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Posts Tagged ‘Disaster’

In the News (#976)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, An Avalanche of Bullshit, Backpage, Belgium, brothels, China, Cooties, cops, Disaster, Fallen Idol, FBI, Hollywood, hotels, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, law, lawyers, Montana, politicians, porn, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, rescue industry, sex work is work, slavery, stripping, Subtle Pimping, surveillance, The Notorious Badge, Twitter, Under Every Bed, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), You Were Warned on October 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

These sites, these actors, these directors, these writers cannot keep using us, our bodies, and our stories to line their pockets while simultaneously refusing to support us and our needs. – Adrie Rose

Sex Work is Work

This could potentially be useful in winning the support of bureaucrats:

…gaining allies within governments remains a challenge…despite calls for decriminalisation by a number of international human rights organisations…and several United Nations agencies. One of the biggest difficulties has been the…conflation of sex work with trafficking, which is linked to the belief that sex work is inherently immoral. This [ignorant] view of sex work has shaped national policies for decades, pushing the industry outside the formal labour market and the scope of national labour laws and international standards. However…the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a study on Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW)…[which] contains twelve dimensions of unacceptability…unacceptability in sex work manifests where these twelve dimensions occur, but the work itself is not treated as inherently unacceptable. Used well, this framework could be a way for sex worker rights advocates to argue for the inclusion of sex work under national labour law systems…

Pyrrhic Victory (#615)

All too often, evil arrives cloaked in the mantle of expediency:

[China’s] major tech city, Shenzhen…recently debuted a new system which allows people over the age of 60 to register for free subway rides, using their face as their ticket. This…is also being experimented with in other cities including Jinan, Shanghai and Nanjing…[he excuse is] to speed up passengers moving through the barriers to get to platforms, as well as prevent fraud…

Under Every Bed (#734)

So much for the claimed “increase in sex trafficking in Montana”:

The FBI has cut in half the time its human trafficking agent in Montana will spend on [persecuting sex workers. “Rescue” profiteer]…Penny Ronning…called the change “a blow” to anti-[sex worker] efforts in Montana…the decision…comes as the state brings on board two new [pigs] dedicated full-time to [harassing Asian massage businesses]…

Cooties (#797)

Belgian cops have sadfeelz that AirBnB “sex trafficking” fantasies aren’t popular on their side of the Channel:

Sex workers in Bruges are renting rooms through…Airbnb for work, in what local authorities say is the start of a rising trend to “keep an eye on”…landowners who notice or suspect their properties are being used for sex work are encouraged to report them. Failing to do so could put them at risk of being prosecuted for pimping…

Fallen Idol (#911)

This was a wise move on Stagliano’s part:

…Evil Angel [has] published its docu-porn Consent, which was originally slated to co-star James Deen, who has been accused of abuse by multiple women…following the numerous allegations against Deen, the company decided to stop working with him, but earlier this year, owner John Stagliano…[said] Evil Angel was welcoming Deen back…in a film…featur[ing] explicit sex alongside documentary-style footage exploring women’s agency within rough porn scenes. Deen was cast after a woman performer asked to work with him for the film…[but] when the film finally hit the company’s site on Monday, there was no James Deen to be found…Evil Angel filmed a scene between Deen and Casey Calvert, the performer who requested to work with him, as well as an interview with Lily LaBeau, one of Deen’s accusers…Ultimately, all that footage was left on the cutting room floor. (The film does, however, feature two other male performers who have been accused of on-set boundary violations)…

An Avalanche of Bullshit (#922)

Seattle sex workers are pushing back on the narrative that destroying Asian masseuses’ livelihood constitutes “help”:

Last month, dozens of community members gathered…at Seattle City Hall to discuss consequences of the large-scale police raids on 11…”Asian” massage parlors back in February. The months-long sting operation resulted in the “rescue” of 26 Chinese-speaking women…According to Elene Lam…this kind of rescue narrative misconstrues the nuanced realities of the sex industry…Lam is an expert at the Toronto-based organization Butterfly, a support and advocacy group for Asian and migrant sex workers. The event…called Rescue Hurts, was organized by API Chaya and other local advocacy initiatives to correct misinformation around sex work and to propose alternative solutions that do not rely on state or police intervention…

You Were Warned

This decision is necessary to prevent a cascade of predatory lawsuits that would make the tobacco & breast implant lawsuits look reasonable and moderate in comparison:

A San Francisco Superior Court judge has tentatively sided with tech company Salesforce in a civil lawsuit brought by 90 women who claim they were sexually exploited. The suit is the first of its kind since…FOSTA…As a large business-to-business software company, Salesforce counted Backpage among its clients. [Ambulance-chasers]…allege that Backpage…enabled them to be trafficked for sex. But Backpage [and its assets were] seized by the U.S. government last year, making [a lawsuit against it unprofitable]…hence, lawyers got to work targeting Salesforce…lawyers…led [their clints] astray, big time, while marking a new low in attempts to assign legal liability to internet companies for their users’ actions and words…[because] under a large body of legal precedent, Salesforce would be unequivocally shielded by Section 230 in this case…

Japanese Prostitution (#930)

This is still a hot-button issue in Japan:

…Miki Dezaki…ma[d]e a documentary…[asking] why…a small but vocal group of politically influential conservatives still fervently dispute [sic] internationally accepted accounts of Japan’s…sexual enslavement of tens of thousands of Korean women and others in military brothels during World War II. He explored in detail the conservatives’ case that the so-called comfort women were in fact paid prostitutes…Dezaki…concluded that the conservatives were “revisionists,” and used terms like “racism” and “sexism” to characterize some of their claims. Now, five of them are suing him for defamation…[the] official 1993 Japanese government apology to the comfort women….has been a festering wound for…[nationalists] including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who have insisted that the Korean women were not sex slaves because there is no proof that they were physically forced…

The Notorious Badge (#934)

Twitter welcomes fake sex workers while working to silence real ones:

Hustlers…has been mired in controversy since the early production phase. The living inspiration for the lead role…is reportedly considering suing the production company for misrepresenting her…and using her life story without compensation …Jennifer Lopez and fiance Alex Rodriguez have been accused of going to strip clubs for “research” and paying dancers a pittance for their time…Show Palace, the club…where much of Hustlers was filmed, has attracted criticism for closing its doors for a week of filming, giving dancers and staff little notice and no back pay…But the most ridiculous, bordering on the outright absurd, aspect of the film…was the marketing campaign…#TweetYourHustle….Women across the country began chiming in with stories of their…“hustles”…but there was no evidence of…sex workers. There were no pictures of strip clubs or dressing rooms, no pictures of porn production sets, no pictures of in-call hotel rooms or AirBnB’s from escorts. There was nothing from the community that put Hustlers on the map…

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In the News (#975)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, advertising, agency denial, asset seizure, censorship, Colorado, cops, Dirty Laundry, Disaster, drugs, escort services, FBI, Florida, Germany, hysteria, Illinois, internet, Ireland, Kansas, language, law, Little Boxes, New Mexico, Oklahoma, pragmatism, prisons, rape, Real People, screening, sex rays, sexting, shame, statistics, The Mote and the Beam, tits, To Molest and Rape, Utah, Where Are the Victims?, Wyoming, yin and yang on September 28, 2019| 5 Comments »

We’re not going to sit around and wait to be prosecuted before we fight this law. – Skye Wheeler

Real People

Even shitty and somewhat exploitative sex work doesn’t really resemble prohibitionist fantasies:

Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss’ poignant documentary Lovemobil observes the Nigerian Rita and the Bulgarian Milena as they perform sex work in caravans (trailers) along a German country road. The young women have escaped difficult economic circumstances in their home countries and are looking to earn money; they feel obligated to send Euros back to their families…they work for Uschi, a tough older woman who keeps them in line and advises them about pricing their services, but also appears to care for them, even as she chides Rita for trying to cheat her out of payments…Lovemobil deliberately keeps the sex acts off camera to focus on the larger issues of globalization, feminism and economic inequality that are part of this fascinating subculture of sex work…

Where Are the Victims?

Note the bizarre, stilted language used to describe a very ordinary-sounding escort service:

Jessica Nesbitt [of Chicago was]…charged with [various pompously-named]…prostitution [“crimes”]…for…own[ing] and operat[ing] a company called Kink Extraordinaires, which employed several individuals who engaged in prostitution…Nesbitt advertised prostitution services on multiple websites…and…also emailed her clients invitations to paid sex and fetish parties…In addition to activity in Chicago, Nesbitt arranged for herself and her employees to perform acts of prostitution in California, Washington, D.C., Florida, Indiana, Nevada, and Wisconsin…

Dirty Laundry (#452)

At least this judge gave the stolen money to someone other than Ruhama:

Money [stolen] by Laois gardai from [two sex workers was]…donated to two local charities by the court…the two [sensibly fled] and have not returned…Judge Catherine Staines directed that €3,410 got to the Laois Domestic Abuse Service, and around €1300 go to the Garda Youth Diversion Projects…

To Molest and Rape

Just another typical, representative cop:

A Miami-Dade [screw]…has been charged with raping a woman he was supposed to be supervising while she was on house arrest. Yulian Gonzalez…paid regular visits to the alleged victim’s home during the course of his work as a case manager…Gonzalez threatened to issue a violation of her house arrest and send her back to jail if she did not [submit to rape]…Gonzalez rented a room at the Nexx Motel…and drove the woman there in his [pigmobile]…so as not to set off any alarms, Gonzalez tampered with the woman’s ankle monitor…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#754)

I love seeing prohibitionists hoist with their own petard:

A report compiled by the Department of Justice has revealed that the [Swedish model]…in Northern Ireland is not fit for purpose…“This report…shows that there has not been a decrease in demand for sex work since the introduction of client criminalisation…in 2015,” [said] Kate McGrew…”Instead, we have seen an increase in sex trafficking by 26%…In the north, it led to massive increase in advertising (on one site alone over 1700 new ads) and demand (in one jurisdiction by 134%) and a 200% increase threatening behaviour in clients. In the south, it led to an increase in violent crime against sex workers by 92%“…

Once the government started defining all third parties as “sex traffickers” and then passed a law whose natural consequence would be increased reliance on such parties, naturally “sex trafficking” by their definition increased. And since prohibitionists pretended the intent of their anti-whore law was to “fight sex trafficking”, they now have no choice but to admit the law was a “failure”. Oops.

Little Boxes (#792)

A federal court finally recognizes what should’ve been obvious years ago:

Fort Collins, Colorado, decided not to continue its challenge to a federal court’s decision that a ban on going topless in the city amounts to unconstitutional discrimination…The city decided not to appeal the decision…after [wast]ing hundreds of thousands of [public] dollars on the legal battle already…[this] effectively legalizes [female toplessness] in the six states covered by the 10^th Circuit court…Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming…

Given that the 7^th Circuit ruled exactly the opposite two years ago (see subtitle link), a SCOTUS showdown is now inevitable.

The Mote and the Beam (#900)

This is much worse than the typical government propaganda such as “DARE”:

…the FBI is launching its #StopSextortion [propaganda] campaign to [convince parents] and schools [that teenage sexting is a]…growing problem [called] sextortion…[affecting] kids…as young as seven or eight…The [FBI wants parents to believe that peer “sexting” is actually the product of an adult] extortionist [who] finds children and teens on social media [to]…convince…to send a naked photo—and…the[n]…telling the child that he will send the photo to friends and family or post online…the extortionist continues to threaten while escalating demands, which can include…sex acts…

The FBI is intentionally representing a rare crime as the norm so as to give the federal government power over teen sexting. If you thought FOSTA and the drug war were great, you’re going to love the “war on sextortion”.

Disaster (#935)

News about the FOSTA challenge:

Human Rights Watch and four other plaintiffs…present[ed] arguments on September 20 against the dismissal of their challenge to a…law that imposes criminal liability for online speech about sex work…FOSTA…’s language is [so] broad and vague, it could prevent sex workers and others from writing about sex work and posting about critically important health and safety issues, and it would restrict organisations like Human Rights Watch from effectively reporting on and advocating for the decriminalisation of sex work…FOSTA has [already] endangered [sex workers because]…websites that made it easier for sex workers to screen clients and to sell sex in safer locations have stopped sex workers from posting. The co-plaintiffs in the case with Human Rights Watch are the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the Internet Archive, and individuals Alex Andrews and Eric Koszyk. The lower court [incorrectly] dismissed the case [a year ago]…without addressing the substantive claims, on the [pretense] that plaintiffs faced no imminent risk of prosecution…[but] in cases involving free expression, the appropriate lens is whether speech will be unconstitutionally burdened or chilled…

A Moral Cancer (#972)

Authoritarian idiots respond to deaths from a black market product by dramatically expanding the black market:

Walmart said…that it would stop selling e-cigarettes at its stores in the United States, dealing a new blow to the vaping industry as [hysteria] mount[s] over the health risks of [black market] products [which have nothing to do with the banned e-cigarettes]…The decision…comes amid a [dumpster fire full] of new [moral panic] about the potential health risks of [black market THC cartridges] that has [inspired prohibitionists to]…increas[e the danger by banning completely different currently-legal] products…

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In the News (#974)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Arizona, Backpage, bogus studies, Bottleneck, California, censorship, Colorado, cops, Dangerous Speech, Disaster, disease, drugs, fantasy, hysteria, internet, law, Law of the Instrument, male prostitutes, Minnesota, Negative Secondary Effects, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, Not for Any Reason Whatsoever, politicians, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, Senegal, sex rays, stripping, surveillance, teachers, United Kingdom on September 25, 2019| 2 Comments »

The investigator cannot just tread through the bloody crime scene in street shoes and pick up the murder weapon with an ungloved hand. – Tami Loehrs

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#699)

Americans disapprove of teaching kids about sex, but they’re all for filling their heads with stupid anti-sex propaganda:

…Edina [Minnesota] Rotary member Renee Harberts [recited the “sex trafficking” Shahada]…and [then publicly described her disgusting sexual fantasies about]…kids as young as five…[prohibitionists fantasize]…one in seven kids are sexually abused and later in life they’re more likely to fall victim to sex trafficking. 93% of adult sex trafficking victims were sexually abused in their elementary years and never tell anyone about it….Harberts and a few members convinced the rest of the rotary to…raise…$10,000 to [indoctrinate] 3rd graders in Edina schools [in ’80s-era “Stranger Danger” propaganda, updated with a modern version of 19th century “white slavery” propaganda]…The group invited a panel of three experts to [publicly fantasize] about human trafficking…”We know that 0.02% of trafficking victims find freedom,” [moaned] Carla Marroquin of Protect Me Project [with her hand in her pants]…“The recidivism rate is between nine and eleven times that they will go back to the life of human trafficking”…

Bottleneck (#746)

Yet another example of why sex worker licensing is a terrible idea:

…in Senegal…sex workers must register with police, attend mandatory monthly sexual health screenings, test negative for STIs and carry a valid ID card confirming their health status…But…sex work is still criminalized…for those who are unregistered, which effectively creates a two-tiered system…sex workers face enormous social stigma and discrimination…the…[estimated] level of registration [is extremely high at] 20% [which is twice the highest fraction recorded anywhere else in the world, probably because of the high rate of HIV in Senegalese sex workers]…the registration law was first introduced in 1969 — inherited from French colonial legislation that stuck around even after Senegal declared independence…Women who are registered live in fear that family members will discover their identification cards, or…see their name on a registration database …”When you are registered, you are registered for life,” said [Professor Cheikh Tidiane] Ndour [of the Ministry of Health]…”Even if you stop pursuing this profession, your great-grandchildren can find your name somewhere, and that is a problem”…If registered sex workers miss their monthly appointments they can face up to six months in jail…[and of course] registered sex workers [are] more likely than unregistered…to experience [rape, robbery, extortion and other] violence at the hands of [cops]…

Not for Any Reason Whatsoever

Do I really have to add, “Not because you saw a picture of a Nerf gun”?

[Cops] in…Phoenix, Arizona, [interrogated] a teenager and his parents and searched their home and the kid’s school after the teen posted to a group chat a jokey message…[about] going to school the next day posted alongside a photo of a Nerf gun…one of the…chat participants narced on the exchange and set the wheels of officialdom in motion…As red flag laws and other reporting systems proliferate around the country, we’re likely to see even more incidents in which cops…are [summoned] into innocuous situations by people who refuse to ask simple questions or to believe that we’re living in a remarkably safe age…in the Phoenix incident, school officials proactively assured parents that the incident was “not a credible threat”…but…Justine and Nathan Myers were similar victims…after 16-year-old Nathan documented a shooting outing with his mother on Snapchat….somebody contacted Colorado’s Safe2Tell, a[n]…anonymous…[snitch line]…Nathan was banned from school until public outrage forced officials to reverse their decision…

Disaster (#931)

I’m sure you amateurs are happy to be censored “for THE CHILDREN™!”:

…Twitch suspended a streamer named Quqco for wearing a cosplay of Street Fighter heroine Chun-Li on stream, deeming her outfit “sexually suggestive”…[even though it] was not…streamer Bridgett Devoue was given a three-day suspension for [unexplained]… “sexually suggestive content or activities”…Overwatch streamer Fareeha got hit with a warning (and a 90-day probationary period) after wearing a sports bra and baggy shorts at the gym…Saruei [got]…a warning for drawing “nudes,” despite the fact that her characters…are clothed…

Pyrrhic Victory (#937)

As long as cops suffer no consequences for disobedience, laws like this are mere political grandstanding:

San Francisco has already banned the use of facial recognition tech by local [cops]. Oakland did the same thing a couple of months later. Pretty soon, it’s not going to matter where you are in California. If you’re a law enforcement agency, facial recognition tech is off-limits…for three years…The bill…also targets other biometric surveillance methods…It forbids direct use by California law enforcement agencies, as well as prevents them from asking agencies outside the state (including federal agencies) from deploying this tech on their behalf. It also blocks state agencies from using cameras (body, dash, stationary) that utilize this tech. If this bill is signed into law, California will become the first state [with such a] ban…

You may have noticed that laws claiming to restrict government powers never carry a criminal penalty, despite the fact that every law intended to control subjects of the government always do. Also note that unlike laws intended to control the people, this has a conveniently-short sunset clause so the legislature needn’t do anything to quietly get rid of it once the frogs get used to the new temperature of their water.

Negative Secondary Effects (#937)

Politicians are gradually coming to realize that their constituency includes sex workers and clients:

A strip club will stay open despite [prohibitionist efforts to put scores of women out of work]…Sheffield council’s licensing committee met for eight hours to discuss whether Spearmint Rhino should have its sexual entertainment licence renewed. [Industrial spies] employed by [misogynistic censors] had [filmed] dancers [against their consent in an attempt to shame the committee into wrongfully revoking the license, but]…dancers from the club…campaigned to save [it]…

Law of the Instrument (#954)

If his victims hadn’t been sex workers, would “authorities” have let him rack up three before bothering to act?

Ed Buck, who has been subject to protests and calls for prosecution in the overdose deaths of two men at his West Hollywood home, was arrested [last week] in connection with a third overdose…the Los Angeles district attorney’s office [seems to have finally realized]…that Buck is “a violent, dangerous sexual predator”…[who] personally administered “dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims”…Activists have been calling for Buck’s arrest…for the deaths of Gemmel Moore…and Timothy Dean…both black gay men were found in Buck’s West Hollywood apartment less than two years apart…[due to] methamphetamine overdoses…Buck…has now been charged with operating a drug house and providing meth to a…who overdosed last week…but survived…

Business As Usual (#956)

Even by nauseatingly-low local news standards, the sound of bootlicking in this is deafening:

Several months after Columbus police disbanded its vice [gang, badge-lickers] in a south Columbus neighborhood [whine] they feel it every day. “When you have the prostitutes, it just breeds the drugs, all kinds of stuff. There are children seeing that it’s ok and it’s not ok,” said [pompous busybody Ima Copsucker]…a block watch coordinator [who] spends hours every day [minding other people’s business]…She was hoping…[her beloved pigs] could help [root out] the human trafficking problem in the area…Columbus [pigs oink that what they absurdly call]…the human trafficking problem…has gotten worse since the vice [herd] has been disbanded…

What’s that you say, Ima? “There are all these black people out in public since they ended Jim Crow. Something needs to be done to keep them in their place, preferably with violence.” Yep, that’s what I thought you said.

Dangerous Speech (#968)

The government keeps trying to hide information in the Backpage case:

…prosecutors sought to continue stonewalling defense counsel on access to data on more than 100 servers that once kept…Backpage…in operation…But U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich denied the government’s request that she reject a defense motion to examine the material on those servers in the same condition as when the government seized the website on April 6, 2018. Instead, Brnovich scheduled a day-long evidentiary hearing for October 3, during which [pigs] and expert witnesses are expected to testify…As explained in the defense’s motion to compel evidence, the 106 servers seized by the government contained historical data about Backpage’s ads that can refute the feds’ allegations, show that Backpage’s moderation efforts “blocked or removed approximately one million ads per month,” and reveal extensive cooperation with [cops] and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)…In fact…Backpage referred so many ads to NCMEC that the government-backed non-profit complained about the number of referrals, since [most] of those ads were later found not to involve minors…

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In the News (#964)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Across the Pond, agency denial, Between the Lines, censorship, China, cops, Disaster, Ecuador, end demand, fascism, FBI, Germany, harm reduction, hysteria, Iowa, Ireland, law, politicians, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rescue industry, Soap Opera, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, Torture Chamber, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to the Future, Where Are the Victims? on August 21, 2019| 1 Comment »

This is how the United States of America, the mightiest and richest nation there is or ever has been, treats incarcerated people. – Ken White

Torture Chamber

Ken White on the inhuman abominations that the US calls “correction”:

Jeffrey Epstein’s name and face are everywhere following his death…Americans who believe in their justice system assert that it is obvious that he was murdered, and that jailers could not possibly be so incompetent, cruel, or indifferent as to let such a high-profile prisoner commit suicide. Here, to help you evaluate that claim, are 32 short stories about in-custody deaths or near-deaths in America…

Regular readers know these stories are nauseating, but you really need to read them all. Every last one.

Uncommon Sense (#435)

The correct term is “tippelzone”, not “sex booth” or some other snickering adolescent coinage:

The mayor of [Berlin]…is proposing “Verichtungsboxen”…at Tempelhof Airport. His proposal for the establishment of the sex booths…came as part of a discussion about street prostitution in his district and how to improve the safety of Berlin’s sex workers…

Across the Pond (#757)

UK cops are increasingly using the jolly, kumbaya word “team” to mean “vice squad”:

More than 200 letters have been delivered to residents [near a stroll] in…Nottingham…to [intimidate] residents…in[to informing on their neighbors]…the…letters were hand delivered to [make the]…int[imidation feal more real]…Since 2004, Nottinghamshire Police’s Prostitution Task Force has been working to find ways of [pretending that harassing and stigmatizing] sex workers [is] get[ting] the[m] help…whilst gradually removing the[ir income. The cops bizarrely imagine harassing people and choking off their income will]…break down the barrier between sex workers and the police…

Soap Opera (#809)

Magical stickers, secret-squirrel codes…this is like a bad episode of Get Smart!

An Iowa newspaper employee recently [claimed to have] helped save a[n unnamed] woman trapped in a sex trafficking ring…after she flagged the delivery driver down on the side of the road…a 25-year-old East Dubuque Woman was arrested and charged with pimping….[a Cedar Rapids, Iowa] Bar…[posted a] sign in the woman’s restroom [reading]…”are you in an uncomfortable situation, do you need our help?”…[and] lists a code word drink…that customers can order to alert the bartender they’re in need of help… Teresa Davidson…of Chains Interrupted [wants] more …stickers that read “Are you safe” in bathrooms across the state….The organization is also working to [indoctrinate] convenience store employees…

Pyrrhic Victory (#931)

As I’ve repeatedly stated, it is far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle:

…Beijing has gone to [great lengths to] identify and control Uighurs…Within Kashgar…residents must line up to…swipe [ID cards] at each checkpoint….[and] expose their faces to [omnipresent]…facial recognition…[cops] need neither probable cause nor a warrant to detain Uighurs and check their phones for the surveillance software that they’re legally required to install….”re-education” camp[s imprison]…hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Muslims…[now] Ecuador is using a “national emergency response and video surveillance system built entirely by Chinese companies and financed by Chinese state loans”…As this technology improves and gets cheaper, it will likely become affordable to every two-bit dictator on Earth…

Disaster (#935)

The sweet smell of schadenfreude:

Verizon is set to sell the social network Tumblr to Automattic Inc, the owner of online publishing tool WordPress. A source familiar with the deal puts the price-tag…below $10 million…Tumblr…was…considered a major player in the social media space.[when it]…was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, before moving under Verizon’s umbrella through the carrier’s acquisition of Yahoo in 2017. [But] Verizon…[intentionally destroyed the network by ill-considered censorship]…last year. Automattic’s Chief Executive Matt Mullenweg told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to maintain the ban [so as to use the dying site as a tax write-off]…

Where Are the Victims? (#945)

Despite their pious posturing to the contrary, this is exactly the outcome prohibitionists wanted:

Fianna Fáil has called for an anti-prostitution law to be reviewed, because of the consequences it has on sex workers who live together. The main opposition party has suggested that it would be open to considering decriminalising sex workers who live together. The majority of Irish political parties want the government to review and possibly scrap a law which punishes sex workers who live together under a harsher “brothel keeping” offence which was brought in two yeas ago…It follows a high profile case earlier this summer where two migrant sex workers were both jailed for nine months after they were prosecuted for brothel keeping. One of the women was pregnant when she was jailed…Sex worker advocates had warned at the time that most of the people who were being prosecuted for brothel-keeping were independent sex workers…B[u]t…Fianna Fáil had voted down the amendment…now…it wants the law to be reviewed, after…the “[wholly]…intended consequences” [became public]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#956)

More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever:

Amazon Web Services…has rolled out more terrifying features for its cloud-based facial recognition system—including, it claims, the ability to detect fear…Emotion recognition is a facial analysis technique that…works by training a machine learning system to look for certain features on a detected face which indicate emotional content…Amazon has updated the range of detectable emotions for Rekognition’s face analysis to include “fear,” adding to a list of seven other emotional states: “Happy”, “Sad”, “Angry”, “Surprised”, “Disgusted”, “Calm”, and “Confused”…the efficacy of emotion recognition is in dispute…[but used by] government agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement…and Customs and Border Patrol…

Between the Lines (#962)

Liz Brown tries to assess the damage from the rebranded “Operation Cross Country” pogroms:

…The FBI no longer reports the number of adult sex workers whom these initiatives claim as collateral…However, local news and law enforcement agencies often do..in Alabama, 49 “sex workers and their facilitators” were arrested around the Birmingham area…[and] 14 [in Homewood]……Northern Ohio [arrested nine] women…Pennsylvania [two]…Mississippi [five]…In South Carolina [five]…In…Florida [three]…In the San Diego area, six…Louisiana…25…in Shreveport…and…seven…in Baton Rouge…Police have portrayed the 4-year-old [abducted from one of their victims] as being rescued from “human traffickers”…

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In the News (#955)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Against Their Will, agency denial, brothels, California, Catholicism, censorship, Dirty Laundry, Disaster, fascism, FBI, Finding What Isn’t There, Florida, Gingerbread House, Guinea Pigs, Held Together With Lies, I Spy, Illinois, India, internet, language, Madonna/whore, Michigan, New York, New Zealand, politicians, prisons, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, rescue industry, Rescued To Death, slavery, Sri Lanka, surveillance, sweatshops, The Missing Word, The More the Better, United Kingdom on July 20, 2019| 4 Comments »

It’s…a surveillance-first, ask-permission-later system. – Jake Laperruque

The More the Better

There are a lot of things I dislike about this article written by a brothel owner in New Zealand, not the least of which is the writer’s use of the term “ethical pimp” to mean “ordinary madam” (the term “pimp” is hopelessly contaminated by racism and copaganda; it cannot be “reclaimed”). But everything that helps to demystify sex work is good, even if its style grates on my nerves.

Gingerbread House

Stories about hooker jails are absolutely crammed with appalling euphemisms:

[More] victims of human trafficking [than exist in the United States] are expected to be [arrested] from [ordinary sex work] in Fresno alone this year. But…a $45,000 donation from Granville Homes will be used to help “Breaking The Chains” build a new [prison] facility…[for] 25 victims of [the police]…It will provide a [place to lock them up out of public view so cops can pressure them to provide fake “evidence”]…to help [convict people as] gangs or pimps…District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp [moaned with her hand in her pants, fantasizing]…”It happens in schools. People are taken from malls. There are all different types of ways [magic ninja] traffickers get these girls,” [panted] Smittcamp…

The Missing Word

We certainly can’t use that word for people who were given control over their victims by the government:

A Crawfordville, Florida couple preparing for Armageddon faces multiple serious charges after two females escaped the couple’s farm and [said] they were prevented from leaving and were physically and sexually abused for years…[by] Mirko…and Regina Ceska…The females…The females…were [given] “custodial responsibility” of the Ceskas [by the government, and were forced to begin]…working each day at 5:30 a.m…The females reported they were not allowed to go anywhere, couldn’t have friends, couldn’t have cell phones, nor talk to people in public places”…If they didn’t smile, they would face a variety of punishments ranging from verbal abuse, beatings or being deprived of food….”Detectives noted marks and bruises on the female’s back and arm.” Both females also described times that Mirko Ceska would force sex acts upon them…”with the support of Regina Ceska”…Mirko Ceska screamed at the females…

I wonder what biological sex the victims were?

Rescued To Death

I’m sure they don’t mind having their lives destroyed so bourgeois Englishwomen can feel good:

The Modern Slavery Act…helps cover up serious forced labour issues…while making [busybodies]…feel better…Article 54…assigns British companies the responsibility to clean up their global supply chains…[and they shove] this responsibility [of on] local factory managers in Sri Lanka…[who intrusively] monitor their [mostly-female] workforce…for fear of losing their contracts…[many of these] women…engage…in part-time sex work to [supplement their meager pay, as working-class women have done since at least Roman times]…But local managers fear…it would be [fantasized] by Western [busybodies to be] exploitation and threaten their contracts…one factory manager [said]: “If we do not fire part-time sex workers, our factories can get blacklisted, and our orders will be cancelled”…

Guinea Pigs (#690)

Apply a label like “prostitute” or “gang member” and civil rights go out the window:

An NYPD database labels over 18,000 people in New York City as active gang members. Three…are 13 years old, and more than 400 others are under 18…nearly 88 percent are Black or [Hispanic]. If your name is entered into the database, you have no way of knowing about it and no way of contesting it…Across the country, people have been calling for significant reform of, or even an end to, gang databases and gang policing measures…The Chicago Police Department database is [an order of magnitude larger than New York’s], containing the names of an estimated 128,000 adults and at least 33,000…people 17 and younger…includ[ing] hundreds listed as dead or having no known gang affiliation…two men listed as 132 years old and several 118-year-olds…alleged gang affiliation [is] treated as a factor in immigration proceedings, bail decisions and sentencing, and treatment when in jail or prison. The NYPD [pretends] that it does not share information with other agencies but [that is well-known to be a lie]…

Guess who built California’s version of this? Palantir. And I’ll bet they had a hand in New York’s, too.

Against Their Will (#795)

This looks like a huge victory against the powerful Indian rescue industry:

The Bombay High Court has said that an adult [arrested under the pretense of] rescue…under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act cannot be sent to a [prison]…against her wish…The order will set a precedent…for all the women who are in [“rescue” prisons] against their wish…Advocate Satyavrat Joshi argued…that the Constitution provides every citizen a right to move freely through the territory of India and also the right to choose a vocation…

Dirty Laundry (#845)

The “Good Shepherd Sisters” were one of the two orders behind Ireland’s horrific Magdalene laundries, now doing business as the anti-sex work gang Ruhama:

…In “hubs” of human trafficking such as Detroit, faith-based groups such Sisters of the Good Shepherd have [capitalized on the hysteria] by [pretending to] offer…services to [sex workers], including counseling, housing, career training, prevention programs and even [indoctrin]ating the community [in propaganda] about human trafficking…

Finding What Isn’t There (#870)

Trying to manufacture data to “prove” a problem exists when existing data says it doesn’t is not science:

Britain is aiming to [exaggerate] the true scale of modern slavery and [invent] more trafficking networks [out of individuals] through the creation of a 10 million pound ($12.5 million) research center involving [hired guns, prohibitionists and rescue profiteers]…The initiative will [invent] research and boost [fascist] collaboration in Britain and abroad between various sectors…[and] law enforcement…[prohibitionists masturbate to the fantasy that] Britain is home to…136,000 slaves…a figure [dreamed up by rescue profiteers Walk Free Foundation]…whose accuracy has been [widely debunked] by academics and activists…

Disaster (#902)

Is there anyone outside government and prohibition profiteer groups who fails to recognize what a disaster FOSTA is?

…police…stings are [claimed] to fight sex trafficking, but…simply instigate…arrests for prostitution. It’s a racket…Would Americans be in favor of spending these astronomical sums to fight sex work that is completely unrelated to sex trafficking?…they should at least…not be tricked into believing sex trafficking is happening all around them…FOSTA-SESTA has made sex work more dangerous, the internet less useful, and we are throwing money out the proverbial window in our zeal to fight a scourge that isn’t nearly as widespread as we are led to believe. We need elected officials brave enough to say a mistake has been made.

Guinea Pigs (#936)

Just a reminder that this privacy-destroying abomination started as a means of spying on sex workers:

The Palantir user guide shows that police can start with almost no information about a [victim] and instantly know extremely intimate details about their lives…they can use automatic license plate reader data to find out where they’ve been, and when they’ve been there…[they] can also find a person’s email address, phone numbers, current and previous addresses, bank accounts, social security number(s), business relationships, family relationships, and license information like height, weight, and eye color…The software can map out a person’s family members and business associates of a suspect, and theoretically, find the above information about them, too…

Pyrrhic Victory (#944)

As I keep saying, it’s already far too late to stop this tyranny:

…Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and emails over the past five years…reveal that [pigs and spooks] have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure…Neither Congress nor state legislatures have authorized the development of such a system, and growing numbers of [politicians] are [publicly] criticizing the technology [to win support from voters while doing absolutely nothing to stop it]…Since 2011, the FBI has logged more than 390,000 facial-recognition searches of federal and local databases, including state DMV databases…The records…detailed the regular use of facial recognition to track down suspects in low-level crimes…with nothing more formal than an email from a federal agent to a local contact…

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In the News (#949)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, asset seizure, Australia, brothels, California, censorship, Creepy Coppers, Disaster, drugs, evidence, fascism, Florida, Full of Themselves, harm reduction, internet, language, law, Loose Cannons, Monsters, New York, Not Good Enough, politicians, prisons, psychology, racism, scams, Spotlight, surveillance, The Crumbling Dam, To Molest and Rape, transgender, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state) on June 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

We have refrigerators with condiments at my law firm, then I must be running a brothel from the law firm? – Katie Phang

Monsters

Just another fatality from the state’s sick need to police women:

Layleen Polanco…[an] Afro-Latina transgender woman was found dead in solitary confinement [on June 7th] at Rikers Island Jail. Polanco was being held on $500 bail owing to misdemeanor charges for a prostitution-related offense, in addition to the lowest-level drug charge. The New York medical examiner has not yet [invented] the cause of her death…Decrim NY…[said] “Polanco’s death was caused by an all-too-common overlap of three aspects of the criminal legal system: She was criminalized for sex work. She was held on $500 bail for misdemeanor charges. And she was placed in solitary confinement”…hundreds of people gathered in downtown Manhattan to pay tribute to Polanco and to join in her family and the broader LGBTQ+ community’s calls for answers…

To Molest and Rape

Just another typical, representative cop:

A Florida [cop]…has been fired and arrested after…he tried to lure a Polk County child for sex…Okaloosa County Sheriff’s [deputy]…Cansas Sadler, Jr., came in contact with the 9-year-old girl through an online game called, “The Wolf”…[and] pretended to be an 11-year-old named, “Jade” [as cops so often do to their intended victims. Sadler]…engaged in a sexual conversation…and…ask[ed] the child if she wanted to have sex with a 31-year-old man named “Jason”…then, he [sent her a dick pic]…and…[asked her] to take pictures of herself [to] send to him…the suspect [eventually] called the 9-year-old but the little girl’s mother answered the phone and…call[ed] the cops…[who] traced Sadler’s IP address…

Grady Judd of Polk County expends a lot of effort tricking young men into having sexual conversations with imaginary teenagers, when all he has to do if he wants to arrest “sex predators” is “investigate” his own men.

Not Good Enough (#687)

Another shitty drug intended to capitalize on an imaginary “problem”:

U.S. [bureaucrats] approved a second drug to [capitalize on what is defined by profiteers as] low [in comparison to men] sexual desire in women…bremelanotide…will be marketed by Amag Pharmaceuticals…under the brand name Vyleesi…it’s a shot that comes in an auto-injecting pen that…would [be] use[d] about 45 minutes before [planned] sex…A spokeswoman for the company said it plans to start selling the drug in September and will announce its price closer to the launch…the FDA said about 25% of patients treated with Vyleesi benefited from an increase in sexual desire score, compared with about 17% who took a placebo. [This net 8% increase in “desire” was paid for with a] 40% [rate] of…nausea…13% needed medications to [stop throwing up]…8% [of the test group] discontinued due to nausea…the National Women’s Health Network…urged women not to use Vyleesi until more is known about its safety and effectiveness…

So these idiots want women to give themselves a shot and then wait 45 minutes for the outcome, which is 5x as likely to be puking than it is to be horniness. A nice present would be far more effective, without the vomit.

Disaster (#832)

It’s easy to for US sex workers to forget that FOSTA harms sex workers all over the world:

…[Since] FOSTA…it can seem like two parallel internets have formed: one ostensibly “free” of sex work, and another, hand-built in the margins by workers now excluded from mainstream platforms…This has especially significant consequences for the more vulnerable sex workers…In the wake of FOSTA, there has been a growing focus on sex worker-led technology companies, set up to address the workers’ own needs…Lola Hunt and Eliza Sorensen, based in Melbourne, have launched several technology platforms serving sex workers through their company, Assembly Four. One is Switter, a social media network for sex workers; another is a paid advertising platform called Tryst Link. Neither are hosted in the US, to avoid FOSTA exposure…the Assembly Four team has been “completely bootstrapping” its work…because they haven’t yet been able to receive venture capital funding…getting merchant facilities from banks or the means to accept payments…has been a “nightmare”…

Full of Themselves (#886)

This one eschews the usual puritanical lingo in favor of Copese pomposity:

The Kitsap County [Washington] Sheriff’s Department…[lied about] a large-scale operation…Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office [bloviated that]…”a significant military/U.S. Navy Nexus was identified” [meaning there’s a naval base nearby and sailors often go to massage parlors. Pigs also oinked that]…they rescued human trafficking victims [when in reality they merely arrested 4 migrant women ranging in age from 51 to 61]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#915)

Government didn’t need to impose mass surveillance because bootlickers volunteer to be spied on:

…police departments around the country are encouraging [peasants] to register their doorbells to police [so the cops can use them at will to spy on anyone coming or going from their houses]. Right now there’s no such program in Huntsville or Madison [Alabama. “Crime” rhetoric and a lying sentence fragment, then pigs hilariously claiming] …they respect citizens’ rights to privacy…

The Crumbling Dam (#917)

It’s OK; I’m sure no more than a few dozen people will OD in the next year:

A new effort by California [polticians] to permit a safe injection facility to be built in San Francisco has been put on hold until next year apparently due to struggles getting it through the State Senate…last year state [politicians] crafted a bill that would guarantee…people running a permitted SIF in San Francisco wouldn’t be arrested by local or state police…but when it got to Gov. Jerry Brown, he vetoed it. In his veto letter, he argued that…drugs [are bad]…

Spotlight (#943)

Take a look at this fawning praise of a fascist surveillance organ, then click on the subtitle link above to see the truth about this topic:

[A pig’s self-aggrandizing, evidence-free tall tale of] the rescue [of a “child” of indeterminate age] illustrates [the level of “evidence” accepted by mainstream reporters when writing about] Thorn…[the fascist surveillance corporation] cofounded in 2009 by actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher…Thorn…was named one of eight projects that will share in $280 million from TED’s philanthropic offshoot, the Audacious Project…Thorn initially worked to pressure technology companies to [censor] more…more recently, it shifted to…a more [profitable] strategy of producing and operating new technology for use by…the [police state]…Thorn…offers a[nother] way…[for cops to use] facial recognition…[to] endanger…privacy…[starting by putting every sex worker in the world into a database for pigs to root through]…

Those who wondered why I was skeptical of WIRED‘s recent article about Backpage: this gullible, swallow-whatever-an-authority-figure-says-about-sex-work-no-matter-how-stupid approach is typical of their treatment of the topic.

Loose Cannons (#947)

Even reporters are starting to see how stupid & blatantly illegal the actions of cops and collaborators were:

Because of Kraft, what would have been a police blotter entry in local newspapers has made international headlines…[thus drawing much-needed outside attention to the] fates of the women [violated, attcked, robbed and caged by cops]…The [persecu]tion that became State of Florida v. Robert Kraft…began when…a [busybody] Florida Department of Health inspector, Karen Herzog, [snitched to pigs] about…Bridges Day Spa…[claiming] proof of human trafficking [consisting of]…a “refrigerator filled with food and condiments”…[even though] Herzog’s state inspection report…attached two photos of a refrigerator that would not look out of place in any workplace kitchen…[after the busts, pigs oinked to reporters that]…“these women…are not citizens and don’t have residency cards, and so they’re afraid…of being deported,” [said lawyer Tama] Kudman…“Well, at [Orchids of Asia], every [masseuse] was not only either a resident or a citizen, but they were in their 30s and 40s. These were not children. These were women who held multiple massage and cosmetology licenses. [The truth] couldn’t have been further from the stereotype that they were trying to paint when this case first occurred”…[owner Hua] Zhang [is] a 58-year-old…grandmother who has a master’s degree…The Martin County Sheriff’s Office is attempting to [steal her]…home, as well as the homes of her son and cousin…“When you start using slogans like human sex trafficker, prostitute, john, these [terms] have a lasting effect on the people that they’re used against,” Kudman said…“our state attorneys and our sheriffs have to be more careful with their allegations before they destroy people’s lives”…

Despite a slightly-Swedish-scented undertone, the article isn’t bad for the mainstream media.

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Galvanized

Posted in History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, censorship, cops, Disaster, fascism, France, holidays, hysteria, internet, law, LGBT rights, politicians on June 2, 2019| 1 Comment »

When we eventually win our rights back we will, in a strange way, have our oppressors to thank for it. – “Cornered Animals”

Contrary to popular American belief, no French government since the Revolution has been friendly to sex workers who catered to the middle and working classes, and after the Second World War mere oppression escalated into outright hostility; eventually, however, the French cops’ and politicians’ attacks on sex workers grew so incessantly violent that 44 years ago today they protested by occupying the Church of St. Nizier in Lyon. The occupation lasted only a week before the cops dispersed it with their usual methods, tear gas and horrific beatings, but the seed had been planted and sex worker rights organizations popped up in many countries; these groups won many victories in their first 30 years, until prohibitionists started to counterattack with lies, propaganda and huge amounts of money. Since its beginning in 2004, the synthetic “sex trafficking” hysteria (a recycling of the deeply-racist late 19^th & early 20^th century “white slavery” hysteria which resulted in the imposition of many awful laws in the British Empire and full criminalization in the US) has undermined sex worker rights in much of the world and spawned an immense, expensive and vicious War on Whores in the United States, following in the footsteps of the equally-ruinous War on Drugs which has eroded civil liberties, turned the police into an occupying army and destroyed the lives of millions.

Then early last year, the prohibitionists achieved what they thought would be a definitive victory: they persuaded and bribed the mob of moral imbeciles we call the US Congress to nigh-unanimously pass a blatantly-unconstitutional censorship law called FOSTA-SESTA intended to bankrupt, harm and kill sex workers and turn the entire internet into a walled garden controlled by the fascist coalition of Washington politicians, Hollywood media companies and a few hand-picked internet giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon. But as I noted just a few weeks after the law’s passage, it has had the opposite of its creators’ desired effect: rather than silencing sex workers, it has frightened the quiet majority of our profession (including the less-criminalized branches like strippers) into raising their voices in support of the minority who have always been vocal. Rather than convincing the public that our violent suppression was some kind of good, it has instead galvanized public support to a level never before seen in the US, and media outlets which actively supported the hysteria for over a decade are now publishing debunkings of prohibitionist propaganda and editorials in favor of decriminalization. Rather than being seen as a holy tool of salvation for imaginary “sex slaves”, FOSTA-SESTA is being widely questioned, ridiculed and even attacked by reporters, commentators and even comedians. And perhaps most tellingly, politicians who up until recently coudn’t even be bothered to accept that sex workers have basic civil rights are now actively calling for decriminalization. As I wrote last year, “the tyrants have…inflicted so much brutal violence that even the sheep are fighting back alongside bitches like me who have never submitted obediently to the control of our self-appointed masters.” And it’s about fucking time; maybe even Gay, Inc will eventually pull its swollen head out of its collective rectum and support us as it should have all along. It will be neither an easy fight nor a quick one, but neither was the struggle for LGBT rights and look how far that’s come. I don’t know if I’ll be around to see the end of that struggle which began in France over 40 years ago, but many of you reading this will. And I’m perfectly satisfied with that.

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In the News (#941)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, agency denial, Alabama, Arizona, Australia, censorship, cops, Disaster, Facebook, hysteria, illegal aliens, language, prisons, propaganda, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, shame, Sierra Leone, Spain, Storyville, Texas, The Scarlet Letter, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, transgender, Twitter, Watershed, Yellow Fever on June 1, 2019| 2 Comments »

The justification that [cops need to be allowed to rape sex workers because] “it’s hard to prosecute otherwise” is like the justification that waterboarding is necessary to obtain confessions. – Tom Kelley

Anatomy of a Boondoggle

As I’ve told you for a decade, cops raping sex workers is so accepted in Pennsylvania the state actively defends cops who do it:

…A [recent] investigation into…prostitution [entrapment] stings in south-central Pennsylvania has found several recent cases that raise questions about whether [cops] needed to go as far as they did to make an arrest and successfully prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt…On several occasions, [pigs] took off all, or most, of their clothes. In one case, a woman masturbated a [lying pig] for “several minutes” before [the rest of the herd busted in to terrorize her]…Prostitution is one of the lowest-level offenses in the crimes code. Several of these cases ended with someone being sentenced to probation or ordered to pay fines and court costs…The Pennsylvania Superior Court [declared that] someone [did not] need…to actually have sex to be found guilty of prostitution in 1980…

The Scarlet Letter

Why do these puritans insist on pretending that the literally prehistoric practice of shaming constitute a “modern” approach to intentionally harming people for wanting consensual sex? This article on Alabama’s new bill to legalize client shaming interviews a soi-disant “trafficking expert” who salivates and makes furtive movements in his pants pockets while vomiting out nonsense about how the sex trade magically disobeys every known law of economics and sociology, how one of the most powerful human motivators is somehow “skyrocketing”, how he should be the person who defines what constitutes “free speech”, and how ¹/₁₂ of the US population now consists of “sex slaves”. Pay especial note to his fascination with the claim that over a third of those “sex slaves” are boys.

Storyville (#51)

Just as Louis XV supplied New Orleans with women by deporting whores, so George III did for Australia:

When the Lady Juliana arrived in Sydney in the winter of 1790, it was 11 months since the ship departed England. Hundreds of colonists gathered to greet the ship they believed was bringing them desperately needed supplies for the near-starving colony…But…instead of food and livestock, the ship had carried more than 200 women…While the arrival of the Lady Juliana did little to alleviate the starvation crisis in the colony, the ship did bring long-awaited letters from loved ones and news from England…Every man on-board…indulged in a sexual relationship with a convict woman, so — not surprisingly — most of the women either arrived in Sydney pregnant or gave birth at sea…

To Molest and Rape

The government calls this “border protection”:

A Border Patrol agent has been arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault and three counts of aggravated assault…Steven Charles Holmes [raped a woman]…he [stalked via] a dating app…After checking into Holmes’ past, the Tucson Police Department said, “The investigation uncovered multiple victims with similar reports occurring from Jan. 2012 to Jan. 2019″…

Watershed (#836)

When the stuffy Boston Globe publishes an article like this, you know things are changing:

Prostitution in America has been thoroughly and purposefully conflated with trafficking, leading to a prohibition of many kinds of sex work in most parts of the country. These laws are based on a false morality which claims that all sex work is, by definition, coerced, and that no…woman…can consent to sell sex for money…There’s a solution to this…backed by scientific research and data, and one that’s already in place in other countries. The best way to fight human trafficking is to decriminalize all sex work. [The claim that] all sex work is trafficking…became popular in the late 19th century…and…began as a racist backlash against nonwhites and immigrants, marked by campaigns against “white slavery”…Politicians still use trafficking to score cheap points with both liberal voters — who see sex work as misogynist, coercive, and oppressive — and conservative voters — who see it as sinful…

The Widening Gyre (#869)

Here’s another entry in the “sex trafficking” scare story invasion of Twitter. What makes these especially funny is that there has never been a single case of an adult woman abducted by so-called “sex traffickers” from any public place, much less a crowded shopping mall. But get a load of the number of number of retweets and faves, for a tweet from an account with 343 followers who apparently dabbles in sex work.

Disaster (#925)

Given that lingerie companies have always profited from sex workers while refusing to stand with us, I’m sure you can understand why I’m gloating over this:

A number of swimwear and lingerie brands have spoken out against a new policy on Instagram which is causing them to have lower engagement and, consequently, to lose money…Facebook (Instagram’s parent company) [announced]…that they would be working to reduce “the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s community guidelines”. It went on to explain that “sexually suggestive posts” would be limited in the explore and hashtag sections of the app, but that it would still appear in your feed if you follow the account. This means that accounts which post images deemed “sexually suggestive” will be less visible to accounts that don’t follow them – and they are therefore less likely to be discovered by new customers, which is how a lot of smaller swimwear and lingerie brands grow their audience and sales…

Rooted in Racism (#931)

White people’s latest racist trick: trying to scare African people out of migrating:

Forty-one [cops]…in Sierra Leone have received [indoctrination] on how to [label ordinary behavior]…human trafficking. The [propaganda claims that]…thousands of young girls and boys are trafficked into sexual slavery or forced labor in Sierra Leone…[even though] there has been no conviction of trafficking in persons in the country. This is in part because officials [were]…not [yet] sufficiently trained in [how to call just about any behavior] human trafficking [for purposes of]…prosecut[ion]…The [indoctrination] is…funded by the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Note that buried lede way down in the last sentence. Talk about following the money…

Yellow Fever (#937)

Spain’s new prohibitionist government, like its cronies, just makes shit up as it goes:

[Spanish anti-migrant spooks] have arrested 12 people [using the excuse of]…human trafficking…[they also arrested eight sex workers. Pigs then oinked a lot of moralistic pap about]…illegal sexual activities, [negating the sex workers’ agency and misgendering transwomen]…All of them were advertised…in…a…thousand advertisements…ringleaders…deceived with the promise of a job…

Reporters using words like “ringleaders” and “illicit” or “illegal” sex always reminds me of this.

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In the News (#940)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, Alabama, brothels, cops, Disaster, Eternal Vigilance, fascism, Florida, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, Kentucky, law, Legislators Gone Wild, License To Rape, Monsters, Nevada, Ohio, Permanent Record, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, Property of the State, rape, shame, sporting events, streetwalkers, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Texas, To Molest and Rape, transgender, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers on May 29, 2019| 6 Comments »

A child is three times as likely to be hit by lightning than to be kidnapped…by a stranger. – Lenore Skenazy

Monsters

This timing is very suspicious; will cops care?

Transgender woman Muhlaysia Booker, who was at the center of a viral video where she was beaten near an apartment complex, was found fatally shot in east Dallas [on May 18th]…Edward Thomas was arrested and charged with aggravated assault in the [previous] case…

To Molest and Rape

Just two typical, representative cops:

Two [Alabama cops] were arrested…at Empire, a Birmingham night club…[after] Markeith Williams and…Jonathan Hill [raped]…an employee in a bathroom…Both were [rewarded with a vacation]…

Permanent Record

Politicians who want to undermine important legal safeguards like statutes of limitations always use especially-awful crimes to get useful idiots on their side:

…A new bill from state Rep. Brett Hillyer…would let people subjected to sexual misconduct by doctors at land grant universities between 1978-2000 sue those universities. [Dr. Richard] Strauss worked at Ohio State from the mid-1970s into the 1990s. He killed himself in 2005. More than 150 men claim Strauss sexually assaulted them while they were students and athletes at Ohio State. Nearly 50 are part of a lawsuit against the school that is headed for mediation…Ohio State’s lawyers asked a federal judge to dismiss the case in part because the abuse fell outside the statute of limitations. Hillyer’s bill would remove that limitation for civil claims…

I Saw My Brain (#785)

Yet another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida:

A massive [entrapment scheme] in Polk County ended with 154 [human beings brutalized and humiliated by the minions of chief psychopath] Grady Judd…[almost half of those arrested were sex workers]…

This will continue until the majority of those arrested fight back with lawsuits, as they’re doing not far away in Palm Beach County.

Eternal Vigilance (#827)

Rent paid for with sex is not “free”; it has been paid with sex:

…sordid homeowner[s]…are demanding romps, threesomes, S&M, naked photos and a “girlfriend experience” in exchange for free rooms from those who cannot afford to pay. And the vile exploitation of potential tenants is still going on despite it being outlawed in January…[puritans trying to stop feminine pragmatism] found dozens of sex for rent ads…on…Craigslist…

The level of hysteria this simple arrangement provokes in judgy puritans is hilarious.

License to Rape (#886)

Police states define the bodies of all citizens as “crime scenes” which can be violated by “authorities” at will:

…on March 30, 2017…Holly Curry…had all six of her kids — ages 5, 4, 2 (twins) and 10 months (also twins!) in her 10-seater van…Curry parked in front of…a…cafe…[for] less than 10 minutes [and when she emerged she found] two [cops lurking to harass her]…the next day…a [bureaucrat]…from the [infamous] Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services came to the Curry home…with a sheriff’s deputy…[and no] warrant…[the pig and the bureaucrat threatened her]…with an emergency custody order [to abduct] all her kids…Curry [folded and]…the [bureaucrat molested]…each child, male and female, [stripping them] down to the genitals (removing the diapers of the two youngest)…a few weeks later, the [bureaucrat]…told Curry she viewed her decision to get muffins as…a one-time mistake in judgment. The forced entry, the threat of taking the kids and the strip searches…were not viewed as mistakes at all…

Legislators Gone Wild (#909)

All prohibitionists have emotional problems, but Guinasso seems to be an unhinged obsessive:

…a creepy Reno lawyer named Jason Guinasso [has] been on an 18-month religious crusade to shut down the brothels…For a year and half now Guinasso has been trying to force Lyon County to give him the full names and addresses of every legal sex worker in the county’s four brothels…District Attorney Steve Rye denied Guinasso’s request…but…In a letter dated February 1, 2019, Guinasso [threatened to sue the county so he can get the information and thereby shame the workers]…All the Nevada Legislature needs to do is amend the current public record statute to explicitly declare that the work card applications for commercial sex workers in Nevada’s legal brothels are confidential, just like gaming employees. That would put an immediate end to Guinasso’s crusade…and…remove a “gray area” in law that could potentially result in a court overruling District Attorney Rye…

Disaster (#912)

Does anyone other than local news fail to recognize what a disaster FOSTA is?

Stupor Bowl (#918)

Virtually the only people who still profess to believe this nonsense are cops and politicians:

A $1 million campaign will be launched this week to combat prostitution and human trafficking during the Super Bowl in Miami…State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said her office is looking to develop a “rapid intervention response team” to attack what [politicians keep pretending is] a persistent problem for major sporting events [despite plentiful evidence to the contrary]…“Our concern is that a lot of predators will bring other dancers and their victims that work in strip clubs. We have seen that with other major destinations”…the [fascist] effort…which also will involve [surveillance and profiling of customers of] the ride-share services Uber and Lyft, taxi companies and the hotel and restaurant industries…

To Molest and Rape (#939)

Cops don’t “act as” sex predators; they are sex predators:

…Police Scotland’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has [finally decided to admit] that [cops] are [routinely] abusing their position to carry out “predatory sexual behaviour”. The ACU said it had received 22 [complaints about] sexual misconduct [in the first quarter of this] year…and…[is] monitoring 13 serious organised crime groups (SOCGs) amid fears they could be attempting to corrupt [already-corrupt cops]…Scottish Greens justice spokesman John Finnie…said he intended to raise the issue of sexual misconduct in the Scottish Parliament next week…

The fairy tale that cops need to be corrupted by “organized crime groups” in order to become rapists would be almost charmingly naive if it weren’t so dangerous to women.

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In the News (#936)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, A Woman's Point of View, abortion, agency denial, censorship, China, cops, Cops and Robbers, cult of the child, Denmark, dirty, Disaster, drugs, Facebook, fascism, Florida, Georgia, Guinea Pigs, Haiti, harm reduction, Hawaii, hysteria, illegal aliens, internet, law, Madonna/whore, marriage, Massachusetts, neofeminism, New Zealand, Ohio, One Size Fits All, Oregon, Pakistan, Permanent Record, porn, pragmatism, propaganda, Property of the State, racism, rape, Real People, Saint Death, sex offender registry, sex rays, shame, streetwalkers, surveillance, teachers, Texas, Thailand, Things We Choose To Do Together, Think of the Children!, Top Cop, Worse Than I Thought on May 15, 2019| 2 Comments »

We don’t know what we’re doing. – rare true prohibitionist statement

Real People

Stories like this need to be heard in order to fight the racist “sex trafficking” and “illegal alien” narratives:

…My mother came to Denmark as a marriage migrant. She received a tourist visa in Thailand, came to Denmark, and put an ad in the local newspaper with the headline “Thai Woman Seeking”. The man who became my stepfather answered. They got married, and shortly thereafter I came to Denmark to live with them…People have always looked down on my mom or pitied her. They have condemned my stepfather. And they have felt misplaced sympathy for me…If my mother had not migrated from Thailand, I would probably still be in Isaan today. I would have two or three children and work in my family’s rice paddies, at a factory, or have some other kind of low paying job. Maybe I would have to migrate to Bangkok to work an unskilled job at a factory, leaving my children in the care of their grandparents in those months where there is no work to be done in the fields. Maybe I would have to work in the sex industry in Pattaya and send home money to my children and my mother, because sex work is the field where you earn the most as an unskilled female labourer…Why are the women who change their lives by selling sex or by getting married scorned?…Why do we look down on women who simply use the opportunities they have been given? There is no right or wrong way to migrate. There are just women trying to create better lives for themselves and their children with whatever cards they have been dealt…

One Size Fits All

Marriage brokering, migrant sex work, forced prostitution and organ harvesting are all the same thing?

Pakistan…arrested eight Chinese nationals [and accused them of] trafficking Pakistani girls to China and forcing them into prostitution…and organ trade…Pakistani…[cops also] raided a wedding ceremony…and arrested the Chinese groom…after…[calling the] marriage [false]…

If this keeps up, soon we’ll just be able to abolish nearly all laws and call everything cops choose to accuse anyone of “human trafficking”. Think of the time and labor savings! Threaten everyone with life in prison, let them plead down to one of a few minor and equally-vague offenses like “money laundering”, “conspiracy”, “racketeering” or “hate”, then put them on ankle monitors for a decade or two. International Utopia!

Cops and Robbers

Another bunch of racist vigilantes playing games with people’s lives:

This is the story of a group of [busybodies] so agitated by news of [women of] other [races running lucrative businesses instead of doing menial labor for whites]…that they launched a vigilante response…[like all busybodies] the women weren’t affected by the massage parlors personally. They’d been driving right by them for [their whole lives] without noticing them at all…But the spas loomed large for the women after they learned [how much money migrant]…women…from China [could make]…as prostitutes [without having to kowtow to bourgeois white Boston puritans]…“We decided as a group we want to [harass] the women”…

First they tried to spy on them, then sic the pigs on them; when the cops told them luggage and TV sets were not evidence of “sex slavery” they decided to start a new NIMBY club called “Operation Rescue”. Go ahead and read the whole thing if you want a deep dive into the tiny, ugly, racist minds of women who aren’t satisfied with merely keeping the brown folks in line by occasionally calling the cops on them for existing in public spaces.

Property of the State

Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together:

Juan Leon-Gomez…was arrested…after a mother reported that her daughter was missing…the [now-pregnant] 11-year-old was found in [Leon-Gomez’s] bedroom closet…[he] was already the subject of an ongoing sexual assault investigation involving the girl…Ohio’s new “heartbeat bill”, which is slated to take effect in mid-July, means that the 11-year-old girl could be forced to carry the child to birth, regardless of the fact that she was raped…

Saint Death (#428)

“The…notion [of] ‘narco-saints’ borders on incomprehensible…But give it a cool name…and it suddenly turns religion into proof of guilt“:

“Narco saints,” or patron saints of the drug cartels, are making the criminals even bolder…[according to racist propaganda the] Drug Enforcement Administration…has [been trying to push for over a decade]…with…li[ttle success except among bootlickers and deeply credulous cops]…Atlanta DEA [pig]…Robert Murphy…[imagines] shrines of “narco saints”…are [magically] facilitating the flooding of Georgia streets with illegal drugs including heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl…[via their magic powers] to recruit and embolden the…[drug dealers this pig tellingly refers to as] soldiers…[illiterate redneck] District Attorney Tracy Graham Lawson says she was so alarmed by the “narco saints”…she [went to church and then] used [stolen] money to bring an expert [propagandist] from Texas to [indoctrinate] local [cops so they’d have another convenient excuse to murder Hispanic men on sight]…“Why it’s so dangerous…is they believe they’re [bulletproof warriors] and they’re not afraid of death,” Lawson said…

Think of the Children! (#565)

Obviously this sex-ray contaminated money would have “sexualized” the childen!

Robert Kraft tried to donate $100,000 to a charity that educates children in Haiti—but it rejected the money because of allegations he [had consensual] sexual [contact with an adult woman]…“The last thing I wanted was a donation from Robert Kraft,” [said] Patrick Moynihan of The Haitian Project…“I could not be [sensible]. I had to [be a prudish moron who cares more about virtue signaling than the education of children in poverty]”…

Permanent Record

Sex workers need to bury all prohibitionists of every kind in lawsuits:

Nicole Gililland…had been doing well as a nursing student at Southwestern Oregon Community College…She was making the dean’s list and was about a year away from graduating…when…the college decided to run her out of school after it found out she used to perform in porn. This February, she filed a federal lawsuit against the school and some of its personnel, charging them with breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and subjecting her to a hostile educational environment. Experts say this…could be the first time a plaintiff has used Title IX to make an accusation of discrimination based on a person’s status as a current or former sex worker…

Guinea Pigs (#719)

Just a reminder that one of Palantir’s first contracts was helping cops spy on sex workers:

Palantir, the CIA-funded data analysis company founded by billionaire Trump adviser Peter Thiel, provided software at the center of a 2017 operation targeting unaccompanied children and their families…newly released Homeland Security documents show….[that] Palantir…spokespe[ople were lying when they claimed]…that Palantir software is strictly involved in criminal investigations as opposed to deportations…Far from detached support in “cross-border criminal investigations,” the materials released this week confirm the role Palantir technology played in facilitating hundreds of arrests, only a small fraction of which led to criminal prosecutions…

A Woman’s Point of View (#805)

The push for decrim in Hawaii isn’t dead yet:

…Harm Reduction Hawaii…sponsor[ed] presentations by Dame Catherine Healy…on May 9 and 10. She is a former sex worker and advocate for sex worker rights. In 1986 she was a cofounder of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. She was made a Dame of the British Empire due to her long time work aimed at…decriminalization of prostitution in 2003. Recent reports from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women indicate there is no evidence of sex trafficking there. This is in a country with four times the population of Hawaii…We believe evidence-based approaches need to supplant the sorts of hysteria that has often taken over the public press in discussions over sex work…

Disaster (#881)

Facebook has the money to protect itself from the monster it helped unleash on the internet:

Under FOSTA/SESTA…Section 230 no longer protects platforms from liability in cases where third-party content is [claimed by a prosecutor or ambulance-chaser to be] somehow connected to sex trafficking…Facebook support[ed this censorship] effort…But now [it] has been forced to send lawyers to defend itself from two lawsuits brought in Houston, Texas, under the same FOSTA/SESTA law that [it] backed…and it…is…argue[ing] that Section 230 of the CDA protects the firm from being held liable for the activities of users, no matter what those activities may be…[even though] thanks to [Facebook’s own support of] FOSTA/SESTA, that protection no longer exists…

A Procrustean Bed (#921)

The idea that sex workers might be neither criminals nor victims is too much for the tiny, narrow minds of “authorities”:

A lawsuit filed by Harris County seeks to [rob and harass] sex workers in the Bissonnet Track, a Houston [stroll]…The lawsuit, which targets 86 “nuisance” individuals, is [intended to bleed marginalized people with] fines in addition to…criminal charges. [SWERFs are angry that] the measure ignores the[ir preferred narrative] that most sex workers are victims [because they want sex workers starved, evicted and enslaved in sweatshops rather than openly criminalized]…

Worse Than I Thought (#925)

Florida prohibitionists are now tripling down on their awful anti-whore laws:

Florida lawmakers just voted to create a public registry of people [accused by cops of] attempting to pay for sex. After an initial defeat…the registry—arguably the worst part of a new Florida crime bill capitalizing on human-trafficking propaganda—was revived and reinserted before the measure’s passage…The final version…creates a database of [adults caught in cop sting operations]…targets strip clubs, and mandates that a slew of state workers and businesses jump through new hoops to accommodate a few politicians’ latest attempt to get their names in the press…The Soliciting for Prostitution Public Database will list anyone who has been convicted of, or plead guilty, to “soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring another to commit prostitution, lewdness, or assignation” [which of course includes sex workers arranging duos or giving references or other help to other sex workers]…The new measure also classifies strip clubs as “adult theaters”—then makes it a first-degree misdemeanor criminal offense for the operator of any adult theater to fail to keep proper records. The law also creates wide new categories of workers and businesses that are [forced to endure]…anti-prostitution and pro-surveillance propaganda disguised as tips for teaching bystanders how to prevent human trafficking…

Top Cop (#931)

Just in case you needed another reason to be disgusted by this power-mad sociopath:

Kamala Harris is making the potential punishment of social media platforms that don’t censor what she [represents] as hateful speech a focal point of her presidential campaign…[she] wants social media to do more to stop…ideas [she disapproves of, such as sex worker rights] from being expressed and spread online. It’s not clear what she thinks the companies should specifically do, but she’s definitely laying the blame on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube for the existence and proliferation of angry people online…what she wants with her prosecutor background is to force compliance with whatever rules she puts into place and use the threat of punishment to shut down resistance…just [like] California parents who were threatened with jail time because of her support for criminal truancy laws…or [her repeated and illegal]…attempt[s] to bring pimping charges against the publishers of Backpage…

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