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The Hits Keep Coming

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2011| 13 Comments »

Enough! or Too much!  –  William Blake

As I said in my column of December 9th, there always seems to be an explosion of interesting news articles at the end of the year, and here are seven more updates.  After today, I’m officially done with this sort of thing until January!

Recognition (August 19th, 2010)

In this early post I discussed the awkwardness which results when an escort discovers that she knows a client in real life, but none of the examples I gave can compare with this UPI story from December 3rd:

…Titus Ncube of Bulawayo [Zimbabwe] said he called for a prostitute to come to the hotel room in which he was staying while having marital problems and was shocked when his 20-year-old daughter arrived…Ncube said he collapsed to [the] floor upon recognizing his daughter, who quickly fled, crying.  “I am sorry for what I did,” Ncube said.  “I spoke to my wife and daughter.  I apologized for my actions as I just wanted my family back.  My daughter has stopped doing what she was doing and is going back to school next year.  My marital problems are not over, but we have a counselor who is helping us to get over this most difficult period”…

R.I.P Bob Guccione (October 26th, 2010)

In this article I pointed out that men’s magazine publishers have “to be given credit for pushing the envelope and helping to advance the cause of sexual liberty in the US by bringing both porn and frank discussion of sexual topics (including prostitution) into the mainstream.” Now a new book by Mike Edison explores the history of American men’s magazines in depth so as to prove that assertion, and the author promotes it with “How Sex Magazines Made The World A Better Place” in the December 7th Huffington Post.

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality (October 27th, 2010)

From the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger of December 12th:

A truck driver claims his prostitute fiancee suffocated as they celebrated their engagement with a meth and bondage sex party.  Then he drove from California to Mississippi with the corpse in the cab…and set fire to the truck – with himself and the body inside.  Mark Andrew Rice pleaded guilty to arson and desecrating a corpse and was sentenced Monday to six years in prison…[with] two years…suspended for time served.

Rice, 49…met [Natasha] Carpenter at a truck stop in Texas.  He fell in love after several encounters…and [gave] her an engagement ring…[on] Sept. 15, 2009.  As part of their celebration in Barstow, Calif., Carpenter agreed to let him bind…and…gag…her…When he found her dead, Rice panicked and bought “all the meth his dealer had” and drove to…[Mississippi, where he] planned to say goodbye to his family and kill himself…[but they] took a gun away from him so he climbed into the rig and set it ablaze.  Deputies eventually pulled him from the burning truck…Hancock County authorities believe he would’ve been charged with manslaughter or worse had she died in Mississippi…Prosecutors in San Bernardino County, Calif..said there was “insufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

It’s really quite a sad story, since he seems to have genuinely loved her; I’m guessing the methamphetamine increased her metabolism so that she suffocated more quickly than he allowed for.

Barbie (December 5th, 2010)

In this column I pointed out that “People with a lot of free time and more math skills than sense have published complicated calculations showing that at 1/6 scale, Barbie would be 5’9” tall, with measurements of 36”-18”-33” and a weight of 110#” and that “The campaign to suppress or neuter Barbie derives from the same repressions and insecurities as the campaign to ban porn and abolish prostitution…”  And just as neofeminists aren’t too scrupulous about getting their facts right with regard to porn or prostitution, so they aren’t in their Barbie-attacks either:

Galia Slayen…[told NBC’s “Today” show that] she first created [a 6’ tall] Barbie-like figure — with a 39-inch bust, 18-inch waist and 33-inch hips…for the first National Eating Disorders Awareness week in 2007 while she was [an anorexic] high school student in Portland [Oregon]…”I’m not blaming Barbie [for my illness] — she’s one small factor, an environmental factor,” Slayen said.  “I’m blond and blue-eyed and I figured that was what I was supposed to look like.  She was my idol.  It impacted the way I looked at myself.”

The grotesquely distorted microcephalic figure in the picture (which, as you will note, bears little resemblance to a real Barbie doll) is a perfect symbolic representation of the grotesquely distorted “prostitute” caricatures described by people like Melissa Farley, except that Slayen’s distortion of the math isn’t nearly as severe as that practiced by Farley et al.

Welcome To Our World (January 20th, 2011)

It’s funny how efforts to suppress consensual activities always end up looking a lot alike, as in this December 5th story from the Associated Press:

…Lithuania’s capital [Vilnius] recently introduced a ban on panhandling that not only punishes those who beg but those who give, with fines of up to 2,000 litas ($770).  Outraged rights groups say the ban spells misery for the needy in one of Europe’s poorest countries, as winter kicks in and economic turmoil spreads across the continent…”Begging is a human right,” said Linas Kukuraitis, director of the Lithuanian chapter of Catholic charity group Caritas.  “It was there long before cities emerged.  There have always been those who begged and those who helped them.”

But Vilnius Mayor Arturas Zuokas says the ban will help beggars to find more sustainable ways to make a living.  “Giving money to people on the street is wrong,” Zuokas said.  “By doing this we doom them to stay there forever”…police…are not issuing fines just yet.  Instead they are handing out cards to beggars with addresses and phone numbers of charities and homeless shelters.  Stricter enforcement is expected to begin in January.  The mayor himself rode his bicycle…looking for violators of the ban.  Zuokas made a splash on YouTube earlier this year by riding an armored personnel carrier over a luxury car as a publicity stunt for his crackdown on illegal parking…He said there are plenty of homeless shelters for the poor in Vilnius, “but they stay on the streets because it is a kind of business.”

…Some Asian countries have laws targeting both beggars and almsgivers but European…laws typically focus only on [beggars] and aren’t always strictly enforced.  However, police in Ireland cracked down on panhandlers this year…[and] Austria’s Styria province…introduced a begging ban in February.  None of them punish  almsgivers.  By contrast, Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, abolished a more than 100-year-old vagrancy law in 2005, making it legal to beg in the streets.  It’s also legal in Sweden, Germany, Spain and Portugal…

Note that Sweden and Norway officially believe that beggars have more right to self-determination and making a living in a way that suits them than women do.

Elephant in the Parlor (October 23rd, 2011)

A politician being caught with a prostitute isn’t really news, but for the prostitute to expose the politician is.  This one’s from the December 6th Huffington Post:

The…married mayor [of Medford, New Jersey], accused on a website two months ago of having sex with a prostitute at a California hotel, [has] resigned…The anonymous allegation against…Chris Myers…included a photo of…him in his underwear…[The accuser] claimed to be a prostitute…[whom] Myers contacted…through a male escort website…Myers paid him $500 but didn’t fulfill promises of a car and other gifts…[and that] the broken promise was the reason he was taking his story public.  The website was [soon] taken down…[and though] Myers…refused to comment on the allegations [he] didn’t deny them…His resignation letter…did not mention the scandal…

Saint Death (November 1st, 2011)

The December 10th Miami Herald featured this article on persecution of Umbanda, another syncretism of Christianity with African and Indian beliefs.  The crusade is largely driven by Pentecostal Christians who…wait for it…want to “save” believers from their choices:

…many Brazilians…view Umbanda…as…witchcraft…In many parts of the country, [it] was outlawed until the 1950s, and in the following three decades believers were supposed to register with the police…Brazil’s…1989 constitution enshrined [religious] freedom…but…followers say official disdain and intense prejudice still put their lives and shrines at risk…[they] report on average 100…physical or verbal attacks a year…in…Rio de Janeiro alone…Cases…have increased along with the…power of Pentecostal religions…”There is always a discourse of ‘taking them from the hands of the devil'”…[theologian Fernando] Altemeyer said…Such tensions have come into relief in Sao Goncalo, where Mayor Aparecida Panniset, an outspoken Pentecostal, has been accused of failing to protect Umbanda sites, or even destroying them.  In October, she ignored pleas by religious tolerance activists to stop the demolition of the house where the first Umbanda rituals were held in 1908.  She also turned down requests to meet the activists…then moved ahead with efforts to raze another traditional Umbanda house…

One Year Ago Today

“The Swedish Pimpocracy” shows how the government of Sweden exploits women to “implement a plain old-fashioned tyranny while hiding under the cloak of ‘enlightenment’.”

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December Miscellanea

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2011| 15 Comments »

The freakish is no longer a private zone, difficult of access.  People who are bizarre, in sexual disgrace, emotionally violent are seen daily on the newsstands, on TV, in the subways.  Hobbesian man roams the streets, quite visible, with glitter in his hair.  –  Susan Sontag

…and as usual, we give the most freakish and emotionally disturbed of all power over us, like a medieval Carnival celebration writ large and practiced all year ‘round.  In today’s collection, I’ve saved those for last.

Not To Be Taken Internally

It’s not too often an article leaves me at a loss for words, but…see for yourself, in this November 19th story from NBC Miami:

A Miami Gardens transgender woman is facing charges of practicing medicine without a license after police say she injected a patient’s rear with everything but the kitchen sink in an illegal cosmetic surgery procedure.  Oneal Ron Morris, 30, was arrested Friday after an investigation by Miami Gardens Police and the Florida Department of Health.  According to police, the victim saw Morris in May and was injected in her buttocks with a substance consisting of cement, “Fix a Flat,” mineral oil and super glue…the amateur incision was then sealed with super glue…[and] the victim was later hospitalized with a serious medical condition…Morris, who police say is a man but appears to look like a woman and sports an apparently enhanced rear herself in arrest photos, was being held on $7,500 bond.  It was unknown whether she has an attorney…


Since then, other victims like this one have come forward.  Take a look at Morris’ photo at right and ask yourself, “Would I trust this person’s judgment regarding cosmetic procedures?” The only other thing I have to say is from “February Updates”: “ladies, please, real plastic surgeons do NOT make house calls to hotel rooms!”  Nor, I might add, do they perform procedures at parties.

Higher Education

OK, according to American law filmed harlotry magically becomes legal.  I wonder how this scheme (reported on November 29th in the Huffington Post) would fly in the US?

The world’s first international sex school has opened which claims to teach its students how to be better lovers.  But far from being a cheap thrill, one term at the “hands on” International Sex School in Vienna will cost pupils £1,400.  Swedish-born “headmistress” Ylva-Maria Thompson says anyone over the age of 16 can enroll at what she describes as “the world’s first college of applied sexuality”.  Students live in a mixed sex dormitory block where they’re expected to practise their homework.  “Our core education is not theoretical, but very practical.  The emphasis is on how to be a better lover”, the new school head added.  “Sexual positions, caressing techniques, anatomical features.  And we teach people hands on.”

Thompson is better known for her art exhibitions, including one which displayed 100 casts of Swedish women’s genitals.  Raunchy adverts for the school showing a couple making love have already been banned by Austrian TV.  “This is wrapped up in a very stylish way but it is just selling sex,” one protestor commented.

One has to laugh at the protester’s inane statement, because selling sex is legal in Austria.  I do have to wonder if Thompson’s students could be prosecuted in her native country, though.

Poetic Justice

I hope you’ll forgive me for indulging myself in a moment of schadenfreude, courtesy of Hypervocal:

If you needed any real-world evidence as to why you should never put your name on a building while you’re still alive, former Arapahoe County [Colorado] Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. has you covered.  The National Sheriff Association’s 2001 “Sheriff of the Year” was arrested on [November 29th], suspected of trafficking methamphetamine,  according to CBS Denver.  The 68-year-old Sullivan served as Arapahoe County [Colorado] Sheriff for 19 years before retiring from his elected post in 2002.  The investigation leading up to his arrest…began on Nov. 17th when several police informants connected Sullivan to the use and distribution of meth.  “As part of the investigation authorities say Sullivan agreed to meet a male informant and provide the man drugs in exchange for sex”…

Here’s the kicker:  Sullivan, who is being held on $250,000 bond, is sitting in the Arapahoe County Jail.  His new home is better known by its updated name:  The Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. Detention Facility.  Current Arapahoe County sheriff, Grayson Robinson, said Sullivan will likely be charged with a felony count drug count, with additional charges against him and other suspects to follow.  If he is convicted of the class-five felony, he faces one to six years in prison…

This story could almost have served as an update to “Wholesale Hypocrisy” or even “Reaction Formation”, since the CBS report notes that this “dedicated, loyal, available,” dope-dealing “hero” who posted bond for drug suspects on numerous occasions over the past few years was simultaneously “an active participant in state and local methamphetamine task forces, helping craft a state plan to deal with the scourge of methamphetamine.”  Well, I guess they went straight to the source.  I wonder if he’ll be prosecuted as a “human trafficker” too, since he offered to pay for sex and Colorado politicians claim that “end demand” initiatives will “cut down on the enormous public harm that comes from human trafficking”.  Alas, it’s much more likely he’ll just get the usual slap on the wrist after his defense says he fell off of his bicycle or became an addict due to some act of wonderful, selfless heroism.

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical

As students of hysteria know, the vast majority of panics would be extremely short-lived if people actually bothered to investigate the moronic claims made by authority figures such as “the average age at which a woman enters prostitution is 13” or “there is a 40% increase in domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday” (as described in my column of one year ago today).  Of course, they never do, and neither do the self-proclaimed “authorities” themselves.  All it takes is for some glorified security guard in Arizona to declare that teenagers are using vodka-soaked tampons to get drunk without booze breath and before you know it cops and media from sea to shining sea are reporting it as Gospel.  The idea of thinking critically about the claim or simply visiting The Straight Dope  or Snopes or Mythbusters or The Honest Courtesan never occurs to these yo-yos, and the result is stuff like this November 30th story from Huffington Post:

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office is warning parents that an increased sighting of depictions of a cartoon-like bear that is linked to pedophiles could be an indication of increased child sex offender activity in the Albuquerque area.  “Our ICAC unit has received reports that the Pedobear window sticker has been sighted in Albuquerque on at least two vehicles recently,” said New Mexico Attorney General Gary King.  The concept of the Pedobear was made popular a couple years ago on the Internet forum 4chan.  The bear illustration was a joke aimed at people who were inadvertently creepy about children.  The bear, however, has since been embraced by pedophiles, according to the attorney general’s office.  The Pedobear, they allege, “has a sexual interest in underage girls” and has spread from use among an online subculture to the mainstream…

Last year flyers circulated of a Pedobear masquerading as a TSA agent, and in May a man dressed as the Internet-based Pedobear was escorted by police from the San Diego Comic Con event, where he had been distributing candy to children.  It is not illegal for people to display the Pedobear image in public.  Some people may be displaying them as a joke, but the attorney general’s office said they are taking the bear images seriously and are trying to get the word out.  “We are very concerned about the potential link between the Pedobear symbol and pedophiles; we also want to increase public awareness of the potential danger to children, especially young girls,” King said.


Because, you know, pedophiles are usually strangers who wear funny costumes to attract the attention of every single adult in the area before swooping down on unsuspecting prepubescent girls, only they’re not.  Of course, this is Albuquerque, the city which seems determined to win some kind of award for police and governmental corruption, incompetence  and all-around control freakishness.  Still, they’re just taking their cues from San Diego, which started this particular nonsense last year with a hilarious two-page flyer that sounds like it was composed by the bastard child of a cop and a failed writer of vintage Hollywood ad copy.  The sick minds of police are compelled to project their own internal ugliness onto the external world, so it’s inevitable that they would fantasize that a tool of community self-policing is “really” a badge of criminality that they have to “protect” people from by imposing further tyranny.

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The Law of Averages

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 27, 2011| 27 Comments »

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.  –  H.L. Mencken

One year ago today I published “November Q & A”, in which I answered the questions “Would you like to do a science fiction anthology with sex work as a subject?”, “How were you able to get through anal rape without screaming?”,  “Did a condom ever break inside you?” and “Doesn’t monogamy get kinda old  for a sexually liberated woman like yourself?”  But from an activist standpoint, the most important question was, “So if the average age at which a woman enters prostitution isn’t really 13, what age is it?”  In retrospect, I probably should’ve given that question a column of its own or at least led off with it, because whenever I’ve referred back to that post I have to specify that it’s the second answer.  So today, I plan to revisit the subject and recalculate the figure using excerpts from previous columns, thus bringing a few threads together in one easily-linked place.

If you’re arguing with someone who has bought into the trafficking mythology and won’t sit still for the recitation of figures, there’s a very simple reductio ad absurdum with which you can point out the impossibility of the claim:  If the “average age” of a given group of people is 13, that means that (roughly speaking) for every 14-year-old in the group there is a 12-year-old, for every 17-year-old a 9-year-old, etc.  In other words, if the “average age at which a girl enters prostitution” were really 13, for every woman who started at 25 there would be someone who started at 1.  Obviously, this isn’t exact; one 40-year-old could also be balanced by nine 10-year-olds, but I honestly don’t think even the trafficking fanatics believe that kind of age imbalance could possibly exist.  They simply don’t consider the implications of their bogus “statistics”; they merely parrot them without thought and therefore never recognize just how ludicrous they are.  But who started this nonsense in the first place?

As so often happens, the bogus “fact” is based on a (possibly deliberate) distortion of a miscalculation in a deeply-flawed, badly-structured 2001 study by Richard Estes and Neil Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania entitled “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U. S., Canada and Mexico”, which is also the source of the ubiquitous (and equally erroneous) claim that “100,000-300,000 American children are trafficked as sexual slaves”.  Estes and Weiner claim that among the underage prostitutes they studied, “The age range of entry…for the boys…was somewhat younger than that of the girls, i.e., 11-13 years vs. 12-14 years, respectively.”  In other words, they claimed that the “13 at entry” figure was only for underage prostitutes, not for all prostitutes, and even then it’s absurd as explained in the preceding paragraph.  Without seeing Estes & Weiner’s data we can’t be sure exactly what statistical errors they made, but as Emi Koyama of Eminism explains, there’s a built-in error caused by using the artificial cutoff age of 18:

For the sake of discussion, let’s pretend that in a small town, six minors enter into prostitution each year, one individual each for ages 12-17.  That means that there is one 12 year old, one 13 year old, one 14 year old, and so on.  The average age of entry in this hypothetical town is the average of these six individuals, which is (12+13+14+15+16+17)/6 = 14.5.  But when researchers arrive in this town, they don’t just survey these six minors:  they will also survey others who have started prostitution in the years past.  So for any given year when the research is conducted, there are one 12 year old (who entered at 12), two 13 year olds (entered at 12 and 13), three 14 year olds (entered at 12, 13, and 14), and so on.  The average among all of these youth will be…13.7 – which is almost one year younger than the actual average age of entry.  This discrepancy is caused by limiting the research subject to minors.  [One] who entered into prostitution at age 12 has six years in which he or she might be surveyed…while [one] who entered at 17 has only one year, which artificially inflates the proportion of research participants who entered early.  In short, we cannot know the actual “average age of entry” by simply averaging the age of entry reported by research participants.

Though Estes & Weiner didn’t share their data the charts provided by the anti-prostitute organization Shared Hope International (which seems to be the original source of the distortion from “the average underage prostitute” to “the average prostitute”) demonstrate (as Emi calculates) an average of 15.91, three years higher than their verbal claims and slightly higher than the average reported by the John Jay study, which was 15.15 for girls and 15.28 for boys.  Incidentally, it also found that only 15% of teen hookers entered the trade at an age below 13, which absolutely demolishes any notion of 13 as “average”.

In last November’s essay I reported a study of 100 independent escorts which asked how old they were when they entered the trade; it generated the following results:

Younger than 15: 3%
15-17: 11%
18-20: 13%
21-23: 18%
24-26: 16%
27-29: 10%
30-32: 10%
Older than 32: 19%

A secondary poll of the “over 32” respondents revealed that the average age for that category was 42; we can estimate the average for the “under 15″ category as the fanatics’ beloved 13. Given these figures, the average age of entry into prostitution for American escorts is 26.46, which we’ll round down to 26.  It’s difficult to know what percentage of all American prostitutes are escorts, but I would suspect 60% is a good guesstimate; with our standard 15% streetwalker estimate that would allow 25% in brothels and massage parlors.

At the time I wrote the previous article I had not yet made my study of the New Zealand figures and so was forced to err on the fanatics’ side regarding the number of streetwalkers who are underage.  But based on that data, we can now make a much better estimate:  there are roughly 16,000 underage female prostitutes in the U.S., of whom roughly 12,000 (75%) are streetwalkers.  The total U.S. streetwalker population is approximately 70,000, therefore underage streetwalkers are about 17% of the total.  Assuming that the average adult streetwalker starts about the same age as the average escort (which is probably a bit too high, but we’ll make it up on brothel girls in the next paragraph), and that the average underage streetwalker starts at 15 (the John Jay figure), we arrive at an average streetwalker entry age of 24.

There are about 443,000 prostitutes in the United States, of which we’ve estimated 25% (111,000) work in brothels or massage parlors.  If we assume that the 25% of underage prostitutes who aren’t streetwalkers work in brothels (the percentage who are escorts is miniscule), that gives us 4000/111,000 = 3.6% of brothel workers who are underage, essentially equal to the total underage figure of 3.54%.  I’m going to err on the fanatics’ side and assume that the average adult brothel worker begins at the overall streetwalker average of 24, and that the average underage brothel worker begins at the same age as the average underage streetwalker, namely 15; this gives us an average starting age for brothel workers of 23.68, which I’m going to round down to 23 to be on the safe side.

So let’s crunch the numbers:  if 60% start at an average age of 26, 15% at an average age of 24 and 25% at an average age of 23, the average age at which American hookers enter the profession is 24.95, which we’ll round off to 25; I think everyone can agree that’s safely into the adult range.

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Divided We Fall

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2011| 27 Comments »

Every person knows that he should do what unites, not divides, him and other people.  –  Leo Tolstoy

In the ‘60s, prostitutes and homosexuals were in the roughly the same place legally; both of us were treated as criminals for our private sexual behavior.  Socially and psychologically, though, we had it better than they did:  while prostitutes were recognized as essentially normal and sane, homosexuals were considered abnormal and mentally ill.  Both groups started to fight for their civil rights about the same time, but while queers have won theirs whores have actually lost ground since then; most people now consider homosexuals sane and more or less normal, while the official position in many countries (especially the United States and several Scandinavian countries) is that whores are abnormal and mentally ill.  How did this sorry turn of events come to pass, especially since exclusive homosexuals make up less than 5% of the population while a similar fraction of women have prostituted themselves at least occasionally, and 69% of men have paid for sex at least once?

The answer is simple:  gay men and lesbians, two groups with almost nothing in common, banded together to defeat laws and policies which criminalized and marginalized them, but whores have instead allowed other women to undermine us by implementing policies which deny us agency and treat us like retarded children.  In other words, gay rights leaders built a coalition of a number of very small groups, while women – over half the human race – allowed our energies to be divided by giving a “bully pulpit” to a twisted minority faction whose members hate men, sex and their own femininity, and wish to destroy every aspect of traditional male-female social relations…including one of the oldest forms, prostitution.  And while the gay rights coalition just keeps growing (from “gay and lesbian” to “GLBT” to “GLBTQ” to whatever alphabet soup it is now), we divide our already-divided energies even further by wasting them in foolish infighting or spending them on gay rights efforts despite the fact that few of them help us in turn, and some of them even work against us!  Fortunately, now that they’ve won their place at the “big table”, some few gay rights activists seem to be recognizing the shamefulness of this attitude:

…What is it that so disturbs us about sex workers?  And do we even have a right to that judgment?  Specifically, does a member of a marginalized community have the right to condemn another marginalized community?  Do they still have that right if they are sitting on a bar stool watching hard bodied go go boys?…maybe it is not sex work we despise, but  the public display of same.  If that is the case, then what of cruising, and the hyper speed electronic cruising created by various phone apps?  Maybe that is okay, and sex work is not, for financial reasons?  If the working girls and guys of the world were out there giving freebies would we be okay with it?  At that point it is just anonymous sex, and since nobody seems to be  looking for a husband on Grindr, I presume we are mostly okay with that…

…The hard fast truth is a majority of sex workers are in the profession completely on a voluntary basis, and for many, it has more to do with the freedom the job offers than any financial consideration.  This is the denied voice—the words not spoken when we attempt to co-opt the sex professions for our own advocacy needs.  We will not  help anyone by demeaning them, and as much as we may wish to rationalize otherwise, we are really just trying to forward our own agendas at the expense of others.  Further, people generally make the mistake of assuming sex work is not a legitimate occupation, and so must be looked at differently.  Are there sex workers who took the job because there were no others available to them?  Because it meets their financial needs better than any other?  Who suffer from the choice because they hate the job?  Of course, but I know carpenters that would fit that description just as well.  Is anyone advocating on their behalf?…How is sex work different?

But, you say, sex work is against the law.  Okay, point taken.  I can not argue against current illegality of sex work.  But I can make the case for tolerance.  For starters, the lynch mob, police crack down attitude is useless.  Interesting that police are meeting with neighborhood  residents to address a large uptick in prostitution, when there is not one.  It is not as though a whole bunch of locals decided to turn tricks and all showed up on one block.  No, they moved, to escape the last neighborhood crackdown.  Sex work is not something you eliminate, just something you pawn off on the neighbor…

…we start by dropping our middle class puritanical objections and learn to accept that sex workers are humans and deserve basic rights and dignity just like everyone.  We also learn to accept that they too have the right to self determination, and assure that efforts to help them are never confused with efforts to save them.  We further recognize that this is a part of our community, as there are many LGBTIQ identified sex workers…We need to be, dare I say it, tolerant and accepting.

I’m disgusted to hear that some members of the queer community actually argue against prostitution on the grounds that it’s against the law, when male homosexual activity was illegal in most states within the lifetimes of most of these middle-class, puritanical homos, and only became legal in some states in 2003.  The existence of evil laws is not a valid argument against whatever it is those laws ban, and it certainly isn’t an excuse for ignoring the rights of those who break those laws; homosexuals of all people should understand this, and it’s sad that some pretend not to.  Though the people who have abandoned queerness (with all the word entails) for respectability may object to my borrowing their former slogan, I say to them:  “We’re here, we’re whores, get used to it!”

One Year Ago Today

“License To Rape” is a power many cops grant themselves over whores…and some cops grant themselves over all women.

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Don’t Take My Word For It

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , on September 29, 2011| 47 Comments »

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.  –  The Sherman Brothers

In my column of September 18th I related the story of how my 17-year-old self tried to gently explain to a very unattractive young man (whom I called “Ralph”) what he might do to make himself less so; it wasn’t easy because while I was trying to tell him the truth, I was also trying very hard not to hurt his feelings.  That’s very important to most normal women; we don’t really like distressing people, especially not men, so when put into a position where something unpleasant has to be said, many women simply lie to spare the other person’s feelings.  Those who don’t lie outright generally attempt to  soften the impact, often by downplaying the most painful aspects or using humor to cut the sting.

One of the things I said in the aforementioned column was, “Unfortunately, Ralph wasn’t really all that unusual; there are a lot of men who admit they don’t understand how women think, yet angrily deny any explanation a woman tries to give them.”  One of the most common denials takes the form of “that’s just your opinion”; by pretending in his own mind that the woman’s explanation is not a fact but a mere personal belief, he can still convince himself that many (perhaps most) women feel differently.  That’s the reason for the “racism” defense to the NBA issue; by accusing the woman of “racism” he pretends that the problem is based only in her (bigoted) opinion rather than in reality, and his ego is safe.  Most of my male readers are pretty open-minded guys, and judging by the comments I think most of y’all recognize that I know what I’m talking about and I’m careful to distinguish my opinions from things I’ve observed as fact or discovered through research or analysis.  Even so, there are probably a few of you out there who have your doubts about the whole women-look-at-sex-differently thing, so today I’d like to call your attention to a pair of recent essays from other women (one pro and one amateur) which back me up.  I think it’s important to do this because there are very few honest essays about this subject; neofeminists lie about it to promote their agenda, many sex-positive feminists misrepresent it for their own reasons, and most regular women lie or avoid the topic so as to spare men’s egos.  But these ladies have tackled it, using humor to provide Mary Poppins’ spoonful of sugar.

The first is an August 28th blog post from an English escort named Sensuous Amanda, which I discovered via cross-posting on Harlot’s Parlour:

If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard “I reckon I’d make a great male escort, don’t you think so?”  I’d have a significant amount of pennies.  What’s your point/the problem?  I hear you ask.  Well, there are several, to be honest.  For starters, the men who have the most unshakeable belief that they would be perfect male escorts, tend to be the ones who are 5’2”, average looking and (most importantly) humourless little personality vacuums…

Whilst I won’t say there is no market for straight male escorts, I will tell you that it is a teeny tiny market and it is awash with bright eyed hopefuls.  As far as I know, even the successful guys do it part time and have another job to pay the rent.  My guess (and that’s all it is) would be that there is a small demand for two types of male escort:

1)  The educated, well spoken, reasonably handsome, good listener.  The perfect gentleman who can listen to your problems, massage your feet, snuggle up on the sofa and can accompany you to any social occasion without drawing attention to himself for the wrong reasons and will have your fellow W.I. members frothing at the mouth with jealousy.  Not because he’s a young stud, (women – in general – don’t really work like that.  We would point, laugh and pour scorn upon the woman who turned up with a 20 year old shag toy)…but because he was the perfect gentleman.  The coveted Mr. Darcy.

2)  The 20-30 year old buff, tanned shag toy…[who] won’t be taken out in public…

The thing is though, that in general, women don’t want the first type to be a charade.  We want a man to be all of those things to us because he wants to be.  Not because we’ve just handed him a wad of twenties…Anyway, the point I was going to make, which has got completely lost in an avalanche of waffle, is this.  Boys, go for it if you want, but don’t rely on it for income.  For instance, my ex – a tall strapping chap, pretty good looking, in his early 30s at the time – advertised his services.  He’d seen what I was earning and decided that he wanted in on the action.  He never made a sodding penny.  Nothing.  Not so much as an email or a call.  Not even a timewaster.  However, he missed a trick.  He was bisexual and if he’d announced that in his advertising, things may have turned out very differently.  And THAT dear wannabe male escorts is the thing.  You wanna be a male escort?  Fine, you go for it sweetie.  You wanna make real money as a male escort?  Lube up, bend over and take one for the team.

The second one was a September 15th post on The Gloss which I discovered via a link on Tits and Sass:

The phenomenon of hiring a male stripper to celebrate your impending nuptials is a hard one to explain.  I, for one, do not quite understand the void that it fills in the life of the soon to be married woman.  In fact, if aliens arrived on this planet and the first thing they encountered was a greased up naked man tossing around a group of women, they would probably annihilate the lot of us, for being a superfluous species.  And yet, women continue to enlist oiled up muscle heads to entertain them at bachelorette parties, so clearly I am missing something.  I had a strict No Penis Policy at my own bachelorette party, a theme which one of my friends pointed out may have gone too far when we ended up at a strip club with topless ladies dancing around for us early Sunday morning.

Note the three chicks at stage right.

But to be honest, female strippers just make more sense to me than male strippers.  They’re (usually) hot ladies who take their clothes off while (mostly) men watch.  Men are highly visual beings, and there are actually a surprising number of body types on stage at the strip clubs I’ve been to…Male strippers are much different.  For starters, I’m sure some women lust after bare chested juice heads.  But most don’t.  And that is the standard model male stripper that arrives at your door…Simply put, women aren’t as visual about their desires as men are.  I think I can prove this with a simple comparison.  Men love magazines filled with scantily clad women.  This fact has kept Hugh Hefner wandering around a mansion in his pajamas for the last six decades.  Women?  Not so much.  This is probably why Playgirl  is a magazine for gay men.

All of that might also explain why male strippers don’t just dance for their patrons.  Often times they toss women in the air, rub themselves on their privates and bend them into positions and shapes that resemble terrible yoga poses.  If women weren’t paying for the pleasure of such treatment, these things would likely be considered criminal in a court of law…what you can expect when hiring a male stripper…[is] more like a gay cabaret show than anything involving my sexual fantasies.  And yet, women continue to pay for the pleasure of being swung around by these men before their friends get married…

And there you have it.  If you’ve got the time, I suggest reading them in unedited form because they’re  both quite amusing and the pictures on the male stripper one are priceless, and there’s one feminist commenter there whose tail-chasing performance (trying to convince the female author that her feelings and experiences are wrong because they contradict “social construction of gender”) is a lesson in itself.

One Year Ago Today

“One Step Forward” reports the Ontario High Court decision, still being appealed by Ottawa a year later, which struck down Canada’s dangerous and tyrannical prostitution laws.

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One Born Every Minute

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 24, 2011| 11 Comments »

There’s a sucker born every minute.  –  P.T. Barnum

I understand the desire to believe in fantasies; I really do.  I’m 44 years old and I still occasionally daydream about finding a djinni in a bottle; I enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories and movies and even comic books, for goodness’ sake.  But if someone offered to sell me a djinni, a future-predicting device or a power ring, I’d make damned sure it worked (under test conditions of my own choosing) before I even considered talking about the possibility of negotiating the transfer of one red cent.  Most people, alas, are far less skeptical, and some are so hopelessly credulous that con games, work-from-home offers, pyramid schemes, emails from African bankers and many other scams find enough pigeons to make them worthwhile.  Because prostitution is illegal in this country and on the fringes of legality in many others, it has its share of scams; extortionists and practitioners of cash and dash (described in my column of one year ago today) are con artists posing as prostitutes, and whores themselves are often the targets of advertising scams (such as the one discussed in my column of last October 3rd) or attempts to set them up for robbery, rape or abduction.  For example, a particularly vile con artist in Florida has been preying on escorts for at least a year now with emails like this one:

Hello, my name is Paul Geary.  I’m a partner in A G P (Azoff Geary Paul) we are a management firm that represents various musical artists.  One of the bands we rep is Godsmack.  The drummer of that band is Shanon Larkin.  Shannon has a break coming up from the current tour that the band is on.  He will have about two weeks off and is going to S. Florida, to deal w/ a house and a few cars that he recently purchased there.  He has been extremely busy and going very hard for the last few months and is looking to take some time to decompress.  He actually had wanted me to try and contact you when he was in Houston recently, however there just wasn’t time for that to happen while he was there.  Apparently he had saved your info and now has asked me again, to try and contact you to see if you are available, to travel immediately to Florida to spend a few days w/ him there.  I cant at this time really tell you exactly how long you would be w/him there, however I can and will guarantee to you, a minimum of two days, w/a very strong possibility of it extending for a longer period of time.  That of course will depend on how well the two of you get along.  I have to be honest w/ you, and tell you that I do think its a little ridiculous for him to want to fly anyone, (nothing specifically aimed at you personally) across the country for something such as this.  As you can imagine there are a bounty of beautiful women in S Florida that I could, (and much more easily for everyone i might add) have make his acquaintance.  However  he has made it clear that he in fact doesn’t wish to do it this way.  He wants to see you, so, since that is his wish, that is what I’ll attempt to do.  That is the reason for this very long E mail.  I simply wanted to try and give you  as much Info on me and my firm so you can do your due diligence and check that this is a real and legitimate offer.  So you know we do have a full in house travel dept. that will take care of all your travel arrangements by booking you ROUND TRIP flight, your hotel, as well as your rental car.  This will all be booked pre -paid and you will have E Mail confirmations sent to you to.  You will then be able check in on line, as well as print out all your itineraries before leaving to go see him.  If you are interested and available to see Shannon  A.S,A,P, please give me a call @  561-866-9420 or simply E mail me at this Addy. and let me know.      Thanks  Paul

The scam attempts to prey on both the girl’s greed and any tendency toward celebrity worship she may have; girls who accept the offer (and I’ve heard of a few) are robbed of money and credit cards and stranded in Florida.  Due to criminalization, whores in the United States who fall for such tricks have no recourse, but in Spain prostitution is legal so the victims of this one (as reported in the Telegraph on August 12th) were able to go to the police:

The gang of six based in Fuengirola on Spain’s Costa del Sol made at least €50,000…after persuading some 180 men to pay a joining fee to register as gigolos.  The elaborate scam lured men in with advertisements in the national media promising vast returns for wining and dining lonely women.  Men…were then asked to pay joining fees of between €200 and €1,000… to be put on the books of “reputable agencies”.  But the online agencies were hoaxes and the clients never materialised.  Police said the masterminds behind the scam were a husband and wife and her older brother.  Three others were arrested for opening bank accounts used to transfer money from the victims for five per cent of the profits.  None of those arrested nor those that fell for the scam have been named.  Police said they uncovered the network after receiving complaints from different men who said they had never received any work as a result of signing up with the agencies.

As regular readers know there simply aren’t enough women willing to pay for sex with men to keep such an agency in business, but the myth persists (encouraged by Hollywood fantasies like Hung and Gigolos) and when I had my agency I regularly received calls from men who honestly believed there was a market for male prostitutes catering solely to women.  And as with every unrealistic fantasy, it was only a matter of time before some sleazy person found a way to take advantage of it.

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Handy Figures

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2011| 22 Comments »

Numbers buzz in my head like wasps.  –  Dr. Lisa Van Horn (Osa Massen) in Rocketship X-M

Today’s column is merely a handy compilation of numbers and figures which have previously appeared in other columns, arranged in order of decreasing magnitude.  Because of the shadowy nature of our trade these are all estimates, but most of the links will lead the reader to the source of the estimate or the column in which I explain how it was calculated.

27 million:  According to a December 2010 “estimate” by “Free the Slaves”, the total number of people “trapped in modern-day slavery”  (see also “800,000” below).

$22.6 million:  Total annual amount the State of Texas spends on imprisoning prostitutes.

800,000:  According to the U.S. State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons” report for 2004, the total number of “human trafficking victims” worldwide (see also “27 million” above and “300,000“, “80,000“, “17,500” and “>10%” below).

443,323:  The total number of active, declared prostitutes in the United States.

100,000-300,000:  According to trafficking fanatics, the number of “trafficked child prostitutes” in the United States; this is the result of a misquote from the 2001 Estes and Weiner study which estimated 100,000-300,000 children, adolescents and young adults “at risk of sexual exploitation”, with sex trafficking as the rarest category of “exploitation”  (see also “15,694“, “17,500” and “2511” below).

80,000:  The number of Filipino women who lost good jobs in Japan due to U.S. State Department meddling, “for their own good” (see also “800,000” above and “>10%” below).

70,000:  The total number of streetwalkers in the US  (see also “443,323” above).

15,694:  The total number of all American prostitutes under 18.

14,500-17,500:  2008 federal estimate of all “trafficked persons” of all ages and employment types (sex, agriculture, etc) in the US.

2511: The total number of coerced (whether “trafficked” or not) prostitutes under 18 in the US.

160x:  High-end estimate of the factor by which the rate of sexually transmitted infections in the promiscuous segment of the general public exceeds that in the escort population  (see also “3-5%“, “2x” and “0.4%” below).

97%:  Percentage of escorts who report an increase in self-esteem after they entered the trade (see also “72%” and “60%” below).

84%:  The percentage of underage prostitutes in New York City who have never even met a pimp.

81%:  Fraction of Swedes who report being “angry” about the criminalization of prostitution clients (contrast with the Swedish government claim that 76% support the law).

80%:  According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, the fraction of “human trafficking” cases involving forced prostitution.  Another popular guess is 46% (from a study by the University of California at Berkeley), and other “authorities” claim numbers as low as 20%.

78%:  Fraction of Dutch citizens who feel that prostitution is a job like any other.

77%:  The percentage of escorts who feel their clients respect them.

75%:  The percentage of escorts who feel the job improved their lives.

72%:  The percentage of all prostitutes who report that their work has increased their self-esteem  (see also “97%” above).

70%:  The percentage of Australian prostitutes who said they would choose the same trade if they had their lives to live over again.

69%:  According to Kinsey (1948), the percentage of men who have paid for sex at least once in their lives.  Other studies have generated numbers as high as 80% and more recent studies much lower ones by careless phrasing (e.g., “employ prostitutes” rather than “have ever paid for sex”), but Kinsey’s is the estimate that best fits my own observations and those of many other pros.

60%:  My own estimate of the fraction of American prostitutes who are escorts (either independent or agency).

54%:  The percentage of escorts who consider the transaction as equal.

>50%:  The fraction of pimped streetwalkers (see below) who control their pimps rather than vice-versa.

<50%:  The percentage of streetwalkers who work with pimps at least part of the time.

33%:  Sweden’s official estimate of the fraction of all Swedish prostitutes who are streetwalkers; note that it is more than twice as high as the standard estimate for Western countries (see “15%” below).

26%:  The percentage of escorts who feel they have power over their clients.

25%:  Estimated decrease in the American rape rate if prostitution were legalized.

25%:  The fraction of Queensland prostitutes with a university degree.

25:  By my own calculations (see link for details), the average age at which American prostitutes enter the trade.

20%:  The percentage of men who see prostitutes at least occasionally.

16:  According to the 2001 Estes & Weiner study, the average age at which underage prostitutes enter the trade (see also “13-14” below).

15%:  The fraction of all Western prostitutes who are streetwalkers.

13-14:  According to prohibitionist propaganda, the average age at which prostitutes enter the trade; this is derived from a purposeful distortion by Melissa Farley of the age at which underage streetwalkers in one study reported they had their first noncommercial sexual contact of any kind.

11%:  In a 1910 study, the fraction of New York prostitutes who reported that they were coerced into the trade (from Russell’s Renegade History of the United States; see also “8%” below).

>10%:  According to the U.S. State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons” report for 2004, the fraction of all “human trafficking victims” who were “enslaved” in Japanese hostess clubs (see also “800,000” and “80,000” above).

10%:  Fraction of Dutch prostitutes who are genetically male; half are male prostitutes (many of them cross-dressers) and the other half transsexuals.

10%:  The percentage of Swedish girls who admit to having accepted money for sex.

10%:  The estimated percentage of streetwalkers in Western countries who are controlled or dominated by pimps  (see also “1.5%” below).

10:  The number of American states which allow prostitutes to be sentenced to prison.

5-10%:  Historically, the percentage of the female population who prostituted themselves at least part-time, varying by time and place (from Roberts’ Whores in History).

8%:  High-end estimate for the fraction of female inhabitants of 1840s London who were employed as prostitutes  (from Roberts’ Whores in History).

8%:  Fraction of underage New York prostitutes who say they were forced into prostitution.

7%:  Fraction of prostitutes targeted by a recent FBI underage prostitution “sting” who actually turned out to be under 18 (no figures are available on what fraction were below the local age of consent).

6%:  The percentage of men who see prostitutes frequently.

5.5%:  Typical percentage of the female inhabitants of a 19th-century European or American city who were employed as prostitutes at any given time (from Roberts’ Whores in History).

3-5%:  Fraction of STD cases in the United States which are either suffered or transmitted by prostitutes;  93% of these are associated with streetwalkers (see also “160x” above and “2x” and “0.4%” below).

4%:  Approximate conviction rate for arrests made in the FBI’s “Operation Innocence Lost”.

3.54%:  The fraction of Western prostitutes who are under 18.

2.3%:  Fraction of women in the general population who report their husbands or boyfriends are “extremely controlling”.

2x:  Factor by which the rate of sexually transmitted infections in the promiscuous segment of the general public exceeds that in streetwalkers  (see also “160x” and “3-5%” above, and “0.4%” below).

<2%:  The fraction of Cambodian prostitutes who say they were coerced into the trade (see also “1.5%” below).

1.5%:  The overall percentage of adult prostitutes in Western nations who are controlled by abusive pimps.

1.2%:  Fraction of women in the general population who report their husbands or boyfriends are “extremely violent”.

1%:  The percentage of modern American women who admit to having prostituted themselves at some point in their lives (from the National Task Force on Prostitution, quoted in Sex Work by Delacoste & Alexander).

0.4%:  The estimated fraction of all STD cases in the United States which are either suffered or transmitted by escorts or brothel workers (see also “160x“, “3-5%” and “2x” above).

0.285%:  The percentage of women in modern Western cultures who work as prostitutes at any given time.

0.014%:  The fraction of missing “children” (most of whom are actually adolescents) who are abducted by strangers; only some of these might be the victims of sex traffickers.

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April Miscellanea (Part One)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2011| 43 Comments »

The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.  In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.  –  Hannah Arendt

It’s time for my monthly collection of stories related to sex work, the rights of those who do it and the attempts of sex-haters to repress us out of existence.

Judd Not, Lest Ye Be Judded

In my column of April 2nd I expressed considerable anger toward Ashley Judd’s poisonous lie that normal men “buy children for sex” (i.e. knowingly hire underage prostitutes).  But after hearing about this new story I have to wonder whether she isn’t completely delusional.  Apparently, she recently released a memoir in which she claims to have been raped and otherwise sexually abused by family members and other parties.  But when confronted with the fact that most of the events in her memoir didn’t happen as she claimed they did, Judd said on the Today show that “The book is very honest, it’s not necessarily accurate, because everyone in a family has their own perspective and their own experience.  But it’s very true for me.”  In other words, Judd thinks it’s OK to libel and slander people and accuse them of crimes they didn’t commit as long as one wants to pretend these things happened in order to blame somebody else for her problems, or to hold a pity party for herself in order to prop up a sagging career.  And since she obviously thinks it’s acceptable and even “honest” to defame the characters of her own parents, I guess her accusing the majority of the male population of collusion in child sex slavery isn’t so bad.  The Salon reporter who wrote this story from April 6th clearly thinks it’s virtuous to trash other peoples’ reputations in order to make oneself feel better, but the majority of the commenters are far more rational.

Breaking News:  President Obama has a Human Friend!

I’m glad this “dog bites man” article wasn’t more publicized than it was.  The president has a friend who got caught doing what 70% of men have done at one time or another.  From the Huffington Post of April 6th:

One of President Barack Obama’s close friends has been arrested in Honolulu on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute.  Honolulu police say Robert “Bobby” Titcomb was one of four men arrested in an undercover sting operation late Monday and released on $500 bail.  The 49-year-old Titcomb attended Punahou School in Honolulu with Obama.  The two often golf, play basketball, go to the beach and dine together when the president returns home to Hawaii for vacation…Titcomb has not publicly responded to the charges, and he wasn’t immediately available for comment.

And just in case you’re still awake, here’s another non-news item:

I Told You So

Same song, 365th verse:  the number of men who can make a decent living working as male escorts for female customers is vanishingly small, and I doubt there’s a city on Earth where there are five of them.  But TV is not reality and in male fantasyland there are just oodles of women lining up to pay for sex with men.  Unfortunately for the Showtime network, in reality women have to be paid to pretend that they’re willing to pay to have sex with men.  Yawn.

Also in Jezebel:

Anna North wonders if cops are committing more sex crimes than they used to in a story which compares a firefighting instructor’s use of sexual metaphors with forcible rape.  Frankly, Miss North, I doubt they’re committing more rapes these days than ever before; it’s just that because of the internet it’s harder for them to suppress the stories than it used to be.

Video:  Sex Workers Refute the Claims of Neofeminist Prohibitionists

Though the sound quality in this video (courtesy of Harlot’s Parlour) leaves much to be desired, the girls in it make many of the same arguments I do about the fact that neofeminist efforts to prohibit sex work actually infantilize women and restrict our rights rather than promoting them as the prohibitionists claim.

Backfire

Demi Moore and her boy sex slave, unsatisfied with merely insulting people who have forgotten more about sex work and migrant labor than they have ever known, have recruited their equally empty-headed celebrity friends to create a new series of commercials with which to convince people that “real men don’t buy child sex slaves.”  Because obviously if there are 300,000 child sex slaves in the United States, then there must also be 300,000 child sex slave owners (who presumably store them in cardboard boxes at the top of the closet when not in use), and a series of dumb commercials will obviously convince them to get rid of those slaves, perhaps by flushing them down the loo like unwanted goldfish.  But what Demi and company overlooked is that not everyone is a gullible twit who will believe everything a celebrity tells him, and that there are a number of us getting the word out about the falsity of “trafficking” rhetoric.  The result:  Widespread derision and ridicule of the campaign all over the internet. Even Jezebel, which is usually pretty credulous about the whole “child sex slave” mythology, was unimpressed.

I’m Not At All Surprised, and That’s Truly Sad

Some of the investigators working on the Long Island Serial Killer case now theorize that the killer may be a cop or ex-cop, as reported in this New York Times story from April 9th:

Whoever killed four prostitutes, and possibly four other people, and then dumped their bodies in heavy underbrush along a beachfront causeway on Long Island appears to have a sophisticated understanding of police investigative techniques…taunting phone calls…to the teenage sister of one of the victims…were made from…some of the most crowded locations in New York City…and…were probably chosen because they allowed the caller to blend into crowds, so that if investigators pinpointed his location from the cellphone’s signal, they would be unable to pick him out of the crowd using any nearby surveillance cameras…This fact, as well as the killer’s use of disposable cellphones to contact the four victims who have been identified…suggested to some investigators that the killer was well versed in criminal investigative techniques…and could even be in law enforcement himself.  “He is a guy who is aware of how we utilize technology,” one investigator said.  “Frankly, people are thinking maybe he could be a cop” — either one still in law enforcement or one who has moved on…the caller kept each of his…calls to less than three minutes…the brief duration…thwarted efforts by the New York Police Department to use the signal to pinpoint the caller’s location and find him…

As we’ve discussed on several occasions, police violence toward prostitutes is depressingly typical, and sociopaths often target prostitutes because of the widespread attitude that we are disposable.  But it’s both sad and disgusting (though not, alas, surprising) when both of those motivations occur in one individual.

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A Foregone Conclusion

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2011| 45 Comments »

Women need a reason to have sex.  Men just need a place. –  Billy Crystal

One of the very first topics I covered in this blog (on July 20th and 21st) was the fact that, for the most part, the female customer of male prostitutes is a myth.  Here’s what I said about it in “The Myth of the Wanton”:

But the strangest symptom of the general ignorance about women’s sexuality is the persistent myth of the female customer, the woman who is so desperate for sex that she’s willing to pay a man for it.  Hollywood loves to perpetuate this one, and not a month passed that I didn’t get a call from some guy who wanted to work as a male escort catering solely to women.  Despite the fact that my ad clearly stated “female escorts,” I always took the time to explain to these fantasy-addled men that the only way for male prostitutes to actually make a living is to see men; I was generally met with incredulity and I’m sure a number of them only called another service after hanging up with me.  They just couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that WOMEN DON’T NEED TO PAY FOR IT.  This obvious fact even seems occasionally to escape the minds of people who should know better, because every so often somebody announces that she’s going to open a brothel or escort service featuring male prostitutes who cater strictly to women.  The service opens to great fanfare, then within a few months either closes or starts accepting male customers.

The perfect illustration of the concluding point of that passage came just one year ago today as “Markus”, America’s first legal male prostitute, quit just two months after his much-ballyhooed arrival.  The reason?  He had fewer than 10 paying customers in all that time, as described in this excerpt from The Huffington Post of March 29, 2010:

America’s first legal male prostitute has left a rural Nevada brothel after a two-month stint that generated plenty of attention but fewer than 10 paying customers.  Brothel owner Jim Davis said Friday (March 26th, 2010) the Shady Lady Ranch had parted ways with the “prostitude” who worked under the name Markus.  A replacement has been hired…a Las Vegas man in his mid-30s who works under the name Y. Not and has had about 10 customers.  The focus of the business, however, will remain on women prostitutes serving men…Male companions were “never the main course,” [Bobbi Davis] said. “We’re going to try it for a while longer.”

The Shady Lady Ranch created a stir in Nevada’s brothel industry when it successfully won state and county approval to hire a male sex worker.  After hiring Markus, the Davises cut him off from speaking with reporters after his first two interviews, in which he compared himself with Rosa Parks and Mahatma Gandhi…

Though I remember the media circus surrounding his hire, I missed the announcement of his resignation last March, probably because there was almost no media attention to it and I wasn’t writing this blog yet (and therefore had no readers to call it to my attention!)  If I thought about him at all I assumed he had either quietly quit or just as quietly started taking male customers so he could actually make a living (back when his hiring was first announced my husband said, “He’s going to be the poorest man in Nevada.”)  But recently, regular reader Sailor Barsoom mentioned the article after encountering it himself in a link from an article about Harry Reid’s asinine remarks of last month, and I decided the anniversary of his departure from Male Fantasyland on a one-way trip back to reality was worth noting.

Why did the Davises hire him in the first place when they knew full well he wouldn’t get enough business to pay his way?  Publicity, of course, of which they got plenty.  Much of it was bad, but some people believe there’s no such thing as bad publicity.  Perhaps; if things go as they usually do it’ll be about four more years before someone tries this particular publicity stunt again.  In any case, the rest of the brothel owners knew better; back when Markus was first hired Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, said “What woman with any money is going to go that three or four hours out of their way to do this?  Nobody.  A year from now, we’re going to have a good laugh about this.”  And I’m sure they’re doing exactly that.

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Criticism and Response

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 27, 2010| 29 Comments »

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens. –  Gustave Flaubert

Last Tuesday (December 21st) I received a request for moderation of a comment on my column of December 13th.  As regular readers know, I don’t approve comments from posters who seem very belligerent because once a particular commenter is approved all subsequent comments by that same poster are automatically approved; I don’t want anyone who seems prone to negativity having free reign to scatter such comments all over my board while I sleep, eat or otherwise live normal (offline) life.  I have no wish to censor anyone, but I reserve the right to maintain a positive tone in my own site.  Since the commenter is a fellow supporter of whores’ rights I felt I should reply via email, and did so.  The following is the series of emails which resulted; I asked for permission to publish this and he did not answer, but since he intended the discussion to be read by everyone in the commentary I see no harm in featuring it in a column instead.  The following messages are reproduced exactly as written, with no additions, subtractions or modifications other than the correction of four typos (two each) and the truncation of my signature line to simply “Maggie McNeill”.  N.B. :  The term “cisgendered” is a neologism meaning people who aren’t transgendered.

His initial message:

I don’t mean to defend Burts’ actions, but your critique would do well to exclude the whorephobia and homophobia on which it is founded.  Your explicit and stigmatizing language (e.g., undermining Burts’ statement that he has a girlfriend by claiming she is a beard, your overwrought scare quotes to mock homosexual men, and your very clear hatred for gay and-or bi male escorts as perceived vectors of disease) betrays your motivations.  Get with it; there are men and women, including transgender men and women, in the sex trade that don’t fit into your neat little hierarchy of needs, and we deserve the same rights and the same respect you demand for nontrans women trading sex.

Also, your assumptions, as well as those of the ACLU’s, about the application of ‘prostitution’ laws being more often applied to women more than men are an oft-repeated and misleading factoid.  While it is true that ‘prostitution’ laws (i.e., with ‘prostitution’ in the title) disproportionately affect women, this is especially so for transgender women.  Also, studies show that, for instance, young men who trade sex are 160 percent more criminalized than women, only using different laws (e.g., possession, assault, loitering, etc.).  See the recent study by Dr. Ric Curtis on minors who trade sex in New York City.  The study, which was sponsored by the Department of Justice, also found that an estimated 54 percent of minors who trade sex in New York City are nontrans boys, not all of them gay-identified.  Consider that the next time you dismiss queer and trans sex workers, as well as straight-identified male sex workers who serve men, as a minority.

The fact is that queer and trans hookers were throwing heels at the police at Compton’s Cafeteria and Stonewall before you were old enough to buy a beeper.  Your consistent misrepresentations are harmful to solidarity in the movement.

My reply:

Dear Will,

I’m sorry, but I can’t approve this sort of comment for my blog.  While I accept criticism, I do not allow commentary which criticizes my refusal to subscribe to groupthink and accuses me of nefarious psychosocial motives where there are none.  I have written about the misuse of the word “homophobia” (which doesn’t mean what you use it to mean), and though I have nothing against homosexual men you cannot be convinced of that and allowing you to start a flame war is therefore pointless and unproductive.  The only “clear hatred” is in your mind; just because others disagree with you doesn’t mean they “hate” you.  The presumption that they do is, quite frankly, childish; hatred is an immature, destructive reaction to fear and/or anger and I do not partake of it, not even toward men who raped me.

I absolutely agree that homosexual and transsexual prostitutes deserve equal respect, but since I know nothing about their world it would be extremely presumptuous for me to say anything about them.  Others have blogs in which those issues are covered; mine is not among them.  My primary focus is on female prostitution, with a strong emphasis on pointing out that we aren’t so different from other women.  As you can see if you view it rationally, talking about male prostitutes or transsexuals would result in distraction from that emphasis.

As I said to a commenter on Bound Not Gagged recently, we are on the same side.  That does not mean we must travel in lock-step, however, and indeed to promote such unity of rhetoric is destructive to the point we’re trying to make that whores are nothing to be afraid of (and therefore inevitably repressed).  Non-whores don’t all spout the same rhetoric, and neither should we.  Diversity of opinion isn’t destructive to solidarity in the movement; attempts to impose an agenda of “correct” speech and thought are.  I became a whore in part because it allowed me freedom from arbitrary rules, so as you can imagine I’m no more interested in subscribing to your notion of “correct” language and tone than anyone else’s.

If you like, I will print both your letter and this response within a column next week; if you prefer that I don’t I will honor that request.  We are not enemies, but not even allies have to agree on everything nor necessarily like each other at all times.

Maggie McNeill

His response:

Glad to hear your snide conjecture and censorious conduct is not just a performance for your readers.  Try to hide behind the accusation that this is about being ‘PC’ all you want, but I suspect you’re a cold and selfish egoist who doesn’t have the ovaries to think and talk and work in solidarity with your peers who are equal stakeholders in ending whore stigma and criminalization.  Talking about men and women, including transgender men and women, who did not fit into your boxes would distract from the point?  It in fact undermines the anti-sex work argument that prostitution is always already ‘violence against women.’  Consider that many straight-identified men trade sex with men for money, and yet the right-wingers aren’t trying to rescue them.  You’re repeating the same fallacy as your enemies.

I’m not asking you to stop focusing on nontrans women, I’m asking you to edit your language to indicate that there are others in this trade besides straight cisgendered white women.

My final reply:

Dear Will,

I have never implied that “straight cisgendered white women” are the only ones who prostitute ourselves; in fact I have made many comments to the contrary.  It seems to me that you derive your criticisms from the reading of a small number of my posts, and that you interpret not mentioning something as tantamount to condemnation of it.

As for “I suspect you’re a cold and selfish egoist who doesn’t have the ovaries to think and talk and work in solidarity with your peers,” I repeat that groupthink is neither necessary nor desirable in activism.  That’s the mistake the feminists made, and it does not behoove us to repeat it.

Will, I have no quarrel with you or with any other person who cares about this cause, but I cannot be bullied into dancing to somebody else’s tune.  I will continue to fight the good fight in my own way, just as you will fight it in yours.  I wish you good luck on your own path, just as I hope for it on mine.

Maggie McNeill

Since this is the second such attack on my style in just a few days, I think it’s pretty clear some activists are making incorrect assumptions about what I’m trying to do here.  Though I stated it pretty clearly in my introduction, I think it’s time for an elaboration and I will publish that on Saturday, January 1st.

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