Long-time readers need no introduction to Chester Brown, the well-known Canadian graphic novelist who came out as a regular patron of sex workers in Paying For It, his autobiographical 2011 graphic novel; Chester is a friend and a regular reader of this blog who occasionally shows up in the comments (and the blog itself!) and did the covers for both Ladies of the Night and The Forms of Things Unknown, and has agreed to do the cover for Lost Angels (which I’m currently working on) as well. As I announced last August, Canadian actress and director Sook-Yin Lee has adapted Paying For It into a film, and it made its long-awaited US premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival last Saturday! Chester was kind enough to send me a complimentary ticket (for some reason the producers did not opt to send him to Seattle), and I was excited both to see the film and to meet Sook-Yin in person, since Chester has spoken so highly of her. Apparently, he also spoke highly of me to her, because when I went up to introduce myself after the showing, she immediately recognized me before I could say more than her name. We didn’t get to talk long, but I’m hoping it won’t be our last meeting. I’m also happy to tell you that I enjoyed the film very much; I think Sook-Yin did an excellent job of adapting Chester’s documentary style into a cinematic one, with additional material depicting the romantic ups and down of “Sonny”, the character based on her, as a way of translating Chester’s expository text to the screen and allowing the viewer to make their own judgments about the subject. The visual style of the film references Chester’s artistic style as closely as possible, including the use of his own lettering font and sketches of the characters in the end credits, and I found the whole funny, sweet, and very moving. Judging by the positive reaction of the audience, none of whom had read the book but me and one other, I don’t think that’s because I’m biased; I’m unsure where and how the film will be shown next, but I’ll keep y’all posted and I’d definitely recommend seeing it when you get the opportunity. P.S. – no, that’s not a cane I’m holding, but my red umbrella; the weather was quite rainy and I had to park on the street, and Sook-Yin suggested the picture after I was ready to walk outside. Since Chester’s artist’s eye caught that detail, I figured I’d mention it should anyone else wonder.
Posts Tagged ‘Stand-Up Guys’
Paying For It: The Premiere
Posted in Biography, Perception, Philosophy, tagged Canada, comics, Ladies of the Night, Lost Angels, Reviews, Stand-Up Guys, The Forms of Things Unknown on May 23, 2025| 1 Comment »
Paying For It: The Movie
Posted in Biography, Current Events, Perception, tagged acting, Canada, comics, pragmatism, sex work is work, Stand-Up Guys on August 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »
For quite some time, Canadian actress and director Sook-Yin Lee worked to get a film made of Paying For It, Chester Brown’s graphic-novel memoir of seeing sex workers on a regular basis after the breakup of his real-life romantic relationship with Lee. A couple of years ago she managed to make a deal with a production company, and the film is now finished; it will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6th. Chester is played by Dan Beirne and Sook-Yin’s alter ego “Sonny” by Emily Lê; real-life sex worker Andrea Werhun plays Chester’s long-time favorite Denise. Chester doesn’t know when or how (theaters? Netflix?) the film will be shown in the US, and there’s no poster yet because apparently the producers have not been clear about whether they want Chester to do the poster or if they’re doing it some other way. However, there’s a new movie edition of the book, whose cover is pictured here; the girl is based on the actress who plays the first pro Chester sees. I’m looking forward to seeing the film when it becomes available on DVD, and I really hope it’s successful, not only because it will mean more money for Chester, but also because I’m happy for anything that helps normalize pragmatic sexual relationships.
In the News (#829)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, BDSM, California, censorship, consensual crime, dehumanization, dirty, Disaster, drugs, ethics, fantasy, games, hysteria, If It Were Legal, internet, law, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, New Orleans, politicians, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, robots, Shift in the Wind, South Dakota, Stand-Up Guys, Texas, The Punitive Mindset, The Pygmalion Fallacy, Three Steps Back, video, Worse Than I Thought on April 14, 2018| 3 Comments »
Sex workers…are human beings who[se]…rights to health, safety, self-determination, and bodily autonomy should not be subject to debate or sacrifice to abstract principles. – Green Party proposal
I’m willing to bet this was either a findom arrangement or a blackmail fantasy:
The second in command of the Harris County [Texas] Treasurer’s Office is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a county credit union to pay a dominatrix who was blackmailing him. Gregory Lueb was arrested…and charged with felony theft of up to $30,000…Lueb told investigators…the woman eventually demanded money and threatened to tell his wife…
If he’s telling the truth, and if sex work weren’t illegal and stigmatized, he could’ve gone to an established professional instead of some sleazy amateur.
The need to censor is one of the most twisted of perversions:
A federal judge is considering whether South Dakota’s statewide ban on porn in prisons is constitutional. The case arose from an inmate, Charles Sisney, who says all sorts of non-pornographic content got caught up in porn prohibition, including a yoga magazine, images of Michaelangelo’s work, and Japanese comics. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Dakota and the National Coalition have filed briefs in support of Sisney’s case…the parameters of the ban go way beyond adult films, nude images, or other things that most people would consider to be porn. Prisoners are banned from writing sexually explicit letters or receiving them, and from receiving any visual or written material that’s deemed sexually explicit…
In December 2010, New Orleans decided to de facto decriminalize marijuana and prostitution, then it changed its collective mind and recriminalized them. We’re all familiar with what happened afterward with sex work, but two years ago the city actually went ahead and truly decriminalized weed, with the following results:
…newly released city statistics show that New Orleans police have taken the city’s cannabis decriminalization efforts seriously, and now make arrests in only 1% of minor cannabis incidents. The New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance two years ago decriminalizing minor cannabis possession, giving [cops] the discretion to ticket rather than arrest suspects found with small amounts of pot…NOPD has all but eliminated marijuana charges from their protocol, reducing the rate of possession-related arrests from 72% of all police and pot interactions in 2011-2014, to the newly released number of only 1% in the last half of 2016 and first half of 2017…last year saw 5,000 fewer cannabis-related arrests in New Orleans than took place half a decade ago…
And yet they can’t seem to grasp that decriminalizing sex work would have similar benefits.
It looks like the Greens are poised to become the second US political party (the Libertarians have held the position for decades) to adopt decriminalization as an official position. The new position has apparently been approved by Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Utah, and by the party’s Black Caucus, Lavender Greens and Young Greens. The explanation of the reasons for the change starts like this:
It is the opinion of the authors of this document that the party’s current stance on sex work…is morally indefensible, ideologically incoherent, and politically damaging. The submitted revisions represent an effort to eliminate derogatory language, move the Green Party’s stated policy prescriptions away from carceral state solutions and more in line with the current thought of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, and…condemn…violence against women without condemning or negating the existence of individual sex workers…
Anti-whore assholes just keep getting bolder:
California Senate Bill 1204…sponsored by…Patricia Bates…is aimed at broadening the definition of “pandering” within the State of California…to [include anyone] “who arranges, causes, encourages, induces, persuades, or procures another person to be a prostitute”…What does “encourages” mean? If I say to my friend “hey you would make a great prostitute!” – have I just encouraged that person to be a prostitute and therefore I am guilty of the crime of pandering? What about my free speech rights? What if my friend who is a prostitute says, “gee I wish I could see a client today because I really need to feed my child/pay my rent but I cannot afford condoms” and I give that person condoms, have I encouraged the act of prostitution? What if I as a lawyer – give advice to a prostitute…have I just committed pandering?…I would encourage you to contact Senator Patricia Bates office and encourage her to kill her own bill…
Long-time readers know that I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons since 1981, and that it’s my all-time favorite game. I’ve alluded to it many times and even written a few columns touching on it, and though I haven’t played in about 8 years now I’ve recently started thinking about starting up a new game for some friends. So I quite enjoyed this long-form article about the game, its history and its long record of being attacked by authoritarians for promoting imagination and free thought. I decided to list it under this category because the article includes a section on prison officials banning the game (because of course they would), which I reported on in the above-linked column. But really, I just couldn’t pass up calling it to your attention at a time when most of the contents of this blog are darker than any imaginary dungeon, and the real world is dominated by far scarier monsters than any I ever made up for the heroes to defeat.
Late in 2017 at a tech fair in Austria, a sex robot was “molested” repeatedly and left in a “filthy” state. The robot, named Samantha, received a barrage of male attention, which resulted in her sustaining two broken fingers. This incident confirms worries that the possibility of fully functioning sex robots raises both tantalising possibilities for human desire (by mirroring human/sex-worker relationships), as well as serious ethical questions …there are certain elements of relationships between humans and sex workers that we may not wish to repeat. But to me, it is the ethical aspects of the way we think about human-robot desire that are particularly key…
Yes, moral retard Victoria Brooks there describes vandalism of a machine as “molestation” and waxes poetic about this object’s “suffering”, while twice in a short section referring to sex workers as things apart from humans.
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#792)
Possibly the most pathetic of all things: a gay male prude:
…how Grindr is affecting gay men….doesn’t look good. The most common reason users gave for going on the app is that sex feels great and Grindr makes it accessible, right at your fingertips…Neuroscientists have shown that orgasm causes activation of pleasure areas of the brain like the ventral tegmental area while deactivating areas involved with self-control. And these patterns of activation in men are strikingly similar to what researchers see in the brain of individuals using heroin or cocaine. So when a neutral action (clicking on Grindr) is paired with a pleasurable response in the brain (orgasm), humans learn to do that action over and over again. This can be…a setup for addiction…
It usually starts with us, but it never, ever stops with us:
…Sex workers are the canaries in the digital coal mine, and SESTA, if it isn’t fought and reversed, is a disaster for all kinds of online speech…It’s no surprise that a bill like this has manifested alongside the #MeToo movement — it challenges what it means to for sex workers to consent, and takes aim at the online speech that acts as evidence that we have…The ambiguously written bill creates what is in effect a special loophole to target the speech of sex workers within the sweeping legal protections given to online speech. And because marginalized groups often act as Patient Zero for regressive new laws, it will be no surprise when this new approach to censorship eventually spreads across the internet…The difference between what sex workers and their advocates say — that trafficking is a relatively minor issue in their industry — and what anti-sex trafficking legislators believe reflects the country’s long held reluctance to believe women when they tell the truth, especially when it involves sex. One place where that truth is told daily is the internet communities where sex workers reside in safety and solidarity, and SESTA is designed to break up these communities…
In the News (#620)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, agency denial, apes & monkeys, Australia, Bread and Circuses, Broken Record, Check Your Premises, cops, end demand, Georgia, hysteria, Indiana, Innocence Never Had, language, law, lawheads, Maryland, Missouri, Monkey Business, neofeminism, New Orleans, Paint By Numbers, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, rescue industry, Stand-Up Guys, Still a Child, stripping, Texas, Under Every Bed, Under Review, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Watershed, Wisconsin on March 12, 2016| 2 Comments »
Vice cops are…clowns…[whose] idea of entertainment is depriving people of their liberty and livelihoods…then inviting people…to watch the show. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown
They’re literally just making this garbage up now:
Janice Figueroa and Nathaniel Lee Thompson are now facing human trafficking and prostitution charges…[for bringing] this 17 year old girl across state lines…”one of the traffickers is a 19 year old girl…she didn’t just one day wake up and decide she wanted to start selling another woman,” [vomited] Melissa Yao…[prohibitionist in a group called] The Samaritan Women…”We’re the fourth destination country in the world. Meaning we’re the fourth most popular place for people to travel to to participate in sexual exploitation…there is study after study that has shown there is a direct correlation between pornography and sexual exploitation because you start to view another human being as a commodity instead of an actual person…There is an expectation within your first week of working at a strip club that you will participate in some type of prostitution. Otherwise you cannot work there,” Yao said…
Because every woman “consensually” gives head to whatever random cop stops her on the highway:
A [Georgia] Sheriff’s deputy has been fired after a Valentine’s Day incident during a traffic stop…[he] pulled over a woman for a speeding violation…[then] again about 4-5 miles down the road. The deputy turned off his camera and [orally raped the woman]…The woman reported the incident was not consensual. The deputy says it was consensual…
It can take literally years for these “investigations” to lead to charges:
A rural Missouri sheriff’s deputy was a predator with a badge, sexually abusing four women and luring an underage girl into prostitution…Marty Rainey…resigned under fire from the Gasconade County Sheriff’s Office in 2012 after a mental health counselor claimed Rainey and a buddy had engaged in some suspect sexual relations with one of the counselor’s clients. He was finally charged in January 2015…after other women came forward with horror stories of coercion, abuse and rape…a woman…described a long-running nightmare in a civil lawsuit filed last year…[she said] Rainey got her phone number and address in 2012 when she contacted the sheriff’s office…Rainey called the woman 87 times and sent her 1,288 text messages, many of which were sexually explicit…he threatened to arrest her husband on bogus charges if she didn’t sleep with him. Rainey, wearing his deputy uniform, eventually picked her up and took her to a motel, where…he drugged her, laid his pistol on a nightstand with the barrel facing her and…[raped] her…
This is a very uneven article marred by false equivalencies, but its central point is true:
Jeremy Corbyn is about to find out what happens when you take a stance on sex work…The response of those who believe in banning prostitution is ferocious and highly personal. He will be told he has betrayed women, that he supports pimps, that he doesn’t care about trafficking and human slavery. Labour’s parliamentary meeting tonight is expected to see Harriet Harman, Caroline Flint, Jess Phillips and others attack Corbyn for [saying]…he wants to decriminalise the sex industry…Corbyn…used to support the Nordic model…His shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is a long-time supporter of sex worker rights, and will be urging him to stand firm…The attack started the moment his words were reported…
This is impossible to parody, because the reality is so ludicrous:
As the City of Austin prepares for the thousands of people expected in town for the South by Southwest Interactive, Film and Music Festivals, police are preparing for a spike in crimes. “You see a lot of these female escorts doing this not of their own volition. They’re underaged minors, they’ve been put into a position where they have no choice. These guys will take them and literally go from city to city, post ads in the classified, have a hotel room,” [fantasized]…Steve Deaton, head of the Organized Crime Division…
…Occasionally, chimps throw rocks in displays of strength to establish their position in a community. But what we discovered…was a repeated activity with no clear link to gaining food or status…We…found many more sites where trees had similar markings and in many places piles of rocks had accumulated inside hollow tree trunks…We found the same mysterious behaviour in small pockets of Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire but nothing east of this…The behaviour could be part of a male display…If some trees produce an impressive bang, this could accompany or replace feet drumming in a display…On the other hand, it could be more symbolic than that – and more reminiscent of our own past. Marking pathways and territories with signposts such as piles of rocks is an important step in human history…maybe we found the first evidence of chimpanzees creating a kind of shrine that could indicate sacred trees…
More and more women who identify as feminists now support sex workers:
As the signatories of this manifesto, we – women’s rights, feminist, and sex workers’ rights organisations and collectives – express our support for sex workers’ self-determination and the recognition of sex work as work…we ask all feminists to concentrate their resources on including and amplifying sex workers’ voices in the movement and to stop promoting legal frameworks that have been shown to be detrimental to sex workers’ rights. We call for a feminist movement that…is inclusive of trans people and sex workers. Our criminal justice systems are oppressive, and therefore we do not see increased policing, prosecution, and imprisonment as the only solution to violence against women…
Most of this is just the typical small-city cop “sex trafficking” puffery and “gang” propaganda, but this bit was pretty jaw-dropping: “…the Spokane Police Department created a unit dedicated to fighting human trafficking…and have decided to pull a detective from the Major Crimes Unit to work specifically on these cases…” Because obviously, investigating murder, rape and armed robbery isn’t as fun or profitable as ruining people’s lives for seeking consensual sex.
Tired of hard stuff like standing, getting dressed & making paper airplanes? Just sit still instead!
…human trafficking…is getting some support in southern Wisconsin…woman [sic]…are now trying a new do’, blue [hair] extensions, the color for human trafficking awareness…college roommates Camille Guenther and Rachel Eckmann created Beautiful Blue 2016 and have joined forces with Cuttin’ Up salon for the cause…they say spreading the message, right now, is more important than donations…
Laws are more important than people:
In Bloomington, Indiana, a 14-year-old girl was arrested…on prostitution charges after texting older men and offering sex for a fee…Bloomington detectives began looking into the case after a woman reported seeing texts from the girl, who had claimed to be 17, on her husband’s phone…Under federal and some state laws, teens selling sexual services are defined as “sex trafficking victims” whether they’re working for/with anybody or not…law-enforcement agents are more than willing to refer to 17-year-old as “child victims” and charge anyone in their vicinity with human trafficking. But while it’s refreshing (if surprising) to see police…acknowledge that teen girls do have agency and avoid the typical sex-trafficking scaremongering…Couldn’t cops have simply talked to the girl’s guardians? How will she possibly be helped by having a criminal record…
The unsinkable Liz Brown does it again:
A Houston-area prostitution sting with the inexplicable name “Operation Traveling Circus” led to more than 400 arrests in the first two months of 2016…Like most vice stings disguised as victim-centered investigations, this “traveling circus” featured the identification of no actual sex-trafficking victims and zero arrests of human traffickers. But the January 4 through Feburary 26 operation did yield hundreds of men who sought to pay what they thought was a willing, adult sex worker for company. To spin this as somehow related to sex trafficking, officials trotted out the much-debunked idea that sporting events are catnip to human-traffickers…Making men afraid to pay for prostitution now is simply an effort to deprive these mythical future sex traffickers of their client base, officials explained…Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman [lied that pigs]…had to arrest [sex workers]…so those selling sex on their own could be prosecuted, while victims would have the charges dropped and gain access to some sort of nebulous social services…more than 200 of the 400 people arrested were “johns” who tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer…It’s unclear if the rest of the arrests were of sex workers or not. These sorts of stings frequently lead to arrests for things like outstanding warrants, drug possession, or unauthorized gun possession, as well…
A British social justice campaigner has flown from London to Australia to confront a former police spy who deceived her into having a two-year relationship and is now involved in directing police training courses in Australia. Helen Steel…tracked down John Dines after spending years piecing together clues to uncover his real identity. It was the first time Steel had contacted the former undercover officer after he disappeared from her life more than two decades ago claiming to be having a mental breakdown…he was resettled in Australia by British police who feared Steel was on the verge of finding him…
Giving fanatics what they want only encourages them to want more:
New Orleans…City Council…could move to set a cap on the number of strip clubs allowed to operate in the city. In the meantime, the Planning Commission is considering the imposition of a soft moratorium on new…clubs on Bourbon Street, the only zoning district where strip clubs…didn’t need special permission from the City Council in order to open…Robert Watters, owner of Rick’s Cabaret…said that, although he’s always nervous about government attempts to legislate morality, he thinks there are enough clubs in the area already…Jim Kelly…of…Covenant House…[fantasizes that] strip clubs…can act as recruiting grounds for pimps…Kelly successfully lobbied the City Council in January to raise the minimum age for dancers to 21…
It’s disgusting how often sex business owners like Watters and Dennis Hof side with prohibitionists in order to more effectively line their own pockets.
The British press, partying like it’s 1999 and nobody’s heard of escort reviews yet:
Call girls and rentboys openly offer themselves for sex online, while customers leave seedy reviews of the services on offer. ..Seedy websites list the services available from vice girls and even give their hourly rate. The Paisley Daily Express has seen X-rated pages that are filled with pictures of scantily-clad sex workers, with details of how to arrange a meeting. Local punters even use the Trip Advisor-style portals on the sites…to give star-rated reviews of the men and women they bed…perverts even discuss the parking amenities…
In the News (#532)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, agency denial, Backpage, bogus studies, China, Day of the Dead, dirty, disease, Greece, hysteria, law, neofeminism, pathologization of males, prohibitionist myths, rape, Size Matters, Stand-Up Guys, stripping, Tennessee, The Public Eye, The Red Umbrella, The Scarlet Letter, The Widening Gyre, Traffic Circle, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Worse Than I Thought on April 25, 2015| 2 Comments »
To force through a bad law you seize on a convenient…victim, and declare that its sufferings trump all the traditions and rights of free citizenship. – Lloyd Evans
A man who raped a prostitute for TWO HOURS after knocking her unconscious with a brick has been jailed for 15 years. Hardeep Sandhu, 39, beat his victim with a brick until she passed out and then repeatedly raped her for two hours as she went in and out of consciousness. She suffered multiple injuries to her head, face, arms and hands during the prolonged attack in a garden near Hartington Street in Derby…
Last fall, The Social Club of Nashville left its current quarters for an isolated office park a few miles away. Owners spent $750,000 on the building and began renovations fit for “a private club for the enjoyment” of sexual activity. But when neighbors figured out the nature of club members’ intended socializing, they packed the city council in support of a zoning change which would prevent The Social Club from opening…So…it will now open as the United Fellowship Center, a house of unorthodox religious worship. The dance floor is now a “sanctuary.” The dungeon is now a choir room. And dozens of small, private spaces have been designated “prayer rooms.” The United Fellowship Center has even gotten a city permit to meet as a church…
We need a LOT more men to write like this rather than licking neofeminist boots:
What strikes men about feminism’s approach to the sex trade is that it relies on a simplistic dichotomy: victims/abusers. Female victims…and male abusers…Feminists like to promote the “predator myth”…which argues that porn and prostitution…encourage men to attack women. However, the most basic statistic overturns this theory. How many men use porn? All men. How many men assault women? Few men…I’ve never seen a single erotic scenario featuring coerced or battered women…the idea that porn converts men into rapists…sends…the individual [sex worker]…the message…”Dressed like that you’re asking for it”. Quite a familiar line. But not often heard from women’s rights campaigners…the law’s supporters…say [it] is part of the war against slavery…Trafficked people…pick lettuces, but we don’t ban salad. They hoover carpets, but we don’t outlaw rugs and vacuum cleaners. They care for children, but should we all sterilise ourselves?…
Greece’s government announced…the abolition of a controversial health and hygiene regulation that allowed authorities to publish the details, including photographs, of workers that had tested HIV positive. This is the second time the regulation has been abolished since its first introduction in 2012…the law led to the publication of women’s photographs in the press, arrested as prostitutes, as a means to “protect” public health. Its implementation had led to a storm of protests and reactions over the public humiliation of the women involved, as well as for trampling their fundamental rights and the patient-doctor confidentiality…
This is extra-stupid and dishonest even by prohibitionist standards:
Women rent their bodies as a choice: a myth. Pornography is a harmless spectator sport: a lie. Both enable slavery, often with teenagers plucked from American neighborhoods. Sex trafficking is a $32 billion dollar industry worldwide. That only marginalized women fall prey is another false assumption…Pimps will recruit anyone, and white girls are more profitable,” said Audrey Morrissey…of My Life, My Choice…American culture lifts up female independence, which includes personal sexual choices…Many argue that stripping, for example, is a way to pay for college or to support a family. Fact: only 5 percent of female sex workers make and keep their money. The rest are prostituted through force and coercion in an industry led by men…
China is cracking down on exotic dancers at funerals, the Ministry of Culture said April 23. Although such entertainment is not widespread, strippers are thought to attract more people to a funeral, which is a sign of respect for the dead. Two recent cases “have been punished”…
Another good profile of my friend Laura Lee:
Dubliner Laura Lee has the self-assurance of someone who has packed several lifetimes into her 40 years. After a couple of cul-de-sacs in law and banking, Lee has returned to the job that funded her first law degree: sex work…“I’m not going to say, ‘I love my job’. I don’t know any of my friends who leap out of bed on Monday morning and go, ‘Yes, work!’ ” she says. “But I do choose to do it. I enjoy the freedom is gives me in terms of managing my finances, spending time with my family and studying”…
…the Global Slavery Index (GSI), which received fawning publicity, including in The Washington Post….estimated that there were 29.8 million people in “modern slavery” around the world. In November 2014, the GSI unveiled what it described as a more precise estimate: 35.8 million people. That’s an increase of 6 million people! What’s going on here?…there is a large gulf between the estimates of tens of millions of victims and the actual number of identified “survivors” — 44,000 at last count. (This number is also a bit dubious)…the GSI figure has come under attack from other researchers for having a murky, inconsistent and questionable methodology…Clearly there is a problem with the numbers when the U.S. government cites a figure of 20 million and a well-funded, media-savvy organization touts a figure of “slaves” that is almost twice as high. Media organizations are complicit in fostering misperceptions by often citing these figures as established fact, without even an explanation or examination of the methodology…these Pinocchios are for all-too-credulous acceptance of them…
On 30 January, a mesmerizing report was launched at the Asia-Pacific Intergovernmental Meeting on HIV in Bangkok: The Right(s) Evidence—Sex Work, Violence And HIV In Asia: A Multi-Country Qualitative Study. It is a ground-breaking piece of work for several reasons. It involved an unusual collaboration among governments, sex-worker organizations, communities, UN agencies, and regional agencies in Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is full of fascinating insights into the lives of women, men and transgender people in the sex industry. It finds compelling evidence of widespread violence…and…points to a culture of impunity among the police, doctors, and other powerful players that in turn increases the threats of violence, trauma, disease and despair among sex workers, and by extension their families, communities, and customers…you’ve never heard of it…[because] it was greeted with “absolute and total silence”…the media is scared to touch it [because] the data is very clearly saying that the police are the biggest violators…
“…even if they appear to have been staked and beheaded“:
With an agreement now reached on (not) funding abortions for trafficking victims, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously…to pass the “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act” (JVTA)…with little fanfare or discussion, Senators tacked on a late amendment to the legislation which radically alters the rules for Internet publishers. Known as the “Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation” (SAVE) Act, the change is vehemently opposed by a broad coalition of free speech, web publishing, and civil liberties advocates. If the SAVE amendment ultimately passes…it would go against decades of precedent related to web publishers and user-generated content. In general, the owners of websites and online publications cannot be held criminally liable for the things that random people post. Under the new rules, however, these entities could be charged as sex traffickers if it turns out any trafficking victims are advertised on the site. Sponsors have specifically stated that their intent is to shut down, or at least seriously cripple…Backpage.com…
Still More Stand-Up Guys
Posted in Biography, Perception, tagged blogging, Colorado, comics, harm reduction, hysteria, Ireland, lawyers, psychology, Stand-Up Guys, Sweden, Swedish model, United Kingdom on October 9, 2014| 13 Comments »
Despite [all], some men stubbornly fight for our rights anyway; I don’t mind saying that I find that sort of obstinacy rather sexy. – Maggie McNeill
It’s already getting close to a year since I’ve compiled a list of men who have spoken out for sex worker rights, in defiance of the popular Swedish-flavored narrative which casts sex work as tantamount to rape and a form of male “oppression” of women. In such a climate, speaking out for sex workers is liable to get one labeled a client or even a “pimp”, so “these days it takes some serious balls for a man to stand up, demand rights for sex workers, and actually sign his real name to the thing.” Here, then, is another list of male allies; remember, this doesn’t include men who are directly involved in our industry, since it’s as personal for them as it is for us.
It does, however, include clients who have chosen to “out” themselves for the cause. As before, this is by no means complete; please make any new suggestions in the comments below, so I can include them in a follow-up next year.
Noah Berlatsky is a freelance journalist who writes often about feminism, comic books and “geek” culture; he’s been published in Slate, the Atlantic, Wired
and many others, and he has a book on the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics out early next year. Follow him on Twitter at @hoodedu.
Magnus Betnér is a Swedish comedian who has dared to mock the Swedish model in front of Swedish audiences in Sweden; that automatically qualifies him for this list. Follow him on Twitter at @Magnusbetner; he tweets in both Swedish and English.
Andy Bodle is a journalist and scriptwriter who has written for the Guardian, the Times, the BBC, and ABC. He is out about having hired sex workers when he was younger, and has written several times debunking “trafficking” claims and arguing for decriminalization from a harm reduction viewpoint. Email him at andybodle@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @_Womanology_
Felix Clay is not a cat, but rather a writer for the humor site Cracked who not only writes sex-positive
articles, but even defended sex work in one where he admitted to hiring an escort (though he denied having sex with her). Follow him on Twitter at @Felix_Clay
Leonard Fahrni is a regular reader and an instructor at Metro State University in Denver; beside speaking up in person and in a number of blog posts, he also proved hugely helpful to me when I reached Denver on my tour this past June. Follow him on Twitter at @LeonardFahrni.
Robert King is a professor of applied psychology at University College, Cork, Ireland; he writes the blog Hive Mind at Psychology Today, in which he has on a number of occasions defended the legitimacy of sex work. Email him at r.king@ucc.ie or follow him on Twitter at @DrRobertKing
Ed Krayewski is an editor at Reason who has, like so many libertarian journalists, consistently supported people’s right to do whatever they damned well please
with their own bodies, including sell or buy sex. Email him at ekrayewski@reason.com or follow him on Twitter at @edkrayewski
Jay Levy is a Cambridge University researcher whose 2012 PhD looked at Swedish prohibitionism as a form of violence against women; he has also written a book on the subject and discusses it in this video. Email him at j.levy.03@cantab.net.
Nicola Mai is a professor of sociology and migration studies at London Metropolitan University; he not only authored an important study debunking “sex trafficking” myths in the UK, but has also supported decriminalization in both scholarly and popular articles. Email him at n.mai@londonmet.ac.uk.
Robert Murphy is a well-known libertarian economist who, though he has not written on the subject
of decriminalization before, did so after attending my presentation in Nashville back in July. Email him via this page or follow him on Twitter @BobMurphyEcon
Jim Norton is a comedian who recently came out as a client and published an article about it (in Time, no less), opening himself to the kind of prohibitionist attack that would cause fainter hearts than his to quail. I don’t know if he ever reads this blog, but I have it on good authority that he owns
an autographed copy of Ladies of the Night. Email him via this page or follow him on Twitter at @JimNorton
Peter Brian Schafer is a photographer and regular reader who strives in his work to portray whores with dignity and respect and to debunk the Madonna/whore dichotomy. Email him at hookstrapped@gmail.com
Sam Seder is a comedian, writer, actor, film director, television producer-director, and talk radio host;
in the latter capacity, he has debunked ridiculous excuses for the criminalization of sex work and had Melissa Gira Grant as a guest on his show, Majority Report. Contact him while on the air via this page or follow him on Twitter at @SamSeder
Michael Smerconish is a radio (on Sirius XM) and TV (formerly on MSNBC, now on CNN) personality who has made at least one persuasive on-air defense of prostitution from a harm reduction perspective,
also mentioning clients with disabilities. Follow him on Twitter at @smerconish
If you’d like to be on the next list of this type, just email me with a link to whatever public statements you’ve made about sex worker rights under your real name, and we’ll see about adding you to the next one (don’t be shy; if you don’t tell me, who will?) In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for “Stand-Up Guys” in my weekly TW3 column, where I’ll mention guys who come to my attention without having to wait another year.
That Was the Week That Was (#432)
Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, activism, agency denial, An Example to the West, Arizona, asset seizure, brothels, Canada, Central Asia, Check Your Premises, consensual crime, cops, disease, Do As I Say, drugs, Dysphemisms Galore, end demand, Facts in the Case of Monica Jones, fantasy, First They Came for the Hookers, Florida, France, gangs, Hollywood, hysteria, I Saw My Brain, Illinois, India, internet, Ireland, King of the Hill, language, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Netherlands, New York, Nigeria, Ohio, Oregon, pathologization of males, Pennsylvania, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, Remembrance, rescue industry, Rough Trade, Saving Them from Themselves, shame, South Africa, South Carolina, sporting events, Stand-Up Guys, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, The Scarlet Letter, Traffic Jam, transgender, United Kingdom, Vendetta, What Were You Thinking?, Wisconsin, witchcraft, Yellow Fever, yellow journalism on August 9, 2014| 13 Comments »
Law enforcement stings designed to shame men who pay for sex are nothing more than the state blowing its own morality horn. – Jim Norton
A convicted rapist…has been jailed for 11 years…Jason Oates…approached [a sex worker]…and agreed to pay £20…but…produced a large-bladed hunting knife…and demanded that she submit…to sex without charge…Oates…[previously served] three…years [for another rape]…
I just can’t imagine how it got there:
Gardai are investigating after a laptop and documents belonging to a garda were discovered in a brothel in Amsterdam…The high-level investigation will probe how the individual’s bag was found in the brothel…
Cops in a country preparing to criminalize the purchase of sex insist men won’t be arrested if they confess to attempting to buy sex:
…PACT-Ottawa [reported that] more than half of…sex buyers they surveyed…said they…would call police if they suspected coercion. That jibes with research…by sociologist Chris Atchison…Sextrade101 founder Natasha Falle, who [claims] she [was] trafficked…[in] her teens…[pretends that] “They never questioned our bruises, our broken bones…I used to see between one and five guys a night and I was in it for 12 years”…Det.-Const. Chris Lavergne has yet to field a call from a client…”Is there a way to make Johns understand, you’re not going to get in trouble for calling the police and giving us the information”…
1) Falle is full of shit; I bruise easily and was quizzed every time I had an unusually large one. I daresay nearly every sex worker has had that experience. I do, however, think it’s interesting that she reports a realistic number of clients; I’m sure it will grow later.
2) Lavergne can’t conceive that the reason he “has yet to field a call” is that overt coercion in the sex industry is actually pretty rare.
What is it with New York state DAs and their sophomoric attempts at “humor”? “Albany County DA David Soares rolled out a new initiative…to combat sex trafficking…Frontpage…will post a photo of every person convicted of paying for sex in the county…” And this op-ed commenting on the “strategy” is so over-the-top it almost has to be a joke:
Some people say that prostitution is a victimless crime…but…there are victims. A lot of them. Children are often forced or compelled into prostitution at an early age…drug addicts sell their bodies to support their habits…prostitutes are often beaten and raped in order to keep bringing in the money for their pimps. Families are harmed by the “johns” patronizing prostitutes. Full neighborhoods fall victim to the plague. Diseases are spread. Human trafficking — a $32 billion-a-year business in New York alone — is now an international crisis…
If it had been pictures of himself, I’m sure the cops would’ve taken action:
A mother in South Carolina called sheriff’s deputies on her [15-year-old] son…after finding porn playing on her living room TV…the [woman] “immediately turned off the TV” and ushered her 2-year-old daughter out of the room…before calling the police on her son…the sheriff’s office did not make an arrest or issue a citation…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic 
A federal judge has sentenced a 40-year-old suburban Chicago doctor to nearly six years in prison for using a classified-ad site to trade prescription pills for sex. Joshua D. Baron…blamed what he called “demons” of sexual addiction…the pediatric neurologist placed ads on Craig’s List [sic] offering pills for sex and requesting photos of respondents. He later e-mailed hospital website links to prove he was a physician…
Patoo Abraham has led protests…to ensure that prostitution is legalized in Nigeria and that sex workers be protected and respected…“We are tired of dying in silence; we want to be able to practice our profession with pride like every other person…Sex work is normal work and there are sex workers everywhere under one form of disguise or the other”…
Comedian Jim Norton’s article in Time is definitely flawed, but I applaud any client who comes out and has the balls to write about it:
I’m not ashamed to pay for sex—and other men shouldn’t be either…The illegal aspect of prostitution has never deterred me, nor would legalizing it cause me to engage in it more…in a free society, people must be allowed to make choices for themselves that are incomprehensible to others. By keeping prostitution illegal and demonizing all of its parties, we (you) are empowering pimps and human traffickers and anyone else who wants to victimize sex workers…
…London has become the hub, the epicentre for a global trafficking enterprise involving thousands of children for exploitation, sexual abuse and even…ritual voodoo killing…Hundreds of children have been abducted from their families in Africa and trafficked to the UK…Many are raped and sexually abused…there is a vast reservoir of lost children…anonymously shuffled from flat to shabby flat – a dark pool feeding child exploitation and misery across the planet…Britain’s generous child benefits system has become an international magnet for fraudsters who…traffick…thousands of children into this country every year to take advantage of payments and these young victims are prey for other vices, too – a ready made market for sexploitation…
I love the way it grows from hundreds to thousands in just a few paragraphs; in his next article I’m sure it will be millions. 
First They Came for the Hookers…
These “complaints” are always from cops:
An Oshkosh [Wisconsin] strip club is closed [after]…the…District Attorney’s office filed a civil suit against the owner…in response to several prostitution complaints…The assistant district attorney says Naughty Girls is a nuisance to the community. He is asking a judge to close the business for a year and that all moveable property be sold…
Bars and clubs = “hub for underage prostitution” because travel agents say so:
Indian men are flocking to Kazakhstan in droves, if travel and tour operators are to be believed…Reason? The thriving sex industry. Thailand, Singapore and Dubai have been the traditional destinations; but that is changing…Kazakhstan…has become a hub for underage prostitution over the past few years…bars, cafes and club [sic]…are used as pick-up joints…
Are you slipping, Toledo? In the original “King of the Hill” entry you were #3, but according to WKYC you’ve dropped to fourth place. Maybe if you give grants to “pimps” to build more hair salons you can reclaim your lost glory from Miami or Tampa Bay.
What the Hell Were You Thinking? (TW3 #135)
The term “rescue” used in this context is utterly tone-deaf:
…[South African] University students…[designed] a device intended to…help sex workers’ organisations keep an eye on the safety of their members…[it] has eight Wi-Fi transmitters linked to armbands that will be worn by the sex workers in the vicinity…the armband…[has] four buttons…on-line, off-line, jump [check in to a call] or panic…Should a sex worker send a distress call, the control room will forward her…precise location…to sex worker organisations who will alert the emergency services…
Polk County, Florida…Sheriff Grady Judd assembled a press conference…[to brag about a huge sting operation, but] either didn’t realize – or didn’t care – that a number of the 132 men whose faces appeared on his mugshot “big board” had already been cleared of committing crimes…”It’s fair…Because…when we arrest them as ‘sexual perverts on children,’ I’m going to call them [that]…we have a very liberal…criminal justice system, sometimes it’s more difficult to prove ‘beyond…every reasonable doubt’…”
Given that our “liberal” incarceration machine imprisons five times as many people as civilized nations do, imagine the nightmare that would result if maniacs like Judd got their way.
Even by the low standards of the modern American press, this article is hilariously yellow:
…Domestic sex trafficking…is an increasingly common and highly lucrative underground business …involving American girls and young women (but sometimes boys) forced into sex slavery by sick pimps…in places as unassuming as a mall or a train station. Pimps can earn $150,000 to $200,000 a year on each victim they force into prostitution…experts say Philly’s location creates a particularly attractive opportunity for the brokers of enslaved women. “We are sort of in a unique hub area because we’re between New York, Atlantic City, Washington, D.C., Harrisburg – all of which have child-prostitution problems,” said Michelle Morgan, an assistant U.S. attorney…”There are a lot of places for pimps to go from here to make more money, to buy new girls, to trade girls, so it’s a lucrative area”…Tiffany…[was] swept into the dark underbelly of sex trafficking…she [was forced]…to sell her young body to dozens of men…she would have sex with them or do whatever else popped into their twisted minds…
One can barely help picturing “journalist” Morgan Zalot masturbating furiously as he writes those last few lines. The mall occupies the place in modern “white slavery” hysteria that the ice cream parlor did in the first cycle a century ago.
Members of the Zanesville City Council attended a neighborhood barbecue…to discuss…prostitution…Sandy Gentry…said…the…ideal response…would be to create some kind of rehabilitation facility where prostitutes could go to get help and get off the streets…helping reform their lives would be the best solution…
Buried under all the monstrous male-demonizing and female-infantilizing rhetoric is the unstated fact that the “National Day of Johns Arrests” ballyhooed in this article is the brainchild of one sad, sick woman acting out her twisted psychodrama on thousands of strangers who never did anything to hurt her:
Law enforcement agencies across the country collaborated in a recent series of sex stings that netted the arrests of almost 500 men seeking to buy sex and 14 pimps and traffickers…[as] part of an annual “National Day of Johns Arrests”…Officials said 111 prostitutes were recovered during the operation, including 13 juveniles…
“Recovered” means “arrested and caged”. Note that this big “rescue” found only 13 underage girls in 14 states; so much for the “epidemic of child prostitution”. Phoenix can always be counted on to put an extra-stupid spin on a story like this; a cop with the Dickensian name Trent Crump blathered, “We want people to understand this is not because of Super Bowl, but with the Super Bowl coming, this may be a venue in which people believe and people believe they can come here.” Trent, Maggie McNeill believes and Maggie McNeill believes that you are an idiot.
A sequence of a dozen images…taken by [an English] Lieutenant…are believed to be the only photographs ever to surface of British officers from the 1914-1918 war inside a “blue lamp” – the refined category of brothel reserved by secret edict of the British army for the officer classes…Other ranks…were restricted to crude “red-lamp” brothels…
This is mostly a lot of asinine and self-contradictory political “sex trafficking” bullshit; for example, the mayor belches out “The program saves women’s lives,” but two short paragraphs later the women morph into teens (all of whom are said to be “12 to 14 years old”), and four paragraphs later they’re vomiting out “the needs of the child”. The really interesting thing is the continued harping on “gangs” and the obvious grooming of “sex trafficking” to be the new excuse for the police state once the drug war inevitably dies: “Gangs and other criminal organizations prefer humans [to drugs] because they’re a reusable resource; they can be resold…”
Facts in the Case of Monica Jones
…Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox of the hit series Orange is the New Black is lending her support to [Monica] Jones [during Jones’ appeal of her conviction for “manifesting prostitution”]…Cox, like Jones, is a transgender woman of color. She has some serious concerns about the Phoenix law, which some call “walking while trans”…
That Was the Week That Was (#418)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged abortion, Above the Law, activism, Africa, agency denial, animals, Arizona, bad customers, brothels, Buried Truth, California, Canada, Case Study, cell phones, censorship, China, cops, Creepy Coppers, dehumanization, Don’t Take My Word For It, drugs, Dutch Threat, evidence, fantasy, Follow Your Bliss, France, Full of Themselves, Germany, Gullible's Travels, Held Together With Lies, Hollywood, hysteria, Illinois, internet, language, LGBT rights, Louisiana, Madonna/whore, male prostitutes, Marching Up Their Own Arses, massage, Most Uptight Nerd Ever, Netherlands, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Original Sin, porn, psychology, Race to the Bottom, rape, red-light districts, rescue industry, robots, Rough Trade, Scapegoats, screening, Small Choice, Stand-Up Guys, streetwalkers, stripping, sweatshops, The Public Eye, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The Widening Gyre, Three Steps Back, transgender, Uganda, Under Every Bed, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Worse Than I Thought, yellow journalism on May 3, 2014| 18 Comments »
The only difference between an escort and, say, your sister is probably that an escort charges money. – Felix Clay
Reporter casts violent rapist as a victim of prostitution:
…The havoc prostitution can wreak on lives played out in a London [Ontario] courtroom…when [Nelson] Martinez…was sentenced for what was described as a “callous and dangerous” attack on a sex worker…Martinez received a sentence of [merely] 38 months…[because] Justice Peter Hockin [was] impressed by Martinez’s promise to take counselling for his anger and sexual problems…[his] marriage was healthy until…Martinez turned away from his wife and children, and to pornography and prostitution…
Quite Possibly the Most Uptight Nerd Ever
Actually, the author of this particular article isn’t uptight; he seems accepting, though he’s a bit ill-informed about screening and seems to believe streetwalking is the norm:
…the Berlin-based Peppr app uses GPS to connect potential clients with prostitutes in their immediate area…to save prostitutes from having to pound sidewalks for customers. It was created by…Pia Poppenreiter…after seeing sex workers out of doors on a cold night…To help make sure that its sex workers don’t become part of any human trafficking chain, Peppr interviews its advertisers over the phone before they sign them up…The company will also not work with brothels, only individuals and escort agencies…
Megalomaniac speaks for thousands of people, claiming they all want celibacy:
Massage parlors…have multiplied over the past decade, and city leaders don’t believe the boom is based on increased demand for back rubs…South Pasadena City Manager Sergio Gonzalez said…“That is something I believe is exploitation of women…it’s promoting sex, and that’s not what we want in South Pasadena”…
The rest of the article lays the blame for this terrifying invasion of peaceful businesswomen on the incompetence of the California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC), an organization which claims to be such an efficient investigative body that it “did what the FBI couldn’t: uncover PROOF of a “vast network” of traffickers!” The law which created the CAMTC contained a “sunset clause” which will expire next year, and many politicians want it to do just that; however, CAMTC director Richard McElroy warns of dire consequences if his crack team of super-massage-cops is dissolved: “The human trafficking cartel…are [sic] praying we sunset because we are the biggest thorn in their side”…
Men just can’t let go of the pathetic fantasy of the high-income heterosexual male prostitute with gorgeous customers:
…in…Fading Gigolo…John Turturro…plays…a gentle bookstore employee who loses his part-time job…For his first trick – a passionate one-on-one with [Sharon Stone] – Fioravante earns $2,500…A string of satisfied clients follow…and the money rolls in…
A [Washington state cop]…involved in fighting…sex trafficking was arrested…on child porn charges…Donald Glunt…described himself on his LinkedIn page as being a training coordinator for the church-based group Hope4Justice…officials…discovered images on Glunt’s city-owned cell phone while conducting an internal administrative investigation…
Just when you thought fake teen drug scares couldn’t get any stupider, Ohio local news brings us beezin, in which kids rub Burt’s Bees lip balm on their eyelids…If I had to guess, I’d say beezin is probably most popular at rainbow parties after drinking hand sanitizer and butt-chugging some vodka…”The peppermint oil in the lip balm is a very strong irritant and can cause inflammation in the eye”…[said] Dr. Brett Cauthen…
The scare appears to have been touched off by this parody video:
Panhandling…in Louisiana would be banned if a bill the House unanimously [approved] …gets signed into law…[sponsor] Austin Badon…proposed the bill…[in] answer to a call by [cops] to help…break up obvious patterns of prostitution…The legislation would allow for prostitutes to be “hassled by the cops,” he said…it would also apply to hitchhikers…
Four French police officers are being held in custody on suspicion of raping a 34-year-old Canadian woman at their Paris headquarters…[after she met them] during a night of heavy drinking at a nearby Irish pub…
Given that politicians who obsess about certain kinks are nearly always practitioners of those same kinks, what are we to make of Joe Arpaio’s crusade against zoophiliac women?
Once again, deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office have busted someone who went to Craigslist looking for sex with an animal. This time, a 22-year-old Phoenix man went to…Craigslist seeking a male horse “on which to commit the act of fellatio”…Detectives were able to identify the poster as…Donald Waelde…
It takes a truly sick mind to vomit out the phrase “commit fellatio”, and unless I miss my guess that’s not a man but a transwoman; of course, Arizona’s pretty intolerant of them as well.
Once again, Cracked demonstrates it has the smartest talent pool in journalism today:
…I feel that if an adult woman…wants to charge money for sexual services, it’s not a lot different from anyone else charging for massage services, or to be a clown at your birthday party, except the balloon animals are way more fun. They have an ability others are interested in that they have monetized. If that upsets you, it’s probably because you have an issue, not them. Naturally, I’m opposed to human trafficking, sex slavery, underage prostitution, violence, and substance abuse, but I really believe a person can sell sex and not be involved in any of that, just as you can be a pot smoker and maybe not be involved in Mexican drug cartels, the beheading of civilians, organized crime, robbery, and meth-related buggery…
At least this particular iteration of “robot hooker” idiocy recognizes the possibility that sex work is here to stay:
John Danaher…published a paper that…lays out two contrasting hypotheses: one in which robots dominate the sex industry; and another in which robot use actually leads to an increase in human sex work…The displacement hypothesis says sex robots will eventually push human sex workers out of a job…The resiliency hypothesis…[argues] that human prostitutes are here to stay…[because] humans will overwhelmingly prefer a human-on-human encounter to one with a robot…and…somewhat humorously suggests that there will be a spike in human prostitution because robots will edge people out of otherwise conventional jobs…
Yes, women turning to sex work because they can’t find any other profitable work is “humorous”. Naturally, the first hypothesis is “supported” with nonsense about “exploitation”, “sex trafficking” and “diseases”.
“Sex trafficking” is caused by abortion!
The one-child policy in China has resulted in more than just forced abortions and sterilizations — it has led to massive cases of child trafficking as families attempt to buy children. It’s also leading to international sex slavery rings and selling women as brides…
…SWOP [Chicago held a]…public event…called, “Understanding Sex Work and Allyship”…on…the…social misperceptions surrounding sex work, and the services that SWOP provides…including…the need for decriminalization and basic labor rights as a way of countering isolation and shame…SWOP should be respected as a union organization, and equally as fighting an important civil-rights battle…
“Eat the Poo Poo” sounds like the title of a punk album:
A Ugandan pastor who has spent years calling for a stricter anti-gay law could now be charged under that very same law…Martin Ssempa is notorious for screening gay porn in church and claiming it is common for gay men to “eat the poo-poo”…Paul Kaliisa, from Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST)…[suggests Ssempa] is almost “obsessed” with [gay porn]. “He moves everywhere with clips of gay men”…
Melissa Gira Grant has a good article about the evangelical Christian basis of “sex trafficking” hysteria, focusing especially on Sold No More (the ones who claimed a mineral show was a hotbed of “trafficking”) and Shared Hope International. One interesting point: Sold No More began as a “crisis pregnancy center”, one of those scams that trick women seeking abortions into anti-abortion propaganda sessions.
…I’m Felicia Anna, a 27 year old prostitute from Romania working in the heart of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. I’ve been working there now for more than 4 years, unforced, unexploited and completely on my own free will…Before I got in touch with my boyfriend, I had no idea of the stories, witch hunt and simply false facts…about my work place…and prostitution in general…most of the prostitutes don’t speak out…because they’re scarred of a pimp, or because what people are saying is true, but simply because they just don’t know what’s going on…almost nobody does anything to debunk these false stories and bring out the truth, and the people who did hardly got heard…
What the hell is going on in Washington state? These recent anti-whore editorials read more like something one might expect from a small-town paper in the Bible Belt than from a major newspaper in a supposedly “liberal” state. This one urges the government to grant itself censorship powers over the internet and includes pearl-clutching sentences like “The Internet empowers pimps to post an endless stream of titillating photos of sex workers, many of whom are forced into the trade as children” (gotta love the juxtaposition of the term “sex worker” with blatant anti-agency propaganda). Another one infantilizes women even further with prudish arsehole-clenching about “illicit ads that reduce people’s daughters to faceless bodyshots…body measurements…and suggestive pseudonyms.” Yes, a grown woman with a university education wrote that. A third one from Olympia quotes the usual idiocy, calls strip clubs “hotbeds of human trafficking” and cheers the enacting of a new law which “makes it a felony to coerce someone into involuntary servitude” (apparently, they’ve never heard of the 13th Amendment up there). All I can say is, I know a lot of people who will be very disappointed when this moral panic collapses and they need to find a new way to sell papers.
Held Together With Lies (Hysteria on Parade)
This article is an odd hybrid; it admits that the majority of “trafficking” is for manual labor rather than sex, yet inflates the Bales number to 32 million, then claims that exploitative sweatshops aren’t exploitative if they’re owned and operated by “rescue” organizations. 
Another mob-with-torches story from Los Angeles, containing this gem:
“We’ve got to swarm these girls with love,” said the Rev. Deborah Manns, who…works with police, probation officers and parents to reclaim runaway girls…”We go to parties, we go to parks, we go to malls…I will chase a girl down the street, grab her, hold her, fight her…whatever it takes to keep her from going back to the track”…where trafficking victims are often forced to sell their bodies…
Ignoring people’s choices, spying on them, tackling them and betraying them to cops is “love”.
This Random Brothel Exposé Generator is pure brilliance.
Worse Than I Thought (TW3 #403)
It’s really good to see Reason expressing such strong opposition to sex work criminalization lately, especially when they quote me in the process; I just wish they wouldn’t give quite so much time to the awful Dennis Hof.
Under Every Bed (All Traffick, All the Time)
The grandiosity of these delusions increases by the day:
Windie Jo Lazenko …went to [North Dakota]…to fight the sex trafficking…that…is a direct result of the oil boom…she said…she has helped 10 trafficked girls escape the sex trade…“Some…hotels…actually have floors that are bought out by pimps…and it operates pretty much like a brothel”…
Marching Up Their Own Arses (TW3 #414)
You should’ve known that Arizona, which is trying to market itself as whore-hater central, would be the next to jump on the “escort licensing” fad:
Gov. Jan Brewer…signed sweeping legislation that…[forces] businesses such as massage parlors and escort services that advertise online…to post their license numbers…[and] have written permission of any women they depict and have evidence they are not minors. Cindy McCain…said the…law will help close off the state to…traffickers…[it] received unanimous support in…the…Legislature…
That Was the Week That Was (#403)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Procrustean Bed, Above the Law, Africa, agency denial, Aggressive Ignorance, An Example to the West, Arizona, Backwards into the Future, Bad Girls, bogus studies, Bootlickers, brothels, California, censorship, Checklist, Colorado, condoms, cops, Cops and Robbers, disease, diversion programs, East Asia, end demand, Florida, France, gangs, Hall of Shame, harm reduction, hysteria, internet, Ireland, Islam, Israel, King of the Hill, Korea, language, Latin America, law, LGBT rights, Louisiana, Lying Down With Dogs, Madonna/whore, Maggie in the Media, Middle East, neofeminism, Nevada, New Jersey, Peru, Pimping the Pimp, pragmatism, prohibitionist myths, rape, restaurants, Rhinoceros, sex offender registry, Shame Shame, South Dakota, Stand-Up Guys, stripping, Subtle Pimping, Sweden, teachers, Tennessee, The Course of a Disease, The Enlightenment Police, The Public Eye, The Swedish Pimpocracy, Traffic Jam, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state), Worse Than I Thought on January 18, 2014| 33 Comments »
What would it mean to think of sex workers not as traitors to feminism but as feminist forebears? – Mattilda Sycamore
A…man facing rape charges is free after…claiming in a [Swedish] court…that the woman’s screams of protest were simply part of a violent sex game. “I recognized [from other girls] the way she said no as a part of the sex”…[he] said…the two met…through a common acquaintance and he invited her back for a drink…”I expressed very clearly that I didn’t want to, so there was no way he could misunderstand me,” the woman told investigators…however…the man became more aggressive as her protests increased…he covered her nose and mouth so she couldn’t breathe and slapped her in the face…[she fled] under the pretense of taking a shower following the incident…Witnesses…encountered her lightly clothed and sobbing…
Meanwhile, a retired Swedish prosecutor explains why the Julian Assange situation should never have occurred, and says “the prosecutor-general should…rescind the decision to reopen the investigation, rescind the arraignment ruling, and rescind the arrest warrant.”
While bogus “trafficking” studies by hired researchers are misleading and dangerous, those performed by “trafficking” fetishists themselves are just plain hilarious. This one from the Imagine Foundation studied online sex work ads for three months in order to reach the exciting and important conclusion that hotels tend to be clustered along busy highways.
I’ll bet you’d never have guessed.
Last Wednesday afternoon I spoke to Susie Bright for her podcast In Bed With Susie Bright, and the show is now available; individual episodes cost $5.95, but are free with a subscription.
A [Louisiana] panel vowed…to pursue the johns…and…create courts dedicated to human trafficking …“We want to make Louisiana the gold standard in protecting our children (by) dealing with this scourge that can easily destroy a society,” said…Gerald Long…Valarie Hodges…said officials need to dispel the notion that prostitution is a victimless crime. For every act of prostitution, she said, there is a victim…
The idea that prostitution can “easily destroy a society” is beyond hilarious.
A French court…convicted a young woman for wearing a full-face Islamic veil in public and threw out her bid to have the…ban declared unconstitutional. Cassandra Belin, 20, was also convicted of insulting and threatening three police officers at the time of her arrest, which sparked two days of rioting…in July, 2013. She was given a one-month suspended prison sentence for the clash with the police and a 150-euro ($200) fine for wearing the veil…
I’ve often pointed out that controlling what Muslimahs do with their bodies is exactly the same as controlling what whores do with ours, and Julie Billaud & Julie Castro agree with me: “The interest of studying veiled women and prostitutes together lies primarily in the fact that their bodies…have been identified by the state as problematic and, therefore, as requiring political intervention…” 
One rapist cop from Tennessee:
A…deputy has been terminated after handcuffing a woman and forcing her to perform oral sex on him…Willie Marshay Greer…was…charged with aggravated rape and official misconduct. Greer reportedly stopped [the] woman for speeding…[and used the threat of] arrest [to extort sex]…
A woman who was shown on camera tumbling out of a moving LAPD squad car last year said she fell out…to avoid being sexually assaulted by her arresting officer…Kim Nguyen, a 27-year-old pharmacist, says she was handcuffed…when [he]…began opening her legs. [After the fall] Nguyen…spent two weeks in the hospital [with] her jaw…wired shut [and] lost all of her teeth…
An Example To the West (TW3 #14)
In 2011, the Hyundai Research Institute published the findings of a survey commissioned by the Hanteo National Union of Sex Workers. It examined “the changes in public opinions…after the enactment of the Anti-Trade Sex Law” in South Korea based on [telephone] interviews with 1,000 adults from different age groups and all walks of life…The report…has now been translated into English…
Here are two audio files featuring male allies; in the first Christopher Ryan (Sex At Dawn) interviews Thaddeus Russell (A Renegade History of the US), and in the second Zander-Dexter Falcon debates a prohibitionist on Canadian radio.
Thanks to “gang” rhetoric, “sex trafficking” is becoming a new excuse for locking up young black men:
Twenty-four street-gang members…have been indicted on charges of conspiring to run an interstate prostitution ring…in San Diego, Arizona and New Jersey…At a national “Players Ball,” one of the defendants received an award as pimp of the year. Pimps…have a liking for chalices and scepters, known as Pimp Cups and Pimp Sticks…[and] “often” have removable dental “grills” made of gold and costing thousands of dollars…the U.S. attorney is seeking forfeiture of such trophies…Of the 60 sex-trafficking victims [arrested], 11 were minors…Some…were “branded” with tattoos of gang monikers, bar codes or the name of their pimp…[they were recruited with] rap videos on YouTube…
Kudos to Reason TV for doing a short documentary on how horrible California’s “anti-trafficking” CASE Act is, and for interviewing sex workers about how criminalization increases exploitation. Unfortunately, they also interviewed the superlatively awful Dennis Hof, who as usual used the opportunity to spread lies about independent sex workers (in this case, that we’re diseased) in order to argue for imposition of the Nevada system which enriches and empowers people like him. I’ve spoken to video producer Zach Weissmueller, though, and asked for his help in getting Reason more on board with (libertarian) decriminalization rather than (crony-capitalist) Nevada-style legalization. 
It’s always deeply satisfying to catch a “trafficking” lie in the process of expanding; in September we were told that Tampa ranked third in Florida for “sex trafficking”, but now they’re claiming it’s third in the whole country. I suggest they discuss this with Miami and Toledo.
Backwards into the Future (TW3 #131)
Despite a decreasing prevalence of HIV/AIDS among…sex workers [in Myanmar], health workers say the stigma…and…harsh laws…are undermining sex workers’ access to HIV-related services…Even possessing a condom could be used as circumstantial evidence of prostitution until 2011…most of the public are unaware of the directive…[banning the practice, and fear] carrying…condoms because they could be targeted as sex workers…karaoke bars and massage parlours…frequently change locations due to harassment by police…[and] managers…deny health workers access…for fear of prosecution…
These self-appointed “trafficking experts” claim they can identify “sex traffickers” (in South Dakota. Seriously.) But after all the “abduction” and “Stockholm syndrome” mythology, it still comes down to harassing women: “it may be easier to determine whether someone is a trafficking victim, than it is to figure out a trafficker.” The “signs” include staying out late and having a generous boyfriend.
Community leaders and law enforcement…presented a…documentary [on]…sex trafficking in Nevada… Trafficked No More…[compiles] true…sex trafficking cases and their impact on…prostitution of children…One person who knows firsthand the damage the underground sex industry can do is Annie Lobert…of…Hookers for Jesus…
Long-time readers will remember we’ve seen Liars for Jesus before.
Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #324)
More clueless anti-whore pomposity from Zambia:
…a plan of reforming sex workers…is something that [they] should have…embraced…However, the…sex workers…refused to relocate to their respective villages where financial help…could have been accorded to them. Some of [them] even attended meetings that were organised to help them reform only to demand money instead of assistance in form of material and equipment…sex workers…should have taken advantage of this noble gesture…the sex workers were not looking beyond their noses. To them it was about here and now…
A club boss has told a court of the moment he was kidnapped by three lapdancers and their manager – with the women wearing ”miniskirts, stilettos and Daisy Duke shorts”. Curtis Woodman was outside his work premises…when the women and two men drove up in two BMWs…the group ”surrounded him” before bundling him into one of the vehicles and driving off. It is alleged that Mr Woodman…was…robbed of £60 cash and his £4,650 Brietling watch…[and] forced to transfer £4,800 into the bank account of the lapdancers’ manager, Charlotte Devaney…The women believed he owed them more than £42,000 for work they carried out at his pop-up nightclub during the Cheltenham Festival in March 2012…he had received calls demanding the money…for months…
Laura Lee’s ill-treatment while giving testimony to a parliamentary committee in Northern Ireland:
…the Best Practices Policy Project worked with SWOP-PHX to send a report to the Human Rights Committee for consideration during the review of how the United States has fared in meeting its obligations to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights…The submission describes…mass police “sweeps,” arresting scores of…people the police profile as sex workers. Arrestees are handcuffed and transported…to the Project ROSE center, where they…have no opportunity to speak to a defense attorney…even if they request one…
There are a lot of sleazy strip club owners, but licking badges and using “sex trafficking” hysteria to sic the pigs on rival strip clubs and massage parlors is a new low. I first introduced COAST in the titular item, but this article tells you more about them than you really want to know. Caution: You’ll probably feel like you need to need to shower after reading this.
The author of this internet article, Iman Idiot, thinks internet censorship and expanding the “sex offender” registry are good things:
…Now, Israel has become the first country in the world to make revenge porn illegal…anyone found guilty of uploading sexually explicit content…without the consent…of the person being portrayed can expect to be designated as a sex offender, and may be punished up to five years in jail…Brazil introduced a bill in October to ban [it but]…only two [American] states have passed legislation…to stop it: New Jersey and California…
Remember how that article about Project ROSE was censored by Al Jazeera? Here’s an interview with reporter Jordan Flaherty about both the censorship and the unethical practices of the project itself.
Patricia Adler, the University of Colorado…professor…who was forced to retire over a controversial prostitution lecture, has decided to return to the campus…[after] an executive committee …allowed [her] to resume teaching the course…provided [she] gets consent from all the students to go ahead with the [whore stereotype] skit…
I have been informed that SWOP Denver has contacted Adler to offer real information in place of the nonsense she’s been teaching; we’ll see how that turns out.
The Course of a Disease (TW3 #351)
A new review of Sex Workers Unite says that it…
…jettisons the tired generalizations about erotic labor (and laborers), and instead places sex workers at the center of recent movements for social justice. Author Melinda Chateauvert reminds us that those who rioted against police violence and control…in the late ’60s (marking the beginning of the gay liberation movement) were…”sex workers, transgender people, hustlers, tricks, drug users, and drug sellers”…Similarly, [she] points out that sex workers were routinely engaging in conversations about the messy intersections of sex, desire, intimacy, love and (im)propriety long before feminism…
“After a graphic video showing a vigilante group meting out violent punishment to sex workers in Cajamarca [Peru] made international headlines, authorities…told press that the violent raids conducted by the so-called Cajamarca Committee for Urban Patrols represented a serious infringement on the rights of the women they attacked…” Unfortunately, the statement soon degenerates into “sex trafficking” nonsense, ignoring the fact that violent “rescue” raids by “authorities” are even worse.
Since the cops are just inventing these “charges” anyway, it’s up to them whether they “cease”:
…Everett [Washington]…officials…deemed the Hillbilly Hotties coffee stand…a chronic-nuisance property…and…[demanded] that alleged prostitution, indecent exposure and violations of city adult-entertainment codes…cease…the stand owner won’t hire baristas who have criminal history and that employees who break the rules will be fired…
More Stand-Up Guys
Posted in Biography, Perception, tagged Australia, blogging, Canada, comics, end demand, ethics, France, harm reduction, hysteria, Ireland, law, lawyers, male prostitutes, New Zealand, Stand-Up Guys, Swedish model, Twitter, United Kingdom, yin and yang on December 10, 2013| 28 Comments »
These days it takes some serious balls for a man to stand up, demand rights for sex workers, and actually sign his real name to the thing. – Maggie McNeill
A year and a half ago I published “Stand-Up Guys”, in which I saluted men outside the sex industry who dared to stand up and speak out for sex worker rights, despite the rising tide of “end demand” and other Swedish-flavored prohibitionism. Things have grown only worse since then; prohibitionists viciously attack men who support sex worker rights, hinting that they are “pimps” or “sex traffickers” even when they don’t identify as clients. What’s more, some sex worker activists appear to have imbibed the neofeminist Kool-Aid and foolishly shun the help of clients or other men; some even proclaim themselves misandrists, which looks to me a lot like using one’s own feet for target practice. And yet despite all that, some men stubbornly fight for our rights anyway; I don’t mind saying that I find that sort of obstinacy rather sexy.
So today I present another list of male allies; remember, this doesn’t include men who are directly involved in our industry, since it’s as personal for them as it is for us. It does, however, include clients (and one former sex worker) who have chosen to “out” themselves for the cause. As before, this is by no means meant to be a complete list; if you have any suggestions who didn’t appear on either list, please mention them in the comments below!
Tim Barnett The New Zealand MP who sponsored the Prostitution Reform Act (which decriminalized sex work in 2003) is now his party’s general secretary, and still often speaks in favor of decrim both in New Zealand and in the UK. Follow him on Twitter: @tim4858
Dave Barry The famous humorist has libertarian leanings, and has spoken out about the injustice of prostitution stings. Email him at nolowflow@davebarry.com or follow him on Twitter: @rayadverb
Chester Brown Well-known comic book artist who wrote Paying for It, in which he detailed his experiences as a client of Toronto sex workers; the book’s appendix contains a strong argument for decriminalization. I’m also proud to say that he’s a regular reader and a friend, and drew the cover art for my upcoming story collection Ladies of the Night. Chester can be contacted through his publisher, Drawn and Quarterly, at info@drawnandquarterly.com
Graham Ellison
Professor of Criminology at Queen’s University Belfast, a staunch proponent of decriminalization and outspoken opponent of the Swedish model; I have linked a number of his essays in my TW3 columns. Email him at g.ellison@qub.ac.uk
Rupert Everett This British actor came out as having done sex work when he was young and struggling, and is now
supporting an anti-Swedish model campaign by the English Collective of Prostitutes and Queer Strike. He can be contacted by mail through his agents.
Zander-Dexter Falcon A regular client in Saskatoon who recently came out in the process of fighting legislation that endangers sex workers. Email: zanderfalcon@sasktel.net or follow him on Twitter: @furyofpatience
Ally Fogg Freelance journalist in the UK who generally writes on social justice and gender issues,
including strong support for sex worker rights. He prefers to be contacted via Twitter: @allyfogg, but his website also has an email contact form.
Chris Hall Freelance journalist in the US who can be counted on to consistently write about sex workers and our rights in a respectful and eloquent manner. Follow him on Twitter: @literatepervert
Michel Houellebecq French novelist who has repeatedly states that he loves prostitutes, and has often featured us in his books. You may email him at houelle@magic.fr
Karl Lagerfeld The famous fashion designer prefers escorts to unpaid companions, and often speaks of his admiration for us; he also helped former underage hooker Zahia Dehar get started as a designer herself.
He may be written at Karl Lagerfeld Group, 12 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France.
Matthias Lehmann is a German sex work researcher whose articles (especially those debunking prohibitionist lies) I have referenced many times. Email him here or follow him on Twitter: @photogroffee
Scott Long Veteran activist for human rights, especially sexual rights, who unlike many in that field does not
seem embarrassed to speak out for the rights of sex workers. Follow him on Twitter: @scottlong1980
Paul Maginn Urban planning expert who is especially interested in the sex industry; I have linked his anti-criminalization essays several times. Email him at paul.maginn@uwa.edu.au or follow him on Twitter: @planographer
Marc Randazza Prominent First Amendment lawyer who has gone to bat
not only for porn, but for the speech rights of hookers as well. You may email him through this page, or follow him on Twitter: @marcorandazza
Mike Siegel Astronomer, libertarian/conservative blogger, regular reader and friend who has written on numerous occasions in support of sex worker rights. Follow him on Twitter: @Hal_RTFLC
Jesse Walker Though virtually all libertarians
are against criminalization, some are more actively vocal about it; this historian, Reason editor & writer of The United States of Paranoia is one of them. Email him at jwalker@reason.com or follow him on Twitter: @notjessewalker
Ken White Respected First Amendment lawyer, popular blogger, defender of those threatened by censorious twatwaffles, geek extraordinaire and personal friend. Read his thoughts on sex work, email him at ken@popehat.com or follow him on Twitter: @popehat
Kevin Wilson
Professional research consultant, graduate student in epidemiology and friend who became interested in sex work research through reading this blog. Email him at Wilson2@dal.ca or follow him on Twitter: @WilsonKM2
Tim Worstall Economist and journalist who writes often on the absurdity of prostitution law; he also debunks “trafficking” myths. Email him at timworstall@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @worstall
I apologize
for anyone I’ve forgotten. If you’d like to be on the next list of this type, just email me with a link to whatever public statements you’ve made about sex worker rights under your real name, and we’ll see about adding you to the next one (and you needn’t be shy, either; Aphrodite knows I’m certainly nothing of the kind). If I did forget you, please don’t be offended; most of y’all know how busy I am, and things that shouldn’t often slip through the cracks. In the meantime,
keep your eyes peeled for “Stand-Up Guys” in my weekly TW3 column, where I’ll mention guys who come to my attention without having to wait another year and a half.
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