Since I’m back to actually writing my columns a few days in advance, I wrote last week’s before a weekend which actually turned out to be very lovely. I spent the evening of Saturday the 10th with Abby May, who’s been busy with life the past few months; it was so wonderful to hang out with her, catch up, relax and just enjoy that special energy that exists only between close friends. And I really needed it; that week had been just plain yucchy, so an evening with someone dear to me was just what the doctor ordered. And as it turned out, Abby wasn’t my only medicine for melancholy that weekend; when I took this picture on the afternoon of Sunday the 11th (still a teensy bit hung over, thank you very much) I was only a few hours away from dinner with the beautiful and fascinating Lorelei Rivers, followed by watching musicals on her sofa (last time we got together I shared Jesus Christ Superstar with her, and this time it was her turn to introduce me to Hamilton). The week that followed in the wake of those two joyful, relaxing evenings wasn’t really much better than the one that preceded it, but my head was in a completely different space going into it. And that made all the difference in the world.
Archive for September, 2016
Diary #325
Posted in Diary, tagged blogging, psychology on September 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »
A Very Special Special
Posted in Call types, Miscellaneous, tagged advertising, blogging on September 19, 2016| 4 Comments »
Most of you probably know what a “special” is in escort parlance; it’s the same thing as the term would mean in any other business. For a limited time, an escort may offer a discount on her price, or extra time, or some other bonus as a way of drumming up business, testing the effectiveness of a new advertising medium or the like. Well, for a while now I’ve been noticing that I’m getting a lot more clients from this blog and from Twitter than I used to, but I’ve never really made a formal effort to figure out just how many (i.e., what fraction of my business). Also, I’ve been trying to think of ways to reward my subscribers and patrons, something I could give them to really demonstrate my gratitude in a real and concrete fashion. And I think I’ve come up with something on both fronts! So from today until Thanksgiving Day (November 24th), I’m running a double special; I’m not going to spell out the particulars because I’m still much too paranoid about directly using this space to advertise, and frankly I don’t think it’s very ladylike (no smartass comments from the Peanut Gallery, y’all). But if you read this and you’re actually serious (not simply curious, please) about seeing me, please email me at this address and I’ll give you a special discount from my usual rates. And yes, that even applies if I have to travel to see you, though the particulars are a bit different in that case. Furthermore, if you’re a subscriber or patron (i.e. a person who doesn’t actually subscribe but has given me large and/or frequent gifts), I’ll give you an even BETTER discount than the other one. No fair subscribing just to get the special; this only applies to people who were already subscribers or patrons when I went to bed last night. However, I am seriously considering a permanent subscriber discount, so subscribing now could help you if and when I implement that (which would probably be in the new year). Now, I’m aware that many of you won’t be interested, or don’t want to spend this kind of money, or simply can’t take advantage due to logistical impediments. So to reward you for reading anyhow, here’s a selfie I took two weeks ago; if you follow me on Twitter you’ve already seen it, but I sincerely doubt any of you is going to complain.
Links #324
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, California, clowns, Connecticut, cops, drugs, fascism, Georgia, hysteria, Michigan, Never Call the Cops, Ohio, Pennsylvania, video, Washington DC, West Virginia on September 18, 2016| 2 Comments »
I will never try to go out and try to do anything nice for anyone again. – Ken Cronkhite
I probably should’ve posted this video last week, but I already had something there & it honestly didn’t occur to me to switch them. Given the reaction to this sophomoric ad online, I would say it’s still too soon for this kind of humor. The video was provided by Nun Ya, and the links above it by Mike Siegel (“fascism”), Popehat (“reason” & “drunk”), Mistress Matisse (“queen”), Radley Balko (“hate”), Lucy Steigerwald (“OD”), Emma Evans (“flirt”), Molly Crabapple (“doctor”), Jesse Walker (“clown”), and Scott Greenfield (“gypsy”).
- Fascism in action.
- Not. For. Any. Reason.
- Queen of the Playground.
- I hate it when this happens.
- Too bad none of them ODed.
- No good deed goes unpunished.
- Cop fired for not murdering a man.
- Definitely don’t try to flirt with one.
- Cops beat a doctor for being a doctor.
- The Carolina clown panic spreads to Georgia.
- Libertarianism even happens to drunk people.
- Gypsy whores are a fantasy; gypsy cops are a reality.
From the Archives
- Gay marriage supporters claim that for two men who love each other to marry “makes a mockery of marriage”.
- Nobody in India seems to think it strange that “rescued” women want to escape their “rescuers”.
- Judge should be caged for years, then spend life on “sex offender” registry.
- Would Facebook dare to treat picket-fence gay folk as it does drag queens?
- FBI agent fantasizes about entrapping women who advertise on Backpage.
- Any law, no matter how outmoded, will be drafted for the War on Whores.
- Canadians scheme to harm as many as possible via increased prohibition.
- Politicians who obsess about certain kinks are nearly always practitioners.
- It’s rare that “authorities” officially admit no actual crime was committed.
- Why do would-be allies kill their own arguments with anti-whore bullshit?
- A social worker explains why she rejected the “sex trafficking” paradigm.
- Prudes just can’t stand the idea of others having sex on their own terms.
- Tip for reporters who don’t want to look like prohibitionist ignoramuses.
- “Authorities” literally destroy a man’s life because his wife was a whore.
- Is there a loving, respectful way to discuss performance with a partner?
- Ordinary business practices aren’t newsworthy when whores use them.
- If antis want to “rescue” whores, why do they keep us from other jobs?
- Alas, this revolting attitude is not unusual among picket-fence queers.
- Melissa Petro on what some vile women refer to as “theft of services”.
- As opposed to what, howdahs? Dirigibles? Amphibious landing craft?
- Ohio State essentially defines all unscripted human contact as rape.
- What’s a madam on Titan to do when the marshal doesn’t like her?
- It’s rare to see someone attempt this defense with a straight face.
- Cops, bureaucracy, science fiction, welcome to our world & more.
- Porn viewers are more feminist than those who don’t watch porn.
- The German Association of Female Lawyers rejects prohibition.
- I can’t help laughing at how seriously people take this drivel.
- Eyewitness statements are inherently unreliable and erratic.
- Lock up your daughters! Sex traffickers are EVERYWHERE!
- Belief in “porn addiction” correlated to sexual repression.
- My tour was made possible by the kindness of strangers.
- I agree with Charlotte Shane on words like “prostitute”.
- The “Prostitutes Protection Law” is nothing of the kind.
- Politicians can’t keep their hands off of golden geese.
- No, Zurich’s was NOT the first tippelzone in Europe.
- How to instantly turn anyone into a “sex criminal”.
- Why aren’t married men off limits for prostitutes?
- Another woman who calls rape “theft of services”.
- Child abuse in a nun-run New Jersey orphanage.
- My Baton Rouge ad only barely justified its cost.
- This is what our society refers to as “correction”.
- Elizabeth N. Brown on Candida Royalle’s legacy.
- Cops, headlines, Dr. Demento and much more.
- Media try to create hysteria over Slender Man.
- Ireland heads toward the Swedish model.
- Never tell a cop your fantasies, either.
- Another attempt to bring Jae home.
- Terri-Jean Bedford has a little list.
- I just love Elizabeth N. Brown.
- I suspect missing information.
- “A continuation of the clitoris“.
- A guest column by a client.
- My first missed post ever.
- How low can they go?
- My own IMDb page.
- Scary Poppins.
In the News (#673)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, avails laws, Backpage, bad customers, California, Canada, Connecticut, cops, Delightful Conversation, Down Under, escort services, FBI, Florida, I Spy, Micromanagement, My First Million, New Jersey, New Zealand, North Carolina, Of Course It Is, Ohio, Pennsylvania, politicians, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, Saving Them from Themselves, sexting, statistics, streetwalkers, surveillance, The Mote and the Beam, The Shape of the Spoon, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, What Were You All Waiting For?, Wisconsin, Wise Investment on September 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »
The police…should…sow trust among the community rather than alienate some…whose actions should not be considered a crime to begin with. – Udi Ofer
Austin Yabandith, a 17-year-old from Superior, Wisconsin [was charged with sexual assault of a child, sexual exploitation, and possession of child pornography]…after [a school cop found nude] photos of Austin’s 15-year-old girlfriend on his cell phone—as well as a video of the couple having sex…the age of consent in Wisconsin is 18, which means Austin is…under-age, just like the girlfriend he is accused of exploiting. But Wisconsin’s sex offender laws [allow]…17-year-olds [to] be charged as adults—even though the law considers them to be children and incapable of consenting to sex…In many U.S. jurisdictions, the law permits consensual relationships [between] underage teens if the [elder] is no more than four years older than the [younger]…Wisconsin is one of a handful of states with no Romeo and Juliet exception…even though it’s perfectly normal for teens to form…relationships with other teens, fall in love, and [have] sex…
And how did the cop “discover” the photos? By intimidating the boy into “allowing” him to search the phone.
He once said, “Dedicating my life to Jesus has changed my life.”
…Richard Keenan, who served as mayor of Hubbard [Ohio] in 2010 and 2011, was indicted [for] eight counts of rape and 12 counts of attempted rape and gross sexual imposition…Keenan pleaded not guilty…but prosecutors said he admitted to sexually assaulting the girl over a three-year period, beginning when she was 4 years old…Keenan confessed…to his wife, a pastor, a social worker and his brother- and sister-in-law…[after] the child told Keenan’s wife about the abuse and she confronted him…he blamed the child for initiating the sex acts and described her as a “willing participant”…
…Ashley Thomas…the lead author of a recently published study…note that legal norms needn’t follow inaccurate beliefs about risks. “The fact that many people irrationally fear air travel does not result in air travel being criminalized…Parents are not arrested for bringing their children with them on airplanes. In contrast, parents are arrested and prosecuted for allowing their children to wait in cars, play in parks, or walk through their neighborhoods without an adult”…The researchers…created a series of surveys asking participants to rate the danger to children left alone in…specific circumstances…The reasons for the parent’s absence were varied randomly…“A mother’s unintentional absence was seen as safer for the child than a mother’s intentional absence for any reason, and a mother’s work-related absence was seen as more dangerous than an unintentional absence, but less dangerous than if the mother left to pursue an illicit sexual affair,” they write. The same was true for fathers, except that respondents rated leaving for work as posing no greater danger than leaving unintentionally. Moral disapproval informed beliefs about risks…“People…think that leaving children alone is…immoral and therefore dangerous. That is, people overestimate the actual danger to children who are left alone by their parents, in order to better support or justify their moral condemnation of parents who do so”…
Surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi:
Under a new set of rules, the FBI would have the authority to secretly use malware to hack into thousands or hundreds of thousands of computers that belong to innocent third parties and even crime victims…The new plan…is known formally as amendments to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the proposal would allow the government to hack a million computers or more with a single warrant. If Congress doesn’t pass legislation blocking this proposal, the new rules go into effect on December 1…The government [pretends] it needs this power to investigate a network of devices infected with malware…what’s known as a “botnet”. But the…amendments…are woefully short on protections for the [privacy]…of innocent Americans…
I really hate being right all the fucking time:
Over the last decade, collecting DNA from people who are not charged with — or even suspected of — any particular crime has become an increasingly routine practice for police in smaller cities…in Florida…Connecticut, Pennsylvania and North Carolina…While the largest cities typically operate public labs and feed DNA samples into the FBI’s national database, [small] cities…have assembled databases of their own…in partnership with private labs that offer such fast, cheap testing that police can afford to amass DNA even to investigate minor crimes…some…have quietly begun [coercing] people to turn over DNA…during traffic stops…or…chance encounters with police…Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania…pays for the testing…with…money [stolen from citizens]…Under the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement must have a reasonable suspicion that a person is involved in a crime before requiring a search or seizure. But the notion of collecting DNA [by coerced “consent”] is still so new that the ground rules remain uncertain. Who can give such consent and what must they be told about what they’re consenting to? Who decides how long to keep these samples and what can be done with them?…Automated “Rapid DNA” machines allow police to analyze DNA right at the station in a mere 90 minutes…but…police departments’ private databases…are subject to no state or federal regulation or oversight…
A man who ran an escort agency…was cleared of any wrongdoing. Prosecutors proved Candy Girls offered sexual services…The…[various defendants all were found] guilty…[except for] Karl Jackson…[who] left school at 15 with no qualifications and always looked up to his older brother, Leon, who [owned the agency]…When interviewed by police in 2014, he said he ran a “companionship service” and never suspected the girls had sex with clients. When asked what this involved, he said: “A companion who’s going to sit there and do everything your girlfriend did do, just watch telly and maybe clean your house, I don’t know”…
After years in the making, a sex worker memorial in Vancouver’s West End [was] unveiled…Friday. The monument will honour the sex workers who once were part of a flourishing community before being expelled from the area…after a July 1984 Supreme Court injunction by Justice Allan McEachern…During the 1970s and ’80s, the West End was home to a tightly knit, diverse community of sex workers, she says, who kept the area pimp-free…The City of Vancouver has put $28,000 into funding the monument — the same amount it raised in fines against sex workers and consumers during enforcement of its 1982 bylaw…The memorial’s location, at Jervis and Pendrell Streets, marks a convergence of the old sex worker strolls. It also is in front of St Paul’s Anglican Church, which often offered refuge…
In the US, the government would’ve “helped” by prosecuting her:
A [New Zealand] sex worker’s five-year restraining order has been reinstated after years of harassment from a client that was obsessed with her. After first paying for her services in 2012, the man began a systematic campaign of harassment when his advances were spurned…The man…would wait for her outside work and hired a private detective…to track down her identity…When she filed for a restraining order, the client went out of his way to protract a course of legal action that was used to “play” with the woman…The man, known in court papers as NR or Mr N, and woman, known as MR, have permanent name suppression and were referred to in court documents as R and M respectively. The recently-released decision stated that M is allowed to file further evidence, seek reinstatement of indemnity costs and her restraining order for a period of five years has been reinstated…R’s appeals…have been dismissed and he must pay M’s costs…
I hit the 5 million pageview mark just a little after 4:00 UTC last Tuesday, September 13th (a little after 9 PM Monday evening here in Seattle). Thanks to all the readers who made it happen!
What Were You All Waiting For? (#654)
Let’s hope other ACLU chapters start following New Jersey’s lead:
…The Newark Police Department’s 13 arrests on charges related to prostitution over the weekend raise concerns yet again about Newark’s embrace of failed and destructive “Broken Windows” policing strategies. Using our criminal justice system to harass, arrest and incarcerate consenting adults who agree to exchange sex for money is a poor use of the NPD’s limited resources. These arrests harm public health by stigmatizing sex workers and making their lives more difficult and dangerous. These crackdowns harm public safety by stoking fear of police among sex workers…We urge the City to explore harm reduction…and to reject failed approaches of criminalization…Sex work should not be criminalized…
[Celeste Guap]…remained jailed in Florida…but was offered a plea deal that could hasten her return to California…the assistant state attorney in Martin County, David Lustgarten, said Monday that he is charging Guap with misdemeanor battery. “The evidence did not lead me to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a felony was committed,” he said. Lustgarten said he offered a plea bargain to the young woman…
She was allowed to plead “no contest” to the reduced charge, and returned to California on Wednesday while her attorney belched out “sex trafficking” rhetoric.
Alas, the victory was short-lived: “The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to block subpoenas issued to Backpage.com by a Senate committee that is investigating its alleged role in facilitating child sex trafficking…“
Allied for Change
Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, Allied for Change on September 16, 2016| 11 Comments »
The only way to stop this will be for those who approve of it to suffer actual consequences, and that isn’t going to happen until all of you clients out there get off of your duffs and fight…gentlemen, I suggest you had better rethink your current silence, unless you want to be the next one with your name and picture splashed across newspapers, TV screens and websites. – “Scrupleless in Seattle”
When one puts as much time and energy into a cause as I have invested in this one over the last decade, it’s gratifying to see support for that cause slowly grow and become more visible to the general public. Despite the fact that I’ve always had a lot of praise and encouragement from within my own community, for a long time it looked like the only people who were listening were those already in the demimonde and our natural allies such as libertarians and human rights advocates. But every Friday the 13th I’ve called for more allies, and I’ve watched the wind gradually shift toward recognition of the fact that criminalization of any aspect of sex work is a gross violation of human rights; I’ve seen universal, credulous acceptance of the “sex trafficking” paradigm crumble, powerful new allies like Amnesty International come on board and the government sabotaging its own propaganda by indulging in ill-considered pogroms like the prosecutions of Rentboy and The Review Board. Over the past year many groups and individuals, emboldened by Amnesty’s stance, have condemned the War on Whores and attacked its dogma-driven underpinnings, while energetic journalists like Glenn Kessler and Elizabeth Nolan Brown have taken up the task of debunking that up until recently I was conducting almost solo, and have brought the government’s anti-whore bullshit to the attention of far more people than this blog ever could.
But until recently, one group of important natural allies was conspicuously silent. Men who pay for sex at least occasionally outnumber whores by a factor of sixty to one, yet (with rare exceptions like Chester Brown and Jim Norton) are almost never heard from. This certainly isn’t hard to understand; the majority of them are married, and so stand to lose their wives and families, plus even their jobs and social standing due to our culture’s increasing sex-negativity. Add to that fashionable “end demand” client demonization and legal persecution, and the fact that some silly whores (who think of activism as a kind of social club rather than a war) actually oppose their support, and one can certainly understand why clients prefer to keep their mouth shut. I’ve been working to change that for a long time, but against such a mountain of stoic silence what can one loudmouthed harlot accomplish? But finally, the seriousness of the situation seems to be sinking in: official persecution of clients has become so aggressive, vicious and sociopathic (especially in cities suckling at Swanee Hunt’s filthy tits, such as Seattle) that clients’ lives are being destroyed by the hundreds in schemes that couldn’t pass constitutional muster even if the judges were all stoned. Christina Slater’s recent telling of a busted client’s story and Dan Savage’s quoting me in calling clients to arms have inspired a group of clients, activists and attorneys to start a new website dedicated to client activism; the group is called Clients of Sex Workers Allied for Change, and their mission statement is below:
This website is for clients of sex workers to share experiences and resources, and to dispel myths surrounding participation in paid sex.
We affirm that sex workers and clients have the same right of sexual expression as other consenting adults.
We support social services that empower sex workers to improve their lives and aid those choosing to leave sex work.
We condemn force, fraud or coercion in any sexual encounter, and we call for safe and effective means for sex workers and clients to report abuses without fear of prosecution.
We condemn efforts to stigmatize sex workers, their clients, and interested third parties.
We join the growing number of diverse organizations calling for the full decriminalization of sex work.
They’ve flattered me by asking for my input in an advisory capacity, and once the site gets well and truly going you’ll be seeing a guest column here from one of the founders. In the meantime, please check the site out; it’s been a long time coming, and I’m damned glad it’s here.
Fair Trade
Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged BDSM, ethics, pragmatism, psychology on September 15, 2016| 4 Comments »
I know a handful of people who have seen sex workers for trade. I have no issue with the idea that sex can be exchanged for money or (as in “traditional marriage”) other benefits, and I’m not at all bugged by, say, a photographer exchanging website photos for a domme session; however, I get a little nervous when I hear about a lawyer or a doctor trading for some sexual pay-off. I guess legal and medical coverage hint at a greater power differential; they are so expensive and so very important, and so many people need them who don’t easily have access to them, that my mind wonders when consent ends and coercion begins if one is charged with a crime or needs an appendectomy. I certainly don’t think that just because a sex worker wouldn’t have sex with someone in their personal lives, it’s somehow automatically coercion when they are doing it to pay their bills/survive. So when is one right to feel squicked out? Is a for-trade situation ever just totally inappropriate? Or is this some ghastly Puritanical reflex that I need to consider unlearning?
Though you may find it an interesting exercise in introspection to try to figure out why you’re squicked out by the exchange of sex for what we might call “high level” professional services, I don’t think you should feel compelled to do so because there isn’t anything “wrong” with your feeling that way. Now, I suspect that the reason is some sort of entanglement with the idea of a powerful person demanding sexual services as payment for a favor; I think we can agree that a cop saying, “Give me sex or I’ll arrest you”, or a company boss saying, “Give me sex or I’ll fire you and destroy your career”, are forms of rape. And though I don’t agree that for a professional who does not have actual power over a person to offer valuable and/or expensive services in exchange for sex is morally wrong, I can imagine circumstances in which the line would be mighty thin; for example, the only doctor in a remote village demanding sex and refusing any other form of payment from an extremely ill woman in dire poverty without means of travel to find a different doctor. So it’s not at all surprising that the one type of interaction could “cross-contaminate” the other in your psyche.
However, it doesn’t actually matter why you feel squicked out by that particular interaction, as long as you respect the right of others not to feel that way. As I wrote in “Out of the Dark”, “The human brain is not rational, and we don’t get to choose what turns us on….sexual likes, dislikes, kinks and fetishes emerge by mysterious paths from the murky swamp we carry deep in our brains, and there’s no known way to reroute those pathways once they’re established.” Lots of people are squicked out by the fact that I have sex for money with strange men, some of whom may be extremely physically unattractive; others are uncomfortable with my bisexuality, or with the fact that I’m extremely turned on by some kinds of BDSM. At the same time, I’m unmoved or even turned off by other kinds of BDSM, and also by some vanilla sex acts that millions of people enjoy. And that’s all perfectly OK, as long as everyone respects everyone else’s right to have different feelings and refrains from inflicting violence on them or otherwise trying to persecute them, such as by lobbying for laws (enforced by violent thugs) to criminalize behaviors not because they objectively harm others, but merely because they don’t like them. The most important thing to remember is that aversions and squickouts are properties of individual psyches, not of the things those individuals are squicked out by; they are personal idiosyncrasies, and therefore harmless and not really a cause for concern unless they cause one distress or drive him to act in a way that abrogates the rights of others.
(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.)
In the News (#672)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Anatomy of a Boondoggle, Backpage, bisexuality, brothels, censorship, cops, Cyprus, dating, Divided We Fall, escort review sites, Eye of the Beholder, Finding What Isn’t There, Georgia, hysteria, Indonesia, internet, Islam, Latin America, LGBT rights, Maine, male prostitutes, marriage, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Oklahoma, One Born Every Minute, psychology, racism, rape, Something Rotten In Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, The Mote and the Beam, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Washington (state) on September 14, 2016| 1 Comment »
Almost none of [the “sex trafficking” narrative] is true—and the little that is technically true is so lacking in context that it’s utterly misleading. – Elizabeth N. Brown
Just another example of “authorities” paying men to rape whores:
Police raided two flats used as brothels…in Nicosia [Cyprus], arresting a woman from China and detaining another female sex worker [pretended] to be a victim of human trafficking. A civilian associate of the police visited the brothel and used marked bills to buy sexual services…After [raping the women] the man signalled the police by sending them an SMS message…Police located the two marked bills and [stole] 347 condoms, four of which had been used, along with four mobile phones, sex toys, a computer, and the amount of €345 in cash…
…It can be difficult for police to build cases against traffickers when their primary witnesses — victims — are too afraid to talk [and] don’t trust police [who]…still conduct stings against sex workers…To create more trust among potential victims and curb the demand for commercial sex, sting operations should focus more on catching johns and pimps, [fetishist cop Mark Keller] said…He also suggested changing state law to the so-called Nordic model, which makes it legal for people to prostitute themselves but illegal to pimp, traffick or purchase sex…The model could help [cops] gain the trust of sex trafficking victims…Keller said. However, it was recently scrutinized in a report by…Amnesty International…which found it subjected sex workers to increased police scrutiny, evictions and other penalties…
The Eye of the Beholder (June Updates)
Given that there is no possibility of a child, what exactly is the rationale behind this prosecution, other than “The ‘authorities’ find this skeevy” or “The law is the law”?
A mother and daughter are facing incest charges in…Oklahoma after authorities learned they were legally married earlier this year. It is unclear what motivated Patricia Ann Spann, 43, and her daughter, Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, 25, to wed…Investigators also found Patricia Spann married her son in 2008. He filed for an annulment 15 months later, citing “incest”…Police discovered the marriages late last month during a child welfare check-up. Patricia Spann told investigators she had lost custody of her biological children as a young mother and only came into contact with her daughter two years ago…the couple believed the union was legal, since she was not listed as the biological mother on her daughter’s birth certificate. Each woman faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic 
Maybe if we keep repeating this enough, it will eventually sink into the thick public skull:
…Despite popular headlines and self-promoting TV doctors’ proclamations to the contrary, sex addiction isn’t real…There is no doubt that some people have trouble regulating their sexual thoughts, desires, and behaviors. But addiction has a real meaning and a real clinical definition…When addicts…are shown pictures of their drug of choice there is a clear and uniform response in their P300 brain waves…However, when UCLA researchers studied the response to viewing sexually explicit images in people who self-defined as being unable to regulate their porn viewing, the results showed no similar response…In fact, they found the only thing correlated with brain wave activity was sexual desire such that the higher their self-reported sexual desire, the more brain wave activity they showed. The authors concluded that there was no evidence to say that even problem sexual regulation fit the definition of addiction as defined by brain response and that these people simply had high sex drives…
Why does Gay, Inc never speak up for sex worker rights until it’s too late?
Indonesian police are taking aim at Grindr and other gay social networking apps following the arrest of three men accused of running a “gay prostitution ring” [advertising] underaged boys for sex. The arrests come amid an unprecedented uproar about homosexuality in the country, where it has never been a major political issue before this year. Members of the legislature announced…they would…ban “gay propaganda” online. The country’s Constitutional Court is likewise currently in the middle of hearings on a petition to [criminalize]…all sex outside of marriage…Police have told local media they have identified 148 victims of the network, though only 27 of them are [supposedly younger than 18]…“More than a few gay communities have been growing and targeting kids as victims,” said Asruron Ni’am Sholeh, chair of the Child Protection Commission…
“Targeting kids”…hmm, where have we heard that accusation before? But back when the moral retards were just warring on female sex workers, the big GLBT organizations couldn’t be bothered to notice.
More than 1,000 women and girls have been apparent victims of sex trafficking in illicit cantinas in the United States that largely operate beyond the reach of law enforcement, the anti-[sex work] group Polaris [fantasized]…Half of the…cases…arose in Houston, Texas, a city near the Mexican border with a large Latino population…Cantinas…may disguise the cost of commercial sex in very high drink prices, and women are forced to flirt and drink with patrons…hotlines run by Polaris got reports of 201 cases of sex and labor trafficking, involving 1,300 potential victims at cantinas and bars in 20 U.S. states from 2007 to 2016. More than half the victims were underage…At one illicit cantina in Houston, some victims were forced to have sex as often as 50 times a day, it said. The cantina owner, convicted of sex trafficking, conspiracy and other charges, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year…Cases can be hard to investigate and prosecute because traffickers and owners may hide their ownership of cantinas or liquor licenses, and because victims are too scared to testify in court, afraid that traffickers will retaliate by hurting their families…
“Apparent” victims, meaning reports from busybodies that added up to nothing. Reports of “force” that don’t hold up because there isn’t any, which Polaris then insists are real except that the “victims” won’t admit it. Impossibly-high claims of clients per day such as we haven’t seen in a couple of years now, using a high-profile racism-based railroading case as “evidence”, and moving the entire city of Houston hundreds of miles south to bolster their fantasy. This is absurd even by Polaris’ standards.
Serious question: How do we nominate Liz Brown for a Pulitzer?
…On January 7, Washington officials [claimed]…women [had been] lured from South Korea under false pretenses and “held against their will” at local brothels. [They crowed about seizing] a website where deviant men promoted and reviewed these enslaved women…King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg [said]…”The systematic importation of vulnerable young women for sexual abuse, exploitation, and criminal profiteering has been going on for years and it came to a stop this week…This is what human trafficking looks like.” But as more information about the case has become available, Satterberg’s narrative starts to break down. The reality—as evidenced by police reports, court documents, online records, and statements from those involved—is…a story of immigration, economics, the pull of companionship and connection, the structures and dynamism that drive black markets, and a criminal-justice system all too eager to declare women victims of the choices they make…
The piece is long, thorough and damning. I strongly urge you to read the whole thing, even if you need to do so in three sittings (it’s broken into three parts). The “sex trafficking” narrative has been slowly crumbling, and in this important article Liz has handily taken a sledgehammer to a very prominent outcropping of it.
Another victory against a political witch hunt:
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a congressional subpoena that seeks information on how Backpage.com screens for possible sex trafficking in classifieds advertising. The order…came hours after Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer asked the high court to intervene, saying the case threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers…the…stay means that Backpage need not comply…until further action from the Supreme Court…The Senate panel has tried for nearly a year to make Backpage produce certain documents as part of its [persecution of sex work advertisements] over the internet. After the website refused to comply, the Senate voted 96-0 in March to hold the website in contempt…
Go on, keep giving male cops power over women; what could possibly go wrong?
The Georgia Bureau of Investigations arrested Riverdale [cop] James Robinson Jr…[for] raping a woman he was transporting to jail…Robinson stopped the car next to an empty building near a Custom tire shop…as soon as the woman was released from jail she…asked the shop for footage from its security cameras…
Interesting that this article doesn’t mention the anti-Backpage mob:
In a 2014 opinion in a case involving a woman who was drugged, raped, and filmed by men she met through the website ModelMayhem.com…the Ninth Circuit wrote that the CDA was not “an all purpose get-out-of-jail-free card for businesses that publish user content on the internet.” The court found that Model Mayhem…could be sued for failure to warn as the site was aware of the model’s rapists because they were the subject of a criminal investigation for doing the same thing to other Model Mayhem users…the court found that Section 230 did not protect the website when it failed to do anything about the rapists it knew were prowling its site…a…Match.com case is very similar. [Wade] Ridley, the suit claimed, had attacked other women using Match.com and the company had done nothing to warn love-seeking online daters about the possibility of attack. The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of some claims, but it found that the logic supporting the court’s Model Mayhem ruling applied here, too…
A step in the right direction, at least:
…Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley [announced] criminal charges against seven [cops]…O’Malley [also] said she found evidence of [rapist cops]…in Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Joaquin counties, all outside her jurisdiction. She said she has contacted her counterparts there to pursue criminal action…The most serious Alameda County charges — felony oral copulation with a minor — will be filed against Oakland [cop] Giovanni LoVerde and Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy Ricardo Perez…Oakland [cop] Brian Bunton also faces a felony charge of obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in prostitution. Three other Oakland [cops] will be charged with crimes…Terryl Smith…LeRoy Johnson…and…Warit Uttapa…Dan C. Black of the Livermore Police Department…faces [four] misdemeanor charges…O’Malley said it’s likely that formal charges against the officers will not be filed until Guap, the case’s primary witness, returns to California…“If the [City of Richmond] does not pay for her to come back, we will pay for her airfare,” O’Malley said…
Diary #324
Posted in Diary, Tyranny, tagged activism, bad customers, Washington (state) on September 13, 2016| 3 Comments »
Last week was a really strange one; it was as though something unwholesome was in the air. I spent large portions of every day on the phone, and only a little of it was in the relatively-pleasant task of giving interviews to reporters; the rest of it was spent putting out figurative fires and talking to customer service people about more glitches and problems than I usually have to deal with in a month. Most of the would-be clients who called me were nothing but wankers and time-wasters, and two good appointments that I was really looking forward to were postponed; one of those was my New York trip, which now looks like it’ll probably end up in October. And if that all weren’t bad enough, on Thursday the news spread through our community that Tahoe Ted, who was demonized by Seattle “authorities” for running a message board, took his own life rather than endure any more character assassination and emotional torture. Apparently, the prosecutor’s office doesn’t want this getting out because they realize it makes them look bad; they don’t want anyone realizing that their victims are human beings with lives and feelings, whose lives they wantonly destroy to “send messages” about people having sex for reasons sociopathic billionaires disapprove of. About the only good news I received last week was that my friend Savannah Sly is returning to Seattle soon; let’s hope she brings some good fortune with her.
Guest Columnist: Chester Brown
Posted in Guest Columns, History, Perception, Philosophy, tagged psychology, Reviews, sacred prostitutes on September 12, 2016| 11 Comments »
Chester Brown is one of the most renowned and respected cartoonists in the world; he and I first met online about four years ago and quickly became friends. And while I did give him a little help with his revised edition of Paying For It, and he drew the cover for my book Ladies of the Night, his new book is the first one I’ve been privileged to see developed from the very first kernel of the idea (shared in a letter to me several years ago) all the way to distribution and book signings. So once the initial release whirlwind had died down and I figured he might have some time, I asked him if he’d like to do a guest column introducing the book; he sent this the very next day. Oh, and one more thing: Chester now has a Patreon account, and if supporting outspoken allies of sex workers is important to you, you really should consider signing up to that. Just sayin’.
While the subtitle of my new book is Prostitution And Religious Obedience In The Bible, and there are stories about several biblical prostitutes in it, Mary Wept Over The Feet Of Jesus is mostly about the connections that Jesus had to prostitution. I’m proposing three interrelated ideas:
- Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a prostitute.
- Mary of Bethany, the woman who anointed Jesus as a christ, was a prostitute.
- Jesus’s parables about The Prodigal Son and The Talents indicate that he didn’t see prostitutes and their clients as sinners to be forgiven but, rather, saw paying for sex as socially beneficial.
I’m not going to try to convince you that I’m right about all that here; that’s what the book is for. Instead I want to talk about the issue of bias. Some critics have dismissed my ideas because I have a bias; for example, see this piece in the A.V. Club. It is true that I have a bias; I’ve been a client of sex workers for seventeen years and do happen to see the profession as socially beneficial. I’ve made no attempt to hide that fact. The question is, does having a bias on a particular subject necessarily invalidate one’s views on that subject? Should Martin Luther King Jr’s views on civil rights have been dismissed because, being a black man, he had a bias? I think it’s precisely because I have a bias that I was able to see certain things in the Bible that haven’t been obvious to others. And it’s not like others who’ve written about Jesus and prostitution before me did not have a bias on the subject of sex work; in fact, I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of biblical scholars, past and present, had and have a whorephobic bias against sex work.
Let’s talk about two relatively recent examples that I came across while researching for my book. Karen King is a biblical scholar whom I have a lot of respect for. Her fascinating book What Is Gnosticism? transformed my understanding of that subject. In 2003, she published a book titled The Gospel of Mary Of Magdala. In it, King translates and analyzes an ancient text known as The Gospel Of Mary, which presents a woman named Mary as Jesus’s wisest disciple. Most people assume that the woman is Mary Magdalene, and they’re probably right; I would recommend King’s book to anyone who wants to understand this difficult text. On page 3, King writes that The Gospel Of Mary “exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is — a piece of theological fiction”. However, reading the text of the gospel, one finds no mention of prostitution; there’s no indication what Mary’s source of income was. (Even a spiritual person in first century Palestine needed some sort of income, whether it was from begging or some other source.) There’s no sign one way or the other in The Gospel Of Mary, as we have it, that Mary was or wasn’t a prostitute, nor is there any mention of sex; furthermore, King doesn’t interpret any of the material as relating to prostitution or sex. Now, since there are many pages missing in the two surviving manuscripts of the text, it’s possible that one of those missing pages mentioned that Mary was a prostitute. (I hesitate to get conspiratorial, but perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that certain pages went missing in both surviving manuscripts.) But even if those missing pages didn’t mention that Mary was a prostitute, that still wouldn’t prove she wasn’t one. So why does King think that the The Gospel Of Mary PROVES that Mary never had sex for pay? King doesn’t explain her reasoning, but there can be only one reason: The gospel presents Mary as the most wise and spiritual of the disciples of Jesus, and King whorephobically assumes that a prostitute could not be wise and spiritual.
In the 2006 book Secrets Of Mary Magdalene, edited by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer, there’s an essay by the respected historian James Carroll in which, on page 24, he quotes Luke 8:2-3. In that biblical passage, it’s mentioned that Mary Magdalene and several other women “provided for them [Jesus and the male disciples] out of their own resources.” Carroll reads this as an indication that Mary and the other women must therefore have been “well-to-do, respectable figures.” In other words, they could not have been prostitutes, because, of course, only well-to-do, respectable women had money — prostitutes had absolutely no way to get ahold of money. This isn’t quite as obviously whorephobic as the Karen King example, but it does indicate a desperate over-eagerness to distance Mary Magdalene from prostitution. Why wasn’t it obvious to Carroll that, while evidence that Mary Magdalene had money could indicate that she was “respectable”, it could just as easily be evidence that she was a prostitute? There’s a probably unconscious bias going on there, and one sees it over and over while reading books about biblical prostitutes in general and Mary Magdalene in particular.
On the question of whether Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, I don’t have a definite opinion one way or the other. It’s true that none of the biblical books link Mary Magdalene with the profession, but Jesus was close with Mary of Bethany, who definitely was a prostitute, and it could be that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany were the same person. It’s also possible that they were two separate women, since the name Mary was popular at the time. (See pages 245 to 253 of Mary Wept for more on this.) A basic rule: when a scholar claims with certainty that Mary Magdalene absolutely could not have been a prostitute, that scholar probably has a bias against sex work. That doesn’t mean that all of that scholar’s conclusions should be dismissed, any more than my pro-sex work bias means that my conclusions should be dismissed. All it really means is that readers should keep authorial bias in mind when reading any book.
Links #323
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged Arizona, clowns, comics, cops, drugs, fascism, hysteria, imaginative fiction, New Mexico, prisons, South Carolina, video, Washington DC on September 11, 2016| 3 Comments »
It’s illegal. It’s dangerous. It’s inappropriate, and it’s creating community concern so it needs to stop. – Ken Miller
Today’s video is a sequence from a British TV show in which comedians have to improvise routines on the spot; it was provided by Jesse Walker, who also gave us “Prisoner”. The other links are from Mike Riggs (“fascism”), Tim Cushing (“protect” and “bureaucracy”), Tushy Galore (“waste”), and Mike Siegel (“help”).
- Fascism in action.
- The Clown Menace.
- To protect and serve.
- Bureaucracy in action.
- Waste on an almost unimaginable scale.
- We’re from the government & we’re here to help.
- Jack Kirby’s lost comic adaptation of The Prisoner.
From the Archives
- Hilary Hanson of Huffington Post is starting to distinguish herself as an ally.
- Why are some gay dudes so clueless & announce their ignorance so loudly?
- An ass who thinks women too stupid & weak to manage our own sexuality.
- Telegraph‘s headline writer doesn’t know meaning of term “graphic novel”.
- The Rentboy raid was a turning point in the struggle for sex worker rights.
- Where “minor child” means “young woman above the AoC but below 18”.
- Seems I wasn’t the only one who had Ashley Madison pegged as a scam.
- Funny how the truth doesn’t get as much press as silly lies about sports.
- An anti-whore article that reads as though it were stuck in a time warp.
- Why is sex supposed to be fun for singles, but sacred for married folks?
- Contrast the way this is covered by badge-lickers & by rational people.
- Cop gets in trouble for unofficially doing what other cops do officially.
- Farley’s going to keep hawking this same snake oil until she croaks.
- Thargelia barely missed being the most influential whore in history.
- It’s good to see this in as mainstream a publication as The Atlantic.
- Reporter doesn’t get that actresses & whores are of the same tribe.
- Geography, animation, purdah, Stonehenge, cops, fascism & more.
- Canadians feminists are just as trivia-obsessed as their UK sisters.
- Remember how Jack the Ripper was identified by DNA? Not quite.
- Cops, pretexts, LSD, Superhenge, the Dutch angle & much more.
- More about the long pre-internet history of sex work advertising.
- Another good call for Canadian queers to oppose criminalization.
- The loathsomeness of linking sex work to historic black slavery.
- Jean Urquhart, MSP moves beyond merely “calling for debate”.
- I’m rather glad to see the return of “criminal whore” rhetoric.
- The French just love these massive DNA fishing expeditions.
- “Induce sex trafficking”? That’s some serious bullshit there.
- I know I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find it.
- How did you stop thinking of your husband as a client?
- Marijke Vonk on how to be a good ally to sex workers.
- No doubt the child was contaminated with sex rays!
- Acolytes of Cthulhu and Struwwelpeter (in English).
- Excerpt from a press release by Terri-Jean Bedford.
- When a sex worker’s client gets buyer’s remorse.
- Note that at 12 weeks abortion is totally legal.
- The descent of LGBT rights into conservatism.
- Her escorting was “caused” by being bipolar?
- So now joining a cult is “sex trafficking” too?
- Kari Lerum on the Amnesty declaration.
- Nobody ever sold sex before Backpage!
- A pop singer who used to be a stripper.
- Preparing to take Jae back to Seattle.
- In other words, a fairly typical cop.
- A few changes in my blog.
- My return from the tour.
- R.I.P. Candida Royalle.
- Grace’s recipe for chili.
- Desnudas in the news.
- 3,000,000 pageviews.
- Surprising no one.
- Rise of the apes.
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