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Archive for December, 2015

Shattered Idol

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , on December 11, 2015| 10 Comments »

You may decry the court of public opinion, but until sex workers are given equality before the law, we will use it, because it’s the only one open to us.  –  Mistress Matisse

If you’ve been lost on a spelunking expedition, on vacation in the Amazon basin, or in a coma for the last two weeks, you may not have heard that the popular porn star James Deen has been accused by almost a dozen women of rape, sexual assault, nonconsensual roughness and other violations of porn actresses’ sexual boundaries.  I first discussed the matter last Friday; if you missed that, you may want to go back and read it in its entirety, but here’s the newsy part:

…the porn actress Stoya…accused [Deen] of having raped her; another ex-girlfriend, Joanna Angel, supported Stoya, tweeting that Deen was “dead on the inside” and “literally the worst person I’ve ever met” (though she declined to say more until Wednesday).  By Monday two other actresses had revealed similar incidents (one sexual assault and one attempted rape), and by Wednesday two more came forward to explain that on-camera rough sex scenes with Deen were actually rape.  In the meantime, many sex workers had expressed solidarity with Stoya, and some had sided with Deen against his accusers (weirdly expressing sanctimonious bullshit about the law, as though US law ever treats sex workers fairly or reasonably); several video companies and websites severed ties with him, and he resigned from the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee.  Naturally, neofeminist vultures like Meghan Murphy descended with lightning speed to blame porn for Deen’s actions, or even worse to claim that there’s no moral difference between rape and consensual sex work…James Deen askance

When I wrote that column I didn’t know how far the story would go in the mainstream media; often things that are huge news in the demimonde “barely even register on the radar of society at large,” as I put it last week.  But this one was obviously an exception; by Sunday the New York Post published an ugly neofeminist hate screed which, among other absurdities, touted the idiotic claim that every whore in the US makes a living on the once-in-a-lifetime contribution of a small minority of men:

There’s nothing cool or enlightened about participating in the exploitation of women…The latest porn outrage is rape:  Five women have accused co-worker Bryan Sevilla, a k a James Deen, of sexual assault…Sevilla’s alleged rapes were part of his work.  Read “performer” Amber Rayne’s accusation…mainstream porn…“glamorizes and encourages sexual violence,” says [another prohibitionist]…Read the story of Ashley Brooks, a porn survivor whose abusive husband forced her into the business.  “It was filthy and disgusting…I felt like a complete and total prostitute”…A porn performer, like a prostitute, submits to impersonal sex acts for money…all you need is common sense to see the reality of prostitution…being violated by strangers multiple times a day because they have no other practical choice, for not a lot of money and being terrified of being killed or infected while doing it…Thankfully, the vast majority of American men — around 86 percent — haven’t exploited a prostitute…

I made sure I tweeted Nicole Gelinas to call her on her crap, because I don’t think prohibitionists should sleep well at night after pretending they have the right to control other women’s lives and income.  The Washington Post reported a day later; in keeping with the paper’s apparent lean toward sex worker rights, reporter Caitlin Gibson was not only sympathetic, but also interviewed actual sex workers:

Deen’s accusers…have…faced a backlash that highlights the particular challenges facing women who work in porn and the sex trade…Some…have scoffed that it shouldn’t be possible for a porn star to consider herself having been raped — that these kinds of violations are, essentially, part of the job…Pornography — especially the BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism) genre that was Deen’s specialty — might convey a sense of erotic danger, said Mistress Matisse…But…it’s standard to establish clear guidelines before intimacy begins…“Boundary violations,” she said, “are taken very, very seriously within the BDSM community.”  And in the allegations against Deen, she added, “it wasn’t like he did one thing wrong, and then he stopped.  These were not rookie errors”…Margaret Corvid…said that [anti-porn activists make]…matters worse for women working in the industry…“The stigma they’re putting forward makes it harder for sex workers to report rape or assault, because they will have very good reason to believe…that the authorities…won’t believe them, or will marginalize or ‘otherize’ them”…

Matisse also wrote her own take for Seattle’s The Stranger:

Over the last two weeks, I have had a lot of conversations with people who say things like Deen is being tried in the court of social media.  His professional reputation is ruined because he can’t prove himself innocent.  None of them made a police report at the time, so how do we know it was REALLY rape?…But no one has filed criminal charges against Deen.  He has exactly the same access to social media as his accusers do, he can talk to the reporters of his choice, and he has an agent and a lawyer to advise him…When you say, “If it was rape, why didn’t you go the police?” here’s what it really means:  If you don’t go to the police, you’re not allowed to talk about your sexual assault.  Rape is like a ticket in a parking garage, apparently—if you didn’t get it validated by the powers that be, you will pay for that later.  This is a silencing tactic, nothing more…And the law certainly does not give a shit about sex workers…

Dr. Marty Klein used the case to argue for decriminalization:

The women pursuing their rape cases against him are able to do so because they are legally employed…if they were raped while acting as prostitutes…they couldn’t go to the police, because they’d be arrested themselves.  Or, as many prostitutes can attest, they’d be extorted for sex by the police in exchange for not being arrested…Decriminalizing sex work also helps reduce illicit trafficking by enabling sex workers to report suspicious-looking arrangements without putting themselves in jeopardy…

Then on Tuesday, Deen himself finally went beyond mere denial to give his side, which basically amounted to a combination of “nuh-uh”, “I don’t remember that”, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”, and “Bitches be crazy”:

…I am completely baffled…The reason Stoya made this claim could be as simple as her finding out that my current girlfriend and I are moving in together…It could be as calculated as Stoya trying to drive traffic to her website…All of the accusations are from either ex-girlfriends or events that happened on set…I could describe the events of the scene I was in the other day and it could be just as dramatic…There are certain exaggerations and inaccuracies in these stories…The claims are inaccurate or out of context…

Of course, none of that explains why he was on so many porn actresses’ “No” lists:

Shy Love, a longtime porn performer who runs the adult talent agency The Vip Connect, represents more than 80 women.  Roughly 20 to 25 of them, she estimates, refuse to work with James Deen.  “They just thought he was too aggressive, they didn’t like his style of shooting,” Love [said]…the clients she has who won’t work with Deen signal to agents and directors their preference through the use of something called a “no list,” a tally of individuals a performer will not work with.  These lists, which are not necessarily about people who have done something objectionable—an actor, including Deen, could show up on someone’s no list for a reason as mundane as lack of chemistry— are a widespread practice in the porn business…

And though Deen hasn’t been charged with any crime, at least one government entity is interested:

…Cal/OSHA…the state’s health and safety regulatory and watchdog organization, announced that it has opened an investigation of James Deen Productions…for serious workplace health and safety violations.  OSHA’s investigation came about after AHF filed a formal ‘Notice of Alleged Safety or Health Hazards’ complaint against Deen with OSHA…

the future of porn in CaliforniaNote that the investigation was triggered by the vile AHF, notorious for its crusade to shut down the porn industry by forcing it to produce creepy goggle-and-glove festooned condom commercials instead of fantasy entertainment.  Prohibitionists (including AHF), don’t give a damn about the safety of welfare of the women Deen assaulted; they just want to capitalize on the free publicity to promote their own attacks on sex workers.  No doubt others will similarly attempt to exploit the situation; I’ll keep you posted on such developments as they arise.

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Immune to the Stuff

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged , , , on December 10, 2015| 6 Comments »

I’m a mostly straight, young but not too young, sexually active adult woman.  I don’t intend to get married, but I very much value emotional connections and intimacy.  I can have sex for the sake of sex without needing it to mean more, but I appreciate more when it’s there.  Well, about two years ago I met a much older man who claimed his was an open marriage; we didn’t actually have sex for a couple of months, and I was intrigued by the idea of a close but not fully committed lover who would not be seeking a wife.  Eventually I found out that while his wife didn’t much mind his having no-strings extramarital sex, she would not at all have accepted his being emotionally involved with a mistress.  I was pissed because I had expressed early on that I didn’t want to get involved in keeping secrets, but he talked me back into his arms and thus ensued another year of amazing sex, moments of transcendent friendship, and also plenty of moments of being ignored or even fully disregarded despite his expectation that I would be responsive to him and his texts and his emails.  He could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment, but that’s not what he did.  So I ended it because being told I am amazing while simultaneously being ignored might be as damaging as anything I have experienced.  Still, I have a lot of self-doubt over this; is something wonderful about him that I am overlooking?  Did my desires and wants cross the line into immature self-centered behavior?  Am I overlooking a point of view, or am I just overlooking an asshole’s asshole nature?spooky cocktail

It’s hard for people who are sexually experienced, savvy, wise in the ways of the world and generally free of belief in romantic bullshit to recognize that we, too, can be deceived in relationships.  No matter how much we may like to think that we’re “immune to the stuff”, as Robert Palmer put it, the fact of the matter is that the right dose in the right combination delivered in the right medium will still intoxicate us just as if we were starry-eyed ingenues.  And unfortunately, there is no way to be sure that the mixologist isn’t up to pure no good when he or she slips you that mickey; every time you imbibe you run the risk that the cocktail will be stronger than you bargained for, especially when it’s so delicious you just keep knocking ‘em down without keeping a very close count.  From what you’ve told me here, your lover was quite the skillful alchemist; he read what you wanted, told you what you wanted to hear and expertly smoothed over your valid concerns.  This doesn’t mean you’re gullible; it means you’re a real and complex person with needs of your own, and you fell in with someone who both knew how to manipulate that and had no moral scruples against doing it.  Lest you think I’m being unnecessarily harsh in my judgment of him, consider your own statement that “he could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment”; he wanted the advantages of a regular sex worker without having to pay for one.  You didn’t say what he does for a living, but he’d have made a great politician; the combination of charm, promise making-and-breaking and casual dishonesty is typical in that career.  Politicians are usually very popular, too, which is how they keep getting elected no matter what they do; that doesn’t make them good people, it makes them good manipulators.  So I think you made the right decision: treasure the good memories, let go of as much of the pain as you can, and walk away before he talks you into wasting another year on someone who seems unable to play by the rules of ethical polyamory.

(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 (#594)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2015| 4 Comments »

Many use their hands, others use their brains.  We use our vaginas to work.  –  Mónica Lencina

The Red Umbrella 

Katherine Koster of SWOP published this list of “17 Facts About Sexual Violence and Sex Work” as a lead-up to December 17th.   Most of my readers are probably familiar with all or at least most of these already, but it’s important to remind the general public; furthermore, it’s good to see that Huffington Post seems to be slowly distancing itself from anti-whore propaganda and is publishing a lot more pro-sex-worker-rights articles in the past year or so.Mark Benavides

Droit du Seigneur

…a…client of Mark H. Benavides, a San Antonio lawyer, accused Benavides of having sex with her in an empty room in the Bexar County Courthouse during her intoxication manslaughter trial.  Benavides claimed that she was lying and upset because she was sentenced to 15 years in prison on the manslaughter charge…after the first victim spoke up, others came forward.  The first was a prostitute who said that after their first encounter in 2005, he offered his services as a lawyer.  She…always paid for his legal services with sex, never with money.  She stopped in 2012, and Benavides reminded her that he had videotape of their sexual encounters.  Another victim said that she met Benavides repeatedly for sex…[because she] was afraid that if she refused, Benavides would, based on his good relationship with the judge, hurt her case.  The final victim did not have money to pay Benavides, so he had her meet him every Tuesday at a motel.  When she didn’t show one time, he went to court and withdrew the attorney bond he had posted for her, which resulted in her being arrested…Benavides was arrested and charged with three counts of Compelling Prostitution…[which is] much easier to prove [than rape]…

Bell, Hook and Kettle

Though the reporter of course believes in the Salvation Army’s propaganda and doesn’t think to investigate the truth about the religious group’s anti-whore and anti-queer crusades, this puff piece contains some useful statistics:

…fliers featuring people’s mouths sealed with duct tape have gone up on targeted street corners and inside women’s restrooms — one of the few places where victims of sex trafficking might find privacy…82 cents of every dollar dropped into the kettle goes to helping people in need.  The holiday fundraising campaign generates nearly 70 percent of the funds used to provide services year-round…

There’s no telling what fraction of that 82% goes to hate campaigns, but you can bet it’s substantial.

Legal Is as Legal Does

Despite the moronic headline, this isn’t a bad article:

Ammar, the Argentinean union of prostitutes…set up a tent in front of Congress to request a new law that would allow them to access the same benefits enjoyed by other independent workers…Argentinean law does not ban prostitution. Each province, however, regulates it differently. In most cases, regulation is so rigorous that offering sexual services is virtually forbidden. For example, in San Juan…public…offer [of] sex services…[can be penalized by] up to 20 days in prison.More often than not, the legislation that is [pretended] to protect sex workers has the opposite effect…The prevailing government view…is to [pretend that] all sex workers [are] victims of human trafficking….

Profit from Panic 

Can you imagine a real “pimp” putting as much thought into it as these people put into their BDSM fantasies?

With the holiday’s [sic] right around the corner, you might be searching for that perfect, unique gift that give’s [sic] back to your local community.  Emily Mahoney and Lauren Carpenter are producing…handcrafted jewelry…that is…helping to end human trafficking in Tennessee…The women started Branded Collective, a collection of metal cuffs and jewelry, a few years ago.  Twenty-five percent of the proceeds…goes to…End Slavery Tennessee…Each cuff is “branded” with a little initial of the woman who helped to make it, and with a number.  Many victims of human trafficking are branded with tattoos or numbers. “Branding is a way of depersonalizing the human…and identifying them as…something you can buy and sell that’s disposable”…said Emily.  You can visit their website to read the story of the survivor that branded your one of a kind cuff…

Blunt Instrument

Attention, useful idiots: making it easier for cops to get search warrants is never a good idea, even if they pretend it’s to “fight” something you dislike:

Houston’s City Council passed…an ordinance that aims to help [cops close down]…massage establishments…that may be a front for prostitution…[by expanding] the legal definition of a massage establishment.  The change will allow the [cops to raid any place they declare a massage establishment]…”[Blah blah blah] human trafficking,” explained Minal Patel Davis, special advisor to the mayor on human trafficking…The change…will also make it easier for [cops to get rubber-stamped] search warrants…

Monsters 

[A] trans woman…lost her life in…Istanbul [on December 2nd]…Alev…was stabbed in her heart by a man who approached her as a client…police called on a couple of her friends for further investigation…There was another transphobic hate crime ten days ago in…Istanbul.  The victim was a young trans woman…[named] Nilay…[who] was stabbed several times and strangled with a bathrobe cord…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#407)

SCIENCE!!!

…Last year, the Journal of Religion and Health published an article linking schizophrenia to demonic possession based on the claims of a single faith healer.  Now, they’ve published new research…which claims that consuming…sexual media may have “a negative impact on learning second language vocabulary.”  Want to learn German? Better avoid sexy music videos and denim commercials, the study suggests.  “Aside from dire consequences in the afterlife, viewing sexual media can have a detrimental effect on human learning and memory in this life,” it concludes.  Yakup Çetin, the study’s author and a foreign language education professor at Faith University in Istanbul…[said] he…”[finds his own] study objective”…the [sexual material]  included the trailer for the Pitt-Jolie action flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the music video for “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias, and a television commercial for Mavi Jeans…


Property of the State 

“Prison sentences for these women can be as much as 40 years“:

The Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court has reinstated the country’s total ban on abortion, including cases in which a pregnant woman’s life is at risk.  [Last December] Dominican President Danilo Medina approved measures decriminalizing abortion in cases of rape, incest, and fetal deformity, as well as situations where the mother’s life would be endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term.  The reforms were set to take effect December 19, 2015.  But religious and socially conservative groups appealed, arguing in court that the country’s constitution protects the rights of “unborn children” from the moment of conception…the country’s total abortion ban puts girls and women at risk by prompting pregnant women to visit black-market abortion doctors and forcing them to give birth even when it’s physically  dangerous…Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras also ban abortion in all circumstances…

Now They Notice

I find articles which pretend that Rentboy was fundamentally different from sites on which female escorts advertize to be utterly infuriating, especially when they strongly imply that male sex workers are entrepreneurs while women like me are passive victims:

…Arrangements made through Rentboy were between consenting adults. David Bimbi, professor of health sciences…drew a clear distinction between this business and other illegal activities.  According to Bimbi, many of the arguments against sex work — that it promotes pimping, sex trafficking and exploits minors — “fly out the window” when it comes to Rentboy, which was a site where adults self-advertised to other adults.”  Recently, Meryl Streep, Lena Dunham, Rashida Jones and other celebrities joined with the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women to decry Amnesty International’s proposed recommendation to decriminalize sex work.  The coalition claimed Amnesty’s proposal would “advocate the legalization of pimping.”  Rentboy, Bimbi said, is a completely different situation…Since the raids, many sex workers have organized to battle sex worker stigma…

Danny Cruz and Conner Habib try to set writer Mathew Rodriguez straight, but he seems to think gay dudes just invented sex worker rights in the past few months.

Uncommon Sense (#572)

Sonja Dolinsek on the awfulness of German prostitution law “reform”:

After two years of negotiations, the German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth shared its second draft of a new prostitution law…the 2002 law, widely decried as “legalizing prostitution” and blamed for an increase in human trafficking, has never been fully implemented.  But that hasn’t stopped politicians and the media from loading blame for the supposed catastrophic state of sex workers in Germany onto these three paragraphs – using the law to score easy points with the public.  Few in Germany or abroad questioned the idea that the law had led to an explosion of human trafficking…But nobody bothered to fact-check the claim of increased trafficking.  If they had, they would have found that that sex work had been legal long before 2002, and that human trafficking has actually been steadily decreasing…

Social Autoimmune Disorder (#592)

Well, gee, this is SO MUCH better:

…The “John letters motion” was approved by the city council…and LAPD officers can presumably start recording license plate numbers and sending letters to the registered owners’ homes immediately.  But the media got one thing wrong: there’s no plan to use automated license plate readers to scan every license plate that goes through the neighborhood to shoot the drivers scarlet letters.  And…Los Angeles is not the only city to have this idea…But even without the Orwellian license plate reader element, there are legitimate concerns around guilt premised on an idling car…

Fallen Idol

Melissa Gira Grant interviewed a number of porn actors & actresses on the James Deen affair:

…That chorus of voices that followed Stoya’s shook the porn industry…and now the public is hearing…about the particular structural problems the porn industry contends with, and the persistent and pernicious idea that sex workers are by definition unrapeable…Arabelle Raphael…said…“A lot of people knew…And some people had really good experiences with him, but that doesn’t mean anything.”  Performers let each other know what they had heard about Deen…two people [previously told her to]…put James Deen on your ‘no’ list” – the performers she would not do scenes with…eight other women have also gone public. Tori Lux, Ashley Fires, Amber Rayne, Kora Peters, Nicki Blue, Lily LaBeau, and a woman writing as T.M., all say Deen has assaulted them, too. In the aftermath of those allegations, Deen’s career is crumbling…

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Diary #284

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on December 8, 2015| 3 Comments »

A Most Amazing Clockwork Woman by Ian Daniels (2010)Back in the long-ago and far-off days of two years ago, my schedule was so regular and predictable that I was always a month ahead on most of my columns, and several days out on the news columns.  I devoted every Tuesday to outside-the-blog work like “Mind-witness Testimony“, the Cato Unbound series which appeared two years ago this month, and the preparation of Ladies of the Night.  When I began to plan my book tour in the spring of last year, I got even more ambitious and prepared my columns for fully two months out; after my return home late that summer I quickly stabilized it at a month out again.  And now I’m pleased when I manage to be two days ahead for a little while.  You know what else I used to plan in advance?  Meals.  Because Matt travels so much for his job and the nearest full-sized grocery store is 20 miles from my ranch in Oklahoma, I actually planned my meals a month in advance; now I usually have no idea what I’m going to eat (or often, even where or when) until I actually set out to prepare or buy it.  See, I’m actually kind of a homebody; I like things to be predictable and planned and comfortable.  I like to eat at regular times and do things in a reasonably-regular fashion, and I don’t much like surprises.  And maybe someday I’ll be able to live that lifestyle again, at least in the weeks when I’m not traveling; maybe after the house is finished and I have my retirement income figured out and preparations for taking care of my loved ones set in stone, maybe then I can get back to some degree of regularity…though I suspect the days of Phileas Fogg-like clockwork predictability are gone forever.  Well, at least I usually have many of my work appointments and most of my social and other appointments planned a few days to a week out; I know Grace will be arriving for her Christmas visit two weeks from today, and I’m involved in planning some things that won’t take place for over two months yet.  And who knows?  If I try very hard, I might even manage to do another book sometime.

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Links #283

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I can’t breathe.  –  Anthony Reed

Here’s one of the few disaster movies I ever enjoyed (though I was in my teens when I saw it last, so…) I haven’t noticed anything else in the Paramount Vault I really want to share with y’all, but there’s a lot of stuff there so you may want to take a look.  The links above it were contributed by Rick Horowitz, Alex Morgan,  Nine, Grace, Franklin Harris, and Mike Siegel, in that order.

From the Archives

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St. Nicholas Day 2015

Posted in Holidays, tagged , on December 6, 2015| 3 Comments »

San Nicolás
Today is the feast of St. Nicholas, patron saint of prostitutes.  What, you didn’t know that Santa has a soft spot for whores?  Yep, so you’d better be nice to us today; book a visit with your favorite lady or make a donation to me (of whom he is especially fond for reasons that should be obvious).  Under no circumstances should you ever give money to the awful Salvation Army, for reasons that I’ve explained at length; their use of Santa’s image to support programs of hate vs. those under his protection is an ongoing crime.  If you are filled with the desire to emulate the jolly saint by giving during this season, there are many worth charities that actually deserve your generosity; don’t give it to religious fanatics with a marketing campaign.

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In the News (#593)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2015| 9 Comments »

There are no reliable statistics on which Sheriff Dart could base a judgment that sex trafficking has been increasing in the United States.  –  Richard Posner

Surplus Women 

Why do reporters either focus on or try to entirely avoid saying a crime victim was a sex worker?

A Missouri man has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of a woman he allegedly met on Facebook…Stassie Greer also faces charges of first-degree robbery and two counts of armed criminal action in the death of 25-year-old Sharae Bradford…she was shot in the head.  Money and a cellphone were taken.  Court documents say Greer arranged through social media to meet Bradford at the apartment to have sex in exchange for money…video surveillance helped lead police to Greer, and Bradford’s phone was found at his home.  Bradford was a single mother with a 6-year-old daughter.

Small Choice

Imagine the headline “Many NK defectors resort to better-paying jobs in South“:

A considerable number of female defectors from North Korea have become sex workers here after experiencing difficulties adjusting to life in the South…KBS…aired a program…about the plight of some 40 to 50 female defectors who work at…coffee shops that illegally sell sex…The women said that they used to work at normal companies or work as waitresses in restaurants after they defected, but their monthly salaries of some 1.3 to 1.7 million won was not enough to maintain their livelihood and support their family members left behind in the North.  “It is much better to earn some 3 to 4 million won here,” a woman told the program…

Checklist

Proving that stupidity & gullibility are no barriers to becoming a physician, two gynecologists wrote an exceedingly dumb and inflammatory article about – you guessed it – “signs” of “sex trafficking”, in which they suggest their fellows should waste their valuable time asking patients about their tattoos and prying into their privacy instead of actually treating their gynecological complaints.  Among the “signs” they list: “Often, there may not be a concrete sign at all – just the counter-transference of a feeling…of…sadness throughout your conversation“…Yes, “sadness” is now considered evidence of “sex trafficking”.

Leviathan

Any government so big, sluggish and cumbersome that it does this, is too big to be allowed to exist:

A militant who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan and has been held without charge at Guantanamo Bay for 13 years was largely the victim of mistaken identity, according to U.S. defense officials.  Mustafa Abd-al-Qawi Abd-al-Aziz al-Shamiri was captured in 2002 and believed to be an al Qaeda facilitator or courier, and trainer…”We now judge that these activities were carried out by other known extremists” with similar names or aliases, the profile of the Yemeni detainee dated Sept. 25 added…

I Spy

Cathy Reisenwitz interviewed sex workers for their tips on maintaining privacy:

There are lots of reasons a sex worker might need to keep their sex worker identity separate from the rest of their lives.  Society is still extremely anti-sex-worker…in a custody dispute an allegation that a mother is engaging in sex work will prejudice a judge against her and may result in her losing even unsupervised visitation rights.  Even without a custody fight, Child Protective Services can take your children because you engage in sex work…And forget some forms of future employment if you’re out as a sex worker.  You will never, ever be allowed to work with children if you’ve ever engaged in any sex work.  And, last but not least, there’s always the remote threat of criminal prosecution…no matter what you do, there is a point at which enough skill, money, and time will reveal everything you want to keep secret.  So your only hope is to make it more difficult to hack you than it is rewarding.  These tips will keep your difficulty level higher than default…

Paint By Numbers

Why bother doing anything extraordinary to “fight sex trafficking”, when you can just get dressed in the morning?

…This month isn’t just December, for some, it’s Dressember…a call, not only to wear a dress for 31 days in a row, but to give attention and funds to [rescue industry group] the International Justice Mission…Participants in Dressember are looking for sponsors who will donate funds…Wearing dresses is a tribute to the dignity of women…There will also be a 24 hour Stand for Freedom at Fountain Mall…

Choke Point 

Here’s Violet Blue on the federal campaign to suppress sex businesses by pressuring financial institutions to choke off our air:

For nearly a decade, PayPal, JPMorgan Chase, Visa/MasterCard, and now Square, have systematically denied or closed accounts of small businesses, artists and independent contractors whose business happens to be about sex.  These payment processing authorities have also coerced websites to cease featuring sexual content under threat of service withdrawal, all while blaming ambiguous rules or pressure from one another…a federal appeals court ruled that pressuring credit card companies…to stop doing business with speech-protected websites violates their First Amendment rights…and in June, the FDIC clarified that it’s against the rules for businesses like PayPal, Chase and Square to refuse business or close accounts based on “high risk” assessments related to human sexuality.  But it may not be enough to stop what’s become an entrenched pattern of systematic discrimination by payment processors…Redlining, outlawed in 1968, is the practice of refusing to do business with…applicants from “high risk” neighborhoods who are otherwise completely qualified.  Since the 1930s, actual maps with red lines were used by banks to demarcate black and hispanic neighborhoods…To redline a community was to cut it off from equal financial access, rights and opportunities….there are no literal lines on a map here, but it appears there are virtual ones around an entire section of the internet.  So let’s call this “weblining”…

Welcome to the Future radicalization leaflet

The party will be very displeased if your children question diktats, comrade:

Child protection officials [in the UK] been criticised after warning parents that young people who take issue with government policy or question what they are told in the media may have been radicalised by extremists.  A leaflet drawn up by a…child safeguarding board warns that “appearing angry about government policies, especially foreign policies” is a sign “specific to radicalisation…showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and a belief in conspiracy theories” could be a sign that children are being groomed by extremists…

Sexcrime

…[Last December the UK’s new] Audio Visual Media Services regulations (AVMS) banned sex acts that were deemed morally damaging or life-threatening, including strangulation, face-sitting and fisting.   Spanking beyond what was deemed to be a gentle level, humiliation, full bondage and restraint…female ejaculation, and depictions of non-consensual sex were also forbidden…Campaigners slammed the rules as subjective, and said they unfairly targeted women…Myles Jackman, a UK-based obscenity lawyer, warned that the ban would pose an unnecessary trade barrier to beleaguered UK pornography producers.  It is now clear their fears were founded…customers with “tastes that are not mainstream enough to fit with the draconian limits of the new regulations” have simply taken their business to overseas websites and producers…

The Public Eye (#532)

A short profile of Laura Lee:

…When she is not working as a dominatrix, she offers her services as a “standard” sex worker to the terminally ill and physically disabled…Lee is also working to change society’s “polarised” perception of sex workers.  While there are glamorous escorts who jet around the world and curb-crawling girls battling addiction, she says the truth is far more boring. “Seventy per cent of sex workers right now are mothers working from flats quite discreetly…You could be standing in a queue…next to a sex worker and you wouldn’t know it”…

Checklist (#542)

Strip clubs and massage parlors in Orange County [Florida] will be required next year to post…signs displaying the hotline for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center…Florida ranks behind only California and Texas in the number of reported human-trafficking cases in the U.S., a [myth] cited by state legislators who passed a law requiring warnings signs in rest areas, truck stops, airports and emergency rooms…Adult entertainment clubs and massage parlors are [fantasized to be] venues that tend to serve as recruitment centers for human traffickers…

Stupor Bowl (#581)

It’s really kind of pathetic to watch the crippled remains of the “gypsy whores” myth gasping for air:

Santa Clara County officials launched a campaign…calling on the public to be on the lookout for human trafficking victims…The campaign will feature ads on…Valley Transportation Agency buses, bus shelters and light-rail vehicles with images provided through the National Human Trafficking Resource Center…The campaign comes ahead of Super Bowl 50…on Feb. 7…“These large events have a tragic consequence of attracting and increasing human trafficking,” VTA general manager Nuria Fernandez said…“I’m really confident that with the county working together, we’re going to find more victims in our area”…Supervisor Cindy Chavez said…

Cindy sounds almost ecstatic about the fantasy of tens of thousands of sexually enslaved children.

Seizing Power (#589)

Cathy Reisenwitz on Backpage’s win against Swanee Hunt crony Tom Dart:

…the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals told…Dart…that his misplaced fear of sex work doesn’t trump…free speech…The lawsuit describes a man obsessed with censoring adult-oriented ads.  Dart spent six years harassing Visa and Mastercard with threatening letters demanding they stop doing business with Backpage…Judge Posner…wrote…“A public official who tries to shut down an avenue of expression of ideas and opinions through ‘actual or threatened imposition of government power or sanction’ is violating the First Amendment…Actually, as explained in an amicus curiae brief filed by the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, and DKT Liberty Project, citing voluminous governmental and academic studies, there are no reliable statistics on which Sheriff Dart could base a judgment that sex trafficking has been increasing in the United States”…

Yes, an important federal judge just officially declared that “sex trafficking” hysteria is bullshit.  And here’s Glenn Greenwald on some of the larger implications of the case:

…Beyond the positive outcome in this specific case — What kind of person would become sheriff of Chicago and then choose to spend his time worrying about adult sex ads? — the…ruling is crucial for protecting free speech rights generally.  That’s because corrupt public officials have realized that they can abuse their power to pressure corporations to “suffocate” private actors whom they dislike but who are breaking no laws.  The most notorious, most dangerous case was in late 2010, when Joe Lieberman blatantly abused his power as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to implicitly threaten and coerce companies like Amazon to terminate website hosting and payment processing services to WikiLeaks…That quickly led other companies, including Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America and PayPal, to terminate credit card processing for the group, driving them close to bankruptcy.  In other words, Joe Lieberman almost completely destroyed a media and political organization group he disliked not through prosecution but with nothing more than thuggish threats to the companies that serviced it…This new ruling…highlights how dangerous such extra-judicial pressure campaigns can be, and makes them much more difficult by clearly ruling them to be unconstitutional…

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Fallen Idol

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , on December 4, 2015| 18 Comments »

That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks.  –  Stoya

It’s easy for those of us who live in, frequent or even occasionally visit the demimonde to forget that well-known names and “front-page” news in our circles may barely even register on the radar of society at large.  Because of that, and the fact that I get a lot of “crossover” traffic, I think it’s important that I report stories of that sort even when I’m behind the curve by days; one good aspect of the lag time is that it allows me to pick up on details, developments and nuances before actually committing myself to an opinion in writing.

James DeenWith all that in mind, here are a few facts of which most of you probably know some, and some of you probably know all, and a few of you may know none:  James Deen is a porn star who has for some time now been very popular with women for his boyish good looks and charming manner.  Though he’s done many movies featuring rough sex, BDSM and rape, he was a favorite of many sex-positive feminists for his public statements about consent and other feminist issues, and though he has not publicly identified as a “feminist” many others have certainly applied the label to him.  Then last Saturday, his ex-girlfriend, the porn actress Stoya, accused him of having raped her; another ex-girlfriend, Joanna Angel, supported Stoya, tweeting that Deen was “dead on the inside” and “literally the worst person I’ve ever met” (though she declined to say more until Wednesday).  By Monday two other actresses had revealed similar incidents (one sexual assault and one attempted rape), and by Wednesday two more came forward to explain that on-camera rough sex scenes with Deen were actually rape.  In the meantime, many sex workers had expressed solidarity with Stoya, and some had sided with Deen against his accusers (weirdly expressing sanctimonious bullshit about the law, as though US law ever treats sex workers fairly or reasonably); several video companies and websites severed ties with him, and he resigned from the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee.

Naturally, neofeminist vultures like Meghan Murphy descended with lightning speed to blame porn for Deen’s actions, or even worse to claim that there’s no moral difference between rape and consensual sex work…eerily echoing the misogynistic “defense” offered by the vile Jonathan “War Machine” Koppenhaver.  Those of you who wonder why none of Deen’s victims ever came forward before Stoya did should consider these anti-whore obscenities before verbalizing your doubts; if you think they’re lying or exaggerating simply because they never said anything before, then you had better be ready to tar me with the same brush because I never reported any of my rapes or attempted rapes, either.  Sex workers (or even those merely accused of being sex workers, as was my case the first time) who admit to having been raped must not only endure the typical gauntlet of accusations, shaming and victim-blaming all rape victims must run; in addition, we are subjected to extra tortures from moralists claiming that we “invite” rape or “place ourselves in harm’s way” or “deserve” it, or neofeminists saying that there’s no difference between our normal work and rape anyhow, or even claiming that our work contributes to the supposed “rape culture” that they blame for the actions of individuals.  Moral retards like the aforementioned Murphy are only too happy to use our personal tragedies as ammunition in their assault on our livelihoods; is it any wonder we stay quiet?  Would you report a workplace injury or even an attack by a co-worker if you knew lunatics would use it in an attempt to shut down your entire profession, an attempt which might result in your arrest and prosecution for felonies?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  I didn’t even say anything to the others in the same hotel suite for fear of ruining my sisters’ chance to make a lot of money;  I would imagine some of Deen’s victims had similar thoughts when they decided not to say anything about one of the most popular male performers in porn.

Duke University CrestI’m fully aware that I’m biased in favor of other women, especially other whores, when I hear about a reported rape or assault; when Crystal Mangum accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape in ’06, I instantly believed her and, had I been writing this blog then, would almost certainly have said so in print.  It’s because of the Duke case and others like it that I am a little warier than I used to be, and obviously I would never support state violence or prosecutorial railroading (a la Mike Nifong) of Deen.  But when five of my whore sisters all risk censure, shaming, and potential career damage to expose a malefactor, you bet I’m going to side with them.  And if after reading this column you still can’t understand that, I suggest you do sex work for a few years and then get back to me about it.

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Sauce for the Goose

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

My girlfriend of 10 years was an escort before she met me, and didn’t hide that from me when we got together.  I didn’t bother me because it was in the past, but now she’s working again and I’m having a hard time with it.  I feel she enjoys some of the calls, and I worry that I won’t be able to live up to those experiences; I also feel like sex isn’t as special for her as it is for me.  It’s harder to date an escort then I imagined!  Can you please give any advice or feedback?  I do love her and we have a son together; I just need some advice from a woman who has lived it.

goose gander sauceShe probably does enjoy some of her sessions.  Would you prefer she didn’t?  I understand you’re feeling insecure about this, but seriously consider what I’m asking you here:  Do you want her not to enjoy her job?  And if you don’t, is merely not enjoying enough?  Does she need to be entirely miserable the whole time for you to feel secure?  I get that men are competitive creatures, and that y’all want to turn everything into a pissing contest, but the fact of the matter is that it’s very unlikely that you have the biggest cock she’s ever encountered, or that you’re the most technically competent lover she ever had, or that you “live up” to her most exciting scene every time y’all fall into bed.  But remember, she had all these experiences before she met you and yet she chose you anyway.  As I explained to a female reader almost six months ago (in a situation where the shoe was on the other foot),

The inconvenient fact is that sexual desire isn’t directly linked to emotional connection; at the beginning of a relationship they usually are, but in the majority of cases it doesn’t stay that way for more than a few years.  Every woman would like to believe she’ll always be the one her husband is most sexually attracted to, but that’s not usually the way it happens; the attraction which inspired him to choose her as his primary partner is emotional and/or spiritual, and may grow stronger even as his lust for her weakens with time and familiarity.  Really, there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s why many an elderly man still deeply loves his wife long after her physical charms have faded.  In short, it’s entirely possible that your man may find another woman he finds more sexually attractive than you, but it’s highly unlikely that would in and of itself present any serious threat to your bond with him.

That sauce serves as well for the gander as for the goose:  it is highly likely that your lady chose you for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with sex, and that bond will still exist even if she’s getting a lot better sex from her clients than most escorts do (which I can assure you is highly unlikely).  As my wasband Matt pointed out in his interview over four years ago, she’s no more likely to fall for someone she meets at work than she would be if she worked in any other job; in fact, because sex isn’t all that and a bag of chips to whores, we are dramatically less likely to stray, and if we do it certainly ain’t going to be for a stupid-ass reason like “I had an hour of good sex with some dude I don’t actually know”.

(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 (#592)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2015| 11 Comments »

Someday we may look back at this era the way we now think about (alcohol) Prohibition: a failed experiment that was indefensible in principle.  –  Douglas HusakWar Machine

Rough Trade 

How are there actually still attorneys clueless enough to use this “defense”?

The mixed martial arts fighter who calls himself War Machine said in court…that it would be impossible for him to have raped his ex-girlfriend because she was a porn star.  He then went on to blow an “offensive” kiss to Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Bluth…the nonsensical defense ploy which War Machine — born Jonathan Koppenhaver — used during his trial [was in answer to]…34 criminal counts ranging from sexual assault to attempted murder…Christy Mack…was left with “a blowout fracture of her left eye and several other broken bones in her face, two missing teeth, a lacerated liver, broken ribs and serious bruising in several places” after the attack…defense attorney Brandon Sua said that Mackinday’s career in adult films constituted consent and that her job instilled in her “the desire, the preference, the acceptability towards a particular form of sex activities that were outside of the norm.”  The sexual assaults Mackinday charges Koppenhaver with, said Sua, were a consensual part of their relationship…Judge Elissa Cadish told Sua that she failed to see how a person’s choice of profession could determine their constant and ongoing consent to sex…

Think of the Children! 

If prohibitionists really want to “rescue” sex workers, why do they keep stopping us from making money in other jobs?

A federal appeals court has ruled against a former porn star turned math tutor, saying he doesn’t have a free speech right to hang a sign advertising his tutoring business at three [Florida] schools…David Mech paid $1,750 to advertise his “Happy/Fun Math Tutor” business in 2010, but the School District of Palm Beach County removed the signs in 2013 after learning that Mech was a porn star who acted under the name Dave Pounder…the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision that the signs are not considered free speech, but “government speech”…Since the banners were hung on school fences, the court opined that government property is “often closely identified in the public mind with the government unit that owns the land”…

Coming and Going

One of the most aggressive campaigns of sex worker persecution in the entire US gets even worse:

In roughly six weeks following Houston Police Department’s Vice Division’s announcement that it was changing its tactics for policing prostitution in the city, 30 individuals have been arrested and charged with felony prostitution.  Almost 100 more have been handed misdemeanor charges.  Several others have been charged with promotion of prostitution…[vice pig] Dan Harris…described a new [tactic for harassing sex workers by charging them with more serious crimes.  He described this as] “Let’s work smarter, not harder”…

Law of the Instrument

Rescue industry & “authorities” invent a ludicrously-broad definition of “sex trafficking”, spread panic over it, then pretend it means something when people claim to see it everywhere:

So far this year, the [Connecticut] department [of Children and Families] has received more than 80 referrals of possible victims of human trafficking in the state, said Tammy Sneed…“There is a direct correlation with an increase in training and an increase in referrals,” Sneed said, referring to the amount of training now available for law enforcement agencies to identify victims of sex trafficking…

Don’t Take My Word For It

It’s good to see more in the media on the reality of male sex work:

Christopher said prostitution wasn’t a career he dreamt of pursuing as a child but that it was a decision he wasn’t ashamed of making.  “A lot of people…think sex workers are all drug addicts or messed up people, but a lot of us just do it because we get satisfaction out of the work and make good money while doing it…I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and I’ll keep doing it as along as people keep booking me.”  He said there was less demand for male sex workers than women but that the industry was easier on men.  “I think it’s even easier for male sex workers than women because there’s less stigma and its more of an even playing field in terms of strength so you’re less likely to be taken advantage of…I’ve never been attacked or robbed or anything like that.  Women sex workers have always been visible…but…now [men are] out and proud all over the internet and just as accessible and visible”…

Change a Few Words

I think it’s a serious moral wrong to send people to prison for the recreational use of drugs…What we need is a total decriminalization of drug use…Everyone agrees it is seriously unjust to punish people in the absence of very good reasons to do so…it’s wrong to punish people just to get them not to do something bad.  That principle would allow us to punish overeating, smoking, failing to exercise, and lots of other activities that virtually no one proposes to punish.  Most crimes we punish (murder, rape, robbery) do serious harm to other people.  Almost all people who do drugs at most harm only themselves…We should not subject tens of millions of Americans to punishment because of bad effects that materialize in only a small subset of cases.  In addition, threats of punishments don’t do much to deter drug use.  Most drug users don’t believe they’ll be caught, and they are right…longitudinal studies indicate that health and life expectancy of the roughly half of all Americans who have used drugs (with the exception of tobacco) is virtually identical to that of the half of Americans who have not…the consequences of punishment are worse than whatever harm the drugs are likely to have caused…

Profit from Panic sex trafficking T shirt

Is Rand Paul still claiming to be a kind of libertarian?

During this holiday season, we are undertaking a modest effort to raise awareness and money to fight human trafficking.  We worked with a gifted designer to create a simple but elegant t-shirt that brings home a message of hope…the sale is supporting survivors of human trafficking in two ways:  first, the campaign will donate its share of every shirt purchase to Braking Traffik, a charity that protects women…from human trafficking.  Second, the campaign is partnering with To The Market…to source a limited supply of these t-shirts from a factory that employs women formerly trapped in sex slavery and gives them a new life…

Under Every Bed 

I picture this dysphemism-spewing idiot as shouting in a kind of fit, spraying spittle everywhere:

…Alabama is a nexus for the [sex] trade…the highly organized pipeline…connection to the ring [is] horrendous…The victims were referred to and marketed like meat…[pogroms are] a much needed salvo to combat an evil that simmers, mostly invisibly, beneath the surface of civilized life.  Sex trafficking entraps as many as 200,000 victims nationwide at any time. Atlanta’s interstate corridors make the Southeast, including Alabama, prime real estate for traffickers…Obvious gaps that must be addressed include tougher laws to attack sex-trafficking crimes from the “demand” side – meaning harsher penalties for johns who solicit sex.  For starters, solicitation of a prostitute should be a felony charge, not just a misdemeanor.  Requiring that convicted johns register as sex offenders would also discourage demand…young victims can escape the trafficking hellhole…

On second though, maybe the body fluid he’s spraying isn’t spittle.

Shame, Shame

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is preparing for an en banc hearing on whether there is a privacy interest inherent in mugshots, or whether they are simply public records that can be obtained with an FOIA request.  For the most part, mugshots have been considered public records. This has led to a shady mugshot-posting cottage industry, as well as an equally-shady mugshot-removal cottage industry…Despite the nation’s justice system being built on the presumption of innocence, a large percentage of the population views “arrested and charged” as being no different than “found guilty.”  (Federal law enforcement databases — used for background checks — reinforce this perception by entering arrested persons’ info when booking, but routinely failing to remove it when charges are dropped or the person is found innocent)…this case involves a federal law enforcement agency and the indictment of three local [cops]…the [DOJ’s]…ultimate goal is to obtain the final say on the release of booking photos via a wholly internal process…Siding with members of the public who have been tarnished by this guilt-by-association also means siding with an agency seeking yet another way to withhold public records from the public.  Siding with the Detroit Free Press means…allowing a whole host of dubious “entrepreneurs” to use public perception against private citizens to extract fees for the removal of booking info…

Social Autoimmune Disorder (#347)

The EFF steps up to do the ACLU’s job:

A Los Angeles City Hall proposal to send “john letters” to the owners of cars seen in areas known for prostitution has drawn criticism from a California civil liberties group…The letters would be written to discourage those who were soliciting prostitutes from returning to the area while posing no harm to those who were there for legitimate reasons, Councilwoman Nury Martinez [pretended]…The collection of license plate data is opposed by the…Electronic Frontier Foundation…[which] has an ongoing lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over the issue…other cities have used “john letters” to combat prostitution.  In some communities, residents are encouraged to [snitch]…Some [badge-lickers] praised the proposal in Los Angeles…

Drawing Lines 

It’s so nice to see this from the other side of that imaginary line:

…we vintage enthusiasts have a problem:  We often celebrate imagery created by sex workers of old, while stigmatizing…the sex workers of today…we’re building this community…on the backs of women whom we then nakedly disclaim.  I’m unsettled by the preponderance of pinup photographers who yearn for a time “when sexy was classy,” of dancers who assure us that burlesque is “an art form […] it’s not sleazy“, and of vintage enthusiasts who congratulate us on looking “so cute, and not at all slutty” (as I’ve been told on more than one occasion). These types of statements are simultaneously whorephobic   …and gratingly ahistorical.  No, Bettie Page and co. weren’t “classy” sex workers.  They were sex workers, full stop.  I’ve seen many a modern pinup reap the benefits of blushing “tee-hee” sexuality without acknowledging its origins in the “filthy whores” before her.  Because that’s what Bettie and Mae and Marilyn were, in the eye of much of the public.  Marilyn Monroe posed fully nude.  Bettie Page made fetish porn.  Mae West was arrested and imprisoned for an “indecent” Broadway play.  Bikini model Kiki Hakansson was condemned by the Pope himself.  Even the red lipstick endemic to today’s pinup girls was once the domain of the harlot…

Feminine Pragmatism (#553) 

Young Greek women are selling sex for the price of a sandwich as six years of painful austerity have pushed the European country to the financial brink…a new study…which compiled data on more than 17,000 sex workers operating in Greece, found that…sex on sale in Greece is some of the cheapest…in Europe…when the economic crisis began…the going rate…was 50 euros ($53)…now, it’s fallen to as low as two euros ($2.12) for a 30-minute session…

What Were You All Waiting For? 

Since universities have been hotbeds of neofeminism, this could be a huge development if more schools follow suit:

On Wednesday 25th November, Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) passed…a motion…resolving “to support and campaign for the full decriminalisation of sex work” and “campaign against any attempt to introduce the Nordic model”…The motion…also included a resolution “to campaign particularly for the rights of student sex workers”…as well as offer support to any student who comes out privately as a sex worker…the…motion…comes off the back of a move by Amnesty International…to urge decriminalisation of prostitution worldwide…

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