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Posts Tagged ‘The Public Eye’

In the News (#1374)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 20, 2023| Leave a Comment »

The modern porn-addiction treatment industry…seem[s] to be feeding and enabling narcissism.  –  David Ley

The Public Eye ($660)

We’ve seen sex workers win elections in Latin America, but can one win in the puritanical US?

A [nurse practitioner] running for [office] in Virginia…performed sex acts with her husband for a live online audience and encouraged viewers to pay them with “tips” for specific requests…Susanna Gibson…streamed [the performance] on Chaturbate…and…more than a dozen videos of the couple…were archived on [another] site…[called] Recurbate…a Republican operative [snitched to] The Washington Post about them…in…an [attempt to harm her campaign.  Gibson called the outing]…“a sex crime”…[alleging that sharing the] videos [without her permission] constitutes a violation of the state’s revenge porn law, which [criminalizes]…“maliciously” distribut[ing] nude or sexual images of another person with “intent to coerce, harass, or intimidate”…

Out of Control (#1116)

What is wrong with doctors who do this?

For decades, patients warned Columbia about the behavior of obstetrician Robert Hadden. One even called 911 and had him arrested. Columbia let him keep…practicing for another five weeks.  Eight patients say he assaulted them in that time…To date, more than 245 patients have alleged that Hadden abused them, which by itself could make him one of the most prolific sexual assailants in New York history.  But the total number…may be far higher.  On any given day during his two decades…at Columbia, Hadden saw 25 to 40 patients.  Tens of thousands came under his care.  A baby girl he delivered grew up to be a teenager he allegedly assaulted.  Hadden…was sentenced in July to 20 years in federal prison — the result of a long, arduous process that Columbia often undermined…In agreeing to pay $236.5 million to resolve lawsuits brought by 226 of Hadden’s victims, Columbia admitted no fault…But the university’s own records show that women repeatedly tried to warn Columbia doctors and staff about Hadden…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#1278) 

Anyone who’s ever been involved with a narcissist will see the truth of this:

In 2012, when I first began publishing challenges to the concepts of sex addiction and pornography addiction, one concern I raised was whether these diagnoses enabled persons with personality disorders to externalize responsibility for their often selfish behaviors…Now, new research justifies my early concerns, finding that personality features associated with narcissism contribute to viewing oneself as a porn addict.  Past research has found that persons high in narcissism report higher levels of pornography use in general, and…recent research has found that persons higher in narcissism…are more likely to identify themselves as victims…Externalizing responsibility and blaming others are common features of narcissism, as persons high in narcissism rarely see themselves as at fault for problems or misbehaviors…

See No Evil (#1316)

Australian cops, bravely protecting imaginary children from imaginary abuse:

A[n Australian] man has been charged over allegedly creating and operating an online child exploitation game used by…paid subscribers…The…game…[featured lolicon] images, which [are criminalized] in Australia…[cops swaggered around pretending they had saved the world from some] insidious [evil while vomiting out moral panic shibboleths such as] “in our own backyard” [and]…”hold them to account”…

The Cop Myth (#1343)

Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do, even if she’s a cop herself:  “[An Alabama cop named] Kenneth Booth shot and killed…[his cop girlfriend] Lexi White, then took his own life during an argument…”

A Moral Cancer (#1356)

Because obviously prohibition doesn’t ruin enough lives yet:

Disposable vapes will be banned [in the UK under the pretext that children [are] becoming addicted to the devices…health ministers…[have] decided [to borrow the American propaganda that no adults like]…bright colours and [sweet] flavours…

Torture Chamber (#1358)

It does not help young victims of governmental brutality to infantilize them as “children”:

A federal judge ordered Louisiana officials…to begin moving kids out of the former death row unit at Angola, one of the nation’s most notorious prisons…U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick accused state officials of breaking “virtually every promise” they had made when announcing the plan to move [legal minors] to the prison…[screws] had locked [minors] up in cells for days at a time as a form of punishment, punished detained youth with the use of handcuffs, mace, and denial of family visits, and failed to provide appropriate educational and social services and mental health treatment…The ruling gives the state one week to move youth out of Angola…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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In the News (#1281)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2022| 1 Comment »

You ain’t paralyzed.  –  typical Florida screw

The Public Eye (#789)

It’s always heartening to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins:

A transgender politician in Mexico’s ruling MORENA party is under fire for posting pornographic videos of herself on Twitter.  But María Clemente García Moreno—a federal deputy in Mexico City who made history in 2021 when she and another politician became the first trans people elected to the country’s congress—also moonlights as a sex worker and contests that it’s within her rights to post whatever she wants…

Torture Chamber (#1069)

Florida screws love yelling “Stop faking!” at their victims after intentionally breaking their necks:

Craig Ridley…[was] a 62-year-old prisoner in Florida who, after having his neck broken by guards, was left to die in his cell…Ridley…was…tackled…to the ground face first on Sept. 8, 2017…[by brutal screws who th]en manhandled, mocked and ignored [him]…even as he begged for help…as he lay in his cell, unable to walk and starving because he couldn’t reach the food he was being given.  After five days of this paralysis, guards finally took him to a hospital, where…he died on Oct. 12…intubated and unable to communicate…the…story was kept hushed for years…

Winding Down (#1179)

Destigmatization of psychedelics is happening much more quickly than I would’ve expected:

Shroomyz is Toronto’s first magic mushroom dispensary and the second in the province…A Shroomyz in Ottawa opened in May of this year…Shroomyz is akin to any cannabis store you’d find in the city.  Windows are taped off for privacy and customers need to buzz in to enter…The store supplies everything from dried psilocybin and microdose capsules to mushroom chocolates and mushroom tea…

Winding Down (#1243)

It’s great to see anti-prohibitionist views quickly becoming mainstream:

Prohibition is not working—and that can be seen most strikingly with cocaine, not cannabis…Global production hit a record of 1,982 tonnes in 2020, according to the latest data, though that is likely to be an underestimate.  That record high is despite decades of strenuous and costly efforts to cut off the supply.  Between 2000 and 2020 the United States ploughed $10bn into Colombia to suppress production, paying the local armed forces to spray coca plantations with herbicide…or…yank up bushes by hand.  To no avail…murder in Colombia is three times more common than in the United States; in Mexico, four times.  In some areas, drug gangs are so wealthy and well-armed that they rival the state…the cocaine gangs will remain powerful so long as their product is illegal in the rich countries that consume most of it, such as the United States.  Half-measures, such as not prosecuting cocaine users, are not enough.  If producing…is still illegal, it will be criminals who produce it…the real answer is full legalisation, allowing non-criminals to produce a strictly regulated, highly taxed product, just as whisky- and cigarette-makers do…

To Molest and Rape (#1263)

The New Orleans cop who stood by and watched a rape has thought up an excuse:

Earl J. Brown III…resigned a week after The Times-Picayune published audio from a 911 call demonstrating that — though he was just a block away — Brown declined to intervene [in a rape] for more than three minutes.  By that point, the suspect had fled.  Brown later [claimed]…he was working a security detail on a movie set and that he had been trained to wait for backup before responding.  Brown also heard over the radio that New Orleans [cops] had been dispatched…[so he figured they would eventually get there, and called it good]…Scott Seymour…who investigated the incident, rejected Brown’s explanation and concluded he violated several department policies by failing to act.  Seymour recommended firing Brown, but he resigned before…that [happened, which] means Brown maintains a clean record…and [could be rehired as a cop somewhere else]…

See also “To Molest and Rape (#1273)” below.

The Cop Myth (#1271)

You’ve heard of “burying the lede”, but this one just keeps getting worse:

A Louisville [cop sent]…a sexually explicit photo of a woman to more than a dozen people without her consent….Harry Seeders…was arrested…and charged…under the so-called Kentucky “revenge porn” law that went into effect in 2018…Seeders…was on [paid vacation as a reward for] a previous domestic violence incident…in May 2021 [in which he attacked] a woman he was dating…[by] hit[ting her]…in the mouth and then chok[ing] her…those charges[, which] are still pending…[were filed when] Seeders was [already enjoying a paid vacation he received as a reward for murdering]…a [random] man…on Nov. 22, 2020…and [trying to blame his victim]…

To Molest and Rape (#1273)

It’s not only Louisiana cops who prefer to rape by proxy:

A garda is under suspension…[for trying] to hire a man to [rape] a female colleague…the [cop apparently]…contacting a man online, possibly on the Darkweb…[and the scheme] apparently came to light when the man, understood to be in Scotland, began arranging to travel to Ireland…

 

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Losing Their Shit

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 9, 2020| 2 Comments »

As I pointed out in “Silver Lining“,

…COVID panic has pushed “sex trafficking” hysteria off of the internet’s “front page”, so to speak…the last round of “sex trafficking” hysteria ended in the UK because of the First World War, and in the US because of the Great Depression; it wouldn’t be at all surprising or unprecedented for this one to be killed by a pandemic…

I’m not the only one who’s noticed; prohibitionists certainly have as well, and I’ll bet their donations are rapidly drying up as both bourgeois pearl-clutchers and governments alike find themselves without money to spend on supporting sociopaths who have made careers out of vomiting out ugly BDSM sexual fantasies and devising new excuses for cops to use in hunting, raping and deporting sex workers and destroying the lives of our clients, associates, friends and families.  Expressed another way, both the panic and the governmental mismanagement of it are killing a number of industries, and it looks as though the rescue industry may well be one of them (especially since it has never produced anything of value).  As a result, the “sex trafficking” fetishists are absolutely losing their shit, and attempting to tie their parasitic business model in to pandemic hysteria in order to leech resources away from truly vital disaster-relief efforts.  The most horrifying example I’ve seen is from Georgia:

…as the coronavirus continues its spread across America and beyond…pedophiles are working 24/7 to take advantage of these dark times as more children than ever are on the internet…whereas there has been a reduction in the illicit massage business due to closures…“We…are…seeing an increase in the use of social media as part of the grooming process,” [lied] Bob Rodgers…of Street Grace…The activity he’s seeing around Atlanta…shows a steady stream of people reaching out and making inquiries with the intent of purchasing sex with children.  In other places like North Carolina, he’s actually seen an uptick…Deborah J. Richardson…of the International Human Trafficking Institute in Atlanta…[fantasizes]…“that labor trafficking is emerging” [in a bust economy]…

This “institute’s” motto expressed in plain English is, “Replace facts with propaganda, spy on your neighbors and snitch on them to the cops“.  But Atlanta isn’t the only US city infested by anti-sex bigots; the unhinged fantasies of those in New York are openly anti-Semitic, claiming an art exhibit was “really” an international “pimp” conspiracy promoting “child rape” and financed by George Soros.  It’s going to be really interesting to see how much crazier the ranting of these deranged scam artists is going to get as their funds dry up, and if we’re fortunate their increasingly-bizarre claims will be the last we ever hear from them.

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In the News (#1024)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Curfew and quarantine enforcement inevitably mean new opportunities for police overreach, profiling, and violence.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Above the Law 

Even rent-a-cops feel entitled to rape sex workers:

A hospital security guard has been jailed for 14 years for the rape and violent assault of two sex workers…one of the victims was forced to jump naked from a window to get away from Noel McKeon…as he tried to stab her. The attacks, on June 18, 2016 and on February 2, 2018, both took place after McKeon contacted the two women [for outcall]…

Monsters

What a sick, sorry waste:

Timothy Blancher, 20, Alunte Davis, 21, and Paris Cameron, 20, all attended a party with a 19-year-old man they met at a gas station in Detroit.  Hours after he left the group, Devon Robinson, 19, burst into the house wearing a masked and…gunn[ed] the three…down…Jurors found Robinson guilty Tuesday of the May 25, 2019, murders…committed…to cover up…that he had engaged in sex…with the three victims…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#802) 

Predictable in the current Neo-Victorian climate:

Playboy has announced that it’s closing down its flagship magazine for the rest of 2020.  It seems unlikely, given the wording of the announcement and the state of print magazine-making, that it will ever return.  It’s not a surprise, exactly — its circulation and advertising drooped long ago, accelerating as the nudie pictures for which it was celebrated became available everywhere for free…

The Widening Gyre (#866)

This won’t end until it starts inconveniencing the wealthy & well-connected:

…Oprah Winfrey’s name…trend[ed on Twitter after]…a series of tweets…alleged that the celebrity’s Florida home had been raided by police, who were “digging up the tunnels” there in connection with an alleged sex trafficking ring.  (…Oprah has no home in Florida)…the tweets put forth theories:  some noting the friendship Oprah enjoyed with Harvey Weinstein, others suggesting the novel coronavirus epidemic was somehow engineered to shift the spotlight away from the arrest of celebrities involved in the alleged ring…includ[ing] Tom Hanks and Justin Trudeau…

Wise Investment (#920)

Sex workers, clients & everyone else harmed by “prostitution stings” needs to keep suing over them:

From January through March [of last year], at least four men responded to online ads f[rom a pervert cop fantasy role-playing as] a [sex worker] named “Brittany” who…asked each of the four men to meet [him] at a hotel, but first to stop at a gas station before to buy [him] a treat such as a candy bar or a can of pop…Cases against them were dismissed, first by a district court, and then by a three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals…[because] the [prosecutor] charged the[m]…with…soliciting prostitution….[which] has to come in a “public place”…cops and…prosectors…didn’t prove any of these men was in [public] when they texted [the masturbating cop.  Though]…the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office [vomited a lot of disgusting nonsense about]…human-trafficking…[all over the court, it still]…rul[ed that]…there’s no evidence indicating [the cop was fantasizing he] was underage, or a victim of trafficking, [while masturbating, and] the…language on gross misdemeanor solicitation is plain, and applies only to “public” acts…

You Were Warned

A reminder of what the government is trying to take away from you:

It’s almost hard to believe now, but there was time when Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of “participatory media” were widely heralded as great gifts to public perception and global democracy.  For going on nearly half a decade now, the tone on tech companies and social media has shifted to one of suspicion, hostility, grievance, and moral panic.  But as COVID-19 continues to spread around the world and as many governments continue to mishandle things, people are starting to remember why the platforms we love to hate are important after all…Social media have also been providing news from early outbreak zones across the globe, as users widely disseminate stories from foreign news outlets, statements from foreign leaders, and first-hand accounts from residents of affected areas abroad.  These snapshots helped give Americans a better sense of the scope of the threat posed by COVID-19 at a time when the messages coming from official channels were conflicting and confusing…

Social Distancing

As always, sex workers demonstrate our adaptability:

Portland will not go without its strippers, even during a…pandemic.  Lucky Devil Lounge is bringing its dancers to your door with a new food delivery service it’s calling—wait for it—”Boober Eats”.  “I originally did it at first as a joke,” says club owner Shon Boulden, “and it got 150 shares on Facebook—like nothing we’ve ever had before.  So I was like, ‘Well shit, why don’t we just try to do this?'”  Lucky Devil has a full food menu and non-alcoholic drinks, like ginger beer and Red Bull, available for delivery.  The process is similar to many the home drop-off systems that have sprung up overnight as a way for restaurants and breweries to continue operating…Simply peruse the menu online, give the business a call and place your order….[but] instead of being greeted a harried driver in jeans and a hoodie, your meal is hand-delivered by two dancers.  “They’ll wear pasties and booty shorts, drop off the food, dance for a second and then we’ll move along,” Boulden says.  “We’ll still stay a reasonable distance back.  They have Lysol as well”…the strippers will also pose for photos…

Meanwhile, in porn:

Free Speech Coalition…called for a voluntary shutdown of all adult entertainment productions in the United States and Canada through Tuesday, March 31…”we ask that producers cancel all shoots through March 31, and recommend that performers immediately stop filming with partners who are not a part of their household”…

The Public Eye (#1022)

Prohibitionist whining is becoming increasingly desperate:

The MTA [was paid to] display…a series of advertisements promoting a “Sex Workers Pop-up” exhibit…[prohibitionists moronically labeled the text-only ads]…“sexually oriented” [even though they merely advertised an art exhibit]…and [bloviated a lot of their usual puritanical idiocy about how consensual sex is]…inherently harmful.  The pastel pink promotions, up since early March on subway lines across the five boroughs, was bankrolled by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and invites commuters to a West Village “exhibit dedicated to the global sex worker movement”…

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In the News (#1022)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The reasons for using encryption are as real and varied as the reasons for keeping your cash in a safe and your front door locked.  –  J.D. Tuccille

Torture Chamber

The government needs to be buried in lawsuits before this will stop:

Michigan has agreed to [steal] $80 million [from taxpayers] to settle a lawsuit on behalf of currently and formerly [caged] teens who [were raped or] sexual[ly] assault[ed by screws or prisoners]…while [caged] in adult jails and prisons…The lawsuit, representing more than 500 currently and formerly incarcerated youth…was filed in 2013…

The Public Eye (#710)

Sex workers reaching out via art:

An art exhibition aimed at destigmatizing sex work open[ed] in Manhattan [last] Tuesday.  The Sex Workers’ Pop-Up features artwork across 10 different countries and aims to elevate sex workers’ voices and drive the narrative around how their work is viewed.  More than half of the 22 artists have a history with sex work themselves…The pop-up gives viewers the ability to “actually listen to the voices of sex workers and hear what they have to say”…curat[ors were]…led by an advisory committee from groups based in the U.S., Australia, France, Scotland, and South Africa, and supported by the Open Society Foundation…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#792) 

It’s good to see the “sex addiction” myth slowly falling apart:

Sex addiction treatment forces people into a kind of re-education program, which tries to convince them that perfectly normal consensual sexual behavior is the sign of a serious problem…These programs tell supposed sex addicts that they can reprogram themselves through behavioral modifications to become ideal sexual citizens: monogamous, non-porn-using people who rarely masturbate or fantasize about anyone other than their main partners…some of the same centers that treat sex addiction also offer gay conversion therapy…illuminat[ing] the ugly truth behind the sex addiction industry: it’s based on a moralistic judgment on what sexual behaviors are socially acceptable, yet it’s cloaked in a scientific sheen that gives it legitimacy…

Checklist (#972) 

The hotel industry is regretting having collaborated with “sex trafficking” fetishists, and the airline industry eventually will as well:

…Jana Kuner, customer services manager for [Huntsville, Alabama] airport [is the only person actually named or quoted in what appears to be a “sex trafficking rescue” fantasy borrowed from TV cop glorification shows]….Kuner [claims she]…struck up a conversation [with a nameless] woman [who] shared how excited she was for her daughter who had answered an ad for a modeling job in Phoenix…Kuner has been [indoctrinated in all the usual fantasies, and claims she talked]…the [nameless] young woman…[into letting a complete stranger talk on the phone to] the [nameless] modeling agency…to [threaten to] have [cops come with]…the young woman [to snoop into their business, after which]…the young woman [supposedly] received texts from the agency saying they’d canceled her flights…[Nameless and unquoted] authorities are now [supposedly] certain [via magic that] she was walking into a human trafficking trap and…had already been sold [to some nameless buyer even though that doesn’t actually happen outside of movies]…

Given that this is pure hearsay with neither names of people or the supposed agency, nor quotes from the supposed victim, one can only conclude that these local news reporters are either gullible idiots or else have a very poor understanding of the meaning of the word “confirmed”.

To Molest and Rape (#986)

Your government calls this “border protection”:

[After] Geraldine Rodriguez Olivares…a [professional] twerk dancer [from Chile] on an international tour…landed in the Dominican Republic on a flight from Puerto Rico…U.S. Customs agents…[took] her to a private room where they forced her to twerk, while…five [pigs] threw dollar bills at her and slapped her butt.  She was then stripped naked and [raped]…Rodriguez’s public cries for help sparked an international investigation involving U.S. and Chilean diplomats, prosecutors and immigration officials…

Pyrrhic Victory (#989)

Your last bit of privacy during travel is about to be eliminated:

…The 9/11 commission and language in the Muslim ban directs Customs and Border Protection…to complete “a biometric entry and exit data system as expeditiously as possible” for non-citizens, and they’ve already worked with…SeaTac to buy face-scanning stuff for the gates at the new International Arrivals Facility that’s opening in July…SeaTac is already using biometrics in some capacities…[and] surveillance watchdogs…agree that airports across the country…will eventually expand this face-scanning infrastructure to snap photos of passengers arriving and departing on domestic flights, too…

I Spy (#1011)

Anyone who doubts that politicians are deranged megalomaniacs should be following this:

A cabal of unsavory U.S. senators have introduced a…measure that would pressure tech companies to weaken protections for communications privacy in the guise of a measure aimed at child porn.  While the…bill…never mentions the word “encryption,” it makes online companies liable for information exchanged by their users unless they adopt practices approved by the government…[which] means leaving people’s messages open to snoopy officials…In particular, they’ve scrutinized the bill’s reservation of Section 230 protections…to…compan[ies] that [dance to whatever tune]…the [current] Attorney General [feels like playing at the moment]…Riana Pfefferkorn, associate director of surveillance and cybersecurity at Stanford Law School [warns] “The AG could single-handedly rewrite the ‘best practices’ to state that any provider that offers end-to-end encryption is categorically excluded”…[like FOSTA, the] EARN IT Act…[would allow ambulance-chasers to file] civil [suits against] companies [that]…offer…end-to-end encryption.  They’ll have to weaken or abandon such offerings to escape liability for users’ communications, but without ever explicitly being told to do so…

License to Rape (#1014)

People need to keep suing government actors for every single assault, no matter what the excuse:

Michele Leuthauser was traveling from Las Vegas…Airport last June wearing yoga pants that should have made it quite easy to determine that she was concealing nothing on the lower half of her body.  But…TSA…flagged [her] for…a pat-down of her “groin area”…in a private room…the [operative] told Michele to spread her legs far wider than the mat — an order that seems common for TSA screeners about to inflict abuse.  She then proceeded to rub her hand on Michele’s vulva, pressing firmly enough to penetrate her labia with her finger through her leggings, and then continuing to rub her vulva until Michele, in shock, finally recoiled and told the screener to stop…Michele [filed suit] after TSA supervisors, local police, and TSA’s Office of the Chief Counsel refused to do anything about this incident…

To Molest and Rape (#1016)

Another specimen of the garbage the state pays to rape children:

A [retired] New Orleans [cop]…who led the NOPD’s pedophile investigations unit for years before he was unmasked as a child molester himself admitted in federal court…that he abused a boy who had turned to him for protection after the boy was preyed upon by his Boy Scout leader.  Stanley Burkhardt’s admission in a Feb. 24 hearing in North Carolina came after years of denying the sex abuse claims leveled against him by Richard Windmann…

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In the News (#988)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 13, 2019| Leave a Comment »

No genetic information can be safe.  –  Erin Murphy

The Public Eye (#660) 

Charlotte Rose shares her own troubles to teach about discrimination vs sex workers:

Charlotte Rose…has previously been evicted because of her line of work, and has since fibbed about it when searching for a property.  The sex worker also revealed she often invites friends over to work, despite it being against the law for two sex workers to work in the same property.  “I know its breaking the law but it’s the only way I can be safe…All I’m asking for is sex workers like myself and others to be not judged for our choice of work – is that too much to ask to feel safe in a home?”…

A Moral Cancer (#790)

Prohibitionism is a kind of mental illness:

According to The Grocer, most British shoppers still describe themselves as meat eaters, with only 2 per cent identifying as vegan.  But almost 20 per cent of 25 to 34 year olds [pretend] they don’t eat meat…Between 1993 and 2017, the percentage of adults smoking fell from 27 per cent to 17 per cent.  Smoking and eating meat are fast becoming the social ills of the 21st century and it looks like alcohol consumption might be joining them…

Yes, this person actually believes that her little puritan bubble is representative of society as a whole, and that normal people think eating meat is a “social ill” as widely persecuted as smoking is.

Disaster (#883)

Morons cheer when a highway is destroyed, then get upset when the traffic goes into side streets:

…the Logan Circle neighborhood in D.C. has been a [stroll] for years, but now [busybodies call it a] problem [and say it’s] endemic.  Residents [admit] they have coexisted with the sex workers since the 50’s, but [now claim] the situation has deteriorated so much that many [pretend to] fear going to work in the morning or taking their kids to school [because they may be exposed to]…sex [rays.  Astonishingly, WJLA reporters actually]…asked two sex worker advocates [instead of going to the pigs as usual] why there seems to be an uptick in prostitutes on the streets…Tamika Spellman and Emmelia Talarico [explained that] when the federal government shutdown sites like Craigslist Personals and Backpage.com, [many marginalized sex workers] had no choice but go back to the streets…Spellman [also explained that the clients around Logan Circle]…”pay better.  It’s a lot less violence on this end compared to the other sex worker strips”…[reporters then asked] D.C. Police [for their opinion of these obvious and well-proven facts, and spokespig Stuart Emerman responded with a masturbatory fantasy about “pimps” with magic ninja powers and inert, vegetable-like sex workers]…say[ing]…“they will disappear, and a new girl will be brought in”…

Micromanagement (#927)

Go on, give the ultimate identification tool to a component of a fascist police state.  What could possibly go wrong?

For…years, [pigs have been salivating for the ability to root through Americans’]…genetic information…[but] a Florida [pig recently bragged]…at a [swine] convention that he had obtained a warrant to [viol]ate [a geneology company called] GEDmatch and search its full database of nearly one million users [against their explicitly-expressed wishes and that of the company].  Legal experts said that this appeared to be the first time a judge had approved such a warrant, and that the development could [destroy]…genetic privacy…Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University [said]…“The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court.  It’s a signal that no genetic information can be safe.”  DNA policy experts said the development was likely to encourage other agencies to request similar search warrants from 23andMe, which has 10 million users, and Ancestry.com, which has 15 million…the Florida judge’s [betrayal of civil rights] will affect not only the users of these sites but huge swaths of the population, including those who have never taken a DNA test…because this [filthy rooting] makes it possible to identify a DNA profile even through distant family relationships…Most users of genealogy services have uploaded their genetic information…[foolishly] not anticipating that the [pigs would be able to root through it]…

A Broker in Pillage (#937)

Nobody will be safe until this odious, contemptible practice is recognized as unconstitutional:

An 83-year-old retired engineer in Michigan underpaid his property taxes by $8.41.  [Using that as an excuse], Oakland County seized his property, auctioned it off to settle the debt, and pocketed nearly $24,500 in excess revenue from the sale.  Under Michigan law, it was all legal.  And hardly uncommon.  Uri Rafaeli, who lost his property and all the equity associated with it, is just one of [more than 100,000] people to be victimized by Michigan…[since the seizure law was enacted] in 1999…the practice is unconstitutional, inequitable, and unreasonably harsh.  [Activists] call it “home equity theft”…[and] are now asking the state Supreme Court to restrict the practice…the Pacific Legal Foundation…[is] representing Rafaeli and other homeowners in a class-action lawsuit…

Business As Usual (#956)

What kind of sick mind thinks the way to “build trust” with women is to hunt, rape and cage them?

[A cop rape gang with the Orwellian name] Police and Community Together team, which was formed in the wake of the disbanding of Columbus police’s vice [gang], is [aggressively hunting, raping and caging women] to rebuild the trust broken by [the egregious] actions of…the [previous rape gang]…The new [gang] has been averaging nearly two arrests a day…and…full-scale [pogroms] two days a month.  The result was 110 [peaceful consenting adult lives ruined so far.  The new rape gang gives cops from every part of the city the opportunity to join in the violence, and]…began operating…more than a year after most of the normal [pogroms were] suspended following the [wanton murder]…of Donna Dalton Castleberry by [typical and representative] vice [pig] Andrew Mitchell a[fter she resisted his attempt to rape her]…“We’ve got some catching up to do,” [rape-enabling sow Jennifer] Knight [oinked]…

Top Cop (#962)

The question isn’t “What went wrong?”, it’s “What went right?”:

Kamala Harris…is [losing] her bid for the 2020 Democratic nomination…her plunge in the polls has metastasized into a flatline in the low single digits.  She’s tumbled into a virtual fifth-place tie with Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang…[all] of her dilemmas are self-created.  Harris undermined her national introduction [by being an unapologetic police-state cheerleader who persecutes the poor and disadvantaged]…and plays to [fans of prohibition and censorship]…She was vague or noncommittal on question after question from voters at campaign stops.  [But rather than recognize that she is]…the “donkey in the room”…she [instead blames racism and sexism, qualities she herself possesses in abundance]…

No, Copmala, it has nothing to do with your skin color or your having a vagina. It’s that you’re a psychopathic cop who thinks the solution to every problem is more state violence and more people crammed into cages to be used as literal slave labor.

I Spy (#979)

Zuckerberg’s money is better used fighting the police state than enabling it:

WhatsApp, the encrypted messaging phone app owned by Facebook, is suing Israeli tech companies for selling information on hidden vulnerabilities that allowed malicious actors to infiltrate and access private communications…NSO Group and Q Cyber Technologies, are both private companies…but [their]…clients include government agencies in places like Mexico, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.  According to the suit, the hacking mechanisms sold by NSO and Q Cyber allowed for the targeting of “attorneys, journalists, human rights activists, [and] political dissidents”…[when] Facebook…tracked down the…vulnerability…an NSO employee actually complained to WhatsApp about the fact that they stopped the exploit…the NSO surveillance tool named “Pegasus”…had previously been used to secretly snoop on Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was murdered by…Saudi Arabia’s government…

If It Were Legal (#981)

While stigma and criminalization exist, this will keep happening:

A number of popular…camgirl…sites have exposed millions of sex workers and users after the company running the sites left the back-end database unprotected…Barcelona-based VTS Media…left [the database] without a password for weeks.  Those logs included detailed records of when users logged in — including usernames and…IP addresses…private chat messages…data…reveal[ing] which videos users were watching and renting, exposing kinks and private sexual preferences…and often their email addresses or other identifiable information…camgirls…also had some of their account information exposed…

Safe Position (#983)

Everyone unsurprised by this, please roll your eyes:

Following a tense, marathon D.C. Council committee hearing last month…a bill that would fully decriminalize sex work in the District will not come before a vote anytime soon…Charles Allen, who chairs the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety…doesn’t believe [enough politicians believe in human rights for] the bill…to make it through committee…[bill sponsor] David Grosso [who is not running for re-election]…worked with the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition on the bill…[but] religious [fanatics and prohibitionists] opposed [it, so obviously civil rights need to take a back seat to their sadfeelz]…

Torture Chamber (#987)

Cops show you what they are all the time.  Why don’t you believe them?

A Florida [screw who intentionally broke] a [helpless woman]’s neck in a vicious [and premeditated] attack, and who has a long history of [brutality, torture and rape]…was [finally] arrested…on charges of molesting two minors…[after one of his victims wrote a] letter to a family member saying Turner began [molesting] her on a nightly basis when she was 6, and that the abuse continued until she was 16.  During the investigation, detectives interviewed another [underage girl who had been] sexually abused by Turner…[despite a long history of sex crimes] Florida…[rewarded] Turner [by giving him total control over caged women]…for nearly a decade…

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In the News (#986)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2019| 1 Comment »

The truth is, what affects sex workers eventually affects everyone.  –  Cora Harrington

The Public Eye

The more sex workers write and speak in public, the harder it will be to ignore us:

…Thierry Schaffauser…[is a] French social activist, sex worker, adult actor, and writer advocating for sex workers’ rights and the destigmatization of the industry.  As a stigmatized industry, sex work is still misunderstood today, especially within politics…sex workers are still being exploited, while the government contributes to this exploitation instead of alleviating it.  As a key figure in the sex worker rights movement, Schaffauser is constantly working towards dismantling these issues—in nearly two decades, he has co-founded Les Putes, a Paris-based organisation defending sex workers rights…founded Hackney Pride, wrote and published a series of articles educating the general public on sex workers rights, and is now working with STRASS, the French sex workers’ union…

Checklist (#811)

Ladies, please stop using Uber.  They are training drivers to spy on us and rat us out to the pigs:

A number of Uber drivers in Baltimore took part in a[n indoctrination] designed to [brainwash them into seeing sex workers as criminals and victims]…The [propaganda was written by]…the Polaris Project, a [corporation which]…profit[s from] human trafficking [hysteria]…Among the [pretended] red flags [were] a customer asking to be dropped off at a [side] entrance…[or] trying to pay with cash…

Who the fuck tries to pay a rideshare with cash? You can’t even start an account without linking a credit card.

The Course of a Disease (#905) 

A sleazebag prohibitionist has wormed her slimy way into the Danish government:

A parliamentary focus group appointed by the previous government to assess possible reform of rights for sex workers has been disbanded…by…new Minister of Social Affairs Astrid Krag…[who] said that sex workers should not be seen as [fully human]…but…a social problem that must be [oppressed]…“We don’t want [facts] telling us how we can make [life better for sex workers]” the minister [said]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#923)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

The New Civil Liberties Alliance…sued the city of Coral Gables [Florida] on behalf Raul Mas Canosa, a motorist who was tracked by the city’s cameras…Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Abby Cynamon rejected the city’s attempt to have the…lawsuit thrown out on the grounds that motorists have no expectation of privacy.  The city also argued that because Canosa [has not yet been thrown in a cage or gunned down in the street by government thugs]…he has not been harmed.  “This court finds that there is…nothing abstract, conjectural or ephemeral about the claim since the city has and continues to collect such information about the plaintiff’s vehicle.”  Coral Gables [brags that it is] the “statewide leader” in the use of [universal surveillance]…having taken 30 million license plate photos last year alone.  Those photos are converted into searchable database entries that track the time, date, identity and location for all vehicles passing through one of the city’s thirty camera-equipped roads and intersections — including Interstate 95.  This movement history is then made available to eighty different state, federal and local agencies.  Coral Gables began using the cameras in 2015 after [politicians] cut a [fascist] deal with Safeware and Vigilant Solutions…

Blunt Instrument (#930)

It’s great to see Asian sex workers fighting back against the racist “sex trafficking” narrative:

…the idea that…Asian massage parlors are bastions of sex trafficking has come not only from [pigs and politicians]…but also some of the hundreds of [highly] profit[able] organizations devoted to combatting [sex work]…but…[representatives from Red Canary Song]…said…”No one’s locked in…People can leave these establishments.  They…can just not come back to work the next day, you know?…We’re not sex slaves and nobody I’ve talked or worked with is a sex slave by any means…they’re in it for the money and they make more money doing this than working in a restaurant washing dishes or in a dry cleaners folding laundry”…

Disaster (#940)

Does any media outlet other than local news fail to recognize what a disaster FOSTA is?

…Many digital platforms…have altered their terms of service…to fall in line with FOSTA/SESTA…[which was] marketed to voters as anti-trafficking…this…has resulted in companies…feeling pressured to censor content and remove sex workers from their platforms… putting…[them] in further danger by limiting online resources, and [also] pos[ing] a threat to the freedom of expression online…Sex workers are most at risk of having their livelihood and lives threatened, but anyone having any conversations related to sex and sexuality, or perceived as being related to sex and sexuality, are likely to be marginalized and excluded from platforms that are necessary to modern-day marketing and advertising…

To Molest and Rape (#941)

Your government calls this “border protection”:

An immigration agent threatened a Honduran woman living in Connecticut with deportation if she didn’t [submit to rape]…then raped her as often as four times a week for seven years, impregnating her three times…The woman, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe, sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and [typical and representative] ICE agent Wilfredo Rodriguez…seeking $10 million in damages…Rodriguez…also…constantly…threaten[ed] to kill her and her family…

As usual, the government is hiding pictures of the rapist so other women can’t protect themselves against him.  So until I get a picture of the actual rapist, I’m using this picture of the man officially responsible for his actions: his boss, the head of ICE.

Between the Ears (#966)

Any internet-connected device can be used to spy on you:

…if you have any of a variety of “smart beds,” mattress pads or sleep apps, it knows when you go to sleep.  It knows when you toss and turn.  It may even be able to tell when you’re having sex…The Sleep Number bed is one of the most heavily marketed of such products…The company [pretends] it goes to great lengths to protect its customers’ data…[but] the company’s privacy notice, which clearly states that personal information — potentially including biometric data — “may” be shared with marketing companies or business partners [or pigs, if they demand it]…The policy also says personal information could be given to partners for “research, analysis or administering surveys”…

The Rest is Silence

The coroner knows full well there’s only one likely cause for a broken hyoid bone:

A forensic pathologist hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s brother said…evidence suggested that Mr. Epstein did not die by suicide, but may have been strangled…Dr. Michael Baden…said…Epstein…experienced a number of injuries — among them a broken hyoid bone — that “are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation…the evidence points to homicide rather than suicide…I’ve not seen in 50 years where that occurred in a suicidal hanging case.”  The findings by Dr. Baden were [conveniently] disputed by the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, who previously ruled that…Epstein’s death…was a suicide…

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Lending Credibility

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, tagged , , , , on March 21, 2019| 7 Comments »

Why do you advise activists not to debate prohibitionists?  Haven’t you argued in the past that the goal isn’t to convince your opposition but to convince the undecided/uninformed spectators? I would think a debate would help with that.

The main problem with “debating” fanatics of any stripe is that the human mind is more easily convinced by stories (however false) than facts (however solid).  The only way to counter the scary tales of prohibitionists is by long, thorough exposure to boring, mundane true stories of real sex workers.  Scare stories are intense & quickly told, but have shallow intellectual roots.  True stories are mild & boring and have no quick, exciting climax, but have deeper intellectual roots.  That’s why everyone used to believe in fanciful tales of witches, but almost nobody does now.  When gay rights started to become A Thing, prohibitionists vomited out their ugly “child molester” BS, but very few believe that any more; that change didn’t come from “debating” the fanatics, but from enough gay men being “out” that only the craziest couldn’t see the truth.  Similarly, note that the public’s opinion on sex worker rights is slowly shifting, as demonstrated by the fact that decriminalization is now a safe position for politicians in some places.  The prohibitionists are still vomiting out their wanking fantasies, but “out” sex workers are slowly washing away those ugly paint-bombs with the clean water of truth.  We are winning, and there is absolutely nothing prohibitionists can do about it in the long run; to lend them credibility by dignifying their nasty masturbatory fantasies with “debate” would only prolong the demise of their narrative.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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In the News (#908)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2019| 1 Comment »

Camming gave me money, and money changed my life.  –  Cortana Blue

The Public Eye 

Another sex worker turned performing artist:

Laika, 27, is an up-and-coming pop artist from Toronto…Though she’s new to the world of pop music, she’s entered it with somewhat of a celebrity status…because, up until recently, she’s been known by another alias: Cortana Blue…one of the most popular camgirls on the planet…Her premium Snapchat…currently has 2,500 followers, and would be much higher, had it not been previously [censored]…Her Twitter and Instagram both exceed the 100K follower mark, the latter having been [censored] on more than one occasion as well…A “past life” as a sex worker can be a source of stigma and shame for some public figures, but shifts in how sex workers interact with audiences on social media have helped artists like Cardi B…thrive in the mainstream in part because of—not in spite of—a career in sex work…[but] Cardi…left sex work before monetizing her other interests in a new career.  Laika, on the other hand, doesn’t see sex work as a means to an end. Instead, she sees it as a tool that can be flipped and utilized to fight stigma, all while setting her apart in the music world…

Divided We Fall (#511) 

“Promoting debauchery” is illegal in Egypt.  You know, like “promoting prostitution” in the US:

An Egyptian TV host was sentenced to one year of hard labor for interviewing a gay sex worker…Mohamed El-Gheity, a well-known journalist in Egypt who has spoken out against homosexuality, is accused of promoting debauchery…The hosting channel, LTC, was taken off air for two weeks immediately after the episode aired for violating a decree…that bans the appearance of gay people on media outlets…While homosexuality is not explicitly illegal in Egypt, members of the LGBT community are often persecuted under an anti-prostitution law…

To Molest and Rape 

When you’re a cop, rape is minimized to “sexual misconduct”:

…[a rapist] Tucson [cop was] accused of sexual misconduct [instead of rape after he raped] a woman he was [persecuting]…[rapist] Richard Daniel told the woman he wouldn’t take her to jail if she would [let him orally rape her]…The woman’s husband was the one who called police to report the [rape]…Daniel was arrested Sunday, Jan. 20 on charges of unlawful sexual conduct by a police officer and tampering with evidence [but not rape]…

Under Review (#733)

The UK press, partying like it’s 1999 and nobody’s heard of online escort ads yet:

Hundreds of men and women are openly advertising their services as sex workers on…controversial website Adultwork.  Last year, a government report [fantas]ised…that [escort advertising] websites were “the most significant enabler of sex-trafficking in the UK”.  The report f[antasise]d that the sites were being used by traffickers to control the profiles of sex workers…allowing women to be trafficked around the country for sex by criminal gangs…

It’s always “gangs”.  Because you know women are too stupid to use AirBnB for ourselves.  Also, escort ad sites are only “controversial” among authoritarians.

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now (#736) 

Cops never miss a chance to humiliate marginalized people:

…Cops from the Jacksonville [Florida] Sheriff’s Office found [a woman] at about 10:30 [PM on January 21st] night with a gunshot wound to her shoulder…[cops claim] she agreed to perform a sexual act with a man in exchange for Pringles potato chips and $5…[then] he [demanded] his $5 back and shot the woman…

Of course, the reporter didn’t bother to interview the woman, so there’s a strong possibility cops just made up the cheap price & chips.  Cops in several places, especially Florida, now think it’s funny to humiliate marginalized women by offering them some low amount of money and fast food, then arresting them and telling the story to reporters, hardy-har-har.

Morality Lessons (#826) 

Leave it to authoritarians to make an unconstitutional censorship scheme even worse:

An Arizona state [politician named Gail Griffin] has [introduced a new version of anti-porn crackpot Chris Sevier’s bill to]…require makers and distributors of Internet-connected devices to ship such devices with blocking software “that renders a website that displays obscene material inaccessible by default”…any Internet user who wants to deactivate the blocking software would have to pay “a onetime deactivation fee of at least $20 to the Arizona Commerce Authority”…[in this version] the money would be used to establish what the bill calls the “John McCain Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Fund”…[to] “provide grants to government agencies and private entities that work to [promote censorship, prohibition and racism]”…the bill provides a list of 10 types of projects that could be funded by the porn fee.  First on the list is “build a border wall between Mexico and this state”…

Something Rotten in Sweden (#867)

The public will believe anything it sees on billboards, no matter how ridiculous:

For the sixth straight year, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley rolled out a line of billboards and bus shelter posters to [promote anti-sex work propaganda]…This year’s bright yellow signage includes the [slogan], “He made me feel special, then he made me sell my body,” followed by, “He’s not a real boyfriend. This is human trafficking!”…four weeks of [the] ads [costs] about $133,000 [that could have been used for shelters for actual homeless teens]…“The Bay Area is still a hot spot for human trafficking,” O’Malley [fantasized]…

Surplus Women (#898) 

It’s rare to see a sympathetic article in the UK press:

…a [London] sex worker…[named] Anna…[said] her most traumatic experience remains the death of friend Destiny Lauren, murdered by a client in 2009…”When he didn’t have enough money to pay her he strangled her and left her half-naked in the bed, he tied her arms behind her back with stockings. Her brother found her like that.”  A decade later, shocking parallels can be drawn between Destiny’s murder and that of escort Christina Abbotts last year as figures reveal a rise in violence against sex workers…Christina and Destiny are two of around 180 sex workers in the UK who were murdered between 1990 and 2015…In the year Destiny died, changes in legislation further penalised kerb-crawling as well as selling sex.  The laws also made it easier for police to close premises where women were working together collectively [for safety]…

Traffic Jam (#900)

Another anti-migrant pogrom using the excuse of “sex trafficking”:

A federal grand jury in Oregon has returned two indictments charging six people with running sex trafficking organizations operating in the U.S., Canada and Australia…The FBI…coordinate[d pogroms] targeting [Asian massage parlors and advertising sites, to which they applied the dysphemism]…Asian sex trafficking networks.  As part of the [pogrom], the FBI seized…about 500 [websites]…[and] a[rre]sted five [sex workers they labeled] victims in Oregon…

Top Cop 

This article dramatically understates her awfulness, but it’s still not bad:

Harris’s [pretense to be] a progressive figure while simultaneously taking a “tough on crime” stance as a prosecutor has been a common thread throughout her career, way before Backpage and FOSTA…A New York Times op-ed published last week outlines several instances when, as California’s top prosecutor, she fought to keep people in jail…In her running announcement, Harris [uttered the tone-deaf statement], “I think it is a false choice to suggest that communities do not want law enforcement.  Most communities do”…But [marginalized] people…would disagree with wanting more law enforcement presence in their communities, especially when it comes to sex work…

Lack of Evidence (#907) 

It’s fascinating to watch imbecile “journalists” tangled up in their own stupid assumptions:

Why are single women still mistaken for prostitutes?  Especially, you would think, if that restaurant is in the middle of New York, one of the most progressive cities on the planet….when Clementine Crawford was reportedly told she could no longer sit at the bar of her favourite Manhattan restaurant, she was confused…”All these years we have been battling for a room of one’s own,” she wrote. “Little did we know it, but we are still fighting for a seat at the table (or bar, to be strictly accurate)”…eating alone as a single woman is – for many – a daunting process.  The protective barrier of a book or, more recently, a phone, makes it easier.  Somehow you feel less exposed, less vulnerable…

Yes, this idiot is actually obsessing about the fact that this happened at a restaurant, as though somehow women eating alone were the issue, when in actuality the problem is “progressive” laws that allow cops to police female sexuality based on their whims and supported by “progressive” assumptions that how a woman chooses to make money is any of “society’s” business.  The stupid question in the headline is immediately answered in the story:  New York is indeed a “progressive” city, one that thinks it has the right to interfere in people’s private business with violence.  THAT is the issue, not fake “feminism” which divides women into “good” and “bad” and pretends that privileged white women being caught up in the authoritarian laws they support is somehow about inappropriate quoting of Virginia Woolf.

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In the News (#877)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2018| 4 Comments »

[Sex workers] are selling sex by choice…[no matter] what Demand Abolition says.  –  Alison Bass

The Public Eye 

The more sex workers write and speak in public, the harder it will be to ignore us:

The recent book Philosophy, Pussycats and Porn by the pornstar known as “Stoya”…is…a…collection of essays that discusses different topics from technology to religious iconography…a new generation of porn performers taking an intellectual stand on social issues…intellectual porn stars have turned into the avant-garde academics in this field, philosophers of the flesh and some of society’s most serious thinkers on human sexuality…Angela White is known for her advocacy of women’s rights and body positivity…Conner Habib…was a college lecturer of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst before he began shooting porn scenes.  Now he’s also known for his writing and his thought-provoking podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib…Valentina Nappi in Italy and Amarna Miller of Spain are both porn stars who attended art school and grew up in countries where the Catholic Church held a firm grip on the social and political life.  Yet these women have boldly voiced a feminist and hedonistic worldview, pushing the boundary of public opinion…

Vendetta 

Stephen Lemons speculates on the origin of billionaire sociopath Swanee Hunt’s fanatical hatred of sex workers:

…Hunt also frowns on “the use of pornography to masturbate” and seems to take a dim view of the male sex drive in general.  As for the right of sex workers to make choices for themselves, she opines that “every decision must be weighed in the terms of the overall effect on the [State], even at the cost of the impingement on personal freedom.”  Demand Abolition’s donations to law-enforcement agencies have secured the kind of enforcement against “sex buyers” that Hunt favors.  In a groundbreaking article published in The Intercept, Alison Bass…details how Demand Abolition’s donations to law-enforcement agencies in several cities helped fund local crackdowns…But there may be more at work in Hunt’s worldview than radical feminism.  Her father, H.L. Hunt, was an infamous philanderer who maintained two secret families in addition to the one he shared with his first wife…Swanee is the daughter of the woman who would become Hunt’s second wife, Ruth Ray Hunt, following the death of the first Mrs. Hunt…The billionaire oilman would visit his second family when his first wife was off playing bridge…She describes her mother’s “anguish” at the situation…Swanee…admits to wondering as a kid why she “didn’t have a daddy like the children next door”…Such lachrymose reminiscences may add some context to her anti-prostitution jeremiad.  Take, for instance, this passage from “Deconstructing Demand”:  With most monogamous couples, fidelity includes not only abstaining from sex with another person, but also honesty and transparency.  Buying sex, however, is largely a secret affair that requires a web of deception involving one’s location, time, and money…Children’s lives are strained and they may well become disillusioned with their fathers…

The Forest for the Trees

Sex abuse hysteria, like its twin sister “sex trafficking” hysteria, is the child of the Satanic Panic:

Moral panics…have occurred throughout history.  Two of the most notorious are the Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s and ’90s.  The panics almost exclusively involve women and children and fears for their safety, especially from sexual abuse.  We are in the midst of another such panic, but despite the similarities to past episodes, we are still unable to recognize it as such.  The current panic has been playing out in the military and on college campuses for nearly a decade, but…the…hysteria is creeping into our regular legal system as well…five of the biggest signs…of mass hysteria [are]…1. Due Process Goes Out The Window…2. “Believe The Victim”…[accusations are all the evidence needed]…3. Misleading And Faulty Statistics…4. Evidence, Schmevidence…and…5. Pseudo-Scientific Theories About Memory Reign Supreme…

Traffic Jam (#411)

The ethically-bankrupt Dominique Roe-Sepowitz has invented another idiotic “study” designed to find exactly what its funders wanted found:

“I would also like to share on the record that…we [chose] to place our office in formal lockdown, file a police report, and get sheriff escort”  Khara Jabola-Carolus…of the Hawai‘i State Commission on the Status of Women [claimed dramatically] following [what she pretended was] a threat of “imminent physical danger” her office received…“This is a big business and no one…wants their money flow interrupted.”  The threat, Jabola-Carolus said, was in response to the organization’s [prohibitionist] stance and publication of a [bogus] study by HSCSW and Arizona State University School of Social Work, titled Sex Trafficking in Hawai‘i Part 1: Exploring Online Sex Buyers, that [pretends] prostitution demand is much higher in Hawai‘i than it is in the rest of the U.S.  The study used the O‘ahu and Big Island “Women Seeking Men” personals section of Backpage…

The nonsense opening this article?  A politician got a flood of organized calls from people opposed to prohibition and chose to frame them as “threats” to cast activists as members of a sinister cabal.  Other interviewees make a number of ridiculous statements, including one favorite claim of the more racist kind of prohibitionist that non-white women are too stupid to be pragmatic on their own, and had to learn pragmatic sexual motives from more-sophisticated-but-evil white people.  In case you’re wondering why this drama is centered around tiny Hawaii, it’s because there is some support for decriminalization in the state legislature and the prohibitionists want that crushed.

Counter-Countermeasure

Since prohibitionists pushing the “pimp” myth have failed miserably to debunk the John Jay study, they’ve decided to attack its primary author instead:

…Four professors at [John Jay] criminal justice college are on paid leave while the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and State Inspector General probe allegations they brought the underworld they studied into the hallways of John Jay.  Accusations of rape, sexual harassment, facilitating prostitution, and using and selling drugs first surfaced several weeks ago in the written complaints of two John Jay graduates…Naomi Haber [and Claudia Cojocaru]…Ric Curtis…received a $520,000 grant in 2005 from the US Department of Justice to research child sex workers in New York City.  He also led a study on young people working in the sex trade as part of a $1.3 million federally-funded research project in Atlantic City and other cities across the US.  But the feds halted the Atlantic City study in 2012 after receiving…[complaints that] Curtis handed out cigarettes to underage sex workers.  Investigators eventually found that Curtis offered smokes to people who agreed to connect him with prostitutes to interview, but he did not give them to interview subjects…Curtis later wrote that “the findings from my research in 2008 and 2010 earned me scorn among a number of leading practitioners in the…rescu[e industry]…because it undermined the rationale behind their appeals for funding,” according to an email he sent to one of the alleged victims that was included in her complaint…

Gorged With Meaning (#711)

People who pretend students need to be “groomed” into sex work are living in a dangerous fantasy world:

The University of Brighton has been accused [by prohibitionists] of encouraging prostitution after [the Sex Workers’ Outreach Project Sussex] ran a stall offering help for students at its freshers’ fairs…In a series of tweets it promoted its attendance, it said: “1 in 6 students does sex work or thinks about turning to sex work…If you…want to talk and don’t know where to go… we’re here for you.  We respect your autonomy, privacy and confidentiality.”  [Prohibitionist fanatics] Julie Bindel…and…Sarah Ditum [called the outreach]…”a grooming operation…preying on the naivety of young students”…academics and students jumped to the defence of the group.  Alison Phipps, professor of gender studies at the University of Sussex, thanked them for their “great work” and doctor Gemma Ahearne, a lecturer and sex industry researcher at Liverpool John Moores University, said their work was “amazing”.  Parker Robinson, student union’s vice president of academic experience at Brighton, said it was “great knowing there are services available ready to help students through difficulties they might be experiencing”…

The fact that Bindel, Ditum and company want young women denied support and advice, potentially resulting in their being harmed or even killed, tells you all you need to know about their sociopathy.

Whither Canada? (#808)

Edmonton has a long history of abusing & dehumanizing sex workers:

Last year, Edmonton [Alberta] police charged more people for purchasing sex than anywhere else in the country.  Edmonton accounted for more than 40 per cent of charges nationwide…The…271 charges in Edmonton…[were] more than double the 114 recorded in Winnipeg, which was second on the list…A vast majority of [victims of the law] were [forced in]to a [“johns school” and made to endure propaganda infantilizing sex workers and demonizing clients]…They pay a $750 [fine], increased from $500 earlier this year, which goes toward…[a prohibitionist] group that runs the day-long session…More than half of the arrests…came from online sting operations…[which] have made clients increasingly skeptical of web-based advertising and [screening]…

Uncommon Sense (#855)

How countries with healthy ideas about sex react to moral panic:

More…sex workers in Bern are renting apartments through…sites like Airbnb or using hotel rooms to carry out their business, according to a new report…Bern is currently home to 28 licensed brothels [but] this number is sinking…[because] rules introduced in 2013 requiring brothels to register have made sex work more expensive…prostitutes are required from 100 to 150 Swiss francs a day to rent a room in a legal brothel.  However, there are dozens of apartments listed on Airbnb for less than this amount.  The trend towards the use of private apartments for sex work runs counter to the intention of [the] rule changes…which [were] designed to [infantilize] prostitutes…and exploit…[their work with taxes and fees]…despite this tendency, police are positive about the new rules, arguing…that authorities now have much tighter control.  [Bern cantonal parliamentarian Christa] Ammann, meanwhile, is calling for prostitution to be completely decriminalized…

Compare Swiss police’s collective yawning over sex workers renting AirBnBs to work with UK cops’ lurid masturbatory fantasies about “sex slaves” in “pop-up brothels”.

Business As Usual (#871) 

I love it when rival herds of swine feed on each other:

Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs has formally transferred the investigation into the police vice [gang] to the FBI…as [too much] evidence [to hide] has [been discovered] during an internal investigation…The arrest of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in July by [disguised] vice [cops] and the August [murder] of 23-year-old Donna Castleberry [during an attempted rape] by…vice [pig] Andrew Mitchell have put a spotlight on the 20-member [gang].  Mitchell, a 30-year veteran of the [gang], was relieved of duty [on September 26th.  Besides the rape and murder]…he had been the subject of a potentially criminal complaint that had been filed about a week before…Todd Lindgren, a spokesman for the FBI…[said] a search…[was] conducted…on…Mitchell[‘s home]…

The Widening Gyre (#872) 

Even celebrities are seeing “sex trafficking” everyplace they go:

Lindsay Lohan wins the most bizarre video of the month…as she accuses parents of trafficking her children and then gets punched in the face.  Lindsay, who was in Moscow, gets out of her car and approaches the family — 2 boys and their parents.  She says they’re Syrian refugees who need help…then…accuses them of trafficking their [own] kids, as she speaks in both English and Arabic…After tailing the family for a bit and trying to [abduct] the children, you see the mother snap and attack Lindsay…

I’m really grateful for moments of comic relief from hysterical young women like Lohan, which at least break the tension of the hysteria being used to destroy lives and abolish civil liberties.

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