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Posts Tagged ‘Feet of Clay’

That Was the Week That Was (#22)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2012| 34 Comments »

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.  –  Victor Hugo

One new item, eight updates and two metaupdates.

True Colors

New Orleans charity Women With A Vision has been fighting for the rights of poor women, including sex workers, for years; their efforts were instrumental in bringing down Louisiana’s monstrous “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” law which was used to place whores (especially black or transsexual ones) on the “sex offender” registry.  Apparently some hateful person was angry about this or their other work, because on the night of May 24th he broke into their office and set a fire which destroyed it and virtually everything in it.

There’s no way to know whether the arsonist was motivated by hatred of prostitutes, black people, transsexuals, or some other disadvantaged group for which WWAV fights, but this action demonstrates the true colors of those who would deny rights to others, no matter what rhetoric they use to rationalize their position.  WWAV is desperately in need of help:  New Orleans area readers could donate time, women’s clothing, computer equipment, office supplies, etc (call 504-301-0428 to volunteer), and readers anywhere in the world can donate to WWAV at their site.  My readers have been very generous to me with presents, but for the next few months I ask that you spend that money helping WWAV instead; if you want it to be a present for me, just make the donation in my name.  Any help you can give will mean a great deal to me!

A similar incident occurred in China last week:

An outspoken advocate for sex workers reopened her office…after it was trashed by eight men who punched and threatened her life last week.  Ye Haiyan, 37, is the founder of Chinese Women’s Rights Workshops, an NGO that promotes sex workers’ rights and helps raise awareness of HIV/AIDS…Ye said the men did not look like gang members and she suspects that local authorities might have had a role in the attack…Earlier this year, she was also threatened over the phone and told to shut her office…

Updates

Lying Down With Dogs (November 24th, 2010)

Another example of an African country whose anti-whore rhetoric strongly resembles that of the US, right down to the ludicrous euphemisms:

The Liberian government…disclosed that a campaign named…“Operation Save Our Future” has been launched…[to] minimize prostitution as well as sexual exploitation and abuse against girls…the operation will also tackle indecent dressing…Minister [Julia] Cassell said the prostitutes will be rehabilitated through basic skills including baking, sewing, hair dressing, and pastry…She urged the public to dress appropriately because the “government is now after them.”  She called on those involved into commercial sex working to desist from the illegal act and put their hands to use in a positive direction.

Because working independently for good pay isn’t a “positive direction”, but working in a sweatshop or doing other low-paid work for someone else is; that’s especially loathsome rhetoric in a country founded by freed slaves.  Note also that Liberian “feminists”, like their American sisters, are unable to recognize that the road from criminalization of prostitution to criminalization of “indecent dress” is a very short one.

Neither Cold nor Hot (April 6th, 2011)

Jezebel has attacked evolutionary psychologists like Satoshi Kanazawa (who, incidentally, has a new book out) on a number of occasions, and now they’re fighting back:  Kanazwa’s colleague Barry Kuhle sharply criticizes the site for embracing the neofeminist “social construction of gender” dogma in his article “Giving Feminism a Bad Name”.  He examines the logical fallacies used by “gender feminists” (Christina Sommers’ term for neofeminists) to attack scientific findings, and blames them for the word “feminist” having become an insult.  Kuhle’s an interesting writer; I also enjoyed his recent column on why the ever-increasing alphabet soup used to describe sexual minorities (now LGBTQIH and still growing) is ridiculous and should be replaced by a more manageable acronym.

Welcome To Our World Again (January 20th, 2012)

Too bad Zimbabwe isn’t the only country so Bizarro that it’s willing to cut off its nose to spite its face on the issue of sex laws which cause higher rates of HIV:

President Robert Mugabe yesterday clashed with visiting UN human rights chief Navi Pillay after she appeared to suggest that legalising prostitution and homosexuality could go a long way in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS…Mugabe…swore that this would happen OVER HIS DEAD BODY…police in Harare have intensified a blitz on prostitutes and women found in pubs claiming they are trying to stop crime which is being promoted by prostitution…Mugabe…has previously described homosexuality as “worse than dogs and pigs”…MP Tabitha Khumalo…[said] “[Prostitution] is here to stay and we need to bite the bullet.  PLEASURE ENGINEERING…did not begin in…Zimbabwe.  It all began in the Garden of Eden and one of those PLEASURE ENGINEERS was Eve”…

In a sense, bigots like Mugabe are more consistent and less hypocritical than certain Americans who are very vocal in demanding their own sexual rights, yet support persecution of whores.  Also, I think I’m going to write MP Khumalo a fan letter.

The Rape Question (April 4th, 2012)

This article about “brothel” raids in Ireland (actually, most were private flats in which women worked together for safety) is full of the usual agency denial and “sex trafficking” mythology, but I was especially struck by one passage:  “Mary Crilly, Director of the Sexual Violence Centre (SVC) in Cork [said], ‘I welcome the raids.  We need to end the demand for prostitution, as long as there are men who are paying for sex there will be a demand.  Prostitution isn’t about sex, it’s about money and exploitation’.”  This is of course the old “rape is asexual” dogma, but it does demonstrate how completely out of touch with reality these women are.

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

The death-spiral of Nicholas Kristof’s reputation continues:

The Brooklyn prosecutor who had a starring role in…Nicholas Kristof’s expose of Backpage…has resigned amid charges she sat on evidence that would have saved a sex-crimes suspect from spending 11 months in jail.  The New York Daily News reported this week that  prosecutor Lauren Hersh quit after two black men charged with serially raping an Orthodox Jewish girl since she was 13 were released because the alleged victim had recanted her claims the day after she made them.  Hersh…failed to share [the recantation] with the grand jury or defense lawyers…Hersh was also cited in Kristof’s story about Backpage back in January, “How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls”…Kristof cited a case prosecuted by Hersh involving an underage prostitute, without disclosing the fact that Hersh only was able to track down the perpetrators because Backpage turned over identifying information…

Unfortunately, Fisher is a mealy-mouthed moralist who denies women’s right to sex on our own terms; he seems more concerned with the fact that Backpage is singled out than the fact that whores are persecuted.  But that makes his attacks on Kristof (his natural ally in moralism) all the more indicative of the latter’s fall from grace.

This poster for my favorite perfume was the most complained-about advert in the UK since 1995.

Little Boxes
(April 29th, 2012)

As I’ve pointed out many times, it is impossible to draw clear lines between female sexual behaviors, and sugar babies are part of a continuum stretching from wives to professional harlots.  But while I usually demonstrate the strong resemblance between sugar babies and hookers, Helen Croydon makes the equally valid point that they are a lot like traditional “low maintenance” lovers, and defends such arrangements as sensible and rewarding:

…These models of relationships are an honest way of withholding commitment…That may not be appealing to everyone.  It certainly isn’t the route to finding a soul mate.  But not everyone wants one of those at every stage in their life.  Is it so wrong to underpin the foundations of a relationship with something other than 100% devotion and exclusivity?…payment…doesn’t necessarily have to exclude affection…“compensated relationships” are far more honorable and rewarding than meaningless, vulgar, no-strings sex encounters.  Yet we give more respect to the latter.  These days relationships can only be rubber stamped if they are all encompassing, full-time, cohabiting and long-term…

Whorearchy (May 10th, 2012)

Until the mid-19th century prostitutes and actresses were members of a single profession, and we still haven’t diverged much.  But one wouldn’t know that from listening to actresses – including those who have played sex workers – insisting that they’re better than we are:

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is demanding an apology from a Hong Kong newspaper after it published claims she had sex with disgraced Communist party official Bo Xilai for huge sums of money…the star of ” Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” [allegedly] slept with Bo at least ten times between 2007 and 2011…[and] negotiated similar deals with several other powerful men…she [supposedly] earned around $110 million from prostituting herself…

Traffic Jam (May 20th, 2012)

Reason posted a video of 20/20‘s 1985 report “The Devil Worshippers”:

…It may help, as you watch this, to know that the bodies of the alleged sacrifice victims never materialized, that the statistic of two million missing kids was a wild exaggeration, and that Mike Warnke, presented here as an expert on Satanic rites, was later exposed as a fraud.  But really, anyone able to think critically should be able to see through this without the benefit of hindsight.  What’s interesting is that so many people took it seriously at the time…Even if you ignore the actual misinformation in the program, this is as pure an example as you’ll find of how a scattered group of unconnected crimes can be presented as a grand, malevolent movement, particularly when they’re combined with anxieties about the influence of popular culture…

Here are the links for Part Two and Part Three.

Metaupdates

What a Week! in October Updates (Part One) (October 2nd, 2011)

Another advantage to decriminalization:  access to the legal system.

A plan to build Australia’s largest brothel is poised to overcome local government opposition in a victory for Sydney’s sex industry over creeping regulation.  The $12 million, three-storey extension to the Stiletto brothel…can be approved once client numbers are capped…Even after being decriminalised in 1995, NSW brothel owners are increasingly turning to courts to reverse rejections by councils opposed to the industry…”Research usually shows brothels are not a problem in a community,” said Wayne Morgan, a lecturer specialising in sexuality-related law at the Australian National University.  “Staff are usually very discreet, and clients, by their very nature, are very discreet.  This was partly the point of legalising brothels in the first place – to take out the criminal aspect”…

Counterfeit Comfort in TW3 (#8) (February 26th, 2012)

Louisiana’s recent attempt to further destroy the lives of people who urinated in public or had consensual sex with their high-school girlfriends is not the only one to be defeated lately; those condemned to the American pariah caste are fighting back:

Registered sex offenders who have been banned from social networking websites are…successfully challenging many of the restrictions as infringements on free speech…Courts have long allowed states to place restrictions on convicted sex offenders who have completed their sentences…but the increasing use of social networks for everyday communication raises new, untested issues…Ruthann Robson, a professor of constitutional law at the City University of New York, said the bans could eventually be taken up by the Supreme Court…”If we think that the government can curtail sex offenders’ rights without any connection to the actual crime, then it could become a blanket prohibition against anyone who is accused of a crime, no matter what the crime is”…

One Year Ago Today

“June Updates (Part Two)” reports on San Diego’s excuses for rapist cops, Mira Sorvino’s declaring Sacramento the “leading destination for sex traffickers”, and yet another guy playing BDSM games with strangers without a signed contract.

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That Was the Week That Was (#21)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2012| 25 Comments »

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.  –  David Cronenberg

Eleven updates and two metaupdates.

Japanese Prostitution (October 21st, 2010)

This is just so awesome:

…alibi-ya provide women in the…sex industry with a reputable but totally fictitious identity…[using] things like fake business cards, references and employment certificates…[and] even…fake [bosses] for birthday speeches and other family events…Shintaro Sakamoto runs an alibi-ya in Tokyo.  “We provide assistance to mainly hostesses and prostitutes,” he said.  “We help them to rent apartments, and we help them get their kids into nursery schools”…[if] parents ring the office their daughter supposedly works at, the alibi-ya will be ready with the deception, explaining their daughter is in a meeting and will call back shortly.  The alibi-ya will then ring the woman’s mobile and tell her to call home.  Even the caller ID is fixed so it looks like the woman is calling from the landline in her fake office.  There is nothing illegal about the service…

Real People (February 6th, 2011)

Louise and Martine Fokkens are 69-year-old identical twins in Amsterdam who have worked as whores since the age of 19, owned their own brothel for a time and set up the first trade union for prostitutes.  A new documentary, Meet the Fokkens, looks at the colorful lives of these very unconventional ladies.

See No Evil (November 26th, 2011)

I only wish lunacy like this was confined to Sweden; unfortunately, it happens all over the West now:

…Simon Lundström was convicted of possessing child pornography…despite the fact the “manga images” used to convict him featured no real children…The punishment Lundström faces is relatively minor – a fine of around $780…but…still marks him as a sex offender…[plus he lost] his job [as a manga translator and]…can no longer offer his services as a “manga expert”…the prosecution…argued that the images could be used to entice children…and even went as far as to suggest the artists…could have used real children as models…

Sex, Lies and Busybodies (January 27th, 2012)

The Los Angeles City council has apparently begun to recognize that its stupid condom law is unenforceable:

The city administrative officer has asked for a 90-day extension…[citing] “complexities”…In recent weeks the…panel has heard from a contingent of vocal…industry officials who say the ordinance is faulty and unneeded…adult industry attorney…Allan Gelbard…[said] the…extension may give the panel more time to logically think things through.  “Perhaps, if they take a more thorough look at the constitutional issues involved…they will realize what a mistake…this ordinance truly was”…

The Immunity Syndrome (March 5th, 2012)

It now appears the damage done by “abstinence-only sex education” may be even worse than previously believed:

Sixty percent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 may not truly understand how proper use of contraception can prevent pregnancy, according to a new study from the Guttmacher Institute, which reports abstinence-only sex education may be leaving young adults with a subpar understanding of sexual health.  Forty percent of respondents…said birth control was not important because “when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen”…Although…69 percent of women and almost half of the men… agreed they were “committed to avoiding pregnancy,” they seemed to question whether contraceptive devices such as condoms or birth control pills were an effective way to achieve that goal…

Thou Shalt Not (March 6th, 2012)

Alas, the US does not have a monopoly on crypto-moralism:

…according to a study…in the…journal Pediatrics…young adults who listen to…music…with ear buds are almost twice as likely as non-listeners to smoke pot…And those who attend concerts or frequent dance clubs are nearly six times as likely as homebodies to go on a binge-drinking bender.  These findings are based on survey results collected from 944 low-income students…in the Netherlands…[who] ranged in age from 15 to 25…Risky music-listening behavior was defined as listening to music at 89 dBA for at least an hour per day…That music exposure can cause noise-induced hearing loss…[and] “increased feelings of isolation, depression, loneliness, anger, and fear”…But that’s not where the health risks end.  The researchers found that…those who put themselves at risk…were:

* 1.99 times more likely to [have] used cannabis in the last four weeks;
* 1.19 times more likely to smoke cigarettes daily; and
* 1.10 times more likely to have sex without using a condom every time.

…those who put themselves at risk by attending noisy concerts and clubs were:

* 5.94 times more likely to have consumed five or more alcoholic drinks in a row at some point in the last four weeks;
* 2.03 times more likely to have sex without using a condom every time; and
* 1.12 times more likely to smoke cigarettes every day.

…The researchers…say…public health officials…could design practical interventions, such as handing out condoms along with earplugs at concert venues, or by printing messages about alcohol abuse on concert ticket stubs…

Remember, kids, rock and roll is dangerous!  But at least it can’t make you as clueless as people who actually get paid to write rubbish like this, or who publish articles about adult behavior in a magazine for pediatricians.

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

Walter Olson on Nick Kristof’s latest exercise in fatuity:

Is there a New York Times columnist as insufferably moralistic, or as neglectful of facts that contradict his argument, as Nicholas Kristof?  Last week Kristof mounted yet another of his high-horse save-the-children campaigns, this time against…Anheuser-Busch.  Kristof asks readers to join his boycott of the leading brewer for…permitting its output to be sold…just across the state line from the Oglala Sioux’s Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  Though notionally dry, the reservation is in practice wracked with alcoholism…Unlike Kristof’s  column and blog post, the Times‘ earlier reporting on the dispute at least makes a few concessions about how the tribe’s alcoholism…has more complicated origins than [a new] lawsuit would make it seem.  For example, it quotes Oglala members who say the unusual Pine Ridge policy of complete alcohol prohibition…has been a failure…Kristof by contrast appears to have swallowed the lawsuit’s contentions in one hearty draft…

Olson goes on to point out that under Nebraska law, brewers have no control over distribution of their product by state-licensed wholesalers; in other words Anheuser-Busch couldn’t stop beer from being sold near the reservation even if it shared Kristof’s belief that “enlightened” white people should “protect” childlike non-whites from their own choices.

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18th, 2012)

I hope this keeps up; if they fire every government operative who has ever hired a whore, the few remaining bureaucrats will be too busy filling out forms to have any time to intrude in the private lives of citizens:

Three Drug Enforcement Administration agents are under investigation for allegedly hiring prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia…Sen. Susan Collins…[said] “It’s disturbing that we may be uncovering a troubling culture that spans more than one law enforcement agency…the evidence…indicates that this likely was not just a one-time incident”…

Senator Collins, that is the understatement of the century.

Little Boxes (April 29th, 2012)

Amanda Brooks has a knack for discovering oddities like “Fake Internet Girlfriend”, which describes itself as “a service that allows our clients to discreet [sic] employ real females to pretend to be their girlfriend online and communicate with them as if they were dating the person on various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter or in some cases in gaming communities like World of Warcraft.”  So if it’s more important to you to look like you have a girlfriend than to just use that money to actually have sex (which could potentially relax you enough that you might actually attract a real girlfriend), this is for you.  Of course they insist that they aren’t an escort service, and I‘ll grant that…but honestly, isn’t this on the periphery of sex work?  It’s not at all unusual for a client to pay a girl just to have someone to talk to or to be seen with in public, with no sex involved; is this so different?

Pyrrhic Victory (May 17th, 2012)

For those who felt I was being an alarmist about drones:

…Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas…is considering using rubber bullets and tear gas on its drone…“It’s simply not appropriate to use any of force, lethal or non-lethal, on a drone,” [said] Catherine Crump [of the ACLU]…“An officer at a remote location…[Tasing or targeting] people…[could be considered] unconstitutional force…”

Today, remotely-piloted aircraft armed with tasers and tear gas; tomorrow autonomous killer robots with machine guns.  And y’all thought that was just dystopian science fiction.

Traffic Jam
(May 20th, 2012)

Phoenix, Arizona joins the “major sex trafficking hotspot” competition, implements a version of the Swedish Model and violates the separation of church and state in one fell swoop:  “…Phoenix has become a hot spot for sex trafficking in part because we’re a destination point and our major highways…Rather than arrest sex trafficking victims, Project Rose enables officers to bring them to Bethany Bible Church…” where they get all these wonderful services as long as they claim to be “trafficked” and invent a bunch of “leads” to keep the police happy.  Look for the creative claim that “trafficked children” are kept in “dog crates” to show up in more trafficking porn over the next few months.

In this article I also pointed out that the practice of young female gang members contributing to gang finances via prostitution is now being called “sex trafficking”, and as Emi Koyama explained in a recent post about a public forum on the topic, the government recognizes the truth:

…a [government] representative…was invited to make a statement, which she was completely unprepared for…she slipped the information that confirmed what many activists knew was the case but most government experts were smart enough to conceal:  that the U.S. Attorney’s Office views domestic minor sex trafficking as “primarily gang-related,” and has moved the issue to its “gang unit”; transnational human trafficking on the other hand was moved to the civil rights unit…human trafficking is becoming yet another way for young men of color to be criminalized and imprisoned…

Metaupdates

Backwards into the Future in TW3 (#6) (February 19th, 2012)

Once again, Namibians prove that they understand human rights better than Americans do:

The Executive Director of…Rights Not Rescue, Nicodemus ‘Mama Africa’ Aochamub says…”we are thankful that Kazenambo Kazenambo [a government minister who called for legalization of sex work] is brave to stand up for us, but we…prefer that sex work be decriminalised…With legalising, we will work under municipal laws such as registration…red-light districts and [forced]…medical checks [and] identification cards…Time has come for sex work to be regarded like any other employment”…

Sales Pitch in TW3 (#9) (March 4th, 2012)

Wendy Lyon on what a “sex trafficking” trial reveals about the “Swedish Model”:

…last week several men were convicted for what Swedish prosecutors have called one of the largest trafficking rings of its kind…You can read…about it here, here and here…but there are a couple things…worth drawing attention to.  The first is…[that “there was no lack of buyers”]…one of the women…[said] she had seven or eight customers on her very first night.  This doesn’t say much for the supposed deterrent effect of the sex purchase ban.  The second is the breakdown of [clients’] ages…36% were born in the 1960s, 21% in the 1970s and 30% in the 1980s…nearly a third…were teenagers when the ban was introduced in 1999:  further evidence (as I discussed here) that it hasn’t had the normative effect it was supposed to have on younger men.  The 17-year-old’s conviction is interesting for another reason…Sweden’s age of majority is 18, which means that he is legally still a child…The ideology underlying the sex purchase ban is that women cannot choose to sell sex; evidently, however, Swedish law considers that male children…can choose to buy it.  In other words, when it comes to trading sex for money, adult women are less competent than male children.  Could there be any clearer illustration of how this law infantilises women?

One Year Ago Today

“Chupacabra” compares the truth about pimps to their oversized legend.

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That Was the Week That Was (#15)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2012| 20 Comments »

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.  –  James Madison

Ten updates and two meta-updates.

Welcome To Our World (January 20th, 2011)

Who else besides prostitutes and drug users are abducted and caged “for their own good”?

A 17-year-old suspected rape victim is being held in a California juvenile detention facility to ensure that she’ll show up to testify against her attacker…“The last thing we ever want to do is put a victim or a witness in custody, but when you have serious crimes of violence and multiple offenses, you have to balance the protection of the community,” [said the]…assistant district attorney…

Once again:  never, ever call the cops for any reason, not even if you think you’re dying.  Because once you do, they think you are their personal property to dispose of in any way they wish.

A Manufactured War (January 23rd, 2011)

In the grand tradition of William Randolph Hearst, the New York Times doesn’t just report the news; it exaggerates, distorts and lies in order to make a “good story”.  And since it’s been on an anti-whore hobby horse for several years now, that means stuff like this:

…While the rest of Spain’s economy may be struggling, experts say that prostitution — almost all of it involving the ruthless trafficking of foreign women — is booming…powered in large part by the desires of young men…The State Department’s 2010 report on trafficking said that 200,000 to 400,000 women worked in prostitution in Spain…[and] 90 percent were trafficked…

No, “experts” say no such thing; those who promote this kind of garbage are mostly just making it up, either pulling numbers from thin air or using overly-broad definitions (such as defining any hooker who works in an area other than her native soil as “trafficked”) and then embellishing the numbers with unwarranted adjectives like “ruthless” and presenting scare stories as “fact”.  For more Times duplicity, see “Feet of Clay” below.

Neither Cold Nor Hot (April 6th, 2011)

Once in a while, Jezebel stands up for sex workers; too bad it isn’t more often:

Sex workers are anti sex-trafficking.  It seems obvious…and yet you might not know this because sex workers rights activists have not gotten any air-time from the major anti-trafficking organizations…shutting down advertising sites…means losing the ability to screen clients beforehand…SWOP and other sex worker advocacy groups have ideas around what could actually help trafficking…

Don’t Take My Word For It (September 29th, 2011)

Three German students may have discovered the secret to heterosexual male prostitution:  don’t charge anything or expect much business:

…three business students from the University of Mannheim…offer…female students uncomplicated and anonymous one-night stands…posters…promise “Good Grades through Good Sex.”  The young men claim that their project is about emancipation…and…should be recognized as more than a mere coital campaign…Female students who spend their evenings drained and fatigued in the library and are in the mood for a little closeness and intimacy are encouraged to send an email.  Then one of the three men will meet with them…[they] claim that five one-night-stands have taken place so far…

Scapegoats (January 26th, 2012)

Since this report is several years old and was not available on any mainstream news site, I suspect it’s an urban legend circulated among animal-rights types;  supposedly an orangutan named Pony was “rescued” from a rural brothel in Borneo, where she was employed as a prostitute and shaved several times a week to make her more presentable.  Unless someone manages to dig up a properly-documented article, I must point out that claiming huge numbers of men would pay for sex with an ape seems closely akin to the notion that similar numbers want sex with traumatized prepubescent girls:  both are prohibitionist myths intended to smear men in general and whores’ clients in particular.

The Immunity Syndrome (March 5th, 2012)

Here’s an unsurprising report showing that American states with “abstinence-only” sex education have the highest teen pregnancy rates:

The number of teen births in the U.S. dropped again in 2010…to about 34 per 1,000 girls… Mississippi continues to have the  highest teen birth rate, with 55 births per 1,000 girls.  New Hampshire has the lowest rate at just under 16 births per 1,000 girls.  This is the lowest national rate for teen births since…1940…Researchers…found that teenagers who received…comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant.  And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”  But 37 states require sex education that includes abstinence, 26 of which require that abstinence be stressed as the best method…research shows that [these] deter contraceptive use  among teenagers, thus increasing…risk of unintended pregnancy…

Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)

Naomi Wolf’s analysis of the TSA’s true motivation is much like mine:

…this week, the Supreme Court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor…Justice Anthony Kennedy explained that this ruling is necessary because [one of the 9/11 conspirators] could have been stopped for speeding.  How would strip searching him have prevented the attack?  Did Justice Kennedy imagine that plans to blow up the twin towers had been concealed in a body cavity?  In still more bizarre non-logic, his and the other justices’ decision rests on concerns about weapons and contraband in prison systems.  But people under arrest – that is, who are not yet convicted – haven’t been introduced into a prison population.  Our surveillance state shown considerable determination to intrude on citizens sexually…the use of forced nudity by a state that is descending into fascism is powerfully effective in controlling and subduing populations.  The political use of forced nudity by anti-democratic regimes is long established.  Forcing people to undress is the first step in breaking down their sense of individuality and dignity and reinforcing their powerlessness…the TSA…genital groping policy…is designed to psychologically habituate US citizens to a condition in which they are demeaned and sexually intruded upon by the state…

Useful Idiots (March 15th, 2012)

More evidence for those who still don’t accept that neofeminist propaganda denying the agency of prostitutes and other non-neofeminist women is inevitably used to classify all women as passive, infantile moral imbeciles:

[Wisconsin governor] Scott Walker…quietly signed three controversial bills on the eve of a holiday weekend…A woman seeking an abortion must [now] undergo an exam and consult with a doctor alone, away from her friends and family.  The doctor must determine whether someone is pressuring the woman into the procedure…

Mandatory prosecution laws for domestic violence and Swedish-flavored anti-prostitution laws have established the precedent that women are incompetent to make any decision which involves sex, and that if a woman makes a decision “authorities” don’t like it must be the result of coercion.  This merely follows that precedent to its next logical step; look for more like it in upcoming months.

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

Thanks to Jacob Sullum of Reason for pointing out this excellent article:

…[Nicholas] Kristof’s own newspaper profits from the sort of advertising for escort services, strip clubs, and other forms of adult entertainment that Kristof has linked to the underworld of child sex trafficking…About.com is “a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York Times Company”…[which] accounted for 5% of all [company] revenues…in 2011, roughly $100 million…the Times also owns a 49% stake in Metro Boston…[which] also happens to make money from  adult advertising…[Kristof’s] salary partly comes from the same ads, and the same allegedly criminal activity, that he tried to pin on Goldman Sachs…Though [it] immediately divested itself of its stake in Backpage.com, that was not enough for Kristof, who told CNBC he would have preferred to see the company apply its investment towards “bringing about change” in the online advertising industry.  He added that Goldman Sachs should have sold its 16 percent stake in Village Voice Media to “an anti-trafficking organization.”  Will Kristof apply that same standard to the New York Times–and himself?  The newspaper and its shareholders must give up over $100 million in annual revenue; are they ready to contribute to the cause?  And if not, will Kristof devote his column to campaigning against his employer?  Will he appear on CNBC to report “The Times‘ Ties to Sex Trafficking?”  If not, why not?

The Notorious Badge (April 9th, 2012)

In the TV movie The Client List Jennifer Love Hewitt played a mother who becomes an erotic masseuse to make ends meet, and the movie proved so popular it is now a series.  I have been told the character and her work are portrayed positively, and this interview with the actress leads me to believe that:

Since the movie has come out and with the upcoming show, have you been approached or contacted by any women who work in the sex industry?

No, I haven’t.  I mean, I’m sure maybe once the show starts airing a bit, I might be able to meet some of those women or they might feel more comfortable to come up and say hello and have open discussions about those things…I feel like [prejudices come]…from lack of knowledge and fear and maybe not knowing the whole story…the more that you look into those industries, a lot of those women are single moms doing the best that they can or are someone’s daughter who fell on hard times…of course, some of them…just chose it because that’s what they wanted to do…I respect people doing what they have to do in order to try to live and be happy…

I sent a message to Miss Hewitt offering to answer any questions she might have, but haven’t heard back yet.  The comment thread is a story in its own right; it’s full of holier-than-thou comments from the pompous windbags who apparently infest the massage profession nowadays, as discussed in “Full of Themselves”.

Metaupdates

An Ounce of Prevention in That Was the Week That Was (#11) (March 17th, 2012)

More on Michael Weinstein’s campaign against an anti-HIV drug:

…Thanks to Weinstein’s “leadership” [AHF has] gone from a sizeable healthcare foundation with a good reputation to…a…joke…

A leading AIDS group is battling with FDA over whether the agency should approve the first drug for preventing HIV infection in gay men, and the fight has gotten nasty…the AIDS Healthcare Foundation called for Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to resign over that and other issues, perhaps including egos…Truvada cut the HIV infection in men who have sex with men by 44 percent compared to a placebo…So far, the drug has not been found to work in women…Weinstein worries that the promise of a “magic pill” could reverse progress the AIDS community has made in encouraging condom use over decades…

Mr. Weinstein is actually the only one who’s been branding Truvada as a magic pill, and he’s been citing half truths [and] his own botched survey…Nobody else…has been calling this anything other than…a drug with a promising potential that needs to be truly and thoroughly studied…Maybe it’s time for the AHF to consider whether or not the $366,046 a year they are paying Weinstein is money well spent.  Charles Lyons II at Glaser makes exactly $1023 less than Weinstein for running an organization twice the size and scope.  And he’s not wasting his group’s time and efforts trying to derail patient care…

The Leading Players in the Field, Not in That Was the Week That Was (#14) (April 6th, 2012)

Dr. Laura Agustín published two excellent articles on Gloria Steinem’s recent attempt to appoint herself an expert on “prostitution and sex trafficking” in India; her April 6th column discusses Steinem’s many errors, clichés, distortions, biases and moralistic assumptions, including her bizarre description of sex as “body invasion” (apparently a melodramatic twist on Robin Morgan’s ridiculous definition of rape).  And on April 9th, Agustín describes an absurd tabloid-style news article glorifying Steinem and other White Saviors descending upon India to “rescue” sex workers “with money and might”.

One Year Ago Today

“The Pro-Rape Coalition” demonstrates why those who call themselves “anti-porn” are in reality pro-rape.

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That Was the Week That Was (#14)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2012| 26 Comments »

Any law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.  –  Maximilien Robespierre

Some of you may have noticed that my columns are posting earlier as of this week; I realized that if I posted them at 10:01 UTC every day, all my readers would be able to see (or at least be notified) of them on the proper date (even though it ranges from late evening in New Zealand to one minute past midnight in Hawaii).  That probably won’t matter to most of you, but it corrects a deficiency that’s been annoying me for some time.

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

The brave police of Manatee, Florida have announced their heroic capture of a dangerous criminal …a street woman so desperate she offered sex in exchange for two McDonald’s dollar-menu cheeseburgers.  I’m sure my Floridian readers will sleep more soundly tonight knowing this menace was removed from the streets.

Updates

Crime Against Society (February 26th, 2011)

Though Louisiana’s oppressive “Crime Against Nature By Solicitation” law was reduced to a misdemeanor last year (thus removing the requirement for sex offender registration), Doe vs. Jindal continued because the state refused to release those previously condemned.  On March 29th the judge decided in favor of the sex workers:

…U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman said state lawmakers had no “rational basis” for requiring people to register as sex offenders if they were convicted of a “crime against nature by solicitation”… “The defendants fail to credibly serve up even one unique legitimating governmental interest that can rationally explain the registration requirement imposed on those convicted of Crime Against Nature by Solicitation,” Feldman wrote.  “The Court is left with no other conclusion but that the relationship between the classification is so shallow as to render the distinction wholly arbitrary”…

This is a victory not only for the approximately 400 people released from the tyrannical regime of “sex offender” registration, but for all those fighting to get armed busybodies out of people’s personal lives.

The Soft Weapon (March 24th, 2011)

I exposed the Schapiro Group’s lies twice before the Village Voice did last March, but their voice is much louder than mine, and apparently quite a few heard it because a new petition on Change.org has called for criminal investigation of both the Schapiro Group and the “Women’s Funding Network” (one of billionaire prohibitionist Swanee Hunt’s fronts):

Recently the Village Voice exposed the Schapiro Group…and the Women’s Funding Network…for knowingly deceiving both congress and the public using false data manufactured through fraudulent research…[when] legitimate organizations that serve exploited…minors…are not able to report that they have reached numbers of youth comparable to the inflated numbers of victims…it jeopardizes their credibility and funding…[also] increased funding for law enforcement efforts to combat a vastly inflated threat…is channeled instead into police actions directed not at traffickers, but rather against consenting adult sex workers…We reject the concept that criminalizing members of any population is an effective way to rescue them…Therefore, we, the undersigned, call on the United States Dept. of Justice to investigate the Schapiro Group and the Women’s Funding Network for conspiracy to commit fraud against their donors, the public and the US government…

Needless to say, I urge you all to sign!

Sales Pitch (May 22nd, 2011)

Here’s another study which proves that the “Swedish Model” doesn’t work; this one is from human trafficking expert Ann Jordan, who called the law “a failed experiment in social engineering” and pointed out that “the Swedish government has been unable to prove that the law has reduced the number of sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking.”

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (June 15th, 2011)

This was forwarded to me by an academic correspondent; I think it speaks for itself.

Umpteen Thousand People Can’t Be Wrong (November 12th, 2011)

The New York Times continues its crusade against sex workers, this time via a slanted article which refers to a 17-year-old as a “child” and blames Backpage (rather than the unexamined conditions at home which caused her to run away twice) for her becoming an underage prostitute.  Apparently the Times is hoping that Village Voice loses its nerve and backs down on the Backpage adult ads, because it would be forced to reverse course and oppose the fanatics (rather than getting in bed with them) if they succeed in enacting laws that make websites (like that run by the Times) responsible for user-generated content.

Held Together With Lies (April 2nd, 2012)

The UN has released its latest “estimate” of “human trafficking victims”, and though it’s less than 9% of the popular figure popularized by fanatics, it’s still both unsubstantiated and inflated by at least two orders of magnitude:

The U.N. crime-fighting office said Tuesday that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves.  Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime…said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women…According to Fedotov’s Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued…

In other words, Fedotov can only support 1% of his claim, or 24,000 people in the entire world.  That’s a lot more believable, but it wouldn’t generate the necessary panic so fanatics multiply it by over 1000x, then refuse to produce even the most tenuous evidence in support of the exaggerated claim.

An Example To the West (April 3rd, 2012)

This article by researcher Matthias Lehmann on the harm criminalization does to Korean sex workers largely covers familiar ground, but also mentions that the prohibitionist Korean laws enacted in 2004 were strongly influenced by the “Swedish Model” and linked this strong criticism of the laws by two Swedish legislators.  Lehmann points out that “sex workers…remain criminalised unless they claim to be victims”, dividing women into “’good women who are worthy of help’ and ‘bad ones who need to be punished’, thus continuing the stigmatisation of women who sell sex.”  Unsurprisingly, this is the version of Swedish legislation now infiltrating the US as well.  The article quotes many of the same sources and developments I’ve reported previously, but I found this announcement very intriguing:

Sex workers often rightly criticise researchers, politicians or the media for distorting the reality of the sex industry.  I am therefore working together with Woo Yun Jin, a Korean visual artist, to develop a graphic novel entirely based on experiences shared with us by sex workers in Korea…[it] will be made available [later this year] in both English and Korean…we [hope this helps] people to better understand that sex workers are part of their communities and deserve the same rights just as everyone else.

Lehmann also provides links to “Research Project Korea” and a number of news articles and resources.

The Rape Question (April 4th, 2012)

More information is better than less, but I’m concerned this could make rape trials even more of a “he said/she said” affair than they already are:

…An in-depth study comparing rape victims with nursing students at the University of Southern Denmark reveals that vaginal injuries are just as likely to result from consensual sex as rape.  [Researcher] Birgitte Schmidt Astrup [said] ‘…The nursing students experience just as frequent vaginal injuries as rape victims, and so these injuries cannot be used for much more than to establish that intercourse has taken place.’  She added that in cases of convictions based on evidence of vaginal injuries, there could now be discussions as to whether there have been miscarriages of justice…all [of the subjects] were examined less than 28 hours after sexual intercourse…vaginal injuries were found in 36 per cent of rape victims and in 34 per cent of the nursing students.  The…students’ results were not affected by whether they had engaged in rough or gentle sex, or whether they had used condoms or sex toys…

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

The outcry against Nicholas Kristof and his anti-whore crusade continues to grow and generalize; this week I discovered a well-written article from a member of the Occupy movement denouncing Kristof’s transparent attempt to call attention away from his own lies and exaggerations by branding the much-hated Goldman-Sachs “financiers of sex trafficking”:

…It was with some horror…that…I observed several Occupy-affiliated Twitter accounts sharing a link to an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, entitled “Financiers and Sex Trafficking”…It’s easy to see how this could appear to fit in the widespread populist anger against the financial sector that powers Occupy Wall Street…[but] Backpage is mostly used by consenting adults, and Nicholas D. Kristof is a man with a history of trying to use the specters of trafficking and child prostitution as leverage for a campaign that seeks ultimately to further criminalize sex workers…his “rescue” work in developing countries has basically involved riding along with law enforcement and live-tweeting brothel raids, writing himself into the story as the white savior (consequences be damned).  In other words, he is a buffoon, a prime member of the Liberal Class that preserves the status quo by defining the acceptable limits of dissent…Meg…[of] SWOP Chicago…[explained that] “The anti-trafficking crusade is a top-down movement, led by (among others) two right-wing religious conservatives from the Bush Administration (Laura Lederer, Swanee Hunt)…if Occupy Wall Street jumps on the anti-trafficking bandwagon, they’re really just swallowing rhetoric designed by one of the nation’s best consulting firms to further the particular agenda of a few members of the top .0001%”…Trafficking and child prostitution have been invoked to justify criminalizing…sex work since at least the end of the last century…Demand Abolition’s own material [confirms] this…[its] Nation Strategy emphasizes that “Framing the Campaign’s key target as sexual slavery might garner more support and less resistance, while framing the Campaign as combating prostitution may be less likely to mobilize similar levels of support and to stimulate stronger opposition.”

…If Occupy wants to add justice for sex workers to its cause (and it should), then it can carry on doing what the movement has generally done very well:  Don’t pay much attention at all to the self-appointed pundit class at the likes of the New York Times.  Listen to actual workers, the people for whom these issues are an everyday reality, not a hot topic…

Metaupdates

Good News, Bad News in That Was the Week That Was (#10) (March 10th, 2012)

It turn out that the push to impose the Swedish Model on Western Australia is largely a one-woman campaign enabled by a sleazy political deal:

…The government’s prostitution bill proposes to make sex work in residential areas illegal and requires brothel owners, managers and sex workers…to register…Labor is opposed to the legislation…[along with two prominent] Liberal MPs…[so] the government will need [the support of] independent MPs Janet Woollard and Adele Carles…[who] wants…three amendments…[which] would [shift] the criminal focus…to clients…Carles said she had visited Sweden…”They determined that prostitution is not a job.  Prostitution is violence against women”…

But while Carles is the typical neofeminist Swedish dupe , Woollard refuses to back the law unless it bans brothels entirely in five years.  Since that won’t happen, the law probably won’t pass, but I’ll report as the situation develops.

The Crumbling Dam in That Was the Week That Was (#13) (March 31st, 2012)

Ron Weitzer’s article on the recent Canadian decision clarifies a detail I had missed:  “The court gave the government 12 months to appeal the decision allowing bawdy houses, 30 days to rewrite the ‘living off the avails’ law to restrict it to exploitation, and allowed the parties 60 days to appeal the decision to uphold the solicitation/communication law.”  Obviously the government will appeal to keep its brothel ban and these workers will appeal the upholding of the “communicating” law, but as I understand it the avails law is a dead duck in its present form, which is certainly good news.

One Year Ago Today

“Neither Cold Nor Hot” looks at Jezebel’s weird ambivalence about sex work.

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Feet of Clay

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 18 Comments »

You, O king, saw, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before you; and its form was frightening.  This image’s head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, Its legs of iron, its feet part of iron and part of clay.  –  Daniel 2:31-33

Because I don’t live in New York and am comparatively new (about two years) to the whole blogging scene, I had actually never heard of Nicholas Kristof until autumn of 2010 (which is only fair, since he apparently hadn’t heard of me until March 18th).  As I’ve since discovered, he’s been trying to make a name for himself for years, but petty little men like Kristof can never climb on their own; they always do so by trying to bring down others, and if that takes lies so be it.  In the last few years he has used “sex trafficking” hysteria (and crusades against prostitutes, brothels and Backpage) to establish himself as a hero to legions of adoring  fans, and while those of us working to dispel the myths about the subject have seen him for what he is for quite some time, it’s only recently that more mainstream writers have begun to call attention to this idol’s feet of clay.

The process started the same day he “tweeted” about my column, March 18th; on that day he published one of his typical lurid “sex slavery” accounts, claiming that Backpage was somehow responsible for the “pimping” of a 16-year-old girl he called “Alissa”.  As regular readers know, Kristof always plays fast-and-loose with the facts in such columns, but this time he went too far; while he usually uses anonymous women’s stories (often without permission) and then distorts and exaggerates them into unrecognizability (to “protect” the women, of course), this time he left enough facts to allow the story to be checked.  So Village Voice (owners of Backpage) did, and guess what?

Nicholas D. Kristof…wrote about an underage victim of human trafficking:  “Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.”  A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined:  “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com”  That is not true.  According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003.  Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003…she…came to the FBI’s attention in August, 2005 [and] was…relocated away from the corners and hotels she worked in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City…In the summer of 2005 Backpage.com did not exist in Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Atlantic City.  Had Kristof followed any of The New York Times’ standards of journalism, he would have known this.  He could have read the court transcripts.  He could have read the testimony…He could have Googled the case and read the coverage in The Boston Globe…Neglecting to do any of the above, Kristof could still have asked us.  Despite extensive correspondence with our attorney, he never mentioned Alissa or sought confirmation about her purported link to Backpage.com at the age of 16.  Instead, he concocted a story to suit his agenda and then asked his readers to boycott Village Voice Media…


It’s possible that Alissa lied either in her testimony or to Kristof, or both; it would be typical of the “reframing of experiences” neofeminist prohibitionists teach to “survivors”.  But given Kristof’s track record, it’s just as likely he made it up without her help.  Jacob Sullum of Reason covered the story on the 21st, and one of the commenters on that column provided a link to a May 2010 article in The Atlantic about the ordeal of Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was railroaded by the FBI for the September 2001 anthrax scare…and as it turns out, Kristof helped to lay the rails:

…Some journalists became convinced there was plenty pointing to Hatfill’s guilt.  Among those beating the drum early and loud…was Nicholas Kristof…[who initially] stopped short of naming Hatfill publicly, instead branding him with the sinister-sounding pseudonym “Mr. Z.”  Without identifying his sources, in a July column Kristof wrote:

If Mr. Z were an Arab national, he would have been imprisoned long ago.  But he is a true-blue American with close ties to the U.S. Defense Department, the C.I.A. and the American biodefense program…With many experts buzzing about Mr. Z behind his back, it’s time for the F.B.I. to make a move:  either it should go after him more aggressively, sifting thoroughly through his past and picking up loose threads, or it should seek to exculpate him and remove this cloud of suspicion.

One of those threads, Kristof reported, pointed to the possibility that Mr. Z was a genocidal racist who had carried out germ warfare to slaughter innocent black Africans.  Kristof addressed his column directly to the FBI:

Have you examined whether Mr. Z has connections to the biggest anthrax outbreak among humans ever recorded, the one that sickened more than 10,000 black farmers in Zimbabwe in 1978–80?  There is evidence that the anthrax was released by the white Rhodesian Army fighting against black guerrillas, and Mr. Z has claimed that he participated in the white army’s much-feared Selous Scouts.  Could rogue elements of the American military have backed the Rhodesian Army in anthrax and cholera attacks against blacks?

Kristof didn’t mention that the majority of soldiers in the Rhodesian army, and in Hatfill’s unit, were black; or that many well-respected scientists who examined the evidence concluded that the Rhodesian anthrax outbreak emerged naturally when cattle herds went unvaccinated during a turbulent civil war.  Kristof also failed to mention that Mr. Z had served in that war as a lowly private.  To have been involved in some sort of top-secret Rhodesian germ-weapons program “would’ve been like a Pakistani army private being brought in to work on a project at Los Alamos,” Hatfill says today.

Kristof wrote that Mr. Z had shown “evasion” in repeated FBI polygraph examinations.  He also claimed that following the anthrax attacks, Mr. Z had accessed an “isolated residence”…where…“Mr. Z gave Cipro to people who visited it.”  Other journalists would later describe this mysterious residence as a “remote cabin,” a kind of Ted Kaczynski–style hideout where a deranged scientist could easily have prepared anthrax for mailing.  In fact, the “cabin” was a three-bedroom weekend home…in rural Virginia owned by a longtime friend of Hatfill’s, George R. Borsari Jr., an avuncular Washington communications lawyer and retired Army lieutenant colonel.  Borsari says he found speculation that his place had been a haven for spies or bioterrorists laughable.  When an FBI agent asked Borsari if he would allow a search of the property, Borsari said no.  “I told him, ‘I’m not going to be a part of your publicity game,’” Borsari says.  No search was ever conducted, but by then the damage to Hatfill had been done…

Kristof’s grown more ambitious in the past decade; he used to be satisfied with libeling individuals, but now he targets entire corporations.  Nor is it only sex worker rights advocates and libertarians who question Kristof’s motives and methods; consider this March 21st  article (also from The Atlantic) by Teju Cole, in which he compares Kristof to the disgraced “Invisible Children” crusaders:

…This weekend, I listened to a radio interview given by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof…best known for his…  accounts of his activism or that of other Westerners.  When I saw the Kony 2012 video, I found it tonally similar to Kristof’s approach…I do not accuse Kristof of racism nor do I believe he is in any way racist…But that, precisely, is what worries me…His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally.  He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.”  All he sees…is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for the need…I disagree with the approach taken by…the White Savior Industrial Complex…because there is much more to doing good work than “making a difference.”  There is the principle of first do no harm.  There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them…

I think Cole is being too kind in saying Kristof is good-hearted and not racist; in fact I agree with Dr. Laura Agustín that he’s very much a racist, because he believes his own race and culture’s way of doing things is the right way for everyone.  True charity does not come at the point of a gun, good causes need not be shored up with lies, and worthy idols do not have feet of clay.

One Year Ago Today

“April Updates” discusses the suppressed Rind-Tromovitch-Bauserman study, reports on the Egyptian women subjected to “virginity tests” and two New Orleans cops fired for harassing streetwalkers, criticizes the conviction of a Massachusetts sportswriter for “pimping” and marks the publication of Satoshi Kanazawa’s column about me.

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