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Posts Tagged ‘The Rape Question’

That Was the Week That Was (#35)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2012| 36 Comments »

Do we really need to create a black market for burgers and fries?  –  Jeff Stier

Coming and Going

Texas is finally beginning to realize that it has better ways to spend millions per year than locking up whores:

…a 2001 Texas law…allowed prosecutors to charge prostitutes with a felony…after three misdemeanor prostitution convictions…but now, with more than 350 prostitutes…occupying bunks in the state prison system, and dozens more serving time for drug and theft charges…questions are being raised about…the…waste of money.  For about one-fourth the cost, such nonviolent, low-level criminals could be rehabilitated in community-based programs aimed at curing their addictions to alcohol and drugs…

The tone of the article can be judged by the fact that it describes Melissa Farley as “a recognized national expert on prostitution.”  This Agitator guest post on the subject by Eric Sterling of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is far more satisfying:

…Consider the utterly unseemly entrapment of women by members of a vice squad.  Think of the state of mind of the undercover police officer doing this work.  Actually don’t think on this too long, it is disgusting…Assume that many prostitutes don’t like the work.  So what?  I know lots of lawyers who don’t like the work, too — renting their mind for thousands of hours a year for clients they find disgusting…Why do we judge this work to be illegal, other than on the basis of legal tradition?  How are these women…[their] families…[or] society benefited by sending prostitutes to prison?  How are their…employment prospects improved by arresting them?…

Thinking With the Wrong Head

Actually, I do believe they’re telling the truth; pathetic attempts to get it for free aren’t Vitter’s style:

Sen. David Vitter’s spokesman…denied the Louisiana Republican was responsible for sending and quickly deleting a message from the senator’s official Twitter account to a young woman…Joel DiGrado [said]…Vitter “never personally tweets — in fact, he doesn’t even have the Twitter account set up on his Blackberry…The only explanation would seem to be an inadvertent staff button hit, perhaps related to the fact that, at various times the senator’s account has automatically followed whoever follows his account”…

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

Second sign that a human behavior is natural rather than cultural:  it’s observed in other primate species:

When offered the choice of playing with either a doll or a toy truck, girls will typically pick the doll and boys will opt for the truck.  This isn’t just because society encourages girls to be nurturing and boys to be active, as people once thought.  In experiments, male adolescent monkeys also prefer to play with wheeled vehicles while the females prefer dolls — and their societies say nothing on the matter.  The monkey research, conducted with two different species in 2002 and 2008, strongly suggested a biological explanation for children’s toy preferences…

The article goes on to discuss other studies which demonstrate that infant testosterone levels correlate with the amount of time they spend looking at balls or trucks vs. dolls, and even baby girls exposed to abnormally-high androgen levels in utero (a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia) prefer the “male-typical” toys.

Thou Shalt Not

Clearly, prohibitionism is a kind of mental illness:

…Deborah Cohen…suggests that some of the policies we use to control alcohol consumption could help beat back obesity.  “People realized…that alcohol was a problem…so they developed all kinds of regulations to make it less convenient…Perhaps now it’s time to rein in our easy access to food,” Cohen said…[measures] could include warning labels for foods high in fat and sugar, or maybe restrictions on where in the grocery store foods are displayed to curb impulse buying…Cohen [also] likes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to ban the sale of large-sized sugary drinks…

Lysistrata

There’s nothing wrong with this in theory, but it will take much more than a week to have any effect:

The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of the country’s president…Isabelle Ameganvi, leader of the women’s wing of the group Let’s Save Togo…said…her group is following the example of Liberia’s women, who used a sex strike in 2003 to campaign for peace…

The Rape Question

A Swedish booklet from 2007 (described in Oscar Swartz’  A Brief History of Swedish Sex) helpfully explains that begging equals rape:

…The…144 page booklet…gave a message that could not be misunderstood:  Girls should always and only think of themselves…[and] boys…should only think of the girl and her emotions and wishes and never of themselves.  Girls are encouraged to put on provocative clothing, drink, flirt, fool around, join boys from the pub, lie down in their bed, excite them – but at the last second say no.  She must never question whether…[it is OK] to act in such ways, since it is her legal right…If something did not feel good, girls are reassured that they must report their boyfriends, dates or lovers to the police…“If sex is achieved through begging and pleading…then it is rape”, says…psycho-therapist Monica Mardell…

In other words, if a Swedish man does anything other than mutely and passively submit to a woman’s sexual advances, he is a rapist.

Feet of Clay

Welcome to our world, chemists:

Last May, Deborah Blum…published a column pleading with…Nick Kristof to stop writing about chemical risk…[now] Kristof is at it again, [claiming]…“Big Chem” is preventing the Federal Government from protecting Americans from dangerous, endocrine disrupting chemicals…it appears that [Kristof] only reads [research] produced by a very, very small group of scientists – all on the farthest reaches of the environmental left.  He applies no statistical or experimental criticism to these studies:  they always “really” find what they claim to have found; and he seems unaware of the many non-industry funded studies or regulatory agency assessments that contradict them…

Naked Truth

If you’re anything like me, one Kristof-bashing session is never enough; so, here’s Melissa Gira Grant in Jacobin:

…“True, many of the prostitution ads on Backpage are placed by adult women acting on their own without coercion,” writes…professional prostitute savior Nicholas Kristof.  But, he continues…“they’re not my concern.”  He would like us to join him in separating women into those who chose prostitution and those who were forced into it; those who view it as business and those who view it as exploitation; those who are workers and those who are victims; those who are irremediable and those who can be saved.  These categories…fail to explain the reality of one woman’s work, let alone a class of women’s labor…But happy hookers, says Kristof, don’t despair, this isn’t about women like you – we don’t really mean to put you out of work.  Never mind that shutting down the businesses people in the sex trade depend on for safety and survival only exposes all of them to danger and poverty, no matter how much choice they have…

Metaupdates

A Tale That Grew in the Telling in October Updates (Part Three)

The claims of “sex trafficking” fanatics get more outlandish all the time:

The Internet has created the golden age of the sex industry.  It’s an $87 million a day business and it’s growing…Working in the commercial sex industry is the most dangerous job in the world.  Most of us think we understand the business of sex:  what it is and what (if anything) should be done to control it.  But the reality is complex and sinister.  Caught up in it are young men and women who are trafficked…Some opt in by choice.  But most don’t.  Unsuspecting victims fall prey to the elaborate schemes of predatory pimps who…know that a girl can generate upwards of $300,000 a year…

For perspective:  I used to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and I owned an escort service in addition to my own work, yet I still never made $300,000 in one year.  In fact, I think that all the living whores who can reliably exceed that every year could comfortably fit in my house.  But I guess for a mind stupid enough to believe that a hooker can see 50 men a night, $300,000 a year is quite reasonable.

The Crumbling Dam in TW3 (#20)

All over Canada, support for decriminalization continues to grow:

Giving the children of Vancouver’s missing women financial compensation and decriminalizing sex work, heroin and cocaine are just some of 37 recommendations set out by a new Missing Women inquiry report…the Independent Counsel recommendations detail a comprehensive list aimed at stopping another serial killer from preying on marginalized sex workers…“At the core of the difficulty is a set of police attitudes that are influenced by the unlawful status of sex work and drug use,” said the report’s author, lawyer Jason Gratl…“Sex workers and drug users are afraid to approach police because they fear persecution and arrest, even if they’re victims of serious physical or sexual crimes.”  When investigating the missing women, police rarely interviewed victims’ friends or family because…[they believed] the sex workers didn’t have friends or neighbours…

Reading Between the Lines in TW3 (#26)

“Oklahoma City police joined with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and the FBI to arrest 44 people in a prostitution and human trafficking sting.  The arrests include people accused of prostituting themselves, aiding a prostitute and soliciting the services of a prostitute. This is part of an ongoing nationwide investigation into human trafficking called Operation Cross Country…”  Total number of minors or “trafficked persons” arrested:  zero.

The Pro-Rape Coalition in TW3 (#30)

This was already a done deal, but now it’s official:

A Monday press release from faith-based advocacy group Morality in Media celebrates the Republican Party’s platform as now targeting all…pornography, not just illegal child pornography…“Distribution of obscene or hardcore pornography on the Internet is a violation of current federal law,” explained MIM’s President Patrick A. Trueman.  “Yet, most children in America have free access to obscene pornography as soon as they learn how to use a computer.  The average age of first exposure to obscene Internet pornography is now eleven.”  Trueman also suggested that…the federal government should police “obscenity,” not only…on the Internet, but also on hotel…TVs, cable or satellite television, and in retail shops…

Eleven as the average age of first exposure to the sex industry…now, where have I heard that before?

The Course of a Disease in TW3 (#31)

Apparently, prohibitionists have a very weird idea of what words like “support” and “help” mean, and have learned absolutely nothing from the catastrophic failure of the “War on Drugs”:

A new poll…has indicated that only 20 percent of the Danish population supports the government’s proposal to outlaw sex purchases, while a full 67 percent…are against it…But despite [this] politicians like Rasmus Horn Langhoff…contend that it must be done in order to support the women in the sex industry.  “…We must send a clear message that it is not okay to buy sex because of how negative it is for the women,” Langhoff [said]…“If we target the customers then we help the prostitutes who don’t need to go underground”…But…law group Gadejuristen (the Street Lawyer)…painted a…different picture.  “It’s completely wrong if you think that you can solve serious social issues by criminalising them.  Doing this will only worsen the situation,” [said] Nanna Gottfredsen…“You push the sex workers further into a grey zone.  They will hide themselves and their activities and social workers will no longer be able to contact those in need of help.”

This Week in 2011

Maslow’s Hammer; the inevitability of Nature getting her way; the counterfeit comfort of “sex offender” registries; how reality can only be fit into simplistic belief systems by ignoring most of it; questions on polyamory, penis size and racial preferences;  language patterns of New Orleans; and Michael Weinstein’s campaign to turn porn movies into commercials for his product.

This Week in 2010

Several of my most unusual calls and my favorite New Orleans eateries; three columns about very special girls who touched my heart; the original “sex trafficking” hysteria of a century ago; and my first column on the “condoms in porn” controversy.

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That Was the Week That Was (#30)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2012| 47 Comments »

The truth is that it does not suit our social narrative to recognize that a woman can be raped and get on with her life.  –  Charlotte Shane

BDSM

As soon as anyone who has some unusual interest commits a crime, you can be sure the loudmouthed bigots will blame the interest rather than the criminal:

Three roommates involved with a “sex dungeon” at their home may have murdered a…California [woman] as they tried to satisfy their fetishes…Detectives found “bondage type sex apparatuses, toys and tools” at the home of the two women and man who have been charged with murder in the death of 22-year-old Brittany Killgore…[who] was last seen April 13…Jessica Lopez…said she strangled the victim, fearing the victim would upend a kinky sex ring by seducing her “Master,” according to…a seven-page letter that [Lopez wrote]…The documents give no indication that Killgore knew about the sex ring, and prosecutors call her an innocent victim…

Ignoring the dyphemisms like “ring” and “kinky”, what do we have here?  A woman murders another woman out of jealousy.  Period.  If the house had been full of workout equipment or sports memorabilia, you can be sure the cops wouldn’t be calling it an “athletics-related murder”, but let there be anything sexual in the house, and suddenly it’s a “factor”.

Think of the Children!

Things have grown far worse in the 21 years since Paul Reubens’ career was destroyed by vice cops who accused him of masturbating in an adult theater; back then, he might’ve survived the bad publicity had his audience not included children.  Fred Willard’s audience is all adult, yet he’s being crucified anyway:

…His career is now abruptly over because he was arrested by L.A. vice cops at an adult movie theater.  Not convicted, not sentenced.  Arrested.  For “lewd behavior” in a porn theater…In the past 35 weeks, L.A. police have apparently “inspected” the adult theater 40 times, arresting 23 people.  One can speculate how many of those “inspections” involved cops getting blow jobs.  One can wonder how much tax money was spent on these “inspections.”  And one can wonder, in a city where 300 people are murdered and several thousand are raped every year, how the city can possibly justify spending millions on “inspecting” porn theaters…If convicted, the State could require Fred Willard to register as a sex offender.  Depending on where he lives, he might have to move.  No producer or casting director would ever look at his photo ever again…

John Law

Though cops are well-known for being both astonishingly ignorant and disgustingly barbaric on the subject of whores, this moronic op-ed on the “hookernomics” of Chattanooga, Tennessee’s “fugly” streetwalkers represents a new low for puerile police vulgarity in print; it’s also a fine example of how when a cop is allowed to run his filthy mouth he’ll usually reveal more about himself than he realizes.

The Clueless Leading the Hysterical

Nestle Corporation proves it’s almost as clueless as cops are:  “Nestle…[removed] an image from its Kit Kat Facebook…page, after [discovering] it was similar to…‘Pedobear’ – considered visual shorthand on the internet for sites posting material with inappropriate overtones towards minors…”

Objectification Overruled

“Objectification”, blah blah blah.  “Sending messages”, simper simper.

…Melinda Liszewski is part of a campaign against the objectification of women and sexualisation of girls…”We’ve got an expanding sex industry in Queensland, we’ve got billboards advertising that kind of thing and we’ve got…children being exposed to the…message that women exist to be bought and sold,” she said.  But speak to 21-year-old Portia…and it’s all about money [and] flexible hours…[she’s] been accepted to study Post Graduate Development Psychology…Indy…is 31 and said she was angered by the backlash.  “I’ve been in this industry for 13 years and I have a child,” she said…  “I’ve studied vet science and nursing and now I have my own business…”

The Course of a Disease

“Justice Minister Anna-Maja Henriksson is planning to push for a bill that would completely prohibit the purchase of sexual services..[which] would bring Finland’s legislation in line with the Swedish and Norwegian model…”  I have a suggestion for the minister:  talk to Norway’s social affairs chief before you make a complete ass of yourself.

The Rape Question

In The New Inquiry, Charlotte Shane published an excellent essay on how the feminist myth that all rape is equally traumatic and always life-destroying  harms women and shuts down discourse:

…Though some feminists regard “rape equals devastation” as sacred fact, the notion that a man can ruin me with his penis strikes me as the most complete expression of vintage misogyny available.  Common sense instructs us that it is far more “dangerous” to insist to young women that they will be broken by an unwanted sex act than it is to propose they might have a happy, healthy, and sexually pleasant future ahead of them in spite of a sexual assault…When we refuse to acknowledge the possibility that a rape could be anything less than a tsunami of emotional and mental destruction for a woman, we establish a fantasy of absolute male sexual power and absolute female vulnerability.  We are, in essence, honoring the timeless belief that a woman’s worth, self-respect, and ability to function within society are dictated exclusively by the sexual use of her body…

Little Boxes

One can’t blame Anna Gristina’s partner for employing the “arbitrary line” defense, but it does demonstrate the inanity of prostitution laws:

…”Paying two individuals to watch them engage in sexual activity…is simply not prostitution,” veteran defense lawyer Robert Gottlieb argues…on behalf of…Jaynie Mae Baker…[who is] fighting a single count of promoting prostitution, for allegedly sitting at a restaurant with a prospective john last July and booking him…with a pair of escorts…not once do the parties specifically mention sex for money…[and] the recordings capture “the undercover officer meeting two other women at an apartment who eventually appear to engage in sexual contact with each other, but not with the undercover officer”…the fake john never even took his clothing off…prior judges have defined prostitution as specifically “A paying B for sexual activity to be performed on A,” and not as charging a fee merely to provide a building space for sexual activity or to let someone watch a sex performance…

Here’s a look at the British version of these idiotic technicalities from New Statesman, in which an accountant who represented a number of prostitutes points out the absurdity of taxing them as businesses while simultaneously denying that they are covered by business law:

…although prostitution is lawful…a prostitute cannot do things such as advertise, go into partnership, form a limited company, employ people, rent premises or sue for debts…the big problem lies with the legislation on brothel keeping.  This – unlike prostitution, is considered a crime.  Common sense dictates two fairly simple things:  one, prostitution won’t go away any time soon (something about that whole “oldest profession” thing), and two; the women doing it are safer working indoors with a maid, rather than working on the street.  There’s neither rhyme nor reason to this law, besides the rule that for every outraged Daily Mail headline there’s an equally cowardly political reaction…

The article goes onto say that the old brothel laws are now being justified with “sex trafficking” hysteria, and includes a 2009 video of a politician being forced to admit on television that the government’s source for “trafficking” figures was an article in the Daily Mirror.

The Pygmalion Fallacy

…Singapore-based Lovotics…unveiled…Kissenger…an egg-like orb outfitted with two soft plastic lips packed with sensors and actuators.  When a human…plants a kiss on the robot lips, the sensors record the shape changes the kisser creates on the lips and translates those pressure patterns into a mirror image that can be beamed over the Web to another Kissenger…[which] reproduces the sender’s unique kiss for a human on the other end.  It’s supposed to be a means of maintaining a sense of intimacy when two people are separated by distance, translating a person’s signature kissing style into something that can be transported and delivered to a recipient…

First They Came for the Hookers…

Of course we already knew this, but it’s nice to see them admit it for a change:  “Police have admitted that they do not have any evidence to support a claim that lap dancing clubs may contribute to sex offences…”  Meanwhile, teacher Stacie Halas (who was fired for having acted in porn) in now suing the school district with the help of feminist attack dog Gloria Allred, who as you may remember also took the case of the reporter fired for her past work as a stripper.

The Widening Gyre

Some readers seemed skeptical of my position that peaceful protest alone has done nothing for the sex worker rights movement, and that it’s time for us to be disruptive so we can no longer be ignored.  This made the national news, which is extremely unusual for any US sex worker protest:

Here’s another one from Wednesday.

I Swear To God

It’s really heartening to see a story like this from a major news outlet:

… while the United States lifted a travel ban on people infected with HIV in 2009, it has clung to a prohibition on the entry of foreign sex workers established more than two centuries ago.  Activists, and some [International AIDS] Conference officials, say that runs counter to a goal of achieving an end to the epidemic…”I don’t know how we’re going to ever see an end to AIDS in our lifetime…without including all of those populations who must be involved as part of this solution,” said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California…Michel Sidibe, executive director of the United Nations AIDS program, said it was “outrageous” that in 2012 “when we have everything to beat this epidemic, we still have to fight prejudice, stigma, discrimination, exclusion, criminalization”…

The article then goes on to discuss the public health menace presented by allowing cops and prosecutors to seize condoms as “evidence”.  Incidentally, I’m not sure where this reporter got the idea that the whore immigration ban is “more than two centuries” old; it was part of the Page Law of 1875, a racist ploy to reduce the number of Chinese immigrants.

Metaupdates

The Crumbling Dam in Further Developments

Los Angeles billboard companies refused Furry Girl’s sex worker rights billboard, but were happy to display this:

The Pro-Rape Coalition in We’re Not Done Yet

Just in case you may have forgotten about Mitt Romney’s campaign promise to work hard to increase the rape rate:

Former Justice Department official Patrick Trueman, who proudly participated in federal pornography prosecutions during their “heyday” in the late 1980s and early 1990s…[said] that Mitt Romney’s campaign assured him that Romney would “vigorously” prosecute pornographers if elected president.  Trueman, the president of Morality in Media, contacted the Romney campaign earlier this year about the “untreated pandemic” of Internet pornography…

Good News, Bad News in TW3 (#14)

A brief respite:  “Western Australia’s new Attorney-General…has conceded the Government’s proposed prostitution laws are unlikely to be passed before the next election…”

This Week in 2011

Several “Harlots of the Bible” were positively portrayed, and many sex workers are abducted and caged “Against Their Will” in the name of “rescuing” them.  “A Load of Farley” vivisects the most recent bogus “study” from the most active font of such filth, and “Imaginary Crises” does the same for claims of a “rape epidemic”.  “A Working System” demonstrates how problems can be handled under decriminalization, “Peeping Toms” looks at the legacy of Lawrence vs. Texas, and “Profanation” discusses the neofeminist campaign to rewrite the history of harlotry.

This Week in 2010

An essay on the legends about “Mary Magdalene” was followed by one on why women lie about our weight and age, how escorts go about “Playing the Part”, a two-part column on rape in calls, and a debunking of the myth of “Pimps”.

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That Was the Week That Was (#22)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2012| 34 Comments »

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.  –  Victor Hugo

One new item, eight updates and two metaupdates.

True Colors

New Orleans charity Women With A Vision has been fighting for the rights of poor women, including sex workers, for years; their efforts were instrumental in bringing down Louisiana’s monstrous “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” law which was used to place whores (especially black or transsexual ones) on the “sex offender” registry.  Apparently some hateful person was angry about this or their other work, because on the night of May 24th he broke into their office and set a fire which destroyed it and virtually everything in it.

There’s no way to know whether the arsonist was motivated by hatred of prostitutes, black people, transsexuals, or some other disadvantaged group for which WWAV fights, but this action demonstrates the true colors of those who would deny rights to others, no matter what rhetoric they use to rationalize their position.  WWAV is desperately in need of help:  New Orleans area readers could donate time, women’s clothing, computer equipment, office supplies, etc (call 504-301-0428 to volunteer), and readers anywhere in the world can donate to WWAV at their site.  My readers have been very generous to me with presents, but for the next few months I ask that you spend that money helping WWAV instead; if you want it to be a present for me, just make the donation in my name.  Any help you can give will mean a great deal to me!

A similar incident occurred in China last week:

An outspoken advocate for sex workers reopened her office…after it was trashed by eight men who punched and threatened her life last week.  Ye Haiyan, 37, is the founder of Chinese Women’s Rights Workshops, an NGO that promotes sex workers’ rights and helps raise awareness of HIV/AIDS…Ye said the men did not look like gang members and she suspects that local authorities might have had a role in the attack…Earlier this year, she was also threatened over the phone and told to shut her office…

Updates

Lying Down With Dogs (November 24th, 2010)

Another example of an African country whose anti-whore rhetoric strongly resembles that of the US, right down to the ludicrous euphemisms:

The Liberian government…disclosed that a campaign named…“Operation Save Our Future” has been launched…[to] minimize prostitution as well as sexual exploitation and abuse against girls…the operation will also tackle indecent dressing…Minister [Julia] Cassell said the prostitutes will be rehabilitated through basic skills including baking, sewing, hair dressing, and pastry…She urged the public to dress appropriately because the “government is now after them.”  She called on those involved into commercial sex working to desist from the illegal act and put their hands to use in a positive direction.

Because working independently for good pay isn’t a “positive direction”, but working in a sweatshop or doing other low-paid work for someone else is; that’s especially loathsome rhetoric in a country founded by freed slaves.  Note also that Liberian “feminists”, like their American sisters, are unable to recognize that the road from criminalization of prostitution to criminalization of “indecent dress” is a very short one.

Neither Cold nor Hot (April 6th, 2011)

Jezebel has attacked evolutionary psychologists like Satoshi Kanazawa (who, incidentally, has a new book out) on a number of occasions, and now they’re fighting back:  Kanazwa’s colleague Barry Kuhle sharply criticizes the site for embracing the neofeminist “social construction of gender” dogma in his article “Giving Feminism a Bad Name”.  He examines the logical fallacies used by “gender feminists” (Christina Sommers’ term for neofeminists) to attack scientific findings, and blames them for the word “feminist” having become an insult.  Kuhle’s an interesting writer; I also enjoyed his recent column on why the ever-increasing alphabet soup used to describe sexual minorities (now LGBTQIH and still growing) is ridiculous and should be replaced by a more manageable acronym.

Welcome To Our World Again (January 20th, 2012)

Too bad Zimbabwe isn’t the only country so Bizarro that it’s willing to cut off its nose to spite its face on the issue of sex laws which cause higher rates of HIV:

President Robert Mugabe yesterday clashed with visiting UN human rights chief Navi Pillay after she appeared to suggest that legalising prostitution and homosexuality could go a long way in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS…Mugabe…swore that this would happen OVER HIS DEAD BODY…police in Harare have intensified a blitz on prostitutes and women found in pubs claiming they are trying to stop crime which is being promoted by prostitution…Mugabe…has previously described homosexuality as “worse than dogs and pigs”…MP Tabitha Khumalo…[said] “[Prostitution] is here to stay and we need to bite the bullet.  PLEASURE ENGINEERING…did not begin in…Zimbabwe.  It all began in the Garden of Eden and one of those PLEASURE ENGINEERS was Eve”…

In a sense, bigots like Mugabe are more consistent and less hypocritical than certain Americans who are very vocal in demanding their own sexual rights, yet support persecution of whores.  Also, I think I’m going to write MP Khumalo a fan letter.

The Rape Question (April 4th, 2012)

This article about “brothel” raids in Ireland (actually, most were private flats in which women worked together for safety) is full of the usual agency denial and “sex trafficking” mythology, but I was especially struck by one passage:  “Mary Crilly, Director of the Sexual Violence Centre (SVC) in Cork [said], ‘I welcome the raids.  We need to end the demand for prostitution, as long as there are men who are paying for sex there will be a demand.  Prostitution isn’t about sex, it’s about money and exploitation’.”  This is of course the old “rape is asexual” dogma, but it does demonstrate how completely out of touch with reality these women are.

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

The death-spiral of Nicholas Kristof’s reputation continues:

The Brooklyn prosecutor who had a starring role in…Nicholas Kristof’s expose of Backpage…has resigned amid charges she sat on evidence that would have saved a sex-crimes suspect from spending 11 months in jail.  The New York Daily News reported this week that  prosecutor Lauren Hersh quit after two black men charged with serially raping an Orthodox Jewish girl since she was 13 were released because the alleged victim had recanted her claims the day after she made them.  Hersh…failed to share [the recantation] with the grand jury or defense lawyers…Hersh was also cited in Kristof’s story about Backpage back in January, “How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls”…Kristof cited a case prosecuted by Hersh involving an underage prostitute, without disclosing the fact that Hersh only was able to track down the perpetrators because Backpage turned over identifying information…

Unfortunately, Fisher is a mealy-mouthed moralist who denies women’s right to sex on our own terms; he seems more concerned with the fact that Backpage is singled out than the fact that whores are persecuted.  But that makes his attacks on Kristof (his natural ally in moralism) all the more indicative of the latter’s fall from grace.

This poster for my favorite perfume was the most complained-about advert in the UK since 1995.

Little Boxes
(April 29th, 2012)

As I’ve pointed out many times, it is impossible to draw clear lines between female sexual behaviors, and sugar babies are part of a continuum stretching from wives to professional harlots.  But while I usually demonstrate the strong resemblance between sugar babies and hookers, Helen Croydon makes the equally valid point that they are a lot like traditional “low maintenance” lovers, and defends such arrangements as sensible and rewarding:

…These models of relationships are an honest way of withholding commitment…That may not be appealing to everyone.  It certainly isn’t the route to finding a soul mate.  But not everyone wants one of those at every stage in their life.  Is it so wrong to underpin the foundations of a relationship with something other than 100% devotion and exclusivity?…payment…doesn’t necessarily have to exclude affection…“compensated relationships” are far more honorable and rewarding than meaningless, vulgar, no-strings sex encounters.  Yet we give more respect to the latter.  These days relationships can only be rubber stamped if they are all encompassing, full-time, cohabiting and long-term…

Whorearchy (May 10th, 2012)

Until the mid-19th century prostitutes and actresses were members of a single profession, and we still haven’t diverged much.  But one wouldn’t know that from listening to actresses – including those who have played sex workers – insisting that they’re better than we are:

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is demanding an apology from a Hong Kong newspaper after it published claims she had sex with disgraced Communist party official Bo Xilai for huge sums of money…the star of ” Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” [allegedly] slept with Bo at least ten times between 2007 and 2011…[and] negotiated similar deals with several other powerful men…she [supposedly] earned around $110 million from prostituting herself…

Traffic Jam (May 20th, 2012)

Reason posted a video of 20/20‘s 1985 report “The Devil Worshippers”:

…It may help, as you watch this, to know that the bodies of the alleged sacrifice victims never materialized, that the statistic of two million missing kids was a wild exaggeration, and that Mike Warnke, presented here as an expert on Satanic rites, was later exposed as a fraud.  But really, anyone able to think critically should be able to see through this without the benefit of hindsight.  What’s interesting is that so many people took it seriously at the time…Even if you ignore the actual misinformation in the program, this is as pure an example as you’ll find of how a scattered group of unconnected crimes can be presented as a grand, malevolent movement, particularly when they’re combined with anxieties about the influence of popular culture…

Here are the links for Part Two and Part Three.

Metaupdates

What a Week! in October Updates (Part One) (October 2nd, 2011)

Another advantage to decriminalization:  access to the legal system.

A plan to build Australia’s largest brothel is poised to overcome local government opposition in a victory for Sydney’s sex industry over creeping regulation.  The $12 million, three-storey extension to the Stiletto brothel…can be approved once client numbers are capped…Even after being decriminalised in 1995, NSW brothel owners are increasingly turning to courts to reverse rejections by councils opposed to the industry…”Research usually shows brothels are not a problem in a community,” said Wayne Morgan, a lecturer specialising in sexuality-related law at the Australian National University.  “Staff are usually very discreet, and clients, by their very nature, are very discreet.  This was partly the point of legalising brothels in the first place – to take out the criminal aspect”…

Counterfeit Comfort in TW3 (#8) (February 26th, 2012)

Louisiana’s recent attempt to further destroy the lives of people who urinated in public or had consensual sex with their high-school girlfriends is not the only one to be defeated lately; those condemned to the American pariah caste are fighting back:

Registered sex offenders who have been banned from social networking websites are…successfully challenging many of the restrictions as infringements on free speech…Courts have long allowed states to place restrictions on convicted sex offenders who have completed their sentences…but the increasing use of social networks for everyday communication raises new, untested issues…Ruthann Robson, a professor of constitutional law at the City University of New York, said the bans could eventually be taken up by the Supreme Court…”If we think that the government can curtail sex offenders’ rights without any connection to the actual crime, then it could become a blanket prohibition against anyone who is accused of a crime, no matter what the crime is”…

One Year Ago Today

“June Updates (Part Two)” reports on San Diego’s excuses for rapist cops, Mira Sorvino’s declaring Sacramento the “leading destination for sex traffickers”, and yet another guy playing BDSM games with strangers without a signed contract.

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That Was the Week That Was (#14)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2012| 26 Comments »

Any law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.  –  Maximilien Robespierre

Some of you may have noticed that my columns are posting earlier as of this week; I realized that if I posted them at 10:01 UTC every day, all my readers would be able to see (or at least be notified) of them on the proper date (even though it ranges from late evening in New Zealand to one minute past midnight in Hawaii).  That probably won’t matter to most of you, but it corrects a deficiency that’s been annoying me for some time.

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

The brave police of Manatee, Florida have announced their heroic capture of a dangerous criminal …a street woman so desperate she offered sex in exchange for two McDonald’s dollar-menu cheeseburgers.  I’m sure my Floridian readers will sleep more soundly tonight knowing this menace was removed from the streets.

Updates

Crime Against Society (February 26th, 2011)

Though Louisiana’s oppressive “Crime Against Nature By Solicitation” law was reduced to a misdemeanor last year (thus removing the requirement for sex offender registration), Doe vs. Jindal continued because the state refused to release those previously condemned.  On March 29th the judge decided in favor of the sex workers:

…U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman said state lawmakers had no “rational basis” for requiring people to register as sex offenders if they were convicted of a “crime against nature by solicitation”… “The defendants fail to credibly serve up even one unique legitimating governmental interest that can rationally explain the registration requirement imposed on those convicted of Crime Against Nature by Solicitation,” Feldman wrote.  “The Court is left with no other conclusion but that the relationship between the classification is so shallow as to render the distinction wholly arbitrary”…

This is a victory not only for the approximately 400 people released from the tyrannical regime of “sex offender” registration, but for all those fighting to get armed busybodies out of people’s personal lives.

The Soft Weapon (March 24th, 2011)

I exposed the Schapiro Group’s lies twice before the Village Voice did last March, but their voice is much louder than mine, and apparently quite a few heard it because a new petition on Change.org has called for criminal investigation of both the Schapiro Group and the “Women’s Funding Network” (one of billionaire prohibitionist Swanee Hunt’s fronts):

Recently the Village Voice exposed the Schapiro Group…and the Women’s Funding Network…for knowingly deceiving both congress and the public using false data manufactured through fraudulent research…[when] legitimate organizations that serve exploited…minors…are not able to report that they have reached numbers of youth comparable to the inflated numbers of victims…it jeopardizes their credibility and funding…[also] increased funding for law enforcement efforts to combat a vastly inflated threat…is channeled instead into police actions directed not at traffickers, but rather against consenting adult sex workers…We reject the concept that criminalizing members of any population is an effective way to rescue them…Therefore, we, the undersigned, call on the United States Dept. of Justice to investigate the Schapiro Group and the Women’s Funding Network for conspiracy to commit fraud against their donors, the public and the US government…

Needless to say, I urge you all to sign!

Sales Pitch (May 22nd, 2011)

Here’s another study which proves that the “Swedish Model” doesn’t work; this one is from human trafficking expert Ann Jordan, who called the law “a failed experiment in social engineering” and pointed out that “the Swedish government has been unable to prove that the law has reduced the number of sex buyers or sellers or stopped trafficking.”

The Leading Players in the Field, Not (June 15th, 2011)

This was forwarded to me by an academic correspondent; I think it speaks for itself.

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

The New York Times continues its crusade against sex workers, this time via a slanted article which refers to a 17-year-old as a “child” and blames Backpage (rather than the unexamined conditions at home which caused her to run away twice) for her becoming an underage prostitute.  Apparently the Times is hoping that Village Voice loses its nerve and backs down on the Backpage adult ads, because it would be forced to reverse course and oppose the fanatics (rather than getting in bed with them) if they succeed in enacting laws that make websites (like that run by the Times) responsible for user-generated content.

Held Together With Lies (April 2nd, 2012)

The UN has released its latest “estimate” of “human trafficking victims”, and though it’s less than 9% of the popular figure popularized by fanatics, it’s still both unsubstantiated and inflated by at least two orders of magnitude:

The U.N. crime-fighting office said Tuesday that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves.  Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime…said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women…According to Fedotov’s Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued…

In other words, Fedotov can only support 1% of his claim, or 24,000 people in the entire world.  That’s a lot more believable, but it wouldn’t generate the necessary panic so fanatics multiply it by over 1000x, then refuse to produce even the most tenuous evidence in support of the exaggerated claim.

An Example To the West (April 3rd, 2012)

This article by researcher Matthias Lehmann on the harm criminalization does to Korean sex workers largely covers familiar ground, but also mentions that the prohibitionist Korean laws enacted in 2004 were strongly influenced by the “Swedish Model” and linked this strong criticism of the laws by two Swedish legislators.  Lehmann points out that “sex workers…remain criminalised unless they claim to be victims”, dividing women into “’good women who are worthy of help’ and ‘bad ones who need to be punished’, thus continuing the stigmatisation of women who sell sex.”  Unsurprisingly, this is the version of Swedish legislation now infiltrating the US as well.  The article quotes many of the same sources and developments I’ve reported previously, but I found this announcement very intriguing:

Sex workers often rightly criticise researchers, politicians or the media for distorting the reality of the sex industry.  I am therefore working together with Woo Yun Jin, a Korean visual artist, to develop a graphic novel entirely based on experiences shared with us by sex workers in Korea…[it] will be made available [later this year] in both English and Korean…we [hope this helps] people to better understand that sex workers are part of their communities and deserve the same rights just as everyone else.

Lehmann also provides links to “Research Project Korea” and a number of news articles and resources.

The Rape Question (April 4th, 2012)

More information is better than less, but I’m concerned this could make rape trials even more of a “he said/she said” affair than they already are:

…An in-depth study comparing rape victims with nursing students at the University of Southern Denmark reveals that vaginal injuries are just as likely to result from consensual sex as rape.  [Researcher] Birgitte Schmidt Astrup [said] ‘…The nursing students experience just as frequent vaginal injuries as rape victims, and so these injuries cannot be used for much more than to establish that intercourse has taken place.’  She added that in cases of convictions based on evidence of vaginal injuries, there could now be discussions as to whether there have been miscarriages of justice…all [of the subjects] were examined less than 28 hours after sexual intercourse…vaginal injuries were found in 36 per cent of rape victims and in 34 per cent of the nursing students.  The…students’ results were not affected by whether they had engaged in rough or gentle sex, or whether they had used condoms or sex toys…

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

The outcry against Nicholas Kristof and his anti-whore crusade continues to grow and generalize; this week I discovered a well-written article from a member of the Occupy movement denouncing Kristof’s transparent attempt to call attention away from his own lies and exaggerations by branding the much-hated Goldman-Sachs “financiers of sex trafficking”:

…It was with some horror…that…I observed several Occupy-affiliated Twitter accounts sharing a link to an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, entitled “Financiers and Sex Trafficking”…It’s easy to see how this could appear to fit in the widespread populist anger against the financial sector that powers Occupy Wall Street…[but] Backpage is mostly used by consenting adults, and Nicholas D. Kristof is a man with a history of trying to use the specters of trafficking and child prostitution as leverage for a campaign that seeks ultimately to further criminalize sex workers…his “rescue” work in developing countries has basically involved riding along with law enforcement and live-tweeting brothel raids, writing himself into the story as the white savior (consequences be damned).  In other words, he is a buffoon, a prime member of the Liberal Class that preserves the status quo by defining the acceptable limits of dissent…Meg…[of] SWOP Chicago…[explained that] “The anti-trafficking crusade is a top-down movement, led by (among others) two right-wing religious conservatives from the Bush Administration (Laura Lederer, Swanee Hunt)…if Occupy Wall Street jumps on the anti-trafficking bandwagon, they’re really just swallowing rhetoric designed by one of the nation’s best consulting firms to further the particular agenda of a few members of the top .0001%”…Trafficking and child prostitution have been invoked to justify criminalizing…sex work since at least the end of the last century…Demand Abolition’s own material [confirms] this…[its] Nation Strategy emphasizes that “Framing the Campaign’s key target as sexual slavery might garner more support and less resistance, while framing the Campaign as combating prostitution may be less likely to mobilize similar levels of support and to stimulate stronger opposition.”

…If Occupy wants to add justice for sex workers to its cause (and it should), then it can carry on doing what the movement has generally done very well:  Don’t pay much attention at all to the self-appointed pundit class at the likes of the New York Times.  Listen to actual workers, the people for whom these issues are an everyday reality, not a hot topic…

Metaupdates

Good News, Bad News in That Was the Week That Was (#10) (March 10th, 2012)

It turn out that the push to impose the Swedish Model on Western Australia is largely a one-woman campaign enabled by a sleazy political deal:

…The government’s prostitution bill proposes to make sex work in residential areas illegal and requires brothel owners, managers and sex workers…to register…Labor is opposed to the legislation…[along with two prominent] Liberal MPs…[so] the government will need [the support of] independent MPs Janet Woollard and Adele Carles…[who] wants…three amendments…[which] would [shift] the criminal focus…to clients…Carles said she had visited Sweden…”They determined that prostitution is not a job.  Prostitution is violence against women”…

But while Carles is the typical neofeminist Swedish dupe , Woollard refuses to back the law unless it bans brothels entirely in five years.  Since that won’t happen, the law probably won’t pass, but I’ll report as the situation develops.

The Crumbling Dam in That Was the Week That Was (#13) (March 31st, 2012)

Ron Weitzer’s article on the recent Canadian decision clarifies a detail I had missed:  “The court gave the government 12 months to appeal the decision allowing bawdy houses, 30 days to rewrite the ‘living off the avails’ law to restrict it to exploitation, and allowed the parties 60 days to appeal the decision to uphold the solicitation/communication law.”  Obviously the government will appeal to keep its brothel ban and these workers will appeal the upholding of the “communicating” law, but as I understand it the avails law is a dead duck in its present form, which is certainly good news.

One Year Ago Today

“Neither Cold Nor Hot” looks at Jezebel’s weird ambivalence about sex work.

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The Rape Question

Posted in History, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2012| 52 Comments »

I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire.  –  Robin Morgan

At one time it was a subject rarely spoken of in public; now it sometimes seems that some people talk of little else.  Since the 1970s rape has become one of the most politicized issues of our culture, despite sex being arguably the least appropriate topic for politics imaginable.  The politicization of what could be considered the most personal of crimes began in 1970 with the publication of Carol Hanisch’s second-wave feminist manifesto “The Personal is Political”; as I wrote in my essay “Politicizing the Personal”,

The only problem with [the essay] is, it’s a load of crap; usually, the personal is just personal, and declaring it to be political merely holds the door open for increasingly tyrannical intrusion into people’s private lives.  The idea that “the personal is political” is borrowed from Marxist dogma and basically means that nearly any problem experienced by an individual woman is the result of “systematic oppression.”  If she’s unhappy or has a screwed-up life it isn’t because she’s irrational, poor, uneducated, overly emotional, foolish or unlucky in the genetic lottery, or because she’s made bad choices, or because the world is intrinsically unfair and many people of both sexes are unhappy and have screwed-up lives; it’s because she is oppressed by the Patriarchy.  This is, of course, a fundamentally defeatist, paranoid and narcissistic view which removes responsibility from the individual and places it into a social context that encourages permanent class warfare (or in this case, gender warfare).  Since the two sexes are different by nature and will always be unequal in one way or another, this provided political feminists with a path to political power; women were essentially told that their situation was hopeless unless they supported the schemes of the feminist leadership in its brave and determined struggle against the Male Overlords.

Once one understands this, the reason rape was politicized becomes obvious:  Feminists could claim that rape wasn’t due to the criminal inclinations or loss of control of individual men, but because of a supposed “rape culture” which permeates society and encourages all men to rape and all women to be reduced to an imbecilic state in which we don’t know when we’ve been raped until the feminist saviors enlighten us.  Had this notion been introduced full-blown in 1970 it would have been rejected as the rubbish it is, but it came by slow stages.  Remember, second-wave feminism was at first a movement of strong, independent, educated women; it was tied to the sexual revolution and its earliest adherents recognized that sexual shame is one of the chief ways in which patriarchal societies control women.  The miniskirt was a symbol of that freedom (hence the short uniforms in the original Star Trek, which were a visual demonstration of 23rd-century sexual equality), and prostitutes were active in a number of early feminist groups like WHO (Whores, Housewives and Others, the “others” being lesbians).  So when feminist leaders wanted to call attention to rape, they couldn’t tell the truth about it for fear that women would stop being so sexually independent; they therefore invented the myth that “rape is a crime of power, not lust” so women would continue to put themselves in danger.  The fact is that old ladies who get raped are as anomalous as child prostitutes; the vast majority of rape victims are young, sexually attractive women in unsafe sexual situations. There’s even evidence that conjugal visits reduce the rate of prison rape, and that legalization of prostitution reduces the rape rate.

The “rape is a crime of violence, not sex” mantra soon permeated Western society, and one could write an entire essay on the psychosocial reasons it did; in a nutshell, it’s because the truth – that rape is a natural, though unfortunate, outgrowth of our sexual programming – is scary to men because it reduces them to the level of animals, and to women because it means there is always the risk of rape in heterosexual relations.  By ignoring the 73% of all unwanted sex which isn’t forcible, people of both sexes could pretend there was no elephant in the parlor.  But there were some people who didn’t want that elephant ignored because its presence advanced their political agenda; just as first-wave feminism was eventually taken over by narcissistic middle-class white women, so it was with the second wave, and a cabal of angry lesbians and rape or molestation victims soon coalesced to lead those selfish, shortsighted women around by the nose.  Since the “violence not sex” model did not advance their goals it needed to be replaced, but the propaganda campaign had been so successful it could not simply be tossed out; hence “rape culture”, the dogma that neither men nor women could recognize rape when they saw it due to “cultural conditioning”.  In other words an act both parties agreed was consensual sex might really be rape, not merely in a sort of academic sense but in a real and prosecutable sense.

The shift had already started in the ‘70s with radical feminists like Robin Morgan, whose wholly subjective “rape definition” forms today’s epigram.  That definition in one form or another spread through the emerging neofeminist movement; not only did it conveniently eliminate the need for physical evidence, it also allowed neofeminists to define sex work as “rape”.  But the weaponization of what was at first merely a farfetched radical axiom took some doing; as I explained in “Imaginary Crises”:

…the FBI reported that 8% of all American women would suffer an attempted rape at some point in their lifetimes, and since only about a third of all attempted rapes are completed that just wasn’t enough to create the necessary hysteria…[so] in 1982 Mary Koss of Kent State used… [Morgan’s] definition to design a questionnaire she gave to 3000 coeds, and concluded that 15.4% of respondents had been raped and 12.1% were victims of attempted rape.  But that wasn’t the way the women saw it; only 27% of those she called “rape victims” agreed that they had indeed been raped, while 49% said the incidents were the result of “miscommunication,” 14% called it “a crime but not rape,” and 11% said they were not victimized at all.  In true neofeminist fashion Koss ignored the women’s views of their own experiences and characterized their denial that they were raped (and the fact that 42% of them later voluntarily had sex with their “rapists”) as evidence that they were “confused and sexually naïve” rather than that her theory was wrong.  Koss’ results were published in Ms. magazine in 1985 and quickly became gospel; the “rape” and “attempted rape” figures together added up to 27.5%, a fraction quickly abbreviated to “one in four” and endlessly repeated in pamphlets, articles, “rape prevention” and “sensitivity” classes and protest marches.

Though the worst cultural excesses of early ‘90s neofeminism soon abated, it had already infiltrated academia and government and therefore became far more dangerous despite the fact that fewer women believed in it.  Morgan’s definition is one of the roots of “sex trafficking” hysteria (via the notion of all prostitution as rape), and as I explained at length in “Setting Women’s Rights Back a Century”, “…the catechism being preached to young American women [is]:  You are NEVER responsible for your own actions.  No matter how irresponsibly you act, no matter what you say to or do with a man, if someone later convinces you that you were ‘assaulted’, or if ‘authorities’ rule that you were despite your protests, then you are a helpless, powerless victim without adult agency or volition, no better than an infant.”  In my column of one year ago today I discussed the firestorm which ensued when Camille Paglia suggested that maybe women should take more responsibility for their own sexual behavior around men, and twenty years later it’s still the same every time a man makes a similar suggestion (though less so if a woman does unless she’s a Republican).  There’s a vast difference between blaming the victim in a forcible rape and holding young women as much responsible for their actions while drunk in bed as we would hold them for their actions while drunk behind the wheel.  And until Americans as a group recognize this, the culture wars over rape will be as endless as those over everything else involving sex, thus effectively drawing attention away from the real issues…which is exactly what those in power want.

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