Raymond Surratt will die in prison because of a sentence that the government and the district court agree is undeserved and unjust. – Judge Roger Gregory
Every so often I see a “how-to” video that reminds me of my old friend Walter, who was a walking encyclopedia of these kinds of things; if anyone could be trusted to do something like start a fire with a lemon, it was Walter. Alas, I haven’t seen him in years, so this video had to be provided by Radley Balko (who also gave us “banality”, “reason” and “burn”). The other links above the video are from Tim Cushing (“consent”, “2001” and “drugs”), Popehat (“nope”), Thaddeus Russell (“crossing”), and Dave Krueger (“laws”).
A Melbourne real estate agent…was cleared of raping and imprisoning a sex worker in a vacant house…Henry Jiang…was accused of binding the woman with cable ties and raping her repeatedly…after…his booking with her had ended. His defence barrister [Con Heliotis] said everything that happened was consensual, and the woman had agreed to extend her time with Mr Jiang after he offered her more money and drugs…[but] didn’t tell her escort agency she was staying later…because she didn’t want to pay them a higher commission. Mr Jiang admitted taking money from the woman, because he calculated he was owed it for the drugs…Heliotis said the sex worker was concerned she had been robbed and only claimed she had been raped…when asked directly by police…In explaining the woman’s…screams as she [fled] the house, Mr Heliotis said: “She would be extremely distressed if she had lost her money and couldn’t buy drugs”…
Tanzanian authorities are holding some 800 people suspected of involvement in prostitution…around 500 suspected sex workers and almost 300 alleged customers have been arrested…Tanzanian President John Magufuli, who was elected in October…[on a] law and order [platform has not]…banned…miniskirts [as reported in January]…though…the president and his government [say they are] are “strong proponents of decent dressing”…
Do be sure to click that link to see what Tanzanian ideas of “law and order” entail.
…St. James Infirmary, San Francisco’s health care organization for sex workers, cut the ribbon on its new Tenderloin clinic Monday, March 14. St. James shares the space, located at 234 Eddy Street, with the Transgender Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project…In addition to primary medical care, the peer-based organization also offers HIV testing and prevention services, including PrEP; sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment; transgender hormone therapy; mental health care; harm reduction services, including needle exchange and naloxone; case management; support groups; food and clothing; and other assistance to people of all genders involved in the sex trade and their families. All services are free and confidential…
A [New Jersey cop] has pleaded guilty to using his badge [and a loaded gun] to [rape] a prostitute…Dinis Oliveira…pleaded guilty…to…third-degree criminal coercion……[he] is expected to be sentenced to probation and…must give up his job and forfeit his pension…Oliveira had been charged with sexual assault, official misconduct and criminal coercion [but of course not aggravated rape as anyone else would’ve been]…
A Philadelphia-area [cop] is accused of [raping] three women [locked up] inside the police department…Roosevelt Turner is charged with official oppression, indecent exposure and indecent assault. The charges are based on separate encounters in 2015…
It’s amazing how reporters are seemingly unable to use a simple word like “rape” when the rapist, even one who rapes a woman at gunpoint, is a fucking pig.
Marco Rubio…just suspended his campaign after Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump won [Florida] in a landslide victory. Adding to his problems, his personal life is being shopped around by a dominatrix who alleges she had a kinky sex romp with Rubio…
An ex-stripper who went on to law school and later was elected a judge was found dead inside her Nevada home [on March 13th]…authorities do not suspect foul play. Municipal Judge Diana Hampton, who was 50…appeared to be the perfect picture of health…Hampton, who served as a municipal judge for more than a decade, worked with youth in the community to discourage them from crime…
…As the prosecuting attorney for Ingham County, Michigan, since 1997, Stuart Dunnings III spend decades helping to put people behind bars for commercial sexual activity. But at the same time, Dunnings was routinely shelling out money for sexual services…Dunnings…instituted tougher penalties and a program of impounding johns’ vehicles…Now…authorities allege that Dunnings “paid for commercial sex… hundreds of times…between 2010-2015.” For five years, Dunnings met with one sex worker up to four times per week, in addition to his encounters with others. For what it’s worth, the arrest affidavit paints Dunning as considerate client who tipped well and acted more like a “sugar daddy” to some of the women, taking them out to dinners and paying their rent, cellphone bills, and other expenses…After one woman confessed to a heroin habit, Dunnings paid for her weekly methadone treatments and attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with her…the feds went after Dunnings under the guise of stopping “human trafficking”, because that’s what law enforcement calls all prostitution circa 2016. Most of the charges actually brought against him, however, are misdemeanor charges for “engaging in the services of prostitution” (10 counts) and “willful neglect of duty” (4 counts). The one felony charge is because Dunnings…allegedly coerced a domestic violence victim…into having sex with him, then paid her for it…about $600 every two weeks as well as…some of her bills…
The Washington Post coverage that first broke the story preferred to soak in dysphemisms and libel the sex workers that to actually cover the facts.
UNAIDS welcomes the roll-out of South Africa’s National Sex Worker HIV Plan, 2016–2019. Launched by the Deputy President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, in his role as the Chairperson of the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), this unique plan will ensure equitable access to health and legal services for sex workers in South Africa…
Here’s another “rescue” scam designed to recruit unhappy whores into the anti-whore brigade; it resembles a “crisis pregnancy center”, which is not surprising since a number of “anti-trafficking” NGOs also operate (or formerly operated) such schemes. What makes it interesting to me is that it’s the highest claimed number of clients per day (60) we’ve seen in a while, since the high-lunacy mark of 110 current from 2012-2014. With the exception of a brief requote of that figure (which actually seems to have originated among prohibitionists in 2001) a few months ago, most of the claims have returned to the pre-June 2012 typical claim of 15/day, which is high but not literally impossible.
Jillian Gilchrest, chairwoman of the [Connecticut] Trafficking in Persons Council, says the Berlin Turnpike is a hotbed for sex trafficking, often involving minors who are exploited…The Underground, a faith-based organization…[identified]…27 of which offer hourly rates…“For far too long, state laws and culture accepted that the purchase of sex will happen,” said Gilchrest…The Judiciary Committee advanced two bills…to attempt to address the issue…[one] would mandate additional training for law enforcement and employees at hotels and motels to identify victims of sex trafficking. It would also require businesses that offer lodging to maintain detailed records of [cash] transactions for at least six months…[Gilchrest] said… “It was shocking to me [that people are allowed to conduct business with legal tender]”…The bill initially included a provision that would make it illegal to charge hourly for a room at a hotel or motel…But the Judiciary Committee voted…to strike the measure from the bill in response to testimony…[that] hourly rates are often used by truck drivers and travelers seeking a break from the road…
New tax laws in Austria is [sic] causing problems for sex workers as rules now dictate that all customers need to be issued with an itemised bill listing all services rendered…As services provided by sex workers covers a wide spectrum, bosses ask how, for example, a two-hour chat with no sexual contact should be written down…others questioned how a self-employed sex worker would issue receipts…
Palantir Technologies…isn’t unique in its efforts to turn its software toward social good—plenty of tech companies do that. But unlike most, Palantir says it treats nonprofits like any other customer..in 2012, Polaris’ chief executive, Bradley Myles, heard Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, speak at a White House event…Myles knew it was something his [corporation]—which is dedicated to eradicating [sex work]—needed but couldn’t afford…Just a few weeks later, Palantir engineers were integrating data from thousands of [sex worker arrest] records, public tips and financial networks…The…company [also] integrates tips, case reports, public records, videos, social media feeds and other data sources and helps draw connections…To help…law enforcement [spy on adult sex workers and clients in the name of fighting] the abduction and sexual exploitation of children…
Backpage.com…has been sued a bunch of times, almost always by people [deliberately] misunderstanding Section 230 of the CDA which, as we’ve discussed hundreds of times, says that sites are not liable for the actions of their users…the appeal on [a] Massachusetts case has brought another good Section 230 win, saying that Backpage.com is not liable…The crux of the argument…is that…the way Backpage is set up…makes it different from a standard “publishing” platform. This is a pretty common attack on Section 230, claiming that it does more than a publisher and thus isn’t protected. Courts have almost universally rejected that, unless those additional actions themselves could be seen to break the law…the court rejects this argument, saying that everything Backpage.com does is a traditional publisher activity…
According to…opponents of sex work decriminalisation, there are basically two types of women involved in selling sex: a small but vocal minority of…”sex workers” who entered the industry out of choice, and a much larger number of “prostituted women” who were coerced or forced by financial necessity. Anyone who offers a public opinion on the sex industry based on their own personal experience is assumed to belong to the former category. Even having an awareness of the policy debate is seen as evidence a sex worker is middle-class, educated and therefore unrepresentative of most women in the industry. As such, their opinions can be ignored. It’s argued that the silent, suffering majority don’t have the resources, capacity or inclination to argue about legislation, so other people must speak on their behalf. This is a rather convenient solution to the dilemma faced by decriminalisation opponents: the majority of sex workers who do speak out strongly disagree with them…this supposed dichotomy between unrepresentative, autonomous sex workers and silent prostitution victims is a rhetorical sleight of hand. In reality, freedom of choice is rarely an all or nothing sort of thing…Campaigning organisations…smeared by Nordic model advocates as representing a “pimp lobby” – are [largely] made up of women who…sell sex because it’s the least bad course of action available to them…
A high-profile Danish campaigner for children’s rights was prosecuted…under people trafficking laws, shining a spotlight once more on the country’s crackdown on asylum, as Scandinavian countries compete to make themselves unattractive destinations for refugees. Lisbeth Zornig, the country’s former children’s ombudsman and a well-known author, was fined DKr22,500 (£2,328) – the maximum demanded by the prosecutor…for allowing a family of Syrians to hitch a ride with her to Copenhagen. Her husband was fined the same amount for taking the family into his home for coffee and biscuits, and then driving them to the railway station, where he bought them tickets to Sweden. “This was a political trial, using me and my husband to send a strong message: don’t try to help refugees,” Zornig said…
A [Connecticut cop] was fired after an investigation found he was linked to a sex trafficking operation…Jermaine Dunbar…broke several department policies including improper associations, truthfulness, conduct unbecoming to an officer, neglect of duty and insubordination…two suspects [were] arrested for various charges including narcotics, illegal weapons possession, promoting prostitution and human trafficking…one of the suspects is Dunbar’s family member and another is a friend…Dunbar was at the…home where two 16-year-old girls were given drugs and having sex with men. One girl said she had sex with Dunbar but…he…was not criminally charged…
Police [in Thailand] are gathering evidence to bring criminal charges against those who posted a video clip of two students having sex on a teacher’s desk in a school classroom…the patents have accused their children’s friends of posting the video…anyone caught posting obscene material on the internet can be imprisoned for up to five years…
On February 16 this year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women held a deliberation on the topic of women’s rights in Japan….[including] a proposal that sales of video games and manga depicting sexual violence be banned… Would [this] prohibition…help bring about more respect for women’s rights in Japan? Our answer…is a resounding “No”…Fictional sexual violence in manga and video games does not actually violate people’s human rights, so prohibiting these media in order to preserve women’s rights would be meaningless…
Keith Bickford…of the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office…[fantasized aloud] about the gruesome realities of sex slavery in our own backyards…“Some of the girls…were having sex with someone…20 to 25 times a day…that could be a lot of horrible things happening to these children…“In [Bickford’s] mind, it’s ‘You’re mine for an hour or half-hour, so I can do whatever I want to,’ ” he explained of [his own] brutal mentality…Pimps target areas where they know children hang out most. This can be the shopping mall, the park and even where we tend to think they are most safe – at school…“I think the youngest, I believe who was in Georgia, was about 8 or 9,” he [fantasized]…
I’ll bet he doesn’t even wait until he gets home after one of his “talks” to wank; probably does it in the men’s room right there.
…The anti-sex trade laws have caused many negative, allegedly unintended consequences. According to a 2012 UN report, “police crackdowns from 2004-2009 resulted in [the] arrest of approximately 28,000 sex workers, 150,000 clients, and 27,000 sex business owners”, and 65,621 arrests were reported for 2009 alone…Police raids are often carried out very violently, and in November 2014, a 24-year old single mother died after jumping out of a motel room to escape arrest by an undercover police officer posing as client. In stark contrast to their usual reporting, most Korean media remained distinctively silent about the case. The continued repression has forced an increasing number of sex workers to work underground, resulting in lower incomes, poorer working conditions, and an increase in violence perpetrated against them. Sex workers worry more about police raids than about screening their clients…
Small circular viewing holes expose the faces of hundreds of children, each symbolizing a stolen childhood. The art piece, “Peep,” sheds light on the shadowy human trafficking industry in peep show style…Created by Bay Area artist Jonathan Fung, “Peep” draws attention to the often overlooked issue…[through] a metaphor for the commodification of human beings…Tens of millions of people are kidnapped and forced into labor and sex slavery to meet the needs of the…human trafficking industry…thriving in the Bay Area, which FBI named one of the top 13 destinations for child sex trafficking…more and more people are forced into ruthless modern day slavery every day. Human trafficking remains a growing trend and shows no signs of stopping…
“No signs of stopping!” My goodness! Soon there won’t be enough free people to buy all these “modern-day slaves”!
…a group of OSU-Tulsa students is trying to tackle [“sex trafficking”]…and a new course helps train them to identify and save victims…Their professor, Dr. Denni Blum…teamed up with [cops & rescue industry profiteers]…to make this class possible…Oklahoma has seen 168 reported cases of human sex trafficking over the last three years – 50 of them were children. Experts say traffickers target girls between 12 and 14, and once pulled into the sex trade their life expectancy is only seven years…
I can see I’ll have to address this in my OSU Tulsa video lecture this year.
In a new nationwide poll from YouGov, six percent of respondents said they have been paid for sex in the past, and seven percent have paid someone else for sex. Men and women were equally likely to have accepted payment for sex, but just one percent of the women said they had paid for it themselves, while 12 percent of the men said as much…
…venture capitalist Michael Goguen admitted in court papers…that, yes, he paid the first $10 million of a $40 million contract to the woman he had a sexual relationship with for 13 years…but, no, she was never his “sexual slave” and he only agreed to sign the unusual contract because he worried about a “shakedown” featuring “false and libelous claims” of abuse. But then Goguen failed to pay up. Some $30 million remains on the contract today. Both sides agree on that, at least. And so now…Amber Laurel Baptiste, has gone to court…Baptiste’s breach of contract lawsuit…accused Goguen of “sexually, physically and emotionally” abusing her. She alleged that she endured the treatment because Goguen promised to free her from the human traffickers holding her in perpetual debt…Goguen admitted that they had an unusual sex life, but he claims it was entirely consensual…
On Friday, the Cranston [Rhode Island] Police Department issued a news release announcing the results of a sting operation that, in its own words, was aimed at “targeting human traffickers, specifically those victimizing juveniles”…no fewer that eight law enforcement agencies were involved in this operation…[which] led to only one arrest for trafficking and one arrest for pandering. Instead, the biggest result of the operation appears to have been the arrest of fourteen “johns”…and fourteen other people for prostitution…By humiliating and charging johns for seeking consensual sex and by giving prostitutes arrest records in the name of “helping” them, these operations misleadingly purport to crack down on human trafficking, when their major effect is just to make the lives of prostitutes more difficult and dangerous, driving sex work even deeper into the shadows…
One day after a Seattle police officer was…pulled from duty for his conduct at a local strip club, King County prosecutors filed pimping charges against the club’s manager and owner. Prosecutors [claim] Dancing Bare owner Jerry A. Woodhead and manager Michael “Mickey” Woodhead were caught in a sting operation…Police…used at least two informants. [A] detective said the investigation uncovered prostitution and drug use at the club, and showed that dancers were prostituting themselves to pay “house dues” to the Woodheads…The detective said the Woodheads were considering increasing the amount of money “collected for the prostitution” so they could earn more themselves…
Someday we may look back at this era the way we now think about (alcohol) Prohibition: a failed experiment that was indefensible in principle. – Douglas Husak
The mixed martial arts fighter who calls himself War Machine said in court…that it would be impossible for him to have raped his ex-girlfriend because she was a porn star. He then went on to blow an “offensive” kiss to Chief Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Bluth…the nonsensical defense ploy which War Machine — born Jonathan Koppenhaver — used during his trial [was in answer to]…34 criminal counts ranging from sexual assault to attempted murder…Christy Mack…was left with “a blowout fracture of her left eye and several other broken bones in her face, two missing teeth, a lacerated liver, broken ribs and serious bruising in several places” after the attack…defense attorney Brandon Sua said that Mackinday’s career in adult films constituted consent and that her job instilled in her “the desire, the preference, the acceptability towards a particular form of sex activities that were outside of the norm.” The sexual assaults Mackinday charges Koppenhaver with, said Sua, were a consensual part of their relationship…Judge Elissa Cadish told Sua that she failed to see how a person’s choice of profession could determine their constant and ongoing consent to sex…
A federal appeals court has ruled against a former porn star turned math tutor, saying he doesn’t have a free speech right to hang a sign advertising his tutoring business at three [Florida] schools…David Mech paid $1,750 to advertise his “Happy/Fun Math Tutor” business in 2010, but the School District of Palm Beach County removed the signs in 2013 after learning that Mech was a porn star who acted under the name Dave Pounder…the 11th U.S. District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision that the signs are not considered free speech, but “government speech”…Since the banners were hung on school fences, the court opined that government property is “often closely identified in the public mind with the government unit that owns the land”…
In roughly six weeks following Houston Police Department’s Vice Division’s announcement that it was changing its tactics for policing prostitution in the city, 30 individuals have been arrested and charged with felony prostitution. Almost 100 more have been handed misdemeanor charges. Several others have been charged with promotion of prostitution…[vice pig] Dan Harris…described a new [tactic for harassing sex workers by charging them with more serious crimes. He described this as] “Let’s work smarter, not harder”…
So far this year, the [Connecticut] department [of Children and Families] has received more than 80 referrals of possible victims of human trafficking in the state, said Tammy Sneed…“There is a direct correlation with an increase in training and an increase in referrals,” Sneed said, referring to the amount of training now available for law enforcement agencies to identify victims of sex trafficking…
Christopher said prostitution wasn’t a career he dreamt of pursuing as a child but that it was a decision he wasn’t ashamed of making. “A lot of people…think sex workers are all drug addicts or messed up people, but a lot of us just do it because we get satisfaction out of the work and make good money while doing it…I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and I’ll keep doing it as along as people keep booking me.” He said there was less demand for male sex workers than women but that the industry was easier on men. “I think it’s even easier for male sex workers than women because there’s less stigma and its more of an even playing field in terms of strength so you’re less likely to be taken advantage of…I’ve never been attacked or robbed or anything like that. Women sex workers have always been visible…but…now [men are] out and proud all over the internet and just as accessible and visible”…
I think it’s a serious moral wrong to send people to prison for the recreational use of drugs…What we need is a total decriminalization of drug use…Everyone agrees it is seriously unjust to punish people in the absence of very good reasons to do so…it’s wrong to punish people just to get them not to do something bad. That principle would allow us to punish overeating, smoking, failing to exercise, and lots of other activities that virtually no one proposes to punish. Most crimes we punish (murder, rape, robbery) do serious harm to other people. Almost all people who do drugs at most harm only themselves…We should not subject tens of millions of Americans to punishment because of bad effects that materialize in only a small subset of cases. In addition, threats of punishments don’t do much to deter drug use. Most drug users don’t believe they’ll be caught, and they are right…longitudinal studies indicate that health and life expectancy of the roughly half of all Americans who have used drugs (with the exception of tobacco) is virtually identical to that of the half of Americans who have not…the consequences of punishment are worse than whatever harm the drugs are likely to have caused…
During this holiday season, we are undertaking a modest effort to raise awareness and money to fight human trafficking. We worked with a gifted designer to create a simple but elegant t-shirt that brings home a message of hope…the sale is supporting survivors of human trafficking in two ways: first, the campaign will donate its share of every shirt purchase to Braking Traffik, a charity that protects women…from human trafficking. Second, the campaign is partnering with To The Market…to source a limited supply of these t-shirts from a factory that employs women formerly trapped in sex slavery and gives them a new life…
…Alabama is a nexus for the [sex] trade…the highly organized pipeline…connection to the ring [is] horrendous…The victims were referred to and marketed like meat…[pogroms are] a much needed salvo to combat an evil that simmers, mostly invisibly, beneath the surface of civilized life. Sex trafficking entraps as many as 200,000 victims nationwide at any time. Atlanta’s interstate corridors make the Southeast, including Alabama, prime real estate for traffickers…Obvious gaps that must be addressed include tougher laws to attack sex-trafficking crimes from the “demand” side – meaning harsher penalties for johns who solicit sex. For starters, solicitation of a prostitute should be a felony charge, not just a misdemeanor. Requiring that convicted johns register as sex offenders would also discourage demand…young victims can escape the trafficking hellhole…
On second though, maybe the body fluid he’s spraying isn’t spittle.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is preparing for an en banc hearing on whether there is a privacy interest inherent in mugshots, or whether they are simply public records that can be obtained with an FOIA request. For the most part, mugshots have been considered public records. This has led to a shady mugshot-posting cottage industry, as well as an equally-shady mugshot-removal cottage industry…Despite the nation’s justice system being built on the presumption of innocence, a large percentage of the population views “arrested and charged” as being no different than “found guilty.” (Federal law enforcement databases — used for background checks — reinforce this perception by entering arrested persons’ info when booking, but routinely failing to remove it when charges are dropped or the person is found innocent)…this case involves a federal law enforcement agency and the indictment of three local [cops]…the [DOJ’s]…ultimate goal is to obtain the final say on the release of booking photos via a wholly internal process…Siding with members of the public who have been tarnished by this guilt-by-association also means siding with an agency seeking yet another way to withhold public records from the public. Siding with the Detroit Free Press means…allowing a whole host of dubious “entrepreneurs” to use public perception against private citizens to extract fees for the removal of booking info…
A Los Angeles City Hall proposal to send “john letters” to the owners of cars seen in areas known for prostitution has drawn criticism from a California civil liberties group…The letters would be written to discourage those who were soliciting prostitutes from returning to the area while posing no harm to those who were there for legitimate reasons, Councilwoman Nury Martinez [pretended]…The collection of license plate data is opposed by the…Electronic Frontier Foundation…[which] has an ongoing lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over the issue…other cities have used “john letters” to combat prostitution. In some communities, residents are encouraged to [snitch]…Some [badge-lickers] praised the proposal in Los Angeles…
…we vintage enthusiasts have a problem: We often celebrate imagery created by sex workers of old, while stigmatizing…the sex workers of today…we’re building this community…on the backs of women whom we then nakedly disclaim. I’m unsettled by the preponderance of pinup photographers who yearn for a time “when sexy was classy,” of dancers who assure us that burlesque is “an art form […] it’s not sleazy“, and of vintage enthusiasts who congratulate us on looking “so cute, and not at all slutty” (as I’ve been told on more than one occasion). These types of statements are simultaneously whorephobic …and gratingly ahistorical. No, Bettie Page and co. weren’t “classy” sex workers. They were sex workers, full stop. I’ve seen many a modern pinup reap the benefits of blushing “tee-hee” sexuality without acknowledging its origins in the “filthy whores” before her. Because that’s what Bettie and Mae and Marilyn were, in the eye of much of the public. Marilyn Monroe posed fully nude. Bettie Page made fetish porn. Mae West was arrested and imprisoned for an “indecent” Broadway play. Bikini model Kiki Hakansson was condemned by the Pope himself. Even the red lipstick endemic to today’s pinup girls was once the domain of the harlot…
Young Greek women are selling sex for the price of a sandwich as six years of painful austerity have pushed the European country to the financial brink…a new study…which compiled data on more than 17,000 sex workers operating in Greece, found that…sex on sale in Greece is some of the cheapest…in Europe…when the economic crisis began…the going rate…was 50 euros ($53)…now, it’s fallen to as low as two euros ($2.12) for a 30-minute session…
On Wednesday 25th November, Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) passed…a motion…resolving “to support and campaign for the full decriminalisation of sex work” and “campaign against any attempt to introduce the Nordic model”…The motion…also included a resolution “to campaign particularly for the rights of student sex workers”…as well as offer support to any student who comes out privately as a sex worker…the…motion…comes off the back of a move by Amnesty International…to urge decriminalisation of prostitution worldwide…
God saved my voice so I could continue to talk. – Walter DeLeon
For this week’s video I decided to feature another sci-fi flick from the Paramount vault, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, which is actually much better than its sensationalistic title would suggest. The links above the video are from Radley Balko (first two), Maxine Doogan, Popehat, and Jason Kuznicki (in that order).
A businessman…shot a sex worker when she ended their relationship…Jonathan Kovacik, 58, gave Rosalynde Pitcher £6,000 in cash towards [breast enlargement] cosmetic surgery…He also offered her £50,000 to “give up drugs, alcohol and the work” and marry him…However, armed with a Walther CP88 competition air pistol, Kovacik is alleged to have flown into a fit of rage when he suspected the 21-year-old was “stringing him along” for his money…Miss Pitcher was working…[as a cam girl] for the website adultwork.com…Kovacik, who has a property portfolio and owns a car garage, frequently “lavished” Miss Pitcher with a car and other expensive gifts…
The constitutionality of a Massachusetts law that targets sex trafficking was upheld…by the state’s highest court, which rejected claims by two men that the statute was vague and its scope too broad…the two men…are…the first people convicted under the statute…lawyers for Tyshaun McGhee and Sidney McGee claimed the statute’s language, particularly the phrase “commercial sexual activity,” was unconstitutionally vague. They said the law also lacked the elements of use of force and coercion that a federal sex trafficking statute requires to establish the crime…
When I first began looking into the research on decriminalizing prostitution, I didn’t know where the evidence would take me. I was familiar with the arguments on both sides of the debate, but I had little idea what the empirical literature said. But after reviewing dozens of studies, papers, and articles and talking to researchers, the issue is much clearer to me: Sex work should be fully decriminalized and regulated, similar to other businesses…prohibition doesn’t appear to have any good empirical evidence behind it…
…the Office of the Registrar General has been given more extensive powers to prevent the institution of marriage being abused for immigration purposes…An unexpectedly high occurrence rate of marriages between women from Eastern Europe and Portugal, and men from the Indian subcontinent has been noted…The Registrar will now have…the right to refuse a marriage registration form if they feel that a marriage is not legitimate…The Minister…[is] concerned that sham marriages [are] leading to a proliferation of women being trafficked into Ireland for this purpose…
An Ohio State Trooper has been sentenced to five years in prison after using his authority to force women into sexual acts, using Facebook to send his victims vague threats, and using Craigslist to advertise for “traffic stop sex.” The investigation into Trooper Bryan Lee, 31, began in October of 2013 and he was allowed to resign prior to being terminated and prosecuted…
Tara Burns turns in a top-notch piece of long-form investigative journalism on the case of her friend, Amber Batts, who was this week sentenced for “sex trafficking” in Alaska. I’m not even going to attempt to excerpt it; the piece needs to be read in its entirety so you can get the full picture of the sort of people the State destroys in order to support its lurid and melodramatic “sex trafficking” narrative, and the way that neither facts nor evidence has the slightest power to halt or even slow the machinery of injustice once cops and prosecutors have thrown someone into it.
Rentboy.com has created a “Cash4Class” scholarship fund designed to help escorts who advertise on their site to afford school. To win the $1500 fund, the boys can either submit a 500-1000 word essay or a 1-5 minute video that answers the following question: “Why is going to school part of achieving your dream?”… adult film star Colby Keller will be the official judge of the entries…deadline [is] September 15th, and [the contest is] open to current Rentboy.com advertisers who have proof of enrollment in…classes…
…Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal…was leading the charge to force all social networks to police adult content and establish age and identity verification tools…As part of that agreement, Craigslist began charging for ads in its erotic services section at the end of 2008. “Requiring phone numbers, credit cards and identifying details will provide a roadmap to prostitutes and sex traffickers — so we can track them down and lock them up,” Blumenthal said in a statement…he…[called] the erotic services section an “online brothel” and “hooker haven,” and asserting there was a link between adult entertainment and “human trafficking, drug activity and child exploitation”…
…the U.S.-led anti-trafficking agenda…has failed or even hurt migrants and refugees. It has fed a chaotic global obsession with policing and prosecutions, but resulted in few concrete policies to address the underlying causes of trafficking or to assist its victims. This has been acutely felt in Thailand, a politically volatile country seesawing between military coups and failed democratic governments. In recent months the ruling junta has led an aggressive anti-trafficking campaign to satisfy its Western critics. But instead of reducing trafficking and forced labor, these efforts appear to have marginalized human rights and trampled on the most vulnerable…
The dangerous psychotropic drug flibanserin, which poorly treats a normal variation in female sex drive which is being defined as a “disorder” by an industry hungry to cash in by selling people drugs they don’t need, has now been approved:
…critics said the campaign behind Addyi had made a mockery of the system that regulates pharmaceuticals and had co-opted the women’s movement to pressure the F.D.A. into approving a drug that was at best minimally effective and could cause side effects like low blood pressure, fainting, nausea, dizziness and sleepiness…Addyi’s label has a boxed warning — the strongest kind — saying the drug should not be used by those who drink alcohol, since that can increase the risk of severely low blood pressure and fainting…Leonore Tiefer, a sex therapist…and critic of the drug, predicted the restrictions on use would keep Addyi from becoming popular. “It’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth,” she said…Addyi is thought to work by changing the balance of certain brain neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin…women who took the drug had an average of 4.4 “satisfying sexual experiences” a month, compared with 3.7 for women getting a placebo and 2.7 before the study began. The drug did not increase desire more than a placebo when measured by a daily diary…
Dunham & Co. structured their opposition to the draft policy on the flawed assumption that decriminalization a) encourages non-consensual sex work…and b) promotes men’s dominance over women, in a grand philosophical sense. This is akin to saying that because women and children are often exploited in the garment industry, we should outlaw garment manufacturing and make sure conditions are really unsafe for anyone who wants to make clothes…
Lena Dunham, a woman who by most accounts has never had to worry a day in her life about paying rent and putting food on the table, put her name on a petition aimed at stopping women around the world from doing what she does on television in front of millions of people on a regular basis: acting like she’s enjoying sex for money…You can imagine how confusing Dunham’s position is to those of us who actually do sex work for a living. She doesn’t see that she’s contributing to our distress by openly calling for the end of our freedom to do sexual work…
…Supporters of the resolution assume that sex work can be a profession like any other and that sex transactions can be consensual. This is…not true for the vast majority, who resort to selling their bodies because they feel they have no other option. Decriminalizing prostitution…would allow pimps to operate with impunity, using the money and status that comes with their newfound legitimacy to scale up trafficking operations that hurt the most vulnerable…The evidence seems to bear that out in Germany and the Netherlands, where [sex work is not decriminalized]…
“Decriminalizing the sale of liquor…would allow bootleggers to operate with impunity, using the money and status that comes with their newfound legitimacy to scale up trafficking operations that hurt the most vulnerable…The evidence seems to bear that out in the United States, where liquor was legalized in 1932″…
If someone were trying to pass laws that would directly impact your job, your income, and your life…you’d hope that your input…would be heard. – Seattlish
[Thursday] morning a group of 10 people from Sex Worker’s Outreach Project Seattle…and the Gender Justice League traveled to Olympia to attend a public hearing in the Senate Law & Justice Committee on SB-5277…& SB-5041…which together seek to increase the penalties for patronizing a prostitute…Although testimony was allowed by several people in support of SB-5277, and by a lawyer speaking on behalf of clients, the meeting was adjourned before the Sex Workers themselves were allowed to testify. The members then attempted to get meetings with Senators Kohl-Welles & Padden, but were unsuccessful. They were told they have 24 hours to submit written testimony to the committee assistant…
Moron writer refers to something only criminalized a century ago as “one of the oldest crimes in history“. You just can’t make this stuff up. “Police Officer Abel James…was charged with patronizing a prostitute in Brooklyn…”
Investigators…say business has boomed in recent years from clients who want their sweethearts investigated for…habits and secrets…The trend is partly driven…by [publicized]…examples of online daters embellishing their profiles, and of scammers using dating sites to lure people into false romances…Google [searching]…is like a gateway drug to professional snooping…“It’s the new prenuptial,” Jeffrey Schell of Kassel Investigations in Boise, Idaho, said…Except the “party being investigated doesn’t have to…agree”…
…the residents of Ulker Street [in Istanbul] used…a slang called Lubunca…[whose] earliest traces…can be found…as the Ottoman Empire was waning…Lubunca was found in spaces where men engaged in sex work, such as bathhouses…[in] the late 1980s and early ’90s…Lubunca became more prevalent, along with trans sex work…“A lot of the vocabulary…overlaps with Romani,” [linguist Nikolas] Kontovas says…“Sex acts are one of the largest categories, if not the largest…There’s also tons of vocabulary for money,” he says, and for what he likes to call fun, like alcohol and cigarettes…[now] Lubunca has evolved into a slang used by some gay people who are not trans and are not sex workers…as a way to exhibit one’s identity…
…Michael Wenham…[stabbed] Karolina Nowikiewicz…to death in [an]…unprovoked attack at her flat…Wenham…was recovering from unsuccessful [penis enlargement] surgery…[and] still had a dressing on his penis which had affected his sex life with [his] wife…Wenham…called in sick to work before…buying a [prepaid cell phone,] Stanley knife, disposable gloves and plastic sacks which he used in the killing. When the first [sex worker] he tried was unavailable, he booked…Ms Nowikiewicz…Attacking her from behind, he sliced open her neck, cutting through her major arteries and her spinal chord…[he then] washed himself in the bathroom, placed the bloody knife in a drawer…went outside and called the police to admit to what he had just done…there was no evidence of sexual assault, consensual sexual activity or even arousal. Karolina was chosen because her job made her an easy target…
Trumball, Conn…police officer William Ruscoe began a drastically reduced 30-month prison sentence for handcuffing and raping a teenage girl in his home…Ruscoe…blamed his crime on financial problems that made it hard to support his wife and two children…During a sentencing hearing Ruscoe pleaded with the court to give him a downward departure in sentencing from the 6-year prison term he agreed to in his plea bargain…The…victim was part of the department’s Explorer program, which provides educational training for young adults on the purposes, mission and objectives of law enforcement…
…Many hoped this would be Canada’s chance to emulate New Zealand, where…decriminalization [has improved health and safety]…Instead…Bill C-36 has…[reproduced] many of the statutes struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013…[and also made] it a crime to purchase sex…and…advertise the sale of sex…If abolishing prostitution is the goal for some Canadian legislators, precedent suggests that the new measure is unlikely to succeed…instead of taking this opportunity to pass truly meaningful reforms, Canada has merely replaced one flawed policy with another.
…Tae Bum Yoon…[was arrested for the murder of] Ashley Benson…in an eighth floor stairwell of the DoubleTree Hotel in [Portland]…It wasn’t the first time they had met, and evidence suggests they had some type of disagreement over money owed…
Though the content of “5 REAL (And Absolutely Shocking) Reasons Men Hire Prostitutes” actually is pretty real (though not remotely shocking), what I found most interesting was that writer Suzanne Jannese said about the most recent absurdly-lowball figures on the fraction of men who have paid for sex, “The stats surprised me—they were higher than I had expected…” One wonders how Ms Jannese thinks we even pay the rent.
A man woos a woman to bed with tales of his riches, fast cars and a vacation home in Monaco. But he actually lives in his mother’s basement…Under a bill recently proposed by a south Jersey lawmaker, such actions…could prompt charges of rape…Troy Singleton…introduced the bill…which would create the crime of “sexual assault by fraud,” which it defines as “an act of sexual penetration to which a person has given consent because the actor has misrepresented the purpose of the act or has represented he is someone he is not”…
A Melbourne garbage inspector has been fined $1500 for impersonating a police officer in what a magistrate has described as an “amateurish” attempt to have sex with a prostitute…Trent Barker..told [her] he was a police officer investigating crime and prostitution…then showed the woman a radio, a binder and his council badge, which he claimed was a police badge…He then left the hotel after she refused to have sex. Barker was arrested a fortnight later and sacked…
[Georgia] Police raided an elderly woman’s home because they suspected that she was allowing people to play cards and bet money inside without government permission — an “illegal gambling house”…90-year-old Mary Helen…Morgan’s guests were [also] allegedly…paying [her] to serve them beverages…without government permission, oversight, or licenses. [She] was charged with multiple crimes, including…disorderly house…and illegal alcohol sales. Police charged or cited sixteen other adults with an array of other victimless crimes…[and seized] loot…[including] a gun, drugs, a 2004 Chevy Silverado…a 2003 GMC Yukon and trailer containing miscellaneous lawn care equipment…$4,100 in cash…alcohol, tobacco products, snacks and drinks…
…Advocates for the Swedish Model claim that the law has led to declining numbers of buyers and sellers of sexual services. However, according to Ann Jordan…the Swedish government doesn’t actually know…claims of its ‘success’ lack reliable evidence, and the source of such claims “is primarily the government’s initial and short English-language summary”…[which] cites a survey…[suggesting] that fewer men had bought sex compared to a 1996 study, but crucially omits the reservations expressed by the very person who conducted it: Jari Kuosmanen…[who] explains…the lack of evidence…”There is nothing to support the claim that prostitution in Sweden has decreased…the problem is that politicians didn’t base the legislative change on research…“
Funny how often relatives seeking revenge for BDSM relationships of which they disapprove focus on mental illness:
A [Connecticut] jury has awarded about $638,000 to a woman who sued a man she said had a sadomasochistic sexual relationship with her adult daughter…Mary Kortner…filed a civil sexual battery and assault lawsuit in 2006 against Craig Martise…saying her daughter wasn’t able to consent…because of her mental condition…In 2009, a jury found in favor of Martise. In June, the state Supreme Court overturned that verdict and ordered a new trial…Kortner’s daughter…died in 2010 at age 39 from an undisclosed illness. She was diagnosed with clinical depression, borderline personality disorder, bulimia and anorexia, and she twice tried to commit suicide…the state Supreme Court ruled that people don’t necessarily give up their ability to consent to sex, including sadomasochistic encounters, when they are placed under the legal conservatorship of others. The court also said it is up to juries to decide if people are able to consent to sex…
A Swazi sex worker has been killed in…South Africa by a client during payment at her residence. Nomsa Dlamini (25)…was strangled and…robbed…The man is said to have paid with a R200 ($18) note…and asked for change. [He attacked her when she] took out her moneybag which contained a sum of R2000 ($180)…over eight…sex workers [were] killed in South Africa this year…
…Rob Morris…established [Love146]…In its early years, the organization gained a certain amount of attention by building its marketing around [bogus] statistics, such as the [lie] that two children are sold into prostitution every minute. But Morris knew that they were capable of much, much more. So he started telling a [bullshit trafficking] story…[about one imaginary child “victim”]…The story went viral, sparking a grassroots campaign that generated worldwide awareness and hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Between 2007 and 2012, the organization’s total revenue grew from $1.1 to more than $2.6 million, and it now has permanent offices in the UK, Cambodia, and the Philippines…[bogus] statistics can make an impression, but [bogus] stories raise emotion …and emotion leads to action.
Sex workers are part of an industry which…is profoundly gendered and based on the commodification of sex and desire…they have unique insights into how gendered power relations and sexual scripts work. Some…may tell us how these can be reworked and resisted…Others may have harrowing stories about being the target of the worst misogynist impulses of our culture…
The “commodification of sex and desire” is not a bad thing, but a good one; it anchors sex solidly in reality instead of consigning it to the Rainbow Unicorn Candyland of “romance”.
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) recently published an open letter to Associated Press Stylebook editor David Minthorn in response to an online campaign to replace the word “prostitute” with “sex worker” in AP’s 2015 Stylebook. CATW and its allies oppose the phrases “sex work” and “sex worker” because they feel “these terms…legitimize prostitution as an acceptable form of work”…CATW’s letter also deploys…a litany of unreferenced statistics…[including the] statement: “The average age of mortality of a person in prostitution is 34 years old”…[which was debunked by] Maggie McNeill…in 2011…
…“Turn Your Life Around” [is] a diversion program…[run by religious NGO] Selah Freedom…[and subsidized by the] Sarasota Police Department…[and] State Attorney’s Office…State Attorney Ed Brodsky [pretends this program is]…unprecedented…Selah Freedom recently moved into a larger [facility in which]…even more women [can be confined after being labeled as victims of]…sex trafficking…
Spam text messages advertising prostitution are a nuisance to many people in…[China]…They have not disclosed their phone number to any strangers, but their phones are still mysteriously reached by unknown people…a fake mobile base station…is a device that can send out a powerful signal which forces all mobile phones in an area to disconnect from the legitimate base station…and connect to it without the owners’ consent…Most…can affect phones within a radius of around a kilometer and can send more than 20,000 messages per hour. “We can send out all kinds of messages, such as adverts for property, private tutoring, financial services, stocks and [illegal businesses]”…[said] a cellphone spammer based in Shanghai…
If it weren’t for the fact that real women are harmed by Everett, Washington’s ridiculous crusade against coffee stands, the language deployed by cops and reporters in these stories would be hilarious. The dark hints in this first one seem like something out of a film noir thriller, as though owner Carmela Panico was conducting an assassination business rather than just allowing tit-flashing: “Everett PD says looking into Panico’s crime ring was one of their largest investigations. ‘It was very important to…stop the criminal activity’, says Captain Bill Deckard…” One can almost hear the reporter clutching her pearls as she informs us that “the sex acts are continuing” and her satisfied smugness when she informs us that the Everett Pimp Department is going to enrich itself by stealing both the coffee-making equipment and the money the women earned from their sexual labor.
…providers of erotic services…face enormous criticism and discrimination over their choice of work. One of the worst kinds…is the assumption that escorts are either coerced into doing their work, or that they’re too stupid to realize how bad it is for them. That’s the basis for…so-called “rescue” operations…There’s some serious sexism in the idea that “escorts can’t be trusted to make adult decisions”…So it’s especially ironic that many would-be rescuers (including Gloria Steinem herself) call themselves feminists…Today’s coalition of feminists, conservatives, and even human rights activists are attempting to impoverish escorts’ lives as a way of defending “women’s rights.” Their critiques are translated into criminalization, exclusion from social systems such as child daycare, and the prospect of discrimination in child custody battles or allegations of sexual violence…
For the second time since September, The New York Timesprofiles one of the state’s…”human trafficking intervention courts”. This one, in Queens, sees…a large number of undocumented immigrants…This is…precisely the cohort that gets white-savior boners popping. All those American-born sex workers on Twitter may insist they want rights not rescue, but surely these low-income, low-skill women are victims. Surely they’ll appreciate state power being used to help rend them from their wretched lives. Yeah, no. The women the Times talked to…”said…that they did not feel like trafficking victims, but victims of the police…“
…Jian Ghomeshi, 47, former host of the internationally syndicated music and arts program Q…surrendered to police and was charged with four counts of sexual assault and one of choking…The charges follow a month-long police investigation into allegations that Ghomeshi…sexually assaulted and harassed several women…Ghomeshi [claimed]…it was…consensual [BDSM]…
[To a prohibitionist California judge] “help”…means keeping a pregnant teen locked up in juvenile jail because she accepted payment for sex, but still talking to her in really nice tones. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
…Slicing Beauty is a fairly typical…slasher flick, featuring gratuitous nudity…[which] was produced and directed, under an alias, by the principal of [a Connecticut] Middle School. And the film’s script…was written, also under an alias, by a guidance counselor at [another] Middle School…Mark D. Foley…[and] Aaron Vnuk…have been making movies together since at least 2008…the pair formed a company that became Moongoyle Entertainment…in movie credits, they use the names Mark Daniel and Aaron Thomas Howell…[but busybody Matthew Kauffman] determined their identities by comparing information in state corporation records…to state educator records…
And this, kiddies, is why Maggie McNeill, LLC is registered in Delaware.
A…Dallas…vice detective accused of giving a prostitute protection in exchange for sexual favors coached the woman to say she was his confidential informant if questioned about the relationship…Jose Luis Bedoy…was…charged with…obstruction of…justice…Bedoy met the woman…in early 2009 during a raid…[he] alerted her to police investigations and sought sex in return…
Sweden’s new coalition government is trying to make it an offence for Swedes to use prostitutes when they are…in other countries…But their plans look set to be blocked by the centre-right parties that made up the former governing Alliance…Some argue that making it illegal for Swedes to pay for sex in places where prostitution is…legal, could lead to other countries starting to punish their citizens for activities that are allowed in Sweden…”It would be terrible if people got punished because they had a homosexual relationship…or…an abortion in Sweden,” [said] Moderate party Justice spokesperson Beatrice Ask…
…Frits Rouvoet regularly walks in Amsterdam’s Red Light District…most prostitutes see [him] as “this idiot that always brings flowers”, and often try to get rid of him by pretending to be on the phone…[he] regularly claims to have “saved” a woman…and has been doing so for years, while I still see the same girls at work every day…how come nobody has noticed the women that have gone missing, because he has “saved” them?…It also makes one wonder [why]…these “oh so violent pimps”…let Frits…take away “their girls” without a fight…Does Frits Rouvoet possess some kind of supernatural…powers, that [protect] him…?
New [Cambodian] government regulations for the entertainment industry…aim to offer sex workers…increased protection under the Labor Law…Chan Dyna…of the National Entertainment Workers’ Network, said…“The government has finally recognized that entertainment workers are actually workers, like all others”…
Authorities have arrested a…[Colorado] sheriff’s deputy…The woman told investigators she was driving [Timothy Joseph] Hay home after drinking at a bar…when Hay asked her to pull over at a warehouse…[he then slammed] the woman’s head to the ground and [raped] her…
This story makes much more sense when one realizes that the word “evidence” was substituted for the proper term, “propaganda”. Here, I’ll demonstrate:
New figures…which…show a continuing decline here are “very alarming”…said the Immigrant Council of Ireland. The figures are contrary to European [propaganda]…There was…just one reported case of a trafficked child, compared to 16 last year…[Denise] Charlton said…“It is worrying that the figures have come down…There is so much [propaganda] that those who enter the sex trade do so as teenagers. Why are we not finding these children?”…
…New York…Port Authority police…have arrested more than 60 [men] this year in the bus terminal on public lewdness charges…Most…were accused of masturbating in the second-floor bathroom…by plainclothes officers…[spying on] them at an adjacent urinal…the Port Authority’s interpretation of the law [seems] to criminalize the use of public urinals…
…a New York court will decide whether or not Tommy the Chimpanzee qualifies as a legal person…late last year…lawyer Steven Wise discovered him being held in a small, unclean cage and receiving inadequate care…if Tommy is declared a legal person, it does not mean he is human…it would just afford him protection beyond existing animal cruelty laws. Personhood would give him rights pertaining to his self interest that would hold up in a court of law, similar to a parent or guardian acting on behalf of a child or disabled adult…The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP)…acts on behalf of nonhuman animals who are intelligent, self-aware and autonomous, including great apes, elephants, and dolphins…
…Scotland Yard has received 27 allegations of ritual child abuse linked to witchcraft in the past year, with police believing many more remain “hidden” by families…one child was swung round before being smacked over the head in order to “drive out the devil”. The Telegraph reported instances of children having chili rubbed into their eyes…[or] dunked in baths and forced to drink noxious liquids in exorcism ceremonies…
Watching pornography could soon be banned in Telangana…as a means to reduce crimes against [women]…state police said they have been asked to…use technology similar to the one used by the Chinese government to block content on search engines…banning pornography may not have any effect in ensuring security of women as several studies have shown that such content does not instigate…rape…
This has been a month of horrible violence against transwomen, from Australia:
…Marcus Volke worked around the world as a male prostitute before moving to Brisbane just weeks before he murdered his wife and cooked her on their…apartment’s stovetop. Volke, who was found with Mayang Prasetyo’s dismembered body…the couple had both worked in a Melbourne brothel and Volke had also made a living from sex work in Copenhagen. After moving to Brisbane he was working under the name of Heath XL while his wife was [working] as a “top high class Asian shemale”…Volke took his own life while fleeing police…
To the Philippines: “A US Marine has been detained over the murder of a transgender woman…26-year-old Jennifer Laude Sueselbeck was found dead by strangulation…with her head in the toilet…” To New York: “A 28-year-old trans woman was beaten by four men on a Bushwick street…with a 2 X 4…She is…in stable condition…but [may]…have permanent brain damage…”
…It’s Not Fair is a collection of tales taken from all over the world…from the cocoa farms of the Ivory Coast to the dingy bars of the back streets of Thailand, behind the respectable facade of a London home and into the offices of an anti-trafficking organisation…Using a unique blend of theatre, storytelling and music, the performance brings these stories to life in an entertaining, powerful and moving way…that raises awareness of the problem…
…Anna Burgese…says she was attacked early last year in the lobby of a South Beach W Hotel by drunken hookers who mistakenly believed she was competition…As a result…[she] hired undercover agents to visit W Hotels all over the country…[and] claims that they found…prostitution runs rampant in the hotels…The filing also alleges that The W…provides guests with free condoms and that its website advertises sex toys. “These agents engaged…employees who openly, and without hesitation, procured the services of prostitutes for the agents…”
In other words, these supposed agents “found” that a W concierge does exactly what the concierge in any expensive hotel will do.
The lies in this article are outrageous even by “sex trafficking” standards. First, cops’ arrest of 25 underage sex workers and 45 other people (labelled “pimps”) magically transmogrified into “[NGO members] successfully rescued 66 children, and made more than 120 arrests.” But the second claim was even more egregious: “a group of experts went to Sturgis, SD during the large motor cycle rally and were successful in rescuing more than a dozen young girls.” In fact, no sex workers were arrested (“rescued”) at all; photos of adult women were supposedly “age-regressed” and the results were used to entrap seven men.
…Because people don’t like the idea of teens engaging in sex work…they want the government to do something about it, and the way to get people under state jurisdiction is to define them as either criminals or helpless victims. So if teen sex workers aren’t criminals, they must be children whom the state has an obligation to protect coercively…”to prevent them from returning to their pimps”…Teenagers may not have the full capacity to consent…but they’re not mentally incapacitated. The government shouldn’t be able to lock up a 15-year-old girl ’til her 18th birthday to stop her from having sex in a way of which it disapproves…
…Called Operation Northern Spotlight, the officers in each city used ads on the Web to book “dates” with escorts over two nights last week — then met to [harass and intimidate them]…“Almost all the girls we meet, they say they’re independent,” said Sgt. Rob Huber…Despite denials…Huber suspects most are turned out by someone who reaps the bulk of the lucrative profits. “But until that girl basically tells us, we don’t have a victim”…
Most of this article is the usual ludicrous nonsense from one of the usual suspects (in this case, Washington DC “rescue” opportunists FAIR Girls), but it does have one notable line: “…the average victim is sold three to five times per night…” Not 50 or 100? Very interesting.
…a video showing a policeman beating a young woman…in…Sri Lanka…has generated heated discussion in the media…the police…first…[pretended that] the video [was] unreliable…[then admitted] that the particular policeman…has been identified…but that [the sex worker he beat] appeared to be in hiding…[meanwhile] the woman…began to reveal her ordeal in public…The [attacker’s] name has now been revealed as P.P. Thissera…he…has not been arrested or charged with a criminal offence…
…the 29-year-old woman told the police that she killed the constable as an act of revenge as it was he who had pushed her into prostitution and ruined her life…although she could have easily escaped after the murder, she chose to…set the body on fire [as]…a warning to corrupt cops…the deceased constable…sold her to a brothel [in 2002, then] three years ago, the woman again met…him…and [he] would often visit her…When she refused to give in to his demands, the constable would…threaten to arrest her…
I’ve heard this woman is actually kind of a nasty character, but it’s still good news if her lawyer can get a raid thrown out: “The defense attorney for a Salem, N.H., woman accused of running a…brothel wants a police search of his client’s home and vehicle tossed out as evidence in the criminal sex-trafficking and prostitution case. Lori Barron…is accused of hiring young women [to work in an ordinary massage parlor]…”
Somaly…Mam’s ex-husband Pierre Legros [said]…”Simon Marks…did his job as a journalist and verified the facts. I have not met Abigail Pesta who wrote the Marie-Claire story and I…doubtful…[of] her version…Somaly has at least two different versions of her biography …you know fabricated stories are used by everyone to get funding. But I received death threats from Somaly and her entourage, telling me not to speak”…
Danford Grant, a prominent Seattle lawyer…is charged with six counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and one count of burglary for allegedly attacking multiple women at massage clinics…Grant’s lawyers claim Jie Shao, owner of Carnation Massage: “deleted all the footage that recorded what really occurred…to destroy what was evidence of prostitution, not rape or attempted rape”…attorney…Richard Hansen…has repeatedly put…responsibility …on the…victims…saying…“a lot of these…(massage businesses) were advertising on Backpage…that should tell you something”…
…To criminalise male purchasers while simultaneously exonerating female vendors…is a violation of natural justice…this…“denial of consent”…fails to understand the motivation of women who…prefer prostitution to the alternative…the duplicity and irrationality of wanting to eliminate prostitution…while simultaneously denying the moral agency of prostitutes…is mind-boggling. The contortions of the mind needed to support this feminist narrative have…also led to…prostitutes [being treated]…like children incapable of taking responsibility for their actions…[while] male clients…are…“sex offenders”…along with rapists and child abusers…According to Dr Melissa Farley, upon whose dubious “research” seemingly every justification of the Swedish model is based, they are “predators”…For Christians, promiscuity has [always] been the defining aspect of prostitution…medieval canonists agreed that although it was wrong for a prostitute to practice her trade, there was no wrongdoing in her receipt of money for her services…It is…hypocritical and inconsistent to criminalise only this one form of promiscuity…It is not…criminal…for a woman to have a different sexual partner each night…nor…for a man to buy his mistress an apartment, clothing, etc…integrity would demand…prohibition [of sex work] apply to all illicit sex…Such a prohibition…was ludicrous in Catholic medieval Europe, and…even more so in a modern western democracy…
Prostitutes could be sued for breaching the Consumer Guarantees Act, the same as any other service provider, a law professor says. A man who tried to sue a prostitute for compensation and damages had his claim dismissed…But…Professor Cynthia Hawes said prostitutes were…no less accountable than other service providers…”if you’ve made a contract with somebody there could be a case. A contract of prostitution is not unlawful in itself”…
Despite ample warnings about the prevalence of con men seeking to prey on easily malleable puppets like me…I almost became the victim of a murky, seedy, dark, sex trafficking ring operated by equally murky, seedy, dark (-skinned) men…prostitution…is never a victimless crime…all fact-based evidence to the contrary should be deeply scrutinized…Furthermore, prostitution and sex trafficking are synonyms because if you disagree…you’re a pedophile…
A [Connecticut] woman faces prostitution charges after…she reported being robbed by a man who responded to her ad…Nikoletta Herman…became nervous about the way he was acting…changed her mind and…the man got upset, assaulted her and stole her cellphone…
…Wausau [Wisconsin] Police Chief Jeff Hardel [wants]…an escort license…ordinance [which] would impose fines in the $2,000 to $5,000 dollar range, and [require] licensed escorts to be fingerprinted, pass background checks, and file a…business plan.
…Minneapolis will require massage businesses to be licensed…to prevent sex trafficking…With cooperation from…victims, prosecutors are…working to drive down the demand…through aggressive prosecuting of “johns.” The city also has conducted training sessions to educate hotel and motel owners and employees to recognize, report and stop sex trafficking…
To paraphrase one line from the article, “The new law is intended to make Minneapolis a safe police state to call home.”
“…Coffee smoking is a dangerous new trend that could be going viral among teens…But the side effects can be dangerous. People have reported trouble breathing, dizziness, vomiting and even hallucinations.”
…violence and assault against sex workers by the police…has come under the scanner of the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission…Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) filed a complaint…on behalf of the sex workers…”Women have been beaten up just for standing on the road, or while walking towards the bus stop…Women have been…compelled to pay money, failing which they are threatened that false cases will be filed against them,” Professor Rajendra Y J of PUCL said…
PayPal is at it again; here’s a letter sent out on Monday by the crowd-funding platform Patreon (which lets patrons pledge a set amount to an artist for every new work created) to artists who create “adult” material:
…we had to change your custom URL and set your Patreon page to “private”…users must [now] have a specific link to view your page, as it no longer appears in our search results. We got a notice from Paypal this morning that they were shutting down their entire integration with Patreon because of “adult content” on our site! As you can imagine, this would be detrimental to creators – hundreds of thousands of dollars were to be “frozen” unless we flagged all adult content pages, made them private, and removed Paypal functionality from their individual pages…We have already emailed your patrons who signed up to become your patron through Paypal, and we have asked them to switch over to a credit card. No action is needed on your part, however, if you would like to email your patrons as well, that could be helpful in converting patrons from Paypal to credit card…
…here are the basic numbers of their claims: 140 girls & women in Ottawa right now are trafficked sex slaves…[each makes] $260 000 – $280 000…on average…[at] $200/Hour average price…$260 000 per year at $200/hour…[is] 1300 sessions in a year…if each one works 365 days per year, they earn $712 per day…[and] 3.56 clients per day, every single day…that’s 498 unique men seeing trafficked girls in Ottawa…[and] 182,000 sessions per year…[which would mean] 65% of all men in Ottawa have had sex with a trafficked sex slave…
There’s been much in the Irish media…about a new report on sex workers’ clients…You’d need a pretty small population size for 58 [respondents] to…tell us anything about clients as a class – and the authors can hardly claim simultaneously that the population size is small enough, and that it spends €250m a year…if the respondents amounted to even 10% of the sex-buying population of Ireland, that would still require them to pay an average of €431,034 per year for sex…the…survey…asks…Have you ever changed your mind and walked away because the person seemed…a list of options follows, including “scared”, “controlled”, “unwilling”, “unhappy” and “too young”…a client who…walked out of an appointment with an independent escort who was in a bad mood…[was] recorded as having encountered a sex worker who he believed was exploited or trafficked. This…is a gigantic leap that undermines whatever credibility this survey might otherwise have had…
This collection of single sentences about the “sex trafficking problem” in Boise, Idaho (population 200,000; known chiefly for lumber and potatoes) is not actually organized into a coherent article; apparently, its “writer” is a dual devotee of the “sex trafficking” cult and the Hemingway software. The gems found therein include (multiple sic): “a child is taken in…they’re used not only for prostitution but also in gang organized crimes”; “victims…go through a ‘moral development’ period…in order to stay safe they must go along with their captures”; and “investigators…believe that a major problem stems from the Internet…‘where kids play online’”.
This breathless article from the Canberra Times is clearly intended as an attack on decriminalization in New South Wales: it spouts “sex trafficking” nonsense; quotes cops, politicians and an NGO named “Brothel Busters”; and does not quote any sex worker organizations at all. But like many prohibitionist screeds about the “failure” of legal sex work regimes, it ignores a vital point: the women it discusses are only victims because they are specifically excluded from working legally via some legal bottleneck, in this case the inability to get visas for sex work. Naturally, Scarlet Alliance has repeatedly warned the government about this exact issue.
[Sheriff’s Sgt. Darrell L. O’Neill] was charged…with felony promoting prostitution…for allegedly tipping off bikini baristas in exchange for sexual favors…[cops claim] Java Juggs stands hire young women who have worked as strippers and escorts and “essentially operate as drive-through strip clubs or brothels”…
[Los Angeles] officials are exploring a plan to require more…training for foster parents and group home workers to help them recognize …signs that children and teens under their care may be victims of sex trafficking…pimps sometimes recruit underage sex workers from group homes…Rachel Thomas, a sex trafficking survivor [said]…”There’s a grooming process…with recognizable signs.”
Campaigners fighting the Ministry of Justice over a ban on books being sent to prisoners…threatened to take their battle to the courts…Geoffrey Robertson QC, who has offered his services for free, said…justice secretary Chris Grayling [is] acting “unlawfully and irrationally”…to inflict “cruel and unusual punishment” on literate prisoners. “Grayling is not a lawyer, he is a politician who seems to think he is above the law,” said Robertson…”He has no power to impose additional punishment on prisoners over and above that which is imposed by the courts. The action has nothing to do with prison security or any other legitimate purpose”…Grayling [pretends]…”the arrival of thousands of unknown parcels in our prisons each day”…would undermine the…battle against drugs…
A prostitute rescue program…is now on hold because police are no longer laying prostitution charges in Saskatoon, says…Don Meikle…once an arrest was made “we would be sitting at the police station waiting for them…It’s…very disappointing…It’s taken away that crisis that quite often created change”…
The rest of the article is littered with words like “combating prostitution” and the program is praised by a pro-Swedish model prohibitionist group.
Go back and look at the text below the second picture on yesterday’s column (which I actually posted on March 8th) before reading this:
…[Miranda Barbour] made up the claim that she killed more than 20 people and is drawing on the escapades of television serial killer “Dexter,” her sister said…”She takes a lot of truths and puts the lie in the middle so when people…see all these truths…they believe the lie”…Ashley Dean said Elytte Barbour loved the TV show Dexter and suggested that her sister…”is using descriptions from the show”…
If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!
All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say “pretty please with sugar on top” first, and then wait for me to say “okey-dokey”.
