hysteria | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘hysteria’

That Was the Week That Was (#450)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, Against Their Will, agency denial, Alabama, archeofeminism, bad customers, Banishment, bogus studies, Business Opportunity, California, censorship, Checklist, China, cops, dirty, disability, ethics, Florida, Forward and Backward, Gateway, Gorged With Meaning, Hollow Claims, Hollywood, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, India, Iowa, Ireland, language, law, lawheads, Legal Is as Legal Does, License To Rape, Louisiana, Madonna/whore, Marching Up Their Own Arses, marriage, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, New Zealand, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, Prudesville, psychology, rape, red-light districts, Remembrance, rescue industry, restaurants, sex rays, shame, Skin To Skin, South Africa, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, Texas, The Dogs Do Bark, The Law of Averages, The Public Eye, The Truth About..., The Widening Gyre, Think of the Children!, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Welcome to Our Updates on December 13, 2014| 6 Comments »

It is time for democracies to…take [sex workers] seriously – not just because democratic values mandate it, but because sex workers are the experts on the matter. – Sonja Dolinsek

License to Rape

Predators posing as gardai [Irish police] are preying on sex workers…demanding sex and robbing them…Uglymugs…has appealed to new Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan to direct officers to engage “more sympathetically” with sex workers…organiser…Lucy Smith, said…”many escorts are uncertain if these men are gardai or not…in some cases, these are corrupt gardai”…

Really Cheap Whores

The phrase “incredibly unprofessional” comes to mind:

Kendra Wilkinson hated having sex with Hugh Hefner so much that she turned to drugs and booze…she [also claimed]…that [she] was unaware sex was required of her when she moved into the Playboy mansion as one of Hefner’s girlfriends in 2003. At the time she was 18 and he was 78…

Welcome To Our World (February Updates)

Busybodies and the State conspire to punish old people for being sexual:

…Donna Lou Young and Henry V. Rayhons…[were] both in their 70s [when they married]…Today, he’s awaiting trial on a felony charge that he raped Donna at a nursing home where she was living…Iowa [prosecutors claim] Rayhons had intercourse with his wife when she lacked the mental capacity to consent because she had Alzheimer’s. She died on Aug. 8…One week later…Rayhons…was arrested…Experts in geriatrics say that intimacy…can make dementia sufferers feel less lonely and even prolong their lives…Henry and Donna…were deeply in love…[there is] no evidence…that the couple’s love faded, that Donna failed to recognize her husband or that she asked that he not touch her…prosecutors are likely to portray Rayhons as a sex-hungry man who took advantage of a sweet, confused woman…

The main culprits: her daughters and prudish nursing home staff.

Gateway

Sometimes the flailing attempts at self-justification are a marvel to behold:

Six women were arrested…in a…[sting] in Birmingham [Alabama]…One…was charged with physical harassment after trying to grope an undercover officer…Lt. Ron Sellers [pretends cops had] complaints about prostitution…and [bloviated]…”It could be they are forced in to it, or they are supporting a drug habit. [They sell] themselves for money…chasing sporting events and conventions. A lot of them will be gravitating toward Atlanta for the SEC Championship this weekend…There are a lot of other crimes associated with escorts…They deal in cash. They don’t trust police”…

Yes, he actually defined dealing in cash and not trusting pigs as “crimes”.

Business Opportunity

It’s not like it’s their money, after all:

A night spot with a…rather “voluptuous” architectural design…could be torn down in a matter of months. The building…has seen several strip clubs over the span of 40 years. It’s best known to residents as its original name, The Booby Trap, which also described its domed design…the building’s owner has…[offered] to sell the structure and the land [at more than the market value] to the city of Winter Park, which in turn plans to demolish the building and re-sell it. No adult-oriented business will be allowed to open at the location…

Forward and Backward

…Hull City Council won a landmark ruling to create Britain’s first “prostitution-free zone”…any sex workers or curb crawlers caught around the…Hessle Road area…can be arrested and [dragged to]…court. City Councillor Daren Hale said…the zone was created was to give “a positive view of Hull”…the moves will simply create a red light district in another area…[politicians pretend that] a…harm reduction approach…will [somehow] run alongside the injunction…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Paging Dr. David Ley:

A sex addict [was] caught taking photos up women’s skirts…Peter Hooton…served a prison term when convicted of like crimes in the past [but New Zealand] Judge Grant Fraser said the best hope of protecting the community…was to keep him out of jail this time…Hooton’s…attending…twice a week with Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

Yet another study proving that the sky is blue:

Scientists from the Universite de Bretagne-Sud conducted experiments that showed that men behave very differently toward high-heeled women…if a woman drops a glove on the street while wearing heels, she’s almost 50 per cent more likely to have a man fetch it for her than if she’s wearing flats…a high-heeled woman in a bar waits half the time to get picked up by a man, compared to when her heel is nearer to the ground…

Against Their Will (TW3 #3)

I’m really not sure which to believe, the copy which claims that sex workers in Mumbai welcome and trust Priti Patkar, who apparently runs a kind of daycare center for them; or the headline which trumpets “She works for the welfare of sex workers by first taking the children away from them“. I also see too many phrases like “rescued from brothels” and suspicious protests-too-much statements about how much the kids “love” her and her cronies.

The Widening Gyre

And it all happened without anyone noticing!

…it is suspected that dozens of schoolgirls at Minzu Middle School were drugged and forced into prostitution. An insider [claimed]…the students were given to government leaders outside of the county as gifts for their use…the…girls…were coerced by a female…surnamed Xu [who]…has done this multiple times…Xu…first bribes several students while the rest who do not obey her are beaten…One government employee insisting on anonymity [said]…the story of over 80 schoolgirls being forcibly taken to a hotel for prostitution is very common, with some versions of the story saying it involves over 80 and others saying over 40…

The Truth About “The Truth About…”

It only took the Washington Post two years to catch up with me:

…The graphic showed a rape reporting rate of 10 percent, but…2013 criminal victimization rates…estimated 35 percent…are reported…the survey’s definitions of rape or “sexual attack” is inconsistent with states’ legal definitions or with standard methodology… “Prosecution” and “arrested” are not terms that can be wrapped under “faced trial”…the rate of incarceration among people convicted of rate is much higher than one-third…46 percent of felony rape convictions resulted in guilty pleas…

Skin To Skin

Checklist

This rather odd story engages in the usual “trafficking” tale tactic by offering a lurid story without names or evidence, but is mainly about how cops are given a checklist of “signs” they can pretend to have observed so as to transform a boring old prostitution case into a sexy “trafficking” one. The low point: “A majority of women experience [sex work] as paid rape.” The high point: “We don’t have a plague of human trafficking”.

Banishment

Residents of…[a] Pretoria [neighborhood] have made it clear they won’t tolerate prostitution openly taking place near their homes. At the weekend they burnt makeshift beds allegedly used by prostitutes…and forced women they accuse…to walk down the street carrying banners…Resident Paul Masina said they were tired of police [requiring]…evidence to support their complaints…“It’s disgusting and filthy here because of them so we’re destroying their businesses so they won’t come back again”…

Hollow Claims (TW3 #338)

Despite its recent support for “sex trafficking” hysteria, Al Jazeera published an editorial from our strong ally Sonja Dolinsek arguing against imposition of the Swedish model in various countries. One must wonder if, like the UK’s Guardian or the US’s Washington Post, the network isn’t straddling the fence until it figures out which way the wind is blowing.

Remembrance

…Gil Elvgren was the greatest [pinup artist]. The massive book, Elvgren: His Life & Art, has the artist’s best paintings…His work was familiar to millions of Americans in the mid-20^th Century, thanks to calendar publishers who printed his cheesecake paintings for decades…[they] were [often] copied onto fighter planes by paintbrush-wielding World War II soldiers…

Marching Up Their Own Arses (TW3 #349)

About as revolting an idea as I’ve ever heard of:

A&E has greenlit a…new reality series in which a man tries to convince prostitutes to quit their jobs…the network has ordered eight episodes of 8 Minutes (working title), a series featuring cop-turned-pastor Kevin Brown surprising escorts in hotel rooms and offering to rescue them…Brown has eight minutes to make his case…the show was inspired by a 2013 LA Times article about Brown…[who pretends] he can [magically] decode an ad…on the Internet…[to] notice…that this is obviously someone being held against their will…

Despite his Super Savior powers, he claims only a 50% success rate (probably about 10x his true rate) and sets an 8-minute limit because that’s how long it takes demonic pimps to materialize in the room and murder him in front of a whole TV crew. I am not making this up. Please sign this petition for A&E to rethink this abomination; Brown will no doubt continue his nonconsensual kinky roleplay anyway, but it doesn’t have to be televised.

Legal Is As Legal Does (TW3 #401)

A law that would have allowed Auckland local bodies to ban prostitution in specified places has been scrapped by a parliamentary select committee…councils have been urged to look at other ways to control street prostitutes…”Many complaints…relate to noise, littering, slow-moving motor vehicles (kerb-crawling) and disorderly behaviour. These kinds of behaviour can be dealt with by bylaws already in existence”…

Gorged With Meaning (TW3 #422)

I am not a vindictive sort, but this man had better hope I never catch him alone anywhere:

A model jumped seven floors to her death…after a spurned lover told her family about her…life as an escort. Laura Pahomova, 23, scrawled notes in lipstick and eyeliner over the walls, mirrors and furniture of a…13^th floor apartment…claiming former client Martin Riley had driven her to suicide…Laura, who described Mr Riley as a “stalker”, had threatened suicide if her family found out what she was doing but…Riley [pretends that] he informed her loved ones to help her…Riley had a previous conviction for the harassment of another escort…In that case…he threatened to tell her family about her work and she threatened to harm herself if he did…

The Law of Averages (Traffic Updates)

Another example of That Age as cultic totem:

A Horsham charity, which helps women out of escorting and prostitution, has secured funding to produce an education pack for schoolchildren…the Averageage12 [sic] pack [is so] named… “because 12 is average age of trafficked victims…and entry into prostitution…we want to get [this propaganda] into the hands of every 12 year old…to help protect them and their friends from potentially being trafficked or groomed into the sex industry”…

I Saw My Brain (TW3 #433)

They’re “helping” them into cells and coercive “therapy”:

Grady Judd, sheriff of Polk County, announced the arrests of 61 people…to help women who are victims of being exploited as sex workers…they are offering counseling to help the women…

The Public Eye (TW3 #439)

Around 500 people [descended] on Westminster and [pretended] to have sex…in a…protest against…censorship…#PornProtest plans to…attempt to break the Guinness World Record for…face-sitting…over new restrictions on what pornography can be made and sold in the UK…Charlotte Rose…the woman behind the protest…first became involved in the adult industry as a bondage model…and now works as a sex therapist…she is also a seasoned political campaigner…and was an independent candidate in the recent…by-election…

Think of the Children! (TW3 #445)

El Paso Children’s Hospital is backing away from its participation in a local fundraiser after learning…that…special guest DJ [Jessie Andrews]…also happens to be an adult film star…One hundred percent of the ticket proceeds were to go to the Children’s Hospital, along with toys collected at the event…

Prudesville (TW3 #448)

This is so over-the-top absurd, I’m beginning to suspect it’s some incredibly elaborate hoax:

…The city of Everett tore down the pink and purple walls of two brothel-esque coffee stands, known notoriously as Java Juggs and Twin Peaks, after its former owner, Carmela Panico, pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution and money laundering. Construction crews [hauled] out junk from the “dilapidated and disgusting” stands into a nearby dump truck…the city [stole] the rundown stands and decided to destroy them as a message that illegal activity would not be tolerated…

Read Full Post »

Traffic in Nonsense

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged agency denial, cops, dehumanization, drivers, end demand, fantasy, hysteria, King of the Hill, language, lawheads, North Carolina, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, rescue industry, scams, Traffic in Nonsense on December 12, 2014| 14 Comments »

This essay first appeared in Cliterati on November 9^th; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.

I’ve previously predicted that the “sex trafficking” moral panic will start to fall apart in about three more years:

…skepticism about “trafficking” (especially in regard to its conflation with sex work) will slowly increase, and by about 2015 it will be possible for a major media outlet to publish articles critical of both the statistics and the very concept. By 2017 public funding for anti-sex worker hate groups will begin to dry up, and by 2019 or 2020 we should expect it to virtually disappear from public discourse except for a wave of books and documentaries by “experts” who couldn’t be bothered to speak out against it while it was going on but are happy to make a quick buck from it after it’s safely over…

I’ve seen nothing in the past three years to convince me that this prediction is off by very much; in fact, we’ve already started to see skeptical articles, including some from within the “anti-trafficking” movement itself, and academics, health officials and human rights organizations are now openly attacking the hysteria. But what I actually want to concentrate on today is that last part of the quote; when such books start to appear, you can be sure mine will be among them. And I plan to spend a large part of it in discussion of the truly bizarre and outrageous myths that the hysteria has spawned. Take this article, for example; even by “sex trafficking” standards, it’s jaw-droppingly stupid:

A couple of years ago, Bo Quickel…[quit his] real estate…job…[to] dedicate his life…to ending sex trafficking…“I’ve never been in the trucking industry, but I [talked]…executives for a trucking company…[into hiring me] as a consultant…The following week I was…with social workers learning more about human trafficking”…

Let that sink in: a real estate agent with a folksy name, who knew absolutely nothing about sex work, migration, psychology, law or the trucking industry, somehow managed to talk a trucking company into hiring him as a “sex trafficking” expert; he neither sees a problem with admitting this, nor with admitting that he didn’t even bother to learn anything about the subject he was hired as a “consultant” in until after he already had the job. This is not at all unusual in the rescue industry; time and again we see cops, lawyers and even people whose “expertise” consists of having watched one propaganda film, hailed as “experts” by morons who hang on their every pronouncement, no matter how appallingly idiotic. Given this low regard for actual evidence, it isn’t surprising Quickel contented himself with listening to the masturbatory fantasies of a couple of “trafficking” fetishists, nor that he, like other “rescue” opportunists, has absolutely no credible plan for fighting his imaginary bogey:

“…[there are] stickers on bathroom stalls (at truck stops) with an 800-rescue number on it…because that’s the only time these girls are alone.” Quickel said truck drivers account for 60 percent of the people who pay for sex with those who are being sex trafficked…From there, Vigilante Truckers was born, an organization dedicated to creating awareness among truck drivers to end the demand to what Quickel calls “the sale of rape”…

Don’t even ask where Quickel got that 60% figure; he simply made it up as his mentors taught him. “Sex trafficking” opportunists portray women as passive, childlike creatures completely without agency; sex with them, as with an infant, is automatically defined as “rape” because they lack the capacity for rational consent. They are, in fact, so passive that they can’t think of calling 911 for the local police, yet the number of a “rescue line” in some other part of the country will reflexively trigger an unconscious dialing behavior if placed before their eyes in a loo on a sticker or the wrapper of a bar of soap. But Quickel goes even farther than most, imagining whores as literally inanimate objects:

“If you look at it from a manufacturing perspective through supply and demand with sex slavery as the business, the supply is the use of their own bodies, and the demand is the people paying for sex…if there are 10 bottles of Tide at the market and the goal is to meet the people’s demand, and I go in and…purchase five bottles, but there are still 10 needs for it, the supplier will bring in seven more bottles to replace the five that were rescued and the same could be said when looking at sex slavery.”

Yes, he actually said that bottles of laundry detergent can be “rescued”; he also seems to be saying that for every five doll-like girls who are “rescued” by cops or vigilantes, “pimps” will go out and abduct seven more…which if anything constitutes an argument against his methods. And what exactly are those methods?

Quickel’s organization has 10 semi-trucks that are regularly parked in truck stops across the Southeast, wrapped in information about the parent organization “Stand As One”…the 800 number of the national hotline for anti sex slavery and rescue, and anti-sex slavery statements…Quickel said they’ve had highly effective results from placing the trucks at area truck stops as they are considered “moving billboards that create sex free zones wherever it is parked [sic].” Quickel said trucks are parked at their respective locations for 10 hours at a time and essentially stop the demand for the product during that time period under the authority [sic] that they are being watched and all slavery activities will be reported to the national hotline in real time, and GPS located pictures will be uploaded to the Vigilante Truckers database for public viewing and rescue response… “If we have 10 trucks parked for 10 hours that’s 100 hours of sex-free zones at truck stops…Their handlers will not bring in a supply of girls when one of our trucks is parked at a truck stop for fear of being reported, and the same goes for the truck drivers.”

This ludicrous fantasy would strain the credulity of even the most lawheaded simpleton were it not for the presence of the magic word “sex”, guaranteed to freeze all cognitive functions in at least 40% of all humans and 60% of Americans. Imagine someone seriously declaring that a billboard plastered with anti-drug propaganda had the magic power to stop people from carrying or consuming drugs in the area; he’d be laughed off the stage. Even taken out of context, the phrases “sex free zones”, “slavery activities” and “supply of girls” are astonishingly dumb. Yet Quickel insists his lies are superior to those of other self-declared “experts”:

Quickel said Charlotte [North Carolina] ranks sixth in the nation “for the demand of sex slaves and services provided by human trafficking victims”…Quickel disagrees with Mooresville Police Chief Carl Robbins’…opinion that human trafficking is not a problem in this town. “I’ve personally sat outside (four massage parlors [here]), and I can tell you that the only people coming in and out of there are men every 45 minutes, and if the women that are working at these places were there of their own free will they would leave”…

“I’ve personally sat outside four grocery stores in Yahootown, and I can tell you that the only people coming in and out of there are shoppers every minute, and if the cashiers that are working at these places were there of their own free will they would leave.” This is the level of nonsense emitted by those who declare themselves “experts” in this foolish fairy tale; I imagine future students reading this idiocy in my book and laughing themselves silly. Alas, we aren’t in a position to laugh at present, because clowns like Quickel are parroted by politicians with absolutely straight faces, and thus actually influence the policies which are inflicted on sex workers, our clients, our associates and our families by heavily-armed gangs of thugs.

Read Full Post »

Jolly Old Saint Nick

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged Canada, dirty, holidays, hysteria, Madonna/whore, Tennessee on December 6, 2014| 17 Comments »

Mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic. – G. B. Shaw

Today is the feast day of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of whores. Yes, you read that correctly; the Christian saint most closely associated with Christmas (especially in his modern guise of Santa Claus) also has a special devotion to sex workers, which is why I devote a column to him every year on this day; he also appears in two of my fictional interludes, “Christmas Belle” and “Visions of Sugarplums”. If you don’t understand why St. Nicholas (rather than St. Mary Magdalene) is our patron, you might wish to read my very first column for the occasion, from four years ago today:

According to the story, a formerly wealthy man who had fallen on bad times had three daughters, but could not afford dowries for them. Because of this they would not be able to marry, and in the absence of other marketable skills would be forced into prostitution to support themselves. But on the night before the eldest daughter came of age, Saint Nicholas threw a purse full of gold coins through the window so she would have a dowry. He repeated the gift a year later on the night before the second daughter came of age, and the third year the father decided to lie in wait so as to thank his daughters’ unknown benefactor. But Saint Nicholas wished to remain anonymous, so he climbed upon the roof and dropped the bag down the chimney instead…

Note that the story linking him with harlotry (actually with its avoidance, but one can’t have everything) is also the one which gave rise to the legend about his coming down chimneys; that article also explains the origins of a number of his other droll traits. Last year’s column explains how whores even have a patron saint despite being “sinners”, and the year before that I looked at how his image is “pimped” to promote highly objectionable causes. I don’t mean commercial products, by the way; this busy saint is also the patron of merchants, so I hardly think he’d object to his image being used to hawk Coca-Cola. No, what I mean is that one of the most beloved symbols in the world, practically the image of loving generosity, has been used for decades by hatemongers to support their campaigns against one of the groups that Santa loves best; I’m referring, of course, to the vile Salvation Army, which helped invent the myth of “sex trafficking” in the late 19^th century and is still heavily involved in pushing it today. I don’t know if any of the money put into their kettles goes to support their hate campaigns, but it stands to reason that if they had less funding they might not be able to afford to do things like running re-education camps in which captured sex workers can be imprisoned by the Manitoba provincial authorities. And lest you think sex workers are the only sexual minority targeted by these dangerous fanatics, consider that their official policy is that gay men and lesbians “deserve death”, and that death by hypothermia is preferable to “sexual violation”:

When it comes to helping families in need, the Salvation Army turns a cold shoulder to…teenage boys. A family in Johnson City, TN, found this out recently when, on a freezing cold night, they asked the organization for shelter. But because their family of five contained a 15-year-old boy, they were turned down… the dad, Tim Lejeune, explained: “They said he’s too old to stay on the women’s side, because of the women running around in their pajamas and they said he’s too young to stay on the men’s side in case some pervert wants to do whatever”…So instead the family headed to their car. The temperature: 18 degrees [Fahrenheit (-8^o C)]…local police officers…brought them to the Johnson Inn…the night clerk…comped the room…after that, the Salvation Army did take the family in—minus the teen boy…[who’s] now in a mental health facility…[after having] a breakdown…because he thought it was his fault the family was turned away from shelter…

Please don’t give money to these sex-hating bigots; there are plenty of worthwhile charities, including my favorite Toys for Tots. If you just can’t pass by one of their bell-ringers without depositing something in their kettles, I suggest you print out the protest slip below and give them that instead. I have no real hope that they’ll ever see the error of their ways, but those who misuse the image of jolly old Saint Nick to collect money which helps them to hurt those he favors, certainly deserves as much coal in their stockings as we can give.

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#449)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Absolute Corruption, agency denial, apes & monkeys, asset seizure, Austria, bogus studies, brothels, Canada, Catholicism, Check Your Premises, Coming and Going, cops, disease, diversion programs, Divided We Fall, drugs, Enabling Oppression, Germany, Greece, harm reduction, Held Together With Lies, Hollywood, hysteria, India, Ireland, Islam, Michigan, Monkey Business, neofeminism, New York, Not the Leading Players, Ohio, Original Sin, Policing for Profit, politicians, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Repeat Offenders, rescue industry, Romania, Russia, Scapegoats, Sexual Predators, Shift in the Wind, survivors, Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, The Course of a Disease, The Public Eye, The Scarlet Letter, The Widening Gyre, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers on December 5, 2014| 9 Comments »

The idea that prostitution should be stopped by non-sex workers…devalues and dehumanizes people who are struggling to make ends meet. – Svati Shah

Check Your Premises

Oh, the mental gymnastics:

…Law enforcement and [feminist] groups [pretend that] tough…penalties are an appropriate response to pimps who prey on vulnerable young women…But at times, the law enforcement efforts that are meant to target the pimps also sweep up the women who assist them in their crimes, women who often are also victims themselves…

Blah blah “sold for sex”, blah blah “sex-trafficking network”, blah blah “control over her”, blah blah “enslaved to their pimps”. You get the idea.

Repeat Offenders

There’s something deeply disturbing about Catholic nuns aiding and abetting the police state; it’s even more disturbing when the collaborators name their operation after a Biblical whore famous for hiding fugitives from the police:

Sister Ancy Mathew …founded a charity called Rahab…and accompanied officers…raiding flats where trafficked women might be held…Women who have been trafficked into Britain to become sex workers have invariably been lied to, and have often been encouraged by the criminals who control them to fear police. As a result, few trust the police enough to be able to open up…about what they know after they have been freed…

Enabling Oppression

Even the more perceptive survivors of forced prostitution recognize that criminalization enables it:

…I would never have had to go through that terrible situation if prostitution was legalized…If it was legal, I would have signed a contract, I would have known what I was getting myself into, and I could have held the recruiters accountable for their actions…

The Scarlet Letter (TW3 #19)

A woman that had been arrested in 2012 for allegedly working illegally as a prostitute and accused of intentionally causing clients serious bodily harm, has died from a drug overdose…she also left behind a suicide note. Katerina…was among 12 HIV-positive women…whose names and photographs were published on the Greek police’s website in 2012…Positive Voice, a group that helps people with HIV, had denounced the incident as an unacceptable breach of ‘medical confidentiality…Katerina…served a one year prison sentence and was released after a court…[found] no evidence [she] engaged in illegal prostitution…

The Widening Gyre

Evidence? This is Sweden, we don’t believe in evidence:

Sweden’s Security Service has expressed concerns about a rapid rise in the number of Swedes heading to Iraq and Syria to fight for Isis, as Sweden’s official coordinator against violent extremism suggests some girls are being forced to make the journey…she said that while many young people choose to join…others – especially girls – are…”trafficked” to the middle east and southern Asia…

Sexual Predators

Yakopovich believes cops should relax, have fun, rape a few whores and laugh at their tears:

Police say they are cracking down on prostitution…Lt. Vince Yakopovich said…”We always try to take the time and say, ‘Hey, drop what you are doing and let’s go'”…Local motels are cooperating for the most part…

Coming and Going (TW3 #311)

In the long run, tight budgets work in our favor:

Dallas County’s prostitution diversion [scheme]…was meant to serve as a model for the state’s largest counties. But some officials, including those in Collin and Denton County, have passed on the state’s mandate…that counties with more than 200,000 people start [similar schemes]…Officials…say…prostitutes…in their jurisdictions …aren’t at the street level…and [harassing them] requires more [expensive]…investigations…

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (TW3 #316)

…Gloria Steinem went to India earlier this year…with Ruchira Gupta…of Apne Aap…Feminists in India…disagree with Steinem’s take on prostitution…Steinem…repeatedly calls Apne Aap a “grass roots” organization, which would imply that it has little or no international profile, and primarily works with local people…[but] Apne Aap…receives funding from outside India regularly, and…is part of the international trafficking industrial complex, that combination of non-governmental organizations, governments, and money that has enabled the strange rise of the idea that “trafficking”, whatever it may be (chattel slavery, forced prostitution, any prostitution, forced labor, illegal migration, and/or debt bondage) is a universal problem requiring huge resources to resolve…

Original Sin (TW3 #322)

Pope Francis and other leaders of the world’s main religions…signed a joint declaration to work together to eradicate modern slavery…by …2020…they declared that “Modern slavery, in terms of human trafficking, forced labor and prostitution…is a crime against humanity”…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #329)

If something’s in a movie, it must be true!

When Tim Matsui began working on his project about the sex trafficking of teenagers around Seattle in 2012, he followed a group of police officers…The Long Night, a film…directed by…Matsui and funded by the [rescue industry] is a gut-wrenching [fantasy] of the effects of sex trafficking on seven people, including victims, survivors and law enforcement officers…

Policing for Profit

Wally Kowalski, an engineer living in a farmhouse in rural southwest Michigan, came home one day…to find his property swarming with cops…Kowalski has a license to grow and distribute medical pot to several low-income people who depend on the drug…state police…seized his power generator—even though it had nothing to do with his marijuana plants—and some expensive equipment. They also destroyed the plants. Kowalski [said]…they grabbed anything likely to be sold at a police auction…”When they found my bank accounts here in my office, they let out a yell. They said, ‘Here’s the bank accounts, we got him.’ It’s like the happiest thing for them, to find my bank accounts.” The police froze his accounts, rendering him unable to make payments on his student loans or other bills…The authorities haven’t charged Kowalski with a crime…

Scapegoats (TW3 #334)

Once again, vanillas reveal themselves as the true perverts:

A report in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour describes an unusual field trip made by Canadian researcher Debra W. Soh – to a furry convention…she had expected to find herself in a dimly-lit orgy “filled with couples – or groups – of costumed folks engaging in kinky sex” but she saw nothing of the kind. In fact, she saw nothing sexual at the whole convention except some erotic…fan art that was on sale. Instead, the furries were chatting, playing board games, smoking, and so on…

Absolute Corruption (TW3 #349)

Former day care owners who spent 21 years in prison…[for Satanic panic] convictions…are struggling to convince prosecutors that they should be fully exonerated. Dan and Fran Keller…were freed on bond last year when the only physical evidence against them was found to be a mistake…But…prosecutors remain unwilling to proclaim them innocent [despite the fact that everyone knows their conviction was the product of a witch hunt]…[their] claim…will be decided by…conservative judges [who protect the status quo and]…will be guided by the recommendations of [the] judge…who [convicted them in] 1992…and…has already twice ruled that they had failed to prove their innocence.

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #410)

…a few weeks ago in Parliament…Labour MP Fiona MacTaggart added two clauses to the Modern Slavery Bill that would criminalise the clients of sex workers in England and Wales…MacTaggart and her supporters hoped to bring the Nordic Model here with almost no notice or debate…The English Collective of Prostitutes…lobbied their MPs on the phone or in person, and parliamentarians were blasted with anti-criminalisation briefings from left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell…Supporters Women Against Rape pointed out that: “To target men who have not been accused of violence just because they purchase sexual services, diverts police time and resources away from reported rapes”…MacTaggart has claimed that the majority of sex workers were coerced in some fashion – a view based on discredited statistics, and one for which she has been taken to task before…

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #430)

Rare honesty in a mainstream American newspaper:

Let’s be honest. Paying for sex has been around a long time, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Recent court cases have established sexual rights and privacy in protecting what consenting adults do behind closed doors, but those rights end for people who wish to exchange sex for money…some people do not believe sex workers should have the same legal rights as other workers. A study recently published in The Lancet found that even partial criminalization…such as the Swedish model…places sex workers at equal risk for human-rights violations and exploitation. Trying to stop demand will not stop prostitution…Nearly every industrialized nation has made prostitution partially legal or outright legal. It’s time America does the same thing…

Special thanks to Mark Bennett for the unlocked version of the story.

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #433)

Any amount of criminalization of sex work allows cops to play their evil games:

Five people were arrested…after police raided brothels in Germany…Austria, Bosnia and Romania. More than 900 [cops]…took part in the raids…Police also seized cash, computers, hard drives, business records and one pistol. Stuttgart prosecutors [demonized the sex workers’ relationships and told lurid “trafficking” tales]…

The Public Eye (TW3 #439)

She’s a victim! So let’s help her by making her homeless, too! “Connected‘s Kate McGrew has revealed that she’s found it hard to find somewhere to live since revealing she is a sex worker on the reality show…”

Monkey Business (TW3 #442)

Let’s hope this legal rationale of why chimps aren’t “persons” is extended to fetuses, too:

…petitioner requests that this Court enlarge the common-law definition of “person” in order to afford legal rights to an animal. We decline to do so, and conclude that a chimpanzee is not a “person” entitled to the rights and protections afforded by the writ of habeas corpus…chimpanzees cannot bear any legal duties, submit to societal responsibilities or be held legally accountable for their actions. In our view, it is this incapability…that renders it inappropriate to confer upon chimpanzees the legal rights…that have been afforded to human beings…

Held Together With Lies (TW3 #447)

…thousands of…sex slaves in Russia are…waiting for a good samaritan [sic] to come along and save them…since the government and society in general prefer to look the other way, anti-trafficking activists [pretend]…Russia…is now at once a destination, origin and transit country for sex slaves…and…ranked as the country with the sixth-biggest slave population in the world…in a fresh annual report by the…Walk Free Foundation…

Divided We Fall (TW3 #447)

Twenty-five Toronto city councillors have signed a letter asking Premier Kathleen Wynne to take…Bill C-36…to the Ontario Court of Appeal to determine if it is constitutional. The new legislation, which received royal assent last month, will become law on Saturday…”we work to promote measures that increase public safety…In particular, we are united in our efforts to end violence against women…Bill C-36 has introduced…unsafe conditions into Canadian society, bringing foreseeable detriment and real danger to some of the most vulnerable women we represent”…The letter will be presented at City Hall on Friday (Dec. 5), which is the National Day for Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women and the 25th anniversary of the Montreal massacre…

Read Full Post »

Lou Graham

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Perception, Tyranny, tagged bisexuality, brothels, hysteria, law, Madonna/whore, politicians, prohibitionist myths, sex rays, social purity, stage names, Washington (state) on December 4, 2014| 4 Comments »

More city business was transacted at Lou’s than at City Hall. – Bill Speidel

Since I spent much of last month only a few blocks from the building which once housed her Seattle brothel, and was so welcomed by the city she helped build, it seems fitting that I should pay tribute to the life and legacy of Lou Graham (February 9, 1857 – March 11, 1903), the city’s most famous madam. As with most whores, there is a great deal of inconsistency and misinformation involved in her story; however, in Graham’s case it mostly surrounds her death rather than her life.

As Thaddeus Russell explains in A Renegade History of the United States, the reason so many western states gave women the right to vote long before the eastern ones (or the country in general) had absolutely nothing to do with high-minded egalitarianism and everything to do with pragmatism and arse-kissing. You see, frontier populations are always disproportionately male because they tend to lack the sort of amenities “good” women tend to want. Accordingly, frontier towns fill up with lonely young men desperate for female company and usually possessed of money drawn from whatever industry the town is built on (whether that be mining, trapping, trade or whatever). Naturally, whores arrive to capitalize on this and so the minority of frontier populations which are female are usually made up largely of working girls. These ladies soon amass a disproportionate share of the wealth, and madams tend to become fabulously wealthy; in order to win their favor (the better to secure donations and investment in civic projects), city fathers all over the western US granted them suffrage. Seattle did this on November 23^rd, 1883 and almost immediately regretted it; by the time the city had actually granted suffrage, the whores had been outnumbered by recently-arrived “good” women, who immediately repaid the “bad” sisters who had won the vote for them by electing “progressive” prohibitionists to enact new laws (and vigorously enforce old ones) restricting saloons, brothels, gambling and other “vices”. The result, naturally, was a dramatic loss of tax and license revenue, and by the time women’s suffrage was revoked by judicial fiat in 1887-88 the city’s finances were in shambles.

Enter Dorothea Georgine Emile Ohben of Germany, a not-especially-beautiful 31-year-old whore gifted with charm, a gift for persuasion and business savvy. She approached a banker named Jacob Furth, and with his help convinced a number of local businessmen to invest in a truly world-class brothel staffed with beautiful, charming, educated women. Though the building she purchased (at the corner of Third and Washington) burned down in the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889, she had already made enough money in her first year of business to rebuild immediately in stone; it was, in fact, the first building to re-open after the fire. Some say that the pleasures of her house were free to government officials, but whether that was true or not it is certain that she had considerable influence on the political class; though the area’s weird aversion to sex was already in evidence and resulted in periodic “vice crackdowns”, these never lasted long and Graham was always back in business practically overnight. The one instance in which she was actually arrested resulted in the political downfall of Henry White, the “reform” mayor who had presided over the police operation in question.

Unlike some of the other madams I’ve discussed, Graham was far from shortsighted; she fully realized that the political climate might change at any time, resulting in the extinction of her business. So she invested heavily in the stock market and made a killing; on top of that, she made high-interest loans for business ventures that the city’s conservative bankers would not back, but which her friend and business associate Jacob Furth nevertheless felt were good risks. Many of the wealthy Seattle families who nowadays support prohibitionism and finger themselves furtively to “sex trafficking” fantasies enjoy fortunes founded on loans drawn from funds paid for sex…in other words, from the “avails of prostitution”. And that makes them, in the modern view, the descendants of indirect “pimps”. Indeed, given that a very large and publicly-announced deposit from Graham saved the Puget Sound National Bank (Furth’s institution) from a bank run during the Panic of 1893, it could also be said that everyone who has profited from investment in said bank for the past century was also a beneficiary of the “wages of sin”.

None of this is controversial, but the end of her life (and its aftermath) is another matter. After yet another ridiculous “morality” crusade resulted in the closure of her brothel in December 1902, Graham suddenly decided not to bother re-opening in Seattle; she instead took off for San Francisco the following month, apparently intending to start up again there. Less than two months later she was dead, of causes that have never been adequately explained. Her obituary listed the cause as a perforated ulcer, possibly aggravated due to nerves brought on by her repeated harassment. A popular rumor of the time said it was actually suicide, and proponents of the “drug addict whore” and “diseased whore” myths favor the explanations of drug overdose and syphilis, respectively. Another odd point is that she appears to have died intestate, surely an unlikelihood for a woman so careful with business matters; the Seattle Times reported that there had been a will, but that it was torn to shreds during a violent argument between Lou and Amber Delmas the night before Lou died. Amber was described as her “housekeeper”, but it seems virtually certain that the two were lesbian partners; Amber had assisted Lou in running her business for years and accompanied her to San Francisco, and the general belief is that the destroyed will originally named Amber’s daughter Ulna as the chief heir. The daughter soon became the victim of a custody battle between her mother and busybodies who wanted to “rescue” her; the latter won (as they still do today) and the girl was placed in what was described as a “good home”. Lou’s $200,000 fortune ($5.1 million today) was claimed by relatives from Germany, but a court (perhaps conveniently) ruled against them and instead gave the money to the King County School District; despite this, not one single school was named for her (because obviously sex radiation lasts long after death). In some ways, the United States was a very different place a century ago, but when it comes to the incredible hypocrisy of politicians (especially Washington politicians) toward sex workers, it seems absolutely nothing has changed at all.

Read Full Post »

False Witness

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged False Witness, fantasy, hysteria, law, prohibitionist myths, psychology, stereotypes, witchcraft on December 1, 2014| 24 Comments »

Even when we understand that memories can be altered, or even fabricated…the truth is difficult to accept; after all, our memories certainly seem permanent, and we might like to believe that things we have forgotten have merely been mislaid, like old VHS tapes consigned to a box at the back of a closet and covered with old clothes. – “Mind-witness Testimony”

If you haven’t yet read my research paper, “Mind-witness Testimony”, you really ought to; it expands at much greater length and in much greater detail on the themes I discussed in “Imagination Pinned Down” and “I Disbelieve It!”, mocked in “Mulberry Street” and mentioned in passing in “Traffic Jam”, “The Swedish Cult”, “That Old Black Magic”, “Mumbo Jumbo” and many other places. The Reader’s Digest version is:

…The human mind doesn’t passively record events as a camera does; memory is an active and dynamic process which retains information by fitting it into schemata, mental frameworks which shape our thinking and give meaning to perceptions…The same psychological mechanism which causes us to find pictures in Rorschach’s inkblots also causes us to fit memories into the complex web of schemata by which we interpret the world. And just as we ignore those topological elements of a cloud or inkblot which do not fit the meaning our minds have imposed upon it, so do we forget or distort elements of a memory which fail to conform to the schema in which we have embedded it, or even invent elements which were not in reality present, but which the schema predicts should be…The human mind often completely fabricates memories in order to impose conformity with one’s weltanschauung. One simple example involves police lineups: people will often identify the man whom police imply (subtly or overtly) is their preferred suspect because they believe police to be expert assessors of guilt who would never implicate someone falsely, and this schema of police authority and infallibility actually shapes their memories, sometimes to the point of identifying a person who is later proven to look absolutely nothing like the actual criminal…

In witch hunts of both the classic and modern varieties, hypersuggestible people such as children, the mentally ill, the emotionally needy or the severely traumatized can be induced to “remember” all sorts of fantastic things which are not even physically possible, much less grounded in actual events; when they repeat these “memories” in court (or in front of audiences hungry for “sex trafficking” narratives) they are not lying in the strict sense, but merely playing back a script that was written into their memories by processes such as suggestion, group polarization, stereotypic conformation, guided imagination, abusive interrogation tactics and others discussed in my paper. Though the concept of “recovered memory” has been discredited and most reasonably-well-informed people understand its role in driving the Satanic panic, few have yet connected the dots to recognize “sex trafficking” narratives as produced by the same processes. However, as the public begins to recognize the fallibility of human memory, it’s inevitable that outlandish, evidence-free stories such as those told by Somaly Mam, Chong Kim and Theresa Flores will be treated with greater skepticism. And though it’s a slow process, that knowledge is indeed growing; witness, for example, this treatment of a new resurgence of the “Satanic cult abuse” myth:

…two [Scottish] charities…Break the Silence and…Izzy’s Promise, believe satanic [sic] abuse to be rife in Scotland and that it has been for decades. They say children are forced to take part in satanic [sic] rituals involving the sacrifice of babies and the making of snuff movies….it appears highly likely that…these claims are based upon “recovered memories”. As I have written in the past in these pages, the use of various dubious techniques…aimed at recovering allegedly repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse can often produce detailed and horrific false memories. In fact, there is a consensus among scientists studying memory that traumatic events are more likely to be remembered than forgotten, often leading to posttraumatic stress disorder…The sad truth is that we have been here before. [Satanic fantasies of the early ’90s]…were remarkably similar to those now…

Nor is the skepticism limited to a few reporters discussing horror stories any sane person could recognize as false:

Memory, as experts have been trying to teach judges and jurors, does not function like an iPhone camera recording. Memories can not only be deleted; they can be altered or invented without you even realizing it, as shown in a study published last year in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, which involved 861 U.S. soldiers enrolled in a survival school. As part of training, they endured abusive interrogations. Afterward, many were shown a photo of someone who looked nothing like their interrogator, and interviewers insinuated that the person depicted was the culprit. Eighty-four percent of the soldiers misidentified their interrogators after being misled, and some also remembered weapons or telephones that never existed. An extensive body of research with similar findings has become increasingly perplexing for the nation’s judicial systems, leading the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to release a sweeping report last month calling for an overhaul of how the courts and law enforcement deal with one of the most powerfully persuasive pieces of evidence that can sway a jury: eyewitness identification. Research has shown that leading questioning or suggestive behavior by psychiatrists, police or acquaintances, as well as accounts in the media, can result in “planting” false memories in the mind of a witness. In some cases, this can lead witnesses to believe they saw incidents that never occurred…Unsettling as it might be to admit it, the mind is really a muddle of distorted memory associations, further complicated by the distracting details of the moment. For most of our country’s judicial history, this understanding has been largely absent from courtrooms, but a string of shocking cases across the world over the past three decades has ushered in debate, discussion and, finally, the revamping of…laws on the issue…

Belief in the infallibility of memories, especially traumatic memories, is deeply ingrained, and prosecutors will not be happy about the replacement of easily-manipulated crime victim testimony with more indelible and objective forms of evidence. But sooner or later, the facts must win and eyewitness testimony uncorroborated by physical evidence will be tossed into the rubbish-bin of history along with trial by ordeal and, one would hope, confessions obtained by torture. Moral panics will periodically bedevil humanity for at least another several thousand years, but perhaps our children’s children will no longer have to endure trials and laws based on nothing but the incredible and unsubstantiated narratives of self-professed victims.

Read Full Post »

Links #229

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, cops, Florida, hysteria, Never Call the Cops, Ohio, video, Virginia on November 23, 2014| 5 Comments »

Honey badger don’t give a shit, it just takes what it wants.

I’m honestly not planning to make a habit out of letting Links columns post half-finished; my excuse this time is the same as the last two times, namely travel sickness. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that I’m going to have to avoid common carriers entirely; see this coming Tuesday’s column for my proposed solution. Anyhow, the first video today is from the lovely and wonderful Mistress Matisse, who has decided that it is her mission to bring more fun into my life (and is succeeding admirably so far). The second video, from Jesse Walker, is a 1950’s TV pilot made by Orson Welles; everything above the first video is from Radley Balko, and the links between the videos from Nun Ya, Popehat and Mike Siegel (in that order).

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#447)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, advertising, Arkansas, avails laws, Backpage, bogus studies, brothels, California, Canada, censorship, Check Your Premises, cops, Divided We Fall, Europe, Finding What Isn’t There, Florida, games, Having and Eating Cake, Held Together With Lies, hysteria, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, law, LGBT rights, Maryland, Missouri, neofeminism, New York, Not What They Expected, pathologization of males, politicians, pregnancy, prohibitionist myths, rape, Scapegoats, See No Evil, semen, shame, Soap Opera, Social Construction of Eunuchs, South Africa, stripping, surveillance, Sweden, Swedish model, The Mote and the Beam, The Scarlet Letter, The Widening Gyre, underage, universal criminality, Useful Idiots, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Whither Canada? on November 22, 2014| 5 Comments »

This is a moral crusade, dressed up as concern for women. – RCMP Superintendent John Ferguson

The Scarlet Letter

In Anaheim, California, anyone convicted of buying sexual services will have their names and mug shots indefinitely posted to a city web page…The Anaheim district attorney’s office says the scarlet HTML is meant to deter sex traffickers, which makes about as much sense as posting jaywalker mugshots in order to deter car thieves…”Public shaming as a form of punishment goes back to the days of Puritan colonists,” writes Los Angeles Times‘ Emily Foxhall…even…Melissa Farley…[admits] she’s unaware of any evidence that this kind of shaming results in long-term behavior change…

Follow the Leader

In September 2012, President Obama issued an executive order asserting a zero tolerance policy for government contractors who violated human trafficking laws. He specifically targeted recruitment fees that workers in southeast Asia frequently pay for work with military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq…recruitment fees essentially create a system of indentured servitude. Workers usually take out high-interest loans in their home country to pay the fee, and the payments can trap them in their new jobs. Recruiters often mislead workers about their salary and the location of their job—promises of high-paying jobs in Jordanian hotels turn into custodial positions on U.S. military bases in warzones…The government says it has a zero tolerance policy, and yet there’s fairly credible allegations that these guys have been involved in trafficking and they continue to win government contracts,” says Steven Watt…at the ACLU…

See No Evil

Do Polish stuffed animal toys usually come with genitals?

Winnie the Pooh…has been banned from a Polish playground because of confusion about his sexuality and consternation at his attire. Council members were debating which character should become the face of a new playground in the small town of Tuszyn, and…some on the board raised questions about Pooh’s “dubious sexuality” and “inappropriate” attire, and one even condemned the fictional character as a “hermaphrodite”…Ryszard Cichy…[said] “It is half naked which is wholly inappropriate for children…Pooh who is only dressed from the waist up”…[another council member fantasized that A.A. Milne]…”cut [Pooh’s] testicles off with a razor blade because he had a problem with his identity”…

Scapegoats

Maybe this guy thought it was a genital-equipped Polish stuffed horse?

[Florida] police have arrested and charged a 19-year-old man in a troubling case of alleged indecent exposure. Police accuse Sean Johnson of entering a Walmart…and committing a sex act on a stuffed horse…[then] putting [it] back on the shelf…

Above the Law

…A woman says she was raped in jail by a Ferguson [jail guard] while she was pregnant last year, according to a federal lawsuit…against the city and…Jaris Hayden…[who] now faces four felony charges…[the victim had been arrested because her] license plates were expired…and…During [her] booking, Hayden said to her, “You smell good,” and, “This will teach you a lesson”…

Useful Idiots

Sen. Dianne Feinstein…is once again attempting to swell federal power and erode civil liberties by preying on fears about sexual exploitation….[with] the Combat Human Trafficking Act, a bill that would expand federal and state wiretapping authority, mandate that the Department of Justice…spend more time investigating and prosecuting [sex workers’ clients]…and increase criminal penalties for buyers by legally defining them as human traffickers…this is going to lead to increased harassment of…sex workers and enhanced monitoring of any space where they congregate…the bill also provides a potential direct mandate for DOJ to target sex workers and their clients…Feinstein’s press [pretends that] “83 percent of sex trafficking victims are American citizens, and the average victim is first trafficked between ages 12 and 14″…Yes, they’re actually claiming that American citizens make up all but 13 percent of global sex trafficking victims. It’s a bold move even within the typically-dubious realm of sex-trafficking statistics (the idea that the average victim is first-trafficked at 12-years-old is also suspect)…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

This stinks on ice:

Little Rock Police have arrested a…[fireman] at a massage parlor after an undercover sting. Edwin Harris…worked at a business called Asian Massage…a female undercover detective paid for a massage in which she says Harris engaged in sexual contact…Harris was the only person charged at the business…

Social Construction of Eunuchs (TW3 #48)

…Dataspelsbranchen, a Swedish games industry organization, has been given a 272,000 kronor (roughly $36,672) grant by the state…to study and create a system that would provide ratings for games released in Sweden indicating the level of sexism and/or whether or not the game promotes gender equality…their study…will also include analysis of developers already working to promote diversity and gender-equality in order to help others learn from their experience.

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (TW3 #338)

Dancers at a strip club are due more than $10 million in back wages and tips, a federal judge ruled…And additional claims are headed for trial in the class action case, meaning there ultimately could be further awards to roughly 1,900 women who worked at Rick’s Cabaret in Manhattan between 2005 and 2012…Houston-based RCI Hospitality Holdings Inc., said it planned to appeal…

Held Together With Lies (Hysteria on Parade)

How much higher can this nonsense go?

Nearly 36 million people worldwide, or 0.5% of the world’s population, live as slaves, a survey by…Walk Free says…India has the most slaves overall and Mauritania has the highest percentage. The total is 20% higher than for 2013 because of [broader] methodology. The report…uses slavery in [the inflammatory] modern [misuse] of the term, rather than [correctly]…

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #346)

A 14-year-old [South African] girl could be charged with perjury after lying about being held against her will and sold as a sex slave by her aunt…following her mother’s death…The teen alleged that her aunt later locked her in a room with six old men and one of them raped her…it was later established that the teenager had fabricated the story…

Welcome To Our World (TW3 #405)

Would anyone but a modern American “journalist” portray intercourse as a new and novel way to get pregnant?

Once upon a time, when single women and infertile couples wanted a baby, they would pay a sperm bank…thousands of dollars…But now…donors make their sperm available by offering to have sex for free. It’s a surprising — and some say unconventional — method of making a baby called “natural insemination”…

Finding What Isn’t There (TW3 #413)

…few can agree on how widespread [sex trafficking] is, or how best to address it. This troubles former RCMP superintendent John Ferguson: “Are there victims? Yes. Is this a systemic problem? The evidence tells us no.” (Between 2005 and 2009, the RCMP reviewed 242 potential international human-trafficking cases, but made no convictions.) He points to the absence of information: Canada has no standardized system for the collection of such data. Ferguson also points to a 2003 RCMP report that claimed each year 600 women and girls are trafficked into the country for forced sex work; the report has since been discarded by the RCMP itself…

The Mote and the Beam (TW3 #419)

…The use of Backpage.com as a tool to catch criminals represents an interesting paradox. While its critics deplore the ease and visibility the site offers to [sex workers]…those exact qualities make the site invaluable for people looking to [persecute them]…A small but growing number of law enforcement…begrudgingly defend Backpage…Three states have tried to take down [the site with unconstitutional] laws that…Backpage.com successfully [challenged]…and…the SAVE Act is almost certainly not legally viable for the same reasons…

Not What They Expected

Prince George’s County bucks the trend by claiming its “sex trafficking” rate has gone down…which is, of course, as much of a lie as the “King of the Hill” idiocy:

For the second consecutive year, Prince George’s County should see a reduction in human trafficking and prostitution, according to…police…Sgt. David Coleman…attributes the downward trend to the work of his unit and cross-agency initiatives like the county’s Human Trafficking Task force…“When we create a hostile business environment, it moves elsewhere.”

Divided We Fall (TW3 #427)

…Bill C-36…has everything to do with moralism and pearl-clutching white saviours in Ottawa forcing a socially conservative agenda through…This is the same government trying to kill C-279, a bill that would ensure trans people are protected under…hate crimes provisions…Sex workers have started a letter-writing campaign to ask [Ontario Premier Kathleen] Wynne to refer the law to the Ontario Court of Appeal for a constitutional reference…[and] to instruct provincial Crown Attorneys not to enforce the new law until the Ontario court has ruled on its constitutionality. Terri-Jean Bedford was the first to ask Wynne to intervene last month. Next, sex worker rights advocate Nikki Thomas posted her own open letter. And another. And another. Legal experts across Canada call the law blatantly unconstitutional…[Manitoba] actually plans to send sex workers to “camps” for “educational workshops” hosted by the evangelical Salvation Army…Handing over our most vulnerable citizens to questionable religious groups has not ended well historically…Gay men and women should be the most vocal allies of sex workers. There was a time when the same arguments were made to keep being gay a criminal offence…

The Mote and the Beam (TW3 #428)

A coalition of civil liberties, publishing, and online commerce groups are asking Congress to oppose a piece of anti-speech, anti-sex work legislation known as as the “Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation” (SAVE) Act…[which] would create harsh new criminal liabilities for websites and publishers, allow federal agents to censor online ads, make it harder for adult sex workers of all sorts to safely connect with clients…and…expose anyone advertising online to new privacy infringements…The SAVE Act would…create extensive record-keeping requirements for any…service…that hosts adult advertisements…require anyone posting an adult ad to submit photo identification…enable the Department of Justice…to ban certain “euphemisms” or “code words” from online advertising entirely, and…make websites that host user-generated ads criminally liable…even if they do not have actual knowledge that an ad for illegal activity appears on their sites…

Check Your Premises (TW3 #432)

It’s astonishing that supposedly rational adults in the Canadian government need this explained to them:

One of the lead detectives in the teen pimping investigation wants men who [hire] women for sex to ensure their clients [sic] are over 18 and are willing participants, but an advocate for sex workers warns doing so might put johns in an legal quandary…Carolyn Botting [imagines that sex workers will show clients their drivers’ licenses, but]…Chris Bruckert, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, said…the federal government’s new prostitution laws…will put johns in an awkward situation…“If in fact they do call police because they suspect someone is underage or in a situation of exploitation, they’re actually setting themselves up to be criminally charged”…

Soap Opera (TW3 #441)

In which a common type of tattoo is recast as a “brand”.

…Reliable statistics are [nonexistent], but [trafficking fanatics pretend that] hundreds of thousands of women and girls…are sold for sexual exploitation in America’s $9.5bn human-trafficking industry. According to the US Department of Justice, 300,000 of those at risk are children. Branding, whether by tattoo or intentional scarring, has become a disturbing characteristic of…Pimp-led prostitution…Polaris Project [pretends to have]…come across hundreds of women and children who have had their arms, backs, legs, faces, breasts and even eyelids and gums marked with pimp’s names and gang tags or with barcodes, sexual slang words or dollar signs…it is now systemic in America…

Whither Canada? (TW3 #446)

My beloved partner “Isabelle”…is a sex worker in Toronto…[who] lives in my home about half of the time…We occasionally buy things together. We sometimes pool money for grocery trips. Occasionally, one of us picks up something for the other at the corner store…A couple months ago, I had some unanticipated emergency expenses resulting in negative cash flow. Isabelle jumped right in to save me, contributing her money to my monthly housing expense…In short, we’re partners…It’s…against the law as of Dec. 6. Section 286.2 subsection 1 of the code specifically criminalizes “everyone who receives a financial or other material benefit, knowing that it is obtained by or derived directly or indirectly from (sex work).” It’s an indictable offence, subject to a prison term of up to 10 years…

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#446)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Arkansas, asset seizure, Banishment, California, Canada, censorship, cops, dirty, Drawing Lines, Droit du Seigneur, Facebook, Florida, Gingerbread House, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, Illinois, India, internet, Ireland, language, law, Madonna/whore, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nigeria, Pimping the Pimp, Policing for Profit, politicians, porn, pregnancy, prisons, prohibitionist myths, racism, rape, rescue industry, Rough Trade, Safe Targets, Scrambled Eggs, See No Evil, sex education, sex rays, sex work is work, shame, Swedish model, teachers, Texas, The Scarlet Letter, Theatrics, Think of the Children!, tits, Whither Canada?, Whore Detection, Wisconsin on November 15, 2014| 3 Comments »

Abolishing prostitution is a complete fantasy, and those deluded by it…sacrifice the lives of real human beings on their altar of sexual purity. – Joyce Arthur

Rough Trade

“A Delhi court has sentenced four youths to 10 years rigorous imprisonment for abducting and gangraping a Rwandan refugee, saying merely because she was working as a sex worker does not confer the right upon anyone to violate her dignity…“

Think of the Children!

Norah Langweiler…was…hired as Adolescent Health Training Coordinator of Mississippi First, a non-profit specializing in education advocacy and reform…she would design and implement a training center to train educators and medical professionals on…sex education…an…online harassment…group…mined through Langweiler’s Facebook, Etsy, and Twitter accounts to find and repost any “objectionable” material they could find on her, current or years-old…The incriminating “stuff” the small guild dug up included a link to a cartoon about vibrators, mild cursing, and…a photograph of Yoda-shaped pasties…[after a politician joined them]…she was asked…to resign from her position…

The Scarlet Letter

Flint, Michigan has one of the highest crime rates in the US, so cops there have decided to give up on that and use their time trying to destroy the lives of people engaging in peaceful commerce instead:

Suspected Flint prostitutes and johns will be the target of a new police social media tactic to stamp out the world’s oldest profession…police will begin posting on its Facebook page the names and photos of suspects who have been arrested and arraigned on prostitution-related charges…Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton said he believes more-severe punishments are needed to deter prostitution…[an amateur circle-jerk he participates in] has proposed legislation that would change the crime to be a five-year felony…

Scrambled Eggs

In the entire history of futurism, has any futurist ever been right about anything?

One of the developers of the contraceptive pill has predicted his own invention will become redundant as more people choose to be sterilised, making sex purely recreational by 2050…Professor Carl Djerassi said increasing numbers of babies being born through IVF…will lead to men and women choosing to have their eggs and sperm frozen at a young age…people would then be sterilised out of convenience because there would be no need to have sex to produce children…

Above the Law

Some rapist cops carefully plan their assaults: “A..Wisconsin [cop]…has been convicted of sexual assault of a child…and possessing child pornography. Daniel Barber [abused]…several boys, including two toddlers…he [used]…Craigslist and Facebook to connect with parents in need of baby sitters…” While some prefer to simply take advantage of opportunities:

[Florida cop] Carlos Xavier Lopez…responded to a call about a possible domestic incident [then] a few days [later]…he returned for a followup…he…forced himself on a…woman…and…kissed her, pressing his tongue into her mouth…he told her he “could last for hours” and that “I’m not going to get caught.” Then…he forced his hand inside her underwear and touched her, so she attempted to pretend someone was coming into the garage so he would stop…[he] followed her and tried to guide her toward a bedroom…Lopez allegedly said he would have had sex with her if members of her family hadn’t been home at the time…

Gingerbread House

Look beneath the Orwellian language:

Every year in Texas 46,000 kids will go missing…More than 6,500 of them will become victims of sex trafficking…the…Refuge for Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking…is working to open the refuge ranch where victims of human trafficking can get all the help they need. “Everything will be self-contained on the 50 acres so that in the beginning the girls don’t have to be moved outside of that and that gives them some safety and consistency”…Girls ages 11-17 will be able to stay as long as they need…

“Girls don’t have to be moved” = “girls won’t be free to leave”. “Safety and consistency” = “security and isolation”. “Stay as long as they need” = “indefinite, open-ended sentence”. And given that only 6 of that “missing children” figure are actually abducted by strangers, it’d be a good trick for “more than 6500” to be “sex trafficked”.

Sex Work is Work

Bitch Magazine eschews the usual nonsense about whether sex work is “bad” or “empowering”, instead treating it as work and interviewing three sex workers whose names you know: Mistress Matisse answers “How Does a Dominatrix Do Her Taxes?”, Melissa Gira Grant talks about “Looking at Sex Work from a Labor Perspective”, and Emi Koyama discusses “The Social and Legal Reality of Sex Work”.

Droit du Seigneur (TW3 #132)

A group of [Nigerian] sex workers…beat up a top politician…over his refusal to pay for services rendered…Eye witness [sic] said that the prostitutes…began to drag him along the…road, shouting, “pay us our money for the service we do for you”…his clothes had been torn to shreds before his friends…moved to rescue him, while pleading for forgiveness from the sex workers…

Theatrics

If this supposed “crime” is so common, how come the only pictures we have of it are always fake ones?

Fake accounts on Tinder, using pictures of models with cuts and bruises, have been set up as part of a campaign against sex trafficking. Dublin-based advertising agency EightyTwenty and the Immigrant Council of Ireland are behind the scheme. Profiles initially show a picture of an attractive person, but when users swipe to see more photos they are then confronted with images depicting abuse that victims of trafficking are [supposedly] subjected to…

Policing for Profit

The seminars offered police officers some useful tips on seizing property…Don’t bother with jewelry (too hard to dispose of) and computers (“everybody’s got one already”), the experts counseled. Do go after flat screen TVs, cash and cars. Especially nice cars. In one seminar…Harry S. Connelly Jr., the city attorney of Las Cruces, N.M., called them “little goodies”…And…described how [cops]…could not wait to [steal] one man’s “exotic vehicle” outside a local bar…In September, Albuquerque, which has long seized the cars of suspected drunken drivers, began taking them from men suspected of trying to pick up prostitutes, landing seven cars during a one-night sting. Arkansas has expanded its seizure law to allow the police to take cash and assets with suspected connections to terrorism, and Illinois moved to make boats fair game under its D.W.I. laws…In Mercer County, N.J., a prosecutor preaches the “gospel” that forfeiture is not just for drug arrests — cars can be seized in shoplifting and statutory rape cases as well…Officials offered advice on dealing with skeptical judges, mocked Hispanics whose cars were seized, and made comments that, the Institute for Justice said, gave weight to the argument that civil forfeiture encourages decisions based on the value of the assets to be seized…

Pimping the Pimp (TW3 #403)

Annie Lobert of “Liars for Jesus” is back in the news again, and the source who pointed this story out to me has a bit more info on her. It turns out she went by the stage name “Fallon” and used to work the casinos; she was never a streetwalker, never had a “pimp” (unless you count her current husband, Oz Fox of the Christian rock band Stryper) and has continually inflated her stories of beatings and the like for the past eight years. Remember her “prostitution glossary“, in which she pretended agency escorts use terms cops claim are from the narrow little world of pimped streetwalkers? Yeah. Anyway, this “Destiny House” is actually the second mansion some would-be rescuer has allowed her to use; she lost the first one because she couldn’t prove her “charity” actually accomplished anything, and now that she’s about to lose this one she’s crying for public funding with the help of a reporter best known for Area 51 stories. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Drawing Lines

Once again: No, adding a camera won’t protect you from prostitution charges, even though the distinction is total bullshit:

Porn stars get paid to have sex. Prostitutes get paid to have sex. But porn is legal, and prostitution is not. And now porn stars are letting fans pay for the chance to have sex with them on camera…While at first glance the concept of someone bidding thousands of dollars…to have sex with a porn star in front of a video crew might seem like prostitution, adult industry experts say it’s not…Marc Randazza…explained that the differentiation between pornography and prostitution generally refers back to a 1988 California Supreme Court case, People v Freeman…

See No Evil (TW3 #421)

A picture showing a new mother breastfeeding her premature baby for the first time was removed by Facebook after a user complained it contained “offensive” nudity. Emma Bond, 24, said she wanted to share the image of the “special moment” with Carene, who was born 12 weeks early…Facebook said breastfeeding photos have never been against the firm’s Community Standards, but nipples had to be covered or concealed. It said the picture had been removed in error and had since been reinstated…Sarah Crown, editor of parenting website Mumsnet, said…”We have a problem with photos of women breastfeeding on Facebook because they involve breasts”…

Whither Canada? (TW3 #423)

Canada’s new anti-prostitution law was passed this week despite mountains of evidence of his harmfulness and unconstitutionality. The city government of Vancouver has protested the new law, strongly implying that it will refuse to enforce it, and steadfast ally Joyce Arthur had this to say about it:

…The misnamed “Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act” will accomplish neither, because the main unwritten goal of the law, bluntly stated by Injustice Minister Peter MacKay, is to “abolish prostitution“…the law is a recipe for violence against sex workers, who]…will be pushed into more isolated areas, forced to work alone, pressured into rushing transactions, harassed by the police, less able to access social and health services, and subjected to increased stigma and discrimination. New prohibitions on advertising will put many indoor workers onto the street…Kerry Porth…of Pivot Legal Society…said…”The new laws are so confusing that no one — not even the government itself — really knows what activities will be illegal and what will be legal”…a Charter challenge is all but certain. Sex workers will win again, this time for good.

If Men Were Angels

A…teacher [named Tariq Ahmad] is wanted [for]…the sexual abuse and rape of two female students at a private Islamic school in Florida…one…[needed] “substantial surgical repair”…the school knew about the alleged incidents, which happened between 2006 and 2008, but did nothing about them…

Safe Targets (TW3 #439)

Would he have been prosecuted if not for the Vice article? Doubtful.

A Fairbanks man arrested…after a two-month investigation is accused of posing as a [cop] and trying to blackmail local prostitutes for cash…Jase O. Connors, 26…[is only in trouble because he’s] not a certified police officer…none of the victims who came forward to discuss the case…will face prosecution as a result of doing so…

Of course, now cops and prosecutors know their names and details.

Whore Detection

Note that she doesn’t question the prohibitionist laws that both reinforce this stigma and raise it from merely insulting to actually dangerous:

The online conversation about women of color being profiled as sex workers made me think about my own stories…I [am] a…twenty-something [black] woman [married to] a white man in his mid-thirties…[I get] propositions a few times each year…Stop Street Harassment…has found…that dark-skinned women are more likely than light-skinned women to be asked questions like, “How much?” by men in public spaces…

Banishment (TW3 #444)

Red Light Legal…has called on the Oakland City Council to repeal new rules allowing the city to force landlords to evict alleged prostitutes…the Oakland City Attorney’s Office…[pretends that] the city won’t actually use the legislation to target sex workers…[but rather only the] motels and hotels [they live in. City Attorney Barbara] Parker…demanded [newspapers censor their truthful coverage of the law]…and print [city propaganda] instead, [vomiting out the myth that] “Prostitutes are…victimized and brutalized by the pimps, Johns, and others who prey on them and force them into that life“…Despite Parker’s [lies]…the law still leaves the door open [to persecute sex workers on the whim of cops or prosecutors]…

Read Full Post »

Warped Mirror

Posted in Perception, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, bad customers, fantasy, harm reduction, hysteria, law, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rescue industry, stereotypes, underage on November 12, 2014| 7 Comments »

I see you so often rail about the imaginary “trafficking” issue. I realize that very few adult sex workers are coerced, and that anti-prostitution laws have nothing to do with protection, but is there any actual evidence that there are real girls under 16 (particularly from Asia) who are really being forced to work as prostitutes?

In a world of over six billion people, it is a near-certainty that any situation anyone can conceive of (which doesn’t violate the laws of physics) has already happened at some point and continues to happen from time to time. So yes, I am sure that there are some Asian girls under 16 who are actually compelled (by some means almost anyone would agree were coercive) to work as prostitutes. I have no way of guessing what that number might be, and neither does anyone else despite pretensions to the contrary: all the cases which make the news involve women older than that; and/or the compulsion is of a type that would not be viewed as a problem if she were a maid or nanny; and/or she chose the situation as the best of a number of alternatives, many or all of them bad; and/or there is some cultural difference which causes her to see her situation differently from her “rescuers”; and/or the “trafficker” is actually an intimate partner rather than a cartoon pimp or racist caricature of a crime cartel. Moreover, though prohibitionists paint sex workers’ clients as sadistic perverts who ignore bruises and evidence of bondage and prefer prepubescent girls to adult women, nothing could be further from the truth; sex workers who seem to dislike their work tend to get bad reviews because most men don’t actually like having sex with unwilling partners, and the idea that a business model based on the overt enslavement of traumatized tweens could ever be a thriving concern is highly dubious to say the least. In fact, the popularity of this narrative reveals the sick, twisted psychology and sexuality of those who promote it; their view of sex work is like something seen in a warped mirror, not only reversed but magnified and distorted into unrecognizability. The three most important forms of distortion are:

a rare, extreme situation is presented as though it were not only the norm, but a norm from which there is little if any variance (thus making it unique in human experience);
complex, nuanced human interactions are reduced to absurd black hat-white hat melodrama complete with mustache-twirling “pimp” villains, passive damsels in distress, and heroes with pure motives who ride in on white chargers to save the day; and
the carceral “solutions” which the fetishists inevitably favor not only fail to help women in the complex real-life situations whose existence they deny, but also to help even the women in situations which actually resemble their fantasy somewhat. In fact, these supposed “solutions” make things worse in almost every conceivable case, as I explained at length in “Straining at Gnats” and “Enabling Oppression”. Criminalizing sex work does not discourage a black market in which coercion can thrive; on the contrary, it creates such a market.

The one-sentence answer to your question, then, is this: A small number of such girls probably does exist, but their situations are a lot more complex than the “sex trafficking” profiteers want you to believe, and the laws they favor actually hurt such girls by enabling those who exploit them.

(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »

Visit my bookstore
This Month
April 2026

S M T W T F S

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

« Mar
Old Posts
Old Posts
Call me

Enter your email address to follow "The Honest Courtesan"; you'll be notified by email whenever Maggie posts something new.

Email Address
Become a Blog Patron

If you want to donate but don't want a recurring charge, you can send any amount you like via PayPal to my email address (see below). Be sure to include a note so I can thank you!
Contact Maggie

If you’d like to ask me a question, click here.

If you made a comment and it doesn’t appear within a few hours, click on this one.

If you’d like to alert me to an interesting item, use this one.

And if you have a request, bouquet or brickbat or just want to introduce yourself, this is the one for you.
A Few References
Boring but necessary legal stuff

All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say “pretty please with sugar on top” first, and then wait for me to say “okey-dokey”.

Frank commentary from a semi-retired call girl

Posts Tagged ‘hysteria’

Visit my bookstore

This Month

Old Posts

Call me

Become a Blog Patron

Contact Maggie

A Few References

Boring but necessary legal stuff