If I felt anything like the kind of near-constant desire men feel, I’d ask my gynecologist if there was anything we could do about it without ruining my looks. – “Borrowing Trouble”
I’m never sure which essays will turn into often-used subtitles in future news columns, but this month had two of them: “Buttons, Bags & Banknotes” and “Paint By Numbers“. It also featured one of my favorites of my own stories, the grisly and haunting “Rose“. The month’s harlotography was “Jane Shore“, its guest column was by Aspasia Bonasera, and it had a holiday (Mabon) and two special occasions: Friday the Thirteenth and Banned Books Week (led off by “Crippling Thought“). The Q&A columns were “Utopia“, “Convolution“, “New Kid on the Block” and “Borrowing Trouble“, and the other Cliterati reprint beside “Buttons” was “Pride Goeth“. “Denunciation” and “Just Call Me Nobody” both discussed the way people reject uncomfortable ideas by pretending those who represent those ideas are not like them; “Fever Dream” presented an extreme example of “sex trafficking” hysteria, while “Building a Current” demonstrates how challenges to that narrative are becoming more common. Finally, I looked at Korean courtesans in “The Kisaeng“, at American sheriffs in “Little Tin Gods“, and at the bizarre behavior of my friend Brooke Magnanti’s ex in “Diary of a Sad Man“.
I was approached for a date by a man who seemed to me as though he might be below 18. My gut instinct was not to accept the date, so to salve the pain of rejection, I tried to explain why we don’t see under 18. He became very angry and said he was disabled, but judging by the way he sounded, I believe it was a mental disability rather than a physical one. It feels kinda shitty to reject him for that, but if I saw him I wouldn’t feel right. Are the consent issues with a mentally disabled adult the same as when a party is underage?
Whether he was under 18 or a mentally disabled adult, you were probably right to reject the date. Our culture is, alas, in the midst of a new Victorian Era, in which there is tremendous cultural anxiety about sex. And while it used to be not at all unusual for a young man in his late teens to be initiated by a sex worker, now that would be viewed as “sexual abuse” even if he’s above the local age of consent, due to the magical corrupting power of money. If his parents should find out and extract your contact information from him, you could be in very hot water indeed. Even if he could prove to you that he’s over 18, you’d have to carefully examine the circumstances: does he lives alone and manage his own finances, etc? If so, it would probably be fine, though obviously you’d have to decide for yourself whether you’re comfortable dealing with the special difficulties such a client might present. But if he lives at home and/or has some kind of guardian, he’d be considered a “vulnerable adult”, and you could potentially be viewed by the law as “exploiting” him just as though he were under 18. While it’s true that we’re all viewed as criminals by US law anyhow, it’s not really a good idea to turn a misdemeanor into a felony, nor to compound that felony. And when sex is involved, the mass hysteria that currently grips our culture will make sure that your life is completely destroyed if you’re found out. It’s sad if you can’t help someone who might be desperately in need of human contact, but there are some things that are just too risky, and I think this is one of them.
“It started with myself and my wife…watching the movie Taken“…[said] James Bartle, founder of Outland Denim…”We spent the next few years bringing girls in and training them…We started as a not for profit business and we were able to grow to five girls, but we then realised it was nearly impossible to get beyond that, so we changed our model to a profit for purpose business…Since then we have grown to having 29 local seamstresses over there and two other Cambodian staff”…
A court in Rome has handed down an unusual penalty to the client of an underage prostitute, ordering him to buy her 30 books on the theme of women’s dignity…including novels by Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank’s diary and the poems of Emily Dickinson…Judge Paola Di Nicola [was apparently annoyed that]…the teenager…used [her earnings] to “buy new clothes and the latest mobile phones”…“the judge favoured a remedy that would [convince] the young girl to [believe] the real ‘damage’ that she had suffered was damage to her dignity as a woman”…
I’m not going to try to quote any of this massive garbage fire, an accumulation of most of the currently-popular myths and bogus “statistics” on “sex trafficking”, every one of which has been repeatedly debunked. But given that this website belongs to the National Conference of State Legislatures, i.e. a collusion of money-grubbing, power-hungry politicians from every state in the US, that is hardly surprising; lies are a proven way to shore up prohibitionist police-state regimes.
Lahore…is housing at least 1,906 “safe heavens” [sic] in the three categories of crime, posing a potential threat to the peace…Of them, 1,123 dens deal in drug selling, 318 in prostitution and 465 in gambling…a senior police official…said the consolidated data on the hateful crime surfaced for the first time…a non-stop crackdown under a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy towards these notorious crimes would help bring peace to the city…Similarly, out of total 330 hate spots, the Saddar Division is housing 47 gambling, 78 prostitution and 205 drug selling dens…
…Anjelique…[is a] troubled 12-year-old…[who ran] away from home…Police ended up finding Anjelique but they didn’t bring her back to her mother. Instead they dropped her off at Alameda County Social Services’ assessment center in Hayward…Anjelique made friends with a teenage girl…who took her to a nearby motel…where the family says she first got lured into the sex-trafficking pipeline…even though the county keeps the assessment center’s location a secret, pimps know exactly where it is and could potentially use children inside to recruit others…Anjelique’s grandmother is convinced exploiters are lurking in the shadows. “So you think there are pimps that are waiting outside the assessment center?” we asked her…
This would be hilarious if it weren’t being used as an excuse to destroy lives.
A joint investigation into human trafficking in Ocean City [New Jersey] concluded…with three [simple] prostitution arrests…[cops stole] over 270 Baggies of heroin…a small amount of marijuana, $350 in currency, a 2011 Honda Odyssey mini-van, five cell phones and a police-style baton…Each of the suspects was offered victim services…
…With Bill C-36 now law, sex workers are struggling…customers are pushing for more incall services at more private locations to avoid police detection. More than 75 per cent of the inquiries I now receive want to meet at my home…I’m considering forsaking my safety in order to pay the bills. In recent months I’ve broken my own rule about never meeting a client in an 18-wheeler truck…The rationale behind the criminalization of clients seems to be that causing clients to feel bad about purchasing sex will deter their desires and end sex work. It doesn’t work that way. It only makes sex workers and clients more creative as we both try to find ways to not get caught…
German politicians have approved a law making it illegal to have sex with prostitutes without using a condom, among other regulations on the sex trade…Anyone attempting to open a commercial premises for prostitution will undergo checks attempting to crack down on the involvement of gangs, traffickers and criminals…Prostitutes must also register with local authorities, gaining a certificate that must be renewed every two years, and attend an annual health “advice” session…
In other words, the number of whores working illegally will skyrocket as soon as this goes into effect; no licensing regime in the world has higher than a 10% compliance rate.
Cook County’s Tom Dart, the prostitution-obsessed sheriff…has found a new way to threaten people’s privacy, screw over sex workers, and grow the police state. The latest Dart-led initiative involves creating a national database of prostitution customers, using solicitation-arrest data submitted by cops through a phone app. Demand Abolition…reported on Sheriff Dart’s new plot in a late-August post crowing that “1,300 sex buyers—a record—were arrested across 18 states in just one month” of Dart’s National John Suppression Initiative. Now, the sheriff is using data from that sting to start a national database of people arrested for soliciting prostitution. You know, for research purposes…This is thanks to a new app that streamlines the logging of prostitution arrest information….developed at a January “social justice hackathon”, in which a hundred or so techies were presided over by a team of anti-prostitution zealots from across the country…During the last John Suppression Initiative, cops logged info from 80 percent of all arrests into the database…
As I looked through the press-kit Lelo sent me, I was faced with a distressing image. An animated GIF of a stretched-out Hex being repeatedly poked with a pin. Lelo was showcasing a feature of their new condom, which was still latex by the way, that you could poke a hole in it without breaking the it in any noticeable way. Read that again. This is an advertised design feature…While it sucks to have a condom break, the way in which they break acts as, whether intentionally or not, a red flag system. The shattering of the condom means you know that your barrier has failed and that you now need to take steps to address the situation- emergency contraception, STI testing, post-exposure STI prophylaxis…whatever an instance of exposure means to you. The manner in which Hex fails, however, means the sex act can be completed and there be no sign that there was a breach of security…
This past spring I was cornered in the parking lot of the Whole Foods on Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Metairie by two [cops]. They said they’d received a 911 call from an anonymous caller who — after observing my father and me eating breakfast biscuits at the Chick-fil-A up the street and then watching as I was dropped off in front of the Whole Foods several miles down the road (yeah, he had followed us) — somehow surmised I was a part of a prostitution/sex-trafficking ring…The…stalker…I mean, caller…had also identified my father and some guy parked nearby, whose license plates he had taken time to record, as a part of the suspected ring…Consequently, the three of us spent the next 20 to 30 minutes standing in the parking lot with…five surrounding police cars…waiting to be cleared from any salacious, solicitous, unwholesome “ho-dom,” all the while wondering how three people grocery shopping at Whole Foods could have induced such an “unsolicited,” inconvenient misunderstanding…
Last week was definitely an improvement over the one before. Besides a meeting between several activists (including myself) and a potential ally who could prove very important, and the lovely couple call I enjoyed very much (Hi y’all! Looking forward to seeing y’all again soon!), after which this selfie was taken, it was the beginning of autumn, and as long-time readers know that always improves my mood. I’m an autumnal sort of gal; I like the days short and chilly, the leaves a riot of color and the nights filled with warm beverages and savory scents. Long, bright, warm days take a toll on my highly-strung nervous system and tend to make me tense and anxious, but when the external sky and landscape match the gloomy October Country inside my skull and my soul, I feel at home and at peace. People have often remarked that I seem to come alive more in the autumn; maybe that’s true, or maybe it’s just because I match the scenery better then. But whatever the explanation, there’s no doubt that it’s my natural habitat, and the season in which my natural aura is at its most powerful and intense. I’m no longer at a place in life where I can dance through the dry leaves under a harvest moon as I did in my youth, but I like to think that the autumn steps in the dance of my life are still among the most graceful and beautiful.
Our civilisation cannot afford to let the censor-moron loose. The censor-moron does not really hate anything but the living and growing human consciousness. – D.H. Lawrence
Every year, the last week of September is designated as “Banned Books Week“; the name seems to imply the kind of top-down state censorship which was at one time very common even in the US, and is still common in many countries we generally think of as advanced ones with Western values. But this kind of censorship is very rare now in the United States, and has been for decades; the majority of “challenges” now (despite the celebration’s name, it’s pretty rare that books are actually removed from public collections) originate not with state officials or other “authorities”, but with individuals seeking to “protect the children” from thoughts their parents don’t want them to have. Nor are those thoughts only sexual ones any more, though obviously those are still the most common reason; nowadays, demands that books be burned controlled are just as likely to come from soi-disant “progressives” as from cultural conservatives, and the reasons may include “racism”, “sexism”, “religious viewpoint”, “violence” and so on.
In a way, the name “Banned Books Week” is far too narrow to encompass everything we should be talking about, and a week is far too limited a time to be talking about it. As I wrote above, “banned” implies a top-down regime, while in reality the majority of censorship now is the result of morons trying to self-lobotomize our entire culture; the word also implies a governmental action, when in reality the rise of social media and mega-media corporations has resulted in a de facto delegation of the censorship authority to them. And if you’re tempted to suggest that this isn’t as bad, I suggest you ask yourself how much distribution your book will get if Amazon & Wal-mart refuse to stock it and Google monkeys with your search results to make it difficult to find. Furthermore, “books”, as much as I love them, are now only a tiny fraction of the ways information can be shared; people who would balk at the idea of censoring actual paper books suddenly feel very differently when the conversation turns to magazines, or movies, or pictures, or music, or video games, or public lectures, or articles, or blogs, or other social media postings, or (most especially) advertising. The same “right-thinking” folks who would march in protest if a school library declined to stock And Tango Makes Three grow strangely silent when Twitter bans a member’s account for “hate speech”, and may even be willing to march in support of censoring escort ads on Backpage. As I wrote last year,
We are living in the past of Fahrenheit 451, the early stages of a culture which values feelings above thought, the history of a world in which the solution to any troubling idea is to eradicate it. Right now it’s going on in the universities, where sheltered young people who have been coddled by overprotective parents for two decades are declaring themselves to be “triggered” or “offended” or even “violated” by ideas – whether spoken or in print – that they haven’t encountered before, or that contradict their opinions, or that they find unpleasant, or that bear some superficial resemblance to any of the preceding. Just as their parents “protected” them from these unpleasant thoughts by banning them from their homes with internet filters or “parental controls”, so they feel entitled to “protect” themselves – and every other person within their sphere of influence – from those bad, icky ideas by banning them…
The censor-morons are loose, and they’re coming after everyone who dares to disagree with them. And the only way to stop them is to oppose every attempt to limit the free expression of ideas, even if you disagree with them or find them offensive. Correction: especially if you find them offensive. Because as always, tyranny starts with those nobody really wants to defend.
We’re not gonna let her go until she’s released to a parent or guardian…If we let her go and she goes around the corner and has an aneurism and dies, that’s on us. – Paul Kifer
Once in a while, instead of a full video, I feature a GIF or Vine because it’s just too good to pass up; I got this one from Nun Ya (who also provided “recorded”) and it’s horrifyingly hilarious and weirdly fascinating. The links above it are from Robert King (“Unheimlichkeit”), Walter Olson (“wrong”), Jesse Walker (“ghost”), Rick Horowitz (“reading” and “stalled”), Lenore Skenazy (“bullied”), Emma Evans (“business”), Popehat (“car”), and Scott Greenfield (“schools”).
The New Mexico State Fair draws a huge crowd each year, but Street Safe New Mexico knows it’s not all about fun and games. “You notice during the state fair, there’s new girls out here, right?” Executive Director Christine Barber said. “They’re being brought in by the gangs and being forced to work…(The victims are) 15, 16 years old to anything older…I met a lady yesterday who was 47.” The group says the victims’ pimps like to use the state fair as a hunting ground for willing johns…”Forty-two percent of them are beaten every single day by their pimps or their sex traffickers”…
Coincidentally, 42% of all “sex trafficking” statistics are made up on the spot, and 100% of them are bullshit.
Since last December, activists have gathered monthly in front of St. André Bessette Parish in Northwest Portland in silent witness to the horror of human trafficking…Called modern slavery, it’s just one of the present attacks on the dignity of human life…Among them are abortion, euthanasia, cloning, the destruction of human embryos, genocide, torture, and the direct and intentional targeting of noncombatants in war or terrorist attacks…
I’m not sure it’s proper to use the term ACTIVist for someone who literally stands around, doing and saying nothing.
Just five days ago I wrote about a Black trans woman named T.T. who was viciously murdered in Chicago…Now, a…Black trans woman [named] Crystal Edmonds has been shot in the back of the head and murdered in Baltimore. She’s the 21st trans person that we know of who has been murdered in the United States this year…Police say…they have no suspects and very few leads…[but] reports are saying that people in the neighborhood are complaining about sex workers in their area, which makes me even more worried that this case will not be given the attention it deserves…
Fifty people in teams of five…[followed] clues through various historic landmarks [in Lexington, Kentucky]…to raise money to help women..caught up in the human trafficking industry. Participants raised money to support “Un-Shackled By Love Ministries”…the first group of women to join the program will stay for four months where they will receive counseling. Eventually they will move on to a facility in Lexington the ministry [has not actually opened yet]…
Denise Charlton of the Turn Off the Red Light Campaign…claimed the [new Swedish model] legislation [in Ireland] would protect sex workers by decriminalising them. Does the bill really do that? A group called Ugly Mugs, which facilitates information-sharing between sex workers, argues that the claim is false, and brought it to our attention on Twitter. Claim: The new Sexual Offences Bill would decriminalise sex workers Verdict:Mostly FALSE
The new bill would decriminalise public solicitation by sex workers, but…
It would retain the criminalisation of loitering by sex workers, and increase the penalties for it
It would retain the effective criminalisation of sex workers, under a provision on brothels, and increase the penalties for it.
…Operation Underground Railroad…was founded by self-proclaimed “Man of God,” former CIA and Homeland Security official Tim Bollard…The organization receives allocated funding…and makes contact with local law enforcement. An elaborate sting follows…All this is filmed so the [backer]…can watch, in real time and from the comfort of his or her office or home…From the perspective of a victim’s right to privacy, such actions are reprehensible…from a criminal justice perspective, there are even more pressing concerns…Why are police in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Colombia not arresting child sex traffickers if they are so easy to find?…Why is OUR not…raiding the brothels of Amsterdam or London?…Bollard and his rag-tag team would be arrested on the spot. And any court in any [developed nation] would not hesitate to throw out a case that rests on the evidence of an OUR-type raid because of the failure to meet even the most basic standards of supervision and accountability. It’s no surprise that the organization and its fellow travellers limit their activities to countries burdened by dysfunctional criminal justice systems that…in response to pressure from the U.S. government…agree to cooperate…Bollard’s operations say much about the man: they are arrogant, unethical and illegal.
Security attempted to escort a lesbian woman…out of toilets at a music venue after because they thought she was a man. Mary Looper was at a Carrie Underwood concert with her aunt when security attempted to escort her out of the women’s restroom. A female security officer stood outside Looper’s stall demanding…proof she was a woman…She took to Facebook to share her dismay…
My friend Mistress Matisse has been applying her indomitable (see what I did there?) efforts to support SWOP Behind Bars, most recently by talking about them on Dan Savage’s Savage Love podcast. Go have a listen! And if you haven’t yet sent a book to one of the incarcerated sex workers in the program, hie thee thither and do so posthaste!
…Ingeborg Kraus, a [prohibitionist who pretends that]…Germany decriminalized the sex industry…[claims that legalization there has] fuelled human trafficking [and lies that literally]…”No German woman will work in those conditions anymore”…[pervert cop Simon Haggstrom pretends that] Sweden…decriminalize[d] the sale of sex…[fantasizes about a] connection between prostitution and organized crime…[and lies that sex workers who demand our rights] are a small minority within the sex industry…
My name is Rick Pettit, and I am a client of sex workers. I am in my 60s, divorced, and unattached. I run my own moderately-unsuccessful service business in a small town in New England. I’m just an ordinary person…not particularly well-off financially, and certainly not a hub of criminal activity. I am well-liked by my customers and in my town. I am NOT a “pervert”…I do NOT abuse the women I spend time with. Most importantly, I DO NOT “BUY” ANYONE’S BODY. (There’s not enough room in my closet)…
Courage Worldwide said today that after the appeal process…the organization is in good standing with state regulators and plans to rehire and train new staff to reopen Courage House immediately…“We are gratified that the state has…agreed cell phones pose a real danger to the girls in our care since they link these vulnerable children back to the people who trafficked them. The cell phone is the preferred mechanism of the trafficker to market and sell under-age girls on the internet”…
Almost a month ago, I featured the story of yet another “rescue” scam shut down. But as sometimes happens in such cases, the con artist behind it refused to cut her losses and move on; instead, she’s decided to fight to keep the gravy train coming in. And it appears that her motivation is not solely monetary, though given her hefty salary that’s obviously a large part of it; no, it seems that a large portion of what’s driving this is a sick need to control other people without their consent. The unsinkable Liz Brown tells it like this:
Once girls arrived at the house, they were expected to hand over their cellphones. Internet access was also strictly limited—Jenny’s rules. For “her girls” to stay in good graces, they were expected to do as she said, go where she told them to, and be available when she wanted to show them off in photos or at events. It’s the kind of controlling, exploitative situation police warn us that runaway teens are likely to end up in at the hands of…traffickers. But in this case, control came via the people ostensibly helping…under the auspices of an organization called Courage Worldwide…founded in 2011 by Jenny T. Williamson (on direct orders from God, or so she claims)…the girls were supposed to be able to heal in comfort and privacy. Instead, they found themselves cut off from the outside world, with services and staff lacking (one former employee said she was told there was only money for two of the six girls per month to see a psychiatrist), while being subjected to the invasive publicity demands of Williamson…”who micromanaged her trained staff and…frequently…fired [staff] for raising questions about ‘the vision’“…Williamson acted more like the proverbial controlling pimp or madam than someone truly dedicated to helping exploited teenagers…the people who “rescued” them are employing the same sort of isolating and controlling techniques they [supposedly] escaped, treating them more like Courage Worldwide products than people, and publicizing their images and past horror stories to the whole community. DeAnne Brining, a licensed therapist who had contracted with Courage House, described the situation as “abusive” and said Williamson routinely “paraded the girls around” for marketing purposes…
It seems like Williamson’s greed may have been more an extension of her narcissism and control-freakishness than a specimen of garden-variety avarice:
…For her work as CEO of the nonprofit, Williamson paid herself $115,000 in 2015…The group reported net assets of $1.4 million that year. In addition to accepting donations from numerous local businesses, it received about $9,100 in government support per month per girl it took in……[yet] services and staff [were] lacking (one former employee said she was told there was only money for two of the six girls per month to see a psychiatrist)…”state inspections that found numerous violations, including inadequate staffing levels and no current administrator“…Courage Worldwide’s website still touts the organization’s expansion plan, which includes opening 10 new cottages for underage [girls labeled as] sex-trafficking victims…
In keeping with her usual thoroughness, Liz doesn’t merely quote and comment upon the original Sacramento Bee expose as I did last month; instead, she also links another commentary on the item from Broadly, quotes Dr. Laura Agustín, reminds readers about arch-fraudsters Somaly Mam and Chong Kim, and calls attention both to Anne Elizabeth Moore’s Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking, and to her report in Truthout on the incredible amount of money taken in by US anti-prostitution organizations. As I mentioned last Friday, I’m incredibly grateful for Liz’s hard work; she and other journalists like Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post have relieved me of the burden of debunking “that up until recently I was conducting almost solo, and have brought…anti-whore bullshit to the attention of far more people than this blog ever could.” But apparently, some other writers on this topic are more concerned with something other than winning the war authoritarians have relentlessly waged against us for over a decade now; how else can one explain a tweet from a fairly well-known journalist (who was a sex worker herself years ago) in which she appears to accuse Liz of near-plagiarism (from Broadly), or at least laziness? Part of this may be due to the fact as one of the (former) sex workers who has a weird and inexplicable attraction to socialism (despite that ideology’s consistent attacks on whores and whoring), the critic I speak of has issues with Reason (despite the fact that she herself has been published there). However, given that Reason has consistently supported sex worker rights for years (and in theory, for its entire existence), while Vice (Broadly‘s parent publication) has been happy to enrich itself by frequently publishing anti-whore propaganda, this makes even less sense than the idea that said critic is simply envious that Brown is doing a better and more consistent job of reporting on sex worker rights than she’s ever done. If we’re going to win this war, we’re going to have to set aside petty jealousies and foolish devotion to pie-in-the-sky ideologies; the only important thing is demolishing criminalization and the edifice of lies that’s been constructed to further it, and absurd criticisms of our strongest warriors only work against that goal.
The apparent path of the sun crossed (or will cross, depending on when you read this) the celestial equator at 14:21 UTC today, marking this as the first day of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and the first of spring in the Southern. Our beautiful Mabon art is by Samantha Candelaria-Ley, daughter of my friend Dr. David Ley (whom I mention often in this blog). I saw him tweet one of her earlier works and I was so impressed I asked if she could do one for me, and as you can see she graciously assented.
The courts, instead of keeping our lawmakers honest, have instead opted to craft ostensibly thoughtful and well-reasoned opinions allowing the legislature to do whatever ridiculous and often horrible things pop into their heads. – Matt Brown
…the International Labor Organization interviewed…sex workers…and local authorities in Vietnam, and strongly suggested that the country do something about the occupational safety and health risks that come with the industry. Most workers had casual jobs before they chose to enter the sex industry, after considering it a better option. Out of the 73 workers surveyed, only one reported to having been deceived into selling sex, but many workers had their movements controlled by employers and some had their identity papers held…According to the workers, conditions would be better in well-maintained, expensive bars, discotheques, spas, massage parlors and restaurants, while brothels and cheap cafés, restaurants, karaoke bars and parlors are dirty and do not guarantee security and safety. However, no matter where they work, there is always the threat of violence and police raids, especially for women working on the streets…
Despite the emphasis on asinine dysphemisms like “resorting to sex work” and “selling their body” [sic], at least this article understands that young people nearly always sell sex out of necessity, and not because they’re abducted by bogeyman “pimps”:
Teenagers in America are resorting to sex work because they cannot afford food, according to a study…by the Urban Institute…Evidence of teenage girls turning to “transactional dating” with older men is likely to cause particular alarm…The consistency of the findings across gender, race and geography was a surprise…Teens would overwhelmingly prefer to earn money through a formal job but prospects for youth employment are extremely limited…
An exposé on the shocking number of girls who continue to be forced into marriage in the United States will air…as part of a two-part special for PBS NewsHour….“This is a story so few know is happening right down their street,” [Gayle] Lemmon [said]…in an email…Among the stories featured will be that of a New Jersey girl named Jada, whose father brought her with him to live in Saudi Arabia. At the age of 12, her father decided to marry her off…he…forced her to walk on his right side while they were together in public — so other Saudi men would know that she was for sale. Apparently, it’s a cultural signal there. Another woman…is Nina, a 33-year-old Michigan woman, who said she was seeking an annulment because she had been married against her will at the age of 19. The case is perhaps the first of its kind in the U.S., and could shape future legal precedent…Nina…talks about [how] sex with her “husband” came to feel like imprisonment and tantamount to rape…
“Right down their street” sounds like something borrowed from “sex trafficking” hysteria, which this whole story resembles. “Apparently, it’s a cultural signal…” “Apparently“? Didn’t y’all bother to fucking find out, like by consulting an expert on Saudi culture? And as for Nina, last I checked, 19 was not considered a “child” anywhere in the US, at least not yet. I’m certainly sympathetic to women who may feel economically trapped in a bad marriage, or feel unable to leave due to threats of violence, but this seems to be conflating adult women with 12-year-old girls, and that’s an extremely dangerous road for self-respecting women to be allowing our culture & media to follow without speaking up.
NYPD brass testified before the…City Council…that it has no idea how much money it [steals] from citizens each year…and an attempt to collect the data would crash its computer systems…NYC councilmember Ritchie Torres introduced legislation this year that would require annual reports from the police department about how much money it [steals], but at Thursday’s hearing, the NYPD said it has no technologically feasible way to track [thefts that were]…not [challenged by the rightful owners in court]…Bronx Defenders…is suing the NYPD for public records on its asset forfeiture program, which rakes in millions in seized cash and property…every year. According to the scant records Bronx Defenders did manage to get back, the NYPD reported more than $6 million in revenue in 2013 from seized cash, forfeitures, and property sold at auction, and it had a balance of more than $68 million in seized currency in any given month of that year…the vast majority of [stolen] assets are simply forfeited…after the…property owner fails to go through the burdensome and Byzantine process of trying to retrieve them by the deadline…
In Arizona, the legislature…decided to definesexual abuse and molestation of a child in such a way that intentionally or knowingly touching the genitals or anus of a child or the breast of a female younger than fifteen is a felony. That should come as no surprise to anyone who is remotely familiar with Arizona, as the one thing the legislature is good at is passing the broadest and most Draconian criminal laws they can imagine…thanks to the Supreme Court of Arizona’s opinion in State v. Holle, the terms of the statute are to be applied literally…the defense that there was no sexual motivation is one the defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence…the court justifies making every parent in Arizona a sex offender tasked with proving his or her innocence should a prosecutor decide to ruin his or her life with charges…
[Boston] is stepping up efforts to shame prostitution customers — including the prospect of sending them off to “john school” to [indoctrinate them in the religion of] human trafficking. It’s all part of a police [fantasy that they can] reduce the online sex trade in the city by 20 percent over the next year…Police are set to receive a $30,000 grant from Demand Abolition…
…in a class-action lawsuit representing…tens of thousands of users, [an] Illinois woman has…[sued] sex-toy company Standard Innovation. She accuses the company, which is based in Ottawa, Canada, of consumer fraud, unjust enrichment, intrusion upon seclusion, and violating the Federal Wiretap Act and the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute…The woman reportedly bought her We-Vibe Rave for $130 in May and proceeded to use it several times before learning via a Defcon hacking convention talk…that her extremely personal usage was being scrutinized for marketing purposes by its maker…the toy can connect to a smartphone for such activities as adjusting vibration type…and intensity…not to mention allowing someone else to be at the controls from afar…
The Boys and Girls Club in Chico [California] was notified…about a suspicious job flyer…Devon Saul says these flyers are raising some serious questions. “For very minimal work it does through [sic] up a red flag to say okay what’s the catch…It promises great pay. 60, 80, 100 dollars a day. Great trips, great gifts and bonuses and things like that”…His concerns were solidified when an outside agency in Tehama County notified then non-profit that this may be a sex trafficking scam…the club decided education on human trafficking was needed for staff…
Actually, it says $60 to $100 a week, which is about $12-$20 a day; not exactly a fortune. But I guess we can’t expect literacy from a man who mixes metaphors so egregiously and thinks that if two people are both hysterical, that “solidifies” their fantasies. And I guess it’s too much to expect these people to actually call the number to investigate what it’s about instead of jumping at their own shadows.
Oakland is…introducing a website…[where busybodies can report] the license plate numbers of suspected johns’ vehicles and describe the specific activity they witnessed. The sightings are uploaded to the police, who will send a letter to the address where the vehicle is registered…The predecessor…was a program called Dear John, introduced in 2013, which allowed residents to fill out a form that they submitted to the police. That program generated more than 300 “Dear John” letters mailed to the owners of the vehicles spotted by residents…[cops pretend that] there had been no signs of false reporting in [that] program…
Another woman raped by cops answers headline: “Almost certainly.”
A woman who was…raped by a [cop] said much of which she recalled from that night was “blurry,” but that at one point she woke up and “he was on top of me”…an acquaintance…[drove] her [home from a bar] because she wasn’t in a condition to drive…[Erich] Fritz pulled the man over…and arrested him for operating while intoxicated…Fritz [then] took her to…a hotel room [and raped her]…
Tina Horn uses the New York Times Magazine cover story as a jumping-off point for an article entitled “10 Reasons Decriminalizing Sex Work Is A Feminist Issue“. And though I think there are much better arguments to be made than most of these, every little bit helps and it’s great to see the number of articles like this one ever increasing.
The men didn’t know that Hillman, the man they had invited into their elite circle, was actually an undercover detective. Law enforcement is beginning to take notice of so-called “John boards” — review sites where customers rate prostitutes. The men busted in this Seattle group earlier this year exposed a secretive world where online sex buyers are treading on a whole new level of criminal behavior…Hillman wrote fake reviews and was invited to join a subgroup that called itself “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”…The League attracted the attention of law enforcement not because its members bought a lot of sex, but because of how they worked together…After six months of undercover surveillance, law enforcement closed in. They busted eight brothels. A dozen Korean women were offered human trafficking victim services and released…
Hillman didn’t write “fake reviews”; he paid and wrote reviews just like the others, which (considering he used the acts to harm us) makes him a serial rapist. And no, those women weren’t “offered” anything, nor were they “released”, because the cops never got their filthy hands on them; they were tipped off and fled. But because that would ruin the narrative of “exploited victims”, this story was invented so the “authorities” could look benevolent to ignoramuses. Also note this story doesn’t bother to mention the ruined lives and the suicide this ham-fisted pogrom left in its ugly wake.
…a lawsuit was filed against the city of Oakland [by] attorneys for Jasmine Abuslin, formerly known as Celeste Guap…her attorneys expect to file similar suits against other jurisdictions involved in this sex scandal. So far, only two [cops] have been formally charged…
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I’m never sure which essays will turn into often-used subtitles in future news columns, but this month had two of them: “Buttons, Bags & Banknotes” and “Paint By Numbers“. It also featured one of my favorites of my own stories, the grisly and haunting “Rose“. The month’s harlotography was “Jane Shore“, its guest column was by Aspasia Bonasera, and it had a holiday (Mabon) and two special occasions: Friday the Thirteenth and Banned Books Week (led off by “Crippling Thought“). The Q&A columns were “Utopia“, “Convolution“, “New Kid on the Block” and “Borrowing Trouble“, and the other Cliterati reprint beside “Buttons” was “Pride Goeth“. “Denunciation” and “Just Call Me Nobody” both discussed the way people reject uncomfortable ideas by pretending those who represent those ideas are not like them; “Fever Dream” presented an 
extreme example of “sex trafficking” hysteria, while “Building a Current” demonstrates how challenges to that narrative are becoming more common. Finally, I looked at Korean courtesans in “The Kisaeng“, at American sheriffs in “Little Tin Gods“, and at the bizarre behavior of my friend Brooke Magnanti’s ex in “Diary of a Sad Man“.
