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That Was the Week That Was (#347)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A False Dichotomy, Across the Pond, agency denial, Arizona, asset seizure, bad customers, Bad Girls, Because We Say So, Big Sister, blogging, Brazil, brothels, California, Canada, censorship, Central Asia, contraception, cops, dirty, disease, end demand, Europe, fantasy, Florida, France, gangs, Haiti, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, hysteria, Iceland, Illinois, India, internet, King of the Hill, Lack of Evidence, Latin America, law, Little Boxes, Massachusetts, Misdirection, Nepal, Norway, Opting Out, Parasites, Philippines, politicians, porn, Presents, prohibitionist myths, Science!, sex education, sex rays, sex work is work, Social Autoimmune Disorder, Spain, sporting events, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, Texas, The Course of a Disease, The More the Better, The Slave-Whore Fantasy, Think of the Children!, Traffic Jam, United Kingdom, vaccines, violence vs. sex workers on November 23, 2013| 21 Comments »

Denying that sex work is work means…talking over the very people who are most knowledgeable about their industry. – Tara Msiska

The Slave-Whore Fantasy

Methinks Mr. Hendricks typed this one-handed:

…David Hendricks [said]…”we see…torture that we would see at a POW camp…the tattooing of victims…sends a message to other pimps, ‘This is my property’…” Hendricks went onto explain that every facet of a…trafficking [victim’s life] is controlled, including if they can eat, when they can return home, and who they can communicate with. A growing sector of the sex workers in Long Beach—largely affiliated with gangs…are usually in a group of about a half-dozen women under one dominating male, who then requires a set amount of dollars to be made per female, typically in the range of $500 to $700 per day…

A False Dichotomy

Take a look at the claims above, and compare with the reality: “The 24-year-old Hungarian woman [willingly worked but]…when she told Istvan Toth she wanted to return to Hungary he…threatened her, causing her to fear for her family’s safety. So she began recording conversations and taking photographs, and…confided in two of her clients, who offered to pay for her to stay in a hostel…” So much for barcode tattoos, evil clients and “controlled communication”.

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received Christopher Lee’s Omnibus of Evil as a late birthday present (delayed in customs) from Kevin Wilson, and The Weird as an early Christmas present from Daz. Thank you both so much!

Because We Say So (TW3 #19)

Remember those low-caste Nepalese women who were criminalized at the urging of prohibitionists in order to “save” them?

…The government-pledged alternative livelihood programme…was never implemented…Badi women continue to work as sex workers. Many of them go to India…“If the government cannot provide us jobs, education and health services then it could at least lift the ban on prostitution,” said Soni Badi, adding that they would vote [for] the candidate ready to legalise…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #36)

If only American celebrities were so principled:

The singer Antoine brought together over seventy [French] celebrities around a “simple statement to moderate tone…Without condoning or promoting prostitution, we reject the criminalization of…prostitutes and those who use their services, and ask to open a real debate without ideological bias…Why does the Special Committee…include so many abolitionists? Why do they not consider…prostitutes’ choice?…It is time to give them the same rights as other workers”…

Here’s more criticism of the proposed law from Reason and Al-Jazeera.

Hard Numbers (TW3 #37)

…on June 14, 2012, Rio’s…Police…rounded up prostitutes, staff and the owner [of Centaurus, and]…seized $150,000 in cash…police filmed the raid, threatening to leak the footage to the local media thereby exposing the women’s identities unless they handed over more money. Thaddeus Blanchette, an anthropologist who has documented prostitution in Rio since 2004, is not surprised by this. “Blackmail accompanying raids is not uncommon,” he reveals. “It is one of the reasons why I am skeptical of using the police as neutral agents in the combating of trafficking.” Centaurus was one of over 20 popular sex venues to be shut down in the period surrounding the Rio+20 Conference…Raids continue…as Brazil steps up its image-cleansing campaign ahead of the World Cup…despite the fact that exchanging sex for money is legal in Brazil and prostitution has been recognized as an official occupation…since 2002…

King of the Hill

Texas is so angry at claims it’s behind Georgia, California and New York in “sex trafficking” that it’s unveiled a new strategy to ensure its #1 position: claiming a bogus fraction of all “sex trafficking victims” rather than a mere ranking:

With an estimated 25 percent of the nation’s sex trafficking victims hailing from the Lone Star State, Texas [congressmen] John Cornyn and…Ted Poe led an effort…to punish “Johns” as harshly as “pimps”…proposed legislation…would impose penalties of 15 years to life on convicted customers…of sex slaves younger than 14 years old…Poe…[claimed] 300,000 sex trafficking cases [are] prosecuted each year….the proposal would [net the government] $15 million…a year from convicted traffickers’ seized assets and fines…

There haven’t even been 300,000 “trafficking” prosecutions in the entire world since the panic started a decade ago; of course the reporter couldn’t be bothered to fact-check that. An Illinois politician is also on the bandwagon, but all he can say is that his state is “a hub”, which is pretty pathetic if you ask me. Still, he did inflate 3% to 33% and 14% to 62%, and insert a bogus “safe harbor” provision into the bill, so I suppose we should award him a little gold star for effort.

Misdirection (TW3 #40)

…[American] public schools—even ones that teach comprehensive sex education—invite religious abstinence speakers to come in…and…spread [disinformation]…one…said, “If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and claimed she could tell which teenagers are promiscuous by looking at them…she also asserts that the HPV vaccine “only works on virgins”…[another] said…that if a guy gets sperm anywhere near a girl’s vagina, it will turn into a “little Hoover vacuum” and she will become pregnant…

Parasites

More anti-guest-post-spammer genius from Popehat:

…[Teaching] children…to love and cherish and squeal over ponies…is like teaching [them] that whirling sawblades taste like Strawberry Quik…Children love games, particularly video games with eerie bug-eyed avatars and art styles out of the methadone nightmares of Japanese pornographers, so…in…our proposed dress-up game — tentatively titled PONIES LAUGH WHILE THEY KILL EVERYONE YOU LOVE…players could choose amongst different outfits suitable for a post-pony-apocalypse, including gnawed tatters, wretched tear-stained shifts, and gowns slick and dark with the blood of their cherished grandparents…

Lack of Evidence (TW3 #51)

…no criminal charges [will] be filed in the death of Alyssa Brame, who was arrested…for allegedly offering to perform a sex act…for $40 and died of alcohol poisoning in a jail cell. The five [Massachusetts cops] who [arrested]…her…claimed she did not appear…overly intoxicated, but by the time she was taken to the police station she couldn’t walk on her own, and cops there debated whether she was too drunk to be accused of offering sex for money…

Little Boxes (TW3 #135)

Another example of the “limited hours for massage parlors” fad:

…”We’ve been able to identify in excess of 200 victims of human trafficking…in the massage parlors”…said Sgt. Curt Chastain…the new ordinance would…[force them] to provide a…license from the California Massage Therapy Council…it would also limit hours of operation from 7am to 9pm, prohibit doors from being locked during business hours and require visibility from the street into the massage parlor…

The City of Fresno claims to have “identified” more “sex trafficking victims” than several huge operations were able to find in the entire United Kingdom.

Science!

Another claim that disasters cause harlotry:

…an aide to…Britain’s international development secretary…said…”After previous emergencies…we have seen an increase in…the trafficking of girls”…after the earthquake in Haiti…sexual abuse and exploitation were widespread…because women and girls could not obtain the goods and services they needed to survive…during the 2011 drought in…Africa, families married off daughters…as young as nine to pay their dowries…before their livestock died…

So we have the conflation of survival sex with rape and child marriage, all boxed up together and tied with a “trafficking” ribbon.

Big Sister (Extra Edition)

The lawyer…for the…champagne club…closed…on suspicion of procurement of prostitution…has accused the Reykjavík police of entrapment…police reportedly spent ISK 800,000…in champagne and time with the women and offered them money and cocaine in return for sex but to no avail…

Remember, taking money for sex isn’t illegal in Iceland, but offering money is. So the cops broke the law and spent $6,600 (€4,900) trying to entrap women into doing something that isn’t illegal.

Opting Out

Husbands who like to watch pornography on the internet will have to confess to their wives and ask for permission, David Cameron said today. Under Tory “moral guidelines”, people who want to view pornography…will need to actively “opt-in” with their internet service providers…It is not just pornography…but also…material related to alcohol, drugs, smoking, and politically extremist material – in what many are describing as the Great Firewall of Britain…politicians and civil servants will decide what is pornography and…what political views are “extremist”…In order to push…censorship, Cameron has continually conflated…child pornography with legal adult material…[despite the fact that child porn is] shared on the “dark web”…and therefore…this erosion of digital freedoms will have no effect on the very problem it is being proposed to solve…

The worst part about loathsome ideas, though, is that politicians learn from one another: “Joy Smith hopes to emulate…David Cameron’s web censor plan…and…is…suggesting a great Canadian internet filter…”

Bad Girls (TW3 #339)

When will guys learn cheating hookers is a really bad idea? And when will hookers learn to get the money up front?

…a…[Malaga] man…went to a…brothel…[and] decided to engage in an orgy with three prostitutes…[Afterward] the women demanded €70 each…but the man refused to pay one of them…[she then] pulled out a knife and slashed the man’s genitalia…“Everything went well but doctors told me I was very close to dying or being impotent for the rest of my life…”

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #341)

Another example of the real and ugly motive behind the Swedish model’s pretense of “protecting” women: “The mayor of Oslo has called on the Norway’s new government to look at making prostitution illegal, after women were reported to be selling sex outside the parliament building…”

Social Autoimmune Disorder (TW3 #342)

“In Sanford, Florida, police are already sending…notices…[to] owners of cars that cops see ‘lingering in areas known for prostitution.’ The goal here isn’t to arrest would-be Johns…[but] to embarrass these guys should their wives open the letters. That gets a lot easier with license plate scanners…” And as Radley Balko explains, it gets much worse from there.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #343)

The San Antonio Four are free at last:

Three women who served more than a decade in prison for allegedly molesting two girls were set…free…after…recent scientific advances undermined medical testimony pivotal to their convictions. Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera and Elizabeth Ramirez were…released on bond…pending a decision…on whether to grant them a new trial. If that happens, the…District Attorney…will decline to prosecute them, and their convictions would be overturned…

The fourth, Anna Vasquez, was already out on parole.

Across the Pond (TW3 #343)

Delusional Scottish officials imagine that raiding saunas will force dirty whores to take menial jobs: “A job club for sauna workers is being launched – to help women find work…the…proposal…is designed to cater [to] an expected flood of women away from the industry…”

Think of the Children! (TW3 #345)

Another criticism of “sex ray” idiocy:

…For every…case…in…the press, there are many [former sex workers] who are fired…without us ever hearing about it…people…have been fired for camming, pro-domming, stripping and] phone sex [work]…people…[don’t list] sex work…on their CVs…because employers…don’t see sex work as work…by firing people for previous or current sex work, employers are making them unemployable, and actually forcing them to return to the very industry they have moral scruples against…

The More the Better (TW3 #345)

This follow-up to Business Insider’s quasi-review of Sheri’s Ranch is about as awful and tone-deaf as it’s possible for an anti-criminalization article to be; it leads off with the usual “heavily regulated” garbage that (as regular readers know) never works as intended, continues with the vile “whores are too stupid and criminal to take care of their own health without being forced to by their betters” trope, and even throws in a “rent out their bodies” for good measure. But at least they’re trying, and I suppose that’s something.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #346)

By the time last week’s TW3 had posted, Al-Jazeera had censored the article which was harshly critical of Arizona’s horrible treatment of sex workers; it was later replaced with this puff piece dishonestly back-dated to pretend it was the original. Fortunately, nothing ever completely vanishes from the internet; I found a cached copy of the original and took this screenshot of it for posterity. I guess it’s one thing to criticize bad data and a wholly different thing to question a police state, unless it’s France.

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Torture Chamber

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged cops, dehumanization, harm reduction, Korea, language, Norway, prisons, psychology, sex offender registry, Torture Chamber on October 17, 2013| 57 Comments »

Torture, torture! It pleasures me! – The Emperor (Criswell) in Orgy of the Dead

I started forming considered political opinions at about the age of thirteen. As I’m sure you can imagine, most of those opinions changed a great deal as I matured and learned more about reality; as I’ve said in the past, “I used to consider myself a feminist, but then I graduated from high school.” But a few of those opinions have never changed, except perhaps to grow stronger as experience handed me ever-increasing evidence that my initial judgment was correct. One such opinion is that most cops are twisted bullies and that none of them can be trusted; I don’t think I have to tell you how that one’s developed. Another one, formed before the drug war resulted in an exponential expansion of those condemned to them, is that prisons are evil torture chambers that serve absolutely no function except the sadistic pleasure of those who support damning human beings to them. And everything I have seen, read and learned since that time has only served to convince me that my original opinion didn’t condemn prisons harshly enough.

For most of human history, prisons served only two functions: the first was holding people from arrest until trial or from trial until execution, and the second torturing them so as to break their spirits (for whatever reason). And though the Greeks and Romans experimented with the idea of using prison as a judicial punishment and the British started using penal colonies at the beginning of the 17^th century, large-scale punitive incarceration was one of the more monstrous brainchildren of the 18^th century. The Enlightenment had resulted in a growing distaste for overt state-inflicted violence, so governments embraced the fiction that prisons were intended to “reform” those condemned to them. And though that pretense continues to this day, wiser heads have recognized its falsehood for at least a century: as George Bernard Shaw put it, “Of the three official objects of our prison system: vengeance, deterrence, and reformation of the criminal, only one is achieved; and that is the one which is nakedly abominable.” But even Shaw might have been at a loss for words had he been able to foresee the abomination of American mass incarceration, the caging of human beings on a scale no tyrant, inquisitor or sadist of the past could ever have conceived: roughly 1% of the adult population imprisoned at any given time, and more than twice that many – over seven million Americans in all – under some form of “correctional supervision” (probation, parole, etc). About that term:

…surely, no sane person believes that prisoners are being “corrected” or rehabilitated in any way; in fact, the evidence is the opposite, that locking criminals up for long periods…merely makes them worse, and imprisoning those who break minor laws destroys their lives and/or turns them into career criminals. The reasons for this should be obvious; prisons are little more than schools for crime, where those who are not thoroughly violent when they get in are forced to become more violent to survive. Furthermore, excessive sentences remove prisoners from society for so long they forget how to behave among normal people and internalize the prison mode of behavior so that it’s difficult to “unlearn” when they get out, especially since criminal background checks, offender registries and other post-incarceration punishments often prevent former prisoners from ever returning to normal society…

It’s even worse for so-called “sex offenders”, who are stigmatized, barred from virtually all social interaction and even exiled to filthy ghettoes. But all this only refers to prisoners who are confined under normal prison conditions; about 80,000 people in the US are kept for months, years or even decades in solitary confinement, a practice banned in all civilized countries as what it is: torture. Solitary confinement psychologically demolishes people, often irreversibly, but rather than face up to this fact American “authorities” respond as they always do: with lies, excuses and obfuscation. Those locked in solitary are now usually said to be “sequestered” or “secluded”, unless they’re too young to vote; then they’re tortured in “protective custody”. Far from “correcting” prisoners, American prisons couldn’t be much better at breaking them beyond repair if they were specifically designed to do, and those in most other countries aren’t a hell of a lot better.

Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking all sorts of thoughts about “public safety” and “we can’t just let criminals get away without punishment” and other such malarkey. What if I told you that it’s possible to build prisons that really do what “authorities” pretend they’re intended to do: rehabilitate criminals so they don’t offend again? And what if I told you they were cheaper than the state’s beloved torture chambers?

…at the Somang Correctional Institution in [South Korea]…guards and prisoners eat meals together in a clean dining hall…228 people have served time there and been released…only two have been convicted of a second crime…The recidivism rate at the nation’s…[other] prisons is 62 percent. About 65 percent of Somang prisoners have been convicted of major crimes such as murder, robbery and rape…counselors try to deal with prisoners’ emotional issues. Then they move on to job education…and…techniques including meditation and therapy to help prisoners empathize with crime victims. The final stage comprises social adaptation programs to help a prisoner ease back into the world outside the prison walls…It costs about…10 percent less than the cost of running [other] prisons…

And lest you think this sort of thing wouldn’t work in the West:

…Arne Kvernvik Nilsen…[is] governor of Bastoy prison island…home to some of the most serious offenders in Norway, [which] has received increasing global attention both for the humane conditions under which the prisoners live – in houses rather than cells in what resembles a cosy self-sustaining village…and for its remarkably low reoffending rate of just 16% compared with around 70% for prisons across the rest of Europe and the US…”I run this prison like a small society,” [Nilsen] says…”I give respect to the prisoners…and they respond by respecting themselves, each other and this community…The staff…are…like social workers as well as prison guards. They believe in their work and know the difference they are making”…Bastoy is also one of the cheapest prisons in Norway to run…

What a surprise; help people to deal with their problems, to respect others and do something constructive, and they tend to become peaceful, productive citizens after release. Cage them like animals and torture them into sociopathy, and they become more bestial and sociopathic. This isn’t rocket science; any unusually-bright thirteen-year-old could understand it. Unfortunately, most of the people in charge of American prisons function below that intellectual level, and they will have to be removed from power (and Americans in general cured of their delight in torturing the “other”) before this country ever sees a “correctional institution” whose name isn’t a wicked lie.

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That Was the Week That Was (#341)

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

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

A Tale That Grew in the Telling

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

Elephant in the Parlor

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

Presents, Presents, Presents!

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

Change a Few Words

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

The Profumo Affair

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

First They Came for the Hookers…

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

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

But wait, it gets even stupider:

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

Coming Out

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #26)

Another way the Swedish model harms sex workers:

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

Whatever They Need To Say

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

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

The Notorious Badge (TW3 #32)

I’ve got news for you, Léa…

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

Due Consideration

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

Peeping Toms (TW3 #311)

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

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

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

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

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

The End of the Beginning

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

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

Above the Law (TW3 #325)

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

Ad Absurdum

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

Be Careful Who You Rape

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

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

Policing for Profit

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

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

Cuckoo Advertising (Extra Edition)

Credulous reporters keep giving away ad space:

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

Just Call Me Nobody

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

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

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

A Procrustean Bed (TW3 #339)

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

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

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #339)

Another good article about Equality Now from Melissa Gira Grant:

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

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Handy Figures Revisited

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

800,000: According to the U.S. State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons” report for 2004, the total number of “human trafficking victims” worldwide (see also 27 million and 2.4 million above; 80,000, 14,500 and >10% below).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

160x: High-end estimate of the factor by which the rate of sexually transmitted infections in the promiscuous segment of the general public exceeds that in the escort population (see also 3-5%, 2x and 0.4% below).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

77%: Fraction of Canadians who support decriminalization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

33%: Sweden’s official estimate of the fraction of all Swedish prostitutes who are streetwalkers; note that it is more than twice as high as the standard estimate for Western countries (see 15% below).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

13: According to prohibitionist propaganda, the average age at which prostitutes enter the trade; this is derived from a purposeful distortion by Melissa Farley of the age at which underage streetwalkers in one study reported they had their first noncommercial sexual contact of any kind.

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

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

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

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

>10%: According to the U.S. State Department’s TIP report for 2004, the fraction of all “human trafficking victims” in the entire world who were “enslaved” in Japanese hostess clubs (see also 800,000 and 80,000 above).

10%: Fraction of Dutch prostitutes who are genetically male; half are male prostitutes (many of them cross-dressers) and the other half transgender.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6%: Fraction of men who see prostitutes frequently.

5.5%: Typical fraction of women in a 19^th-century European or American city employed as prostitutes at any given time (from Whores in History).

3-5%: Fraction of STD cases in the United States which are either suffered or transmitted by prostitutes; 93% of these are associated with streetwalkers (see also 160x above and 2x and 0.4% below).

4%: Approximate fraction of school-age girls in the US who would now be “sex slaves” if the “estimates” of hysterics were true.

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

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

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

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

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

2x: Factor by which the rate of sexually transmitted infections in the promiscuous segment of the general public exceeds that in streetwalkers (see also 160x and 3-5% above, and 0.4% below).

<2%: Fraction of Cambodian prostitutes who say they were coerced into the trade (see also 1.5% below).

1.5%: Overall estimated fraction of adult prostitutes in Western nations who are controlled by abusive pimps.

1.2%: Fraction of women in the general population who report their husbands or boyfriends are “extremely violent”.

1%: Fraction of modern American women who admit to having worked as whores at some point in their lives (from Sex Work).

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

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

0.4%: The estimated fraction of all STD cases in the United States which are either suffered or transmitted by escorts or brothel workers (see also 160x, 3-5% and 2x above).

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

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

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Frequently Told Lies

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Australia, blogging, bogus studies, brothels, Colorado, consensual crime, cops, disease, end demand, Frequently Told Lies, Germany, harm reduction, hysteria, law, neofeminism, Netherlands, Nevada, New Zealand, Norway, pathologization of males, pimps, porn, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, sex work is work, statistics, streetwalkers, stripping, Sweden, Swedish model, underage, violence vs. sex workers on October 7, 2013| 69 Comments »

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. – John 8:32

I recently realized that because the prohibitionists have a set of stock lies they can repeat in an article or internet comment, someone trying to refute them is forced to link to a number of different sources to debunk those lies. In order to make things easier, I’ve decided to consolidate responses in one place; in a few days I’ll replicate this column as a static page, to which I can add new lies which may appear and new statistics with which to debunk them. This column only covers factual claims; emotional arguments of the “no little girl dreams of being a prostitute” variety are covered in “Amazingly Stupid Statements”.

LIE: The average age at which a woman enters prostitution is 13.
TRUTH: If this were true, there would have to be huge numbers of toddler-prostitutes to balance the many, many women who start later in life, such as to support themselves after divorce. Even underage prostitutes start at an average of 15-16, and only 15% of teen hookers (themselves a small minority of all sex workers) enter at an age below 13. A conservative estimate for the average age at which women enter the trade is 25. The “average debut at 13” lie was a purposeful distortion by anti-sex crusader Melissa Farley, who misrepresented the average age of first noncommercial sexual contact (which could include kissing, petting, etc) reported by underage girls in one 1982 study as though it were the age they first reported selling sex; the actual average age at which the girls in that study began prostitution was 16.

LIE: The average age of death for a prostitute is 34.
TRUTH: That figure was derived from a 2003 study which examined all of the reports of murdered street workers in Colorado Springs from 1967-1999, and discovered that the average age of death of those victims was 34. In other words, nobody who wasn’t murdered was included in the figure. It’s like using the average age of dead soldiers in a war to proclaim “the average man who joins the military dies at 21”.

LIE: The demonstrable problems with legalization schemes in places like Nevada and the Netherlands constitute an argument in favor of criminalization.
TRUTH: The demonstrable problems with those legalization schemes constitute an argument in favor of decriminalization. No sex worker rights organization in the world favors the Dutch or Nevada models, precisely because they do give rise to a host of problems which are prevented by treating sex work as work.

LIE: 85% of prostitutes report childhood sexual abuse.
TRUTH: The original source for this claim was a 2004 study of incarcerated street workers which actually claimed that 45% reported sexual abuse and 85% physical abuse. Furthermore, there are serious methodological problems with the study, which is typical when biased researchers use an unrepresentative convenience sample and then extrapolate the results to a much larger population with which it does not correlate to any meaningful extent.

LIE: “End Demand” tactics are an effective means of reducing prostitution.
TRUTH: Economic analysis demonstrates that “end demand” tactics increase the number of sales of sex, especially at the street level.

LIE: “Human trafficking” is the world’s second most profitable criminal enterprise (or the third most, or most recently the most).
TRUTH: This myth originated in a UNODC meeting where Kevin Bales (see “27 million” below) said, “…it’s impossible to answer that question. If I had to guess I would say it was third…” Ann Jordan surmised that the original source of the myth (later revealed as Bales) was probably thinking about smuggling, certainly a more credible candidate for the position.

LIE: Most of the violence to which sex workers are subjected is at the hands of clients or pimps.
TRUTH: Most of the violence suffered by sex workers in regimes where the work is fully or partially criminalized is at the hands of police.

LIE: Most or nearly all prostitutes are controlled by pimps and forced to work.
TRUTH: In nearly every stable modern society, the rate of coercion for adult prostitutes is about 2% or less, and for underage ones about 8-10%; this is roughly the same as the rate of non-sex-working women who report an abusive or controlling boyfriend or husband.

LIE: Most prostitutes are driven to it by financial need, and 9 out of 10 prostitutes would like to exit prostitution immediately.
TRUTH: These statements are probably true, but if there is any normal job (not an elite career occupied by a tiny fraction of the population) to which they do not apply, I’d like to know what it might be. What makes this a lie is the pretense that it applies to sex work to a higher degree than to other jobs, which it does not; one Australian study found that half of all prostitutes ranked their work as a “major source of satisfaction” in their lives, and 70% said they would definitely choose prostitution again if they had their lives to live over.

LIE: Most prostitutes are “recruited” into the work by pimps.
TRUTH: Most adult sex workers start due to pragmatic concerns, and most underage ones either think of it on their own or are recruited by friends.

LIE: Most prostitutes suffer symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
TRUTH: This is another of Melissa Farley’s pet lies. She claims to be able to diagnose PTSD with a 15-minute self-administered questionnaire, despite the fact that the National Center for PTSD states that “brief, single-item, closed-ended questions for each PTSD symptom are…no more valid for making a diagnosis than self-report measures…Proper assessment of PTSD is complex…” In short, she is not qualified to diagnose this condition, and her method would be quackery even if she were.

LIE: Nearly all men buy sex OR a small, pathological group of men buys sex.
TRUTH: Though a slight majority of men have paid for sex at least once in their lives, about 20% of them do it “occasionally” (several times per year) and 6% “frequently” (several times per month).

LIE: 100,000-300,000 children are “trafficked” every year in the United States. $math is hard$
TRUTH: That myth is a distortion of an absurd estimate from the Estes & Weiner study of 2001, which estimated that number of “children, adolescents and youth (up to 21) at risk of sexual exploitation”. “Sex trafficking” was the least prevalent form of “exploitation” in their definition; other things they classed as “exploitation” included stripping, consensual homosexual relations and merely viewing porn. Two of the so-called “risk factors” were access to a car and proximity to the Canadian or Mexican border. When interviewed by reporters in 2011, Estes himself estimated the number of legal minors actually abducted into “sex slavery” as “very small…We’re talking about a few hundred people.”

LIE: Prostitutes only do the work because they have no meaningful choices.
TRUTH: 93% of escorts say they like their work for the money, 72% for the independence and 67% for meeting people. And a 2011 study demonstrated that most American escorts are women with “high opportunity cost”, in other words those who have many other meaningful options.

LIE: Prostitutes spread disease.
TRUTH: Only about 3-5% of all STIs can be attributed to either side of a sex work transaction, and the rates of infection among professionals are much (often dramatically) lower than among promiscuous amateurs.

LIE: Prostitution destroys the self-esteem of women involved in it.
TRUTH: Though only a small fraction of street workers report an increase in self-esteem after entering harlotry, they represent less than 15% of all prostitutes. 97% of escorts in one study reported an increase in self-esteem, compared with 50% of Nevada brothel workers; another study found that 75% of escorts felt their lives had improved since starting the work, 25% reported no change and 0% said their lives were worse. Anyone who has ever personally known any sex workers of any kind knows that if anything, their self-esteem is often too high.

LIE: Prostitution is associated with crime.
TRUTH: Criminalization is associated with crime. When “authorities” criminalize a consensual activity, they shouldn’t be too surprised when criminals are then attracted to it. When’s the last time you heard of anyone arrested for bootlegging or rum-running?

LIE: “Sex trafficking” increases when prostitution is legalized.
TRUTH: This claim is based on the deeply-flawed Neumayer, Cho and Dreher study, which failed to even define the term “trafficking” in any way which would allow statistical comparison. The lie was further developed by a report in Der Spiegel which used figures for exploitation among illegal prostitutes to argue against legalization. In any legalization regime, those sex workers who are defined as being outside the legal structure (i.e. still criminal) are always those at greatest risk of violence and exploitation; to the extent that “trafficking” actually exists, it is generally the illegal nature of sex work which supplies the greatest tool for coercion. In the decriminalized structures of New Zealand and New South Wales, coercion is virtually nonexistent.

LIE: Sex work causes rape.
TRUTH: The evidence suggests that sex work of all kinds actually decreases the rates of rape, sexual assault, divorce and several other sex-related social ills.

LIE: The Swedish model has dramatically reduced prostitution and sex trafficking in Sweden.
TRUTH: The Swedish model cannot be shown to have had any effect on rates of prostitution at all, though it has made the lives of sex workers much more difficult and dangerous. Norwegian studies demonstrate that their version of the law has increased sex trafficking and the number of prostitutes, and also promoted pimping.

LIE: There are 27,000,000 people enslaved in the world today.
TRUTH: That number was developed by a “trafficking” fanatic named Kevin Bales using media reports multiplied by arbitrary numbers of his own devising; the more the hysteria, the higher the number of articles and thus the higher Bales’ number grows. “Trafficking” estimates are all over the map; the official UNODC estimate is less than a tenth as much (2.4 million), and even with vague, loose and ever-expanding definitions of “trafficking” the office has evidence for only about 40,000 in the entire world.

LIE: A very large fraction of sex workers are below 18.
TRUTH: In legal forms of sex work, virtually none are; in illegal forms the fraction is still very small. Only about 3.5 % of prostitutes in Western countries are under 18.

That’s all I can think of for now; post any others you’ve seen in the comments and I’ll add them to the static page.

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Deafening Silence

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged asset seizure, brothels, China, cops, Deafening Silence, harm reduction, law, neofeminism, Norway, prisons, rape, surveillance, Sweden, Swedish model, violence vs. sex workers, yellow journalism on May 27, 2013| 18 Comments »

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the official abuse of sex workers in China, and it was covered by every major media outlet in the world; I saw a plethora of links to the story on Twitter, and many readers sent them as well. Here’s the one from the Guardian:

China’s high-profile crackdowns on prostitution have made sex workers more vulnerable to abuse by police and clients while failing to curb the trade…Women described being assaulted by police and other security officials until they admitted to being sex workers, leading to them being fined or detained for up to two years without trial…Prostitution largely disappeared in the Mao era but has flourished since China’s economic reforms began. The United Nations estimates that between 4 million and 6 million adult women are engaged in sex work…Authorities have launched frequent drives against the sex industry, but…while such campaigns see hundreds of women rounded up, brothels often continue to operate with little obvious difficulty…three years ago the ministry of public security ordered an end to the public shaming of sex workers and said they should be treated more respectfully [but] problems remain widespread…Nicholas Bequelin, senior Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch…said that one of the problems was that fines were a major source of revenue for the police…

This will of course all be familiar to regular readers, though I’m not sure what to make of the Graun’s touchingly-naïve acceptance of Maoist propaganda that there was no prostitution in the Glorious Workers’ Paradise. Perceptive readers will also note that these same (or similar) abuses are widespread in Western criminalization regimes:

…police violence, arbitrary detention of up to two years in “re-education through labor” and “custody and education” centers, and coercive HIV testing…police [abuses include]…torture, beatings, physical assaults, arbitrary detentions, and fines, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses, and state agents…“In China, the police often act as if by engaging in sex work, women had forfeited their rights,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “The government must abandon its repressive laws against sex workers, discipline abusive police, and end the suppression of sex workers rights advocates”…

All those things happen in the USA as well, including the “re-education” being sold as an “alternative” to imprisonment in some jurisdictions; America also makes extensive use of sleazy tactics like “naming and shaming”, tax audits, stealing sex workers’ children and bogus felony charges (“conspiracy”, “money laundering”, etc) which are apparently not so common in China. But while Human Rights Watch flatly recommends decriminalization in China (“China should…enact legislation to remove criminal and administrative sanctions against voluntary, consensual sex work [and] stop periodic police anti-prostitution ‘sweeps’, which do more harm than good”), its only statement on US prostitution law was a weak request to stop using condoms as evidence (an equivalent level of response in the Chinese report might have been “please limit sex workers’ detention to six months and always wear condoms while raping them”). Furthermore, though Western journalists were happy to spread the news of China’s persecution of whores, they are just as happy to spread prohibitionist propaganda and maintain a politic silence about the horrific human rights abuses committed by Western police and officials. Consider, for example, the rosy picture painted by the Swedish government and advocates of their “model”; supposedly, it reduces prostitution while not harming women in any way. Contrast that with the truth which the mainstream media won’t report:

…The police have big difficulties in catching the clients so the activities are now aimed against sex workers. To chase the girls requires plenty of resources and is not possible without employing policemen just for this – “Cunt Hunters”…I was visiting Trondheim for work in May 2012. At the evening of the first day the boss of the apartment hiring company came to the condo and threw me out…Two [cops] were observing, disguised as repairmen who were been circulating in the stairs…They had watched my advert in the internet, called me pretending to be clients, came watching and after that had called the director…[who] refused to [refund my rent]… Trondheim’s…Propaganda Department of the Police [says that they] aim to make Trondheim unattractive as a working place by first finding the sex workers and after that taking their clients away…and [evicting them] from hotels…

That was written by an escort from Norway (her English is excellent, but I did make a few slight edits for readability; you will note that like me, she refers to client criminalization as the “Swedish disease”). Though her description of the abuses is unusually thorough, it is by no means the only narrative of its kind…though you wouldn’t know it from reading the mainstream media, who are so invested in portraying Sweden as a “feminist paradise” that the considerable evidence to the contrary is almost totally ignored:

A Swedish court has cleared three teenagers accused of rape for inserting a wine bottle in a girl’s vagina until she started bleeding…the men pinned her down on the bed and pried her legs open before inserting the…bottle…One of [them] allegedly told her not to report the incident to the police, which she nonetheless did…[the] court…ruled that…she may have kept her legs together initially out of modesty…

Imagine the outcry if this had happened in India. Since “everybody knows” Asian countries are misogynistic hellholes of repression, watchdog groups readily chastise them and journalists eagerly report any story which serves to reinforce the narrative. But when it comes to countries which “everybody knows” are champions of gender equity, fair treatment and civil rights, the silence from those same groups is deafening.

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That Was the Week That Was (#312)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, Accredited Whores, activism, agency denial, An Ounce of Prevention, animals, apes & monkeys, archeofeminism, Arizona, asset seizure, Australia, Bad Girls, Birth of a Movement, brothels, Comfort Zone, consensual crime, contraception, cops, dehumanization, dirty, disability, disease, drugs, East Asia, end demand, ethics, First They Came for the Hookers, France, gangs, Georgia, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, Hollywood, hysteria, Indonesia, internet, Juxtaposition, King of the Hill, language, law, left-right myth, Like a Horse and Carriage, Louisiana, Madonna/whore, marriage, Mentoring, Monkey Business, Netherlands, Nevada, New York, Norway, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Oscillation, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Real People, red-light districts, rescue industry, Rome, sacred prostitutes, Schrödinger's cat, screening, Secret Squirrel, Size Matters, Skin To Skin, stage names, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, tabula rasa, The Last Shall Be First, The Public Eye, transgender, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers on March 23, 2013| 37 Comments »

Humanity has a bad track record of selectively appealing to authority to justify our biases. – Andrea Castillo

R.I.P. Harry Reems

Harry Reems, the first male porn star, died of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday (March 19^th) at the age of 65. For his role in Deep Throat, Reems was convicted in 1976 of “conspiracy to transport obscene material across state lines”, and though that sentence was overturned a year later the stress of the trial drove him to start drinking; he spent the late ‘80s as a homeless alcoholic before sobering up in 1989, then getting married and going into real estate a year later. Unlike his co-star Linda Lovelace, however, he never regretted his choices or blamed porn for his troubles, and went by his stage name (his birth name was Herbert Streicher) until the end.

Bad Girls

I left out the very rarest, but worst type: “[Houma, Louisiana] police arrested 15 men…alleging they solicited a prostitute through [Backpage]…one of [two] prostitutes…[was] issued a summons…[but] the other…was not arrested [because she] agreed to be a part of the sting…” There is absolutely no lower life-form in the whoring ecosystem than a person who collaborates with cops to ensnare others in order to save his or her own worthless hide.

Dr. Schrödinger and His Amazing Pussycat

Andrea Castillo’s “When Science Looks Like Religion” explores the territory discussed in Monday’s comment thread: When people blindly accept scientific findings which reinforce their irrational beliefs while rejecting equally-valid results which contradict those beliefs, the result is not science but religion. The last part is doubly germane: it describes Norwegian social scientists’ knee-jerk denial of all data which contradicts their cultic social constructionism.

Secret Squirrel

A new low in intra-family spying:

…Suspicious moms and dads are hiring trained drug detection dogs to sniff out their kids’ drug stash…the RK Agency…[charges] $350…[to] “discreetly perform a thorough inspection of your entire property”…Jeffrey Gardere, a child psychologist …[told] the Today Show… “I don’t know if you can [have a relationship with your kids] if you’re bringing in drug-sniffing dogs”…

Size Matters

According to this post from Dr. Annie Sprinkle, Tracy Elise of Phoenix Goddess Temple has been “deemed…’incompetent’ to go to trial…she will be sent to psych ward and forced to take psychiatric drugs for about 15 months until she’s ‘competent’…I feel that if…sex workers…criticise Tracy Elise…we are in a way colluding with the [police]…and…contributing to the problem, which is exactly what the ‘sex negative society’…wants us to do…” I totally agree.

The Last Shall Be First

[Arizona] legislators…are attempting to pass legislation that forces transgender people to only use public restrooms…associated with the gender…on their birth certificate…in response to a [Phoenix] …bill…which prohibits gender identity discrimination in public accommodations…

Lupercalia

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the lessons we can learn from Pompeii:

…women in Ancient Rome [married] sometimes as young as 14…[but] were permitted to own land and houses and have jobs. Women of the upper classes were educated to a high standard…It’s well known that Pompeii…boasted a large sex industry…and…open attitudes about sexuality and prostitution didn’t hold back other women from achieving…

And if you just can’t get enough of Brooke, here’s a short but wide-ranging interview with her in The Age.

A Broker in Pillage

Once again, the British government displays its dedication to literally robbing sex workers of their life savings:

A Chinese brothel madam and her husband have been ordered to pay back £125,000 within six months or she will face another jail sentence and he will join her…Rong Chen…and her husband Jason Hinton…only [have] £125,000 of realisable assets…[namely] their marital home in…Worcestershire, which…will have to be sold or remortgaged…

Note the weird euphemism “pay back”, implying that the money is refunded to customers; in reality it is split between the police, court and Inland Revenue.

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs

If politicians’ minds weren’t befuddled by prohibitionist idiocy, they wouldn’t be so confused by wholly predictable outcomes like this:

…Jakarta…has tried…to offer sex workers ways to escape the sex industry…[for] example…sex workers…[given] a dressmaking course…did not return to their villages…but rather…to their old lives in Jakarta…the income from sewing was just too far below sex work…A high ranking health official…[said] it would be better to legalize prostitution; closing Kramat Tunggak would result in the dispersion of prostitution sites to several unidentified locations — making health checkups impossible…Surabaya…is still trying to phase out Dolly, East Java’s famed prostitution site…

But as this second article from the same newspaper explains, closing Dolly would be an economic disaster:

…Dolly…consists of at least 300 brothels…employing thousands of prostitutes…[plus] numerous supporting businesses — clinics, mini markets, sexual enhancement medicine vendors, parking lots, banks, rented houses, Internet cafes, small restaurants…University of Indonesia economist Lana Soelistianingsih said that…economic transactions triggered by prostitution [alone] could contribute around Rp 1.5 trillion to Surabaya’s gross domestic product…

Oscillation

Family Research Council…fellow Pat Fagan…claims that Eisenstadt v. Baird, the 1972 case that overturned a Massachusetts law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, may rank “as the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court”…because it effectively meant that “single people have the right to engage in sexual intercourse…Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever”…

Real People (TW3 #21)

…Amsterdam’s oldest prostitutes have retired after more than 50 years each in the business. Louise and Martine Fokkens, 70, have decided they are too old…Louise…says arthritis now makes some sexual positions “too painful”…and Martine…admits she finds it hard to attract punters – though one elderly man still has his weekly sadomasochism session…The pair were the subject last year of a documentary Meet The Fokkens and they have written a book called The Ladies Of Amsterdam…

First They Came for the Hookers…

As I pointed out recently, Nevada isn’t remotely pro-whore: “Two [Nevada] state Senators introduced bills…[to] regulate strip clubs…Mark Manendo…wants to charge …a $10 per customer fee…[to fund] programs related to domestic violence…Barbara Cegavske…would ban anyone less than 21-years-old from performing…”

The Public Eye

Caty Simon of Tits and Sass interviews well-known activist Audacia Ray on the Red Umbrella Project, speaking to the media, condom criminalization, the Long Island Killer and why sex workers need to ally with harm reduction and anti-drug war activists.

Monkey Business

Baboons have been observed keeping dogs as pets:

Birth of a Movement (TW3 #39)

French sex workers continue to push back against increased criminalization:

10 years ago, the Internal Security Act (LSI) penalized public solicitation, including so-called “passive solicitation”…[this] has reinforced the isolation of sex workers, relegating them to more remote places where they are…more prone to violence…since the introduction of the LSI, “the conduct of the police deteriorated sharply. Their attitude is less respectful and humiliation increased…their protective function…has virtually disappeared and [they are]…most often perceived as strictly punitive”…Médecins du Monde demand the immediate repeal of the offense of soliciting…[and] rejects any proposal to penalize customers…

Women’s Rights Minister Najat Belkacem responded in a typically clueless manner; though she promised repeal of the law, she also made the absurd claim that “90% of [sex workers] are victims of human trafficking” and refused to back down on her scheme to impose the Swedish model.

King of the Hill

Portland, Oregon’s bid for the “largest trafficking hub” title isn’t a new one, but now they’re claiming that this is “proven” not only by highways, but by rivers:

…Portland [has]…one of the largest sex industries of any U.S. city…human trafficking…is a growing problem in Oregon due in part to the traffic permitted by Interstates 5 and I-84 [and] the Willamette and Columbia rivers…the problem [is] one that’s inextricably linked to gangs…“When people think of prostitution, their first instinct is a girl walking on the street,” [police spokesman Pete] Simpson says. “They’re not thinking about the fact that she’s being traded as a commodity, sold as a product”…The change [in strategy] humanizes the victims…

Simpson robs women of agency, then claims he’s “humanizing” whores who were already human before he turned them into things to be acted upon. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

Accredited Whores

Charlotte Shane’s review of An Intimate Life: Sex, Love, and My Journey As A Surrogate Partner, the memoirs of sex surrogate Cheryl Greene (of The Sessions fame), covers much the same ground as my column, and that’s a good thing; the more of us there are speaking out against these artificial lines drawn between types of sex work, the more people will finally get it.

Like a Horse and Carriage

I’m glad to see that others are recognizing that “marriage equality” applies just as well to polygamy as it does to same-sex marriage, and are making good arguments for it:

I’m in favor of leaving marriage to the religious institutions, and registering households in whatever configuration people want to live. If a same-gender couple, or a heterosexual couple, or an elderly couple who can’t have children, or any couple want to be responsible to and for each other, let them. If three people want to be responsible to and for each other, let them. If a gay man and his female best friend want to be responsible to and for each other, let them. Let’s stop worrying about who is screwing who, and just make it easier for people to be responsible in their relationships.

Still More Mentoring

SWOP-NOLA posted these “Client Screening Tips and Helpful Links from a New Orleans Provider”; I already mentioned a few of these, but she provides many more I didn’t know about.

The Joy of Juxtaposition

One would never know that these claims have been repeatedly debunked:

The Georgia attorney general and other law enforcement officials kicked off a public awareness campaign…[which] bears the slogan “Georgia’s not buying it” and includes a [commercial] featuring professional athletes…”We’ll continue to go after the pimps and rescue the victims, but we know that the only way to truly eradicate this evil is by ending the demand,” Attorney General Sam Olens said…It is a problem throughout Georgia, in both urban areas and in small towns and rural areas…

Georgia is indeed “buying it”, wholesale. I’m sure millions in federal grants and an excuse to further erode civil rights have nothing to do with all this.

Skin To Skin

An Australian sex therapist argues that disability insurance should cover the hiring of sex workers:

Sexual expression is a fundamental part of being human…Decades of research have uncovered the many benefits of sex, which include physical health, quality of life, psychological well-being and sexual self-esteem. Unfortunately, because of social taboos and hypocrisy…barriers are created to stop people from fully realising these benefits…Some people with disabilities have limited opportunities for sexual relationships because they lack privacy and are dependent on others…

Comfort Zone

The video of the Albany Law School symposium is now available! If you don’t have the time or inclination to watch the whole thing (4 hours), my part runs from minute 170 to 185.

An Ounce of Prevention (TW3 #310)

Earlier this month, doctors announced that a baby had been cured of…HIV…Now…it appears that 14 adults have…been successfully treated…70 people…[received] combination antiretroviral therapy (cART)…much sooner than…normal…[because] all [were] diagnosed…early…they…stuck to the [regimen] for an average of three years…[but then] stopped…for various reasons…Normally, HIV will return when patients stop taking their ARVs. But this time…14…patients…were functionally cured…

Hard Numbers (TW3 #311)

Apparently, the proposed legislative reform in South Australia isn’t quite decriminalization (though it’s a lot closer to it than anything we’ll see in the US anytime soon): “…it makes special provisions for sex work such as special licensing, laws about safe sex and possibly restrictions on location…once a ‘reform’ law has been passed the chances of getting better legislation in the near future drop to zero. So many people feel it’s better to stay with a bad situation and hope to get good reform rather than settle for an unsatisfactory ‘improvement’…”

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That Was the Week That Was (#139)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Fantasy of Hate, acting, activism, agency denial, An Example to the West, asset seizure, Big Sister, bogus studies, Bootlickers, brothels, California, Catholicism, censorship, cops, dirty, end demand, Europe, Grow the Hell Up!, Hollywood, hysteria, Iceland, illegal aliens, Imaginary Lines, India, internet, Islam, language, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, Legalization a Good Idea?, Life Imitates Artifice, Madonna/whore, Middle East, neofeminism, New Orleans, Norway, Ohio, porn, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, Repeat Offenders, Russia, Sex Workers vs Trafficking, social purity, sporting events, Storyville, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, Tennessee, The Course of a Disease, The Dogs Do Bark, The Lion and the Ox, The Notorious Badge, Turkey, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state), yin and yang on March 2, 2013| 25 Comments »

Your typical “good feminist” engages in “sex-positive activism” by assuring one another that they are bold “revolutionaries” for watching punk porn or buying buttplugs…mainstream feminists know that you don’t change the world with a Hitachi Magic Wand. – Furry Girl

Storyville

Melissa Gira Grant presents an excellent short history of the first 200 years of prostitution in America, “When Prostitution Wasn’t a Crime”; New Orleans is of course prominently featured, but is by no means the only city covered. Grant looks at how whores were often the first women in colonies, how cops and politicians harassed us before our trade itself was criminalized, and how the social purity movement established criminalization as the American norm.

Grow the Hell Up!

Most California cities can no longer afford to persecute hookers, so San José has had to fall on that reliable fund-raising technique, lying: “…San Jose Police…acquired a human trafficking grant from the federal government…[which funded] a very successful…sting operation…[arresting] johns and pimps…is extremely important, because they are the ones who…force these women [into] illicit activity…”

Sex Workers Against Trafficking

…sex workers from Nashik [Maharashtra] saved a 14-year-old girl from being sold by…an acquaintance…Vijay Dive…lured her with a trip…[and] told her that he would buy her new clothes…Dive [instead tried to sell her to]…some brothels…[but] sex workers…[informed] police…

Life Imitates Artifice (March Updates)

It’s good to see Russians using “sex trafficking” hysteria as propaganda; let’s hope the Islamic theocracies follow their lead:

The US Department of Justice reported that every two minutes a child is trafficked for…sexual exploitation in the United States…Parents, stepparents or guardians force their children to perform sex acts in exchange for money or items of value…a sex victim who was abused throughout her childhood [says] “Normally it’s in places where there’s lots of people, anytime when there’s a ball game”…child sex [traffickers] are ordinary people…[but] force their children to take addictive drugs and usually threaten them…In 2011 the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) revealed a study that showed there were more than 100 cases reported of child sex trafficking in Knox County…Tennessee…

A Fantasy of Hate

I described reading neofeminist hate-sites as “like opening the viewing window into a padded cell.” Well, a Tweeter named Caprica collected this group interaction from the recent “RadFem 2013” convention; the specific focus of this malice is transgender people, but there’s plenty for men as well. Warning: don’t look if you are easily disturbed by vile, psychopathic, literally genocidal hatred.

Imaginary Lines

Interestingly, the phrase “sex trafficking” appears nowhere in this story:

The madam of a nationwide Korean prostitution ring…was sentenced to [two years for] immigration fraud…Miyoung Roberts, 42…arranged illegal immigration for more than 24 Korean women who…[worked] at…nightclubs…[and] counseled…[them] on how to avoid detection by immigration authorities. She set up apartments…and supervised some of [their] prostitution…Roberts…gained U.S. citizenship through a fake marriage…

Bootlickers

Washington state puritans continue their bizarre persecution of coffee stands: “…Three bikini baristas have been arrested…in Everett…for allegedly selling strip shows to customers…at two Grab-N-Go stands, which is where several baristas were charged with prostitution…in 2009…The arrests came after a two-month undercover investigation…”

Under a Rock

The redoubtable Furry Girl presents a devastating critique of sex-positive feminists’ insistence that theirs is the only true feminism:

…sex-positive, pro-autonomy, anti-victimhood feminists are a small minority compared to all the other feminists they…dismiss as “not real feminists.” Large national feminist organizations and women’s studies departments are not run on “good feminist” principles, they are run by the oppressive and anti-sexuality feminists who represent mainstream feminist values. “Good feminists” aren’t the ones being brought in as experts by governments to write new anti-sex worker and anti-porn laws…Feminists who have any shred of influence invariably use it to be “bad feminists,” whether it’s criminalizing indoor prostitution in Rhode Island or holding tenured women’s studies jobs so they can terrorize impressionable young women into feeling victimized by the world around them…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

A new study suggests that the possible reason women tend to be more talkative than men (20,000 words per day vs. the male average of 7000) is that our brains tend to “have higher levels of a ‘language protein’ called FOXP2”. Jezebel, of course, exists in a different reality than the rest of us and so DENIES that women tend to be more talkative than men, going on and on and on about it…

Repeat Offenders

The unholy alliance of nuns and SOAP fanatics continues to harass hoteliers in the American Midwest while spreading its extreme version of the “gypsy whores” myth:

…the Dominican Sisters of Peace in Columbus [Ohio] have joined forces with SOAP…[in claiming that] human traffickers…flock to major sporting and other public events. Their current focus is the Arnold Sports Festival and Fitness Expo…[they] call and visit hotels to alert them to the potential for prostitution and trafficking…and…distribute bars of soap…with the phone number of a…trafficking hot line…

A Broker in Pillage

What could possibly go wrong?

A new bill…in Hawaii’s state senate would expand asset forfeiture to include petty misdemeanors…the Hawaii…ACLU posits that [this]…could lead to all sorts of ridiculously-cruel consequences. Homeless people could lose their property if they camp out in a park after hours. Protestors could have their signs, petitions and other assets seized—a chilling effect on the First Amendment. The bill is backed by Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources as a way to protect “natural, cultural, historical and recreational resources”…Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth has lambasted [SB 1342] as “draconian“…state Sen. Russell Ruderman called [it] “outrageous,” [saying] “we should have more safeguards, not less, to protect people from forfeiture abuses.” The Institute for Justice gave Hawaii a D for its atrocious…forfeiture laws…

You’ll be shocked at the identity of one of the biggest supporters of this tyranny:

The Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery (PASS) supports SB1342…[as part of a campaign to] stiffen penalties for patrons of prostitution…This bill…would be very beneficial in ending the demand for prostitution in Hawaii and would provide another deterrent for patrons who buy humans for sex…

An Example to the West

This letter from a group of Indian feminists in response to the incredibly patronizing behavior of Harvard do-gooders is a perfect example of what Southern ladies call “vinegar pie”: a dish so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. I have read it three times now and enjoy it more each time.

Pyrrhic Victory

The ACLU’s “nightmare scenario” of drone-enabled universal surveillance is about to become a reality: “ARGUS-IS…is…a super-high, 1.8 gigapixel resolution camera that can be mounted on a drone. As demonstrated in this clip, the system is capable of high-resolution monitoring and recording of an entire city”:

ARGUS produces a high-resolution video image that covers 15 square miles. It’s all streamed to the ground and stored, and operators can zoom in upon any small area and watch the footage of that spot…it’s the culmination of the trend towards ever-more-pervasive surveillance cameras in American life. We’ve been objecting to that trend for years, and many of our public spaces are now under 24/7 video surveillance—often by cameras owned and operated by the police. But even in our most pessimistic moments, I don’t think we thought that every street, empty lot, garden, and field would be subject to video monitoring anytime soon. But that is precisely what this technology could enable. We’ve speculated about self-organizing swarms of drones being used to blanket entire cities with surveillance, but this technology makes it clear that nothing that complicated is required…

Legal Is as Legal Does (TW3 #20)

The gradual closure of…state-run brothels is emerging as a controversial tactic in Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declared war on prostitution. While Erdoğan’s supporters denounce brothels as a form of “slavery,” sex workers fear the campaign poses risks to their health and safety. Closing…brothels “will not keep men from visiting prostitutes,” explained 48-year-old Istanbul sex worker Berna, “but it will push even more women into illegality and the back streets, where they will be without protection, and without any rights”…Several state-run brothels around the country reportedly already have been closed down – with official reasons including proximity to a new mosque and the nearby discovery of historical artifacts – and others should soon follow…

The Notorious Badge (TW3 #27)

Johanna in Tits and Sass on “Why Anne Hathaway Should Go-Away”:

In last year’s Les Miserables…Anne Hathaway plays Fantine, a single mother [who]…turns to prostitution…Hathaway…[made] various comments…[about] “the lives of sex slaves”… and her attempts to “honor” the experiences of women who are “forced to sell sex”…Much media attention has also been given to the work on her own body Hathaway did to prepare for the role…[including] hair-cutting and drastic weight loss…What seems strange to me…is that Hathaway and the lady bloggers who love her apparently can’t see any similarities between her use of her body in work…and the experiences of sex workers. Like sex workers, Hathaway’s physicality is central to her job. Like sex workers, Hathaway has to make decisions about how to deploy her body…but somehow, when she diets to the point of frailness (her words), we call that work; when women in a film give hand jobs, we call it “the darkest place imaginable.” Fantine cuts off her hair for money and we cry. Hathaway cuts off her hair (also for money) and we nod admiringly…

The Lion and the Ox

The logical end result of “human trafficking” rhetoric:

Employing females as cashiers is a form of human trafficking like sexual exploitation, forced labor and organ trafficking…Objectifying women comes in different forms, such as exploitation in media, advertising, flight attendants, receptionists, and supermarket clerks or cashiers, argues…a graduate research paper at the Imam Mohammad bin Saud Islamic University…Mohammad al-Bogami…writes that Muslim scholars consider it human trafficking if the goal of hiring women is to use their looks to attract customers…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #43)

The view on the Swedish model from inside Norway, with references to Penny Gelder and the play I linked before:

An increasing number of people in Norway are starting to see through the evil…It is in the nature of a moralist a desire to remove something he or she doesn’t like. Recently, this moralistic mind game has become more and more unmasked…Did you know that children and young people in Norway grow up in a society in which they learn that consensual sex is prohibited?…More and more people are becoming extremely angry and feel that their private sphere is violated. It is very easy to explain, in a factual and logical way, why this law is one of the greatest assaults on humanity ever…So, why doesn´t Amnesty International or the United Nations take solid action, demanding the Sex Purchase Law to be removed immediately?…The Sex Purchase Law violates absolutely all citizens in a country where it is in effect. Not only sex workers, because any kind of sex is in fact a trade or transaction. Thus, any consensual sex would logically be illegal…

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (TW3 #136)

Indian sex workers triumph over an attempt at back-door criminalization:

The government has decided not to treat voluntary sex workers above the age of 18 years as victims of trafficking…Following objections by human rights and women organisations, the government is set to delete the term “prostitution” as one of the forms of exploitation which constitutes the offence of trafficking…which…stated that “…the consent of the victim is immaterial”…Justice JS Verma panel…clarified that amended law ought not to be interpreted to permit law enforcement agencies to harass sex workers…and their clients…

Big Sister

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the fantasy that porn prohibition via internet censorship will somehow work in Iceland (despite the fact that it can’t even stop physical contraband like drugs), and the even more farfetched fantasy that it could work in the UK (because, like Iceland, it’s a magical island kingdom separated from the evil, evil world by floating rings of fire).

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Number Puzzle

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, bad customers, bogus studies, cops, Europe, harm reduction, neofeminism, Norway, Number Puzzle, rape, statistics, streetwalkers, Swedish model, violence vs. sex workers on February 19, 2013| 43 Comments »

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts—for support rather than illumination. – Andrew Lang

Does anyone remember number puzzles? In a way they were the predecessors of Rubik’s cube, and I used to love them as a child (though I haven’t played with one in decades). The puzzle is simply a small tray in which there are fifteen numbered tiles which can be slid vertically or horizontally; in the most basic form of the game one slides the tiles around until they’re in numerical order. There are, however, other ways to play; my favorite was to make the sequence go in a clockwise spiral rather than four rows. Another was to line up all the odd numbers in sequence, followed by the evens. Because the tiles couldn’t be removed from the tray without breaking the puzzle, one often had to do considerable back-and-forth shifting to solve it, much as one does with a Rubik’s cube (though obviously the cube is more complex).

Manipulating statistics to serve a particular agenda is something like a number puzzle, in that a skilled but unethical statistician has to do a lot of shifting numbers around to make the image within the frame look like he wants it to look; once that’s achieved it takes more shifting by a debunker to get the numbers back where they started. Of course, it’s an imperfect analogy; in the puzzle one sequence is as valid as another, whereas in real life that isn’t so. Also, the numbers of the puzzle move in only two dimensions while those in a study might move in several. And while cheating by removing the tiles from the tray and re-arranging them will leave obvious signs of tampering and may even break the toy completely, sometimes it’s difficult to tell exactly how a dishonest statistician rigged his numbers without careful analysis by another statistician of equal or greater skill.

$math confusion$ Unfortunately, the average person is mathematically illiterate and so is oblivious to even the most egregious manipulation. Tyrannical laws, prohibitionist schemes and pure bigotry are routinely supported by the most outrageous numerical claims, and virtually nobody cries foul: huge fractions of the population are said to be victimized by one crime or another without anyone noticing; large numbers of similar examples are dismissed as unrepresentative anomalies; extremely rare phenomena are touted as indicative of crises or important correlations; physical and economic impossibilities are claimed to be routine occurrences; and statistical outliers are represented as averages or even majorities. And if anyone dares to point out any of it, the inevitable response is a torrent of illogic expressed in meaningless catchphrases such as “If it saves even ONE CHILD!!!!!” which would be false even if they were intellectually coherent.

There was an instructive example of this a few weeks ago. As regular readers know, the Swedish model of prostitution law is marketed by neofeminists and many politicians as a way to “have their cake and eat it, too” by criminalizing only the client side of the transaction and thus repressing women while pretending not to. But even ignoring the incredible injustice of the law, it simply doesn’t do anything it is marketed as doing; it does not decrease prostitution, but it does subject sex workers to police abuse and increases the incidence of STIs, “sex trafficking” and violence. Obviously, this doesn’t sit well with neofeminists, so they simply ignore or deny it; a few weeks ago Samantha Berg published an article claiming that the Swedish model actually reduces violence, and as you might expect it was touted all over the internet by prohibitionists. There’s only one problem with that: the figures she quotes “prove” no such thing, as pointed out by Wendy Lyon:

…there are two really massively important issues here…The 2007-2008 study asked sex workers if they had ever experienced violence, throughout their “entire career in prostitution (which could be anything from one day to 50 years)”. The newer study asked about violence in the past three years alone. These are two very different questions, which can’t possibly give rise to comparable answers…Both surveys recorded sex workers’ experience of violence…wherever it occurred. For the 2012 study, we have a breakdown: 70% of respondents said it only happened in Norway; 12% said Norway and elsewhere; 10% said only elsewhere; 8% didn’t answer…but that is all. We don’t know…which types of violence occurred in which country, or how many of the specific incidents occurred in which country. This makes it impossible to know how much of the reported violence even took place under the Nordic model. And we don’t have any of this data from the 2007-2008 study, so there’s really nothing for us to compare here at all…

Wendy also points out there’s some strange mumbo-jumbo going on in that “rape” and “threatened or forced into sex that was not agreed to” are listed as separate categories even though they’re synonymous, and I noticed that the researchers make the asinine statement that “many of the women would not characterize actual rape as rape” (as though their opinion of what happened to a woman is somehow more important than her own interpretation of it).

Wendy says she didn’t have to dig very deep to discover the problems, but regular reader Kevin Wilson (who is a professional research consultant) looked at it as well and had these things to say in addition to those Wendy listed:

The sample is almost certainly not representative of the sex work industry in Norway at all. Participants were recruited primarily through outreach programs and shelters, so it seems likely that the sample contains workers primarily from the more dangerous segments of the market. Only 17% of the sample is actually from Norway…These two samples are different groups of people, rather than the same group of people tracked over time. This isn’t wrong so much as not ideal for mapping out the intervening effects of criminalization. It’s possible that one sample or the other was more or less exposed to violence due to different sample composition (e.g., if one sample had more indoor workers). In my opinion, this study would have been much better had they either followed the same group of workers from Pre to Post, or asked their current sample about the violence they experienced Pre and Post…There are no margins of error presented, so it’s hard to know which sample-to-sample comparisons are significant/reliable. My speculation is that with such margins included, most of this paper would read as “no effect, no effect, no effect…” due to sample sizes; in many of cases we’re dealing with a lot of small number…the quality of evidence is so low that I’m not confident the findings are accurate or reliable. This isn’t to say that the study is bad in the same way as the Schapiro Group study, merely that the quality isn’t very good and so little can ultimately be concluded from this data.

Kevin also shared one other bit of data that Berg didn’t want her audience to see. If we really could make an apples-to-apples comparison as she pretends, we would see that some kinds of violence (including armed threat, kicking and strangulation) increased while others (including rape, robbery and being thrown out of a car) decreased. But take a look at this table, which shows the change in how much help sex workers have been able to obtain from various sources after experiencing that violence:

Customer	25%
No One	17%
Hospital	0%
Friends	-16%
Natthjemmet	-17%
Other	-29%
Partner	-33%
Police	-41%
No Support Required	-42%
Crisis Center	-50%
Pro Sentret	-55%
Nadheim	-70%
Family	-75%
Emergency Care	-79%

Keep in mind that the same caveats apply to this comparison as to the one on violence. But if we were able to make a valid comparison in violence levels, we would also see that there has been a catastrophic drop in whores’ ability to get help for any violence which does occur, and the fraction who had never felt they needed help was cut almost in half. Manipulating statistics is just a game for prohibitionists, a number puzzle intended to advance their agenda by presenting whatever picture they feel would do so most effectively; they are either so detached from reality that they don’t recognize the damage they cause, or so fanatical they just don’t care how many people have to suffer, be brutalized or even die for them to “win” the game.

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Monday Links

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged animals, asset seizure, Australia, Colorado, comics, consensual crime, cops, dehumanization, drugs, Europe, Florida, hysteria, internet, Japan, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Zealand, Norway, Oregon, Pennsylvania, psychology, robots, teachers, video, Washington (state), weaponry, yin and yang on January 28, 2013| 36 Comments »

Although we recognize that patriotism is often the handmaiden of dehumanization, we haven’t yet given up the notion of Manichean struggle between evil and good. – Zach Weiner

Surprised to see this on Monday? Next week it’ll be on Tuesday, and so forth until it arrives back in its normal Sunday slot on March 17^th. The reason for this is that I wanted to do something a little different while the TW3 columns are borrowing the Links columns’ numbers, and beside it’s nice for a change. We’ve only got one video this week, but that’s OK because I really wanted to share this large graphic of Venn diagrams which Radley Balko discovered on Reddit; the graphic puts Balko just barely ahead of Grace this week because each of them contributed three links (Balko the three above the graphic, and Grace “old people”, “crumpled paper” and “spiders”). The video (a parody of early ’70s anti-drug films) and the link just above it were provided by my cat, and the links between the graphic and the video by Amy Alkon (“Hello Kitty”), Popehat (“printers”), Eugene Volokh (“Uncanny Valley”), Michael Whiteacre (“Shirley Temple”), Mike Siegel (“drug war” and “Leviathan”), Nun Ya (“flaming cheese”), Jesse Walker (“lone villain”), and Brooke Magnanti (“bakemono”).

Women who write crap like this on Jezebel are the same ones who think that hookers are “exploited” and that clients have “power” over us.
Japanese official says old people should hurry up and die to save the government money.
Kindergartener suspended as “terrorist” for talking about her pink “Hello Kitty” bubble gun.
Schoolgirl called “murderer”, threatened with arrest for crumpled paper.
There are 86,000 unprotected printers you can access via the internet.
Masahiro Mori’s seminal robotics article, “The Uncanny Valley”.
Shirley Temple joins Twitter, asks who Honey Boo Boo is.
Obviously, the drug war isn’t quite bad enough yet.
Flaming cheese shuts down Norwegian highway.
“The lone villain with an army of automata.”
A rare victory against Leviathan.
Bakemono fashion.
More of this, please.
Wendy McElroy on zombies.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
The most beautiful spiders you’ll ever see.
Gareth Morgan, feline genocide proponent.

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