Droit du Seigneur | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘Droit du Seigneur’

In the News (#833)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged acting, BDSM, bogus studies, brothels, cops, dirty, disease, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, East Asia, Elephant in the Parlor, Florida, Imaginary Evils, Legislators Gone Wild, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, politicians, propaganda, psychology, scams, sex education, sex rays, shame, stripping, Surplus Women, The Immunity Syndrome, underage, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Whither Canada? on April 28, 2018| 2 Comments »

If you really care about us, just listen to us. – Christina Parreira

Droit du Seigneur

This is one of those rare instances where a rapist really was a “former” cop:

…a former [New Jersey] cop…[was] charged with trafficking a teen girl for sex…James Keenan [was] released on home confinement and the custody of a relative…[he] most recently lived in Vancouver, Washington [and] was arrested April 11 in Hazlet on federal charges of sex trafficking of a child, attempted sex trafficking of a child and attempted enticement…police in Beaverton, Oregon…and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been looking into him for a month…When agents went to arrest Keenan, they learned he had [fled] the West Coast…Keenan worked for the Middletown Township Police Department for…26 years…[and] retired in 2016…

Surplus Women

Unfortunately, this will happen much more often now until a replacement for Backpage appears:

A manhunt continue[s]…for the savage killer of Brandy Odom, 26, whose…dismembered remains were…discovered strewn across…132 acres [of Brooklyn’s Canarsie Park]…Detectives trying to retrace her activities in the hours before she was carved up reviewed surveillance video from around the park in hopes of spotting a suspect…Odom was possibly strangled before the fugitive killer hacked up the corpse…Odom…was…a…hairdresser who…had no…history of problems with the law…[except] one arrest for loitering with suspicions of prostitution in 2012…Her mother was adamant that her daughter wasn’t involved in any illegal activity…

It’s sad to watch the mother forced to disavow “illegal activity”, as though being a sex worker would mean her daughter deserved to be literally butchered.

Elephant in the Parlor

Yeah, she was a “slave”; I’m sure she was chained up & actually owned in a legal sense:

A Florida politician busted…on prostitution-related charges, allegedly fed and housed a married couple in exchange for being allowed to have sex twice a week with the woman — who claimed…she was kept as a “sex slave.” Exotic dancer Valerie Surette claimed that…Nick Nicholson…“begged” her last year to “move in and have sex with him,” offering her “very large sums of money” in return…Surette said she eventually agreed to the alleged arrangement — which also included her [husband] Kendel Surette [living] in [Nicholson’s] home…Nicholson paid the couple $100 to have sex with Surrette on Tuesdays and $200 on Saturdays…But things got increasingly worrisome, she [said], claiming the pol made her engage in uncomfortable or painful sex acts that wasn’t part of the deal…

In other words, she made a bad deal and stupidly decided to call in the pigs rather than just ending it like an adult. Sounds to me like these three assholes deserved each other.

Imaginary Evils (#348)

This sounds like a pretty typical cult; are we now going to retroactively label all of them “sex trafficking”?

Allison Mack…best known for a role in the TV series Smallville…entered a plea of not guilty to sex trafficking and forced labor charges which carry mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years and could lead to life in jail…senior members of an alleged cult known as Nxivm…[were allegedly] instrumental in forcing new recruits to conform to the sexual demands of leader Keith Raniere. The government alleges that so-called Nxivm “slaves” were forced to starve; ordered to remain celibate; and held down as Raniere’s initials were branded below their hips with a cauterizing pen…

Legislators Gone Wild (#409)

Every so often the Nevada brothels are threatened by zealots, often making these same dumb claims about stigma:

…The group calling itself “No Little Girl” is petitioning to close the legal brothels in Lyon County, and remove the livelihood of hundreds of women…they make claims that…prostitution is inherently violence against women…[and] cite…data that either has been debunked or has nothing to do with legal prostitution. The handful of individuals that submitted the petition represent faith-based organizations, and seem to be more concerned with pushing their specific moral agenda…The group suggests that large tech companies won’t move to the county…because of the…brothels, but…Lance Gilman, owner of the Mustang Ranch…helped bring Tesla to Nevada. The massive Tesla Gigafactory is located seven miles from the Mustang Ranch…Concerning the safety of women in the brothels, the website cites Melissa Farley…

The Immunity Syndrome (#747)

This outcome was obvious once Trump appointed Huber to HHS:

The Trump administration will shift federal funding aimed at reducing teen pregnancy rates to programs…that [push] abstinence [propaganda upon] teens instead of [actual] sex ed…The Obama administration mostly awarded TPP grants to organizations that taught comprehensive sex education, which…[nonetheless was forced by federal law to include propaganda promoting] abstinence. But the Trump administration has been shifting toward [pure] abstinence programs since hiring…Valerie Huber, the chief of staff for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health, which oversees the TPP program. Prior to coming to HHS, Huber led Ascend, a national abstinence [propaganda] group…

The Immunity Syndrome (#757)

The last attempt to start hysteria over this also involved exactly three cases:

A man in the UK who caught the world’s “worst-ever” case of super-gonorrhoea has been cured…He picked up the superbug having sex with [an amateur] in South East Asia…It was the first-ever case of the infection being incurable with first choice antibiotics, but now two similar cases have been reported in Australia…The main antibiotic treatment – a combination of azithromycin and ceftriaxone – failed to treat the disease…he has since been [successfully] treated with ertapenem…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#792)

Charlatans who profit from the “sex addiction” myth are fighting hard to keep the gravy train rolling:

…sex addiction…[is] a vice masquerading as a pathology, an excuse dressed up as an illness. It’s not a condition that is recognised by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM], the bible of the American Psychiatric Association. There are no physical symptoms of withdrawal, as there are with…[actual] addiction…However, [charlatans] in the field speak of a growing sexual addiction “pandemic” that a mixture of shame and misunderstanding has kept hidden. Paula Hall…[claims] the publicity surrounding recent high-profile scandals has been detrimental to an understanding of what she [pretends] is a very real and growing problem…Hall insists the debate about whether or not sex addiction is [real]…misses the point…

Ever notice how people who profit from these scams (the War on Drugs being a good example) never bow out quietly and save face? Nope, they just keep doubling down, so now this neurologically absurd concept is no longer just an epidemic, but a pandemic! You know, like the Black Death.

Whither Canada? (#810)

To their credit, the Young Liberals have been pushing for repeal of Canada’s version of the Swedish model since the law first passed:

…the current Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, which prohibits the purchasing of sex, does little to protect sex workers and instead pushes them to work underground and in dangerous conditions; the current prohibition of buying consensual sex…creates a climate that makes sex workers unlikely to work with the police and be involved with more serious crimes; BE IT RESOLVED the Liberal Party of Canada repeal the 2014 Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, begin a consultation period with those in the sex work industry and advocacy groups, and move to decriminalize consensual sex work, and the purchase of said sex work, for those over the age of 18…

If this resolution passes and the Liberals stay in power, this could be a huge step forward for sex worker rights.

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In the News (#832)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, censorship, cops, cult of the child, Devil's Advocate, Disaster, Droit du Seigneur, Elephant in the Parlor, hysteria, Imagination Pinned Down, internet, Kentucky, law, New York, Ohio, Original Sin, politicians, prohibitionist myths, psychology, robots, streetwalkers, tabula rasa, The Proper Study, The Widening Gyre, Twitter, underage on April 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Because our political class believes in myths, not solid evidence, they keep creating policies directed at an imaginary bogeyman, not real criminals. – Jenny Heineman & Brooke Wagner

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

A MILLION!!!!!

La Porte County [Indiana] Prosecutor John Espar [fed ludicrous propaganda to] local residents at First Baptist Church on human trafficking…He [lied that] the rate of sex crimes spiked between 1998 and 2007 with the growing popularity of Internet usage, which gave offenders access to children…to whom they did not have access previously…As many as one million children are exploited for commercial sex annually…children who become victims typically do so between the ages of 12 and 14…“So many of these (sex) workers, even if they’re not realizing it at this point in their lives, are still victims of exploitation”…

The Proper Study

Ric Curtis, who headed the Jon Jay study, is still debunking prohibitionist lies:

As they crack down on sex workers and pass outrageous new laws, our politicians and moral crusaders make some bold claims: Hundreds of thousands of children…at an average age of 13…is any of this true?…from 2012 to 2014, we spent nine months walking a [stroll] in Las Vegas…We handed out condoms and other harm-reduction material…The primary investigator, Ric Curtis, designed the study based on his experience collecting data from other “hard to reach” populations…The study had several teams collecting data in major cities across the US that had been dubbed as “hubs of sex trafficking”…after interviewing 949 people across 6 cities…[we found] the assumptions that inform government policy on sex workers are merely myths. And those myths are easily disproved once you bother to get the data, which we did…In our subsample of youth under the age of 18…engaged in survival sex…24%…had a pimp…liberally defined as someone with whom the respondent shared their earnings…one young woman’s experience stood out as representative …Rena, who was 16 at the time of the interview, laughed when we asked if she had a pimp. She tipped her head toward one of her friends. “That’s my pimp,” Rena giggled. She was an 18-year-old woman who helped Rena use the internet to get clients and was herself engaged in survival sex. The two young women pooled their money together to meet their shared living expenses…Rena’s friend could be considered a sex trafficker under the current legal regime…

Droit du Seigneur

Though pimps are not common, a disproportionate number of the ones who do exist are cops:

Police are choosing to allow brothels to operate providing they create a safe environment for women, one former detective – now a brothel owner – has told the BBC…Despite it being illegal to operate a brothel in England and Wales – although not illegal to buy and sell sex – Karl says he has no moral qualms about breaking the law because he does not agree with it, and he says he is not exploiting the women who work for him…

The Widening Gyre

New York is way behind cities like Seattle, Phoenix & Houston in promoting the hysteria:

Inside a handsome brick building on a tree-lined street near Brooklyn’s Prospect Park lay one of the city’s dirtiest secrets…two 16-year-old girls were allegedly being kept inside as sex slaves…the teens’ captors forced them to strip to their underwear, pose for Backpage.com ads and have sex with up to 10 johns a day…thousands of sex slaves being trafficked under the noses of New York City residents every day…[vice cop] Jim Klein [said]…“It’s modern-day slavery”…the average victim is…as young as 12…“One guy kept [a girl] in a dog cage because she wasn’t cooperating”…a…14-year-old…was found locked in a closet surrounded by pots of urine…

Original Sin

Welcome back to the 16^th century:

Priests attending an annual exorcism conference in Rome are set to discuss whether pornography has a demonic influence. Over 250 priests and theologians as well as criminologists and psychologists from 51 countries have gathered at the week-long Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation conference…attendees will discuss the prevalence of pornography in modern society, and consider if it is a “modern cultural phenomenon of an evil that harms people,” and to what extent it may have what he described as a demonic influence…

Imagination Pinned Down (#551)

Stereotypic conformation in progress:

Jessa Dillow Crisp has spent the better part of the last decade learning who she is…as a child victim of human trafficking. Now, she works to help others who are or have been in the same situation. She is co-founder and executive director of Bridgehope…As a child…in…Canada, Crisp was abused and sold into the sexual human trafficking sector by her family…she would eventually be sold to a circuit operating in the United States…“during the 2010 Winter Olympics, it was…sadistic pain and horrific evil.” Clarksville Police Chief Mark Palmer said that he sees more sex trafficking in the way of consensual sex workers, not forced abusers…during large events like Thunder Over Louisville or the Kentucky Derby…her identity was also stripped away by her abusers, who controlled where she went, what she ate, how she sat, how she talked…Some of the signs are behavioral, like having a…phone, the connection to [a partner]…styles of dress that [busybodies claim] are way beyond their years…

Most professional “survivors” don’t last long; it’ll be interesting to see if this one graduates to including classic elements like brutal clients and being dragged behind a car.

Devil’s Advocate (#761)

Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:

…in the United States, Rep. Dan Donovan…introduced legislation to ban [child-shaped sex] dolls, in a bill named Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots, otherwise known as the CREEPER Act…some [actual experts] suggest…dolls could be used to deter the real-life fulfillment of pedophilic urges…[but politicians and other prohibitionists pretend human sexual impulses are learned and can be eliminated via threats of violence] Donovan [claims] “Once a child sex abuser tires of practicing on a doll, it’s a small step to move on to an innocent child…[puritans pretend] these dolls reinforce, normalize, and encourage pedophilic behavior”…

Elephant in the Parlor (#825)

Ken White explains the latest wrinkle in the Stormy Daniels case:

…Conventional wisdom is that federal courts are better for the defense and more likely to enforce arbitration agreements. However, federal judges move faster and abide by deadlines and rules more closely, and are substantially less tolerant of bullshit than state judges. If substantial portions of your defense are premised on bullshit and delay, don’t remove to federal court…the main issue is whether the nondisclosure agreement [is]…enforceable. If [so]…Trump…could conceivably get a gag order against Clifford and get massive damages against her for breaching the confidentiality agreement, and could do so through a private arbitration proceeding instead of in public…

It’s complicated, so you’ll need to read the whole thing.

Disaster (#831)

Judging by the breadth of responses from all over the political map, FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation on the part of the government:

The US’ latest attempt to silence sex workers…has begun to chill free speech across the internet. A number of websites have had to either shut down or actively distance themselves from the notion that they support sex work. And the problem is only going to get worse as time goes on…It’s not just…adults-only websites and platforms that are now having to crack down on discussions of sex. Microsoft and Google have moved to alter their terms of service…and…not even private discussions are safe…Microsoft…claim[ed] the right to examine your content…[and] Google is purging adult content from private Drive accounts…sex workers are attempting to protect themselves against the bill by building platforms beyond the reach of American authorities….Red Umbrella Hosting…offers judgment-free, anonymous and sex-worker-friendly hosting. Then there is Switter…launched in response to FOSTA-SESTA and Twitter’s alleged shadowbanning practices. In a few short weeks, it has already acquired nearly 23,000 followers…

But it didn’t take long for Switter to feel the government’s boot:

[Last] Wednesday, Cloudflare terminated its content delivery network services for…the weeks-old Switter…Cloudflare has confirmed…that the company terminated service to Switter because of FOSTA, but also said it’s “a very bad law”…When [Switter] organizers…reached out to Cloudflare for explanation, they were met with a vague notice that Switter violated the company’s Terms of Service…Switter moved to a new content delivery network and is still up, but Cloudflare’s decision to terminate service was jarring…Cloudflare, historically, has been a vocal supporter of the open internet…

And here’s a heads up from a confidential source: the sleazebags behind FOSTA are butthurt that everyone sees their tyranny for what it is and they’re preparing for a major PR offensive to convince people that censorship isn’t censorship. The first of it started on Sunday.

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In the News (#810)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged BDSM, Cambodia, Canada, censorship, cops, Droit du Seigneur, ethics, fascism, hysteria, Juxtaposition, law, Louisiana, New York, Opting Out, Panopticon, politicians, porn, pregnancy, prisons, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, sex rays, sporting events, Stalkers in Blue, streetwalkers, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Swedish model, Tennessee, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, Under Duress, United Kingdom, Whither Canada?, Wise Investment on February 3, 2018| 3 Comments »

Nothing about jackbooted cops storming into your room can be pleasant. – Tyler Dawson

Under Duress

I find it mind-boggling that most people are surprised to find out that cops are habitual liars:

A…jury…convicted [an NYPD] detective of lying under oath in a trial that raised troubling questions about the prevalence of false statements by police officers in routine cases…Kevin Desormeau…concocted a story about witnessing a man deal drugs to two women on a street corner on a summer evening in 2014…Desormeau [testilied that he] intercepted the man after the transactions and arrested him…But videotape from security cameras showed that the man had been playing pool inside a nearby Caribbean restaurant at the time he was said to have been selling drugs outside…Desormeau and his partner…Sasha Neve, still face charges related to false statements in Manhattan in a separate case…Neve…was found guilty [in the current case] of official misconduct…But the judge…immediately struck down her conviction, [pretending] there was insufficient evidence…As both…left the courtroom, other [pigs] from their old [sty], the Queens gang squad, patted their backs in support…one…was overheard [oinking that] the case as a “witch hunt”…

Torture Chamber

Stop faking!

An inmate in the Ascension Parish Prison has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Sheriff Jeff Wiley and his office over the teenager’s rape while in custody early last year. Jacob Westbrook…[reports that] sheriff’s deputies [refused] to obey a judicial order to keep him in protective custody, and instead exposed him to “the very substantial risk of serious harm” from his alleged attackers…Westbrook had “sexual batteries” and “rapes” committed against him on two consecutive days in January 2017 by two 17-year-olds. Westbrook was also 17 years old at the time. “During each violent attack, plaintiff screamed for help and from the pain. No deputies came to his aid…jail personnel failed to follow supervision of detainee policies and procedures and there was no video monitoring of this area of the jail,” the lawsuit alleges…

Whither Canada?

To their credit, the Young Liberals have been pushing for repeal of Canada’s version of the Swedish model since the law first passed:

…the Young Liberals of Canada…[are] pushing the rest of their federal party to discuss decriminalization of prostitution at the party’s convention in April…Since they were elected, the Liberals have claimed they’re reviewing Conservative-era legislation that reworked Canada’s sex work laws following the Supreme Court’s Bedford decision in 2013…[but] little has happened since…the present law…is poor public policy, is disrespectful to the top court’s judgment and – completely separate of either of these very good reasons to object to it – insulting to those who work in the sex industry and can make their own choices about what they do with their bodies and how they make money…

Juxtaposition (#422)

Before you decry this as symptomatic of totalitarianism, click the title link to see who else has arrested people for dancing near public monuments:

Five Britons are among a group of 10 foreigners arrested in Cambodia for “singing and dancing pornographically”, after a raid on a party in Siem Reap near the tourist destination of Angkor Wat. They face up to a year in prison and could spend six months in detention before the case goes to court…one of the group…said they did not understand why they were being held, adding that they saw one of the arrested men vomiting in shock…

Wise Investment (#428)

Those who cannot remember the past, etc:

Advocates for sex workers are demanding Laval [Quebec] reverse its decision to push all massage parlours, strip clubs, and other erotic businesses to a small, industrial stretch of the city. The new rules…further stigmatize and endanger the women involved in the sex industry, according to Sandra Wesley, the executive director of Stella, a Montreal-based support group for sex workers…[which] is demanding the city withdraw its new rules, or at least postpone their enforcement, so the women affected can have time to challenge them. But according to the city, the rules are here to stay…that doesn’t mean sex workers will change jobs; it just forces them out of public view and into situations where they have to work from home or in unsafe areas…

Pyrrhic Victory (#609)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking…the data [comes] from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data…Vigilant…has amassed a database of more than 2 billion license plate photos by ingesting data from partners like vehicle repossession agencies and other private groups. Vigilant also partners with local law enforcement agencies…collecting even more data from camera-equipped police cars. The result is a massive vehicle-tracking network generating as many as 100 million sightings per month, each tagged with a date, time, and GPS coordinates of the sighting…

Droit du Seigneur (#614)

Given that Spitzer was a heavy prohibitionist while in office, outing him is justified:

A Manhattan judge has lifted the gag order placed on the former escort who [says]…Eliot Spitzer threatened to kill her, meaning she can now dish on the fallen pol’s sexual fetishes — which allegedly include being paraded around on a leash like a dog. Judge Gilbert Hong issued an order…saying Svetlana Travis Zakharova is no longer subject to another judge’s February 2017 direction she couldn’t talk about her relationship with Spitzer while she was being prosecuted for extorting $400,000 from him…Hong also ruled that the NYPD has 30 days to return the former escort’s cell phone and iPad, which were seized when she was arrested in the extortion case…She’s since released recordings in which a man she alleges is the infamous pol threatens to kill her. “You fucking bitch! You piece of shit. And then you fucking destroyed my life!” the man in the records can be heard saying. “You know what’s going to happen to you? You’re going to be fucking dead.” [Zakharova’s lawyer] says that as soon as Zakharova returns from Russia — where she’s gathering more recordings — she’s coming for Spitzer…

To Molest and Rape

A “correctional officer” in a “correctional institution”. Makes you wonder what “authorities” perceive as “correct”:

In the early months of 2017, a correctional officer at a jail near the Tennessee-Alabama border routinely cornered a female inmate in the jail library, raping and eventually impregnating her before the assaults were discovered…Caleb Shane Hopkins…[has confessed to repeatedly raping] Jessica Fowler…Once other jail officials learned Fowler was pregnant, she was transferred to the Tennessee Prison for Women before giving birth, prematurely, in December. She remains imprisoned, unable to have any prolonged access to her child…[who] is currently with [her] parents…[she] is suing Hopkins for $1 million and Moore County for $300,000. However, there are no federal limits for damages in a case like this, so a judge could award a higher amount…

I hope she bankrupts both the rapist pig and the county.

Opting Out (#759)

Naturally, Cassandra McNeill was warning about this years ago:

MindGeek, the biggest internet pornography company in the world…[pretends] it will not snoop on the sexual preferences of 25 million people in the UK under new age verification laws. However, MindGeek also [admits it] plans to collect a trove of information on users, including their names, addresses, date of birth, as well as their online activities on other websites. From April, as part of the Digital Economy Act, anyone wishing to view pornography online will have to prove they are over 18 years old…Among the companies developing solutions is MindGeek, which…also runs some of the most viewed pornography sites in the world, including PornHub…its age verification system, AgeID…will require users to sign up with an email address and password, then use a third party mechanism to prove they’re over 18. User will then use AgeID to access pornographic sites around the web; AgeID will log which sites are visited…

Stupor Bowl (#769)

It’s a good sign that headlines like this are now fairly common:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement joined in the pre-Super Bowl hype…[about] a…human trafficking spike that experts…agree doesn’t exist…The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, a coalition of NGOs, wrote in 2014 that public figures often use this sort of hype to justify their own interests, whether it’s anti-immigration sentiment or support and funding for [police violence against sex workers]…

Stalkers in Blue

Oh, honey, I hope you don’t really believe this doesn’t happen in Florida:

An NYPD [cop] offered to let a Brooklyn woman slide on a pot possession bust if she lifted her shirt and showed him her breasts…Jasmine Campbell…was arrested for possession of marijuana and resisting arrest — but…not before…Javier Munoz mistreated her…Campbell, 25, spent the night in jail before she was released without bail and the ordeal caused her to miss a college midterm in her senior year. She said she was not able to take a makeup exam, and got a lower grade in the class…Campbell said her friend insisted to cops that the weed was his, but they cuffed and processed her, anyway…Campbell said she has since been pulled over by other officers who have been sexually inappropriate. “It’s a constant thing going on in New York with the cops that they’re just using their badges to, I guess, sexually harass women…That’s why I’m so glad to be going to law school in Florida. I don’t even want to live here anymore”…

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In the News (#736)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Against Their Will, agency denial, All Wet, Backpage, Canada, Cardboard Cutouts, cops, Divided We Fall, Droit du Seigneur, evidence, Fallen Idol, Florida, Georgia, Guam, homosexuality, hysteria, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, India, It Looks Good On Paper, Korea, Lack of Evidence, law, lawheads, New York, Pimps Ahoy, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rape, rescue industry, statistics, streetwalkers, Tennessee, The Mote and the Beam, The War Goes On, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state) on May 6, 2017| 3 Comments »

What you probably know about human trafficking is horseshit.
– Laura Lemoon

Lack of Evidence

A teenage girl riding in a car now constitutes “evidence” of “sex trafficking”:

Three people have been arrested on suspicion of human trafficking after a car transporting a 17-year-old girl was stopped in Preston…the…girl, who is from Romania, is now [in jail]…

Against Their Will

Sunitha Krishnan is a fanatic & compulsive liar who claims all sex workers are “victims” who are “raped by a hundred men a day.” Is it any wonder that a person who quotes her as an “authority” finds sex workers’ desire for individual rights “surprising”?

…Prajwala…headed by Dr. Sunitha Krishnan, is [a prison compound in which] hundreds of women and girls [abducted by cops] from brothels around India [are locked up for brainwashing]…The facility, funded by several [wealthy white prohibitionists], is surrounded by 20-foot high walls with barbed wire atop; its address is not publicly listed. Dr. Krishnan explained that this level of security was needed [to keep] the women [imprisoned there from escaping with the help of friends outside]…What is surprising is that a number of women wanted to go back to their previous life as a prostitute…

It Looks Good On Paper

Another bullshit story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws that allow “perfect victims” to expunge their records of prostitution charges after going through the hell that is the US “justice” system:

Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee…signed into…law…a bill that…allows victims of human trafficking to clear prostitution convictions, even if the person convicted has been found guilty of committing other crimes…the “new measure states any motion filed to vacate a prostitution conviction must prove ‘by a preponderance of the evidence’ that the applicant’s conviction, along with any other crimes committed, was a result of being a ‘victim of trafficking, promoting prostitution in the first degree or promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor’”…

The Mote and the Beam

Two stinking piles of filth want to cut sex workers off from the banking system:

U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren…and Marco Rubio…introduced legislation to aid financial institutions in identifying and reporting instances of [sex work]…so that offenders can be prosecuted…The End Banking for Human Traffickers Act would direct federal banking regulators to work with law enforcement and financial institutions to combat the use of the financial system for [sex work]…The bill would further increase collaboration between law enforcement and experts in financial crimes by adding financial intelligence and regulatory officers to the President’s Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and require the Task Force to…strengthen anti-money laundering programs…

Divided We Fall (#427)

Though Gay, Inc pointedly ignores the connection between queerdom & sex work, some Canadian writers refuse to follow suit:

…[In] conversion therapy…psychiatrists would attempt to suppress same-sex behaviour…by redirecting it toward the heterosexual norm. In other words, the dominant culture sought to impose itself on sexual expression deemed morally objectionable…”John school” has now replaced conversion therapy as a form of state-sanctioned brainwashing that attempts to label purchased sex as a repugnant, unnatural vice…john school engages in psychological repression…Ottawa Citizen…editor Tyler Dawson accurately refers to these therapy sessions as “creepy re-education nights run by the Salvation Army”…For anti-prostitution activists, it’s not enough that johns change their behaviour: they must also change their preferences. Men are told not only that their sexual choices are wrong, but that no “normal” adult would engage in this kind of depravity…advocates of john school continue to stigmatize paid sex between consenting heterosexual adults in private in the same way that the state once stigmatized sex between consenting homosexual adults in private…

Cardboard Cutouts

Liz Brown discusses “Why Is Everyone So Willing to Believe ‘Fake News’ About Sex Trafficking?”

All Wet

Better headline: “Korean Men More Honest About Sex Buying Than Western Men“:

More than half of Korean men have paid for sex at least once in their life, a government report showed…Nearly 26 percent of them had engaged prostitutes in the past year and did so 8.46 times per year on average. The majority of men who had paid for sex, or 53.8 percent, first did so when they were aged between 20 and 24, followed by those aged 25-29 (27.6 percent), 30-34 (10.2 percent) and those under 20 (3.9 percent)…According to a survey of 174 sex workers, 75.6 percent of them were in their 30s. Nearly 48 percent of prostitutes first turned to prostitution in their 20s, while nearly 22 percent began as teenagers…

Fallen Idol

Serial rapist & consent violator James Deen is trying to reframe himself as a protector of children:

…In the last 10 years we have had more free pornography at your fingertips than ever before, to a point where people are no longer learning about sexuality…This is something that is made for a purpose, this is not an example of what sex is, this is people having sex for entertainment…Now, a child, an 11-year-old child, anyone at any age could go to a myriad of places on the internet and be exposed to endless amounts of content…8- or 9-year-olds are not able to properly process what this is. Especially when it’s not just, “Here are two people kissing and some standard sex.” It’s some crazy stuff. And I think now that people…are…seeing these examples, regularly, for years and years and years, of what they believe to be sex…

Droit du Seigneur (#641)

“It’s been an astounding week for abuses of power and sexual violence committed by state agents“:

…In New York City alone, one former cop is on trial for running for running a prostitution ring, another was sentenced to federal prison for soliciting child pornography from mothers he met online, and three others have been indicted on suspicion of trading gun permits for sex, travel, and cash…in…Atlanta, Georgia…arrests continue in a police take-down of two escort services…that also ensnared Gwinnett County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Quinn in January. Quinn was caught on camera paying for and having sex with a woman who worked for one of the escort agencies….[in] the U.S. territory of Guam…Paul John Santos…was found guilty this week of criminal sexual conduct, bribery, and official misconduct after threatening to arrest a sex worker if she didn’t have sex with him…The judge sentenced him to 21 years. That sort of punishment for sex-predator cops is rare…In Memphis, Tennessee, Sergeant Erskine Caldwell…was reported to Internal Affairs by his fellow officers after they spotted him several times with a known sex-worker in his patrol car…Caldwell had harassed her until she complied with his sexual demands…

Just Another Day in America

A Truthout article echoes what I said in the original of this title:

“Our collective focus on police shootings overshadows the reality of what is going on for women on a daily basis,” said Jacqueline Robarge of Power Inside…”The way the police engage women, especially Black women and sex workers, creates a culture of violence. The police use a variety of tactics, including harassment, physical and sexual violence, medical neglect in police custody”…The DOJ investigation prompted by [Freddie] Gray’s killing revealed a number of instances in which Baltimore police officers extorted sex from women they alleged were engaged in prostitution or drug-related activities. The women’s complaints were poorly and partially investigated, if at all, with little or no consequences for the officers involved…a 2014 study by Johns Hopkins University found that 6 percent of…Baltimore [sex workers] had been [raped by cops]…within a given month. In Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, I summarize the sizeable body of research revealing that the police sexual violence found by the DOJ in Baltimore, and committed by now infamous Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, is alarmingly commonplace across the country…

Pimps Ahoy

The rescue industry is nasty from every angle:

…Cisgender men, trans folks and anyone who is gender-nonconforming are not going to receive help from these organizations because they don’t fit the stereotype of the sex-trafficking victim in a way that lets these “rescuers” be rescuers. The involvement of government in the suppression and oppression of trafficking survivors also cannot be overlooked…government sanctioning of the maltreatment and exploitation of trafficking survivors is an example of how the current…rescue system is allowed to proliferate…An astonishing 80 percent of survivors who go into [one particular Midwest] shelter end up getting kicked out with a “red dot” status, which means they can’t come back or even engage in any other services…Amber Paulina of Seattle…shares…how two church elders, with no experience or education, opened a residential facility for trafficked girls. She was forced to call the executive director “Mom” and her husband “Dad” — they called all the girls their “daughters”…Amber was grilled about her masturbation habits and was forced to write book reports on “famous” survivors like Rachel Lloyd. “I made bracelets for five bucks a pop that were flipped over at nine bucks a pop en masse at anti-trafficking events and at local boutiques. All material donated. ‘Made by trafficking survivor’ bracelets. All the time. For money. Unpaid,” Amber says…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now (#696)

Another case in which a filthy vice pig tricks a desperate survival sex worker with an offer of money plus food so as to ensure public ridicule by the bootlicking press:

Florida [pigs] have charged a [desperately poor] woman with prostitution after she agreed to perform a sex act on an undercover detective for $25 and chicken McNuggets…Alex Direeno was being held…without bond at the Manatee County Jail on charges of prostitution, possession of drug paraphernalia and on outstanding warrants…It’s unclear whether Direeno has retained an attorney.

“Retained an attorney”? Really? With what currency? The $25 they promised her, then stole as “evidence”?

The War Goes On (#711)

The profound stupidity of lawheads is a marvel to behold:

[Sleazy] vice [pigs] in Metro Atlanta say Backpage.com is still a marketplace for prostitution, despite the fact that Backpage removed its adult escort section…in January…[stenographer] Mark Winne spent days [masturbating while following] the DeKalb County…Vice Unit and [is parroting cop propaganda about] how Backpage is still the go-to website for sex trafficking…[Head] Vice [pig] Curtis Williams told Winne that ads for prostitution…simply moved to elsewhere on the site…Winne…asked [one of the cops’ victims], “How come you turned down that officer’s offer of help?” “Cause I don’t want it!” She said…

“Offer of help”. Is Winne a grown man and university graduate? This is the level of critical thinking I’d expect from someone who still believes in the Easter Bunny.

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In the News (#698)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, An Example to the West, Backpage, California, cops, Creepy Coppers, Do As I Say, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, Dysphemisms Galore, Follow Your Bliss, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, India, Korea, language, law, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, pimps, pizza!, politicians, porn, Power Play, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rape, restaurants, surveillance, Swedish model, Switzerland, The Implosion Begins, The Widening Gyre, They Still Don't Get It, To Molest and Rape, TSA, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, Virginia, Washington DC, yellow journalism on December 14, 2016| 3 Comments »

If you think [criminalization] has diminished [sex work], you must be living under a rock. – Dushyant Arora

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

If a cop rapes you, say he paid you instead. THAT he’ll get in trouble for: “…[New Mexico cop] Alex Smith…was…indicted…on one count of trafficking drugs…after he was accused of giving a substance believed to be methamphetamine to a woman [in exchange for sex]…”

Droit du Seigneur

Though pimps are pretty rare, a disproportionate number of the ones who do exist are cops: “A [Cincinnati cop] pleaded guilty to procuring…and was sentenced to probation…James Erpelding was initially charged with promoting prostitution…[for] his wife…[and her] sister…”

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

As regular readers know, “expert sex therapists” have never labelled “sex addiction” a disorder:

…the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) issued…a statement saying it does not support sex addiction as a mental health disorder. Considering how often we hear about sex addiction in the mainstream media, this is a crucial message as it vouches for the importance of sex science in informing policy and therapy…while the group’s position doesn’t deny that out-of-control sexual behavior is real, or that it can cause serious distress, impairment and harm to an individual…AASECT…does not believe that operating from a sex addiction-therapeutic model is helpful…there has yet to be any science showing these behaviors are indicative of an addiction…

They Still Don’t Get It

I’ll bet this reporter considers herself a “feminist” while telling patriarchy-reinforcing tales of how women are too stupid to manage our own lives:

…A special NYPD Vice squad has spent the past decade cracking down on trafficking and prostitution, focusing on hotel hot spots and digital solicitations. But victims…are often hidden in plain sight – forced into a cycle of shame and degradation, subservience and fear…[lying pig] Rose Muckenthaler [wants more mass surveillance because of her masturbatory fantasy that people are fucking]…“right now in our backyards…[a] 13-14 year old girl”…

Uncommon Sense (#38)

And then they’re going to wonder why the number of women working “illegally” increases dramatically:

New sex workers in Geneva may be obliged to follow courses on prostitution law, health prevention and how to deal with clients, under a draft bill…“The courses focusing mainly on health and prevention measures will be obligatory for all new sex workers registered in Geneva,” [said] Nicolas Bolle, deputy secretary general of Geneva’s security and economy department…Those taking the 90-minute daily courses must also learn about their obligations to their clients and the people running their massage salon or escort agency…“They must learn about Geneva’s prostitution law, how much to charge clients, health prevention and sanitary check-ups as well as the associations that can help them,” Bolle added…

Follow Your Bliss (#44)

Yet the government still won’t admit that the TSA attracts pedophiles:

A…Transportation Security Administration employee from Arkansas has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for distributing child pornography…Raymond Kinney…[spoke with pervert cops pretending to be] children…via social media…Kinney later agreed to meet…for the intent of having sex with minors and was arrested upon arrival…Kinney had brought sex toys and children’s clothing with him…

Dysphemisms Galore

When will journalists grow up?

…Seoul Central District Court punished the operators of [a business called the “Voyeurism Club”] that fed the sexual appetites for perverts, allowing visitors to have sex in an open space or watch others doing so. The court sentenced the club’s chief operator…to 18 months’ jail, suspended for two years, and 15 million won ($12,000) fine…Targeting those with “abnormally obscene desires,” Won managed the bar-like club…and [hired sex workers]…The court also sentenced the club’s pimp…and janitor…to six months’ jail, suspended for a year…Two female prostitutes…were fined 1.5 million won [$1200] each…

If Men Were Angels

I honestly couldn’t think of what other category I could put this under:

A U.S. Army Sergeant from Georgia has pleaded no contest to six felony charges…26-year-old Angelo Paderes had a relationship with a then 14-year-old girl…he…met…in an online game….[he] snuck into her house, and slept with the girl…once the girl’s family learned of the relationship, they took her phone and [forebade further]…contact…Paderes [then hired an escort]…and brought [her and her two-year-old son]…to a restaurant…owned by the girl’s parents. The…escort…was unaware of his plan…he…wanted [her] to make contact the with the girl using a prepaid phone. The…girl’s family found out what was happening, which caused Paderes to flee, taking the boy…Paderes was charged with abduction of the boy…

An Example to the West (#562)

Once again, Indian feminists’ enlightenment puts American ones to shame:

…All of us like to believe we care about the safety of women, about their rights; we participate in campaigns on social media and join candlelight marches to pressure the government to bring laws to punish those who harm them. But, not all of them. There is a group of women whose safety and dignity we don’t like to talk about…I am talking about sex workers. Most people, when they want to insult women, jump to calling her a “whore”. Newsflash: Sex work is as dignified as any other profession. It sometimes intrigues me that “tobacco seller”, for instance, isn’t an insult. After all, tobacco kills people. But logic and popular notions of morality rarely go together…

To Molest and Rape

Your regular reminder that rapist cops aren’t solely an American aberration:

Hundreds of [cops raped women]…in what a senior police watchdog has called “the most serious corruption issue facing the service”. Forces across England and Wales received 436 [reports of rape on]…306 [cops], 20 [so-called “community support” cops] and eight staff in the two years to March but inspectors believe the problem is even more prevalent than the numbers suggest…only 40 [of the rapists] have been dismissed…in a similar period…Vulnerable individuals, including domestic abuse victims, alcohol and drug addicts, sex workers and arrested suspects were among those targeted…

The very nature of policing under prohibition ensures the rapes will continue:

The news that police forces across England and Wales have have an endemic [rape] problem…is sadly no surprise to SWOU…sex workers…know from experience that contact with the police spans a spectrum from fear-inducing to abusive. This news should give those who advocate carceral “solutions” to the sex trade a pause. The police…cannot deliver safety to people who sell sex…When the sex trade is criminalised, the police are given power over us. This is the case in all criminalised systems, including in…the Nordic model…End Demand’s report on how to implement the sex buyer law in the UK…recommends that…police…“review [sex workers’] advertisements … and confirm that prostitution is taking place by visiting the venue”…The report adds that “police officers would need to be trained in covert operations.” This is surveillance of sex workers. This is power that the police have over us…

Power Play (#691)

A judge agrees that the law says what it says:

The owners and the CEO of…Backpage were exonerated of pimping and other felony charges Friday…Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman cited Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects firms that host user content online from state criminal liability…[sociopathic politician Kamala] Harris, who said in a statement she was “extremely disappointed” in the ruling, is likely to appeal, said University of Santa Clara School of Law professor Eric Goldman…“Every user-generated-content website has illegal content on it. If Section 230 is undermined in this case, it potentially could undermine the foundation of every user-generated-content website: Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, Craigslist, eBay,” Goldman said. “Pretty much all the sites that we enjoy the most are user-generated-content websites, all relying on Section 230”…

The Widening Gyre (#696)

Liz Brown is as suspicious of the Sherri Papini case as I am:

…there is almost nothing to support the idea that Papini’s disappearance was related to sex or prostitution. The whole theory hinges on the fact that Papini was “branded,” as her husband Keith initially put it. Police later confirmed that Sherri did have something burnt into her skin…But even accepting the premise that sex-traffickers frequently “brand” their victims—a common claim also utterly lacking in evidence—Papini’s burns could just as easily have been an act of torture…nothing else about the abduction [indicates]…an intent to force Papini into commercial sex and, in fact, Papini’s assailants eventually just let her go…Keith Papini has said that his wife’s captors beat her, cut off her hair, and “barely fed” her…Whatever injuries she suffered, overnight hospitalization was not required…Sherri told police that her abductors had been two Hispanic women driving a dark SUV…[who] wore masks…and spoke almost exclusively in Spanish…some archived posts on a now-defunct white-nationalist website, Skinheadz.com, [were] written by a “Sherri Graeff”—Papini’s maiden name. The posts, from 2003, discuss how proper “skinhead girls” should look and act…and detail Graeff’s alleged history of high-school skirmishes with Hispanic classmates…Papini’s Pinterest board…featured memes concerned with illegal immigration and Muslims…That board has since been deleted…one [meme] (captioned “Amen!”) [announces] “I will defend my rights against all enemies foreign & Obama”…

The Widening Gyre (#697)

The mainstream media keeps pretending “pizzagate” is about cranks, when actually it was a natural & predictable outgrowth of the “sex trafficking” hysteria they’ve aggressively promoted for the past 13 years:

Edgar Welch, arrested…after firing a…rifle inside the Washington, D.C., pizzeria Comet Ping Pong…[said] he drove up from North Carolina to get a “closer look” at the restaurant…and had no intention of firing a shot…”I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way.” Internet articles led him to believe that the pizzeria was the center of a child sex ring run by associates of Hillary Clinton, but “the intel on this wasn’t 100 percent,” he said, adding that just because there were no children “inside that dwelling,” it doesn’t mean there is no Pizzagate pedophile ring. Welch…says he doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories, but listens to Alex Jones…

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In the News (#691)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Backpage, BDSM, Broken Record, California, censorship, Change a Few Words, cops, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, I Spy, Illinois, Iowa, License To Rape, Madonna/whore, Minnesota, Missouri, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Power Play, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, rape, sex rays, Sex Rays (updates), South Carolina, surveillance, Think of the Children!, To Molest and Rape, Twitter, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state) on November 19, 2016| 2 Comments »

The war on drugs plays out as a war on the millions of people who use drugs. – Editors of the BMJ

Think of the Children!

So what if the church, school & playground are closed? Sex rays contaminate the buildings so the children are dangerously “sexualized” when they come in later!

There’s a club in Brentwood [Missouri] where you can get tied up and whipped, right next to both a church and a preschool…These parties happen one Saturday night a month in the American Legion Hall…near St. Mary Magdalene…The legion hall shares a driveway with the Elaine Rossi Academy for Children. A playground sits directly behind. The…event is called FLOG…[a snitch claims] her fear is the alcohol at the events, leading her to question whether the participants are really consenting…but Susan Wright…with the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom…said…FLOG’s rules [state]…You must leave if you’re intoxicated…she points out FLOG is a nonprofit club, not a business, that would be subjected to liquor laws…The pre-school next door…said they are aware of FLOG and that the monthly event does not take place at a time when there would be anything going on at the school…

License to Rape

Just protecting and serving: “…a civil court jury ruled that Chicago [cop] Scott Korhonen sexually assaulted a 20-year-old black man with a screwdriver. The taxpayers will pay $4 million to the victim. They will also continue to pay…Korhonen’s salary, because he gets to keep his job…” For more cop hijinks from Chicago, see the next item.

Droit du Seigneur

Do as they say, not as they do:

…Chicago [cop] William Whitley…was arrested…for sex trafficking of a minor and production of child pornography…[for paying] girls as young as 14…for sex at parties, at his apartment, and even in his car with his partner present. Whitley was also found to have taken graphic photos of the girls…a federal investigation into him was launched in September 2015…after the 14-year-old was arrested on outstanding warrants after being picked up in an FBI-orchestrated prostitution sting…Whitley…admitted to having sex…with…her…but claimed that he did not know she was underage…His file reveals at least 28 complaints against him, going back as far as 1991…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This is the kind of sick mind that believes in “porn addiction”:

A Christian pastor in Minnesota offered advice to a grieving husband whose wife suffered a miscarriage, suggesting his “struggle with lust and pornography” somehow contributed to the couples’ loss…Piper went on to insist god punishes people for their sins, and that “discipline” from god may “come in the form of harm, even death, to others that we love, as well as ourselves”…

Pyrrhic Victory

Watch what you say, comrade:

The FBI has signed a contract with Dataminr, a company that sifts through the Twitter newsfeed to identify issues and trends in real time. Dataminr will…give the FBI the capability to search the complete Twitter firehose in real time, using customized filters…the FBI will now have access to all messages written on Twitter, and will be able to search through the messages for key words and phrases, providing a level of social media monitoring that had been unavailable until now. They will be able to use Dataminr’s proprietary algorithms and geolocation tools to sift through the entirety of messages posted by Twitter’s 317 million average monthly users worldwide…the FBI noted that social media platforms are used by…“criminal organizations to further their illegal activity”…Criminal activities could include communication…Twitter’s Developer Agreement…states specifically that surveillance of Twitter users is prohibited in situations that would normally require a court order or subpoena. It also specifically bans any use of Twitter API or Twitter content by a government entity…

Remember, sex workers are “criminals”, so sex worker groups are “criminal organizations” and our ads are “criminal activity”.

Broken Record

When there’s this much concentrated stupidity it’s hard to choose a heading, but I think this is probably the most interesting part:

…[pig and fetishist] Mike Ferjak says it’s important [for the continuation of the hysteria] not to doubt the validity of human trafficking survivor’s stories…Ferjak [fantasizes] victims are recruited at the mall, school or in online chat rooms under a false promise of a dancing or modeling career…their picture and description are posted on buyer boards like “Backpage”…then [literally] sold in our own [literal] backyards. “When we saw the NCAA tournaments here earlier this year, Polk County saw a 45-percent increase in the number of persons being offered for sale”…He says that same spike happens during the 80/35 music festival, the Downtown Farmer’s Market and even the Iowa State Fair…Iowa is in the prime location for it due to interstates 35 and 80…

It’s not to hard to guess what this cornpone is doing while spinning his fantasies of raped teen girls.

Sex Rays

Scum like Webber imagine they have the right to treat whole neighborhoods like their private estates:

…conductor Julian Lloyd Webber says his prestigious neighbourhood has become blighted by vice dens. The musician has launched a fight against the illegal brothels after his wife…cellist Jiaxin Cheng, was mistaken for a sex worker…

Don’t want to worry about neighbors? Buy yourself a country house on some land, you pompous twit.

Change a Few Words (#625)

Though their condemnation of the drug war is still far too timid and they still give far too much respect to the idea that drug use is a social ill, it’s great to see so many physicians coming out against prohibition:

…the…esteemed British Medical Journal…followed [The Lancet in] urging governments to “investigate more effective alternatives to criminalisation of drug use and supply.” The…editorial notes that consumption of psychoactive substances is an ancient and persistent aspect of human behavior and that attempts to suppress it have had horrendous consequences, including crime driven by artificially high drug prices, promotion of blood-borne diseases, deaths linked to unpredictable potency and unreliable quality, and “appalling violence”…Because doctors “have ethical responsibilities to champion individual and public health, human rights, and dignity and to speak out where health and humanity are being systemically degraded,” the editors argue, they “should use their authority to lead calls for pragmatic reform informed by science and ethics”…

Criminal laws “informed by science and ethics”? LOL.

To Molest and Rape

Once again: if you think it matters whether a rapist cop was “on duty” or not at the time of the rape, you are part of the problem: “…agents with the SC Law Enforcement Division arrested a…[cop who raped three] women…while on duty…William McKinley Littlejohn was [merely] charged with three counts of misconduct in office…” but

Prosecutors are recommending a…Wapato [Washington cop] be sentenced to [merely] six months on electronic home monitoring after he pleaded guilty to third-degree rape. Travis Disney…raped a…woman he knew while off duty…Disney will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years…

Power Play

I can’t recall a more obvious case of a judge being intimidated into backing down from a ruling:

It looked like the courts would once again save us from prosecutorial overreach aimed at…Backpage—and in so doing, reaffirm the protection under federal law and the First Amendment that’s afforded third-party publishers of online content. On Wednesday morning, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman indicated that he would reject California’s case against Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer and two former site owners on charges of pimping, pimping a minor, and conspiracy. In a tentative ruling, Bowman agreed with the defense that the federal Communications Decency Act prohibits the charges against Ferrer and co-defendants Michael Lacey and James Larkin…he wrote…”Congress has spoken on this matter and it is for Congress, not this court, to revisit”…[but mere hours later] the judge…said he won’t dismiss the pimping charges just yet and would like more briefings from both sides before deciding whether to make the tentative ruling final…

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In the News (#683)

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

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

Droit du Seigneur

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

Pyrrhic Victory

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

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

Spotlight (#47)

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

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

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

Pearls Firmly Clutched

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

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

Torture Chamber

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

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

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

Canadian cops are trying to intimidate sex workers again:

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

Between the Lines

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Molest and Rape

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

No Moss

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

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

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

Send In the Clowns

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

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

Meanwhile, elsewhere in California:

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

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

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

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In the News (#678)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, Business As Usual, California, cops, Count the Idiocies, Do As I Say, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, Dutch Threat, escort services, evidence, Florida, Harm Magnification, Having and Eating Cake, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, Iowa, Kentucky, Lack of Evidence, language, Netherlands, New York, Of Course It Is, Oregon, Philippines, pimps, pizza!, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, racism, rape, red-light districts, Saving Them from Themselves, sexting, South Carolina, stripping, They Still Don't Get It, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, transgender, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims? on October 5, 2016| 1 Comment »

[Sex workers] report…violence more often from law enforcement officials than from any other group. – Alexandra Lutnick

Lack of Evidence

As long as these laws exist, all women are vulnerable to persecution by cops:

…a 40-year-old statute in the [New York] penal code…allows the police broad discretion in arresting anyone they deem to be loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution…The law is vague enough to make almost any posture vulnerable to suspicion. You could be arrested while talking to two men on a corner; while talking to someone through a car window; while walking down the street with a bottle of Korbel; for going to your job selling sofas; if it happens that you have worked as a prostitute before; just for wearing something [a cop] decides is too provocative…the Legal Aid Society of New York has handled so many of these cases of wrongful arrest, particularly among transgender women who are black and Hispanic, that…it filed a federal civil rights suit…on behalf of several plaintiffs…challenging the constitutionality of the law. Between 2012 and 2015…nearly 1,300 people were arrested in New York City under the loitering law. More than 600 were convicted, and close to 240 served some time in jail…five precincts…were responsible for more than two-thirds of the arrests, each [ruling over]…neighborhoods that are predominantly black and Hispanic…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I love it when they feed on each other: “North Charleston Police arrested Deputy Jason Mitchell at a motel…[after he] contacted [an] undercover cop by phone after seeing a [fake] post on Backpage.com…”

Where Are the Victims?

She “thought she was helping her friends” in the same way I “think” I’m Maggie McNeill:

A transgender woman and her partner who helped bring prostitutes to the UK from abroad have been spared jail by a judge, who said the couple believed they were “helping” their friends. Brazilian former sex worker Angel Gomes and her civil partner Leon Foster ran an organised prostitution ring for four years…they helped to bring in Gomes’ friends from the transgender community in South America, where they were already selling sex…the couple paid for travel expenses and sex aids including condoms. The business traded under the name “Kelly Shemales”…

In other words, it was an ordinary escort service specializing in transwomen.

Droit du Seigneur

Prohibitionists want these guys to “protect” us from pimps:

…Oak Grove [Kentucky] Police Sgt. Benjamin R. Walden [was arrested as a violent pimp after]…the state police…found that three adult women were being held against their will and forced to have sex with men at a…motel…Walden…[also] faces…charges…including first-degree sodomy, first-degree rape…assault…terroristic threatening and intimidating a participant in a legal process…Also arrested in the case were Michael Helton…and Kiersten Napodano…[Dennis] Cunningham, the Oak Grove police chief…described Walden as a “good officer”…

Saving Them From Themselves

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

An Iowa county attorney has threatened to brand a teen a “sex offender” because she sent a friend photos of herself scantily clad, the girl’s family [reported] in federal court. The photos…depict a 14-year-old girl, named only as Nancy Doe in the lawsuit, in her underwear. In one photo, she wears a sports bra, and in the other she is topless with her long hair covering her breasts…But the photos emerged again last spring when two male students were caught printing them off using a school printer, along with other photos of nude or partially nude male and female classmates…The school district turned the photographs over to the Knoxville Police Department…the girl’s parents wondered “what the fuss was about,” as the images…”were less ‘racy’ than photographs they see in fashion magazines and on television every day”…To escape…criminal charges, the students [were forced] to participate in a “diversion program” that required them to engage in community service, complete a [brainwashing program] on the [imaginary] dangers…of “sexting,” give up their laptops and cell phones for an unspecified period of time, and submit a written confession about their conduct to juvenile court services…When the Does refused to fill out the questionnaire or to enroll Nancy in the diversion program, [county attorney] Bull continued to threaten her with criminal prosecution…

They Still Don’t Get It

Let’s play “count the idiocies”:

Prosecutors from around the world say the fight against sex trafficking is moving online as traffickers use popular websites to advertise sexual services…an international sex trafficking summit in Waikiki that drew prosecutors from Asia, the US and Canada…victims are often unwilling to cooperate with investigators because they have endured a history of abuse…Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles County’s district attorney [bloviated moronically]…“It’s not like in the 80s and 90s where women were on the street. It’s all done by social media, cellphones, emails, text messages.” Michael Ramos, president of the National District Attorneys Association, said he plans to push for legislation in the US to make it illegal to use websites to solicit illegal sex and to hold internet companies accountable for sex trafficking on their platforms…“It’s just so easy right now…Instead of having prostitutes out on the corner like they used to in a red light district, now they just go online, they hit a button, and it’s like ordering a pizza”…Sonia Paquet, a Canadian prosecutor…said…“If we go on the internet site, we see the girls naked”…

1) “Sex trafficking” as a dysphemism for “sex work”. 2) Women are too stupid to post our own ads, so male “traffickers” must be doing it. 3) Streetwalkers have always been a minority of sex workers, even in classical times. The fraction has dropped from about 12-15% in the “80s and 90s” to maybe 8% now, hardly a vast shift. 4) Women who deny cop/prosecutor BDSM wanking fantasies must be “victims” who are “unwilling to cooperate” because of phantom abusers, not because cops & prosecutors are evil fucks out to destroy their lives; 5) It’s already illegal in the US to “solicit” for prostitution, whether online or off. 6) Courts have repeatedly declared that Section 230 protects websites from being “held accountable” (a moralistic euphemism for “scapegoated”) for third-party content. 7) Is anyone actually stupid enough to think he can get an escort just by “hitting a button”? 8) Do these assholes really expect people to believe getting a date with someone like me is easier than driving over to a stroll? 9) Pizza! 10) Ms. Pacquet unwittingly reveals the real issue with all this posturing & mouth-foaming: pictures of naked women, as always. Ten idiocies in 13 sentences is a pretty high score, even for prosecutors.

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake

This is actually an excellent analogy:

…As a stripper, the club does not pay you. There is no hourly wage you earn to stand around waiting for someone to ask you to take your clothes off…people believe strippers are independent contractors because they think that the money they pay for dances is given to the club, which in turn is doled out to the dancer in the form of a stipend or salary…but…it is exactly the opposite…Money paid for dances is paid to the dancer, who pays the club an agreed-upon rate for the privilege of conducting her business there. In essence, she is paying rent, or leasing space from the club for commerce…This is how many hairdressers operate their businesses…That hairdresser is running their own business out of that chair, which they pay rent on. Their calendar is their livelihood, and they might even be able to set their own rates based on their level of skill and expertise…they have certain branding to display and house rules they have to play by, and they have to pay rent to their landlord. But beyond that, they are the owner of a business and have their own customers that will often follow them if they move salons…

Dutch Threat

Not even close; the majority of sex businesses worldwide are controlled by sex workers. This level of ignorance is truly astonishing:

A social investment fund has agreed to operate several brothels in Amsterdam’s red light district…The Start Foundation helps vulnerable people find jobs…and…has now agreed to buy four buildings from the city council which had been taken over as part of the city’s [gentrification] efforts for the district…the 14 windows will be rented out to a new foundation called My Red Light…[which] describes itself as “the first sex company in the Netherlands and Europe in which sex workers have control”…Sex worker lobby group Proud has described the project as deceptive. “Lots of sex workers want to be their own bosses but they never get a permit”, [said] spokeswoman Yvette Luhrs…

If Men Were Angels

Sometimes even a little bit of “authority” is enough:

…Mark Alan Laverdure…[was charged in Oregon with 27] counts of…sexual abuse…[against] 5 [underage] female victims…from March 2003 through June 2014…there [may be] additional victims…Laverdure had once been employed with the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA)…

Business As Usual

I find it darkly amusing that amateurs are so shocked by this:

…the scandal isn’t just about [Celeste Guap], now known by her [legal] name, Jasmine Abuslin…“If you step back from it, how is it possible that this many [cops] could be engaged in this kind of activity over this period of time and she be the only one?” [Abuslin’s lawyer Pamela] Price [said]…Former victims say this type of police sexual misconduct is not a one-off…FBI [pig] Marty Parker [defends rapist cops by pretending most are impostors]…

If you want to understand the depth of Parker’s treason vs her own gender, compare the number of real-rapist-cop reports which appear under “To Molest and Rape” and “Above the Law” with the number of fake-rapist-cop reports under “License To Rape“.

To Molest and Rape

Cops love to claim they’re “helping” and “protecting” women when they molest or rape us:

…Florida…Trooper David Gonzalez was [only] charged with [simple] battery…after…he…pulled [a woman] over…and said, “you really look good tonight,” before directing her to move her car to a side street…he [then]…took her cell phone and added himself to her Snapchap account…[then] took a selfie with the woman, and…sent it to her friends “to see if she thought he was cute”…he…began hugging the woman “because she looked nervous”…then kissed her neck and reached under her shirt to grope her breast…After the woman reported Gonzalez…investigators began monitoring Snapchat communications between the two….[he told her] “I wanted to treat you with respect and do away with you(r) insecurities about yourself”…

Male readers: do you think you’d only be charged with simple battery if you did that to a woman?

Harm Magnification (#668)

The Philippines’ new president is carrying the “War on Drugs” to its logical conclusion:

…President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his country’s [more severe version of the same] war on narcotics [they all participate in] and escalating his brutal rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust. “Hitler massacred three million Jews…there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Killing that number of drug users would “finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition,” he said…

Too Close To Home (#672)

Liz Brown takes a scalpel to the King County sheriff’s incompetent response to her article, and man, there is blood everywhere:

…The sheriff of King County, Washington, John Urquhart, said [on a poplar Seattle radio show that] my article was not unfair and even “partially true”. What he objected to was the supposedly naive and “unicorn-ish” view it took toward prostitution clients; the idea that it was law enforcement, rather than the press, that sensationalized the story; the implication that finding prostitution customers online is safer than out on the streets; and the suggestion that King County could have acted differently considering existing laws…Urquhart [said] “You’re asking me not to enforce state law.” Nobody is asking that. But there is a huge amount of prioritization that goes into police work, and solving crimes where there are actual victims and public-safety concerns should take precedence. Which probably means not concocting elaborate, expensive, and years-long sting operations in order to entrap adults engaging in consensual sexual exchange and then misrepresent this as some sort of major blow against a sinister syndicate of international sex traffickers…

Please, please read the whole thing, unless you’re squeamish at the sight of a metaphorical evisceration.

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In the News (#667)

Posted in Current Events, Guest Columns, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, agency denial, Another Fine Mess, Australia, California, Canada, Celebrities, censorship, Check Your Premises, cops, Devil's Advocate, Don't Call It Trafficking, Droit du Seigneur, end demand, Eternal Vigilance, guest columnist updates, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, internet, language, Mexico, Mississippi, Monsters, Passive Voice, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, racism, rescue industry, scams, Schadenfreude, streetwalkers, Swedish model, The More the Better, transgender, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Yellow Fever on August 27, 2016| 3 Comments »

Most of the whores l’ve met are women who question things, who value their independence over social norms. – Kaytlin Bailey

Droit du Seigneur

He didn’t rape her, but he sure seems to think it was his privilege to fuck her:

A Mississippi cop was fired…after a video that went viral on social media shows him lurking in his patrol car near a high school, trying to coax a teenaged girl into cutting class, pressuring her into accompany him to “room” to have sex instead. [Darryl Stasher] said he “wanted to do more than just talk.” He then assured the teen nobody would find out what they were doing, and that he’d “take care of her”. “Oh. So you saying you ain’t fucking,” a disappointed [Stasher] can be heard asking after the student declined his advances that were caught on camera in the 49 second clip…

Schadenfreude

It’s always so sweet when a rescue industry scam is exposed:

For years, Jenny Williamson…has [hawked] her [fantasy] of rescuing girls from sex traffickers, spreading the Gospel while [raking in] hundreds of thousands…[she] has regaled audiences with the litany of horrors these girls suffer…Courage House [was]…closed…effective June 14, amid a flurry of state inspections that found numerous violations, including inadequate staffing levels…[despite] assets of…$1.4 million…Courage House was cited 16 times in the first six months of this year…10 were classified by the state as Type A, or serious enough to have an immediate impact on clients’ health, safety or personal rights…former workers [describe] Williamson as a temperamental leader with no child-development background who micromanaged her trained staff and became…swept up in her own publicity…staff members were…abruptly fired for…expressing concerns over [her inclusion]…of clients’ confidential information in fundraising or publicity efforts…[including] identifiable images of [inmates]…on the company’s Facebook page…[Williamson] routinely “paraded the girls around” for marketing purposes…Arlicia Lorentty, who was a social worker/case manager in the home in 2015, said…“Everything was a photo op”…girls were…[forced to attend] a Christian church…whose leaders and congregation have been heavily involved in Courage House…

The More the Better

There’s no “if” about it; Melania Trump is or was a sex worker. Even if she was never an escort as rumors allege (and I think it very likely that she was indeed one), she posed for nude photos (including a lesbian scene) and is now a trophy wife…and sorry, ladies, but both of those are definitely kinds of sex work. When people started mocking her for using an incompetent speechwriter, I defended her not on the grounds of the political beliefs she claims to profess, but on the grounds that she is a fellow whore doing her job (which for a wife means emotionally & socially supporting her husband) and should not be mocked merely because he happens to be a delusional narcissist. Margaret Corvid has more to say about the new rumors:

…when you share those allegations, pointing and laughing, saying “Look!”, calling her a liar, calling her a whore, saying that she is unfit for the White House because she was photographed sexually, you are stepping on everyone who does sex work in this country every day—most of whom are much more vulnerable than Melania Trump…[she] isn’t a liar for covering up sex work…[because] it…is necessary for survival in a country where selling sex is illegal and where it is so stigmatized that it can get you fired from your “mainstream” job, get your kids taken away, and destroy your reputation for life…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

…that Canada’s new law is “protecting” sex workers from making money from lonely old men:

Two Sydney men have pleaded guilty and were fined…in connection with a prostitution sting…after…Judge Brian Williston ruled that [entrapment isn’t entrapment when it’s politically popular]…Gordon Ernest MacLean, 66, and John Howard MacLean, 66…were fined a total of $500 after the judge waived costs and surcharges. They also must submit a DNA sample…

Because obviously, the cops never know when these hardened “sex criminals” may strike again.

Monsters

[Mexican] police do little to protect the transgender community and [rarely investigate trans sex workers’] deaths…Mexico has one of the highest rates of transphobic violence in the world, according to a recent report by the Cornell University Law School in New York and the Transgender Law Center…The number of documented murders of transgender people rose to 46 in 2012 from four in 2008, with actual figures likely to be significantly higher…transgender women in particular have suffered from a fierce backlash against same-sex marriage and other advances…

Passive Voice

Even though it’s a year old, this tutorial in how the past exonerative tense works is too brilliant to pass up. It’s also too brilliant for me to risk butchering by any attempt at synopsis, so do yourself a favor and go read it.

Devil’s Advocate

This article could’ve appeared under so many headings; “Cops and Robbers” due to the vigilantism and “Bait and Switch” because of the sleazy entrapment tactics (“18” in big letters and “15” in fine print, for example, when any whore can tell you horny guys rarely read past the pictures). But I think the fact that the state convicted two men for non-crimes against a “person” who does not even exist puts it in this category:

The creators of the “Tinder Experiment” set up a fake profile of a [a fake 18-year-old girl pretending to be] 15…in a bid to [entrap careless, stupid men]…They then secretly filmed conversations and face-to-face meetings with the men before shaming them online. Those videos were removed and their website shut down by police, but [the sleazy pigs were still happy]…to use the information from the “experiment” [to destroy lives]…Nicolaos Katsamas was…sentenced last month to two- and-a-half years’ jail…Tobias Kilsby was also jailed for two years…Detective Senior Constable Tas Gagatsakis [admitted that]…Tinder is [only] for users 18 and over…

Don’t Call It Trafficking

This isn’t called “trafficking”, while the same demographic choosing to sell sex to survive is:

…Island View…housed more than 100 [“troubled teens”]…aged 13-17, and charged parents at least $10,000 a month…the staff tormented and abused them — pitting teens against each other, physically restraining them, secluding them, medicating them with high doses of powerful antipsychotics and forcing them to sit without speaking for hours or days at a time…[after a lawsuit] it…closed…[and] a new company, Family Help & Wellness, took over the property. The facility began to operate under a different name, Elevations RTC. It continues to bring in new students today…39 of the 48 employees listed on Elevations’ website worked for Island View…At least 1,500 [teens] in 30 states alleged that they were abused at private treatment facilities in 2005 alone…The troubled-teen industry is almost entirely unregulated…Congress has repeatedly refused to intervene…Parents who send their children to residential treatment centers like Island View often hire independent contractors, colloquially known as “transporters,” to forcibly [abduct] their kids…

Yellow Fever (#509)

Remember Tenancingo, the Mexican town which was supposedly infested with “pimps” but actually had only two (plus employees) and 26 supposed “victims”? Apparently Canada wants a “pimp town” too, and naturally they claim it’s the country’s largest black community. But they’re not racists, no sirree!

One of the first things you notice when you enter this community northeast of Halifax is a large billboard that tells you you’re in “Canada’s Largest Black Community”…every driver here acknowledges oncoming drivers — even strangers — with a wave of the hand. It’s not the welcome you expect in a place that has repeatedly been described as the birthplace of North Preston’s Finest, a violent gang that specializes in trafficking young women and girls as young as 14 in the sex trade…residents, even local police…insist the claims about a criminal gang originating in North Preston are exaggerated, misleading or manufactured by outsiders who don’t know their community…But police [and other prohibitionists] outside the province…[masturbate furiously to fantasies of] a community that has churned out generations of ruthless pimps who are spread across the country and unafraid to use brute force to punish women in their “stable” if they step out of line…

Guest Columnist: Kaytlin Bailey

My friend Kaytlin’s one-woman show is part of the Fringe Festival:

Cuntagious [is] a one woman show, written by Kaytlin Bailey – now a stand up comedian, once a sex worker…“the first run was really a coming out process. I performed the show before I told my family. I knew most of the audience members personally, so they were very supportive…when you come out, other people come out. I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me to tell me their own experience with sex work, I love that”…

I’ve seen the show twice, and I will again when she brings it back to Seattle; you really should, too.

Another Fine Mess (#547)

As I and many others have said, sex drives technological development. And I think that’s what the prudes are really afraid of:

…The World Wide Web turned 25 this month…The sexualized female body has, from the beginning, been the catalyst for attempts to regulate what’s on the Web, ultimately shaping what the Internet looks like today. Only a couple of years after Berners-Lee began to worry about an incoming flood of photos of nude women, Congress was gripped by the “great Internet sex panic of 1995”…the Communications Decency Act…was signed into law on Feb. 8, 1996, and thousands of websites went dark in protest…provisions that criminalized sending or displaying to a minor “any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communications” that were sexual in a “patently offensive” way…[were determined by] the Supreme Court…[to be] unconstitutionally vague and [were] struck…down…Yet another part of the widely loathed CDA — one the Supreme Court has never heard any challenges to — also helped bring about the Web we now know. Section 230 immunizes service providers from lawsuits over the speech of their users. It’s the law that lets Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Twitter, Yelp, Craigslist and Reddit exist. Without its provisions, a service such as Twitter could be sued into nonexistence if an individual user sent a single defamatory tweet…

Eternal Vigilance (#617)

Rent in exchange for sex isn’t “free”; it has been paid for with sex:

A room in return for sex…the…landlord cashing in on desperate, vulnerable and homeless women in London. A recent report has unveiled a disturbing attempt to exploit homeless women by offering free accommodation in return for sexual favors…There are hundreds of listings…by men either obliquely or explicitly (some very explicitly) offering free housing to women for sex….they also include men who are expressly targeting adverts at homeless women…

How are the ads “explicitly targeting homeless women”? Do they read, “only homeless women need apply” and require proof of homelessness? This looks to me like nothing more than Puritans upset about the fact that some women are comfortable paying our rent (and other expenses) with sex.

Check Your Premises (#636)

Another cop so disconnected from reality that she thinks she can “build communication with sex workers” while stealing their income by harassing their clients:

A new strategy to tackle prostitution in [Redbridge, London] will see the police’s focus shift from the sex workers to [demonized clients and partners]…Insp Gellatley’s team aims to disrupt clients while engaging in a relationship of trust with prostitutes. “We are trying to build communication with the sex workers” [she said]…

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In the News (#662)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, animals, Bait and Switch, Brazil, Broken Record, California, cell phones, consensual crime, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, Do As I Say, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, end demand, Florida, Georgia, Hard Numbers, hysteria, Ireland, male prostitutes, New York, Peeping Toms, politicians, prohibitionist myths, scams, Scapegoats, sex offender registry, sex toys, Something Rotten In Sweden, sporting events, Standard Operating Procedure, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Swedish model, Tennessee, Texas, The Course of a Disease, universal criminality, Universally Criminal updates, Washington DC on August 10, 2016| 2 Comments »

Increasingly…governments have criminalized more and more behaviors that are part of everyday life, adding harsh fines and possible jail time to misdemeanors and crimes that weren’t punished so harshly or even at all before. – German Lopez

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t:

…Orange County [Florida] Sheriff Deputy [Mike Asbury] quit while he was under investigation for allegedly paying a prostitute for sex…the woman’s house was…under surveillance…after [nosy] neighbors complained of too many people going in and out…and…took pictures of men going inside the home…Investigators checked the license plate of Asbury’s car and it linked back to the Sheriff’s Office…

Peeping Toms

Trying to turn Lawrence into a “monogamous vanilla gay amateurs only” club:

In Sandy Springs, Georgia…“[a]ny device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs is obscene material…” A marital aid shop…[argued] all the way to the 11^th Circuit that a ban on sex toys interfered with the right to “[p]rivate, consensual intim acy” provided under the 14^th Amendment …Flanigan’s…[tagged] out for a more sympathetic plaintiff mid-way through the process: “Davenport suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses sexual devices with her husband to facilitate intimacy“…Another plaintiff claimed that he wanted to use sex toys in his artwork…Unfortunately for non-artsy couples and frisky singles in the Sandy Spring area, who doubtless strictly observe the prohibition, the 11^th Circuit found that, per its previous opinion, there is no right to buy or sell…In fact, per its 2004 opinion, there is no right to sexual privacy…This is a surprising outlier opinion in a country where even Ted Cruz couldn’t persuade the conservative 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals to keep a sex toy ban…the 5^th Circuit didn’t hesitate to note that Lawrence v. Texas was pretty explicit about letting people be explicit, especially when the law banning “immoral” conduct was only sporadically enforced, suggesting that it was more about making a moral statement than actually fixing any sort of problem…

Droit du Seigneur

Most politicians are a bit more careful when indulging in drugs with hookers:

The mayor of the City of Fairfax [Virginia] was arrested…for distribution of methamphetamine in an uncover sting…Richard “Scott” Silverthorne…was allegedly distributing meth…through a website used to arrange for casual sexual encounters between men…an undercover detective made contact with the…mayor after creating a [fake] profile… “Undercover detectives agreed to meet the suspect for a group sexual encounter in exchange for methamphetamine”…[a news] release said…

It Looks Good On Paper

This is, as we’ve seen before, pure bullshit; only a few sex workers even qualify to be considered for the “safe harbor”, and it’s usually contingent upon her producing a “pimp” to sate the bloodlust of cops and prosecutors…even though, as we well know, very few whores have anyone who could be thrown under the bus even if they wanted to do that. The so-called “services” these big talkers claim to be able to “connect” people with are just ordinary welfare services anyone could apply for, and the so-called “connection” is rarely more than giving them a phone number. What I find interesting, though, is the apparent move away from “end demand” tactics, possibly due to low conviction rates but possibly due to something more important such as legal liability from lawsuits from sting victims. I can’t think of another reason a cop would say something as moronic as “The johns are very reluctant to respond to ads” while simultaneously claiming that “the situation has gotten worse”.

Universal Criminality

This is what happens when cops are allowed to “enforce” laws against acts that hurt nobody:

…low-level offenses can trap someone for life — and even to death — in the criminal justice system…It begins with one ticket or a traffic stop. But if someone can’t afford to pay that fine, police might try to stop or arrest him or her again to get the person to pay up. This can lead to someone getting fined again for not paying up the first time. And again. And again. One ticket leads to a vicious cycle that can sink someone for life. With each of these encounters, someone’s record piles up — giving [cops] more reason, in their view, to stop him or her, because they recognize the person, or perhaps see the person’s record when running a license plate…And with each of these stops, people are exposed to more instances in which a police encounter could go tragically wrong. And it happens disproportionately to poor people of color. As those who are already heavily policed, they are the ones who are more likely to catch a cop’s eye if they run a stop sign, fail to signal on a turn, have a broken taillight, or sell untaxed cigarettes…

Scapegoats

Pig invents new excuse for criminalization of sex with goats:

A Georgia man…was arrested and charged with bestiality…for engaging in inappropriate relations with a goat…neighbors of Freddie Wadsworth [ratted him out]…Bestiality “is the single greatest predictor of people who will molest children,” Detective Jeremy Hoffman, of the Fairfax County, Va., Sheriff’s Office [oinked, presenting no evidence whatsoever in support of this fantasy]…

Standard Operating Procedure

{Yawn}. See me yawning there? Lots of other whores reading this are, too:

Malia Litman of Dallas TX describes herself as a stay-at-home mom…[who] has spent $100,000 suing the U.S. government to turn over 3,900 pages of secret records about widespread sexual abuse and misbehavior by the U.S. Secret Service. “A culture of ‘wheels up; rings off’ meant even married agents could party on foreign trips…A [sic] agent who missed his flight later showed up drunk with two prostitutes. He was not disciplined…Agents “engaged” with prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red-light district during an advance team trip…A supervisor took a subordinate to a sex show while on duty…A male agent’s gun was stolen by a male prostitute he solicited online. The gun was never recovered“…Litman has had to pay $100,000 for the records out of her own pocket because [she is a dingbat]…

Amateurs who read this, be honest with me…does this kind of stuff actually shock y’all? Seriously? None of this is even good enough to share in shop-talking sessions. Except for the stolen gun, this is all pretty typical.

Counterfeit Comfort (#52)

New York is obsessed with the fantasy that people condemned to the “sex offender” registry use video games to abduct children:

New York state officials think Pokemon Go might be a great tool for sex offenders to kidnap children—gotta catch ’em all!—and now the governor himself, Andrew Cuomo, is calling for legislation…[which] would prevent sex offenders on parole from playing the game in which animated creatures—from Nintendo’s Pokemon universe—appear on your phone screen while you walk around. The legislation…also calls upon the game’s creators to eliminate any Pokemon within 100 feet of a registered sex offender’s home…

Stupor Bowl

Yes, August is indeed “before the Super Bowl”. It’s also before the year 2100, the collapse of human civilization and the heat death of the universe, and this sting is linked about as closely to those events as it is to “sex trafficking” or football:

A prostitution sting at a high-end Houston area hotel has resulted in ten arrests…Constable Alan Rosen…[lied that] the goal was not to make arrests, but rather to highlight the problem of human trafficking and see if his team of [sadistic perverts] could [get publicity]…It’s a huge issue as we get closer to the Super Bowl next year in Houston. That game is one of the busiest days for human trafficking all year, according to [thoroughly debunked prohibitionist propaganda]…Rosen knows he’s not going to rid the world of prostitution…To him, this effort is about [getting himself re-elected by ignorant morons]…

Hard Numbers (#426)

Exactly like the World Cup two years ago. Why can’t people learn?

…the expectation of earning more money during the Olympics has been frustrated in Brazil…Prostitution Observatory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, working with hundreds of prostitutes, estimates that, broadly speaking, the scenario that happened in the World Cup in Brazil 2014 will be repeated…The movement of customers fell by around 15% during the World Cup…and now, many of the local “fast and cheap” brothels are closing their doors during the Games. According to anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette…some of the local sex workers are even thinking of going on vacation during the Games…In [Blanchette’s] opinion, there are many prostitutes who end up believing the “expectations inflated by the media” and put much hope that the Olympic Games are a good deal but then find that this is “a myth”…it is also not expected that a large flood of prostitutes from other parts of Brazil will move to Rio, which researchers Prostitution Observatory say is another myth…

Bait and Switch

Whenever you see claims that a sting “caught pedophiles” or is “fighting the demand for child sex trafficking”, refer back to the original article in this heading:

As part of “Operation Someone Like Me” undercover agents posted ads on…Backpage.com, to find people [they could frame for seeking] sex with juveniles, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said…They got 485 responses [yet somehow only arrested…41 [victims]…18 [were] men [the cops successfully tricked]…Also arrested were six women and a juvenile…[the other 16 were]…charged with either patronizing prostitution [or] prostitution…One of the women was [jailed]…

The Course of a Disease (#510)

Because naturally a politician can’t recognize that a consensual activity should just be let alone by the government; that boot has to be on somebody’s neck:

Minister of State for Training and Skills John Halligan…said he strongly disagreed with criminalisation calls, saying that sex workers should be regulated and subject to regular health checks…“Why would we want to fine somebody or make it a criminal offence for two consenting adults to have sex?…would there not be lonely men out there? Would there not be men who have a disfigurement or who are disabled?…So, there’s an opportunity for them maybe to pay for it and we’re saying ‘no’! That’s cruel”…the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland said it was happy that a Government Minister was questioning the “dangerous proposals” contained in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2014…but [does] not support the type of “overly regulated” legalised sex industry which exists in Germany and the Netherlands…[where] “only the very privileged few workers who can jump through all the hoops and work independently”…

Something Rotten in Sweden (#651)

Slowly but surely, we’re forcing them to listen, and prohibitionists’ responses are showing them for the authoritarians they are:

…messages [from sex workers] came in response to a June article [about an anti-sex work propaganda campaign]…that featured billboards, radio spots, posters and videos aimed at [indoctrinating the public in] sex trafficking [mythology]…The…readers who contacted me about the story told me they were bothered because it was missing voices from sex workers. Because prostitution is illegal in…California, I didn’t think the…article needed to explore that particular issue. But the criticism was not lost on me, and the points [Norma Jean Almodovar & Maxine Doogan] raised struck me as worthy of further consideration…Summer Stephan, a chief deputy district attorney, said she has heard the criticism, but she remains proud of the San Diego campaign, which aims to “inform (human trafficking) victims that they are victims”…

Cut. Print.

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