Today is the very last day of my annual Toys for Tots special; you can still claim it if you book and pay today, even if we can’t manage an actual meeting today (which we almost certainly won’t, since I’ve got several things to do). This year I got over $1000 in cash donations and several toy donations; I’ve already made two drops at the collection center and plan to make my final one tonight (unless I get any last-minute donations, in which case the local coordinator assures me we can squeak them in tomorrow or the next day). I really enjoy doing this drive every year, and I’m happy to help children in need; however, like so many good things it’s very energy-intensive, so I’m rather glad the program-imposed deadline is two weeks before Christmas Day. That gives them time to organize distribution, and me time to finish the rest of my own Christmas shopping and other preparations. As usual, you’ll notice my blog schedule bounce around a little over the holidays, but it’ll be back to normal by the end of the second week of January; meanwhile, I’m going out to Sunset a few days before Christmas, so if you want to schedule during the holidays you need to either be flexible or contact me well in advance (preferably both). Because the thing I want most for Christmas is some much-needed rest.
Archive for December, 2018
Diary #441
Posted in Diary, tagged advertising, blogging, holidays, Toys for Tots on December 11, 2018| 1 Comment »
Guest Columnist: Missy Mariposa
Posted in Guest Columns, Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, Backpage, Blackball, escort review sites, law, Twitter on December 10, 2018| 2 Comments »
Melissa Mariposa is an escort and owner of Red Umbrella Hosting; she has also established and improved several other sites to help other sex workers, since our options have been steadily shrinking due to the war on whores. I asked her to write an introduction to these sites because I’ve seen too many shady operators attempting to capitalize on the panic the US government has intentionally sown in our community.
As someone with an IT background, I knew as soon as FOSTA-SESTA passed that our web presence was in trouble. Many mainstream web hosts have officially prohibited sex work related content while actually looking the other way, but I thought this might cause a shift towards enforcing those policies — as under FOSTA-SESTA, they become liable for that content. Without hesitation, I cancelled my next 2 tours, acquired an offshore server, and was up and running before the weekend. I spent most of my spring both migrating and rebuilding sites from the Internet Archive for those that had lost their free sites without warning, and as I was plugging away, I started to notice a change in ad sites. EROS was making huge policy changes but staying silent (remember they had been raided six months prior by DHS and which we still do not know what is going on), TER had excluded US providers entirely, P411 was announcing “upcoming changes”. It seemed our ad market was slowly folding one site at a time.
Then Backpage happened; they operated flagrantly with their servers in Arizona and we all paid the price. While having an offshore setup does not make you immune in itself, there are definitely ways to maintain anonymity — otherwise Pirate Bay would not have an almost 20 year running time. There is a right way to do things, and Backpage did not do it. At all. And what I’ve since discovered (to my horror) is that none of the big ad sites in our industry were following the path laid out by internet pirates before us; no one is following best practices for a grey market site. Not one site. Most of them are hosted in the US, or they use Cloudflare which is a service that is in no way safe for sex workers. The most well known escort ad sites grossed in the millions; Backpage made $135 million in 2014 alone, and sites like P411, TER, and EROS are also unquestionably in the 7 figure club. I naively thought that these multimillion dollar businesses that get so much from us at the very least had a qualified IT person who understood the nature of what they were doing; I was wrong — and in retrospect, I was really fucking stupid to think that. This was a sharp reminder of what I already knew: No one is here for us, they’re here to make money off of us. Sex workers aren’t exploited by our clients, we’re exploited by these sites, and some of the worst actors in this industry have been owners of some of the highest grossing sites. Why do we put our money in the pockets of pimps and panderers? Because they make us feel like we have to. They aggregate false ads from our real ads on other sites, draw our clients in, we think that’s where clients like to look, so we make ads there and give them our money.
So I started looking around for legitimately offshore provider-run ad sites. I was tired of putting my money in the hands of opportunistic dudebros, people who wanted to make a fast buck and should have known better, but didn’t. I want to put my money in the hands of qualified women in IT who know our industry, know security, and who work to help us. What I found was Have We Met, which had been around since 2016 (I was a beta tester, as I love the concept) but with strict policies that hindered them in the pre-FOSTA market. I decided to reach out the owners (a provider and her partner) and they took me on as a silent partner. I started implementing small changes to policy and pricing, and after a few months they asked if I would be interested in acquiring ownership of the site. I happily accepted, and after some restructuring, Have We Met became what it is today: A place where a provider can create a profile with their stats, website, and photos, and list themselves for free in up to 20 areas. They can also write one single ad which is automatically listed in whatever areas they choose to list their profile; so if you’re touring 10 cities, you just add those cities to your profile, set up your ad, and the ad is automatically listed in those 10 cities when a client searches for providers — no expiration date. Have We Met isn’t just an ad site — there is also a dual sided verification feature. The provider and the client are both asked eight basic, non-intrusive, non-sexual questions about the encounter involving subjects like punctuality, safety, and hygiene. This is a checkbox only system with no room for textual fantasies of illegal activity. After the verification is complete, it shows up on the provider’s profile to show future clients that others have found her to be clean, safe, reputable, and pleasant to be around. Clients can pay a small fee to show verifications on their profile. The questions clients are asked seem more helpful than what a simple “whitelisting” or “okay” provides, and I also felt this would provide a nice alternative to reviews whilst providing the assurance clients seek from them. A “review” on the legal exchange of time for money and nothing more. Verification without incrimination.
Meanwhile, I decided to also build a simpler site, something familiar which everyone knew the feel of, which could be completely managed from a smartphone because I know a lot of providers who don’t use computers anymore except to advertise. So SWAN was born: A familiar-feeling classified system where everything from searching to ad building can be done from the tiny computer in your pocket. Ads are free, and all upgrades are under $10 (and you just so happen to get $10 credit free when you sign up for the site). Like Red Umbrella Hosting, these sites require no ID to advertise and take no personal information to get started; they both offer free advertising, with optional paid upgrades with three methods of anonymous payment: physical gift card, crypto, and money order via mail. I do not wish to tie your work life to your real life in any way; I don’t want your drivers license or pictures of your face with your work name written on it. Those measures, used by other sites, are overly intrusive and unnecessary. I have tried to approach building these sites from the angle of, “What do I as a provider want?” as well as asking others. I welcome all feedback — positive and negative — on all of my offerings so I can continuously improve them. I want to make tools that people want.
When FOSTA-SESTA hit, some of the popular blacklists began “cleaning up” entries that had titles such as “rape”, changing them to “bad date”. In fear that we would no longer have an unadulterated blacklist, I set up OurList; I also have a site launching this week called Relax With Me, which you’ll just have to wait and see about (I will tell you that it involves advertising and another non-vulgar alternative to traditional reviews, and will also be free for providers). Coming up in 2019 there are two large projects on the horizon for my company Trystworthy; Michael Fattorosi has speculated that within the next year our social media options will be gone, and I agree. So I have been working with another developer on how to best start and implement a new social platform (NOT Mastadon) and am hoping to open something by the end of the first quarter at the latest. The other project is completely under wraps for now, but you should be hearing something soon; it’s completely different and totally unrelated to any other offering I have and I am beyond excited. My goal going forward is that I want to continue to offer useful tools to providers in this industry affordably, reliably, and transparently; all sites I build are fully functional for providers without a single dollar invested, and optional upgrades are exactly that: Optional. Advertising should not be your biggest overhead, a headache, or something you dread thinking about; it should be the easiest part of your job, and that’s what I am striving to do. These sites are labors of love for an industry that has given me my entire life. Building tools for the future is the best way I feel I can “give back”, and I will continue working towards this goal for as long as I draw breath.
Links #440
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged advertising, Alabama, cops, drugs, Florida, Georgia, holidays, Missouri, Ohio, prisons, racism, United Kingdom, video on December 9, 2018| 1 Comment »
It’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart. – “Officer” Dustin Boone
I’ve never heard of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, but his (sadly, very small) body of work definitely needs greater exposure. The article from which I pulled the video was called to my attention by Jesse Walker, and the links above the video were provided by Patrick Nonwhite, Popehat, Tim Cushing, Scott Greenfield, Marijke Vonk, and Radley Balko, in that order.
- Instant karma.
- Marketing brilliance.
- One down, tens of thousands to go.
- Cop tases boy twice for wearing red pants.
- Cop shoots man in the face for being black.
- 3 months without bail for possession of cotton candy.
From the Archives
- Fascinating to see fetishists convincing themselves their fantasies are real.
- The Maoist cult whose members were at first called “slaves” by the media.
- Why do medical professionals throw their careers away on this stupid shit?
- Vanillas who can’t recognize repressed kink when they see it are hilarious.
- Does any sane person still believe this is about anything other than profit?
- The real purpose of this scheme is to cut sex workers off from healthcare.
- “It’s hard to imagine a more predictable abuse of authority,” Maggie said.
- As long as these laws exist, all women are vulnerable to cop persecution.
- Why can’t reporters write about murders of whores without lurid bullshit?
- Moral panics don’t end until they start disrupting lives of well-connected.
- Liz Brown discovers a revolting pattern in US vice cops’ recent behavior.
- Kenyan sex work articles can be just as weirdly stupid as Nigerian ones.
- Prohibitionists try to trick people into thinking Swedish model is decrim.
- Unlike US media, Canadians willing to call anti-whore rubbish what it is.
- Hollywood believes all whores magically lost our agency in World War I.
- I’m honestly amazed the dumb “rape is asexual” dogma is still popular.
- Femen’s main goal seems to be the generation of irony from hypocrisy.
- Don’t teach kids about sex; fill their heads with anti-sex propaganda.
- Prohibitionists want unproven misdemeanor charges to destroy lives.
- Fetishist admits her “information” is bullshit, yet teaches it anyway.
- “We don’t keep secrets in our family” can do more harm than good.
- Sex workers need to keep fighting charges from “sting” operations.
- Three years ago this was safer than consensual sex with a human.
- “Pizzagate” lunacy sprang directly from “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- Because pigs still don’t have enough excuses to cage people yet.
- Another example of the “limited hours for massage parlors” fad.
- Quite possibly the stupidest prohibitionist argument of the year.
- “Sex trafficking” means whatever “authorities” want it to mean.
- John Glenn, Elvis, cops, net guns, feeling old and much more.
- In mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
- In honor of St. Nicholas, who has a soft spot for sex workers.
- One-person boycotts don’t really accomplish anything useful.
- How can I get women I don’t know to give me free cybersex?
- “Sex trafficking” fetishists keep recycling their stupid stunts.
- How sex workers brought civilization to the Wild West.
- “Concerned parents” is a euphemism for “busybodies”.
- The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived.
- Cops, love, Florida, robots, pain and much more.
- How can I get a provider to give me a referral?
- A rare victory for victims of legalized robbery.
- Proofreading The Forms of Things Unknown.
- Finishing up my annual Toys for Tots drive.
- No torches, but a mob nonetheless.
- Do as they say, not as they do.
- Rapist cops of a week in 2014.
- Dare we hope this is a trend?
- Rapist cops every five days.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- Hi.
In the News (#894)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, asset seizure, Backpage, brothels, California, Censor Chic, censorship, China, cops, Damned Lies, drugs, Dysphemisms Galore, Elephant in the Parlor, Florida, Forward and Backward, Google, hysteria, language, law, lawyers, left-right myth, License To Rape, Massachusetts, New York, Panopticon, Policing for Profit, politicians, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, red-light districts, Rotting Fruit, Rough Trade, Singapore, streetwalkers, surveillance, The Mote and the Beam, The War Goes On, This Means War, underage, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers on December 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
The U.S. Attorney made it clear that he intends to put us in prison for the rest of our lives. – Michael Lacey
Cops raping sex workers is so ubiquitous, non-cop rapists often pose as cops to facilitate the crime:
Liu Aik Kang…[of Singapore] hatched a plan with his cousin and the cousin’s friend to pose as [cops] to [rape] a…[criminalized] sex worker and steal from her. They…[intentionally] sought out their victim because they knew [she] was [doing sex work]…illegal[ly]…Liu…was sentenced to 14 months and two weeks’ jail for his offences…[after raping the victim] Liu, together with his cousin Hu Zhihao…made off with more than S$8,000 [$5850 US]…worth of [their victims’ possessions], including laptops and cameras…
In normal adult sane-person language, she owned four very ordinary massage parlors:
Dan T. Zheng…of Boston was arrested…and charged with trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, deriving support from prostitution and procuring support for prostitution…for [owning] four massage parlors…Six female victims were also located…police learned that male clients were allegedly being offered, and accepting additional services of a sexual nature following their scheduled massage for an additional fee…said District Attorney Ryan…“The defendant in this case was allegedly using businesses in four communities as a front to provide illegal sexual services for a fee while exploiting the women who were employed by her in the process”…
Cops will never stop doing this as long as the state keeps giving them pretexts:
…several [cops] in Northern California [stole] three pounds of legal marijuana from [Zeke Flatten] during a traffic stop, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit…And he’s not the only one who…was…robbed by a group of [profiteering pigs]…three [pigs] from the town of Rohnert Park and Hopland Band of Pomo Indians pulled him over last December while he was driving through Mendocino County. The[y]…were not wearing name tags or badges, and [lied that] they…[were] federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms…Flatten [foolishly] told the [bandits] about the marijuana and offered to show them his paperwork for it, but they [stole] it and left without issuing him a ticket or running his name to check for outstanding warrants…The lawsuit, citing recent local news investigations, says [cops] from the town and tribe have a pattern of using a lucrative civil asset forfeiture program to shake down motorists for marijuana and cash during traffic stops…
Politicians will do anything to avoid decriminalizing women’s sexual choices:
When rape shield laws spread across the country in the 1970s to protect sexual misconduct victims from having their sexual histories used against them in court, women could finally come forward without fearing their “promiscuity” would be paraded in front of a jury…But…stigmas…about…sex workers are still etched into the rape shield statute by treating them differently when they suffer sexual attacks…In New York’s legislative bodies, two bills attempt to address New York’s outmoded law. One…removes an exception that allows the defense to introduce evidence proving the victim has been convicted of a prostitution offense in the three years prior to the alleged sex offense under prosecution…The other…extends the rape shield protection to cover sex trafficking cases…
Because we couldn’t just make sex work not a crime, no sirree.
But please, tell me again about how the political teams are really opposed:
Jeffrey Epstein had a little black book filled with the names and personal phone numbers of some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential people, [including] Bill Clinton and Donald Trump…A money manager for the super-rich, Epstein had two private jets, the largest single residence in Manhattan, an island in the Caribbean, a ranch in New Mexico and a waterfront estate in Florida…For years, Epstein lured an endless stream of teenage girls to his Palm Beach mansion, offering to pay them for…sex…with him and others…in 2007, despite substantial evidence…the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, signed off on a secret deal for the multimillionaire…that ensured he would never spend a day in prison. Acosta, now President Donald Trump’s secretary of labor, agreed to seal the agreement so that no one — not even Epstein’s victims — would know the full extent of his crimes or who was involved…
President Trump took strong action…to hold accountable* those governments that have persistently failed to [persecute sex workers sufficiently to sate US bloodlust]…Specifically, the president will limit the number of national-interest waivers and restrict certain types of foreign assistance for nearly two dozen governments of countries identified as “Tier 3” by the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report. The report, [a political tool used to blackmail poor countries]…places each country in tiers to [reward obedience to US political pressure]…and urge greater action to [persecute adults for consensual sex]…Tier 3 countries are those that have neither [obeyed] nor made a significant effort to [lock human beings in cages for consensual sex]…this administration will no longer use taxpayer dollars to support governments that consistently fail to [satisfy US puritanism]…
* “Hold accountable” is a euphemism used by totalitarians to mean “persecute under guise of some kind of moralistic rhetoric”. It’s commonly seen in phrases such as “hold sex buyers accountable”, which means “persecute men for wanting consensual sex”.
I’ve been saying I distrusted Avenatti since almost the beginning of this:
Stormy Daniels…said she’s unsure if [Michael] Avenatti…will continue to represent her. “I’m tremendously grateful to him for aggressively representing me in my fight to regain my voice…But in other ways Michael has not treated me with the respect and deference an attorney should show to a client. He has spoken on my behalf without my approval. He filed a defamation case against Donald Trump against my wishes. He repeatedly refused to tell me how my legal defense fund was being spent. Now he has launched a new crowdfunding campaign using my face and name without my permission and attributing words to me that I never wrote or said.” In response, Avenatti said..that Daniels paid $100 to retain him, and they agreed any money raised in the legal defense fund would go toward his costs…Daniels’ words came after Avenatti was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence [in November]. Prosecutors in Los Angeles declined to charge him with a felony, and Avenatti denied ever acting abusively to any woman. After those allegations, Daniels said she did not condone violence against women and would end her working relationship with Avenatti if they were found to be true…
Remember when people used to believe that Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto was sincere?
Perhaps you’ve heard about the latest employee uprising at Google, against a search engine and other products tailored for the Chinese government called project Dragonfly. Workers staged a high-profile…protest [on November 27th] against Dragonfly….[and] raised over $200,000 for a “strike fund”. This came after a new report confirmed the project and quoted ex-Google engineer and company privacy advocate Yonatan Zunger, who said the company’s privacy and security teams were locked out of key meetings. Most visible amid Google employee rancor is a statement and petition they posted to Medium…[signed by] 628 [employees]…a leaked confidential memo [reported] that in 2016 Dragonfly was originally “developed as an app for Android and iOS devices, and would link people’s search records to their personal cellphone number and track their location“…
Online sex ads plunged in April following Backpage’s seizure and [the enactment of FOSTA]…But a new analysis finds the drop in the number of ads may have been short-lived. According to…[fascist cop-collaborators] Marinus Analytics, there were about 146,000 online sex ads posted per day in the U.S. on leading escort websites from mid-September to mid-October — and the company expects the total for this month to be even higher. In contrast, there were about 133,000 such ads posted on Backpage in the month before its shutdown…Instead of backing away amid the government [jihad against sex workers]…some escort websites…[have moved overseas, safely out of the reach of US busybodies,] and see the Backpage shutdown as an opportunity to expand…
Moronic “experts” quoted in the story also think that the lower response to pig-placed fake ads is due to a reduction in “demand”, when in actuality more men are just learning to exercise due diligence.
Michael Lacey tells the story of the government’s war on free speech, with Backpage as the bogeyman:
…strong political currents agitated by Senator John McCain, now deceased, and his beer-baroness wife Cindy — with her high-church hair bun and her wildly exaggerated campaign against child sex trafficking — swamped prosecutorial restraint and common sense. The McCain medicine wagon hauled out roundheads, god botherers, creeping Jesus crawlers, and magical legislative elixirs meant to banish sex workers. Cindy McCain, in particular, fixated on trafficking. She has said that she saw the light during a trip to India, after she purchased some gewgaws for her daughter that she suspected — with no evidence — had been made in a sweatshop. (Evidently, her inherited riches obviated the need for facts.) The McCains’ fellow carnival barker, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, supervised the inquisition within the halls of Congress. Even as the government spends millions of dollars trying to put us behind bars, it has not appropriated a penny to aid sex workers with counseling, education, housing, or job training. The logic apparently hails from an unpublished Dr. Seuss book that begins: “The ‘world’s oldest profession’ exists because of Backpage, which began in 2004”…
More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever:
An Amazon patent application…describes how a network of cameras could work together with facial recognition technology to identify people, and re[port them to the pigs, an application already being tested in Orlando, Florida]. Amazon’s application says the process leads to…more [surveilled] neighborhoods, as well as better informed [cops]…The application describes creating a database of suspicious persons. Unwanted visitors would be added to the list when a homeowner tags them as not authorized. Other people could be added to the database because they are a convicted felon or registered sex offender…”The patent is a roadmap for Amazon’s disturbing vision of surveillance in the future,” [said] Jacob Snow, a technology and civil liberties attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union…”People have the right to go about their daily lives without being watched and tracked”…
Kate Lister of “Whores of Yore” interviews street workers in Leeds:
In 2014, Leeds City Council…designated [a] non-residential area [where] between the hours of 8pm and 6am, there would be no police prosecutions for soliciting or selling sex…a small, but vocal group called “Save Our Eyes” is currently campaigning to have it shut down…[by pretending] that some women are selling sex outside the specified time and place. Under intense pressure, Leeds City Council has now voted to review the managed approach…But the voices of the women working in the managed area are often missing from the debate over its future…The following interviews are with the street sex workers who work, or have recently worked, within the managed area of Holbeck. The interviews were secured through Basis Sex Work Project…
“Save Our Eyes”. In other words, these busybodies are implying that human beings are eyesores.
It didn’t take long for the “thot audit” to move from a foolish game to an actual threat:
…The harassers [have graduated to] taking advantage of user reporting tools made available by companies like PayPal, Venmo, and CirclePay, in an attempt to force their targets offline and freeze their finances…dozens of…sex workers [have] experienced…harassment and expressed outrage over being banned from multiple online payment service providers…Many of the women…have lost…hundreds of dollars, as most payment companies [steal] whatever funds were stored in the reported account. Participants in the harassment campaign openly discussed tactics and specific attacks in r/ThotAudit, a public subreddit…Users also posted comprehensive “thot auditing field guides,” including a continually updated list of tens of thousands of potential targets, and detailed instructions for getting sex workers banned from PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Amazon Pay, Stripe, Circle Pay, Snapchat, and Kik…
Because of these companies’ long history of stealing money from sex workers under the excuse of “TOS violations”, it’s a bad idea for any sex worker who uses them to leave more than a pittance in any of them. I suggest transferring large amounts out within minutes of receiving them, and don’t let smaller amounts accumulate to over $100. That way even if your account is closed, at least you don’t lose any money with it. You might also consider having two bank accounts, and not leaving more than a token amount in the one linked to any payment processor; transfer anything else to the main account ASAP, and do not link it to any online payment processor.
Empowermental
Posted in Perception, Words, tagged agency denial, dirty, language, Madonna/whore, neofeminism, Twitter on December 7, 2018| 6 Comments »
A few days after the whole “thot audit” nonsense, another (though much smaller) silly season erupted on Twitter. But while the former was comprised mostly of misogynist incel and PUA-type whore haters, the latter was comprised mostly of misogynistic married whore-haters who are seemingly terrified of the idea that their daughters might grow up to have pragmatic views about sex. And while the “thot audit” yahoos proudly and openly advertised themselves as copsuckers and badge-lickers, the “Would you want your daughter to do it?” busybodies mostly claimed to have libertarian ideas about decriminalization and so pretended that their concern about sex work is that it’s “dangerous” and/or not “empowering”. The hypocrisy of the “dangerous” argument is clearly revealed by the fact that these men don’t pontificate about how women shouldn’t join the cops or military; somehow danger is only an issue when sex is involved. And nobody seems all too concerned about whether being a waitress, cashier, or manicurist is “empowering”; again, “empowerment” only magically becomes an issue when sex is involved. The basic issue here is that busybodies with creepy sexual fantasies about women feel qualified to judge work they’ve never done and know nothing about on airy-fairy criteria like “empowerment”; this is why we have prohibition. The only kind of “empowerment” that a job is required to provide is economic empowerment, in other words, the amount of economic power it provides relative to other jobs. And despite the “pimp” and “slavery” masturbatory fantasies of prohibitionists, sex work compares very well indeed in comparison to other jobs which require no formal education, licensing, etc. But that’s not the only problem with the concept of “empowerment”; as I wrote in “Politicizing the Personal” over 7 years ago:
…To “empower” someone is to grant her power; it automatically implies A) that she hasn’t got any in the first place, and B) that such power is the speaker’s to give. Using the word in an active sense (“we need to empower women”) establishes the speaker or his organization as the intrinsic superior and benefactor of the person or persons so “empowered”, and using the word in a passive sense (“an empowered woman”) robs the person so “empowered” of agency, reducing her to the passive recipient of someone else’s benevolence just as people were imagined to be “granted” rights by a king in archaic political theory…
In short, merely bringing up the word in a discussion about women automatically places the speaker at a vantage point above the person he’s speaking about, like a scientist discussing some species of newt. Nobody uses the word “empowered” when talking about men’s employment, and nobody should be using it to talk about women’s either.
St. Nicholas Day 2018
Posted in Holidays, tagged holidays on December 6, 2018| 2 Comments »
If you’re a new reader and don’t understand why I specifically honor St. Nicholas on his day, I suggest you reread my column for this day four years past, and don’t skip the links. And if you wish to honor the jolly saint yourself, I suggest you reread my November 23rd column and proceed accordingly; I’ve provided ways you can help several of the saint’s favorites at the same time. And if you already know what this is about, what are you waiting for? I know you don’t want to end up on his naughty list.
In the News (#893)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, advertising, agency denial, apes & monkeys, Backwards into the Future, California, censorship, cops, dehumanization, dirty, Disaster, drugs, end demand, End Demand (updates), Grow the Hell Up!, Hollywood, If Men Were Angels, illegal aliens, Indonesia, internet, language, law, Missouri, Monsters, neofeminism, New Jersey, Opting Out, Pennsylvania, politicians, porn, pragmatism, pregnancy, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, rape, Scapegoats, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas, They Just Don’t Get It, Torture Chamber, transgender, Twitter, United Kingdom, Whore Madonnas on December 5, 2018| 2 Comments »
The issue with filters starts with the fact that their purpose is to block content. – Michael Stabile
Prostitution rings are becoming more sophisticated, and that’s creating new challenges for police…Greensburg police investigators say the internet has [magically transformed into] a vast sea of sex for sale [complete with ships and tentacled hentai monsters]…[unusually stupid pig] Robert Stafford [oinked that]…the sites used to advertise such services…“always seem to be the same website…there always seems to be a drug habit involved”…when [sex workers] are [locked] up [often after being raped by cops], there is a genuine effort to save them from the street and in reality from themselves…
So many dysphemisms, so much bullshit. “Sophisticated prostitution rings” is the most popular cop excuse for raping sex workers, a practice that Pennsylvania aggressively defends. As for the bizarre cop fantasy that there is only one ad website, this is the first I’ve heard of it; usually the claim is exactly the opposite, that there are dozens or even hundreds in every city.
I’m always glad to see this wannabe savior get egg on her face:
Ashley…Judd’s…anti-trafficking activism [ignorantly and intentionally] …conflate[s] sex trafficking and sex work. Judd also serves on the advisory council of Demand Abolition…[after a series of ugly anti-sex worker tweets last week] Judd’s social media was quickly inundated with criticism, causing Judd to double down on her anti-sex work platform…writing…”I believe body invasion is indeed inherently harmful…Buying sex…commodifies…girls and women’s orfices [sic]”…Unsurprisingly, real-life sex workers took issue with Judd’s numerous…assertions…@BrookeBrou was a vocal participant in the thread, tweeting, “You are harming people with your ignorant ideas about what sex work actually is”…Brou…explained that, “I find [Ashley Judd’s] posts rendering a SW to her orifices incredibly disgusting…What is apparent is that Ashley Judd is not only misguided, but also simple-minded…it looks like Ashley lacks the cognitive ability to fully grasp the complexity of…SW voices and experiences”…
That weird sci-fi “body invasion” nonsense was invented by Gloria Steinem; this isn’t the first time Judd has incompetently parroted it.
Backwards Into the Future (June Updates)
A strip club defeats part of a stupid “sin density” law:
In New Jersey, clubs and restaurants that do not have licenses to sell alcoholic beverages may nevertheless allow customers to bring beer or wine to consume on the premises. But they [we]re not allowed to tell customers about that option…until…a federal judge ruled that a state ban on advertising BYOB policies violates the First Amendment…Stiletto, a strip club in Atlantic City…[has no] liquor license…[because] strip clubs that feature total nudity are not allowed to have [one]…New Jersey offered no [defense to the club’s suit other]…than boilerplate about “protect[ing] the health, safety, and welfare of the people…through the promotion of temperance.” It did not explain how letting people know they can bring their own beer and wine is more likely to promote intemperance than advertising the sale of alcoholic beverages, as businesses with liquor licenses routinely do…
Six and a half years after I first heard the tale, and 15 years after it is supposed to have happened, the story of the “prostitute” orangutan named Pony gets enough detail to tip my opinion from “probably not true” to “probably at least partly true”. This version of the story actually has the name of a Danish conservationist, Lone Droscher-Nielsen, who cared for Pony after she was rescued from a village near a palm-oil plantation in Indonesia; the story talks about a “brothel” but other details seem to indicate that she was the pet of the whole village, and that the men who paid to fuck her appear to have viewed the experience as a novelty. It’s in The Sun, which is not exactly known for journalistic rigor; however, there are pictures of the ape and quotes from the conservationists explaining the rehabilitation process. My guess? Basically true but embellished to increase luridness.
This could also be filed under “Torture Chamber”, but I suspect she was targeted for being trans:
A transgender woman who died [after being caged by] Immigration and Customs Enforcement…was likely physically abused [by screws]…and died after several days of severe, untreated dehydration. Roxsana Hernández Rodriguez…died on May 25…[from] “severe complications of dehydration superimposed upon HIV infection”…the…autopsy…also found evidence of physical abuse, with “deep bruising” on her hands and abdomen, evidence of blunt-force trauma “indicative of blows, and/or kicks, and possible strikes with blunt object”…as well as extensive hemorrhaging on [her]…wrists, which…[a]re “typical of handcuff injuries”…
Most rapes by clergymen are much more subtle:
A former pastor…kidnapped three women and [raped] two…Thomas Bruce…had a history of going on social media rants against “gun-free zones”…[he] posed as a customer of a Catholic Supply store in [Missouri]…When he saw that there were two female employees and one female customer in the store, Bruce…forced the three women to go with him into a back room at gunpoint…he ordered them to strip and “perform…sexual acts on him”…One of the women, Jamie Schmidt refused to give in to his demands, and Bruce…killed her with a shot to the head. This prompted the other two women to begin complying with his requests, and Bruce eventually fled…
Sometimes “sex trafficking” bullshit is too much for even politicians to pretend to believe. The Dallas Morning News printed this “editorial”:
A [pig leader masturbated while fantasizing that]…a person trapped into “the life”…is left with little hope and no sense of what it means to trust another person, experience joy, or even know friendship. It is gratifying then to know that this week the Dallas Police Department will…unveil…a new strategy…to [persecute peaceful adults using the excuse of]…human sex trafficking…On November 28, the department is relaunching its vice unit, which was disbanded last year amid an internal investigation…a new philosophy…will [lock up sex workers and call that]…serving the victims…those who [are labeled] trafficked will face prosecution [anyway]…[blah blah] those who traffic in the sale of human flesh…
While on the same day, the same paper printed this:
…The Dallas Police Department’s beleaguered vice unit will soon be back in action after a year off the streets. But the…details were a little murky to some members of the [city] council’s Public Safety & Criminal Justice Committee…members…wanted to know how the department’s new approach differed from the unit’s previous iteration — and why the vice unit was disbanded in the first place…Police Chief U. Renee Hall in November 2017 disbanded the vice unit amid what she called “serious issues”. Since then, she has given few specific details about what those issues were [except vague statements about]…policy violations, accounting discrepancies…and a general lack of accountability. But [the names of cops]…accused of violations [are still being hidden and there have been no]…criminal charges…The [old vice pigs]…will not be returning to the unit…council members said police officials were still too vague in their descriptions of both the problems and the [supposed] solutions…
An interview with a pregnant sex worker:
Sex work is arguably the single most stigmatized profession in the world. Add pregnancy and motherhood…and that stigma increases one-hundred fold. Last year, when Summer Sebastian announced that she would be working at the Bunny Ranch…throughout her pregnancy, it made for international headlines. [Maxine] Holloway hasn’t even given birth yet and she’s already been harassed online by people saying that she’s harming her future child. I visited Holloway at her home in Oakland, California to talk about pregnancy fetishes, mommy role-play, and the stigma of doing sex work while pregnant…
UK politicians have been forced to delay their ridiculous censorship scheme again:
For the past year and a half, the UK government has been promising…a nationwide age verification system that would require would-be porn consumers to demonstrate their adulthood before accessing adult content…A few years ago, the country attempted to block adult sites at the ISP level, requiring users to opt in to access adult content…[of course the censorship software] ended up blocking far more than just porn. The Digital Economy Act…puts the onus on [websites], who must comply with the policy or risk getting banned by major payment processors. Yet…the age verification system’s rollout — which was initially scheduled for this past spring — was postponed yet again, as [politicians] continued to grapple with the [impossibility] of creating a system that [censors content for people under 18] without [blocking] …other sex-related content…Since the dawn of the internet, tech companies have promised [censorious] parents an easy way to [maintain] their children’s [ignorance about sex]…while allowing them to freely browse the [rest] of the internet…however, these porn blockers aren’t nearly as…effective as advertised, largely because figuring out what is and is not pornography is rarely a simple matter. Apple’s recently launched…parental controls…produced results that were inconsistent at best…innocent items like a search for a dulce de leche recipe wound up blocked, as did numerous sex education sites. Teen Vogue’s entire site wound up blocked, as did sites offering assistance to queer youth…
Even the perennially-obtuse Rolling Stone recognizes that FOSTA has galvanized sex worker activism:
…It wasn’t until the passage of the so-called Online Trafficking bill SESTA-FOSTA last spring that many workers began to [participate in activism]…not just to oppose the bill but also to support sex work decriminalization efforts more broadly…Christa Daring, the executive director of [SWOP-USA, says]…“SESTA-FOSTA didn’t make prostitution any more illegal than it was before, but it…really threw into stark contrast the amount of criminalization that people were facing”…“Now you have coalitions rising of people who care about criminal justice and racial justice and immigration issues all working together,” says [activist Lola] Balcon…“I’ve never seen sex workers begin organizing in the way they did following SESTA-FOSTA,” says activist Siouxsie Q. “Enough was enough”…
At least one journalist at the Graun appears to get it:
…Under the guise of “anti-trafficking” efforts, police practices in northern California and a new federal law have broadly affected adult sex workers both online and in the streets. The result…is…increased violence and suffering for the very women whom lawmakers [pretend] they are rescuing. There have been two such anti-“human trafficking” sting operations in Sacramento this year, most recently in August, in which [sows role-play sex workers]…16 men were arrested for soliciting…police also arrested 25 women for “loitering with intent to commit prostitution” or “disorderly conduct”…[spokespigs] insisted the women’s arrests were separate from the stings, even though some happened on the same day and location…But Alix Lutnick, a researcher with RTI International…said that there is growing recognition that john stings don’t actually help victims…The crackdown, in a state that pre[t]en[d]s [to be] a progressive leader in social justice and women’s rights, has come at a time in which sex work is being aggressively criminalized across the US…Democrats in California have spearheaded the [persecution]…Kamala Harris, a rising star in the party, fought for the shutdown of Backpage.com…when she was the state’s top prosecutor…For one woman caught up in the [recent] arrests, police cited as evidence that she was wearing a “lace bralette”, “shorts” and “flip flops” and was carrying four “unused condoms”. Despite the “trafficking” label, the stings have led to no trafficking charges. [A] Sacramento [spokespig admitted]…the stings were [really] about punishing “males who were trying to pick up prostitutes”…
Diary #440
Posted in Diary, tagged blogging, holidays, Toys for Tots on December 4, 2018| 2 Comments »
My “Toys for Tots” special started with a bang this year, with $500 in donations in the first couple of days. The picture below was the result of spending the first $350, and this week I’ll be doing another round; I’ve discovered it’s more fun to take Jae with me on the shopping trips because she gets really excited and it’s good to have another viewpoint on what kids might like. Last week we even turned it into an outing, with dinner afterward. I’m also doing some shopping for my own Christmas presents and assisting Santa with stocking stuffers, and working out my schedule for my various commitments for the holiday season. It’s a lot of work and juggling, but it always feels rewarding. And come Boxing Day I’ll be able to put up my feet and relax without feeling guilty about it. Anyhow, the special ends one week from today, so if you’re going to take advantage of it, don’t dawdle! Remember, you only need to book the appointment and pay the toy portion of the fee by then; we can schedule the appointment for later if you like, and you can relax knowing you’ve helped needy children to have a little joy on Christmas morning.
Toxic Entitlement
Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged internet, Madonna/whore, prohibitionist myths, psychology, yin and yang on December 3, 2018| 15 Comments »
Sex work prohibitionism is entirely based in negative emotions such as envy, resentment, and bigotry, plus the most common and destructive of all sexual perversions: the need to inflict one’s own will on non-consenting individuals. As I and others have explained, this is why sex workers can’t help “incels”: it isn’t sex that they want, it’s ownership. If they just wanted sex they could pay for it like any other man, but that isn’t enough for them; they want to own women like slaves because they believe themselves to be entitled to unlimited sexual access like the successful men they call “alphas” (whom they imagine get sex without paying). The reason I’m mentioning this is because these are the emotions and twisted cognitive processes behind last week’s “thot audit”, a trollfest in which deeply-pathetic manbabies tried to make themselves feel powerful and frighten ill-informed sex workers by threatening to report them to the IRS for tax evasion.
There’s just so much to unpack here, starting with the highly popular but largely-erroneous notion that sex workers don’t pay taxes (most visible in the ignorant proclamation of wannabe allies that “we should legalize and tax it”); sorry, y’all, but most of us know who Al Capone was and we aren’t stupid. Failing to placate a gang of thieves who have been granted the power to move without let or hindrance to collect their pound of flesh from anyone currently or formerly alive, and who have absolutely no compunction against ruining any given person’s life on a whim, is just plain stupid. Yes, a lot of our income is cash, and yes, most of us put something other than “prostitute” on our tax returns (I used to put “escort service owner”, now I put “writer”). But full-time sex workers do pay taxes, not only because it’s foolish to attempt to cheat the devil of his due, but also because we don’t want to be locked out of the financial system; owning a house, property and credit cards is definitely worth giving the government its blood money. Do some part-timers and dilettantes only declare the income from their “straight” jobs and keep the sex work cash quiet? Undoubtedly, but the same goes for anyone with a side gig. Singling out sex workers has nothing to do with whether we pay some lawhead idea of a “fair share” or not, and everything to do with trying to hurt women out of a frustrated sense of male entitlement; though men control just about everything else, women have a solid lock on the sphere of hetero sexuality…the thing most men care about more than anything else.
But since lots of writers had stuff to say about this, I feel no need to duplicate their efforts. Let’s start with Elizabeth Nolan Brown in Reason:
…Where to begin with the grossness and pointlessness of these pursuits?…What kind of bootlicking busybodies spend their spare time worrying about whether individual strangers are paying enough in taxes, much less take the time to report them? Then there’s the ignorance. Plenty of solo sex workers, adult entertainers, and models do pay taxes, just like other independent contractors…Sex workers have the same incentives as everyone else to stay on the good side of Uncle Sam…Lastly, there’s the futility of the whole business. Blogger Roosh V, who was one of the men leading the #thotaudit charge, pointed his followers to a page of the IRS website for reporting tax evaders, even suggesting that the feds might reward them for rounding up hoes. But…reporting someone requires you to know a lot about the person you’re turning in, including her full name and address—information random dudes online aren’t likely to have for the ladies they’re tattling on…even if they did have all the correct information, there’s little likelihood that the IRS would care. The page specifically notes that it’s interested in situations involving “a significant Federal tax issue”—i.e., not someone making a few hundred unreported dollars per year selling used underwear and butt selfies. As…Mistress Matisse put it: “Dudes, they want Donald Trump, they don’t want camgirls”…
Tracy Clark-Flory quotes me in Jezebel:
…How these trolls would know anything about the inner workings of any individual sex worker’s tax dealings is a mystery. But the boy geniuses behind this ploy are mighty impressed with themselves. The…dude who started it all recently posted to his Facebook page an image depicting himself as a warrior holding up the heads of three women’s faces overlaid with Snapchat filters…While many #ThotAudit-ers allege that they are, indeed, making formal reports to the IRS, there is no evidence to back up their claims. The IRS did not respond to Jezebel’s request for comment…Maggie McNeill…told Jezebel, “Several of us were as amused by this as we were disgusted.” Amused, she explained, because of “its impotence,” and disgusted “by its ugliness.” McNeill continued, “It’s just a new retread of the ‘criminal sluts’ male fantasy of sex work: that we’re all ‘loose women’ who are too lazy to do ‘real work’ and make a killing without paying taxes”…
…To report someone through the whistleblower program, you need a lot of their personal information: Physical address, full legal name, date of birth (or approximate age), and taxpayer identification number…You also have to have to have specific information about the type of fraud being alleged as well as how much money the person being reported has earned; it’s clear from the forms…that this is generally intended for people within companies to whistleblow about tax evasion that they have…document…[to] prove…You also have to physically mail all of this information to the IRS, because it does not accept any of this information by phone or email; one of the whistleblower programs specifically states that anyone submitting information does so under the threat of perjury…Christopher Kirk, attorney and master preparer at Safeword Tax Service…said….“Most sex workers tend not to earn enough to catch the notice of the IRS. With their limited staff resources, the IRS tends to go after larger operators”…
Anyhow, this whole 50-clown-car pile-up of buffoonery was to me summed up by last Monday’s revelation that David Wu, the dude who started it, has a history of trying to extort nude pictures from underage girls using threats of doxxing; the whole “thot audit” nonsense is exactly that sleazy practice, writ large, albeit less competently.
https://twitter.com/DammieItsCammie/status/1067091312363614209
Links #439
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged cops, drivers, holidays, Hollywood, illegal aliens, language, Never Call the Cops, Oregon, prisons, racism, video, Washington (state) on December 2, 2018| 1 Comment »
Uranus is truly a mystery.
I ran across this video last week and decided to share it, despite one of them being basically wrong (an asteroid needn’t be a world-killer to wreak serious havoc) and a couple of “Yeah, but..” entries. The links above the video were provided by Dan Savage, Lucy Steigerwald, Jesse Walker, Mistress Matisse, Mark Bennett, and Popehat, in that order.
- Instant karma.
- More of this, please.
- The gingerbread zoetrope.
- When teen boys write headlines.
- H.P. Lovecraft’s recipe for turkey.
- STOP CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!
From the Archives
- This wasn’t a “mistake”; it was both deliberate and government-approved.
- A better memorial: eradicating the awful laws she fought so hard against.
- One day: similar headlines on people framed on “sex trafficking” charges.
- Our descendants will be confused about why we thought this noteworthy.
- It’s quite nice to see my ideas quoted positively in the mainstream press.
- Huge UK raids have never found more than a few “sex trafficking” cases.
- Man’s garbage will have a more lasting effect on this planet than he will.
- Are politicians stupider than other people, or does it just seem that way?
- He could’ve copied this from other parrots without even leaving London.
- Delusional anti-drug nonsense sounds like delusional anti-sex nonsense.
- Everett defends its sick need to control women’s clothing as “feminism”.
- It’s no surprise conservatives like sleazy entrapment schemes so much.
- It’s good to see so many questioning the “human trafficking” narrative.
- Scumbag gets comeuppance thanks to Sydney Brownstone’s diligence.
- The definition of “sexual predator” used here is too broad to be useful.
- Declare anything a “public health crisis” and it can be harassed at will.
- My regular escort suggested dinner off-clock; should I tip her anyway?
- Only 3 years from the time I predicted this to actual implementation.
- Cops, Washington, ghost ships, Japan, commercials and much more.
- What “legalized and heavily regulated” actually looks like in practice.
- Not for any reason whatsoever. No, your reason is not an exception.
- lawsuits are for the present our best weapon against prohibitionists.
- Enjoy the rest of your life on the “sex offender” registry, “officer”.
- Reporter mysteriously drops talk of “sex trafficking” and “slaves”.
- Are there still people who believe the French are sexually liberal?
- How many fakumentaries there will be before the hysteria ends?
- One of the more predictable uses of the “sex trafficking” excuse.
- A retrospective of my blogging from November 2013 and 2014.
- There’s so much disinformation here it’s almost mind-boggling.
- The Daily News mocks the brutal murder of a young woman.
- A call for decriminalization in Australia’s Northern Territory.
- Weeping quietly over memories of beloved things now lost.
- Did he really think more than 30 bodies would stay buried?
- Well, if Wonder Woman can teach breast self-examination…
- It’s a little reassuring to see somebody else recognize this.
- Cops, robots, MDMA, amnesia, politicians and much more.
- A good criticism of “slavery” talk on Laura Agustín’s blog.
- You mean pictures don’t have magic anti-love powers?
- How do escorts command more respect from clients?
- Co-workers mind woman’s children while she works.
- Presenting the tenth member of my Hall of Shame.
- It’s good to see this getting more attention lately.
- Protip: suing your own offspring rarely ends well.
- And this is different from the US…how, exactly?
- Another attempt at library internet censorship.
- Good riddance to bad anti-whore rubbish.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2016 and 2017.
- OK, so maybe she was listening after all.
- The New York Pot calls a kettle black.
- I called this one three years earlier.
- Essentially, a mobile tippelzone.
- Prohibitionists call this “rescue”.
- What could possibly go wrong?
- Much more of this, please.
- An odd Thanksgiving.
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