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Posts Tagged ‘clowns’

In the News (#744)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Across the Pond, agency denial, Arizona, Australia, California, Canada, clowns, cops, dehumanization, Down Under, end demand, Hard Numbers, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, language, law, New Zealand, Saving Them from Themselves, Send In the Clowns, sexting, Signs, Smoke and Mirrors, Something Rotten In Sweden, streetwalkers, Train Wreck, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe on June 3, 2017| 5 Comments »

To make policy that truly benefits sex workers we must separate myths from facts. – Lynzi Armstrong

Down Under

Another good, basic article on the success of the New Zealand model:

Myths abound regarding New Zealand’s model, including unsubstantiated claims that the sex industry has expanded, with pimps emboldened in the wake of the new law, and that sex trafficking is rife…Decriminalisation in New Zealand differs from legalised regimes, such as that in Germany, since it focuses on empowering sex workers themselves, rather than the state, to have greater control over their work…[a government-mandated] study…by researchers from the University of Otago’s School of Medicine, highlighted many benefits: more than 60 per cent of the 772 sex workers who participated reported feeling more able to refuse to see certain clients, and 95 per cent said they felt they had rights after decriminalisation…[it] supports sex worker’s safety strategies, enabling street workers to take their time in initial conversations with clients…and…clients can provide information to police when sex workers are assaulted…there is neither evidence that trafficking into sex work is a problem in New Zealand, nor is there evidence that the size of the sex industry has increased…research suggests that decriminalisation has had little impact on the sex worker population at all, apart to provide it with protection…the academic evidence that has been gathered so far clearly supports the New Zealand decriminalisation model as an ideal starting point…

Saving Them From Themselves

No law caging people for consensual behavior is “well intended”:

Teens who text each other explicit images could be subject to 15 years in federal prison under a new bill that just passed the House of Representatives. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee…ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, has called the measure “deadly and counterproductive…While the bill is well intended, it is overbroad in scope…[and increases] the unfair and unjust mandatory minimum sentencing that contributes to…mass incarceration”…[bill sponsor] Mike Johnson [idiotically claims that]…the measure would [never] be used [by prosecutors] in ways he didn’t intend it to be used [and quoted the Bible to claim he’s acting as God’s agent]…

Smoke and Mirrors

Another of those cases whose reported details don’t add up:

A 19-year-old Toronto woman is facing human trafficking-related charges after allegedly coercing a 39-year-old woman to work in the sex trade. Police say the older woman met the teen in the Hamilton area in 2016 and was allegedly recruited into working as a paid escort so she could make money to repay a debt she owed to the 19-year-old. They allege the 19-year-old took photographs of the woman in various stages of undress, and posted advertisements on…backpage.com…

Train Wreck

I’m fascinated by the bizarre & stilted language used in African news articles about sex workers:

The rusty, broken down coaches, disused rail wagons and the unkempt grass at the National Railway of Zimbabwe Harare locomotive yard have become a haven for concubines, street urchins [and] drug abusers…destitute…hooker goddesses from around Mbare…are…using the “sleepers” as their permanent place of residence…women dressed in skimpy outfits laugh hysterically and make obscene gestures, hoping to attract men passing by…Street urchins…claim than hookers…are invading their home, turning it into a “brothel”. “Prostitutes are disturbing our peace here. Sometimes we discover used condoms in our apartments,” complained one…The sex workers, however, accused the street kids of being naughty as they often disturb the former when they entertain their clients…Trymore Sanduri…said…“We have heard worrying cases of men being robbed and beaten up by these hookers”…[busybodies] urged…authorities to remove the locomotives and the police to restore order…

Hard Numbers (#321)

Another try at decriminalization in South Australia:

State Parliament could vote on decriminalising sex work within months after an Upper House committee recommended South Australia become the second state to do so…The seven-member committee received 87 written submissions and went on interstate brothel tours after it was formed in 2015…the majority of the committee agreed it should be passed with no amendments…

Naturally, authoritarians on the committee want violence inflected on people seeking consensual sex, and vomited out evil nonsense about “sending messages”.

Japanese Prostitution (#327)

Japan’s descent into American-style anti-whore rhetoric is highly distressing:

Fifty people were rescued from human traffickers in Japan in 2016, with Japanese nationals making up half of the victims, a government report [claimed]…13 were aged 17 or younger…Many of the Japanese victims were forced into prostitution through online dating sites. Foreign nationals were largely forced to work as hostesses or prostitutes…

Signs

Ever notice that the supposed experiences of self-declared “survivors” are always years or decades in the past & thus very difficult to disprove?

A woman who [profits from] training [cops in “sex trafficking” dogma]…is now facing a new battle, because a federal grant is about to expire. “Bruising, and abuse, and things of that nature — you don’t always get to see that”…said Shanna Parker…a survivor of human trafficking…The crime is hidden so well even [self-declared] experts [paradoxically] say they’ve missed signs before getting training…[one sign is] a young person…getting their hair and nails done…Parker…[did] not [ever] discuss [her supposed experiences] until almost 20 years after she [claims to have been] rescued…

Across the Pond (#653)

Though gullible reporters believe cop lies about “helping” sex workers, the truth is that this policy of harassment has dramatically (and predictably) decreased sex workers’ willingness to report crimes against them:

[In Hackney the] vice patrol…[is euphemized as the] safer neighbourhood team…[they stalk known sex workers] and pull over the van to [scare clients away], asking them to leave the area and handing leaflets with details of organisations that can help with addictions…[the cops pretend they’re trying to] build up a rapport to get information about…people who have attacked them [but in actuality they treat them like vermin to be removed from the area via]…dispersal orders…

Send In the Clowns

“A psychiatric evaluation was done on the scene”, in other words by cops, who believe their little tin talismans magically grant them expertise in all fields of study:

…motorists in California…spotted a creepy clown standing along Highway 101, [carrying what appeared to be]…a bloody machete…deputies from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene with guns drawn to find…61-year-old Larry Allen Tovey holding out his thumb like a hitchhiker…He was then handcuffed, questioned and released. “The guy wasn’t charged because we didn’t have a victim that was threatened by him with the machete,” the department wrote on Facebook, adding that the “blood” on the knife was just cotton with red dye. Since a machete is technically a tool and not classified as a weapon, it’s not a crime to carry one in public ― unless it’s being used in a threatening manner…Although a psychiatric evaluation was done on the scene, Tovey did not meet the guidelines for commitment. He also didn’t meet the requirements for arrest on a charge of disturbing the peace…

Something Rotten in Sweden (#710)

San Diego ramps up its anti-whore pogroms:

Thirteen sex buyers were arrested in a [sting]…conducted by more than 75 [filthy pigs] from various agencies across San Diego County. “Operation Big Bad John” was spearheaded by the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force (HTTF)…[Pigs] also [stole] more than 17 grams of methamphetamine and several ecstasy pills…

75 evil men playing soldier, down to the moronic and childish “operation” name, to destroy the lives of 13 peaceful men seeking consensual sex. But hey, San Diego, I’m sure y’all think this was a wise use of funds, right?

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In the News (#737)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged asset seizure, Business As Usual, California, clowns, cops, escort review sites, Facebook, fantasy, fascism, Germany, guest columnist updates, Haiti, hysteria, Imaginary Evils, India, Innocence Never Had, language, law, Legalization a Good Idea?, male prostitutes, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, pragmatism, racism, rape, rescue industry, Send In the Clowns, Served Cold, The Widening Gyre, Too Close To Home, United Kingdom, Utah, Washington (state), Worse Than I Thought on May 10, 2017| 3 Comments »

Anti-trafficking laws in the United States have [always] been about trying to eliminate the sex industry. – Alexandra Lutnick

Check Your Premises

“Rescuers” are so invested in their own fantasies that they’ll believe anything which props them up:

More than 200 victims of human trafficking from Bangladesh, who were rescued and sheltered in homes across West Bengal roughly four years ago, are still waiting to return back to their country…most of these girls are unable to provide addresses in Bangladesh where they can be sent, or their parents are unreachable. Principal secretary of the state’s Women and Child Welfare Development Roshni Sen said…that since some trafficking cases were pending in courts, the victims were required to be present here because of their being prime witnesses against traffickers…An NGO…which runs a home for rescued trafficked victims confirmed that quite often, victims could not remember names of their villages as they were trafficked at a tender age of 10-12…

The idea that the “victims” might be feigning ignorance because they don’t want to return to Bangladesh never occurs to these self-important idiots.

Imaginary Evils

Remember, huge police operations have never found more than a single-digit number of “sex trafficking” cases in the UK:

Some of Scotland’s most popular escort websites are being targeted by a specialist police unit in a bid to uncover human trafficking networks. [Cops]…have already [leered at] almost 3000 profiles…belonging to sex workers in Scotland and are certain some of these are victims of trafficking…Some reviews on the sites complain that the women can’t speak English, act as if they don’t want to be there or are so drunk that they can’t stand…Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Houston [fantasized]…that it can be difficult to track down victims of trafficking who are used for prostitution as they are moved from place to place to prevent them forming bonds…

So now add drinking and bad work attitude to the list of “signs of trafficking”, and a new excuse to why cops can’t locate these supposed millions of “victims”.

Innocence Never Had

People kept out of the formal economy by bad laws turn to the informal economy to survive; stupid people are shocked:

The shocking media reports about prostitution among young migrants to Germany are not so surprising given the long-standing connection between migration and sex work, [said] Ralf Roetten, director of the charity “Help for the Young”…Last month, German media reported that increasing numbers of young migrants are turning to prostitution to make ends meet…young male migrants are working as prostitutes in several parks around Berlin. In addition, some failed asylum seekers have moved in with older men who offer them food and accommodation in return for sex…

Also: “Shocking reports are not shocking” is a piss-poor lede.

Business As Usual

It’s “rape”, Vice. The term for nonconsensual sex isn’t “sleeping with”, it’s “rape”:

…”The reality of…police [raping] sex workers during the course of [entrapping them]…has been in existence as long as selling sex has been a criminal offense,” explains Dr. Alexandra Lutnick, an expert on the US sex industry at RTI International…A research study that she conducted in San Francisco found that over 14 percent of sex workers said that they had been threatened with arrest unless they [submitted to rape by a cop], and two percent had been arrested after [the rape]…anyway. Astonishingly, it’s not specifically illegal for [cops] in many states to [rape] sex workers during the course of [deceit & entrapment] operations…

Really good graphic, though.

Guest Columnist: Kaytlin Bailey

Kaytlin’s past in sex work has nothing to do with her current tour, so naturally that’s what the reporter leads with:

Kaytlin Bailey is a Raleigh-born comedian who used to be involved in both political consulting and sex work. Guess which one of those burnt her out to the point it drove her to do stand-up?…dealing with the shady world of politics…made her realize comedy was her calling…In 2011, she moved to New York…where she…found comrades in fellow female comics Abbi Crutchfield, Carrie Gravenson and Erin Judge [currently on the road for their CAKE comedy tour]…Crutchfield is the co-host of truTV’s You Can Do Better. Judge released her first novel, Vow of Celibacy, last year. And Gravenson is gathering up material so she can record her first comedy album…And…Bailey…has written and performed a one-woman show about her experiences as a teenage escort right here in Raleigh. It’s currently titled “Consensual Business“…and was featured in last year’s NYC Fringe and United Solo Festivals…

The Widening Gyre (#546)

If cops don’t want people spreading stupid rumors, they need to stop spreading such rumors themselves first:

Auburn Hills [Michigan] police are responding to a disturbing Facebook post in which a woman reacts to rumors of…a sex trafficking ring targeting women and children at Great Lakes Crossing [shopping mall]…But the disturbing claims aren’t true. Neither is the public’s belief that Auburn Hills police are engaged in a cover up to protect the mall. “I’ve also found it insulting on behalf of our whole police department that someone would suggest that [the stipid myths we’ve been actively spreading for years might actually be true]” says [Police Chief Doreen] Olko…[the woman said] a man…held the door open for her and her 6-month-old son. “He looks me up and down and starts talking about how incredible my body is…And all I could think was is this guy like trying or going to try to traffic me and (my son)?”…

Yes, clumsy and caddish attempts at passes are now evidence of “sex trafficking”. Really, guys, just stick to pros.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#558)

An Indian court rules that acts which aren’t illegal, aren’t illegal:

In a significant ruling, the Gujarat High Court on Friday said that if a sex worker is engaged in prostitution of her own volition, and not due to any inducement, force or coercion then a criminal case is not maintainable against her…

Indian law on the subject is based on British law, in which the exchange of money for sex has never been illegal, though some associated activities such as so-called “pimping” and “brothel-keeping” are.

Too Close To Home

Another racist anti-whore pogrom in “progressive” Seattle:

Six people are under arrest…as part of an investigation into an organized crime ring involved with prostitution…FANG WANG…YONGGUANG WU…YUNZHONG CHEN…YAOAN HE…ZHAOFENG ZHANG…and STEVEN THOMPSON…are charged…with [talking about]…prostitution…“These defendants ran an organized prostitution ring with tentacles into many of our cities and towns,” said U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes…“Our work with our partners continues to expose the underbelly of this industry”…said [rapist & sex harasser] John Urquhart…federal and local law enforcement partners worked jointly to [stop people from helping]…Asian sex workers [to make a living]…

The weirdest thing about prohibitionists is their hentai fixation.

To Molest and Rape

It’s amazing how many of these “isolated incidents” there are:

A…Hot Springs [Arkansas cop admitted to]…molesting a 9-year-old girl on multiple occasions beginning earlier this year…Paul Henry Allen…was arrested [last week] by the Malvern Police Department…

Served Cold (#675)

Another unethical cowboy raid against brown people in a developing country, staged for the entertainment of rich American moralists:

…during the 2017 Super Bowl, an Operation Underground Railroad Jump Team was preparing to expose a band of sex traffickers in Haiti. In a new video…Alex Boye…sings the national anthem while the footage from the Haiti rescue is played…the team [coerced] local authorities [into] arrest[ing] nine [people they labeled] traffickers and [detaining without charge] 29 victims [of OUR’s cowboy antics]…the OUR website [urges other Americans to interfere in the affairs of sovereign nations under the rationale that]…“It is our duty as a free and blessed people”…

This is a jihadist mentality, not one based on the founding principles of the US. But Deseret News does get one thing right: note which section this article appears in. These videos are indeed entertainment (just as Roman circuses were), not actions intended to “help” anyone but these sociopathic profiteers.

Send In the Clowns

I’m delighted to see that the “creepy clown” hysteria still has a bit of life in it:

North Dakota police say they are investigating a…report involving a creepy clown and a man with a snake…Authorities [claim] the snake was a boa constrictor about 3-to-4-feet-long…the clown and his alleged cohort…could face a felony charge of terrorizing…a witness….[claimed] the two men approached the children, asked if they “wanted to see a dead body” and threatened to kill them…

Worse Than I Thought (#723)

Destroying men’s ability to provide for their families is the latest anti-whore fad among politicians whose desire to be the most mindlessly punitive has entirely rotted their brains:

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez [drooled all over herself about] a State Assembly bill…that could result in [ordinary men] having their vehicles [stolen by pigs] as part of a pilot program to crack down on prostitution…“When we arrest these johns, their [families] shouldn’t remain [unpunished]. We must [ensure the men can’t get to work so their families will be destroyed and their kids forced into foster care, thereby creating a new generation of underage survival sex workers so assholes like me can have crusades to make even more police-state laws about]”…

I Swear To God (#728)

In the contemporary US, people can be fired from government jobs for blasphemy:

The New Hampshire Human Trafficking Collaborative Task Force severed its partnership with its grant administrator, leading to the firing of…project director…Kate D’Adamo, [who committed thoughtcrime by making] arguments in favor of decriminalizing prostitution…

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The Rule of Fools

Posted in Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged blogging, clowns, cops, holidays, hysteria, left-right myth, politicians, prohibitionist myths on April 1, 2017| 1 Comment »

The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque. – Philip K. Dick, Valis

For years, many of y’all have been urging me to get more rest, take a few breaks, maybe even not post every day. And while the latter is out of the question, the more observant among you (especially those who have been hanging around here for years) have almost certainly noticed that I’ve done a lot to lighten my workload. The time and energy I used to use to prepare one weekly news column now produces two; my weekly diary is often quite short and requires little effort to write; Q&A columns flow naturally in response to reader questions and are thus comparatively low-effort; links columns grow from scanning Twitter and thus almost write themselves; I no longer do research-intensive essays (partly thanks to Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who has become the Queen of Debunking); fictional interludes have become occasional rather than monthly; and holidays are now represented by the online equivalent of greeting cards. But there was still one holiday I always poured considerable effort into, and that one is today, April Fool’s Day. I’ve always enjoyed gently hoaxing y’all, and longtime readers may remember that some of the pranks were fairly elaborate. But at least for now, I feel it’s time to retire that six-year tradition.

It’s not only to reduce my stress levels, however; it’s also because hoaxes just aren’t fun any more. The internet is full of parody news sites which, unlike The Onion, Clickhole and Reductress, make no effort to be amusing or witty; they just print stupid shit that isn’t true and yet isn’t silly enough to be distinguished from the actual absurdities published by the mainstream news sites. Furthermore, even the “real” news media are positively riddled with idiotic nonsense about “sex trafficking”, the “War on Cops”, supposed “epidemics” of things that are actually less common than they’ve ever been, and other tall tales that could be easily debunked by ten fucking minutes on Google if reporters actually cared to practice journalism rather than stenographically reporting every moronic, impossible and self-serving lie vomited out by cops, politicians, prohibitionists and all the other bipedal vermin who glut themselves on others’ suffering and profit from human misery. Mathematically-impossible, scientifically-illiterate and sociologically-absurd poppycock too ridiculous for a ’50s science fiction B-movie is routinely presented as fact even by “respected” sources like The New York Times, and politicians base laws on fantasies roughly as credible as the contents of Malleus Maleficarum, complete with penalties that would’ve found approval from those who employed that book. Clowns are widely presented as objects of terror (and are the subject of a recurring moral panic), which perhaps makes sense given that our rulers are themselves violent clowns who send forth armed thugs in clownish costumes to terrorize, rape, rob and murder the populace based on excuses Caligula himself might recognize as mad. And their cringing subjects attempt to impose order on a world gone completely insane by artificially dividing their overlords into teams, swearing fealty to one of those teams and then obstinately ignoring all the evil done by “their” leaders while blaming the other side for everything no matter what the facts show. In short, we live in a world in which the highest points are all occupied by professional full-time fools, and it seems pointless for a sane person to even attempt to compete with them.

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In the News (#686)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged apes & monkeys, asset seizure, Australia, Backpage, Blunt Instrument, Bottleneck, brothels, censorship, clowns, cops, Facebook, Florida, hysteria, Ireland, law, Minnesota, Monkey Business, North Carolina, politicians, prohibitionist myths, rape, Real People, Secret Squirrel, Send In the Clowns, sex offender registry, surveillance, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, The End of the Beginning, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, video, Whatever They Need To Say, Worse Than I Thought on November 2, 2016| 4 Comments »

This is neanderthal policing based on hysteria and headline-chasing. – Alex Feis-Bryce

Real People

What’s “shocking” is that some people are so ignorant they actually think it’s “shocking” that sex workers are mostly normal people with mostly normal lives:

Jess Lang…talks about her life before becoming an escort — twice divorced, former fundamentalist Christian. She…admits most people who know her wouldn’t be surprised to learn of her profession. Jess seems like the furthest thing from a desperate girl selling her body under the coercion of a pimp. She is…a middle-class escort who loves what she does and makes good money doing it…a growing international alliance of sex workers [is] calling for the rest of society to understand their work, decriminalize it, and give them the same labor rights as people in other jobs…

Bottleneck

The narrower the neck, the more “illegal” sex work there will be:

In the 2015–2016 financial year, five of Queensland’s brothels shut their doors, bringing the number of licensed brothels down to 22. This is the lowest it’s been in a decade…it’s not just the state of the economy that’s affecting sex workers. It’s the way Queensland licenses its brothels…Annual license fees…are…about $35,000, and each manager has to be licensed up as well, which costs $1,000 each…brothels can only have a maximum of five rooms and eight workers on shift at any one time. In comparison, the limit is six rooms in Victoria, but brothels that were established before 1995 are allowed to have more…Not only are Queensland’s brothels paying more, with less staff to make money, but they’re also prohibited from offering…outcall…services, losing a large proportion of business to private sex workers. Victorian brothels are allowed to offer such services. So while Queensland’s licensed brothels are closing, more and more workers are turning to private work…

Monkey Business

So much for human uniqueness:

Monkeys have been observed producing sharp stone flakes that closely resemble the earliest known tools made by our ancient relatives, proving that this ability is not uniquely human…archaeologists…can no longer assume that stone flakes they discover are linked to the deliberate crafting of tools by early humans…Unlike early humans, the flakes produced by the capuchins were the unintentional byproduct of hammering stones…the monkeys appeared to be seeking out the quartz dust produced by smashing the rocks, possibly because it has a nutritional benefit…monkeys…selected rounded quartz hammer stones …[then] pounded their chosen stone on embedded quartz cobbles and then licked the quartz dust that this produced. They made no attempts to use the sharp fragments and showed no interest in them…

Blunt Instrument

I wonder how many happy endings these brave heroes got during their “investigation”?

Hollywood [Florida] police arrested 24 women at 20 different locations this week in a prostitution sting targeting massage parlors. During the five-month investigation called Operation Red Light, undercover detectives said they found evidence that the women were performing sexual acts on customers in exchange for payment. All of the women face charges of prostitution, practicing without a license and misrepresenting themselves as a licensed massage therapist. Two of the massage parlor owners, Giselle Guo…and Yan Zheng…also face bribery charges…Hollywood police Chief Tomas Sanchez [vomited onto reporters]…”These massage parlors breed other criminal activities, including human and sex trafficking, drug sales and money laundering”…

The End of the Beginning

It’s good to see so many challenges to these medieval laws:

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether North Carolina can ban registered sex offenders from using social media websites and other sites that allow minors to have accounts…Lester Packingham…was…found…guilty [of violating the ban] in May 2012…He appealed, and in 2013 the North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated…[the] conviction…finding…the law…unconstitutional…[then] a divided North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the appeals court a year ago…

Secret Squirrel (#421)

Conditioning kids to accept intrusive monitoring of every aspect of their lives:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…is pushing to develop…biometric devices wrapped around the wrists of students [to] identify which classroom moments excite and interest them…Gates officials hope the devices, known as Q Sensors, can become a common classroom tool, enabling teachers to see, in real time, which kids are tuned in and which are zoned out…Skeptics…call the technology creepy and say good teachers already know when their students are engaged. Plus, they say it’s absurd to think spikes in teenagers’ emotional arousal necessarily correspond to learning…

I don’t usually feature four-year-old items, but I made an exception in this case.

Worse Than I Thought (#597)

Backpage’s loss here may actually be a kind of win, since the court specifically stated that the SAVE Act doesn’t apply to regular escort ads:

A federal judge…threw out Backpage.com’s claim that the U.S. attorney general is enforcing an unconstitutional law against [sex work] advertising…Backpage challenged the constitutionality of the Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act…[because] it feared prosecution if it did not comply with the law by removing the “adult” category from its website…U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton…said the company lacks standing. “Backpage.com has not presented evidence that Congress sought to eliminate all advertisements of a sexual nature…through the adoption of the SAVE Act; rather, the legislation is directed only at those advertisements concerning illegal sex trafficking”…Backpage has said it screens, blocks and removes such content…[so] it cannot allege that it would be burdened by compliance measures in this case. Backpage attorney Robert Corn-Revere portrayed the ruling as a sort of win for his client. “We are gratified that the court recognized that prosecution…requires actual knowledge that criminal activity is going on”…

To Molest and Rape

Rapist cops sue news media for revealing that they’re rapists:

A year after CBC Radio-Canada reported allegations of police sexually and physically abusing Aboriginal women in Val-d’Or, Quebec, the broadcaster is getting sued for $2.3 million…forty [cops] have filed the defamation lawsuit claiming [that the truth]…reporting upset their relationship with the community and tainted the reputation of the [cops] who [didn’t get caught]…The Provincial Police Association of Quebec [is] funding the lawsuit…The report uncovered two decades of…sexual abuse against…women [who]…were beaten and raped by the [cops]…

The Course of a Disease (#663)

Truth from a politician is even rarer than a denunciation of prohibition in Ireland:

A Fine Gael minister has caused outrage by [stating] there is nothing wrong with lonely men finding affection in the arms of a prostitute…And he dismissed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald’s plans to criminalise hookers and clients as something that “doesn’t work…We don’t have the resources to police the women and certainly don’t have resources to police the much larger number of men…where you are talking about a lonely chap who wants to go out and spend his money to have a physical relationship because he’s got a need, there’s nothing wrong with that’’…

It’s a measure of the sickness of Western society that such an obviously-true statement could cause “outrage”.

Send In the Clowns

We’re probably nearing the end of this year’s clown panic, and that’s kind of sad:

On 12 October 2016, the Facebook page “Clown Hunters” published a post warning that clowns may be “planning their own purge the night before Halloween…Stay inside, keep all pets inside and keep all doors and windows locked”…Despite having all the hallmarks of an opportunistic social media hoax predicated on contemporaneous purported clown sightings, close to half a million users directly shared the post within 48 hours of its appearance…Missing from most versions of the rumor were details about how information on the clown purge was obtained, how the clowns might be organizing among themselves, whether the clown purge threat was localized or widespread, or indication that any credible entity believed such a thing was possible or likely. The rumor was a variation on cyclically viral general “purge” rumors spurred on by social media panics in specific areas, often occurring around Halloween…no outbreak of widespread crime has ever followed them…Unlike previous viral purge panics, we haven’t been able to find any indication that police in any jurisdiction have even bothered to address the clown purge rumors…

Whatever They Need To Say (#684)

Frankie Mullin on the recent Soho & Chinatown raids:

…A [cop mouthpiece pretended]…that the operation was “launched specifically in response to concerns raised by sex workers themselves”…[but in reality it was] “concern”…from…[prohibitionist NGOs masquerading as] charities…In 2013, the justification for the raids was, again, trafficking. But no evidence of trafficking was found. After a series of court cases and public outcry, 18 of the 20 closed flats were reopened…definitions of trafficking conflict with common sense understandings of the term. It’s deemed “irrelevant whether the victim consents to the travel”. No coercion is necessary, meaning any undocumented migrant worker in the UK is fair game to be “rescued” as a trafficking victim…the Met…confiscated £35,000, bagged it up and, in the style of the best teenage Instagram gangsters, released trophy pictures to the press…

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In the News (#685)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, All About the Men, Blunt Instrument, brothels, Canada, Checklist, China, clowns, condoms, cops, drivers, fantasy, language, Missouri, One Born Every Minute, Panopticon, porn, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, robots, Send In the Clowns, Sex Lies and Busybodies, Surplus Women, surveillance, Texas, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The Swedish Pimpocracy, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers on October 29, 2016| 6 Comments »

If you don’t like that someone has sexual needs that you don’t understand…that is your problem. – Ryan Thomas

The Swedish Pimpocracy

It’s illegal to pay for sex in Sweden, unless you film it for everyone to see:

…Swedish health minister Gabriel Wikström…is championing…a…fairtrade perspective…for porn…“In which way has it been produced, and is there consent? Then you can move forward in minimizing porn that is misogynistic and produced under bad conditions”…

Sex, Lies and Busybodies

Why do so many losers want porn movies to be condom commercials?

A British university is offering to pay young couples £400 to be filmed having sex in a bid to promote the notion that using a condom does not “kill the mood.” Coventry University is looking for three couples aged between 18 and 25 to have sex on camera. They will be filmed in “natural settings” such as student accommodation and a car. It will be “tastefully shot” and use “real couples in loving, consensual relationships,” according to the academics behind the project…Dr. Katie Newby said the videos aim to show that sex can still be fun and sexy even when stopping to put on a condom…The project is being financially backed by the government-funded Medical Research Council…

I make more than £400 about half the times I have sex, and not much less than £400 the other half of the times.

Pyrrhic Victory

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Imagine a security camera that can…spot drivers who are texting when they should be watching the road, potentially passing on this information to law enforcement officials that can then issue a ticket…Security cameras with this level of visual intelligence are…worrisome. Hikvision cites the case of a senior citizen who became lost and was located using the facial recognition built into its cameras. But a camera that can find a lost child or identify a criminal suspect can just as easily be used for invasive government surveillance, like the case of protesters targeted through facial recognition…

Any Old Port

The real reason people get addicted:

Blunt Instrument

“Safe house” in this context means “jail”:

…[Houston pigs] began a major [pogrom against] the…sex trade…Ying Wen was arrested during an early-morning raid and charged with money laundering…Wen was the owner and operator of Hana Top Spa…Three young women, [fantasized by furiously-masturbating cops as] victims of human trafficking, were removed and placed in a safe house…crime stats over the last three years…show [no increase]…But [myths] of problems near the spa persist…

Note the language representing human women as inanimate objects: “removed and placed in”. If you have the stomach, read the original for the pompous DA claiming that sex workers are liars and comparing us to filthy insects.

All About the Men

As I’ve written many times, prostitution is a “crime” defined entirely by motive; if a woman has sex for any other reason than profit the same exact behavior is not criminalized, but if she has that motivation in her mind her “legal” acts are magically transformed into “illegal” ones. Given this bizarre and evil belief that it’s OK to criminalize certain thoughts in the service provider‘s head, it’s not really surprising that prohibitionists also obsess about what’s in the service buyer‘s head as well; most of the propaganda on this is pretty horrifying and better reflects the prohibitionists’ views of sex and women than it does the buyers’. So it’s really nice to see an article like this, in which a sex therapist thoroughly debunks prohibitionist propaganda about clients by setting forth the many reasons men see sex workers, as revealed by hundreds of sex workers and clients and supported by research.

Surplus Women (#445)

Nothing they can do to this monster would come close to what I’d do to him:

A banker tortured a prostitute for three days, then slashed her throat and hid her body in a suitcase…Rurik Jutting…filmed himself subjecting Sumarti Ningsih, 23, to a horrific ordeal after fuelling himself with booze, cocaine and Red Bull…He forced [the] terrified…Sumarti to lick a toilet bowl before he cut her throat with a serrated knife. But she did not die immediately so he dragged her to the shower where he sawed through her neck. Sumarti was one of two Indonesian sex workers killed by Jutting in his luxury [Hong Kong] flat…His second victim, Seneng Mujiasih, 26, was killed five days later. Her throat was also cut…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#445)

One would think that so-called “futurists” would have the sense to put their “predictions” far enough in the future that they won’t be disproved quite so soon:

David Levy…says, ‘The very first primitive sex robots will arrive next year…but it will take at least a decade before truly sophisticated sex dolls go on sale.” The breakthrough point is likely to be when celebrities start to have sex with the dolls, says Levy…”When somebody like Tom Cruise goes on the record and says, ‘I had sex with a robot,’ the whole world will notice”…

Checklist (#633)

Sex workers: Uber now wants its drivers to spy on us and rat us out to the pigs. I suggest you start using Lyft instead:

An organization that fights [sex workers]…is [colluding with] taxi and ride share drivers. The partnership between “Ending Child Slavery at the Source” and Uber will [indoctrinate] drivers to [harass]…sex [workers]…Faiza Mathon-Mathieu…hopes the transportation industry can…report people they encounter [to the cops]…“They don’t necessarily know that they’re victims…they are not going to…be seeking help,” said Mathon-Mathieu. This group hopes Uber drivers will use their interaction with [sex workers] to [betray them]…Guidelines developed by [prohibitionists]…will help these ride share drivers detect someone [to rat on]…“Youth with name or symbols tattooed…if they have multiple phones”…

One Born Every Minute (#645)

Another sleazy scam artist raping aspiring sex workers:

A Kansas City-area man is accused of duping dozens of women into having sex with him on camera as “rehearsal” for pornographic movies. Federal prosecutors announced a 21-count indictment…against…Mario Antoine…[who] is accused of creating online aliases as a talent manager, photographer and videographer and claiming to work for fictitious companies in the pornography industry. Investigators say he promised to pay the women thousands of dollars…[and] when the women complained about not being paid, Antoine forwarded images of the sexual activity to their employers or significant others…

Saving Them From Themselves (#678)

Pro Libertate featured an absolutely scathing denunciation of the district attorney, cops and other “authorities” who worked to turn a group of ordinary teens into “sex offenders” and are being challenged by the parents of one of their victims. I’m not going to quote it because it really needs to be read in its entirety, but I will say that the author not only correctly characterizes the “officials” as sexual perverts, but includes lovely lines like “They lied, of course. That’s what police officers are trained to do.”

Send In the Clowns (#682)

And here some of you thought the clown thing was kind of off-topic for me:

…the recent uptick in creepy clown sightings has correlated with a significant uptick in the demand for clown porn…Now, in a move as disturbing as it was inevitable, Porn.com has purchased ClownSex.com in hopes of cashing in…

Between the Lines (#683)

I’m not getting lazy; I just knew that Liz Brown would do such an awesome job on this, I didn’t feel there was any point in even attempting it myself:

The results have been pouring in from Operation Cross Country X, the FBI’s tenth annual, nationwide sex sting targeting what the agency [pretends is] “underage human trafficking.” Each year, FBI agents across America team up with [cops]…state attorneys…and others for a few days of posing as people buying or selling sex…This year…According to the FBI, “82 sexually exploited juveniles” were recovered and “239 pimps and other individuals” arrested. The average age of the minors was just under 16…the bulk of OCCX efforts involved cops contacting adult female sex workers while posing as customers and then arresting them, if not also seizing the women’s money and throwing them in jail…nearly three-quarters of all arrests were for simple solicitation or prostitution…Regardless how old someone selling sex is or how willing their involvement, anyone accompanying them may be arrested as a “pimp”…In Mississippi, a man from out of state who was visiting his 22-year-old daughter was arrested for promoting prostitution because…he was…aware she was doing it…I’ve identified approximately:

534 arrests for prostitution

163 arrests for attempting to pay an adult for sex (solicitation)

145 arrests for charges such as pimping, pandering, promoting prostitution, or contributing to the delinquency of a minor

14 arrests for attempting to pay an undercover-cop pretending to be a teenage-girl for sex

10 people arrested on human-trafficking charges

9 people arrested for “keeping a bawdy place,” in conjunction with massage-parlor prostitution businesses in Virginia…

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In the News (#684)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, asset seizure, Australia, Backpage, Between the Lines, California, clowns, cops, Europe, fascism, Gorged With Meaning, hysteria, Imagination Pinned Down, lawyers, Little Boxes, Malaysia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Nevada, Of Course It Is, pathologization of males, porn, pragmatism, Presumption of Guilt, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, red-light districts, robots, Safe Targets, Send In the Clowns, surveillance, The Pygmalion Fallacy, To Molest and Rape, underage, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, virginity, Washington (state), Whatever They Need To Say on October 26, 2016| 6 Comments »

I have the right to choose what I do with my body. – Katherine Stone

Safe Targets

In case you can’t quite figure out what this site is actually for, I’ll spell it out for you. After Tom Dart’s megalomaniacal assault on Backpage left it unable to take payments except by money order or Bitcoin, many sex workers who weren’t comfortable with adopting the latter opted for the former. But now that other sociopathic politicians have demonstrated that they won’t even let the law stop their jihad, many sex workers are terrified that their identities will be uncovered by pigs illegally rooting in Backpage’s records in a future raid. Into this opening have stepped profiteers who, like Dennis Hof, are perfectly happy to charge an exploitative 50% by charging $2 for every $1 worth of “safe Backpage credit” (presumably in bitcoin) that can’t easily be traced back to them. This is what “law enforcement” means when it claims it wants to “help” sex workers.

Presumption of Guilt (November Updates)

Fascist scum like this will be the first up against the wall after the politicians they worship:

There is $1.38 trillion worth of cash in circulation; $1.08 trillion of this is in the form of $100 bills…that works out to 34 hundreds in circulation for every man, woman, and child in the United States — even though a normal American rarely carries even one…No one knows exactly who has all those large bills because physical cash, by its nature, is hard to track…consequently most C-notes are used for a variety of illicit purposes — tax evasion, drug dealing, bribery, and so forth — both in the United States and overseas. Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff believes that the solution is to get rid of cash. In a new book, he argues that abolishing $100, $50, and perhaps even $20 bills will seriously inhibit crime and tax evasion while doing little to hamper legitimate commerce…

Note that the buying power of a $100 bill today is less than that of a $5 bill in 1900. In Rogoff’s totalitarian fantasy, the government would have total control of virtually all commerce; sex workers and others in the irregular economy would be forced to deal in barter, cryptocurrency or the currencies of less-totalitarian states, which would make life a lot more difficult…presumably the outcome this bootlicker wants.

Gorged With Meaning

“British students are going to extraordinary lengths to fund their studies, including doing lucrative work”. That’s how extraordinarily dumb this sounds to me:

British students are going to extraordinary lengths to fund their studies, including sex work and drug dealing, as the cost of university continues to rise…one in 10 undergraduates admitted to knowing someone who has turned to drug dealing to earn extra money, and as many as one in 20 said they knew someone who pays for their course by escorting. Some 17 per cent of students said they considered stripping an acceptable way of funding university life, and one in 25 students surveyed said they were considering looking for a sugar daddy to support them financially…

The Pygmalion Fallacy

Deep self-deception about technology, pearl-clutching about sexuality and offensive ignorance about sex work, all under one roof!

…Goldsmith University in London…is where the International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots is to be held this upcoming December. The congress was supposed to be held in Malaysia on November 16 but was subsequently banned by the country as it deemed the whole premise as “too extreme”…The session will focus on humanoid robots, robot emotions and personalities, teledildonics (cybersex toys), intelligent electronic sex hardware, entertainment robots and more…Joel Snell…warns that engaging sex with a robot can be addicting…sex therapist Gurpreet Singh says…robots shouldn’t replace humans entirely…Dr. John Danaher believes that sex robots are an excellent replacement to human prostitutes…”They won’t need to ‘fake it’ the same way as human prostitutes.”

Imagination Pinned Down

This ridiculous fantasy is nauseating even by “sex trafficking” standards:

Rachel Pointer…[of] Omaha…[claim’s her neighbor’s] boyfriend raped [her when she was six and] then…started [pimping] her…It wasn’t always the same person selling her. Pointer said after a few months someone else “took over that role”…It was surprisingly easy for this to happen without anyone noticing…The kids were homeschooled and there weren’t regular doctor appointments. In other words, there were no outsiders to see what was happening. The traffickers would tell Rachel to do things like fake an illness and go to bed early, then sneak out her second floor window and climb down a trellis to be sold for sex at night. “Drugs and alcohol became part of the picture at a very young age, 7, 8, 9-years old,” she explained. “Cocaine mostly and alcohol..enough to take the edge off and to keep me up and to keep me compliant…this was her life three, four, five times a week. For 10 years…“When I got older, when I was a teenager, I started not being able to make as much. I wasn’t as profitable”…The traffickers made one final threat of what would happen to Rachel and her family if she ever said anything, then it was over. She never heard from them again. There was no investigation, no charges, no punishment for the men who sold her and those who bought her…

As usual, there are no names and no evidence, and it’s all set conveniently decades in the past. And nobody bothers to question the blatant, ugly and totally-bizarre lie that there are more adult men who would be interested in fucking a six-year-old than a 16-year-old, nor the absurd premise that nobody would notice a schoolkid was constantly drunk or hopped up on coke.

Whatever They Need To Say (#350)

Three years later, another massive pogrom in Soho, troublingly timed to coincide with similar pogroms all over the world:

Late…on the evening of Thursday, 20 October, [cops with]…sniffer dogs raided six massage parlours in Chinatown and Soho, when their cash registers were full with most of a day’s takings. Women…were dragged out onto the streets past midnight, before 12 were detained and removed for immigration offences, with a further 6 arrests of maids and other staff members…The Met [pretends]…that the “aim of the operation is to identify, safeguard and remove victims of human trafficking, sexual exploitation and modern slavery offences”…[reporters repeated the propaganda that the arrested] women had been “rescued”…The use of sniffer dogs highlights the absurdity of the Met’s claims to deploy their raids, in the middle of the night, for the protection of women. Can a sniffer dog tell us if a massage parlour is “utilising trafficked women”? Can a sniffer dog say if a sex worker is being paid fairly for work, in decent conditions? No. In fact, all a sniffer dog can do is to intimidate women and provide evidence for laying charges, which was, of course, the Met’s primary aim all along…The police also saw fit to take away tens of thousands of pounds from workers at the end of a day of seeing clients…

In the News (#683)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Between the Lines, California, Canada, clowns, cops, Droit du Seigneur, FBI, Hollywood, hysteria, Louisiana, Missouri, No Escape, No Moss, O Canada!, Oklahoma, Pearls Firmly Clutched, pimps, prisons, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, Russia, Send In the Clowns, Spotlight, surveillance, Tennessee, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, yellow journalism on October 22, 2016| 9 Comments »

All that criminalization of prostitution does is make people afraid.
– Tara Burns

Droit du Seigneur

Though pimps are pretty rare, a disproportionate number of the ones who do exist are cops: “[An] Oklahoma City [cop]…was arrested…on multiple complaints, including aiding in prostitution. Lt. Alex Edwards…was [also charged with a bunch of vague ‘crimes’ used by prosecutors to stack penalties]…”

Pyrrhic Victory

When they smash down your door in the middle of the night, murder your dogs, terrorize your family and embroil you in a decade-long court battle which will utterly bankrupt you because some computer decided you look like somebody who supposedly broke some law, don’t say I didn’t warn you:

Half of American adults are in a face-recognition database, according to a Georgetown University study…”The Perpetual Line-up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America” shows that one-fourth of the nation’s law enforcement agencies have access to face-recognition databases, and their use…is virtually unregulated…Alvaro Bedoya…co-author of the study [said] “By [scanning]…the faces on 26 states’ driver’s license and ID photos, police and the FBI have basically enrolled half of all adults in a massive virtual line-up. This has never been done for fingerprints or DNA”…researchers obtained documents stating that at least five “major police departments,” including those in Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles, “either claimed to run real-time face recognition off of street cameras, bought technology that can do so, or expressed an interest in buying it”…

Spotlight (#47)

I wonder if Asstoon will ever get professional help for his delusions of grandeur?

Ashton Kutcher [made grandiose and unsubstantiated claims]…about how Thorn, an organization founded by himself and ex-wife Demi Moore, has been working to combat human trafficking…Kutcher [fantasized] that his organization had saved more than 6,000 victims from human trafficking in 2016, identifying more 2,000 trafficker in the process…An additional online menace that Thorn intends to combat…was online pornography…“I’m going to eliminate child pornography from the internet.”

Imagine a reporter neither expressing skepticism of nor demanding proof from a person who claimed to have saved 6000 rape victims and vowed that his next super-deed would be to eliminate every opium poppy in Asia.

Pearls Firmly Clutched

Using Suzy Favor Hamilton’s story without her input is pretty sleazy even for an anti-whore sleazefest like Law and Order:

…an…episode on Law & Order SVU…revolved around a female Olympic Pole Vaulter who had been sexually assaulted while secretly escorting…They flash in the intro, “The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person, entity or event.” Well that’s kinda laughable because with the exception of the sexual assault and a couple minor modifications, it’s pretty much me out there. Olympian? Check. Track & Field athlete? Check. Married? Check. Mom? Check. Secretly escorting? Check. Bipolar? Check…It’s strange to me that a show like this…can rip off a story so blatantly. I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of how all this works, but what I do know it that as I watched, it felt a little icky and sneaky. Like someone had broken into my life uninvited…

Torture Chamber

Americans keep pretending to be shocked by this, then support sending more people to prison:

A former inmate of a Louisiana private prison is suing the company that runs the prison after two guards [orally raped] him [on several occasions]…Aaron Franklin…was abused by Derrick Deshotel and Tyler Strothers…at the Allen Correctional Center…An investigation by the prison substantiated his allegations…The guards were fired…and criminally charged…[but] received only probation…

O, Canada! (All Traffick, All the Time)

Canadian cops are trying to intimidate sex workers again:

Holed up in a hotel room close to Calgary’s airport, a handful of [pigs]…dig through piles of online escort ads as they prep for Day Two of Operation Northern Spotlight…they make calls to unsuspecting sex workers and [lie to them to] set up “dates”…they hope to [intimidate them] to leave the world’s oldest profession…The women all react differently to the initial contact with the detective. Some are hostile, as they realize the [cops have robbed them of hundreds of dollars of their time]…

Between the Lines

Sex workers, our clients, our associates and our families were once again subjected to the FBI’s periodic anti-sex worker pogrom, “Operation Cross-Country”:

This year’s Operation Cross Country—the largest to date—involved 55 FBI field offices and 74 FBI-led Child Exploitation Task Forces throughout the country composed of more than 400 law enforcement agencies. Hundreds of law enforcement officials took part in sting operations in hotels, casinos, truck stops, and other areas frequented by pimps, prostitutes, and their customers…

The FBI learned years ago not to give any clear figures on the number of peaceful adults whose lives are destroyed in these fanatical jihads, preferring instead to represent any underage sex workers they arrest as “rescued victims” and pretty much any male unlucky enough to fall into their hands as a “pimp” (though the conviction rate is only 4%). So it may take a week or two to get a picture of the extent of the carnage; right now the coverage is dominated by nauseating fluff like this in which cops and politicians engage in a vast circle-jerk to fantasies of enslaved teen girls:

Calling child sex trafficking a “scourge,” FBI Director James Comey announced Monday that 82 minors had been rescued…through an international effort held this month to locate victims and arrest the perpetrators…”These children trapped in this hell need a hero,” he said. “And the men and women who work for us, federal agents, state agents, local police officers and partners around the world are those heroes.” Comey’s comments came during the International Association of Chiefs of Police convention in San Diego…

But the tide has turned, and this time the usual cacophony of cop-fellation which accompanies these pogroms is interrupted by a few voices speaking the truth:

…sex-worker advocates [explain that]…better results could be achieved by decriminalizing prostitution. They argue that eliminating the fear of arrest would sharply increase the reporting of abuse and exploitation from both sex workers and their customers. Tara Burns…said people involved in the sex trade can’t rely on the hope that [a cop]…they encounter will use their arrest discretion to zero in on abuses, and could just as easily wield it to commit them, as seen in the ongoing East Bay police sex scandal…

To Molest and Rape

It’s unusual for reporters to actually use the word “rape” in reference to rapist cops: “A Festus [Missouri cop] charged with rape and domestic assault…has been [given a desk job]…Andrew J. Hirth…was charged Sept. 15…”

No Moss

Let’s hope Rolling Stone‘s fortunes follow its credibility down the anti-sex toilet:

[Nicole Eramo] the University of Virginia dean [of students is] suing Rolling Stone for defamation over how she was portrayed in an article about a campus rape report…Sabrina Rubin Erdely [falsely] described a woman named “Jackie” being gang-raped by seven men…and portrayed the administration as not doing enough to help…“I don’t think anyone at Rolling Stone thought of me as a real person,” Eramo said…“You can’t just do drive-by journalism”…Rolling Stone made her “look like the devil”…[even though]…Jackie [had written]…”Dean Eramo has truly saved my life….[she] was helpful and understanding and, above all, compassionate”…Eramo disputed that she ever said any of the [quotes attributed to her in the article and]…no one at Rolling Stone contacted…[her] during the fact-checking process…Jackie forwarded an email to the reporter showing that the dean had set up two meetings with police so Jackie could report the alleged rape to authorities. A reference to these meetings…was included in a draft of the article but was later edited out…

In other words, Erdely & Rolling Stone knew that the dean had supported “Jackie” in her claim, but willfully chose to depict her as a villain to make it a better story.

Send In the Clowns

As clown hysteria continues to mount, institutional responses to it grow increasingly more stupid:

The Russian government warned citizens traveling to Britain to beware of clowns…San Francisco schools went into lockdown during a clown fear wave, and have now claimed the FBI is looking into things…in Concord…a mother [claimed] a “creepy clown” tried to kidnap her 1-year-old child…The woman [supposedly] kicked the clown in the shin and the person fled…Sonoma State University has responded to clown sightings as well as an unrelated person in a gorilla suit…That’s the second…clown-gorilla connection…

Meanwhile, elsewhere in California:

Police arrested a juvenile Tuesday following a social media post that suggested “armed” clowns would visit three Hanford schools…police began receiving calls about the post…from [idiots] fearing for their own safety or for the safety of their children…Capt. Karl Anderson attributed the fast resolution to citizens who [snitched]…The Spooky Halloween Super Store…and…Halloween City…said the recent clown scares around the country haven’t hurt sales of creepy clown masks, costumes and decorations…

But while these entrepreneurs are sensibly making money from people’s herd behavior, Target decided to “send a message” that it’s part of the Establishment: “Halloween costume shoppers won’t be finding any ‘creepy clown’ masks on Target store shelves or online. The decision was made late last week to pull all clown masks from stores…” And Snopes is fielding some manifestations of the hysteria:

On 17 October 2016, the Empire Herald web site published a gruesome article about the arrest of a clown after police found eleven human bodies stuffed in a freezer at his Memphis residence…this story…was…a…fabrication intended to exploit…clown hysteria…The Empire Herald is a fake news site that does not publish any factual stories…

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In the News (#682)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, agency denial, Arizona, brothels, California, Canada, Challenge, clowns, cops, diversion programs, Eternal Vigilance, Florida, Hall of Shame, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, India, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, law, Madonna/whore, Netherlands, Nevada, New Zealand, O Canada!, Pennsylvania, pimps, porn, Power Play, propaganda, rape, rescue industry, Rough Trade, Send In the Clowns, statistics, streetwalkers, The Proper Study, Too Close To Home, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Wisconsin, Wise Investment on October 19, 2016| 4 Comments »

The criminalization of sex work exposes not only sex workers but all women to more violence. – Alison Bass

The Proper Study

Yet another study confirms what we’ve been saying all along:

…a recent study in…Las Vegas uncovers what anti-trafficking organizations might not like to hear. The majority of youth selling sex on the streets have no pimps, or even third party managers, countering one of the key narratives of the sex trafficking movement that all youth involved are victims doing this work against their will…three fourths of the youth interviewed about the sex trade said they were not working with any pimp or other kind of third party manager…24 percent of the study’s participants reported use of a third party to find clients at some point in their lives, but only 4 percent…reported use of one at the time of the study…youth sex workers who do use pimps do so inconsistently and intermittently…[they] are finding their clients independently and negotiating their own prices…

It Looks Good On Paper (#340)

Remember that religious brainwashing program which “partnered with the Sarasota…Police Department…to bring victims into their care”?

The conversations happening by phone are ones that the Sarasota Police Street Crime Unit hope will turn into a positive outcome. “I want you to know you are not in any trouble,” [oinked a pig]…”We are just trying to reach out and let you know there are options”…Sergeant Robert Armstrong and his unit are [harassing and intimidating] women who have active ads online for escort services. Many are involved in prostitution…The team is focused on connecting women with Selah Freedom…

“Many are involved in prostitution”? Are these people actually pretending not to know what an escort is? Look beneath the pious exterior; we don’t actually know what stated or implied threats these cops are using to try to intimidate women into this “program”, which is so unpopular the only way it gets participants is by cops literally forcing or frightening women into it. If the tactic seems familiar, it’s because it’s much like Canada’s “Operation Northern Spotlight” except that the cops are (for now) merely terrorizing sex workers by phone instead of showing up at their doors.

If Men Were Angels

“Youth pastors” are nearly as bad as cops:

A Pennsylvania pastor faces charges he impregnated a 15-year-old girl from his youth group during a seven-month sexual relationship…Wesley Blackburn, youth pastor at Faith Brethren Bible Church, told the New Paris church’s head pastor he had confessed to the relationship and asked for a divorce…church leaders immediately fired Blackburn…and alerted police last week. He was charged Oct. 6 on hundreds of counts of statutory sexual assault and indecent assault…

Rough Trade (#446)

A setback for women’s rights in India:

The Supreme Court…ruled that a sex worker cannot file a case alleging rape if her customers refused to pay her…The judgment…acquitted three people of rape charges in a case that is close to 20 years old…the Karnataka High Court had convicted them of raping the victim, who used to work as a maid; the victim’s roommate had revealed that she works as a sex-worker at night…the Supreme Court…[claimed] that the woman’s “conduct during the alleged ordeal is unlike a victim of rape and betrays somewhat submissive and consensual disposition”…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#502)

In which po-faced twits with tape over their mouths walk down a street holding pre-printed propaganda cards:

A long, single-file line of people donned [sic] in black, some with their mouths taped shut, silently made its way down Stephen Avenue [in Calgary] to [promote anti-sex work propaganda]…The [po-faced] group remained speechless, but handed out [propaganda] pamphlets to bystanders…former Manitoba MP Joy Smith [spoke] at the event…part of a global initiative by A21…

The tape is supposed to signify that sex workers are “voiceless”, a convenient lie for those who wish to talk over us. A21, the NGO which sponsored this charade, is infamous as the source of the high-water mark of the “clients per day” competition of a few years ago: 110.

Eternal Vigilance (#610)

Just a reminder that prohibitionism still exists in decriminalized regimes:

New Zealand celebrities will be donning aprons to serve dinner with a difference at Destiny Rescue’s Dark Secret Pop up Dinner on International Anti-Slavery Day, Tuesday 18 October…Another special menu, thankfully not available in New Zealand, will shine the spotlight on the dark secret of the near two million children trapped in sexual slavery in countries like Thailand, India and the Philippines…

The table-waiting gimmick is appropriate given that Destiny’s idea of “rescue” is to teach brown urchins to sew, wait table and draw with crayons.

Wise Investment (#673)

Picket-fence gay men are such wonderful, dependable sex worker allies:

In his recent attempt to revise the history of sex workers in Vancouver’s West End, Kevin Dale McKeown…erases the West Sex Workers Memorial Committee and our eight-year campaign to secure financial reparations and a formal civic apology from the City of Vancouver. He instead claims that his recollections are more truthful and authentic than the voices of sex workers…In McKeown’s distorted revision…expelled sex workers become the villains. However, our archival research found close to 1,000 news articles revealing that power elites in the early 1980s — including Mayor Mike Harcourt, MP Pat Carney, Attorney General Brian Smith, Concerned Residents of the West End (CROWE) and Shame the Johns — forged a “war on hookers” with lethal consequences…Residents like McKeown moved into the West End when it was a thriving [24-hour] entertainment zone…McKeown…frantically disavows his own and other white gay men’s complicity in hooker-bashing tactics…McKeown makes a failed attempt to hide his investment in a “quiet” and “peaceful” gaybourhood cleansed of “noisy” hookers…

Too Close To Home (#677)

These are the people who claim they want to “protect” women, and portray the men we choose to have sex with as “sexual predators”:

…after settling a sexual-harassment lawsuit for $1 million in 2013, the King County Sheriff’s Office…is again embroiled in a legal fight over its treatment of female officers. This time, two…deputies and one sergeant are accusing the county of gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual-orientation based harassment, and retaliation…a former head of internal affairs [is] seeking whistleblower protections before he talks. Central to many of these claims is King County Sheriff John Urquhart…[whose] tenure so far…has been ignominious, involving the two sexual-harassment lawsuits, a cop convicted of pimping his wife and selling his colleagues steroids, a bogus “sex trafficking bust,” a chief-of-staff with polygraph problems, and more…this latest lawsuit…specifically calls out the actions of Sheriff Urquhart, Major Sean Ledford, and Sergeant Dewey Burns…defensive tactics instructor Melissa Deer…claims [Burns] grabbed her crotch during a training exercise…text messages showed the sergeant making racist, anti-gay, and sexually explicit comments to other staffers, including…Deputy Amy Shoblom…who…is one of three plaintiffs in the current suit, along with Diana Neff…and Julie Blessum…[Burns’] antics included texting her half-naked photos of women he was sleeping with, asking during a roll call if she had “hooked up” with a male deputy, and drawing a penis on the hood of her car with hand sanitizer…

There’s a lot more, and it’s by the awesome Liz Brown so you should read it all.

Send In the Clowns

The most disturbing thing about the clown hysteria is the way in which it has so quickly given rise to organized violence and naked authoritarianism. A “Clown Lives Matter” protest against the panic, to be held in Tucson, was cancelled due to amateur threats of violence, and the professional violence-inflicters are responding by criminally charging people and destroying young childrens’ lives. The hysteria has also spread to Ireland, and while police in Dublin have responded calmly, those in Belfast have responded with US-style threats of violence and lifelong imprisonment. Dutch police are moronically calling for a prankster there to turn himself in, and the ever-lunatic British tabloid press have found a way to merge the clown panic into “sex predator” panic:

…The basic premise of [this] story is that some men get off on women dressed as creepy clowns, they’re causing a spike in clown-porn searches and clown-fetish requests at escort services, and soon their “sick fetish” may lead them to commit real-world sexual assaults “as the adrenaline junkies seek more ‘extreme thrills'”…what the story lacks in logic it makes up for in references to “sex-mad sickos” and quotes from an anonymous escort-agency head…[it] also quotes a woman who counsels rape victims and worries that the “clown craze” provides cover to predators…Popular millennial women’s website Elite Daily published a clown-sex-panic story…warning readers that “the sexual deviants partaking in the madness are allegedly dressing up as clowns and experimenting with BDSM” and “those who are involved in the aggressive clown porn are potentially dangerous.”

Power Play

Your periodic reminder that Dennis Hof is a revolting excuse for a human being:

Dennis Hof…said that while he supports law enforcement aggressively enforcing laws against underage sex trafficking, he believes that law enforcement in the United States would have an easier time doing its job if adult prostitution were [legalized]…using the [Nevada]…model…Hof said [independent sex workers spread]…sexually transmitted diseases…”My brothel business model [magically] puts the…pimps [who aren’t politically connected] out of business, [magically] stops underage girls from working illegally [?] and [magically] ends sex trafficking [even though 99% of Nevada sex workers prefer to work illegally than to submit to the onerous brothel regime]”…

In the first version of the press release, Hof actually cheered the arrests of the owners & CEO of Backpage; I guess he later realized that was vile even by his standards.

Challenge (#681)

The ACLU has finally done something to act on its theoretical support for decriminalization by filing an amicus brief in the ESPLERP case:

…The ACLU brief supports the lawsuit’s contention that California’s penal code violates fundamental constitutional rights to sexual privacy and is enforced in a discriminatory manner…Lawrence v. Texas…recognized that “liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex”…The ACLU brief also argues that the California penal code is unconstitutional because the way it is enforced is discriminatory. Certain groups, such as transgender women, LGBT youth, and female sex workers are targeted and arrested for prostitution in disproportionately higher numbers than other people…

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In the News (#681)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, agency denial, Arizona, Australia, Bogeymen, Challenge, Checklist, clowns, cops, drugs, end demand, fascism, Gullible's Travels, holidays, hysteria, Illinois, Ireland, Kentucky, law, Madonna/whore, Making It Up As They Go, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Never Call the Cops, New Mexico, Ohio, One Born Every Minute, Pennsylvania, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, Rough Trade, Saving Them from Themselves, Send In the Clowns, sex offender registry, sexting, Stop faking!, Swedish model, The End of the Beginning, The Lesser of Two Evils, Torture Chamber, underage, Vendetta, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Whore Madonnas on October 15, 2016| 8 Comments »

We see no constitutionally adequate basis to criminalize sex solely because one consenting adult pays another. – Hayley Gorenberg and Richard Saenz of Lambda Legal

Rough Trade

Be careful out there, my sisters in Philadelphia:

Philadelphia police say a predator who’s attacked female prostitutes earlier this year may be responsible for two more recent attacks…the most recent incident occurred Oct. 1 when a man on a bike propositioned [a street worker] for sex…the man choked her until she lost consciousness…Police believe the same man also accosted another prostitute at gunpoint Sept. 19. He took her to an alley and [raped] her while holding a knife to her face. Police believe the same man attacked a prostitute with a brick then stabbed [to death]…on July 16. She died. The same man, often arriving on a bike, is believed to have attacked at least one other prostitute, slashing her throat April 19.

Finley Fawn’s case has been resolved!

The Lesser of Two Evils

As I’ve pointed out before, most laws governing sex work prior to the late 19th century were aimed at drawing lines between harlots and “good” women, rather than at advancing a quixotic crusade to “eradicate” the ineradicable. Here’s a list of garments prostitutes were required to wear in various medieval European cities:

Beaucaire: a mark on the left arm…
Berne: red cap.
Bristol: striped hoods.
Castres: a man’s hat and a scarlet belt.
Florence: gloves and bells on the head…and high-heeled slippers.
Languedoc: a cord belt.
Leipzig: yellow cloak trimmed with blue.
London: striped hoods.
Mantua: white cloak and badge on chest…
Marseilles: striped tunic.
Milan: black cloak.
Nimes: a sleeve of a special colour.
Pisa: a yellow headband.
Strasbourg: black and white sugarloaf hat.
Toulouse: a mark on their sleeve.
Venice: yellow scarf.
Vienna: yellow scarf.
Zurich: red cap.

Saving Them From Themselves

Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever:

A man [in Australia] who found out that his 15-year-old stepdaughter was sexting her boyfriend proceeded to download the evidence to bring it to the school and the police to ask them to intervene…Now [Ashan Ortell] has been convicted on child pornography charges and placed on the sex offender registry…for eight years…

Frankly, I’m glad this idiot got what he deserved. If anything, anyone who would report his own daughter to the pigs for the “crime” of having a sexual relationship deserves much worse than 8 years on the registry.

Gullible’s Travels

Even if this were true (which it isn’t), it’s a testament to the entrenched stupidity of authoritarians that they refuse to see that binge drinking on US university campuses only became common after the drinking age was raised to 21:

A growing number of college are banning hard liquor on campus in a move to curb extreme drinking — but students are still getting their party on, and some are adding an extra element of risk to their binges…the phenomenon dubbed “drunkorexia”…University of Houston Professor Dipali Rinker said in a study of 1,200 students, he found up to 80 percent were restricting calories, overexercising, purging or using laxatives in combination with binge drinking…

Bogeymen

No, the sex trade in Ireland is no more “controlled” by “gangs” than it is in the US. This is little more than a cop wanking fantasy of there being “bad guys” to target, aided and abetted by the pathological liars at Ruhama:

Five major vice gang members are behind three-quarters of the sex-for-sale business in Ireland, according to data taken from the most popular website used to advertise prostitution. One gang this week has links to 80 advertised women and more than 10 transgender prostitutes, who can each make €1,000 a day. Ireland’s multi-million euro vice trade is set for a massive blow as a new law to make it illegal to buy sex is due before the Dáil this week…

But just for fun, ask yourself: If there really were mobsters behind all the sex work in Ireland, would they want decriminalization or increased criminalization? Did the Mafia like the end of Prohibition? And what happened to Mexican drug cartels’ profits when Washington & Colorado legalized cannabis?

The End of the Beginning

This is what happens when you don’t fight tyrannical laws from the beginning:

A federal class action…challenges a Mississippi statute that requires people convicted of having anal sex to register as sex offenders. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Mississippi residents who say they were convicted under various sodomy prohibitions, including the “unnatural intercourse” law, and Louisiana’s “crime against nature by solicitation” law…the [registration requirement] is discriminatory and unenforceable in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas invalidating all state laws against gay sex as unconstitutional…

You know why they can get away with this despite Lawrence? Because the Great Unwashed said nothing when federal courts established the precedent that the horrific persecution and ostracism inflicted on “sex offenders” are not punishments, but merely side effects of a record-keeping process.

Torture Chamber

Stop faking!

[In 1993] Anthony Gay…pled out to violating probation because of a “strong arm robbery.” Gay was convicted of the robbery and hence the violation after nicking a hat and $1, resulting in a sentence of 7 years in prison…he was warehoused at the notorious…Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois [where]…”his actions…driven by his mental illness, resulted in years of solitary confinement and additional criminal convictions, chiefly due to a series of assaults on guards, including throwing feces and urine out of the food slot in his cell door. By 2013, his sentence had been increased to 97 years and his release date pushed back to around 2091…he practiced self-mutilation, even to the point of cutting out one of his testicles and hanging it on a cell door in 2010“…He was literally crying out for help, and no one listened, save for his lawyers who managed to…convince…the court that the sentences Gay racked up while at Tamms had been improperly stacked…his new release date is set for August of 2018…Tamms has closed shop because its blatant incompetence and overindulgence in costly solitary confinement of people like Gay…

Making It Up As They Go

Seattle pretends to be “liberal”, but it’s home to vile bullshit like this:

Escape to Peace launched…a…center for survivors of sex trafficking in Bellevue on Oct. 6….Carol Loya was inspired to create the non-profit after a 2012 mission to Thailand, during which she was shocked to see and talk to young…sex work[ers]…At any given time in King County, 300-500 underage girls are being trafficked. The average age of entry is 12-14 years old, with some as young as 8 or 9…

Yes, they’re actually claiming that Greater Seattle has 20% of all coerced underage prostitutes in the entire US.

Checklist (#612)

More “beauty salon sex trafficking” idiocy from Ohio:

…100,000…cosmetologists throughout the state of Ohio…are now the latest allies in the fight against human trafficking…In Ohio alone, it is estimated that more than 1,000 girls and boys, between the ages of 12 and 17, are involved in the sex trade. Last year, Ohio’s state cosmetology board approved a requirement that human-trafficking awareness training become a mandatory part of obtaining a cosmetology license…[fetishists fantasize that] traffickers or so-called pimps may take a victim to a hair salon in order to change their appearance to avoid detection…If stylists see anything suspicious, there are things they can do like get a license plate number and call police…

In a police state, even your hairdresser may be spying on you.

One Born Every Minute (#645)

I’m pleased for the very small part I played in helping to expose this rapist:

Matt Hickey…has been charged by the King County Prosecuting Attorney with three counts of rape in the second degree. The charges…contain allegations from three women, including two women The Stranger wrote about earlier this year…who said Hickey told them he was working with a female porn recruiter, and asked them to audition for them…Not long after the first piece came out, three more women came forward to accuse Matt Hickey of rape. These women told The Stranger that Hickey got them blackout drunk and raped them while they were unable to consent. Hickey denied all of the allegations…

Vendetta (#664)

A look at the aftermath of one of the private pogroms bankrolled by billionaire sociopath Swanee Hunt:

Cory Walcott, was chair of the Military Science Department at the University of Nebraska Kearney until he was busted in a highly-publicized national sting…Prosecutors have now announced they are dropping the charge against Walcott and another man, Maurice Briggs…Their arrests were both part of the “National John Suppression Initiative”…[in which] police departments across the country pose undercover as either sex workers or their clients, arrest a lot of adult men and women for things like prostitution and solicitation, then put out splashy press releases about all the “sex trafficking arrests” they’ve made…the ultimate arrest/rescue breakdown for Lincoln?

no underage or adult sex-trafficking victims discovered

no force, fraud, or coercion discovered

four women, ages 23 to 36, charged with misdemeanor prostitution

five men charged with misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution

one man charged with felony solicitation of prostitution

one man charged with marijuana possession…

Send In the Clowns

The most interesting part of the clown panic isn’t the hysteria itself (which is kind of a yawn to anyone who’s studied such panics before), nor the copycats trying to get attention by mimicking the imaginary bogeys (ditto), but the bizarre things one finds in news stories about clown incidents. One story says “Three ‘juvenile clowns’ were taken into custody in Albuquerque, New Mexico, under the influence of marijuana“; Holy Reefer Madness, Batman! One wonders what the Kentucky man who “fired a semi-automatic rifle at a woman walking her dog because he thought she was a clown” was under the influence of; like some others, this story tries to blame the clown hysteria on Stephen King, specifically a new production of It which I doubt has anything to do with the panic. Then there’s this Massachusetts Halloween haunted house which features “scary clowns” among its attractions, reassuring the public that “they would know if there was a clown impersonator among them.” Self-important Australian “experts” pronounced the hysteria “dangerous” and “sinister” after it spread to Perth and to cities in Victoria (one wonders why they haven’t opined on the far-more-serious “sex trafficking” hysteria). But those all pale beside the horrifying statements made by cops in (wait for it) Arizona:

The Phoenix Police Department reports five juveniles ages 14 and 15 were charged with scary clown threats. Mesa police [arrested] two juveniles…[one maniac said] “I would call it a hate crime.” To prevent copycats, [pigs] and county prosecutors are taking a zero tolerance approach. “Every image, every text, every mention will be investigated,” said [Commissar] Nik Rasheta…prosecutors plan to prosecute anyone else making scary clown threats to the full extent…[propaganda operatives] say don’t think social media will be a shield to make scary clown threats. Authorities have the technology to see who’s posting and spreading them…

Challenge (#679)

Lambda Legal has honored the commitment it made to sex worker rights last year by filing an amicus brief in the ESPLERP case:

…At the heart of Lambda Legal’s most groundbreaking victories and continuing mission is self-determination, including bodily autonomy. When the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing same-sex relationships and gay identity in Lawrence v. Texas, it rightly rejected assertions against us that “public health” justified sodomy laws. The movement for reproductive justice, from which we draw key legal precedents, similarly fights for facts over fiction when government tries to limit the right to contraception, abortion, or other similar personal decision-making. Lawrence explained that the constitutional right to liberty protects all of us when we make our own decisions about adult, consensual sexual intimacy…sometimes relationships are transactional…consider prenuptial agreements, surrogacy, and hook-up websites; the fact that money is involved does not obliterate constitutional protections for marriage, parenting or sexual intimacy. All of these truths animate Lambda Legal’s position that the government may not constitutionally criminalize consensual adult sex solely because it is bought and sold.

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In the News (#680)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, asset seizure, Aversions, brothels, California, Canada, censorship, Check Your Premises, clowns, cops, dating, drugs, escort review sites, Facebook, Feminine Pragmatism, Finding What Isn’t There, Florida, Frequently Told Lies, Germany, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, Italy, language, Latin America, law, male prostitutes, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Now They Notice, Panopticon, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, Send In the Clowns, South Carolina, stripping, surveillance, The Prudish Giant, To Molest and Rape, Traffic Jam, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, universal criminality, Washington DC on October 12, 2016| 3 Comments »

Sex workers are getting paid for what we do – you ain’t. – Miranda Kane

Aversions

The older I get, the more deeply weird (and frankly, kind of disgusting) the idea of giving strangers sex for free seems to me. So I’m fascinated by the looking-glass prohibitionist notion that being paid for sex is somehow degrading, especially when I read stuff like this about what amateur dating (which I’ve never really engaged in per se) is like:

…It is not, in fact, sex-work that puts me off men. It’s dating them. When I was a sex worker, when a client came to see me, he knew I was a luxury item. My Dos and Do Nots were clear from the start, and if he asked me to do something I didn’t want to, I said no and that’s as far as it went…sex workers see the best part of men – they’re polite, friendly…On a date I’m just one click away from rejection…The sex workers of Twitter created the hashtag of #banfreebies, an ironic take on what people expect of us as obviously being so “oppressed and exploited”. Remember that, won’t you, the next time he rolls over and starts snoring and you have to bring out the Rampant Rabbit…

And since I’m bisexual, I feel it needs to be noted that women aren’t really much better.

Check Your Premises

It’s pretty bad when they can’t even maintain their own paradigm for more than a sentence:

Nine people were arrested in Suisun City [California] in a human trafficking operation…Detectives posed online as would-be ‘johns’ to contact prostitutes [that they pretended to believe to be] underage…Once the…sex workers arrived, they were [arrested] and [cops tried to pressure them into claiming to be]…victims of sex trafficking…Seven women…between the ages of 18 and 28 were arrested…

Uncommon Sense

Is there any other kind of work that is so consistently treated as a subject for abstract “debate” by outsiders?

German porn star Natalie Hot will appear in court…to defend her right to work as a “webcam girl”…from her detached house in Ampfing, Bavaria. The town is home to 6,000 residents, several of whom have lodged legal complaints over their neighbour’s chosen profession. Hot is challenging a decision by local authorities that prevented her from undressing on camera, threatening a penalty of €2,000 if she doesn’t adhere to the ban. Their reasoning is that her house is in a specific land-use area, which does not allow for commercial use…A judge will now rule whether the room Hot uses for her work could be considered a “home office”, a label which would allow her to continue her work…

Finding What Isn’t There

You know how freshwater crabs wave their claws around and foam at the mouth when one throws them in salt water to purge them? Picture that:

There are no statistics to back up her claims, but the country’s Chief Immigration Officer Annette Mark believes the sex trafficking problem in Antigua & Barbuda is more prevalent than perceived…Mark [fantasizes that] nightclubs and strip clubs…are to be blamed for the [nonexistent epidemic]…She said…“what is unfortunate is that the women who come seem to be willing participants, so it’s difficult to [force them to pretend] that they are victims of trafficking”. According to Mark, while women [use sex work]…as a means of income, it is part of a slave trade…

Pyrrhic Victory

Not a police state, no sirree:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an ambitious plan to [equip]…10 bridges and tunnels leading into the city…with facial recognition and license plate reading technology, giving police a comprehensive record of every car making the crossing…

I Saw My Brain

More terrifying insanity from the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida:

If you happen to be heading over to Polk County Florida, be sure to check to see if you have anything on or about your person that may have someone’s business name on it…That’s what Tim Troller found out when an ever vigilant deputy saw a Sunshine State Dairy Farms milk crate strapped to his BMX bike. Polk County takes broken windows policing to the extreme, a milk crate strapped to your bike is a major indicator that you are a career criminal, or as the Polk County Sheriff’s Office spokes-prevaricator Debbie Horstman put it, undoubtedly with a straight face… “Deputies are…looking for people who are doing even the smallest crime, because, what we’ve learned is, those who will go out and steal a milk crate, for example, are the same people who are probably breaking into cars, breaking into your house”…

Frequently Told Lies

Caty Simon on the “sex work leads to drug use” myth:

You’ve heard the story: A troubled woman prostitutes herself. To numb the pain of belonging to this sordid underground world, she begins to use drugs…and her life continues to spiral out of control…“Multiple studies repeatedly and consistently … refute this narrative,” [says] Melbourne-based sex worker Fae Adams…In a study conducted in Sydney in the 1990s, for example, a sample group of 120 sex workers were found to be lighter drinkers than a sample group of women health care workers. They were only 15 percent less likely to abstain from illegal drugs than the control groups of students and health workers. And a 2002 British study correlated “problematic” drug use among sex workers with teenage drug use pre-dating entry into the industry, as well as homelessness and convictions…Yet the trope about using drugs to make sex work tolerable persists—and many drug-using sex workers find it infuriating because of how it reduces and flattens their lives and strips them of their choices…

Feminine Pragmatism (#553)

Stupid assumptions about sex work often result in incredibly stupid concepts like the idea that working independently is somehow noteworthy, or that making a law against one aspect of the work is the same as criminalization:

Italy has yet to exit from…the worst [recession] in its postwar history — and the protracted crisis has seen the number of Italian sex workers surge more than 26 percent from 2007 to 2015…The extended downturn also has fueled a proliferation of “good” women generating badly needed income by engaging in prostitution on the side as “house practitioners”…35 percent of the 20,000 prostitutes in Italy, or some 7,000 women, are house practitioners…Michel Venturelli, a criminologist who has researched the issue…[says] “It’s do-it-yourself domestic sex work”…The Italian parliament banned prostitution in 1958, shuttering brothels. Since then it’s been chaotic in the sex-for-sale industry…

No, the parliament didn’t “ban prostitution”, as the article itself mentions later; it banned brothels, but even while those were legal many if not most sex workers worked outside of them. The only “chaos” is in the minds of cops, prohibitionists and reporters who listen to them.

Traffic Jam (#619)

Remember what happened the last time Minnesota “authorities” claimed they had busted a “sex trafficking gang”?

About a dozen people were arrested in cities across the U.S…for running what authorities [pretend is] a sophisticated sex trafficking operation in which hundreds of women were brought from Thailand to America under fraudulent visas and forced to work as prostitutes to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in bondage debts. The women – including one who was forced to have sex with strangers for 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week- were not allowed to move about freely and were “effectively modern day sex slaves”…The arrests, along with the recent arrest of the organization’s boss in Belgium, will effectively dismantle the operation, said Alex Khu, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Minneapolis…

You may also recall that “sophisticated operations” is the excuse pigs use to rape sex workers. And if you haven’t yet read Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s analysis of very similar claims made against Seattle-area Korean sex workers and clients, now would be the time. See more of Liz’s work below.

To Molest and Rape

The ever-vigilant Liz Brown looks at several cases of rape & sexual abuse by cops, several of which I haven’t yet covered:

…Allen Large…of the Horry County [South Carolina] Sheriff’s Office…was recently indicted by a grand jury on five counts of…[raping] multiple victims…Large…is also the subject of multiple civil lawsuits accusing him of activity such as sexual assaulting a woman who came to him to report a sexual assault, sexual harassment, and threatening to interfere with a woman’s child-visitation rights if she wouldn’t participate in nude “catfight” videos…Horry County [cop] Luke Green was indicted for [raping a sex worker]…during a prostitution arrest and the same with a confidential police informant…On September 21, New Jersey [cop] Ed Leopardi [committed]…suicide…[because he] was under investigation for [anally raping] a sex worker at a Trenton police K-9 training facility…”then allegedly wiped his penis on the headquarters’ curtains”…

The Prudish Giant (#641)

It’s impossible to express how much this delights me:

On [October 4^th] Facebook introduced Marketplace, a new section on its mobile app that allowed its users to buy and sell things with their friends and strangers. By the evening, the social giant was apologizing for an issue with the section, which featured some posts that would not have been out of place on the…Silk Road…Illegal drugs. Dogs. Guns. Sexual services. Baby hedgehogs…Mary Ku, a director for product management…who had cheerfully introduced the Marketplace app in a blog post earlier in the day, issued a statement saying that a technical issue had prevented Facebook’s reviewing system from identifying posts that violated its commerce policies and community standards…

Now They Notice (#666)

Note that we aren’t hearing a peep out of Gay, Inc about this any more:

The chief executive officer of a once-popular male escort website pleaded guilty…to promoting prostitution in a federal case that prompted accusations of anti-gay bias…Under a plea deal, Hurant agreed not to appeal a sentence of two years or less in prison. His company also cannot appeal a penalty of $10 million or less…

Send In the Clowns

Watching how the clown panic develops is an example of a moral panic in miniature. For example, note how the skateboard carried by this hoaxer myseteriously transformed itself into an “ax” for a more imaginative witness. Everybody wants to get into the act; sales of clown masks have soared by 300% from this month last year, and the website Atlas Obscura has produced this interactive map of sightings which they say will be regularly updated. They’ll need to expand it, though; the hysteria has spread to Canada and also the UK:

A masked man carrying a knife left a group of children aged 11 and 12 “upset and distressed” when he jumped out on their way to [school in]…County Durham…in Suffolk, a boy “younger than a teenager” was chased by “several people dressed as clowns”…Tom Jackson…a first year student at Leeds Beckett University [said]…he was “very scared” when he saw a man dressed as a clown near an underpass…Northumbria Police issued an appeal and warning after a series of incidents in Newcastle involving people dressed as clowns jumping out and scaring schoolchildren. A 13-year-old boy was arrested…following [the] reports…In Essex, two…schoolgirls were approached by two people dressed as clowns who asked them if they wanted to attend a birthday party…People on social media have also reported clown sightings in Cheshire, North Wales, Dundee, Norwich, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield. A man dressed as a clown “wearing a hockey mask and a blood-stained poncho” was captured on camera in…Greater Manchester…

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