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The Schizoid State

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged Africa, Canada, censorship, cops, Europe, hysteria, Madonna/whore, Middle East, neofeminism, psychology, Shazam!, stripping, Sudan, The Schizoid State, underage, yin and yang on June 19, 2012| 21 Comments »

For men…, however apparently contradictory to common sense, and the very principles of all their knowledge; have let loose their fancies and natural superstition; and have been by them led into so strange opinions, and extravagant practices…that a considerate man cannot…avoid thinking them ridiculous, and offensive to a sober man. – John Locke

The human mind is an astonishingly complex system which contains so many separate and often conflicting schemata and cognitive mechanisms, both conscious and unconscious, that there will inevitably be times when the mind holds two contradictory thoughts, ideas or feelings at the same time. This induces cognitive dissonance, an unstable (and emotionally unpleasant) state which must be remedied in order to restore psychic equilibrium. The rational person usually resolves the dilemma by conscious introspection, while the typical person generally clings to his beliefs or emotions and denies the facts which conflict with them. But some deeply delusional individuals are such masters of doublethink that they can accept two completely contradictory cognitions at exactly the same time, and when they reveal these schizoid thought processes to the world via word or deed the rational person cannot help but feel a sort of fascinated pity mingled with fear, disgust or contempt.

Take, for example, the Ukranian protest group Femen, which protests topless because according to founder Anna Hutsol, women “have the right to use our bodies as weapons”. So far, so good; people have the right to use their bodies as they please. So why does Femen oppose sex work?

The controversial women’s rights group known for their provocative protests of world affairs, has taken to the streets of Hamburg…armed with…wearable sex toys…their bodies painted with Swastikas and Hitler mustaches, gesturing their way down the streets in similar fashion to Hitler’s regime nearly 70 years ago…chanting, “Sex slavery is fascism”…

So according to Femen, it’s OK to use one’s sex appeal to get in the news, but not to make a living; even by neofeminist standards this is psychotic. But the cognitive contortions involved are no worse than those in this article about male strippers from The Independent, whose writer (one Francesca Steele) manages to convince herself that male stripping is “empowering” while female stripping is “demeaning” (she tells us that male strippers are “gods on stage”, but female strippers are “objectified”, presumably because the girls make a lot more money than the guys do). The funniest part? Steele seems completely oblivious to the fact that most of male strippers’ clients are other men.

The police are another group who are masters of schizoid thinking:

Police in Ottawa are calling a case in which two 15-year-old girls are charged with human trafficking “shocking.” They say they have never seen anything like it before…[they] allege that on three separate occasions, the girls lured three female victims ranging from 13 to 17 years of age to a city residence…[from which they] were driven to other locations for the purposes of prostitution. The accused girls face multiple charges, including human trafficking, robbery, procuring, forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault, uttering threats and abduction…the victims were confined and somehow forced to engage in prostitution. Police said there was no indication pimps or men played any role…

In plain English: the two 15-year-olds figured out how to place escort ads and talked their three friends into it. But since anyone under 18 is an innocent, asexual “child”, they couldn’t possibly have gone along for money and kicks; they must have been “forced” by “traffickers”. Remember: breaking a law, no matter how stupid or arbitrary, is the one thing which can cause the magic Shazam lightning to strike even one second before midnight on a person’s 18^th birthday, thus transforming an innocent child into a ruthless adult criminal. The Kanadian Kops claim they’ve “never seen anything like it before”, so they must not communicate with their American counterparts; teens here are often arrested for “sexually abusing” their consenting partners and prosecuted for “child porn” when they take nude pictures of themselves.

But the undisputed champion of contradiction, the Schizoid Sultan, the Duke of Doublethink, is New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Regular readers are familiar with the way he criticizes others for restricting women’s sexual choices while advocating the restriction of those choices, decries the “exploitation” of women while using lurid “sex slave” porn to sell ads for his employers, and attacks some instances of government meddling while praising others and simultaneously stating that it’s natural and good for government intrusions into private affairs to continually increase. Even so, I think he surpassed himself last week:

I’m generally an admirer of Obama’s foreign policy, but his policies toward both Syria and Sudan increasingly seem lame, ineffective and contrary to American interests and values. Obama has shown himself comfortable projecting power — as in his tripling of American troops in Afghanistan. Yet now we have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world…[Sudan’s] leader has been charged with genocide, has destabilized the region, has sponsored brutal proxy warlords like Joseph Kony, has presided over the deaths of more than 2.5 million people…and the Obama administration doesn’t want him overthrown? In addition, the administration has consistently tried to restrain the rebel force here…Likewise, in Syria, the United States has not only refused to arm the opposition but has, I believe, discouraged other countries from doing so…we should make clear that unless the security forces depose Assad in the next 30 days, our Middle Eastern allies will arm the Syrian opposition. We should work with these allies, as well as with major powers like Russia and China, to encourage a coup…That’s not too much to expect of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Yes, you read that correctly: Kristof says that Obama should prove he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize by starting two new wars. I can’t believe that absolutely nobody outside the libertarian press noticed the glaring contradiction, so I suspect that nearly everyone who read any of these stories recognized the conflicts in them immediately…and then promptly discarded such realizations as sources of cognitive dissonance when juxtaposed with their fawning respect for self-proclaimed authorities.

One Year Ago Today

“Whores in History Revisited” is an extended review of a fantastic book I cannot possibly recommend enough.

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That Was the Week That Was (#24)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Africa, An Example to the West, animals, Backpage, bad customers, BDSM, Canada, censorship, cops, cosmetic surgery, dirty, disability, disease, East Asia, Europe, Finding What Isn’t There, First They Came for the Hookers, Hall of Shame, Hollywood, hysteria, Ireland, Kansas, Latin America, law, Malawi, Mississippi, Much Ado About Nothing, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, New Orleans, Older Than You Thought, psychology, rape, See No Evil, stereotypes, stripping, Surplus Women, Sweden, Swedish “Feminism”, Texas, Thailand, The Naked Emperor, The Scarlet Letter, tits, underage, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Virginia, Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, Who Did Your Tits? on June 16, 2012| 32 Comments »

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever. – Nadine Gordimer

Eleven updates and four meta-updates.

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

Happy 50^th birthday, silicone implant!:

…Timmie Jean Lindsey, 80…said she…[went to Dr. Frank Gerow of Houston, who invented the implants in 1962] because she wanted some rose tattoos removed from her chest, and he told her she was the perfect first candidate…“It wasn’t a big deal to me. I went from a B to a C cup. But it made men more aware of me. More men would whistle at me”…She said she feels fortunate she never experienced many of the side effects that plagued other recipients…

The reason she didn’t have any side effects, of course, is because lawyers hadn’t invented them yet.

An Older Profession Than You May Have Thought (October 12^th, 2010)

Remember those cute little Adelie penguins? Well, it turns out that prostitution isn’t their only “perverted” sexual behavior; George Levick of the ill-fated Scott expedition also observed rape, sexual abuse of chicks, homosexuality and necrophilia. He was so upset by the whole thing that he recorded his findings in Greek so that they couldn’t accidentally be read by English speakers, and those facts were left out of the official accounts until very recently. I’m not surprised; any bird which practices “cash and dash” is capable of anything.

Another Example of Swedish “Feminism” (May 30^th, 2011)

Did you read the one about the Swedish housewife who set herself up a BDSM dungeon in an abandoned bunker? It became news when two fishermen discovered it and called the cops. When Aftonbladet told her that many of her neighbors were scandalized she said, “I think it is because many are afraid. Sweden is not really such a free country when it comes to sexuality…” Sex workers and their clients wholly agree.

Surplus Women (September 27^th, 2011)

Yet another maniac chooses his victims from among sex workers:

A Mississippi sheriff’s investigator hopes surveillance video from Bourbon Street in New Orleans will provide clues about the death of a strip club dancer whose dismembered body washed ashore on the Gulf Coast…22-year-old Jaren Lockhart reported for work Tuesday (June 5^th) night and left early Wednesday. Her torso was found late Thursday in Bay St. Louis. Other body parts…were found later…Lockhart had been a resident of the Capri Motel…

The Capri is one of those dirty, scary places where only truly desperate girls live, so I suspect she was murdered by a client who promised her extra money to go off with him. At least the story seems to make some effort to treat her as a person rather than concentrating on her sex work as so many do.

See No Evil (November 26^th, 2011)

Res ipsa loquitur:

…Phillip Cosby…objects to [a] donated statue at the Overland Park Arboretum [in Kansas City], because it portrays a woman…taking a photo of herself while her breasts are exposed…he has started an online petition…to start a grand jury investigation…he objects to the statue’s availability to children and is seeking a charge of promoting obscenity. Overland Park has posted signs at the park about the statue’s content but says it has no immediate plans to remove the sculpture.

A statue has no “content”; any “obscenity” is projected into it by dirty minds.

Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4^th, 2011)

Regular reader Franklin Harris wrote a column on sex in film in which he stated:

Movies and television take a lot of heat for promoting supposedly immoral, promiscuous and irresponsible sexual behavior. But when it comes to movies that actually make sex their main focus, you may be left wondering why anyone has sex in the first place. Sex in these movies is awful, joyless and nothing good ever comes of it. On second thought, that does sound like a pretty irresponsible depiction of sex, just not the one we’ve been led to expect…despite depressing movies such as Shame and a few high-profile celebrity cases of suspect credibility, one fact remains: There is no such thing as sex addiction…[it] is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, and there is no scientific evidence it exists…

Harris also has sharp words for The Girlfriend Experience and points out the deep irony implicit in Hollywood’s typical condemnation of any kind of sex for pay. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see this sort of column becoming ever more common in mainstream media.

Above the Law (March 8^th, 2012)

Another cop using his position for rape: “A former Hopewell [Virginia] police officer was convicted…of sexually abusing three women…In exchange for his pleas, a fourth charge of forcible sodomy was withdrawn by the prosecution. Baggett faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each count…” Notice that cops in these stories are nearly always described as “former” police officers, subtly implying that they were sacked out for their conduct, when in fact that only happened as a direct result of a probable conviction. Had the case been less clear, Baggett would still be a cop right now.

An Example to the West (April 3^rd, 2012)

Sex workers in Thailand recently sent a letter to their Prime Minister asking him to stop licking Uncle Sam’s boots:

…Empower alleges that successive Thai governments have sacrificed the rule of law, their international human rights obligations and the well-being of migrant sex workers and their families, in an attempt to please the US government and satisfy the American anti trafficking agenda. We accuse the United States government of using the issue of human trafficking to coerce its allies into tightening border and immigration controls. The US agenda has also created a climate where women crossing borders are all seen as suspect “victims” of trafficking…Empower sees the Trafficking in Persons Report issued by the US State Department as subjective and bias [sic] against the Thai Entertainment Industry…

The Naked Emperor (May 15^th, 2012)

Though danah boyd (who like e.e. cummings prefers her name uncapitalized) is generally critical of moral panics about kids and the internet, and has said that “the most deadly misconception about American youth has been the sexual predator panic”, she seems to have bought into sex trafficking hysteria…or has she? This article also seems subtly critical of anti-Backpage crusade; is she, like others, simply afraid to say the emperor is naked?

…when we as a society see technology being used in horrible ways, we want to blame and ban the technology…I know that technology is being used in the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. I also know that many people have responded to the visibility of “child sex trafficking” on commercial websites by wanting to shut down those commercial websites…my goal is to make sure that we understand what we’re doing so that we actually address the core of the problem, not just the most visible symptoms of it. Unfortunately, we know very little about how children are advertised, bought, sold, and exploited through the use of technology. There are plenty of anecdotes, but rigorous data is limited…

Read the article and let me know what you think: more research is good, but only if it’s conducted in an atmosphere of free inquiry; most of the projects she mentions make unwarranted assumptions and seem tailored to produce specific anti-sex work outcomes.

First They Came for the Hookers… (June 5^th, 2012)

I really wish politicians would stop proving me right:

…the government says it will end giving work visas to foreign strippers once and for all…”The problem is, under the current Immigration Act we don’t have the legal authority to deny people visas based on the industry they’re working in,” [said] Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney…”Now we have the power, which we’ll [soon] begin using…to deny visas to people who we think…might have a high chance of trafficking or exploitation”…

Once again, “trafficking” rhetoric is really an excuse for bigotry.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury (June 9^th, 2012)

Anyone who’s read more than a token amount of Bradbury has noticed the libertarian ideas in his work, and in this extremely interesting essay by Ilya Somin of The Volokh Conspiracy he demonstrates that Bradbury was not alone: “Libertarianism is better represented in science fiction and fantasy than in any other literary genre. From Robert Heinlein to the present day, libertarian writers have been among the leaders in the field. Even many genre writers who are not self-consciously libertarian have often made use of libertarian themes in their work…”

Metaupdates

Welcome To Our World in February Updates (Part Two) (February 13^th, 2011)

A UK organization is fighting for the sexual rights of mentally disabled people:

…Everybody has the right to have sex and relationships…however they choose. But some people in society, such as people with learning disabilities, aren’t always given the automatic right to have relationships and flourish as sexual beings. They have to persuade others to “allow” them to do it. FPA believes passionately that everyone has the right to enjoy sexual health…

I applaud FPA’s efforts; whores also know what it’s like to be denied the right to sex on our own terms.

The Scarlet Letter in TW3 (#19) (May 12^th, 2012)

Another example of sex workers fighting oppression via civil courts:

…State-sanctioned forced HIV testing of sex workers also occurs [in places other than Greece]…But in Malawi…sex workers are fighting back…in 2009…police…forced [arrested sex workers] to undergo HIV tests…[and those] who tested HIV-positive were charged with “spreading disease dangerous to life,”…fourteen [of them] decided to sue the government and challenge the constitutionality of forced HIV testing…

Much Ado About Nothing in TW3 (#19) (May 12^th, 2012)

Dania Suarez, the escort whose mistreatment kicked off the Secret service scandal, “has announced plans to open a non-profit organization to support women who have been affected by prostitution” just after turning down “a $500,000 pornography contract with Vivid” in favor of a TV documentary on her life. As long as she only works with women who genuinely want to leave the trade I’m all for it, but if she turns to “rescue” and/or starts mouthing “child sex trafficking” rubbish, she’ll be following Kristin Davis into the Hall of Shame.

Finding What Isn’t There in TW3 (#23) (June 9^th, 2012)

Considering that prostitution is not illegal in either part of Ireland and that police found no “traffickers” or “victims” in their highly-publicized joint raid, all of the residences belonged to “innocent people”; I reckon what this article is trying to say is that half didn’t belong to the people named on the warrants:

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is facing a serious legal backlash after it emerged that as many as half the residences it raided as part of its cross-border anti-prostitution operation with gardai belong to innocent people…the PSNI is now facing a highly embarrassing and potentially very expensive legal fall-out from what appear to have been a series of botched raids based on intelligence that, in some cases, was at least a year out of date…

Though I feel bad for those who were raided, high-profile jackboot buffoonery like this only helps our cause in the long run, because it demonstrates the fact-free basis for police actions and results in ever more editorials like this one:

…”Rape for profit,” stormed Philip Marshall of the PSNI…Everyone would agree if he had freed dozens of sex-slaves and charged their traffickers…So far, though, the only people charged were three Polish girls, who…were…working willingly…is it really worth months of police time…to arrest and shame…three young people?…Or should we consider…offering prostitutes the protection of the law when they are abused or coerced?…Prostitution has always been with us…We can’t legislate it out of existence, but we could legislate to reduce its damage to the health and welfare of those involved.

One Year Ago Today

“June Miscellanea (Part Two)” reports on yet another censorship law, a decentralized online currency system, New York’s declaration that sexy dancing isn’t dancing and more extra-blog activities by yours truly.

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That Was the Week That Was (#23)

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

Only death goes deeper than sex. – Mason Cooley

One obituary, ten updates and three metaupdates.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

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

Updates

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

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

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

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

The Scarlet Letter (March 29^th, 2011)

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

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

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

Down Under
(One Year Ago Today)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wise Investment (September 19^th, 2011)

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

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

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

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

Higher Education (December 11^th, 2011)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hard Numbers (April 20^th, 2012)

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

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

Metaupdates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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First They Came for the Hookers…

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged California, censorship, cops, dirty, ethics, First They Came for the Hookers, Illinois, law, Madonna/whore, Missouri, neofeminism, porn, rape, stereotypes, stripping, teachers, Texas on June 5, 2012| 39 Comments »

First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. – Martin Niemöller

In “Whorearchy” and “Little Boxes” I pointed out that those who wish to criminalize sex, whether they be politicians, moralists, neofeminists or just plain busybodies, are always drawing arbitrary lines between the “sexual” and the “non-sexual”, between “good” sex and “bad” sex, and between “legal” and “illegal” forms of sexual activity, especially sex work. The unwise or selfish react by claiming to be on the “right” side of such lines, but this is foolish because…

…attempting to define sexuality (commercial or otherwise) as being in the “permissible” or “legal” category rather than the “unacceptable” or “illegal” one is a tacit acknowledgement that such lines of demarcation are valid and that government has the right to draw them. That is a losing strategy because even if one wins the battle, the government can simply re-draw the line to include one’s entrenched position. The only way we as a culture will win the war for liberty is to reject any and all claims by “authority” to power over the private, consensual behavior of individuals, no matter what that behavior is or how far it falls outside of the boxes which define our own personal comfort zones.

As my epigram demonstrates, one cannot stand idly by while others’ rights are trampled simply because one is not a member of the persecuted group, not even if one is an enemy of that group (Niemöller was staunchly anti-communist); the machine one allows to crush others will eventually crush him. Or in this case, her; I’ve written before on a number of occasions about neofeminists’ contribution to the erosion of women’s rights, but today we’ll narrow our view somewhat to examine the inevitable results of “legal” sex workers failing to stand up for “illegal” ones. Take porn, for instance; it’s been legal to film it in California for quite some time, but that didn’t stop the City of Los Angeles from moving the imaginary line so as to make the great majority of it now illegal, nor stop a jury in that same city from convicting a filmmaker of “obscenity” for crossing another imaginary line between “good porn” and “bad porn”, nor prevent another city within the Greater Los Angeles area from firing a teacher for past work in a supposedly legal job.

Of course, there’s always an excuse, whether it be “health” or vague legal principles or “educational disruptions”; Sarah Tressler was fired from her reporter’s job at the Houston Chronicle for having been a stripper, but the excuse was that she “didn’t disclose her past”. I daresay most of the people working for the Chronicle (or any other company) don’t list every single job they’ve ever had on their applications; does anyone imagine Tressler would’ve been fired for failing to disclose that she worked for Astroworld when she was in high school? Of course not, because we don’t give governments power to regulate “theme park behavior” nor pretend that there are “good” park workers and “bad” ones. Once an activity is designated a “special case” the door is open to the sort of abuse for which Texas is notorious; Houston in particular is renowned for trying to shut down adult businesses by declaring them havens for drugs and prostitution, or more recently “human trafficking”:

The City of Houston filed a lawsuit…[alleging] that employees and owners of Treasures allowed human trafficking and prostitution for profit…Treasures’…attorney…said [they were] “actively engaged in litigation with the city for over ten years”…[and] since the city couldn’t get their liquor permit revoked they are trying now to file suit to have the club declared a nuisance.

Houston is not alone in the pretense that strip clubs are magically different from other businesses, thus justifying special harassment; Missouri enacted draconian restrictions on them under the premise that the sex rays emitted by naked female bodies cause “negative secondary effects”, and the total lack of proof for any such phenomena didn’t stop Illinois from enacting a “pole tax” using exactly the same excuse: “Sexually-orientated businesses contribute to objectifying and exploiting women,” said [Lieutenant Governor Sheila] Simon…“There’s been a strong, scientific recognition that when you associate those industries with alcohol, that there’s a substantial effect there, an increase in crime, particularly sexual assault.” Actually, the exact opposite is true; study after study after study demonstrates that stripping, porn and prostitution reduce the incidence of sex crimes, particularly sexual assault. Most politicians aren’t as stupid as they pretend to be; they know about these facts, but because they’re inconvenient they ignore them. Their real motive is visible in this story on California’s attempt to impose the same sort of tax using the same poppycock:

Another strip club tax is being considered by California’s Legislature. AB 2441…would place a $10 fee on visitors of establishments that offer alcohol and topless or nude performances…It’s the fourth attempt to tax sexually explicit businesses in the past four years in California. All of those bills, which would have taxed patrons up to 20 percent on sales or services at sexually explicit businesses including strip clubs, were shot down. AB 2441, however, would be the first [attempt] to mandate a fixed-fee “pole tax”…[whose] beneficiaries…would include programs that treat and prevent sexual assaults…Pole taxes are now mandatory in Texas and Utah, with legislation being mulled…in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. “Most who go to these establishments know very well they’ll have to bring an extra few bucks,” [the bill sponsor’s spokesman] said. “So, for those who go, $10 is not so much to sacrifice. Let’s face it, adult entertainment does very well even during a recession”…

In other words, “they’ve got money and the moralists will back our efforts to rob them because they refuse to understand the precedent it sets.” Nor is it just the moralists or neofeminists who fail to comprehend; in a “tweet” following a link to that story, Furry Girl wrote, “Remember that link, OWS/anti-capitalist sex workers. The ‘we should take their money because they have too much’ argument hurts *you*, too.” If you’re a “legal” sex worker who supports persecution of “illegal” ones, or a feminist who supports persecution of all sex workers, or a Christian who supports persecution of “sinners”, or a pillar of the community who supports persecution of “undesirables”, or a have-not who supports persecution of those with more than you, remember that the rope you’re providing the politicians will hang you just as effectively once the noose is adjusted a bit for your individual neck.

One Year Ago Today

“Perquisites” explains how a large fraction of hookers’ fees are charged to corporate expense accounts.

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That Was the Week That Was (#20)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Above the Law, Africa, Against Their Will, An Example to the West, Australia, Bad Fantasy-Good Reality, bisexuality, brothels, Canada, cops, dirty, disease, drugs, East Asia, end demand, End Demand (updates), ethics, Europe, Femme Fatale, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, hysteria, India, Ireland, Latin America, law, Law of the Instrument, Legal Is as Legal Does, Lying Down With Dogs, Madonna/whore, Malaysia, Middle East, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, New York, pimps, Presents, psychology, rape, robots, sisterhood, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas, The Crumbling Dam, The Pygmalion Fallacy, Turkey, Uganda, underage, video, Vietnam, violence vs. sex workers on May 19, 2012| 24 Comments »

A fool is very dangerous when in power. – Denis Fonvizin

Two new items, twelve updates and one metaupdate.

End Demand

More Bizarro behavior from Zimbabwe:

A Zimbabwean politician has…[suggested] the spread of HIV can be curbed if women…deliberately make themselves…unattractive. Morgan Femai…said the measures were required because men were finding it difficult to resist well-dressed, attractive women…“…I propose…a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven…they should also not bathe because that is what has caused all these problems.” Senator Femai also appeared to suggest female circumcision would help stop the spread of disease…“Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that…because it is conducive for bacteria breeding”…another…Senator, Sithembile Mlotshwa…recently suggested men be injected with drugs that reduce their libidos. She also called for prisoners to be given sex toys to satisfy their sexual desires.

You may laugh or cry, but are these suggestions really any more stupid than Western “end demand” rhetoric?

Femme Fatale

“…67 year old…Robert Gene got multiple lap dances during his time at the Red Parrot in El Paso, [but]…suffered from a heart attack, which the strippers failed to notice…employees tried to give Gene CPR but were unsuccessful in reviving him…”

Updates

Lying Down With Dogs (November 24^th, 2010)

Another example of the strong resemblance between anti-whore policies in the US and Uganda:

…police authorities in…Gulu…raided [a sex worker drop-in centre] and arrested two staff and three members of the Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA)…This raid…appears to be part of a deliberate strategy by the Gulu Police to play tough…[it] is in direct violation of the rights of…human rights defenders at WONETHA…“they are accusing us of promoting prostitution…of sleeping with other women and recruiting girls into prostitution.” All five arrested advocates were finally charged with “Living off the earnings of prostitution,” an accusation that they vehemently denounce…

Compare with attacks against Backpage and other advertising venues for “facilitating prostitution”.

Law of the Instrument (August 26^th, 2011)

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail,” wrote Abraham Maslow; Wendy Lyon writes at length on how Irish authorities who desperately need “human trafficking” cases to justify their crackdowns are using the label for everything from undocumented immigration to attempted rape.

The Crumbling Dam (October 14^th, 2011)

Organized persecution of Canadian whores continues to crumble in the face of the recent court decisions; under the embattled law, even a landlord who knowingly rents an apartment to a hooker could be prosecuted for “brothel keeping”, but one Vancouver charity openly violates it anyway:

…Janice Abbott, CEO of the Atira Women’s Resource Society, said tenants of…housing complexes for low-income women are entitled to the same rights as any other renter…even if they are sex workers…when Atira opened Bridge Housing in 2001…there was no conscious decision to create a safe…space for women to do sex work…[but] Atira decided not to question the women’s guests… “They’re paying rent and it’s their home and they get to do everything all the rest of us take for granted in our homes, which is have guests come and go, among many other things”…

The article also mentions that “…the City of Vancouver has proposed a new…policy…indicating that consensual adult sex work is not an enforcement priority for the police and that their priority should be ensuring the safety of sex workers.” Apparently, Toronto feels the same way:

…The Toronto Police Service confirmed…the force has put “on hold”…sweeps in which female officers pose as street prostitutes to arrest men willing to pay for sex…spokesman Mark Pugash said…the decision…is based on the force’s reluctance to use “finite” resources to arrest people when so much “uncertainty” currently surrounds prostitution laws…[however] investigations into illegal massage parlours, brothels and escort agencies will carry on as usual…City Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti…[criticized] the policy…”When you’re sleeping with a prostitute, you’re probably sleeping with 150 guys at the same time”…

It’s good to see officials brushing aside politicians spouting the “dirty whore” myth to justify imposing their personal morals on others.

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

Another female academic dares to tell the truth about prostitution in East Asia:

Kimberly Hoang…won the American Sociological Association’s…award for her doctoral dissertation on sex work in Vietnam. The winning entry, New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam, was based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Ho Chi Minh City, where Hoang worked as a bartender and hostess in four bars that catered to different groups of clients…Hoang’s research “highlights not just the structure and practices of sex work in Vietnam, but demonstrates how it serves as a vital form of currency in Vietnam’s political economy.” In her nominating letter, [sociology professor Raka] Ray called the dissertation “a stunning piece of work” by “an absolutely fearless and creative thinker,” adding that Hoang had done “the sort of fieldwork few others dare”…

Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4^th, 2011)

Contrary to what you may have heard, the upcoming 5^th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not greatly increase the number of things labeled as “addictions”; in fact, it entirely eliminates the word “addiction”: “Instead, they are labeled ‘use disorders’…[because the] group thought the word…was less pejorative and stigmatizing.” I’m willing to bet it’s also to put a stop to pop psychologists’ labeling everything an “addiction”:

Despite substantial pressure…the…workgroup rejected proposals to recognize addictions to sex, food, the Internet, and caffeine…[workgroup chairman Charles O’Brien, MD] said…emphasis on scientific justification precluded listing them…”We looked at sex addiction, but there was no science at all. None.”

Another positive change is the replacement of DSM-IV’s false dichotomy of “drug abuse” and “drug dependence”:

…research conducted in recent decades pointed to substance-related problems as occurring on a continuum, such that the abuse-dependence distinction was purely arbitrary…[a new] requirement [is] that the patient…demonstrate craving for the particular substance…[which is] the key symptom that separates addiction from mere heavy use…

Legal Is as Legal Does (December 14^th, 2011)

Here’s a generally objective article on prostitution in Turkey which demonstrates the problems of legalization. The country has licensed brothels since the late days of the Ottoman Empire, but it will surprise none of my readers to hear that 97% of Turkish harlots prefer to work illegally than to be registered and subjugated to politically-connected brothel owners who keep their employees in conditions virtually indistinguishable from slavery. This government-approved abuse is now being used by Islamist politicians to justify closing all brothels and forcing the girls onto the street, thus establishing the state as their pimp by setting them up for fine-garnering police “crackdowns”.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29^th, 2012)

This week, Rob Arthur sent me a copy of his book You Will Die, and a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a DVD of The Wicker Tree, writer/director Robin Hardy’s “re-imagining” of his classic, The Wicker Man. My sincere thanks to both of you for thinking of me!

Above the Law (March 8^th, 2012)

The police have always used sexual assault as a weapon of oppression, but in the US the tactic was generally reserved for sex workers; however, as police brutality and immunity from prosecution have increased, amateurs have been on the receiving end as well. Female Occupy protesters are now reporting being repeatedly groped by cops:

…No doubt it’s partly…to brutalize those you think are weak, and more easily traumatized. But another reason is, almost certainly, the hope of provoking violent reactions on the part of male protestors…Soldiers who oppose allowing a combat role for women almost invariably say they do so not because they are afraid women would not behave effectively in battle, but because they are afraid men would…become so obsessed with the possibility of women in their unit being captured and sexually assaulted that they would behave irrationally. If the police were trying to provoke a violent reaction on the part of studiously non-violent protestors, as a way of justifying even greater brutality and felony charges, this would clearly be the most effective means of doing so…

An Example to the West (April 3^rd, 2012)

In the US, “feminists” encourage police to persecute sex workers; in India such behavior provokes protest marches:

Women’s groups and progressive organisations in India are shocked that Ms. Anu Mokal, a pregnant sex worker in Satara, was beaten up by police inspector Dayanand Dhome on April 2, along with her friend Ms. Anjana Ghadge. Three days later, on 5^th April, she suffered a miscarriage…[the women] were bringing dinner for their friend…in the…hospital…[when] Dhome accused them of soliciting and when they refuted it abused them and called them liars. Dhome and his subordinates started beating…[and kicking] them and said that women like Anu are a ‘shame’. Her pleas that she was four months pregnant fell on deaf ears…Women’s organisations are outraged that…no action has been taken against the policemen…Anu…feels that the [incident is]…not taken seriously because she is a sex worker. In fact, the police had the audacity to tell these women that sex workers cannot be mothers…

Hard Numbers (April 20^th, 2012)

While Western Australia continues its self-destructive drive toward the Swedish Model, South Australian politicians apparently comprehend the concept of “evidence” and are moving toward decriminalization:

…Status of Women Minister Gail Gago and former minister Steph Key [spoke about]…Bills aimed at decriminalising prostitution. Ms Key aims to introduce her Bill…on May 31 – the eve of International Whores’ Day…It would decriminalise all forms of prostitution…but retain soliciting as an offence where it occurred in the presence of other people…Minors would be banned from sex work and there would also be provisions making it an offence to practise unsafe sex…Ms Key believes there is growing support for the move…

The Pygmalion Fallacy
(May 6^th, 2012)

It’s good to see that at least one tech writer has his eyes partially open on the subject of sexbots; though this article by Sebastian Anthony still buys “sex trafficking” myth, it at least understands that any gynoid real enough to please a normal man (as opposed to one with a robot fetish) is also real enough to be considered a sentient being with rights.

Mother’s Day (May 13^th, 2012)

After a journalist made shockingly clueless statements about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, Christopher Ryan (co-author of Sex At Dawn) published a reaction which echoes many of the same points I made in this column:

NPR’s Scott Simon…suggests that the real scandal may be the original decision to hold the Summit…in Cartagena…”Why were world leaders meeting in a place with legalized prostitution?”…there are a host of very ugly realities often associated with prostitution…But all these things are mitigated by legalization, and Simon wasn’t suggesting the meeting shouldn’t have been held in a place where prostitution exists, but in a place where it’s legal…Simon asks, “Would you want someone you love to live that way?” No, probably not. But…I wouldn’t want someone I love working in a steel mill or a coal mine, either…nor…sent off to distant deserts…in defense of jingoistic abstractions…But nobody’s proposing that we make industry [or] the military…illegal…we gain nothing from legally prohibiting the expression of human nature, and what we lose is…the opportunity to…mitigate the damage…If someone you love chose to work as a prostitute, would you rather she had legal and medical protection, or would you prefer she be forced into the shadows…That’s the question we need to be asking.

Metaupdates

Against Their Will in August Updates (Part Two) (August 4^th, 2011)

Add Malaysia to the list of countries the US State Department encourages to violently persecute whores: “In 2008 the US…gave Malaysia the lowest rating in its annual Trafficking In Persons Report…Now nearly all brothels…have been shut. Sex workers are forced to work in dangerous and difficult conditions on streets throughout the capital. For its violent efforts to suppress the sex industry the US Government raised Malaysia to tier 2 level in its 2009 TIP report.”

One Year Ago Today

“A Procrustean Bed” explains how a new Massachusetts law defines women as helpless infants and men as international gangsters.

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Whorearchy

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged activism, archeofeminism, BDSM, brothels, cops, courtesans, dirty, escort services, ethics, halfway whores, law, lawheads, Madonna/whore, neofeminism, porn, psychology, sisterhood, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Whorearchy on May 10, 2012| 80 Comments »

I have no respect for the passion for equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

Among the few facts about sex work that everyone agrees upon is that there is a “whorearchy”, a sort of class system among sex workers. Now, nobody agrees on anything about that system, only that it exists. Many strippers, dominatrices, porn actresses, etc insist not only that they aren’t whores, but that they’re better than we are; those whose professions have separated enough from ours that they aren’t even considered sex workers any more (such as actresses and especially masseuses) can be very pompous about it. Prostitutes, on the other hand, sometimes see themselves as better, smarter, more discreet, etc than strippers or porn starlets; sugar babies and other halfway whores deny that they’re sex workers at all; and some unusually self-deluded escorts will even try to draw imaginary lines separating themselves from other hookers. “Authorities” in criminalization and legalization regimes devote great effort to erecting arbitrary barriers between “tolerable” and “intolerable” varieties of harlotry, and sometimes to cementing the strata in place; cops and prosecutors delight in tricking “legal” sex workers into breaking their ridiculous rules (or falsely claiming that they did) in order to have an excuse for victimizing them; and sex worker advocates expend considerable efforts in hand-wringing and lamentation over “classism”.

To a degree, these activists are right; a whore is a whore is a whore, and legal, moral or procedural lines serve only to break people into smaller groups which are more easily dominated by the power-hungry. If you accept money from someone that he gives due to sexual interest in you, then you are a whore and everything else is just semantics. When politicians, pundits or rulers use some arbitrary determinant like penetration, duration, location or motivation to bless some harlots while damning others, what they’re actually doing is reducing the size of the group who might oppose them and winning supporters from among those granted legitimacy. This is why I’m harshly unsympathetic to those who vehemently maintain that their species of sex work or sensual therapy is absolutely not prostitution: all they’re doing is throwing other women under the bus, and if we had all stuck together from the beginning of second-wave feminism half a century ago, prostitution would’ve been decriminalized long ago and many women who are now dead or damaged might still be alive and healthy.

At the same time, it’s madness to pretend that at the present level of human evolution there can ever be such a thing as a classless society. Human beings, like other social animals, naturally form cliques, packs and tribes, and such groups inevitably develop hierarchies. Some people are natural leaders and others natural followers, even outside of a formal structure; the Founding Fathers intended the US to be classless, but look what’s happened to it. Nor are Marxists and Occupiers correct in their insistence that it’s always the rich who control everything; at our present stage of history money is indeed the single most powerful force, but it hasn’t always been that way and won’t always be in the future. And those who rail about “the 1%” forget that there are lots of ways to get into that fraction: birth, popularity, talent, intelligence, ambition, luck, sex appeal, and even plain animal cunning are all paths to riches and power, so pretending that there is still some elite caste inevitably born to the purple is disingenuous in the extreme. Even those who are uninterested in influence over others sometimes find themselves in a position of leadership or control; some people have superior organizational skills, determination or intelligence which allows them to build infrastructures in which others freely choose to participate in exchange for money or whatever other return the organizer needs. Such a person suddenly finds himself a manager or director of a company, co-op or club whom others turn to for guidance, even though his only motivation at the start was to make things easier, better or more comfortable for himself and his immediate dependents.

This is why I tend to tune out when sex worker activists start blathering about “privilege” as though it were some specific quality like height, skin color, IQ or income. There is no single quality in the modern world which confers “privilege” as birth once could, not even money or education. I’m not denying that some people are underprivileged and others start out with greater advantages, but this is inevitable in a world where everyone is different; even in a hypothetical post-scarcity economy of the future where teaching machines gave everyone a university degree at the age of five, there would still be a plethora of areas in which some had advantages over others. Furthermore, early advantages no more ensure success than early disadvantages guarantee failure, and in fact a growing number of psychologists point out that too much privilege often makes a child (and the adult he becomes) fragile, maladjusted and less likely to succeed than one who has to struggle to achieve his goals. It is as pointless to feel guilty about one’s natural advantages as it is to resent those with other advantages one lacks.

What it all boils down to is this: people are drawn to different kinds of work and have different aptitudes and comfort levels. Some women like one kind of sex work, some another; some prefer doing lots of low-dollar calls and others a few high-dollar ones. Some fall into management roles without trying, while others avoid such roles at all costs. Many if not most sex workers drift or migrate from one kind of work to another, in and out of sex work or from one kind of sex work to another, as their circumstances and needs change; a woman who was safely “legal” yesterday may be “illegal” tomorrow. This is why it is absolutely imperative that we not allow outsiders to divide us by drawing lines in the sand and turning those on one side of the line against those on the other. We need to stop obsessing about the whorearchy and pretending it can or should be eradicated, but we also need to oppose those who wish to calcify it in order to employ it as a tool of control.

One Year Ago Today

“Clueless Wonders” introduces my readers to the vice cops of Syracuse, New York, who are so aggressively ignorant and unselfconsciously stupid that they actually boast about it.

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That Was the Week That Was (#18)

Posted in Biography, Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged Another Small Victory, archeofeminism, Ashley Madison, Australia, Backpage, bad customers, brothels, Bullies With Badges, censorship, cops, dirty, disease, East Asia, Elephant in the Parlor, Feminine Pragmatism, Good News-Bad News, harm reduction, hysteria, imaginative fiction, infidelity, internet, Latin America, law, lawheads, Madonna/whore, marriage, Michigan, Much Ado About Nothing, My Favorite Updates, neofeminism, Never Call the Cops, New Mexico, Nicaragua, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Philippines, politicians, porn, Presents, prohibitionist myths, Prudish Pedants, red-light districts, serial killers, sex offender registry, Shazam!, Shifting the Blame, stripping, Swedish model, Texas, They Just Don’t Get It, Twitter, Umpteen Thousand People, underage, violence vs. sex workers on May 5, 2012| 18 Comments »

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

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

Two new stories, nine updates and three metaupdates.

The Law is an Ass

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

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

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

Bullies With Badges

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

Updates

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

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

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

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

Another Small Victory (July 16^th, 2011)

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

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

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

Elephant in the Parlor (October 23^rd, 2012)

Politician. Whores. Yawn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sleazier Than Thou (January 30^th, 2012)

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

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

Note found by an amateur on her door.

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

Prudish Pedants (March 22^nd, 2012)

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

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

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18^th, 2012)

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

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

My Favorite Books (April 26^th, 2012)

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

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

Metaupdates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Year Ago Today

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

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Little Boxes

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged anecdote, BDSM, censorship, cops, dirty, ethics, fantasy, imaginative fiction, law, lawheads, libraries, Little Boxes, psychology, stripping, Texas on April 29, 2012| 29 Comments »

Jules: Look, foot massages don’t mean shit.
Vincent: Have you ever given a foot massage?
Jules: Don’t be tellin’ me about foot massages. I’m the foot fuckin’ master.
Vincent: Given a lot of ’em?
Jules: Shit yeah. I got my technique down and everything, I don’t be ticklin’ or nothin’.
Vincent: Would you give a guy a foot massage?
Jules: Fuck you. – Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction

When I was a librarian, our director once read a study showing that when fiction is divided into genres, the works of more obscure authors tend to circulate better because readers of that genre can discover them more easily than if all fiction is shelved together. He decided to try it, and I was given the task of reclassifying every single book into one of six genres, plus a general fiction class. I soon discovered that, while some authors (Robert Heinlein, Agatha Christie, Barbara Cartland, Stephen King, etc) were easily categorized, others were not…and some books simply defied assignment to any one genre.

People just love to mentally file things in little boxes; it keeps them neat and orderly and, as in the case of our director’s plan, makes a large number of somethings easier to manage by subdividing it. And there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as one recognizes that the grouping is often an artificial one which exists only in our minds. Yes, some authors set out to write works in a particular genre, but others just get ideas and write, and any classification is something imposed upon the work afterward. And if that classification is a poor fit based on superficial criteria, it can actually hamper interpretation of the work by instilling false expectations in the mind of the beholder. For example, the British TV series Space: 1999 is generally classified as science fiction because it takes place on a moonbase with conventional science fiction trappings such as spaceships and ray guns. But actually, the series is more horror than science fiction, and once that is understood a number of the most common criticisms of the show evaporate.

In real life, such categorization can be even more problematic because human behavior is far more complex than any fictional story. And given the voracious desire of modern government to seize control over all aspects of human life, the arbitrary box into which bureaucrats choose to place any given behavior can mean the difference between being allowed to live in peace and being ruthlessly persecuted by uniformed thugs and entitled busybodies. Worst of all, the rules of classification are often purposefully vague, or else the behavior is one so complex it’s impossible to break it down into a rigid system, and police and prosecutors are thus empowered to classify any given behavior as they please…and it’s nearly always in the box marked “illegal”.

In a free country, sex would be recognized as completely outside of the government’s business; alas, no country is completely free, so every government feels the need to meddle in people’s private sexual affairs to a greater or lesser degree. For reasons far too complex to discuss here, nearly every human society has decided that a sex act which is compensated by currency is somehow vitally different from one compensated by other means, and so have enacted rules and regulations in a futile attempt to control the uncontrollable. The existence of such laws creates the necessity of drawing artificial and ephemeral lines between “pay” and “gifts”, “stranger” and “acquaintance”, “discriminate” and “indiscriminate” and (most absurdly of all) “sex” and “not sex”. Defining sex is like twisting a rope of sand; the more one tries the more it slips away. In Pulp Fiction Jules is adamant that foot massage is not remotely like oral sex…until Vincent forces him to recognize that there is a definite sexual dimension to it. How about tying someone up? Most people would probably consider that nonsexual, but I’m far from the only one who disagrees. What about holding hands? We even do that with our children…yet Tennessee legislators recently defined hand-holding as a “gateway sexual activity” and therefore prohibited it from schools. That’s the hardest part of drawing artificial lines to excuse meddling and criminalization: draw the lines too tightly, and they’re either too easy to circumvent or (as in the case discussed in my column of one year ago today) almost nobody can qualify as a “victim”; draw them too loosely and the legislators and their goons are revealed as busybody sociopaths. This is exactly why New Zealand opted for decriminalization; enacting practically any rules about sex opens the door for abuse, so any country that actually cares about justice has to leave the whole subject alone. Alas, the United States doesn’t care about justice any longer, so we get petty tyranny like this:

…Melissa Borrett, 26, began Fantasy Maid Service of Lubbock [Texas] as a way to make extra money. She charges customers $100 per hour to clean their homes, and at their request, she can do the dusting in lingerie or in the buff…[she] started the service in February. Now, just a few months later, she has three other women working for her. But while business is booming…the “sexually oriented business” doesn’t have a permit to operate, police Sgt. Jonathan Stewart said [and] Borrett could face at a fine of $2,000…”Just the fact employees are topless or semi nude in this case — it’s just not allowed,” Stewart told KCBD. Company policy prohibits employees and customers from engaging in any physical or sexual contact. “If a maid accepts tips for physical contact, she will be terminated immediately and the customer will not be able to schedule service with Lubbock Fantasy Maid Service again,” according to the company’s website. Additionally, the company will not work topless or nude in the presence of persons under 18. According to the Associated Press, the permit Borrett needs to obtain costs $650 per year and requires an additional $5,000 surety bond or letter of credit…Borrett has said she will take legal action if the city attempts to shut down the business.

Although it pains me to say so, the police are factually (though obviously not morally) right; of course it’s a sexually oriented business, and those who deny it are being disingenuous. The reason she can charge low-end escort rates for maid service is because of the sexual component, and for no other reason.

Lawheads cannot be fought on their own terms and in their own territory; attempting to define sexuality (commercial or otherwise) as being in the “permissible” or “legal” category rather than the “unacceptable” or “illegal” one is a tacit acknowledgement that such lines of demarcation are valid and that government has the right to draw them. That is a losing strategy because even if one wins the battle, the government can simply re-draw the line to include one’s entrenched position. The only way we as a culture will win the war for liberty is to reject any and all claims by “authority” to power over the private, consensual behavior of individuals, no matter what that behavior is or how far it falls outside of the boxes which define our own personal comfort zones.

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That Was the Week That Was (#17)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged An Example to the West, anecdote, bad customers, Brazil, brothels, censorship, Coming and Going, condoms, cops, drivers, East Asia, Election Day, ethics, evidence, halfway whores, Handy Figures, harm reduction, hysteria, India, Ireland, Latin America, law, Maggie in the Media, Middle East, Much Ado About Nothing, neofeminism, New York, Not the Same Tree, Presents, rescue industry, Schadenfreude, sex work is work, Sisters In Arms, statistics, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Tennessee, The Camel's Nose, United Kingdom on April 28, 2012| 29 Comments »

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business. – Eric Hoffer

Eleven updates and two metaupdates.

Election Day (November 2^nd, 2010)

The campaign to ban police and prosecutors from using condoms as “evidence of prostitution” is ramping up; last week a group of public health and human rights advocates spoke to the New York legislature, and supporters now have their own website. Find out what you can do to help end this public health nightmare; success in New York will reinforce efforts in other states.

Maggie in the Media (February 3^rd, 2011)

My column on the Secret Service scandal attracted quite a lot of media attention. Last Friday James Wolcott of Vanity Fair quoted me, writing “Maggie McNeill, whose always provocative and independent-thinking blog The Honest Courtesan provides “a whore’s-eye view on current events,” is unable to stifle a yawn over the unholy fuss being made over the Secret Service agent and the underpaid escort, which has flowered into a hothouse scandal…” On that same day I spoke to Abby Ellin of ABC News, whose story appeared on Monday:

“If it had happened here, the woman couldn’t have gone to the police and said, ‘These guys are trying to cheat me out of money.’ Instead, she would have been hurt and cheated, and Mr. Agent Man would have gone home and patted himself on the back for having gotten one over on her,” said Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan.

She also wrote:

But while they acknowledge the potential dangers to national security, sex workers in the United States think the “breach” argument is another form of discrimination against prostitutes. “If the issue is attracting attention or bragging about being in the security detail, then it would be a problem if they brought in any outsider,” said McNeill. “If that’s the case, then what difference does it make if she’s a prostitute or an accountant?”

The next day, Newstrack India drew on the ABC story for its own report, which said: “Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan, and others have said that the policy was ridiculous, and that criminalizing prostitution was not only a human rights violation, but also a safety and labour issue.” Meanwhile, I was contacted by the producer of The O’Reilly Factor to be on Tuesday’s show, but I didn’t want to show my face on national television and O’Reilly understandably wanted someone he could look in the eye; instead they got Sienna Baskin of the Sex Workers Project, whom I am told held her own very well (probably better than I could’ve, because O’Reilly would almost certainly have flustered me).

Not the Same Tree (February 18^th, 2011)

Northern Ireland has railroaded convicted its first “sex trafficker”:

Matyas Pis was…convicted of controlling prostitution…The [two] women said they asked…Pis to book their air tickets, and he provided them with an apartment…Judge Burgess said the women were not being held against their will, but he could not ignore that “human trafficking is a global problem and we should not be blind to the fact that it is happening right now in Northern Ireland…”

So obviously this judge would convict men for having consensual sex on the grounds that he heard somewhere that 1 in 4 women have been raped.

What’s the Legal Definition of Prostitution Again? (April 17^th, 2011)

I wasn’t going to say anything about this article criticizing a new halfway whore site, because it’s sadly typical of Jezebel’s stealth anti-sex work oeuvre. But then Lolo de Sucre of Tits and Sass published this thoroughly awesome takedown entitled “Jezebel Blogger Saves Unwitting Women from Accidentally Prostituting Themselves ‘in Fucking Thailand or Some Shit’”, which you absolutely must read; her caption for this picture is especially brilliant.

Handy Figures (June 11^th, 2011)

Dr. Brooke Magnanti referenced this column and two others in a new article on the methodological deficiencies of prohibitionist “studies”. Meanwhile, an otherwise-uninteresting news article led me to this equally-uninteresting 2006 item which nonetheless contained one interesting statistic: 49% of Indian men are now willing to admit they’ve paid for sex, which is much closer to the truth than the laughably low figures many American “researchers” produce via poorly-phrased questions.

Sisters in Arms (July 14^th, 2011)

Tennessee joins the list of states defining miscarriage as murder; this article quotes and links others from Knox News, RH Reality Check, Think Progress and The Tennessean. Had enough yet, neofeminists and nanny-staters? Because the policies you support provide the precedents for these abominations.

Schadenfreude (November 28^th, 2011)

Great news about Kristof’s “hero”, fanatical anti-whore activist Somaly Mam:

[At a UN panel] Somaly Mam…[falsely claimed] that when police raided her Afesip centre in Phnom Penh in 2004, eight of the girls were…murdered…83 women…[were taken to the] centre…after a raid…on the Chai Hour 11 Hotel, where it was alleged that underage girls were providing sexual services…However, the following day, the centre itself was raided by government officials and members of the detained women’s families, and the women released…Somaly Mam [claimed] these officials colluded with the owners of the hotel, but a number of the women released [insisted] to reporters that they…resented being “rescued”. It was also disputed that any of the women were underage…No reports…suggested any of the women…were missing…[and] the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights [expressed] surprise at Mam’s…claim…[Pierre Legros, Mam’s ex-husband and] Afesip’s international director at the time of the raids, also denied that any…girls were murdered…he said that previous claims by his ex that their daughter had…been kidnapped and gang-raped in revenge for her mother’s activism were also untrue…[the] daughter had simply run off with her boyfriend…the lack of evidence of Mam’s claims…seriously [undermines] her credibility. Observers had for some time felt that Mam had become preoccupied with her identity as an international celebrity…

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

On Tuesday I received a DVD of The Thing from Lord Oberon, then yesterday the UPS man brought me John Stossel’s new book No, They Can’t from Elisabeth Whispers. Thank you both so much for thinking about me!

An Example to the West (April 3^rd, 2012)

The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) held its conference in Istanbul last week, and unlike similar events in the United States, sex worker rights groups were welcomed there as important participants. Dr. Laura Agustín wrote about the proceedings:

…I was at this event most of last week, part of a group promoting a vision of sex work, migration and feminism that emphasizes agency, the state of being in action, taking power, making decisions even when presented with few options. We overtly challenged the reductionist, infantilising ideology that has come to dominate mainstream policy and faux journalism (like The New York Times’s) by attending many sessions and commenting…

TrustLaw reported on the conference as well, highlighting Agustín’s contribution and also quoting the EMPOWER Foundation:

“We are forced to live with the modern lie that border controls and anti-trafficking policies are for our protection…We have been spied on, arrested, cut off from our families, had our savings confiscated, interrogated, imprisoned and placed into the hands of the men with guns…all in the name of ‘protection against trafficking’”…one woman [said]: “At a restaurant you get a menu and you look at all the options before you pick out your selection …Some restaurants have a huge menu and some only have a few dishes – either way the process is the same. Vegetarians may not understand when you choose a steak, and others may not understand when we choose to do sex work.”

Much Ado About Nothing (April 14^th, 2012)

Since the public stubbornly refuses to get worked up over the “news” that G-men hire whores, the news media is casting its net more widely: “…anonymous sources [said] that Secret Service employees received sexual favors from strippers at a club in San Salvador and took prostitutes to their hotel rooms…in March 2011.” Stop the Presses! Men buying sex while travelling on business! Why, that’s never happened before in the history of the world! Contrast that non-story with this, which SHOULD have caused a scandal last December but was instead ignored by the American media:

A former Brazilian prostitute plans to sue the United States embassy and five of its personnel for injuries sustained outside a strip club [on December 29^th]…Romilda Aparecida Ferreira…[is suing] for injuries, medical expenses, lost income, and psychological trauma after an embassy van ran over her and left her stranded in the club parking lot with a broken collarbone, punctured lung and other injuries…A civil suit would compound a case in which Brazilian prosecutors have already said they are considering criminal charges…Little noticed at the time, the incident in Brasília…gained traction this week…

It was “little noticed” because the American media didn’t give a damn about several apes in uniform mutilating a hooker (NHI and all that). But now that it can be tangentially hooked to a “prostitution scandal” it’s suddenly news.

Ad Scortum (April 16^th, 2012)

In order to combat prohibitionist claims that satisfied, well-adjusted sex workers are “not representative”, Greta Christina has invited us to tell our stories in a thread from which prohibitionists and other non-sex workers are specifically excluded. If you’re a present or past sex worker of any kind (it’s not limited to whores) please contribute; the thread is already over 100 responses long!

Metaupdates

Coming and Going in That Was the Week That Was (#12) (March 24^th, 2012)

In yet another sign that the anti-whore tide may be receding, The New York Daily News published this article strongly criticizing Anna Gristina’s treatment:

…in Florida, a judge granted $150,000 bail for George Zimmerman, who is charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin. Last week, a career criminal named Ivan Ramos was arrested after allegedly raping, sodomizing and robbing a young woman…Facing 15 years, an obvious flight risk and a clear threat to the community, Ramos was given $300,000 bail. Meanwhile, Anna Gristina…has been held on $2 million bond since Feb. 22 on a nonviolent charge of promoting prostitution…[which usually results in] probation and carries a maximum sentence of two to seven years…two weeks ago five male hotel clerks were charged…with the same exact crime [and] released on their own recognizance, without posting a dime in bail…What’s more obscene? A woman charged with promoting the world’s oldest profession that attracts governors, U.S. senators, congressmen and Secret Servicemen? Or this flagrant abuse of judicial power that’s turned the Blind Lady of Justice into a streetwalker?

The Camel’s Nose in That Was the Week That Was (#16) (April 21^st, 2012)

American readers, have you called your congressman about CISPA yet? If not, you’d better hurry:

Up until [Thursday] afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be [Friday]. Then, abruptly, it was moved up…and the House voted in favor of its passage…248-168…[after] an absolutely terrible change (…amendment #6)…[in] what the government can do with shared information…Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government’s power…though it in fact expands it…Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for “cybersecurity” or “national security” purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more…have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children…Basically it says the 4^th Amendment does not apply online, at all…[and] the government could do whatever it wants with the data…CISPA is now a completely unsupportable bill that…eliminates …all privacy laws for any situation that involves a computer…

The government’s doubletalk was so masterful it even succeeded in convincing some CISPA opponents that the changes limited its power, but as Leigh Beadon explains in this follow-up to her article above, that’s totally false.

One Year Ago Today

“The Coffee Klatsch” provides samples of the blogs of three other hookers with whom I’m friendly.

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That Was the Week That Was (#16)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Manufactured War, An Angel of Mercy, bad customers, Brazil, brothels, censorship, condoms, cops, Counterfeit Comfort, dirty, drugs, escort services, Europe, Follow Your Bliss, Give It a Rest, Hard Numbers, harm reduction, hysteria, internet, language, Latin America, law, Much Ado About Nothing, Nevada, Never Call the Cops, New York, Not the Same Tree, porn, Presents, sex offender registry, Spain, stage names, stereotypes, streetwalkers, stripping, Texas, The Camel's Nose, To Protect and Serve, underage, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC on April 21, 2012| 25 Comments »

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. – William Pitt

Nine updates and two meta-updates; two other news stories from this week will be treated in greater depth in my columns for April 29^th and May 6^th.

The Camel’s Nose (October 2^nd, 2010)

Meet CISPA, formerly known as SOPA, alias PIPA, née COICA:

…some people are calling it “worse than SOPA,” and it’s sponsored by a congressman who thinks the death penalty should be considered for Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking military information to Wikileaks. Be worried: they think we stopped paying attention after SOPA — so they made…the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (PDF) (aka H.R. 3523)…[which] has the support of companies such as AT&T, Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft…and many more. A full list of all 28 corporate supporters is here. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is also trying to get tech press to tell you…CISPA is “nothing like SOPA.” Don’t believe it. CISPA’s primary function is to remove legal barriers that might keep Internet companies from giving all your communication and information to the government. It allows “cyber entities” (such as Internet service providers, social networks like Facebook and cell phone companies like AT&T) to circumvent Internet privacy laws when they’re pressured by Homeland Security to hand over or shut down — well, almost anything of yours online that the government wants, no warrant needed…

Here’s a handy graphic (click to enlarge) you can download or link and spread everywhere, and here’s a very comprehensive “tool kit” from Anonymous. Don’t ignore this, y’all; the fascists figured out they needed to give more to the big tech companies, so this time we have to defeat it without corporate support.

To Protect and Serve (February 9^th, 2011)

Another sex worker murdered by cops, and another victim of so-called “non-lethal” tasers:

Adult performer Sledge Hammer…[whose legal name was Marland Anderson, died on April 13^th] after…police…shot [him numerous times] with a Taser…Anderson…“had a mild form of schizophrenia, and it wasn’t a problem until he started smoking pot and taking various things for depression,” [friend and film director Stoney] Curtis explained…On Sunday night…Anderson suffered a severe anxiety attack and his girlfriend, adult performer Alexa Cruz, called 911 to prevent him from harming himself…police showed up with an ambulance and…“instead of trying to talk to him or grab him and get him to the ground, or the paramedics giving him a sedative, they decided to break out their tasers and just tasered him excessively until the point where he went into cardiac arrest,” Curtis said…

Once again: never, ever call the cops for any reason, not even if you think you’re dying. Because once you do, they think you are their personal property to dispose of in any way they wish.

Not the Same Tree (February 18^th, 2011)

This article about a Scottish escort service owner convicted of “human trafficking” is a perfect illustration of how the warped minds of police, prosecutors and prohibitionists project crime and evil into everything they see, and how they and their media lackeys use dysphemisms, distortion and exaggeration to create monsters out of businesspeople:

Scotland’s first convicted sex trafficker…revealed the secrets of the seedy vice empire that raked in a fortune – before landing him in jail. Stephen Craig…described how he and…Sarah Beukan…ran their infamous Scottish Elite Escorts and recruited girls to join their prostitution ring. Craig also claimed that footballers, actors and comedians were among the biggest clients…and…admitted taking a third of the money paid by punters to his girls…Craig denied making threats to girls or forcing them to sell their bodies…a police officer claimed one witness said Craig threatened to pour boiling water down her throat…But Sheriff Sam Clark said there was “no pressure, force or threat” on women who worked for him. Craig now faces a proceeds of crime investigation. He said…“Police say Sarah and I made £20,000 a week…[but actually] we probably split about £5000 on a good week”…

“Seedy vice empire”. “Infamous”. “Prostitution ring”. “Sell their bodies”. “Taking money” to mean “charging fees”. The lurid accusations totally unsupported by fact, and the wild exaggeration of his income so the cops can steal more of his property and savings. I wish there were some way to make these asses fully cognizant of how ridiculous they’re going to look once Western society fully awakens from “sex trafficking” hysteria.

Give It a Rest (August 18^th, 2011)

Remember the Texas strip club which cops were trying to destroy via harassment of dancers and customers? Apparently, they either succeeded in driving the owner over the edge or else just decided to get rid of him by the time-honored method of framing:

Ryan Walker Grant, co-owner of Flashdancer topless club in Arlington, was arrested after an FBI investigation revealed he tried to hire Mexican hitmen to kill two Arlington city officials whom he blamed for the closure of his business…Grant [allegedly told the FBI plant that]…he stood to lose $800,000 a year if Flashdancers closed for good…

Follow Your Bliss (November 29^th, 2011)

Though most “child sex slave” fetishists restrict themselves to writing lurid newspaper stories, this one sought the opportunity for “hands-on” experience “helping” underage hookers:

A counselor at a new…shelter for prostituted children groped and propositioned a girl there…prosecutors in Seattle contend Ralph Nathaniel Wells accosted the then-16-year-old girl in late January. Wells, 32, had been employed by the shelter as an overnight counselor…the girl said Wells called her out of her room several times…[and] made inappropriate comments and sexual advances, pulled on her clothing and touched her. Wells was suspended without pay immediately…

Obviously Wells bought his own organization’s propaganda that the girl was “prostituted” (i.e. a passive object without volition) and a “child”, and therefore too stupid and helpless to turn him down and report his sleazy behavior.

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

I got two new presents this week! On Monday I received a copy of Never On Sunday from Martin English, and on Tuesday a new book named The Origins of Sex from another reader who prefers to remain anonymous. Thank you both so very much!

An Angel of Mercy (January 25^th, 2012)

You don’t have to be a Catholic nun to do outreach to streetwalkers; Cyndee Clay is a lapsed Mormon who heads Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS) in Washington, DC. In this interview with Metro Weekly she talks about sex work stigma, “prostitution-free zones”, police harassment, harm reduction and the services HIPS provides, including “…weekly support groups…daily maintenance groups for active drug users…case management, linkage to care and services, including HIV testing and drop-in syringe access…our bad-date sheet” and condom distribution.

Much Ado About Nothing (April 18^th, 2012)

Well, the story’s beginning to make a lot more sense now; it turns out the argument wasn’t over $47 as initially reported, but rather $770 (the difference between the $800 fee Agent Asshole agreed to and the $30 he tried to give her instead). Some of the agents are now making the sophomoric claim that they didn’t know their dates were whores, which is not only unbelievable to anyone in the know, but also flies in the face of reports that they met the women in a brothel. And Dania (the lady who was cheated) insists that contrary to what the bouncer and cops claim, the agents were very discreet and she had no idea they were Secret Service.

But despite media efforts to sex up the story and to overdramatize its importance (“Eleven Secret Service agents…and nine military servicemen are under investigation for hiring 20 or 21 hookers”) the American people seem refreshingly unmoved. My own perceptions and those of several of my sources indicate that more people are concerned with the agent’s trying to cheat a sex worker than the fact that he hired her. A reporter who interviewed me yesterday (I’m not sure when it will appear) felt that the real story was that Colombia’s system protects women by allowing them access to police, and a Vanity Fair article which quotes yours truly points out that the whole scandal is a convenient misdirection from the issues of the Cartagena summit, which Washington doesn’t want the public thinking too hard about. Spirit Airlines mocked the scandal in a promotion, and Dennis Hof of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch opined that Secret Service agents should only hire American whores. But most interesting (and heartening) of all is the reaction in many mainstream media sources (including Forbes), which might be synopsized in the words used by Reason’s J.D. Tuccille: “Maybe, just maybe, we could stop pretending that exchanging money for sex is such a terrible thing.”

Hard Numbers (April 20^th, 2012)

Brazil follows the example of our friends Down Under in recognizing that it is attempts to ban or regulate prostitution that cause the problems “authorities” associate with it, and that decriminalization is the best way to eliminate those issues:

A proposal before the Senate…[eliminates] criminal penalties for owners of brothels. The legal experts…want to end what they call the moral “cynicism” of the current legislation. In practice, they say, the ban on brothels only serves to corrupt police who extort money and services from the owners of the establishments…Prostitution itself is not illegal in Brazil, nor is it regulated by the government…the change will…permit labor unions to establish a link between the employees and the employer as is the norm in countries such as Germany and Holland. ”It is a historical claim to the movement for prostitutes,” [said] Roberto Dominguez…legal advisor to the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes…

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Counterfeit Comfort in That Was the Week That Was (#8) (February 26^th, 2012)

In their quest for absolute power over the lives of their subjects, politicians can’t let little things like justice, decency or the law stop them. After a federal judge overturned a Louisiana law banning victims of the “sex offender” registry from social media, tyrants in New York realized the same thing would probably happen if they enacted a similar law, so they used political pressure to force online companies to do their dirty work for them:

Back in 2008, New York passed a law requiring…sex offenders to register all email addresses and social network accounts with the government…[now] Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced the first wave of an initiative called “Operation: Game Over”…[in which] over 3500 sex offenders’ online gaming accounts with companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Blizzard have been banned completely. AG Schneiderman applauds the effort with “We must ensure online video game systems do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators. That means doing everything possible to block sex offenders from using gaming networks as a vehicle to prey on underage victims”…[But as] the New York Civil Liberties Union [points out]…“the problem…is almost non-existent. Children are almost always abused by people they know – a friend or family member – not by people they interact with while playing video games online.”

…Not only are these people blocked from playing with children through these services, they are also blocked from playing with friends and family members. We are further eroding the ability for these people to reintegrate themselves with society, and for what? While New York and those gaming companies that partnered with the state continue the witch hunt, they will surely earn some brownie points with parents. After all, that is really what matters in an election year…Who cares if justice is actually being served? Sex offenders are expendable. They aren’t real people. At least you can keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.

A Manufactured War in That Was the Week That Was (#15) (April 14^th, 2012)

While I contended myself with dispatching the New York Times’ scare story on “sex trafficking” in Spain via a quick shotgun blast, Dr. Laura Agustín preferred to vivisect it instead. I think you’ll find the result well worth your time.

One Year Ago Today

“Faerie Tale” is exactly that…but probably not in the way you’re thinking.

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