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Archive for May, 2019

Back Issue #71

For a man to…stare into my vulva as though he expected to see the future in it, makes me very uncomfortable.  –  “Aversions

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I get that amateurs don’t think like whores, but…don’t most of y’all put at least some value on your time?  Every time I buy anything online or even go anyplace with my cell phone on, I am assailed by requests to provide “feedback”, answer “a few questions” or otherwise provide information for free.  Even if each of these requests took only two minutes, I receive dozens of them a week; I’d easily spend 40 hours or more a year doing uncompensated labor for corporations that make more in a day than I will in my entire life.  Amazon, Google, Wal-mart, grocery stores, restaurants, even fucking gas stations…the list is endless.  Day before yesterday I found in my mailbox a questionnaire from Seattle public transit – a service I only use when it’s cheaper & easier to catch the light rail from downtown or the airport than to find a parking place – asking for my “help”, with no offer of compensation in sight.  Hell, at least a few of them offer to enroll me in a drawing for some el cheapo prize that would barely compensate me if I won it on a regular basis (though the odds of finding a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk are probably greater), but most of them (I’m looking at you, Amazon and Google) don’t even throw out that parsimonious crumb.  I imagine many if not most people just ignore these begging leviathans as I do, but enough people must participate to make it worthwhile.  Good grief, don’t y’all recognize that the number one commodity in the developed world today is information?  It’s bad enough that these immense leeches skulk around behind us online and off, hungrily licking up the data traces we all inadvertently leave behind us as horses leave shit everywhere; do y’all really have to give them information voluntarily as well?  Google’s “We need some human help” is probably the most brazen of these, because it overtly acknowledges that it’s dealing with a human, then proceeds to treat that human as a machine from whom “help” (ie, valuable and marketable information) can be extracted merely for the demanding, with no offer of payment.  Fuck you, Google, and the same goes for all you other turgid, omnivorous blobs haunting Silicon Valley and Seattle.  Cut me in for a percentage of the profit on any data I give you and maybe I’ll consider it, but until then stop sniffing around my crotch and trying to get something for nothing like some gigantic Twitter rando demanding “debate” for free or a titanic time-waster trying to glean wanking material with your creepy questions.

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A child is three times as likely to be hit by lightning than to be kidnapped…by a stranger.  –  Lenore Skenazy

Monsters 

This timing is very suspicious; will cops care?

Transgender woman Muhlaysia Booker, who was at the center of a viral video where she was beaten near an apartment complex, was found fatally shot in east Dallas [on May 18th]…Edward Thomas was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in the [previous] case…

To Molest and Rape 

Just two typical, representative cops:

Two [Alabama cops] were arrested…at Empire, a Birmingham night club…[after] Markeith Williams and…Jonathan Hill [raped]…an employee in a bathroom…Both were [rewarded with a vacation]…

Permanent Record

Politicians who want to undermine important legal safeguards like statutes of limitations always use especially-awful crimes to get useful idiots on their side:

…A new bill from state Rep. Brett Hillyer…would let people subjected to sexual misconduct by doctors at land grant universities between 1978-2000 sue those universities.  [Dr. Richard] Strauss worked at Ohio State from the mid-1970s into the 1990s.  He killed himself in 2005.  More than 150 men claim Strauss sexually assaulted them while they were students and athletes at Ohio State.  Nearly 50 are part of a lawsuit against the school that is headed for mediation…Ohio State’s lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss the case in part because the abuse fell outside the statute of limitations.  Hillyer’s bill would remove that limitation for civil claims…

I Saw My Brain (#785)

Yet another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida:

A massive [entrapment scheme] in Polk County ended with 154 [human beings brutalized and humiliated by the minions of chief psychopath] Grady Judd…[almost half of those arrested were sex workers]…

This will continue until the majority of those arrested fight back with lawsuits, as they’re doing not far away in Palm Beach County.

Eternal Vigilance (#827)

Rent paid for with sex is not “free”; it has been paid with sex:

…sordid homeowner[s]…are demanding romps, threesomes, S&M, naked photos and a “girlfriend ­experience” in exchange for free rooms from those who cannot ­afford to pay.  And the vile exploitation of potential tenants is still going on despite it being outlawed in January…[puritans trying to stop feminine pragmatism] found ­dozens of sex for rent ads…on…Craigslist…

The level of hysteria this simple arrangement provokes in judgy puritans is hilarious.

License to Rape (#886)

Police states define the bodies of all citizens as “crime scenes” which can be violated by “authorities” at will:

…on March 30, 2017…Holly Curry…had all six of her kids — ages 5, 4, 2 (twins) and 10 months (also twins!) in her 10-seater van…Curry parked in front of…a…cafe…[for] less than 10 minutes [and when she emerged she found] two [cops lurking to harass her]…the next day…a [bureaucrat]…from the [infamous] Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services came to the Curry home…with a sheriff’s deputy…[and no] warrant…[the pig and the bureaucrat threatened her]…with an emergency custody order [to abduct] all her kids…Curry [folded and]…the [bureaucrat molested]…each child, male and female, [stripping them] down to the genitals (removing the diapers of the two youngest)…a few weeks later, the [bureaucrat]…told Curry she viewed her decision to get muffins as…a one-time mistake in judgment.  The forced entry, the threat of taking the kids and the strip searches…were not viewed as mistakes at all…

Legislators Gone Wild (#909) 

All prohibitionists have emotional problems, but Guinasso seems to be an unhinged obsessive:

…a creepy Reno lawyer named Jason Guinasso [has] been on an 18-month religious crusade to shut down the brothels…For a year and half now Guinasso has been trying to force Lyon County to give him the full names and addresses of every legal sex worker in the county’s four brothels…District Attorney Steve Rye denied Guinasso’s request…but…In a letter dated February 1, 2019, Guinasso [threatened to sue the county so he can get the information and thereby shame the workers]…All the Nevada Legislature needs to do is amend the current public record statute to explicitly declare that the work card applications for commercial sex workers in Nevada’s legal brothels are confidential, just like gaming employees.  That would put an immediate end to Guinasso’s crusade…and…remove a “gray area” in law that could potentially result in a court overruling District Attorney Rye…

Disaster (#912)

Does anyone other than local news fail to recognize what a disaster FOSTA is?

Stupor Bowl (#918)

Virtually the only people who still profess to believe this nonsense are cops and politicians:

A $1 million campaign will be launched this week to combat prostitution and human trafficking during the Super Bowl in Miami…State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said her office is looking to develop a “rapid intervention response team” to attack what [politicians keep pretending is] a persistent problem for major sporting events [despite plentiful evidence to the contrary]…“Our concern is that a lot of predators will bring other dancers and their victims that work in strip clubs. We have seen that with other major destinations”…the [fascist] effort…which also will involve [surveillance and profiling of customers of] the ride-share services Uber and Lyft, taxi companies and the hotel and restaurant industries…

To Molest and Rape (#939) 

Cops don’t “act as” sex predators; they are sex predators:

…Police Scotland’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has [finally decided to admit] that [cops] are [routinely] abusing their position to carry out “predatory sexual behaviour”.  The ACU said it had received 22 [complaints about] sexual misconduct [in the first quarter of this] year…and…[is] monitoring 13 serious organised crime groups (SOCGs) amid fears they could be attempting to corrupt [already-corrupt cops]…Scottish Greens justice spokesman John Finnie…said he intended to raise the issue of sexual misconduct in the Scottish Parliament next week…

The fairy tale that cops need to be corrupted by “organized crime groups” in order to become rapists would be almost charmingly naive if it weren’t so dangerous to women.

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Diary #465

As those of you who read this blog every day already know, a week ago today I flew cross-country to see a lovely and generous gentleman overnight; I returned the next day and on Friday rode out to Sunset for the weekend.  My gent gave me a lovely metal sculpture of a rose, and I would’ve featured a picture of it in this column had I been able to take a good one in time.  See, because of the metal “thorns” neither he nor I was willing to risk some TSA goon deciding it was a “weapon” and stealing it from me, so he instead shipped it and it arrived a few hours after I left on Friday, and my landlord kept it and gave it to me last night, when it was too dark to get a good shot.  Had my brain been operating at full capacity I probably could’ve figured out a way to take one, but as I explained yesterday I was just emotionally exhausted, so it’ll have to wait.  As a poor but interesting substitute, please enjoy this picture of an actual egg one of my hens laid on Thursday; when I first saw it I thought it was a goose egg (for those who don’t have a good idea of the size of my hand, the egg is over 3″ long and a typical large egg is about 2″).  Anyhow, I ate it for dinner last night and it not only had two yolks, but covered roughly the same area in my skillet as three eggs ordinarily would, so I’m guessing it’s from the same hen who used to regularly lay double-yolked eggs last year (maybe it’s something she does in warm weather?)  Anyhow, we’re just about finished expanding the corral, we’ve started on the bookcases and Jae is just about finished decorating my room, so I’ll share a pic of that soon; it’s so nice to have my canopy bed back after it was in storage for 17 years!

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24 years ago on Memorial Day (it was the 29th that year), I suffered a deeply-traumatic experience which permanently shaped my feelings.  In the old Twilight Zone TV show, characters were often subjected to weird events which caused them to change their minds about some belief; well, I’m exactly the opposite.  Whenever something bad happens to me, it’s much more likely to confirm my prejudices than to challenge them, and the event to which I allude was no exception.  I had always disliked and distrusted cops, and after what was done to me that night any vestige of tolerance for their existence and behavior evaporated, long before I started doing sex work full-time.  For years I suffered panic attacks at the slightest sign of a cop, and though I eventually learned to manage those (to the point where I mostly managed to keep my head when I was caught in a “sting” in 2005), this day remained difficult for me and has remained so ever since.  Over the past several years I’ve dealt with it mostly by spending the day with someone I love; in 2016 it was my wasband (who took me to Disneyland), in 2017 it was Lorelei, and last year it was Brooke.  This year I originally planned to go back to the UK, where I didn’t even have to hear the awful day named:  unfortunately, the planning proved far too anxiety-provoking so I had to cancel, and instead I went out to Sunset (and plan to return to Seattle today).  Alas, the distraction proved insufficient, and I’m typing this Sunday evening in a deep state of emotional exhaustion.  I don’t feel sad or upset; just very, very tired.  Anyhow, I’m not telling this all again in order to get sympathy, nor to lend impact to my statements about why government is evil; I guess I’m just explaining why I’m completely uninterested in hearing defenses of rapist thugs society would be far better off without.

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Some days are grumpier than others.

Beloved comedian Tim Conway died last week, but I decided to hold off reporting it until this week so I could share a video from The Carol Burnett Show (provided by Franklin Harris) in which Conway demonstrates one of his favorite pastimes, ad-libbing bits so funny they made Harvey Korman piss himself on live television.  The links above the video were contributed by Amy Alkon, Tim Cushing, Glenn Kessler, Jillian Keenan, Radley Balko, and Clarissa, in that order.

From the Archives

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Kraft’s…case punctured some of the overheated rhetoric surrounding coerced sex work.  –  Matt Ford

Rough Trade 

A rare case where a rapist of sex workers is actually convicted:

A San Francisco jury…found a man guilty of several felonies in connection with the sexual assault of two female sex workers more than five years ago in the city’s Mission District…Edwin Rodriguez [was found]…guilty of multiple counts of forcible rape as well as aggravated kidnapping, assault and criminal threats.  Rodriguez now faces multiple life sentences…

Unclean Situation (#330)

These are also some of the nuns behind Ruhama:

A religious order which ran some of the Magdalene laundries, but has refused to pay into the redress scheme for survivors, is to sell its retreat centre in north Dublin.  The Religious Sisters of Charity announced it will sell the €3m Stella Maris Retreat Centre in Howth…A spokesman for the Department of Justice said no contributions have been made by any of the four religious congregations involved in respect of the implementation of the Magdalen Restorative Justice Ex-Gratia Scheme…[which has paid] a total of €27.8m…so far to 732 applicants…

Catastrophic Consequences (#576)

This sleazy tactic started in Canada, then spread to the UK:

[In the UK] “anti-trafficking”…raids [are] known officially as “welfare visits”…[cops pretend] that “the welfare and safety of the women…is…the number one priority”…[but in truth] “prostitute cautions“…are…handed out at high rates, and the…Proceeds of Crime Act not only allows them to [steal] sex workers’ earnings, it actively making it easier for them by reversing the burden of proof…the [stolen] cash is given to the Home Office, which then [gives it right back] to the police force without regulating how it’s spent.  The official line is that [cops] have no incentive to raid, but the truth is that the police force does stand to profit…

BDSM (#583)

A “cult”.  Because mentioning their sex practices wasn’t quite lurid enough:

Torsten Weiss…[the owner of a] medieval fetish shop in Hachenburg, Germany…was found dead with crossbow bolts protruding from his neck and skull…[in] a…B&B in Passau…By his side was 33-year-old Kerstin Enders who had succumbed to similar fatal injuries.  On the floor in front of them in a pool of blood was 30-year-old Farina Caspari, suspected of honoring Weiss’s…command to first kill him and Enders, and then take her own life…Weiss and Enders left wills at their sides…”Investigators suspect they were all members of a kind of sex circle with a focus on the Middle Ages,” according to RTL news…[at] Caspari[‘s]…house [cops]…found two more female victims.  One, identified only as Gertrud C., was her lover…friends of the four female victims interviewed by police say the women had all been under Weiss’s hypnotic control.  They reportedly engaged in extreme sexual acts, often involving BDSM, under his direction.  But what police don’t yet know is what led the fivesome to their deaths rather than just continuing their fantastical life…The two women found dead in [Caspari’s] apartment have no obvious wounds or signs of violence. Toxicology reports will show if they were poisoned…

Other than what I’ve quoted above, most of the rest is lurid speculation by cops and the neighbors, friends, and family members of the victims, mostly of the same level of popular ignorance as the myth that a person can be “hypnotized” to do things against their will.

To Molest and Rape 

Just 1500 isolated incidents:

Nearly 1,500 accusations of sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, [rape, sexual assault] and child [molestation], have been made against [cops] in England and Wales over six years…Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 1,491 complaints were filed against [various kinds of cops]…across 33 forces in England and Wales between 2012 and 2017, or 2018 in the case of the Metropolitan Police in London, which took a year to respond…Of these cases, 371 were upheld, resulting in the sacking or resignation of 197 [rapists]…Ten police forces [refused to] provide data…

Girls, Girls, Girls! (#679)

Clubs need to learn that the bad old days of exploiting dancers are over:

A federal jury has awarded five black dancers more than $3 million in their discrimination lawsuit against Danny’s strip club…Danny’s Downtown Cabaret…limit[ed] the number of shifts black dancers could work, and subject[ed] them to racially offensive epithets…”Danny’s also forced the dancers to work at a related club, Black Diamonds, even though they were subject to arrest there because they were not licensed to work at that club,” according to the EEOC.  “The pay and working conditions at Black Diamonds were inferior to those at Danny’s, and there was less security there.  The dancers who refused to work at Black Diamonds were fined and sent home, and not allowed to work at Danny’s”…

Profound Ignorance (#800) 

Scott Cunningham has finally set the record straight on the history of decriminalization in Rhode Island:

…In 1980, the Rhode Island General Assembly legalized indoor sex work.  The surviving members of that assembly have [pretended] that legalizing indoor sex work happened accidentally while trying to strengthen laws prohibiting street prostitution…the police and local prosecutors [eventually forgot]…as indoor sex workers were arrested and prosecuted regularly…throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s.  Then in 2003, a Rhode Island District Court judge reminded everyone what the law said…For six years the state was running a “natural experiment” that would teach us more about decriminalized indoor sex work than we’d ever known in history…what we found surprised us and everyone else…Rhode Island rapes and sexually transmitted infections both substantially declined…several other articles in economics have found similar effects but in other countries and cities…in light of these studies, organizations such as the World Health Organization and the ACLU have begun calling for reconsideration of our commercial sex laws…

Unfortunately, he’s still making silly claims like “everyone was surprised” (no, prohibitionists feigned surprise; it has been known since at least the 1920s that criminalization of a market always increases violence and health issues).  But at least he’s admitting that Rhode Island was neither a “mistake” nor a merely six-year phenomenon, and I’ve noticed his studies have been getting much better.  We may make a good ally out of him yet.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#830)

Even Reuters is starting to listen to what sex workers have to say about “rescue”:

Sex workers in Thailand are rejecting the “raid and rescue” model used by authorities to crack down on…sex workers…[by labeling them] victims of trafficking.  Many of the women arrested are then [forced] to learn [menial] skills like sewing and baking.  “People say we should stop doing what we do, and sew or bake cookies instead – but why are only those jobs considered appropriate?” said Mai Chanta, who has been a sex worker for about eight years.  “This is what we choose to do, and we feel a sense of pride and satisfaction that we are just like other workers”…

That Old Black Magic (#884)

Click on the subtitle for the truth about Nigerian juju (not “voodoo”) rituals:

Spanish Police have busted a network of Nigerian voodoo sex traffickers who use illegal migration routes to smuggle young girls into Europe…the sex slaves are being groomed in Benin City, Edo state by mafia-style gangs promising them a better life in Spain…They were submitted to voodoo rituals threatening terrible consequences to them and their families if they disobeyed the organisation, police [fantasized, groaning and making furtive movements in their pants while describing how]…parts of their bodies were smothered in animal blood before they were threatened with death or infertility if they failed to obey the traffickers…

Pyrrhic Victory (#899)

Welcome to the future:

A UK pedestrian was arrested and fined £90 ($115 US) after attempting to cover his face while passing a controversial facial recognition camera van on an East London street.  The notorious London police vans scan the faces of passers-by and compare them to a database of wanted criminals.  One man wasn’t having any of it, and was seen covering his face with his hat and jacket before London police stopped him and [forcibly] took his picture anyway…The ticketing comes in the wake of another similar incident in February, in which another man refused to be scanned by one of the facial recognition vans and was also fined £90…the technology is terribly inaccurate – wrongly matching over 2,000 people to criminal…[at] the Champions League Final in Cardiff in 2017

First They Came for the Hookers… (#903) 

Most “prostitution” cases come apart like wet toilet paper if actually taken to trial:

A former Foxy Lady dancer…was found not guilty…of offering sex for money.  Lindsay Hoffmann…one of three dancers arrested at the club on Dec. 11, was cleared after a trial…lasting less than an hour…[a cop claimed] Hoffmann told him…he could get “anything” he wanted for $300 in the downstairs VIP room…But Judge Melissa DuBose said “anything” could have been anything…

End Demand (#910)

Mar Brettmann is a sleazy opportunist who will use any story about petty crime to sell her anti-whore snake oil:

…According to Mar Brettmann…“We know that 300-to-500 kids are prostituted at any given time in King County.”  Brettmann is executive director of B.E.S.T. – Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking – in Seattle…[which profits by indoctrinating] businesses and employees in King County to [harass] sex [workers], especially in hotels and motels…

In other words, she claims that there are about twice as many “teen sex slaves” in Seattle as adult escorts, a number so absurd prominent Seattle sex workers have actually been asked by cops where all those supposed “sex slaves” are hiding, because they sure can’t find them.

Loose Cannons (#938)

Another good anti-prohibition article at New Republic:

…The…charges against Kraft came as part of a sweeping, dramatic raid on Asian massage parlors across Florida…prosecutors [pretended]…they had smashed a international sex-trafficking ring…the narrative changed just as the public’s attention turned elsewhere…law enforcement agencies…often use [the claim] to describe and justify crackdowns on consensual sex work…prosecutors regularly use the threat of additional charges and a prolonged trial to induce defendants to accept a guilty plea…This warps the criminal justice system, such that…between 90 and 95 percent of federal and state cases are now resolved through plea deals instead of a trial with one’s peers…

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I’ve noticed in the past year a dramatic increase in the number of politicians using the phrase “hold accountable”; it has become a moralistic shibboleth meaning something like “persecute using a moralistic excuse.”  The phrase appears to have crept into the greater government ecosystem by way of “sex trafficking” hysteria, considering it has been used by sociopaths pushing the Swedish model for quite a while now (“we have to starve & evict women in order to hold sex buyers accountable”, or however they would express that), and that most of the uses I saw prior to just a few months ago were in sex-related cases.  But recently, it exploded into more general use, with politicians of both major parties pompously bloviating about how they’re going to hold some person or entity “accountable”.  And that would be just dandy if they were talking about other politicians or their thugs and toadies, but they’re not; they’re using it to mean citizens and private companies.  In other words, politicians (the rulers) are calling for citizens (the ruled) to be “held accountable”.  This is some serious Looking-Glass thinking:  in a republic, politicians (and cops, and others with power) are “accountable” to the citizens, not vice versa.  Being prosecuted for a crime is NOT a matter of “accountability”; that’s not what the word means.  “Accountability” is that which is owed by someone claiming to represent another to the person he supposedly represents; eg, my lawyer is accountable to me in legal matters where he represents my interests.  We do not live in a feudal system (yet); “accountability” is not something imposed by rulers on the ruled, but on representatives by the people they (supposedly) represent.  Nobody who does not claim to be acting for “the government” or “the people” is “accountable” to any politician; they’re just trying to confuse you about who owes what to whom.

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I wrote this column yesterday, on a very overcrowded plane with one baby screaming behind me, another to my left and still another a few rows ahead of me.  I can’t really blame them for crying because there has been a lot more turbulence than I prefer so far (though the flight tracker shows it’ll get better once we get over North Dakota).  As of the time of this writing I’ve been up since quarter to 8 EDT and haven’t eaten since 8:30 EDT, and won’t be eating again until probably an hour after we land in Seattle at about 21:00 PDT (an egg sandwich will hit the spot, I think).  I arrived at the airport just before 10:30 EDT and was bumped from two flights before I finally squeaked onto this one by the skin of my teeth, and I feel generally yucch.  However, I am returning from a lovely overnight with one of my favorite gentlemen, and even with the problems of standby flying it’s pretty damned awesome to be able to go wherever I want for free; my meds work great at preventing the worst of the vertigo, and even when the pilot is too much of a goddamned cowboy for them to fully protect me, my fasting ensures that there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up except a little water.  I’ll be going out to Sunset tomorrow for the dreaded Memorial Day weekend, and I probably (barring another overnight booking) won’t have to fly again for almost a month, when I go to Florida for my next several screening of The War on Whores.  So despite all the problems (not the least of which was forgetting Lilac at home in the rush to get to the airport Tuesday morning) I’m still in a good headspace, albeit an exhausted one.  And I know that some of my lovely readers will want to make me feel better by contributing to my fundaiser so as to make future travels easier (see, I’m not too exhausted to be shameless).  However, I’ve hit all the notes I need to hit and this pilot seems determined to hit every bad patch he can, so I think I’ll sign off now and try to at least doze, though I doubt I’ll actually sleep until I’m wrapped in my own scarlet sheets in my own harlot’s bed after some comfort food, a nice hot shower and enough edibles to knock me out until after most of you have read this.

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So much of the anti-prostitution laws that are being pushed is a combination of the conservative fetish for going after people for doing “sex stuff”, and the liberal instinct to “help” a group of people that they can’t be bothered to understand.  –  Kaytlin Bailey

Held Together With Lies

John Stossel interviews Liz Brown, Kaytlin Bailey and Maya Morena on “sex trafficking” hysteria:

Yellow Fever

Fox News never had much credibility to begin with, so I guess they felt there was nothing to lose by airing this fantasy:

Every year more than 40 million people are forced into the world of human trafficking across the globe and it’s someone’s son or daughter* that is trapped in this modern-day slavery…everyday Americans…are the most common victims of human trafficking…[it] is…everywhere…dark, insidious criminal world…shocking…[prohibitionist nobody ever heard of claims] “I’ve worked with over a thousand survivors of trafficking”…[professional survivor tells tale about] dark world of sex work…[another professional survivor claims she was] trapped in this dark underworld for nearly four years…FBI…in plain sight [blah blah “if you see something, say something”]…

*As opposed to what, people who appeared by spontaneous generation?  One must also wonder how reporters think “sex trafficking” can be “in plain sight” when they also invariably and repeatedly insist that it’s a “dark underworld”.

Guinea Pigs (#543) 

Don’t be fooled by talk of “criminal marketplaces”, “weapons”, “scams” and the like; what they’re actually targeting are ordinary escort sites:

…From 2014 to 2017, Lincoln Laboratory contributed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Memex program…Today, more than 30 agencies worldwide are using Memex software to conduct [surveillance]…One of the biggest users…is the…Manhattan [vice squad]…With the introduction of Memex, prostitution arrests…increased…Now, Memex tools are enabling [pigs] to quickly enhance [ordinary] cases and build sex trafficking [fantasies] from…little [evidence]…these tools…have been used to…[conjure imaginary] victims from data in a [typical] online prostitution advertisement…

With Friends Like These… (#558)

Please, David Rosen, become a prohibitionist; if your attempts to hurt us are as incompetent as your attempts to “help”, they’ll be great pro-decrim arguments.  Rosen quotes prohibitionist lie-factory Fondation Scelles; calls the Swedish Model “decriminalization”; trots out Pretty Woman; damns us with faint support like “sex work…is not always trafficking“; lauds “safe harbor” laws that allow cops to lock up underage sex workers indefinitely under the guise of “protecting” them; and peppers his essay with totally-wrong, “rescue”-friendly wanking fantasies like “sex work is a story of abuse, underpay and harassment – including rape“, and “while there has been a reported increase in independent or ‘freelance’ sex workers, commercial sex is often mediated by a pimp or a sex gang“.  A “reported increase”?  If you’re fancy yourself an ally, you might want to do some research before putting your hand in your pants while quoting racist propaganda about “pimps” and “gangs”.  And stop putting scare quotes around words like “gentlemen” and “freelance”, which is a trick employed by people like Donna Hughes to cast doubt on what sex workers say about our own lives.  The man is, in short, a dangerous imbecile and needs to be recognized as such.

Send In the Clowns 

Dare I hope for a return of “creepy clown” hysteria?

[Cops] in Clarksville [Tennessee] have located a man dressed as a clown who prompted a police alert…[after] children [warped by a steady diet of “stranger danger” scare stories] reportedly thought he was trying to use candy to lure them into a moving vehicle…police said they located the man and he was “an older man who dresses up once a year on his birthday as a clown and hands out candy”…

Nice While It Lasted (#726)

Once due process was abolished for whores and street people, it was easy to extend the precedent to the middle class:

The boss of a popular ice cream firm faces restrictions on his business after a judge [fantasized] that he could commit slavery offences.  Salvatore “Sam” Lopresti…will not be able to employ staff or deal with wages at Lopresti Ice Cream, in Bristol.  The measures are part of a Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order (STRO) that was imposed last week…Lopresti, and another family member, Robert Lopresti, had previously been charged with requiring a person to perform forced labour…However, charges against both men were dropped.  Salvatore’s charges were dropped as he was ruled unfit to stand trial due to his dementia…District judge Lynne Matthews…said: “I am [a seer with power to see the future so I am] sure…you will commit a human trafficking or slavery offence…it is necessary for me to make this order because…[what] if you committed that type of offence”…

Welcome To Our World (#758)

Rape victims are increasingly treated like criminals:

Louisiana district attorneys oppose a bill that would prohibit prosecutors from putting sexual assault and domestic violence victims in jail in order to compel them to testify in criminal cases…“This tool is very, very necessary for us to use on rare occasions,” [lied] Charles Ballay…head of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association…[even though] JP Morrell…[of] New Orleans…sponsored the bill…because…New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro was [regularly using this “rare tool”]…

Yeah, it’s “rare”So very rareVanishingly rare.  Basically never happens, except in “isolated incidents“.  Which we know are scarcer than hen’s teeth.  Because prosecutors say so, and they wouldn’t lie.

Full of Themselves (#888) 

As I predicted over a year ago, it looks like Rubmaps is becoming the new prohibitionist bogeyman to replace Backpage:

…more than 30 massage parlors in Colorado Springs are little more than a front for an illegal sex industry…KRDO…found that there are 36 massage parlors in the city that have recent reviews specifically outlining explicit sexual acts that can be purchased inside.  That’s more than there are licensed brothels in the entire state of Nevada…Those reviews are publicly available on seedy websites like RubMaps and CityXGuide.  Those sites — like now-defunct Backpage…offer a way for customers, known as Johns, to find locations where they can purchase sexual acts…”They’re selling sex,” [bloviated vice pig] Mark Comte, who [had his hand in his pants while panting about] “young girls wearing barely anything”…

I wonder if these “reporters” realize how skeevy, racist and pathetic their harassment of Asian women (they actually confronted workers in person, accused them of crimes, and spied on them) sounds to people with moral compasses?  Or how ridiculous their use of words like “seedy” and “illegal” sound?  Or defining “john”, which only cops and reporters use to describe clients, as though it were an industry term?  Or pretending that review sites are a new thing?  Or…

Secret Squirrel (#895)

How to totally destroy your relationship with your teen offspring:

A 15-year-old boy in Alaska [says]…his parents set up security cameras in his bedroom and bathroom to make sure he doesn’t masturbate.  The anonymous teen took to Reddit’s legal advice section to ask for help…[writing] “I’m 15 and think I should be allowed to touch my own body.  This is embarrassing and destroys my privacy, please help…My dad barged in without knocking and started screaming at me…He and my mom then sat me down and told me I’m not allowed to touch myself.”  The teen said his parents are against sexual activities before marriage.  He wasn’t even allowed to participate in his school’s sex education classes – leaving him to only learn “some things’ on the internet”…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#897)

Partly because of their legalized status, strippers are spearheading the movement for sex worker labor rights:

Stripping is legal sex work in America, but states and counties [claim] the right to regulate strip clubs…But even as they legislate dancers’ movements and clothing down to fractions of an inch, [politicians] tend to ignore the fact that those same workers’ rights are being roundly disregarded…strippers are typically classified as independent contractors rather than employees.  This means they should be able to come and go as they please, charge whatever they choose to charge and dress as they see fit.  Instead, many dancers describe being assigned shifts, told what to charge and held accountable for keeping certain hours.  Such regulations should qualify them as employees of the club rather than independent contractors paying for the privilege of working there.  But strippers are frequently denied the legal protection afforded W-2 employees, including payroll taxes, health care and workers’ rights protections…

It’s good to see Playboy beginning to recognize its long-ignored duty to support sex workers.

Opting Out (#926) 

Another fashion magazine comes out (mostly) on the side of sex workers:

The new [UK]…porn ban…[won’t only] apply to the major porn providers like YouPorn etc.  It will also affect small scale sex workers, who use specialist sites or their own personal websites to advertise their work…it could impact…escorts, webcam models, fetish models, and dominatrixes…88 percent of whom are women…and…the porn ban isn’t the only obstacle that could jeopardise sex workers’ safety.  MPs in the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prostitution…are pushing to criminalise and ban the online advertising of sex work — meaning sites like Adultwork could be blocked completely…

Loose Cannons

An unbelievable number of useful idiots took to Twitter to complain about this:

Robert K. Kraft all but defeated two charges of solicitation of prostitution when a Florida county judge…threw out…evidence [illegally] obtained in [illegal] surveillance videos…Kraft…[sensibly] refused to accept a plea deal…[requiring] a fine and [slave labor] to resolve the two misdemeanor charges because the deal would have required him to [pretend] that the prosecutors [were telling the truth]…Mr. Kraft’s decision to [exercise his constitutional right to a jury trial]…turned what normally would be a routine [railroading for acts that shouldn’t even be illegal] into a highly public [exposure of the sleazy tactics employed by] the police and prosecutors in Palm Beach County…[who used the popular racist fad excuse of] sex trafficking [to raid and pillage] a chain of massage parlors in Florida…Kraft’s lawyer [pointed out, correctly]…that police had [lied to obtain a warrant to] hid[e] surveillance cameras inside the spa…Judge Leonard Hanser…agreed…

As you can see, a number of edits were necessary to correct the New York Times‘ eager copsucking.  And the “woke” twits on Twitter?  Apparently they are happy to let cops use the Constitution as toilet paper, make non-consensual porn videos of migrant workers and hundreds of their customers, then sexually assault those same migrant workers before robbing them, locking them in cages and threatening them with deportation, in order to humiliate one “old white man”.

Top Cop (#936)

Even some mainstream journalists are seeing though this power-hungry sociopath’s lies:

…We were…told last month that Harris “regrets” the truancy laws she helped pass…to criminalize parents if their kids miss school…she [now claims to]…regret…that some parents were arrested under the law, saying this “was not the intention.”  Yet prosecution of parents was the express purpose of these laws.  These arrests were no more an unintended consequence than arrests for breaking laws against burglary or sexual assault…Harris explicitly…lied…in an interview with Jake Tapper…on CNN…[claiming]…”not one parent was sent to jail” because of her initiative…[when] Tapper [correctly stated] “people were thrown into jail under that law”…Harris [replied] “Not by me”…of course they weren’t literally put in jail by Harris, who was attorney general of California…and not an arresting officer…no common understanding of “no one was sent to jail” means People…weren’t personally put [in jail] by the attorney general.  Again, we see Harris trying to rewrite her record and history…

Upon seeing the interview, Donald Trump commented “I never separated a migrant family!”  Barack Obama added, “I never drone-murdered anyone!” and the ghost of Harry Truman materialized and moaned, “I never bombed Hiroshima!”

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