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Posts Tagged ‘agency denial’

In the News (#837)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, An Example to the West, Australia, California, Colombia, consensual crime, dating, dirty, drugs, Eternal Vigilance, Germany, language, Legal Is as Legal Does, Little Boxes, New Excuse, New Zealand, politicians, red-light districts, robots, sex rays, sex work is work, Somebody's Daughter, streetwalkers, Surplus Women, Swedish model, The Crumbling Dam, The Pygmalion Fallacy, Twitter, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state) on May 12, 2018| 1 Comment »

A lot of people…do not want to accept the reality that, for the most part, sex workers are just ordinary women. – Jennifer Wright

Surplus Women

This is going to become much more common due to the ramped-up war on whores:

The three-month-long search for a missing California woman came to a tragic end on the morning of March 25. Kristen Marti’s body was found by authorities after a lengthy search of Prefumo Canyon, about seven miles west of San Luis Obispo. Her January 9 disappearance is now considered a murder investigation…When Marti was last seen, she was with an unknown man in a maroon-colored sedan…Marti was “known to frequent hotels” in the San Luis Obispo-area…

Little Boxes (#21)

Long time readers may remember “Fake Internet Girlfriend”:

Every morning I…log into the Tinder account of a 45-year-old man from Texas—a client. I flirt with every woman in his queue for 10 minutes, sending their photos and locations to a central database of potential “Opportunities”. For every phone number I get, I make $1.75. I’m what’s called a “Closer” for the online-dating service ViDA (Virtual Dating Assistants). Men and women (though mostly men) from all over the world pay this company to outsource the labor and tedium of online dating. The matches I speak to on behalf of the Texan man and other clients have no idea they’re chatting with a professional…

By the numbers provided, she makes less than $12 an hour maximum. That may be the shittiest-paying sex work ever.

New Excuse

An excellent article by stalwart friend of whores Mark Draughn:

…I’ve long been opposed to all consensual crimes — recreational drugs, gambling, pornography, public drunkenness, vagrancy, homosexuality, food trucks, gun ownership, kink, migration, raw milk, incest, risky sports, transgenderism, loitering, status offenses, braiding hair without a license, whatever — because as long as everybody involved has consented freely and competently…I don’t think it should be a crime. So I’ve always opposed prostitution laws in theory. My opposition became somewhat less theoretical a few years ago when I bumped into Maggie McNeill…I became a steady reader of Maggie’s blog, and I began to learn more about the legal issues that concern sex workers in this country…the situation for sex workers seems to be deteriorating, in ways that are sadly familiar to those of us who know the War on Drugs…cops seem to realize that their pearl-clutching over call girls is a dumb waste of police resources, so they’ve tried to recast what they do as fighting a genuine evil. They’ve hit on the idea of calling everything “sex trafficking,” or even worse, “child sex trafficking”…We’re also starting to see other unpleasant features of the War on Drugs, such as federal funding and inter-agency task forces…I used to get angry whenever I heard of some new atrocity in the War On Drugs, but I was usually able to keep some emotional distance from the worst of it because I didn’t actually know any drug dealers. It wasn’t personal for me…But when it comes to sex workers, I follow far too many of them on Twitter…I know these people. And the last few weeks have been pretty bad. This bullshit is hurting people I know, and they are bitter, hurt, and angry…

Somebody’s Daughter (#434)

Despite FOSTA & the seizure of Backpage (perhaps partly because of them), we’ve definitely passed the watershed on public support for sex worker rights. It’s now no longer taboo for reporters, columnists and even politicians (!!!) to come out in support of decrim. Here’s a recent article (in the very mainstream Harper’s Bazaar) which covers arguments readers of this blog will know well, and starts this way:

“But what if it was your daughter?”…Thus goes the common refrain…I do not have a daughter. But, then, as Elizabeth Nolan Brown points out, the people making this argument do not necessarily have daughters, either. So, here is a brief list of professions I would not want my fictitious daughter to enter into: Professionally playing any sport that involves head trauma…Being a war reporter…Any profession that promises people a quick, easy and most likely ineffective way to solve their problems, like hawking untested diet pills…regardless of how I feel about them, my future daughter has a perfect legal right to pursue them. People are allowed to enter professions that might be unsafe. People are allowed to enter into professions where their body is seen as a tool of the trade. People are allowed to enter professions that seem morally questionable. The only time that isn’t the case is when a woman is having sex as her profession…At least, it isn’t the case in the United States. There are a great many countries where sex work is legal, such as New Zealand, which decriminalized sex work in 2003…

Eternal Vigilance

The stupidity and evil of politicians is sometimes mind-boggling:

Sex workers in Victoria are under attack as politicians try to [re-criminalize]…“the world’s oldest profession”…the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch will discuss…a motion…by [prohibitionists claiming]…“sexual services have surged into our suburbs in the guise of massage parlours” and “are now closer to our homes and schools than ever before”…the [prohibitionists are] pushing [their party] for the adoption of the “Nordic model”…

Australian politicians can see the success of decriminalization right there in New South Wales, but are still willing to push this evil bullshit to placate prudes with fantasies of sex rays.

The Crumbling Dam (#709)

Alas, Seattle “officials” still adore prohibition of things other than cannabis:

Seattle officials announced…that they have filed a motion to vacate all convictions and drop all charges for marijuana possession for anyone arrested in the city in the past few decades…the proposed move would affect 542 people who have convictions on their records. “Vacating charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession is a necessary step to correct the injustices of what was a failed war on drugs, [but we’re going to keep pursuing the even more unjust and failed war on consensual sex because we’re hypocrites],” Mayor Jenny Durkan…said in a statement…

An Example to the West (#776)

The areas Americans dismiss as the “third world” are far ahead of the US in sex worker rights:

Sex workers in Colombia have started a newspaper that is “flying off the shelves”—a rare distinction for any newspaper these days. La Esquina—which means “The Corner” in English—is made by and for sex workers in Bogotá’s red light district…It’s both distributed as a regular newspaper and, ingeniously, laminated and plastered on the district’s walls for sex workers to read while they wait for clients…The paper was founded last summer by a group of activists and artists…

Tracy Clark-Flory has singlehandedly made Jezebel relevant again.

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#811)

If this is a “brothel”, then a room with a foosball table is a “stadium”:

Down a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood south of Dortmund’s city center stands Germany’s first sex doll brothel. For €80 ($97) an hour, customers can [play with] one of 12 silicone dolls, including one male doll and a model with both breasts and a penis…Evelyn Schwarz …is the founder and owner of Bordoll, which…also [has an actual] brothel and a…BDSM [dungeon]…

Legal Is as Legal Does (#834)

I’m so glad silly protectionist whores weren’t able to wreck decrim in New Zealand:

…Under a new plan, would-be immigrants can claim points as skilled sex workers and escorts. The skill is regarded as providing social companionship in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) list. In order to meet the criteria of a highly qualified sex worker, would-be migrants will be expected to…have relevant recognized qualifications or have at least three years of work experience in the relevant industry…they would [also] need a formal offer of employment [from a brothel or escort service]…

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In the News (#836)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, asset seizure, Backpage, bogus studies, Broken Record, Capricious Lusts, censorship, cops, dirty, Disaster, Europe, Feminists and Other Puritans, hysteria, I Spy, Illinois, internet, Kentucky, left-right myth, License To Rape, Micromanagement, Negative Secondary Effects, neofeminism, New York, pathologization of males, prisons, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, Seizing Power, Signs, sporting events, stripping, surveillance, United Kingdom, Watershed on May 9, 2018| 7 Comments »

A lot of people under 18…are only considered “trafficked” because the law says so. – Raani Begum

Capricious Lusts

Some people can’t seem to understand that while sex workers can help men to manage their sexual frustration, there is nothing we can do once they grow to believe they’re entitled to free sex and go down the twisted “incel” rabbit hole. I think Dan Savage does a good job of explaining that difference here:

…Sexual deprivation can make a person miserable, even suicidal…and, as a society, we seem fine with that. People who can’t get sex are often told that…no one has ever dropped dead as a result of being deprived of sex. (Loneliness, however, can hasten death; it may be a greater risk factor for early death than smoking or obesity)…sexually deprived people…who…identify as incels…[don’t] feel…depressed or blam[e] themselves…[they] are filled with rage and blame…women…And when an incel with social or mental health issues—issues that doubtless contributed to his being an “involuntarily celibate” in the first place—violently attacks women (men are often killed too), the online incel breaks into cheers…I don’t think throwing sex workers at violent, deranged incels will solve the violent, deranged incel problem. Our culture has to change in enormous ways to solve this problem…men have to stop being socialized to believe they’re entitled to women’s bodies…adults who do sex work of their own free will shouldn’t be stigmatized (or treated like criminals) and adults who hire adults doing sex work of their own free will shouldn’t be stigmatized (or treated like criminals). The former cultural transformation will solve the “incel” problem; the latter will solve the problem of sexual deprivation, i.e. involuntary celibacy…

Feminists and Other Puritans

Once again: coalitions of fundamentalist anti-sex groups are in no way “surprising”:

If you had told radical feminist and [writer for SWERF/TERF rag Feminist Current] Natasha Chart five years ago that she would be fired from her advocacy job for objecting to the prostitution of minors, she wouldn’t have believed…She opted to speak with The Christian Post…”because…there is a significant and influential portion of…mainstream human rights activist community that…believes…youth sex work[ers]…should [not be raped and caged by cops]”…Chart is a former Jehovah’s Witness…no one is served when trusted civil society institutions utilize their clout…to quietly further a “pimping agenda“…If this goes unaddressed it is only a matter of time before the sex industry is considered “respectable” enough to emerge from the shadows and begin openly sponsoring a political caucus, as is the case in the Netherlands and Australia…

Yes, this is a Christian publication masturbating at very great length about the “pimp lobby” and approvingly quoting Meghan Murphy.

Seizing Power (#679)

Can we please stop pretending that Dart’s actions are anything other than a power & money grab?

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart wants [to profit from]…a recent plea deal [by Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer]…Dart filed a motion…asking [a]…Judge…to require Backpage.com LLC and its attorneys to pay the county for its legal fees in connection with a legal battle that dates back to 2015, when the Dallas-based online classified advertising site obtained a preliminary injunction blocking the sheriff’s office from [threatening] credit card companies [to force them to stop] processing payments for the site…

Broken Record (#733)

Prohibitionists just can’t stop beating this dead horse:

Three local groups are hosting an outreach event to warn the community about the dangers and reality of human trafficking during the Kentucky Derby…If you spot [any of these] red flag[s, report the person to the cops]…Hotel guests with little luggage…”Do Not Disturb” sign used constantly on a hotel room door…Housekeeping services refused for many days…Adults with…cell phones…A person is vague about his/her profession…

Can you imagine these phone calls? “Hi, Officer Porky, I’d like to report a man with a cell phone who told me to mind my own business…”

License to Rape (#806)

US prisons are hotbeds of rape in every form:

Jeannette Reynoso dreaded visiting her husband at…Rikers Island…She knew she would wait hours to be processed, go through several metal detectors and be subjected to a search by dogs sniffing for drugs and weapons. But she never thought she would be…naked and in tears before two [screws raping her using the excuse of searching] …her body cavities for contraband…When she [resisted the supposed search]…the [screws] threatened to cancel her visits for 45 days…[among other violations] the [screw]…violently inserted two fingers into her anus…she was menstruating at the time…The search Ms. Reynoso described is prohibited in city jails. In state and federal prisons, strip searches of visitors are permitted with consent, but not cavity checks…Elias Husamudeen, the president of the [Porcine Propaganda Perpetrators]…[mocked] the [reports made] by the women in the lawsuits and [claimed that]…“People are coming in with weapons in their vaginas, up their anus and in baby bottles”…

Because every woman I know can fit a 0.44 magnum in her pussy and a knife up her arse, at the same time.

Pyrrhic Victory (#810)

Surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi:

In cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agents can mine local police reports using COPLINK, a data program little known outside law enforcement circles…The software ingests local police databases, allowing users to map out people’s social networks and browse data that could include their countries of origin, license plate numbers, home addresses, alleged gang membership records, and more…[“authorities” pretend] these databases and analytic tools helps ICE…tackle serious crimes, like child pornography and [the catchall] money laundering. But…ICE…agents are also involved in questionable immigration enforcement actions nationwide…

Watershed (#815)

When stuffy NBC News publishes an article which openly calls for decriminalization, you know things are changing:

…the true targets of the [so-called] war on trafficking have been the marginalized, low income consensual sex workers whose livelihoods and ability to stay safe have long been dependent on the resources being scrubbed from the internet in the name of ending trafficking…It’s likely that these [“sex trafficking”] laws will be challenged in court and eventually overturned…Even the Department of Justice has said [FOSTA] could…be found to be unconstitutional…But while overturning these bills in court would be a good first step, it’s not enough. As long as consensual sex work is treated as functionally indistinct from abusive, forced or coercive situations, our laws will continue to punish some of the vulnerable people we claim to want to protect. Criminalizing and aggressively cracking down on all sex work pushes consensual sex workers underground and into unsafe environments…and…does little to discourage or combat people who profit from coercing others…In contrast, decriminalization…allows…sex workers to more openly and thus safely conduct business…A wide range of groups including Amnesty International, Freedom Network USA, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Human Rights Watch, UNAIDS, World Health Organization, International Women’s Health Coalition and numerous sex worker advocacy and support groups have thrown their support behind…decriminalization…

Negative Secondary Effects (#817)

Normally, the pretended “secondary effects” are concrete things, not silly nebulosities:

[Prohibitionists] have been granted a judicial review against Sheffield’s strip club licensing policy in a move that could…have significant implications for other councils considering strip club licences. It could force them to take into account the [imaginary] impact on women and gender equality, rather than just the wellbeing of [actual people like the dancers who these prohibitionists want unemployed]…

Funny how nobody is crusading against businesses that employ mostly men on grounds of “gender equality”. Don’t men have an equal “right” to be forced out of high-paying work to appease prudish lunatics?

Disaster (#832)

Judging by the breadth of responses from all over the political map, FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation on the part of the government:

“What the new law does is it allows the FBI and law enforcement and individuals to sue platforms of any kind online for third-party hosts and content,” Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at UNLV, told KNPR…She explained that platforms like Craigslist and Backpage…are simply platforms for information and couldn’t be held responsible for what people posted on that format. But under the new law, people can sue them for what other people post…Brents said there is no real evidence that real traffickers are using those sites, but the sites are used by consensual sex workers. With them shut down or otherwise threatened…sex workers are losing an important screening mechanism…

And here’s a good introduction to FOSTA and its related tyrannies:

…Hillary Clinton would have signed it, too. It…has had an overwhelming bipartisan majority…FOSTA-SESTA does nothing but places liability on online platforms by asking them to tackle an enormous “real world”/not online problem…FOSTA-SESTA spooks online platforms into pre-emptively censoring free speech for fear of criminal liability, which has all sorts of horrible consequences for free speech…You can no longer share “explicit and vulgar content” on any Microsoft product, which means that no longer allowed to do anything sexual with anyone on their platforms, regardless…if…paid or unpaid…Here is an incomplete list of products and institutions that discriminate or ban sex work or adult products…

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In the News (#835)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged acting, Against Their Will, agency denial, animals, California, cell phones, Checklist, cops, Elephant in the Parlor, Hollywood, hysteria, India, law, Louisiana, Micromanagement, Moving Pictures, Not the Leading Players, porn, pragmatism, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rescue industry, robots, Scapegoats, surveillance, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The Widening Gyre, West Virginia on May 5, 2018| 8 Comments »

Today people can’t wait to participate in their own surveillance.
– Mike Spinney

Moving Pictures

When a headline asks a question, the answer is nearly always “no”:

…the thriller Traffik…has a horrifying story that revolves around the sex trafficking industry, as it follows an innocent couple who become caught up in a human trafficking ring…The film itself is not a true story, but it was inspired by true events. The movie’s plot sees a couple…go on a road trip, where they run into a motorcycle gang at a gas station. The gang have a woman with them who sneaks a cell phone into the [wife’s] purse…in the bathroom. This leads to the gang, who are connected to a sex trafficking ring, to track down the phone and terrorize the innocent couple. This event itself is entirely fictional…but the filmmaker drew inspiration from [what he falsely claims are] real life sex trafficking incidents near his home in Northern California…

Checklist (#562)

Now you can be a useful idiot and violate strangers’ consent without even using a special app!

If you see someone who may be involved in human trafficking, report it by taking a picture and texting it to 909-ALERT-US (909-253-7887). Our…face recognition software automatically searches images in online escort ads for the photos provided. [If a match is identified, local vice squad will be notified]…

It searches online escort ads. Exclusively. So much for any pretense that this is abut anything other than persecuting sex workers.

To Molest and Rape

Anyone surprised by this hasn’t been paying attention:

Authorities have arrested a former [cop] who is suspected of being one of California’s most prolific serial killers and rapists — the Golden State Killer…In the 40 years since the Original Night Stalker began his campaign of terror in Sacramento and moved south through the Bay Area and Santa Barbara and Orange counties, he had remained unidentified [due to his knowledge of police procedure]. Authorities say the attacker, also dubbed the East Area rapist and the Golden State Killer, is responsible for 12 killings, 45 rapes and more than 120 residential burglaries from 1976 to 1986…72-year-old…Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., has been charged by prosecutors…with eight counts of murder. He is being held without bail…The suspect was a police officer in Auburn during the 1970s but was fired after he was accused of shoplifting…He is suspected of committing some crimes while he was still on the force…

There is one terrifying detail this story omits:

For decades…the DNA of the “Golden State Killer” sat in evidence storage…Whoever the killer was, he apparently was not one of the millions of convicts, offenders and arrestees in the FBI’s national DNA database…police announced that they had…identified Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer suspect using an ingenious technique that thrills law enforcement officials and disturbs privacy advocates…they checked the crime scene DNA against one of the genealogy sites that have lately become popular — databases filled with the profiles of people who have volunteered their genetic codes in the hope of discovering their relatives and ancestors…The suspected Golden State Killer was not in this database, either, but it didn’t matter. A distant relative of his was…and that person’s DNA partially matched evidence related to the serial killer. Instantly, the pool of suspects shrank from millions of people down to a single family. Detectives then used traditional investigative techniques to narrow the family members down to one suspect…Familial DNA searches…[have] an 83 percent failure rate [according to] a 2014 British study…

The Widening Gyre (#718)

Another result of moral panics: evil people using the hysteria to cover their evil:

A West Virginia [woman]…who…claimed her 3-year-old daughter was abducted by sex traffickers was convicted in her murder. Lena Marie Lunsford Conaway…was found guilty…on charges stemming from the 2011 disappearance of her daughter, Aliayah Lunsford…Her two older daughters reportedly testified that she beat the little girl over the head with a board then put her body in a clothes hamper. They claimed the mom disposed of Aliayah’s body in a shallow grave in the woods. The toddler’s remains were never found…

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (#752)

A histrionic has-been, an opportunistic shyster and a bunch of C-listers and anti-sex loons: this is who Gay, Inc chooses to side with against sex workers:

The Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking will honor Mira Sorvino, Kate Bosworth, Gloria Allred, Rosanna Arquette, Andra Day and others at the organization’s 20th annual gala…The [paradigm] of human trafficking [has become more popular] in the last couple of decades, and Los Angeles in particular has become a major hub for the [rescue] industry…

Against Their Will (#795)

It’s good to see this getting more attention lately:

An increasing number of stories…highlight the ugly reality of rescue homes, which [are]…less about rehabilitation and more about forced confinement. Doubts are now being raised whether [arrested] women and children…can indeed lead a protected life in these homes…

Unfortunately, it’s going to be an uphill climb; even this story about the abuses inflicted by the rescue industry still calls arrest & caging “rescue” and quotes the malignant sociopath Sunitha “100 clients a day” Krishnan, who runs a similar prison herself (a fact not mentioned in this story).

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#804)

Though this is the least-stupid article about sex robots I’ve ever read that wasn’t written by me, the author still deeply underestimates the level of emotional contact many if not most men want from sex workers:

…I predict that historians of the development of artificial intelligence are going to see sexual gratification as one of the phenomenon’s great motivators. Evolutionary psychology can give us insight into how sex robots are going to develop and the ramifications they’ll have on society. Sexbots are usually woman-shaped gynoid machines…because heterosexual men drive the market for sexual products like prostitution and pornography. Across cultures, men desire more sexual partners, need to know someone for less time before they want to have sex with them, and have lower standards for a sexual liaison than women…Men don’t get pregnant and don’t lactate, and they have smaller, easier-to-produce sex cells than women. For a man, the cost of producing offspring is cheap…Women impose costs on men to gain sexual access for very good reasons…Pornography and prostitution are popular because they arrive at sexual end goals, or a reasonable facsimile, with more clarity and lower costs than in the mating market. The complications of courtship are driving improvements in sexual substitutes, like masturbation aids…These substitutes aren’t very good, and yet they are already competing with flesh-and-blood companionship…

No, not really. I can assure you that no Fleshlight Tina is “competition” for any man who can actually afford a sex worker. This psychologist is arguing that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”.

Elephant in the Parlor (#825)

Naturally she’s doing this; she’s an intelligent woman:

Stormy Daniels is back in front of the cameras — on a porn set. Touting what appears to be Daniels’ first released sex scenes since the money scandal involving her and President Trump surfaced early this year, the porn site Brazzers teased graphic snippets online…They feature Daniels in the upcoming XXX video entitled Stormy’s Secret…

Scapegoats (#831)

If you don’t understand what this is all about, try looking up “Napoleonic Code”:

In Louisiana, a proposal to strengthen the law against bestiality is facing unexpected opposition from conservative lawmakers who see it as an underhanded move to strike the state’s unconstitutional ban on sodomy. Creating a new, wide-ranging anti-bestiality law would untangle the offense from the ban on sodomy in Louisiana’s “crime against nature ” statute, prompting some lawmakers to label the measure a sly chess move. “This bill was written because the far left wants to undermine our other laws that protect family and traditional values”…said Sen. Ryan Gatti…one of 10 senators to vote against the bill…

Remember, this is a law struck down as unconstitutional 15 years ago.

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In the News (#834)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, advertising, agency denial, All Shapes and Sizes, All-Purpose Excuse, Backpage, censorship, Disaster, diversion programs, First They Came for the Hookers, genitalia, hysteria, illegal aliens, law, left-right myth, Legal Is as Legal Does, Maryland, neofeminism, New York, New Zealand, Permanent Record, porn, prohibitionist myths, racism, Rooted in Racism, Shame Shame, sporting events, Tennessee, Texas, The Peril, The War Goes On on May 2, 2018| 3 Comments »

FOSTA’s real purpose is making it easier to file lawsuits against online companies, while politicians pat themselves on the back. – Ron Wyden

A Procrustean Bed (#502)

A documentary glorifies the prohibitionist shitshow that is New York’s “sex trafficking court”:

…Judge Toko Serita…presides over Queens’s Human Trafficking Intervention Court…where she processes women who have been arrested on charges of prostitution…The women…are offered a choice: Instead of [being given constitutional due process]…they can [submit to]…a set number of [brainwashing] sessions. If, in six months, they have not been arrested again, the charges are dropped and the case is sealed…about 80 percent of the women take the [brainwashing] option…[less] than victims, Serita sees them first and foremost as…[objects to be processed. Filmmaker Stephanie] Wang-Breal…says…in the film’s notes: “Who am I to say she doesn’t have agency, who am I to say what she should be doing with her life?” [and yet she glorifies this grotesque denial of women’s agency anyway]…

Nobody involved in producing this mess stopped to question the court’s assumption that human beings are mere objects to be “processed”. You know, like in a food processor.

All Shapes and Sizes (#521)

This procedure has come a long way in only three years:

Doctors in the US have performed the world’s first complete penis and scrotum transplant on a former soldier who had his genitals blown off after stepping on a hidden bomb while on tour in the Middle East. The 14-hour operation performed last month at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, was the most complex and extensive penis transplant ever attempted…The young [man]…received an entire penis, scrotum (without testicles), and partial abdominal wall from a deceased donor…It took a team of nine plastic surgeons and two urology surgeons…The surgery took place on March 26 and nearly a month on doctors seem confident of its success but will continue to monitor the patient’s recovery…

Shame, Shame (#649)

My friend Mark Bennett takes down Texas’ overbroad and mindlessly-draconian “revenge porn” law:

Mark Bennett, the Texas Tornado, took another law down for violating the First Amendment. This time, it was…the so-called “revenge porn” law. In Ex parte Jones, the 12th District Court of Appeals…held that the statute was facially unconstitutional. As has been argued from the day Mary Anne Franks began her efforts to create a criminal revenge porn statute, it clearly implicated the First Amendment’s prohibition against laws infringing on free expression, to which she merely screamed her denials and did her best to deflect by creating a fantasy interpretation of the First Amendment…The State argues…relying upon Franks’ and Danielle Citron’s “legal” arguments…that [such images fall] within a new concept of obscenity, “contextually obscene”. Except there is no such category outside of their imaginations, nor can anything be found obscene except by a jury…the court noted that the law failed to make any effort to narrow its prohibitions, which was a fundamental tenet of the Franks approach to criminalizing revenge porn lest anyone get away with it…

The Peril

The hypocrisy of politicians sometimes defies belief:

Jack Johnson…became the first black heavyweight boxing champion after defeating Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, in 1908. Two years later, he defended his title against boxer James J. “Jim” Jeffries, who…was referred to as the “great white hope” by racist…fans who wanted him to…take back the heavyweight crown for whites…Jeffries lost the fight…[but] what racism could not do to Johnson in the boxing ring, it found other ways to accomplish. Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act…the Justice Department…argued that Johnson’s relationship with a white woman was a “crime against nature”…criminalization of sex work in the US is rooted in racism, and modern campaigns do little to mask that lineage…The “white slavery” campaign of the early 1900’s…led directly to the enactment of the federal Mann Act, (a.k.a. the White Slave Traffic Act), in 1910. “[O]nce prohibition of sex work was in place,” writer Maggie McNeill has noted, “it was enforced disproportionately against poor people and ethnic minorities, especially black people, just as all prohibitionist laws are.” As Andrew Glass wrote for Politico, the first person prosecuted under the Mann Act…was Jack Johnson…That Donald Trump should look to a pardon for Johnson in the same month he signed…FOSTA…into law, is bitterly ironic…

Legal Is as Legal Does (#666)

Lewis & her friends are naive fools; what they’re asking for is legalization & protectionism, and they’re not going to like it if they get it:

New Zealand sex workers are furious that foreign prostitutes who come on temporary visas can advertise their services here despite it being illegal for them to work. High profile escort Lisa Lewis is one of several who have taken their complaints to Immigration New Zealand…calling for a harsher stance against migrant sex workers…She wants INZ to shift its focus from just deporting migrant sex workers to punish [advertising venues] that profit from helping the promotion of these illegal sex workers. Lewis said the increase in number of foreign prostitutes coming over has hit local sex workers in the pocket…

Permanent Record

Note that other states have similar (if less broad) laws, and that the tendency toward such penalties is increasing:

Currently in both Maryland and Tennessee, a criminal past — or even just being accused of a crime — often stands between people and a job. This is because many occupational licensing laws prevent ex-offenders from being able to obtain a license for the jobs they seek…these restrictions aren’t targeted at people whose criminal history relates to their desired career; instead, they can serve as blanket bans for those hoping to enter hundreds of professions including plumbing, cosmetology and interior design. By prohibiting wide swaths of people from licensure, these boards aren’t protecting health and safety — they’re just making it more likely these individuals will remain unemployed and unable to support themselves or their families…in some cases, people need only to be accused of a crime — not even convicted of it — for the board to deny them a license. Many of these bans are also permanent…In one instance in Tennessee…a woman convicted for prostitution over a decade ago learned she couldn’t become a radiation therapist…

I’m going to start using this heading for the many cases of people who lose their jobs due to a history of sex work; they currently appear under the overbroad “First They Came for the Hookers…”

All-Purpose Excuse (#794)

In this confused mess, a lawyer complains that anti-immigrant actions “hurt efforts to stop human trafficking”, even though “human trafficking” is a dysphemism used to demonize immigration:

If Trump truly cared about victims of human trafficking, he would put an end to his ongoing assault on immigrants. Statistics on the number of victims of human trafficking are notoriously unreliable because of widespread [ov]erreporting…Since Trump assumed the presidency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has used the fight against human trafficking as justification for its crackdown on undocumented immigrants. ICE arrests have surged by more than 40 percent…[which] has aggravated the fear of coming forward among undocumented victims of human trafficking, undermining the U.S. government’s own efforts to tackle the problem…

In other words, “Trump’s crackdown on migration is interfering with existing attempts to prevent migration”.

Disaster

Here’s another article about FOSTA, which despite many good points expended so much effort in licking prohibitionist arseholes it nearly made me vomit. Since there are plenty of good articles which denounce censorship and promote human rights without sucking the dick of power, there’s not a lot of reason to bother with this one; however, if you feel compelled you’ll see this “journalist” ceding ground to prohibitionists and otherwise making ignorant, unhelpful statements all over the place. It starts in the lede, which proclaims that FOSTA was “a rare moment of bipartisan agreement”, a deeply stupid statements which ignores that the two main US parties have never disagreed on prohibition as a principle at any point in the past century, and that literally every single anti-sex work bill of the past two decades has had nearly-unanimous bipartisan support. The article misstates the case against Backpage, repeats prohibitionist lies, characterizes third parties as “pimps & traffickers”, downplays the breadth of opposition to internet censorship with phrases like “some argue”, and even claims that “FOSTA was pitched with a very specific (and noble) goal in mind”; apparently author Kate Knibbs believes that censorship, denial of human rights, and negating the agency and consent of half a million women are “noble”. I certainly don’t.

This Means War (#830)

Megalomaniacal US rulers believe they have the right to disrupt the lives of millions all over the world:

Before New Zealand Cracker – a classifieds website used by sex workers – was shut down by the FBI, Wellington woman Sarah (not her real name) says she received at least five enquiries from clients each day. Now, she is lucky to receive two a week through other advertising platforms. “It has totally ruined our lives”…the FBI seiz[ure of]…Backpage.com…[has produced] a global and profound disruption of the sex work industry, including in countries like New Zealand, where prostitution is legal. New Zealand Cracker was one of the many subsidiary sites Backpage.com hosted around the world. For more than a decade it was at the heart of New Zealand’s sex work industry – offering businesses and sex workers a cheap, effective way of connecting with clients. Its closure has, without warning, taken livelihoods away, leaving workers without the resources to operate their businesses or, in some cases, survive…

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In the News (#832)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, censorship, cops, cult of the child, Devil's Advocate, Disaster, Droit du Seigneur, Elephant in the Parlor, hysteria, Imagination Pinned Down, internet, Kentucky, law, New York, Ohio, Original Sin, politicians, prohibitionist myths, psychology, robots, streetwalkers, tabula rasa, The Proper Study, The Widening Gyre, Twitter, underage on April 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Because our political class believes in myths, not solid evidence, they keep creating policies directed at an imaginary bogeyman, not real criminals. – Jenny Heineman & Brooke Wagner

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

A MILLION!!!!!

La Porte County [Indiana] Prosecutor John Espar [fed ludicrous propaganda to] local residents at First Baptist Church on human trafficking…He [lied that] the rate of sex crimes spiked between 1998 and 2007 with the growing popularity of Internet usage, which gave offenders access to children…to whom they did not have access previously…As many as one million children are exploited for commercial sex annually…children who become victims typically do so between the ages of 12 and 14…“So many of these (sex) workers, even if they’re not realizing it at this point in their lives, are still victims of exploitation”…

The Proper Study

Ric Curtis, who headed the Jon Jay study, is still debunking prohibitionist lies:

As they crack down on sex workers and pass outrageous new laws, our politicians and moral crusaders make some bold claims: Hundreds of thousands of children…at an average age of 13…is any of this true?…from 2012 to 2014, we spent nine months walking a [stroll] in Las Vegas…We handed out condoms and other harm-reduction material…The primary investigator, Ric Curtis, designed the study based on his experience collecting data from other “hard to reach” populations…The study had several teams collecting data in major cities across the US that had been dubbed as “hubs of sex trafficking”…after interviewing 949 people across 6 cities…[we found] the assumptions that inform government policy on sex workers are merely myths. And those myths are easily disproved once you bother to get the data, which we did…In our subsample of youth under the age of 18…engaged in survival sex…24%…had a pimp…liberally defined as someone with whom the respondent shared their earnings…one young woman’s experience stood out as representative …Rena, who was 16 at the time of the interview, laughed when we asked if she had a pimp. She tipped her head toward one of her friends. “That’s my pimp,” Rena giggled. She was an 18-year-old woman who helped Rena use the internet to get clients and was herself engaged in survival sex. The two young women pooled their money together to meet their shared living expenses…Rena’s friend could be considered a sex trafficker under the current legal regime…

Droit du Seigneur

Though pimps are not common, a disproportionate number of the ones who do exist are cops:

Police are choosing to allow brothels to operate providing they create a safe environment for women, one former detective – now a brothel owner – has told the BBC…Despite it being illegal to operate a brothel in England and Wales – although not illegal to buy and sell sex – Karl says he has no moral qualms about breaking the law because he does not agree with it, and he says he is not exploiting the women who work for him…

The Widening Gyre

New York is way behind cities like Seattle, Phoenix & Houston in promoting the hysteria:

Inside a handsome brick building on a tree-lined street near Brooklyn’s Prospect Park lay one of the city’s dirtiest secrets…two 16-year-old girls were allegedly being kept inside as sex slaves…the teens’ captors forced them to strip to their underwear, pose for Backpage.com ads and have sex with up to 10 johns a day…thousands of sex slaves being trafficked under the noses of New York City residents every day…[vice cop] Jim Klein [said]…“It’s modern-day slavery”…the average victim is…as young as 12…“One guy kept [a girl] in a dog cage because she wasn’t cooperating”…a…14-year-old…was found locked in a closet surrounded by pots of urine…

Original Sin

Welcome back to the 16^th century:

Priests attending an annual exorcism conference in Rome are set to discuss whether pornography has a demonic influence. Over 250 priests and theologians as well as criminologists and psychologists from 51 countries have gathered at the week-long Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation conference…attendees will discuss the prevalence of pornography in modern society, and consider if it is a “modern cultural phenomenon of an evil that harms people,” and to what extent it may have what he described as a demonic influence…

Imagination Pinned Down (#551)

Stereotypic conformation in progress:

Jessa Dillow Crisp has spent the better part of the last decade learning who she is…as a child victim of human trafficking. Now, she works to help others who are or have been in the same situation. She is co-founder and executive director of Bridgehope…As a child…in…Canada, Crisp was abused and sold into the sexual human trafficking sector by her family…she would eventually be sold to a circuit operating in the United States…“during the 2010 Winter Olympics, it was…sadistic pain and horrific evil.” Clarksville Police Chief Mark Palmer said that he sees more sex trafficking in the way of consensual sex workers, not forced abusers…during large events like Thunder Over Louisville or the Kentucky Derby…her identity was also stripped away by her abusers, who controlled where she went, what she ate, how she sat, how she talked…Some of the signs are behavioral, like having a…phone, the connection to [a partner]…styles of dress that [busybodies claim] are way beyond their years…

Most professional “survivors” don’t last long; it’ll be interesting to see if this one graduates to including classic elements like brutal clients and being dragged behind a car.

Devil’s Advocate (#761)

Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:

…in the United States, Rep. Dan Donovan…introduced legislation to ban [child-shaped sex] dolls, in a bill named Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots, otherwise known as the CREEPER Act…some [actual experts] suggest…dolls could be used to deter the real-life fulfillment of pedophilic urges…[but politicians and other prohibitionists pretend human sexual impulses are learned and can be eliminated via threats of violence] Donovan [claims] “Once a child sex abuser tires of practicing on a doll, it’s a small step to move on to an innocent child…[puritans pretend] these dolls reinforce, normalize, and encourage pedophilic behavior”…

Elephant in the Parlor (#825)

Ken White explains the latest wrinkle in the Stormy Daniels case:

…Conventional wisdom is that federal courts are better for the defense and more likely to enforce arbitration agreements. However, federal judges move faster and abide by deadlines and rules more closely, and are substantially less tolerant of bullshit than state judges. If substantial portions of your defense are premised on bullshit and delay, don’t remove to federal court…the main issue is whether the nondisclosure agreement [is]…enforceable. If [so]…Trump…could conceivably get a gag order against Clifford and get massive damages against her for breaching the confidentiality agreement, and could do so through a private arbitration proceeding instead of in public…

It’s complicated, so you’ll need to read the whole thing.

Disaster (#831)

Judging by the breadth of responses from all over the political map, FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation on the part of the government:

The US’ latest attempt to silence sex workers…has begun to chill free speech across the internet. A number of websites have had to either shut down or actively distance themselves from the notion that they support sex work. And the problem is only going to get worse as time goes on…It’s not just…adults-only websites and platforms that are now having to crack down on discussions of sex. Microsoft and Google have moved to alter their terms of service…and…not even private discussions are safe…Microsoft…claim[ed] the right to examine your content…[and] Google is purging adult content from private Drive accounts…sex workers are attempting to protect themselves against the bill by building platforms beyond the reach of American authorities….Red Umbrella Hosting…offers judgment-free, anonymous and sex-worker-friendly hosting. Then there is Switter…launched in response to FOSTA-SESTA and Twitter’s alleged shadowbanning practices. In a few short weeks, it has already acquired nearly 23,000 followers…

But it didn’t take long for Switter to feel the government’s boot:

[Last] Wednesday, Cloudflare terminated its content delivery network services for…the weeks-old Switter…Cloudflare has confirmed…that the company terminated service to Switter because of FOSTA, but also said it’s “a very bad law”…When [Switter] organizers…reached out to Cloudflare for explanation, they were met with a vague notice that Switter violated the company’s Terms of Service…Switter moved to a new content delivery network and is still up, but Cloudflare’s decision to terminate service was jarring…Cloudflare, historically, has been a vocal supporter of the open internet…

And here’s a heads up from a confidential source: the sleazebags behind FOSTA are butthurt that everyone sees their tyranny for what it is and they’re preparing for a major PR offensive to convince people that censorship isn’t censorship. The first of it started on Sunday.

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In the News (#828)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Backwards into the Future, Banishment, cell phones, cops, Cops and Robbers, dating, dehumanization, dirty, disease, Elephant in the Parlor, end demand, ethics, fascism, hysteria, illegal aliens, law, New York, pathologization of males, politicians, prohibitionist myths, Prudesville, rape, restaurants, scams, sex offender registry, sex rays, sex work is work, Spotlight, stripping, Switzerland, The Scarlet Letter, To Molest and Rape, Vietnam, Washington (state), Wisconsin on April 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

It’s not a human thing to do—just take this entire community and completely strip them of safe places to…work. – Wills de Vogelaere

Banishment

Because obviously his sex rays might harm sick children:

…at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin…staff prevented Stuart Yates, a 49-year-old man on the sex offender registry, from visiting his severely ill son Kahlil, age 9, who was crying and begging him to visit…”In 1998, Yates pleaded guilty to…inappropriately touch[ing] a 15-year-old babysitter…Yates says he took a plea in the case, thinking he would serve six months in prison. Instead, a judge handed down a five-year sentence….[and registration] as a sex offender for life…Yates is now suing the hospital to be let back inside“…In the face of a lawsuit, the hospital relented in part, and will permit Yates to visit three times a week, for two hours, under supervision. But the visits must be approved 24 hours in advance, meaning that if the boy wakes up feverish or…takes a turn for the worse, his dad will not be able to hurry to his side…

Backwards into the Future (#540)

Only the authoritarian mind is so twisted it thinks decriminalization of consensual sex is “complicated”:

Vietnamese officials have expressed their concerns about the complicated nature of recognizing prostitution as a job…figures from the International Labor Organization (ILO) suggest that there are nearly 101,300 sex workers…in Vietnam…“Sex workers should have the right to make a living, contribute to society, and enjoy welfare in terms of healthcare and education,” said Cao Van Thanh, vice head of the Social Evil Prevention Department…at a recent meeting in Hanoi…Tran Van Dat, vice head of the Department of General Affairs on Legislative Development…said prostitution should be considered a legitimate profession…

Though they’re commies and therefore need to bloviate about disease and “regulation”, it’s still startling how much more enlightened these politicians’ views are than those in the backward US.

Uncommon Sense (#602)

Once again, myths and agency denial convince Switzerland to narrow the bottleneck for legal sex work:

FIZ, a Swiss NGO specialising in…women’s migration issues…thought that it was very important…that people actually talk about…severe forms of exploitation…the human trafficking framework…has negative effects on other groups of migrant women, and…has turned out to be a framework that is actually a lot about controlling the movement of migrant women, controlling the work of migrant women. We see this very clearly with sex workers…

Spotlight (#721)

Asstoon says he’s not just a savior, but an actual messiah:

I have a hard time talking about this issue without being emotional…If you don’t do something about it, then who are you? It can happen to anyone…Traffickers prey on people…If you look at the place where these [passive, agency-less vegetables] are sold online, its right next to a car, or a sofa or a used bicycle…We basically take a victim, that otherwise is just a posting online, and we turn them into a human being…

Yes, that’s Kutcher claiming to be a literal god who can turn an inanimate object into a human being.

To Molest and Rape (#794)

It’s even easier to get away with rape when you’re literally in bed with the prosecutor:

A Brooklyn prosecutor was caught having an affair with one of the NYPD cops [who raped] a handcuffed teenager…Assistant District Attorney Nicole Manini…is under investigation for potentially violating professional conduct rules…Manini’s illicit relationship with [rapist cop] Richard Hall…was uncovered when investigators with her office reviewed his cellphone records as part of the rape case…Michael David, the lawyer representing Hall’s [victim], said he plans to use the…affair…in his client’s pending civil rights suit against Hall, [rapist cop Eddie] Martins and the city…

The Scarlet Letter (#798)

Who needs the cops to out HIV+ people when dating apps can do it for them?

The gay dating app Grindr says it will stop sharing the HIV status of its users with other companies. Grindr made the decision…after first defending the practice, which involved sending user profile information — including HIV status and test dates — to two companies called Apptimize and Localytics. They test the performance of Grindr’s products…

Prudesville (#816)

Everett expands its argument beyond “women who dress like sluts are asking to be raped”:

After a federal judge ruled against the city of Everett for banning “bikini baristas” from wearing G-strings and pasties, Everett has decided to continue fighting against baristas’ partial nudity…city attorneys stress—while trying to support a ban on butt cleavage—how easy it is to understand the terms of Everett’s ban on “bottom one half of the anal cleft” and “more than one-half of the part of the female breast located below the top of the areola.” One of the reasons Judge Marsha Pechman blocked the ban was because she ruled those rules were too vague to stand up in court. She indicated that the argument that the ban limited freedom of expression on the basis of gender was also likely to succeed…

Disaster

Sex workers set up our own social network, just in case we’re censored from Twitter:

…a group of sex workers have apparently attempted to set up their own social network, called Switter. It’s a Mastodon Instance (Mastodon being the fairly well known open source decentralized social networking platform that allows anyone to set up an individual “instance”)…The stated reasons for Switter are to prepare for the possibility of Twitter banning accounts of sex workers and to have more control over their social media space. As I write this, the site claims to have about 12,000 signed up users…

And we’re not just fighting a defensive war this time:

Upstart blockchain-based adult outfit, SpankChain, launched an offensive…dubbed “WTFOSTA,” calling for sex workers to expose any politician who’s procured their services and subsequently voted in favor of the recently passed SESTA/FOSTA measure criminalizing web platforms deemed to foster sex trafficking. The specific bid to the sex worker community, as posted on official campaign site wtfosta.com, is as follows: “We are offering $25,000 to each of the first 10 sex workers who come forward with hard evidence of any politician who voted YES on FOSTA/SESTA engaging their services”…

Cops and Robbers (#823)

Honest headline: “NYPD Creeps Threaten Lonely Men”:

…NYPD [pigs get their jollies]…by planting fake ads and sending [threatening] texts to those looking [for human companionship]…Police have posted phony listings on sites like Backpage.com for years, but always waited until the [victim] showed up and then arrested him. “Advertisements are posted by the NYPD and you won’t know which ads are from us” the [threat lies]…

Actually, it’s extremely easy for men to know which ads are real and which are pig swill: women in real ads will have an established online presence. Just Google the name, email address, phone number, etc; if there are no other hits on an escort site, other ad sites, Twitter, etc, you’re probably looking at a pig trap.

Elephant in the Parlor (#825)

Unfortunately, in our post-factual era this doesn’t help as much as it once did:

As Trump’s presidency drags on — having blown past tarnished and into deep, dark ignominy — receipts have become vitally important…Karen McDougal kept receipts. The former Playboy model’s handwritten notes chronicle an alleged affair in 2006. These non-coy notes —”we got naked + had sex” — were published in the New Yorker. A White House rebuttal —”more fake news“— crashed on the shoals of receipts. Stormy Daniels kept receipts. The adult-film actress has a copy of the nondisclosure agreement that she signed, and Trump didn’t, requiring her to keep silent about her alleged Trump tryst, on pain of larcenous fines…Nastya Rybka, a Belarussian escort, also kept receipts……she…claims to have audio receipts that show Russian meddling in the U.S. election. She’s seeking asylum in the U.S. in return for telling all…

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This Means War

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Backpage, Bread and Circuses, censorship, Creating a Monster, hysteria, prohibitionist myths, This Means War, universal criminality on April 10, 2018| 11 Comments »

I hate these website confiscation notices. The agencies involved always plaster their logos all over the damned thing, like they’re so proud of how they wrecked someone’s business, like a bunch of dogs pissing all over to mark their territory. It makes me sick. – Mark Draughn

So it’s finally happened; after seven and a half years of illegal persecution, the federal government finally wiped its fat, disgusting arse with the last remaining shreds of the Constitution and seized Backpage on a number of trumped-up charges, meaning the usual no-evidence-needed “money laundering” and “conspiracy” to ensure they can still loot the corpse of the victim even after repeated attempts on ridiculous “sex trafficking” charges fell flat. Judges have repeatedly and consistently sided with Backpage in every challenge…

…for the simple reason that the government’s demands are blatantly unconstitutional. But the evil don’t stop being evil merely because they’re wrong; faced with repeated defeats in their attempts to take legal action against the company, government prohibitionists decided to simply take illegal actions instead, ranging from Tom Dart’s threats against credit card companies to Senate “hearings” of the same sort previously held to intimidate moviemakers, comic book publishers and the music industry. Then in October [2016], California attorney general Kamala Harris upped the ante by committing the blatantly criminal act of arresting the CEO and both owners of Backpage and filing charges against them that she absolutely knew were illegal for her to file. Naturally, a judge slapped her down, and she replied by filing even more ridiculous charges, shitting all over the dying protection against double jeopardy in her quest to be a hero to fanatics. Exhausted and facing the prospect of an infinite succession of similar nuisance charges from criminal tyrants the courts seem unwilling to charge or even rein in, Backpage finally followed in Craigslist’s footsteps and censored its adult ads…

…but that did no good. The War on Whores in general, and on Backpage in particular, is just the latest chapter in the government’s vile “public morality” circus, and once Backpage was chosen to be the big bogeyman the “authorities” had to make a grand spectacle of taking it down, complete with raids on the homes of the company’s founders and the arrest of Michael Lacey, whom the Arizona political establishment has been trying to destroy for years (try not to vomit when you read “Cuckoo Clock” McCain’s sanctimonious braying in that article). In order to increase the melodrama and drag out their victims’ torture, officials intentionally staged the raid on Friday afternoon, then lied about the time they would release a statement so as to push it past the weekend; all the “authorities” would say is that their Star Chamber Court had charged Lacey with 93 counts of something, but didn’t think it was necessary to tell their victim, his attorney or the public what any of those somethings are until yesterday. When they did, it was just the usual “money laundering”, “conspiracy” and “travel act” nonsense (same as Rentboy), and not one single “sex trafficking” charge. In the meantime, sex workers all over the world who relied on Backpage are scrambling to find new advertising venues at a time when many of those venues are closing due to the blatantly-unconstitutional and tyrannous FOSTA, yet the bloated corpse of what was once the nation’s greatest civil rights organization hasn’t said a single word on the subject; apparently ACLU is much too busy helping middle-class white men to force bigots to cater their ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption to bother even making a statement about the most extensive and shameless act of civil rights abrogation since the USA-PATRIOT Act. And if those who claim it’s their mission to protect people from civil rights violations won’t help us, we’re going to need other allies ASAP.

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In the News (#827)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Africa, agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, Backwards into the Future, Bogeymen, bogus studies, brothels, Cambodia, Censor Chic, censorship, condoms, Cooties, cops, Disaster, Do As I Say, drugs, Eternal Vigilance, fantasy, Gullible's Travels, hotels, hysteria, internet, Maryland, Massachusetts, Morality Lessons, Ohio, pimps, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, rape, surveillance, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, video on April 7, 2018| 5 Comments »

The major purpose of [FOSTA] is to…punish anyone who…engages in sex work. – Steven Thrasher

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

“A Toledo [cop] was issued a summons…during a prostitution sting at a Columbus area hotel…Mack Collins…was not arrested…”

Gullible’s Travels

I reckon the panic industry’s been too busy with Trump, guns, opiates and “sex trafficking” to come up with as many dumb “teen fad” panics as they used to:

…educators are warning about a “condom challenge” being spread online by YouTube videos and social media…The challenge involves snorting an unwrapped condom up one nostril, then pulling the condom from the throat out the mouth…Snorting a condom up your nose not only poses a choking hazard but also puts you at risk for allergic reactions and infections…women [who] accidentally swallow…condoms [can] developing ailments ranging from pneumonia to appendicitis…The condom snorting challenge may eclipse the most recent viral video fad among teenagers, which involved eating brightly colored Tide Pods…

Yeah, I’m sure this is going to be so much more popular than video games.

Bogeymen

Five years in prison for talking to someone online:

A Brockton man who recruited women online for prostitution, including an undercover police officer, was sentenced to five years in state prison for human trafficking…Shakwaan Simpkins…had “used a website with the express purpose of recruiting a woman to engage in prostitution,” District Attorney Marian Ryan said…

That’s all he did: talked to a pig on the internet. Five years in a cage, at a cost to the taxpayers higher than if he were sent to Harvard. I’m sure the good puritans of Massachusetts feel safer now that this evil texter is locked up.

Censor Chic

Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors:

Earlier this month, the European Commission published a new [diktat] demanding that internet companies remove…content flagged to them in less than an hour — or face legislation forcing them to do so….Google and other big tech companies still publish transparency reports, but they now seems to serve a different purpose: to convince authorities in Europe and elsewhere that the internet giant is serious about [censorship on bureaucratic demand]…The more takedowns it can show, the better…Expect additional “transparency” designed to underline Google’s own [internally-generated censorship]…the…report does not yet include a full accounting for YouTube…But Google has hinted it will soon produce a dedicated report for the video sharing site. When and if it does, it promises to show not thousands but millions of annual takedowns, many for copyright violations, but also many for breaking “community rules”…The pace of private sector censorship is astounding — and it’s growing exponentially…

All-Purpose Excuse (#718)

Fans of the Democratic party need to remember their team did half the work of creating this lunacy:

Roseanne Barr was under attack this weekend for supporting President Trump’s efforts to end human trafficking. CNN and other MSM media outlets claimed Barr’s tweet supporting the President’s efforts relied on a conspiracy theory while dismissing President Trump’s efforts. Roseanne was right. Our analysis shows that arrests for human trafficking were up 150% in 2017 and are on track to be up nearly 500% in 2018 over 2016 numbers…

Actually, she’s not right; click on the title for Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s analysis of these bogus numbers, which come from the tinfoil-hat “Pizzagate” crowd of which Barr is a member. However, I must point out that given the vague definition of “human trafficking”, it’s easy for any executive to increase “human trafficking” arrests by simply ordering cops and prosecutors to charge basically everyone they arrest in prostitution, immigration or immigrant-labor stings with “human trafficking”. Given Trump’s ICE pogroms, I’m surprised it has only gone up by 500%.

Eternal Vigilance (#732)

Puritans are still upset about the fact that some women are comfortable paying our rent (and other expenses) with sex:

…Renting rooms for sexual favours is seen as a growing menace by [busybodies], and a byproduct of a housing crisis where young people are unable to find somewhere to live without spending exorbitant sums. The [so-called] problem has become particularly marked in university towns, where young women are targeted by rogue landlords. But while then justice secretary David Lidington last year said such offers may breach the Sexual Offences Act, there is frustration that more is not being done. “Since last year, there has not been a single arrest, let alone a conviction, let alone anybody actually going to jail for it,” says [politician] Peter Kyle…[who] has consistently called for landlords who offer accommodation in exchange for sex to be prosecuted [for upsetting Kyle’s delicate fee-fees]…

Backwards into the Future (#778)

Note that the headline blames the girls rather than the busybodies who want them unemployed:

The Global Fund is pulling out of a controversial partnership with Heineken but not for the reason most cited by critics. [Crypto-moralists] had been blasting…the Global Fund…for backing a partnership with Heineken to “fight infectious diseases in Africa.” Some activists said it was [better for people to die of malaria than]…to align with a product that can be detrimental to people’s health…The Global Fund shrugged off that criticism for weeks. The plan was for Heineken to use its extensive logistics and communications expertise to help the Fund deliver medical supplies. Now the Fund says it’s suspending the deal not out of concern for the people who drink too much Heineken but…because of “the company’s use of female beer promoters in ways that expose them to sexual exploitation and health risks”…for more than a decade [anti-sex groups have moaned about]…the exploitation of “beer girls” in Southeast Asia, including women working to boost sales of Heineken in bars in Cambodia. Also known as “promotion girls,” these (primarily young) women encourage male customers to order a particular brand of beer. The women earn relatively low wages, often survive off tips and…[often] moonlight as sex workers…

Cooties (#811)

Cops trying to draw others into their “sex slave” fantasies are a more dangerous version of time-wasters who call whores to masturbate to the sound of our voices:

Human traffickers [are fantasized to] be putting up sex workers in Cumbrian bed-and-breakfast businesses before moving them on to pop-up brothels…[cops pretend] that “a significant” proportion of illegal moving of people nationally is being carried out under the guise of tourism…[cops] urged business bosses and the public to [spy on their fellow citizens]…Detective Superintendent Lesley Hanson said…”We [masturbate to the fantasy] that pop-up brothels are set up across the county and there are victims forced into prostitution”…

To Molest and Rape (#814)

Seeing this one power being taken from cops is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless:

Maryland is among 35 states that lack laws prohibiting police from [raping] those they arrest…New York’s legislature recently voted to change its law…Brooke Lierman…wants to make the same change in Maryland. Her bill to do that has passed the House. She told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee…that she was moved to push for the change after reading reports about women who were raped while in police custody [and the rapists get away with it by claiming it was consensual]…

Disaster

Now they notice. Good going, Gay, Inc!

…More people should care about sex workers’ rights. But if you think none of this applies to you because you’re not queer or into kink or sex work, think again: the US Congress wants to further regulate sex by way of the internet, and most people’s modern sex lives interact with the internet. Craigslist shut down its entire personal section because of the overreaching congressional desire to control sex work. And there’s no reason Congress couldn’t similarly intimidate Tinder or Grindr to remove you or shut down entirely as it has Craigslist…the real sex panic is not due to feminism run amok, but due to the patriarchal, homophobic, transantagonistic, theocratic desire of the US Congress to control sex workers – and, by extension, to smother the sexual desires of any of us who don’t want to conform to their puritanical ways.

Here are a few more of those in that “any of us” category:

…Another website taken offline was Pounced.org, a dating site for “furries” – or devotees of anthropomorphic animal characters who like to dress in costumes…“with limited resources and a small volunteer staff, our risk for operating the site has now significantly increased…if someone posts an ad looking to exchange sex…and we don’t catch it, is that facilitating prostitution?”…Microsoft…issued a change to its terms of service which will ban “offensive language”…from its services, including Skype…YourDominatrix.com ended all US listings, with a note saying it was “due to a recent bill passed by Congress”…the escort forums on “Hung Angels” shut down…VerifyHim, a site devoted to helping sex workers stay safe by screening their clients, also removed its discussion forums…On Twitter, sex workers…were passing around safety tips and “self-censoring” advice for the new era, while others were converting to secure email accounts and offshore internet hosting sites…

Morality Lessons (#826)

Looks like at least one dangerous censor-moron is on his way out:

New revelations about the man who authored trendy anti-porn and digital censorship legislation has killed its chances in…Rhode Island…and may doom it…in the 17 other states with similar proposals…Chris Sevier…sometimes called [his brainchild] the “Elizabeth Smart Law”…[but] Smart recently demanded that Sevier stop using her name…It’s a bad legal month all around for Sevier, who had sued in federal court for the right to marry his laptop…A federal judge in Utah threw out the case…The whole fiasco isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of how a lot of state officials approach the lawmaking process. At minimum, you’d think someone…would put a smidge of effort into finding out basic background about the people whose whims they’re attempting to enable into law…

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Count the Idiocies, Again

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, China, cosmetic surgery, Count the Idiocies, dehumanization, hysteria, illegal aliens, Korea, Madonna/whore, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, racism on April 6, 2018| 8 Comments »

Here’s another article so deeply stupid that a single paragraph just couldn’t represent its truly moronic whole. So without further ado, let’s play “Count the Idiocies”:

…Once all the neon lights come on, Annandale – a small city in Fairfax County, Northern Virginia – transforms into a Koreatown, with restaurants and karaoke bars…one such bar has blacked out windows and a facade decorated with fairy lights. Beyond its doors, an unwelcoming middle-aged Korean woman stands behind the dimly lit bar and a large screen shows Korean video-clips. An Asian man on a stool stares at newcomers¹…A young Korean woman wearing an off-the-shoulder top sits alone in one of the karaoke booths. Too bored to look up², she plays on her phone as a huge screen blasts a K-pop classic…The surroundings may appear a little grim, but a good time in a bar like this will set back the average punter far more than in many of the trendiest bars in Washington³. That’s because many of these bars provide…hostesses known as doumis, who[se job is] to entertain clients by singing and drinking with them, and in the seediest establishments, having sex with them⁴…Karaoke bars like this have opened up a new front in America’s war on human trafficking and the illegal sex market⁵. Massage parlours in the US – where prostitution is illegal everywhere except Nevada⁶ – have long been notorious as fronts for the sex trade and for exploiting women mostly from China and Korea⁷. But as…new government policies are introduced, the enslavement strategies used by traffickers…are getting more sophisticated⁸…History shows that human traffickers are quick to adapt to, and take advantage of, changing societal norms⁹. One of the latest trends traffickers have managed to bend to their advantage is an increasing fashion for South Korean women to undergo plastic surgery as a way of enhancing their career prospects¹⁰…Limited access to legitimate financial services leaves many women no option but to seek informal loans, making them vulnerable to traffickers¹¹…Once a woman is lured into prostituting herself, traffickers also use plastic surgery as a way of perpetuating the debt bondage¹²…Few women can break the vicious circle as they go from loan to loan, trying without success to stitch their lives together¹³…Complex networks – from drivers to pimps and brokers who lend money at extortionately high interest rates in both countries – are built around the victims of sex trafficking¹⁴…Not only is plastic surgery used to trap women in these networks, but an array of beauty salons in the US…profit from it…[prohibitionist weirdo] Connie Chung Joe [said]…“First they go to the nail salon, then the hair salon, then they get their make-up done. These girls have to pay for it”¹⁵…Polaris…found that out of more than 32,000 cases of human trafficking¹⁶ between December 2007 and December 2016…massage parlours accounted for 2,949 cases, putting them second only to escort services as a source of the problem¹⁷…[prohibitionists] and [pigs] say that trafficked women tend not to regard themselves as victims¹⁸, and that this is particularly the case with Asian women¹⁹…Constance Rossiter, YMCA’s programme director for Trafficked Persons Assistance…says the networks that bring Chinese women into the US are complex²⁰…Rossiter says…“it’s a shame-based culture”²¹…[a Washington bureaucrat named Steven Wagner] says…“the fact they have to work…to pay off a sum of money that had been agreed, they find that acceptable”²²…cultural backgrounds combined with stigma…often lead women arrested at massage businesses to insist to police they are prostituting themselves “of their own free will”²³…

1) I’ll bet she’s only “unwelcoming” to busybody American women who positively reek of racism. And the dude on the stool was probably staring at Raquel’s camera and wondering how bad the othering in her story is going to be (answer: pretty damned awful).

2) That’s not boredom; she’s just ignoring nosey parkers like Raquel who obviously have no intention of paying her.

3) You get what you pay for: fun K-girls rather than prudish beltway hipsters like Raquel.

4) You know you’re about to see a torrent of prohibitionist vomit as soon as the word “seedy” appears.

5) I did warn you. “Illegal sex” is about the least-bootlicking phrase in this mess, so proceed accordingly.

6) As regular readers know, it ain’t really legal in Nevada either, but discovering that would’ve required actual research rather than simple regurgitation.

7) “Fronts” is a fairly subtle dysphemism, unlike “exploited” to mean “employed”.

8) “Sophisticated” is the excuse pigs use to rape women who work in massage parlors.

9) That would be a good trick, considering the concept was invented less than a generation ago.

10) See, unlike men, women are much too stupid to make conscious decisions about enhancing our incomes. So any time it seems like a woman (especially a nonwhite woman) is making such a rational decision, it’s really “sex traffickers” luring her into it.

11) Yes, non-bank loans now constitute “trafficking”. But student loans that you have to pay for decades & can go to jail for defaulting on aren’t at all exploitative, no sirree!

12) “Lured into prostituting herself”? Surely Raquel didn’t mean to imply that women have so much agency; doesn’t she get we’re all “prostituted” by others? And obviously anyone incapable of deciding to have sex is surely unable to decide to have plastic surgery. Women are incapable of making any decisions about our bodies without evil men coercing us, except for abortion of course.

13) Funny how these imaginary “trafficking victims” sound a lot more like people outside the demimonde, struggling to pay debts with fixed paychecks from which the government extracts huge fractions, than like all the real-life sex workers who find it much easier to pay debts than they did when they had straight jobs.

14) Prohibitionists love the “giant international cartel” fantasy of coercion; in reality, coerced sex work is usually not much different from any other kind of coercive relationship.

15) This is quite possibly the most mind-bogglingly stupid and blatantly racist part of this whole heap of filth. I can’t think of any industry other than show business in which the employer pays for beauty treatments. So if a white woman gets her nails done, it means the nail techs are “trafficked”, but if an Asian woman gets her nails done, it means she’s trafficked? What? How does this even make sense to prohibitionists?

16) There haven’t been 32,000 cases of “trafficking” since the term was invented. This is the number of calls to Polaris’ hotline, almost none of which actually correspond to anything in the real world.

17) Could it be any clearer that the term “human trafficking” is being used here as a dysphemism for “sex work”?

18) Gee, I wonder why that might be?

19) Why won’t those damned Asian women accept the slurs their benevolent white saviors label them with? Don’t they know their kind is too stupid to understand their own lives, and they should accept the wise guidance of white cops and religious fanatics who want to “save” them via unemployment and deportation?

20) And “sophisticated” too, I’m sure.

21) Unlike enlightened US culture, in which nobody is ever shamed.

22) Whereas in the US, not paying one’s debts is completely acceptable, which is why we have credit ratings and debtor’s prisons.

23) Because that couldn’t possibly be true. No, it must be this Occam’s razor-defying psychobabble I just made up.

Anyhow, you get the idea. If you’re bored today, see if you can find any I missed due to having to fight down nausea for two hours while I edited and analyzed this demeaning racist filth.

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In the News (#825)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Broken Record, Checklist, Colorado, cops, crypto-moralism, dehumanization, dirty, disease, Elephant in the Parlor, end demand, Facebook, fantasy, homosexuality, hysteria, Illinois, Kentucky, law, neofeminism, New Orleans, Nigeria, North Carolina, Not So Easy, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, racism, rape, sex work is work, South Africa, Standard Operating Procedure, stripping, Subtle Pimping, Sudan, Texas, That Old Black Magic, The Course of a Disease, The Sky is Falling!, The Spiral of Absurdity, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Vermont, Washington (state), witchcraft on March 31, 2018| 2 Comments »

They’re good clients, they give good money, better than anybody else. – Gabby, Ghanaian sex worker

Subtle Pimping

So many “artists” feel no compunction against exploiting sex workers:

Michael Jacobs, the director of a new virtual reality movie that premiered at SXSW, says that his film aims to give sex workers a voice. But according to its main and only character, real-life sex worker and indie porn director named Liara Roux, the movie, which currently doesn’t credit her at all, includes nudity and intimate scenes that she didn’t agree to have included in the final film. GFE…follows an “anonymous escort” as she goes on a date with a client. Jacobs…[says] it’s a fictional “documentary fantasy” with the goal of “demystifying escort work and bringing a sense of empowerment to escorts…and men.” Roux, however, says that she never signed a release for the film, and that she felt that it was an exploitative experience. A spokesperson for SXSW [said]…Jacobs voluntarily pulled the film on [March 15^th]…

Beware of people who say they want to “empower you” or “give you a voice”; such pomposity means they think you’re beneath them & have no voice of your own. It sounds like something a Victorian might say about people in India.

Checklist (#542)

The places “authorities” demand their magical anti-pimp posters be displayed demonstrate their origin in puritanism:

As part of a sharpened campaign to combat human trafficking, North Carolina [pigs & prohibitionists]…have urged people to [spy on each other and rat others out to the pigs]…A law adopted in 2017…requires the signs to be placed in liquor stores. Other states such as California, Texas and Oregon have taken similar actions targeting liquor stores because [dirty sex] people…might be more likely to be in a liquor store than somewhere like a post office or some other public space [where good people go]…

The Course of a Disease (#583)

Cop says he’s “hamstrung” because he can’t arrest people who aren’t doing anything illegal:

[Vermont politician] Peter Fagan…introduced a bill…that would have expanded the definition of prostitution, closing a loophole that [pigs oink] has stymied efforts to [harass consenting adults] in the state. However, Fagan said…that bill missed the…deadline…Matthew Prouty of the Rutland City Police said that Vermont’s prostitution law is [specific] …which has hamstrung [attempts to persecute owners and patrons of] massage parlors. “My probable cause can’t be a purchaser who says they had a ‘happy ending’ because that isn’t illegal,” he said [following by grunting a lot of bizarre nonsense like] “Any time you have a drug market, you have a sex market…There are very, very few people that are making a living and not being coerced…That is [my perverted masturbatory fantasy] of it”…

Broken Record (#631)

Farm machinery still causes “sex trafficking”! And strip clubs! And sex stores!

Arriving…for her stint as a guest speaker for a human trafficking symposium, Summer Dickerson easily spotted a strip club and sex store in Oak Grove. “You know y’all have a problem here,” [said] Dickerson, a [delusional prohibitionist]…Attorney General Andy Beshear kicked off the symposium, speaking about the state’s efforts to combat human trafficking…[by running a prostitution] sting during this year’s National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville…

To Molest and Rape

Rapist cops don’t only target women:

A Chicago [cop] was…charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault and official misconduct. The…victim was a man suspected in a misdemeanor whom Carlyle Calhoun and another [cop] were assigned to guard at St. Bernard Hospital on Feb. 3…as the victim was shackled to a bed, the [molester cop] sucked the man’s toes, grabbed his penis and took a photo of the victim as he tried to use a portable urinal. Once the two were in a bathroom, Calhoun…”performed oral sex on the victim…The victim repeatedly asked the defendant to stop and tried to convince him that his misbehavior would be discovered”…

The Sky is Falling! (#772)

Just in case you thought blaming whores for epidemics went out sometime before the invention of indoor toilets:

…36 percent of the adults in Vulindlela [South Africa] are [HIV] positive, as are about 60 percent of the women aged 25 to 40. Although HIV infection rates have stabilized globally, hundreds of thousands of South Africans are infected every year; more than 7 million live with the virus in their bodies…the HIV prevalence among adolescent girls is roughly five times greater than that of boys…researchers have concluded that the high rate of infections here—among both sexes—is driven in part by [sugar] relationships…

Because obviously, what the writer smugly calls “egalitarian” sex magically protects people from infection.

The Spiral of Absurdity (#792)

This hodgepodge of racist, sexist, anti-sex nonsense seems to be trying to fit in every single “sex trafficking” trope:

The Katy [Texas, population 14,000] area is contributing to what Gov. Greg Abbott calls a statewide health crisis of human trafficking…A December 2016 University of Texas at Austin report says 313,000 people were trafficked in Texas in 2016, 79,000 of whom were children [without anyone noticing]. Kelly Litvak, [another mathematically-illiterate prohibitionist]…said there is evidence of brothels and trafficking along the I-10 corridor…12-14 years of age…social media…lure them…recovery of victims…human trafficking’s grip…children can be recruited into sex work…the horror…[fetishist] Vanessa Forbes…said she knows of at least 11 brothels…staffed by women of Asian descent who are forced into prostitution…They are often in strip malls and disguised as…nail spas…Women trafficked for sex…are…delivered [in plain cardboard boxes] to people responding to online ads…A narcotic can be sold once and…a prostitute can be sold multiple times per day…76 percent of money for sex transactions processed online…mentally conditioned through abuse and coercion to defend their pimps in court…

This was ostensibly written by an adult man with a university degree.

Not So Easy

A rare victory for sex workers:

In a striking victory for [sex workers]…a divided New Orleans City Council shot down a proposal…to cap the number of Bourbon Street strip clubs…The council voted 4-3 against the limit after hearing from numerous dancers who called…police raids…a threat to their livelihoods and their freedom of expression…[proposal sponsor] Stacy Head…[lied] that the limit was no more than a routine move to rein in some of the excesses associated with crowded, high-traffic businesses, rather than an attack on adult entertainment…the…vote means strip clubs will be allowed to operate unencumbered once a temporary ban on new ones lifts in May…

Note that all three politicians who voted to infantilize women & destroy their livelihood were themselves women.

The Widening Gyre (#811)

It’s hilarious watching the cops trying to regain control of a runaway moral panic:

Several Facebook posts have gone viral in [Colorado] detailing scary situations where human traffickers tried to lure new victims at popular shopping centers…“As far as we know, no. It’s not real. It seems like a hoax,” Thornton police Sgt. Ernie Lucero said. “Just sharing it just because [some “authority” says it’s real] doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always fact”…The posts are convincing to [ignorant] social media users. They have been shared thousands of times, causing [stupid] people to worry about public safety…

That Old Black Magic (#813)

Remember this next time prohibitionists try to blame migration on African religions:

On March 9, Oba Ewuare II, the traditional ruler of the kingdom of Benin, in southern Nigeria, put a voodoo curse on anyone who abets illegal migration within his domain. At the same time, he revoked the curses that leave victims of trafficking afraid that their relatives will die if they go to the police or fail to pay off their debt. Before being smuggled into Europe, women and girls in the area, which falls in present-day Edo State, [agree] to sign a contract with the [smugglers] who finance their journey…The agreement is sealed with a…juju, ritual…The oba has authority over all the spiritual priests in the Benin kingdom (not to be confused with the West African country of Benin)…What the oba has done is likely to be more effective than anything the international anti-trafficking community has managed to do after millions of dollars and many years…over 90 percent of the thousands of women [who migrate] from Nigeria to Europe to work as prostitutes are coming from Edo…in the early 1980s women there started traveling to Italy to trade in gold and beads, and “saw a thriving market in prostitution”…[they told other women, and those women’s choices to risk migration for a chance at success are now being branded] human trafficking…

Standard Operating Procedure (#817)

Bullshit-free headline: “How UN Staff are Helping Local Economies”:

Despite the UN’s “zero tolerance policy”, sexual exploitation continues in South Sudan…Last month, the U.N. recalled a 46-member Ghanaian peacekeeping police unit…following allegations of members of the unit [paying for services] with locals. The action of the U.N. in this case will provide “interesting insight into whether or not the [U.N.] secretary-general is serious about sexual abuse,” [bloviated prohibitionist] Peter Gallo…Gabby [a sex worker in Juba] works three or four nights a week and can make up to $200 a night from one international aid worker or U.N. staff client, she said — an evening that often includes dinner, drinks, and a fully paid hotel room. This is in stark contrast to her South Sudanese clients, many of whom don’t pay at all and sometimes turn violent…

Elephant in the Parlor (#822)

Though most people are focusing on the sex, the real story here is that she was threatened with violence:

Stormy Daniels…revealed the details of an alleged affair with President Donald Trump, telling Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that she felt threatened into remaining silent…Daniels said she feared for her and her family’s safety, and opted to sign a nondisclosure agreement instead of going public and cashing in for more money…“I didn’t even negotiate, I just quickly said yes to this…strict contract…and what most people will agree with me extremely low number”…in July 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe…Trump said during their initial encounter in his hotel room that she reminded him of his daughter Ivanka…she instructed Trump to pull down his pants so that she could spank him with a magazine, which featured his face on the cover. “So he turned around and pulled his pants down a little—you know had underwear on…I just gave him a couple swats,” Daniels said…Later…she and Trump had unprotected sex. She said that even though she did not want to have sex with him…it was entirely consensual…[because] Trump…kept dangling the possibility of signing her as a contestant on The Apprentice…[and] she viewed it as a potential “business deal”…Four years later, Daniels says she was physically threatened after [Trump’s lawyer] Cohen found out that she had tried to tell her story to a celebrity gossip magazine…she was in a parking lot with her infant daughter when a man approached her and said, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom…Leave Trump alone. Forget the story”…

Too Close To Home (#824)

Sydney Brownstone has more on Seattle’s evil scheme to sell human lives to a sociopathic billionaire:

…lawyers representing men caught in a sex work review website sting showed up in King County Superior Court with an unusual and bold request: to disqualify the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office from prosecuting their cases…thousands of documents show…the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office collaborated with the Massachusetts-based Demand Abolition, including…strategies for dealing with reporters and sex worker advocates…in 2018–after the World Health Organization and Amnesty International have endorsed research and policies showing that decriminalizing sex work, including buying sex, actually keeps sex workers safer—King County’s involvement with Demand Abolition raises questions about why prosecutors are still increasingly criminalizing…sex work…

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Posts Tagged ‘agency denial’

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