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Posts Tagged ‘brothels’

The new [Belgian] scheme seems…to grant government too much say in the employer-employee relationship.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Above the Law

Your “leaders” at work:

German…politician…Martin Neumaier…was [featured] in…several videos and photos…performing…fetishistic acts [which] began to circulate this week…the media was verified as authentic…[and Neumaier] said he had filmed them “voluntarily and with pleasure,” adding that all viewers…“had the right to…publish it wherever they see fit.”  In one of the videos, Neumaier could be seen naked while reciting the first verse of Nazi-era German national anthem and using an anal dildo…in another, Neumaier inserted a feces-covered dildo into his rectum before smearing it on a Quran.  In other videos, Neumaier was heard expressing his desire to “rape to death” one of the 12 wives of the Prophet Mohammed, smearing feces on his face and body, and licking public toilet seats…[now another] politician…[named Rene Dierkes claims] he ha[s] evidence [of] Neumaier…procuring young boys for sexual abuse…Neumaier [has in response] filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons alleging blackmail…

Business As Usual

As long as sex work is criminalized, rapist cops will target sex workers:

A [typical and representative Florida cop named]…Stephen Corbin [h]as…be[en]…arrested…[for attem]ting [to] sexual[ly] assault…at…[least two sex workers in Daytona Beach].  Sheriff Mike Chitwood [used the occasion to bloviate a lot of pompous nonsense one could barely believe was spewed by a grown adult]…Corbin…threaten[ed] the women [with arrest]…and [has apparently] picked…up [sex workers] in [the past] and [properly] paid for sex…

The Face of Trafficking 

Oh look, she managed to call for help without “hotlines” and magic bathroom stickers:

A 17-year-old girl was able to save herself from [an abductor] by texting 911…with “pleas for help” around 3 a.m. on May 9…[in] Ventura County [California.  She]…began texting landmarks and other “identifiable information” she was seeing, which helped the agency quickly dispatch deputies to the correct area…Investigators…believe…[she] was [brought] to Ventura County roughly two months ago from Mexico.  She has been placed with the county’s Children & Family Services until authorities can locate her family…[cops] arrested Gerardo Cruz…his bail is set at half a million dollars…

The story repeatedly uses the words “trafficking” and “trafficked”, but in the absence of information about the purpose and manner of the abduction, more neutral words are called for to avoid making the girl the unwilling subject of prohibitionist wanking fantasies.

Little Boxes (#837)

The shittiest-paying sex work ever:

…many of OnlyFans’ top earners…hire…a management agency to help keep up with…customers’ demands for personal attention…they…provide…a team of contractors whose sole job is to masquerade as the creator while swapping DMs with her subscribers…agencies tend to favor contractors who reside in lower-wage countries…like the Philippines and Venezuela…these workers are relatively well-educated, with university-level English and ace typing skills that some developed in high-pressure call centers…Even for positions with a starting hourly wage of just $2, agencies often demand…evidence that applicants ha[ve] not only chatted on OnlyFans before but had also cajoled subscribers into purchasing thousands of dollars’ worth of so-called exclusive content…

Welcome to the Future (#1052)

Cop excuses produced by human bootlickers are bad enough:

…giant [fascist corporation] Axon [has] announced Draft One, a new product that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo to automatically generate police reports from…bodycam audio.  The product promises to make police…reports…[more] helpful in…prosecution [rather than more factually accurate]…the user [has] to select what…[level of] severity [they want] the [report spin to justify], be that no charge, an infraction, a misdemeanor, or a felony…[cops are supposed] to proofread the draft, make any corrections, and sign off on its accuracy….Matthew Guariglia…at…the Electronic Frontier Foundation [said]…“Policing, with its legal power to kill, detain, or ultimately deny people’s freedom, is too powerful an institution to outsource its official narratives to technologies in a way that makes officers immune to critique, transparency, or accountability because they have…plausible deniability that they…were not aware of mistakes the [algorithm] made”…

The Cop Myth (#1432)

Cop violence is never limited to members of the public:

A Prince George’s County [cop] has been suspended and placed on house arrest fo[r attacking his wife on May 14th]…Robert Harvin III smash[ed] his wife’s iPhone and assault[ed] her after she…caught him on the phone with his mistress…Harvin…pushed her, dragged her to the floor and…choke[d her]…once she was able to break free, she grabbed Harvin’s…police radio and called for help.  Harvin [absurdly] claims the [violence] was “mutual, like Matrix”…[but his own] Google Nest kitchen camera revealed…Harvin’s wife “yelling and screaming for him to get away from her.”  Their doorbell camera footage also shows him “actively assaulting [his wife] by dragging and punching her”…

Nor is it limited to male cops:

Two [married] Detroit [cops have been] suspended [and] charged with child abuse….Jared…and Liana Shaw…are…[typical] and…representative…and…both…[aggressively choked] Liana’s two children…a 12-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl….[because the] son…tried to intervene when the pair had been fighting…[the boy’s] grandmother…called the cops when she saw what was happening.  The two children are staying with her while this case works its way through the courts.  Three of Jared’s children have also been placed with relatives.  The Shaws…bond[ed out and are currently at large]…

Leaving the 20th Century (#1438)

Looks like I was wrong about Belgian decrim:

…Belgium…is trying to bring sex workers into “social protection” programs and employee benefits…The decriminalization law was a first step to making sex workers eligible for such things.  The second step was the law…that The Publica makes sound like a horrifying, dystopian mess…Under the decriminalized system, sex workers could be self-employed, and they could hire third parties to help them in various ways.  They could also be freelance workers in an establishment run by someone else.  But sex workers could not themselves be employees.  Under the new law, “sex workers will also be able to work under an employment contract, thus gaining access to social security: pension, unemployment, health insurance, family benefits, annual vacation, maternity leave,” according to UTSOPI…the law imposes obligations on both businesses that employ sex workers and on sex workers who work for those businesses…we’re not talking individual “pimps” (a one-person sex work business cannot legally hire employees) but registered businesses that have contracted as a sex work employer and taken on all the responsibilities that entails…

In my defense, I must point out that the scheme grants government so much say in business relationships I confused it for legalization until Liz Brown broke it down for me.

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!

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Forcing random, innocent individuals to shoulder th[e] cost [of police actions] would be as fair as conducting a lottery to determine who has to pay the police chief’s salary each year.  –  Slaybaugh v. Rutherford County

Leaving the 20th Century (#1223)

This is not “decriminalization” as previously claimed, but rather an overhaul in the existing legalization regime:

A new law in Belgium…is being touted as a win by UTSOPI, the Belgium Union of Sex Workers…the legislation…outlines that prostitutes will receive health insurance, a pension, maternity and holiday leave, and unemployment benefits.  Their pimps will be forced to provide them with a “safety button” to use for emergencies…Prostitutes are to be granted “rights” to refuse sexual acts, stop sexual acts, perform sexual acts in the manner they prefer, and refuse to sit behind Amsterdam-style windows…However, should a prostitute use these “rights” 10 times within six months, their pimp can then call on a government mediator to intervene…

“Pimp” appears to be used here to mean “brothel owner”; the article is silent on what the law says about escorts and other non-brothel sex workers.

Panopticon (#1349)

Rural residents are less affected by state surveillance than urbanites, but they aren’t safe:

In December 2022, Reason reported that both state and federal wildlife agents routinely trespass onto private land and plant cameras.  Two Tennessee homeowners successfully sued the state over the practice…the state appealed…and…the court of appeals [has now] ruled in the homeowners’ favor…In the case of Terry Rainwaters and Hunter Hollingsworth, [agents] not only entered their…properties but also installed trail cameras…without a warrant and ignoring “No Trespassing” signs…

Censor Chic (#1366)

Government censors are growing ever bolder:

…federal agencies such as the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) [have] restarted [their jawboning attempts] with [social media] platforms…[under the tissue-thin guise of] “removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears”…these [attempt]s resumed in March, around the same time oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri — which centers on the feds’ censorship efforts — were heard before the U.S. Supreme Court…Neither agency provided an answer when questioned on how they determine what constitutes “disinformation” or what other federal agencies they are collaborating with in these efforts to have “disinformation” removed from social media…

Opting Out (#1376)

A new censorship regime has been imposed on British subjects:

[The UK censorship agency] Ofcom [wants more censorship power over] Instagram, YouTube and 150,000 other web services [using the popular excuse of “]child safety[“ to push]… tech firms to [deny users anonymity], [censor] and downrank content [the government dislikes], and apply around 40 other steps to [give the government more control over what its]…subjects [can see, hear, and read]…That suggests Brits may need to get accustomed to [us]ing [a VPN if] they [want to] access a range of online content…

A Broker in Pillage (#1400)

There are many ways for governments to steal things that don’t belong to them:

A federal court…heard arguments in an appeal concerning…the…”police powers”…exception to the [Constitution]…Mollie and Michael Slaybaugh…are…on the hook for over $70,000 after a SWAT team destroyed much of their home in Smyrna, Tennessee…in…[pursuit of Mollie’s] adult son, James Jackson Conn—who did not live with her but had recently arrived to visit…she offered to speak to Conn and bring him out of her house, [but the cops prevented]…her [from] re-enter[ing and instead]…broke down the door and launched dozens of tear gas grenades into the Slaybaughs’ home, laying waste to nearly everything…Their insurance [refused] to assist them, as their policy—like many policies—does not cover damage caused by the government…The notion that “police powers” immunize the government from liability is what doomed Leo Lech’s lawsuit, which he filed after a SWAT team did so much damage to his home…that it had to be demolished…Los Angeles refused to compensate Carlos Pena after a SWAT team destroyed his…print shop  in pursuit of a suspect who barricaded himself inside, and…Vicki Baker[‘s]…judgment from a federal jury…was ultimately overturned by the…5th Circuit, which ruled there was a “[fuck you]” exception to the Takings Clause…

Civil rights advocates often joke that the Third Amendment is the only one that hasn’t been undermined, but I fail to see any important difference between the government forcibly taking people’s homes to quarter troops and forcibly taking them to enable cops and robbers games.

The Cop Myth (#1410)

Why are people shocked when men paid and encouraged to behave violently, behave violently?

A…Memphis [cop in full magic clown regalia] kidnapped a man, shot him in the head and unsuccessfully tried getting rid of his body…Patric J. Ferguson [murdered Robert Howard]…on Jan. 5, 2021, [because Howard was dating Ferguson’s ex-girlfriend.  Ferguson then] dumped his body in the Wolf River in Memphis with the help of another man, Joshua M. Rogers…who [has been]…charged with accessory after the fact…

Sleeping with a cop is not only dangerous to the woman who does so, but to everyone else in her life, especially after she stops sleeping with the cop.

You Were Warned (#1434)

At least there are a few judges willing to restrain other judges’ megalomania:

[Twitter] had a win over the Australian government after the Federal Court overturned a legal block on videos of the Sydney church stabbing.  The [Australian censorship] Commission won a temporary court injunction last month after [Twitter] refused to comply with a…global [censorship order]…Justice Geoffrey Kennett…rejected a bid to extend the injunction until a full trial…The decision does not represent a final legal win…but senior legal sources…said the interim decision…proved the legitimacy of [Twitter’s] case…

 

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!

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[Cops] don’t care who they hurt, they have no integrity.  –  former cop Jason Napoli

Surplus Women

What kind of garbage responds to women’s deaths by trying to endanger others of the same profession?

…Three women in a legal brothel in Vienna…[were] stabbed to death and a man carrying a knife was arrested in the vicinity…[but  politician] Maria Noichl…[used the tragedy to vomit out filthy propaganda, arguing that sex workers should be denied all legal protections and exposed to even more] violence [because sex gives her sadfeelz]…

I Spy (#1195)

I’ll believe Facebook is going to use encryption when it actually does it:

There have been plenty of silly lawsuits against tech companies over the last few years, but a new one from Nevada…may be the…most dangerous…we’ve seen so far…[it features] vague claims of harms to children from social media, with lots of…handwaving and conclusory statements with no basis in…evidence..Nevada has asked [for] a temporary restraining order, blocking [Facebook] from using end-to-end encryption on messages, claiming that such encryption is harmful to children…It’s no secret that lazy cops like the FBI’s Chris Wray (and before him, James Comey) have always hated encryption and wanted it banned for making it just slightly more difficult to read everyone’s messages, but at least they spoke mostly about just requiring magic backdoors that would allow encryption to work for normal people, but have it break when the cops came asking…Here, the state of Nevada is literally just saying “fuck it, ban all encryption, because it might make it harder for us to spy on people”…

Creepy Coppers

Seems like a significant fraction of child porn is spread by cops:

[A Pennsylvania cop named] James Christopher Buckley [has been] arrested on charges of…distribution of child pornography…via [his] icloud account…

Copsucking reporters waste considerable space quoting boss pigs oinking about how typical and representative cops aren’t really typical or representative.

Stalkers in Blue (#1317)

Another cop demonstrating exactly what he is:

A [typical and representative South Carolina cop named]…Justin Brian McKenzie…concealed his identity and sent text messages to “maliciously threaten” publishing private sexual photos of [a woman] on social media…[unless she sent him] more sexually explicit pictures and videos…[it is not clear how he got the photos he used for the extortion scheme]…

The Last Shall Be First (#1414) 

Both sides in the culture war have completely taken leave of their senses:

Kentucky Republicans have introduced a bill that…could charge the parents of transgender children [or adolescents] with neglect, and even deny them custody, if their child [or adolescent] uses…a school bathroom that does not match their sex assigned at birth…

The Cop Myth (#1416)

Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working out?

[Florida career cop] Charity Arthur…filed a lawsuit in June 2022 [because her cop shop]…discriminated against her…for reporting that her ex-husband [David Arthur is an abuser whose]…behavior put her in fear for her life…his behavior escalated…[in] 2017 [when he decided without evidence] that she was having an affair…he…put a tracking device on [her car]…and told her “he would ruin her career” if she left him…the abusive behavior became “more and more volatile” until [she] filed for divorce in August 2017…eight months later…he…[made “anonymous” accusations that she supposedly molested students when she was a student harassment thug]…and…told her the [ensuing] internal affairs investigation could “go away” if she stopped the divorce process…the sheriff’s office did not investigate David Arthur’s [widely-known] behavior toward her, promoted him multiple times, and instead investigated her for speaking out…the…office has twice moved to dismiss Charity Arthur’s lawsuit [under specious pretexts]…

To Molest and Rape (#1416)

Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:

A [typical and representative] Georgia [cop named]…Corey Brand [has finally been arrested for crimes first reported]…back in August 2020…Brand is charged with rape, child molestation…[and child] pornography…[his cronies could no longer protect him after he] was arrested in…Ala[bama] in December…on child pornography charges…

A prosecutor tried to blame this typical specimen’s crimes on cell phones:

A [typical and representative Indiana screw] was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison [for coercing] two [different young girls into sending him explicit pictures]…Cory Terry [used threats, coercion and enticement to manipulate]…an 11-year-old girl [and a 15-year-old girl]…on Discord and Snapchat…FBI agents found several cellphones with…more than 600 images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children as young as 3 years old…

 

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!

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[The Swedish model holds that] sex workers are all victims and their consent to sexual activity is—like a minor’s—irrelevant. – Elizabeth Brown

Held Together With Lies (#993)

With the number of people interested in “human trafficking” mythology steadily shrinking, the rescue industry thinks the way to keep milking the mathematically-illiterate is to continually ratchet their fantasy numbers higher.  Four years ago, IJM was claiming 40 million people; now they’re up to 50 million, or as they melodramatically claim, “The number of victims suffering could populate Australia twice.”  Expressed differently, they’re claiming 1.25% of the entire world population consists of “slaves”.

Secret Squirrel (#1332)

“Smart” devices aren’t, part umpty-eleven:

Domestic violence experts say that [“smart” automobile] features are being weaponized in abusive relationships, and that car makers have not been willing to assist victims.  This is particularly complicated when the victim is a co-owner of the car, or not named on the title…Controlling partners have tracked their victims’ cars in the past using GPS devices and Apple AirTags…but connected car apps offer new opportunities for harassment…[such as by] remote[ly] access[ing]…the…vehicle…to…[activate] lights…horns…heat…[or] air-conditioner…from afar…

The Last Shall Be First (#1351) 

Federal judges have already struck down similar bans, so this is pure political theater:

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed an executive order [last] Friday that will immediately ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors within the state…a week after…he…vetoed a bill that would have banned all gender-affirming care for minors, from surgeries to hormone blockers….the…[new] restricti[ons appear designed to insert bureaucrats into the doctor-patient relationship]…

The Course of a Disease (#1352)

Liz Brown on the insidious spread of the Swedish rot:

Maine’s [new prostitution] law…represents a paternalistic philosophical premise: that sex workers are all victims and their consent to sexual activity is—like a minor’s—irrelevant…In an Orwellian twist, U.S. activists have been trying to rebrand it the “Equality Model“—an egregious misnomer, considering that the whole point of this model is that those selling sex (largely women) and those paying for it (largely men) should be treated differently under the law…Maggie McNeill wrote the ultimate essay on this more than 10 years ago.  “The ‘Swedish model’ posits that paying for sex is a form of male violence against women,” McNeill noted.  “This is why only the act of payment is de jure prohibited: the woman is legally defined as being unable to give valid consent, just as an adolescent girl is in the crime of statutory rape.  The man is thus defined as morally superior to the woman; he is criminally culpable for his decisions, but she is not.  In one case, a 17-year-old boy (a legal minor in Sweden) was convicted under the law, thus establishing that in the area of sex, adult women are less competent than male children”…

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#1390)

I’ll believe this when and if it’s ever proven:

[Spooks] are [now claiming] that six high end brothels in the suburbs of Boston and Washington, D.C. were set up by a foreign nation as an espionage “honeytrap”…[which] targeted politicians, high ranking government officials and defense contractors…RussiaChina, Korea itself, or even Israel are al[l claimed] as possibly being behind the scheme..[one spook belched out “]false flag[” while making furtive movements in his pants.  A puritanical]…U.S. Attorney [vomited out drivel about] “accountability for the buyers“…[and another clown burbled about “]involvement in prostitution[” in order to make a very ordinary business sound scary so as to justify the huge expenditure of “investigating” people for having consensual sex]…

Torture Chamber (#1394)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”:

A California County is facing legal action after a 21-year-old woman committed suicide while [locked] in [the county’s cages]…Alicia Upton was arrested on April 19, 2022 [during a]…mental health [crisis]…yet despite her clear mental health distress…[she was locked] in…a…cell without safety features….and…on April 28…[she] hanged herself…using the sheets from her bed…18 people died while [locked in cages by] Riverside County…in 2022…and [a similar number in] 2023…[the] county…[also lies when] reporting deaths [by] labeling [legally innocent people] who die…[in its cages] as…”‘sentenced’ post-conviction prisoners” in reports to the Justice Department…

The Cop Myth (#1400)

Another cop murders his family; another “news” outfit buries the lede:

[A New York cop named]…Watson Morgan…[murdered his wife] Ornela…[and his] two sons ages 10 and 12…before turning the gun on himself…neighbors are having difficulty [understanding the concept of]…”a very loving father”…[cops] say the public is not in danger [from the deranged cop coming back from the dead to murder others, and absurdly barfed out the typical lie that a cop committing fatal domestic violence is]…an isolated incident…

 

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!

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She looked like she was mummified.  –  Melinda Bettencourt

Business Opportunity

It’s not like it’s their money, after all:

…in…Wilmington, North Carolina, where the New Hanover County government…is trying to seize the neighboring Cheetah Premier Gentlemen’s Club to build what it [pretend]s is much-needed parking…The county commission voted to authorize eminent domain of the Cheetah Club…on November 6.  The resolution authorized the county to spend $2.36 million acquiring the club…the seizure…wasn’t on the commission’s agenda, and was only introduced in the final minutes of the meeting by [the “county manager”, who] referred to the property only by its tax ID number…The sudden, seemingly surreptitious effort to seize the club has [Michael] Barber[, a lawyer for the owners,] speculating that the eminent domain effort has more to do with public appearances than public facilities…[the property owner] has offered to let the county use the 74 parking spaces on his property…[because] the Cheetah Club doesn’t even open till 6 p.m…

The Scarlet Letter (#520)

“Presumption of innocence” doesn’t apply to whores:

Unlike “simple” police cautions, prostitute cautions don’t require evidence…sex workers don’t have to admit guilt, and there is no right to appeal them.  Without any say, someone can be branded as a criminal, their life forever impacted by her decision of how they provides for themselves and their families…prostitute cautions, and wider criminalisation of sex work, are deliberately used to keep women in poverty by penalising them for using sex work to escape it…In 2009, under the Police and Crime Act, the right of appeal against prostitutes cautions was abolished…and…the caution will stay on a sex worker’s record for life, or until the age of 100…

Blunt Instrument (#728)

Have you noticed that “sex trafficking” is no longer the magic brain-pause spell it was for over a decade?

One Richmond [BC politician] would like to see massage parlours…be denied business licences and…shut down…Kash Heed [tried to justify his puritanical bigotry by barfing the phrases “]human trafficking[“…and “]scantily clad[” at other city politicians, but]…Mayor Malcolm Brodie…[timidly broached the subject of harm reduction, and] Mark Corrado, director of bylaws and licencing…said Richmond is [already] known for having the most “restrictive” licence requirements in the province.  This includes [micromanag]ing clothing, age, locks, insurance bonds, lighting and criminal record checks…

Where Are the Protests? (#945)

Americans are only concerned about how others have sex; they don’t really want to know where their overpriced coffee comes from:

Starbucks…is unable to guarantee that the coffee sold at its stores is not associated with serious labour and human rights crimes such as low wages, harvest workers eating cold meals, inadequate accommodation and even child and slave labour…The cases are portrayed in the report “Behind Starbucks coffee,” published by Repórter Brasil (available in Portuguese and English)…coffee farms…where…inspectors found violations hold…the C.A.F.E. Practices seal, which…is the certification programme that…[supposedly] evaluates suppliers according to more than 200 indicators…It is yet another situation that exposes the limits of the certification market…Labour irregularities in the industry are not limited to Starbucks’ supply chain.  Repórter Brasil has already exposed similar problems among suppliers of Nestlé, McDonald’s and other…major…buyers

Vulture Watching (#1268)

Idaho apparently wants to chase away as many physicians as possible:

Idaho asked the Supreme Court…to allow its [near-total] abortion ban that imposes [criminal] penalties on doctors who perform abortions to take full effect despite [the fact that it conflicts with]…the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)…a…federal law [which] requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay…

Torture Chamber (#1386)

Your “leaders” call this “correction”:

Melinda Bettencourt…knew her youngest daughter, Amanda Bews, had been struggling [with severe alcoholism and heroin addiction] for years…But…no one could explain what had happened to the rotting body Bettencourt saw at the funeral home.  “She looked like she was mummified,” Bettencourt [said]…describing the “horrible” shock of watching bugs hover around her dead daughter’s face as a foul stench emanated across the room…Bews got arrested…[on] Sept. 7, 2022…for allegedly shoplifting at a BevMo…Before booking, the deputies took her to a nearby hospital, where…she was prescribed medications for anxiety, blood pressure and alcohol withdrawal…But [screws]…decided…not [to give her the] require[d] medications…[and] a little over four hours later, Bews…”died of untreated…effects of withdrawal from alcohol and drugs”…

Dangerous Speech (#1391)

I’ve linked to many of Mark Draughn’s well-researched, well-considered essays over the years; this one is on the aftermath of the Backpage persecution & show trial, and here’s a taste:

The Iron Law of Prohibition says that making something illegal will make it stronger and more dangerous.  Nobody drank bathtub gin in America until the Prohibition laws of 1920 criminalized alcoholic beverages.  Almost nobody smoked crack until law enforcement started a war on cocaine, and we didn’t have much of a fentanyl problem until the government started cracking down on opioids.  Legal alcohol and tobacco distributors didn’t shoot each other in the streets the way drug-smuggling gangsters do.  Criminalizing a good or service necessarily drives it underground.  The need to hide makes it harder to build a good reputation, which makes it less rewarding to have good business practices.  Customer service and attention to product quality fall by the wayside…Thus bad actors enter and thrive in the market, engaging in fraud, theft, and violence, which can often only be countered with more violence…With the success of the Backpage prosecutions, it seems likely that more such prosecutions will follow…

 

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!

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Abortion trafficking is not a thing.  –  Judge Debora Grasham

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#976)

Another high-profile pogrom of an Asian-owned business has been announced in the media by parroting cops’ and prosecutors’ masturbatory fantasies, racist propaganda, and ludicrously-Victorian language.  The use of the word “service” as a verb in the headline is as telltale as the presence of the word “sophisticated”, used by cops for the last decade as an excuse to rape sex workers.  The primary trope of the coverage is the popular pretense that it’s somehow shocking that modern men of means and position are as likely to buy sex as such men have always been since the beginning of human civilization.  Fairly-ordinary fees and costs of doing business are represented as extravagant; extremely mundane practices like screening clients and making bank deposits are described with weird, convoluted language so as to make them seem somehow esoteric and criminal; and adult women are infantilized as passive victims by invoking the “submissive Asian woman” fantasy.  One day, our culture may grow up enough to recognize that pragmatic sexual arrangements are nobody else’s business, but that day is not today, so we can look forward to months of lurid fixation on the prurient details and none on the government’s crime of wasting massive amounts of money and manpower in order to destroy the lives of people who harmed nobody.

Creepy Coppers

Seems like a significant fraction of child porn is spread by cops:

A [cop from] Tennessee was arrested…[for] requesting [nude photos]…from a mother in Virginia who sent him [nude] photos and videos of her juvenile daughter.  Dan Roark…was…charged with…production of child pornography…an anonymous [snitch first reported the daughter]…

I had to aggressively edit this one because it was so larded with obfuscatory language:

A [typical and representative Missouri cop] has been indicted by a federal grand jury…August Price Gildehaus…was charged…with one count of enticing a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity…producing child pornography…and…attempting to distribute child pornography…

Feudalism Redux (#1327)

Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws constitutional any more:

…a federal judge [has] granted a temporary restraining order against…[Idaho’s unconstitutional law inventing a new crime called] “abortion trafficking”…[which] criminaliz[es] any adult who assists a minor in obtaining abortion medication or a lawful abortion out of state without parental consent. [The law essentially allows a] parent…or guardian…to f[orce a]…minor…[to carry an unwanted or even dangerous pregnancy under the rhetoric of]…“parental rights”…the law is [both] unconstitutionally vague [and infringes] on the…right…to interstate and intrastate travel…

Cops and Robbers (#1328)

Of course they’ll never charge the cops who use similar tactics with no more concern for ethics:

Jason Nassr, the man behind…Creeper Hunter TV, [was] sentenced…to…18 months of house arrest…from 2015 to 2020, Nassr posted videos he claimed showed men contacting him for sex when…he was [ageplaying]…he would communicate with men on dating sites and social media platforms, typically portraying himself as an 18-year-old female.  Once the correspondence turned sexual…Nassr would [start ageplaying while yet including hints that] he was [actually ov]er 18 — as young as age 10…Those who continued to communicate with him would end up featured on Creeper Hunter TV.  Nassr recorded in-person confrontations, showed screen captures of text conversations, and included full names and phone numbers…Around 100 episodes were posted…at least two of [Nassr’s victims] have died by suicide…[but] Justice Alissa Mitchell…[let him off with] house arrest, six months of a 10 p.m. curfew and two years of probation…

I Spy (#1376)

Nothing infuriates violent busybodies more than privacy:

On October 26, the UK Parliament passed the Online Safety Act…the government has…admitted there…is no…way to scan E2EE messages or services without breaking their encryption…[so] Ofcom…now…propos[es] to use hash matching…a mass surveillance [technique] that could easily be abused by law enforcement.  Hash matching…compares…videos, pictures or text…to a database of illegal content…by turning the content into “hashes”, a sample of the content a bit like a fingerprint…similar systems already in place have returned numerous false positives that can ruin people’s lives…and bog the system down, forcing companies…to investigate perfectly innocent media…every app you download to share files or access social media could contain spyware to [root through] the media on your device and [snitch to the cops]…the database of illegal material will [certainly expand and]…could very easily become a tool of censorship, similar to how the Chinese government scans for images of the Tiananmen Square protests…

The Cop Myth (#1378)

41% of cops admit to beating their wives; some don’t stop with mere beating:

A [typical and representative Alabama screw named]…David Tolbert was arrested after…he [murdered]…his wife on Nov. 15, 2022…[by shooting her] in [public] outside of a business…

Torture Chamber (#1387)

It does not help young victims of governmental brutality to infantilize them as “children”:

…[young people locked up]…in more than a dozen [prisons] in Illinois…[are routinely] “tased, pepper sprayed…roughed up by [screws]…forced into isolation for days at a time…[and] denied access to…medications…mental health treatment…and…schooling, [in defiance of] state and federal laws”…[at one cage stack] in Benton…Solitary confinement is the rule…[prisoners] spend between 20 and 23 hours per day confined in their cells…[where] fluorescent lights [are left on]…24 hours a day…the cells themselves are f[ilthy] and infested with [toxic] black mold

 

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!

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The…notion that members of the ruling class have the right to inflict violence upon everyone else “for their own good” is so useful a tool of control they’ll never let it go until it’s ripped from their cold, dead, severed hands.  –  “New and Improved

I think it’s absurd and dangerous to conflate sex with love; just because I have sex with someone doesn’t mean I love him in any way, and just because I love someone doesn’t mean I want to have sex with her.  –  “Once a Client

Many people who recognize the inherent instability of monogamy go instead for polyamory, an attempt to fix the problems inherent in ongoing committed relationships by multiplying them.  –  “Uncoupled

I feel no masochistic need to watch the noblest of animals abase itself by groveling to sociopathic control freaks who think every individual is their personal or collective property.  –  “Argument Department

I wonder how many abductions it takes to make a furniture store a “hot spot”, and how many women have been abducted from the Covina Ikea in comparison with, say, the Cost Plus in San Dimas or the Ethan Allen in Pasadena?
–  “The Widening Gyre (#869)

The only people who support women being paternalistically treated like imbecilic disease vectors who need others to make decisions about their bodies for them, are those who stand to gain power…or money from such a system.
–  “Empty Set

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Regular readers need no introduction to Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist, whose groundbreaking book Sex At the Margins introduced the term “rescue industry” and set the bar for conversations about sex work and migration for two decades.  When she told me of her new project, I invited her to write about it; I think you’ll find the result as interesting as I do!

What do you do when you get pretty old and have no pension but do have your health?  I had to confront this during a couple of years of lockdowns, living in someone else’s house because I was trapped by airports closing.  But for some years before that I had wanted something new to happen.  I wrote a crime-novel, The Three-Headed Dog, and would have been glad to write its sequels, but it seemed impossible to get the book seen by more than a small number of readers, and anyway I didn’t want to sit in front of screens all the time.  So after enormous amounts of walking and exploring during lockdowns, I thought about becoming an on-the-street guide.  Not to take tourists to the bucket-list sights but to lead the kind of walking tours I like, with guides who take you to places far from the obvious, such as weird industrial areas, backwaters, and neighbourhoods no one ever tells you to visit.  I’ve been a house- and cat-sitter for many years so was always doing this on my own, but here were guides who could tell me histories of these places.  So I thought I might run walks where I could give my own kind of history, ignoring mainstream events and personages – monarchs, prime ministers, wars, celebrations of capitalism – and instead talk about ordinary working stiffs, especially women, who usually get left out.  It would just be me having my own point of view as always, only on the street, talking with anyone who wants to sign up – no institutions or classrooms involved, even virtual ones.

Is it possible to include sex work in guided tours without being a jackass?  Ever since I began talking in public about the sex industry, I’ve dealt with the problem of language; always someone is offended, if not by the topic itself then by the words used.  I wondered if I would ever discover the perfect vocabulary that would enlighten without someone in the audience looking hacked-off.  Then I realised it was a hopeless goal.  My PhD thesis-proposal was called The Production of “Prostitution”, a term impossibly fraught and divisive and yet it’s the one everyone knows.  “The Sex Industry”, “Commercial Sex”, “Sex Work”: all require explanation and endless quibbling about which phenomena are to be included.  Spin-offs like “the Sex Trade” and “Survival Sex” and absurd inventions like “the Sex Work Industry” add to the chaos.  On top of that, many sex workers use and affirm the word “Prostitute”.

For my own label, I’m keeping the “Naked Anthropologist” handle because it continues to describe my point of view.  “London Walks with Gender, Sex and Class” tells what my commentary focuses on, and I’m still the same person thinking about sex work and other ways women choose to get by, make ends meet or make more money than they would in the usual jobs available to them.  Remember, I got started in the Caribbean 25 years ago listening to poor women planning to migrate to work in Spain, where they had two job-options: live-in maid or sex worker.  Conversations went like this:

Woman 1:  I’m going to be a prostitute, I’d rather die than be someone’s maid.
Woman 2:  I’m going to be a maid, I’d rather die than be a prostitute.

My walks will always include people who sell sex.  For my walk in September’s Totally Thames Festival, “Scratching Out a Living”, I created six characters whose jobs were common amongst the poor in 14th-century London.  One is a laundress who can’t make ends meet unless she also sells sex part-time.  Another prefers picking pockets to selling sex.  The language of the time called these two women “common”; being without a husband was grounds enough to assume the worst.  A third woman is a migrant who manages a regulated brothel with her husband and is on the house’s roster of prostitutes: married but fully professional.  Historical language shows us how women who deviated from the norm were stigmatised. In another walk, “The Backside of Knightsbridge Barracks”, a woman from the country comes to London to work as a maid; she meets a dashing horseguard in the park and becomes his dolly-mop: This term for an unmarried woman having sex with a soldier indicated to listeners of the time that she was “an amateur prostitute”.  She gets pregnant, he helps her out from his paltry pay, and after a couple of years they get permission to marry.  Their daughter grows up, marries and leaves home, but that doesn’t work out and her life ends when Jack the Ripper finds her sleeping in an East End courtyard.  There’s no evidence she ever sold sex, but police and newsmen of the time said she did.  In this same walk Harriette Wilson is an author and demi-rep: this term, composed of “demi” meaning shady or doubtful and “rep” for reputation, indicated Wilson was a certain type of prostitute, who tries to blackmail the Duke of Wellington.  Catherine Walters, courtesan on horseback in Rotten Row, sometimes got the label horsebreaker (another term for prostitute); she lives a long life discreetly listening to old men’s stories and persuading them to contribute to her maintenance.  I’m creating other walks all the time, full of ideas about the women omitted from histories.  And I suppose I’ll never offer a walk that doesn’t have paid sex in it because it wouldn’t be real life.  Sometimes the women are called mistresses, and sometimes they may have managed to preserve their technical virtue by sticking to hand-jobs, but the language always marks them out.

Luttrell Psalter, Add. 42130, British Library

If you come to London and are interested in Plain Talk on the subject of sex work, come on a walk with me.  Selling sex isn’t going to be a special emphasis, but it’s always going to be there, the way food, drink and politics always are.  To know the dates of scheduled walks, follow my blog and see the Walks Calendar tab on the top menu of my website.  Or follow me on Eventbrite: The Naked Anthropologist.  You can also contact me for a private tour, either on the platform ToursByLocals or via the contact-form on my website.  For private tours I’ll do the research required to come up with history of a particular area or person that I can recount on a series of pauses in a walking tour of a few hours.  I like research, and I’m good at it; I do it in the British Library, where during lockdown-years I focused on the late Middle Ages because I was annoyed at the superficiality of commentary on the medieval regulated brothels of Southwark.  When the dearth of references to the existence of working women was a yawning crevasse I took to perusing illuminated manuscripts in a special room, because for a short period illustrators in East Anglia decorated the margins of religious texts with figures: mostly antic, often grotesque, occasionally realistic.  Just above is an example: a detail from the early 14th-century Luttrell Psalter described as “A Lady at her Toilet with her maid”.  Some interpreters of these marginalia go further, however, to say the lady is obviously a prostitute.  You know what they mean by prostitute?  A woman looking at herself in a mirror.  Go figure.

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My…children were the real victims in this whole fiasco.  –  Melvin Quinney

Absolute Corruption

In about 20 or 25 years, you’ll start hearing news stories like this about victims of “sex trafficking” hysteria:

With a few strokes of a pen, Judge Christine Del Prado dismissed the case against 74-year-old Melvin Quinney…in the same court that 32 years ago had [wrongfully] convicted [him] of indecency with a child and sentenced him to 20 years…Quinney…spen[t] eight years in Texas prisons, [was] forced…to register as a sex offender and saw his four children [condemned]…to the foster care system.  Now that same court [has admitted] that abuse never took place.  It was all based on a lie — stemming from…satanic ritual abuse [hysteria]…Quinney’s now deceased ex-wife Debra along with [incompetent and evil] therapists pressured his nine-year-old son John Parker…to testify that his father molested him…in a satanic cult and that he had seen children murdered…“Whenever I had any doubts that something happened, I was told by the therapist that this was because I had multiple personalities, that my dad had programmed me this way,” Parker said…[when he] recanted his testimony as an adult, and worked to clear his fathers name…“Instead of getting help with the real mental problems she was experiencing, [my mother] was persuaded and kept mentally ill with pseudoscience and superstition”…

Policing for Profit

Cops will never stop doing this as long as the state keeps giving them pretexts:

A woman [has filed] a federal lawsuit [against] Kansas City, Missouri…[cops who] kicked in her front door, [ransack]ed her home…and [stole over] $20,000.  Monecia Smith [said]…a man she did not know knock[ed] on the front door of her house at 12:17 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2020.  Smith got out of bed, checked her video surveillance and saw the man had been shot.  She did not open the door.  A [cop] came to her house within the next two days and…[demanded] her…surveillance [recording, but she was understandably]…worried for her safety…[and so] told the detective he could not come to her house alone…[apparently he viewed this as “contempt of cop” and so sent a SWAT] team…to [her] house [armed with] a search warrant on January 15, 2020…Smith was not home [so the cops]…kicked open the front door….[stole her entire] video surveillance system…caused extensive damage to her home…[and] personal property and [stole] $20,000…

I wonder how long it will be before people realize that these surveillance systems are a liability rather than an asset?

To Molest and Rape

Cops really believe they’re above the law:

[A London cop named] Ireland Murdock…was found guilty of raping a woman and is awaiting sentence…the victim…[made the mistake of allowing Murdock] some consensual sexual activity, [but he] deliberately took things further than she allowed, and she pled for him to “stop” but he did not…She…[had] to change her bedsheets because of the blood.  After the victim reported [him]…he looked her up on [the cop computer] system…despite having no legitimate reason to do so. He has been charged and convicted for this as a separate offence…

Dutch Threat (#1241)

The Dutch scheme to Disnify De Wallen is no longer merely a scheme:

New rules for sex workers [went] into force on April 1…requiring Amsterdam’s sex work businesses to close their doors at 3 a.m. rather than 6 a.m. to combat what local authorities describe as nuisance behavior by people visiting the red-light district.  The reduced hours come amid an ongoing campaign by the city council to [forc]e sex workers into an “erotic center” outside the heart of the city [where they will get far less business]…the reforms…are [already] increasing stigma…[against sex workers, who] are being…used as a scapegoat for the city’s problem with mass tourism…Felicia Anna…of Red Light United…says the reduced business hours will drastically reduce income for window workers, leaving many barely able to cover expenses… “Most of the workers start to work after 12 or one o’clock in the morning, when the bars start to close down…Now you have maybe two hours to make any money, which is not enough”…

Thought Control (#1268)

Just keep plunging that ice pick in; the bad thoughts will go away eventually:

Missouri House Republicans voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries, in…[retaliation for] a recent lawsuit filed against the state…by the ACLU of Missouri on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association…seek[ing to overturn an]…unconstitutional…[law] that has resulted in over 300 books getting banned from school libraries…[for offending Christian fundamentalists]…“Library funding is guaranteed in the MO constitution,” the [MLA] wrote on Twitter.  “This tactic, meant to bully MLA into submission, instead directly harms public libraries who rely on those funds, especially the smaller, more rural libraries”…

Unsafe for Human Consumption (#1309)

Since doctors keep mocking cops’ fentanyl hysteria, they need to invent new bogeydrugs:

A [whiny baby Arizona cop] had a [panic attack after he made a pretext stop of a driver on]…I-10…He…searched the car [without a warrant] and found cocaine, fentanyl pills, methamphetamine, and three ounces of a gray, rock-like substance. [He immediately panicked, causing him to]…start…feeling dizzy and lightheaded, and his heart began to race.  [Unlike most cops, he appears to have some small degree of self-control and calmed himself down without placebos or medical theater]…Investigators then sent the gray substance to be tested…and it was discovered the drug was a new street drug called “gray death”…reportedly a mix of fentanyl and other powerful opioids[, none of which has any effect from casual contact]…

Of course, given the lack of a name, photo, or medical record for Deputy Dawg, the sheriff may have just made the whole thing up.

To Molest and Rape (#1330)

They’re trying to pretend this one isn’t typical and representative by calling him a “trainee”:

A…co[p] has been arrested for…raping a seven-year-old girl in Hazaribag district of Jharkhand…on [April 8th]…the girl was alone at home, and the accused took advantage of the situation…[she told her] parents [when they got home and]…a medical examination…confirmed [she had been raped]…

 

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!

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The authorities…seek to punish a preschool for being a place where there are preschoolers.  –  Lenore Skenazy

Droit du Seigneur

Note that the dysphemism “sex trafficking” is conspicuously absent here:

A [typical and representative] San Diego [cop] who used his badge and his knowledge to run a string of massage…parlors in California and Arizona pleaded guilty…to federal charges.  Peter Griffin and three other defendants entered pleas…to racketeering-related conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other crimes…The wire fraud charge carries a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1-million fine…

Moloch 

Is this idiotic enough yet?  Can we stop now?

Two Colorado child care workers will go on trial this June for presiding over a day care center where a 5-year-old pulled down a 3-year-old’s pants.  Amy Lovato and Roberta Rodriguez…face criminal charges for not reporting this incident to the authorities quickly enough…Jason Flores-Williams, Lovato’s attorney…ask[ed the judge] to dismiss…charges….[which] “criminalize preschool behavior by turning a 5-year-old into a deviant and a 3-year-old into a victim for acts that are neither sexual, abusive, criminal, negligent, or against any reasonable person or community standard.”  Judge [Brian] Green denied the…motion…on January 16…one of the kids wet their pants, [so] Lovato left the classroom for between 3 and 5 minutes to clean the kid and deposit the wet clothes in the laundry.  When she returned, she saw the 5-year-old “crouched over” a 3-year-old who later told Lovato that the boy had tried to pull her pants down and touch her butt…The school did not ignore this misbehavior.  It called the parents involved…[and] reported the touching incidents to the child welfare department …[but the prosecutor claims they did] not report…the incidents immediately enough…three days later…[though] the question of how quickly a school must report an incident of abuse is vague.  So, it seems, is the definition of abuse.  And so is whether leaving the room to clean off a pee-soaked kid constitutes neglect…

I Can’t Breathe

It’s about time professionals stopped allowing themselves to be used to hide police violence:

A leading group of medical experts says the term “excited delirium” should not be listed as a cause of death…[because it is only] used to justify excessive force by police.  The National Association of Medical Examiners had been one of the last to take a stand against the commonly used but [unscientific] term…The statement has no legal weight, but will be influential among medical examiners…the term…[i]s unscientific, rooted in racism — and a way to hide police officers’ culpability in deaths.  The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association do not recognize excited delirium as a diagnosis.  Yet…police training materials [think they have a right to invent convenient medical diagnoses that fly in the face of medical science]…Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., who chairs the pathology department at Howard University…[says] “It’s not a real explanation for the death”…

Quiet Genocide (#1075)

There was a time when the West might’ve taken a stand against this, but no more:

…the Kutadgu Bilik bookshop [in Istanbul] is a trove of Uyghur culture…[which has been repeatedly] raided by the Turkish police…[stealing] hundreds of books…[each] time…Uyghur literature has…been a prime target [of the Chinese genocide], with dozens of renowned writers, poets, publishers and academics disappeared into the labyrinthine system of [concentration] camps.  This has all but destroyed the small trickle of books coming out of the region, severing a critical link between those who escaped and those still trapped inside…Abdulla Turkistanli, the bookshop owner…said…there are usually only two to four copies of any given title in [his] shop.  The Turkish police, when they raid the shop, [use the pretext] that Turkistanli does not have the copyrights necessary to reprint [them, but]…acquiring the copyrights…is impossible without the cooperation of Chinese authorities.  Even contacting the authors…is impossible…[because] around 90% of the books in his shop were written by people who have been swallowed up by the prisons and re-education camps.  He believes that the Turkish police are acting under pressure from the Chinese state when they raid Uyghur bookshops…

Dangerous Speech (#1276)

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less’.

…Lacey and Larkin’s attorneys…argue…that the DOJ’s indictment and prosecution…of [their clients] and four others…is fatally flawed and should be dismissed…The motion points to the government’s stance…in…the Woodhull Freedom Foundation’s constitutional challenge to…FOSTA…which…[claims] the verbs “promote” and “facilitate”…are legal “terms of art” and do not have the same meanings as in everyday speech…[they] assert that the phrase “promote or facilitate” is the same as “aid and abet,” which requires proof that the defendant intended to facilitate the commission of a specific underlying criminal act — in this case, prostitution.  Meanwhile…in Arizona…prosecutors have consistently fought such an interpretation, arguing that “promote” and “facilitate” are much broader and open to various meanings…The defense…argues that the government should not be allowed to railroad Lacey and Larkin, using a broader legal standard…since the DOJ is simultaneously attempting to thwart a constitutional challenge on the other side of the country by insisting that the Travel Act should adhere to a far more stringent standard…

Monsters (#1288) 

All around the world, monsters claim the “right” to persecute and torture sexual minorities:

Human Rights Watch…accused Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Grindr of not doing enough to prevent violence against LGBTQ+ users by [cops] in…Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia…[the cops] sometimes publish…[their victims’] personal information on social media, leaving them subject to familial violence or homelessness.  Other [times they trick them]…in [order to]…unlawfully search…their personal devices, often under threat of violence…[in order to] collect…private information that’ll enable them to prosecute the [victim] and their [friends]…“When police…could not find [incriminating] information…they [simply]…fabricated chats to justify…detention”…detainees are jailed under vague, trumped-up “morality,” “debauchery,” “prostitution,” and “cybercrime” charges…they’re interrogated; denied access to lawyers, visitors, or medical care; verbally abused; subjected to forced anal examinations…sexually assaulted; tortured; and forced to sign confessions…

To Molest and Rape (#1326)

Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:  “A Chicago [cop named David Deleon]…sexually abused a minor…[he was] report[ed to other cops by his victim]…

 

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!

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