Rooted in Racism | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘Rooted in Racism’

In the News (#928)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Alabama, Business As Usual, Canada, censorship, cops, hysteria, Islam, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, New York, New Zealand, Ohio, politicians, prisons, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, Safe Position, streetwalkers, The Enlightenment Police, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, West Virginia, Where Are the Protests? on April 13, 2019| 1 Comment »

The way we are dealing with trafficking cases is not effective.
– Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez

Legal Is As Legal Does (#7)

Hamilton politicians should talk to those in Auckland & Christchurch:

Hamilton City Council is trying to renew a bylaw that may be illegal – a ban on street prostitution that threatens a $20,000 fine. The Prostitutes Collective (NZPC) is dead against it, and even the council admits it’s on shaky legal ground…But…the ban is illegal [because it] recriminalises sex workers…Two attempts by Manukau City Council to ban street prostitution in 2007 and 2012 failed. The Hamilton Mayor admits that exposes his council to legal risk…

Torture Chamber

Our government refers to this as “correction”:

Alabama’s prison…inmates are housed in unconstitutional conditions…the Department of Justice has…threatened to hit Alabama with a federal lawsuit if the state doesn’t begin to correct the violations within 49 days. The report…lays out in unsparing detail a culture of violence across the state’s 13 prisons for men, which house roughly 16,000 inmates in dangerously understaffed prisons that are also among the nation’s most overcrowded. During a single week…one inmate bled to death after being stabbed repeatedly as two others stood guard…Another stabbed inmate had to be evacuated by helicopter, and a prisoner…was attacked with a sock filled with metal locks…Rapes happen day and night in all corners of the prisons…more than 600…from late 2016 through April 2018…[and] the report…”did not identify a single incident in which…staff…intervened”…The prison system documented 24 prisoner homicides between January 2015 and June 2018, but the Justice Department said that…was an undercount…[because] the state [often] classifies violent deaths as arising from natural causes…

To Molest and Rape

Yet another typical and representative cop:

A Newport News [cop] was arrested…[for] rape and [anal rape] of…a girl [under 18]…the department [first] received a report on June 6, 2018 [but took their sweet time arresting their buddy, using the excuse that]…it had happened significantly prior to when the report was made…

The Enlightenment Police (#785)

Five times a day, Guilbault makes obeisance toward the capitol and chants, “the Law is the Law”:

…Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault told reporters at the Quebec National Assembly that it is the job of the police to enforce the law, and the province’s proposed ban on wearing religious symbols in some public service jobs would be no different. “The law is the law,” Ms. Guilbault [chanted]…“People can [call the cops on others who have not hurt them]…The law is the law.” She later clarified that she is confident officials will [mindlessly] obey the law…[even though] several Montreal-area municipalities and school boards say they would not enforce a ban on religiously symbolic garments such as the turban, kippa, hijab and crucifix from being worn by people in positions of authority, including teachers and [pigs]…the law…contain[s] no punitive measures…[but In]justice Minister Sonia LeBel said if a school board or city refuses to enforce the law, the province could obtain a court injunction to force compliance…“I’m very confident…there will be no civil disobedience,” she [lied. Premier François] Legault later told reporters…“We shouldn’t be talking about [the gun in the room]. Quebeckers know there are means to [violently] force respect for the law”…Most of the people who would be affected are Muslim teachers who wear headscarves…

It’s cute how Canadian politicians like to dance around the inherent tyranny of laws against consensual behavior.

To Molest and Rape (#845)

Dante would’ve placed this monster in Ptolomea:

Kenneth Collard…pleaded guilty to [rape]…and is expected to be sentenced to [a mere] five years in prison…Collard was staying at the home of an[other cop]…when he entered the [his host’s daughter’s] bedroom and [rap]ed her in the middle of the night…

Where Are the Protests? (#848)

I suggest you compare this to the “nail parlor slavery” myth:

Police have been alerted to 930 reports of [imagined] modern-day slavery at hand car washes, thanks to a new smartphone app devised by the Church of England (C of E) and the Catholic Church…Customers concerned by working conditions at a hand car wash have been urged to download the Safe Car Wash app and complete a survey which includes key indicators of modern slavery…[such as] evidence of staff living on site…

Rooted in Racism (#867)

But they want to “rescue” them!

Sex workers in the UK are being illegally targeted for deportations and subjected to harassment and attacks because of a Brexit-inspired culture of discrimination against foreigners…A dossier compiled by the…English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) includes examples of women being targeted by police for arrest and deportation despite having the right to remain in Britain, and police dismissing reports of violence against women…Niki Adams…said…“Migrant sex workers from EU countries like Romania, Albania and Poland do have the right to work in the UK but they have been picked up and deported…The police were doing things like confiscating a woman’s travel documents or passport and saying, ‘We will only give this back to you if you produce a one-way ticket to Romania’”…

The Widening Gyre (#901)

Cops don’t like it when non-cops falsely accuse innocent people of “crimes” that didn’t happen:

Santana Adams of Milton, West Virginia, has been charged with falsely accusing a man of trying to kidnap her 5-year-old daughter at the mall. On April [Fool’s Day], Adams told the police that a stranger at the Old Navy store in Barboursville “grabbed the child by the hair and attempted to pull her away.” The girl then “dropped to the floor with the male still pulling her”…The woman told police she pulled out a gun and the man quickly left the scene…the accused man, Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, was thrown in jail…But the case against him quickly began to unravel…By Tuesday, Zayan was released…By Thursday night…the prosecutor dismissed all charges….[after] surveillance video [showed] the two shoppers calmly leaving the store at slightly different times, going in opposite directions…By Friday afternoon the tables had completely turned and Adams found herself facing charges for accusing Zayan of a crime that did not happen. Possible penalties are a $500 fine and sixth months in jail…

Safe Position (#919)

Even my jaded self is impressed with the speed this is happening in New York:

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez voiced his support for the decriminalization of sex work on April 4 during a wide-ranging discussion with elected officials, advocates, and members of Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn (LID). The “decriminalizing queerness” event, which was hosted by LID and primarily focused on sex work but also touched upon marijuana legalization, housing rights, and other issues facing marginalized groups, additionally featured Brooklyn State Senators Julia Salazar and Zellnor Myrie as well as advocates who have experience as sex workers…Gonzalez’s clear support for decriminalization comes just weeks after he unveiled his Justice 2020 plan geared towards reducing incarceration…

Business As Usual (#921)

Every so often the feds decide to make an example of an especially-horrible cop:

A Franklin County grand jury indicted [typical and representative] Columbus…vice [pig] Andrew Mitchell…in the [murder] of Donna Castleberry…Mitchell had been attempting to [rape] Castleberry when she [resisted, so]…he shot her multiple times. Mark Collins, Mitchell’s defense attorney [tried to defame the dead victim and claims]…Mitchell was acting in self-defense [when he murdered an unarmed woman half his size]…

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In the News (#913)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Woman's Point of View, activism, adolescence, Against Their Will, agency denial, brothels, Case Study, Catholicism, Checklist, dirty, drivers, drugs, Europe, fascism, Feminine Pragmatism, Florida, harm reduction, Hollywood, Hungary, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, language, Legalization a Good Idea?, Madonna/whore, Moloch, New York, Original Sin, Pennsylvania, porn, pragmatism, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, Real People, rescue industry, Rooted in Racism, Shazam!, slavery, Spain, surveillance, The Crumbling Dam, The Notorious Badge, United Kingdom, Venezuela, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims? on February 16, 2019| 4 Comments »

The rescue industry is a deeply misogynistic enterprise which…polices the behaviour of women under the guise of saving us. – Eleanor Janega

Real People

The more sex workers come out like this, the better for everyone:

The people that make the porn that a lot of us watch are sick of you pretending that you’re better than them. Michele James especially is sick of it. “We are cast out into the shadows…if I could bring a person who didn’t do sex work on set for a day, for them to see what we actually go through, they would realize it’s a job too and we deserve respect, the same as CEOs, and everybody else who goes to work 9-5.” James…sees part of her responsibility to the industry she loves is helping to destigmatize the performers who make it…she is passionate about her industry; and she gives exactly zero fucks what you think about that…

Moloch

How many kids need to be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?

A…High School student in the Florida Keys is facing 15 years in prison and life as a registered sex offender for continuing to date his 15-year-old girlfriend after he turned 18 in December…numerous people, including the girl’s parents, his parents and two sheriff’s office deputies, [warned] Tucker [that the shamans of the booga-booga gods would be angry he was violating the Shazam magic, but] the two continued to see each other…[and] the girl’s mother [decided to destroy her] relationship [with her daughter by ratting them out to] the…school [pig]…cops [then eavesdropped on a private conversation and congratulated themselves for destroying a young man’s life]…

The Crumbling Dam (#739)

Seattle’s vocal harm magnification community is still going strong:

[Shilo] Jama has spent his career advocating for drug users. With his work at the [People’s Harm Reduction Alliance], he runs syringe distribution sites, including a drop-in site in the U District…They have a nurse practitioner on site who prescribes medications like Suboxone, which helps with withdrawal symptoms…Over the years, Jama has helped countless people who use drugs, but his efforts aren’t exactly appreciated by everyone. In December, flyers featuring a photograph of his face started popping up in the University District and elsewhere in North Seattle…The flyer accuses Jama (who legally changed his last name from Murphy a few years ago to honor the family that raised him) of “enabling and encouraging harmful behavior that has caused many deaths”…The flyer claims that Jama, his organization, and the U District needle distribution site are a danger to the public, but according to public health experts, harm reduction projects like Jama’s do reduce overdose deaths and other public health issues…The flyer also says that the Seattle Police Department and the Seattle City Council are “almost powerless” to prosecute Jama and lists a phone number for the FBI’s Seattle office, encouraging people to call and report him…Jama…suspects [the source] was members of Safe Seattle, an organization that, among other issues, advocates against safe injection sites…

The Notorious Badge (#760)

This does a good job of synopsizing my discomfort with The Deuce:

…The Deuce uses its promise to reveal the behind-closed-doors happenings of sex work to argue relentlessly for the regulation and oversight of the industry…it is nervous about the way it represents sex work, anxious to inform but not to titillate. In pinpointing…sex-work…as a “secret,” however, and then exposing it through a surveillance-cum-safety structure, the show satisfies an intellectual craving for knowledge that echoes the pleasures of pornography…[it] takes care to pat viewers on the back, framing their pleasure as different from that of the porn viewer. Through gridline-marked shots of pornography in the making, for example, The Deuce allows viewers to indulge in pornographic voyeurism under the guise of cautionary surveillance. At the same time, it frames their viewing position as a sanctimonious one…

“Regulation and oversight” = “legalization”, which only politicians and cops want. Sex workers, human rights groups, medical groups and academics who have studied our work all recognize decriminalization, not “regulation” by outsiders, as the best model for everyone.

Checklist (#811)

Despite some pandering to “sex trafficking” beliefs, this isn’t a bad article about “signs of sex trafficking” indocrination:

…every year…ahead of the Super Bowl…anti-prostitution [crusaders]…campaign [to indocrinate]…everyone from hospitality employees to Uber drivers…in…anti-[sex worker propaganda such as the claim that]…as many as 40.3 million people were “in modern slavery in 2016”, up more than 5 million compared to five years ago. And in 2014, the 35.8 figure rose by 6 million people in just a year…the…figures are so alluringly extreme [because profiteers]…are often under pressure from poli[tician]s into producing overestimated figures…crusades of this nature are not…concerned with accuracy, as appearing to be leading the charge against [consensual sex]…hotel chains like Marriott have been reported as looking out for women travelling alone and sexually provocative clothing as signs of…sex…[work, which makes it clear that] consenting adult sex workers [are]…being targeted…

Unfortunately, Lyft may not be a safe alternative to Uber for much longer:

…we are working to help raise awareness and taking action to prevent human trafficking. Through partnerships with [prohibitionist] organizations like…Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST), we are [indoctrinating] drivers…on how to spot [escorts] and [rat them out to the pigs]…

Original Sin (#824)

A new statement from a man who says men who seek consensual sex with women are “criminals with a sick mentality”:

Pope Francis has admitted that clerics have sexually abused nuns, and in one case they were kept as sex slaves…his predecessor, Pope Benedict, was forced to shut down an entire congregation of nuns who were being abused by priests. It is thought to be the first time that Pope Francis has acknowledged the sexual abuse of nuns by the clergy. He said the Church was attempting to address the problem but said it was “still going on”…

Rooted in Racism (#854)

More European government humanitarianism to “fight human trafficking”:

…[it has been] two years since Italy, backed by the EU, did a deal to spend tens of millions of euros funding the Libyan coastguard, which intercepts boats heading for Italy and returns refugees and migrants to a war zone…detainees in nine different detention centres…use hidden phones to reveal what’s going on at huge risk to themselves. EU [politicians] continue to promote the idea that arrivals in Europe and deaths at sea are dropping. But…thousands of men, women, and children…speak of going days without food and of drinking toilet water to survive. Some have stopped speaking, forgotten their families, sit crouched in a corner and wet themselves from trauma…Couples are separated – some of the roughly 640 detained children are held with their mothers, though those over 14 are kept in adult cells…infected detainees are locked with others in a dark room and have been repeatedly left without tuberculosis medication…In October, a 28-year-old Somali set himself on fire…after saying he saw no other way out. In early January dozens of refugees and migrants, brought by the coastguard to the Libyan port city of Khoms, were forced back to smugglers by Libyan [cops]…[and] now risk torture if they can’t raise an the $5,000 ransom that has already been demanded…

Feminine Pragmatism (#891)

One day, reporters will get that “People Work To Make Money” is not news:

Increasing numbers of public sector workers are [making the pragmatic decision] to [do] sex work due to austerity measures and welfare cuts…a leading campaigning group…says more women in public sector roles are doing sex work to top up their income due to employers making no allowances for the fact they have children…the organisation, the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), [has] release[d] a new report comparing sex work with other jobs commonly done by women. The report found sex workers earn significantly more per hour than women working in the other jobs – including those in public sector positions such as nurses and midwives. Women cited higher wages as their primary reason for entering the sex industry…

Case Study (#892)

One day, reporters will get that “people sublet flats” is not news:

A special constable and his Hungarian wife have been jailed for [rent]ing [flats to] women from Hungary [in] a Chelsea apartment block [nicknam]ed “10 Floors of Whores”. Karl Ring and Ivett Szuda…[arranged sex workers’ travel on] the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air to fly women into London from Budapest as they made more than £600,000 [over several years] from [subletting flats]…Szuda…[will be locked in a cage] for six and a half years, while Ring…[will be] locked up for four years…the couple [charged sex workers 50% of their fees, a fairly typical rate for brothels]…Judge Robin Johnson [bloviated a lot of pompous, moralistic nonsense about “exploitation”, ignoring the fact that] the sex workers were happy with the arrangement…

Feminine Pragmatism (#896)

The villains here aren’t imaginary “trafficking rings”; they’re the fucking politicians who force desperate people to deal with criminals to have a chance to escape hell:

Traffickers are targeting desperate young women in Venezuela by flying them to the Costas to [do lucrative, flexible work]…at least 208,000 have fled the crisis-hit country in the hope of a better life in Spain. Nearly all of those have travelled on official three month tourists visas which are readily available as Venezuela was once a Spanish colony. However, a flight costs £1,000 which is a fortune in a land where a cup of coffee costs a month’s wages thanks to hyperinflation of 80,000 per cent…This is when the heartless trafficking gangs of Caracas are stepping in and [giving people a chance to escape despite politicians’ efforts to keep them trapped in Venezuela]…SICAR Cat, a religious organisation that pro[fits from hysteria over]…sex trafficking, [pretends these women are ignorant children who don’t know what sex work is, and calls their jobs]…modern day slavery…Venezuela’s economic mix of unemployment, poverty and inflation has created the perfect conditions for [mass emigration] to flourish…

These stories sure sound stupid when the hype is replaced by objective language, don’t they?

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#905)

Indian sex workers are chipping away at the prohibitionists’ agency-negating lies:

…four organisations…have released a report which states that close to 77% women voluntarily return to sex work after their rescue into shelter homes…the National Network for Sex Workers Association (NNSWA) and UMKO, Saheli – HIV/RAIDS Karyakarta Sangh, SANGRAM and Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP), have released a report “Raided – How Anti-Trafficking Strategies Increase Sex Workers’ Vulnerability to Exploitative Practices”…79% of the women documented in the study returned to sex work – “escaping” their rescue from shelter homes, while almost 11% of the women continued to live in these homes…Kusum, President [of the] All India Network of Sex Workers explained the “horrific” condition of shelter homes and why women want to escape it…“There is no food to eat, and when there is food it is insect infested which makes people sick. No health care to take care of inhabitants…and even if that was provided the stigma that exists towards HIV persons within these homes is bad enough to kill someone well before their time”…the report contests the…present understanding that most women in the flesh trade are trafficked women ‘pushed into prostitution’…These homes manifest an environment of isolation and deprive the women of identity and income…

The Indian media is so thoroughly brainwashed by prohibitionists that even in an article citing statistics debunking prohibitionist mythology, the reporter feels compelled to put the word “escape” (from a literal prison) in scare quotes, and also scare-quotes the word “horrific” (used to describe conditions any decent person would agree are horrific), while omitting scare quotes from the word “rescue” when used to mean “arrest”. He also uses “live in” to mean “remain imprisoned in”, and “present understanding” to mean “popular myth”. It’s going to be a long, uphill battle.

Pyrrhic Victory (#906)

“Please, masters, don’t use this tool we made you in exactly the way it was designed to be used“:

Amazon unveiled new proposed guidelines…for any national legislation regulating facial recognition technology…civil rights groups and privacy advocates…criticized Amazon’s Rekognition contracts with law enforcement agencies, [absurdly concentrating on the] point…that the technology has misidentified people of color [rather than recognizing that high accuracy is even worse for privacy]…Amazon…responded [with the lie that]…”In the two-plus years we’ve been offering Amazon Rekognition, we have not received a single report of misuse by law enforcement”…The proposals from Amazon focus mainly on ensuring that law enforcement uses the technology [to surveil citizens more] effectively and without [being less able to identify] minorities. “New technology should not be banned or condemned because of its potential misuse,” Amazon said in [typical tech-geek morally imbecilic fashion]…”Instead, the…[overlords] should be [free to do whatever they like]…and…that the[ir ability to oppress the citizens with the] technology…is continuously enhanced.” Amazon said any national legislation should ensure facial recognition technology [is profitable for]…Amazon…and…governments [alike]…

A Woman’s Point of View (#912)

Kaytlin Bailey responds to drama some want to whip up against “Decriminalize Sex Work”:

We are disappointed in [Emily Shugerman’s] editorial choice to focus on Rob Kampia in your February 3rd, 2019 [Daily Beast] article titled, “Rob Kampia Weed Activist With #MeToo Past, Is Now Pushing Sex Work Reform”. By focusing on Rob’s past instead of our efforts to decriminalize sex work, you reduced a rich and vibrant movement to one man’s conduct. You have also diminished the contributions of the women on our team, who have devoted decades to this cause in order to center the only man among our directors. You minimized our accomplishments and our mission by publishing a piece that misrepresents not only our organization but the entire sex worker rights movement…whose voices are historically absent from all media reporting. Yet, you wrote about Rob…To call our life’s work a “vanity project”…is an insult and a willful misrepresentation of who we are, what we’ve accomplished, and what we’re trying to do. To suggest that allowing Rob Kampia to use his extensive network of donors and political resources to further our work is a betrayal of the sex worker rights movement is to minimize the diversity and breadth of this work, and to minimize the need for change. We can focus on Rob, or we can talk about the immense harms of criminalization…

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In the News (#883)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, BDSM, brothels, Cooties, cops, dirty, Disaster, disease, end demand, fantasy, First They Came for the Hookers, Indonesia, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, language, Madonna/whore, Pennsylvania, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rape, red-light districts, Rooted in Racism, Standard Operating Procedure, statistics, streetwalkers, To Molest and Rape, Uncommon Sense, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Wyoming on October 27, 2018| 1 Comment »

The paramilitary, bureaucratic structure [of police] produces a dysfunctional culture. – Norm Stamper

It Looks Good On Paper

Another story touting bullshit “safe harbor” laws:

After first being introduced in 2015, the Pennsylvania General Assembly unanimously passed Safe Harbor legislation that protects minors from being prosecuted for sexual exploitation…The bill…provides immunity to all minors for the crimes of prostitution and obstruction of the highway [and] provides alternatives to delinquency for sexually exploited children who could otherwise be charged with prostitution-related offenses…

Unless this bill is very different from all the others, what it actually does is to give cops the power to indefinitely detain a minor they label as a “victim” while giving “immunity” only to lily-white “perfect victims” with no criminal record who go through a lengthy and complex expungement process.

Uncommon Sense (#528)

Sex workers in Indonesia form an association to fight together:

…the Yogyakarta Women’s Sex Workers Association (Perhimpunan Perempuan Pekerja Seks Yogyakarta, or P3SY)…was formed in 2010, facilitated by the Indonesian Family Planning Association…in Yogyakarta. It has other branches in places with small communities of sex workers, which are run by the women themselves…the…union was established to deal with the threat of HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases…the community is working with local public health centres (puskesmas) to provide voluntary blood tests and counselling for the sex workers on a quarterly basis…women who test positive [for HIV] can gain access to free antiretroviral drugs provided by the regional government…P3SY…has persuaded almost all of its members to require their clients to wear protection…P3SY gives the women a platform to engage with and lobby the authorities. Such advocacy proved useful when, in 2012, the authorities threatened to close down Bong Suwung. P3SY and the PKBI managed to prevent it from happening by holding discussions with the local government…

To Molest and Rape (#797)

It’s good to see this problem finally getting attention outside of libertarian and sex worker circles:

…US [cops] were charged with forcible rape 405 times between 2005 and 2013. That’s an average of 45 a year. Forcible fondling was more common, with 636 instances. Yet experts say those statistics are, by no means, comprehensive. Data on sexual assaults by police are almost nonexistent…”It’s just not available at all,” said Jonathan Blanks, a research associate with the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice. “You can only crowdsource this info”…No one…[can] give an estimate, even ballpark, on how underreported these types of crimes might be…Unions…work hard to protect [cops from the consequences of their crimes]…[as do] some states’ laws…some jurisdictions include nondisclosure agreements in victim settlements. “The system is rigged to protect [cops] from outside accountability,” Blanks said…for every sexual assault that makes the news, there are almost always more victims — on average, five more. About half of the victims are [legal minors]…

Standard Operating Procedure (#814)

Remember, what these pearl-clutching loons mean by “predators” is actually “people who bring money into the local economy by hiring local entrepreneurs”:

Time is up for sexual predators in the aid sector, Britain’s development minister said…as she announced new measures to clamp down on sexual abuse and exploitation after a series of scandals…the British government will announce details of a joint initiative with Interpol to stop sexual predators from getting jobs…Revelations earlier this year that Oxfam staff [hired sex workers] in Haiti snowballed into widespread reports of misconduct in the aid sector…

Cooties (#845)

Vulnerable women are being exploited and abused in “pop-up brothels” around Dublin…Labour senator…Kevin Humphreys [panted while publicly masturbating]…He ad[mitt]ed that one [so-called “gang” was actually]…two young women [working together for safety as sex workers have explained many times]…

Rooted in Racism (#858)

Note how the myth of Nigerian “sex trafficking” has grown more outlandish as European governments try to keep out black migrants while pretending not to be racist:

A new report by Europol shows that international criminal groups, particularly from Nigeria, are using established trafficking networks and the cover afforded by the migrant crisis to smuggle minors into northern European countries like Ireland for sale into the sex trade and other criminal enterprises…crime networks of “large family clans”…traffic children for the purposes of begging, criminality and sexual exploitation, with those clans operating in multiple countries at any one time and rotating their victims on a regular basis…people engag[e] in the trafficking and exploitation of their own children…

First They Came for the Hookers… (#866)

Y’all didn’t stand up for professional whores, and now they’re coming for you dabblers:

A Wyoming woman running for city council is defending her panty-selling alter ego, confirming…that she will remain in the race. Deborah Reno…has sold used panties and “dirty gym shorts” online for the past year. She’s also seen stripteasing in videos…A handful of [busybodies complained] to other [politicians] following the discovery of what Reno thought was her secret identity. The candidate said she no longer sells used underwear and has since deleted all her accounts, saying “Mystee is dead.” Councilwoman Wendy Schuler said…that Reno is probably no longer electable as result…

Disaster (#873)

Morons cheer when a highway is destroyed, then get upset when the traffic goes into side streets:

If you’re wondering why you see so many prostitutes openly working Seattle streets, cops contend you should blame it on City Attorney Pete Holmes [rather than the government’s destruction of their advertising venues]. Cops complain that his office generally refuses to pursue charges against prostitutes. Consequently, prostitutes are flocking to Seattle from out of town and [poor little piggies] feel powerless to attack the[m]…Some are there willingly, others are forced to by abusive pimps, who also ravage the neighborhoods with drug dealing and petty theft…But cops want to arrest pimps, as they’re often nearby in [an invisible] car waiting for their prostitutes to drop off cash from a client. Without being able to use jail time as leverage over the prostitutes to turn on their pimps, it’s a futile effort…It could also explain why some sex workers refuse [fingerpainting classes] offered to them by the city [which take up time they could be earning money]…Even if they decided to [rape a few women] they’ll face scrutiny so unrealistically high, it’s not worth it…their complaints return to the Office of Police Accountability, an independent office within the SPD that cops [whine] is over-zealous…

The saddest thing is that Holmes, and probably most Seattle detectives, know this “pimps and hos” and “cleaning up the streets” malarkey is total bullshit, but they’re locked into it due to years of taking Swanee Hunt’s blood money. “It’s a futile effort,” all right, but not because they can’t arrest sex workers; it’s because these invisible “pimps” don’t actually exist. Also note the vile and sinister “we could make these whores go away if we didn’t have to follow all these rules.” You know, the rules that were imposed by the feds because of all the police brutality.

Topping from the Bottom

Amateurs publish another public bad date list; Katie Herzog uses that as springboard to discuss Stephen Elliott:

…Elliott said that his behavior both in and outside the bedroom can be both atypical and unprofessional…A longtime friend of his told me that Elliot (who, as a child, was a ward of the state and lived in group homes) was “raised by wolves” and has “zero boundaries”. He’s the kind of guy who will talk about sex in front of your grandma. It’s easy to see how his behavior could be construed as—or could be—sexual harassment…

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In the News (#867)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Absolute Corruption, advertising, Bad Girls, California, cell phones, censorship, cops, dating, dirty, drivers, Europe, Florida, Full of Themselves, hysteria, illegal aliens, India, Little Boxes, massage, Minnesota, Most Uptight Nerd Ever, Oregon, propaganda, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, Something Rotten In Sweden, Tennessee, The Monsters Are Due, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The War Goes On, The Widening Gyre, Twitter, Wisconsin on September 1, 2018| 4 Comments »

We’re faced with 60,000 arrivals across the Mediterranean into a continent of half a billion people, the richest continent in the world, and it’s portrayed as an emergency. – Filippo Grandi

Bad Girls

I hope they never catch her; this is admirably badass:

Police in the Milwaukee suburb of Cudahy…pulled over a speeder on Aug. 9. But when they did a background check on the name that she gave them, Latoya Watson, it came up as the alias of Laquita Watson, 27, who was wanted for prostitution and contempt of court…[when the pigs tried to arrest] Watson…she took off, driving up to 80 mph through residential streets and swerving into oncoming traffic. Watson then made her way to Highway 794, made two illegal U-turns and hit 108 mph when other units joined in the pursuit. Watson then exited back onto local roads and continued driving at 90 mph and got away as police gave up the chase out of a concern for safety…citations were…mailed to her last known address for driving without a valid license, insurance or seat belt, speeding, and both obstructing and fleeing from an officer. A district attorney will also consider a reckless endangerment charge and a new warrant for her arrest…

Absolute Corruption

Only one major victim of the Satanic panic is still in prison:

On January 23, 2014, the Florida Parole Commission sent Frank Fuster a letter informing him that, owing to a recent policy change, it had determined that his initial interview was scheduled for March 2134. No, that isn’t a misprint. His first parole hearing is scheduled in 120 years. And this for a crime that, by any fair reading of the evidence, not only did Fuster not commit but never even happened. Thirty-three years ago, Fuster, along with his young wife, Ileana, was convicted of sexually abusing children at his suburban Florida home, where Ileana provided day care. He is the last person charged in the mass sex-abuse-in-day-care scares that made headlines from the 1980s to the mid ’90s to remain in prison…therapist-induced repressed “memories” of incest destroyed thousands of families — the day-care cases…are morality tales in reverse: The perpetrators ride high on the backs of their victims. Janet Reno went on to become attorney general. In a hideous distortion of the truth, Bill Clinton in nominating Reno hailed her record of protecting children. Scott Harshbarger, who prosecuted the Amiraults, rode that case to become attorney general of Massachusetts. The accusing families cleaned up. In the Fuster case, they collected over $5 million in out-of-court settlements from the deep-pocketed Arvida Corporation (owned by Disney), the developer of [the subdivision where the Fusters lived]…

Something Rotten in Sweden (#651)

Actually, the suburbs are safer now than they have been for a century, but the public will believe anything it sees on billboards, no matter how ridiculous:

An edgy public service campaign is coming to a billboard near you…Emmy Myers says…in her early 20s, she became involved with a man who eventually…became her trafficker…She says the FBI helped her get away and start over. Now Myers runs Lacey’s Hope Project, [a prohibitionist group] that [spreads]…sex trafficking [propaganda]. Her new public service campaign will send the message that sex trafficking is not just an issue in big cities…”we want to focus on the suburbs because there are so many [suckers who believe this fantasy there]” said Myers. She said the best thing parents can do is talk with their children about sex-trafficking, and look for signs…

This lame recitation of the “sex trafficking” Shahada is as “edgy” as a balloon.

Rooted in Racism (#797)

A UN official finally admits what I’ve been pointing out for years:

The 1951 refugee convention, which protects the basic human rights of refugees and asylum seekers, is at risk of “collapsing” or being “fatally weakened” if the toxic rhetoric from rich nations towards migrants continues, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said…Filippo Grandi warned that the political response to the refugee crisis was allowing “abuses of human rights to be carried out unchecked, unmonitored and uncontained”. These flaws in the system continue to be exploited by smugglers and criminal groups who [help] people fleeing war and conflict…

Not So Easy

There is no “debate”; this scheme is supported only by politicians and developers:

The French Quarter is not the first place many Americans think of as a family tourist destination. For more than a century, it has offered a more risqué kind of leisure…But [Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser] believes the city, which attracted a record 10.9 million visitors last year, has reached a “critical point” in its struggle to maintain [what politicians call] public safety in the quarter. His prescription: turning the French Quarter into a state park to make it more “family friendly”. “We don’t want to attract only people who want to drink daiquiris or go to a strip club,” Nungesser said. “We want to attract families from all over the world.” The idea appears to be a nonstarter because it would require cooperation with the city, and New Orleans…mayor…LaToya Cantrell, has said she has no interest in ceding control of the center of the city’s $7.5-billion tourism industry…the proposal…has raised long-standing fears about attempts to sanitize the historic district and prompted plenty of ridicule from locals…Lyn Archer, a stripper who represents the Bourbon Alliance of Responsible Entertainers, fears Bourbon Street could eventually become the kind of “historical” site where workers dress up in period clothing to simulate traditional trades and read diaries to tourists. “Is this our future?” she said. “To perform under a facade of the past for the amusement of visitors?”…

Quite Possibly the Most Uptight Nerd Ever (#813)

Another idiotic “Uber for escorts” app developed without consulting sex workers:

A self-described “Uber of escorting”…app isn’t impressing sex workers, who have raised concerns about the cryptocurrency platform’s security and lack of transparency. PinkDate matches sex workers with clients, who can pay for services with crypto such as bitcoin or monero. The startup, still in beta, has raised $1 million through its initial coin offering (ICO). However, escorts involved in the project have already complained about its security and the risk of meeting unvetted clients, with one anonymous sex worker telling CoinDesk the system is “too pimp-like and not safe to use.” The company said its clients will also be asked to give identification, but sex workers fear they won’t be adequately cross-referenced with industry blacklists…The app takes a substantial cut of 20 percent of the sex workers’ earnings. A similar company, SpankChain charges 5 percent. PinkDate’s founders are anonymous, yet escorts are expected to upload their government ID and Twitter accounts to sign up…The company’s former president Sarah Stevens was a sex worker, but she said she left PinkDate because of concerns about its business model…

Full of Themselves (#831)

Remember, choosing a massage professional certified by the California Massage Therapy Council is your only protection against “criminals using massage as a front for sex crimes”:

A [certified] massage therapist who operated businesses in Folsom and Orangevale has been convicted of sexually assaulting three women at his businesses…Thomas Self worked as a [certified] massage therapist at multiple locations and specialized in massaging athletes throughout the Sacramento region…In the summer of 2015…Self…sexually assaulted [a patient] with his fingers…A little under a year later, in March 2016, Self sexually assaulted a second woman with his fingers during a massage session…That August, Self sexually assaulted a third woman who he was reportedly helping train to become a massage therapist…A search on the California Massage Therapy Council shows that Self was…suspended [until] April 22, 2017…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#837)

He probably just thought he was in a “sex doll brothel”: “A man has been arrested after reportedly being caught having sex with a dead body at a Memphis hospital. The suspect has been identified as Cameron Wright, a security guard at St. Francis Hospital…”

The War Goes On (#855)

All the oinking about how hard it is for poor widdle piggies to persecute sex workers since the feds shut down Backpage is hilarious:

Authorit[arian]s trying to [victimize consenting adults for] buying sex…have long depended on Craigslist and Backpage, where an online personal ad could be viewed from anywhere in the world and elicit any number of responses at a given time. But police and [other prohibitionists] across the state and nation are scrambling to [escape the pile of shit they helped create by censoring] both sites…earlier this year, displacing sex [worker advertising] onto mobile apps, obscure websites and foreign-owned sites that aren’t beholden to U.S. [witch hunters]…[Minnesota pigs] charged at least 29 men between late July and early August with a variety of [prostitution-related] crimes…The dating site Plenty of Fish and an app called Skout were each used to catch one suspect. The mobile app Grindr was used in three arrests…

Be careful, amateurs; your failure to oppose pogroms against pros has resulted in the pigs rooting around in dating apps for victims. I hope you enjoy the world your silence helped to create.

The Monsters Are Due (#856)

The ugliest part of a peak moral panic: lynch mobs. Note that similar fake “child abduction” videos are being used to foment hysteria in the US.

This summer in India, two dozen innocent people died at the hands of mobs convinced that they were meting out justice to kidnappers. One was a software engineer beaten to death after giving chocolates to children outside a school. One was a 65-year-old woman who got lost on a trip to a temple with her family and stopped to ask for directions. All five travelers were stripped naked and beaten with fists, sticks and iron rods…fear of strangers is far more dangerous than strangers themselves. The panic began in April when a video that appears to show a child being scooped off the street by two men on a motorcycle went viral. The video was originally created in Pakistan as a public service announcement to teach parents to watch their children more closely. The end of the clip showed the child returned by the “kidnappers” who held up a sign: “It takes but a moment to snatch a child off the streets of Karachi.” But that wasn’t what millions of Indians saw on WhatsApp. In the doctored Indian version, that ending was cut off, so the child never reappears…

Little Boxes (#865)

I’m not sure which is more ludicrous, prohibitionists’ insistence that this is prostitution, or cuddlers’ insistence that it isn’t:

Lady Colin Campbell left Good Morning Britain presenters gobsmacked with a shocking outburst…during a debate on [compulsory] cuddling in the workplace…The socialite and former I’m A Celebrity star…appeared…alongside Lindsay Meadows, a “cuddle therapist” who charges her clients £45 an hour for hugs. Lady Colin wasn’t convinced by her job title, comparing it to prostitution and said that those who pay to be hugged by her have “moral and psychological problems”. GMB host Ranvir Singh was clearly baffled…and her jaw visibly dropped…

Lady Colin Campbell is remarkably prudish and insensitive, given her own personal history as an intersex person.

The Widening Gyre (#865)

Here’s another entry in the “sex trafficking” scare story invasion of Twitter; it’s even more hilarious than the previous two. This dumbass lost track of her car, and rather than recognize that she imagines every guy in the parking lot is party of a sinister conspiracy which broke into her car, hot-wired it and moved it to a different part of the parking lot, then put everything back as it was, presumably to confuse her, but then didn’t follow through on abducting her, the “sex trafficking” expert AND the little girl, because REASONS.

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In the News (#861)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, asset seizure, Bread and Circuses, Canada, Censor Chic, censorship, Change a Few Words, China, cops, Do As I Say, drugs, end demand, fascism, Florida, Georgia, Google, hysteria, internet, Lack of Evidence, language, LGBT rights, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Policing for Profit, porn, racism, Rooted in Racism, Something Rotten In Sweden, surveillance, United Kingdom, Virginia on August 11, 2018| Leave a Comment »

People…[recognize] outrageous abuse of authority, but they often don’t question the authority itself. – Scott Shackford

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

But, but, but…BUYING WOMEN!!!

The head of the London [Ontario] police department’s human trafficking unit faces three professional misconduct charges for allegedly ordering the release a fellow [pig] swept up in a prostitution sting and then trying to cover up his tracks. Sgt. Michael Hay…directed the unconditional release of a [cop]…who had been arrested during a [scheme to persecute] men [seeking consensual] sex…

Change a Few Words

What other group is stopped from entering the US for acts that aren’t crimes in their country?

…Sam Znaimer is a Vancouver, Canada-based venture capitalist who has been investing in everything from tech to telecommunications for more than 30 years. Recently, he put more than $100,000 into legal American cannabis companies. In May, when he attempted to drive across the border, he was flagged for [harassment] and [interrogate] for four hours. “To my shock and horror, I was told that I was deemed to be inadmissible to the United States because I was assisting and abetting in the illicit trafficking of drugs,” Znaimer said…American immigration attorney Len Saunders said he’s seen at least a dozen cases like Znaimer’s at the Blaine land crossing as well as airports in Vancouver and Edmonton over the past few months. In the prior 15 years that he’s practiced law on the border, he’d never seen one…In June, Canada became only the second country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana nationwide. It’s also home to one of the only securities exchanges on the planet where people can buy stock in American pot companies…

Lack of Evidence (#344)

When will amateurs learn that the War on Whores affects them as well?

…the Hollywood [Florida] Police Department raided an adult store called the Pleasure Emporium…an undercover couple went to the store, purchased tickets for an adult video room, and found gay men allegedly performing sex acts either on themselves or with each other. It wasn’t prostitution, but the cops decided it violated the statutes against lascivious acts and exposure of sexual organs…arrests followed, and…the men became victims of what the Miami New Times has rightly called a smear campaign. Local outlets such as WPLG and The Miami Herald posted the men’s names and mugshots. Abbie Cuellar, a lawyer representing one of the men, tells the New Times that her client lost his job as a result…

Bread and Circuses

This pearl-clutching mess about feds’ attack on a fairly ordinary incall escort business is so larded with dysphemisms and lurid nonsense, there’s little point in quoting anything else:

Human merchandise hawked…littered with pictures of women…performing submissive positions…solicit women for prostitution…sophisticated prostitution and human trafficking network…pricy haunts…pimps and madams…virtual sex carnival…reel in johns… broken English…prostitution network…with that female…sex-trafficking matchmaker…prostitution proceeds…staggering number of condoms…sex house to sex house…Bashir and her cohorts…illicit sex operations…steady stream of men…

This bluenosed reporter apparently believes this kind of ridiculous language make her sound clever rather than like an intern at the Daily Mail incapable of doing the most basic research; three minutes on any escort’s site (mine included) would have led her to understand that a double means two girls, not “likely meaning having sex more than once”. Of the victims of this witch hunt, Susan Bashir, Jineok Kim, and Kyung Song plead guilty; Yoon Kim and his wife Taehee Kim are still fighting the charges.

Policing for Profit (#590)

Let’s hope this provides a powerful precedent to take down similar robbery gangs all over the US:

…in April 2016, Arlene Harjo let her 38-year-old son borrow her two-year-old Nissan Versa…the next morning Harjo learned that Albuquerque police had arrested him for driving while intoxicated…[and stolen] Harjo’s car, which the city planned to keep…U.S. District Judge James Browning…said…”The City of Albuquerque has an unconstitutional institutional incentive to prosecute forfeiture cases…because, in practice, the forfeiture program sets its own budget and can spend, without meaningful oversight, all of the excess funds it raises from previous years…[this] violates procedural due process, because owners have to prove that their cars are not subject to civil forfeiture”…Albuquerque [steals] more than 1,000 cars a year, generating more than $1 million in revenue, based on crimes such as DWI [and] patronizing prostitutes…Half the time, as in Harjo’s case, the car does not belong to the offender. Cars nevertheless are automatically forfeited if the owner does not request an administrative hearing (and pay a $50 fee) within 10 days. Before Harjo’s hearing, as part of its customary “settlement negotiations,” the city offered to sell her car back to her for $4,000, provided she agreed to have the vehicle booted [and therefore completely useless to her] for 18 months…Several months later, after Harjo filed a lawsuit with help from the Institute for Justice, the city dropped its forfeiture complaint. It turned out that Harjo’s car was not subject to forfeiture because it had been seized outside the boundaries of Albuquerque. Meanwhile, the car had been damaged while sitting in a city lot for eight months, during which Harjo had to make payments on a vehicle she could no longer use…

New Mexico isn’t the only state which literally robs people in this fashion.

Censor Chic (#827)

Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors around the world:

Google is reportedly planning to relaunch its search engine in China, complete with censored results to meet the demands of the Chinese government…According to internal documents provided to The Intercept by a whistleblower, Google has been developing a censored version of its search engine under the codename “Dragonfly”…[which] will reportedly “blacklist [forbidden] queries” and filter out all websites blocked by China’s web censors (including Wikipedia and BBC News)…The whistleblower…said they…were “against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people…what is done in China will become a template for many other nations”…Google previously offered a censored version of its search engine in China between 2006 and 2010, before pulling out of the country after facing criticism in the US…

Rooted in Racism (#846)

They want to make “different last names” a thing so as to cover up racial profiling:

The Home Office posted a tweet on [August 1st] advising family members with different surnames to bring birth or adoption certificates to the airport to help them pass through passport control more quickly. The image accompanying the tweet read: “Families with different surnames may be asked questions to establish their relationship”…In a follow-up tweet, the Home Office clarified its position: “We have a [scheme] to [maximize inconvenience in order]…to [further security theater]…and [increase surveillance to a many people as possible]…

Something Rotten in Sweden (#848)

Cops busting kids’ lemonade stands is no longer news, but adults calling the cops on kids is part of an ugly pattern we keep seeing of late:

Kid sets up a lemonade stand outside his home, which happens to be next door to the Saratoga County Fair in Ballston Spa, New York. Vendors at the fair call state health officials to complain. State health officials show up, determine the kid doesn’t have a permit, and shut him down…while we’re told that permitting and licensing programs are all about public safety, they are frequently used as bludgeons to keep competitors out of the marketplace…officials initially apologized after they realized they were just shutting down some kid’s stand, not somebody trying to undercut the vendors inside the fair. But…officials [also]…said the boy would have to get a $30 temporary food permit, which…comes with all sorts of rules. Politicians are now falling all over themselves to get publicity for [pretending to] support…the boy [while leaving the authoritarian system which enables such harassment unquestioned]…

Torture Chamber (#852)

Despite current posturing by Democrats, abuse of migrants has been a bipartisan policy for quite a while:

A youth worker at a Southwest Key [migrant prison] in Mesa, Arizona, has been charged with molesting eight teenage boys in his care…Levian D. Pacheco…perform[e] oral sex on two boys and attempt[ed] to force one of them to anally penetrate him, as well as inappropriately touching other boys…Pacheco is HIV-positive and…some of [his victims] have undergone HIV testing. The abuse…occurred over nearly a one-year period, from August 29, 2016, until July 24, 2017. The boys were between 15 and 17 years of age and had all crossed the border as unaccompanied minors and were [captured and caged]…A worker [named Fernando Negrete] at another Southwest Key facility in Arizona was arrested and charged this week with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl in his care…

Is this reporter asleep at her keyboard, or did she actually intend to refer to molestation of abducted teenage boys as “caring for unaccompanied minors” and to say of two molesters that caged victims were “in his care”? Here’s more on the second molester: “Fernando Negrete..touched the girl’s breasts and crotch over her clothes, and kissed her on multiple occasions…“

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In the News (#860)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Arkansas, Backpage, censorship, China, Choke Point, Colorado, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, Creating the Crisis, dirty, fantasy, Full of Themselves, Germany, Hawaii, hysteria, illegal aliens, Iowa, Islam, King of the Hill, language, law, massage, Missouri, Ohio, Paint By Numbers, pathologization of males, porn, prisons, propaganda, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, Romania, Rooted in Racism, sex offender registry, surveillance, Swedish model, The Puritan Recrudescence, The War Goes On, This Means War, Torture Chamber, video, Whither Canada?, yellow journalism on August 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Humans have been exchanging sex for money and goods for thousands of years. No act of government will end the practice. – Adam Sullivan

Counterfeit Comfort

How does government fight imaginary high recidivism rates? By enacting policies designed to dramatically magnify the social isolation that increases recidivism, of course!

An Ohio [man] who spent three years in jail for a sex crime with an 18-year-old [woman] is not allowed to live with or write to his son, 14, because the boy is a minor. He is also not allowed to talk to him on the phone or even possess a photo of him. Now the dad has filed a federal lawsuit claiming these parole conditions are unconstitutional …his crime wasn’t with a male or a minor. And yet, under Ohio’s five year mandatory “post-release control,” he cannot visit his son without [supervision] by a parole officer, whom he must pay. Unemployed, the dad can’t afford a visit. And the rules say that even during a supervised visit, he would not be allowed to hug his son…”he is forbidden from moving back to the family home or having any contact with his son. He could not send his son a card or call him on his 14^th birthday“…

Creating the Crisis

More accurate headline: “How Romania Became a Prohibitionist Bogeyman”:

Berlin…residents [use their magic mind-reading powers to declare that migrant sex workers] from Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine….did not have the German sex industry on their minds when they [supposedly] imagined [childish fantasies about] bright futures for themselves in the EU, just as Romania did not envisage prostitution becoming one of its leading “exports” after it joined the EU in 2007. But official statistics from Germany and some other EU member states show that Romanian nationals represent a significant portion of sex workers in these countries. “When talking about sex trafficking, Romania is [fantasized] as one of the trend setters in Europe, next to Albania,” [proclaimed] Silvia Martis Tabusca, an international law professor specializing in migration…

Torture Chamber

What our government calls a “correctional facility”:

…in the El Paso County Jail in Colorado, [sow] Sandra Rincon was celebrated with a tiara, a “princess” plate, and a cake with the number “50” on top. The number…referred to the number of times she had used force against prisoners, ranging from handcuffing to punching and kicking. She was the winner of what one of the county [screws] called a “fight club,” crowning whoever used force most often as the champion. The “fight club” competition was uncovered in the course of a lawsuit filed by civil rights attorney Darold Killmer…[for] excessive force against his client, Philippa McCully…the county settled McCully’s case for $675,000. The uncovering of the “fight club” did lead to an investigation, but [as always] that investigation fell far short of being genuine…There were…no demotions, no transfers, [no criminal charges] or dock of pay for anyone involved…[Let’s hope] the county’s dismissal of the “fight club” as simply bad judgment…exacerbates the distrust between the community and [the count’s hired thugs]…[and even] further erode it…

Whither Canada?

Why does this journalist feel compelled to cede ground to prohibitionist lies?

When Canada decided to tackle prostitution by adopting “end demand” laws, it was supposed to make sex work safer and healthier. But precisely the opposite has happened, according to new research presented at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam…Researchers from both Canada and France found that…the Nordic model, or “end demand” approach – actually made life worse for sex workers by pushing the trade further into the shadows, making it more difficult to negotiate prices and condom use, and making it less likely that workers would access health services…Elena Argento…a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, studied 854…sex workers…Hélène Le Bail, a researcher at Sciences Po CERI in Paris, said the “end demand” approach was supposed to be more progressive but France has seen the same problems as Canada…Her research, which involved 691 sex workers, showed that “end demand” laws have resulted in an “acute increase in socioeconomic vulnerability”…and [contrary to the sale pitch] sex workers are still more likely to be arrested and fined than their clients…

No, Canada’s Swedish model law was not “supposed to make sex work safer and healthier”; like all versions of the Swedish filth, it was specifically intended to make sex work more dangerous:

Full of Themselves (#630)

It’s good to see at least a few masseuses recognizing that they need to stand with sex workers rather than getting in bed with pigs and prohibitionists:

[Politicians] in several Iowa communities are considering moves to [harass]…massage businesses…[that pigs claim] are selling illegal sex services, and some [pompous] massage therapists say they give the industry a bad reputation. [Prohibitionists pretend] their main concern…is…sex trafficking…However, [prohibitionists intentionally] conflat[e]…human trafficking with…sex work…“We act as though people with vaginas should not be choosing when or why they have sex and who they have it with. Effectively it’s saying that they couldn’t possibly make decisions about their own bodies,” said Jaime Nevins, an Iowa City licensed massage therapist and an advocate for sex workers’ rights. Nevins…[told] Iowa City [politicians]…“It’s like you can’t really be against [the proposed regulations] or you’ll be pro-sex trafficking, or perceived as that”…Bans on sex work are…similar to drug and alcohol restrictions. Prohibition inevitably leads to underground markets..Violence thrives in secrecy…

Rough Trade (#769)

As I’ve mentioned many times, US sex workers are arrested for being raped:

…a 30-year-old woman…was [drugged and] raped and then “dumped out” near a [Nashville gas] station…several calls [reported] a [woman]…walking in the middle of the road crying, and possibly intoxicated…staff at the [gas] station had come to the aid of the woman in distress, [but by contrast]…the…police [protected and served her by arresting]…her…for public intoxication, though they clearly note in documents that she had no smell of alcohol, but was likely under the influence of an unknown drug…[then after] she admitted that…she [is a sex worker]…she was taken directly to booking, without any testing of the drugs in her system, any rape kit done, or even knowing if she was drugged by the man, or took the drugs willingly…then charged…with prostitution…

Paint By Numbers (#784)

WTF, Teen Vogue? You’ve been doing so well, and now you publish “sex trafficking” nonsense, complete with taped mouths and red Xs?

There are different estimates of the number of victims in the world today, but virtually all [prohibitionists] agree that it’s in the millions…there are many…sources [of propaganda] to help you learn more [nonsense you can use to harm sex workers by]…calling or texting the National Human Trafficking Hotline when you [imagine] signs of human trafficking, or [supporting] anti-[sex] legislation…whatever your background and interests, you can [make up] unique [publicity stunts or just mindlessly participate…in…[deeply stupid herd activities like standing around on lawns, getting dressed or drawing] a red X…

Pyrrhic Victory (#785)

Tyranny always starts with despised minorities, but it never stops with them:

[Western journalists visiting] the city of Kashgar in westernmost China…are [harassed by police]…we’re being tailed by some eight people and three cars…The minute we strike up conversation with anyone, officials appear and start interrogating them…Nowhere in the world, not even in North Korea, is the population monitored as strictly as it is in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region…Oppression has…worsened massively in recent months…Beijing has…turned Xinjiang into a security state that is extreme even by China’s standards…With around 500 [government thugs]…for every 100,000 inhabitants, the police presence will soon be almost as tight as it is in neighboring Tibet…cameras illuminat[e] every street all over the region, from the capital Urumqi to the most remote mountain village. Iris scanners and WiFi sniffers are in use in stations, airports and at the ubiquitous checkpoints…an “integrated joint operations platform”…stores further data on the populace — from consumer habits to banking activity, health status and indeed the DNA profile of every single inhabitant of Xinjiang…The government has built up a grid of hundreds of re-education camps. Tens of thousands of people have disappeared into them in recent months. [Expert on China Adrian] Zenz estimates the number to be closer to hundreds of thousands…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#820)

Porn is abuse of women!

…Patricia Hill, 69, of Jefferson County, Arkansas, has been charged with the capital murder of her husband, 65-year-old Frank Hill..Mrs Hill…said she confronted her husband in the shed after she “disagreed with her husband’s purchase of video pornography via the television guide, which she cancelled upon discovering the purchase but Mr Hill managed to place a subsequent order”…After her husband refused to leave [his own home as] she [demanded]…Patricia Hill went back inside the home to arm herself with a .22 caliber pistol. She then returned to the shed and…shot him in the leg and head…Hill confirmed that that there had never been any physical altercations between her and her husband prior to the night of the shooting…

If anything is a “public health crisis”, it’s violent prohibitionism.

This Means War

Though this article about Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin has some good information on their long, strange trip from student antiwar activists to props in the government’s manufactured “sex trafficking” hysteria, it buys into that hysteria far too much to be read without an entire carton of salt, especially when it promotes the government-friendly view that the pair were no longer “real” journalists (a claim anyone who’s ever talked to Lacey in particular for more than about half an hour knows is 99⁴⁴/₁₀₀% pure bullshit). Look also for the subtle pearl-clutching, complete with scare quotes around ordinary words, like, “On deadline days for escort ads, the offices of New Times publications filled with young women wearing skimpy outfits and too much perfume…I witnessed firsthand this weekly parade of ‘escorts’ at two papers owned by Lacey and Larkin...”

Rooted in Racism (#846)

An especially egregious case of deliberate racial profiling by government-approved guidelines:

Three Hawaiian Airlines flight attendants are [bizarrely] being hailed as heroes after they [harassed] a group of [travelers that they had racist sex fantasies about]…Flight attendant Wesley Hirata [claimed] he sensed something wasn’t right [because] an older Asian man [was traveling with two white women and their younger sister] from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Hirata [conspired with] other flight attendants who [interrogated] the [women] – revealing that one of them was [a legal minor] and all three had the same name [as one would expect of unmarried sisters]…The attendants informed the captain [that there was a family on board] and [somehow decided this was grounds for snitching to the pigs] in Honolulu. Upon arrival in Hawaii the group was questioned by local police, who referred the case to the FBI…[who] soon established [that the sisters were indeed sisters]…and the man was a…[family friend] travelling…with them [and not a sinister Fu Manchu-like character out of these bigots’ racist sex fantasies]…

Choke Point (#850)

Useful idiots are unable to understand how precedent works:

…Bank of America customer[s] might be getting questions about…citizenship status and even have…accounts frozen with no warning. KCTV…photographer…Josh Collins…received a mailer claiming to be sent by Bank of America that asked for personal information and citizenship information. However, he has been a Bank of America customer for 20 years and was born a U.S. citizen, so he figured it could be a scam and that the bank would follow up if it was legitimate. The next thing he knew, his accounts were frozen without notice…The bank representative told Collins…his…“cards ha[d] been lost or stolen.” That was not true…They eventually unfroze Collins’ accounts, but not before sending an email notifying him all of his automatic bill payment accounts were wiped out…the bank explained that…they would be asking this of all their customers…Bank of America [blamed]…”law” [for the harassment]…

It always starts with a politically-unpopular group like sex workers, gun owners or migrants, but never stops there.

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In the News (#858)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, activism, Against Their Will, agency denial, asset seizure, Between the Ears, bogus studies, Canada, censorship, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, Dirty Amateurs, disability, Disaster, disease, drugs, Eavesdropping, Europe, Florida, France, Held Together With Lies, India, Kenya, language, law, Legalization a Good Idea?, Michigan, Monsters, Nigeria, Profound Mental Disabilities, propaganda, racism, Rhinoceros, Rooted in Racism, sex toys, stripping, surveillance, Texas, That Old Black Magic, transgender, Under Every Bed, violence vs. sex workers, yellow journalism on July 28, 2018| 2 Comments »

What is trafficking, anyway? – Kanchan, an Indian sex worker

Against Their Will

What kind of “rescuers” lock the “victims” they “rescue” in a cage?

Police in Kenya rescued 21 young Nepalese women during a raid on two strip clubs in…Nairobi…”the…girls…had been trafficked to Kenya for exploitation,” [pigs] wrote on…Twitter…Images of the operation…showed three young women dressed in brightly coloured blouses hiding their faces as they were [dragged] away…”We are holding the 21 girls and three other local suspects. We are probing their links to international human trafficking rings”…

Dirty Amateurs

Another effect of France’s jihad against sex workers: “French health authorities are warning the general public to use protection and get tested after their latest findings suggest chlamydia and gonorrhoea cases in the country tripled between 2012 and 2016…” Pay close attention to the timing. When “authorities” increase persecution of sex workers and clients, men are more afraid to buy sex from competent professionals, and instead turn to careless, filthy amateurs; this is the result.

Counterfeit Comfort

We certainly can’t have those dirty pedos helping each other to stay off the “sex offender” registry:

…the online “virtuous pedophile” community…[is] a network of both adults and youth who are attracted to children but are committed to never, ever acting on those attractions. They are pedophiles, but they aren’t child molesters…there are few outlets for…non-offending pedophiles to find support. In the U.S., therapists are obligated to [rat out] their clients to authorities if they think there is a chance the client will abuse a child…just disclosing the attraction can be a risk…online [communities are] one of the few places pedophiles can anonymously discuss their problems. These forums aren’t places to trade kiddie porn or solicit sex (there are strict rules against this); they are places where pedophiles can talk honestly about how to deal with their attractions and exist in a society that views them as subhuman. But…[their] message boards and forums have been targeted and shut down by hackers, and [last] week, an online community…with over 400 members was shut down by Discord, the company that hosted their server…”for violations of our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines”…

Monsters

Yellow journalists assist cops to protect and serve crime victims:

A transgender woman was found dead [on July 19th] at an Orlando apartment complex…her body…had signs of trauma…Sasha Garden…was a sex worker…many in the community are worried after Garden’s death and the murders of three transgender woman in Jacksonville this year…[local activist] Montrese Williams says Orange County deputies came to her house around 7:30 a.m. for her help identifying Garden…”As soon as I opened the door, I get, ‘I hear a bunch of transvestites stay here.’ I had to let them know, I’m a transgender woman and I’m the only one that stays here”…Despite Montrese Williams telling deputies that Sasha Garden was a trans woman, in the official report they described her as a 27-year-old man from Jacksonville, who “was wearing a wig and was dressed as a female.” Naturally…Orlando television stations followed suit with headlines that described her with phrases like a “man in a wig” (WESH) or a “man dressed as a woman” (WFTV)…

Profound Mental Disabilities (#512)

Another case of the state using sex work as “evidence” of mental disability:

London [Ontario] police [claimed a 20-year-old woman called “C.S.”] was imprisoned by a human trafficker, and forced into selling sex…Amy Dykes…was charged in July 2015…But…Superior Court Justice Alissa Mitchell acquitted the accused woman on all charges. Her ruling speaks to the [state’s desire to deny the power of]…consent…[to] disabled adults…[and the] danger…[of the] narrative about…rescuing sex workers…The Crown alleged that Dykes forced C.S. into prostitution and controlled her with threats and by taking her disability payments, cell phone and bank card…[cops discovered] C.S. [in an “Operation Northern Spotlight” sting and pretended]…that C.S…was not fully aware of her situation…But [another cop]…had taken a different view of C.S., when he’d met her a month earlier…Although C.S. seemed naive, she showed a level of independence by…using her own debit card in front of him, and spoke well of [Dykes]…Other testimony and evidence showed C.S. could look after herself, bought her children toys and clothes, maintained a bank account, paid her share of the rent, cooked, maintained a cell phone, and kept up with friends on Facebook and texts and in person. C.S. has…[the] intelligence…of a child aged eight to 11, but is not a child in terms of life experience and accomplishments…“There is no evidence to support a finding that [C.S.] was incapable of providing her voluntary agreement to work as a prostitute…C.S. was adamant (with the [sting pigs]) that she had no interest in being rescued. Their discussion was lengthy and…C.S. remained steadfast…[until the cops’ continuing pressure caused her to] fear…she might find herself in trouble with the law if she did not agree she was the victim,” Mitchell said…

Rhinoceros (#611)

COAST isn’t mentioned here, but this is the same sort of insulting, patronizing bullshit they peddle, pretending that pigs, bureaucrats and other busybodies know more about our profession than we do:

Shane Harrington…wants his employees to know what to watch for to make sure his clubs aren’t the target of traffickers. “If there’s an entertainer who’s like [“I have bills”]…that’s a sign,” Stephanie Olson said. Olson, the CEO of the “Set Me Free” project, is against sex…Her passion drove her to share her [propaganda]…So, she teamed up with Club Omaha to [indoctrinate] employees…Harrington, the nude dance club operator, said his club gets a bad rap and part of this [indoctrin]ation is to [virtue signal]…

Held Together With Lies (#648)

Looks like “Walk Free Foundation” got tired of its old wanking fantasy, so they inflated it:

[Propaganda] on modern slavery around the world [now claims] that the number of slaves in developed nations…is much higher than previously [pretended]. The Global Slavery Index is published annually by the Walk Free Foundation…In its new report, Walk Free Foundation is still using the 40.3 million figure, but says that [inflation of] its [fantasy] mean it [now pretends] country-level figures [are higher] than ever before: it now [claims] that in the United States 403,000 people — or 1 in every 800 — are living in modern slavery, seven-times higher than it previously believed. In the UK, it [claims] there are 136,000 slaves, almost 12-times higher than previous figures. The numbers contrast with UK government’s [already-inflated] estimate that there were between 10,000 and 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK in 2013. There is no equivalent government figure for the US…Walk Free Foundation [claims] the reason for the dramatic increases in its slavery estimates for some countries is that the latest report uses far more data sources than previously…

Click on the subtitle link to see how “Walk Free” comes up with these ridiculous “slavery” numbers.

A Broker in Pillage (#791)

The quaint non-“law enforcement” term for this is “blackmail”:

Under Michigan law, Stephen Nichols was supposed to get a “prompt” court hearing to challenge the forfeiture of his car, which police…[stole] in 2015 because he was driving it without valid insurance…Nichols still hasn’t had his day in court…[he] and two other plaintiffs filed a federal class-action lawsuit…[because] Wayne County police and prosecutors seize residents’ property and force them to wait months, sometimes years, for a hearing…the delays violate the 14th Amendment right to due process. In addition, Wayne County prosecutors offer to settle cases out of court for $900, leaving owners to choose between getting their vehicle back quickly…or shelling out even more money for a lawyer and waiting months to get their means of transportation back…The two other named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Adam and Ryan Chappell, are a father and son…the younger Chappell was borrowing his dad’s car one day in July 2016 when Wayne County sheriff’s deputies saw him pull into a medical marijuana dispensary in Detroit. The cops pulled him over as he left and [stole] the car. No [legal medical] marijuana was recovered from the car, and no criminal charges were filed in the case…Chappell’s car was one of hundreds [stolen] by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office for visiting a [perfectly legal business]…

Between the Ears (#791)

Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you:

…Lovense [sex] toys can already be controlled remotely using an app, but now Alexa voice commands will activate them too…anyone with a Lovense toy and the Lovense Remote app will be able to simply update the app to use the feature…Asking [Alexa] to make you “smile” will result in a less powerful buzz than asking to “moan,” or even “scream”…Alexa will also be able to sync your toy to a Spotify account, making it buzz along to the music…

Think I’m paranoid? Check the subtitle; Lovense has already been caught doing it.

Rooted in Racism (#797)

“Repatriation” is the fashionable euphemism for “deportation”:

What to do about illegal migration from Africa into Europe? The EU’s repatriation programme seems at first like a great idea [to racists who don’t want black people in Europe]…we persuade them [at gunpoint] to go back home and help them to remake their lives there. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has coughed up £125 million for the scheme and about 25,000 migrants have already taken part, most heading home to west and central Africa…60 per cent of all illegal Nigerian migrants to Europe [travel by way of Benin]…in the 1980s, a group of local women went as guest workers to Italy, and came back to their hometown rich after becoming prostitutes. Word spread of their success, and so people-smuggling networks were set up that thrive to this day…The city now has a huge red-light district with many families knowingly sending their daughters into prostitution abroad. Malign local juju cults have been revived by the smuggling gangs, who make their clients undergo secret rituals of obedience. The most feared deity, a vengeful slave goddess called Ayelala, is now nicknamed “the patron saint of sex traffickers“…For all the opportunities on offer, what the [deported] migrants mostly felt was a sense of failure. The people smugglers’ ticket had often cost their family its life savings. Returning meant all that effort and money had been wasted…

Though the reporter clearly understands that these people are migrating of their own free will to make a better life for themselves, he still can’t resist the urge to demonize their religion and infantilize them by pretending they are passive objects to be “trafficked”. Follow the links for previous examples of the same bigotry.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#846)

Sex worker rights activists are fighting India’s terrible new “anti-trafficking” bill:

A number of social workers, sex workers, lawyers, child rights and trans rights activists have…spoken out against the anti-trafficking bill…drafted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development…if enacted [it] will further marginalise vulnerable communities…activists…met [with the Minister] to discuss a petition…containing comments from 30 civil society organisations and 247 activists and lawyers, and endorsed by over 4,000 sex workers across the country …The bill conforms to a rescue-rehabilitation approach and…adult sex worker…rights would be completely negated if it is enacted…The bill…asserts that “the consent of the victim is immaterial in the determination of the offence of trafficking”…

Under Every Bed (#850)

Notice how tired and perfunctory “sex trafficking is EVERYWHERE!” articles are beginning to sound?

…Central Texas…is a focus for human trafficking because of its proximity to the southern border, Interstate 35 and its strong demand for labor, UnBound Director Susan Peters said. UnBound…It has recently worked with the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office on several trafficking cases, including at local massage parlors where [cops pretend] women were…forced to offer sex acts for money…

Disaster (#850)

I’ve never seen anything galvanize public support for sex workers like FOSTA has:

…women and advocates…speaking on Native America Calling, a live call-in program dedicated to issues specific to Native communities, charged that the so-called FOSTA-SESTA legislation has made life more…dangerous…for sex workers—and has left Native American women especially vulnerable…Becki Jones, a sexual health educator for Planned Parenthood…and a member of the Diné tribe…said…FOSTA-SESTA’s restrictions on commercial sex sites effectively removed sex workers ability to “screen for particular clients that might be super violent.” By shutting down what amounted to protective online resources for sex workers, the measures in effect closed off a source of networking and mutual aid…sex work deserves legal protection and must be de-stigmatized…

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In the News (#854)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, A Procrustean Bed, agency denial, asset seizure, Backwards into the Future, bogus studies, brothels, California, Checklist, cops, drugs, Florida, Georgia, hysteria, It Looks Good On Paper, Kenya, law, lawheads, Legislators Gone Wild, Libya, Madonna/whore, Maine, Mozambique, Negative Secondary Effects, neofeminism, Nevada, Ohio, pathologization of males, politicians, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, restaurants, Rooted in Racism, Saving Them from Themselves, See No Evil, Shazam!, South Carolina, stripping, surveillance, To Molest and Rape, Uganda, United Kingdom, With Friends Like These on July 14, 2018| 1 Comment »

I felt that the glitter on the seized cash was compelling evidence.
– Jude Faccidomo

It Looks Good On Paper

Remember that I’ve been a harsh critic of these do-nothing law for 7 years:

Under Ohio’s safe harbour legislation – and similar laws across all states…[women can] request that criminal charges…accrued while [coerced into prostitution be]…expunged from the public record. Yet [prohibitionists] across the US are warning that a sudden decision by the Trump administration, effective immediately, to cut all funding for legal representation…means that many other victims will now struggle to get their expungement cases into a courtroom…the American Bar Association, members of Congress, survivors, advocates and law enforcement have called for a reversal of the decision [even though they still support]…deny[ing]…the…legal rights [of sex workers who aren’t poster children for prohibition]…

Far be it from me to say anything good about the orange-utang, but these laws actually help nobody but “perfect victims”; defunding them will change essentially nothing.

With Friends Like These…

If you can’t write a pro-decrim article without saying that you wish whores didn’t exist, don’t write one at all:

…there’s not much that’s more misogynistic than blaming women because they fulfill the needs of men. It’s all very well to insist that women make this choice because of patriarchy and false consciousness, as some feminists do, and are called “whorephobic” for their pains. But…feminist theory doesn’t pay the bills. I’m not pretending that there would be prostitution in my ideal world. There wouldn’t. I like neither the idea nor the reality of prostitution. But I also know that the world isn’t, and can’t be, arranged around what I like…I know as well, or think I know, that “free choice” is merely a concept and that human beings have no more free choice than foxes or dolphins or butterflies. We have loaded choices, all of them dictated by our upbringing, our finances, our cultural landscape and our genes, in that order…

In my ideal world, hypocritical apologists for feminism like Deborah Orr wouldn’t exist; I like neither the idea nor the reality of them. But I’m an adult who understands that the concept of an “ideal world” is childish nonsense, and that one whose “ideal world” doesn’t include free choice is a pompous asshat.

See No Evil (#136)

Seven years in a cage for drawing a fictional character:

Christopher John Czarnik…is serving time on a 2014 plea for the possession and distribution of sexually explicit images of children. He was then charged again with child porn in prison….[after] guards found a drawing of a young girl engaged in sexual acts with an adult male…Czarnik then showed [screws] more pictures and writings of this own creation. That was deemed possession and creation of child porn…Czarnik entered a guilty plea with the condition that the legal issue be allowed to be litigated over…”cartoon characters.” That plea limited the added sentence to seven years…

A Broker in Pillage (#406)

It’s not often a judge rules against cops in favor of a sex worker:

The Miami-Dade Police Department must return nearly $20,000 in cash to a woman after prosecutors admitted that [cops] illegally searched her car and seized several lawfully owned guns…the department will also pay $3,000 in legal fees to Lizmixell Batista, a dancer at the local Cheetah Gentleman’s Club, and her husband, Ras Cates…Batista and Cates were arrested following a traffic stop in May. [Cops pretended to] smell…marijuana in their car, and a subsequent search turned up six guns, several large bottles of what cops [claimed] to be codeine cough syrup, and nearly $20,000 in cash in Batista’s purse…[cops bragged as though] it [were] a major bust…[but] prosecutors dropped the charges…when body-cam footage showed police didn’t have permission to search the couple’s trunk. The guns were all legally owned, Cates had a concealed carry license, and no testing had been done on the su[ppos]ed codeine…Batista had explained…why, given her profession, she would be carrying large amounts of cash, but the department initiated a forfeiture case against the money anyway…[pretend]ing it was dope money…

A Procrustean Bed (#651)

The idea that sex workers might be neither criminals nor victims is too much for the tiny, narrow minds of “authorities”:

Yan Liu, originally from China and now a resident of New York City, was charged [in Maine] with engaging in prostitution. No other people were charged in connection with her arrest, including a man and a woman [imagined] by the motel employee as coercing Liu back into the room, or a client [of hers]…Liu, who does not speak English and communicated with police and court officials through an interpreter, posted a $1,000 cash bail and pleaded not guilty to the charge…but she has been unwilling to [tell] her court-appointed attorney, Merritt Heminway [what he wants to hear]…She did, however, tell him she arrived in the United States last September and has applied for asylum…After a June 27 hearing…Liu and the state filed an agreement that if she remains out of trouble for one year, her case will automatically be dismissed. She was not required to enter a guilty plea…Destie Hohman Sprague…of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, [complained that pigs and politicians did not overrule Liu’s agency]…to protect Lui’s safety…But Liu’s defense attorney criticized the district attorney’s office for prosecuting the case at all, contending Liu is a victim of sex trafficking…He speculated the rational [sic] for applying charges was to convince her to identify leaders of a [fantasized] trafficking ring…[the DA bloviated that] prosecuting such cases is sometimes the only mechanism the court system has of [maintaining surveillance] on people who[se agency it wishes to deny]…The [pompous ignoramus who acts as] prosecutor said nearly all women involved in prostitution have been trafficked at some point in their lives…

Negative Secondary Effects

Welcome to our world, cannabusiness:

Every municipality in San Diego County that limits or bans the sale of marijuana has cited public safety as the justification…[then-police chief] Shelley Zimmerman’s testi[lied] in September 2017…[that] 272 police radio calls for “burglaries, robberies, thefts, assaults and shootings, just to name a few,” at medical marijuana dispensaries over a two-and-a-half-year period [constituted] evidence of the kind of activity such facilities invite on a neighborhood…Zimmerman’s [lies] appeared in a memo written by Oceanside Police Chief Frank McCoy to the City Council, which decided — against the recommendations of a subcommittee — not to allow retail shops. Her remarks were also cited by anti-pot activists in Imperial Beach who helped slow down marijuana regulations there…Diane Goldstein, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant, analyzed the records, which were made available on the city’s website in March. She concluded that the Police Department’s presentation was “sloppy, unprofessional and based on ideology”…The address listed on more than a quarter of those reports were to neighboring business, not a marijuana facility. Several of the city’s legal dispensaries existed then — as they still do — within shopping malls or office complexes…

To Molest and Rape (#756)

Rapist cop escapes consequences for his actions by croaking:

Troy Allen Large…died earlier this year…Large, a…sex-crimes investigator, is accused of using his “position of power to [rape]…female victims of violent crime” and then…coercing them into participating in video-recorded, nude catfights…police officials were aware of the accusations…and [did nothing]…

Saving Them From Themselves (#764)

Adult woman magically turns into “child” via the power of a magical camera:

A Cleveland man who testified in defense of his roommate in a child pornography case admitted on the stand to taking sexually explicit pictures of a…girlfriend…Edward Marrero, 27, said…he took the photos in April 2011…[when] she was 17 years old and he was 20…The age of consent in Ohio is 16 years old, but federal law states it is illegal to create, share or possess sexually-explicit images of anyone under the age of 18…He is now charged with producing child pornography. If convicted, he faces between 15 and 30 years in federal prison…

“Child” pornography. Of a consenting woman it was legal for him to fuck, who is now 24 years old. But it’s to “protect the children”!!!!

Checklist (#796)

The scheme to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system continues:

Last year, 276 [phone calls were made from Georgia by hysterics]…to the National Human Trafficking Hotline…Georgia law requires airports, train stations and emergency rooms to post [magic anti-pimp signs] in public restrooms…[spokespig Brian] Johnston [oinked that] Savannah’s highways and interstates…mak[e[ it easier to move people quickly to another city or another state…St. Joseph’s/Candler [hospital forces]…staff to [attend indoctrination sessions on]…the [mythical] signs…[social worker and fabulist Jessy] McMullan said she already knows it works from a friend who works as an ER nurse in Atlanta and had similar training. “Within two weeks of the training, she identified two child victims that came through the emergency room…They were reunited with their families. It gives you chills”…

Urban legends are always said to have happened to a “friend of a friend” (FoF); in this case it’s the supposed patient of an unnamed friend. So where are the links to the news stories where the pigs grunt about these “child sex trafficking victims” they “rescued”? Because you know that if this had actually happened it would’ve been big news.

Rooted in Racism (#797)

More European government humanitarianism to “fight human trafficking”:

Operation Sophia, the EU naval operation in the Mediterranean…is helping the Libyan coastguard return migrants to rape, slavery, torture and murder in local camps…Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), citing accounts from its staff in Libya, says…when migrants could not pay for their release having been captured by the authorities, some had their genitals cut off…Others said there had been routine rapes at camps to detain migrants. MSF says that it sends 50 body bags a week to one camp…“Under the pretence of saving lives and disrupting the business model of smugglers and traffickers, the Libyan coastguard are supported and empowered by EU states to intercept people at sea and send them back to the very conditions they were trying to escape”…

Backwards into the Future (#827)

Another victory for feminism against jobs for women:

The Dutch brewer Heineken is suspending the use of ‘beer girls’ in Mozambique due to allegations of sexual harassment from customers …NRC Handelsblad…published…research by Partner Africa showing that…there were “revealing short skirts” in…Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda. It has introduced a new code of practice for its third party partners, who employ the women to sell the beer to bars and restaurants in Africa, including safe working practices and “decent uniforms”…NRC [also] claimed…some prostitutes combined beer promotion with their Heineken work, to get more clients for both. No evidence of links with prostitution was [provided]…But the Amsterdam-based brand was under pressure from other businesses, including the Global Fund international health organisation, which had suspended its partnership with Heineken and urged it to protect women beer promoters from [gainful employment]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#841)

Where “cutting-edge” is used to mean “hopelessly inaccurate”:

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police force has defended the organization’s ongoing trials of automated facial recognition systems, despite legal challenges and criticisms that the technology is “almost entirely inaccurate”…Police commissioner Cressida Dick said…the public “expect[s]” law enforcement to test such cutting-edge systems…The London force is one of several in the UK…deploy[ing the surveillance system] at public events like concerts, festivals, and soccer matches. Mobile CCTV cameras are used to scan crowds, and tries to match images of faces to mugshots of wanted individuals…According to data released under the UK’s Freedom of Information laws, 98 percent of the “matches” made by the Metropolitan’s AFR system are mistakes…The Met [claims]…that no individuals have [yet] been arrested because of a false match…

Legislators Gone Wild (#847)

Evil douchebags trying to criminalize Nevada brothels fall on their faces:

Opponents of legalized prostitution in Nye County had been trying to put the issue to voters in a referendum in November. But county officials said Monday the effort had failed to turn in the required 1,963 signatures. The deadline was [June 29^th]. The only recourse for proponents of the brothel elimination measure is to get county commissioners to agree to put it on the ballot…Nye County spokesman Arnold Knightly said the board’s chairman had already indicated he would not bring the item forward…That leaves [prohibitionists] needing at least two other commissioners to call a special meeting…The group had also targeted Lyon County…But the county’s Board of Commissioners decided in June to take a different approach to the issue by placing an advisory question on the ballot in November…ask[ing] voters whether the board should end legalized prostitution in Lyon County…

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In the News (#846)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, asset seizure, Australia, California, censorship, Colorado, Coming Out, condoms, cops, dirty, Droit du Seigneur, fascism, Guinea Pigs, hysteria, illegal aliens, Illinois, Imaginary Evils, India, internet, law, Legal Is as Legal Does, Legalization a Good Idea?, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Perquisites, porn, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, Saving Them from Themselves, sexting, Surplus Women, surveillance, Tennessee, The Pro-Rape Coalition, To Molest and Rape, violence vs. sex workers on June 13, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Forcing us into the closet makes it easier for prohibitionists to make up stories about our lives. – Liara Roux

The Pro-Rape Coalition

A bizarre claim even by the low standards of anti-porn nuts and gun-grabbers:

Rep. Diane Black…who is running for governor of Tennessee…raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening. “Pornography,” she said. “It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there…All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause”…Beyond naughty movies, Black said school shootings are on the rise because of the “deterioration of the family,” mental illness and violent movies…

Like most things claimed to be “on the rise” by hysterics, school shootings aren’t. But what I want to know is, where are these grocery stores that stock porn on shelves near the front door? I’m guessing they’re probably located in the same towns where one can “order a child for sex like a pizza“.

Perquisites

Are amateurs really so sheltered that this sort of thing shocks them?

…Alene Anase was asked by her employer Alpha Omega Winery to serve guests as part of a charity cruise on the San Francisco Bay. But what she expected to be a routine shift serving wine turned into a nightmare…The guests aboard the yacht that night — described in her 2016 lawsuit as 25 of the Napa Valley-based winery’s top investors, all men — were openly using what appeared to be cocaine and “drawing straws” for which sex worker to hire…Anase alleges that on the Aug. 12, 2015 cruise she could hear sexual activity happening in the yacht’s bedrooms and witnessed men “fondling and suckling” sex workers’ breasts — some [of whom Anase fantasized] to be “too young to consent”…

Surplus Women

Twelve days after the decomposed body of a woman aged around 30 was found packed in a drum in Shivaji Nagar, the police…claimed to have solved the murder case. A 60-year-old man has been arrested while his wife is wanted in the case…the arrested accused, Babu Bhagwan Patel…has confessed to his role. The woman, identified only as Meena, was a commercial sex worker from Dadar…

Coming Out

Liara Roux on coming out:

…I almost started crying. I was so worried I would lose my sister, who I loved so dearly. I was shocked when she told me: “I’m glad you’re happy! I’m glad you found a job that works for you!”…She asked a couple questions about my job…My sister has always been incredibly thoughtful like this. I remember coming out to her as queer and how excited and happy for me she had been about that too…I told her not to tell Mom…I come from an extremely religious, conservative family—house full of kids and fire and brimstone. I’ve always lived my life in extreme and unusual ways and it scares her…There’s so much I haven’t told her because whenever I try to, I freeze. I was worried if I came out to her while living with her that she and my father would have sent me to gay conversion camp or that they would kick me out of the house and I would be homeless, which had happened to some of my friends. I like to think that she would have accepted me, but I don’t know…

To Molest and Rape

Would any non-cop have gotten only five months for this?

A[n Oregon cop] was sentenced…to 150 days in jail and five years probation for having sex with an underage girl and soliciting sexual contact from [her] online…Daniel Kerbs…was held…on 13 child sex crimes, including six counts of third-degree sodomy, six counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of first-degree online sexual corruption of a child…

Droit du Seigneur (#691)

Do we really want rapists to eschew condoms so they can avoid federal charges?

…Federal prosecutors said William Whitley’s conduct affected interstate commerce because…the condoms he used [to rape] a 14-year-old girl [were made out of state]…Prosecutors often cite guns made outside a state to support federal charges. Condom use is [a wholly predictable following of established precedent]…a federal sex trafficking charge has a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, while the minimum at the state level would be six years…

Saving Them From Themselves (#778)

Naturally, politicians had to make this bad law even worse before passing it:

…members of the [Ohio] House Criminal Justice Committee voted unanimously in favor of a bill to ban teen sexting, even for…teenagers who are [18 and therefore] legally adults…Teens found guilty of sexting could be sentenced to [re-education]…but judges would be free to overlook this program, and minors with previous sex-related offenses on their records would not be eligible. Outside the diversion program, a sexting charge could lead to…eight hours of community service—a light punishment that the bill’s supporters have brandished to make their proposal more palatable. But…the real harm comes from saddling these kids with criminal records for the rest of their lives…The bill’s sponsors have argued that theirs is a compassionate plan because it gives prosecutors an option to avoid charging teen sexters with more serious child pornography charges. But there’s nothing requiring the state’s cops to crack down on teen sexting to begin with, and…prosecutors could use their discretion to not bring child porn charges…instead, they’re simply adding on another possible charge for law enforcement to slap onto texting teens…

All-Purpose Excuse (#783)

I feel so much schadenfreude at watching the government’s own moral panic come back to bite it:

…Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of [Health & Human Services] Administration for Children and Families, faced a barrage of questions…over why HHS does not track unaccompanied minors who fail to appear at their immigration court hearings. The agency has faced increased scrutiny following a scathing 2016 report…that found it failed to protect unaccompanied minors from traffickers and other abuses…In 2014, at least 10 trafficking victims, including eight minors, were discovered during a raid…[according to the movie] Trafficked in America, HHS had released several minors to the traffickers…Between October and December 2017…the agency was unable to locate almost 1,500 out of the 7,635 minors that it attempted to reach — or about 19 percent. Over two dozen had run away, according to Wagner, who said the agency did not have the capacity to track them down…

Rooted in Racism (#800)

Another case of deliberate racial profiling thanks to government-approved guidelines:

…Lindsay Gottlieb…was flying home [to California] from Denver when a Southwest agent asked her to prove she was the mother of her [biracial] baby. Gottlieb said she showed her son’s passport, but the agent wasn’t satisfied and demanded a birth certificate [because obviously everyone carries those around with them]…The agent eventually let her family check in, but Gottlieb turned to Twitter to get the airline’s attention. She tweeted: “I’m appalled that after approximately 50 times flying with my one-year-old son, ticket counter personnel told me I had to ‘prove’ that he was my son, despite having his passport. She said because we have different last names. My guess is because he has a diff. skin color”…

Although this coverage doesn’t mention it, I think everyone reading this knows why airline personnel are being trained to racially profile travelers. Every agent and air hostess wants to be the next big hero for catching a “sex trafficker”.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#823)

The stench of FOSTA is all over India’s terrible new “anti-trafficking” bill:

…there appear to be several issues with overbroad or vague language…that could lead to a deleterious effect on the Freedom of Expression…section 39(2)…mandates punishment even for a vaguely defined action or actions that may not actually be connected to the trafficking of a person. In other words, the provision doesn’t require any of the actions to be connected to trafficking in their intent or even outcome, but only in potential connection to the outcome…The excessively wide scope of this badly drafted provision leaves it prone to abuse…Even the electronic publicizing of an academic study on trafficking could fall under the provision as it currently reads…Similarly, any of our vast number of self-appointed moral guardians could also pull within this provision any artistic work that they may personally find offensive or ‘obscene’…Section 41…[criminalizes] “Whoever distributes, or sells or stores” [information claimed to leads to “trafficking”]…the infrastructure of the electronic/digital world requires 3rd party intermediaries to handle information…As it is not feasible, desirable or even practically possible for intermediaries to verify the legality of every bit of data that gets transferred or stored by the intermediary, “safe harbours” are provided in law for intermediaries, protecting them from liability of the information being transmitted through them…If intermediaries are not granted this protection, it puts them in the unenviable position of having to monitor un-monitorable amounts of data, and face legal action for the slip-ups that are bound to happen regularly…

Legal Is as Legal Does (#831)

As long as any part of sex work is criminalized, cops will have power over sex workers:

Some Victorian sex workers say that working under the licensing framework…is even worse than working in places that totally outlaw sex work because of the extreme complexity of the laws. Jules Kim from…Scarlet Alliance says [that in Queensland and Victoria] sex…workers are subject to unwarranted “surveillance and entrapment”…Examples include police calling workers to request services considered illegal within those states, such as condomless oral or threesomes, and then laying charges if the worker agrees…Such entrapment can disproportionately affect marginalised workers, such as migrant workers with limited English, who may not know what they are agreeing to. In Western Australia and South Australia, where most forms of sex work are deemed illegal, police may use the fact that someone had condoms as “evidence” that they were working…

Imaginary Evils (#833)

Calling this “sex trafficking” lets the government steal property:

The Justice Department is moving in to target two [houses in Brooklyn]…where sex trafficking and branding allegedly took place. Court documents filed by the Eastern District Court in Brooklyn are to forfeit and condemn two properties allegedly used by Keith Raniere and his victims…in connection with Raniere’s [NXIVM] cult…

Pyrrhic Victory (#844)

That didn’t take long, did it?

We’ve heard so many stories lately about the frankly horrifying degree to which facial recognition leads to tracking or privacy invasions. But a startup specializing in AI is instead leveraging facial recognition technology to [rat sex workers out to the cops]…Marinus Analytics…program called Traffic Jam…builds a database of images, phone numbers, and location data which can help identify [sex workers]…It scrapes the websites every few minutes, meaning even ads which are deleted or changed is [sic] still usable…The company last year added a feature to Traffic Jam called Facesearch, which combs through online photographs and identifies specific [sex workers]…Amazon’s Rekognition software is the technology behind the facial recognition…Rekognition is also being used by law enforcement for other…surveillance purposes. While that usage has some ethical dilemmas which other experts in the field have pointed out, the usage of the software to find [sex workers]…feels far more noble [to the dangerously ignorant]…

The gullibility of this reporter is nothing short of alarming; notice how eagerly she sucks the dick of “sex trafficking” propagandists even though she clearly understands the danger of mass surveillance, then proceeds to make excuses for the surveillance based in swallowing the propaganda.

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In the News (#839)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Backpage, bogus studies, censorship, Choke Point, Comfort Zone, cops, Craigslist, dehumanization, Disaster, Drawing Lines, fascism, Feet of Clay, Gorged With Meaning, halfway whores, hysteria, illegal aliens, Imaginary Victims, internet, Latin America, law, Lower Education, New York, Not Worth the Paper, pathologization of males, politicians, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, streetwalkers, Tennessee, The Peril, underage, video, violence vs. sex workers, Whorearchy, yellow journalism on May 19, 2018| 3 Comments »

Adapting…to…the new legal environment…will take time…that the most vulnerable sex workers don’t have. – Lux Alptraum

Feet of Clay

Your periodic reminder that Nicholas Kristof is a vile excuse for a human being:

…what better example of our compromised political class is there than Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist and professional “humanitarian” whose calls to send in the Marines are always clothed in the raiment of altruism. It’s people like Kristof that libertarian author Isabel Paterson warned us against when she wrote about the “humanitarian with a guillotine.” For I can hardly recall a single war of the recent past that Kristof has not wholeheartedly embraced: while he shied away from jumping on the Iraq war bandwagon, he was gung ho for destroying Syria and making it a safe haven for jihadists: he’s never revisited that stance, nor apologized for it in any way. He’s all for arming the Ukrainian government, which is surely one of the most corrupt in the world, and which has a huge neo-Nazi problem. To top it off, he’s one of the loudest voices urging the US to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and support a crew of jihadist rebels “formerly” associated with al-Qaeda…

Every single “humanitarian” or “liberal” cause Kristoff embraces is a hypocrisy based in racism, sexism, colonialism or plain old jingoism. He’s utterly disgusting.

Lower Education

Women are moral imbeciles, so men are always responsible for our choices:

If a man and a woman are both drunk and they have sex, the man is the rapist if the woman decides he is at some point, regardless of how she felt in the moment. This is what American University taught students in a required sexual consent module last year, according to…screenshots of the training…CampusClarity…[features] invasive questions [and was] pulled from mandatory student training by Clemson University in 2014…the same training is used at public universities including the University of Florida and Kansas State…CampusClarity owner EverFi admitted…in 2014 that some of the statistics in its sexual consent training were questionable…EverFi’s “impact report” for the University of Oregon in 2013-2014 disclosed that it was lumping together “yes” and “not sure” answers to boost the numbers in response to a survey question on whether “someone pressured me into a sexual experience without my explicit consent”…

Choke Point

New York is every bit as enthusiastic as the feds are at applying fascist pressure to accomplish illegal and unconstitutional agendas:

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s recent directive to financial regulators…[urges] them to pressure private companies to break ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA). The “or else” is just a hair from being overt…The Department of Financial Services, which regulates the banking and insurance industries in New York, followed up with guidance letters to insurance companies and banks…the regulatory body that oversees these industries is warning companies under its power that they may be assuming reputational risk—a regulated area that draws official attention—by doing business with legal organizations including the NRA. This reputational risk is said to exist because these groups are “gun promotion organizations,” which boils down to nothing more than them taking a public policy positions at odds with those favored by the state’s political leaders…

Not Worth the Paper

Another anti-whore “study” which is not worth the stuff removed by the paper hanging by your toilet:

As Craigslist expanded across the United States, the free classifieds website also bolstered the sex industry, according to a new study…In analyzing data from 1999 to 2008, [Jason] Chan…Anindya Ghose…and Probal Mojumder…found [what they were paid to find, namely that] Craigslist’s arrival in a market also led to…recruitment and coercion of new ones…this led to greater exploitation of vulnerable populations…

Since the “study” used online escort ads as a proxy for the number of sex workers in a market (a moronic assumption even when it isn’t used by prohibitionists), what it actually “found” was that as online advertising became more popular among sex workers, it became more popular among sex workers. Yes, the “findings” are nothing more than a tautology; the nonsense about “exploitation” is the opinion the authors were paid to promote, and is unsupported by any evidence – even the usual bad evidence – in the paper my consultants were able to find. Given Chan & Ghose’s history as hired guns producing pro-censorship “studies”, I suspect this paper is part of FOSTA supporters’ campaign to defend the reputation of their malevolent law.

Comfort Zone (#765)

This story does a better-than-usual job of hiding migration control behind the “sex trafficking” narrative:

A two-year investigation led to the arrest of 22 people involved in a human trafficking network and the [arrest] of 350 men, women and children [cops claim were] forced into slave-like labor and prostitution in Latin America and the Caribbean…the…people were found working in bars, night clubs, gold mines, factories and open-air markets; some of them in remote areas from which they could not escape. Operation Libertad (freedom) was funded by the Canadian government and required coordinated raids in thirteen countries…What happens to trafficking victims once they are rescued “depends on the particular person’s circumstance… and often on the country’s resources,” [chief pig Tim] Morris said. They can be [held] in special facilities, released or [deported]…

“Special facilities”, like “safe houses”, means “prisons”. In poor countries. I’m sure that’s much better than what they were “rescued” from.

Imaginary Victims (#797)

Prohibitionists never gave a shit about imprisoned underage sex worker Cyntoia Brown until they realized they could use her to advance the “child sex slave” narrative:

Attorneys for a woman who killed a man when she was a 16-year-old prostitute say she was a sex-trafficking victim afraid for her life — but prosecutors say she killed the man to rob him. Both sides will make oral arguments next month in her appeal of her sentence of life without parole. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a June 14 court date for the case of 29-year-old Cyntoia Brown in…Cincinnati. Brown has been in prison since 2004…

Gorged With Meaning (#812)

Brandon Wade, who is pissing himself so badly over FOSTA you can smell it through this video, is doubling down on his ludicrous protestations that sugar dating isn’t sex work. Here he goes full-on fascist pig (complete with “I’m better than you” finger-steepling body language), referring to escorts and clients as “those elements” and urging that those who have drunk the Kool-aid “If you see something, say something” before sex workers who understand their value and clients who prefer not to deceive themselves “contaminate” his site:

Got news for you, Brandon: we’re already there. Practically every whore I know has an SA profile, and numerous clients have messaged me through MY profile there. But then, given your own history with girls who prefer to be paid by the hour, I’m sure you already knew that; you just mistakenly think that if you throw enough of us under the bus, the censors and ambulance-chasers whom FOSTA has enabled will spare your creepy arse.

The Peril (#834)

A decent article on the Mann Act marred by the author’s swallowing the “sex trafficking” myth:

A federal law passed in 1910, first designed to tackle the supposed scourge of “white slavery” that threatened the moral base of a rapidly changing America, is back in the news again…The Mann Act…was crafted as an anti-prostitution…law that made it illegal to cross state lines with women and girls “for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose”…Under the Mann Act’s vague “other immoral purpose” language, prosecutors brought charges against [Boxer Jack] Johnson for taking an unmarried white woman across state lines…the Mann Act also was also used to prosecute silent film star Charlie Chaplin regarding a paternity suit (he was acquitted); singer Chuck Berry for taking an Apache girl across state lines (convicted); and Frank Lloyd Wright for moving his lover and her daughter from Minnesota to Wisconsin (convicted)…The act has been amended since then and now is employed, primarily, as a tool to [harass sex workers]…

Disaster (#836)

Judging by the breadth of responses from all over the political map, FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation on the part of the government:

…FOSTA has…put sex workers in danger, and many have faced serious real-world consequences in the wake of this digital upheaval. Although no official reports have been released as of this writing, anecdotal evidence is trickling in. Johanna Breyer…of the Saint James Infirmary…[said their] mobile van outreach saw a dramatic increase of street-based sex workers in the Mission District. Breyer estimated that there were about double or triple the usual number of workers…Fancy, a Midwestern sex worker who manages a fund dedicated to providing financial support for sex workers in need, has seen a dramatic uptick in requests for help. In the wake of the Backpage shutdown, she says she went from receiving occasional requests for help to a dozen or two…daily. Many messages were from sex workers asking for advice on how to work on the streets safely…

Even sites concerned with mundane matters such as Consumer Affairs get it:

FOSTA…[has] a potential chilling effect on any and all internet speech…Advocates…point out that trafficking…is already a crime in the United States…and…targeting websites…will now only create new crimes. Whether FOSTA’s sponsors had intended to kick the entire sex trade offline…is unclear…[and politicians won’t answer honestly. Prohibitionist propaganda director Mary] Mazzio…addressed concerns that sex workers could lose their livelihoods by publishing a list of homeless shelters and other social services…Such an offer — that women who made rent doing sex work online were now free to stay in homeless shelters — was described by those in the sex trade as deeply insulting…Vanessa Carlisle [of SWOP-LA noted that]…“sex workers who seek services are often turned over to police”…By targeting online business…lawmakers are ignoring the role that law enforcement [plays] in abusing sex workers…

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Posts Tagged ‘Rooted in Racism’

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