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Posts Tagged ‘Shifting the Blame’

That Was the Week That Was (#18)

Posted in Biography, Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2012| 18 Comments »

“That is no excuse,” replied Mr. Brownlow…”the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.”

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass – a idiot.”  –  Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Two new stories, nine updates and three metaupdates.

The Law is an Ass

Today in “Never call the police for any reason whatsoever”:

…Christina Marie Lopez [of Oregon]…pleaded guilty…to attempted use of a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct…in December…Lopez complained to police and media that a strip club had hired her…[then 17-year-old] daughter…Investigators later obtained surveillance video…”that showed Lopez in the club watching her daughter dance and providing her money”…[but] now 18-year-old Nicole Madril, said…”It’s not like she came in there and got 50 lap dances from me…She came in and gave me money so I could get myself something to eat”…Lopez was sentenced to 3 years in prison, 3 years of post-prison supervision, and must register as a sex offender.  Lopez’s daughter told the judge the sentence was unfair and that it was her own choice to strip.

Lopez obviously forgot about the Law of Shazam; even if her daughter was at most four months shy of her 18th birthday, she was still the exact legal, moral and intellectual equivalent of a newborn infant, and therefore easily controllable by any adult.

Bullies With Badges

Police in riot gear and masks saved Houston from evil harlots Thursday:  “At least six women were in custody…after prostitution stings at three…massage parlors…Investigators said most of the women who were arrested appeared to be under the age of 30 – some as young as teenagers…Investigators said…they were looking into whether any of the women may be victims of human trafficking.”  News flash:  Many Asian women look younger than most white women; those who “looked like teenagers” may have been much older.  The “trafficking” claims were obviously to head off valid criticism of the incredible waste  of this “raid”, but if they were sincere their actions are even more reprehensible, as pointed out in this must-read column from Radley Balko.

Updates

They Just Don’t Get It (April 12th, 2011)

What is wrong with journalists in Pennsylvania?  Their fawning treatment of cops and other “authorities” reads like fellatio porn, and their feigned ignorance of anything whore-related is astonishingly stupid:

Prostitution has plagued any number of internet sites in recent years – notably Craigslist – but now the CBS 3 I-Team has found a new hideout for hookers on…Twitter…used by call girls all the time as a free way to advertise…some prostitutes right in your backyard are even setting up appointments over Twitter, which is used by kids of all ages…“It gives…that ability to reach their customers immediately,” says Rob D’Ovidio, a cyber crime expert at Drexel University.  “If it’s a slow day, and they want to lure in customers, they can quickly get that blurb out there”…

Reading stories like this feels like looking into a dirty toilet; one wonders what sort of filthy mind could write it, despite the fact that “kids of all ages” could see it on TV.  Apparently nobody told Mr. “Cyber Crime Expert” that we’re all “victims” now and that we’re the ones who are “lured” rather than vice-versa.  Except, obviously, in Pennsylvania (where we’re still criminals) and Texas (where they ain’t sure).

Another Small Victory (July 16th, 2011)

A group of US Representatives petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse a lower-court ruling striking down the anti-prostitution pledge; Congressman Chris Smith characterized agencies who provide condoms and testing to all women (without excluding sex workers) as “international groups that promote and enable prostitution and sex trafficking”.  The mindless self-destructiveness of this position becomes evident when one realizes that people like Smith wrongly believe whores to be the major vectors of STIs, yet want us excluded from health programs anyway.  He’s also ignorant on the ruling, which only freed domestic agencies from the ridiculous “pledge”; international ones are still bound by it, which leads me to wonder how this group keeps its funding:

A new NGO in Nicaragua aims to protect the rights of women who voluntarily work in the sex trade, raising the question of whether sex work should be seen as a legitimate job, or should be treated as a component of organized crime that is inherently linked to problems like human trafficking.  Girasoles de Nicaragua…is backed by USAID [and] formed…to fight “stigma, discrimination and violence”…the organization has…deployed 25 employees across the country, reportedly providing some 500 women with health aid, literacy training, and legal support.  It plans to partner with the police in investigating crimes related to the sex trade, and form alliances with other international organizations that promote sex workers’ rights, including Argentina-based network RedTraSex.  The group argues that sex work should be recognized as a respectable form of self-employment…that allows women to support themselves and their families…

The rest of the article, as should be evident from the lede, devolves into the usual “human trafficking cartel” nonsense, branding the group’s statements to reporters “confused” and implying that they know less about their own field than lay people who read “trafficking” propaganda.

Elephant in the Parlor (October 23rd, 2012)

Politician.  Whores.  Yawn.

Michael Wiener, a…[New Mexico] county commissioner …is being asked to resign after a picture of him posing with scantily clad women in a well-known red light district in the Philippines…[was posted by] photographer John Keatley…on his blog.  Wiener…[wrote] that…”NOTHING untoward ever happened…The pictures taken are as innocent as any that could be taken at Twin Peaks or Hooters here“…[but] Keatley said “…It was very obvious to me that he was not respectful to women.  He was there to have a good time”…

Because to the neofeminism-addled mind, “respectful to women” and “good time” are mutually exclusive.

Umpteen Thousand People Can’t Be Wrong (November 12th, 2011)

“A group of senators has introduced a resolution urging Village Voice Media to take down the ‘adult entertainment’ section of its classified-ads site, Backpage.com.”  Blah, blah, blah.  You know the rest.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29th, 2011)

Darren Thompson sent me an Amazon gift certificate this week, which I used to get several small items:  The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, Pretty Baby and two discs of Warner Brothers cartoons that weren’t on my wish list.  Thank you so much!

Sleazier Than Thou (January 30th, 2012)

Ashley Madison is well known for its lies, deception and sleazy advertising, but this is slimy even for them:

For the past four years, infidelity-based matchmaking site AshleyMadison.com has seen an influx of married women signing up for its services on…the day after Mother’s Day.  According to the site’s founder, Noel Biderman, more married women join the site on that day than on any other…”If that day comes to pass, and once again what [women] experience is a lack of appreciation, affection and respect, that is when the idea of taking on a potential lover takes full form,” Biderman said…

Note found by an amateur on her door.

Guys, very few actual living women sign up for Ashley Madison on ANY day.  The majority of those who do are whores, and the rest aren’t being truthful about their age or weight; Biderman is a lying shyster out to take your money.  That having been said, it’s probably best to be extra-sweet to your wife on Mother’s Day; yes, I know she isn’t your mother, and I agree…but she may not, and that could mean trouble.

Prudish Pedants (March 22nd, 2012)

And all it took was triple jeopardy and lying to the jury about the legality of nullification:

A jury today found fetish filmmaker Ira Isaacs guilty on five counts of violating federal obscenity laws.  He’ll be sentenced on Aug. 6.  It was the third…trial…The first two ended with mistrials…[the] federal prosecutor…said…that Isaacs’ goal…was solely to make money, but Isaacs’ attorney…said…that the case is about testing the First Amendment… Judge George King…told [the jury] that it’s their duty to weigh and evaluate all the evidence and decide the facts based solely on the law, reason and common sense and not their opinion or speculation…

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18th, 2012)

Agent Cheapskate has finally been unmasked as Arthur Huntington, who “lives in Saverna Park, Md. [and] is a married father of two whose wife leads Bible study in the neighborhood…the Secret Service has created new rules forbidding all foreigners but hotel staff in agents’ rooms and barring them from visiting ‘seedy establishments’.”  In other news, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee admitted that the whores were just whores, not spies or international gangsters:  “It does not appear that these guys were targeted.  [It wasn’t] a foreign organization attempting to seduce Secret Service agents…There’s no evidence that any of the women have any involvement with narco-terrorists or any type of terrorist organization.  Basically, they’re prostitutes.”

Which, of course, every hooker in the world already knew.

My Favorite Books (April 26th, 2012)

I think these folks are reading far too much into a discarded first draft, but it’s still interesting:

Newly-discovered draft pages of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s “The Little Prince“…will be auctioned off later this month after a rare public viewing…The first page contains a piece of text that’s partly retained in chapter 19 of the published work. But the second leaf of the work is completely original…In 1943, the text turned from a scribbled manuscript by a relatively unknown author, into a literary phenomenon that has since sold 140 million copies, in about 260 languages.  After The Bible, “The Little Prince” is the most translated book in history, according to the…Saint-Exupery Foundation.  Sadly, the author would never know the extent of his book’s success:  he died shortly after its first publication in a mysterious plane crash in 1944 while on active service in World War II…

Metaupdates

Shifting the Blame in The Beat Goes On (Part One) (January 18th, 2012)

“Two men were held for questioning Tuesday as part of an investigation into the slayings of four Detroit women whose bodies were found in car trunks after three of them placed online escort ads…”

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#13) (March 31st, 2012)

“Octomom” Nadya Suleman, who filed for bankruptcy this week with $1 million in debts and $50,000 in assets, has agreed to do a masturbation video for Vivid for $100,000.  She insists it isn’t really porn (which she has sworn never to do) because it’s a solo act; do you think I should send her a copy of “Little Boxes”?

Good News, Bad News in TW3 (#14) (April 6th, 2012)

Elena Jeffreys explains the probable effects of the sleazy political deal which could impose a version of the Swedish Model on Western Australia:

Adele Carles is no friend of the HIV sector, no friend of STI prevention, and her $5.5 million sex worker ‘rescue’ centre is going to cost the WA Liberals, and any future government, that friendship as well.  What will it cost sex workers?  Our ability to protect ourselves.  Our health.  And our dignity…The…centre is being horse-traded in Western Australia…for votes over Christian Porter’s anti-sex work Prostitution Bill.  Doomed from the start, Porter authored the Bill by not listening to his own policy staff, ignoring sex workers and the sex worker movement, and thumbing his nose at the Liberal’s own ‘numbers people’…With a lack of buy-in from the industry, total opposition from the churches and zero support from both the ALP and the Greens, suddenly Independent MP…Adele Carles, has the power to call the shots…[Carles’ scheme would be funded by] gutting the existing sex worker service and building a new service geared towards the redemption, exit and retraining of sex workers out of the industry rather than the current approach of harm reduction for current sex workers…

One Year Ago Today

“May Updates (Part Two)” reports on harm reduction for untreatable alcoholics, junk science equating a vital food component with hard drugs, and government busybodies trying to “protect” babies from the scourge of mother’s milk.

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That Was the Week That Was (#12)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 24, 2012| 7 Comments »

Man’s mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth.  –  Desiderius Erasmus

Eleven updates and two meta-updates.

Amsterdam (November 1st, 2010)

Prohibitionists claim that “sex trafficking” decreases when prostitution is criminalized and increases when it is legalized or decriminalized; the Netherlands is one of their favorite targets, and here Wendy Lyon of Feminist Ire demonstrates that recent statistics fail to support prohibitionist claims, and that what “trafficking” there is seems more the fault of Dutch controls than of the sex trade itself.

Sea Change (November 4th, 2010)

Increasing numbers of educated people reject prohibitionist claims about sex work and even recognize it as a positive good.  One of these is Dr. Hernando Chaves, sex columnist for AskMen, who recently answered the question “Is there anything wrong with [seeing] a prostitute? What risks are there…?”

…This answer for you depends on…personal attitudes, social judgments, religious/spiritual views, your culture…and a host of other variables…In many cultures throughout history, money…[has] been exchanged for…sexual activity, sometimes as a form of…worship…besides the risk of being arrested and charged where it’s not legal, the risks are quite similar those you would take on with a non-sex-work partner.  Any partner can break your heart, take your money, pass along an STI…and so on.  It’s not fair to attribute these risks [only] to sex workers…some…bring up sex slavery…and other dark sides to sexual activity, but…true sex work…is a business decision made by consenting adults…

Welcome To Our World (January 20th, 2011)

Most of you have probably heard of the controversy over Mike Daisey’s highly-falsified report of conditions in Apple’s Chinese factories:

Public radio’s popular This American Life episode about abuses in the Foxconn factories…has been retracted on the grounds of… “significant fabrications”…When you read something bad about a Foxconn factory and then see that thousands of people line up for the chance of a job at one of them, that really ought to make you wonder.  What were those guys doing the day before they decided to stand in line?…

This is of course what writers like Dr. Laura Agustín keep trying to make people understand:  prohibitionists harp on what they consider horrible conditions in third-world brothels, or in the process of migration to a more affluent country, but ignore that people nearly always chose them as the best available option.  Furthermore, busybodies just can’t resist depicting these choices as worse than they actually are:

…If you’ve ever tweeted about how bad Apple is, blogged about the evils of Foxconn’s sweatshops, or “Liked” a Facebook post excoriating how iPads are made, then you should listen [to the retraction of Daisey’s story]…I’ve covered the company as a reporter for more than a decade…Mike Daisey claimed to have come across 12-year-old workers, armed guards, crippled factory operators.  We saw none of that.  And we did try to find them.  Nothing would have been more compelling for us and our story than to have a chat with a preteen factory operator about how she enjoyed (or not) working 12-hour shifts making iPads.  We didn’t get such an anecdote…The biggest gripe, which surprised us somewhat, is that they don’t get enough overtime.  They wanted to work more, to get more money…It wasn’t paradise…some of their managers were harsh…and…others found their job boring.  Some were just plain homesick…Compared to the lies, the truth just doesn’t make good theater.

Now substitute “Nick Kristof” for “Mike Daisey”, “brothel” for “factory”…you get the picture.

Shifting the Blame (January 26th, 2011)

This story has been pitched by a number of advocates as good news, but my skeptical mind can’t help noticing that the commissioner who said “What activities these victims may have engaged in…does not matter…They were young women whose lives were cut tragically short,“ has been replaced by one who is “on the same page” with the DA who says it was the victims’ fault for being whores:

The Suffolk police…has a new chief who says he plans a fresh look at…the Gilgo Beach murders, and believes more than one killer was responsible…That view is at odds with a single-killer theory that was aired last December by then-Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, setting off an unusual public argument with District Attorney Thomas Spota, who also believes there were multiple killers.  Spota said it’s good that he and Fitzpatrick are “on the same page…Not one detective familiar with the facts of this case believes one person is responsible for these homicides”…

Of course, that’s what they would say since the chief suspect is a cop.  And speaking of serial killers…

Surplus Women (September 27th, 2011)

“The FBI suspects a number of serial killers are working as long-haul truckers, the better to cover up their monstrous deeds.”  It looks like they’ve found one:

A 54-year-old truck driver from San Antonio…[named] Kenneth Dunn picked up Stephanie Williams, 43, at a truckstop outside of Dallas in February.  Dunn then fatally beat Williams and dumped her body in an industrial area…about a week later, Dunn was arrested and charged with murder…Police said that five other prostitutes have been found dead in the Lubbock area over the past dozen years…Dunn…hasn’t [yet] been charged in any of them…

Elephant in the Parlor (October 23rd, 2011)

Politicians hiring hookers isn’t news, unless they’re impotent Swedish politicians:

…[A former government] minister…has been convicted for trying to buy sex from a known prostitute…police saw him pick up the woman in his car…[but he] felt that he was being followed, [so] he stopped the car…and let her out…When he found out he was under suspicion for attempting to purchase sex he confessed straight away and was fined 19,200 kronor ($2,814).  Now, however, he denies all allegations.  “I have prostate cancer and it is treated with hormones, which means the sex drive disappears.  I am medically castrated, one could say,” he told Aftonbladet.  Instead, the man claims he was giving the woman a ride home…“The police told me that I could choose between the case being taken to court with all the public exposure that would entail or accept an order of summary punishment…”

Note how, though women are supposedly not targeted by the Swedish Model, the police spy on “known prostitutes” in order to entrap and shake down men.

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (October 27th, 2011)

Yet another Asian prostitute study confirms what we already know:

Female prostitutes on average earn VND10.6 million per month (over $500) while male prostitutes earn VND6.55 million (over $300), around 2.5 times over the average earning of the group of 20 percent highest income earners in Vietnam…Dr. Nguyen Huu Minh…says that around three fourths of the interviewed prostitutes began …at the age of less than 25; 18 percent of them at the age of 16-18 and around four percent at the age of less than 15…nearly 50 percent…have secondary, high school and university degrees…over 60 percent of the interviewed prostitutes work independently or in a group of friends and acquaintances…Most…said that they became prostitutes because of high income (53 percent)…

Note also that even in one of the poorest countries in the region, very few girls enter the trade at an age below 15…just like everywhere else.

Schadenfreude (November 28th, 2011)

Southeast Asian sex worker rights organizations enjoy making videos to call attention to their mistreatment at the hands of police spurred on by American busybodies; here’s a cute little silent comedy named “Last Rescue in Siam” from the Thai organization EMPOWER.  Enjoy!

Gullible’s Travels (December 27th, 2011)

In the first paragraph of this column I provided a short list of recent media scares; if you’d like more of the same, here’s Gawker’s “Timeline of Moral Panics in the Last Decade”.  Sex trafficking hysteria is conspicuous by its absence; I guess they only wanted scares rather than full-blown panics.

Twice as Interesting (February 11th, 2012)

The prostitute and the stripper who participated in the Ottawa “Human Library” recently published an article in which they take exception to a reporter’s coverage of the program:

…Anthony Furey…balks at “activist agendas” that “turn human beings into stereotypes”…he considers most of the human books to be “of a decidedly fringe flavour”…[and] insists that the…event “fetishizes people’s differences” and argues that “whatever differences there are have more to do with their character…”  [But] as much as we’d like to think that people are judged only by their characters, that is simply not true…for those of us “of a decidedly fringe flavour,” our experiences with stigma and discrimination have shaped our lives.  These are precisely the differences that are important to hear about.  As such, the Human Library is not fetishizing people’s differences, but rather bringing diverse (and in many cases, rarely heard) experiences to light…

Knights Erroneous (March 18th, 2012)

A couple of hours after last Sunday’s column was published, I noticed a huge surge in traffic; as it turns out, Nicholas Kristof had discovered the column and “tweeted” it to his 1.2 million followers, eventually resulting in a new record for visits in one day (3522).  A number of those visitors subscribed, so I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome them and to thank Kristof for all the new readers.  On the same day he published another of his Backpage smear columns, only this time he failed to cover his tracks:

Nicholas D. Kristof…wrote…”Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage”…That is not true.  According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003.  Backpage.com did not exist…in 2003…she…came to the FBI’s attention in August, 2005 [and] was…relocated away from…Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City…In the summer of 2005 Backpage.com did not exist in [those cities]…Had Kristof followed any of The New York Times’ standards of journalism, he would have known this.  He could have read the court transcripts…[or] coverage in The Boston Globe…[or even] asked us…Instead, he concocted a story to suit his agenda and then asked his readers to boycott Village Voice Media…

This isn’t the first time Kristof has lied to advance one of his crusades; look for “Feet of Clay”, coming April 5th, for another example from a decade ago.

Metaupdates

Coming and Going in That Was the Week That Was (#10) (March 10th, 2012)

The Manhattan district attorney’s office spent five years and hundreds of man-hours spying on Anna Gristina, and for what? “Gristina…is considering pleading guilty to the one charge against her — felony promoting of prostitution.  Even if prosecutors were successful at winning the maximum sentence…2½ years…she’d serve only…a year…before…work release as a nonviolent first offender…”  New York readers, do you really feel this is a valid use of your public funds?  This editorialist doesn’t:  “…See, crimes should have an actual victim. If they don’t, than they don’t make any sense.  Crimes without victims are well, stupid.  They are a waste of resources, tax dollars and waste the freedoms and liberties of the people charged…This prosecution is simply idiotic…”

The Sky is Falling! in That Was the Week That Was (#11) (March 17th, 2012)

Last week I reported that a newspaper editor had died while visiting his sugar baby; well, it turns out she wasn’t a sugar baby and he was a total hypocrite:

…The young woman Caldwell visited was a full-time call girl…[who] has been advertising…for three years on a regional website called TNA Board…Since 2000…Caldwell …published at least 16…editorials on prostitution.  “Some people will tell you that prostitution is a victimless crime,” an Oregonian editorial said in 2001.  “They’re wrong…[W]hen you think about it, you realize prostitution isn’t ‘victimless’ even when prostitutes reach the grand old ages of 15 or 17 or 19.”  In 2008, another…editorial linked prostitution to “distress, blight and violence,” and…[in] 2010 [another]…in favor of a city proposal to seize assets…[said] “The embarrassment factor probably doesn’t weigh heavily on pimps…but with johns, it’s a different story.”

Maybe once enough of these lying bastards are exposed, they’ll finally begin to publicly support the rights of women they patronize in private.

One Year Ago Today 

“The Soft Weapon” reports on the Village Voice’s debunking of the Schapiro Group, and a Canadian editorial’s comparing sex work to hockey.

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The Beat Goes On (Part One)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2012| 13 Comments »

Charleston was once the rage, uh huh
History has turned the page, uh huh
The miniskirt’s the current thing, uh huh
Teenybopper is our newborn king, uh huh.  –  Sonny Bono, “The Beat Goes On”

What, you thought we were done with updates for the month?  We’re getting so many of these now that I’m soon going to change the way I handle them; look for a new feature, “That Was the Week That Was”, coming February 4th.

Shifting the Blame (January 26th, 2011)

Remember how last year at this time the media was still trying to blame Craigslist every time something bad happened to a hooker?  Well, they eventually realized that Backpage was now the fashionable scapegoat, and since we can’t possibly put the blame where it belongs – the laws which force prostitutes into the shadows where we can be preyed on by evil men in and out of uniform – it must be Backpage’s fault when women are killed.  Here’s what Sex Workers for Choice has to say about the recent murders in Detroit:

Over the past month, 4 women have been murdered in Detroit, MI and another two have gone missing…It is unknown at this time if the cases of the missing women are related to the recent murders, but the possibility certainly seems too unlikely of a coincidence. Police say that 3 out of the 4 murder victims had profiles on Backpage…[which] has responded by reaching out to authorities to aid in the investigation, including helping to identify a number of other websites that the women might have had profiles on.  There is a sense of déjà vu in the rush from the media and other online sources to vilify Backpage as some sort of co-conspirator in the deaths of these women.  The “Craigslist Killer” was the tipping point in helping shut down Craigslist erotic services section, and this…will no doubt fuel the already strong campaign…[against] Backpage.  What these critics ignore is that the true co-conspirator is not these advertising venues, but rather…the laws that isolate us from the protections most others take for granted.  What makes…sex workers a target for violence is not how or where we advertise, but the fact that violent predators know that those crimes…are not investigated or prosecuted as diligently…[because we] are…viewed as criminals that somehow signed on for such violence…Until we have equal rights and equal protection, the predators will continue to seek us out in any and every advertising venue available…

Real People (February 6th, 2011)

It’s interesting that the New York Times, a major proponent of the “whores are passive victims” mythology, should publish this profile of an independent, strong willed streetwalker:

Like many single mothers, Barbara Terry, 52, scrounged for baby sitters and leaned on her own mother while raising her four children and working the night shift.  But Ms. Terry is a prostitute who has worked nearly her entire adult life on the streets of Hunts Point, in the Bronx.  “When they were old enough to understand, I would tell them the truth,” said Ms. Terry, whose daughter and three sons are now grown.  “I’d say, ‘This is how I’m supporting you.’  For me, it’s a business, a regular job.”  Yes, she said, she was arrested more than 100 times, sometimes landing at Rikers Island for several days or weeks — but that never deterred her from returning…Today, Ms. Terry lives nearby in the Bronx, but she hopes to retire in a year or so to a house she bought upstate…“I’ve survived because God was with me,” Ms. Terry said.  “Every Sunday, my mother and grandmother prayed for me out here”…

The story has a heaping helping of lurid detail, but never tries to deny Terry agency or paint her as emotionally damaged.  And though a story like this wouldn’t be unusual in the Canadian media (as you’ll see in the story below), I think it’s the closest thing to “sex work is work” we’re likely to see in the mainstream American media for a very long time.

Harm Magnification (May 15th, 2011)

The Canadian government, like its bloated US counterpart, seems intent on continuing the prohibitionist laws and policies which create crime, expose many thousands of citizens to danger and cause incalculable damage to society.  But unlike their U.S. counterparts, the Canadian media are refusing to be the stooges of their government.  Rather than mindlessly parroting “trafficking”  mythology in order to support anti-prostitute tyranny, Canadian reporters are almost universally laying the blame for harm to sex workers where it belongs:  on the bad laws and the evil actions of the police.  And though the American version of Huffington Post is happy to “cater…to the current fashionable delusions about us”, the Canadian edition is equally happy to go whichever way the wind is blowing up there:

…Repression from police has pushed prostitution into more dangerous, isolated parts of [Montreal], making sex workers more vulnerable to violence, said Anna-Louise Crago…[of the] advocacy group…Stella…”Criminalization and police repression against sex workers, our clients, and our work places make it impossible to work in safer conditions.”  Experts say the same pattern of repression has been repeated in other cities across Canada, making prostitution a more dangerous job.  In Vancouver, police engaged in a decades-long campaign to move prostitutes into the more isolated Downtown Eastside, where…it [was easier] for [serial killer Robert] Pickton and other predators to target women…

It’s not illegal to be a prostitute in Canada, but many of the activities associated with prostitution are classified as criminal offences…the ambivalence has caused confusion in the courts and made it difficult for police to do their job.  Efforts to protect sex workers often appear to be at odds with the police’s attempt to crack down on prostitution.  That seemed to be the case in December when Ottawa police chief Vern White, faced with a possible serial killer targeting prostitutes, warned them to be extra cautious.  Advocacy groups countered that it was the force’s very own tactics of aggressive policing and repression that had forced them into more dangerous situations.  A study…based on interviews with more than 200 sex workers between 2006 and 2008, found a link between prostitutes who reported having been harassed or assaulted by a police officer and the likelihood they were victims of violence in future.  In Montreal, Stella has recorded between 50 and 60 cases of violence, including rape, brutal beatings, and attempted murder against sex workers annually.  Yet only four or five cases reach the courts every year [because] the victims are often afraid to press charges…

…The debate about how to cut back on the violence may end up being settled by the courts.  The [government is] trying to overturn a lower court ruling in which a judge struck down three laws against prostitution, saying they force people in the sex trade to choose between obeying the law and keeping themselves safe.  Sex workers argue that the laws prevent them from working indoors where it’s safer, taking time to talk to a potential client to assess the risk they pose and hiring bodyguards.  The…government maintains that protecting victims of exploitation and supporting the enforcement of existing laws should be a priority…The top court’s ruling in support of the Vancouver safe-injection site Insite has given advocates cause for optimism…”That judgment gives us a lot of hope,” said [Stella’s director Emilie] Laliberte, who is also a former sex worker. “For us, it’s a really important sign that even though the government doesn’t want to respect our rights the courts will.”

American media would obediently echo the government’s ludicrous claim that persecuting whores somehow makes “victims of exploitation” safer, but the Canadian reporter dismisses it in a line.  Perhaps one day the American media may grow that bold again, but probably not for a few years yet.

One Year Ago Today

“January Miscellanea” reported that the Dutch government had announced plans to collect sales tax on prostitution; that the city of Modesto, California recognizes prostitution as a victimless crime yet persecutes hookers anyhow; and that ultra-enlightened Sweden claims prostitutes can infallibly be recognized by our clothing.  And four other items, too!

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Extra, Extra!

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 20, 2011| 29 Comments »

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.  –  Ogden Nash

In the days before television and car radios, newspapers sometimes put out “extra” editions in the afternoon if a story came up which was too important or fast-breaking to wait until the regular edition the next morning.  “Extras” were usually short and were hawked by newsboys with stacks of the special edition, shouting “Extra!  Extra! Read all about it!” followed by the headline.  Once radios became portable extra editions became less common because there was no way to get them out quickly enough to beat the radio news to the “scoop”, and once television news became popular in the 1950s extras went the way of the dodo.  Newspapers then concentrated on telling the stories in detail rather than with speed, leaving the “breaking news” to the broadcast media because they knew people would want to read the full story the next morning anyhow.  Unfortunately for publishers, the internet has taken a big bite out of that market share as well by making it possible to publish in-depth print stories as quickly as TV or radio stations can interrupt their “regularly scheduled programming” for the quick & dirty sound-bite-fest which is broadcast news.  Papers are folding (please pardon the pun) or downsizing everywhere, and many publishers are concentrating more heavily on their websites than on print editions in order to keep their businesses afloat.

I run this blog much more like a newspaper than like a TV broadcast; that is, I don’t generally worry too much about getting there “first with the most”, but rather on examining a story through the lens of harlotry.  In other words, The Honest Courtesan may not be the first place you encounter a new story, but you probably won’t encounter my spin on that story in many other places.  When my husband is on the road I try to write two columns every day unless I have other stuff demanding my attention, and unless I’m completely tied up all day (no comments from the peanut gallery, y’all) I can usually manage at least one (my record is four).  What this all boils down to is that I tend to have 10-14 columns “in the pipeline” at once, and if I want to get a new column out quickly while the subject is still topical I just rearrange the dates and push low-priority columns (such as fictional interludes or “harlotographies”) back as needed.  So if I ever tell you to look for a column on a certain day and something different appears, now you know why.  Anyhow, this is all by way of introduction to two stories which I would usually hold for my monthly “updates” column, but felt they deserved an “extra” due to their topicality.

Even Worse Than I Had Thought

I had already written yesterday’s column several days before this op-ed column from the MetroWest Daily News came to my attention on Monday (see how that works?)  I considered rewriting it to reference this, but it’s really too good to mention in passing so I decided to do this column instead.  The article, “Puritans With Badges”, is worth reading in its entirety, but I’ll give you a taste of the part that attracted my attention:

…Attorney General Martha Coakley, leading legislators and district attorneys have decided that what Massachusetts really needs is an all-out offensive against prostitution.  They are proposing a new crime: “human trafficking for sexual servitude,” which would allow convicted pimps, madams, or anyone else facilitating the exchange of sex for money to be imprisoned for up to 20 years on the first offense, with a mandatory 10 years in the pen if convicted a second time.  The 20-year sentence would also apply to anyone who recruits someone to engage in a “sexually-explicit performance.”  If you’re planning a bachelor party, better do it soon, since this law would empower Coakley to shut down the “gentlemen’s clubs” and hire-a-stripper operations.  The proposed law considers prostitutes the “victims” of prostitution, so it doubles the sentence for their customers.  “Whoever pays, agrees to pay, or offers to pay another person” for sex can be sentenced to up to 2 1/2 years in jail and a $5,000 fine, “whether such sexual conduct occurs or not”…Personal ads, online or on old-fashioned newsprint, indicate there are lots of consenting Massachusetts adults engaging in the business of pleasure.  Well, we can’t have that, can we?  Here in the land of the Puritans, there are some pursuits of happiness the authorities will not abide…

As you can see, it’s even worse than the NPR article I referenced yesterday made it sound; that one left out the criminalization of stripping in favor of the story of the bill’s poster child.  After reading the column, I sent an email of thanks to the author, Rick Holmes; he responded by asking if he could post my email in his own blog, which had a bit more to say about the issue.  I of course agreed, and was rather impressed with what I saw there; we may be seeing a new addition to “Friends of Whores”.

You Can Trust Us, Really

Honest Courtesan friend Dave Krueger called attention to this May 15th New York Post exclusive in his Agitator guest blog of that same date:

Two NYPD cops are being eyed in the Long Island serial slayings after investigators learned they got into trouble for hiring prostitutes while working for the department, according to sources familiar with the probe.  One cop was forced out of the job in the 1990s when his supervisors learned he spent time pursuing hookers and paying street walkers and down-and-out women for sex while he was supposed to be on patrol…The other officer still works for the NYPD but was stripped of his gun and badge years ago because he allegedly assaulted a prostitute and got arrested during a sting operation.  The woman complained to police supervisors about the officer but no criminal charges were filed and an internal probe went nowhere, sources said.  The patrolman was allowed to return to the force, they said, though he was placed on modified duty — transferred to a paper-pushing job in Manhattan where he’s not allowed to make arrests or respond to emergencies…It’s unclear if the disgraced cops know each other or what evidence investigators might have against them in the serial murders…The cops are not the sole focus of the investigation, which has expanded over the last several weeks, sources said.

Now, as I wrote last month, the police have suspected since at least the end of March that the serial killer might be a cop, yet they’re only now looking into what cops that might be?  As A.K. Smith pointed out in her column of May 16th:

If cops have been working this as a possible serial killer case since December, and have thought at least since March that the killer might be a cop…why are they just now looking at cops with this kind of history?  If it was a child sexual assault and murder you can bet they’d have questioned all the pedophiles in a 60-mile radius the first week.  Another question springs from that:  why are cops so surprised that prostitutes don’t want to come forward with evidence?  Imagine you were the victim of officer #2′s assault, walked into a police station, and saw him (or another of his ilk) sitting behind a desk.  Would you walk out or make a report?

I have nothing more to add, except to say that tomorrow’s column will examine A.K.’s rhetorical questions in a somewhat unusual manner.

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Their Lips Are Moving

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 25, 2011| 133 Comments »

Q: How can you tell if a politician is lying?  A: His lips are moving.

Whores are used to being lied about by prohibitionists, politicians and cops, but since we’re the subject of the current moral panic the current crop of lies is even worse than usual, and the most outrageous of these lies are being spewed out by cops and their media stooges.  Really, this should come as no surprise; since virtually every statement made by cops about sex workers is a lie, and since they are encouraged to commit the most ridiculous fabrications to paper as “evidence” of women’s “crime” of being sexual, it takes very little provocation for them to come out with tall tales which might be funny were they not used to whip up anti-whore hysteria among the pathologically gullible.  So though the popular joke which forms my epigram mentions politicians, on the subject of prostitutes it applies equally well to cops.  I’m going to look at two recent examples, both of which were called to my attention by the ever-alert Brandy Devereaux.

I’m sure most of my readers are familiar with the fact that there is a new serial killer in New York, and like so many others of his kind he’s targeting prostitutes.  The reason for this should be obvious to any reasonable person:  The criminalization of our trade forces us to work secretly and therefore makes us much easier targets.  But cops and their ilk are not reasonable people; first the district attorney said it was their own fault they were killed, and now the FBI is trying to call attention away from the fact that the killer is probably a cop by blaming the murder of at least one of the girls on internet trolls.  Here’s the April 17th report from that bastion of responsible journalism, the New York Daily News:

Members of an Internet sex forum hatched a “revenge” plot against a Long Island hooker who was later murdered and dumped in a serial killer’s burial ground, the Daily News has learned.  Talk on longislanderotic.com shows members were outraged when one of their cronies claimed he had paid Amber Lynn Costello $200 for sex, only to be robbed by men who barged into her West Babylon home.  “Tell her we are all coming over there with baseball bats,” threatened one member…

That ominous threat, and more to follow, has opened a window on what probers say is a virtually unregulated sex network of johns, hookers and escort services.  “The Internet has really become a highway for criminality,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.  “In terms of prostitution, it’s moved a pretty public enterprise into the shadows more than ever, and made it more difficult for law enforcement to get a handle on it.”  Investigators would not say if any of the online johns are suspects in the probe of a possible serial killer…Still, law enforcement sources say the chilling online thread is the type of internet-based sex crime that attracted the FBI to the case…

A message board member known as “Humiliatrix69” first raged on July 11, 2010, about getting “suckered” by Costello and company hours earlier.  Shortly after, a pal called “italyrider” asked for her address:  “No one from this board needs to be involved.  I have friends who can take care of this s—.”  Humiliatrix69 posted Costello’s address, a description of her home, and her phone number.  Three days days later, “Morrie” chimed in:  “A friend of ours told me today that ‘You won’t hear from those 2 girls anymore!'”  Costello, a twice-divorced drug addict, disappeared on Sept. 2, 2010.  That was eight weeks after Humiliatrix69 aired his anger on the message board…Costello advertised herself as a “Southern girl” named “Carolina,” who was “short, sexy & a lot of fun.”  Humiliatrix69 didn’t have such a good time.  “Seemed really friendly,” his angry post read.  “Provided the donation.  She slipped away and got comfortable, and so did I.  Then there was a knock at the door.”  Humiliatrix69 claimed two men armed with a baseball bat rushed at him.  One claimed he was Costello’s boyfriend…They fought on the front lawn.  “I made it clear that it wasn’t over, so after posting this…I gotta go handle this,” he wrote…Humiliatrix69 was hell-bent on revenge, but nervous.  “I want to be spiteful and get revenge, but I am going to [private message] the info.  I wanna get the exact address.  I will go by there tonight.  I could seriously do some time for the things I want to do to this provider and her boyfriend.”  Then he admitted to having cold feet.  Revenge wouldn’t be worth it, he reasoned, claiming he would go “back to attempting to make legitimate porn videos”…

As is typical for tabloids, the article concentrates on the lurid and pitches the story to make the commonplace seem sinister; for example, “a virtually unregulated network blah blah blah…” when the entire internet is virtually unregulated!  And if any of my readers has NOT ever seen some big shot running his mouth off on one message board or another as the men in this story did, please comment; I predict no replies.  The guy was angry because he got ripped off; so would anyone be.  I certainly hope the FBI’s “interest” is just a fabrication on the part of the Daily News, because if the feds are honestly trying to pin one of a string of virtually-identical serial killer cases on angry internet commenters, they must have learned their investigative techniques from watching too many TV cop shows.

I do want to point out one more thing about this story: Professor O’Lawhead’s asinine comments at the beginning of the second paragraph. “Highway for criminality?” WTF?  I mean, is this person for real?  He claims to be a law professor and yet can’t recognize the difference between real criminality and a status offense?  And that stupid comment about prostitution being a “public enterprise” betrays an appalling ignorance of the history of the subject he is presuming to speak about.  One has to wonder if he won his law degree as a prize from an iron claw machine on Coney Island.

The second example is far less serious, but IMHO more irritating because it’s a blatant lie rather than a distortion of the truth, and comes directly from the pigs’ mouths instead of potentially being a journalistic artifact.  Brandy’s blog of April 18th refers to this story posted on recordpub.com the day before:

An alleged prostitute who advertised her services online and was caught in an April 4 Brimfield police sting operation at a hotel in the township has pleaded not guilty to prostitution, solicitation and related misdemeanor charges.  Samantha R. Edwards, 19…was arraigned last week in Portage County Municipal Court…on one count each of prostitution and solicitation, both third-degree misdemeanors, and three counts of possession of criminal tools, all first-degree felonies…Brimfield police allege that Edwards posted a profile under the “Female Escorts” section of AkronCanton.BackPage.com under the alias “Skyy”…A tip led officers to investigate and then send an officer into her hotel room undercover, where an offer for sex allegedly was made and money allegedly changed hands.  Edwards was arrested and a Nokia cell phone, Sanyo digital camera and 50 to 60 Trojan condoms were seized as tools related to her alleged activities.  Five men, or “johns,” allegedly arrived while police were investigating.  Because no offers were made and no money changed hands, Brimfield police identified the men and turned them away…

As Kelly James pointed out, the website misquotes the law; “possession of criminal tools” is a misdemeanor, not a felony.  But that’s bad enough; how many of my female readers carry around cell phones?  I guess that means you’re all criminals under Ohio law, especially if you also own a digital camera.  And I wonder how many condoms you need in your purse before it becomes a “crime”; 40? 10?  One, perhaps?  When will our amateur sisters wake up and understand that these laws can be (and sometimes are) used against ANY woman?  As long as meeting up with a man to whom one is not married can be classified as a “crime” on the basis of motive (and defined by carrying a cell phone) no woman is safe from this type of tyranny.  Then there’s one last, small detail which irritates the hell out of me:  The police attempt to slut-shame their captive by falsely claiming five men showed up while they were “investigating” (i.e. busting her).  Unless they were there for at least 8 or 9 hours, that’s total bullshit in the same class as Pennsylvania cops’ repeated claims that typical escorts make $5000 per weekend; they’re blatant attempts to evoke the “dirty whore” stereotype and disgust housewives by making it look as though we spend all our waking hours pulling trains without washing in between.

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Shifting the Blame

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2011| 18 Comments »

Many think that assigning blame settles matters. –  Mason Cooley

I reckon the American yellow press is just reluctant to give up a good villain after spending so much effort creating it.  It’s been months now since Craigslist decided to stop being the whipping boy of every politician with an anti-whore agenda and every fourth-rate reporter hoping to lead a lynch mob, but apparently the New York Post (a tabloid rag in the grand old Hearst tradition) didn’t get the memo.  This article is slightly paraphrased to correct the Post’s clumsy grade-school level composition and remove inflammatory and unnecessary terms, but you can look at the original for the full effect.

All four of the corpses found near a Long Island beach in December were young prostitutes who advertised their services on Craigslist and were likely slain by a serial killer, authorities said Monday (January 24th).  After identifying one of the bodies as Megan Waterman, 22, of Maine, officials revealed that the three other skeletons found wrapped in burlap bags at Gilgo Beach were all Craigslist escorts who were killed shortly after meeting their murderer.  Using DNA evidence, the other victims were identified as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, of Norwich, Connecticut; Amber Lynn Costello, 27, of North Babylon, New York; and Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Buffalo, New York.

The killer’s last known victim, Costello, disappeared from North Babylon only five months ago on September 2nd; Waterman was last seen at a Hauppauge, New York Holiday Inn on June 6th of last year, and Brainard-Barnes vanished from Manhattan in July 2007.  Barthelemy was last seen in The Bronx on July 12th, 2009 and was reported missing six days later after her mother and sister received calls from her cell phone.  “Do you know what your sister does for a living?” the male caller asked, according to Barthelemy’s mother.  “Your sister’s a whore, don’t be like your sister.”

Though my version sticks to the facts, that’s never good enough for the Post, which felt compelled to subtitle the article “Craigslist creep killed 4 hookers” and open it with the phrase “Craigslist was a hit list”; the rest of the article was peppered with boyfriends described as rappers, pimps and drug dealers.  Indeed, the serial killer himself is eclipsed by references to Craigslist, as though the Post were trying to blame the website for the murders; I daresay that’s a bit of a stretch even for a tabloid.  The AP version is, as you might expect, a bit more subdued, and contains additional details, including a number of brilliant and sensitive comments from the district attorney:

Investigators did not identify a suspect, or say how the women were killed, but were looking into what clients they might have met shortly before they disappeared.  One of the women was reported missing nearly 3½ years ago; another was seen as recently as last September.  “Their deaths are a direct result of their business as prostitutes,” Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota told reporters.  “I sincerely hope that people who are engaged in a similar business as these four young women would come forward.  They certainly must have some information.”

Police were looking for another missing Craigslist escort when they happened upon the bodies near the beach.  They have since said that the person they were originally looking for, a woman from New Jersey, was not among the dead.  Authorities said Monday that case is still under investigation.  Police Commissioner Richard Dormer initially suggested that a serial killer might be involved when the bodies were found in December, but detectives later became tight-lipped about the matter.  But on Monday, Spota said that “the actual cause of deaths appear to be substantially similar” and that “it appears the same person or persons are responsible.”  Spota and Dormer refused to say how the women died.  The case has some similarities to a 2006 New Jersey case, in which four prostitutes’ bodies were found in a drainage ditch just outside Atlantic City and about a mile from the beach; those killings remain unsolved.

District Attorney Spota says that the deaths of the women was a “direct result of their business as prostitutes”; obviously he must have the same words of wisdom for the families of cops killed in the line of duty.  Perhaps one day the gang of a criminal Mr. Spota convicts will kill him as well, and if that happens I’m sure he’ll accept his fate knowing that it was a “direct result of his business as district attorney.”  Brandy Devereaux had some choice words for jackasses like Mr. Spota, including a number of links to new stories about other people he would no doubt say deserved to die because of their choices to be highway workers, psychiatric counselors and Wal-Mart employees.  But please note that Mr. Spota’s second quoted sentence surpasses the first in sheer cluelessness; after telling sex workers it’s our fault if we’re killed, he suggests we come forward to be arrested (no doubt so he can increase his conviction rate).  I guess he thinks whores are as stupid as he is evil and pompous.

Interestingly, Police Commissioner Dormer had more sense and sensitivity:  “What activities these victims may have engaged in prior to their murders does not matter,” Dormer said Monday.  “They were young women whose lives were cut tragically short.”  At least Commissioner Dormer recognizes that murderers are responsible for murders; if the New York Post was in charge of the investigation it would no doubt be sending cops over  to interrogate Craigslist personnel, and if District Attorney Spota were running the show he would no doubt be subjecting hookers to the third degree.  Obviously those motivated by advertising revenues or votes would rather persecute those they can get their filthy hands on in lieu of the yet-unknown (and therefore inaccessible) party who actually committed the crimes.

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