Many people have used Craigslist to find a “causal encounter”, and some of them got lured into police sting operations. I’m trying to determine what fraction of the stuff that used to be posted to that section (before Craigslist closed it a few months ago) was real, and what percentage prostitution (as opposed to a real, no strings attached encounter).
All sexual encounters which actually happen are as “real” as one another; being paid for sex does not magically make the ensuing sex imaginary. Lots of people used Craigslist to advertise seeking or offering sex, and they had a plethora of different motivations; it’s a prohibitionist mentality to pretend that a pragmatic motivation for sex draws a bright, clear line between that sex and other sex. You seem to want to exploit that imaginary difference to argue that cops stalking and victimizing people for sex in which no currency is directly exchanged is somehow different and worse than them stalking people who make a clear and honest exchange. I can’t help you with that, and I wouldn’t if I could; the only assistance I can offer is to tell you that most scams only work on those with “larceny in their hearts”, i.e. those trying to get something for nothing. Men seeking sex would be wise to stop trolling around trying to get it for “free” (the most expensive kind) or cheap, do their research, and deal only with known providers with established reputations. Furthermore, the idea that sex work can be dependably differentiated from what you call “real sex” is not only wrong philosophically, but also practically; because sex work is only distinguished by its motivation, any procedure intended to ensnare sex workers and/or clients will also ensnare lots of other people. The only way to ensure that no amateurs are caught up in prostitution stings is to do away with prostitution stings, and the only way to do that is to completely decriminalize all forms of sex work.
…”part-time girlfriend” is a euphemism often used by young women in the city who may be studying or have jobs, but who also offer sex on the side. By using variations of the hashtag #ptgf as shorthand, they connect with men on networks such as Instagram and then switch to direct messaging to offer services and arrange to meet. Instagram says it has made #ptgf and #hkptgf unsearchable, but a host of new alternatives that add Chinese characters or initials to the original tag circumvent the block…[as usual, busybodies blame a lot of nonsense other than] financial pressures [as] key motivators for young women …Bowie Lam, executive director of Teen’s Key…[claims] the age of “part-time girlfriends” is getting lower…These young women often do not see themselves as sex workers because the…[propaganda has misled them as to what sex work is like]…Hong Kong police said they have taken action against websites, chat rooms and discussion forums to combat illegal prostitution activities. The act of prostitution in itself is not illegal in Hong Kong…but soliciting is…
Prostitutes blamed for robbing and pick-pocketing British tourists in Magaluf, Spain, have been chased off the streets by angry protesters. Spanish taxi drivers led a [mob]…against the women by recording them with their mobile phones and chanting: “No prostitutes on the streets”…It is claimed that the women have come to Spain via organised crime in Nigeria, and they are blamed by local businesses for a drop in tourist trade…
Nearly two dozen businesses and institutions joined…a new initiative called Employers Against Sex Trafficking (EAST) to create a coalition of business leaders who have committed to zero-tolerance policies on sex buying…[propaganda invented] by Demand Abolition…showed that nearly 13 percent of calls responding to…decoy ads originated from local businesses, and that the peak time people are searching online to buy sex is during the workday, at 2 p.m. The…study revealed…more than 9,000 searches for sex-buying opportunities happening in Boston each day and that more than 20,000 ads selling people for sex are posted online every month, with each ad receiving an average of 52 responses. Many sex buyers have said they buy illegal sex while traveling for business…
If you don’t recognize businesses “partnering” with government to infringe on civil rights as fascism, perhaps the horrific phrase “illegal sex” might give you a clue.
After a year of co-writing, directing and now acting in Jane Doe in Wonderland, Erin Johnston is even more adamant about the play’s impact in [spreading propaganda against] sex [work]. “We’re excited about this production,” she said. “It allows people to get used to theater to tell the story and the performance is digestible and accessible. And…we don’t curse or show physical violence. The focus is on the emotional and psychological process that’s experienced.” As part of the [rescue industry] Game Over organization, Jane Doe in Wonderland visits around 20 Bay Area cities on its current tour…
Ashton Kutcher’s non-profit organisation Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children [claims to have] identified almost 6,000 child victims of human sex trafficking last year…Impact reports from the organisation for 2017, show that Thorn’s software allowed law enforcement and investigators to identify 5,791 child sex trafficking victims…They were able to [arrest] 103 [legal minors]…Thorn uses web application Spotlight which provides [cops] with information and leads on [sex workers]…in order to [arrest them]…In 2016, during an appearance on the Today show, the actor said “We’ve identified and recovered more than 6,000 trafficking victims this year. We identified and recovered more than 2,000 traffickers.” He also stated his next mission was to eliminate child pornography from the internet…
The same figures for two years in a row, and the Mail doesn’t find it fishy. The reporter also didn’t bother to read Liz Brown’s debunking (see title link).
When he was 15, his family found out that Ibrahim…was gay…from that moment on, local mullahs and “old wives” (faith healers and local women reputed to be witches) “tried to ‘treat’…my homosexuality…[with] bloodletting…herbs (after which I had hallucinations, nausea, stomach pains), strong pressure on the painful points of the body, and…electric shocks onto the penis. There were also some ‘spells’ or nashidas (though to no effect)…It went on and off…till I turned 18.” Ibrahim is all right, for now, having escaped Chechnya. He is living under the care of Stimul, a Russian LGBT organization…that…arranges safe housing and advice and advocacy…for…LGBT people seeking asylum from Central Asian countries…and…Chechnya, where homosexuality is not only against the law…but…viciously persecuted…Stimul aims to…place LGBT people…in European countries, the U.S., and Canada…
South Australian Attorney-General, Vickie Chapman, says she will sponsor a bill to decriminalise sex work when it comes to the state’s Lower House, boosting its chances of becoming law…The Decriminalisation of Sex Work Bill was introduced by Greens MLC Tammy Franks last month and is the same as one sponsored by Liberal Upper House MP Michelle Lensink in 2015. That bill passed the Legislative Council but failed to go to a conscience vote in the House of Assembly before the March election…
…Of four quick and easy tests for bad legislation, the [End Banking for Human Traffickers Act] passes three: First, it’s “bipartisan”…Rubio and Warren are aligned on both elements of the issue. Both of them want control of your genitalia and both of them want control of your bank account. Secondly, it exploits moral panic to discourage scrutiny of its actual effects. In this case, the trending buzz word is “human trafficking”…another excuse for harassing adult sex workers trying to make a living and, contra all the “for the chillllllldren” posturing, taking food out of the mouths of THEIR children (if not taking away their children entirely). Thirdly, it doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that it’s yet another attempt to conscript supposedly private sector actors into conducting…intrusive search-like activity that, if done directly by government employees…might be held accountable to inconvenient standards like probable cause, warrants, etc. The only test the bill fails is the “warm, fuzzy, and/or patriotic-sounding acronym” test…if this bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, sex workers — already pushed to the economic margins in various ways by law enforcement, social stigma, and…poverty…are going to have an even harder time opening or keeping…accounts at traditional banks…
As I wrote in the title-linked piece: “Since ‘Choke Point’ was never declared unconstitutional by a court nor officially banned by a law, there’s nothing to stop future tyrants from simply bringing it back.”
In France, two separate…activists are [on trial for] human trafficking for helping migrants on humanitarian grounds. The law on which they are being charged is currently under review in the Constitutional Court. Martine Landry, a 73-year-old pensioner working with…Amnesty International, faces up to five years in prison and a 30,000-euro fine…[for] facilitating the passage of two Guinean boys, then aged 15 and 16, into France…a separate trial…[concerns] two Swiss nationals…and one Italian…who accompanied migrants through a mountain pass on 22 April 2018. They face up to 10 years in prison, 750,000 euros in fines and a ban from French territory…“If I become friends with a migrant who has no papers and invite them to sleep on my sofa, I become a criminal, and if I become a trafficker and have Nigerian prostitutes come into France, I am a criminal under the same provision,” says Lucile Abassade, a lawyer in the Paris region…As the trials open, France’s Constitutional Court is reviewing the law…to decide whether the law violates the French constitutional principle of fraternity…Such cases have become relatively common in France in recent years…
…The No Little Girl campaign has argued that Nevada’s brothels have a negative effect on the state. In reality, research shows that the lives of Nevada citizens have improved due to the legalization of sex work in the state. Nevada’s system isn’t perfect — but it’s a considerable improvement over the national policy of criminalization. No Little Girl has three major [claims] for shutting down the legal brothel industry: Brothels do not significantly contribute to their counties’ economies while deterring other businesses from setting up shop; they increase violence against women who don’t work in the sex industry; and they’re inherently abusive (because, as the campaign’s tagline reminds visitors, “no little girl grows up wanting to be a prostitute”)…combing through the data — even the data the organization links to on its site — suggests that many of No Little Girl’s claims are exaggerated at best and misleading at worst…
President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said…Stormy Daniels has no credibility because of her profession…”If you’re going to sell your body for money, you just don’t have a reputation”…Giuliani said in Israel…”If you’re involved in a sort of slimy business, (that) says something about you — says something about how far you’ll go to make money”…
…Wall Street Journal has an article on the potentially negative impact of our country’s new “anti-trafficking” law—not on sex workers, mind you, but on the big business of online dating. Yes…FOSTA…is endangering sex workers’ livelihoods and lives—but, oh, won’t someone think of the multi-million-dollar companies? As the article warns its conservative, money-minded readers, “The booming business of online dating faces new risks from a law designed to prevent sex trafficking and prostitution”…The bill’s opponents warned that it would lead to sweeping censorship and, in its few weeks of life, it already has…As Heidi Vogt and John D. McKinnon write, FOSTA has led to the shuttering of sites used by sex workers—and “some worry that could drive the pay-for-sex market to legitimate dating platforms.” They continue to explain, paraphrasing a legal expert, that “it could easily create liability for legitimate services if sex workers simply use their platforms.” The article is filled with moralizing language that poses “legitimate dating platforms” and “legitimate services” opposite “prostitutes”. It’s Match.com versus “bad behavior”. OKCupid versus “illicit behavior”. Tinder versus “those peddling sex”…
The three-month-long search for a missing California woman came to a tragic end on the morning of March 25. Kristen Marti’s body was found by authorities after a lengthy search of Prefumo Canyon, about seven miles west of San Luis Obispo. Her January 9 disappearance is now considered a murder investigation…When Marti was last seen, she was with an unknown man in a maroon-colored sedan…Marti was “known to frequent hotels” in the San Luis Obispo-area…
Every morning I…log into the Tinder account of a 45-year-old man from Texas—a client. I flirt with every woman in his queue for 10 minutes, sending their photos and locations to a central database of potential “Opportunities”. For every phone number I get, I make $1.75. I’m what’s called a “Closer” for the online-dating service ViDA (Virtual Dating Assistants). Men and women (though mostly men) from all over the world pay this company to outsource the labor and tedium of online dating. The matches I speak to on behalf of the Texan man and other clients have no idea they’re chatting with a professional…
By the numbers provided, she makes less than $12 an hour maximum. That may be the shittiest-paying sex work ever.
…I’ve long been opposed to all consensual crimes — recreational drugs, gambling, pornography, public drunkenness, vagrancy, homosexuality, food trucks, gun ownership, kink, migration, raw milk, incest, risky sports, transgenderism, loitering, status offenses, braiding hair without a license, whatever — because as long as everybody involved has consented freely and competently…I don’t think it should be a crime. So I’ve always opposed prostitution laws in theory. My opposition became somewhat less theoretical a few years ago when I bumped into Maggie McNeill…I became a steady reader of Maggie’s blog, and I began to learn more about the legal issues that concern sex workers in this country…the situation for sex workers seems to be deteriorating, in ways that are sadly familiar to those of us who know the War on Drugs…cops seem to realize that their pearl-clutching over call girls is a dumb waste of police resources, so they’ve tried to recast what they do as fighting a genuine evil. They’ve hit on the idea of calling everything “sex trafficking,” or even worse, “child sex trafficking”…We’re also starting to see other unpleasant features of the War on Drugs, such as federal funding and inter-agency task forces…I used to get angry whenever I heard of some new atrocity in the War On Drugs, but I was usually able to keep some emotional distance from the worst of it because I didn’t actually know any drug dealers. It wasn’t personal for me…But when it comes to sex workers, I follow far too many of them on Twitter…I know these people. And the last few weeks have been pretty bad. This bullshit is hurting people I know, and they are bitter, hurt, and angry…
“But what if it was your daughter?”…Thus goes the common refrain…I do not have a daughter. But, then, as Elizabeth Nolan Brown points out, the people making this argument do not necessarily have daughters, either. So, here is a brief list of professions I would not want my fictitious daughter to enter into: Professionally playing any sport that involves head trauma…Being a war reporter…Any profession that promises people a quick, easy and most likely ineffective way to solve their problems, like hawking untested diet pills…regardless of how I feel about them, my future daughter has a perfect legal right to pursue them. People are allowed to enter professions that might be unsafe. People are allowed to enter into professions where their body is seen as a tool of the trade. People are allowed to enter professions that seem morally questionable. The only time that isn’t the case is when a woman is having sex as her profession…At least, it isn’t the case in the United States. There are a great many countries where sex work is legal, such as New Zealand, which decriminalized sex work in 2003…
Sex workers in Victoria are under attack as politicians try to [re-criminalize]…“the world’s oldest profession”…the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch will discuss…a motion…by [prohibitionists claiming]…“sexual services have surged into our suburbs in the guise of massage parlours” and “are now closer to our homes and schools than ever before”…the [prohibitionists are] pushing [their party] for the adoption of the “Nordic model”…
Australian politicians can see the success of decriminalization right there in New South Wales, but are still willing to push this evil bullshit to placate prudes with fantasies of sex rays.
Seattle officials announced…that they have filed a motion to vacate all convictions and drop all charges for marijuana possession for anyone arrested in the city in the past few decades…the proposed move would affect 542 people who have convictions on their records. “Vacating charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession is a necessary step to correct the injustices of what was a failed war on drugs, [but we’re going to keep pursuing the even more unjust and failed war on consensual sex because we’re hypocrites],” Mayor Jenny Durkan…said in a statement…
Sex workers in Colombia have started a newspaper that is “flying off the shelves”—a rare distinction for any newspaper these days. La Esquina—which means “The Corner” in English—is made by and for sex workers in Bogotá’s red light district…It’s both distributed as a regular newspaper and, ingeniously, laminated and plastered on the district’s walls for sex workers to read while they wait for clients…The paper was founded last summer by a group of activists and artists…
Tracy Clark-Flory has singlehandedly made Jezebel relevant again.
Down a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood south of Dortmund’s city center stands Germany’s first sex doll brothel. For €80 ($97) an hour, customers can [play with] one of 12 silicone dolls, including one male doll and a model with both breasts and a penis…Evelyn Schwarz …is the founder and owner of Bordoll, which…also [has an actual] brothel and a…BDSM [dungeon]…
…Under a new plan, would-be immigrants can claim points as skilled sex workers and escorts. The skill is regarded as providing social companionship in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) list. In order to meet the criteria of a highly qualified sex worker, would-be migrants will be expected to…have relevant recognized qualifications or have at least three years of work experience in the relevant industry…they would [also] need a formal offer of employment [from a brothel or escort service]…
…at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin…staff prevented Stuart Yates, a 49-year-old man on the sex offender registry, from visiting his severely ill son Kahlil, age 9, who was crying and begging him to visit…”In 1998, Yates pleaded guilty to…inappropriately touch[ing] a 15-year-old babysitter…Yates says he took a plea in the case, thinking he would serve six months in prison. Instead, a judge handed down a five-year sentence….[and registration] as a sex offender for life…Yates is now suing the hospital to be let back inside“…In the face of a lawsuit, the hospital relented in part, and will permit Yates to visit three times a week, for two hours, under supervision. But the visits must be approved 24 hours in advance, meaning that if the boy wakes up feverish or…takes a turn for the worse, his dad will not be able to hurry to his side…
Vietnamese officials have expressed their concerns about the complicated nature of recognizing prostitution as a job…figures from the International Labor Organization (ILO) suggest that there are nearly 101,300 sex workers…in Vietnam…“Sex workers should have the right to make a living, contribute to society, and enjoy welfare in terms of healthcare and education,” said Cao Van Thanh, vice head of the Social Evil Prevention Department…at a recent meeting in Hanoi…Tran Van Dat, vice head of the Department of General Affairs on Legislative Development…said prostitution should be considered a legitimate profession…
Though they’re commies and therefore need to bloviate about disease and “regulation”, it’s still startling how much more enlightened these politicians’ views are than those in the backward US.
FIZ, a Swiss NGO specialising in…women’s migration issues…thought that it was very important…that people actually talk about…severe forms of exploitation…the human trafficking framework…has negative effects on other groups of migrant women, and…has turned out to be a framework that is actually a lot about controlling the movement of migrant women, controlling the work of migrant women. We see this very clearly with sex workers…
I have a hard time talking about this issue without being emotional…If you don’t do something about it, then who are you? It can happen to anyone…Traffickers prey on people…If you look at the place where these [passive, agency-less vegetables] are sold online, its right next to a car, or a sofa or a used bicycle…We basically take a victim, that otherwise is just a posting online, and we turn them into a human being…
Yes, that’s Kutcher claiming to be a literal god who can turn an inanimate object into a human being.
A Brooklyn prosecutor was caught having an affair with one of the NYPD cops [who raped] a handcuffed teenager…Assistant District Attorney Nicole Manini…is under investigation for potentially violating professional conduct rules…Manini’s illicit relationship with [rapist cop] Richard Hall…was uncovered when investigators with her office reviewed his cellphone records as part of the rape case…Michael David, the lawyer representing Hall’s [victim], said he plans to use the…affair…in his client’s pending civil rights suit against Hall, [rapist cop Eddie] Martins and the city…
The gay dating app Grindr says it will stop sharing the HIV status of its users with other companies. Grindr made the decision…after first defending the practice, which involved sending user profile information — including HIV status and test dates — to two companies called Apptimize and Localytics. They test the performance of Grindr’s products…
After a federal judge ruled against the city of Everett for banning “bikini baristas” from wearing G-strings and pasties, Everett has decided to continue fighting against baristas’ partial nudity…city attorneys stress—while trying to support a ban on butt cleavage—how easy it is to understand the terms of Everett’s ban on “bottom one half of the anal cleft” and “more than one-half of the part of the female breast located below the top of the areola.” One of the reasons Judge Marsha Pechman blocked the ban was because she ruled those rules were too vague to stand up in court. She indicated that the argument that the ban limited freedom of expression on the basis of gender was also likely to succeed…
…a group of sex workers have apparently attempted to set up their own social network, called Switter. It’s a Mastodon Instance (Mastodon being the fairly well known open source decentralized social networking platform that allows anyone to set up an individual “instance”)…The stated reasons for Switter are to prepare for the possibility of Twitter banning accounts of sex workers and to have more control over their social media space. As I write this, the site claims to have about 12,000 signed up users…
Upstart blockchain-based adult outfit, SpankChain, launched an offensive…dubbed “WTFOSTA,” calling for sex workers to expose any politician who’s procured their services and subsequently voted in favor of the recently passed SESTA/FOSTA measure criminalizing web platforms deemed to foster sex trafficking. The specific bid to the sex worker community, as posted on official campaign site wtfosta.com, is as follows: “We are offering $25,000 to each of the first 10 sex workers who come forward with hard evidence of any politician who voted YES on FOSTA/SESTA engaging their services”…
…NYPD [pigs get their jollies]…by planting fake ads and sending [threatening] texts to those looking [for human companionship]…Police have posted phony listings on sites like Backpage.com for years, but always waited until the [victim] showed up and then arrested him. “Advertisements are posted by the NYPD and you won’t know which ads are from us” the [threat lies]…
Actually, it’s extremely easy for men to know which ads are real and which are pig swill: women in real ads will have an established online presence. Just Google the name, email address, phone number, etc; if there are no other hits on an escort site, other ad sites, Twitter, etc, you’re probably looking at a pig trap.
As Trump’s presidency drags on — having blown past tarnished and into deep, dark ignominy — receipts have become vitally important…Karen McDougal kept receipts. The former Playboy model’s handwritten notes chronicle an alleged affair in 2006. These non-coy notes —”we got naked + had sex” — were published in the New Yorker. A White House rebuttal —”more fake news“— crashed on the shoals of receipts. Stormy Daniels kept receipts. The adult-film actress has a copy of the nondisclosure agreement that she signed, and Trump didn’t, requiring her to keep silent about her alleged Trump tryst, on pain of larcenous fines…Nastya Rybka, a Belarussian escort, also kept receipts……she…claims to have audio receipts that show Russian meddling in the U.S. election. She’s seeking asylum in the U.S. in return for telling all…
Many if not most people who oppose laws against private, consensual, sexual behavior describe themselves as “sex-positive”; I am not among them. You may find this surprising, given that I had an essentially-uncountable number of sex partners even before I started making my living from sex more than 20 years ago. But it isn’t necessary to imagine sex as a positive good in order to oppose its violent suppression by “authorities”, nor to oppose those who consider it an evil to be controlled, nor to make a living from it; in fact, I think the naive and idealistic idea of sex as an actual good is just as harmful, and causes nearly as much societal ill, as the primitive and warped notion that it’s an active evil. Manichean dualities don’t really exist outside of fantasy and religious literature and the guts of computers; in the real world, most natural behaviors are neither good nor evil in and of themselves, and only become so when used to create weal or woe. Lighting a fire is a morally neutral act; it becomes good if done to cook food or protect people from the cold, and evil when it’s done to destroy another person’s property (or even one’s own, if followed by insurance fraud). Similarly, sex is a morally neutral act which becomes good when used to create good feelings, bond people, or make money; it becomes evil when it’s inflicted on a non-consenting partner or used to lure someone to their doom. This should be obvious, but some people are so locked into black and white thinking that they prefer to cling to the ludicrous notion that rape isn’t sex (despite involving exactly the same actions) than admit that “good” sex can be used to harm someone. Similarly, is it really so much of a stretch from “sex is an actual good” to “sex is sacred”? And yet the latter statement has often been used to stigmatize, demonize and even criminalize casual sex, ethical non-monogamy, sex work, kink, homosexuality and a number of other consensual behaviors, and I don’t just mean by traditional religions; feminists and even soi-disant sex positive folk use very similar sentiments to argue that while amateur sex is good, sex work is bad because it contaminates the magical rainbow rays emanating from “mutual” sex. Similar arguments are used to argue for the repugnant and deeply-flawed concept of “enthusiastic consent“, and to pretend that sexual crimes are so uniquely destructive that nobody can ever recover from them, and that those convicted of them should be ostracized from society forever. Moral judgments smeared upon morally-neutral acts help nobody; all they do is set up an arbitrary standard to which self-appointed “authorities” feel justified in comparing other people’s consensual sex, and inflicting penalties upon those they find wanting.
I’m really pretty damned sick of social engineers claiming that it’s “bigoted” or “sexist” or whatever for men (or lesbians) not to socially date (ie, have sex with) women of some particular group (such as older women, obese women, trans women, kinky women, etc). Tellingly, nobody (except the “women don’t date nice guys” cult) tries to put similar pressure on straight women or gay men; apparently, it’s perfectly OK to refuse to date any man for any reason. Only women apparently need to be “protected” by forcing people to have sex with them whether they like it or not, and the authoritarians who subscribe to this revolting policy usually appear to have no issue with queer people refusing to socially date those of the opposite sex. So according to them, all factors of attraction except homosexuality are purely voluntary and can be changed as easily as I change my underwear. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is 100% pure, reeking bullshit. Nobody can help who they’re attracted to, and nobody has the right to demand any individual socially date any people of a certain group (not talking about sex work here). For example, I’m too old, too busty, too muscular, too intellectual, too talkative, too intense, too kinky, etc for some guys, and just the fact that I’m female means a lot of women aren’t interested in me sexually. Similarly, I’m extremely picky about who I sleep with for free. And that’s all perfectly OK. Nobody, repeat NOBODY, has the right to demand anyone else have sex with them or anyone else, any more than they have the right to stop anyone from having sex with consenting partners or policing their reasons for having sex. Furthermore, to make such a demand, or to insult and socially pressure people for refusing sexual contact with some others, demonstrates an utter disregard for the most basic principles of consent. It’s not only reprehensible and, frankly, disgusting; it is the mindset of a rapist, and nobody with the faintest modicum of respect for individual rights should tolerate it in even the slightest degree.
I’m really getting pretty damned sick of the infantile “enthusiastic consent” trope, which promotes a fairy-tale view of human sexuality in which the only possible reason for having sex is “fun”, the only acceptable form of consent is throwing oneself into sex with the wild and totally senseless abandon of a teenage wererabbit on coke, and all enjoyment of the act must be “fair” and “equal” (but how something so subjective is to be measured, we aren’t told). This is both dumb and dangerous. “Fun” is immaterial; this is the kind of argument used to stigmatize sex workers because we don’t have work-sex for “fun” or “pleasure”. The actual standard is, “Did everyone get enough of what they were looking for out of the encounter to be OK with it? And if not, was it because the other person was actually behaving badly?” There are lots of reasons for having sex, and “fun” or personal pleasure is only one of them. Just because it’s the only one you personally appreciate doesn’t make all the dozens of other reasons “bad” or “wrong” or “lesser”. Even people who do enjoy a sex act don’t necessarily enter into it “enthusiastically”. I know that I never do; being persuaded is a big part of the pleasure of sex for me, and I’m not remotely alone. And someone who needs to be persuaded is, by definition, not “enthusiastic”. Finally, even if the sex wasn’t everything you wanted, that does not automatically mean the other person was acting maliciously. Use your damned adult judgment, for Aphrodite’s sake; most people of both sexes are crap in bed, so bad sex is usually just due to the incompetence of one or both partners, not some eeeeeeeeeeeeevil plot on the part of one of them.
Furthermore, “enthusiasm” is a form of behavior characteristic of people incapable of actually considering all the aspects of a situation they find themselves in; it’s the elder sister of disappointment and the mother of resentment. “Enthusiasm” is what happens when hormones or neurology overwhelm considered judgment. It’s much more common in the young, whose brains haven’t completely stabilized yet. And while it can be intoxicating to experience, it’s unwise to make important decisions while intoxicated.
It’s not about “fair”, that’s a false equivalence. It’s about: what do each person needs to be happy, and can the other person support that. Polyamory is not supposed to be a strictly tit-for-tat situation (no pun intended). If this man feels that he wants to be polyamorous, then he should do that, and his partner should decide whether she’s OK with that or not, and either stay or go. If this lady wants to do sex work, and it has nothing to do with polyamory for her, then she should do it. And her partner can decide that he is or is not OK being partners with a sex worker. But these two people are comparing apples to oranges, and they need to unhitch these two completely different concepts from each other and work them out separately. Because you can’t pretend they’re the same. To me (and this is just me) being reluctantly monogamous OR polyamorous because your partner wants it is right up there with having a kid when you don’t really want one, but your partner does. It’s not really fair to anybody, and it’s just going to poison the whole situation. And as you may well imagine, I don’t think anyone has the right to tell you that you may not use your body to make a living in any way you see fit (short of violence) just because they bought into some meaningless societal dictates that have been force-fed to us all.
The rest of the column is my answer:
I really like Matisse’s answer to this, but I’d like to add that I see both parties being unreasonable here in different ways. He clearly doesn’t see her work as work, but as recreational, and that’s going to cause problems down the road NO MATTER HOW they resolve this situation. I absolutely guarantee that whether she quits working or not, he will at some future time hold her sex work over her head, because 1) he clearly equates it to promiscuity, and 2) he thinks of promiscuity as something “lesser” if not quite “bad”. Furthermore, what’s her alternative if she quits sex work? Doing some shit job in an office working for a boss for far less money? That’s going to breed resentment. I quit sex work TWICE for “love”, and it was a bad idea both times. At the same time, I don’t think she’s really being reasonable either. So what if his reason for having other partners is different from hers? Setting up a hierarchy of motivations (“My reason for doing X is more acceptable than your reason for doing a not-dissimilar thing”) is also a recipe for resentment in the relationship. People are different; they have different views and different priorities, and comparing them to one another is just as damaging to a relationship as demanding that both parties get exactly the same thing out sex or other cooperative activities. As a woman who has a lot of difficulty achieving orgasm, should I demand my partner not climax until I have, and that each of us has to have sex for personal pleasure and only for that reason each time? Of course not; that would be unreasonable and sabotage the relationship. Yet our culture worships “mutuality” in sex as though it were a cultic totem, even though it’s as undependable and ultimately meaningless as “love at first sight”. So what I’m saying is, as Matisse pointed out, each person has to conduct themselves as they feel they want and need to, with honesty and without unrealistic expectations of some kind of parity. And if the other person is OK with that, then the relationship will work. But the second either of the parties starts bean-counting or saying “you can’t do that”, or “if you do that I’ll do this”, or “it’s not fair!”, that relationship is headed for a really rocky road without a spare tire.
A new study led by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that [legal minors] who were legally required to register as sex offenders were at greater risk for harm, including suicide attempts and sexual assault, compared to a group of [minors] who engaged in harmful or illegal sexual behavior but who were not required to register…The study found that registered [minors] were four times as likely to report a recent suicide attempt in the last 30 days, compared to nonregistered [minors. They]…were nearly twice as likely to have experienced a sexual assault and were five times as likely to have been approached by an adult for sex in the past year….[they] also reported higher rates of other mental health problems, more peer relationship problems, more experiences with peer violence and a lower sense of safety…
The study inexplicably and inaccurately refers to all of its subjects as “children” even though most of them are young [teenage] adults.
Anahí Berneri…focuses her lens on a young prostitute in Buenos Aires who struggles to make ends meet in the face of a police force that declares her profession legal, but closes down the brothel where she works…Sofía Gala Castaglione’s performance alongside her real-life son often feels like a documentary. She imbues Alanis with spunk and determination while allowing for moments of heartbreaking vulnerability. After two [vice pigs] conduct a sting, posing as potential clients, she is kicked out of the apartment she lives and works out of. Her friend and roommate Gisela (Dana Basso) is [caged] for running a brothel out of her home which leaves Alanis out on the street without money, clothes, or diapers. She turns to her aunt for a place to stay and looks for a less volatile line of work, but desperation and the promise of quick cash draws her back to sex work…
What is believed to be the longest sentence anywhere in the United States for human trafficking was given out on Tuesday in [Denver]…Brock Franklin was sentenced to 472 years for operating an organized crime ring that put females into prostitution. He was designated a habitual offender…
472 years? Really? This is patently absurd; if they wanted the guy locked in a cage forever, there’s a sentence called “life without parole”, but I guess that doesn’t produce as much amusement value at drinking parties. Does anyone need any more evidence that this is a sick game for prosecutors? The attorney general of Colorado said this sentence “sends a message”, and she’s right; the message is, “all prosecutors are sociopaths”.
In the minds of many clinicians, involvement in sexwork…is seen as a hallmark sign of behavioral health disturbance, typically associated with severe substance use disorders…Today, amidst a nationwide campaign about human trafficking, many therapists grow concerned that a patient involved in sexwork has been subjected to human trafficking…However…investigation of various risk factors for sexwork, such as drugs, mental health problems, or economic/social vulnerability, have not found consistent or replicated indicators. Increasingly, individuals consensually involved in various aspects of sexwork are seeking mental health support, and experiencing stigma, assumptions, and judgment from their clinicians…
The estate of a [sex worker murdered] by a [client] in a…Portland hotel in 2014 has filed a $3.6 million lawsuit against the owners of the Hilton hotel chain and Backpage.com…[claiming]…Ashley Benson…was forced to appear in multiple ads for sex on Backpage.com…Her killer, Tae Bum Yoon…met with her repeatedly, stalked her, monitored her activity and tracked her whereabouts for several months through the website, the lawsuit said. He became upset when he saw her [touring] in Austin, Texas. He used a stolen identity to check into the DoubleTree on Christmas Day 2014 and lure Benson there, the lawsuit said…
If you follow the links back, you’ll see that the greedy family got the “sex trafficking” narrative from the pigs, who started publicly wanking to “trafficking” fantasies over Benson’s corpse before it was even cold.
…Lindy Lou Layman, a 29-year-old Dallas court reporter, was on [a first] date with attorney Anthony Buzbee on Dec. 23 when she…became intoxicated, hid from [Buzbee] inside his own $14 million mansion, and, when he tried twice to get her an Uber ride home, started attacking his art…she was charged with felony criminal mischief after allegedly tearing three paintings off the wall, pouring an unidentified liquid on them, and destroying two abstract sculptures by “throwing them across the room”…two of the paintings were original Warhols valued at $500,000 apiece. The sculptures…were worth $20,000 each…
…In Brazil, sex work remains politically and socially contentious. But thanks to a staunch sex worker movement in the country, the people who actually do the work have made themselves key contributors to the debate. It…has…fought tirelessly for the full recognition of sex work as a profession. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that movement…In July 1987, sex workers Gabriela Leite and Lourdes Barreto held the first national meeting for Brazil’s prostitutes. It resulted in the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes (BNP) as well as the publication of a newsletter Beijo da Rua (Kiss from the Street). The BNP’s mission was to build a new discourse of prostitution, not tied to crime or victimisation…
…In April 2006, [Utah jailer William] Lawrence handcuffed a woman in his apartment…and [raped her]…He also showed the woman a badge and threatened to take her to jail and call the Division of Child and Family Services if she didn’t comply…Lawrence pleaded guilty to forcible sex abuse, a third-degree felony, in 2007. In exchange for his guilty plea, a charge of forcible sodomy was dropped. He failed to show up for sentencing in April 2008, so a warrant was issued for his arrest. In October…investigators discovered that Lawrence had created a fake identity and was living in Hawaii. He was arrested there without incident last month…
Here’s another exercise in cop-fellation and myth-regurgitation masquerading as journalism. Do prohibitionists have so little to talk about that they need to keep rehashing a two-year-old story as though it happened yesterday? Are they so intellectually and morally bankrupt that they really don’t think it’s necessary to fact-check a self-congratulatory piece of racist, anti-sex propaganda when there are plenty of actual facts, including Liz Brown’s savage debunking of Seattle’s official claims, to be found all over the internet? This moral panic needs to hurry up and die already, because judging by the stench it’s already putrefying.
The Reno Police Department received reports of “at least 14 [non-] incidents” in the area over the past month of women [imagining they were] being followed by suspicious subjects…Lt. Zack Thew said…all incidents had one common thread: No…crimes were committed…[but] “We are treating this as a top priority [anyhow]”…He said some of the suspicious subjects were reported as…”[talking] on a cell phone”…Some women have been with their children at the time of the reported [non-] incident…In the majority of [non-] incidents…there was no contact between the [supposedly] suspicious person and the woman…
The idea that being within sight of a woman while talking on a phone constitutes a “suspicious incident” is ludicrous even by “sex trafficking” standards.
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All sexual encounters which actually happen are as “real” as one another; being paid for sex does not magically make the ensuing sex imaginary. Lots of people used Craigslist to advertise seeking or offering sex, and they had a plethora of different motivations; it’s a prohibitionist mentality to pretend that a pragmatic motivation for sex draws a bright, clear line between that sex and other sex. You seem to want to exploit that imaginary difference to argue that cops stalking and victimizing people for sex in which no currency is directly exchanged is somehow different and worse than them stalking people who make a clear and honest exchange. I can’t help you with that, and I wouldn’t if I could; the only assistance I can offer is to tell you that most scams only work on those with “larceny in their hearts”, i.e. those trying to get something for nothing. Men seeking sex would be wise to stop trolling around trying to get it for “free” (the most expensive kind) or cheap, do their research, and deal only with known providers with established reputations. Furthermore, the idea that sex work can be dependably differentiated from what you call “real sex” is not only wrong philosophically, but also practically; because sex work is only distinguished by its motivation, any procedure intended to ensnare sex workers and/or clients will also ensnare lots of other people. The only way to ensure that no amateurs are caught up in prostitution stings is to do away with prostitution stings, and the only way to do that is to completely decriminalize all forms of sex work.
