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That Was the Week That Was (#137)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, activism, Africa, agency denial, Australia, avails laws, Backward Turn Backward, Backwards into the Future, Blasphemy, bogus studies, Catholicism, censorship, China, comics, consensual crime, cops, dirty, Dirty Laundry, Don’t Buy It, drugs, Due Consideration, East Asia, harm reduction, hysteria, internet, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, law, nanny state, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Nevada, New Orleans, New Zealand, Philippines, porn, Presents, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, red-light districts, robots, sporting events, stereotypes, surveillance, Swedish model, That Old Black Magic, The Camel's Nose, The Cold Grey Light of Dawn, The Pygmalion Fallacy, Thought Control, Useful Idiots, video, violence vs. sex workers, welcome to our world, Wisconsin, witchcraft, Worse Than I Thought on February 16, 2013| 36 Comments »

I was not the only one who left crying after being pressed to talk in detail about our…sexual experiences and desires…some of the audio we provided could have sounded like it belonged in a porn, rather than in a critique of it. – Beth Brigham

Don’t Buy It

Melissa Gira Grant on how the “gypsy whores” myth directly harms sex workers:

…the modern sex worker is believed to follow a…migratory path…the World Cup, the Grand Prix, the Super Bowl – all supposedly draw thousands of women offering paid sex. It’s…the kind of thing you could imagine in a dusty smut book, or serving as winky fodder for escort agencies and strip clubs in their seasonal marketing….we were told that during the 2012 Olympics, London was to be “flooded” with prostitutes, and that for the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, the city would host a “dark underworld” of illicit sex-for-sale. Like all fantasies, the “roving sporting sex workers” trope [is] mostly harmless…until seized upon by those who find it…politically useful…in London…police raided brothels, arrested sex workers, and threatened them with further arrest if they returned to their neighborhoods…A similar pattern…played out in New Orleans in the days before the Super Bowl…Fox News had a camera crew follow a team of volunteers as they attempted to rescue “sex slaves” from streets and strip clubs…With nearly any woman…a potential target…it may be a minor miracle that the New Orleans police department has reported only eight arrests…

Backward, Turn Backward

I can’t even imagine living in the looking-glass world prohibitionists inhabit:

…a survey by the Immigrant Council of Ireland has found…that by far the biggest fear about paying for sex was not that they would be caught but that they would have a bad experience or contract a disease…Of the 58 punters [who answered]…16 (27.5%) said they had [at some point changed their minds after meeting the prostitute]…“six stated…the person appeared controlled, five…because the person appeared unhappy, four…because the person appeared too young, two…because the person appeared unwilling, while two…because the person appeared intimidated, ‘hurt or injured’,”…Denise Charlton…said…“We have now heard from the buyers themselves that such laws would be a deterrent…We know too that the image of the happy, independent hooker which is being portrayed by those opposed to new laws is not the reality; 24% of buyers reconsidered a transaction because they believed the women and girls involved were controlled, unhappy, too young, unwilling, or intimidated.”

Beside the fact that 58 self-selected people is too small a sample to “conclude” anything, the figures suggest exactly the opposite of what Charlton claims. Only 27% have ever in their lives encountered such a girl (not 27% of all encounters); furthermore, their refusal testifies against the myth that men will eagerly hire coerced women, and finally the option of reporting those situations to the police would be closed by client criminalization, which is precisely the opposite of the stated goal of “protecting” sex workers.

Blasphemy

This must-read profile of neofeminist anti-porn crusader Gail Dines by her ex-disciple Beth Brigham paints a chilling portrait of the brainwashing that goes on in “women’s studies” programs; the similarity to narratives from survivors of other cults is unmistakable, and Brigham’s observation that much of the prohibitionist myth of pimp “recruitment” and “exploitation” of girls more accurately resembles their own behavior is spot on.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Tracy Clark-Flory can always be counted on to debunk sex hysteria; here’s a short but sweet entry on “sex addiction”:

…“Inventing Sex: The Short History of Sex Addiction”…published in the March issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture, isn’t an objective scientific study. It’s a paper by cultural historians at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, that attempts to document the growth of the concept of sex addiction…the paper’s pull-no-punches thesis [is]: “We argue that this strange, short history of social opportunism, diagnostic amorphism, therapeutic self-interest, and popular cultural endorsement is marked by an essential social conservatism–sex addiction has become a convenient term to describe disapproved sex.” Many of these points should be familiar, especially if you read my piece on sex addiction’s critics…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received a copy of Soiled Doves, a short history of prostitution in the American West, from Elisabeth Whispers. Thank you, Elisabeth!

Backwards Into the Future (TW3 #6)

“The Push to Decriminalise Sex Work in Kenya” is a discussion paper from an African think tank which “explores the dangers associated with sex work, the protest movement in Kenya to decriminalise it, and the potential benefits of decriminalisation.” I’m sure you can guess what conclusion it reaches.

Useful Idiots

Wisconsin expands its police state:

Efforts to collect DNA samples would expand to include any adult or juvenile arrested on a felony charge — and anyone convicted of a crime — under a budget proposal Gov. Scott Walker announced…Walker also announced plans…to allow GPS monitoring of certain people receiving first-time restraining orders who are found to be at higher-risk to cause serious harm…and…[an] increase for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to add five employees to investigate child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children…Walker’s plans to expand DNA collection…raised the ire of civil liberties advocates…

If politicians had any sense, they would wait for the outcome of trials involving similar laws before wasting millions on a program that might be recognized as illegal.

The Camel’s Nose (TW3 #16)

…CISPA—the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act…would have effectively [required]…private-sector businesses to hand ordinary citizen data…to the U.S. government in order to thwart primarily cyber…[or] terrorist attacks. This, as you might expect, caused an uproar among the online community…the White House…threatened to veto the bill…But now…two separate reports…suggest CISPA could be heading back to the Congressional table…[and] President Obama…[has also issued] his own executive order…

The Pygmalion Fallacy

Upcoming erotic game Custom Maid 3D will be bundled with a very special controller…Ju-C Air…is a wireless masturbation toy that will respond and react in real time to your stroke speed and depth, making this motion control of a very particular sort. Those motions will also cause the in-game characters to react accordingly, too, with different characters reacting, um, differently…Ju-C Air…also has an analog stick and an action button as well as a right and a left click…[so] players don’t even have to take their hands off their penis while playing…

Pyrrhic Victory

Wendy McElroy on “Is America a Police State Yet?”:

If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America’s slide through the nine rings of political hell. A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens…[it] maintains…control through the pervasive surveillance of peaceful citizenry, through a vast number of laws with draconian enforcement, and by converting rights into privileges that can be withheld…This describes America. Surveillance of daily life has soared; even the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the “right” of police to perform warrantless searches. A vast array of laws now dictate the minutia of life, from what you may not eat to the light bulbs you may not use as well products you must buy…A special police force called the Department of Homeland Security…functions without transparency or accountability. Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim…The difference between America and a communist regime lay in its institutional protection of the individual against the state. That difference no longer exists.

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #27)

A southern Chinese province has stopped sending prisoners to labor camps, becoming the first in the country to take steps to phase out the much-criticized system…Yunnan’s top law enforcement official Meng Sutie announced…that the province will no longer send people to labor camps on the grounds of threatening national security, petitioning by causing unrest and smearing the image of officials…and…is suspending…sentences for people charged with other offenses, such as drug use and prostitution…

Worse Than I Thought

As I’ve previously explained, any totalitarian law which passes nowadays will invariably be used as the model for similar laws in other jurisdictions:

…Nevada Sex Trafficking Bill AB67 [redefines]…Pandering…and…Living from earnings of prostitute…as “sex trafficking,” thus carrying harsher penalties and requiring registration as a sex offender…Does [this] include…family members supported by…a woman working legally in a Nevada brothel? Pages 27-28 redefine terms so broadly as to apply to most consensual adult relationships, including marriage…“‘Prostitution’ means engaging in, agreeing to or offering to engage in sexual conduct with another person in return for a fee, monetary consideration or other thing of value…‘Sexual conduct’ means…any intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body or any object manipulated or inserted by a person into the genital or anal openings of the body of a person…” Is a medical doctor a prostitute for accepting money for a gynecological exam? Is the husband who drove his pregnant wife to the doctor a sex trafficker?…

Dirty Laundry

This article is two years old, but it’s an interesting short history:

Monto, in the heart of Dublin…was once the biggest…red-light district in Europe. Celebrated in song and story, it was where Leopold Bloom went for sexual humiliation and where a young Edward VII was said to have gone for some high-end thrills…At its height…1,600 women worked in Monto…but…within only a few years of the foundation of the State and the accession to power of the Roman Catholic church…War was declared on Monto. The new Catholic state stormed into action and a force of gardai…raided Monto at midnight on March 12, 1925, and literally threw the women working there out on to the street and into the Church-run slave-labour laundries…

Thought Control

New findings on Fredric Wertham, the fanatic who whipped up a moral panic over comic books and almost destroyed the industry in the early ‘50s:

…Wertham’s personal archives…show that the doctor revised children’s ages, distorted their quotes, omitted other causal factors and in general “played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics,” according to an article by Carol Tilley, published in a recent issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History. “Lots of people have suspected for years that Wertham fudged his so-called clinical evidence…but there’s been no proof,” Tilley said. “My research is the first definitive indication that he misrepresented and altered children’s own words about comics.” Wertham died in 1981 [but] his archives…weren’t made widely available to researchers until the spring of 2010…

This sort of prohibitionist behavior is already very familiar to regular readers.

That Old Black Magic

The “Juju sex slaves” myth just keeps on going like a zombie; the most telling aspect of the narrative is the way it clearly links “sex trafficking” hysteria to the Satanic Panic, much as the Swedish Könskriget cult does.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (TW3 #50)

Eric Berkowitz , author of Sex and Punishment, on Reason TV:

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn (TW3 #134)

Filipino sex worker rights advocates call for true decriminalization rather than the legalization erroneously labeled as such by politicians:

…An NGO called “Women Hookers Organizing For Their Rights and Empowerment (WHORE) is treading the thorny path toward government recognition of this history-old job…[an advocate called] Tex said…there are about 500,000 sex workers in the country…“But we are not going for decriminalizing sex workers while criminalizing clients like the Swedish model…It didn’t even work there”…

The article is much better than the propaganda pushed by American journalists; it shows that opponents support criminalization of women and mentions UN support for decriminalization.

Due Consideration

Looks like the US isn’t the only regime using this concept:

The Queensland police union is calling for tougher laws to send risk-taking pregnant women into safe houses in an effort to monitor their behaviour…[saying] the rights of an unborn child should be considered ahead of the mother…Union president Ian Leavers says the state should be able to intervene in cases where children are at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome and drug addictions…

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That Was the Week That Was (#134)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged A Whore in Church, Above the Law, activism, Africa, agency denial, Arkansas, avails laws, BDSM, brothels, Buried Truth, Canada, cell phones, cops, dirty, East Asia, end demand, ethics, Georgia, Girls Girls Girls, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, Hollywood, hysteria, illegal aliens, Imagination Pinned Down, India, Islam, It Looks Good On Paper, language, Latin America, law, lawyers, Madonna/whore, Malawi, Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Naked Truth, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Nevada, Oklahoma, Perverse Incentives, Philippines, porn, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Shift in the Wind, Something Rotten In Sweden, South of the Border, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas Tall Tales, The Biggest Whores, The Cold Grey Light of Dawn, The Crumbling Dam, welcome to our world on January 26, 2013| 19 Comments »

If we are going to call attacks on reproductive and sexual rights a “war on women,” then let’s talk about a war on women that has actual prisoners and a body count. – Melissa Gira Grant

The Biggest Whores

Res ipsa loquitur:

Minnesota’s Supreme Court last week barred attorney Thomas P. Lowe from practicing law for at least the next 15 months after it was revealed that he was billing a client for sex. Lowe…was approached in August 2011 by an acquaintance who asked him to represent her in a divorce. Their…relationship soon evolved into a sexual one, but…Lowe…[billed] the woman for [all] the time they spent [together, including] having sex…[after] Lowe…[dumped her] the woman… attempted to commit suicide and was hospitalized…Lowe was previously on probation for purchasing cocaine from a client…

The second lawyer isn’t nearly as bad, though still terribly unprofessional:

A public defender…is facing charges after allegedly exchanging texts with an undercover cop who he thought was a prostitute, and then trying to exchange sex for legal representation. Christopher Hollander…allegedly sent a text message to a phone formerly used by a prostitute [but now in possession of a cop who] Hollander met…in a hotel room…The two discussed the phony prostitute’s alleged legal trouble. When the officer asked “How much is it going to cost me” for the legal services, Hollander started to caress her hand…then allegedly began trying to kiss and hug the officer, and told her he had two condoms…

Lawyers, if you want to propose exchange of services just say so; real hookers appreciate honesty, not some clumsy attempt at seduction.

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

Ed Bagley has accepted a bargain in which he pleaded guilty to having sex with his supposed “victim” while she was underage, in return for prosecutors dropping all other charges (despite their insistence that he “swear” that the other accusations are true). The one is bad enough; it can carry a 20-year sentence, and several of the other “conspirators” (as the state labels them) will also get very hefty sentences.

Something Rotten in Sweden (December Updates)

Remember, prostitution has never been illegal in Canada; these men were arrested for the “crime” of talking about it in public, which demonstrates the importance of taking this kind of power totally out of cops’ hands: “Ottawa police swept the city’s downtown core…in an effort to find, charge and re-educate men looking for prostitutes…They arrested 15 men, 13 of whom escaped charges and will attend ‘john school’…a partnership with the Salvation Army…” Please note the Orwellian term “re-educate”.

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn

Looks like the Philippines is moving toward British-type legalization (erroneously called “decriminalization”): “The Department of Social Welfare and Development…has endorsed a bill…which would decriminalize prostitution but punish those who control and profit from…[it, repealing] clauses…which punish ‘women who, for money, engage in sexual intercourse, or lascivious conduct’…”

It Looks Good On Paper

Another bit of feel-good legislation which capitalizes on hype but will actually help virtually nobody, due to its basis in fantasy: “A bill filed in the Oklahoma Legislature…would erase the prostitution records of human trafficking victims…[who] average…12 to 14 years old…”

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This article has so much to recommend it: Dr. Brooke Magnanti debunks “porn addiction”, describing the “studies” which claim to support it as “poorly conducted surveys on a level of market research, not science.” In the process, she also quotes Dr. Marty Klein and lampoons both Cosmopolitan and Naomi “Stopped Clock” Wolf, all in less than a thousand well-chosen words.

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Of all the media one would expect to be least likely to side with puritans against a business persecuted for supposedly “corrupting public morals”, a rock music radio station has got to be pretty high on the list. Though the article itself is dry enough, the wording and scare quotes in the headline and lede amply demonstrate the editor’s attitude: “Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar ‘Improves the Self Esteem’ of the Stripper – seeks to have San Antonio’s strict new strip club law thrown out, also claims stripping is a ‘socially fulfilling experience’.” It gets much worse; the station appears to have some close association with Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue…author of the titular song celebrating strippers.

A Whore in Church

The most interesting part of this article about sex workers in Malawi wearing hijab to attract Muslim customers is not the mere fact of it (which would simply be an example of the clipboard effect), but rather the fallacious notion (expressed both in text and comments) that a whore cannot be Muslim (or “truly” Christian either). Also worthy of note is the author’s reversal of the usual feminist complaint that not covering up leads to “objectification”; this only goes to show that the real issue such women have is not some imaginary harm to women, but rather heterosexuality itself.

Above the Law

[Las Vegas] police officer John Norman is going to prison for two years…after pleading guilty to…coercing women to expose their breasts after stopping them on the road…Once Norman is released from prison, he will have to register as a sex offender…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #13)

Once again, Canadian government prohibitionists are trying to convince the courts that dangerous, repressive laws which deny sex workers’ agency are actually intended to “protect” them:

Hundreds of shadowy body rub parlours operated by exploitative pimps…are operating on the outskirts of Toronto, the Ontario Crown warns in a court document…[urging] the Supreme Court of Canada to let police keep the powers they have to protect female sex workers, who are often cowed into submissive silence…However, a group of prostitutes who have successfully challenged the ban through two levels of court accuse…Crown lawyers of scaremongering. In the decision under appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal invalidated the…prohibition on keeping a brothel…[and] granted prostitutes the right to…hire staff to protect them…the…court is scheduled to hear the…challenge in June…

Naked Truth

Melissa Gira Grant’s “The War on Sex Workers” appears in this month’s print edition of Reason; though regular readers will already be familiar with much of the ground she covers, it never hurts to revisit it. More importantly, for an unrepentant sex worker to have the opportunity to discuss the neofeminist war on whores in a national magazine (albeit a libertarian one) is a sign that this issue is beginning to move into the mainstream.

Imagination Pinned Down

This article entitled “Sex, Lies and Audiotapes” is 12 years old, but is an excellent look at how “fantastic tales of sexual abuse” are instilled into the minds of the vulnerable, and why radical feminists were largely to blame for “sex abuse” hysteria and the Satanic Panic; it is thus still topical as background for the new guise of those moral panics, “sex trafficking”.

Shift in the Wind

Though it may be difficult to recognize for sex workers in the US, British Isles and any place else strongly affected by “trafficking” hysteria, 2012 actually saw net gains for sex workers; Cheryl Overs reviews the high points (without neglecting to mention the low ones) in “A Good Year for Red Umbrellas”.

Texas Tall Tales

Texans aren’t the only ones who can tell tall tales about new technology being used by “human traffickers” to “entrap innocent girls”:

…Mobile phone recharge shops have been reportedly taking advantage of innocent girls who approach them for recharge coupons and give their numbers. The employees/owners of the shop or their friends call the girls…develop friendships and later misuse them…ruining the girls’ lives…human [traffickers in]…Kundapur…are said to be running a mobile recharge outlet…the accused lure the girls with jobs and then use them for their own ends. Later, the girls are allegedly blackmailed and trapped, and their escape route is closed…apart from flesh trade, a drugs network is also interwoven in the racket…

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

As expected, a UK judge has ruled that the case of Mark Kennedy, the cop who was allowed to trick women into sex in order to spy on them, will be heard in a Star Chamber proceeding. What was unexpected was that he would say what Kennedy did was OK because James Bond does it:

James Bond is the most famous fictional example of a member of the intelligence services who used relationships with women to obtain information…[such] fictional accounts…lend credence to the view that the intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature…in order to obtain information or access.

As Heresy Corner points out, “James Bond isn’t just ‘fiction’, it’s escapist fantasy…[which] doesn’t ‘lend credence’ to anything…and Mark Kennedy’s ‘targets’ weren’t exotic Russian agents with a handbag full of nuclear secrets and the sexual etiquette of a praying mantis…nor were they dangerous international terrorists intent on blowing up airports or shopping malls. They were…largely peaceful activists engaged primarily in democratic dissent, however misguided or naive…”

Buried Truth

Remember Lisa Biron, the anti-gay lawyer who “transported a teen girl…to Ontario …and coerced her into engaging in

sexual acts with another person”? It turns out the girl was 14, there were two men, and Biron also had sex with her. Oh, and one more thing: the girl was her own daughter. She was convicted of child porn charges on the 11^th.

South of the Border (TW3 #49)

The creation of “sex trafficking rings” from people who used to be called “illegal aliens” continues, complete with childish “code names”, bombastic rhetoric, exaggerated numbers and infantilization of sex workers:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the results of a lengthy investigation called Operation Dark Night. It looked into a sex trafficking ring stretching from Florida to Georgia to North and South Carolina…women…were forced into prostitution and traded like slaves in various cities for about a week at a time…11 victims were rescued and 40 customers called Johns were also taken into custody. Investigators say the women were forced to perform up to 30 sex acts per day…

Like most “trafficking” articles, this one contains the Profession of Faith: “…‘its a bigger issue than many people thought,’ said Joan Garcia-Melendez…‘Human trafficking is a very hidden crime’…Authorities say this is a wakeup call as to how widespread sex trafficking has become…” But what will happen to those poor “victims” who were “rescued”? The BBC says what the American story won’t: “Those who were illegal in the country would be deported.”

Q & A (January 2013)

I mentioned that “the only time [verification services] fail is…when some idiot fails to stick to the plan, gets caught in a sting and then ransoms his worthless hide by giving the busybodies his login info so they can pop several girls before the service gets wise.” One of my readers supplied more details: there were several instances, all in the Appleton/Oshkosh area of Wisconsin, and P411 removed those entire cities from the site as a precaution and directly warned all the ladies who might be targeted. Apparently cops in Little Rock, Arkansas have also attempted the same thing, though less successfully.

Perverse Incentives

Susie Bright on how perverse prosecutorial incentives spawn abominations:

Twice in my career I’ve been asked to serve as an expert witness on the defense team of an obscenity trial…the defendants were low-hanging fruit…targeted because of their…vulnerability…The Justice Department [bags] obscenity law trophies by going after the poor, the suicidal, the insane, the cognitively impaired— because that’s the way they rack up numbers and status. That’s the way they fuel their careers…not by taking on constitutional issues, or injustice, or fat cats who believe they’re above the law…They find someone who’s drooling, or depressed, or friendless— and then throw the book at them. It doesn’t take long because the “defendant-target” is overmatched…

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That Was the Week That Was (#50)

Posted in Biography, Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Above the Law, activism, Against Their Will, Alaska, Australia, Austria, Backpage, bad customers, brothels, censorship, cops, Creeping Rot, Crime Against Society, cult of the child, dirty, East Asia, end demand, Europe, FBI, Follow Your Bliss, Georgia, guest columnist updates, holidays, hysteria, India, internet, Ireland, Korea, law, LGBT rights, License To Rape, Louisiana, marriage, My Readers Write, neofeminism, Netherlands, New Orleans, New York, Not An Addiction, Ohio, Philippines, porn, Presents, psychology, rape, serial killers, sex education, sex offender registry, sex rays, sex toys, Shifting the Blame, Small Choice, Somehow I Doubt..., stripping, Swedish model, teachers, The Course of a Disease, The Immunity Syndrome, Think of the Children!, Toys for Tots, Uncharted Seas, United Kingdom, Vietnam, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), What a Week!, Wise Investment on December 15, 2012| 11 Comments »

Rhoda Grant…believes sex workers are imbeciles who should be denied the right to earn a living and subjected to state-sanctioned sexual assault to ensure that they comply with the dictates imposed upon their profession. – Kate Gould

New Book Reviews

An interview with Xaviera Hollander, now a 69-year-old hotelier in Amsterdam. Here’s my favorite bit:

It’s not as if she became a prostitute through lack of options. She speaks five languages. She was once voted Holland’s best secretary. She reads Philip Roth and Dostoyevsky. She…calls herself “a theatrical entrepreneur.” Yet she has never regretted her main career choice. “To get paid for what you enjoy? Is good, no?”

Think of the Children!

[Carol Ann Eastman,] an English teacher…in North Canton, Ohio…[published] a raunchy erotic novel [entitled Schooled] under the pseudonym Deena Bright…According to The Repository…Eastman’s students are responsible for outing [her]… the novel follows a teacher who has steamy sexual encounters with fellow teachers…[and] former students…to get revenge on her two-timing husband…many local parents feel Eastman shouldn’t teach high school…if she also publishes bawdy fiction…[she] agreed to a five-day suspension without pay for violating the…computer use policy…

License To Rape

It’s a sad statement about our society that this was necessary:

…jurors…won’t hear about [the] prostitution conviction…[of a woman who] says [Denver cop Hector] Paez arrested her…in May 2010, drove her to a secluded spot and coerced her into performing oral sex by threatening to take her to jail. Paez’s defense…asked to question the woman about…a prostitution charge…[but] Judge John Madden said…”The information is highly unfairly prejudicial and (runs) a significant risk of confusing the issue”…The woman…has told jurors about her history of theft and heroin addiction. Prosecutor Doug Jackson said it is precisely that troubled past that…made her an appealing target…

Meanwhile, in Ireland: “A [policeman was]…arrested…after a woman alleged he had raped her…he…was among a number of gardaí working on a…brothel…raid…[he later] went to one of the properties…and committed the alleged rape…”

Shifting the Blame

Lucius Crawford, 60, was arrested for stabbing a woman and has now “confessed to three murders, including the slaying of a Bronx prostitute…Long Island authorities are investigating if he is connected to the mass murder of sex workers in Suffolk County…”

Not an Addiction

In a word: No.

Confessed serial killer Israel Keyes was a murder addict…”Israel Keyes didn’t kidnap and kill people because he was crazy…[or] because his deity told him to or because he had a bad childhood. Israel Keyes did this because he got an immense amount of enjoyment out of it, much like an addict gets…out of drugs,” said Anchorage, Alaska, police Detective Monique Doll…

Against Their Will

Careful reading finds the most interesting details tucked away in news stories: “Senators [in the Philippines support]…strengthening the law against human trafficking… the bill…[would] ensure added protection for…law enforcers, who have been recipients of harassment suits for ‘lawful acts done in good faith during authorized rescue operations’…” In other words, it makes cops and bureaucrats immune to lawsuits filed by sex workers who were “rescued” against their will.

My Readers Write

Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon just can’t understand why some women prefer not to identify as feminist, so Aspasia brilliantly explains it to her. Of course Williams won’t read it and wouldn’t understand if she did, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it.

Somehow, I Doubt He Thought This Through

…[Scott Pipher was] charged with hiring a prostitute…[after] he called police to complain that the woman “shorted him 10 minutes”…[the] investigation…[also] led to the arrests of two alleged prostitutes…Pipher is named on the Web sites National Blacklist and Bad Boy Client List as…being “notorious for booking out-calls and then not answering his door or phone”…

Though the author uses phrases like “so-called escort”, it’s interesting that she thought to consult those sites and didn’t bother to define “out-call” [sic].

Guest Columnist: Norma Jean Almodovar

On an information page prepared by Norma Jean for the students of Dr. Rhacel Parrenas, I encountered the following chart: examine it and consider the amount of money, manpower and press devoted to “human trafficking” in comparison with the vastly more common (and real) violent crimes.

Follow Your Bliss

Moon Tae-Hwa stares at his computer, dizzy and nauseous from the hours of porn he’s viewed…He feels no shame — only a righteous sense of mission…Moon is among the most successful members of the “Nuri Cops”…a squad of nearly 800 volunteers who help…censors by patrolling the Internet for pornography in their spare time…pornography is illegal in South Korea, though…easy…to find…”It’s like shoveling snow in a blizzard,” Moon conceded…

The Nuri Cops: selflessly devoting their lives to watching porn so others can’t.

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week Korhomme sent me a copy of Sex and Punishment, a history of attempts to regulate sexual activity (see picture below). Thank you very much!

The Immunity Syndrome

Compare and contrast with similar kerfuffles in the US:

…Ganz schön intim (“Really Quite Intimate”) is a 152-page…[sex education] publication…[which] includes detailed…information on masturbation, homosexuality and intersexuality…[conservative and religious groups]…called it “disturbing” and “a discredit to the so-called core family”…[and] called for [it] to be withdrawn…the government in Vienna and the pamphlet’s producers…[are] largely unmoved by the brouhaha…

Above the Law

How police privilege and anti-prostitution laws endanger all women:

…Forest Park [Georgia] police arrested Omar Shannondoah Chester…[after he] forced [a woman] into his apartment…beat her…[and] stated, “I am an FBI agent and you are under arrest for prostitution”…When she said she was not a prostitute, and her children were outside, he…[let her] go…[she] then ran out…and called police…

Small Choice

If this article had been published in the US, you can bet it would be warped to fit the “trafficking” paradigm. But since it’s from Al Jazeera, the problems are discussed without denying the women’s agency or the advantages of their arrangement:

…commercial brokers fly Korean men into Vietnam to meet women, and many tie the knot within a week. The South Korean government is concerned these marriages could breed greater social problems. So it is investing to increase these couples’ success rates [via] “orientation” classes [for Vietnamese women]…some marriages crumble [if] Vietnamese women [marry] for money only. Another factor is the…average 17 years’ difference [between spouses], according to researchers Daniele Belanger and Tran Giang Linh…there have been reports of South Korean men beating and killing their foreign wives…[and] migrant wives committing suicide…International marriages, however, have worked out for many couples in South Korea. Belanger and Linh have written that “marriage migration” has empowered Vietnamese women. Girls who once served their families have now become decision-makers thanks to the [economic] leverage granted to them…

Uncharted Seas

Gay activist Alex Andreou on “Why I’m Conflicted About Marriage Equality”:

I…fear that it will create an added pressure to conform. I recall fighting…in…the late eighties…hand-in-hand with transsexual prostitutes and militant dykes…being chased by police and beaten with clubs. What we were fighting for was an acceptance of all different ways of expressing love and sexuality; it was a desire for more, not less, sexual liberation…What we have instead is an attempt to absorb that sexual freedom into conformism. Instead of dragging the world into liberation, we have somehow managed to drag the LGBT community into neo-Puritanism…

Longtime readers will remember I made the same point in “Divided We Fall”.

Metaupdates

Creeping Rot (July Updates, Part Two)

The European Women’s Lobby (a group so detached from reality that it believes a video of a dude performing cunnilingus on a bunch of women will somehow turn men off to paying for sex), claiming to represent over 200 (unnamed) women’s groups, last week “demanded” the European Union impose the Swedish model on member states despite the fact that it does not actually have that power. The English Collective of Prostitutes responded with a well-linked nine-point refutation of the EWL’s absurd, unsupported claims; guess which one got worldwide media coverage?

Toys for Tots (First Updates of the Year, Part Two)

The Platinum Cabaret…in Fayetteville, Ark…is…offering free lap dances in exchange for donations to Toys for Tots…“As long as it’s done in a legal manner, as long as people are bringing us new, unwrapped toys, we don’t get into how they were gathered and what the process was,” [said] John Staples, coordinator for Toys for Tots…But another Toys for Tots chapter wasn’t quite as forgiving when…Pleasures — an adult toy store in Huntsville [Alabama] –- [offered] any customer who brings in a gift for Toys for Tots their choice of a complimentary sex toy…”Toys for Tots should not be advertised at an adult store,” [said] Ret. Major Brian A. Murray…

Considering how much money US Marines collectively spend on sex workers every year, it’s absurd for some Marines to make nonsensical anti-sex work statements just to please prudes.

Crime Against Society (TW3 #14)

As I reported, people who were on Louisiana’s “sex offender” registry due to the overturned “crime against nature by solicitation” law can petition to be removed. According to Deon Haywood of WWAV, “around 75 people have already had themselves removed from the registry, and around 100 people are waiting for a judge to hear their motions…We haven’t had one person that’s been rejected…”

What a Week! (TW3 #22)

I’m sure this had absolutely nothing to do with the owner’s winning a judgment against the city a few months ago: “State and federal police have raided inner-city Sydney brothel Stiletto, owned by gambling identity Eddie Hayson…A spokeswoman for NSW police said the search warrant was attached to a joint operation codenamed Polaris making investigations ‘into a drug and money laundering syndicate’…” Unsurprisingly, they found absolutely nothing.

Wise Investment (TW3 #31)

Officials admit that they knew their law to hold websites criminally liable for third-party content was unconstitutional:

The state of Washington has abandoned its defense of legislation…that could have exposed website operators to legal liability…The Internet Archive, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation…worried that [the law] could effectively make its archives of the Web illegal…so it joined a lawsuit by Backpage.com…now Washington state officials have…[agreed] to permanently block the law…[and] will pay $200,000 to defray the plaintiffs’ legal expenses, and Washington state attorney general Rob McKenna will “work with the…legislature to repeal the current unconstitutional version” of the law.

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #35)

You’d think that in the age of ultra-realistic digital effects, people would recognize that just because someone made a movie doesn’t mean the subject is real: “[Sunitha Krishnan] has rescued thousands of women from prostitution and [has taken]…her advocacy to films, through [Ente,] a depiction of a real life sex-trafficking story…The activist…says she has received death threats and been targeted by acid attacks and even beaten up over a dozen times…” All the beatings have succeeded, yet not one of the acid attacks or death threats have? How convenient!

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #49)

Kate Gould is not a sex worker, but she’s done her homework and clearly “gets it”. Her attack on Rhoda Grant’s Swedish model campaign, “Why I’m Opposed to Criminalising the Purchase of Sex”, is excellent, but the comment thread is suffering from the usual influx of lie-vomiting trafficking fanatics and deserves input from rational sex worker supporters (hint, hint). Meanwhile, here’s Dr. Brooke Magnanti on how the proposed law as written will actually (like California’s Proposition 35) criminalize many human interactions virtually nobody would call “prostitution”.

This Week in 2010 and 2011

This week I exploded lots of lies, including ones about adolescents, the Super Bowl, decriminalization, STIs in porn, the purpose of a law, prostitution terminology and “sex trafficking”, and Julian Assange. We also looked at bad jobs and the meaning of “legalization”, and saw a sleighful of short articles on HIV, halfway whores, maid cafes, sex rays, spiders, Rachel Wotton, Jill Brenneman, an important “trafficking” study, pompous masseuses, politician sex crimes, France, a pervert prosecutor, lethal butt injections, “sex school”, schadenfreude, Pedobear and strippers.

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Standard Operating Procedure

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, tagged dirty, East Asia, ethics, FBI, hysteria, law, naturalness, Philippines, Standard Operating Procedure on October 10, 2012| 26 Comments »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Links #118

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged Africa, Austria, Canada, censorship, cops, drugs, East Asia, Europe, harm reduction, hysteria, imaginative fiction, internet, law, lawheads, neofeminism, New York, Pennsylvania, Philippines, politicians, prisons, psychology, rape, restaurants, Texas, universal criminality, video, Wyoming on October 7, 2012| 33 Comments »

No one can evade the fact that historically, the state is a blood-thirsty monster, which has been responsible for more violence, bloodshed and hatred than any other institution known to man. – Roy A. Childs, Jr.

This was a very news-rich week, and the inimitable Radley Balko, back from his sabbatical, contributed no less than eleven items (including the video). The links below the video were provided by Neil Gaiman, the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, Eugene Volokh, Penn Jillette, Violet Blue, Deep Geek, Brooke Magnanti, Franklin Harris, Korhomme and Walter Olson (in that order). The “4%” picture and the first two items beside it arrived via Jesse Walker, and the next two after them via Grace.

Peeking at Schrödinger’s cat?
Hyperinflation causes witch hunts.
Presumption of guilt, copyright style.
Tinfoil hats actually amplify mind-control beams.
The law of unintended consequences, “gender equality” edition.
Cops savagely beat and arrest man as a favor to his father-in-law. (Graphic photos).
Houston politicians claim that food trucks could be fronts for terrorists and drug dealers.
New York cops run over young man, then send his mother a bill for damage to the police car.
This guy’s story is the bunk. It’s little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
Cops claim that man died in jail from “choking on drugs”; medical examiner discovers the actual cause was eight fractured ribs, lung contusions and a ruptured spleen.
Philadelphia cop (who has since been fired) sucker-punches and handcuffs female passerby after someone else throws water on him:

Robert Heinlein’s February 11^th, 1955 letter to Theodore Sturgeon, on the occasion of Sturgeon’s suffering a severe case of writer’s block.
“The nurses in the adjoining observation room had blocked the glass with manila folders so they wouldn’t have to look at the old man.”
Michigan State University believes adults are so fragile, they need “counseling” after a professor had a nervous breakdown.
Helpful hint: If you ever want to link to a specific time in a YouTube video, just add &t=XXmYYs to the end of the URL.
You’ll never think of “eating like a pig” in quite the same way again.
The US military classifies Julian Assange an “enemy of the state”.
Philippines bans anonymous online comments.
Poe’s Law in action.
The fruit machine.
Thought crime?
What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped at the same time?
Austrian supermarket sells bananas peeled and repackaged in plastic wrap.
The US government today has more data on the average American than Stasi did on the average East German.
The US Army says use of social networks is a warning sign of terrorism.
Tunisian cops rape woman, then charge her with violating modesty law.
This is obviously meant for the gypsy whores at football games.
Canadian cops rip up garden, claim daisies are marijuana.
Another brick in the growing “strict liability” wall.
The Great Wyoming Tribble-Naming Contest.
‘Twas the night before censorship…
Universal criminality in action.

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That Was the Week That Was (#38)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, activism, agency denial, animals, archeofeminism, Aversions, California, cosmetic surgery, dirty, drugs, East Asia, Europe, Feminine Pragmatism, Florida, Follow Your Bliss, harm reduction, hysteria, law, lawheads, marriage, My Readers Write, Naked Truth, neofeminism, Oklahoma, Philippines, porn, pragmatism, psychology, rape, rescue industry, Scapegoats, sisterhood, stereotypes, Swedish model, Switzerland, The Last Shall Be First, The Pro-Rape Coalition, tits, transgender, Uncommon Sense, underage, We Told You So, welcome to our world, Who Did Your Tits?, Worse Than I Thought, yellow journalism, yin and yang on September 21, 2012| 31 Comments »

Beware of billionaires who want to save your life. – Mark Leno

Modern Marriage

Brooke Magnanti on Catherine Hakim’s new book:

…people are still marrying, still making that leap into the conceptual and statistical improbability of ’til death do us part. And where does that leave affairs, clients of sex workers, enjoyers of porn and the rest of us?…When many couples choose to remain childless, or have no familial wealth to pass on, why are we still doing this, anyway? Those questions and a lot more are what drives the narrative of…The New Rules: Internet Dating, Playfairs, and Erotic Power. In it, [Catherine Hakim]…calmly dissects the differences between the cultures where it’s okay to throw a strop at the first sign of relationships going off piste, and those where adultery is not only usual but expected…

Aversions

In a way, this is one of those “dog bites man” things, unless I’m the only one who’s ever noticed that most women are more sexually open when they’re very turned on:

…A small Dutch study…indicate[s] that arousal overrides feelings of disgust and facilitates a woman’s desire to do something that a woman who is not aroused might find flat-out repulsive…Daniel R. Kelly, an associate professor of philosophy at Purdue…explained that disgust is an “extension of our immune system” that helps prevent people from getting infected by making them wary of things, like bodily fluids, that…make people vulnerable…David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas…[said] “Women show far more disgust and especially sexual disgust, than men…It helps to protect women from having sex with the wrong men, such as men who might communicate diseases…show signs of a high ‘parasite load’…have poor hygiene and so on,” he said. What is interesting about the new Dutch paper, the two experts agreed, is that it suggests the mission to avoid the potentially “dangerous” parts of sex takes a backseat when women are aroused…

Who Did Your Tits?

Color me unsurprised: “Letting women ‘test drive’ larger breasts before a boob job…[by] wearing a heavily padded bra for two weeks while doing ordinary tasks…[has led to them picking] 30 per cent larger [implants] than they first planned – at least one additional cup size.” Despite claims from insecure women that they hate having big tits, the fact is that many women wish they had gone bigger, and most do so if the implants need to be replaced.

My Readers Write

This could be considered an update to “Welcome To Our World”, “Neither Cold nor Hot” or the “All in the Family” update in last week’s TW3, but the fact that it was written by regular reader Aspasia (in her own blog) trumps all that:

Jezebel ran two articles…that…highlight the hypocrisy of much of their readership…The first…“How to Tell Your Parents You’re A Prostitute”…[is followed by a] comment thread…rife with the moralizing pearl-clutching of feminists who claim to be supportive of women’s choices…Three days later, came [another] article…[which] criticizes certain choices made by women…and…[was] roundly condemned in the…comment thread…but…[the second author]…merely [did] what the average Jezebel reader does whenever sex workers…are discussed: stripped a whole group of women of their autonomy, projected her own standards onto them, and criticized their choices…

Uncommon Sense

Prostitutes in…Geneva have formed [Switzerland’s] first sex workers’ union, citing foreign competition and the high cost of rent…[it will be] called…the Sex Workers’ Syndicate [and]…aims to operate alongside the organisation Aspasie, which has advocated for prostitutes in Geneva since 1982. Aspasie primarily concerns itself with the health and well-being of sex workers, while STTS was mainly founded to address prostitutes’ financial concerns and working conditions…

I reckon that’s good news, though I’m a bit wary of the protectionism implied in that first line; if foreign women are excluded, it could potentially create a bottleneck. Of course, the government is working on one of its own:

Switzerland has long been criticised by the international community for allowing prostitution by teens as young as 16. The government has proposed changes to the criminal code which would make it a crime to hire or sell the services of a prostitute who is younger than 18…[due to] a Council of Europe convention it signed in 2010…young sex workers would not be prosecuted for their actions – only those who seek or sell their services would be held responsible…

The age of consent in Switzerland is 16, but once again we see the magical thinking that money somehow taints sex and the complete lack of consideration about what will happen to those girls once their agency is denied and their once-legal trade is semi-criminalized.

We Told You So

More of this, please:

[A Philippine “anti-trafficking” NGO named] the Visayan Forum Foundation (VF) [has been] accused of fraud by…USAID…At least…$5 million…meant to fund the group’s projects…[is] missing…the warrant that led to the search…said…the foundation…may be in possession or control of “falsified private documents which were used and are being used to defraud…donors”…

Scapegoats

“…Carlos Romero…was arrested…and charged with misdemeanor sexual activity with an animal, by officials in Ocala, Fla., but believes the real outrage is that the Sunshine State is ‘backwards’ towards zoophilia…The victimized animal is a 21-month-old miniature donkey named Doodle he purchased two months ago…” Whatever you may think of Romero’s preferences, ascribing human sexual hang-ups to a donkey in heat is beyond absurd.

The Last Shall Be First

It’s good to see bigots like this criticized by peers and spotlighted by the media:

An Oklahoma County judge is refusing to let men planning sex-change operations switch to feminine names. District Judge Bill Graves has denied name changes in two such cases so far…[ruling] both times the requests were made for a fraudulent purpose…His position…has generated criticism of him at the courthouse. Five other Oklahoma County judges who handle name change requests…routinely grant them in transgender cases.

His reason for this prejudice? Science!

Graves…has concluded a person cannot really change…sex because the person’s DNA stays the same…“A so-called sex-change surgery can make one appear to be the opposite sex, but in fact they are nothing more than an imitation…petitioner has not even had the surgery…To grant a name change in this case would be to assist that which is fraudulent…Genesis 1:27-28 states: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth …’ The DNA code shows God meant for them to stay male and female.”

You can always tell a legitimate scientific argument by its quotation of Genesis.

Above the Law

As long as bureaucrats have excessive power over individuals, this will keep happening:

[An]…investigator with Florida’s Department of Children and Families has been arrested for “bribery by a public servant, official misconduct, and falsifying records” after he told a woman under his supervision that he would hide the results of her drug-positive urine test if she would have sex with him. When [she] refused…Andrew Thomas threatened to report her to her probation officer…[he] is the third Florida DCF employee to be charged this year with a sex-related crime. In August…Peter Crane…was charged with…molesting two five-year-old girls. In June…Jean Lacroix…was charged with having sex with a teen who was part of a prostitution ring composed exclusively of foster children…

Naked Truth

Fortunately, most of the journalists who contact me are looking for informed commentary on issues rather than a sex-work story they can twist to fit their own agenda, but Charlotte Shane does an excellent job of skewering the twits who pester non-activist sex workers to “get their real stories”. If you’re not a journalist or academic you’ll enjoy reading this, but if you are either of those you need to read it.

Worse Than I Thought

California’s “Proposition 35” defines virtually all normal sex as “prostitution” and a lot of normal behavior as “coercion”, lists anyone who has anything at all to do with “coerced prostitution” as a “sex trafficker”, and condemns individuals so labeled to decades of prison, lifetime “sex offender” registration and theft of all their property by the state. It’s so awful, in fact, that even bona fide coerced prostitutes are against it: “Anabelle sees herself as a victim of sex trafficking. Stories like hers are driving Proposition 35…But Anabelle isn’t supporting [it]…and her arguments — and those of sex workers and their supporters — paint a very different picture of a law that could hurt the people it’s supposed to protect.” And if that article’s not enough to convince you, how about this slide show?

Metaupdates

Follow Your Bliss
in TW3 (#16)

Another pervert claims to “help” teenage runaways so he can help himself to their sexual favors:

The founder of [a charity for homeless youth named “Stand Up For Kids”] has been charged with repeatedly sexually assaulting a child over a three year period. Richard Koca, Sr., 69…faces seven felony charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust…The charges…were…sealed…by court order…after KMGH’s report…investigators are preparing for the possibility that more potential victims could come forwarding the case…the organization’s website was no longer accessible online today, and calls to the headquarters went unreturned…

The Pro-Rape Coalition in TW3 (#30)

Sex work-positive journalist Susannah Breslin interviews two porn producers (one of them Ira Isaacs), two actresses and a lawyer about the potential effects of the ramped-up porn prosecutions promised by Mitt Romney should he be the winner of the quadrennial popularity contest.

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#32)

No matter how carefully and thoroughly I scan for items of interest, a few things always slip through the cracks. While reading about Nadya Suleman using the money from her porn flick to lease a new house, I encountered the sentence “She spent the summer begging for money from fans and offering dates for cash.” Wait, what? Sure enough; the linked article is from August 6^th:

…Nadya Suleman…has opened a profile on the dating website WhatsYourPrice.com, TMZ reports…Although some would consider Suleman’s latest venture a dip into the prostitution pool, Gawker’s Louis Peitzman outlines, “yes, there’s something a little sketchy about selling yourself online, but it’s not prostitution unless they’re paying for sex…”

You’ve got to laugh at the moronic mental gymnastics with which some people justify their childish attempts to draw sharp, static lines between complex, fluid behaviors. Octomom’s done stripping, porn and sugar baby work, but she’s not a whore, noooooo. And neither is she a pathetic victim like the rest of us “prostituted women”; according to the house-leasing article,

“It has been the most empowering, liberating thing I have ever done,” Suleman told…Dr. Drew about doing porn. “There is nothing I won’t do to take care of my family…I had full control and power over my choice. I take full accountability and I’m proud of it.”

So there you are, ladies; in order for your equally-pragmatic choices to be considered valid, you first have to have 14 fatherless kids you can’t support.

This Week in 2011

A two-part guest column from veteran sex worker rights activist Norma Jean Almodovar was followed by criticisms of people who ask questions but refuse to accept the answers and sex workers who waste energy in internecine squabbles. “Uncommon Sense” (linked above) was then followed by a look at clueless neofeminist whining and a tale of the Ouled Nail.

This Week in 2010

The week began with my three-part column on the intersection of BDSM and whoring, which was followed by columns on why many escorts shun black clients and the physiological differences between genetic women and post-op transsexuals. I also told the sad story of an escort I called “April” and published my very first (two-part) Q & A column.

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That Was the Week That Was (#34)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A False Dichotomy, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, Africa, An Example to the West, An Ounce of Prevention, Australia, bad customers, California, cops, Damned If You Don't, disease, East Asia, Enabling Oppression, ethics, Europe, hysteria, India, Ireland, Islam, Kenya, Korea, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, Legalization a Good Idea?, Middle East, Peeping Toms, Philippines, rape, Rough Trade, sex work is work, Soap Opera, South Carolina, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Walking Stereotype Sues Whore, welcome to our world, Whorearchy on August 25, 2012| 38 Comments »

Innocent people should not be trapped for engaging in their legal right to ask to have sex in private with another adult. – Ezekiel Edwards

Beneath the Veil

It isn’t often we hear anything credible about sex work in strict Muslim countries, which are among the few places in the world more oppressive of sex workers than the United States, but this one seems both realistic and relatively non-judgmental:

…In Yemen, sex work is punishable by stiff prison sentences of up to three years…women earn 50,000 to 60,000 riyals [$230-$280] per client…Wealthy Gulf playboys are known to drop 100,000 riyals [$470] or more per woman…[but women] picked up at a restaurant or club…earn [only] 10,000 [to] 15,000 riyals ($47-$70). Condoms are standard…testing for sexually transmitted diseases is less common but not rare…Because of the illicit nature of the work, sex workers have virtually no protections against abuse. It is not uncommon for men to refuse to pay. Sometimes, a woman will meet a client, only to discover his three friends have accompanied him…

The reporter’s source is a Somali woman working in Yemen who, like so many of us, has been in and out of sex work for much of her life.

Updates

Rough Trade

At least British juries recognize that a prostitute can be raped: “Arturas Vasilivas attacked the girl…on October 13 last year…Prosecutor Mary Loram…[said] ‘He clearly viewed her as an object with which he could do as he pleased. She was absolutely terrified’…” He was convicted after only 3½ hours of deliberation and will be sentenced next month. In the United States, however, the rapist usually has to be shockingly violent to ensure conviction:

A limo driver faces up to 14 years in prison…[for] running down a teenage prostitute…Adekunkle Adefeyinti, 42, of Chicago, [was convicted] of two counts of aggravated battery…[for injuring] the 16-year-old girl while fleeing in his Hummer to avoid payment…part of her scalp [was] ripped off and [she suffered] facial nerve damage…

Walking Stereotype Sues Whore

Of course, criminalization also allows whores to cheat clients as well:

…Ernesto S. Tapang, 42, and Shuzhen Santos both have been charged with misdemeanor prostitution…Tapang…paid Santos $120 for an hour of sex…[but] twenty minutes later she allegedly told him…it was over and…refused to give [him] a refund so he flagged down a patrol car and reported her to police…

A False Dichotomy

It’s always a pleasure when people who have never done sex work get it:

Beyond the simplistic dichotomies within western feminism on the nature of sex work there is a complex picture in which many women take a pragmatic approach, negotiating with their sexuality an income while withstanding the “occupational hazard” of rampant violence, says Sehin Teferra. In Ethiopian cities…many young women become sex workers having failed to make ends meet by waiting tables or working as house-help, or [after] personal hardship such as an unplanned birth…[or running] away from home…Nearly all the women [Teferra] spoke to had faced violence at some point…[but] did not portray themselves as victims, and neither were they presented as victims by the men…Despite the low stature of women in Ethiopia in general, sex workers [including casual ones who do not identify as such] are recognized as making good money…[so] many couples and families [depend] on a young woman who sells sex. Many male partners of sex workers expressed frustration that as unskilled labour, they cannot find work that pays as well, and as regularly, as their partners’ sex work…while many sex workers…express a desire to leave their line of work, others recognize that [it] has allowed them to provide for themselves and their families…

Peeping Toms

Until I read this thorough and sensible article, I hadn’t realized that both major American presidential candidates this year are descended from polygamists (and much more recently in Obama’s Kenyan family than in Romney’s Mormon one). But that fact has not escaped the notice of those fighting for the right to live in whatever consensual arrangement suits them, who also point out that banning a practice because a minority abuse it is tyranny. This should obviously sound familiar, but the similarities don’t stop there; Romney has stated, “I can’t imagine anything more awful than polygamy,” which is exactly the same sort of absurdly-exaggerated denunciation politicians usually emit when talking about sex work.

An Ounce of Prevention

Y’all may discuss this in the comments as you wish; please just keep it factual and avoid “mutilation” hyperbole and unverifiable claims about sensitivity:

A 20-year decline in male circumcision has cost the country $2 billion in medical costs that could have been prevented, Johns Hopkins researchers say in a [new] study…boys who are not circumcised are more prone to sexually transmitted diseases and other [costly] health problems over a lifetime…”The economic evidence is backing up what we already know medically,” said Dr. Aaron Tobian…about 55 percent of the 2 million baby boys born each year are circumcised, compared with a peak of 79 percent in the 1970s and 1980s…Studies have long shown that when babies are not circumcised…bacteria and viruses can get trapped in the extra layers of skin left on the penis…circumcision reduces the number of infant urinary tract infections. Men who are uncircumcised are more at-risk for cancer-causing HPV, HIV, herpes, bacterial vaginitis and other sexually transmitted diseases…

Legal Is as Legal Does

As I’ve stated many times, any artificial bottleneck in the legality of sex work (such as licensing, venue restrictions or immigration controls) inevitably creates problems in the restricted sector. This excellent article by Christian Vega explains the problems Asian sex workers face in the legalized system in Victoria.

The Course of a Disease

Considering the progress of Swedish Rot in Ireland, it should come as no surprise that Northern Ireland has contracted the disease as well:

…the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Bill…aims to enhance services for victims as well as making it an offence to pay for sexual services from a prostitute…Lord Morrow said…”In Sweden, there’s a very clear message of zero tolerance for the purchase of sex that has had a clear impact on trafficking”…

His Lordship is correct: it has made trafficking worse.

Enabling Oppression

If these women were vulnerable to arrest for prostitution, would this have turned out the same way?

The six-year-old daughter of a sex worker, who was allegedly being tortured by her mother and her partner for the past few months, was rescued by other sex workers…[who heard her] yelling out in pain…and…took her to Medical College and Hospital Calcutta for treatment…The little girl, who looked relieved, kept saying that she did not want to return to her mother…”If the girl meets this kind of treatment from her own mother, she would surely become a victim of circumstances soon…we want the girl to stay at a safer place,” said a member of DMSC.

Soap Opera

“Tampa Police have arrested nearly 20 women at area strip clubs as part of a crackdown ahead of the Republican National Convention…Tampa Police said they are investigating prostitution and human sex trafficking of minors based on tips that prostitutes may be coming to Tampa to work in adult establishments during the convention.” Because if Telisia Espinosa says pimped, trafficked streetwalkers work out of strip clubs, that’s good enough for them.

Damned If You Don’t

Maybe if this sort of thing keeps happening, the ACLU will get off its collective arse and actually start challenging these laws:

The South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is accusing the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office [of] routinely making unlawful arrests of women they suspect of being prostitutes and men who have sex with men, even though they haven’t broken any laws. The ACLU says it sent a letter [outlining] “several incidents in which undercover officers approached people parked in their cars, sitting on their own porches or walking down the street and asked suspects to engage in illegal sexual activity, including prostitution and having sex in a public place. The individuals either declined or offered to engage in lawful private sexual contact, but were arrested anyway”…

Metaupdates

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea in August Updates (Part One)

It looks like the Indian Supreme Court is starting to back down from its year-old decision to move toward decriminalization:

A year after trying to provide a dignified life to sex workers, the Supreme Court on Thursday said its orders should not be construed as an encouragement to prostitution…Justice [Gyan Sudha] Mishra said, “I prefer to add…sex workers have a right to live with dignity but the collective endeavour must be on part of the sex workers to give up the trade in case they are given alternate platform”…Justice [Altamas] Kabir said: “It is all very good for your (government’s) policy to say prevent prostitution but will you provide to fill their stomach. Even a prostitute has a right to live with dignity”…

The other judges waffled even more, and one claimed he was only talking about “sex trafficking” victims. Well, at least they rejected the government’s attempt to remove DMSC from the advisory panel.

A Tale That Grew in the Telling in October Updates (Part Three)

A news release of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), said…[a human trafficking] hotline…established a year and a half ago…”has received 11,000 calls from local and overseas sources, with…165 case calls, of which 52 are reportedly victims of human trafficking”…the CFO said “many victims still do not file charges against their recruiters.”

Would that be “many” more than the 11,000 callers, the 165 operators opened files on, the 52 staff represent as real or the much smaller, undisclosed number which actually turn out to be cases of victimization?

An Example To the West in TW3 (#14)

Here’s another article by Matthias Lehmann on sex work in South Korea, this one in response to an article written by a woman who seems to believe that volunteering at a woman’s shelter for a few months makes her a “sex trafficking” expert. It includes an excerpt from this excellent letter (dated last September) to “human trafficking ambassador” Luis CdeBaca from Ann Jordan and other respected academics:

“…[W]e are concerned that the Obama Administration has produced a document that asserts as matters of proven fact a number of statements, which…are unsupported or unproven by valid research methods and data…the document is illogical, misleading and therefore potentially damaging to on-going efforts globally to prevent trafficking and protect the rights of trafficked persons…these assumptions are not proven in any empirically meaningful way, and [we] believe that they only serve to deflect attention away from the structures and actors that in fact lead to trafficking of women, men and children. The proposals and statements in the document threaten to divert precious resources from protecting victims of trafficking who urgently need help into a politically contested and futile anti-prostitution campaign…”

Interestingly, Lehmann also compares the “anti-trafficking” campaigns in South Korea with California’s Proposition 35, about which I wrote last week.

Whorearchy in TW3 (#19)

Barcelona’s ill-considered and Swedish-flavored campaign to drive vulnerable women into poverty continues:

…[As of ] 17^th August, street prostitution will be totally banned in Barcelona…the…ban will persecute both prostitutes and clients; although the later will have to pay significantly higher fines. Clients might be fined between €1,000 and €3,000…[while] prostitutes will…[be fined] €100 [to] €750, depending on the situation…

This Week in 2011

I examined a claim that porn causes terrorism, described my “girls’ night out” with two other whore activists, discussed attempts to restrict adult behavior under the excuse of “protecting children”, expressed my opinion on a conflict between two activists, published the tale of an experiment in sexual robotics, looked at several examples of sex work scams and criticized the demonization of “sexting”.

This Week in 2010

What happens when an escort already knows her client personally or because he’s famous? How should clients treat hookers, and what sorts of presents do they give in addition to fees? What kinds of tricks do unscrupulous whores use? What do we think about people who try to “rescue” us? And what does one do with a talking painting?

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That Was the Week That Was (#18)

Posted in Biography, Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Another Small Victory, archeofeminism, Ashley Madison, Australia, Backpage, bad customers, brothels, Bullies With Badges, censorship, cops, dirty, disease, East Asia, Elephant in the Parlor, Feminine Pragmatism, Good News-Bad News, harm reduction, hysteria, imaginative fiction, infidelity, internet, Latin America, law, lawheads, Madonna/whore, marriage, Michigan, Much Ado About Nothing, My Favorite Updates, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, New Mexico, Nicaragua, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Philippines, politicians, porn, Presents, prohibitionist myths, Prudish Pedants, red-light districts, serial killers, sex offender registry, Shazam!, Shifting the Blame, stripping, Swedish model, Texas, They Just Don’t Get It, Twitter, Umpteen Thousand People, underage, violence vs. sex workers on May 5, 2012| 18 Comments »

“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow…”the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass – a idiot.” – Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Two new stories, nine updates and three metaupdates.

The Law is an Ass

Today in “Never call the police for any reason whatsoever”:

…Christina Marie Lopez [of Oregon]…pleaded guilty…to attempted use of a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct…in December…Lopez complained to police and media that a strip club had hired her…[then 17-year-old] daughter…Investigators later obtained surveillance video…”that showed Lopez in the club watching her daughter dance and providing her money”…[but] now 18-year-old Nicole Madril, said…”It’s not like she came in there and got 50 lap dances from me…She came in and gave me money so I could get myself something to eat”…Lopez was sentenced to 3 years in prison, 3 years of post-prison supervision, and must register as a sex offender. Lopez’s daughter told the judge the sentence was unfair and that it was her own choice to strip.

Lopez obviously forgot about the Law of Shazam; even if her daughter was at most four months shy of her 18^th birthday, she was still the exact legal, moral and intellectual equivalent of a newborn infant, and therefore easily controllable by any adult.

Bullies With Badges

Police in riot gear and masks saved Houston from evil harlots Thursday: “At least six women were in custody…after prostitution stings at three…massage parlors…Investigators said most of the women who were arrested appeared to be under the age of 30 – some as young as teenagers…Investigators said…they were looking into whether any of the women may be victims of human trafficking.” News flash: Many Asian women look younger than most white women; those who “looked like teenagers” may have been much older. The “trafficking” claims were obviously to head off valid criticism of the incredible waste of this “raid”, but if they were sincere their actions are even more reprehensible, as pointed out in this must-read column from Radley Balko.

Updates

They Just Don’t Get It (April 12^th, 2011)

What is wrong with journalists in Pennsylvania? Their fawning treatment of cops and other “authorities” reads like fellatio porn, and their feigned ignorance of anything whore-related is astonishingly stupid:

Prostitution has plagued any number of internet sites in recent years – notably Craigslist – but now the CBS 3 I-Team has found a new hideout for hookers on…Twitter…used by call girls all the time as a free way to advertise…some prostitutes right in your backyard are even setting up appointments over Twitter, which is used by kids of all ages…“It gives…that ability to reach their customers immediately,” says Rob D’Ovidio, a cyber crime expert at Drexel University. “If it’s a slow day, and they want to lure in customers, they can quickly get that blurb out there”…

Reading stories like this feels like looking into a dirty toilet; one wonders what sort of filthy mind could write it, despite the fact that “kids of all ages” could see it on TV. Apparently nobody told Mr. “Cyber Crime Expert” that we’re all “victims” now and that we’re the ones who are “lured” rather than vice-versa. Except, obviously, in Pennsylvania (where we’re still criminals) and Texas (where they ain’t sure).

Another Small Victory (July 16^th, 2011)

A group of US Representatives petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse a lower-court ruling striking down the anti-prostitution pledge; Congressman Chris Smith characterized agencies who provide condoms and testing to all women (without excluding sex workers) as “international groups that promote and enable prostitution and sex trafficking”. The mindless self-destructiveness of this position becomes evident when one realizes that people like Smith wrongly believe whores to be the major vectors of STIs, yet want us excluded from health programs anyway. He’s also ignorant on the ruling, which only freed domestic agencies from the ridiculous “pledge”; international ones are still bound by it, which leads me to wonder how this group keeps its funding:

A new NGO in Nicaragua aims to protect the rights of women who voluntarily work in the sex trade, raising the question of whether sex work should be seen as a legitimate job, or should be treated as a component of organized crime that is inherently linked to problems like human trafficking. Girasoles de Nicaragua…is backed by USAID [and] formed…to fight “stigma, discrimination and violence”…the organization has…deployed 25 employees across the country, reportedly providing some 500 women with health aid, literacy training, and legal support. It plans to partner with the police in investigating crimes related to the sex trade, and form alliances with other international organizations that promote sex workers’ rights, including Argentina-based network RedTraSex. The group argues that sex work should be recognized as a respectable form of self-employment…that allows women to support themselves and their families…

The rest of the article, as should be evident from the lede, devolves into the usual “human trafficking cartel” nonsense, branding the group’s statements to reporters “confused” and implying that they know less about their own field than lay people who read “trafficking” propaganda.

Elephant in the Parlor (October 23^rd, 2012)

Politician. Whores. Yawn.

Michael Wiener, a…[New Mexico] county commissioner …is being asked to resign after a picture of him posing with scantily clad women in a well-known red light district in the Philippines…[was posted by] photographer John Keatley…on his blog. Wiener…[wrote] that…”NOTHING untoward ever happened…The pictures taken are as innocent as any that could be taken at Twin Peaks or Hooters here“…[but] Keatley said “…It was very obvious to me that he was not respectful to women. He was there to have a good time”…

Because to the neofeminism-addled mind, “respectful to women” and “good time” are mutually exclusive.

Umpteen Thousand People Can’t Be Wrong (November 12^th, 2011)

“A group of senators has introduced a resolution urging Village Voice Media to take down the ‘adult entertainment’ section of its classified-ads site, Backpage.com.” Blah, blah, blah. You know the rest.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29^th, 2011)

Darren Thompson sent me an Amazon gift certificate this week, which I used to get several small items: The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, Pretty Baby and two discs of Warner Brothers cartoons that weren’t on my wish list. Thank you so much!

Sleazier Than Thou (January 30^th, 2012)

Ashley Madison is well known for its lies, deception and sleazy advertising, but this is slimy even for them:

For the past four years, infidelity-based matchmaking site AshleyMadison.com has seen an influx of married women signing up for its services on…the day after Mother’s Day. According to the site’s founder, Noel Biderman, more married women join the site on that day than on any other…”If that day comes to pass, and once again what [women] experience is a lack of appreciation, affection and respect, that is when the idea of taking on a potential lover takes full form,” Biderman said…

Note found by an amateur on her door.

Guys, very few actual living women sign up for Ashley Madison on ANY day. The majority of those who do are whores, and the rest aren’t being truthful about their age or weight; Biderman is a lying shyster out to take your money. That having been said, it’s probably best to be extra-sweet to your wife on Mother’s Day; yes, I know she isn’t your mother, and I agree…but she may not, and that could mean trouble.

Prudish Pedants (March 22^nd, 2012)

And all it took was triple jeopardy and lying to the jury about the legality of nullification:

A jury today found fetish filmmaker Ira Isaacs guilty on five counts of violating federal obscenity laws. He’ll be sentenced on Aug. 6. It was the third…trial…The first two ended with mistrials…[the] federal prosecutor…said…that Isaacs’ goal…was solely to make money, but Isaacs’ attorney…said…that the case is about testing the First Amendment… Judge George King…told [the jury] that it’s their duty to weigh and evaluate all the evidence and decide the facts based solely on the law, reason and common sense and not their opinion or speculation…

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18^th, 2012)

Agent Cheapskate has finally been unmasked as Arthur Huntington, who “lives in Saverna Park, Md. [and] is a married father of two whose wife leads Bible study in the neighborhood…the Secret Service has created new rules forbidding all foreigners but hotel staff in agents’ rooms and barring them from visiting ‘seedy establishments’.” In other news, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee admitted that the whores were just whores, not spies or international gangsters: “It does not appear that these guys were targeted. [It wasn’t] a foreign organization attempting to seduce Secret Service agents…There’s no evidence that any of the women have any involvement with narco-terrorists or any type of terrorist organization. Basically, they’re prostitutes.”

Which, of course, every hooker in the world already knew.

My Favorite Books (April 26^th, 2012)

I think these folks are reading far too much into a discarded first draft, but it’s still interesting:

Newly-discovered draft pages of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince“…will be auctioned off later this month after a rare public viewing…The first page contains a piece of text that’s partly retained in chapter 19 of the published work. But the second leaf of the work is completely original…In 1943, the text turned from a scribbled manuscript by a relatively unknown author, into a literary phenomenon that has since sold 140 million copies, in about 260 languages. After The Bible, “The Little Prince” is the most translated book in history, according to the…Saint-Exupery Foundation. Sadly, the author would never know the extent of his book’s success: he died shortly after its first publication in a mysterious plane crash in 1944 while on active service in World War II…

Metaupdates

Shifting the Blame in The Beat Goes On (Part One) (January 18^th, 2012)

“Two men were held for questioning Tuesday as part of an investigation into the slayings of four Detroit women whose bodies were found in car trunks after three of them placed online escort ads…”

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#13) (March 31^st, 2012)

“Octomom” Nadya Suleman, who filed for bankruptcy this week with $1 million in debts and $50,000 in assets, has agreed to do a masturbation video for Vivid for $100,000. She insists it isn’t really porn (which she has sworn never to do) because it’s a solo act; do you think I should send her a copy of “Little Boxes”?

Good News, Bad News in TW3 (#14) (April 6^th, 2012)

Elena Jeffreys explains the probable effects of the sleazy political deal which could impose a version of the Swedish Model on Western Australia:

Adele Carles is no friend of the HIV sector, no friend of STI prevention, and her $5.5 million sex worker ‘rescue’ centre is going to cost the WA Liberals, and any future government, that friendship as well. What will it cost sex workers? Our ability to protect ourselves. Our health. And our dignity…The…centre is being horse-traded in Western Australia…for votes over Christian Porter’s anti-sex work Prostitution Bill. Doomed from the start, Porter authored the Bill by not listening to his own policy staff, ignoring sex workers and the sex worker movement, and thumbing his nose at the Liberal’s own ‘numbers people’…With a lack of buy-in from the industry, total opposition from the churches and zero support from both the ALP and the Greens, suddenly Independent MP…Adele Carles, has the power to call the shots…[Carles’ scheme would be funded by] gutting the existing sex worker service and building a new service geared towards the redemption, exit and retraining of sex workers out of the industry rather than the current approach of harm reduction for current sex workers…

One Year Ago Today

“May Updates (Part Two)” reports on harm reduction for untreatable alcoholics, junk science equating a vital food component with hard drugs, and government busybodies trying to “protect” babies from the scourge of mother’s milk.

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Thou Shalt Not

Posted in Current Events, Tyranny, tagged crypto-moralism, dirty, disease, drugs, East Asia, hysteria, law, New York, oral sex, Philippines, porn, restaurants, Thou Shalt Not on March 6, 2012| 21 Comments »

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. – H.L. Mencken

As I wrote in “Change a Few Words”, “all prohibitionism is the same. Oh, they’ll throw out all sorts of bogus reasons such as “morality”, “decency”, “health”, “public order”, “national security” and of course “the children”, but in reality they’re all based in one thing: a busybody desire to control the private behaviors of others because they make individual prohibitionists uncomfortable.” The most dangerous prohibitionists, however, are those who oppose no particular behavior or thing, but rather the very freedom of choice itself; these wannabe world-emperors demand control of everything and everyone they can see or know about. They are motivated by a deep mental illness some refer to as Anti-Life, the unnatural and perverted need to see all free will extinguished everywhere. Fortunately, they’re in the minority, so they can’t reveal their naked desire to rule the universe without being locked up as the madmen they are; instead they have to disguise it as a more typically-human obsession with something like “morality”, “safety” or “health”. But unfortunately, most people aren’t skeptical or perceptive enough to see through the excuses to the underlying lust for power, and therefore accept the rationalizations at face value.

One tried-and-true way to frighten the hoi-polloi out of undesirable behavior, whether you’re an archetypal sky-god or just a little tin one, is to threaten them with plagues. One year ago today I reported on an attempt to scare people out of having oral sex by claiming it causes cancer, but since there was neither widespread panic nor politicians vowing to “do something”, I guess the crypto-moralists felt compelled to try again:

A new study showing an estimated 7% of American teens and adults carry the human papillomavirus in their mouths may help health experts finally understand why rates of mouth and throat cancer have been climbing for nearly 25 years…The findings indicate that the virus is not likely to spread through kissing or casual contact and that most cases of oral HPV can be traced to oral sex, which many Americans mistakenly view as a safe practice…A survey released last year…found that about 90% of adults have had oral sex, along with 27% of 15-year-old boys and 23% of 15-year-old girls. “I don’t think people think of oral sex in the same way they do with traditional intercourse,” said Fred Wyand, director of the HPV Resource Center…”Sometimes younger people engage in oral sex so they don’t have to worry about pregnancy. They may not even make the link between oral sex and STDs.”

…Most oral HPV infections are harmless, and oral cancers are still relatively uncommon. But given the new information, doctors should encourage their patients to use protection during oral sex, Dr. Hans Schlecht…wrote in an editorial accompanying the study…HPV is best known as the cause of cervical cancer, which kills 4,220 women in the U.S. each year…The virus can also cause vulvar, anal, penile and various head and neck cancers. A study published in October…traced more than 70% of new cases of oral cancers to HPV infection, putting it ahead of tobacco use as the leading cause…an estimated 80% of Americans have contracted the virus…It usually produces no symptoms and is typically cleared from the body through natural processes…the overall prevalence of oral HPV was 6.9% — far less than the rate of genital HPV infection in reproductive-age women, which can be as high as 42% among women in their 20s…Among people who had more than 20 sexual partners, the prevalence of oral HPV was 20%. But the researchers found it in fewer than 1% of people who said they were virgins and in fewer than 4% of people who said they had never performed oral sex…

The sky is falling! Everybody panic! 7% of people have a common virus that we have a vaccine for and might, maybe lead to a comparatively rare type of cancer that kills 0.0027% of Americans a year. Call the Marines! Criminalize oral sex! Well, what if I told you that 100% of people are exposed almost every day to radiation that can cause a form of cancer which kills over 0.003% of Americans a year? It’s called “sunlight”. Fortunately, we don’t yet have the technology to attempt a ban on that.

Busybodies aren’t only against sex, though; they also oppose what the average man considers the second-greatest pleasure in life and the average woman considers the greatest: food. Since people have a distressing tendency to drop dead when “authorities” stop them from eating entirely, it’s a bit harder to control than sex. But that doesn’t stop the professional busybodies from trying, even if they have to lie to do so:

Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City health department has come in for repeated criticism…for crusading against salty and fattening foods through ad campaigns that manipulate viewer reactions in ways that border on the misleading and deceptive (“What can we get away with?” famously asked one official). They’re at it again. On January 9, Gotham’s for-your-own-good crew unveiled a new ad warning “Portions have grown. So has Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to amputations,” dramatically illustrated with a photo of an obese man with a stump where his leg had been. But as the New York Times reports, city officials “did not let on that the man shown — whose photo came from a company that supplies stock images to advertising firms and others — was not an amputee and may not have had diabetes.” Instead, they just Photoshopped his leg off, which certainly got the effect they were looking for…

Even the basic claim that yummy food leads to obesity and diabetes is suspect; a growing body of evidence suggests it isn’t the food, but the containers it comes in:

…Exposure to even minuscule amounts of synthesized substances…can scramble hormone signals…[tricking] fat cells into taking in more fat or [misleading] the pancreas into secreting excess insulin…Among the most ubiquitous…of these…endocrine disruptors is bisphenol A, better known as BPA…a common ingredient in plastics and food-can linings. “When you eat something with BPA, it’s like telling your organs that you are eating more than you are really eating,” says Angel Nadal, a BPA expert at the Miguel Hernandez University in Spain…the chemical triggers the release of almost double the insulin actually needed to break down food. High insulin levels can desensitize the body to the hormone over time, which in some people may then lead to weight gain and Type 2 diabetes…An estimated 90 percent of people in developed countries have [dangerously high levels of] BPA circulating in their blood…due…to exposures from leaching food packages…cash register receipts, dental sealants and toilet paper…

But banning a harmful chemical isn’t satisfying for control freaks, so we get this sort of insanity instead:

Sugar is so toxic it should be controlled like alcohol, according to new report that goes so far as to suggest setting an age limit of 17 years to buy soda pop. It points to sugar as a culprit behind many of the world’s major killers — heart disease, cancer and diabetes…A little sugar “is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly,” says the report…by Dr. Robert Lustig, a [longtime anti-sugar alarmist]…and two U.S. colleagues specializing in health policy…”If international bodies are truly concerned about public health, they must consider limiting fructose — and its main delivery vehicles, the added sugars HFCS and sucrose — which pose dangers to individuals and to society as a whole,” they say. “We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby…and will require active engagement from all stakeholders”…The report suggests governments introduce zoning rules to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities and around schools. “Another option would be to limit sales during school operation, or to designate an age limit (such as 17) for the purchase of drinks with added sugar, particularly soda”…

Because “health experts” always know what’s best for everybody, especially those stupid poor folks, and as we know “end demand” laws work so well to program the masses…oops, I mean “educate” them. Luckily, most people recognize Lustig’s ilk for the lunatics they are, but stupid, unenforceable laws against consensual behavior get enacted all the time:

The Philippines Senate has passed a bill penalizing cybersex…defined as people engaged in “the willful engagement, maintenance, control, or operation, directly or indirectly, of any lascivious exhibition of sexual organs or sexual activity, with the aid of a computer system.” Violators can be imprisoned for 6-12 years, or fined between $4,500 and $23,000…

I’ll bet you feel safer knowing that while you sleep, self-appointed guardians of health and morality all over the world are working hard to protect you from blow jobs, soda and dirty talk.

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Bad Fantasy, Good Reality

Posted in Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, archeofeminism, Bad Fantasy-Good Reality, BDSM, courtesans, dating, dirty, East Asia, hysteria, Japan, law, neofeminism, Philippines, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rescue industry, restaurants, sisterhood, stereotypes, yellow journalism on October 27, 2011| 21 Comments »

Fantasy consists in a morbid fascination with unrealities, which secretly transforms itself into a desire to make them real. – Roger Scruton

One year ago today I published “Good Fantasy, Bad Reality”, about a Missouri case in which Ed and Marilyn Bagley were accused of torturing a young woman in extreme BDSM activities; the Bagleys say the activities were consensual, a view supported by several witnesses. Were these people twisted monsters, inexperienced dominants who overstepped their bounds, foolish kinksters who failed to recognize that their sub was mentally disturbed enough to betray them under the influence of her family, or some combination of the three? No matter what happens in court, the truth may never be known because it’s a sure bet every single person involved – defendants, alleged victim, witnesses, cops, prosecutors and even “expert witnesses” – is going to lie in an attempt to sell the jury his own version.

From the viewpoint of the American media, the truth isn’t even important; lurid fantasies of “trafficked sex slaves” are much more interesting to the hoi-polloi than Rashomon realities, so you can bet that any story involving prostitution or BDSM (or both, as this one does) is going to do its level best to make the “criminal” look malevolent and the “victim” look helpless. Nowadays this is generally accomplished by claiming she was either a “child” or “mentally handicapped”; it was both in this case, and the cops in the Maurice and Toni Johnson case invoked both by claiming the alleged victim “functions on the level of a 10-year-old”. But when neither claim is remotely credible, the yellow journalist can always fall back on “economically disadvantaged”, and if the so-called “victims” have brown skins and cross an international border to work, our reporter has hit the racist, paternalistic jackpot. Women from developing countries can be portrayed as childlike, unsophisticated and economically disadvantaged, thus denying them agency and setting the stage for benevolent Americans to “rescue” them. The truth, of course, is that most of them neither need nor want to be “saved”, and patronizing American demands that they be robbed of a livelihood “for their own good” show exactly how out of touch with reality politicians, moralists and neofeminists actually are. And that’s what makes this two part-article by USC sociology professor Rhacel Salazar Parrenas (which appeared in Business Week on October 12^th and 13^th) so very satisfying:

A decade ago, the U.S. government determined that apart from terrorism, the gravest threat to democracy in the world was human trafficking…congressional hearings focused attention on what was said to be the forced labor, debt bondage and coerced migration of 800,000 individuals, 80 percent of whom supposedly were women and children, throughout the world…[and especially] in the sex industry. The hearings culminated in…the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000…[which] requires the U.S. Department of State to submit to Congress an annual…Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report — describing the efforts of foreign governments to eliminate human trafficking. A country that fails to take significant actions receives a “Tier 3” assessment, which can trigger the withholding of…assistance from the U.S.

According to the 2004 report, Filipinas who work as hostesses in clubs in Japan constituted the world’s largest group of sex-trafficked persons, making up more than 10 percent of those 800,000 victims. They were identified as trafficked under the assumption of their “sexual exploitation”…After being placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, a deeply embarrassed Japan imposed new visa requirements and a more rigorous screening process for migrant entertainers from the Philippines…the number of Filipina hostesses…fell 90 percent, from 82,741 in 2004 to 8,607 in 2006. This…poses a setback to the emancipation of women. It has stripped thousands of migrant women of their livelihood, forcing them to stay at home, often in impoverished conditions…In a nine-month study in Tokyo in 2005 and 2006, I interviewed 56 Filipina hostesses and worked as a hostess myself. None of the hostesses I encountered wanted to be rescued from their employment. Most found that migration had made them breadwinners in their families, a position that granted them decision-making power and earned them the respect of their kin. In some instances, participating in commercial flirtation allowed them to challenge conservative norms that limited the acceptable sexual activities of women.

…Filipina hostesses…perform sex work in that they titillate customers via commercial flirtation, [but not all] “sex work” is…“prostitution.” It encompasses a wide array of services including flirtation and stripping — in addition to prostitution…For the most part, no one coerced my fellow hostesses to work in Japan. They were not drugged, taken on planes and trapped in clubs. No one lied to them or explicitly told them they would only be singing and dancing onstage. This is not to say that migrant Filipina hostesses do not face serious problems. First, middleman brokers who arrange for visas, transit and job placement charge high rates upfront, subjecting hostesses to what amounts to indentured servitude. Once in Japan, hostesses cannot legally change clubs. Because being undocumented is a crime, those who are fired and remain in Japan become dependent on their next employer and on other Filipinos who may exploit their vulnerability by withholding wages or overcharging them for housing. Still, migrant Filipina entertainers see servitude abroad as a much better option than their other choice of immobility in the Philippines…

Regular readers will recognize not only Laura Agustín’s point that migration for work is nearly always freely chosen even when the conditions of employment are less than ideal, but also my mantra (and that of other vocal whores) that being paid for sex is empowering and being denied the right to be paid is harmful. The second part of Parrenas’ article is longer and goes into detail about the clubs, so you may be interested in reading it in full. But I want to call attention to this part:

…[At] first…I…struggled to meet hostesses willing to participate in my study of their conditions. My visits to clubs as a customer had not provided any solid leads…Even hostesses whom I befriended had always declined my request for an interview. I had assumed that they had experienced emotional distress from the stigma associated with their occupation. I had come to Japan believing claims by other academics that “hostess work” was a euphemism for “prostitution”…[but] after I began working as a hostess, every person I approached agreed to talk to me…I had entered an unfamiliar sexual world…[which] has been condemned…for “crimes against humanity.” Japanese hostess clubs…have been labeled by the U.S. Department of State as hotbeds of sexual trafficking…women are not just endlessly harassed, but supposedly also held against their will, forced into prostitution and made victims of sexual violence by lecherous Japanese men. What I discovered, in fact, was that these women come to Japan voluntarily and gratefully, knowing what their jobs will be. Very few engage in prostitution, and if they do, they do so willingly…hostesses view themselves as modern-day geisha…

This is a very important passage because it demonstrates the critical problem with the “rescue industry”; as long as “rescuers” remain outsiders, forcing their own ignorant and patronizing judgments on sex workers, they remain dangerous nuisances to those they claim they want to “help”. Only by entering their world and sharing their experiences can feminists hope to understand sex workers…and once they do, the scales fall from their eyes.

…the “dohan” [paid date]…requires that a hostess spend some time with a customer outside the club…[and] guarantees at least one hour with the hostess inside the establishment…Most hostesses do not think a “dohan” harms them; they told me it was unlikely to mean coercive sex, though it might involve voluntary prostitution…hostesses on a “dohan” are sometimes envied, because they are often taken to a Filipino restaurant. Yet the U.S. State Department cites the “dohan” as an indication that Filipina hostesses are sexually trafficked in Japan…[which] prompted Japan…to reduce the number of visas for Filipina hostesses by 90 percent. Anti-trafficking and anti-prostitution crusaders counted this a triumph. But no trafficking and very little prostitution was stopped, and 81,000 Filipinas lost their livelihoods.

Unsubstantiated claims of the forced prostitution of Filipina hostesses are morally charged, and divert attention from the need for regulation and protection of sex workers. For Filipina hostesses, the goal should be job improvement, not job elimination. What’s needed are laws to prevent abusive behavior by middleman brokers…Hostesses don’t need to be rescued. They need the empowerment that comes from being independent labor migrants. Only then can they remain gainfully employed…and have full control of their own lives.

Parrenas arrived in Japan believing prohibitionist dogma, and left a wiser woman who is now in a position to do sex workers some real good by speaking out. She found that more than 10% of all women labeled as “trafficked” by prohibitionists are nothing of the kind; does anyone doubt the same can be said of most of the other 90%?

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