Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘No Other Option’

Updates Galore (Part One)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2011| 38 Comments »

A man’s jealousy is a social institution; a woman’s prostitution is an instinct.  –  Karl Kraus

What is it about the end of the year and prostitution-related news?  Last year saw an explosion of such stories after mid-November, so that I ended up doing a number of miscellanea columns between then and Christmas; one year ago today “Bits and Pieces (Part One)” appeared, featuring Derrick Burts’ self-outing, a Melissa Petro follow-up, the duplicitous Annie Lobert of “Hookers for Jesus” and an astonishingly ignorant “child sex trafficking” story from NPR.  Well, this year was much the same; I had so many short articles I had to spread them across six different columns!  Don’t worry, I won’t throw them at you all in a row; we’ll start with a two-part update column and a miscellanea column on Sunday, then save the others for the end of next week.

Think of the Children! (September 30th, 2010)

The list of teachers “outed” as porn actors continues to grow; first Tera Myers, then Benedict Garrett, and now Kevin Hogan of Malden, Massachusetts, whose stage name was “Hytch Cawke”.  But if reporter Mike Beaudet of WFXT in Boston imagined he would be hailed as a hero for exposing the dirty porn-making fag lurking in our schools to corrupt innocent children, I’m sure he was unpleasantly surprised.  Oh, he was easily able to find the usual assortment of sheeple to bleat out quotes like “I’m disturbed. I’m surprised…This is scary” and “he’s teaching our children.  Everyday.  It does bother me a lot.”  But take a look at the comments on the story, which are not only overwhelmingly defensive of a person’s right to do (legal) sex work, but also overwhelmingly condemnatory of the TV station and reporter.  Beaudet actually went on the air the next day to defend his actions, probably because there’s a “Support Kevin Hogan, FIRE Mike Beaudet” Facebook page and a Fire Mike Beaudet petition at Change​.org.  I don’t believe for one second that the furor would be this strong if the teacher were a heterosexual woman, or if Hogan had been a gay prostitute rather than a gay porn actor, but any vociferous public support for any flavor of “sex work is work” is a huge step in the right direction.

An Older Profession Than You May Have Thought (October 12th, 2010)

In this post I explained that in some species of cricket, males give females large bags of low-quality food as their payment for sex; I compared them to human clients who pad their pay envelopes with low-denomination bills hidden among the large ones.  Well, this November 13th article from Physorg.com introduces us to the arthropod equivalent of clients who try to cheat hookers with envelopes full of worthless paper strips:

Male nursery web spiders (Pisaura mirabilis) prepare silk-wrapped gifts to give to potential mates.  Most gifts contain insects, but some gifts are inedible plant seeds or empty exoskeletons left after the prey has already been eaten…New research…examines the reproductive success of deceitful males and shows that females are not impressed by worthless gifts.  [In the experiment] male spiders were provided with either a potential gift of a fly, or a worthless item, such as a cotton wool ball, a dry flower head, a prey leftover (previously eaten housefly), or no gift at all.  All the gifts were approximately the same size, so the females would not be able to tell what the gift was without unwrapping it.  Males that offered any gift were more likely to successfully mate than males without.  However the length of time the females allowed males with worthless gifts to spend transferring sperm was shorter than those with edible gifts (and even shorter for those with no gift at all!)  It appears that both male and female spiders are apparently able to assess the value of the gift and modify their behavior accordingly…Maria Albo who led the research explained, “The evolution of male deceit involves a complex equation of costs and benefits.  It costs the males to find and wrap a gift, but these costs can be reduced if the male does not have to first catch his gift, or gives one that has already been eaten.  The benefit of the gift is longer mating, which leads to more sperm being transferred, and potentially a higher number of offspring.  However, the females are wise to deception and terminate mating early for worthless gifts”…

Keep this in mind next time some neofeminist tries to tell you that gender-based human sexual behavior is “socially constructed”.

No Other Option (October 17th, 2010)

Most severely-disabled men and many whose handicap is less severe are completely unable to acquire sex by noncommercial means, so prostitutes are their only recourse.  Neofeminist fanatics declare that sex is not a “need” and that such a transaction still constitutes “male oppression”, but sane, moral, decent people know better and fortunately many whores are happy to help these men experience sex.  A newly-released documentary named Scarlet Road follows an Australian professional who specializes in helping disabled clients:

Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton works with many clients who have disabilities.  Her work has become the subject of the latest documentary from award-winning director Catherine Scott and producer Pat Fiske.  Filmed over a three-year period, Scarlet Road follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy.  It reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy.  This unique documentary gives voice to two men generously sharing moments of sexual self-discovery.  “People with disability are not seen as sexual beings and on the other hand sex workers are often portrayed as oversexed, victims or damaged goods.  I really wanted to tackle these stereotypes head on”…Scarlet Road shows Rachel in her daily life and follows her on a journey to the UK, Denmark and Sweden, where she meets with sex workers, people with disabilities and their families, as well as making quite an impression as a speaker at the World Congress for Sexual Health.

Aphrodite bless Rachel and her work; I’ve added a link to her charity, Touching Base, to my “Resources” box at the right.

Interview:  Jill Brenneman (starting February 21st, 2011)

On December 2nd our friend Jill spoke at the Sex Worker Summit in Asheville, North Carolina hosted by the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition and several other organizations (including New Orleans’ own Women With a Vision).  Local newspaper Mountain Xpress covered the event and according to Jill even got it mostly right.  I don’t have a lot of hope for North Carolina becoming a center for sex worker rights in the U.S., but I’d love to be proven wrong!

Validation (May 25th, 2011)

“Even when one already knows something, it’s good to get validation from others.  And when one is beset by enemies on all sides, particularly ruthless enemies who are willing not only to lie but to distort or completely fabricate bogus “research” to support their lies, every extra bit of academic research which soundly supports one’s position is another arrow in one’s quiver.”  So I was quite pleased to see this November 11th article on the Migrants’ Rights Network; we’ve seen this study before in my November 15th column, but this article mentions a different aspect:

A new study on migration and trafficking in the UK sex industry has challenged the idea that trafficking is the main factor in trapping people in exploitative and abusive employment.  Based on a survey of 100 people of migrant background involved in the industry, [Dr Nick Mai of the Institute for the Study of European Transformations (ISET)] has found that a majority of them had not been forced or trafficked into the profession…[and that] difficulties in exercising rights…were more likely to come from the issue of official immigration status than from forced labour.  Many of the workers had entered the industry because the alternative employment available to them was likely to be more exploitative and unrewarding than sex work.  They also felt that the stigmatisation of the profession had a negative impact on their personal lives…[and that] criminalisation of clients…[would] not reduce demand or exploitation but [would] mean more insecurity for migrants working in the industry.  The report argues that better strategies to combat negative aspects of the industry would…[include allowing] migrants to become and remain legally documented…[allowing] the industry [to] operate legally…[and providing] victims of trafficking the right to remain in the country and the long-term support needed for integration.

This information needs to be pounded directly into the skull of every career politician and cop in the United Kingdom, United States and every other country which uses “human trafficking” as an excuse to persecute whores and/or our clients and partners.

Read Full Post »

June Updates (Part One)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2011| 12 Comments »

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.  Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil minded rulers.  The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal well meaning but without understanding.  –  Louis D. Brandeis

Our monthly collection of short articles hearkening back to previous columns.

The Camel’s Nose (October 2nd)

Al Franken may not know much about intellectual freedom, but…

Back in October I told you about the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act,” (COICA), a proposed law which would have allowed the government to censor wide swaths of the internet; less than two months later I reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee (including “internet freedom champion” Al Franken) had unanimously voted to allow the bill to move one step closer to becoming law.  Fortunately, as this January 18th article from CNET reports, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon single-handedly kept the bill from the Senate floor; unfortunately, according to this May 12th article from the same source, the bill’s sponsor has reintroduced it under a new name:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) today introduced a revised version of a controversial bill that would give the Department of Justice and individuals new powers to enforce copyright and trademark law against “rogue” and “pirate” Web sites that offer unlicensed copies of protected content or which sell illegal knock-offs of brand-name goods.  The new bill was long expected. A late draft leaked out last week.  The proposed law, “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property” or Protect IP, includes several revisions to a draft introduced last year, known then as “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act,” or COICA.  The drafters of Protect IP have tried to respond to some of the most severe criticisms of COICA, which was seen as dangerously vague on its definition of the kinds of Web sites that, under the proposal…Registries and other Internet infrastructure providers were especially concerned with provisions that could have required any provider of domain name look-up services to comply with court orders to block access to the underlying IP address of a condemned domain name…

But critics have already condemned the new version, noting that it not only failed to remove some of the most dangerous features of COICA, but has also added expansive provisions that the earlier draft didn’t include.  TechDirt‘s Mike Masnick, for example, notes that the narrower definition of an “Internet site dedicated to infringing activities” in Protect IP is still both broad and vague.  And the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Abigail Phillips wrote…that “Despite some salient differences…in the new version, we are no less dismayed by this most recent incarnation than we were with last year’s draft”…Like COICA, Protect IP expands the web of enforcement techniques by requiring advertising networks and financial transaction providers to cut ties to domains found to violate the law.  But the new version now adds search engines and others to the list of providers who can be conscripted into complying with court orders.  Protect IP would require “information location tools” to “take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible,” to remove or disable access to the site associated with a condemned domain, including blocking hypertext links to the site…Perhaps most worrisome of all, Protect IP adds a provision that allows copyright and trademark holders to sue the owner/operator of a domain directly.  Again, the provision applies only to nondomestically-registered domains, but it allows the private party, like the government, to sue the domain name itself if the registrant does not have a U.S. address.  That’s important because in all cases, once a suit is initiated, the plaintiff can ask the court to issue an injunction or restraining order effectively shutting the site down…Thus, with minimal court proceedings and perhaps without any opportunity for the defendant to respond or participate, the draft law would enable the Department of Justice or a private party to effectively shut down a nondomestic Web site, putting the burden on the owner/operator to prove that the site is not “dedicated to infringing activities” as defined in the law…

The “guilty until proven innocent” mechanism of the law, not to mention its “breaking an egg with a sledgehammer” philosophy, are all too familiar to whores; perhaps I should’ve filed this under “Welcome To Our World” instead.

No Other Option (October 17th)

On May 18th Svenska Dagbladet carried this article about German “sex assistants”, whores who minister specifically to the elderly and disabled.  Since few of my readers read Swedish (I certainly can’t!) and some may lack access to translation software, I’ll paraphrase the entire article herein.  IMHO the most interesting thing about the article is its positive, accepting tone despite the fact that it was published in a Swedish newspaper, which I think you’ll agree tends to support my May 22nd statements about the true opinion of the Swedish public on the subject of sex work.

In Sweden, Catharina König would be guilty of prostitution, but in Germany she receives calls from health professionals and desperate parents.  “When people ask what I do, I usually say that I work with people with disabilities, and add that it’s sensual and erotic work.  And then they look at me with big eyes,” she laughs.  Five years ago (at the age of 47) she became unemployed, then stumbled across an article on “sex assistants”, people who help the disabled or elderly people to experience sex.  “I felt that it could be something for me, but I didn’t know if I could pull it off.  In my head, I had images of drooling and disfigured people,” she says.

Catharina König went to the Institute for Autonomy for the Disabled, a college which trains sex assistants.  Her clients are mostly elderly men in retirement homes or younger disabled men.  Sometimes, she says, they just want to see a female body, or caress it; sometimes they need help getting an orgasm.  And often they just want to lie in bed holding someone.  Many of her calls come from nursing home staff; they see that the elderly or disabled are suffering, depressed or aggressive but cannot help them.  In the case of younger people who live at home, it’s usually the mother who calls.  “Recently I was at home with a 40-year-old man who had never been with a woman, Catharina said; “At first he was terrified.  But then it became so soft and nice.”

One of Catharina König’s regulars is 58-year-old Peter, who has a spastic paralysis of the limbs.  “I am not an Adonis whom women turn to look at, but like most other men I yearn for a woman and her body,” says Peter, who wished to remain anonymous.  “In principle, I think that one should not pay for sex, but the disabled have so many disadvantages in society I claim my right to do so.”  When asked what he thought about the fact that in Sweden he would be labeled a criminal, Peter said he considers that an insulting idea.

Christina König agrees.  “Sure I’m a sex worker; I sell sexual services.  But it’s so much more than that; I’m trying to give people the feeling that they are beautiful.  It’s wrong to try to punish that.  Besides, in Germany prostitution is permitted since January 2002; the law considers the buying and selling of sexual services to be a commercial transaction, provided they are done voluntarily.  Brothels are permissible, and prostitutes pay taxes and the same charges as other self-employed people.”

Today there are many brothels which advertise that they are accessible to the disabled; their amenities include ramps for wheelchairs and staff who understand and can help.  The Association for Sexual Services, a German sex worker organization, estimates that half of the country’s nursing homes for the elderly or disabled allow prostitutes to visit their residents.  Many prostitutes have discovered this as a niche; most are a little older and have life experience, says Marion Detlef, a social worker at Hydra (an organization which provides services to sex workers in Berlin).  Detlef said that there is good cooperation with the old people’s homes, and more recently with nursing homes for the disabled as well.  “It’s still a big taboo for many people.  But even in church-based institutions, there is a growing understanding that all people have sexual needs.  As it says in the Bible, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’”

What a sensible, enlightened view!  And what a contrast from the monstrous, asinine official attitudes toward sex work we see in nearly every story coming out of the U.S. these days.

Read Full Post »

No Other Option

Posted in Call types, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 17, 2010| 98 Comments »

Chastity:  The most unnatural of the sexual perversions. –  Aldous Huxley

Though there are a number of feminist disability advocates who try vehemently to deny it, the fact of the matter is that is extremely difficult for some men, especially disabled ones, to get sex by the same means as their un-handicapped brethren.  The bluenoses, politicians and neofeminists are even worse because they deny that a man being unable to get sex is even a problem.  But since the neofeminists are discussing a subject (male sexuality) about which they know absolutely nothing and the bluenoses and politicians are lying hypocrites, I think it’s fair to completely discount their opinions; and since disabled women may indeed have no trouble getting sex simply because they are in fact women, I think it’s equally safe to presume that they’re looking at the issue through feminist-colored glasses.  As a retired prostitute who has been with a number of disabled and otherwise “sex-acquisition-impaired” men and actually listened to what they had to say I can assure you otherwise; such men have the same needs as other men, but because they may be physically repellent and/or incapable of providing for a woman their chances of obtaining sex by the usual means is usually close to zero, and prostitutes are their only recourse.

A few female readers may doubt that a man incapable of supporting a wife would be able to afford prostitutes, but only if she fails to recognize that “free pussy is the most expensive kind”.  A man could see a New Orleans call girl twice a month for $600, which is not remotely enough to support even a low-maintenance wife, much less a disabled one; while it is certainly true that disabled people have sex, it is generally with each other because people without disabilities do not generally consider them to be marriageable.  You may call this prejudice if you like and perhaps it is, but that doesn’t change the facts:  Women, especially beautiful, sought-after women, simply do not date handicapped men unless they’re rich or famous.  And in such a case, which is better:  A selection of whatever call girls he likes as often as he wants them, or a shallow gold-digger who may eventually tire of caring for him and take a large portion of his wealth when she goes?

There was a regular client in New Orleans who enthusiastically came down on the side of the whores.  He had been in a terrible auto accident which had left him partially paralyzed so that he moved jerkily and his half-frozen face was not pleasant to look upon.  He drooled, had a colostomy because his lower intestines didn’t work properly, and was rather rough with girls because of his inability to control his movements correctly.  But the accident had been the fault of a large company, and his settlement had been very generous; he lived frugally on the interest and still had plenty for fun, including several escorts a month.  He was not a regular of any one girl or service; he called around as he pleased and was fond of variety, but he called so often that most experienced girls like myself ended up seeing him every few months.  He was not an easy customer to deal with; his physical problems were definitely off-putting even when he didn’t accidentally hurt one or ask for help changing his colostomy bag, and his personality was rather abrasive.  If it weren’t for hookers, there is no way he would ever have been able to enjoy sex.  But because of us, he was able to enjoy a different beautiful woman every time he wanted one and thereby make up in a very minor way for the shitty hand Fortune had dealt him.

I had another paralyzed customer once, though his paralysis was below the waist rather than on one side of his body.  He was not as well-heeled as the other client, but was visiting New Orleans and wanted a beautiful lady to spend the evening with him and show him the sights.  Luckily I’m in good shape because I definitely got a workout pushing his wheelchair around the Quarter!  We went to dinner at Ralph and Kacoo’s (which I mentioned in my August 31st column) and then returned to his room; obviously this was one case in which I didn’t mind doing cowgirl, because though his penis was functional his hips were not.  I went way overtime, but I had already warned Grace that I would and I really didn’t mind; he really was a very nice man and quite pleasant company, but so dreadfully in need of a woman that it almost broke my heart.  I still remember how he explored my body with trembling hands, like a teenage boy alone with a girl for the first time; I honestly wish I could force every prohibitionist in America to watch a film of that night so they could be confronted with the spectacle of a “degraded”, “humiliated”, “dirty”, “victimized” whore helping a desperately lonely man to enjoy the gift of Nature despite their efforts to deny it to him.

In the months after Katrina I received a call from a man who wished to hire me for his little brother, whom he told me had been badly burned in a house-fire as a child.  This young man, though in his early twenties, was no larger than a 12-year-old boy due to his injuries stunting his growth; one of his arms was useless and ended in a sort of claw, and I could clearly see the two bones beneath the skin.  He was bald, his face was shockingly scarred and his body bent, but the brother had the wisdom to warn me beforehand and I was able to mask my natural reaction.  But though his body was ugly and ruined his mind was strong and normal; he was intelligent and sensitive, and truly appreciative of my company.  He had never been with a woman before, so I made sure I showed him what it should be like; do any of my readers believe for one minute that any amateur his age would have even bothered to get to know him?  I am not timid about such things, but I tell you I inwardly shuddered to look upon the terrible damage that fire had done to this unfortunate young man’s body; a typical girl would have either screamed or turned away in disgust.  Yet despite his damaged shell he still had the spirit of a man, with a man’s needs and desires; if no woman will give him her favors, is it so horrible that some of us will sell ours to him just as we would to anyone else?

Calls with disabled men are often much more difficult than those with normal men, but can also be much more rewarding and allow one to experience things other women never have.  For example, how many ladies have ever had sex with a blind man?  My first blind client asked if he could feel my face, and of course I allowed it; after running his fingers over its lines he broke into a smile and said, “Oh, you’re so beautiful!”  Then his hands ran over my body, feeling its contours, and he complimented the beauty of my shape as he had that of my face.  What other men could tell with a glance he had to discover laboriously by touch, and it somehow made it all the more special for that reason.  Another client was deaf, and I had to communicate with him by writing; most of the call was conducted in absolute silence, with the two of us indicating things to each other by pantomime since I don’t know sign language.

There are many disabilities more subtle than paralysis and deformity, but even these may make a man unattractive to amateurs; cerebral palsy, severe epilepsy, gross obesity, missing or amputated limbs and other such conditions often make it much more difficult for a man to find a partner even if he has a good personality, and thus these men often turn to escorts.  Dealing with such conditions can range from simple to challenging; an epileptic client, for instance, warned me that when he climaxed he might have a seizure, and I should just make sure he didn’t fall off the bed if he did!  As it turned out he did not, but I’ve had clients with cerebral palsy who shook so badly it was almost as though they were having seizures.  And grossly obese men can be the most challenging of all for a number of reasons I am sure you can imagine without my help.

To be sure, not all prostitutes will accept disabled customers, so many such clients don’t even mention a disability because they’re afraid of being turned down.  But in my experience, few call girls will refuse these men; it certainly isn’t just the money, because in that stratum of harlotry we can afford to be picky and I’ve turned clients down for far less serious reasons than paraplegia.  No, I think the main reason most high-class girls readily accept such men is simply because we are high-class and take our profession seriously enough to realize that it would be wrong and unethical to refuse a paying customer who does not merely want our company but desperately needs it.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts