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That Was the Week That Was (#329)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, adolescence, Africa, An Example to the West, Australia, Backwards into the Future, Bottleneck, brothels, cops, Craigslist, disability, domestic violence, East Asia, Florida, Georgia, Hollywood, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, India, Indonesia, internet, Ireland, Legitimate Outrage, Madonna/whore, Middle East, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, New York, One Born Every Minute, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, porn, psychology, Puppet Show, rape, red-light districts, RIP Petite Jasmine, scams, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Tennessee, The First Time, The Widening Gyre, transgender, Turkey, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, virginity on July 20, 2013| 12 Comments »

They want to save us, but they punish us until we are willing to be saved. – Pye Jakobsson

The First Time

Because obviously, a random amateur will give him a better experience than a skilled professional.

Looking to send her nerdy son off to Harvard in style, this helicopter parent to end all helicopter parents has taken to Craigslist’s “casual encounters” section to seek a young woman who can help claim the “socially awkward” boy’s virginity, and turn him into a “cool college kid.” The plan is simple: You, a 19 to 20-something seductress, pick up a pair of complimentary tickets to “some great concert,” where your target, a handsome 18-year-old varsity cross country team member with “almost zero body fat” will be waiting unsuspectingly…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

A lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee filed a lawsuit against Apple, Inc. that blames the company for the dissolution of his marriage and the collapse of his mental health…because Apple devices do not have a filter that keeps them from playing pornography. The devices purportedly failed to protect Sevier from his porn addiction, so the attorney is suing the company in an effort to have all of its devices equipped with a filter that blocks sexually-themed content…

An Example to the West (TW3 #20)

Anu Mokal wasn’t breaking the law when she was out walking…when a police officer viciously attacked her…beating her severely…SANGRAM and…Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP)…demanded that Maharashtra politicians investigate the beating and institute…a grievance commission to address abuses of sex workers’ human rights…the attack echoed a deeper culture of oppression that sex workers face around the world at all levels of society…funded in large part by the foreign aid that pours into the Global South from Washington’s coffers…the Supreme Court recently dealt a potentially lethal blow to the so-called “anti-prostitution loyalty oath”…[for] U.S.-based groups…[but it] still looms large over the Global South…SANGRAM…has proudly defied PEPFAR…but…faces a political climate suffused with the pernicious pressures of America’s “soft power.” When aid comes with political strings attached, poor governments are pressured to mirror Washington’s culture wars…

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #40)

Sex workers have been fighting to enjoy their right to dignity. For this to happen, they say, prostitution has to be decriminalised…Ntokozo Yingwana, of the Sex Workers Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT)…[argues] that it is not sex-work but the stigma and discrimination that sex workers have to endure that strips them of their dignity…Marlise Richter, a public health researcher with the International Centre for Reproductive Health, said: “[The] evidence shows that the decriminalisation of sex work would serve public health and individual sex worker health best. Criminalisation of any aspect of sex work, including [the Swedish model]…means that the sex industry is driven underground and sex workers and their clients away from health, social and legal services”…The World Health Organisations (WHO) recommends that all states decriminalise sex work. It then becomes easier to take action to protect sex workers from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (TW3 #50)

Once again: the existence of a movie featuring “lurid tall tales” about sex work does no more to prove them than the existence of The Wizard of Oz proves the existence of flying monkeys and talking scarecrows:

…Alexander Perlman…logged thousands of miles and hundreds of hours to make [Lot Lizard, his new documentary about truck stop prostitution]…braving roach motels, crack highs, and homicidal pimps…None of the women…profiled had pimps…and…one of the concerns [Perlman] had…[was] that selecting them downplays the prevalence of pimps and trafficking in the industry. There’s an amazing organization called Truckers Against Trafficking that addresses the issue…

In other words, they couldn’t find any “trafficking” but it must exist because an NGO says so.

Puppet Show

This Swedish model advert from Justine Reilly and her fellow shill Rachel Moran is not unusual except for its naked admission that prohibitionists want sex workers hounded into desperation: “Justine said…that without clients, women…would be thrown out on the streets where they could get support…”

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #312)

A plan by the Social Affairs Ministry to close down 50 red-light districts across Indonesia has caused nervousness among inhabitants of…Sunan Kuning…one of the ministry’s five main targets in a crackdown on prostitution…Ari Istiyadi, field coordinator of NGO Griya Asa PKBI Semarang… expressed his fear that the closure of the prostitution center would create new problems in the social and health fields…

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

“A teenage girl from Georgia disappeared Monday after arranging a meeting with a boy she met on Instagram…Beverly Knepper, 14…had an argument with her parents about seeing a 14-year-old boy named Jahlil…” Predictably, this not-vanishingly-unusual teen behavior triggered a huge panic which was starting to involve “sex trafficking” rhetoric when she was located soon afterward.

I Saw My Brain

…Polk County, Florida [is] unique in the nation for its unadulterated hostility to legal pornography and the people who make it…[its main city is] Lakeland…[whose] police department…is at the center of a sex scandal…[involving] a…crime analyst, Sue Eberle, who was apparently having sex with nearly a dozen of her co-workers…Coercing people into having sex is something sex traffickers do, but in Lakeland it was apparently the pastime for the police…the person asked by legislators to help get Lakeland PD “on track” is none other than…Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd…

One Born Every Minute (TW3 #315)

…a…computer consultant was jailed for 16 months in connection with a “pitiless deception” in which he sought to con hard up students into having sex with him in return for falsely offering to pay their university fees. Mark Lancaster…was exposed following an undercover investigation by The Independent into the website and fictitious business Sponsorascholar.co.uk. The pornography-addicted father-of-two admitted a charge of voyeurism and another of trafficking…

Bottleneck (TW3 #317)

It’s difficult to judge the legitimacy of these claims when none of the alleged victims were interviewed:

Three people who allegedly sourced more than 100 sex workers for Melbourne brothels would be likely to continue operating their lucrative syndicate…a magistrate…said [so] Mae Ja Kim, Moon Ja Kim and Huan Wen Ye were denied bail…Investigations are continuing into possible human trafficking and sex slavery…workers were allegedly transported to Australia, given accommodation, and driven between there and the brothels by about 10 “overseers”…The worker was paid $75 for each appointment, with the syndicate paid at least 50 per cent of the rest…

Legitimate Outrage (TW3 #328)

Spitzer’s return to politics has accomplished at least one good: it has emboldened journalists to speak out against criminalization. Here’s Michael Smerconish of MSNBC:

…we should have an adult conversation about the laws [Spitzer] violated…it’s time to bring the world’s oldest profession aboveboard in communities willing to allow it…let government share in the revenue, but otherwise stay out of the private affairs of consenting adults. Beyond the role of the taxman, prostitution doesn’t warrant the involvement of federal authorities…[to catch him] “they used 5,000 wiretaps. They intercepted 6,000 e-mails. Every hour spent on going after prostitution is an hour that could have been spent on going after…people who victimize”…another argument in support of legalizing…[is that] some among us are never going to find companionship for a variety of reasons…it can’t be healthy for some people to feel the amassed pressure of [sexual] images, and have their personal expectations go unfulfilled…

Keli Goff of the Washington Post called on Tracy Quan for assistance:

…Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer have come back…would the same kind of comeback be possible for the women on the other side of their scandals…could a former prostitute ever run for office and have a real shot, the way that Spitzer, former patron of prostitutes, now does?…Kristin Davis is also running for comptroller…she previously ran…the escort service that Spitzer once used…[but] her bids for office…are seen as little more than publicity stunts…Linda Fondren was a candidate for mayor in Vicksburg, Miss., when it was revealed that she worked as a prostitute decades ago…she broke no laws…was a nationally recognized leader in the field of public health…[and is] intelligent, articulate, telegenic and able to inspire people…[but] lost the primary…Tracy Quan…said…that even for legal sex work, such as exotic dancing, there is a double standard when it comes to stigmatization…a woman who works her way through law school as a stripper would have a tough time being elected to the…Senate but a man who visited strip clubs while in law school would not find that to be an obstacle to the White House…feminists share as much of the blame for this double standard as misogynists…[because they] are dismissive and suspicious of other women who have used their bodies and their beauty to succeed in a professional capacity…

R.I.P. Petite Jasmine

Caty Simon of Tits and Sass interviewed Pye Jakobsson of Rose Alliance about Jasmine’s death and the horrible Swedish model which created the climate that enabled it. Nor was she the only sex worker whose recent stigma-provoked murder has angered sex workers around the world: “A 24-year-old trans woman was stabbed to death in her own home in Turkey…[on] 9 July…Dora Oezer…was found dead by her housemate…sex work is not illegal in Turkey but [because] they are not allowed to work in regulated brothels, trans woman are often left in vulnerable and dangerous positions…” Activists used social media to coordinate “Justice for Jasmine and Dora” protests in many cities yesterday, such as this one in London.

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That Was the Week That Was (#321)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A War for Peace, activism, Africa, Against Their Will, Arizona, Australia, avails laws, Backwards into the Future, bad customers, BDSM, brothels, Cambodia, Canada, censorship, cops, cult of the child, dirty, disability, disease, diversion programs, drugs, East Asia, end demand, evidence, Georgia, Good News-Bad News, Hard Numbers, hysteria, India, Islam, law, Madonna/whore, Malawi, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, New Jersey, New Zealand, No Other Option, One Born Every Minute, Original Sin, Oscillation, pimps, politicians, porn, Profit from Panic, prohibitionist myths, Prudish Pedants, psychology, rape, rescue industry, sex rays, sex work is work, South Africa, streetwalkers, Tennessee, The Crumbling Dam, The Immunity Syndrome, The More the Better, Think of the Children!, Traffic Jam, vaccines, violence vs. sex workers, What If They Threw a Party?, yin and yang, Zimbabwe on May 25, 2013| 31 Comments »

If they would just remove the police from skulking around and arresting those of us who just want to earn a living from a mutually consenting activity, they could actually focus on these terrible things. – Rachel Wotton

Old Folks At Home

Damned amateurs are always screwing everything up:

A man, 75, and a woman, 66, suspected of using cocaine and running a prostitution ring out of their apartments…have been arrested after residents complained about vagrants, drunks and addicts…James Parham and his neighbor Cheryl Chaney…admitted providing prostitutes — mostly young women with crack cocaine addictions — to…younger neighbors…

Backwards into the Future

The Commission for Gender Equality…called for…decriminalisation of sex work [in South Africa]…[CGE commissioner Janine] Hicks said decriminalisation would…allow sex workers to report brothel owners who were involved in trafficking or hiring children…

Meanwhile, in Malawi:

…Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (CHREAA)…in association with the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, recently conducted…research that shows…a vast majority of sex workers are regularly abused [robbed and raped] by the Police…[executive director Victor] Mhango said…sex workers…are at liberty to call the toll free number 8000333 where they can be assisted… “Sex workers deserve to be protected by the law just like any other Malawian as enshrined in the Constitution,” he said…

Against Their Will

Here’s the way rescue industry group International Justice Mission tells it:

…General Sun Ro…led his team of police and IJM support staff to rescue these young women from a brothel where they had been sold and exploited for sex. “You are now no longer oppressed,” General Sun Ro began, urging the young women to take advantage of the opportunities, vocational training programs and aftercare services available to them as sex trafficking survivors…

And here’s the reality. Obviously, the general doesn’t consider beatings and gang rape by the police to be forms of oppression.

Prudish Pedants

…a federal district court in Georgia ruled that a series of stories written or edited by Frank McCoy were obscene, and thus he violated 18 USC 1462 in “transporting” obscene works…the subject matter is…definitely…extreme [“the sexual abuse, rape, torture and murder of children”]…but…McCoy…had a distinguished English professor testify on his behalf that the works had “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value”…the judge disagreed…

Oscillation

Another example of how neofeminists play fast and loose with the facts:

A few months ago, a post…[stated] that [when]…junior high…students were asked what they would do if they woke up “transformed into the opposite sex,” the girls showed mixed emotions but the boys [said]…”Kill myself”…the source [was]…The Gendered Society by Michael Kimmel…[whose] reference [was] a 1984 book called The Longest War: Sex Differences in Perspective…the claim…seemed to have no basis at all, other than one comment…The Gendered Society…briefly acknowledges that women’s earnings are driven down by family-related work interruptions–but still treats gender gaps in pay and advancement almost entirely as…discrimination…[it] uncritically repeats tales…that girls’ self-esteem “plummets” in junior high school–without mentioning that they have been strongly disputed…by mainstream psychologists…The Gendered Society also [claims that] the United States…”has the highest rate of reported rape in the industrial world–about eighteen times higher than England”…[but] according to United Nations statistics, in 2010 the reported rape rate in the U.S.–27.3 per 100,000 people–was slightly lower than in England and Wales, at 28.8 per 100,000…if it is indeed the most balanced gender studies textbook available–which may well be true–that says a lot about the rest.

The Immunity Syndrome (TW3 #19)

…the “sex superbug” that “could be worse than AIDS” which was supposedly “found in Hawaii [and] California” turns out to be just another media-promoted terror story. “The [gonorrhea] super-strain…[which] infected a female Japanese sex worker in 2011…has been found nowhere else,” [reported Jonathan Weiss of MedicalDaily.com] The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have affirmed that the bacterium has failed to appear anywhere else in the world beyond the single case in Japan…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #20)

This includes far too much “whore as victim” rhetoric, but it’s a step:

[Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario] Police Chief, Bob Davies…[announced] it will be new police policy to not release the names and addresses of individuals involved in prostitution type charges. Moreover, the police department will make a major shift away from enforcement against women (or men) involved in the sex trade. Instead officers will be trained to engage and identify the underlying factors that drive women into a lifestyle of selling sex and then connect them to agencies…which can assist individuals out of the sex industry…

Traffic Jam (TW3 #21)

…Project ROSE—a collaboration between the Phoenix Police Department…and a number of local service organizations–[conducted] a three day raid targeting sex workers…Advocates have distributed “know your rights” information amongst communities who may be affected…[and] a…protest…[was held] Thursday May 16…in front of the “command post” at Bethany Bible Church…Arrestees…with no prior arrests for sex work, no outstanding warrants, and no…drugs at the time of arrest…have the option of “diversion” to Project ROSE or incarceration on a prostitution charge…[which] in Arizona can be a death sentence…

Few arrestees qualify for the “diversion” program, and of those who do only a third complete it.

Think of the Children! (TW3 #23)

“A weekend festival in [Baltimore] that promised classes on bondage, role play and other sexual techniques has been canceled after the new operators of the Clarence H. Du Burns Arena decided the erotic exposition was not appropriate at a facility also used for children’s sports practices…” Obviously, the sex rays emitted from all these dirty people would contaminate the structure, inducing the dreaded Premature Sexualization in the innocent little moppets who entered the building later.

Good News, Bad News (TW3 #30)

Rebecca Davies…and…other sex workers and supporters…will protest against the 2011 Prostitution Bill which is expected to be re-introduced and to demand full decriminalisation…Ms Davies said…the Bill would make WA the most dangerous place in Australia to be a sex worker…licensing, where employee’s full names were available for clients to see, could risk their safety and privacy…only about 10 per cent of sex workers would comply…Sex workers had to advertise a landline phone number, not a mobile, as one of the conditions – a restriction not placed on any other industry…

The More The Better (TW3 #32)

They are likely Hamilton [New Zealand]’s biggest brothel keepers, with 500 girls on their books in the seven years since they began their foray into the sex industry. Tattooed, shady characters with underworld connections? Far from it. She’s the secretary of the PTA and…he’s a well-spoken former musician…the pair own a small…software development business…Hamilton’s two best-known brothels, and soon, a private swingers club…

Zimbabwe (TW3 #33)

This article about Zimbabwe’s repeated “crackdowns” on whores (and the way they keep netting amateurs) is mostly familiar ground and silly stereotypes, but does include two points of interest: one, that “legislator Tabitha Khumalo has…threatened to expose fellow legislators who have gallivanted with those she calls ‘pleasure managers’ if they refuse to back [decriminalization]”; and two, that the Open Society Foundation’s 2012 study of the six nations with similar policies of “harassing and [physically] abusing…sex workers” included Zimbabwe along with Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, and [wait for it] the United States.

Profit from Panic (TW3 #40)

Hey, kids, be the first in your neighborhood to be “trafficked”! Have fun! Win prizes!

Students at Colonial Middle school [in Memphis, Tennessee] have spent the last few weeks learning about the growing problem…of sex trafficking including prostitution…“I think its [sic] appropriate for middle school because if you look at the statistics of human trafficking the majority of people that get pulled in are between the ages of 12 to 14”…[said teacher Jennifer Shiberou]…

What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? (TW3 #42)

…In Australia, which began use of the HPV vaccine in 2007, cases of genital warts in young women aged 12 – 26 dropped 59 percent, and 39 percent for men…The…vaccine caused quite the uproar here in the States. The usual antivaxxers hated it because, well, it’s a vaccine, but there was also mainstream fear-mongering, as well as being demonized by the conservatives, who said it would lead to promiscuity. That last is pure nonsense; in fact, a new study shows no significant increase in sexual activity in young women who have had the vaccine over those who have not…

No Other Option (TW3 #46)

Here’s another good interview with the amazing Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton, who specializes in disabled clients and founded the charity Touching Base. Its only sour note is at the end, where interviewer Wendy Syfret seems determined to drag “trafficking and degradation” mythology into what is otherwise a very positive piece.

Hard Numbers (TW3 #311)

…Steph Key…[introduced] another attempt to decriminalise sex work after her previous bill failed by one vote in November. The new legislation would give sex workers and their employers the same access to the WorkCover scheme as other…businesses…retains laws that make sex work by a person aged under 18, or with a client under that age, illegal…wipes clean past sex work convictions …makes it illegal to discriminate against a person who is or has been a sex worker…[and] removes laws against living off the earnings of a prostitute…

According to Because I’m a Whore, this bill is much better than the last one and has the support of sex workers; if passed, South Australia would be the third place in the world to have true decriminalization.

Original Sin

The “Trafficking in America Task Force” looks at first like any other silly rescue industry NGO, but a little digging reveals some really bizarre stuff, including the assertion that the true cause of “sex trafficking” is PORN!

Statistics show that many times it starts with pornography…One look as a child, continued looks as a teenagers, perhaps buying sex for the first time as a young adult, expecting your female partner, girl friend, or wife to act as the prostituted women act. When they don’t your relationship turns to self gratification rather than intimacy. You ay [sic] turn to violent sex with those you buy…Then…you want to pay for younger victims — and — you — are — stuck — in a — cycle…when you look at pictures of women you are branding us as objects for your own pleasure, objects of no value. We are human beings…Jesus said, “I did not give you a spirit of fear — but a spirit of power, and of love, and of SOUND MIND.” Ask him to help you…Addiction to pornography is a type of emotional and mental trafficking…

A War for Peace (TW3 #313)

I’m beginning to think her mother is right:

…Amina Tyler…passed through heavy security and checkpoints to enter the city of Kairouan, where police were preventing hardline conservative Islamists from holding an annual conference. There she unveiled her bleach [sic] blonde hair and cutoff jeans, scrawled “FEMEN” on the wall of a cemetery near the city’s main mosque, and attempted to take off her clothes…The protest enraged local residents who converged on her, and police took her into custody…Her mother, Wafa, [said] her daughter needed help and was being treated by a psychiatrist…

One Born Every Minute (TW3 #319)

…Shatabdi Saha, a banker…with the Usha Multipurpose Cooperative Society…conducts…sessions…[in spotting counterfeit] because…many customers had started palming off fake notes…for their services…”If customers give them counterfeit notes, it’s a great loss for them,” [said] DMSC secretary Bharati Dey…unlike others, sex workers cannot go to the police to report such fake notes. “The police will start harassing them instead of helping them”…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (TW3 #319)

…the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) announced it will no longer fund research based on DSM…for the simple reason that [it] is irrelevant to determining the cause and treatment of psychological problems…it…doesn’t point to the actual causes…that drive and maintain disorders…[its] categories are not discrete…and…it…fails to account for comorbidity…this fifth edition is just moving a few deck chairs on a sinking ship…Soon we’ll need to…lower the lid, hammer it down, and bury the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

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That Was the Week That Was (#318)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A False Dichotomy, Above the Law, Across the Pond, activism, adolescence, Africa, agency denial, Amazingly Stupid Statements, An Example to the West, Australia, Birth of a Movement, Broken Record, brothels, California, censorship, Central Asia, China, Colorado, consensual crime, cops, dehumanization, East Asia, end demand, escort review sites, France, Germany, hysteria, Illinois, India, internet, Kentucky, language, law, Law of the Instrument, LGBT rights, Maryland, Massachusetts, Middle East, Moloch, Monsters, neofeminism, Nevada, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, rape, Russia, Science!, sex education, sex offender registry, Social Autoimmune Disorder, Something Rotten In Sweden, South Africa, sporting events, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Tennessee, Texas, Thailand, The Immunity Syndrome, The Public Eye, The Widening Gyre, Traffic Jam, Twitter, United Kingdom, video, Vietnam, violence vs. sex workers on May 4, 2013| 24 Comments »

Moralists…always ignore the unpalatable truth that sex work is not oppression…but…opportunity. – Douglas Fox

Science!

If drought turns women into whores, what disaster turns them into politicians?

Several [congresscritters claim]…that climate change…could…drive poor women to “transactional sex”…The resolution, from Rep. Barbara Lee…and a dozen other Democrats, says…”[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health”…

“Vulnerable to sex work” may be an even more agency-annihilating phrase than “prostituted woman”.

Amazingly Stupid Statements

In another fine example of a pro-sex worker article by a non-sex worker, Clementine Ford debunks five amazingly stupid anti-whore arguments:

…a number of [recent] conversations around sex work, autonomy and feminism…trotted out the tired idea that sex work degrades and harms all women…I have a number of [sex worker] friends and acquaintances…and I’m tired of seeing their lives denigrated because of how they choose to make money…Demonising sex workers under the guise of “helping” them is simply a way of expressing puritanical snobbery…[and] relies more on myths and prejudices than any real knowledge…

This one by Jane Gilmore didn’t get nearly as much press, but it’s also very good.

Social Autoimmune Disorder

Western Australia’s war on whores continues: “The City of Vincent is considering a high-tech surveillance system that captures…licence plate information to help track kerb crawlers…mayor Alannah MacTiernan said…statistics proved more needed to be done to stamp out street prostitution and protect residents…she…also wants to name and shame people convicted of soliciting…” Obviously, there is no actual crime in Vincent.

A False Dichotomy

Douglas Fox of Harlot’s Parlour, on the flexibility of sex work:

…Sex work…is one of the few areas…that allows the worker a wide variety of choices in how…where…and when they work. It…provides a relatively good [cash]…return…for those…with few choices or…who need to make money quickly and anonymously…This…is…why sex work survives and flourishes no matter how [persecuted it is]…

Law of the Instrument

This article starts by claiming that “Police have a growing fear about the spread of human trafficking” due to “the growth of gambling in Maryland”. But the text (which reads more like a Salvation Army screed than a news item) is about the cops “rescuing” a hooker by deceiving her, arresting her and abducting her children so she can be “saved from selling her body.” After reading that, I feel I need to wash my eyeballs.

Moloch

Harsh public registration laws often punish youth sex offenders for life and do little to protect public safety, Human Rights Watch said in…Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US…the laws…[make] them targets for harassment, humiliation, and even violence…[and] severely restrict where, and with whom [they] may live, work, attend school, or even spend time…Human Rights Watch interviewed 281 youth sex offenders, whose median age at offense was 15, across 20 states, as well as hundreds of offenders’ family members, defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement officials, experts on the topic, and victims of child-on-child sexual assault…Numerous studies estimate the recidivism rate among children who commit sexual offenses to be between 4 and 10 percent, compared with a 13 percent rate for adult sex offenders and a national rate of 45 percent for all crimes…

Above the Law

“Monica Contreras went to family court with her 2-year-old daughter in August 2011….on a routine divorce case”, but as she was leaving the Las Vegas courtroom Ron Fox, a bailiff-like cop called a “marshal”, ordered her into an anteroom (supposedly for a “drug search”) and groped her. She went back into the courtroom and complained to the presiding official, Patricia Donninger, who literally ignored her; Fox then had her arrested for “false allegations made against a police officer.” Nothing was done until the video below was discovered and publicized by KLAS-TV; Fox was fired but is suing to get his job back, and Donninger is being investigated.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, a cop named Aravanh Lakmany was sentenced to only two years in jail after pleading guilty to “extortion by threat and three counts of solicitation of prostitutes,” thus escaping a much longer sentence and sex offender registration for raping three whores.

Traffic Jam

Another fourth-rate playwright capitalizes on human trafficking; this one apparently thinks it’s “edgy” or profound to refer to sex workers as “roadkill”:

Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents Roadkill, an immersive, theatrical event spotlighting the global issue of sex trafficking. Based on real-life experiences, the American premiere of Cora Bissett’s chilling production…[allows] audience members…to witness firsthand the brutal realities behind the newspaper headlines…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (TW3 #25)

I’m shocked, SHOCKED I say, to discover that the “Trafficking in Persons Report” is nothing but a political tool:

…the United States may have been giving special treatment to major powers China, Russia, and India…[and] let even Uzbekistan off the hook…because of the repressive nation’s cooperation in getting supplies to American troops in Afghanistan…Iraq and Thailand too have seen their potential ranking downgrades delayed while Vietnam has won a premature ranking boost…due to strategic considerations…legislators and ex-state officials charged at a U.S. congressional hearing…

Broken Record

This story is noteworthy in that the quoted cop, while still buying the “gypsy whores” myth, only exaggerates the coercion rate by a factor of about 5 instead of the typical 45 or 50:

…beneath the pageantry, sport and spectacle, Kentucky Derby time is also the darkest hour for victims of human trafficking. “We have high rates,” said Gretchen Hunt…[of] the Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs…the phenomenon…accompanies other major sporting events in the United States, an influx of men willing to pay for sex. Sgt. Andre Bottoms, of the Louisville…Police…estimates about ten percent of hundreds of prostitutes in Louisville this week are being forced or coerced…

The Public Eye

Caty Simon of Tits and Sass continues a string of good interviews, this time with veteran activist Carol Leigh (AKA Scarlot Harlot), originator of the term “sex worker”. Carol speaks about the growth of activism, trafficking hysteria, neofeminism and whore art.

The Birth of a Movement (TW3 #39)

Remember, prostitution is supposedly legal in France:

For the past five years, Lyon has enforced bylaws prohibiting the parking of prostitutes’ trucks in much of the city, forcing them into the Gerland industrial district. The city has now issued orders to prohibit this as well, but the girls stayed…Karen, their spokeswoman, reaffirmed that they would not leave despite “unprecedented” police operations: “We are forced to stay. There was nowhere to go. When you try to move to other parts of Greater Lyon…you are immediately driven out by the police.” Since March 19, the…police have patrolled the area three to four times a week…to enforce the bylaw…and…discourage the clients…the mayor says she is not seeking “the eradication of prostitution” in Gerland…[but claims she has had] a “flood” of complaint letters from local businesses…the police are also continuing to use the offense of passive soliciting to “identify trafficking networks and pimps”…[despite the fact that] the Senate repealed the offense on March 29…

Across the Pond (TW3 #45)

This article on Edinburgh’s saunas (tolerated brothels) is fairly respectful; the only people quoted are sex workers (including advocate Laura Lee) and a punter, the dysphemisms are kept to a bare minimum, sex work is recognized as work and the threat posed by Rhoda Grant’s attempt to impose the Swedish model is mentioned.

An Example to the West (TW3 #49)

Sex workers…demanded representation in all policy making bodies…dealing with them. “People who make laws don’t know anything about our issues, concerns and why we do this work. So, policy making bodies must have our representatives,” said a participant from Ajmer…[they] also…rooted for self regulatory boards like Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) in Kolkata and Ashodhaya in Mysore to check violence in sex work and trafficking…

Also in India, a government official stated that “There should be no pre-condition that sex workers must give up their profession to get social benefits…”

The Immunity Syndrome (TW3 #50)

…a sex-education book…in Berlin elementary schools has some parents up in arms…Wo kommst du her? [“Where Do You Come From?”]…is recommended for ages 5 and up [and] shows a couple…in various stages of arousal. In one illustration, Lisa puts a condom on Lars’ erect penis…The text also veers toward the explicit. “When it’s so good that it can’t get any better, Lisa and Lars have an orgasm,” it reads. And…”The vagina and penis feel nice and tingly and warm”…Parents began to complain…but the school did nothing…until it was reported in the local press…

Something Rotten in Sweden (TW3 #135)

Local news station “discovers” a practice which has existed for over 15 years; pearl-clutching, dysphemisms and political opportunism ensue:

People like to read reviews online before buying a car or reserving a hotel room. But one website, http://www.eccie.net…allows users to review the services of local prostitutes…the idea that you can review prostitutes has a lot of people concerned…Jenny Ford…[of] ACH Child and Family Services…says people posting on sites like this often use kinky sex and prostitution as a cover up for sex trafficking…State Senator Leticia Van De Putte…[has] filed…a bill that go [sic] after the people using them…

Awakening

Those of you who followed the #whenantisattack hashtag on Twitter back on March 3^rd know the sort of abuse sex workers have to put up with; because of her prominence Dr. Brooke Magnanti gets more (and more severe) than most of us, and after a particularly nasty barrage last Saturday she wrote this essay on why it’s so very important that even angry perverts not be censored by “hate speech” laws.

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #314)

I wonder how many other cases of “sex trafficking” are exactly the same:

A missing 18-year-old Aurora [Colorado] woman [named Raven Cassidy Furlong]…was found…[after] police received a tip that she was sighted in Venice Beach…at tryouts for American Ninja Warrior…Furlong was taken to the police station [but released] once they ascertained she was in California of her own free will…Her family believes she was coerced into saying she’s OK. “We know what Raven gave was a canned speech…They’ve been coerced to believe their families are bad, this is common in human trafficking,” [said] Shelley Shaffer, Director of the National Women’s Coalition Against Violence & Exploitation…

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t need to be “coerced” into wanting to escape from parents who infantilized me and were willing to use armed thugs to force me to live with them.

Monsters

Three “gay and effeminate” teens have died after being starved, tortured and killed at a camp that promised to turn them into “men”…Raymond Buys, 15 [died]…in April 2011…just 10 weeks [after he entered] the Echo Wild Game Rangers training course in South Africa in perfect health…Buys was severely malnourished, dehydrated, his arm was broken in two places and there were burns and wounds all over his body…Alex De Koker, 49, and employee Michael Erasmus, 20, are on trial for charges of murder, child abuse and neglect…[tentmate] Gerhard Oostuizen, 19, claims Buys was chained to his bed every night…refused permission to visit the toilet…forced to eat his own faeces…beaten with planks, hosepipes and sticks…[and tased while] tied…to a chair naked with his head covered in a pillowcase…Eric Calitz, 18, and Nicolaas Van Der Walt, 19, had both died after being enrolled at the…camp four years earlier…Calitz…died of…seizure, dehydration and [cerebral hemorrhage, and] Van Der Walt…appeared to have been choked with a seatbelt. In 2009, De Koker was handed a suspended sentence over Calitz but escaped charges for…Van Der Walt, and the camp was allowed to continue…

The Widening Gyre (TW3 #317)

You know a moral panic is nearing collapse when it becomes a default bogeyman: “The state representative behind Tennessee’s “ag-gag” bill compared Humane Society…investigations to human trafficking of 17-year-old women…”

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That Was the Week That Was (#48)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged activism, Africa, agency denial, Australia, Backlash, brothels, cell phones, Coming and Going, Coming Out, condoms, Confined and Controlled, cops, dehumanization, dirty, disease, Drama Queens, drugs, end demand, escort services, Europe, evidence, Hall of Shame, Hard Numbers, hysteria, India, Ireland, language, law, Madonna/whore, neofeminism, New York, Nigeria, One Born Every Minute, pimps, porn, psychology, scams, Social Construction of Eunuchs, South Africa, statistics, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Sweden, Swedish model, Switzerland, tabula rasa, The Course of a Disease, Train Wreck, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Protests?, yin and yang on December 1, 2012| 27 Comments »

The reality is that those who target sex workers do so because sex work is so stigmatised and criminalised and perpetrators perceive sex workers as easy targets. – Alex Bryce

Pet Peeves

Ah, validation:

The Associated Press has nixed “homophobia”…and a number of other terms from its Style Book…”-phobia…an irrational, uncontrollable fear…[is unacceptable] in political or social contexts,” including “homophobia” and “Islamophobia”…AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn [said]…”Homophobia…[is] just off the mark. It’s ascribing a mental disability to someone…Instead, we would use something more neutral [like] anti-gay…”

Drama Queens

The big story of the week was sent to me by over a dozen readers:

…A new study…suggests that porn stars have higher self-esteem, a better quality of life and body image, and are more spiritual than their non-adult entertainment counterparts. Researchers compared the self-reports of 177 porn actresses to a sample of women matched on age, ethnicity, and marital status. Comparisons were conducted on sexual behaviors and attitudes, self-esteem, quality of life and drug use. The study found that porn actresses were more likely to identify as bisexual and to say they enjoyed sex. They also reported having sex for the first time at a younger age, 15, than their counterparts in the control group, 17. Porn stars were no more likely to have had endured sexual abuse than those in the control group…

Had the study been of sex workers in general, the results would’ve been almost exactly the same. Of course, neofeminists instantly launched into tirades of denial, like this exceptionally bizarre one from Sheila “Penis-in-Vagina Sex is Unnatural” Jeffreys:

“Pornography is likely…to be more severe than other forms of prostitution in its effects…The women are penetrated over long periods of time, often hours…having to take a number of drugs to survive the pain…painkillers [are] also used in prostitution inside the vagina…muscle relaxants and drugs to disassociate mind from body to survive the violation, such as marijuana and heroin. Women who are interviewed whilst still in prostitution give very different responses from those who have left, often to protect their sense of self”…Jeffreys [also] said…women were unlikely to benefit in any way from working in the adult industry…

That’s right, ladies, the Great Oracle Sheila says we use “painkillers inside the vagina” to “survive the violation”. I guess I just don’t remember because of false consciousness and all.

Social Construction of Eunuchs

Another hint at Swedish neofeminists’ endgame: “One of the largest toy chains in Sweden published a gender-neutral Christmas catalogue, which pictured boys playing with dolls and girls holding toy machine guns…Top Toy has produced children’s Christmas catalogues in Denmark and Sweden…though the catalogues’ page layouts are the same in both countries, the gender of the pictured kids is reversed in the Swedish edition…” In Sweden, the word “neutral” apparently mean “reverse”; keep that in mind if you ever have to drive a Saab or Volvo.

One Born Every Minute

An English con-man set up a website named “SponsorAScholar.co.uk” to trick naïve coeds into having sex with him as a supposed “audition” for a sugar daddy referral service. The Independent sent a young female reporter to meet the “assessor” in the upscale venue he named – a McDonald’s in Woolwich – but a male reporter posing as a potential client was told there was a “waiting list”. The website (which has since vanished) was even registered with bogus information, yet most non-sex workers commenting online do not seem to understand that the whole deal was a scam. These are the same people who believe that they are more qualified to make judgments about whores’ lives than we are.

The Course of a Disease

It appears that “Swedish model” rot won’t be penetrating India anytime soon: “A lawyer…[contends] that it is illegal to arrest the customer of a sex worker…Representing…[a group of men victimized by a police sting], advocate Prabhanjan Dave pointed out that there is no provision under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act…under which a customer can be made an accused…”

Attempts to impose the tyranny on Scotland and Northern Ireland continue, however; this excellent essay by Alex Bryce, coordinator of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, criticizes the “narrow ideological belief that consenting sex between two adults is wrong if…money is involved and that all sex work is…an act of violence against women.” He explains the horrible effects the model has had in Sweden and points out that its proponents think their prudish beliefs are more important than real people; Rhoda Grant, for example, “claimed that damage to individual sex workers was a ‘price worth paying’” for her goal of demonizing male sexuality and infantilizing women.

Bryce’s overview of the negative effects, however, doesn’t go into quite the detail that this thorough overview on Glasgow Sex Worker does; police tactics in Swedish model jurisdictions (and those employing its nasty little sister, “end demand”) include verbal, physical and sexual harassment of whores, condom criminalization, accusing transgender workers of buying sex and videotaping women engaged in sex acts. In neofeminist “thought”, consensually appearing in porn is “rape” or “exploitation”, but being the nonconsensual subject of police porn-making isn’t.

Confined and Controlled

The New York Times bemoans the fact that Indian whores are using cell phones to go independent, making it harder for their betters to control them. Busybody bureaucrats and self-appointed saviors moan that this will undoubtedly cause an HIV epidemic because whores are just too stupid to use condoms on their own without “officials” watching over them like children in a kindergarten:

Millions once bought sex in…Kamathipura…but prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere…endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS. Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels…may one day cost them, and many others, their lives…[because] independence has made prostitutes far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace…

Just in case the reader recognizes that these whores are demonstrating autonomy and agency, the reporter hastens to assure him that “Vicious madams still exist, human trafficking is still rampant [and] village girls are still duped into the trade.” Because the only things scarier to prudes than sexually-transmitted diseases are women in control of their own sexuality.

Hall of Shame

Regular readers know my “Hall of Shame” is reserved for those who have dishonored our profession by their sleazy, stupid, unethical behavior, and today I have the great displeasure to announce its fifth inductee, escort Jenna Shea:

…Shea…famously recounted intimate details of her sexual exploits with several rappers during [a radio] interview …has once again been revealing her clients. Her latest conquest is allegedly a Houston Rockets star, who is reported to have recently paid $20,000 for an evening…Shea has openly bragged about her popularity amongst the athletic community on her twitter profile: “I get paid by the NBA so much, I should be signed to a team #literally while u basic hoes watch from tv FOH”…

For outing clients, buying into whorearchy and demonstrating a truly epic level of tackiness, Jenna Shea becomes the first escort in the HoS (joining a halfway whore, a porn actress, a madam and a brothel owner). NB: This story comes via a site named “Girl Directory”, which Aspasia discovered is dangerous to link on WordPress; to see the original article Google the name of the whore plus the name of that site.

Coming Out

Jessie Nicole on the benefits and difficulties of coming out as a sex worker; the more stories like this one are published, the harder it will be for prohibitionists to promote their lies about our work.

Train Wreck

The predictable result of government anti-whore propaganda in Nigeria:

The Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund (WF) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have [petitioned the government]…to stop the war…currently being waged against women in Abuja by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB). For over a year unidentified armed men under the authority of the AEPB have brutalised women…on the pretext of “eradicating commercial sex workers in Abuja”…[all kinds of women] have been forcibly abducted and taken to purported installations of law enforcement…tortured into ‘confessing’ and forcibly transferred to an alleged rehabilitation camp…maintained by the Society Against Prostitution and Child Labour in Nigeria (SAPCLN)…

The Giving Season

I asked y’all to avoid giving to the Salvation Army due to its anti-whore stance and promotion of “sex trafficking” hysteria, but Aspasia has gone one better by compiling this list of worthy charities to which you might consider contributing instead. And if you want to protest more directly, you could print the illustration and shove it into bell-ringers’ kettles in place of money.

Metaupdates

Backlash (TW3 #10)

…Sex work activists argue that enforcing [criminalization] absorbs significant resources that, given South Africa’s high crime levels, would be better deployed elsewhere. A recent study by the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC), Sisonke…and the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) found that seven out of ten surveyed sex workers reported some form of abuse by police…The study, titled “Stop harassing us! Tackle real crime!”, draws on interviews with 308 sex workers…its findings indicate that police may be the primary abusers of sex workers…[and that] the existing legal framework encourages police corruption and abuse…

Hard Numbers (TW3 #20)

Politicians decide “sending a message” is more important than safety, logic or human rights: “A…bill to decriminalise prostitution in South Australia has been withdrawn from state parliament. Status of Women Minister Gail Gago…said she would now work with interested MPs who supported decriminalisation to consider an alternative model…”

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #38)

Swiss prostitution laws vary from canton to canton, and Zurich seems determined to greatly increase the number of women who work illegally:

Zurich…officials [claim that sex work] has got out of control…street prostitution is being moved to three designated areas to try to make it safer and more discreet…sex workers…will have to be at least 18 years old…brothels [will] have to [buy] licences…[for] 300 francs…[plus] inspection fees. And street prostitutes will have to fork out 40 francs for their own licences subject to having a work permit, being registered with a health insurer and taking counselling sessions with the Flora Dora advisory service…they will [also] need to buy a [five-franc] ticket from a machine [every night they work]…

As if the naked paternalism and infantilization of mandatory “counseling” isn’t bad enough, registration schemes never work because most hookers don’t want to be on any list accessible to bureaucrats. Welfare official Michael Herzig claims that currently “…pimps…decide the prices”, but from what I’ve heard from European sex workers pimps are even rarer there than in the US; I guess the city of Zurich is trying to change that by installing itself as the omnipimp.

Coming and Going (TW3 #39)

Anna Gristina is finally free, and when district attorney Cyrus Vance tried to look tough by referring to her as a “pimp” who “rented women’s bodies for profit” (because obviously hookers are mindless, passive vegetables who stay wherever we’re put), her lawyer had this to say: “She pled out to a sting operation by one cop — who paid $2,000 in taxpayers money to watch two women engage in cunnilingus…So who’s the pimp?”

Where Are the Protests? (TW3 #45)

A 22-year-old man [named Hai Van Vo] who was smuggled into the UK from Vietnam in a shipping container has been jailed for…27 months…[for] running [a] cannabis farm [and] will be deported when he is released…Vo had had little contact with the outside world…had no bed and worked to instructions given to him by others…

This Week in 2010 and 2011

My two previous columns about Toys for Tots and my two previous ones on whores’ age of debut were accompanied by essays on the history of harm reduction, a fake “trafficking study” done by marketers, a thoroughly awful madam, confusing images with reality, and the true motivations of the rescue industry and sex-abuse investigators. We also looked at my favorite movies, more hooker songs and short items on safety, Charlie Sheen, escort ads, a mega-brothel and cops persecuting a disabled client.

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That Was the Week That Was (#40)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, acting, Acting and Activism, activism, Africa, Australia, Backwards into the Future, BDSM, California, Catholicism, contraception, cops, Cosmopolitan, Counterfeit Comfort, dirty, disease, Down Under, drugs, end demand, ethics, Europe, Feet of Clay, Follow Your Bliss, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, harm reduction, holidays, Hollywood, hysteria, imaginative fiction, Iran, Ireland, King of the Hill, Latin America, law, Little Boxes, Madonna/whore, Middle East, Misdirection, Missouri, My Body My Choice, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, porn, Presents, Profit from Panic, Prudish Pedants, psychology, sex offender registry, sex rays, South Africa, streetwalkers, tabula rasa, The Public Eye, Think of the Children!, TSA, video, virginity, yin and yang on October 6, 2012| 22 Comments »

[A] silly uberfeminist crusader…once called me a sex addict in a national newspaper…To some…[that] would be the gravest insult; to me it was the intellectual equivalent of claiming I am Father Christmas. – Brooke Magnanti

King of the Hill

The latest entry in the contest to claim bragging rights for “biggest sex trafficking hub in the United States”: “Reports from cities with federal Innocence Lost Task Forces lists Toledo [Ohio] as the third largest city for human trafficking and sex slavery…” Previous claimants include New York, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Phoenix, Arizona; and the entire state of Tennessee.

Updates

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

A southwest Missouri woman who says she shared her bed for years with her husband and his sex slave has decided she needs help defending herself against five federal charges. Marilyn Bagley… is charged with conspiracy, sex trafficking, forced labor trafficking, document servitude and use of an interstate facility to facilitate unlawful activity. She and her husband, Edward, are scheduled for trial in February.

My Body, My Choice

Note that prohibitionist “feminists” had no comment on this: “Former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith…[who] founded Shared Hope International…said that efforts to stop the sell [sic] and trade of minors in the sex industry should be an extension of the ‘pro-life’ cause.”

Acting and Activism

“President Obama is not alone in the fight to end sex trafficking. Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino…[is] starring in a new Hollywood film, Trade of Innocents, following a sex trafficking ring in Cambodia.” Thanks, CNN; had you not told me that Obama wasn’t alone in pandering to hysteria, I would never have known.

Backwards into the Future

Even some politicians in Zimbabwe have more respect for human rights than their American counterparts:

Zimbabwe Parliamentarians against HIV and AIDS…wants government to decriminalise commercial sex work…The Director of the Public Personalities against AIDS Trust, Tendai Westerhof, [also] condemned criminalisation of sex workers…“It is disappointing that the country still criminalises sex work…these people suffer a lot as a result of the discriminatory laws…They are raped and cannot report such abuses. As a result, they cannot access health services”…

Meanwhile, in South Africa, sex worker rights group SWEAT recently made a presentation in their parliament.

Down Under

Though the Australian cops in this story subscribe to fashionable “end demand” malarkey, some of them also admit that client persecution harms streetwalkers:

As a crackdown on kerb crawlers in St Kilda intensifies, street sex workers could be moving…to…Dandenong or Footscray, or [using smartphone] apps to meet clients in unsafe areas. Police tried unsuccessfully for decades to curb the trade by targeting workers…But halfway through the new two-year strategy, they noticed that the switch to targeting clients was having unwanted consequences. ”If we do push them out of the area, they won’t necessarily all leave the industry – and they’ll either adopt online or they’ll go and work in another location”…said [Senior Sergeant Brad Daly]. ”We might be creating things that we haven’t thought of yet”…lawyer Vanda Hamilton works with more than 50 legal and illegal sex workers and said…she feared many were being forced into troubling scenarios. She said the only way to ensure safety was to follow New South Wales’ example by legalising street-sex work…”You’re never going to stop sex work, you’re just going to push it so far underground that you can’t help people”…

Guess what, Brad? Virtually none of them are leaving the industry; they’re just going where you can’t see them.

Counterfeit Comfort

More of this, please (but where’s the ACLU?)

Less than a month after approving restrictions on Halloween activities by registered sex offenders, the city of Simi Valley has been sued…the…law bans Halloween displays and outside lighting every Oct. 31…[and] requires a sign on the front door in letters at least an inch tall: “No candy or treats at this residence.” Both the prohibition on decorations and the mandatory sign violate free speech rights, according to the lawsuit. A total of 119 registered sex offenders live in Simi Valley…None has been involved in crimes involving children on Halloween, according to police, who say they have no records of any such crime occurring in Simi Valley during Halloween trick-or-treating…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the newest, even stupider adjunct to “sex addiction”:

…The Daily Mail…claims [that young men] are addicted…[to] Viagra…[which unlike sex] is a pharmaceutical drug…[which] could [conceivably produce] physical dependency…[their “proof” consists of an]…interview [with] exactly one guy who uses Viagra a lot during sex…and…one…“psychosexual counselor”…who says this is “just a small sample of the problem”…Any studies…Any scientific research in any labs anywhere? Because I…don’t see any. At. All. Reading further down the article I see their real target: porn “addiction”…[and] sexually empowered women…How dare the ladies express interest and enjoyment in sex! Why won’t we just lie back and think of England like we’re supposed to!?…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Mere days after I added it to my Amazon wishlist, a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, which I somehow never got around to reading before. Thank you so very much!

Profit from Panic

Hey, kids! Fight “human trafficking” for fun and profit! Implicate your neighbors! Persecute sex workers! Win big prizes! “To raise awareness of human trafficking…the Department of Justice and Equality in Dublin and the Department of Justice in Belfast will launch a photography and video competition for Third Level students…Research human trafficking and present your understanding of the issue through a photograph or short video…Winners of each category will receive…1^st prize €1,000…2^nd prize €500…3^rd prize €250.”

Prudish Pedants

Here’s an interesting article debunking the fallacious notion that some kinds of porn are more “positive” than others, that “erotica” is intrinsically different from porn and that men can be “taught” to reject the kind of porn they prefer in favor of the kind women prefer…argued from a marketing perspective rather than a traditionally psychological one. One important point: “Human minds are not passive and infinitely malleable receptacles prone to any form of socialization and learning. Successful marketers are well aware of this reality. Ideologues, including some academics in the ivory tower, have much to learn!”

Misdirection

Remember when controversy over contraception was only something we read about in history books or in reference to unusually conservative Catholics? I sure do. But over the last two decades that equine carcass has been dragged out of the glue factory and is once again being set upon by sex-hating control freaks trying to call attention away from the uncontrolled tumescence of government, national debt and the police state. The fact that the public obediently paid attention to this distraction has enabled lots of crazy people, including a group of nuns who produced an anti-contraception video chock full of propaganda because they obviously forgot that lying makes Baby Jesus cry:

Feet of Clay

Anne Elizabeth Moore and Melissa Gira Grant write:

This week Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn’s book Half The Sky premieres on PBS as a two-part miniseries, providing an opportunity for his audience to step into his well-worn white savior shoes…viewers will survey the lives of young women whom Kristof and WuDunn have chosen as the best ciphers for their agenda…to…“turn oppression into opportunity”…[by] proposing dubious schemes for advancing women’s rights—like arresting sex workers in order to “rescue” them from prostitution, or enthusiastically supporting the creation of “sweatshops” to accommodate sex workers and other women in the global south…

In response, Moore & Grant presented a “collective evaluation” of Nicholas Kristof, in other words excerpts from essays by Laura Agustín, Teju Cole and many others (including yours truly). The article is also mentioned in this Buzzfeed article, which shows the outcry is getting big enough for even the usually-oblivious media to notice.

Little Boxes

Catarina Migliorini says that cooking, driving, reading and every other human activity magically become different things if one only does them once:

…A 20-year-old Brazilian woman is auctioning off her virginity for a one-time tryst on an airplane…Catarina Migliorini says she’ll donate some of the money to provide housing for poor families in her native Santa Catarina…the Internet bidding [has already] reached $160,000…[and] ends Oct. 15…Migliorini insisted in a statement to the Sao Paulo daily Folha that…”For me, it’s not prostitution…when someone does something once in his or her life, this is not considered a profession. If you take a picture and it comes out good, you are not a photographer because of it”…The Daily Mail reported that Migliorini is [also]…part of an Australian film project called Virgins Wanted. She’s getting $20,000 and a 90-percent cut of the auction price…

The HuffPo comments are, of course, predictably disgusting. Meanwhile, Slate presents this series of portraits of female Iranian singers, who are legally barred from singing on stage for a general audiences because it is “immodest”. This is not a hypothetical reductio ad absurdum; it is the natural result of busybodies having control over women’s interactions with men and attempting to draw imaginary lines between “good” and “immoral” behavior.

The Public Eye

Rachel Aimee, one of the founders of the late $pread magazine, covers one specific aspect of the “sex workers as mothers” topic: deciding if, when and how to tell one’s children that one is a sex worker. She interviews an escort, a stripper, a dominatrix, a nude model and a sex educator, and though as you might expect she doesn’t reach a definitive conclusion, she presents a lot of worthwhile food for thought.

Metaupdates

Think of the Children! in TW3 (#11)

Another good, clean organization refuses charity from nasty, dirty whores:

A pornographic website has launched a fundraising effort for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, but the nonprofit says it wants nothing to do with the campaign…the…website said it would donate 1 cent for every 30 views of certain videos featuring breasts during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month…[but the Komen organization said] “We are not a partner, not accepting donations, and have asked them to stop using our name”…

Obviously, the Komen Foundation has not yet learned that they are supposed to care more about women’s health than about prudishness.

I Really Shouldn’t Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan in TW3 (#25)

Priya-Alika Elias imagines what it would be like if Homer, Shakespeare, Joyce, Tolkien and others wrote Cosmo sex tips. Alas, she didn’t do Lovecraft, but it’s still pretty damned funny.

Follow Your Bliss in TW3 (#37)

The…TSA…didn’t bother to do a background check on a priest who had been defrocked for molesting girls before they gave him a job, which included doing pat downs on children at Philadelphia International Airport. The Philadelphia Inquirer…reported that…65-year-old Thomas Harkins…has since been promoted from the…job that required him to pat down children and now oversees screening operations for checked baggage.

This Week in 2011

I answered questions on NBA policies, Wikipedia, gravatars and epigrams, discussed busybody control freaks who use women’s dignity as an excuse for oppression, introduced you to a young courtesan named Su Xiaoxiao, reported on a complaint to the APA about Melissa Farley’s numerous ethical violations, and shared short items on marital sex issues, Gardasil, a Sydney mega-brothel, a pervert cop, BDSM persecution, Edmonton’s attempt to create a bottleneck, a claim that the average hooker is 13, cops’ armed robbery of a strip club, AHF and an essay by Catherine Hakim.

This Week in 2010

I introduced the concept of “sex rays”, talked about my boob job, explained how criminalization exposes whores to danger from real criminals, discussed the families of sex workers, presented brief biographies of the five victims of Jack the Ripper, looked at the archetypal “hooker with a heart of gold”, and shared short items about Congress’ first attempt to control the internet and two creepy men’s attempts to sexually violate women unnoticed.

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That Was the Week That Was (#10)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, A Whore in Church, Acting and Activism, Africa, animals, archeofeminism, Arizona, Australia, Backlash, brothels, Celebrities, Coming and Going, condoms, cops, Craigslist, disease, East Asia, Election Day, escort services, ethics, evidence, Good News-Bad News, harm reduction, hysteria, Indonesia, law, lawheads, License To Rape, Mind Reading, New Mexico, New York, pimps, rape, sacred prostitutes, Scapegoats, slavery, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Swedish model, Tennessee, transgender, underage, United Kingdom, Utah, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Protests? on March 10, 2012| 9 Comments »

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. – Paulo Freire

One new item, ten updates and two meta-updates.

The President’s Nanny

On Tuesday the AP published the terribly sad story of Evie, a transgender woman who was little “Barry” Obama’s nanny when his family lived in Indonesia from 1969-1971. “When the family left…things started going downhill. She moved in with a boyfriend…three years later…she became a sex worker…soldiers often…loaded them into trucks, and brought them to a field where they were kicked, hit and otherwise abused.” After one especially brutal raid in 1985 in which a friend was beaten to death, Evie went back to dressing as a man, found solace in religion and now at 66 “says she’s just waiting to die.” She only recently realized that the US president was her old charge, and says she’s proud: “Now when people call me scum…I can just say: ‘But I was the nanny for the President of the United States!‘” The White House had no comment.

Updates

Celebrities (August 20^th, 2010)

English football star Louis Saha explains why footballers prefer escorts to amateurs: “…women are the greatest temptation…a young player…can quickly be taken in, seduced by the girl who will cash in with a kiss-and-tell to the newspapers. So it’s hard to know who to trust and you become paranoid where women are concerned. Some players therefore prefer to use escorts.” This confused a writer at Deadspin, who apparently cannot comprehend that an indiscreet whore is soon an unemployed one.

Election Day (November 2^nd, 2010)

Though activists have been trying for decades to call attention to the insanity of allowing cops to use condoms as “evidence of prostitution”, and a bill to ban the practice was introduced into the New York state legislature several years ago, the light bulb appears to have just gone on for the mainstream media. The Daily Kos and The Atlantic both noted that though the asinine policy is widespread, New York is the first state where a legislator had the sense to introduce a bill to prevent it. Both stories mention that Human Rights Watch will release a report on American “condom possession” policies in July, and both interviewed representatives of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, whose link was recently added to the “Organizations & Allies” box on the right. NCHRC has also asked me to call attention to their video on sex worker violence prevention, and I’m happy to do so.

License To Rape (November 16^th, 2010)

One would expect a publication named Reason to oppose criminalization of sex work, and one would not be disappointed; here’s its coverage of a hooker-raping cop:

A New Mexico state trooper is on paid administrative leave after being arrested…for coercing prostitutes to have sex with him. Timothy Carlson first came to the attention of the Albquerque PD…when they caught him in his car with a prostitute…Why he wasn’t arrested then is a mystery…[after] a nearly year-long investigation…[he was caught]…with a prostitute…[who was] a confidential informant…[she told investigators] Carlson threatened to arrest her if she didn’t sleep with him…[He] faces extortion, bribery, public corruption and rape charges. Advocates of decriminalizing prostitution often point out that sex workers suffer appalling violence and extortion at the hands of…law enforcement officers…

The story also links several other “isolated” incidents.

Coming and Going (February 10^th, 2011)

“Davidson County [Tennessee] Sheriff Dacron Hall…[said] “If you weigh out what happens here – the police time, the arrest, the booking, all of this…what’s the net effect?…the criminalization of this process is very expensive,” he said. “I’m just not sure it can’t be done in other ways.” If you think county streetwalker stings are expensive, how about this? “…[The case against] Anna Gristina was…built from a five-year-long investigation by a Manhattan district attorney’s office unit…[involving] hundreds of hours of surveillance…Minors were involved in some of the encounters Gristina arranged, the prosecutor said…” Of course they had to add the bit about minors (which is almost certainly a lie) to avoid the inevitable questions like why the hell the average New Yorker should approve of this multi-year, multimillion dollar boondoggle.

Backlash (March 22^nd, 2011)

It’s truly sad that actions of American cops in the three previous items are nearly indistinguishable from those of South African cops:

…Cape Town sex [workers say]…it was a regular occurrence for police to herd together sex workers at night and strip them naked before throwing them into their vans. They would then take photos to “identify them in case they go missing”. It was not uncommon for the sex workers to be pepper-sprayed, even on their private parts…In a recent study conducted by the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC), 12 percent of Cape Town’s sex workers reported having been raped by police, 46 percent threatened by police, and 28 percent forced into sexual favours by police…National police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo said…“It (sex work) is a crime…In the handling of these cases, it’s often misconstrued as harassment”…

Well, Naidoo’s statement certainly clears that up! The police are allowed to beat, rape and pepper-spray prostitutes, so it’s “official handling” rather than harassment, and that makes it OK.

Mind Reading (June 1^st, 2011)

More on the suit against Utah’s “acting sexy” law:

A federal judge excused Salt Lake City’s police chief from a lawsuit filed by escort services…Utah’s attorney general remains a defendant. Utah law…[was amended] last year…to include any person who performs acts such as exposing or touching themselves…[which] the escort services argued…[criminalizes stripping]…Andrew McCullough, who is representing [the services]…said [an] escort already has been arrested under the amended law…[after] an undercover officer “tried everything he could…[to trick her, then] arrested her anyway…for touching herself…” State lawyers argued that people can be charged…only if they use those gestures as a sign they’re willing to engage in sex for money…

It takes a special mixture of balls and stupidity to defend unconstitutional laws with tautology.

Where Are the Protests? (December 3^rd, 2011)

“Hello, Mr. Kristof; we thought you’d like to report on a trafficked slave who was held right here in New York! What’s that? No, there was no sex involved…Mr. Kristof? Hello? Hellooooo…?”

A wealthy New York woman is facing criminal charges…[for] keeping an illegal immigrant as an indentured servant and forcing her to live in a closet for nearly six years. Documents posted on the Smoking Gun allege that Annie George, 39, and her now-deceased husband, Mathai Kolath George, hired an illegal immigrant [identied as V.M.] from the Indian state of Kerala…[promising her] about $1,000 a month in wages to…care [for] the Georges’ four young children [and perform] household duties in the mansion…instead…V.M. received 85 cents an hour, working 17-hour days, seven days a week, over the 67 months she was kept inside the George residence…Annie George…[faces] charges of encouraging and inducing an illegal alien to reside in the U.S…

So a middle-class independent escort with a six-figure income is a “trafficked slave”, but a woman lured from India under false pretenses, paid starvation wages and locked in a closet at night is an “indentured servant” in a “forced labor situation”. Furthermore, the escort’s legal husband could be imprisoned for decades and robbed of everything he owns for the “crime” of “human trafficking”, but someone who actually held someone captive is only charged with “encouraging an illegal alien”. Nice.

Scapegoats (January 26^th, 2012)

The Daily Mail published mug shots of the three “conspirators”, but had to settle for a stock photo of the “victim”:

A husband, his wife and her lover have been charged with conspiracy to commit bestiality after using Craigslist to find a dog for the wife to have sex with. Shane Walker and his wife Sarah Dae, who describe themselves as swingers in an open marriage, were arrested [with her lover Robert Aucker] after an undercover sting operation…The two men were to watch while Sarah Dae had sex with the dog…Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio…wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster after the arrest of two people for using the website to solicit dogs for sex. Arpaio asked for closer monitoring of the site, but said after the latest arrest: “I remain extremely disappointed in the leadership at Craigslist.com for refusing to do what they can to stop this. While they aren’t doing anything to stop it, I will continue to enforce all animal cruelty laws.”

This is the same sheriff who didn’t bother to investigate over 400 sex crimes reported to his office, including 32 child molestations (some of the victims as young as 2). But I’m sure the parents of those molested kids will agree that it’s much more important for the sheriff’s office to pester businessmen and set up elaborate “sting” operations in order to perform the vital state function of preventing dogs from screwing air hostesses…oops, I mean “enforcing animal cruelty laws”.

Good News, Bad News (February 18^th, 2012)

American politicians, afflicted as they are with Puritanism and a medieval “law and order” mentality, can almost be forgiven for their incredible stupidity on prostitution issues. But Western Australia has several examples of successful legal models right next door, yet has descended into “trafficking hysteria” and may even succumb to the Swedish disease, as explained in this email from a WA politician:

…the Government’s proposed legislation will…greatly reduce the legality and visibility of prostitution…[via] the ‘Swedish model’ of targeting clients and brothel owners…If we actually wish to tackle trafficking in Western Australia, then this bill is our best hope…Any other approach will only serve to increase the elements of organized crime in prostitution and only perpetuate many more victims…

New South Wales and Queensland beg to differ about “any other approach” increasing “organized crime”…

A Whore in Church (January 10^th, 2012)

Reverend Lia Scholl has advocated for sex workers for more than 10 years and is currently on the board of the Red Umbrella Project in New York. She recently wrote an excellent essay entitled “Church and Sex Work” which argues that churchgoers should not merely refrain from fighting prostitution or trying to rescue prostitutes, but should actively welcome sex workers in their community. Please read it in its entirety; we definitely need more people like Reverend Lia!

Metaupdates

Acting and Activism in June Updates (Part Two) (June 3^rd, 2011)

The bizarre competition between various jurisdictions claiming to be the most important source, destination or route for “human trafficking” has a new entrant, which insists that it’s all three simultaneously:

…“The 2011 Trafficking in Persons report notes that Zimbabwe is a source, transit and destination for human trafficking…” said [International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman Folen Murapa]…[she] said although the magnitude…was difficult to ascertain due to the clandestine nature of the phenomenon, government recognised the problem and is currently in the process of tabling…a bill…Murapa said anyone could be a victim of trafficking regardless of nationality, sex, age and profession…

Everybody panic! You never know when those “traffickers” will jump out of a tree and traffick you away somewhere, but by golly a law will stop it dead. And though we haven’t seen any evidence of it, a bunch of foreign politicians on the other side of the planet wrote it in a report, so it must be true!

A Moral Cancer in That Was the Week That Was (#3) (February 11^th, 2012)

Not only is cheese not really bad for you…

…[A new study]…found those who regularly have dairy products such as milk, cheese and yoghurt score better in tests of mental ability than people who never, or rarely, consume dairy products. It follows another US study…[which] found that older people with higher levels of beneficial fats in their blood had less brain shrinkage typical of the Alzheimer’s disease…our mental functions depend heavily on a good supply of fat. Our brain is composed of 60 percent fat. The brain cells are insulated by sheaths of myelin composed of 75 percent fat…[which] needs to be replaced constantly…

One Year Ago Today

“Check Your Premises” examines the nonsense which arises from following the underlying premises of “consensual crime” laws to their logical conclusions.

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That Was the Week That Was (#5)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Africa, Australia, brothels, California, Canada, censorship, condoms, cops, cosmetic surgery, disease, end demand, Europe, Florida, genitalia, Good News-Bad News, harm reduction, hysteria, Islam, law, marriage, neofeminism, Netherlands, psychology, rescue industry, Scientific Detachment, semen, South Africa, St. James Infirmary, Swedish model, tabula rasa, teachers, The Camel's Nose, The Dogs Do Bark, The Enlightenment Police, underage, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Who Did Your Tits?, yin and yang on February 18, 2012| 11 Comments »

The good news is that Jesus is coming back. The bad news is that he’s really pissed off. – Bob Hope

Three new stories and six updates from the fifth week of 2012.

Good News, Bad News

Sometimes, reading stories about prostitution law is like the classic joke format. GOOD NEWS: 77% of Canadians support decriminalization of prostitution and UNAIDS has condemned criminalization of sex work (including the “Swedish Model”, “end demand” schemes and the rescue industry) as a danger both to sex workers and to public health:

…Forced rescue and rehabilitation practices lower sex workers’ control over where and under what conditions they sell sexual services and to whom, exposing them to greater violence and exploitation…this leads to social disintegration and a loss of solidarity and cohesion (social capital) among sex workers, including reducing their ability to access health care, legal and social services. Low social capital is known to increase vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections among sex workers and therefore has a detrimental impact on HIV prevention efforts…undermining sex worker organisations is one of the most important negative effects of law enforcement practices…anti-trafficking efforts typically ignore the possibility of engaging sex workers as partners…[even though they] are often best placed to know who is being trafficked into commercial sex and by whom, and are particularly motivated to work to stop such odious practices…Organised groups of sex workers are also best placed to establish safe working norms within the sex industry, and influence other[s]…to ensure that trafficked adults and children are not retained in sex work…

BAD NEWS: Western Australia is starting to buy into the “trafficking” narrative:

Federal police have launched an operation to rescue people trafficked into WA for forced labour, prostitution and servile marriages. There are fears that an increasing number of women are being brought to Perth and forced into the city’s sex industry. Supt Glyn Lewis…said human trafficking was insidious and abhorrent and many victims were never found…There have been only 14 convictions for human trafficking since legislation came into force in 2003. People working in the area in Perth fear trafficking is a real and emerging issue “under the radar” of authorities and the public. Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans said the problem had to be addressed…

None of these people stop to consider that maybe the reason that there are so few convictions and “many victims were never found” is that there was no crime in the first place. But hey, we can’t let facts get in the way of hysteria and fear-mongering by cops and religious groups.

Scientific Detachment

The ability to look at sensitive subjects dispassionately and to present evidence without emotion is an admirable one, but as Professor G.S. Brindley (the doctor who developed the first medical treatment for erectile dysfunction) discovered in 1983, it’s probably best not to assume that the majority of one’s audience possesses that capacity to any great degree. This January 27^th article on the Discover magazine blog explains, and since synopsizing it in any way would do it a disservice, I’ll just leave you with the link.

Fundraiser for St. James Infirmary

I’ve been asked to publicize an online fundraiser for St. James Infirmary, which provides compassionate healthcare and social services for sex workers in San Francisco. It will be held tomorrow (February 19^th, 2012) at 3 PM EST on BlogTV; even if you can’t attend please spread the word!

Week 5 of 2012 Updates

Nothing in the Dark (August 8^th, 2010)

This story demonstrates not only the reason for considering condoms a “safety net” against disease rather than a first line of defense, but also the reason I’m hesitant to entrust my health to a government bureaucracy:

…South Africa’s leading anti-AIDS group said…that…faulty condoms are among more than 1.35 million handed out at the African National Congress’ 100^th birthday party…[they were] recalled but the Treatment Action Campaign said no warning has been issued to people that they may have carried away defective condoms…The third recall in less than five years raises questions about the quality of some of the 425 million-plus condoms that the government gives away each year, and the competence of the South African Bureau of Standards [SABS] that is supposed to ensure their quality…In 2007, the government recalled more than 20 million defective condoms…but recovered only 12 million…a [previous] recall…[resulted after] a testing manager at [SABS took] a bribe to certify the faulty contraceptives…

[AIDS activist Sello Mokhalipi] said people started coming with complaints about the condoms…three days after the celebrations ended…”We poured water into the condoms and they were leaking, not just in one place, they were leaking like a sieve,” he said. Looking at them, “you can see there are small pores” like pinpricks…the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, said many of the 10,000 to 15,000 prostitutes they work with often complain about the free government condoms…[so] they instead use a brand provided by an international charity…South Africa’s government sources its condoms from several companies and rebrands them with its colorful CHOICE packaging, in bright blue, red, yellow and green…

Any time there’s a lucrative government contract, there’s going to be graft. And anything sourced out to the lowest bidder…

Who Did Your Tits? (October 1^st, 2010)

Most women who have boob jobs feel they confer psychological and/or financial benefits, but I never considered this possibility:

A 41-year-old Florida woman says the breast augmentation surgery she had three months ago saved her life…her ex-fiancé’s new girlfriend…attacked her…stabbing her repeatedly in the left side of her chest…the knife had punctured the implant and she was soaked with saline. Doctors say the salt water and walls of the implant prevented a deadly blow.

The Camel’s Nose (October 2^nd, 2010)

Yet another spooge sneaker; this one is so reprehensible he constitutes a one-man argument in favor of sex offender registries:

…Mark Berndt, a third-grade teacher [at Miramonte Elementary School in California]…is charged with committing lewd acts on 23 boys and girls, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010…[he] was removed from classwork in January 2011 and fired within the month, but only parents of children identified as victims were told…some angry parents…complained that they only learned of the investigation through the media after Berndt’s arrest this week. School officials and investigators said proper procedures were followed…but…two former students…said school officials were informed about [Berndt’s] odd behavior two decades ago…

…Berndt is suspected of snapping nearly 400 photographs of…students, some with a giant Madagascar cockroach from a classroom terrarium on their faces. Others were blindfolded or had clear tape over their mouths, and some were shown with a spoonful of milky liquid placed near their lips…The photo sessions were treated as a game and some children were given sperm-laced cookies to eat as treats…The investigation began in the fall of 2010 when a film processor became suspicious about the photographs and turned them over to…police…an investigator…found a blue spoon…in a trash can [in Berndt’s classroom] that appeared to be the one seen in the photographs, but it took months before analysis determined there was semen on the spoon and more time before DNA testing matched it to Berndt…Meanwhile, investigators kept trying to identify children in the photographs…

I would hope that prosecutors build their cases on photographic and DNA evidence, and that they, cops and parents have the sense not to question the children or (even worse) subject them to the ordeal of trial participation; adult eyewitness testimony is unreliable at best, and that of children is often worse than useless. Alas, I fear that’s a vain hope; adults just can’t resist traumatizing young children by subjecting them to frightening and confusing interrogations and filling their heads full of horrible images, thus exploiting them just as monstrously as the criminal did.

Welcome To Our World (January 20^th, 2011)

I think my readers can answer David Reber’s questions, which he seems to consider rhetorical:

…What could a teacher possibly know about education? Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession…” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education…In what other profession, indeed. In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.” In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”. In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team”…For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens…People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education…

Well, Mr. Reber, there is at least one other…

The Enlightenment Police (October 1^st, 2011)

One would think the usually-sensible Dutch would have waited to see what the European High Court will do with the French version of this first:

The Dutch…government plans to ban Muslim face veils…”People should be able to look at each other’s faces and recognize each other when they meet,” the interior affairs ministry said…The ban will also apply to balaclavas and motorcycle helmets when worn in inappropriate places, such as inside a store, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters, denying that this was a ban on religious clothing…The face-veil law, which still needs to win approval in both houses of parliament, excludes clothing worn for security reasons such as that worn by firemen and hockey players, as well as party clothing such as Santa Claus or Halloween costumes. The ban does not apply to religious places, such as churches and mosques, nor to passengers on airplanes or en route via a Dutch airport…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark (January 11^th, 2012)

Since neofeminists insist that all gendered behavior is “socially constructed”, I’m sure they’ll deny these findings just as creationists deny fossils and carbon dating:

Testosterone makes us overvalue our own opinions at the expense of cooperation, research from…University College London has found…Problem solving in groups can provide benefits over individual decisions as we are able to share our information and expertise. However…collaborating too closely can lead to an uncritical groupthink, ending in decisions that are bad for all…research has shown that people given a boost of the hormone oxytocin tend to be cooperative. Now…researchers have shown that…testosterone has the opposite effect — it makes people act less cooperatively and more egocentrically.

Dr Nick Wright and colleagues…[tested] 17 pairs of female volunteers who had previously never met…On one…day…[they] were given a testosterone supplement; on the other day, they were given a placebo. [Men were not used because supplements can trigger a drop in their own testosterone production, invalidating the results]…as expected, cooperation [in a task] enabled the group to perform much better than the individuals alone…but, when given a testosterone supplement, the benefit of cooperation was markedly reduced. In fact, higher levels of testosterone were associated with individuals behaving egocentrically…”Most of the time, this allows us to seek the best solution to a problem, but sometimes, too much testosterone can help blind us to other people’s views,” [said Dr. Wright.] “This can be very significant when we are talking about a dominant individual trying to assert his or her opinion in, say, a jury”…

One Year Ago Today

“Not the Same Tree” showcases a Detroit reporter’s excellent and very perceptive article about the federal persecution of an escort service.

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Symptomology

Posted in Current Events, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Africa, bad customers, Cambodia, condoms, cops, dirty, disease, East Asia, escort review sites, Europe, evidence, harm reduction, law, Madonna/whore, New York, rape, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Taiwan, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers on January 12, 2012| 10 Comments »

Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point…In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one. – Johan Huizinga

One year ago today I published “Social Autoimmune Disorder”, in which I compared anti-sex worker laws and police activity to autoimmune disorders:

The bodies of societies sometimes also develop such syndromes; the systems which were meant to protect society from invaders or other troublesome organisms are instead turned against some of its own systems, sometimes even vital systems. And just as in biological autoimmune disorders, those who are affected most are usually women.

There have been further developments in all the cases I mentioned in that column: Taiwan still suffers from the disorder despite a predicted remission, but in the UK a police official who supports getting rid of bad laws was promoted to assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. In the United States the persecution of escort advertising websites has only grown worse, and AHF’s campaign to force porn actors to use its sponsors’ products is about to come to a head; meanwhile, the virulent Swedish strain of social autoimmune disease has continued to spread through Europe.

The most dangerous form of the disease is direct police violence against sex workers; we’ve discussed it often here, but it’s always nice to see it acknowledged in a larger venue, such as this recent Chi Mgbako article from Reality Check:

When we think of violence against sex workers, we conjure up images of dangerous clients and serial killers who target prostitutes…[but] one area that receives scant public attention despite its entrenched global reality is police abuse of sex workers. The illegal status of sex work in most countries has not eradicated prostitution. Instead, criminalization has increased sex workers’ vulnerability to human rights abuses and created fertile ground for police exploitation, especially of street-based sex workers. For example, in South Africa, where sex work has been illegal since the former apartheid regime criminalized it in 1957, police officers often fine sex workers inordinate sums of money and pocket the cash, resulting in a pattern of economic extortion of sex workers by state agents…police [also] confiscate condoms to use as evidence of prostitution; demand sexual favors in exchange for release from jail or to avoid arrest; physically assault and rape sex workers; actively encourage or passively condone inmate sexual abuse of transgender female sex workers assigned to male prison cells; and use municipal laws to harass and arrest sex workers even when they’re engaged in activities unrelated to prostitution…

Police abuse of sex workers…is echoed in documented reports throughout the world, from New York City to Cambodia to Papua New Guinea to Eastern Europe and beyond. Police are also often impediments to sex workers’ access to justice. “To gather evidence of a crime against a sex worker, they have to first take it seriously,” argues one sex worker about the lack of police attention to reports of violence. “If we go to the police to report abuse, we’re made fun of, we’re told ‘you deserve it.’ They chase you away,” notes another sex worker. In addition, because of the continual police harassment they face, many sex workers don’t bother to officially report abuse to police. Most sex workers’ experience with criminal justice systems is not as survivors of abuse but as “perpetrators” of the “crime” of prostitution.

Of course, not all police officers abuse sex workers…but the moral stigma that is attached to the criminalization of prostitution often leads to the deeply offensive attitude, on the part of some police, prosecutors, and others, that sex workers somehow consent to abuse. Prohibitionist legal regimes insist that all sex workers are criminals, making it almost impossible for society to view sex workers as legitimate victims of violent crime when it occurs…Decriminalization would allow sex workers to come out of the shadows and defend their rights, ensuring that the crimes committed against them by police and others will no longer be hidden…Sex workers deserve the basic respect and protection from violence that each nation owes its citizens.

Of course, there are many benighted souls who subscribe to the “NHI” doctrine and therefore believe that prostitutes “deserve” violence; many of these moral retards are lawyers in positions of power. But laws which criminalize prostitutes have an indirect effect on all women, and sometimes – as illustrated in this December 21^st story from the Phnom Penh Post – on the entire society:

Laws and policies the government has enacted to fight crime are hampering efforts to combat public health threats, including HIV/AIDS, and are leading to human rights abuses…“We think that the laws cracking down on drug and human trafficking remain problematic because after their enforcement, we see that condom distribution has gone down and sexually transmitted disease is on the rise,” public health expert Kem Ley told [a government forum]…Health officials identified the 2008 Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, the 2005 Law on the Control of Drugs and the 2010 village and commune safety guidelines as containing articles and points that have led to harmful consequences in terms of public health and human rights…Sex work is confused with human trafficking, and police crack down harder on sex workers as a result, he said, adding the drug law blurred the lines between users, traffickers and producers…

As one would expect, the government officials insisted that their wonderful laws could not possibly be at fault; social autoimmune disorders thrive in such a climate of denial. And so the sickness continues until it spreads to other vital social systems…and eventually progresses beyond the point where the patient can be saved.

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The Pigeons Come Home

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged Australia, bogus studies, brothels, censorship, dirty, ethics, harm reduction, law, neofeminism, New Zealand, psychology, South Africa, stereotypes, streetwalkers, underage on October 6, 2011| 40 Comments »

Lies save trouble now, but may return in thunder and lightning. – Mason Cooley

For years, Melissa Farley has advanced her misandrist, anti-sex, anti-sex worker agenda with lies, distortions, omissions, out-of-context quotations, bogus studies and false generalizations, violating every ethical standard which is supposed to govern her avowed profession (psychology). Since she long reserved her attacks for a marginalized group nobody in her own country would defend, she grew increasingly bold and began to extend her attacks to those who were not quite so marginalized, with predictable results; she at last has gone too far, and Dr. Calum Bennachie of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective has filed a complaint with the American Psychological Association asking that they revoke Farley’s membership for gross ethical violations. Here’s the full text of the complaint (including its nine attachments) in PDF form, but since it’s quite lengthy (17 pages plus 98 pages of attachments), I figured most of my readers would prefer a synopsis. We’ll start with the introductory letter:

Over the years, Dr Farley has published a number of papers and documents about sex work, making claims that all sex work is a form of violence against women. She has used several of her studies to back this up. In 2008 Dr Farley published the paper What Really Happened in New Zealand after Prostitution was Decriminalized in 2003? [attachment 2] on her website critiquing the Report of the Prostitution Law Review Committee. This critique contains several errors of fact that appear to be deliberately designed to mislead people. Many of the false allegations made by Dr Farley in this paper have been repeated by her in her efforts to stigmatise sex workers and keep them criminal. Dr Farley appears to have read the complete report, but has only reported or critiqued those parts that match her ideology. In investigating her comments on this paper further, it was discovered that Dr Farley had completed research in New Zealand in 2003 without seeking ethical approval from the New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS). It was also discovered that during the course of this research, she claimed to be able to diagnose sex workers as having post traumatic stress disorder, despite using a flawed questionnaire [attachment 7], and not doing in depth interviews. It is noted that Dr Farley has also completed other studies overseas, and investigations this year indicate that she never sought ethical approval, and sought to deliberately deceive the groups who facilitated the research for her. She has also been cited as an expert witness, yet the testimony given is false or misleading. Finally, the Canadian courts have found Dr Farley to be a less than reliable witness, finding her evidence “to be problematic”. For the reasons in the text below, I believe her work is unethical, unbecoming of a psychologist, and is in breach of at least sections 5.01 and 8.10 of the APA’s Code of Ethics, perhaps more. I believe that because of these breaches, Dr Farley should be removed from the membership of the APA.

Calum Bennachie

Just so we’re all on the same page, here are the relevant sections Dr. Bennachie cites; I think y’all will be able to immediately see how Farley violates them:

5.01 Avoidance of False or Deceptive Statements

(a) Public statements include but are not limited to paid or unpaid advertising, product endorsements, grant applications, licensing applications, other credentialing applications, brochures, printed matter, directory listings, personal resumes or curricula vitae, or comments for use in media such as print or electronic transmission, statements in legal proceedings, lectures and public oral presentations, and published materials. Psychologists do not knowingly make public statements that are false, deceptive, or fraudulent concerning their research, practice, or other work activities or those of persons or organizations with which they are affiliated.

(b) Psychologists do not make false, deceptive, or fraudulent statements concerning (1) their training, experience, or competence; (2) their academic degrees; (3) their credentials; (4) their institutional or association affiliations; (5) their services; (6) the scientific or clinical basis for, or results or degree of success of, their services; (7) their fees; or (8) their publications or research findings.

8.10 Reporting Research Results

(a) Psychologists do not fabricate data. (See also Standard 5.01a, Avoidance of False or Deceptive Statements.)

(b) If psychologists discover significant errors in their published data, they take reasonable steps to correct such errors in a correction, retraction, erratum, or other appropriate publication means.

After the initial letter, Dr. Bennachie explains his points in depth. We already covered Justice Himel’s criticism in my column of July 24^th, 2011, so let’s look at Bennachie’s other complaints:

Farley claims that street prostitution increased 400% after decriminalization. In 2003 the streetwalker population in Auckland was estimated to be 360, so according to Farley there should now be 1440; in actuality there are 230. Since Farley read the report, her claim of a 400% increase can only be an outright lie.

Farley claims that the “Law Review Committee was biased and blatantly favored the sex industry”. In actuality, the Committee included a former police commissioner, a Catholic nun, a criminologist and the coordinator of a group doing outreach to streetwalkers; considering that some of these people had spoken against the Prostitution Reform Act when it was being debated in Parliament, the claim that they were biased in favor of sex work is hardly credible.

Farley’s research in New Zealand was conducted without the approval of the New Zealand Psychological Society, and when she first arrived she hired a research assistant named Colleen Winn, who quit the job almost immediately over ethical concerns Farley refused to address. For example, two Māori prostitutes reported that their first sexual experience of any kind was at 9, but Farley misrepresented that as “Māori women enter prostitution as young as 9 years.”

Farley has exploited sex worker rights groups in a number of countries (such as South Africa) where she is not as well-known as she is in North America, recruiting them to assist her “research” by claiming to be an advocate for sex workers and then distorting the data they help her to collect in order to argue for increased criminalization and persecution of sex workers.

Since 1998, Farley has claimed to be able to diagnose sex workers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the completion of a 15 minute self-administered questionnaire despite the fact that the National Center for PTSD states:

For making a diagnosis of PTSD…structured interviews will generally yield more valid results…[but those] that begin with a single gate-keeping item have poor validity for particular types of traumatic experiences. Also, structured interviews with brief, single-item, closed-ended questions for each PTSD symptom are likely to be no more valid for making a diagnosis than self-report measures…Proper assessment of PTSD is complex, and in a forensic setting, it should include substantial attention to corroboration of self-reports through a records review and collateral information…

Farley’s repeated assertion that “67 percent [of sex workers] meet criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD” is therefore not supportable by her methods.

In 2006, Farley told a Canadian Parliamentary Committee that since the PRA “organized crime had increased dramatically in New Zealand, while trafficking in persons had not declined”; there was no evidence for such a claim in any published study.

Farley deliberately misstates New Zealand law to make it seem “child prostitution” is out of control since decriminalization by claiming that police “have no right of entry into brothels, and have no right to ask for age-identification papers of those in prostitution.” In actuality, police are only forbidden from entering brothels without a warrant (except in certain emergencies), just as they are forbidden from entering any other business place without a warrant practically everywhere else in the free world. Furthermore, the New Zealand Bill of Rights states that no individual can be forced to provide information to the police (like American Miranda Rights); however, the police can certainly ask a brothel owner to provide proof of age for the workers, since such proof is required by law.

Farley represented statements that decriminalization had failed to decrease violence as coming from sex workers, when in fact they were unsupported statements made by members of anti-prostitution NGOs.

In attachment 6, Dr. Bennachie identifies and documents a total of 23 errors in Farley’s “critique” of the Prostitution Reform Act report. In his conclusion, he compares Farley’s methods and ethical violations to those of Paul Cameron, the anti-homosexual psychologist who was expelled from the APA in 1983, and asks that Farley be expelled in the same way and for the same reasons, namely gross ethical violations in furtherance of an anti-sex agenda. Here’s hoping the APA listens; though her disciples will only cling to her more, Farley would no longer be able to claim legitimacy to the government entities through which she does her worst damage.

One Year Ago Today

“Heart of Gold” explores the truth about the archetypal “Tart with a Heart.”

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May Updates (Part Three)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Backlash, bogus studies, cops, ethics, fantasy, FBI, hysteria, law, neofeminism, Pennsylvania, pimps, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, Real Men, South Africa, stereotypes, They Just Don’t Get It, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Whores in the News on May 6, 2011| 18 Comments »

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This seems to be the month for twosies, ‘cause our first selection today is an update to the same column as our last item yesterday:

Welcome To Our World (January 20^th)

The Wall Street Journal isn’t exactly known for publishing neofeminist rants, but the April 23^rd issue carried this rather bizarre manifesto which demands that fraternities be banned in order to “protect” helpless, fawn-like coeds:

The Greek system is dedicated to quelling young men’s anxiety about submitting themselves to four years of sissy-pants book learning by providing them with a variety of he-man activities: drinking, drugging, ESPN watching and the sexual mistreatment of women. A 2007 National Institute of Justice study found that about one in five women are victims of sexual assault in college; almost all of those incidents go unreported. It also noted that fraternity men—who tend to drink more heavily and frequently than nonmembers—are more likely to perpetrate sexual assault than nonfraternity men, according to previous studies. Over a quarter of sexual-assault victims who were incapacitated reported that the assailant was a fraternity member. It is against this boorish cartel that 16 Yale students and recent alumni asserted themselves in a Title IX complaint brought against the institution last month—a complaint that could cost the university $500 million in federal funds. The claim concerns both the ways that sexual assaults are handled by the university and also the effect that various fraternity “pranks” have had on its female students…If you want to improve women’s lives on campus, if you want to give them a fair shot at living and learning as freely as men, the first thing you could do is close down the fraternities. The Yale complaint may finally do what no amount of female outrage and violation has accomplished. It just might shut them down for good.

As is typical of such neofeminist punditry, the author indulges in the sort of slurs that, if made by a male against women, would rightfully be called “misogynistic”. And unsurprisingly, she demands blatantly unfair treatment in the name of “fairness”. Sex workers are, unfortunately, used to these tactics; the questionable “studies” making exaggerated claims, the steamrolling of individual rights in order to protect adult women from their own sexual choices or to keep them from getting their feelings hurt, etc. Interestingly, Jezebel writer Margaret Hartmann recognized this garbage for what it is, and wrote an article saying so; perhaps she’ll write an anti-prohibitionist column one day.

March Miscellanea – Backlash (March 22^nd)

At the end of this sub-column I wrote, “I’m sure the police were only beating women up for their own good, to save them from those evil traffickers. Or are whores still “dangerous criminals” in South Africa as we are in Florida? It’s hard to keep track these days.” Well, apparently the South African police have made up their minds: we’re dangerous criminals. Here’s the article from the April 30^th Johannesburg Times:

Investigating officers this week revealed that their inquiries could uncover the identities of more wealthy clients killed in grubby hotels and guest lodges over the past six months…The infamous strip where the bodies were found…is characterised by overcrowded and dilapidated apartment blocks and rundown guest lodges and hotels…police dockets showed that all of the victims – believed to have been poisoned by [a] syndicate [of prostitutes] – were married and either owned their own businesses or headed up relatively large firms operating in the province…The bodies of five of the victims, who had already been buried after it was presumed that they had died of natural causes, [will] be exhumed; the police [will] conduct DNA and toxicology tests and other forensic procedures on the victims; and evidence in the police’s possession has led them to believe that all six men were carrying large sums of cash at the time they were allegedly poisoned…

Apparently, the South African police believe that it’s much more convenient to blame these murder-robberies on a gang of hookers than on regular gangsters (perhaps using fake prostitutes as bait); after all, chasing after real criminals rather than unarmed women could be dangerous.

They Just Don’t Get It (April 12^th)

The Keystone Kops of suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania never seem to get tired of bullying whores. Indeed, it seems that lies and trickery aren’t enough for them any longer, so they’ve graduated to employing the same Gestapo tactics which have become so common in serving drug warrants: namely, smashing people’s doors in without warning in the middle of the night and pointing loaded weapons at terrified children. Here’s the April 28^th story from WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh:

Police from Moon Township were surprised by what they found — a woman and her kids — when they used a search warrant in connection with a prostitution case that involves a retired Pittsburgh police detective…police were looking for evidence in the case against Talib Kevin Ghafoor when they went to an address on Collins Avenue…early Thursday morning. “Right now, she’s got her front door and back door smashed in,” said Harvey Moore, the father of a woman who lives in that home. Moore told Channel 4 Action News that the woman and her children — ages 15, 5 and 4 — were asleep when a team that included SWAT members and state troopers approached the building and entered through the front and rear doors.

“The Pennsylvania State Police surrounded the house, and before they could knock and announce their identity, a person up on the third floor was looking out the window, and they felt their positions were compromised, so they conducted a forced entry into the house,” Moon Township Police Chief Leo McCarthy said. The woman’s father said the family has been living there since February and was confused and startled when police arrived. “She claims that, about a month ago, she switched homes with Mr. Ghafoor,” McCarthy told Channel 4 Action News. “In other words, I’ll live in your house, you live in my house.” McCarthy said Allegheny County records led police to the home, which he said is still registered to Ghafoor and has not been sold to the woman. He said Ghafoor still had some of his belongings inside, which were seized…

You haven’t heard the best part yet; Ghafoor was arrested over a month ago and is scheduled for a hearing this week, so they could easily have served him with a warrant at that time at no taxpayer cost and with no danger to bystanders. Of course, that wouldn’t have allowed them to play sadistic cops-and-robbers games with automatic weapons. Still, the question remains…who did these buffoons expect to find in the house that led them to believe they would need a SWAT team? An elite team of armed assault strumpets, perhaps? I wonder if Pittsburgh area cops have been communicating with those from Johannesburg?

Real Men Support Sex Worker Rights (April 22^nd)

“Deep Geek” produces a semi-regular podcast called “Talk Geek To Me” in which he often advocates for unpopular causes (including sex worker rights) and sometimes even reads my column aloud. This week, his podcast consists of a 25.5 minute editorial touching on such subjects as the assassination of Osama bin Laden, the two-party system, socialism and sex worker rights. He asked me to call attention to it and I’m happy to do so.

Whores In the News – Escorts.com Raided by FBI (October 29^th)

Since the FBI raid in October the fortunes of Escorts.com have steadily declined; many clients and escorts abandoned their accounts immediately and many others continued to use them, but much more warily. Before the end of last year girls started complaining about a plethora of fake reviews (obviously posted by pigs trying to establish themselves as “hobbyists”), then a couple of months after that the site deleted reviews altogether. Finally, I just heard at about 9 AM today that the site will be closing as of May 31^st. My theory is that the management was forced to cooperate with the disease infesting it, but found legal loopholes so as to prevent their being used to trick their customers. First they shut down ALL reviews in order to stop fake ones, then closed entirely to prevent the placing of entrapment ads (such as you’ll see mentioned in my May 10^th column). One final attempt at trickery: A notice in red on the notice page states, “You must provide us with your full name and mailing address if you want a refund check.” Please, ladies, don’t be stupid; if you provide that information your check will come with a free visit from the local constabulary, either immediately or after they use you as a Judas goat for the next few months.

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