The question is this—Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence the contrary view, which is I believe, foreign to the conscience of humanity. – Benjamin Disraeli
Charles Darwin first proposed the theory of evolution via natural selection a little over 150 years ago, yet despite mountains of proof there are still huge numbers of insecure people who, like Disraeli, reject it out of hand because they are afraid of the implications of recognizing humans as a kind of animal, connected deeply to all other animals on Earth by the legacy we carry around in every cell of our bodies. These are people who are unable or unwilling to recognize their own worth as individuals, and therefore require some magical proclamation of uniqueness bestowed upon them by an authority figure. In a way, it’s the ultimate “victim politics”; none of us, these people believe, are worthy for ourselves, but rather only as members of a designated “special” group. They therefore fear and reject their own bodies, whose earthy needs such as food, elimination and sex are no less compelling than those of every other animal. But of those basic needs only one of them, sex, can be avoided without resulting in death; therefore it is the one which must be denied most vociferously by those who wish to believe themselves closer kin to the angels than the apes.
Not all those who deny the ape beneath our skins are members of traditional religions; as I pointed out in my column of one year ago today, neofeminists do the same thing due to their violent rejection of their own feminine biology. “Social construction of gender” is just a more subtle version of “scientific creationism”; it recognizes that sex differences in all other animals arise from instinct encoded in their DNA, yet denies that humans are subject to the same biochemical forces. Though some adherents of this catechism may also be creationists, most probably believe in some patchwork rationalization such as the myth that our large brains somehow make us “immune” to sexual and sex-role instincts (yet not immune to hunger, thirst, pain, fear, anger, love, sorrow, etc). In any case, the neofeminists teach that humans, unlike every other mammal, have no innate sexual or sex-role drives whatsoever, and that all these are bestowed through the mystic force known as “social construction”, breathed into our nostrils by the omnipotent Collective. The most deluded adherents of this cult believe in something like the Calvinist religious doctrine of predestination; once a person’s personality has been determined by the almighty Patriarchy (the collective entity which acts as both Devil and Demiurge in neofeminist myth), a “false consciousness” is established which only salvation through baptism in the Holy Spirit of Neofeminism can dispel. If any person believes her choices to be acts of free will, but she behaves in a manner at odds with neofeminist dogma, she is said to be suffering from “false consciousness” which renders her decisions equally false. Only actions wholly in accord with neofeminist teachings are “correct” and free of Patriarchal conditioning.
Sane, rational people understand that the mere fact of a biological drive does not compel a human (or even a dog) to act upon it; retrievers can be trained not to eat the game in their mouths, human men can suppress the urge to mate with an unwilling woman because they know it isn’t right, and I can suppress the urge to eat something right now because I want to lose two kilograms I allowed to accumulate over the holidays. But like all prohibitionists, neofeminists believe that moderation is evil and only a total ban on the particular “sin” with which they’re obsessed (in this case, male-initiated sex) is good. Any indulgence in an urge of the flesh is viewed as a triumph of the Dark Powers, a little taste of death to the “enlightened” consciousness. Fortunately, this sort of black-and-white morality isn’t the norm in the rightmost portion of the IQ bell curve; as any whore or stripper can attest, many of our clients are medical doctors, scientists, engineers and other highly intelligent men who recognize that sexual drives are natural, and indulging them won’t rot their brains or cause the collapse of civilization. Indeed, one man who is probably on nearly everyone’s list of the brainiest specimens of homo sapiens on the planet isn’t afraid to treat himself to commercial sex:
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking spends a lot of time talking about the universe and what it might all mean but when…[he] isn’t talking to sold out crowds he can be seen spending his time in sex and strip clubs. The Daily Mailis reporting that the 70-year-old has visited various swinger clubs, sex clubs and strip clubs over the years including a Southern California swingers party which he was brought to by his nurses and assistants…he paid for private shows with various naked dancers at the Freedom Acres Club in Devore which he visited on a “handful of occasions”…While Cambridge officials deny that Hawking has made “regular” stops at strip and sex clubs they do admit that he visited a club “once a few years ago with friends while on a visit to California.”
Stringfellow’s Gentlemen’s Club in London Owner Peter Stringfellow told the Daily Mail that he actually had a chance to meet…Hawking at his club. “I remember asking him if he’d like to have a conversation with me about the universe, or if he’d just like to watch the girls. The answer was quite simply: ‘The girls’. “ So there you have it, when Stephen Hawking’s not busy trying to solve the mystery’s [sic] of our universe he’s doing what millions of other men do, he stares at naked women…
I think we can assume Hawking hires the occasional hooker as well; despite his paralysis he has been married twice and has three children. And I also think everyone can agree that neither sex nor ogling crumpet has damaged the great scientist’s intellectual capacity in the slightest; acknowledging the ape does no harm to the angel.
Prohibitionists claim that “sex trafficking” decreases when prostitution is criminalized and increases when it is legalized or decriminalized; the Netherlands is one of their favorite targets, and here Wendy Lyon of Feminist Ire demonstrates that recent statistics fail to support prohibitionist claims, and that what “trafficking” there is seems more the fault of Dutch controls than of the sex trade itself.
Increasing numbers of educated people reject prohibitionist claims about sex work and even recognize it as a positive good. One of these is Dr. Hernando Chaves, sex columnist for AskMen, who recently answered the question “Is there anything wrong with [seeing] a prostitute? What risks are there…?”
…This answer for you depends on…personal attitudes, social judgments, religious/spiritual views, your culture…and a host of other variables…In many cultures throughout history, money…[has] been exchanged for…sexual activity, sometimes as a form of…worship…besides the risk of being arrested and charged where it’s not legal, the risks are quite similar those you would take on with a non-sex-work partner. Any partner can break your heart, take your money, pass along an STI…and so on. It’s not fair to attribute these risks [only] to sex workers…some…bring up sex slavery…and other dark sides to sexual activity, but…true sex work…is a business decision made by consenting adults…
Public radio’s popular This American Life episode about abuses in the Foxconn factories…has been retracted on the grounds of… “significant fabrications”…When you read something bad about a Foxconn factory and then see that thousands of people line up for the chance of a job at one of them, that really ought to make you wonder. What were those guys doing the day before they decided to stand in line?…
…If you’ve ever tweeted about how bad Apple is, blogged about the evils of Foxconn’s sweatshops, or “Liked” a Facebook post excoriating how iPads are made, then you should listen [to the retraction of Daisey’s story]…I’ve covered the company as a reporter for more than a decade…Mike Daisey claimed to have come across 12-year-old workers, armed guards, crippled factory operators. We saw none of that. And we did try to find them. Nothing would have been more compelling for us and our story than to have a chat with a preteen factory operator about how she enjoyed (or not) working 12-hour shifts making iPads. We didn’t get such an anecdote…The biggest gripe, which surprised us somewhat, is that they don’t get enough overtime. They wanted to work more, to get more money…It wasn’t paradise…some of their managers were harsh…and…others found their job boring. Some were just plain homesick…Compared to the lies, the truth just doesn’t make good theater.
Now substitute “Nick Kristof” for “Mike Daisey”, “brothel” for “factory”…you get the picture.
This story has been pitched by a number of advocates as good news, but my skeptical mind can’t help noticing that the commissioner who said “What activities these victims may have engaged in…does not matter…They were young women whose lives were cut tragically short,“ has been replaced by one who is “on the same page” with the DA who says it was the victims’ fault for being whores:
The Suffolk police…has a new chief who says he plans a fresh look at…the Gilgo Beach murders, and believes more than one killer was responsible…That view is at odds with a single-killer theory that was aired last December by then-Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, setting off an unusual public argument with District Attorney Thomas Spota, who also believes there were multiple killers. Spota said it’s good that he and Fitzpatrick are “on the same page…Not one detective familiar with the facts of this case believes one person is responsible for these homicides”…
“The FBI suspects a number of serial killers are working as long-haul truckers, the better to cover up their monstrous deeds.” It looks like they’ve found one:
A 54-year-old truck driver from San Antonio…[named] Kenneth Dunn picked up Stephanie Williams, 43, at a truckstop outside of Dallas in February. Dunn then fatally beat Williams and dumped her body in an industrial area…about a week later, Dunn was arrested and charged with murder…Police said that five other prostitutes have been found dead in the Lubbock area over the past dozen years…Dunn…hasn’t [yet] been charged in any of them…
…[A former government] minister…has been convicted for trying to buy sex from a known prostitute…police saw him pick up the woman in his car…[but he] felt that he was being followed, [so] he stopped the car…and let her out…When he found out he was under suspicion for attempting to purchase sex he confessed straight away and was fined 19,200 kronor ($2,814). Now, however, he denies all allegations. “I have prostate cancer and it is treated with hormones, which means the sex drive disappears. I am medically castrated, one could say,” he told Aftonbladet. Instead, the man claims he was giving the woman a ride home…“The police told me that I could choose between the case being taken to court with all the public exposure that would entail or accept an order of summary punishment…”
Note how, though women are supposedly not targeted by the Swedish Model, the police spy on “known prostitutes” in order to entrap and shake down men.
Female prostitutes on average earn VND10.6 million per month (over $500) while male prostitutes earn VND6.55 million (over $300), around 2.5 times over the average earning of the group of 20 percent highest income earners in Vietnam…Dr. Nguyen Huu Minh…says that around three fourths of the interviewed prostitutes began …at the age of less than 25; 18 percent of them at the age of 16-18 and around four percent at the age of less than 15…nearly 50 percent…have secondary, high school and university degrees…over 60 percent of the interviewed prostitutes work independently or in a group of friends and acquaintances…Most…said that they became prostitutes because of high income (53 percent)…
Note also that even in one of the poorest countries in the region, very few girls enter the trade at an age below 15…just like everywhere else.
Southeast Asian sex worker rights organizations enjoy making videos to call attention to their mistreatment at the hands of police spurred on by American busybodies; here’s a cute little silent comedy named “Last Rescue in Siam” from the Thai organization EMPOWER. Enjoy!
In the first paragraph of this column I provided a short list of recent media scares; if you’d like more of the same, here’s Gawker’s “Timeline of Moral Panics in the Last Decade”. Sex trafficking hysteria is conspicuous by its absence; I guess they only wanted scares rather than full-blown panics.
…Anthony Furey…balks at “activist agendas” that “turn human beings into stereotypes”…he considers most of the human books to be “of a decidedly fringe flavour”…[and] insists that the…event “fetishizes people’s differences” and argues that “whatever differences there are have more to do with their character…” [But] as much as we’d like to think that people are judged only by their characters, that is simply not true…for those of us “of a decidedly fringe flavour,” our experiences with stigma and discrimination have shaped our lives. These are precisely the differences that are important to hear about. As such, the Human Library is not fetishizing people’s differences, but rather bringing diverse (and in many cases, rarely heard) experiences to light…
A couple of hours after last Sunday’s column was published, I noticed a huge surge in traffic; as it turns out, Nicholas Kristof had discovered the column and “tweeted” it to his 1.2 million followers, eventually resulting in a new record for visits in one day (3522). A number of those visitors subscribed, so I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome them and to thank Kristof for all the new readers. On the same day he published another of his Backpage smear columns, only this time he failed to cover his tracks:
Nicholas D. Kristof…wrote…”Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage”…That is not true. According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist…in 2003…she…came to the FBI’s attention in August, 2005 [and] was…relocated away from…Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City…In the summer of 2005 Backpage.com did not exist in [those cities]…Had Kristof followed any of The New York Times’ standards of journalism, he would have known this. He could have read the court transcripts…[or] coverage in The Boston Globe…[or even] asked us…Instead, he concocted a story to suit his agenda and then asked his readers to boycott Village Voice Media…
This isn’t the first time Kristof has lied to advance one of his crusades; look for “Feet of Clay”, coming April 5th, for another example from a decade ago.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office spent five years and hundreds of man-hours spying on Anna Gristina, and for what? “Gristina…is considering pleading guilty to the one charge against her — felony promoting of prostitution. Even if prosecutors were successful at winning the maximum sentence…2½ years…she’d serve only…a year…before…work release as a nonviolent first offender…” New York readers, do you really feel this is a valid use of your public funds? This editorialist doesn’t: “…See, crimes should have an actual victim. If they don’t, than they don’t make any sense. Crimes without victims are well, stupid. They are a waste of resources, tax dollars and waste the freedoms and liberties of the people charged…This prosecution is simply idiotic…”
Last week I reported that a newspaper editor had died while visiting his sugar baby; well, it turns out she wasn’t a sugar baby and he was a total hypocrite:
…The young woman Caldwell visited was a full-time call girl…[who] has been advertising…for three years on a regional website called TNA Board…Since 2000…Caldwell …published at least 16…editorials on prostitution. “Some people will tell you that prostitution is a victimless crime,” an Oregonian editorial said in 2001. “They’re wrong…[W]hen you think about it, you realize prostitution isn’t ‘victimless’ even when prostitutes reach the grand old ages of 15 or 17 or 19.” In 2008, another…editorial linked prostitution to “distress, blight and violence,” and…[in] 2010 [another]…in favor of a city proposal to seize assets…[said] “The embarrassment factor probably doesn’t weigh heavily on pimps…but with johns, it’s a different story.”
Maybe once enough of these lying bastards are exposed, they’ll finally begin to publicly support the rights of women they patronize in private.
One Year Ago Today
“The Soft Weapon” reports on the Village Voice’s debunking of the Schapiro Group, and a Canadian editorial’s comparing sex work to hockey.
In California, crime is whatever school officials say it is: “…Stacie Halas, a…teacher at Richard B. Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard, was removed from the classroom…after pupils reported spotting her in a series of X-rated clips. ‘Maybe it’s not a crime as far as the penal code is concerned, but we feel it’s a crime as far as moral turpitude is concerned,’ said [superintendent] Jeff Chancer…” Because we certainly can’t have “sex rays” corrupting the innocent minds of nasty little snitches who watch internet porn and even make videos of their own: “…a boy and a girl engaged in oral sex during class at Richard B. Haydock Intermediate School in Oxnard…[and] students…videotaped the…act on their cell phones…School officials have placed the teacher on paid administrative leave. They won’t say what actions, if any, have been taken against the students…”
Thanks to EconJeff for alerting me to the Richard B. Haydock Grammar-School Gomorrah, and see “Metaupdates” below for more “sex ray” hysteria.
Stereotypes and misinformation about sex work…only foster distrust and separation…between men and women…we were assigned a reading…that [claimed] “activists…are working…to eradicate prostitution – a practice rarely distinguishable from sex trafficking – by ending the demand for it” …prostitution is a consensual act between two adults and sex trafficking is slavery therefore making it nonconsensual by nature. Additionally, the tenet that ending prostitution would simultaneously end human trafficking is naïve and juvenile…The assumption that all sex workers…are oppressed and need saving is incorrect and an oversimplification of a complex issue…
I’ve appeared on several other websites lately. ”Sluts, Whores & More Ongoing Insanity” on Amazing Women Rock (March 5th) is a spirited defense of sex workers and a criticism of those who use words like “slut”, “whore” and “prostitute” as insults. It prominently features myself and this blog as examples of Amazing Susan’s point that “Being educated and independent AND in control of one’s sexuality are not mutually exclusive.” The London School of Attraction published a two-part interview with me last Monday and Tuesday, and on Thursday I published a guest column on Nobody’s Business entitled, ”Rick Santorum vs. Marc Randazza: A Dichotomy of Zealotry“.
“Healing Power of Sex Work” by Wrenna Robertson is an excellent essay which includes short profiles of a number of different sex professionals. Wrenna herself is a 36-year-old stripper who entered the profession at 18 to pay for university and never left despite earning two degrees and publishing a book, I’ll Show You Mine, which I mentioned last August.
Politicians have long held that election or appointment to political office automatically grants degrees in medicine and pharmacology, but in the UK just being a cop confers expertise in oncology research:
…After a “drugs factory”…was raided, local yokel police passed on this dire admonition to a wide-eyed public:
Police are warning that when cannabis plants reach the final stages of maturity the odour they release has carcinogenic properties…Officers who deal with the plants use ventilation masks and protective suits and people who have plants in their home, especially anyone with young children, may be exposing their family to a health risk.
…Of course, that’s complete horse shit…Those who have bothered to actually look into the topic before making fools of themselves…know that…the terpenes, which are distinctive for marijuana’s distinctive odors, are in fact anti-cancer agents…
The Harborough Mail was apparently so embarrassed by its own gullibility that the story was pulled, as you already discovered if you tried to click that link.
Just because Femen is clueless in proper application of topless protests doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the concept, as nursing mothers have demonstrated. And now exiled Iranian women are protesting their homeland’s misogynistic policies in the same way: “After a nude photo and short video of a popular Iranian actress baring her breast…several online campaigns have sought to raise awareness about repression of women in Iran. The latest…came from a group of European-based Iranians posing…to promote…the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar…”
American “authorities” often justify their brutal mistreatment of streetwalkers by labeling them a “public nuisance”, but the Swiss prefer a more pragmatic and civilized approach:
Residents of…Zurich [voted]…to build dedicated garages…in [order to move] streetwalkers away from residential zones…The site will be shielded from sight by signs, be fitted with showers and toilets and will feature a gynaecologist for any medical problems and volunteers from the Flora Dora women’s group for any advice. The…site aims to eliminate…Zurich’s Sihlquai area, where about 60 streetwalkers work every night. Besides nightly traffic jams…[residents complain of] used condoms…[and other] trash…Ursula Kocher, who heads Flora Dora…said that the proposal had the support of the prostitutes themselves, as it could offer better security…
So the residents are happy, the hookers are happy and the politicians are happy. What a concept!
…Since 1975, the bodies of at least 30 women…have been found…[and] dozens more are…listed as missing. Staff Sgt. Gerard MacNeil is…convinced a serial killer is still on the loose…”I can’t say whether that person is alive, whether they are in custody for other offences, or whether they have left the province…” [he said]. Project KARE, a joint task force between the RCMP and Edmonton police, was formed in June 2003 to investigate the deaths of women living high-risk lifestyles…members…hit the streets two to four times a week to connect with sex trade workers…The response from the women themselves has been warm…”Ninety-five percent of girls talk to us…[they] know exactly what we do and who we are. They understand we are not trying to bust them for doing their job…we are there to…make sure they are doing OK”…
But despite stories like this, fanatics who support criminalization still refuse to comprehend that it creates conditions which are far more dangerous for women.
…HIV/AIDS researchers are testing an injectable version of a drug normally used to treat people already infected…[in hope of developing] a long-lasting version that may be given to people who aren’t HIV-positive, but are at high risk of becoming so. Three clinical trials have shown that antiretroviral drugs may help prevent uninfected people from acquiring HIV…but…the AIDS Healthcare Foundation…has filed a petition urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve…[the drugs] for use by uninfected people. The group [claims] that people won’t take the drug as indicated and that they’ll stop using condoms or other prevention methods…
AHF’s true concern is that since they can’t provide such a drug, it would cut into their profits.
Despite the incredibly annoying headline, “Streetwalker to Cat Walker”, I was pleased to see another example of a sex worker accepted into the mainstream:
Former call girl Zahia Dehar has unwrapped her debut lingerie collection…in Paris…The Chanel designers says Zahia is, “a very French courtesan, like Liane de Pougy or the Belle Otéro“. She became notorious a couple of years ago when the then underage prostitute was allegedly paid thousands of dollars for sex with some of France’s most famous footballers. Her face caught the attention of magazine editors and she has since appeared in magazines like V and Vanity Fair.
Coincidentally, La Belle Otero is the subject of this month’s harlotography, coming on March 30th.
The pompous Michigan sheriff quoted in this column opined that “It’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt” from a sugar baby arrangement, but I doubt he was thinking of this sort of thing: Bob Caldwell, the 63-year old editor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oregonian, died of a heart attack last Saturday while visiting his 23-year-old sugar baby. The cops magnanimously decided not to pursue prostitution charges against the understandably distraught young woman, but that mercy obviously didn’t extend to protecting the dead man’s reputation or sparing the feelings of his wife and three daughters.
Once again, Indian charities demonstrate a wisdom far in advance of that of the self-important Americans who insist that they know what’s best for Indian sex workers:
…in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red-light district…[there is] a bank…[which] serves only prostitutes…A vast majority of the area’s 4,000 sex workers have accounts with…Sangini, Hindi for “female friend.” As Sangini sees it, sex workers with even a modest financial buffer are able to refuse clients wanting unprotected sex. And savings build confidence, providing the wherewithal to change professions if they choose. Often, women will leave their passbooks here so husbands or pimps don’t discover and squander their earnings. Men can deposit but can’t withdraw funds without the woman’s permission, says Diane Cross, the charismatic social worker running the bank…“We get lambasted by churches that we’re encouraging prostitution,” says Krishna Sarda, head of the India800 Foundation, a civic group funded by grants that’s underwriting Sangini’s $75,000 annual budget. “The idea you can stop this trade altogether is cloud-cuckoo-land. Our focus is on trying to stop the exploitation”…
“…Arizona…[has] been targeted as [one possible home]…for the adult business…But…Maricopa County attorney Bill Montgomery said…’Under Arizona law, anyone paid to appear in a pornographic movie may be guilty of the crime of prostitution, which carries mandatory jail time as well as the possibility of other penalties’…” I hate to agree with a district attorney, but anyone who thinks that porn acting isn’t prostitution is either delusional or a hopeless lawhead. Americans don’t need more ridiculous laws exempting certain kinds of sex work from persecution under certain arbitrary conditions; what we need is for the government to stop interfering in the private affairs of adults altogether.
The [cash-starved] Lennox Little League…[returned a $1200 donation from a gentlemen’s club named] Jet Strip…president Robert Aguirre told KTLA…”It was a shocker to us. We do not want the money from the strip club…” [The club’s manager]…said that the club has been giving back to the community for years, [donating to]…raise money for school supplies for [underprivileged] children…[and contributing] to…sheriff’s deputies…This isn’t the first time a Jet Strip donation has been returned. In 1993, according to Yahoo! Sports, the American Red Cross refused a $5000 donation from the club…
PayPal…is backtracking on its policy against processing sales of e-books containing themes of rape, bestiality or incest after protests from authors and anti-censorship activist groups. PayPal’s new policy will focus only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text…The service will still refuse…to process payments for text-only e-books containing child pornography themes…[but]…will…focus on individual books, rather than entire classes of books…E-book sellers will be notified if specific books violate PayPal’s policy, and the company is working on a process through which authors and distributors can challenge such notifications…
If people would always resist infringements on our rights this vehemently, even governments would be compelled to back down.
One Year Ago Today
“Jill Brenneman Q & A (Part Two)” concluded the feature drawn from the comment threads of the Jill Brenneman interview columns.
Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. – Paulo Freire
One new item, ten updates and two meta-updates.
The President’s Nanny
On Tuesday the AP published the terribly sad story of Evie, a transgender woman who was little “Barry” Obama’s nanny when his family lived in Indonesia from 1969-1971. “When the family left…things started going downhill. She moved in with a boyfriend…three years later…she became a sex worker…soldiers often…loaded them into trucks, and brought them to a field where they were kicked, hit and otherwise abused.” After one especially brutal raid in 1985 in which a friend was beaten to death, Evie went back to dressing as a man, found solace in religion and now at 66 “says she’s just waiting to die.” She only recently realized that the US president was her old charge, and says she’s proud: “Now when people call me scum…I can just say: ‘But I was the nanny for the President of the United States!‘” The White House had no comment.
English football star Louis Saha explains why footballers prefer escorts to amateurs: “…women are the greatest temptation…a young player…can quickly be taken in, seduced by the girl who will cash in with a kiss-and-tell to the newspapers. So it’s hard to know who to trust and you become paranoid where women are concerned. Some players therefore prefer to use escorts.” This confused a writer at Deadspin, who apparently cannot comprehend that an indiscreet whore is soon an unemployed one.
Though activists have been trying for decades to call attention to the insanity of allowing cops to use condoms as “evidence of prostitution”, and a bill to ban the practice was introduced into the New York state legislature several years ago, the light bulb appears to have just gone on for the mainstream media. The Daily Kos and The Atlantic both noted that though the asinine policy is widespread, New York is the first state where a legislator had the sense to introduce a bill to prevent it. Both stories mention that Human Rights Watch will release a report on American “condom possession” policies in July, and both interviewed representatives of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, whose link was recently added to the “Organizations & Allies” box on the right. NCHRC has also asked me to call attention to their video on sex worker violence prevention, and I’m happy to do so.
One would expect a publication named Reason to oppose criminalization of sex work, and one would not be disappointed; here’s its coverage of a hooker-raping cop:
A New Mexico state trooper is on paid administrative leave after being arrested…for coercing prostitutes to have sex with him. Timothy Carlson first came to the attention of the Albquerque PD…when they caught him in his car with a prostitute…Why he wasn’t arrested then is a mystery…[after] a nearly year-long investigation…[he was caught]…with a prostitute…[who was] a confidential informant…[she told investigators] Carlson threatened to arrest her if she didn’t sleep with him…[He] faces extortion, bribery, public corruption and rape charges. Advocates of decriminalizing prostitution often point out that sex workers suffer appalling violence and extortion at the hands of…law enforcement officers…
The story also links several other “isolated” incidents.
“Davidson County [Tennessee] Sheriff Dacron Hall…[said] “If you weigh out what happens here – the police time, the arrest, the booking, all of this…what’s the net effect?…the criminalization of this process is very expensive,” he said. “I’m just not sure it can’t be done in other ways.” If you think county streetwalker stings are expensive, how about this? “…[The case against] Anna Gristina was…built from a five-year-long investigation by a Manhattan district attorney’s office unit…[involving] hundreds of hours of surveillance…Minors were involved in some of the encounters Gristina arranged, the prosecutor said…” Of course they had to add the bit about minors (which is almost certainly a lie) to avoid the inevitable questions like why the hell the average New Yorker should approve of this multi-year, multimillion dollar boondoggle.
It’s truly sad that actions of American cops in the three previous items are nearly indistinguishable from those of South African cops:
…Cape Town sex [workers say]…it was a regular occurrence for police to herd together sex workers at night and strip them naked before throwing them into their vans. They would then take photos to “identify them in case they go missing”. It was not uncommon for the sex workers to be pepper-sprayed, even on their private parts…In a recent study conducted by the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC), 12 percent of Cape Town’s sex workers reported having been raped by police, 46 percent threatened by police, and 28 percent forced into sexual favours by police…National police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo said…“It (sex work) is a crime…In the handling of these cases, it’s often misconstrued as harassment”…
Well, Naidoo’s statement certainly clears that up! The police are allowed to beat, rape and pepper-spray prostitutes, so it’s “official handling” rather than harassment, and that makes it OK.
A federal judge excused Salt Lake City’s police chief from a lawsuit filed by escort services…Utah’s attorney general remains a defendant. Utah law…[was amended] last year…to include any person who performs acts such as exposing or touching themselves…[which] the escort services argued…[criminalizes stripping]…Andrew McCullough, who is representing [the services]…said [an] escort already has been arrested under the amended law…[after] an undercover officer “tried everything he could…[to trick her, then] arrested her anyway…for touching herself…” State lawyers argued that people can be charged…only if they use those gestures as a sign they’re willing to engage in sex for money…
It takes a special mixture of balls and stupidity to defend unconstitutional laws with tautology.
A wealthy New York woman is facing criminal charges…[for] keeping an illegal immigrant as an indentured servant and forcing her to live in a closet for nearly six years. Documents posted on the Smoking Gun allege that Annie George, 39, and her now-deceased husband, Mathai Kolath George, hired an illegal immigrant [identied as V.M.] from the Indian state of Kerala…[promising her] about $1,000 a month in wages to…care [for] the Georges’ four young children [and perform] household duties in the mansion…instead…V.M. received 85 cents an hour, working 17-hour days, seven days a week, over the 67 months she was kept inside the George residence…Annie George…[faces] charges of encouraging and inducing an illegal alien to reside in the U.S…
So a middle-class independent escort with a six-figure income is a “trafficked slave”, but a woman lured from India under false pretenses, paid starvation wages and locked in a closet at night is an “indentured servant” in a “forced labor situation”. Furthermore, the escort’s legal husband could be imprisoned for decades and robbed of everything he owns for the “crime” of “human trafficking”, but someone who actually held someone captive is only charged with “encouraging an illegal alien”. Nice.
A husband, his wife and her lover have been charged with conspiracy to commit bestiality after using Craigslist to find a dog for the wife to have sex with. Shane Walker and his wife Sarah Dae, who describe themselves as swingers in an open marriage, were arrested [with her lover Robert Aucker] after an undercover sting operation…The two men were to watch while Sarah Dae had sex with the dog…Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio…wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster after the arrest of two people for using the website to solicit dogs for sex. Arpaio asked for closer monitoring of the site, but said after the latest arrest: “I remain extremely disappointed in the leadership at Craigslist.com for refusing to do what they can to stop this. While they aren’t doing anything to stop it, I will continue to enforce all animal cruelty laws.”
This is the same sheriff who didn’t bother to investigate over 400 sex crimes reported to his office, including 32 child molestations (some of the victims as young as 2). But I’m sure the parents of those molested kids will agree that it’s much more important for the sheriff’s office to pester businessmen and set up elaborate “sting” operations in order to perform the vital state function of preventing dogs from screwing air hostesses…oops, I mean “enforcing animal cruelty laws”.
American politicians, afflicted as they are with Puritanism and a medieval “law and order” mentality, can almost be forgiven for their incredible stupidity on prostitution issues. But Western Australia has several examples of successful legal models right next door, yet has descended into “trafficking hysteria” and may even succumb to the Swedish disease, as explained in this email from a WA politician:
…the Government’s proposed legislation will…greatly reduce the legality and visibility of prostitution…[via] the ‘Swedish model’ of targeting clients and brothel owners…If we actually wish to tackle trafficking in Western Australia, then this bill is our best hope…Any other approach will only serve to increase the elements of organized crime in prostitution and only perpetuate many more victims…
New South Wales and Queensland beg to differ about “any other approach” increasing “organized crime”…
Reverend Lia Scholl has advocated for sex workers for more than 10 years and is currently on the board of the Red Umbrella Project in New York. She recently wrote an excellent essay entitled “Church and Sex Work” which argues that churchgoers should not merely refrain from fighting prostitution or trying to rescue prostitutes, but should actively welcome sex workers in their community. Please read it in its entirety; we definitely need more people like Reverend Lia!
The bizarre competition between various jurisdictions claiming to be the most important source, destination or route for “human trafficking” has a new entrant, which insists that it’s all three simultaneously:
…“The 2011 Trafficking in Persons report notes that Zimbabwe is a source, transit and destination for human trafficking…” said [International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman Folen Murapa]…[she] said although the magnitude…was difficult to ascertain due to the clandestine nature of the phenomenon, government recognised the problem and is currently in the process of tabling…a bill…Murapa said anyone could be a victim of trafficking regardless of nationality, sex, age and profession…
Everybody panic! You never know when those “traffickers” will jump out of a tree and traffick you away somewhere, but by golly a law will stop it dead. And though we haven’t seen any evidence of it, a bunch of foreign politicians on the other side of the planet wrote it in a report, so it must be true!
…[A new study]…found those who regularly have dairy products such as milk, cheese and yoghurt score better in tests of mental ability than people who never, or rarely, consume dairy products. It follows another US study…[which] found that older people with higher levels of beneficial fats in their blood had less brain shrinkage typical of the Alzheimer’s disease…our mental functions depend heavily on a good supply of fat. Our brain is composed of 60 percent fat. The brain cells are insulated by sheaths of myelin composed of 75 percent fat…[which] needs to be replaced constantly…
One Year Ago Today
“Check Your Premises” examines the nonsense which arises from following the underlying premises of “consensual crime” laws to their logical conclusions.
Edna Milton Chadwell [84], the last madam of the Chicken Ranch, an infamous La Grange brothel which inspired a ZZ Top song, a Broadway hit and a movie starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton…died in Phoenix…on Feb. 25 of complications from injuries she received in a car wreck last October. The Chicken Ranch…was the oldest continuously operating brothel in the nation when it closed in August 1973, following an expose by KTRK consumer reporter Marvin Zindler…Chadwell…[later] moved to Phoenix, where she lived in relative obscurity until she died…
The full article gives a lot more detail about Miss Edna’s life and management style and tells how The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas came to be.
Politicians are well-known for being two-faced, but on the issue of internet censorship American politicians have raised duplicity to an art form. For the past several years we’ve been subjected to their sanctimonious lectures about internet censorship in countries like China, while they…conspire to shut down Wikileaks via denial-of-service attacks, pressure on companies such as Amazon, Paypal, Visa and Mastercard and a campaign to crucify its founder Assange with what looks suspiciously like a “honey trap”.
United States prosecutors have drawn up secret charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to a confidential internal email obtained from a private US intelligence company, Stratfor…In the [January 26th, 2011] email…the company’s vice-president…Fred Burton…wrote: “We have a sealed indictment on Assange”…The news…comes as the WikiLeaks founder awaits a British Supreme Court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden…[which] Assange…fears…will open the way for his extradition to the US on possible espionage or conspiracy charges…US army private Bradley Manning was last week committed to face court martial for 22 alleged offences including ”aiding the enemy” by leaking classified US documents…Stratfor “senior watch officer” Chris Farnham…referred to a conversation with a family friend who he said knew one of the Swedish women who have accused Mr Assange of sexual assault, and added that “there is absolutely nothing behind it other than prosecutors that are looking to make a name for themselves”…
Since American politicians insist on making it difficult (sometimes nigh-impossible) to obtain pseudoephedrine legally, I thought I’d help out by sharing the method for making the hard-to-get drug from readily-available methamphetamine. If sinus sufferers are defined as criminals anyway, we may as well be uncongested, headache-free criminals.
Here’s yet another creepy gadget for spying on spouses; this one is apparently intended for polygamous relationships (we’re told it enables one to “watch them”, “track them” and “catch them”), but I presume it would also work if one only wanted to spy on one person. As I said about the semen snooping service, “if you have that little trust for your wife, your relationship is doomed so you might as well save the money and just break up.”
Remember the “bikini baristas” who were accused of “prostitution”, and the indignant letter from the woman who called the coffee bars “slut stands” that hurt “children” because “the ol [sic] man can’t keep his eyes to himself or his hands off himself?!” Well, Italy has ignorant prudes just like her:
Busty brunette Laura, 34…has dominated newspapers and TV chat shows after pictures of her dressed in her revealing clothes appeared on the internet…Men have flocked to her bar…so much…that…wives and girlfriends in the town…have banned their partners from going…One said: “It is outrageous and should not be allowed. This town is quiet and respectable now we are known across the whole country because of the little amount of clothing this barmaid is wearing to serve drinks…”
I guess these folks didn’t get the memo that arranged marriages are also considered “human trafficking” now: “…[Fifteen] young girls in Wadia village near Palanpur are getting ready for a mass marriage…For the first time, the girls will not be forced into the flesh trade. Wadia is known as the village of prostitutes in Gujarat. The…marriage…is scheduled on March 11…” Artificial lines between prostitution and other types of female behavior are drawn everywhere, and the Indians seem just as bad at it as Americans are.
I can’t vouch for this 2007 story (which I somehow missed before), but I do know the lady:
A former New Orleans prostitute…has said David Vitter was a regular customer in 1999…In an interview…[with] Hustler…Wendy Yow Ellis…said she…[saw] Vitter…[regularly] for several months…”I could not wear any perfume, body lotions, not even take a shower,” Ellis said. “Because he did not want any scent on him whatsoever…” Vitter would [even] take his used condoms with him. Vitter has acknowledged being a customer of Pamela Martin & Associates, a Washington, D.C., escort service…[Ellis] and Jeanette Maier, who…[ran] a brothel on Canal Street, then said that Vitter had also used their services…[after a while she told him her real name] “…and he said, ‘Oh, my God.'” That was the last time they met for sex…Vitter’s wife is named Wendy. Before that, Ellis said, she had used the name Leah…
…anyone convicted in Hillsborough County of three or more prostitution charges can be prohibited from a 6½ square-mile area …called the “prostitution exclusion zone”…that long has been known for prostitution…and while police already…impound vehicles when a prostitution or drug arrest is made, the council agreed in December to raise the cost of reclaiming the vehicle to $500. The new exclusion zone is neither a law nor a city ordinance…it’s a rule that judges can include as a condition of probation for anyone convicted of felony prostitution…
…On…February 18, PayPal began threatening indie book publishers and distributors with immediate deactivation of the businesses’ accounts if they did not remove books containing …specific sexual fantasies that PayPal does not approve of…Of course, [this]…would devastate these businesses and all of their authors (not just the erotic writers) overnight…PayPal has a monopoly on the market of online payment processing. There are few alternatives, though none that are widely used by online shoppers…the [banned themes include BDSM, incest and] pseudo-incest (including “daddy” fantasies, step-family)…fantasies about non-consensual sex or rape, bestiality (widened to include non-human fantasy creatures)…[including] shape-shifters – if the shape-shifters were to have sex in their non-human forms…
No sooner was this article about a stripper mom published in Redbook than a pompous pearl-clutcher named Penny Nance felt compelled to spew this sick bigotry out on the Fox News site, claiming (among other absurdities) that “the strip club industry has painful ramifications on society and leads to pornography addiction, gangs, drug use and sex trafficking — just to name a few.” I’m glad when people make such ridiculous statements, though, because they’re right about one thing: “Cultural acceptance of pornography, stripping, and prostitution is growing day by day.” And when our descendants look back at this time period, articles like this will allow them to clearly identify people like Nance as the delusional fanatics they are.
The ersatz plastic surgeon who accidentally killed a young Englishwoman with black-market butt injections may have been caught:
…Padge Victoria Windslowe, 42, was arrested Wednesday night as she prepared to host a “pumping party” where she was to illegally inject clients…She faces charges including aggravated assault and deceptive practices after…an exotic dancer…suffered serious lung problems after an injection… Windslowe…was being held on $10 million bail…[and] is a “person of interest” in the death of the 20-year-old London woman who last year received injections at a hotel near Philadelphia International Airport…
“Considering the economic and social collapse of Detroit (which has lost 60% of its population in the last 30 years), one would think its ‘authorities’ would have better things to do than persecute hookers.” But since the cops disagree, the people of Detroit now have to fend for themselves: “…Justifiable homicide in [Detroit] shot up 79 percent in 2011 from the previous year…the local rate of self-defense killings now stands 2,200 percent above the national average. Residents, unable to rely on a dwindling police force…are fighting back…on their own…” I might point out that not too long ago nearly everyone had this sensible attitude, and it was only after the majority grew too lazy and timid to protect themselves that the police departments with which we are now oppressed were allowed to grow to their present dangerous size, power and level of armament.
An increasing portion of students in the United Kingdom looking for a way to pay for their tuition are turning to prostitution…the problem may be particularly acute among medical students, who generally go to school longer, accrue more debt and have less time for paid employment, according to the paper by Jodi Dixon, who is studying at the University of Birmingham. Dixon pointed to a study of about 300 British university students, in which 10 percent reported knowing a student who had worked as a prostitute or escort in 2010. That’s up from about 6 percent in 2006, and 4 percent in 2000, Dixon said, a rise that coincided with an increase in college tuition fees…While the ethical implications of soon-to-be doctors working as prostitutes are unclear, “what is unacceptable is a student being forced into prostitution out of financial desperation,” Dixon said…
Waaaah, waaaah, boo hoo hoo. It’s “unacceptable” to be forced into sex work out of financial desperation, but not to be forced into waitressing or au pair work or any other job that makes a whole lot less? And if you think its “unethical” for medical professionals to have ever done sex work, I’ve got some really bad news for you…
Six men are set to be charged…on suspicions of operating a…human trafficking operation which brought young women from Romania to Sweden to sell sex. According to prosecutors, the trafficking ring is one of the largest of its kind ever uncovered in Sweden…Last year in Gothenburg, 255 men were reported and fined for buying sex, a number which led local police to…the discovery of the…trafficking ring…Exactly how many women were selling sex on the streets in Sweden remains unclear, however.
Well, at least there weren’t any government officials involved with this one.
One Year Ago Today
“He Said, She Said” is yet another example of why it’s really stupid for men to get involved in BDSM games with emotionally unstable women.
Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition, and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miraculous, in a constant revelation of their wonder-working power. They both are surrounded by taboos and observances which mark off their acts from those of the profane world. – Bronislaw Malinowski
One year ago today I published “February Q & A”, in which I answer the questions, “Do you know an escort who works in my city?”, “Would you please give us a few pointers on how to perform oral sex on a man?” and “Why do so many more escorts kiss nowadays?” But every so often I get a single (complex) question whose answer is enough for a whole column; this is one of them.
Why is sex such a taboo in human culture and civilization? I am in my 20s and I find that the cultural conditioning is not allowing the natural sex urge to express itself naturally. Which social, economic and political factors are responsible for such a situation? The expression of sex urge has become more artificial in modern society. How much role does pornography play in making sex experience artificial? Do you think marriage is necessary in our modern society?
I suspect the sexual taboo derives from two different but related factors. First, consider birth; once our ancestors recognized the link between sex and babies they (understandably) developed a sense of awe about it. To them, it was magic (which in the end really just means “anything we don’t understand”), so they devised rules and ceremonies around it (such as marriage and sacred prostitution). And once religion and law get into the act, everything becomes more complicated and artificial. The development of the concepts of private property and the ability to organize society on a larger level than the tribe allowed the growth of cities and nations and the appearance of social classes, and heredity became important; since it was the responsibility of each family to care for its old, children became vital not merely as heirs but as caregivers in old age. Thus taboos developed around the generative organs, from which descendants sprang; if an enemy or evil spirit wished to harm one, causing his genitals to malfunction via magic could be an effective way. The ancients believed that words (especially names) had magical power, so people became reluctant to speak aloud of the genitals or sex acts, and it became more important to hide the organs and behaviors from sight and to describe them with euphemisms. In women, the mammae were sometimes hidden as well since they produce milk without which babies die.
Once such trends start, they continue by themselves even after people have forgotten the reasons they began in the first place. The modern welfare/police states have managed to turn children into a liability rather than an asset and birth control has made it possible to avoid them, yet we still pretend that every sex act is a magical ritual which may produce the most valuable of resources. We no longer believe that words have magical power, so we instead ascribe pseudoscientific explanations to the imagined “harm” they can cause and continue to legislate against them. And we cloak taboos against nudity with meaningless words like “decency” and pretend that for a woman to undress in front of strange men will somehow cause harm to society as a whole.
The increasingly-artificial expression of sex has nothing to do with porn (which has existed since man discovered art and language) and everything to do with burgeoning legal penalties for those who express sexual urges in anything resembling a natural fashion. Religious fundamentalists use the old excuses, neofeminists use new ones equally unfounded in reality, and governments seize upon any excuse whatsoever to harass, impoverish and imprison citizens. We’ve added new crimes to the old, and devised ever-more-fiendish punishments like “sex offender registration” for those who sin against the Holy Ritual of Sex; we’ve added an entirely new field of civil law in which individual women (no matter how warped or unrepresentative their views) are the sole arbiters of acceptable male sexual behavior; and in many cases we have elevated these previously-unprecedented civil torts into criminal law. People (especially men) are therefore increasingly wary of stepping into any of the arbitrary, subjective and often-invisible snares governments have designed to entrap them, and now have to consider any interaction with others (even their own children) as a soldier considers crossing a minefield; any misstep could result in swift and total disaster. Is it any wonder modern sex is artificial?
Finally, marriage. Though I’m a strong believer in traditional marriage, I think it’s like the riding of horses: a novel curiosity accessible only to the very few. And for nations to expend the time, money and effort they do on its continuance is equivalent to mandating horse lanes on motorways. It is an anachronism, and needs to be abolished; simply put, government needs to get out of the marriage game entirely except in its role as the adjudicator of private contracts. All marriages should be contracts written and freely entered by citizens of legal age, the number, sex and conditions of which are determined by nobody other than the participants. The function of the registrar would merely be to inspect the contract to ensure it contained all the necessary provisions (such as child custody and alimony/support) and no illegal ones. If such a contract were broken, the injured party could sue in civil court just as he could if any other contract were breached. There would be no such thing as “family law” or “divorce court”, which would remove the unfairness inherent in the current system and make it difficult for either party to use his or her natural advantages (money, sex or children) as a crowbar with which to leverage a lopsided deal into which no sane person would enter without compulsion.
New research is demonstrating what many people already knew from experience: Women lose interest in sex over time, while men don’t…researchers Sarah Murray and Robin Milhausen…of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, asked 170 undergraduate women and men who had been in heterosexual relationships for anywhere from one month to nine years to report on their levels of relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and sexual desire…The participants reported being generally satisfied with their relationships and sex lives, but women reported lower levels of desire depending on the length of their relationship…In fact, relationship duration was a better predictor of sexual desire in women than both relationship and sexual satisfaction. While the…decrease in female desire was small, it contrasts with male desire, which held steady over time…evolutionary theorists predict that male desire should remain perpetually high in order for them to produce many offspring, while female desire should decrease as their attention turns, historically, toward child-rearing…
…Hormonal changes that occur as couples move from the passionate early stage to the compassionate later stage…sometime between six and 30 months may also mediate changes in desire over time. Pharmaceutical companies are currently researching the impact of testosterone on women’s desire, but so far, the results have been inconclusive…In an earlier study, Murray found that women who reported more realistic expectations about what sex would be like in a long-term relationship also had higher levels of desire than those with less realistic expectations. “I think that individuals who expect to maintain the high level of excitement and passion that often exists in the first few months of a new relationship are setting up unrealistic expectations about what is to come and will be more disappointed when the desire and passion take on different forms,” she said…
In this column I provided links to a number of studies demonstrating that mega sporting events don’t attract increased numbers of prostitutes, but it never hurts to have a couple more. Here’s a new one from the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW):
A widespread belief that major sporting events fuel sex trafficking is unsubstantiated and has a negative impact on groups that campaigners purport to protect, undermining anti-trafficking objectives…Activists opposed to sex work say large groups of men attending the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and U.S. Super Bowl competitions create a high demand for sex work causing large numbers of women to be trafficked…[but] there is no correlation between those beliefs and the actual number of trafficking cases found, the report titled “What’s the Cost of a Rumour?” said…“Despite increased scrutiny by the media, political figures and law enforcement, there is no evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking for prostitution,” Julie Ham, the author of the study, said…GAATW reviewed literature from United Nations (U.N.) agencies, government offices, academic researchers, anti-trafficking organisations, sex-workers rights organisations, non-governmental organisations and the media.
The claim sex work will increase is perpetuated in part because it is useful as a fundraising strategy, as a way to grab attention and be seen to “do something” about trafficking, and as a more socially acceptable guise for prostitution abolitionist agendas and anti-immigration agendas, the report said…[but] anti-trafficking campaigns that are based on unproven claims can…result…in increased criminal penalties and human rights violations against sex workers…[and] controls on women’s movements, intended to stop trafficking, can actually lead to increased trafficking…
Even better, the mythbusting website Snopes has now officially listed the rumor as false, which will greatly accelerate its demise among the internet-savvy portion of the population.
…A new study shows…the urge for a Facebook fix is at least as strong as the lure of tobacco and alcohol. The survey of 250 people was published…in the journal Psychological Studies, and revealed that sex and sleep were the two things most longed for during the day, yet the need to check Facebook was too hard for most to overcome…alcohol and cigarettes generated lower levels of desire than the urge to check social networks…
The fallacy here, of course, is the pretense that Facebook is a “substance” to which one can become addicted. It isn’t; it’s simply a process by which many people communicate with their social groups. The urge to check Facebook is nothing more or less than the desire for social interaction, which is extremely strong. If checking Facebook can be an “addiction”, then all human interaction is an “addiction” and the word loses all meaning.
South Africa, once the human rights pariah of the Western world, is now advancing in its treatment of sex workers while the United States moves backward into the sort of human rights model one associates with third-world dictatorships. And now Kenya and Namibia are joining the list of African countries with a more civilized attitude toward sex work than that of the US:
…Nairobi is considering [decriminalization]…Mayor George Aladwa said…the council was working to harmonise by-laws with provisions of the new Constitution before allowing commercial sex workers to operate without restraint…“We will certainly find places to have them operate freely without any harassment. These are people who have dedicated themselves to do their work, there is no need to continue harassing them”…
The Director of Namibia’s largest sex-workers’ organization, Rights not Rescue, has called upon the government to decriminalize prostitution as an important step in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Nicodemus Aochumub, better known as ‘Mama Africa’, [said]…“Government should decriminalize sex-work to [allow sex workers]…access to universal health care and to enable them to lay charges with the police without the fear of being arrested. Discriminating against prostitutes will inevitably increase the HIV rate because they are helplessly exposed to abuse, even by police…How can we fight this deadly disease when law-enforcement officers take away condoms from the girls…They throw them away and tell us we don’t deserve to use condoms. Some police officers force us into sex, otherwise we will end up in jail…We…are not free even 21 years after independence. Prostitution is work and feeds many families,” emphasized Mama Africa…HIV infection among sex-workers has declined significantly in countries where prostitution is legalised. Prostitutes in Germany, for instance, are registered with the legal and health authorities, are required to undergo regular medical checks and pay tax.
…Libraries around the country are frequently troubled by the conflict of your First Amendment right to view “protected speech” and others who just have to watch pornography in a public library setting. The most recent publicly exposed incident in Seattle occurred at the Lake City branch of the Seattle library system. Julie Howe said in a public email that her 10-year-old daughter was disturbed after looking over the shoulder of a man last month as he watched pornography at the branch…Andra Addison, spokeswoman for the Seattle Public Library, told the Seattlepi.com: “…We don’t tell people what they can view and check out…Filters compromise freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. We’re not in the business of censoring information.” However, in 2010 the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of a library that had taken a much less permissive attitude toward porn on its computers. The court ruled that public libraries in Washington can filter Internet content to block things like pornography…Howe says she understands the predicament the library is in, but wants there to at least be signs warning patrons to watch out where they look…New Yorkers can [also] watch internet porn at the city’s public libraries thanks to a policy of free speech protected by the First Amendment, the New York Post reported in April…
Apparently, the Jefferson Parish Library is less averse to censorship; when I logged on there with my husband’s laptop on February 6th, the first thing that popped up on my screen was a warning that I better not look at “adult” materials, or else. So I made sure I viewed my red umbrella picture, just on principle.
At least one Kansas City adult business is taking a creative approach to increasing attendance while attempting to follow tough new regulations limiting what its dancers can wear onstage. Bazooka’s…now [features]…large, flat-screen televisions adjacent to the stage. While a dancer performs live with her intimate areas covered, as the law requires, a video of the same dancer — with those areas exposed — appears on the screens…The latest strategy may help the business sidestep a new state law requiring “sexually oriented businesses” to close at midnight…Had the dancers exposed those areas in the flesh they would have broken the law, or at least forced the club to close at midnight. But because they appeared on screen, [owner Dick] Snow said, they’re as legal as a general-interest movie. “There is some full frontal nudity in these videos, but there’s full frontal nudity in every theater in the city,” he said. Dick Bryant, an attorney who represents adult businesses, said, “The projection of the images of the nude dancers fully complies with the statutes and the U.S. Constitution”…A spokesman for the Kansas City Police Department said the department had received no complaints about Bazooka’s videos and said it did not appear that the establishment was violating any local or state laws…
Everyone whose mind isn’t hopelessly mired in neofeminist dogma knows that hormones cause most differences in gendered behavior, but a new study shows which genes are affected:
…a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has uncovered many genes influenced by…testosterone and estrogen that…govern several specific types of male and female behaviors in mice. The UCSF team selectively turned many of these genes off one by one and found they could manipulate individual behaviors in the mice, like their sex drive, desire to pick fights, or willingness to spend extra time caring for their young. “It’s as if you can deconstruct a social behavior into genetic components,” said Nirao Shah, MD…”Each gene regulates a few components of a behavior without affecting [others]”…Identifying how genetic differences in our brains account for the differences in our behavior may also be a starting point for understanding how to better address human mental illness and neurodegenerative conditions in which such gender differences exist. For example, autism is four times more common in males than in females…
Of course, this won’t convince “true believers”, but every such discovery makes it harder for them to peddle their lies to others.
One Year Ago Today
“John Law” presents four short articles about cops and hookers.
Nothing can be more surely established by a larger experience than that a Government which interferes with any trade injures that trade. – Walter Bagehot
Seven updates to previous columns from the fourth week of 2012.
In this column I mentioned Peyronie’s Syndrome, which causes penile deformity; according to this January 23rd article from Science Now a more effective therapy may be on the horizon:
…A new study in rats shows that lacing a penis graft with adult stem cells yields better healing and sexual function…Men with penis injuries, deformities, or severe Peyronie’s disease…sometimes need surgery to reconstruct their genitalia and restore their sexual function. Many receive a graft made of their own tissue, cadaver tissue, or pig intestines, but the surgery can cause complications, including erectile dysfunction. Wayne Hellstrom, a urologic surgeon at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans…wanted…a surgical intervention with fewer side effects. So he teamed up with colleagues in California and China [to seed] pig intestine grafts with adult stem cells taken from fat tissue in rats…the researchers…found that rats with stem cell-laden grafts had less scarring and better erectile responses…than did those with stem cell-free grafts. The rodents’ erections were comparable in rigidity, blood flow, and response time to those in the…control rats…The results…suggest that lacing the grafts with stem cells enhances blood flow and boosts the production of molecules that make and maintain erections, all of which makes for a better penis reconstruction…Hellstrom and colleagues plan to test the method in primates next and then eventually in people. “Peyronie’s affects 3% to 9% of adult males and causes a lot of psychological distress,” Hellstrom says. “If we can improve what we have now, it seems like the logical thing to do.”
“As we’ve discussed many, many times in the past, violence from the police [and] bad customers…is all too common a part of the lives of prostitutes, most especially streetwalkers; too many men…consider whores to be disposable, “non-persons” against whom assault, robbery or rape is permissible. A large part of the reason for this is the suppression of our trade; the laws criminalizing our profession allow weak-minded men…to convince themselves that since we are “criminals” we don’t deserve to be treated like human beings, and the attitude of both the law and the police makes it difficult to impossible for…prostitutes to even be heard by the police much less have crimes against us investigated.” This story from the January 10thOrlando Sentinel demonstrates the first part of my statement and provides a welcome exception to the latter part; too bad Juarez will never recognize the poetic justice of the date he was arrested:
…Ernesto Juarez, 32, is facing several charges in a Dec. 17 attack, including sexual battery with a deadly weapon…[he] admitted to attacking, raping or attempting to rape five prostitutes…[but] detectives have yet to charge him in four of the cases. One of his alleged victims…told [reporters] about her dangerous encounter…Juarez…picked her up on the afternoon of Dec. 10…agreed to pay her $40…and said he was going to take her to his house…[but when he] head[ed] into a secluded area and stopped at a metal gate, the woman became suspicious…[he] got out…went around to her side of the vehicle and pulled off his pants…[but when she asked for her] money, he punched her in the face…[then] pulled her outside and continued hitting her…[she got free and] crawled under the truck, grabbed ahold of the frame and held on as he tugged on her legs…[eventually she got] away…and [ran] to a nearby business screaming for help…A week [later] the property owner noticed Juarez’s pickup parked in the same [spot]…[he] found Juarez [raping] another prostitute in the front seat and called police…Juarez managed to drive away but didn’t get far…he first denied hurting the woman…but later changed his story and described how he had beaten and raped several prostitutes beginning in September. [He claimed] he would “lose control” when the prostitutes asked him for money up front, because he viewed it as a sign of “disrespect”…Juarez is being held without bail at the Orange County Jail.
One wonders if he “loses control” when cashiers expect him to pay before taking groceries from a store, or if he just reserves his indignation for women he thinks won’t call the cops.
In this January 26th essay in Reason, Jacob Sullum demonstrates his balls not only by opposing the popular campaign against Backpage and criticizing Forbes columnist Daniel Fisher (who ruined his own attack on Backpage’s critics with a mealy-mouthed anti-whore statement), but also by standing up for our rights and slamming Nicholas Kristof as one of the perpetuators of the system which exposes us to harm:
…Fisher hastens to add, “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with trying to shut down the vigorous market for human flesh.” Well, I am saying that, if…he means the exchange of sex for money. It makes as much sense to ban prostitution because some prostitutes are forced…as it does to ban agriculture because farms have been known to use slaves…prohibition forces…prostitutes to work in dangerous conditions, picking up customers on the street or covertly connecting with them online, and makes it harder for them to seek legal remedies when they are cheated or abused. These hazards, similar to those seen in black markets for drugs and gambling, are not inherent to the business of selling sex; they are inherent to the policy of using force to suppress peaceful commerce. Since these dangers are entirely predictable, prohibitionists like Kristof should be reflecting on their role in perpetuating them, instead of making scapegoats out of businesses that run classified ads.
“I always find it fascinating when women in professions which are only barely different from prostitution (such as stripping or domination) or historically connected to prostitution (such as acting and massage) get all holier-than-thou, proclaiming themselves ‘better’ than we are…”
Three Russian pole dancers…applied for visas to travel to the United States…they were told that it was best not to mention…that…[they were] in a pole dancing competition…the visa authorities decided to do some poking around…on…Facebook…[and discovered] they weren’t just tourists…their visas were…canceled…[and they] were subjected to an humiliating…grilling by three federal agents…Any other dance competition would have been above suspicion, but since it was pole dancing, they immediately [made] the stripper connection and…presumed that the competition was just window dressing for human trafficking, prostitution and illegal stripping! This sad lack of comprehension is unfortunately still a reality and we have a long way to go before the stripper association is dislodged from people’s minds. As of now the stereotype that people still have about pole dancing prevents them from viewing it as the legitimate art form that requires creativity and imagination and a sport that requires tremendous skill, athletic ability and great strength.
Because, you know, when a stripper does it to make a living it isn’t “legitimate” and requires no creativity, imagination, skill or athletic ability. The writer doesn’t criticize the whole “sex workers are trafficked” nonsense; she’s only irate because the dancers were confused with “common” strippers.
Remember those “prostitution-free zones” that enable Washington, DC cops to arrest people for “looking like prostitutes”, and how they’re trying to make them permanent? Well, a coalition of civil rights advocates and transsexuals (who suffer disproportionately because cops assume they’re all drag streetwalkers) are fighting it, and the DC attorney general reluctantly agreed with them. According to the January 24thWashington Post:
The D.C. attorney general’s office said…that the District’s temporary “prostitution-free zones” are probably unconstitutional, raising fresh doubts about a bill…that would broaden the zones and make them permanent…In [such] areas…police can make arrests for up to 24 consecutive days if two or more people congregate in public…and ignore dispersal orders…Council member Yvette Alexander…has introduced a bill that would empower police to make the zones permanent. But [assistant AG Ariel] Waldman and Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham expressed broad reservations about the bill…The statements…and…concerns from social service and gay rights activists, present fresh hurdles for Alexander’s efforts to combat prostitution…
When a politician says something is “probably unconstitutional”, it really means “this is so obviously unconstitutional we haven’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of slipping it past the civil libertarians without raising a huge stink.”
Yet another example of the dangers of legalization, in this case laws which presume hookers are so stupid we need Nanny to “protect” us from big bad pimps (unless they have a government license, of course):
A young prostitute was caught out in a covert operation called Operation Heatwave after she and three other prostitutes went to visit clients who turned out to be undercover police. Aimee Louise Roy, 21, went to a hotel…with three other sex workers on October 23 to meet clients…[who were secretly] police and the group was arrested. Roy was charged with knowingly participating in providing prostitution…If she was acting on her own, she wouldn’t have been in trouble. There are two forms of legal sex work in Queensland – sole operators (private work) where a single sex worker works alone and sex work conducted in a licensed brothel…Magistrate Matthew McLaughlin noted the law was designed to catch out “pimps” and told Roy if she wanted to keep up that line of work she should do it through a licensed premises.
The story also demonstrates that pigs are pigs and will inevitably use whatever loophole the law gives them to harass and victimize whores.
…a legal brothel near Reno [Nevada is]…taking the world’s oldest profession into the modern age of luxury recreation, featuring a cabaret…a fully equipped spa, and 10 deluxe suites. “We see this as the Ritz-Carlton of brothels,” [said] Lance Gilman, co-owner of the Mustang Ranch Resort…[which] seeks to earn 40 percent of its revenue from goods and services unrelated to private time with the ladies…It costs nothing to stay at the resort [but] guests have to pay at least one of the women to accompany them around the Ranch at all times…Gilman and [his wife Susan] Austin said they were inspired by Walt Disney, who famously took his children to a shabby carnival and imagined building what would become the world’s first theme park — Disneyland. “Most brothels are basically trailer parks in isolated places and there’s nothing to do once you get there other than have sex,” Gilman said…
This is great news; it was after Vegas casinos started “gentrifying” in the ‘80s that people from other states dropped their prejudices against gambling, and now casinos are everywhere in the US. Of course,
…That’s not good news to people like Anne Bissell…[a] former prostitute…[whose self-appointed] mission is to deglamorize the…sex industry, which she believes to be full of what are not victimless crimes. “The sex industry has hijacked so many terms, like freedom of choice…It used to be the definition of an empowered woman was a doctor or lawyer. Now it’s a stripper or prostitute…”
This incredibly stupid statement has become very popular among prohibitionists; I wonder what looking-glass world they’re living in? Because in this one, legally barring women from certain jobs is a restriction of choice, and the government and media paint sex workers as powerless victims.
One Year Ago Today
“February Updates (Part One)” features items about a hooker accused of spreading HIV, a former madam pandering to popular prohibitionist myths and an Anglican priest fighting for strippers’ rights.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. – Charlotte Bronte
Five stories from the third week of 2012.
Twice As Interesting
It’s not too often a story attracts my attention both as a librarian and as a harlot, but this one from the January 18thNational Post did:
Instead of a book, patrons of Ottawa’s city libraries will have a chance to check out a stripper, a prostitute, a Somali refugee, a judge, an HIV-positive man, a Peking Opera performer, a woman born as a man, a police officer…a bipolar man [and many others] as part of a Human Library program. Billed as “real people, real conversations,” the Ottawa Public Library is bringing dozens of people with diverse experiences into its branches, encouraging patrons to check them out for a 20-minute, one-on-one chat…Human books cannot be placed on hold…Patrons peruse the list of options like an old-fashioned card catalogue and ask to check out the title. While the event’s message is diversity and dialogue, there have already been complaints about including a stripper and a sex trade worker, said Elaine Condos, the acting city librarian… “Books are about information and information comes in many, many formats, and a human book is a unique way of presenting information…The role of the public library is to provide access to information,” Ms. Condos said. “People will have an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation…for 20 minutes and ask them questions about their experiences.” It is being billed as an event for adults and conversations will take place in open areas of the libraries. “These are conversations, not presentations,” she said of the stripper and prostitute. “I don’t think we want the pediatric neurosurgeon to do any demonstrations either”…
It’s sad that bigots felt compelled to complain, but can you imagine a stripper and a hooker being included in such an event in the US? Not in this decade!
So What Else Is New?
This item from the January 19thHuffington Post isn’t really news because it’s what researchers have said for years:
Many women swear they have one, but a new review of 60 years of sex research shows science still can’t definitively find the G-spot. Researchers have used surveys, imaging scans and biopsies of women, all trying to locate and define the presumably orgasmic area on the vaginal wall known as the G-spot. Based on a review of 96 published studies, an Israeli and American research team came to one conclusion. “Without a doubt, a discreet anatomic entity called the G-spot does not exist,” said [lead author] Dr. Amichai Kilchevsky …The G-spot was named in honor of the late Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg, who in 1950 described a particularly sensitive…spot…a few centimeters in from the vaginal opening…toward the front of a woman’s body…[but though] a majority of women believe a G-spot actually exists…some of those women also say they can’t locate it.
…Kilchevsky doesn’t think women who claim to have a G-spot are crazy…”What they’re likely experiencing is a continuation of the clitoris,” he said. G-spot skeptics often point out that the tissue of the clitoris extends into the body, behind it where the G-spot would be located…Barry Komisaruk…of…Rutgers University…advocates calling it the…G-region…instead. “I think that the bulk of the evidence shows that the G-spot is not a particular thing. It’s not like saying, ‘What is the thyroid gland?'” Komisaruk said. “The G-spot is more of a thing like New York City is a thing. It’s a region, it’s a convergence of many different structures”…pressing on the area…also presses the urethra and a structure called Skene’s gland, which is analogous to the male prostate. “Each of those areas have different nerve sites,” said Komisaruk. “I think there’s good enough data that a lot of women feel that that is a particularly sensitive region”…
I’ve always adhered to the “back of the clitoris” theory myself, mainly because it’s consistent with my own experiences.
Crypto-moralists just love pretending that their puritanical agendas are really about physical (rather than spiritual) health, and always disguise their desire to control others’ lives as “for the public good”:
…The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine…put up [a series of] graphic cellulite-filled billboards around Albany [New York on January 17th]…The group claims cheese products play a big role in the epidemic of childhood obesity, and want the Albany city school district to cut cheese from its lunch menu…
Well, if they’re doctors promoting health, they must know what they’re talking about, right? Wrong. Their name and hype has fooled the media for 25 years, but in reality they’re a fanatical animal-rights group with ties to PETA which relies primarily on scare tactics and gross-out ads in its continuing attempt to impose veganism on everyone, and less than 5% of its members are physicians. Its founder is a psychiatrist with no background in nutrition, and the American Medical Association has repeatedly tried to inform the public that the PCRM is a “fringe organization” which uses “unethical tactics” and is “interested in perverting medical science.” Sort of reminds you of trafficking fetishists, doesn’t it?
Prostitutes “rescued” against their will generally fight their “saviors” and attempt to escape from “rehabilitation centers” at the first opportunity, but at least one “rescue” organization has figured out how to get around this issue: they simply abduct the women’s children instead.
“How many nights of safety can you give a child?” is India Partners’ tagline for its campaign to rescue children of sex workers in India. More than 2.3 million girls and women in India are believed to be working in the sex industry against their will. In addition, there are at least 5 million children of sex workers in India. India Partners is working with an organization in Mumbai to rescue the children of trafficked women and relocate them to loving safe homes outside the red-light districts.
Children in red-light areas are vulnerable to abuse, trauma and second-generation prostitution. During the day, children are often left alone while their mothers are sleeping. At night, some are drugged and put under the bed while their mothers work the trade. Anandalay, a safe home for daughters of trafficked women, provides the rescued girls with education, food and excellent accommodation under the committed care of a houseparent couple. If the child’s mother is still living, she is granted supervised visits.
One couldn’t ask for a finer example of doublethink; we are told that these women are “trafficked” and working “against their will”, and that the solution is to further victimize them by stealing their children. The brainwashed supporters of this filthy scheme are assured that the children are “loved” by their jailers, because obviously those degraded whores (oops, I mean “exploited victims”) can’t possibly have any maternal feelings. But hey, India Partners isn’t completely inhumane; they magnanimously allow their victims to occasionally stare at their kidnapped babies under the watchful gaze of armed thugs.
Some of the most prominent purveyors of porn say they’ll start packing up their sex toys and abandoning the nation’s Porn Capital if authorities really do…police their movie sets and order that every actor be outfitted with a condom…[on January 17th] the Los Angeles City Council voted 9-1 to grant final approval to an ordinance that would deny film permits to producers who do not comply with the condom requirement…the council has called for the creation of a committee made up of police officials, the city attorney, state health officials and others to determine how it might be enforced. “It’s going to be interesting to see how…they…try to enforce it…[and] fund it…” said Steven Hirsch…of…Vivid…”Ultimately I think what they will find is people will just stop shooting in the city of Los Angeles…”
…Other industry officials condemned the measure as an unneeded [and unenforceable] exercise in political correctness…”The only thing that the city could potentially achieve is losing some film permit money and driving some productions away, but you can’t actually compel an industry to create a product that the market doesn’t want,” said Christian Mann…of Evil Angel…The ordinance would require filmmakers pay a permit fee…to pay for surprise inspections at film shoots…Mann said smaller productions involving only a handful of people can probably fly under the radar and just ignore the permitting requirement. Larger ones, he said, will likely just leave town…
Raise hands, anyone who didn’t see this coming. The porn industry has no choice; in order to survive it has to produce a product consumers want, and if it can’t do that in Los Angeles it will do it elsewhere.
One Year Ago Today
“Not an Addiction” explains what an addiction actually is, why it’s impossible to be addicted to sex and how the myth of “sex addiction” is used to promote moralist agendas (and dating websites).
A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier. – H.L. Mencken
The Super Bowl will be held in Indianapolis this coming Sunday, and though the egg-covered faces of Dallas area “authorities” seems to have chastened some of their Indiana counterparts somewhat, there’s still plenty of hysteria to go around. As I explained in my column of one year ago today, there is absolutely zero evidence that prostitution or so-called “human trafficking” follows major sporting events, and in fact there are a number of studies (besides anecdotal evidence) which proves they don’t:
Here’s a detailed examination of the 2006 “World Cup sex trafficking” hysteria in Germany, which you will notice closely resembles our current Super Bowl hysteria…Luckily, prostitution is legal in Germany, so it was easy to research and publish an expose of the myth…And just for good measure, here’s a report by the Sex Industry Worker Safety Action Group which conclusively shows that there is absolutely no correlation between mega sports events and either sex trafficking or a dramatic increase in prostitution. Also, the Swedish government funded a separate study which also demonstrated the falsity of the World Cup sex trafficking claims. In 2006 the German authorities uncovered only five cases of “human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation” instead of the imaginary 40,000; in Tampa…there were NO arrests for prostitution during Super Bowl week, and according to this report from the Vancouver Sun:
After the last four [Olympic] Games (Turin 2006, Athens 2004, Salt Lake City 2002, and Sydney 2000), there were almost no confirmed reports on the numbers of sex workers, level of violence or other associated factors. Notably, almost all anecdotal reports suggested no obvious change in level of activity. During the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, where sex work is legal, only a marginal increase in prostitution was reported. In Salt Lake City, one confirmed report indicated that city licenses for escort services increased by only 12 per cent in the period leading up to the Winter Games.
In short, there is literally no evidence whatsoever for any measurable rise in prostitution during such events, much less thousands of trafficked sex slaves.
Regular readers may recall that after all the hype, the number of prostitution arrests in the Dallas area during last year’s Super Bowl week was typical of any other week, and the one single individual accused of “human trafficking” got the idea from the propaganda. Texas officials tried to blame this utter and complete failure of their predictions on unseasonable weather and a supposed deterrent effect of all their “precautions”, but I doubt anyone other than die-hard “true believers” was fooled; for example,
…Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Bates said he did not expect a lot of human trafficking at the Super Bowl. “In Dallas, they expected a big influx, but they saw a lot less than they thought they would,” said Bates, who went to Dallas and talked to police there. “They had only a few arrests.”
Perhaps the strangest aspect of this year’s Super Bowl hysteria is the concentration on meddling in the business affairs of hotels rather than indulging in the Texas-style “law and order” threats and swagger to which we were subjected so much last year. A group called Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution (whose founder’s horror stories strike me as very odd indeed) plans to use special bars of soap to fight “human traffickers” hiding in hotel lavatories, and a group of nuns (who unlike Sister Lynda Dearlove are unencumbered by any actual experience with real whores) has been annoying the managers of hundreds of hotels within an 80-km radius of Indianapolis with prying questions, and then further harassing those who give the “wrong” answers (or, presumably, tell them to mind their own business).
Of course, a lot of this moral panic is supported by the media, who repeat the bogus “trafficking” statistics and claims of marauding hordes of nomadic strumpets without so much as a qualifying statement, despite the fact that the studies disproving those claims can easily be found online in minutes. Ah, well; sooner or later a few of the mainstream journalists will begin to wake up, and once that happens it’s all over but the shouting. I wonder how many more annual invasions from the demimonde have to fail to appear before the American Fourth Estate comes out of its collective mental hibernation?
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Not all those who deny the ape beneath our skins are members of traditional religions; as I pointed out in my column of one year ago today, neofeminists do the same thing due to their violent rejection of their own feminine biology. “Social construction of gender” is just a more subtle version of “scientific creationism”; it recognizes that sex differences in all other animals arise from instinct encoded in their DNA, yet denies that humans are subject to the same biochemical forces. Though some adherents of this catechism may also be creationists, most probably believe in some patchwork rationalization such as the myth that our large brains somehow make us “immune” to sexual and sex-role instincts (yet not immune to hunger, thirst, pain, fear, anger, love, sorrow, etc). In any case, the neofeminists teach that humans, unlike every other mammal, have no innate sexual or sex-role drives whatsoever, and that all these are bestowed through the mystic force known as “social construction”, breathed into our nostrils by the omnipotent Collective. The most deluded adherents of this cult believe in something like the Calvinist religious doctrine of predestination; once a person’s personality has been determined by the almighty Patriarchy (the collective entity which acts as both Devil and Demiurge in neofeminist myth), a “false consciousness” is established which only salvation through baptism in the Holy Spirit of Neofeminism can dispel. If any person believes her choices to be acts of free will, but she behaves in a manner at odds with neofeminist dogma, she is said to be suffering from “false consciousness” which renders her decisions equally false. Only actions wholly in accord with neofeminist teachings are “correct” and free of Patriarchal conditioning.Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking spends a lot of time talking about the universe and what it might all mean but when…[he] isn’t talking to sold out crowds he can be seen spending his time in sex and strip clubs. The Daily Mail is reporting that the 70-year-old has visited various swinger clubs, sex clubs and strip clubs over the years including a Southern California swingers party which he was brought to by his nurses and assistants…he paid for private shows with various naked dancers at the Freedom Acres Club in Devore which he visited on a “handful of occasions”…While Cambridge officials deny that Hawking has made “regular” stops at strip and sex clubs they do admit that he visited a club “once a few years ago with friends while on a visit to California.”
