Things are moving forward slowly but surely at Sunset. Grace and Chekhov are very friendly with one of our neighbors, who as it turns out owns a tractor with a stump-pulling arm which is also equipped with a GPS; what that means when one puts it all together is a quick and easy way to clear a fenceline. He gave me a very good price and did the work on Friday, which means we can now put a fence around the perimeter and Jonathan and Shiloh will have a lot more room to move around and graze in. Jae is starting to decorate the house; any of you who have been to my incall know that she’s very good at it, and it gives me joy to see her taking frequent trips out to Sunset, employing her skills and playing with her pony. Tomorrow we’ll be headed out there for Thanksgiving, and though I won’t be back in Seattle until Sunday I will be taking appointments for my annual toy drive; if you don’t know what that’s about, or you do but need a reminder, be sure to look in on Friday!
Archive for November, 2018
Diary #438
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, blogging, holidays, Sunset, Washington (state) on November 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »
A Catalogue of Bullshit
Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, censorship, cops, Count the Idiocies, domestic violence, hysteria, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, rescue industry, surveillance, Under Every Bed, Wisconsin on November 19, 2018| 4 Comments »
Every so often an article is just so chock full of prohibitionist idiocy it not only defies categorization, but also cries out for more extensive mockery than I can give it in a news column. This one, from a small-town paper in Wisconsin, is virtually a catalogue of prohibitionist bullshit, so let’s not waste any time in getting to the vivisection.
People ordinarily interpret human trafficking to be something like the horrors of the action-thriller movie Taken. Though it absolutely happens…
No, it absolutely doesn’t. See the tag “The Face of Trafficking” for what actual examples of coerced prostitution look like; you’ll find neither off-the-street abductions of middle-class white American girls nor Ramboesque “rescues”.
…In reality, the definition of human trafficking is the recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining or attempting to maintain a person through force, fraud and coercion for labor, services or commercial sex acts…
Wouldn’t it be nice if that really were the operating definition instead of just the one they use in articles? In reality, “human trafficking” means whatever “authorities” want it to mean, most often plain old mundane sex work. For example, look at the next moronic statement:
…“Child sex trafficking has been identified in every Wisconsin county,” [career prohibitionist Morgan Young] said…
If that were actually true, it would’ve made national news. In reality, unless we’re looking at a really long span of time (say, the entire 21st century so far), it’s very unlikely that cops have even arrested an underage sex worker in most of Wisconsin’s largely-rural counties. But throw in a weasel-word like “identified” and the sentence isn’t as blatantly ridiculous to amateurs.
…advocates for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, probation and social work clients, the aging and disability population, and the low-income and homeless communities. Professionals from the law enforcement, medical, legal, faith-based and economic development fields also participated…
Yes, this was a bunch of pigs, prigs, bureaucrats, busybodies and profiteers getting together to share fantasies about a group they conspicuously excluded from the wankfest, because we’d have rained on their parade with actual facts.
…Recent studies show that 15 is the average age a female becomes trafficked…
Nudging a lie up by two years makes it no less a lie. This has been debunked so many times even arch-prohibitionists Polaris now grudgingly admit it’s bullshit.
…Traffickers…can be men, women, husbands, wives, neighbors or coworkers of all races, genders and cultures…
It’s easy to make imaginary people of any demographic group, provided one’s imagination isn’t entirely racist and sexist.
…Other risk factors of people who may be swept up into trafficking include impulsivity, interest in risk-taking, desire for love and acceptance, low self-worth, family conflict, mental health issues, physical abuse history, substance abuse, loneliness, poverty, limited language abilities, a lack of understanding rights and laws, criminal records, minimal education and workforce skills, cultural shame and more…
If one wants to deny people’s agency so as to have an excuse for overruling their personal decisions and inflicting violence on them, stigmatizing mental health conditions, substance use, migrant status and normal adolescent angst is a really good way to start.
…“Sometimes it’s really hard to reprogram people [to believe] they have more to offer than [sex],” Young said. “They can feel like they’ve chosen this”…
Yes, that’s the ever-vile “false consciousness” paradigm there; anyone who behaves in a way “authorities” think she shouldn’t is clearly a passive victim without true free will. Young is so convinced of her own rectitude that she doesn’t even realize what she’s saying about herself by using the word “reprogram”.
…”trafficking also means threatening to cause harm”…
That’s right, if someone threatens you that means you’re a “sex trafficking” victim! It really does mean whatever they want it to mean.
…it is more profitable to force victims into prostitution, where they can be “sold” over and over again…
This is taken directly from cop anti-gang propaganda; cops now pretend bogeyman “gangs” are abandoning the drug trade for “sex trafficking” because “drugs can only be sold once, but a girl can be sold many times.” Translated from the Copese, this means “We’re now using a new excuse to persecute the same people we always have.”
…human trafficking involving minors may also include dancing…
This is a very common lie, despite the fact that raids on strip clubs virtually never turn up anyone under 18 (for obvious reasons).
…That hierarchy of power and control is the reason most victims are not easily convinced that law enforcement, social workers or other crisis professionals are there to help them…
No, the reason they’re not easily convinced is the fact that cops are actually there to harass, rape, rob and cage them, and social workers offer nothing but bog rolls, finger-painting classes and shaming. If sex work were decriminalized and social workers actually offered real and profitable alternatives to sex work, the story might be different.
…A young woman might need help and services, but as Young said, she still may feel like a “bad kid who is going to be punished…they feel like the trafficker is someone they love and trust, and how dare any of us gets between that relationship”…
Prohibitionists’ heads are lodged so far up their own rectal cavities, they don’t recognize how obvious their attempts to infantilize sex workers and pass judgments on their relationships are.
…She added that these cases look a lot like domestic violence situations…
This is the only almost-true statement in the whole farrago of nonsense and lies. I say “almost” because the situations she’s talking about aren’t “almost” domestic violence; they are domestic violence. That “almost” is there to maintain the lies that 1) their relationships aren’t real relationships (see previous item); an 2) that “trafficking” is some special case requiring a whole rescue industry.
…95 percent of human trafficking victims are chemically-dependent and 90 percent have prior criminal records…
No truly stupid “sex trafficking” screed is complete without a brand-new made-up “statistic”; because these fantasists know their audiences are mathematically-illiterate, it’s rare that the claimed bad thing is said to be below 90%.
…Additional goals of the response team are to…continue shutting down and making sex-buying websites illegal…
Just in case you doubted that for the most part, prohibitionists just use “sex trafficking” as a dysphemism for “sex work”. The article closes with a not-atypical list of “signs of sex trafficking” which could apply to a very large fraction of hotel guests, and are therefore excuses for more surveillance, snitching and police violence. Of course, useful idiots like Young (and the author of the article) are unable to see this; they’re so invested in their “sex slave” masturbatory fantasy and the idea of cops as mighty heroes (the word “mighty” is actually used in this mess to describe vice pigs) that they’re completely unable to understand their role in destroying freedom for everyone rather than just people who have sex lives.
Links #437
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged comics, cops, Illinois, imaginative fiction, Missouri, Nevada, Never Call the Cops, racism, South Carolina, video, Wyoming on November 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Excelsior!
The big news this week was of course the death of Stan Lee, the face of Marvel Comics for 6 decades. This video is slightly outdated because it doesn’t contain the cameos from this year’s Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Infinity War, but you can see those here (without sound) if you like. The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker, Phoenix Calida, Scott Greenfield, Tim Cushing, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, and Tim Cushing again, in that order.
- Song map of the USA.
- Not. For. Any. Reason. WHATSOEVER.
- Protecting and serving all across the west.
- Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever.
- Politicians claim permits magically destroy bacteria.
- Cops beat up old lady with terminal cancer for knowing her rights.
From the Archives
- When government stops prohibiting things & treats prisoners like humans.
- Assume anything that connects to the internet can be used to spy on you.
- Even when cops want to tell the truth, their bosses may force them to lie.
- A cop’s masturbatory fantasy of omnipresent “pimps” with magic powers.
- Cop faces longer sentence for texting than others face for rape & murder.
- Don’t want to worry about neighbors? Buy yourself a country house, twit.
- “Christian” politician has a thing for underage girls. Gee, what a surprise.
- Cops threaten & harass sex workers, then disclaim responsibility for this.
- Talk about serial killers targeting whores; don’t mention criminalization.
- Palantir is the same company which is helping cops spy on sex workers.
- “Establishing a committee to study decriminalizing sex work“; we’ll see.
- Because giving free sex to boorish, penniless young men is “feminism”.
- Defense attorneys should know it’s not cops’ job to “protect” anybody.
- Fashion designers profit from whores’ images while giving us nothing.
- Media in the British Isles are much more critical of anti-porn hysteria.
- None of my friends know her, but the “oral sex” thing is total bullshit.
- Authoritarians imagine a link between sex work and barroom brawls.
- Really, guys, just hire actual pros; it’s much cheaper in the long run.
- Not the first time Weinstein’s been accused of financial shenanigans.
- It’s great to see so many physicians coming out against prohibition.
- What exactly is the rationale behind destroying two women’s lives?
- Cops, nightmares, monsters, parasites, prisons and much more.
- The quaint non-“law enforcement” term for this is “blackmail”.
- This is the kind of sick mind that believes in “porn addiction”.
- I think my car will soon be able to get to the airport by itself.
- The crypto-moralists have been relatively quiet for a while.
- Cops make up creative excuses for brutalizing gay men.
- Cornpone cop spins sexual fantasies of raped teen girls.
- Prudes will turn anything related to sex into a problem.
- Are reporters actually paid to be clueless ignoramuses?
- Cops, alchemy, Steve Ditko, Medusa and much more.
- Judge is intimidated into backing down from a ruling.
- The problem with criminalizing sex workers’ clients.
- Once in a while a rapist cop gets his comeuppance.
- Another probable casualty of the War on Whores.
- Screwdriver-wielding anal rapist cop of the week.
- Rapist cops of the week. Lots and lots of them.
- Facebook can’t even follow its own “standards”.
- What should I do about intense social anxiety?
- Desmond Ravenstone introduces CoSWAC.
- Exposing a fake-reviews-for-pay scam.
- Nope, this isn’t sex work, no sirree.
- Sex rays contaminate buildings!
- Thoughts on a difficult autumn.
- Do as they say, not as they do.
- Watch what you say, comrade.
- Can a client be an ally?
In the News (#888)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, California, Cambodia, Canada, censorship, China, escort review sites, Full of Themselves, harm reduction, Ireland, No Difference, North Carolina, politicians, porn, pregnancy, Profound Ignorance, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, robots, sex rays, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, Traffic in Nonsense, Uganda, video, Virtual Unreality, Washington (state), Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Where Are the Victims?, Whither Canada?, With Friends Like These, yellow journalism on November 17, 2018| 5 Comments »
Even those who mean well are often operating with bullshit information when it comes to figuring out how to help sex workers. – Tristan Greene
In which renting rooms to people in a legal trade is pretended to be a “crime”:
Paul McGrory…sub-let a three bedroom house to prostitutes over a nine month period in 2016…McGrory…charged the women £350 per week for each room…the prosecution [admitted] McGrory was not involved in human trafficking and had not coerced the prostitutes, taken a cut of their earnings or…obtain[ed] clients for the[m, but felt compelled to pontificate that]…”You were not a pimp, but by your activities you have upset the good law abiding people of Argyle Street”…The judge…imposed [60 hours of community service and] three year[s of]…probation…
What kind of warped mind quotes prohibitionist myths while claiming it wants to “help” sex workers?
A recent report from KIRO 7 on sex workers on Seattle’s…Aurora Ave….[gave lip service to] the increased dangers in the profession [created by prohibitionists]. But is there a way the city could actually help?…“Women who experience prostitution have a rate of PTSD that’s twice that of returning war veterans,” [lied prohibitionist] Alisa Bernard…“In a city where we’re going to have safe injection sites, there are not safe places for [street workers] to go to exchange money for sex,” said The Ron and Don Show’s Don O’Neill on KIRO Radio…“I know that kids sometimes become sex slaves. I know those stories…The johns want to be left alone, and the prostitutes want to be left alone, so why not tax it?…Why not make sure that they are safe? If they want a way out, why not help them with a way out?”…
The popular myth that sex workers don’t pay taxes is probably one of the most subtly damaging ones.
Statists tell us that the slippery slope is a “fallacy”:
[Ugandan] model and socialite Judith Heard was asked to pay $3,000 in blackmail money to stop her stolen nude selfies being published online…she…didn’t pay up and…her…photos…were [published]…followed by a warrant for her arrest…under Uganda’s Anti-Pornography Act…the Ugandan…Pornography Control Committee (PCC)…issue[s] arrest warrants for…women who[se]…nude pictures and sex tapes [a]re shared online without their consent…PCC chair Annette Kezaabu…[bloviated] “We know that she took this photo privately, but…why did she take it in the first place?…Where do we want to see Uganda in the next 50 years? Do we want to be led by perverts?”…She said the government’s “eventual aim is to have no footage of sex or nudity on TV whatsoever,” and that the committee intends to “go after” pop stars who wear revealing clothing…
The organization Vigilante Truth [cl]aims…sex trafficking…is a growing epidemic in Charlotte…North Carolina…“We’re not law enforcement,” said Bo Quickel, the owner of Vigilante Truth, “we’re just citizens out here trying to [profit from] the [hysteria by spreading myths to] the public”…Quickel…explained [that women are so stupid we can’t take selfies or run a business on our own, so]…“there’s somebody else there taking the picture…and that person’s always going to be a pimp, a trafficker, a handler…none of them get any of the money, so it’s all about forced coercion, fraud, blackmail”…
Even by “sex trafficking” standards, Quickel’s misogyny is outrageous; all of his propaganda presents women as inert vegetables. Once he even compared us to bottles of laundry detergent.
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Surrey and the University of Oxford [fantasizes] that autonomous cars will usher in…a new paradigm for sex workers…within a few years – a decade, tops…they could provide a safe place for people to be alone in public…there are obvious reasons why sex workers shouldn’t visit client’s homes under most circumstances, or allow them to visit theirs…Driverless cars provide a solution…both the non-participating public and those engaging in sex work could benefit from a paradigm that keeps prostitutes out of seedy motels and off the sidewalks by putting them on the streets, inside warm cars full of security features and snacks…
Though the writer clearly means well (and even quotes yours truly), he’s too caught up in this silly fantasy to see the gaping holes in it. First, there’s the typical belief that street workers are common, when in fact less than 10% of us work that way (and that number was shrinking before the US government started intentionally destroying advertising venues). The “obvious reasons” why we “shouldn’t” do outcalls or incalls aren’t “obvious” to either me or the very large number of escorts in the developed world, making this a solution in search of a problem for us. Robot cars have 27% higher rates of rider motion sickness than human-piloted vehicles, meaning some 6-10% of riders, and there would be no way to be sure that their insides were not full of hidden surveillance devices; in any regime where sex work was not 100% decriminalized, robot cars could lock their doors and transport both sex worker and client to the nearest pigpen. And though these futurists tout such vehicles as “safer” for sex workers, imagine trying to escape a violent client in an area too small to get out of his grip which is also going at 100 kph down a motorway. It’s rare that an epigram I choose is so correct, yet so ironic in context.
As I predicted, it looks like Rubmaps may become the new prohibitionist bogeyman to replace Backpage:
Many San Diego Massage parlors are offering [happy endings]…and [yellow journalists] found [what wasn’t hidden:] a public website…[named] “RubMaps” [which] publishes reviews for massage parlors…[there are] 243…listed in San Diego County and, according to the reviews on the website, 173 of those parlors offer sex services…An online company statement [reeks of terror that it will be targeted, parrots “sex trafficking” hysteria and obsequiously promises to lick cop boots]…16 of the 173 parlors that are allegedly offering sex services…are within 1,000 feet of a public school…
Sex rays! Pearl-clutching! Bootlicking! Pretending reviews are a new thing! So much filth in so few words.
Another step toward the end of privacy, everywhere:
Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool: “gait recognition” software that uses people’s body shapes and how they walk to identify them, even when their faces are hidden from cameras. Already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, “gait recognition” is part of a push across China to develop artificial-intelligence and data-driven surveillance that is [not] raising [anywhere near enough] concern about how far the technology will go. Huang Yongzhen, the CEO of Watrix, said that its system can identify people from up to 50 meters…away, even with their back turned or face covered…“Gait analysis can’t be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we’re analyzing all the features of an entire body”…Security officials in China’s far-western province of Xinjiang, a region whose Muslim population is already subject to intense surveillance and control, have expressed interest in the software…
Locking pregnant women in cages for “trafficking” themselves. Had enough yet?
The Phnom Penh Municipal Police arrested 15 people related to surrogacy who were together in a house in Sen Sok district. Eleven of the persons…are surrogate mothers, two cooks for the ladies, and two unspecified men…the detainees were sent to the Anti-Human Trafficking Office for [interrogation]…
Why do journalists with the facts in front of them feel compelled to cede ground to prohibitionist lies? Why do they keep repeating the blatant lie that Canada’s Swedish Model Plus was “meant to protect sex workers” when we have reams of data, including the clear and on-the-record statements of politicians, that exactly the opposite is true? This law was not intended to “protect” sex workers; it was intended to exterminate us:
Hers Alone
Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged abortion, law, marriage, pregnancy, yin and yang on November 16, 2018| 7 Comments »
Coincidentally, this article about “financial abortion” came to my attention just the day before yesterday’s reader question did, but they both touch on the same subject: the oppressive “family court” and mandated-child support system. The article points out that while a pregnant woman has the right to “opt out” of the burden of unwanted motherhood by choosing abortion, the man who got her pregnant has no similar right; if she chooses to have the baby he’s on the hook financially for over two decades, even if she told him she was using contraception and he strenuously objects to fatherhood. Some MRAs, anti-abortion nuts and politicians have proposed that a man should have veto power over a woman he has impregnated, but this is obviously an abomination; every person owns their own body, and absolutely nobody else (and certainly not the state) has the right to control what that person does with their body. At the same time, it seems reasonable for a man to have some recourse against consent violation, so some have proposed that a man could legally sever all ties during the pregnancy, dodging his financial responsibilities by voluntarily surrendering his parental rights.
I’m not going to waste my time or energy in a fruitless Mars/Venus emotional discussion about men’s inability to keep their dicks in their pants, the responsibility for contraception, the “unfairness” of Nature, “But the children!” or any other insoluble malarkey. Nor do I believe for one second that a government which claims every citizen as property of the state and uses violent threats in an insane attempt to micromanage every aspect of its citizens’ lives, to the point where it is willing to lock people in cages to keep them from experiencing pleasure in a way it doesn’t approve of, or literally force unwilling women to endure the dangers and burdens of pregnancy and childbirth against their wills, would ever agree to let men out of a convenient noose and women out of a trap where they’re forced to rely on Big Brother and be tied to a useless man for two decades. Puritanical US “authorities” want sex to be as dangerous and consequence-laden as they can make it, which is why prostitution is criminalized, abortions & birth control are the subjects of so many ban attempts, and “family court” is a nightmare for everyone but the lawyers and bean-counters. The only thing I want to do here is to propose (not debate, sorry) a framework which a hypothetical free society (in which the rights to contraception and abortion were unquestioned) might use to resolve this dilemma.
The principle of self-ownership demands that the government stay completely out of the lives of individuals who have not committed violence against others, and that includes their reproductive lives. Therefore, the only just and ethical way of dealing with the situation is to simply recognize reality: the child is the chattel, sole responsibility and sole right of the mother. Up until the advent of DNA testing just a few years ago, there was no sure way to determine the male parent of a child anyway, so the whole concept of “legitimate fatherhood” hasn’t any more tangible connection to reality than angels dancing on pinheads (as any loving adoptive father or stepfather will tell you). Fatherhood in the social sense has absolutely nothing to do with DNA and everything to do with emotional and economic investment in the child, and the idea that someone can be compelled to love by court order is as vile as it is absurd. If the biological parents of a child want DNA tests, in other words if biological parentage matters to them, well and fine and may Hera bless them. But the outcome of such a test should have absolutely no legal weight; it should confer neither paternal rights nor paternal obligations. If a man wants the former, he can offer the mother the latter; if a mother wants the latter, she can offer any man (not necessarily the biological father) the former. If they both agree on the terms, a lawyer makes a contract and they’re done; disputes are settled in ordinary civil courts under ordinary contract law, with no special “family” mumbo-jumbo involved. No more custody battles; no more bureaucrats making intimate decisions for mothers. Just the recognition of biological reality and the removal of one of government’s most effective means of controlling the individual.
Yet Here We Are
Posted in Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged dating, lawyers, marriage, pragmatism, psychology, yin and yang on November 15, 2018| 2 Comments »
I’m a sex worker in love with a wonderful, kind, but very weak man who, after years and several children with an abusive, mentally ill wife is financially fucked and legally cornered by a Kafkaesque divorce court system. Jail might be in his future, if not suicide, and in the meantime court-ordered child support and other payments have left him literally unable to afford rent so he’s now homeless. I feel like I will have to decide to leave him because he can’t emotionally or financially survive the abuse by his ex and the court, and I can’t be in relationship with a broken person who feels entitled to a reality that will not come. Any advice would be appreciated.
Since he has allowed this to go on for far too long, whatever chance he might have had at the beginning has long since gone down the toilet; the only way he’s going to carve out even the most basic protection is to hire a top-notch divorce lawyer who will fight his ex’s no-holds-barred assaults with even more ruthless assaults. What could such a lawyer win for him? I have no idea, but at this point, he will be doing well to be left with some money to live on and protection from further spurious accusations. Of course, if he doesn’t even have enough money to pay rent, he can’t afford a lawyer. And that means you need to decide – I’m sorry, but there’s no nice way to say this – if this relationship is worth your emotional and financial investment. I believe you when you say that he’s a wonderful man, and that you love him. But I also agree with you that he’s weak, and has not fought this to win but to “roll over”. From what you describe in your very detailed letter, he made a long succession of mistakes in every single interaction with his ex from the very beginning, starting with his decision to fuck her in the first place. Does that mean he “deserves” what has happened to him? Absolutely fucking not. And yet, here we are. And you need to make decisions based in current reality, not romantic fantasies or might-have-beens or “if I won the lottery”. If you stay with this man you will be supporting him until his youngest child is out of university, and maybe even longer than that. Any legal fees will need to come from you. His housing and support will come from you. Whatever malicious fees the court levies on him? You. And he’ll expect you to provide all the usual emotional and practical labor as well, because beside being a man he’s too devastated to provide emotional support even to himself, much less you. I hear that you love him and he’s wonderful, but is whatever he gives you enough to justify that cost? He is already draining you like a vampire, emotionally, financially, sexually and even physically, and that will not stop unless you stop it.
I’m sorry, honey, I know this is incredibly painful, and I wish I had some good news or happy thoughts for you. The legal system of this country is designed to grind people into pulp, and your boyfriend obediently jumped into that machine on the orders of a dangerously unhinged woman. So now the only thing left for you to decide is whether to risk getting sucked in yourself by reaching into the gears on the probably-vain hope of pulling him out; to just stand there and be splattered by blood and gore as the machine does its horrifying work; or to wash your hands of the whole thing.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
In the News (#887)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Arizona, Between the Lines, brothels, Buried Truth, cops, Hall of Shame, homosexuality, hotels, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, Ireland, Legislators Gone Wild, McNeill's Law, Michigan, Moving Pictures, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Perquisites, politicians, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, psychology, rape, Rough Trade, Signs, stripping, Texas, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, violence vs. sex workers on November 14, 2018| 3 Comments »
What we’re seeing is not so much a war on trafficking as a full-on frontal assault against…sex workers. – John Blaylock
Yet another perfect example of the McNeill Rule:
Norman Goldwasser, by day, is an Orthodox Jewish therapist at Horizon Psychological Services who compares homosexuality to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and misleads clients by claiming that their sexual orientation can be changed with his special brand of quack therapy, which is rejected by every respected medical and mental health association. By night…he solicits sexual partners on Manhunt, a gay dating App, using the profile “Hotnhairy72”…Goldwasser also had a profile on Bear Nation by the same name…
Another “sex trafficking” hysteria film for future generations to mock:
Doing Money aired tonight on BBC Two as the drama, based on real life events, explored the horrors of sex trafficking happening in the UK…Central character Ana (played by Anca Dumitra) was abducted off of a London street before being taken to Ireland where she was used a sex slave. The first ten minutes of the film saw Ana resisting her captors when they forced a “customer” on her…The story of Ana is based on the lived experiences of a woman who was held as a sex slave for 10 months and trafficked around both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
This is “based on real life events” like Roger Corman’s Vincent Price vehicles of the early ’60s were “based on” Poe stories.
Under Armour Inc. employees received an email earlier this year that upended a longstanding company practice: They could no longer charge visits to strip clubs on their corporate cards. Over the years, executives and employees of the sports-apparel company, including Chairman and Chief Executive Kevin Plank, went with athletes or co-workers to strip clubs after some corporate and sporting events, and the company often paid for the visits of many attendees…Strip-club visits were symptomatic of practices women at Under Armour found demeaning…
This headline and lede are stigmatizing bullshit:
India’s Supreme Court has ruled that sex-workers have a right to refuse their services and seek redress when [raped]…The ruling came as the court overturned a 2009 Delhi High Court judgment that acquitted four people accused in a 1997 gang rape case. The four defendants were previously freed on the grounds the victim was “a woman of bad character who indulged in prostitution”. The Supreme Court restored the trial court’s conviction in the case and ordered that the four people accused must surrender within four weeks to serve the rest of their 10-year sentence…They also said if there was evidence to show that the victim was “habituated to sexual intercourse”, it cannot be inferred that the victim is of “loose moral character”. The…ruling [also] reverses a 2016 Supreme Court ruling which said that a sex worker cannot file a case alleging rape if their customers refused to pay…
Indian sex workers already had the right to refuse services; what this judgment does is eliminates the “But she was a whore!” defense for rape, which is not at all the same thing.
Motel 6 gets some comeuppance for its eager copsucking:
Motel 6 has agreed to pay $7.6 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by a Latino civil rights organization after the motel chain systematically shared guest information with [ICE]…The company will compensate Motel 6 guests who were questioned by ICE or [subjected to] deportation proceedings…[the] practice…le[d] to the arrest of at least 20 undocumented guests in Phoenix…It’s unclear how many…may be eligible for compensation…but…they may be numerous…
There is a similar lawsuit pending in Washington state.
Here’s the first propaganda from this year’s “Operation Cross-Country” pogroms:
A human trafficking and prostitution sting in [Houston]…netted 75 arrests…[only 32 were men, 11 of which [cops decided to charge as] pimps…28 were woman [and the other 15 apparently were asexual organisms of some kind]…Sheriff Rand Henderson [bragged] he was “so proud” of [destroying people’s lives for desiring consensual sex or doing honest work for a living]…Henderson [fantasized that]…prostitution has evolved into human trafficking with most of the sex workers being trafficked individuals…
The time for men’s magazines to come on board as active supporters of sex worker rights is long overdue. Hustler‘s December issue contains this very supportive article which quotes Missy Mariposa, Liara Roux, Jessica Raven and Arabelle Raphael, mostly on FOSTA/SESTA but also on decriminalization, the War on Whores and sex worker rights in general.
…An…immigration detention center is trying to avoid responsibility for sexual violence within its walls by arguing that the detainee “consented” to sexual abuse. E.D., an asylum-seeker and domestic violence survivor from Honduras, was sexually assaulted by an employee while she was detained with her 3-year-old child at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. At the time…E.D. was 19 years old…her assailant coerced and threatened her, including with possible deportation, while the defendants stood by and made jokes. Although the employee pled guilty to criminal institutional sexual assault under Pennsylvania law, the defendants contend that they should not be liable for any constitutional violations. Their argument rests in part on their [pretense] that the sexual abuse was “consensual” and that they should be held to a different standard because…Berks…is an immigration [prison]…rather than a jail or prison [for citizens]…there were 1,448 [incidents of rape or other] sexual abuse [reported to] ICE between 2012 and March 2018. In 2017 alone, there were 237 [incidents of rape or other] sexual abuse in immigration [prisons]…
Groups looking to [ban] prostitution in Nevada [refuse to stop trying to impose their will on]…Lyon County voters [who] reject[ed]…an advisory question to rescind the county’s brothel ordinance. [Prohibitionist] Brenda Sandquist…said…“The people of Lyon County — this is their normal. It’s that mentality – it’s normal that those brothels are there. To have them removed could be a little scary…They believe the lie of the brothel myth. That’s all they know…They just have to become more aware”…
And just for good measure, they got rid of their anti-brothel sheriff, too.
[Cops] and [other prohibitionists fantasize]…that children and teens in Michigan are sold for sex, but it doesn’t happen the way many think. The most common myth…is…spread on social media. Someone [fantasizes about other shoppers]…in a store and goes online…to [share the fantasy. But cops find this inconvenient to dissemination of their pro-surveillance, pro-censorship myth that prepubescent]…Children are more likely to be targeted inside their own homes…”It’s someone who has [magically teleported] into your house, on your couch or in your kids bedroom via their smart device,” [fantasized sow Jolene] Hardesty…the most common age range for sex trafficking victims is 13- to 16-years-old…[cops also fantasize that criminal cartels have a]…recruitment process [which] spread from social media into schools…[yet] YWCA Jessica Glynn…said…Most of the cases she’s seen involve one victim and one suspect, not a chain of victims…She said the Hollywood portrayal of sex trafficking also makes it difficult to prosecute [sex workers and their associates as] traffickers…
Too bad we can’t elect more dead politicians: “Dennis Hof defeated Democratic educator Lesia Romanov on Tuesday in the race for Nevada’s 36th Assembly District…County officials will appoint a Republican to take his place in the seat…” As regular readers know, I’m no Hof fan; furthermore, they’re going to negate the benefits of electing a corpse by putting a living windbag in his place. But wouldn’t it be great if dead politicians were forced to be seated & finish their terms? All of their votes would automatically count as “no”, and their salaries would go to paying any government debts. It would be like those towns who elect dogs and cats as mayors.
Diary #437
Posted in Diary, tagged blogging, holidays, Maggie in the Media, Presents on November 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »
It’s rare that I get to see Ghost Rider more than once in a month, but his visit this weekend was the penultimate in a series of social engagements starting at the beginning of last week which included celebrating the birthday of one of my friends on Wednesday (two days before her guest column posted), going to a play with Daedalus on Thursday, attending a dinner party at Savannah’s on Friday, then going with her and some other friends (including Lady Vi) to see Stormy Daniels on Sunday night. It’s a good thing my brain has re-adjusted to the season, because otherwise I’d have been wiped out! It was also one of those weeks wherein I was quoted in a number of articles, including this one by Stephen Lemons and another which will appear in Saturday’s news column. I’ve also been asked when I’ll be traveling next, and to where; the holidays always make that problematic, but I’m definitely going to try flying out of Seattle at least a couple of times this winter before I expect the rate to increase due to movie screenings and speaking events early next year. And that’s not even including Thanksgiving next week, which also means the start of my annual Christmas toy drive! If you’re unfamiliar with this tradition (which I’ve practiced in one form or another since I was a stripper in the ’90s), take a look at this description from last year, and be ready to hit the ground running a week from Friday!
Links #436
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged Antarctica, cops, Massachusetts, North Carolina, nostalgia, Oregon, psychology, racism, South Africa, universal criminality, video on November 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Welcome to the white man’s world. – “Officer” Gregg Bigda
Yet another truly weird video from classic Sesame Street. The links above it were provided by Jillian Keenan, Joe Setyon, Mistress Matisse, Radley Balko, Tim Cushing, and Scott Greenfield, in that order.
- Justifiable homicide.
- Just protecting and serving.
- How to piss off brickmakers.
- The criminalization of tragedy.
- Don’t try to BE a fucking cop, either.
- Crime: Crossing a street. Penalty: summary execution.
From the Archives
- Burke was the police chief who derailed the hunt for the Long Island Killer.
- Brian Bates is hostile to both sex workers and “sex trafficking” mythology.
- Given petty tyranny of US prison officials, I’m amazed any of ’em allow it.
- Cops, Sweden, Frankenclown, nutritionism, Silurian Park and much more.
- Amateurs are a menace to public health; license & heavily regulate them.
- Politicians can’t grasp that whores might be neither criminals nor victims.
- Often, the War on Whores is the War on Drugs rather than its successor.
- Bad laws disproportionately harm small businesses and poor individuals.
- I had a feeling he’d extend this fantasy nonsense to his Swiss shop, too.
- Want to write an article supporting sex workers? Actually talk to us first.
- It’s a shame this is what it took to bring down the “sex addiction” scam.
- Self-declared “expert” can’t grasp why “pimp” conviction rate is so low.
- Wanna ban a consensual activity? Find a problem case to shill for you.
- We keep telling you legalization isn’t much better than criminalization.
- Cops, government, politicians, glitter, Leonard Cohen and much more.
- There can never be too many articles on sex workers for the disabled.
- It’s good to see mainstream articles critical of the “john school” scam.
- It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony does it.
- Taiwan becomes the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
- It’s good to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins.
- We’re lucky to have such moral exemplars to “protect” and “lead” us.
- Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t.
- The best way to honor veterans is to stop making so many of them.
- It’s sad that conformists are unable to simply respect others’ rights.
- Another study shows what’s already been shown over & over again.
- Why attempts to prosecute porn as prostitution are doomed to fail.
- Please help sex workers recover from the two-month election lull.
- How could even cops believe that Fresno is a “hub” for anything?
- A rare victory for sex workers against “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- Could you introduce me to a sex worker I can correspond with?
- The War on Whores, like the War on Drugs, is a jobs program.
- Sex workers are and always have been the real “resistance”.
- Admit it; you knew Weiner would claim to be a “sex addict”.
- Rapist graduates from slandering his victims to suing them.
- New York bartenders are now competing with the strippers.
- The quadrennial madness that is a US presidential election.
- A cross between an adult-sized Talky Tina and a Fleshlight.
- This prohibitionist article is more of a mess than usual.
- “Strange accents” sums up what this is really about.
- The defense of choice for sex offenders, plus ADHD.
- Because “I was wrong” isn’t in the cop vocabulary.
- “Signs of trafficking” idiocy spreads to Dutch pigs.
- A possible move toward decriminalization in India.
- An excerpt from Andrea Werhun’s Modern Whore.
- People sometimes ask why I’m not on Facebook.
- I speak at an anarchist conference in Oklahoma.
- A very interesting development in Ireland.
- My last two columns for Guy Fawkes Day.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2016 and 2017.
- This claim is so absurd it defies sanity.
- A raid on the Eros Guide call center.
- Birthday presents are awesome.
- Good riddance to bad rubbish.
To End All Wars
Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Europe, holidays, left-right myth, psychology on November 11, 2018| 5 Comments »
Dedicating a day to the end of a war is a far different thing from using it to glorify the machinery of war. – “Armistice Day”
One hundred years ago today, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the armistice which ended what was at the time called The Great War went into effect, bringing to an end a conflict like no other that had ever been seen before. For over four years most of the advanced nations in the world (and their allies and colonies), spread across every inhabited continent, slaughtered each others’ citizens on an unprecedented scale, using all the weapons the Industrial Age had devised and a few new ones: roughly 18 million people were killed and 23 million wounded, and whole countries were redrawn or wiped from the map entirely. The monumental carnage was so traumatic it produced an entire “lost generation” and shaped art and literature for decades afterward; some idealists even believed that the horror was so great people would be shocked out of supporting warfare at all any longer, or else they absurdly chose to demonize the Germans as the font of all European conflict. These beliefs converged in the popular term “The War To End All Wars”, which more sensible heads were already mocking before the war was over; even its originator, novelist H.G. Wells, was using it ironically by the early ’30s. The ideas that humans could ever become sated with bloodshed, or that all violence springs from some evil “other” which need only be defeated to bring lasting peace to the world, are still popular among soft-headed naifs to this very day; they are close kin to the childish belief that the “right” people can be trusted with power over others. The truth, of course, is far darker; it is that no human can be trusted with power over others, and that humans with the power to inflict violence on their neighbors will always do so upon the flimsiest pretext. If there is anything that the past century has taught us, it is that the only war which will truly end all wars among humanity is the one in which the human species is finally obliterated.
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