Increasingly…governments have criminalized more and more behaviors that are part of everyday life, adding harsh fines and possible jail time to misdemeanors and crimes that weren’t punished so harshly or even at all before. – German Lopez
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t:
…Orange County [Florida] Sheriff Deputy [Mike Asbury] quit while he was under investigation for allegedly paying a prostitute for sex…the woman’s house was…under surveillance…after [nosy] neighbors complained of too many people going in and out…and…took pictures of men going inside the home…Investigators checked the license plate of Asbury’s car and it linked back to the Sheriff’s Office…
Peeping Toms
Trying to turn Lawrence into a “monogamous vanilla gay amateurs only” club:
In Sandy Springs, Georgia…“[a]ny device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs is obscene material…” A marital aid shop…[argued] all the way to the 11th Circuit that a ban on sex toys interfered with the right to “[p]rivate, consensual intimacy” provided under the 14th Amendment …Flanigan’s…[tagged] out for a more sympathetic plaintiff mid-way through the process: “Davenport suffers from multiple sclerosis and uses sexual devices with her husband to facilitate intimacy“…Another plaintiff claimed that he wanted to use sex toys in his artwork…Unfortunately for non-artsy couples and frisky singles in the Sandy Spring area, who doubtless strictly observe the prohibition, the 11th Circuit found that, per its previous opinion, there is no right to buy or sell…In fact, per its 2004 opinion, there is no right to sexual privacy…This is a surprising outlier opinion in a country where even Ted Cruz couldn’t persuade the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to keep a sex toy ban…the 5th Circuit didn’t hesitate to note that Lawrence v. Texas was pretty explicit about letting people be explicit, especially when the law banning “immoral” conduct was only sporadically enforced, suggesting that it was more about making a moral statement than actually fixing any sort of problem…
Droit du Seigneur 
Most politicians are a bit more careful when indulging in drugs with hookers:
The mayor of the City of Fairfax [Virginia] was arrested…for distribution of methamphetamine in an uncover sting…Richard “Scott” Silverthorne…was allegedly distributing meth…through a website used to arrange for casual sexual encounters between men…an undercover detective made contact with the…mayor after creating a [fake] profile… “Undercover detectives agreed to meet the suspect for a group sexual encounter in exchange for methamphetamine”…[a news] release said…
It Looks Good On Paper
This is, as we’ve seen before, pure bullshit; only a few sex workers even qualify to be considered for the “safe harbor”, and it’s usually contingent upon her producing a “pimp” to sate the bloodlust of cops and prosecutors…even though, as we well know, very few whores have anyone who could be thrown under the bus even if they wanted to do that. The so-called “services” these big talkers claim to be able to “connect” people with are just ordinary welfare services anyone could apply for, and the so-called “connection” is rarely more than giving them a phone number. What I find interesting, though, is the apparent move away from “end demand” tactics, possibly due to low conviction rates but possibly due to something more important such as legal liability from lawsuits from sting victims. I can’t think of another reason a cop would say something as moronic as “The johns are very reluctant to respond to ads” while simultaneously claiming that “the situation has gotten worse”.
Universal Criminality
This is what happens when cops are allowed to “enforce” laws against acts that hurt nobody:
…low-level offenses can trap someone for life — and even to death — in the criminal justice system…It begins with one ticket or a traffic stop. But if someone can’t afford to pay that fine, police might try to stop or arrest him or her again to get the person to pay up. This can lead to someone getting fined again for not paying up the first time. And again. And again. One ticket leads to a vicious cycle that can sink someone for life. With each of these encounters, someone’s record piles up — giving [cops] more reason, in their view, to stop him or her, because they recognize the person, or perhaps see the person’s record when running a license plate…And with each of these stops, people are exposed to more instances in which a police encounter could go tragically wrong. And it happens disproportionately to poor people of color. As those who are already heavily policed, they are the ones who are more likely to catch a cop’s eye if they run a stop sign, fail to signal on a turn, have a broken taillight, or sell untaxed cigarettes…
Scapegoats
Pig invents new excuse for criminalization of sex with goats:
A Georgia man…was arrested and charged with bestiality…for engaging in inappropriate relations with a goat…neighbors of Freddie Wadsworth [ratted him out]…Bestiality “is the single greatest predictor of people who will molest children,” Detective Jeremy Hoffman, of the Fairfax County, Va., Sheriff’s Office [oinked, presenting no evidence whatsoever in support of this fantasy]…
Standard Operating Procedure
{Yawn}. See me yawning there? Lots of other whores reading this are, too:
Malia Litman of Dallas TX describes herself as a stay-at-home mom…[who] has spent $100,000 suing the U.S. government to turn over 3,900 pages of secret records about widespread sexual abuse and misbehavior by the U.S. Secret Service. “A culture of ‘wheels up; rings off’ meant even married agents could party on foreign trips…A [sic] agent who missed his flight later showed up drunk with two prostitutes. He was not disciplined…Agents “engaged” with prostitutes in Amsterdam’s red-light district during an advance team trip…A supervisor took a subordinate to a sex show while on duty…A male agent’s gun was stolen by a male prostitute he solicited online. The gun was never recovered“…Litman has had to pay $100,000 for the records out of her own pocket because [she is a dingbat]…
Amateurs who read this, be honest with me…does this kind of stuff actually shock y’all? Seriously? None of this is even good enough to share in shop-talking sessions. Except for the stolen gun, this is all pretty typical.
Counterfeit Comfort (#52) 
New York is obsessed with the fantasy that people condemned to the “sex offender” registry use video games to abduct children:
New York state officials think Pokemon Go might be a great tool for sex offenders to kidnap children—gotta catch ’em all!—and now the governor himself, Andrew Cuomo, is calling for legislation…[which] would prevent sex offenders on parole from playing the game in which animated creatures—from Nintendo’s Pokemon universe—appear on your phone screen while you walk around. The legislation…also calls upon the game’s creators to eliminate any Pokemon within 100 feet of a registered sex offender’s home…
Stupor Bowl
Yes, August is indeed “before the Super Bowl”. It’s also before the year 2100, the collapse of human civilization and the heat death of the universe, and this sting is linked about as closely to those events as it is to “sex trafficking” or football:
A prostitution sting at a high-end Houston area hotel has resulted in ten arrests…Constable Alan Rosen…[lied that] the goal was not to make arrests, but rather to highlight the problem of human trafficking and see if his team of [sadistic perverts] could [get publicity]…It’s a huge issue as we get closer to the Super Bowl next year in Houston. That game is one of the busiest days for human trafficking all year, according to [thoroughly debunked prohibitionist propaganda]…Rosen knows he’s not going to rid the world of prostitution…To him, this effort is about [getting himself re-elected by ignorant morons]…
Hard Numbers (#426)
Exactly like the World Cup two years ago. Why can’t people learn?
…the expectation of earning more money during the Olympics has been frustrated in Brazil…Prostitution Observatory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, working with hundreds of prostitutes, estimates that, broadly speaking, the scenario that happened in the World Cup in Brazil 2014 will be repeated…The movement of customers fell by around 15% during the World Cup…and now, many of the local “fast and cheap” brothels are closing their doors during the Games. According to anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette…some of the local sex workers are even thinking of going on vacation during the Games…In [Blanchette’s] opinion, there are many prostitutes who end up believing the “expectations inflated by the media” and put much hope that the Olympic Games are a good deal but then find that this is “a myth”…it is also not expected that a large flood of prostitutes from other parts of Brazil will move to Rio, which researchers Prostitution Observatory say is another myth…
Bait and Switch
Whenever you see claims that a sting “caught pedophiles” or is “fighting the demand for child sex trafficking”, refer back to the original article in this heading:
As part of “Operation Someone Like Me” undercover agents posted ads on…Backpage.com, to find people [they could frame for seeking] sex with juveniles, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said…They got 485 responses [yet somehow only arrested…41 [victims]…18 [were] men [the cops successfully tricked]…Also arrested were six women and a juvenile…[the other 16 were]…charged with either patronizing prostitution [or] prostitution…One of the women was [jailed]…
The Course of a Disease (#510)
Because naturally a politician can’t recognize that a consensual activity should just be let alone by the government; that boot has to be on somebody’s neck:
Minister of State for Training and Skills John Halligan…said he strongly disagreed with criminalisation calls, saying that sex workers should be regulated and subject to regular health checks…“Why would we want to fine somebody or make it a criminal offence for two consenting adults to have sex?…would there not be lonely men out there? Would there not be men who have a disfigurement or who are disabled?…So, there’s an opportunity for them maybe to pay for it and we’re saying ‘no’! That’s cruel”…the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland said it was happy that a Government Minister was questioning the “dangerous proposals” contained in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2014…but [does] not support the type of “overly regulated” legalised sex industry which exists in Germany and the Netherlands…[where] “only the very privileged few workers who can jump through all the hoops and work independently”…
Something Rotten in Sweden (#651)
Slowly but surely, we’re forcing them to listen, and prohibitionists’ responses are showing them for the authoritarians they are:
…messages [from sex workers] came in response to a June article [about an anti-sex work propaganda campaign]…that featured billboards, radio spots, posters and videos aimed at [indoctrinating the public in] sex trafficking [mythology]…The…readers who contacted me about the story told me they were bothered because it was missing voices from sex workers. Because prostitution is illegal in…California, I didn’t think the…article needed to explore that particular issue. But the criticism was not lost on me, and the points [Norma Jean Almodovar & Maxine Doogan] raised struck me as worthy of further consideration…Summer Stephan, a chief deputy district attorney, said she has heard the criticism, but she remains proud of the San Diego campaign, which aims to “inform (human trafficking) victims that they are victims”…
Cut. Print.
Read Full Post »
Support[ing]…big government…requires acceptance of the notion that an action which is wrong for one person, and even worse if repeated by many people, somehow becomes not merely acceptable but moral if practiced by governments or their representatives. – “Peeping Toms”
