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Archive for October, 2015

Links #275

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

Some believe the limbs are more potent if the victims scream during amputation.

This week, Paramount Pictures uploaded 150 movies to YouTube, including the one below (which was one of my favorites as a child).  This was called to my attention by Violet Blue; the links above the video were provided by Police Misconduct  (“faking”), Lucy Steigerwald (“911” and “horror”), Claudia Cristophe (“Gilgamesh”),  Clarkhat (“together” and “obedience”), and Popehat (“interact”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#578)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2015| 7 Comments »

Equating the temporary, paid provision of sexual services to the “buying and selling of human beings”…only makes sense if you also think paying your hairdresser, landscaper, and barista are forms of slavery.
–  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

I don’t think this is as much a “subculture” as it is a few isolated psychos inspired and encouraged by “sex trafficking” hysteria, and perhaps in some cases even created by it:

In March 2014, Steven Currence gave undercover agents a grand tour of the dungeon hidden inside his Montana home.  The subterranean hellhole contained a heavy wooden cross…The walls were covered in whips, chains, and torture devices.  Currence boasted of blacking out the windows to dash any hopes of escape…One kidnapped woman would sleep in the basement torture chamber, while the other would be chained to his bed—with a chain long enough to reach the bathroom…Currence believed he would soon purchase the women from the agents, who posed as human traffickers…the feds cuffed him two months later when he traveled to Arizona to buy two women at what he believed was a slave auction…he was one of four men nabbed in an FBI sting operation targeting an extreme slice of the human trafficking underworld: people seeking sexual and domestic slaves…The goal was to find any victims who might need to be rescued. “We didn’t find any victims…but the market is definitely there”…

If the market is “definitely there”, why didn’t they find any victims?

License to Rape

Cops raping sex workers is so ubiquitous, non-cop rapists often pose as cops to facilitate the crime:

Gary Mariner, the son of a one-time…police chief, used his dead father’s badge and a gun to intimidate a prostitute in Portland last month into [submitting to rape]…Mariner…picked up the 25-year-old [woman] in his car…and told her, “It’s not (your) lucky day,” as he showed her the…badge…He allegedly told the woman that he had been called back from retirement to work for the Maine State Police as part of a special prostitution unit…

Real People 

The title and lede say it all: “Escorts describe first day at work in Reddit thread that dispels misconceptions about sex work…The vast majority on the thread describe their experiences as positive”.  Naturally, this surprises stupid people despite the fact that women like me have been saying exactly the same thing forever.

Higher Education

An Italian porn actor and director is starting an academy to teach aspiring adult film actors and actresses the tricks of the trade…Rocco Siffredi…will document his training in the reality show, Universita del Porno to air in Italy…Classes will be in session on the set of “Siffredi Hard Academy,” in which the porn veteran will instruct a group of 21 hopefuls on different techniques and tactics on how to be a believeable porn actor on screen…

The Course of a Disease

One can never have too many anti-Swedish model editorials:

…the Nordic approach has been packaged as “progressive” and “woman-friendly”.  However, it is completely untenable on three grounds:  first, the evidence of Sweden’s “success” at stopping prostitution is deeply suspect; second, the dangers to women’s health and well-being are ignored; and third, “gender equality” becomes an imposition on people’s rights, namely, those established through contractual agreements…Prohibitionists have lauded the act’s achievements, claiming that it has reduced prostitution…deterred male clients and changed societal attitudes toward prostitution.  In reality, however, sex workers in Sweden have begun using other means to find clients, and vice versa…Sweden’s claim of “successfully” decreasing the demand for sexual services appears highly unlikely since it is impossible to monitor every transaction or sexual encounter…

Above the Law 

Fake rapist cops like the one in “License to Rape” above are often convicted; real ones usually aren’t:

A South Florida cop accused of raping a woman at gunpoint while on duty was acquitted…after a jury determined she had asked for it and was merely acting out a fantasy by allowing the cop to penetrate her as she bent over the hood of his car.  After all, defense attorneys argued, the woman had posed for a photo back in high school where she bent over the hood of a car with her hands behind her back in a “strikingly similar position” to how…Stephen Maiorino…raped her…it is not clear how the photo was even admitted as evidence…Maiorino [claimed] the sex was consensual.  And his attorneys said that he even gave her his business card, indicating that he wanted to continue having sex with her.  They also said that because he did not bother cleaning up the DNA evidence from his uniform after they had sex – or try to hide the used condom later found at the scene – then it was obviously consensual.  However, the woman denies receiving his business card and said she was afraid for her life…

So Close and Yet So Far

I guess Dick Cady is pretty credible, for what he is:

The veteran journalist who co-authored a book filled with explosive allegations against the University of Louisville men’s basketball program said…that the escort he wrote with is “pretty damn credible.”  Dick Cady, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist based in Indianapolis, insisted that Katina Powell — a Louisville prostitute who claims a former Louisville staff member paid thousands of dollars and gave game tickets to her and other escorts…to provide sexual services to players and recruits — “never tried to back down or amplify or gussy something up…Every time we hit her with a new question or an explanation, she came through…I thought she was pretty damn credible for what she was”…

Dutch Threat

What’s Dutch for “bottleneck effect”?

Sex workers without brothel licenses will soon risk a prison sentence of up to six months…the Act Regulating Prostitution (WRP)…[will] criminalize all sex workers without a license, including independent prostitutes and camgirls/camboys. This is the first time that the Netherlands has criminalized sex workers…Many prostitutes are willing to work legally, but…because municipalities refuse to issue permits to them, more and more sex workers choose to work without a permit, often from their own homes.  The WRP considers these…brothel owners (operators) without a permit and allows them to be punished as such…

Monsters 

Nope, no hate here:

A transgender woman…was attacked by a group of men before being fatally shot…Police are treating the case as a homicide — not a hate crime — though that could change as the investigation continues…[Kiesha] Jenkins was jumped by five to six men, physically assaulted, then shot in the back…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#555) 

Take a good, hard look at who the “feminists” are in bed with:

The anti-porn activists at Morality in Media, recently rechristened the “National Center on Sexual Exploitation” (NCOSE), are launching a coordinated attack on human-rights organization Amnesty International (AI) for its support of decriminalizing prostitution…It’s also urging supporters to email, tweet at, and otherwise contact AI with the message: No Amnesty for Pimps…In NCOSE’s ideal world, protecting the “human rights or persons in prostitution” would involve throwing them, their employers, and their customers in prison…When not trying to diminish the human rights of sex workers, NCOSE also enjoys chastising the Department of Justice for not enforcing federal obscenity laws more aggressively, accusing shitty erotica of normalizing domestic violence, and calling out the American Library Association as a conduit for sexual exploitation…

Welcome To Our World (#559)

I’m awaiting apologies from those of you who doubted me:

…New York City nail salon owners and employees mobbed The New York Times’ office in protest of the paper’s coverage of their industry…Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir said she wanted to highlight the pervasive worker exploitation she [claimed] took place in the city’s Asian nail salons…New York authorities had been on a crusade since at least year to regulate nail salons more tightly…Nir’s article provided the impetus and public support enabling the city to do just that.  But you know who hasn’t been so psyched about the new worker “protections?”  The people who actually work at nail salons.  Because of citations and new regulations, some salons have been forced to close, costing the women who worked there their jobs.  Because of rules mandating extra pay for overtime work, manicurists saw hours cut back…

Business As Usual (#566)

Rapists sue because their names were revealed, thus warning potential victims:

Three [vice pigs] whose names were made public after prostitution busts at massage parlors are suing the city, county and state.  The [rapists]…claim that data on undercover officers is private and the defendants violated the Minnesota Data Practices Act…The prostitution busts got media attention when they were dismissed…after the judges said the [cops] went too far when they [raped] the [sex workers].  The police department has since suspended its use of undercover details in massage parlors.  The lawsuit says that since the [rapists’] names were disclosed, [they] and their families have received negative comments and have suffered “stress, anxiety, and emotional damage.”  [They] have also been harassed at work and their reputations have been damaged, the lawsuit claims…one of the [rapists] has been shamed because of [his committing rape] and “has been excluded from the ability to practice his religion [because rape is a sin]”…

FYI, the suppressed names of the three rapists are Steven Lecy, Christopher Reiter and Abubakar Muridi.

Where Are the Protests? (#576)

Well, that didn’t take long:

Motorists visiting car washes across North Wales are being “offered sex” by migrant gangs using them as a front for brothels…Such incidents are [claimed] to have occurred at three garages across the region with migrant workers allegedly inviting drivers to “go inside” and see two waiting women.  The head of a task force set up to crack down on human trafficking and modern-day slavery said there was a risk vulnerable people…could be targeted by unscrupulous traffickers who would force them into sex work…

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Against the Tide

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn.  –  Harriet Beecher Stowe

Olivier as HamletI’ve stated several times recently that I think the sex worker rights movement has finally passed our watershed moment; Amnesty International’s affirmation of decriminalization as the only moral way for governments to relate to sex workers, followed closely by the incredibly tone-deaf fiasco that was the Rentboy raid, has resulted in a dramatic shift in the way the American public views the topic of sex worker rights.  The tide has turned at last, and now the current is flowing away from eroding the human rights of sex workers instead of toward it.  (Yes, I realize that I just mixed my metaphors; so did Shakespeare on occasion.  Deal with it.)  I mean, take a look at this editorial from a student newspaper in Arizona:

…Much of the violence associated with sex trafficking is believed to be made worse by its illegal status because violent people are more likely to prey on sex workers, confident they won’t be reported to police…The legalization of prostitution would take the disputes between clients and workers off the streets and into the courtroom.  Black market sex trade leaves little accountability between either parties involved, but by legitimizing the markets, new processes would be made available to alleviate this problem…after both Germany and New Zealand legalized sex work…the violence against sex workers decreased, workers’ quality of life improved and occupational health and safety laws now protect sex workers…Americans are growing tired of a government that is so involved in the personal decisions of its citizens.  The kind of government that kept same sex marriage from being legalized is a thing of the past, and maybe so is the kind of government that still classifies sex work as illegal.

There are a number of problems and sour notes in the short article (for example, the author seems to believe criminalized US sex workers can’t screen clients or take credit cards), but the general tone is extremely supportive; what makes that even more remarkable is that this was published in Arizona, one of the main sources of “sex trafficking” filth:

…due to the process of group polarization Arizonans seem completely unable to recognize how extreme their beliefs and rhetoric are in comparison with the rest of the country.  When delusional maniacs like Joe Arpaio or John and Cindy McCain start barking at the moon, they do not realize how deranged they sound to others because everyone in Phoenix political circles encourages and applauds their howling.  Dominique Roe-Sepowitz was completely unable to recognize what her creepy statement about “body fluids” and “normal relationships”  sounded like to normal people until it started to be quoted in articles…even then her response was not introspection, but simply refusing to give interviews to anyone other than a religious magazine…

But this tide is just beginning to turn, and its outward current isn’t very powerful yet; there are still plenty of vile, nauseating little creatures struggling against it to spread as much shit as possible on the beach.  Consider, for example, this recent piece from the other main hotbed of “sex trafficking” lunacy, Washington state:

…Spokane…passed an ordinance…allowing for [cops to steal] the cars of drivers [accused of] soliciting prostitution…Officials [pretend] the new approach to the age-old problem is already making an impact.  It is hard to say what is more disappointing.  The fact that people still think prostitution is a valid way to earn a living or that there are still johns willing to keep the women in business.  Pastor Kevin Ch’en…said he extends an open door to anyone who wants to be inspired and uplifted – including prostitutes.  “There’s so many stories and so many issues,” he said, “but the biggest problem is always a broken heart.”  To prevent even more heartbreak, Spokane Police took the unique approach of going after the drivers who keep the prostitutes in business…

Bart's PeopleThis sounds like the kind of crap Bart Simpson wrote when he was trying to be a “human interest” reporter.  “Heartbreak”?  Sentence fragments getting all judgy about the way non-reporters earn a living?  Asset seizure a “unique approach”?  Is this guy even for real?  Believe it or not, he actually tried to argue with Matisse and me on Twitter the other night while we were on our way to a rather nice restaurant, but he slunk away pretty quickly; I guess he couldn’t make up his mind whether it was more “disappointing” that we think being beautiful and charming is a valid way to get treated to an expensive steak dinner, or that there was a gentleman willing to pay for it.  Alas, it’s not just fourth-rate local TV reporters who haven’t yet got the memo about prohibition being on the way out; the venerable “leftist” magazine Mother Jones recently published (for pay) propaganda made up by the “right wing” rescue organization Covenant House, proving once again that “left” and “right” are just two wings of the same vulture when there’s money to be made and individual rights to be crushed:

…In a sponsored message sent to Mother Jones readers…Covenant House claimed…that “85% of sex trafficking victims are U.S. citizens—mostly runaway children.”  Eighty-five percent of sex trafficking victims where?  The group doesn’t say, leaving it open to the interpretation that the majority of sex trafficking victims worldwide are American citizens.  That’s a conclusion that may defy common sense, but a lot of people’s only information on sex-trafficking comes via scaremongering legislators, local news, and activist groups…the…claim…that the majority of sex trafficking victims are runaway children…conjures bad guys snatching up 10-year-olds…But the runaway children claim is only true insofar a large number of teens engaged in prostitution…are indeed runaway and/or homeless youth [and only if you accept that 16- and 17-year-olds are “children”].  Multiple recent studies have shown, however, that the majority of these teens…do not have pimps…the…email goes on to state that “over 100,000 American children are forced into prostitution every year,” a claim that has been debunked again and again (look, here’s someone doing it in 2011! Here’s someone doing it in 2014!  Here’s Washington Post doing it last May!  Here’s me doing it last week!)…

Yes, it’s going to be a while before that ebb becomes forceful enough to carry most of the creepy-crawlies out to sea with it.  But in the meantime, please forgive me if I amuse myself by poking at the stragglers with sticks.

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On Horses and Water

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , on October 8, 2015| 5 Comments »

My all-time favorite provider lives in a slum with several family members who treat her like crap; she works for a heroin addict who runs ads for her and my ATF splits her income with this woman.  I’ve told her she doesn’t need to give this woman anything since she’s doing all the work, and I even offered to help her get a place of her own wherever she wants to live, but she avoids my suggestions.  She is absolutely the best provider I have ever been with and is stunningly beautiful; unfortunately she also suffers from bipolar disorder.  How can I help her?

horse to waterIt is a sad fact of human existence that one absolutely cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.  It doesn’t matter how miserable her life is, how badly she’s being treated by her partner or family, how much she says she wants to change her life or how attractive you think the help you’re offering is; until and unless she actually makes the decision to accept your assistance, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.  She may not find your offer as attractive as you think it is, or she may feel the price is too high; she may be wary of accepting help from a client, which very often comes with strings in which she may not wish to risk becoming entangled.  She may resent or even feel insulted by your attempts to “fix” her, and you really have no idea what her relationship with the other woman actually is; how do you know they aren’t lovers, or that your ATF doesn’t owe her either a lot of money or a deep bond of gratitude?  Even if you don’t think the relationship between them (or the one with her family) is healthy, that’s not your place to decide; every romantic relationship I’ve ever had has been called “bad” or “unhealthy” or “codependent” or even “abusive” by somebody, often (though not always) someone who wanted me for himself.  And it didn’t matter whether that opinion was objectively true or not (which it certainly was in two of the cases); until I decided those partners were bad for me, no amount of convincing, cajoling or outright bribery could convince me to leave.  And don’t forget, I’m not bipolar; mental health issues can amplify these problems by several orders of magnitude.

The short answer to your question, then, is “you can’t”.  You’re already made it clear to her that you’re willing to offer her help; when and if she decides to take either your advice or your economic aid, then you can give it to her (and you had better give it without strings unless you want her to change her mind once she sees the price tag.)  But you have to consider the possibility that the horse may never decide to drink, and if she doesn’t you have to decide how long you’re willing to wait on her before you wash your hands and walk away from the trough.

(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 (#577)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2015| 34 Comments »

Mainstream feminism rejects sex work as an acceptable choice.  So…I don’t describe myself as an adherent to a political philosophy that wants to eliminate me.  –  Mistress Matisse

Five Women in Whitechapel 

Almost certainly not:

…They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper [is] more than 800 pages in length…Michael Maybrick was a hugely popular singer and composer in the Victorian era, who is virtually forgotten today – for reasons that Robinson believes are no accident…Maybrick was close friends with Sir Arthur Sullivan and the painter Frederick Leighton, among many other prominent public figures.  Both Sullivan and Leighton were Freemasons, as was Michael Maybrick.  He was…on the Supreme Grand Council of Freemasons, whose members also included the Prince of Wales…Maybrick was 47 at the time of the murders; a bachelor and, [author Bruce] Robinson believes, homosexual…

Yes, it’s a new version of the Masonic theory.

Above the Law rapist cop Jeff Sowers

When you’re a cop, rape becomes “official misconduct”:

A [Tennessee cop]…who resigned amid allegations of [raping prisoners]…pleaded guilty…to one count of official misconduct…Judge John Dugger sentenced Jeff Sowers to 18 months in jail…Dugger denied a request by Sowers’ attorneys for judicial diversion, which would have allowed for Sowers’ record to be expunged after his sentence…

The Pygmalion Fallacy

Such a lot of stupid writing on something that not only doesn’t exist, but will never exist in the way and on the timescale these idiots are wanking to the fantasy of:

…a recent report claims intimacy between robots and humans will be more common than that between two people by 2050.  The work, written by futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, purports that engaging in virtual sex acts will be as prevalent in 2030 as our engagement with porn today, and that the majority of people will own sex toys that employ an alternate reality in some way come 2035…

Storyville (#139)

…Over the last 150 years, rights for sex workers have…diminished, according to West Virginia University journalism professor Alison Bass.  In her book Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law…Bass surveys the history of laws regulating prostitution in America and abroad.  In the past and today, Bass finds, sex workers have been marginalized by stigma that portrays them as immoral, dangerous, even diseased figures. But while the stigma hasn’t changed, the laws have—in many cases…for the worse…

Dutch Threat

Lawheads are completely unable to comprehend the bottleneck effect:

Entrepreneurs in Amsterdam who want to open a brothel must speak at least one common language with the sex workers they rent space to, according to a…ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice.  The court [claimed] the decision as…a way to guarantee the safety of the women, [reduce] human trafficking, and…help prevent pimping…and [pretended it] was…not discriminatory in any way…the court also noted the Council of State’s notion that the seeming overreach in authority was meant as a protection of public order, and that being able to converse with a sex worker allows a brothel owner the possibility of stopping child prostitution…

Dysphemisms Galore 

Because nobody would care about a headline reading, “Man minds his daughter while mother works”:

A Michigan man held his 9-month-old daughter in a motel room while the baby’s mother had sex with another man for money…Derohn Wilburn…is charged with…felony promoting prostitution and misdemeanor child endangering…Melissa Coleman…is charged with misdemeanor child endangering and prostitution…police released the baby to a family member.  She was unharmed…

Played Out

I don’t know who Robert Fullinwider is, but I thank him for taking the time to read through Moran’s drek so as to be able to rip it to shreds:

…Moran is not content to offer her particular life-story…She also sets herself up as the Universal Prostitute, a woman whose experiences define prostitution and trump the “experiences” of anyone else — sex worker, academic, or otherwise — who views prostitution differently than she does. She is not content to let her story speak for itself but instructs the reader on the proper conclusions to draw, and engages in arguments based on her experiences and “research”…Moran writes: prostitutes are “coerced” into prostitution (pp. 49, 227); they have no “choice” (p. 161); they have no “free will” (p. 201); they act out of “desperation” and “destitution” (pp. 43, 96)…Moran…[claims] she didn’t consent to prostitution because “it is not possible to consent to a lifestyle you don’t comprehend” (p. 50).  Yes it is.  People do it all the time.  “I didn’t know marriage was going to be like this!”  “I didn’t know how stressful being a parent would be!”  “I didn’t know military life would be this tough!”  [She claims] she didn’t consent to prostitution because she wasn’t an adult and children can’t consent (pp. 50-51).  Yes they can.  Society frames laws that say people below certain ages can’t “consent” – to contracts, to mortgages, to sexual relations, and the like – but the “no consent” here is a legal fiction…a sixteen year-old girl who finds prostitution utterly repulsive, revolting, and disgusting, and who is “desperate to escape,” yet who passes up on an opportunity to get out of the trade because she’s unwilling to be bound by any rules, is a person who’s made a choice— a bad choice, to be sure, but a real choice…Moran…speaks of allowing herself to be coerced (an odd locution) into prostitution by her boyfriend.  What did her boyfriend do?  Did he beat her?  Did he threaten her?  No, he “suggested” that she turn tricks; he “encouraged” her (pp. 47, 186)…Moran seems to think you haven’t acted freely unless you are as happy as a lark with what you’ve chosen (p. 227); that you are not self-determining unless you are “controlling the totality of your life” (p. 175).  These are just fundamentally unserious engagements with the notions of freedom and self-determination.  We always act under constraints, we never control the totality of our lives, and we are often unhappy with what we’ve chosen, just less unhappy than with the alternatives…

Rooted in Racism (#429)

Sweden’s “liberal reputation” is bullshit:

…a recent report by the United Nations…concludes that a rising level of racist violence and “Afrophobic” hate crimes in Sweden are “an extensive social problem”.  “There continues to be a general Swedish self-perception of being a tolerant and humane society, which makes it difficult to accept that there could be structural and institutional racism faced by people of African descent,” says the report…The country’s official [lie] of equality and respect for human rights “blinds” it to the racism faced by African-Swedes, it says.  Hate crimes against the 200,000 or so black people…in Sweden increased by more than 40% between 2008 and 2014…with more than a fifth of incidents last year involving violence…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#505)

On Working It, the magazine at the center of the stripper labor rights movement in Portland:

…Each magazine brings together about 50 pages of writing and art by sex workers from around the country.  In addition to permanent sections including “Client Hall of Shame” “Best/Worst Tip$” “Tales from your Shift” and art, each volume of Working It has a theme…After Danzine went dormant, [Matilda] Bickers and Portland’s sex worker activism also went relatively dormant.  [SWOP] took over Danzine’s bad date list.  In 2005, Bickers and her friends tried to start a dancer union — “but that failed miserably, and I was really burnt out for a while,” Bickers says.  In the following years, Bickers worked at strip clubs and…graduated from Portland State University.  “I kind of never stopped doing sex worker activism,” Bickers says…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#550)

The history of the concept of sex addiction is a complex, somewhat contentious one…I’ve often cited the concept back to the initial writings of Patrick Carnes…Now, three New Zealand historians have contributed a wealth of astounding, rich and often surprising information to the issue…Sex Addiction, A Critical History…represents a remarkable detailing of the troubling, often hidden, history of this concept…Reay and his coauthors found powerful writings by Hatterer from the 1960’s and 70’s, where he blamed a sexually addictive process for sexual excesses. Powerfully, they detail [Dr. Lawrence] Hatterer’s disturbing history of treating homosexuality as an illness, and the way he treated homosexuality “like an alcoholic”…in his writings…from its inception, the concept of sex addiction has been applied to treatment of homosexuality as an illness…

If You Want Something Done Right…

I have the most awesome friends:

…Mistress Matisse…heard about Heather’s experience and was determined to help.  Through other sex workers she tracked Heather down, called her and booked a flight to West Virginia.  She showed up at Heather’s door…organized fund-raising, lined up medical assistance and connected Heather with nonprofit help.  This isn’t a new role for Matisse.  She’s worked as a sex worker in various capacities since she was 19.  But as she’s gotten established in Seattle, she says, “I have gotten to the point in my career where it is in many ways self-sustaining.”  As a result, she’s had more time to devote to activism.  Matisse was there to help Heather because she’s made it her business to help sex workers who are in crises.  I talked to Matisse about her activism, her work with Heather and why sex workers are the best ones to help sex workers…

Amnesty At Last

Here’s an NPR show which purports to present a “discussion” of the Amnesty International position statement on decriminalization, but which was designed from the get-go to promote prohibitionist propaganda by stacking the panel three to one (Swanee Hunt, Rachel Moran and Andrea Powell) vs. Maxine Doogan.  Unfortunately for the antis, Maxine had logic and facts on her side and acquitted herself quite well.  What you won’t hear:  Sol Finer of SWOP-Seattle called into the live show and Moran absolutely lost her mind, screaming and shouting at Sol in such a clearly unbalanced manner that the tirade was edited out of the archived version of the show.  So much for NPR’s commitment to the truth.

New Excuse (#576)

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Diary #275

Posted in Diary, tagged , on October 6, 2015| 3 Comments »

CatsAs I explained in last week’s diary, things have slowed down a bit in Jae’s treatment.  I don’t mean that nothing is happening; rather, I mean that the pace of change has slowed somewhat, and by the end of the month it should slow even more.  But we did make one big breakthrough last week: thanks to advice from a helpful social worker and a very large donation from someone who dearly loves Jae, I’ve hired a private case manager to handle the Herculean task of dealing with all the different doctors, therapists, rehab facilities and home care assistance she’s going to need when she’s released from the hospital in a few weeks.  In fact, my first planning meeting with him is this afternoon; the initial meeting last week was just for me to learn about the services his company provides and for them to get the background of the case.  But today, the work starts in earnest and I’m going to do everything I can to expedite things so as to hasten the day when I can bring my girl home where she belongs.  As I’m sure you can imagine, she’s pretty homesick; with the exception of the night of September 16th, she’s been gone since late July and she misses her friends, her own bed and her cats.

imageFor the first few weeks after she gets home, things are likely to be pretty hectic, so my dear friends are watching me closely to make sure I have enough food, relaxation and sleep until then.  Last week Savannah and Sol cooked for me, Vignette cleaned my place (twice!), Sola let me soak in her hot tub and then treated me to a massage, Abby May gave me some truly delicious sweets and Matisse got me blissfully inebriated.  One gentleman took me to dinner at a lovely Turkish restaurant, and another treated me to a 3-hour-long happy hour at a fine old Seattle establishment.  And I plan to do as much of the same sort of thing as possible as many times as I can this month.  Everyone tells me I’ve earned it, and though I usually take a dim view of that sort of talk, I guess it won’t hurt to listen just this once.  There’s only one other thing I need to really get myself recharged:  work.  From August 16th to September 16th I didn’t work at all because I was with Jae in Idaho, and since I’ve returned to Seattle I’ve only had time and energy for a very few dates.  But I think it will be therapeutic to get back to what I do best, so if you’ve been holding off on contacting me because you think I’m too busy or stressed, hold off no more!  There’s only one caveat:  for right now, I don’t want to leave Seattle for more than perhaps one night at a time, so I’m not available for weekends or long travel.  But if you’re local send me an email, and find out what nearly two months of pent-up Maggie McNeill mojo feels like!

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Rope of Sand

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged , , on October 5, 2015| 10 Comments »

We still pretend that there’s a magical, mumbo-jumbo, taboo energy about sex that makes it different from all other human activities. – Maggie McNeill

rope of sand - EditedI’ve often said that the main reason sex is treated as a “special case” in law, custom and culture is that people imagine it to be unique; they believe that a bright, clear line can be drawn between “sex” and “not sex”, and many of them further believe that this division is no mere line but a chasm, a yawning gap that can only be breached by special rituals and/or benediction by some authority figure.  Now, you might protest that sex is different because it’s the only activity which has a chance of creating a human life, but even if birth control did not exist that would be a spurious argument; if that were truly the rationale behind sex laws, the government wouldn’t claim the right to regulate oral or anal sex, masturbation, homosexuality, sex between the very young or the very old, sex acts involving at least one sterilized partner, bestiality, stripping, porn, BDSM or any other sexual activity other than heterosexual genital copulation between two fertile partners.  But if anything, the opposite is true; authoritarians are far more obsessed with sex acts that involve no risk of pregnancy, and many of them want to restrict contraception and abortion.

What makes the attempt to control sexuality even more absurd is that trying to even define it is like trying to twist a rope out of sand, and how can one control what one can’t even define?  Have you ever looked at legislative attempts to define which activities are sexual for the purpose of banning them?  They’re usually quite absurd, and have loopholes big enough to pass an entire orgy through; they often consist of little more than catalogs of body parts, ignoring the fact that some people are extremely turned on by parts or actions that others might perceive as completely neutral.  I’m very aroused by images of women in bondage, yet such images are considered acceptable even in children’s shows; one of the hottest scenes I ever had with Jae involved little more than talk and staring into each other’s eyes, and I was fully clothed the whole time.  Conversely, I recently had a massage which included several body parts that would commonly be coded as “sexual”, yet neither I nor my masseuse perceived the contact as anything of the kind.  Sexuality is a thing of the mind, not of the genitalia; as I so often say, the most important sex organ lies not between the legs, but between the ears.  And any attempt to create some sort of universal rule which defines for everyone which activities constitute “sex” and which don’t, is doomed to failure.

As if that weren’t bad enough, some people don’t even perceive their personal division between “sexual” and “not sexual” as clear and distinct; I certainly don’t.  There are some things I think of as clearly sexual; some I perceive as sexual under certain conditions; some I perceive as tinged with sexuality; some which are somewhat erotic but not really sexual per se; some which are sensual and pleasant, but more or less non-sexual; some which are not at all sexual; and some which are, if anything, anti-sexual.  There are no lines between these groups; they fall into a sexual spectrum, with each category blending smudgily into the neighboring ones.  What’s more, the various ideas, acts, images and whatnot which fall across my spectrum, might fall in entirely different positions on someone else’s…often without any discernible rhyme or reason.  A sane and reasonable person would look at the situation and conclude that it was ridiculous to even attempt to impose regimentation on this chaos; alas, the kind of person who seeks to control others via the use of violence is neither sane nor reasonable.spectrum

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Links #274

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 4, 2015| 1 Comment »

No one should ever report a rape to the police.  –  Lara McLeod

This week’s video was contributed by Mistress Matisse, who tweeted it with the message, “Be this goat.”  The links above it were provided by Domina Elle  (“karma”, “don’t call” and “HIV”), Rick Horowitz (“more”), Cop Block (“protect”),  Clarissa (“headline”), Popehat (“reports”), and Cassandra Fairbanks (“reasons”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#576)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2015| 5 Comments »

If we believe what we’ve heard, the sight of a female breast, either inadvertent or deliberate, immediately transforms men into raving sexual predators who rush to the nearest restroom and kidnap children.
–  Bob Stephens

The Scarlet Letter

It looks like Vice is slowly ditching the anti-whore bullshit and supporting our rights:

…Montreal sex worker support group Stella…says that…law enforcement’s crackdown on johns forces sex workers into isolation.  An environment where clients are trying to avoid police means sex workers are more likely to meet up with johns in dangerous areas, or get into cars without properly negotiating their terms…Client shaming isn’t a new tactic:  In the US, police have taken to sharing johns’ mugshots on Facebook or with the media…or they…send them letters that would be opened by their loved ones…

Public Service Announcement Jud McMillin

Are politicians actually stupider than other people, or does it just seem that way?

The controversial House Majority Leader in Indiana…resigned suddenly on Tuesday after a sexually compromising video was sent to all of the people on his “Contacts” list…After news of the mass-texting began to circulate, Representative Jud McMillin (R) claimed that his “phone was stolen in Canada and out of my control for about 24 hours. I have just been able to reactivate it under my control. Please disregard any messages you received recently. I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received.”  But his…defense apparently didn’t convince many of his “Contacts”…and so Tuesday night he released a statement in which he said that the “time is right for me to pass the torch and spend more time with my family”…McMillin has crusaded to “protect the integrity of the institution of marriage,” but the Advocate reported that the woman on the video he texted was not, in fact, his wife…

Scapegoats 

Are the sex rays produced by bestiality different from other sex rays?

[A Queensland] woman who was filmed having sex with a dog is appealing her conviction after she lost her blue card to work with children.  The woman…answered a Craigslist ad in 2013 from a man looking for a woman willing to perform sex acts online.  The pair had ­intercourse and she briefly had sex with the man’s dog…She pleaded guilty to bestia­lity…and received two years’ probation…the Queensland Court of Appeal was…told the conviction should not be recorded because it was manifestly excessive…

End Demand

The term for a symbiotic relationship between government and big business is “fascism”.

…[Members of] Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST)…have agreed to block websites where sex is advertised, update personnel policies and make it clear to employees that [their private sex lives are subject to their employers’ control]…King County…[and] the city of Seattle [are]…founding member[s]…With an estimated 27,000 buyers soliciting online sex through 130 different websites in King County every day, it wasn’t hard to deduce that a sizable number were likely on the clock and using work phones and computers to browse ads and connect with women and girls in the sex trade, [prosecutor Val] Richey said.  He said court cases and [interviews with a few prohibitionists]…bolster that supposition.  The BEST Employers Alliance is an extension of the county’s two-year, Buyer Beware program launched a year ago to increase the risk of arrest for men through street-level stings and undercover operations.  “No other jurisdiction in the country has tried this [collusion] with employers to [control private behavior]”…said Richey’s boss, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg…

King of the Hill

Remember, Feinstein thinks that the way to keep people “safe” is to spy on them and destroy their civil liberties:

Senator Dianne Feinstein…applauded the Department of Justice’s $1.5 million grant to the Los Angeles County Sheriff and Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) to create a new task force to investigate and prosecute [sex workers]…California is one of the top four destination states for trafficking victims and they are moved throughout California at an alarming rate…

Where Are the Protests? (#51)

It’s growing!

…“car wash slavery” has become a major problem in the UK and other European countries in recent years.  Romanian gangs have been…trafficking men from their country into other parts of Europe and putting them to “work” in car wash businesses…Gangs can establish themselves on vacant lots which they rent for insignificant amounts of money and set up business with minimal outlay.  If the businesses attract attention from the authorities, they can be shut down with no losses incurred and re-established immediately in other locations at little cost.  Those familiar with the growing phenomenon say…scenarios to trap victims are fabricated by gang members…The victims’ passports are retained by their minders-cum-gang enforcers…

Hollow Claims

No, there aren’t a “growing number” of prohibitionists in Germany; they’re just being given more airtime due to the prevalence of “sex trafficking” hysteria:

…former prostitute Huschke Mau has joined a politician and a social worker to found a new anti-prostitution organization – Sisters e. V. – to help prostitutes out of the sex trade…Hydra Berlin…already offers counseling for prostitutes – including, but not limited to those who want to get out…Sisters [is] a kind of missionary service that “rescues” prostitutes, working from a premise of moral judgment that closes the group to a broad range of sex workers…Sisters…volunteer supporters [are]…women…[who] think prostitution is terrible…”Anyone who wants to do something against prostitution can come to us” [said Mau]…

Little Boxes (#138)

…A recent “Free the Nipple” rally in Springfield, Missouri, elicited swift action from the city—but not in the direction activists were hoping for.  Rather, the Springfield City Council voted that women should actually cover up more of their breasts in public than was previously required.  The new indecent exposure law prohibits women from showing too much of the sides and bottom of the breasts—aka “underboob”…The issue was contentious among city officials, passing the city council by just 5-4.  Springfield Mayor Bob Stephens voted against it, condemning proponents’ claim that keeping women’s breasts hidden is necessary so as not to encourage sexual assault…But the new law’s instigator, Councilman Justin Burnett, said it was important for protecting the city’s “family-friendly image” and ensuring “the safety of the most vulnerable among us.”  It is unclear who Burnett thinks is made unsafe by the public presence of underboob…

Under Every Bed 

This is jaw-droppingly stupid even by Washington state standards:

…”I have never seen nothing [sic] worse than I have in Snohomish County,” Charlotte said. “It’s all over…it’s constant”…forensic nurse Paula Newman-Skomski…[is] motivated by her own past of sexual abuse…[and] her daughter was kidnapped…for four hours…she’s specially trained to do things like…advocate for victims of sexual abuse and slavery…”Just being a teenager puts girls at risk for being…coerced into trafficking by pimps…A lot of times you won’t see the girls with their…pimps or controllers”…

Remember, this comes from the home of the infamous crusade against coffee stands.

Policing for Profit 

Anyone who thinks £166,000 ($250,000) a year is some tremendous amount for a small business is an ignoramus:

Mark Cass…registered his business…with the local authority and employed six staff who…[used] time sheets in order to keep track of their busy schedules…Cass netted an average of £166,000 a year and…[employed] his brother as a…manager…police are trying to [steal his] assets…[including] his £47,000 home…a BMW car worth £4,000…[and] £87,499 [in other assets.  The cops want Cass] rendered homeless…[carless] and unable to work…The prosecution [admitted] that [his employees] were not under duress, not corrupted and not imprisoned…Exotic Thai was [such] a popular place to work [that] Cass got calls from Thai girls in London asking for jobs…

In other words, he was a rather ordinary businessman running a rather ordinary business, but the cops want to steal his moderate middle-class assets because sex.

Catastrophic Consequences

Glasgow is the center of official anti-whore sentiment in Scotland:

Glasgow is to be named a White Ribbon City in recognition of the work it does to tackle violence against women…[including] the End Prostitution Now campaign, Sixteen Days of Action, the Routes Out of Prostitution project, the Trafficking Alliance Raising Awareness (TARA) project and ASSIST, the support project linked to Glasgow’s domestic abuse court…

Catastrophic Consequences (#430)

This sleazy tactic has spread from Canada to Scotland to England:

A pioneering new tactic could be launched in Cambridge to rescue sex slaves from city brothels…police are considering visiting brothels…to talk to sex workers to discover if they are consenting or have been trafficked and exploited by brothel keepers.  Police hope to both rescue the women from modern-day slavery as well as gain information about gangs operating in the city’s sex trade.  Detective Chief Inspector Lorraine Parker…said…”We would make regular visits to make sure a sex worker is not being forced and exploited and offer them support as well as refer them to agencies that can help”…

Because unannounced intimidation visits from cops are just so helpful to sex workers.

New Excuse (#568)

Have I told y’all yet today that I love Liz Brown?  This was Reason‘s cover story this month:

…Lawmakers touted harsher penalties for drug offenses. The war on drugs raged. New task forces were created. Civilians were trained how to “spot” drug traffickers in the wild, and students instructed how to rat out drug-using parents. Politicians spoke of a drug “epidemic” overtaking America, its urgency obviously grounds for anything we could throw its way.  We know now how that all worked out.  The tactics employed to “get tough” on drugs ended up entangling millions in the criminal justice system, sanctioning increasingly intrusive and violent policing practices, worsening tensions between law enforcement and marginalized communities, and degrading the constitutional rights of all Americans. Yet even as the drug war’s failures and costs become more apparent, the Land of the Free is enthusiastically repeating the same mistakes when it comes to sex trafficking. This new “epidemic” inspires the same panicked rhetoric and punitive policies the war on drugs did—often for activity that’s every bit as victimless…

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Threat Level

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , on October 2, 2015| 10 Comments »

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.  –  Leo Tolstoy

I am really, really sick of being threatened with violence from “authorities” every time I turn around.  I don’t just mean the threat inherent in universal criminality, nor the implied threat of heavily-armed thugs cruising around looking for laws to “enforce”; I don’t even mean the paranoid uneasiness purposely cultivated by government actors through the use of security theater, mass surveillance and encouraging kids to turn their parents in for consensual behaviors.  No, I’m talking about direct, clear threats spelled out in plain English words on a large fraction of the flat surfaces in the United States.

seat belt threatReaders who live outside of the US may not have any idea what I’m talking about, and many American readers may have grown so used to these ominous warnings of dire consequences that they no longer recognize them for what they are.  So I’ll elucidate:  all over the United States, threatening signs are displayed in businesses, on merchandise, and especially along highways; filling stations in particular may present a wide collection of the ugly things.  For a few years, anyone pulling up at any gasoline pump from coast to coast would be greeted by the visage of a scowling cop, sometimes pointing at the viewer, threatening that one would lose his driver’s license if he drove off without paying.  The door of the attached convenience store might have a warning that loiterers will be abducted and caged, while on the counter within other placards promise wildly-disproportionate “punishments” for anyone who dares buy liquor or cigarettes for those below the magical Age of Shazam.  And after one escapes this minefield of threats and gets back onto the highway, he might see a billboard defacing the scenery with the asinine slogan “click it or ticket”, because the government is so very concerned with everyone’s safety that it steals money from people who can’t afford to lose it in order to “send a message”.

Signs threatening fines for certain behaviors, such as littering, are nothing new; they’ve been around for at least as long as I’ve been able to read them, and probably at least since the early ’50s.  But in the past few decades there’s been such an incredible proliferation of them that Americans are virtually immersed in a sea of threats.  Don’t believe me?  Try counting every one you see today.  I’ll bet there are at least 3 or 4 times as many as the estimate you’re making of the number right now, and maybe more than that; these threats have become like Shea & Wilson’s fnords, invisible to the masses yet producing a vague and pervasive sense of unease.  Because the more unsettled and fearful the populace, the more they’ll support politicians’ efforts to strengthen the police/nanny state using any excuse from “drugs” to “terrorism” to “sex trafficking” to “cancer”.  Nor are the “authorities” the only ones to profit from this society-wide anxiety; non-governmental malefactors will often use the fear the “authorities” have generated as a means of coercing compliance.  For example, non-cop rapists often disguise themselves as cops in order to intimidate sex workers into surrendering without a struggle.  And then there are these guys:

…[copyright troll] Rightscorp…gives its agents [this script] to use when people call in after receiving a [threatening] notice…[it] is quite something, with a few ridiculous statements…[such as] the following.  If the caller says that they’re innocent, here’s how Rightscorp has its agents respond:  “In order to cancel this matter without payment, you will need to go and get a police report and fax or email it to us.  The police may take your devices and hold it for ~5 days to investigate the matter.  You must be sure that it was not you, anyone in your household, including friends and neighbors or you will be breaking a different law with the police department.”  Every part of that statement is bullshit…it’s clearly designed to…frighten the caller into just paying uprightscorp threat…Rightscorp is in the extortion/shakedown business, rather than actually trying to stop copyright infringement…

As in the case of the bogus-cop rapists, Rightscorp is using the fear of police violence to intimidate their victims into surrendering without a fight.  And given that a large portion of that fear was created by the government, both intentionally through constant threats and incidentally via its refusal to punish cops who inflict violence on peaceful citizens, the government is itself complicit in these crimes.

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