The
days are getting longer and warmer already; I’m not turning my lamp on until 5 PM now, and a couple of days ago I took the second blanket off of my bed after several episodes of waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat. I’m able to wear lighter clothes with a coat as long as I know I’m going someplace warm, and at least this isn’t New Orleans where the end of freezing cold weather means the arrival of oppressively hot weather; in Seattle, it’ll still be cool until June unless we get another crazy heat wave like we did last April. And of course, in just a few weeks we’ll be subjected to the idiotic annual ritual in which we all agree to lie about what time it is for the next eight months. What all this means is that, while my friends with Seasonal Affective Disorder are beginning to get some relief, I’m heading into the dreadful days where my pineal gland starts engaging in the neurochemical equivalent of running around the house, turning on all the lights and cranking up the stereo full-blast while screaming obscenities, scattering its clothes all over the floor, losing the car keys, making an unholy mess in the kitchen and refusing to do its homework. And that in turn means I’ll need to become much more assiduous in my rotation of sleep-inducing drugs again; in the winter I’ve been able to be kind of lazy about it, but now I’ll need to up the doses and mind that I don’t get too resistant to any one thing for it to be useful any more. Such is the life of a neuro-atypical person, or at least the part of it I can discuss in polite company without giving anyone the vapors or causing nightmares which will ruin their sleep.
Posted in Diary | Tagged blogging, drugs, psychology | 2 Comments »
I’m going to assume most of you, even those with English degrees, are unfamiliar with the term “counter word”. It’s a linguistic term; a counter word is a word or phrase with no current intrinsic meaning, which is used to signal one’s membership in the in-group who use that word. “Counter” in this sense means a counter used in a game, such as a poker chip; it has no actual value outside of the game, but it is used to participate in the game. Two examples from my younger days both came from television commercials for hamburger chains; one was from this 1992 commercial for Rally’s:
The ad was so popular that soon everyone (at least on the Gulf Coast) was running around yelling “Cha-ching!” at every available opportunity. At first it was mostly used appropriately, as a way of saying something was expensive (“I paid $100 for these sneakers.” “Whoa, cha-ching!”) but it soon turned into an exclamation of victory or appreciation for an insult (something like the way people use “Oh, snap!” now), and within months, due to somehow becoming associated with the New Orleans Saints football team, it meant nothing at all; it was just something people would randomly exclaim to show that they were “cool” and in on the joke. At the nadir of this absurdity, a local used car dealer actually exclaimed “Cha-ching!” at the end of one of his television commercials, apparently unaware that to anyone who remembered the original ad he was implying that his autos were badly overpriced! The other example, which perhaps more of you may recognize, was from a 1984 Wendy’s ad:
As with “cha-ching!” it didn’t take “Where’s the beef?” long to go from an expression people used to mean something like, “What’s going on?” or “Are you kidding me?” to signifying nothing more than, “Hey, I’ve heard other people saying this, aren’t I cool?” This isn’t a phenomenon of my lifetime; soon after the turn of the 20th century the phrase “23 skidoo!” went from meaning something like “let’s make tracks” or “scram!” to meaning, as in the other examples, essentially nothing; it was printed on buttons and pennants and people would shout it at each other in greeting as they did with “Cha-ching” over 80 years later.
If you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up now, it’s because the phrase “human trafficking” has become nothing more than a political counter word. In the ’90s, it was generally used to mean the smuggling of people across borders in defiance of immigration restrictions, but by the turn of the century governments and anti-immigration groups had subtly twisted it to mean only exploitative smuggling practices (which they of course represented as all of them), and it didn’t take long for the exploitative labor situations migrants often ended up in to be rolled into the term. Prohibitionists started representing all migrant sex work as a form of “human trafficking”, and the US government soon obligingly negated the agency of all underage sex workers by defining them as “human trafficking victims” whether they actually migrated, were coerced or were treated in any way which could even tangentially intersect the previously-understood meaning of the term “trafficking”. Certainly, the shift in meaning of the term “drug trafficking” from meaning “drug smuggling” to mere “drug selling” is parallel and probably intertwined with this broadening and thinning of the meaning of “human trafficking”, but the latter became far more nebulous than the former ever did; by 2012 I had identified 23 different meanings of the phrase “human trafficking”, 11 of the phrase “trafficking victim” and 12 of the slur “human trafficker”. In the past five years those related phrases have become broader and far more vague, and are applied willy-nilly to anyone and anything “authorities” or prohibitionists want to restrict, censor, spy on, interfere in, attempt to ban, or inflict violence upon.
“Human trafficking” (and especially “sex trafficking”) have become nothing but authoritarian counter words; they have lost their original meanings as surely as “23 skidoo” and “Where’s the beef?” did. I therefore call upon all activists, allies, and well-meaning people in the so-called “anti-trafficking” movement (and yes, there are some, such as GAATW) to stop using the term unless there is no other alternative. If you mean “exploitative labor conditions”, say that. If you mean “forced prostitution”, say that. If you mean “underage survival sex”, say that. If you mean “smuggling undocumented migrants”, say that. A phrase used to mean everything means nothing at all, and a phrase that means nothing isn’t a useful term for serious adults; it’s a fad for the immature and silly.
Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, Words | Tagged advertising, agency denial, hysteria, illegal aliens, language, prohibitionist myths, underage, video | 9 Comments »
If you have medical questions don’t get second-hand information…from a ghost. – Dr. Jen Guntner
Yes, I’m actually subjecting you to an old episode of Family Feud, not only because it has the cast of the old Batman TV show on it, but because one of them is Vincent Price (who honestly doesn’t have a big enough part to make me happy). If this annoys you, blame Franklin Harris. And you can blame the links above it on Jesse Walker (“Dracula”), Eddie J Cunningham (“never”), Scott Greenfield (“state”), Korhomme (“ghost”), and Clarissa (“safe”).
- Stop faking!
- Dracula in Iceland.
- Never means never.
- Down the rabbit hole.
- Not a police state, no sirree!
- Medical advice from a ghost.
- Neither safe, sane nor consensual.
From the Archives
- Sometimes it’s hard to believe the people who write these stories actually take them seriously.
- Julie Bindel claims the “pimp lobby” includes me, two prohibitionist shills and a dead guy.
- I’m not sure why The Local thinks prostitution is illegal in Italy, when it definitely isn’t.
- There’s no badge-licking quite as nauseating as in stories about vice stings.
- Barely a week passes than I or one of my friends isn’t quoted in the media.
- Accurate headline: “Woman prevented from working to support her child”.
- A profession as old as human civilization, yet somehow always “growing”.
- The magic word appears herein only in a description of a phone number.
- Another jurisdiction classifies women as passive objects without agency.
- If antis want to “rescue” whores, why do they keep us from other jobs?
- We wouldn’t want to waste effort investigating the rapes of “criminals”.
- The cost of prostitution laws to ONE Texas county: $1.2 million a year.
- Liz Brown tries to assess the toll in lives from a Swanee Hunt pogrom.
- Cops trick strippers into revealing “buttocks crevice”, then bust them.
- Pussy Riot, cops, stalkers, hoaxes, clowns, judges and drug cartoons.
- The more sex workers and former sex workers come out, the better.
- Massage parlors are taking the brunt of “sex trafficking” hysteria.
- Stupid whore idiot doubles herself down into my Hall of Shame.
- Remember, kids, the Swedish modelTM eliminates prostitution!
- Anti-whore “studies” aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
- Oh, California Massage Therapy Council, please never change.
- Raped by a cop? Say he’s your client; that, they’ll fire him for.
- About the least-infuriating coverage of this story I could find.
- The largest ever study into the health of trafficking victims.
- Because women are too stupid to use AirBnB for ourselves.
- In which “sex trafficking” is defined as simple prostitution.
- Reminder: Spitzer’s a fan of choking women during sex.
- It’s astonishing to realize that these people are serious.
- The rash of murders of black transwomen continues.
- “Disabled people are just as horny as anybody else.”
- A look at “sex trafficking” fakumentaries, plus one.
- As opposed to what, legal trafficking of minors?
- The war on sex worker advertising continues.
- More Swedish model shenanigans in the UK.
- A short biography of Lord Nelson’s mistress.
- Is there a serial killer in Anchorage, Alaska?
- “Anti-trafficking” stunts grow ever stupider.
- This is kind of like “legalizing” prostitution.
- A functioning police state needs no police.
- China claims phone apps have hormones.
- The DSK “pimping” case nearly unravels.
- Another sex worker who subverts hijab.
- Parallels between abortion & sex work.
- Swanee’s brother. Need I say more?
- More lies about the Swedish model.
- Cops, dead videos and much more.
- Facebook causes “sex trafficking”!
- Is a sex-for-job deal prostitution?
- Is it just me, or is this hilarious?
- “Grave concerns” about C-36.
- A fake “AirBnB for escorts”.
- Somaly Mam’s new charity.
- “Sex traffickers” use roads!
- Rapist cop of the week.
- Do I look like a whore?
- Pimp cop of the week.
- Normal men buy sex.
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny | Tagged animals, Arizona, BDSM, cops, Germany, Iceland, imaginative fiction, Michigan, Nebraska, Never Call the Cops, nostalgia, prisons, psychology, restaurants, Stop faking!, Twitter, video | Leave a Comment »
This has given me a fear of women. – Zachary
Who cares if a kid’s life is destroyed? We need to “send a message”!
Zachary, now 19, is in jail awaiting sentencing for five pictures his teenage girlfriend sent him of herself in her underwear. He faced a choice between a possible (though unlikely) maximum sentence of 350 years in prison, or lifetime on the sex offender registry as a “sexually violent offender”—even though he never met the girl in person…a month after Zachary turned 18, the girl sent him five pictures of herself in her underwear. Her face was not visible, nor were her private parts…Zachary was arrested and charged with 20 felonies, including indecent liberties with a minor, using a computer to propose sex, and “child porn reproduce/transmit/sell,” even though he did not send or sell the pictures to anyone…the pictures came to light because [the girl foolishly trusted]…a counselor…[who betrayed her] to…the police…
Kathy Xian didn’t start Pono Soaps to be just a health and beauty venture…[her] Hawaii-based…Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS) [works to harm sex workers and their clients]…PASS is responsible for the passage of 14 anti-[sex worker] state laws…She [fantasizes] that before that the laws, prostitution was “almost legal” in the state…In contrast to its image as a paradise, Xian said that Hawaii is a hub of human trafficking… “Because of its location”…
The idea that sex work was “almost legal” in Hawaii until recently will certainly come as a surprise to Hawaiian sex workers, who for years have been actively hunted by cops with explicit legal permission to rape them. Also, since as we all know interstate highways are the main cause of “sex trafficking”, one wonders how Hawaii has any at all.
Few people grow up dreaming of being a prostitute…Prohibitionists look at sex workers’ rates of disease and likelihood of being sexually assaulted — and, understandably, want to help…black-market prostitutes are less likely to get screened for sexually transmitted infections lest they alert doctors to their illegal professional activities…criminalizing prostitution makes sex trafficking more likely. One widely recognized consequence of prohibition is the formation of…large criminal enterprises with monopoly power…Prohibition does nothing to help [sex workers] exit the industry or provide them with education or other skills…
Massage parlors are popular targets of “anti-trafficking” pogroms because they’re low-hanging fruit:
[Rockford, Illinois] plans to [persecute]…massage parlors…some of the people involved in these businesses are being abused sometimes even young children [fantasizes]…Venita Hervey…The new law would give the city the power to shut down massage businesses that are involved in illegal activity without a valid license…
Wait, so Rockford issues licenses for illegal activity?
Sex rays could be harmful to sick people!
The Sun newspaper has publicly outed a newly-qualified nurse as a former gay porn star – for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The article…publishes the name, age and hospital that the young man works at, as well as his picture…patients or staff…were unaware of his background until The Sun chose to investigate the “story”…As well as publishing images taken from the man’s…adult films, the tabloid appears to have sent photographers to the man’s home to take undercover photos of him taking out the bins…
Nobody wants to admit that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:
Canada and Australia now have both reported charging men with breaking child pornography laws for possession of child sex dolls…the purpose of child porn laws is to protect children from being harmed in the production of child porn (where the images are themselves evidence of abuse)…With child sex dolls, however, there is no actual victim being protected, and it does not matter whether there is a market for latex dolls. Although it is very reasonable to conclude that the consumers purchasing sex dolls are genuinely attracted to children, there is no evidence to indicate that sex doll owners are at an elevated level of risk to go on to commit crimes that do involve a victim…Men who are attracted to children have no healthy outlet for their sex drives, and it will be that way for their entire lives. For someone who did not ask to be pedophilic and who cannot have romantic and sexual relationships like the rest of us, the only outlet they have is masturbation. For society to hamper even that, to me, is cruel when it is in the absence of a demonstrated societal benefit.
Before Lifetime agreed to make a movie called From Straight A’s to XXX, inspired by the true story of a Duke University freshman who moonlighted as a porn star to pay for college, the network had one condition. “[They] only wanted to do it if we told the story in such a way that it was not just about a salacious story,” said executive producer Sheri Singer…the film…is also a scathing indictment of skyrocketing college tuition prices – and it has a lot to say about the double standards of men who watch pornography and then shame the women who star in it…While Singer’s team reached out to Miriam multiple times, they received no response. So Singer and the screenwriter, Anne-Marie Hess [just did it anyway without her consent]…Singer is pleased with the movie’s perspective, especially given that it had female executive producers, a female screenwriter, a female director…and a female star…
Because it’s so “feminist” to proceed with exploiting someone just because you didn’t get an explicit “no”. One wonders how Singer and all her “feminist” cronies would feel if some dude they didn’t even know just went ahead and fucked them because they didn’t answer when he asked for sex?
Though this “academic” writer downplays the usual casting of Nigerian sex workers as ignorant victims of superstition, she’s still happy to portray them as helpless pawns rather than adults making difficult decisions under stressful circumstances:
Discussions about human trafficking between Africa and Europe are frequently blurred by generalisations about villainous traffickers and their naïve young victims who have been misled into prostitution. But the world of sex trafficking is far more complex…several studies have shown that Nigerian sex trafficking rings are dominated by women, known as madams, and use of black magic rituals…But…two [other dynamics] are important. The first is the active role that extended families play…the second is the fact that women themselves are nowadays increasingly aware of the work that awaits them, even though they cannot imagine how brutal and miserable it actually is. The lack of research has resulted in an incomplete understanding of the much more complex reality of the circumstances under which victims fall into the hands of traffickers…
Gee, who could’ve predicted this?
No-nudes were apparently not good news at Playboy…The 63-year-old legendary men’s magazine is bringing back nude models in its upcoming issue — one year after banning naked photos in an effort to boost circulation and attract more mainstream advertisers. That effort obviously has failed…
The Arizona anti-sex freakshow travels to Las Vegas:
A newly released study paints a picture of a violent and thriving sex trafficking industry in Las Vegas, with a majority of victims identified as children..Arizona State University…researchers…[claim to have] identified 247 known victims in 2014, most of them younger than 18 years old…Randy Carter…[fantasizes that] at 8 years old [he was shared by]…four pimps…Dr. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz [drooled while fantasizing about]…”a person who cut the cord off a hair straightener and…whipped the victim until she was in a coma. We saw a lot of sexual assaults…knocking out teeth…breaking bones”…Cindy McCain [is in cahoots with her]…[Las Vegas] Vice [pigs want everyone to rat sex workers out to them]…
So “Cuckoo Clock” McCain and “Body Fluids” Sepowitz want you to believe that Vegas is so lousy with pimps they’ve been reduced to sharing one kid with broken bones & no teeth between them. But our clients are the ones they want to pretend are sick.
Because just not being ashamed of one’s sexuality is too hard:
We live in an age of hacked celebrity nudes, leaked sex tapes, and revenge porn…Rumuki, now available through the App Store, allows users to film, encrypt and keep under digital lock and key their “most intimate moments”. The idea is that your videos are safe from hackers, leaks, and spurned exes…Let’s say a couple wants to make a sex tape. They both download Rumuki and then sync up with each other’s accounts. Then, one of them uses the app to film a video with their partner. The video is encrypted and saved on each partner’s smartphone…[it] cannot be watched by either party unless they have permission from their partner. Permission can only be given for a one-time playback, and it expires in a week. Without that permission, the video remains encrypted and cannot be played…The video may be on their device, but it’s encrypted, so they can’t post it to the internet. A user can also revoke permission or delete the video at any point…
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#639)
…Early last year, 34 white doves and multiple bunches of coloured balloons were released into the air to the beat of traditional Papuan drums when Indonesia’s Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa announced an [absurd] plan — to eliminate prostitution from the 17,500-island nation by 2019. Parawana…has become the face of the Government’s attempted move to bring in a five-year penalty for all sex outside of marriage…She has also said those caught visiting sex workers will have their faces published on social media…the main tool — the growls, creaks and crashes of the bulldozer. 68 red-light districts across the archipelago nation have been razed so-far…some of the girls from the bulldozed area had simply gone to other clubs, some were working on street corners…To date, no sex workers are known to have voluntarily joined the Government’s program to retrain them in poor-paying menial jobs…
…Growing up is a difficult process, fraught with all sorts of emotional turmoil that tempt young men to look toward pornography for relief. Once the seeking of relief becomes habitual…the necessary experiences that boys require to become men are often thwarted…Today this affects more of our young men than we can count…and the effects are never neutral…First exposure most often occurs during adolescence, when the brain is still forming and very impressionable by graphic images…Porn comes from the depths of hell, and is calculated to destroy the characters of young men before they even have a chance to grow into a healthy sense of who they are and what they can become. Once your mind becomes pornified…You lose any higher sense of self, and your relationships become distorted…
One would think a newspaper would know “pornified” isn’t an actual word with any real scientific meaning.
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged agency denial, Arizona, Blunt Instrument, bogus studies, brothels, cell phones, Devil's Advocate, Hawaii, Hollywood, Illinois, Indonesia, law, masturbation, Nevada, Nigeria, Not Worth the Paper, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, red-light districts, Saving Them from Themselves, sex rays, Sex Rays (updates), sexting, So Close and Yet So Far, Soap Opera, That Old Black Magic, The Pro-Rape Coalition, The Public Eye, The Rape Question, United Kingdom, Virginia | 8 Comments »
Another Twitter rant, lovingly preserved for your delectation. This one was inspired by partisans taking exception to my being disgusted when other partisans compared a tyrannical, pro-police-state politician to women fighting for rights under Islamic theocracies on the grounds that said politician has a vagina. The rant seemed to confuse a lot of doofuses who don’t follow me, but must have seen it in retweets; the idea that the behavior of cops and politicians might be rooted in psychosexual drives was apparently so deeply disturbing to them that many of them felt compelled to hurl insults at me, most of which can be paraphrased as “lol girls are dumb”. But without further ado:
NEW POLICY: Defend a politician in a reply to me, be instantly muted without appeal. Politicians are all sociopaths who want to control others non-consensually. I don’t give a fuck what party they belong to or how much they’ve dazzled you with their bullshit; I’m not interested in it. And I have no stomach for watching you grovel to them in my timeline. Look, y’all, I totally get that dominating other people is a huge turn-on; it certainly is for me. BUT I ONLY DO IT TO THOSE WHO CONSENT. Politicians & cops want to do it to those who do NOT consent; in fact, most of the thrill for them seems to be inflicting their will on non-consenting participants. That is evil & wrong. We have a word for using other people to get a sexual charge without those people’s permission; it’s called “rape”. And I won’t engage with those who try to defend it in real-life, non-fantasy scenarios. Furthermore, as a switch I also fully understand that being controlled by someone else can be a huge turn-on. But once again, with consent. I’m not turned on by random assholes trying to top me without negotiating my consent, using threats & violence to wring compliance out of me. If you want to grovel to random assholes, call them the equivalent of “master”, lick their boots & let them beat & exploit you, that is your affair; may you get all you’re looking for out of that relationship. But I don’t want to watch, and I’m not going to indulge you in your exhibitionist submissive fetish by watching you grovel to cops & politicians in front of me. You want me to participate in your perverted public humiliation scene? I’m willing to do that for my normal posted rate. But try to force my participation without negotiating my boundaries & conditions first, and I’ll mute you so fast you won’t know it happened.
And no, I’m not interested in debating “social contracts” with you. I signed no contract, nor do I implicitly agree to one by participating in the lie of “elections”. Nobody has authority over me unless I choose to give it to them; anything else is just cooperation gained by force or the threat of violence. I reserve my BDSM games for the bedroom; those who want to act it out full-time, lifestyle, in public, with the possibility of permanent damage or other permanent negative consequences, are far more perverted than I’ll ever be.
Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged BDSM, cops, law, politicians, psychology, Twitter | 10 Comments »
My postlady brought me all sorts of lovely things this week; first and foremost among them was a package containing Chester Brown’s beautiful cover art for my new book, The Forms of Things Unknown. By the time you read this I should have hired a digital artist to do the color and layout, and after that it won’t be long before I start putting the book together! Other packages, from a new reader who prefers to remain anonymous, contained a book about Doctor Who, a complete collection of Leonard Cohen’s studio albums, a big bag of licorice candy and this rather stunning dress, which I’ve already worn for an appointment with a very lovely couple! I also got a good bit of self-care in last week, caught up on my writing, completed another step in my secret project and got a good bit of paying work in, so all in all it was a very productive week (despite Seattle being largely at a standstill a week ago Monday due to overnight snow). This week: more selfcare, more work and more playing catch-up, and speaking of paying work you only have 12 more days to take advantage of my two-librarian special with Lorelei Rivers! Seriously, gents, this is not an opportunity to miss; we will shush you like you’ve never been shushed in your entire life! For details, email me at my work address. And don’t be overdue!
Posted in Diary | Tagged activism, blogging, Presents, The Forms of Things Unknown | Leave a Comment »
We cannot…be blind to the very real harms posed by exposing all sorts of innocent people to unnecessary scrutiny from…authorities. – Liz Brown
It’s always good to see different sex workers’ perspectives on this topic:
With the exception of the occasional inconsiderate asshole, most people know how to behave at the shops, the hairdressers, or when they’re catching an Uber. They know not to skip the line, to tip, and not to barf all over the backseat. But a lot of people don’t know how you’re supposed to behave when you visit a sex worker…it’s only fair that you try and be polite and considerate. But what are the dos and don’ts? Can you ask a sex worker to lower the going rate for a blowjob because you’re such a loyal customer? And exactly how handsy can you get when you have a half-naked stripper grinding on your lap?…
An important observation from Mark Draughn:
…one item on [COSWAC’s] Myths vs. Facts page caught my attention…MYTH: Clients are pathetic losers who can’t get dates or sustain meaningful relationships…someone needs to address the motives of the people promoting this myth. People who say things like this aren’t just making an academic observation; they’re arguing that sex work should be (or remain) outlawed because of these kinds of clients. And that’s an ugly argument…Why should it matter that some clients are “pathetic losers who can’t get dates or sustain meaningful relationships”? Does that mean they should never have sex? That they should never experience pleasurable physical intimacy, never touch a woman, because they lack the confidence or charisma to charm a woman into bed? Keeping them from hiring sex workers isn’t protecting women from predators. It’s just sentencing people with personality disorders to a life without intimacy…
Though this article is padded with the usual ignorant bloviation from moralists who have never done or even studied sex work, it starts with the stories of several sex workers from Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan:
Despite the traditional mentality prevalent in the Caucasus, sex work is not uncommon, especially for women who find themselves in dead end situations. Although well known, the rights of sex workers and their issues are rarely discussed in any of the three countries in the South Caucasus…journalists…decided to gain a better understanding of the topic by directly asking sex workers questions related to their lives. What forces women into sex work? What are the risks? How does society perceive them? What are their rights? The following interviews are the result of their inquiries…
A cop is a cop, even when he’s a sex worker. But this one is unusually sociopathic even for a cop:
…Sarasota County deputy Frankie Bybee…received more than $100,000 over the years from a woman named Elinor Jarvis in exchange for…sex…Jarvis contacted investigators after learning [Bybee] had been arrested for attempting to kill a 79-year-old woman by entering her home, mounting her and shoving prescription pills down her throat before leaving her car running in her garage with the door open in the hope she would die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Bybee was trying to make it look like a suicide. But Marcia Sohl survived the encounter…Bybee met Sohl in October when she called the…Sheriff’s Office for help, transporting her to the hospital and praying with her to gain her trust and confidence. He also agreed to care for her Yorkshire in exchange for $1,000, even texting her a photo of himself with the dog to show that it was safe. But then he sold the dog on Craig’s List [sic]…he wrote checks from the woman’s account to himself and children for $65,000…On December 28, he sent an email to the woman’s doctor from her email address, pretending that she had “suicidal implications,” which led to the woman being involuntary committed for evaluation in a treatment facility…the IP address originated from his home…Nevertheless, a judge…reduced his bail from $900,000 to $250,000…And Sohl’s dog has since been returned.
…“Maryland is a hot spot of trafficking. It’s that simple,” says Maryland [spokesow]…Deborah Flory…“That’s because of I-95, I-70, and BWI Airport, and the mix of wealth and poverty, which is one of the things that makes young women vulnerable.” Traffickers, aka pimps, are familiar with the laws in each state and know there are weaker penalties in Maryland than elsewhere, including the possibility of a misdemeanor charge for trafficking someone age 18 or older, Flory says…“They can make more money than dealing drugs—$200,000 a year off of one girl—and it’s easier because they don’t have to re-up with cocaine or heroin. They sell the same ‘product’ over and over again”…
The number of myths, tropes & lies in just that short passage is impressive.
Pet clothing company Lulu & Robbie is showing its support for the United Nations’ Blue Heart Campaign against human trafficking. One of Lulu & Robbie’s four new styles…features the campaign’s official…“Blueheart tartan, whose colours and lines symbolise the collective heartbeat of victims of human trafficking”…
I write fantasy, and yet I couldn’t make up anything so totally ridiculous.
…Cody Herrera…19…pleaded guilty to statutory rape with a 14-year-old girl…prosecutors said that he could face additional charges for allegedly videotaping sexual acts with a 17-year-old…Herrera received probation and the judge prohibited him from having “sexual relations” outside of marriage as a probation condition…Banning “sexual relations” without defining the term does not…tell a person what conduct violates the condition…“sexual relations” can mean anything from phone sex to intercourse…Rather than wondering if a kiss is a violation, probation officers should be able to devote themselves to better things like helping a defendant get a job…or mental health treatment…suppose kissing isn’t a violation, but intercourse is. Should an unmarried probationer who has consensual intercourse be imprisoned? The costs are enormous. It’s not just $20,000 to $30,000 in annual expenses. If the probationer is employed, he gets removed from the work force – and it is plenty hard for convicts to get jobs…
The Pope continues to recklessly promote “sex trafficking” hysteria:
As human trafficking continues to be a supremely important issue during Pope Francis’ pontificate…St. Josephine Bakhita, enslaved during her own childhood, has emerged as a patron not only for her home country of Sudan, but for all victims of trafficking. St. Josephine was kidnapped and sold into slavery at the age of 7, undergoing immense suffering throughout her adolescence before discovering the faith in her early 20s…Feb. 8, St. Josephine’s feast day, marks the third international day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking…
Even Kiwis who are prudish & judgy about sex work have to admit decriminalization is a success:
Prostitution was made legal in New Zealand 14 years ago, a move which some hoped, or feared, would remove the stigma from those who buy or sell sex. That has not happened…it…is…safer for the community because safe sex practices could more easily be promoted to an industry that would otherwise continue to operate outside the law. To that extent the legislation is said to have made a difference but it has not removed the stigma. Not many prostitutes want their occupation generally known. Few if any parents would want their daughter or son to grow up to be a sex worker…Selling sex, or buying it, need not be illegal for society to register its contempt for the commodification of the human body…legalisation has not done the harm its opponents feared. It has simply made a sad industry safer.
Let’s hope more legal sex work businesses come on board:
Fetish site RetailClips.com has pledged a percentage of profits from its site to help the Erotic Service Providers Legal Education and Research (ESPLER) Project’s court case that seeks to legalize prostitution in California. Maxine Doogan…said she hopes that RetailClip’s promise to share in profits will “inspire others in the larger erotic industry to recognize our common ground and join the fight…In the current climate, where government is coming after a whole range of adult industry players, we really need to support each other — to not only protect but also to expand sexual privacy and sexual freedoms for everyone,” Doogan said. Donald Kaiser, founder of Black Murk Entertainment, the operator of the newly launched RetailClips, said that ESPLER Project’s court case is crucial for the adult entertainment biz as a whole…
It’s almost sad to see these losers trying to cash in with debunked bullshit a year ahead of time:
Hennepin County…is expected later this month to approve hiring specialized staff members in the county attorney’s and sheriff’s offices to address a growing number of sex trafficking cases, especially before next year’s Super Bowl in Minneapolis…Metro area prosecutors and police agencies anticipate that hundreds of women and girls will be sold on the sex market during Super Bowl 2018…
A new federal lawsuit in Orlando is the latest legal effort to shut down [the already-censored] social media website Backpage.com [over fantasies] that it encourages and profits from sex trafficking. A…[prohibitionist] organization, Florida Abolitionist, is behind the suit….it…is one of several groups in the area that are working to [profit from] sex trafficking [hysteria]…
You know that absurd “air hostesses vs pimps” bullshit that was making the rounds last week?
…There was no follow-up on where the alleged trafficker had come from, what happened to him after the flight—arrest? prosecution? prison?…Fedrick’s 2011 experience didn’t just happen into the 2017 media by accident. Her story is part of a campaign from Airline Ambassadors International, who…used the myth of a sports-related sex trafficking boom to permeate the Super Bowl news-cycle. AAI was founded in the 1990s by Nancy Rivard, and the bulk of its efforts long revolved around providing adult escorts to children traveling for medical procedures. But beginning in 2009, the agency began a serious shift toward human-trafficking [profiteering]…the…alleged…incident received little public attention in 2011. While the news that year is full of stories about a man arrested at the San Francisco International Airport for wearing baggy pants, plus stories about local efforts to stop sex trafficking, none mention a human trafficker apprehended at a Bay Area airport that year. The San Francisco Police Department’s (SFPD) web archives turn up similarly scant results. And nothing fitting the description is mentioned in a statewide 2012 report about successful anti-trafficking efforts in the previous year. When the Super Bowl was held in San Francisco, in 2016, the airport teamed up with Airport Ambassadors International and others…None of the materials…mention any previous trafficking busts at the airport based on flight-attendant tips…
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny | Tagged animals, California, Catholicism, Central Asia, Challenge, Checklist, cops, Crying for Nanny, Devil's Advocate, dirty, Do As I Say, Florida, hysteria, Idaho, law, Maryland, Minnesota, No Other Option, Original Sin, Paint By Numbers, porn, prohibitionist myths, Real People, rescue industry, sporting events, Stupor Bowl, They Still Don't Get It, yellow journalism | 3 Comments »
As longtime readers know, Valentine’s Day is my least favorite of holidays, and I’m not particularly fond of the typical iconography associated with it, either. So every year I try to share an exception, like this Robert Patterson calendar girl from 1952. Enjoy!
Posted in Holidays | Tagged holidays | 2 Comments »
Though I’ve been aware of Whoretography for some time, the release of her e-magazine inspired me to ask her to contribute a guest column and she graciously obliged me. I encourage you to explore her website, to buy a copy of her e-magazine and to help support the project via GoFundMe.
I am addicted to photography; it’s a lifelong obsession of mine that began as a 2-year-old with the death of my father. When you lose a parent as a baby, the only connection you can form with that parent is through imagery. The last photograph before his death, the only one of us together, him proudly sitting on his 1970s motorbike. His death sparked my purpose in life. Now I am a documentary photographer, masters student, sex worker & activist interested in challenging the victim-centered nature of sex worker imagery on-line and how photography is instrumental the online sale of sex. I know my father would be proud of me.
I bought my first camera when I was 12 and I have never been without one since; even when I was homeless for 18 months, I refused to sell my last camera. My mother evidently thought photography was just a phase adolescent girls go through, because I was not permitted to study photography at secondary school; I went on to graduate with an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Genetics, Post Graduate in Criminology and a Graduate Diploma in Small Business Management. I put photography to one side in this period, prioritising an institutionally-defined career in criminal justice, and I moved countries; I sold and traded cameras to pay rent, tuition and one-way tickets to London and Paris. Finally, in April 2005, I followed my passion and become a full-time photographer; I also started as a sex worker the very same day. And because photography is so ingrained in my psyche, I eventually managed to make sex work about photography too. I simply refused to follow the photographic rules which dictated that in order to sell sex, I must photograph myself naked or semi-naked and bent over a table clutching my tits. So, to stand out from the blowjob crowd in an industry that demanded the use of photography, I said no to selfies and soft porn boudoir imagery and instead harnessed the power of pop culture and iconic imagery to sell the essence of the girlfriend experience. My reasoning was simple; I am not selling my body, so why do you need photographs of my body? This initial rebellion against sex industry photographic expectations kick-started my fascination with the role photography plays in the online transaction of sex.
12 years later, I am now an award winning published photographer, a sex worker and a master’s student undertaking research in sex work activism through the Whoretography project. It’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly Whoretography began, but it was somewhere between realising I was in the business of a photographic conspiracy in which my camera was acting as an agent for the falsehood of couple cohesion and intimacy, and the idea of documenting paid-for sexual intimacy as the antidote to the visual falsehoods of wedding photography. Whoretography sits nicely at the intersection of images, technologies, society and the sex worker rights movement. It’s the first academic, ethnographic and creative platform dedicated solely to understanding the role photography plays in sex work via self-publishing as an artistic practice. The objectives frame a body of creative work that takes the form of a collection of soon to be published photo and artist books, zines and the recently launched Whoretography E – Magazine. My visual activism is about exploring a set of research questions through a mixed methodology approach designed to challenge the prevailing ideology of sex-work and to present to the viewer an alternative perception of the industry and its participants. I wish to stop the over-simplification of the lives of cis, trans and non-binary sex workers, and to challenge current imagery that encourages the sense that the only way of interpreting the lives of sex workers is to see them as ripe for “rescue”. This narrow and particular visual representation of male oppression reproduces a politics of pity that is embedded in the visual representation of sex workers; it suggests only pity makes sense as a political, social and cultural response.
I work within the photographic genre of found imagery, with other peoples’ photographic material and written documents. The material for Whoretography is sourced using cyberethnographic methods; however, online interactions alone are insufficient to develop a deep understanding of the visuals of the sex worker online community. So I’ve conducted offline research consisting of qualitative interviews with internet based sex workers, and their customers in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America. Found photography allows for an editorial style in which I can act as both as editor and author; this is not common when working with sex work imagery. Standard approaches to visually representing sex workers include photo-voice, wherein sex workers themselves create the photographs (typically of their workspaces), and photo-essay; the publishing world is awash with photo essays that, for example, take a sneaky look inside brothels. I wanted to avoid these visual clichés. Working with found images means constructing new narratives from seemingly unconnected photographs to provoke critical dialogue about sex work and present an alternative view of sex work. It allows me to take the discussion of sex worker imagery from the realms of the sex work community and place it in the wider community. Fundamental to this goal is deconstructing the visual vocabulary of sex work imagery online to investigate the overarching questions, “Is it possible to reclaim the word ‘whore’ through creative practice as research?” and “What role does photography play in contemporary online sexual consumption?” I have an interest in ensuring photography is relevant in the fight for the full decriminalisation of sex work. We must celebrate the fact that sex workers are now image makers; we must challenge the exclusion of sex workers from online visual spaces; and we must talk about the posthumous humiliation of sex workers via the standard practice of releasing morgue photos. The prohibitionist war on sex work is underpinned by their belief that their photographic rhetoric is photographic truth, and we must name the game when it comes to the middle-class masses being in an uproar about the apparent gentrification of sex work via some mythical photoshop gentrification tool.
I wonder if I have made this article sound too clinical and academic, but it has not been an easy two years. I have an overwhelming sadness for some of what I have seen; people’s understanding of sex work is based on a carefully constructed visual lie. The media are in cahoots with exclusionary bullies to peddle that lie, and it bloody royally pisses me off that middle-class feminists seek to deny sex workers access to the digital revolution and visual online spaces. I undertook a Master’s Degree because I was seeking a better theoretical understanding of my craft, and in stepping away from weddings I unwittingly stumbled across my life’s photographic purpose. I am committed to setting up a visual activist platform and sex work-positive publishing house. I have amassed over 20,000 images and a lot of what I have seen makes me cry. I have seen child abuse victims marketed as teen sex workers; prohibitionists create rescue images with a tonal quality reminiscent of colonial missionaries “saving the natives from themselves”; the publication and subsequent outing of sex workers by newspapers; the dire consequences of the pixilated face in propelling stigma; and the shaming of sex workers as a police tactic to help in the gentrification of up and coming hipster neighbourhoods. The way people have weaponised the camera as a tool of violence against sex workers is in marked contrast to the way we use the camera as an agent for couple cohesion in wedding photography. I am on a mission to shift the political landscape of sex work by forcing people to understand its visual landscape. Photography is currently used to silence the intentions, actions and feelings of sex workers and to make their lives more precarious; we need to change this, and I hope you will help me to make this happen.
Posted in Biography, Guest Columns, Perception | Tagged activism, advertising, agency denial, internet, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry | Leave a Comment »
Poor Spider. Just on his way to work, and no one wants to sit with him. – Chrissy Nicole
This very strange Soviet animated short from 1989 is entitled “Fru-89 From Left to Right”; the words at the beginning read, “Frustration – a state of repressed needs”. It was provided by Walter Olson and the links above it by Jason Kuznicki (“light”), Jesse Walker (“nightmare”), Tim Cushing (“safety”), Ed Krayewski (“Melbourne”), Amy Alkon (“laws”), and Violet Blue (“states”).
- The economics of light.
- Nightmare of the week.
- This is called “public safety”.
- Not a police state, no sirree.
- A slow news day in Melbourne.
- Because laws are more important than people.
- What the hell is going on in the mountain states?
From the Archives
- Swanee Hunt’s private pogrom moved up to January so cops can vomit out “Super Bowl” lies.
- Only a sociopath could “appear to be in disbelief” when convicted of rape for the third time.
- It’s good to see articles like this appearing in the MSM, especially when they quote me.
- COAST pretends pigs & other busybodies know more about our profession than we do.
- Clergymen: STOP STICKING YOUR DAMNED NOSES INTO OUR BUSINESS.
- Fact: man talks to young women in public. Conclusion: SEX TRAFFICKING!
- Prosecutors ensure victory by slapping woman with contradictory charges.
- Pig says a lifetime on the “sex offender” registry isn’t a “real severe thing”.
- Is there any job fetishists don’t think needs “signs of trafficking” training?
- Costumed hooligans with titles abduct & abuse people just like this daily.
- Trans kids psychologically test exactly like kids of their identified gender.
- Bill doesn’t add a new sodomy law; Michigan never repealed its old one.
- Apes call consensual sex “trafficking”, marvel at number of “traffickers”.
- “Cuckoo Clock” McCain says “pimps” were scared away by her hysteria.
- If antis want to “rescue” whores, why do they keep us from other jobs?
- Cops, honesty, machines, law, Sweden, tyranny and Gilbert Gottfried.
- Ticino has always been considered a haven of the Swiss sex industry.
- Prohibitionists think US can criminalize sex work in other countries.
- Usually, it’s being submissive that they pretend is a mental illness.
- “A mugshot…is a photo designed to tell the state’s side of a story.”
- A prohibitionist badge-licker wanking to fantasies of “slave ships”.
- Florida, Pat Robertson, innumeracy, cops, Cthupid & much more.
- Swedes just can’t admit that whores can do things for ourselves.
- Belief sustains itself by feeding on nothing other than pure faith.
- Raped by a cop? Say he’s your client; that, they’ll fire him for.
- It’s always so great to see academics stand up for us in print.
- “5 Ways Being a Legal Prostitute Is Weirder Than You Think“.
- Weapons forged for use against whores will work on anyone.
- Most of this reads like a script for a really lurid TV cop show.
- Note the starkly different tone when the stalker is a woman.
- Hey Australia, can the US import some of your journalists?
- Politicians really just can’t get their minds out of the toilet.
- James Deen appears to have been welcomed back to porn.
- “Cumfiesta”, “Screw You”, “Nut Sack Ale” and much more.
- As stupid as anything we’ve ever seen under this heading.
- Man is shamed and disgraced for seeking consensual sex.
- I predict this will be lousy with cops within a few months.
- Apparently, there’s at least one decent judge in Ireland.
- A good profile of Bella Robinson, written by Tara Burns.
- Stupid preconceptions give rise to stupid strategies.
- Cops nearly always get the least-possible charges.
- A theologian debunks “sex trafficking” mythology.
- How it feels to be a disabled man craving touch.
- A selection from reader Mike Siegel’s new book.
- I leave for Seattle, dressed as Wonder Woman.
- Another debunking of prohibitionist myths.
- It’s cops’ job to cause harm, not reduce it.
- A decades-long love affair with a goddess.
- My previous columns for Valentine’s Day.
- What the fuck is this patronizing bullshit?
- Much more of this, please. And this too.
- If this is real, it’s hilariously pathetic.
- A crappy German sex work law.
- I’ll just leave this right here.
- Another fishy P411 incident.
- Friday the 13th, In Tandem.
- It never stops with whores.
- Professor Hill strikes again.
- 50 shades of clusterfuck.
- Rapist cops of the week.
- It only starts with us.
- Tara Burns, lobbyist.
- Shazam!
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny | Tagged animals, Australia, California, Canada, censorship, cops, Facebook, Georgia, India, video | 11 Comments »
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