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In the News (#535)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, activism, All Wet, Backwards into the Future, Catholicism, Change a Few Words, cops, dirty, drugs, Florida, Full of Themselves, Hollywood, Ireland, Italy, Kansas, Latin America, Marching Up Their Own Arses, massage, New Excuse, North Carolina, Old Men & Young Women, Repeat Offenders, rescue industry, See No Evil, sex work is work, Vietnam on May 6, 2015| 4 Comments »

If the causal link between coercion and victimhood is the reason why prostitution is harmful and should be banned…this can be argued to be the case with most…professions on earth. – Phuong-Mai Nguyen

Old Men and Young Women

Why are people surprised that old men still have sex drives?

At adult cabarets across Costa Rica, entertainers…are noticing an interesting demographic trend: With greater frequency, men old enough to be their grandfathers are among their admirers. Such was the conclusion presented by Paula Ruiz Guevara, an investigative journalist from national newspaper La Prensa Libre…Through statistical research, field investigations and interviews with psychologists, social workers, prostitutes, and sociologists, Ms. Guevara’s work paints an interesting portrait of an aging population whose appetite for sexual commerce has not diminished…

See No Evil

Anyone who sees 15 years in prison for consensual sex as anything other than a tyrannical abomination should himself be locked up:

A couple found guilty of having sex on a public beach in Florida face 15 years behind bars…Elissa Alvarez, 20, and Jose Caballero, 40, were charged with lewd and lascivious exhibition…The couple claimed they were not actually having sex…Both Caballero and Alvarez will now have to register as sex offenders because the crime happened in front of children. The couple were arrested July 20, 2014, after witnesses recorded video of the couple grinding on the beach and called 911 to complain…Assistant State Attorney Anthony Dafonseca said…it was important to prosecute Alvarez and Caballero to let the public know such behavior wouldn’t be tolerated…

Repeat Offenders

Why is it that nuns who want to “rescue” sex workers invariably push them into menial garment-related work, like laundering or sewing?

…at the shelter, known as Casa Ruth…[a “rescued” sex worker from] Nigeria…shares a tidy apartment…with a half-dozen other women…They work together in a sewing cooperative run by the shelter called Newhope…”They can make money not with their bodies, but through their creativity,” said Sister Rita Giaretta…Dozens of safe houses run by Catholic nuns have sprung up in recent years…

Change a Few Words

Prohibitionists of all types are willing to believe any “statistics”, no matter how stupid and obviously false, which seem to support their schemes:

“Marijuana candies, sold on the street as ‘Uncle Tweety’s Chewy Flipper’ and ‘Gummy Satans’ are taking the country by storm.” That’s the breathless opening sentence of a news story posted on the website of D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), the infamous anti-drug organization that sends police into schools to teach kids about the dangers of drug use. After I called to inquire about it, D.A.R.E. removed the story immediately without commenting…topkeasnews.com [the story’s original source] is a satire website…D.A.R.E. still receives funding from the Justice Department, the Department of State and numerous other government agencies and corporations. For the past month, that funding has been used to spread the message that marijuana is a “third world drug” that causes teen pregnancies and leads to “primal aggression,” and to promote demonstrably false claims about people killed by marijuana edibles…

Above the Law

A CBS News investigation has found sexual misconduct in the ranks of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is “significantly” higher than other federal law enforcement agencies…In April, one agent in Arizona was indicted for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old child…Between 2012 and 2014…there [were]…more than 35 sexual misconduct cases against agents…in the last six years, at least 21 customs or border patrol agents have been indicted or pleaded guilty to sexual offenses…ranging from sexual assault, to possession of child pornography and child molestation…

Full of Themselves (#418)

OH MY GOD PEOPLE CAN TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE WITHOUT EXPLICIT GOVERNMENT PERMISSION! THE HORROR!!!

…Kansas is one of just five states in the nation that do not regulate the massage therapy industry. While most states require masseuses to pass background checks, attend accredited massage schools or obtain certain certification…massage therapists in Kansas go completely unchecked. Such was the case with Chen Li, 50, and Guihong Xiao, 45, who were arrested Tuesday after an investigation into allegations that sex crimes were occurring at their business…Li, charged with felony promoting the sale of sexual relations and aggravated human trafficking, and Xiao, charged with felony promotion, misdemeanor selling of sexual relations and two counts of aggravated human trafficking, have been down this road before…AMTA Kansas lobbyist Stuart Little said if Kansas regulated its massage industry, and if a background check were required to own a massage business or perform massage therapy, Li and Xiao may have been prevented from setting up shop again…

New Excuse

Another blatant example of the War on Whores as replacement for the moribund War on Drugs: “Drug agents…raided a [Charlotte, North Carolina] massage parlor, arresting two women accused in a prostitution sting…”

Backwards into the Future (#439)

This Vietnamese academic, unlike her Western counterparts, stopped being a prohibitionist when confronted with facts:

…To a certain extent, all of us are coerced into doing what we are doing, since none of us is 100 percent free to do what we individually want. Freedom is never absolute, and as members of a society, we all have to sacrifice, compromise, or adjust ourselves to suit the situation…criminalizing prostitution creates double incrimination…30 percent of exotic dancers and 24 percent of street-based sex workers who had been raped identified a police officer as the rapist. Up to 17 percent of sex workers interviewed reported sexual harassment and abuse, including rape, by police. They had been forced to strip or engage in other sexual conduct while in police detention…we also need to accept the fact that…Many of them choose this profession voluntarily because it fits their life style and personality, or because it is economically efficient, without any pressure. In the last few months, I have been part of a volunteer group helping to deliver tea and coffee to sex workers in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. I started the job with the idea that all these people are victims, and I could not be more wrong…Sex work is exactly that, work. And what well-intended people should do is to protect those who are forced to enter the industry, and support those who are the boss of their life, regardless of who they choose to be…

All Wet

Buried deep in this prohibitionist screed are these truly dumb statements: “A recent poll by Red C found that 88% of Irish men have never paid for sex. It also showed three out of four Irish adults believe women who sell sex have
experienced abuse from sex buyers…” First we have the usual ridiculously-low client number I’ve already debunked, but it’s followed by a statement about what ignorant people in the general public believe to be true about a subject in which they have no experience; it’s a bit like taking a poll of what people believe to be true about the stars and quoting it as though it were astronomical fact.

Marching Up Their Own Arses (#533)

Sex worker activists have forced the vile 8 Minutes off the air:

Sex workers who were filmed for A&E’s 8 Minutes, which says it provides resources for women who want to get out of sex work, allege that the production lied to them…they wanted help getting out of sex work, and were never given any of the promised assistance. When reached, a representative for the network said the show is no longer on the air and, thus, they have no comment…

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In the News (#526)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, agency denial, Bad Girls, BDSM, Birth of a Movement, Catastrophic Consequences, Coming and Going, cops, end demand, Feminine Pragmatism, Florida, France, Gorged With Meaning, He Said-She Said, Ireland, Latin America, law, Not Your Rescue Project, politicians, pragmatism, Profit from Panic, prohibitionist myths, sex work is work, South Carolina, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, The Clueless Leading the Hysterical, The Course of a Disease, Twitter, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Wisconsin on April 4, 2015| 3 Comments »

There is no singular story or person to represent the varied and complex experiences of all sex workers. – Tilly Lawless

Bad Girls

A South Carolina stripper has pleaded guilty to assaulting a…coworker with a “clear plastic high-heeled shoe” that left the victim with puncture wounds in her scalp…Carolynn Wright…was sentenced to six days in jail and ordered to pay fines and court costs totaling $173.90…

Feminine Pragmatism

Most of the research conducted on the topic of prostitution in Costa Rica tends to be concentrated in the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area…and on the phenomenon of sexual tourism…[according to] Rodolfo Nuñez Arias, Professor of Social Studies at the National University in Nicoya…prostitution in Santa Cruz was scant from about 1860 to 1949, at least in comparison to other burgeoning regions of Costa Rica…Things changed between 1970 and 1980, when many women in Guanacaste…found that they could earn a lot more from prostitution than from agricultural or even professional employment…

Profit from Panic

There’s this problem I invented! Now buy my software!

A growing number of children all around the world are being forced into taking explicit photos and videos of themselves online, an expert has warned…The term “sextortion” means children are first lured into taking naked photos or videos of themselves, and then blackmailed into making more. If they don’t comply, they are threatened that the photos will be distributed to their friends and family…Bob Lotter, the creator of online safety tool My Mobile Watchdog…said his company is dealing with an “epidemic” of sextortion cases…Children as young as 12 are often victims, he says, adding that 14-year-olds are the most common age group…

Above the Law

A South Florida woman videotaped her parole officer sexually assaulting her so that she could prove to police that she was, in fact, raped and so that the officer couldn’t revoke her parole…Zachary Thomas Bailey told the victim that he needed to perform a “study” of her Coral Springs home…During the visit, Bailey allegedly blocked the victim in her bedroom and touched her genitals. Bailey reportedly returned the next day, asking the victim for a massage. When the victim refused, Bailey allegedly took off his clothes, put on a condom and raped the woman…

Coming and Going (#44)

How much money did Seattle waste on this boondoggle?

…Seattle police…spent months posing as pimps, prostitutes and drug buyers to…[arrest] the Orion [hotel’s] managers, a married couple who had lived on site…Kevin Lundquist Jr. and his wife [were charged with]…prostitution-related crimes…

Gorged With Meaning (#51)

In other words, female students are much, much more inclined to lie:

Nearly five percent of U.K. students have engaged in some form of sex work, according to new research…more male than female students participated…And while money was one motivating factor, students also cited flexible scheduling and personal enjoyment or curiosity among their main reasons for getting involved. The research was part of the Student Sex Work Project, a 3-year initiative led by Swansea University. Researchers surveyed more than 10,000 students from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland…4.8 percent of student respondents had done some sort of sex work, including 5 percent of male students surveyed and 3.4 percent of female students…Nearly nearly 22 percent of respondents had considered doing sex work…some have portrayed these findings as a shame and a call to action. But the data hardly seems to indicate that student sex workers would be better off with jobs in the campus dining hall or more student loans…

Birth of a Movement (#314)

After only two years, France re-criminalizes “looking like a whore”:

Women in skimpy outfits and high heels could be arrested under new French laws that make it illegal to simply “look like a prostitute” in public…It is expected that prostitutes will be forced to wear casual clothing like jeans and trainers to get around the rules…French sex workers’ union Strass described the law as “a huge step backwards”…

Science!

Global warming turns women into WHORES!!!

Whether you call it climate change, global warming…the crazy week on the topic just got a little bit crazier, thanks to Rep. Barbara Lee, D-California…That’s because she says women will not only be harder hit by climate change, but it could force millions of women to participate in “transactional sex.” In other words, they’d prostitute themselves out for food and water to feed their family…

Catastrophic Consequences

Scottish police just won’t stop endangering sex workers with “end demand” claptrap:

Prostitutes, lap dancers and online sex workers will be the focus of a new group set up to tackle commercial sexual exploitation…The campaign…aims to stamp out demand for sex services…and…is supported by Police Scotland…“CSE is a serious issue…which is often misconstrued as a choice made in return for financial…gain,” said…[a] spokeswoman. “However, we know that this is not the case”…

Not Your Rescue Project

My friend Savannah Sly is among the pictures featured here:

Sex workers are sharing photos of themselves on social media as they fight back against claims that most escorts are forced into the industry and lead lives of abuse. The hashtag #FacesOfProstitution started trending on Twitter with sex workers from Australia and across the world using social media to share positive stories from their industry. It comes after Mamamia published a blog post from Christian group Exodus Cry last week that claimed the 1990 film Pretty Woman lured women into the sex industry by ‘leading them to believe that prostitution was glamorous and romantic”…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#438)

…Judge Michael Bohren ruled that two Wisconsin teenagers will have to stand trial as adults for…[stabbing] a 12-year-old classmate 19 times last year…to mollify a cult fan fiction character called Slender Man..Attorneys for the two girls were hoping to have the charges reduced so they could be tried in juvenile court. But Judge Bohren found probable cause for prosecutors to bring first-degree attempted homicide charges, which, under Wisconsin law, must be tried in adult court…the girls in this case are pretty much textbook arguments for why children cannot be treated like adults in our legal system…

He Said, She Said (#448)

Another violent, manipulative sadist tries to disguise his actions as consensual BDSM:

…Graham Dwyer was found guilty of the murder of Elaine O’Hara…allegedly as part of his BDSM fetish, which included a fantasy to stab partners during sex…Dwyer had pursued a relationship with O’Hara, a childcare assistant with a history of depression, and abusively exploited her psychological illness…O’Hara, on numerous occasions, expressed a desire to end the blood play but was punished for even suggesting that she’d want out…any talk of leaving resulted in a stabbing during one of their “sessions.” Likewise, O’Hara was badgered and manipulated into thinking that she was responsible for finding a murder victim or, as one message termed it, “offer her own flesh”…

The Course of a Disease (#428)

Hundreds of foreign sex workers in France, the majority of them illegal Chinese immigrants, rallied in the Place Pigalle in Paris on March 28 to fight for their right of survival in their country of adoption…Some…have signed a petition to urge the French government to cancel a motion that sanctions those who buy sex services, their clients…A Chinese sex worker known as Ai Ying interviewed by Radio France International (RFI) said punishing clients will hurt their earnings and they will be exposed to greater dangers and problems. Ai Ying said the new law will not help them change their line of work, because they are not likely to get a job without a residency permit…

Apparently, the outcry was heard; the legislature scrapped the law.

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In the News (#525)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Arizona, asset seizure, avails laws, Bait and Switch, brothels, cops, drugs, end demand, Florida, Germany, Hall of Shame, Here We Go Again, Hollywood, hysteria, India, Latin America, law, Marching Up Their Own Arses, New York, pathologization of males, prisons, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry, sacred prostitutes, sex work is work, Shift in the Wind, Standard Operating Procedure, The Notorious Badge, Torture Chamber, Worse Than I Thought on March 28, 2015| 5 Comments »

Whole libraries of sex work laws have been written and enforced because lawmakers listened to nothing other than their own fears and paternalism. – Chris Hall

R.I.P. Sashimani Devi

Sashimani Devi, the last [devadasi]…at the Jagannath Temple in eastern India, died on March 19 in the city of Puri…She was 92…she was one of about 25 women assigned to care for Jagannath and other images of deities at the temple, conducting ritual baths, rubbing the statues with lotion and performing private songs and dances at bedtime…Sashimani…remained proud of her status until the end of her life, though she complained that temple authorities had reduced her role in temple rituals and paid her a miserly pension. She told one interviewer who asked about the god Jagannath: “He is my husband and I am his wife. There is no dispute about it.” She was the last to perform a dance that had been practiced in the temple for 5,000 years…Laws criminalizing the dedication of devadasis began proliferating in the 1930s, and elite temples like Jagannath began to turn away from the practice, though “thousands and thousands” of devadasis are dedicated, to this day, at smaller temples throughout India…

Here We Go Again

Chris Hall looks at the connection between the belief in snuff films and the belief in “sex trafficking”:

Of all the myths about porn, sex and crime to get a footing in popular culture, the belief in snuff films is one of the most improbable, yet enduringly resilient. For decades, journalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and anti-porn crusaders talked about snuff films as if their reality had been as firmly documented as the address of the White House….[despite the fact that] no actual snuff films have ever been found…snuff movie hysteria is just a single link in a very long chain of moral panics around sex and sex work which stretches back centuries…the myths of white slavery and snuff films…depicted vast networks of deliberate, organized evil preying on society’s most innocent. There are actual videos of murders by serial killers or terrorists, but…a true snuff film would be one where the victim is specifically kidnapped and murdered in order to make the film and distribute it through a vast, secret criminal network. Similarly, white slavery would necessarily involve a nightmarish web of kidnappers and pimps working cohesively in a well-organized criminal subculture…the existence of snuff films and white slavery would reveal a shadowy, near-omnipotent “other” infiltrating respectable society…

Above the Law

A…New York [City cop]…has been charged with multiple counts of rape related to a sexual relationship he’s alleged to have maintained with a teen girl more than 20 years his junior…38-year-old Vladimir Sosa…was arrested in the Bronx [after the girl]…confessed to her mother about the relationship last month…

The Notorious Badge

Here’s an amusing example of prohibitionists’ obsession with the film Pretty Woman: On its 25th anniversary, a “sex trafficking” fetishist publishes a letter asking Richard Gere to espouse the “end demand” creed of the “sex trafficking” religion and denounce clients. I am not making this up.

Hall of Shame

Mistress Matisse: “If you’ve eaten poison and need to make yourself vomit, you should watch Dennis Hof and Nancy Grace debate sex work.” I concur; Grace is one of the few creatures who can make Hof seem less-than-wholly-vile in comparison.

Shift in the Wind

More editorials like this, please:

It is unfathomable why adults are still being prohibited by law from engaging in sex work – whether as an individual providing or receiving such services – in and outside of Jamaica. To make matters worse, it is also illegal for you to “knowingly” benefit from the proceeds of sex work regardless of your relationship to the individual…This is preposterous….a child whose parent works tirelessly as a sex worker to send him or her to school…can, in fact, be charged for benefiting from their parents earnings from sex work….if you are the parent of a sex worker with a chronic illness such as cancer, you can be charged for allowing your daughter to pay for life-saving chemotherapy. What would you do if the person who supports you financially is a sex worker? Would you still feel the law is justified – that prostitution should be illegal?

Standard Operating Procedure

Yawn. Are people still pretending this was unpredictable?

Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly had “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by drug cartels in Colombia, according to a new inspector general report released by the Justice Department…In addition, Colombian police officers allegedly provided “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties…The stunning allegations are part of an investigation…into claims of sexual harassment and misconduct within DEA; FBI…[ATF] and the U.S. Marshals Service…The congressional committee charged with federal oversight is already promising hearings and an investigation…

“Stunning”. LOL!

Sex Work is Work

A brothel is advertising what many would consider a dream job: prostitute tester. The job entails rating sex workers for overall quality, cleanliness, value for money, and safe sex practices. The advert by the Berlin brothel…reads: “Practical experience with many years of brothel visits necessary. You should enjoy having fun with people and you should not be afraid of contact.” Ideal candidates for the position would hold a university degree (preferably in business), have experience with brothels, and be able to show a health certificate indicating they are disease-free…a multilingual individual is desired, with knowledge of French a plus…

Torture Chamber

…[Florida prison guards] contaminated inmates’ food, sprayed them with chemicals for no reason and threatened to break their fingers and to kill them…These practices flourished under former Warden Samuel Culpepper…inmates…said they were stripped naked or down to their boxers at the whim of guards and had all their belongings and their mattresses taken away, then left around the clock on a cold metal bunk for 72 hours or more…[where] they would shiver, cold and petrified, waiting to be gassed…guards would sometimes heat up the gas canisters before activating them, making the chemicals more potent and stick more stubbornly to inmates’ skin…

Bait and Switch

Here’s a long, detailed account of how an ordinary man was tricked and railroaded by cops and prosecutors, his life destroyed for their profit:

…he believed she was nineteen, and he adamantly denied at all times that she looked underage. He…thought she was lying about her age to try to get more money from him. It took cops almost half an hour of merciless interrogation and lie after lie to get something even arguably incriminating out of him. They kept telling him about how he tried to have sex with “that girl” who was sixteen. When he asked why they were fixated on the fake age of a fake escort, the police report noted that as him seeing no problem with the age of sixteen…

Marching Up Their Own Arses (#452)

For a change, many outside the demimonde recognize anti-whore douchebaggery for what it is:

All sex workers are trafficking victims who desperately want out of the industry. That’s the premise…of the new A&E show 8 Minutes, which is slated to premiere April 2….vigilante pastor (and former cop) Kevin Brown…sets up dates with sex workers, only to ambush them with attempts at rescue instead of payment—all filmed, hidden camera-style. The…series has been called “awful” by the Daily Beast, while VICE referred to Brown and the series creators as “manipulators seeking out women for their own gain.” A Change.org petition…garnered just under 2,000 signatures. And…even local law enforcement condemned his methods…But none of this criticism has deterred A&E from airing the show…[so] about two dozen…groups that work with…sex workers signed a letter demanding a meeting with Tom Forman, the producer…

Worse Than I Thought (#524)

We can always count on Elizabeth N. Brown:

…the “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act” (JVTA)…was [stalled]…by party-line disagreement over an abortion-funding provision. Thank goodness. This is one time that lawmakers using abortion as a political tool may actually be a boon for civil liberties…One should always be skeptical when politicians insist on new laws to target things that are already targets…it belies efforts to grant government agencies new powers and more money without people paying much attention…One under-looked but worrisome aspect of the bill would set up several cybercrime-fighting units within the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement…By conflating all prostitution with sex trafficking, organizations that receive federal anti-trafficking grants can use it to go after prostitution more generally — something conservative rescue-orgs like because it fits their anti-prostitution agenda and police departments like because they can now use this money toward existing vice efforts. And the more arrests and/or “rescues” they make, the more money they get…

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Links #235

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, Argentina, cops, FBI, Georgia, I can't breathe, Latin America, masturbation, Michigan, Never Call the Cops, New York, orgasm, South Carolina, surveillance, video on January 4, 2015| 13 Comments »

If you can talk, you can breathe. – unidentified murderer cop

Not a bad selection of links for the post-holiday weekend, really; the first video was one of several Jae showed me on New Year’s Eve, while the selection of the second was based on a Twitter conversation between several sex workers (I will leave you to guess the subject yourselves). All the links above the first video were provided by Tushy Galore, and those between the videos by Popehat, Grace, Rick Horowitz, Radley Balko, Clarkhat, Elizabeth N. Brown, and Dave Krueger (in that order).

From the Archives

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In the News (#501)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Narrow View, abortion, agency denial, apes & monkeys, Backwards into the Future, Banishment, Canada, censorship, Checklist, China, cops, dehumanization, dirty, diversion programs, fantasy, Florida, Follow Your Bliss, hysteria, Illinois, internet, Japan, Latin America, law, Madonna/whore, Maryland, Missouri, Monkey Business, Mumbo Jumbo, neofeminism, Nigeria, Oregon, Original Sin, porn, prohibitionist myths, Property of the State, rescue industry, sex offender registry, Shame Shame, Subtle Pimping, Tennessee, That Old Black Magic, The Red Umbrella, The Widening Gyre, tits, Traffic Circle, Utah, video, Vietnam, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to Our Updates, witchcraft, Worse Than I Thought on January 3, 2015| 9 Comments »

Sex workers are…the sacrificial offering that people outside of the industry are willing to make in an attempt to attain an impossible state of societal purity. – Clay Nikiforuk

The Red Umbrella

This excellent December 17^th column by Clay Nikiforuk only came to my attention this week:

…Canadian law…C-36 [supporters]…talk of wanting to “end demand” for sexual services, and I wonder what that could mean. Is there a lab somewhere cooking up a pill to end cravings for intimacy? Or maybe an army of attractive sex robots are being programmed as we speak? Ending demand seems like an imaginary Conservative wonderland, and no one wants to talk about the fact that it doesn’t exist and thus no one has any idea of how to get there. In the meantime, prostitution abolitionists are content with an approach that…will result in nothing but violence against a marginalized group if these heinous laws are enforced…[prohibitionist] language suggests that sex workers are things to be purchased rather than lucid, valuable people who make choices, among others, to market and sell services…no sex worker sells their body. They are not passive ragdolls, slaves for the enjoyment of ravenous perverts, as the pornographic imagination might wish to believe…they are complex and complete people who have their own stories and are part of communities. They cannot be sacrificed for a supposedly feminist ideal that wishes to ignore, silence, and erase them…

A Narrow View

Ask yourself: if the operators of “rescue homes” really have the best interests of “rescued” sex workers at heart, why must they invariably deny these women’s agency and reduce them to passive, doll-like creatures to be done to?

A St. Louis charity will open a home next year where a small group of women who are trying to escape from a cycle of prostitution and prison can rebuild their lives. Christine McDonald has spent months visiting prisons searching for women…[to] be the first residents of the 10,000-square-foot home being opened by Magdalene St. Louis. The women will live there two years and will have access to free food, health care, counseling and job training…director…Tricia Roland-Hamilton…said many people believe these women choose a life of prostitution, but they don’t…

The Widening Gyre

An escort is murdered, and cops immediately pimp her corpse to promote their crusade by declaring her a “victim of sex trafficking”:

A Vancouver woman found murdered inside her…Portland hotel…was a victim of sex trafficking, according to…Police…Ashley Renee Benson’s…body was found in a stairway at the Double Tree [sic] Hotel…Benson’s family [said]…they didn’t know Benson was a sex trafficking victim until they heard it on the news…they didn’t notice anything different about Benson when they saw her on Christmas Day, just 21 hours before she was found dead…

The reason the family didn’t know she was a “victim” is because she wasn’t.

Checklist

Baltimore hotels would be required to train their staffs to recognize signs of forced prostitution under proposed legislation that also would prohibit rooms from being rented for less than half a day. City Councilman James B. Kraft said the anti-human trafficking bill is necessary to combat an “international plague”…[because] Baltimore …[is near] Interstate 95…Hotel staff may recognize individuals who frequently rent rooms…The victims may eat all their meals inside the room and only…pay in cash…

Original Sin

It’s unusual to see an evangelical break with the party line on “trafficking”, but refreshing to be cast as a powerful witch instead of a helpless “victim”:

…why it is that only clients should be criminalised, but not the prostitute? The question that must be asked is who the victim is and who is the predator…Modern society generally deems the prostitute to be “hurt” or “harmed” because she is used by clients…This is a dangerous half-truth. The prostitute is the woman of Proverbs 7 who is brash, rebellious, sly, and of a wicked bitter tongue…She victimises even strong men through her sexual immorality and wicked flattering words…While she may indeed be used by others for sexual gratification, she is a predator…Prostitutes are harlots – they seduce unsuspecting men who do not know about the moral dangers of indulging in sexual immorality…

Original Sin (#321)

Another self-proclaimed “authority” helpfully explains that porn causes “sex trafficking”:

…sex trafficking and exploitation exist…even [in] Utah…social media and easy global access have made it more simplistic [sic] for criminals to entice targets…young men and women…are more exposed than ever [due to online flirting]…chat rooms are still…the weapon of choice for criminals…Sgt. Jason Randall…[fantasizes about] minors being forced to engage in sexual acts…on pornographic…websites…Randall said he believes pornography is at the source of all the exploitation problems…“Pornography is just like drugs. People can dabble in it and never get addicted to it. But some people — it’s just taking that first hit of meth, and then they’re hooked…There’s no question that there’s a correlation between pornography and sex offenses”…

Highlight of the story: a bureaucrat named Tammy Atkin wisely pronounces that nobody grows up and then makes a statement about what she’d like to do when she is 12.

Welcome To Our World (#327)

Fifteen people have been arrested in Beijing in connection with a prostitution ring which used websites to connect young mothers with men who paid to be breastfed by them…Wet nurses that serve adults are paid $2,600, nearly four times the monthly average…

Mumbo Jumbo

Sometimes the connection between “sex trafficking” hysteria and the Satanic panic is subtle, and other times…well, see for yourself:

Traffic Circle

It’s a small development, especially considering that the publication is Reason and the author is steadfast ally Elizabeth Nolan Brown; however, it’s still fantastic to see “Sex Trafficking Hysteria” as a heading in a national magazine article that treats both the hysteria itself and the bullshit used to promote it as what they are rather than deferentially pretending that there’s any doubt at all, as even most skeptical articles do.

Shame, Shame (TW3 #348)

“Cyber Civil Rights Initiative” is a front organization for Mary Anne Franks:

Illinois became the latest state to criminalize “revenge porn,” crafting what its creators hope will become a model for federal legislation…The…law…will punish offenders with one to three years in prison and up to a $25,000 fine. “We believe [revenge porn] is a form of sexual assault,” [figurehead sponsor] Scott Drury [said]… “You could be someone working at Burger King, and now you’re a sex object.” Carrie Goldberg…of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which [wrote] the Illinois law [downplayed valid concerns about the unintended consequences of the vague, overbroad legislation]…

Property of the State

Note how the police state uses the mere existence of a sex worker’s child as an excuse to proclaim consensual sex a “felony”:

A woman was arrested for promoting prostitution while her 2-year-old was at daycare…Trishta Daniels [was ratted out by hotel employees and ambushed by cops upon] leaving her room…Police [abducted] the child and [trafficked her to] the Department of Children’s Services…

That Old Black Magic (#422)

West African “penis stealing” hysteria, now with whores!

A 23-year-old woman, Uche Agunta, who works as a prostitute confessed that her gang specialises in cutting off victims’ manhood during sex…[she] had harvested about seven [penises] before she was arrested…her method is to lure men into sex…and at the height of ecstasy, she would sneak out razor blade and cut off her partner’s manhood…for money rituals…

Follow Your Bliss (#424)

…There’s something profoundly perverse about many of the “grim truth behind prostitution”…articles…Rescue stories read like erotica, but they sensationalise sex workers’ lives at their expense and commodify the experiences of actual victims. They are obsessed with how many penises in filthy surroundings and rape by their stepfather and forced abortions and getting peed on and condomless blowjobs. While sex workers and sex work activists want to talk about human rights, international law, respecting the agency of other adults and stopping violence, rescue fetishists get all flushed as they emphasise that thousands of women get raped with objects and are forced to drink buckets of sperm and they get tattoos so everyone can see they are a whore…The rescue industry exploits others for financial gain, which is morally reprehensible, but their non-consensual use of vulnerable women for their perverse sexual preferences is a grim truth about the rescue industry that really nobody is telling you…

Worse Than I Thought (#433)

As I predicted, this trope is becoming much more common:

Darlene Pawlik…was…sold into prostitution…before she reached legal adulthood…[she] found herself sold hundreds of times, bought by local businessmen, a city councilman, and a candidate for sheriff..[when she] found herself pregnant…[she] faked an abortion so she could leave the lifestyle. She reached a new home and began a new, restored life and eventually became a nurse, business owner, married mother of 5 children, and pro-life advocate…

All conveniently far in the past and without names or evidence, natch.

Backwards into the Future (#439)

“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

Vietnam will not see prostitution as a legitimate profession…[said] Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam…[he also pretended] that anti-prostitution measures [could somehow be considered]…human rights protection…The [repetition of political dogma]…came in response to a number of opinions from…officials who suggested that sex work should be legalized in Vietnam as it serves an essential need of people and such legalization would help improve the management of sex workers…

Subtle Pimping (#445)

…Jin Ohashi…is being questioned for his unethical way of taking photos [of]…Thai sex workers who don’t even know their photos were exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography…[Ohashi has] fondly and proudly talked about how he pretended to be a regular tourist and sneaked his camera into the brothels, where cameras are strictly prohibited. He talked about his bravery of doing so against his local coordinator’s warning. He even said, without the slightest nuance of guilt, that sex workers got panicked when his camera flashed and ran about trying to hide from him…the attitude shown by Ohashi indicates the less-than-human views he holds of the Thai sex workers…in [a] 2007 interview [he said] sleeping dogs by the roadside and those girls had the same tension… whatever that means…

Monkey Business (#449)

An orangutan named Sandra has become the first non-human animal recognized as a person in a court of law. The Association of Officials and Lawyers for Animal Rights…had asked Argentine courts recognize the 28-year-old great ape’s right to freedom from unjust imprisonment…if the zoo does not challenge the decision within 10 working days, Sandra will be sent to a sanctuary in Brazil…The decision may have ramifications for other great apes. In the United States, a group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is currently seeking similar rights for four privately-owned chimpanzees in New York state…

Banishment (#452)

Predictable as sunrise:

Timothy Poole, the…registered [sex offender who won the Florida] lottery…is being sued by two alleged victims who say he owes them for pain, suffering and psychological damages. The two are brothers who were 5 and 9 years old at the time of the abuse in 1996…Their attorneys…are seeking a court order to freeze Poole’s [assets] until the proceedings are over because Poole may “squander, hide or otherwise dispose of assets”…

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Served Cold

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged hysteria, language, Latin America, lawheads, Much Ado About Nothing, politicians, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry, Served Cold, underage, Washington DC on October 20, 2014| 11 Comments »

Revenge is a dish best served cold. – proverb of uncertain origin

I’m sure all of you remember the ridiculous “Secret Service prostitution scandal” of April 2012; a group of G-men who were sent to Cartagena, Colombia hired whores as such men nearly always do, and one of them made the mistake of thinking he could cheat his escort by denying her the agreed-upon fee. Unfortunately for Agent Cheapskate (AKA Arthur Huntington), sex work happens to be legal in Colombia; the wronged lady, Dania Suarez, went to the cops, and there followed months of hand-wringing in which the Ruling Hypocrites pretended that fair and typical business transactions were themselves the problem, rather than government agents trying to turn such transactions into rape. We were forced to endure the farce of government officials who frequently partake themselves pretending that “this just is not part of our [institutional] culture” and insisting that they would make magical proclamations which would ensure that never again would even the lowliest government actor ever, ever pay for sex, as long as the Capitol building stands.

Well, the public forgot about it as soon as the media found something else unimportant to obsess about, but you can bet the White House didn’t. Grudges do not merely dry up and blow away in Washington, so I’ve been waiting to see what sort of petty revenge the executive branch might choose to inflict on the sex workers of Cartagena; a recent cluster of articles would seem to be its harbingers, though I suspect the vengeance itself will be both worse and more long-lived. The first was this one from two weeks ago:

As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved. But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never…publicly acknowledged…the way the White House handled the scandal remains a sore point among rank-and-file members of the Secret Service more than two years later. Former and current…agents said they are angry at the White House’s public insistence that none of its team members were involved and its private decision to not fully investigate one of its own — while their colleagues had their careers ruined or hampered…The agents were told that they jeopardized national security by drinking excessively and having contact with foreign nationals…

Some of you may have wondered why I didn’t mention this story in that week’s TW3 column; it was because I suspected there was more to come. I didn’t have long to wait:

…a privately funded organization, Operation Underground Railroad, [executed] what they called Clear Hope; a mission that would prove to be the biggest child trafficking rescue operation in history. One hundred and twenty-three children were saved [on October 11^th] in three simultaneous operations based in Colombia and resulted in the arrest of 15 perpetrators…

“Privately funded” means “we don’t need to tell you where we get our money”. I’m sure the organization’s having been founded by a retired CIA agent has absolutely no bearing on that funding, or with the disturbing spectacle of a “private” organization working hand in glove with a US government agency to carry out operations in a foreign country:

A popular Colombian beauty queen was arrested this past weekend for her alleged role in a child prostitution ring aimed at foreign sex tourists. The United States Immigration and Customs (ICE) led a joint operation, Cristal II, in cooperation with the Colombia’s Navy and Coast Guard to arrest 22-year old Kelly Johana Suárez Martínez Moyam and four others during a party attended by 25 minors, among others…An additional three were arrested in Armenia and four in Medellín for their involvement…The arrests took place…just a short boat ride from Cartagena…Undercover agents posed as foreign sex tourists to break up the child prostitution ring…Kelly Johana is not the typical ringleader for a child prostitution ring, but her credentials and her reputation…make her an effective recruiter of young girls and boys…

As regular readers know, the term “child prostitution” is a lie; actual children in the sex trade are very rare, and most so-called “child prostitutes” are 16 or 17. Dr. Thaddeus Blanchette, who has studied sex work in neighboring Brazil for over a decade, has this to say about the subject:

…in ten years of work researching Rio de Janeiro’s brothels…I have not encountered a single child prostitute. Frequent police raids on these establishments also generally come up a cropper. There are a few cases, of course, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand, from over a ten year period. Where, then, are these legions of child prostitutes? If the police and I and my co-researcher, Dra. Ana Paula da Silva, can’t find more than a handful in all the hundreds of commercial sex venues in Rio de Janeiro…where are these kids?…

It’s true that Colombia is not Brazil, but they’re a lot more alike than, say, Colombia and Washington, DC. So when cops and government bureaucrats report something that contradicts years of work by respected academics, you’ll have to forgive me if I ask for their proof. And when the operatives involved just happen to work for a different division of the same government branch that was embarrassed by other members of the same industry in the same region of the same country, and the targeted individual just happens to share a surname with the sex worker at the center of the earlier scandal, don’t be too surprised if I assume that their real motivation is the execution of a vendetta.

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Links #222

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, Arizona, Canada, censorship, China, contraception, cops, drugs, Facebook, Florida, genitalia, Georgia, Latin America, lawheads, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, prisons, racism, Russia, South Carolina, statistics, surveillance, Sweden, Texas, TSA, video, Wisconsin on October 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

Taking care of a puppy is a full-time job and if I am not there for every moment in the first year of its life I have failed as a parent. – Trish Lemierre

There were lots and lots and LOTS of links this week, but only one video (the first, contributed by Aspasia); so, I decided to let Penn & Teller use doughnuts to illustrate the spectacular failure of the Drug War in only 88 seconds. Everything above the first video was provided by Radley Balko, and the links between the videos came from Grace (“law” and “badge”), Michael Whiteacre (“litigious”), Luscious Lani (“oh-oh”, “potato” and “population”), Dave Krueger (“police state”), Cop Block (“colors” and “snow beat”), Dan Savage (“taser”), Lucy Steigerwald (“cigarettes”), Scott Greenfield (“stolen car”), and Wikileaks (“rude”).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#440)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, Above the Law, agency denial, An Example to the West, Australia, Bait and Switch, bogus studies, Bottleneck, brothels, California, Cambodia, Canada, Check Your Premises, Colorado, cops, dehumanization, diversion programs, Do As I Say, Dysphemisms Galore, Florida, Georgia, hysteria, Imaginary Crises, India, Indonesia, King of the Hill, language, Latin America, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, Maryland, massage, New Jersey, Ohio, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Pennsylvania, pimps, politicians, prisons, prohibitionist myths, PSA, racism, rape, red-light districts, rescue industry, Reviews, Rough Trade, sex rays, sexting, streetwalkers, stripping, Surplus Women, sweatshops, Tennessee, The Red Umbrella, The Roof Caves In, The Widening Gyre, Think of the Children!, United Kingdom, Validation, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC, Whither Canada?, Wise Investment, With Friends Like These on October 4, 2014| 15 Comments »

It is an obnoxious and unacceptable conceit, a form of abuse, to deny sex workers their agency. – Graham Scrambler

Think of the Children!

Sex rays are so insidious they can even radiate from pieces of plastic via the principle of sympathetic magic:

A week after Mark Gregory was elected chairman of the Williamson County school board, an online petition was launched …demanding [he] step down from the post because of his role in creating the ButtleOpener, a novelty bottle opener shaped like a female rear end…

The Red Umbrella

Matthew Carney, 18, walked with [a sex worker] to a secluded area…after paying her…But as soon as they were alone Carney…repeatedly [punched] and [kicked] her in the head, causing severe injuries to her face. He then walked off with her handbag…the courageous victim went to the police…[and] Carney was sentenced to seven years in prison…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

…[Pittsburgh-area cop] Joshua Rush was [arrested]…[for] texting a prostitute he had a sexual relationship with…When police busted [her]…she showed them a string of text messages…in which he allegedly said he would distract officers from [going into her stroll]…

Check Your Premises

Earlier this year, Bensalem [Pennsylvania] police participated in Operation Cross Country…While the overt goal was busting pimps and prostitutes, the underlying objective was to create connections to help law enforcement find and stop child sex trafficking…“You need an approach that develops trust”…

You read that correctly: these cops are so disconnected from reality that they think deceiving, raping and caging women is a good way to “develop trust”.

Validation

It’s always nice to be backed up by academics:

…the wealthy and powerful should not be permitted to swap policy-based evidence for evidence-based policy…Stereotypes of sex workers are simplistic, replete with errors of commission and omission…most public health researchers…respect…sex workers and oppose…any attempt to (further) criminalize them…[but] the weird admix of radical feminists and Christian…right-wingers who [push] “sexual trafficking”…are resistant to data: they…wish the public to believe that [all] sex workers…have been trafficked. Their…”moral crusade” is to legislate for the abolition of the industry…

Public Service Announcement

Just in case you thought only American politicians were this foolish:

…Brooks Newmark quit as Minister for Civil Society after he was caught sending an explicit photograph of himself…to someone he believed was a woman…as part of a tabloid newspaper sting operation …Mr Newmark initiated a private message conversation on a social networking website and sent a graphic picture exposing himself…

Surplus Women

Authorities are looking for the killer of a woman found in Lake Lucerne and identified…as a 36-year-old Bulgarian prostitute…Work colleagues…[contacted] police… because they had not been able to contact her for a long time on her cell phone…

Legal Is as Legal Does

Almost all countries criminalise some aspect of sex work, including…Australia…sex work under “legalisation” is still…conceived of as a crime for which the law makes allowances. These laws that govern sex work can be found in the criminal code…and…the police [enforce the]…regulation. When I asked Jules Kim…of Scarlet Alliance…about the effect of all these regulations on the lives of sex workers in Victoria, she pointed out that many were deeply invasive of privacy…

Grace’s Chili

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged anecdote, Grace, Latin America, recipes on September 11, 2014| 24 Comments »

Next to jazz music, there is nothing that lifts the spirit and strengthens the soul more than a good bowl of chili. – Harry James

One of the things I really missed on the road was my own cooking. I don’t mean that in a vain sense, as though my cooking was better than everyone else’s; what I mean is that I am, as I reminded y’all on Tuesday, a creature of habit, and it feels weird to go that long without cooking. It’s part of the rhythm of my life, something that shapes my days, and my husband and Grace will both attest to the fact that no matter how tired I am or how busy my day, I insist on preparing a proper evening meal for my family unless I’m either too ill to stand up or we’ve already planned to do something else. In fact, when I arrived home a week ago today I insisted on fixing dinner, despite having just driven for more than eight hours; it was part of the process of re-orienting myself to my normal life. That’s not to say that Grace couldn’t have done it; she’s a competent cook herself, and though her repertoire is very limited she does what she does very well. Today I’d like to share her recipe for chili; though I’m the one who cooks it for us nowadays, she developed it all by herself over 20 years ago and in my opinion it’s the best chili ever.

3# (1.4 kg) ground beef
2 (8 oz/225 g) cans tomato sauce
2 (6 oz/170 g) cans tomato paste
2 sauce cans water
1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies (Ro-tel tomatoes)
1 medium onion, minced
¼ cup butter (½ stick)
2 tablespoons (30 ml) chili powder
2 tablespoons (30 ml) brown sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons (10 ml) paprika
½ tablespoon (7.5 ml) black pepper
1 teaspoon (5 ml) salt
1 teaspoon (5 ml) granulated garlic*
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) prepared brown mustard
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) sage
½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) mace
Tabasco sauce to taste

*If you don’t have granulated garlic, use half as much garlic powder or twice as much finely-minced garlic or garlic flakes.

Brown ground meat thoroughly in a large, deep skillet, then add onions and saute until tender. Transfer to a large pot and add all other ingredients, stirring well after each addition. Simmer over low heat for one hour, stirring occasionally. Serve with crackers.

You will notice that the recipe contains no beans; that’s because we prefer beanless chili. If you like beans, there is an additional step which must be performed first: in a large pot cover one pound of pinto beans with water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and boil for two minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for an hour. Then drain the beans completely and add two liters of fresh water; bring water to boiling, then reduce heat to medium and cook for 90 minutes. At the end of this precooking process, drain the beans again and add them to the chili with all the other ingredients; increase the chili’s cooking time to 90 minutes or until the beans reach the desired degree of tenderness (it won’t hurt the chili to cook longer).

One thing that’s really good about this chili is that when prepared as directed it’s spicy, but not blisteringly hot; however, it’s really easy to turn up the heat if so desired. You could use the hot Ro-tel tomatoes instead of the original ones, use a hotter type of chili powder (or increase it to three tablespoons), use hot Hungarian paprika instead of the mild Spanish variety, substitute red pepper for the black, substitute horseradish for the brown mustard or increase the amount of Tabasco…or if you really like to live dangerously, all of the above. The recipe makes enough for six people (nine if you make it with beans), but it also freezes well so don’t hesitate to try it even if there are only two of you.

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That Was the Week That Was (#435)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, An Example to the West, Another Fine Mess, Australia, Bait and Switch, Banishment, Be Careful Who You Rape, bogus studies, brothels, Canada, Check Your Premises, cops, Cops and Robbers, Cuckoo Advertising, Decentralization, drugs, Europe, Flush Criminalization, Georgia, hysteria, internet, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, Latin America, Legal Is as Legal Does, marriage, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Nice While It Lasted, Oklahoma, Peeping Toms, psychology, rape, sex offender registry, sex rays, streetwalkers, Switzerland, Texas, Uncommon Sense, Under Every Bed, underage, United Kingdom, Utah, yellow journalism on August 30, 2014| 13 Comments »

There’s a collective American fixation on the creepy image of a sex offender salivating just beyond the playground fence, but that’s just not how things usually work. – Jesse Singal

Decentralization

For the first time…a country will officially adopt bitcoin as its currency: Dominica…[made] an agreement…[with] Coinapult, Aspen Assurance, Bitcoin Beauties, and the College Cryptocurrency Network (CCN)…[to] send a small of amount of bitcoin to every island resident via text message…[turning] Dominica…into the most densely concentrated bitcoin community in the world…The launch date…March 15, 2015, at 9:26 a.m., coincides with Pi Day, a global celebration of the mathematical constant…

Above the Law

A grand jury indicted a former [Texas cop]…after he…sexually assaulted an underage girl multiple times…Erasmo Mata Jr., 25, is accused of [raping] a 17-year-old girl during work hours [in] five separate incidents…other [cops] watched Mata commit the sexual assaults and…Pharr Police Chief Ruben Villescas met with the victim’s family…and told them not to hire an attorney…

Legal Is as Legal Does (TW3 #34)

As I’ve stated many times, any artificial bottleneck in the legality of sex work (such as licensing, venue restrictions or immigration controls) inevitably creates problems in the restricted sector:

Police are investigating five illegal brothels across the Geelong [Victoria] region…[with] a new specialist investigation unit dedicated to prosecuting unregistered sex operators. Sergeant Aaron Riches said…“We’re not the moral police but…you’ve been committing a crime by soliciting an illegal sex worker”…Registered brothel Lorraine Starr boss David…welcomed the police crackdown on illegals…“We’ve seen illegal ones open up next to the homes of mums and dads and last year even a school”…

No one is safe from the horror of sex rays!

Under Every Bed

I’m sure every reader has seen 12-year-old strippers and websites where they can “purchase” girls:

…[a “sex trafficking” fetishist publicly fantasized about]…how young at-risk girls fall prey to older “pimps”…victims are typically girls 12 to 14 years of age who encounter older men on the Internet…and are…forced to work as prostitutes, strippers or massage parlor workers in large cities like Atlanta…while there has not yet been a confirmed human trafficking raid in Albany, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation strongly suspects the activity exists…“There are online sites where ‘customers’ can go to ask for a 12-year-old blond, for example and then purchase that girl. Unfortunately, those sites aren’t being shut down”…potential [victims are] more likely to have unsupervised access to a smart phone or…computer…and may walk alone to school or to the local mall…communities can help guard against the threat of human trafficking by…summer lunch programs…and homeless shelters…

An Example to the West (TW3 #316)

Over a dozen Sex Workers…are getting set to travel to Guyana in October where a meeting of Sex Workers from across the Caribbean will take place…Among the countries from which Sex Workers are expected are: Trinidad and Tobago (2), Jamaica (4), Suriname (2), Grenada (3), Antigua (2), and Dominican Republic (3). Some ten Sex Workers from Guyana are also expected to participate…

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #327)

New to Japan, maybe, but not to the Americans they’re emulating:

Police in Japan have adopted a new tactic in the apparently unending struggle against the under-age sex industry, introducing sting operations against minors offering sexual services…In the first six months of this year, officers using these tactics took into custody 220 girls under the age of 18. Instead of arresting first-time offenders, however, the police are providing “cyber correctional guidance”, which warns them of the crimes they are committing and the potential dangers. After a dose of moral re-education, the girls are then taken home and their parents informed…The phenomenon of enjo kosai – which literally means compensated dating…first emerged in Japan in the 1990s. Concerned at the number of men eager to pay for the company of a teenage girl, as well as the appetite of minors for brand-name goods and…the funds to buy them, Japanese authorities passed strict new laws…

Enjo kosai didn’t start in the ’90s, though the term dates to that time; anyone who thinks young girls trading sex for cash is something new is an historical illiterate. As is anyone who isn’t disgusted by the phrase “moral re-education”.

Check Your Premises (TW3 #327)

The University of Missouri has banned obtaining clear consent:

…MU Title IX Coordinator Linda Bennett provided…students…an all-university memo a few weeks ago. Elaborating on an already-overbroad sexual harassment policy, Bennett’s memo seems to prohibit asking for consent for sexual activities. “Examples of behavior that will not be tolerated,” the letter says, include “Requesting another person to engage in a behavior with a sexual body part or enacting a sexual behavior.” (Emphasis added.) How is a student supposed to engage in any sexual activity, except by first requesting that the other person engage in it? Maybe MU doesn’t think consent is sexy, after all…

Be Careful Who You Rape

Maybe if the doctor’s victims had been “good” women, they’d have been investigated in a timely fashion:

A highly paid neurosurgeon who indulged his cocaine addiction…and was directly linked to the death of two prostitutes avoided detection and continued to practise…Dr Suresh Nair worked at the Nepean Private Hospital in Sydney’s western suburbs…He would eventually be charged in connection with the deaths of two sex workers from cocaine toxicity and have his medical licence revoked…many of his patients were horrified to learn…[that] Dr Nair had botched their operations and left them with life-long ailments…Victoria McIntyre…died of a cocaine overdose after a booking at Dr Nair’s apartment…the NSW Medical Board…was not informed…another young escort, Suellen Domingues-Zaupa…[later] suffered a cardiac arrest, but Dr Nair left her for dead as he went elsewhere to continue partying with other escorts. Many questions have been raised about how the doctor was allowed to continue practising…

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #335)

Once again: No, this was NOT the first tippelzone in Europe:

…Zürich…opened Europe’s first municipal drive-in brothel in an old industrial area…Sex workers who agreed to relocate from their traditional…haunts were allowed to ply their trade…with a minimum of fuss…they had to obtain permits and pay tax…”The first year of the service has been positive,” Zurich social services said…authorities admit that not everyone is happy. Some sex workers complain that their earnings have fallen and that they are too far from city-centre bars and nightclubs…

Peeping Toms (TW3 #351)

Last December, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups struck down a central part of the Utah law banning polygamy. [Wednesday] he issued the rest of his ruling…Waddoups found the Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman violated the Browns’ constitutional rights when he oversaw a 2010 investigation into whether [they were] committing bigamy…Buhman eventually decided not to file criminal charges, but Waddoups said the investigation stifled the Browns’ rights to free speech, religion and equal protection. Waddoups ordered Utah to pay the Browns’ attorney fees…Utah’s attorney general says he plans to appeal the case…

Flush Criminalization (TW3 #352)

A…doctor who was among the 104 men swept up in the “Flush the Johns” sting last year has been acquitted of patronizing a prostitute, and his attorney is considering suing Nassau County. Richard Obedian…was the fifth defendant…to take his case to a bench trial. Four of those trials have resulted in acquittals. The doctor was the only defendant to continue to trial since District Attorney Kathleen Rice…began allowing the men to plead guilty to…disorderly conduct…At least one other man arrested in the sting has filed a notice of claim…against the county for false arrest and false imprisonment. Asked for comment…Rice’s office [vomited out disgusting “end demand” propaganda]…

Cops and Robbers

While “sex offender” hysteria appears to have peaked in the US, it’s still ramping up in Canada:

…sex offender Keith Constantin was released from prison in July after five years, but in…a few weeks he was run out of town twice…Constantin, convicted of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy and a 45-year-old blind woman, faced a concerted backlash orchestrated by 200 angry mothers; his face and crimes plastered on posters on every pole in town. In the end…he [was accused of breaking] his curfew and [re-arrested]…growing numbers of grassroots activists…use…posters, taking pictures, pestering to the point of harassment, anything to send the message that sex offenders are not wanted…Organizations like this say they are not vigilantes, but their messaging is questionable. In a promotional video, [one group] uses graphic images with slogans like: “Hurt my kid and I’ll bury you where they’ll never find the body”…

Cuckoo Advertising (TW3 #420)

These “findings” absurdly presume that a woman planning to cheat on her spouse will be totally honest with everyone else:

…According to a new study, women who cheat on their husbands are looking for passion and sex, but they have no desire to end their marriages. Using data from AshleyMadison.com…Eric Anderson…the [business’s] chief science officer…[eavesdropped on] 100 women between the ages of 35 and 45 on the site. After [unethically] reading their conversations with potential lovers, Anderson found that 67 percent of these married ladies were specifically looking for more “romantic passion,” aka sex. None wanted to actually leave their husbands and most even painted their clueless spouses in a positive light…this sample isn’t quite representative — the findings are only generalizable to the women using AshleyMadison…

Nice While It Lasted

Britain’s most senior police chief has called for wide-ranging new powers to tackle…terrorism, including a “rebuttable presumption” that anyone who visits Syria without prior notice should be treated as a terror suspect. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe…also called for a return of control orders and…[backed] Boris Johnson’s proposal for the presumption of innocence to be overturned for Britons who travel to warzones…”If we can get an assumption that when people come back and have been to Syria they’ve been involved in terrorism. If they can prove they haven’t then that’s up to them. It’s pretty hard for us sometimes to prove what they were doing in Syria…”

Above the Law (TW3 #434)

…OHP Trooper Eric Roberts also sexually assaulted [a second woman who has come forward]…Roberts pulled over her car on July 8…and made inappropriate sexual comments to her. She texted a friend with the Trooper’s tag number because she was afraid she might die when he instructed her to follow him…he drove her to a secluded location and sexually assaulted her. The woman…didn’t report it initially because she…thought no one would believe her…

Banishment (TW3 #434)

“Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison beyond their release dates because of a new interpretation of a state law that governs where they can live”…The unfortunate thing about this situation is that laws designed to restrict where sex offenders can live are really and truly useless, except as a means of politicians scoring easy political points by ratcheting up hysteria. There are many tricky social-scientific issues on which there are a range of opinions…among experts, but this isn’t one of them. Among those whose job it is to figure out how to reduce the rate at which sex offenders commit crimes (as opposed to those whose job it is to get reelected, in part by hammering away at phantom threats), there is zero controversy: These laws don’t work, and may actually increase sexual offenders’ recidivism rates…

Bait and Switch

If you believe this, you didn’t read Monday’s column:

A three month investigation ends with more than two dozen arrests for prostitution offenses in Rochester [Minnesota]. The police…posted ads to…backpage.com…Of the 29 arrested, close to half wanted someone underage. Experts say this sting highlights a problem bigger than prostitution…

Another Fine Mess

It’s really gratifying to see an amateur who recognizes that ordinary business practices don’t magically become newsworthy because hookers use them:

It seems that every few years, some intrepid reporter…[makes] the game-changing discovery that a lot of people use the Internet to conduct their business. Though this sounds like an absolute non-story, when the people in question are sex workers…editors are bound to green-light…stories that all essentially reveal…that sex workers advertise and network online…Some of the stories appear to just be comically out-of-touch…and…many such non-stories perpetuate the myth that sex workers are coming for civilians where they least suspect it! They browse among us…better hide the husbands!…

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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”.

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A Few References

Boring but necessary legal stuff