You want to film something, bitch? Film this! – Nathan Church
Well, I got my computer back Monday, and was exceptionally pleased to see that my wizard of a technician managed to recover everything! I was also pleased to see that when I reconstructed both of last weekend’s columns I had only forgotten two items in each one, and now that they’ve been safely inserted into this weekend’s columns I suppose I can say I’m officially caught up (though I’m still scrambling to get a couple of weeks ahead on my daily columns as I prefer). This week Jesse Walker edged out Radley Balko for the top spot, so everything above the first video is Jesse’s, while the first three below the video are Radley’s. The video itself was made by Commander Chris Hadfield on the International Space Station and provided by Mike Siegel, while the second video was made by Harvey Silverglate and provided by Mistress Matisse. The links below Radley’s were contributed by Chi Mgbako, Amy Alkon, Lenore Skenazy, Furry Girl, and Jack Shafer (in that order), and the last three by John David Galt (“Dubai”), Kevin Wilson (“freedom”) and Walter Olson (“dead fish”).
To make a great distinction between being paid for an hour’s sexual services, or an hour’s typing, or an hour’s acting on a stage is to make a distinction that is not there. – Margo St. James
Forty years ago today (on Mother’s Day of that year), Margo St. James founded COYOTE, the very first sex worker rights organization. Ironically, she was set on that path in 1962 by a cop who decided she looked like a streetwalker and a judge who convicted her of prostitution without any real evidence: “I said in court, ‘Your honor, I never turned a trick in my life!’ he responded, ‘Anyone who knows the language is obviously a professional.’ My crime was I knew too much to be nice girl.” Once she had a criminal record, she found that she could not get any other work, and so decided she might as well do what she had been accused of. And though she only worked for four years, she continued to identify with the hookers and eventually founded an organization called WHO:
…Whores, Housewives and Others. Others meant lesbian, but it wasn’t being said out loud yet, even in liberal bohemian circles. The first meeting of WHO was held on Alan Watt’s houseboat. The name COYOTE came from novelist Tom Robbins who dubbed me the COYOTE Trickster…Richard Hongisto, a liberal sheriff elected in San Francisco about that time attended my parties. He had been a cop, and had a sociology degree. I…asked him what it would take to get NOW, and Gay rights groups to support prostitutes’ rights…He said that we needed someone from the victim class to speak out…I decided to be that someone…and I hoped the hookers would join me. The PR people responsible for getting the sheriff elected volunteered to help me with COYOTE…I started organizing internationally with…Jennifer James, an anthropology professor…[who] coined the word decriminalization and was responsible for getting NOW to make it a plank in their 1973 convention. COYOTE published a newsletter from 1974-79 and the Hooker’s Ball became popular, attracting 20,000 people in 1978…
Let that sink in: the largest mainstream feminist organization actually supported sex worker rights for a short time, though the neofeminists destroyed that within just a few years. Still, it looked for a while as though there was nowhere to go but up. COYOTE chapters sprang up in Sacramento and Florida, and similar organizations were formed elsewhere; there was PONY in New York, PUMA in Massachusetts, CUPIDS and PEP in Michigan, KITTY in Kansas City, PASSION in New Orleans, OCELOT in San Diego, KAT in Los Angeles, ASP in Seattle and DOLPHIN in Hawaii. On June 2nd, 1975 French whores in Lyon held the protest which led to the formation of the French Collective of Prostitutes, and a sister organization soon formed in England; they and several others joined with COYOTE “to form the International Committee for Prostitutes’ Rights (ICPR), the organization whose work and example helped to win prostitution law reform in a number of European countries and provided an example which inspired similar campaigns in many other parts of the world.” In 1976, COYOTE filed the lawsuit which led to decriminalization in Rhode Island, and by 1977 even well-known journalists and politicians were listening.
Had HIV not arrived on the scene a few years later, criminalization might have been merely a black period of history by now. But arrive it did, swinging the balance of power to the neofeminists and their fundamentalist Christian allies. Margo moved to Europe to help sex worker rights efforts there, and COYOTE was directed by Samantha Miller and Gloria Lockett, who worked to make the organization more responsive to the concerns of minority sex workers and those who weren’t escorts (including strippers, phone sex operators, etc). During the AIDS panic of the ‘80s and the neofeminist ascendance of the ‘90s, COYOTE was too busy fighting disinformation and stigma to make any actual progress, and by the time new organizations like SWOP started to appear around the turn of the century it had run out of steam. Margo (who had returned to the US in 1993) decided to concentrate on sex worker health, and in 1999 COYOTE became the St. James Infirmary, which provides free medical care and social services for sex workers. The only other remaining chapter is the Los Angeles one, which has been inactive since about the same time. But though the mother of all sex worker organizations has ceased to exist in its original form, every current activist group owes it – and Margo – a debt of gratitude for showing that it could be done.
The greatest special-effects artist of all time has passed away at the age of 92. His movies are among my all-time favorites, and no digital creature has ever entertained me as much as Ray’s masterful puppetry still does. And even though he’s been retired for 32 years, I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that the world will be just a little less magical without him.
Formalised money-sex exchanges get the attention and conflict…lots of other exchanges are ignored, a line is drawn between commercial and non-commercial sex. But that line is imaginary. Many people who expect to be compensated for their company will never call themselves sex workers or escorts…
A Colorado woman was convicted of prostitution for answering a personal ad; after trying to talk her into having sex in a parking lot, a disguised cop “shoved a fistful of cash in front of her face and issued a command: ‘TAKE IT!’…Moments later, the car was surrounded [by] ‘Guns and guys in black with masks on’…the prosecution focused on the word ‘roses’ in the Craigslist ad…” Maybe if this sort of thing starts to happen more often, amateurs will start to wake up to the fact that anti-whore laws harm everyone.
[For] five years…[William Coleman has been] force-fed…Starving himself…is the only way he has to…protest his conviction. Not eating is his only available free speech act…He and his lawyer have gone to court to stop the force-feedings, but a judge ruled against him in March…Coleman is…[not at] Guantánamo…where a mass hunger strike of 100 prisoners has brought…force-feeding to American newspapers, if not American consciences…but…in Connecticut…Guantánamo is not an anomaly. Prisoners…are routinely and systematically force-fed every day…force-feedings…are considered torture by most of the world’s medical and governing bodies…yet most media outlets continue to portray feeding tube use as a “complex ethical debate.” It’s not. Competent prisoners go on hunger strike because they have something to say and no other way to say it. Prison officials choose not to hear — and silence them with tubes…
American’s mathematical illiteracy goes clear up to the White House, whose spokesman recently claimed that almost 4% of school-age American girls have become “child sex slaves” since the beginning of the panic a decade ago. Also of note: since the government was unable to shut down Backpage via unconstitutional censorship demands, it is now claiming that it intentionally gave up trying.
Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) have announced…a new journal devoted to the study of pornography. Porn Studies, to be edited by Professor Feona Attwood of Middlesex University and Dr Clarissa Smith of the University of Sunderland, will be the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts…
…Thousands of sex workers in Sonagachi have lost their lifelong savings…in Ponzi schemes…”about [30 million rupees] has been lost”…[said] Bharati [of Durbar Mahila Samanaya Committee]…Till 2004-05…sex workers [only] deposited their earnings and took loans…[at] Usha Bank…but…7-8 agents [who] were sacked by [the] Bank…continued to operate in the red light area. “Sex workers were easily trapped because the agents were well known to them or were their relatives…” [said a bank officer]…Bharati says, “We…repeatedly issued warnings…But you can’t stop anyone…hell bent to invest her hard earned money in schemes promising much higher returns.” The Durbar has recently launched a massive awareness programme…
…Dongguan…has a population of about 7 million and a reputation as the Chinese capital of sex…Between 500,000 and 800,000 people – some 10 per cent of Dongguan’s migrant population – are in some way employed in the world’s oldest profession…[including] 300,000 sex workers…[but] authorities are now…trying to push prostitution off Dongguan’s streets with a crackdown…
A company within Sweden’s home care services…mistreated migrant workers by making false promises about work conditions…Hassan…said that his official job offer stated that he would be employed full-time by…TPS Vårdteam…with a monthly wage of 26,500 kronor ($4,000)…”In the beginning I didn’t get any work at all…Then I had to work seven days a week….[for] only…8,000 kronor per month”…the company had not paid in any taxes at all for Hassan…
Tulsa police have…charged 23 individuals under a state law that permits a felony to be filed when a person suspected of prostitution is arrested within 1,000 feet of a church or school. “It’s just a nightmare,” said defense attorney, Charles Kania…a “scarlet letter on their foreheads that follows them forever”…The felony charges are part of a stepped-up effort by police to get tough on prostitution…Sgt. Todd Evans said…”Most of Tulsa is within a thousand feet of a church or school”…[and] police have sometimes opted to book individuals under another statute that makes it a felony to utilize a computer to violate any state law…
…Active Blessing Uganda…[promised that children] would get an education and live a better life…instead [they were] denied basic rights and exploited…76 children, aged between four and 16 years, have been rescued from the alleged human traffickers…the children are malnourished…do domestic work…in return for food and when they fall sick…are not cared for…the parents [were]…always prevented…from visiting…
…Being poor in the Philippines…means…no matter how much you believe things to be wrong you must believe it to be right when the rich, your master (amo)…[says] so…That…[is] why it was not difficult for the feminist (abolitionists) to appropriate our voices and to start…speaking for themselves in our name…For years, we could only stand , mouths gagged, as we watched our new “amos” build their careers speaking for other underprivileged and “mindless” women in their list who they claim do not have the ability to speak for themselves…We…do not understand the arrogance by which they have anointed themselves our saviors…what we want is save ourselves from them instead…we really do not care about “patriarchy”, “commodification” and other words they spew. Those matters don’t bring food on our table nor pay for our rent. All we are interested in is to work undisturbed…It is time to tell the world that only sex workers [can] speak for sex workers…
Last month saw the publication of the EU’s first Trafficking in Human Beings report, which…is (properly) littered with disclaimers…Unfortunately…the press release…[went] for the handy soundbite…so we’ve been deluged with headlines like “Human trafficking increased by 18%” when…the report doesn’t show it did any such thing…if all the statistics were accepted as readily as the “18% increase” has been, it would be a little bit inconvenient for some…Contrary to what we’re constantly told by the anti-trafficking movement, the most recent figures make it hard to discern any link between trafficking and the legal status of sex work. The Dutch rate is very high, but the Cyprus rate is higher – and Cyprus has much stricter laws than the Netherlands…Romania, where sex work itself is illegal, is nearly as high. Hungary (legal), Portugal (legal) and Lithuania (illegal) are tied for last. Austria and Germany are also relatively low – in fact, Germany and Sweden are tied, at 0.8 per 100,000. And the German rate has remained more or less constant over the three years surveyed, while Sweden’s has quadrupled…But sex workers’ rights advocates shouldn’t leap on those figures, either, because truthfully the whole report is pretty hopelessly undermined by its methodological weaknesses…
Sometime…[in] April, an Ohio transgender woman was…stabbed repeatedly and then tied to a concrete block and cast into a pond. She was left with no clothes below the waist, perhaps to shame her…But…insensitive stories by the local press…[wrote] about [her] as if she were a bizarre spectacle, not a victimized human being…the Cleveland Plain Dealer…used a mugshot of [Cemia] Acoff instead of the other readily available photos…the [headline which now reads]…“Oddly dressed body found in Olmsted Township identified,” originally said “oddly dressed man,” (you can see it in the url; it was changed after readers and activists protested)…the story [also] refers to her as Carl Acoff (her birth name) and uses a male pronoun...[a follow-up] story…details what she was wearing…lists old petty “crimes”…[and refers to the] hormones [she was carrying as] “dangerous drugs”…
…The anti-sex trafficking cause is already thick with moral panic, misinformation, and ill-informed, PR-boosting celebrity activists, and you’re cluttering the already-diminished discourse with further nonsense….[which spawns] attitudes and policies that actively harmsex workers. You are ignoring the freely-available perspectives and requests of real-life sex workers because they interfere with your romantic notion of the Prostituted Woman as a forlorn, passive victim who needs to be saved. If you engage with sex workers before you form a view on what’s oppressing them, you might find that criminalisation and stigma are higher-priority concerns than mythical drug-dealing pimps wielding persuasive charm and Beyoncé’s hotpants…
…an undercover police officer…[repeatedly paid for sex] over five months…in a fight against prostitution and human trafficking. Officers say such methods led to…[their raiding] two businesses [and] arresting…four alleged prostitutes and two alleged pimps. But the methods…were criticized…by legal…experts and women’s advocates as excessive, unnecessary and misapplied…prostitutes can be arrested and charged in Indiana as soon as an agreement to pay for a sex act is made…Plus…if the women indeed had been…working…against their will, the sex acts they performed on the officer only contributed to their humiliation, exploitation and degradation…Aaron Dietz, head of the…Task Force…which conducted the nine-month sting, said…the sophisticated nature of the prostitution ring required officers to take more extreme measures…Dietz and others wanted to emphasize that it was not a pleasurable experience for the officer, but entirely necessary. “No one…really wants to go into these…It’s something that’s ethically and morally very trying, so I’d do anything to keep guys out of there.”
You’d do anything? Then how about advocating for decriminalization, you fucking filthy liar?
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free. – Charles Evans Hughes
Language changes over time; words come and go, and new words are used in place of older ones. One word which was common in my youth but has since declined sharply in popularity is “chauvinism”, meaning “blind and fanatical devotion to something”. A chauvinist is one who believes his own group, belief system or whatever is superior to all others and refuses to even consider the possibility that it is not so; usually, he is willing to use state violence to enforce his own views. So although we’ve devised a plethora of neologisms over the past several decades, usually ending in “-ism” or “-phobia” and often cumbersome, awkward or improperly derived, we actually don’t need any of them because “chauvinism” covers the whole spectrum without having to add yet another term to the ever-growing list. Furthermore, the word correctly places the stress where it belongs, on the bigot rather than on those toward whom his bigotry is directed, and thereby makes the behavior pattern far more obvious.
When one accepts at face value the excuses by which chauvinists justify their positions, the true connections between those actions may be obscured or even wholly invisible. But once attention is focused on the chauvinism itself rather than on its targets, the connections suddenly appear. Take, for example, the current moral panic over “human trafficking”, a term so nebulously defined that it is nearly impossible to make any valid factual statements about it at all. Looking at the various phenomena to which the label is applied – exploitative labor, arranged marriage, unorthodox immigration, usury, surrogate motherhood, sex work, even attempted rape – it’s difficult to understand how they’re connected other than the fact that most of them involve sex, travel or both. Furthermore, sometimes things which clearly seem to fit the popular definition aren’t called “trafficking” at all, especially when a government or multi-national corporation is the “trafficker”.
But if one stops listening to the claims of those who spread the hysteria, and instead looks for common factors, it soon boils down to chauvinism: every single one of the things called “trafficking” is a transgression against conventional middle-class white Western ideas of morality and propriety. Nobody is concerned about immigrants doing awful work that middle-class people don’t want, so this is rarely labeled “trafficking” even when it clearly fits the standard definition; but because sex work offends both conservative Christian and radical feminist notions about “proper” female behavior, it is labeled “trafficking” even when it clearly involves neither travel nor coercion. Once we recognize that Euro-American chauvinism has become widespread enough to maintain a xenophobic panic, one can also predict that other forms of institutionalized bigotry around issues of sex and travel should be popular right now, and indeed that is the case: In Europe we see persistent attempts to ban pornography and Muslim clothing, and in the US assaults on abortion rights and mass deportations. Superficially, these things may seem to be unrelated, but in actuality they are all motivated by exactly the same thing: the quest to purge from Western society everyone who is different from “us”. Our persons, practices and ways of life are assumed to be superior to everyone else’s, so obviously every nonconformity is a contaminant to be removed, by violence if necessary.
There is one exception, but it proves the rule. Gay rights was for a very long time an uphill battle, especially in the pathologically-prudish United States. Yet in the past few years, opposition to the cause has quickly withered and died with astonishing speed…astonishing, that is, to anyone who fails to take chauvinism into account. If one insists that the cause of opposition to gay rights is “homophobia”, in other words a particular aversion to homosexuals, the rapid turn of the tide makes no sense whatsoever. But when one realizes that the same hatred is dispensed to anyone who is outside the norm, the reason for the change becomes clear: same-sex marriage. While gay people were chanting “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”, progress was achingly slow. But once they started to stress how little different they were from heterosexuals – “Look, we even want to get married and form families like you do, see?” – opposition to granting them rights rapidly dissolved. Once the majority came to see gay people as sufficiently “normal”, their chauvinism was no longer an issue; the same can be said for European Muslims who adopt Western dress. The problem is not any specific form of bigotry against race, religion, sexuality or anything else; it’s a general bigotry against anyone who is viewed as the “other”. And that is why the chief purpose of my own blog is to demonstrate how typical sex workers actually are; once the majority realizes that we are not dangerous “outsiders” determined to bring down their culture, they will stop treating us like an infection to be eradicated or quarantined.
(This essay first appeared on Cliterati on April 7th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.)
What potent blood hath modest May,
What fiery force the earth renews,
The wealth of forms, the flush of hues;
What joy in rosy waves outpoured
Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “May-Day”
It’s Beltane again, and the world is warming; though here in North America the winter held on right into April and another chill is expected across much of the continent tonight, that seems to have daunted humans far more than the plants and animals, which (around here, at least) have been behaving just as one expects them to in April. The grass turned green again, flowers are everywhere, birds are singing and insects are buzzing. Mind you, I’m not terribly happy about that last; May and June are the two worst months for flies, ticks and chiggers where I live, so from now until the end of August I don’t dare set foot outside without rubbing insect repellant on my shins and feet. And though I prefer skirts to jeans, that simply won’t work in the summer unless I’m going straight from house to car; the nasty little parasites will climb up the inside of a skirt, then right onto my repellant-free pelvis. Ugh!
May is also the time when we shear our long-haired animals so they’ll be comfortable for the summer; I won’t do it until I’m sure the cold is gone, but it will have to be fairly soon. If it’s done too late they won’t have time to re-grow their coats by winter, but if it’s done too early their hair will be long again by the Dog Days, always the hottest and most miserable time of year. But May is usually lovely; as I’ve said before, spring is my second-favorite time of year after autumn, not only for the gorgeous colors but also because I love warm (not hot) days and cool (not cold) nights, and that’s the typical pattern around here from April to June and September to October.
May Day is largely a forgotten holiday; thought it was once rich in tradition, it was stolen from the old pagan gods and goddesses by the followers of one of the modern secular religions (though that one, too, has died in its turn). But these are autumnal thoughts, and not suitable for lusty May; go forth, enjoy the day in whatever way suits you best, and remember that in less constipated times, this was a day to celebrate Nature’s gift of sex.
The laws just don’t make sense. They don’t help sex workers. They don’t protect sex workers. They increase their risks and they make it harder for them to do their jobs. – Chris Bruckert
Ugandan men are even worse about condoms than American and European ones; the sex workers interviewed for this article say that only about 20% of clients will agree to use one, even when the worker tells them she is HIV+. The problem is that many workers there will provide bareback (“live” in Ugandan slang) on demand, so a woman who insists on condoms is at a competitive disadvantage.
Heidi Fleiss…is…helping to renovate Dennis Hof’s Love Ranch…in Crystal, Nevada… “this…was very similar to a women’s penitentiary…You had to go through all these weird bars and buzzers, and someone’s peering out the little peephole, scoping you up and down… It was really a creepy feeling.” [Fleiss says she wants the brothel to be] “…not the dirty little secret where people drive up and sneak in…and then afterwards they’re full of shame…It’s something where people are so proud to be here, not only do they come back, but bring their friends back.”
In The Client List…Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a struggling housewife who takes a rub-down side job in order to support her kids after her husband disappears. The show…has always struck us as more campy nonsense than an accurate portrayal of the erotic massage business. But how could we tell? We asked an escort to watch the show and help us tell fact from fiction…
Young people being pragmatic and sensible about sex? We can’t have that!
…around 85 per cent of sexually active teens in the Bahamas are engaging in some kind of transactional sex…the majority of middle and high schoolers…are not sexually active. But of those who are, the majority are involved in risky behaviour…Transactional sex…differs from prostitution in the sense that only a portion of the needs of the person providing the sex are met through the practice…“Many young people put themselves through high school and college in this way…They feel that if a man wants to deal with them he has to pay in some way and they are not prostituting themselves by doing this,” [NGO official Prodesta] Moore said…
Somehow I doubt an American court would accept “this isn’t prostitution because I have another source of income” as a defense.
A Coweta strip club was busted on prostitution charges…Cherokee County deputies [investigated] the Secret Cavern strip club [for] a total of four months…[Alcohol Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission] agent [Pedro] Zardeneta…[said] “different agencies from different parts of the state worked well together to keep the citizens safe”…
Dear Michelle Obama…you were recently quoted as saying that Beyonce is a great “role model” to your two daughters…I think it’s time to stop suggesting to very young girls that ultimate feminine success…comes with the…expectation for them to undress…Variations of Beyonce’s body suit can be found in brothels, strip clubs and red light districts across the world – where sex is for sale…Remember that in the USA, the average age of a girl when she is trafficked for sex for the first time is 13…by drug dealers who promise her a celebrity lifestyle, clothes like the ones Beyonce wears…we are feeding a demonic myth that women must make themselves sexually available to enjoy ultimate success…It can take years of a young girl’s life away from her when she tries to escape a life of abuse at home…only to be sold for sex, beaten, and made addicted to drugs…
A study conducted by a University of Ottawa criminology professor has confirmed what sex workers and those in the industry have said and known for years — the laws meant to protect sex workers from exploitation by targeting people who work in the industry but don’t actually do sex work end up putting those who do at much greater risk…These could include drivers…security personnel…website designers or photographers…receptionists…or the more traditional pimps or madams…Under current Canadian laws, all of those people, even the ones doing jobs that have mainstream counterparts, could be criminally charged…[despite the fact that] anything a third party could do to exploit a sex worker is already illegal if it were done to someone else…
…Jules Kim – migration project manager at Scarlet Alliance…told the [federal] inquiry into slavery and human trafficking…[that] the current “scatter-gun” approach in which police look for trafficking victims by raiding Asian brothels was an “enormous waste of time, resources and misdirected energy…that has resulted in a gap between law enforcement bodies and…sex industry workers…People change the nature of their work to avoid that harassment…because constant raids on your business have an implication…None of the cases involved deception or trickery of the fact the person would be doing sex work. Instead of an evidence-based approach addressing real vulnerabilities, Australia’s approach continues to try to detect the mythical trafficking victim and trafficker that is a media-driven stereotype”…
According to a report released in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, watching porn only affects [young adult] sexual behavior in a negligible way. Other influences such as personality type, educational and family background and poverty hold more girth than viewing sexually explicit material. The study…surveyed 4,600…people between the ages of 15 and 25 living in the Netherlands during 2008-2009…
The fight in the SCOTUS over the “anti-prostitution pledge” began Monday. On the side of Good: The Open Society Foundation, the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Gates Foundation and even such unlikely supporters as Fox News, the New York Timesand MSNBC. On the side of Evil: The usual suspects, including the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Here’s Melissa Gira Grant’s look at the battle-lines as they were set up on Monday; note the important point that the whole thing has been framed as a question of free speech (hence the support of otherwise-hostile media outlets) rather than a referendum on the rectitude of the War on Whores. No matter which way this goes, the persecution will go on until our “allies” stop vomiting out moronic filth like “Sex work is everywhere. It is a brutal system. It is an exploitative system. Nobody thinks it’s OK.”
An excellent article, though I must point out that only someone hopelessly mired in the “left-right” myth could seriously consider Iceland “ultra-liberal”:
Ultra-liberal Iceland wants to ban online pornography…[as] the latest step in its attempts to eliminate the sex industry entirely. In 2009 it introduced fines and jail terms for those who patronise prostitutes (whom it treats as victims). In 2010 it outlawed strip clubs…No country has yet wholly succeeded in controlling commercial sex, either through legalisation or criminalisation…Iceland’s proposal is in its early stages and may lose momentum after an election on April 27th, which the government is expected to lose. But its plan puts it in some odd company. Saudi Arabia similarly bans strip clubs, prostitution and pornography…Prostitution has proved hard…to police and stamp out…[but] regulating pornography is hardest of all. Distributing and selling it has been illegal in Iceland since 1869…[but] a ban would be legally dubious, technically unfeasible and ineffective, argues Smari McCarthy…of the International Modern Media Institute…In an open letter to Ogmundur Jonasson, the interior minister, he and other opponents compared banning online pornography to repression in China, Iran and North Korea. Iceland’s constitution forbids censorship…and…Studies in America, Denmark, Germany…Sweden…China, Finland and Japan…show that as pornography became increasingly available, the number of rapes in those countries remained stable or even decreased…
Florida rapists are cleverer, excusing themselves via the moral panic du jour:
…Police in Florida [went nude] during an undercover prostitution investigation at a Hallandale Beach massage parlor…and…arrested three women…attorney…Howard Finkelstein…said. “It is seedy, back-alley, icky, and we don’t want our cops doing that, especially so when it’s meaningless.” But Florida ranks third in the nation in the number of reported cases of human trafficking…”This is not just an act of solicitation, but an organized crime effort,” [said] Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy…”It is not just a street-walker. It is a more sophisticated operation…”
Linda Fondren, a mayoral candidate in Vicksburg, Miss., not only admits to a past life in prostitution, she says her husband was one of her Johns. “I was a working girl in a legal brothel over 30 years ago. It’s true, my husband was my client…[we’ve] been married for 28 years”…Fondren tried to hold off making that admission for weeks…she…[says] she only did it to support herself after she got pregnant at age 14 and…her mom died of cancer…“I hated it. I hated it.” She also said that she would not support legal prostitution if elected…
That last bus-throwing line earns her a nomination for my Hall of Shame, though she’ll have to be still more disgusting to actually be inducted.
After years of dispute, Germany’s center-right governing coalition has agreed to enact tougher penalties for human trafficking and forced prostitution…and [to] more strictly regulate the commercial activities of brothels…brothel operators will need special authorization…authorities will be required to enforce hygienic standards and operators will be screened for prior criminal offences…recently, a report by the European Union…showed that human trafficking in Europe has risen sharply.
Step 4 (early next year): Complain that “criminality” has increased, and repeat step 3. Proceed until full criminalization is achieved.
Down near the end of this article about another idiotic and dangerous “sex trafficking” law is a reason for hope: “A bill focused on tightening punishments for pimps…[which] would require some to register as sex offenders, is progressing in [Texas]…Opponents believe the…requirement for sex offender registration may overwhelm an ‘overly broad database that includes too many offenders who are not threats to the community’…” In other words, these opponents recognize the “pimp menace” as hype and the “sex offender registry” as far too large. The same could be said for the reporter covering this story in which a Florida police department is claiming that the law says it “has to” humiliate so-called “sex predators” with huge red warning signs in their yards; she seems extremely skeptical of these theatrics, and asks a number of very sensible questions which the police chief of course answers dishonestly and smugly.
Every officer that signed off on this “no evidence” conclusion should be guarding the entrance to a petting zoo for the remainder of their careers. – Anonymous
The big news this week was the death of Margaret Thatcher, and I seem to be one of the few people on the internet who does not have some strong opinion about her one way or the other (she was a politician; ’nuff said). But whether you loved her or hated her, you will probably enjoy the sight of a prime minister quoting Monty Python in today’s first video from Mike Siegel (who also provided “nukes” and “cosplay”). The second video is my all-time favorite comic strip imagined as a “dark, gritty” movie as per current fashion; it and all the links down to the first video were supplied by Radley Balko. Other links between the videos were contributed by Jesse Walker (“new sun”), Luscious Lani (“girl and cat”), Mistress Matisse (“Anonymous”), and Kevin Wilson (“honest fat”).
…In a study of 105 heterosexual Australian women, flaccid penis size, height, and shoulder-to-hip ratio all affected the women’s attractiveness ratings of life-size, computer-generated male figures…The penis effect was so strong that that the study’s authors…[theorized] that it may have driven the evolution of bigger penises in humans…Shoulder-to-hip ratio mattered the most, while both penis size and height mattered about the same amount…there were diminishing returns for everything. That is, how much more attractiveness the figures gained for added height, penis size and shoulder-to-hip ratio decreased as those traits increased. So the attractiveness difference between at 6’1″ man and a 6’2″ man is less than the difference between a 5’1″ man and a 5’2″ man. For penis size, the dropoff in attractiveness gains started at about 7.6 centimeters, or three inches…
In other words, the study doesn’t show that most women are attracted to really big cocks; it shows that they tend to find really small ones unattractive, which isn’t at all the same thing. And BTB, the theory that the comparatively-large human penis is a product of artificial selection is not remotely new; it’s also probable that the same process resulted in human women having prominent tits when we aren’t pregnant or nursing.
A small-town North Carolina cop raped a 13-year-old girl while on duty, and the town hired him without any…screening after he had raped an 11-year-old…Jaymin Lenwood Murphy was sentenced in December 2010 to 41 years in prison for sexual offenses against the two girls…The [13-year-old, who is suing the town]…says that Murphy “threatened her mother and herself with jail” so she “was too terrified…to report it to anyone”…
Within the next year, our Supreme Court may very well strike down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional because they place sex workers at risk of violence and abuse. Are we ready for full decriminalization? Or will society’s fear of the legal vacuum lead to a panicked rush to pass new legislation to criminalize or control sex work? Most people know little or nothing about actual sex workers…because they’ve been fed negative and false stereotypes from movies and TV, sensationalistic news stories, “do-gooder” organizations that purport to rescue trafficked sex slaves, and various self-appointed “experts” whose views are informed mostly by shoddy research and propaganda. The true experts on sex work have been speaking out more and more, however, and people are finally starting to listen to them…
…the Argentine Congress started discussing…[a bill] to penalize anyone who buys sex…regardless of whether the person providing the sex is a consenting adult…No one would contest that actual sex trafficking is a problem in Argentina and that something should be done about it…
Just call me nobody, then. Coercion into commercial sex is rare everywhere, and the rare individuals who are so victimized aren’t helped by wrongheaded “something should be done” legislation. Meanwhile, half a world away, the Scottish Trade Union Conference decided to screw a sex worker outreach event called “Sex Worker Open University” by cancelling the facilities it had agreed to provide at (almost literally) the last minute:
…the Scottish Trades Union conference…issued this statement: “…the specific title of the event…was…“The Scottish Context: Opposing Criminalisation of Clients”…a number of individuals and organisations contacted us to ask why we were taking this view…[which] is diametrically opposed to the position STUC…reached as a consequence of its democratic process…” This suggests that a public meeting was somehow hidden, or that SWOU attempted to keep this information private…If a LGBTQ group wants to hold an event and homophobic groups phone to complain will they cancel the booking? If a Muslim group hosts [an] event and…Islamaphobes demonstrate will the STUC refuse to offer support and solidarity? Will their position always be with the oppressors rather than the oppressed?…[and] why does the STUC have a position that is against the best interests of the workers? They say it was democratically reached but it was not voted for by the full membership, nor were the workers who would be effected consulted…
As I’ve pointed out before, the tendency of recent studies to “find” that impossibly-low numbers of men hire whores has a lot more to do with social stigma and poor question phrasing than with reality; the General Social Survey‘s claim that only 14% of American men have ever paid for sex could only be true if the number of sex workers were a tenth what it is and we each only had two clients per week! But though I respectfully disagree with Dr. Milrod about that survey’s data being credible, I have no respect for those who technically agree with me not because of logic or experience, but because the finding contradicts “trafficking” dogma!
…Rhoda Grant…is pushing…this measure because she believes that prostitution is…inherently harmful and dangerous. I know from years of experience that for the vast majority of sex workers…that simply isn’t true…they made an informed choice to enter the industry and enjoy their work…Grant [stated] in…Glasgow Evening Times [that] “People that use prostitutes are people who would rape and abuse.” Not only is that statement false, it is also offensive in the extreme to every client I have ever met…the solution to the protection of those in the sex industry is complete decriminalisation …any further criminalisation of the sex industry will cost lives.
…some newbie traffickers scouted and groomed vulnerable girls on social media sites, lured them to a rough part of town, stripped them naked, took nude photos and then blackmailed the young victims into working as escorts. And then took their money. The girls who resisted were physically beaten. The traffickers? Two fifteen year old girls, and one sixteen year old girl…It doesn’t appear that any men, let alone black men, were involved on the pimping side of the equation in Ottawa, but that hasn’t stopped the media from trying to associate any instance of pimping with black men…and…who stepped in to help the girls being victimized? Who took a stand and put a stop to what was going on?…Yeah, that would be the johns. Men called up an escort service, looking for sex in exchange for money, and when they realized the girls were desperately underage and deeply emotionally upset, they intervened. In [two cases] the john drove the young girl home…In a third case, the john flat out refused to have sexual contact with someone who was clearly a minor…
Remember Mark Lancaster, the guy who tried to trick naïve coeds into having sex with him as a supposed “audition” for a sugar daddy referral service? He’s being charged with…wait for it…”sex trafficking”. Add that to your list of bizarre uses for this ever-expanding umbrella term.
A forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, Can Have Sex Will Have Sex…has been labelled “controversial“, but many mothers call the sex and disability helpline, which I run, worried that their disabled son is physically unable to masturbate and desperately needs an outlet…I really love the idea of sex workers giving disabled people the chance to be touched in a non-medical way, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to be held in a warm pair of arms and have their sexual dreams respected and lived out.
In early March…the Huffington Post published…“Debunking The Myths: Why Legalising Prostitution Is A Terrible Idea”…by Jacqui Hunt, London director of Equality Now…despite its title, its scope is not limited to legalisation: she believes decriminalisation is an equally bad idea. At first glance, her article looks fairly reasonable and well researched, citing studies from various countries in which sex work has been legalised or decriminalised…[but] the ways in which…her claims have been made…undermine her credibility…because the primary source for her observations on New Zealand reveals a markedly different picture from the one she has chosen to paint, I’m given to feel that all of her claims ought to be thoroughly investigated…
Clay Nikiforuk, the young woman harassed by US customs officials because they thought she was an escort, appears to “get it”:
There’s no doubt in my mind that one reason my story gained the attention it did was that it screamed “sexy” at every juncture…But another reason…is that…when bad things start happening to innocent, educated white people, they could happen to anyone — or rather, other privileged people…when sex and sexuality are criminalized, people are made illegal and their rights made moot…If I were a sex worker, I might have “deserved” the treatment I received, or my detainment might have “made sense.” If I were from a minority group or were not as educated in the English language, my story might not have provoked the shock and outrage that it did. And rather than receiving the reaction “That should never happen to anyone,” often the reaction I still get is “That should never have happened to you”…
Migrant prostitutes…are in the sex trade for the money…research…in New Zealand has found…Catherine Healy…said…”The findings suggests there are no signs that migrant sex workers here are victims of trafficking” [despite US claims]…
57%: On student, work or visitor visa 86%: From Asia 26%: Came to New Zealand “to study” 35%: Knew someone living here 76%: Did sex work to pay household bills 5%: Could not refuse clients and did not have access to their passports
In other words, only 5% of migrant whores (themselves a minority of the sex worker population) could be described as “coerced” in any valid way.
This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 17th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
A month ago today, the European Parliament passed a call for continent-wide censorship of sexual content, justified by a view of women more at home in Victorian thought than in the second decade of the 21st century. Yes, I know you heard that the measure was defeated, but that’s because the Fourth Estate no longer bothers to perform the function so respected by 18th-century thinkers that they considered freedom of the press vital to liberty: namely, the task of keeping governments honest by publicly reporting on their sneaky doings. The truth is that the EP overwhelmingly (368-159) enacted a resolution calling for women to be “protected” by our masters from words and images which could shatter our delicate little psyches, turning us into tragic, fallen, “sexualized” victims of evil men. Now, this isn’t cause for panic (not yet, anyway); as Wired explains, European resolutions are not laws:
This kind of proposal…isn’t a binding resolution…it’s simply the European Parliament signalling that it agrees with the actions proposed by the lead author…of the report — in this case, Dutch MEP Kartika Liotard…these kinds of endorsements…are…taken by the European Commission as an indication of the opinion of the Parliament, and it then drafts bills accordingly. If the Commission wants to introduce measures such as those found in the resolution, it’ll have a mandate for them…then the draft bill goes back to the Parliament to vote on, and if it passes then, it becomes a legally binding directive for EU member states to follow.
It’s hard to say exactly what the chances of the Commission acting on such a resolution are, because it varies from session to session; though the Parliament tends to rubber-stamp whatever resolutions come before it (passing 89% of them since 2009), the Commission often functionally ignores them. For example, this is the second time a call for Protecting the Weaker Sex from Dirty Pictures and Words has passed this way:
…in 1997 the Parliament passed the “Resolution on Discrimination Against Women in Advertising” – which, while…less comprehensive than the latest report, does contain a clause that “calls for statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism”…that’s almost exactly the same wording as in the latest report is because…it explicitly “calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997″…it just updates it with extra clauses that take the web into account…
And thereby hangs the tale. Though many reporters announced that the call for censorship had been rejected, the truth (as explained by CNET) is that it was simply hidden more effectively:
…[The] porn-blocking proposals…were buried within a report titled “Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU”…Amendments …removed certain explanatory text, but not the references to the [1997] resolution…which called for a blanket ban on pornography…While the explanation was removed, the effect was not, according to Swedish MEP for the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge…the 1997 resolution remains referenced, and therefore the call to ban “all forms of pornography in the media” remains intact. Falkvinge said that striking out this text “has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report”…to make matters worse, when a handful of MEPs called on their citizens to e-mail their representatives in protest, the parliament’s own IT department began to block these e-mails en masse from arriving in politicians’ inboxes…
Furthermore, as reported in The Telegraph, “controversial proposals calling for the creation of regulators with the power to police the depiction of women in media were voted through. MEPs voted for the establishment of ‘independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls’.” And in order to circumvent legal safeguards against censorship, the resolution tries to pass the dirty job off on the private companies who control most modern communication:
…Christian Engström…deputy leader of the Swedish Pirate Party… [wrote on his blog] “This is quite clearly yet another attempt to get the internet service providers to start policing what citizens do on the internet, not by legislation, but by ‘self-regulation’. This is something we have seen before in a number of different proposals, and which is one of the big threats against information freedom in our society.” Engström worries that the resolution would refer just as much to naked pictures that people send each other as professional pornography, as well as any kind of pornography included in private communications via email or social networks — “an attempt to circumvent the article on information freedom in the European Convention of Human Rights”…
Though everyone commenting on the affair, politician and journalist alike, hasten to laud the aims of the resolution as commendable, they are actually anything but; as I pointed out above, they are rooted in the fallacious notion that women are intrinsically fragile, childlike beings who can be somehow harmed by words and pictures deemed by our “protectors” to contain sexual content, and that sexuality, rather than being a natural function of our bodies and minds, is something imposed on us from without via “sexualization”. Those who believe in this ill-defined concept seems to imagine that if it weren’t for equally ill-defined bogeymen like “the Media” and “Patriarchy” subjecting girls to “sexualization” (often but not always qualified with the adjective “premature”), we would all grow up in a blissful, chaste state and never, ever, ever be interested in dirty, nasty sex…and that this would be a good thing.
I’m sure most of my readers would disagree on both counts. I didn’t need “sexualized images” to inspire fantasies and behavior I now recognize as sexual at an extremely young age, and I’m not remotely unusual in that regard. Sexuality is not a social evil imposed on innocents from without, but a natural development of biological organisms driven from within by instinct, brain architecture and (starting as young as 10 for some) hormones. I doubt many of y’all think of sexuality as an evil, or adult websites as something they need to be “protected” from by the diktats of self-appointed, self-important censors. Women need to start speaking out against those who view us as china dolls to be protected from our own inherent weaknesses by being shut away from the world in glass cases.
There are people who believe that migrant women who sell sex need to be saved; that they must want to go home; that they must want another job and they have 200-year-old ideas about what those jobs should be. –
Laura Agustín
My favorite comic book artist of all time has passed away at the age of 87. It’s impossible to overstate his influence on the industry, nor how iconic his style was for those of us who grew up with Silver Age comics. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, take a moment to look at this portrait of one of my favorite heroines and this 8-page story (written by Gardner Fox).
Homestead Officer Ronald DePellegrin, 48, admits that he allowed Diana Gross, 26, to give him oral sex before he informed her that he was actually a cop…attorney…Michael Waltman…says DePellegrin’s conduct is unacceptable…”The police…are engaging in the exact type of…activity that they’re…[allegedly] trying to protect the community from”…
What do you do when you’re detained by powerful officials, everything you say is presumed deceptive, arbitrary “evidence” is held against you, and you’re treated like a moral deviant?…It happened three times in two weeks — being detained by U.S. border officials…my…“sexy underwear” were mentioned…[and my] condoms…were looked upon scathingly…[one official told me] that adultery was a crime in America — a crime that he could deny me entry for…I was detained, yelled at, patted down, fingerprinted, interrogated, searched, moved from room to room…without food, water or being told what was going on…
Furry Girl explains how laws supposedly intended to “protect children” were really intended to harass the porn industry:
…”2257″ is shorthand for the…irritatingly-named Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act…when you appear in adult productions in the US, you as the performer/model must give the production company/photographer two forms of identification and sign…paperwork promising that you are over 18…fake IDs [exist]…and any contract a minor signs is void anyway [so this]…doesn’t do a thing to guarantee age…Any random person can search for companies reselling and licensing adult content, and with a purchase, buy performer’s legal names, social security numbers, and addresses…a determined stalker can comb through enough adult content resellers and have a good shot at finding their target…Independent pornographers…have to choose between a fear of federal prosecutions and prison time…and a fear of…stalkers coming to our homes to rape or assault us…
One of the few concessions New Zealand has made to “sex trafficking” hysteria (and one of the few things that keep it from absolute decriminalization) is its ban on international students in sex work. Of course this creates a bottleneck which leads, predictably, to the very type of exploitation the law is supposedly intended to prevent. The New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective of course understands this and is calling on the government to end the restriction; Catherine Healy explains:
Just recently I was dealing with a case of a young woman who…had gone into this agreement with a brothel operator who said…I’ll look after your money until you need it to pay for your student fees, and of course when that time arrived, the money wasn’t handed over…She couldn’t stomp off to the police, she couldn’t talk to…the university, so really…the law…contributed to her exploitation…back in 2003…the then minister of immigration had hatched this dopey clause in the 11th hour, and we said look, this will have the opposite effect of what you’re intending…
A Kuwaiti woman who once ran for parliament has called for sex slavery to be legalized – and suggested that non-Muslim prisoners from war-torn countries would make suitable concubines. Salwa al Mutairi argued buying a sex-slave would protect decent, devout and “virile” Kuwaiti men from adultery because buying an imported sex partner would be tantamount to marriage…[she] even suggested that it would be…better…for women in warring countries as they might die of starvation…offices could be opened to run the sex trade in the same way that recruitment agencies provide housemaids…
To sum up: prostitution under individual control = sin. Compulsory prostitution under government control = good.
Michael Byars’ effort to modify [Iowa] sex offender laws was a case study for effective citizen activism…until…he was arrested and fired from his job…[because] he didn’t update the state sex offender registry to reflect his voluntary, unpaid and, so far, largely successful attempt to persuade lawmakers to change the law…Byars…was convicted in 2008 of lascivious acts with a child…[for] a short, consensual relationship with a 13-year-old high school freshman while he was an 18-year-old high school senior. The conviction…saddled him with a lifetime…sentence that requires him to check in regularly with a parole officer and stringently limits his interaction with children, including his own son…
24-year-old Byars was such an amazingly successful lobbyist that an opponent called the cops, claiming that his advocacy is a “job” and demanding he be arrested for failing to register it (despite the fact that when he tried to do so he was told it was unnecessary). The cops were of course happy to comply, because we can’t have those dirty girlfriend-daters demanding their rights.
…Vancouver police are investigating the disappearance of 16-year-old Isabella Castillo, and her family…thinks she’s caught up in sex trafficking because one of her friends told them they’d seen her around with another girl who is known in the local sex-trafficking world. That girl is used by sex traffickers to recruit other girls by befriending them. She then lures them in, grooms them and gets them to run away. The girls are never heard from again…
“The local sex trafficking world?” Was it really necessary for cops and fanatics to fill the family’s head full of this kind of nonsense? Young women don’t leave home because they’re induced to run away by “traffickers”; they leave because home has become intolerable for some reason, often sexual abuse. And if they enter the sex trade it’s because the laws have made that their only means of support, not because they’re “trafficked”.
A prostitute in Bulowayo, Zimbabwe…[apparently] died during an encounter with a customer…[but] came back to life just as officials placed her in a metal coffin…she suddenly woke up in a panic screaming, “You want to kill me!” at the officers…Seeing a woman presumed to be dead spring back to life shocked onlookers, many of whom ran away in fear…
Apparently the word “legal” is not part of this reporter’s vocabulary: “Vicksburg [Mississippi] mayoral candidate Linda Fondren and her husband once owned a [brothel] in Nevada…it’s not clear…if the Fondrens are still involved…[and] Linda…denies she ever was…” After the actual evidence, the fact that Mr. Fondren once publicly defended adults’ right to have consensual sex with other people is presented (presumably on the “only a witch…” principle).
Another interview (this one in Reveal) with Becky Adams about her plans for a brothel for the disabled: “More than 700 people have already agreed to work for a reduced price…’We’re expecting the local council to object, but we are prepared to take the argument all the way to the European Court of Human Rights‘”…
[In November 2000]…a Swedish radical feminist named Alexa Wolf…showed her “documentary”…Shocking Truth…[which]…shows what seems to be a rape scene…Wolf…[slowed] down the film making it appear as the woman was helpless and drugged…[thus creating] a moral panic…The pay per view-channels promised that there would be no “violent porn”…Video stores removed porn from the shelves. 57% of the Swedish population wanted to ban ALL porn…in conservative Norway we had more or less the same reaction…The woman seen “drugged and raped” in the film…is…award winning porn actress…Mila Shegol [who stated in an interview that] she was not on drugs, she was not raped, it was all acting, she actually took part in directing the scenes…she was not a suffering, oppressed or exploited woman, and she had no idea there had been made a documentary about her alleged rape…
Here’s that weird “pay back” euphemism again: “A…brothel owner who made thousands exploiting vulnerable women was…ordered to pay back…£75,000 of his sordid gains within six months [or] he [will] be locked up for…two years…” Because money gained via business is “sordid”, but that gained via extortion is “just”.
Montana lawmakers are looking at ways to prevent and punish human trafficking in response to reports of increased prostitution [among]…people who have come to find work in the Bakken oil boom…there is no actual proof that trafficking is a problem in Montana, said…Rep. Sarah Laszloffy…But without the language on the books…authorities [lack] the tools needed to track it…
…Melissa Woodward…helps train law enforcement about how to spot a child that may have been sold into prostitution…”Does she have physical markings on her? Tattoos that are often visible…things like wearing very provocative clothes…”
You heard it here first, kids! Tattoos, sexy clothes and looking for work are all signs of “sex trafficking”! If you see a woman with any of those telltale signs, call the cops immediately so she can be “rescued” into the nearest jail!
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