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That Was the Week That Was (#403)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, Above the Law, Africa, agency denial, Aggressive Ignorance, An Example to the West, Arizona, Backwards into the Future, Bad Girls, bogus studies, Bootlickers, brothels, California, censorship, Checklist, Colorado, condoms, cops, Cops and Robbers, disease, diversion programs, East Asia, end demand, Florida, France, gangs, Hall of Shame, harm reduction, hysteria, internet, Ireland, Islam, Israel, King of the Hill, Korea, language, Latin America, law, LGBT rights, Louisiana, Lying Down With Dogs, Madonna/whore, Maggie in the Media, Middle East, neofeminism, Nevada, New Jersey, Peru, Pimping the Pimp, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, rape, restaurants, Rhinoceros, sex offender registry, Shame Shame, South Dakota, Stand-Up Guys, stripping, Subtle Pimping, Sweden, teachers, Tennessee, The Course of a Disease, The Enlightenment Police, The Public Eye, The Swedish Pimpocracy, Traffic Jam, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state), Worse Than I Thought on January 18, 2014| 33 Comments »

What would it mean to think of sex workers not as traitors to feminism but as feminist forebears? – Mattilda Sycamore

The Swedish Pimpocracy

A…man facing rape charges is free after…claiming in a [Swedish] court…that the woman’s screams of protest were simply part of a violent sex game. “I recognized [from other girls] the way she said no as a part of the sex”…[he] said…the two met…through a common acquaintance and he invited her back for a drink…”I expressed very clearly that I didn’t want to, so there was no way he could misunderstand me,” the woman told investigators…however…the man became more aggressive as her protests increased…he covered her nose and mouth so she couldn’t breathe and slapped her in the face…[she fled] under the pretense of taking a shower following the incident…Witnesses…encountered her lightly clothed and sobbing…

Meanwhile, a retired Swedish prosecutor explains why the Julian Assange situation should never have occurred, and says “the prosecutor-general should…rescind the decision to reopen the investigation, rescind the arraignment ruling, and rescind the arrest warrant.”

Aggressive Ignorance

While bogus “trafficking” studies by hired researchers are misleading and dangerous, those performed by “trafficking” fetishists themselves are just plain hilarious. This one from the Imagine Foundation studied online sex work ads for three months in order to reach the exciting and important conclusion that hotels tend to be clustered along busy highways. I’ll bet you’d never have guessed.

Maggie in the Media

Last Wednesday afternoon I spoke to Susie Bright for her podcast In Bed With Susie Bright, and the show is now available; individual episodes cost $5.95, but are free with a subscription.

A Procrustean Bed

A [Louisiana] panel vowed…to pursue the johns…and…create courts dedicated to human trafficking …“We want to make Louisiana the gold standard in protecting our children (by) dealing with this scourge that can easily destroy a society,” said…Gerald Long…Valarie Hodges…said officials need to dispel the notion that prostitution is a victimless crime. For every act of prostitution, she said, there is a victim…

The idea that prostitution can “easily destroy a society” is beyond hilarious.

The Enlightenment Police

A French court…convicted a young woman for wearing a full-face Islamic veil in public and threw out her bid to have the…ban declared unconstitutional. Cassandra Belin, 20, was also convicted of insulting and threatening three police officers at the time of her arrest, which sparked two days of rioting…in July, 2013. She was given a one-month suspended prison sentence for the clash with the police and a 150-euro ($200) fine for wearing the veil…

I’ve often pointed out that controlling what Muslimahs do with their bodies is exactly the same as controlling what whores do with ours, and Julie Billaud & Julie Castro agree with me: “The interest of studying veiled women and prostitutes together lies primarily in the fact that their bodies…have been identified by the state as problematic and, therefore, as requiring political intervention…”

Above the Law

One rapist cop from Tennessee:

A…deputy has been terminated after handcuffing a woman and forcing her to perform oral sex on him…Willie Marshay Greer…was…charged with aggravated rape and official misconduct. Greer reportedly stopped [the] woman for speeding…[and used the threat of] arrest [to extort sex]…

And another from California:

A woman who was shown on camera tumbling out of a moving LAPD squad car last year said she fell out…to avoid being sexually assaulted by her arresting officer…Kim Nguyen, a 27-year-old pharmacist, says she was handcuffed…when [he]…began opening her legs. [After the fall] Nguyen…spent two weeks in the hospital [with] her jaw…wired shut [and] lost all of her teeth…

An Example To the West (TW3 #14)

In 2011, the Hyundai Research Institute published the findings of a survey commissioned by the Hanteo National Union of Sex Workers. It examined “the changes in public opinions…after the enactment of the Anti-Trade Sex Law” in South Korea based on [telephone] interviews with 1,000 adults from different age groups and all walks of life…The report…has now been translated into English…

Stand-Up Guys

Here are two audio files featuring male allies; in the first Christopher Ryan (Sex At Dawn) interviews Thaddeus Russell (A Renegade History of the US), and in the second Zander-Dexter Falcon debates a prohibitionist on Canadian radio.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #29)

Thanks to “gang” rhetoric, “sex trafficking” is becoming a new excuse for locking up young black men:

Twenty-four street-gang members…have been indicted on charges of conspiring to run an interstate prostitution ring…in San Diego, Arizona and New Jersey…At a national “Players Ball,” one of the defendants received an award as pimp of the year. Pimps…have a liking for chalices and scepters, known as Pimp Cups and Pimp Sticks…[and] “often” have removable dental “grills” made of gold and costing thousands of dollars…the U.S. attorney is seeking forfeiture of such trophies…Of the 60 sex-trafficking victims [arrested], 11 were minors…Some…were “branded” with tattoos of gang monikers, bar codes or the name of their pimp…[they were recruited with] rap videos on YouTube…

Worse Than I Thought

Kudos to Reason TV for doing a short documentary on how horrible California’s “anti-trafficking” CASE Act is, and for interviewing sex workers about how criminalization increases exploitation. Unfortunately, they also interviewed the superlatively awful Dennis Hof, who as usual used the opportunity to spread lies about independent sex workers (in this case, that we’re diseased) in order to argue for imposition of the Nevada system which enriches and empowers people like him. I’ve spoken to video producer Zach Weissmueller, though, and asked for his help in getting Reason more on board with (libertarian) decriminalization rather than (crony-capitalist) Nevada-style legalization.

King of the Hill

It’s always deeply satisfying to catch a “trafficking” lie in the process of expanding; in September we were told that Tampa ranked third in Florida for “sex trafficking”, but now they’re claiming it’s third in the whole country. I suggest they discuss this with Miami and Toledo.

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #131)

Despite a decreasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS among…sex workers [in Myanmar], health workers say the stigma…and…harsh laws…are undermining sex workers’ access to HIV-related services…Even possessing a condom could be used as circumstantial evidence of prostitution until 2011…most of the public are unaware of the directive…[banning the practice, and fear] carrying…condoms because they could be targeted as sex workers…karaoke bars and massage parlours…frequently change locations due to harassment by police…[and] managers…deny health workers access…for fear of prosecution…

Checklist

These self-appointed “trafficking experts” claim they can identify “sex traffickers” (in South Dakota. Seriously.) But after all the “abduction” and “Stockholm syndrome” mythology, it still comes down to harassing women: “it may be easier to determine whether someone is a trafficking victim, than it is to figure out a trafficker.” The “signs” include staying out late and having a generous boyfriend.

Pimping the Pimp

Community leaders and law enforcement…presented a…documentary [on]…sex trafficking in Nevada… Trafficked No More…[compiles] true…sex trafficking cases and their impact on…prostitution of children…One person who knows firsthand the damage the underground sex industry can do is Annie Lobert…of…Hookers for Jesus…

Long-time readers will remember we’ve seen Liars for Jesus before.

Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #324)

More clueless anti-whore pomposity from Zambia:

…a plan of reforming sex workers…is something that [they] should have…embraced…However, the…sex workers…refused to relocate to their respective villages where financial help…could have been accorded to them. Some of [them] even attended meetings that were organised to help them reform only to demand money instead of assistance in form of material and equipment…sex workers…should have taken advantage of this noble gesture…the sex workers were not looking beyond their noses. To them it was about here and now…

Bad Girls (TW3 #331)

A club boss has told a court of the moment he was kidnapped by three lapdancers and their manager – with the women wearing ”miniskirts, stilettos and Daisy Duke shorts”. Curtis Woodman was outside his work premises…when the women and two men drove up in two BMWs…the group ”surrounded him” before bundling him into one of the vehicles and driving off. It is alleged that Mr Woodman…was…robbed of £60 cash and his £4,650 Brietling watch…[and] forced to transfer £4,800 into the bank account of the lapdancers’ manager, Charlotte Devaney…The women believed he owed them more than £42,000 for work they carried out at his pop-up nightclub during the Cheltenham Festival in March 2012…he had received calls demanding the money…for months…

The Public Eye (TW3 #340)

Laura Lee’s ill-treatment while giving testimony to a parliamentary committee in Northern Ireland:

Traffic Jam (TW3 #343)

…the Best Practices Policy Project worked with SWOP-PHX to send a report to the Human Rights Committee for consideration during the review of how the United States has fared in meeting its obligations to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights…The submission describes…mass police “sweeps,” arresting scores of…people the police profile as sex workers. Arrestees are handcuffed and transported…to the Project ROSE center, where they…have no opportunity to speak to a defense attorney…even if they request one…

Rhinoceros (TW3 #344)

There are a lot of sleazy strip club owners, but licking badges and using “sex trafficking” hysteria to sic the pigs on rival strip clubs and massage parlors is a new low. I first introduced COAST in the titular item, but this article tells you more about them than you really want to know. Caution: You’ll probably feel like you need to need to shower after reading this.

Shame, Shame

The author of this internet article, Iman Idiot, thinks internet censorship and expanding the “sex offender” registry are good things:

…Now, Israel has become the first country in the world to make revenge porn illegal…anyone found guilty of uploading sexually explicit content…without the consent…of the person being portrayed can expect to be designated as a sex offender, and may be punished up to five years in jail…Brazil introduced a bill in October to ban [it but]…only two [American] states have passed legislation…to stop it: New Jersey and California…

Traffic Jam (TW3 #347)

Remember how that article about Project ROSE was censored by Al Jazeera? Here’s an interview with reporter Jordan Flaherty about both the censorship and the unethical practices of the project itself.

Subtle Pimping (TW3 #351)

Patricia Adler, the University of Colorado…professor…who was forced to retire over a controversial prostitution lecture, has decided to return to the campus…[after] an executive committee …allowed [her] to resume teaching the course…provided [she] gets consent from all the students to go ahead with the [whore stereotype] skit…

I have been informed that SWOP Denver has contacted Adler to offer real information in place of the nonsense she’s been teaching; we’ll see how that turns out.

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #351)

A new review of Sex Workers Unite says that it…

…jettisons the tired generalizations about erotic labor (and laborers), and instead places sex workers at the center of recent movements for social justice. Author Melinda Chateauvert reminds us that those who rioted against police violence and control…in the late ’60s (marking the beginning of the gay liberation movement) were…”sex workers, transgender people, hustlers, tricks, drug users, and drug sellers”…Similarly, [she] points out that sex workers were routinely engaging in conversations about the messy intersections of sex, desire, intimacy, love and (im)propriety long before feminism…

Cops and Robbers

“After a graphic video showing a vigilante group meting out violent punishment to sex workers in Cajamarca [Peru] made international headlines, authorities…told press that the violent raids conducted by the so-called Cajamarca Committee for Urban Patrols represented a serious infringement on the rights of the women they attacked…” Unfortunately, the statement soon degenerates into “sex trafficking” nonsense, ignoring the fact that violent “rescue” raids by “authorities” are even worse.

Bootlickers (TW3 #401)

Since the cops are just inventing these “charges” anyway, it’s up to them whether they “cease”:

…Everett [Washington]…officials…deemed the Hillbilly Hotties coffee stand…a chronic-nuisance property…and…[demanded] that alleged prostitution, indecent exposure and violations of city adult-entertainment codes…cease…the stand owner won’t hire baristas who have criminal history and that employees who break the rules will be fired…

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That Was the Week That Was (#402)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, agency denial, Arizona, Bangladesh, brothels, Cambodia, Canada, censorship, Challenge, cops, dirty, evidence, Hooters Japanese Style, hysteria, India, internet, King of the Hill, Lack of Evidence, law, LGBT rights, Madonna/whore, male prostitutes, Middle East, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Not the Leading Players, Number Puzzle, Oregon, Peeping Toms, politicians, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, rescue industry, Rhode Island, robots, Shame Shame, Shift in the Wind, Somebody's Daughter, sporting events, streetwalkers, Surplus Women, Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, The Slave-Whore Fantasy, Traffic Circle, Under Every Bed, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, What a Week!, yellow journalism on January 11, 2014| 14 Comments »

The “Super Bowl = prostitutes” story begins to look more and more like a lazy journalistic trope…an urban legend…or…a cheap attempt by some local politician…to score points by standing up to the menace of sex work. – Alexander Abad-Santos

The Slave-Whore Fantasy

Because male sex workers don’t threaten insecure men’s belief that men are always in control of sex, and don’t interfere with neofeminists’ desire to control all heterosexual activity, they are conspicuously absent from “trafficking” mythology, Swedish-flavored dogma and other anti-whore garbage. But it’s still pretty galling to see the BBC, which has embraced the catechism that all female sex workers are pathetic victims, publish something like this:

Most people think of male prostitution as dangerous, degrading and exploitative work. But there are some who are attempting to reinvent it as a profession free of stigma by using all the tools of modern business…There has been a slow societal shift in the acceptability of sex work, says Del Campbell from the Terence Higgins Trust. “There is a lot less stigma for men who sell sex,” he says. “Often, the women are still seen as victims but for some gay men, escorting is now a normal job”…

When male escorts use online ads, they’re “using the tools of modern business”. But we women are too stupid to do that, so our ads must all be placed for us by male “pimps”.

Hooters, Japanese Style

In this interview with one of the girls at the first Japanese “maid café” in New York City, she denies that she’s a sex worker four times in only eight short answers. Who is she trying to convince, us or herself?

Surplus Women

He made sure we’ll never hear her side of the story:

…Tannu Chawla, 27, and his friend, Yogesh, 30…[murdered a sex worker]…in…Delhi [because he was in love with her but she refused]…to marry…him…Chawla said that [he sold his] property and [took] loans to help the woman [pay her heavy debts, and that] her betrayal forced him to commit the murder…”Yogesh…had a loan of Rs.1.5 lakh [$2411] to repay. He agreed to help Chawla for the same amount,” said [police].

Above the Law

A Payson, Ariz. police officer entered a woman’s house and raped her the day after he got her address from an incident report in which she had been a victim…Emily Morton sued the Town of Payson and Joshua Corey LaManna…[who broke into] her home…and raped her…while he was on duty – then told her it was OK because he loved her…

Somebody’s Daughter

“Would you want your daughter working as a stripper/prostitute?” A common refrain from people who are anti sex work, and who see it as the ultimate argument…Well…my short, rather unpopular answer is: Yes. If my daughter is over 18…she is entitled to do whatever she wants with her body…when you have children, you are raising individuals with their own personalities and characters, who will have their own quirks and abilities, and whose choices will differ from your own. If you don’t like that idea, perhaps having children is not a good idea…

King of the Hill

A pair of real howlers introduce North Carolina’s latest bid in the “sex trafficking” race for the bottom; the first claims it’s “in the top eight states” while also admitting that “the true number of sex trafficking victims is unknown,” which would of course preclude any estimate of rank. This one is a typical paint-by-numbers “trafficking” screed, taking the Profession of Faith as its headline and then quoting all the usual nonsense. The second story specifically claims that North Carolina “ranks eighth”, but what makes it most interesting (in a horrifying sort of way) is the interview with a sadistic cop who gloats that he “can’t wait to use” the state’s new and draconian “sex trafficking” law to subject his victims to a “lifetime of difficulties” for consensual sex.

Number Puzzle

The indispensable Wendy Lyon does it again:

…what the Swedes say internally about their sex industry is often very different to the impression they give abroad…This is a good…example…only issued in Swedish…police [admit they]… “are not engaged in continuous or structured reconnaissance” [of sex workers]…we normally hear…absolute confidence and certainty that their sex industry has declined since clients were criminalized…if you aren’t monitoring something…you can’t reach a definitive conclusion as to whether or not it has declined…the admission that Sweden remains attractive to “human traffickers and pimps”…is totally contrary to the propaganda we hear about it all. the. Time. A genuine jaw-dropper follows a few paragraphs later: “In 2009…there were about 90 Thai massage parlours in Stockholm…at the turn of 2011/2012, the number…was estimated to be about 250”… what kind of “successful ban” leads to an almost threefold increase in one type of provider of the banned thing in less than three years? If the estimate is accurate, this statistic alone ought to put paid to any claim that the law is an effective deterrent. An industry that has lost a lot of its customers couldn’t possibly expand at a rate like that…

What a Week! (TW3 #322)

A Baghdad brothel was the scene of a violent attack…as gunmen shot and killed seven women and five men – presumably prostitutes and their clients…By coincidence, (or is it?) a similar attack took place in the same area on May 22 last year, killing the same number of people…

Surplus Women (TW3 #335)

Police have made an arrest in the case of two sex workers who lived in the same building and were found dead two weeks apart – and…say they have linked the accused to the killing of a third person…Sarbjit Bains…is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Karen Nabors and Jill Lyons, and second-degree murder in the death of Amritpal Saran…

Peeping Toms (TW3 #341)

A new…bill would bring back much of Virginia’s infamous “Crimes Against Nature” law, months after federal courts struck [it] down as unconstitutional. The proposal, which ostensibly would change the law to make clear that “engaging in consensual sodomy is not a crime if all persons participating are adults, are not in a public place, and are not committing, attempting to commit, conspiring to commit, aiding, or abetting any act in furtherance of prostitution,” would restore felony penalties for minors engaging in oral sex and treat public sodomy differently from other public sex acts…

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #342)

Truly horrible rescue industry organization Apne Aap is trying to pressure UN groups who support decriminalization to instead support laws which criminalize sex workers’ employees, spouses, dependent family members and co-workers, and to adopt the infantilizing and stigmatizing term “prostituted woman” in place of “sex worker”. Since it’s extremely unlikely the UN organizations will give this lobbying (supported by a petition signed by prohibitionists and shills) any more attention than it is due, the most interesting part of the article is a new lowering of the “average age of debut” myth to 11 (see also “The Leading Players…” below).

Pyrrhic Victory (Hysteria on Parade)

Demonstrating that Bales is completely bereft of the faculty of introspection:

…Kevin Bales…announced a proposal to use…drones…to identify and film forced labour in remote areas of India and Bangladesh…Local authorities and non-governmental organizations could also use the images…to rescue slaves…But some Indian human rights activists…say it is a misguided publicity stunt that will do little to eradicate the practice…Vrinda Grover [said]…“I thought India was still a sovereign country. So we now have the Westerners coming into rescue us all over again?”…Bales…hopes this “novel approach” will inject a fresh perspective into the standard slavery narrative that “we’ve been hearing over and over for about 15 years…This has got a little more excitement, movement, exotic locations”…

Traffic Circle

As I predicted, we’re beginning to see more evidence of the impending implosion of “sex trafficking” hysteria; while major media organizations like the AP continue to parrot myths about the “menace” of gypsy whores (complete with moronic assertions like “One Super Bowl after another after another has shown itself to be one of the largest events in the world where the cruelty of human trafficking goes on for several weeks“), smaller organizations are starting to feature articles like this one:

…it’s…time for the annual “here come the prostitutes” story…The premise is…[that] prostitutes…will be shipped into the city…by sex traffickers trying to meet the demand…In 2012, The Houston Press‘s Peter Kotz thoroughly tore apart that story, explaining that law enforcement officials in the cities where past Super Bowls occurred never actually saw increases…despite increased efforts…Further, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW)…said in a report that there’s no correlation between sporting events and a rise in prostitution…The history of those events make this year’s claims of trafficking even harder to believe and bring up questions of the gullibility of the media…

Challenge (TW3 #345)

One of the anti-sex crusaders behind re-criminalizing prostitution in Rhode Island brags about how she ignored sex worker activists because she is more qualified to make decisions for adult women than they are about their own lives:

…I remember being in an elegant beauty spa one day…when a white stretch limousine pulled up out front and about eight young Asian girls got out. They were going into the spa for a day of beauty. They were laughing and giggling and…seemed very excited. They looked so young and naïve…the saleswoman…told me…these girls were brought…from the massage parlors…the managers paid well and the tips were good…I was accused of wanting to hurt women by stopping them from making a living. The fact is, I was trying to protect them from sexual predators who had deceived them with promised lives of hope, but gave them short lives filled with pain, sexual abuse, drugs, diseases and deplorable living conditions…

Pain so horrible it made them laugh and giggle, and deplorable conditions like days at a luxury spa. What I see is a nasty, racist old white woman who didn’t like seeing young Asian women in what she viewed as her domain.

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #346)

More of this, please: “The Oregon Court of Appeals…threw out the conviction of a woman arrested for doing little more than walking down [the] Avenue and glancing over her shoulder…The case drew applause from defense attorneys who say police often overstep their bounds in…their quest to fight prostitution…” The cops claimed that the woman exhibited “tell-tale signs”, like wearing high-heeled boots and talking to a “known prostitute”.

King of the Hill (TW3 #347)

I’m always glad to see the truly ludicrous “sex trafficking” claims repeated, because they hasten the whole myth’s downfall. Here’s a repetition of the claim that Texas has 25% of all American “sex trafficking victims”; it includes the portentous statement that Houston is a “hub within a hub” (This Means Something!) and claims that “victims” are “as young as 12”, which rather contradicts the idea that the “average” is 13 or 11.

Shame, Shame (TW3 #348)

“[Missouri] State Representative Kevin Engler…filed legislation that would criminalize…revenge porn…Engler said he was working with [Mary Anne] Franks in development of the bill…”

Under Every Bed (TW3 #350)

North Dakota “State Sen. Elsie Arntzen…said that human trafficking is not a laughing matter…” I disagree. When I see creepy politicians and sleazy cops trying desperately to pretend that businesswomen are actually either “criminals” or “victims” (but can’t seem to decide which), and portentously declaring “sex trafficking” to be a “serious problem” while simultaneously admitting that “no one has yet found any evidence of the existence of a prostitution ring,” that is indeed a laughing matter. And the joke is on the politicians and cops.

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (TW3 #351)

A…film featuring…Mira Sorvino’s fight against sex slavery in Cambodia made its US debut at Bayside Church in…Sacramento, Calif…Freedom Project: Every day in Cambodia was produced in partnership with CNN…Girls as young as four years old are sold into slavery and the sex trade by their own parents…the church…[donated] $400,000 to raid brothels…

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That Was the Week That Was (#349)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, A War for Peace, Absolute Corruption, activism, agency denial, An Example to the West, Australia, Brazil, brothels, child "protective" services, cops, dehumanization, Denmark, dirty, Due Consideration, Dutch Threat, Europe, Feminine Pragmatism, First They Came for the Hookers, France, gangs, Germany, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, Hollywood, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, King of the Hill, law, Marching Up Their Own Arses, Massachusetts, Middle East, Mythbusters, Netherlands, New York, Number Puzzle, pimps, politicians, pragmatism, pregnancy, prohibitionist myths, racism, rape, rescue industry, RIP Petite Jasmine, Something Rotten In Sweden, stripping, Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, The Course of a Disease, The Lesser of Two Evils, The Widening Gyre, Under Every Bed, underage, United Kingdom, Washington DC, Whimsical Notions on December 7, 2013| 37 Comments »

Prostitutes…will be forced to continue to hide…because even if they are not risking arrest, their clients are. And their survival depends on their clients. – Tim Leicester

The Lesser of Two Evils

A rabbi makes an argument familiar to students of medieval Catholicism:

Britain should…[legalize] brothels and…[implement] basic controls over safety and hygiene…without monitoring activities too closely and thereby discouraging usage of them…It may be more messianic to want to end the sex trade altogether, but perhaps it is more religious to seek to channel it safely.

Feminine Pragmatism

…Layal has…turned to sex work in [Beirut] to support her two children…“I don’t have any products to sell…I have myself to sell, and I’d much rather earn my money [like that] than I would begging on the street”…Layal says her Iraqi husband…sends her a monthly allowance from Baghdad, but…it’s not enough to cover her $900 rent…and allow her to send money to her family back in Syria. He has no idea his wife is supplementing their income with prostitution …“A woman should never depend on anyone else for money, even her husband,” she says defiantly…

A Procrustean Bed

Note the assumption that there is always a “trafficker” hiding somewhere:

[Massachusetts’] new human trafficking law has been on the books since early last year, but Bristol County has not charged anyone and Plymouth County has brought charges against one man…[law sponsor] Mark C.W. Montigny…said the problem of human trafficking exists everywhere…and…the attitude that it doesn’t happen here is part of the problem…Law enforcement should use cases involving johns and prostitutes “to go up the ladder” and identify and prosecute the trafficker, he said…

Marching Up Their Own Arses

Remember Chris Baughman, the Las Vegas cop claiming to be an “expert” on “pimps”? Pay especial note to the “magical pimp” trope:

[MSNBC’s]…new series, Slave Hunter: Freeing Victims of Human Trafficking…reveals…what happens behind closed doors in the sex trafficking underworld. The series highlights the…work of human rights advocate, Aaron Cohen and his partner, former Las Vegas vice detective, Chris Baughman…MSNBC’s cameras follow Cohen and Baughman as they…identify trafficked women via on-line ads and then arrange to meet them in New York City hotel rooms with Cohen posing as a potential john. When the women are open to help, Cohen and Baughman…[help] them to escape their bonds and build a new life…other times, the trafficked women sadly succumb to the powers of their “pimp”…

We can only hope this blows up in NBC’s face the way To Catch a Predator eventually did. Hey, guys, do you know the word for men like you who prey on women in order to enrich and aggrandize themselves? Oops.

An Example to the West

…over 1,500 sex workers…[voted in Delhi on] December 4…thanks to an enrollment drive by the state election commission…over 80 per cent [of] sex workers [are now registered]…”We all will vote…for the person who will fulfill our long-pending demands,” Munni Begum…of GB Road Sex Workers Association…said…

And in Mysore:

…Ashodaya Samithi…is…a powerful collective…of 336 members…[and] a network of volunteers operating in six districts of Karnataka. It reaches out to 8,000 sex workers through its different initiatives…such as providing knowledge of legal and human rights…running drop-in-centres, operation of a crisis management unit, a restaurant…and a training academy predominantly run by members …they also offer HIV and STI testing facilities, counselling and free condoms…90 percent of sex workers in Mysore have been contacted monthly, 70 percent…visit…drop in centres regularly and 65 percent have become consistent condom users. Ashodaya Samithi has successfully reduced STI prevalence within three years…

The Power of Myth

As I’ve explained before, even cases which could credibly be called “trafficking” rarely fit the myth:

…Since Australia introduced tough laws to crack down on trafficking a decade ago…eight of 15 people…convicted…were…female…migrants, born in the same…country as their victims and typically from similar…socio-economic backgrounds. Most…involved…[debt-bonded] Thai women…[and] three…had reportedly been victims…themselves…[none] were involved in “high-end organised crime”…

Mythbusters

Eight common migration myths debunked, including “Migration is on the increase”, “Strict border controls reduce irregular migration”, and “Migrants take jobs that would otherwise go to natives.”

The Widening Gyre

The words “sex trafficking” and “pimp” do not appear in this story; however, I think we all know what was going through these cops’ sick minds:

Houston Police have refused to explain why they took a 13-year-old white girl from her two black guardians…and [gave] her [to]…Child Protective Services. Landry Thompson’s mother had signed notarized papers giving dance instructor Emmanuel Hurd full guardianship over her during a trip from Oklahoma to Houston…Thompson, Hurd and another dance instructor had stopped at a gas station…when they were surrounded by police cars…All three told the police the same story, but…“They still put handcuffs on me and it really scared me”…Thompson [said]…At first officials…demanded that the mother fly to Houston to get her daughter, but 11 hours later, the girl was released back into [Hurd’s] custody…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #28)

The French parliament has backed part of a bill that imposes a 1,500 euro (£1,250) fine on anyone paying for sex…Protests…took place outside the National Assembly in Paris as the debate took place…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #47)

The Danes weren’t just satisfied with rejecting the tyrannical Swedish model; they also dramatized the events in a political television show:

…in the internet age, it is simply not good enough to pretend to be speaking for a “voiceless” group, as the surprised politicians learned in Borgen…Sadly, the biggest fiction…was the bit when the politician found herself impressed and moved by the voices of sex work activists…frighteningly few people in power have been willing to listen…

First They Came for the Hookers… (TW3 #132)

For those who still pretend government is different from organized crime:

…Houston Mayor Annise Parker…cut a deal with a group of strip clubs allowing them to…operate freely in exchange for an annual tax of $1 MILLION!…According to [a Houston Chronicle] article, “The city…has reached a settlement…that would halt enforcement of the three-foot rule and allow dancers to be fully topless in exchange for an annual $1 million donation to help combat human trafficking”…for those who have not completely removed the wool from their eyes, this is what is known…as a…shakedown. But wait, only 16 clubs were included…so where does that leave the 50+ other strip clubs that have been purposely excluded from this deal?…I would venture…that…vice raids and harassment at these other clubs…will increase tremendously…the Mayor…herself…all but said that the other clubs will now be more routinely targeted…

Another, more obsequious blog reversed the roles by calling the deal “Houston’s dance with the devil” and breathlessly informed its readers that “Houston…has long been regarded as the nation’s hub of human trafficking”; I’d call that a claim for the #1 spot, wouldn’t you?

Due Consideration

I must admit, this one shocked even me:

…a pregnant Italian mother flew to England for a two-week…training course…she had…a panic attack when she couldn’t find the passports for her two daughters, who were with her mother back in Italy. She called the police, who arrived…when she was on the phone to her mother…who explained [to cops] that her daughter was probably over-excited because she suffered from a “bipolar” condition and hadn’t been taking her medication…The police…[took] her to…a psychiatric hospital [where]…she was restrained…[and] sectioned under the Mental Health Act…five weeks later she was…strapped down and forcibly sedated, and when she woke up hours later, found she was in a different hospital and that her baby had been removed by caesarean section while she was unconscious and taken…by social workers. She was…[then deported] to Italy without her baby…[who was] placed for adoption…

Number Puzzle (TW3 #324)

Matthias Lehmann debunks more prohibitionist lies:

Re…“Germany is having second thoughts on legalized prostitution”…Alice Schwarzer’s… book and her appeal against prostitution have been widely criticized for using entirely unreliable data. The counter-appeal…has been signed by numerous experts, including counseling centers for sex workers and victims of human trafficking as well as social scientists, social workers and sex workers themselves…a majority of the German public has consistently shown not to support a move to roll back the…law…

Number Puzzle (TW3 #326)

I don’t think many sex workers are unhappy about this: “Germany’s biggest political parties have agreed to ban so-called flat-rate sex offered by some brothels…they view as exploitative the special offers…where men can have unlimited sex for 100 euros ($136)…”

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine

In Sweden, sex workers are considered “unfit parents”; child molesters, on the other hand…

A Swedish man convicted for molesting a five-year-old girl…has been [allowed] to adopt a child of his own…the man…has been found guilty of more than 90 crimes, mostly different types of fraud…and was also suspected of raping a…teenage girl…the…social affairs committee…found that his risk of relapse was…low…but…members were not given access to…details about his…sex crime…[and] there were no supporting documents to back up the assessment…

Dutch Threat (TW3 #334)

Utrecht city council has agreed [on] a new location for…prostitutes, five months after the licences for most of the…floating brothels were withdrawn…because of concerns the boat owners were involved in human trafficking…The prostitutes, some of whom had attempted to take over the boats themselves, will be relocated to a new location with 162 workspaces…The city is also introducing a minimum age of 21…and…in order to prevent a monopoly…owners will only be given three-year licences for no more than 20% of the windows.

Under Every Bed (TW3 #335)

I take back anything nice I’ve said about Al-Jazeera and “sex trafficking” mythology; this example of the new “gang” myth-motif (complete with the magic mind-control philter and confusion about the meaning of the verb “to sell”) is as bad as anything in the American media:

Washington DC…gangs are prostituting underage girls…Prosecutors say the pimps gave their victims drugs…to keep them submissive… “[prostitutes] can be considered a ‘reusable resource’…if you’re going to deal marijuana or cocaine; you use it up, you have to find another source or supply”…

The article does admit that “relatively little is known about the overall nature or extent of juvenile prostitution in the United States,” but of course that never stops prohibitionists from making grandiose pronouncements.

A War for Peace (TW3 #336)

Oh, the irony:

…Femen staged a topless protest outside one of Germany’s biggest brothels, as part of a campaign promoting [the Swedish model]…The women chanted “Go rape yourselves” and…briefly scuffled with the club staff…before being led away by police…Femen held a similar protest in Amsterdam earlier this month…Femen leader Inna Shevchenko said…”Prostitution is not a women’s industry, it’s a business controlled by men”…

Absolute Corruption (TW3 #336)

Still more victims of the Satanic panic released from prison:

Fran and Dan Keller…[were] released after 21 years in prison…The case…was part of national hysteria over alleged sexual abuse with Satanic overtones…therapists were subsequently criticized for having implanted the bizarre allegations into the minds of children…[Defense attorney Keith] Hampton…has vowed to work to completely exonerate the Kellers…

Whimsical Notions

Think this would’ve happened if legal, professional whores were available to soldiers? “Female soldiers at Fort Hood [Texas] testified…that they were recruited for a prostitution ring set up by a sergeant involved in the sexual assault and harassment program…”

Something Rotten in Sweden (TW3 #345)

This might make sense if selling sex were a bona fide criminal act, AND if nearly all clients only paid once in their lives:

…public defender Edgar Lin [had] filed motions to dismiss the two counts against Alexis L. Smith…99 percent of…arrested [clients]…never faced criminal charges, while 40 percent of the prostitutes were criminally charged…The discrepancy formed the basis of Lin’s argument that his client’s right to equal protection had been violated…But…Judge Mark McGinnis ruled that the patrons and prostitutes are not similarly situated, because the prostitutes…have ongoing criminal activity, while the johns typically only commit a single crime…

Hard Numbers (TW3 #348)

Another lurid, dysphemism-laden article on Brazilian sex work; this one conflates child, underage and adult prostitution, plays a shell game with agency, blames sex workers for the sadistic actions of police and has a faint Swedish odor in places. All in all, a truly noxious mixture.

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That Was the Week That Was (#346)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Across the Pond, activism, Africa, agency denial, Alabama, Arizona, Ashley Madison, Australia, Botswana, Brazil, brothels, Buttons Bags & Banknotes, Canada, Celebrities, censorship, Checklist, Comfort Zone, cops, Cosmopolitan, dirty, disease, diversion programs, end demand, ethics, Europe, evidence, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, Hall of Shame, Having and Eating Cake, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, internet, Ireland, Islam, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, Kenya, Lack of Evidence, Latin America, law, License To Rape, Little Tin Gods, Lying Down With Dogs, Madonna/whore, Middle East, Naked Truth, naturalness, neofeminism, Nevada, New Orleans, New York, Nigeria, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Pennsylvania, porn, pragmatism, propaganda, racism, rape, rescue industry, semen, sex rays, Sex Workers vs Trafficking, Shazam!, sporting events, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, Texas, Thailand, The Crumbling Dam, The Schizoid State, The Widening Gyre, Think of the Children!, Traffic Jam, Tyranny by Consensus, underage, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe on November 16, 2013| 24 Comments »

The current trafficking panic is fundamentally a modern myth that has been re-created from the “white slavery fears” of the 19th century to further moralist or political agendas. – John Davies

Think of the Children!

“Law-enforcement agencies have…shut a suspected bawdy house located just metres from a daycare and one block from a southeast Calgary school…Paradise Spa…has been a problem venue for more than a decade, police said…” SEX NEAR A DAYCARE AND A SCHOOL!!!!!! The fiends!

License to Rape

“…[Alabama cop] Michael Ford was sentenced to…89 years…[for] incest…sexual abuse…sodomy and…sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old…he…offered no apology…the sentences will run consecutively…”

Lack of Evidence

…[New York City] Police arrested Felicia McGinnis, 26, after spotting her talking to passersby…while wearing a “black pea coat, skinny jeans and platform shoes”…“Any…fashion magazine would display plenty of women similarly dressed,” wrote Judge Felicia Mennin… “such outfit hardly demonstrates the wearer’s proclivity to…prostitution…characterization of…jeans as ‘revealing’ because they ‘outlined the defendant’s legs’ seems more to be expected in the dress code of a 1950s high school than a criminal-court pleading”…

Above the Law

A [Zimbabwean] prostitute…has claimed that civil servants…constitute…the majority of the industry’s clients, but [are] notorious for using…threats to [avoid] paying…most soldiers [use] verbal threats…while police officers [threaten arrest]…

The Schizoid State

Notice that a “child” magically becomes a “woman” the instant she’s accused of a crime:

Prosecutors in Texas have accused a 17-year-old woman of recruiting her…”easily manipulated” friends to provide [paid] sex for Michael “Money Mike” McIntosh…the friends were as young as 14. The alleged teen madam is charged with compelling prostitution…

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan (TW3 #25)

Apparently, the “sex advice” in Men’s Health is almost as moronic as that in Cosmo! Here’s another hilarious list of 15 useless, impracticable, ridiculous or just plain dumb suggestions from these clueless magazines.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #31)

They “believe it’s a means of making money” because it is.

…Elizabeth Ngonga has said…”Many girls and boys engage in sex-tourism, which they believe is a means of making money. It’s very sad spotting teenage girls and boys roaming beaches with foreigners”…Ngonga called on the government [of Kenya] to create laws that will enable police…to access tourist cottages [without warrants]…She [also] urged the government to ban foreigners from walking with bikinis and pants…

Show and Tell

…Doriana Silva is seeking $20 million from Ashley Madison…she was…promised a starting salary of $34,000 plus benefits…to create 1,000 “fake female profiles”…to lure men to the new Brazilian Ashley Madison site – and given only three weeks to complete the work…“The purpose of these profiles is to entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website…They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison – or any real human beings at all”…Silva developed severe pain in her wrists and forearms…and…the company has refused to grant her workers’ compensation or insurance…

Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #47)

Could any non-bureaucrat actually consider this with a straight face?

Draft regulations currently being considered…would…not only require condoms during intercourse but also prohibit ejaculation onto the genitals, mouth or eyes, and instruct employers to provide [porn] performers with protective eyewear to avoid ocular contact with semen…The 21-page document suggests several other regulatory changes…like providing “plastic coverings or other disposable materials to facilitate cleaning of the work area”…

End Violence, Not Demand

From a memorandum submitted to the UK Parliament by migration expert Dr. John Davies:

…the assumed link between demand for sexual services and consequential harm…is not evidence based…sex work migration…is often undertaken to try and surmount…structural obstacles to…desired mobility…There is a widely disseminated proposition that…prostitution is a demand-driven industry…which…fuels forms of induction…[this] is apparently based on unreformed Keynesian economic theory…and …should not go unchallenged…sex work…is often a commercialised extension of a pre-existing, common domestic and barter behaviour…[as such] it…is more likely to be represented by Say’s economic laws, rather than any form of rigid Keynesian theory…

Well worth reading in its entirety.

Sex Workers Against Trafficking (TW3 #139)

From the Journal of Public Health: “DMSC-led interventions to remove minors and unwilling women from sex work account for over 80% of successful ‘rescues’ reported in West Bengal…the proportion of minors in sex work in Sonagachi declined from 25 to 2%…”

Checklist

I’m sure the Stasi gave very similar training in spotting threats to the state: “Binmen and taxi drivers are among those to be trained in spotting victims of human trafficking in Northern Ireland…‘Anybody in contact with the public…may…be helpful’…”

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #314)

…Two studies…in Australia and Thailand…have revealed consistent findings of authorities’ use of stereotypes…airport authorities identify a woman arriving on a tourist visa as a potential sex worker…through scrutinising women’s luggage…”sexy” clothing…leads to further questioning of women as potential victims of trafficking or unauthorized sex workers…

Naked Truth (TW3 #314)

Shereen El-Feki on the pragmatism of sex work and how HIV is forcing Arab “authorities” there to stop pretending they can make it vanish by forbidding it:

In the Arab region, it is easier to talk about sex when it is wrapped in a white coat of public health. HIV…provides a way of prompting authorities to address the realities of sexual life, including sex work. But a medical lens offers less than 20/20 vision, and the broader political, economic, and social conditions that make women turn to sex work in the first place…can be overlooked…But beyond public health, few women’s rights groups in the region want to talk about sex work, let alone actively engage with and empower…sex workers. The Arab world is very far from accepting the sort of sex worker collectives, such as those in India and elsewhere in the Global South, which equip women to defend their rights…

Sadly, so is the United States.

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

At the beginning of last week, Irish “trafficking” fetishists were enjoying the wanking fantasy of a new “14-year-old trafficking victim”. By the end of the week, reality threw cold water on it: “The mystery girl [has been] identified…as an Australian adult [with] a previous conviction for deception in her native country…Samantha Azzopardi…was…believed [to be] aged 14 to 16…but…is actually 25…[and has] up to 40 different aliases…”

First They Came for the Hookers (TW3 #317)

After cops wasted taxpayer money to trick strippers, the women were forced to endure the childish giggling of morons in court, a refugee from a high-school newspaper’s writeup of the ordeal and a dried-up prude of a judge forcing them to endure a year of anti-sex brainwashing. Because obviously there is no actual crime in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Comfort Zone (TW3 #320)

This excellent article about the “rescue industry” exposes its racist and moralistic motivations and demonstrates how it hurts those it “saves”:

For almost three years Sine Plambech…[of] the Danish Institute for International Studies, has followed 30 [deported] Nigerian women…the European categorisation of who is a victim and who is an illegal alien is arbitrary and unsystematic…“The ones who receive assistance have…[learned] what to say…If you say that you went to Europe to earn money for your family, you knew that you would sell sex and you bought the illegal papers yourself, then you probably won’t get help. If you say that you didn’t know you were going to sell sex, you get help”…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #324)

The National Film Board of Canada improperly financed a Swedish model propaganda film named “Buying Sex”, and Alan Young (the main attorney in Bedford vs. Canada) is understandably upset:

…I was recruited to participate in this film on the basis that it would serve to inform and educate the public about…the ”Bedford” case…However…it became apparent that the filmmakers’ intent was to trivialize the constitutional challenge and…attack…my character and integrity…excerpts…were carefully edited to make…our commentary appear vacuous and self-serving…the filmmakers have manipulated and used both the NFB and myself to advance…the claims of abolitionists, and…to promote the adoption of the ”Swedish model”…into the Canadian legislative landscape. The only reason the filmmaker chose to include the constitutional challenge…was to make the film appear topical and Canadian, and to secure close to $1,000,000 in NFB funding…

Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #324)

Change “Botswana” to the name of any American state:

Botswana recently [announced]…that prostitutes will either be detained if they are locals or deported if they are foreigners…Alongside regular crackdowns…the Health ministry will put out messages against sex work [on] billboards…Newspaper adverts, articles, posters, flyers, radio and television adverts on sexually transmitted infections and dangers of sex work will also be used.

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #327)

Buried in an article about Japan’s move toward legalizing casinos: “…law enforcement has already started cracking down on sex clubs and affiliated businesses in entertainment areas in preparation for the Olympics…”

Buttons, Bags & Banknotes

A growing clamour to tackle sexually explicit pop videos will find a new voice this week with the launch of a campaign group to demand cinema-style ratings on lewd content aimed at teenage and pre-teenage girls…Rewind&Reframe [is] a joint project run by the pressure groups End Violence Against Women Coalition, Imkaan and Object…A petition is also being started to call on the [UK] government to act…

Little Tin Gods

Just two percent of counties in the United States are responsible for more than half of the country’s executions since 1976…and…85 percent of the remaining…counties…have not had a single…execution in over 45 years…The top 10 counties…are: Los Angeles County, Calif.; Harris County, Texas; Philadelphia County, Pa.; Maricopa County, Ariz.; Riverside County, Calif.; Clark County, Nev.; Orange County, Calif.; Duval County, Fla.; Alameda County, Calif.; and San Diego County, Calif…

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

With the judgment against Rick’s in New York, this was only a matter of time:

An exotic dancer is suing Bourbon Street strip club Rick’s Cabaret on claims the business refused to pay wages and siphoned off tips to hundreds of its women performers. Kelly Moncheski, a former dancer, filed a lawsuit…on behalf of other former employees…The lawsuit claims that Rick’s…improperly classified dancers as independent contractors…and…forced [them] to share tips with the owners…the company dictated…how long they should work, what to wear, and how to groom themselves…

Across the Pond (TW3 #344)

I can’t really see why this is a bad thing:

The council are considering scrapping the need for Edinburgh’s saunas to apply for a licence…all the venues could keep operating and only be subjected to the usual public health and trading standards regulations which every business has to abide to…Sex workers’ charity Scot-Pep have criticised the move, saying it has been forced on the council by Police Scotland’s crack-down. They are concerned about the implications for the safety of sex workers…

Celebrities (TW3 #345)

The revolting Dennis Hof demonstrates more of the whorearchistic, misogynistic, trafficking-panic supporting and wholly opportunistic behavior that earned him a place in my Hall of Shame:

Upon hearing reports that Justin Bieber was seen leaving a Brazilian brothel…Dennis Hof is making a public appeal to him to stop risking his health and instead spend time with the ladies of his seven legal brothels in Nevada. “I was shocked to hear that Justin might have put his health and safety at risk in a Brazilian brothel…condom use with Brazilian prostitutes is voluntary and unregulated…[and] Brazil has a rampant child sex trafficking problem, second only to that of Thailand…”

He goes on to basically say that sex workers are too stupid and criminal to be trusted to monitor our own health without state compulsion.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #345)

Caty Simon interviews Jaclyn Moskal-Dairman of SWOP Phoenix; Dairman explains how Monica Jones was specifically targeted and entrapped by Phoenix police, discusses the true reasons for “diversion” programs, and discusses the ethical nightmare of Project ROSE in particular. How bad is it? Take a look at this report from Al-Jazeera, which unlike US media corporations is under no political pressure to spread “trafficking” hysteria, and is in fact emerging as a persistent critic of the narrative.

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Links #173

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, California, censorship, cops, drugs, Europe, Florida, Germany, holidays, Iceland, imaginative fiction, internet, language, Middle East, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, New York, Ohio, Oregon, teachers, Texas, Turkey, Twitter, video, Washington (state), weaponry, witchcraft on October 27, 2013| 12 Comments »

Continuously doing what doesn’t work… – Nick Andre, “Stupid”

This was such a disappointing year for Halloween items, I’m glad I recycled a bunch of old ones for tomorrow’s column. Since I wasn’t about to let the occasion pass without a couple of spooky videos, I spent over 90 minutes yesterday screening candidates and found exactly three I thought worthwhile: the first one isn’t scary but it’s fun and spooky; the second is very subtle and mysterious and rewards close attention; the third I’ll share next week. Everything down to the first video was contributed by Jesse Walker, including the first of only three seasonal links; the other two appear directly after the first video and were provided by Aspasia and Nun Ya (who also gave us “headline of the week”). Grace supplied “knife”, “never call” and “meth”, Jason Kuznicki “WTF?”, Lenore Skenazy “student”, Jillian Keenan “names”, Amy Alkon “note”, Cop Block “tase” and Radley Balko “toy”.

From the Archives

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Everything Old is New Again

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, censorship, cops, cult of the child, dehumanization, dirty, Everything Old is New Again, evidence, Florida, hysteria, internet, Israel, language, law, Madonna/whore, Middle East, neo-Victorianism, neofeminism, Oklahoma, paganism, pathologization of males, porn, prohibitionist myths, racism, rescue industry, sacred prostitutes, stereotypes, streetwalkers, yellow journalism on October 25, 2013| 38 Comments »

This essay first appeared in Cliterati on September 22^nd; I have modified it slightly to fit the format of this blog.

History, it is said, repeats itself. And while the parallels are never exact, they are often pretty damned close. Witness, for example, the new Victorianism which has engulfed Western society:

…we have become shockingly hypocritical about sex and grant our governments tremendous power to suppress it while simultaneously spending tremendous amounts of time and money on it…We have revived Victorian ideas of government-enforced temperance and “social progress”, and the…“Cult of the Child”…which…preaches that children [including adolescents] are as emotionally fragile as soap bubbles and the merest hint of sexual imagery…can cause irreversible trauma…is…pressed into service for sex issues which have nothing to do with children…prohibitionists [have resurrected] the late Victorian “white slavery” moral panic under a new name, “child sex trafficking”, and [wield] it as a bludgeon against adult whores…lest anyone balk at treating adult women as children, there’s a Victorian answer for that as well; prostitutes are abnormal, defective “victims” of men who have to be protected from our own choices, which are clearly irrational. Similarly, trafficking fanatics classify brown people as…too stupid and unsophisticated to move between countries on their own without being “trafficked” by gangsters, so by the Victorian “white man’s burden” philosophy they need to “save” these poor victims, whether they want to be “rescued” or not…

But while the racist, colonialist, prudish, censorious and paternalistic attitudes we see around us, especially in speeches by politicians and articles from the mainstream media, are straight out of the late 19^th century, at least the language used is still modern, isn’t it? Well…not quite. In recent decades we’ve seen the return of tortured, obfuscatory euphemisms and circumlocutory, polysyllabic abortions used in place of clear words and direct phrases, and nowhere is this more true than in prohibitionist anti-sex work screeds larded with cumbersome, politicized passive-voice constructions such as “prostituted women” or even “women victimized by systems of prostitution”. And in recent months, it’s been growing steadily worse; yellow news stories steeped in purple prose extol the supposed “horror” of sex workers’ lives in lurid detail, women are described as utterly helpless and hopelessly naïve, and sexual behavior is described in phraseology that would not seem out of place in a hellfire-and-damnation revivalist’s tent. And really, that’s not surprising; the equation of all prostitution with “sex trafficking” goes back to the 1880s, and one of its chief originators at that time, The Salvation Army, is also one of its chief proponents now. The “trafficking” mythos is deeply rooted in Protestant Christianity’s obsession with “pure and pious womanhood”, and even when there is no Christian group involved in a prohibitionist scheme the same themes of sin and degradation echo through their rhetoric, even if translated for a non-Christian audience.

To be sure, some of them are very subtle, contenting themselves with merely denying that sex work is work, equating all sex work with survival streetwalking and using Victorian phrases like “selling their bodies”. Others absurdly state that “prostitution is not a victimless crime”, deny sex workers’ agency (“When you are bought and sold for sex…does that make it a freely made choice?”), misdirect attention from the real issues with simple-minded morality plays featuring demonic pimps and heroic cops, and ignore the coercion implicit in the “diversion programs” they tout. Still others feature cops using language that sounds plagiarized from penny dreadfuls: “[The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics] is committed to dismantling organizations involved in the seedy world of prostitution and ultimately human trafficking. Our agency…[is] determined to make a positive impact in a dark world that troubles the soul. Women that are used as a commodity sickens ones hear [sic].” But others aren’t nearly as restrained:

The struggle against human sex trafficking in Israel has made appreciable progress in the past decade. Mass media have better informed the public of the severity and dimensions of this vast criminal enterprise…The Sinai fence and more effective border patrolling has appreciably, though not totally abrogated the tacit understandings between the IDF and Beduin [sic] smugglers that annually brought thousands of sex slaves into Israel’s brothels…girls as young as 13, are coerced by the ravages of poverty, incest and rape…into sexual servitude. Procurers and their underworld bosses subjugate them in lives almost never truly rehabilitated by even the most valiant and dedicated social welfare agencies…tens of thousands of [men]…continue to buy women’s bodies in order, as they commonly express it, “to make them do whatever I want”…the purchase of sex is about power, not about sex, about societal toleration of the abuse of women’s bodies – and souls…

If not for the uniquely modern idiocy that sex isn’t sex, one could easily mistake this for a description of a Victorian or silent-film melodrama, complete with bearded Bedouin slave traders (no doubt carrying their struggling captives on camels); note also the revoltingly misogynistic assertion that whores are “fallen” women who can “never truly [be] rehabilitated”, a common Victorian prostitute-motif which persists in modern “sex trafficking” myth and is echoed in the characterization of rape as uniquely destructive, a “fate worse than death”.

But the myth of the harlot as a passive, pathetic victim of the Almighty Phallus is a comparatively recent one; for the majority of the past two millennia (and for centuries before that among the Jews), we were cast by prudes and religious fanatics as powerful figures akin to witches, vile temptresses sent straight from Hell to seduce godly men into wrongdoing. A few of their modern successors still prefer that sort of rhetoric, and demand that whores be made into outcast pariahs who can be persecuted by the “authorities” at will:

…New Port Richey [Florida]…Police Chief Kim Bogart…suggested the city consider crafting an anti-prostitution ordinance that makes it easier for police to arrest known “ladies of the night.” He’s hoping the ordinance would be worded so that if such a woman even waves or makes a certain gesture to someone, it would be justification for arrest…Councilman Jeff Starkey took aim at the city’s prostitution problem. “It’s unbelievable how brazen these nasty, nasty, nasty women are”…he said…

Of course, before we were witches and temptresses we were priestesses; many ancient religions believed that sacred whores were a way for men to connect with their goddesses. The practice still existed in the early Christian era, much to the chagrin of early Church fathers (who had inherited the long Jewish tradition of hatred for whores). Our last (and most fiery) example of retro anti-whore rhetoric derives its inspiration from that time period:

…Preaching from 1 Corinthians 6:15–7:5, [Russell] Moore likened the present-day cultural saturation of pornography with the first-century pagan practice of temple prostitution. “The temple prostitution of Corinth has been digitalized and weaponized…and brings with it the kind of illusion and anonymity that the temple prostitutes could never promise…there are digital harems of prostitutes, available and pushed upon every single population in the United States of America and increasingly every single population in the world,” Moore said…

As I’ve said before, if I’m going to be insulted and lied about I’d rather be cast as a powerful succubus than a weak and deluded victim. Given the choice between two ridiculous stereotypes from the past which have somehow held on into the 21^st century, I prefer to be a living weapon so dangerous she must be arrested on sight than an infantilized defective who needs to be locked up because she’s too stupid to know what’s good for her.

(This essay was inspired by Dr. Laura Agustín‘s “tweets” about how silly prohibitionist language has become lately; she and Mistress Matisse provided most of the featured examples.)

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Hysteria on Parade

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Fantasy of Hate, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, agency denial, asset seizure, Backfire, bogus studies, brothels, California, Canada, Catholicism, Check Your Premises, consensual crime, cops, dirty, drugs, East Asia, end demand, fantasy, Georgia, Germany, Held Together With Lies, Hollywood, hysteria, Imaginary Evils, internet, King of the Hill, language, law, Law of the Instrument, Middle East, neofeminism, New Jersey, O Canada!, Original Sin, pathologization of males, Pennsylvania, pimps, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, Repeat Offenders, rescue industry, slavery, sporting events, streetwalkers, surveillance, Thailand, The Widening Gyre, United Kingdom, Washington DC on October 24, 2013| 60 Comments »

Most victims don’t know they’re being exploited. – many trafficking fanatics, who apparently believe they get to define other people’s experiences for them

“Sex trafficking” hysteria is growing so rapidly now that in any given week one can see almost as many of these as one cares to look for (consider the effect that has on Kevin Bales’ media-report-driven “algorithm”). Here is a selection of the more interesting ones from the past few weeks, done in TW3 style.

Check Your Premises

Any “method” premised on the twisted belief that heterosexual male desire is “sickening” is doomed to fail:

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez said…she wants city officials to come up with better methods for curbing prostitution, beyond arresting sex workers who end up returning to the streets after a brief stint in jail…she is “exasperated by the reality that…it just isn’t working…it’s time for…additional legal tools…targeting the sickening demand for prostitutes”…Martinez is hoping to…go…after those who exploit the prostitutes and engage in human trafficking…Pimps have also adopted new tactics that include shuffling prostitutes through Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Seattle…to make it harder for police to recognize [them]…

I suspect the notion that whores are “trafficked” in a circuit by “pimps” is a warped view of touring.

Backfire

Critics say a satirical sex-traffic awareness campaign, that issued a fake callout for children to become sex workers, backfired. But the organization behind the campaign is calling it a success. Posters by Edmonton’s Chrysalis Human Trafficking Network, read: “Now recruiting: Child sex workers”…The Twitter feed was ultimately shut down…Jacqueline Linder, executive director of Chrysalis, said…”It looked real and it was meant to look real”…

No, it did not “look real”, as you can see for yourself by clicking on the picture; it looked like ugly prohibitionist bullshit of the sort we’ve seen before. Jemima has more on the sleazy fanatics at Chrysalis, including a typical bogus “checklist” with items designed to describe just about any young person.

A Fantasy of Hate

Even among “sex trafficking” fetishists, it’s rare to see such raw, unfiltered misandry outside of neofeminist hate sites:

…Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape Criminal Justice Training Specialist Krista Hoffman…said…”One of the big problems with sex trafficking is our cultural acceptance of prostitution…[Pimps] don’t mind beating girls up around the face”…One study found that purchasers…actually like the appearance of bruises and cuts. “When it looks like girls are beaten up a bit it heightens the excitement for them,” Hoffman said…

Only in the twisted fantasy world inhabited by neofeminists could anyone claim that the stigma and criminalization inflicted on whores indicates “cultural acceptance”. And only an evil fanatic with almost no attachment to reality whatsoever could imagine that the average man wants to have sex with a woman who has obviously been beaten.

Law of the Instrument

Inspector Haynes just can’t understand why sex workers “don’t even realize that they are victims“:

Five women believed to be sex-trafficking victims have been rescued by police during raids on nine suspected brothels in Birmingham. Police…said they were determined to put a stop to “modern day slavery” in the region…Officers…seized mobile phones, cash, laptops and paraphernalia relating to prostitution…Detective Inspector Darren Haynes said…”Tonight’s action…is about protecting people who more often than not don’t even realise that they are victims”…

Repeat Offenders

The agency-denying, lie-spreading nun-SOAP cabal is at it again:

…Beginning this week, a group of 200 volunteers, including 30 nuns, will be cold-calling or visiting 300 New Jersey hotels to talk about the Super Bowl’s dirty little secret: prostitution…everybody knows hookers follow the game. But most…see only a victimless crime, a business arrangement between consenting adults, where the women are willing opportunists and the men just out for a good time. The nuns don’t see it that way. They see victims…The volunteers…will be distributing soap…with the coalition’s hotline number on the wrapper, so a girl being forced into prostitution has a lifeline…

Held Together With Lies

Since Kevin Bales’ widely-quoted “estimate” is based on media reports, it was only a matter of time before it grew even more ridiculous:

There are 29.8 million people living as slaves right now, according to a comprehensive new report issued by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation. This is not some softened, by-modern-standards definition of slavery. These 30 million people are…chattel in…absolute ownership…Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe…are blighted particularly by sex trafficking, a practice that bears little resemblance to popular Western conceptions of prostitution. Women and men are coerced into participating, often starting at a very young age, and are completely reliant on their traffickers…You don’t have to go far to see slavery in America. Here in Washington, D.C., you can sometimes spot them on certain streets, late at night. Not all sex workers or “prostitutes” are slaves, of course; plenty have chosen the work voluntarily and can leave it freely. But, as the 2007 documentary “Very Young Girls” demonstrated, many are coerced into participating at a young age and gradually shifted into a life that very much resembles slavery…

Of course, this is absolute poppycock; none of these so-called “slaves” are chattel slaves unless the legal systems of their countries officially recognize slave ownership, and most aren’t even coerced by any legitimate definition of the word. As regular readers have seen, claims of “sex slavery” in Southeast Asia are dramatically exaggerated, and the claims about Eastern Europe are both exaggerated and twenty years out of date. The documentary mentioned is prohibitionist “average entry at 13” propaganda, and if the reporter wanted to quote old stories from his newspaper he should’ve tried this one.

Pyrrhic Victory

NSA says sex workers & associated parties are valid drone targets, then hides the admission:

There was an odd statement from NSA in the middle of yesterday’s WaPo story describing how NSA facilitates CIA’s drone mission… “The NSA is ‘focused on discovering and developing intelligence about …foreign intelligence targets, such as terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers’,“…I believe this is the first time since the Snowden leak that NSA has suggested its “valid foreign intelligence targets” include “human traffickers and drug smugglers”…the WaPo explained [that it was] “withholding many details about those missions, at the request of U.S. intelligence officials“……and…the reference has now been removed from the story…

O, Canada! (TW3 #31)

Canadian “authorities” are nearly as obsessed with “trafficking” porn as American ones:

Brianne answers the knock, expecting to see the…man with whom she negotiated sex-for-money over email…Instead, two police officers step inside…“We’re not here to arrest you,” the officer says to Brianne. “We’re here to help you.” Women who are victims of human trafficking don’t fit the profile you might imagine…these girls could be your daughter, says Det. Mark Benallick…of the Toronto Police…“What begins as a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship progresses to increasing control, until these women are treated as slaves…These pimps have the ability to spot vulnerable girls in a crowd…and instantly know which ones can be manipulated”…

Note the increasing tendency to ascribe magical powers to pimps.

King of the Hill

Not just the US; the entire world!

Two girls excitedly walk off their plane that just landed in Paris…their happiness is snatched from them as they are betrayed, dragged and forced into a hard-to-escape lifestyle…Many are familiar with the depiction from the movie Taken, but many fail to realize the reality that lies behind [it]…the University of West Georgia…is…close to one of the biggest sex trafficking hubs in the world…Atlanta International Airport is…a target for human traffickers…the U.S. is not that different from well-known sex trafficking countries such as Czechoslovakia. FBI reports that Atlanta is the center for the sex-trafficking of adolescence and around 200 to 300 youth are prostituted in Atlanta a month…

Original Sin

What planet do these people live on, where “sex trafficking” is “unrecognized”?

Although largely unrecognized, sex trafficking in the U.S. is a serious problem, and its victims needs the loving support that the Catholic Church can give…Candace Wheeler, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Restoration Ministries…[said] “These girls need the body of Christ, and the body of Christ needs them”…According to the Department of Justice…300,000 children are at risk of sexual exploitation each year…girls at risk for sex trafficking… “have typically been violated before the age of five”…

How much lower in age can the filthy masturbatory fantasies of “trafficking” fetishists go?

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #317)

Pop stars cause sex trafficking!

On Sept. 20, Rihanna tweeted…about a female performer from an illegal sex show she attended in…Thailand…officials say they used Rihanna’s tweets to help lead them to the arrest of the club’s owner. Christian Film & Television Commission founder Ted Baehr says…”Most times these female performers are held in captivity against their will, and most are sold into slavery at young ages and don’t live past the age of 20 because of working conditions and highly-addictive drugs used to keep them in slavery”…Baehr says…Rihanna is supporting the international sex trade…

This is the second time we’ve seen the magical slave-philter, but I guarantee it won’t be the last.

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

…Talking about the prostitutes she met whilst filming Jodie Marsh On The Game, [the model-turned-bodybuilder said]…“Mostly the thing they had in common was they’d all been forced into it by a man. And their lives were shit…One girl — who had a gang bang in Germany where 15 men had sex with her one after the other — said she loved it…I’ve been celibate for two and a half years but that put me off sex even more…It made me think nobody is coming near my body ever again”…

I’m glad to hear that, Jodie; it’s best for the world that control freaks like you never breed.

Imaginary Evils

Remember, many huge police operations have found virtually no “sex trafficking” in the UK:

…trafficking of foreign women to be sexually exploited in the UK is worth at least £130 million, a Home Office report suggests. The annual revenue generated by one female sex worker was estimated as £48,000…Organised crime was responsible for all such trafficking…A study…in 2009 identified 2,600 foreign women in England and Wales who were victims of [sex] trafficking…A further 9,200 were identified as vulnerable to being trafficked… Understanding Organised Crime: Estimating the Scale and the Social and Economic Costs, warned that the £130 million figure was likely to be an underestimate. It estimated the social and economic costs…at £890 million…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #341)

Educated white American feminist goes “undercover” in a Turkish brothel; blah blah blah “piece of meat”, blah blah blah “traffickers and pimps”, blah blah blah “girls sold for sex”. Because only educated white feminists are sophisticated and brave enough to take risks to make a living (you know, like by going into Turkish brothels), and only educated white feminists are magically protected from the mustache-twirling pimps with their magical pimp vision and mind-control potions; all other women everywhere are asexual simpletons who could NEVER EVER EVER make valid decisions that contradict feminist dogma.

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That Was the Week That Was (#341)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, abortion, Above the Law, acting, Ad Absurdum, adolescence, agency denial, asset seizure, Australia, Be Careful Who You Rape, Canada, Change a Few Words, Coming Out, cops, Cuckoo Advertising, drugs, Due Consideration, Elephant in the Parlor, end demand, FBI, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, halfway whores, harm reduction, hysteria, internet, language, Madonna/whore, Middle East, neofeminism, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Norway, Peeping Toms, pimps, Policing for Profit, politicians, Presents, prisons, prohibitionist myths, rape, red-light districts, Schrödinger's cat, sex offender registry, sex rays, sex work is work, Shift in the Wind, streetwalkers, stripping, Sweden, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, The End of the Beginning, The Notorious Badge, The Profumo Affair, Turkey, United Kingdom, video, Virginia, Whatever They Need To Say, Wisconsin on October 12, 2013| 80 Comments »

Fuck you, Gawker and your puritanical bullshit. – Lynsie Lee

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

If you think 100,000 “child sex slaves” in the US is ridiculous, how about in a country with ¼ the population? “There are over 100,000 women working as sex slaves in Turkey, of which half are children, a non-governmental organization has revealed…” This is supposedly an “estimate” of the number of streetwalkers (compare with 70,000 in the US), all of whom are said to be “victims of the ‘prostitution mafia’.”

Elephant in the Parlor

…Benny Johnson from BuzzFeed…messaged me, asking…about…an innocent yet charming flirtation I had…with…mayor [Cory Booker] at the beginning of the year… the [resulting]…article…was cute and, to me, satirical…[then] calls and emails start pouring in from reporters. It was surreal. How could something so simple be seen as a scandal? Oh wait, I’m a stripper and nude model (how dare someone flirt with my kind!)…Gawker released a story…[implying] that…anybody I associate with is a bad person, especially men…strippers, or anyone in the adult industry, are real people, with real lives and real human relationships. What we do for income doesn’t mean we are doing those things 24 hours a day. Accountants don’t sit at home with calculators at the dinner table, nor do proctologists go around sticking their fingers in people’s butts at the grocery store…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

A reader called Daz sent me a DVD I’ve been curious about for some time: Doctor Mordrid starring Jeffrey Combs, which was originally meant to be an adaptation of Marvel’s supernatural superhero Doctor Strange. Thank you, Daz!

Change a Few Words

The Silk Road, a Web based black market for…narcotics…and other illicit goods, has been shut down by the FBI, and its alleged mastermind, Ross William Ulbricht, has been arrested…I can’t help but conclude…that the world is actually going to be a more dangerous place in [its] absence…The FBI…[wrote] “the site has sought to make conducting illegal transactions…as easy and frictionless as shopping…at mainstream e-commerce websites”…compared to the epidemic violence that has characterized the drug trade for the entirety of the War on Drugs…that…[seems] like a relative utopia…[and] successor sites…are…already up and running…

The Profumo Affair

…Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies, the friends who became household names when the Profumo affair was exposed in 1963, are no longer even on speaking terms…[and have] not seen [one another] for three decades…Rice-Davies has leant her support to Lloyd Webber in the making of Stephen Ward, a stage show about the society osteopath who also played a pivotal role in the scandal…

First They Came for the Hookers…

Politicians want to protect the “good” women of Saskatoon from sex rays:

A new…proposal would isolate…strip clubs in industrial areas…City administration is recommending a 160-metre separation for adult entertainment venues from residential neighbourhoods, schools, parks, childcare centres, preschools…recreational facilities…[and] other adult entertainment venues…”You don’t [get] more street crime because of strip clubs,” said Mariana Valvarde, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto…”It’s a myth”…Saskatoon’s proposed bylaw would [also] require [strippers] to be licensed…

But wait, it gets even stupider:

…Saskatchewan…does NOT allow nudity in a business that serves alcohol…[and] this is NOT changing…[the government’s own website states] “full frontal nudity will continue to be prohibited”…[only] wet t-shirt contests and striptease without nudity will be allowed…[but] the public AND the media…are reacting as though the opposite is the case…

Coming Out

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #26)

Another way the Swedish model harms sex workers:

A plan to protect Oslo prostitutes…has been dropped after [officials] ruled it would violate people’s privacy…Bjørg Norli, director of Prosentret, said…”The problem is that buying sex in Norway is illegal. We would have been keeping a register of criminals, which the police would have been able to demand access to”…

Whatever They Need To Say

It isn’t only in Bangladesh that whores are evicted so fascists can profit:

…Sex workers from three flats in Soho were evicted…after police issued enforcement notices on landlords warning they could be prosecuted if they were found to be allowing “immoral activities”…On [October 9^th] sex workers and activists…gathered outside the offices of Soho Estates, one of the main property owners in the area, and called for them to “stand up” to police. “Soho has always been one of the safest places in the country for women to work”…said Niki Adams from the English Collective of Prostitutes…Members of the local Soho Society said the character of Soho was under threat from developers…

The Notorious Badge (TW3 #32)

I’ve got news for you, Léa…

When it awarded the Palme d’Or to Blue Is the Warmest Colour, the Cannes Film Festival jury took the unusual step of sharing the prize between its director Abdellatif Kechiche, and its two principal actresses Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos…but…the actresses were apparently unhappy with the director’s methods…Seydoux [said] “We had fake pussies on…I don’t make love on screen…it was kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute”…

Due Consideration

Alicia Beltran found herself handcuffed, shackled…and detained in an inpatient drug treatment facility for being honest about a medical history that included past dependency on prescription painkillers. The State of Wisconsin provided an attorney for her fetus, but not for her. Without evidence of harm to either herself or the fetus, Alicia was made a ward of the state, all her rights and liberties suspended – including her right to have an abortion if that had been what she wanted…

Peeping Toms (TW3 #311)

“The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal of a lower court ruling striking down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law…Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli…responded…[by] alleging that ‘nearly 90 sexual predators’ could be dropped from a registry of sex offenders…” Too bad it isn’t more.

Dr. Schrödinger and His Amazing Pussycat (TW3 #312)

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was an 18^th-century biologist who believed that characteristics acquired within an individual creature’s lifetime could be passed to its descendants; this was among the first steps toward evolutionary theory, but was disproved about a century ago. However, certain political cults (such as Soviet communism) still clung to it long afterward as a pseudoscientific means of supporting their beliefs, and apparently Swedish state neofeminism is among them:

Around the world, women are on average shorter than men. Purely biological evidence suggests that it should be the opposite…if women generally were larger risks associated with childbirth would…decrease…New theories suggest that the imbalance of power and discrimination underlie the size differences…we unconsciously give boys more food than girls, making the size difference between the sexes…persist over generations…

If this were true, the size difference would have vanished by the late 20^th century in Western countries, where food has not generally been scarce in generations. But it must please neofeminists tremendously to believe that if not for “Patriarchy”, women would be bigger and stronger than men.

The End of the Beginning

…As…governments have imposed…restrictions on where sex offenders can live or even set foot, members of this highly stigmatized group…have formed associations…to [argue]…that indiscriminate laws…are unconstitutional and ineffective…“I find it very offensive that…sex offenders are trying to defeat the measures we have put in place to protect children,” said Nina Salarno Ashford …with Crime Victims United. “They created their own issues…somebody was assaulted, in many cases a child”…[prosecutor] Susan Kang Schroeder…[said] “The pro-sex-offender lobby likes to bandy about percentages, as if even 1 percent is acceptable”…

The dysphemisms and lies should seem familiar. Crime Victims United are vengeful badge-lickers who support mass incarceration and the abrogation of rights of the accused; the pretense that public urination, prostitution and sex while teenage are forms of “assault” is typical for them, as is pretending most “victims” are children. And branding those fighting for human rights “The pro-sex offender lobby” is right out of the prohibitionist playbook.

Above the Law (TW3 #325)

…new studies confirm previous findings that most of those who commit sexual abuse in detention are corrections staff, not inmates. That is true in all types of detention facilities, but especially in juvenile facilities…[where] victims of sexual misconduct by staff members were more likely to report eleven or more instances of abuse than a single, isolated occurrence…

Ad Absurdum

…Kaitlyn Hunt…entered no contest pleas to…misdemeanor battery and felony interference with child custody…[she will] remain in jail until December 20, followed by three years of felony supervision…she will not be branded a convicted felon or registered sex offender and can ask for her case to be sealed or expunged…

Be Careful Who You Rape

And if she really had been a hooker, that would have made it OK?

…21-year-old Matthew E. Lyons approached [a] woman…[bird-watching] in a [Florida] gazebo…Lyons repeatedly complimented the woman…[when she said] she was not interested…in…sex…Lyons…threw [her] to the floor…and pulled off her shorts and underwear…[but fled after he] was unable to pull on a condom…Lyons admitted meeting with the woman but said he thought she was a prostitute…

Policing for Profit

“Several communities in [Wisconsin want]…to increase the fines for…prostitution…Police are backing an ordinance that would make the fines more than $2600…Police are hopeful increasing the fine by more than 1300% will serve as a deterrent…” Obviously, they hope nothing of the kind; it would cut into their profits. Meanwhile, in Florida:

Police in [Sunrise]…have hit upon a surefire way to make millions. They sell cocaine. [Cops] and their army of informants lure big-money drug buyers…from [all over the Western Hemisphere]…then bust the buyers and seize their cash and cars…the…money…fuels huge overtime payments for the undercover officers…and cash rewards for the confidential informants…one femme fatale informant [made] more than $800,000 over the past five years…Last year, the city raked in $2 million…the year before…twice that…

Cuckoo Advertising (Extra Edition)

Credulous reporters keep giving away ad space:

…“The World’s Largest Sugar Daddy Dating Website” says it has recorded a 50 percent jump in average daily sign-ups since the start of the government shutdown…“We usually have a lull in September and October,” Seeking Arrangement’s public relations manager Jennifer Gwynn told NPR…“Half of the new members are single moms, so we’re thinking that it’s tied directly to the government shutdown, since programs like WIC…have been stalled”…

Just Call Me Nobody

Lest you forget: “pimp” is copese for husband, driver, landlord, roommate, service owner, bodyguard, phone operator, parent…

…Lindsey Roberson, a [North Carolina] assistant district attorney, said…if [whores] complete certain mandated steps, the charges will be dropped…they [must] accept responsibility, go through trauma counseling, a vocational assessment, and – if needed – substance abuse treatment…Thom Goolsby…said [his] new law makes North Carolina the “toughest state in the union on pimps and johns”…

So women are infantilized and brainwashed and men are “hammered”.

A Procrustean Bed (TW3 #339)

Cathy Reisenwitz on New York’s “trafficking” court:

…the policy…is a paternalistic perception that strips women of agency in an attempt to protect them from their own choices. “Saving” sex workers, after arresting and arraigning them, will not accomplish the court’s goals…special courts fail to recognize the people who are not hurting themselves or anyone else, but are criminals only by law…sex workers are potentially human trafficking’s most effective foes, as they are ideally situated to identify sex slavery and alert the authorities. Or they would be if they did not risk arrest and prosecution for doing so…

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #339)

Another good article about Equality Now from Melissa Gira Grant:

It’s not something you expect to hear from a women’s rights group: our prostitutes are better than yours. But that’s the tone struck by Equality Now in their new campaign against United Nations recommendations that sex work be decriminalized. Claiming that the UN “ignores survivors of prostitution,” Equality Now and their allied anti-prostitution organizations have offered their own experts who have worked in the sex trade – who all also happen to agree with them that prostitution must remain illegal…despite evidence that illegality is dangerous, and despite even sex workers’ own demands. This is why you will find a former prosecutor…now leading this ostensibly human rights campaign…

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Handy Figures Revisited

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged archeofeminism, Australia, blogging, brothels, Cambodia, Canada, dirty, disease, domestic violence, East Asia, Europe, FBI, Florida, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Handy Figures, hysteria, Illinois, internet, Israel, Japan, law, male prostitutes, Middle East, Netherlands, New York, Norway, pimps, prohibitionist myths, rape, sporting events, statistics, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, transgender, underage, United Kingdom on October 8, 2013| 28 Comments »

Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are very rare. – Rene Descartes

Yesterday’s “Frequently Told Lies” inspired me to look back at “Handy Figures“, a compilation of numbers and figures which previously appeared in other columns; I had originally intended to keep updating it, but it somehow seemed wrong to make major alterations to an old column so I lapsed. Since then, I came up with the idea of duplicating these retrospective-type columns into static pages, and that’s worked out so well I figured it was time to do the same with this useful reference tool. Much of it is the same as the old column, but there are additional figures and better links, and I’ve rounded my estimates off in response to the justified criticism that very specific numbers don’t look like estimates, but rather exact counts.

$32 billion: Current claim of the total annual income of the “sex trafficking” industry; this was actually the ILO’s 2005 estimate of the value of all forced labor, not forced prostitution.

42 million: Fondation Scelles’ estimate of the total world whore population; it’s not really bad, but see 19 below.

27 million: According to a December 2010 “estimate” by “Free the Slaves”, the total number of people “trapped in modern-day slavery” (see also 2.4 million and 800,000 below).

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

2.4 million: UNODC estimate of the number of “trafficking” victims worldwide (see also 27 million above; 800,000 and 40,000 below).

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 and 2.4 million above; 80,000, 14,500 and >10% below).

450,000: Estimated number of active, professional prostitutes in the US.

$300,000: Prohibitionist claim of a typical hooker’s annual income.

100,000-300,000: According to trafficking fanatics, the number of “trafficked child prostitutes” in the US (see also 16,000, 14,500 and 2500 below).

100,000: According to one “estimate”, the number of “trafficked” Vietnamese manicurist/whores hidden in nail salons in the UK.

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

70,000: Estimated number of street prostitutes in the US (see also 450,000 above).

30,000-45,000: Total number of whores supposedly “trafficked” into Israel from 1991-2006, who magically vanished after a law was passed.

40,000: The number of “trafficking victims” for which UNODC claims to have actual evidence (see also 2.4 million above and 1362 below).

10,000-40,000: Typical “estimates” of the number of whores claimed to flock to mega sport events such as the Super Bowl or Olympics (see also 1 below).

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

16,000: Estimated number of all American prostitutes under 18.

2500: Estimated number of coerced prostitutes under 18 in the US.

1362: The total number of “human trafficking victims” (all types, not just sex) identified as such in the US from 2000-2007 (see also 14,500 above).

600: Estimated number of “pimped” underage prostitutes in the entire US who advertise online.

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).

133: The total number of arrests made in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area during the 2.5 weeks before the 2011 Super Bowl, which is now represented by “trafficking” fetishists as the number of “trafficking” arrests (see also 1 below).

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

97%: Fraction of Turkish harlots who prefer to work illegally rather than be registered and subjugated in brothels.

95%: Fraction of underage New York City street prostitutes who say they sell sex because it is the most dependable way to support themselves.

90%: Fraction of sex workers in Queensland who prefer to work illegally (see also 97% above).

85%: Fraction of sexually-active Bahamian teens who are involved in some kind of transactional sex.

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

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

80%: According to the UNDOC, the fraction of “human trafficking” cases involving forced prostitution (see also 20% below).

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

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

77%: Fraction of Canadians who support decriminalization.

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

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

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

70%: Fraction of Dutch sex workers who aren’t Dutch by birth.

69%: According to Kinsey (1948), the fraction of men who have paid for sex at least once in their lives; it is probably somewhat lower now due to the increased availability of “free” sex.

60%: Fraction of American prostitutes who are escorts (either independent or agency).

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

>50%: Of streetwalkers with pimps (see below), the fraction who control their pimps rather than vice-versa.

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

50: As of June 2012, the high-water mark in ridiculous claims of the number of clients per night hookers supposedly see.

48%: The amount by which sexual coercion has decreased in Germany since prostitution laws were liberalized in 2002.

45%: Fraction of underage New York City street prostitutes who are male.

34: Though often presented as the average life expectancy of sex workers, this is actually the average age of murdered streetwalkers from one study.

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).

28%: The factor by which the number of prostitutes rose in Norway after client criminalization.

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

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

25%: Fraction of Queensland prostitutes with a university degree.

25: The average age at which American prostitutes enter the trade.

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

20%: More realistic estimate (heard at Albany Law Symposium) of fraction of all “human trafficking” which is for sexual purposes (see also 80% above).

19: Prohibitionist group Fondation Scelles’ claim of the average age of all whores worldwide (see 25 above).

16: The average age at which underage prostitutes enter the trade (see also 13-14 below).

15%: Estimated fraction of all Western prostitutes who worked on the street prior to the advent of the internet.

13: 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.

12.5%: According to a 2005 “estimate” by Atlanta police, the fraction of the city’s Asian population who are “sex slaves” (see also 3% below).

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

11: The number of US states which allow prostitutes to be sentenced to prison.

10.5%: Fraction of Chicagoans charged with buying sex who are actually transgender prostitutes.

>10%: According to the U.S. State Department’s TIP report for 2004, the fraction of all “human trafficking victims” in the entire world 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 transgender.

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

10%: Estimated fraction of streetwalkers in Western countries who are controlled or dominated by pimps (see also 1.5% below). It is also the fraction of underage streetwalkers who have pimps at all.

<10%: Fraction of all women accused of being underage hookers who are actually under 18.

5-10%: Historically, the fraction of women who prostituted themselves at least part-time, varying by time and place (from Whores in History).

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

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

7%: Approximate fraction of sex workers arrested in FBI “Innocence Lost” operations who are actually under 18.

6%: Fraction of men who see prostitutes frequently.

5.5%: Typical fraction of women in a 19^th-century European or American city employed as prostitutes at any given time (from 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 fraction of school-age girls in the US who would now be “sex slaves” if the “estimates” of hysterics were true.

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

3.5%: Estimated fraction of Western prostitutes who are under 18.

3%: According to “trafficking” hysterics, the fraction of all underage hookers in the entire US who work in Atlanta (see also 12.5% and 16,000 above).

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

2 hours: Typical average cost of the least expensive hookers’ services in comparison with the average working man’s pay in most cultures.

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%: Fraction of Cambodian prostitutes who say they were coerced into the trade (see also 1.5% below).

1.5%: Overall estimated fraction 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%: Fraction of modern American women who admit to having worked as whores at some point in their lives (from Sex Work).

<1%: The fraction of “brothel” raids in which UK police found someone they could accuse of being “trafficked”; also the fraction of “trafficked” Greek whores.

1: The number of arrests for “human trafficking” during Super Bowl week in both Miami (2010) and Dallas (2011) (see also 40,000 and 133 above).

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).

0.3%: Fraction of women in modern Western cultures who work as prostitutes at any given time.

0.014%: Fraction of missing “children” (most of whom are actually adolescents) who are abducted by strangers for any reason.

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Links #165

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, Arizona, cops, crypto-moralism, drugs, Egypt, Florida, hysteria, imaginative fiction, internet, LGBT rights, Louisiana, Middle East, nanny state, Never Call the Cops, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, politicians, propaganda, psychology, Rome, Russia, Tennessee, United Kingdom, universal criminality, video, Washington DC on September 1, 2013| 18 Comments »

There’s a certain color someone uses that I won’t mention that tells me someone’s been demonized. Everything that I talk about is based on numbers, is based on studies, which is what you do…when you’re a scientist. – Jerry Mungadze

Another good week for general links, though I’m glad it wasn’t quite so heavy on topical ones; if I start getting too many more of those I’ll have to expand to two TW3 columns, and I’m really not anxious to do that yet. Our leading contributor for the week was Jesse Walker, with everything down to the first video; that one and “cat physics” were supplied by Mike Siegel. The second video is just footage from a probe on the Martian surface of Phobos eclipsing Deimos, and was provided by Antonio Lorusso; the links between the videos are courtesy of Popehat (“science”), Aspasia (“nanotechnology”), Brooke Magnanti (“tentacles”), Franklin Harris (“haters”), Cthulhuchick (“Azathoth” and “canyon”), Mistress Matisse (“menstruation”), my husband (“allergies”), Mike Riggs (“presence” and “prohibition”), Dean Clark (“taboo”), Cop Block (“never call cops”, “legless” and “bicycle”), and Radley Balko (“SWAT”).

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