Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘archeofeminism’

My Favorite Movies

Posted in Favorites, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2013| 49 Comments »

In our family we don’t divorce our men; we bury ’em!  –  Stella (Ruth Gordon)

In common with most people, I like movies.  I don’t pretend to know much about movie criticism, I’m painfully ignorant about directorial techniques and I probably couldn’t recognize a “great” film even if I had a cheat-sheet.  I do, however, know what I like, and can often even tell you why I like it.  I’m not going to claim that any of these films are “great” in the artistic sense, and though I’ve seen several of today’s selections on “great film” lists I don’t like them for that reason.  Despite today’s title, these are not actually my favorite movies; I already listed those in my very first “Favorite Things” column over a year ago.  Other columns have discussed my favorite horror movies, musicals, short films, obscure movies, Christmas movies and monsters and horror stars; this one lists 16 more of my favorite movies that don’t fall into any of those categories (though I did mention #8 in the “obscure movies” column), listed in my usual reverse chronological order.

1)  Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)  What I like best about this movie and its sequel is that they’re unrepentantly dumb.  In other words, they make no pretense to be anything other than good, clean fun.  And while most time travel movies defy logic due to poor writing or failure to think things out, I get the feeling the writers of this one made a list of time travel rules and then broke every one on purpose.  My love for these flicks has rendered me totally unable to take Keanu Reeves seriously no matter what role he plays.

2)  Highlander (1986)  Truly unique movies are rare in modern Hollywood, but this was one; the aesthetic failure of several moronic sequels and a TV series ripoff prove that.  If you’ve never seen it, the trailer is a decent introduction, though I have one major quibble with it (and with the film itself):  the hero’s modern love interest is completely unbelievable and pales into insignificance besides the beautiful depiction of his first marriage, which never fails to reduce me to tears.

3)  Dune (1984)  Yes, I’ve read the book, and I’m aware of how the film departs from it; I’m also aware that Herbert was satisfied with it.  There are three cuts of this movie: the theatrical cut, which leaves out far too much exposition; the extended television cut, which includes the additional material but removes important scenes that were deemed too intense for broadcast, and a combined cut from a region 2 DVD (of which I own a bootleg) which has all the scenes from both theatrical and TV cuts.  The best part about this film is that there were no concessions to modernism chauvinism; the culture is depicted in all its strangeness and political incorrectness.

4)  Star Trek:  The Wrath of Khan (1982)  As I’ve stated before, this and The Undiscovered Country are IMHO the only Star Trek movies truly worthy of the legacy; Khan is the only one which feels directly connected to the series, and in all of Hollywood history it may be the sequel which surpasses its progenitor by the greatest margin (though you’re welcome to make other nominations).

5)  Time Bandits (1981)  Terry Gilliam’s visions are always baroque and usually tinged with darkness (except when they’re absolutely immersed in it), and Time Bandits is no exception.  Though the movie is absolutely hilarious, its portrayal of a chaotic universe ruled by a rather cold and disinterested God is rather like Monty Python meets H.P. Lovecraft, and can be disquieting if one thinks too hard about it.

6)  Serial (1980)  This little-remembered satire of Bay Area ‘70s nuttiness is probably best appreciated by those old enough to remember the time period, and though it doesn’t bear quite as much repeated watching as most of the other titles on the list I still enjoy it every time I see it.  Bonus for horror fans:  Christopher Lee in a very unorthodox comedic role.

7)  Bedazzled (1967)  This isn’t the only film on this list who memory has been sullied by a shoddy remake, but it may be the only one so completely eclipsed by that remake that almost nobody seems to remember the original.  And that’s truly sad, because this one is very funny, very clever, very wicked and very, very British.  Dudley Moore plays a hapless and rather silly short-order cook who sells his soul to the Devil (Peter Cook) for seven wishes and learns about the proverbial “long spoon” over and over again, but the bits between the wishes are actually the funniest.

8)  Lord Love a Duck (1966)  One of the blackest of all black comedies; it would not be out of place on a double bill with Dr. Strangelove, though this one prefers to take pot-shots at a large number of cultural absurdities (often in drive-by mode) while Strangelove is a sustained attack on one target.  The trailer isn’t lying; Roddy McDowell’s character really does commit mass murder (during the opening credits!) and the rest of the movie explains what drove him to it.

9)  Goldfinger (1964)  In a sense, this movie is here as a representative of all the Sean Connery Bond films, but I also feel it would stand on its own merits without the others.  Everything that is right with the series is exemplified in this one, and its problems less apparent here than in other installments; even some of the series’ conventions are lampooned here, but without devolving into self-parody as the later Roger Moore films did.

10)  Bell, Book and Candle (1958)  The lovely Kim Novak is a modern witch who casts a love spell on her neighbor in order to get back at his awful fiancée, an old schoolmate of hers…then finds herself falling in love with him for real.  Though this film was one of the inspirations for Bewitched, the witches here are not semi-godlike but rather just people with an extra talent (stronger in some than others).  The supporting cast is fantastic; of especial interest for readers of this blog is Ernie Kovacs’ character, a writer whose utter ignorance of the witchcraft on which he claims to be an “expert” calls to mind certain self-proclaimed “experts” on prostitution.

11)  Twelve Angry Men (1957)  One set.  Twelve actors.  No special effects.  Virtually all talk and no action.  But if you’re anything like me, it will rivet your attention from start to finish.  One conscientious holdout juror (Henry Fonda) in a murder trial eventually helps the others to recognize the gaps in the prosecution’s case that they at first ignored or did not want to see.  One of those movies that’s more timely now than when it was first filmed.

12)  Rashômon (1950)  The story of a rape and murder in feudal Japan, told from four points of view:  that of the murderer, those of the two victims, and that of a witness the others did not know was there.  This device has since become a trope, and the film’s name practically an idiom, but none have ever done it as well as the original.

13)  Mighty Joe Young (1949)  Though the movie was a conscious imitation of King Kong (and even shared a writer, star and special-effects director), I must admit that I really like it better than its more iconic predecessor.  Joe is a character rather than simply a monster, and thanks to the wizardry of the young Ray Harryhausen his personality really shines through; the audience cares about him in a way we never really care for Kong, and later incarnations of the King have included more than a little Joe in him.

14)  Rope (1948)  An underappreciated Hitchcock adaptation of a 1929 play based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case.  Like Twelve Angry Men, it’s a very “pure” drama: one set, a small number of characters, mostly talk with little action, and designed so as to resemble a stage play as closely as possible.  Beside the masterful buildup of suspense, one of the things I like best about it is its use of very long takes (up to ten minutes each), cut so as to appear like one long, seamless filming.

15) Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)  You’ve probably noticed that I like black comedies, and here’s another one:  Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) discovers that his elderly maiden aunts are bumping off lonely old men with poisoned wine and burying their bodies in the cellar.  And then there are his two brothers…as Mortimer explains to his new bride, “insanity runs in my family…It practically gallops.”

16) The Thief of Bagdad (1940)  Though I love Arabian Nights movies in general (such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, which just barely missed the cut), I have an especial love for this one.  It has been remade several times, but this one is by far the best; if you’ve never seen it, you’ll be amazed at the extent to which Disney plagiarized it for Aladdin.

Read Full Post »

Deep Frustration

Posted in Call types, Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 23, 2013| 39 Comments »

Disguise our bondage as we will,
‘Tis woman, woman rules us still. –  Isaac Bickerstaff, The Sultan (II,i)

Here’s a letter from a very distraught reader, and my response:

I’m a 24 year old male virgin who couldn’t get laid to save my own life.  I’m in a very bad state of physical health and have severely low testosterone, a small penis and erectile dysfunction; I also have severe social anxiety and many other mental health issues.  I have no friends or social contact of any kind, and hate women with an all-consuming passion; I know this is irrational and mostly due to my complete failure with them, but this does little to quell the rage.  Although I have never been violent towards another human being in my whole life, and I have no doubt that I would never actually hurt a woman, I do have extremely violent fantasies; I don’t mean to freak you out, but I just want to explain myself completely.  At the same time I view women with awe and reverence and never stop thinking about them; I also envy them, which strikes as borderline homosexual.  I’m a severely porn-addicted, chronic compulsive masturbator and my fantasies have devolved into sickening femdom/chastity/cuckolding porn and incest; I can only relate to women as either a pitiful charity case to be coddled like a child, or as a victim to be tormented.  I want so much to get my head strait and respond sexually to things that are healthy; my desire is to be normal.

My feelings toward women in general are magnified with respect to highly sexual women; I abhor them whilst worshiping them, and I’m a reactionary traditionalist who wants to forcibly repress female sexuality and reverse the effects of the sexual revolution.  So for me (and I know how irrational this is), going to a prostitute would be an act of profound surrender, allowing myself to be completely vulnerable to that which I fear more than anything in the world.  Practically, what I think I need is a highly skilled woman who has patience and genuine compassion, somebody who’s had success in working with my kind before.Rachel Wotton with client  I watched a documentary called Scarlet Road about an Australian prostitute who works primarily with disabled dudes, and that’s exactly what I’m seeking.  What I’m not sure about, though, is whether I should go to a prostitute now, or else wait six months or so and really try and get my health in order so I could enjoy the experience more.  Since I’ve received very little help from doctors, it might possibly be years before I become healthy again, and I cannot wait that long without experiencing simple human touch and companionship; a healing experience with a talented prostitute might be a catalyst for me to make major changes in my life.  I’d really appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

I have written on a number of occasions about the severe problems which can result from a man’s being deprived of sexual release, and though I do think this has severely aggravated your emotional and mental health I don’t think it’s the major factor.  I’m not a psychiatrist, and even if I were I couldn’t even begin to make a diagnosis based on one email, but I think it’s safe to say that your social anxiety and whatever other issues keep you from having friends are the chief impediments to your happiness.  So though I am going to give you the advice about hiring a pro that you asked for, I also strongly urge you to research and seek out a competent therapist who could help you with the social and psychological problems.  That’s not necessarily going to be easy; there are boatloads of therapists, psychologists, counselors and the like in every city, but most of them are only semi-competent and finding a good one will take work and time unless you’re very fortunate.  It is possible that just finding a companion who will listen to your problems will go a long way toward helping you, but if your situation is as bad as you have painted it you may also need medication and only a doctor can provide that.  While it’s true that psychoactive drugs are overprescribed nowadays, it’s also true that when used properly they can give someone temporary respite from his emotional pain so as to allow him to regroup and get his life back into order.  You wrote that you’ve received little help from doctors for your physical problems; here again, you may just need to keep looking for the right one.  Improvement in your physical health might work wonders for your mental health, probably much more than you suspect.

The Rape of Persephone by BerniniI’m glad you were honest with me about your anger toward women and fear of female sexuality, and rest assured I am not “freaked out”.  While your feelings are unusual in their intensity, they’re not at all unusual in their character; while I would hesitate to call them typical, I must point out that this kind of love/hate relationship with women is evident in the writings of many men from antiquity to the present and suffuses Western monotheism (and as Camille Paglia points out, inspires an awful lot of art).  It’s the real-life syndrome from which neofeminist myths about “misogyny” and “rape culture” spring, but in actuality it’s simply the wholly predictable result of male sexual frustration.  When thwarted, powerful drives don’t just go away; buried, they rot in the earth and give rise to dark, unwholesome and unlovely things.  A caged tiger paces back and forth unceasingly; a man develops fantasies which may repel or sicken him, and grows to hate the thing which he blames for his condition.  But these are merely surface manifestations conjured up to hide the painful truth:  though you claim to hate and fear whores, you approached an unrepentant harlot for advice in dealing with her sisters.  Please understand that I am not belittling your feelings in any way; after all, you pointed it out yourself.  The only reason I brought it up at all is that I want you to understand that if I really thought you genuinely hated women in general and whores in particular, I wouldn’t be giving you advice on how to locate one for fear you might harm her.

I think your idea of seeking a really dedicated professional who views her work as a calling is a sound one, and I’m happy to tell you that such women exist in virtually every part of the globe (though if you live under a criminalization regime, it will take a little more care and research on your part).  I’m afraid you’re going to have to be very patient; it is imperative that you find the right woman, or else the experience will simply result in even more frustration.  Furthermore, you may not be able to perform the first few times you are with her; the combination of physical factors, frustration, anger, anxiety and everything else will probably prevent it.  You need to go into the early appointments with the attitude that you are just there to talk, to touch and to hold and be held; if you don’t expect intercourse and tell the lady not to expect it either, you can spend the time getting used to being with a naked woman without the fear of ridicule or failure.  One thing of which I can assure you is that absolutely NO professional worth her salt will mock you for your penis size, inability to achieve erection or fearfulness; trust me, we have all seen these things many, many times, and will no more ridicule you for them than a physician would mock you for being ill or a maid insult your dirty carpet.

In summary:  Take your time, as hard as that may be:  research the ladies in your area, find one who seems patient and understanding, explain that you may have difficulties and just want to touch and talk.  Then see her a few times, expecting nothing in particular to happen in any given session; enjoy the journey rather than focusing on a particular destination, and in the meantime do whatever you need to do to improve your health.  As you become comfortable with your escort the psychological and emotional barriers to physical intimacy will erode, and unless it’s physiologically impossible for you to achieve erection you should eventually be able to have intercourse, and thereby begin the process of healing your spirit and moving toward a healthy and fulfilling sex life.

(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.)

Read Full Post »

Previously Asked Questions

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2013| 14 Comments »

To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind.  ―  Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

Because I’ve done so many Q & A columns, I’m starting to see some repetition in the questions readers ask.  This isn’t exactly surprising, considering that there are over 900 daily columns now and even a person who’s good at using indexes and searches might not phrase the question in the same way as the original questioner.  So, I’ve decided to publish this linked list of all the questions I’ve answered so far, rephrased for simplicity and clarity; within the next few days it will be duplicated in a static page that will grow as I answer new questions, and that I can then link in each new Q & A column.

General Sex Questions

Vargas Fleurs du Mal

General Sex Work Questions

Questions About Whores

La Belle Esclave by Henri Tanoux

Questions About Clients

Mentoring Questions

Requests for Advice

Personal Questions

Illustration from Guy de Maupassant's La Maison Tellier by Edgar Degas (1881)

Blogging

Miscellaneous

Read Full Post »

My Favorite Christmas Things

Posted in Favorites, Holidays, Miscellaneous, Music, tagged , , , , , , on December 27, 2012| 26 Comments »

Have a holly jolly Christmas,
It’s the best time of the year.
I don’t know if there’ll be snow,
But have a cup of cheer.  –  Johnny Marks

Since y’all seemed to enjoy my Halloween favorites column, I thought a companion piece for Christmas would be in order.  Though it’s only my second favorite holiday, it’s my husband’s favorite and since it is the world’s most popular celebration the activities are extended for a much longer time and there’s a lot more “stuff” to choose from for this list.  For me, Halloween and Christmas are the two high points of a long festive season which begins with the autumnal equinox and ends with Mardi Gras, with a sort of encore at Easter.  But the stretch of time between Halloween and Christmas Eve, by virtue of being bookended by my two favorite days in all the year, is the best.

My Favorite Christmas Songs

Some people love Christmas music, and some hate it; I react to it as I react to nearly any music, loving some and hating some and tolerating the rest.  I don’t like sappy or overly sentimental songs, nor those in the “wink wink, nudge nudge” school such as “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”; bad and/or forced rhyming irritates me in any song, which is why I have a strong aversion for “Winter Wonderland” (bluebird/new bird and snowman/“No, man”; really?) And the only Beach Boys song I hate more than the grating “Little Saint Nick” is the truly execrable “Kokomo”.  Among traditional Christmas carols my favorites are those in minor keys:  “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” and “Carol of the Bells”  are especial favorites, as is the haunting “Veni, Veni”, (performed here in both English and the original Latin by one of my favorite artists, Enya).  Of modern Christmas songs, my hands-down favorite is “Holly Jolly Christmas” performed by the inimitable Burl Ives:

My Favorite Christmas Shows

The video above contains clips from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, one of the earliest Christmas specials from the “Golden Age” of such presentations in the 1960s and ‘70s.  It’s among my favorites, though it’s exceeded in my estimation by “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” from the same producers, an origin story which depicts the young Santa Claus as a libertarian who holds that people have the right and duty to disobey stupid laws:

But of all the stand-alone shows and special episodes of series, my absolute favorite has to be “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, as those of you who remember “My Favorite Short Films” had probably already guessed.  Chuck Jones was better at translating Dr. Seuss’ bizarre whimsy into animation than any other director, the choices of Boris Karloff as narrator and Thurl Ravenscroft  as singer of the Grinch song were nothing short of inspired, and Seuss’ words, silly as they are, presented the meaning and moral of the story without spelling it out in words of one syllable.


My Favorite Christmas Movies

There are probably hundreds of Christmas movies, a number of which are regarded as classics.  But while I do enjoy It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, there are only two without which my holiday season would be incomplete.  One of these, which we watch every Christmas Eve, is the Patrick Stewart version of A Christmas Carol; though it does have a few flaws it’s the only version of the story in which I can see Scrooge as a completely real person, and his conversion as both natural and believable.  The other is A Christmas Story, which I had never even heard of before I met my husband.  It’s one of his favorites and soon became one of mine; in fact, it’s usually the film which kicks off our Yuletide viewing season.  The plot is very simple: a young boy in the late 1930s schemes to get a BB gun for Christmas.  But that brief description does the film absolutely no justice; in fact, no description I could write could do so.  Do yourself a favor:  just see it.  Trust me.

My Yuletide Schedule

Regular readers know that I am a creature of habit, and like to do things on a very regular schedule (as long as I get to set that schedule myself).  I generally start thinking about Christmas presents in June or July, keeping my eyes open for fun little “stocking stuffers” and even for full presents; this year my husband found the perfect gift for one of our friends way back in March, and it sat in my secret gift stash until I wrapped it a few weeks ago.  Once Halloween is over the stores all put up their Christmas displays these days, completely ignoring Thanksgiving; I refuse to acknowledge this premature celebration, beginning only on the traditional American date, the day after Thanksgiving.  That’s the date on which we tromp off into the forest, find a suitable tree, and bring it home to decorate.  That day or the next we do our Christmas cards and I prepare soup stock:

Stock:  4 quarts (liters) water; 10 chicken bouillon cubes; ½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) each salt and pepper; ¼ teaspoon (1.25 ml) each thyme, sage and MSG; 1 teaspoon (5 ml) each tarragon, paprika and granulated garlic.  Combine all ingredients in large stock pot, add turkey carcass (after removing as much remaining meat as you can) plus neck and giblets.  Bring to boil over medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer until all the meat has fallen from the bones, stirring occasionally and pulling the bones out as they become clean (you’ll probably have to pick bits of meat from them by hand as you go).  Once all the bones are out remove from heat, allow stock to cool and ladle it into quart (liter)-sized containers.  If using glass jars, make sure you leave expansion space before freezing or else they will break.  It takes a few days for one of these to thaw in the refrigerator, a few hours at room temperature.

Soup:  1 jar stock; 2 quarts (liters) water; 5 chicken bouillon cubes; ¼ teaspoon (1.25 ml) each salt & pepper; 1/8  teaspoon (0.625 ml) each thyme, sage & MSG; ½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) each tarragon, paprika & granulated garlic.  Combine all ingredients in large stock pot, bring to boil over medium-high heat, then add 2 cups (500 ml) of egg noodles, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

I of course do this again on Boxing Day with the remains of the Christmas turkey; on New Years’ Day we generally have ham (saving the bone for split pea soup later in the week).  All of the feasts are accompanied by traditional side dishes and homemade bread, with seasonal desserts (and yes, I render my own pumpkin from the Halloween jack-o-lantern and make my own mince meat, too).  It’s a lot of work for one woman, but I take housewifery as seriously as I took harlotry.  Christmas Eve and New Years’ Eve meals vary, but the days after those feasts are always leftovers.  Sometimes we open one present each on Christmas Eve, but that varies; one thing that doesn’t is that the tree stands until King Day, when we have our first king cake of the season.

My Favorite Christmas Foods

panettoneBeside the stuffed turkey, candied yams, corn pudding, mince meat pie and plum pudding of the Christmas dinner, the season is full of delicious foods.  Just after Thanksgiving I make two fruitcakes so they’ll have time to age, and during Yuletide I generally prepare panettone several times (it’s an Italian brioche flavored with orange and nutmeg, which my husband loves); then in the week before the holiday I make cookies, fudge and other treats so as to make up tins for all the people we regularly do business with.  But none of these are my favorites, though I do enjoy all of them; of all the foods usually associated with the season I would have to say my own favorites are spiced Christmas teas, gingerbread (I sometimes make a house), fruit and chocolate combinations, those Danish butter cookies that come in tins and egg nog, especially that made by our local dairy.

Read Full Post »

Sugar, Sugar

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 19, 2012| 11 Comments »

Men will bear many things from a kept mistress, which they would not bear from a wife. –  Samuel Richardson

A complex reader question which needed a complex answer:

I’m a highly-educated girl from a well-to-do background, with a blossoming artistic and academic career.  I have absolutely no real economic need, but I have a fierce desire for financial independence and a sugar arrangement seems to me the best option.  I’m not ashamed of it but I am deeply concerned about possible repercussions.  On the one hand, I don’t care if people are shocked, but on the other I don’t want my loved ones hurt by gossip and slander, and I’m worried that I’d be denying myself a chance in highly public careers, lest my youthful ‘activities’ be outed.  Worse still, I live in Asia – where norms governing sexuality are even more stifling than in the West.  How did you deal with the judgment from family and peers, and how do you explain your job to people?  On the practical side, would you advise against juggling more than one sugar daddy at a time?  Are there terms and conditions I must look out for?  How do I ensure that transactions are processed, that I’m legally protected, and that there are medical precautions beside testing, condoms & pills?  Finally, the few friends I’ve talked to strongly advise me against being a sugar baby, and I’m concerned that I’ll lose my self-respect; do many sex workers face this inner conflict all the time?  How do they resolve it?  Can sex and love be completely divorced – even for a sex worker? 

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I don’t know anyone else to ask; I sincerely believe that your advice immensely helps a hidden generation of young workers like me.

I don’t mind a lot of questions, but since there are so many please forgive me if I fail to cover any of your concerns!  Let’s start with one caveat:  I’ve never been a sugar baby per se; though I have had official boyfriends and husbands who supported me, it isn’t really the same thing because of the stigma against sugar arrangements.  So the only advice I can give on the subject is via comparison with professionalized harlotry, or by what I’ve heard from friends.  However, I’m sure I have some readers who have had bona fide sugar daddies, and they may add their own advice to mine so be sure you read the comment thread below.

Your first concern is a very real one: if you think you might want some sort of public career in the future, sex work of any kind presents a considerable risk to that plan.  Even totally legal forms of sex work such as compensated dating carry a social stigma, which as you rightly observe can be powerful enough to derail a reputation even decades down the road.  If you sugar-date under your own real name, it is an absolute certainty that the arrangement will come back to haunt you; even if you use a carefully-guarded alias and post no face-showing pictures on the internet there is a chance of later exposure.  In my case, I wasn’t concerned about what strangers thought because I had no plans to ever return to a “straight” career; furthermore, I was estranged from my family, and prepared to lose the goodwill of any friend who could not accept my choices.  So in my case, I could simply be honest about my career with friends, and had a plausible cover story for neighbors and casual acquaintances.  But if you’re not prepared to risk that (and I certainly don’t blame you if you aren’t), maintaining a strictly-segregated double life is probably the only way…though of course that carries its own costs and risks.  I suggest you read my essay “Coming Out”, which discusses the pros and cons at some length.

In answer to your second question, I don’t think it’s ever wise to bite off more than one can chew.  Were I you I would start with only one patron at a time, get used to that, and then when and if you feel ready to juggle a second gentleman you can do so then rather than rushing into it now.  I would be very clear with the patron on how many hours a week you’re willing to give him; that way if he later tries to overstep his bounds you can remind him that this was discussed at the outset.  Other issues will certainly arise just as they do in other types of relationships, and just as in those cases you’ll have to deal with them as they appear and learn from your mistakes.  As for the rest, I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking; in the absence of an ironclad written contract there is always “wriggle room” for both parties, so any legal issues, like time allotment, should be clearly discussed at the beginning.  It might be a good idea to insist on payment in cash until you learn to trust your patron, but medical concerns are a different matter:  those are present even in monogamous romantic relationships, so I would advise never letting your guard down on that front.  Always use condoms, stay on the pill (or get an IUD) and discreetly check him for signs of disease every time you’re with him.

Finally, there’s the self-esteem issue, which I’m afraid nobody can answer for you.  Some women never have any conflict about it; others feel so conflicted and “dirty” that they develop considerable guilt issues which can indeed create problems for them.  If you start to feel that way, it’s best for everyone that you stop immediately no matter how much you’ll miss the extra money; it’s not worth damage to your psyche, and unhappy former sex workers are some of the worst menaces to the cause of sex worker rights.  The vast majority of women are between those two extremes:  because we’re all exposed to stupid, unhealthy social attitudes about sex it’s not always easy to shake them off, so some situations do lead to guilt or other bad feelings while others may be exactly the opposite.  But that’s like anything else in life; considering that most women can manage to feel guilty about any number of things (food, personal choices, perceived selfishness, etc) it’s hardly realistic to expect that sex – whether romantic, recreational or commercial – would be wholly exempt.  I can answer your last question very definitely, though:  yes, love and sex can certainly be divorced.  One simply has to recognize that sex is not a magical, sacred thing which is taboo outside of a sacrament, but rather an ordinary human activity which, like any other activity, can be used for whatever purpose one requires.

Read Full Post »

Fictional Interlude: Visions of Sugarplums

Posted in Fiction, Holidays, tagged , , , , , , on December 18, 2012| 22 Comments »

They err who thinks Santa Claus comes down through the chimney; he really enters through the heart.  –  Mrs. Paul M. Ell

It all started when I got a call from my very best client, offering me several days at one of the most beautiful resorts in known space, during which he’d be busy every daylight hour and most of the evening; all I had to do is look beautiful, be incredibly charming at dinner, make sure his suits were perfect and laid out before bedtime, give him massages when necessary, spend 15 minutes on my back most nights, collect my pay and be home in time for Christmas.  Best of all, it was his wife’s idea; she despises space travel and would rather delegate consort duties whenever her husband goes offworld.  All in all, just about the nicest, cushiest booking imaginable.  And it did turn out okay in the end, but…

spaceshipHang on, I’m getting ahead of myself.  The trip out was uneventful, and these new diplomatic ships are so damned fast we arrived at Alinor in only three days.  And that’s when I got my first unpleasant surprise; like a complete dorp I had forgotten that Alinor is a whole planet, and though there are indeed lots of gorgeous resorts in the temperate zone, we were in the tropics.  And not Hawaii or Tahiti-type tropics either, oh no; we’re talking thirty-five degrees in the shade, eighty percent humidity tropics.  See, the Tsath – those are the aliens my client was there to negotiate with – are rather like enormous frogs, and cool, dry air can make them sick.

But I’m nothing if not professional, so I smiled and resolved to make the best of it.  “Just be friendly,” he said; “you’re certainly good at that.  Think of yourself as a goodwill ambassador.”

“What, to the Tsath?  Do they speak English?”

“Remarkably well.  They’re linguistic prodigies; the consul herself speaks at least eleven that I know of.  But their thinking is emotive and subjective; they rely on intuition over logic and prefer art to science, so we’re trying to work out a deal to provide them with technicians and automated factories.  Just between you and me, they’re really very backward.”

“Is that why you in particular were sent here?”

“Yes.  We’ve been trying to finalize this deal for months, but though the Tsath are clearly eager to trade with us, we just can’t seem to come to an understanding.  It’s as though they were waiting for something.”

“Well, maybe they are.  You said they were intuitive and backward; maybe they’re waiting for an omen or an auspicious conjunction.”

He looked at me as though I had said something he hadn’t thought of before and said, “Maybe they are, at that.”

**********************************************************************

One of the locals had told me about clothes of a fabric designed to draw heat and perspiration away from the skin, which made the climate quite bearable; so, I decided to make an early start on the second day and go out into town to buy an outfit or seven, but as I was crossing the lobby I suddenly found myself face-to-face with the Tsath negotiator.

“Good morning, Miss Kane!  You are just the person I wanted to see!”  Her English was absolutely flawless, but what really amazed me was that she could tell humans apart so easily; she had only seen me once, at last night’s dinner, and to me she was nearly indistinguishable from the others of her party but for her insignia of rank.

I bowed my head and closed my eyes for a moment in the Tsath gesture of respect, then said, “You do me honor, Madame Consul; what can I do for you?”

“When I asked Mr. Ituro if you were his wife, he explained that you were a paid companion.  Is that correct?”

I inwardly panicked for just a moment; if these people were backward, might they have a primitive prejudice against whores?  But her voice sounded pleasant and friendly; I decided honesty was the best policy.  “Yes, it is.”

“Ah, I didn’t know Earth people had the trade, too!  Well, if you don’t mind, I have a contract for you.”

Before I could think of a reply, she called out to someone, and a Tsath child emerged from behind a display she had apparently been reading.  She was cute, in a 30-kilogram-deep-purple-tree-frog-with-spindly-limbs kind of way; fortunately for me, though the Tsath had no visible sexual dimorphism my unschooled eyes could discern, their customs of dress were coincidentally like traditional Western ones: one could tell a girl by her skirts.

“How fortunate I am to have found someone who could keep Nahgi company while I am embroiled in negotiations!  Whatever price you ask will be fine with me; you have an honest face so I know you’ll be fair.”

“I’m, uh, very pleased to meet you, Nahgi,” I stammered, totally unsure how to handle this.

“I’m pleased to meet you too, Miss Kane,” she squeaked in perfect English.  “I just know we’re going to have ever so much fun!”

“I’m sure we will,” I agreed, feeling very trapped as I watched her mother vanish into the lift.

**********************************************************************

Though it was rough going at first, I eventually realized she wasn’t all that different from a human seven-year-old, and though I hadn’t baby-sat since I was sixteen it came back quickly enough.  I got to see their intellectual dimorphism firsthand: though technical things seemed to confuse or fascinate Nahgi far more than they would a human child, her facility with languages was quite remarkable.  She spoke three in all, and despite the fact that she had never heard English at this time last year, she now sounded like a native.  I soon realized that she found endless amusement in puns, rhymes and silly word games, though not nearly as much as she found in my painfully-incompetent attempts to pronounce even the simplest words in her language.  She was very excited by my promise to teach her a bit of Mandarin the next day, yet at the same time was mystified by my ability to add up the prices of items in my head.

And so, in spite of my initial reluctance, I actually found myself enjoying the day.  The marketplace was climate-controlled for human comfort, so I had bought her a little winter suit to keep her warm; she laughed at herself in the mirror and I laughed to see the contrast of my pale human skin in summer clothes with her hairless purple head sticking up from a faux-fur collar.  Fortunately, she had been taught which human foods she could eat, but when I took her to the penny arcade after lunch I found that most of the games either bored or frustrated her.  Since I was feeling generous and growing genuinely fond of my little charge, I suggested she show me the sorts of playthings she liked in the toy department; this was met with the same enthusiasm one would expect from a human child, so off we went.

Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1954When we arrived, I thought her already-huge eyes would bug completely out of her head.  The proprietors of the shop had decorated it for the holidays in the antique style of centuries past, with old-fashioned garlands and colored lights; dolls and toy animals ran about the floor, and aircraft flew in formation or performed aerobatics.  A wide selection of Christmas music from many different times wafted through the air, as did the savory smell of baked goodies presented on trays for the taking.  Artificially-created snow was falling in an enclosed playground out front, and colonial children who had never seen the stuff except in video romped and howled, building snowmen and pelting each other with snowballs.  And presiding over the whole from his throne at the back of the area was Father Christmas himself, in the same costume he’s worn since before children first accompanied their parents to the stars.

“Who is that?” Nahgi asked in a hushed voice.

“He’s dressed as a legendary figure called Santa Claus, who is the symbol of our most popular festival.  That’s what all these decorations are for.”

“Is Santa Claus a god?”

My stomach dropped.  I had no idea what Tsath religious beliefs were like, though her question seemed to indicate polytheism.  On the one hand, I might start an interstellar incident by insulting their faith, but on the other hand, I wasn’t about to tell a child of any species that Santa wasn’t real.  So I opted for the diplomatic approach.

“Well, a saint.  Sort of a demigod, I guess; I’m not an expert in theology.”  Oh, good grief; what an inane answer!  As soon as it was out of my mouth I wanted to drown myself in the wassail bowl.

But Nahgi didn’t think it was stupid, at all.  “So, this is a priest dressed as him for a ceremony!”

“Something like that.”

“Why are the children setting on his lap?  Is he blessing them?”

“Well, sort of.  They tell him what gift they would like, and the legend says that if they’ve been good, he brings it to them on Christmas Eve, which is six days from today.”

She was so excited I thought she would wet herself, if Tsath do that.  “May I sit on his lap, too?”

For a moment, all I could see was a vision of myself standing neck-deep in a hole, which I was digging deeper and deeper.  “Well, I would suspect so, but let me ask permission first, OK?”  She gave that closed-eye nod, and I approached Santa to ask; as it turned out he was a retired xenobiologist and was absolutely thrilled to share the ancient ritual with an alien child.  I beckoned her to the throne, and though she at first approached with awe she was as quick as any human child to clamber into his lap once he bade her do so.  And as I watched the timeless scene unfold for a little girl to whom it was wholly new, I thanked the goddess of my profession for tear-proof makeup.

Once she had whispered her Christmas wish to him, hugged him and climbed down, she scampered gaily to my side and took my hand.  “I’m ready to go back to the hotel now, if you are,”  she said.

“What did you ask him for?” I asked, my heart in my fallen stomach.

“For our people to reach an agreement soon,” she said.

I felt a pall of doom descend upon me.  “Sweetie, I’m not sure he can bring you that.”

“Yes, he can,” she said matter-of-factly.

**********************************************************************

She was right.

By dinner the next day, the talks were concluded; the Tsath had clearly received whatever omen they had been waiting for, and the agreement had fallen into place as quickly and neatly as one might negotiate the sale of a used robot.  My patron was mystified; he had no idea what had happened, but being male he was satisfied with the assumption that his own skill at negotiation had somehow broken the impasse.  The consul thanked me at dinner for taking such good care of Nahgi, and the child herself came to see me the next morning, to hug me goodbye and to ask for my address so she could write; neither of them said anything about the resolution, either.

I’ll tell you what I think happened, though.  The Tsath are creatures of intuition; the negotiators probably projected the typical human “serious grown-up business” demeanor, which may have made them uncomfortable and wary.  But when I spent a day with one of their children, and allowed her to see that Earth people were capable of generosity, humor and tenderness, it forged a connection that wasn’t there before.  Maybe the Tsath have a kind of Santa Claus, and the discovery that we do as well showed them our two peoples aren’t so different after all.Omega Centauri
(With grateful acknowledgement to the work of Zenna Henderson).

Read Full Post »

Links #128

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2012| 14 Comments »

When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows, and lie low until the wrath has passed.  For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them.  It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  –  Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (section 5)

Though this was a fairly busy week in hooker news, it was actually fairly quiet for other interesting stuff (which really isn’t surprising around holidays).  This week’s link champ is my best friend Grace, who called my attention to every link down to the first video (a new Amy Winfrey cartoon).  The links between the videos were provided by Mike Siegel, Korhomme, EconJeff, AL 360 and Lenore Skenazy (in that order), with the last three from Radley Balko; the second video was discovered by Jesse Walker.

Enjoy this STD PSA from a more enlightened era.

Read Full Post »

Calamity Jane

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , on November 29, 2012| 7 Comments »

I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort.  Capt. Egan on recovering, laughingly said:  “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”  I have borne that name up to the present time.  –  “Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane”

The legend of the American “Wild West” era is such a powerful and enduring one that it’s sometimes difficult to remember that it lasted only one generation, from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century; many of those who either played important roles in the story of westward expansion, or who were notable for other reasons, found themselves literally legends in their own time by the early ‘90s.  One of these was Martha Jane Canary, a woman who would probably have lived and died in obscurity had she been born in a different place and time; like so many other women she made the best choices she could among the opportunities available to her, and found to her considerable surprise that they had resulted in fame (but not, alas, fortune).  She was born on May 1, 1852 to Robert and Charlotte Canary of Princeton, Missouri, the eldest of six children (two boys and four girls).  In 1865 the family headed west to Virginia City, Montana, but after Charlotte died of pneumonia en route Canary decided to push on to Salt Lake City.  They arrived in 1866 but he died only a year later, so 15-year-old Martha Jane became head of the family; she packed up the wagon and moved them to Piedmont, Wyoming, where she took whatever jobs she could find.  She is known to have worked as a dishwasher, a cook, a nurse, a driver, a dancer and a whore.

Jane does not seem to have cared that much for sex work; though it would have been the most lucrative of her jobs, her heart belonged to the Great Outdoors.  She had been an avid rider since childhood, and as related in her 1896 autobiography,  “Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane”:  “While on the way the greater portion of my time was spent in hunting along with the men and hunters of the party, in fact I was at all times with the men when there was excitement and adventures to be had.  By the time we reached Virginia City I was considered a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age.”  Since she is believed to have been functionally illiterate this short document was almost certainly ghostwritten, and many of the claims it makes are at odds with known facts.  For example, it states she worked as a scout under several generals (including the infamous Custer) from 1871-1873 and took part in the Indian wars; in truth, she did not secure her first scouting job until 1874.  It also attributes her nickname to an incident which supposedly occurred in 1873; my own theory is that it was actually her stage name, perhaps derived from a drunken attempt by either a client or Jane herself to say her last name.

The pamphlet did not lie about her skills, however, which were sufficient to win her a man’s job; some historians believe that she actually disguised herself as a man, and was dismissed after the truth was discovered in 1875.  In the spring of that year she accompanied General Crook to the Big Horn River, and was sent to Fort Fetterman with important dispatches; after fording the ice-cold Platte River she rode 145 km straight, and as might be expected she became seriously ill and was hospitalized for two weeks (during which time her sex was naturally discovered).  However, it is also possible that her superiors knew full well that she was a woman (see picture at right) and that she was fired for the same reason she lost so many jobs in later years:  she had a tendency to get rip-roaring drunk and start shooting at people (though she is not known to have ever hit one).  In any case, she soon ended up in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, where she met Wild Bill Hickok; she became good friends with him and accompanied him to Deadwood, South Dakota, and it is clear that she already had a reputation by this time because their arrival was announced in the July 15, 1876 Black Hills Pioneer with the headline, “Calamity Jane has arrived!”  Though Jane only knew Hickok for a few months, she fell deeply in love with him and was therefore understandably upset when he was shot in the back by Jack McCall during a poker game on August 2, 1876, even if she didn’t really go after McCall with a meat cleaver as she later recounted.  After Hickok’s death she began to claim that they had been married several years before and that she had borne him a daughter named Jean on September 25, 1873, but gave the child up for adoption when they separated.  Though this is not generally considered a credible claim, a woman named Jean Hickok (who claimed to be that very child and had an impromptu birth certificate written by a minister in a Bible) was entered into the Social Security rolls on September 6, 1941.

Jane stayed in Deadwood after Hickok’s death, supporting herself by prospecting and occasionally working for Dora DuFran, owner of Deadwood’s largest brothel.  It was during this period that she won her reputation for courage and golden-heartedness, thanks especially to two incidents in particular:  in the spring of 1877 she rescued the passengers of a stagecoach by catching up to it and taking over the reins after the driver was shot by hostile Indians, and in the autumn of 1878 she spent weeks nursing the victims of a smallpox epidemic; three men died, but the rest all survived thanks to her faithful ministrations.  She left Deadwood sometime in 1879, apparently working as an ox-team driver to earn enough to buy a ranch and inn near Miles City, Montana in 1881.  The settled life of an innkeeper did not long appeal to Jane; she sold the place only two years later and wandered across the West for a while, eventually ending up in El Paso, Texas, where she supposedly married one Clinton Burke and bore him a daughter, Jessie, on October 28th, 1887.  As usual, other records conflict with her autobiography, including court records from November 1888 stating that she did “unlawfully bed, cohabit and live together” with a man named Charles Townley; she has also been linked with a Robert Dorsett and a William Steers, all during the time she was supposedly married to Burke and running another hotel in Boulder, Colorado.  The only detail we can be sure about is that her daughter did indeed exist, because the girl accompanied her when she joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1893; Jane gave her up for adoption in October of 1895 by placing her with St. Mary’s Convent in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Calamity Jane had always been a heavy drinker, and by the time she turned 40 it was out of control; though all she had to do for Buffalo Bill was sit on a stage and tell tall tales about her supposed adventures, her drinking eventually led to his firing her for undependability and excessive use of profanity in her shows.  He had a soft spot for her, though, and always rehired her whenever she came looking for a job again.  In 1896 she worked for a circus named the Kohl & Middleton Dime Museum, which produced “Life and Adventures” as a 7-page souvenir booklet; even after she was fired by the circus for the usual reasons, she had the booklet reprinted and supported herself between gigs by selling autographed copies of it.  This went on until 1901, when she was fired from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York after being arrested for public drunkenness.  Buffalo Bill gave her the money to go home to South Dakota, where she returned to Dora DuFran’s brothel and was given a job as cook and housekeeper.  While on a visit to Terry, South Dakota, she died of “inflammation of the bowels” on August 1, 1903, and was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery next to Wild Bill Hickok.

As we’ve seen, the lives of whores are often full of conflicting details, and this is more true of Jane than of most.  Even other people’s perceptions of her varied wildly; one citizen of Deadwood later described her as “nothing more than a common prostitute, drunken, disorderly and wholly devoid of any conception of morality,” while another said she was “generous, forgiving, kind-hearted [and] sociable,” and one of her biographers stated that “her story is mostly an account of uneventful daily life interrupted by drinking binges.”  But whatever the objective truth might be, the legend of Calamity Jane – adventurer, wanderer, entertainer and golden-hearted whore – will be told and retold for as long as people write stories against the mythic backdrop of the Wild West.

Read Full Post »

Train Wreck

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2012| 7 Comments »

A pseudo-event … comes about because someone has planned it, planted, or incited it. Typically, it is not a train wreck or an earthquake, but an interview.  –  Daniel J. Boorstin

It’s rare that I present an article about sex work written by a conventional journalist which lacks any obvious flaws; most of them have several, and some are absolutely riddled with them.  But every so often I discover an article which is so absolutely packed with errors, disinformation, myths, dysphemisms, stigmatization, infantilization and just plain stupidity, that it is like a train wreck:  horrible and repellent, yet exerting a hideous fascination.  This article by Bankole Makinde in the October 14th Nigerian Tribune is just such a disaster:

…Should one take to the statements coming from Abuja commercial sex workers, then there is nothing to worry about.  One might even conclude that nothing is wrong having them around, in view of what they termed; “Our contribution to economy”…most of [them] refused to be…addressed as harlots or prostitutes, but as “marketers” who exhibit their “products” to make ends meet…

Right from the start, Makinde’s bias is clear; he obviously wants his readers to think there is something “to worry about” when some women earn a living just as some women always have since time immemorial.  To his credit, he describes the “sex hawkers” as “enterprising” without a trace of irony and mentions that many of them support aged parents, but he’s equally glad to quote outrageous rubbish like this:

A top civil servant, who spoke…on condition of anonymity, blamed the growing permissive promiscuity…on the sex hawkers…“They will leave their campuses…for Abuja by the first flight on Wednesdays and travel back by the first flight on Mondays.  The money they make from prostitution is spent on bribing their lecturers so they could be awarded marks to pass them in their courses, though some spend the money to buy drugs.  After graduation…[their clients] find jobs for them in the civil service.  Since they learnt nothing in school, they would not be able to even draft a memo”…Abuja sex hawkers don’t believe in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), they often negotiate with their customers based on whether they (the customers) want to use condom or not.  Aside that the customers must be ready to do vigil making love to them otherwise they could lose all their valuables before dawn…they are not afraid of being used for rituals too…

In other words, they’re all stupid, drug-addicted, ignorant, diseased, jet-setting thieves and witches.  Makinde also seems to consider it astonishing that “some of [them] have…organised themselves into cooperative societies,” and willfully misinterprets their stated motivations to declare that “the reason why many of them took to it had nothing to do with money”:

“…if you are lucky to locate one guy that could satisfy you, you don’t bother disturbing him to give you money…Same reason, I’m sure drove many girls into it”…

Sounds like money to me.

…another student…said she was into prostitution because she was the breadwinner of her family since she lost her father six years ago…“I have vowed that all my younger ones must be graduates, so that they won’t experience what I am experiencing presently.  So, I must work very hard now when I am still capable and able.”

Yep, that sounds like money, too.  Of course, “many people” (i.e, many non-sex workers) who spoke to the reporter offered their ignorant opinion “that the ladies were involved in the dangerous trade because of greed,” which is what people call the desire to earn a decent income when the person with that drive is a woman; in a man, the same thing is called “ambition.”  Still, you’re probably thinking that this article isn’t all that bad, and that you’ve read worse in American media.  And that would be true so far, but we’re just getting to the good part.  Above we were told that whores are witches, and now we see that they’re affiliated with another dangerous sexual “cult”:

…prostitution…seems to have taken another dimension as cults of lesbians and gays in the [Federal Capital Territory] have emerged.  Many people dressed in sexually attractive attires…could be seen in the public cuddling and kissing one another in various parks and recreation gardens in the city…When contacted on how to tackle the social menace, the Director of Social Welfare Services…Mrs Folashade Ayileka, said the secretariat was helpless.  “They…have their rights guaranteed in the constitution; so, you cannot force them out of Abuja but continue to sensitise them to the dangers inherent in the business.  The other time we raided a popular brothel…we rounded up many of them and asked them to convince Nigerians on why they should continue with the illicit act…we found out that over 90 per cent of them were not even from FCT but from Lagos, Benin, Jos, Kano, Port Harcourt and so on”…

The horror!  The horror!  Roving gay and lesbian cultists canoodling in parks, and it’s all those dirty whores’ fault!  And some of them weren’t even from the capital, but from other cities!!!! I weep for Nigeria (weep I tell you!) and especially for the children.  WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

…On what government is doing to stem the tide and bring the ladies out of prostitution, Mrs Ayileka, said that her organisation was…[looking for] a lasting solution to the problem…“At Bwari rehabilitation centre…we graduated 407 women [this year], among them were 137 repentant sex workers.  We attend to other categories of women too such as vulnerable women and single mothers that could be attracted to night life.  So, rather than allow them to get to that life, we decided to create an intervention method.  We believe that if we empower the mother, the child would be off the streets”…

So first hookers were a gang, then a cult, and now a “tide”.  The use of the word “repentant” demonstrates that it’s a sinful tide, full of skinny-dipping floozies, hussies and jezebels who fall into the dirty, scummy water and flail helplessly about until they’re rescued by Mrs. Ayileka, who at least is thinking of the children.

…The National Human Rights Commission has, however, frowned at the way and manner sex hawkers and other women are being arrested in Abuja…and…pleaded with the minister to…“repudiate this pattern of official misconduct and bring it to an end promptly.”

You have just read the one entirely sane passage in this entire disaster, but it doesn’t last long; Makinde wraps up the spectacle by referring to sex workers as “women of easy virtue”, apparently with a straight face.  That’s more than I can say for myself; it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed so hard at something which was clearly intended to be serious.

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#46)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2012| 42 Comments »

I am a sex worker and I make my money from clients seeing me. Some clients just happen to have a disability.  –  Rachel Wotton

When Someone You Love is A Sex Worker

Do you have a sex worker in your family, or are you in a relationship with one?  If so, Stacey Swimme of SWOP would like to talk to you.  She’s writing a book called When Someone You Love is A Sex Worker, which is intended to support family members and partners, and she recently sent out an email to ask for input:

…I am inviting family members, partners, lovers and friends of sex workers to be interviewed for my book.  I’m looking for examples of challenges as well as successes.  I want to hear about your fears, disagreements and compromises with the sex worker(s) in your life.  It would be a privilege to include your perspective if you have time to do a short interview (about 15-30 minutes) on one of the four dates below.  You do not have to provide any identifying information.  You’re welcome to provide a fake name…

The four dates are Wednesday November 14th (at 11AM, 11:40AM, 12:30PM and 1:15PM), Wednesday November 21st (same time slots), Monday November 26th (at 9AM, 9:40AM, 10:30AM and 11:15AM) and Tuesday November 27th (same time slots).  If you’re interested please email StaceySwimme@gmail.com  with your preferred name, age, city and times from the list that work for you.

Updates

Bad Girls

…farmers are losing thousands of shillings to prostitutes in [Kenya]… social services chairperson Elizabeth Kibii…said the department has received many complaints from farmers who have been robbed… “They either lace the drink with drugs that will make you unconscious or they send one of their own to the room early and hide under the bed.  And when he and her partner are busy, the one under the bed walks away secretly with the money”…

All in the Family

Australian whore and activist Grace Bellavue uses the intense story of how she came out to her parents as a springboard for a discussion of whore stigma, in which she convincingly argues that those who oppose prostitution should actually be fighting that stigma rather than perpetuating it.  It’s powerful and well worth a read, but skip the comment thread.

Reaction Formation

This sort of story is only “shocking” to the psychologically and sexually illiterate:

An ordained counselor dedicated to “freeing” people from homosexuality has been arrested on charges of molesting…young men…Rev. Ryan J. Muelhauser …was connected with OutPost Ministry…[and] allegedly fondled two young men  who were seeking to “cure” themselves of homosexuality, as well as asking them to masturbate for him…

Furthermore, “leading a crusade” against any form of sexual behavior should be considered probable cause for suspicion of practicing that behavior:

A former top [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] official who helped lead the [South Florida] crusade against child sexual exploitation was sentenced…on a child pornography charge.  Anthony V. Mangione…possessed up to 150 images of child pornography, some depicting the “extreme abuse of children”…

Crying Wolf

Neofeminist fanatics who foam at the mouth about “rape culture”, insist that normal economic needs constitute “coercion” and pretend that compliments are a form of “violence against women” need to have stories like this one drilled into their brains:

Mah Gul, 20, was beheaded after her mother-in-law attempted to make her sleep with a man in her house in [Afghanistan]…Gul was married to her husband four months ago and her mother-in-law had tried to force her into prostitution several times in the past…The suspect, Najibullah…said the mother-in-law lured him into killing Gul by telling him that she was a prostitute…

That is what sexual coercion, forced prostitution and violence against women actually look like.

My Readers Write

Aspasia writes in her own blog on would-be allies and “concerned parties” who expect sex worker activists to spoon-feed them the way prohibitionists do, and why it’s a bad idea to cater to their demands.

Don’t Confuse Us With Facts

Dean Boland, the lawyer who was fined $300,000 for demonstrating the absurdity of America’s draconian “child pornography” laws, has lost his appeal; the judges ruled that there really is such a thing as sympathetic magic, so that altering the images of children actually and literally harmed them in some tangible way.  So much for science, logic or common sense.

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

Another “dog bites man” study:

…a group of boys ages 8 to 11 whose fetal testosterone had been measured from amniotic fluid when their mothers were 13-20 weeks pregnant…were shown pictures of negative (fearful), positive (happy), neutral, or scrambled faces while a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine tracked changes in their brain activity.  In the boys who had higher levels of fetal testosterone, the brain’s reward system was more responsive to positive…facial cues…[suggesting] those boys have a greater proclivity for “approach-related behaviors,” such as fun-seeking and impulsivity…

Useful Idiots

The US government’s scheme to collect and indefinitely retain DNA from virtually anyone has been challenged a number of times since it was first slipped into the Trojan Horse Act of 2005, and the Supreme Court has finally deigned to rule on it:  “…at least 21 states and the federal government have regulations requiring suspects to give a DNA sample upon arrest…[which is then] cataloged in state and federal crime-fighting databases…the justices opted to take on an April decision…from Maryland’s top court, which said it was a breach of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure to take, without warrants, DNA samples from suspects who have not been convicted…”

The Pygmalion Fallacy

The “sex robot” morons are at it again:

Could sex with robots help extend human life spans?  Some futurists seem to think so. A Nov. 7 article on the futurist website Transhumanity argues that robot lovers could help extend life spans by giving users mind-blowing “longevity orgasms” far superior in quality to those from human…partners…”[Sexbots will] be more desirable, patient, eager, and altruistic than their meat-bag competition, plus they’ll be uploaded with supreme sex-skills from millennia of erotic manuals, archives and academic experiments, and their anatomy will feature sexplosive devices…They’ll offer us quadruple-tongued cunnilingus, open-throat silky fellatio, deliriously gentle kissing, transcendent nipple tweaking, g-spot massage & prostate milking dexterity, plus 2,000 varieties of coital rhythm with scented lubes“…

Is it just me, or does this one-handed typist sound badly in need of a girlfriend?

Confined and Controlled

The inevitable result of busybody laws which treat women as helpless victims of male sexuality:

[Toronto] City council…adopted…changes to…regulations…Now…strippers can’t sit on patrons’ laps or make contact with breasts, buttocks or pubic areas.  And rooms, booths or cubicles for private dances have to be transparent on one side…As the Licensing and Standards Committee was formulating the amendments…its staff consulted with us…but…management at the club I worked in…[collected the surveys] and [filled] them out on our behalf.  The manager told me…“This has nothing to do with what you think they want…They want the girls to see all these stupid questions so they can answer, ‘Oh, people touching me…Oh, I don’t like the dark.’  Then they come in the court and say, ‘Look, the girls don’t like the business’”…The city’s data shows that 98 per cent of respondents in the surveys submitted by the [club owner’s association] denied ever being sexually assaulted or touched without their consent, while 67 per cent of strippers who submitted surveys themselves said they had been…

If governments didn’t persecute adult businesses, managers would have no cause to worry and standards could be determined by the sex workers’ needs rather than those of the managers or prohibitionists, who both use the women as pawns in their power game.

Imagination Pinned Down

Quote from the snake catcher himself on a snake expert’s message board:  “Sorry but this is ridiculous, I was the one who caught this snake, never did I say anything like that, in fact I stressed to her that it was incredibly unusual for that to happen and quietly doubted it even occurred as she told it.”

The Public Eye

Burlesque as a hobby is less stigmatized than professional stripping, Portland, Maine is unusually tolerant, and a seat on the school board isn’t exactly high office, but it’s still amazing this happened at all:  “…Holly Seeliger, a 26-year-old teacher and burlesque dancer, won the District 2 seat on the Portland Board of Public Education, getting 59 percent of the vote…”

Metaupdates

No Other Option (Updates Galore, Part One)

Rachel Wotton’s wonderful charity “Touching Base”, which connects disabled people with sex workers who specialize in helping them, has experienced an upsurge of publicity due in part to the documentary Scarlet Road and in part to the movie The Sessions, which I’ll be discussing in a column two weeks from now.  I hope this sympathetic and respectful article in The Age calls even more attention to it, and that one day the US may grow up enough for a branch of the organization to operate here.

Blackball (TW3 #33)

Douglas Fox of Harlot’s Parlour shared an essay written by a male escort named Steve, which demonstrates  how governments can ruin a simple idea used effectively by individuals and peer groups for decades:

There’s been a lot of hype about the Nationwide Ugly Mugs Scheme [but it’s useless to most sex workers]…Take…[this] recent…complaint [from] a male sex worker who didn’t get paid by a client who was drunk and told him he kept a knife [nearby]…Extracts from the warning read:  “business was agreed to take place at the man’s home which was a flat in a communal block in Basildon…He is described as; 45-49, White, 5ft 9, stocky, shaven grey/white hair, blue eyes and pale complexion, with a local accent and scars to his torso”…No address, no phone number, nothing.  Sex workers…need to access real information if we are to protect ourselves.  Phone numbers…that look like…“0*********1″ do nothing to help…there are probably about 200 similar blocks of flats in Basildon…[and] the description sounds like every other client who has walked through my door in the last two weeks…

The organization which administers the NUM project made this (typically political) response.

Down Under (TW3 #43)

The Australian government has axed its “Cleanfeed” porn-filtering plan that’s been shrouded in a campaign to fight spam and malware.  Backers…pushed the idea for the last five years claiming that the Cleanfeed filter would protect children from predators…The filter even passed a government trial and was expected to be adopted… [but a backlash started] when a secret…Communications and Media Authority blacklist of targeted websites…was outed by Wikileaks…Cleanfeed was opposed by online consumers, lobby groups, ISPs, network administrators, some children’s welfare groups, Google, the U.S. Ambassador to Australia, and a number of government officials.  Opponents…feared the filtering would foster Internet censorship and new online restrictions…

The More the Better (TW3 #45)

Apparently some Greek officials believe in “sex rays”, even if the people don’t:

…local officials insisted that a primary school return [brothel owner Soula Alevridou’s] donation…[of] €3,000 to cover the costs of [a] photocopier and a small library…the school was grateful…[but officials were embarrassed by] a brothel madam stepping into a gap created by fiscal recklessness and state profligacy…”We must protect our children,” [said provincial director of education Giorgos Panayiotopoulos]…

This Week in 2010 and 2011

I presented biographies of Mata Hari and Veronica Franco, looked at whore-hatred in World War II France, contemporary Iceland and a fictional future, and examined the truth about federal “sex trafficking” stings, the use of “Swedish model” rhetoric in American police departments, the campaign against Backpage and a fake escort blogger.  I also discussed cops who rape, the increasing number of academics telling the truth about sex work, the reason sex worker rights have languished while gay rights thrived, and the difference in sex work news stories between Europe and the US, and featured short items on internet censorship, the government’s intentional hiding of information on “missing children”, the underuse of HPV vaccines, weird search terms, a murderous proposal and “don’t panic” plans.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »