I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
I wanted him to have a positive view of police…we ended up going to [the] emergency room. – Shelia Jackson
I hadn’t realized that classical Greece had an early form of pipe organ, the hydraulis; thanks to Genya for drawing my attention to this recording of a reconstructed example of the instrument. The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel, Amy Alkon, Cop Crisis (x3), Dan Savage, and Lenore Skenazy, in that order.
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Lord hear me. Lord hear me. – Christian Glass, last words
Shel Silverstein is best known by some for Where the Sidewalk Ends and other books of poetry for children; he’s best remembered by others for his songs, including “A Boy Named Sue”, “The Unicorn”, and “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” (a personal favorite of mine). But he also wrote and recorded poems with musical accompaniment, of which this is certainly the most memorable. The links above it were provided by Mark Bennett, Franklin Harris, Scott Greenfield, Radley Balko, Mike Siegel, Cop Crisis, and Greg Lukianoff, in that order.
Addison County [Vermont] Sheriff Peter Newton…[refused] to…resign…[despite] fac[ing multiple] counts of sexual assault…and domestic assault. [Newton downplayed his crimes as merely going]…“too far” during sexual encounters…[after he] left [his victim] with pain and bruises, threatened her, and said no one would believe her if she stepped forward…he [also]…“told her ‘she was crazy’ and she ‘dreamt it’,” she said…“He’s a predator…It’s not just him, it’s the entire sheriff’s department because they knew he used his position to get women”…
Kyoto Prefectural Police arrested Masayuki Nakamoto…[for] selling copies of adult videos…that he had altered to appear uncensored. Japanese adult videos are required by law to obscure the performers’ genitals, with placing a mosaic over them the most common form of compliance…since the mosaic is hard-coded into the image of the commercially released video, it can’t really be removed. Instead, Nakamoto used an A.I. program, which via machine learning gained an understanding of what uncensored genitals look like, then used that knowledge to create a photorealistic simulated visual representation…[which he] placed…over the mosaic, making the on-screen performers appear completely uncensored…judge Shinsuke Danjo sentenced him to two years in prison, with the sentence suspended for three years…and…also fined [him] two million yen (roughly US$15,000)…
Three members of [a] social media [clique named “Dads Against Predators”]…lured…a [younger] man to a North Carolina [Target] store [on June 28th] before attacking him…The man reportedly fired a gun…to try to stop the beating…but…the g[ang] continued to beat the man, [stole] his gun and left…[cops claim] they have identified three men responsible for [the attack]…which…[left] the…25-year-old [victim]…with minor injuries…
The victim’s age leads me to believe that this gang’s tactics were copied from similar scams by cops.
…in prison, many people are served meals that are altogether inedible…women at Virginia’s Fluvanna C[age Stack are often]…provided food that is moldy, rotten…spoiled…[and] roach[-infested. When edible, t]he portions are “toddler size”…people in prison are routinely forced to pick through bugs and mold at meal time. A 2017 survey of more than 100 incarcerated people in almost two dozen states found that over 65 percent of respondents had been served food not intended for humans, or that was moldy, spoiled, or had [maggots or other] bugs in it. Most states spend less than $3 a day on food per incarcerated person…To survive these conditions, incarcerated people might try to smuggle some of the more edible food from the mess hall into their cell—maybe a banana or an orange. But these items are [deem]ed contraband, which [provides a convenient excuse for further torture by screws] if they’re found…Incarcerated people are over six times more likely than those in the community to contract a foodborne illness…
…Cops are having panic attacks upon encountering fentanyl because they believe they are overdosing. The symptoms seem to never match up with those of an actual opiate overdose. For one thing, these reports of overdoses never include the officer reporting a wave of euphoria before collapsing (there’s a reason people use opiates). Reports often do not include the blue lips and fingernails, the limp body, and the reduced heart rate consistent with opiate overdoses. It’s pretty clear that police…are simply suffering panic attacks—quite possibly because they…heard all those previous stories about these kinds of impossible overdoses…
As highly visible and politicized book bans have exploded across the country, librarians — accustomed to being seen as dedicated public servants in their communities — have found themselves on the front lines of an acrimonious culture war, with their careers and their personal reputations at risk. They have been labeled pedophiles on social media…[and persecuted] by local politicians…[mob] members have tried to seek criminal charges against librarians…Many librarians have quit — or lost their jobs — after clashes over books. Suzette Baker was fired from her job at the head of Kingsland Library branch in Llano County, Tex., after she repeatedly refused to [censor] books as [politicians] had demanded, according to a lawsuit. The suit was filed this spring by residents against [politicians who are]…violat[ing] the First Amendment by censoring books…
The trajectory of access to abortion pills in Brazil may offer insight into how medication abortion can become out of reach and what can happen when it does. While surgical abortion was the original target of Brazil’s abortion ban, the proscription expanded after medication abortion became more common, leading to the situation today where drug [deal]ers control most access to the pills. Women who procure them have no guarantee of the safety or authenticity of what they are taking, and if they have complications, they fear seeking help…black market misoprostol, brought in from India, Mexico and Argentina, is sold for anywhere from about $200 to $400 for the eight tablets recommended for an abortion, compared with less than $15 for a 60-pill bottle in the United States…
You’re gonna get tased, get on the ground now. – murderer Joshua Wang
I’ve been thinking about the Southern Gothic aesthetic a great deal lately (probably because my thoughts often turn to New Orleans in Mardi Gras week), and I realized that though I’ve mentioned this song before, I’ve never featured the video. It’s probably one of the saddest and most enigmatic of all American popular songs, by one of the most brilliant singer-songwriters the country ever produced. The links above the video were provided by Franklin Harris, Jesse Walker, Emma Evans, Scott Greenfield, and Phoenix Calida (x2), in that order.
A new study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that [legal minors] who were legally required to register as sex offenders were at greater risk for harm, including suicide attempts and sexual assault, compared to a group of [minors] who engaged in harmful or illegal sexual behavior but who were not required to register…The study found that registered [minors] were four times as likely to report a recent suicide attempt in the last 30 days, compared to nonregistered [minors. They]…were nearly twice as likely to have experienced a sexual assault and were five times as likely to have been approached by an adult for sex in the past year….[they] also reported higher rates of other mental health problems, more peer relationship problems, more experiences with peer violence and a lower sense of safety…
The study inexplicably and inaccurately refers to all of its subjects as “children” even though most of them are young [teenage] adults.
Anahí Berneri…focuses her lens on a young prostitute in Buenos Aires who struggles to make ends meet in the face of a police force that declares her profession legal, but closes down the brothel where she works…Sofía Gala Castaglione’s performance alongside her real-life son often feels like a documentary. She imbues Alanis with spunk and determination while allowing for moments of heartbreaking vulnerability. After two [vice pigs] conduct a sting, posing as potential clients, she is kicked out of the apartment she lives and works out of. Her friend and roommate Gisela (Dana Basso) is [caged] for running a brothel out of her home which leaves Alanis out on the street without money, clothes, or diapers. She turns to her aunt for a place to stay and looks for a less volatile line of work, but desperation and the promise of quick cash draws her back to sex work…
What is believed to be the longest sentence anywhere in the United States for human trafficking was given out on Tuesday in [Denver]…Brock Franklin was sentenced to 472 years for operating an organized crime ring that put females into prostitution. He was designated a habitual offender…
472 years? Really? This is patently absurd; if they wanted the guy locked in a cage forever, there’s a sentence called “life without parole”, but I guess that doesn’t produce as much amusement value at drinking parties. Does anyone need any more evidence that this is a sick game for prosecutors? The attorney general of Colorado said this sentence “sends a message”, and she’s right; the message is, “all prosecutors are sociopaths”.
In the minds of many clinicians, involvement in sexwork…is seen as a hallmark sign of behavioral health disturbance, typically associated with severe substance use disorders…Today, amidst a nationwide campaign about human trafficking, many therapists grow concerned that a patient involved in sexwork has been subjected to human trafficking…However…investigation of various risk factors for sexwork, such as drugs, mental health problems, or economic/social vulnerability, have not found consistent or replicated indicators. Increasingly, individuals consensually involved in various aspects of sexwork are seeking mental health support, and experiencing stigma, assumptions, and judgment from their clinicians…
The estate of a [sex worker murdered] by a [client] in a…Portland hotel in 2014 has filed a $3.6 million lawsuit against the owners of the Hilton hotel chain and Backpage.com…[claiming]…Ashley Benson…was forced to appear in multiple ads for sex on Backpage.com…Her killer, Tae Bum Yoon…met with her repeatedly, stalked her, monitored her activity and tracked her whereabouts for several months through the website, the lawsuit said. He became upset when he saw her [touring] in Austin, Texas. He used a stolen identity to check into the DoubleTree on Christmas Day 2014 and lure Benson there, the lawsuit said…
If you follow the links back, you’ll see that the greedy family got the “sex trafficking” narrative from the pigs, who started publicly wanking to “trafficking” fantasies over Benson’s corpse before it was even cold.
…Lindy Lou Layman, a 29-year-old Dallas court reporter, was on [a first] date with attorney Anthony Buzbee on Dec. 23 when she…became intoxicated, hid from [Buzbee] inside his own $14 million mansion, and, when he tried twice to get her an Uber ride home, started attacking his art…she was charged with felony criminal mischief after allegedly tearing three paintings off the wall, pouring an unidentified liquid on them, and destroying two abstract sculptures by “throwing them across the room”…two of the paintings were original Warhols valued at $500,000 apiece. The sculptures…were worth $20,000 each…
…In Brazil, sex work remains politically and socially contentious. But thanks to a staunch sex worker movement in the country, the people who actually do the work have made themselves key contributors to the debate. It…has…fought tirelessly for the full recognition of sex work as a profession. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that movement…In July 1987, sex workers Gabriela Leite and Lourdes Barreto held the first national meeting for Brazil’s prostitutes. It resulted in the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes (BNP) as well as the publication of a newsletter Beijo da Rua (Kiss from the Street). The BNP’s mission was to build a new discourse of prostitution, not tied to crime or victimisation…
…In April 2006, [Utah jailer William] Lawrence handcuffed a woman in his apartment…and [raped her]…He also showed the woman a badge and threatened to take her to jail and call the Division of Child and Family Services if she didn’t comply…Lawrence pleaded guilty to forcible sex abuse, a third-degree felony, in 2007. In exchange for his guilty plea, a charge of forcible sodomy was dropped. He failed to show up for sentencing in April 2008, so a warrant was issued for his arrest. In October…investigators discovered that Lawrence had created a fake identity and was living in Hawaii. He was arrested there without incident last month…
Here’s another exercise in cop-fellation and myth-regurgitation masquerading as journalism. Do prohibitionists have so little to talk about that they need to keep rehashing a two-year-old story as though it happened yesterday? Are they so intellectually and morally bankrupt that they really don’t think it’s necessary to fact-check a self-congratulatory piece of racist, anti-sex propaganda when there are plenty of actual facts, including Liz Brown’s savage debunking of Seattle’s official claims, to be found all over the internet? This moral panic needs to hurry up and die already, because judging by the stench it’s already putrefying.
The Reno Police Department received reports of “at least 14 [non-] incidents” in the area over the past month of women [imagining they were] being followed by suspicious subjects…Lt. Zack Thew said…all incidents had one common thread: No…crimes were committed…[but] “We are treating this as a top priority [anyhow]”…He said some of the suspicious subjects were reported as…”[talking] on a cell phone”…Some women have been with their children at the time of the reported [non-] incident…In the majority of [non-] incidents…there was no contact between the [supposedly] suspicious person and the woman…
The idea that being within sight of a woman while talking on a phone constitutes a “suspicious incident” is ludicrous even by “sex trafficking” standards.
…The numbers are increasing instead of decreasing…President Trump confidently noted the number of slaves globally as 27 million…That number was inaccurate when it was anecdotally concocted years ago by Kevin Bales…It is a bogus number. With mass migrations, internet generated trafficking, and sophisticated terrorist networks financially fueled by human trafficking, that number was exponentially higher when concocted, and more so, today…The heartbreaking truth of the human trafficking sex trade is that women and girls are repeatedly raped, and get pregnant multiple times. [A US State Department RFP] creates a loophole that could permit multiple serial abortions to be paid for with U.S. funds. This is a perverse result that benefits pimps and traffickers by returning their “productive assets” to them for further pimping…the…RFP as currently written could create a giant Fund that supports the aggressive “pro-sex work” stance of many organizations and governments around the world…[it] would permit an organization that promotes prostitution…to receive funds as long as they don’t use USG money to promote prostitution and its decriminalization, legalization, and unionization. This would position a pro-prostitution organization to build its stature and influence by rescuing children from sex trafficking while simultaneously using that influence to promote older child and adult prostitution as a legitimate form of labor…
For that number to be “exponentially higher”, literally 5% or more of the world’s population would need to be “slaves”. Methinks Dolan needs to put down her Hitachi and pick up her calculator before submitting another such absurd masturbatory fantasy for publication.
Refugees and illegal immigrants are increasingly engaged in prostitution in Finland. While the exact extent of the shadow market remains to be estimated, this phenomenon is getting increasingly popular, as selling sex has proven to be a real way of earning money…about 70 percent of all workers in the sex market are foreigners, but recently asylum seekers and illegal immigrants have joined their ranks…migrants in Finland often have two alternatives, to seek employment in the shadow economy for a measly pay of several euros per hour or go into prostitution, which is paid much more generously…
A Denver district court jury awarded a former escort $1.7 million in damages…after concluding that one of her clients, a high end Denver attorney, was guilty of outrageous conduct and invading the woman’s privacy by “outing” her to her family, friends and colleagues…In November of 2013, she was contacted…by Sean Saxon, a Denver attorney who specialized in drug and medical device litigation…within a short time it turned romantic…But…Saxon…became angry and violent at times, and would threaten to expose her…Dildine broke off the relationship and asked Saxon to leave her alone…he refused, continuing to stalk her and threaten her with exposure. Eventually, Saxon followed through on his threats, sending a letter to Dildine’s mother and father, brother and other relatives describing her life as a prostitute, including revealing sexual photos of her, and online reviews of her sexual services. He sent the same packet to her classmates and teacher at a Denver aesthetician school she attended, describing her as “a mid- level prostitute. I have attached her escort profile, some of her twitter posts, and some of the on- line reviews she has received for her activities,” wrote Saxon. “I should warn you that much of it is rather pathetically pornographic”…
…According to Madera [California] Police Sgt. Daniel Foss, the department has been dealing with the sex industry on the Internet, and is facing the challenges Internet-driven prostitution poses. “It’s made it more difficult for the fact prostitutes used to be contained in one area fairly well,” Foss said, “and if they went outside that area. [sic] it was immediately obvious to everybody. Now they’re everywhere”…These women, Foss said, operate by an “in-call/out-call” system. In an out-call solicitation, the girl, usually delivered by her pimp, will come to the client; in an in-call solicitation, the client makes the order, and goes to the girl. It’s common during an in-call visit, according to Foss, for the pimp to wait outside for the client to finish…on the Internet…victims of sex trafficking are able to be hidden by their pimps. They are also able to advertise them as adults…
You can hear the fapping as Foss fantasizes that every sex worker has a “pimp” lurking about; the thought clearly excites him almost as much as his delusion that in the past, whores were “obvious to everybody” if we wandered out of the ghettos he imagines we were confined to.
Many of those working in America’s spas and massage parlors are Asian immigrants…and…many…police departments routinely conduct raids on spas and massage parlors. These raids, purported to curb human trafficking, have resulted in the arrests of many Asian immigrants…Some of these immigrants reside in the spa in which they work. When the spa is shut down, they can be rendered both jobless and homeless. For those who are the sole income provider for their families, they and their families are left destitute…they are…swept up and arrested indiscriminately and they become deportable, regardless of whether or not they are documented immigrants. The charge…is “unauthorized practice of a profession”…a felony…In the era of travel bans and Trump’s crackdown…even some supporters of immigrants are latching onto the “good immigrant” vs. “bad immigrant” narrative in an effort to save the so-called good immigrants…mass arrest is not the answer…
As the pogroms continue over the next few years, keep essays like this, appearing in mainstream media, in mind. We are winning, and this will eventually all be a bad memory just as anti-gay pogroms mostly are now.
…in August 2015, Amnesty International…announced it would join the effort to decriminalize sex work. In May 2016, the group released its official policy paper on the issue. The 17-page document states that continuing to treat sex work as a crime infringes on the human rights of consenting adults…Patricia Schulz, a United Nations gender-equality expert…lays out the cost of ignoring those recommendations. “When prostitution is criminalized, sex workers risk being abused…They risk being [raped by] police workers. If they’re brought to detention, they might be raped by other inmates…There’s a whole series of violations of their rights arising from the situation.” This insight comes after years of hearing from sex workers in many countries, studying the issue and, she says, “traveling a long way” from her initial view on the matter…
The number of prostitutes in Iceland has increased substantially recently, according to Inspector Snorri Birgisson, at the Reykjavík…Police Department. That is evident…from websites where escort services are advertised…The number of registrations at one website has increased five-fold in a year and a half. Snorri believes there is a strong connection between the increased influx of tourists in the country and prostitution. This, he said, is the dark side of tourism, which must be discussed. He stated that the women involved in prostitution now come from other countries than before…
[Detroit cop] Thomas Pedersen…pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct…[and] sentenced to 42 months to 15 years in prison. He will have to register as a sex offender when he is released and will be under life-time electronic monitoring…Pedersen…[admitted to raping] a girl younger than 13 for nearly six years…
…the Olympic Games was a highly anticipated business opportunity in Brazil…Yet many of the sex workers who anxiously awaited the boon from foreign clientele found that it did not materialise. Only a few benefited financially from the event, while [prohibitionists]…urged authorities to crack down on “sex tourism”. [One brothel’s]…manager …said…”it is an illusion that FIFA or the Olympics are good for business. This is a myth. Some of the biggest [sex-related] businesses in Ipanema went bankrupt during the games. And now it is worse”…Instead, what surfaced was a heightened security presence in the street, provided in part by Centro Presente – a quasi-public police force, partially funded by the local commercial and business association…
An initiative to ban safe-injection sites in King County [Washington] was announced Thursday. The proposed initiative requires signatures from 47,443 valid county voters to qualify for the November ballot, said its chief sponsor…Joshua Freed…Freed…said…“I don’t want to see heroin-injection sites”…He said he’d prefer [cops to harass doctors who]…prescrib[e] opiates…The initiative would ban public consumption of heroin and all federal Schedule I drugs except marijuana…[another supporter of the ban is politician Mark] Miloscia…an outspoken opponent of safe-injection sites…[who] unsuccessfully propos[ed] a bill in the Legislature to ban them. He also wrote a letter urging the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene and stop the sites. Miloscia…[is also] an opponent of marijuana legalization and an advocate of tighter restrictions on alcohol…[he believes] we should “stigmatize people who get hooked on drugs to get into treatment”…He argued that hard-drug users need to face the threat of criminal sanctions to be steered into treatment…
My Red Light was supposed to be a brothel run by sex workers. Well, that failed…There’s an entire board of so called “experts” in a “Council of Supervision” who have the real power and control over this brothel. These people include…a former public prosecutor…But no sex workers…because they didn’t get through the “screening”…The working conditions are the same, since they do exactly the same thing as other brothel operators. There is absolutely nothing new about this…The rental conditions are mostly either the same or much worse than with other brothels…
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