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Posts Tagged ‘psychology’

Wicked Problem

Posted in Current Events, History, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on October 18, 2021| 1 Comment »

I scan a lot of articles every day in search of material for this blog, so I simply don’t have time to read most of them thoroughly even if I feature them in a news column; even if they’re interesting I generally read most of them in a somewhat cursory fashion, stopping to read more thoroughly whenever I hit a point that seems important.  And if a piece is longer than 1000 words or so, I’ll generally start skipping at about that point to see if there’s anything of note further down.  So when I find myself reading an article in its entirety, that is noteworthy in itself, as in the case of this post:

The parents of the 1980s and 1990s were Baby Boomers…until recently…the most panicky and gullible generation in American History…They grew up sheltered, coddled, [and] emotionally stultified…by PTSD-ridden survivors of World War 2 in atomized nuclear families…without nearby relatives…disconnected from the filial and familial bonds that had historically characterized social institutions…under the most suffocating and paranoid propaganda campaign ever undertaken in the West up to that point…Is it any wonder that this generation fell for every conspiracy theory that could be cooked up to fleece them? Is it any wonder that, once they had children they got paranoid? Or that, as parents, they freaked out about the same sex/drugs/rock’n’roll culture that they enjoyed and championed in their youth? Or that they believed that the risk for child-abduction in the 80s was both new and ubiquitous? Or that they believed that there was a Satanist behind every bush and that one in four young girls are being raped in occult rituals so that their babies might be sacrificed at a Black Mass?…Gen X and the Millennials grew up watching this insanity, and the State power that followed it. When a child claims (or is claimed by others) to be abused, the State comes in and runs through a bureaucratic checklist, frequently resulting in long-term fracturing of families, sending children into a…system where they are more likely to be abused than if they stayed with relatives or friends, all while the State was willing and able to violate every point of law and civil liberties at the merest rumor of abuse, domestic violence, drug use, or sexual or religious deviance…They had to submit to more onerous interference in their personal lives…and/or submitting to the most invasive surveillance state in world history…People in such a situation don’t have many children, and tend to be too fearful as parents to let their children actually grow up…

That’s a good taste of it, but I think you’ll find the whole piece worth your time.

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Guest Column: The Consequences of Hysteria

Posted in Guest Columns, Perception, tagged , , , , , on October 11, 2021| 1 Comment »

I’ve mentioned my friend, Dr. David Ley, in this blog many times before, and he wrote a guest essay for me back in ’14.  I recently saw him tweeting about this, and upon my request he expanded those thoughts into this new guest essay.

In 2020, the world saw a tragedy unfold in Atlanta, Georgia, as Robert Aaron Long committed multiple murders at massage parlors.  Long later identified himself as a “sex addict” and claimed that he engaged in these crimes in order to rid himself of temptations.  When arrested, Long was allegedly also on his way to Tampa, Florida, in order to commit similar violent attacks targeted at aspects of the adult film industry.  Long pled guilty to some charges, but still faces trial in Atlanta for other murders.  In September, 2021, a former Marine burst into a Florida family’s home, executing and torturing the family of four.  The assailant identified to police that he believed the family held a kidnapped, sex-trafficked female child, and he was intending to rescue her.  In August 2021, Instagram influencer and former stripper Mercedes Morr was slain by an obsessed male fan, apparently enraged by the idea she had betrayed him to be with another man.  In December, 2016, a North Carolina man fired multiple shots into a Washington, DC pizza restaurant, having come to the restaurant in order to rescue children that he believed were held there for sexual-trafficking and exploitation.  This theory had abounded in conservative media, connecting Democratic politicians and public figures to conspiracy theories alleging rings of pedophiles hid throughout society and government, secretly abusing and exploiting children.

Sexual anxiety and fear is a favorite target of media hyperbole, as it serves as an easy means to create uncertainty and interest in potential consumers.  Suggesting to an audience that their spouse may be unfaithful, or even that the viewer/reader is not a skilled lover, are guaranteed ways to hook an audience, and keep them reading, watching or clicking.  Claims of sex-trafficking, and cries to “save the kids” are remarkably effective ploys to raise money, has been demonstrated numerous times with groups such as Operation Underground Railroad, where daring raids to save children are staged to raise donations, though the activities achieve little and may actually promote children being put at risk.  Unfortunately, while these tactics trigger donations, salacious interest or mild insecurity in many, these tactics can trigger intense panic, even delusions, in persons with severe underlying mental illness.  In the 1990’s, media sex panic over Satanic ritual abuse sex cults led to countless individuals developing false memories that they themselves had been sexually abused by secret cults of brainwashing Satan-worshiping doctors, daycare providers and neighbors.

Earlier this year, I appeared on The Dr. Phil Show, where a woman was interviewed who held beliefs that she had been sex-trafficked, raped, and brainwashed by a host of assailants, ranging from Beto O’Rourke to Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, and even her adult son.  My role on the show was to gently try to invite her to consider that her beliefs might be inaccurate, and less important than her desire to re-establish a relationship with her son.  During the recovered memory movement and the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic, families were destroyed as people developed false memories.  Many later recanted these memories, and had to try to restore their relationships, though sadly, many did not and families remained sundered on the basis of these delusional beliefs.  I found it fascinating how this woman’s beliefs in the men who had abused her reflected the names and headlines of sex scandals, suggesting how these names and stories had infiltrated her vulnerable thinking.

Media sex panics do far more than just sell books and commercials. They destroy lives, families, careers.  They affect the thinking of vulnerable individuals, who act based on those panics, and the degree to which those hyperbolic claims infiltrate their disturbed thinking.  Sadly, some of those individuals act in dangerous, violent ways.  We must begin to discuss ways to hold the media at large responsible for the consequences of their exploitation of sexual anxiety.  Perhaps then we can invite the media to temper their clickbait driven reporting with an understanding of the potential impact of their words on vulnerable minds, and people who become innocent targets of their sensationalism.

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The October Country

Posted in Biography, Favorites, tagged , , on October 4, 2021| 3 Comments »

October Country, that country where it is always turning late in the year.  That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain…  –  Ray Bradbury

My 2011 essay “Moondance” was mostly an examination of the psychological and philosophical consequences of modern people’s disconnection with nature, but it also included the following:

October usually enjoys a particular sort of cool weather, a crisp breeziness quite unlike that one might experience on an early spring day or a comparatively warm winter one; this is October Weather, my name for that special atmospheric condition I associate with turning leaves and the imminent arrival of my birthday. In New Orleans I was often cheated of it…but when [it] did arrive I was filled with a sort of wild, witchy joy; I wanted to stay out late, to suck the fragrant air into my lungs and fly through the night under the harvest moon with my hair streaming behind me. As a young teen I often sneaked out in the middle of the night to enjoy such weather, and after I arrived at UNO I would wander about the campus on such evenings or ride my bicycle to midnight movies…And though as I age my reaction to October Weather isn’t nearly as strong as it was in my teens and twenties, on clear, cool October nights I still feel the urge to go out and dance in the dry leaves under the moon.

I’m now a decade further from those days than I was when I penned those lines, and my days of dancing under the moon are long gone; each October takes me still further, and now my reaction to October weather is less euphoria and more blessed relief from the discomfort and anxiety produced by the excessive light and heat of summer.  October is more than just my native month; it is my native country, and the time in which I have always been most at peace and (paradoxically for a time associated with haunts, dying vegetation and the dying year) felt most alive.  I’ve always had a taste for the weird and macabre, for spooky tales and shadow-shows, for rain and dry leaves and pumpkins, for black cats and the imagery of wild woods, sunless seas, and catacombs; I was “Goth” long before either the term or the subculture existed.  So it should be no surprise to anyone that I gravitated first toward a profession associated with musty books, and later toward one associated with the night, nor that as I aged I moved my habitation westward (the direction historically associated with death) to finally settle in the region of this continent with the least sunlight and the most rain.  These days, I mostly celebrate this Month of Months with the watching of horror movies, culminating in my birthday; if you’d like to help me celebrate by sending a token of your esteem, I’d very much welcome that.  And as you’ve probably already guessed, many of the selections are very much in keeping with the season.

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Diary #587

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on September 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Now that I’m semi-retired and living full-time at Sunset, I schedule all of my appointments (professional, medical, beauty, etc) during the same two-day period every three weeks, so I don’t have to drive into Seattle more than is necessary; of course there are occasional exceptions (such as for all-night appointments and the like), but in general I’ve been able to keep things clustered closely together.  And on most visits, Lorelei and I can synchronize our schedules enough for a Who night.  TV and movie watching are social experiences for me; I rarely watch anything longer than a music video unless I’m in the company of someone I can discuss them with during or after, and if I happen to love my viewing companion it’s even better!  That’s why I still get excited about Who night with Lorelei despite the fact that I’m watching nearly every night with Grace; watching with a different person creates a different experience for me, and the different intoxicants (edibles at home with Grace and a sonic screwdriver when watching at Lorelei’s) probably make a difference as well.

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In the News (#1173)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2021| 1 Comment »

Denying rights and enabling trafficking are the same thing.
–  Jean Bruggeman

Down Under

The events which eventually led to decriminalization in New South Wales:

Libertarianism Happens To People

Why do people refuse to see injustice until it’s inflicted on them?

…Alyssa Reid [was]…a faculty member of [James Madison University], where she met a student named Kathryn Lese…in the spring of 2013…The following year, Lese graduated from JMU…the pair…eventually…became [lovers]…for two and a half years, living together for much of that time.  The relationship ended badly, [then]…almost a year later, on December 4, 2018, Lese filed a Title IX report with JMU…and Reid was accused of engaging in a nonconsensual relationship with her former girlfriend.  JMU suspended Reid from teaching.  Then, following a hearing where Reid was given no meaningful opportunity to rebut the allegations against her…the university de[cid]ed she had violated an aspect of the sexual misconduct policy that had not even existed during the time period in question…Reid is now suing JMU, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, which pushed colleges and universities to adopt unfair sexual misconduct adjudication policies during the…Obama…presidency…Reid herself strongly believed in the [policies at the time]…but becoming the target of a false accusation has broadened her perspective…

Torture Chamber

“Inappropriate contact with inmate” is such a nice way to say “rape of a caged woman”:

Richard Wade Sanders…was arrested [and charged with raping a caged woman.  He was also fired from his job as a screw]…

The article was so totally larded with euphemisms and circumlocution, only five words survived my edit.

What Were You All Waiting For? (#568)

About damned time, considering they backed Amnesty six years ago:

…[Cops] love to be the saviour, to do a raid and to rescue the little girls.  The criminalisation of sex work is tailor-made for that sort of project.  [They’ve] been given…carte blanche to stroll into any building or business where they think sex work is taking place, to pull over cars, or to arrest people on the street in order to investigate an on-going crime that they [claim] is being committed…and [cops] never want…a [power] taken away from them…sex work…[is] a form of work.  The people who disagree…usually give moral[istic]…reasons for why they think that.  But…FNUSA is grounded in representing workers who are doing dirty, dangerous, unpleasant work.  No little girl dreams of being a garment factory worker…or…a poultry processor…yet that is what some little girls end up doing, which is why we must put protections and regulations in place that make their environments less dangerous…even if it’s an industry that little girls don’t dream of going into, all sex workers deserve protection…and we don’t protect workers when we criminalise an industry.  We leave them…out in the cold…

Out of Control (#954)

Spooge-based sexual assaults are growing worse:

Thomas Stemen…who stabbed a woman with…a semen-filled syringe last year was sentenced [to 10 years in prison]…In February 2020, surveillance video showed [that Stemen] cre[pt up] behind a young woman…returning a shopping cart at a…grocery store…and stabbed her…Stemen…also…[tried to stab] a 17-year-old girl in the same supermarket, but he was unsuccessful…Doctors prescribed [the victim] a 30-day mix of preventive medication as she did not know what she [was injected] with, but…police searched Stemen’s home and vehicle, and found similar syringes were filled with semen…that…matched Stemen’s DNA…

The writing of this article is rather odd, including referring to the 52-year-old Stemens as “elderly”.

Torture Chamber (#1123) 

Stop faking!

…on May 6, 2019…[Tanya] Suarez…was arrested for being under the influence of [methamphetamine]…she was “acting bizarrely and responding to internal stimuli” during the booking process….[and] started clawing at her eyes.  [Screws]…cut…off her clothes and her acrylic nails with scissors.  The…nails cracked, leaving jagged edges…Suarez told the nurse she was bipolar…took psychiatric medication…[and] was having delusions…she…[was locked in a] bare concrete…hole…left naked…and…gouge[d] out her [own] eyes…[while a sow stood at the door recording the whole thing on her cell phone]…“for over a minute…and…never once…intervened in a[ny]…substantial way”…Six minutes later, the jail video shows a different [screw] walking up to Suarez’s cell and looking through the window, then watching as Suarez removed her right eye…[the screw then casually walked away to fetch more screws, who were eventually followed by medical staff after Suarez had gouged out her left eye.  After both eyeballs were on the floor and Suarez was bleeding profusely from the empty sockets, the screws waited another five to ten minutes to actually do anything]…

I Spy (#1155)

Cops and politicians think barfing out the word “children” excuses any tyranny:

Facebook’s plans to allow encrypted messaging across all its platforms could prevent the [government from snooping in millions of people’s private communications]…every year…[so executive cop] Rob Jones…[is claiming] the social media company’s goal of rolling out end-to-end encryption will stop [cops] from accessing “incisive intelligence” that allows them to rescue abused children…[meanwhile] the home secretary, Priti Patel…step[ped] up her [own] international campaign against encryption…

Nothing infuriates violent, self-important busybodies more than the knowledge that there are private affairs that are none of their business, so they keep trying to convince the masses to share their view of secrecy as a “crime” in and of itself with grossly-exaggerated scare stories, usually involving sex.

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Diary #584

Posted in Diary, tagged , , , on September 7, 2021| 3 Comments »

One of the really nice things about living on the Pacific side of the Olympic peninsula is that it’s nearly always cooler than the rest of the state, except in winter (when it’s usually milder).  In Oklahoma, there was about a 50oC range between typical summer highs and typical winter lows; at Sunset, the range is only about 30oC.  During that awful heat wave at the end of June, we were a few degrees cooler than Seattle and were out of it almost two days earlier, and when I drive home it’s not unusual to feel perfectly comfortable in shirtsleeves in Seattle, only to feel distinctly chilly when I get out of the car at Sunset.  And virtually as soon as the Dog Days were over two weeks ago, the temperature dropped so much I closed my office window, which has been open since early June.  At the moment I’m writing this, my weather app shows a 6oC difference between Seattle and Sunset, and that’s not especially unusual.  So it’s beginning to feel a bit autumnal here already, and a few days ago I actually wore a sweater one day; in two more weeks the autumn will arrive in earnest, and not a day too soon for me.

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Price Point

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , on September 2, 2021| 2 Comments »

How do escorts decide how much to charge?  I can’t seem to find much correlation between rate and my satisfaction; I’ve seen amazing women charging a third of what I paid for a terrible session with a far less attractive provider.  Do they target a certain number of dollars a month?  A certain number of clients a week?  I’ve definitely known ladies to raise rates if they’re busy but I’ve never seen them lower rates.

Most escorts charge whatever is typical for their area, but some choose to charge a bit less to attract more business or a bit more to work less while still making what they need or want to earn.  It’s interesting that you seek some correlation with quality, when that isn’t true of any business; quality of widely-available goods and services often has very little to do with what one pays for them.  Every person has bills and other financial goals, and anyone not fortunate enough to have a trust fund has to figure out what they need to do to meet those needs and goals; why would you expect pros to differ from amateurs in that respect?  And why in the world would you expect ladies to ever lower their rates, especially in a time of higher-than-normal inflation?  Would you ever go into your boss and ask him to pay you less, or if you have a business would you lower your rates (outside of some kind of marketing ploy)?  Unless your business model is a “cheapest in town” one like Wal-mart, that does nothing but create the appearance of desperation, and in any luxury service that can be severely detrimental to business (not to mention the provider’s mental health).

(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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Missing Parts

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, tagged , on August 26, 2021| 5 Comments »

It’s probably difficult for people under 40 to imagine the frustration of being unable to complete a multi-part story due to the conclusion being unavailable.  But in the days before home video, there was no way to see missed episodes of a TV show except by finding it in syndication and waiting until the missing stories were shown again.  And in the days before Amazon and other online stores, it could often be extraordinarily difficult to find the missing issues of a comic book or serialized magazine story, especially if one lived in a small town or minor city with only one library and few if any places that sold used books.  Add OCD to that mixture, and I think you can probably grasp how frustrating it was for me as a child and teenager when months would go by without a given title appearing on any comic book racks I visited, and when the comic at last reappeared it was a new story because for some reason the distributors had apparently skipped, one, two, or even three issues.  Or I’d anxiously look forward to the next in a series of novels, only to discover that our library didn’t have a copy and the only accessible bookstore told me it was out of print.  Because of this I developed an aversion to multi-part comic book stories and multi-volume novels, and by the time I had grown into an independent adult, I was strongly averse to beginning any story I was unsure I’d be able to finish.  It became my habit to buy entire series of books I wanted to read all at once whenever possible, and when it wasn’t possible I’d diligently search every possible source until I found whatever I needed to complete a set, even if it meant driving around for hours.  And due to more than one instance of a network cancelling a show I was enjoying with a complex story left incomplete (American Gothic and Farscape leap immediately to mind), I generally won’t start a new TV series until it’s concluded and I know I can get the entire set; I imagine a special circle of Hell for corporations which release the first few seasons of a show I want and then suddenly stop before finishing the job (Disney is notorious for this, but Warner can be nearly as bad).  So when TV series started using long, interconnected arcs in the late ’80s, I was not at all happy about it; though many of my friends enjoyed The X-Files, I never watched it because the first two episodes I tried to watch were both part of longer arcs and therefore made little sense to me, and in VHS days buying an entire TV series was prohibitively expensive.  Now that I can in most cases easily buy an entire series on DVD, my view of long story arcs has changed; upon rewatching the last three seasons of classic Doctor Who (the first of the series to employ such an arc) I found I enjoyed them much more than in the days when there was no way to ensure I could see them all, and in the correct order.  But I still won’t invest the time and emotional energy into new shows until and unless I’m dead sure I won’t be left in the lurch.

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Day of the Dogs

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on August 23, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Because my brain insists on being contrary, while a lot of people I know were extremely stessed out last summer, I was actually doing a lot better than usual.  This was largely due to the fact that I was extremely busy working on my bathhouse project, and therefore much too focused on important, positive developments for my typical summer anxiety to get me as knotted up as usual.  This isn’t to say it was completely absent; it just took a different form than it usually does.  Rather than manifesting as a nearly-constant agitation which waxes and wanes depending on other conditions, it mostly stayed trapped below the surface unless someone obstructed my work, at which time it exploded in the offender’s face like an incompetently-opened champagne bottle.  But this year the work progressed much more slowly, with the result that I found myself displaying the usual symptoms: restlessness, agitation, troubled sleep and nightmares even under the influence, worrying about everything and anything, aversion to leaving my home, pointless procrastination, mild writer’s block, excessive frustration and annoyance with any interruption to my routine, and other curious writhing of the snakes in my head.  But today marks the end of the Dog Days, and as we pass through September my brain will start to relax.  The government’s obsession with fucking around with perfectly-good time zones means the sun will still be up far later than it should be until a whole damned week into November, but at least the total amount of light per day will have contracted back within my autumnal brain’s capacity to handle it, even if it is distributed so as to offend my sensibilities for weeks longer than necessary.

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In the News (#1164)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2021| 4 Comments »

The myth of sex addiction is a pathological view of male sexuality, sexual diversity, non-monogamy, and non-normative sexual desire.  –  David Ley

Here We Go Again 

Prohibitionism never, ever changes:

…in the early 20th century…prostitution became seen [by busybodies] as a social evil that concerned a wide range of [people who were completely univolved in it]…evangelical Christians, feminists, business leaders and medical experts demanded immediate and unrelenting repression of [sex work]…self-styled “abolitionists” in both the United States and the United Kingdom gained public support for their efforts by [spreading propaganda about a fantasized epidemic] of “white slavery”…the legislation they produced was antithetical to prostitutes’ interests…policies that sanctioned state control and punishment of prostitutes flourished…[but] rather than eliminating prostitution, the anti-prostitution movement simply changed the nature of the sex trade…and…subjected [all women] to increased state control.  During World War I, the “American Plan” authorized the arrest, inspection and detention of women suspected of carrying venereal disease…surveillance of women in the name of public health increasingly committed the U.S. to a “neo-regulationist” prostitution policy that controlled women’s bodies…

The article has some interesting information, but if you notice the faint reek of Swedish thinking (as if some cretin had stuffed used toilet paper down between the sofa cushions), it’s not your imagination.

Traffic Jam (#619)

You may remember that I called this as bullshit ten years ago:

St. Paul [Minnesota sow] Heather Weyker…[fabricated] an interstate sex trafficking ring run by Somali refugees…result[ing] in 30 indictments, 9 trials, and 0 convictions.  Hamdi Mohamud, then a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia, found herself caught up in that scheme in 2011, when one of Weyker’s witnesses, Muna Abdulkadir, tried to attack her and her friends at knifepoint.  Mohamud called the police…Weyker…arrested Mohamud and her friends for allegedly tampering with a federal witness, and Mohamud subsequently spent two years in jail before the trumped-up charges were dismissed…but…since [Weyker framed all those victims]…as part of a federal task force, she is entitled to absolute immunity and cannot be sued…Mohamud hopes to change that…by asking the Supreme Court to hear her case, which she made official last week…

No Difference (#888) 

American puritanism is a pox on the entire world:

One of the world’s most restrictive “anti-pornography” laws, the indecency statute passed by Uganda in 2014, has been struck by the nation’s Constitutional Court as unconstitutional…the law was “quashed” following pressure from women’s rights groups, with a panel of five judges unanimously ruling “that sections of the law that defined pornographic offenses, including a ban on ‘indecent’ clothing, were unconstitutional”…the…law…was [typically]…used for morality policing and led to…song lyrics and music videos…be[ing] labeled pornographic…[with] the…artists criminally liable…the [censorship law and an anti-LGBT law were passed due to lobbying by]…American evangelicals…[especially] the…International House of Prayer…the parent ministry of Exodus Cry…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1033) 

It’s always a pleasure to watch experts trash harmful sex myths:

…it’s important to recognize that the concept of sex addiction was introduced…in the 1980’s during the HIV/AIDS crisis.  As…a society, we were terrified of sexual excess, of non-monogamy, of casual sex, of sex outside relationships, and of gay male sex…It is not by accident…that gay men get diagnosed as sex addicts…around three times more than anybody else.  The second very large group…are people struggling with a moral conflict over their sexual desires…[due to growing] up in religious household or communities where they were taught that any sex other than hetero sex within marriage is a sin…the third group…[consists of] men who get in trouble for sexual behavior…who self-identify as sex addicts to avoid responsibility for those behaviors…going to sex workers is…literally a diagnostic criterion in the sex addiction screening test that many therapists use…sex workers are [therefore] framed as analogous to either a drug or a drug dealer…self-destructive things that help people destroy their lives…

Welcome to the Future (#1052)

Prohibition by human idiots is bad enough:

Over the past two decades, the US…has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into developing and maintaining state-level prescription drug databases…In the past few years…a single [fascist collusion] called Appriss has…merg[ed] the[se] into…a…national prescription drug registry…[managed by] algorithms to generate “data insights” and…[accessing] huge reservoirs of data outside state drug registries to arrive at them.  NarxCare…is Appriss’…“analytics tool”…that purports to instantly and automatically identify a patient’s risk of misusing opioids…the software mines state registries for [so-called] red flags indicating that she has engaged in “drug shopping” behavior…the[n]…assigns each patient a unique, comprehensive Overdose Risk Score…Appriss is adamant that a NarxCare score is not meant to supplant a doctor’s diagnosis.  But physicians ignore these numbers at their peril.  Nearly every state now uses Appriss software…and most legally require physicians and pharmacists to consult them…on penalty of losing their license.  In some states, p[igs]…can also [root in this database]…without a warrant…to prosecute both doctors and patients…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#1096)

Sex workers and allies speak out about Nick Kristof’s latest anti-sex crusade:

Kristof’s “The Children of Pornhub” — a…[propaganda screed] dropped as 2020 was winding to a close…triggered the removal of millions of videos from Pornhub and led to both Mastercard and Visa cutting ties with the adult industry giant…protecting…l[egal minor]s [ca]n’t  [be accomplished with] sweeping legislation and widespread content moderation, which endanger the safety and income of sex workers [and the civil liberties of everyone]…“Treating child sexual abuse as a moral failing is the wrong approach and is harmful to sex workers,” [says] Jeremy Malcolm, director of the child protection organization Prostasia Foundation…“dealing with [child sexual abuse] through a harm reduction lens is far more effective and less likely to [be used to cloak]…intended [attacks] on marginalized communities”…

Legal Is as Legal Does (#1151) 

It looks like Victoria is about to become the world’s fourth jurisdiction to achieve decriminalization:

Victoria will join a growing number of states by decriminalising sex work…the…government announced it would begin a two-year legislative overhaul, starting with the removal of offences and criminal penalties for consensual sex work, with the aim of having it passed by Parliament by the end of the year…sex work will be regulated through existing government agencies and…laws will be updated to support a decriminalised system…Victoria will join New Zealand, the Northern Territory and NSW…

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