Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘tits’

Public Property

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2013| 15 Comments »

This essay first appeared on Cliterati on May 19th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.

Angelina JolieI’m sure you all heard about Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy a few weeks ago; because she inherited a faulty gene from her mother she has a much higher chance than other women of eventually developing breast (87%) and ovarian (50%) cancer, and decided to have the breast tissue removed so as to prevent it before it could start.  Now, breast reconstruction was part of the process; had she not made a public announcement, nobody would have known the difference from looking at her (not even in a skin-tight costume).  But according to her New York Times article about the procedure, “I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer.  It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.”  The revelation has triggered an avalanche of commentary from all conceivable angles, including praise for her courage, criticism of her decision as extreme, and hand-wringing over the costs of the genetic tests and surgeries.  And though one might accuse all of those writers (including me, I’m afraid) of capitalizing on her misfortune to promote their own agendas, none of the comments were quite so nakedly revealing as the avalanche of tweets saying “poor Brad Pitt”, lamenting the demise of her famous “fun bags” or bizarrely declaring that a condition she has had since conception is somehow the karmic result of her being a “home wrecking whore” several decades later.

Revealing, that is, of the common but barbaric belief that women’s bodies are public property.  Few people care what any given individual man, whether private citizen or celebrity, does with his body unless drugs are involved, and even then most of the original prohibitionist rhetoric revolved around the effects of male drug use on women (drinkers failing to support their families, cocaine causing rape, opium linked to Chinese prostitution, etc).  But the dominant cultural narrative is that whatever any given individual woman does with her body is a legitimate public concern, especially when sex is involved.  If Angelina had decided to replace her defective teeth with dentures, I sincerely doubt it would’ve attracted more than a few snide comments about kooky Hollywood types throwing money around; secondary sexual characteristics are, however, quite another thing.  Every personal decision made by any woman, no matter how humble or unknown, is considered a legitimate subject for discussion, regulation and even legislation if it relates, however tenuously, to the issue of sex or reproduction.  Adult human beings with titles and degrees actually stand up in the second decade of the 21st century and insist with straight faces that any individual woman’s pregnancy and birth control choices are matters of Grave Concern to the State, and that her miscarriages and motivations for engaging in sex are subject to criminal investigation and violent suppression.

Slave Market in Rome by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1884)Nor does this have anything to do with “patriarchy” as the feminists like to claim; a great deal of the nosiest, most judgmental and most dangerous obsession about women’s bodies is perpetrated by other women.  The Swedish model of prostitution law, which frames women as eternal adolescents unable to make sexual choices for ourselves, was developed by radical feminists in Sweden and is popular with their sisters around the world; it is currently being pushed in Scotland by MSP Rhoda Grant and in Ireland by a coalition led by the nuns who ran the infamous Magdalene Laundries.  In the United States, the feminist-beloved “Violence Against Women Act” has resulted in increased government control over women’s lives.  In Europe, any kind of media depiction of women is declared to be potentially harmful to us, and UK feminists are at the forefront of the moral panic over “sexualization”, an “ill-defined concept [which] seems to imagine that if it weren’t for equally ill-defined bogeymen like ‘the Media’ and ‘Patriarchy’…we would all grow up in a blissful, chaste state and never, ever, ever be interested in dirty, nasty sex…and that this would be a good thing.”  Anti-sex crusaders even rail against “clothes, cosmetics, diets, gym membership, trips to the hair salon, the waxing salon and the nail salon” as indicators of women’s “self-loathing” and the imaginary “hypersexualization” of modern culture, and blame pop stars’ revealing outfits for “sex trafficking”.

The need to control women’s bodies is rooted in the fact that though many men can die or fail to reproduce without adversely affecting the population, every woman who does so reduces the birth rate.  But humans haven’t been an endangered species for a long time now, and modern nations don’t depend on biological descent from current citizens to keep the taxes flowing into their coffers.  Furthermore, there are a lot of troublesome biological urges we somehow manage to resist enshrining in law; in fact, most laws tend to go in exactly the opposite direction.  It’s long past time for humans, and most especially our governments and other powerful institutions, to stop pretending that the bodies and personal choices of individual women are anybody’s business but their own.

Read Full Post »

Quicker Than the Eye

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2013| 21 Comments »

Now I know that there ARE visible signs of woman’s sexual arousal, even though they are not as visually obvious as male erection.  I’m talking about vaginal secretions, clitoris, nipples hardening, skin reddening, pulse speeding up, contractions during orgasm and so forth… How do you manage those, if “manage” is the right word at all?  Some of the more sensitive men would not be fooled, and would in fact be thwarted by a pretended pleasure while the more subtle signs are not there.  Or is it possible to say that even when acting out you do feel a measure of sexual arousal, but you are just not into it emotionally, and that is what you mean by “concentrating erotic energies”?  Do you ever feel arousal and experience orgasm at all while working?  I’m asking because I’ve read some sex workers testimonies on Reddit, and many do say that they enjoy the sexual experience that they have with clients.  Also, as someone for whom the sexual pleasure of the woman I’m with is very important, I’d like to ask this:  have you encountered clients for whom your arousal and orgasm was important?  Clients that asked to please you and give you orgasm as part of the session?  I, for example, love giving cuni, and love giving orgasms and pleasing, without that the experience for me would be of very little value.  How would you manage that?

super-hearingAlmost none of the signs you mention occur in every woman.  Lubrication, for instance, varies greatly from one woman to another; some flow like a river at the slightest provocation, while I’ve always been a bit on the dry side even when quite aroused.  Nipples don’t always become erect without direct stimulation, and even when they do often lose erection during the plateau stage; the erection of a small, thickly-hooded or recessed clitoris is very difficult to detect without closer inspection than most guys will attempt.  Though more than 50% of women show a sex flush (reddening), that means almost 50% don’t and it’s less pronounced in a colder room (and most clients keep their hotel rooms fairly cold in New Orleans).  I hardly think anyone who isn’t Kryptonian is going to casually notice his companion’s pulse, and speeded-up respiration is easily faked.  But there are the orgasmic contractions…which I learned to fake in my late teens, so well I can fool other women.  So the answer is no, I’ve never encountered any clients I couldn’t fool.  Obviously, some of them must have suspected, but that would be true even if my super-fakery were absolutely indistinguishable without an EEG machine; some men are just going to be suspicious and that’s that.  It may be that most women aren’t as good at faking it as I am, but that’s OK because most men aren’t remotely sensitive enough to tell the difference between a good, professional fake and the real thing.

All that having been said, I did sometimes get excited with clients, and I did sometimes climax.  Being paid for sex is a turn-on for me; usually the effect was subtle, but under the right conditions with the right man it could be quite pronounced, enough to make me more orgasmic than I might otherwise be.  I’m sure the same is true for lots of other sex workers as well, though of course some of them are prone to exaggerate the degree or frequency of arousal for marketing purposes.  I think it’s safe to say, however, that the average escort doesn’t really enjoy the sex with the average client.

The majority of men do want the woman to enjoy the experience, but because most women require more than mere physical stimulation that’s not as straightforward a process for women as for men.  I once explained it this way:

Males are highly achievement-oriented; their self-esteem depends upon being competent, and being perceived as virile and sexually potent is as important to the average man as being perceived as beautiful and desirable is to the average woman…The competitive, result-oriented male mind sees female orgasm as the target, the goal, the finish line of the “game” of sex, so his sexual pleasure is greatly enhanced if he can “score” it.  However…it isn’t that simple.  For many women orgasm is more like hunting than it is like football; it’s not just a matter of aiming a shot with proper force and accuracy into a static area, but rather of hitting a moving target which may or may not elect to show itself on that occasion…And that’s only speaking of lovers; with clients orgasm is even more elusive, and indeed for some girls never shows its face in a commercial situation at all.  But this typical female condition is completely alien to the average man; he just can’t comprehend that the right combination of moves and techniques could through no fault of his own somehow fail to achieve what it was intended to achieve…

There’s another factor to that as well.  Remember, the man chooses the escort, not vice-versa; furthermore, the session must revolve around what will please him…which is not necessarily what will please her.  Cunnilingus is a perfect example; in common with many men you love giving it, and in common with more women than you probably think (especially among escorts) I don’t like it very much.  Some women, in fact, hate it with a purple passion.  So, what’s an escort who’s there to provide a good time supposed to do when a guy says he loves it?  Tell him the truth if she hates it?  Of course not; it would ruin the whole experience for him.  As a rule, whores can’t stand it when clients keep harping on the “I want to please you” thing, because it can make it a lot harder for us to do our jobs.  What if she’s a size queen and he’s average?  What if she likes being pounded very hard and he’s too overweight or short-winded to accomplish that?  What if she’s kind of submissive and a man refusing to lead is actually a turn-off?  What if she’s primarily lesbian?  What if she’s just anorgasmic and isn’t going to climax no matter what he does?

Penn and TellerA sex worker is a kind of entertainer; she is there to provide a kind of interactive show for you.  It is, ultimately, an illusion; it no more matters how she “really” feels, or what she “really” likes, or whether she is “really” excited, than it matters that Penn and Teller aren’t “really” making things vanish or appear or transmogrify into something else.  That analogy is useful in another way as well:  Obsessively concentrating on minor physiological cues of arousal and worrying that you aren’t truly pleasing your hooker is like going to a magician’s show and concentrating so much on “catching” the trickery that you can’t enjoy the performance you paid top dollar for.  Just sit back, relax, and let your entertainer entertain you…and if you can’t, I respectfully suggest that this particular art may simply not be to your liking.

(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.)

Read Full Post »

Links #154

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2013| 9 Comments »

Senate employees and contractors who believe they may have inadvertently accessed or downloaded classified information via non-classified Senate systems, should contact the Office of Senate Security for assistance.  –  Senate Security Office memo, June 7th, 2013

A busy week this time around, both in links and in my life; I’m striving diligently to get ahead because I’ll be only able to do minimal work for the first three weeks of July.  And on top of everything else, I discovered this little surprise in my truck last Saturday, which as you can imagine has required me checking on them at least three or four times a day.  Anyhow, our top contributor this week was Radley Balko, with the first six links and the first video below them; keep in mind this exercise in “fun with fascism” portrays cops, not soldiers.  The second video (an honest campaign ad) is from Kevin Wilson (who also provided “crazy ants” and “drugstore”), and the others between the videos were supplied by Cheryl Overs (“ERB”), my cat (“griffins”), Jesse Walker (“surprises”), Gideon  (“never call cops”), Krulac (“workers’ paradise”), Lenore Skenazy (“truancy”), and Glenn Greenwald (“NSA”).

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

Links #145

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2013| 10 Comments »

Every officer that signed off on this “no evidence” conclusion should be guarding the entrance to a petting zoo for the remainder of their careers.  –  Anonymous

The big news this week was the death of Margaret Thatcher, and I seem to be one of the few people on the internet who does not have some strong opinion about her one way or the other (she was a politician; ’nuff said).  But whether you loved her or hated her, you will probably enjoy the sight of a prime minister quoting Monty Python in today’s first video from Mike Siegel  (who also provided “nukes” and “cosplay”).  The second video is my all-time favorite comic strip imagined as a “dark, gritty” movie as per current fashion; it and all the links down to the first video were supplied by Radley Balko.  Other links between the videos were contributed by Jesse Walker (“new sun”), Luscious Lani (“girl and cat”), Mistress Matisse (“Anonymous”), and Kevin Wilson (“honest fat”).

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

Links #141

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 17, 2013| 4 Comments »

I don’t call him my boyfriend.  He’s more a good spirit friend who happens to be from the octopus race.  –  Stephany Fay Cohen

Sometimes it becomes obvious early in the week who’s going to be the lead contributor, but other times it’s close up until posting time.  And once in a while I have actually collected the leader’s links at the top of the draft, only to have him fall behind in the end.  That’s what happened this week; Jesse Walker only surpassed Radley Balko on Friday afternoon, and then by only one link.  All of the links down to the first video are Jesse’s, as is the last part of “welcome to our world”; the first two parts were contributed by Marginal Utilite and Mike Siegel respectively, and the first three links after it are Radley’s.  Both videos were supplied by Grace; the first one features her kind of guy (her own inventions aren’t quite that Goldbergian), and the second is a primer on a  Supreme Court case I’ve mentioned before.  “Warrant” and “judicial overreach” were provided by Gideon’s Trumpet, “unnecessary quotes” by Popehat, “new teeth” by Luscious Lani, “penis thieves” by Michael Whiteacre and “errant shooting” by Aspasia.  This week we’ve also got an unusually-high number of articles by link contributors, as the bylines will show.

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#138)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 23, 2013| 25 Comments »

It’s…extremely patronizing…to say someone’s conscious choice of work is degrading.  –  Jon Millward

Eric Jason CampbellLicense To Rape

A [Mt. Pleasant] Texas police officer pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14-years-old…Eric Jason Campbell, 41, has been sentenced to 50 years in prison.  He will also be required to register as a sex offender when he is released…

Saving Them From Themselves

A Massachusetts DA helpfully explains why it’s a good thing his office persecutes teenagers for “sexting”:

…”We do not have any exceptions…for kids who are really in love, for girls who wanted to do it and for guys who promised they wouldn’t share it…” [Robert] Kinzer said.  “A nude photo of [a minor’s] exposed genitalia is child pornography…When they start sharing photos like this, we are going to start charging people with the manufacturing, dissemination and possession of child pornography, and they’re going to…face [prosecution]…You’re going to lose jobs and relationships, and you’ll spend the rest of your life as a registered sex offender”…

Tyranny By Consensus

Since LA County officials have not leaped at the opportunity to waste millions of dollars policing porn shoots to enforce his private condom crusade, Michael Weinstein is now trying to force the city to establish its own redundant health department, which Weinstein presumably believes would be more easily pressured into dancing to his tune:

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation announced…a new ballot measure …[for] an all-new City of L.A. Public Health Department…AHF has urged Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County’s Public Health director, to shut down non-condom porn shoots…[but] Fielding…hasn’t…despite AHF-led letter and phone campaigns.  And it is well known that officials at the county Public Health Department are opposed to their agency enforcing Measure B…

Big Sister

In this column I wrote, “Prostitution and stripping are already illegal, and it seems that porn will be next, followed by censorship of print media and the internet.”  Yes, I do get tired of being right all the time:

The government is considering…internet filters, such as those used to block China off…to stop Icelanders downloading or viewing pornography on the internet…Ogmundur Jonasson, Iceland’s interior minister, is drafting legislation to stop the access of online pornographic images and videos…”violent pornography…has…very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime,” he said.

In reality, the evidence suggests exactly the opposite, but since Iceland already has the highest rape rate in Europe I guess they figure a few more raped women are just extra eggs for the totalitarian neofeminist omelette.Sex at Dawn  The story quotes the ubiquitous Gail Dines, who also used the occasion to get her name in print in the UK as well.

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received a copy of Sex at Dawn  (which people have been trying to get me to read for years) from Eddie JC.  Thank you, Eddie!

That’s the Ticket!

One would think that the Comic Relief organization could tell the difference between actual statistics and the absurd claims of a “pathological liar” comedy routine, but apparently not:  “75% of women working in prostitution started before they were 18, and most of them feel trapped and would leave if only they could find a way.  The UK is a major destination country for trafficked young people…”

The Course of a Disease

“…Dublin City Council…rejected calls to support the Turn Off The Red-light campaign.  Amendments passed removed the proposal to criminalise the purchase of sex, and changed the report on Swedish evidence to hearsay.”  The national crusade still rolls on, but this local rejection of the Swedish rot shows that not everyone in Ireland is asleep at the wheel.

FarmVille

…On March 4, a new game on Facebook, inspired by the book Half the Sky…will be introduced, with a focus on raising awareness of issues like female genital mutilation and child prostitution…The central character, an Indian woman named Radhika, faces various challenges with the assistance of players, who can help out with donations of virtual goods, for example.  The players can then make equivalent real-world donations to seven nonprofit organizations woven into the game…As her empowerment grows, Radhika moves across the globe to Kenya, Vietnam and Afghanistan…Players who reach the final level learn about sex trafficking in the United States and can donate to an organization in New York called GEMS…

Because it’s really important to simplify complex issues and make them fun so that wise, benevolent white people will be tempted to manage the lives of helpless, childlike brown ones.

Little Boxes

A bill that could send women to prison for going topless in public appears set for approval by the North Carolina legislature…[it] would amend the state’s indecent exposure law to expand the legal definition of “private parts” to…include “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, [of] the female breast.”  Depending on whether such exposure is judged to be “for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire,” the woman could be charged with a felony, punishable by up to six months in prison…More mundane exposure would be a misdemeanor, meriting up to 30 days in jail.  “Incidental” exposure by breastfeeding mothers would remain exempt…Rayne Brown…[said] her constituents are concerned about topless rallies promoting women’s equality…

Shift in the Wind

Another fun promotional video from the Sex Worker Freedom Festival last July:

Childish Things (TW3 #33)

Dr. Paul Maginn has published another appeal for sanity, stating that “various parts of the world appear to be suffering from a mix of moral panic and ideological myopia” on the issue of sex work.  Though brief, the article debunks lies about “sex trafficking”, “dirty whores”, “end demand” and “negative secondary effects”, and includes quotes from Drs. Laura Agustín and Brooke Magnanti.

Obfuscation Via Dysphemisms

Oklahoma “authorities” seem even more enchanted with the notion of “human trafficking” than most Americans:

…Clarence F. Holden, 25, of Fort Smith [Arkansas] faces felony counts of human trafficking and procuring for prostitution…Officers arrested Holden and two other people…after the Vice Unit responded to an Internet post…for “a massage with a ‘happy ending’ ” for $150…Destiny Hope Niles, 24, also of Fort Smith – told police Holden keeps her money, car keys and credit card and threatened her physically…

Consider that even though this sort of petty manipulation is what passes for “trafficking” to American cops, they still can’t come up with anything like the hysterical claims.

The Public Eye

just like Mommy“4 Things You Should Know About Women Who Strip” by Jennifer Ward doesn’t break any new ground for readers of this blog, but as far as I’m concerned we can’t have enough articles explaining that sex workers and our clients are “a lot more diverse than people assume them to be.”  In the same vein, three porn actors answered questions at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri:  “Lance Hart…Tori Black and James Deen answered questions as a part of a Sex Week panel event…the purpose of the panel was to foster dialogue about aspects of the porn industry that are not typically discussed, such as sexual health…”

Something Rotten in Sweden (TW3 #44)

Though this article perpetuates the increasingly-common lie that the Swedish model is “decriminalization”, it at least tells the truth about the damage to sex workers caused by “end demand” campaigns:

…the “End Demand Illinois” campaign…asks that johns…become the law’s targets…[and] is working to make johns, pimps and traffickers more accountable, but it’s also sought to…stop treating prostitution as a felony.  Right now, if a sex worker is hit with two misdemeanor charges related to prostitution in Illinois, the second charge is upgraded to a felony…Last fall The Chicago Reporter…found that prostitution-related felonies are being levied almost exclusively against sex workers…Rachel Lovell, a researcher at Case Western University…co-authored a paper that criticized End Demand Illinois.  It argued that stiffer penalties against johns actually end up hurting female sex workers.  “The philosophy and the overarching theme of the End Demand movement is that all women in prostitution are victims,” Lovell said…it’s important to distinguish between the different ways one can be a sex worker…“To say if we increase penalties for men they will just stop buying…[is] too simplistic…”

All the Difference

Indian sex workers have powerfully resisted “sex trafficking” hysteria, and have convinced many “authorities” that they are not passive victims.  Unfortunately, the rescue industry will lose money and power if it has nobody to “rescue”, and so has increasingly turned its attentions toward abducting sex workers’ children, defending the practice with propaganda films:

…Not Today…[is] a feature-length film that sheds light on the modern-day sex trafficking industry that consumes the Dalit class in India…”The world needs to understand that slavery still exists, that even today young children are bought and sold like cattle, that little girls are forced into the dark illicit sex trade, that young boys and girls are coerced to beg in the streets and bring their proceeds back to line the pockets of thugs who abuse them at night,” said the film’s executive producer, Matthew Cork…

Deep Inside infographicDrama Queens (TW3 #48)

Though I’d love to see a methodologically-sound study of 10,000 whores, 10,000 porn actors is a good start.  Click on the picture (and again to enlarge), then read Jon Millward’s article and Brooke Magnanti’s interview with him.

Get Out of the 19th Century Often? (TW3 #136)

A proposed prostitution ban met with opposition at an Atlanta City Council work session…Community leaders, church pastors and advocates against sex trafficking said the ban was harshly targeting victims of the sex trade…Chad Brock of the ACLU said they might consider challenging the ordinance if it becomes law…”Instead of pairing you up with the social services you need, they’re telling you to go away,” Brock said. “We don’t believe that’s going to help any sex worker rehabilitating themselves”…

Unclean Situation

As expected, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has issued a less mealy-mouthed follow-up to his previous pseudo-apology to the victims of the Magdalene laundries, but as blogger Bock the Robber asked,

Where is the apology from the nuns who ran these slave labour camps?  Where is the apology from the NSPCC (now the ISPCC), employers of the feared and unsupervised cruelty men who consigned so many children and young women to this slavery…Where is the apology from the Legion of Mary, whose members…[facilitated] the incarceration of people they disapproved of?  Where is the apology from the Roman Catholic church on behalf of all those parish priests who ripped children from the heart of their families because of some warped and perverted view of sexuality?…What an extraordinary society it was that deputised an assortment of self-serving busybodies…and continues to give…such power to clerics and self-appointed meddlers…

On the same day, the Telegraph carried a moving article by Samantha Long about her birth-mother, who was an inmate of one of the laundries.

Skin To Skin

This article about sex work with the disabled covers some good ground, but unfortunately also gives a platform to those who think real people’s needs should be subordinate to “messages” and sacrificed to the impossible quest for an unreachable Utopia:

…The sexual needs of people with disabilities are under the spotlight like never before after the release of…The Sessions…last month, ex-staff from a care home…[said] they had allowed sex workers into the home at the request of disabled residents…and…Becky Adams…plans to open the first brothel…for disabled clients in the UK…[but others see] the use of sex workers as a potentially harmful development.  “It’s like the world telling you that disabled people are so unsexy that the only way they can have sex is to pay for it…What disabled people need is full and equal rights. An inclusive society, which doesn’t create barriers”…

Caring Professionals

On the same day my column appeared, Robin Hustle published the similarly-themed (though broader) “What Prostitutes, Nurses and Nannies Have in Common”.  The Jezebel commentariat is predictably split between the narcissistic, the wholly clueless, and nurses who are Terribly OffendedTM at being compared to whores.

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#38)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2012| 31 Comments »

Beware of billionaires who want to save your life.  –  Mark Leno

Modern Marriage

Brooke Magnanti on Catherine Hakim’s new book:

…people are still marrying, still making that leap into the conceptual and statistical improbability of ’til death do us part.  And where does that leave affairs, clients of sex workers, enjoyers of porn and the rest of us?…When many couples choose to remain childless, or have no familial wealth to pass on, why are we still doing this, anyway?  Those questions and a lot more are what drives the narrative of…The New Rules: Internet Dating, Playfairs, and Erotic Power.  In it, [Catherine Hakim]…calmly dissects the differences between the cultures where it’s okay to throw a strop at the first sign of relationships going off piste, and those where adultery is not only usual but expected…

Aversions

In a way, this is one of those “dog bites man” things, unless I’m the only one who’s ever noticed that most women are more sexually open when they’re very turned on:

…A small Dutch study…indicate[s] that arousal overrides feelings of disgust and facilitates a woman’s desire to do something that a woman who is not aroused might find flat-out repulsive…Daniel R. Kelly, an associate professor of philosophy at Purdue…explained that disgust is an “extension of our immune system” that helps prevent people from getting infected by making them wary of things, like bodily fluids, that…make people vulnerable…David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas…[said] “Women show far more disgust and especially sexual disgust, than men…It helps to protect women from having sex with the wrong men, such as men who might communicate diseases…show signs of a high ‘parasite load’…have poor hygiene and so on,” he said.  What is interesting about the new Dutch paper, the two experts agreed, is that it suggests the mission to avoid the potentially “dangerous” parts of sex takes a backseat when women are aroused…

Who Did Your Tits?

Color me unsurprised:  “Letting women ‘test drive’ larger breasts before a boob job…[by] wearing a heavily padded bra for two weeks while doing ordinary tasks…[has led to them picking] 30 per cent larger [implants] than they first planned – at least one additional cup size.”  Despite claims from insecure women that they hate having big tits, the fact is that many women wish they had gone bigger, and most do so if the implants need to be replaced.

My Readers Write

This could be considered an update to “Welcome To Our World”, “Neither Cold nor Hot” or the “All in the Family” update in last week’s TW3, but the fact that it was written by regular reader Aspasia (in her own blog) trumps all that:

Jezebel ran two articles…that…highlight the hypocrisy of much of their readership…The first…“How to Tell Your Parents You’re A Prostitute”…[is followed by a] comment thread…rife with the moralizing pearl-clutching of feminists who claim to be supportive of women’s choices…Three days later, came [another] article…[which] criticizes certain choices made by women…and…[was] roundly condemned in the…comment thread…but…[the second author]…merely [did] what the average Jezebel reader does whenever sex workers…are discussed:  stripped a whole group of women of their autonomy, projected her own standards onto them, and criticized their choices…

Uncommon Sense

Prostitutes in…Geneva have formed [Switzerland’s] first sex workers’ union, citing foreign competition and the high cost of rent…[it will be] called…the Sex Workers’ Syndicate [and]…aims to operate alongside the organisation Aspasie, which has advocated for prostitutes in Geneva since 1982.  Aspasie primarily concerns itself with the health and well-being of sex workers, while STTS was mainly founded to address prostitutes’ financial concerns and working conditions…

I reckon that’s good news, though I’m a bit wary of the protectionism implied in that first line; if foreign women are excluded, it could potentially create a  bottleneck.  Of course, the government is working on one of its own:

Switzerland has long been criticised by the international community for allowing prostitution by teens as young as 16.  The government has proposed changes to the criminal code which would make it a crime to hire or sell the services of a prostitute who is younger than 18…[due to] a Council of Europe convention it signed in 2010…young sex workers would not be prosecuted for their actions – only those who seek or sell their services would be held responsible…

The age of consent in Switzerland is 16, but once again we see the magical thinking that money somehow taints sex and the complete lack of consideration about what will happen to those girls once their agency is denied and their once-legal trade is semi-criminalized.

We Told You So

More of this, please:

[A Philippine “anti-trafficking” NGO named] the Visayan Forum Foundation (VF) [has been] accused of fraud by…USAID…At least…$5 million…meant to fund the group’s projects…[is] missing…the warrant that led to the search…said…the foundation…may be in possession or control of “falsified private documents which were used and are being used to defraud…donors”…

Scapegoats

“…Carlos Romero…was arrested…and charged with misdemeanor sexual activity with an animal, by officials in Ocala, Fla., but believes the real outrage is that the Sunshine State is ‘backwards’ towards zoophilia…The victimized animal is a 21-month-old miniature donkey named Doodle he purchased two months ago…”  Whatever you may think of Romero’s preferences, ascribing human sexual hang-ups to a donkey in heat is beyond absurd.

The Last Shall Be First

It’s good to see bigots like this criticized by peers and spotlighted by the media:

An Oklahoma County judge is refusing to let men planning sex-change operations switch to feminine names.  District Judge Bill Graves has denied name changes in two such cases so far…[ruling] both times the requests were made for a fraudulent purpose…His position…has generated criticism of him at the courthouse.  Five other Oklahoma County judges who handle name change requests…routinely grant them in transgender cases.

His reason for this prejudice?  Science!

Graves…has concluded a person cannot really change…sex because the person’s DNA stays the same…“A so-called sex-change surgery can make one appear to be the opposite sex, but in fact they are nothing more than an imitation…petitioner has not even had the surgery…To grant a name change in this case would be to assist that which is fraudulent…Genesis 1:27-28 states: ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.  And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth …’  The DNA code shows God meant for them to stay male and female.”

You can always tell a legitimate scientific argument by its quotation of Genesis.

Above the Law

As long as bureaucrats have excessive power over individuals, this will keep happening:

[An]…investigator with Florida’s Department of Children and Families has been arrested for “bribery by a public servant, official misconduct, and falsifying records” after he told a woman under his supervision that he would hide the results of her drug-positive urine test if she would have sex with him.  When [she] refused…Andrew Thomas threatened to report her to her probation officer…[he] is the third Florida DCF employee to be charged this year with a sex-related crime.  In August…Peter Crane…was charged with…molesting two five-year-old girls.  In June…Jean Lacroix…was charged with having sex with a teen who was part of a prostitution ring composed exclusively of foster children…

Naked Truth

Fortunately, most of the journalists who contact me are looking for informed commentary on issues rather than a sex-work story they can twist to fit their own agenda, but Charlotte Shane does an excellent job of skewering the twits who pester non-activist sex workers to “get their real stories”.  If you’re not a journalist or academic you’ll enjoy reading this, but if you are either of those you need to read it.

Worse Than I Thought

California’s “Proposition 35” defines virtually all normal sex as “prostitution” and a lot of normal behavior as “coercion”, lists anyone who has anything at all to do with “coerced prostitution” as a “sex trafficker”, and condemns individuals so labeled to decades of prison, lifetime “sex offender” registration and theft of all their property by the state.  It’s so awful, in fact, that even bona fide coerced prostitutes are against it:  “Anabelle sees herself as a victim of sex trafficking. Stories like hers are driving Proposition 35…But Anabelle isn’t supporting [it]…and her arguments — and those of sex workers and their supporters — paint a very different picture of a law that could hurt the people it’s supposed to protect.”  And if that article’s not enough to convince you, how about this slide show?

Metaupdates

Follow Your Bliss
in TW3 (#16)

Another pervert claims to “help” teenage runaways so he can help himself to their sexual favors:

The founder of [a charity for homeless youth named “Stand Up For Kids”] has been charged with repeatedly sexually assaulting a child over a three year period.  Richard Koca, Sr., 69…faces seven felony charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust…The charges…were…sealed…by court order…after KMGH’s report…investigators are preparing for the possibility that more potential victims could come forwarding the case…the organization’s website was no longer accessible online today, and calls to the headquarters went unreturned…

The Pro-Rape Coalition in TW3 (#30)

Sex work-positive journalist Susannah Breslin interviews two porn producers (one of them Ira Isaacs), two actresses and a lawyer about the potential effects of the ramped-up porn prosecutions promised by Mitt Romney should he be the winner of the quadrennial popularity contest.

Feminine Pragmatism in TW3 (#32)

No matter how carefully and thoroughly I scan for items of interest, a few things always slip through the cracks.  While reading about Nadya Suleman using the money from her porn flick to lease a new house, I encountered the sentence “She spent the summer begging for money from fans and offering dates for cash.”  Wait, what?  Sure enough; the linked article is from August 6th:

…Nadya Suleman…has opened a profile on the dating website  WhatsYourPrice.com, TMZ reports…Although some would consider Suleman’s latest venture a dip into the prostitution pool, Gawker’s Louis Peitzman outlines, “yes, there’s something a little sketchy about selling yourself online, but it’s not prostitution unless they’re paying for sex…”

You’ve got to laugh at the moronic mental gymnastics with which some people justify their childish attempts to draw sharp, static lines between complex, fluid behaviors.  Octomom’s done stripping, porn and sugar baby work, but she’s not a whore, noooooo.  And neither is she a pathetic victim like the rest of us “prostituted women”; according to the house-leasing article,

“It has been the most empowering, liberating thing I have ever done,” Suleman told…Dr. Drew about doing porn.  “There is nothing I won’t do to take care of my family…I had full control and power over my choice.  I take full accountability and I’m proud of it.”

So there you are, ladies; in order for your equally-pragmatic choices to be considered valid, you first have to have 14 fatherless kids you can’t support.

This Week in 2011

A two-part guest column from veteran sex worker rights activist Norma Jean Almodovar was followed by criticisms of people who ask questions but refuse to accept the answers and sex workers who waste energy in internecine squabbles.  “Uncommon Sense” (linked above) was then followed by a look at clueless neofeminist whining and a tale of the Ouled Nail.

This Week in 2010

The week began with my three-part column on the intersection of BDSM and whoring, which was followed by columns on why many escorts shun black clients and the physiological differences between genetic women and post-op transsexuals.  I also told the sad story of an escort I called “April” and published my very first (two-part) Q & A column.

Read Full Post »

Bride of the Agitator

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 22, 2012| 43 Comments »

There’s a broad gulf between what should happen and what does happen in the criminal justice system.  –  Ken White

As you know if you’ve been reading for the last two Sundays, Radley Balko is taking a sabbatical from his blog, The Agitator, to write a book entitled Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.  In the meantime he’s asked Ken and Patrick of Popehat, Baylen Linnekin of Keep Food Legal, Drew Johnson of the Chattanooga Free Press and a certain harlot to fill in for him, and every Sunday I’ll catch you up on what went on there during the week.  This is not to say Radley doesn’t ever look up from his grindstone; he still takes breaks to check Twitter (thus supplying me with some of the links I post in my guest columns), to make short posts (such as this video clip in which Sheriff Andy Taylor explains the 4th amendment to Opie), or to appear on Stossel.  One of those quickie posts was a comparison of two recruiting videos for two police departments which couldn’t be more different; the absurd video from Newport Beach, California (which made police work look like an action movie) went viral as a result of his posting it …and if he can do that with something he just slapped together in his spare time, just imagine what he can do when he tries (as with this post on how police fatalities have dropped while police murders of citizens have risen sharply).

Due to a few vacations and other prior commitments some of my fellow guest bloggers were a bit quieter this week than last; Ken posted “In Which You Discover Only What The State Thinks You Should”, explaining why the ACLU is suing the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office over a “special directive” ordering prosecutors to violate the United States Constitution by hiding exculpatory evidence from criminal defendants.  Patrick posted a links column, several music videos, a mock obituary of the fictional detective Encyclopedia Brown  (in observance of the death of his creator, Donald J. Sobol), and a wickedly Swiftian satire on the tendency of politicians and the media to blame senseless murders on elements of the shooter’s background that have absolutely nothing to do with his homicidal tendencies.  Drew posted a links page, a story about rescuing a bunny, and a strong criticism of racists in Tennessee who are angry because their governor appointed a Muslim woman as director of the state’s export bureau.

My contributions for the week started with “Range of Experience”, an argument that there is no such thing as a “typical whore” (supported by links to all of my harlotographies).  On Wednesday I cross-posted “Pull the String”, on Friday I featured a video of “Killer Queen” and today I shared pictures of my dog Lady.  Finally, here are the links I posted this week:

The next three came via Jesse Walker:

This one came from Grace:

The rest came from all sorts of places:

Read Full Post »

That Was the Week That Was (#24)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 16, 2012| 32 Comments »

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

Eleven updates and four meta-updates.

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

Happy 50th birthday, silicone implant!:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surplus Women (September 27th, 2011)

Yet another maniac chooses his victims from among sex workers:

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

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

See No Evil (November 26th, 2011)

Res ipsa loquitur:

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

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

Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4th, 2011)

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

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

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

Above the Law (March 8th, 2012)

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

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

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

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

The Naked Emperor (May 15th, 2012)

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

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

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

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

I really wish politicians would stop proving me right:

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

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

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

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

Metaupdates

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

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

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

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

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

Another example of sex workers fighting oppression via civil courts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Year Ago Today

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

Read Full Post »

Why is Sex Such a Taboo?

Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2012| 71 Comments »

Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition, and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miraculous, in a constant revelation of their wonder-working power.  They both are surrounded by taboos and observances which mark off their acts from those of the profane world.  –  Bronislaw Malinowski

One year ago today I published “February Q & A”, in which I answer the questions, “Do you know an escort who works in my city?”, “Would you please give us a few pointers on how to perform oral sex on a man?” and “Why do so many more escorts kiss nowadays?”  But every so often I get a single (complex) question whose answer is enough for a whole column; this is one of them.

Why is sex such a taboo in human culture and civilization?  I am in my 20s and I find that the cultural conditioning is not allowing the natural sex urge to express itself naturally.  Which social, economic and political factors are responsible for such a situation?  The expression of sex urge has become more artificial in modern society.  How much role does pornography play in making sex experience artificial?  Do you think marriage is necessary in our modern society?

I suspect the sexual taboo derives from two different but related factors.  First, consider birth; once our ancestors recognized the link between sex and babies they (understandably) developed a sense of awe about it.  To them, it was magic (which in the end really just means “anything we don’t understand”), so they devised rules and ceremonies around it (such as marriage and sacred prostitution).  And once religion and law get into the act, everything becomes more complicated and artificial.  The development of the concepts of private property and the ability to organize society on a larger level than the tribe allowed the growth of cities and nations and the appearance of social classes, and heredity became important; since it was the responsibility of each family to care for its old, children became vital not merely as heirs but as caregivers in old age.  Thus taboos developed around the generative organs, from which descendants sprang; if an enemy or evil spirit wished to harm one, causing his genitals to malfunction via magic could be an effective way.  The ancients believed that words (especially names) had magical power, so people became reluctant to speak aloud of the genitals or sex acts, and it became more important to hide the organs and behaviors from sight and to describe them with euphemisms.  In women, the mammae were sometimes hidden as well since they produce milk without which babies die.

Once such trends start, they continue by themselves even after people have forgotten the reasons they began in the first place.  The modern welfare/police states have managed to turn children into a liability rather than an asset and birth control has made it possible to avoid them, yet we still pretend that every sex act is a magical ritual which may produce the most valuable of resources.  We no longer believe that words have magical power, so we instead ascribe pseudoscientific explanations to the imagined “harm” they can cause and continue to legislate against them.  And we cloak taboos against nudity with meaningless words like “decency” and pretend that for a woman to undress in front of strange men will somehow cause harm to society as a whole.

The increasingly-artificial expression of sex has nothing to do with porn (which has existed since man discovered art and language) and everything to do with burgeoning legal penalties for those who express sexual urges in anything resembling a natural fashion.  Religious fundamentalists use the old excuses, neofeminists use new ones equally unfounded in reality, and governments seize upon any excuse whatsoever to harass, impoverish and imprison citizens.  We’ve added new crimes to the old, and devised ever-more-fiendish punishments like “sex offender registration” for those who sin against the Holy Ritual of Sex; we’ve added an entirely new field of civil law in which individual women (no matter how warped or unrepresentative their views) are the sole arbiters of acceptable male sexual behavior; and in many cases we have elevated these previously-unprecedented civil torts into criminal law.  People (especially men) are therefore increasingly wary of stepping into any of the arbitrary, subjective and often-invisible snares governments have designed to entrap them, and now have to consider any interaction with others (even their own children) as a soldier considers crossing a minefield; any misstep could result in swift and total disaster.  Is it any wonder modern sex is artificial?

Finally, marriage.  Though I’m a strong believer in traditional marriage, I think it’s like the riding of horses:  a novel curiosity accessible only to the very few.  And for nations to expend the time, money and effort they do on its continuance is equivalent to mandating horse lanes on motorways.  It is an anachronism, and needs to be abolished; simply put, government needs to get out of the marriage game entirely except in its role as the adjudicator of private contracts.  All marriages should be contracts written and freely entered by citizens of legal age, the number, sex and conditions of which are determined by nobody other than the participants.  The function of the registrar would merely be to inspect the contract to ensure it contained all the necessary provisions (such as child custody and alimony/support) and no illegal ones.  If such a contract were broken, the injured party could sue in civil court just as he could if any other contract were breached.  There would be no such thing as “family law” or “divorce court”, which would remove the unfairness inherent in the current system and make it difficult for either party to use his or her natural advantages (money, sex or children) as a crowbar with which to leverage a lopsided deal into which no sane person would enter without compulsion.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »