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Archive for December, 2017

Victoria McCormick, AKA Victoria of Dallas, was a centerfold for Hustler’s Busty Beauties who is currently working as an escort and wrapping up her memoir How One Woman Learned to Give Men Exactly What They Wanted Before Discovering How to Give Herself What She Needed.

This has been quite a year and I have had the opportunity to meet some new and interesting people as well as traveling to unfamiliar places around the world.  Being given the opportunity to move to Sardegna, Italy to rewrite the last chapter of my memoir was the dream of a lifetime; since I had no agent at the time, I wanted it to be perfect and I knew I needed some space from work to accomplish that.  So I sold everything I owned, paid the USDA over 1K to get export paperwork for my cat, packed 3 suitcases and moved to Sardegna, surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea.  It’s a beautiful place, with flamingoes everywhere; their vast wingspans of hot pink, black and white provided quite the contrast to the azure and emerald sea at Poetto Beach.

While there, I took a week in March to visit London for the first time; while there I worked and was interviewed for a podcast on the difference of being a sex worker in the UK and the US.  And there was quite a difference, mostly deriving from the fact that it’s legal there (as it is in most of the world).  And while that means the risk of being arrested (due to violations of the many laws surrounding sex work, such as brothel-keeping and the like) is far lower there, and our risk of being the victims of opportunistic crimes is higher in the US due to criminalization, it does mean that most escorts make a great deal more in the US (at least as a migrant).  As an American, I would need a working visa to work for any agencies, and that’s very difficult to get.  I also discovered (by talking to other girls on chat boards) that the agencies charge a lot of money for photos, which are over-Photoshopped and belong to the agency afterward.  Then even after the investment of this small fortune, the youngest and prettiest girls were still charging half of what I was in the US and they had to split that meager fee with the agency.  My only choice was therefore to be independent as I am at home, but that too had its problems; the internet advertising sites are inundated with ladies (many from Eastern Europe) charging as low as £30 for basically anything.  And while I certainly don’t look down on anyone who charges less than I do, I personally couldn’t bring myself to work for half or less of what I made back home in the states.  As a result, I saw only two clients while I was in London; ironically, one was from my hometown of Cleveland, OH, and he too had left as soon as he could (as I did when I went to Dallas)!  One other thing struck me:  despite sex work not being criminal in the UK, it’s still just as shunned as it is in the US.  And what that tells me is even after we finally achieve decriminalization in the US and Europe, we’ll still have a very long way to go in eliminating the stigma which contributes just as much to sex workers’ problems as criminalization does.  All in all, I don’t think I’ll try working in other countries again; my experiences have made me appreciate my clients on this side of the pond even more. 

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You’re fucked.  –  gun inscription of “Officer” Philip Brailsford

I quite enjoyed this short animated film about the danger of falling in love.  The links above it were provided by Eddie J CunninghamMike SiegelPopehatRadley BalkoWalter OlsonTim Cushing, and Popehat again, in that order.

From the Archives

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Sexual assault by [cops]…is…the second most frequently reported form of police misconduct, after excessive force.  –  Andrea Ritchie

The Course of a Disease

Prohibitionist scum understand that decriminalization is the only moral framework for sex work; that’s why they keep trying to trick people into thinking the Swedish model is decrim:

Prostitution would [not] be decriminalized in Massachusetts under a bill that Rep. Kay Khan hopes will [choke off sex workers’ income by criminalizing]…people who buy sex and those who [assist] sex workers…it would not legalize the illicit sex trade.  [Sex workers with incalls, or who have any contact with other sex workers] and [clients who provide their income] would remain criminals under the legislation…Khan [fantasizes that consensual]…sex…fosters some unspeakable crimes…

The Notorious Badge 

Hollywood recognizes that prior to the First World War, sex workers were businesswomen who did the work because it was lucrative and flexible:

In Netflix’s Godless…Callie Dunn (Tess Frazer) is one of maybe 50 women who live in La Belle, a town almost entirely populated by women…the men of the town died in a mining accident, leaving the wives to operate the town all on their own.  Callie is the resident school teacher, and a nascent love interest for Mary Agnes (Merritt Wever).  She’s also the richest woman in town because she used to be a sex worker…After the accident…her place of work closed.  Lack of men will do that to brothel…In the lawless west (the show takes place in Colorado and New Mexico), there’s not much a woman could do to earn her own money.  Even Mary Agnes, the widow of the town’s late mayor, is at a loss for funds.  But Callie is sitting pretty on almost $20,000 (almost half a million in today’s dollars)…”Let me take care of you,” Callie begs Mary Agnes in the third episode.  She reveals her impressive savings and offers to run away with Mary Agnes.  When Mary Agnes looks surprised, Callie responds, “Don’t you know?  Whores are always the richest people in town”…

Unfortunately, it also believes we all magically turned into pathetic victims about 100 years ago.

The Lion and the Ox

“Sex trafficking” means whatever “authorities” want it to mean:

Investigations into the many alleged sexual assaults by Harvey Weinstein are now underway all over the world, with the NYPD, the LAPD, the Beverly Hills Police, and UK law enforcement all looking into possible acts of rape, harassment, and other forms of misconduct.  Now…the former producer and his namesake company are facing claims of sex trafficking…actress Kadian Noble is alleging that “Harvey Weinstein was able to force or coerce Kadian into sexual activity…because of his promise of a film role and use of his influence on her behalf” — despite having no intention of following through on those promises…“Harvey Weinstein…offer[ed] her something of value, knowing that he would use this offer as a means to defraud, force, or coerce her into a sexual encounter”…

Scapegoats (#49)

If he’d done this two years ago he’d have been safer than if he’d had consensual sex with a human:

An elderly man has been convicted of sexually assaulting a horse in a stable north of Stockholm.  The owner raised the alarm after discovering someone had entered the stable during the night.  Police found the man hiding under refuse bags…a security camera in the stable caught evidence which led to the conviction.  He was sentenced to fines for trespassing and for breaching Sweden’s Animal Protection Act. Few have been convicted of breaching the act since it was brought in last year…

Policing for Profit

Does any sane person still believe cops’ pretense that this is about anything other than profit?

…the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office [claims] Phil Parhamovich was moved during a traffic stop last March to donate $91,800, his life savings, to the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation to help it wage the war on drugs.  Parhamovich’s version is rather more plausible:  He says state police took his money after pressuring him to sign a “waiver” that circumvented even the limited protections offered by Wyoming’s civil asset forfeiture law…Parhamovich is in state court, trying to get his money back with help from the Institute for Justice, which argues that Wyoming’s roadside waivers are a thin disguise for highway robbery.  Parhamovich, a Wisconsin musician, was on his way to a gig in Salt Lake City on March 13 when a state trooper, Jeramy Pittsley, pulled him over on Interstate 80 in Laramie County [using the pretext that he had] fail[ed] to buckle his seat belt.  The stop turned into an interrogation…and [search in which] they found $91,800 inside a speaker cabinet.  The cops were so excited by their discovery that they high-fived each other.  The windfall also apparently made them forget that there was no trace of the drugs that Pittsley’s dog supposedly had detected…

Apparently the judge is sane, because he ordered the state to return the entire sum to Parhamovich.

Out of Control (#410) 

Doctors aren’t the only medical professionals who throw their careers away for this stupid shit:

Former [Pennsylvania] nurse James Close will spend up to four years in prison and 20 years on probation for secretly filming female patients, including one underage girl…Judge Wallace H. Bateman also ordered him to…sexual offender and sex addiction treatment…

Above the Law (#418) 

Just a reminder that this behavior is intrinsic to policing, not an isolated incident limited to the US:

A Canadian tourist who was…rape[d] by French police…has spoken out for the first time about the night she was attacked…Emily Sponton has decided to waive her anonymity to give her account of the night of April 22nd 2014 when, after meeting three French police at the Galway Irish pub she was…gang rape[d by them] at the nearby Paris police HQ…Sponton said she had been drinking with the three [pigs] who had been regaling her with stories of their work…[they] offered to give her a tour of the building but once there Sponton says they tried to force her to drink large amount of whisky…”when I refused to do what they wanted…they smashed my face against the desk”…She…was raped several times…[and] later found lying on the street outside the police HQ…On [medical] examination she was found to have bruises and lesions in the genital area.  She immediately filed a complaint for rape before heading home to Canada…two [were] finally set to face trial on charges of gang rape…after Sponton had won her appeal to see the case brought back to court after judges initially threw it out last year…One of the [pigs claimed the rape was]…”consensual” [as rapist pigs nearly always do]…

Paint By Numbers (#593) 

Given the lack of imagination displayed by “sex trafficking” fetishists, I reckon it’s predictable that they keep recycling their stupid stunts:

…Started in 2013, the Dressember foundation is a [profiteering] organization…dedicated to [profiting from]…human trafficking [hysteria]….Those willing to take the more popular approach will opt in by wearing a dress every day of December.  Others, who may not have many dresses to wear or who may be a bit more warm-blooded, can still help out by donating to the cause.  All of the money donated goes toward [persecuting sex workers]…

The Rape Question (#602) 

I’m honestly amazed the dumb “rape is asexual” dogma is still popular:

There are reasons why nobody would tell a child “look only to the left when crossing the street because people are nice and swerve out the way for you” or “don’t wear your seatbelt because nothing will happen to you.”  The unfortunate reality is that simply changing our ideas about the world doesn’t actually change the world…in the case of sexual assault, coercion, and rape, omitting crucial pieces of the puzzle (like biological constraints) in understanding these heinous acts could prove to be detrimental…this blank slate version of human nature is riddled with holes…what we’ve seen is a tacit acceptance of the crime when it is committed by “one of our own” and harsh condemnation when it is someone from “the other side” doing it…social role theorists want us to believe that there is a utopian world  just beyond our grasp that somehow males and capitalism prevent us from achieving…understanding biology is important in helping us deter sexual violence and why ignoring it could prove to be dangerous…

Pyrrhic Victory (#609)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

“Oklahoma has finalized a deal with a Massachusetts company to use license-plate scanners to catch uninsured drivers, and the firm expects to issue 20,000 citations a month starting as early as next year.  The program…involves setting up automated high-speed cameras on highways around the state to detect uninsured vehicles and mailing their owners a citation with a fine of $184“…[besides] the mass collection of plate/location data…Gatso USA will receive more than 40% of the revenue…The company hopes to make more than $1.6 million a month…”It will be overseen by the District Attorneys Council rather than law enforcement, and the state’s 27 district attorneys’ offices are expected to receive millions of dollars in citation revenue a year”...

To Molest and Rape 

It’s good to see this problem getting attention outside of libertarian and sex worker circles:

…as we furiously unpack the prevalence of sexual assault across many industries, the reality of police sexual misconduct has not found its way into these discussions.  That’s a tragedy, because it happens so frequently…One study found that a [cop] is caught in an act of sexual misconduct every five days — and those are just the ones who are caught…national research…show[s] that almost a quarter or more of cases of police sexual assault involve minors…

Fever Dream (#742)

Reporters & prohibitionists are apparently too stupid to understand that when you misrepresent a consensual-crime misdemeanor a person didn’t even actually commit as a serious, violent felony, it’s going to be hard to get a conviction:

Over the past year [TBI has] conducted about a dozen undercover stings and charged more than 200 men…[in one] sting conducted in Nashville in 2016…TBI charged 34 men…27 of them had their cases dismissed and [expunged after paying for the “john school” the prohibitionists wanted, yet they’re not happy that an unproven misdemeanor charge isn’t enough to destroy the lives of the accused]…”Having all these charges expunged sends a very, very clear message that we’re not serious,” [prohibitionist & profiteer Cathy] Gurly said…Assistant District Attorney Tammy Meade…[pointed out] that…these cases are difficult to prosecute because the victims aren’t real, they’re actually undercover agents…

Checklist (#783)

The real purpose of this scheme is to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system:

Advanced Periodontics & Implantology…[of] Michigan, organized a seminar for dentists and hygienists on the topic “Human Trafficking”…Michigan Public Health Code and Administrative rules require all dentists to complete training in identification of human trafficking victims…

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Last week, one of my online friends asked if it was ethical to buy a used car from someone who was an overt racist.  I told him certainly, if it was a good car at a fair price.  I then pointed out that every one of us does business with dozens of racists & people with even worse character traits every day; we just don’t know it.  One of the costs of living in a complex modern society is that you know zero about 99% of the people you need to interact with.  How does a merchant know anything about the character of most of the people who buy things from his store?  He doesn’t, and that’s OK.  Here’s a personal example:  There’s a very good chance that any given woman I interact with in public supports the sending of armed thugs to rape, rob and cage me and most of the people I love.  If I had to stop interacting with such people I would simply have to stay home and never buy anything (NB: I say “woman” because studies show far more women than men are in favor of the government dispatching armed thug rape squads to destroy the lives of other women).  If a person’s or company’s behavior offends you and you can get the same service or product from another who doesn’t, by all means go to the other.  But in most cases you either don’t know or else there’s no real alternative, and you’ll harm yourself more by obsessing over this than your one-person boycott could possibly ever do to induce the offender to change their ways.

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I’m a 24 year old man who grew up in a very conservative, sex negative atmosphere; the most I’ve ever done is kiss a woman, and that was several years ago.  I’ve had pretty extensive health issues that largely keep me homebound, and porn just makes me feel lonely.  I’ve engaged in cybersex with women I met online, but I always lose contact with them because the only time I want to talk is when my horniness overpowers my embarrassment; I’m very uncomfortable seeking this stuff out even online, and I’ve had a few women that I cut off because they wanted to move much too fast, and expected me to just ignore all my boundaries.  For the same reason I’m not comfortable with sex-related online communities.  On top of that, the women I talk with don’t get much from the situation; the most I’m comfortable with is voice chat and I need to be eased into that.  Paying is not a financial possibility for me right now, and TBH I don’t really have any desire to do sexual stuff with a woman who only is there because I pay her.

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have no advice to give you.  Surely you understand that nobody is going to give you something for nothing?  You simply can’t expect random strangers to give you free sexual interaction, completely on your terms, without expecting anything in return.  That simply isn’t the way human dynamics work.  What you are looking for, whether you like it or not, is a sex worker.  You want someone to fulfill your desires on demand while staying completely within the boundaries you set, but who won’t ask anything for herself or expect romance or whatever.  That is about as good a description of a sex worker/client relationship as one could wish for; a sex worker is only looking for her fee, nothing else, and as a professional she will proceed at your pace and leave you alone when you aren’t paying for her to do otherwise.  I’m perfectly willing to provide the service if you like, and there are phone sex services, cam girls, etc available on the internet.  But if you are willing to provide your phone partner with nothing, I’m afraid nothing is all you can expect in return.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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St. Nicholas Day 2017


If you’re a new reader and don’t understand why I specifically honor St. Nicholas on his day, I suggest you reread my column for this day three years past, and don’t skip the links.  And if you wish to honor the jolly saint yourself, I suggest you reread my November 24th column and proceed accordingly; I’ve provided ways you can help several of the saint’s favorites at the same time.  And if you already know what this is about, what are you waiting for?  I know you don’t want to end up on his naughty list.

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Diary #388

This year, just about everyone who took advantage of my Toys for Tots special gave me cash, so I’ve made several shopping trips; Jae was a tomboy when she was young, so she came along on the second trip and helped me pick out boys’ toys.  I try to roughly balance boys’ toys, girls’ toys, unisex toys (such as games & puzzles) and small children’s toys, and while I usually make more than one trip to the dropoff location I think I might do it all in one load this time, just because it’s more impressive.  Remember, the last day is Monday the 11th, only six days from today; if you don’t have time to see me before that, you can send the $100 in advance and I’ll honor it for your appointment later.  In case you’ve forgotten the details, here they are again:

book a session with me and bring up to six new, unwrapped toys with you, and I’ll add ten minutes per toy to your time!  If you prefer, bring an extra $100 and I’ll extend your time by half an hour (then use the hundred to buy toys).  Please let me know when booking you want to take advantage of the special, so I can allow for the time in my schedule.  If you don’t want a full date but would like to meet me, for $100 and three toys (or $150 cash) I will have an hour-long coffee meeting with you anywhere in the Seattle area.  And if you don’t live near me, please consider donating via PayPal or Google wallet anyway; use my regular email address (maggiemcneill@earthlink.net) and make sure you note what part of your donation is for toys and what part for me (it’s perfectly OK to tell me to spend it all on toys; I don’t mind)…

Whores and children are Saint Nick’s favorites, so it has always seemed appropriate to me that at his special time of year, the former should make a special effort to help the latter.

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Here’s a recent article about a strategy for protecting children from sexual abuse:

…children have a natural ability to sense who is safe and who is not safe.  “You, the parents, need to trust this sense and foster its development rather than try to change a child’s mind.”  So, believe your children and cultivate a “No Secret” family…Susan Caruso…argues that it is vitally important to use the correct terms for a child’s private parts and talk about body safety.  Caruso encourages parents to use the terms “surprise” or “safe secrets” when it comes to temporarily withholding information for birthdays or holidays.  Outside of this, parents need to be clear that “we don’t keep secrets in our family”…

That’s all very commendable and well-intended, but it was clearly dreamed up by straight, vanilla people who either developed late or don’t remember their own childhood sexuality, and therefore think of sexual secrets as only something that a child would be asked to keep by a molester, when in actuality a child might have their own sexual secrets that have nothing to do with molestation.  While it’s true that some children, perhaps even the majority, have rather low-key sexualities that don’t go much beyond “it feels good when I touch myself like this,” many others fall into sexual or gender minorities that stand out in sharp contrast to what they see around them or on television.  As I’ve written before, I was attracted to women from a young age, and though I didn’t realize my fascination with bondage and power exchange (especially science fiction mind-control) was “sexual”, I did understand that other people were not similarly fascinated, and I felt intense feelings of shame around it.  Nor am I alone; many of my queer and/or kinky friends report feeling that way from a young age, and most of us recognized it as something we should keep to ourselves because our parents wouldn’t accept or understand.

Though my mother assiduously avoided sexual topics with me, and dismissed me or gave me non-answers when I cautiously asked sexual questions, I do think she would’ve believed me had I been molested and told her about it.  I suspect that’s not so unusual; I can imagine that many people, especially in the present climate of child sex abuse hysteria, would be ready to believe that their child was molested, but would freak the fuck out if the child admitted to homosexual or kinky feelings themselves, or declared that they were of other than their biological gender.  In fact, I can easily imagine parents blaming a nonexistent molester for “putting those ideas” in the child’s head (the anti-sex mob calls this “prematurely sexualizing” them) rather than admit that their “precious, pure little angel” was a queer or a pervert or trans or all of the above.  The result could be even more traumatic than a molestation, and instill lifelong shame and trust issues.

The fact of the matter is, children are people separate from their parents; they are not part of their parents, and they aren’t owned by them, nor are they blank slates to be written neatly upon in whatever style and language their parents desire.  They are individuals with their own personalities from the very beginning, and a certain fraction of them are born with (or develop at an early age via mysterious channels) sexual or gender patterns that have nothing to do with what their parents might prefer or choose to “teach” them.  And individuals of any age past toddlerhood deserve a certain degree of privacy, especially in the realm of their own thoughts.  So by all means, tell your children that it’s wrong for anyone to ask or order them to keep secrets from you, but before you unilaterally declare that “we don’t keep secrets in our family,” you had better give some thought to how you’re going to react if your little darling trustingly confides in you about “weird” sexual feelings you’d really rather they didn’t have.

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There’s a reason why all these teenagers went home that night.
–  Marco Proano

If nothing tips you off, you probably won’t be able to figure out what this video was intended to advertise until the product appears onscreen; it was contributed by Brooke Magnanti, and the links above it by Nun Ya (“Washington”), Radley Balko (“skeleton”),  Adjective Girl (“Facebook”), Patrick Nonwhite (“criminality”), and Tim Cushing  (everything else).

From the Archives

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No one should be comfortable with state-funded employees determining what is or isn’t acceptable for adults to read.  –  Eric Paul Leue

The Pro-Rape Coalition 

Are there still people who believe the French are sexually liberal?

“We are not a puritan society,” French President Emmanuel Macron claimed…He then called for the criminalization of wolf-whistling and gender-based insults, and for requiring France’s TV and radio regulators to police video games and web content…[especially] online pornography, which Macron sees (sans evidence) as a prominent cause of violence against girls and women.  Porn is infiltrating French schools, Macron warned, and “we cannot ignore the kind that makes women an object of humiliation”…

What Would Orrin Hatch Do?

I guess six and a half years without a library internet censorship attempt isn’t too bad a run:

[Using the excuse] of out-in-the-open porn viewing, public sex, drug use and theft at [Los Angeles] city libraries, a pair of [politicians] is proposing [censorship software]…David Ryu…[and] Nury Martinez [vomited out several variations of “For the children!”, pretending this constituted an actual argument]…the Free Speech Coalition (FSC)…[correctly] argues that doing so could violate taxpayers’ First Amendment right…FSC executive director Eric Paul Leue said… “Filtering software sounds like an easy solution, but we know that such software often casts an egregiously wide net, blocking not only sexually explicit content but also sexual health information, LGBTQ sites and sites…which…discuss…issues relevant to the adult industry…In the past year alone, we’ve seen magazines like Cosmopolitan  attacked as pornography in conservative districts, just as we’ve seen crackdowns on LGBTQ content and imagery, and mere nudity elsewhere”…

Setting Women’s Rights Back a Century

It’s a little reassuring to see somebody else recognize this:

…while we think we are moving forward, we may be willingly transporting ourselves back to a more sexually restrictive era, one that denied agency to women…sexual laws and regulations have most often been strengthened in the name of protecting children…Sometimes the children are symbolic: anti-gay crusades are almost invariably framed in terms of “saving the children”— not specific children, but just the children who have to share a country with queers.  In the current American conversation, women are increasingly treated as children:  defenseless, incapable of consent, always on the verge of being victimized.  This should give us pause.  Being infantilized has never worked out well for women.

Acting and Activism (#565) 

Good riddance to bad anti-whore rubbish:

Lena Dunham may be the first person to fabricate details of her alleged rape, then proclaim all women’s claims need to be believed, and then publicly accuse a young woman of lying about having been raped.  Finally, the star and creator of Girls has been exposed as the empty vessel she is…Dunham…speaks, usually unbidden, with complete moral and philosophical authority — until she’s called out online, at which point she furiously and pathetically backpedals…She’s a total hypocrite…and…narcissist who possesses no intellectual rigor, no belief system, no relationship with the truth…

The Puritan Recrudescence

The “progressives” have given religious fanatics a powerful censorship tool:  declare anything a “public health crisis” and it can be harassed at will:

Each new revelation since the first reports of the Harvey Weinstein scandal adds to the discussion about how to deal with sexual harassment and sexual violence in American society. And yet nobody is talking about what could be one of the most effective ways to attack the problem: Recognizing that pornography consumption is a public health crisis…the heavy use of pornography skews the users’ perception of what is normal…We have a sexual violence problem because we have a porn problem…the evidence is mounting that porn is addictive…

All of this is pure, undistilled bullshit; as this article explains, the “porn as public health crisis” propaganda is a dodge dreamed up by prohibitionist Gail Dines and used by politicians in socially-conservative states as an excuse for censorship.  In reality (as opposed to prohibitionists’ anti-sex fantasyland) all the evidence points to porn viewing decreasing sexual violence, and regular readers know that the “sex addiction” myth, the big sister of “porn as health crisis”, is not only unsupported by evidence but dying a quick death due to the antics of the same abusive douchebag this prohibitionist tries to hang his pro-censorship screed on.

Against Their Will (#707)

Prohibitionists call this “rescue”:

A…sex worker fell to her death in Queens [New York because of] a police raid [last]…Saturday night…[grown men pretending to be big heroes] stormed a massage parlor [as though they were in a war or something]…Police say they were trying to [capture and arrest] the 38-year-old woman when they saw her fall to the sidewalk from a third floor window.  She suffered serious injuries, and died Sunday at the hospital.  The medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death.

Because “falling to her death while fleeing in terror from rapists who want to torture her & lock her in a cage” isn’t exact enough?

Rooted in Racism (#732) 

No, this wasn’t a “mistake”; it was a deliberate action proceeding directly from government-approved profiling guidelines:

A vacation to Cancun…ended in anguish when an Atlanta-area woman…and her friend were mistaken on the flight home for human trafficking victims.  The incident…has put a spotlight on the [harms inflicted on minority women by “sex trafficking” hysteria]…Stephanie Ung…was [interrogated] by U.S. Customs and Border Protection…for more than an hour upon arriving at the airport…”I just kept telling them that I wanted to go home for my family Thanksgiving dinner, and that they were making me late, but they just didn’t care,” Ung said through tears.  “They just laughed”…Ung, who is Asian American, said that she believes her race was a factor in the situation…A Delta spokesperson said that another passenger on the flight [fantasized] someone else was in possession of the women’s passports…and [snitched]…to the crew…

Is anyone so gullible as to believe that their being young Asian women had nothing to do with this?

Against Their Will (#766) 

It’s good to see this getting more attention lately:

In Hyderabad in particular there are some very powerful and very well-funded anti-trafficking organisations that…[pretend] any form of sex work [is] a form of trafficking…NGOs…[are] working in combination with the police…processing women and locking them up in “shelters”….[that] operate as jails…Their phones are taken away.  They’re not allowed to contact their families, they’re not allowed to contact their friends that could help them.  Their money is taken away, sometimes even their jewellery is taken away…They are kept against their will…completely cut off from…their life…there is an actual monetary gain to be had by trafficking these women off the streets and into shelters.  So…it actually meets all of the qualifications set out by the Palermo Protocol.  Women themselves are calling this a form of trafficking and…attempt to…escape…Some women attempt suicide…

Safe Targets (#766) 

Not for ANY reason WHATSOEVER.  No, your reason is not an exception:

A woman who reported being kidnapped and raped over a six month period to the police was arrested as she sought care…The woman, who was five months pregnant…was…taken into custody at an east London police station. She was then interrogated over her immigration status…

The Notorious Badge (#772)

OK, so maybe she was listening after all:

Maggie Gyllenhaal thinks prostitution should be decriminalised.  The…actress plays a sex worker in her new TV show The Deuce and she thinks it would be safer and healthier for everyone involved…if it was no longer a criminal act…

Wise Investment (#779)

Even though we’re going to lose many of these, lawsuits are for the present our best weapon against prohibitionists:

…it looked like City Attorney Pete Holmes’ tactic for leveraging harsh punishments against sex buyers was in trouble.  A filing from a public defender working on behalf of one of the men caught up in the city’s massage parlor stings revealed that the prosecutor had directed his attorneys not to offer pre-trial diversion to men accused of buying sex.  The strategy…contradict[s] the city’s lauded criminal justice reform efforts allowing people accused of other misdemeanor crimes to avoid criminal convictions.  Public defenders also expressed concern that a sting operation that trapped defendants into guilty pleas could have far more serious consequences for undocumented residents…A law firm hired by the city (to the tune of $60,000) argued in King County Superior Court that…the sex buyer in question didn’t have a due process right to pre-trial diversion…attorney Bob Goldsmith…asked King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell to recuse himself from the case…[because] O’Donnell had participated in the King County Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Task Force, which supported the “end demand” strategy enshrined in the city attorney’s prosecutorial decisions…Judge O’Donnell [naturally] rejected the motion to recuse himself, as well as Goldsmith’s other arguments…


To Molest and Rape (#782)

What kind of sick fuck enrolls their kids in a program specifically intended to groom them into members of a gang of violent thugs?  “A San Leandro [cop] resigned…[after admitting] sexual misconduct with a teenage Police Explorer…Marco Becerra…[molested] a 17-year-old girl…”  I mean, just LOOK at this creepy fuck; would you trust him around your daughter?

Buried Truth (#790) 

Given their propensity for badge-licking, I reckon it’s no surprise social conservatives like sleazy entrapment schemes so much:

A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore…impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets…During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public…When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists.  But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups.  The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias…

You may recognize the resemblance to the failed attempt at framing Planned Parenthood in 2011.

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