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Archive for April, 2018

This Means War

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2018| 11 Comments »

I hate these website confiscation notices.  The agencies involved always plaster their logos all over the damned thing, like they’re so proud of how they wrecked someone’s business, like a bunch of dogs pissing all over to mark their territory.  It makes me sick.  –  Mark Draughn

So it’s finally happened; after seven and a half years of illegal persecution, the federal government finally wiped its fat, disgusting arse with the last remaining shreds of the Constitution and seized Backpage on a number of trumped-up charges, meaning the usual no-evidence-needed “money laundering” and “conspiracy” to ensure they can still loot the corpse of the victim even after repeated attempts on ridiculous “sex trafficking” charges fell flat.  Judges have repeatedly and consistently sided with Backpage in every challenge…

…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 [2016], 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…

…but that did no good.  The War on Whores in general, and on Backpage in particular, is just the latest chapter in the government’s vile “public morality” circus, and once Backpage was chosen to be the big bogeyman the “authorities” had to make a grand spectacle of taking it down, complete with raids on the homes of the company’s founders and the arrest of Michael Lacey, whom the Arizona political establishment has been trying to destroy for years (try not to vomit when you read “Cuckoo Clock” McCain’s sanctimonious braying in that article).  In order to increase the melodrama and drag out their victims’ torture, officials intentionally staged the raid on Friday afternoon, then lied about the time they would release a statement so as to push it past the weekend; all the “authorities” would say is that their Star Chamber Court had charged Lacey with 93 counts of something, but didn’t think it was necessary to tell their victim, his attorney or the public what any of those somethings are until yesterday.  When they did, it was just the usual “money laundering”, “conspiracy” and “travel act” nonsense (same as Rentboy), and not one single “sex trafficking” charge.  In the meantime, sex workers all over the world who relied on Backpage are scrambling to find new advertising venues at a time when many of those venues are closing due to the blatantly-unconstitutional and tyrannous FOSTA, yet the bloated corpse of what was once the nation’s greatest civil rights organization hasn’t said a single word on the subject; apparently ACLU is much too busy helping middle-class white men to force bigots to cater their ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption to bother even making a statement about the most extensive and shameless act of civil rights abrogation since the USA-PATRIOT Act.  And if those who claim it’s their mission to protect people from civil rights violations won’t help us, we’re going to need other allies ASAP.

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Red Umbrella Hosting

Posted in Current Events, Guest Columns, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on April 9, 2018| 5 Comments »

With the advent of FOSTA, all the rats who’ve feasted on sex workers’ dollars for years are deserting the sinking ship and leaving us to drown.  I don’t just mean the ad sites who have closed; several of the companies who’ve been happy to host adult sites for years suddenly threw their customers to the wolves last week without warning, and you can be sure more will follow suit (or be forced to follow suit when their site is stolen by jackbooted thugs as Backpage was on Friday).  So when I saw that Missy Mariposa had set up a new offshore hosting company specifically for sex workers, I asked her for a short introduction for those who might need her services.

I decided to set up Red Umbrella Hosting because I am sick of the very people who utilize our services trying to criminalize our existence.  I wanted workers to have a place to turn where they could feel safe and remain anonymous.  With Red Umbrella, sex workers can secure hosting and web design assistance without having to tie this life to their real identity or without having to worry if they were evading a ToS policy and at risk of being shut down.  I keep no user data, and I have a very liberal ToS.  Red Umbrella is my attempt for us to feel like we have a little bit of control over our careers and lives again.  Right now it’s just hosting, and a free blacklist (opening this week in conjunction with another site – you heard it here first) but I’m hoping to expand it to include Cloud Storage in the not so distant future.  I wish I could drop everything and invest unlimited funds in this and build an internet sex work utopia, but I think for one person that’s an impossible undertaking.

I chose to locate the dedicated server in Iceland primarily for three reasons – strict data privacy laws, no MLAT with the United States, and a proven record of protecting privacy.  It is true that they run the Nordic model when it comes to sex work, however they are also open about the fact their laws aren’t enforced due to a lack of funding and being short staffed.  Between 2009-2013 Icelandic courts only heard 20 cases related to sex work; I also could not find any evidence of them interfering with a sex worker’s internet presence.  In the end, I went with the country that I felt had an overall better track record with internet privacy and security, the country I thought would be the least likely to turn over data to the US without a warrant (as the CLOUD act allows them to attempt).  And as I keep no personal information, I am hoping that this type of situation is never even an issue for my users.

My long term goal is to help as many people as I can.  I am one person leasing a dedicated server, not a large company with a farm (maybe that’s where this is heading though, and I hear Iceland is beautiful), but thanks to a number of generous donations (including two very large ones from clients), my prices are very low for providers:  Managed WordPress: $200/year, paid annually, semi-annually, or quarterly via cryptocurrency or gift card; Domain Hosting $300/year (same terms), and Premium Hosting for $800/year (same terms).  Websites are too important not to have; most of our clients book us because of our marketing material, websites being a big part of that.  If sex workers lose their storefronts and safety tools, two things are going to happen.  Number one, the predators will come out to play and in full force; the guys on the blacklists are going to know they’re gone and go right back to the very things that landed them there in the first place.  Number two, sex work is going to be pushed right back onto the streets and hotel bars by women who will no longer want to see internet clientele and would rather take the risks freelancing.  I can’t idly sit around, doing nothing while people lose the ability to feed their families in the safest way possible.

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Links #405

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2018| 2 Comments »

I can’t breathe.  –  Johnnie Rush

Apparently, there was a live all-star performance of Jesus Christ Superstar in New York last Sunday evening, and Alice Cooper played King Herod.  I’d love to see more of the show, but for now you can savor this video.  The links above it were provided by Rick Horowitz, except for “happens” (via Furrygirl), “authorities” (via Mistress Matisse), and “flagrantly” (via Tim Cushing).

From the Archives

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In the News (#827)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2018| 5 Comments »

The major purpose of [FOSTA] is to…punish anyone who…engages in sex work.  –  Steven Thrasher

Do As I Say, Not As I Do 

“A Toledo [cop] was issued a summons…during a prostitution sting at a Columbus area hotel…Mack Collins…was not arrested…”

Gullible’s Travels

I reckon the panic industry’s been too busy with Trump, guns, opiates and “sex trafficking” to come up with as many dumb “teen fad” panics as they used to:

…educators are warning about a “condom challenge” being spread online by YouTube videos and social media…The challenge involves  snorting an unwrapped condom up one nostril, then pulling the condom from the throat out the mouth…Snorting a condom up your nose not only poses a choking hazard but also puts you at risk for allergic reactions and infections…women [who] accidentally swallow…condoms [can] developing ailments ranging from pneumonia to appendicitis…The condom snorting challenge may eclipse the most recent viral video fad among teenagers, which involved eating brightly colored Tide Pods…

Yeah, I’m sure this is going to be so much more popular than video games.

Bogeymen

Five years in prison for talking to someone online:

A Brockton man who recruited women online for prostitution, including an undercover police officer, was sentenced to five years in state prison for human trafficking…Shakwaan Simpkins…had “used a website with the express purpose of recruiting a woman to engage in prostitution,” District Attorney Marian Ryan said…

That’s all he did: talked to a pig on the internet.  Five years in a cage, at a cost to the taxpayers higher than if he were sent to Harvard.  I’m sure the good puritans of Massachusetts feel safer now that this evil texter is locked up.

Censor Chic

Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors:

Earlier this month, the European Commission published a new [diktat] demanding that internet companies remove…content flagged to them in less than an hour — or face legislation forcing them to do so….Google and other big tech companies still publish transparency reports, but they now seems to serve a different purpose:  to convince authorities in Europe and elsewhere that the internet giant is serious about [censorship on bureaucratic demand]…The more takedowns it can show, the better…Expect additional “transparency” designed to underline Google’s own [internally-generated censorship]…the…report does not yet include a full accounting for YouTube…But Google has hinted it will soon produce a dedicated report for the video sharing site.  When and if it does, it promises to show not thousands but millions of annual takedowns, many for copyright violations, but also many for breaking “community rules”…The pace of private sector censorship is astounding — and it’s growing exponentially…

All-Purpose Excuse (#718)

Fans of the Democratic party need to remember their team did half the work of creating this lunacy:

Roseanne Barr was under attack this weekend for supporting President Trump’s efforts to end human trafficking.  CNN and other MSM media outlets claimed Barr’s tweet supporting the President’s efforts relied on a conspiracy theory while dismissing President Trump’s efforts. Roseanne was right.  Our analysis shows that arrests for human trafficking were up 150% in 2017 and are on track to be up nearly 500% in 2018 over 2016 numbers…

Actually, she’s not right; click on the title for Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s analysis of these bogus numbers, which come from the tinfoil-hat “Pizzagate” crowd of which Barr is a member.  However, I must point out that given the vague definition of “human trafficking”, it’s easy for any executive to increase “human trafficking” arrests by simply ordering cops and prosecutors to charge basically everyone they arrest in prostitution, immigration or immigrant-labor stings with “human trafficking”.  Given Trump’s ICE pogroms, I’m surprised it has only gone up by 500%.

Eternal Vigilance (#732)

Puritans are still upset about the fact that some women are comfortable paying our rent (and other expenses) with sex:

…Renting rooms for sexual favours is seen as a growing menace by [busybodies], and a byproduct of a housing crisis where young people are unable to find somewhere to live without spending exorbitant sums.  The [so-called] problem has become particularly marked in university towns, where young women are targeted by rogue landlords.  But while then justice secretary David Lidington last year said such offers may breach the Sexual Offences Act, there is frustration that more is not being done.  “Since last year, there has not been a single arrest, let alone a conviction, let alone anybody actually going to jail for it,” says [politician] Peter Kyle…[who] has consistently called for landlords who offer accommodation in exchange for sex to be prosecuted [for upsetting Kyle’s delicate fee-fees]…

Backwards into the Future (#778) 

Note that the headline blames the girls rather than the busybodies who want them unemployed:

The Global Fund is pulling out of a controversial partnership with Heineken but not for the reason most cited by critics.  [Crypto-moralists]  had been blasting…the Global Fund…for backing a partnership with Heineken to “fight infectious diseases in Africa.”  Some activists said it was [better for people to die of malaria than]…to align with a product that can be detrimental to people’s health…The Global Fund  shrugged off that criticism for weeks.  The plan was for Heineken to use its extensive logistics and communications expertise to help the Fund deliver medical supplies.  Now the Fund says it’s suspending the deal not out of concern for the people who drink too much Heineken but…because of “the company’s use of female beer promoters in ways that expose them to sexual exploitation and health risks”…for more than a decade [anti-sex groups have moaned about]…the exploitation of “beer girls” in Southeast Asia, including women working to boost sales of Heineken in bars in Cambodia.  Also known as “promotion girls,” these (primarily young) women encourage male customers to order a particular brand of beer.  The women earn relatively low wages, often survive off tips and…[often] moonlight as sex workers…

Cooties (#811)

Cops trying to draw others into their “sex slave” fantasies are a more dangerous version of time-wasters who call whores to masturbate to the sound of our voices:

Human traffickers [are fantasized to] be putting up sex workers in Cumbrian bed-and-breakfast businesses before moving them on to pop-up brothels…[cops pretend] that “a significant” proportion of illegal moving of people nationally is being carried out under the guise of tourism…[cops] urged business bosses and the public to [spy on their fellow citizens]…Detective Superintendent Lesley Hanson said…”We [masturbate to the fantasy] that pop-up brothels are set up across the county and there are victims forced into prostitution”…

To Molest and Rape (#814) 

Seeing this one power being taken from cops is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless:

Maryland is among 35 states that lack laws prohibiting police from [raping] those they arrest…New York’s legislature recently voted to change its law…Brooke Lierman…wants to make the same change in Maryland.  Her bill to do that has passed the House.  She told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee…that she was moved to push for the change after reading reports about women who were raped while in police custody [and the rapists get away with it by claiming it was consensual]…

Disaster

Now they notice.  Good going, Gay, Inc!

…More people should care about sex workers’ rights.  But if you think none of this applies to you because you’re not queer or into kink or sex work, think again: the US Congress wants to further regulate sex by way of the internet, and most people’s modern sex lives interact with the internet.  Craigslist shut down its entire personal section because of the overreaching congressional desire to control sex work.  And there’s no reason Congress couldn’t similarly intimidate Tinder or Grindr to remove you or shut down entirely as it has Craigslist…the real sex panic is not due to feminism run amok, but due to the patriarchal, homophobic, transantagonistic, theocratic desire of the US Congress to control sex workers – and, by extension, to smother the sexual desires of any of us who don’t want to conform to their puritanical ways.

Here are a few more of those in that “any of us” category:

…Another website taken offline was Pounced.org, a dating site for “furries” – or devotees of anthropomorphic animal characters who like to dress in costumes…“with limited resources and a small volunteer staff, our risk for operating the site has now significantly increased…if someone posts an ad looking to exchange sex…and we don’t catch it, is that facilitating prostitution?”…Microsoft…issued a change to its terms of service which will ban “offensive language”…from its services, including Skype…YourDominatrix.com ended all US listings, with a note saying it was “due to a recent bill passed by Congress”…the escort forums on “Hung Angels” shut down…VerifyHim, a site devoted to helping sex workers stay safe by screening their clients, also removed its discussion forums…On Twitter, sex workers…were passing around safety tips and “self-censoring” advice for the new era, while others were converting to secure email accounts and offshore internet hosting sites…

Morality Lessons (#826) 

Looks like at least one dangerous censor-moron is on his way out:

New revelations about the man who authored trendy anti-porn and digital censorship legislation has killed its chances in…Rhode Island…and may doom it…in the 17 other states with similar proposals…Chris Sevier…sometimes called [his brainchild] the “Elizabeth Smart Law”…[but] Smart recently demanded that Sevier stop using her name…It’s a bad legal month all around for Sevier, who had sued in federal court for the right to marry his laptop…A federal judge in Utah threw out the case…The whole fiasco isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of how a lot of state officials approach the lawmaking process.  At minimum, you’d think someone…would put a smidge of effort into finding out basic background about the people whose whims they’re attempting to enable into law…

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Count the Idiocies, Again

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2018| 8 Comments »

Here’s another article so deeply stupid that a single paragraph just couldn’t represent its truly moronic whole.  So without further ado, let’s play “Count the Idiocies”:

…Once all the neon lights come on, Annandale – a small city in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia – transforms into a Koreatown, with restaurants and karaoke bars…one such bar has blacked out windows and a facade decorated with fairy lights.  Beyond its doors, an unwelcoming middle-aged Korean woman stands behind the dimly lit bar and a large screen shows Korean video-clips.  An Asian man on a stool stares at newcomers1…A young Korean woman wearing an off-the-shoulder top sits alone in one of the karaoke booths.  Too bored to look up2, she plays on her phone as a huge screen blasts a K-pop classic…The surroundings may appear a little grim, but a good time in a bar like this will set back the average punter far more than in many of the trendiest bars in Washington3. That’s because many of these bars provide…hostesses known as doumis, who[se job is] to entertain clients by singing and drinking with them, and in the seediest establishments, having sex with them4…Karaoke bars like this have opened up a new front in America’s war on human trafficking and the illegal sex market5.  Massage parlours in the US – where prostitution is illegal everywhere except Nevada6 – have long been notorious as fronts for the sex trade and for exploiting women mostly from China and Korea7.  But as…new government policies are introduced, the enslavement strategies used by traffickers…are getting more sophisticated8…History shows that human traffickers are quick to adapt to, and take advantage of, changing societal norms9.  One of the latest trends traffickers have managed to bend to their advantage is an increasing fashion for South Korean women to undergo plastic surgery as a way of enhancing their career prospects10…Limited access to legitimate financial services leaves many women no option but to seek informal loans, making them vulnerable to traffickers11…Once a woman is lured into prostituting herself, traffickers also use plastic surgery as a way of perpetuating the debt bondage12…Few women can break the vicious circle as they go from loan to loan, trying without success to stitch their lives together13…Complex networks – from drivers to pimps and brokers who lend money at extortionately high interest rates in both countries – are built around the victims of sex trafficking14…Not only is plastic surgery used to trap women in these networks, but an array of beauty salons in the US…profit from it…[prohibitionist weirdo] Connie Chung Joe [said]…“First they go to the nail salon, then the hair salon, then they get their make-up done.  These girls have to pay for it”15…Polaris…found that out of more than 32,000 cases of human trafficking16 between December 2007 and December 2016…massage parlours accounted for 2,949 cases, putting them second only to escort services as a source of the problem17…[prohibitionists] and [pigs] say that trafficked women tend not to regard themselves as victims18, and that this is particularly the case with Asian women19…Constance Rossiter, YMCA’s programme director for Trafficked Persons Assistance…says the networks that bring Chinese women into the US are complex20…Rossiter says…“it’s a shame-based culture”21…[a Washington bureaucrat named Steven Wagner] says…“the fact they have to work…to pay off a sum of money that had been agreed, they find that acceptable”22…cultural backgrounds combined with stigma…often lead women arrested at massage businesses to insist to police they are prostituting themselves “of their own free will”23…

1) I’ll bet she’s only “unwelcoming” to busybody American women who positively reek of racism. And the dude on the stool was probably staring at Raquel’s camera and wondering how bad the othering in her story is going to be (answer: pretty damned awful).

2) That’s not boredom; she’s just ignoring nosey parkers like Raquel who obviously have no intention of paying her.

3) You get what you pay for: fun K-girls rather than prudish beltway hipsters like Raquel.

4) You know you’re about to see a torrent of prohibitionist vomit as soon as the word “seedy” appears.

5) I did warn you.  “Illegal sex” is about the least-bootlicking phrase in this mess, so proceed accordingly.

6) As regular readers know, it ain’t really legal in Nevada either, but discovering that would’ve required actual research rather than simple regurgitation.

7) “Fronts” is a fairly subtle dysphemism, unlike “exploited” to mean “employed”.

8) “Sophisticated” is the excuse pigs use to rape women who work in massage parlors.

9) That would be a good trick, considering the concept was invented less than a generation ago.

10) See, unlike men, women are much too stupid to make conscious decisions about enhancing our incomes.  So any time it seems like a woman (especially a nonwhite woman) is making such a rational decision, it’s really “sex traffickers” luring her into it.

11) Yes, non-bank loans now constitute “trafficking”.  But student loans that you have to pay for decades & can go to jail for defaulting on aren’t at all exploitative, no sirree!

12) “Lured into prostituting herself”?  Surely Raquel didn’t mean to imply that women have so much agency; doesn’t she get we’re all “prostituted” by others?  And obviously anyone incapable of deciding to have sex is surely unable to decide to have plastic surgery.  Women are incapable of making any decisions about our bodies without evil men coercing us, except for abortion of course.

13) Funny how these imaginary “trafficking victims” sound a lot more like people outside the demimonde, struggling to pay debts with fixed paychecks from which the government extracts huge fractions, than like all the real-life sex workers who find it much easier to pay debts than they did when they had straight jobs.

14) Prohibitionists love the “giant international cartel” fantasy of coercion; in reality, coerced sex work is usually not much different from any other kind of coercive relationship.

15) This is quite possibly the most mind-bogglingly stupid and blatantly racist part of this whole heap of filth.  I can’t think of any industry other than show business in which the employer pays for beauty treatments.  So if a white woman gets her nails done, it means the nail techs are “trafficked”, but if an Asian woman gets her nails done, it means she’s trafficked?  What?  How does this even make sense to prohibitionists?

16)  There haven’t been 32,000 cases of “trafficking” since the term was invented.  This is the number of calls to Polaris’ hotline, almost none of which actually correspond to anything in the real world.

17) Could it be any clearer that the term “human trafficking” is being used here as a dysphemism for “sex work”?

18) Gee, I wonder why that might be?

19) Why won’t those damned Asian women accept the slurs their benevolent white saviors label them with?  Don’t they know their kind is too stupid to understand their own lives, and they should accept the wise guidance of white cops and religious fanatics who want to “save” them via unemployment and deportation?

20) And “sophisticated” too, I’m sure.

21) Unlike enlightened US culture, in which nobody is ever shamed.

22) Whereas in the US, not paying one’s debts is completely acceptable, which is why we have credit ratings and debtor’s prisons.

23) Because that couldn’t possibly be true.  No, it must be this Occam’s razor-defying psychobabble I just made up.

Anyhow, you get the idea.  If you’re bored today, see if you can find any I missed due to having to fight down nausea for two hours while I edited and analyzed this demeaning racist filth.

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“Short Fuse” Revisited

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , on April 5, 2018| 6 Comments »

The do-not-step-on-sex-workers movement needs someone who, in addition to many other qualities, has the temperament & tolerance of a wronged wolverine.  –  Tanya Charbury

Recently, I saw a gent who told me he’d followed me for years and asked if I’d unmute him on Twitter.  I asked why I had muted him, and he confessed to being a bit bratty to me a while back.  We had a laugh about it and of course I unmuted him before he left my incall, but it did demonstrate to me that it was time to do something I don’t often do:  revisit a question I’ve already answered, in this case the one from “Short Fuse“:  Is it just me, or are you less patient than you used to be?

The answer I gave then was honest and accurate for its time, but that was almost four years ago and a lot has changed since then.  As I said then, “I’ve never been patient with fools, trolls, ninnies, sophists, fanatics and the other assorted riff-raff who attempt to lay claim to my time and energy.  In fact, my impatience with such people is almost legendary…”  But while the set of such annoyances was at one time reasonably small, it has grown over time to encompass a lot of people who, while they aren’t completely blameless, are also not necessarily working at annoying me.  Regular readers know that the past three years have been extremely difficult ones for me, and my emotional reserves have been at a very low ebb; I need to ration my psychic and temporal resources, spending them on myself, my clients, the people I love, and my role in this war the government has been conducting on us for the past two decades (which has recently heated up dramatically).  And that means I simply can’t take the time and energy to deal gently with strangers who step on my tail, either intentionally or otherwise (such as by ignoring my clearly-stated ban on bootlicking or partisanism in my timeline); it’s much easier to simply mute them, with or without delivering a parting shot, and then move on.  Ideal?  Not at all, as the incident with the gentleman I mentioned above demonstrates.  But I’m afraid at this stage of my life, it’s either that or expend my precious energies on unproductive discussions that will drag me down while failing to make a particle of difference in the struggle to which I’m committed.  So for now, at least, my temperament is going to more closely resemble that of a wronged wolverine than a playful pussycat, at least for those who deliberately or carelessly stroke my fur the wrong way.

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In the News (#826)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2018| 2 Comments »

Stormy Daniels is…not speaking out because it’s fun or a great career move.  –  Savannah Sly

One Size Fits All

This is almost three years old, but it’s too good to pass up:

Many children in west Africa are brought up in households belonging to people other than their own parents.  There is a long tradition of fostering, yet in many cases the practice is now [claimed] to constitute “trafficking” or “modern slavery” because the children involved are put to work during their stay.  This makes little sense, yet the terminology of “human trafficking” and its consequences—namely that the “traffickers” involved should be prosecuted—has remained in vogue since at least 2000 with the support of European and American funding.  This has almost certainly caused more harm than good…ideas and methods imported from Europe and North America…have sought to prevent children from working away from home, rather than to protect children from harm regardless of where they live and whether they were at work or school.  This approach fails to adapt to the realities of childhood in west Africa and the practicalities of growing up in villages with little infrastructure…

Pyrrhic Victory

Toward the end of privacy, everywhere:

…the CLOUD Act…was never reviewed or marked up by any committee in either the House or the Senate.  It never received a hearing.  It was robbed of a stand-alone floor vote because Congressional leadership decided, behind closed doors, to attach this un-vetted, unrelated data bill to the $1.3 trillion government spending bill…All the bill requires now is the president’s signature…Because of this…U.S. and foreign police will have new mechanisms to seize…your private emails, your online chats, your Facebook, Google, Flickr photos, your Snapchat videos, your private lives online…without a warrant and with few restrictions…the CLOUD Act…will…Enable foreign police to collect and wiretap people’s communications from U.S. companies, without obtaining a U.S. warrant…Allow foreign nations to demand personal data stored in the United States, without prior review by a judge…Allow the U.S. president to enter “executive agreements” that empower police in foreign nations that have weaker privacy laws than the United States to seize data in the United States while ignoring U.S. privacy laws…Allow foreign police to collect someone’s data without notifying them about it…Empower U.S. police to grab any data, regardless if it’s a U.S. person’s or not, no matter where it is stored…

Whatever They Need To Say

Gentrification is one of the most common motivations for persecution of all kinds of sex workers:

Gentrification is often seen as an organic process that cities undergo.  Jeremiah Moss, the author of the book and blog Vanishing New York … says, “Gentrification was originally defined as the process by which working-class neighborhoods are changed into middle-class neighborhoods by the middle-class who buy homes there…Now we’re dealing with something much larger and more destructive — what I refer to as hyper gentrification which is not an organic process.  It’s the government stepping in with policies and zoning to remake the city for the upper classes.  In order to that, outlaws have to be removed, including sexual outlaws.  So adult businesses have to go…The hyper-gentrified city must be safe, friendly, and welcoming for tourist families and major corporations”…Shutting down adult businesses was on the top of [New York] Mayor Giuliani’s list throughout his terms.  Giuliani claimed strip clubs, peep shows, and x-rated video stores were “corrosive institutions” that contaminated neighborhoods and prevented “legitimate businesses” from prospering…

Blunt Instrument 

“Sex trafficking” is such a convenient weapon to use against adult businesses:

The Milwaukee Common Council voted not to renew the license of a…night club [using] sex trafficking [claims].  The vote came after…neighborhood [complaints that]…the owner of Tatou Ultra Pub…planned to renew the club’s license and then sell the business to VLive, a nationwide chain of strip clubs…aldermen were warned that the city attorney’s office could have trouble defending the city in court if aldermen failed to renew the license…residents [pretended] Tatou had contributed to loud noise and reckless driving in the area…[yet] there…were no recent police records documenting any nuisance activity at the club…

Under Every Bed

Population 36,000:

The Westerville [Ohio] community is learning how to spot signs of human trafficking after police busted a local massage parlor for prostitution.  [Cops pretend] they’ve seen an increase in human trafficking in the area…”It’s not the stereotypical human trafficking we’re used to.  A lot of these ladies can come and go, but they are threatened to stay in that environment,” Chief [Pig] Morbitzer [fantasized while playing pocket pool]…”One we shut down for prostitution reasons, one we cited for taxation reasons and one that was trying to open up was prohibited because of zoning code issues”…a…community meeting was hosted by the [pigs, a “diversion” program protecting its funding]…The Salvation Army, and [another rescue industry group]…

Monsters 

This brings the toll to 7 already this year:

[A trans woman was murdered] in Baton Rouge, LA…Amia Tyrae Berryman…was 28 years old.  Her body was found at…a…motel…with gunshot injuries…local media stating WBRZ…misgendered her…

What the Hell Were You Thinking? (#603)

The next generation of sex worker security apps:

A new security application, Artemis’ Umbrella, has been developed for sex workers in Finland, and can be used anywhere in the world.  The app alerts a trusted contact when sex workers are in trouble, and uses location services to track the smart phone…it is possible to alert a pre-arranged friend if something like a customer meeting goes wrong and needs help.  The alarm can be triggered via the alarm button or via the timer (the alarm will be triggered if the function is not shut down in time).  Both alerts will also include the person’s location information…the application was…tested…in both Helsinki and Mumbai…

Morality Lessons (#783)

“The National Center on Sexual Exploitation” is the new self-aggrandizing name for pro-censorship fanatics Morality in Media:

…After collaborative dialogue with NCOSE, Walmart will remove Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout lines at 5,000 stores across the country. Protecting minors from the sexually explicit material that Cosmopolitan embodies and perpetuates has been a long-time priority of NCOSE…

Agenda

Is this dumbass for real?

…I am pretty disappointed in the modern high-priced prostitutes of today.  They have no sense of honor and ethics…I do think that at one time in history there were professional prostitution ethics, where whatever happened between a man and his paid companion, there was the security of keeping things private.  In today’s world there seems to be no honor between a man and his contractual relationship between him and his paid companion…There is no honor among the profession…What’s the world coming to when you can’t trust a whore anymore?…

I can almost believe this ignorant weed’s claim that he’s never paid for sex, because he seems to know even less about whores than the average prohibitionist.  Besides his obviously-wrong-on-its-face central theme, he makes totally backward assertions like “Solon, the great Athenian legislator, was the first to actually legalize prostitution…”  No, you idiot, Solon was the first to try to criminalize prostitution.  Where do morons like this get this shit?  Do they literally look in the toilet and say, “Hey, that looks good, I’ll use it as a ‘fact’ in my next essay”?  WTF?  Why does every fuckwad think five minutes on Google make him an expert in my profession?  But I guess I’d better stop now, before I infuriate myself.

Morality Lessons (#820) 

It looks like Chris Sevier, the anti-porn fanatic behind the “mandatory porn filter” bills now making the rounds of US state legislatures, is about to do a massive pratfall:

Elizabeth Smart sent a cease-and-desist letter to prevent her name from being used to push a Rhode Island bill that would require a $20 fee to view pornography online…It is one of several similar bills pushed by Chris Sevier, who says the bill would protect children…Sevier said he chose Smart’s name as a tagline for the bill…[until he was] told…Smart was potentially pursuing legal action, [after which he claimed] the…name had been given to the [bill] by lawmakers…his website…specifically refers to [it] as “the Elizabeth Smart law”…[fellow anti-porn fanatics Morality in Media] has slammed Sevier for falsely claiming the[y]…supported his work…Earlier this month, a federal judge in Utah threw out Sevier’s lawsuit trying to target same-sex marriage by saying he should be allowed to marry his laptop…

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with Sevier, here’s an article from last year:

…Sevier has a warrant out for his arrest in Tennessee for failure to appear at criminal contempt proceedings….[arising from failure] to pay child support and violat[ing] a restraining order…[stemming] from Sevier’s 2011 arrest and  conviction for assaulting his father-in-law…Sevier’s baby was also injured in the altercation…Sevier claims that the Human Trafficking Prevention Act was hatched in part due to the horrors he saw as a volunteer in Asian countries, where he was “physically fighting human trafficking” as a rescue worker with an organization called Orphan Secure…[but] the president of Orphan Secure, Ronaldo Lopez…said that Sevier’s time with the group…amounted to a few broken promises…Despite repeatedly claiming he can legally practice law in two states, official records suggest Sevier is not licensed to practice law anywhere…a petition against him for ethical violations was pending in 2011 when the court temporarily inactivated his license based on a mental disability…

Not So Easy (#821)

A deeper look at the sleazy lies politicians are using to destroy women’s jobs:

…The raids seem…connected to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s  new vision of Bourbon Street as a family-friendly tourist destination, a vain attempt to gentrify one of the country’s most legendary red light districts as it approaches its 300th anniversary.  This vision…has the mark of Christian moralizing that has recently taken on new potency.  In October, Mayor Landrieu hired conservative Christian lawyer Scott Bergthold, whose Chattanooga-based law firm has a reputation for targeting strip clubs across the country.  The mayor also appointed a few key people to put together a study on trafficking, including councilperson Kristin Palmer, a longtime opponent of strip clubs; and Jim Kelly of Covenant House, part of a chain of nonprofit, Catholic-affiliated homeless shelters…The Greater New Orleans Human Trafficking Task Force says in its official documents that it’s targeting trafficking, but…they use words like prostitution and trafficking interchangeably, and they don’t recognize a categorical difference…[though an attempt at capping the number of strip clubs failed 4-3 in the City Council] clubs…must operate under new regulations.  Dancers are no longer allowed to twerk (defined as a “simulation of sex” per the state lewd act law), fondle their own breasts, or have exposed nipples; these are now defined as “lewd and lascivious conduct.”  Club managers must…post anti-trafficking posters from…Club Operators Against Sex Trafficking (COAST).  COAST is in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security; the posters encourage workers to report abuse to a number which goes directly to ICE…if you’re an undocumented immigrant, there’s no guarantee  your rescue won’t also include deportation…

Disaster

Even bootlicking Time seems to grasp that something bad has happened:

…The decision by Craigslist to stop hosting personal ads came as a preemptive move after Congress passed [FOSTA]…a sweeping piece of legislation intended to [harm sex workers]…The legislation targets websites that “promote or facilitate” prostitution, even in jurisdictions where prostitution is legal; individuals operating those sites face up to ten years in prison…The bill’s ambiguous terms threaten to impugn not only Craigslist, but any website or forum that accommodates discussion of the sex trade…these sites are crucial to [sex workers’] safety: they provide the community with a platform to share information about dangerous clientele (known as “bad date lists”) and other occupational hazards.  Advocates for these communities have also argued that eliminating the sex trade’s online presence will in fact make cases of actual human trafficking harder to identify…

Elephant in the Parlor (#825)

I’m proud to see my dear friend Savannah Sly in Teen Vogue, which is turning into an important ally:

…Given how she’s described her situation, it makes sense that Stormy Daniels would sign a nondisclosure agreement…in exchange for $130,000…Many people (particularly sex workers and mothers) may do the same thing in the hopes of making a situation go away.  Also, the odds that a porn star would be believed (or treated with respect) by the public are slim to none.  Society callously condones the slut-shaming, misogyny, and discrimination that sex workers regularly suffer.  Regardless of how we try to sanitize and make palpable our professions, sex workers are seen as irresponsible “sluts” who deserve what we get, even when we’re murdered.  Porn stars, who are some of the most visible sex workers, suffer intense volumes of hate mail, doxing, stalking, and online bullying simply because they’re brazen enough to be publicly and commercially sexual…

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Diary #405

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on April 3, 2018| 1 Comment »

Raising pullets (they’re already too big to be called “chicks” any more) has been like having a box of tiny clowns in my laundry room; last week they busied themselves running around their now-too-small enclosure, banging into one another while peeping loudly and scratching so energetically into their bedding that I had to clean their water and smooth out the cedar shavings 5 or 6 times a day.  So though it was fun having chicks again, it’s also good that they’re now old enough to live in the henhouse.  So on Saturday I drove out to Sunset with them; they’ll stay inside the henhouse for another three weeks, to get a little bigger and stronger while the weather gets warmer, after which we’ll open the door out to the poultry yard and they’ll be able to go in and out like grown-up ladies.  Four of them are Rhode Island Reds, which in my experience tend to be early layers; we should start seeing small eggs from them by September or maybe even earlier.  The other six are sex-linked hybrids, so I’m not sure exactly when they’ll start; however, the guy at the Tractor Supply said they were bred specifically as layers, so by autumn I should be enjoying plenty of fresh eggs.  It’s a small thing, I know, but it’s one of the things I’ve missed by living in a city again.  The eggs, the animals, Grace nearby, a respite from the racket of sirens that Seattle seems so enamored with (more than any other city I’ve spent much time in)…these are the little things, like dear friends, good sleep, slow mornings and well-defined seasons, which help me to maintain my mental health.  And with the War on Whores being as awful and bloody as it is right now, I’m going to need all of the help I can get.

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Links #404

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

It was very similar in appearance to narcotics.  –  all-purpose cop excuse

Last week, Winnie Pond sent me this video of a cat watching a horror movie, which is pretty amusing.  The links above it (with the exception of “laugh”) were provided by Tim Cushing, Popehat, Scott Greenfield, Myles Jackman, Emma Evans, and Savannah Sly, in that order.

From the Archives

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Easter 2018

Posted in Holidays, tagged , on April 1, 2018| 1 Comment »

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