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Posts Tagged ‘evidence’

Zimbabwe

Posted in Current Events, History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Africa, animals, condoms, cops, dirty, disease, evidence, fantasy, harm reduction, hysteria, law, streetwalkers, witchcraft, Zimbabwe on July 30, 2012| 27 Comments »

So many, though reluctant to admit it, shun clever men, and rather suffer fools. – Ivan Krylov

Zimbabwe was once a great nation. From the 13^th to the 16^th centuries it dominated the region and traded with the Arabs and Portuguese, and its capital (now called “Great Zimbabwe”) was the largest pre-modern structure in Sub-Saharan Africa; the ruins of that city are so impressive that early European archeologists refused to believe it could have been built by black people and instead credited the Phoenicians or Shebans (thus connecting the area’s gold riches with the legend of King Solomon’s Mines). This kingdom gave way in the early 17^th century to a succession of shorter-lived empires due to a combination of factors including wars with neighboring peoples and incursions by the Portuguese and (in the early 19^th century) the Zulus; in the 1880s the area was invaded by the British South Africa Company of Cecil Rhodes, for whom the area was named “Rhodesia”. A series of struggles for independence (some political and some military) throughout the 20^th century eventually resulted in the election of a majority-black government under Robert Mugabe, whose increasingly-despotic regime still rules the country 32 years later despite frequent civil unrest, drought, economic crises, epidemics of cholera and HIV and rampant corruption.

All too often, tyrants try to draw attention away from insoluble problems and dramatic failures by persecuting minorities for supposedly encouraging “moral decay” which supposedly creates or at least exacerbates all the visible problems. We need look no farther than the United States for many excellent examples of this, but Mugabe’s commitment to establishing Zimbabwe as a world leader in the persecution of sexual minorities (especially homosexuals and sex workers) deserves recognition as well; for a country of only 12.5 million people (about 50% larger than New York City) it manages to produce an amazing number of stories about police persecution of whores, many with the sort of bizarre elements which make an article noteworthy. Mugabe would be right at home as an American politician; when confronted with UN advice that the spread of HIV could be controlled by decriminalizing prostitution and homosexuality, Mugabe swore that would happen “over his dead body”. Another member of his government suggested that a better solution would be to force women to shave their heads and refrain from bathing, while still another insisted that all men be injected with drugs to reduce their libidos. And the solution to the “prostitution problem”?

Zimbabwean activists protested…systematic arrests targeting women, often wrongfully accused of loitering, soliciting for prostitution and harboring criminals…Dubbed…”Operation Chipo Get Married”, police in the capital are said to indiscriminately nab any woman they find on the streets alone at night. Protester Rudo Chigudu, an educated and well-heeled socialite…said even professional women who worked late hours were not being spared the indiscriminate arrests and harassment…Harare police spokesman James Sabau defended the infamous policy saying officers were merely enforcing the law and protecting civilians…

Zimbabweans resemble Americans not merely in their self-destructive puritanism and their love for giving pompous military-sounding names to petty harassment campaigns, but also in their embrace of American “sex trafficking” hysteria and the “gypsy whores” myth:

Government is in a dilemma on what to do with commercial sex workers who are expected to troop into the country for the United Nations World Trade Organisation General Assembly…next year…Tourism and Hospitality Industry permanent secretary, Dr Sylvester Maunganidze…[said] it was inevitable that prostitutes would flock into the country for the assembly…[and that] anyone suspected of being a prostitute would be arrested…”but if you put stiffer penalties, delegates will go back angry…We have a requirement that condoms should be put in hotels and we received criticism from devout Christians…some of them when they get into their hotel rooms and find condoms in their drawers they throw them through the window and then monkeys will have a feast with those condoms”…

But condom-eating monkeys are the least of Zimbabwe’s sex problems; how about man-raping, condom-hoarding harlot witches?

Three sex workers accused of raping 17 men in Zimbabwe have been freed…[they] were arrested last year after…a police…search of their vehicle revealed more than 30 used condoms…men…said the women forced them to have sex while brandishing weapons. However, DNA evidence…disproved any link between the women and [their accusers]…[there was] widespread speculation that the sex workers were collecting semen for witchcraft.

Nor are the magical powers of Zimbabwean whores limited to forcing erections out of unwilling men:

A Zimbabwe man has told a court that the prostitute he hired turned into a donkey overnight, and now he is “seriously in love.” Sunday Moyo, 28, was caught having sex with a donkey early Sunday morning, according to the New Zimbabwe news website…Police said they found Moyo having sex with a donkey…Moyo…explained that the donkey was in fact a prostitute he had earlier hired for $20 at a local nightclub. “I don’t know how she then became a donkey,” Moyo is reported to have told the court. “I only came to know that I was being intimate with a donkey when I got arrested.” The experience appears to have been a sexual awakening for Moyo, who now says he is in love with the beast…

Alas, there are no witches, in Zimbabwe or anywhere else, with powers great enough to make human stupidity, ignorance and bigotry vanish.

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The Last Thirteen for Fourteen

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged abortion, activism, anecdote, Aphrodite, archeofeminism, Australia, censorship, condoms, cops, dirty, drugs, ethics, evidence, Friday the Thirteenth, harm reduction, law, LGBT rights, Madonna/whore, statistics, The Last 13 on July 13, 2012| 45 Comments »

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.-Thomas Paine

Every Friday the 13^th I ask my readers, especially those who are not themselves sex workers, to speak out for decriminalization of prostitution. This is the third such occasion this year, but it’s also the last one for 14 months (until September 2013), so I want to make it a good one.

Though roughly 10% of modern women have taken money for sex at least once, the great majority of such cases are informal and the payer an acquaintance; only about 1% of women actually work as hookers at some point in their lives, and less than a third of that (just under 0.3%) are thus employed at any given time. That’s a pitifully small minority, smaller even than the fraction of the population who identify as homosexual (which is between 2-3%); in a more just world even the smallest minority would be treated fairly, but since that isn’t the case in this one it’s imperative we have help from outside our own group. Gay rights activists drew bisexuals and transgender people into a coalition, but even that would have been too small a minority to matter without the help of friends, family, libertarians and others.

Sex workers, on the other hand, have allowed our already-small numbers to be divided by laws which make arbitrary distinctions between “legal” sex work (such as stripping, phone sex and in some places porn acting) and “illegal” sex work (such as some forms of prostitution; in most of the US it’s all prostitution). But even if strippers, porn actresses and the various types of what I call “halfway whores” rallied together, I still can’t imagine that making up over 10% of the female population. As with gay rights, we’re going to need the help of friends, family, libertarians and even true feminists (as opposed to the anti-sex crowd I refer to as “neofeminists”).

Perhaps the most important group whose support needs to be enlisted is men, who make up roughly half the population but much more than half of people in positions of power. Kinsey found that 69% of men have directly paid for sex at least once in their lives; some recent studies have returned much lower numbers, but this probably has much more to do with increased social stigma in the past three decades and the construction of the questions (e.g. “have you ever procured a prostitute?” vs. “have you ever paid for sex?”) than with the material facts. Since roughly 67% of men have cheated on their wives or girlfriends, the 69% figure seems highly credible to me; it also jibes with my experience and that of other working girls with whom I’ve discussed the issue. Of those, fewer than half repeat the experience, and less than a tenth make a habit of it; roughly 20% of all men hire hookers occasionally (such as when they’re at conferences or on business trips) and 6% do so frequently.

Even if we assume that the 50% of men who never see a whore again after their first time were repelled by the experience, that still leaves a fifth of the male population who secretly support us (at least financially). So why don’t they speak up? Why are there so few prominent men who are willing to even support our rights as an abstract concept, much less actually admit to enjoying our company on occasion? Obviously it’s mostly due to the deep-rooted moral hypocrisy of our culture, whose members are willing to crucify exposed “sinners” for “offenses” they themselves have committed many times in secret. But there’s also the fact that a large fraction of the 90% of women who have not taken direct payment for sex labor under all sorts of illusions and delusions about harlotry, and even a dedicated contrarian who will enthusiastically fly in the face of social institutions may be (understandably) unwilling to risk the disapproval or even outright hostility of his wife, mother, sisters, daughters, etc.

These factors and others were mentioned in a comment by regular reader B.B. Wye on a column I wrote about the difficulties of “Coming Out”; he pointed out that as hard as it is for prostitutes to be “out”, it may be even harder for our clients, especially with “end demand” rhetoric in the ascendancy. Wye is a musician who expressed his feelings about his favorite type of whore in the song “Midtown Asian Sex Spa”, and in his comment he wrote of his desire to admit authorship of the song and to openly speak out for the rights of women who have given him a great deal of happiness and pleasure. Another reader who felt the same way wrote to ask me for suggestions on how he could find a middle path, speaking out for sex worker rights without admitting his personal interest in us; here are a few suggestions for him, for B.B., for other clients faced with the same quandary, for working girls who can’t come out themselves and for men and women who have never bought or sold sex, but just care about human rights.

If you’re generally libertarian or civil rights-oriented in your politics it’s easy; all you have to do is argue for decriminalization from a perspective of “people have the right to do what they like with their own bodies”. As I’ve pointed out in the past, every court decision (including Roe vs. Wade) which upholds abortion rights also upholds the right to sex on one’s own terms, even if money is involved (abortion isn’t free, after all); ditto court decisions overturning sodomy laws like Lawrence vs. Texas. And obviously, the arguments for drug decriminalization also apply to prostitution. If you’re an atheist or skeptic, that’s easy too; in addition to the arguments above you can make statements like “prostitution laws are based on religion and xenophobia, not facts” and “the sex trafficking hysteria is a moral panic like the Satanic Panic and the Red Scare”.

The harm reduction perspective is another good one, and is the approach generally favored by advocates who have a human rights background or strong religious affiliation (including some members of the Catholic clergy): Prostitution has always been with us and we can’t make it go away with laws any more than the “Drug War” has made drugs go away. All the Drug War has done is to subject innocent people to invasion of their privacy and make drug users vulnerable to impure drugs, not to mention all those caught in drug-related violence; similarly, anti-prostitution laws help nobody and force prostitutes into the shadows where they can be harmed and exploited. Furthermore, many governments (including those of New Zealand, New South Wales and Brazil) have recognized that illegal prostitution invariably leads to police corruption, just as alcohol Prohibition did and drug prohibition still does.

Finally, there’s the feminist approach: why does society have the right to tell women they can’t make a living with their natural sex-based attributes when it allows men to do so with boxing, bodyguard work, etc? Furthermore, laws against prostitution invariably subject women’s dress and mannerisms to police scrutiny; women are accused of prostitution for dressing sexily, acting sexily, carrying condoms in their purses, being in certain areas, not wearing underwear, etc. This is “slut shaming” with criminal consequences.

Even if you are unable to speak out openly you can post anonymous comments on anti-whore articles online (with links to my site and those of other rights advocates), you can donate money to advocacy groups, and you can of course vote (though there are pitifully few chances to employ that strategy in the United States). Even though any one person’s influence is small, lots of buckets eventually fill a pool. Readers, we need your help and that of every good man and woman, and anything you can do will be gratefully appreciated.

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The Widening Gyre

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Backpage, California, censorship, cops, drivers, ethics, evidence, Florida, harm reduction, hysteria, law, lawheads, Madonna/whore, neofeminism, New York, pimps, psychology, stereotypes, The Widening Gyre, underage on July 6, 2012| 28 Comments »

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. – W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

As the would-be leaders of the French Revolution could explain (if they were still alive), the biggest problem with rabble-rousing is that if one succeeds, he will find himself surrounded by aroused rabble. If one is a skilled and charismatic leader one can then turn the mob into a horde and conquer most of Eurasia, but if not (especially in cases where there is no clear leader) it simply remains an angry, hysterical and/or fearful mob which then spills out into the countryside, infringing upon the personal freedom of all and sundry. This is what happens in a moral panic: the Great Unwashed become so fearful of the imaginary threat to God, Country and Our Cherished Way of Life that they…well, panic, and start doing all sorts of fear-crazed things that those behind the hysteria never intended. In the long run this is good for the panic’s chosen scapegoats, but before things fall apart completely there is a period in which the violence becomes much worse, both for the primary targets and for anyone the hysterics accuse of being one of them…and sometimes, when Dame Fortune is in an unusually generous mood, for a few of the panic-mongers themselves.

The spiral has been widening for a while now, though it was hard to detect at first. In my column of one year ago today I explained how “anti-trafficking” poster boy Ashton Kutcher escaped from his handlers, made a complete ass of himself on Twitter and thereby woke up a few journalists while causing many others at least to stir restlessly in their sleep. The increasing breadth and narcissism of Nicholas Kristof’s finger-pointing and the growing insanity of the claims made by his “hero” Somaly Mam helped leaders of the Occupy movement to recognize “sex trafficking” hysteria for what it is, resulting in the recent “Occupy Patriarchy” demonstrations against a prohibitionist conference billing itself (as is typical these days) as an “anti-trafficking” event:

…anarchist demonstrators clashed with officers when they were denied entrance to a conference on human trafficking. Demonstrators, calling themselves “Occupy Patriarchy” gathered outside the convention center to protest the conference…An interview we were conducting was interrupted by protestors using bullhorns to blast us down repeatedly, accusing us of being part of a larger conspiracy to assist police. Inside…presenters were meeting to discuss ways to end human trafficking and the exploitation of children…But protesters were not there to listen, they were there to demonstrate. They knocked down police barriers and vandalized the doors of the conference center. They say that to focus on this is to distort their message. They say that this conference is just a launching pad for continued repression of sex workers and the further empowerment of police agencies at their expense…

Though I have serious issues with the “Occupy” movement for its naïve espousal of Marxism, I don’t entirely agree with those activists who have criticized “Occupy Patriarchy” for its violence; as I’ve stated before, I don’t believe that peaceful protest alone can successfully challenge an entrenched authoritarian system which has clearly demonstrated its disdain for facts and its willingness to use violence to suppress dissent. The existence of violent protests did not harm the cause of Indian independence nor that of civil rights for racial or sexual minorities in the United States, and I don’t think it will hurt ours either; maybe if we started occupying a few churches the “authorities” would no longer be able to convince the public that we’re all helpless, passive victims, and smashing that narrative to bits is absolutely imperative if we’re ever to be taken seriously. Melissa Gira Grant makes a similar point in an article about one of the increasing number of timid “maybe banning Backpage isn’t the way to go” voices in mainstream political discourse:

…It’s…laws…that deter people who come into contact with someone forced into the sex trade from seeking help. In some states, like Illinois, laws against trafficking are written so broadly that buying a MetroCard or a meal for someone in the sex trade could make you vulnerable to arrest or prosecution yourself, as someone “involved” in trafficking…to accept that “the problem with sex trafficking” is merely one of identifying victims is falling in line with the anti-prostitution campaigners’ frame. It also prevents us from calling their bluff: along with taking down websites like Craigslist and Backpage, they want more money for more cops, even though sex workers and trafficking survivors alike report that cops are likely to be violent towards them in the course of “protecting” them…so-called anti-trafficking activists…have proven…that their primary concern is putting more power in the hands of police to arrest people involved in the sex trade, to drag a wide net and just sort out who is a “victim” (in their understanding) and who is a “perpetrator” later. They aren’t interested in adopting new technologies to better identify victims; they don’t make such a distinction, and why would they, when their endgame is to abolish any evidence of the sex trade?…

New York is the latest to embrace the sort of laws Grant mentions:

New York cab drivers convicted of felony sex trafficking for ferrying prostitutes to illicit liaisons would lose their licenses under new legislation passed on Wednesday by the New York City Council…city taxi and livery drivers would face up to a $10,000 fine and lose their New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission licenses if convicted of a felony related to sex trafficking. The legislation goes to Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his signature…

Philanthropic Divine: “May I beg you to accept this good little book. Take it home and read it attentively. I am sure it will benefit you.”
Lady: “Bless me, Sir, you’re mistaken. I am not a social evil, I am only waiting for a bus.”

Bloomberg publicly expressed reservations about the bill, apparently recognizing that it would discourage cabbies from picking up any unescorted female fare who in his mind looks like a hooker. The law’s promoters insist (naturally) that it would NEVER EVER EVER be used to persecute cabbies for chauffeuring escorts, because as everybody knows laws are always used only for their stated purposes and women are NEVER EVER EVER arrested as whores for winking, carrying condoms, not wearing underwear, etc. As demonstrated by this illustration from Dr. Laura Agustín’s column on the law and others like it, reasonable people have understood the impossibility of identifying a whore by sight since at least 1865. But that doesn’t prevent cops from claiming to have the ability, even when it’s blatantly obvious that they don’t:

A [Florida] sheriff’s…deputy was arrested…after unknowingly stepping right into an undercover prostitution sting. Christian Benenati, 40, was arrested and charged with Soliciting Another for Lewdness…[the] off-duty Benenati approached a female officer working undercover…and solicited her for oral sex…the department that set up the countywide sting was the one Benenati works for, and he was nabbed on the street he patrols…

Snaring their own thugs is only one of the unforeseen side-effects of runaway “trafficking” hysteria; I predict we’re going to start seeing more cases like this one, too:

…Barry Laprell Gilton and Lupe Mercado watched, dismayed and helpless, as their 17-year-old daughter was lured away from home by a known Compton gang member…Calvin Sneed. They sought help from law enforcement — to no avail — and later added the girl to several missing and exploited children registries…Prosecutors contend they…gunned [Sneed] down in his car [after discovering] that she was appearing in escort ads, and that she seemed to be working for Sneed…

Buried in the story is the telling detail that the girl left home about a year ago; though I think it highly likely that Sneed was a revolting person who probably would’ve ended up dead one way or another, depicting a teen runaway as an innocent damsel led into whoredom by a mustache-twirling “pimp” is a blatant attempt to hide the real problem behind an increasingly-erratic cultural meme spinning wildly out of control, whose far-flung debris is going to cause a lot more damage before it finally disintegrates.

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That Was the Week That Was (#17)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged An Example to the West, anecdote, bad customers, Brazil, brothels, censorship, Coming and Going, condoms, cops, drivers, East Asia, Election Day, ethics, evidence, halfway whores, Handy Figures, harm reduction, hysteria, India, Ireland, Latin America, law, Maggie in the Media, Middle East, Much Ado About Nothing, neofeminism, New York, Not the Same Tree, Presents, rescue industry, Schadenfreude, sex work is work, Sisters In Arms, statistics, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Tennessee, The Camel's Nose, United Kingdom on April 28, 2012| 29 Comments »

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business. – Eric Hoffer

Eleven updates and two metaupdates.

Election Day (November 2^nd, 2010)

The campaign to ban police and prosecutors from using condoms as “evidence of prostitution” is ramping up; last week a group of public health and human rights advocates spoke to the New York legislature, and supporters now have their own website. Find out what you can do to help end this public health nightmare; success in New York will reinforce efforts in other states.

Maggie in the Media (February 3^rd, 2011)

My column on the Secret Service scandal attracted quite a lot of media attention. Last Friday James Wolcott of Vanity Fair quoted me, writing “Maggie McNeill, whose always provocative and independent-thinking blog The Honest Courtesan provides “a whore’s-eye view on current events,” is unable to stifle a yawn over the unholy fuss being made over the Secret Service agent and the underpaid escort, which has flowered into a hothouse scandal…” On that same day I spoke to Abby Ellin of ABC News, whose story appeared on Monday:

“If it had happened here, the woman couldn’t have gone to the police and said, ‘These guys are trying to cheat me out of money.’ Instead, she would have been hurt and cheated, and Mr. Agent Man would have gone home and patted himself on the back for having gotten one over on her,” said Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan.

She also wrote:

But while they acknowledge the potential dangers to national security, sex workers in the United States think the “breach” argument is another form of discrimination against prostitutes. “If the issue is attracting attention or bragging about being in the security detail, then it would be a problem if they brought in any outsider,” said McNeill. “If that’s the case, then what difference does it make if she’s a prostitute or an accountant?”

The next day, Newstrack India drew on the ABC story for its own report, which said: “Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan, and others have said that the policy was ridiculous, and that criminalizing prostitution was not only a human rights violation, but also a safety and labour issue.” Meanwhile, I was contacted by the producer of The O’Reilly Factor to be on Tuesday’s show, but I didn’t want to show my face on national television and O’Reilly understandably wanted someone he could look in the eye; instead they got Sienna Baskin of the Sex Workers Project, whom I am told held her own very well (probably better than I could’ve, because O’Reilly would almost certainly have flustered me).

Not the Same Tree (February 18^th, 2011)

Northern Ireland has railroaded convicted its first “sex trafficker”:

Matyas Pis was…convicted of controlling prostitution…The [two] women said they asked…Pis to book their air tickets, and he provided them with an apartment…Judge Burgess said the women were not being held against their will, but he could not ignore that “human trafficking is a global problem and we should not be blind to the fact that it is happening right now in Northern Ireland…”

So obviously this judge would convict men for having consensual sex on the grounds that he heard somewhere that 1 in 4 women have been raped.

What’s the Legal Definition of Prostitution Again? (April 17^th, 2011)

I wasn’t going to say anything about this article criticizing a new halfway whore site, because it’s sadly typical of Jezebel’s stealth anti-sex work oeuvre. But then Lolo de Sucre of Tits and Sass published this thoroughly awesome takedown entitled “Jezebel Blogger Saves Unwitting Women from Accidentally Prostituting Themselves ‘in Fucking Thailand or Some Shit’”, which you absolutely must read; her caption for this picture is especially brilliant.

Handy Figures (June 11^th, 2011)

Dr. Brooke Magnanti referenced this column and two others in a new article on the methodological deficiencies of prohibitionist “studies”. Meanwhile, an otherwise-uninteresting news article led me to this equally-uninteresting 2006 item which nonetheless contained one interesting statistic: 49% of Indian men are now willing to admit they’ve paid for sex, which is much closer to the truth than the laughably low figures many American “researchers” produce via poorly-phrased questions.

Sisters in Arms (July 14^th, 2011)

Tennessee joins the list of states defining miscarriage as murder; this article quotes and links others from Knox News, RH Reality Check, Think Progress and The Tennessean. Had enough yet, neofeminists and nanny-staters? Because the policies you support provide the precedents for these abominations.

Schadenfreude (November 28^th, 2011)

Great news about Kristof’s “hero”, fanatical anti-whore activist Somaly Mam:

[At a UN panel] Somaly Mam…[falsely claimed] that when police raided her Afesip centre in Phnom Penh in 2004, eight of the girls were…murdered…83 women…[were taken to the] centre…after a raid…on the Chai Hour 11 Hotel, where it was alleged that underage girls were providing sexual services…However, the following day, the centre itself was raided by government officials and members of the detained women’s families, and the women released…Somaly Mam [claimed] these officials colluded with the owners of the hotel, but a number of the women released [insisted] to reporters that they…resented being “rescued”. It was also disputed that any of the women were underage…No reports…suggested any of the women…were missing…[and] the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights [expressed] surprise at Mam’s…claim…[Pierre Legros, Mam’s ex-husband and] Afesip’s international director at the time of the raids, also denied that any…girls were murdered…he said that previous claims by his ex that their daughter had…been kidnapped and gang-raped in revenge for her mother’s activism were also untrue…[the] daughter had simply run off with her boyfriend…the lack of evidence of Mam’s claims…seriously [undermines] her credibility. Observers had for some time felt that Mam had become preoccupied with her identity as an international celebrity…

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29^th, 2011)

On Tuesday I received a DVD of The Thing from Lord Oberon, then yesterday the UPS man brought me John Stossel’s new book No, They Can’t from Elisabeth Whispers. Thank you both so much for thinking about me!

An Example to the West (April 3^rd, 2012)

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) held its conference in Istanbul last week, and unlike similar events in the United States, sex worker rights groups were welcomed there as important participants. Dr. Laura Agustín wrote about the proceedings:

…I was at this event most of last week, part of a group promoting a vision of sex work, migration and feminism that emphasizes agency, the state of being in action, taking power, making decisions even when presented with few options. We overtly challenged the reductionist, infantilising ideology that has come to dominate mainstream policy and faux journalism (like The New York Times’s) by attending many sessions and commenting…

TrustLaw reported on the conference as well, highlighting Agustín’s contribution and also quoting the EMPOWER Foundation:

“We are forced to live with the modern lie that border controls and anti-trafficking policies are for our protection…We have been spied on, arrested, cut off from our families, had our savings confiscated, interrogated, imprisoned and placed into the hands of the men with guns…all in the name of ‘protection against trafficking’”…one woman [said]: “At a restaurant you get a menu and you look at all the options before you pick out your selection …Some restaurants have a huge menu and some only have a few dishes – either way the process is the same. Vegetarians may not understand when you choose a steak, and others may not understand when we choose to do sex work.”

Much Ado About Nothing (April 14^th, 2012)

Since the public stubbornly refuses to get worked up over the “news” that G-men hire whores, the news media is casting its net more widely: “…anonymous sources [said] that Secret Service employees received sexual favors from strippers at a club in San Salvador and took prostitutes to their hotel rooms…in March 2011.” Stop the Presses! Men buying sex while travelling on business! Why, that’s never happened before in the history of the world! Contrast that non-story with this, which SHOULD have caused a scandal last December but was instead ignored by the American media:

A former Brazilian prostitute plans to sue the United States embassy and five of its personnel for injuries sustained outside a strip club [on December 29^th]…Romilda Aparecida Ferreira…[is suing] for injuries, medical expenses, lost income, and psychological trauma after an embassy van ran over her and left her stranded in the club parking lot with a broken collarbone, punctured lung and other injuries…A civil suit would compound a case in which Brazilian prosecutors have already said they are considering criminal charges…Little noticed at the time, the incident in Brasília…gained traction this week…

It was “little noticed” because the American media didn’t give a damn about several apes in uniform mutilating a hooker (NHI and all that). But now that it can be tangentially hooked to a “prostitution scandal” it’s suddenly news.

Ad Scortum (April 16^th, 2012)

In order to combat prohibitionist claims that satisfied, well-adjusted sex workers are “not representative”, Greta Christina has invited us to tell our stories in a thread from which prohibitionists and other non-sex workers are specifically excluded. If you’re a present or past sex worker of any kind (it’s not limited to whores) please contribute; the thread is already over 100 responses long!

Metaupdates

Coming and Going in That Was the Week That Was (#12) (March 24^th, 2012)

In yet another sign that the anti-whore tide may be receding, The New York Daily News published this article strongly criticizing Anna Gristina’s treatment:

…in Florida, a judge granted $150,000 bail for George Zimmerman, who is charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin. Last week, a career criminal named Ivan Ramos was arrested after allegedly raping, sodomizing and robbing a young woman…Facing 15 years, an obvious flight risk and a clear threat to the community, Ramos was given $300,000 bail. Meanwhile, Anna Gristina…has been held on $2 million bond since Feb. 22 on a nonviolent charge of promoting prostitution…[which usually results in] probation and carries a maximum sentence of two to seven years…two weeks ago five male hotel clerks were charged…with the same exact crime [and] released on their own recognizance, without posting a dime in bail…What’s more obscene? A woman charged with promoting the world’s oldest profession that attracts governors, U.S. senators, congressmen and Secret Servicemen? Or this flagrant abuse of judicial power that’s turned the Blind Lady of Justice into a streetwalker?

The Camel’s Nose in That Was the Week That Was (#16) (April 21^st, 2012)

American readers, have you called your congressman about CISPA yet? If not, you’d better hurry:

Up until [Thursday] afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be [Friday]. Then, abruptly, it was moved up…and the House voted in favor of its passage…248-168…[after] an absolutely terrible change (…amendment #6)…[in] what the government can do with shared information…Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government’s power…though it in fact expands it…Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for “cybersecurity” or “national security” purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more…have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children…Basically it says the 4^th Amendment does not apply online, at all…[and] the government could do whatever it wants with the data…CISPA is now a completely unsupportable bill that…eliminates …all privacy laws for any situation that involves a computer…

The government’s doubletalk was so masterful it even succeeded in convincing some CISPA opponents that the changes limited its power, but as Leigh Beadon explains in this follow-up to her article above, that’s totally false.

One Year Ago Today

“The Coffee Klatsch” provides samples of the blogs of three other hookers with whom I’m friendly.

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That Was the Week That Was (#10)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, A Whore in Church, Acting and Activism, Africa, animals, archeofeminism, Arizona, Australia, Backlash, brothels, Celebrities, Coming and Going, condoms, cops, Craigslist, disease, East Asia, Election Day, escort services, ethics, evidence, Good News-Bad News, harm reduction, hysteria, Indonesia, law, lawheads, License To Rape, Mind Reading, New Mexico, New York, pimps, rape, sacred prostitutes, Scapegoats, slavery, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, Tennessee, transgender, underage, United Kingdom, Utah, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Protests? on March 10, 2012| 9 Comments »

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. – Paulo Freire

One new item, ten updates and two meta-updates.

The President’s Nanny

On Tuesday the AP published the terribly sad story of Evie, a transgender woman who was little “Barry” Obama’s nanny when his family lived in Indonesia from 1969-1971. “When the family left…things started going downhill. She moved in with a boyfriend…three years later…she became a sex worker…soldiers often…loaded them into trucks, and brought them to a field where they were kicked, hit and otherwise abused.” After one especially brutal raid in 1985 in which a friend was beaten to death, Evie went back to dressing as a man, found solace in religion and now at 66 “says she’s just waiting to die.” She only recently realized that the US president was her old charge, and says she’s proud: “Now when people call me scum…I can just say: ‘But I was the nanny for the President of the United States!‘” The White House had no comment.

Updates

Celebrities (August 20^th, 2010)

English football star Louis Saha explains why footballers prefer escorts to amateurs: “…women are the greatest temptation…a young player…can quickly be taken in, seduced by the girl who will cash in with a kiss-and-tell to the newspapers. So it’s hard to know who to trust and you become paranoid where women are concerned. Some players therefore prefer to use escorts.” This confused a writer at Deadspin, who apparently cannot comprehend that an indiscreet whore is soon an unemployed one.

Election Day (November 2^nd, 2010)

Though activists have been trying for decades to call attention to the insanity of allowing cops to use condoms as “evidence of prostitution”, and a bill to ban the practice was introduced into the New York state legislature several years ago, the light bulb appears to have just gone on for the mainstream media. The Daily Kos and The Atlantic both noted that though the asinine policy is widespread, New York is the first state where a legislator had the sense to introduce a bill to prevent it. Both stories mention that Human Rights Watch will release a report on American “condom possession” policies in July, and both interviewed representatives of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, whose link was recently added to the “Organizations & Allies” box on the right. NCHRC has also asked me to call attention to their video on sex worker violence prevention, and I’m happy to do so.

License To Rape (November 16^th, 2010)

One would expect a publication named Reason to oppose criminalization of sex work, and one would not be disappointed; here’s its coverage of a hooker-raping cop:

A New Mexico state trooper is on paid administrative leave after being arrested…for coercing prostitutes to have sex with him. Timothy Carlson first came to the attention of the Albquerque PD…when they caught him in his car with a prostitute…Why he wasn’t arrested then is a mystery…[after] a nearly year-long investigation…[he was caught]…with a prostitute…[who was] a confidential informant…[she told investigators] Carlson threatened to arrest her if she didn’t sleep with him…[He] faces extortion, bribery, public corruption and rape charges. Advocates of decriminalizing prostitution often point out that sex workers suffer appalling violence and extortion at the hands of…law enforcement officers…

The story also links several other “isolated” incidents.

Coming and Going (February 10^th, 2011)

“Davidson County [Tennessee] Sheriff Dacron Hall…[said] “If you weigh out what happens here – the police time, the arrest, the booking, all of this…what’s the net effect?…the criminalization of this process is very expensive,” he said. “I’m just not sure it can’t be done in other ways.” If you think county streetwalker stings are expensive, how about this? “…[The case against] Anna Gristina was…built from a five-year-long investigation by a Manhattan district attorney’s office unit…[involving] hundreds of hours of surveillance…Minors were involved in some of the encounters Gristina arranged, the prosecutor said…” Of course they had to add the bit about minors (which is almost certainly a lie) to avoid the inevitable questions like why the hell the average New Yorker should approve of this multi-year, multimillion dollar boondoggle.

Backlash (March 22^nd, 2011)

It’s truly sad that actions of American cops in the three previous items are nearly indistinguishable from those of South African cops:

…Cape Town sex [workers say]…it was a regular occurrence for police to herd together sex workers at night and strip them naked before throwing them into their vans. They would then take photos to “identify them in case they go missing”. It was not uncommon for the sex workers to be pepper-sprayed, even on their private parts…In a recent study conducted by the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC), 12 percent of Cape Town’s sex workers reported having been raped by police, 46 percent threatened by police, and 28 percent forced into sexual favours by police…National police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo said…“It (sex work) is a crime…In the handling of these cases, it’s often misconstrued as harassment”…

Well, Naidoo’s statement certainly clears that up! The police are allowed to beat, rape and pepper-spray prostitutes, so it’s “official handling” rather than harassment, and that makes it OK.

Mind Reading (June 1^st, 2011)

More on the suit against Utah’s “acting sexy” law:

A federal judge excused Salt Lake City’s police chief from a lawsuit filed by escort services…Utah’s attorney general remains a defendant. Utah law…[was amended] last year…to include any person who performs acts such as exposing or touching themselves…[which] the escort services argued…[criminalizes stripping]…Andrew McCullough, who is representing [the services]…said [an] escort already has been arrested under the amended law…[after] an undercover officer “tried everything he could…[to trick her, then] arrested her anyway…for touching herself…” State lawyers argued that people can be charged…only if they use those gestures as a sign they’re willing to engage in sex for money…

It takes a special mixture of balls and stupidity to defend unconstitutional laws with tautology.

Where Are the Protests? (December 3^rd, 2011)

“Hello, Mr. Kristof; we thought you’d like to report on a trafficked slave who was held right here in New York! What’s that? No, there was no sex involved…Mr. Kristof? Hello? Hellooooo…?”

A wealthy New York woman is facing criminal charges…[for] keeping an illegal immigrant as an indentured servant and forcing her to live in a closet for nearly six years. Documents posted on the Smoking Gun allege that Annie George, 39, and her now-deceased husband, Mathai Kolath George, hired an illegal immigrant [identied as V.M.] from the Indian state of Kerala…[promising her] about $1,000 a month in wages to…care [for] the Georges’ four young children [and perform] household duties in the mansion…instead…V.M. received 85 cents an hour, working 17-hour days, seven days a week, over the 67 months she was kept inside the George residence…Annie George…[faces] charges of encouraging and inducing an illegal alien to reside in the U.S…

So a middle-class independent escort with a six-figure income is a “trafficked slave”, but a woman lured from India under false pretenses, paid starvation wages and locked in a closet at night is an “indentured servant” in a “forced labor situation”. Furthermore, the escort’s legal husband could be imprisoned for decades and robbed of everything he owns for the “crime” of “human trafficking”, but someone who actually held someone captive is only charged with “encouraging an illegal alien”. Nice.

Scapegoats (January 26^th, 2012)

The Daily Mail published mug shots of the three “conspirators”, but had to settle for a stock photo of the “victim”:

A husband, his wife and her lover have been charged with conspiracy to commit bestiality after using Craigslist to find a dog for the wife to have sex with. Shane Walker and his wife Sarah Dae, who describe themselves as swingers in an open marriage, were arrested [with her lover Robert Aucker] after an undercover sting operation…The two men were to watch while Sarah Dae had sex with the dog…Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio…wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster after the arrest of two people for using the website to solicit dogs for sex. Arpaio asked for closer monitoring of the site, but said after the latest arrest: “I remain extremely disappointed in the leadership at Craigslist.com for refusing to do what they can to stop this. While they aren’t doing anything to stop it, I will continue to enforce all animal cruelty laws.”

This is the same sheriff who didn’t bother to investigate over 400 sex crimes reported to his office, including 32 child molestations (some of the victims as young as 2). But I’m sure the parents of those molested kids will agree that it’s much more important for the sheriff’s office to pester businessmen and set up elaborate “sting” operations in order to perform the vital state function of preventing dogs from screwing air hostesses…oops, I mean “enforcing animal cruelty laws”.

Good News, Bad News (February 18^th, 2012)

American politicians, afflicted as they are with Puritanism and a medieval “law and order” mentality, can almost be forgiven for their incredible stupidity on prostitution issues. But Western Australia has several examples of successful legal models right next door, yet has descended into “trafficking hysteria” and may even succumb to the Swedish disease, as explained in this email from a WA politician:

…the Government’s proposed legislation will…greatly reduce the legality and visibility of prostitution…[via] the ‘Swedish model’ of targeting clients and brothel owners…If we actually wish to tackle trafficking in Western Australia, then this bill is our best hope…Any other approach will only serve to increase the elements of organized crime in prostitution and only perpetuate many more victims…

New South Wales and Queensland beg to differ about “any other approach” increasing “organized crime”…

A Whore in Church (January 10^th, 2012)

Reverend Lia Scholl has advocated for sex workers for more than 10 years and is currently on the board of the Red Umbrella Project in New York. She recently wrote an excellent essay entitled “Church and Sex Work” which argues that churchgoers should not merely refrain from fighting prostitution or trying to rescue prostitutes, but should actively welcome sex workers in their community. Please read it in its entirety; we definitely need more people like Reverend Lia!

Metaupdates

Acting and Activism in June Updates (Part Two) (June 3^rd, 2011)

The bizarre competition between various jurisdictions claiming to be the most important source, destination or route for “human trafficking” has a new entrant, which insists that it’s all three simultaneously:

…“The 2011 Trafficking in Persons report notes that Zimbabwe is a source, transit and destination for human trafficking…” said [International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman Folen Murapa]…[she] said although the magnitude…was difficult to ascertain due to the clandestine nature of the phenomenon, government recognised the problem and is currently in the process of tabling…a bill…Murapa said anyone could be a victim of trafficking regardless of nationality, sex, age and profession…

Everybody panic! You never know when those “traffickers” will jump out of a tree and traffick you away somewhere, but by golly a law will stop it dead. And though we haven’t seen any evidence of it, a bunch of foreign politicians on the other side of the planet wrote it in a report, so it must be true!

A Moral Cancer in That Was the Week That Was (#3) (February 11^th, 2012)

Not only is cheese not really bad for you…

…[A new study]…found those who regularly have dairy products such as milk, cheese and yoghurt score better in tests of mental ability than people who never, or rarely, consume dairy products. It follows another US study…[which] found that older people with higher levels of beneficial fats in their blood had less brain shrinkage typical of the Alzheimer’s disease…our mental functions depend heavily on a good supply of fat. Our brain is composed of 60 percent fat. The brain cells are insulated by sheaths of myelin composed of 75 percent fat…[which] needs to be replaced constantly…

One Year Ago Today

“Check Your Premises” examines the nonsense which arises from following the underlying premises of “consensual crime” laws to their logical conclusions.

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Symptomology

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Africa, bad customers, Cambodia, condoms, cops, dirty, disease, East Asia, escort review sites, Europe, evidence, harm reduction, law, Madonna/whore, New York, rape, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Taiwan, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers on January 12, 2012| 10 Comments »

Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point…In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one. – Johan Huizinga

One year ago today I published “Social Autoimmune Disorder”, in which I compared anti-sex worker laws and police activity to autoimmune disorders:

The bodies of societies sometimes also develop such syndromes; the systems which were meant to protect society from invaders or other troublesome organisms are instead turned against some of its own systems, sometimes even vital systems. And just as in biological autoimmune disorders, those who are affected most are usually women.

There have been further developments in all the cases I mentioned in that column: Taiwan still suffers from the disorder despite a predicted remission, but in the UK a police official who supports getting rid of bad laws was promoted to assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. In the United States the persecution of escort advertising websites has only grown worse, and AHF’s campaign to force porn actors to use its sponsors’ products is about to come to a head; meanwhile, the virulent Swedish strain of social autoimmune disease has continued to spread through Europe.

The most dangerous form of the disease is direct police violence against sex workers; we’ve discussed it often here, but it’s always nice to see it acknowledged in a larger venue, such as this recent Chi Mgbako article from Reality Check:

When we think of violence against sex workers, we conjure up images of dangerous clients and serial killers who target prostitutes…[but] one area that receives scant public attention despite its entrenched global reality is police abuse of sex workers. The illegal status of sex work in most countries has not eradicated prostitution. Instead, criminalization has increased sex workers’ vulnerability to human rights abuses and created fertile ground for police exploitation, especially of street-based sex workers. For example, in South Africa, where sex work has been illegal since the former apartheid regime criminalized it in 1957, police officers often fine sex workers inordinate sums of money and pocket the cash, resulting in a pattern of economic extortion of sex workers by state agents…police [also] confiscate condoms to use as evidence of prostitution; demand sexual favors in exchange for release from jail or to avoid arrest; physically assault and rape sex workers; actively encourage or passively condone inmate sexual abuse of transgender female sex workers assigned to male prison cells; and use municipal laws to harass and arrest sex workers even when they’re engaged in activities unrelated to prostitution…

Police abuse of sex workers…is echoed in documented reports throughout the world, from New York City to Cambodia to Papua New Guinea to Eastern Europe and beyond. Police are also often impediments to sex workers’ access to justice. “To gather evidence of a crime against a sex worker, they have to first take it seriously,” argues one sex worker about the lack of police attention to reports of violence. “If we go to the police to report abuse, we’re made fun of, we’re told ‘you deserve it.’ They chase you away,” notes another sex worker. In addition, because of the continual police harassment they face, many sex workers don’t bother to officially report abuse to police. Most sex workers’ experience with criminal justice systems is not as survivors of abuse but as “perpetrators” of the “crime” of prostitution.

Of course, not all police officers abuse sex workers…but the moral stigma that is attached to the criminalization of prostitution often leads to the deeply offensive attitude, on the part of some police, prosecutors, and others, that sex workers somehow consent to abuse. Prohibitionist legal regimes insist that all sex workers are criminals, making it almost impossible for society to view sex workers as legitimate victims of violent crime when it occurs…Decriminalization would allow sex workers to come out of the shadows and defend their rights, ensuring that the crimes committed against them by police and others will no longer be hidden…Sex workers deserve the basic respect and protection from violence that each nation owes its citizens.

Of course, there are many benighted souls who subscribe to the “NHI” doctrine and therefore believe that prostitutes “deserve” violence; many of these moral retards are lawyers in positions of power. But laws which criminalize prostitutes have an indirect effect on all women, and sometimes – as illustrated in this December 21^st story from the Phnom Penh Post – on the entire society:

Laws and policies the government has enacted to fight crime are hampering efforts to combat public health threats, including HIV/AIDS, and are leading to human rights abuses…“We think that the laws cracking down on drug and human trafficking remain problematic because after their enforcement, we see that condom distribution has gone down and sexually transmitted disease is on the rise,” public health expert Kem Ley told [a government forum]…Health officials identified the 2008 Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, the 2005 Law on the Control of Drugs and the 2010 village and commune safety guidelines as containing articles and points that have led to harmful consequences in terms of public health and human rights…Sex work is confused with human trafficking, and police crack down harder on sex workers as a result, he said, adding the drug law blurred the lines between users, traffickers and producers…

As one would expect, the government officials insisted that their wonderful laws could not possibly be at fault; social autoimmune disorders thrive in such a climate of denial. And so the sickness continues until it spreads to other vital social systems…and eventually progresses beyond the point where the patient can be saved.

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Forward and Backward

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged brothels, condoms, cops, evidence, Forward and Backward, harm reduction, law, streetwalkers, United Kingdom, Washington DC on November 22, 2011| 36 Comments »

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. – Rita Mae Brown

As one would expect when considering a parent and child, the United Kingdom and United States are quite alike in many ways. But though one would generally expect a child to be more open to new ideas than its parent, recent events seem to indicate that, at least on the subject of prostitution, the opposite is true with these two countries. Aside from the fact that prostitution is technically legal in the UK but completely criminal in the US, the general treatment of whores in both countries is very similar: the police establishment tends to persecute us while the governments spread propaganda rationalizing the persecution. But while at least some British officials are beginning to admit that criminalization doesn’t work and that perhaps a rethinking of conventional policies is in order, American officials simply continue to apply the same heavy-handed, punitive, police-state tactics and merely alter their public rhetoric instead of making any real and substantive changes.

In the United States, it’s unthinkable that a high police official would ever advocate getting rid of bad laws and promoting more humane treatment of sex workers, but in Britain a police chief who openly supports exactly that was not only tolerated, but promoted. Simon Byrne (whom we’ve briefly mentioned before) was until recently deputy chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, but has been appointed assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. And as reported in the November 2^nd Telegraph, he has repeated his previous call for prostitution law reform:

Simon Byrne, who will shortly start work as Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said the decriminalisation and regulation of brothels in Australia and New Zealand had enabled many of those involved in sex work to access health services while maintaining more personal security. Mr Byrne admitted there was ”no perfect solution”, but said he would welcome a debate about alternative approaches to policing prostitution and sexual exploitation. Writing on the Police Chiefs’ blog, Mr Byrne said the move could help bridge the gap between ”tackling neighbourhood nuisance and the exploitation of sex workers…I would very much welcome a debate about alternative policy approaches that could be taken in this area, which would better equip the service to protect its communities and its individuals,” he said. Academic research backed the merits of an alternative approach, Mr Bryne said…

Byrne is still a cop, and therefore tends to imagine that organized crime and “exploitation” are far more prevalent than they actually are. But he seems genuinely concerned with the rights, safety and quality of life of individual prostitutes, and his consultation of real academic research rather than the bogus propaganda studies so popular on this side of the Atlantic make him sound almost like an alien being in comparison with the “tough on crime” rhetoric constantly vomited out by American police officials. Contrast, for example, his proposed strategy with that employed in our nation’s capital:

Under current D.C. law, prostitution is illegal. Simple enough, right? Well, no. Prostitution still happens, so, in 2006, the D.C. Council gave the Metropolitan Police Department the power to designate “prostitution-free zones,” areas in which any two people gathering for allegedly engaging in prostitution-related activities can be asked to disperse and, if they don’t, face arrest. The zones can be designated for up to 240 hours, or 10 days…Now the one member of the Council is seeking to extend that policy…to add a new category of prostitution free zone: permanent…the change has come in response to what [the member] called an “epidemic” of prostitution in her ward…

…During the debate that established the District’s current ten-day prostitution zones, legislators had to balance tools to fight criminal activity and infringements upon civil liberties. A report from the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary noted: “The Court has looked disfavorably [sic] on long periods where civil liberties are limited…” Civil libertarians have pointed out that the mere act of carrying multiple condoms in a designated area would be enough for police to ask an individual to disperse. In 1987, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled against a D.C. law allowing arrests of prostitutes who merely beckoned possible clients, saying that simply acting or looking like a prostitute would not be enough to sustain a conviction.

Advocates for sex workers additionally argue that the zones merely push prostitution to other areas and marginalize those involved in it…[but the councilwoman claims that] the permanent zones [are] more akin to a restraining order, allowing police to more easily disperse individuals suspected of engaging in prostitution and arresting them if they return…it could help crack down on the prostitution that’s plagued parts of her ward.

What a difference! Instead of Byrne’s humane proposals and reliance on data, American “authorities” prefer to treat prostitution as a “plague” or “epidemic”, to indulge their inner Gestapo with repeated “crackdowns” and to respond to civil rights concerns by increasing the powers of police to violate citizens’ civil rights. While Britain seems poised to move forward to a more enlightened view on this issue, America seems bound and determined to continue retreating into barbaric authoritarianism.

One Year Ago Today

“Plaçage” was the last officially-recognized system of concubinage in the West, and reached its most prevalent and structured form in New Orleans of the late 18^th century; the institution was so widespread that it gave rise to an entire ethnic group which has only begun to vanish in the last few decades.

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Gorged With Meaning

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged archeofeminism, cops, evidence, Gorged With Meaning, halfway whores, law, Madonna/whore, naturalness, psychology, stage names, stereotypes, streetwalkers, United Kingdom on November 21, 2011| 9 Comments »

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us. – Jean Baudrillard

Language is one of the most important ways humans organize the universe; by giving things names we gain control over them, place boundaries on them, enable ourselves to describe them to others who do not know about them. The ancients believed that names conferred magical power over people, and hid their true names from strangers; whores do much the same thing by using stage names when dealing with clients. And while naming is a useful tool, it’s extremely important to remember that such names are artificial and reside only in the minds of humans. Mark Twain portrayed Eve as naming the dodo because “it looks like a dodo”, but obviously any other name would do as well as long as everyone agreed upon it. And thereby hangs the tale; very often people try to apply different words to the same thing, or to use specific terms in an overly-broad fashion or general terms in an overly-specific one. Even worse, they sometimes draw up elaborate definitions for a general term based upon observation of one specific example, and then either insist that their characteristics apply to all members of the class, or else deny that something belongs to the class based upon the fact that it doesn’t fit the definition. If, for example, my definition of “bird” includes the ability to fly, I might exclude ostriches and domestic turkeys, and if it included the presence of wings I might exclude the kiwi. On the other hand, if my definition included only beaks and hard-shelled eggs, I might feel justified in classifying a platypus as a bird.

A bird?

I’m sure y’all can see where I’m going with this. Having defined words like “whore” and “prostitution”, people then attempt to impose the definition upon reality instead of adapting the definition to fit reality. At its most basic prostitution is the exchange of sex for something of value, and until governments sought to control it that was good enough. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t sharply demarked from other female behavior, or that some women did it only occasionally while others made a profession of it, or that there was no absolute distinction between a concubine, a mistress and a regularly-patronized courtesan; people used whatever term seemed the best fit for the specific case. But once patriarchal society began to impose laws and restrictions on women’s sexual behavior the label “whore” carried consequences, which became much more serious once Western societies began to actually criminalize our trade a century ago. Furthermore, when governments began attempting to draw lines between the whore and the not-whore they began to discover that it wasn’t quite so easy as they might’ve liked; since the “crime” of “prostitution” was defined entirely by motive, the “authorities” quickly found that a too-tight definition allowed the great majority of harlots to escape their clutches, while a too-loose definition criminalized the majority of the unmarried female population.

When the social scientists decided to study prostitution, things grew still more confusing; their arbitrary definitions sometimes conflicted with the legal ones, and since the only group which everyone agreed fell safely inside the sphere of whoredom were the streetwalkers (who were also highly visible), both researchers and cops directed their (usually unwelcome) attention to them…and soon began to apply their observations, opinions, beliefs, fantasies and guesses about streetwalkers to every other whore. The result? What was once recognized as a broad and indistinct spectrum of female behaviors was now mischaracterized as a distinct, narrow “social problem”; women judged by the “authorities” to be prostitutes were considered degraded or victimized “criminals”, while those judged not to be were as pure as the driven snow: It was the old Madonna/whore duality codified into law.

Not a bird.

This sharp distinction is, of course, pure nonsense; as I explained in my column of one year ago today, there are many women who are far more steeped in whoredom than I ever was, but who are not legally classified as “prostitutes” because they pass some arbitrary legal “whore test”. Among these are “sugar babies”, who are not defined as prostitutes because they only have one client at a time (a legal absurdity which will not be lost on anyone who has read much about courtesans). Young, attractive women have prostituted themselves on this basis to older men since the beginning of civilization, but now that the internet has streamlined the process and made it more visible the usual busybodies are running about, predicting the imminent collapse of the sky. This writer of this October 29^th article from the Daily Mail picks up where the writer of the Huffington Post article discussed in my column of last August 15^th left off:

Events that offer to set up wealthy older men with young cash-strapped women, dubbed ‘Sugar Daddy Parties’, are about to hit Britain after becoming popular in the U.S…The ‘matchmakers’ justify the events by insisting that all participants are consenting adults and ‘nobody has to do anything they don’t want to’ but critics say the parties are bordering on prostitution. And the scenes from New York venues that have hosted the get-togethers, showing pretty young women hanging off the arms off much older men only add to the sleaziness factor. On average, fees of $500 per date is said to be common in the U.S., but arrangements worth between $10,000 and $20,000 per month have also been agreed upon in the past, according to its organiser…

The confusion and discomfort of the writer, a lawyer she quotes and some of the women in both articles derive from what I described above: the attempt to impress definitions on reality rather than observing it for what it is. The cognitive chain goes something like this: “Young women are taking money for sex, which is what prostitutes do; prostitutes are degraded, drug-addicted criminal human trafficking victims, therefore SOCIETY IS DOOMED!!!!!!” To a rational person, of course, the chain would go in exactly the opposite direction: “Young women are taking money for sex, which is what prostitutes do; these young women are just trying to better their lives or make a living like anyone else, so maybe that’s what most prostitutes are like as well”. Seeing the world as it is brings clarity and understanding; forcing an ill-fitting interpretation upon it brings nothing but confusion and stress.

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November Updates (Part Two)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged cell phones, censorship, cops, dirty, evidence, FBI, Florida, law, Michigan, Mind Reading, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Where Are the Victims? on November 3, 2011| 14 Comments »

When truth is no longer free, freedom is no longer real: the truths of the police are the truths of today. – Jacques Prévert

Three more dispatches from the War on Whores.

…And Always Know Where Your Towel Is (November 17^th, 2010)

SWOP suggests that “every hooker…develop a ‘Don’t Panic’ plan she can give to friends in case she is arrested. The idea is that if a woman knows her kids, pets, house, etc are being taken care of while she is delayed for hours after the arrest, she is less likely to panic and let the cops take advantage of her.” Well, technology marches on, and according to this October 12^th article from CNET some clever fellow has decided to automate the process:

Imagine you’re in New York…peacefully protesting…to curb excessive influence of big business…on U.S. laws and policy. You’re holding up a sign declaring your heartfelt beliefs and chanting a bit with some of your fellow demonstrators when, all of a sudden–bam! The cops slap the cuffs on you, with the intention of carting you off to the nearest police station. Meanwhile, your friends and family are at home completely clueless about your situation. Enter I’m Getting Arrested, a creative Android app that…was inspired by a similar incident. It lets you quickly notify your family, friends, and crack legal team (if you have one) of your situation with a single tap of your finger. Just initially enter a custom message and some SMS-ready numbers to contact in the event of your arrest. Then, as you’re about to be corralled into the back of a squad car, fire the app up and long-press the bull’s-eye for 2 seconds. From there, you can rest assured that your message will be sent to the appropriate contacts…

Clearly, this could be useful for whores as well, though I’m not sure an entrapped girl would be able to get her hands on her smartphone quickly enough before the pigs snatched it away from her. Perhaps a mark II version could include a timer that fires off the panic message unless a code is entered by a certain time, thus foiling the sadistic “you’ll get your call later” game.

Where Are the Victims? (May 14^th, 2011)

Considering the economic and social collapse of Detroit (which has lost 60% of its population in the last 30 years), one would think its “authorities” would have better things to do than persecute hookers. But for that to happen, they’d have to have sense and a moral center, which they don’t. So instead they keep wasting tremendous amounts of money, resources and manpower to persecute people for having parties, as reported in the October 14^th Macomb Daily:

…Three men have been named in federal indictments accusing them of setting up events [at bowling alleys] where male customers could engage in “meet-and-greet” [events with] prostitutes who would then take them to hotels for sex for cash. The alleys, the owners say, are unfairly being singled out and had no knowledge of what went on after those who rented their party rooms left the premises. David Kilvington, Steven Thompson and Mark Leblanc are charged with creating websites to lure customers to the sex parties, according to a complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in Detroit…A cover charge of $20 at the door allowed guests inside to meet up to 72 prostitutes — or “service providers” — for the purposes of later having sex. The prostitutes were expected to give “donations” to the prostitution organizers of between $100 and $1,000 for the events…While the bowling centers may have served as staging areas for the alleged prostitution ring, the owners of the locations say nothing untoward occurred at the alleys…[which] have meeting rooms that can be booked by anybody, and are glass-walled and what goes on can be seen by everybody at the lanes, the owners say…FBI agents were alerted to the operation by the mother of a 17-year-old escort who sent an email to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office claiming her daughter was lured to the operation by promises of money and drugs in exchange for sexual favors. The mother provided information because she feared for her daughter’s life and was concerned other women would become involved, according to the message contained in court records. Over the course of three years, federal investigators used confidential informants, an electronic paper trail and PayPal records to build a case against the suspects…The case was investigated by the Violent Crime Squad in the Detroit division of the FBI…

Most of this is the typical filth vomited out by cops and prosecutors (party organizers “lured customers”, the mother “feared for her daughter’s life” from a bunch of middle-aged businessmen at a bowling alley, etc), but there are a few points of interest, not the least of which is that the “violent crime squad” is so idle that it could devote three years to busting a bunch of guys for organizing social events for consenting adults (I’d lay good odds that “17-year-old escort” is some kind of red herring). The lesson to be learned here? In these days of gigantic FBI boondoggles, “meet and greet” events are not a good idea; that many fat ducks in one pond presents far too tempting a target for the shotguns.

Mind Reading (June 1^st, 2011)

Remember that Utah law that made it illegal to “act sexy”, and how when it was challenged as criminalizing normal female behavior its sponsor insisted it would only be used against “real” prostitutes, as determined by the super-duper psychic mind probe powers of cops? Well, obviously Florida believes its cops have that power as well, because they’re trying to criminalize not only acting sexy, but strolling, waving and asking “are you a cop?”:

Hillsborough County authorities are looking for ways to make it easier for authorities to arrest suspected prostitutes…[by] passing a law making it illegal to participate in activities that signal an intent to sell sex. Potentially illegal activities would include “strolling” along public rights of way while waving to or trying to stop passing motorists, or repeatedly entering different vehicles for short periods of time. Touching oneself in a provocative manner could also be grounds for arrest. The ordinance would also seek to thwart suspected prostitutes and their customers from trying to identify undercover officers. It would make it illegal for the suspected prostitute or customer to ask someone if they are a law enforcement officer. It would also be illegal to ask someone to prove they aren’t an officer by asking them to expose themselves. Today, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies rely on state laws that typically require an undercover officer to get a prostitute or customer to agree to exchange sex for money before making an arrest…

Wait, you mean right now somebody actually has to break the law before being arrested for breaking it? Well, we can’t have that! But just in case you think the ignorance of these “authorities” only extends to the U.S. Constitution, Commission Chairman Al Higginbotham (who obviously fancies his position magically grants him a degree in sociology in addition to super psychic powers) has a message for you:

While he said he holds no expectation that the measure will end prostitution, he rejected characterizations that it is a victimless crime. He cited statistics showing many prostitutes are teenagers, are often victims of violence and tend to abuse drugs. “This is no story about a pretty woman,” Higginbotham said.

Obviously, Mr. Higginbotham thinks the best way to help drug-addicted teenage crime victims is to arrest them for walking down the street or asking questions; I suspect the ACLU is of a different opinion.

One Year Ago Today

“Meretrices and Prostibulae” is a glossary of the many, many different kinds of whores who lived and did business in Imperial Rome.

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October Updates (Part Two)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged BDSM, brothels, Canada, cops, dirty, escort services, ethics, evidence, Florida, He Said-She Said, Lack of Evidence, law, Legalization a Good Idea?, politicians, sex toys, streetwalkers, Thinking with the Wrong Head on October 3, 2011| 12 Comments »

It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law…that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. – H.L. Mencken

Our monthly roundup of short news stories that remind me of past columns.

Lack of Evidence (December 16^th, 2010)

In this column I wrote that in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,

…winking is evidence of prostitution. In Detroit, not wearing a bra and/or panties serves a similar function, and in many places it’s having more than one condom in one’s purse. And for a woman to appear alone on a street has been used as evidence since the beginning of prohibition over a century ago. Cops are not allowed such ridiculous excuses for “evidence” for any other “crime”, so why are they allowed it for prostitution? It’s because it is the only human activity which is legal to perform for free but not for directly-negotiated pay, so physical evidence is impossible. There is no body, no stolen goods, no bruises; even DNA evidence recovered from a hooker’s skin could only suggest sex had occurred, not prostitution.

Most of the time, they just lie about what happened or label cell phones “criminal tools”, but some of them go to quite extraordinary lengths, as reported in The Smoking Gun on September 15^th:

Undercover vice squad officers routinely come into contact with skeptical prostitutes wary that their prospective john may actually be a police officer. So, before discussing business, a hooker will often ask the purported sex-seeker to first expose himself, since that is a no-no for a cop. Anticipating this demand, a Florida detective “attempting to solicit prostitutes” last night hit the Sarasota streets with a “flaccid rubber replica of a penis” stuffed into his pants…when the detective asked [a woman he picked up] how much it would cost for oral sex, the woman was noncommittal…“I then exposed a flaccid rubber replica of a penis and placed a condom on it,” wrote Smith. “She immediately leaned over and put it into her mouth.” At this point…[the cop] spotted an opossum crossing the road and slammed on the brakes, “causing the female to slide out of her seat and mildly into the dashboard.” The report does not make clear whether she still had Smith’s sheathed fake penis in her mouth at the time…

Despite the known tendency of Sarasota cops to lie about vice operations, Florida is obviously stricter than states like Pennsylvania, where cops are allowed to get as naked as they like or even rape women before arresting them. But this ridiculous dildo dodge proves nothing except that a pervert cop had a sex toy in his car (big surprise). I hope she sues him for the head injury as the other Florida woman who was tased and beaten by cops is doing.

Thinking with the Wrong Head (March 2^nd, 2011)

Nearly every politician sees whores, and practically none of them get caught because they have the sense to hire them from a discreet agency rather than trolling Craigslist like Chris Lee or cruising for streetwalkers like Kenneth Maag, the (now former) Mayor of Ottawa, Ohio:

Kenneth Maag resigned as the Mayor of Ottawa [Ohio] two weeks after his arrest on charges of soliciting prostitution…Maag also asked that his name be removed from the ballot in the upcoming election…[in which he] was running unopposed. Maag was arrested on [August 29^th] …during a prostitution sting…[and] charged with solicitation for prostitution, a third degree misdemeanor…

CORRECTION, 10/5/11: I originally missed that this was a story from a city in Ohio and presumed it was Ottawa, Canada; my grievous error was called to my attention by a reader from the larger and more famous Canadian Ottawa. Boy, is my face red! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! And I’ll let my husband know that a spanking is due for my carelessness when he gets home from his current trip (and lest any of you think that’s no punishment, think again; his spankings hurt!)

He Said, She Said (March 4^th, 2011)

When I mentioned the John Hopkins case again in my September 15^th column, regular reader Bandoblue decided to investigate and discovered a link which led me to this New York Post follow-up from June 29^th:

…John Hopkins, who had been in jail since his arrest in February, was released without bail after prosecutor Christina Fay told Brooklyn Judge Patricia DiMango that his accuser was loath to come back to New York to testify…The woman, who had a previous consensual S&M relationship with Hopkins, was found by cops curled in the fetal position, chained to a radiator. Hospital records showed she was suffering severe alcohol poisoning. She has since left the state and has missed several court appearances. Hopkins walked out of court hand-in-hand with his sister, an Episcopalian minister and former assistant district attorney in Maryland. [They] declined to comment, but his lawyer Andrew Stoll maintains Hopkins did not commit any crime. “Innocent people get accused of crimes…Everyone should know that.”

Though Hopkins was released, his ordeal isn’t quite over yet; according to The Framing Business his case was scheduled for trial on September 20^th, though I haven’t been able to dig up anything on how that went.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (March 22^nd, 2011)

Many well-meaning people who believe themselves to be on our side call for prostitution to be “legalized and heavily regulated”; they do not understand that such “heavy” regulatory schemes are terribly unfair (subjecting whores to far more supervision, higher fees and nuisance inspections than other service jobs) and often have such onerous restrictions that they simply drive many women back underground. 70% of Nevada prostitutes prefer to work illegally than to subject themselves to the Draconian regime of the legal brothels, and if the scheme reported in the September 15^th Edmonton Journal gets any more expensive, arbitrary and elaborate than what is described here, they’ll be right back where they started:

Proposed new rules for escort agencies and body-rub parlours will put Edmonton at Canada’s forefront for regulating erotic businesses, the city’s chief licensing officer says. Under recommended bylaw changes released Thursday, escorts and body-rub workers will need to take a sexual exploitation information session and prove they’re over 18 before receiving a business licence. Legitimate massage practitioners would be regulated separately from the steamy side of the field, with a lower fee and no more need for police checks. The city also wants to form a sex-industry enforcement team, similar to the group inspecting bars and nightclubs, that could include police, bylaw, health, employment and immigration, border services and community members…

…He expects the sexual exploitation course, the only one he knows about in Canada, would last two or three hours and cover such issues as employment standards and human trafficking. Police would be able to recommend to [licensing officer Roger] Kirillo whether he should give escort agencies and exotic entertainment agencies licences, based primarily on whether those in charge have a history of violence. The Ontario Court of Appeal still hasn’t ruled on a case that successfully challenged the constitutionality of laws against keeping a bawdy house, pimping and soliciting in public, but Kirillo said that isn’t the issue right now. “We’re not licensing prostitution. We’re licensing an adult entertainment and erotic industry”…

Setting aside the idea that a “training course” run by social workers who have never hooked a day in their lives could be anything but insulting and patronizing, as soon as an “enforcement team” and artificially-higher fees enter the picture the door is open for abuse. As for Kirillo’s crowing about this being the “forefront” of regulating erotic businesses, he’s obviously unfamiliar with the history of the subject because what he’s proposing is the same as the system established soon after the French Revolution, wherein police are allowed to decide who gets licenses. Any whore who bribes the police in money and sex as often as demanded, and madams who give cops the run of their establishments, get the OK and others don’t. This isn’t the “forefront” of anything; it’s plain old government pimping again.

One Year Ago Today

“Safe Targets” exposes an attempt to extort money from Denver escorts by threatening to trash their reputations, thus taking advantage of the vulnerability engendered by criminalization.

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