Since I was one of the loudmouthed harlots who helped create the social climate which made all this possible, I think I’ve earned at least a little rest. – “Eleventh Anniversary”
I think I can safely say without fear of contradiction that this is the largest single-creator blog on the internet; it now consists of 4384 daily posts, 106 static pages, and far too many words to count, published over a period long enough for a typical sex worker to have been reading it since she was a schoolgirl. Indeed, I’ve been told many times that my blog helped a lot of girls get their bearings when they were contemplating a sex work career, or helped them solve problems when they were still green. A lot of today’s activists were inspired by my work, and quite a few journalists, academics, thoughtful people in general, and even politicians credit me with opening their eyes to the truth about sex work and the lies spewed by authoritarians about it. When I started this blog, the “sex trafficking” hysteria had not yet reached its peak; now (as I predicted over ten years ago) it’s imploding in real time, and many of those who were only too happy to profit from the moral panic are now being forced to distance themselves from it. This does not, unfortunately, mean that things are becoming better for sex workers; as I also wrote way back when,
…the “trafficking” myth [is] “an increasingly-erratic cultural meme spinning wildly out of control, whose far-flung debris is going to cause a lot more damage before it finally disintegrates“, and…[in] this last and most dangerous phase we should expect to see a lot more people hurt…
Those of y’all who have been paying attention probably already recognize that we’re in that last and most dangerous phase. Decades of allowing puritans, crypto-moralists, copsuckers, badge-lickers, petty tyrants, deranged busybodies, violent sociopaths, and other opportunistic, power-hungry trash to undermine civil liberties in the name of “safety” has created the dystopia into which the United States is collapsing, pulling much of the Western world with it, and a lot of the rest of the developed world is competing to be even more awful. Free thought and free expression are in greater danger than they have been at any time since the Enlightenment, and the Marching Morons who make up three-quarters of the human race are divided into two main camps: those who eagerly embrace 21st-century technotyranny, and those whose chief criticism is that their preferred “leaders” are not the ones operating the machinery of oppression. And all of it – every last bit – is the result of moral defectives happily supporting any and every form of repression against those they see as different from them. The State tested its weaponry on “criminals”, drug users, sex workers, and members of various minority groups (racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, etc); it has increasingly criminalized both consensual behaviors and those which, while offensive to others, aren’t treated as actual crimes in healthy societies; and it has increasingly inserted itself into the lives of individuals to an extent and depth that would have been inconceivable to people of the 19th century or earlier.
So where is this all going? Honestly, I don’t know. But I’m planning to keep sounding the alarm and commenting upon news items on topics pertaining to self ownership that come across my path, whether for good or ill, until either death or the Establishment stops me.
Thanks for the first 12 years, looking forward to the next.
First, many congratulations on 12 years of accomplishment. As one who struggles to maintain his own blogs, I fully recognize what an amazing achievement that is, and how much sheer work and dedication, go into it.
Your penultimate paragraph really encapsulates the current state of affairs and expresses more clearly and succinctly than the many paragraphs I’ve written on various aspects of this crisis of freedom and expression we’re facing. I wish I had answers to this dilemma, but like you, I honestly don’t have them and don’t know where all this is going.
We’re faced not only with a lack of real and meaningful choices in this sphere, but with a major segment of our societies who either support and foster this kind of repression, are blithely unconcerned by it, or simply don’t recognize the danger and so do nothing. To quote John Stuart Mill, ““Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
We are, indeed, in a treacherous period, both in the realm of anti-sex work and so-called sex “trafficking” hysteria and for free expression in general. Keep up the good fight.
I don’t think the world is quite as bad off as you do, but I’m glad you’re out here keeping an eye on things. I’ve enjoyed knowing you and having you in my world. Congratulations on twelve years years of raising hell.
Congratulations on your 12th, and kudos for grit, persistence and excellent advocacy. I’ve been reading your blog for most of those 12 years.
C. M. Kornbluth’s John Barlow had an excellent idea for getting rid of them. Too bad “the leaders” made it backfire.
I won’t even hazard a guess at whether the two camps will destroy each other. But the rest of us will have to dodge a lot to avoid being collateral damage (and we already have had to dodge for most of our lives).
Happy 12th. And thank you.