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That Was the Week That Was (#335)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Arkansas, asset seizure, blogging, brothels, Cambodia, Canada, cell phones, censorship, Chauvinism, China, Coming and Going, Confined and Controlled, consensual crime, cops, cult of the child, Deafening Silence, dehumanization, dirty, diversion programs, drugs, East Asia, end demand, Europe, evidence, Eye of the Beholder, Florida, gangs, Gullible's Travels, Hall of Shame, harm reduction, hotels, hysteria, internet, Iran, Ireland, Italy, King of the Hill, Latin America, law, lawheads, LGBT rights, Lying Down With Dogs, Middle East, Moloch, nanny state, neofeminism, North Carolina, Obfuscation via Dysphemisms, Oklahoma, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Opting Out, Policing for Profit, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, red-light districts, rescue industry, Russia, screening, serial killers, Sex Lies and Busybodies, sex offender registry, sex work is work, Sold Out, sporting events, streetwalkers, Surplus Women, Switzerland, Texas, That Old Black Magic, The Public Eye, Uncommon Sense, Under Every Bed, United Kingdom, universal criminality, Universally Criminal updates, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, Washington (state), What Were You Thinking?, Wisconsin, Wise Investment, witchcraft, Worse Than I Thought, yellow journalism, Zurvivor on August 31, 2013| 17 Comments »

The Olympics are always a chance for hosts to do some moral cleansing, and drive away undesirables by brute force. – Scott Long

Lying Down With Dogs

“The lawyer of a man convicted of building and promoting pornographic websites [in Iran] says a death sentence against his client has been converted to life imprisonment…blogger Saeed Malekpour will spend the rest of his life in jail…” There aren’t too many other countries barbaric enough to sentence a man to life in a cage for “dirty” pictures, but I can think of at least one other.

The Eye of the Beholder (June Updates)

“The [Arkansas] Senate passed a bill…that would ban non-traditional…body art procedures, particularly scarification and dermal implants…”

Wise Investment

Pay attention, sex worker activists:

The children of three women who were murdered by Robert Pickton have filed lawsuits against the police and the serial killer…They allege the Vancouver police and the RCMP failed to properly investigate reports of missing women and failed to warn women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that a serial killer was likely at work, despite having evidence implicating Pickton in the disappearance of sex workers as early as 1997 and 1998…

Surplus Women

The suspicious deaths of two prostitutes…has sparked a major investigation…The bodies of Jill Lyons and Karen Nabors, who both worked as online escorts, were discovered in an apartment building in Vancouver. Ms Lyons, 45, was discovered dead in her own apartment on August 12…The body of Ms Nabors was discovered on August 25, also in her own apartment, and police…suggest…the 48-year-old was murdered…

Gullible’s Travels

Another ludicrous mini-panic from the clowns who brought you idosing, jenkem and vodka-soaked tampons:

“Parents, lock up your shower supplies”…is an actual quote from an announcement made…at a middle school just outside of Richmond, VA…of…a new practice called “shamboiling”…where shampoo is brought to a rapid boil and then the fumes are inhaled for a hallucinogenic effect…one thing is certain…shamboiling is catching on quickly and…is potentially deadly…The Sheriff’s department is urging parents to check their shampoos for [ammonium lauryl sulfate] and to take the necessary precautions to keep these chemicals away from children…

Here’s the debunking on Snopes.

Universal Criminality

A perfect example of how laws against consensual behavior are used by repressive governments to harass those they dislike:

Police have detained a Chinese-American…on suspicion of visiting a sex worker in Beijing as authorities crack down on bloggers. Charles Xue [AKA Xue Manzi], who has over 12 million followers on Sina Weibo…regularly reposts reform-minded content…Among those questioning the motive behind the arrest was the editor of the state-run Global Times newspaper. “Cannot rule out the possibility that authorities are arresting Xue Manzi…to give him a hard time,” Hu Xijin wrote…in a blog posting that later disappeared…

Sex, Lies and Busybodies

Yet another “sex trafficking” opportunist exposed:

The founder of…anti-human trafficking NGO Sisha, Steve Morrish, announced…he was stepping down from his position due to a raft of allegations accusing him of financial impropriety…Sisha’s alleged financial problems were revealed publicly…on August 8 in…the Cambodian blog Penhpal. The posting alleged that money donated to Sisha…“has instead been siphoned off to pay for the NGO’s operating expenses”…

Moloch

Is this idiotic enough yet? Can we stop now?

A 10-year-old girl…identified as “Ashley,” was charged by police for aggravated sexual assault…[for] playing doctor…a neighbor saw the children and called the mother of a 4-year-old boy…[whom] Ashley was inappropriately touching…Ashley’s mother…was not allowed to sit-in on the 45-minute questioning of her daughter…

Gail Dines threatens Radisson hotels

Confined and Controlled

If this were intended to increase sex workers’ range of options, it’s would be fine; however, it’s clearly intended as a confinement system: “Several communities in Italy have launched a campaign to ban street prostitution and reintroduce brothels, which have been banned since 1958…”

Worse Than I Thought

As I predicted last year, the cancer keeps spreading:

…[new] legislation…in North Carolina….increases punishments for sex traffickers, i.e. pimps, as well as for purchasers, i.e. johns. It also focuses on “treating minors involved in prostitution as the victims they are, instead of criminals,” [the bill’s sponsor] said…”The legislation also offers hope to women who escape a life of prostitution by allowing them…relief to expunge their criminal pasts once they get treatment and help”…[another law] requires pimps to register as sex offenders…

As I’ve explained before, “safe harbor” laws are bullshit that help almost nobody; “treatment” means (usually religious) “re-education”, and a “pimp” means just about anyone prosecutors decide to railroad.

Obfuscation Via Dysphemisms

Tulsa cops continue to justify persecution of adult women by pretending they’re “trafficked”: “Human trafficking has developed into a booming enterprise in Oklahoma…on a given night, the Vice Unit may deploy undercover police officers to respond to as many as 40 online advertisements posted by ‘escorts’ in preparation for prostitution stings that sometimes uncover cases of human trafficking…” Note the misplaced scare quotes, around “escorts” rather than “trafficking”.

The Public Eye

Jessica Land interviews Dr. Melissa Ditmore, a prominent academic ally, on her research, The Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, sex worker projects and organizations, and international issues.

That Old Black Magic

Here’s an interesting article on the connection between harlotry and witchcraft:

…Prostitutes were widely believed to be specialists in erotic magic, especially the use of philtres to sway the feelings of those around them…For example, a woman may resort to a binding spell, to handicap rivals in the trade or lock down a steady client…These women were also sought by those outside the trade for their magical expertise. Those in troubled marriages might consult a prostitute to concoct a love potion to rekindle the affections of a wayward spouse…

King of the Hill

Most of this CNN story is the usual lurid “sex trafficking” rubbish, but I want to call attention to a fascinating new development: “king of the hill” stories are now specifically claiming their subjects are the “third-busiest area for sex trafficking in the United States” (see also “Under Every Bed” below) rather than just “one of the busiest” or “in the top ten”. As usual, the Department of Justice is credited for the “statistic” despite the fact that neither it nor any other agency keeps any kind of state-by-state “trafficking” statistics. I suspect the “third largest” designation arose through confusion with the claim that “human trafficking is the third-largest criminal enterprise” (though that one’s been upgraded to second), but it will be interesting to see how many claim to be the “third largest” before anyone in the mainstream media starts to awaken.

What the Hell Were You Thinking? (TW3 #135)

A new Irish company named Safe IQ “develops safety products and services for sex workers…and raises awareness of the need for [them] to have the same protections as other workers.” Here’s its first product:

Ugly Mugs for Android is a [free] mobile phone app that automatically screens incoming and outgoing calls and text messages and alerts the phone user if the…number…is listed in the UglyMugs.ie database…When a sex worker encounters a dangerous person, they [sic] can report the incident to the ugly mug scheme, and a warning will be made available to all sex workers…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #312)

Only a hopeless lawhead could imagine that closing red-light districts will make prostitution go away:

Hundreds of sex workers confronted the mayor of Indonesia’s second-largest city…angrily denouncing the closure of the Klakah Rejo district…The crowd later tore down a “Prostitution-Free Town” billboard erected by officials…”What’s going on?”…the mayor [said]…”We’re trying to help but they are refusing.” Surabaya is also home to Dolly, reputedly the largest red-light district in South-East Asia. The mayor said that one and other red-light districts would be closed as the city aimed to be prostitution-free by 2014.

Under Every Bed

Wisconsin is one of “the top three states” for sex trafficking, according to…Michelle Mayefske… Not all prostitution is trafficking. Some women, referred to as “renegades,” simply decide to sell sex and are not controlled or managed by anyone, but “that is very, very rare,” she said…“Gangs are now turning from drugs to human trafficking…[because] drugs can be sold only once and then they’re gone, whereas…a woman or a child can be sold over and over and over…Georgia, California and Wisconsin have the highest rates of sex trafficking in the United States, so we are in the top three”…

1) This is the second time I’ve heard this “renegade” bullshit; neither I nor anyone I asked knows where it comes from. 2) I think Mayefske is extremely confused about the concept of “sale”. 3) She needs to talk to Florida.

Chauvinism

Veteran human rights activist Scott Long argues that activists who compare Russia’s anti-gay purge to the Nazi campaign against Jews are not only wrongheaded, but missing the most obvious comparison:

If Western gay…activists want to know what Putin’s decree will mean in practice: ask a sex worker…Before every big sporting event, the same rhetoric reverberates: Prostitutes are going to take over this town…The predictions are nearly always couched as concern for “trafficked” women, but they…come down to…anxieties over nuisances to “normal” neighbors, and…the reputation of the host city…What major sporting events bring is not an “explosion” in prostitution, but an explosion in repression…not in evil Russia, but in liberal Canada and the UK, countries that value human rights, except for sex workers, who aren’t human…Yet in London, few powerful voices opposed the Olympic rollback of sex workers’ freedom — and certainly few LGBT activists…

Deafening Silence

“The treatment of sex workers in Cuba, including confinement for the purpose of ‘re-education’, was raised by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women…the…committee said it was “deeply concerned” about Cuba’s reluctance to address the issue of prostitution…” The United States’ confinement and “re-education” of sex workers, however, causes the committee no concern at all. Funny how that works.

Sold Out

…two of the largest and most well funded LGBT rights groups in the US have stayed quiet about Manning…whose revelations about the US Army’s actions epitomize social justice in action…the [silence of the] Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD…has been deafening… the HRC…[has] the financial backing of…Lockheed Martin…Booz Allen Hamilton…[and] Northrop Grumman…GLAAD has…Goldman Sachs…and Verizon…

Coming and Going (TW3 #331)

Kate Zen takes a long, thorough look at Texas’ “prostitution diversion” program and its founder, Kathryn Griffin; she examines the program’s lack of any of the normal benefits of such schemes, its close relationship to the rescue industry, its pervasive Christian moralism and its ignoring all of the actual reasons women turn to prostitution in favor of a sin and victimization narrative.

Policing for Profit

Federal and state law-enforcement officers poured into Tukwila [Washington]…seizing three motels whose operators are suspected of participating in illegal drugs and prostitution…U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan…said that the three hotels…have accounted for 17 percent of all calls for police services in the past year…investigators believe the owners actively profited from criminal activity…Durkan said…[her] office will…actively use…seizures to force compliance…

Uncommon Sense (Extra Edition)

Though most English-language media is pretending Zurich’s tippelzone scheme is something new, it is nothing of the kind; this article lists a number of other cities in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands with similar setups.

Zurvivor (Extra Edition)

…Donald Hill was acquitted…on a charge of [paying]…Alexis Wright, after a judge ruled prosecutors were not able to prove that money was exchanged. The ruling could affect any additional charges of individuals alleged to have engaged Wright’s services…

Opting Out

An example of why “porn filters” are a spectacularly bad idea:

A man using the British Library’s wi-fi network was denied access to…Hamlet because the text contained “violent content”…the…library said the fault was caused by a newly installed wi-fi service from a third-party provider. One security expert said the incident highlighted the “dysfunction” of internet filters…Prof Ross Anderson…[said] internet filters were “pointless” and that it was “completely inappropriate” to have one in the British Library…

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Links #164

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, Arizona, Catholicism, cops, disease, Europe, hysteria, imaginative fiction, internet, Islam, libraries, Middle East, nanny state, Nevada, Never Call the Cops, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, vaccines, video, welcome to our world, witchcraft on August 25, 2013| 14 Comments »

Some magicians may ride a broom and fly in the air with the help of the djinn. – Sheikh Abdel Mohsen Obeikan

As I explained last week, I was absolutely swamped with links; this week we’re more back to normal, which is good because one extra TW3 column (which will appear Tuesday) is quite enough, thank you very much. Our top contributor, as so often happens, was Radley Balko, with everything down to the first video. That one was provided by Franklin Harris, who also gave us “disgrace”; it’s fairly long but well worth it if you’re a fan of Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series, or both. And though being an avid bicyclist might increase your appreciation of the second video (contributed by Jillian Keenan), enjoying slapstick will also do the trick. The links between the videos are from Broke Brehon (“Steed”), Jesse Walker (“witchcraft”), my husband (“homeless”), Nun Ya (“OK”), Lenore Skenazy (“lava lamp”), Mike Siegel (“closing”), Susan (“freedom of assembly”), and Cop Block (“never call cops”).

A disgrace to her profession.
From the John Steed collection.
Saudi Arabia’s war on witchcraft.
Welcome to our world, homeless people.
A magic button that makes everything OK.
Bomb squad successfully defuses lava lamp.
Feds threaten to arrest man for closing down his own company.
That whole “freedom of assembly” thing was nice while it lasted.
This week’s edition of “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever.”
Against her own will and all previous judgments, Maggie admitted to herself: I like this Pope.

From the Archives

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Links #163

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged animals, Australia, blogging, censorship, cops, East Asia, Egypt, Europe, games, Georgia, Hollywood, Iceland, imaginative fiction, India, Indiana, Japan, LGBT rights, Middle East, nanny state, Nevada, Never Call the Cops, New York, Pennsylvania, politicians, Prohibition (alcohol), South Africa, surveillance, teachers, Texas, United Kingdom, video, Vietnam, weaponry on August 18, 2013| 15 Comments »

Perhaps now that the arms race on the street has resulted in criminals equipping themselves with gravity, police should be issued with the Strong Nuclear Force so as to keep their edge. – Clark Bianco of Popehat

The internet has rebounded from a run of slow weeks with a vengeance, swamping me with a deluge of good stories and links. While this column is flexible enough to absorb the surge, the “That Was the Week That Was” feature has a fixed length of ≈2000 words, and I can only trim the stories down so much before they turn into plain links. Generally, stories that appear up to Wednesday night or Thursday morning make it into that week’s TW3, but this week I had my quota by Tuesday morning, and by Thursday morning I had enough for another column! As you read this I’ve already posted this coming Saturday’s TW3, and the overflow will go into an extra edition on Tuesday the 27^th. Our top contributor was, as so often happens, Radley Balko, with everything down to the first video and “don’t wave at cops”. But two others provided three links each, namely Mike Siegel (“39 stats”, “rhinoceroses” and “testes”) and Jesse Walker (“Area 51”, “terrorist” and “1776”); Grace clocked in with two (“ring” and “never call the cops”). The first video (via pws) is a mini-horror film (from the creator of Ju-on) which is no less effective for its brevity, and the second is a demonstration of why government control of weapons is doomed. The other links were supplied by Gideon (“Batman”), Franklin Harris (“waiter”), Luscious Lani (“spontaneous combustion”), Pee-wee Herman (“where no man”), Nun Ya (“26¢”), Amy Alkon (“journalists”), Glenn Greenwald (“non-compliance”), and Stacy Swimme (“Iceland”).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#330)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, Across the Pond, activism, Africa, agency denial, asset seizure, avails laws, Banishment, brothels, Catholicism, condoms, cops, Cops and Condoms, Counterfeit Comfort, disease, diversion programs, Election Day, end demand, End Demand (updates), escort review sites, escort services, Europe, France, games, Georgia, Hall of Shame, Hussies, hysteria, Illinois, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, Kenya, License To Rape, Middle East, Nebraska, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Nevada, New York, No Friend of Ours, Pennsylvania, politicians, Presents, prohibitionist myths, PSA, psychology, rape, rescue industry, RIP Petite Jasmine, Rubbing Elbows, sex offender registry, sexting, Social Autoimmune Disorder, South Carolina, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Subtle Pimping, Swedish model, transgender, Turkey, Unclean Situation, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to Our Updates, West Virginia, yellow journalism on July 27, 2013| 20 Comments »

Sex workers consider the promotion of the Swedish model and other forms of criminalization not just part of an ongoing “debate” on sex work, but a matter of life and death. – Melissa Gira Grant

License To Rape

“A West Virginia sheriff raped a teenager and sodomized her with a cucumber, threatened to kill her if she told, and subjected at least five other women to forced sex, at least once in a courthouse…Brittany Mae Keene sued Barbour County Sheriff John Wesley Hawkins and the Barbour County Commission…[who] essentially let Hawkins conduct a reign of sexual terror against women in his custody…” Hawkins’ victims ranged in age from 16 to 19.

Cops and Condoms (February Updates)

A [Polish] prostitute with HIV has been arrested for…having unprotected sex with clients [although]…she knew she was HIV positive…Fellow sex workers tipped off cops about the woman over fears that her actions would give prostitutes a bad [name]. But officers only arrested her after two of her clients came forward and admitted they had tested positive for HIV…

Election Day (February Updates)

Kristin Davis is running for office again, this time for New York City comptroller against her old client Eliot Spitzer. She was interviewed in The National Review by Charles Cooke (himself an advocate of legalization), and though she claims to be a libertarian she also seems to be advocating the sort of avails and bawdy house laws which may soon be struck down in Canada because they endanger sex workers. Every time she opens her mouth, she reaffirms her membership in my Hall of Shame.

Subtle Pimping

The law doesn’t care if you profit from sex workers, as long as you don’t have any direct contact or actually help us in any way. In a new French video game players manipulate a cartoonish, stereotyped streetwalker who must make $150,000 to “escape her pimp” by performing fake orgasm sounds into a microphone and avoiding hazards like cops and STDs (no skill involved in the latter because whores are just stupid victims of fate). The writer of the linked review also profits by using various prohibitionist tropes to save himself the effort of original thought.

Public Service Announcement

Anthony Weiner found himself caught in another sexting scandal…like the one that destroyed his congressional career, but…won’t drop out of the race for mayor of New York…Weiner admitted sending a woman sexually explicit photos and messages…more than a year after he resigned from the House in disgrace for the same sort of behavior…

Social Autoimmune Disorder (July Updates)

Another example of cops’ filthy efforts to subvert the means by which sex workers attract business and keep ourselves safe: “…a Long Island couple [was arrested for]…running an international escort service called Aphrodite Companions…Vincent and Melissa Lombardo…are currently being held without bond…the only basis…was…postings on…The Erotic Review…”

Counterfeit Comfort

A South Carolina man targeted a sex offender at random, killed him and his wife and later told deputies he planned to kill others on the state’s sex registry…Jeremy Moody and his wife, Christine, were arrested and charged with murder…Moody only knew 59-year-old Charles Parker in passing, but came to the mechanic’s…home…with plans to kill him…Surveillance cameras outside Parker’s home showed Moody and his wife driving up…and popping the hood on their car as if it wasn’t working…Gretchen Parker wasn’t specifically targeted, but was killed because she was in the house…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

…UCLA researchers say sex addiction does not appear to be a disorder…Nicole Prause and her colleagues monitored…volunteers’ brains while showing them erotic images. “If they indeed suffer from hypersexuality…their brain response to visual sexual stimuli could be expected to be higher, in much the same way that the brains of cocaine addicts have been shown to react to images of the drug”…Prause…thinks that so-called sex rehabs should be examined…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Two readers sent presents for my third anniversary (they arrived while I was in Las Vegas, so I didn’t know about them until after I got home last Sunday): Kevin Wilson sent Unlearning Liberty, and Krulac sent Absolutely Mad and Blak and Blu. Thanks so very much to both of you!

A Broker in Pillage

Make a note of this one, because you won’t often see a judge side with a sex worker against cops:

A federal judge has ruled that Nebraska cops must return over $1 million confiscated at a traffic stop from a woman who saved the money $1 at a time during her 15 year career as an exotic dancer…Tara Mishra, 33…began putting aside her earnings when she started dancing at age 18…to start her business and get out of…stripping…State troopers confiscated the money in March 2012 when they pulled over Rajesh and Marina Dheri…[who] had been given the cash so they could buy a nightclub in New Jersey. Mishra would own half of the business and the Dheris would own the other half…police did not find any evidence of drug activity…and…analysis found only trace elements of illegal drugs on the cash…[the judge] ordered that Mishra receive cash or a check in the value of $1,074,000 with interest.

Welcome To Our World (TW3 #15)

Another supposed “victim” is caged to force her cooperation in the state’s ugly little morality play: “[An Illinois] woman who claims she was forced to work as a prostitute for her boyfriend remains held…without…bail because she is considered a flight risk and might not return to testify in her boyfriend’s trial…”

End Demand

Though the story is somewhat amusing, note that “end demand” policies turn innocent whores into unwilling Judas goats: “A man caught with a prostitute in his car told police she was there to show him where to buy tomatoes…officers found the [known sex worker] sitting inside Muhammad Ikhlaq’s car while he withdrew £20 from a cash machine, which he said was to pay for tomatoes…”

Unclean Situation

The Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, and Good Shepherd Sisters will not apologise to survivors of the Magdalene laundries…Neither will [they] make a financial contribution to the Government’s reparations scheme…Co-operation voluntarily given does not compel the nuns in any legal sense. Their negative response invalidates the Government’s assertion that survivors are being afforded restorative justice. There is no justice without the nuns’ apology and/or financial reparation…the orders expect an amnesty for gross human rights violations…

Lest you forget, these same orders still receive tremendous amounts of aid and political support from the Irish government for their anti-whore scheme Ruhama.

No Friend of Ours

Just in case you think it’s only Las Vegas “authorities” who hate whores so much they’re willing to make themselves look like idiots by parroting ludicrous prohibitionist drivel, here’s an unusually-ridiculous example from Reno:

An increasing number of the young women…began working as prostitutes while in their teens. They are manipulated by men who control every aspect of their lives…Some girls are branded – or tattooed – with their pimp’s name…others are forced to perform while their children are held ransom, usually at gunpoint…Girls as young as 11 are being exploited…the average age…is 14…Since 2002, the FBI and local law enforcement agencies have rescued about 100 children identified as possible victims of juvenile sex trafficking…That number does not include the adult women being trafficked, which experts say would be impossible to produce because many women don’t acknowledge that they are under the control of a pimp…[Ron] Chalmers heads the…[police division] that focuses on these types of crimes…about 10 years ago, the women arrested…were generally in their 30s to 40s [and] were drug addicts, he said. But today, the prostitution demographics are completely different…They’re much younger than they used to be, he said…”A significant number of what we see, 80 to 90%, are being exploited – forced into the lifestyle”…

You may remember that the claims made in the “Satanic Panic” similarly became much more extreme, bizarre and demonstrably false as the hysteria drew closer to the point of implosion. That last bit is more than just Maslow’s Hammer at work; it’s an example of the incredible mathematical and sociological illiteracy of hysterics. Whenever a person tells you there’s been a major demographic shift in any human behavior in only one decade – from nearly nothing to “80 or 90%” – it’s a safe bet the speaker is an imbecile who is incapable of considering even rudimentary thought experiments like “where did all the old ones go?” We see the same principle at work under the Swedish model, which claims to have dramatically decreased the number of men who have ever paid for sex.

Banishment

The sex workers in the Solutions Not Punishment Coalition (SNapCO), the Atlanta group which defeated the proposal to banish arrested sex workers from the city, need to get control of their “allies”; not only is the group supporting involuntary diversion programs, its spokeswoman Misty Novitch is belching up the “average debut at thirteen” myth for the media.

It Looks Good On Paper (TW3 #311)

Yet another religiously-based “diversion program” chock full of prohibitionist rhetoric which claims to “help” streetwalkers while refusing to question the justice of the laws by which cops repeatedly victimize them: “Prostituted women” were all sexually abused as children, pimps give us drugs to control us, blah blah blah blah blah…

Across the Pond (TW3 #324)

Council bosses have [suspended] half a dozen [Edinburgh sauna] licences following a string of police raids…[in] a radical shift from the typically pragmatic approach to prostitution which…[kept] sex workers safer and off the streets…Peter Donoghue, 69, a former sauna operator…said: “It was a lot of nonsense. Some girls have worked at the saunas for ten or 12 years. They’ll simply work for escort agencies instead. We’re going to appeal, but I don’t believe we have a chance”…

Hussies

Save the children and the poor, innocent men from evil harlots!

[Kenyan] women…accused commercial sex workers of invading the town and “stealing” their men…[they] are planning to drive the twilight girls out claiming they are spreading sexually transmitted diseases. The women said the sex workers have taken their men and they are left cold and lonely on their marital beds…sex workers who dress scantily have created a brothel…where secondary school and university students go for cheap sex instead of concentrating on their studies…even primary school children have fallen into the traps…

Rubbing Elbows

A 17-year-old journalism intern’s impressions of the Desiree Conference:

I was a bit timid about the idea of going into a conference that was specifically about sex, but my passion against human trafficking led me to go…with…my mom…When I entered…I was…greeted by a woman with such a cheerful presence and smile, that it put me off guard. In fact, this was the common air of everyone there: happiness. Everywhere I looked I found people wearing bright colors, hugging, laughing, and enjoying themselves. I initially thought that at a Sex Worker’s Conference that it was going to be the exact opposite. I was expecting victims — people just out of the Taken film, tears that warned of a gruesome past, and consoling. There was none of that in sight. The media and society has always presented the sex industry as this taboo area…where [the] only people who were in this profession were forced to be…

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine (TW3 #329)

Caty Simon of Tits and Sass interviewed Kemal Ayrikotu of the Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association on the cultural background to the murder of Dora Oezer; Ayrikotu discusses the lack of rights for both sex workers and transgenders, and criticizes LGBT activists who wish to stress that Dora was a transwoman while ignoring that she was a whore (despite the two being nearly synonymous in Turkey). Meanwhile, Melissa Gira Grant wrote on the protests for both Dora and Jasmine: “If you passed by the Turkish or Swedish consulates in New York on [July 19^th], you may have seen…sex workers and their supporters holding red umbrellas…the…action accompanied rallies in 36 cities and on four continents…demanding an end to the stigma and violence against sex workers’ communities…”

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The Magdalene

Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, tagged Catholicism, dirty, Hollywood, Ireland, Mary Magdalene, Middle East, rescue industry, sacred prostitutes on July 22, 2013| 17 Comments »

Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior? Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. – The Gospel of Mary 9:5-9

Today is the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, long identified in Christian folklore as a prostitute (repentant or otherwise). Now, there is no Biblical evidence to that effect; Luke describes her as a woman “from whom seven demons had come out”, presumably one of Jesus’ miraculous cures. In fact, the four canonical Gospels say virtually nothing about her prior to the crucifixion, though all four identify her as the person to whom the resurrected Jesus first appeared. But as I explained in “Mary Magdalene”, the canonical Gospels are not the only ones:

…Gnostics were driven from Christian congregations early in the 4^th century and their doctrines declared heretical in 388. Before this time there was no official consensus on which texts actually constituted the Bible, and among those used by Gnostic congregations (and subsequently excluded from the canon) were four more Gospels: Thomas, Philip, Mary and Judas, all but the last of which assign a much more prominent role to Mary Magdalene than the four canonical ones; indeed, the Gospel of Mary is actually attributed to her. These Gospels refer to Mary as Jesus’ “companion” and describe him as loving her more than his other disciples and often kissing her on the mouth; indeed, the Gospel of Mary identifies her as the unnamed “disciple Jesus loved” mentioned so often in John. These clear expressions of favoritism appear to have perturbed the male disciples, particularly Peter, who is said to have argued with Jesus about his allowing a woman to be not only equal to the male apostles, but actually preferred to them…

This argument is portrayed in Jesus Christ Superstar, though changed in two ways: the critic is Judas rather than Peter, and the criticism is about her being a hooker rather than a gender-hierarchy thing. The tradition of her being Jesus’ (perhaps sexual) companion seems to have survived the suppression of the books, and “in a sermon in 591 Pope Gregory the Great identified Mary Magdalene as a repentant harlot, possibly by identification with the ‘adulterous woman’ whom Jesus rescues from being stoned in the 8^th chapter of John.”

So even though Mary was never the patron saint of prostitutes (that role fell, interestingly enough, to Saint Nicholas), the legend that she had been a whore was a popular one; hence the application of her name to “Magdalene homes”, the asylums for the “cleansing” of ex-prostitutes which became popular in the 13^th century and then again in the 18^th. The most notorious of these were of course Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, the last of which only closed in 1996; the long-awaited report on the atrocities committed therein was released only last February, and the nuns who ran them are still trying to evade responsibility. The legend also inspired me to have the sacred harlots in last week’s fictional interlude all take the first name “Magdalene”, just as regular nuns all take the first name “Mary”; in our world the Catholic Church officially repudiated that doctrine in 1969, but as you probably noticed a lot of things are different in the world where that story takes place.

But canonical or not, the legend is still a popular one; its only real rival is the theory that she was actually Jesus’ wife, and that one is of comparatively recent vintage (though its proponents claim it existed as a secret doctrine since the people it concerns were still alive). In movies, books and the popular imagination Mary Magdalene is still the whore (repentant or otherwise) who was closer than any other person to Jesus, and I think it very likely that it will continue thus for a very long time to come.

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That Was the Week That Was (#329)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, adolescence, Africa, An Example to the West, Australia, Backwards into the Future, Bottleneck, brothels, cops, Craigslist, disability, domestic violence, East Asia, Florida, Georgia, Hollywood, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, India, Indonesia, internet, Ireland, Legitimate Outrage, Madonna/whore, Middle East, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, New York, One Born Every Minute, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, porn, psychology, Puppet Show, rape, red-light districts, RIP Petite Jasmine, scams, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Tennessee, The First Time, The Widening Gyre, transgender, Turkey, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, virginity on July 20, 2013| 12 Comments »

They want to save us, but they punish us until we are willing to be saved. – Pye Jakobsson

The First Time

Because obviously, a random amateur will give him a better experience than a skilled professional.

Looking to send her nerdy son off to Harvard in style, this helicopter parent to end all helicopter parents has taken to Craigslist’s “casual encounters” section to seek a young woman who can help claim the “socially awkward” boy’s virginity, and turn him into a “cool college kid.” The plan is simple: You, a 19 to 20-something seductress, pick up a pair of complimentary tickets to “some great concert,” where your target, a handsome 18-year-old varsity cross country team member with “almost zero body fat” will be waiting unsuspectingly…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

A lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee filed a lawsuit against Apple, Inc. that blames the company for the dissolution of his marriage and the collapse of his mental health…because Apple devices do not have a filter that keeps them from playing pornography. The devices purportedly failed to protect Sevier from his porn addiction, so the attorney is suing the company in an effort to have all of its devices equipped with a filter that blocks sexually-themed content…

An Example to the West (TW3 #20)

Anu Mokal wasn’t breaking the law when she was out walking…when a police officer viciously attacked her…beating her severely…SANGRAM and…Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP)…demanded that Maharashtra politicians investigate the beating and institute…a grievance commission to address abuses of sex workers’ human rights…the attack echoed a deeper culture of oppression that sex workers face around the world at all levels of society…funded in large part by the foreign aid that pours into the Global South from Washington’s coffers…the Supreme Court recently dealt a potentially lethal blow to the so-called “anti-prostitution loyalty oath”…[for] U.S.-based groups…[but it] still looms large over the Global South…SANGRAM…has proudly defied PEPFAR…but…faces a political climate suffused with the pernicious pressures of America’s “soft power.” When aid comes with political strings attached, poor governments are pressured to mirror Washington’s culture wars…

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #40)

Sex workers have been fighting to enjoy their right to dignity. For this to happen, they say, prostitution has to be decriminalised…Ntokozo Yingwana, of the Sex Workers Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT)…[argues] that it is not sex-work but the stigma and discrimination that sex workers have to endure that strips them of their dignity…Marlise Richter, a public health researcher with the International Centre for Reproductive Health, said: “[The] evidence shows that the decriminalisation of sex work would serve public health and individual sex worker health best. Criminalisation of any aspect of sex work, including [the Swedish model]…means that the sex industry is driven underground and sex workers and their clients away from health, social and legal services”…The World Health Organisations (WHO) recommends that all states decriminalise sex work. It then becomes easier to take action to protect sex workers from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #50)

Once again: the existence of a movie featuring “lurid tall tales” about sex work does no more to prove them than the existence of The Wizard of Oz proves the existence of flying monkeys and talking scarecrows:

…Alexander Perlman…logged thousands of miles and hundreds of hours to make [Lot Lizard, his new documentary about truck stop prostitution]…braving roach motels, crack highs, and homicidal pimps…None of the women…profiled had pimps…and…one of the concerns [Perlman] had…[was] that selecting them downplays the prevalence of pimps and trafficking in the industry. There’s an amazing organization called Truckers Against Trafficking that addresses the issue…

In other words, they couldn’t find any “trafficking” but it must exist because an NGO says so.

Puppet Show

This Swedish model advert from Justine Reilly and her fellow shill Rachel Moran is not unusual except for its naked admission that prohibitionists want sex workers hounded into desperation: “Justine said…that without clients, women…would be thrown out on the streets where they could get support…”

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #312)

A plan by the Social Affairs Ministry to close down 50 red-light districts across Indonesia has caused nervousness among inhabitants of…Sunan Kuning…one of the ministry’s five main targets in a crackdown on prostitution…Ari Istiyadi, field coordinator of NGO Griya Asa PKBI Semarang… expressed his fear that the closure of the prostitution center would create new problems in the social and health fields…

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

“A teenage girl from Georgia disappeared Monday after arranging a meeting with a boy she met on Instagram…Beverly Knepper, 14…had an argument with her parents about seeing a 14-year-old boy named Jahlil…” Predictably, this not-vanishingly-unusual teen behavior triggered a huge panic which was starting to involve “sex trafficking” rhetoric when she was located soon afterward.

I Saw My Brain

…Polk County, Florida [is] unique in the nation for its unadulterated hostility to legal pornography and the people who make it…[its main city is] Lakeland…[whose] police department…is at the center of a sex scandal…[involving] a…crime analyst, Sue Eberle, who was apparently having sex with nearly a dozen of her co-workers…Coercing people into having sex is something sex traffickers do, but in Lakeland it was apparently the pastime for the police…the person asked by legislators to help get Lakeland PD “on track” is none other than…Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd…

One Born Every Minute (TW3 #315)

…a…computer consultant was jailed for 16 months in connection with a “pitiless deception” in which he sought to con hard up students into having sex with him in return for falsely offering to pay their university fees. Mark Lancaster…was exposed following an undercover investigation by The Independent into the website and fictitious business Sponsorascholar.co.uk. The pornography-addicted father-of-two admitted a charge of voyeurism and another of trafficking…

Bottleneck (TW3 #317)

It’s difficult to judge the legitimacy of these claims when none of the alleged victims were interviewed:

Three people who allegedly sourced more than 100 sex workers for Melbourne brothels would be likely to continue operating their lucrative syndicate…a magistrate…said [so] Mae Ja Kim, Moon Ja Kim and Huan Wen Ye were denied bail…Investigations are continuing into possible human trafficking and sex slavery…workers were allegedly transported to Australia, given accommodation, and driven between there and the brothels by about 10 “overseers”…The worker was paid $75 for each appointment, with the syndicate paid at least 50 per cent of the rest…

Legitimate Outrage (TW3 #328)

Spitzer’s return to politics has accomplished at least one good: it has emboldened journalists to speak out against criminalization. Here’s Michael Smerconish of MSNBC:

…we should have an adult conversation about the laws [Spitzer] violated…it’s time to bring the world’s oldest profession aboveboard in communities willing to allow it…let government share in the revenue, but otherwise stay out of the private affairs of consenting adults. Beyond the role of the taxman, prostitution doesn’t warrant the involvement of federal authorities…[to catch him] “they used 5,000 wiretaps. They intercepted 6,000 e-mails. Every hour spent on going after prostitution is an hour that could have been spent on going after…people who victimize”…another argument in support of legalizing…[is that] some among us are never going to find companionship for a variety of reasons…it can’t be healthy for some people to feel the amassed pressure of [sexual] images, and have their personal expectations go unfulfilled…

Keli Goff of the Washington Post called on Tracy Quan for assistance:

…Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer have come back…would the same kind of comeback be possible for the women on the other side of their scandals…could a former prostitute ever run for office and have a real shot, the way that Spitzer, former patron of prostitutes, now does?…Kristin Davis is also running for comptroller…she previously ran…the escort service that Spitzer once used…[but] her bids for office…are seen as little more than publicity stunts…Linda Fondren was a candidate for mayor in Vicksburg, Miss., when it was revealed that she worked as a prostitute decades ago…she broke no laws…was a nationally recognized leader in the field of public health…[and is] intelligent, articulate, telegenic and able to inspire people…[but] lost the primary…Tracy Quan…said…that even for legal sex work, such as exotic dancing, there is a double standard when it comes to stigmatization…a woman who works her way through law school as a stripper would have a tough time being elected to the…Senate but a man who visited strip clubs while in law school would not find that to be an obstacle to the White House…feminists share as much of the blame for this double standard as misogynists…[because they] are dismissive and suspicious of other women who have used their bodies and their beauty to succeed in a professional capacity…

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine

Caty Simon of Tits and Sass interviewed Pye Jakobsson of Rose Alliance about Jasmine’s death and the horrible Swedish model which created the climate that enabled it. Nor was she the only sex worker whose recent stigma-provoked murder has angered sex workers around the world: “A 24-year-old trans woman was stabbed to death in her own home in Turkey…[on] 9 July…Dora Oezer…was found dead by her housemate…sex work is not illegal in Turkey but [because] they are not allowed to work in regulated brothels, trans woman are often left in vulnerable and dangerous positions…” Activists used social media to coordinate “Justice for Jasmine and Dora” protests in many cities yesterday, such as this one in London.

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That Was the Week That Was (#325)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Africa, agency denial, Another Small Victory, Australia, bogus studies, brothels, Canada, censorship, Central Asia, China, Colorado, consensual crime, cops, cosmetic surgery, Creepy Coppers, cult of the child, Deafening Silence, dirty, disease, Do As I Say, Europe, evidence, FBI, Florida, Follow Your Bliss, France, hysteria, illegal aliens, internet, Iran, Islam, Korea, Lack of Evidence, Latin America, law, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Middle East, Mind Reading, Minnesota, nanny state, Nevada, New York, Not To Be Taken Internally, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Pimping the Pimp, pimps, politicians, porn, Presents, prisons, Profound Ignorance, prohibitionist myths, racism, rape, Rome, Russia, Rwanda, screening, sex offender registry, Somehow I Doubt..., streetwalkers, surveillance, Sweden, Texas, The Crumbling Dam, The End of the Beginning, The Enlightenment Police, The More the Better, The Widening Gyre, Think of the Children!, TSA, underage, United Kingdom, vaccines, video, Virginia, Washington (state), What If They Threw a Party?, Where Are the Protests?, Where Are the Victims?, Zurvivor on June 22, 2013| 23 Comments »

The idea that [no coerced prostitutes] ever indicate their plight to any of the hundreds of thousands of men who make up their clientele, or that if they do none of those men reports it to police, is simply fantastical. No one with any experience of real live human beings could possibly believe it. – Tim Worstall

Think of the Children!

…For the past two decades, parents who’ve lost children in horrible ways have tried to memorialize them in law…But…support for… “apostrophe laws”…is waning…recession…made officials…hesitant to increase costs…from…more prisoners and longer sentences…the drop in the crime rate…made tougher laws…less politically compelling…[and] the lower-hanging fruit has been picked…

Lack of Evidence

“A [West Australian] businesswoman claims…police have stopped her repeatedly…in the crackdown on street prostitution. Rebecca Williams says…officers…[demanded] to know what she was doing and [checked] her identification…” Of course she’s wholly clueless, protesting that she doesn’t “look like a prostitute”.

Must…resist…snark…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

A [Las Vegas] police officer is facing five counts of soliciting…while he was investigating crimes of prostitution…Investigators followed [Peter] Connell for months and witnessed him…visiting the apartment of Mary Anne Moore, who had previous prostitution arrests…

Somehow, I Doubt He Thought This Through

A man…dialed 999 to complain about a prostitute’s looks…[saying] he “wished to report her for breaching the Sale of Goods Act”…Officers…sent…a letter warning him about wasting police time…

The Enlightenment Police

A young Muslim woman miscarried after being attacked by two Parisian champions of women’s rights: “first [they] tried taking her headscarf off and later cut off her hair…After she screamed out that she was pregnant, one of the attackers started kicking her in the stomach…[shouting] that the veil was no longer acceptable in France…”

The Crumbling Dam

This article entitled “Faith Groups Oppose Legal Prostitution Because They Care About Women’s Lives” is just the usual collection of sin-and-degradation prohibitionist control freak myths; the comment thread, however, is a thing of beauty.

Mind Reading (November Updates)

Why do so many politicians think sex overrides the Constitution?

Pierce County [Washington] might make it illegal for suspected prostitutes and their customers to attempt to detect undercover officers…by “exposing oneself or asking another to do so; by asking to be touched sexually; or by requesting to touch or touching another sexually”…

Where Are the Protests?

Notice what words we aren’t seeing here:

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security raided [several] 7-Eleven shops in New York and Virginia…Nine store owners and managers have been arrested on charges of harboring and hiring undocumented immigrants…the raids are a part of an investigation into human smuggling, identity theft and money laundering…authorities described the alleged situation as a “modern day plantation system“…

Not To Be Taken Internally

…Suyima Torres…[died 10 hours after receiving buttocks injections] at…Cuerpos Health and Aesthetics on April 11…she…was rushed to the hospital…by the center’s owner, Ruth Planas…the Venezuelan doctor who performed the surgery…is thought to have fled the country…Torres died only 16 days after…20-year-old Dailen Garcia, received butt implants from the same facility…[and] was hospitalized …for vision problems and bleeding lungs…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Reader George sent me a copy of Meet the Fokkens and a gift card, with the suggestion I use it to buy the movie Diamond Men (which I did). Thank you so much, George!

Above the Law

Texas jailers…”repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates”…[who’ve now] sued Live Oak County and its…jailers Vincent Aguilar, Israel Charles Jr. and Jaime E. Smith…All three…were arrested in August 2010 and charged with sexual assault…Smith and Aguilar are in…prison…”these guards would withhold food and water, engage in physical abuse, restrict privileges and verbally and emotionally abuse the women – even threaten to kill them in order to compel their compliance”…

The Widening Gyre

In which we learn that nail parlors are havens of “sex trafficking”:

…the advocacy group ECPAT estimates 100,000 minors are forced into prostitution or pornography each year — but no one knows how vast the problem is because it’s under reported and underground, said Kathy Maitland of the Michigan Abolitionist project…”It’s the second-largest-growing activity in our country”…She says Michigan is especially vulnerable because of a large agricultural industry…and its location along an international border…Lt. Wendy Reyes…said…”If we had more manpower we…could get online…and find these victims”…trafficking is often linked to online and street prostitution, ethnic restaurants, masseuse businesses, pornography and nail salons…iEmpathize founder Brad Riley…called…the proliferation of pornography…a “super fuel” that promotes trafficking…

Beside the usual rampant illogic, mathematical illiteracy, blatant racism and “King of the Hill” foolishness, you’ve got to love Wendy’s claim that cops need to web surf all day to “find victims”.

The More the Better (TW3 #27)

French footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema go on trial in Paris…accused of paying…Zahia Dehar…for sex in 2008 and 2009…Algerian-born Dehar, now 21, has since become designer Karl Lagerfeld’s muse and protégée, launching her own lingerie line…State prosecutors have requested that the case be dropped, however, arguing the footballers did not know Dehar was a minor…

Follow Your Bliss (TW3 #44)

“A…top [TSA] officer…[named Miguel Quinones] was arrested on child pornography charges after items were seized from his locker at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport…” As explained in the referenced column, the TSA is well-known for attracting pedophiles.

Q & A (TW3 #134)

“Twenty-two female escorts were arrested last week during a two-day sting in…Denver…The women were advertising on two websites — DenverBackPage.com and Preferred411.com…” Despite the involvement of the FBI’s lugubriously-named “Innocence Lost” project, note that verified professional adult escorts were targeted via P411; these cops had no illusions they might find “trafficked children”. In fact, the sting was enabled by one creating a fake profile and then arranging several “coffee dates” with escorts and asking for “OKs”, which the escorts gave in violation of P411 rules; their accounts were suspended for their negligence in enabling predatory monsters to hurt other sex workers. Ladies, ONLY give OKs to men you actually see behind closed doors; how can you possibly know whether a man is dangerous if you’ve only seen him in public?

Profound Ignorance (TW3 #310)

A scathing demolition of the horrendous “study” which claimed legalized prostitution increases “sex trafficking”, and also of the “sheer implausibility of the claims that 30% of all prostitutes are trafficked…”:

The…scare campaign…over “sex trafficking”…becomes a complete and total mess…because [campaigners confuse]…the transport of unwilling people…into forced prostitution…and…the illegal movement of willing people across borders to enter the sex trade…people from poorer countries…wish to…move…to richer countries. And such is the system of immigration laws that many of them will be unable to do this legally…

Cathy Reisenwitz also had a few things to say:

…The Guardian recently quoted UK solicitor general Oliver Heald QC describing “victims” of trafficking as people who pay a lot of money to escape their home countries and then are forced to pay it back…That’s not slavery, it’s indentured servitude, and it accounts for two-thirds of immigrants to America from the British Isles in the 17th century. Anti-prostitution and anti-immigration campaigners have hijacked the term “human trafficking” to describe any instance of a person crossing a border to do sex work…It requires buying into the rather insulting idea that women aren’t capable of choosing to leave their homes and do sex work abroad…once you establish that women aren’t capable of making their own choices, you can justify taking all kinds of rights and liberties away from them…

The End of the Beginning

Corrections officials are refusing to remove a sex offender’s name from the state’s public database, defying [the] order…[of] The Court of Appeals [which] ruled…that [Robert Merle Haines Jr.] should not be named on the…registry because [it] did not exist at the time of his crime and registration would be a form of retroactive punishment, which the Maryland Constitution doesn’t allow. Corrections officials say federal…requirements prevent them from complying with the ruling…

Meanwhile, in Minnesota:

…Minnesota’s Sex Offender…Task Force…[is] redesigning the…program…each of the state’s 687 committed sex offenders [costs]…about $120,000 a year…with…50 more…each year…The task force came into existence as part of a lawsuit filed by the committed sex offenders, who argue the…program is unconstitutional because…no one is actually treated and released, thereby creating an indefinite incarceration system even after the offenders have served their criminal [sentences]…

Another Small Victory (TW3 #317)

As expected, the “anti-prostitution pledge” was struck down in the SCOTUS. This is not actually a victory for sex worker rights in the big picture; it was decided wholly on first-amendment grounds and the “allies” were at best ones of convenience. If you’d like to read more about the details and implications, I recommend Melissa Gira Grant, Popehat and Mike Siegel.

“The Ionian Dance” by Sir Edward John Poynter (1895) was recently rediscovered after being “lost” since 1915. It depicts a scene from ancient Pompeii.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #318)

If anyone really believes this is anything but an attempt to save face, I have some lovely beachfront property for sale:

For the first time, the State Department on Wednesday declared China and Russia among the worst offending countries…a designation that will lead to sanctions against both…the…2013 report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP)…officially downgraded China, Russia, and Uzbekistan to the lowest possible rating…along with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Zimbabwe…

What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? (TW3 #321)

The prevalence of dangerous strains of the human papillomavirus…has dropped by half among teenage girls in recent years, a striking measure of success for a vaccine…that was introduced only in 2006…The magnitude of the decline…surprised…experts because only about a third of teenage girls in the United States have [received]…the full course of three doses. By comparison, vaccination rates in…Denmark…Britain [and]…Rwanda…[have] reached 80 percent…

Deafening Silence

When this happens in India, it’s a media circus; in Sweden…{cricket sounds}: “Six teenage boys aged 15 to 17 were convicted on Friday after raping a 15-year-old girl in…Stockholm…The case was the third…gang rape to take place in the Stockholm area…this year…”

The Mills of the Gods

Despite the annoying visuals and a few clumsy phrases in the first third, this is an excellent argument against prohibition of sex work.

Where are the Victims? (TW3 #322)

A novel attempt to use New York State’s sex trafficking law…ended with mixed results…as the men were convicted…of promoting prostitution and of money laundering, but…acquitted of…sex trafficking…The law defines trafficking based on the methods the pimps use to control the prostitutes, rather than whether the prostitutes view themselves as victims…prosecutors…presented an expert to testify that women working as prostitutes are often not aware that they are victims. But three of the women themselves testified for the defense…and…were upset…at the…[suggestion] they were not to be believed…

Consider for a moment the incredibly dangerous precedent a prosecution victory would have set; state “experts” would be allowed to define any person as a victim in any crime regardless of that person’s viewpoint.

Zurvivor

“The owner of a Lawrence [Massachusetts] massage parlor coerced employees to perform sex acts on…customers, some of whom were videotaped without the clients’ knowledge…Authorities said Barron used the videotapes to blackmail employees to keep working for her…” Dear ethically-challenged sex business owners: Stop videotaping clients, you moron. See, there’s this thing called “evidence”…

Pimping the Pimp

More egregious use of “pimp” mythology to justify Nevada’s draconian “sex trafficking” law:

Because of their age, they will have difficulty working inside most [hotels]. For most, that means hitting the streets under the eye of a pimp and more experienced prostitutes. And the more they must rely on the pimp, the more difficult it is to pry them from his clutches…So when Assembly Bill 67 surfaced…earlier this year, the police welcomed it as a way to send a message to pimps that there would be a higher price to pay for running young girls…

Once again: teens don’t turn to sex work because a “pimp” abducts them from their loving families, and 84% of them have never as much as met one.

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That Was the Week That Was (#323)

Posted in Biography, Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A War for Peace, A Whore in Church, Absolute Corruption, activism, Africa, agency denial, asset seizure, Australia, Backwards into the Future, Bangladesh, Banishment, Birth of a Movement, Bone of Contention, brothels, Bullies With Badges, Central Asia, China, condoms, Connecticut, cops, cosmetic surgery, cult of the child, Dirty Amateurs, disease, Do As I Say, evidence, fantasy, FBI, Florida, gangs, guest columnist updates, harm reduction, Hollywood, hysteria, India, internet, Iran, It Looks Good On Paper, Japanese Prostitution, law, LGBT rights, Middle East, Namibia, Nebraska, Nepal, New York, New Zealand, Not the Leading Players, Not To Be Taken Internally, Obfuscation via Dysphemisms, Oklahoma, orgasm, pimps, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, rescue industry, See No Evil, sex offender registry, Sex Workers vs Trafficking, slavery, Somehow I Doubt..., South Carolina, South Dakota, Spain, streetwalkers, surveillance, Sweden, Tennessee, The Scarlet Letter, Traffic Jam, True Colors, Turkey, Under Every Bed, underage, United Kingdom, Whorearchy on June 8, 2013| 16 Comments »

We whores are sure these politicians are not our sons. – sign carried by protesters in Istanbul

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

“The FBI seized and ran a child pornography website for two weeks in November 2012…in an attempt to identify its more than 5,000 customers…”

The Leading Players in the Field, Not

Nepal’s Supreme Court has accused a prominent anti-trafficking group of detaining a woman against her will so she could undergo counselling for being a lesbian…The court ordered the release of the woman from a centre run by…Maiti Nepal…which has been championed by…Joanna Lumley and…Demi Moore…The group’s founder, Anuradha Koirala, was awarded a “CNN Heroes Award”…in 2010…and Moore hosted a television programme called “Nepal’s Stolen Children” highlighting the organisation’s work…

It Looks Good On Paper

When “whore as criminal” and “whore as victim” collide: “…a [Nebraska] human trafficking bill…would [have given] immunity from prosecution to [minors]…arrested for prostitution…Amanda McGill…offered an amendment that…would place [them]…under the jurisdiction of a juvenile court…[for] treatment…” Because indefinite commitment is so much better than a criminal charge.

Dirty Amateurs

“Sweden…[is] the…STD…capital of Europe…half of young Swedes don’t use condoms when having sex with a new partner and…30 percent…use no contraceptive…at all…”

Somehow, I Doubt She Thought This Through

A woman…in Connecticut [called] police to complain about how she was being treated by a pimp…they did not find the pimp…but…did find…Jennifer Lowery with a…customer. Police charged Lowery with prostitution and 60-year-old Ricard Burford…with patronizing a prostitute…Lowery told them she…decided to conduct some business while waiting…

See No Evil

Melbourne artist Paul Yore is likely to be charged with producing child pornography following the seizure of several of his art works…which allegedly depicted sexual acts with children’s faces superimposed on them…Yore described the…seizure as “very small fragments of a collage of…thousands of different objects…basically junk I’ve been collecting”…

Not To Be Taken Internally

…Apryl Michelle Brown had black-market silicone injections which turned out to be BATHROOM SEALANT…“My body had a massive allergic reaction…the only way doctors could save my life was to amputate my buttocks…hands and feet”…

A Whore in Church

A profile of a former sex worker who’s assisted me with research on a number of occasions:

…Mary Setterholm…was a teenaged prostitute…[she] will graduate from Harvard Divinity School (HDS) with…a plan to help others find their way back from the edge of despair…She married young and had five children. The union was rocky and abusive. Once divorced, she returned to prostitution as a…way to take back some control…In 2003, a meeting with an inspiring nun named Sheila McNiff helped Setterholm to confront the abuse she had suffered as a child at the hands of clergy, and guide her back to education…Setterholm…[founded] Serenity Sisters…[a] support group…for exploited women and recovering prostitutes…She hopes to enter a Ph.D. program…expanding on her…thesis work, which explored the way prostitutes have been used in religious teachings as a stand-in for deviant or disbelieving members of society…

A War for Peace (TW3 #11)

…Over the last 30 years…Iran is…moving in the [sexual] direction of Britain and the United States…Declining birth rates…signal a wider acceptance of contraceptives…the country has experienced the fastest drop in fertility ever recorded in human history…the average marriage age for men has gone up from 20 to 28 years old…and…women…five years later than a decade ago…The rate of divorce…has also skyrocketed…[previously] sex workers were virtually invisible…Now…there [are] close to 85,000…in Tehran alone…

Bullies With Badges

…Adam was, until recently, making a living as a self-employed web designer in South Carolina…he was hired to make a porn site…[with male] masturbation videos…after the site had been online for…24 days, Adam’s home was raided by [a SWAT team] and all of his computer equipment was seized…Adam [said] “the [customer] was [allegedly]…paying guys to let him give them blowjobs and film it…it definitely wasn’t…on the site…I wasn’t expecting four armed guys to bust into my mother’s home and steal all of my assets. They’ve…ruined me…”

Note that Adam wasn’t charged with anything; the police stole his entire business to be indefinitely held as “evidence” of someone else’s misdemeanor.

Whorearchy (TW3 #19)

This story about yet another Spanish city’s war on streetwalkers is not really noteworthy, but I love this picture which illustrates it.

Traffic Jam

Remember the supposed “child sex trafficking ring” run by “Somali gangs” that federal prosecutors were all puffed up about last year?

…every defendant who has gone to trial has either been acquitted or had their conviction thrown out. The government’s case was weakened when…a key witness…refused to testify, saying he is afraid for himself and for his family. So prosecutors charged Abdullahi Farah with two counts of contempt of court and obstruction of a child sex trafficking case. He was convicted…in April…and…is facing a maximum of 20 years…for the obstruction conviction…and…life in prison [for contempt]…Legal experts say…it’s almost unheard of for prosecutors to come down so hard on one of their own witnesses…

Considering that “agents said Farah gave conflicting accounts and sketchy details” and the judge “said he had problems with Farah’s credibility”, I think the truth is obvious: sleazebag prosecutor Van Vincent tried to pretend a bunch of petty thugs were a gigantic conspiracy, but drew a judge who wouldn’t roll over for him and is taking it out on the only available scapegoat. Consider the prospect of life in prison for a contempt charge, and then tell me the US isn’t a police state yet.

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #21)

An American alibi-ya:

Paladin Deception Services, the self-proclaimed…”Leading Fictitious Reference Provider,” can “put together almost any fictitious scenario that you require”…Our agency can provide you with…testimonials over the phone in the local area code that you require. We’re confidential, professional, innovative, and affordable. Most importantly, we keep it legal…For only $54 (and $19.95 for each additional month), you get set up with a phone number, alibi verification and even options including…creation of a fictitious boss…

Backwards Into the Future (TW3 #21)

A United Nations Special Rapporteur has recommended that provisions relating to sex work in Namibia be repealed, stating that the “stigma, discrimination and violence” suffered by sex workers…often discourages them from accessing public services…[and hampers] efforts to reduce the spread of HIV-AIDS…Magdalena Sepúlveda states that…criminalisation of sex work…creates a climate…that fosters further violence and discrimination…

Birth of a Movement

Melissa Gira Grant published a short photoessay on sex worker participation in the current demonstrations in Istanbul, in earlier demonstrations in Madrid, New York and Mexico City, and in the Lyon church-occupation that launched the sex worker rights movement.

True Colors

…On 30 May 2013…Ye Haiyan was detained by police after being assaulted at her home…[she] is an advocate for the rights of sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS…[who] has been consistently targeted…because of her work…[she] managed to send out a series of messages on Twitter appealing for help…

Bone of Contention (TW3 #29)

Once again: aren’t the late-night noise and public sex to which residents object illegal even if no money is exchanged?

…politicians have called a roundtable meeting…to look for ways to control street prostitution in South Auckland. The meeting…may lead to amending or abandoning a bill…to give…the Auckland…police powers to arrest both prostitutes and clients who engage in commercial sex in a banned area…

The Scarlet Letter (TW3 #52)

Marc Randazza thinks of a clever way to attack “revenge porn” sites:

Adult entertainment attorney Marc Randazza filed two civil cases against revenge porn site UGotPosted.com on counts of distributing child pornography and failing to comply with 18 U.S.C. § 2257…the site posted…“sexually explicit images” of 14-year-old Abigail Talley’s [genitals]…2257 requires individuals or entities hosting adult content to inspect a government-issued form of ID to determine the name and age of every performer featured and to keep records of such information…had the defendants complied, it would have been apparent that the plaintiff was a minor…Despite the ongoing case, and intervention by an FBI agent…the defendants have yet to…remove the photos…

Sex Workers Against Trafficking (TW3 #139)

The main tip-off on…two sisters kidnapped from Dhaka…came from a sex worker in Pune, who contacted one of her relatives in Kolkata, who in turn contacted the girls’ relatives in Bangladesh…these girls had allegedly been lured with false promises and kidnapped by a…close acquaintance…[who] sold them to a brothel…

Banishment

Government actors issue a warning of a problem created entirely by government actions:

…Kyle Evans with the Murfreesboro [Tennessee] Police Department…said sex offenders tend to congregate at hotels…”It meets the statutory requirements for them when they can’t live elsewhere”…The TBI confirmed 16 convicted sex offenders listed their home address at the Regal Inn…[and] said there is nothing illegal about hotels renting to sex offenders…

Absolute Corruption

…Twenty-five years after it first indicted [Jesse] Friedman, the Nassau County [New York] District Attorney’s Office…could completely exonerate him. Out of a dozen major child-sex-ring cases that roiled the country between 1984 and 2005, Jesse’s is one of the last convictions still standing…in November of 1987…postal inspectors intercepted…child pornography addressed to [his father]…police admitted that not one of the 30 children they…interviewed…reported any kind of abuse. But…they kept re-interviewing the children—some as many as 15 times, and often for hours at a stretch…The children began to buckle, telling tales of extraordinary abuse…the Friedmans’ computer class was [claimed to be] a nonstop nightmare of coerced sex acts, where Arnold and Jesse abused kids…in plain view of other students…playing “naked leapfrog,” sodomizing kids as they jumped from one to the next…[children were supposedly] molested an average of six times during every one of the 20 90-minute classes they took…

Natural Processes

…Of those who report their rapes, around 4–5% also describe experiencing orgasm. But the true numbers are likely much higher…[one] child therapist…[wrote on Reddit]…“There have been very few studies on orgasm during rape, but the research so far shows numbers from 10% to over 50% having this experience…In professional discussions, colleagues report similar numbers”…Despite what many rapists would like to believe, arousal does not mean that an assault was enjoyable or that a victim was asking for it…our bodies respond to sex…entirely without our permission or intention. Orgasm during rape isn’t an…expression of pleasure. It’s…a physical response…like breathing, sweating, or an adrenaline rush. Therapists commonly use the analogy of tickling. While tickling can be pleasurable, when it is done against someone’s wishes it can be very unpleasant experience…[yet] the one being tickled will continue laughing…

Under Every Bed

The supposed penetration of “sex trafficking” into every nook and cranny of the U.S. continues; notice the Profession of Faith in the first one:

Sex trafficking is real in South Dakota and won’t…be tolerated…”I still think there are a lot of naive people…who don’t feel it happens in their community but it is happening in their community,” Dawn Stenberg…of the Junior League of Sioux Falls…said…awareness…includes…hotel employees watching for young women who frequently come through their doors, and banks watching for suspicious transactions…[such as] “backpage.com transactions. They see a lot of that illegal activity through that,” Stenberg said…

If that kind of surveillance state doesn’t scare you, consider instead the rather disgusting sexual fantasies of Florida cops and bureaucrats: “Orange County announced the creation of a task force aimed at stopping human trafficking in central Florida…Some of the victims…forced into prostitution are as young as 12 years old…most of the victims are children…Kathy…was 11 when she was sold to sex traffickers before being rescued by the FBI…”

Obfuscation via Dysphemisms (TW3 #319)

Tulsa, OK continues its wicked crusade to charge whores with felonies via “use of a computer to violate state statute”. And just for good measure, they also charged one of them with the “crime” of owning a house. Don’t read the comments unless you want to feel ill.

Guest Columnist: Kelly Michaels

Kelly appeared on the Sex With Timaree podcast to speak about her “Whoremom” project; please give it a listen and spread the link around!

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That Was the Week That Was (#322)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged acting, agency denial, Arizona, Ashley Madison, Banishment, Between the Ears, Big Sister, bogus studies, brothels, Bullies With Badges, Catholicism, censorship, China, cops, Creating the Crisis, cult of the child, dirty, domestic violence, drugs, end demand, Europe, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, Follow Your Bliss, France, hysteria, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, Iceland, Illinois, India, internet, Islam, Jill Brenneman, law, lawyers, Middle East, Moloch, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, New York, Objectification Overruled, Ohio, Original Sin, pathologization of males, pimps, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, rescue industry, Schadenfreude, sex offender registry, shame, statistics, Swedish model, Tennessee, The More the Better, United Kingdom, Utah, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), What a Week!, Where Are the Victims?, Wisconsin, Worse Than I Thought, yin and yang on May 31, 2013| 16 Comments »

Porn is not addictive. Sex is not addictive. The ideas of porn and sex addiction are pop psychology concepts that…have no legitimate scientific basis. – David Ley

Interview: Jill Brenneman

Jill has largely retired from activism, but has written a guest post about the Cleveland kidnap victims on Amanda Brooks’ blog: “…Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and Amanda Berry…likely have many years of very costly medical expenses and the need for equally costly psychological help…Like me, their lives were interrupted at a young age. Now they have to move on with the physical and emotional issues…and…rebuild their lives…”

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Once again, Dr. David Ley tells it like it is:

…when people buy into the belief that porn is addictive, it changes the argument…sex and porn aren’t the problems…one part of this issue is an attack on aspects of male sexuality, including masturbation and use of pornography…which society fears…

Moloch

Though this was first published nearly a year ago, this updated version appeared last week:

…even though experts and studies have denounced the [sex offender registry] as ineffective, the battle cry of its supporters is still, “If it saves one child…!”…There is no evidence that [it] has done that at all. However, many, many thousands of children have had their lives made a living hell because of it…parents on the registry…are subject to the whims of local and state laws, including severe restrictions on where they may live…Vigilantes have murdered registrants, leaving their children fatherless…and…children [as young as]…nine…have been [registered]…Registered 12-year-olds aren’t even rarities…in Wisconsin…a district attorney did everything he could, and bragged about it, to have a 6-year-old prosecuted and targeted…for “playing doctor.” Some of these children find escape only in suicide…

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

New Yorkers are so very fortunate to have brave, dedicated professionals protecting them from dangerous criminals:

…Catherina G. Scalia, 47…was arrested after she…gave [an] undercover cop a massage…without a license…She’s also accused of unauthorized practice…[and an] offer for additional services…Scalia disputed the charges at her arraignment…”They keep framing me. I am broke. I am jobless. All these arrests are entrapment”…When CNN…profiled Scalia and her hot dog truck a year ago, Scalia asserted she was a stripper, not a prostitute…

Bullies With Badges

…Anael Ibanez…[was arrested] for distributing pornographic material and exploiting prostitution [in] Syracuse [Utah]…the only ones who actually watched the sex show [Ibanez arranged] were a couple of undercover police officers and…[a man they] charged with sexual solicitation. Four sex show performers also were arrested…and…charged…SWAT team members were dispatched to clear the theater…[they] broke a glass door…to gain entry…Ibanez works for a janitorial company…and had access to the theater after hours…

Yes, they dispatched a SWAT team to bust adults having sex.

Sleazier Than Thou (TW3 #18)

May must be Ashley Madison’s slowest month, because it’s always the one in which owner Noel Biderman makes some claim like this: “…its membership registration spiked [last] week following Sunday’s…season finale of The Simpsons…[Biderman] said new registrations surged a whopping 230% this week after…a frustrated Marge Simpson stumbled onto…’Sassymadison.com’…”

First They Came for the Hookers…

If prohibitionists really want to “rescue” sex workers, why do they keep trying to stop us from getting other jobs?

In June 2011…Reema Bajaj…was accused of prostitution…in June 2012 [she] pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge…Although she kept her Illinois law license…she…had trouble attracting clients. Earlier this month, she dissolved her law practice…and…sued three local lawyers: a former prosecutor who worked on her case, Calvin Campbell; one of her own former defense attorneys, Timothy Johnson, who is now law partners with Campbell; and a “John Doe” defendant. Bajaj alleges that the three lawyers circulated nude photos of her, causing her emotional distress and hurting her ability to generate business…

I hope she wins, restarts her practice and specializes in defending sex workers, since she knows firsthand how difficult it is for us to get justice in America.

Where are the Victims? (TW3 #28)

Because you know, “false consciousness” and all:

To hear the testimony of the women who worked for them, Vincent George Sr. and his son were not the violent and manipulative sex traffickers that prosecutors described, but, rather, the heads of a happy extended family…Bridgette Carr, director of the Human Trafficking Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School, said it was…“not shocking” that women would assist the defense, and may actually be evidence of how effective the pimps were in manipulating the women…

Worse Than I Thought

The cancer has now spread to Tennessee:

…12 new laws…include harsher criminal penalties on traffickers…and the creation of a state trafficking task force…a statewide study in 2011 documented incidents of sex trafficking… authorities will be able to prosecute those paying for sex – the “johns” – as traffickers…[thus allowing] for…termination of parent rights…

Read that again: Tennessee is going to call clients “traffickers”, charge them with a felony and steal their children. In other words, they’re going to punish fake “child trafficking” with the real, state-sanctioned variety.

Creating the Crisis

The largest study on domestic violence ever done demonstrates that the MRAs were much closer to the truth than the feminists: men and women commit partner abuse at roughly equal rates. 23% of women and 19.3% of men have been physically abused by a partner, while 28.3% of women and 21.6% of men have physically abused one. Lifetime rates of abuse are higher among women, while past-year rates are higher among men. 41% of women and 43% of men reported emotional abuse. Motives were similar in both sexes. Here’s a short summary of the findings; the full report is available at the first link.

Follow Your Bliss (TW3 #50)

Being an official busybody for an oppressive regime is hard work!

Despite China’s ongoing sexual revolution… anyone found to be producing and distributing obscene material can get three years in jail…[this] requires many pornography censors…[like] 70-year-old Liu Xiaozhen…[who said] “You have to watch even if you don’t want to”…

What a Week! (TW3 #52)

As bad as American prohibitionists are, at least most of them aren’t murderous:

Unidentified gunmen have shot dead at least seven women and five men at a [Baghdad] brothel…[near] where alcohol shops were attacked last week…The attackers apparently…[used] silenced weapons, as residents…said they did not see or hear anything out of the ordinary…Zayouna is an upscale…district…where a number of brothels have opened in recent years…

Between the Ears (TW3 #133)

…Ethicists and feminists are concerned [about]…a drug that can amp up female sexual longings…Male-sexual-enhancement drugs…are about…improving blood flow to the penis…while research so far suggests that most women need more than mere physical arousal…To stoke female desire with pharmacology, then, you need to get into the brain…some feminists anticipate that the marketing of these drugs will pathologize normal losses of desire…when in fact…[they] may result from stress or relationship problems that should be addressed in other ways…

I agree. If female desire were mostly about hormones, placebos wouldn’t be as effective as testosterone; in fact, they are often more so. Nor is this a problem limited to women, as Dr. Marty Klein discusses in the linkback.

Banishment

Florida’s “sex offender” residence restrictions are so bad that a small, isolated settlement named “Miracle Village” has become a haven for them. Meanwhile, David Vitter (who has been the center of several sex scandals) is trying to keep them from getting food stamps:

…This…will…contribute to the continuing cycle of trapping the same individuals in the criminal justice system. All released felons have difficulty gaining employment…those with sexual offenses face even more impediments due to the public registry and the myriad of restrictions placed upon [them]…Studies…show that, denied benefits, there is a higher rate of return to drug use and crime…anything gained financially from a reduction in the food stamp program will just show up as increased prison costs…

But wait, there’s more!

A network of…internet companies is mining data from sex-offender sites…[for] an extortion racket [which demands] up to $499 for removing names…and other personal data…SORArchives.com, Offendex.com and Onlinedetective.com did not take down individual profiles after payments were made and launched online harassment campaigns against those who balked at financial demands or filed complaints…the websites [also] list individuals…who no longer are required to register and…include names and addresses of people who never have been arrested or convicted of a sex crime. The…operators ensure that anyone in their databases can be found easily [via] Google…[and] have prominently profiled specific individuals, published their home and e-mail addresses, posted photographs of their relatives and copied their Facebook friends onto the…websites…

Original Sin

Pope Francis…urged mobsters…to abandon their evil ways, particularly…trafficking rackets…”I think of the great pain suffered by men, women and even children, exploited by so many mafias”…He decried the crime syndicates for “making them do work that makes them slaves, prostitution”…Francis…has branded human trafficking as one of the most terrible evils plaguing the world…

Big Sister (TW3 #317)

This pro-censorship Guardian article isn’t nearly as interesting as Jezebel’s response to it, written by revolting neofeminist toady “Lapdoug” Barry:

There’s a campaign afoot in Iceland to seriously restrict underage access to hardcore porn…the argument that porn is a form of free expression smells…a lot like the sort of bullshit the multibillion-dollar porn industry shovels…the porn industry does not have the interests of Icelands [sic] malleable adolescent minds at heart when it argues that limiting access to its productions is tantamount to government censorship…

The biggest lie of several here is that the porn ban is intended to “protect adolescents”, when in fact it was specifically sold (as part of the Swedish model) to “protect” women. But let’s give Lapdoug’s argument the benefit of the doubt; if he’ll agree to let his writings be censored by a government agency for a trial period (twenty years or so should suffice), I’m sure people who respect human agency far more than he does can be counted on to give a nationwide censorship regime all the consideration it deserves.

The More the Better (TW3 #317)

Are people really so stupid they believe it’s totally different now?

[James Lipton]…of…Inside the Actors Studio used to be a pimp…the youthful 86-year-old admitted…that he had pandered “a whole bordello”…in 1950s Paris…”The French mecs didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents”…Lipton…added that…he was against people paying for sex. “I think if you can’t earn it on your own, then you don’t deserve it.”

Because obviously celebrities are morally superior beings qualified to judge what others “deserve”.

Objectification Overruled (TW3 #320)

Pathetic middle-class white British feminists are at it again:

The UK’s main supermarkets could be exposed to legal challenges…if they refuse to remove magazines and newspapers with naked women on their covers…In a letter published in the Guardian, 14 equalities lawyers say…retailers are vulnerable…under sexual discrimination law…A campaign launched by UK Feminista and…Object aims to put pressure on Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Asda and WHSmith to remove lads’ mags from their shelves…[they] threaten…a test case and will support employees uncomfortable with images of naked and near-naked women…

This is a load of rubbish and they know it; such a precedent would mean that anyone could bring a case against any product she finds “offensive”, for example Catholics suing to have birth control removed. But lest you think this idiocy is limited to Britain:

…the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has unanimously passed a proposal…to ban the display of bikini-clad mannequins outside lingerie shops…With Mumbai recording the second highest number of rapes in the country, [law sponsor Ritu] Tawade said the display of inadequately clothed mannequins was indecent and could lead to “wrong acts” by men…corporator Sunil Prabhu backed her…”I agree…that such scantily clad mannequins do invite unwanted attention of men and the resulting surge of sex crimes”…

Schadenfreude (TW3 #320)

Yet another rescue industry “hero” is exposed as a con artist: “[Andy Conner]…the [Washington state] Sheriff’s Deputy who funded a charity to help young women escape prostitution…is on administrative leave while the King County Sheriff’s Office investigates allegations that thousands of dollars may have gone missing…”

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Top 40

Posted in Favorites, Music, tagged anecdote, BDSM, California, Europe, Hollywood, imaginative fiction, Middle East, New Orleans, psychology, shame, United Kingdom, video on May 30, 2013| 23 Comments »

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve a date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul. – Jimmy Kennedy

Ever since my second “favorites” column a year and a half ago, I’ve pondered what I would put in a favorite songs list. It wasn’t an easy choice; after all, one hears so many more songs in a lifetime than one sees movies or reads books, and one’s feelings about them can change dramatically with mood or time. So as usual, I had to come up with a few rules to bring the pool of candidates down to a manageable size; I excluded hymns, songs without words, songs in languages I don’t understand, and songs which were (in my mind) inextricable parts of longer works. I also limited the selections to one per artist (in the case of songs deeply associated with that artist). The rules made the process difficult, but doable; I had to cut off almost a dozen songs from the first draft, including everything from Jesus Christ Superstar and a Bulgarian folk song I really love. What I eventually ended up with was a list of 40 twentieth-century popular songs in English, most of which (with several notable exceptions) were first recorded within my lifetime. I would’ve considered some of these (the ones marked with an asterisk) my “favorite song” at some point in my life or another; the rest are simply ones that, no matter how much time goes by, I always find myself pleased to hear (or find myself singing or humming).

These are presented in alphabetical order with minimal comment except to note the writers and (where applicable) performers I prefer, featuring a few selected videos; if I’ve mentioned the song before, I’ll link the column in which I did. And if any of you are surprised that a large fraction of these are dark and/or melancholy, you must not have been paying attention for the past three years.

Bette Davis Eyes (Donna Weiss/Jackie DeShannon; performed by Kim Carnes)
Bohemian Rhapsody* (Queen)
Born To Be Wild* (Mars Bonfire; performed by Steppenwolf)
Brown-Eyed Girl (Van Morrison) (Jeff strongly associated this one with me, so naturally it reminds me of him.)
Can’t Get it Out of My Head (Electric Light Orchestra) (I like a lot of ELO songs, especially “Turn To Stone” and “Telephone Line”, but this tale of pining edges them out.)
City of New Orleans (Steve Goodman; performed by Arlo Guthrie) (Sheer poetry set to music; one of the great American classics.)
The Cover of the Rolling Stone (Shel Silverstein; performed by Dr. Hook) (I can never hear this without smiling and singing along; just good goofy self-deprecating fun.)
Crazy On You* (Heart) (Probably my favorite rock song of all time.)

Diamonds are Forever (John Barry/Don Black; performed by Shirley Bassey) (I like “Goldfinger” a lot, too, but this one stands alone better.)
Dreaming (Blondie) (Blondie is one of my favorite bands so it’s tough to choose only one, but this would have to be it.)
Dust in the Wind* (Kansas)
Edge of Seventeen (Stevie Nicks)
Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) (Another hard choice because Tom Petty has a lot of great songs, but I think this is the one that sticks with me the most. )
Free Will (Rush) (What lover of reason and liberty could not like these lyrics? Good tune, too.)
Hazy Shade of Winter (Simon and Garfunkel) (I generally don’t like covers as much as the originals, but the Bangles version featured above is an exception.)
I Never Do Anything Twice (Stephen Sondheim) (Listen closely to the words. This is from the film The Seven Per Cent Solution.)

Istanbul (Jimmy Kennedy/Nat Simon) (I loved the original Four Lads version as a child, and was delighted when it was superbly covered by They Might Be Giants in 1990.)
The Logical Song (Supertramp)
Love Reign O’er Me (The Who) (A simple song, but one which gives me chills under the right conditions.)
Mr. Crowley (Ozzy Osbourne) (This one grew on me for years until I included it in one of my stripping routines. But I’m not a Goth, honestly.)
Mother Russia* (Renaissance)
Ode to Billie Joe (Bobbie Gentry) (Of course I love “Fancy”, but this haunting enigma of a song is one of the great ballads of the 20^th century.)
Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg; performed by Judy Garland)
Queen Bee (Grand Funk Railroad) (I liked it on the Heavy Metal soundtrack, and later it was Jack’s song for me.)

Real World (Matchbox 20) (One of the few songs of the 90s that inspired me to seek out the album.)
Satisfaction (The Rolling Stones)
Signs (Five Man Electrical Band) (A song which has stuck with me for decades and still pops into my head every time I see one of the ubiquitous order-and-threaten placards that deface this entire country.)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Jerome Kern/Otto Harbach; performed by The Platters)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin) (In case you missed it, Heart did an amazing cover of this song a few months ago.)
25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago) (I’m not really a big Chicago fan, but this is an old favorite I still enjoy.)
Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad (Jim Steinman; performed by Meat Loaf) (It was extremely hard to pick a favorite Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf song, but this one captures the typical spirit of their oeuvre in a relatively short tune with memorable lyrics.)
Veteran of the Psychic Wars* (Michael Moorcock; performed by Blue Oyster Cult) (My favorite Blue Oyster Cult song is just about a tie; though this I considered this one my favorite for several years, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is extremely close to it and contains my favorite single line in all of rock, “The door was open and the wind appeared”.)

Vienna (Billy Joel)
Werewolves of London* (Warren Zevon) (A great song from a unique artist, and one of the greatest first lines in rock history.)
What a Wonderful World (Bob Thiele/George Weiss; performed by Louis Armstrong) (Louis Armstrong. ‘Nuff said.)
What’s Up? (4 Non Blondes) (This is almost tied with about half of the album from which it comes, especially “Spaceman”; it’s really a shame the group fell apart so quickly.)
Wheel in the Sky (Journey)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles) (You know what I said about the difficulty of picking one song for several of the choices above? Multiply that by six. I featured this one because it’s badly underrated, but “Eleanor Rigby” is a work of art and I couldn’t exclude it; see the rare 1966 video below.)
Windmills of Your Mind* (Michel Legrand/Alan & Marilyn Bergman; performed by Noel Harrison) (This was my favorite song when I was 11 or 12; it’s from the movie The Thomas Crown Affair.)
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot) (Yes, another one about death; I’m sure you’re shocked.)

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