Hunt’s weapons are forcibly removed by decriminalization:

Las Vegas…recently wrapped up its participation in a national initiative designed to [inflict Swanee Hunt’s sad, sick psychodrama on people who never did her any harm]…Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Thomas J. Dart began these operations in 2011…[and the number of pigs at the teat] has grown from eight agencies to more than 70.   The 10th “National Johns Suppression Initiative” ran from June 1 through Aug. 30…A variety of sting operations locally resulted in…34 “John” arrests…36 [underage sex workers arrested]…44 adult sex [workers arrested]…26 [other people charged as pimps and]…23 search warrants served [to look for loot]…The Onion logo

The More the Better (#512)

The humor sites have much better, more sensible coverage of sex work than the so-called “serious” media.  With the exception of one very flat note in the “cons” section, The Onion‘s “The Pros and Cons of Legalizing Prostitution” is wonderfully snarky and dead on target.

Traffic Circle (#546)

It’s so, so wonderful to have Glenn Kessler on our side:

ECPAT…attributed [the “100,000 trafficked children” lie] to 2010 congressional testimony by Ernie Allen, at the time president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)…Allen said he relied on two reports…Estes and…Weiner…and the 2002 National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children (NISMART)…Both of these…rely on data collected in the 1990s…the Estes-Weiner report has been the subject of criticism by social scientists for years, and yet for some reason it remains the go-to source for anti-trafficking advocates…But…the NISMART report…shows that only 1,700 kids — less than one percent — reported having engaged in sexual activity in exchange for money, drugs, food, or shelter during the episode…more than three-quarters were away from home for less than a week; 99.8 percent…were recovered.  So the pool of children who could end up being trafficked is relatively small…

If You Want Something Done Right…

Police say they are seeking tips after a woman working as a prostitute at a [Michigan] motel fought with two armed robbers and took a rifle away from one of them.  She called…police…to report the robbery…When she heard a knock at her door she thought it was [a client but]…a masked man with a rifle forced his way into the room…A second young man followed behind the first…and there was a scuffle…The woman fell or was knocked down the stairs after she seized the rifle from one of the young men…One of the two assailants grabbed the woman’s purse from her room after she fell…

Amnesty At Last (#564)

It’s starting, slowly but surely:

[Oklahoma City] Councilman Ed Shadid said he wants the city to consider legalizing – or at least decriminalizing – prostitution…”I think we should stop criminalizing sexual behavior.”  Shadid spoke during a discussion of a “Disorderly House” ordinance, which expanded the definition of an “open lot disturbance violation” to include drugs and prostitution.  The ordinance passed, but Shadid said criminalizing prostitutes is not the way to solve the city’s problems…Shadid, a surgeon, said he is worried about the spread of antibacterial-resistant and sexually-transmitted diseases…”Do you want to use [shame and impoverishment and imprisonment] for nonviolent, consensual activities, where perhaps in some cases it could be safer if it were regulated?”…

Little Boxes (#566)

I was wondering how long it would take them to cram this into the “sex trafficking” paradigm:

Three women who pose painted and topless for tips in Times Square say that ten undercover police officers [stole] their clothing, purses, cellphones and wallets from the pedestrian plaza at 42nd Street…while they were using the bathroom at a nearby parking garage.  The women had to walk nine blocks in their paint and robes to the Midtown South precinct in order to retrieve their possessions.  There, before returning any items, detectives questioned them each separately in an interrogation room…The [harassment]…coincided with the arrest of their assistant Chris Olivieri [who] spends afternoons…holding their tips…running for snacks and tampons, guarding their clothing, and painting their breasts, backs, and legs…the Daily News, the mayor, and Governor Cuomo have recently tried to imply that male “managers” (“pimps,” if you read the tabloids) force the women, so-called “desnudas,” to work…

Now They Notice

Of course, this was glaringly obvious from the start:

…The New York Times served up a prime example of…incongruence in two editorials that ran…on the very same day. In…a statement by the august Editorial Board, the Rentboy raid was presented…as an attack on civil liberties enabled by the illegality of prostitution.  The Times board advanced the notion that the men using the site — on both the buying and selling side — were rational actors who were victimized only by hectoring law enforcement.  The solution, clearly, was the decriminalization of sex work…Contrast that with the op-ed by Rachel Moran, a [prohibitionist pretending to be a] former prostitute…which is…an attack on the recently proposed Amnesty International policy drafted to protect the rights of sex workers worldwide…The two editorials…fall along lines of gendered doublespeak that remain consistent in mainstream media: Decriminalization would liberate male sex workers, who are presumed to have complete sexual autonomy, while it would all but enslave females, who are presumed to have none…

Even MSNBC published a sensible position for a change:

…unlike MyRedbook.com (also raided by the federal government) and Craigslist Erotic Services (shuttered by political pressure), no one has justified the raid on Rentboy as necessary to stopping human trafficking or protecting any victims…Sex workers consistently say they find it safer to screen clients online than on the street.  Closing down such websites directly increases the risk of harm to sex workers.  That is the effect of criminalization…Advocates of prosecution invoke racialized myths of sex work as dominated by “pimps” and “traffickers” that don’t bear out in research…Meanwhile…resources that could go to uncovering actual trafficking and supporting victims are being wasted on locking up sex workers and shuttering escort sites…

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Whore Nation

Posted in Perception, tagged , on September 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

When I was on the way out to stay with Jae, and in the first few days afterward, I had (as you can imagine) many practical concerns in addition to the ones about Jae’s health.  One of these, naturally, was money; supporting myself was only the beginning of that, because obviously my ongoing bills wouldn’t patiently await my return. But the city we’re in is small, and I no longer have an alternate work persona; if I advertised it would be announcing our location, and I didn’t want to do that.  I mentioned my dilemma to Mistress Matisse, and she had an answer: “Don’t even try to work right now; you just concentrate on Jae.  The whore nation will provide for you.”

Babylon the WhoreI knew exactly what she meant.  Though we’re a long way behind our sisters in other countries, especially those in the Global South, American sex workers are at long last beginning to come together as a force to be reckoned with.   With our constitutional right to assemble ignored in most places (gatherings of sex workers can, and sometimes have been, raided and the participants charged with “conspiracy to commit prostitution” or “communicating for the purpose of prostitution”) and our activities spied on by the police, it was historically very difficult for pre-internet American sex workers to organize.  But social media changed all that; escort message boards, blogs and Twitter (especially the latter) have allowed whores to talk, plan, and organize collective effort.  Hashtag campaigns like #whenantisattack, #notyourrescueproject and #rightsnotrescue attracted so much attention outside the demimonde that they were even covered in mainstream media, and we began to use our collective efforts to shut down prohibitionist evils and opportunistic exploiters alike.  But it was in the past year that the American whore nation has really come into its own: while SWOP chapters have sprung up like mushrooms and we’ve steadily won new allies, we’ve also expanded our ability to shut down dangerous “trafficking” rubbish that feeds on whores while amplifying the narrative that endangers us all.  Meanwhile, Amnesty International’s announcement of its support for decriminalization and the ill-considered federal raid on Rentboy have brought would-be allies out of the woodwork in startling numbers; the power of the Whore Nation is growing, and ESPLERP’s lawsuit could open a breach in the enemy’s defenses through which our forces could pour.  It is inevitable that we will win, and gain the same rights as anyone else, and once we do this time period will be the one our historians view as the turning point.

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Social Disease

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , on September 3, 2015| 4 Comments »

Recently, I saw an escort who had a rash on her behind and thighs.  She said she had been laying on her belly on the beach and fell asleep, resulting in a serious burn which also caused a rash.  The rash did not look like herpes, but I am worried about carrying it to a girl I’m dating even though the sex was protected and the lady is meticulous about condom usage.  Do you think she was telling the truth?

leperThere’s a really, really simple way to be sure about this: get tested.  If she was lying, you’ll know soon enough.  But I’m sure you already thought of that; it’s pretty obvious.  It is, in fact, so obvious that I have to wonder why you didn’t simply do it instead of writing me about it.  And what I think is that you aren’t really worried about an actual disease spread by a pathogen, but rather an imaginary “contagion” of sin.  You don’t owe fidelity to a girl you’re simply dating, but I suspect you’re more serious about her than y’all have officially agreed to be, and because of that you feel guilty about having visited a whore.   Sex with a professional would not be the same as cheating even if the two of you had a monogamous relationship, which you don’t; feeling guilt when the two of you aren’t committed makes even less sense.  And I hardly need to tell you that you’ve got far more chance of catching something from the amateurs you’re implicitly allowed to date than from professionals.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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In the News (#568)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 2, 2015| 2 Comments »

Government officials…think it’s not easy enough to steal people’s things.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

License to Rape

Why is it so hard for US journalists to use the word “rape” when whores are the victims?

…a South Florida man told a prostitute that he was a police officer and that he would arrest her if she refused to have sex without a condom…22-year-old Mark William Rose was arrested…and charged with impersonating a police officer in the commission of a felony and false imprisonment…Rose told arresting deputies he had previously used the…bluff about a dozen times, with three women conceding to sex…

Get Out of the 19th Century Often?

News reports about prostitution stings in southern states are usually shockingly stupid, and often have not one word about “sex trafficking”:

Over two dozen men were arrested [after falling for]…a cop [decoy].  “We dirtied her up. We told her, you know, you gotta, you can’t be, this is not Pretty Woman,” [pig mouthpiece Joey] Davis [oinked]…Davis explains prostitution is a day job…”a little kid, they don’t need to see that stuff going on”…Some of the women get paid in heroin further spreading disease.  Unknowing wives may become victims.  “Was it worth it?  They didn’t ask for that.  And you don’t know, you might be signing your own death warrant”…

That’s right, kiddies; heroin causes disease!

Tyranny By Consensus

I wonder how much Michael Weinstein has cost the state of California so far?

Adult performers are speaking out against a ballot initiative that mandates condoms in porn throughout the state of California…The measure empowers everyday citizens to sue adult film producers for creating condomless porn—and offers a financial incentive for doing so. Several industry insiders…[say] they worry this would expose them to harassment from stalkers, trolls, disapproving family members and anti-porn activists…

Neither Addiction Nor EpidemicJosh Duggar

Josh Duggar…has “checked himself into a long-term treatment center,” according to a statement  issued…by the Duggar family.  Several media outlets reported that “Josh Duggar is going to rehab for porn addiction“, as if a “porn addiction” were a demonstrably real thing instead of a concept that should be relegated to the scariest of scare quotes.  Duggar’s problems are many but porn addiction is a psychological fiction propped up by the same moralism that Duggar has espoused for years.  By crying “addiction” and going to rehab, Duggar…gets to appear penitent while implicitly sending the pious message that pornography is an evil from which one must be saved…

Above the Law 

Although the term “gay” has now come to include women, I’m honestly not sure what it’s doing in the victim’s description here:

A gay transgender inmate transitioning into a woman was repeatedly raped by a Rikers Island [guard] and jail officials did nothing to stop it, a new suit charges.  The inmate, identified in court papers only as M.T., was assaulted on Dec. 2, 2012 by…L. Galan after months of harassment…Galan gave M.T. gifts like an iPod Touch, headphones, a charger, a case and $20 in cash to not report the abuse…

Bottleneck

…commercial sex wasn’t “illegal” in Germany prior to 2002…ProstG removed morality language…”pimping” [laws]…limited legal recognition for contracts…and…ensuring sex worker access to employment benefits…What the 2002 Act failed to do was create federal mandates on zoning, registration, health and safety, and police power.  This left substantial jurisdiction to German states…an estimated 98% of Germany geographically, and over 90% of German towns and cities are restricted areas, and over two-thirds of German residents live in a city where commercial sex is prohibited…Berlin is one of only three german cities without restricted areas.  In other cities, street-based sex work is limited to a few blocks…if not completely forbidden…In Munich, which only allows commercial sex in 3% of the city, sex workers say police regularly stage sting operations to lure sex workers into prohibited zones.  Also unchanged by ProstG…are state police laws, which–even in liberal cities like Berlin–give police the free reign to enter wherever they suspect commercial sex is taking place…including a sex worker’s home…

Uncharted Seas

The title says it all: “All the Bad Arguments Against Polygamy, Debunked“:

Since the marriage equality movement’s recent triumph in the Obergefell vs. Hodges decision, national attention has settled on the status of polygamy, or the legal recognition of marriage between more than two partners.  Several national publications have printed arguments both for and against polygamy rights…Both right and left have taken turns making the case for polygamous marriage, and both right and left have taken turns criticizing the idea…but it’s remarkable just how many bad, sloppy, unconvincing arguments have been marshalled.  Let’s go through and refute them one by one…

My First Million (#437)

I hit the 4 million pageview mark at about 19:30 UTC last Sunday, August 30th.  Thanks to all the readers who made it happen!

4000000

Vendetta (#518)

Let’s hope the moralists all start devouring one another:

A billboard along an exit from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport could give visitors the wrong impression, according to some…travelers.  The billboard…urges men not to buy sex from prostitutes.  “Buy sex [,] lose everything” is the billboard’s message…”We need to remove it, take it down,” said John Rejebian…”I think the public needs to be spared these things”…A logo for CEASE Network is in the lower-right corner of the billboard…

New Excuse (#544)

Elizabeth N. Brown examines the profit motive behind the War on Whores:

…the government’s interest in stopping commercial gay sex is surely more motivated by the commercial aspect here than the man-on-man component.  We’re riding high on a wave of state successes in shutting down prostitution-related businesses…[under] the guise of stopping “human trafficking,” and aided by massive amounts of federal funding plus newly granted wiretapping, asset forfeiture, and other law enforcement powers.  As Scott Shackford pointed out, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) didn’t go after Rentboy.com out of a conviction that gay sex workers pose a threat to national safety but because they could seize $1.4 million from employee bank accounts, along with their homes and other assets.  This is not so much a moral crusade—not for police, prosecutors, or federal agencies anyway—as a money-grubbing one…

Ashley Madison (#557) 

Computer security expert John McAfee on the Ashley Madison “hack”:

Ashley Madison was not hacked – the data was stolen by a woman operating on her own who worked for Avid Life Media…A hacker is someone who uses a combination of high-tech cybertools and social engineering to gain illicit access to someone else’s data.  But this job was done by someone who already had the keys to the Kingdom.  It was an inside job…In my first IBTimes UK article about Act One of the Ashley Madison Affair, I alleged that the group of hackers claiming responsibility for the “hack” simply did not exist.  I gleaned this information from reliable sources within the Dark Web – which have yet to fail me.  I also claimed that it was the act of a single person.  Any adept social engineer would have easily seen this from the wording in the first manifesto published by the alleged hacking group…

I have to wonder if this employee wasn’t the anonymous tipster who provided the material for “Show and Tell“.  I also found this tidbit rather amusing:

The chief executive of…Ashley Madison is resigning…following a hack that revealed millions of user names meant to be kept secret.  Noel Biderman founded the site in 2002 to make it easier for married people to find other married people to have affairs with…Biderman…has sworn that he would never cheat or use the site.  But the hack…uncovered emails suggesting that he was conducting multiple affairs…

What Were You All Waiting For?

The Amnesty International statement is such a big deal, even the 38 “anti-trafficking” groups that make up the “Freedom Network” came out in support of it.  This is not the first time people who adhere to a version of the “trafficking” paradigm have come out for decriminalization; the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women is the most important one, and Kate D’Adamo (first listed author of the statement) is well-known as an opponent of criminalization.  But the fact that a number of organizations who fly the “trafficking” flag are willing to break ranks with the others is a powerful sign of the beginning of the end of the hysteria.

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Diary #270

Posted in Diary, tagged on September 1, 2015| 5 Comments »

20150805_132241-1For the last week, Jae has slowly but steadily improved, then on Friday the nurses started the process of lightening her sedation.  The physical therapist came in the afternoon and we sat her up on the side of the bed; she was groggy but definitely conscious and answered my questions and the therapist’s directions perfectly.  She let me know that she knows she’s in hospital and that she had an accident.  The next day, they continued to reduce her opiate pain medication and turned the ventilator to its lowest setting, so she was breathing for herself with the machine serving only as a backup.  I found out that there are several reasons for her breathing difficulties: collapsed lower lobes of both lungs, fluid in the chest cavity and multiple rib fractures. So even though she is breathing for herself, the doctors want to be sure she can sustain that before taking her off of the machine.

She spent most of Saturday asleep, but because of the dramatically-lowered pain medication her sleep was much more natural-looking; she even slightly awakened and yawned several times.  But on Sunday, the nurses began to lower her main sedation, Precedex; once it was down to roughly half what she had been on, she began to awaken and was very alert and coherent.  Unlike Friday, she did not merely answer questions (with eyeblinks or head shakes) and follow instructions, but also initiated actions on her own; she would make gestures to let me know that she wanted something, then I’d ask her questions until I pinpointed what that was.  She asked for hugs and kisses several times, and caressed my arm or hair when I leaned over her.  She told me that her ribs were very painful, but not as much as her guts (some of the meds were upsetting her stomach).  Later in physical therapy, she stood up with assistance and was able to follow the therapist’s instructions.  The ICU doctor said we’d try to remove the breathing tube the next morning, but unfortunately being awake all day tired her out again, and she couldn’t be awakened in time to make the window for testing and removing the tube; it has to be in the morning so she can be observed all day for any issues.  When she did awaken later, she was very unhappy about this; she became very grumpy and cried a few times, but we’re going to try again this morning and with any luck, the breathing tube will be out today and she’ll be able to speak and eat normally again. That also means an end to strong sedation and restraints, which should make her happy.

Now, this does raise a new issue that I think it’s very important I bring up: a lot of her friends are going to want to start calling to talk to her, and I don’t blame y’all.  But she’s still going to be very tired; she is likely to be awake for only a few hours a day, and she may not really want to talk to anyone during those hours.  So please, let her be; her cell phone has been found and I’m getting its broken screen fixed this week, so if she wants to call you she will.  If you call and she doesn’t want to talk, I will tell you so, and I’m not going to persuade her or twist her arm to speak to anyone.  She still has a long way to go before she’s recovered, and has the right to be as anti-social as she likes during that time.

Note on the picture: Grace took this of Jae on their trip to Sturgis; I asked her if I might use it for this column, and she said yes via eye blinks.

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