January | 2017 | The Honest Courtesan

Archive for January, 2017

In the News (#706)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, A Woman's Point of View, advertising, animals, Backpage, Canada, censorship, Choke Point, cops, Do As I Say, Elephant in the Parlor, end demand, End Demand (updates), Georgia, internet, law, License To Rape, New Hampshire, New York, Permanent Record, politicians, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, rape, sacred prostitutes, Scapegoats, Size Matters, Sold Out, Texas, The War Goes On, To Molest and Rape, Washington (state) on January 21, 2017| 1 Comment »

If all the little black books in the world were opened, far more than golden showers would trickle out. – Brooke Magnanti

License to Rape

Another excuse to justify rape:

…Inmate visit procedures for Rikers Island state visitors are subject to search at any time. Before anyone is allowed to visit an inmate, he or she must pass through a metal detector and have items such as handbags pass through a fluoroscope machine. If the metal detector sounds an alarm, prospective visitors might face a “pat frisk” search…Jasmine Quattlebaum…was led to a private area by a female [screw] who asked her during the pat frisk to unbutton her pants…“Once I put my hands back up, she pulled my panties out, takes her two fingers, and just jams it in between my crotch…I slapped her hand away a little bit”…When she objected…the [screw] “tried to pull both of my hands together with one hand, and she tried to still put her fingers into my crotch”…her experience is one many female Rikers visitors experience, according to information from 311 complaint calls obtained by The Intercept…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

After arresting one of their own, pigs oink a lot of nonsense about how the families they damage in stings were magically damaged before (but presumably didn’t know it):

Dunwoody [Georgia] Police say a months-long [violation of peaceful citizens’ private lives] has netted nearly 60 arrests…Police Chief Billy Grogan [bloviated that sex work]…“damages families” [yet somehow arresting fathers doesn’t]…DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said the arrests should send a strong message…“Both supply and demand must be eradicated if we are to stop…consensual sex”…Among the accused customers arrested is Gwinnett County Assistant District Attorney Chris Quinn…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

My friend Cris Sardina of Desiree Alliance on the ridiculous “statistics” spouted by prohibitionists:

…If you look at any leading anti-trafficking organizational rhetoric…hundreds of thousands of sexually exploited people…are held captive by hundreds of thousands of pimps…[Norma Jean] Almodovar satirically makes a valid point in questioning Polaris’ statement as to why neighbors wouldn’t take notice of the lines of men waiting outside to be sexually serviced in the approximate 15 minutes they would have from the door to the sexual act itself? In truth, these much cited numbers would entail victims to service 25 to 48 men daily during a 12 hour shift, with no time to take care of daily functions such as using the bathroom, eating, sleeping, or texting the Polaris BeFree Textline…

Scapegoats

Presented without comment:

A [Houston, Texas] sheriff’s deputy is out of a job after a [not remotely] shocking allegation…[involving] production of obscene material that includes sexual contact with a dog…Andrew Sustaita Jr…was relieved of duty after his arrest…

End Demand

On what planet is “end demand” anti-client bullshit “disregarded” in “sex trafficking” propaganda?

[New Hampshire’s] Trafficking in Persons Council announced its new “End Demand” campaign…“Conversations about sex trafficking almost exclusively disregard the role of the individual buying sex — the ‘john,’” TIPC Chairwoman Jillian Gilchrest said [moronically]…

Sold Out

“Pride Toronto has voted to ban police from having any official presence at future parades, making good on a demand made by Black Lives Matter Toronto last year…”

Size Matters (#566)

If Rainbow is “notorious”, I’d hate to see what adjective they use for me:

Seattle-area madam Rainbow Love has again avoided prison time for operating a string of Seattle-area “temples”…Love, 51, pleaded guilty to pimping- and drug-related crimes…[and] was sentenced…to inpatient drug treatment, rather than jail…

Choke Point (#593)

Think you’re safe being a sexual minority just because money isn’t involved?

Recent censorship enacted at FetLife is the result of financial discrimination by multiple credit card processors who have ceased business with FetLife for what the processors claim are “Illegal or Immoral” reasons. It began for users one week ago when FetLife announced changes to content guidelines, stating “We can no longer allow FetLifers to publicly share sexual pics and vids containing blood visible in them.” Then without warning, Fetlife deleted hundreds of groups and literally thousands of fetish categories that represented a range of kinky communities (like ones with hypnosis, blood, and humiliation in the name). This was in response to to significant pressure from FetLife’s credit card processor…

A Woman’s Point of View

Given all the “sex trafficking” rhetoric and agency denial, I smell a whiff of Swedish rot here rather than actual decriminalization:

Four female [New Hampshire] representatives have sponsored a bill that proposes establishing a committee to study decriminalizing…sex work…[yet] one of the bill’s sponsors…Kate Murray…said…”I have no interest in legalizing prostitution…this is about…human trafficking with the goal of protecting the victim”…the committee would study reports about sex work and human trafficking by Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Foundation and Anti-Slavery International…and…would also study prostitution laws in Germany, Great Britain and New Zealand where it is legal…

To Molest and Rape

Your regular reminder that rapist cops aren’t solely an American aberration:

…a garda detective has been suspended after a woman accused him of demanding sexual favours…this…is the third garda from the same district to be suspended, transferred or disciplined over separate sexual assault cases…the Garda Ombudsman (GSOC)…shows 70 allegations of sexual offences were made between 2010 and 2015. However, so far, only one of these cases has resulted in the DPP directing there be a criminal prosecution…

Permanent Record

The prohibitionist Seattle Times once again prints a story containing the typical libel against sex workers without consulting any sex workers for the story, despite the fact that this particular reporter knows several of us and has our phone numbers:

[New and awful Washington state] legislation would extend the statute of limitations from three to 10 years for the crimes of human trafficking, commercial sex abuse of a minor and promoting the commercial sex abuse of a minor. “For victims of human trafficking, the very nature of that relationship is that they’re under the control of their trafficker,” [attorney general] Ferguson [fantasized while touching himself]…Many victims are reluctant to go to police and are so traumatized by their exploitation that by the time they come forward, “three years has gone by and there’s no justice for that victim”…Embedded in the bill to extend the statute of limitations is a request to alter the legal definition of commercial sex…[to] change “fee” to “anything of value,” which could mean drugs, food or even a bed for the night…

The War Goes On

Lawheaded idiots are amazed that their persecution of Backpage didn’t magically make sex work go away:

Backpage.com…shut down its erotic services section where most prostitution ads were posted. But in New Orleans, people posting ads for prostitution have found an easy workaround: Just post them in the section reserved for people looking for dates. At least 60 ads had been posted in the “Women seeking men” section of the website…Jan. 17…Some of those ads contained emojis that [fetishists fantasize]…the prostitute may be underage…the volume of ads began rising significantly on Jan. 10, the day after Backpage announced it was shuttering its adult services section…

Elephant in the Parlor (#705)

My friend Brooke Magnanti on politicians & whores, including a quote from me:

The rich are jaded souls. Kinks that we otherwise associate strictly with lifestyle BDSM seem to litter stories about wealthy men caught in compromising positions…For some sex workers, golden showers are bread-and-butter work. Dominatrix friends admit to chugging diet cola by the litre in preparation for such dates…Nearly every sex worker has at some time met someone powerful and famous. Because it isn’t just about the kink, it’s about the discretion…Maggie McNeill, an escort in Seattle, remarks: “I personally could wreck the careers of a dozen politicians. And there are roughly half a million [sex workers] in the US”…

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Living in the Material World

Posted in Music, Perception, tagged drugs, halfway whores, male prostitutes, New York, pragmatism, streetwalkers, transgender, video on January 20, 2017| 3 Comments »

It’s been a long time since I did a hooker songs column, so I decided it was time to rectify that! Actually, the immediate inspiration was that one of my earliest whore anthems (actually one of my party pieces during my early whoring days at university) came on my Pandora the other day, and I realized I had never featured it! So without further ado:

Material Girl (Peter Brown/Robert Rans)

Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me
I think they’re ok
If they don’t give me proper credit
I just walk away

They can beg and they can plead
But they can’t see the light (that’s right)
‘Cause the boy with the cold hard cash
Is always Mister Right

(refrain) ‘Cause we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

Some boys romance, some boys slow dance
That’s all right with me
If they can’t raise my interest then I
Have to let them be

Some boys try and some boys lie but
I don’t let them play (no way)
Only boys who save their pennies
Make my rainy day

(refrain)

Living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

Living in a material world (material)
Living in a material world
Living in a material world (material)
Living in a material world

Boys may come and boys may go
And that’s all right you see
Experience has made me rich
And now they’re after me

‘Cause everybody’s living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

Living in a material world
And I am a material girl
You know that we are living in a material world
And I am a material girl

A material, a material, a material, a material world

Living in a material world (material)
Living in a material world
[repeat and fade]

It’s always annoyed me that the video undercuts the message of the song, but that wasn’t unusual at the time (and still probably isn’t, though I rarely watch videos any more). While this one is pretty overt, the next one seems to slip under most people’s radar:

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John & Bernie Taupin)

When are you gonna come down
When are you going to land
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man

You know you can’t hold me forever
I didn’t sign up with you
I’m not a present for your friends to open
This boy’s too young to be singing the blues

(refrain) So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can’t plant me in your penthouse
I’m going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I’ve finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

What do you think you’ll do then
I bet that’ll shoot down the plane
It’ll take you a couple of vodka and tonics
To set you on your feet again

Maybe you’ll get a replacement
There’s plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain’t got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

(refrain)

The narrator is clearly a kept boy who has decided he doesn’t like that life and is saying goodbye to his patron to head back to his rural origins. Actually, Elton has recorded a number of sex work songs; on the very same album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, appears this one (which is much more graphic):

Sweet Painted Lady (Elton John & Bernie Taupin)

I’m back on dry land once again
Opportunity awaits me like a rat in the drain
We’re all hunting honey with money to burn
Just a short time to show you the tricks that we’ve learned

If the boys all behave themselves here
Well, there’s pretty young ladies and beer in the rear
You won’t need a gutter to sleep in tonight
Oh, the prices I charge here will see you alright

So, she lays down beside me again
My sweet painted lady, the one with no name
Many have used her and many still do
There’s a place in the world for a woman like you

(refrain) Oh, sweet painted lady
Seems it’s always been the same
Getting paid for being laid
Guess that’s the name of the game

(refrain)

Forget us we’ll have gone very soon
Just forget we ever slept in your rooms
And we’ll leave the smell of the sea in your beds
Where love’s just a job and nothing is said

So she lays down beside me again
My sweet painted lady, the one with no name
Many have used her and many still do
There’s a place in the world for a woman like you

(refrain)
(refrain)

And then there’s this one from Rock of the Westies:

Island Girl (Elton John & Bernie Taupin)

I see your teeth flash, Jamaican honey so sweet
Down where Lexington cross 47^th Street
Oh she’s a big girl, she’s standing six-foot three
Turning tricks for the dudes in the big city

(refrain) Island girl
What you wanting with the white man’s world?
Island girl
Black boy want you in his island world

He want to take you from the racket boss
He want to save you, but the cause is lost
Island girl, island girl, island girl
Tell me what you wanting with the white man’s world

Well she’s black as coal, but she burn like a fire
And she wrap herself around you like a well-worn tire
You feel her nail scratch your back just like a rake, oh oh
He one more gone, he one more John who make the mistake

(refrain)

He want to take you from the racket boss
He want to save you, but the cause is lost
Island girl, island girl, island girl
Tell me what you wanting with the white man’s world

(refrain)

He want to take you from the racket boss
He want to save you, but the cause is lost
Island girl, island girl, island girl
Tell me what you wanting with the white man’s
Tell me what you wanting with the white man’s
Tell me what you wanting with the white man’s

Long-time readers will recognize the familiar theme of the young man in love with a sex worker who thinks he’s going to “rescue” her and can’t understand why she isn’t interested. But Bernie Taupin threw a sly little twist into this one; by making her so incredibly tall, it’s pretty obvious the implication is that she’s a transwoman. But while Elton wasn’t quite ready to broach that subject openly in the 1970s, Lou Reed certainly was:

Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed)

Holly came from Miami F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side,
Said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side.

Candy came from out on the island,
In the backroom she was everybody’s darling,
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head
She said, hey baby, take a walk on the wild side
Said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side

(refrain) And the colored girls go,
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City is the place where they said:
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side

Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the streets
Lookin’ for soul food and a place to eat
Went to the Apollo
You should have seen him go, go, go
They said, hey Sugar, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side, alright, huh

Jackie is just speeding away
Thought she was James Dean for a day
Then I guess she had to crash
Valium would have helped that bash
She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
I said, hey honey, take a walk on the wild side

(refrain)

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Hither and Yon

Posted in Miscellaneous, Q & A, tagged activism, blogging on January 19, 2017| 1 Comment »

Now that I’m able to fly again, I’m much more open to traveling for speaking purposes; in just the past few months I’ve done two talks (counting the one I’ll be giving day after tomorrow) and a number of interviews. As you can probably guess, that means I’m being asked more often (because these things tend to snowball), and people want to know how to go about getting me to speak at their events. It’s easy; just ask. No, I’m not being facetious; all you have to do is send me an email, tell me about your event and when and where it is, what you’d like me to speak about, and who you are. That last is important because, while I ask a $500 speaking fee for most events, I’ll donate my time to sex worker events pro bono (except for lodging and board, and honestly I’m not especially persnickety about that; I’m perfectly happy being put up in one of the organizers’ guest rooms and fed from their table). Thanks to the generosity of a patron, I can easily get around by air at no cost to myself, which lets me help sex workers all over the country without running myself into poverty. I only ask one favor: whether you’re paying or I’m donating the time, please ask me well in advance of the event; I want enough lead time to advertise for clients wherever it is I’m going.

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In the News (#705)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Alabama, Arizona, Backpage, Crying for Nanny, Dysphemisms Galore, Elephant in the Parlor, ethics, illegal aliens, India, It's Different Because It Involves Sex, language, law, Maryland, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, North Carolina, politicians, Russia, scams, Shift in the Wind, Standard Operating Procedure, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas, The Last Shall Be First, The Naked Anthropologist, The War Goes On, Traffic Circle, transgender on January 18, 2017| 2 Comments »

There is a well-established connection between moral panic…and laws that produce grotesque injustices. – Matt Welch

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

Fetishists claim that Texas has about 500% of the underage sex workers in the US:

With 79,000 kids currently being trafficked in Texas, human trafficking is a statewide, underground issue, and Waco is no exception…The Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition held a roundtable meeting…to discuss the underlying issues and new efforts to prevent trafficking. A [fascist] effort is underway between law enforcement, church groups, and social workers to minimize the demand for prostitution…

Elephant in the Parlor

Politician pays whores for mildly-kinky show. Yawn.

An unverified and salacious 35-page document, a summary of which was presented to President Barack Obama and President-elect Trump last week, includes allegations that Russian operatives sought to “exploit Trump’s personal obsessions and sexual perversion” to gain compromising material on him…The most explosive allegation is that Trump hired a “number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ [sic] (urination) show in front of him”…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

“Sex addiction” is becoming a “get out of jail free” card:

A man [is] accused of trying to have sex with an underage girl, while dressed up as a character from the Men in Black movie…Michael Geressy is known for dressing up as various movie characters…but…police said he had a secret identity as a child sex predator…His attorney…asked the judge to continue his arraignment so his client can begin treatment for sex addiction…

Standard Operating Procedure

If only amateurs realized how common this sort of thing is:

Jason Mount…is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security…for records purportedly held by DHS…”that contain information regarding an allegation that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, Supervisory Special Agent Peter Edge lost his official credentials to a prostitute and the credentials had to be retrieved by local police“…If the allegations are true, it means that a top ICE agent cavorted with a prostitute, lost his credentials during his date, and then summoned the local police to help him find his papers…

Dysphemisms Galore

I find the lack of “victim” rhetoric here kind of refreshing:

…four people who live there presented me with the problem of hookers and hopheads in Brooklyn, on the south side of Baltimore…all of them are concerned about crime creep: more and more prostitutes who gather on sidewalks day and night; men in expensive sedans and pickup trucks that form…a virtual caravan of johns looking for sex. The prostitutes…sometimes solicit customers near a church and an elementary school…Lisa Bowling say[s]…”We can count the whores and johns and drug dealers as they stroll down the street…We have been to meetings with the police where they state that it’s a ‘victimless crime.’ Funny, I don’t think they have whores in front of their houses every day”…

Traffic Circle

“Sex trafficking” debunking comes to the LA Times:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein…[led] off her critical cross-examination of the nation’s likely next top cop with a factually insane claim that will probably give him more power…In order for “human sex trafficking” to be the second largest criminal industry in the United States, it would at minimum need to supplant illegal narcotics (roughly $100 billion a year)…or Medicare fraud (in the ballpark of $60 billion)…So distant is reality from those numbers that even the commonly cited figure of $9.8 billion a year for all trafficking…was given “four Pinocchios” by Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler. Feinstein wasn’t done. “Trafficking victims,” she warned, average “12 to 14” in age. (“Four Pinocchios,” judged Kessler.) These fake numbers have consequences. Congress has leaned on such bogus statistics by periodically ratcheting up the penalties of…the criminals apprehended [who] are disproportionately adult females who work in the sex industry by choice…

It’s Different Because It Involves Sex, Part Umpteen (#546)

As usual, Indians understand this far better than Americans do:

If the government of Maharashtra has its way, there would be bars in the state where the clientele won’t be served alcohol…The law…demanded the abolition of alcohol anywhere near the dancers at dance bars as well as the installation of CCTV cameras on the premises…Even the highest court of the land called these strictures “absurd” and “arbitrary” and “absolutely regressive by centuries”. Now, in a fresh affidavit to the Supreme Court, the state has argued that bar dancing is “vulgar” and “not an art form that needs to be protected and promoted”. It has alleged that such activities are often a cover for…the exploitation of women. The girls who perform the dances, the state added, were not “trained artistes”, their dancing has very little “entertainment value” and borders on the obscene…

Note that such laws are very common in the US, especially in so-called “progressive” states like Washington.

Cheesy Scheme

It was inevitable that the “escort licensing” scam would eventually spread beyond Wisconsin:

…Escorts working in Mesa [Arizona] will now have to register for a license with the city. [Politicians fantasize that] increasing regulations could help crack down on sex-trafficking operations that masquerade as escort services…Escort applicants will undergo a business and criminal background check…

Crying for Nanny (#659)

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really help Backpage now:

The Supreme Court said Monday it won’t hear an appeal from three sex trafficking victims who accuse advertising website Backpage.com of helping to promote the exploitation of children. The justices left in place a lower court ruling that said federal law shields Backpage from liability because the site is just hosting content created by people who use it…

The Last Shall Be First (#675)

Alabama wants to put pigs in women’s bathrooms. Seriously.

Alabama might place attendants in public restrooms as part of the state’s potential transgender bathroom bill…to guard against potential “molestation, assault and battery”…The act…would force public institutions to have bathrooms that only serve one gender or to place attendants in bathrooms that serve both genders…

Shift in the Wind (#692)

Medical ethicists are now solidly behind decriminalization:

…health care workers should support the full decriminalization of prostitution…By removing punitive laws that prevent reporting of exploitation and abuse, decriminalization allows sex workers to work more safely, thereby reducing marginalization and vulnerability. Decriminalization can also help destigmatize sex work and help resist political, social, and cultural marginalization of sex workers…

The Naked Anthropologist (#701)

Dr. Laura Agustín on why she wrote The Three-Headed Dog:

…I’m not making a sudden switch to fiction. It’s one of the things I used to write before the Internet, before doing postgraduate degrees, before social media. I began this story, in my head and scribbled notes, not long after starting those degrees in the late 90s…In general such stories are not published unless the migrants are portrayed as passive victims needing rescue by much straighter and more comfortable characters…Just as I strove to show in Sex at the Margins that many migrants don’t perceive themselves as inert objects of cruel fate and evil men, here a few of them act out their stories, trying to find ways to get ahead and stay out of trouble…The characters here are neither real nor unreal but created themselves in my imagination out of my long experience of travelling on my own and talking with people. I’ve seen everything that happens in this book. I’ve known people who thought and acted these ways…

The War Goes On

The operators of…Backpage.com…declined to answer questions from a Senate panel investigating the company’s adult services ads, which lawmakers and law enforcement [fantasize] have helped facilitate pimping and child sex trafficking in the U.S. Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer, his business associates James Larkin and Michael Lacey as well as other company officials appeared before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations but invoked their Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate themselves…

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Diary #342

Posted in Diary, tagged blogging on January 17, 2017| 2 Comments »

The big snowstorm in Portland delayed my departure by a day, but fortunately I was able to reschedule my Friday appointments in San Francisco for Saturday. Though I shouldn’t have been, I was rather surprised to discover that a hothouse flower from New Orleans who never drove in snow until after her 36^th birthday was still able to do it better than the majority of Portlanders; most of them seemed unable to grasp basic concepts like “driving in the rougher lane or in the tracks left by others will result in better traction”. But in spite of it I had a lovely dinner with a young sex worker who is starting to become interested in activism, then had a long but uneventful drive down to San Francisco on Friday and lots of fun in San Francisco on Saturday (y’all know who you are!) On Sunday I continued on to Los Angeles and spent two days with a friend who in turn introduced me to many of her friends; sometime today I’ll be moving on to Las Vegas, so if you’d like to see me there I still have availability for ONE gentleman tomorrow. I also have time for ONE gentleman in Albuquerque on Monday, but other than that I’m afraid I’m booked solid. If you missed me, please try to book early next time! Anyhow, a week from today I plan to start for home by way of Salt Lake City, and if the weather cooperates I’ll be home a week from tomorrow. Though I don’t like to tour often, it always seems to give me new energy; in fact, things are already looking up for February! But as usual, you’ll have to wait to see what that means (except for my book, which should be out in the next few weeks).

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Creating a Monster

Posted in Current Events, History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Backpage, censorship, Craigslist, Creating a Monster, law, rescue industry on January 16, 2017| 12 Comments »

With Backpage in the news so much, and various government actors vomiting out so many egregious lies about it, I thought it might be a good idea to recap how this whole shitshow developed from its roots in the previous “sex trafficking” moral panic to the present political circus. See, while the politicians want you to believe that Backpage is some sort of magical pimp machine the likes of which has never been seen before, the truth is that Backpage ads are the end result of a slow and steady progression of advertising starting roughly a century ago, just after prostitution was criminalized in the US at the height of the last go-round of hysteria over “sex trafficking” (or as it was called then, “white slavery”). Once brothels could no longer operate openly, escort services appeared, while some women chose to frequent hotels and such and others preferred to take out personal ads in newspapers. Once the alternative weeklies appeared in the 1960s, the latter approach became far more popular; escorts were able to be more blunt than they could in major newspapers, though not remotely as blatant as they later became once those weeklies went online. Even the name “Backpage” is a tribute to the site’s origin as an online version of the back pages of alt-weeklies, where the classified ads (including escort ads) were located. In fact, the only important differences between the online version and its print ancestors are those directly related to the differences between the online medium and the print medium, such as ease of access and speed of both posting and reply (ask a whore who worked prior to the late ’90s about going to one’s PO Box to pick up actual paper letters from clients answering one’s ad, requesting appointments days or weeks in the future).

So when Craigslist first appeared in 1996 as an online classified ad site, it was a foregone conclusion that whores would post ads in its classified and massage sections, just as they had in newspaper sections. It wasn’t any kind of “revolution”; it just sped things up and made them more efficient. But whenever a new technology is involved, you can be absolutely sure the Puritans and Luddites will insist that it’s the source of all manner of new evils, and that it will surely bring about the end of civilization (usually by corrupting women and harming children, naturally). It took them over ten years, however; though Craigslist had a dedicated “erotic services” section by 2002 (I’m not sure of the exact date it was added), the “sex trafficking” fetishists, at that time far less numerous and vociferous than they are now, did not really begin to take note of it until sometime after 2005. That was the year bureaucrats from the San Francisco Department of Public Health embarked on a campaign to blame the site’s personals section for a rise in syphilis among gay men, using the typical government argument that adults are so stupid and passive that they need to be “encouraged” or “facilitated” by some corporation or communications medium to do things like have sex. The blame-game seemed to attract the attention of the “sex trafficking” fetishists, and by the following year they were starting to put pressure in the site to “do something” about their favorite imaginary problem. A group of 40 state attorneys general demanded that Craigslist facilitate pigs’ attempts to arrest sex workers (under guise of “stopping “trafficking”, naturally) and the site responded by requiring a working phone number and charging a fee to post in the erotic services section (to keep underage people out). Of course, that wasn’t enough; the following year Craigslist renamed the section to “adult services” while prohibitionists blathered about how much money the company was making from the fee they had forced it to charge. Finally, in 2010 the site shuttered the section, putting up a “censored” bar over the link to it, and advertisers either migrated to Backpage (founded in 2004 specifically as a competitor to Craigslist) or went back to advertising in the personals & massage sections as they did before the “erotic services” category was established.

Drunk with their victory, the prohibitionists immediately turned to Backpage; within weeks of Craigslist’s defeat they sent a similar letter to the one they had sent Craigslist, no doubt expecting a similar reaction. Instead, they got a fight which has gone on for over six years, with Backpage winning at every turn for the simple reason that the government’s demands are blatantly unconstitutional. But the evil don’t stop being evil merely because they’re wrong; faced with repeated defeats in their attempts to take legal action against the company, government prohibitionists decided to simply take illegal actions instead, ranging from Tom Dart’s threats against credit card companies to Senate “hearings” of the same sort previously held to intimidate moviemakers, comic book publishers and the music industry. Then in October, California attorney general Kamala Harris upped the ante by committing the blatantly criminal act of arresting the CEO and both owners of Backpage and filing charges against them that she absolutely knew were illegal for her to file. Naturally, a judge slapped her down, and she replied by filing even more ridiculous charges, shitting all over the dying protection against double jeopardy in her quest to be a hero to fanatics. Exhausted and facing the prospect of an infinite succession of similar nuisance charges from criminal tyrants the courts seem unwilling to charge or even rein in, Backpage finally followed in Craigslist’s footsteps and censored its adult ads one week ago today.

But while the mainstream reaction to Craigslist’s defeat was largely a collective yawn, the same is not true this time around. While Craigslist’s resistance and eventual surrender was generally conducted rather quietly, the war on Backpage has been extremely noisy and impossible to ignore; as a result there have been many articles about it already. The best of these, as usual, is by Elizabeth Nolan Brown; David Meyer Lindenberg of Fault Lines and Mike Ludwig of Truthout, both strong and dependable allies, also wrote on the topic, and Alison Bass ridiculed Nicholas Kristof’s predictably-ridiculous take on the subject. Sex workers are coming together to help each other find alternative advertising resources, and other groups such as free-speech advocates and anarchists are chiming in as well. Backpage has vowed to continue the fight, and I certainly hope they do, because as soon as they stop struggling the prohibitionists will need to find another advertising site to turn into a monster. Their campaign of eternal outrage needs a target for its hate, or else it means the end of all the accumulation of money and power which is the true aim of this ugly anti-sex crusade.

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Links #341

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged cops, drugs, evidence, fascism, FBI, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Japan, Just Call Me Nobody, libraries, porn, propaganda, surveillance, Texas, Things We Choose To Do Together, video on January 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The government concedes it presented no evidence. – 9^th Circuit Court

We’ve all seen American propaganda cartoons from the Second World War, but here’s an interesting twist: a Japanese propaganda cartoon from 1936 in which the evil Mickey Mouse bombs Japan and is defeated by Japanese cartoon characters. Like so many interesting videos lately, it was called to my attention by Jesse Walker; the links above it were provided by Rick Horowitz, Ed Krayewski, Jason Kuznicki, Tim Cushing, Emma Evans, Kevin Wilson, Dave Krueger, and Tim Cushing again, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#704)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Advice for Clients, agency denial, Amnesty At Last, Arkansas, Broken Record, Checklist, Colorado, cops, escort review sites, Florida, Having and Eating Cake, hysteria, Israel, Kentucky, Minnesota, neofeminism, Norway, Ohio, Out of Control, porn, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, Repeat Offenders, rescue industry, Rhode Island, Saving Them from Themselves, semen, So Close and Yet So Far, sporting events, stripping, Stupor Bowl, Swedish model, teachers, To Molest and Rape, Traffic Jam, Twitter, Wisconsin on January 14, 2017| 6 Comments »

I *personally* could wreck the careers of a dozen politicians. And there are roughly half a million whores in the US. – Me

Advice for Clients

Mistress Matisse offers advice on the oft-asked “how do I find an escort” question:

…Look to social media…Now that so many review boards have been taken down, social media is the best way to find a good independent escort…I’m not saying “no social media” equals “bad escort”…there are lots of good escorts who don’t have much of a social-media presence. But if you want to get to know a little about who someone is before you meet them, that’s just how you do it now…

Saving Them From Themselves

I’m sure he did it to “protect” them:

A fired Kentucky high school principal took students’ phones so he could steal porn images and trade them online…Stephen Kyle Goodlett…was indicted…on federal charges of possessing and transporting child pornography…after a 20-year-old woman learned that naked images she had taken for her boyfriend when she was 15 had been uploaded to a porn trading website in Russia…the IP address of the device that uploaded the images matches an account registered by Goodlett…[who claims] that he has an addiction to porn…

Above the Law

This says he reduced the sentences if they gave him sex; I suspect it was more like “I’ll increase your sentence if you don’t”:

An Arkansas judge has resigned after allegations he granted leniency to female defendants in exchange for sexual favors…judge…Timothy Parker of Eureka Springs, has denied the charges but submitted his resignation on Dec. 30, one day before his term in office was to end…

So Close and Yet So Far

You’d think someone who claims to support sex worker rights could refrain from parroting Swedish propaganda or pretending that human rights are debatable:

…decriminalizing child prostitution is crucial to stopping trafficking…and…some also believe that decriminalizing sex work for adults may be best. In 1999, Sweden decriminalized the selling of oneself for sex, while still keeping it illegal to…pay for sex, essentially putting the burden where it belongs, on the traffickers and their customers…Some even call for prostitution to be decriminalized, or even legalized, across the board. In 2003, New Zealand did just that…international trafficking is less of a concern because of New Zealand’s isolated geography. Whether decriminalization or legalization of sex work for adults will ultimately keep them safer is still a widely-debated topic…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake

Another court continues the trend of classifying strippers as employees:

A prohibition under Wisconsin law against employers docking an employee’s pay “for defective or faulty workmanship” applies to the exotic dancing industry, a federal judge ruled…Dawn Stevens sued the Oval Office Gentleman’s Club, claiming the “fines” it subtracted from her pay for giving dances that didn’t meet the club’s standards were barred by state law. The club made deductions for “failing to fully remove all clothing, except for underwear, by the end of the first song when dancing on stage; spending too much time in the dressing room; and not dressing according to the Oval Office’s dress code,” among other violations…

Stupor Bowl

It’s almost sad to see these losers trying to cash in with debunked bullshit a year ahead of time:

Minnesota’s fight against sex trafficking is gearing up for the February 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis…conventions and large gatherings…attract traffickers who see potential for higher demand of their services. [Totally bogus] research has found that online ads for adult services increase for big events — many of which advertise trafficked women…Minnesota is in a better position than previous hosts to tackle the issue…[because it] leads the nation on addressing sex trafficking, and its practices are looked to as a model for other states…

Broken Record (#510)

Cows still cause “sex trafficking”!

Authorities are on high alert for human trafficking as crowds come to Denver for the National Western Stock Show…Deputy Shay Haney with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office [fantasizes] the large number of tourists coming to the show can attract human traffickers…[cops] are working to check websites…to identify [women’s pictures they can jerk off to on the public dime]…

Checklist (#542)

Apparently, Florida “authorities” didn’t think their magical posters resulted in enough people being caged, so they’ve added a website:

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced efforts…to spread [hysteria about] human trafficking…[by] launching a new website…digital signs will be displayed throughout the Tampa International Airport, encouraging travelers to visit the new site for tools to [make themselves paranoid so they rat each other out to the cops]…

Out of Control (#554)

Unsatisfied with merely sneaking or throwing, this enterprising pervert invented a spooge-squirting system:

A West Virginia man admitted to masturbating at least 12 times in public shopping center parking lots, filling syringes with semen and following women into stores while squirting them on the back with the fluids. Timothy Blake…was arrested…in Marietta, Ohio [after]…A woman [reported the incident and police]…were able to track Blake down through security footage…“The defendant stated maybe [squirting women with semen-filled syringes were] his way of having sex with these women”…

Amnesty At Last

Imagine a reporter adopting this tone in a story about an NAACP chapter leader who was publicly promoting a policy that police should cooperate with the KKK to “protect” black people:

The coordinator of [Providence, RI]’s Amnesty International chapter has been expelled, after nearly 40 years of service, for publicly disagreeing with the group’s stance on decriminalizing sex work. Marcia Lieberman…disagreed [that women have sexual agency and fantasizes that Amnesty’s]…policy…would embolden “pimps and johns” who were exploiting “mostly young women and girls…we did not believe it should be legal for [adults to have consensual] sex”…Lieberman wrote a letter to the editor of The Providence Journal…reiterating her opposition to the [civil rights of adults]…and in support of…police [harassment of those adults]…

Traffic Jam (#575)

How many moronic prohibitionist plays can the market bear?

If the demand for sex trafficking were to end, would the supply end too? Recently defected from a sex trafficking ring, Amber Cregg has immunity, and a story to tell. Will she cooperate and aid the side of justice, or will she continue to her deep allegiance to her former pimp? Join the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition, and the all-youth cast of blank slate theatre, for this original play on human sex trafficking…

The name of the play is Bottom. I’m not even gonna go there.

Repeat Offenders (#637)

Even when it isn’t garment-related, “rescuers” invariably want to push sex workers into some kind of menial crafting work:

Modern slavery is all around us—even if we don’t always see it…one group in Tel Aviv is fighting against it to save lives and the environment. A.I.R.—which stands for “Act, Inspire, Restore”…combines social purpose with an eco-friendly upcycling business to spread awareness about the black market activity and to give former prostitutes the skills and supportive community they need for a second chance at life. Founded by Swiss couple Tabea and Matthias Oppliger, A.I.R. turns [garbage] like pallets into custom wood furniture…they currently work together with eight former sex workers who have signed on for a one-year training program to help them reintegrate into society…

Where “reintegrate into society” means “menial domestic labor”.

To Molest and Rape

Such a long and wordy euphemism for “rape”:

A [Norwegian cop] may lose his job over allegations that he used his role as an officer of the law to get sex from a number of women…One victim…needed to report a stolen car trailer to the police. Later that same day, she was sent 70 text messages from the [cop pressuring her for sexual contact]…he also encouraged the woman to send photos of herself so he could “enjoy them”…The following day…he…went to the woman’s home [uninvited and raped her]…

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The War Goes On

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, Backpage, censorship, Friday the Thirteenth, holidays, The War Goes On on January 13, 2017| 7 Comments »

Today is Friday the 13th, on which I ask non-sex workers to speak up for our rights. I’ve given many suggestions for how to do that over the past seven years, but this year I’m going to be a little more specific about the help I’d like you to give, and it’s twofold. First, very simply, is to give sex workers money; we had an extremely rough autumn thanks to the quadrennial national madness, and every sex worker and organization is hurting right now. The second way, if you’re American, is to call your senator or representative (especially your senator) to say how displeased you are about the persecution of adult sex workers and clients. You won’t get to talk to the politician, but their office staffs are usually quite small so a few dozen phone calls in one day on the same subject will make an impression on the staff, and that may get through to the politician in a report. The reason I’m asking you to take this specific step is that the extrajudicial and unconstitutional persecution of Backpage has come to a head; on Monday evening, exhausted by the constant string of nuisance lawsuits, groundless charges, illegal arrests and blatant slander, Backpage followed in the footsteps of Craigslist by censoring its adult services section in the United States:

As the direct result of unconstitutional government censorship, Backpage.com has removed its Adult content section…new government tactics, including pressuring credit card companies to cease doing business with Backpage, have left the company with no other choice but to remove the content in the United States. As federal appeals court Judge Richard Posner has described, the goal is either to “suffocate” Backpage out of existence or use the awesome powers of the government to force Backpage to follow in the footsteps of Craigslist and abandon its Adult advertising section. Judge Posner described such tactics as “a formula for permitting unauthorized, unregulated, foolproof, lawless government coercion”…As The Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have observed, the Senate subcommittee has engaged in an “invasive, burdensome inquiry into Backpage.com’s editorial practices [that] creates an intense chilling effect, not only for Backpage but for any website operator”…This will not end the fight for online freedom of speech. Backpage.com will continue to pursue its efforts in court to vindicate its First Amendment rights and those of other online platforms for third party expression.

In the meantime, the many sex workers who use Backpage for advertising are scrambling to figure out what to do. Many will simply move to other sections of Backpage, such as massage and personals, just as they did on Craigslist; others will prefer to migrate to different platforms. With that in mind, here is a LONG list of other escort advertising sites; these are all drawn from lists at Rate That Rescue and Saucy Says What? plus a few sent to me by people on Twitter. Note that I can’t vouch for any of these except Eros, Slixa, TNA, Mature Sensual and ECCIE; the last three are free, and I’d really like to see ECCIE get more traffic in Seattle because it’s a great site that served me well in Oklahoma. I’ve written about P411 & Date-Check before; both have advertising but aren’t primarily advertising sites per se. The rest are just listed and linked, but I know little or nothing about them. I’ve organized them with the biggest sites at the top, then regional or special-interest sites in alphabetical order with notes to indicate if they’re anything other than broad female escort sites. Sites marked with an asterisk are those on which I have a current or recent profile.

Adam 4 Adam (MfM)

Adult Hobby Board (TN, MT)

Adult Search (Maine)

Adult Work (BDSM/fetish)

Alt Playground (BDSM/fetish)

Asspig (MfM)

Avenue X (East Coast)

Best GFE (NJ, NY, PA, CT, MA)

Big Doggie (mostly Southeast US)

Bigcity (Dallas)

Black Ebony Escorts (Black escorts)

Body Rub Search (FBSM)

Bondage (BDSM/fetish)

Boyscort (MfM)

Boytoy (MfM)

City-Source (CA)

Cityvibe

Companions Reviews

Concierge du Monde (MfW)

Daddysreviews.com (MfM)

Duttslist (Craigslist knockoff)

EEOW

Eros Transsexuals (TS)

Erotic Monkey

Erotic Mugshots

Escort Ads

Escort Boards (CO, KS, NV, TX)

Escort Photos (CO, TX)

Escort Post

Escort Woman

Escorting Consultant – (SF Bay Area)

Escorts are for Women Too (MfW)

Established Men (sugar dating)

Fetish Freak Webcams (BDSM/fetish)

Fetlife (BDSM/fetish)

GFE Club (NJ, NY, PA, CT, MA)

GFE Forum

Gina’s Little Secret

Girl-Directory

Goddess Temple (CA)

Grain Belt News (KY, MI, MN, MO, ND, SD, NE, OH, WI)

Grenlist (FL)

The Hidden Pages

The Hobby Hunter (Portland)

Hot Male Escort Guide (Male escorts)

Hott Pages

Hourboy (MfM)

Humaniplex (Southern CA)

Hung Angels (TS)

Independent Girls (FL)

Indys (IN, MN, MI, OH, IL, WV, PA)

International Escorts

Kingdom 99 (Canada)

The Kings List (Craigslist knockoff)

Le 69

London Ebony (Black escorts)

Lovings (West Coast)

Male Companions for Women (MfW)

Manhunt (MfM)

Massage M4M (MfM)

Massage Republic

Masseur Finder (MfM)

MatureSensual (mature escorts)*

Max Fisch (BDSM/fetish)

Men 4 Men Cruising (MfM)

Men 4 Rent Now (MfM)

Men 4 Sex Now (MfM)

Message Forum (MfM)

Millionaire Dates (sugar dating)

Millionaire Match (sugar dating)

Millionaire Sponsor (sugar dating)

MP Reviews (CA, NV massage parlors)

My Provider Guide

Myscarletbook

Naughty New Orleans (New Orleans)

Naughty Nightlife

Naughty Reviews – (AZ, CA, FL, HI, IN, KY, MI, OH, OK, IL, TN, TX, WI)

Night Shift (Sacramento & SF Bay Area)

Open Adult Directory

The Other Board (CO, NV, TX)

Outcall (mature escorts)

Pleasure Massage Directory (FBSM)

Pure VIP

Queer Sex Work (MfM)

Rate That Provider (KS)

Recon (MfM)

The Red Directory – (FBSM Canada)

Red Massage (FBSM)

Rent Hot Angels (MfM)

Rent Masseur (MfM)

Rentboys – (MfM)

RS2K (IL)

Rubmaps (FBSM)

Sacred Eros – (tantra, sex coaching etc)

Seeking Arrangement (sugar dating)*

A Sexy Service (TN)

Sipsap (Maine)

Skip the Games (Boston, NY, PA, DC, GA)

Southern GFE (NC)

Squirt (MfM)

Sugar Daddie (sugar dating)

Sugar Daddy Finder (sugar dating)

Sugar Daddy for Me (sugar dating)

Sugar Daddy Meet (sugar dating)

Sugar Daddy Today (sugar dating)

Sugar Sugar (sugar dating)

Tabu Life (BDSM/fetish)

That Mall

TNA (West Coast)*

Trans Escorts (TS)

Trans X (TS)

Travel Sex Guide

Trusted Fling (CA)

TS Dating (TS)

TS Escorts (TS)

TS 4 Rent (TS)

TSMFE (Tampa Bay area massage parlors)

USA Sex Guide

Utopia Guide (Northeast US)

VIP Girlfriend (DC, NYC, LA, Miami)

Wealthy Men (sugar dating)

What’s Your Price? (sugar dating)*

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2016 in Review

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged activism, blogging, censorship, statistics on January 12, 2017| 2 Comments »

As I wrote last year, it’s getting a lot harder to compile these yearly statistics columns; social media platforms like WordPress just can’t seem to leave well enough alone, and they’ve steadily made it more difficult to write and edit my posts (much less find out the kind of statistics I used to be able to find with a single click). As the new year dawned they even made it extremely difficult to get to the site’s dashboard; luckily I remembered the URL and was able to create a link myself in Chrome. Furthermore, Google continues to censor search results so as to curtail traffic to “adult” blogs like this one; while I used to get a huge number of serendipitous hits, my site is now found almost entirely by people specifically looking for it or following direct links. Furthermore, I fear the statistics themselves are less meaningful than they used to be; the tallies for some are so small that they don’t seem likely to represent more than a fraction of the actual figures for those categories. Perhaps WordPress simply hasn’t kept up with the way people access websites, but if we believe these figures nearly everyone who comes here now does so by typing the address in, which seems unlikely. So unless things change dramatically in the next year, this may well be the last annual statistics column I do.

I received a total of 918,225 visitors in 2014, about 83,000 less than in the previous year; the average number of hits per day was 2515. My best month was September, with a total of 84,336 views (2811 per day); as you can see the performance is still very consistent, with the high not all that far above the average. The record for best single day is still held by October 6^th, 2013 (9253 views). As usual, Twitter gave me the greatest number of referrals, 59,547 in all; it was followed by Reddit (11,775 hits) and Facebook (5501). #4 was a (presumably collective) heading labeled “Android apps” with 4259, #5 Vice with 2643, #6 Pinterest with 2144, #7 USA Sex Guide with 2025, #8 Bustle with 1949, #9 Jeff Pearlman’s site with 915, and #10 Reason with 877. The top ten countries in which my readers live together account for about 87% of all of my traffic; #1 is the United States with 575,464 hits (62.7%); #2 the United Kingdom with 66,273 (7.2%); #3 Canada with 53,220 (5.8%); #4 Australia with 38,161 (4.16%); #5 India with 13,757 (1.50%); #6 Germany with 12,479 (1.36%); #7 Japan with 10,218 (1.11%); #8 The Netherlands with 9045 (0.99%); #9 France with 8921 (0.97%); and #10 Singapore with 8505 (0.93%).

When counting searches, I only included those with 5 hits or more (otherwise it would’ve taken all night). The most common search which discovered this blog last year was the perennial favorite “soapland” (in many, many different forms) for a total of 815 hits. “Sonagachi” was second with 552; many of these seemed to think they could find a rate table, as though there were such a thing. “Maggie McNeill” (spelled several different ways and with added terms such as “nude” or “boobs”) was third with 477, and “honest courtesan” (in various permutations) was fourth with 369 hits (followed closely by “Veronica Franco” in fifth with 362). Inquiries about genital sizes & shapes came in sixth with 346, and various permutations of “anonymous blogging” seventh with 283. “P411” was eighth with 213 hits, inquiries about sex workers’ rates were ninth with 176, and “Lillie Langtry” was tenth with 119 (kicking out “rhinoceros” for the first time; it only scored 105). Note that numbers for all of these continue to drop due to Google’s continuing prudification of its search parameters.

My top ten posts for the year were as follows:

Name	Date	# of hits in 2016
All Shapes and Sizes	September 8^th, 2010	48,108
A Visit to Soapland	October 21^st, 2011	44,143
Black Men	September 18^th, 2010	24,793
Advice for Clients	August 21^st, 2010	22,878
A Whore in the Bedroom	September 9^th, 2010	20,843
Something in the Milk	January 28^th, 2014	15,584
More Terminology	September 7^th, 2011	14,121
The Going Rate	October 9^th, 2010	13,825
Honolulu Harlots	July 5^th, 2011	10,573
Veronica Franco	November 14^th, 2011	9679

Dr. Brooke Magnanti’s “How To Blog Anonymously (and how not to)” also had considerable traffic (37,482 hits in all); the reason it doesn’t appear in the table above is that it’s a static page rather than a post (I exclude my “Introduction” page for the same reason). Unfortunately, it’s no longer possible to easily track comments per post, so I’ve had to drop that metric from the roundup. You’ll also note the top posts have only barely changed; predictably, the demise of Ashley Madison has caused my column on it to lose readership, making way for Veronica Franco to break into the top ten. But other than that it’s boringly similar to last year, which is another reason, I think, for dispensing with this feature in the future. Ah, well; all things must pass. After seven years and so many other changes, this one is really quite minor.

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