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Posts Tagged ‘pragmatism’

In witch hunts of both the classic and modern varieties, hypersuggestible people such as children, the mentally ill, the emotionally needy, or the severely traumatized can be induced to “remember” all sorts of fantastic things which are not even physically possible, much less grounded in actual events.  –  “False Witness

Because sex isn’t all that and a bag of chips to whores, we are dramatically less likely to stray, and if we do it certainly ain’t going to be for a stupid-ass reason like “I had an hour of good sex with some dude I don’t actually know”.
–  “Sauce for the Goose

Generally, the way anyone commands respect from anyone else in any sexual transaction is, paradoxically, by not needing them.  –  “Respect

Children are people separate from their parents; they are not part of their parents, and they aren’t owned by them, nor are they blank slates to be written neatly upon in whatever style and language their parents desire.  They are individuals with their own personalities from the very beginning, and a certain fraction of them are born with (or develop at an early age via mysterious channels) sexual or gender patterns that have nothing to do with what their parents might prefer or choose to “teach” them.  –  “Secrets in the Family

Though men control just about everything else, women have a solid lock on the sphere of hetero sexuality…the thing most men care about more than anything else.  –  “Toxic Entitlement

When cops act to “solve” a crime at all, they generally do so by picking someone to frame for it and torturing the “evidence” to support their choice.
–  “No Protection, No Service

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Man is a social animal, and even if someone is absolutely certain of his anonymity…few are willing to risk the disapproval of a lab-coated authority figure even if he isn’t sitting directly in front of them.  –  “Skewed by Taboo

The taboo/magical/ possessive paradigm of sexuality is deeply sick and twisted, and has probably caused more evil, sorrow and destruction than any other single cultural construct on earth.  –  “The Gift of Sight

Activists who demand ideological purity tests aren’t really interested in winning the War on Whores; they want a secret handshake club.
–  “Skin in the Game

For a lot of people…flashing lights [in the mirror] don’t signal a temporary annoyance or slight financial hit; they represent at best the beginning of an ordeal which will inflict serious or even catastrophic financial hardship on them, and could possibly end in prison, the loss of their vehicles and/or jobs and potentially years of legal difficulties.  –  “Pretext

Puritanical US “authorities” want sex to be as dangerous and consequence-laden as they can make it, which is why prostitution is criminalized, abortions & birth control are the subjects of so many ban attempts, and “family court” is a nightmare for everyone but the lawyers and bean-counters.  –  “Hers Alone

The world’s one remaining empire is engaged in not one but many endless, pointless wars whose costs would have staggered the Rothschilds, whose lack of clear imperial goals would have confused a Caesar or a Napoleon, and whose sheer, mindless carnage would have nauseated the Spartans. – “War Without End

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In the autumn of 2014, I asked my readers for help in buying a new car; I was moving to Seattle and there was no way the old farm truck I’d driven for years could be depended upon to go so far. Altogether, y’all raised about $3000, and I found a 2003 Hyundai for only $3300 because an insurance company had totaled it due to body damage from a severe hailstorm.  That car took me hither and yon for almost a year, until in October 2015 a careless person came shooting across several lanes of traffic during a rainstorm and directly into my path.  Fortunately, my car’s book value was $5000, so that’s what the insurance company paid me; even after spending $3000 on another used car, that left me $1700 ahead from where I had started (not counting tag fees and the like, because I think of those as operating expenses).

That burgundy 2000 Honda Accord was one of the best cars I ever owned, and when in May 2019 I was told the transmission was shot and would cost about twice what the car was worth to replace, I sold it on Craigslist as a “mechanic’s special” for $400 and bought another escort’s unwanted 2002 Saturn for $1000, which still left me with $1100 of the money my readers had given me in 2014.  The Saturn carried me around dependably until September 12th of this year, when it was rear-ended on the highway and completely totaled.  It took the insurance company a month to pay me a little over $2400 for it, then we had to find a suitable replacement for a similar amount of money, no easy feat nowadays when even older used cars are getting snatched up practically as soon as they’re posted online for sums the equivalent could never have commanded even 8 years ago (especially since I no longer live in Seattle and can’t tell most owners “I’ll be there in an hour”).

But Grace’s mojo has never failed me, though this time it was accompanied by far more grumbling than usual; on Wednesday I brought home this 1994 Honda Accord, which despite its age was a good deal: it was really clean, obviously garage-kept and babied, fully loaded, with everything working and sold to me by its original owner, practically the stereotypical “little old lady from Pasadena”, whose father had given it to her as a gift brand-new.  So nine years after that original request for help, I’m still $1000 ahead on my car fund; it’s kind of amazing that not only have my loyal and generous readers kept me in reliable transportation for nearly a decade, but also with a good head start on repairing or replacing this one when it, too, succumbs to entropy or Fate.  

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Regular readers need no introduction to Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist, whose groundbreaking book Sex At the Margins introduced the term “rescue industry” and set the bar for conversations about sex work and migration for two decades.  When she told me of her new project, I invited her to write about it; I think you’ll find the result as interesting as I do!

What do you do when you get pretty old and have no pension but do have your health?  I had to confront this during a couple of years of lockdowns, living in someone else’s house because I was trapped by airports closing.  But for some years before that I had wanted something new to happen.  I wrote a crime-novel, The Three-Headed Dog, and would have been glad to write its sequels, but it seemed impossible to get the book seen by more than a small number of readers, and anyway I didn’t want to sit in front of screens all the time.  So after enormous amounts of walking and exploring during lockdowns, I thought about becoming an on-the-street guide.  Not to take tourists to the bucket-list sights but to lead the kind of walking tours I like, with guides who take you to places far from the obvious, such as weird industrial areas, backwaters, and neighbourhoods no one ever tells you to visit.  I’ve been a house- and cat-sitter for many years so was always doing this on my own, but here were guides who could tell me histories of these places.  So I thought I might run walks where I could give my own kind of history, ignoring mainstream events and personages – monarchs, prime ministers, wars, celebrations of capitalism – and instead talk about ordinary working stiffs, especially women, who usually get left out.  It would just be me having my own point of view as always, only on the street, talking with anyone who wants to sign up – no institutions or classrooms involved, even virtual ones.

Is it possible to include sex work in guided tours without being a jackass?  Ever since I began talking in public about the sex industry, I’ve dealt with the problem of language; always someone is offended, if not by the topic itself then by the words used.  I wondered if I would ever discover the perfect vocabulary that would enlighten without someone in the audience looking hacked-off.  Then I realised it was a hopeless goal.  My PhD thesis-proposal was called The Production of “Prostitution”, a term impossibly fraught and divisive and yet it’s the one everyone knows.  “The Sex Industry”, “Commercial Sex”, “Sex Work”: all require explanation and endless quibbling about which phenomena are to be included.  Spin-offs like “the Sex Trade” and “Survival Sex” and absurd inventions like “the Sex Work Industry” add to the chaos.  On top of that, many sex workers use and affirm the word “Prostitute”.

For my own label, I’m keeping the “Naked Anthropologist” handle because it continues to describe my point of view.  “London Walks with Gender, Sex and Class” tells what my commentary focuses on, and I’m still the same person thinking about sex work and other ways women choose to get by, make ends meet or make more money than they would in the usual jobs available to them.  Remember, I got started in the Caribbean 25 years ago listening to poor women planning to migrate to work in Spain, where they had two job-options: live-in maid or sex worker.  Conversations went like this:

Woman 1:  I’m going to be a prostitute, I’d rather die than be someone’s maid.
Woman 2:  I’m going to be a maid, I’d rather die than be a prostitute.

My walks will always include people who sell sex.  For my walk in September’s Totally Thames Festival, “Scratching Out a Living”, I created six characters whose jobs were common amongst the poor in 14th-century London.  One is a laundress who can’t make ends meet unless she also sells sex part-time.  Another prefers picking pockets to selling sex.  The language of the time called these two women “common”; being without a husband was grounds enough to assume the worst.  A third woman is a migrant who manages a regulated brothel with her husband and is on the house’s roster of prostitutes: married but fully professional.  Historical language shows us how women who deviated from the norm were stigmatised. In another walk, “The Backside of Knightsbridge Barracks”, a woman from the country comes to London to work as a maid; she meets a dashing horseguard in the park and becomes his dolly-mop: This term for an unmarried woman having sex with a soldier indicated to listeners of the time that she was “an amateur prostitute”.  She gets pregnant, he helps her out from his paltry pay, and after a couple of years they get permission to marry.  Their daughter grows up, marries and leaves home, but that doesn’t work out and her life ends when Jack the Ripper finds her sleeping in an East End courtyard.  There’s no evidence she ever sold sex, but police and newsmen of the time said she did.  In this same walk Harriette Wilson is an author and demi-rep: this term, composed of “demi” meaning shady or doubtful and “rep” for reputation, indicated Wilson was a certain type of prostitute, who tries to blackmail the Duke of Wellington.  Catherine Walters, courtesan on horseback in Rotten Row, sometimes got the label horsebreaker (another term for prostitute); she lives a long life discreetly listening to old men’s stories and persuading them to contribute to her maintenance.  I’m creating other walks all the time, full of ideas about the women omitted from histories.  And I suppose I’ll never offer a walk that doesn’t have paid sex in it because it wouldn’t be real life.  Sometimes the women are called mistresses, and sometimes they may have managed to preserve their technical virtue by sticking to hand-jobs, but the language always marks them out.

Luttrell Psalter, Add. 42130, British Library

If you come to London and are interested in Plain Talk on the subject of sex work, come on a walk with me.  Selling sex isn’t going to be a special emphasis, but it’s always going to be there, the way food, drink and politics always are.  To know the dates of scheduled walks, follow my blog and see the Walks Calendar tab on the top menu of my website.  Or follow me on Eventbrite: The Naked Anthropologist.  You can also contact me for a private tour, either on the platform ToursByLocals or via the contact-form on my website.  For private tours I’ll do the research required to come up with history of a particular area or person that I can recount on a series of pauses in a walking tour of a few hours.  I like research, and I’m good at it; I do it in the British Library, where during lockdown-years I focused on the late Middle Ages because I was annoyed at the superficiality of commentary on the medieval regulated brothels of Southwark.  When the dearth of references to the existence of working women was a yawning crevasse I took to perusing illuminated manuscripts in a special room, because for a short period illustrators in East Anglia decorated the margins of religious texts with figures: mostly antic, often grotesque, occasionally realistic.  Just above is an example: a detail from the early 14th-century Luttrell Psalter described as “A Lady at her Toilet with her maid”.  Some interpreters of these marginalia go further, however, to say the lady is obviously a prostitute.  You know what they mean by prostitute?  A woman looking at herself in a mirror.  Go figure.

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Where are all the good people to put a stop to this?  –  Joann Meyer

To Molest and Rape

If only there were a concise term for “forcing a woman into a sexual relationship”:

A judge has approved a 10-year [toothless “]protection order[“] against…Glen Trejo…[a cop in Granger, Washington] who [was rewarded with a]…paid…[vac]ation…[for] repeatedly [rap]ing a…woman…often while [wearing his magical clown costume]…Trejo admits…the [rapes], but says [she wanted it]…The woman [fell victim to Trejo after] she went to the police department last year to report a vehicle that had been following her, and Trejo took her report…he…[sometimes ga]ve her money…because…he [knew it would damage her credibility if ]…it [came to light]…

Dangerous Speech

This raid was not “unprecedented”; the precedent was set by the federal campaign of persecution against Michael Lacey & Jim Larkin, which mainstream journalists have pointedly ignored for 6 years:

In an unprecedented raid [on August 11th], local [cops stole] computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home. Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said…the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”  The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said…

The parallels with the Backpage case didn’t stop there:

Joann Meyer, who spent nearly 60 years as a reporter, columnist, editor and associate publisher at The Marion County Record in Kansas, died…a day after the police [illegally raid]ed [her home and] the newspaper’s offices.  She was 98…the coroner…concluded that the stress of the [raid caused her death]…

Mainstream media are claiming the raid was instigated by a well-connected restaurateur, but freelance journalist Marisa Kabas has a better explanation:

What has remained unreported until now is that, prior to the raids, the newspaper had been actively investigating Gideon Cody, Chief of Police for the city of Marion.  They’d received multiple tips alleging he’d retired from his previous job to avoid demotion and punishment over alleged sexual misconduct charges

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#975) 

Given that the term “human trafficking” means whatever busybodies (with or without government powers) want it to mean, it can always be claimed to be “growing”.  In this credulous regurgitation of prohibitionist propaganda, it seems to mostly mean “coerced prostitution”, though the article also pretty clearly states that the so-called “victims” did sex work because they were refugees the Northern Irish government does not allow to work in their chosen professions, and have children to support.  However, this contradiction and confusion is unsurprising given that the rescue industry group in the article also infantilizes adult women with Phds, asserts that 6 = 230, repeats an urban legend as fact, and ignores the fact that sex work advocates and human rights experts told them exploitation would increase under the Swedish Model, but they ignored us and are now apparently trying to use the dying moral panic to get a big cash infusion from the government.

Decentralization (#1212) 

Once bitcoin exchanges got in bed with the government, this was inevitable:

[Roughly]…two-thirds of sex workers have lost access to either a bank account or financial service, while 40 percent have had an account closed within the past year.  Faced with this [discrimination], sex workers have gone in search of an alternative means of both storing wealth and accepting payment.  In cryptocurrency, for a time, it appeared they had found…[a way for] clients to pay discreetly…[and] sex workers a way to bypass the banking system…But…though sending and receiving crypto payments is relatively simple, converting it into dollars is sometimes not.  The typical method is to transfer crypto to an exchange, where earnings are converted into regular money, which is then withdrawn to a bank account…But sex workers are sometimes banned from crypto exchanges too…leaving them st[uck] with [valueless data] they cannot use to pay rent or buy goods…

I smelled this coming when I read Coinbase’s TOS, which is one reason I’ve never used cryptocurrency; it was clear there would never be a dependable, government-proof way to turn it into actual money.

Surplus Women (#1355)

What kind of garbage “journalist” uses women’s murders as an opportunity to moralize via scare quotes?

Baja California’s State Attorney’s Office says…[serial killer] Bryan Rivera is responsible for a fourth murder that occurred in Tijuana while he was in the city last year.  Rivera…is now the subject of extradition proceedings in federal court in Los Angeles.  The Mexican government wants Rivera returned to Tijuana to face murder charges [for]…the deaths of three other…sex workers….[and] they have evidence showing Rivera was in Tijuana when the murder of the fourth woman occurred, and that she was killed in the same way as the other three…

Vulture Watching (#1364)

Texas wants to have its blood and drink it as well:

Salia Issa had just begun her shift as a…[pregnant Texas screw] when she felt the intense pain of what she believed was a contraction…but…prison policy wouldn’t allow her to leave her post until someone could replace her.  No one came for hours.  Issa kept calling for relief, but her supervisor [unsurprisingly claimed]…she was lying…two and a half hours [later]…she was allowed to leave…[and] drove to a nearby hospital, where doctors rushed her into emergency surgery…The baby was delivered stillborn.  If Issa had gotten to the hospital sooner, medical personnel told her, the baby would have survived…the prison agency and the Texas attorney general’s office, which has staked its reputation on “defending the unborn” all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, are arguing the agency shouldn’t be held responsible for the stillbirth because…it’s not clear that Issa’s fetus had rights as a person…

Hey, female cops; how’s that collaboration with the police state working out?

To Molest and Rape (#1364)

Cops should not be allowed anywhere near legal minors:

[Tennessee cop] Tommie Lee House [was arrested for molesting a teenager while wearing his magical clown costume; other cops rooted in his phone and found a nude photo of the same teen taken]…earlier this year…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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I would have been his next target.  –  Elesha Bates

Feminine Pragmatism (#514)

Most reporters are historical ignoramuses who don’t know that up until a century ago, the professions of actress and whore were indistinguishable:

Jane Fonda confessed she agreed to a date with 90-year-old Richard Lugner…[because] he…pa[id] her to accompany him to the Vienna Opera Ball…Fonda said…she needed the money to pay her bills and to support her grandchildren…The 85-year-old joins the list of female celebrities that have [accepted professional dates with]…Lugner…including Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian and Elle MacPherson…

Every sex worker needs money to pay her bills and many need it to support children, but the cops who hunt them and the press who demonize them don’t care, because they aren’t worth $200 million.

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#1185)

Unsupervised kid eats too much candy, gets sick; mom demands politicians DO SOMETHING!

An 11-year-old Staten Island boy was [taken to the emergency room] after [rudely] gobbling up THC gummies [at a family friend’s house]…and now his mom is urging the mayor to do something to pr[otect people from having to teach their kids basic manners]…Veronica Gill noticed her son, Ryan, “acting really strange” after returning home…Gill became concerned when the youngster…[got extremely high]…and [then sick]…After Ryan underwent a series of tests…a urine test revealed he had ingested a considerable amount of THC in the last few hours…Gill was…disturbed to find out that her son had taken the weed-infused gummies [without permission] from a candy drawer at the “straight-laced” party-throwers home…the …friend…[claimed to] “have no idea how the hell this got into my house”…

I’m sure it magically appeared on a grocer’s shelf, where she absent-mindedly purchased it without noting that it cost over $2 per individually-wrapped gummy, and threw it in a drawer for friends’ brats to find while rudely digging in drawers at houses where they don’t live.  Therefore a politician should issue an EDICT proclaiming “No edibles for you, New Yorkers!”

See No Evil (#1201)

Are the Japanese the only people left on Earth who can tell fantasy from reality?

A young man [in Ireland] who downloaded…[hentai] onto his phone has escaped going to jail…after Gardai [rooted through]…his phone after [stealing] it…Davies [is sane and grounded in reality, and] was [therefore]…genuinely shocked when he was told that the images were classed [in Ireland] as child pornography….[despite the fact that they] did not feature real children but were animated images involving [characters resembling] children [to Western eyes]…the…judge…sentenced Davies to 80 hours [slave labor] in lieu of four months in prison…

Panopticon (#1203)

When it comes to surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

From Pasadena, California to Lexington, Kentucky to Menasha, Wisconsin, to Newark, New Jersey, the surveillance company Flock Safety is blanketing American cities with dangerously powerful and unregulated automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras.  While license plate readers have been around for some time, Flock is the first to create a nationwide mass-surveillance system out of its customers’ cameras.  Working with [cop shop]s, [busybody club]s, and other private customers, Flock…runs all plates against state police watchlists and the FBI’s primary criminal database…[it]s goal is to expand to “every city in the United States,” and its cameras are already in use in over 2,000 cities in at least 42 states…Flock is building a giant camera network that records people’s comings and goings across the nation, and then makes that data available for search by any of its law enforcement customers…

I Saw My Brain (#1272)

Another pogrom from the dangerous clown who rules Polk County, Florida:

Over 200 people were arrested [in the latest pogrom against consensual sex from the deranged]…Grady Judd[, who always gives the entrapment schemes sophomoric titles, in this case] “Operation Traffic Stop”…[and then stands in front of reporters playing with himself while vomiting out lurid sexual fantasies about the people he and his costumed hooligans victimized]…

This will continue until the majority of those arrested fight back with lawsuits, or the voters of Polk County get tired of paying the many lawsuits that are already filed against this cretin every year.

To Molest and Rape (#1279)

Copaganda erodes the judgment of the naive:

A [typical and representative Oklahoma cop named Cody Even Cheyenne Kackley] faces charges after…he drove home a drunk woman from a casino and [rap]ed her in a bedroom before her brother walked in…the victim…was [heavily drinking] at [a]…Casino…and had called her brother for a ride home…[when cops decided to arrest her] and let her go…she then asked Kackley for a ride home, [foolishly] thinking it was safe “since he was a police officer”…

To Molest and Rape (#1315)

As usual, this monster’s handlers made a conscious choice to let him run wild, despite red flags:

Elesha Bates…submitted Ring camera video to the Gwinnett County Police Department and the Doraville Police Department in December as evidence after…[typical and representative cop] Miles Bryant was stalking her…Bryant…is now [suspected of raping and murdering]…16-year-old Susana Morales [during the time he was stalking Bates, who]…has known…Bryant since fifth grade…in March…shortly after she [met him again]…he showed up at her…apartment unannounced and uninvited…[she came home from work to find her] door…kicked in…her neighbor…“[told] me that there was like a guy coming and putting his ear to my door and…stuff like that…she said she saw him trying to break in”…Bryant showed up at her door again in October and two more times in December…the Ring video [she gave to cops] showed Bryant stopping by in December while she was hiding inside her apartment with her boyfriend…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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I’m quite used to the prison making all these decisions for us, because we are still state property.  –  Desiree Romero

The Course of a Disease (#1084)

You’ll have to forgive me for finding this terribly amusing:

The number of [incalls, labeled “]illegal brothels[” by French police]…has tripled in the past two years…[because the “Swedish model” exposes]…street prostitution [to debilitating police harassment]…With hotels and the concierges of apartment blocks now extremely vigilant about rooms [rented by sex workers out of fear they will be]…pros[ecuted as “]pimps[“, sex workers] are increasingly opting for detached houses in…the [suburbs of Paris]…police…[of course vomited out bizarre fantasies about “sex trafficking”, but this outcome was predicted by those warning about the consequences of the so-called “]Nordic model[“] of [asymmetric criminalization]…

Torture Chamber (#1102)

Your “leaders” refer to this atrocity as “correction”:

Arizona [prisons are]…inducing the labor of pregnant prisoners against their will, according to three women [violated thus]…all three…were induced before their due dates…and…all three…were told…they were being induced because it was a policy…they believe it is being implemented to reduce liability for the prison system…two of the women said they were receiving medical bills…a common [indignity inflicted upon]…people [condemned to]…Arizona prisons

To Molest and Rape (#1181)

Expecting sociopaths to “think about what they did wrong” amounts to criminal negligence:

[UK cop]s who preyed upon women and posted homemade pornography to social media are among hundreds allowed to keep their jobs…[as] the c[itizenry]…continues to be plagued by [violent, sociopathic cops]…Most received little more than a slap on the wrist after their behaviour came to light, with some facing no repercussions whatsoever…one former chief constable [admitted that these hundreds of cases are just] “the tip of the iceberg”…at least 921 [cops were] investigated for [online] conduct…[and] texts…since the start of 2017.  Yet only six per cent…led to…dismiss[al, though]…many [involved rape]…sexual [coercion] and [harassment.  Cops who saw any consequences at all]…routinely escaped with…“reflective practice” – thinking about what they have done – or “management action”, which amounts to [stern words from] a superior…in…many cases [cops]…faced “no action” at all for predatory…behaviour…[including the] target[ing of] vulnerable women…and stalk[ing]

The Mob Rules (#1231)

Most commentary on this censorship law ignores its dangerous enforcement mechanism:

Laurie Schlegel is…a…[“]sex addiction[” profiteer turned pro-censorship]…Louisiana [politician who succeeded in]…pass[ing a law demand]ing age verification for any website that contains 33.3% or more pornographic material…[Even though the law adequately defines neither “pornography” nor how this percentage is supposed to be measured, that doesn’t matter because it is to be enforced by nuisance lawsuit like the Texas abortion statute SCOTUS has chosen to ignore]…Louisiana [residents can seek to cash in by claiming in a lawsuit that] “children are getting access to pornography”…

The Vultures Descend (#1253)

An important step toward ending this front in the ruinous culture war:

For the first time, retail pharmacies…will be allowed to offer abortion pills in the United States under a regulatory change made [on January 3rd] by the Food and Drug Administration…Until now, mifepristone…could be dispensed only by a few mail-order pharmacies or by specially certified doctors or clinics.  Under the new…rules…patients will still need a prescription…but any pharmacy that agrees to accept those prescriptions…can dispense the pills in its stores and by mail order…the F.D.A. [also] removed the in-person requirement…The second drug in the regimen, misoprostol, has never been as tightly restricted as mifepristone and is used for many different medical conditions; it is easily obtained at pharmacies through a typical prescription process…

The Cop Myth (#1292)

Cop deals with disagreement exactly as he normally does, and the press is shocked:

[A] Glasgow [Kentucky]…co[p was arrested] on New Year’s Day…Joseph Ramey…rep[ea]tedly assaulted h[is girlfriend, then]…handcuffed her…and held her against her will…

Without Let or Hindrance (#1298)

These abuses are for some reason finally getting the attention they’ve needed for a generation:

Once considered a last resort reserved for parents who abandon their children, the involuntary and permanent termination of parental rights [by the State] now hangs over every mother and father accused of any[thing the State chooses to call] abuse or neglect…No state terminates parental rights more frequently or [quickly] than West Virginia, [where]…one in 50 children [w]ere [violently and non-consensually abducted from]…both of their parents from 2015 to 2019…most…within 11 months of [the state abducting them] from their home for the first time…Nationally, the parents of about 327,000 children [had] their rights [ripped from them by the State] from 2015 to 2019…one-fifth…in less than a year.  Over the past 25 years, [the State has]…increasingly turned to this ultimate consequence, partly in response to Clinton-era federal policies that…[financially incentivize these abduc]tions.  According to a recent study, the [number of children permanently abducted by the State]…doubled from 2000 to 2016.  One in 100 U.S. children — disproportionately Black and Native American — [are thus abducted]…through the [pretext of] child welfare…before they turn 18…Most of those [cases were justified by]…allegations of neglect, [largely] a [dysphemism for]…poverty…Just 15% of [these cases were based in]…concerns about physical or sexual abuse…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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The Best Option

I recently received a letter from a new reader which, among other things, asked why I became a sex worker, and volunteered a number of suggested motives, none of which (other than “Was it the money?”) made much sense to me.  This was my reply.

Everyone has to have money to live, and unlike square jobs, escorting involves neither bosses, nor licenses, nor “permits”, nor piss tests, nor arbitrary rules, nor uniforms, nor “zoning”, nor “reporting” to anyone, nor having to ask permission to be sick (or to run errands during the day), nor creepy surveillance of my personal life, nor the government stealing a big chunk of my income before I even see it and then forcing me to ask for some of it back, nor any of the myriad other oppressions or indignities most people just accept as the cost of material existence.  Sex work is much more lucrative per unit time than any other honest work requiring no degree, certificate, or title of nobility, and its flexibility is almost unparalleled even in comparison with other modes of self-employment.  In short, I chose sex work because it allows me to live my life with the minimum amount of interruption and distraction from what I actually want to do, and you’ll find that’s a pretty common theme running through the lives of the great majority of us.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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It won’t only be sex workers who lose in the end.  –  Heather Berg

Confined and Controlled

“Progressives” want everyone forced into collectives so they can be “managed”:

…the [currently-popular progressive] narrative [is] that…gig workers…should be done away with rather than understood as a vanguard.  This narrative [pretend]s that gig work is new and newly exploitative.  Its primary goal is to bring gig workers back into full-time employee status…[including in its] relationships to the state…But…sex workers’ stories belie the idea that gig workers are dumbly lured by false promises of flexibility.  Many sex workers seek out sex work precisely because it does not follow the rules of full-time jobs.  People…whose lives can’t accommodate schedules bosses set might pursue sex work because it means better conditions or because they find it impossible to get and keep straight jobs…freedom from a boss dictating the conditions of your work can make the workday materially better…Sex work prohibitions…attempt to reign [sic] in th[ose]…who use sex work to achieve this kind of freedom…

Though the article is heavily larded with academic jargon, it still makes some good points.

If Men Were Angels

Parents should keep their kids far away from both cops and “youth pastors”:

An Arlington [Washington] youth pastor has been charged with…child rape for…[molesting a 15-year-old] girl…Kendal Kippen…worked at Jake’s House Church in 2017 and 2018…[under] his father…the lead pastor…In September 2020…[someone] report[ed both Kippen and]…church [leaders]…includ[ing] the [elder Kippen, because they] were attempting to h[ide] the situation…the victim…[has] filed a civil lawsuit against Kippen and Jake’s House…

To Molest and Rape (#926)

When the victim is a small child, rapist cops sometimes get their comeuppance:

A [typical and representative] police chief in Pennsylvania may spend more than three decades behind bars for repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting a child relative of his friend…Brent Getz [will] serve a sentence of 16 to 32 years in jail…three years of state probation…and [permanent condemnation to the] sex offender…registr[y]…his co-defendant…Gregory Wagner…is…the victim[‘s uncle].  The assaults took place in his home from 2007, when the victim was 4, and continued until 2012…

Creepy Coppers

The people the government empowers to police your sexuality:

A [typical and representative] Florida [cop]…appeared in court…to face a child pornography charge…Christopher James Chappell [appears to have bought pictures or video]…in…a…[tangible,] shipped [format rather than the now-typical]…inter[net form]…

Micromanagement (#1213)

Any information you give to cops can and will be used against you:

A 76-year-old California man accused of two decades-old murders was arrested after his DNA was collected from a breathalyzer during an unrelated traffic stop…James Gary…was charged with murder…in the 1996 killing of Winifred Douglas…who…was…strangled and [beaten]…Additional charges are expected in the 1980 killing of Latrelle Lindsay…[who] was [raped, beaten]…and [strangled.  Cops]…determined in 2012 that the DNA profile from the [Douglas] case matched a piece of evidence in the [Lindsay] case, [but] no suspect…was identified [at the time]…

For every actual malefactor this kind of tactic catches, there are dozens of ordinary people harassed for minor “crimes” or framed for major ones.

The Mob Rules (#1241)

The number of laws empowering busybodies to harass victims with nuisance lawsuits will only keep growing until they’re ruled unconstitutional:

California…Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a co[pycat]…law patterned after a Texas anti-abortion law [but for]…gun control…the…law allow[s anyone] to sue anyone who distributes [guns California has defined as] illegal…parts that can be used to build weapons, guns without serial numbers, or .50-caliber rifles…[since they rely on the same mechanism, encouraging nuisance lawsuits from opportunists]…California’s law will automatically be invalidated if the Texas law is eventually ruled unconstitutional…An unusual combination of gun owner advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union have criticized Newsom for creating what they said amounts to a bounty system to encourage such lawsuits.  The ACLU called California’s law “an attack on the constitution” for deliberately trying to sidestep judicial review…and for undermining due process rights…

Thought Control (#1253)

I never would’ve thought my first profession would become as much a target for authoritarians as my second:

Library workers across Oklahoma’s Metropolitan Library System (MLS) were shocked…after receiving instructions to avoid using the word “abortion” and not to help patrons locate abortion-related information on either library computers or their own devices.  Workers were [threatened with]…penalties under the state’s abortion laws…The message also [warn]s library workers to be wary of people who try to trick staff into giving them information on how to obtain an abortion so they can report them to [cop]s…The notes also say that librarians can direct patrons toward medical databases, to a computer to run their own search, or to state statutes if patrons have questions about laws pertaining to the topic.  The…[new policy directly] contradict[s] the American Library Association’s Principles of Intellectual Freedom

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