It makes partisans and other tribalists nuts that my positions are based in principles and probable results rather than tribe-membership & “sending messages”. That’s why they (idiotically) try to shame me out of my positions instead of intellectually challenging them; no sooner do they think they “have my number” than I say, write or tweet something that the partisan brain is unable to process. See, all tribalists have a blind spot: they assume their own tribe, group, party, sect, etc is good and right and can be trusted with power, while their designated “them” group is wholly and completely bad and wrong and in need of Punishment. So if I tweet about LGBT rights, but then say I think it’s wrong (not to mention a fucking waste of everyone’s time) to use the power of the state to destroy an anti-queer bigot, some people are completely unable to comprehend why I don’t see a cake-baker in Colorado as the Second Coming of Hitler. The other day there was a big hulabaloo about that rich kid who didn’t get to go to Harvard because he made racist tweets a year and a half ago, and once again the partisans were confused that I retweeted tweets mocking the situation; tweets pointing out the incredible hypocrisy of politicians for saying “Should someone’s mistake at 16 destroy his whole future?” while also thinking it’s hunky-dory to put 14-year-olds on trial as adults; and tweets saying it’s a bit creepy that people now go trolling through others’ social media histories for the express purpose of ruining the target’s life, and institutions eagerly oblige the snitch. Partisans don’t see the principles at stake here; all they see is a reprehensible person that they want to see hurt, so they completely forget that a weapon once given to the state can never be taken away. Someone argued that in the kid’s case, the comments were made only 18 months ago and were therefore basically the present. I replied, “If you think it’ll stop at 18 months, 18 years or even 18 decades, you haven’t been paying attention.” Also: I’m quite sure a prosecutor wouldn’t accept, “But she would’ve been of age in 18 months!” as a defense. Either people below the magic Instant of Shazam are helpless, incompetent “children” incapable of decision-making, or they aren’t; you can’t have it both ways without hypocrisy. If it’s wrong for Christian bigots to use government violence against LGBT people, it’s also wrong for vengeful LGBT people to use government violence against Christian bigots. But people don’t see it this way; oh, everybody tells their kids “two wrongs don’t make a right”, but they don’t really believe it. What they believe in is us vs. them, and that it’s perfectly OK to use state violence against “them”…regardless of the consequences to everyone.
Archive for June, 2019
Blind Spot
Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged ethics, LGBT rights, psychology, racism, Shazam!, surveillance, Twitter on June 20, 2019| 4 Comments »
In the News (#946)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged California, Canada, censorship, China, cops, dirty, ethics, Florida, Google, illegal aliens, Legal Is as Legal Does, Loose Cannons, Louisiana, New Zealand, O Canada!, Out of Control, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, surveillance, The Prudish Giant, To Molest and Rape, universal criminality, Universally Criminal updates, video, violence vs. sex workers on June 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »
The best way to avoid breaches of sensitive personal data is not to collect and retain such data in the first place. – Neema Singh Guliani
Stigma against sex workers invariably affects other women as well:
Sexual violence is a serious problem across the world, but in the last few years, it has taken a particularly strange form in…Kigoma [Tanzania, where]…scores of women have similar accounts of rapists breaking into their homes, covered in grease. The first attacks of this kind reportedly occurred around 2014 and have increased ever since. The attackers – known locally as Teleza, which refers to the fact that they cover themselves in oil – typically break into the homes of women in the night. They are often armed and threaten violence, sometimes leaving the survivors with life-threatening injuries…Annagrace Rwehumbiza…says…“Initially these men only targeted single women, almost like they wanted to punish them for not adhering to the norms of society by getting married…At some point this changed. Suddenly even married women were being targeted”…Many who have reported their rapes to the police have been branded as sex workers and not been taken seriously. It was only when a group of survivors spoke out together in front of the press in 2016 that any action was first taken, though it was only temporary…
Ever wondered how bureaucrats came up with over 300,000 “crimes”?
Some Louisiana cops prefer to rape by proxy:
A Louisiana sheriff’s deputy…coerc[ed] a woman to perform a sex act on her 1-year-old son…Shaderick Jones…filmed…Iyehesa Todd…[after telling] her he wouldn’t arrest her for an open warrant she had for a traffic ticket if she performed a sexual act on her child…[the victim] has been charged with first-degree rape and…the Department of Children and Family Services [abducted her] child…
The only sex workers excluded from New Zealand decrim are migrants:
Seven migrant sex workers have been deported from Dunedin, due to a section of New Zealand law…[which] encourages blackmail and exploitation, and which was last year called into question by the United Nations. Those seven, along with at least two from Queenstown and 24 from Christchurch forced to leave the country since 2017, were deported due to Section 19 of the Prostitution Reform Act…[which] forbids migrants on temporary visas from engaging in sex work, though it is legal for New Zealand citizens and residents…
What is wrong with doctors who do this?
A gynecologist who worked nearly 30 years at UCLA’s student health clinic, until retiring last year amid a misconduct investigation, is accused of sexually abusing patients…James Heaps…is charged with…sexual battery by fraud and…sexual exploitation by a physician…
It usually starts with sex workers, but it never stops with us:
Makenna Kelly, a 13-year-old YouTuber who has attracted over 1.5 million subscribers to her “Life With MaK” ASMR channel, is vowing to quit the platform in protest against what she and her mother say are overly strict content guidelines that have resulted in several of her videos being removed…12 of her ASMR videos have been taken down in the past three months alone…[a video of her eating] honeycomb…attracted over 13.9 million views before it was removed [because a censor at YouTube got an erection from watching it]…ASMR…[is often censored on] YouTube…[because] the content is…viewed by [repressed] people [as] sexual [and YouTube fears that sex rays emitted from “bad thoughts” could magically travel through the internet and somehow “harm”] children…
Remember all those face pics that CBP pretends are “encrypted” and “only kept for a brief time”?
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection…disclosed…that hackers have breached a database of travelers photos and license plates…[but refused] to say how many people…had their images stolen…In light of the fact that the CPB has been building an extensive photo database as part of its growing facial-recognition program, the privacy implications…[are] grave. “This breach comes just as CBP seeks to expand its massive face recognition apparatus…[to include] social media identifiers,” said American Civil Liberties senior legislative counsel Neema Singh Guliani…
In which a four-hour interrogation by armed thugs is downplayed as “urging”:
[Cops lied to a] Chinese masseuse…[claiming they would] give [her] an apartment….food and education [and overrule federal immigration restrictions if she pretended to be]…a human-trafficking victim and [parrot whatever lies cops made up] against [her employers]…Over four hours, the masseuse would [be grilled by] three [cops], two [government-employed] social workers and a [government-employed] translator…The [interrogation was another part of the horrifying behavior of]…Martin County [cops in their effort to frame Chinese businesspeople as international gangsters]…Martin Sheriff William Snyder [is still pretending] the women are trafficking victims [even though they have repeatedly told cops they aren’t. During the interrogation pigs oinked nonsense about a]…dream job [in addition to shaming and infantilizing an adult woman]…the masseuse [repeatedly told a Mandarin-oinking pig that]…she is not a victim but…is being treated like a criminal…She wants a lawyer…
Luckily for her, this masseuse was raised in a place where very few people are foolish enough to believe cops and other government operatives are on their side.
Canadian cops love to harass and intimidate sex workers & call it “help”:
Sex workers and their advocates are criticizing [a recurring] police [intimidation campaign. This time cops]…are talking to employees of hotels, bars, and other locations
about how to identify sex workers and [rat them out to the pigs]…Sandra Wesley…of…Stella…said… “unwanted contact with police only increases [sex workers’] marginalization”…[cops] are also taking detailed notes on employees in strip clubs and massage parlours, including photographing tattoos and piercings…”The pretense that making databases of sex workers and raiding our workplaces and asking every hotel worker and taxi driver to denounce us to police [is intended] to protect us is absurd” said Wesley…
While cops pretend “sex workers…are only interviewed on a voluntary basis, and…given a stamp as an ‘efficient’ way of keeping track of who they’ve spoken to”, the truth (as usual) is much nastier:
…[cops] asked the women questions about their children, stamped their wrists and told them they were creating the database of sex workers…so they can identify them “when they inevitably turn up dead”…Wesley…calls the tactics dehumanizing and dystopian. [Cops pretend] they’re not keeping [the] database [that they’re creating] and are mostly trying to identify [nonexistent] minors working at strip clubs…
Diary #468
Posted in Diary, tagged animals, blogging, drugs, psychology, Sunset on June 18, 2019| 3 Comments »
It’s always relaxing to go and spend the weekend at Sunset, but I’m going to have to figure out a way to get myself to actually write when I’m out here because I invariably neglect it in favor of watching movies, cooking, drinking, getting stoned and doing stuff to get the place in order. I mean, look at this picture below and I think you will get the idea of what I’m talking about; how can a person be expected to focus on writing with a triple white Russian (with chocolate milk; maybe “brown Russian”?) on hand, a pig hanging around on the other side, and a friendly outside cat continually trying to jump on one’s lap? It’s just not going to work. But apparently, there’s a rolltop desk out in the garage, and it has been proposed that this desk could be cleaned up and moved inside so I can work on it as I do at The Den (where I also have a rolltop). See, the people I bought the place from were kinda semi-hoarders, which is not unusual for folks who came of age during the Great Depression. So actually, they left a LOT of things out here; most of them were just junk and we had to get rid of them in order to make use of the shop, garage and barn, and when we expanded the barnyard over the weekend we found lots more that will have to be removed for the safety of the animals. For example, we keep finding old box springs and mattress springs buried just below the surface of the ground, interspersed with other metal rubbish, broken bottles, ceramic fragments, electrical transformers, car batteries…I have no explanation other than hoarding behavior. But the yard is expanded and the animals now have more lush grazing area and trees, and there are now three proper gates. We’re about to start the bookcase-building project, and once we hit the dry season next month it’ll at last be floor-repair time. Now do you see why I have trouble writing out here? 
All Over the Place
Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, blogging, consensual crime, ethics, Florida, The War on Whores on June 17, 2019| Leave a Comment »
In the past few weeks I’ve seen my name and my work all over the place! The War on Whores is starting to get more attention, and this coming weekend I’ll be doing three screenings in Florida with the help of SWOP Behind Bars: Friday at 4 PM at the LGBT Center in Orlando; Saturday at 11 AM for an academic audience in St. Petersburg; and Sunday at 5 PM at a pub in Tampa (contact SWOP Behind Bars for details). Thank y’all so much for responding to my request for more reviews, and Stephen Lemmons of Frontpage Confidential wrote a long-form review here:
Sex worker, writer and savant Maggie McNeill’s new documentary, The War on Whores, should be required viewing for all journalists covering the movement to decriminalize sex work…The film is part autobiography, part exposé on the deceitfulness of the so-called “rescue industry,” a cabal of nonprofits, talking heads and cops that has created a nationwide moral panic over “sex trafficking”…[which] these fascistic do-gooder types [conflate with]…garden-variety prostitution…to [further] the rescue industry’s long con…McNeill has an intellect sharper than a diamond cutter, possesses more than one college degree, and is a brilliant writer whose work has appeared in Reason magazine, the Cato Institute’s Cato Unbound, and the Washington Post, where a 2014 column of hers, “Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics”, remains part of the requisite syllabus for anyone following the fight for decrim, one of the great civil rights struggles of our age…
As it happens, I’ve got an article in the current issue of Reason, “Consenting To Be Paid for Sex Is Still Consenting!“; it inspired this essay on Patheos:
…If a man…believes that women are resources to be bartered among men, resources who control access to sex but don’t actually deserve control over their own bodies, then we have a problem. Because, as McNeill points out…“sex is an exchange, whether you like it or not.” It’s just that when the relationship is coded as intimate, monogamous, mutually affectionate, and non-transactional, there seems to be no cost to either party (despite the bartering around chores and such that obviously happens between some long-term monogamous couples). But thinking of sex in these terms does not negate the importance of consent…if you firmly, utterly believe that women are capable of giving consent in intimate relationships but not in sex work, then you need to reexamine your assumptions about what it’s like to live and work under capitalism. If you believe that women “owe” men sex, and that sex is thus a resource that the government can step in to redistribute through “enforced monogamy” or whatever nonsense of the day is being spouted, then you need to examine your internalized misogyny. People can and do give consent under conditions that are not always of their choosing – but hey, welcome to life…
And even though I’m not directly quoted in this one from the Chicago Tribune, I did assist author Steve Chapman in finding the sources he needed (note that Steve understands the difference between legalization & decriminalization even i the editor who wrote that headline doesn’t):
…Most commodities and services that may be legally given away may also be bought and sold. But not sex. A person can use all sorts of persuasive means to get another person to go to bed with them. And a person can consent to do so for a vast range of motives. When money changes hands for that explicit purpose, though, the law suddenly intrudes…Tens of thousands of men and women are arrested each year for their role in it…We have long since embraced the idea that what adults choose to do for sexual gratification is not the business of the government. One day we may accept that the same is true for whether they pay for it…
After ten years of very public activism, it looks like my message is finally beginning to sink into enough heads to attract even politicians’ attention. And given how big and loud the sex worker rights movement is becoming, it’ll just go up from here.
Links #467
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged Bulgaria, cops, disease, drugs, Florida, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, language, New York, Things We Choose To Do Together, United Kingdom, video, weaponry on June 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Something is broken in our society when millions feel the need to self-medicate in this way.
Two weeks ago I featured “Popcorn”, and now here’s another instrumental favorite from my chidhood: “Telstar” by The Tornados. Obviously it was no longer being played on pop stations, but it could still be heard often enough in various contexts for me to become familiar with it sometime in the late ’60s or early ’70s. The links above it were provided by Scott Greenfield, Jesse Walker, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Carol Fenton, Jesse Walker again, and Clarissa, in that order.
- As one does.
- Dracula’s cannonballs!
- I’m sure you feel safer now.
- Cops make up shit like this to get in the news.
- If people wrote about caffeine as they do other drugs.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- When migration control disguised as “sex trafficking” law is very apparent.
- Another rescue industry character claiming to have been a “sex trafficker”.
- Even the MSM begins to see the War on Whores is the new War on Drugs.
- Monsters torture sexual minorities under guise of “helping” or “curing” us.
- Indian press can’t let go of word “rescue”, even when it’s patently absurd.
- May has been pushing internet censorship since she was home secretary.
- Future historians will ponder the link between “sex trafficking” and pizza.
- I have zero faith in the magical protective powers of “restraining orders”.
- Anybody who thinks this is “like a real human” needs a pro immediately.
- While sex work is at all criminalized, cops have power over sex workers.
- The stench of FOSTA is all over India’s terrible new “anti-trafficking” bill.
- A bizarre claim even by the standards of anti-porn nuts & gun-grabbers.
- Prohibitionists’ lies are never more blatant than when they misquote us.
- Amateurs: a health menace who should be licensed & heavily regulated.
- Bigots try to cover racism and misogyny by blaming imaginary “gangs”.
- Do we really want rapists to eschew condoms to avoid federal charges?
- Hair-splitting & moral panic create strange stew from age-old behavior.
- We’re seeing ever-more columns like this from self-identified feminists.
- More deliberate racial profiling under government-approved guidelines.
- More on the maltreatment of sex workers in another large police state.
- Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t.
- Will Asstoon ever get professional help for his delusions of grandeur?
- Are amateurs really so sheltered that this sort of thing shocks them?
- Cops no longer pretend that this is about anything other than profit.
- When a highway is destroyed, the traffic has to go into side streets.
- Good advice to a heavily scarred, sexually traumatized young man.
- One can never have too many debunkings of prohibitionist bullshit.
- Politicians had to make this bad law even worse before passing it.
- Articles like this are much more common in the Canadian press.
- Despite this popular UK cop fantasy, none has ever been found.
- Calling this “sex trafficking” lets the government steal property.
- Cops, Florida, munchkins, Japanese Zeppelin, and much more.
- Small rescue industry profiteers learn the value of slave labor.
- Another state requires anti-whore indoctrination for licensing.
- Cops, Sweden, Gary Gygax, Wall of Voodoo, and much more.
- Not a bad article on the benefits of sex work for the disabled.
- How many moronic prohibitionist plays can the market bear?
- Prohibitionists contort facts so as to support their fantasies.
- There are only two Ladies of the Night special editions left!
- In case you thought I was too paranoid about mentoring.
- Whorearchy from an empty-headed little twit in Nevada.
- The government’s own moral panic come back to bite it.
- An excerpt from Brooke Magnanti’s You Don’t Know Me.
- What should I do if an escort’s ad seems illegitimate?
- Can y’all please send a delegation to talk to the ABA?
- Is nonconsensual shackling worse for kinky women?
- Politicians are totally losing their minds over sex.
- My irony meter just overloaded and burned out.
- An anti-whore video featuring a fake game.
- Yes, I really do have red sheets on my bed.
- Partisanism is like a form of self-lobotomy.
- The “End Banking for Dirty Whores” Act.
- Another sex worker murdered in India.
- Introducing the Prostasia Foundation.
- Recycled propaganda from Seattle.
- Good news from South Australia.
- How to summon me to your city.
- That didn’t take long, did it?
- It just keeps getting worse.
- Liara Roux on coming out.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- A visit to Chicago.
In the News (#945)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Africa, agency denial, Arizona, brothels, Central Asia, China, cops, dirty, Dysphemisms Galore, ethics, evidence, If Men Were Angels, illegal aliens, Ireland, Kentucky, Lack of Evidence, law, New York, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, red-light districts, restaurants, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, teachers, Thailand, The Course of a Disease, transgender, Turkey, Unchristian Nation, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Protests?, Where Are the Victims? on June 15, 2019| 1 Comment »
I usually assign 1984 to my students; now we will be living it. – a teacher in Lockport, NY
If this headline had been written by a normal adult sane person, it would be something like “Border Controls Expose Migrant Women to Exploitation”. But because “sex trafficking” hysteria has not yet imploded, this interview about the difficulties encountered by migrant sex workers under repressive criminalization regimes such as China and Middle-Eastern countries (bribes, rape by cops, deportation, etc) is capped with a ridiculous headline about “sex slavery” despite the fact that the interviewee clearly discusses three-month contracts, visiting home, girls going back once they know how to game the system without middlemen, etc, with nary a “slave” in sight.
You mean he wasn’t a “youth pastor”?
Bobby J. Blackburn, pastor of the Elevate Church in Prestonsburg, [Kentucky] was arrested…and charged with using an electronic communication system to get a minor to commit a sex act…Blackburn also owns a local Giovanni’s pizza place, which plays Christian music and puts Bible verses on receipts…Blackburn’s business employs the girls, one of whom showed [cops] the sexual messages from Blackburn…[who] also…threaten[ed] to fire a third girl if she didn’t take the blame for sending the messages…
Where Are the Protests? (#596) 
…The world’s chocolate companies have missed deadlines to uproot child labor from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Next year, they face another target date and…they…will miss that, too…the odds are substantial that a chocolate bar bought in the United States is the product of child labor. About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where…more than 2 million children [a]re engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions. When asked this spring, representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands — Hershey, Mars and Nestlé — could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor…Mars…can trace only 24 percent of its cocoa…Hershey…less than half; Nestlé can trace 49 percent of its global cocoa supply to farms…Other companies…such as Mondelez and [white bourgeois American woman favorite] Godiva…likewise would not guarantee that any of their products were free of child labor…
Naturally, American women are only concerned about how other women have sex; they don’t actually want to know where the candy they stuff into their faces comes from. Besides, imaginary enslaved white girls take precedence over real enslaved black boys, dontchaknow.
Government thugs continue their crusade against Christian charity:
…Scott Warren, on trial for providing humanitarian aid to two migrants…faces a possible 20-year prison sentence for two counts of harboring undocumented immigrants and one count of conspiracy…his alleged crimes amount to nothing more than basic human kindness. On January 14, 2018…two Central American migrants—Kristian Perez-Villanueva and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday—arrived unexpectedly at “the Barn,” a building in Ajo, Arizona, used by No More Deaths and other aid groups…the migrants…were suffering from blisters, dehydration, and exhaustion…[so] Warren…arranged a check-up by a doctor, who advised that the two migrants stay off their feet. Warren allowed the men to remain in the Barn for the next three days…Nate Walters, the [prosecutor, characterizes]…humanitarian aid…[as] a nefarious plot “to shield illegal aliens from [thugs who would have murdered or caged them] for several days”…
Western New York’s Lockport City School District…[has begun] a wasteful and dangerous experiment…the district’s eight public schools began testing a system called Aegis, which includes facial recognition technology, that could eventually be used to track and map student movements…in 2015, in the wake of Sandy Hook and other high-profile school shootings, our district was approached by Tony Olivo, a [soi-disant] security consultant, who [made a sales pitch he sold to paranoid officials as]…a free threat assessment of our schools…he encouraged the school district to purchase and install…[Aegis, and received a] $95,450 annual…[commission from its makers] for five years…the…district held only one public meeting to discuss the purchase…on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-August 2016, when most parents were away or at work…the system…[has] the capacity to go back and create a map of the movements and associations of any student or teacher the district might choose. It can tell them who has been seen with whom, where and how often. District officials pledge that they would never deploy the software in that way, but…what matters is not what those in charge promise but what an intrusive technology has the capacity to do…Thanks to the efforts of the New York Civil Liberties Union, state officials have finally begun to ask the kinds of questions they should have asked before the project was approved…[but] the school district is forging ahead with its testing and its plans to make the cameras fully operational when school starts up again in the fall…
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#885)
Why are politicians so enamored of violent Disnification campaigns that virtually never work?
A Bangkok red light district is set to be remodelled – in the style of the…region of England known as the Cotswolds. The Rattanakosin Island area…has been…for decades…[an] area [where sex workers] cater to local Thai men rather than…foreigners in the country’s tourist hotspots. But…military [dictator] Prayut Chan-o-cha now wants to [Disnify] the…district [by painting things]…yellow [and blanketing the area with mass surveillance to facilitate police violence. Bureaucrats fantasize they can force sex workers into menial labor that earns about 1/10 as much]…
The NYPD is changing the [excuses] it [uses when wielding] the loitering law [as a weapon against citizens] after it was sued for illegally profiling and arresting women, transgender people and others on prostitution charges that were based largely on looks…The Legal Aid Society sued the department on behalf of people who[m cops] had arrested…[under the evidence-free claim] they were working as prostitutes. One cop admitted in a deposition that he would look for “Adam’s apples” when…[hunting victims] to detain…Under the settlement, the NYPD is amending the Patrol Guide to [force cops to use a different excuse other than]…gender, gender identity, clothing and location to enforce the loitering law. The change also requires [cops] to provide more [elaborate excuses]…for why they detained someone…Loitering arrests will also be audited by the NYPD’s Legal Bureau [after the victim has sat in a filthy, dangerous jail for a few months. Legal Aid Society chief Tina]…Luongo called on the state Legislature to repeal the loitering law…
This is exactly the outcome prohibitionists wanted:
Two women who were [working together for safety]…in Newbridge, [Ireland] have been [sentenced to] jail…for nine months…Adrina Podaru…and Ana Tomascu…were [peacefully minding their own business]…when [they were attacked by state-employed thugs] on November 18, 2018…following [a report from a snitch]…the women admitted that they were [legally] working as prostitutes, [which is not against the law. Luckily it was early so]…no significant money was [ar]ound [for the pigs to steal]…Ms Podaru is currently expecting a child with her partner…but Judge Desmond Zaidan…sentenced the pair to nine months in prison…Ms Podaru has lodged an appeal and has been released on bail…
It might be better for my mental health if I actually believed there was a Hell to punish evil people who cage pregnant women for peacefully supporting themselves because they broke a moronic, arbitrary rule imposed by sociopaths who have never actually done the work. But since I know there isn’t, I’ll just have to deal with it.
The Course of a Disease (#932) 
Julie Bindel, the [plagiar]ist and author of the book The Pimping of Prostitution [recently the subject of a libel suit which Bindel lost]…appeared before the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation this week, and [fantasized] that “decriminalising sex work means decriminalising violence against women and children”…Bindel [also fantasized that in] sex work… “women are…vessels for men to masturbate into”…
Facebook’s policies make harassing and exploiting women easy:
…Omid…has…claimed responsibility for shutting down hundreds of Instagram accounts by reporting performers for violating the company’s [censorship rules]…driven by a moralistic anti-porn agenda…[one of his victims, Bella] Bathory…[heard] about a…social media management company that purported to have the ability to restore shuttered Instagram accounts...she agreed to pay…the $450 they quoted her…Within hours of the agency telling her that her account was about to be restored, it was. Then, when Bathory declined to follow through with payment, the…account…once again disappeared…an…Instagram…spokesperson said that there is no evidence that a single entity was behind the restoration or deletion of her account…[but] the agency that Bathory contacted…provided purported evidence via screenshot…If the agency’s allegations are true, it shows how a third party can profit handsomely from Instagram’s opaque and convoluted moderation policies. And if [not]…it shows how a shadow economy can thrive on desperation. Either way, it’s sex workers who suffer…
Sumer is Icumen In
Posted in Diary, tagged blogging, drugs, psychology on June 14, 2019| 2 Comments »
Long-time readers know that I have kind of the opposite of seasonal affective disorder; because I’m so high-strung the short, gloomy winter days actually bring my natural tensions down into the manageable range, whereas the long, bright summer days increase my anxiety to the point where it can become almost intolerable. Even when it’s a rainy day, the higher levels of ambient light throw my pineal gland way off, and it’s very difficult to get my brain to calm down before midnight (it’s not so bad in the morning because I use blackout curtains and cover my eyes with my hair). Like so many other things, I’ve learned over the years how to manage the problem to some degree; as anyone who’s ever visited The Den (as I call it, evoking ideas like “Snake Den”, “Den of Iniquity” and “Drug Den”) knows, I keep it rather dark in here, and then of course there’s my nightly cannabis edible. I usually consume that about 11 or 11:30, but when I’m out at Sunset I tend to start a lot earlier because I know I won’t be required to go anywhere or do anything. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I’m more relaxed out there; Jae says she can actually see my shoulders drop, and Grace agrees with her. Because of that, I’m trying to bring as much of that experience as I can into the city; I no longer answer voice calls from numbers I don’t recognize (at any time of day or night, but especially in the late evening), and I’m trying to enforce an 11pm writing curfew on myself whenever possible so I can force my brain to just relax into the THC and wind the fuck down. It also helps that even though the summer days are longer here than at lower latitudes, they’re also much cooler, which removes one of the things that used to stress me out about summer (true fact: in my twenties I used to lose roughly 5-10 pounds every summer in Louisiana because the heat killed my appetite for anything more than a glass of iced tea and maybe an egg salad sandwich or a few french fries). No mitigation technique is perfect, of course, but at least my advancing age makes the summers seem much shorter than they used to be, and once the Dog Days are over I can start looking forward to the comparative (emotional) peace and (mental) quiet of autumn.
From the Top
Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged advertising, Advice for Clients, Maggie in the Media on June 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Lately I’ve been getting a larger-than-usual number of enquiries from guys who’ve never seen an escort before. Some of them find me through this blog, some via my Twitter, others via my articles in Reason or my various interviews, and still others via my ordinary escort advertising. Some of them want to see me in particular, while others are just looking for general first-timer advice, but nearly all of them are nervous (or even full-out scared) about the possibility of falling into a trap set by the pigs. That’s why they contact me; even the ones who discover me via my escort ads usually notice that I’ve got a strong decade-old social media presence under the same name, and as I myself have said many times that’s a very good indicator that a lady is the real deal rather than some pervert cop pretending to be an escort so he can have the fun of destroying a man’s life for the terrible “crime” of loneliness. Most of these guys, however, are not regular readers, and this blog has become so enormous it’s a bit daunting for the newcomer. Hell, it’s sometimes even intimidating to me, and I wrote the damned thing! So I think it wouldn’t hurt to pull together a “best of” collection of resources for new clients that I can then simply link when one of these new gents contacts me.
The single most useful essay on the topic is undoubtedly “What To Know Before You Pay for Sex“, from the July 2018 issue of Reason; I wrote it specifically for guys who are neither regular clients nor regular readers, so it contains all of the information I consider vital in one brief and easily-digestible article. It draws in (small) part on “Advice for Clients“, which I think still holds up despite being a decade old. And then, of course, there are a number of Q&A columns about the basic mechanics of finding sex workers:
- How do I find an escort in my city?
- What is the truth about Asian massage parlors?
- How do I find a reputable agency and avoid cops?
- What should I do if an escort’s ad seems illegitimate?
- How do I find a sex worker I can emotionally connect with?
- How does one who lives in a small town or rural area find an escort?
- Should I trust an escort who doesn’t have much of an online footprint?
And some about more specific issues that could be of especial interest to newbies:
- What is meant by “upscale” in escort ads?
- How can I get providers to give me a referral?
- How can I deal with guilt about seeing sex workers?
- How can I help a friend lose his virginity with an escort?
- I’m a new client; why won’t any escorts agree to see me?
- How can a young guy get an escort to take him seriously?
- Is it OK to ask a sex worker friend if she’d see me professionally?
- If I climax quickly in a long date, is it OK to ask for another round?
- Is it OK to stay the full time after climax, just to enjoy her company?
I think that’ll do for starters, but if you want more there are links to scores of essays on my questions page. And if you’d like to see me specifically, all the information you need is on my escort site.
In the News (#944)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Amnesty At Last, An Example to the West, Argentina, Buried Truth, California, Canada, Censor Chic, censorship, China, cops, dehumanization, Devil's Advocate, FBI, Florida, hysteria, Idaho, internet, King of the Hill, Louisiana, Michigan, neofeminism, Out of Control, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, rescue industry, Safe Position, serial killers, sex rays, streetwalkers, stripping, Surplus Women, surveillance, tabula rasa, teachers, Texas, Top Cop, Twitter, United Kingdom, Washington DC, Welcome to the Future on June 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Those who engage in sex work are our constituents. – Brianne Nadeau
The only way pigs want to “make sure you’re safe” is by locking you in a cell:
Detroit Police Chief James Craig said they are looking for a potential serial killer and rapist that is operating on the city’s east side…the investigation…started several months ago…on March 19…Nancy Harrison…was [found naked and cops tried to pass it off as]…a drug overdose…[even though] she [had] suffered blunt force trauma…The body of the second victim, Travesene Ellis, was found on May 24…[then on June 5th] a woman’s decomposed naked body was found inside a vacant [house. Cops]…believe…the suspect is targeting women in their early 50s and luring them to vacant dwellings…all three victims are believed to be sex workers…Police are asking sex workers to come forward with any information. “We’re not here to arrest you, we’re going to make sure you’re safe,” he [lied]…
There is exactly one highway which runs from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the mainland:
[Cops and “rescue” profiteers fantasize that] human traffickers are moving…[passive, doll-like] young girls — from Nova Scotia…to Montreal and Toronto, but it’s difficult to analyze the pattern in those stories as there is no [actual] data…on [the imaginary phenomenon]…the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking (CCEHT)…is working on a study of the “high-incident” human trafficking corridor…between Halifax and Toronto…One stop on the road…is the town of Truro, N.S. (population 12,261), where the staff at the Colchester Sexual Assault Centre have started to [brainwash women into thinking they]…have been sexually trafficked…[prohibitionist] Margaret Mauger said…”Truro has become…a hub for human trafficking”…She said most [women] don’t think of [their jobs]…as sexual trafficking, so she tries to [convince them otherwise]…
Accurate headline: “Man Loses Job After Refusing to Pay His Tab While Drunk”:
A Catholic school principal from Louisiana has resigned from his job after he was arrested at a Washington D.C. strip club…Michael Comeau…principal at Holy Family School near Baton Rouge, refused to pay his bill at Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club…[while] blocking a roadway outside and refusing to move. He was…arrested…[for] public intoxication and possession of an open container…
When they smash down your door in the middle of the night, murder your dogs, terrorize your family and embroil you in a decade-long court battle which will utterly bankrupt you because some computer decided you look like somebody who supposedly broke some law, don’t say I didn’t warn you:
The FBI cops to the fact that its database of mugshots…has about 36 million entries…But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Gretta Goodwin…[of] the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee…that the FBI can scan about 640 million pictures, including not just mugshots but driver’s licenses and passport photos…the FBI has “strict policies” governing the use of such technology, [claimed] a spokesman for an agency that is exceedingly well-known for what the American Civil Liberties Union calls an “unchecked abuse of authority“…Kimberly Del Greco, a [boss spook]…at the FBI, said…facial recognition…is used only when there is an active FBI investigation or an assessment, which can [basically mean whatever they want it to mean]…
Remember, the FBI classes all sex workers as “criminals” and defines our ads as “probable cause for sex trafficking investigation”.
When the sexual need to control others is frustrated, some really weird behavior can result:
Boise Police…arrested Jonathan Parker — a lobbyist and former Idaho Republican Party chairman…on a felony first-degree stalking charge…on or between May 16 and May 30, Parker “did knowingly and maliciously engage” in conduct that “seriously alarmed, annoyed or harassed (his [estranged] wife) Kelly Parker”…[his] conduct included “repeatedly hiding in bushes, masturbating, disguising himself with a wig” at or near her apartment complex…
The areas Americans dismiss as the “third world” are far ahead of the US in sex worker rights:
Casa Roja…is…the new centre for Ammar – the Argentina’s Women’s Sex Workers’ Union…Dramatic inflation (which reached nearly 50% last year), combined with a reduction in subsidies…have sent the cost of basic foodstuffs, electricity and water spiralling. A third of the population are living in poverty…almost 50% of women are either unemployed or working informally without labour protection or a security net, and cuts to public sector jobs have been most pernicious in feminised occupations…To try to improve conditions for sex workers, Ammar opened the doors of the Casa Roja on 2 June, International [Whores’] Day. The centre will offer health and mental health services and a place to drink coffee as winter draws in…“There will also be legal assistance…in the face of increasingly punitive policing in the area…Ammar has been one of the most successful sex workers’ organisations in the world. Across Argentina it has integrated itself into the mainstream labour movement, decriminalised sex work in some provinces, and provided peer-to-peer support for more than 20 years…[by contrast] feminists in the UK have been slow to embrace sex workers as sisters in the struggle against gender and economic injustice. A small number of groups have stood shoulder to shoulder with sex workers, but the story has largely been one of violence and exclusion…
Grosso has consistently pursued this course for four years now:
A bill that would decriminalize sex work in Washington D.C. will be reintroduced at the D.C. Council…this time with four councilmembers in support…Councilmembers David Grosso and Robert White…are now joined by…Anita Bonds and…Brianne Nadeau…last term, the original bill was sent to the Judiciary Committee, where it never got a hearing…Grosso modeled the bill after efforts in New Zealand…The legislation comes at a time when sex work-related charges have more than doubled…[from] 228 [in 2017]…to…551 [in 2018]…
Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:
Florida has banned childlike sex dolls…[anti-sex politician] Lauren Book, who introduced the bill, [also created a bill to put sex workers and clients on a public registry. She fantasized that]…“Just as viewing child pornography [magically] lowers the inhibitions of child predators [via invisible sex rays emitted from the images], so do these childlike sex dolls”…opponents of the measure [correctly] argued that the dolls deter pedophilia by preventing child predators from acting out on their impulses with real children…
The worst part of these laws isn’t the ban itself, but rather the institutionalization of the dangerous and unscientific dogma that human beings are tabulae rasae who can be “perverted” by external stimuli and thereby “re-educated” via such brainwashing schemes as “john schools” and “gay conversion therapy”.
{Insert Ben Franklin quote about liberty and safety}:
The…Brazosport [Texas] Independent School District…hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company’s algorithms flagged [a woman’s comical] tweet [about her cats] as a potential threat…Among the other “threats” flagged by Social Sentinel [were]…tweets about the movie “Shooter,” the “shooting clinic” put on by…a…university…basketball team, and someone apparently pleased their credit score was “shooting up”…America’s schools…are hastily erecting a massive digital surveillance infrastructure…with [total and intentional dis]regard for either its effectiveness or its impact on civil liberties…Florida offers a glimpse of where it all may head: [politicians] there are pushing for a state database that would [make the childhood nightmare of a “permanent record” reality by] combin[ing] individuals’ educational, criminal justice, and social-service records with their social media data, then [handing] it all [to the pigs]…Gary Margolis, the CEO of Social Sentinel…claims “thousands” of K-12 schools in 30 states are using its [police-state boosting] service…[another company name] Securly…offer[s] “sentiment analysis” of students’ social media posts…[via] an “emotionally intelligent” app [like Facebook censorship algorithms] that sends parents weekly reports and automated push notifications detailing their children’s internet searches and browsing histories…
Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world:
Three days before the most sensitive political anniversary on the Chinese calendar, Twitter suspended the accounts of Chinese political commentators in what it [pretended] was an accident…it…affected more than 100 users…[including] human rights lawyers, activists, college students and nationalists, who use workarounds to get access to Twitter, which is banned in China…The accounts began rapidly disappearing just days before the 30th anniversary of the crackdown on a student-led pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square…In a statement, Twitter [claimed] that as a part of its routine efforts to stop spam and inauthentic behavior, it had [conveniently] gone after a number of legitimate Chinese-language accounts [at exactly the best time to demonstrate to the Chinese government that it could be counted on to censor as ordered if it were allowed to operate in the country]…
Ordinarily, I don’t even bother to call attention to prohibitionist screeds unless there’s something interesting about them; what’s interesting about this one is the absolute reek of desperation wafting from it. Prohibitionists are terrified at the speed with which decriminalization has become a safe position for politicians to take, especially in New York, but because they’re disgusting authoritarians the best way they can think of to make a lame attempt at forcing back the tide is to get two fucking prosecutors (notice how much prohibitionists love them?) to vomit out all the usual prohibitionist lies. Blah blah “pimps”, blah blah “violence and exploitation”, blah blah “male power”, blah blah “PTSD”, blah blah “Swedish model” dicksuckery, and of course “we must remember that money cannot buy consent“. Their stupid lies and bullshit claims about women’s helplessness aren’t working any more, and they know it. Hey, prohibitionists: we’re winning. And if the best you can do is to pull out two police-state operatives, some professional “survivors” and a clutch of old hags mouthing weird fantasies about “orifices”, you’d better get used to the idea.
Kamala Harris is a cop. The phrase, which the candidate’s critics use frequently, is meant to conjure more than just Harris’ history as a hard-nosed San Francisco prosecutor. It’s colloquial. To label someone a cop in this way…implies the person is a bully, a bootlicker, a professional tattler—the sort of person who shuts down un-authorized lemonade stands run by kids. A cop, in this context, is someone who will always defer to authority and the status quo, someone who is unaccountable and not to be trusted. Calling someone a cop invokes the worst sorts of police overreach, a legalistic authoritarianism that exists for its own sake…
Diary #467
Posted in Diary, tagged activism, blogging, Florida, Presents, The War on Whores on June 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I promised I’d show y’all a photo of the lovely steel rose sculpture a gentleman gave me three weeks ago, but I’m afraid photography is not one of my strong suits and this was the best I could do (I decided to hold it in my hand for scale). It’s one of several generous gifts I’ve received lately; another was a very fancy drill press for Grace, which I’ll be taking her when I visit Friday for her birthday. Alas, unlike the rose I don’t know who sent the drill press; ever since Amazon started doing its own deliveries it has really dropped the ball on packaging, so the first I knew of the delivery was when one of my neighbors told me it was sitting outside my door, just as though it had been taken from a shelf at Home Depot, with no shipping carton or packing list or anything to let me know who sent it (other than the shipping label with my address on it). I’ve mentioned it on Twitter several times, but no answer; if you sent it, please let me know! And speaking of presents, it’s now my turn to give one to some of y’all: Paul Johnson received our first shipment of DVDs late last week, so I’ll be sending those out to donors very soon! If you donated at the $60 or $125 level, expect me to ask your address in the next few days. In just over a week I’ll be flying to Florida for three screenings arranged by SWOP Behind Bars; thanks to all my donors for helping that to happen! And thanks to everyone who kindness and generosity – in the past, in the future and every day – helps make my life just a bit easier and a whole lot nicer.
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