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Toys for Tots

November 25, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Toys have become commodities instead of playthings. – Beth Copeland Vargo

I’ve mentioned my partiality for Marines before, so it probably won’t surprise you to hear that my favorite charity is the USMC Reserve’s Toys for Tots program, which collects toys for needy children.  As I said in last year’s “Yuletide” column:

It’s bad enough being a needy adult at this time of year, but children lack our mature understanding of economics and it’s heartbreaking for them to think they have been forgotten by Santa Claus.  I urge all of my American readers who are financially comfortable to please donate at least one toy this year; even bargain stores such as Big Lots and Dollar Tree have donation bins, so for only a few dollars you can send a little bit of Christmas cheer to those less fortunate, and so experience a little of the joy of giving and help to make a Merry Christmas for some child who cannot control the conditions in which he lives.  Those who prefer not to go near shopping malls during this season can even donate money directly on the website via credit card, donate in memory of a loved one or specify that toys go to American Indian children, many of whom live in some of the most shamefully poor conditions in this country.  Also, if any of my readers chooses to send me a gift from my Amazon wishlist this season, I will make a donation of equal monetary value to the Toys for Tots foundation in your name.  My international readers might also inquire if there is some similar program to benefit needy children in your country.

Giving to a program like Toys for Tots is more important now than ever because it helps us to remember the true meaning of this time of year.  Despite the increasing tendency of retailers to push it back to November 1st, today is the traditional beginning of the Yuletide season in the United States, and has long been among the busiest shopping days of the year.  It’s also the day on which many U.S. retailers finally go “into the black” after running in the red for the previous eleven months; this is one possible origin of the name “Black Friday”, an in-joke among retail managers in Philadelphia since the 1960s which slowly spread across the country in the 1980s and became known to the general public by the late 1990s.  By the turn of the century retailers were referring to their after-Thanksgiving sales as “Black Friday sales” instead, and since then marketing experts have inexorably worked to replace Thanksgiving (a day to give thanks for what we already have) in the public consciousness with the artificial “Black Friday” (a day to go out and buy more).  A few years ago I noticed that much of both spam and legitimate email advertising alike now refer to Thanksgiving Week as “Black Friday Week”, and this year many retailers are beginning their “Black Friday sales” at midnight (and Wal-Mart at 10 PM Thursday), essentially ruining Thanksgiving for those employees who are drafted for the graveyard shift.  Since 2002, the violence associated with the day has also increased, especially at so-called “big box” retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy; this hearkens back to another possible origin of the term “Black Friday”, a negative reference to the massive traffic jams and rude, pushy crowds which characterize it.

Do I need to point out that this is not only insane, but totally contrary to what the Yuletide season is supposed to be about?  I haven’t set foot in a store on the day after Thanksgiving since the late ‘80s; it was the day my family always decorated our Christmas tree, and I’ve continued that tradition.  This afternoon my husband and I will go out into our woods, find a suitable tree and bring it back here to decorate; we’ll play Christmas music and have Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, and tonight we’ll watch one of our favorite Christmas shows.  Readers, why don’t you do the same?  Instead of battling pathetic, deluded “consumers” for a marked-down big-screen TV you don’t really need, stay at home and do your holiday shopping next weekend or even online.  But whenever and however you do it, spare a thought and a little cash for an unfortunate small person, and consider giving a toy or donation to Toys for Tots.

One Year Ago Yesterday

Last year, Thanksgiving fell on the 25th so I noted the column from last Thanksgiving yesterday, thus pushing the column from last November 24th to today.  It’s called “Lying Down With Dogs” and it calls attention to the fact that besides the U.S. and a couple of its client states, every country in which prostitution is criminal is a “totalitarian state, a country only recently emerged from totalitarianism, a theocracy or near-theocracy, a postage stamp, a third-world shithole or some combination of two or more of those categories.”

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Thanksgiving 2011

November 24, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.  –  E.P. Powell

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States; as I said in my column of one year ago tomorrow, Thanksgiving is…

…a day originally established (as the name attests) to give thanks for what we have.  It is essentially a late harvest festival, a secularized American version of Samhain or Harvest Home, and like most harvest festivals in every place and time it is celebrated with a feast.  Unfortunately, as with so many traditions, the original meaning of the institution has become lost and in the minds of many the observance exists only for its own sake rather than for the purpose for which it was established.

One year ago tomorrow?  Yep.  Thanksgiving is what is called a “moveable feast”, a holiday (like Easter) whose date changes from year to year.  But Americans are more concerned with where days fall in the work week than with the phases of the moon, so the computus for Thanksgiving involves neither tables nor astronomical phenomena; it’s simply the fourth Thursday in November.  Last year that fell on November 25th, and this year a day earlier, so it seemed more appropriate for me to call attention to tomorrow’s column today and today’s column tomorrow (when the feature will be called “one year ago yesterday”).  Got it?  I hope so, because I’m off to cook a feast.  I urge all of my American readers to celebrate this day as it was meant to be celebrated:  with those you love, giving thanks for what you have rather than just stuffing your face and planning to buy more tomorrow.  To my Canadian readers:  y’all already had your Thanksgiving back on October 10th, so perhaps today you can drink a toast to your tardy Southern neighbors and wish us luck in catching up on human rights issues.  And to my readers all over the world, I wish you all prosperity and hope that all of you have much to be thankful for as well.

Blessed Be!

Posted in Current Events, Holidays, Miscellaneous, Philosophy | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

It’s That Time Again

November 23, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  –  George Santayana

One year ago today I published “Hidden Hordes of Hookers”, the column which arguably put me on the map; it was the first post which attracted the attention of journalists (especially in Dallas) and led to a number of interviews and a plethora of links.  In that column I ridiculed the dire predictions of tens of thousands of itinerant prostitutes and/or “human trafficking victims” (the terms are used interchangeably and confusingly) made by so-called “law enforcement authorities” in the Dallas area to make themselves seem important.  And though none of these claims materialized, the “authorities” credited the unseasonable weather and their own hysteria for “preventing” the nonexistent “crisis”, rather like a Vaudeville comedian crediting his finger-snapping for keeping the elephants away.  Ever since the beginning of the “human trafficking” hysteria, anti-prostitute activists and their cop allies have predicted that vast hordes of homeless whores will descend upon every major sporting event, and though not a single one of these ominous prophecies has ever shown as much as a whisper of a hint of coming true, that never stops the fanatics from repeating the claim at the next sporting event, nor badge-licking journalists from reporting it as fact without a trace of skepticism.

Well, it’s that time again; the next Super Bowl will be held in Indianapolis, and already politicians and police alike are ramping up to “crack down” on a nonexistent “problem”, with a credulous press corps in tow.  Back in July Greg Zoeller, the attorney general of Indiana, started beating the drum; reporters claimed that “big-time criminals [put] young girls up for sale” and “when the big game hit North Texas this year, lots of money changed hands.  But there was something else on the market too, sold, quietly, underground:  young girls working as underage prostitutes for high paying clients.  Some were simply sold as ‘sex slaves’.”  This is, of course, a total lie without the faintest shred of evidence, as is the statement that “law enforcement personnel [in Texas] eventually made 133 separate human trafficking related arrests” (they were in fact normal prostitution arrests, a typical number for the time period involved, with only one accused of “human trafficking”) and the related claim that  “tens of thousands of people – most of them young girls – [were] sold into the sex trade during Miami’s Super Bowl in 2010” (actually, it was one single proven incident, with unsubstantiated claims of 23 more from the Florida Department of Children & Families).

Then on September 30th, Zoeller held a press conference at which he stated (as though it were a proven fact) that “there will be an increase in demand for the illegal commercial sex trade in connection with the Super Bowl”.  Interestingly, though Zoeller has obviously bought the “sex trafficking” propaganda for the most part, he seems to recognize that not all whores are helpless victims:

A major problem, he says, is differentiating commercial sex crimes that involve human trafficking from more standard prostitution.  “I think the deficiencies are really that we look at prostitution where the prostitute is the criminal,” Zoeller said. “In this instance, where you recognize human trafficking, where the prostitute is a victim herself…We don’t have a specific statute that recognizes that bringing someone against their will into this trade is a specific crime,” he said.

While we can’t be sure what’s really going on in Zoeller’s head (he may simply be reserving his right to persecute working girls if no man can be railroaded as a “pimp”), it’s still good to see somebody in power saying this.  Also, at least one Indiana journalist understands the principle of critical thinking; Maureen Hayden of the Kokomo Tribune wrote:

When I first heard Indiana Deputy Attorney General David Miller talk about the need to fast-track legislation that would add child trafficking to the state’s sex offenses, I was baffled…I didn’t understand the urgency in Miller’s argument: that the bill needed to be passed and signed into law before early February, when tens of thousands of sports fans will descend upon the state’s capital city for the 2012 Super Bowl.  Miller told me…that before the 2011 Super Bowl weekend in Dallas, it was the Texas attorney general who described the party-filled spectacle…as “one of the biggest human trafficking events in the United States.”  The Texas AG’s fears mirrored the worries of Miami law enforcement before the Super Bowl was played in its city in 2010:  an influx of underage prostitutes brought into the city to service an increased demand for commercial sex from tourists in town for the game.  Sounds incredibly sordid, doesn’t it?  Almost like the story line for a fictional TV cop show.  But Miller’s boss, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, is taking the scenario seriously…

She goes on to talk about Zoeller’s participation in the toothless and wrongheaded campaign against Backpage by the attorneys general association, but since I see a large portion of healthy skepticism in Hayden’s column I plan to send her a courtesy copy of this essay.creepy trafficking ad

Unfortunately, there is no rational thought whatsoever in the various crusades by moralists, such as this petition which demands that “the State of Indiana not allow human trafficking at the 2012 superbowl [sic]” (presumably the petitioner imagines adolescent girls hawked like hot dogs in the stadium), or the bizarre and incredibly patronizing SOAP (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) program, which purports “To bring awareness to domestic minor sex trafficking in the US and rescue underage girls from being victimized” by spying on and interfering in the business operations of cheap motels:

S.O.A.P is a unique outreach program that educated motel owners and staff about the problem of missing children and brings awareness to Demand centered events that transport girls and women into an area for these events.  It also provides a phone number to call so victims can be rescued…Teams of people will…be sent out to low end motels around the Stadium, downtown, and in high risk areas such as strip clubs.  Volunteers will talk to motel owners and staff about human trafficking and the increase of girls being brought into the area for the event.  They will also be offered free soap for their hotel during the duration of the event.

In a particularly absurd touch, the “free soap” is labeled with the phone number of the National Human Trafficking Hotline, undoubtedly so that motel guests can call from their waterproof cell phones if “human traffickers” pass through their bathrooms while they’re showering.

If history repeats itself (and it will), this is going to get a lot worse by Super Bowl week, then once the strumpet invasion fails to materialize the local “authorities” will parade anyone they can conceivably accuse of “pimping” before the TV cameras and credit their “preparations” for scaring the bogeymen and invisible harlots away.  Please, journalists of Indiana, make yourselves part of the solution instead of part of the problem; contact me for an interview and/or do your own research.  Help to free your readers from the lies of “authorities” and anti-human rights crusaders rather than contributing to the climate of fear and persecution which evil people use to facilitate their campaign of social control.

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments »

Forward and Backward

November 22, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.  –  Rita Mae Brown

As one would expect when considering a parent and child, the United Kingdom and United States are quite alike in many ways.  But though one would generally expect a child to be more open to new ideas than its parent, recent events seem to indicate that, at least on the subject of prostitution, the opposite is true with these two countries.  Aside from the fact that prostitution is technically legal in the UK but completely criminal in the US, the general treatment of whores in both countries is very similar:  the police establishment tends to persecute us while the governments spread propaganda rationalizing the persecution.  But while at least some British officials are beginning to admit that criminalization doesn’t work and that perhaps a rethinking of conventional policies is in order, American officials simply continue to apply the same heavy-handed, punitive, police-state tactics and merely alter their public rhetoric instead of making any real and substantive changes.

In the United States, it’s unthinkable that a high police official would ever advocate getting rid of bad laws and promoting more humane treatment of sex workers, but in Britain a police chief who openly supports exactly that was not only tolerated, but promoted.  Simon Byrne (whom we’ve briefly mentioned before) was until recently deputy chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, but has been appointed assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard.  And as reported in the November 2nd Telegraph, he has repeated his previous call for prostitution law reform:

Simon Byrne, who will shortly start work as Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said the decriminalisation and regulation of brothels in Australia and New Zealand had enabled many of those involved in sex work to access health services while maintaining more personal security.  Mr Byrne admitted there was ”no perfect solution”, but said he would welcome a debate about alternative approaches to policing prostitution and sexual exploitation.  Writing on the Police Chiefs’ blog, Mr Byrne said the move could help bridge the gap between ”tackling neighbourhood nuisance and the exploitation of sex workers…I would very much welcome a debate about alternative policy approaches that could be taken in this area, which would better equip the service to protect its communities and its individuals,” he said.  Academic research backed the merits of an alternative approach, Mr Bryne said…

Byrne is still a cop, and therefore tends to imagine that organized crime and “exploitation” are far more prevalent than they actually are.  But he seems genuinely concerned with the rights, safety and quality of life of individual prostitutes, and his consultation of real academic research rather than the bogus propaganda studies so popular on this side of the Atlantic make him sound almost like an alien being in comparison with the “tough on crime” rhetoric constantly vomited out by American police officials.  Contrast, for example, his proposed strategy with that employed in our nation’s capital:

Under current D.C. law, prostitution is illegal. Simple enough, right? Well, no.  Prostitution still happens, so, in 2006, the D.C. Council gave the Metropolitan Police Department the power to designate “prostitution-free zones,” areas in which any two people gathering for allegedly engaging in prostitution-related activities can be asked to disperse and, if they don’t, face arrest.  The zones can be designated for up to 240 hours, or 10 days…Now the one member of the Council is seeking to extend that policy…to add a new category of prostitution free zone:  permanent…the change has come in response to what [the member] called an “epidemic” of prostitution in her ward…

…During the debate that established the District’s current ten-day prostitution zones, legislators had to balance tools to fight criminal activity and infringements upon civil liberties.  A report from the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary noted:  “The Court has looked disfavorably [sic] on long periods where civil liberties are limited…”  Civil libertarians have pointed out that the mere act of carrying multiple condoms in a designated area would be enough for police to ask an individual to disperse.  In 1987, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled against a D.C. law allowing arrests of prostitutes who merely beckoned possible clients, saying that simply acting or looking like a prostitute would not be enough to sustain a conviction.

Advocates for sex workers additionally argue that the zones merely push prostitution to other areas and marginalize those involved in it…[but the councilwoman claims that] the permanent zones [are] more akin to a restraining order, allowing police to more easily disperse individuals suspected of engaging in prostitution and arresting them if they return…it could help crack down on the prostitution that’s plagued parts of her ward.

What a difference!  Instead of Byrne’s humane proposals and reliance on data, American “authorities” prefer to treat prostitution as a “plague” or “epidemic”, to indulge their inner Gestapo with repeated “crackdowns” and to respond to civil rights concerns by increasing the powers of police to violate citizens’ civil rights.  While Britain seems poised to move forward to a more enlightened view on this issue, America seems bound and determined to continue retreating into barbaric authoritarianism.

One Year Ago Today

“Plaçage” was the last officially-recognized system of concubinage in the West, and reached its most prevalent and structured form in New Orleans of the late 18th century; the institution was so widespread that it gave rise to an entire ethnic group which has only begun to vanish in the last few decades.

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments »

Gorged With Meaning

November 21, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.  –  Jean Baudrillard

Language is one of the most important ways humans organize the universe; by giving things names we gain control over them, place boundaries on them, enable ourselves to describe them to others who do not know about them.  The ancients believed that names conferred magical power over people, and hid their true names from strangers; whores do much the same thing by using stage names when dealing with clients.  And while naming is a useful tool, it’s extremely important to remember that such names are artificial and reside only in the minds of humans.  Mark Twain portrayed Eve as naming the dodo because “it looks like a dodo”, but obviously any other name would do as well as long as everyone agreed upon it.  And thereby hangs the tale; very often people try to apply different words to the same thing, or to use specific terms in an overly-broad fashion or general terms in an overly-specific one.  Even worse, they sometimes draw up elaborate definitions for a general term based upon observation of one specific example, and then either insist that their characteristics apply to all members of the class, or else deny that something belongs to the class based upon the fact that it doesn’t fit the definition.  If, for example, my definition of “bird” includes the ability to fly, I might exclude ostriches and domestic turkeys, and if it included the presence of wings I might exclude the kiwi.  On the other hand, if my definition included only beaks and hard-shelled eggs, I might feel justified in classifying a platypus as a bird.

A bird?

I’m sure y’all can see where I’m going with this.  Having defined words like “whore” and “prostitution”, people then attempt to impose the definition upon reality instead of adapting the definition to fit reality.  At its most basic prostitution is the exchange of sex for something of value, and until governments sought to control it that was good enough.  It didn’t matter that it wasn’t sharply demarked from other female behavior, or that some women did it only occasionally while others made a profession of it, or that there was no absolute distinction between a concubine, a mistress and a regularly-patronized courtesan; people used whatever term seemed the best fit for the specific case.  But once patriarchal society began to impose laws and restrictions on women’s sexual behavior the label “whore” carried consequences, which became much more serious once Western societies began to actually criminalize our trade a century ago.  Furthermore, when governments began attempting to draw lines between the whore and the not-whore they began to discover that it wasn’t quite so easy as they might’ve liked; since the “crime” of “prostitution” was defined entirely by motive, the “authorities” quickly found that a too-tight definition allowed the great majority of harlots to escape their clutches, while a too-loose definition criminalized the majority of the unmarried female population.

When the social scientists decided to study prostitution, things grew still more confusing; their arbitrary definitions sometimes conflicted with the legal ones, and since the only group which everyone agreed fell safely inside the sphere of whoredom were the streetwalkers (who were also highly visible), both researchers and cops directed their (usually unwelcome) attention to them…and soon began to apply their observations, opinions, beliefs, fantasies and guesses about streetwalkers to every other whore.  The result?  What was once recognized as a broad and indistinct spectrum of female behaviors was now mischaracterized as a distinct, narrow “social problem”; women judged by the “authorities” to be prostitutes were considered degraded or victimized “criminals”, while those judged not to be were as pure as the driven snow:  It was the old Madonna/whore duality codified into law.

Not a bird.

This sharp distinction is, of course, pure nonsense; as I explained in my column of one year ago today, there are many women who are far more steeped in whoredom than I ever was, but who are not legally classified as “prostitutes” because they pass some arbitrary legal “whore test”.  Among these are “sugar babies”, who are not defined as prostitutes because they only have one client at a time (a legal absurdity which will not be lost on anyone who has read much about courtesans).  Young, attractive women have prostituted themselves on this basis to older men since the beginning of civilization, but now that the internet has streamlined the process and made it more visible the usual busybodies are running about, predicting the imminent collapse of the sky.  This writer of this October 29th article from the Daily Mail picks up where the writer of the Huffington Post article discussed in my column of last August 15th left off:

Events that offer to set up wealthy older men with young cash-strapped women, dubbed ‘Sugar Daddy Parties’, are about to hit Britain after becoming popular in the U.S…The ‘matchmakers’ justify the events by insisting that all participants are consenting adults and ‘nobody has to do anything they don’t want to’ but critics say the parties are bordering on prostitution.  And the scenes from New York venues that have hosted the get-togethers, showing pretty young women hanging off the arms off much older men only add to the sleaziness factor.  On average, fees of $500 per date is said to be common in the U.S., but arrangements worth between $10,000 and $20,000 per month have also been agreed upon in the past, according to its organiser…

The confusion and discomfort of the writer, a lawyer she quotes and some of the women in both articles derive from what I described above:  the attempt to impress definitions on reality rather than observing it for what it is.  The cognitive chain goes something like this:  “Young women are taking money for sex, which is what prostitutes do; prostitutes are degraded, drug-addicted criminal human trafficking victims, therefore SOCIETY IS DOOMED!!!!!!”  To a rational person, of course, the chain would go in exactly the opposite direction:  “Young women are taking money for sex, which is what prostitutes do; these young women are just trying to better their lives or make a living like anyone else, so maybe that’s what most prostitutes are like as well”.  Seeing the world as it is brings clarity and understanding; forcing an ill-fitting interpretation upon it brings nothing but confusion and stress.

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Fictional Interlude: Bad News

November 20, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

The eternal Venus…is one of the seductive forms of the Devil.   –  Charles Baudelaire

“It’s settled then; Xoblah will tell Her.”

“No, it is not settled!  Why does it always have to be me who brings Her bad news?  She’s started to call me ‘Petrel’ because She says my arrival always presages a storm.”

“But, sweetie, that’s just it; when you bring Her bad news She just calls you names, but whenever anyone else does it she’s set upon by dozens of cats, or thrown out of Heaven, or some other horrible thing.  Remember the time She turned Ardath into an incubus?”

All eyes turned to the named girl, who softly moaned “It was awful!”

Xoblah sighed; “All right, all right.”  She hesitated for a moment and then asked, “What name is She using these days?”   The others looked askance, coughed or pretended not to hear the question.  “Well?”

Empusa (who seemed to have been elected spokeswoman) answered in a low voice, “Ishtar.”

“What?  You want me to bring Her bad news while She’s using Ishtar?  She only goes by that name when She’s in an especially belligerent mood!  Can’t this wait for a few years until She starts using ‘Venus’ or ‘Astarte’ again?”

Empusa gave her a pained look.  “The longer we wait, the worse it will be.”

Xoblah knew she was right; the goddess hated being kept in the dark, and if She found out that the succubae had failed to tell Her about this problem in a timely fashion, they’d be lucky if She didn’t hurl them all into Tarterus for a few decades.  Still, she needed time to build up her courage before facing the inevitable.  “Why must mortals be so difficult?” she asked, to nobody in particular.  “Why must they complicate everything?  Out of the goodness of Her heart, the Love Goddess Herself recruited us, gave us eternal beauty, and empowered us to give the gift of sexual bliss to worthy mortals who weren’t getting any for whatever reason.  And at first it was such an easy job!”

The others nodded in agreement.  Habondia observed, “We never really had any problems at all until the Middle Ages.”

“Even that wasn’t so bad,” said Empusa, “once we learned to stay away from the Christian priests.  It wasn’t until they somehow managed to convince themselves that sex was bad for them that it got really difficult.”

“But it really looked like things were improving again after the Seventeenth Century,” said Xoblah.  “And the past few decades were as good as any; wasn’t it a laugh when we would appear as mortal women, and then the men would send their experiences with us to be published in magazines and everyone assumed they were making it up?”

“Those sure were fun times,” sighed Relah.  “But now it seems like they’re all afraid of us again.  The other day one insisted I provide him with an identification card, then kept asking me silly questions to prove my age.”

“Wait until you get one who wants to know where the hidden camera is,” said Empusa gloomily.  “Or one who just wants to sit and watch porn with you.”

“The ones who insist on asking permission for everything are the worst,” opined Ardath.

“It’s no wonder so many of them can’t even get it up without pills,” sulked Xoblah.  “What are they doing to themselves down there?”

Nobody had an answer, nor any idea of what to do about the situation; the solution would require godly wisdom.  And as much as Xoblah hated it, she knew Empusa was right; for whatever reason, she had the best chance of presenting the problem to their mistress without provoking one of Her infamous tantrums.  And there was no point in putting the ordeal off any longer; it wasn’t going to get any easier if she waited.

She soon found the goddess in the garden, having Her hair done by a nymph.  As soon as She noticed the succubus, She called out “Why, if it isn’t the stormy petrel!  And I was so enjoying my afternoon up until now.”

Xoblah smiled weakly, and tried to console herself with the thought that perhaps being turned into an incubus and having to deal with mortal women for a change wouldn’t be so bad.  But somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

One Year Ago Today

“Wife Swapping” is the original name (and also the one I prefer) for the activity many now refer to as “swinging”.

Posted in Fiction, Perception | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

The Logical Song

November 19, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, oh, playfully watching me.

But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, oh, responsible, practical.
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
The questions run too deep for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd, but please tell me who I am.

I say, now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical,
a liberal, oh, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable,
respectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable!

But at night, when all the world’s asleep,
The questions run so deep for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd, but please tell me who I am.  –  Roger Hodgson

A long epigram, I know, but an important one.  From the time I was quite young I had the feeling that I was being groomed for exploitation, prepared to be used for my abilities by people who didn’t give a damn about me as a person, and when this song came out (the summer before I turned 13) it really spoke to me.  Over and over again it had been crammed into my head that as the bearer of an “exceptional” intellect it was my duty and responsibility to allow that intellect to be used for the “good of society”…but according to the dictates of what “authorities” declared to be the right way, despite the fact that my mind was supposedly better than theirs! In other words, they wished to exploit my brain, and those of other intelligent people, as computers, without judgment or feeling of our own.  I was never to question the status quo, but only to allow myself to be applied like a power tool to whatever “problems” the “authorities” wished to attack.  Furthermore, I was never expected to ask what was in all this for me; that was “selfish”.  Presumably I was supposed to be satisfied with existing as a nameless, faceless cog, uncompensated by wealth, respect, recognition or even self-actualization.

Yet despite this, second-wave feminists and neofeminists preach that it’s somehow “better” to be valued for one’s intellect than for one’s sexual characteristics; as anyone who’s ever experienced both can attest, that’s a load of rubbish.  There is absolutely no difference in being “valued” for any one characteristic over another if those doing the “valuation” don’t care about the individuality of the one so “valued”.  A charwoman who is treated like a human being, compensated generously and recognized for her contribution is a lot better off than a professor who is overworked, underpaid, put-upon and mistreated, and anyone in his right mind should be able to recognize this.  The fact that neofeminists do not is a clear demonstration of their anti-sex neuroses and anti-male bias; they imagine that heterosexual activity constitutes mistreatment in and of itself, no matter what the attitude of the man involved, and are therefore unable to rationally compare the advantages and drawbacks of sex jobs with non-sex-related jobs.  On the other hand, many of them also have an equally deep and neurotic bias toward political titles and positions, and consider such titles rewards in and of themselves; they are therefore unable to rationally compare the advantages and drawbacks of “intellectual” jobs with non-“intellectual” jobs.

In my column of one year ago today I discussed what I called the “lie at the heart of neofeminism”, namely its claim to support the rights of individual women while actually subjugating such rights in order to advance the political power of neofeminists (who claim to  represent “all women” as a gestalt).  Since abortion allows women to reject their biological function as females neofeminists wholeheartedly embrace the right to it, but since prostitution allows men access to sex on fair and equitable terms they viciously oppose it, despite the obvious fact that a woman’s right to do as she likes with her own body and life supports the right to prostitution even more clearly than it supports the right to abortion, since the former involves only her own body and time while the latter arguably involves the rights of two others.  Either human beings own and control our own bodies, or we don’t; either individuals have the right to our own sexual choices, or we don’t.  You simply can’t have it both ways.  If the individual is to have personal autonomy his or her individuality, especially as represented by his or her decisions and personal preferences, must be absolutely inviolate until they abrogate the rights of another.  Neither society as a whole nor any subset of society (political party, religious sect, “authorities” or whatever) has the right to restrict or control the lives of individuals no matter how stupid, “sinful”, ugly, “selfish”, disgusting, “unhealthy”, self-abusive, “sexist” or otherwise undesirable those individuals’ actions may seem to anyone else.

What it all boils down to is this:  I’m a package deal.  You want something from me?  Fine, as long as it’s something I’m willing to give, and you’re willing to give me what I want in exchange, and you understand that it will be given on my terms and in the manner I judge best.  If that all works for you I’m your girl; if it doesn’t, you need to look elsewhere.  My gifts and abilities are mine to be used as pleases me; they are not for others to command or control, and only I determine which of them I’m willing to trade on, and when and how they will be employed.  I do not accept other people’s judgment as to which of them are “good” and “bad”, which “proper” and which “improper”, and I will no more obey demands for the use of my intellectual abilities than I will obey demands that I refrain from using my sexual ones.  Call me radical or criminal if you like, but understand that I am not and never will be anyone’s vegetable.

(P.S. – Hodgson, Supertramp and the record company appear to be embroiled in some childish dispute; there are videos of Hodgson performing the song alone, Supertramp performing it without him and others covering it, but every time someone posts the original version it is soon taken down.  The linked video was the best version I could find, but the sound quality is terrible; if anyone can find a better one please post it in a comment.)

Posted in Biography, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , | 88 Comments »

Further Developments

November 18, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen.  “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.  If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”  –  Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass (chapter 2)

One year ago today I published “November Miscellanea (Part Two)”, which explained how the U.S. government isn’t interested in prosecuting the trafficking of minors for sexual purposes when huge corporations like Time-Warner do it; reported that a Fox newsreader publicly advised another journalist to patronize sex workers; and linked an article called “10 Tips for Dealing with Cops”.  And though I already published a three-part “November Updates” column two weeks ago, several more interesting stories have surfaced and so I present this special extra update edition.

Think of the Children! (September 30th, 2010)

Child Cultists apparently believe that sexually-active adults emit invisible “sex rays”, and that if any of that sex wasn’t entirely vanilla the intensity of those “sex rays” increases exponentially and never, ever fades away.  Therefore no such person, no matter how long ago she committed these dreaded acts, can ever again be allowed with 10 meters of children lest her pervy emanations induce the dreaded “premature sexualization”, which might {Gasp!} cause innocent children to have sexual thoughts or feelings at some point before the magical Advent of Shazam at exactly midnight on their 18th birthdays.  Here, courtesy of TMZ, is the latest example of a shameless harlot recklessly endangering children with her dangerous presence:

Porn legend Sasha Grey says she will NOT back out of a national elementary school reading program — despite pressure from parents — claiming she will “not live in fear” of her XXX past…Grey…participated in the “Read Across America” program at Emerson Elementary School in Compton, CA last week.  Afterward, the school received complaints for letting Grey around the kids.  For the record, Grey has been out of the adult business for 2 years.  Now, Sasha has released a statement … saying, “I committed to this program with the understanding that people would have their own opinions about what I have done, who I am and what I represent…I am an actor.  I am an artist.  I am a daughter.  I am a sister.  I am a partner.  I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am.  I believe in the future of our children, and I will remain an active supporter and participant in education-focused initiatives.”

Good for Sasha; I just hope she doesn’t allow herself to be shamed into quitting as Tera Myers was.

Whores in the News (October 29th, 2010)

On October 27th of last year the FBI raided the offices of Escorts.com, and reports I received from working escorts in the ensuing months convinced me that the company had been taken over by the feds and was being used in an attempt to entrap working girls.  Fortunately, the operation was sloppy and heavy-handed and nobody with two brain cells to rub together was fooled; the site was closed entirely at the end of May and since the big pigs were unable to sexually victimize women as they intended, they contented themselves with stealing six and a half million dollars instead:

Two Philadelphia-based companies have been charged with running a website used by prostitutes and escort services to advertise…National A-1 Advertising Inc. and R.S. Duffy Inc. agreed to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy and will forfeit $4.9 million, pay a $1.5 million fine and serve 1½ years of probation, according to court documents…the companies…operated Escorts.com beginning in 2007.  Prostitutes and escort services paid to advertise on the site, while customers were charged subscription fees.  The companies have forfeited the domain name.  National A-1 also operates phone-sex lines and a pornographic website.  Those portions of its business are unaffected by its plea agreement in the escorts.com case…The government said it reserves the right to prosecute individuals associated with the companies.

As we’ve pointed out before, companies aren’t responsible for the content of their advertising so the government had no case even if there was a federal law against advertising sexual services, which there isn’t.  But federal prosecutors are empowered with a whole arsenal of nuisance charges (“money laundering” and “conspiracy” being chief among them) with which to hound individuals and corporations to death based on the flimsiest of evidence or even no evidence at all, so National A-1 and R.S. Duffy clearly decided that paying the ransom demand was simply the cheapest and quickest way to get on with their corporate lives.

October Updates, Part Three (October 4th, 2011)

In my update to “A Tale That Grew in the Telling” I discussed the way stories get distorted in the process of rumor-spreading, becoming progressively more lurid and exaggerated.  Here, via Furry Girl, is a perfect example from journalist Anderson Cooper:  after the tsunami which struck Sri Lanka on December 26th, 2004, a man on a motorcycle took two injured children to a hospital.  Some bystander decided he was actually kidnapping them, and it was so reported in a Sri Lankan newspaper; by the time the story reached New York a few days later dozens of storm orphans were being abducted into sexual slavery.  It’s rather like And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, except not at all cute.

The Crumbling Dam (October 14th, 2011)

Speaking of Furry Girl, I reported last month that she had to resort to a mobile billboard company for her sex worker rights ad after all the regular billboard companies rejected it (despite the fact that they’ve carried anti-prostitution ads in the past).  Well, her billboard finished its run on November 9th, and here’s a report from her (with photos) telling about how it went.  Let’s hope her next project finds an advertising company which is more interested in making money than in promoting a moral view via censorship of paying advertisers.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 72 Comments »

Across the Pond

November 17, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

People aren’t angels woven of light, but neither are they beasts to be driven into stalls.  –  Vladimir Korolenko

One year ago today I published “November Miscellanea (Part One)”, which reported on an attempt by the U.S. Congress to censor the internet; the fact that the U.S. government hides the proof that 95% of “missing children” are simply living with the parent they prefer rather than the one to which clueless judges assigned custody; the widespread resistance to the HPV vaccine; weird search terms; a Los Angeles man who reacted violently to a proposal rejection; and prostitute “Don’t Panic” plans.  These stories were all U.S. based, but today we’ll look at several stories from the “other side of the pond”.  The first two are from the U.K. and demonstrate once again why legalization (rather than decriminalization) does no good for sex workers; this one’s from the October 6th Lancashire Evening Post:

A man who ran a brothel masquerading as a ‘gentleman’s club’ has been told to pay back almost £750,000 of his ill-gotten gains – or face prison.  John Williams Burrows, 63, funded a “lavish lifestyle” from the proceeds of the business…he pleaded guilty…to managing the brothel…and…was given a 10-month prison term suspended for 18 months.  But now, a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Manchester’s Minishull Street Crown Court has ordered him to pay back £742,759.83.  He must pay in six months or face four years in jail, after which he would still owe the money…He could now be forced to sell his assets and hand over his savings to meet the POCA ruling.

Other residents in the remote Hough Clough Lane area said they were shocked by the news…[a spokesman for the police] said:  “Brothels are a blight on our communities and we fully understand the concerns of residents who live in or near areas affected by the illegal sex industry.  Burrows enjoyed a lavish lifestyle from the exploitation of young women.  He has a property portfolio that will now have to be sold to fund this repayment”…[another] said:  “This shows that anyone who profits from criminal acts will be pursued through the courts and we will do everything in our power to seize their assets.”

infantalized prostitutes adAs you can see, the fact that prostitution is legalized in the UK doesn’t stop the persecution of sex businesses, the overblown dysphemisms, the governmental propaganda against sex work and the use of excuses to justify blatant money-grabbing (how can one “pay back” money to the government that didn’t come from the government in the first place?)  Change the “£” to “$” and the names of places and institutions, and this is indistinguishable from an American news story.  The same could be said of the following “sex trafficking” story from the October 4th Northumberland Journal:

A sex trafficker has been jailed for three years and four months for controlling prostitutes in Newcastle and elsewhere around the UK.  Stephen Craig, 34, was jailed for arranging travel, accommodation and advertising for 14 women.  His co-accused, Sarah Beukan, 22, was jailed for a year and a half for her part in the human trafficking network operated by Craig.  They admitted at an earlier hearing to moving 14 people to various addresses…to work as prostitutes…they also provided accommodation for the women to work out of, put out advertisements for their services in newspapers and online, and took a cut from their wages…there is no evidence to suggest Craig and Beukan were trafficking people from overseas into UK…there was “never any pressure, force, threat or compulsion of any kind directed at the women involved”…Detective Inspector Stephen Grant, from Strathclyde Police major investigation teams, said Craig and Beukan were “despicable individuals”.

In other words, Craig and Beukan ran a business.  Period.  They hired people to do legal work as independent contractors and charged a management fee; part of that covered travel, advertisement and accommodations.  And this makes them “despicable individuals”…how?  Is Detective Inspector Marx simply opposed to capitalism?  Or, as is more likely, is he simply a prancing savage who imagines that sex is magically different from all other human activity unless a shaman shakes his sacred rattles over the couple first?  Just as in the United States, prostitutes are imagined to be infantile lackwits who can be “controlled” by anyone male, yet this outrageous sexism is cheered by neofeminists as supportive of “equality”.

I’m not suggesting that legalization is inherently bad for whores; it’s certainly possible to imagine a legalization structure in which we are treated fairly.  But as we can see in the U.K. and Canada, most legalization schemes aren’t much better than criminalization and all of them open the door to police and governmental abuse of prostitutes nearly as widely as criminalization does.  The previous examples came to my attention through Harlot’s Parlour, but the following example from a different regime (published October 19th on IPS) was sent to me by regular reader Bandoblue:

The severe financial and economic problems in Portugal are driving many women to desperation and pushing them into prostitution as a last resort to support their families.  The decision to sell one’s body cannot be taken lightly.  But for many mothers the alternative is to condemn their children to hunger, which is why “increasing numbers of women in their thirties, who are victims of the crisis, are resorting to prostitution,” said Inês Fontinha, head of the Associação O Ninho (Nest Association).  Fontinha…said that…[in addition to] the fear that is natural in novices to the game, many of…these inexperienced women are also afraid…of falling victim to human trafficking networks, often controlled by the so-called “Eastern mafias”, in comparison with which the local pimps seem almost harmless…

Alexandra Oliveira…a researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences at the University of Oporto…[said] “Prostitution should be legalised to make it socially acceptable”…adding that it is still “highly stigmatised”…Her findings indicate that most sex workers, especially streetwalkers, come from the lower socioeconomic strata, have little formal education or professional training, and are from poor backgrounds…

What causes a woman to become a sex worker?  IPS asked two women who took up the life because of the crisis.  Pamela and Xana (their working names) said they are only in it for the money…”Lots of people mistakenly say that women who prostitute themselves do it for sexual pleasure, but they have no idea why we do what we do,” said Xana, a 29-year-old divorcée from Lisbon with two children she has to “feed, clothe and educate.”  Pamela and her partner also split up.  “From one day to the next he left home, and when a woman is left on her own with two children and the bills mounting up every day, life becomes pretty grim,” said Pamela, who worked in the textile industry up to a year ago…Both Xana’s and Pamela’s families are unaware of their activities.  Most sex workers lead a double life that their relatives do not know about…As for the sex itself, both women stated that they themselves set the rules, defining very clearly what was acceptable and what they were not prepared to do.  “We always insist on condoms.  It doesn’t matter if a client offers more money to have unprotected sex, we won’t agree,” said Pamela.  Can one be happy in such a life? was IPS’ final question.  Xana answered for both of them, with Pamela nodding agreement.  “When you are constantly judged and condemned, naturally you don’t feel very good…If our line of work was regarded in the same way as any other profession, I think we would feel better about what we do.”

Though the reporter is no less ignorant and the story details are no less lurid and sensationalized than one would find in the U.S. (including the typical emphasis on streetwalkers and pimps), the women are not portrayed as criminals, idiots or wantons, and it is notable that the Myth of the Wanton is specifically refuted by one of the interviewees.  Furthermore, though “human trafficking” mythology is unquestioned, the solution proposed by the quoted experts is neither the universal police-state crackdown to which American “authorities” masturbate nor the “end demand” dogma of fanatical neofeminists, but the simple and obvious solution proposed by sex workers the world over:  decriminalization, which is mistakenly referred to as “legalization” in the story (prostitution is already legal in Portugal).  Considering the success of drug decriminalization in Portugal and the generally more sensible attitude toward sex prevalent in Mediterranean Europe, this is not at all unlikely; there is even hope for a more rational policy in the UK and Canada.  Within the next few years it’s entirely possible that the only countries which completely deny women control over our own sex lives will be the U.S., its financially-dependent satellites in East Asia, and other oppressive Asian and African regimes.

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 42 Comments »

Divided We Fall

November 16, 2011 by Maggie McNeill

Every person knows that he should do what unites, not divides, him and other people.  –  Leo Tolstoy

In the ‘60s, prostitutes and homosexuals were in the roughly the same place legally; both of us were treated as criminals for our private sexual behavior.  Socially and psychologically, though, we had it better than they did:  while prostitutes were recognized as essentially normal and sane, homosexuals were considered abnormal and mentally ill.  Both groups started to fight for their civil rights about the same time, but while queers have won theirs whores have actually lost ground since then; most people now consider homosexuals sane and more or less normal, while the official position in many countries (especially the United States and several Scandinavian countries) is that whores are abnormal and mentally ill.  How did this sorry turn of events come to pass, especially since exclusive homosexuals make up less than 5% of the population while a similar fraction of women have prostituted themselves at least occasionally, and 69% of men have paid for sex at least once?

The answer is simple:  gay men and lesbians, two groups with almost nothing in common, banded together to defeat laws and policies which criminalized and marginalized them, but whores have instead allowed other women to undermine us by implementing policies which deny us agency and treat us like retarded children.  In other words, gay rights leaders built a coalition of a number of very small groups, while women – over half the human race – allowed our energies to be divided by giving a “bully pulpit” to a twisted minority faction whose members hate men, sex and their own femininity, and wish to destroy every aspect of traditional male-female social relations…including one of the oldest forms, prostitution.  And while the gay rights coalition just keeps growing (from “gay and lesbian” to “GLBT” to “GLBTQ” to whatever alphabet soup it is now), we divide our already-divided energies even further by wasting them in foolish infighting or spending them on gay rights efforts despite the fact that few of them help us in turn, and some of them even work against us!  Fortunately, now that they’ve won their place at the “big table”, some few gay rights activists seem to be recognizing the shamefulness of this attitude:

…What is it that so disturbs us about sex workers?  And do we even have a right to that judgment?  Specifically, does a member of a marginalized community have the right to condemn another marginalized community?  Do they still have that right if they are sitting on a bar stool watching hard bodied go go boys?…maybe it is not sex work we despise, but  the public display of same.  If that is the case, then what of cruising, and the hyper speed electronic cruising created by various phone apps?  Maybe that is okay, and sex work is not, for financial reasons?  If the working girls and guys of the world were out there giving freebies would we be okay with it?  At that point it is just anonymous sex, and since nobody seems to be  looking for a husband on Grindr, I presume we are mostly okay with that…

…The hard fast truth is a majority of sex workers are in the profession completely on a voluntary basis, and for many, it has more to do with the freedom the job offers than any financial consideration.  This is the denied voice—the words not spoken when we attempt to co-opt the sex professions for our own advocacy needs.  We will not  help anyone by demeaning them, and as much as we may wish to rationalize otherwise, we are really just trying to forward our own agendas at the expense of others.  Further, people generally make the mistake of assuming sex work is not a legitimate occupation, and so must be looked at differently.  Are there sex workers who took the job because there were no others available to them?  Because it meets their financial needs better than any other?  Who suffer from the choice because they hate the job?  Of course, but I know carpenters that would fit that description just as well.  Is anyone advocating on their behalf?…How is sex work different?

But, you say, sex work is against the law.  Okay, point taken.  I can not argue against current illegality of sex work.  But I can make the case for tolerance.  For starters, the lynch mob, police crack down attitude is useless.  Interesting that police are meeting with neighborhood  residents to address a large uptick in prostitution, when there is not one.  It is not as though a whole bunch of locals decided to turn tricks and all showed up on one block.  No, they moved, to escape the last neighborhood crackdown.  Sex work is not something you eliminate, just something you pawn off on the neighbor…

…we start by dropping our middle class puritanical objections and learn to accept that sex workers are humans and deserve basic rights and dignity just like everyone.  We also learn to accept that they too have the right to self determination, and assure that efforts to help them are never confused with efforts to save them.  We further recognize that this is a part of our community, as there are many LGBTIQ identified sex workers…We need to be, dare I say it, tolerant and accepting.

I’m disgusted to hear that some members of the queer community actually argue against prostitution on the grounds that it’s against the law, when male homosexual activity was illegal in most states within the lifetimes of most of these middle-class, puritanical homos, and only became legal in some states in 2003.  The existence of evil laws is not a valid argument against whatever it is those laws ban, and it certainly isn’t an excuse for ignoring the rights of those who break those laws; homosexuals of all people should understand this, and it’s sad that some pretend not to.  Though the people who have abandoned queerness (with all the word entails) for respectability may object to my borrowing their former slogan, I say to them:  “We’re here, we’re whores, get used to it!”

One Year Ago Today

“License To Rape” is a power many cops grant themselves over whores…and some cops grant themselves over all women.

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments »

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