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In the News (#891)

November 28, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

The “first oral sex robot”…[looks less like a] sexy silicone face…and…more like a Wi-Fi router with benefits.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Feminine Pragmatism 

One day, reporters will get that “People Work To Make Money” is not news:

The [UK] Universal Credit benefits system is forcing some women to turn to sex work, [opponents of the scheme] say…”Julie”, from Merseyside, never thought she would have to turn to sex work.  But an eight-week wait for the single mum’s first payment after transferring from her previous benefits left her “desperate”, so when she was offered £30 for sex she took it…

Counterfeit Comfort

Arizona says anyone even accused of a sex crime is subhuman:

…the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe held that sex offender registration was not punitive, but civil, and therefore beyond the reach of the Ex Post Facto Clause…this categorical group known as “sex offenders” was so deserving of a life of misery, prohibition and shunning for the putative safety of the community that there was a rational basis for civil rules to make them societal outcasts.  Where they can live, work, exist for decades, if not the rest of their lives, was constrained to the point of impossibility.  And should they mess up compliance with any detail, back they go to prison.  But it’s not criminal.  It’s civil.  For no better reason than legislatures say it’s not punitive, but for the safety of the children, Even though it’s punitive.  Extremely punitive.  Arizona wants to take this further…[by] “rendering a defendant [accused of a sex crime] categorically ineligible for bail“…it categorically prohibits bail without regard for individual circumstances…In order to obtain release, the accused would apparently be compelled to disprove the accusations.  Not at trial, but just to be considered for bail.  It’s not merely a presumption of guilt, with the burden shifted onto the defendant to disprove his guilt, but one that imposes the burden on a singular group, sex offenders, because they are now the most dreaded and hated in society…

Scapegoats 

Safety first:

A [Florida] man has been arrested after several people told deputies they spotted him having sex with a miniature horse…Nicholas Anthony Sardo, 21, admitted to having sex with a miniature male pony named Jackie G…four times during the course of a week.  Sardo told deputies he used a condom each time because he didn’t want to get a disease from the horse…

Torture Chamber 

“Correcting” people to death:

The death of an inmate following an “altercation with correctional staff” at Western Illinois Correctional Center in May has been ruled a homicide…Larry Earvin died from blunt trauma [intentionally inflicted] to the chest and abdomen [by four screws]…The 65-year-old Earvin sustained 15 rib fractures…two dozen or more abrasions, hemorrhages and lacerations…[and a ruptured colon]…four [screws] were [rewarded for the murder with paid vacations]…Willie Hedden…Benjamin Burnett…Blake Haubrich…and…Alex Banta…

“An altercation with correctional staff” means “screws beat him to death”.

To Molest and Rape 

Sometimes they even rape their own:

A [cop] who became a pariah among Nashville police has sued the force and her commander for…retaliating against her after she [reported] a rape by a colleague, as well as racial and gender-based discrimination.  Monica Blake[‘s]…lawsuit includes a long list of grievances, from being treated differently than male colleagues to free speech suppression and retaliation for reporting [her] rape in 2016…[the rapist] made a plea deal…and had his rape charges reduced to aggravated assault [and the department is hiding his identity so he can be free to rape other women]…she was once suspended for three days for simply playing a game of cards, while white male officers escaped almost all culpability for much harsher violations – like [framing innocent people]…It got worse when she publicly supported an initiative to create a Community Oversight Board…

Lack of Evidence (#821)

Why do sex workers and others believe in these garbage “immunity” policies?

Sex workers would be [statutorily] immune from criminal prosecution when they report rapes, assaults, robberies and other crimes, under a bill approved by a [Utah] legislative committee…[bill sponsor] Paul Ray…said…”If we put it in statute, [gullible whores]…will [believe they’ll actually] receive immunity and be treated as a victim or witness”…He said serial offenders prey upon sex workers because “they know they can”…

Remember, cops and politicians claim that indefinite detention without charge is a form of “protection”, and courts have on many occasions caged rape or domestic violence victims to compel their testimony.  Laws that claim to grant members of a criminalized group “immunity” for high-sounding reasons are bullshit as long as the group is still criminalized; even if the mark isn’t immediately caged she will be placed on a list, spied on and generally persecuted.

The Notorious Badge (#822) 

An interesting history of Annie Sprinkle’s salon in 1980s New York:

…From 1980-94, the Sprinkle Salon was a spiritual and physical extension of Sprinkle’s identity.  Her radicalism was translated into fetish, tattoo, and body modification parties, while her pledge to sexual positivity emulated in female empowerment sex classes like Sluts and Goddesses…and her role as a leader in the sex industry was equally translated into sex worker rights groups like PONY (Prostitutes Of New York) and porn support groups like Club 90.  Above all, the Sprinkle Salon was a central point for New York’s underground sexual rebellion and a place to push the revolution into the rights of fetishists, porn stars, and sex workers…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#848) 

Liz Brown on the “sex robot” fantasy:

…The idea of sex machines as technological comeuppance for women who dared declare their liberation has grown alongside the boom in misogynist online media…But here’s the bad news for the men dreaming of a sexbot…”Harmony”…is as close as we’ve come so far to a consumer sexbot.  And she’s more Tamagotchi than Westworld…there is little to suggest that sexbots will be more than a fascinating “niche”…There will certainly be some of your “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW) types, those who see sex robots as a way around the problem of women’s inconvenient humanity.  And there will be fetishists — those for whom the synthetic and robotic elements are the appeal…There are also likely to be novelty users…None of this seems terribly scary, and certainly not the catastrophe some fear…because most people are looking for something much more complicated than a well-engineered masturbatory machine…

Traffic Circle (#880)

A pearl-clutching hack incompetently tries to present the shitty management of a part-time strip club as “evidence” of “sex trafficking” in a rural area during hunting season:

…from September to November…Frank Day’s [bar] opens a short-term strip club, specifically catering to a rush of pheasant hunters who travel [to South Dakota]here from all over the country toting shotguns and cash to burn.  Pheasant hunting season…comes with a dark side: sex trafficking…Pop-up strip clubs…can trap freelance dancers in a web of exorbitant fees…making them vulnerable to being illegally exploited by traffickers…South Dakota is dawning to the realization that human trafficking isn’t just a big-city problem.  It’s…modern slavery…as…men [magically] control…women and sell their [soulless] bodies for sex…“People of South Dakota don’t think it’s happening in their backyard, but it is,” [panted prohibitionist] Lisa Heth…

Epilogue:  The idiot who wrote this dreck actually tried to mansplain the stripping business to a well-known stripper who writes about stripping when she called him on his BS on Twitter.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Diary #439

November 27, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

Last week was really quite lovely.  Late Wednesday afternoon I drove out to Sunset with Jae, and the next day we feasted with Grace and Chekhov, and Savannah Sly and a couple of her friends joined us.  It was the first time I’ve been able to present a proper sit-down holiday feast in my own place since the early 90s; every other place I’ve lived since then hasn’t had an actual dining room, therefore no place to serve sit-down dinners.  That may seem a small thing to some of you; after all, I’ve owned relatively-large (compared to most people I know) parcels of land for 16 years now, so you’d think I could’ve had a simple dining room.  But somehow, it has never worked out that way; my attempts to build my own house resulted in failure, and my apartment in Seattle is cozy, but too small for a proper table.  So having one now is a kind of sign that I’m going in the right direction at last:  the house at Sunset wasn’t a dream home, but it’s serviceable and getting nicer by the week.  After the floor is leveled Grace will be building bookshelves, and Jae is working on the decor for me.  On Friday I walked the newly-cleared fence line and discussed the fencing project with Chekhov, and we even found a tree to bring inside for Christmas.  And every time I go, I get a few more of my books out of boxes and onto temporary shelving.  It’s not perfect, but it’s progress.  And that’s the most I’ve been able to say about my home in a very long time.

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Unsafe for Human Consumption

November 26, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

This tweet from a government agency is not only blatantly false, it’s not even good propaganda.  Fentanyl is not only “safe for human consumption”, it’s a powerful pain reliever used in hospitals all over the world.  The only reason simpletons (such as those who work for NIDA) believe it’s “bad” or “unsafe” is because due to the war on drugs, it has become harder to get prescription opiates; heroin and other opiates are therefore cut with fillers to extend them and their potency is kicked back up by adding fentanyl, which is easier to smuggle because it’s so concentrated.  Of course, because it is so concentrated, even a small error in dosage can be catastrophic.  This is not only 100% predictable, it’s so inevitable a consequence it is called the Iron Law of Prohibition.

“Molly” is slang for MDMA, a drug that is not only non-addictive but far safer than alcohol; indeed it is one of the safest drugs known.  Its healing properties are obvious to anyone who has ever used it (including yours truly) and to the many researchers who have studied it as a therapy for PTSD; indeed, even the notoriously tight-arsed US FDA has approved more clinical trials and could approve it for general use in about two more years.  So why the bad reputation among the ignorant?  See the previous paragraph.  Most of what is sold as “ecstasy” contains very little MDMA, mostly consisting of methamphetamine and the usual filler garbage.  It has such a bad reputation, in fact, that a new term arose to identify comparatively-pure preparations of the drug.  And what’s NIDA’s excuse for claiming otherwise?  The FDA hasn’t finished casting the magic Spell of Approval yet, which will no doubt make it as safe as legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco (as long as one has the magic Scroll of Prescription on hand, of course).

K2, “spice” and similar drugs are synthetic cannabinoids sold as “legal highs” in places where cannabis, the safest recreational drug known to mankind, is banned.  Naturally these drugs are more dangerous than the real thing, because every drug is; however, they’re also far more dangerous than other banned recreational drugs such as MDMA and LSD.  So why does anyone use them?  Because they can’t get cannabis, of course.  Simply put, most drugs aren’t “unsafe for human consumption” when properly-prepared doses are used responsibly; prohibition, however, has been repeatedly proven to be unsafe to humans in any form.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Links #438

November 25, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Two days before the last Links column posted, author and screenwriter William Goldman, best known for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid passed away.  But I wasn’t about to elbow that news into the same column as Stan Lee’s obituary; losing two master storytellers in one week was already bad enough without cheating one of them of his proper respect.  The links above the video (which I think you’ll agree is an appropriate choice) were provided by Mike Siegel, Phoenix Calida, Franklin Harris, Thaddeus Russell, David Ley, and Kevin Wilson, in that order.

From the Archives

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In the News (#890)

November 24, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

These people watch their neighbors through the window and then complain about what they see?  –  Sem Meier

Public Service Announcement 

When will politicians learn that in the Puritanical States of America, pictures are considered worse than actual sex?

Cross Coburn, who served as an openly gay councilman in a small Texas city…was ousted in a recall election…nine months after he was told that City Hall had received an anonymous package of nude photos that Mr. Coburn had sent in private messages on a dating app.  Those photos were later sent to the local news media, after which supporters of a petition to remove him questioned whether he fit the “moral standards” of the city…

Picket-fence gays who threw sex workers and other LGBT “undesirables” under the bus to show bigots they were “just like them” have no business complaining when the bigots take them at their word.

South of the Border

Under all the weird feminist/MRA claptrap in this dumpsterrific article, its main coherent point is the “No shit, Sherlock” observation that prohibition results in border businesses which provide the prohibited product or service:

For more than a century, the US–Mexico border has been associated with the search for cheap, easy vice by Americans…by the mid–20th century, communities from Nuevo Laredo to Tijuana had become hubs for sex tourism, drawing tens of thousands of men across the border into specially designated neighborhoods like Zona Norte in Tijuana…The sex industry in Tijuana is a multimillion-dollar enterprise that employs thousands [an is]…a major driver of the city’s economy…

The Truth About “The Truth About…” 

Another of those nonexistent false assault accusations:

Cristopher “CJ” Precopia very nearly spent the rest of his life in prison after being accused of assault by his ex-girlfriend.  The woman, who despite obviously reporting a false crime has still not been named or charged, claimed Precopia broke into her house and attacked her with a box cutter, slashing an “X” into her chest…The 21-year-old Williamson County, TX, man [said]…he was confused when he was arrested on September 22, 2017…[because] he couldn’t remember when he last spoke to the woman, whom he had dated years earlier in high school…His parents paid his $150,000 bond plus thousands more in legal fees to clear his name.  The accuser said the attack happened on September 20, 2017 around 7:20 p.m., but Precopia’s mother, Erin, knew her son was…with [her that night] at a…hotel…about 65 miles away from where the alleged attack happened…She had taken a selfie with her son that night and posted it to Facebook.  The photo was time-stamped and geo-located, proving Precopia was nowhere near the woman the night of the alleged attack…It [still] took nine months for the charges against Precopia to be dropped.  His accuser [later] told police she made the accusation because the two had a difficult relationship years ago in high school…

Finding What Isn’t There (#778)

Because the numbers simply don’t support the myth, prohibitionists now claim they don’t need proof:

[Because] the FBI…report…on the number of human trafficking cases in the U.S. [doesn’t support the hysteria, a prohibitionist claims] the crime continues to be vastly under-reported…[fetishist] Amy Farrell of Northeastern University…[imagines] thousands…of cases…compared with the…official count of about 600 [accusations]…simpl[e] prostitution [cases make up the vast majority of the]…more than 36,000 arrests in “prostitution and commercial vice” cases.  When federal authorities [are forced to prove these cases actually constitute genuine]…human trafficking, the numbers aren’t very high…

Down Under (#876)

Swedish model regimes would’ve targeted the victim for surveillance:

A sex worker outed online by an angry wife and labelled a “diseased town bicycle” says she has not spoken to her daughter in two-and-a-half years since being exposed.  Margaret Herewini-Te Huna [outed]…Danna Burton as a sex worker, after finding out her [estranged] husband had been seeing her…Burton cried, took shaky breaths, and had to pause several times as she described how the offending had ruined her relationship with her family…She has…not spoken to…her daughters since April 2016, except via email. “[One of them] is under the false belief that I’m in trouble and in need of help and rehabilitation”…Judge Peter Hobbs…sentenced [Herewini-Te Huna] to 150 hours of community work and ordered an emotional harm reparation payment of $500…

Uncommon Sense (#877)

How countries with healthy ideas about sex react to moral panic:

Several residents who live in [a] brothel’s vicinity recently wrote a letter to the city officials [of Arbon, Switzerland], c…lai[m]ing…sights and sounds emanat[e] from the facility, and asking authorities to shut it down…But municipal officials responded that the brothel will be allowed to operate because of the valuable service it provides.  “This establishment has a right to exist, as it fulfills the social need of the population,” authorities wrote in a letter to the complainants.  They added that the disturbances have a “neighborly character” and are accidental rather than intentional…

The Widening Gyre (#879)

It’s lovely to see cops with egg all over their faces for imagining ordinary things as “sex trafficking”:

The city of Brighton, England, went into a panic…when a [“sex trafficking” fetishist imagined] a…child abduction at the shopping center [after seeing]…a man squatting down to talk to a little girl in a pink coat…”Police had scrambled helicopters, searched cars…and carried out door-to-door enquiries…CCTV images of a man leading a child by the hand in the street was later on released by Sussex Police…some seven hours after the alert was first raised…A man contacted them…as a result of news and social media coverage to say that the image…was of him and his three-year-old daughter…“

Disaster (#881) 

Fascism in action:

…I can’t think of a better way to put it than Gizmodo does:  “Facebook has been exposed as utter garbage yet again.”  A new investigation from The New York Times reveals how the company responded to controversies over Russian influence and user-data privacy with “an aggressive lobbying campaign” against rivals and critics…Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs to spread George Soros conspiracy theories, tarnish protesters’ credibility, and defame critics as anti-Semitic….[it] chose to support FOSTA (and its Senate counterpart, SESTA)…as a political tactic to tar opponents and cozy up to Congressional critics…And so Facebook stood athwart “Big Tech” and with the right side of the establishment power-grubbing consensus, as Twitter, Google, and other major tech companies and digital platforms opposed the bills for the sham and harbinger of internet destruction  that they were…

To Molest and Rape (#882) 

Prince George’s County, Maryland is known for both rapist cops and anti-whore tyranny:

Multiple police officers from Prince George’s County and Washington, DC – are under investigation for…[raping] sex workers.  A transgender sex worker…said that the officers are using their authority to coerce the sex workers…[under threat of] arrest…[the rapists] have not been publicly identified, nor have they been formally charged with any crimes, but the departments involved have confirmed the officers are under investigation…[one] video shows a…[cop] in a marked Prince George’s county police cruiser.  Other images show a man wearing only a DC police polo shirt and naked below the waist.  Multiple sources have [identified]…the man [as] a DC police lieutenant…

Besides the rapist in the subtitle-linked item, there’s also this one.  And the county’s high-profile stings, asinine propaganda and efforts to make sex workers homeless have made it notorious in the past few years.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Yuletide 2018

November 23, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

It’s getting harder every year to avoid being exposed to premature Christmas decorations and music; this year I saw a few things in late September.   SEPTEMBER.  And I was seeing “Black Friday” garbage in my garbage email long before Halloween (I have a standing filter which automatically trashes any email with “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday” in the subject line).  But in the past few years I’ve learned to minimize my non-grocery shopping in October and November so as to avoid being enraged by hasty idiots who don’t understand the concept of timeliness, so it wasn’t intolerable.  Every year on this day, the traditional beginning of the Yuletide season in the US, I remind my readers that the real spirit of the season involves giving to others rather than literally fighting to get more for yourself.  Children and whores are St. Nick’s two favorite groups of people; you can help the latter by donating to a sex worker charity such as SWOP Behind Bars, or you can help BOTH by booking a session with a sex worker you know has kids. If you don’t know any, you can help by participating in my annual Toys for Tots special, which for a small expenditure will allow you extra time with me while bringing a little bit of joy to needy children.  From now until December 11th, book a session with me and bring up to six new, unwrapped toys with you, and I’ll add ten minutes per toy to your time!  If you prefer, bring an extra $100 and I’ll extend your time by half an hour (then use the hundred to buy toys). Please let me know when booking you want to take advantage of the special, so I can allow for the time in my schedule. If you don’t want a full date but would like to meet me, for $100 and three toys (or $150 cash) I will have an hour-long coffee meeting with you anywhere in the Seattle area.  If you don’t live near me, please consider donating via PayPal (to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net) or Cash app (to $MaggieMcNeill) anyway; make sure you note what part of your donation is for toys and what part for me (it’s perfectly OK to tell me to spend it all on toys; I don’t mind).  And if you want to take advantage of the special but don’t have time to actually see me by the 11th, that’s OK too; you can prepay and schedule the appointment for later.  I want to make this as easy as possible for you, so together we can bring joy to needy children who might otherwise have nothing on Christmas morning.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Philosophy | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Thanksgiving 2018

November 22, 2018 by Maggie McNeill


Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! To you, and also to my readers outside the US, I wish y’all all the peace and prosperity you could hope for, and then some. Blessed Be!

Posted in Holidays | Tagged | 3 Comments »

In the News (#889)

November 21, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

With all the legitimately pressing problems facing America today, it’s astonishing that anyone could earnestly advocate for more obscenity prosecutions.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Above the Law  

We’re so lucky to have these brave heroes to protect us from refugees:

Police in Alpine, Texas, have charged a National Guardsman stationed near the Mexico border with sexual assault after…he drunkenly tried to rape a woman in a hotel.  Luis Ontiveros…is accused of assaulting…[another] member of the National Guard…[who] had…thrown up from drinking too much…He took her clothes off before she was able to get out of the hotel room…and knocked on the hotel room door next to hers, telling the man who answered that Ontiveros had tried to rape her…

A Mound of Filth (#506)

More “sex slave” fantasies from Dominique “Body Fluids” Roe-Sepowitz:

The latest numbers from the FBI show in 2017 Arizona was third in the nation for human trafficking offenses…[Ignorant prohibitionists fantasize] it is impacting people from all walks of life.  “It is anybody.  Businessmen, junkies from the street, anybody looking for sex,” said an [anonymous prohibitionist]…Dominique Roe-Sepowitz is an associate professor [who makes a living stoking “sex trafficking” hysteria by making up fake statistics.]…”In Arizona, we [claim] we have about 250 kids a year and about 800 adults a year [involved in sex trafficking],” [she] said…She [moaned and put her hand down her pants while fantasizing that]…traffickers are creative and calculating when targeting their victims…It happens through social media, in public buildings and parks and even in front of schools.  “They’re going to find that child wherever they are”…

Forward and Backward (#604)

UK politicians don’t like policies that oppose their harm magnification agenda:

…Leeds Council [is considering]…closure of the Leeds ‘managed zone’, in which sex workers are able to solicit for business in a designated area without fear of arrest…Regulation via zoning is not ideal but any solution which increases safety for sex workers, allows them to report crimes and brings down the number of arrests is important.  Working without fear of arrest means sex workers aren’t running from the police are more able to use basic safety measures like working in close proximity to each other and sharing information about clients…outreach charity Basis Yorkshire [says]…97% of sex workers are now willing to report crimes to the police, compared with just 7% before the scheme launched.  There has been a dramatic uptake in engagement with health and support services…

For over a year now, the Leeds red light district has been the subject of a smear campaign by prohibitionists, with the help of the BBC.

Welcome to the Future (#607)

“Immigrant Council of Ireland” is the deceptive name of one of the most vile prohibitionist organizations in Europe:

Police across Europe should be given the resources to spy on…sex workers’ homes to prevent prostitution, a report has said.  The Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) was one of six organisations to examine laws on sex work and trafficking across Europe.  The group’s Disrupt Demand report called for more [police violence vs. sex workers and clients]…and [more] “surveillance operations on indoor locations”…

Most news coverage of this “report” tries to make it sound like a study, when in fact it’s just a collection of prohibitionist fantasies and demands with no new material of any kind.

The Puritan Recrudescence

The natural result of widespread kowtowing to the heckler’s veto:

…Nina Hartley went to University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to give an optional lecture to students…about STI testing, the importance of consent, and the potential pitfalls of learning about sex from porn.  The talk was soberly titled, “Fantasy vs. Reality: A critical view of adult media.”  There were no explicit images or videos, just an informational Powerpoint slide.  And yet, of course, conservative media outlets are losing their shit over it, because a porn star (who is also a sex educator and activist) spoke with our kids (who are actually legal adults) about fucking (but really much more).  Hartley was invited to speak by Joe Gow, the chancellor of the university…with…$5,000 from Gow’s office fund, as opposed to with state tax dollars…sensationalistic headlines…desperately attempted to turn it into a tawdry sex scandal…Then Fox News jumped into the fray.  The outcry was such that Gow felt the need to pen an op-ed in the La Crosse Tribune…in [which]…he…agreed to personally compensate the university for Hartley’s $5,000 appearance fee…[and] book…a speaker from Fight the New Drug, a [Mormon-backed prohibitionist organization]…infamous for using bad science, shoddy data, and alarmist first-person stories to demonize pornography…

Count the Idiocies

Since this is suburban Seattle, I could’ve done this one stoned:

Sex trafficking is happening in plain sight in Snohomish County1, according to nurse practitioner Paula Newman-Skomski2.  “It’s most visible is along Highway 99,” she said.3  This past weekend [Operation Cross-Country] found 13 female victims of sex trafficking – two of the victims are juveniles4. No arrests were made.  The FBI said the victims were offered referrals to a variety of resources.5…”Every year we identify 40 to 45 juveniles involved in the trafficking trade here in Snohomish County,” said Newman-Skomski.6…”…easily transported up and down the I-5 corridor.”7  It is the kind of illegal activity the FBI focused on when it shut down Backpage.com8…Peoria Home in Everett…is a two-year, residential recovery program for women 18 and over who have been exploited through sex trafficking and prostitution.  It opened in April9…

1 No, it isn’t. If it were cops would be crowing about it.
2 Whom nobody around here has ever heard of before.
3 No, Those are street workers.
4 No, they got 13 bites in a sting; the fact that they didn’t arrest them could mean several different things.
5 Such as finger-painting classes and the number of the welfare office.
6 No, they don’t; that would represent some 20% of all sex workers in Greater Seattle.  Underage sex workers represent only about 3-4% of all sex workers.
7 Interstates cause sex trafficking!
8 No, it isn’t.
9 “Rescue” profiteers are utterly shameless.

Why I Wait (#812)

Most of this article is the usual garbage: equating dating with sex, pointedly ignoring commercial sex, pretending that people answer surveys on stigmatized subjects honestly, etc.  But there was one paragraph which contained some possible clues to the reasons any actual decrease (however small) might exist:

…it might be a consequence of…surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use…of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics [and soy products], of dropping testosterone levels…of helicopter parents…of sleep deprivation, of obesity…

In my estimation, the most likely candidate for this supposed decline is the ongoing culture war on sex, which discourages people from being honest about their sexuality (especially activity involving sex workers).  In other words they aren’t really having less sex; they’re just admitting it less.

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#815) 

Regular readers will recognize Alberta’s article as completely unmoored from reality:

There’s been a “total abandonment of pornography as a battleground in America’s culture war,” writes Politico reporter Tim Alberta in “How the GOP Gave Up on Porn“.  He couldn’t be more wrong.  The flashpoints have shifted certainly since the 1970s and ’80s, when Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority teamed with second-wave feminists to take on Playboy and Hustler.  And social conservatives’ embrace of President Donald Trump does present a stark contrast to earlier eras…But such hypocrisy should not be mistaken for a radical repositioning of Republican dogma on “obscenity”…it was just two years ago that Republicans added language to their official party platform that declared porn “has become a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions“…Last year, Republicans in at least a dozen state legislatures introduced measures to ban porn access for anyone who wouldn’t pay a $20 fine…But never mind reality.  Fresh from declaring that there’s been no recent Republican action against porn because he doesn’t personally remember it, Alberta gets right to theorizing about why…

See No Evil (#854) 

Prosecutors want to cage a man for twenty years for drawings of fictional characters:

…a Rapid City, South Dakota, man was charged in federal district court with…Possession of Obscene Visual Representations of the Sexual Abuse of Children…Andrew Hallock…pleaded not guilty to the charges…[which carry] a mandatory minimum of 5 years up to 20 years in federal prison and/or a $250,000 fine…The charges [derive from] Hallock…possessing…sexually explicit drawings and cartoons of minors…The investigation is being conducted by the I[maginary] Crimes Against [Imaginary] Children Taskforce…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#885)

Politicians send thugs to violently assault women to advance vain Disnification campaign:

Police and military personnel [brutalized] and detained 53 Laotians–50 women and three girls who were allegedly employed as sex workers–during raids on karaoke bars in southern Thailand’s Narathiwat province…Authorities could not find and arrest the bar owners during the raids, but they were…[threatening] the…sex workers…[with] prosecut[ion] for prostitution [to intimidate as many of them as possible into claiming to be “trafficking victims”]…

No Difference (#886)

Tanzania ramps up its pogroms against gay men:

International human rights organisations have condemned…the harassment and arrest of gay men in Tanzania, following comments from a government official on plans to establish a task force to identify, track down and arrest people suspected of being gay…ten men were arrested on suspicion of being gay on…Zanzibar after members of the public [ratted] them [out] to police.  They are being held…with[out] charge…for allegedly conducting a same-sex marriage ceremony, and the police reported they found the men sitting in pairs “two by two”…

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Diary #438

November 20, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

Things are moving forward slowly but surely at Sunset.  Grace and Chekhov are very friendly with one of our neighbors, who as it turns out owns a tractor with a stump-pulling arm which is also equipped with a GPS; what that means when one puts it all together is a quick and easy way to clear a fenceline.  He gave me a very good price and did the work on Friday, which means we can now put a fence around the perimeter and Jonathan and Shiloh will have a lot more room to move around and graze in.  Jae is starting to decorate the house; any of you who have been to my incall know that she’s very good at it, and it gives me joy to see her taking frequent trips out to Sunset, employing her skills and playing with her pony.  Tomorrow we’ll be headed out there for Thanksgiving, and though I won’t be back in Seattle until Sunday I will be taking appointments for my annual toy drive; if you don’t know what that’s about, or you do but need a reminder, be sure to look in on Friday!

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A Catalogue of Bullshit

November 19, 2018 by Maggie McNeill

Every so often an article is just so chock full of prohibitionist idiocy it not only defies categorization, but also cries out for more extensive mockery than I can give it in a news column.  This one, from a small-town paper in Wisconsin, is virtually a catalogue of prohibitionist bullshit, so let’s not waste any time in getting to the vivisection.

People ordinarily interpret human trafficking to be something like the horrors of the action-thriller movie Taken.  Though it absolutely happens…

No, it absolutely doesn’t.  See the tag “The Face of Trafficking” for what actual examples of coerced prostitution look like; you’ll find neither off-the-street abductions of middle-class white American girls nor Ramboesque “rescues”.

…In reality, the definition of human trafficking is the recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining or attempting to maintain a person through force, fraud and coercion for labor, services or commercial sex acts…

Wouldn’t it be nice if that really were the operating definition instead of just the one they use in articles?  In reality, “human trafficking” means whatever “authorities” want it to mean, most often plain old mundane sex work.  For example, look at the next moronic statement:

…“Child sex trafficking has been identified in every Wisconsin county,” [career prohibitionist Morgan Young] said…

If that were actually true, it would’ve made national news.  In reality, unless we’re looking at a really long span of time (say, the entire 21st century so far), it’s very unlikely that cops have even arrested an underage sex worker in most of Wisconsin’s largely-rural counties.  But throw in a weasel-word like “identified” and the sentence isn’t as blatantly ridiculous to amateurs.

…advocates for domestic violence and sexual assault victims, probation and social work clients, the aging and disability population, and the low-income and homeless communities.  Professionals from the law enforcement, medical, legal, faith-based and economic development fields also participated…

Yes, this was a bunch of pigs, prigs, bureaucrats, busybodies and profiteers getting together to share fantasies about a group they conspicuously excluded from the wankfest, because we’d have rained on their parade with actual facts.

…Recent studies show that 15 is the average age a female becomes trafficked…

Nudging a lie up by two years makes it no less a lie.  This has been debunked so many times even arch-prohibitionists Polaris now grudgingly admit it’s bullshit.

…Traffickers…can be men, women, husbands, wives, neighbors or coworkers of all races, genders and cultures…

It’s easy to make imaginary people of any demographic group, provided one’s imagination isn’t entirely racist and sexist.

…Other risk factors of people who may be swept up into trafficking include impulsivity, interest in risk-taking, desire for love and acceptance, low self-worth, family conflict, mental health issues, physical abuse history, substance abuse, loneliness, poverty, limited language abilities, a lack of understanding rights and laws, criminal records, minimal education and workforce skills, cultural shame and more…

If one wants to deny people’s agency so as to have an excuse for overruling their personal decisions and inflicting violence on them, stigmatizing mental health conditions, substance use, migrant status and normal adolescent angst is a really good way to start.

…“Sometimes it’s really hard to reprogram people [to believe] they have more to offer than [sex],” Young said. “They can feel like they’ve chosen this”…

Yes, that’s the ever-vile “false consciousness” paradigm there; anyone who behaves in a way “authorities” think she shouldn’t is clearly a passive victim without true free will.  Young is so convinced of her own rectitude that she doesn’t even realize what she’s saying about herself by using the word “reprogram”.

…”trafficking also means threatening to cause harm”…

That’s right, if someone threatens you that means you’re a “sex trafficking” victim!  It really does mean whatever they want it to mean.

…it is more profitable to force victims into prostitution, where they can be “sold” over and over again…

This is taken directly from cop anti-gang propaganda; cops now pretend bogeyman “gangs” are abandoning the drug trade for “sex trafficking” because “drugs can only be sold once, but a girl can be sold many times.”  Translated from the Copese, this means “We’re now using a new excuse to persecute the same people we always have.”

…human trafficking involving minors may also include dancing…

This is a very common lie, despite the fact that raids on strip clubs virtually never turn up anyone under 18 (for obvious reasons).

…That hierarchy of power and control is the reason most victims are not easily convinced that law enforcement, social workers or other crisis professionals are there to help them…

No, the reason they’re not easily convinced is the fact that cops are actually there to harass, rape, rob and cage them, and social workers offer nothing but bog rolls, finger-painting classes and shaming.  If sex work were decriminalized and social workers actually offered real and profitable alternatives to sex work, the story might be different.

…A young woman might need help and services, but as Young said, she still may feel like a “bad kid who is going to be punished…they feel like the trafficker is someone they love and trust, and how dare any of us gets between that relationship”…

Prohibitionists’ heads are lodged so far up their own rectal cavities, they don’t recognize how obvious their attempts to infantilize sex workers and pass judgments on their relationships are.

…She added that these cases look a lot like domestic violence situations…

This is the only almost-true statement in the whole farrago of nonsense and lies.  I say “almost” because the situations she’s talking about aren’t “almost” domestic violence; they are domestic violence.  That “almost” is there to maintain the lies that 1) their relationships aren’t real relationships (see previous item); an 2) that “trafficking” is some special case requiring a whole rescue industry.

…95 percent of human trafficking victims are chemically-dependent and 90 percent have prior criminal records…

No truly stupid “sex trafficking” screed is complete without a brand-new made-up “statistic”; because these fantasists know their audiences are mathematically-illiterate, it’s rare that the claimed bad thing is said to be below 90%.

…Additional goals of the response team are to…continue shutting down and making sex-buying websites illegal…

Just in case you doubted that for the most part, prohibitionists just use “sex trafficking” as a dysphemism for “sex work”.  The article closes with a not-atypical list of “signs of sex trafficking” which could apply to a very large fraction of hotel guests, and are therefore excuses for more surveillance, snitching and police violence.  Of course, useful idiots like Young (and the author of the article) are unable to see this; they’re so invested in their “sex slave” masturbatory fantasy and the idea of cops as mighty heroes (the word “mighty” is actually used in this mess to describe vice pigs) that they’re completely unable to understand their role in destroying freedom for everyone rather than just people who have sex lives.

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