Shifting the Blame | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘Shifting the Blame’

In the News (#700)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, Arizona, brothels, censorship, Choke Point, cops, drugs, Facebook, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, Full of Themselves, Georgia, Gingerbread House, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, internet, language, License To Rape, Maggie in the Media, massage, New Jersey, New York, Opting Out, pizza!, porn, rescue industry, serial killers, Shifting the Blame, stripping, teachers, The Clueless Leading the Hysterical, The Red Umbrella, To Molest and Rape, Twitter, United Kingdom, Utter Cluelessness, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state) on December 28, 2016| 5 Comments »

Abolitionists have failed to acknowledge the utter mundanity of most sex work. – Frankie Mullin

License to Rape

Prohibition turns the body of every citizen into a “crime scene”, which can be violated by “authorities” at will:

…upstate New York school…principal Eric Luther sought [underage student Jane] Doe out…and told her to “go for a walk with him”…two members of the New York State Police were stationed outside the…office…[and] the district superintendent, Robert Finster, [was] in the principal’s office, along with Amy Bird, the principal of the middle school. Upon learning that other students had accused her of possessing drugs, Doe insisted that the allegations were false…Doe offered to let Luther search her backpack in front of her, but…school officials had a more humiliating search in mind. Doe had to leave her backpack…while Luther and Bird took her to the nurse’s office…With [school nurse Kelly] Avallone and Bird looking on, Doe…[was forced] to disrobe completely…[and] stand exposed for several minutes…while they inspected her shirt, bra, boots, pants and underwear…Then nurse Avallone allegedly offered to perform a rectal exam…Jane [refused, but]…Avallone…[forced]…her…to…bend over [while she]…pried Jane’s buttocks apart with her hand, exposing Jane’s rectal cavity…Avallone [then] pried apart the opening to Jane’s vagina and shined her flashlight inside…there was absolutely nothing concealed…When Luther returned Doe’s backpack…her belongings were rearranged and…Luther admitted to searching the backpack outside of her presence. All Luther had to say…was “Stop having your name associated with people with drugs”…

The Red Umbrella

It’s always great to see good December 17^th essays from allies:

…No one “dies of prostitution” any more than they do from domestic partnerships. That women are killed in prostitution, as in relationships – the sphere in which women are most in danger of male violence – is the result of specific conditions: misogyny, poverty, racism, stigma. To claim that sex work is intrinsically violent is to let men off the hook…When deaths occur in other industries (there were 27 in agriculture this year, 43 in construction)…the usual response is to ask how working conditions can be made more secure, not whether the industry should be scrapped. Of course men don’t need to buy sex, but nor does London need more luxury flats. These arguments should have no impact on the right of workers to be protected…

Maggie in the Media

Full of Themselves

Of all the semi-whores, none are as pompous as licensed massage practitioners:

…seven…Kitsap County [Washington massage businesses were defamed]…as suspect by cop-turned consultant Lavon Watson, who has made a new career out of investigating the rising tide of what some call “Illicit Massage Businesses,” or IMBs…They are easily identifiable if one knows what to look for, say those [persecuting]…them. But they are not easy for authorities to shut down…Their proliferation has blurred the lines in the massage industry, with many legitimate massage practitioners reporting advances by their clients. Their presence also worries those fighting human trafficking…Massage Network Solutions [is] a group of local therapists that met…with Watson, a retired Redmond police officer and massage therapist himself…while police and prosecutors here have [dumped dirty money into persecuting so-called]…pimps involved in human trafficking, storefronts — licensed by state and local governments to operate — might be furthering sex slavery…

First They Came for the Hookers…

Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you:

[Reporters for WSB in Atlanta dutifully promoted cop propaganda by accompanying pigs]…as they raided three local strip clubs looking for illegal activity. [Prior to]…the raid [cops spent public money ogling strippers and getting lapdances for]…about a month-and-a-half to two-months…Sandy Springs police issued nine citations at Flashers, mostly for permit violations, and one for a solicitation for an illicit sexual act…At the Dollhouse…police issued 19 citations…[and] arrested [a dancer]…police issued six citations at Mardi Gras [and]…arrested [another dancer]…

Gingerbread House

The rescue industry is big business:

Phoenix will launch a project next year to convert an apartment complex into supportive housing for victims of human trafficking, an effort city officials [pretend] is the first of its kind in the country. The City Council…unanimously approved plans for Phoenix Starfish Place, which the city expects will serve primarily sex-trafficking victims. The project includes buying a vacant affordable rental complex, designing trauma-focused services and providing residents with vouchers to subsidize rent…[prominent “sex trafficking” fetishist & profiteer] Dominique [“Body Fluids”] Roe-Sepowitz…is [involved] with the project…

Shifting the Blame (#33)

Called it. Four and a half years ago.

Suffolk County’s disgraced former Police Chief James Burke, long suspected of keeping the FBI in the dark about the Gilgo Beach murders, faces a new accusation from a sex worker who says there’s a link between him and the killings…The escort, who according to an affidavit has been in the profession for five years, discussed multiple times she said she partied with Burke in 2011 at an unknown Oak Beach home and engaged in “rough sex”. Numerous people, prostitutes, and drugs, including cocaine, were at the gatherings, she said, adding that she observed former chief Burke use cocaine at the two parties she’d attended with him present…

“People, prostitutes and drugs”. Because prostitutes aren’t people? That kind of thinking is why those bodies ended up on the beach & their murders still haven’t been solved.

I Saw My Brain

Another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida:

More than 100 people, including [a bureaucrat]…were arrested in a six-day [pogrom]…in Polk County…the [persecution] was aimed at people who either advertised sexual services online or responded to prostitution ads online….[lying sows] posted fake online ads, and male [rapist pigs] responded to ads posted online by others…

Choke Point (#610)

It looks like there’s a new payment processor, PervoutPay, which promises to be sex work friendly. Of course, all their ad copy I’m seeing is about porn, and this testimonial from Lance Hart has a strong whiff of whorearchy: “We offer a legitimate service that is legal, yet we ask our customers to lie about what they are paying for…That has to make the customers feel at least a little weird(er) about paying us…like this is some kind of back alley deal. PervOutPay is a big step forward in legitimizing sex work…” Note the equation of “legal” and “legitimate”, which is bullshit; my business is as “legitimate” as Hart’s despite its illegality. So what about it, PervoutPay? Are you going to screw over escorts who try your service, or are you truly interested in “legitimizing sex work”?

To Molest and Rape

Serial sex offender let off easy, later assaults teen boy. Guess his profession:

Jason Miller was a New Jersey cop when he was caught on his dash cam pulling male motorists over to show them his penis, unzipping his pants to give them a close-up view of his genitals before walking back to his car without writing any citations…turning off his dash cam to allow himself to shove his genitals in their faces without it being recorded. But there were times he forgot to turn the camera off, which led to his arrest after the department received two anonymous tips…He…struck a plea deal to avoid serving jail time or having to register as a sex offender…He was also forced to resign and forbidden to ever work as a New Jersey cop again. On [December 15th]…he…was arrested again; this time for following a 16-year-old boy into a Burger King bathroom and sexually assaulting him…Miller claims the teen came onto him…

Utter Cluelessness

Just because we can’t find “victims” doesn’t mean the “problem” isn’t “overwhelming”. Pizza! Words With Friends! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!

Aimee Schroeder…starts her day [t]rolling through listings on Backpage.com. Her task is to pinpoint which Twin Cities ads are selling…children…for sex. Photographs of girls…with bruised bodies and the track marks of drug use tip her off to possible sex-trafficking crimes…Schroeder keeps an eye out for small hands and children’s clothing…Imran Ali [is] the Washington County assistant attorney who is heading up the county’s year-old effort to [profit from hysteria over]…sex trafficking…because Washington County is a hub for major highway connections, sex work is often headquartered there…Pete Orput [fantasized while secretly touching himself]. “I can order up a human being to come to my house and sell her body to me, and then I can order a pizza — and I’ll bet the gal beats the pizza to my door”…Victims can get sucked into trafficking a number of ways, including through…”Words With Friends”…

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical (#687)

This is what a moral panic looks like:

Aoshilong, a Chinese clothing manufacturer that sells its line on Amazon, produces leggings for little girls in various prints…According to a December 12 story from WFTX…in Fort Myers, Florida, that was uncritically repeated by many other outlets, “the pants are covered with marijuana leaves”…an…anti-drug activist [vomited out]…”Anything that normalizes marijuana with kids is child abuse”…which is more plausible: that a Chinese manufacturer of decidedly mainstream clothing made leggings for little girls printed with marijuana leaves…or that a few hyperventilating cannabiphobes mistook Japanese maple leaves for marijuana leaves?…

Opting Out (#694)

For those of you who still insist I’m an alarmist:

Last month, the UK moved forward with the latest version of its ridiculous “Digital Economy Bill” which will put in place mandatory porn filtering at the ISP level — requiring service providers to block access to sites that don’t do an age verification check. But it was at least somewhat vague as to which “ISPs” this covered. The bill has moved from the House of Commons over to the House of Lords, and apparently we now have at least something of an answer — and it’s that social media sites like Twitter and Facebook will be covered by this regulation…The debate over regulating Twitter got pretty silly pretty fast. At least one person noted that the UK was at risk of looking like idiots…

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In the News (#688)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Another Fine Mess, California, censorship, China, condoms, cops, Dirty Amateurs, disease, Drawing Lines, end demand, fantasy, games, Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish, Ireland, Legal Is as Legal Does, New York, Oregon, politicians, porn, prisons, prohibitionist myths, PSA, robots, serial killers, sexting, Shifting the Blame, Surplus Women, Swedish model, Switzerland, The Course of a Disease, The Punitive Mindset, The Pygmalion Fallacy, United Kingdom, Washington (state) on November 9, 2016| 2 Comments »

When the government shuts down sites like Rentboy, they’re really taking away tools for folks to be safe. – Becky Barryte

Dirty Amateurs

Amateurs are a menace to public health; they should be licensed and heavily regulated:

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a recent spike in STIs such as chlamydia (up nearly 6 percent since 2014), gonorrhea (up nearly 13 percent) and syphilis (up 19 percent) among young people…between the ages of 15 and 24…A 2015 CDC study found that condom use among sexually active high schoolers dropped from 63 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2015. A study that same year by Skyn condoms found that 48 percent of millennials use condoms “never” or “rarely”…

Surplus Women

Good riddance to bad rubbish:

A man serving a life sentence for killing three prostitutes in their one-woman brothels in 2008 hanged himself in…[a Hong Kong] Prison…on Thursday morning. Nadeem Razaq…a Hong Kong resident of Pakistani origin, was found hanging with his pullover tied to the bars of his single-person cell at about 6.44am…

“One-woman brothels” are a fiction of the lawhead mind; what they mean are “incalls”.

The Punitive Mindset

Given the petty vindictiveness of US prison officials, I’m amazed that any of them allow this:

…Sterling…is…a maximum security prison 130 miles northeast of Denver…every afternoon, half a dozen inmates gather around a table in the common room to join forces against imaginary foes in a…game of Dungeons and Dragons…Dice…aren’t allowed…so the inmates…use a set of 20 playing cards to make “rolls”…most of the guards…tolerate the game, even looking on with bemused curiosity and asking questions…Some even go so far as to encourage it…However, over the years, there has been the occasional guard who read sinister motives into the game…Back in 2004, at Waupun [prison] in Wisconsin, inmates were banned from playing D&D, and Dungeon Master, Kevin T. Singer’s, gaming materials were confiscated, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript outlining a campaign he was developing…Singer sued the prison, claiming the seizure and ban violated his free speech and due process rights. At the trial, Captain Bruce C. Muraski, the prison’s security supervisor and also the man responsible for the confiscation, attempted to justify the prison’s decision. He testi[l]ied that role-playing games like D&D “promote competitive hostility, violence, and addictive escape behavior, which can compromise not only the inmate’s rehabilitation and effects of positive programming, but endanger the public and jeopardize the safety and security of the institution.” Singer appealed the decision and six years later, it escalated to the United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. There, Singer presented testimony to show that D&D—and roleplaying games in general—were effective tools for rehabilitating inmates, yet the appeals court upheld the ban…

Legal Is as Legal Does

Why sex workers keep telling you that legalization isn’t much better than criminalization:

…at the end of 2014 Holbeck [in Leeds] was thrust into the limelight by a trial scheme: the UK’s first “managed prostitution zone”…Elsewhere in the UK, while selling sex is legal, soliciting is not. In the managed area, however, this law no longer applies between 7PM and 7AM. The basic premise is that, as long as you’re over 18 – police may ask to see ID – you can work as a sex worker without fear of arrest. On Friday the 21st of October, however, the truce appears to have broken. Women working in the area were shocked as police and UK Border Agency (UKBA) officials poured out of vans and cars and began to round up whoever they could find. Anyone from outside the UK…found themselves detained and questioned…six women, all from EU countries, were taken straight to Yarl’s Wood and are now waiting to be deported. Others have been given 30 days to provide paperwork proving their legitimacy to stay in the UK…

Another Fine Mess

This one’s more of a mess than usual; though it starts with the usual “OMG whores use the internet!” it quickly devolves into nonsense about sexbots, then veers off into idiotic prohibitionist claims like “Because there’s such high demand for [commercial] sex, that is what is creating sex trafficking, because a majority of people don’t want to go into commercial sex work willingly…because there’s this gap in supply, trafficking victims are filling that gap…” If that were true, sex workers wouldn’t be working as hard as we do to attract clients and I wouldn’t be posting fucking specials. The truth is that it’s a rare whore who has enough clients these days, and if prohibitionists’ moronic claims about clients they attack “generating demand” were true, we’d all be a lot wealthier.

Drawing Lines (#446)

Marc Randazza explains once again why attempts to prosecute porn as prostitution are doomed to fail:

…The industry has threatened to leave California, en masse, if [the mandatory condom bill] does pass. Those who support the measure…claim that the industry can’t leave….[because] the only states where you can shoot porn legally are California and New Hampshire…I finally got sick enough of hearing this stupid shit that I wrote a law review article on it: This will explain to you why porn is not prostitution, and why you can shoot anywhere in America. It also tells you a bit about the Condom Wars…Download it, read it, study it, and tell the next idiot who tells you that you can only shoot porn in CA and NH that they’re full of shit. Or, the next time someone asks “why isn’t porn prostitution?” explain this shit to them — because I’m sick of explaining it.

Shifting the Blame (#597)

Though the article doesn’t mention it, Burke was the man who derailed the hunt for the Long Island Killer:

The once popular and swaggering chief of the Suffolk County Police Department, James Burke, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison…for a series of misdeeds that began after a duffel bag belonging to him was stolen from his [truck]…The duffel bag contained pornography and sex toys. Its disappearance in December 2012 set Mr. Burke off on a furious effort to find the thief, teach him a lesson, recover the bag and make sure the episode stayed quiet. It did not. Mr. Burke’s efforts at a cover-up set in motion a scandal that reverberated through Long Island politics…

Public Service Announcement (#669)

Admit it; you knew he’d claim to be a “sex addict”:

…serial sexter Anthony Weiner has checked into a sex addiction clinic…days after [his]…texting jolted the presidential race. Weiner has dropped out of sight after an FBI investigation into his latest sexting scandal led the feds to reopen a probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#679)

I had a feeling he’d extend this fantasy nonsense to his Swiss endeavor as well:

A Swiss café offering robot sex services to accompany your hot drink wants to open in Geneva by the end of the year. Owner Bradley Charvet…had originally planned to employ sex workers to entertain clients, but legal issues meant he now wanted to use high-tech robots [that do not actually exist]…[because] Geneva’s department of security and economy told Le Matin “paid-for sexual services are banned in public establishments under the law on catering and the sale of drinks.” Charvet…[pretends] he’s in talks with a U.S. sex robot manufacturing company to buy several “lifelike robot-women” for a cost ranging between $1,800-$3,000…

If you can’t quite see how absurd this all is, read the next item below.

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#685)

This is what robo-fetishist David Levy was fantasizing about when he claimed “sex robots” will be available next year: “Fifteen grand…as of next year…will get you a talking sex doll with heated genitals….physical responses to touch, verbal capabilities allowing them to speak in sultry voices…and synthetic skin…” IOW, a cross between an adult-sized Talky Tina and a fleshlight. Not what I’d consider competition.

The Course of a Disease (#686)

A very interesting development in Ireland:

Sex workers have called for a new law making it illegal to pay for sex to be reconsidered after several TDs raised concerns about its impact on vulnerable women. The Sexual Offences Bill includes an amendment criminalising the purchase of sex…[which] would make sex workers’ lives more dangerous by driving the trade underground. The legislation was criticised by Amnesty International, the World Health Organisation, HIV Ireland, the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland and the Police Service of Northern Ireland…

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In the News (#597)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Africa, Backpage, BDSM, Between the Lines, censorship, consensual crime, cops, dating, Drawing Lines, Fallen Idol, fantasy, FBI, Florida, GFE, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, halfway whores, hysteria, internet, License To Rape, Maine, New York, porn, pragmatism, prisons, prohibitionist myths, rape, Reaction Formation, Saving Them from Themselves, Seizing Power, serial killers, sexting, Shifting the Blame, That Old Black Magic, The Widening Gyre, universal criminality, Universally Criminal updates, video, Washington DC, Worse Than I Thought on December 19, 2015| 15 Comments »

[Under universal criminality] the cop becomes a law unto himself, with the ability to criminalize or wholly dehumanize any individual at will.
– Steve Martinot

License to Rape

Cops raping sex workers is so ubiquitous, non-cop rapists often pose as cops to facilitate the crime:

A [Maine] mechanic who pretended to be an undercover [cop] to [rape] prostitutes…will spend more than eight years in prison…Jason Foster was…also sentenced to seven years of suspended prison time…Foster claimed he was just a paying prostitution customer…[he] must also register for life as a sex offender.

Universal Criminality

The only flaw in this otherwise-excellent essay is that the author buys into the “pimp” myth:

…around 70% of all prisoners in the US are convicted of victimless crimes…the person charged with a crime has harmed no one. Some might say they harm themselves, but each individual would have to be involved in any discussion of whether that were true or not. Regardless, they are thrown in prison…those convicted of victimless crimes are themselves the victims…of the victimless crime law system. The mythology of imprisonment is that all those in prison are violent offenders, “bad guys” who need to be taken off the streets for the safety and security of the average person. If 70% of all prisoners are there for victimless crimes, then this is worse than a myth. It is a malicious lie…

The Widening Gyre

“Sex trafficking terrorists”. Because one moral panic at a time isn’t enough any more.

There are terrorists in the United States who actively seek victims for their sex trafficking businesses. According to Shared Hope International, this enterprise is booming. The market for human beings is profitable…Sex traffickers target children as young as 11 years old. Moreover, younger boys and girls are also subject to these predators…over 100,000 children…are bought, sold, and rented every year…It is, in fact, considered “a form of modern-day slavery…The terrorists in the U.S. are not only those the media discusses daily, but they are also the sex traffickers who are active in their pursuit of victims. These terrorists are pimps and they are not always strangers…

Shifting the Blame (#33)

Long-time readers may recall that I said this almost four years ago:

Disgraced former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke…stymied the FBI’s investigation into the Gilgo Beach serial-killings for years…Burke…refused to keep the feds in the loop on the unsolved murders of eight women, a man and a toddler on or near the beach…because he learned he was in the FBI’s cross hairs for assaulting Christopher Loeb…a handcuffed suspect who swiped items from his vehicle— including pornography and sex toys…[Burke] then tried to cover up the assault…Suffolk Police Commissioner Tim Sini announced that the FBI would now play a major role in the Gilgo Beach cold case…

That Old Black Magic

No sillier than the anti-sex propaganda favored by Western charlatans:

A “spiritualist” in Ghana named Mallam Ya Wadudu asserts that tattoos can cause “homosexuality and prostitution”…he said, “The snakes, lions, scorpions, frogs and other animal symbols they put on themselves all have spiritual meanings. Those who put the symbols on their bodies have to be delivered from the influence of the spirits in the symbols.” He firmly believes tattooing such symbols onto your body will lead to demonic possession…side effects may include homosexuality, alcoholism, or prostitution…

Drawing Lines

The mental gymnastics on display here would be truly Olympian if they weren’t so wholly clownish:

…Whether or not Sugar dating resembles “prostitution,” this tired argument is outdated and hardly applicable in the modern world. Not only does it neglect the nuance and idiosyncrasies that exist in the world of Sugar dating, but it also assumes that, in the general population, only two types of intimate relationships exist: ones that include money and ones that do not…the phenomenon of the Girlfriend-Experience (GFE) is an example of the growing similarity and fusion between sexual and marriage markets. To an onlooker, a GFE in action appears identical to any other dating scenario, but with the added certainty that…sex will be included somewhere in the evening’s antics. And the woman will be compensated…the [sugar baby]…is more than a sex object – and her Sugar Daddy is more than an ATM. To call Sugar dating prostitution is to reduce the individuals involved to one-dimensional stereotypes, when life is much more complicated and interesting than that…

Do you think we ought to tell “Sara-Kate” that GFE is a prostitution term?

Saving Them From Themselves (#428)

Consensual crime laws enable predators, part umpteen:

Police Detective David Edward Abbott, a member of the Northern Virginia-Washington D.C. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, committed suicide…before law enforcement could arrest him on suspicion of sexually abusing minors. Abbott…was the detective [who]…sought a warrant to take [a] 17-year-old male…to the hospital, inject him with a drug that would give him an erection, photograph his genitals, and compare the photo with existing pictures of his genitals the police had confiscated from his 15-year-old girlfriend’s phone. The teen was eventually sentenced to one year of probation…Abbott sued the teen’s lawyer for defamation. The lawyer, Jessica Foster, remarked to the media that the warrant to take pornographic pictures of her client–to be used as evidence that he was guilty of creating child pornography–was “crazy”…Abbott said the comments caused him severe emotional distress; he claimed he was threatened and called a pedophile…Abbott…had inappropriate contact with two young boys, ages 11 and 13…

Worse Than I Thought (#536)

And you can bet they’re going to get help from civil liberties groups:

Following a First Amendment victory against meddling Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart…Backpage.com is now taking on the federal government. On December 11, the company filed a civil action against U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, claiming that the…SAVE…Act…is unconstitutionally vague, overbroad, and infringes on First Amendment rights. The…Act added “advertising” a victim of sexual exploitation to the list of thing that can trigger a sex-trafficking charge, meaning that user-generated ad platforms such as Backpage and Craigslist could find themselves facing the same charges as someone who forces someone else into prostitution—regardless of whether the platform knew anything about the ad. It also stipulated a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence (up to life imprisonment)…A wide swath of free-speech and civil-liberties advocates opposed the SAVE Act…[warning] that [its] reach wouldn’t just extend to Backpage but also social media such as Facebook and Twitter, online dating websites, and apps such as Tinder and Grindr…

Bait and Switch (#545)

If you’ll look back at what I’ve previously reported on Grady Judd, I’m sure you can guess what kind of tactics were used to entrap these people so Judd could destroy their lives for his self-aggrandizement:

A five-day human trafficking undercover operation in Polk County netted 95 arrests…The suspects range in age from 15 to 68 years old…Detectives filed 21 felony charges and 111 misdemeanor charges…“We’ve seen firsthand the negative social costs of how prostitution hurts families, children, and communities. And more often than not, there is a high correlation between other crimes and prostitution,” Polk Sheriff Grady Judd [vomited onto reporters]. “There is also a direct nexus between prostitution and human trafficking, and we are committed to identifying victims of human trafficking and getting them into [brainwashing] programs and out of lives of crime.”

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality (#578)

Because the government can’t find imaginary “sex slave rings”, it creates criminals in order to uphold its narrative:

…FBI agents…devised an undercover operation targeting…individuals…pursuing [an extreme BDSM]…fantasy…four individuals were…willing to pay thousands of dollars for a sex slave…The four…were indicted on human trafficking charges between December 2013 and May 2014. They all pled guilty, and in September 2015, an Arizona federal judge sentenced them to prison terms ranging from seven to nine years…[Agent Ryan] Blay said…“We didn’t want to wait until there were actual victims.”

It’s a sign of how badly US “justice” has deteriorated that the agent sees nothing wrong with that chilling final statement.

Between the Lines

Here’s a firsthand account of what it’s like to be targeted by an “Operation Cross-Country” sting (video courtesy of Tara Burns):

Fallen Idol

A porn studio has published a performers’ bill of rights in the aftermath of the sexual assault allegations against porn actor James Deen, which have driven the adult industry to reexamine some of the on-set concerns surrounding the issue of performer consent…Angie and Colin Rowntree, long-time adult film veterans who operate sssh.com (a porn for women site) and Wasteland.com (a BDSM site), instituted their studio’s first formalized “On-set Policies And Best Practices” document…Sssh and Wasteland said they are taking their current principles and making them crystal clear for all parties. According to Angie Rowntree, the document, which is now publicly available on their site, “is going to be an ongoing process” and will evolve as new potential concerns pop up…

Seizing Power (#593)

NPR has parroted government “sex trafficking” propaganda for years, but writing about this issue without mentioning Dart’s smackdown by a federal court is a remarkably revealing display of the organization’s total disregard for the truth:

Across the country, law enforcement is cracking down on sex trafficking of minors by going after online escort ads. Five years ago, Craigslist was pressured to shut down its adult-services forum. The new target is Backpage.com — Visa and MasterCard stopped processing transactions with Backpage this summer. Some in the sex industry are getting around that by using the virtual currency bitcoin. That’s the latest adaptation by an industry used to getting creative to avoid detection…Cook County Illinois Sheriff Tom Dart called a news conference to announce a victory this summer…Backpage…is fighting back. It’s suing Sheriff Dart and making its ads free…

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In the News (#570)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged A Load of Farley, activism, agency denial, Amnesty At Last, apes & monkeys, Ashley Madison, Backpage, bogus studies, cops, Crying for Nanny, escort review sites, language, law, Little Boxes, Monkey Business, New York, pathologization of males, Pennsylvania, porn, prisons, Shifting the Blame, The Missing Word, Vendetta, Washington (state) on September 9, 2015| 3 Comments »

It’s basically a vice-squad operation writ large over the entire nation and imbued with overstated moral urgency. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown

R.I.P. Candida Royalle

Former porn star Candida Royalle, regarded as a pioneer for her work in front of and behind the camera, has died after battling ovarian cancer. She was 64. The actress — whose [legal] name [was] Candice Vadala — performed in more than two dozen adult films, but was best known for her work as a director… “Everyone assumes I was probably given a hard time by the adult film biz but they always treated me fairly, even if they at first doubted me,” she explained on her website. “They’ve come to respect that I was the first one with vision and recognition of what would become the ‘couples’ market”…

A Load of Farley

Farley’s going to keep hawking this same snake oil until she croaks:

Last week, research making the media rounds declared that men who pay for sex are more sexually aggressive, pathologically masculine, and likely to commit sexual assault than other men…this study—led by noted anti-sex work activist Melissa Farley and funded by a group which aims to “eliminate” prostitution—comes with a host of important caveats before taking too seriously its purported conclusions…all participants live in Boston…The kind of people likely to be trolling newspapers and Craigslist for gigs and to be enticed to talk about their sex lives for cash may also differ in significant ways from the general male population…The claim that men who pay for sex are more likely to commit sexual violence is based not on their criminal pasts but on their answers to a number of personality questions and hypotheticals…on a 34-item questionnaire…it’s a stretch to say they’re “more likely to commit rape” and not at all the same as saying they have “a dark history of violence against women”…Farley has a long history of publishing research that casts prostitution in a negative light, frequently speaks about prostitution’s perceived ills, and has run an anti-prostitution advocacy group…for the better part of the past two decades. Its goal is “to abolish the institution of prostitution.” The research was funded by a group with a mission to eliminate “men’s assumption of the right to prostitution” [and]…study authors thanked famous anti-pornography activist Catherine MacKinnon for her “invaluable” and “critical feedback regarding the summary and interpretation of these findings.” In promoting this study, Farley casually calls strip clubs hubs of child sex trafficking and says things like, “We hope this research will lead to a rejection of the myth that sex buyers are simply sexually frustrated nice guys”…

Monkey Business

They’re on their way…

In April, a chimp in The Netherlands took down a drone being used to film the Burgers’ Zoo…researchers now say the video shows that the chimp planned out its actions in advance. The drone had already flown by in a practice run, at which time it caught the attention of several chimps in the enclosure…And when it came back, they were ready: Two females sat where the drone was going to hover, holding long twigs…their faces show exertion, but not fear — indicating that they were acting deliberately, and not flailing around in terror at the foreign object…

Sold Out

The modern LGBT rights movement has been veering toward conservatism for some time, evidenced by its primary and overarching mission to finally achieve Marriage Equality…a civil rights movement which once championed our right to sexual liberation and a declaration of our right to be “different”…essentially withered into a call for assimilation…Promiscuity, probably the most common of vilified behaviors, is regularly regarded not as an individual’s command of their own sexual agency but instead an expression of their lack of self respect or sense of self worth, as something pitiable and damning. Likewise sex work…is a shameful and exploitative act…blanket generalizations of “right” and “wrong” rule the discourse…

The Missing Word

I know I’ve written about this before, but I can’t find it:

A Pennsylvania judge convicted of sending young kids to juvenile detention centers in return for cash has been sentenced to 28 years in prison…Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking up to $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers in…Pennsylvania. The disgraced judge became known for doling out harsh sentences for small, petty crimes in order to receive payment for each kid sent…

Crying for Nanny (#539)

“Induce sex trafficking”? That’s some serious bullshit there:

…Washington’s Supreme Court has refused to dismiss a lawsuit against [Backpage] by three minors who say they were raped by adults who responded to ads on the site. The ruling is at odds with other decisions that have held Backpage, Craigslist and other sites are immune from civil lawsuits based on crimes by users…Backpage asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed at an early stage, arguing that the federal Communications Decency Act immunizes Web services companies from liability for acts by users. But the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act doesn’t protect Web sites that “develop” objectionable content, as opposed to sites that merely “host” the content…”It is important to ascertain whether in fact Backpage designed its posting rules to induce sex trafficking,” Judge Steven Charles Gonzalez wrote for the majority…

Shifting the Blame (#553)

Nobody ever sold sex before Backpage!

…Backpage.com…now turns up in countless police reports…sex workers and those who exploit them for profit increasingly turn to the Internet to facilitate their activity…Research suggests many sex workers enter the trade as teenagers…and more than one third have had abusive or violent clients…The danger inherent in the trade was highlighted on July 2 when…34-year-old…Sanisha Johnson was…robbed and murdered by two Massachusetts men who arranged to meet her on Backpage…

Ashley Madison (#557)

Surprising no one:

Avid Life Media, the…parent company of…Ashley Madison, secretly operated an online escort service, recently leaked documents reveal. The company was allegedly actively recruiting escorts for a separate “dating” website that was aimed at “sugar daddies”…escorts.ca…is similar to other online directories for escort services which have triggered anti-prostitution raids by US law enforcement authorities. The website was reportedly leased though a shell company called Pernimus Limited…

Amnesty At Last

Kari Lerum on the Amnesty declaration:

…While celebrities typically capture more attention than scientists, Amnesty listened to the latter. After two years of consulting with global health and human rights researchers as well as sex workers and victims of human trafficking, the largest and arguably most respected human rights organization in the world made its game-changing declaration. Amnesty International will now develop policy on nation-states’ ethical obligation to decriminalize sex work…Immediately following the vote, CATW issued a press release declaring that Amnesty International…“deliberately excluded the voices and expertise of survivor-leaders and women’s rights organizations”…given the rigorous and prestigious research cited by Amnesty, in combination with a dearth of medical and academic researchers affiliated with either CATW’s board of directors or petition, this particular accusation may ring hollow…

Vendetta (#569)

The differences between the way this is covered by badge-lickers:

A coalition of dozens of law enforcement agencies arrested more than 1,000 pimps and sex buyers in a summer-long series of prostitution stings…known as the National Johns Suppression Initiative…A total of 39 law enforcement agencies across 18 states arrested 961 men trying to buy sex and 71 pimps or traffickers…Sheriff [Tom] Dart [said]…“These women and girls have been brutalized and exploited – and the most effective way to deter these heinous crimes is to target the demand.” The Cook County Sheriff’s office has repeatedly attacked Backpage.com as a haven for pimps and traffickers…occasionally, officers encountered children while carrying out the stings…

…and the way it’s covered by rational people is both striking and instructive:

Every summer, police and prosecutors from around the country come together…to saddle men with criminal records for attempted sex…the months-long effort…turned up fewer than 75 individuals suspected of anything tangentially related to sex trafficking (including “pimping”, pandering or “promoting prostitution”). But police were able to arrest nearly 1,000 men who indicated they might like to pay adult women for sex, along with an untold number of sex workers themselves…This summer’s Johns Initiative will net law enforcement a minimum of $189,170 in fines for the solicitation arrests alone…Dart claims they uncovered 308 sex-trafficking victims, including 258 adults and 50 minors. But it’s hard to say what this really means, since all minors engaged in sex work are labeled de facto victims by police…and many police departments have started classifying sex workers of any age as trafficking victims—at least for public-relations purposes. After the press releases come out, however, these adult and teen sex workers are all-too-often arrested if they refuse to cooperate with cops, and sometimes even if they do. Pittsburgh’s Detective Ryczaj said arresting sex workers is “the kindest thing you can do for them,” because he thinks they’re mostly homeless, drug addicts, or mentally ill…

Little Boxes (#569)

A 46-year-old…from Charleston, South Carolina was arrested…after allegedly assaulting two women who pose painted and topless for tips in Times Square…Mark Walters took a picture with…20-year-old [Lourdes Carrasquillo]…then “became irate,” and “dragged” the woman to the ground by her hair. When…32-year-old [Maria Ruiz] attempted to break up the “fight,” Walters allegedly hit her in the right ear…Walters accused Carrasquillo of stealing his wallet before assaulting her, although cops have found no evidence to support this claim…in an unrelated incident, undercover officers arrested a desnuda [named Destiny Romero] after she allegedly agreed to perform oral sex on an undercover officer for money…

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In the News (#553)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Arizona, Backpage, California, cops, end demand, Feminine Pragmatism, Florida, Full of Themselves, Greece, hysteria, Kentucky, language, law, Maryland, Massachusetts, massage, Ohio, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, rape, Shifting the Blame, Soap Opera, sporting events, The Scarlet Letter, violence vs. sex workers, Wisconsin, Worse Than I Thought on July 8, 2015| 6 Comments »

[Tom] Dart says sex workers are victims, but his actions suggest he intends to make sure they’re victims, one way or the other. – Noah Berlatsky

Shifting the Blame

Politician blames advertising site for damage caused by criminalization:

[Massachusetts] Attorney General Maura Healey called on Backpage.com to shut down its “adult” section after two men allegedly killed an escort…whom they had met through the website…Epshod Jeune…and Derrell Fisher…carried out a “joint venture to rob escorts at gunpoint’’…[but] Healey [pretended it was somehow the advertisement’s fault]…

The Scarlet Letter

This week in serious civil-liberties violations in the name of stopping sex, the city of Tucson, Arizona, has released information on hundreds of people with “ties” to suspected sex workers. The move is part of a years-long investigation into a handful of massage parlors that may offer more than just muscle-pain relief. Obviously, such nefarious criminal activity (hand jobs—for money? the horror!) warrants extreme measures, which is why Tucson cops couldn’t just stop after raiding the six massage parlors in January and seizing the owners’ assets. Now the department has publicized the names of all the phone contacts stored in 15 cellphones seized during the raids…getting a massage is apparently now grounds for public shaming at the hands of the state…

Feminine Pragmatism

Dog bites man:

…Nearly a third of Greeks are living below the poverty line, and children and families make up a significant proportion of those most vulnerable as a result of brutal austerity measures. This is well-known and well-documented. Yet one fallout of Greece’s mass unemployment is largely concealed – the rising rate of women turning to sex work to make ends meet. There are reportedly around 18,000 sex workers in Greece, up from the estimated 17,000 in 2012…the number of people selling sexual services in Greece has soared by 150% during the crisis – driven by those desperate to put food on the table after the nation’s financial meltdown…

Above the Law

Brave heroes of the week:

A…[cop named Nakia Johnson] has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing…an 11 year-old girl. Deputies say he was in the car with the child when he accidentally pocket dialed the girl’s mother…

Meanwhile, in Maryland:

A Maryland state trooper has been charged with forcing a woman to perform a sex act on him at gunpoint…Brian Tucker…and the woman had previously arranged an agreement for a sex act for money, but the woman…was forced to perform an additional sex act at gunpoint…

Full of Themselves (#439)

The luridly-pompous language used in massage parlor hit pieces from California is probably the most unintentionally-hilarious anti-whore pap out there:

…The number of state-certified masseuses has risen 13% since 2014 to 51,885 this year, according to the California Massage Therapy Council…Nationwide, the massage industry is growing as medical establishments increasingly embrace massage’s therapeutic benefits…more than 5,400 massage technicians list home addresses in [the San Gabriel Valley]…10% of the massage technicians in the entire state. Now that cities have more authority over massage parlors, officials are weighing how to balance the rights of a growing profession of legitimate massage therapists against the responsibility to solve problems caused by the less savory businesses. An athlete with sore muscles or an office worker with a stiff neck could not browse long online without running into websites offering Yelp-style reviews of sexually oriented massage parlors. Posters swap information, using abbreviations and acronyms to throw authorities off the trail…A study by the Urban Institute…described a highly organized sex trafficking ring revolving around a chain of massage parlors in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles…

Soap Opera (#509)

First-magnitude fabulist Theresa Flores’ maudlin comedy act, distributing soap bars to fight “pimps” hiding in hotel lavatories, continues:

As the Major League All-Star Game approaches, local law enforcement officials as well as anti-human trafficking activists are bracing for a spike in sex traffic in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. One of their main weapons to combat such an influx? Bars of hotel soap…The shower is one place where victims are alone and away from their pimps/controllers. “We know with any big event or big sports event, there is always an increase in demand for commercial sex (prostitution),” said Erin Meyer, the anti-human trafficking program coordinator for the Cincinnati branch of The Salvation Army and coalition manager for End Slavery Cincinnati. “And that will no doubt mean an increase in human trafficking. That data is there“…The effort is part of the national SOAP (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) program started by Theresa Flores, a former victim of sex slavery…

Worse Than I Thought (#530)

It’s like they’re competing with each to see who can inflict the most mindlessly-draconian sentences:

[Florida] lawmakers have increased the penalties for people soliciting prostitutes…The first offense is now punishable by up to $1,000 fine…up from $500. Second and third offenses become felonies. First offenders will now serve 100 hours of community service, but a second offense will get you ten days in the county jail…State Representative Jeanette Nunez [belched out] “The wives and spouses…this will certainly be a wake up call for them”…Domestic Violence counselors are especially keen on provisions that require Johns to pay for and attend an education program on prostitution and sex trafficking…

Seizing Power

As I explained Friday, Backpage has issued a big “fuck you” to Tom Dart & Swanee Hunt by making adult ads free for the time being; Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes:

…Backpage’s move to make adult ads free is a big screw you to fearmongering, First-Amendment-hating, Internet-freedom-stifling nanny statists who think they can control financial-services firms, foreign-based websites (Backpage.com is owned by a Dutch company), and the way women choose to earn a living…

Meanwhile, over at New Republic, Noah Berlatsky writes:

Dart [pretends that]…sex work is “outrageously dangerous”…and [claims] that life expectancies for sex workers [are] comparable to those in “a Third World nation”—though such statistics are notoriously unreliable. It’s certainly true that putting up barriers to Backpage makes sex work more difficult. But that doesn’t seem like it will help sex workers. Instead, sex workers who use Backpage.com say Dart’s successful campaign will make their jobs more dangerous, not less…the changes to Backpage may mean that [some women]…have to work on the street—or find a manager or pimp who has developed alternate payment methods…

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That Was the Week That Was (#410)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, agency denial, All the Difference, Arizona, bogus studies, brothels, California, Cambodia, Canada, censorship, consensual crime, cops, dirty, diversion programs, Do As I Say, Down Under, end demand, Europe, First They Came for the Hookers, Flush Criminalization, Gorged With Meaning, hysteria, Imaginary Crises, It Looks Good On Paper, Japanese Prostitution, King of the Hill, language, law, Law of the Instrument, Madonna/whore, Michigan, neofeminism, New York, New Zealand, Oklahoma, Out of Control, Pennsylvania, politicians, porn, prisons, psychology, racism, rape, Remembrance, rescue industry, RIP Petite Jasmine, sex work is work, Shifting the Blame, sporting events, stage names, statistics, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, The Public Eye, Traffic Jam, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers, Wisconsin on March 8, 2014| 20 Comments »

If anyone is perpetuating prostitution-related violence, it is prohibitionists like Kristof, who insist on maintaining a black market. – Jacob Sullum

Out of Control (The Camel’s Nose)

A Canadian anesthesiologist convicted of sexually assaulting 21 sedated women during surgeries was sentenced…to 10 years in prison…Dr. George Doodnaught…relied on his three decades of operating room experience to avoid detection…the…victims…gave generally similar accounts of being kissed and fondled by him, and of having his penis placed in their mouths or hands…they were conscious enough to be aware of what was happening, but were not able to move their limbs…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

A cop is a cop, even when she’s a sex worker:

For years, Philadelphia Police Officer Terra Barrow had a side job running a handful of [sex] websites and phone lines…Barrow said she got into the…industry…to…make [extra] money…Competitor Donna Burns…claims Barrow ripped off her site designs, stole her client database and bullied competitors by telling them she was a cop…Burns also…gave…investigators advertisements that Barrow allegedly placed…as an escort named “Black Barbie.” Barrow acknowledged she used that nickname in email but [claims she] has never worked as an escort…

Down Under

Neofeminists claim decriminalization has “failed [to protect sex workers] everywhere it’s been tried”. This is what that “failure” looks like:

A prostitute has won a landmark sexual harassment case against a Wellington brothel owner…the Human Rights Review Tribunal awarded the young woman $25,000 in damages for emotional harm as a result of sexual harassment. Aaron Montgomery, who no longer owns The Kensington Inn…was described as a bully who enjoyed controlling and humiliating women and tried to pressure workers into having sex with him…

Imaginary Crises

After two decades as one of the few women who dared to challenge the hysteria, it’s nice to have so much more company lately:

…if the risk of sexual assault on campus were truly one in five…no parent in their right mind would send their daughter to coed universities…Chad Hermann…[examined] the reported sexual assault offenses over three years at…the University of Pittsburgh (UP), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Duquesne University (DU). In 2009: At UP, with 14,800 female students, four sexual assaults were reported. At CMU, with about 3,900 female students, six sexual assaults were reported (a three-year high). At DU, with 5,700 females, three were reported. But wait: We “know” (we don’t really) that 90% of rapes go unreported! Okay, Hermann adjusts the numbers to reflect that, giving UP 40 assaults, CMU 60 and DU 30. Are we at one-in-four yet? Hardly. We’re at one-in-185 (average of the three)…

It Looks Good On Paper

…a BBC investigation into the policing of prostitution in Medway, Kent showed harm reduction was dangerously disrupted by their aggressive “cleaning up the streets” approach. In 2009, Kent Police began a scheme…called Safe Exit, supposedly to help women leave the sex trade by offering treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, training and education, and housing…But…instead…the women received a criminal record…Kent Police claimed to have reduced the number of women working on-street by over 90, but…two public servants associated with the scheme…say originally there were only 40-50 women working on-street. Our sources also told us…that the scheme was a “political PR stunt”…[some of the women were burdened with] ASBOs…and a few ended up in prison…

Law of the Instrument

“What at first seems like an arrest mission on a busy Orange County street is actually a rescue mission, as police go undercover to save girls who have become victims of sex trafficking…” No, actually, it’s an arrest mission. And if you can handle reading that first one, try this one about nearby Santa Barbara County, in which the agency of female university students and Chinese immigrants is totally denied using the excuse of “Stockholm Syndrome”.

Shifting the Blame (The Beat Goes On)

[James Brown]…was convicted of killing four women in his basement and stuffing their bodies in car trunks after he met them through online escort ads…just days apart, at his home in December 2011…Two were burned beyond recognition when a car was set on fire. Brown…faces life in prison with no chance for parole…The women who were killed were Renisha Landers, Demesha Hunt, Natasha Curtis and Vernithea McCrary, all in their 20s…

Above the Law

Three more brave heroes protecting and serving, in Oklahoma: “…Muskogee police officer…Mark Ridley…was arrested…after allegedly forcing…the woman’s car…off the road, then…[forcing] her to perform oral sex at gunpoint…” and in California: “Sheriff’s deputy [Damian Marquez repeatedly]…arrested a woman on felony probation ‘for the sole purpose of raping and sexually assaulting’ her at the [City of Industry] sheriff’s station…” and in Wisconsin:

[In the early stages of her pregnancy] and twice more after she had her baby, a [female prisoner] was placed in shackles…and raped over and over again, according to reports…Xavier D. Thicklen’s “abuse of his authority went wholly unchecked” by co-defendant Sheriff David A. Clarke, even though at least one of the assaults was caught on camera…Thicklen is charged with five counts of second-degree sexual assault…[and] could be sent to prison for 40 years on each…

First They Came for the Hookers…

…[New York City] has been…targeting…strip clubs by going after their liquor licenses…[after] trumping up charges…some clubs have continued to operate sans alcohol—which does, as a result of other bizarre strip club regulations, have the advantage of allowing dancers to be fully nude…But [alcohol-free clubs are much less popular and]…prohibition also zaps a major source of revenue for both clubs and dancers…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #30)

Finland has rejected the efforts of its neofeminist “justice” minister to impose the Swedish model, but what they gave her is bad enough: “…the Ministry of Justice has proposed a tightening of the law, so sex-buyers who should have suspected pimping or trafficking can be sentenced…Justice Minister Anna- Maja Henriksson…[says she is] disappointed and…her goal is still a total ban…” They are lowering the burden of proof to only one step short of strict liability, but obviously that isn’t enough to satisfy Henriksson’s anti-sex bloodlust.

King of the Hill

Buried beneath the Profession of Faith, agency denial, masturbatory fantasy, and penis-size bragging is the only worthwhile sentence in this crap: “the FBI [named]…Detroit…as the second largest area for human trafficking in the U.S., with only San Francisco larger…”

All the Difference

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has charged an Australian filmmaker with hindering the work of a…[“rescue”] organization…James Ricketson…accuses the Brisbane-based Citipointe Church of retaliating against him for his years-long efforts to help a Cambodian family retrieve two daughters from the organization’s She Rescue Home…

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #52)

The same old Labour Party busybodies (with help from like-minded prudes in other parties) are once again trying to impose the Swedish model on the UK, but this time they’re pretending to be a new group inspired by last week’s reprehensible EU vote. If these people were any more transparent they’d be completely invisible. Here’s what Tim Worstall had to say about it:

…the “slavery” in prostitution…doesn’t, in this country at least, actually exist. For we had a plan whereby every single police force in the country went out looking for people who were indeed sex slaves…and…could…not…come up with sufficient evidence to charge anyone at all…What we…have is consenting adults…deciding what to do with their own bodies…

Japanese Prostitution (TW3 #131)

While Japanese politicians work to deny, downplay or excuse their country’s enslavement of tens of thousands of women in wartime brothels…

…Japanese-American plaintiffs, served by American megafirm Mayer Brown, are pursuing the agenda of reactionary Japanese politicians through despicable litigation…In 2013 the City of Glendale [California] erected a modest memorial to the comfort women…in a public park…Japanese politicians were enraged and have repeatedly demanded that the memorial be removed. The…lawsuit…seeks to [accomplish this]…by force of law…

Flush Criminalization

I love it when Jacob Sullum tears into Nick Kristof:

…how should we view armed agents of the state who invite people to engage in peaceful exchange, only to pounce on them with guns and handcuffs?…Nicholas Kristof thinks they’re heroes. Consider…his latest column equating prostitution with “human trafficking”…Kristof…insists “that isn’t prudishness or sanctimony but a strategy to dampen demand.” This strategy—cops posing as prostitutes—has been a joke and a cliché for as long as I’ve been alive, but Kristof considers it the cutting edge of innovative policing. If targeting customers is all it takes to eradicate black markets, why do they still exist?…Kristof…calls sting operations “marvels of efficiency”—which they are, assuming you want to produce futile arrests and gratuitous humiliation…

As I reported in December, the “marvel of efficiency” sophomorically entitled “Operation Flush the Johns” hasn’t had much luck convicting any of the accused who didn’t just plead out; they finally got their first one this week.

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine (TW3 #329)

A video by Carol Leigh on the memorials for Petite Jasmine and Dora Özer.

Traffic Jam (TW3 #345)

An excellent article by Molly Crabapple on the vile Project ROSE and its equally-vile founder, Dominique Roe-Sepowitz:

…Project ROSE may seem similar to the many diversion programs in the United States…[but] it doesn’t work with the convicted. Rather, its raids funnel hundreds of people into the criminal justice system. Denied access to lawyers, many of these people are coerced into ROSE’s program without being convicted of any crime…Roe-Sepowitz …told Al Jazeera: “Once you’ve prostituted you can never not have prostituted…Having that many body parts in your body parts, having that many body fluids near you and doing things that are freaky and weird really messes up your ideas of what a relationship looks like, and intimacy”…

Remembrance

Too bad the BBC can’t be this honest and sympathetic about modern clients:

Visiting prostitutes is a little-known and little-discussed aspect of life on the Western Front, but it was a key part of the British soldiers’ war experience…brothel visits [were seen] as a physical necessity – it was an era when sexual abstinence for men was considered harmful to their health…

In other words, a more realistic era.

Traffic Jam (All Traffick, All the Time)

Cuckoo Clock McCain is still at it:

Cindy McCain testified at a [Congressional] hearing…that about 84% of ads for prostitution placed on [New York area] Backpage.com…during the Super Bowl involved women being trafficked…The study was funded by the McCain Institute…and used research from Arizona State University and analysis from Praescient Analytics…

Rich loon McCain hires ethically-bankrupt fanatic Dominique Roe-Sepowitz (that’s who “Arizona State” really is) to use an “analysis” method of her own design, and the “study” finds exactly what the two of them want it to find despite the fact that it contains nothing resembling either facts or methodology. What a surprise!

The Public Eye (TW3 #408)

Here’s an excerpt from Melissa Gira Grant’s new book, Playing the Whore, and two more interviews with her; one is with Caty Simon in Tits and Sass and one with Josh Eidelson in Salon. I’m very pleased to see how much coverage Grant and her book are getting in mainstream publications, especially in this time when most of the media are forehead-deep in prohibitionist lies.

Gorged With Meaning (TW3 #409)

The Duke freshman porn starlet has revealed her photo and stage name: Belle Knox. And I like her more with every article she writes:

…the Duke Chronicle wrote a somewhat patronizing portrait of me, disguising my name…The question I am asked over and over again is this: If I am proud of being an adult performer, then why do I “hide” behind this fake name? Because…my decision to do porn does not somehow mean that the world now “owns” or deserves access to every single thing about me…My birth name is one name…My porn name is another…I can’t stop you from calling me any name you want to — including “slut,” “whore” or “bitch” — but I can decide what name I use…please dissuade yourself right now of the delusion that you control or own me…I am not your child or your property or your Madonna or your whore…

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That Was the Week That Was (#327)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, anal sex, bogus studies, brothels, Cambodia, Celebrities, Check Your Premises, China, consensual crime, cops, Denmark, escort services, Europe, FBI, Feminine Pragmatism, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, Gorged With Meaning, hysteria, Indiana, internet, Islam, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, language, law, Little Boxes, marriage, massage, New York, Ohio, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, paganism, pragmatism, Presents, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry, Schadenfreude, Shazam!, Shifting the Blame, Size Matters, Something Rotten In Sweden, streetwalkers, stripping, Subtle Pimping, surveillance, The Immunity Syndrome, tits, True Colors, Uncharted Seas, United Kingdom, universal criminality, video, violence vs. sex workers, virginity, Washington DC, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world on July 6, 2013| 37 Comments »

We need to listen to [sex workers]…rather than feeling sorry for them…and then actually take what they say seriously. – Jeanett Bjønness

Japanese Prostitution

Japanese cops’ increasing adoption of American whore-harassing tactics is extremely troubling: “Tokyo Metropolitan Police…cracked down on a prostitution club…specializing in senior citizens…Officers arrested the 63-year-old manager of club Silk…and one other employee for dispatching a woman, 64, to…an 82-year-old man…” That’s right, Japanese cops now think persecuting old people for consensual sex is an appropriate use of resources.

Welcome To Our World

Pearl-clutching, bigoted prudery is especially revolting in young men:

There’s a brand new, ultra-creepy fad in China…”Increasing numbers of adults have been hiring wet nurses so they can consume breast milk for its nutritional value”…it’s revolting. Everything about this scenario should appall the reader, from the very idea of an adult suckling from another adult to the possibility that someone should be so desperate for money that they have to sell their services in this manner. It’s every bit as wrong as prostitution…

Actually, I agree with his last sentence 100%; it’s exactly as wrong as prostitution, which is to say not at all.

Shifting the Blame

There was a somewhat uneven piece in the New York Times last week; on the one hand, it portrays the victims of the Long Island Killer as individual women, correctly names many of the reasons women do sex work and (best of all) recognizes that “Escorts face danger not because of the Internet but because they’re still forced to work underground.” But on the other hand, it does not quote even a single sex worker activist, yet does refer to the questionable ideas of Scott “Women Never Lie About their Weight or Take Out Multiple Ads” Cunningham (including his stunningly stupid belief that before the internet most whores were streetwalkers, and his unsupported and false belief that there are more of us now than in the 1990s). After I mentioned my problems with the piece on Twitter, author Robert Kolker contacted me and I expressed my concerns; it turns out he did interview several activists, but didn’t realize that not specifically quoting them would be perceived as a slight. His publisher is also sending me an advance copy of his book about the murders, Lost Girls; I’ll let y’all know what I think about it.

Feminine Pragmatism

Wow, what a surprise!

…Jeanett Bjønness of Aarhus University…interviewed 40 Danish women who sell sex on the streets, and it turns out that the women do not regard their sex trading as the biggest problem in their lives…”Sex trading…is perceived as a solution to some problems,” says Bjønness…the people whose job it is to help sex workers…[regard] the women as victims. This rigid view…has the consequence that the women feel walked over, because they do not see themselves as victims…[but rather] as independent women who make rational choices based on the options available to them…

See how easy it is when you actually bother to TALK to us?

Something Rotten in Sweden (July Updates, Part One)

Wendy McElroy on the government’s attempts to exert total control by regulating even the smallest economic activity:

…[In his act] a magician named Marty Hahne…pulls a three-pound rabbit out of a top hat…“I just received an 8-page letter from the USDA, telling me that by July 29 I need to have in place a written disaster plan, detailing all the steps I would take to help get my rabbit through a disaster, such as a tornado, fire, flood, etc.” Hahne and his wife must be specially trained to implement the rabbit plan, which USDA inspectors will review…new [EPA] regulations define ditches, gullies and other property features that catch water as part of America’s navigable waterways under the Clean Water Act…the EPA…would become the de facto owner of people’s ditches and gullies…The Lemonade Freedom group knows that the ridiculous regulations need to be taken seriously…the group…[protests] police actions…to close down children’s lemonade stands…

Size Matters

Yes, this is in the United States, a country which supposedly guarantees freedom of religion:

Pahokee [Florida] residents, church members, and pastors are outraged over…the…first Lake Okeechobee Summer Solstice Festival…The crowd cheered in agreement as…pastors from around the area admonished city officials for allowing festivals containing witchcraft and occult practices into the city…“We are opening ourselves up to things we should not, like belly dancing and magic spells,” said Daniel Mondragon…“God cannot heal our land if we have witches and warlocks violating our community,” said Evangelist Lillian Brown…

Schadenfreude

White saviors go on a fun trip to Asia, where they “rescue” brown urchins by teaching them to sew, wait table and draw with crayons:

Destiny Rescue, an organization whose mission is to rescue sexually exploited children…hunts through Cambodia and Thailand to find these girls…Indiana State University graduate students played with the rescued girls, visited the sex tourism capital of the world and wondered at the hope with which victims create new lives…More than 2 million children are forced into the sex trade every year, according to the 2012 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report…Destiny Rescue is…[addressing] the problem….by…training in jewelry making, sewing, working in a café, hair dressing or pursuing an education…Vanessa Granger-Belcher…led the girls through an art activity…in which they drew pictures of their dreams for their lives…

It may amuse you to know that most UN agencies estimate the “annual flow of trafficked people” of all ages into all industries at 0.5 – 1.9 million people, of which 2 million are supposedly “sex trafficked children”. Perhaps the UN should start hiring people with at least 3^rd-grade math skills.

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received The Sexual History of London from Sasha and Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop from Kevin Wilson. Thank you both very much!

The Immunity Syndrome

As I’ve mentioned before, teens who make “virginity pledges” are much more likely than others to engage in anal sex in order to remain what we used to call “technical virgins”. The hilarious Garfunkel and Oates have written a song about it; if you enjoy it, you may also like their earlier lampoon of Christian anti-sex weirdness, “Sex With Ducks”.

Subtle Pimping (TW3 #13)

In Michelle Visage’s Hooker Makeover, a judge from RuPaul’s Drag Race and her drag queen sidekick turn ordinary women into cartoonish streetwalker stereotypes. Visage was at first defensive when confronted with this on Twitter last Sunday, but within hours she issued a public apology and announced that the show would be cancelled. It’s good to know that at least some people really are listening.

Ruined Maids

Regular reader Isolde Holland discovered this poem and shared it with me:

“An Old Whorehouse” by Mary Oliver (born 1935)

We climbed through a broken window,
walked through every room.

Out of business for years,
the mattresses held only

rainwater, and one
woman’s black shoe. Downstairs

spiders had wrapped up
the crystal chandelier.

A cracked cup lay in the sink.
But we were fourteen,

and no way dust could hide
the expected glamour from us,

or teach us anything.
We whispered, we imagined.

It would be years before
we’d learn how effortlessly

sin blooms, then softens,
like any bed of flowers.

Little Boxes

A Chinese court has declared that “happy endings” aren’t prostitution:

…in July 2011…a massage parlour owner and two associates were arrested…for “organising prostitution”…and…handed a five-year sentence…But [in] appeal…the defendants were found “not criminally responsible” and…acquitted due to “unclear facts and improper application of the law”. The court said manual stimulation did not belong in the realm of prostitution…

Unsurprisingly, the cops insist that they know the law better than judges.

First They Came for the Hookers

Dr. Marty Klein’s review of Dr. Judith Hanna’s book Naked Truth: Strip Clubs, Democracy, And A Christian Right discusses the war against strip clubs we’ve mentioned so many times before, and the book itself debunks the usual mythology about “negative secondary effects”, “sex trafficking”, etc. I do have to wonder if Hanna ignores the neofeminist contribution as Klein does in his book, though.

Check Your Premises (TW3 #26)

Ohio wants to criminalize obtaining clear consent:

…the Ohio House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill ostensibly aimed at fighting “human trafficking” that makes it a crime to “solicit” a legal act: sex with someone who is 16 or 17 years old. The age of consent in Ohio is 16. Yet under H.B. 130, a 20-year-old who asks a 16-year-old to have sex with him, or a 21-year-old who does the same with a 17-year-old, thereby commits a…felony…and…has to register as a sex offender. But if the teenager broaches the subject, or if the sex proceeds without any explicit verbal reference to it, no crime has been committed…Having sex is fine, as long as you don’t talk about it beforehand… Legislators already define “human trafficking” broadly enough to include consensual sex…Now Ohio is poised to [add] merely talking about consensual sex…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #27)

Another small country stands up to American bullying: “Cambodia…lashed out at the U.S. State Department for downgrading the country’s ranking in its annual report on human trafficking, saying cultural barriers were hampering government efforts to combat the problem…”

Celebrities (TW3 #31)

The fact that the FBI thought a dude paying for sex was somehow noteworthy says a lot about the FBI. The fact that CNN misunderstands what the newsworthy aspect of this is says even more about CNN.

In the months after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, FBI agents conducted surveillance of…Anwar al-Awlaki and uncovered detailed information about his…use of prostitutes…Al-Awlaki lived in a Washington suburb at the time…he visited prostitutes at least seven times and paid up to $400 for sex…[for] a total of $2,320 …agents interviewed the escorts, obtained detailed information about the encounters, and…even reviewed the possible legal charges that might be brought against him…

Gorged With Meaning (TW3 #49)

This article is a few months old, but its hysterical pearl-clutching is so hilarious I just had to share it:

If you think the wait to find out if your kids got the…results needed to get into uni is stressful, dream on…It’s what happens next that you REALLY should be worrying about…Darling Daughter could easily end up hawking her body to keep her university finances afloat…poverty is pushing students to sell their souls and get jobs in the sex trade. Six per cent could be working as lap-dancers, strippers, escorts or prostitutes to pay their way through studies. Yet more could be manning sex chat-lines…the sex industry is a dark, grubby scene that irrevocably changes people on the inside…No degree is worth it…

So either Jo Davison is speaking from personal experience, or she’s a bigoted ignoramus. Which is it, Jo? Do tell.

Uncharted Seas (TW3 #316)

Another mainstream pro-polygamy article, in The Economist no less:

…DOMA was struck down in no small part because it picks out a certain class of people and, by denying them recognition of their marriages, denies their families equal freedom and dignity. Can it be denied that polygamous families, whose marital arrangements are illegal, much less unrecognized, are denied equal liberty and are made to suffer the indignity [of] active discrimination?…If the state lacks a legitimate rationale for imposing on Americans a heterosexual definition of marriage, it seems pretty likely that it likewise lacks a legitimate rationale for imposing on Americans a monogamous definition of marriage…

True Colors (TW3 #323)

Activist Ye Haiyan…was released from 13 days of detention on June 12 after she scared off three trespassers to her home…Ye first became famous in 2005, when she posted a nude photo of herself online. Under the pen name Hooligan Swallow, Ye raised eyebrows with her bold articles on sex. But she really caught the public’s attention in 2010 when the…NGO she set up…[called] for the legalisation of prostitution…”Pushing for [this]…contradicts the government’s ideology,” she said. “The government does not wish to see this topic being promoted and the mainland media are banned from discussing it”…

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That Was the Week That Was (#50)

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

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

New Book Reviews

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

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

Think of the Children!

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

License To Rape

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

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

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

Shifting the Blame

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

Not an Addiction

In a word: No.

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

Against Their Will

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

My Readers Write

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

Somehow, I Doubt He Thought This Through

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

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

Guest Columnist: Norma Jean Almodovar

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

Follow Your Bliss

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

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

Presents, Presents, Presents!

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

The Immunity Syndrome

Compare and contrast with similar kerfuffles in the US:

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

Above the Law

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

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

Small Choice

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

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

Uncharted Seas

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

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

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

Metaupdates

Creeping Rot (July Updates, Part Two)

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

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

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

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

Crime Against Society (TW3 #14)

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

What a Week! (TW3 #22)

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

Wise Investment (TW3 #31)

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

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

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

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

The Course of a Disease (TW3 #49)

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

This Week in 2010 and 2011

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

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That Was the Week That Was (#33)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, adolescence, Africa, Against Their Will, agency denial, An Enormous Big Nothing, archeofeminism, Australia, bad customers, Blackball, California, Cambodia, Childish Things, comics, Convenient & Inconvenient Victims, cops, Damned If You Don't, dating, drugs, East Asia, FBI, hysteria, India, Legalization a Good Idea?, Madonna/whore, Nevada, New York, oral sex, Presents, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry, sex work is work, Shifting the Blame, sisterhood, stereotypes, streetwalkers, They Still Don't Get It, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Zimbabwe on August 18, 2012| 11 Comments »

The truth is always easy to write. – Chi Mgbako

Damned If You Don’t

Because “prostitution” is defined purely by a motive, charges depend solely on the statements of cops and are often directed against any convenient victim:

…Guillermo Cuadra says…an apparent prostitute asked him, “Do you want a fuck?” as he was stopped at a traffic light [in Miami. He said “no” but she signaled another cop anyway]…and…Cuadra…was…ordered into a motel parking lot where…cops pulled him out of the car, pushed his face into gravel, stepped on him and handcuffed him, then…[broke his] left upper arm, [tore] his shoulder ligament and [caused] nerve damage to his elbow and hand…[when] Cuadra [complained about his arm one of them]…responded, “Fuck you…” Though he had just $3 in cash on him…the city falsely charged him with “solicitation of prostitution, allegedly offering the undercover police officer $60″…

The charges were later dropped, and Cuadra is suing. If you’re wondering why the cops were so stupid as to claim he offered $60 when he only had $3, it’s because “police reports” are just boilerplate, with the details written long before the actual “sting”. See also “Zimbabwe” below.

Updates

An Enormous Big Nothing

Reader Casey Nelson shared this story of his own experience as the target of “sex trafficking” hysteria:

…I’m 50+ years old, white, a businessman and have lived in Cambodia for more than 18 years. I’m married to an Asian woman…and have two beautiful children – a 9 year old girl and 7 year old boy…though they are not distinctly Asian, they are darker than me and not 100% European in appearance…[one Sunday while on an outing] I noticed a woman…taking photos…She held up her camera, pointed at it and said…“Photo you, internet, you pedo…for police,” in a distinctly Italian accent. I said something like “These are my children.” She just shook her head and started to raise her camera again. I said, “You want police?…I’ll call police”…her mind [was] probably…twisted by the constant stream of sensational, repetitive and often wildly-overstated stories of western pedophiles and abused children in Cambodia. And not only by the western press but by NGOs that profit from it and feed the beast with exaggerated stats and a constant stream of rehashed horrors stories that keep the funds flowing…I figure that when my photo turns up on some Italian website as another pedophile operating…in Cambodia, it will also include a story of my powerful police connections that were on their way to protect me and how she had to flee for her life…

There’s a lot more; I urge you to read it in its entirety as yet another example of the fallout from moral panics.

Convenient and Inconvenient Victims

An excellent essay on victimhood from law professor Chi Mgbako:

When many people think of typical victims of human rights abuse, they often conjure up stereotypical images of passive and powerless people…waiting to be saved. The biases underlying these notions can lead some human rights advocates to favor “perfect victims” in advocacy and publicity campaigns, and…to disregard injustices faced by other marginalized individuals who may inspire more ambivalent and complicated responses from the public. The privileging of “perfect victimhood” is misguided because all people have human rights regardless of subjective determinations of “worthiness”…the danger of the…construct is illustrated by two examples: Anti-prostitution advocates who privilege abuses experienced by victims of trafficking over violence faced by those voluntarily involved in adult sex work; and society’s failure to view economically disenfranchised black men as victims of the devastating ‘war on drugs’…

For another excellent essay on human rights being independent of “worthiness”, consult Ken White’s “Deserve’s Got Nothing To Do With It”.

A Moral Cancer

The adult obsession with adolescent oral sex isn’t at all creepy or perverse: “The popular notion that teenagers …are experimenting with oral sex en masse is being challenged by new data…[which shows they’re] about as likely to engage in oral sex before intercourse as they are to have intercourse first…”

May Q & A

Another view of the issues that can arise when a whore falls in love and tries to give up harlotry in order to be faithful to her man, courtesy of Cathryn Berarovich writing in The Gloss.

Against Their Will

As many as 45 sex workers…[escaped from a social institution in Jakarta and]…are currently being pursued by the police…30 [visitors] …were turned away at the entrance gate by 3 guards because it was not visiting hours yet…[then broke in and] urged the inhabitants to escape with them…one of the [intruders]…who was suspected [of being] the sex workers’ pimp was arrested…those social institution inhabitants would undergo guidance in terms of social, mental, physical, and other skills…

Obviously, they were forced to escape by the “pimp”; clearly they couldn’t have wanted to ~~flee a brainwashing attempt~~ be trafficked away from their rescuers of their own free will.

Blackball

I’ve explained how escort services blackball bad customers, and now the UK is introducing a nationwide plan to do the same. But Douglas Fox of Harlot’s Parlour has some reservations:

…Although in this “article” it is claimed that local sex work projects have operated ugly mug schemes for twenty years, real sex workers…have operated them for as long as there have been sex workers…in theory [the plan] should work nationally…however…[it] relies on local [outreach] projects…who…work only with…street workers…[and] have little or no contact with the vast majority of sex workers…The scheme also relies heavily upon the co operation of the police. Sex workers do not trust the police, with very good reason…Although the new…scheme promises that sex workers can report crimes anonymously through their local project, the real advancement would be if sex workers were able to report crimes against them…directly, with out fear of arrest or harassment. One is tempted to suggest that the first ugly mug listed…should be the police themselves…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Thanks so very much to Chester Brown for sending me a copy of his graphic memoir Paying For It. And as if the gift itself were not cool enough, he autographed it AND drew a cartoon just for me on the title page! I’ll tell you about the book in an upcoming column, probably around mid-September.

They Still Don’t Get It

Another stenographer who fancies herself a journalist presents yet another collection of prohibitionist myths vomited out by cops. This one’s especially fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way:

…21 suspected prostitutes [were] arrested during a two-day sting by the regional Street Enforcement Team…Federal grant money was used [because]…the focus was finding underage prostitutes and their pimps. None were found…prostitution activity in the community …is a mix of local women desperate for money…and an emerging trend of younger Northern California women who work for pimps and target Reno, especially during special events…“Before, it would be older, local women just trying to get a motel room and a rock to smoke,” said [Sgt. Ron] Chalmers…“Now they are younger, from Sacramento being run by their pimps. We are trying to help these women, and provide victim services,” he said…

This one has it all: the “gypsy whores” myth, conflation of escorting and streetwalking, internet demonization, “trafficking” mythology, agency denial, a demonstration of the flaws of legalization (the stings were in Reno, Nevada, not far from legal brothels), illegal diversion of federal funds, whore as addict, victim and nuisance all at once, “rescue” as an excuse for criminalization and even Maslow’s Hammer!

Zimbabwe

Here’s a hint, ladies: if you want this to stop, you need to campaign for decriminalization because whores look just like other women:

Hundreds of Zimbabwean women are protesting in Harare against a spree of arbitrary arrests by local police…[who] are detaining any women they see out after dark for soliciting…police said they have only been arresting commercial sex workers. Human rights groups, however, claimed hundreds of women have been arrested every week…Inspector Sabau said the crackdown…would continue as long the constitution prohibits prostitution…

Childish Things

Dr. Paul Maginn of the University of Western Australia says it’s time for people to get over their childish attitudes toward sex work:

…the stereotypical image of a sex worker…is a woman forced to work on darkened streets…to feed her drug habit and pay her pimp…[but] the world of sex work is much more complex…Some work…out of economic necessity. But don’t we all work to pay the bills? Some people are coerced or part of forced trafficking. However…research suggests the proportion of these…is very low…Yet we tend to let our minds be overtaken by…those who seek to initiate moral panics about sex work…and other forms of so-called ‘abnormal’ sexual practices, such as homosexuality …Effective policy is based on hard evidence, not media stereotypes or moralistic posturing by politicians or religious groups…

Metaupdates

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

This article on a Brooklyn “john school” is like many others CNN has published since it turned completely yellow, but it’s interesting in three respects: first, that the title calls it a “trafficking class”; second, that it states ordinary men cannot tell adult women from prepubescent children; and third, that they’ve once again lowered the “average age of entry”:

…Rhonnie Jaus, the chief of the Sex Crimes Bureau, said the class attempts to sensitize and educate the men on the dangers of prostitution to both the John and the prostitute. “You think you’re having sex with an adult, and it…could be…a trafficked child brought from China…” [Assistant DA Grace] Brainard emphasized that most girls enter prostitution between the ages of 11 and 14…

If the average prostitute starts at 12.5, that means there are two girls out there who started at age two to balance my entry at 33. Clearly, basic arithmetic is not a requirement for a government position in Brooklyn.

Shifting the Blame in TW3 (#12)

Has anyone else noticed how the search for the Long Island Killer ground to a halt as soon as they recognized he was probably a cop?

…There are arguably lots of reasons why Suffolk County investigators have had a difficult time tracking down the so-called Long Island Serial Killer (or killers, there is much debate) including the condition and age of the bodies…and the difficulty of getting sex workers and their johns to work with active investigations. But the Post today argues that at least part of the blame can be placed on the local PD not wanting to give up any PR glory to the Feds: “Despite repeated signals by the agency that it was ready and eager to deploy units, Suffolk brass have ignored the FBI in an effort to retain control of the high-profile case”…

Chimeric phrase of the week: “sex workers and their johns.” Kind of like “African-Americans and honkies.”

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea in TW3 (#29)

Indian sex workers again demonstrate their awesomeness:

The Board of All India Network of Sex Workers has taken exception to an affidavit filed by Ministry of Women and Child Development… “Sex workers expressed strong reaction about the affidavit filed by the Ministry of WCD before the Supreme Court that sex workers are devoid of dignity and that all sex workers should be rehabilitated by all means,” AINSW said in a statement…”Human dignity cannot be robbed by the state based on occupation, caste, creed or economics”…

This Week in 2011

“Blackball” (noted above) was followed by an example of prohibitionist cockroaches fleeing from light, a survey of my “Top Ten” columns at that time, a two-part examination of whores who think they aren’t and short articles on anti-streetwalker laws, diseased amateurs, selective partisan blindness, and a small sex worker victory against Google, plus cops harassing strippers while ignoring serial killers, the absence of “trafficking” in New Zealand and ignorant sexologists.

This Week in 2010

My first Friday the 13^th, film review and miscellanea columns, escort service callers and client behaviors that drove me up the wall, “The Clipboard Effect” and “The Empress Theodora”.

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That Was the Week That Was (#23)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Obituary, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Africa, archeofeminism, Australia, avails laws, Backpage, Canada, censorship, condoms, cops, dirty, disease, Don’t Take My Word For It, Down Under, drivers, Europe, fantasy, Feminine Pragmatism, Finding What Isn’t There, gangs, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, Higher Education, Hollywood, hysteria, Illinois, imaginative fiction, internet, Ireland, Kenya, law, male prostitutes, marriage, Michigan, neofeminism, Part of the Picture, porn, psychology, serial killers, sex rays, Shifting the Blame, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, Texas, The Course of a Disease, The Scarlet Letter, Think of the Children!, Traffic Jam, transgender, video, Washington (state), Wise Investment on June 9, 2012| 23 Comments »

Only death goes deeper than sex. – Mason Cooley

One obituary, ten updates and three metaupdates.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

The beloved fantasist died Wednesday morning at the age of 91; he was one of my favorite authors and wrote one of my favorite books and one of the scariest stories of all time. Here are a story and an article from Bradbury himself (courtesy of the New Yorker), my tribute tale “Penelope”, lovely remembrances from Neil Gaiman and regular reader Hal 10000, and a video from singer and comedienne Rachel Bloom; Bradbury had a great laugh when he saw it and gave her an autographed copy of The Martian Chronicles.

Updates

Think of the Children! (September 30^th, 2010)

So, school personnel, think you’re safe because you’ve never done sex work and/or don’t have direct contact with kids? Think again:

…Des Moines school superintendent Nancy Sebring resigned last week…for sending sexy emails at work…Sebring was forced out of her position because school district staffers discovered…emails she’d sent…to an adult man with whom she was engaged in a consenting sexual relationship…district…policy forbids using school computers…for personal correspondence…

Had the emails been about him taking her to a movie nobody would’ve said boo; she was sacked for being sexual, because sex rays can flow through the school’s computer system or become embedded in memo paper and thus imperil students (i.e. helpless, asexual fetuses) in a different part of town.

The Scarlet Letter (March 29^th, 2011)

Public shaming of whores and clients without due process is evil and twisted enough, but this takes it to a new level of piggishness:

…[In Chicago] a disproportionate number of transgender individuals are apparently being arrested for patronizing or soliciting for prostitution…Transgender “buyers” are much more likely than non-transgender buyers to be black…[and] are also, on average, almost 10 years younger. We should note that 10.5% of the arrestees were transgender, a shocking statistic…It seems much more likely that these individuals were “sellers,” not “buyers”…

As the Swedish Rot begins to pervade more American jurisdictions, it has become less politically popular to arrest women; so, Chicago cops simply lie and accuse transgender hookers of being clients instead due to their biological gender. Since neofeminists hate transgender people anyway, this is a bonus for them.

Down Under
(One Year Ago Today)

Australian politician Craig Thomson is under fire for misappropriation of funds, and though less than 6% of those funds were spent on whores guess what everyone’s talking about? Kelly Hinton of Project Respect comments:

…The question of whether or not [Thomson] actually did this has been lost…as a woman…dared not only to come forward publicly saying she could identify him from a photo, but accepted money to do so. It seems that what she has to say is irrelevant – we have already scrutinized, judged, degraded and discredited her in a public trial by media… from all sides. Owners of escort businesses and brothels in Sydney…have been quick to discredit her (and ultimately, other women in the sex industry)…[by] depicting [them] as stupid…[or] manipulative…Mr Thomson is quoted as saying: “To buy a story from a prostitute is cheque book journalism at its worst”…Is he suggesting that because she has been in the sex industry, we must assume she has no morals, is a liar and will do anything for money?…

This is yet another demonstration of why sex work must be completely decriminalized: any arbitrary limitation which doesn’t apply to other people besides hookers will be used as a weapon by those in power:

…A local sex worker…said prostitution laws in Queensland were much harsher than in other Australian states…sex workers may only enlist the services of a registered bodyguard and a driver. They are not permitted to have a receptionist book their service or handle payments. Detective Superintendent Brian Wilkins…said enforcing these laws helped prevent the exploitation of sex workers…

So to “protect” the girls, cops trick and arrest them, “helping” them into a criminal record and “helping” the state to some of their money. I’m sure they’re very grateful.

Part of the Picture (August 29^th, 2011)

Behold the result of the childish belief that pictures of sex are magically different from all others:

Young women who report that their romantic partners look at porn frequently are less happy in their relationships than women partnered with guys who more often abstain… said…Destin Stewart [of]…the University of Florida…Discovering explicit material on a partner’s computer “made them feel like they were not good enough, like they could not measure up”…women who reported that their boyfriends or husbands looked at more pornography were less likely to be happy in their relationships than women who said their partners didn’t look at pornography very often. When women were bothered by their partner’s porn use, saying, for example, that they believed he was a porn addict or that he used porn more than a “normal” amount, they were also more likely to have low self-esteem and to be less satisfied with both their relationship and their sex life…that doesn’t prove that porn necessarily caused the women’s self-esteem to drop…women who feel bad about themselves might seek out or stay with porn-loving guys more often than secure women…

Or, women who believe in nonsense like “porn addiction” might be labeling a normal amount of porn-watching “excessive”, or might even be classifying as porn materials that more secure women don’t think of that way (e.g., I don’t call Playboy porn). Or, a woman with self-esteem problems, or who is dissatisfied with her relationship, could be much less interested in sex, which drives her man to look at more porn. There’s just no way to tell anything at all from sloppy studies like this, but that sure didn’t stop the anti-sex crowd from trying.

Wise Investment (September 19^th, 2011)

I’m really pleased to see more sex businesses counterattacking with civil litigation. Escort review and message board ECCIE is suing a blogger who refers to the owners as “pimps” and has repeatedly accused them of “human trafficking” (sound like anybody we know?); the buffoon doesn’t seem to comprehend that actual felony accusations cross the line from criticism into libel. Meanwhile, Backpage is suing the state of Washington to prevent implementation of a new law which would require escorts to place ads on websites in person rather than over the internet, and would hold any website (including Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc) criminally liable for outside submissions, which as the lawsuit points out would “bring the practice of hosting third-party content to a grinding halt.” Apparently federal judge Ricardo Martinez recognizes the implications, because he has temporarily blocked enforcement of the new law while the suit proceeds.

Don’t Take My Word For It (September 29^th, 2011)

When one of Dan Savage’s readers asked him for advice on how to become a straight male escort, he enlisted the aid of an expert:

“There is no gigolo industry,” says Dominick, the former escort who writes Ask Dominick, an advice column…at Rentboy.com…“What STUD is seeking is a fantasy—one that has been fueled by cultural products like American Gigolo and HBO’s Hung,” says Dominick. There are no reputable agencies…that book male escorts to see female clients, just as there are no websites like Rentboy.com for straight male escorts. “The fact of the matter is, almost all clients for escorts are male…” When [Dominick] was working as an escort in New York City, his ads stated that he was available for male or female clients. “Over three years, I went on exactly one call with a female client…and one call with a married couple for a cuckolding scene, which was initiated by the husband. During that same period, I averaged about 5.5 calls per week with men”…

Higher Education (December 11^th, 2011)

I think you’re probably better off just learning on the job (from the Spanish with Google’s help):

A “serious” Spanish company offers a €100 course in “professional prostitution”, at least according to a poster…in the city of Valencia…adult students (both male and female) are trained to charge for sex. They learn the Kama Sutra, both common and uncommon positions, and the use of toys; the number of classes is optional according to student needs. Upon graduation, a student can apply to be a teacher in the school, or explore a world of other possibilities to “make big money quickly and easily”…

The Course of a Disease (February 16^th, 2012)

Swedish Model proponents just won’t give up trying to inflict their filth on Canadian society, and are even trying to hijack the term “decriminalization”:

The Quebec Council for the Status of Women is calling on the government to decriminalize prostitution, and instead go after the clients and escort agencies…[The group claimed] the average age young women become involved in the sex trade is between 14 and 15 years old. Many, they say, have been sexually abused as children…[and that] bodies need to stop being objectified, including in strip clubs…

Finding What Isn’t There (April 17^th, 2012)

The Irish Police have been forced to admit that prohibitionists are full of crap:

…Gardai…are examining information gathered in last week’s…raids on apartments that were being used mainly by foreign prostitutes…all the young women who were detained or questioned said they were working in the sex trade here voluntarily…Gardai disagree with claims by Catholic and feminist groups that there are high levels of human trafficking involved in Ireland’s sex trade…

Hard Numbers (April 20^th, 2012)

This account from a Congolese whore clearly demonstrates why criminalization and legalization schemes are dangerous both for women and for public health:

When Redempta…came to Kenya, she quickly had to find a source of income to feed and house herself and her two younger siblings. But as an illegal immigrant with no knowledge of local languages, her options were very limited. “I met some women from my country…and they introduced me to sex work…When I refuse to have sex with [men] without a condom, some threaten to report me to the police. They say they will tell the police I stole from them…I don’t have any papers to allow me [to stay] here, so I just have sex with them without a condom when they want.” Redempta sometimes has up to eight clients in two days, but…has only been tested for HIV once in the last two years. “I just tested once when they conducted a public one [testing campaign], but I fear going to a facility to test for HIV. I don’t know what the health workers will tell me when I go there because I am not a Kenyan,” she said…

Metaupdates

Shifting the Blame in TW3 (#18) (May 5^th, 2012)

These are obviously the same two who were questioned before: “Two men have been arrested in connection with the Backpage.com murder investigation…[they] were questioned by homicide detectives and will be held pending expected charges.”

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#18) (May 5^th, 2012)

Nadya Suleman accepted a topless dancing gig in order to promote her porn video and says “that she would accept adult entertainment offers, although she ‘wouldn’t even kiss somebody for money’.” But despite her “dreams of building a business ‘empire’ that will pay for food, shelter and college educations for her 14 children” and her “hopes to become a role model for other women facing major struggles”, she backed out of the contract after “the club’s bartender said [in a TV interview]: ‘She must be a little crazy, normal people don’t have that many children’… and…the club’s manager said that ‘maybe after a few shows she gets comfortable, we’ll see more’ [than just her tits].” Wake up, Octomom; your kids can’t eat your pride, and if you’re that easily offended how the hell do you hope to handle Howard Stern’s comments when you ride a Sybian on his show on June 20^th?

Traffic Jam in TW3 (#21) (May 26^th, 2012)

Another gang leader was sentenced on “human trafficking” charges for the prostitution of female gang members; the story is chock full of the sort of melodramatic language one expects from a 1930s B-movie and of course portrays female gang members as innocent lambs.

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