Is there anyone incapable at this point of seeing what the United States has become? – Glenn Greenwald
Another week, another crop of links. Our top contributor, as so often happens, was Radley Balko, who provided everything down to the first video: Peter Sellers reading the lyrics to the Beatles’ “She Loves You” in a Doctor Strangelove voice. If you enjoy or (or else just can’t resist), you might also want to watch him reading them as a Cockney, and Irishman and an upper-class twit (thanks to Szusa, who also provided “letter to Hitler”). The second video is propaganda from 1954 which tried to convince Americans that one’s house stands a better chance of surviving a nuclear attack if it’s clean and painted; nine other hilarious propaganda films from all over the world can be found here. The links between the two videos were provided by Mistress Matisse (“honor”), Jesse Walker (“road stealing”), Mike Siegel (“lard”), Penn Jillette (“nothing so dumb”), Joyce Arthur (“exact change”), Michael Whiteacre (“murder charges”), Popehat (“DEA”), and Laura Lee (“Satanists”).
I’m thankful that the police officer came out quickly, that we live in a city where we can depend on police to react quickly. – Chris Reeves
I’m mostly back to my normal schedule now, though only one week ahead so far; by the next Links column I should have a comfortable two-week buffer again. We’ve got the usual assortment of amusing, interesting and infuriating links this week, but a few words of explanation are in order for the videos. The first, “I Am Here”, is a project started by two Chilean university students, Violeta Pinda and Felipe Guzman, to call attention to stray dogs that people usually ignore. All they did was to attach balloons on which they wrote things like “scratch me”, “play with me” and “don’t leave me” to the dogs…but when creatures who were essentially invisible suddenly become visible, magic happens (and Maggie cries). The second video is an animation of XKCD’s unique comic strip “Time”, which changed every half hour for the first week and every hour thereafter, from March 25th to the end of July. Everything down to the first video was provided by Radley Balko, the second video by Mike Siegel and the links between the two by Jesse Walker (“Sahara Sea”), Popehat (“baby prize”), Luscious Lani (“graffiti”), Kevin Wilson (“weapons”), PWS (“Detroit”), Lenore Skenazy (“school cops”), Brooke Magnanti (“whistleblowers”), and Antonio Lorusso (“child porn”).
The doctors told the amputee he might experience a phantom limb from time to time. Nobody prepared him for the moment, though, when he felt cold fingers brush across his phantom hand.
After three weeks, things are back to normal around here; however, I’m still scrambling to catch back up, so I hope you’ll forgive me for keeping this brief so I can get started on Tuesday’s column (yes, I’m THAT behind). Our top contributor was Radley Balko, with everything down to the first video; that was provided by Laura Lee, and the second one is a parody of it. The links between them were supplied by Tracy Quan (“sexting”), Harlot’s Parlour (“annoying”), I Am Curious Blue (“memories”), Stacey Swimme (“marijuana”), Carol Fenton (“never call cops”), Kevin Wilson (“vodka”), and Mike Riggs (“guilty”).
Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior? Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. – The Gospel of Mary 9:5-9
Today is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, long identified in Christian folklore as a prostitute (repentant or otherwise). Now, there is no Biblical evidence to that effect; Luke describes her as a woman “from whom seven demons had come out”, presumably one of Jesus’ miraculous cures. In fact, the four canonical Gospels say virtually nothing about her prior to the crucifixion, though all four identify her as the person to whom the resurrected Jesus first appeared. But as I explained in “Mary Magdalene”, the canonical Gospels are not the only ones:
…Gnostics were driven from Christian congregations early in the 4th century and their doctrines declared heretical in 388. Before this time there was no official consensus on which texts actually constituted the Bible, and among those used by Gnostic congregations (and subsequently excluded from the canon) were four more Gospels: Thomas, Philip, Mary and Judas, all but the last of which assign a much more prominent role to Mary Magdalene than the four canonical ones; indeed, the Gospel of Mary is actually attributed to her. These Gospels refer to Mary as Jesus’ “companion” and describe him as loving her more than his other disciples and often kissing her on the mouth; indeed, the Gospel of Mary identifies her as the unnamed “disciple Jesus loved” mentioned so often in John. These clear expressions of favoritism appear to have perturbed the male disciples, particularly Peter, who is said to have argued with Jesus about his allowing a woman to be not only equal to the male apostles, but actually preferred to them…
This argument is portrayed in Jesus Christ Superstar, though changed in two ways: the critic is Judas rather than Peter, and the criticism is about her being a hooker rather than a gender-hierarchy thing. The tradition of her being Jesus’ (perhaps sexual) companion seems to have survived the suppression of the books, and “in a sermon in 591 Pope Gregory the Great identified Mary Magdalene as a repentant harlot, possibly by identification with the ‘adulterous woman’ whom Jesus rescues from being stoned in the 8th chapter of John.”
So even though Mary was never the patron saint of prostitutes (that role fell, interestingly enough, to Saint Nicholas), the legend that she had been a whore was a popular one; hence the application of her name to “Magdalene homes”, the asylums for the “cleansing” of ex-prostitutes which became popular in the 13th century and then again in the 18th. The most notorious of these were of course Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, the last of which only closed in 1996; the long-awaited report on the atrocities committed therein was released only last February, and the nuns who ran them are still trying to evade responsibility. The legend also inspired me to have the sacred harlots in last week’s fictional interlude all take the first name “Magdalene”, just as regular nuns all take the first name “Mary”; in our world the Catholic Church officially repudiated that doctrine in 1969, but as you probably noticed a lot of things are different in the world where that story takes place.
But canonical or not, the legend is still a popular one; its only real rival is the theory that she was actually Jesus’ wife, and that one is of comparatively recent vintage (though its proponents claim it existed as a secret doctrine since the people it concerns were still alive). In movies, books and the popular imagination Mary Magdalene is still the whore (repentant or otherwise) who was closer than any other person to Jesus, and I think it very likely that it will continue thus for a very long time to come.
Be the sort of victim people want, swallow the crap about not really choosing sex work, tell a few stories about bad clients and pray with the fervor of a convert at the altar of end demand and all the support you want is there, on their terms. – Jemima
A Swedish sex worker rights activist was stabbed to death by her ex-husband on Thursday. Swedish “feminists” pretend to care so very much for sex workers that they’re willing to destroy our lives to “save” us from imaginary “degradation”; selling sex is not illegal, but if a sex worker dares to speak openly about her choice she will be punished in many ways other than imprisonment, such as by expulsion, eviction, police harassment and more:
Several years ago she lost custody of her children as she was considered to be an unfit parent due to being a sex worker. The children were placed with their father regardless of him being abusive towards Jasmine. They told her she didn’t know what was good for her and that she was “romantisizing” prostitution, they said she lacked insight and didn’t realise sex work was a form of self-harm. He threatened and stalked her on numerous occasions, she was never offered any protection…
Activist Jemima pointed out that “Jasmine could have been listened too, could have had custody of her kids, could have been flying off to international conferences and doing TV shows, instead of being prepared for burial, all she had to do was lie…be good little puppets who trot out the party line like defendants at a Stalin era Russian show trial and then the doors of rape crisis centers, domestic refuges and conferences open wide to you…”
Another refutation of the myth that the presence of a camera magically protects sex workers from arrest: “Phoenix police arrested seven people at…a self-serve porn studio allegedly used to front a prostitution business…William James Hartwell…and six women were arrested during a raid on the studio…[after] a six-month investigation…”
This was a real banner week for Swedish “feminists”; besides enabling the murder of a sex worker, we also got this:
A professor in law at Stockholm University has called for legislation prohibiting parents from drinking alcohol in the company of their children. “It is a parent’s responsibility to be sober when they are with their children,” said Professor Madeleine Leijonhufvud…She compared the offence to minor assault which…carries a penalty of up to six months imprisonment. While the proposal is aimed at “everyday drunkenness” it in effect suggests that parents would not be able to share a glass of wine at dinner. “If you have a sick child and need to drive them to hospital then you can’t drink wine”…
Perhaps Sweden should just confiscate all children at birth and raise them in crèches? But then, of course, people would stop having them. And the feminists want even criticism of their tyrannical insanity to be criminal: “the Nordic Council of Ministers…[suggested]…the government…take action against…‘anti-feminist attitudes’…expressed in public…”
A 15-year-old Florida girl was arrested…for shooting and possessing a photo of another teen girl engaged in oral sex with a teen boy…She was charged with a felony child porn count. “The two girls were friends, and one of them was dating the guy,” Detective William Lindsey [said]…”Possession of child pornography is [a crime] no matter what age they are… If she had taken a picture of herself in sexual conduct, she could be charged with child pornography”…
…The Internet…provides an almost unfettered platform for…pimps to find, track and enslave girls and women in sex trafficking…local and federal authorities seem powerless to ban the sale of commercial sex online. Nor do they seem able to keep up with and control the horrendous amount of trafficking the Internet generates…experts point mainly to laws that predate the Internet and define places where criminal commercial sex acts take places as “houses of prostitution” or “brothels.” Today, no such places exist. Pimps — mainly men — find customers online and direct them to meet prostitutes, who work out of different motels or apartments or sometimes even their own homes…[in] a New Mexico case…two men…were [cleared of] running “an extensive multistate, online prostitution ring”…after a judge ruled that…their website did not constitute a house of prostitution, though it was used to recruit prostitutes and promote prostitution…It would seem easy to amend anti-prostitution laws to include a ban on websites for procuring commercial sex…
Because when governments ban things, they magically vanish!
Those who were surprised at seeing an anti-criminalization article in The National Review must not remember that A) many “conservatives” at least claim to be for smaller government, and B) the magazine’s founder, William F. Buckley, was a vocal opponent of drug criminalization.
…the proscription of prostitution…continues to be a mystery to me. Sex remains one of the few things that a free person may give away gratis but which he is forbidden from selling. It is perfectly legal to sleep around in the United States — subsidized and panegyrized, even — and, as the growing parade of octogenarian billionaires’ wives demonstrates, it is both permissible and socially acceptable to sleep with someone in pursuit of regular material comfort…While the laws surrounding the issue remain such a dizzy and irrational mess, drawing a clear moral line through the morass remains nigh on impossible…To broach this topic in polite company is to invite someone…to parrot the banal old line that “nobody grows up wanting to be a prostitute.” At best, this is a red herring. Certainly, few people grow up wishing to be prostitutes. But there are an awful lot of careers that escape the dreams of children…It is no accident that prostitution, which was almost uniformly legal in the United States from the period of colonization up until the start of the 20th century, was banned in almost every state within the same five-year period during which the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union managed to convince the nation that alcohol should be constitutionally outlawed…
Of course the comments are full of Puritans and trafficking fetishists, but there are a surprising number of truth-tellers there as well.
…Eliot Spitzer said he hopes he has changed since he was caught in a prostitution scandal that led to his resignation, as he attempts to revive his political career with a run for New York City comptroller. “I think the public will have to ask itself the question, ‘can we forgive him?’ I’ve asked for the forgiveness, I hope the public says ‘yes,’ based upon the record I have, based upon qualities I can bring to the office,” Spitzer told reporters…
Politicians are usually forgiven; those whose lives they destroy, not so much.
Though New Scientist published only a very small part of what Dr. Laura Agustín says was a much, much longer interview, it’s still good to see mainstream magazines presenting her views and debunking the “sex trafficking” hysteria and anti-whore tyranny.
Despite being funded by the HSE annually, including over €126,000 last year, St Patrick’s Guild informed the Adoption Authority last week that it no longer has the resources to staff the organisation. The agency, run by the Religious Sisters of Charity, had been accredited by the Adoption Authority to assist adopted people and natural parents through tracing, counselling and mediating…Between 1947 and 1967, St Patrick’s Guild…arranged for the export of 572 “illegitimate” children from Ireland to the US for adoption…Despite the agency’s admitted involvement in facilitating illegal adoptions, the Adoption Authority again reiterated its stance that it will not inspect the files to ascertain the extent of the agency’s involvement in such activity…
In other words, the nuns abducted children from their Irish mothers and sold them to Americans; if that’s not “human trafficking”, I don’t know what is.
…in France…disabled people struggle to have a sex life. But their desires are often disregarded, and while prostitution is legal here, soliciting potential clients and serving as an intermediary between prostitutes and clients are not. The issue of sexual surrogates came up in March, after the National Ethics Committee…issued a report criticizing the practice as the “unethical use of the human body for commercial purposes”…but…some legislators and associations of disabled people are demanding the legalization of sexual surrogates. “Prostitution is a fake debate; the goals are different,” said Pascale Ribes…[of] the Disabilities and Sexualities Group, an association defending sexual surrogates in France. “Sexual assistance is about allowing a disabled person who can’t access sexuality in a satisfying way to reconnect with the body”…
Advice to disabilities advocates: foolish reinforcement of whorearchy is not the way to go about winning your right to employ sex workers.
Police shut down…12 massage parlors…for alleged prostitution…arresting owners, managers and workers. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office is investigating whether workers were “victims of human trafficking, being manipulated or held against their will”…and whether a central organization was controlling…the operations. According to DA Charles Hynes, all of the women…gave very similar stories about having children in Asia they needed to support. NYPD Commissioner was typically…tone-deaf in his assessment of the case. “We know people in Bay Ridge have back pain…but we don’t think that’s enough to sustain 19 massage parlors”…
That the DA seems to perceive the fantasy of a huge “sex trafficking” conspiracy as more credible than the simple fact that most sex workers have children to support, speaks volumes about his warped view of humanity.
Authorities in southern China have left…Ye Haiyan…homeless…Guangdong security agents abandoned her on the side of the road with her boyfriend…and 14-year-old daughter…”Zhongshan does not welcome you; Guangzhou does not welcome you either. I will break your legs if I ever see you again in Zhongshan,” one of the security agents said…
…Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive…it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – from The Declaration of Independence
Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago the majority of Americans decided they had had enough of tyranny, and declared their independence from the government which had by its own actions destroyed any sense of loyalty the people had to it. To be sure, there were many who disagreed; either they were too frightened, or too mindlessly loyal, or too skeptical of the possibility of victory, or too unable to see that the injustices which had been inflicted upon their neighbors would eventually reach them. But a large enough fraction of the populace were ready for revolution, and so it came; a few years of struggle, travail and bloodshed, and a new nation was born. Its primary founding principle, spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, was that some rights are unalienable, that is inherent in all humans, and any government which uses violence to abrogate them without just cause immediately loses its legitimacy; at that time it is not only the right but the duty of free people to resist its dictates, “to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”.
Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers were only men, not demigods; they left too many gaps and loopholes in the Constitution they devised thirteen years after the Declaration, and the new nation came into the world with an ugly birth defect which almost doomed it eighty-five years later. Furthermore, the violent and imperfect resolution of that flaw created a new and equally-vile one which destroyed many of the safeguards laid down by the Founders and engendered the unchecked growth of government which has now led us right back to where we started. As I pointed out in my column for this occasion two years ago, our government now regularly commits the exact same offenses for which Americans rebelled against King George III, as enumerated in the Declaration:
The federal government has in recent decades erected a multitude of new offices, and sent out swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out ever-increasing portions of the GDP.
The police army has been rendered independent of and superior to local, state and federal laws.
They are heavily armed and quartered among us in every neighborhood.
They are protected by mock trial from punishment for any murders or other crimes which they should commit…
Every year, new taxes, fees and unfunded mandates are imposed on us without our consent.
Many federal offenses are tried before a judge…or…hand-picked [juries]…kept ignorant of salient facts of the cases; or citizens are falsely accused of such heinous crimes, with such disproportionate penalties and necessitating such outrageously expensive defenses, that those accused of them simply plead guilty in return for a lesser sentence. Also, property stolen by the state under ever-expanding “asset forfeiture” laws is not returned even if its rightful owner is never charged with a crime. Each of these procedures essentially deprives its victim of the benefit of trial by jury.
Alas, 2013 is not 1776, and Americans have collectively become some of the most submissive, spineless peasants upon the face of the Earth. Most of them are too frightened, or too mindlessly loyal, or too skeptical of the possibility of victory, or too unable to see that the injustices which have been inflicted upon their neighbors will eventually reach them. “Freedom” has become nothing but a “worship word” devoid of real meaning, and politicians and their toadies distort its very essence by pretending that the American promise is about freedom from adult responsibility and self-determination rather than freedom to pursue self-actualization; by that asinine definition, my pets and livestock are freer than any American. Most of my countrymen meekly and silently allow their bodies and homes to be routinely violated by their overlords, and even when the full extent of the undermining of our unalienable rights is made glaringly obvious by those who still have the “Spirit of ‘76”, you can be sure the bootlickers will line up to demonize them, declare that Big Brother only wants what’s best for us, and suspiciously ask “What do you have to hide, anyway?” Though the country which was once the freest in the world has now descended into fascism, there is as yet no sign of revolution. And even when it does come (as it inevitably must), I can’t imagine the current crop of dependent, conformist weeds producing a form of government even half as effective at preserving individual rights as the one which died of neglect and disinterest barely two centuries after it was brought forth with such high hopes.
Another of the greats has passed on. Though his name is less familiar to the general public than those of many far less talented and far less influential authors, virtually everyone has seen and appreciated screen versions of his work; he wrote almost half of the best Twilight Zone episodes, most of the Vincent Price “Poe” movies of the early ‘60s and many other films you may know (including the thrice-filmed I Am Legend). And since I can’t possibly do his memory justice in this small space, here’s a proper tribute from regular reader Franklin Harris.
Archaeologists recently uncovered an ancient brothel attached to a gymnasium and restaurant in northern Greece…It was likely built in the second century BCE, which means it had been a going concern for about 250 years when an earthquake…shut [it] down forever. Put another way, this brothel operated longer than the United States has so far…
N.B.: I used this title because Greece was under Roman rule at that time.
“Nordic Choice Hotels…has announced the removal of pornography from its television channels. ‘We believe it is a natural part of our social responsibility to not support an industry that contributes to…trafficking,’ said [CEO] Torgeir Silseth…” There was no statement from Nordic Choice about shutting down their whole chain because many so-called “trafficking” victims work in hotels, but I guess one has to have priorities.
“Silvio Berlusconi was given a seven-year prison sentence and banned from holding public office for life…after an Italian court found him guilty of abuse of office and paying for sex with…underage prostitute…Karima El Mahroug…” Berlusconi and the girl both deny having had sex, and even if they had it would’ve been completely legal had no money changed hands because she was 17 at the time.
…What really sucks about sugar baby relationships is that most of the arrangements don’t seem like they’re entered into freely; they’re a desperate response to a shitty set of circumstances — a lack of job opportunities, lack of job abilities, and last, but not least, the insanely high cost of college education…the site even targets advertising to women who search “help with college tuition”…
The Author Formerly Known as Morning Gloria has a history of this sort of neofeminist prohibitionism disguised under a thin veneer of sex-positive platitudes, and that’s not even counting her apparent belief that the law of conservation of energy somehow proves that “America is…fucked up.”
A bikini-barista stand owner who twice before has been accused of lewd conduct recently managed to get a…[cop] to warn her of any undercover surveillance…Carmela A. Panico, and Sgt. Darrell L. O’Neill…were charged with conspiracy to promote prostitution…at seven Java Juggs and Twin Peaks espresso stands…The FBI assisted with the investigation…
Yes, the FBI actually helped bluenoses harass coffee shops because the waitresses wear bikinis.
…In…[the] Globe & Mail, paid typist and self-confessed plagiarist Margaret Wente [published]…”Legal Prostitution? Are We Nuts?”, [in which she] brings her swollen puritanism to bear on the current Supreme Court case…Calling prostitution, “the most exploitative, degrading work on Earth” Wente opposes the “feminists and other progressive types”…who are endeavoring to make it less exploitative and degrading…What she doesn’t acknowledge…is that prostitution is already legal in Canada…
New Jersey law enforcement officials expecting a rise in forced prostitution leading up to the 2014 Super Bowl said…efforts to crack down on criminals and help victims will span the entire state…New Jersey is believed to be a major entry point for human trafficking due to its dense and diverse population and convenient access from New York to Philadelphia…
…I can go out…get hopelessly drunk and jump into bed with Mr. A. Random…the chances are any form of protection will go out the window, as will any form of valid consent. As a society, we deem that okay, because everyone does it, right? If I go to a hotel, meet Mr. A. Random in the middle of an afternoon, spend a couple of pleasant protected hours and get paid for it – pearls everywhere are clutched and horror levels soar. But in my second example, I’m safer. I know his name, his phone number, where he is staying and I am…surrounded by people…
“The Prague Assembly has approved a bill to regulate prostitution…[both brothels and individual] prostitutes would have to apply for a licence…prostitutes would have to be over 18, without criminal record and…would have to undergo regular medical check-ups…” The bill’s author claims its intent is “to divide legal prostitution from the illegal.” It’ll do that, all right, but not in the way he seems to think.
…at…fourteen, Diana [O’Hara] entered the gates of the Good Shepherd Laundry in Buffalo, New York with the label of “incorrigible”…talking was allowed only when the nuns clapped their hands…[a misbehaving girl would be]…locked inside [a] closet…[or] an old [rat-infested] shower room with stone benches [sometimes for days]…followed [by] a severe beating…to “make her strong”…
Hugo Schwyzer is still pretending that men’s preference for young women is “socially constructed”; Christopher Ryan corrects him:
In a recent column at The Atlantic…Hugo Schwyzer asks us to consider, “What would happen if men stopped chasing much younger women?”…he’s not talking about pedophiles…[but rather] men like Johnny Depp, who is apparently dating a woman in her late 20s, while he’s just hit the big 5-0…Schwyzer argues…that this isn’t…happening in response to…innate biological desire…despite the overwhelming…evidence…Schwyzer cites [only] a 2007 study done in Sweden…[which] actually says the opposite of what he thinks it does…Schwyzer somehow knows Depp’s…attracted to his 27 year-old girlfriend because…she’s powerless and he’s intimidated by less “malleable” women of his own age….[this] attempt to shame consenting adults out of what he considers to be inappropriate relationships strikes me as quite the opposite of an informed feminist perspective…
…a last-minute amendment to Ohio’s budget…requires an ultrasound and 24-hour wait before birth control… “Pregnancy” in the context of the informed-consent requirements now means “any fertilized egg”…so…“the disruption of implantation of a fertilized egg” now counts as an abortion. Prescribing birth control is, in Ohio, a ticking time-abortion…
At least 200 Nigerian girls are trafficked every month to Russia…the crime…declined in Western Europe following strict laws on illegal migration…to curb the menace…[so] attention…shifted to Eastern Europe…you will be shocked at the extent of resistance [to being “rescued”] from the girls. We tell them Russia is not a destination for prostitutes yet they still come…the parents of those trafficked encourage…their children…
Parents’ outrage at an advertisement for a swingers party at a [Victoria] children’s play centre has forced the local council to close the business…the centre’s owners [had] said they would repeat the event every month at Casey Kids Playhouse once they found six other couples…a local mother…[who] had booked her son’s fourth birthday party there…[said] ”I am disgusted…This is so morally wrong, not to mention unhygienic”…
I just can’t stop laughing at the word “unhygienic” in that context.
Jesse Friedman…was properly convicted and should not have his status as a sexual predator overturned…[claims] Nassau County district attorney…Kathleen M. Rice…Mr. Friedman’s lawyer, Ron Kuby, and…Andrew Jarecki, [director of Capturing the Friedmans]…[said] the report was a biased whitewash by the office that originally botched the case…“Rice has made a craven, but not surprising, political decision in failing to admit to the wrongdoing of the…D.A.’s office and former sex crimes chief Fran Galasso, in the face of overwhelming evidence of Jesse’s innocence,” Mr. Jarecki said. Mr. Kuby said that the district attorney’s office had fought Mr. Friedman’s efforts at every turn and that this was just more of the same…“Fortunately, the conclusion of this bogus reinvestigation clears the way for the Friedman team to return to court”…
This is how service disputes are handled when the profession is legal: “Sunset Thomas…the…onetime cast member of…Cathouse…and [retired] porn star…[who works] at the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump [Nevada, is being sued by regular client Robert Proffitt for]…$2,200 for services he alleges were not rendered…”
Jack Vettriano paintings worth £500,000 were seized from a former brothel boss in a police crackdown on vice…detectives…smashed into the home of Ian Haig, 70, whose brother Charles, 73, runs a…sauna in Edinburgh. Vettriano…regularly visited Scorpio sauna…in the 1990s and painted…girls working there. He gave paintings to Ian Haig as a thank-you before he became one of Britain’s most successful artists…Police [claim the paintings are]…potential evidence…
The presence of thousands of brothels and hundreds of thousands of prostitutes has heightened competition and pushed prices down steeply in the German sex trade…Prostitution became legal in Germany in 2002, and the open sex trade has taken off in the years since…It’s been estimated that more than 1 million men pay for sex in Germany every day. One of the classic arguments for legalizing prostitution is that recognizing and regulating the world’s oldest profession would improve the conditions of sex workers. Instead, recent reports paint legalized prostitution in Germany largely as a failure…Despite the critics’ claims of atrocious conditions brought on by legalized prostitution in Germany, there are many who don’t want to go back to the days when the trade was cordoned off in the black market…
This is a prime example of American criminal ignorance about sex work; consult the title link for a thorough debunking.
This essay first appeared on Cliterati on May 5th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
In “Under the Bus” I discussed the way in which politicians are all too willing to sacrifice the rights of minority groups (especially already-marginalized ones like sex workers) in order to broker some political deal. When the stakes are extremely high, this can perhaps be understood if not forgiven; at least the sacrifice of the few won some important victory for the many. But the ugly truth about the modern gay rights movement is that it now regularly throws marginalized subgroups under the bus to win minor victories for the majority. As one activist recently pointed out on Twitter, “More LGBT people will get jailed under anti-#prostitution laws than will ever want to marry. Gay Inc tells them: Go rot.” I think it’s safe to say the same thing about the military: more LGBT people (especially transgenders) are sex workers than soldiers, but one would never know it from the comparative amount of noise mainstream gay activists make about the issue. Furthermore, I’ve seen others complain that “Gay, Inc” is trying to ignore HIV patients and to cut the “T” off of “LGBT”. The reason for all of this bus-throwing is the same; as I explained in “Chauvinism”,
…Gay rights was for a very long time an uphill battle, especially in the pathologically-prudish United States. Yet in the past few years, opposition to the cause has quickly withered and died with astonishing speed…If one insists that the cause of opposition to gay rights is “homophobia”, in other words a particular aversion to homosexuals, the rapid turn of the tide makes no sense whatsoever. But when one realizes that the same hatred is dispensed to anyone who is outside the norm, the reason for the change becomes clear…While gay people were chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”, progress was achingly slow. But once they started to stress how little different they were from heterosexuals – “Look, we even want to get married and form families like you do, see?” – opposition to granting them rights rapidly dissolved. Once the majority came to see gay people as sufficiently “normal”, their chauvinism was no longer an issue…
Because sex workers and transgenders are more easily “othered” than nice, “normal” gay folks who want to live in the suburbs, join the country club and adopt kids, our concerns had to be crammed back into the closet lest we upset the status quo – despite the fact that drag and transgender sex workers were the chief agitators at the Stonewall riots, the birth of the gay rights movement. As Wikipedia explains,
The Stonewall Inn…was known to be popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, male prostitutes, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn…Tensions…erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, [Greenwich] Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested…Within six months, two gay activist organizations were formed in New York…and three newspapers were established to promote rights…Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place…commemorating the anniversary of the riots. Similar marches were organized in other cities. Today, Gay Pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June…
San Francisco quickly became a center of the gay rights movement, and the San Francisco pride parade the largest and most elaborate gay community event in North America (it became “lesbian and gay” in 1981 and “LGBT” in 1995). Attendance is now estimated at over a million people each year, and in 1997 the parade began to attract lucrative corporate sponsorship as gay rights became a mainstream issue. The parade, and gay rights in general, has become big business, and mainstream gays (the term “queer” hardly seems appropriate any longer) now seem to think of those of us who challenge the establishment as crazy relatives to be shut in the attic and Not Talked About. So I wasn’t too surprised to see this Glenn Greenwald column at the end of April:
News reports yesterday indicated that Bradley Manning, widely known to be gay, had been selected to be one of the Grand Marshals of the annual San Francisco gay pride parade, named by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee. When the predictable backlash instantly ensued, the president of the Board of SF Pride, Lisa L Williams, quickly capitulated, issuing a cowardly, imperious statement that has to be read to be believed. Williams proclaimed that “Manning will not be a grand marshal in this year’s San Francisco Pride celebration” and termed his selection “a mistake”. She blamed it all on a “staff person” who prematurely made the announcement based on a preliminary vote, and she assures us all that the culprit “has been disciplined”: disciplined. She then accuses Manning of “actions which placed in harms way [sic] the lives of our men and women in uniform”: a substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials which has since been decisively and extensivelydebunked, even by some government officials (indeed, it’s the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of “actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform”). And then, in my favorite part of her statement, Williams decreed to all organization members that “even the hint of support” for Manning’s actions – even the hint – “will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride”. Will not be tolerated.
Greenwald enumerates at length the evils committed by the aforementioned corporate sponsors, but for our purposes it’s this bit that’s important:
…at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place…even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata…illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveryors of the…worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome…when I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset…
In short, sex workers and those members of the queer community who either can’t or won’t be assimilated into the fascist Borg can forget about getting any help or support from mainstream gay organizations, because it won’t be forthcoming. Over two years ago I wrote, “Sex worker advocates need to concentrate on OUR rights and stop wasting our time, money and energy on…causes…[with] millions of dollars, scores of celebrity advocates, hundreds of legislators and many thousands of low-level activists behind them…” That’s even more true now that our former allies have sold us down the river; like those outcasts who (44 years ago today) refused to submit quietly to police, we need to show the Powers That Be that we will no longer tolerate institutionalized persecution merely because we make loudmouthed, pearl-clutching prudes uncomfortable.
It is reasonable to wonder if the lack of scientific research involving codependency may relate to the fact that there is a strong academic bias against studying possible negative outcomes of empathy. – Barbara Oakley
It was another busy, busy week, trying to get all of my work done in advance for the month of July so I don’t have to take as much time while my husband’s home; I’ll also be away for a total of nine days to attend the Desiree Alliance convention in Las Vegas (five days plus two travel days each way). And on top of that, I’m working on a scholarly paper for the Albany Law Review; it’s about five to ten times the length of a normal column and much more serious in tone, and everything has to be carefully attributed, so it’s much slower going. However, I’m almost halfway done with the first draft and hope to get it to the editors on July 2nd. Once it’s published in the autumn, I hope to make a PDF available so y’all can see what I sound like when I’m actually trying to sound as though my education wasn’t entirely wasted. Anyhow, Radley Balko squeaked out everyone else, providing the three links before the first video (which was itself contributed by Kevin Wilson, along with “digital lineup”); those between the two videos came from Grace (“just wrong”), Walter Olson (“altruism”), Mike Siegel (“concrete”), Luscious Lani (“Scooby-Doo”), Emil Kirkegaard (“New Zealand”), and Scott Greenfield (“registry”).
The idea that [no coerced prostitutes] ever indicate their plight to any of the hundreds of thousands of men who make up their clientele, or that if they do none of those men reports it to police, is simply fantastical. No one with any experience of real live human beings could possibly believe it. – Tim Worstall
…For the past two decades, parents who’ve lost children in horrible ways have tried to memorialize them in law…But…support for… “apostrophe laws”…is waning…recession…made officials…hesitant to increase costs…from…more prisoners and longer sentences…the drop in the crime rate…made tougher laws…less politically compelling…[and] the lower-hanging fruit has been picked…
“A [West Australian] businesswoman claims…police have stopped her repeatedly…in the crackdown on street prostitution. Rebecca Williams says…officers…[demanded] to know what she was doing and [checked] her identification…” Of course she’s wholly clueless, protesting that she doesn’t “look like a prostitute”.
A [Las Vegas] police officer is facing five counts of soliciting…while he was investigating crimes of prostitution…Investigators followed [Peter] Connell for months and witnessed him…visiting the apartment of Mary Anne Moore, who had previous prostitution arrests…
This article entitled “Faith Groups Oppose Legal Prostitution Because They Care About Women’s Lives” is just the usual collection of sin-and-degradation prohibitionist control freak myths; the comment thread, however, is a thing of beauty.
Pierce County [Washington] might make it illegal for suspected prostitutes and their customers to attempt to detect undercover officers…by “exposing oneself or asking another to do so; by asking to be touched sexually; or by requesting to touch or touching another sexually”…
Reader George sent me a copy of Meet the Fokkens and a gift card, with the suggestion I use it to buy the movie Diamond Men (which I did). Thank you so much, George!
Texas jailers…”repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates”…[who’ve now] sued Live Oak County and its…jailers Vincent Aguilar, Israel Charles Jr. and Jaime E. Smith…All three…were arrested in August 2010 and charged with sexual assault…Smith and Aguilar are in…prison…”these guards would withhold food and water, engage in physical abuse, restrict privileges and verbally and emotionally abuse the women – even threaten to kill them in order to compel their compliance”…
…the advocacy group ECPAT estimates 100,000 minors are forced into prostitution or pornography each year — but no one knows how vast the problem is because it’s under reported and underground, said Kathy Maitland of the Michigan Abolitionist project…”It’s the second-largest-growing activity in our country”…She says Michigan is especially vulnerable because of a large agricultural industry…and its location along an international border…Lt. Wendy Reyes…said…”If we had more manpower we…could get online…and find these victims”…trafficking is often linked to online and street prostitution, ethnic restaurants, masseuse businesses, pornography and nail salons…iEmpathize founder Brad Riley…called…the proliferation of pornography…a “super fuel” that promotes trafficking…
Beside the usual rampant illogic, mathematical illiteracy, blatant racism and “King of the Hill” foolishness, you’ve got to love Wendy’s claim that cops need to web surf all day to “find victims”.
French footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema go on trial in Paris…accused of paying…Zahia Dehar…for sex in 2008 and 2009…Algerian-born Dehar, now 21, has since become designer Karl Lagerfeld’s muse and protégée, launching her own lingerie line…State prosecutors have requested that the case be dropped, however, arguing the footballers did not know Dehar was a minor…
“Twenty-two female escorts were arrested last week during a two-day sting in…Denver…The women were advertising on two websites — DenverBackPage.com and Preferred411.com…” Despite the involvement of the FBI’s lugubriously-named “Innocence Lost” project, note that verified professional adult escorts were targeted via P411; these cops had no illusions they might find “trafficked children”. In fact, the sting was enabled by one creating a fake profile and then arranging several “coffee dates” with escorts and asking for “OKs”, which the escorts gave in violation of P411 rules; their accounts were suspended for their negligence in enabling predatory monsters to hurt other sex workers. Ladies, ONLY give OKs to men you actually see behind closed doors; how can you possibly know whether a man is dangerous if you’ve only seen him in public?
The…scare campaign…over “sex trafficking”…becomes a complete and total mess…because [campaigners confuse]…the transport of unwilling people…into forced prostitution…and…the illegal movement of willing people across borders to enter the sex trade…people from poorer countries…wish to…move…to richer countries. And such is the system of immigration laws that many of them will be unable to do this legally…
…The Guardianrecently quoted UK solicitor general Oliver Heald QC describing “victims” of trafficking as people who pay a lot of money to escape their home countries and then are forced to pay it back…That’s not slavery, it’s indentured servitude, and it accounts for two-thirds of immigrants to America from the British Isles in the 17th century. Anti-prostitution and anti-immigration campaigners have hijacked the term “human trafficking” to describe any instance of a person crossing a border to do sex work…It requires buying into the rather insulting idea that women aren’t capable of choosing to leave their homes and do sex work abroad…once you establish that women aren’t capable of making their own choices, you can justify taking all kinds of rights and liberties away from them…
Corrections officials are refusing to remove a sex offender’s name from the state’s public database, defying [the] order…[of] The Court of Appeals [which] ruled…that [Robert Merle Haines Jr.] should not be named on the…registry because [it] did not exist at the time of his crime and registration would be a form of retroactive punishment, which the Maryland Constitution doesn’t allow. Corrections officials say federal…requirements prevent them from complying with the ruling…
…Minnesota’s Sex Offender…Task Force…[is] redesigning the…program…each of the state’s 687 committed sex offenders [costs]…about $120,000 a year…with…50 more…each year…The task force came into existence as part of a lawsuit filed by the committed sex offenders, who argue the…program is unconstitutional because…no one is actually treated and released, thereby creating an indefinite incarceration system even after the offenders have served their criminal [sentences]…
As expected, the “anti-prostitution pledge” was struck down in the SCOTUS. This is not actually a victory for sex worker rights in the big picture; it was decided wholly on first-amendment grounds and the “allies” were at best ones of convenience. If you’d like to read more about the details and implications, I recommend Melissa Gira Grant, Popehat and Mike Siegel.
“The Ionian Dance” by Sir Edward John Poynter (1895) was recently rediscovered after being “lost” since 1915. It depicts a scene from ancient Pompeii.
For the first time, the State Department on Wednesday declared China and Russia among the worst offending countries…a designation that will lead to sanctions against both…the…2013 report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP)…officially downgraded China, Russia, and Uzbekistan to the lowest possible rating…along with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe…
The prevalence of dangerous strains of the human papillomavirus…has dropped by half among teenage girls in recent years, a striking measure of success for a vaccine…that was introduced only in 2006…The magnitude of the decline…surprised…experts because only about a third of teenage girls in the United States have [received]…the full course of three doses. By comparison, vaccination rates in…Denmark…Britain [and]…Rwanda…[have] reached 80 percent…
A novel attempt to use New York State’s sex trafficking law…ended with mixed results…as the men were convicted…of promoting prostitution and of money laundering, but…acquitted of…sex trafficking…The law defines trafficking based on the methods the pimps use to control the prostitutes, rather than whether the prostitutes view themselves as victims…prosecutors…presented an expert to testify that women working as prostitutes are often not aware that they are victims. But three of the women themselves testified for the defense…and…were upset…at the…[suggestion] they were not to be believed…
Consider for a moment the incredibly dangerous precedent a prosecution victory would have set; state “experts” would be allowed to define any person as a victim in any crime regardless of that person’s viewpoint.
“The owner of a Lawrence [Massachusetts] massage parlor coerced employees to perform sex acts on…customers, some of whom were videotaped without the clients’ knowledge…Authorities said Barron used the videotapes to blackmail employees to keep working for her…” Dear ethically-challenged sex business owners: Stop videotaping clients, you moron. See, there’s this thing called “evidence”…
Because of their age, they will have difficulty working inside most [hotels]. For most, that means hitting the streets under the eye of a pimp and more experienced prostitutes. And the more they must rely on the pimp, the more difficult it is to pry them from his clutches…So when Assembly Bill 67 surfaced…earlier this year, the police welcomed it as a way to send a message to pimps that there would be a higher price to pay for running young girls…
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