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That Was the Week That Was (#311)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, Africa, agency denial, Arizona, Australia, Backlash, bogus studies, California, Check Your Premises, Comfort Zone, Coming and Going, condoms, cops, crypto-moralism, diversion programs, escort services, ethics, evidence, Finding What Isn’t There, Grace Bellavue, Hard Numbers, hysteria, illegal aliens, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, Lack of Evidence, language, Latin America, law, LGBT rights, marriage, Mexico, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Nevada, New York, No Friend of Ours, Obfuscation via Dysphemisms, Oklahoma, One Size Fits All, Peeping Toms, politicians, Politicizing the Personal, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Real People, Reviews, Saint Death, Scrambled Eggs, streetwalkers, Sweden, Texas, That's the Ticket!, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, welcome to our world on March 16, 2013| 15 Comments »

In the field of human trafficking, I detest data because most of it is made up and bogus. – Martina Vandenberg, Human Trafficking Legal Resource Center

Lack of Evidence

It’s good to see the media finally noticing this:

There is no law that says…condoms [are] illegal…and yet NYPD…routinely…[uses them] as…evidence for…prostitution…one city agency conducts a public-health campaign and…[those] who take advantage of it are…promptly arrested by a different city agency—leading to cases being thrown out of court, a suppressed and redacted…study of the problem, and a bill to address the matter in…the state legislature…arresting people because they are in possession of condoms…distributed…by the city itself…looks an awful lot like entrapment…

Nor are the arrests limited to sex workers; as I’ve explained many times, laws which violate whores’ rights invariably violate everyone’s.

Real People

I love seeing profiles like this one of Australian escort Grace Bellavue; the more the public sees of real sex workers, the harder it will be for prohibitionists to sell their stereotypes and myths about us.

Check Your Premises

This is only “stunning” to those who believe in the “pimps and hos” myth:

A sex-trafficking case got the hook in…Brooklyn…when prosecutors revealed their victim was advertising herself as an escort…the woman, now 19, who claimed defendant Robert Pannell forced her into prostitution in April 2011…advertised herself online…last month. The stunning revelation contradicted the accuser’s testimony that her ordeal as a 17-year-old runaway was the only time she ever turned tricks…

Backlash

The Women’s Legal Centre…in Cape Town…provides legal services for sex workers…[who] face routine harassment, intimidation, and…abuse from police…[who] threaten, arrest, or detain [them] for days at a time…many are released only after paying large fines…WLC began its outreach by offering weekly group workshops…[but] soon expanded, employing four former and current sex workers as paralegals…

Recognizing Doubletalk

An internal investigation of the Wilmington [North Carolina] Police Department’s narcotics enforcement team revealed inadequate documentation of funds, poor…supervision…and a “code of silence” cover-up of a March 2012 undercover prostitution operation…Police Chief Ralph Evangelous…[claimed] the undercover operation was in response to a citizen complaint about…escort services…the narcotics enforcement unit came up with a “unique approach” in [which]…more than $2,000 in city funds…were used…

Translation: The narcotics squad had a party but got caught, and it took the police chief a year to come up with a cock-and-bull excuse.

Peeping Toms

A federal appeals court struck down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law…a decade after…Lawrence v. Texas…The appeal originated in a 2005 case in which a 47-year-old man was convicted of soliciting a 17-year-old girl for sex. The girl refused and reported the incident to police, resulting in a “crimes against nature” charge…

One Size Fits All

As you might expect, Swedish neofeminists do not like surrogate motherhood and consider it a form of “human trafficking”:

Surrogate motherhood is a serious crime against women’s human rights…Even when the woman has voluntarily become a surrogate…she gives up the rights to her own body…surrogacy…opens the door for viewing women and children as goods, and to regarding women as containers…having children is not a human right…

Nor, in the minds of neofeminists, is using one’s natural abilities in a way which violates the neofeminist religion. Though this collectivist stance is evil because it denies women the right to control their bodies, it is more philosophically consistent than that of the US (which allows surrogacy but bans sex work) and Australia (vice-versa). But lest you believe that Swedish neofeminists are truly motivated by concern for women’s well-being:

Equality Minister Maria Arnholm wants Sweden to keep the right to deport women whose relationships with Swedish spouses end within two years…The…rule was introduced in an effort to clamp down on sham marriages and to put an end to so-called “wife imports”. But it has been blamed for forcing women to remain in abusive relationships…[and] a 2012 government-ordered inquiry [recommended it] be abolished…The Centre Party’s Women’s Association has also demanded that the…rule be…[replaced with] “immediate action” against “the practice of wife importation”…

It Looks Good On Paper

Prohibitionists just love to tout “diversion programs” which supposedly “help” whores instead of criminalizing them, but if these are so great why do they need cops to force women into them, and why are their standards so strict that very few qualify to avoid jail? In a recent example from Tucson, Arizona, members of SWOP warned sex workers away from a sting they had learned about, but 13 women still got caught…and only four qualified to escape jail. The scheme’s organizer Steve Kozachik, a local politician with a reputation as a control freak, claimed SWOP’s protecting women from cops was “unnecessary” and that “This is not anti sex worker.” Tell that to the nine women whom the prohibitionists “helped” into cages and branded with lifelong criminal records for trying to earn a living.

Politicizing the Personal

Dr. Laura Agustín feels the same way I do about the concept of “empowerment”, as she explains in this older essay she recently republished:

The verb is transitive: someone gives power to another, or encourages them to take power or find power in themselves. It’s used among those who want to help others identified as oppressed…[the] emphasis [is] on the helper and her vision of her capacity to help, encourage and show the way…To empower me as a sex worker you assume the role of acting on me…

Scrambled Eggs

…a California…law prohibits women from being compensated for donating their eggs for medical research, despite payments to subjects in other human research studies…[and] eggs…donated for fertility treatments…[but] a recently introduced bill…would allow women to be compensated…the California Family Council…[claims sponsor Susan] Bonilla’s bill opens up “dangerous medical ground.” The…anti-abortion group…said eggs should be treated like organs and should not be sold…Bonilla said…”I think women are able to decide for themselves if they want to participate in a clinical trial”…

Saint Death

Jesse Walker published a good short piece on Santa Muerte which includes links to a recent AP article, an FBI scare-screed and an essay comparing anti-Santa Muerte hysteria to the Satanic Panic.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Neuroskeptic points out the deep connection between addiction rhetoric and crypto-moralism:

…The dopamine theory of addiction is extremely popular today…[but] if you view addiction as essentially about reward (pleasure), surely that means…anything pleasurable could…be addictive?…if…addiction is the direct consequence of over-indulgence in a reward, then aren’t you saying that reward itself is ultimately what’s addictive?…If everything from food to friends to music are rewarding because they trigger dopamine release, then surely all of those things could be ‘addictive’…The more fun, the more (potentially) addictive…this idea – for all its medical, neurobiological, scientific language – actually undermines the concept of addiction as a ‘disease’ and reduces it to what amounts to a moral failing – it casts addiction as over-indulgence…

Finding What Isn’t There

Ministers, the police and social workers have been accused of a “shocking” failure to prevent the spread of modern slavery in the UK, leading to sexual exploitation, forced labour and the domestic servitude of adults and children…Describing government ministers as “clueless”…[about] human trafficking…the most exhaustive inquiry yet conducted into the phenomenon concludes that the approach to eradicating modern slavery is fundamentally wrong-headed. Instead of helping vulnerable victims…the legal system prosecutes many for immigration offences…

Though I hate to defend government officials, I feel compelled to point out that it’s difficult to adapt to ever-expanding definitions, and impossible to produce enough “victims” to satisfy “estimates” which are essentially just made up.

Obfuscation Via Dysphemisms

Gloria…Giammalva…was [sentenced]…to…[21] months in prison and to be partially responsible for a $600,000 money judgment…U.S. Attorney Trent Shores…[claimed] the conspiracy…charged $30 per encounter, which he said meant that 20,000 commercial sex acts were performed by the women who were exploited…Giammalva…conspired with others in the operation of a multistate prostitution business that coerced and enticed women across state lines to participate in commercial sex acts…

Trim off all the dysphemisms and what remains is: she owned an escort service and the prosecutor lied about the fee to ratchet up the number of “counts”.

Coming and Going (TW3 #35)

Dallas officials are trying to push their “prostitution diversion” scheme on the rest of Texas as a replacement for locking women up. While any move away from incarceration is good news, the motivation is a desire to save money rather than a recognition that criminalization of consensual adult behavior is wrong; whores are still regarded as “criminals” to be “rehabilitated”, and all are assumed to be miserable victims who want out of sex work.

Book Reviews (October 2012)

When Rob Arthur (author of You Will Die) noticed that Chester Brown (author of Paying For It) had expressed interest in his book in the comment thread of this post, he asked me to forward his email address to Chester and the two of them each sent the other a book. I am both pleased and honored to have facilitated the meeting of two awesome authors whose works I greatly enjoyed.

Hard Numbers (TW3 #48)

…Steph Key will introduce new laws to [the South Australian] Parliament…to decriminalise all forms of sex work, after a previous attempt was rejected by one vote in November. The new Bill, based on a New Zealand model, would…allow local government…regulatory control…but…prevent councils from outlawing brothels simply because they offer sex work…Ms Key and [Status of Women Minister Gail] Gago were confident the new attempt was more likely to pass…

That’s the Ticket! (TW3 #138)

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on Comic Relief’s subscription to prohibitionist lies:

…This figure comes from a paper that surveyed only street-based sex workers, who represent less than 20% of prostitution…we should be…wary of…any group that throws around this number as if it represents sex work in general…Similarly, we are regularly told that the “average” age of entry into sex work is 13. This is actually incredibly mathematically unlikely, unless there is an epidemic of infants being sexually exploited we don’t yet know about. Former librarian and escort Maggie McNeill has broken down why this oft-repeated assumption is incorrect…The Comic Relief site continues: “The UK is a major destination country for trafficked young people. They are at a very high risk of being sexually exploited.” No source is given for this statement – probably because no such data exists. Confirmed trafficking cases in the UK are more likely to enter other jobs like agriculture, hospitality, and domestic service than they are to become sex workers…

No Friend of Ours

In the process of criticizing Nevada’s proposed “Everyone is a Sex Trafficker” Act, Jennifer Reed also debunks the “sex trafficking” panic:

…Prostitution in the U.S. was largely legal until changing women’s sexual norms led to a “white slavery” panic that resulted in the closing of brothels with the White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act in 1910…The reality was numerous young women were drawn into prostitution for “mundane” economic reasons [but] the ambiguous language of the Mann Act…was used to criminalize forms of consensual sexual behavior for many years…The [American] conception…developed because a crusade against prostitution…[conflated it] with human trafficking, a claim for which there is no evidence, even according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. An executive summary of human trafficking put forth by the non-profit Center for Health and Gender Equity concludes that “conflating human trafficking with prostitution results in ineffective anti-trafficking efforts and human rights violations because domestic policing efforts focus on shutting down brothels and arresting sex workers, rather than targeting the more elusive traffickers”…investigations…[focus] almost entirely on commercial sex. It is a structure built on vice squads rather than labor investigators…

Comfort Zone

I wrote: “…many European countries seem more interested in ‘trafficking’ as an excuse to restrict immigration than as a genuine concern for the human rights of migrants.” Jim Cusack of The Independent wrote: “The Department of Justice and the courts are turning down ‘nearly all’ asylum requests from African women who say they fled [to Ireland] to escape sex traffickers in other European countries…”

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Watershed

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, tagged activism, agency denial, Canada, end demand, ethics, harm reduction, language, law, Madonna/whore, neofeminism, Swedish model, Watershed on March 14, 2013| 59 Comments »

Reformers are far more common than Feminists…[and] the passion to decide to look after your fellow-men, and especially women, to do good to them in your way is far more common than the desire to put into everyone’s hand the power to look after themselves. – Lady Margaret Rhondda

For every social movement there is a watershed moment, a point at which the struggle ceases to be unceasingly uphill and begins to develop momentum. Gay rights had its moment in Lawrence vs. Texas, and marijuana decriminalization seems to have reached its this past November with the success of the initiatives in Washington and Colorado. And though it’s obvious that we have not yet reached that point in sex worker rights (and probably won’t until the collapse of “sex trafficking” hysteria), I do believe we’re beginning to see a few signs that the terrain is starting to level out, and that the crest is no longer at some impossible height above us.

The first of those signs started to appear more than two years ago, with the Himel decision in Canada and a few public statements supporting decriminalization from the odd journalist, cop, feminist or politician. By last summer, the shift in the wind was discernible:

…decriminalization has slowly become the default position among health officials, even in countries with full or partial criminalization regimes. This trend culminated…in a UNAIDS commission of experts in health and health law recommending absolute decriminalization of sex work and the sex industry everywhere, thus repudiating criminalization, legalization, the Swedish model, the Nevada model and all other such schemes at one stroke. Shortly after the release of that report came the International AIDS Conference, whose leaders were clearly embarrassed and apologetic for the United states’ high-handed and asinine refusal to allow sex worker delegates into the country to attend the gathering; the executive director of UNAIDS said it was “outrageous…[that] when we have everything to beat this epidemic, we still have to fight prejudice, stigma, discrimination, exclusion, criminalization.” An American politician, Representative Barbara Lee of California, actually fought to have sex workers allowed at the conference, and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said, “If we’re going to beat AIDS, we can’t afford to avoid sensitive conversations, and we can’t fail to reach the people who are at the highest risk”…

Since that time, the trend has only accelerated, and Melissa Gira Grant’s “The War On Sex Workers” (published in the February issue of Reason) seems to have stirred things up in a particular group we might call “whitebread feminists”, women who identify as “feminist” because they think they’re supposed to, but make no attempt to actually form coherent positions on anything. They aren’t rabid neofeminists who equate all heterosexuality with rape, nor “sex-positive” feminists who consider themselves sex workers’ allies, nor members of any one of the various feminist cliques; basically, they’re just the feminist equivalent of rank-and-file members of a political party who happily and obediently espouse all of their group’s positions, no matter how absurd and mutually contradictory, because the group identification matters far more to them than any kind of philosophical consistency. These women are exemplified by websites like Jezebel and Feministe, whose editorial views are roughly as coherent and rational as Femen’s agenda and whose writers are fond of words like “problematic” (which basically means “forcing me to think about things I’d rather not think about”).

Anyhow, Melissa’s essay was obviously “problematic” for a number of feminists; though I doubt many of them would have any more interest in a magazine named Reason than a staunch atheist would have in one called Faith, sex worker activists and allies tweeted, reblogged, linked and otherwise spread it so widely about that it eventually found its way inside the bubble. The first sign it had done so was an article from young neofeminist Meghan Murphy, whose article “There is No Feminist War on Sex Workers” would have been more accurately entitled, “Blah Blah Blah I’M NOT LISTENING! Lalalalala HmmmHmmmHmm…” It attacks Melissa, Laura Agustín and others (without offering any evidence other than “they’re wrong”), refers to whores by the agency-denying label “prostituted women”, cheerleads for the Swedish model (bizarrely characterizing its one-sided criminalization as “true equality”), and then denies that there is a war on sex workers. No, seriously, I’m not making this up; go see for yourself, then take a look at “Proof of Feminist Women’s Violence Against Prostitutes” on the cleverly-named blog This Old Whore House, which delivers exactly what its title promises.

The day after Murphy’s article appeared, two sex-positive feminists wrote a column for Feministe calling attention to Melissa’s article and presenting the case that “Anti-sex-trafficking ‘feminism’ is anti-woman…To be a feminist, one should actually care about the lives of women.” Those who remember my experience on Feministe will be wholly unsurprised when I say that the comment thread turned into a typical feminist screaming match, including an appearance by the aforementioned Meghan Murphy after the very first reply linked her article. And just as Jill came along behind my article to label it “unacceptable”, she did the same thing here with a piece of her own entitled “Supporting Sex Workers’ Rights, Opposing the Buying of Sex” in which she declares that feminists can “support” all of our rights except the (obviously unimportant) right to earn a living at our chosen profession (which we didn’t really choose). Oh, and think of the children!!!! Its comment thread was, as I’m sure you can guess, much of a muchness with the other.

If it had ended there I wouldn’t be writing this post, because I saw absolutely no growth or change or movement in any of it: the bigots were bigoted, and the sex-positives were defensive, and the fence-sitters continued to ride their unicycles and juggle nonsense. But then I saw this article from Anna North (formerly of Jezebel) entitled “What Feminism Can Learn from Sex Workers”, in which she stated that “ultimately, non-sex workers shouldn’t make assumptions about what sex workers want, or decide what they need.” If a woman who has gone on record as believing in both “social construction of gender” and the gypsy whores myth can understand that, maybe there’s hope for whitebread feminists yet. And since they are the vast majority of women who self-identify as “feminist”, they might well prove the group that pushes us over the top.

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Links #140

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged Africa, California, cops, dirty, drugs, East Asia, Florida, France, genitalia, Germany, Illinois, imaginative fiction, Indonesia, Kenya, language, Latin America, lawheads, Maryland, New Mexico, psychology, robots, stripping, United Kingdom, video, weaponry on March 9, 2013| 11 Comments »

911 Operator: “Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?”
Nurse: “Not at this time.”

This was the 140^th week since I began the blog, and as of today that number will again be attached to the links columns rather than “That Was the Week That Was”. Starting tomorrow, the latter will be numbered with a new system I’ll use from here on out: the first digit will be the last one of the calendar year, and the next two the week within that year. So since this was the 10^th week of 2013, tomorrow is #310; the last week of this year will be #352, the week after that will be #401, and so on. That system will work perfectly until the end of 2019, by which point I may not even be doing things the same way.

Our top contributor this week was Radley Balko, who provided everything down to the first video (which was itself provided by Grace). The links between the videos were contributed by Walter Olson (“insect jewelers”, “rules > people” and “pop-tart trauma”), Antonio Lorusso (“downloaded gun” and “philosophy jokes”), Franklin Harris (“vewy quiet” and “Iliad“), Teller (“crime deterrent”), Laura Agustín (“imaginary spectators”), Lenore Skenazy (“suspended hero”), Luscious Lani (“Adam”), Sensia Blue (“settlement”), EconJeff (“Berlin”), and Jesse Walker (“clichés”). The second video was supplied by my husband, and it may require an explanation if you aren’t an American reader over the age of 35: the music is from a series of educational videos called Schoolhouse Rock which aired as shorts between Saturday morning children’s shows in the 1970s. Take a look at the original first, then you’ll appreciate the featured parody more fully.

A robot dog throws cinder blocks with its mouth.

Insect jewelers.
Download this gun.
Be vewy, vewy quiet!
Top ten philosophy jokes.
Religion is not a deterrent against crime.
Real vs. imaginary spectators of stripping.
When rules are more important than people.
Richard III: not a psychopath, just a control freak.
Teenager suspended for saving another student’s life.
Using genetics to pinpoint the publication date of the Iliad.
Adam lived a much longer time ago than previously suspected.
Rent-a-cop literally throws old woman off of a train for singing hymns.
School offers “counseling” to children “troubled” by terrifying pop-tart.
Settlements like this must become routine before anything will change.
The last generation tore down the Berlin Wall; this one is trying to save what’s left of it.
“Kenya was braced at the crossroads…amidst growing concern that the demand for clichés is outstripping supply.”
Wendy McElroy on the conversion of basic human rights into privileges granted by one’s location within a magic circle of protection.

From the Archives

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Comfort Zone

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged activism, anecdote, Comfort Zone, cops, hysteria, illegal aliens, language, law, lawyers, New York, racism on March 7, 2013| 51 Comments »

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. – Neale Donald Walsch

Everyone has a comfort zone, an imaginary “space” within which events and human reactions are generally predictable and unchallenging. And while such spaces are essential for the smooth function of daily life, they do nothing to promote growth and development because those are driven by confronting adversity and overcoming obstacles. This is especially important in activism; as Furry Girl has often pointed out, most sex worker rights advocates restrict themselves to the “sex-positive” or feminist bubbles, or at most build bridges with other marginalized groups like gay rights or drug user communities. But this is not remotely enough; we need to reach out to “normal” people, especially those who are in a position to either disseminate their views (such as journalists and academics) or influence policy (such as lawyers, medical professionals and government actors like cops). This is why, despite disapproval from some individuals, I have consistently concentrated on the things that make sex workers similar to most people (rather than those which make us different), and worked to create a space in which people from all walks of life (rather than just the usual pro-sex-work ones) are welcome.

Last week I had a wonderful opportunity; I was invited to participate in a symposium on the topic of “human trafficking” at the Albany Law School in Albany, New York. As I explained last week, this was outside my comfort zone in a number of ways: I had never before been to New York and never before spoken in front of so many people who were neither sex workers nor generally considered allies; the symposium’s title (“Voiceless Cargo: Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery in the Modern Era”) caused me to suspect that my views might not be welcomed by some of the panelists and audience members; and worst of all, I would have to face the prospect of air travel for the first time in a decade. And while the latter was even worse than I feared, the symposium itself was better and much more rewarding than I had dared to hope.

Some of you may be wondering why I’m so terrified of air travel. It’s not just a phobia, though I do suffer from that; it’s also that, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times before, I’m unusually prone to vertigo. Any kind of rapid, unanticipated motion makes me dizzy and extremely nauseated, so you can imagine how I feel on planes even when the flight is smooth (which absolutely NONE of the legs of this trip were). It was bad enough when the planes were mostly overgrown buses in the sky, but now that rising fuel costs have caused most of the big ones to be replaced with Flying Pencil-Cases of Doom it’s much worse. So although many people (especially the steward on my first outgoing flight, my seatmate on the flight into Albany and the stewardess on my last flight home) were kinder and more solicitous of my welfare than one ever expects from strangers, I’ll be taking rental cars or trains to my speaking engagements in the future!

Things improved practically from the moment I arrived in Albany. I was picked up by Andrew Woodman, the symposium’s organizer; he drove very slowly, checked me in at the hotel and made my apologies to the other guests at the welcome reception while I slept off the trip for the next twelve hours. I awoke feeling much better and my student ambassador, Craig Mackey, guided me to the luncheon and the symposium itself. He, Andrew, and all the students and faculty I met were extremely friendly and enthusiastic; I was made to feel very welcome and very honored before, during and after the actual event. My talk was very well-received and the organizers later told me that every student they had spoken to afterward thanked them for inviting me to the symposium; for hours after its conclusion I spoke to many students, professors and other guests, and even the very few who disagreed with some of what I said were extremely respectful and approached me in a spirit of professional debate rather than dismissal of my views.

The most pleasant surprise for me was the discovery that some of the other speakers’ positions were closer to mine than I could have predicted. I was especially impressed with Professor Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women; among the high points of her keynote lecture for me were her statement that the US and many European countries seem more interested in “trafficking” as an excuse to restrict immigration than as a genuine concern for the human rights of migrants; the observation that victims’ benefits are usually contingent upon cooperation with law enforcement, thus making it impossible to determine their true experiences; and the fact that government funding (especially in the US) is tied to “trafficking”, thus encouraging police departments to classify many more activities as “trafficking” than a proper definition would allow. This last point was also raised by Dr. Ruby Andrew of Southern University (Baton Rouge), and expanded upon at length by Dr. Jean Allain of Queen’s University (Belfast), who also covered ground similar to that I did in “The Lion and the Ox” and “Law of the Instrument” (though far more diplomatically): he used the term “moral panic”, demonstrated that the “trafficking” paradigm has been applied to widely-differing phenomena that were previously considered different things, and explained that the term is used so indiscriminately across so many countries that it’s difficult to know what any given source actually means by it.

Even some of the law enforcement people both on the panels and in the audience seemed very interested in my views; I collected a number of cards and gave out as many promises to answer their questions via telephone or email. I’m not sure whether it was just a matter of my charisma and/or oratorical skill, because several distinguished panelists’ opinions agreed with mine to some degree, or because I merely gave voice to some long-held doubts in their own minds; perhaps it was all of the above. But in any case I found it extremely heartening that a sex worker’s views were not only heard, but obviously taken seriously, and may be deeply considered in the future. Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of the end of the hysteria, and the first glimmerings of more just and humane treatment of sex workers; if so, I’m honored to have played a tiny part in it and feel that it was well worth leaving my comfort zone to accomplish.

But if it’s all the same to everyone, the next time I do so it will be in a vehicle whose wheels don’t leave the ground.

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That Was the Week That Was (#139)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Fantasy of Hate, acting, activism, agency denial, An Example to the West, asset seizure, Big Sister, bogus studies, Bootlickers, brothels, California, Catholicism, censorship, cops, dirty, end demand, Europe, Grow the Hell Up!, Hollywood, hysteria, Iceland, illegal aliens, Imaginary Lines, India, internet, Islam, language, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, Legalization a Good Idea?, Life Imitates Artifice, Madonna/whore, Middle East, neofeminism, New Orleans, Norway, Ohio, porn, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, Repeat Offenders, Russia, Sex Workers vs Trafficking, social purity, sporting events, Storyville, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, Tennessee, The Course of a Disease, The Dogs Do Bark, The Lion and the Ox, The Notorious Badge, Turkey, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state), yin and yang on March 2, 2013| 25 Comments »

Your typical “good feminist” engages in “sex-positive activism” by assuring one another that they are bold “revolutionaries” for watching punk porn or buying buttplugs…mainstream feminists know that you don’t change the world with a Hitachi Magic Wand. – Furry Girl

Storyville

Melissa Gira Grant presents an excellent short history of the first 200 years of prostitution in America, “When Prostitution Wasn’t a Crime”; New Orleans is of course prominently featured, but is by no means the only city covered. Grant looks at how whores were often the first women in colonies, how cops and politicians harassed us before our trade itself was criminalized, and how the social purity movement established criminalization as the American norm.

Grow the Hell Up!

Most California cities can no longer afford to persecute hookers, so San José has had to fall on that reliable fund-raising technique, lying: “…San Jose Police…acquired a human trafficking grant from the federal government…[which funded] a very successful…sting operation…[arresting] johns and pimps…is extremely important, because they are the ones who…force these women [into] illicit activity…”

Sex Workers Against Trafficking

…sex workers from Nashik [Maharashtra] saved a 14-year-old girl from being sold by…an acquaintance…Vijay Dive…lured her with a trip…[and] told her that he would buy her new clothes…Dive [instead tried to sell her to]…some brothels…[but] sex workers…[informed] police…

Life Imitates Artifice (March Updates)

It’s good to see Russians using “sex trafficking” hysteria as propaganda; let’s hope the Islamic theocracies follow their lead:

The US Department of Justice reported that every two minutes a child is trafficked for…sexual exploitation in the United States…Parents, stepparents or guardians force their children to perform sex acts in exchange for money or items of value…a sex victim who was abused throughout her childhood [says] “Normally it’s in places where there’s lots of people, anytime when there’s a ball game”…child sex [traffickers] are ordinary people…[but] force their children to take addictive drugs and usually threaten them…In 2011 the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) revealed a study that showed there were more than 100 cases reported of child sex trafficking in Knox County…Tennessee…

A Fantasy of Hate

I described reading neofeminist hate-sites as “like opening the viewing window into a padded cell.” Well, a Tweeter named Caprica collected this group interaction from the recent “RadFem 2013” convention; the specific focus of this malice is transgender people, but there’s plenty for men as well. Warning: don’t look if you are easily disturbed by vile, psychopathic, literally genocidal hatred.

Imaginary Lines

Interestingly, the phrase “sex trafficking” appears nowhere in this story:

The madam of a nationwide Korean prostitution ring…was sentenced to [two years for] immigration fraud…Miyoung Roberts, 42…arranged illegal immigration for more than 24 Korean women who…[worked] at…nightclubs…[and] counseled…[them] on how to avoid detection by immigration authorities. She set up apartments…and supervised some of [their] prostitution…Roberts…gained U.S. citizenship through a fake marriage…

Bootlickers

Washington state puritans continue their bizarre persecution of coffee stands: “…Three bikini baristas have been arrested…in Everett…for allegedly selling strip shows to customers…at two Grab-N-Go stands, which is where several baristas were charged with prostitution…in 2009…The arrests came after a two-month undercover investigation…”

Under a Rock

The redoubtable Furry Girl presents a devastating critique of sex-positive feminists’ insistence that theirs is the only true feminism:

…sex-positive, pro-autonomy, anti-victimhood feminists are a small minority compared to all the other feminists they…dismiss as “not real feminists.” Large national feminist organizations and women’s studies departments are not run on “good feminist” principles, they are run by the oppressive and anti-sexuality feminists who represent mainstream feminist values. “Good feminists” aren’t the ones being brought in as experts by governments to write new anti-sex worker and anti-porn laws…Feminists who have any shred of influence invariably use it to be “bad feminists,” whether it’s criminalizing indoor prostitution in Rhode Island or holding tenured women’s studies jobs so they can terrorize impressionable young women into feeling victimized by the world around them…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

A new study suggests that the possible reason women tend to be more talkative than men (20,000 words per day vs. the male average of 7000) is that our brains tend to “have higher levels of a ‘language protein’ called FOXP2”. Jezebel, of course, exists in a different reality than the rest of us and so DENIES that women tend to be more talkative than men, going on and on and on about it…

Repeat Offenders

The unholy alliance of nuns and SOAP fanatics continues to harass hoteliers in the American Midwest while spreading its extreme version of the “gypsy whores” myth:

…the Dominican Sisters of Peace in Columbus [Ohio] have joined forces with SOAP…[in claiming that] human traffickers…flock to major sporting and other public events. Their current focus is the Arnold Sports Festival and Fitness Expo…[they] call and visit hotels to alert them to the potential for prostitution and trafficking…and…distribute bars of soap…with the phone number of a…trafficking hot line…

A Broker in Pillage

What could possibly go wrong?

A new bill…in Hawaii’s state senate would expand asset forfeiture to include petty misdemeanors…the Hawaii…ACLU posits that [this]…could lead to all sorts of ridiculously-cruel consequences. Homeless people could lose their property if they camp out in a park after hours. Protestors could have their signs, petitions and other assets seized—a chilling effect on the First Amendment. The bill is backed by Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources as a way to protect “natural, cultural, historical and recreational resources”…Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth has lambasted [SB 1342] as “draconian“…state Sen. Russell Ruderman called [it] “outrageous,” [saying] “we should have more safeguards, not less, to protect people from forfeiture abuses.” The Institute for Justice gave Hawaii a D for its atrocious…forfeiture laws…

You’ll be shocked at the identity of one of the biggest supporters of this tyranny:

The Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS) supports SB1342…[as part of a campaign to] stiffen penalties for patrons of prostitution…This bill…would be very beneficial in ending the demand for prostitution in Hawaii and would provide another deterrent for patrons who buy humans for sex…

An Example to the West

This letter from a group of Indian feminists in response to the incredibly patronizing behavior of Harvard do-gooders is a perfect example of what Southern ladies call “vinegar pie”: a dish so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. I have read it three times now and enjoy it more each time.

Pyrrhic Victory

The ACLU’s “nightmare scenario” of drone-enabled universal surveillance is about to become a reality: “ARGUS-IS…is…a super-high, 1.8 gigapixel resolution camera that can be mounted on a drone. As demonstrated in this clip, the system is capable of high-resolution monitoring and recording of an entire city”:

ARGUS produces a high-resolution video image that covers 15 square miles. It’s all streamed to the ground and stored, and operators can zoom in upon any small area and watch the footage of that spot…it’s the culmination of the trend towards ever-more-pervasive surveillance cameras in American life. We’ve been objecting to that trend for years, and many of our public spaces are now under 24/7 video surveillance—often by cameras owned and operated by the police. But even in our most pessimistic moments, I don’t think we thought that every street, empty lot, garden, and field would be subject to video monitoring anytime soon. But that is precisely what this technology could enable. We’ve speculated about self-organizing swarms of drones being used to blanket entire cities with surveillance, but this technology makes it clear that nothing that complicated is required…

Legal Is as Legal Does (TW3 #20)

The gradual closure of…state-run brothels is emerging as a controversial tactic in Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declared war on prostitution. While Erdoğan’s supporters denounce brothels as a form of “slavery,” sex workers fear the campaign poses risks to their health and safety. Closing…brothels “will not keep men from visiting prostitutes,” explained 48-year-old Istanbul sex worker Berna, “but it will push even more women into illegality and the back streets, where they will be without protection, and without any rights”…Several state-run brothels around the country reportedly already have been closed down – with official reasons including proximity to a new mosque and the nearby discovery of historical artifacts – and others should soon follow…

The Notorious Badge (TW3 #27)

Johanna in Tits and Sass on “Why Anne Hathaway Should Go-Away”:

In last year’s Les Miserables…Anne Hathaway plays Fantine, a single mother [who]…turns to prostitution…Hathaway…[made] various comments…[about] “the lives of sex slaves”… and her attempts to “honor” the experiences of women who are “forced to sell sex”…Much media attention has also been given to the work on her own body Hathaway did to prepare for the role…[including] hair-cutting and drastic weight loss…What seems strange to me…is that Hathaway and the lady bloggers who love her apparently can’t see any similarities between her use of her body in work…and the experiences of sex workers. Like sex workers, Hathaway’s physicality is central to her job. Like sex workers, Hathaway has to make decisions about how to deploy her body…but somehow, when she diets to the point of frailness (her words), we call that work; when women in a film give hand jobs, we call it “the darkest place imaginable.” Fantine cuts off her hair for money and we cry. Hathaway cuts off her hair (also for money) and we nod admiringly…

The Lion and the Ox

The logical end result of “human trafficking” rhetoric:

Employing females as cashiers is a form of human trafficking like sexual exploitation, forced labor and organ trafficking…Objectifying women comes in different forms, such as exploitation in media, advertising, flight attendants, receptionists, and supermarket clerks or cashiers, argues…a graduate research paper at the Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University…Mohammad al-Bogami…writes that Muslim scholars consider it human trafficking if the goal of hiring women is to use their looks to attract customers…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #43)

The view on the Swedish model from inside Norway, with references to Penny Gelder and the play I linked before:

An increasing number of people in Norway are starting to see through the evil…It is in the nature of a moralist a desire to remove something he or she doesn’t like. Recently, this moralistic mind game has become more and more unmasked…Did you know that children and young people in Norway grow up in a society in which they learn that consensual sex is prohibited?…More and more people are becoming extremely angry and feel that their private sphere is violated. It is very easy to explain, in a factual and logical way, why this law is one of the greatest assaults on humanity ever…So, why doesn´t Amnesty International or the United Nations take solid action, demanding the Sex Purchase Law to be removed immediately?…The Sex Purchase Law violates absolutely all citizens in a country where it is in effect. Not only sex workers, because any kind of sex is in fact a trade or transaction. Thus, any consensual sex would logically be illegal…

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (TW3 #136)

Indian sex workers triumph over an attempt at back-door criminalization:

The government has decided not to treat voluntary sex workers above the age of 18 years as victims of trafficking…Following objections by human rights and women organisations, the government is set to delete the term “prostitution” as one of the forms of exploitation which constitutes the offence of trafficking…which…stated that “…the consent of the victim is immaterial”…Justice JS Verma panel…clarified that amended law ought not to be interpreted to permit law enforcement agencies to harass sex workers…and their clients…

Big Sister

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the fantasy that porn prohibition via internet censorship will somehow work in Iceland (despite the fact that it can’t even stop physical contraband like drugs), and the even more farfetched fantasy that it could work in the UK (because, like Iceland, it’s a magical island kingdom separated from the evil, evil world by floating rings of fire).

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That Was the Week That Was (#138)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged activism, adolescence, agency denial, All the Difference, Arkansas, Big Sister, California, Caring Professionals, Catholicism, censorship, Childish Things, condoms, cops, dirty, disability, disease, Drama Queens, end demand, Europe, Facebook, FarmVille, Georgia, Get Out of the 19th Century Often?, harm reduction, hysteria, Iceland, Illinois, India, internet, Ireland, language, law, lawheads, License To Rape, Little Boxes, Madonna/whore, Massachusetts, neofeminism, North Carolina, Obfuscation via Dysphemisms, Oklahoma, porn, Presents, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, Saving Them from Themselves, sex offender registry, sexting, Shift in the Wind, Skin To Skin, Something Rotten In Sweden, statistics, stripping, Swedish model, Texas, That's the Ticket!, The Course of a Disease, The Public Eye, tits, Tyranny by Consensus, Unclean Situation, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers on February 23, 2013| 25 Comments »

It’s…extremely patronizing…to say someone’s conscious choice of work is degrading. – Jon Millward

License To Rape

A [Mt. Pleasant] Texas police officer pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14-years-old…Eric Jason Campbell, 41, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. He will also be required to register as a sex offender when he is released…

Saving Them From Themselves

A Massachusetts DA helpfully explains why it’s a good thing his office persecutes teenagers for “sexting”:

…”We do not have any exceptions…for kids who are really in love, for girls who wanted to do it and for guys who promised they wouldn’t share it…” [Robert] Kinzer said. “A nude photo of [a minor’s] exposed genitalia is child pornography…When they start sharing photos like this, we are going to start charging people with the manufacturing, dissemination and possession of child pornography, and they’re going to…face [prosecution]…You’re going to lose jobs and relationships, and you’ll spend the rest of your life as a registered sex offender”…

Tyranny By Consensus

Since LA County officials have not leaped at the opportunity to waste millions of dollars policing porn shoots to enforce his private condom crusade, Michael Weinstein is now trying to force the city to establish its own redundant health department, which Weinstein presumably believes would be more easily pressured into dancing to his tune:

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation announced…a new ballot measure …[for] an all-new City of L.A. Public Health Department…AHF has urged Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County’s Public Health director, to shut down non-condom porn shoots…[but] Fielding…hasn’t…despite AHF-led letter and phone campaigns. And it is well known that officials at the county Public Health Department are opposed to their agency enforcing Measure B…

Big Sister

In this column I wrote, “Prostitution and stripping are already illegal, and it seems that porn will be next, followed by censorship of print media and the internet.” Yes, I do get tired of being right all the time:

The government is considering…internet filters, such as those used to block China off…to stop Icelanders downloading or viewing pornography on the internet…Ogmundur Jonasson, Iceland’s interior minister, is drafting legislation to stop the access of online pornographic images and videos…”violent pornography…has…very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime,” he said.

In reality, the evidence suggests exactly the opposite, but since Iceland already has the highest rape rate in Europe I guess they figure a few more raped women are just extra eggs for the totalitarian neofeminist omelette. The story quotes the ubiquitous Gail Dines, who also used the occasion to get her name in print in the UK as well.

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received a copy of Sex at Dawn (which people have been trying to get me to read for years) from Eddie JC. Thank you, Eddie!

That’s the Ticket!

One would think that the Comic Relief organization could tell the difference between actual statistics and the absurd claims of a “pathological liar” comedy routine, but apparently not: “75% of women working in prostitution started before they were 18, and most of them feel trapped and would leave if only they could find a way. The UK is a major destination country for trafficked young people…”

The Course of a Disease

“…Dublin City Council…rejected calls to support the Turn Off The Red-light campaign. Amendments passed removed the proposal to criminalise the purchase of sex, and changed the report on Swedish evidence to hearsay.” The national crusade still rolls on, but this local rejection of the Swedish rot shows that not everyone in Ireland is asleep at the wheel.

FarmVille

…On March 4, a new game on Facebook, inspired by the book Half the Sky…will be introduced, with a focus on raising awareness of issues like female genital mutilation and child prostitution…The central character, an Indian woman named Radhika, faces various challenges with the assistance of players, who can help out with donations of virtual goods, for example. The players can then make equivalent real-world donations to seven nonprofit organizations woven into the game…As her empowerment grows, Radhika moves across the globe to Kenya, Vietnam and Afghanistan…Players who reach the final level learn about sex trafficking in the United States and can donate to an organization in New York called GEMS…

Because it’s really important to simplify complex issues and make them fun so that wise, benevolent white people will be tempted to manage the lives of helpless, childlike brown ones.

Little Boxes

A bill that could send women to prison for going topless in public appears set for approval by the North Carolina legislature…[it] would amend the state’s indecent exposure law to expand the legal definition of “private parts” to…include “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, [of] the female breast.” Depending on whether such exposure is judged to be “for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire,” the woman could be charged with a felony, punishable by up to six months in prison…More mundane exposure would be a misdemeanor, meriting up to 30 days in jail. “Incidental” exposure by breastfeeding mothers would remain exempt…Rayne Brown…[said] her constituents are concerned about topless rallies promoting women’s equality…

Shift in the Wind

Another fun promotional video from the Sex Worker Freedom Festival last July:

Childish Things (TW3 #33)

Dr. Paul Maginn has published another appeal for sanity, stating that “various parts of the world appear to be suffering from a mix of moral panic and ideological myopia” on the issue of sex work. Though brief, the article debunks lies about “sex trafficking”, “dirty whores”, “end demand” and “negative secondary effects”, and includes quotes from Drs. Laura Agustín and Brooke Magnanti.

Obfuscation Via Dysphemisms

Oklahoma “authorities” seem even more enchanted with the notion of “human trafficking” than most Americans:

…Clarence F. Holden, 25, of Fort Smith [Arkansas] faces felony counts of human trafficking and procuring for prostitution…Officers arrested Holden and two other people…after the Vice Unit responded to an Internet post…for “a massage with a ‘happy ending’ ” for $150…Destiny Hope Niles, 24, also of Fort Smith – told police Holden keeps her money, car keys and credit card and threatened her physically…

Consider that even though this sort of petty manipulation is what passes for “trafficking” to American cops, they still can’t come up with anything like the hysterical claims.

The Public Eye

“4 Things You Should Know About Women Who Strip” by Jennifer Ward doesn’t break any new ground for readers of this blog, but as far as I’m concerned we can’t have enough articles explaining that sex workers and our clients are “a lot more diverse than people assume them to be.” In the same vein, three porn actors answered questions at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri: “Lance Hart…Tori Black and James Deen answered questions as a part of a Sex Week panel event…the purpose of the panel was to foster dialogue about aspects of the porn industry that are not typically discussed, such as sexual health…”

Something Rotten in Sweden (TW3 #44)

Though this article perpetuates the increasingly-common lie that the Swedish model is “decriminalization”, it at least tells the truth about the damage to sex workers caused by “end demand” campaigns:

…the “End Demand Illinois” campaign…asks that johns…become the law’s targets…[and] is working to make johns, pimps and traffickers more accountable, but it’s also sought to…stop treating prostitution as a felony. Right now, if a sex worker is hit with two misdemeanor charges related to prostitution in Illinois, the second charge is upgraded to a felony…Last fall The Chicago Reporter…found that prostitution-related felonies are being levied almost exclusively against sex workers…Rachel Lovell, a researcher at Case Western University…co-authored a paper that criticized End Demand Illinois. It argued that stiffer penalties against johns actually end up hurting female sex workers. “The philosophy and the overarching theme of the End Demand movement is that all women in prostitution are victims,” Lovell said…it’s important to distinguish between the different ways one can be a sex worker…“To say if we increase penalties for men they will just stop buying…[is] too simplistic…”

All the Difference

Indian sex workers have powerfully resisted “sex trafficking” hysteria, and have convinced many “authorities” that they are not passive victims. Unfortunately, the rescue industry will lose money and power if it has nobody to “rescue”, and so has increasingly turned its attentions toward abducting sex workers’ children, defending the practice with propaganda films:

…Not Today…[is] a feature-length film that sheds light on the modern-day sex trafficking industry that consumes the Dalit class in India…”The world needs to understand that slavery still exists, that even today young children are bought and sold like cattle, that little girls are forced into the dark illicit sex trade, that young boys and girls are coerced to beg in the streets and bring their proceeds back to line the pockets of thugs who abuse them at night,” said the film’s executive producer, Matthew Cork…

Drama Queens (TW3 #48)

Though I’d love to see a methodologically-sound study of 10,000 whores, 10,000 porn actors is a good start. Click on the picture (and again to enlarge), then read Jon Millward’s article and Brooke Magnanti’s interview with him.

Get Out of the 19th Century Often? (TW3 #136)

A proposed prostitution ban met with opposition at an Atlanta City Council work session…Community leaders, church pastors and advocates against sex trafficking said the ban was harshly targeting victims of the sex trade…Chad Brock of the ACLU said they might consider challenging the ordinance if it becomes law…”Instead of pairing you up with the social services you need, they’re telling you to go away,” Brock said. “We don’t believe that’s going to help any sex worker rehabilitating themselves”…

Unclean Situation

As expected, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has issued a less mealy-mouthed follow-up to his previous pseudo-apology to the victims of the Magdalene laundries, but as blogger Bock the Robber asked,

Where is the apology from the nuns who ran these slave labour camps? Where is the apology from the NSPCC (now the ISPCC), employers of the feared and unsupervised cruelty men who consigned so many children and young women to this slavery…Where is the apology from the Legion of Mary, whose members…[facilitated] the incarceration of people they disapproved of? Where is the apology from the Roman Catholic church on behalf of all those parish priests who ripped children from the heart of their families because of some warped and perverted view of sexuality?…What an extraordinary society it was that deputised an assortment of self-serving busybodies…and continues to give…such power to clerics and self-appointed meddlers…

On the same day, the Telegraph carried a moving article by Samantha Long about her birth-mother, who was an inmate of one of the laundries.

Skin To Skin

This article about sex work with the disabled covers some good ground, but unfortunately also gives a platform to those who think real people’s needs should be subordinate to “messages” and sacrificed to the impossible quest for an unreachable Utopia:

…The sexual needs of people with disabilities are under the spotlight like never before after the release of…The Sessions…last month, ex-staff from a care home…[said] they had allowed sex workers into the home at the request of disabled residents…and…Becky Adams…plans to open the first brothel…for disabled clients in the UK…[but others see] the use of sex workers as a potentially harmful development. “It’s like the world telling you that disabled people are so unsexy that the only way they can have sex is to pay for it…What disabled people need is full and equal rights. An inclusive society, which doesn’t create barriers”…

Caring Professionals

On the same day my column appeared, Robin Hustle published the similarly-themed (though broader) “What Prostitutes, Nurses and Nannies Have in Common”. The Jezebel commentariat is predictably split between the narcissistic, the wholly clueless, and nurses who are Terribly Offended^TM at being compared to whores.

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Tuesday Links

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged animals, Arizona, asset seizure, California, consensual crime, cops, drugs, games, Germany, Hollywood, imaginative fiction, internet, Islam, language, law, Middle East, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania, politicians, prisons, racism, Russia, United Kingdom, video, Washington DC on February 5, 2013| 27 Comments »

I’m sure other parents here can empathize when I say I shudder at the thought of the increasing influence and presence of huge ships in the lives my children. – Noel D. Hill

As you can see, our link columns are progressing through the week; the next one will appear on Ash Wednesday, and the feature will slide back into its normal time-slot by mid-March. The major topic this week was prohibition, not merely of sex and drugs as usual but also of toilet paper, certain clothes and things that don’t actually exist. We’ll start off right here with an article on how racism led to the removal of the cocaine from cola (via reader SM), followed by more on the links between racism and prohibition of drugs and prostitution. Alas, stupidity is not prohibited from government, as you’ll see in our second video (which demonstrates the mental capacity of at least some of the people who take it upon themselves to make our decisions for us). That one was provided by Grace, who also gave us “pedophile” and “7-6-5”. The top contributor was Jesse Walker, who supplied everything above the first video; that one was provided by Radley Balko and demonstrates once and for all that absolutely nobody can cover Led Zeppelin like Heart can. Radley also provided “imaginary ban” and “Shakespeare”, and the other links between the videos came from Mark Draughn (“stolen home”), Luscious Lani (“Siberia”), Krulac (“confirmation”), Mike Siegel (“translation quiz”), Lenore Skenazy (“toilet paper”), FilmRot Dave (“child hero”), Franklin Harris (“nude accident”) and the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition (“gender gap”).

Saudi cleric gets slap on wrist after beating 5-year-old daughter to death over doubts about her virginity.
Prohibitionists are never stopped by the fact that whatever they want to ban doesn’t actually exist.
The DEA wants to “protect” you by reading your medical records without consent or warrant.
Man makes a minor and not-uncommon error; government responds by stealing his home.
Cop caught in “pedophile” sting rewarded with early retirement at full pension.
Cops abusively interrogate 7-year-old for 6 hours over alleged $5 theft.
A Russian family was lost in the Siberian wilderness for over 40 years.
I’ve always said this, but it’s nice to see it confirmed.
Match the British word to its American translation.
School requires boys to “sign out” toilet paper.
Another child hero of the glorious Fatherland.
20 words we owe to William Shakespeare.
Naked woman hits naked fiancée with car.
The drug-dose gender gap.

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#134)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged A Whore in Church, Above the Law, activism, Africa, agency denial, Arkansas, avails laws, BDSM, brothels, Buried Truth, Canada, cell phones, cops, dirty, East Asia, end demand, ethics, Georgia, Girls Girls Girls, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, Hollywood, hysteria, illegal aliens, Imagination Pinned Down, India, Islam, It Looks Good On Paper, language, Latin America, law, lawyers, Madonna/whore, Malawi, Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Naked Truth, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Nevada, Oklahoma, Perverse Incentives, Philippines, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Shift in the Wind, Something Rotten In Sweden, South of the Border, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas Tall Tales, The Biggest Whores, The Cold Grey Light of Dawn, The Crumbling Dam, welcome to our world on January 26, 2013| 19 Comments »

If we are going to call attacks on reproductive and sexual rights a “war on women,” then let’s talk about a war on women that has actual prisoners and a body count. – Melissa Gira Grant

The Biggest Whores

Res ipsa loquitur:

Minnesota’s Supreme Court last week barred attorney Thomas P. Lowe from practicing law for at least the next 15 months after it was revealed that he was billing a client for sex. Lowe…was approached in August 2011 by an acquaintance who asked him to represent her in a divorce. Their…relationship soon evolved into a sexual one, but…Lowe…[billed] the woman for [all] the time they spent [together, including] having sex…[after] Lowe…[dumped her] the woman… attempted to commit suicide and was hospitalized…Lowe was previously on probation for purchasing cocaine from a client…

The second lawyer isn’t nearly as bad, though still terribly unprofessional:

A public defender…is facing charges after allegedly exchanging texts with an undercover cop who he thought was a prostitute, and then trying to exchange sex for legal representation. Christopher Hollander…allegedly sent a text message to a phone formerly used by a prostitute [but now in possession of a cop who] Hollander met…in a hotel room…The two discussed the phony prostitute’s alleged legal trouble. When the officer asked “How much is it going to cost me” for the legal services, Hollander started to caress her hand…then allegedly began trying to kiss and hug the officer, and told her he had two condoms…

Lawyers, if you want to propose exchange of services just say so; real hookers appreciate honesty, not some clumsy attempt at seduction.

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

Ed Bagley has accepted a bargain in which he pleaded guilty to having sex with his supposed “victim” while she was underage, in return for prosecutors dropping all other charges (despite their insistence that he “swear” that the other accusations are true). The one is bad enough; it can carry a 20-year sentence, and several of the other “conspirators” (as the state labels them) will also get very hefty sentences.

Something Rotten in Sweden (December Updates)

Remember, prostitution has never been illegal in Canada; these men were arrested for the “crime” of talking about it in public, which demonstrates the importance of taking this kind of power totally out of cops’ hands: “Ottawa police swept the city’s downtown core…in an effort to find, charge and re-educate men looking for prostitutes…They arrested 15 men, 13 of whom escaped charges and will attend ‘john school’…a partnership with the Salvation Army…” Please note the Orwellian term “re-educate”.

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn

Looks like the Philippines is moving toward British-type legalization (erroneously called “decriminalization”): “The Department of Social Welfare and Development…has endorsed a bill…which would decriminalize prostitution but punish those who control and profit from…[it, repealing] clauses…which punish ‘women who, for money, engage in sexual intercourse, or lascivious conduct’…”

It Looks Good On Paper

Another bit of feel-good legislation which capitalizes on hype but will actually help virtually nobody, due to its basis in fantasy: “A bill filed in the Oklahoma Legislature…would erase the prostitution records of human trafficking victims…[who] average…12 to 14 years old…”

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This article has so much to recommend it: Dr. Brooke Magnanti debunks “porn addiction”, describing the “studies” which claim to support it as “poorly conducted surveys on a level of market research, not science.” In the process, she also quotes Dr. Marty Klein and lampoons both Cosmopolitan and Naomi “Stopped Clock” Wolf, all in less than a thousand well-chosen words.

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Of all the media one would expect to be least likely to side with puritans against a business persecuted for supposedly “corrupting public morals”, a rock music radio station has got to be pretty high on the list. Though the article itself is dry enough, the wording and scare quotes in the headline and lede amply demonstrate the editor’s attitude: “Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar ‘Improves the Self Esteem’ of the Stripper – seeks to have San Antonio’s strict new strip club law thrown out, also claims stripping is a ‘socially fulfilling experience’.” It gets much worse; the station appears to have some close association with Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue…author of the titular song celebrating strippers.

A Whore in Church

The most interesting part of this article about sex workers in Malawi wearing hijab to attract Muslim customers is not the mere fact of it (which would simply be an example of the clipboard effect), but rather the fallacious notion (expressed both in text and comments) that a whore cannot be Muslim (or “truly” Christian either). Also worthy of note is the author’s reversal of the usual feminist complaint that not covering up leads to “objectification”; this only goes to show that the real issue such women have is not some imaginary harm to women, but rather heterosexuality itself.

Above the Law

[Las Vegas] police officer John Norman is going to prison for two years…after pleading guilty to…coercing women to expose their breasts after stopping them on the road…Once Norman is released from prison, he will have to register as a sex offender…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #13)

Once again, Canadian government prohibitionists are trying to convince the courts that dangerous, repressive laws which deny sex workers’ agency are actually intended to “protect” them:

Hundreds of shadowy body rub parlours operated by exploitative pimps…are operating on the outskirts of Toronto, the Ontario Crown warns in a court document…[urging] the Supreme Court of Canada to let police keep the powers they have to protect female sex workers, who are often cowed into submissive silence…However, a group of prostitutes who have successfully challenged the ban through two levels of court accuse…Crown lawyers of scaremongering. In the decision under appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal invalidated the…prohibition on keeping a brothel…[and] granted prostitutes the right to…hire staff to protect them…the…court is scheduled to hear the…challenge in June…

Naked Truth

Melissa Gira Grant’s “The War on Sex Workers” appears in this month’s print edition of Reason; though regular readers will already be familiar with much of the ground she covers, it never hurts to revisit it. More importantly, for an unrepentant sex worker to have the opportunity to discuss the neofeminist war on whores in a national magazine (albeit a libertarian one) is a sign that this issue is beginning to move into the mainstream.

Imagination Pinned Down

This article entitled “Sex, Lies and Audiotapes” is 12 years old, but is an excellent look at how “fantastic tales of sexual abuse” are instilled into the minds of the vulnerable, and why radical feminists were largely to blame for “sex abuse” hysteria and the Satanic Panic; it is thus still topical as background for the new guise of those moral panics, “sex trafficking”.

Shift in the Wind

Though it may be difficult to recognize for sex workers in the US, British Isles and any place else strongly affected by “trafficking” hysteria, 2012 actually saw net gains for sex workers; Cheryl Overs reviews the high points (without neglecting to mention the low ones) in “A Good Year for Red Umbrellas”.

Texas Tall Tales

Texans aren’t the only ones who can tell tall tales about new technology being used by “human traffickers” to “entrap innocent girls”:

…Mobile phone recharge shops have been reportedly taking advantage of innocent girls who approach them for recharge coupons and give their numbers. The employees/owners of the shop or their friends call the girls…develop friendships and later misuse them…ruining the girls’ lives…human [traffickers in]…Kundapur…are said to be running a mobile recharge outlet…the accused lure the girls with jobs and then use them for their own ends. Later, the girls are allegedly blackmailed and trapped, and their escape route is closed…apart from flesh trade, a drugs network is also interwoven in the racket…

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

As expected, a UK judge has ruled that the case of Mark Kennedy, the cop who was allowed to trick women into sex in order to spy on them, will be heard in a Star Chamber proceeding. What was unexpected was that he would say what Kennedy did was OK because James Bond does it:

James Bond is the most famous fictional example of a member of the intelligence services who used relationships with women to obtain information…[such] fictional accounts…lend credence to the view that the intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature…in order to obtain information or access.

As Heresy Corner points out, “James Bond isn’t just ‘fiction’, it’s escapist fantasy…[which] doesn’t ‘lend credence’ to anything…and Mark Kennedy’s ‘targets’ weren’t exotic Russian agents with a handbag full of nuclear secrets and the sexual etiquette of a praying mantis…nor were they dangerous international terrorists intent on blowing up airports or shopping malls. They were…largely peaceful activists engaged primarily in democratic dissent, however misguided or naive…”

Buried Truth

Remember Lisa Biron, the anti-gay lawyer who “transported a teen girl…to Ontario …and coerced her into engaging in

sexual acts with another person”? It turns out the girl was 14, there were two men, and Biron also had sex with her. Oh, and one more thing: the girl was her own daughter. She was convicted of child porn charges on the 11^th.

South of the Border (TW3 #49)

The creation of “sex trafficking rings” from people who used to be called “illegal aliens” continues, complete with childish “code names”, bombastic rhetoric, exaggerated numbers and infantilization of sex workers:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the results of a lengthy investigation called Operation Dark Night. It looked into a sex trafficking ring stretching from Florida to Georgia to North and South Carolina…women…were forced into prostitution and traded like slaves in various cities for about a week at a time…11 victims were rescued and 40 customers called Johns were also taken into custody. Investigators say the women were forced to perform up to 30 sex acts per day…

Like most “trafficking” articles, this one contains the Profession of Faith: “…‘its a bigger issue than many people thought,’ said Joan Garcia-Melendez…‘Human trafficking is a very hidden crime’…Authorities say this is a wakeup call as to how widespread sex trafficking has become…” But what will happen to those poor “victims” who were “rescued”? The BBC says what the American story won’t: “Those who were illegal in the country would be deported.”

Q & A (January 2013)

I mentioned that “the only time [verification services] fail is…when some idiot fails to stick to the plan, gets caught in a sting and then ransoms his worthless hide by giving the busybodies his login info so they can pop several girls before the service gets wise.” One of my readers supplied more details: there were several instances, all in the Appleton/Oshkosh area of Wisconsin, and P411 removed those entire cities from the site as a precaution and directly warned all the ladies who might be targeted. Apparently cops in Little Rock, Arkansas have also attempted the same thing, though less successfully.

Perverse Incentives

Susie Bright on how perverse prosecutorial incentives spawn abominations:

Twice in my career I’ve been asked to serve as an expert witness on the defense team of an obscenity trial…the defendants were low-hanging fruit…targeted because of their…vulnerability…The Justice Department [bags] obscenity law trophies by going after the poor, the suicidal, the insane, the cognitively impaired— because that’s the way they rack up numbers and status. That’s the way they fuel their careers…not by taking on constitutional issues, or injustice, or fat cats who believe they’re above the law…They find someone who’s drooling, or depressed, or friendless— and then throw the book at them. It doesn’t take long because the “defendant-target” is overmatched…

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Fictional Interlude: Bucket List

Posted in Fiction, History, tagged brothels, fantasy, imaginative fiction, language, pimps, Rome, stage names on January 15, 2013| 11 Comments »

Striving toward a goal puts a more pleasing construction on our advance toward death. – Mason Cooley

Anthony trudged down the filthy street, pulling his cloak down as far as he could to keep out the evening rain. Anyone who observed his erratic course would have thought him drunk, but every sane Roman was out of the beastly weather and Anthony’s weaving route was shaped by the necessity of avoiding puddles while yet getting close enough to the signs to read them in the darkness without having to uncover his head.

He had occupied himself thus every night for most of a week, making inquiries and crossing palms with sestertii in an effort to discover the location of his quarry, and he was beginning to despair; he felt as though he had walked every muddy, narrow, winding back-street in the city, and the foul weather had dampened his spirits as thoroughly as it had his clothes. His schoolboy Latin was insufficient to the task at hand, and his outlandish accent and incredible ignorance of mundane matters marked him as a barbarian at best and a madman at worst; he feared that small-time hucksters were now pointing him out to one another as one who could be taken for a few coins merely by pretending to know of the strumpet he sought so assiduously. If he spent much more he would be unable to pay her fee, however nominal it might be; he therefore resolved that if he could not find her by the end of the night (or maybe sooner than that), he would simply pass her by, move on to the next name on his list and return here after he had done enough research to limit his possibilities to a few easily-investigated locales.

The very worst disappointment was the sheer number of bad leads; in any era the stage-names of whores tended to be predictable and repetitive, and some girls were willing to pretend to be the one for whom he was looking. But so far, none of the six Lyciscas he had met had been the right one; each had been too old, too young, too thin, too ugly or too dark to be the Lycisca he wanted to hire. So tonight, he would follow a different strategy; he would simply go into each lupanar he found, quiz the villicus about the women available that night, and then ask the name of any who fit the correct description rather than supplying them with the means of deceiving him in order to deplete his rapidly-diminishing funds still further.

But just when he was ready to give up, Fortuna smiled upon him. The streets and the buildings had all begun to look alike, so he was not surprised when the cashier at one of the brothels greeted him as a returning customer; he was about to turn to go when he realized he had been asked a question in which the name “Lycisca” had been embedded.

“What you saying?” Anthony asked, realizing the grammatical error as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“I said, aren’t you the fellow who was looking for Lycisca a few days ago?”

“Yes,” he replied wearily, expecting another con.

“Well, she’s here tonight. She wasn’t last time you came, so I tried to give you another girl,” he said with a grin. “But I promise, this is really the Lycisca you’re looking for. Here, I’ll call her out where you can see her in the light.”

Anthony guessed that the willingness of the villicus to make this extra effort was due to the poor traffic on such a foul night, but he just couldn’t get his hopes up…and then he saw her. The quality of her blonde wig was out of place in such a cheap establishment, and the quality of her health out of place in a low-end Roman prostitute. Despite her imposture of a common whore he could see the hauteur and breeding in her manner, and the difference between her Latin and that of the plebeians with whom he had been dealing for the past few days was obvious even to his foreign ears. He quickly paid her fee and tipped the cashier extra for remembering him, returned with her to her grimy little room and eagerly did what he had come so far and worked so hard to do.

He awakened to firm but gentle shaking, and opened his eyes to the smiling face of Leon, the one orderly he genuinely liked.

“Good morning, Professor! I’m sorry to disturb you, but I know you don’t want to miss breakfast!”

“Good morning, Leon. And thank you for waking me.”

“Did you scratch another name off of your list last night?” Then in response to the older man’s puzzled expression, “It’s the only time you oversleep.”

“How well you know me! Yes, I’ve just returned from a tryst with Valeria Messalina, Empress of Rome.”

“How’d you get an empress to sleep with you? I thought you just saw hookers?”

“Messalina was, as you young people say, ‘kinky’. She liked to sneak out of the palace while her husband was asleep and work as a common prostitute.”

“Wow, is that so? How was she?”

He considered for a moment, cleaning his glasses before putting them on. “Neither as talented as Nell Gwyn nor as beautiful as La Belle Otero, but she made up for that with her sheer exuberance.”

“Gee, Professor, I sure wish I could learn that astro-whatsis…”

“Astral projection.”

“…astral projection,” he repeated, “so I could visit all those historical places like you do.”

“Well, Leon, it takes years of study and practice, but I’m sure you could learn if you set your mind to it.”

“Naw,” he said sheepishly, helping Anthony with his bathrobe, “I’m just big and dumb, I was never good at studies. Who’s the next lady you plan to see?”

“I think I shall brush up on my Greek,” he said wistfully; “I seem to have a yen for empresses these days.”

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Sexual Predators

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Backpage, cops, dirty, fantasy, language, law, Maryland, prohibitionist myths, Sexual Predators, stage names, stereotypes, Washington DC, yellow journalism on January 14, 2013| 31 Comments »

There is nothing holy nor sacred to those who have abandoned God and reason in order to follow their perverse desires. – François Rabelais, Gargantua (chapter 31)

Fair warning: what you’re about to read may make you feel ill. Writing it made me feel both queasy and dirty; I put it off for as long as I could, but I wanted to get done with it completely – including the posting and indexing – early enough so that I could be sure of regaining my appetite by dinnertime. I probably don’t need to tell regular readers that I’m made of pretty stern stuff; my husband is only one of the many who have described me as “hard as nails”. But the minds of some people are so wholly vile and disgusting that reading about their loathsome behavior, their indefensible motivations and their twisted rationalizations makes me feel as though I have been hurled into a tank full of raw sewage and leaves my heart pounding and my hands shaking. The people to whom I refer are sexual predators, those subhuman monsters who are so completely devoid of even the most basic human decency and moral scruples that they think nothing of using other human beings to satisfy their perverted sexual needs, inflicting grievous physical and emotional harm on their victims and sometimes scarring them for life. Worse still, these revolting vermin form associations with other like-minded scum, pooling their resources and cunning so as to more effectively snare unsuspecting victims. It would be bad enough to merely know that these freaks existed, but to see them defended, excused and even glorified in a major newspaper is almost more than I can bear:

…“This is Lushous,” she said in a soft, seductive voice. “You want to come see me today?” The client had found her on backpage.com, where she promoted herself as a busty woman…eager for company…“For half an hour, it’s just $40, baby. Tell me what you want to do.” Lushous wanted to use handcuffs. She was actually an undercover…cop. If the man on the phone actually came…he’d be walking right into the department’s latest sting operation…Sharing Room 241 with her was another undercover officer with a nickname, a square-jawed, blue-eyed cop known as Pretty Boy. He pored through a stack of printed Web ads…[and] called each one. “Are you doing out-calls today, sweetie?” They had arranged the room so it would seem like they were just lonely travelers. Pretty Boy hung a crushed black suit on the rod and placed a used bar of Old Spice deodorant near the sink. He ditched his uniform for a T-shirt and blue jeans but kept on his wedding ring. Lushous ruffled the sheets on the queen-size bed. She had lozenges to keep her voice smooth. She placed a package of condoms on the side table…In 242, about six officers were on hand to help with arrests and the paperwork. In 247, there were two female officers to attract men looking for a woman not of Lushous’s type. Lushous is curvy and black; the two other female officers are white and thin…In 248, a detective posted $10 ads in the adult-services section of backpage.com…“Hello, my name is…” he began typing, trying to dream up a seductive name for the colleague next door. He then tapped out, “B-R-A-N-D-I”…Ten minutes later, Brandi’s phone started to ring. “…Am I busy? No…Yes, those are my pictures.” After she hung up, the man texted her, “Are you affiliated with law enforcement?” She rolled her eyes. Every caller asked this question, under the common delusion…that a cop was legally obligated to say yes. “No,’’ she texted back. “Are you?”…

I think that’s enough to give you the idea; the cops’ sociopathy is made even more revolting by the reporter’s glowing, fetishized praise, almost as loving and lurid as a Nick Kristof description of the tortures inflicted upon imaginary teenage girls. But in spite of themselves, the yellow hack and the blue swine managed to produce one paragraph that was true, though not in the way they meant it: “For police officials, prostitution is not victimless crime…Sex workers are prone to being raped and robbed. Some are victims of sex trafficking. The men who visit them are sometimes assaulted…” That’s all true, but the victimizers – those doing most of that raping, robbing, assaulting and abduction into coercion and captivity – are the police, and they do it with the support of the government and many of the more ignorant and deluded members of the public.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take a shower.

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