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Guest Columnist: Onioja (Part One)

Posted in Biography, Guest Columns, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2013| 87 Comments »

When a regular reader in Amsterdam mentioned that his regular escort was a Nigerian immigrant, I asked him to ask her if she would be interested in telling her story.  The “trafficking” narrative represents such women as passive victims, so I thought it would be very enlightening to hear her point of view in her own words.  She was at first slightly reluctant because she isn’t used to writing, but I think she did such a marvelous job that I did as little editing as possible.  I’ve allowed her two full days because her story is not only interesting, but important.

I’m Onioja, a Nigerian migrant.  I have serious ambitions to build a good life for myself and for my kids in this wealthy white world.  That’s the whole reason why I left my country, fourteen years ago, all by myself.  For the first seven years I worked as a housekeeper, hotel maid, babysitter, janitor, dishwasher, kitchen prepper, model, dancer, receptionist, or other odd jobs, and in all that time I was never asked for my story; now I’ve been a top tier escort for almost seven years (at least ten times longer than any other job I’ve had), and I get this request.  Why?  Not because I’m a successful sex worker, I think, but because doing sex work has made me a successful migrant.

Amsterdam statueFor my first three years in Europe I roved from country to country and city to city, like a lonely animal looking for the best place to build her nest and have babies.  I began in Paris and saw cities like Dublin, London, Milan, Berlin, Copenhagen, and others before settling in Amsterdam when I was done with traveling and searching.  For the next four years I worked sweat and blood in the same jobs, but now locked inside the same one square kilometer; it made me more miserable and depressed, but I couldn’t afford the traveling to move on.  I was just barely surviving, making tiny steps forward, one toe before the other.  Like most migrants I felt marginalized and stigmatized, unwelcome and exploited, only useful because we are good at cleaning up after others. I didn’t just feel like a servant, but like a machine switched on and off for one mindless activity after the other.  I was a prisoner between other prisoners, black migrants like me, ordered around by mostly white managers and supervisors, with rarely a thank you.  Economically and socially, we aren’t much better off than back home; we may live in a wealthy country, but always in a sort of hopeless, energy-draining servitude that won’t allow us to integrate and move upward.

The reality is that a new life in a new country doesn’t start at point zero but somewhere around minus one hundred; unless you’re college educated or well trained and certified in a certain profession, it’s practically impossible to find anything better than menial labor.  You don’t know the language or how to get around, and to get any job you depend on people from your own country who’ve lived there long enough that they do, and expect to be paid for their help.  But when I looked at these know-it-alls, I wondered why they themselves didn’t have what I consider a good life.  Why, after living here for years, didn’t they have a single native friend?  Why didn’t they speak the language well?  Why didn’t they live in white neighborhoods among white people?  Why did I see the same poverty and tribal hierarchies I had left behind transferred to a wealthy country?  I soon understood that those guys couldn’t help me, and that staying with my own people in their ghetto would effectively kill my ambitions; so, I said goodbye and made myself untraceable.  I cautiously plotted my future, taking great care not to make one wrong step; I found myself jobs and gigs, worked myself into the legal system, got all the papers I could get, began paying taxes so that I was entitled to social benefits, and began learning the language in a program for migrants.  After one year I passed the exam as the best of the group and was rewarded with the full restitution of my tuition.  But the whole process was grueling, and for seven hellish years it looked as if I would never get another opportunity to be myself; I slowly lost my optimism and energy, and my willpower was slowly eaten up.  To force my luck, rescue my spirit and boost my resilience so that I wouldn’t give up, I decided to have a child and be a single mother.  I didn’t want to marry and become a man’s possession, which would make things worse, but somehow I found a man who was willing to secretly father my children and then back away.  And finally, six months after my first child was born, the Lord came to my rescue.

euro stackI’d known the owner of my temp agency for about two years, and he was hot for me; this had been my good fortune because it got me to the top of his menial-labor girls.  He missed no opportunity to call me in for things we could have arranged over the phone, and I always went because I depended on his favor.  I always played with the sexual tension; over the years I learned all sorts of tricks to get work from guys and keep it, but I never surrendered my one big advantage.  Guys wanting to get into my panties never offered me cash but promised me paradise.  Sure!  Their paradise would make me even more dependent and miserable.  So I never surrendered, not because I was a good girl but because I was a shrewd bitch who beat them at their own games.  Well, one day when we were arranging my next gig, chatting and flirting as usual, he asked me out for dinner, telling me his wife was out of town (in other words, he wanted to sleep with me).  I declined in a way that wouldn’t offend him or hurt his feelings, but then out of the blue, he said he was willing to pay me!  Pay me for what?  For taking me out to dinner?  A voice told me to think it over, so I said I would let him know within twenty-four hours.

That night I couldn’t make a decision, but early next morning he reached me at the prep station in my restaurant; he was eager and said he hoped for a yes from me.  I heard myself say, “You’re saying that it’s up to me?”  I believe that the good Lord inspired me to say this; it was His sign that He had turned the tables.  He flashed my future as a sex worker before my eyes, and it was a good future.  Right then and there I realized I had become an independent free woman, and I also saw why:  sex made guys dependent on me.  They may control the world, but sex is their Achilles heel; if I played it right, sex work would give me control of my life.  The restaurant prepper who now talked to the agency owner was a different woman; she didn’t know yet how it would work, but she knew exactly what to say.  I took him to the restroom to talk discreetly, and asked him point blank, “Were you planning on paying to have sex with me?”  After two seconds of silence he said yes, and I said, “Okay,” very casually as if it was routine.  I knew I was now on top of the guy on who my life depended, no longer the other way around.  We discussed his wishes and the services I provide; I dictated my rate and further conditions such as no smoking and for me no alcohol, and he accepted.  I said I would meet him at the restaurant of his choice.  God knows where this all came from.  The following evening when it was all over, he was happy with my services and I was in a kind of shock:  three hours of work under my control had earned me as much as almost two weeks of humiliating servitude.  Sex work would be the God-given way out of being exploited and pimped, and into a life of freedom and dignity.

Now, I’ve heard stories, facts and rumors about pimps but have no first-hand experience because in sex work I never dealt with one and never will.  I know pimping is illegal here, but isn’t the migrant labor I suffered a legal form of pimping?  Don’t legal businesses make the same big profits as illegal pimps by having us work minimum wage under humiliating circumstances?  What’s the difference here?  Did I have a real choice to refuse a job?  No.  It is human exploitation and labor abuse at its worst, but socially permissible because local business depends on it; only in the sex industry it’s criminal because sex work is said to be “dirty”.  But sex work can be a God-sent gift; as a sex worker I have dignity and command respect, not because I am a good sex worker but a good human being.  Also, going through the long, slow process of learning the business by trial and error, inch by inch, has done more for my independence and integration than the work itself.  It took a year and a half until my sex career was so solid that I could give up menial labor altogether; I cut back on it gradually and my agency owner really helped me, not only by being my first client (who was loyal for years afterward), but also by handing me jobs I could combine with being a mother and sex work.

The Procuress by Johannes Vermeer (1656)Sex work has also allowed me to express my true personality.  Back home I used to pretend to be shy and modest; I was afraid to draw attention.  But that’s not me at all!  I have a very big ego, maybe too big, and the clients I love being with most are powerful men with big egos, because I love being challenged as much as I love challenging them.  It makes the game so much more satisfying and fun, and has made my mind more intelligent.  Every day I am grateful to God that He guided me to this work and brings me the kind of clients I need to be more and more part of this culture, which is really my long-term goal.  Good, challenging clients help me to develop the qualities that help me become socially more and more independent, in particular independent from doing sex work; though I love doing it, it’s only a stage in my life and I have to look ahead to the time I will eventually have to give it up.  I may be a successful migrant but I am still vulnerable, so sex work is only part of my long term vision to integrating in Dutch culture to ensure my future and that of my kids.

In tomorrow’s conclusion, Onioja talks about some of the specific difficulties she faced, how she overcame them and her hopes for the future.

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Book Review: SuperFreakonomics

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2013| 30 Comments »

Since time immemorial and all over the world, men have wanted more sex than they could get for free.  So what inevitably emerges is a supply of women who, for the right price, are willing to satisfy this demand.
–  Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

SuperFreakonomicsI first heard of Freakonomics and its sequel several years ago, but because my stack of reading material is always much too high I never took the time to pick up a copy of either.  My interest began to ramp up two years ago when Satoshi Kanazawa mentioned SuperFreakonomics in the column which served to introduce us when I replied to it; his follow-up column which discussed our correspondence  sent an absolutely tremendous amount of traffic my way (I still get hits from it every week), so I became much more interested in the books and would probably have eventually bought them myself had Ted not sent them to me the following November.  Being a stickler for doing things the right way, I read Freakonomics first and reviewed it one year ago today; the fact that it has taken me this long to get around to reviewing the sequel is due in part to my reading many other books in the interim, in part to not having nearly as much time to read as I might like, and in part to my just finally catching up from the holiday backlog.

The books were written by economist Steven D. Levitt (of the University of Chicago) and journalist Stephen J. Dubner (formerly of The New York Times); Levitt is interested in economics in its larger sense, the study of how human beings react to incentives, and Dubner makes Levitt’s investigations interesting to read.  As in the first book, they covered a number of subjects: the chapters are entitled, “How is a Street Prostitute Like a Department-Store Santa?”, “Why Should Suicide Bombers Buy Life Insurance?”, “Unbelievable Stories About Apathy and Altruism”, “The Fix is In – and It’s Cheap and Simple”, and “What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common?”  There is also an epilogue named “Monkeys are People Too”, which I’ve already discussed in a previous column.  And though chapters two through five are fascinating, enlightening and well worth the time of anyone who’s interested in psychology, sociology, criminology and/or global warming, the first chapter provides so much material that I’m going to dedicate the rest of this column to it.

For some reason I’ve never been able to adequately fathom, economists tend to be remarkably stupid about prostitution, often abandoning skepticism and proper data-gathering to embrace ludicrous claims they would never accept about any other economic activity.  Furthermore, virtually all books written about prostitution by sympathetic outsiders have a mixture of correct and incorrect information, and this one is no exception; however, I’m pleased to say that they got more right than they did wrong, and that none of the errors are due to buying into moronic prohibitionist myths.  In fact, the chapter serves as a thorough refutation of the most damaging and pervasive sex work myth of our times:  the notion that most whores are (or ever have been) coerced.  Though the book was published in 2009 the words “sex trafficking” do not appear anywhere in it, and prohibitionist laws are correctly framed as a product of the social purity era:  “The white slavery problem turned out to be a wild exaggeration.  The reality was perhaps scarier:  rather than being forced into prostitution, women were choosing it for themselves.”  They demonstrate that about 2% of American women in the 1910s were prostitutes (already considerably lower than the 19th century average of 5.5%) and that the average Chicago whore of the period made almost twelve times as much as a factory worker.  Furthermore, they clearly understand a principle I’ve pointed out before:  the reason there are far fewer whores now, and the reason we make relatively less than we used to, is that so many women are giving it away now that the market simply won’t bear the prices and volume it used to a century ago.

Levitt & DubnerUnlike his more credulous colleagues, Levitt recognizes harlotry as an economic activity like any other, governed by the same laws and responding to the same pressures.  In order to demonstrate this, he and Dubner look at two types of sex worker: opportunistic (and sometimes seasonal) street workers on Chicago’s south side, and a high-end escort named Allie in a different part of the same city.  But while the information on escorting is sound because it was provided by Allie herself (who contacted Levitt upon hearing he was interested in writing about the subject), the information about streetwalkers was collected by a man I’ve written about before: Sudhir Venkatesh, the Columbia sociologist known for his incredible credulity, his sloppy scholarship and his ethics violations.  Some of the conclusions the authors draw from Venkatesh’s data seem reasonable, such as the claim that many streetwalkers prefer to work with pimps because they bring in better clients (resulting in higher income even after the pimp’s 25% cut).  Others seem highly doubtful, such as the declaration that going without a condom only costs $2 more on average; in New York, he claimed it was typically 25% more (and as I pointed out then it’s difficult to fix a “usual” price on desperation).  But since there’s absolutely no way to tell the good data from the bad, nor to determine whether Venkatesh’s numbers are merely distorted or outright lies on his part (or that of the women he surveyed), this section of the chapter is absolutely worthless, and that includes the credible and highly-publicized “finding” that 3% of all tricks were freebies given to cops to avoid arrest.

The Venkatesh streetwalker study is definitely the weakest part of the book, though as I stated above it’s impossible to tell how wrong his numbers are.  My only other quibble is a minor but important one; it represents a flaw in Dubner’s thinking which is common even among sex workers, but which must be dispelled if there’s ever to be any progress.  Though Allie recognizes that she is no less a whore than any streetwalker, Dubner writes “she has less in common with that kind of woman than she does with a trophy wife…she isn’t really selling sex, or at least not sex alone…”  The error, of course, is that sex is purely a physical activity; Allie is very much selling sex, she’s just selling a richer sexual and sensual experience than the streetwalker is.  We wouldn’t claim that a dinner theater was fundamentally different from a hot-dog stand merely because the food is better and it comes with a lot of extras; the trophy wife is a whore as well, and though it’s true that a high-end escort is closer to her than to the streetwalker, it doesn’t change the fact that all of them are whores, and that no bright, clear line can be drawn at any point on that spectrum.

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Struttin’ My Stuff

Posted in Music, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2013| 10 Comments »

Now some pays a dollar, some pays a dime
Just to see me strut this stuff o’mine.  –  Lucille Bogan

One of the presents my husband gave me for my last birthday was Street Walker Blues, a collection of old hooker songs; it’s provided a number of good examples with which to round out my next few columns on the subject, but I prefer to split them up and mix them with songs from other genres for the sake of variety.  The rest of today’s selections were suggested by readers in the comments of “Money Changes Everything” and “Savage Breast”; if you have a suggestion for a future column, check the Musicography page to make sure I haven’t featured it already, and if I haven’t please share it in a comment below!  Our first song today is from Street Walker Blues, and though it’s performed by Ethel Waters I’m not sure who wrote it:

Bring Your Greenbacks (sung by Ethel Waters)

Come all you sheiks, and lovers, too,
Listen to what I’m tellin’ you;
I took a resolution New Years Day,
Never to give nothin’ away!
So run along and let me be,
‘Cause what I’ve got I’m holdin’ for me!

So if you want to be my man,
Bring the greenbacks when you call,
‘Cause I’ve just got enough for myself,
And I can’t spare nothing at all!

Don’t depend upon your looks and try to get my dough,
I can look at pretty papas in a movie show!
So if you want to be my man,
Bring the greenbacks when you call!

So if you want to be my man,
Bring the greenbacks when you call,
‘Cause I’ve just got enough for myself,
And I can’t spare nothing at all!

Don’t come askin’ me for my money, ’cause it ain’t no use,
For all you’ll get from me is going to be abuse!
So if you want to be my man,
Bring the greenbacks when you call!

Now, I’ll give you a piece of cake, also a piece of pie,
But not nary a piece of flesh, ’cause meat’s too high!
So if you want to be my man,
Just bring the greenbacks when you call!

Though there are exceptions, most of the ladies in these vintage songs are quite self-assured; they know the value of their favors, and have absolutely no shame about using them to make a living.  And though our next selection (suggested by Annie Sprinkle) treats the subject more subtly, it’s clear that the lady it describes has exactly that same attitude.

Jezebel (Sade Adu)

Jezebel wasn’t born with a silver spoon in her mouth
She probably had less than every one of us
But when she knew how to walk she knew
How to bring the house down
Can’t blame her for her beauty
She wins with her hands down

Jezebel, what a belle
Looks like a princess in her new dress
How did you get that?
“Do you really want to know”, she said
It would seem she’s on her way
It’s more, more than just a dream
She put on her stockings and shoes
Had nothing to lose, she said it was worth it

Reach for the top
And the sun is gonna shine
“Every winter was a war”, she said
“I want to get what’s mine”

Jezebel, Jezebel
Won’t try to deny where she came from
You can see it in her pride
And the raven in her eyes
Try show her a better way
She’ll say, “You don’t know what you’ve been missing”
By the time she blinks you know she won’t be listening

“Reach for the top”, she said
“And the sun is gonna shine”
“Every winter was a war”, she said
“I want to get what’s mine”

Of course, not all working girls are as successful and well-adjusted as Jezebel; all too many songs on the subject are about her exact opposite, the low-priced street girl who just gets by and usually comes to a bad end.  I try to avoid most such songs because these columns are meant to be light, but I’ll make an exception for this one (which was later covered by Bonnie Raitt) because the singer expresses sympathy for the girl and judgment for those who looked down on her.

Louise (Paul Siebel)

Well they all said Louise was not half bad
It was written on the walls and window shades
And how she’d act the little girl
A deceiver, don’t believe her that’s her trade
Sometimes a bottle of perfume,
Flowers and maybe some lace
Men brought Louise ten cent trinkets
Their intentions were easily traced
Yes and everybody knew at times she cried
But women like Louise they get by

Well everybody thought it kind of sad
When they found Louise in her room
They’d always put her down below their kind
Still some cried when she died this afternoon
Louise rode home on the mail train
Somewhere to the south I heard it said
Too bad it ended so ugly,
Too bad she had to go this way
Ah but the wind is blowing cold tonight
So good night Louise, good night

From a small town we go to a big city; this next song (suggested by Ornithorhynchus) demonstrates a different kind of sympathy for its whores, who won’t take any crap from a bunch of stupid young guys who think they’re going to get something without paying.

Big City Girls (Myles Francis Goodwyn)

Late night hustle goin’ down in the city
A one way street on the wrong side of town
Young and foolish, man don’t you know
All we could see were

Ladies in the night, walkin’ a straight line
Ladies in the night, workin’ overtime
Ladies in the night, doin’ the hustle
Ladies in the night, flexin’ their muscles
Ladies in the night, big city, big city girls

We worked out a deal with some chicks on the corner
Back at the room it was never to be
No one had money and the girls got so uptight

Ladies in the night, walkin’ a straight line
Ladies in the night, workin’ overtime
Ladies in the night, doin’ the hustle
Ladies in the night, flexin’ their muscles
Ladies in the night, big city, big city girls, so tough

Baby I know, it’s just what I see
Baby I know, it’s not what I need
Big city, big city girls

The next thing you know, things got rough, babe
They carved out a warnin’ with a switch blade knife
The message was clear, if you wanna play, you gotta pay

Ladies in the night, walkin’ a straight line
Ladies in the night, workin’ overtime
Ladies in the night, doin’ the hustle
Ladies in the night, flexin’ their muscles
Ladies in the night, big city, big city girls

Our last song for today, suggested by Arum, is more ambiguous than any of the others; in fact, given lines like “picturesque decay” and “finds your heaven, finds your hell”, I think that ambiguity is strictly intentional.  I had never heard this one before I listened to it while making my choices for this post, but I like it; it makes me think of the elaborate and often very expensive brothels of the late Victorian Era.

Baroque Bordello (The Stranglers)

See a picturesque decay there
Something for all time to tell
See the woman of your dreams there
In a baroque bordello

Swing doors and a blind venetian
Keep her in a walnut shell
Has to rub your eyes to bathe you
In a baroque bordello

All the words are written for you
Finds your heaven, finds your hell
Finds your love but keeps it hidden
In a baroque bordello

Seven days and seven nights spent
Sleeping in her wishing well
Climb her rope and find her trailer
In a baroque bordello
In a baroque bordello
In a baroque bordello
Baroque bordello
Baroque bordello
Baroque bordello
Baroque bordello
Baroque bordello

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St. Valentine’s Day

Posted in Holidays, Perception, tagged , , , , , on February 14, 2013| 70 Comments »

Today is Valentine’s Day, or as men like to call it, Extortion Day! – Jay Leno

Witch ValentineA few Februaries ago my husband called me from the road one day to tell me what a fantastic wife I was, and how lucky he was to have me; I replied that although I wholly agreed with those statements, I was at a loss to understand what exactly had precipitated them in the middle of an afternoon when he wasn’t even nearby to observe my glory firsthand.  He then explained that all his coworkers were talking about how they were going to catch hell from their wives for not being home on Valentine’s Day, and how their gifts were going to have to be that much more expensive to make up for it; this reminded him what a rational woman he had married, and he felt moved to express his gratitude.

Though Valentine’s Day is not one of the governmental or artificial holidays for which I have a strong aversion, it might as well be; as I explained two years ago it’s nearly as old as Christmas, and its origins are just as pagan and every bit as dark.  But from the time of its repurposing as a celebration of romantic love in the late 14th century, it has become steadily more commercial; the first mass-produced greeting cards were valentines, and in the 1950s merchants began to market it as an occasion for giving flowers, chocolates, etc.  Then in the 1980s, jewelers convinced American women that they “deserved” diamond jewelry on the day; at that rate it’s about time for another escalation, and I shudder to think what may be next (expensive “romantic” vacations, perhaps?)  I’ve told every man in my life the same thing about the occasion: don’t buy into the hype.  While I like getting thoughtful cards and might appreciate a small gift or being taken to dinner, I only want those if they’re heartfelt and freely given.  An obligatory “gift” of a certain expected value which must be presented at a certain time in order to retain a woman’s sexual favors is not a love offering, but rather a whore’s fee.  And while I obviously have absolutely nothing against that, I prefer for it to be an honest and consensual arrangement mutually agreed upon by two adults, rather than a coercive charade designed to mask the transactional nature of a sexual relationship.

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That Was the Week That Was (#133)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2013| 33 Comments »

The supposition that all women…engaged in sex work…are the victims of trafficking and under the control of criminal gangmasters is, at best, delusional.  –  Paul Maginn and Graham Ellison

ViagraBetween the Ears

Dr. Marty Klein explains that it isn’t only women who are ill-served by the medicalization of sexual dysfunction:

As a sex therapist, I see men…who…describe themselves as having…erectile dysfunction.  I say, “So, you don’t get erect when you want to.  Let’s call it that.”  Conceptualizing their situation as ED is frequently part of the problem.  They think their penis is suffering some pathology; more often, the pathology is in their expectations…I ask these men lots…of questions…and…we [often] discover that their uncooperative penis is actually behaving in an understandable, fairly reasonable way…Sometimes Viagra is part of the problem—it reinforces the idea that there’s something wrong with their penis…but if there isn’t…Viagra can’t fix it…

What the Hell Were You Thinking?

Judgy Bitch asks why it’s OK to advise people on how to protect themselves from robbery or worse while travelling (“Pay attention to how you are dressed, Don’t be drunk, Don’t flash your valuables, Keep an eye on who is watching you, Travel with friends, Use your body language to let predators know you are not easy prey [and] If you sense a problem, get the hell out of there”), but giving the exact same advice to young women is “victim blaming”.  Because obviously it’s far more important to sacrifice naïve young women on the altar of feminist politics than to actually help them protect themselves in the real world.

Neither Cold nor Hot

It’s sometimes amusing to watch the debutantes at Jezebel getting the vapors over sex work; this article by Madeleine Davies about sex workers coming to North Dakota in order to fill the woman shortage caused by an oil boom can’t make up its mind whether the men are “Neanderthals” and “criminals”, or the helpless victims of scarlet women “filtering in from across the country to profit off the needs of the desperate male residents.”

Feminine Pragmatism

Lindsay LohanYou’d almost think gossip reporters were historical ignoramuses who didn’t know that up until a century ago, the professions of actress and whore were indistinguishable:

Desperate for money, troubled actress Lindsay Lohan is…working as a professional escort, [said] her father…and other insiders…“The dates last for days, and the guys pay for everything…as well as jewelry and other gifts”… One of Lindsay’s most high profile clients is…Prince Haji Abdul Azim [of Brunei]…and wealthy…painter Domingo Zapata reportedly supported…[her] for months…

It’s That Time Again

Super Bowl time, that is; this year it’s in New Orleans, and though the “authorities” haven’t quite learned not to humiliate themselves with ludicrous “gypsy whore” fantasies, you may have noticed there was a lot less hype about it than before:

…The NOPD…[arrested] two suspected prostitutes and their alleged pimp, while also rescuing [the] 4-year-old…son of one of the suspected prostitutes…Detectives say the group placed ads on…backpage.com, which…is expected to be buzzing with sex solicitation during the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras…[State] Trooper Melissa Matey…said…”We do know those human trafficking cells are attracted to those large scale events, where…there’s gonna be a lot of tourists and…a lot of money to be made”…

I literally laughed out loud at “human trafficking cells”; apparently hookers are equated with terrorists and revolutionaries now.

Don’t Buy It (TW3 #6)

In reference to the “gypsy whores” myth, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women asked, “What’s the Cost of a Rumour?”  In the case of the London Olympics, we can now provide an answer:

Scare-mongering over an outbreak of sex trafficking during the Olympics resulted in half a million pounds being wasted…London Assembly Member…Andrew Boff said that just four cases of trafficking were discovered last year – despite an extra £500,000 being diverted to police…“a huge amount of time, money and resources was poured into this search, which turned out to be nothing more than tilting at windmills”…

The Sky is Falling!

Seekingarrangement.com has a clever advertising department; every so often they come out with a “press release” which announces that “more coeds than ever” are signing up as sugar babies.  Of course, the only thing vaguely “new” about this is they’re doing it on a website, but people like to pretend otherwise.  At least these two examples are refreshingly free of moral censure.

The Immunity Syndrome

Alabama state Rep. Patricia Todd…is trying yet again to delete a particularly idiotic provision of Alabama’s sex education law…[which] requires…classes to teach…that gay sex…is a “criminal offense”…[though] that law was invalidated in 2003 by…Lawrence vs. Texas…

Another Small Victory (TW3 #18)

Supreme Court buildingMany sex worker rights activists seem to have misunderstood the implications of the news that “the Supreme Court has agreed to review a First Amendment dispute over whether the United States can force private health organizations to denounce prostitution as a condition to get AIDS funding”; had the Supreme Court refused to hear the government’s appeal, the lower court’s ruling overturning the pledge would have stood.  And while it’s certainly possible that the SCOTUS may leave the ruling intact or even expand it by striking down the ban for international organizations as well (which the first ruling did not), neither outcome is likely considering that this court has firmly established itself as the handmaiden and apologist for the excesses of the executive and legislative branches.  One very odd aspect of the linked article is that the call for total decriminalization by WHO and other UN agencies is described as “support[ing] lesser penalties for prostitution”, which is rather like describing the eradication of smallpox as “lessening the symptoms of the disease”.

Whorearchy

Here’s another woman who does not see herself as supporting state control of women’s lives, bodies and choices:

…I recently told my hairdresser that I was a go-go dancer and she replied by telling me that she would have totally stripped if she were my age but that she “didn’t have the body for it”…Even people at…the club where I primarily work…will put money on my platform as if it’s going to get them a lap dance or something…I’m not trying to be condescending towards strippers…but I…take pride in the fact that while strippers are ultimately hired to give guys boners, I was at least semi-hired for my talent…I don’t deny…that it takes some level of sexuality to be a successful club dancer, but there’s a big difference between wearing a push-up bra…and shoving my tits in some grandpa’s face…

For one who’s “not trying to be condescending”, she sure does a good job.

True Colors

Women With A Vision has purchased a new building to replace the office destroyed by arson, but it’s going to need “massive repairs” and renovation; that’s going to be very expensive, so please consider contributing to further their work in helping poor and marginalized women, including sex workers.Sarah Tressler

First They Came For the Hookers…

News on two of the ladies from this column who were fired for past sex work:

…Sarah Tressler…[lost] her reporting gig at the Houston Chronicle after…[being] exposed…[as the blogger] “Angry Stripper”…[but] she just landed a new job at The San Antonio Express-News as a breaking news reporter…Stacie HalasStacie Halas, a California…teacher who was fired for her porn star past [and recently lost her appeal] was [also]…offered a new job…[by] Dennis Hof of…[the] Moonlite Bunny Ranch…

Even if Halas is interested in going back to sex work she could do a lot better as an independent escort than by allowing herself to be exploited by Hof or others like him.

Prudish Pedants (TW3 #37)

A federal judge in California thinks it’s a wise use of public funds to lock up a 61-year-old filmmaker for four years for the “crime” of grossing out a cherry-picked group of a dozen people in Los Angeles.  Future law students will marvel at the self-destructive absurdity of our era.

An Example To the West (TW3 #39)

In September, I reported that a Korean whore had submitted a constitutional challenge to her country’s prostitution law; it has now been accepted:

…Judge Oh Won-chan…filed the case with the Constitutional Court after accepting a petition from a 41-year-old prostitute on trial for violating the law…the judge’s request doesn’t question the part of the law that punishes buyers of sex.  “We don’t punish a woman acting as a concubine or a wife for hire,” Oh said…[he] also questioned the effectiveness of the law, saying authorities should focus on punishing brothel owners and pimps…

Let’s hope the Korean government doesn’t respond with Swedish-style legislation, which only makes the struggle for rights more difficult.

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #42)

Criminologist Graham Ellison has written another excellent editorial against criminalization in Northern Ireland, this time with the help of Dr. Paul Maginn of the University of Western Australia:

…The…proposals…are…premised more on ideological and religious beliefs…than a concrete evidence-base…History tells us that prohibition is an ineffective policy remedy…a few simple facts…dispel the stereotypes about sex work…only an exceptionally small proportion [are street workers]…there is no evidence to suggest that sex workers’ drug dependency is greater than the general population…[they] come from all manner of social class and educational backgrounds…the majority…are there because…the pay is…better than what they could get in other occupations…If Lord Morrow is sincere about his intentions to help womenPaying For It in French involved in ‘prostitution’, he should consider decriminalisation.

Book Reviews (October 2012)

The French edition of Chester Brown’s Paying For It has been chosen by the Angoulême International Comics Festival as an official selection, which will undoubtedly give it more well-deserved attention.  Congratulations, Chester!

Election Day (TW3 #45)

A judge has granted a preliminary injunction against the narrow portion of California’s tyrannical CASE Act which was challenged by the EFF and ACLU:

…Prop 35 is…beset with problems.  The biggest was its requirement that registrants turn over a list of all their Internet identifiers and service providers to law enforcement…the court found that there was a clear chilling effect on speech because registrants would have to disclose their identity either before they speak, or within 24 hours after speaking somewhere online…Allowing the government to monitor and record a wide swath of innocent Internet activity…is a dangerous trend that can easily expand, as law enforcement’s inevitable thirst for information fails to be quenched…

Unfortunately, there is as yet no organized challenge against the aspects of the law which criminalize a wide variety of normal sexual behaviors and virtually any association with sex workers.

Tyranny By Consensus (TW3 #51)

A leading adult film producer has launched a lawsuit against Los Angeles County over a…measure requiring porn actors to wear condoms, saying the law infringes on first amendment rights and was driving the industry out of Southern California.  Vivid Entertainment, which was joined in the lawsuit by porn stars Kayden Kross and Logan Pierce, claims the mandate was both an unconstitutional prior restraint on freedom of expression and a financial burden that studios could not bear…lead plaintiffs’ attorney Paul Cambria said…it was not economically feasible to digitally remove the condoms in post-production because the studios were competing with rivals elsewhere who had no such restrictions.

It’s interesting that the lawsuit doesn’t bring up the very real physical harm condoms can inflict on actresses under porn-filming conditions.

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #52)

Those who wish to inflict the Swedish model on England and Wales have set up a fake “consultation” on the matter which is designed to trick the unwary into providing them ammunition via leading questions and outright lies about decriminalization.  The survey is referred to as a “call for evidence”, but as Laura Agustín points out this is “a misnomer as they are just asking for opinions and feelings – no evidence at all.”  Go ahead and respond to the survey (it’s fairly short), but follow Aspasia’s example by phrasing your answers carefully, since most are of the “have you stopped beating your wife?” variety.  The deadline is February 4th at 16:00 GMT.

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Standard Operating Procedure

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2012| 26 Comments »

Mere parsimony is not economy….Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.  –  Edmund Burke

Almost two years ago I wrote “Dog Bites Man”, in which I pointed out that despite the well-known maxim, news organizations regularly present typical, ordinary events as though they were newsworthy:

Sometimes they become newsworthy because of the unusual size of the dog or the sheer number of people bitten; sometimes it’s just a slow news day, and very often such stories are the equivalent of the…misdirection used by a conjurer to draw attention away from what he’s actually doing.  But in some cases “dog bites man” stories become newsworthy because the media have succeeded in convincing enough people that dogs actually don’t bite men, so when it happens in a public place silly people are either surprised or must at least pretend to be.

The classic example of the latter case is anything involving sex, and most especially anything involving sex work.  Though every normal person has sexual feelings and every last one of us is the product of heterosexual intercourse, the American media (and to a lesser extent the British) seem to function under the premise that people having sex is something unusual and worthy of note.  And though most men have paid for sex at least once, many do it on a regular basis, at least one of any moderate-sized group of women has taken money for it, and most women have taken some non-monetary thing of value for it, the press inevitably treats information about such transactions as not only newsworthy, but positively scandalous.  If the man happens to be some sort of official, it’s even worse:

An undercover FBI agent has been accused in court documents of spending U.S. taxpayer dollars on prostitutes in the Philippines for himself and others during an international weapons trafficking probe last year…The agent, who wasn’t identified in court documents, paid up to $2,400 each time he went to brothels with [Sergio] Syjuco and [two] other [Filipinos] to reward them for their work…[Syjuco and the others are charged with conspiracy and face up to 20 years in prison.]  “I have never seen anything like this during my career as a criminal defense lawyer,” [public defender John] Littrell [said]…”I hope that the Department of Justice takes these allegations seriously, does a complete investigation, and ensures that whoever authorized this outrageous misconduct is held accountable”…federal prosecutors acknowledged in court documents that the agent sought nearly $15,000 in reimbursements for “entertainment” and other expenses related to the investigation…

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now:  Littrell is totally full of shit, unless by “anything like this” he means operatives being prosecuted for standard operating procedure.  Because that’s what this is:  standard.  Typical.  Mundane.  Par for the course.  Business as usual.  What’s more, it has to be that way; human beings are not machines, and they need to eat, drink, bathe, sleep and relax.  So if you run an organization which requires its employees to travel, you had better pay for those things when they travel on your business or else you’ll soon find that nobody wants to go on business trips for you.  And really, why should they?  If it weren’t for you they’d be home spending their time as they like, so it’s only right that you pay for their upkeep while they’re there.  Nor is it any of your concern if they spend the money on hookers rather than overpriced dinners; as long as the per diem is the same, why should you care whether the employee spends it at a restaurant, a movie theater, a bookstore or a brothel as long as he’s happy and productive?

By now some of you are saying, “but this wasn’t a case of the agent spending his designated food money on hookers; he was entertaining other people as a reward.”  That’s true, but it’s actually no different.  The per diem is, in a way, a bribe or reward for travel; it’s always more than is strictly necessary for survival.  In other words, it’s money the employer spends to get people to do what he wants them to do, and expense accounts are the same thing except that the people being rewarded are contractors, associates, customers, etc.  As I explained in “Perquisites”, “the employee is allowed considerable leeway in spending at restaurants, clubs and other entertainment venues because it is recognized that a little wining and dining goes a long way toward winning customers (and that includes politicians being wooed by lobbyists).  In other words, a few hundred dollars worth of food and entertainment can result in many thousands or even millions in business.”  It’s no different for government agents; the FBI asked Syjuco and the other Filipinos to do hard, dangerous work dealing with gangsters as part of a weapons “sting”.  People don’t do that sort of thing for free, and if taking them out for a good time at a brothel was the way to accomplish it, then how is that different from any other bribe?

Personally, I don’t think the government should be bankrolling elaborate and expensive deceptions designed to trick and bribe foreign nationals into smuggling, nor conducting the barbaric and mindlessly-wasteful “War on Drugs” which creates the drug cartels that drive the vast majority of weapon smuggling in the Western Hemisphere in the first place.  But none of that is the source of the outrage; the prosecutors and the media aren’t questioning the morality of the Drug War, that of entrapping people or that of allowing US officials to engage in covert operations in sovereign foreign countries.  No, what they’re so incensed about is “spending U.S. taxpayer dollars on prostitutes”, and no amount of inane “human trafficking” rhetoric can make that anything other than moralistic micromanagement.  Well, if you’re inclined to sympathize with these hysterics I’ve got news for you:  plenty of U.S. taxpayer dollars go into the purses of prostitutes every year; I myself probably banked somewhere in the six figures of such funds over the course of my career.  There’s only one way to stop it: shrink the damned government down to a manageable number of employees, entirely eliminate the use of expense accounts and cut out any travel requirement for any government job.  Good luck accomplishing that.

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Q & A (September 2012)

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2012| 67 Comments »

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.  –  Allan Bloom

Only two questions this time, though both are fairly long ones.  If you have one you’d like me to answer, please email me at maggiemcneill@earthlink.net; I’m a bit slow with my correspondence lately but I should still be able to answer you within a few days.

I’m in my twenties and single, but very much do want to get married some day.  I know that as a wife it will be extremely important to keep my husband sexually satisfied as best I can; I also know that if I don’t, I’d much rather he meet his needs with a hooker than an amateur since, like you’ve mentioned time and time again, the former is likely to be discreet and not destroy my marriage.  However, even if I do perform my “wifely duties” well, do you think it’s still inevitable that a man is going to cheat for sexual variety?  And if so, how would one go about having a conversation about it with a husband prospect?  “I’d really prefer if you didn’t cheat on me at all, but if you do, please do it with a professional!”?  I feel like that’d encourage a man who wasn’t even thinking of such a thing to go for it!  I know this is probably a strange thing for me to be stressing over when I’m not even so much as engaged, but I’d love to hear your perspective!

No, it’s not inevitable; roughly 67% of all married men cheat, which still means about 1 in 3 don’t.  And you have to remember that those figures are for all marriages, with bad or inattentive wives mixed in with the good, attentive ones.  I would suspect that if we could figure out a way to only survey the husbands of good wives, that number would be much lower.  It would not, however, be zero; I suspect it would be something like 20%, the fraction of men who see whores “occasionally” (I don’t have any specific rational basis for this comparison; it’s more like an educated guess modified by instinct).  Given that, I don’t think it’s at all silly to have the conversation you suggest at some point.  I’m not suggesting you just blurt it out in the middle of sex or dinner, but sooner or later a related subject is bound to come up and you can segue into it.  He will almost certainly insist that he’ll never do that, and he may even really mean it at the time, but years later if he feels the need he may remember what you said and take the harm-managed path.  Don’t worry about “giving him ideas”; when it comes to sex people will invariably think of such things on their own whether you mention it or not.  Plus, you can certainly stress that you’re not exactly giving your blessing to his hiring hookers, but rather just telling him that the professional option would hurt you less and you’d find it easier to forgive.

Your stressing about it now is indeed “strange” in the sense of “unusual”, but not in the sense of “weird”; in fact, I think it’s a sign of remarkable good sense.  Most girls never even consider these things, and as a result they tend to react that much more badly when faced with the revelation that their husbands are not superhuman paragons of virtue.  In fact, I suspect that a young woman who can think so clearly about an emotional subject like this is much more likely to choose her mate wisely and to consider factors like economics and sexual compatibility rather than simply rushing into marriage in a biochemical haze, and that will dramatically increase your chances for a good match characterized by mutual honesty.

A little over two months ago, I met a whore with whom I share a social chemistry that I never experienced with a woman before, and I feel such intense affection for her that I equally look forward to our conversations after my basic physical need has been satisfied.  At the same time, I respect our professional boundaries; I feel scheduling an appointment with her once a month does the trick.  I have become much more responsible in my personal life. I feel better motivated to tackle life’s challenges, get my sleep and exercise, keep my space clean and organized, feel more at ease around others, and am more affectionate with my family.  I no longer feel as though I have resigned myself to a cheap substitute for a conventional relationship.  Even more bizarre, I have begun to feel that compensating a woman is more natural than conventional relationships.  Have I gone nuts?  Perhaps I’m romanticizing this too much?  Secondly, do you think it’s plausible for a whore to have such a quasi-intimate relationship with a client, genuinely feeling some affection for him that doesn’t cross professional boundaries?

Your question is kind of tangled, but I’m going to tease out what I think are the pertinent strands.  First of all, as I’ve written many, many times before, there really isn’t a bright, clear line between prostitution and dating (or even marriage) as people like to pretend.  All lasting relationships have an economic component, because once the flare of biochemical passion fades there needs to be something more substantial to hold the partners together, and mutual economic benefit is about as strong a glue as there is.  That does not preclude genuine affection, however; most everyone has had the experience of genuinely liking a customer, employee, boss or co-worker despite the fact that the relationship is primarily an economic one, and though I love my husband I also recognize that our socioeconomic arrangement is the bedrock of the relationship.  Expressed another way, economics is the cake, and love the icing, not the other way around as modern Americans like to pretend.  So, answering the last question first:  Yes, a whore can have genuine affection for a client and vice-versa, and since some whores feel no need for sexual companionship outside the job, I can’t see where the opposite couldn’t be true.

Next, you have to remember that the male need for sexual variety is pretty powerful, and more so in some men than others; though some men certainly yearn for a lifetime companion, others may prefer serial monogamy and still others may be perfectly happy with getting their sex from women and their companionship from deep male friendships.  The idea that every man (or every woman, for that matter) must or even should form long-term relationships that combine social, economic and sexual factors is asinine; though such relationships are often rewarding and are probably better for raising children than the culturally-available alternatives, that doesn’t mean they are right for everyone, or that everyone is going to crave them.  So no, you’re not crazy for finding your relationships with whores rewarding and satisfying; what’s more, you need to stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.  If you’re happier, better-adjusted and more productive now than you’ve ever been before, why question it just because closed-minded bigots might not like it?  The only person you have to please is you, and if you’re accomplishing that you’re in an enviable position.  Keep on the way you’re going as long as it works for you, and if you ever arrive at a point where it doesn’t any more you can calmly take stock of the situation and proceed from there.

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Monkey Business

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2012| 43 Comments »

A zoologist from outer space would immediately classify us as just a third species of chimpanzee, along with the pygmy chimp of Zaire and the common chimp of the rest of subtropical Africa.  –  Jared Diamond

I have always been fascinated by apes, and to a lesser extent monkeys; both for themselves and for what they can teach us about ourselves.  I did several grade-school projects on hominid evolution, and my senior term paper in high school was on interspecies law; this was not an animal rights-type thing, but rather an examination of the characteristics we might use to define a “person” for the purpose of assigning legal rights.  The “fetal personhood” crowd (which, thankfully, didn’t exist in 1983) insists that a blob of cells carrying the human genetic code be considered a “person” for legal purposes…so why not a full-grown chimp, which shares 98.5% of those genes and is far more intelligent than a human infant, much less a fetus?  Others want even the mindless, abandoned chrysalis of a human which cannot survive without machines to be treated as a “person”…so why not gorillas who can communicate using sign language?  In the next few centuries we may come into contact with extraterrestrial intelligences who are completely different from us biologically, or even be able to build machines which can pass tests for sentience; when we redefine our laws on what constitutes “personhood” to allow for that, where will our closest relatives fall?

Monkeys are very much like us in an astonishing number of ways, including gender-based toy preferences and  prostitution; chimpanzees share those and many others (such as tool use and lesbianism), including some rather nasty similarities such as a propensity toward murder, rape and war.  What’s more, they seem to be showing a great deal more intelligence of late, as you already know if you’ve been following my link columns:  gorillas have learned to destroy snares set by poachers, and chimps in Senegal have been observed using wooden spears to hunt.  A chimpanzee in a Welsh zoo was videotaped asking visitors (via sign language) to release him from his cage, and a bonobo in Israel coins his own sign-language words and makes stone tools (after being shown how to chip flint over 15 years ago).  And then there’s this brilliant lady:

Natasha, a chimp at the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, has always seemed different from her peers.  She’s learned to escape from her enclosure, teases human caretakers, and scores above other chimps in communication tests.  Now…in the largest and most in-depth survey of chimpanzee intelligence, researchers found that Natasha was the smartest of the 106 chimps they tested…”Natasha was really much better than other chimps,” says…Esther Herrmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.  Herrmann and her colleagues had previously tested chimps in a study designed to compare [their] skills…with those of human children…they noticed a wide range of skills among the chimps and wondered whether they could measure this variation…like an IQ test in humans.  So they gave a battery of…tests to 106 chimps at Ngamba Island and the Tchimpounga chimpanzee sanctuary in the Republic of the Congo, and to 23…chimpanzees and bonobos in Germany…”In general, we don’t find any kind of general intelligence factor that can predict intelligence in all areas,” Herrmann says.  “But we did find a big variation overall, and this one outstanding individual.”  The stand-out individual, Natasha, was the chimp that caretakers…consistently ranked as the smartest based on…the way she interacted with them…

Though we’ve been studying apes for decades, these findings and incidents are all comparatively recent, so what’s going on?  Are the apes actually getting more intelligent, due either to evolutionary pressure exerted by human encroachment, direct learning from their human observers or the more consistent nutrition in primate centers and the like?  Or were they always this smart, and they’ve just recently become comfortable enough around humans to demonstrate it?  There’s one more alternative:  maybe they always had these capabilities, but scientists simply refused to acknowledge them for much the same reason some still stubbornly insist that apes who use sign language aren’t “really” communicating.  We’ve believed for a very long time that there is a sharp line between humans and other animals, and a lot of people are made extremely uncomfortable by the idea that there might not be; that’s why they pretend there’s no such thing as evolution, or at least that only our bodies are subject to it while our behavior is somehow magically free from any evolutionary influence  even though no other animal’s is.  In other words, it may be that early primate researchers unconsciously disregarded overtly humanlike behaviors, just as prohibitionist “prostitution researchers” disregard any findings which tend to disprove their deeply-held beliefs.  If this is true, the reason all these things seem to be happening at once is that the observations have finally reached the “critical mass” beyond which it is impossible to ignore them any longer, and each new report emboldens other researchers to release the similar findings they were hesitant to mention before for fear of ridicule.  And I won’t be at all surprised if, sometime in the next few years, a scientific consensus arises that our cousins are a lot more human than we had previously believed.

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The Public Eye

Posted in Current Events, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2012| 37 Comments »

Repression thrives on ignorance; when people see others as human beings they are less likely to support the persecution of those people, and when they see behaviors as normal rather than strange and “scary” they are less likely to support bans on those activities.  –  Maggie McNeill

As far as I’m concerned, the single most important mission of this blog is to make people understand that whores are no different from anybody else, and that prostitution is part of the normal continuum of female behaviors which is not easily distinguished from others (certainly not well enough to base laws around).  As I wrote in “Real People”,

On many occasions I’ve written about the fact that whores aren’t all that different from everyone else; that is to say we’re different from each other just like everyone else is different, and we no more share a certain “whore personality type” than all amateurs share a “non-whore personality type”.  We’re not all addicts, nor are we all emotionally damaged, nor have we all been molested as children.  We’re not all nymphomaniacs or criminals (except insofar as our societies choose to brand us as criminals), or pimped “sex slaves”, and we don’t all have low-self esteem; in fact a disproportionate number of us have high self-esteem, which anyone who actually bothered to talk to real whores instead of just chanting dogma would realize is almost inevitable.  We have families, children and  friends, outside interests, hopes, dreams, fears and needs just like everyone else.  But some people insist on portraying us as somehow inhuman, with dangerous or even fatal results.

Under the “Real People” tag you’ll find lots of examples of articles which illustrate the humanity of sex workers of all kinds, and under “The More the Better” ones about sex workers moving into the mainstream; last week I found three such articles, so I felt it was time for another column spotlighting them (and calling attention to the others).  The first appeared in The Gloss and was appropriately entitled “How I Started Seeing Sex Workers as Real People”:

…the truth is that some of the strongest, most diverse, and compelling women I know are sex workers.  For me, this was a revelation…my first novel [was]…about a [prostitute] named Edie…[but] she wasn’t…real…[because] I didn’t know anything about sex workers.  After a year of trying to write my way into Edie’s world, I [realized]…that…if I was going to write convincingly, I needed to track down a woman with an honest perspective and experience.  So, one night, I began to peruse the now-defunct erotic section on Craiglist for research.  There I found the ad that started it all…


The author, Emilie Allen, contacted an escort named Jasmin who not only helped her develop “Edie”, but also inspired her to make a documentary called Sex/Touch/Work about Jasmin’s business, an erotic massage establishment in Ottawa.  In the process of filming she discovered exactly what I keep talking about:

…I’ve met some crazy cool ladies from roller derby queens, to the Aussies trying to make a buck on their working holiday, to women studies graduate students, to single moms. Actually, it’s the mothers that I’ve been most impressed with. There are a lot of moms out there who moonlight as sex workers. The good money and flexible hours afford them the time and resources that properly raising a child requires. With mouths to feed, most moms take their job seriously and make the best sex workers because they know a secret: men don’t always come to them for sex. A lot of clients are looking for a far more basic pleasure: a sense of care which touch provides…our filming…has brought this up time and again. Clients of erotic massage parlors speak of the touch aspect of the experience much more than they do of the final release…I’d like to suggest that it’s time we move away from our socially engrained fears of women’s bodies and sexualities. People always want to talk about the sex stuff when I tell them about this project (Isn’t it so degrading?).  But the women I’ve come to know and love aren’t anti-feminist in the least; a lot of the time they’re simply being paid to touch, to care, no more no less. I for one, see absolutely nothing wrong with that. To want to be touched is no crime, and to know how to touch in a way that makes another person feel cared for is a gift. And if that touch happens to be erotic, what’s the difference?

Allen’s statement about mothers making excellent sex workers, though obvious to anyone who has ever actually known any sex workers, is apparently inconceivable to the “authorities” who all too often use sex work as an excuse to abduct women’s children.  This profile of porn actress Stormy Daniels discusses the subject at length:

…Mothers are a powerful influence in our lives and responsible for raising thriving, well-adjusted human beings.  We have created a romanticized image that mothers are supposed to be sexless…so when we hear about a porn star who is a mom, it shatters our expectations, and many draw conclusions that these moms can’t be good parents…the 33-year-old Daniels says, “I had to work really hard and prepare a lot to have a baby because…I can’t work while I’m pregnant.  I did two years of work in one year.”  Wicked Pictures provided Daniels the extended time off for maternity leave and made it possible for her to return to work when she was ready.  Daniels’s fans have been supportive of her becoming a mom…but…[she] has had to contend with some ugly criticism.  She kept her pregnancy a secret to avoid negativity, but hateful personal attacks surfaced against her and her newborn child when someone congratulated her on Twitter after the birth of her daughter, who is now 19 months old…moms who work in the adult industry are thought to be incapable of nurturing healthy children and imparting good values because their lifestyles and careers are perceived to be immoral…

When the time is right, Daniels intends to be honest with her daughter about her career.  She’s adamant about preparing her for the negative backlash she might experience from people opposed to the adult industry.  “I’ll tell her Mommy has a job that some people don’t approve of, but Mommy’s proud of it and it’s for adults,” she says.  Yet she also thinks it’s important to describe her career to her daughter in a filtered, age-appropriate way.  Just like how police officers, bartenders, and emergency-room doctors wouldn’t share all the details of their job with their children, Daniels believes that discussing the adult industry should be no different…Daniels is not an anomaly in the adult industry, and when I asked if other adult actresses have children, Daniels says at least half do but fans just don’t know it…

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say close to two-thirds of all escorts have children, and in fact as I’ve  explained before many of them enter sex work for precisely that reason.  But while most of us in the United States struggle merely to be accepted as normal citizens, some in more enlightened countries have much higher ambitions:

…Penthouse Pet and stripper Zahra Stardust has launched a bid to become Sydney’s next lord mayor by being nominated as the Sex Party’s candidate for the council’s top job…Stardust, a human rights lawyer who wants to be known as a feminist stripper, is joined by four others on her party’s ticket in the upcoming Sydney Council elections…Sex Party president Fiona Patten said…the party wanted to bring its policies into the local arena.  The Sex Party wants Sydney to operate as a 24-hour city, increase the presence of drug-injecting rooms, lobby for the decriminalisation of personal drug use and end discrimination against sex industry workers…

I don’t really think Sydney is ready for a stripper mayor, but the very fact that she can run for the office without being persecuted by government actors and crucified by the media says a lot about the comparative immaturity and bigotry of American society.

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Too Young To Know

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2012| 29 Comments »

Most adults would not dream of belittling, humiliating, or bullying (verbally or physically) another adult. But many of the same adults think nothing of treating their adolescent child like a nonperson.  –  Laurence Steinberg

I’ve written before about the “Cult of the Child”, that strange Victorian belief system which has made a comeback in the past few decades and teaches that children exist in what cultists term “innocence”, a state of divine grace which can only be violated by direct or indirect action of adults.  The die-hard child cultist imagines that if children (and their definition of that term extends far beyond that Nature uses) could somehow be kept from “bad influences”, they would be pure, asexual little angels until granted the right to be otherwise by the adults who own take care of them.  Furthermore, child cultists believe that the longer childhood is extended, the better; many parents are now working assiduously to carry it at least into college.

This is insanity; in pre-industrial cultures people assumed adult responsibilities as soon as they could, usually by about 14, and in those cultures there was no such thing as adolescent rebellion.  Indeed, the concept of adolescence itself is a relatively modern one, dating to the establishment of compulsory education and child labor laws in the late 19th century.  And though I don’t think anyone wants to see 8-year-olds working on assembly lines again, it isn’t necessary to restrict teenagers as we do in order to prevent that.  Though these laws are intended to protect teenagers, there is considerable evidence they have the opposite effect; as psychologist Robert Epstein explains,

…infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed…In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil…But [in the West] young people can’t own things, can’t sign contracts, and they can’t do anything meaningful without parental permission—permission that can be withdrawn at any time…They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent…American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults…and even twice as many as incarcerated felons…[there is] also…a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction.  The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show.  What’s more, since 1960, restrictions on teens have been accelerating…

I’m not arguing that teens should be given adult responsibilities as soon as they hit puberty; modern culture is too complex for that now.  But what I am saying is that Americans as a group suffer from the peculiar delusion that if a little of something is good, a LOT of it is better; if you believe that, how about a nice plate of salt for dinner?  Some restrictions on teens are helpful to them, but equating them with toddlers helps no one, neither the teens nor the parents who are held legally liable if they are somehow unable to control young people who may be just as competent, intelligent, resourceful and strong-willed as they are.  And nowhere is this more true than in the area of sex; it is the hormones of puberty that drive young people to have sex, not knowledge or culturally-induced “sexualization”, yet Americans are committed to the self-destructive delusion that if we keep teens in ignorance about sex they’ll stay “innocent” and never think of having it themselves (in exactly the same way dogs, cats and other animals remain celibate for life unless humans teach them to have sex).

With rare exception, teen runaways leave home for a reason; they’re not lured away by “bad influences” or abducted by “traffickers”, but rather pushed away by factors such as physical or sexual abuse or parental rejection of their homosexuality or transsexuality.  But because our laws define people under 18 as chattel, they can be arrested by cops and forced back into the situation from which they fled, or else sentenced to “child welfare” systems so horrible many of them return to the street as soon as possible.  Child labor laws keep them from getting regular work (and such work would expose them to capture by police anyway), which leaves them with roughly three alternatives:  theft, begging or prostitution; the latter is nearly always the easiest and most lucrative.  The “trafficking” dogma is based in the “innocence” fallacy:  the child cultists want to believe teenagers could never think of prostitution on their own, but this is total nonsense; teen runaways don’t need to be forced or indoctrinated into a form of exchange which predates the human species, and in fact (as revealed by a recent DoJ-funded study) 90% of them are not.  Yet, nearly all current programs for dealing with teen prostitutes are based on exactly the opposite assumption, and if such a girl denies she has a “pimp” she is assumed to be lying.

Anyone who buys the “trafficking” narrative (or its underlying assumptions) might not understand why I was so critical of disguised prisons like “Freedom Place”, but even those who recognize it for what it is might rightly ask, “What’s the alternative?”  Here are a few ideas that have been suggested by sociologists, human rights activists, sex worker rights activists and others who have looked at the issue from a harm reduction perspective rather than from a moralistic or legalistic agenda:

1)  There is no material difference between sex for compensation and sex for social reasons except that those who fall into the latter are less likely to use condoms or good judgment.  So, the state needs to pick an age of consent and stick to it, thus eliminating criminalization of motives for having sex.  This is not to say that the state shouldn’t set some higher age at which a brothel or escort service can legally hire a girl, as long as the state recognizes that doing so means that the only sex work an underage teen can do will be on the street, and that the law isn’t going to stop her if that’s what she intends to do.

2)  Stop pretending sex is some horrible, life-destroying thing; treat AoC violation like any other status offense such as underage drinking, and place the consequences equally on the minor and whoever assisted her.  Furthermore, strict liability (i.e. penalties are inflicted even if the accused can convince a judge or jury he honestly didn’t know he was breaking a law) is an abomination no matter what the crime.

3)  Stop pretending that people under 18 are “innocent children”; if the state intends to criminalize sex below a certain age, it needs to do so and eliminate the legal fiction that teens are literally unable to give consent.  When a young adult is held responsible for violating a law (however arbitrary or unjust in her eyes) she can deal with the consequences, but pretending she’s a passive victim denies her agency and subjects her to indefinite confinement and open-ended, dishonest punishment.

4)  Recognize that 90% of underage whores sell sex to survive, because laws prohibit their doing any other profitable work and applying to any standard job would expose them to arrest and return to whatever situation they’re running away from. They don’t hook because some “pimp” abducted them from their perfect, loving parents; they hook because they ran away from some awful situation and they’re hungry, cold and dirty.  If the state really wants to reduce the number of runaways selling sex, it should establish (or allow charitable organizations to establish) drop-in shelters where runaways can come for food, a shower and a bed without fear of arrest.  If you allow such shelters to confine the young people, or let even one cop ever walk through that door or hang around outside to harass them, the project is doomed.

5)  If the state wants to reduce the number of runaways in the first place, it’s going to have to make it easier for minors to lodge civil complaints against parents for sex abuse and other serious mistreatment, seeking not criminal penalties but emancipation against parental approval; this should be granted not on factual findings, but on the basis of competency tests.

This isn’t a perfect world, and nobody is suggesting that any of these suggestions will create a Utopia in which no teen ever suffers or is exploited ever again.  The philosophy of harm reduction is that rejecting compromise solutions because they “send a bad message” sacrifices real human lives on the altar of an unattainable perfection, and that the greatest good we can hope for is to establish policies which reduce the harm from people’s own (perhaps unwise) actions, and eliminate the harm inflicted by the brutal and mindless enforcement of ill-considered and moralistic laws.

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