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In the News (#858)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, activism, Against Their Will, agency denial, asset seizure, Between the Ears, bogus studies, Canada, censorship, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, Dirty Amateurs, disability, Disaster, disease, drugs, Eavesdropping, Europe, Florida, France, Held Together With Lies, India, Kenya, language, law, Legalization a Good Idea?, Michigan, Monsters, Nigeria, Profound Mental Disabilities, propaganda, racism, Rhinoceros, Rooted in Racism, sex toys, stripping, surveillance, Texas, That Old Black Magic, transgender, Under Every Bed, violence vs. sex workers, yellow journalism on July 28, 2018| 2 Comments »

What is trafficking, anyway? – Kanchan, an Indian sex worker

Against Their Will

What kind of “rescuers” lock the “victims” they “rescue” in a cage?

Police in Kenya rescued 21 young Nepalese women during a raid on two strip clubs in…Nairobi…”the…girls…had been trafficked to Kenya for exploitation,” [pigs] wrote on…Twitter…Images of the operation…showed three young women dressed in brightly coloured blouses hiding their faces as they were [dragged] away…”We are holding the 21 girls and three other local suspects. We are probing their links to international human trafficking rings”…

Dirty Amateurs

Another effect of France’s jihad against sex workers: “French health authorities are warning the general public to use protection and get tested after their latest findings suggest chlamydia and gonorrhoea cases in the country tripled between 2012 and 2016…” Pay close attention to the timing. When “authorities” increase persecution of sex workers and clients, men are more afraid to buy sex from competent professionals, and instead turn to careless, filthy amateurs; this is the result.

Counterfeit Comfort

We certainly can’t have those dirty pedos helping each other to stay off the “sex offender” registry:

…the online “virtuous pedophile” community…[is] a network of both adults and youth who are attracted to children but are committed to never, ever acting on those attractions. They are pedophiles, but they aren’t child molesters…there are few outlets for…non-offending pedophiles to find support. In the U.S., therapists are obligated to [rat out] their clients to authorities if they think there is a chance the client will abuse a child…just disclosing the attraction can be a risk…online [communities are] one of the few places pedophiles can anonymously discuss their problems. These forums aren’t places to trade kiddie porn or solicit sex (there are strict rules against this); they are places where pedophiles can talk honestly about how to deal with their attractions and exist in a society that views them as subhuman. But…[their] message boards and forums have been targeted and shut down by hackers, and [last] week, an online community…with over 400 members was shut down by Discord, the company that hosted their server…”for violations of our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines”…

Monsters

Yellow journalists assist cops to protect and serve crime victims:

A transgender woman was found dead [on July 19th] at an Orlando apartment complex…her body…had signs of trauma…Sasha Garden…was a sex worker…many in the community are worried after Garden’s death and the murders of three transgender woman in Jacksonville this year…[local activist] Montrese Williams says Orange County deputies came to her house around 7:30 a.m. for her help identifying Garden…”As soon as I opened the door, I get, ‘I hear a bunch of transvestites stay here.’ I had to let them know, I’m a transgender woman and I’m the only one that stays here”…Despite Montrese Williams telling deputies that Sasha Garden was a trans woman, in the official report they described her as a 27-year-old man from Jacksonville, who “was wearing a wig and was dressed as a female.” Naturally…Orlando television stations followed suit with headlines that described her with phrases like a “man in a wig” (WESH) or a “man dressed as a woman” (WFTV)…

Profound Mental Disabilities (#512)

Another case of the state using sex work as “evidence” of mental disability:

London [Ontario] police [claimed a 20-year-old woman called “C.S.”] was imprisoned by a human trafficker, and forced into selling sex…Amy Dykes…was charged in July 2015…But…Superior Court Justice Alissa Mitchell acquitted the accused woman on all charges. Her ruling speaks to the [state’s desire to deny the power of]…consent…[to] disabled adults…[and the] danger…[of the] narrative about…rescuing sex workers…The Crown alleged that Dykes forced C.S. into prostitution and controlled her with threats and by taking her disability payments, cell phone and bank card…[cops discovered] C.S. [in an “Operation Northern Spotlight” sting and pretended]…that C.S…was not fully aware of her situation…But [another cop]…had taken a different view of C.S., when he’d met her a month earlier…Although C.S. seemed naive, she showed a level of independence by…using her own debit card in front of him, and spoke well of [Dykes]…Other testimony and evidence showed C.S. could look after herself, bought her children toys and clothes, maintained a bank account, paid her share of the rent, cooked, maintained a cell phone, and kept up with friends on Facebook and texts and in person. C.S. has…[the] intelligence…of a child aged eight to 11, but is not a child in terms of life experience and accomplishments…“There is no evidence to support a finding that [C.S.] was incapable of providing her voluntary agreement to work as a prostitute…C.S. was adamant (with the [sting pigs]) that she had no interest in being rescued. Their discussion was lengthy and…C.S. remained steadfast…[until the cops’ continuing pressure caused her to] fear…she might find herself in trouble with the law if she did not agree she was the victim,” Mitchell said…

Rhinoceros (#611)

COAST isn’t mentioned here, but this is the same sort of insulting, patronizing bullshit they peddle, pretending that pigs, bureaucrats and other busybodies know more about our profession than we do:

Shane Harrington…wants his employees to know what to watch for to make sure his clubs aren’t the target of traffickers. “If there’s an entertainer who’s like [“I have bills”]…that’s a sign,” Stephanie Olson said. Olson, the CEO of the “Set Me Free” project, is against sex…Her passion drove her to share her [propaganda]…So, she teamed up with Club Omaha to [indoctrinate] employees…Harrington, the nude dance club operator, said his club gets a bad rap and part of this [indoctrin]ation is to [virtue signal]…

Held Together With Lies (#648)

Looks like “Walk Free Foundation” got tired of its old wanking fantasy, so they inflated it:

[Propaganda] on modern slavery around the world [now claims] that the number of slaves in developed nations…is much higher than previously [pretended]. The Global Slavery Index is published annually by the Walk Free Foundation…In its new report, Walk Free Foundation is still using the 40.3 million figure, but says that [inflation of] its [fantasy] mean it [now pretends] country-level figures [are higher] than ever before: it now [claims] that in the United States 403,000 people — or 1 in every 800 — are living in modern slavery, seven-times higher than it previously believed. In the UK, it [claims] there are 136,000 slaves, almost 12-times higher than previous figures. The numbers contrast with UK government’s [already-inflated] estimate that there were between 10,000 and 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2013. There is no equivalent government figure for the US…Walk Free Foundation [claims] the reason for the dramatic increases in its slavery estimates for some countries is that the latest report uses far more data sources than previously…

Click on the subtitle link to see how “Walk Free” comes up with these ridiculous “slavery” numbers.

A Broker in Pillage (#791)

The quaint non-“law enforcement” term for this is “blackmail”:

Under Michigan law, Stephen Nichols was supposed to get a “prompt” court hearing to challenge the forfeiture of his car, which police…[stole] in 2015 because he was driving it without valid insurance…Nichols still hasn’t had his day in court…[he] and two other plaintiffs filed a federal class-action lawsuit…[because] Wayne County police and prosecutors seize residents’ property and force them to wait months, sometimes years, for a hearing…the delays violate the 14th Amendment right to due process. In addition, Wayne County prosecutors offer to settle cases out of court for $900, leaving owners to choose between getting their vehicle back quickly…or shelling out even more money for a lawyer and waiting months to get their means of transportation back…The two other named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Adam and Ryan Chappell, are a father and son…the younger Chappell was borrowing his dad’s car one day in July 2016 when Wayne County sheriff’s deputies saw him pull into a medical marijuana dispensary in Detroit. The cops pulled him over as he left and [stole] the car. No [legal medical] marijuana was recovered from the car, and no criminal charges were filed in the case…Chappell’s car was one of hundreds [stolen] by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office for visiting a [perfectly legal business]…

Between the Ears (#791)

Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you:

…Lovense [sex] toys can already be controlled remotely using an app, but now Alexa voice commands will activate them too…anyone with a Lovense toy and the Lovense Remote app will be able to simply update the app to use the feature…Asking [Alexa] to make you “smile” will result in a less powerful buzz than asking to “moan,” or even “scream”…Alexa will also be able to sync your toy to a Spotify account, making it buzz along to the music…

Think I’m paranoid? Check the subtitle; Lovense has already been caught doing it.

Rooted in Racism (#797)

“Repatriation” is the fashionable euphemism for “deportation”:

What to do about illegal migration from Africa into Europe? The EU’s repatriation programme seems at first like a great idea [to racists who don’t want black people in Europe]…we persuade them [at gunpoint] to go back home and help them to remake their lives there. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has coughed up £125 million for the scheme and about 25,000 migrants have already taken part, most heading home to west and central Africa…60 per cent of all illegal Nigerian migrants to Europe [travel by way of Benin]…in the 1980s, a group of local women went as guest workers to Italy, and came back to their hometown rich after becoming prostitutes. Word spread of their success, and so people-smuggling networks were set up that thrive to this day…The city now has a huge red-light district with many families knowingly sending their daughters into prostitution abroad. Malign local juju cults have been revived by the smuggling gangs, who make their clients undergo secret rituals of obedience. The most feared deity, a vengeful slave goddess called Ayelala, is now nicknamed “the patron saint of sex traffickers“…For all the opportunities on offer, what the [deported] migrants mostly felt was a sense of failure. The people smugglers’ ticket had often cost their family its life savings. Returning meant all that effort and money had been wasted…

Though the reporter clearly understands that these people are migrating of their own free will to make a better life for themselves, he still can’t resist the urge to demonize their religion and infantilize them by pretending they are passive objects to be “trafficked”. Follow the links for previous examples of the same bigotry.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#846)

Sex worker rights activists are fighting India’s terrible new “anti-trafficking” bill:

A number of social workers, sex workers, lawyers, child rights and trans rights activists have…spoken out against the anti-trafficking bill…drafted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development…if enacted [it] will further marginalise vulnerable communities…activists…met [with the Minister] to discuss a petition…containing comments from 30 civil society organisations and 247 activists and lawyers, and endorsed by over 4,000 sex workers across the country …The bill conforms to a rescue-rehabilitation approach and…adult sex worker…rights would be completely negated if it is enacted…The bill…asserts that “the consent of the victim is immaterial in the determination of the offence of trafficking”…

Under Every Bed (#850)

Notice how tired and perfunctory “sex trafficking is EVERYWHERE!” articles are beginning to sound?

…Central Texas…is a focus for human trafficking because of its proximity to the southern border, Interstate 35 and its strong demand for labor, UnBound Director Susan Peters said. UnBound…It has recently worked with the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office on several trafficking cases, including at local massage parlors where [cops pretend] women were…forced to offer sex acts for money…

Disaster (#850)

I’ve never seen anything galvanize public support for sex workers like FOSTA has:

…women and advocates…speaking on Native America Calling, a live call-in program dedicated to issues specific to Native communities, charged that the so-called FOSTA-SESTA legislation has made life more…dangerous…for sex workers—and has left Native American women especially vulnerable…Becki Jones, a sexual health educator for Planned Parenthood…and a member of the Diné tribe…said…FOSTA-SESTA’s restrictions on commercial sex sites effectively removed sex workers ability to “screen for particular clients that might be super violent.” By shutting down what amounted to protective online resources for sex workers, the measures in effect closed off a source of networking and mutual aid…sex work deserves legal protection and must be de-stigmatized…

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In the News (#854)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Procrustean Bed, agency denial, asset seizure, Backwards into the Future, bogus studies, brothels, California, Checklist, cops, drugs, Florida, Georgia, hysteria, It Looks Good On Paper, Kenya, law, lawheads, Legislators Gone Wild, Libya, Madonna/whore, Maine, Mozambique, Negative Secondary Effects, neofeminism, Nevada, Ohio, pathologization of males, politicians, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, restaurants, Rooted in Racism, Saving Them from Themselves, See No Evil, Shazam!, South Carolina, stripping, surveillance, To Molest and Rape, Uganda, United Kingdom, With Friends Like These on July 14, 2018| 1 Comment »

I felt that the glitter on the seized cash was compelling evidence.
– Jude Faccidomo

It Looks Good On Paper

Remember that I’ve been a harsh critic of these do-nothing law for 7 years:

Under Ohio’s safe harbour legislation – and similar laws across all states…[women can] request that criminal charges…accrued while [coerced into prostitution be]…expunged from the public record. Yet [prohibitionists] across the US are warning that a sudden decision by the Trump administration, effective immediately, to cut all funding for legal representation…means that many other victims will now struggle to get their expungement cases into a courtroom…the American Bar Association, members of Congress, survivors, advocates and law enforcement have called for a reversal of the decision [even though they still support]…deny[ing]…the…legal rights [of sex workers who aren’t poster children for prohibition]…

Far be it from me to say anything good about the orange-utang, but these laws actually help nobody but “perfect victims”; defunding them will change essentially nothing.

With Friends Like These…

If you can’t write a pro-decrim article without saying that you wish whores didn’t exist, don’t write one at all:

…there’s not much that’s more misogynistic than blaming women because they fulfill the needs of men. It’s all very well to insist that women make this choice because of patriarchy and false consciousness, as some feminists do, and are called “whorephobic” for their pains. But…feminist theory doesn’t pay the bills. I’m not pretending that there would be prostitution in my ideal world. There wouldn’t. I like neither the idea nor the reality of prostitution. But I also know that the world isn’t, and can’t be, arranged around what I like…I know as well, or think I know, that “free choice” is merely a concept and that human beings have no more free choice than foxes or dolphins or butterflies. We have loaded choices, all of them dictated by our upbringing, our finances, our cultural landscape and our genes, in that order…

In my ideal world, hypocritical apologists for feminism like Deborah Orr wouldn’t exist; I like neither the idea nor the reality of them. But I’m an adult who understands that the concept of an “ideal world” is childish nonsense, and that one whose “ideal world” doesn’t include free choice is a pompous asshat.

See No Evil (#136)

Seven years in a cage for drawing a fictional character:

Christopher John Czarnik…is serving time on a 2014 plea for the possession and distribution of sexually explicit images of children. He was then charged again with child porn in prison….[after] guards found a drawing of a young girl engaged in sexual acts with an adult male…Czarnik then showed [screws] more pictures and writings of this own creation. That was deemed possession and creation of child porn…Czarnik entered a guilty plea with the condition that the legal issue be allowed to be litigated over…”cartoon characters.” That plea limited the added sentence to seven years…

A Broker in Pillage (#406)

It’s not often a judge rules against cops in favor of a sex worker:

The Miami-Dade Police Department must return nearly $20,000 in cash to a woman after prosecutors admitted that [cops] illegally searched her car and seized several lawfully owned guns…the department will also pay $3,000 in legal fees to Lizmixell Batista, a dancer at the local Cheetah Gentleman’s Club, and her husband, Ras Cates…Batista and Cates were arrested following a traffic stop in May. [Cops pretended to] smell…marijuana in their car, and a subsequent search turned up six guns, several large bottles of what cops [claimed] to be codeine cough syrup, and nearly $20,000 in cash in Batista’s purse…[cops bragged as though] it [were] a major bust…[but] prosecutors dropped the charges…when body-cam footage showed police didn’t have permission to search the couple’s trunk. The guns were all legally owned, Cates had a concealed carry license, and no testing had been done on the su[ppos]ed codeine…Batista had explained…why, given her profession, she would be carrying large amounts of cash, but the department initiated a forfeiture case against the money anyway…[pretend]ing it was dope money…

A Procrustean Bed (#651)

The idea that sex workers might be neither criminals nor victims is too much for the tiny, narrow minds of “authorities”:

Yan Liu, originally from China and now a resident of New York City, was charged [in Maine] with engaging in prostitution. No other people were charged in connection with her arrest, including a man and a woman [imagined] by the motel employee as coercing Liu back into the room, or a client [of hers]…Liu, who does not speak English and communicated with police and court officials through an interpreter, posted a $1,000 cash bail and pleaded not guilty to the charge…but she has been unwilling to [tell] her court-appointed attorney, Merritt Heminway [what he wants to hear]…She did, however, tell him she arrived in the United States last September and has applied for asylum…After a June 27 hearing…Liu and the state filed an agreement that if she remains out of trouble for one year, her case will automatically be dismissed. She was not required to enter a guilty plea…Destie Hohman Sprague…of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, [complained that pigs and politicians did not overrule Liu’s agency]…to protect Lui’s safety…But Liu’s defense attorney criticized the district attorney’s office for prosecuting the case at all, contending Liu is a victim of sex trafficking…He speculated the rational [sic] for applying charges was to convince her to identify leaders of a [fantasized] trafficking ring…[the DA bloviated that] prosecuting such cases is sometimes the only mechanism the court system has of [maintaining surveillance] on people who[se agency it wishes to deny]…The [pompous ignoramus who acts as] prosecutor said nearly all women involved in prostitution have been trafficked at some point in their lives…

Negative Secondary Effects

Welcome to our world, cannabusiness:

Every municipality in San Diego County that limits or bans the sale of marijuana has cited public safety as the justification…[then-police chief] Shelley Zimmerman’s testi[lied] in September 2017…[that] 272 police radio calls for “burglaries, robberies, thefts, assaults and shootings, just to name a few,” at medical marijuana dispensaries over a two-and-a-half-year period [constituted] evidence of the kind of activity such facilities invite on a neighborhood…Zimmerman’s [lies] appeared in a memo written by Oceanside Police Chief Frank McCoy to the City Council, which decided — against the recommendations of a subcommittee — not to allow retail shops. Her remarks were also cited by anti-pot activists in Imperial Beach who helped slow down marijuana regulations there…Diane Goldstein, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant, analyzed the records, which were made available on the city’s website in March. She concluded that the Police Department’s presentation was “sloppy, unprofessional and based on ideology”…The address listed on more than a quarter of those reports were to neighboring business, not a marijuana facility. Several of the city’s legal dispensaries existed then — as they still do — within shopping malls or office complexes…

To Molest and Rape (#756)

Rapist cop escapes consequences for his actions by croaking:

Troy Allen Large…died earlier this year…Large, a…sex-crimes investigator, is accused of using his “position of power to [rape]…female victims of violent crime” and then…coercing them into participating in video-recorded, nude catfights…police officials were aware of the accusations…and [did nothing]…

Saving Them From Themselves (#764)

Adult woman magically turns into “child” via the power of a magical camera:

A Cleveland man who testified in defense of his roommate in a child pornography case admitted on the stand to taking sexually explicit pictures of a…girlfriend…Edward Marrero, 27, said…he took the photos in April 2011…[when] she was 17 years old and he was 20…The age of consent in Ohio is 16 years old, but federal law states it is illegal to create, share or possess sexually-explicit images of anyone under the age of 18…He is now charged with producing child pornography. If convicted, he faces between 15 and 30 years in federal prison…

“Child” pornography. Of a consenting woman it was legal for him to fuck, who is now 24 years old. But it’s to “protect the children”!!!!

Checklist (#796)

The scheme to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system continues:

Last year, 276 [phone calls were made from Georgia by hysterics]…to the National Human Trafficking Hotline…Georgia law requires airports, train stations and emergency rooms to post [magic anti-pimp signs] in public restrooms…[spokespig Brian] Johnston [oinked that] Savannah’s highways and interstates…mak[e[ it easier to move people quickly to another city or another state…St. Joseph’s/Candler [hospital forces]…staff to [attend indoctrination sessions on]…the [mythical] signs…[social worker and fabulist Jessy] McMullan said she already knows it works from a friend who works as an ER nurse in Atlanta and had similar training. “Within two weeks of the training, she identified two child victims that came through the emergency room…They were reunited with their families. It gives you chills”…

Urban legends are always said to have happened to a “friend of a friend” (FoF); in this case it’s the supposed patient of an unnamed friend. So where are the links to the news stories where the pigs grunt about these “child sex trafficking victims” they “rescued”? Because you know that if this had actually happened it would’ve been big news.

Rooted in Racism (#797)

More European government humanitarianism to “fight human trafficking”:

Operation Sophia, the EU naval operation in the Mediterranean…is helping the Libyan coastguard return migrants to rape, slavery, torture and murder in local camps…Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), citing accounts from its staff in Libya, says…when migrants could not pay for their release having been captured by the authorities, some had their genitals cut off…Others said there had been routine rapes at camps to detain migrants. MSF says that it sends 50 body bags a week to one camp…“Under the pretence of saving lives and disrupting the business model of smugglers and traffickers, the Libyan coastguard are supported and empowered by EU states to intercept people at sea and send them back to the very conditions they were trying to escape”…

Backwards into the Future (#827)

Another victory for feminism against jobs for women:

The Dutch brewer Heineken is suspending the use of ‘beer girls’ in Mozambique due to allegations of sexual harassment from customers …NRC Handelsblad…published…research by Partner Africa showing that…there were “revealing short skirts” in…Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda. It has introduced a new code of practice for its third party partners, who employ the women to sell the beer to bars and restaurants in Africa, including safe working practices and “decent uniforms”…NRC [also] claimed…some prostitutes combined beer promotion with their Heineken work, to get more clients for both. No evidence of links with prostitution was [provided]…But the Amsterdam-based brand was under pressure from other businesses, including the Global Fund international health organisation, which had suspended its partnership with Heineken and urged it to protect women beer promoters from [gainful employment]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#841)

Where “cutting-edge” is used to mean “hopelessly inaccurate”:

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police force has defended the organization’s ongoing trials of automated facial recognition systems, despite legal challenges and criticisms that the technology is “almost entirely inaccurate”…Police commissioner Cressida Dick said…the public “expect[s]” law enforcement to test such cutting-edge systems…The London force is one of several in the UK…deploy[ing the surveillance system] at public events like concerts, festivals, and soccer matches. Mobile CCTV cameras are used to scan crowds, and tries to match images of faces to mugshots of wanted individuals…According to data released under the UK’s Freedom of Information laws, 98 percent of the “matches” made by the Metropolitan’s AFR system are mistakes…The Met [claims]…that no individuals have [yet] been arrested because of a false match…

Legislators Gone Wild (#847)

Evil douchebags trying to criminalize Nevada brothels fall on their faces:

Opponents of legalized prostitution in Nye County had been trying to put the issue to voters in a referendum in November. But county officials said Monday the effort had failed to turn in the required 1,963 signatures. The deadline was [June 29^th]. The only recourse for proponents of the brothel elimination measure is to get county commissioners to agree to put it on the ballot…Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly said the board’s chairman had already indicated he would not bring the item forward…That leaves [prohibitionists] needing at least two other commissioners to call a special meeting…The group had also targeted Lyon County…But the county’s Board of Commissioners decided in June to take a different approach to the issue by placing an advisory question on the ballot in November…ask[ing] voters whether the board should end legalized prostitution in Lyon County…

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In the News (#842)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, advertising, asset seizure, brothels, clowns, Colorado, cops, Couples, Crying for Nanny, dirty, escort review sites, hotels, hysteria, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, Ireland, Myanmar, North Carolina, Original Sin, Prudesville, rescue industry, restaurants, Send In the Clowns, Texas, Thailand, The Mob Rules, Things We Choose To Do Together, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims? on May 30, 2018| 2 Comments »

This has been a very cleverly designed campaign to end the commercial sex industry. – Billie McIntire

Where Are the Victims?

As usual, not even an allegation that he exploited anyone:

An American man has been arrested in a sting operation for allegedly running a online brothel service matching men in northern Thailand with Myanmar sex workers across the border…Kenneth Viggo Albertsen…is behind a website and Facebook page called “Burmese Border Chicks for Hire” that sold sex with Myanmar women for 6,500 baht ($200). The business brought women to meet clients on the Thai side of the border in Mae Sai, and also offered to “guide” men into Myanmar for sex services…

A Procrustean Bed

Let’s hope this is the start of a new trend:

After just a few years in operation, Delaware’s Human Trafficking Court is shutting down. The court’s rise and fall…shines a light on how trending problems lead to stupid policy…a 2016 report from the Delaware Criminal Justice Council, which found less than a third of people who started the…program actually completed it and that there was “little evidence to suggest the defendants of this court are the subjects” of sex-trafficking enterprises…[delusional prohibitionists] argue that “free will is an illusion”…and they insist the definition of sex-trafficking victim should be expanded to include anyone who exchanges sexual services for money…But…many arrested on prostitution charges didn’t want to declare themselves victims, name names of “traffickers,” enter a months-long state-run “treatment” program, or even leave prostitution in the first place. And those that were open to state aid with starting a new life could find themselves presented not with practical assistance but things like yoga classes and group counseling…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

Because “brothel”:

A husband and wife team who charged clients €200 an hour for sex with them at their Ennis home have escaped jail. Spanish national, David Navaro…and his Brazilian born wife, Celia Galan…arrived into Ireland from Barcelona in 2015 and a surveillance operation by Gardai was mounted outside the couple’s Ennis home in July 2016 as a result of Garda suspicions that there was a brothel being operated from their home…[since] both have no previous convictions [the] judge…fine[d] each €600…

Little Tin Gods

For those who think Arpaio, Judd & Dart are anomalies:

…[sheriffs have] enormous power…over the lives of local residents. The scope of their dominion varies slightly by county, but is almost always wide-reaching. Like other police officers, sheriffs can arrest you, serve you a warrant, write you a traffic ticket. But, depending on the county, they also perform countless other duties, including overseeing discretionary funds, patrolling highways, investigating crimes, and evicting tenants…in most places, sheriffs are also responsible for managing the local jails. This is particularly important because jails have functionally replaced mental health facilities in America…The extent of a sheriff’s power can [be]…dangerous. In some California counties, the sheriff even moonlights as the county coroner, an example of how sheriffs’ power obliterates any hope of accountability by the public…the only thing that could really limit the power of the sheriff is the voter. But that’s not really how it plays out on the ground…As Professor Casey LaFrance told the New Yorker’s Rachel Aviv, “Once you become the sheriff, you’re likely to remain the sheriff until you retire or die”…

Drawing Lines

Most of this is fairly elementary, but it’s always nice to see this kind of point:

…Alison Bass…said it was interesting that other forms of sex work, such as stripping, pornography and being a mistress in exchange for money and power were legal, while sex work involving a straightforward transaction was not. “What’s the difference between Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Yankee Clippers, who spent millions of dollars on his much younger mistress—bought her a car, an apartment, all this stuff…and someone who has a more straightforward transaction for an evening or an hour? There’s really no difference, but one is legal, perfectly legal, and one is not”…

Prudesville

If you think the choice of target had nothing to do with the neighboring county’s crusade against them, you haven’t been paying attention:

Police from the southern King County town of Pacific arrested two men…who allegedly confessed to setting fire to a bikini barista stand. The men, both 19, were booked into King County Jail…and reportedly called themselves “stupid”…about 2:54 a.m. at the Cowgirls Espresso stand…[cops] arrived to find “a large cloud of smoke”…and the smell of gasoline…the south side of the building was damaged. An Auburn [cop] had already detained two men nearby from a reported car vandalism incident and…they also admitted to setting the Cowgirls blaze…

He Said, She Said (#448)

Another abusive asshole tries to hide his violence behind BDSM:

Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, has long [pretended to] be…a…champion of women’s rights, and recently he has become an outspoken figure in the #MeToo movement…Now Schneiderman is facing a reckoning of his own…four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters…accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence. All have been reluctant to speak out, fearing reprisal. But two of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, have talked to The New Yorker on the record, because they feel that doing so could protect other women. They allege that he repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent…both…sought medical attention after having been slapped hard across the ear and face, and also choked. Selvaratnam says that Schneiderman warned her he could have her followed and her phones tapped, and both say that he threatened to kill them if they broke up with him…

Naturally, actual kinky people are appalled:

…Mistress Matisse called any non-negotiated encounter “ABUSE. End of story”…Ronan Farrow, co-author of the New Yorker story that first revealed the allegations…[said] the accusers made clear “that this was not role-playing…It wasn’t in a gray area at all”…Jillian Keenan, author of the BDSM memoir Sex with Shakespeare…[wrote] “Just as sex without consent is rape, kink without consent doesn’t exist – that’s assault”…

Send In the Clowns

Dare I hope for a return of “creepy clown” hysteria?

A 19-year-old was arrested…for stabbing her boyfriend not long after she said men should only be used as “human sacrifices”. Zoe Adams reportedly dressed up as a clown and put a pillow over Kieran Bewick’s face as they were intimate one night. Then she stabbed him five times with a 10-inch knife…Adams described the incident, which resulted in Bewick, 17, having a collapsed lung, as an “overreaction”…She allegedly took pictures after the incident with the caption “Murder is like a bag of chips: you can’t stop after just one”…

A Broker in Pillage (#750)

Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together:

Anthonia Nwaorie says she knew travelers entering the United States with more than $10,000 in cash are legally required to report that fact to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But the Texas nurse, who was born in Nigeria and became a U.S. citizen in 1994, says she did not realize the same obligation applies to people leaving the United States. That mistake cost her $41,377, most of which was earmarked for a medical clinic she planned to build in her native country…Because the Justice Department declined to pursue civil forfeiture of the money, CBP was required to return it. Yet the agency has refused to do so unless Nwaorie signs a waiver forgoing interest on the money, renouncing any legal claims in connection with the seizure, assuming responsibility for claims by third parties, and promising to reimburse the government for any expenses it incurs while enforcing the agreement. That demand is illegal and unconstitutional, according to a federal class action lawsuit that the Institute for Justice filed…on behalf of Nwaorie and other travelers who have found themselves in the same situation…

Original Sin (#803)

We’re seeing more and more of this in mainstream papers:

…anti-trafficking NGOs…are staunchly religious, and those religious views can have damaging effects…Billie McIntire, a psychotherapist and educator at the Colorado School for Family Therapy, as well as a former sex worker…says that the anti-trafficking movement has been intentionally co-opted by religious institutions, who police prostitution and infringe on the rights of sex workers, using anti-trafficking rhetoric as a ploy to gain sympathy, more members, more money and more ammunition against consensual commercial erotic services…McIntire blasts anti-trafficking organizations that have joined up with movements like Fight the New Drug (an anti-pornography initiative), and have lobbied against national bills to decriminalize prostitution…

Crying for Nanny (#809)

This is even scarier post-FOSTA:

…“Some of the facts of our cases are going to show that not only did some of these hotel facilities or truck stops turn a blind eye, but they actually facilitated the trafficking of these individuals,” attorney Annie McAdams said…“We’re here to disrupt the status quo of the industry”…

Pyrrhic Victory (#810)

License plate readers are a menace to civil rights:

Maryland State Police vehicles have their on-board computer connected to the automatic license plate readers in their patrol cars. These computers are set to flag…out-of-state vehicles with owners that have concealed carry permits…The [cop] can…stop the vehicle and challenge the driver to produce his concealed weapon, for which he has a legal permit IN ANOTHER STATE. If the driver is found to have a concealed firearm…he has violated Maryland State firearms law. The person will be arrested and there is a three year minimum sentence. Having a concealed carry permit in another state [is also claimed as] probable cause for…a search of the…vehicle…IF YOU ARE LEGALLY CARRYING CONCEALED FROM ANOTHER STATE, DO NOT EVEN DRIVE THROUGH MARYLAND. AND IF YOU HAVE A PERMIT FROM ANOTHER STATE, EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT CARRYING, EXPECT TO BE STOPPED…

To Molest and Rape (#817)

Another pig uses a traumatized woman’s fear as leverage:

…a [cop] in Apex, North Carolina has been accused of coercing a domestic violence survivor into an affair while working on her case…Worth Brown kissed Julia Allgrove against her will after she called police after her estranged and abusive husband repeatedly violated a restraining order she’d taken out to protect herself and their two small children. A relationship between the victim and the detective developed…he said her husband’s case would be dropped if the relationship was ever revealed…and…that she could lose custody of her children…

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In the News (#791)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Woman's Point of View, animals, asset seizure, Bad Girls, Between the Ears, Canada, censorship, Colorado, cops, drivers, Eavesdropping, Facebook, Gateway, halfway whores, internet, New Hampshire, pragmatism, sex toys, Subtle Pimping, Surplus Women, surveillance, Swedish model, The Mote and the Beam, The Prudish Giant, The Sky is Falling!, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state) on November 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Once [the cops] put you in that [sex worker] box…they don’t care. – unnamed victim of Oluwatobi Boyede

Bad Girls

I don’t know who this chick is, and none of the Seattle whores I’ve talked to do either. But we all know the “oral sex” thing is bullshit:

An escort was arrested on accusations she shot a Washington state man in the head because she thought he was bad at oral sex – and she wasn’t sure how to tell him. Marissa Wallen, 21, allegedly admitted to shooting her 36-year-old client at his North Everett home last month…she then stole the victim’s wallet, left him for dead and went on a $12,000 shopping spree…Wallen told a detective that the man was “performing oral sex wrong and she did not know how to tell him that” so she grabbed a gun and shot him…He was found alive but unresponsive on Oct. 24, three days after he was shot, when his employer asked police to perform a welfare check…

In recent years, cops have developed a nasty game of tricking sex workers into saying or doing weird things so the story is more sensational.

Gateway

Leave it to the authoritarian mentality to imagine a link between sex work and barroom brawls:

…the Arctic Ranger…pub was at the centre of an investigation into claims a group of Hungarian women were being forced to work as prostitutes inside the bar…no one was prosecuted [but]…the claims [were used as grounds]…for closing the pub in June 2013 [anyway]. A licensing committee hearing was told the pub had become almost lawless after a spate of violent attacks…problems included…a victim suffering injuries to his eye and nose…[and] a fractured jaw…a [cop] suffering leg injuries after being struck by a thrown glass…a woman being assaulted…A fight involving 20 people…a man having his head stamped on…

Surplus Women

Cops threaten and harass sex workers, and disbelieve us when we try to give them information, then they disclaim responsibility when this happens:

A London [Ontario] sex worker says she warned police someone could die after she was choked, sexually assaulted and held against her will in the home of [Oluwatobi Boyede, who is] now accused of murder. But police didn’t believe her…and as a result…a second woman was assaulted and a third is dead. “I told them everything. They did nothing,” she said…“The cops treated me like I brought it on myself…They didn’t charge him. They treated me like a piece of shit…They did not want to hear what I was saying. What happened to the second girl and (homicide victim) Josie Glenn didn’t have to happen.” Her story may be the most damning indictment of police as questions grow about how…they approach violence against women, especially sex workers…

The Sky is Falling!

I find it difficult to believe that so many women made it through university without knowing anyone who did some kind of sex work:

The student debt crisis in the US has gotten so bad, there’s a growing group of young women…who are taking an unconventional approach to paying for college. Through…websites like SeekingArrangement, Sugar Babies…partner up with wealthy, often older, men who want to spend money on them. Some 2.5 million Sugar Babies identified as students in 2016 on SeekingArrangement.com…Sugar Babies go to dinners, attend events, or accompany their Sugar Daddy, or daddies, on trips. In some cases, they provide companionship or foster a mentor-mentee relationship. In other situations, the terms of the agreement include physical intimacy…

“Unconventional”? Really? Young women having sex with older men in exchange for support is practically the definition of “conventional”. If anything, it’s the pretense that this is something new and unusual that is “unconventional”.

A Broker in Pillage (#508)

The quaint non-“law enforcement” term for this is “blackmail”:

Denver cab driver Semere Fremichael got caught up in an undercover prostitution sting. He was innocent—he thought she wanted a ride, not sex for pay—and was acquitted by a judge. His taxi, however, got taken for a rough ride. Denver’s Fox affiliate has an excellent two-part investigation showing how the city attorney’s office is using civil asset forfeiture to cash in by snatching vehicles…for…low-level crimes…even when their owners aren’t convicted. In 2016, Denver made more than $2.4 million, seizing more than 1,800 vehicles…Denver put the screws to Fremichael…offering him a civil version of a plea deal: He could get the car back in 30 days if he gave them $1,000. Or he could demand a civil hearing. If he lost, it would cost him $6,000 and he could lose the car for a year. He took the deal, and says he probably lost an additional $2,500 because he couldn’t use his cab for a month, even though he committed no crime…

Subtle Pimping (#587)

When it comes to profiting from sex workers’ images while giving us nothing, fashion designers are among the worst offenders:

…The very prevalence of [stereotyped sex worker] images, overworked as they may be, is a testament to their durability…the clothes we wear, or might like to wear, owe a very real debt to the world’s most ancient profession. “Fashion…is influenced by hookers,” said Anna Terrazas, costume designer of The Deuce. “It’s not the other way around”…“There is an untold history of the relationship between sex workers and fashion,” said Rebecca Arnold, a fashion historian…working women routinely took up what their respectable contemporaries shunned as too showy, tasteless or new…

The Prudish Giant (#703)

Facebook can’t even follow its own “standards”:

Facebook has blocked the sale of a pack of Christmas cards featuring a robin redbreast because of its “sexual” and “adult” nature. The artist, Jackie Charley, said she “could not stop laughing” when she discovered the reason the social media company would not approve the product…The bird…was one of three designs painted by Charley of animals in the snow…The others were a stag and a squirrel…Charley said she was sent the message: “It looks like we didn’t approve your item because we don’t allow the sale of adult items or services”…Charley said…“There’s obviously nothing in the images themselves which is inappropriate. Similarly, there were no ‘trigger’ words used in the cards’ descriptions that I’m aware of. For instance, the robin card was simply called ‘Robin’, not ‘Robin Redbreast’ as some people have wondered”…she [has] not had any direct response from Facebook, but the interest generated from the gaffe had led to a lifting of the initial ban…

A Woman’s Point of View (#706)

Don’t get too excited that the New Hampshire legislature is “Establishing a committee to study decriminalizing sex work“; one of the sponsors has made comments in which the unmistakable stench of the Swedish rot is clearly present. But we’ll see.

Between the Ears (#722)

Have a device that connects to the internet? Assume it can be used to spy on you:

…a Reddit user pointed out that Hong Kong-based sex toy company Lovense’s remote control vibrator app…recorded a use session without their knowledge. An audio file lasting six minutes was stored in the app’s local folder. The user says he or she gave the app access to the mic and camera but only to use with the in-app chat function and to send voice clips on command — not constant recording when in use. Other users confirmed this app behavior, too. A user claiming to represent Lovense responded and called this recording a “minor bug” that only affects Android users. Lovense also says no information or data was sent to the company’s servers, and that this audio file exists only temporarily. An update issued [last week] should fix the bug…

The Mote and the Beam (#789)

Another probable casualty of the War on Whores:

…The Wikipedia we know today simply would not exist without Section 230. User-driven projects could not thrive if websites were subject to greater liability for user content, and certainly could not be supported by a small nonprofit organization like the Wikimedia Foundation. For that reason, we have…serious concerns about…SESTA and other amendments to Section 230. That’s why our Executive Director emphasized Section 230’s importance for Wikipedia’s hundreds of thousands of volunteer contributors in a recent campaign by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and why we submitted a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee expressing the importance of Section 230 for the Wikimedia projects. The current bill does not reflect the careful balance that preserves small, nonprofit community projects like Wikipedia…

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In the News (#775)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, Arizona, asset seizure, censorship, cops, dirty, fascism, homosexuality, hotels, illegal aliens, Legal Is as Legal Does, Missouri, Ohio, One Born Every Minute, pimps, politicians, porn, rape, Saving Them from Themselves, sexting, Signs, Surplus Women, surveillance, The Mote and the Beam, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Wise Investment on September 20, 2017| 1 Comment »

[Current law] leaves the door open for prosecutors to go after any teens who sext. – Doug Honig

Saving Them From Themselves

“Progressive” Washington state reaffirms its “liberal” views on sex:

…the Washington State Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a 17-year-old who sent a dick pic. The court found that state law allows him to be convicted for distributing child porn, even when the photo he sent was of himself. Legal advocates…[warned] that the ruling…make[s] it possible for prosecutors to charge sexting teens with crimes that will follow them for the rest of their lives…In an amicus brief…the ACLU of Washington, Columbia Legal Services, TeamChild, and the Juvenile Law Center argued that upholding the teen’s conviction is a “strained and erroneous interpretation” of child porn laws that “would jeopardize thousands of minors…by criminalizing…common and normative adolescent behavior.” The groups said the teenager’s conviction runs counter to the [supposed] intent behind the law, which is to [supposedly] protect children from exploitation, not convict them for taking pictures of their own bodies…

The civil rights groups’ statement is highly disingenuous; the intent of such laws isn’t to “protect” anyone, but to punish people for sexual behavior of which “authorities” disapprove.

Surplus Women

When a sex worker dies, the media treats it as a form of lurid entertainment:

Sarah Woods…of Portsmouth, [Ohio]…[was] found dead [on August 22^nd]…Wood’s death was quickly a popular topic on social media…Woods had a long history of drug abuse and prostitution. She had also lost many of those closest to her to drug abuse…Woods was still actively prostituting and using crack cocaine…[family members] saw Woods leave with an unidentified man that had helped set up clients…for Woods…

Legal Is as Legal Does

The difference between legalization and decriminalization cannot be stated too often:

…campaigners for criminalisation…often use the terms “legalisation” and “decriminalisation” interchangeably as if ignorant of their enormous differences. Legalisation holds sway in Nevada, Amsterdam and Germany, automatically criminalising any who do not comply with the regulatory regime – this may include those unwilling to register with the state, undergo high cost compulsory frequent medical checks or who wish to work in their own premises rather than large venues controlled by someone else. Decriminalisation, the removal of laws relating to consensual adult sexual behaviour, has been instituted nationwide only in New Zealand…

Signs (#650)

Beware of hotels eager to suck the cocks of “authorities”:

…two Motel 6 locations in Phoenix [are] routinely sending in leads to…Immigration and Customs Enforcement…”We send a report every morning to ICE—all the names of everybody that comes in,” a front-desk clerk told the [Phoenix] New Times…court documents show that “between February and August, ICE agents made at least 20 arrests at Motel 6s, showing up roughly every two weeks” while there was a distinct lack of “records indicating that ICE conducted arrests at other local motels during this same time period”…Motel 6 has a history of nationwide narc-ery, as documented by the American Civil Liberties Union in a 2015 statement about the chain’s habit of collaboration with local police…

One Born Every Minute (#685)

It’s always a pleasure to see whore-raping scum thrown in prison:

Mario Ambrose Antoine, a Kansas City-area man who posed as an adult producer and talent agent to [rape] women…and film them, was sentenced…to 10 years in federal prison without parole…Antoine told the women, who signed contracts and modeling release forms…that they would be paid thousands of dollars for their auditioning and modeling activity…when the women complained about not being paid, Antoine forwarded images of their sexual activity to their employers or significant others…

Wise Investment (#717)

Sex workers, clients & everyone else harmed by “prostitution stings” needs to keep suing over them:

…An arbitrator has awarded $17.5 million to a former Swedish Health neurosurgeon who says he was fired in retaliation for questioning the practices of another top surgeon. Dr. David Newell lost his job a year ago, and Swedish contends he was fired for failing to notify the organization that he had been arrested and jailed in a Seattle prostitution sting…“For this arbitrator to award Dr. Newell $17.5 million — at a time when…there is a [moral panic about imaginary]…sex trafficking and…[adult] women [are making their own sexual decisions] — is unconscionable and outrageous,” said Swedish’s CEO, Dr. Guy Hudson…Newell contends the prostitution issue was used as cover to get rid of him after he had raised internal concerns about Dr. Johnny Delashaw, a star surgeon who…had his state license suspended…

Until the Establishment suffers more from each “sting” than the victims do, such evil scams will never stop.

Too Close To Home (#729)

I hope this rapist spends the rest of his life on the “sex offender” registry:

For five months, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray rejected calls for his resignation [after it became known that]…he sexually abused teens decades before entering politics. But…he announced his resignation [last] Tuesday…after news emerged that a younger cousin was publicly accusing Murray of molesting him in…the 1970s…Since the [facts] began to emerge in April, Murray has continued to [pretend] he is innocent…

Yes, this is the kind of sociopath who thinks he has the right to persecute adult men for seeking consensual sex. If there’s any justice in the world John Urquhart, Dan Satterberg and Val Richey will be joining him in the same prison.

To Molest and Rape (#731)

When the molester is a cop, sexual assault becomes “interfering with civil rights”:

Cleveland [cop] Kenneth Bolton Jr. pleaded guilty to charges including gross sexual imposition as well as misdemeanor interfering with civil rights in a plea deal that allowed a kidnapping charge to be dropped…Bolton pulled over two women…after [being tipped off about their looks by]…another [cop]…Bolton used a sex toy [that he found by illegally searching their car] to rub their genitals over their clothing…he will now have to register as a sex offender. He will also no longer be able to serve as a [cop in Ohio, though he’ll probably be hired elsewhere]…

At least he’ll be on the “sex offender” registry, which rapist cops usually escape.

A Broker in Pillage (#750)

It looks like Congress is split on whether it’s OK for pigs to rob citizens blind:

…the House of Representatives…approved an amendment to [an]…Appropriations Act that will roll back Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s expansion of asset forfeiture. Amendment No. 126 was sponsored by a bipartisan group of nine members, led by Rep. Justin Amash…Sessions revived the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, which allowed state and local police agencies to [steal] assets and then give them to the federal government — which would in turn give a chunk back to local police. This served as a way for these local agencies to [openly violate] state laws designed to limit asset forfeiture…Rep. Don Beyer…[said] “Civil asset forfeiture…creates a perverse incentive to seek profits over justice.” The amendment passed with a voice vote, meaning it had overwhelming support…

The Mote and the Beam (#773)

What might the internet look like if SESTA isn’t stopped?

…With the threat of overwhelming criminal and civil liability hanging over their heads, Internet platforms would likely turn to automated filtering of users’ speech in a big way. That’s bad news because when platforms rely too heavily on automated filtering, it almost always results in some voices being silenced. And the most marginalized voices in society can be the first to disappear…The modern Internet is a complex system of online intermediaries…which we use to speak out and communicate with each other. Those platforms are all enabled by Section 230, a law that protects platforms from some types of liability for their users’ speech. Without those protections, most online intermediaries would not exist in their current form; the risk of liability would simply be too high…SESTA would…shift…additional liability to intermediaries. Many online communities would have little choice but to mitigate that risk by investing heavily in policing their members’ speech…

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In the News (#750)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, asset seizure, Australia, BDSM, Broken Record, California, Canada, censorship, Choke Point, cops, Cops and Robbers, dirty, Dominican Republic, end demand, Facebook, First They Came for the Hookers, Hollywood, hysteria, internet, Ireland, language, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, Real People, sex offender registry, Sex Rays (updates), sex work is work, Something Rotten In Sweden, sporting events, Texas, The End of the Beginning, The Public Morals, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, underage, Washington (state), Yellow Fever, yellow journalism on June 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

“Sexual exploitation” sounds like you’ve got a woman in a cage in the basement. – John Tymczyszyn

A Broker in Pillage

Dear useful idiots: I did tell you so:

Four U.S. senators have proposed legislation that would significantly expand the power of the federal government to seize citizens’ money when traveling in or out of the United States…The stated goal of the legislation is to make it more difficult for drug dealers, terrorists and other criminals to transport money and other “financial instruments” across the U.S. border, but several troubling provisions in the law could put law-abiding American citizens at risk of losing tens of thousands of dollars for doing nothing more than failing to fill out a government form…The Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Counterfeiting Act would expand “monetary instruments” covered under current law to include “prepaid access devices, stored value cards, digital currencies, and other similar instruments“…digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, are theoretically always transported by the owner of the digital currency account wherever he or she goes, which means digital currency owners with accounts valued at $10,000 or more must always report their funds or risk having them seized…the law treats all blank checks as though they are financial instruments valued in excess of $10,000 if the checking account contains at least $10,000, which means if a traveler accidentally fails to report a blank check floating around in his or her luggage, the account holder could face stiff penalties — even if there is no suspicion of criminal activity…

Yellow Fever

Reuters was once a respected news organization, but note the complete lack of evidence of any kind for these claims:

Children in the Dominican Republic are preyed upon by foreigners who visit the island to have sex with youngsters…a United Nations [bureaucrat] said. Maud de Boer-Buquicchio…[used the faddish term] hotspot…[and claims] Poor children can be pushed into the sex trade by their own families and local pimps, taxi and motorbike taxi drivers…”I saw it happen with the taxi drivers [she said, without presenting any actual evidence]…A 2015 report by [religion-based prohibition] group, International Justice Mission…[claimed, again without actual proof] that one in four sex workers in the Dominican Republic…was under 18…

Sex Work is Work

A couple of short interviews with Australian escorts:

Lulu Valentine…was never of the belief that sex work was sex-free…[despite Hollywood] misrepresent[ation]…“when sex work is portrayed in media, it often smooths over the more arbitrary details of the job”…Sex, it seems from [TV shows]…is an optional part of the escort gig…Claudia Cadine…says despite Hollywood notions…she’s never had any misconceptions about the nature of her work – it’s to have sex. Not fall in love…

Choke Point

This could also go under “The Prudish Giant”, but I think the financial chokeout is more important:

…the US’s first ever sextech hackathon…had a lot of trouble getting the word out on Facebook…Andriy Yaroshenko, one of the event’s organizers, said he said he tried to submit his advertisement around 100 times and was denied…”I’m doing an educational hackathon. It’s not porn. It’s not entertainment,'” said Yaroshenko. LinkedIn blocked his ads as well…Mal Harrison…of the Center for Erotic Intelligence…said Facebook suspended the [group]’s page a number of times….[others] said [they weren’t]…allowed to use PayPal…for sales…they would have to use their personal email accounts to take credit card payments through PayPal. And Kickstarter wasn’t available to them either…it’s even difficult for companies in the sex industry to get the business name on checks from a bank…Bryony Cole, host of the Future of Sex podcast…said…it can be difficult to separate out the good from the harmful…

By buying into the false duality of “good” sexual content (education, tech, etc) vs “bad” content (such as porn), these holier-than-thou types assist the very censors they’re whining about. If you don’t want your sexual business censored or choked, you’re going to have to fight for mine as well.

Something Rotten in Sweden (#507)

Seattle politicians engage in a pompous display of virtue signalling directly against the advice of sex workers and allies, then pretend they didn’t know their posturing would destroy people’s lives:

Two years ago the city of Seattle changed the name of the misdemeanor crime of patronizing a prostitute to sexual exploitation…A 24-year-old…man did everything a judge ordered him to do after he took a plea deal last year…[but] criminal-background check erroneously shows he’s been convicted of a sex-related felony, making it virtually impossible for him to get a job…While the elements of the crime — and the punishment — remain the same, the name change is exclusive to the city. No other jurisdiction in the state, or country, uses the same language…it has resulted in serious errors on criminal-background checks and led to significant fears that a conviction could have immigration consequences for foreign-born men here on visas…[defense attorney John] Tymczyszyn [said]…“They’ve renamed it to something that sounds like a felony…Misdemeanors aren’t supposed to render you unemployable”…Holmes, the [most vocal proponent of the dysphemistic name change], said his office has had discussions with the…Northwest Immigrant Rights Project…about ways to mitigate possible immigration consequences…

I have a simple way to “mitigate the consequences”: change the fucking name back & stop your fucking anti-sex propaganda machine. Oh, and don’t forget another example of Seattle’s hypocritical posturing: declaring itself a “sanctuary city” for migrants the feds want to deport.

Broken Record (#539)

Poor Nebraska; all panicked up & no place to go: “The College World Series starts this weekend in Omaha. Sex traffickers are drawn to the event…But sex trafficking also happens…in small rural towns“…

First They Came for the Hookers… (#556)

Don’t think too hard about why someone would leave a job inflicting violence consensually for one where she can inflict it non-consensually:

A New Jersey sheriff’s [deputy] is undergoing a legal spanking after her bosses found out she once worked as a dominatrix and tried to boot her out of the department. Kristen Hyman…is facing a disciplinary hearing where she will have to fight for her career against claims that her status as an ex-whip mistress disgraces the organization…

Yes, they’re claiming that being a sex worker disgraces cops, rather than vice-versa.

The Widening Gyre (#589)

The “Facebook pimps” myth is one of the silliest of the whole panic:

…Jane’s daughter, Mary, was involved in a vehicle collision…and came out of it with a head injury. For the next couple of years, she stayed home, spending most of her time on…Facebook…“She was targeted by a gang,” Jane says…[for a] year before the gang of pimps actually took Mary, they inundated her with attention through Facebook. Then one night, she just up and left, getting into their car…“They didn’t physically force her, but they threatened her…She walked out the door under her own steam, but they were in the parking lot and took her”…

This woman actually believes that her inexperienced daughter had so much potential as a sex worker that an entire gang of pimps (who could apparently only afford one car) was willing to invest an entire year ensnaring her. These people live in a completely different reality from the one actual people live, fuck & do business in.

The Public Morals

Every woman molested or raped by cops should file a federal suit:

Two San Antonio [cops] imprisoned for conning women to have sex with them in a fake undercover investigation face a federal lawsuit for civil rights violations and sexual assault…Emmanuel Galindo and Alejandro Chapa…tricked women into [submitting to rape] under the guise that it was for a secret police department operation…

The only way this will ever stop is for cities’ insurance companies to tell them they’ll no longer pay judgments against these filthy pigs.

To Molest and Rape

STOP SAYING “FORMER” COP. He was not a “former” cop when he committed the rape:

Jerry “Jay” Gragg Jr. was arrested…by a Pittsburg County deputy and special agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations at the OSBI McAlester field office. Gragg is being charged with one count of forcible sodomy, two counts of sexual battery and one count of an officer accepting a bribe…[during] a Jan. 21 traffic stop…Gragg told the female driver she had a suspended license and unless she paid her fine in full he would take her to jail. When she didn’t have enough money, he [orally raped] her…the woman spoke to friends and her pastor, then came forward with the allegations, producing a blouse she was wearing during the traffic stop. OSBI matched DNA from the woman’s shirt to Gragg…

Saying “former” implies that the department drummed him out before he raped anyone, when in fact it was his status as a cop that allowed him to commit the rape. This is just another way the media conspires with “authorities” to absolve police departments of responsibility for the myriad crimes committed by the thugs in their employ.

Cops and Robbers (#665)

The Swedish model eliminates prostitution!

A [prohibitionist group] has threatened to cause major traffic chaos ahead of next month’s U2 concert over protests against the area being “turned into a red light district”. [Busybodies] on Dublin’s Dorset Street have repeatedly raised concerns about a number of premises in the area, which they [claim] are being run as brothels…[the malcontents] have threatened to cause severe traffic disruption on one of the city’s busiest streets ahead of next month’s U2 gig if their concerns are not acted upon…

Sex Rays (#707)

Be careful, the sex ray intensity on these items must be well into the danger zone:

BDSM porn establishment Kink.com will soon leave the massive Armory building in San Francisco to move its operations to Las Vegas…they are selling off furniture and props from their adult film sets…The sale started on Thursday, June 14 and resumes again on Saturday, June 17th from 12 PM to 5 PM…

The End of the Beginning (#718)

More good news about bad laws:

…the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a North Carolina law that bans registered sex offenders from any “commercial social networking Web site” that is open to minors…every justice agreed that the law’s broad scope cannot be reconciled with the First Amendment…

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In the News (#664)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, Above the Law, agency denial, asset seizure, Business As Usual, California, censorship, Check Your Premises, China, cops, dirty, drivers, end demand, fantasy, Feminists and Other Puritans, hysteria, Illinois, imaginative fiction, Iowa, Israel, law, Louisiana, Monsters, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Ohio, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, statistics, Subtle Pimping, Swedish model, tabula rasa, Things We Choose To Do Together, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, transgender, underage, United Kingdom, Vendetta, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, yin and yang on August 17, 2016| 5 Comments »

A treatment becomes an industry…when its scope creeps to include anyone who is having the kind of sex that someone…deems to be a problem. – Michael Aaron

Welcome To Our World

Profiting from donations gathered to fight an imaginary child-abducting conspiracy…hmm, where have I heard that before?

Three Jerusalem residents who allegedly swindled donors into giving money to combat a nonexistent Christian cult they claimed was kidnapping, sexually abusing and forcibly converting hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish children to Christianity have been arrested…investigators launched an investigation into the supposed cult two years ago…the…investigation…soon determined that no such cult ever existed…

Check Your Premises

In the warped minds of US “authorities”, driving a friend to work is “child sex trafficking”:

An Oregon woman has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison in connection to an alleged commercial child sex trafficking operation…Veronica Britt…was identified as the driver for an underage girl who was meeting up with someone at a hotel for sexual purposes…

Surplus Women

One of the rare times you’ll ever see me actually assist the cops:

Investigators with the York Regional Police Homicide Unit continue to appeal to the public for assistance in locating Jiarui (Jerry) TANG, wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for Manslaughter in connection with disappearance of 36-year-old Annie LI. Investigators believe that Mr. TANG has recently attempted to seek the services of women working in the sex trade. Police believe that he poses a significant threat to these women and we are warning anyone who encounters him in person or online to use caution and contact police immediately. Ying Chun (Annie) LI was last seen by her family on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in the area of Denison Street and Markham Road…police have reason to believe that Annie Li is deceased…Investigators believe that Mr. TANG frequents the Chinatown area of Toronto and he is believed to be still within the area…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This interesting article traces the origin of the myth of “sex addiction” to another myth beloved by sex-haters: “social construction of gender”:

…David Reimer…committed suicide in 2004, never having recovered from the trauma suffered under the hands of Dr. Money…in…early 1970s Los Angeles…UCLA researchers George Rekers and Ivar Lovaas pioneered an experimental new type of treatment to literally “knock out” the effeminate behavior of young “sissy boys” through the use of severe corporal punishment. Like Money before them, they triumphantly published their…findings in 1974…under the title “The Behavioral Treatment of a ‘Transsexual’ Preadolescent Boy“…This “successfully” treated boy, now a grown man of 38 named Kirk Murphy, committed suicide in 2003 due to feeling “broken” by his participation in the research. These are just two examples of the horrors of…social constructionist ideology. Despite all this, social constructionism is still alive and well, influencing both the social sciences and public policy. Take a look at this this article for example about an elementary school teacher who pushes her female students to play with Legos, while forbidding her male students to do the same, all in the name of “gender equity”…the rise of the social construction of desire [occurred in] the same 1970s period in which all of these other troubling experiments were conducted…sex addiction [is the] offspring…of the cultural belief that sexuality is a social construct…that can be controlled, modified, and neatly packaged according to the social norms and mores of the time. Indeed, the very first sex addiction 12-step group, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLA) met in Boston in 1977…[the] sex addiction [model is the attempt]…to fit sexual behavior into a socially constructed paradigm of monogamy, pair bonding, and…even intimacy…

A Broker in Pillage

Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together:

Federal drug agents regularly mine Americans’ travel information to profile people…[as] narcotics traffickers — though they almost never use what they learn to make arrests or build criminal cases. Instead, that targeting has helped the Drug Enforcement Administration seize a small fortune in cash. DEA agents have profiled passengers on Amtrak trains and nearly every major U.S. airline, drawing on reports from a network of travel-industry informants…Agents…singled out passengers for questioning or searches for reasons as seemingly benign as traveling one-way to California or having paid for a ticket in cash…DEA units assigned to patrol 15 of the nation’s busiest airports seized more than $209 million in cash from at least 5,200 people over the past decade [by pretending] the money was linked to drug trafficking…most of the money was passed on to local police departments that lend [cops] to [act as DEA goons]…

Monsters

Rae’Lynn Thomas…was shot and then beaten by her mother’s ex-boyfriend in their Columbus [Ohio] home…Thomas is the 19^th trans person known to have been murdered in the U.S. this year. While Thomas’s family was accepting of her…an ex-boyfriend of her mother’s who still lived with the women, James Allen Byrd, made no secret of his transphobic attitudes. He reportedly often referred to the transgender woman as “the devil”…Renee Thomas…described the attack to police and media. ” He was in the bedroom and he just came around the corner and shot [Rae’Lynn],” she said. After firing at her twice, Byrd — who was nearly a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than the petite Thomas — proceeded to beat her with any heavy object handy…

Business As Usual

Prohibitionists want everyone to believe that clients inflict the most violence on sex workers, and that the police are welcome “rescuers” from it:

According to surveys conducted periodically by Zi Teng…an organization promoting the rights of sex workers…Hong Kong police sexually abuse workers…in the first four months of 2016 the organization received 206 complaints of violence…Nineteen cases related to abuse by clients while 187 related to the police. NGOs told Amnesty International that police are legally allowed to [rape]…sex workers…[while pretending] to be clients [in order to arrest]…them…

In case you missed it, that said over 90% of violence against Hong Kong sex workers comes from the police, an number not-dissimilar to figures from other places where cops are allowed to “regulate” us.

Feminists and Other Puritans

Yet “leftists” are still surprised that “feminists” are anti-sex:

[Sex workers] face…a strange alliance of opponents including Labour councillors, feminist activists, trade unionists and…religious groups…their hostility to [sex workers contrasts] oddly with their stated desire to “rescue” them…these activists were armed with feminist battle-cries, and were more likely to be seen reading the liberal Guardian than the right-wing Daily Mail…Object, a “feminist human rights” organisation…[is] part of a far broader alliance of feminist and left groups with a wide range of anti-sex and pro-censorship objectives…similar feminist organisations such as UK Feminista, rolled out a series of anti-sex campaigns…each…loyally supported by the Guardian, by voices from the Labour and Green parties, by trade unionists, and others that I had previously considered part of my progressive tribe…the old anti-prostitution movement was reinvigorated by a flood of new, feminist and left-wing campaigners under the End Demand banner…apparently, the right to middle-class feminist outrage trumped the more fundamental right to work…

Vendetta (#570)

Roughly 0.02% of all US men who purchased sex in that period. Wow, that’s some MIGHTY “suppression” there!

Yet another nationwide “sex trafficking sting” where the main targets of police attention are men who solicit sex from consenting, adult women. The sting, part of a bi-annual “National Johns Suppression Initiative,” ran from July 1 to August 7 and netted 1,358 arrests for solicitation of prostitution, in 18 states…thirty-eight agencies participated, issuing more than $1 million in fines during the operation and [stealing]…421 vehicles. New York City and Philadelphia…joined…for the first time…Oakland, California…arrested 42 people…Seattle had the second-highest number of arrests, 204, followed by Columbus, Ohio (167), Harris County, Texas (143), Houston (82), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations (74), Portland, Oregon (63), Boston (57), and McLennan County, Texas (55). Agencies not listed in these top-tier sex thwarters—including those in or around Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, New York City, Las Vegas, Reno, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia—arrested a combined total of around 250 sex solicitors…no word on how many sex workers were arrested, though that’s usually part and parcel for these john stings…

Above the Law (#599)

Another blameless hero is given power over vulnerable women:

A Shreveport police detective who was fired after [raping] a woman…is back on the job. James Greene…was…arrested and charged with abuse of office…he…was [given two weeks of paid vacation, then]…terminated…In January, Greene was found not guilty [after prosecutors stalled and fumbled for almost a year]…a civil suit has been filed against him by his [victim]…

Subtle Pimping (#603)

If there are so many “sex trafficking victims”, why do they need to keep making up stories about it?

Rena Olsen is a licensed therapist in Des Moines who…works with children. But she hadn’t heard much about human trafficking…until she watched a documentary about it…Olsen [then wrote a novel called]…The Girl Before…She makes it clear that the fictional characters are not based on any story she has heard with clients…In Olsen’s book, a 6-year-old girl is taken from a park and told by her captors that her parents don’t want her anymore. Through years of “training” for sale to clients who desire young virgins, her past is wiped out…Eventually, she becomes a perpetrator herself, training young girls snatched off the streets…

IOW, an ignoramus representing herself as an “expert” wrote a novel based on her own twisted BDSM fantasies, and morons are pretending this has something to do with reality.

Too Close To Home (#618)

Actually, this isn’t the “Nordic model” at all, and neither King County nor any part of the US has that because sex workers are definitely still criminalized here. But the yellow little liar Val Richey (who’s afraid to look me in the eye when he’s in the same room as I am) is only too happy to use that known brand to sell his masters’ brand of snake oil:

Skagit County Coalition Against Trafficking…is hosting a…meeting on Aug. 23 to share [propaganda] about a model of addressing human trafficking — going after the traffickers and customers while [infantilizing sex workers and denying their agency]…Val Richey, King County prosecutor, will present the blueprint that is helping King County reduce human trafficking…The Nordic model is a three-pronged program…the Nordic model’s first prong goes after the pimp and treats prostitutes as victims who…need…mental health treatment…the second prong is arresting the buyer and instituting a financial penalty, half going to law enforcement and half to programs that [incarcerate & brainwash] prostitutes. The third prong is education…[Gayle] Kersten [pretended] the Nordic model has worked in other countries and King County has had great success…

To Molest and Rape

Just a typical case in a typical American prison:

DeEtta Williams…has filed a federal lawsuit against…Michael Ewell, who has since been fired, and the California department of corrections and rehabilitation. She wants…the world to know what happens behind bars…there is a pattern of sexual assault at…women’s prison and…officials “know and just don’t bother” to do anything about it…“Ewell had a history of sexually assaulting women, a history well known to CDC,” according to the suit…In September of 2013, Ewell was accused of sexually assaulting “a fellow CDC officer, [and] was inexplicably transferred to a women’s prison. He was assigned his own unit to supervise, giving him unfettered access and power over the female prisoners in his unit”…Ewell engineered her transfer to a unit where he worked and had her assigned to a job cleaning the guards’ office and small bathroom…He would “pop” her out of her cell at 5.30am, when no other officers were on shift, and have her clean the secluded area…He groped her…forced her to kiss him…slap her, rape her, choke her. He threatened her children. He…[orally raped] her…She lost weight. Her hair fell out. She tried to kill herself. And she told warden Kimberly Hughes that she had been raped over and over again…Hughes was sympathetic…And…transferred Williams to a single cell…Two months later…[Ewell] was “terminated”…

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In the News (#591)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Above the Law, agency denial, asset seizure, Available Weapon, Backpage, California, Catholicism, Central Asia, drugs, Europe, fantasy, FBI, Full of Themselves, harm reduction, hysteria, language, Lying Down With Dogs, Monsters, neofeminism, New York, politicians, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, rape, Rough Trade, Tajikistan, The Crumbling Dam, The Mote and the Beam, The Pro-Rape Coalition, Traffic Circle, transgender, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state) on November 28, 2015| 4 Comments »

Backpage [is a]…bête noire for…misguided meddlers—a symbolic entity on which to project all their moral- and techno-panic concerning prostitution in the Internet era. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Rough Trade

In the US, she would’ve been arrested when she reported the rape to cops:

A man who raped a sex worker in a brutal knifepoint attack in Leeds has been jailed for ten years…Anthony Riley…dragged her to the ground by her hair and punched and kicked her before putting a knife to her throat and raping her. He ran off after the attack, taking two mobile phones that had fallen out of the victim’s bra [with which he was later found]…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

Dude claims that 1% of the world’s population is “enslaved” and says he runs a top-secret organization of nuns who pose as whores to infiltrate brothels. I am not making this up:

An army of religious sisters who rescue victims of human trafficking by posing as prostitutes to infiltrate brothels and buying children being sold into slavery, is expanding to 140 countries…John Studzinski, an investment banker and philanthropist who chairs Talitha Kum, said the network of 1,100 sisters currently operates in about 80 countries but the demand for efforts to combat trafficking and slavery was rising globally. The group…estimates one percent of the world’s population is trafficked in some form, which translates into some 73 million people. Of those, 70 percent are women and half are aged 16 or younger. “I’m not trying to be sensational but…this is a world…where dark forces are active,” said Studzinski…He [fantasized aloud about] one woman…who was locked up for a week without food, forced to eat own her faeces, when she failed to have sex with a target of 12 clients a day…

Just curious, John; do the nuns have sex with clients while “infiltrating brothels”? If not, why aren’t they locked up and forced to eat shit? Or is that just a clever metaphor for what you’ve tricked Reuters reporters into doing in this story?

The Pro-Rape Coalition

Long-time readers will remember that I’ve made similar points in the past:

Third-wave feminists are the best friends a rapist could ask for. With their promotion of the idea of “rape culture”—the notion that images and culture propel men to hate and harm women—they have done more than anyone to diminish rapists’ responsibility for their foul crimes. And the evidence suggests rapists are really grateful…30 years on from Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon’s scaremongering over porn and its impact on the putty-like male mind, feminists are still depicting porn as the instigator of criminal activity. And in the process they’re excuse-making for criminals…In the New Statesman, Sarah Ditum argued that…men are almost possessed by porn…[which] takes hold of us…and drives us, automaton-like, to evil…

The Mote and the Beam

Previous Senate hearings of this same ilk have included the ones against communists, comic books and “dirty” music lyrics:

Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer is refusing to participate in the U.S. government witch-hunt against his company, and for that he may face criminal charges. Ferrer failed to show up on Capitol Hill [on November 19th] despite a subpoena to testify before a Senate committee about Backpage’s alleged involvement in sex trafficking. Now a…group of senators is calling for his head…Ferrer’s attorneys told legislators that he would be out of the country and unable to make the hearing. Were he to attend, they added, he would likely invoke his fifth amendment right not to self-incriminate…

The Crumbling Dam

It’s strange that Washington, which is so regressive on sex work, is moving forward so quickly on drugs:

Safe drug sites—places people can use illicit drugs under medical supervision—are coming to Seattle, advocates say…Dr. Caleb Banta-Green…[of] the University of Washington…says such locations are a public-health no-brainer…This matters, he says, in a city where 70 percent of injection-drug users are infected with hepatitis C. The site would be the first of its kind in the United States…Every single member of the incoming City Council…say they either support or are open to safe drug sites. Mayor Ed Murray also says he’d consider [them]…Vancouver, B.C., has had a “supervised injection facility” for over a decade…InSite…consists of little stalls where people can prepare and inject their drug of choice, with medical staff standing by in case of overdose and to connect people with treatment services if they want them…A 2011 study in The Lancet found that InSite’s creation correlated with a large drop in drug deaths in the surrounding neighborhood. And while it’s seen more than a thousand overdoses…there has never been a single fatality…InSite also reduced public injecting, lowered syringe sharing, and increased participation in addiction treatment—all without any discernible negative side effects. It even seems to save taxpayers money…

A Broker in Pillage

Once again, the British government displays its dedication to literally robbing sex workers of their life savings:

A former prostitute and brothel keeper…may have to sell her house after a judge gave her six months to hand over [£50,000]…under the Proceeds of Crime Act. Lucy Whelan…was convicted 10 years ago of running a brothel in Gloucester but at that time she had assets of only £300…Last week, however, she was back before the court after the prosecution discovered that subsequent to her conviction her parents had bought her a house in Bristol to help her get back on her feet…Judge Michael Cullum…gave her six months to pay and said if she does not she will go to prison for 18 months…

Note again the weird “pay back” euphemism; the money wasn’t taken from the government in the first place, so it can’t be paid “back” to the government. This is just a means of making armed robbery seem like compelling a debtor to pay money she legitimately owed.

Above the Law

These are the people “feminists” want in charge of sex workers:

On March 20^th, a female inmate was being transported from Brooklyn to Rikers Island when she claims she was brutally sexually assaulted by one of the [jailers] on the bus. The attack, which lasted more than 15 minutes, was witnessed by another guard who did nothing to protect the victim but stayed to watch…the attack…occurred after she and a male inmate had had consensual sex on a bus during transport. The male inmate…paid the guard to leave the two of them alone [but] when the guard returned…he decided he wanted a turn, too…[the prisoner] says she begged the guard raping her to wear a condom. He ignored her…

Above the Law (#47)

Scotland Yard “apologizes” for letting cops create fake identities, seduce women into thinking they were having real relationships, get them pregnant and then vanish without any concern about child support:

Scotland Yard has settled legal claims from seven female activists who said undercover police had formed “intimate sexual relationships” with them while investigating protest movements. The police apologized Friday for the “totally unacceptable” behaviour of a number of undercover officers in the now-disbanded units. The financial terms of the settlement are being kept secret…The women claimed they were traumatized by the deception, which in some cases lasted for years…two of the undercover police had fathered children with women from the groups they had infiltrated…a criminal investigation and a misconduct investigation is continuing…

Gregory Katz of the AP says they only “claimed” they were traumatized. Just imagine how you would feel if your partner, with whom you had a child, suddenly vanished and you later discovered he or she was a pig spying on you in an attempt to chain and cage you and all of your friends. Imagine how that would affect your ability to form new relationships in the future, then tell me they only “claimed” they were traumatized. Fuck you, Mr. Katz.

Monsters

Trans people have been hanged, stoned to death and even killed by their own parents, according to a new report. It highlights the tragedies of 271 trans and gender-variant people…who were murdered in the last 12 months. Thirty-seven were 21 years old or younger. Brazil (118 murders) and Mexico (34)…lead the list…The USA has seen 27 killings of trans people, an increase of 17 from last year…But even these…are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Media organizations…are often guilty of misgendering the victims…making it even more difficult to get a real sense of the problem…

Available Weapon

As long as these laws exist, amateurs will be harmed by them as well:

Southern California authorities have apologized to a South Carolina nurse who was incorrectly charged with prostitution and had to fly across the country to clear up the paperwork mix-up. Kendra Dawn Speed, 37, was told by her employer…that a background check revealed she was wanted on a warrant out of Riverside County, California…Even though she’d briefly lived in Los Angeles, Speed had never set foot in Riverside County — and had never been a prostitute. After being told the issue couldn’t be resolved over the phone…[she] hopped on a flight to California the next morning [and] appeared in Riverside County court, where a judge issued a new warrant for Kendra Michelle Speed, born in 1981, not Kendra Dawn Speed, born in 1978…

Lying Down With Dogs (#427)

What wonderful company the US is in!

The Tajik Parliament wants to abolish sex work. They are introducing harsher measures…hoping this will deter sex workers…sex workers caught breaking the law for the first time will be required to pay double what they paid in the past. If the same sex worker breaks the law a second time, they will face up to 15 days in jail. Under Tajik law, sex work is not a criminal offense. However, sex workers in Tajikistan are penalised…in the form of fines….[the law] is used by police to target sex workers for extortion under threat of fines, arrest, and detention…In most cases when sex workers are arrested, they are brought to a police department where there is an “investigation”. Sometimes sex workers are subjected to gynaecological exams for sexually transmitted infections, which is a humiliating procedure that violates their human rights…

Full of Themselves (#535)

What is it about massage parlors that brings the puritans out of the woodwork?

Work permits are being handed to foreign massage therapists at a rate of one a week, prompting concerns that a number of massage parlours are serving as a front for prostitution…In all, 508 employment licences for female massage therapists were issued in the past 10 years, going up to 93 permits last year from a mere 23 in 2006. A Chinese former massage parlour worker told The Sunday Times of Malta that “some ladies who come here as massage therapists are sex workers…in Malta, they earn at least €4,000 a month, but they declare some €700. Some pocket much more, especially if they are young,” she said…police sources said their experience supported her views that a substantial percentage of massage parlours did in fact provide sex services…

Traffic Circle (#569)

Glenn Kessler does it again:

…Throughout 2015, The Fact Checker has dug into dubious statistics concerning sex trafficking, so this recent speech by Attorney General Lynch caught our eye…Lynch spoke of “hundreds of sex traffickers” and the FBI release only mentioned “more than 150 pimps.” How does that math work?…a DOJ spokesman…blamed an editing error when Lynch’s speech was written…Neither DOJ nor the FBI can provide evidence that “hundreds of sex traffickers” have been arrested through [all years combined of] Operation Cross Country — unless one plays fast and loose with legal language. The FBI…used to reveal exactly how many people were rounded up through Cross Country, essentially exposing the fact that the effort to find exploited children also led to the arrests of hundreds of adult prostitutes and their customers…The FBI [pretends] no one under the age of 18 is arrested…after 2010, the “others” arrested was dropped from the news releases. Instead, officials only listed the number of juveniles recovered and “pimps” arrested…FBI officials [pretend] they no longer report these numbers because this is a matter for local jurisdiction…government officials appear to believe they can boost their success rate by slapping the word “sex trafficker” on adults who have been arrested even though such charges have not — and could not— be brought in a court of law…

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In the News (#508)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, abortion, Above the Law, acting, agency denial, Alabama, Arizona, asset seizure, bogus studies, Bottleneck, California, Canada, Don't Confuse Us With Facts, Drawing Lines, Facts in the Case of Monica Jones, FBI, First They Came for the Hookers, Hall of Shame, hysteria, Iowa, Madonna/whore, Naked Truth, neofeminism, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, sex work is work, Skewed By Taboo, Still a Child, stripping, Texas, The More the Better, The Widening Gyre, Traffic in Nonsense, transgender, video, welcome to our world on January 28, 2015| 5 Comments »

[When we fail to] require lawyers and courts to base arguments on real evidence…not conjecture or faux science…we give government unlimited power to mandate harmful laws, with no recourse for those whose lives or health are jeopardized. – Kathryn Kolbert

Don’t Confuse Us With Facts

Compare the judge’s comments about Rue to those made by Judge Himel about Melissa Farley:

…the U.S. Court of Appeals…heard oral arguments in a Texas case challenging the constitutionality of an abortion law, H.B. 2, that has shuttered half the abortion clinics in the state…Judge Catharina Haynes…questioned whether the law was medically justified…“Are we saying if you can find someone in the world to say we need marble floors in an abortion clinic, then that would be good enough to allow the Texas legislature to pass that?”…in recent abortion cases across the country, that is indeed what state attorneys are doing when they hire Vincent Rue, the pioneering junk scientist behind “post-abortion syndrome”…Rue, discredited by courts decades ago, has since made a career as a behind-the-scenes litigation consultant…Judge Daniel Huyett found that Rue’s testimony “…is not credible…Moreover, his admitted personal opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, suggests…personal bias”…In…the Texas trial…the state was caught red-handed: Four of the state’s five expert witnesses were forced to change their testimony on the stand when confronted with emails showing they had lied about who had written their reports…

The More the Better

Recognize this young lovely? She’s one of America’s best-loved comic actresses, Betty White, practically a symbol of wholesomeness and niceness. And she started her career by posing nude in the early ’40s. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to discover this; it’s yet another refutation of the Madonna/whore dichotomy and a demonstration of the ubiquity of sex work and the fact that sex workers aren’t mostly pathetic victims.

A Broker in Pillage

Translation of the last line: “Let us keep your car or cash and we won’t publish your name and picture.” The quaint non-“law enforcement” term for this is “blackmail”.

…HB713 would allow [cops] to [steal] a car or other property that was [nearby during] a first-time prostitution…offense. Right now, property can only be [stolen] for a felony prostitution charge…the Texas Department of Public Safety [pretends] there’s a link between human trafficking and prostitution…Property…could be used as part of a deal in settling a case with the person arrested…

Above the Law

…criminally-charged drug court participants were forced into sexual activity by drug court officer Winfred Eugene Vance Jr. and…Vance’s supervisors did nothing to stop it…Vance blackmailed drug court participants into sexual activity after the participants were threatened with a false failed drug test that could lead to jail time if they did not comply…

Naked Truth

Articles from sex workers, telling the truth about sex work, continue to appear in more mainstream venues. This one from transgender sex worker Diana Hemingway, entitled “9 Things I Learned in My First Year as a Sex Worker“, does a lot to bust stereotypes and reiterate what I say repeatedly: sex workers aren’t intrinsically different from others, and sex work is work.

First They Came for the Hookers…

A particularly-blatant example of how sex prohibition never stops with whores:

A couple who lost their teenage daughter to prostitution is now speaking out against a proposed [strip club] in Regina. Nearly 25 years ago, Ed and Linda Smith’s daughter was killed at age 18… “We’re opposed to this strip club…not only will it be demeaning to women by treating them as…a commodity, it will also have a huge negative impact on the men who attend”…said Ed Smith…[who is] a regular speaker at “John schools” in Saskatchewan…

The Widening Gyre

“Sex trafficking” is caused by commercials!

A Youth Exploitation Safety Symposium aimed at keeping young people safe from human trafficking is scheduled…Keynote speaker Nicole Clark will explore media’s negative effects on girls’ self image and self-esteem, from oversexualization to the pressures to be thin and pretty…

Bottleneck (#313)

This licensing law was sold as a way to “protect” women:

Saskatoon has imposed a temporary freeze on issuing adult services licences, something the operator of a local brothel says is a “very big mistake” and will force the city’s sex workers to resort to illegal and “sketchy” ways of making a living…Canada’s new prostitution laws…now make reference to “offering, providing or obtaining sexual services”…no licences will be renewed until the city determines whether it needs to change its bylaw in light of [this]…

Still a Child

Agency denial, pimp mythologizing, ludicrous numbers and the other typical trappings are used to divert the reader’s attention from the fact that the “sex trafficked child” who is “rescued” by an “FBI Child Exploitation Task Force” in this story is 18, which the last time I checked is still a legal adult in every part of the United States.

Drawing Lines

A particularly loathsome example of a porn performer trying to pretend she isn’t a whore, because whores are degraded and disgusting and she’s pimped by big companies. Bonus hypocrisy points: it’s well-known that, like many in her profession, she escorts on the side.

Consider this her nomination to the Hall of Shame.

Facts in the Case of Monica Jones

Monica Jones’ conviction was overturned on appeal:

Defendant-Appellant Monica Renee Jones…was convicted in Phoenix Municipal Court of manifesting an intent to commit…prostitution. Defendant contends as follows: (1) the trial court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of her prior conviction; (2) the trial court erred in considering her potential punishment in assessing her credibility; (3) the trial court erred in not holding a jury trial; and (4) the trial court erred in holding the city code constitutional. For the following reasons, this Court vacates the judgment of guilt…

Skewed By Taboo

Another, very thorough look at how the GSS and similar surveys are absolutely useless on sexual topics:

…One of the many reasons sex is puzzling is that we lack reliable data. People lie to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys and themselves…[in] the General Social Survey…Heterosexual men 18 and over say that they average 63 sex acts per year, using a condom in 23 percent of them. This adds up to more than 1.6 billion heterosexual condom uses per year. Heterosexual women say they average 55 sex acts per year, using a condom in 16 percent of them. This adds up to about 1.1 billion heterosexual condom uses per year…[but] fewer than 600 million condoms are sold every year…About 11 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 44 say they are sexually active, not currently pregnant and not using contraception. Even with relatively conservative assumptions about how many times they are having sex, we would expect 10 percent to become pregnant every month. But this would already be more than the total number of pregnancies in the United States…

Traffic in Nonsense

There are actually several of these “anti-trafficking” trucker groups:

…“Truckers Against Trafficking” [are]…teaming up with the Iowa Department of Transportation to educate those who know the roads best…officer Jared Arbegast is reaching out to give more awareness to the…nearly 300,000 young people at risk of being trafficked for sex each year…They say this can happen anywhere there is a large gathering of people, for example major sporting events…TAT recommends that if you do encounter a sex trafficker, do not approach them, instead notify the police…photos of “Victims” and pimp would be great…

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That Was the Week That Was (#433)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Whore in Church, abortion, Above the Law, activism, adolescence, Against Their Will, agency denial, asset seizure, Australia, censorship, Checklist, cops, dehumanization, Delightful Conversation, Florida, Germany, Gingerbread House, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, India, internet, law, License To Rape, Louisiana, Madonna/whore, Maryland, neofeminism, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, politicians, prohibitionist myths, Race to the Bottom, rape, rescue industry, Shift in the Wind, Still a Child, stripping, The Widening Gyre, Traffic Jam, Uncommon Sense, Washington (state), Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Worse Than I Thought on August 16, 2014| 27 Comments »

Treating adult humans as children, pets or dolls is offensive and repugnant. – Zoee Garza

License to Rape

Cops raping whores is so ubiquitous, non-cop rapists often pose as cops to facilitate the crime:

…Michael Edward Baker…was convicted [of rape in Maryland]…after…[rejecting] a plea deal in which he would have received a six-month sentence…Baker sexually assaulted a 25-year-old prostitute…after she…refused to have unprotected sex with him, he flashed what appeared to be a police badge…and then pretended to call a superior officer, before propositioning that he wouldn’t arrest her if she obliged him. After she refused, once again, to have unprotected sex with him…Baker punched her in the mouth and raped her, before forcing her to perform other unprotected sex acts and fleeing…After he had raped the woman, Baker had called the victim’s cell number a few times in an attempt to befriend her…

Welcome To Our World

Note the easy way inane arguments that prostitution magically ignores economics also work against surrogate motherhood:

Proponents of surrogacy claim that it is completely different from prostitution…The fact that altruistic surrogacy is legal in Great Britain and commercial surrogacy is legal in many American states (but not anywhere in Australia), ought to suffice to keep people from looking abroad, according to this argument. On the contrary, however, Americans, Britons and Australians are dominant amongst the foreign buyers in India…If the procedure is legalised…the risk that a black market will develop increases…the distinction between altruistic and commercial surrogacy is a dishonest one…in both…the woman is reduced to a container…

The author, though a neofeminist fanatic, is right about one thing: surrogacy is absolutely a form of prostitution. See also One Size Fits All (TW3 #311).

A Whore in Church

I know I covered an earlier round of counterprotests, but I can’t seem to find it:

Topless dancers at an Ohio strip club went on the offensive…baring their breasts in front of a church where congregants have protested their presence for…nearly a decade by picketing the venue on weekends and photographing guests’ license plates…[last] Sunday, workers, friends and family of [Foxhole North protested New Beginnings Ministries]…during service…Because it’s legal for both men and women to be topless in public in Ohio, the demonstrators faced no criminal charges…

Against Their Will (TW3 #3)

Rescue industry organization abducts the children of sex workers and brainwashes them against their mothers:

Far away from the murky world of brothels, children of sex workers have found shelter in a free residential school on the outskirts of Kolkata…To ensure their minds are free from the stigma attached to the lives of their mothers, they are kept with other children…”Apne Aap Women Worldwide” rescued these children…and brought them to the school…Reluctant initially to stay away from their mothers, the children, aged between 6 and 16, are now a happy lot…

Apne Aap is probably the most unscrupulous and dishonest of the many anti-whore groups in India.

A Broker in Pillage

Despite years of criticism of the state’s asset forfeiture laws, Pennsylvania lawmakers approved a new human trafficking law that expands law enforcement’s ability to seize assets of the accused, without any statutory oversight of where seized property and proceeds end up…There is no required audit of the proceeds, something civil liberties advocates say could lead to abuses…

Above the Law

“Authorities” will call it anything to avoid saying a cop raped someone:

Former Jemez Springs [New Mexico] police chief Shane Harger – fired by the town in February for “questions of judgment” – has been indicted on criminal sexual penetration and other charges…A 19-year-old woman filed a complaint in January after she…was taken…to the police station [and raped] for three hours…a grand jury indicted Harger on charges of kidnapping, criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact and extortion…

Gingerbread House

It takes a special kind of obtuseness and cultural illiteracy to actually name your disguised prison “Gingerbread House”:

[Sex] trafficking of children…is a growing problem around the world. Thirty-five local kids that entered the Gingerbread House last year are victims or potential victims of trafficking. Caddo Parish…is handling 13 red flag cases where trafficking may be a factor….Shobana Powell…says…sex trafficking…is…”not this highly organized crime that you see in the movies”…

It’s interesting, however, that even some rescue industry people are now moving away from the myth of international “trafficking rings”.

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #30)

Another example of the effectiveness of disruptive protests:

On Sunday 15 June…Traffic Jam, an Internet based anti-trafficking organisation…[linked to] the American…A 21 Campaign (A21) , attempted to launch their new website in…Sydney…To the surprise and ill-disguised antipathy of the organisers, a group of sex worker activists…gatecrashed the event, refusing to pay the AUD $25 entrance fee, and demanded stage time to speak to the audience about trafficking issues. The protesters carried placards referring to the recent [exposure] of Somaly Mam…once migrant sex workers and their allies took the stage, their interactions and exchanges with the audience seemed to far out-weigh any of the previous engagement the audience had with the anti-trafficking speakers…[and] the…take-over of the stage outlasted the initial time allotted to the Traffic Jam event…

Checklist

Another pathological-liar cop (pardon the redundancy) spouting ridiculous “signs of sex trafficking”:

Every two minutes, a child is exploited in the sex industry…and Portland has one of the highest…rates…[cop] Mike Gallagher has personally talked with more than 2000 sex trafficking victims…He and others…held a conference to instruct people on the signs of a sex trafficker. “Things like paying with a prepaid Visa or cash at check in”…Traffickers are often proud of their work and often sport tattoos alluding to it…

Traffic Jam (TW3 #318)

…Ugly Mugs…by Peta Brady…is…based on confidential accounts of assaults…given by sex workers for inclusion in the Ugly Mugs publication (closed, for distribution only to sex workers)…this represents both a breach of trust and an alarming low point in exploitation of sex workers through “pity porn”…Concerns were promptly raised with both hosts of the play – Malthouse Theatre and Griffin – neither were willing to accept sex workers concerns. Instead we were offered free tickets…presumably because seeing your rape played out live…always makes you feel better…

It looks as though Brady, a Salvation Army worker, used her status as a social worker to steal a copy of Ugly Mugs from an ally’s office in order to use it for her own purposes.

Still a Child

On July 25, FIRE President Greg Lukianoff testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights…Commissioner Michael Yaki asked Greg…whether college students’ brains are sufficiently developed to handle freedom of speech…The following is Greg’s answer…”What we’re really saying is that 18- to 22-year-olds are children…[who] can’t handle the real world…[or] the duties of citizenship…we have decided in this country that 18…is considered the age for majority. We also send our 18-year-olds to war. Unless you’re actually also willing to make the argument that nobody below the age of…22 should go to war, and we repealed the 26th Amendment, we’ve got a serious problem…“

Race to the Bottom

Sex workers in Seattle are trying to fight the anti-whore madness that’s now epidemic there:

Seattle Against Slavery would have us believe that anyone who patronizes a sex worker is guilty of exploiting a victim of human trafficking. But only a tiny percentage of sex workers are trafficked…Seattle Against Slavery is…partnering with “members of the law enforcement community” to [spread lies]…despite the fact that “criminalization [of sex work] and aggressive policing have been shown to increase sex workers’ vulnerability to violence, extortion, and health risks“…

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #404)

Another respected policy magazine calls for decriminalization, this time The Economist:

…This newspaper has never found it plausible that all prostitutes are victims. That fiction is becoming harder to sustain as much of the buying and selling of sex moves online. Personal websites mean prostitutes can market themselves and build their brands. Review sites bring trustworthy customer feedback to the commercial-sex trade…the web will do more to make prostitution safer than any law has ever done…Governments should…rethink their policies. Prohibition, whether partial or total, has been a predictable dud. It has singularly failed to stamp out the sex trade…

Sincerely Seeking

Here’s a superb essay from recently-retired stripper Zoee Garza on the “Cupcake Girls” and their patronizing “ministry” to sex workers:

…On August 3, 2014 Oregonian journalist Kelly House reviewed a spa event thrown by the Portland branch of The Cupcake Girls…The stereotype that I found most troubling is that sex workers are not loved…It is judgmental to assume that being a sex worker and being loved are mutually exclusive…Another myth the article seemed set on perpetuating is that all sex workers are in dire need of primping…The stripping industry is one of image, entertainment and competition. As with many professionals, dancers make a point to have enough money…for massages, pedicures and dye jobs…if we were [needy] we would need some quinoa or a steak—not a cupcake…In the video on her website [founder] Joy [Hoover] compares the women that she has helped through The Cupcake Girls to her unborn child, she goes on to refer to herself as “The Stripper Whisperer,” similar to the “Dog Whisperer”…

Delightful Conversation

Seriously, what is it with stupid ex-whores who actually expect people to believe they never had sex with their clients?

…Danielle Staub…of…The Real Housewives of New Jersey…[was] confronted…with…allegations of prostitution…Staub [pretends that]…she made money without actually having sex with her clients…”[Men] thought they were…paying for sex…but I was so good at twisting them into making sure that we didn’t have sex…They keep returning [to] me in hopes that it would happen…I made a lot of money doing it…”

Pull the other one, Danielle; maybe those who believe hookers can see 100 clients a day will believe men are that gullible, but don’t expect it from the rest of us.

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #420)

Cops are liars everywhere:

Politicians in Germany have called for the laws on prostitution to be tightened…the…Christian Democrats (CDU) want the minimum legal age of sex workers to be raised from 18 to 21…They also want…punishments…for men who [hire] women forced into prostitution, and for compulsory health checks…According to police, 50 to 90 per cent of the country’s prostitutes have been forced into the work…

Worse Than I Thought (Traffic Updates)

Expect this trope to become much more common in the next few months:

Last year, LifeNews shared a story about a woman named Veronica (referred to as ‘Ana’) who escaped forced abortion by jumping out of the window at an abortion clinic. Veronica was a former sex worker trafficked from Albania…Although this case of sex trafficking occurred in London, the United States is a hub for predators who look to exploit women and girls. Oftentimes, these predators are hidden by the abortion industry…

I Saw My Brain (TW3 #432)

Once in a while a reporter wakes up:

…many of the men whose mugshots have been paraded out by [Grady Judd and his ilk] in made-for-TV press conferences were not seeking to meet children online. Instead, they were minding their own business, looking for other adults, when detectives started to groom and convince them to break the law. While detectives used to post ads suggesting an underage teen or child was available for sex, they now routinely post more innocuous personal ads of adults on traditional dating sites. When men – many of them under 25 with no criminal history – respond, officers switch the bait and typically indicate their age is really 14 or 15 years old. However, sometimes the storyline isn’t switched until the men…start falling for the undercover agent…law enforcement is also now routinely making first contact with men who have done nothing wrong, responding to their ads on dating sites…after men start conversing with what they think are adults, officers change the age they claim to be, but try to convince the men to continue the conversation anyway…If the men indicate they [aren’t] interested, they [are] still often arrested for just talking to [a cop]…

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Posts Tagged ‘A Broker in Pillage’

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