Last week, one of my online friends asked if it was ethical to buy a used car from someone who was an overt racist. I told him certainly, if it was a good car at a fair price. I then pointed out that every one of us does business with dozens of racists & people with even worse character traits every day; we just don’t know it. One of the costs of living in a complex modern society is that you know zero about 99% of the people you need to interact with. How does a merchant know anything about the character of most of the people who buy things from his store? He doesn’t, and that’s OK. Here’s a personal example: There’s a very good chance that any given woman I interact with in public supports the sending of armed thugs to rape, rob and cage me and most of the people I love. If I had to stop interacting with such people I would simply have to stay home and never buy anything (NB: I say “woman” because studies show far more women than men are in favor of the government dispatching armed thug rape squads to destroy the lives of other women). If a person’s or company’s behavior offends you and you can get the same service or product from another who doesn’t, by all means go to the other. But in most cases you either don’t know or else there’s no real alternative, and you’ll harm yourself more by obsessing over this than your one-person boycott could possibly ever do to induce the offender to change their ways.
Posts Tagged ‘racism’
Pick Your Battles
Posted in Perception, Philosophy, tagged ethics, pragmatism, psychology, racism on December 8, 2017| 3 Comments »
In the News (#795)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Acting and Activism, Against Their Will, agency denial, brothels, Buried Truth, California, censorship, cops, crypto-moralism, end demand, France, Hollywood, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, libraries, Mexico, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, New York, politicians, porn, psychology, racism, rape, rescue industry, Rooted in Racism, Safe Targets, Setting Women's Rights Back, The Notorious Badge, The Pro-Rape Coalition, The Puritan Recrudescence, To Molest and Rape, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Wise Investment, WWOHD? on December 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »
No one should be comfortable with state-funded employees determining what is or isn’t acceptable for adults to read. – Eric Paul Leue
Are there still people who believe the French are sexually liberal?
“We are not a puritan society,” French President Emmanuel Macron claimed…He then called for the criminalization of wolf-whistling and gender-based insults, and for requiring France’s TV and radio regulators to police video games and web content…[especially] online pornography, which Macron sees (sans evidence) as a prominent cause of violence against girls and women. Porn is infiltrating French schools, Macron warned, and “we cannot ignore the kind that makes women an object of humiliation”…
I guess six and a half years without a library internet censorship attempt isn’t too bad a run:
[Using the excuse] of out-in-the-open porn viewing, public sex, drug use and theft at [Los Angeles] city libraries, a pair of [politicians] is proposing [censorship software]…David Ryu…[and] Nury Martinez [vomited out several variations of “For the children!”, pretending this constituted an actual argument]…the Free Speech Coalition (FSC)…[correctly] argues that doing so could violate taxpayers’ First Amendment right…FSC executive director Eric Paul Leue said… “Filtering software sounds like an easy solution, but we know that such software often casts an egregiously wide net, blocking not only sexually explicit content but also sexual health information, LGBTQ sites and sites…which…discuss…issues relevant to the adult industry…In the past year alone, we’ve seen magazines like Cosmopolitan attacked as pornography in conservative districts, just as we’ve seen crackdowns on LGBTQ content and imagery, and mere nudity elsewhere”…
Setting Women’s Rights Back a Century
It’s a little reassuring to see somebody else recognize this:
…while we think we are moving forward, we may be willingly transporting ourselves back to a more sexually restrictive era, one that denied agency to women…sexual laws and regulations have most often been strengthened in the name of protecting children…Sometimes the children are symbolic: anti-gay crusades are almost invariably framed in terms of “saving the children”— not specific children, but just the children who have to share a country with queers. In the current American conversation, women are increasingly treated as children: defenseless, incapable of consent, always on the verge of being victimized. This should give us pause. Being infantilized has never worked out well for women.
Good riddance to bad anti-whore rubbish:
Lena Dunham may be the first person to fabricate details of her alleged rape, then proclaim all women’s claims need to be believed, and then publicly accuse a young woman of lying about having been raped. Finally, the star and creator of Girls has been exposed as the empty vessel she is…Dunham…speaks, usually unbidden, with complete moral and philosophical authority — until she’s called out online, at which point she furiously and pathetically backpedals…She’s a total hypocrite…and…narcissist who possesses no intellectual rigor, no belief system, no relationship with the truth…
Each new revelation since the first reports of the Harvey Weinstein scandal adds to the discussion about how to deal with sexual harassment and sexual violence in American society. And yet nobody is talking about what could be one of the most effective ways to attack the problem: Recognizing that pornography consumption is a public health crisis…the heavy use of pornography skews the users’ perception of what is normal…We have a sexual violence problem because we have a porn problem…the evidence is mounting that porn is addictive…
All of this is pure, undistilled bullshit; as this article explains, the “porn as public health crisis” propaganda is a dodge dreamed up by prohibitionist Gail Dines and used by politicians in socially-conservative states as an excuse for censorship. In reality (as opposed to prohibitionists’ anti-sex fantasyland) all the evidence points to porn viewing decreasing sexual violence, and regular readers know that the “sex addiction” myth, the big sister of “porn as health crisis”, is not only unsupported by evidence but dying a quick death due to the antics of the same abusive douchebag this prohibitionist tries to hang his pro-censorship screed on.
Prohibitionists call this “rescue”:
A…sex worker fell to her death in Queens [New York because of] a police raid [last]…Saturday night…[grown men pretending to be big heroes] stormed a massage parlor [as though they were in a war or something]…Police say they were trying to [capture and arrest] the 38-year-old woman when they saw her fall to the sidewalk from a third floor window. She suffered serious injuries, and died Sunday at the hospital. The medical examiner will determine the exact cause of death.
Because “falling to her death while fleeing in terror from rapists who want to torture her & lock her in a cage” isn’t exact enough?
A vacation to Cancun…ended in anguish when an Atlanta-area woman…and her friend were mistaken on the flight home for human trafficking victims. The incident…has put a spotlight on the [harms inflicted on minority women by “sex trafficking” hysteria]…Stephanie Ung…was [interrogated] by U.S. Customs and Border Protection…for more than an hour upon arriving at the airport…”I just kept telling them that I wanted to go home for my family Thanksgiving dinner, and that they were making me late, but they just didn’t care,” Ung said through tears. “They just laughed”…Ung, who is Asian American, said that she believes her race was a factor in the situation…A Delta spokesperson said that another passenger on the flight [fantasized] someone else was in possession of the women’s passports…and [snitched]…to the crew…
Is anyone so gullible as to believe that their being young Asian women had nothing to do with this?
It’s good to see this getting more attention lately:
In Hyderabad in particular there are some very powerful and very well-funded anti-trafficking organisations that…[pretend] any form of sex work [is] a form of trafficking…NGOs…[are] working in combination with the police…processing women and locking them up in “shelters”….[that] operate as jails…Their phones are taken away. They’re not allowed to contact their families, they’re not allowed to contact their friends that could help them. Their money is taken away, sometimes even their jewellery is taken away…They are kept against their will…completely cut off from…their life…there is an actual monetary gain to be had by trafficking these women off the streets and into shelters. So…it actually meets all of the qualifications set out by the Palermo Protocol. Women themselves are calling this a form of trafficking and…attempt to…escape…Some women attempt suicide…
Not for ANY reason WHATSOEVER. No, your reason is not an exception:
A woman who reported being kidnapped and raped over a six month period to the police was arrested as she sought care…The woman, who was five months pregnant…was…taken into custody at an east London police station. She was then interrogated over her immigration status…
OK, so maybe she was listening after all:
Maggie Gyllenhaal thinks prostitution should be decriminalised. The…actress plays a sex worker in her new TV show The Deuce and she thinks it would be safer and healthier for everyone involved…if it was no longer a criminal act…
…it looked like City Attorney Pete Holmes’ tactic for leveraging harsh punishments against sex buyers was in trouble. A filing from a public defender working on behalf of one of the men caught up in the city’s massage parlor stings revealed that the prosecutor had directed his attorneys not to offer pre-trial diversion to men accused of buying sex. The strategy…contradict[s] the city’s lauded criminal justice reform efforts allowing people accused of other misdemeanor crimes to avoid criminal convictions. Public defenders also expressed concern that a sting operation that trapped defendants into guilty pleas could have far more serious consequences for undocumented residents…A law firm hired by the city (to the tune of $60,000) argued in King County Superior Court that…the sex buyer in question didn’t have a due process right to pre-trial diversion…attorney Bob Goldsmith…asked King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell to recuse himself from the case…[because] O’Donnell had participated in the King County Commercially Sexually Exploited Children Task Force, which supported the “end demand” strategy enshrined in the city attorney’s prosecutorial decisions…Judge O’Donnell [naturally] rejected the motion to recuse himself, as well as Goldsmith’s other arguments…
What kind of sick fuck enrolls their kids in a program specifically intended to groom them into members of a gang of violent thugs? “A San Leandro [cop] resigned…[after admitting] sexual misconduct with a teenage Police Explorer…Marco Becerra…[molested] a 17-year-old girl…” I mean, just LOOK at this creepy fuck; would you trust him around your daughter?
A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore…impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets…During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public…When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists. But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias…
You may recognize the resemblance to the failed attempt at framing Planned Parenthood in 2011.
In the News (#794)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, Buried Truth, California, censorship, Cops and Robbers, Enabling Oppression, end demand, Feminine Pragmatism, holidays, illegal aliens, internet, Ireland, Italy, language, masturbation, McNeill's Law, Moving Pictures, Nothing New, Ohio, One Born Every Minute, pathologization of males, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, Prudesville, racism, rape, rescue industry, restaurants, scams, sex toys, sexting, slavery, streetwalkers, That Old Black Magic, Washington (state), yellow journalism on November 29, 2017| 4 Comments »
By creating the impression that they are helpless slaves who need rescuing from the hands of criminals, [prohibitionists] propagate a myth that all informal work that helps migrants to survive is illicit and should be prohibited. – Mike Dottridge
Financial pressure will lead more women into prostitution over Christmas…[prohibitionist group Ruhama admitted]. There is expected to be a “surge” in women who will feel compelled to sell sex in the coming weeks to cope with the financial demands of the festive season…The majority of the women are involved in the so-called “indoor sex trade”…while one-third are involved in the on-street sex industry…Ruth Breslin…[of] Ruhama [kept her hand in her underwear while breathlessly panting about “pimps” and fantasizing]…that as it is a demand-driven industry, perhaps more men pay for sex at Christmas…”Most men don’t buy sex but there are some who see it as the same as paying for any other service, they are very much treating the women as products”…
Even ignoring this woman’s disgusting masturbatory fantasies about sex workers that she feels compelled to share in public, there is so much disinformation here it’s almost mind-boggling. Street workers make up only about 10-12% of all sex workers, not a third. Business isn’t more plentiful at Christmas (as literally any whore could tell you); it’s slower because men are spending their money on gifts and year-end bills such as property taxes, etc. and also have less free time due to family obligations. Most men have indeed paid for sex, and no they don’t treat women as “products”; in fact they treat us better than they treat amateurs like this silly wanker, which may be the source of her jealousy. And so on…
A good criticism of “slavery” talk from Mike Dottridge in Laura Agustín’s blog:
…a slave is defined as a person who is the legal property of another or can be treated as such: they can be bought, sold, traded or inherited. A slave is a personal possession – a chattel…Using the term Modern Slavery precipitates us into name-and-shame mode, pointing the finger at governments and businesses which tolerate it…So, instead of the Development/cooperation paradigm that was dominant in the second half of the 20th century…we revert back to the 19th-century idea that some uncivilised countries require pressure from civilised ones to abandon unacceptable practices…In the minds of people in Western Europe and the Americas, the word slavery refers to the transatlantic slave trade. Using the term for levels of exploitation which do not meet the legal definition trivialises historical chattel slavery and reduces any sense of responsibility in countries that benefited from it. This fits neatly into the agenda of white supremacists who dismiss contemporary racism and discrimination against the descendants of slaves…
I wonder how many of these Reefer Madness-style fakumentaries there will be before the hysteria ends?
On the Road explores the lives of the people who live and work alongside the Strada Bonifica, the ironically named “road of love”, on the Adriatic coast of Italy. The nine-mile (15km) road has historically been a place of sex work and has recently seen a massive increase in the number of Nigerian women working alongside it – some of whom have been trafficked into the country and forced into prostitution. The film moves between the women’s stories, the [NIMBY] Italians who live and work nearby…and the local NGO that attempts to [exploit] the women…Recruited from Nigeria…the women are tricked into leaving…They are saddled with an unpayable debt and are often terrified into silence by “Juju” voodoo rituals. The women are beaten by their madams if they refuse to work. On the Road is the name of a [prohibitionist group] that has been working to [profit from hysteria around] the sex workers for the last 20 years…
I called this one three years ago:
Matt Hickey, the former tech journalist who masqueraded as a porn scout to trick women into having sex with him during fake “auditions”…pleaded guilty to three felonies and fourth degree assault after six women came forward to accuse him of rape. He faces up to 34 months in prison for his most serious conviction of indecent liberties, far fewer than he would face for his original rape charges. Still, his guilty plea means that he will have to register as a sex offender. Hickey has been in jail since October of 2016, after he was extradited from Las Vegas while on the run from accusations that dogged him here in Seattle…The Washington State Attorney General sued Hickey over the porn scam, and a judge fined Hickey more than $300,000 in violations of state consumer protection laws…
You can find “her” number within fake messages placed alongside real ads on websites popular with those looking to buy sex…the bot will tell you she is nervous and check that her [supposed under]age [status] is “cool with you”. If you say yes, that’s when it [starts vomiting disgusting prohibitionist fantasies all over you]…Robert Beiser from Seattle Against Slavery [shares his vile prohibitionist masturbatory fantasy that paying for sexual services is] “buy[ing] another human being”…
The rest of the article is mostly parroting of the usual prohibitionist fantasies and lurid stalking of the sex workers on Aurora Avenue, who aren’t advertising in the venues where these prohibitionists are hiding their wankbot.
Everett, WA is trying to defend its sick need to control women’s clothing as “feminism”:
Baristas, whose uniforms consist of bikinis, are heading to federal court…to argue that their First Amendment rights have been violated by…officials in one Washington city who implemented two [censorship] ordinances aimed at [women making money in a way politicians dislike]…“The Constitution doesn’t allow the government to regulate the content of speech because the government disagrees with it,” [said] Derek Newman, an attorney representing one of the baristas..Everett lawmakers have been steamed about the coffee stands for years – arguing everything from obscenity to mob ties – officials are [trying] a new [bullshit] argument…“The male gaze on bikinied women is on the continuum of sexualization of women,” wrote [a prohibitionist hired gun]… “When you make the body a commodity, and sex a product which you sell, one outcome is sexual violence…If you can sell it, you can steal it”…
Yes, that’s the “feminist” version of “women who dress like sluts are asking to be raped”.
But bad cops are only a tiny, atypical minority, a “few bad apples”:
A group of NYPD cops showed up at the hospital where an 18-year-old woman was seeking treatment after…being raped by two Brooklyn detectives, in a bid to bully her out of bringing [rape] charges, her lawyer [reported].
“They came with nine cops to intimidate her and her mom”…[said] Michael David…One [pig] in particular…kept saying…”How do you know they were real cops?”…“Didn’t you make complaints about cops before?”…and…“You don’t know what you’re talking about”…The young woman…was raped [both vaginally and orally] by…[rapist cops] Richard Hall and Eddie Martins in the back seat of their police van while she was handcuffed…Hall…and Martins…admitted [raping] her…but [trotted out the typical ludicrous pig fantasy that] it was consensual…
It’s refreshing to see so many questioning the “human trafficking” narrative, albeit cautiously:
…Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick has stood by her decision to assign three [cops] to provide traffic control during a federal immigration operation…Kirkpatrick [pretends]…that the early-morning raid on Aug. 16 by…ICE…involved “human trafficking” and was not a deportation case. However, the raid only resulted in the arrest of one person, Santos de Leon, for being an undocumented immigrant. And HSI/ICE officials have publicly acknowledged that de Leon was not involved in human trafficking or any other criminal matter and is now facing civil deportation proceedings…ICE and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have never successfully prosecuted a human trafficking case…from Oakland during the past 10 years…As such, there is no reason to believe that the current HSI/ICE investigation will result in…a…conviction…In recent years, [prohibitionists and the government] have expanded the definition of human trafficking to the point that it no longer means what many people think it means. The term “human trafficking” conjures images of people being transported in shipping containers and forced to do labor or sold as sex slaves…the…expanded meaning of “human trafficking,” in which people who help immigrants get into the country or provide them with a place to work or live are considered “human traffickers”…
Did he really think more than 30 bodies would stay buried?
Disgraced Ohio state Rep. Wes Goodman…is being accused…of sexual misconduct…[by] over 30 individuals…many people have long been aware of Goodman’s…behavior that is very different than his…“family man” persona…Goodman has a reputation of reaching out to those involved in politics via Facebook Messenger — but things tend to quickly turn south, as he has been known to flirt with men, solicit sex, and even send pictures of his genitals…The majority of the people he targets are between the ages of 18 and 24 and have had very little interaction with him personally…Goodman apparently offered to be a “mentor” for those looking to get into politics. Because of the power he had, his victims say they were afraid to report instances of abuse for fear of damaging their own political careers…
Links #386
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged asset seizure, California, cops, drugs, Florida, Missouri, Never Call the Cops, Pennsylvania, racism, Things We Choose To Do Together, video, Washington (state) on November 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Shame on him that gives me a legal reason to stop him. – Patrick Ivey
David Cassidy died this week, and though I wasn’t as big a fan of his as one of my sisters was, I was always very fond of this particular song, with its very distinctive melodic structure and unusual key progression. The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel, Tim Cushing, Kevin Wilson, Radley Balko, Adjective Girl, and Walter Olson, in that order.
- As one does.
- Fascism in action.
- The human skunk.
- To protect and serve.
- It’s almost like people can’t understand what “any reason” means.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- Long-time readers will remember that I’ve made similar points in the past.
- How a young woman discovered her grandmother had been a sex worker.
- Unless the unit deposits $400 into my bank, I’m not remotely interested.
- Cows, cops, Sweden, poets, metaphors, Jean-Michel Jarre & much more.
- Government steals all money Rentboy could have used for legal defense.
- From the people who had hearings vs communists, comics & song lyrics.
- After AZ & WA, FL is most hysterically tyrannical over “sex trafficking”.
- The Swedish model especially increases violence vs trans sex workers.
- Brave hero cops save The Children!TM from desperately-needy people.
- As long as these laws exist, amateurs will be harmed by them as well.
- It’s satisfying when the mask of concern for “trafficking victims” slips.
- Los Angeles’ response to “sex trafficking”: increased police brutality.
- Finally, a US court finds something it isn’t willing to call “trafficking”.
- I just love the pictures of the little animal whores holding their cash.
- A top-secret cabal of nuns who pose as whores to infiltrate brothels.
- The Swedish model has virtually eliminated prostitution in Sweden!
- In the US, she would’ve been arrested when she reported the rape.
- The rhetoric is ridiculous, but even stupid snitches are dangerous.
- Indian NGO wants to force sex workers into brainwashing camps.
- Sexually-regressive Washington moves forward quickly on drugs.
- Fleur de Lit is a lot more optimistic than I am; I hope she’s right.
- Trans people hanged, stoned & even killed by their own parents.
- If you think this as a positive development, read more carefully.
- These are the people “feminists” want in charge of sex workers.
- Cops, isolation, Catholicism, goats, John Cage and much more.
- Quite possibly the stupidest “sex trafficking” propaganda ever.
- Politicians work to get sex workers evicted & enrich the state.
- Why do massage parlors bring puritans out of the woodwork?
- Dianne Feinstein never met a police-state law she didn’t like.
- Why I hate “Black Friday” and too-early Christmas displays.
- It looks like Samantha Azzopardi is back to her usual tricks.
- The beginning of my Doctor Who dates with Lorelei Rivers.
- Really, guys? Is it really so hard to just hire an escort?
- The UK literally robs sex workers of their life savings.
- Note that this kind of abuse is also typical in the US.
- Scotland Yard “apologizes” for enabling rapist cops.
- A nice look at the religious beliefs of sex workers.
- Who could have possibly predicted this outcome?
- We need to keep protesting every damned sting.
- SWOP’s annual fundraiser is going on right now!
- “A few critics call it a form of human trafficking.”
- Because laws are more important than people.
- In New Mexico, civil forfeiture is big business.
- The bioethicists are now on our side as well.
- None of this surprises me even one tiny bit.
- Young-relative-molesting cops of the week.
- A rare decision in favor of self-ownership.
- November 2012 and 2013 in retrospect.
- There seems to be a word missing here.
- Very little has changed for James Deen.
- What wonderful company the US is in!
- My last two columns for Thanksgiving.
- And don’t think this is atypical.
- Glenn Kessler does it again.
- Are these people for real?
- Rapist cop of the week.
- I am not your monkey.
- My new car.
In the News (#789)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Bread and Circuses, brothels, censorship, cops, Do As I Say, Dutch Threat, Ecuador, Facebook, fantasy, hysteria, internet, language, law, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Netherlands, North Carolina, Oklahoma, politicians, pregnancy, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rape, red-light districts, rescue industry, shame, Signs, Stupor Bowl, surveillance, Tennessee, Texas, The Mote and the Beam, The Prudish Giant, The Public Eye, The Spiral of Absurdity, To Molest and Rape, transgender, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world on November 12, 2017| 2 Comments »
[How] can you treat something that doesn’t exist? – Dana Dovey
Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying us fairly that isn’t:
A [Tennessee cop]…has pleaded guilty in a sexual misconduct case…Ralph Cline, Jr…paid to have sex while on duty and inside his unmarked police vehicle…
It’s always heartening to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins:
She lost the support of her family at age 16…and…turned to sex work for survival. But Diane…Rodríguez did not expect to make history years later as the first trans woman elected to Ecuador’s National Assembly. “Being a public figure comes at a price,” [said] Rodríguez, who is now also a psychologist…she has recently received death threats as a legislator. “But I see that cost is a sacrifice for younger generations so that they don’t have to suffer the same experiences that I have to suffer through now.” Her experience of being discriminated against as a trans woman has motivated her on a lifelong journey from activism to politics…
Eros-Guide’s call center was raided today in a seizure that’s likely to keep going through the night…the raid at company offices in Youngsville, N.C., was conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which executed a warrant on alleged “cross-border illegal activity”…the search warrant is sealed in federal court…[but] no one has been arrested…
It’s possible that this is a way for the Gestapo to get info so they can establish a huge surveillance net on sex workers, or the first step in a pogrom of unprecedented scale, or simply the way to get information they think will help them get Swiss authorities to shut down Eros, which is domiciled & hosted in Switzerland and is therefore not subject to US law. Only time will tell.
Commercial surrogacy…can be messy and complicated. Backed by the anti-surrogacy group The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, [Jessica Allen]…tells…her extraordinary story…“Not only were Mike and Max not identical — they had completely different DNA from one another. Mike appeared to be an Asian child, and was Liu and her husband’s biological baby. But Max, half-white and half African-American, belonged to me and my now-husband, Wardell Jasper…in an extremely rare medical incident called superfetation, we had gotten pregnant naturally, despite using condoms, after the in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle during which Mr. and Mrs. Liu’s embryo was transferred into my uterus…Not once during the pregnancy did any of the medical staff provided by the agency say that the babies were in separate sacs. As far as we were concerned, the transferred embryo had split in two and the twins were identical…Omega [the surrogacy agency] contacted me to say the Lius expected between $18,000 and $22,000 as compensation…a caseworker from the agency lined up parents to adopt him and “absorb” the money we owed the Lius…We spent $3,000 on an attorney, and there was a lot of strained negotiation between us, our lawyer and Omega. It was an uphill battle, but the agency finally reduced the “fee” we owed the Lius to zero…
Once again the annual nationwide publicity stunt orchestrated by the FBI, called Operation Cross Country XI, made its way to Oklahoma…during the four-day sting, 15 female prostitutes and five “sex traffickers” were [arrested]…FBI [claims]…”the primary goal is…the recovery of children”…[but] not a single child was…rescued locally…The FBI also claims their goal is to “take traffickers off the street.” However, history has proven that virtually all of the “traffickers” that are arrested end up being charged with misdemeanor crimes…The FBI has continuously labeled the women involved in prostitution as “victims”, yet every year they target those same victims…[and] charge…[them] with life altering felonies…
A serving police officer has been charged with raping a 13-year-old girl. Cheshire constable Ian Naude…was remanded in custody after…an incident reported on 3 November in Crewe…
The Spiral of Absurdity (#715)
Earlier this year, the Tribune’s “Sold Out” series examined how state policies…failed to help child sex-trafficking victims. Since then, lawmakers set aside a budget increase of more than $500 million for the foster care system and the governor’s office approved new funds for trafficking prevention initiatives — including the state’s first-ever director of human trafficking and child exploitation…Kim Grabert…
You may recall that the “series” mentioned in the text was an exercise in BDSM wanking fantasies, including the claim that all duos include at least one underage girl and the bizarre idea that “pimps” have some kind of legal authority.
Is that the author’s name, or a description of what he’s doing while typing this fantasy one-handed?
Nearly half of the victims of modern slavery in the UK are sex workers. Ed Cumming hears “Hannah’s” harrowing tale…Hannah doesn’t know how long she was forced to work as a prostitute, being shuttled around the capital to meet men with strange accents… “Victims of this crime are relentlessly abused and repeatedly raped,” [pants politician] Kevin Hyland…With the help of the Salvation Army and Women’s Aid, she is rebuilding her life…
“Strange accents” sums up what this is really about, as does the fact that this story was given to the media by the Salvation Army, which has no compunction against making up lurid fantasies to promote its anti-sex agenda.
A rare victory for sex workers against “sex trafficking” hysteria:
Window brothel operators almost got completely buried by the new Red Light District rules and regulations implemented by the city of Amsterdam. “We had to inspect if the ladies were washing their sex-toys with the right disinfectant and if the perishable date of their condoms wasn’t lapsed. It drove us crazy”. The entrepreneurs went to court and…three (female) judges [agreed that the rules]…hurt…sex workers…Monique rents out three windows in Amsterdam’s Red Light District…[she] wasn’t allowed to leave the neighbourhood if the ladies were working according to the strict regulations. “I had to be on the scene within 12 minutes…Visiting my old mom in Amsterdam Noord (North) or visiting a physiotherapist in between was out of the question. Even a quick run to the supermarket for some groceries had me stressing, terrified that I would break the Red Light District rules and lose my permit”…
“Signs of trafficking” idiocy spreads to Dutch pigs:
All community [cops] are to receive training in recognising the signs of human trafficking as part of the new Dutch government’s anti-[sex work] drive…[they] will learn how to look for signs of exploitation when investigating crimes…
Bad laws disproportionately harm small businesses, just as they do poor and marginalized individuals:
A trade group representing giants of Internet business from Facebook to Microsoft has just endorsed a “compromise” version of…SESTA…The Internet Association doesn’t represent the Internet—it represents the few companies that profit the most off of Internet activity…Amazon and eBay would be able to absorb the increased legal risk under SESTA. They would likely be able to afford the high-powered lawyers to survive the wave in lawsuits against them. Small startups, including would-be competitors, would not. It shouldn’t pass our attention that the Internet giants are now endorsing a bill that will make it much more difficult for newcomers ever to compete with them. IA also doesn’t represent…the marginalized voices who’ll be silenced as platforms begin to over-rely on automated filters (filters that will doubtless be offered as a licensed service by large Internet companies)…It’s shameful that a small group of lobbyists with an agenda of censorship have presented themselves to lawmakers as the unanimous experts in sex trafficking. It’s embarrassing that it’s worked so well…
People sometimes ask why I’m not on Facebook:
Behind the Facebook profile you’ve built for yourself is another one, a shadow profile, built from the inboxes and smartphones of other Facebook users. Contact information you’ve never given the network gets associated with your account, making it easier for Facebook to more completely map your social connections. Shadow contact information has been a known feature of Facebook for a few years now. But most users remain unaware of its reach and power. Because shadow-profile connections happen inside Facebook’s algorithmic black box, people can’t see how deep the data-mining of their lives truly is, until an uncanny recommendation pops up…Take a look at all the possible information associated with a contact on your phone. Then consider the accumulated data your phone is carrying about various people, whether lifelong friends or passing acquaintances…If you agree to share your contacts, every piece of contact data you possess will go to Facebook, and the network will then use it to try to search for connections between everyone you know, no matter how slightly—and you won’t see it happen…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#784)
It’s a shame that this is what it took to bring down the “sex addiction” scam:
This week Kevin Spacey reportedly checked into a sex addiction rehabilitation program in Arizona following a series of accusations that he sexually harassed several men and at least one minor…Spacey is the most recent celebrity to have checked into rehab following reports of sexual misconduct…Sex addiction has been turned down for classification as a mental health condition by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the official classification of mental health disorders in the US, on several occasions. In addition, the American Association of Sexual Education Counselors and Therapists also released a statement…that…“sex addiction” or “porn addiction” should not be classified as mental health conditions…“It’s clear at this point that it [sex addiction] does not look like an addiction,” [said] Nicole Prause, a psychologist who studies human sexual behavior…the best predictor of being called a sex addict is either having a conservative religious background or getting caught cheating…
In the News (#788)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, agency denial, Between the Lines, bogus studies, California, Canada, Capricious Lusts, cops, dirty, disability, disease, diversion programs, Don't Call It Trafficking, end demand, End Demand (updates), fantasy, Girls Girls Girls, law, Louisiana, marriage, Netherlands, New Excuse, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, pathologization of males, prisons, prohibitionist myths, racism, rape, red-light districts, Skin To Skin, slavery, So Close and Yet So Far, Soap Opera, statistics, stripping, Tennessee, Texas, Too Close To Home, Uncharted Seas, underage, Washington (state) on November 8, 2017| 3 Comments »
Predicating [the] entire argument on [sex workers] being victims…[is] increasing victimization. – Kate D’Adamo
A Tale That Grew in the Telling
Texas has ranked number two in the nation, behind California, in reported trafficking cases…Lisa…with Harvest House [has the fucking nerve to pretend she needs anonymity as sex workers do because of the criminalization she promotes]…Lisa [tells masturbatory fantasies about “pimps” abducting girls off the street] and [fantasizes]…“In seven years…You’re so diseased that they don’t need you anymore. The life expectancy of a trafficked victim is seven to ten years…Child sex trafficking…is the number two money maker in the entire world”…
…[New York City] bartenders are now competing with the strippers…[by] wearing provocative clothing and doing a little shake…they’re distracting patrons from the actual strippers on stage who are much more athletic, more trained and who are doing the job which they were hired to do. Furthermore, as people who rely on patrons spending money on them, men giving it to the bartenders, who are already being paid and tipped for their service, is taking money out of their pockets…the bartenders are often lighter skinned women who are either racially ambiguous and not Black. Colorism has affected virtually every other industry, it only makes sense it would show up in the adult entertainment world as well…
Laws that prohibit prostitution should be declared unconstitutional…In 2003, in Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a Texas law that made it a crime for consenting adults to engage in private, consensual…sexual activity…Lawrence recognized the importance of sexual activity as an essential part of liberty and explicitly rejected Texas’ argument that it could make a moral judgment that homosexual activity was wrong…This same reasoning explains why laws that prohibit prostitution are unconstitutional. They, too, restrict what consenting adults do in their bedrooms…For some people, purchasing sex is their only way to engage in sexual activity…If prostitution were legal, it could be regulated. There could be required health check-ups, protecting health for sellers and buyers. Trafficking is an enormous problem…Other countries’ experience shows legalization is preferable…There are mandatory inspections…
If this dimwit had bothered to actually do some research he would’ve learned that NOBODY who has actually studied the issue wants legalization, which is just a form of criminalization that creates a two-tiered system because over 90% of sex workers refuse to be monitored like criminals, subjected to insulting “inspections” while amateurs run around spreading STIs, etc.
…I am suggesting that polygyny — when a man has multiple wives — might be the answer as long as we see it through a feminist slant…We’re always hearing about a lack of marriageable men…the lack…isn’t just about well-employed college-educated men; it’s that…there may be fewer [“egalitarian”] men around than there are women wanting those kind of men…There are more than a few upsides to a polygamous arrangement that women enter into freely and willingly because it suits their needs…
There can never be too many articles on sex workers for the disabled:
…”people with disabilities…feel…really lonely and alienated, as though their sexuality doesn’t get to exist,” said Heather Jarvis of the Safe Harbour Outreach Project…some sex workers refuse to take clients with disabilities, because they…are afraid they’ll inadvertently hurt the client…[but in general] sex workers…mak[e a big difference] in the lives of clients with disabilities…a lot of it is non-judgmental communication…and…plain old companionship…
It’s never called “trafficking” when the government or a crony does it:
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma is suing to stop the state’s courts from sending people to “an unpaid labor camp disguised as a rehabilitation center.” The suit accuses the Drug and Alcohol Recovery Program (DARP) of federal labor violations and human trafficking…Participants…were told the program would be focused on counseling and addiction recovery. “Instead, these plaintiffs were forced into a human trafficking scheme and remained under threat of prison sentences if they did not…provid[e] hundreds or thousands of hours of unpaid labor to…private corporations, doing such work as welding, plastic product manufacturing, and chicken processing”…any pay they earned from the companies went to DARP…they were fed one bologna sandwich and a Little Debbie cake for lunch and were often expected to make do on that for their entire 12-hour shift of manual labor; and that they were forced to sleep in bedbug-invested barracks and fed chicken from the plant that was unfit to sell…
Sometimes the War on Whores is the War on Drugs rather than its successor:
In Louisiana [last] week, the FBI helped arrest—and publicly ridicule—57 men who responded to fake (adult) prostitution ads. Meanwhile in North Carolina, DHS has pitched in to help round-up people with small amounts of marijuana or cocaine on them. Local media described the DHS efforts as a “human trafficking case.” But the only offenses any suspects were arrested for were drug possession, driving with a revoked license, and parole violations—all state-level offenses, and mostly misdemeanors…no human-trafficking arrests, no children were found, and no victims of sex trafficking were rescued…
It’s good to see articles critical of the “john school” scam appearing in trade publications:
…According to [Tennessee Assistant District Attorney Tammy] Meade, sex workers are women who lack control — women who are exploited by men — rather than women who make an informed, conscious choice to engage in the sex industry…John school is painted as a win-win for men and women alike…However…these programs, along with the narratives of victimization they perpetuate…harm women far more than they help. The premise of john school and cracking down on “demand” is still driven by the idea that sex work needs to be policed in the first place, which creates barriers to safety and exacerbates stigma…and…there is no evidence to suggest that john schools actually decrease trafficking or prostitution. Meanwhile, the classes fail to provide concrete resources — such as housing or access to childcare — and alternative job opportunities for the women they are [pre]tended to help…
…Women and children are bought and sold every day in Fresno – online, in street corners, while at school. They are raped, branded and beaten…Human trafficking casts a shadow on the central San Joaquin Valley, with thousands of victims both female and male, young and old, rich and poor, white, black, Hispanic, Asian. It’s an industry that thrives on targeting your children. And…it’s getting worse…High poverty and runaway rates contribute to the problem, as does Fresno’s central location between human trafficking hubs in the Bay Area, Southern California and Las Vegas…
Man, I can practically hear this guy’s fapping to his nasty fantasy; it’s really quite disgusting.
…RISE Court, which stands for Resiliency Is Strength and Empowerment…participa[nts] are expected to make their first appearances before San Diego Superior Court Judge Carolyn Caietti…“A lot of kids have this horrible, nightmarish existence, and it’s going to take a lot [of punitive state action] to get them back so they’re going to feel [docile & obedient]” said Robert Trentacosta, presiding judge for the Juvenile Court…The special court is the county’s latest weapon against human trafficking…The court is modeled after a mental health court already in operation…as well as got input [sic] from [prohibitionists]…Trentacosta [masturbated furtively while fantasizing that]…“girls…are so fearful of their pimp [we have to brainwash them]”…[imprisonment] doesn’t necessarily [end] once they turn 18 [and could be indefinite]…
King County Sheriff John Urquhart has filed a defamation lawsuit after a former deputy came forward with [a report] that Urquhart sexually assaulted him in 2014 outside of a Renton restaurant. Brian Barnes…[reported that] Urquhart touched his crotch outside of the Yankee Grill after the two met for dinner…[local media claimed] Barnes [has]…a long history of…filing complaints and grievances against his superiors…Urquhart…[whose job is to terrorize the citizenry, un-ironically bloviated that] “Barnes has been terrorizing people…he doesn’t like for far too long. It’s time for Barnes to be held responsible for his actions”…
Another study shows what’s already been shown over & over again:
A new paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy by Bisschop, Kastoryano, and van der Klaauw looks at the opening and closing of…tippelzones…in 25 Dutch cities. “Our empirical results show that opening a tippelzone reduces sexual abuse and rape…by a 30–40 percent reduction in the first two years after opening the tippelzone”…Cunningham and Shah studied decriminalization of indoor prostitution in Rhode Island and found very similar results…In addition a working paper by Riccardo Ciacci and María Micaela Sviatschi studies prostitution in New York and also finds that prostitution significantly reduces sex crimes such as rape…
It’s mildly amusing to watch a self-declared “sex trafficking expert” fail to comprehend that the reason the conviction rate for “pimps” is so low is that the FBI & cops are mostly just making up lies about sex workers and our friends, associates and partners:
In the latest nationwide human trafficking sting known as Operation Cross Country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation [labeled] 120 [people as] child sex traffickers and [arrested or abducted] 84 [legal minors]…behind the headlines, the reality is much different than what the public is led to believe….[people] arrested [as] human traffickers are rarely convicted for these crimes. Charges are often dropped [for lack of evidence] or offenders accept plea bargains…one [so-called]…rescue…victim…was placed in a juvenile detention center, where she was sodomized by two inmates with a toothpaste tube. She was later held in detention as a material witness until she gave her testimony at trial. Therapy was not provided because “she didn’t avail herself”…Stories of arrests are quickly shared with the media, leading [self-professed “experts”]…to…be[lieve]…in…a…human trafficking scourge…
Links #383
Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged animals, cops, Dirty Amateurs, Japan, Louisiana, Mississippi, Never Call the Cops, prisons, racism, surveillance, teachers, United Kingdom, video on November 6, 2017| 2 Comments »
It was a bit like an end-of-days scenario. – Brett Stones
As so often happens these days, the best Halloween videos appear too late to be shared before Halloween; this is the first of Walt Disney’s classic Silly Symphonies cartoons, with animation & music by two greats who later worked for Warner Brothers, Ub Iwerks and Carl Stalling. It was suggested by Skye, and the links above it by Tim Cushing, Cathy Reisenwitz, Popehat, Radley Balko, David Ley, Kevin Williamson, and Ed Krayewski, in that order.
- Totalitarianism starts small.
- Still not a police state, no sirree.
- Is “never” really such a difficult concept?
- Sometimes I’m asked why I left Louisiana.
- Amateurs are disgusting, classless and rude.
- Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
- Cop murders potato-sized dog, wants to bill family for bullet.
From the Archives
- I’m pretty sure Savannah was riding in my car while giving this interview.
- How many more kids’ lives have to be destroyed before we stop the cops?
- Tara Burns, Maxine Doogan and two others on “sex trafficking” in Alaska.
- Low-population states have the silliest supposed “gypsy whore” magnets.
- San Diego has become one of the US’s most corrupt pocket police states.
- How many hand jobs did these “heroes” get during their “investigation”?
- Cops, chickens, Dali, Fred Flintstone, Florida, monsters and much more.
- The age-old story of a mother refusing to accept her daughter’s choices.
- Truth from a politician: rarer than an anti-prohibition stance in Ireland.
- She’s right at home in a movie based on ridiculous conspiracy theories.
- Timothy T. Cutcher denies having sex with dogs or any of his relatives.
- When NPR questions “sex trafficking” hysteria, its days are numbered.
- Yet another software package designed to sell whores out to the cops.
- Intelligence is not a prerequisite for public office or local news media.
- Conditioning kids to accept surveillance of every aspect of their lives.
- Noah Berlatsky with another analogy for the absurdity of prohibition.
- Scammer uses “internship” website to exploit wannabe sex workers.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
- Generally true in essence, but where are the supporting statistics?
- Laura Agustín on the uselessness of the term “human trafficking”.
- The narrower the neck, the more “illegal” sex work there will be.
- What’s “shocking” is most people’s ignorance about sex workers.
- I’m glad to see this dangerous placebo is flopping on the market.
- On the yellow journalism which permeates coverage of sex work.
- Kathryn Griffin and her “prostitution diversion” scam in Houston.
- “The Harvard of sex trafficking” or “The Harvard of pimp school”?
- Crappy sci-fi TV show inspires pearl-clutching over a sex fantasy.
- When “child sex trafficking” really means “giving a friend a ride”.
- “Authorities” claim credit for streetwalkers shifting to online ads.
- Court rules that SAVE Act doesn’t apply to regular escort ads.
- None of these “human trafficking” cases involve prostitution.
- What really happens when a wannabe “pimp” abducts a girl.
- It’s good to see so many challenges to these medieval laws.
- How can I find out if my girlfriend is secretly a sex worker?
- Frankie Mullin on the then-recent Soho & Chinatown raids.
- Cops, surveillance, phenylephrine, aliens and much more.
- “Oakland City Council Takes Stand Against Sex Workers“.
- Sadly nearing the end of the Great Clown Panic of 2016.
- A mainstream publication can now feature this article.
- Sweden is so liberal, so pro-social, so just and kind!
- This article is so stupidly evil it’s almost fascinating.
- Indefinite imprisonment without trial or sentence.
- A parliamentary symposium on decriminalization.
- 10 Kenyan sex workers murdered in one month.
- Like reading something from the 17th century.
- A few hundred down, tens of thousands to go.
- Margaret Cho comes out as a former whore.
- “Youth pastors” are nearly as bad as cops.
- My last two columns for Guy Fawkes Day.
- Rapist cops of the week, 2015 and 2016.
- My birthday week, 2015 and 2016.
- So much for human uniqueness.
- Let’s play “count the idiocies”.
- Because they are?
Links #380
Posted in Current Events, Fiction, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged animals, California, cops, FBI, imaginative fiction, libraries, Louisiana, prisons, racism, slavery, Things We Choose To Do Together, video on October 15, 2017| 1 Comment »
Whenever I use the toilet, all the horses break down my door and rush into my bathroom so they can intently watch me.
In this video, members of the band The Academic take advantage of a flaw in Facebook’s livestreaming software to record a song with their own past selves; it’s really quite interesting. The video was contributed by Kevin Wilson, as was “horror”; the other links above the video were provided by Radley Balko (“pigs” and “together”), Conner Habib (“promises”), Jesse Walker (“books”), and Clarissa (“surprise”).
- Pigs never change.
- Promises, promises.
- A lovely little horror short-short from Clickhole.
- Thousands of books liberated from bad US copyright law.
- Also from Clickhole, the funniest thing I’ve read in months.
- When he starts beating her later, everyone will feign surprise.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- The usual cop-fellating coverage of an “Operation Cross Country” pogrom.
- Another private pogrom bankrolled by billionaire sociopath Swanee Hunt.
- North Carolina’s excuse for a gypsy whore magnet is ludicrously pathetic.
- More terrifying insanity from the Polk County, Florida pocket police state.
- Is any other work so often treated as a subject for “debate” by outsiders?
- I’m pleased for the very small part I played in helping expose this rapist.
- Garments prostitutes were required to wear in medieval European cities.
- NOT a pro-decriminalization article but rather a pro-Swedish model one.
- Woman dares challenge myth that young women are asexual “children”.
- Stupid assumptions about sex work result in incredibly stupid concepts.
- How could you have been promiscuous when you never amateur dated?
- They can’t even maintain their own paradigm for more than a sentence.
- There should be a law forcing amateurs to get regularly tested for STIs.
- What happens when you don’t fight tyrannical laws from the beginning.
- “Authorities” make another bogus claim about a “sex trafficking gang”.
- I’m nauseated every time the word “illegal” comes out of Hof’s mouth.
- Only the willfully ignorant imagine Sweden to be a “feminist” country.
- Amateur dating seems so creepy, weird and kind of disgusting to me.
- Seattle pretends to be “liberal”, but it’s home to vile bullshit like this.
- I am so pleased to see so many reporters adopting this tone of late.
- The problems with common responses to prohibitionist propaganda.
- The descent of “sex trafficking” hysteria into self-parody continues.
- Cuddlers’ pompous rationalizations of why they aren’t sex workers.
- The bizarre things one finds in news stories about clown incidents.
- Picture a crab waving its claws around and foaming at the mouth.
- “Safe harbor” laws are evil bullshit designed to distract the naive.
- Dennis Hof tricks gullible reporters into printing his ads for free.
- Kafka, emojis, race memory, cops, guacamole and much more.
- We aren’t hearing a peep out of Gay, Inc about this any more.
- Statistics from the latest “Operation Cross-Country” pogrom.
- What really happens when a wannabe “pimp” abducts a girl.
- Georgia may have accidentally decriminalized prostitution.
- A testament to the entrenched stupidity of authoritarians.
- Prohibitionists claim the Mafia wanted Prohibition to end.
- Kamala Harris’ highly illegal publicity stunt vs Backpage.
- Lambda Legal files an amicus brief in the ESPLERP case.
- Caty Simon on the “sex work leads to drug use” myth.
- It’s impossible to express how much this delights me.
- More “beauty salon sex trafficking” idiocy from Ohio.
- Cops, 3D printers, a horror short and much more.
- Be careful out there, my sisters in Philadelphia.
- A car accident and a setback in Jae’s recovery.
- Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever.
- Job openings in “anti-trafficking” corporations.
- A pro-decrim article quoting Mistress Matisse.
- Why don’t you take a vacation from the blog?
- Another criticism of the “privilege” paradigm.
- Clown hysteria is a moral panic in miniature.
- Man of La Mancha with three other whores.
- A serial rapist of sex workers is convicted.
- Note Facebook’s half-assed “correction”.
- More women badly in need of lives.
- “Concern for commercial viability“.
- Not a police state, no sirree!
- Introducing Science Hooker.
- A research study on clients.
- Rapist cops of the week.
- Pimp cops of the week.
- R.I.P. Grace Bellavue.
- Stop faking!
In the News (#777)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Advice for Clients, An Example to the West, bogus studies, brothels, Check Your Premises, ethics, hysteria, Iceland, internet, Ireland, Jezebel, law, Law of the Instrument, Lower Education, neofeminism, Nevada, New Zealand, porn, psychology, racism, rescue industry, restaurants, Rooted in Racism, Swedish model, Thailand, The Mote and the Beam, The Prudish Giant, Trafficking Everywhere!, United Kingdom on September 27, 2017| 1 Comment »
The…big problem is dealing with middle class saviours trying to save me from my job. – Sarah from Bristol
So you’ve decided to spend time with an escort, but now what? Your first call can be nerve-wracking, and you don’t want to creep the woman out! Start with Step 1 below to learn how to make things easier on yourself, and on your potential date…
Hey prohibitionists: we’re winning, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.
The owner has since taken down all the pirated porn and apologized:
Bellesa.co is essentially a piracy curator. This site subsists…off of pirated videos. Those videos have been uploaded to other piracy-based tube sites, and then a person or persons at Bellesa.co curates them into the single biggest piracy site focused entirely on female-centric videos. This site is absolutely no more ethical than The Pirate Bay or any number of piracy sites designed to exploit producers and performers for financial gain…it…puts ZERO DOLLARS into the pockets of female producers or performers…
Hmmm, I wonder why they accused this particular restaurateur?
A few weeks ago, RÚV (The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service) reported on the Chinese restaurant Sjanghæ in Akureyri, claiming its owner, a Chinese born woman, was suspected of human trafficking…RÚV [accused] the owner…of paying her Chinese staff a monthly salary of 30.000 kr ($285)…[when actually] the staff’s monthly salary was 465 thousand krónas ($4355), which is well over the Icelandic minimum wage of 300 thousand ($2810)…the restaurant has been closed since RÚV’s report, as no customers have wanted to show up…[Jóhannes Sigurðarson, Sjanghæ’s lawyer] believes the restaurant will open again, although it’s unclear when exactly. He and the owner will be determining shortly whether or not to press charges…
Trafficking, Trafficking Everywhere!
Prohibitionists are desperate to make New Zealand look bad:
A report, released by University of Auckland researcher Natalie Thorburn, claims child sex trafficking is prevalent in New Zealand and children as young as 12 were being exploited for money and drugs…Counsellor Tania Blomfield [claimed] that she knew of a child as young as nine being forced into the sex trade by her mother…Blomfield [fantasizes] child sex trafficking is “a growth industry, sadly. I think it’s getting worse and worse because we are not dealing with it”. However National Coordinator for the Prostitutes’ Collective Catherine Healy says sex trafficking is a catch all phrase that does not fully describe the situation…”Let’s not conflate it with sex work and say ‘oh they’ve been trafficked into sex work’ when actually they’re being abused by family members”…
International Justice Mission…announced support from the Walmart Foundation to address human trafficking, also known as modern slavery, in the Thai fishing industry…there has not yet been a comprehensive study documenting the prevalence of forced labor and exploitation of fishermen on Thai fishing vessels. With funding from the Walmart Foundation, IJM commissioned Issara Institute to conduct groundbreaking research in Thailand documenting the prevalence of forced labor…
The numbers of victims of human trafficking in Ireland has almost doubled in four years, with 94 [claimed] to have been children…The majority of…persons [labeled by “authorities” as “trafficked”] between 2012-2016 were women, with most subject to sexual exploitation…The authors of the report, however, [fantasize] that the true scale of trafficking could be much higher…
Remember, Ireland charges people with “human trafficking” for crimes ranging from undocumented immigration to rape.
Not so long ago, most US brothels were owned by sex workers:
…Dennis Hof…is offering the 540 women who work in his brothels the chance to buy shares. He first wants to see if they would help buy the famous Chicken Ranch, which is for sale in Nye County. “I want to give the girls the opportunity to not only invest in it and be shareholders but also have input in the management style…we want a $25,000 minimum investment. The purchase price is $4.5 million”…Barb Brents, a UNLV sociology professor who researches the adult industry in Nevada, said some brothels in other countries share ownership with sex workers. But to do it in Nevada would be a sweeping change…There are still some hurdles for Hof’s plan. The biggest might be the background checks for brothel investors…
Though “debating” prohibitionists is a bad idea, attacking their statements is a good one:
…Sarah…accused [politician] Thangam [Debbonaire] of “prejudice and hatred” towards sex workers and questioned whether the MP had met many…”Client criminalisation leads to sex workers having less time to suss out potential clients…because the client is keen to give the worker less info about himself, and to move the interaction into more private spaces where he is less in danger of being arrested…when the criminalisation of kerb-crawling was introduced in Scotland in 2008…violence against street sex workers went up by 50 per cent in just the first six months…sex workers are arrested all the time for brothel-keeping offences, which can mean sharing a workspace with other sex workers for safety. Of course, having a criminal record relating to prostitution would make it almost impossible for me to ever leave sex work. When the police raid premises they take everybody’s money – all the money I had earned that day, and probably my phone too – no receipt, no way of getting it back…
Anti-sex crusaders love their pseudoscience:
…Journalist Emily Yoffe dove into the “neurobiology of trauma” nonsense last week as part of her series of articles at The Atlantic on campus rape. This phrase has appeared in federal legislation, state legislation, Department of Education guidance to colleges, and campus sexual assault proceedings. It is used to explain why victims of sexual assault might not resist or even say no at all; why their memories of the incident might be spotty; and why changes to their stories over time are normal. Under this theory, hormones and other neurotransmitters go mad and can cause temporary brain damage; memories of an assault are stored perfectly somewhere in the brain but are “fragmented” at first, so it might take victims time to piece together the true story of what happened…But…these claims…fly in the face of almost all recent research on memory and trauma…We have been here before. In the 1980s, the idea that childhood sexual abuse caused…repressed memories grew quite popular…
Some tech companies are willing to destroy the internet to secure a temporary business advantage:
Since the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 was introduced in the Senate in August, tech companies and advocacy groups have…called it “disastrous for free speech online,” asking its members to call their representatives in Congress. Meanwhile, supporters of the bill have emerged from unlikely quarters — including tech giant Oracle and Hollywood studio 21st Century Fox — and are using the legislation as an opportunity to take shots at Google…
Divination
Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged animals, cops, dirty, Divination, drugs, evidence, porn, racism, surveillance, Uganda on September 18, 2017| 3 Comments »
Since the beginning of civilization, “authorities” have lusted for the magical ability to divine which of the peons might be disobeying their diktats. Primitive cultures often believed in trials by ordeal, in which the guilty would be revealed by failing certain tests (presumably because the favor of the gods was believed to be necessary to pass these tests). There were literally hundreds of these in various cultures and times, of which the best-known is probably throwing an accused witch into a pond; if the water “rejected” her (i.e. she managed to stay afloat despite being bound) she must be “impure” and therefore a witch, but if the water “accepted” her (i.e. she sank) she was innocent of the charge, despite being drowned. As time went on, “scientific” methods of detection replaced more openly mystical ones; that is to say, the various mumbo-jumbo rituals “authorities” used to make people into “criminals” were explained to the masses with pseudoscientific claptrap rather than nonsense about spirits, mana, divinely-revealed knowledge or whatever. The nineteenth century brought us “scientific” advances in criminal detection such as phrenology and criminological physiognomy, led by brilliant scholars like Cesare Lombruso who…
…claimed that all prostitutes, without exception, had receding foreheads and large jaws, and that some had “exaggerated” growth of the labia or clitoris. He…claimed…that “primitive” African and American Indian women shared these same features, thus demonstrating that whores were more like “savages” than like highly-evolved Europeans. And since prostitutes were primitive they were also stupid, and thus incompetent to make their own decisions…
Of course, as time went on cops and prosecutors embraced far more dependable “evidence” of criminality, such as winking, possession of condoms, walking on certain streets and the type (or lack) of underwear. And the outrageously-racist rhetoric of Lombruso and his ilk were replaced by more subtle (but still purely racist) excuses for targeting black people. “Forensic science” gave cops tools like bite-mark analysis, recovered memories and “signs” that an infant was shaken to death; these were used to send hundreds of innocent people to rot in cages, despite being no better at detecting “criminals” than sacrificing a goat and examining its entrails. The “War on Drugs” introduced new lows in evidentiary standards, such as “field tests” that routinely mistake substances such as spices, cookies, oil, soap and candy for “illegal drugs”, and “drug dogs” who actually “alert” to whatever their handlers want them to “alert” to rather than whatever might actually be there. But the myth of the magic super-dog who can detect anything has become so entrenched in porcine mythology that cops will believe dogs can detect virtually anything, including electronically-stored ones and zeros, and they expect courts and the public to believe it as well:
…the feds are…[now] training dogs to sniff out…child pornography. No kidding: “‘Today we’re announcing a new weapon in the war against child…exploitation’, [Delaware County (Pennsylvania) District Attorney Jack] Whelan said“…Charlie—a female yellow Labrador retriever—is an “‘electronic-detection forensic K-9’…[who] will be deployed with the Internet Crimes Against Children Pennsylvania Task Force, tasked with sniffing out small hidden electronics, from CD-ROMs to flash drives, in suspected predators’ homes“…Charlie is also a good friend to the cop, Nat Evans, who handles [her]…This sort of thing is, in a word, idiotic. And unscientific. As Jacob Sullum reported in 2013, dogs trained to sniff out contraband (in most cases, drugs) are wildly inaccurate and often poorly trained…reports you read about dogs being able to magically sniff out this or that substance are pharmaceutical-grade bunkum…”[Supreme Court Justice David] Souter said, ‘the infallible dog…is a creature of legal fiction’. Souter cited examples of dogs accepted as reliable by courts that had error rates of up to…60 percent“…It turns out that dogs mostly respond to their handlers and routinely infer when they should alert on a car, or a school locker, or a piece of luggage…
But don’t worry, sex-haters and prohibition fans, you needn’t despair; even if porn-sniffing dogs are eventually proven to be as reliable as a politician’s promise, the South Koreans just sold a sooper-dooper porn-detecting machine to Uganda, and there are oodles of magical “algorithms” that purport to be able to detect at least a few of those hundreds of thousands of “child sex slaves” we’re told are hidden “in your own backyard”. And even if those fall flat, US courts have repeatedly ruled that cop accusations based in their “training and experience” – copese for “bigotry and wild-ass guesses” – are just as good as dogs, field tests and “algorithms”. And maybe even almost as good as weighing women against ducks to see if they’re really witches.
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Boring but necessary legal stuff