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Posts Tagged ‘Another Fine Mess’

When the government shuts down sites like Rentboy, they’re really taking away tools for folks to be safe.  –  Becky Barryte

Dirty Amateurs

Amateurs are a menace to public health; they should be licensed and heavily regulated:

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a recent spike in STIs such as chlamydia (up nearly 6 percent since 2014), gonorrhea (up nearly 13 percent) and syphilis (up 19 percent) among young people…between the ages of 15 and 24…A 2015 CDC study found that condom use among sexually active high schoolers dropped from 63 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2015.  A study that same year by Skyn condoms found that 48 percent of millennials use condoms “never” or “rarely”…

Surplus Women 

Good riddance to bad rubbish:

A man serving a life sentence for killing three prostitutes in their one-woman brothels in 2008 hanged himself in…[a Hong Kong] Prison…on Thursday morning.  Nadeem Razaq…a Hong Kong resident of Pakistani origin, was found hanging with his pullover tied to the bars of his single-person cell at about 6.44am…

“One-woman brothels” are a fiction of the lawhead mind; what they mean are “incalls”.

The Punitive Mindset dungeon-by-aaron-klug

Given the petty vindictiveness of US prison officials, I’m amazed that any of them allow this:

…Sterling…is…a maximum security prison 130 miles northeast of Denver…every afternoon, half a dozen inmates gather around a table in the common room to join forces against imaginary foes in a…game of Dungeons and Dragons…Dice…aren’t allowed…so the inmates…use a set of 20 playing cards to make “rolls”…most of the guards…tolerate the game, even looking on with bemused curiosity and asking questions…Some even go so far as to encourage it…However, over the years, there has been the occasional guard who read sinister motives into the game…Back in 2004, at Waupun [prison] in Wisconsin, inmates were banned from playing D&D, and Dungeon Master, Kevin T. Singer’s, gaming materials were confiscated, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript outlining a campaign he was developing…Singer sued the prison, claiming the seizure and ban violated his free speech and due process rights.  At the trial, Captain Bruce C. Muraski, the prison’s security supervisor and also the man responsible for the confiscation, attempted to justify the prison’s decision.  He testi[l]ied that role-playing games like D&D “promote competitive hostility, violence, and addictive escape behavior, which can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming, but endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution.”  Singer appealed the decision and six years later, it escalated to the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.  There, Singer presented testimony to show that D&D—and roleplaying games in general—were effective tools for rehabilitating inmates, yet the appeals court upheld the ban…

Legal Is as Legal Does 

Why sex workers keep telling you that legalization isn’t much better than criminalization:

…at the end of 2014 Holbeck [in Leeds] was thrust into the limelight by a trial scheme: the UK’s first “managed prostitution zone”…Elsewhere in the UK, while selling sex is legal, soliciting is not.  In the managed area, however, this law no longer applies between 7PM and 7AM.  The basic premise is that, as long as you’re over 18 – police may ask to see ID – you can work as a sex worker without fear of arrest.  On Friday the 21st of October, however, the truce appears to have broken.  Women working in the area were shocked as police and UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials poured out of vans and cars and began to round up whoever they could find.  Anyone from outside the UK…found themselves detained and questioned…six women, all from EU countries, were taken straight to Yarl’s Wood and are now waiting to be deported.  Others have been given 30 days to provide paperwork proving their legitimacy to stay in the UK…

Another Fine Mess

This one’s more of a mess than usual; though it starts with the usual “OMG whores use the internet!” it quickly devolves into nonsense about sexbots, then veers off into idiotic prohibitionist claims like “Because there’s such high demand for [commercial] sex, that is what is creating sex trafficking, because a majority of people don’t want to go into commercial sex work willingly…because there’s this gap in supply, trafficking victims are filling that gap…”  If that were true, sex workers wouldn’t be working as hard as we do to attract clients and I wouldn’t be posting fucking specials.  The truth is that it’s a rare whore who has enough clients these days, and if prohibitionists’ moronic claims about clients they attack “generating demand” were true, we’d all be a lot wealthier.

Drawing Lines (#446)

Marc Randazza explains once again why attempts to prosecute porn as prostitution are doomed to fail:

…The industry has threatened to leave California, en masse, if [the mandatory condom bill] does pass.  Those who support the measure…claim that the industry can’t leave….[because] the only states where you can shoot porn legally are California and New Hampshire…I finally got sick enough of hearing this stupid shit that I wrote a law review article on it:  This will explain to you why porn is not prostitution, and why you can shoot anywhere in America.  It also tells you a bit about the Condom Wars…Download it, read it, study it, and tell the next idiot who tells you that you can only shoot porn in CA and NH that they’re full of shit.  Or, the next time someone asks “why isn’t porn prostitution?” explain this shit to them — because I’m sick of explaining it.

Shifting the Blame (#597)

Though the article doesn’t mention it, Burke was the man who derailed the hunt for the Long Island Killer:

The once popular and swaggering chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison…for a series of misdeeds that began after a duffel bag belonging to him was stolen from his [truck]…The duffel bag contained pornography and sex toys.  Its disappearance in December 2012 set Mr. Burke off on a furious effort to find the thief, teach him a lesson, recover the bag and make sure the episode stayed quiet.  It did not.  Mr. Burke’s efforts at a cover-up set in motion a scandal that reverberated through Long Island politics…

Public Service Announcement (#669)

Admit it; you knew he’d claim to be a “sex addict”:

…serial sexter Anthony Weiner has checked into a sex addiction clinic…days after [his]…texting jolted the presidential race.  Weiner has dropped out of sight after an FBI investigation into his latest sexting scandal led the feds to reopen a probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#679) 

I had a feeling he’d extend this fantasy nonsense to his Swiss endeavor as well:

A Swiss café offering robot sex services to accompany your hot drink wants to open in Geneva by the end of the year.  Owner Bradley Charvet…had originally planned to employ sex workers to entertain clients, but legal issues meant he now wanted to use high-tech robots [that do not actually exist]…[because] Geneva’s department of security and economy told Le Matin “paid-for sexual services are banned in public establishments under the law on catering and the sale of drinks.”  Charvet…[pretends] he’s in talks with a U.S. sex robot manufacturing company to buy several “lifelike robot-women” for a cost ranging between $1,800-$3,000…

talky-tinaIf you can’t quite see how absurd this all is, read the next item below.

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#685) 

This is what robo-fetishist David Levy was fantasizing about when he claimed “sex robots” will be available next year:  “Fifteen grand…as of next year…will get you a talking sex doll with heated genitals….physical responses to touch, verbal capabilities allowing them to speak in sultry voices…and synthetic skin…”  IOW, a cross between an adult-sized Talky Tina and a fleshlight.  Not what I’d consider competition.

The Course of a Disease (#686)

A very interesting development in Ireland:

Sex workers have called for a new law making it illegal to pay for sex to be reconsidered after several TDs raised concerns about its impact on vulnerable women.  The Sexual Offences Bill includes an amendment criminalising the purchase of sex…[which] would make sex workers’ lives more dangerous by driving the trade underground.  The legislation was criticised by Amnesty International, the World Health Organisation, HIV Ireland, the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland…

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It’s largely assumed that human trafficking is both widespread and underreported…these assumptions are unsubstantiated by research.  –  Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Check Your Premises

Very often, “child sex trafficking” is copese for “a young sex worker gave her slightly-younger friend a ride”:

A 22-year-old former [Wisconsin]…woman previously accused of child sex-trafficking has been convicted on a lesser charge.  Jalessa K. Hill…was sentenced…to 30 days in jail with work release and three years probation for soliciting prostitutes.  A charge of marijuana possession was dismissed…Judge Karen Seifert also ordered Hill to not have or use alcohol, drugs or paraphernalia, to pay $518 and to [endure] any [brainwashing] deemed necessary…Hill and Lana L. Morgan, who was 17 at the time, went…to meet with a [lying pig pretending to be a client]…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical plain-old-non-cannabis-candy

Neither intelligence nor logic nor the ability to do basic research are prerequisites for either public office or local news media:

On [Halloween] the Bureau County, Illinois, sheriff’s office issued a press release describing “an incident following Trick or Treat” in which “parents came forward with suspicious looking candy marked as Crunch Choco Bar,” the wrapper of which “has small pictures of cannabis leaves on it.”  According to Bureau County Sheriff James Reed, “the substance was field tested and was positive for containing cannabis”…the picture accompanying Reed’s press release shows Japanese candy bars sold under the brand name Iroha Kaede, which is a kind of maple tree…Those…are actually small pictures of maple leaves.  If the candy bar really did come up “positive for containing cannabis” in a field test, that just shows how unreliable such tests are

Besides the fact, obvious to anyone who’s ever seen a maple tree (or the Canadian flag), that those designs are indeed maple leaves and not cannabis leaves (which don’t look much like maple leaves except to the extremely stupid or the nearly-blind), I can assure you as a regular consumer of cannabis candy that absolutely nobody who isn’t absolutely howling mad would give it to kids; that shit is incredibly expensive, like $3.50 to $5 apiece for candies of the size these would appear to be.  Another tip for those who’ve never had the legal stuff in their hands: the dosage of THC is helpfully marked right there on the package, with no “field test” necessary.

The End of the Beginning (#325)

Yes, these people are actually arguing for indefinite imprisonment without trial or sentence:

Growing numbers of sex offenders are still being confined in Minnesota’s controversial treatment program even after courts approved their release…Across the state, anxious communities are rushing to pass extraordinary rules aimed at banning sex offenders from moving in, with far-reaching ordinances that would effectively bar them from any residential neighborhood.  More than 40 localities have adopted such bans…the city of Dayton…passed one of the most restrictive measures yet, barring offenders from living near churches, pumpkin patches and apple orchards…The backlash is confounding state officials, who are running out of places to house sex offenders even as they face mounting court pressure to release more of them…Some measures are so sweeping that the towns have become effectively off-limits to offenders…The rush to craft such ordinances intensified late last year, after U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank issued a ruling, now under appeal, that the state can no longer confine offenders indefinitely without a clear path toward release…

Policing for Profit 

San Diego has become one of the most corrupt pocket police states in the US:

James Slatic, a California medical marijuana business owner, found out…one day in January…the San Diego police had frozen all of their bank accounts: $55,258 from Slatic’s personal checking and savings account; $34,175 from his wife Annette’s account; and a combined $11,260 from the savings accounts of their two teenage daughters, Penny and Lily…the San Diego District Attorney’s Office hasn’t charged them with any [crimes]…the Institute for Justice…filed a motion in California district court seeking the [money’s] return…five days before his family’s accounts were frozen…around 30 San Diego [cops] and DEA agents raided Slatic’s medical marijuana business, Med-West Distribution, and seized nearly $325,000 in cash from a safe…his 35 employees…lost their jobs and benefits without notice…there was no probable cause to raid Med-West…[but] San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and the city have been particularly aggressive in policing medical marijuana businesses…

Traffic Circle

When a program on staunchly-prohibitionist NPR, in Georgia of all places, begins to question the “sex trafficking” narrative, it’s clear that its days are numbered:

…Georgia voters are facing a question about how to address what some believe is a serious and growing problem in the state and beyond: child sex trafficking.  If approved, Georgia will establish a permanent fund…based on research and statistics…distorted by extreme emotions this issue raises for many people…An early step in the plan was to…levy a $5000 or greater…fee…on strip clubs, based on a disputed link between adult entertainment venues and trafficking crimes…The Safe Harbor Amendment, on the ballot now, will create a permanent fund from this fee…state Sen. Renee Unterman…[pretends that] the number of child exploitation investigations opened by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation last year [is]…4,000…However, the GBI [said]…those…cases aren’t all proven instances of trafficking…it found evidence of human trafficking was primarily anecdotal…Lawyers for Atlanta’s strip clubs argue they don’t contribute to the trafficking of children and shouldn’t have to pay for it…they’re waiting to see if the amendment passes before making a decision on not to sue…social scientists also argue that the real origins of this problem are social factors like poverty, difficult home lives and a lack of safe housing…the narrow focus on fighting child sex trafficking [pulls] resources from a social safety net that might otherwise protect children and families…

Rescued To Death

The extent to which every “authority” in this story repeatedly denies the agency and competence of adult women is quite extraordinary; it’s like reading something from the 17th century:

Gardai [fantasize] four young…Romanian women who were arrested in Galway over the weekend, were trafficked into Ireland by a criminal gang…The four…women, aged 21, 22, 23 and 30…[explained that] they were acting alone to raise money for their impoverished families in Romania…they accepted full responsibility for operating a brothel…Det. [Willie] Byrne…[refused to believe that women are intellectually capable of setting up an escort business themselves.  He called his victims, from whom he and the other pigs stole €5,000] “little girls” and…[told the court about his masturbatory fantasy that] “they are under the control of Dublin or Belfast-based pimps…They wouldn’t have the ‘wherewithal’ to organise that themselves”…[the judge accepted this fantasy and pretended] the girls were being used by others not before the court…[yet still] convicted and fined each of them €200 [in addition to the money already stolen by the pigs, yet still pretended he wanted to]…help them…

If Men Were Angels 

“Youth pastors” are nearly as bad as cops:

A Minnesota pastor admitted to taking…photos of children that he then turned into sexually explicit images…William Helker…served as a youth pastor at All Saints Lutheran Church…took photos of children at his church and then edited them in Photoshop, including placing their heads into adult pornography, to create hundreds of new images…

Another Fine Mess

Self-important English “authorities” prefer to believe that a drop in the number of streetwalkers is due to their magical “diversion” program, instead of recognizing that the women are simply working from online ads:

Police are using powers of discretion in Bristol to introduce a partial decriminalisation of prostitution and kerb crawling…Street sex workers and kerb crawlers are being handed conditional discharges which encourage them to go on a course or seek help rather than face immediate arrest.  The “tiered system” has seen arrests for kerb crawling drop from 322 in 2011 to 10 in 2015, and has helped reduce the number of street sex workers to 150 – the lowest since 1995…

Meanwhile, in the real world, “john schools” have never been shown to have any effect at all, and “exit programs” are generally nothing but lists of phone numbers for social programs.

Welcome To Our World (#512)

Sweden is so liberal, so pro-social, so just and kind!

Fifty-five percent of Stockholmers want to ban begging…It is a marked change since last year’s Stockholm survey…when 32 percent said they supported a begging ban…more and more calls for a ban are heard at a top-tier political level, despite the ruling Social Democrat-Green government…ruling out a general national ban…Another poll carried out nationally…in May indicated that 50 percent of [all] Swedes believe begging should be outlawed…

Not Good Enough (#565) 

I’m glad to see this dangerous placebo is flopping on the market:

…the US Food and Drug Administration finally issued new guidance for companies that want to develop drugs to bolster female libidos.  But the details suggest the agency has belatedly learned some hard-fought lessons following complaints that the controversial Addyi pill did not warrant approval last year.  The…draft guidance…points to certain steps that Sprout Pharmaceuticals did not follow as part of its…marketing application to the FDA.  The drug…was approved despite debate over its safety and effectiveness…Sprout won approval for Addyi, which has been a poor seller, after an unusual campaign that accused the FDA of bias

Broken Record (#579) 

Sparsely-populated states come up with the most ludicrous concepts for supposed “gypsy whore” magnets:

One of South Dakota’s largest economic drivers also serves as one of the most vulnerable seasons for victims of sex trafficking.  Hunting season…is one of two major tourist attractions in South Dakota, the other being the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, said Leasa MacFarling, a volunteer with the South Dakota West River Human Trafficking Task Force.  These events also serve as attractions for traffickers…MacFarling has been traveling around Pierre distributing fliers and lip balms with the warning signs of a traffic victim and the number to the National Human Trafficking Hotline…

As idiotic as this is, it’s not a new fantasy; I first reported it from Minnesota three years ago tomorrow in “Traffic Circle“.

To Molest and Rape rapist-cop-marcellus-white

Rapist cops don’t only attack women:

A…New Orleans [cop] was arrested…[on] Sept. 23…[after] he raped a teenage male relative…earlier this year…Marcellus White…[lured] the boy into his bedroom, [pushed] him onto a bed and [performed] oral sex…against the boy’s wishes…the 15-year-old boy and his mother have moved to Mississippi, unable to bear living in New Orleans in the wake of the sexual assault…in March or early April of this year when the boy was 14…police investigators obtained from the boy’s mother a June 20 email exchange with White, in which the [rapist cop] pleads for forgiveness while also asking that the mother drop her demand that White “step down from all positions” that give him access to minor children…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#647) 

Moralistic control freaks clutch their pearls about something that doesn’t exist and never actually will as they envision it, because it was on a crappy sci-fi TV show:

…Westworld’s human guests aren’t obligated to uphold any sense of morality.  The upsell for the park involves reversion to primal urges.  In Crichton’s pessimistic view, the breakdown of normal society leads immediately to sex and violence…robots…[can be] raped…because consent, as a concept, doesn’t apply…But…research suggests that the real victims of Westworld’s barbaric sexual culture would be human…Kate Darling, Ph.D…at MIT Media Lab…says…either sex robots would continue to serve as a healthy outlet for our unhealthy urges or they would whet peoples’ appetites for unsavory sexual fare.  Both options have their own troubling implications, but the latter is more immediately problematic.  Patrick Lin, Ph.D…at California Polytechnic University, fears that sexbots might make us less human…A Westworld-like scenario presents a slippery slope similar to the one posed by or violent films or video games, perhaps even more troubling because sex robots are so “visceral” and “immersive” that they blur the line between virtual and physical reality…Sex robots — at least the sophisticated, highly anthropomorphic kind — haven’t been around long enough for us to tell if they’ll affect our sexual interactions with each other…

They “haven’t been around long enough”? WTF?  They don’t even exist!  Methinks writer Yasmin Tayag has been watching too much television if she thinks otherwise.  And both of these “scientists” are nothing but puritans in disguise if they believe that sex drives are “created” by machines.  This is the kind of crypto-moralism used to justify censorship and criminalize consensual behaviors of all kinds.

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Most of the whores l’ve met are women who question things, who value their independence over social norms.  –  Kaytlin Bailey

Droit du Seigneur Darryl Stasher

He didn’t rape her, but he sure seems to think it was his privilege to fuck her:

A Mississippi cop was fired…after a video that went viral on social media shows him lurking in his patrol car near a high school, trying to coax a teenaged girl into cutting class, pressuring her into accompany him to “room” to have sex instead.  [Darryl Stasher] said he “wanted to do more than just talk.”  He then assured the teen nobody would find out what they were doing, and that he’d “take care of her”.  “Oh.  So you saying you ain’t fucking,” a disappointed [Stasher] can be heard asking after the student declined his advances that were caught on camera in the 49 second clip…

Schadenfreude 

It’s always so sweet when a rescue industry scam is exposed:

For years, Jenny Williamson…has [hawked] her [fantasy] of rescuing girls from sex traffickers, spreading the Gospel while [raking in] hundreds of thousands…[she] has regaled audiences with the litany of horrors these girls suffer…Courage House [was]…closed…effective June 14, amid a flurry of state inspections that found numerous violations, including inadequate staffing levels…[despite] assets of…$1.4 million…Courage House was cited 16 times in the first six months of this year…10 were classified by the state as Type A, or serious enough to have an immediate impact on clients’ health, safety or personal rights…former workers [describe] Williamson as a temperamental leader with no child-development background who micromanaged her trained staff and became…swept up in her own publicity…staff members were…abruptly fired for…expressing concerns over [her inclusion]…of clients’ confidential information in fundraising or publicity efforts…[including]  identifiable images of [inmates]…on the company’s Facebook page…[Williamson] routinely “paraded the girls around” for marketing purposes…Arlicia Lorentty, who was a social worker/case manager in the home in 2015, said…“Everything was a photo op”…girls were…[forced to attend] a Christian church…whose leaders and congregation have been heavily involved in Courage House…

The More the Better 

There’s no “if” about it; Melania Trump is or was a sex worker.  Even if she was never an escort as rumors allege (and I think it very likely that she was indeed one), she posed for nude photos (including a lesbian scene) and is now a trophy wife…and sorry, ladies, but both of those are definitely kinds of sex work.  When people started mocking her for using an incompetent speechwriter, I defended her not on the grounds of the political beliefs she claims to profess, but on the grounds that she is a fellow whore doing her job (which for a wife means emotionally & socially supporting her husband) and should not be mocked merely because he happens to be a delusional narcissist.  Margaret Corvid has more to say about the new rumors:

…when you share those allegations, pointing and laughing, saying “Look!”, calling her a liar, calling her a whore, saying that she is unfit for the White House because she was photographed sexually, you are stepping on everyone who does sex work in this country every day—most of whom are much more vulnerable than Melania Trump…[she] isn’t a liar for covering up sex work…[because] it…is necessary for survival in a country where selling sex is illegal and where it is so stigmatized that it can get you fired from your “mainstream” job, get your kids taken away, and destroy your reputation for life…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now 

…that Canada’s new law is “protecting” sex workers from making money from lonely old men:

Two Sydney men have pleaded guilty and were fined…in connection with a prostitution sting…after…Judge Brian Williston ruled that [entrapment isn’t entrapment when it’s politically popular]…Gordon Ernest MacLean, 66, and John Howard MacLean, 66…were fined a total of $500 after the judge waived costs and surcharges.  They also must submit a DNA sample…

Because obviously, the cops never know when these hardened “sex criminals” may strike again.

Monsters

[Mexican] police do little to protect the transgender community and [rarely investigate trans sex workers’] deaths…Mexico has one of the highest rates of transphobic violence in the world, according to a recent report by the Cornell University Law School in New York and the Transgender Law Center…The number of documented murders of transgender people rose to 46 in 2012 from four in 2008, with actual figures likely to be significantly higher…transgender women in particular have suffered from a fierce backlash against same-sex marriage and other advances…

Passive Voice

Even though it’s a year old, this tutorial in how the past exonerative tense works is too brilliant to pass up.  It’s also too brilliant for me to risk butchering by any attempt at synopsis, so do yourself a favor and go read it.

Devil’s Advocate

This article could’ve appeared under so many headings; “Cops and Robbers” due to the vigilantism and “Bait and Switch” because of the sleazy entrapment tactics (“18” in big letters and “15” in fine print, for example, when any whore can tell you horny guys rarely read past the pictures).  But I think the fact that the state convicted two men for non-crimes against a “person” who does not even exist puts it in this category:fake Tinder profile

The creators of the “Tinder Experiment” set up a fake profile of a [a fake 18-year-old girl pretending to be] 15…in a bid to [entrap careless, stupid men]…They then secretly filmed conversations and face-to-face meetings with the men before shaming them online.  Those videos were removed and their website shut down by police, but [the sleazy pigs were still happy]…to use the information from the “experiment” [to destroy lives]…Nicolaos Katsamas was…sentenced last month to two- and-a-half years’ jail…Tobias Kilsby was also jailed for two years…Detective Senior Constable Tas Gagatsakis [admitted that]…Tinder is [only] for users 18 and over…

Don’t Call It Trafficking

This isn’t called “trafficking”, while the same demographic choosing to sell sex to survive is:

…Island View…housed more than 100 [“troubled teens”]…aged 13-17, and charged parents at least $10,000 a month…the staff tormented and abused them — pitting teens against each other, physically restraining them, secluding them, medicating them with high doses of powerful antipsychotics and forcing them to sit without speaking for hours or days at a time…[after a lawsuit] it…closed…[and] a new company, Family Help & Wellness, took over the property.  The facility began to operate under a different name, Elevations RTC.  It continues to bring in new students today…39 of the 48 employees listed on Elevations’ website worked for Island View…At least 1,500 [teens] in 30 states alleged that they were abused at private treatment facilities in 2005 alone…The troubled-teen industry is almost entirely unregulated…Congress has repeatedly refused to intervene…Parents who send their children to residential treatment centers like Island View often hire independent contractors, colloquially known as “transporters,” to forcibly [abduct] their kids…

Yellow Fever (#509) 

Remember Tenancingo, the Mexican town which was supposedly infested with “pimps” but actually had only two (plus employees) and 26 supposed “victims”?  Apparently Canada wants a “pimp town” too, and naturally they claim it’s the country’s largest black community.  But they’re not racists, no sirree!

One of the first things you notice when you enter this community northeast of Halifax is a large billboard that tells you you’re in “Canada’s Largest Black Community”…every driver here acknowledges oncoming drivers — even strangers — with a wave of the hand.  It’s not the welcome you expect in a place that has repeatedly been described as the birthplace of North Preston’s Finest, a violent gang that specializes in trafficking young women and girls as young as 14 in the sex trade…residents, even local police…insist the claims about a criminal gang originating in North Preston are exaggerated, misleading or manufactured by outsiders who don’t know their community…But police [and other prohibitionists] outside the province…[masturbate furiously to fantasies of] a community that has churned out generations of ruthless pimps who are spread across the country and unafraid to use brute force to punish women in their “stable” if they step out of line…

Guest Columnist:  Kaytlin Bailey

My friend Kaytlin’s one-woman show is part of the Fringe Festival:

Cuntagious [is] a one woman show, written by Kaytlin Bailey – now a stand up comedian, once a sex worker…“the first run was really a coming out process.  I performed the show before I told my family.  I knew most of the audience members personally, so they were very supportive…when you come out, other people come out.  I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me to tell me their own experience with sex work, I love that”…

I’ve seen the show twice, and I will again when she brings it back to Seattle; you really should, too.

Another Fine Mess (#547)

As I and many others have said, sex drives technological development.  And I think that’s what the prudes are really afraid of:

…The World Wide Web turned 25 this month…The sexualized female body has, from the beginning, been the catalyst for attempts to regulate what’s on the Web, ultimately shaping what the Internet looks like today.  Only a couple of years after Berners-Lee began to worry about an incoming flood of photos of nude women, Congress was gripped by the “great Internet sex panic of 1995”…the Communications Decency Act…was signed into law on Feb. 8, 1996, and thousands of websites went dark in protest…provisions that criminalized sending or displaying to a minor “any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communications” that were sexual in a “patently offensive” way…[were determined by] the Supreme Court…[to be] unconstitutionally vague and [were] struck…down…Yet another part of the widely loathed CDA — one the Supreme Court has never heard any challenges to — also helped bring about the Web we now know.  Section 230 immunizes service providers from lawsuits over the speech of their users.  It’s the law that lets Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Twitter, Yelp, Craigslist and Reddit exist.  Without its provisions, a service such as Twitter could be sued into nonexistence if an individual user sent a single defamatory tweet…

Eternal Vigilance (#617)

Rent in exchange for sex isn’t “free”; it has been paid for with sex:

A room in return for sex…the…landlord cashing in on desperate, vulnerable and homeless women in London.  A recent report has unveiled a disturbing attempt to exploit homeless women by offering free accommodation in return for sexual favors…There are hundreds of listings…by men either obliquely or explicitly (some very explicitly) offering free housing to women for sex….they also include men who are expressly targeting adverts at homeless women…

How are the ads “explicitly targeting homeless women”?  Do they read, “only homeless women need apply” and require proof of homelessness?  This looks to me like nothing more than Puritans upset about the fact that some women are comfortable paying our rent (and other expenses) with sex.

Check Your Premises (#636)

Another cop so disconnected from reality that she thinks she can “build communication with sex workers” while stealing their income by harassing their clients:

A new strategy to tackle prostitution in [Redbridge, London] will see the police’s focus shift from the sex workers to [demonized clients and partners]…Insp Gellatley’s team aims to disrupt clients while engaging in a relationship of trust with prostitutes.  “We are trying to build communication with the sex workers” [she said]…

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Just Say No started with drugs, then spread to sex education.  It didn’t work effectively in either setting.  –  David Ley

It Looks Good On Paper

As I’ve explained many times, “safe harbor” laws are nothing but Potemkin villages, empty legal husks designed to please the ignorant while actually sparing nobody from the injustice system:  “Lawmakers [pretending] to help children escape prostitution are advancing a bill to decriminalize the act for minors…SB1322…would…allow them to be taken into temporary custody…to keep [them] away from pimps…”  Translations: “Children” = young adults.  “Temporary custody” = indefinite imprisonment; all prison sentences other than death or life without parole are “temporary”.

Legal Is as Legal Does 

This is not decriminalization & isn’t “similar” to it; this is legalization & protectionism, and they’re not going to like it if they get it:

Sex workers in Kazakhstan want to make the world’s oldest profession a legal trade…an open letter signed by 597…sex workers…called for the legalization of prostitution and its regulation by the state…the sex workers argued that legalization would better protect them from potential harassment and harm done by customers and pimps…state regulation would better protect Kazakhstani prostitutes from competition on the part of migrant sex workers from…Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine…taxation of the commercial sex trade could contribute a tidy sum to…government coffers at a time when state revenue streams in other areas…are declining.  The positions…are similar to those advocated by…Amnesty International…

Above the Law  Harry Morel

It always pleases me to see a political name I know in front of the verb “sentenced” or “convicted”:

Harry Morel Jr., the former St. Charles Parish district attorney who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice during a sex investigation, was sentenced…to three years in prison — the most allowed by law.  The…judge…also fined Morel $20,000, well short of the maximum of $250,000, and ordered him to serve a year of probation after his release from prison.  Morel was St. Charles’ top prosecutor for 33 years.  He admitted his guilt in April after a three-year federal inquiry into whether he solicited sexual favors from women in exchange for help on cases pending in Louisiana’s 29th Judicial District Court.  Authorities labeled Morel a “sexual predator” and said his pattern of misconduct in office spanned 20 years and included at least 20 women.  Although not charged with trading sex for official help, Morel admitted [it] as part of his plea bargain agreement…in May, the Louisiana Supreme Court stripped Morel of his law license, barring him from practice for life…

The Immunity Syndrome (#21)

For decades, the majority of sex education provided to adolescents in the US has focused on encouraging young people to refrain from sex.  Our country has taken the approach that it is young people’s moral obligation to not engage in sex until they are adults…Even programs that aren’t “abstinence-only” typically promote abstinence as the best strategy…In July 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended to its nationwide membership, that they must educate children and teens about sex.  They joined countless other groups of experts, physicians, and educators, all of whom oppose abstinence-based education…[which] puts these teens at great risk for sexual problems, and increased chances of unsafe sex…

Under Every Bed

This woman is so puffed up, I think she’d pop if one stuck her with a pin:

Nita Belles, who founded…In Our Backyard…[bloviated]  “It has long been known that Central Oregon is a recruiting ground.  Traffickers…find this a good place to find and groom trusting young people — and then after they have been “turned out” they are usually taken out of the area to be trafficked in what is called the circuit…Central Oregon is a place where traffickers can get more money for their victims because we are a small town…Additionally, we have a lot of conventions, vacations and other gatherings here…victims become traumatically bonded to the trafficker, something like the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’…traffickers take pictures while stalking their victim’s family and when a victim indicates she is unhappy, her trafficker responds ‘Here is a picture I took of your little sister last week, she gets out of school at 2:40 p.m. and I will be there to pick her up tomorrow if you don’t do what I tell you’…I have known of cases where traffickers have burnt down their victim’s family’s home just to prove to their victims that they will do anything to keep them under their control”…

Do sane people actually, genuinely believe this ridiculous, completely unsubstantiated nonsense?  This is literally pure fantasy.

Agony Aunt

“Dear Prudence” calls a reader on her whorephobia:

I am trying to imagine why, if you had a suspicion that your sister was molesting your son, you did not ask more questions of her immediately.  Her past work as a dominatrix has nothing to do with your current situation, although it sounds like at least part of you believes that if she was willing to tie up adult, consenting men for a living she’d be equally willing to abuse a prepubescent child, which is a horrific false equivalence.  Set aside your assumptions about her former employment…

Banishment (#434)

Ignoring for a moment the moronic modifier “very”, this situation is not even close to “unique”:

It as “a very unique” situation, Union County [Pennsylvania] District Attorney D. Peter Johnson says about a…man who has been [held illegally in]…jail because he can’t get an approved housing plan…a Commonwealth Court panel [has now] vacated his most recent sentence.  Since 2002 [Samuel] Grove has been in jail for all but two days serving a sentence of four to eight years followed by 12 years of probation…He completed his prison sentence in 2011 but has been charged three times since with violating his probation by not having an approved home plan…The third time…expired on May 29, 2015.  The prosecution immediately again accused Grove of violating his probation by not having an approved home plan…[but when that was proven untrue the prosecutor immediately] accused [Grove] of violating his supervision [by] not obtaining sex offender treatment [and a judge played along by sentencing him]…to…86 months in jail…The state court panel vacated that sentence, saying…none of the sentencing orders required Grove to undergo sex offender treatment during imprisonment…

Follow the title link for earlier examples of “sex offenders” being imprisoned indefinitely by similar state shenanigans.

Another Fine Mess

OMG, WHORES KNOW HOW TO USE PHONES!!!!!!!

…many…fresh-faced high school girls in Hong Kong…[use] online forums to run [their] own [businesses] as…“compensated daters”…without the help of a middleman…it’s common for one girl to find an ad she likes, and then copy it—with just minor adjustments…there are some 2,500 compensated daters in the city…police have been slow to catch on to these girls now that they’ve taken refuge online…So long as they’re not soliciting clients in public spaces, they’re not breaking the law in Hong Kong…

Now They Notice

I really wish this were going to trial, but because the government stole all of the company’s money it had nothing to pay for a legal defense with:

The former chief executive of…Rentboy.com is finalizing a plea agreement after his indictment for promoting prostitution…lawyers for Jeffrey Hurant…asked that a plea hearing be scheduled for the week of Aug. 29…The case prompted criticism from some gay rights activists and sex worker rights groups, who questioned why prosecutors were targeting the service after it had operated transparently for nearly two decades…Following the criticism, federal prosecutors in February dropped charges against the six Rentboy employees.  But they continued to prosecute Hurant and the company itself…

To Molest and Rape rapist cop David Wright

A shining example of the ethics of “law enforcement officers”:

An Illinois [cop] who raped a…girl…to testify in court in order to torment her one last time before he entered a guilty plea…David Wright…pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping the unnamed girl for 10 years, beginning when she was only 7 years old.  Wright was arrested in 2015, but continued to collect paychecks…right up until he entered his…plea.  He was charged with 33 felonies that carried a combined minimum prison sentence of 143 years and a maximum of 648 years…[but] was allowed to enter into a plea deal where he will have the chance for parole in less than 20 years…Wright first raped the girl in the bathroom at a children’s party, telling her, “This is gonna hurt” before the assault…in November of 2005…in April of 2015…the victim finally overcame her fear and reported the abuse.  Up to that point, she told prosecutors, she’d been afraid she would cost Wright his livelihood…

Across the Pond (#653)

How prohibitionists want to “help” sex workers:

An editorial in the British Medical Journal, published this week, warned of “avoidable harms and disastrous long-term costs” of ongoing funding cuts to services available to sex workers…[which] have so far controlled outbreaks of HIV, syphilis and tuberculosis…outreach programmes have halved the risk of them contracting sexually transmitted infections…An estimated 10,000 sex workers use such services , according to National Ugly Mugs…Georgina Perry, a former manager at Open Doors…resigned last week over the cuts…after Open Doors was asked to share confidential client information…[with] police and immigration officers…

Rubbing Elbows (#653)

An ally uses the Desiree Alliance conference as a springboard to discuss larger issues:

Sex workers and their allies gathered in New Orleans recently for the 6th…Desiree Alliance Conference…This year’s conference was about 50 percent bigger than the one held in Las Vegas three years ago.  There were about 300 attendees, about three-quarters of whom were current or former workers.  The rest were allies, like myself…the sex worker’s rights movement…is shaping up to be the next great civil rights effort in the United States and elsewhere…Fears over human trafficking have been used to create a massive anti-prostitution moral crusade.  Falsehoods about the nature of the industry are widely repeated, with sex workers seldom allowed access to media to rebut them.  Broad-based laws that attack all sorts of harmless people have been passed and justified in the hysteria over trafficking…A…self-serving rescue industry, funding for which is contingent on there being lots of trafficking victims to save, has grown around the country…

So Close and Yet So Far (#661)

Gary Johnson’s position on sex work wasn’t quite so muddled in 1991:

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All too often [statements about the sex trade are] based on flimsy or out-of-date data, leading to estimates that strain…credulity.  –  Glenn Kessler

The Red Umbrella AIDS conference protest

Rose Moabelo. Shemise Gordon. Sasha Lee Gordon. Thilivhani Mudau. Desiree Murugan. Sinia Pietersen. Anisa Adams. Kleintjie. Thulukanyao.  These are the names of local sex workers who have been murdered‚ without their killers ever being found.  SWEAT‚ an advocacy group‚ wants you to #saytheirnames.  As many of the 18‚000 accredited delegates arrived for their first meeting at the 21st International Aids Conference in Durban…sex workers held placards detailing the stories of murdered colleagues.  [They] wanted to highlight what has changed for sex workers since the last international Aids conference was held in Durban in 2000. “Nothing‚” according to Sally Shackelton‚ director of SWEAT…

Where Are the Victims?

Note the bizarre, stilted language used to describe a very ordinary-sounding escort service:

A Topeka woman…Shannon Nelson…pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy…[for a] prostitution business.  At times, as many as 20 females were working as prostitutes for the organization.  The leader of the organization rented houses where some of the prostitutes were allowed to live.  The organization used Web sites, social media and cell phones to advertise sexual services and to keep track of prostitutes.  Nelson…posted advertisements for herself and other women on a Web site offering sexual services.  She used cell phones to communicate with Boswell and others in the course of operating the prostitution business…

Leaving the Life

Even when Vice isn’t being directly prohibitionist, it’s no ally; just the very fact that this writer refers to sex work as a “game” (read: “scam”, “dodge”, “hobby”) instead of work says a great deal.  Yes, I know that’s a street term; using it to apply to all sex workers is even more ignorant, not less.  NB: the Gaye Dalton interviewed here is the woman who exposed Rachel Moran’s lies.

Welcome To Our World (#15)

Another rape victim caged to force her participation in the state’s morality play:

A Harris County [Texas] rape victim who was [arrested and jailed]…after she melted down on the witness stand, is suing the prosecutor and the sheriff’s department…Identified as only “Jenny,” the 20-year-old –who has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder — was a key witness in the trial of Keith Hendricks who was eventually given two life terms for rape.  However, on Dec. 8, 2015, she was unable to continue her testimony after breaking down on the stand and running from the courtroom.  Prosecutor Nicholas Socias then [threw a tantrum and had her]…locked up for fear that she wouldn’t return to court at a later date to continue…Jenny was held for a close to month, after being placed with the general population where she was assaulted.  The suit also contends that jail personnel treated her as if she was a convicted criminal instead of a victim…

Shift in the Wind

You know things have changed since the last AIDS conference when this can appear in the Voice of America:

Prostitution…continues to be regarded as immoral [and/or] illegal in most countries.  This has prompted sex workers, activists and lobbyists around the world to intensify their demand for an end to criminalization of their field.  Many of them are attending this year’s International AIDS Conference in Durban, where they argue that continued criminalization of sex work could be worsening the spread of HIV…

That Old Black Magic

I don’t approve of referring to young women as “children”, and I recognize that every culture is different.  And I still find this pretty appalling, especially given the disease factor:

In some remote southern regions of Malawi, it’s traditional for girls to be made to have sex with a paid sex worker known as a “hyena” once they reach puberty.  The act is not seen by village elders as rape, but as a form of ritual “cleansing”…If a man dies, for example, his wife is required by tradition to sleep with [a hyena like Eric] Aniva before she can bury him.  If a woman has an abortion, again sexual cleansing is required…teenage girls, after their first menstruation, are made to have sex over a three-day period, to mark their passage from childhood to womanhood.  If the girls refuse, it’s believed, disease or some fatal misfortune could befall their families or the village as a whole…several girls I meet…express aversion to the ordeal…According to custom, sex with the hyena must never be protected with the use of condoms.  But they say a hyena is hand-picked for his good morals, and therefore cannot be infected with HIV/Aids…The UN estimates that one in 10 of all Malawians carry the virus, so I ask Aniva if he is HIV-positive.  He astounds me by saying that he is – and that he doesn’t mention this to a girl’s parents when they hire him…All of those involved in these rituals are aware that these customs are condemned by outsiders – not just by the church, but by NGOs and the government as well, which has launched a campaign against so-called “harmful cultural practices”.  “We are not going to condemn these people,” says Dr May Shaba, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Gender and Welfare. “But we are going to give them information that they need to change their rituals”…Deeniquia Dodds

Monsters

How about “calling on police” to stop arresting sex workers, period?  “The fatal shooting on July 4 of D.C. transgender woman Deeniquia “Dee Dee” Dodds…has prompted a local LGBT-supportive advocacy group to call on police to end their longstanding practice of arresting trans sex workers…”  Cops shouldn’t be in the business of assessing people’s gender any more than they should be assessing our motives for consensual acts.

Paint By Numbers

“Anti-trafficking” publicity stunts are growing ever more bizarre:

“Today we’re out here putting the red sand out,” said Jana Grabenstein…who spearheaded the…movement…to bring awareness to human trafficking in Grand Island [Nebraska]…”It’s here.  We need to protect our kids, our families, our friends.  Anyone can fall victim to it and you know we just need to stop it,” she said.  More than 100 bags of red sand were spread around G.I…”When we saw it, the first thing I said was, ‘This has to be something the Salvation Army heavily gets involved in,’” said Deny Cacy…

Another Fine Mess

Why idiocies like “mid-range prostitution is new” and “it used to be hard for whores to find clients” infuriate me so much:  they keep getting repeated over and over and over by reporters who can’t be bothered to do proper research:

…Mid-range prostitution is a relatively new market, enabled by technology.  Before the internet, it was hard for escorts to find customers: They had to either walk the streets searching for customers (the lower end of the market), rely on word-of-mouth, or work with agencies…“Before the internet, agencies provided the steady flow of clients and screening, but their capacity was capped,” Baylor University economist Scott Cunningham said.  Soon after Craigslist launched in 1995, US escorts quickly started marketing directly to customers online.  This newfound ability to advertise on the internet grew the market…because more women and men could work independently…

Because obviously, all those ads in the BACK PAGES (see what I did there?) of alternative newspapers didn’t exist.  And brothels?  Hotel & casino girls?  Nope!  They didn’t exist at all!

Traffic Circle (#569)

Glenn Kessler does it again:

…a new study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice…concluded that the total number of juveniles in the sex trade in the United States was about 9,000 to 10,000.  To be cautious, given the limitations in the data, the study said that range could be as low as 4,500 or as high as 21,000.  The study also found that about 15 percent of the children relied on a pimp and that the average age of entry into the sex trade was 15.8 years.  Both figures are in line with other careful studies…

Regular readers may recall that my estimate of the number of underage US sex workers was 16,000, with 10% involved with a pimp; these new figures are not far from those at all.

All-Purpose Excuse (#608)

“Sex trafficking” is a convenient excuse for any tyranny:

Senator John McCain…equated encryption to child pornography and human trafficking…[and] threatened Apple CEO Tim Cook…McCain…stated that if Congress doesn’t mandate law enforcement access to encrypted communications, lawmakers were “de facto” helping child pornographers and human traffickers…Encryption has been the Senator’s pet obsession for quite some time.  Last November, he expressed that he wanted to outlaw any kind of encryption technology that the US government can’t crack…

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (#616)

Seoul is adopting ever-sleazier tactics to please its masters in Washington:

Police…in Korea…have…started targeting landlords…[by charging them with] aiding prostitution.  Since last year, police have been making landlords responsible for prostitution venues that operate on their property…Due to this shift in police policy, landlords have been [evicting sex workers from] their buildings…

To Molest and Rape (#643)

A fine example of how the criminalization supported by feminists “protects” sex workers:

There’s a [cop] in Cape Town notorious among the city’s sex workers…he devotes most of his time to making their lives a living hell.  Two weeks ago…he and his police pals rounded up a group of eight sex workers and put them in the back of a van.  They drove to the city’s main river and…gave them three options: either we throw you in the river, you suck our dicks or we’ll arrest you and bang you up…one of the women pushed into the river made a phone call…to the only people she trusted to get her justice: a team of five former sex workers trained as paralegals…The paralegal team…is lodging a formal complaint about the river incident with the deputy minister of police and the independent police investigation unit.  They are pushing for the dismissal of the officer in question, who has a toxic track record of bullying and violence against sex workers going back to 2012, including allegations of rape and attempted murder…

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Anti-prostitution advocates…incorrectly portray the global sex workers’ rights movement as dominated by Western, white, middle-class, cisgender women…as a way of dismissing the movement as “non-representative.”  –  Chi Adanna Mgbako

License to Rape Joseph Stanton

Good riddance to bad rubbish:

Joseph Raymond Stanton…was arrested on June 29…[for] the rapes of two prostitutes and the attempted rape of a third…In each case…Stanton…passed himself off as a…[cop] and lured the victims to his car.  He then drove them to a secluded location and raped them.  One of the women was able to escape before he could [rape] her…Stanton posted bail and was released…the day after his release [cops] found him dead in what appeared to be a suicide…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do 

Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying them fairly that isn’t:

Four Montreal police officers who work with informants have been arrested…Fayçal Djelidi…is facing nine charges, including perjury, attempting to obstruct justice, breach of trust by a public officer and obtaining sexual services for consideration…David Chartrand…was charged with two counts of perjury and two counts of attempting to obstruct justice…Two more officers were also arrested and are being questioned by Montreal police…Djelidi…is alleged to have communicated with unknown persons with the aim of procuring sexual services for himself in exchange for payment…

An Example To the West

Chi Adanna Mgbako on sex worker activism in Africa:

…In the past 10 years or so, sex worker activism has exploded throughout Africa, and there are now sex-worker-led organizations in African countries as diverse as Botswana, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, and many more.  In Kenya alone, there are now over 80 sex-worker-led collectives.  All of these groups are advocating for their right to work, to access de-stigmatized health care, and to live free from violence and discrimination.  It’s also important to note that outside of formal civil society actors like sex-worker-led NGOs, sex workers informally organize and resist criminalization by supporting each other financially, socially, and emotionally in their local communities.  This informal activism is an indispensable part of movement building…

The Pygmalion Fallacy 

Kate Iselin gets it, though four years after I did:

…The scenario that gives rise to the demand for android sex workers reads like a great big “told you so” fantasy of anyone involved in anti-sex work campaigning…It’s a creepy, shallow rendering of the nightmare portrait of sex work we’re too-often sold:  An industry that we worry dehumanises women can only be saved by, in this case, literally replacing humans with what amounts to an almost-sentient Fleshlight.  The idea that a robot brothel can solve all of our problems is naïve at best, and deeply ignorant at worst.  What assumptions does one need to make about our clients to suggest that they would be just as happy – or happier – penetrating chrome steel instead of receiving the touch of a human?…the “any hole’s a goal” mentality presumed in the [notion] overlooks the vast reasons one may have for seeing a sex worker: loneliness, curiosity, sexual or emotional unfulfilment, desire, the want for a certain skillset, or perhaps simply the need to be touched by a new and unfamiliar pair of hands…Plus, it’s telling – and hurtful – that little to no consideration is given to the skills of the sex worker.  I know myself and the service I provide well, and there is no possible way that the warmth of my body and the skill of my touch could be unnoticably replaced by an android…

Damned If You Don’t

But picket-fence queers say cops aren’t our enemies:

On July 4, police made sweeps and arrests at a gay beach in New York City, much to the surprise of beachgoers.  At the far corner of Jacob Riis Park—a gay beach that has been a notorious LGBT safe  haven for decades…police descended unannounced…gay Brooklyn photographer Krys Fox…stood with a towel wrapped around his waist…Suddenly, the towel loosened and dropped.  Before Fox could refasten it around his waist, he was tackled to the ground by a squad of police.  Fox told the Daily Dot that police had dominated the gay beach all day—”on horses, in uniform, undercover”—and were “everywhere.”  But he didn’t expect to be arrested, he said, because he hadn’t done anything wrong…those who…were [there]…noted that police targeted the gay section of the beach specifically, stating that there were no police on the rest of the beach…

Dysphemisms Galore 

It’s kind of refreshing to read an article which portrays us as depraved monsters rather than pathetic victims:

…Police raided a Warsaw [Indiana] massage parlor…next door to Kevin Love’s home.  He said he knew something suspicious was happening for about three years now…The two women were arrested after police found evidence related to prostitution, tax evasion and corrupt business practices.  Love said he often saw two women walking around the neighborhood in the evening…”just like any normal person would get out and go for a walk”…Love…is just relieved it is over.  “There are children on back further in the neighborhood, and they don’t need to be around something like that,” he said…

Bait and Switch

One can always assume there’s a wide gap between what actually happened and what the cops claim happened:

Aren Lindquist…has been sentenced to 25 years at Montana State Prison with 20 years suspended…[he was tricked by a fake] online ad for an escort service called “Barely Legal 18.”  [Cops told] the respondents…that no 18-year-olds were available and they had the option of having sex with a 15-year-old or a 12-year-old…

Another Fine Mess

Reporters never get tired of pretending that ordinary sex work practices are new and novel:

…at least 60 prostitutes from China [are] advertising their services online and operating in condominiums and apartments in Geylang…Instead of relying on pimps and brothel keepers, the women post suggestive photos of themselves and ask those interested to contact them on mobile phones directly.  These freelance prostitutes enter Singapore on tourist visas and typically work for up to one month…

A Procrustean Bed (#440) Judge Paul Herbert

It’s enough to make one vomit:

…These weekly court sessions are the core of a special probation program for victims of sex trafficking in Columbus. [Judge] Herbert started the program—known as CATCH (Changing Attitudes to Change Habits)—in 2009.  Women arrested on prostitution charges in Columbus can opt into this program – where they get safe housing, counseling, and close supervision instead of jail time.  Nearly all are in recovery from addiction.  As he moves through the docket, Herbert calls each defendant by her first name…”He said we’re going to love you until you can love yourself. And…I see something in you that you can’t see yet”…

King of the Hill (#537)

It looks like they’ve scaled back the claims about Charlotte, North Carolina’s “hub” status, maybe because the kids they’re trying to scare with it are smarter than the adults who believe this crap:

Starting this fall, sex trafficking will be addressed in seventh and eighth-grade classrooms across Charlotte…Director of Present Age Ministries Hannah Arrowood [said] “Charlotte is actually the number one city in the state of North Carolina for human trafficking”…Five-hundred new ads are posted soliciting sex in Charlotte every day…many of the women in the ads are not women at all, but rather trafficked teenagers and young girls…forced to have sex with multiple men…

Checklist (#593)

Because there aren’t enough real “victims” to go around, the rescue industry creates fake ones:

Catherine Pisha…is…an actor learning how to portray a [stereotype of a] human trafficking victim.  Pisha works at the University of Vermont’s Clinical Simulation Lab…[and] helps health care professionals improve the quality of their care by being a human guinea pig…Edith Klimoski…writes the scripts for these actors…Studies show that anywhere between 50 percent and 80 percent of human trafficking victims will come in contact with someone in the medical community during the time they’re being trafficked…

The Public Eye (#609)

Laura Lee braves the hostile waters of Mumsnet:

…One of the most infuriating strands to the current feminist discourse around sex work is the assertion that we are abused, or even raped, every time we sell sex.  That statement is injurious and grossly insulting to those who have survived abuse and rape, and it also strips sex workers of our agency.  As much as we campaign for the right to say “yes”, we absolutely reserve the right to say “no”.  I detest the use of the word “empowerment” in any debate on sex work.  My job is no more empowering than anyone else’s; it allows me to support my family and pay my bills.  But as a community, there is no doubt that we are more empowered to say “no” when we are permitted to work together for safety…

Uncommon Sense (#619)

the upcoming German law…will enforce mandatory registration of sex workers nationwide.  The law pretends to fight human trafficking…Forced registration through obligatory counselling includes the evaluation of one’s mental status by a state authority and implies sex workers…are perceived as irresponsible, mentally incapable beings…Our very own whore ID will be a state-issued document including our picture; our profession (that is “prostitute”, as the word “sex worker” is a bit too modern for the German state), our real name and address…In order to get it we will be forced to visit a state body and undergo counselling…You read that right: a functionary will decide in a compulsory talk if you have the marbles in your brain to be a sex worker…

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I’m a journalist preparing a report about the increasing use of AirBNB by prostitutes.  Do you know if this is something common ?
AirBnB logo
I’m not sure why people are surprised that sex workers use AirBnB.  See, sex workers are people, so any time something becomes more common for people in general, you can bet it will also become more common for sex workers.  As smartphones became more popular, they also became more popular for whores.  As Uber became more popular, we used it more, too.  And since AirBnB has become increasingly popular, Surprise! We’re using it more as well.  I don’t see any stories headlined “Medical Professionals Increasingly Use Computers for Research”, or “Small Businesses Turn To Square for Credit Card Processing”, but for some reason when perfectly ordinary sex workers (and yeah, we’re pretty ordinary; there’s no city in the world where we can’t be found) use a perfectly ordinary technology or product, it becomes a storyIf sex workers are using AirBnB to a disproportionate degree than other people who rent hotel rooms (and that’s a mighty big “if”), it’s probably because cops and other professional busybodies are lying to hotel owners, managers and employees about imaginary “sex trafficking” in an effort to get them to spy on sex workers and report them to said cops, so the cops can then arrest the workers, steal everything they own as “proceeds of crime” and then plaster their names and faces all over the news.  If you want a real story instead of a ridiculous excuse to titillate the bourgeois, try investigating how the War on Whores is becoming the replacement for the increasingly-unpopular War on Drugs.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

 

 

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For me, “whore” is a synonym for freedom.  –  Angela Villon

Lack of Evidence

As long as cops are given power over private behavior, this will keep happening:

A…Las Vegas [cop] was indicted by a federal grand jury…on felony charges of roughing up a woman he suspected was a prostitute.  Richard Scavone…was charged with violating the civil rights of the woman when he used excessive force while arresting her in January 2015 and falsifying his report of the encounter to obstruct an FBI investigation…Scavone…grabbed the woman around her neck and threw her to the ground, struck her in the forehead with an open palm, slammed her face into the hood of his patrol car two times and slammed her into the door of his car…Scavone was wearing a body camera during the scuffle, but police have [hidden]…the recording…

Rooted in Racism

No, this wasn’t a “mistake”; it was a deliberate action proceeding directly from government-approved profiling guidelines:

When Kathleen Chan and Jay Serrano boarded a flight from Miami to New York City, they didn’t expect to be escorted off the plane by police once it landed…the flight crew had alerted the police that it was a possible case of sex trafficking…the couple was [persecuted because] when Serrano went to the bathroom…because he was sick…Chan walked with him there and waited for him outside the lavatory.  And [later they shared]…a cup of orange juice…Michelle Guelbart, who works with the travel industry for…[rescue industry profiteers] ECPAT USA…[bloviated that] “One of the indicators for sex trafficking is someone who’s not allowed to move freely through the cabin”…

The Last Shall Be First

Pervert politicians want to give pedophile cops the power to inspect children’s genitals before they use the toilet:

A bill filed by a Virginia lawmaker…would require schools to be certain that children are using the restroom corresponding to their “correct anatomical sex”.  The legislation, which would prohibit transgender students from using the bathroom matching their gender, is being sponsored by Republican…Mark Cole.  House Bill 663 defines “anatomical sex” as “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy”…any student who violated the bathroom rules could be fined $50 by [armed government thugs]…Civil rights advocate Tim Peacock noted that “adults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom” for the legislation to be enforceable…

The Pygmalion Fallacy 

It’s kind of fascinating that so much effort is being expended over something that not only doesn’t exist, but will never exist in the form and timetable imagined in these articles:

The sexbots are coming.  Technology is transforming every step of our love lives.  What started as meeting and flirting through screens and progressed to sexy time over Skype is now leading to products that promise happier relationships and more meaningful connections…Experts predict that future generations will get frisky with the help of virtual reality goggles, holograms, stimulating bodysuits and, yes, erotic robots…What is the line between augmenting human connection with technology, and replacing it altogether?  What does it mean for sex as we’ve always known it — eye contact, skin, sweat — if there’s a digital third wheel in the mix?…

The Public Eye

Comfort Zone (#320)

Sometimes the attempt to hide migration control behind the “sex trafficking” narrative is especially apparent:

Human traffickers are exploiting the U.S. visa system by forcing young women to pose as fiancées or family members of American gang members, who force them into a life of misery once here…Sold by their parents, lured by promises of wealth and fame or kidnapped, young women are being brought to U.S. soil in plain sight, and with federally approved paperwork, said Claude Arnold…of [ICE]…A newly released audit…confirms the U.S. government may have issued hundreds of visas to human traffickers…The report blamed a critical lack of communication between ICE…and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services…

Original Sin (#321)

It was inevitable that some state actors would eventually start mouthing this idiocy, despite the fact that porn is legal:

The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, announced Texas will combat modern-day slavery with a the state’s first human trafficking unit…“Where you find trafficking you find drugs, you find smuggling you find arms, you find violent crime of a whole large variety,” said [prosecutor] Kirsta Leeburg Melton…“There are huge links in the culture between pornography-use and the demand, that creates a demand for prostitution”…

Prudesville (#448)

Can this absurd little drama finally be over now?

…Carmela Panico faced up to a year in jail…but a judge agreed to grant the espresso madam a first-time offender waiver…Panico served two days in jail after her stands were raided in 2013. The former Snohomish woman…was forced to walk away from her lucrative bikini espresso stands in 2014 after pleading guilty to promoting prostitution and money laundering. Prosecutors alleged that the stands were operating as drive-through brothels, raking in millions. Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Bob Hendrix [pretended that] Panico engaged in predatory behavior, profiting from women with drug problems and financial troubles…

Feminists and Other Puritans

Suppressing dissident views is a typical behavior of religions:

Katherine Zappone, the [Irish] senator, has been criticised after a sex workers’ rights group claimed it was “uninvited” from her feminist conference because of political differences.  Fempower…had originally granted Ugly Mugs, the sex worker support group, a stand at the event but revoked the pass this week…

Stupor Bowl (#510) 

No facts to support your money-making propaganda?  No worries!  There are morally-retarded academics who’ll happily invent bullshit for you:

For the first time in its efforts to crack down on sex trafficking during the Super Bowl, the FBI will try to reach out to women and girls selling sex in the run-up to the game to give them a way out and get them to turn against their traffickers…This year’s event in the San Francisco Bay Area, like past bowls and other large sporting events, is expected to be a magnet for trafficking…according to [opportunistic liars who pretend]…that victims are often too fearful to help prosecute their traffickers…“A lot of times they don’t see themselves as victims,” said Jennifer Madden, a local prosecutor…[profiteers trying to keep the myth alive concede that] there is no evidence that additional women or girls are forced into prostitution to serve the Super Bowl market.  But [they pretend that] those already trafficked may be moved to such events…Dominique Roe-Sepowitz [designed a bullshit “study”] leading up to the 2015 Super Bowl in…Phoenix…They [invented] an uptick in online sex ads…[and pretended that] more than 60 percent of the 1,300 prostitution ads researchers flagged showed significant signs the sex provider was a trafficking victim…

Another Fine Mess (#547)

I’ve often pointed out that ordinary business practices don’t magically become newsworthy when whores use them.  However, I don’t so much mind these articles when their primary goal is demystification rather than gawking:  “…finding clients is just one small part of what technology can do for sex workers.  Equally, if not more, important is the way sex workers use apps and websites—often ordinary, everyday ones used by many outside the sex industry—to mitigate the risk that comes with their working environment…Penthouse September 1969

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#580)

Internet porn just claimed another casualty.  Penthouse has announced that it’s dropping its print magazine after 51 years of publication…the magazine [will] close its New York City offices and move into the Los Angeles location of its parent company, FriendFinder Networks.  FriendFinder isn’t specific about the reasons behind the decision besides a plan to “keep Penthouse competitive.”  However, it doesn’t take much to read between the lines.  Much like Playboy, Penthouse is struggling in an era when it’s trivial to find porn online…It had to either give its print mag a better reason to exist (Playboy‘s strategy) or else cut that overhead completely…

Harm Magnification (#599)

No, it’s not a “complicated issue”; it’s a non-issue complicated by the sociopathic need to control others’ sexual behavior:

London [Ontario’s] street sex workers fear growing isolation and the danger that comes with it…The places they fear most are often the one that many [clients] want to go, a survey of 33 workers found…The women said they would rather not travel to isolated places to perform sex, but the [clients] insist because they fear being caught…[due to] Canada’s new prostitution laws, which make it illegal to buy sex with punishment by fines and imprisonment…Prostitution legislation is a complicated issue with intense debate from all sides…

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Any act that would not be illegal if no money changed hands is not a crime just because money changes hands.  –  Mistress Matisse

R.I.P. Grace Bellavue Grace Bellavue

The prominent Australian sex worker and activist, Grace Bellavue, died on Sunday.  I’m told she wrote her own obituary some time ago, and I’ll publish it in its entirety as soon as it can be located; in the meantime, this profile  and this account of how she came out to her family may give you some vague idea of what this extraordinary woman – one of the first in Australia to risk legal and social consequences by showing her face as an activist – was like, and why she will be sorely missed.

Rough Trade 

A King County Superior Court judge sentenced [Christopher Beck] to 33 1/3 years in prison…for raping three women — two of them sex workers — over 15 days in March 2014…should he be released, Beck will be required to register as a sex offender for life…defense attorney Walt Peale said…each victim “contributed significantly to the crime being committed” by engaging in illegal sex work…[in reality] Beck is a serial rapist who terrorized women he specifically targeted because he thought they wouldn’t report the rapes to police and if they did, that no one would believe them…Beck didn’t pay any of the women…

Profit from Panic 

Listed below are job openings in non-profit organizations and for-profit (FP) companies that are fighting human trafficking.”  I’m sure it won’t surprise you to see that most of them are in either PR or finance.

The Public Eye

Here’s a profile of Denver’s Domina Elle:

I like to call myself an adult play facilitator.  The type of work I do is much broader than just BDSM or fetishistic type stuff.  I specialize in helping people to open this part of their sexual selves, and be playful and creative.  That’s one reason I love balloons.  It’s a very friendly catalyst.  It’s erotic and playful, and yet it’s not as scary as some of the other stuff when you start looking at BDSM…

Cuckoo Advertising

Uber-sleaze Dennis Hof is another master of tricking gullible reporters into printing his ads for free as “news items”:

…the owner of Nevada’s Bunny Ranch…announced a new perk for his…employees:  He will match their student loan payments 100% for two months, up to the amount they make as prostitutes at the ranch.  Brothel owner Dennis Hof says he was inspired by the growing number of debt-laden college students he’s seen turning to sex work as a fast way to pay off their loans.  His offer covers payments for education at any two- or four-year university…

The Privilege Paradigm

I’m part of a nascent but growing movement within the left to question the efficacy of current left political and rhetorical tactics, particularly concerning the privilege frame…[it] is a deeply limited way to look at the world, and at times it leads to perverse consequences.  To see the way in which they can really screw up political analysis, check out this Daily Kos piece by Shaun King…The question for people like King…is whether or not they really want to oppose mass incarceration and our current police state.  Because that edifice is so powerful, and so deeply embedded into our system, that it will take a genuinely unified front to oppose it.  That means not siding with the police…What’s the priority?  Scoring the purely rhetorical point of identifying privilege?  Or actually transforming the system that hurts so many poor people and people of color?

Frequently Told Lies

Eithne Crow explains the problems with common responses to prohibitionist propaganda:

When someone is telling you that you don’t know your own life or your own experiences, that you don’t know what you do or don’t consent to, and they’re making no attempt to hide their revulsion – asking invasive questions and telling you that you’re damaged and a liar and a victim – it’s hard to keep it all together.  The implication that we’re dirty, disgusting and desperate draws on a narrative so firmly established, institutionalised and legitimised by nearly everything in our culture that sometimes it’s hard to keep swimming against the tide…I still see these narratives of empowerment versus exploitation being perpetuated all over the place. and I think we need to start saying to each other: “I see you, and I understand that your back’s against the wall and that’s really hard, but when we’re trying to demand rights and you say ‘I like my job’, what does that mean for people who don’t?”…

Another Fine Mess

No, Rhode Island didn’t “accidentally” decriminalize prostitution.  But maybe Georgia did:

In Georgia, it is an absolute defense to a charge of prostitution that the defendant was being sexually trafficked….but the law is so broad that virtually any…prostitute can make a credible claim to being trafficked.  Coercion can mean threats of “bodily harm,” but it can also mean “threatening to expose… information… that if revealed would tend to subject to…. ridicule,” “providing a controlled substance,” or “threatening financial harm.”  So a prostitute who accepts crack cocaine…meets all the elements of the statute…Or let’s say a prostitute…asks the john for $40, and the john declines, saying it will be either $30 or nothing.  Now there’s a threat of financial harm.  Deception is even broader.  It can include promising a benefit…then not delivering.  Or “[c]reating or confirming another’s impression of an existing fact or past event which is false and which the accused knows or believes to be false”…Arguably, [this] might even apply to police officers making undercover busts…

Little Boxes (#504)

It looks like the “cuddlers” are competing with masseuses to see who can come up with the most pompous rationalizations of why they aren’t sex workers:

…To help [pretend that it’s]…an…industry with no connection to prostitution, the therapeutic massage industry emphasizes training and certification.  Most states have massage therapy licensing boards that regulate practitioners. To obtain a license typically takes at least 500 hours of supervised, in-class training…Such requirements help reinforce the [notion] that massage therapy is a skilled discipline practiced by experienced professionals who possess genuine medical knowledge and hard-to-acquire skills…Along with the training costs, some states or municipalities impose additional fees [and legal restrictions] on therapeutic massage businesses…But if professional cuddling attempts to go this route, an obvious issue arises.  “There’s only so much information you can give on teaching cuddling versus massage,” says Evan Carp…

Guinea Pigs Female Head with biometric facial map

Note Facebook’s half-assed “correction” near the bottom of the original:

…New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Facebook engineers will help his office use “innovative data and analytical methods” to combat online child sex operations…Facebook declined to further provide details, but a likely guess is the project will draw on Facebook’s massive database of “faceprints” to identify victims who appear in the sex ads…law enforcement agencies could cross-check images of their faces to discover their identities—and possibly pictures of the people who are controlling them…

What Were You All Waiting For?

Another pro-decrim article, this one quoting Mistress Matisse:

…In August, Amnesty International voted that the best policy to protect sex workers is the full decriminalization of consensual sex work…the recommendation…served as a mainstream wake-up call about the dangers of the current legislation in the U.S…Current laws regarding sex work can be seen as the criminalization of an exchange between consenting adults.  However, Nevada is currently the only state in the U.S. that allows for the legal exchange of sexual service, legalizing prostitution in regulated brothels (as opposed to decriminalization, as argued for by most sex work activists)…

The Face of Trafficking (#567)

This is what really happens when a wannabe “pimp” abducts a girl:

[On October 5th, Alabama] Police received a call from family members of a 14-year-old saying she wasn’t where she was supposed to be and was missing.  Moments later, an anonymous caller told police a girl about that same age was being used as a prostitute inside a residence…“After talking with the parties there, we located the juvenile,” explained Tuscumbia Police Chief Tony Logan…[he] said there were drugs and money exchanged to have sexual contact with the 14-year-old girl in a back bedroom…Rashard Ricks, has been charged with human trafficking…Jerrin Donley is charged with rape…

Broken Record (#575) 

The descent of “sex trafficking” hysteria into self-parody continues unabated:

…The New Colossus is a…group in Sioux Falls that raises awareness about…human trafficking…[they] say here in South Dakota there’s two times a year when there’s a spike in trafficking – during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and the [pheasant] hunting season….[which] brings the problem into rural communities…[Polly] Dean says some of the girls being trafficked…are from reservations in the state, but also from places like Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee.  While people will be keeping an eye out for birds…The New Colossus want everyone to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity as well…Some of the things people should look for are women who appear in multiple locations…

That’s right, women moving around in public (instead of staying in the home, presumably) are inherently suspicious.

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Investors and sex workers already know each other…frequently intimately.  –  Bardot Smith

Feminine Pragmatism 

It seems to me that these women knew exactly what they were doing:

Members of a U.N. peacekeeping mission engaged in “transactional sex” with more than 225 Haitian women who said they needed to do so to obtain things like food and medication, a sign that sexual exploitation remains significantly underreported in such missions…About a third of alleged sexual abuse involves minors under 18…And widespread confusion remains on the ground about consensual sex and exploitation…For rural women, hunger, lack of shelter, baby care items, medication and household items were frequently cited as the “triggering need”…urban and suburban women received “church shoes”, cell phones, laptops and perfume, as well as money.  In cases of non-payment, some women withheld the badges of peacekeepers and threatened to reveal their infidelity via social media…

Setting Women’s Rights Back a Century

Amherst says even unconscious men are morally superior to women:

An Amherst College student…accompanied a fellow student back to her dorm room after drinking in February 2012. While he was blacked out, she performed oral sex on him.  Nearly two years later, she would accuse him of sexual assault.  And under Amherst’s guilty-until-proven-innocent…hearing standards, the accused student was expelled…John Doe — is suing the college for denying him due process.  His lawyer had discovered text messages that prove the accused student did not initiate the encounter and in no way sexually assaulted the accuser.  Despite this evidence, the college refused to reopen Doe’s case…Doe was not allowed to directly cross-examine his accuser and could only write down questions for the panel to ask her, leaving no room for follow-ups…the accuser said during her hearing that she only texted one friend to help her handle the assault as she felt “very alone and confused”…Rather, the accuser texted her friend “Ohmygod I jus did something so fuckig stupid” [sic throughout].  She then proceeded to fret that she had done something wrong and her roommate would never talk to her again, because “it’s pretty obvi I wasn’t an innocent bystander”…

J’accuse (#42)International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Strauss-Kahn listens during a news conference in Vienna

Was this outcome ever in doubt?

Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is not guilty of “aggravated pimping”, a French court has ruled.  A judge in Lille described…DSK…as a “libertine” and a “customer”, but said he was not a pimp…

Under Every Bed 

I wonder sometimes if the reporters who write pap like this realize how ridiculous they sound:

A message to those who would traffic in human life:  A crackdown is coming.  New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas plans to sharpen the state’s focus on investigating and prosecuting human trafficking crimes – and has requested a $750,000 federal grant to roughly double the number of personnel dedicated to such cases…Human trafficking is an underreported crime that too frequently goes uninvestigated…New Mexico…has prosecuted fewer than two dozen cases since an anti-human-trafficking law went into effect in 2008. But that number belies the real extent of the crimes committed…[Balderas’ toady] said “The numbers don’t really reflect the human trafficking that is happening in New Mexico…we know this is a rampant, billion-dollar industry.”

Skin To Skin (#315)

criminalisation of clients has negative effects on the safety, wellbeing and health of sex workers.  Yet there is another side to the problem – the sexual fulfilment of vulnerable clients, such as those with a disability…Clients are often portrayed as men who enjoy degrading women and even violent characters who like to abuse them.  But…research…contradicts this view…Tuppy Owens, sex therapist and founder of the TLC Trust, which connects people with disability with sex workers, argues the effects of criminalising clients would be tragic for people with disability…while many clients will simply go underground to avoid being caught if criminalisation becomes a reality, this is less of an option for people with disabilities.  Many rely on a third party to help them access sex services…We should promote rather than restrict initiatives that allow them to explore their sexuality in a safe and mutually respectful way with a…sex worker.

Pimping the Pimp

If Patricia Spencer doesn’t pace herself, she’ll burn out her Hitachi in no time:

…we’re pretty fortunate in Las Vegas because we have a full-time unit dedicated to vice and sex trafficking-related activities.  That’s why we’re unique, and that’s why we get so much exposure to everything going on, because we see it every day…If you publish an article…about a prostitution-related incident, and you read the comments at the bottom, it’s very discouraging because the comments…are almost always negative towards the police doing this type of investigation…the public does not understand…that 99.9% of the women are trafficked.   They’re beaten.  They don’t keep the money, and they are in a life that they can’t escape from.  The amount of juveniles that are being trafficked is astronomical…People are getting annihilated, and all for money…they’re enslaved into this life…It’s almost like addiction for these women.  They need treatment programs, just like addicts…Their kids are kidnapped and held from the victim a lot…My love and passion has always been chasing and going after gang members, and I can see that gang members have now evolved into pimping…we’re seeing a great deal of these girls turning into trick-rollers…if they have a quota to meet, they would much rather meet that quota by stealing than having to turn tricks all night.  I mean, who wants to do that?  It’s much easier, and there’s more money…

A woman who’s never done sex work (or any other useful labor) stating that theft is easier than fucking is a perfect example of the warped police mentality.

To Protect and Serve (#413)

Undercover inspections are one of vice unit’s main tactics in making sure San Diego’s strip clubs adhere to what some consider to be the most restrictive adult-entertainment ordinance on the West Coast…from April 20, 2013, to June 6, 2014, detectives from the vice unit visited Cheetahs on ten occasions…In March 2014, nearly a dozen [of them forced] the dancers to pose for photos in their lingerie…Two lawsuits…were soon filed…and [the city retaliated by revoking] their nude-entertainment business permit…a…former vice detective [says] “Vice unit is a club…detectives…go drinking every night.  When they decide to target a place they’ll send in vice cops, narcotics, code compliance to find violations.  Once they get a hard-on, they will do whatever they need to do”…

Property of the State 

I suspect Georgia politicians will close this loophole almost immediately:

Georgia prosecutors have dropped the murder charges brought against 23-year-old Kenlissa Jones, who attempted to abort her pregnancy at around five months by taking an abortion drug that she ordered online.  The drug sent Jones into early labor, delivering a child that allegedly was alive but died soon thereafter.  Jones was originally charged with malice murder and possession of a dangerous drug…The…district attorney’s office is still charging Jones with misdemeanor possession of a dangerous drug…(misoprostol).  But it dropped the murder charges after District Attorney Greg Edwards realized that…”although third parties could be criminally prosecuted for their actions relating to an illegal abortion…as the law currently stands in Georgia, criminal prosecution of a pregnant woman for her own actions against her unborn child does not seem permitted.  Applicable criminal law and statutes provide explicit immunity from prosecution for a pregnant woman”…

Another Fine Mess

Bardot Smith points out that sex workers aren’t only on the forefront of new technologies; we often drive their development:

…while women indirectly control the overwhelming majority of major purchases being made, they have limited exposure and access to the development of these new systems and tools.  The adult industry is the exception.  [It] and the financial sector…have always been connected…as women are always directly linked to the movement of resources in an economy…Nearly all men enjoy the…commercial sex industry in some way.  Venture capitalists are certainly no exception, and the finance industry in general has a long and storied love affair with the working girl…the end goal is always, unapologetically, a direct transfer of wealth to women…sex workers have long driven major revolutions in technology:  still photography, video cameras, telephone services, VCR, peer-to-peer computing, phone and video chat, and streaming.  They have also been at the forefront of innovating new business models for content, communications, and services themselves…And yet…despite the fact that adult content drives 30% of internet traffic, and the fact that companies are profiting from the traffic, ads and services involved in the industry, the women who power that capital flow are treated like criminals…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#442)

How much of this is due to the end of Somaly Mam’s disinformation, and how much to rescue industry repositioning?

The number of minors working in Cambodia’s sex industry is on the decline…A study by the International Justice Mission, which closely monitors the issue, shows a decline in the prevalence of girls under the age of 17 in brothels and other venues.  The IJM report found the prevalence of underage girls declined from around 8 percent to just over 2 percent from 2012 to 2015.  Holly Burkhalter, IJM’s vice president of government and advocacy…[said] Cambodia is “no longer the world’s No. 1 destination to buy a child,” though the threat of sex trafficking remains high…

IJM is one of the most notorious of all the “rescue” organizations, so what are they up to?McDonald's tattoo

Soap Opera (#447) 

The “trafficking tattoo” trope has taken on a life of its own:  “Some have bar codes.  Others are marked with their pimp’s name and phone number.  Branded like cattle, victims of human trafficking recovered in Pennsylvania could soon apply to the state to have any tattoos from their pimps surgically removed…

Blunt Instrument (#516)

“Sex trafficking” used as an excuse to destroy and loot businesses against which there is literally no evidence of criminality:

A 10-month investigation uncovered nearly a dozen Utah massage parlors being used as fronts for sex trafficking…the [allegations] led to the questioning of more than a dozen women and one man…[but] no charges have been filed.  “Our hope is to find evidence of trafficking in person [sic],” said Attorney General Sean Reyes…[who also pretended]  there is a lead person who moves women around to different fronts, collects money and sends it to the women’s home country.  The first words out of one woman’s mouth when investigators arrived was, “Help me. Please, please help me,” he said…

Yes, Mr. Reyes, that’s called “praying”.  People often do it in terrifying situations, such as when threatened by thugs waving guns around.

Drawing Lines (#516) 

The tax protest angle is interesting, but look more closely at what the brothel owner wants from the “authorities”:

A licensed brothel in…Salzburg has been offering free drinks and free sex in a protest against what its owner says is unfair taxation…the news “has spread like wildfire, with punters lining up to get inside”…Hermann “Pascha” Müller, who owns the…brothel, [said]…he no longer wants to be “the tax office’s pimp”…Müller says that he is paying the prostitutes’ usual hourly rate out of his own pocket.  “In the last decade I have paid taxes of almost €5 million…The problem is, the tax office wants more and more, and they are not cracking down on illegal street and apartment prostitution”…

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