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That Was the Week That Was (#348)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2013| 20 Comments »

Slavery works as a public fantasy through which the real problems of the world can be pushed to one side and replaced with…“evil slave-owners” who allegedly lurk behind such phenomena.  –  Frank FurediSWAT thugs

The Slave-Whore Fantasy

Many organizations…receive inquiries from potential volunteers whose primary desire is to kick in doors and rescue…victims…once a potential volunteer learns that the organization does not have a covert SWAT team…they seem shocked and in disbelief.  The concept of private entities using…armed…[“rescue”] teams…is fueled by Hollywood and…non-governmental organizations…who play DVDs at anti-human trafficking events indicating their organization uses [such] teams…some even indicate their activities are unhindered by the bureaucracy of governments…

Handy Figures

I find this number very credible, given that 1% of comparatively-prudish Western women have worked as whores, plus an unknown (but certainly larger) number in other kinds of sex work:

…economist Yasuyuki Iida…says that five percent of women in Japan have [done some kind of sex work.  He]…begins by estimating that there are 10,000 clubs, bars and parlors offering sex nationwide… “each employs 30 women on average…That puts the number of women…at 300,000”…Iida settles on 10 years as the average tenure…based on data from the Ministry of Justice…the average woman enters the biz between the age of 25 and 29.  Census data…indicates that a total of 700,000 women fall within…that…group.  If 30,000 women [per year]…enter the fuzoku trade, that would represent…4.29[%] of that total…

The Course of a Disease

The Vietnamese government has just passed a decree under which clients of prostitutes will be punished more severely than the call girls…sex buyers will be fined VND500,000-VND1 million (US$23.7-$47.4)…prostitutes…will be issued a warning…in less severe cases or a monetary fine of VND100,000-VND300,000 (up to $14)…If the prostitutes are foreigners, they can be deported from Vietnam…

Legal Is As Legal Does (TW3 #7)

Another example of the need for eternal vigilance:

A delegation of former prostitutes…[and] advocates have appeared before…Parliament calling for a change to prostitution laws…the organisation Freedom from Sexual Exploitation (FFSE)…says…”the Prostitution Reform Act…not only encouraged more men to buy sex, but transformed prostitution into an acceptable, even attractive job for young, poor woman in New Zealand”…FFSE is asking the government to…[criminalize] the purchase of sexual services…

Above the Law

Three more “isolated incidents”:

Nearly twenty years after two young women were shot and stabbed to death at a Kentucky massage parlor…former [cops]…Edward Carter and Leslie Duncan are among three men charged…Tammy Papler, the woman who once ran the parlor, claimed years ago that she had been bribing police…and that the killings took place after she stopped paying.

Of course, it isn’t only whores they target:

A…San Antonio [cop raped a young woman]…Jackie Len Neal pulled [her] over…[on the pretext] that her car was reported stolen.  Even though [she] produced a sales slip…Neal insisted on patting her down…[then] placed [her] in handcuffs…[in] the back of his patrol car…[and raped her]…video cameras mounted in Neal’s cruiser were not functioning…[but] a GPS tracking system did corroborate that…[it] was parked for 18 minutes…as the woman had claimed…

And an update from the original “Above the Law”:  “A victim of a…Pittsburgh police officer…filed a federal lawsuit…Adam Skweres…failed his psychological examination before [hiring and]…the city [allowed him to keep working]…after it received complaints against him…[for] three years…”Frankenstein - angry mob

The Widening Gyre

You know a moral panic is nearing its zenith when you start seeing mobs with torches:

Hundreds of people [gathered]…on Long Beach Boulevard in Compton to march against the sex trafficking of children and teenagers along the notorious strip.  The march…[followed] the route often used by johns and pimps in buying and selling young victims…”We are marching tonight to shine a light in the darkness and let these men know we see them,” [politician Mark] Ridley-Thomas said…”And to let businesses that profit from this vile trade…know that we’re coming for them”…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #34)

“Don’t believe our data; believe our dogma instead!”

…In Maine…its hotline netted 19 of what Polaris Project defines as high- or moderate-level indicators of trafficking in the most recent year…Destie Sprague…[of] the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said…Mainers should not reach the conclusion that only 19 people in the state were victims of trafficking in the past year…the number is in reality much higher…

Lower Education

The federal government is backing away from the nationwide “blueprint” for campus speech restrictions issued this May…the new head of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)…said that “the agreement in the Montana case represents the resolution of that particular case and not OCR or DOJ policy”…the Montana agreement included an overly broad definition of punishable sexual harassment: “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including “verbal conduct” (i.e., speech)…Serious First Amendment and due process problems remain with…other recent OCR pronouncements…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #326)

Wouldn’t you love to see articles like this in the US?

Media organizations worldwide have been busy crucifying Rob Ford for his alleged crimes and intoxicated buffoonery…but mainstream outlets in Canada…need to apologize for repeatedly presenting Ford’s crimes in conjunction with allegations of “prostitution”…Having sex for money is not a crime in this country.  Even though many activities associated with it remain illegal, having sex for money…is a job…Every major mainstream media source in the city latched onto the “hanging out with suspected prostitutes” allegations…what makes someone a “suspected prostitute,” anyway?  Fishnets?…

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #329)

Though registration is a poor idea because of the inevitable bottleneck, the general tone of this article is far more sensible than anything from the US:

…Swaziland’s sex workers are not a major contributor to the spread of HIV…[it] is spread widely by people in [unpaid] sexual encounters …However…if HIV is to be contained in any country the need to protect sex workers from HIV is a requirement…Identification of sex workers is the first step, allowing a registry of sex workers for contact and communication.  Thus reachable, these individuals can receive advice on health issues, HIV testing…counselling…treatment …and a supply of condoms…public health crises require realism…

Migliorini in PlayboyLittle Boxes (TW3 #332)

A woman who sold her virginity…for $780,000 but was unable to consummate the transaction has decided to put herself back on the market…Catarina Migliorini  was initially promised to a 53-year-old Japanese millionaire, but the deal fell through after Natsu ended up being a 21-year-old who looked nothing like his online profile.  She also had a falling out with the documentary filmmaker who recruited her…

Decentralization (TW3 #334)

Another example of “sex trafficking” as default bogeyman:

…bitcoin…is not backed by any central bank or government and can be transferred “peer to peer” between any two people anywhere…By largely eliminating intermediaries, bitcoin allows individuals to conduct transactions without being subject to anti-money laundering controls, which makes it an attractive currency to criminals — particularly those who prey on the weak.  Sex slavery and human trafficking generate $9.5 billion yearly in the United States alone, with each trafficked child yielding between $150,000 to $200,000 to her pimp, who controls four to six girls on average…

It’s That Time Again (TW3 #334)

The cuckoo clock is striking 13:

Cindy McCain slammed the National Football League…for not being “willing to deal” with the issue of sex trafficking at the Super Bowl…McCain…said the Super Bowl is the “largest human-trafficking venue on the planet,” but she will be working to tackle the issue in [Arizona] in 2015…McCain emphasized the necessity of bringing the issue to…Congress.  “This issue’s not sexy on Capitol Hill yet, but we’re going to make it sexy”…

Given all the one-handed writing politicians do about “child sex slaves”, I’d say they already find it plenty sexy.  But McCain’s comments, however idiotic, are at least coherent, which is more than I can say for those of her sidekick:

…Saada Saar spoke about her involvement in shutting down “adult services” ads on Craigslist in 2010…“I will never forget that morning getting calls from some of the girls who were still out there saying, ‘Oh my God!  The pimp’s [sic] are losing their minds because they can’t put us up for sale.  We are no longer for sale’…”

Imaginary Evils

Slaves found in London 'tip of the iceberg' Daily MailI knew this would turn out to be bogus, but I’m very pleased that it came apart so quickly:

The first stories in the London slavery reports…all gave the same horrifying account:  three women had been rescued by police after thirty years held against their will…But as details emerged, it seemed to be an entirely different affair…after contacting the charity, the women were encouraged to leave the house, which they did…with no dramatic police raid…[they] had joined a radical Marxist collective…which…was like a microcosm of a Soviet state- workers toil unrewarded for the benefit of the leader…”social services, education and housing departments had all had contact with the household” and…both the leaders had been previously arrested.  The presence of these women in the house was not a new discovery by any means…

And in Spiked, Frank Furedi uses the incident as a springboard for a strong criticism of the way the word “slavery” is used to describe phenomena which are absolutely nothing like chattel slavery.

Everything Old is New Again

Here are two more stories in which “sex trafficking” is described using ludicrous Victorian phraseology; this one from Ohio tells us that the mustache-twirling villains behind the “perfidious crime” are not usually stopped by “swift apprehension”, and that arresting sex workers “[fights] the vexing scourge” by “helping to restore a semblance of normalcy to [their] lives”.  The other, from California, gasps in horror at the idea of “children…at risk” from people having sex “in a home right across the street from an elementary school,” opines that “the horror of human trafficking…has destroyed the meaning of what it means to be ‘safe’ in a free world,”  and tells us that “expanding shackles” (presumably, a technology related to “invisible handcuffs”) are “fueled” by “assumptions that these are consensual interactions with women flaunting their sexual desire alongside pimps in outlandish suits with expensive cars.”

Meanwhile, if you click back to the original column by this name you’ll see something about how New Port Richey, Florida has a scheme to allow “authorities” to persecute “known prostitutes” at will.  Well, here’s an open letter to the town from its most famous daughter, Dr. Brooke Magnanti:

…Profiling has a false positive rate greater than zero, and some of those false positives will no doubt lawyer up.  Also, picking up people because you think they might possibly commit a crime in the future is not the same as detecting people who are actually breaking the law.  It is – hm, how you say? – oh yeah, now I remember the word.  “Unconstitutional.”  (My time in Florida’s schools did not go to waste, as you can see)…

Think of the Children! (TW3 #346)

Buried down near the bottom of this farrago of pearl-clutching nonsense about a persecuted Calgary massage parlor:  “Human trafficking is not a widespread problem among sex workers in Calgary massage parlours, police say…”Mary Ann Franks threatens to beat up website owners

Shame, Shame

Activists seeking to criminalize “revenge porn” say they are…[preparing] federal legislation that would force Internet companies to take [it] down…law professor Mary Anne Franks…is helping draft the bill…”Going after intermediaries is a really bad idea,” says Matt Zimmerman…[of] the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  “The entire speech ecosystem…[suffers] because those service providers…decide what people can and cannot post”…Internet companies would likely respond to such a law by removing content any time there’s a complaint, to reduce their liability and…save time…

Hard Numbers (TW3 #347)

This ugly exercise in arse-backwardness repeats lurid nonsense about “sex tourism” in Brazil using Justin Bieber clickbait while describing dry stories about sex workers’ language lessons and business improvements as “titillating”; it then dismisses UN recommendations for decriminalization in a flurry of “sex trafficking” hoo-hah (describing the fringe group Equality Now as “many NGOs”), and adds insult to injury by mentioning Gabriela Leite’s Davida without stating that it’s a sex worker rights organization.  Compare it with this one, which despite being fixated on “grittiness” is at least basically honest.

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Lower Education

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2013| 43 Comments »

Just when you thought things could not get worse, the government…instructs universities to criminalize bad jokes, clumsy flirtation, and unpopular social science.  –  An anonymous Harvard professor

Kate ChopinI often reflect that I got my undergraduate degree just in time, because soon after I graduated in 1987 American universities began a sharp decline in academic freedom and personal rights (all in the name of “feminism”) which continues to this day and shows no signs of stopping.  To be sure, there were loudmouthed neofeminists at UNO while I was there, but they were A) a small minority, and B) had no political power.  They were no more able to impose their bizarre beliefs on the university than the Marxists, the religious fundamentalists or any other pro-oppression fringe group, and faculty and students alike were free to express any opinion, however “offensive” to the dewicate widdle feewings of some sheltered nitwit, without fear of censure or worse.  Nobody thought it was weird if an undergrad dated a grad student, or had a sudden attack of the vapors if an English professor talked about Lady Macbeth’s tits, or reported a rather opinionated young lady to the Thought Police for expressing (in no uncertain terms) her highly unorthodox views on Kate Chopin’s writing ability.  And though there was an awful lot of sex going on, I can’t recall ever hearing in my four years there of a single student being raped by another student.

Unfortunately, the neofeminists were already hard at work to change all this in order to promote the politically-useful myth of “rape culture”.  A bogus study by Mary Koss of Kent State (which declared many women “rape victims” even when they reported otherwise) was published in Ms. magazine in 1985, and politicians were quick to jump on the bandwagon to divert millions in funds for “rape prevention” to campuses whose average sexual assault rate was 1/30 the rate in poor urban neighborhoods.  By the early ‘90s repressive speech and “sexual harassment” codes were being imposed on every American university, and by the turn of the century a stifling blanket of political correctness, woven from fear of lawsuits and increasingly-expansive interpretations of “Title IX”, had descended upon American academia.  But that still wasn’t enough for the neofeminists; despite a generation of brainwashing, most young women were still unwilling to make the number of rape accusations they needed to satisfy their bloodlust.  So in 2007 the Department of Justice conducted a new survey, and like Koss multiplied the results by four via the simple expedient of ignoring what the supposed “victims” thought about their experiences.  Using this as “evidence” of “a terrible, alarming trend of campus sexual violence”, in 2011 the Department of Education imposed a terrible, alarming new policy:

…even [if a man has] no way of telling…[how much a woman has been drinking it is] his responsibility to determine if she [is] “incapacitated” [because]…if she [is], any fondling they [do], no matter how great her zeal, [is] sexual assault.  She doesn’t even have to lodge a complaint; the college has to investigate if…[a witness] sees her…and suspects she’s drunk…and then there’s the new…requirement that has raised the most alarm among civil libertarians:  the lowering of the evidentiary standard to that used in civil-rights litigation…a “preponderance of the evidence” is now all that’s required…not the more familiar “beyond a reasonable doubt” of criminal cases or the intermediary “clear and convincing evidence” standard many schools used to employ…

In other words legal adults are defined as incompetent children if they happen to be female, and guilty until proven innocent if they’re male.  The result of this has been, as any fool could have predicted, a witch-hunt against heterosexual male students.  Of course, they could avoid that danger by simply refusing to date anyone at the same university, so obviously the list of potential “crimes” had to be expanded:

…both the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have mandated the effective abolition of free speech on college campuses, as well as the almost certain conviction of large numbers of students…The ED/DOJ’s disturbing and unconstitutional May 9th letter, mandating changes in sexual assault and harassment procedures and standards, arose out of a joint…investigation…at the University of Montana, Missoula…but…described [the letter] as “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country to protect students from sexual harassment and assault.”  In other words, any college or university receiving federal funding (which includes nearly all of them) risks losing that funding, if it does not comply…Henceforth, “sexual harassment,” for which a student must be investigated according to federal regulations, will be defined on campuses throughout the nation as engaging in “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature”…including “verbal conduct” (more commonly known as “speech”), from the vantage point of the “victim.”  It doesn’t matter if the victim happens to be exceptionally brittle, or subjectively feels “sexually harassed” in situations that other students would deem nothing more than the normal interactions of daily life in a college community.

The inevitable result…is that all students would arguably be guilty of harassment several times a day…playing uncensored rap music…posting something controversial on Facebook, or defending former U.S. Representative Todd Akin in class could now constitute “harassment”…in a hypothetical 500-person lecture…the one person who takes offense to slide five has the power to silence the professor, and to keep the 499 other students from hearing the speech in question.burning the house to roast the pig  The Supreme Court some time ago referred to this tactic as “burning the house to roast the pig,” and has consistently ruled it unconstitutional…But by the time a challenge makes its way up to the Supreme Court…the bureaucrats will have already succeeded in establishing a permanent cultural change such that students won’t even be tempted to say something of a sexual or even, very likely, a gender-related nature, nor engage in dating activity, that might possibly disturb an overly sensitive fellow student…

Technically, a male student could just as easily use this awful policy against a female one as vice-versa, but I think we all recognize that this is both relatively unlikely and liable to face a much higher – perhaps even normal – burden of proof.  Unless something is done to overturn this (and I have little faith that it will be), the neofeminists now have a tool with which they can drive out as many of the remaining minority of male university students as they wish, and dumb down what passes for discourse until it challenges, stimulates and educates exactly nobody.

Well, that whole “higher education” thing was nice while it lasted.

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Links #144

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2013| 11 Comments »

Informally known as “mooning,” exposing one’s buttocks is a practice often intended as a sign of defiance or disrespect.  –  Will Greenlee

Another quiet week, and I’m disappointed there weren’t even any memorable April Fool pranks except for this one from REI discovered by my husband.  That is, of course, unless you count has-been comedian Jim Carrey making an April Fool of himself over gun control a few days early; today’s first video mocks the fact that opposing vaccination (as Carrey does) probably kills far more people than guns do.  The second video continues our Star Trek theme of the past few weeks, and was provided by Grace; everything above the first video was contributed by Radley Balko, and those between the two by Jolene Parton,  Popehat, Lenore Skenazy (two items), Jesse Walker, Amy Alkon and Aspasia (in that order).

From the Archives

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That Was the Week That Was (#314)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2013| 25 Comments »

There are people who believe that migrant women who sell sex need to be saved; that they must want to go home; that they must want another job and they have 200-year-old ideas about what those jobs should be.  –
Laura Agustín

Carmine InfantinoR.I.P. Carmine Infantino

My favorite comic book artist of all time has passed away at the age of 87.  It’s impossible to overstate his influence on the industry, nor how iconic his style was for those of us who grew up with Silver Age comics.  If you’re unfamiliar with his work, take a moment to look at this portrait of one of my favorite heroines and this 8-page story (written by Gardner Fox).

Anatomy of a Boondoggle

Cops do this all the time, but Pittsburgh-area cops are especially shameless:

Homestead Officer Ronald DePellegrin, 48, admits that he allowed Diana Gross, 26, to give him oral sex before he informed her that he was actually a cop…attorney…Michael Waltman…says DePellegrin’s conduct is unacceptable…”The police…are engaging in the exact type of…activity that they’re…[allegedly] trying to protect the community from”…

Lack of Evidence

You know how I keep pointing out that prostitution laws harm all women?

What do you do when you’re detained by powerful officials, everything you say is presumed deceptive, arbitrary “evidence” is held against you, and you’re treated like a moral deviant?…It happened three times in two weeks — being detained by U.S. border officials…my…“sexy underwear” were mentioned…[and my] condoms…were looked upon scathingly…[one official told me] that adultery was a crime in America — a crime that he could deny me entry for…I was detained, yelled at, patted down, fingerprinted, interrogated, searched, moved from room to room…without food, water or being told what was going on…

The Pro-Rape Coalition

Furry Girl explains how laws supposedly intended to “protect children” were really intended to harass the porn industry:

…”2257″ is shorthand for the…irritatingly-named Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act…when you appear in adult productions in the US, you as the performer/model must give the production company/photographer two forms of identification and sign…paperwork promising that you are over 18…fake IDs [exist]…and any contract a minor signs is void anyway [so this]…doesn’t do a thing to guarantee age…Any random person can search for companies reselling and licensing adult content, and with a purchase, buy performer’s legal names, social security numbers, and addresses…a determined stalker can comb through enough adult content resellers and have a good shot at finding their target…Independent pornographers…have to choose between a fear of federal prosecutions and prison time…and a fear of…stalkers coming to our homes to rape or assault us…

Subnormality #138 (Possible Future Salvage)Where Are the Victims?

A man convicted of crimes related to promoting prostitution was sentenced…to…eight years in prison.  Kevin J. Barker…had about 35 women working for him…Barker would get $80 and women would get $80 per call and…anything after that was negotiable…

Trafficking, Trafficking Everywhere!

One of the few concessions New Zealand has made to “sex trafficking” hysteria (and one of the few things that keep it from absolute decriminalization) is its ban on international students in sex work.  Of course this creates a bottleneck which leads, predictably, to the very type of exploitation the law is supposedly intended to prevent.  The New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective of course understands this and is calling on the government to end the restriction; Catherine Healy explains:

Just recently I was dealing with a case of a young woman who…had gone into this agreement with a brothel operator who said…I’ll look after your money until you need it to pay for your student fees, and of course when that time arrived, the money wasn’t handed over…She couldn’t stomp off to the police, she couldn’t talk to…the university, so really…the law…contributed to her exploitation…back in 2003…the then minister of immigration had hatched this dopey clause in the 11th hour, and we said look, this will have the opposite effect of what you’re intending…

None So Blind

Funny how religious fanatics are always ready to make convenient exceptions:

A Kuwaiti woman who once ran for parliament  has called for sex slavery to be legalized – and suggested that non-Muslim  prisoners from war-torn countries would make suitable concubines.  Salwa al Mutairi argued buying a sex-slave would protect decent, devout and “virile” Kuwaiti men from adultery because  buying an imported sex partner would be tantamount to marriage…[she] even suggested that it would be…better…for women in warring countries as they might die of starvation…offices could be opened to run the sex trade in the same way that recruitment agencies provide  housemaids…

To sum up:  prostitution under individual control = sin.  Compulsory prostitution under government control = good.

Counterfeit Comfort

…If Governor Bryant [of Mississippi] signs “Lenora’s Law,” sex offenders who violate the state’s registry system will wear a GPS tracking device…[the law] also [extends] the residence buffer for sex offenders to 3,000 feet from a school…”These are people who have proven they won’t obey the law,” said [bill sponsor Will] Longwitz.  “Now…we will know where sex offenders are at all times, and can prevent them from striking again”…

No, these are usually people who can’t obey the law because its requirements have become increasingly-difficult to comply with:

Michael Byars’ effort to modify [Iowa] sex offender laws was a case study for effective citizen activism…until…he was arrested and fired from his job…[because] he didn’t update the state sex offender registry to reflect his voluntary, unpaid and, so far, largely successful attempt to persuade lawmakers to change the law…Byars…was convicted in 2008 of lascivious acts with a child…[for] a short, consensual relationship with a 13-year-old high school freshman while he was an 18-year-old high school senior.  The conviction…saddled him with a lifetime…sentence that requires him to check in regularly with a parole officer and stringently limits his interaction with children, including his own son…

24-year-old Byars was such an amazingly successful lobbyist that an opponent called the cops, claiming that his advocacy is a “job” and demanding he be arrested for failing to register it (despite the fact that when he tried to do so he was told it was unnecessary).  The cops were of course happy to comply, because we can’t have those dirty girlfriend-daters demanding their rights.

Naked Truth

Via Reason TV, Tracy Quan speaks with Shereen El Feki in “Sex and the Citadel: Does the Arab Spring need a Summer of Love?”

The Widening Gyre

Observable fact:  16-year-old leaves home.  Conclusion: sex trafficking!

…Vancouver police are investigating the disappearance of 16-year-old Isabella Castillo, and her family…thinks she’s caught up in sex trafficking because one of her friends told them they’d seen her around with another girl who is known in the local sex-trafficking world.  That girl is used by sex traffickers to recruit other girls by befriending them.  She then lures them in, grooms them and gets them to run away.  The girls are never heard from again…

“The local sex trafficking world?”  Was it really necessary for cops and fanatics to fill the family’s head full of this kind of nonsense?  Young women don’t leave home because they’re induced to run away by “traffickers”; they leave because home has become intolerable for some reason, often sexual abuse.  And if they enter the sex trade it’s because the laws have made that their only means of support, not because they’re “trafficked”.

Zimbabwe

I wish I had all the magical powers Zimbabwean harlots do:

A prostitute in Bulowayo, Zimbabwe…[apparently] died during an encounter with a customer…[but] came back to life just as officials placed her in a metal coffin…she suddenly woke up in a panic screaming, “You want to kill me!” at the officers…Seeing a woman presumed to be dead spring back to life shocked onlookers, many of whom ran away in fear…

The More the Better (TW3 #32)

Apparently the word “legal” is not part of this reporter’s vocabulary: “Vicksburg [Mississippi] mayoral candidate Linda Fondren and her husband once owned a [brothel] in Nevada…it’s not clear…if the Fondrens are still involved…[and] Linda…denies she ever was…”  After the actual evidence, the fact that Mr. Fondren once publicly defended adults’ right to have consensual sex with other people is presented (presumably on the “only a witch…” principle).

Monkey Business

…chimpanzees…have the ability to “think about thinking”…according to new research…researchers…required them to…name what food was hidden in a location…chimpanzees named items immediately and directly when they knew what was there, but…Laura Agustinsought out more information before naming when they did not already know…

The Naked Anthropologist

Dr. Laura Agustín is currently in Ireland (speaking at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair today), and gave this short interview about “trafficking” hysteria and related prohibitionist schemes.

Change of Heart (TW3 #41)

Alexis Wright…has reached a plea deal with prosecutors in the Kennebunk prostitution case…[agreeing] to plead guilty to theft, tax evasion and prostitution…clients…who have been charged so far include a former mayor, a…hockey coach, a minister, a lawyer and a firefighter…

No Other Option (TW3 #132)

Another interview (this one in Reveal) with Becky Adams about her plans for a brothel for the disabled:  “More than 700 people have already agreed to work for a reduced price…’We’re expecting the local council to object, but we are prepared to take the argument all the way to the European Court of Human Rights‘”…

Dutch Threat

A similar prohibitionist deception from a decade ago:

[In November 2000]…a Swedish radical feminist named Alexa Wolf…showed her “documentary”…Shocking Truth…[which]…shows what seems to be a rape scene…Wolf…[slowed] down the film making it appear as the woman was helpless and drugged…[thus creating] a moral panic…The pay per view-channels promised that there would be no “violent porn”…Video stores removed porn from the shelves.  57% of the Swedish population wanted to ban ALL porn…in conservative Norway we had more or less the same reaction…The woman seen “drugged and raped” in the film…is…award winning porn actress…Mila Shegol [who stated in an interview that] she was not on drugs, she was not raped, it was all acting, she actually took part in directing the scenes…she was not a suffering, oppressed or exploited woman, and she had no idea there had been made a documentary about her alleged rape…

A Broker in Pillage (TW3 #312)

Here’s that weird “pay back” euphemism again:  “A…brothel owner who made thousands exploiting vulnerable women was…ordered to pay back…£75,000 of his sordid gains within six months [or] he [will] be locked up for…two years…”  Because money gained via business is “sordid”, but that gained via extortion is “just”.

Birth of a Movement (TW3 #312)

Muslimah Pride“The French senate has voted to repeal a law banning ‘passive’ soliciting for sex… opponents said it put sex workers in a precarious situation…and…[led] to police abuse…”

A War for Peace (TW3 #313)

Muslim women have launched a campaign to send a message to “sextremist” collective Femen.  “Muslimah Pride Day” was organised in response to Femen’s self-declared “Topless Jihad Day”, a day of topless protests around the world to support Tunisian Femen activist Amina Tyler…

Under Every Bed

Montana lawmakers are looking at ways to prevent and punish human trafficking in response to reports of increased prostitution [among]…people who have come to find work in the Bakken oil boom…there is no actual proof that trafficking is a problem in Montana, said…Rep. Sarah Laszloffy…But without the language on the books…authorities [lack] the tools needed to track it…

And more importantly, the way to clean up on “trafficking” grants!  Already, selfless volunteers are working to make sure “authorities” have sufficient disinformation to block out real facts:

…Melissa Woodward…helps train law enforcement about how to spot a child that may have been sold into prostitution…”Does she have physical markings on her?  Tattoos that are often visible…things like wearing very provocative clothes…”

You heard it here first, kids!  Tattoos, sexy clothes and looking for work are all signs of “sex trafficking”!  If you see a woman with any of those telltale signs, call the cops immediately so she can be “rescued” into the nearest jail!

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Calamity Jane

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , on November 29, 2012| 7 Comments »

I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort.  Capt. Egan on recovering, laughingly said:  “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.”  I have borne that name up to the present time.  –  “Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane”

The legend of the American “Wild West” era is such a powerful and enduring one that it’s sometimes difficult to remember that it lasted only one generation, from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century; many of those who either played important roles in the story of westward expansion, or who were notable for other reasons, found themselves literally legends in their own time by the early ‘90s.  One of these was Martha Jane Canary, a woman who would probably have lived and died in obscurity had she been born in a different place and time; like so many other women she made the best choices she could among the opportunities available to her, and found to her considerable surprise that they had resulted in fame (but not, alas, fortune).  She was born on May 1, 1852 to Robert and Charlotte Canary of Princeton, Missouri, the eldest of six children (two boys and four girls).  In 1865 the family headed west to Virginia City, Montana, but after Charlotte died of pneumonia en route Canary decided to push on to Salt Lake City.  They arrived in 1866 but he died only a year later, so 15-year-old Martha Jane became head of the family; she packed up the wagon and moved them to Piedmont, Wyoming, where she took whatever jobs she could find.  She is known to have worked as a dishwasher, a cook, a nurse, a driver, a dancer and a whore.

Jane does not seem to have cared that much for sex work; though it would have been the most lucrative of her jobs, her heart belonged to the Great Outdoors.  She had been an avid rider since childhood, and as related in her 1896 autobiography,  “Life and Adventures of Calamity Jane”:  “While on the way the greater portion of my time was spent in hunting along with the men and hunters of the party, in fact I was at all times with the men when there was excitement and adventures to be had.  By the time we reached Virginia City I was considered a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age.”  Since she is believed to have been functionally illiterate this short document was almost certainly ghostwritten, and many of the claims it makes are at odds with known facts.  For example, it states she worked as a scout under several generals (including the infamous Custer) from 1871-1873 and took part in the Indian wars; in truth, she did not secure her first scouting job until 1874.  It also attributes her nickname to an incident which supposedly occurred in 1873; my own theory is that it was actually her stage name, perhaps derived from a drunken attempt by either a client or Jane herself to say her last name.

The pamphlet did not lie about her skills, however, which were sufficient to win her a man’s job; some historians believe that she actually disguised herself as a man, and was dismissed after the truth was discovered in 1875.  In the spring of that year she accompanied General Crook to the Big Horn River, and was sent to Fort Fetterman with important dispatches; after fording the ice-cold Platte River she rode 145 km straight, and as might be expected she became seriously ill and was hospitalized for two weeks (during which time her sex was naturally discovered).  However, it is also possible that her superiors knew full well that she was a woman (see picture at right) and that she was fired for the same reason she lost so many jobs in later years:  she had a tendency to get rip-roaring drunk and start shooting at people (though she is not known to have ever hit one).  In any case, she soon ended up in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, where she met Wild Bill Hickok; she became good friends with him and accompanied him to Deadwood, South Dakota, and it is clear that she already had a reputation by this time because their arrival was announced in the July 15, 1876 Black Hills Pioneer with the headline, “Calamity Jane has arrived!”  Though Jane only knew Hickok for a few months, she fell deeply in love with him and was therefore understandably upset when he was shot in the back by Jack McCall during a poker game on August 2, 1876, even if she didn’t really go after McCall with a meat cleaver as she later recounted.  After Hickok’s death she began to claim that they had been married several years before and that she had borne him a daughter named Jean on September 25, 1873, but gave the child up for adoption when they separated.  Though this is not generally considered a credible claim, a woman named Jean Hickok (who claimed to be that very child and had an impromptu birth certificate written by a minister in a Bible) was entered into the Social Security rolls on September 6, 1941.

Jane stayed in Deadwood after Hickok’s death, supporting herself by prospecting and occasionally working for Dora DuFran, owner of Deadwood’s largest brothel.  It was during this period that she won her reputation for courage and golden-heartedness, thanks especially to two incidents in particular:  in the spring of 1877 she rescued the passengers of a stagecoach by catching up to it and taking over the reins after the driver was shot by hostile Indians, and in the autumn of 1878 she spent weeks nursing the victims of a smallpox epidemic; three men died, but the rest all survived thanks to her faithful ministrations.  She left Deadwood sometime in 1879, apparently working as an ox-team driver to earn enough to buy a ranch and inn near Miles City, Montana in 1881.  The settled life of an innkeeper did not long appeal to Jane; she sold the place only two years later and wandered across the West for a while, eventually ending up in El Paso, Texas, where she supposedly married one Clinton Burke and bore him a daughter, Jessie, on October 28th, 1887.  As usual, other records conflict with her autobiography, including court records from November 1888 stating that she did “unlawfully bed, cohabit and live together” with a man named Charles Townley; she has also been linked with a Robert Dorsett and a William Steers, all during the time she was supposedly married to Burke and running another hotel in Boulder, Colorado.  The only detail we can be sure about is that her daughter did indeed exist, because the girl accompanied her when she joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1893; Jane gave her up for adoption in October of 1895 by placing her with St. Mary’s Convent in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Calamity Jane had always been a heavy drinker, and by the time she turned 40 it was out of control; though all she had to do for Buffalo Bill was sit on a stage and tell tall tales about her supposed adventures, her drinking eventually led to his firing her for undependability and excessive use of profanity in her shows.  He had a soft spot for her, though, and always rehired her whenever she came looking for a job again.  In 1896 she worked for a circus named the Kohl & Middleton Dime Museum, which produced “Life and Adventures” as a 7-page souvenir booklet; even after she was fired by the circus for the usual reasons, she had the booklet reprinted and supported herself between gigs by selling autographed copies of it.  This went on until 1901, when she was fired from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York after being arrested for public drunkenness.  Buffalo Bill gave her the money to go home to South Dakota, where she returned to Dora DuFran’s brothel and was given a job as cook and housekeeper.  While on a visit to Terry, South Dakota, she died of “inflammation of the bowels” on August 1, 1903, and was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery next to Wild Bill Hickok.

As we’ve seen, the lives of whores are often full of conflicting details, and this is more true of Jane than of most.  Even other people’s perceptions of her varied wildly; one citizen of Deadwood later described her as “nothing more than a common prostitute, drunken, disorderly and wholly devoid of any conception of morality,” while another said she was “generous, forgiving, kind-hearted [and] sociable,” and one of her biographers stated that “her story is mostly an account of uneventful daily life interrupted by drinking binges.”  But whatever the objective truth might be, the legend of Calamity Jane – adventurer, wanderer, entertainer and golden-hearted whore – will be told and retold for as long as people write stories against the mythic backdrop of the Wild West.

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