Too Close To Home | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘Too Close To Home’

In the News (#701)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Backpage, California, censorship, Check Your Premises, cops, Do As I Say, end demand, Europe, Facebook, Florida, Google, hysteria, illegal aliens, Imagination Pinned Down, internet, Ireland, law, Louisiana, Madonna/whore, Oregon, politicians, Power Play, prisons, Profit from Panic, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, rescue industry, Soap Opera, Swedish model, The Mote and the Beam, The Naked Anthropologist, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Traffic Circle, Twitter, Washington (state), Whores and Wives, With Friends Like These on January 4, 2017| 3 Comments »

Sex workers are literally dying because of [brothelkeeping] law.
– Wendy Lyon

Whores and Wives

Let’s hope this means Snopes will start doing more to debunk “sex trafficking” lies:

Snopes.com’s founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce. He has since remarried, to a former escort and porn actress who is one of the site’s staff members. They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of “embezzlement” and suggesting he is attempting a “boondoggle” to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Could this bootlicking be any more pompous?

Like many other law enforcement agencies throughout Southern California, Long Beach police have turned their attention to eliminating the scourge of human trafficking…The department formed a task force and vowed to arrest people who profited from and exploited the sex trade…[except] when one of their own officers was accused of trying to exploit the illicit sex trade the department wants to stamp out…William Scott Holder…was arrested last year in a…sting in Corona…[but] remains employed by the department…

Check Your Premises

Remember that these statements are being made by supposedly rational adults who have the power to inflict violence on others at will:

[A confused & self-contradictory propaganda] notice from the Malheur County (Ore.) Sheriff’s Office didn’t [make much sense]…“Victims of sex trafficking and prostitution are forced, coerced and manipulated into this lifestyle against their will…prostitutes…still may be charged no matter what…Because if you don’t charge them, then there’s no incentive to change…we don’t throw them out to the same manager, or pimp, if you will…Most often, they won’t [pretend the cop narrative is true], so you do everything you can to [force] them…to [pretend] that they were or are victims”…[cops pretended that] the 11 men charged with commercial sexual solicitation…responded to decoy ads police placed on “known sex trafficking websites” [even though there is no such thing]…

Profit from Panic

Three quarters of a million no-strings dollars to spread propaganda & infantilize women:

The Catholic Charities, Diocese of Venice, was awarded a three-year, $750,000 grant…from the U.S. Department of Justice…The charity’s victim assistance program partners directly with local law enforcement to help human trafficking victims become more independent…”We help them go from not being able to tie their shoes to being independent and able to sustain themselves,” [chief propagandist Chuck] Anderson said…Typical signs that someone may be a victim include signs of physical abuse, tattoos or brand marks, especially ones that say “property of,” and possessing large amounts of cash…

Wait, large amounts of cash? I though the “pimps” took every penny? I guess people who can’t tie their shoes can’t count, either.

Imagination Pinned Down

Another example of how people’s memories can be rewritten by others:

…[many people]…recall…a movie called Shazaam…in the early Nineties …the movie starred the American stand-up comedian Sinbad…as an incompetent genie who granted wishes to two young children…[some claim] detailed scene-by-scene recollections of the film…hundreds of Redditors…have used the popular social news site to discuss their memories of Shazaam. Together they have scoured the internet to find evidence that the movie existed but each has repeatedly come up empty-handed. Sinbad himself has even taken to Twitter to deny that he ever played such a role…It all began in 2009 [when] an anonymous individual took to…Yahoo! Answers to pose its users a simple question. “Do you remember that…movie in the early 90s where sinbad the…comedian played a genie?”…it took another two years for somebody else to ask about it again online…last year…things took [off on Reddit]…In 1996, the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal played a genie who helped a young boy find his estranged father in a commercially unsuccessful film…[named] Kazaam…

The Naked Anthropologist

Dr. Laura Agustín is back with a novel dramatizing the problems faced by migrants:

European borders are the gates of Hell, lurked over by hounds of police and organized crime…illegal migrants and smugglers are outsiders doing whatever it takes to make good, often by selling sex…In the realm of undocumented migration, knuckling under to thugs can be the sensible alternative to drowning at sea, and putting up with rotten jobs preferable to pointless lives back home…The Three-Headed Dog is international mystery in a downward-spiralling scenario for human mobility…

With Friends Like These…

You might be forgiven for thinking that an article which starts out like this would be pro-decriminalization:

Jamie Rosseland…remembers the day her mugshot and charge were published in a Jacksonville newsletter [ironically] called the Victim’s Advocate as part of a column called “Shame, Shame, Shame”…those publications fuel a stigma against women who are arrested for prostitution…

Unfortunately, you’d be wrong; the rest is a typical “whores are mindless victims” mess which quotes (among others) arch-prohibitionist Pete Holmes, the Seattle city attorney paid to lap up Swanee Hunt’s “end demand” vomit and puke it out again all over reporters.

The Mote and the Beam (#332)

Once the courts waver in slapping down attempts to destroy legal protections, it won’t be long before the vultures start circling:

The families of three fatally shot victims [from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando]…filed a lawsuit against Google, Twitter and Facebook…[pretending] the tech companies provided “material support” for the radicalization of Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired shooter Omar Mateen…The suit [pretends]…all three tech giants…”knowingly and recklessly” [chose not to censor]…accounts associated [by unnamed “authorities”] with ISIS…and allowed the extremist group “to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds, and attracting new recruits”…

The most dangerous part of the suit is that Mateen, an adult, was magically “radicalized” against his will by these mind-control messages; i.e., they paint a disturbed murderer as the passive victim of hypnotic rays beamed through the internet. Sound familiar? This is what happens when you allow a precedent to be established that people are passive victims of anyone who can be “othered”, especially when the so-called villains are multi-billion dollar corporations who may be bullied into paying up because it’s cheaper in the long run than fighting these nuisance suits.

Soap Opera (#520)

Just when you thought the “anti-pimp personal hygiene products” trope couldn’t get any stupider:

…America and Penelope, “The CyberCode Twins,” are developing Beacon of Hope…once activated, [it] can give authorities real-time updates on victims’ whereabouts. The trackers are embedded into tampons and pads, which would be available from dispensers at highway rest stops, gas stations and casinos. At the press of a button, a woman in trouble could get a tracker tampon and carry it in her purse or pocket…Beacon of Hope is part of a larger movement to show how tech can be used more broadly to combat…human trafficking…

To Molest and Rape

Once again: if you think it matters whether a costumed rapist was “on duty” or not at the time of the rape, you are part of the problem:

An assistant warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola…[committed] rape inside the prison walls. Barrett Boeker…was charged with one count of second-degree rape…and [arrested]…[Boeker committed] the rape [while off duty]…on Nov. 30 at [his] home on Angola property…the…victim was “not an inmate”…

Traffic Circle (#675)

Wendy Lyon demonstrates that criminalization of sex workers via “brothel keeping” laws is not a mere police & prosecutorial misuse of such laws, but an intended use from the beginning:

…Supporters of the [Swedish model]…regularly insist…that [it]…“decriminalises” [sex workers]…On the rare occasions they’re pressed on it, they usually witter on about how this law is “intended to punish pimps”…that the law is…aimed at…sex workers themselves…can be proven clearly enough just by looking at how the law is actually used in real life…nearly all the reported prosecutions [in Ireland] have in fact been of sex workers, not of anyone managing…them…Go back to the original debates over the 1993 Act and you see very clearly that sex worker prosecutions are a feature, not a bug, of the brothel-keeping law – which was intended to address the public nuisance factor of brothels…it was clearly envisaged by the law, at the time it was introduced, that a sex worker would be prosecuted under it – even in her own home, if she allowed someone else to sell sex there. This is not a law about pimps…

Too Close To Home (#682)

This is a man who claims he wants to “protect” women, and portrays the men we choose to have sex with as “sexual predators”:

New documents in an ongoing lawsuit against the King County Sheriff’s Department [reveal] that…Sheriff John Urquhart told investigators in his department to ignore a woman who [reported that] Urquhart raped her…[in] 2002…numerous people were made aware of the [report]…a deputy also complained that Urquhart and the woman had an affair but…the sheriff didn’t want that complaint documented. Urquhart denies the allegations, [claiming] the woman [is mentally ill]…

That last is no surprise; Urquhart thinks women aren’t mentally competent to understand which sexual acts are consensual & which aren’t.

Power Play (#698)

Still think you don’t live in a police state?

Never let it be said that Kamala Harris gives up after being told her totally bogus legal crusade is totally bogus. She’s now filed brand new charges against the execs who run Backpage.com — despite having the very same lawsuit thrown out a few weeks ago…Harris…knows that she has no legal basis for arresting the execs behind Backpage…because three years ago she signed a letter whining about how she had no legal authority to arrest Backpage because it’s (rightly) protected by Section 230 of the CDA…The press release from Harris claims that the reason for the new charges is that she’s “uncovered new evidence” but that’s a load of hogwash. The new charges still include bogus “pimping” charges, but now also have a bunch of [bogus] “money laundering” charges as well…

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In the News (#694)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged activism, adolescence, bad customers, brothels, censorship, child "protective" services, cops, Creepy Coppers, Do As I Say, Dysphemisms Galore, Germany, holidays, hysteria, Imaginary Evils, language, Madonna/whore, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Opting Out, pizza!, porn, prisons, rape, restaurants, Sex Rays (updates), shame, Shazam!, stripping, Surplus Women, surveillance, Tennessee, Texas, The Implosion Begins, The Shape of the Spoon, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Traffic Jam, transgender, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Washington DC, Wise Investment, yellow journalism on November 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

In raids…police and media objectify women in order to publicise state action. – Annie Hill

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Enjoy the rest of your life on the “sex offender” registry, “officer”:

Charles County [Maryland] Sheriff’s Deputy Alexander C. Sullivan…has been charged federally with possession of child pornography…the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received four [snitches] from a company that provides cloud security concerning suspected child pornography being uploaded to a specific telephone number in October and November…A [cop] from the Charles County Sheriff’s Department conducted a search on the telephone number and…recognized Sullivan’s name…A state search warrant for Sullivan and his telephone was executed in Charles County on November 17…[finding] more than 200 images and five videos containing child pornography…If convicted, Sullivan faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison…

Wise Investment

Much more of this, please:

…three suburban teenagers are suing six Detroit police officers over accusations of arresting and mistreating them during a summer prostitution sting that ended with the teens getting dropped off in an unfamiliar area of the city and ordered to walk home to Dearborn…the [pigs] drove the boys through neighborhoods at “reckless speeds” without activating emergency lights or sirens; impounded their car and said it would cost “thousands of dollars” to get it back; took a photo of one of the handcuffed boys and broadcast it on the Internet using the Snapchat app, and laughed and joked about the arrest…All of this…because the…teens were trying to flag down a relative and stop him from approaching a [lying pig pretending to be a sex worker]…The teens were charged with interfering with police activity, but the charges were later dismissed…

Surplus Women

The Daily News is so dedicated to its sleazy language, it won’t even skip it when reporting the brutal murder of a young woman:

A Long Island woman hired for sex via Craigslist was bludgeoned to death with a hammer when her unhinged client didn’t want to pay…At some point during the carnal quid-pro-quo, an argument over compensation led [Raphael] Oyague to attack the victim…Two delivery workers found the woman’s battered body in the weeds behind Oyague’s apartment building [the next day]…Detectives later found a trail of blood leading from the body to the vicinity of Oyague’s back door…

The Shape of the Spoon

Even if the mother is angry at what she obviously sees as interference in her family, does she actually believe suing her own offspring will result in some positive outcome for their relationship, especially given that the most she could accomplish is delaying the transition by a few months (until the magical Moment of Shazam)?

A Minnesota mother is suing her teenage child for transitioning from male to female without her permission. Anmarie Calgaro is also suing the 17-year-old’s doctors and public health and school officials…Calgaro says the St. Louis County school district, where the teen is a student, has taken away her parental rights and refused to release records to her. The lawsuit includes a copy of a letter of emancipation the teen obtained from a lawyer, but notes that the letter doesn’t constitute a court order. Calgaro is asking the court to halt all medical services…

This kind of nonsense will continue until the law recognizes “teenage child” as an oxymoron.

Imaginary Evils

Huge police operations have never found more than a single-digit number of “sex trafficking” cases in the UK:

On Sept. 30, 2005, UK West Midlands police raided a massage parlour called Cuddles…”As we anticipated that there would be a lot of half-dressed ladies…25 female [cops] went in…first, to ensure that the women were decent before the male officers went in”…[bragged Inspector Mark] Nevitt…[of course] male [cops] had already seen “half-dressed ladies” when they entered Cuddles posing as clients. The difference on this day was that police had invited the media to record the rescue of “sex slaves”…[so] millions of people in Britain and beyond would view these women via media coverage…Within days, police [admitted] they had not discovered victims of trafficking, but women engaging in sex work…Although police raids operate on the premise that they make the invisible visible – exposing the hidden world of trafficking – the[y actually render]…the visible invisible. That is, the raid hides the repression of sex workers in plain sight by framing it as the rescue of “sex slaves”. Raids thus appear to produce happy endings…but…cloak…rights violations against sex workers…

Sex Rays

Our descendants will be confused about why we thought this sort of thing was noteworthy:

Cheetah Gentlemen’s Club in [Florida] has again partnered with Rodriguez Charities to host their annual 1,000 Free Turkeys event to help families in need this Thanksgiving holiday…The free birds are limited to one per family on a first come, first served basis…

Traffic Jam (#347)

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals…ruled in favor the “San Antonio Four”…who have fought to clear their names after being convicted…in 1994 of sexually assaulting Ramirez’s young nieces…Seven of the nine judges heard the case. All agreed that the women should get a new trial, and five said the women are actually innocent, a move that paves the way for them to seek state compensation for their imprisonment…Their case was the subject of a documentary…Southwest of Salem…The women…said the toughest part of prison was serving time in solitary for refusing to take part in the sex offender program…attending was a condition for early parole, but it required inmates to admit deviant behavior, which they couldn’t do…

The Widening Gyre (#546)

The New York Times piously decries the harm caused to dozens of “real people” by “fake news sites” spreading exaggerated lies about “sex trafficking”, while ignoring the damage to millions of real people caused by its OWN spreading of exaggerated lies on the exact same topic:

Days before the presidential election, James Alefantis, owner of a…pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong, noticed an unusual spike in the number of his Instagram followers. Within hours, menacing messages like “we’re on to you” began appearing in his…feed. In the ensuing days, hundreds of death threats…started arriving via texts, Facebook and Twitter. All of them alleged…that Comet Ping Pong was the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton…Alefantis discovered…dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant’s back rooms. The articles appeared on Facebook and on websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen, with one headline blaring: “Pizzagate: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washington’s Occult Elite”…Alefantis…and his 40 employees had unwittingly become real people caught in the middle of a storm of fake news…

Dysphemisms Galore (#577)

Because nobody would care about a headline reading, “Co-workers mind woman’s children while she works”:

Sixteen people were arrested after a prostitution ring came to Knoxville [Tennessee. Pigs]…discovered that one of the women had two…young children, a one-year-old and a three-year-old, [who] were found returning to a hotel with two non-related men. The children [were abducted from their mother and given to]…the Department of Children’s Services…

To Molest and Rape

Because “improper sexual activity” sounds so much nicer than “rape with a club”:

Investigators have arrested a Hidalgo County jailer accused of [raping] an inmate with a baton…At about 7 a.m. on Nov. 1, [the victim] was sleeping on a bench…Jailers attempted to wake [him] so they could fingerprint and photograph him…A jailer who witnessed the incident filed a sworn statement “confirming that he observed…Michael Hinojosa push his ASP Baton into [the victim’s] anus…at least four to five times”…Several jailers confirmed the [report]…

I’m really pleased to see pigs turning on one another; they’ve begun to realize that surveillance works against their lies.

Opting Out (#639)

Only three years from the time I predicted this to actual implementation:

Web users in the UK will be banned from accessing websites portraying a range of non-conventional sexual acts, under a little discussed clause…of the digital economy bill, [which] would force internet service providers to block sites hosting content that would not be certified for commercial DVD sale by the British Board of Film Classification…It is contained within provisions…designed to enforce strict age verification checks to stop [legal minors] accessing adult websites…many mainstream adult websites would have to render whole sections inaccessible to UK audiences…despite the acts shown being legal for consenting over-16s to perform and for adults in almost all other liberal countries to film, distribute and watch…The censorship regime has led to bizarre understandings between the producers and regulators…[such as] the “four-finger rule”, which limits the number of digits that can be inserted into an orifice…

British readers: here you go.

Too Close To Home (#672)

Note that this reporter, who resisted the truth when Liz Brown called it to her attention, has now dropped all talk of “sex trafficking” and “slaves” from her reporting on the matter:

Two men arrested in the sex-solicitation bust…in January were sentenced…to 240 hours of community service, a [propaganda program]…and fines…Another man connected to the case…was sentenced…to 60 days in jail, 12 months probation, community service and…the same [propaganda sessions]. They were arrested along with more than a dozen others for…discuss[ing consensual adult sex]…Several court cases related to the bust are ongoing…

Wise Investment (#673)

A better memorial to this woman would be eradicating the horrible laws she fought so hard against:

Hamburg recently announced that it would name one of its streets after a famous German activist who was once a prostitute. Domenica Anita Niehoff, who passed away in February 2009 due to a lung disease, was a fierce advocate for the rights of sex workers…and made efforts in appearing on television shows in order to re-sculpt social attitudes towards sex and prostitution. She also worked towards helping [drug-addicted sex workers]…Niehoff gradually began starring in feature films like Desperado City (1981) and Messalina – Kaiserin und Hure (1977) and became an increasingly known figure in mainstream conversations…she was laid to rest in the Garden of Women at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery…among honoured women (many of whom died opposing the Nazi regime)…

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In the News (#682)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, agency denial, Arizona, brothels, California, Canada, Challenge, clowns, cops, diversion programs, Eternal Vigilance, Florida, Hall of Shame, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, India, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, law, Madonna/whore, Netherlands, Nevada, New Zealand, O Canada!, Pennsylvania, pimps, porn, Power Play, propaganda, rape, rescue industry, Rough Trade, Send In the Clowns, statistics, streetwalkers, The Proper Study, Too Close To Home, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Wisconsin, Wise Investment on October 19, 2016| 4 Comments »

The criminalization of sex work exposes not only sex workers but all women to more violence. – Alison Bass

The Proper Study

Yet another study confirms what we’ve been saying all along:

…a recent study in…Las Vegas uncovers what anti-trafficking organizations might not like to hear. The majority of youth selling sex on the streets have no pimps, or even third party managers, countering one of the key narratives of the sex trafficking movement that all youth involved are victims doing this work against their will…three fourths of the youth interviewed about the sex trade said they were not working with any pimp or other kind of third party manager…24 percent of the study’s participants reported use of a third party to find clients at some point in their lives, but only 4 percent…reported use of one at the time of the study…youth sex workers who do use pimps do so inconsistently and intermittently…[they] are finding their clients independently and negotiating their own prices…

It Looks Good On Paper (#340)

Remember that religious brainwashing program which “partnered with the Sarasota…Police Department…to bring victims into their care”?

The conversations happening by phone are ones that the Sarasota Police Street Crime Unit hope will turn into a positive outcome. “I want you to know you are not in any trouble,” [oinked a pig]…”We are just trying to reach out and let you know there are options”…Sergeant Robert Armstrong and his unit are [harassing and intimidating] women who have active ads online for escort services. Many are involved in prostitution…The team is focused on connecting women with Selah Freedom…

“Many are involved in prostitution”? Are these people actually pretending not to know what an escort is? Look beneath the pious exterior; we don’t actually know what stated or implied threats these cops are using to try to intimidate women into this “program”, which is so unpopular the only way it gets participants is by cops literally forcing or frightening women into it. If the tactic seems familiar, it’s because it’s much like Canada’s “Operation Northern Spotlight” except that the cops are (for now) merely terrorizing sex workers by phone instead of showing up at their doors.

If Men Were Angels

“Youth pastors” are nearly as bad as cops:

A Pennsylvania pastor faces charges he impregnated a 15-year-old girl from his youth group during a seven-month sexual relationship…Wesley Blackburn, youth pastor at Faith Brethren Bible Church, told the New Paris church’s head pastor he had confessed to the relationship and asked for a divorce…church leaders immediately fired Blackburn…and alerted police last week. He was charged Oct. 6 on hundreds of counts of statutory sexual assault and indecent assault…

Rough Trade (#446)

A setback for women’s rights in India:

The Supreme Court…ruled that a sex worker cannot file a case alleging rape if her customers refused to pay her…The judgment…acquitted three people of rape charges in a case that is close to 20 years old…the Karnataka High Court had convicted them of raping the victim, who used to work as a maid; the victim’s roommate had revealed that she works as a sex-worker at night…the Supreme Court…[claimed] that the woman’s “conduct during the alleged ordeal is unlike a victim of rape and betrays somewhat submissive and consensual disposition”…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#502)

In which po-faced twits with tape over their mouths walk down a street holding pre-printed propaganda cards:

A long, single-file line of people donned [sic] in black, some with their mouths taped shut, silently made its way down Stephen Avenue [in Calgary] to [promote anti-sex work propaganda]…The [po-faced] group remained speechless, but handed out [propaganda] pamphlets to bystanders…former Manitoba MP Joy Smith [spoke] at the event…part of a global initiative by A21…

The tape is supposed to signify that sex workers are “voiceless”, a convenient lie for those who wish to talk over us. A21, the NGO which sponsored this charade, is infamous as the source of the high-water mark of the “clients per day” competition of a few years ago: 110.

Eternal Vigilance (#610)

Just a reminder that prohibitionism still exists in decriminalized regimes:

New Zealand celebrities will be donning aprons to serve dinner with a difference at Destiny Rescue’s Dark Secret Pop up Dinner on International Anti-Slavery Day, Tuesday 18 October…Another special menu, thankfully not available in New Zealand, will shine the spotlight on the dark secret of the near two million children trapped in sexual slavery in countries like Thailand, India and the Philippines…

The table-waiting gimmick is appropriate given that Destiny’s idea of “rescue” is to teach brown urchins to sew, wait table and draw with crayons.

Wise Investment (#673)

Picket-fence gay men are such wonderful, dependable sex worker allies:

In his recent attempt to revise the history of sex workers in Vancouver’s West End, Kevin Dale McKeown…erases the West Sex Workers Memorial Committee and our eight-year campaign to secure financial reparations and a formal civic apology from the City of Vancouver. He instead claims that his recollections are more truthful and authentic than the voices of sex workers…In McKeown’s distorted revision…expelled sex workers become the villains. However, our archival research found close to 1,000 news articles revealing that power elites in the early 1980s — including Mayor Mike Harcourt, MP Pat Carney, Attorney General Brian Smith, Concerned Residents of the West End (CROWE) and Shame the Johns — forged a “war on hookers” with lethal consequences…Residents like McKeown moved into the West End when it was a thriving [24-hour] entertainment zone…McKeown…frantically disavows his own and other white gay men’s complicity in hooker-bashing tactics…McKeown makes a failed attempt to hide his investment in a “quiet” and “peaceful” gaybourhood cleansed of “noisy” hookers…

Too Close To Home (#677)

These are the people who claim they want to “protect” women, and portray the men we choose to have sex with as “sexual predators”:

…after settling a sexual-harassment lawsuit for $1 million in 2013, the King County Sheriff’s Office…is again embroiled in a legal fight over its treatment of female officers. This time, two…deputies and one sergeant are accusing the county of gender-based discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual-orientation based harassment, and retaliation…a former head of internal affairs [is] seeking whistleblower protections before he talks. Central to many of these claims is King County Sheriff John Urquhart…[whose] tenure so far…has been ignominious, involving the two sexual-harassment lawsuits, a cop convicted of pimping his wife and selling his colleagues steroids, a bogus “sex trafficking bust,” a chief-of-staff with polygraph problems, and more…this latest lawsuit…specifically calls out the actions of Sheriff Urquhart, Major Sean Ledford, and Sergeant Dewey Burns…defensive tactics instructor Melissa Deer…claims [Burns] grabbed her crotch during a training exercise…text messages showed the sergeant making racist, anti-gay, and sexually explicit comments to other staffers, including…Deputy Amy Shoblom…who…is one of three plaintiffs in the current suit, along with Diana Neff…and Julie Blessum…[Burns’] antics included texting her half-naked photos of women he was sleeping with, asking during a roll call if she had “hooked up” with a male deputy, and drawing a penis on the hood of her car with hand sanitizer…

There’s a lot more, and it’s by the awesome Liz Brown so you should read it all.

Send In the Clowns

The most disturbing thing about the clown hysteria is the way in which it has so quickly given rise to organized violence and naked authoritarianism. A “Clown Lives Matter” protest against the panic, to be held in Tucson, was cancelled due to amateur threats of violence, and the professional violence-inflicters are responding by criminally charging people and destroying young childrens’ lives. The hysteria has also spread to Ireland, and while police in Dublin have responded calmly, those in Belfast have responded with US-style threats of violence and lifelong imprisonment. Dutch police are moronically calling for a prankster there to turn himself in, and the ever-lunatic British tabloid press have found a way to merge the clown panic into “sex predator” panic:

…The basic premise of [this] story is that some men get off on women dressed as creepy clowns, they’re causing a spike in clown-porn searches and clown-fetish requests at escort services, and soon their “sick fetish” may lead them to commit real-world sexual assaults “as the adrenaline junkies seek more ‘extreme thrills'”…what the story lacks in logic it makes up for in references to “sex-mad sickos” and quotes from an anonymous escort-agency head…[it] also quotes a woman who counsels rape victims and worries that the “clown craze” provides cover to predators…Popular millennial women’s website Elite Daily published a clown-sex-panic story…warning readers that “the sexual deviants partaking in the madness are allegedly dressing up as clowns and experimenting with BDSM” and “those who are involved in the aggressive clown porn are potentially dangerous.”

Power Play

Your periodic reminder that Dennis Hof is a revolting excuse for a human being:

Dennis Hof…said that while he supports law enforcement aggressively enforcing laws against underage sex trafficking, he believes that law enforcement in the United States would have an easier time doing its job if adult prostitution were [legalized]…using the [Nevada]…model…Hof said [independent sex workers spread]…sexually transmitted diseases…”My brothel business model [magically] puts the…pimps [who aren’t politically connected] out of business, [magically] stops underage girls from working illegally [?] and [magically] ends sex trafficking [even though 99% of Nevada sex workers prefer to work illegally than to submit to the onerous brothel regime]”…

In the first version of the press release, Hof actually cheered the arrests of the owners & CEO of Backpage; I guess he later realized that was vile even by his standards.

Challenge (#681)

The ACLU has finally done something to act on its theoretical support for decriminalization by filing an amicus brief in the ESPLERP case:

…The ACLU brief supports the lawsuit’s contention that California’s penal code violates fundamental constitutional rights to sexual privacy and is enforced in a discriminatory manner…Lawrence v. Texas…recognized that “liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex”…The ACLU brief also argues that the California penal code is unconstitutional because the way it is enforced is discriminatory. Certain groups, such as transgender women, LGBT youth, and female sex workers are targeted and arrested for prostitution in disproportionately higher numbers than other people…

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In the News (#678)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, Business As Usual, California, cops, Count the Idiocies, Do As I Say, Droit du Seigneur, drugs, Dutch Threat, escort services, evidence, Florida, Harm Magnification, Having and Eating Cake, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, Iowa, Kentucky, Lack of Evidence, language, Netherlands, New York, Of Course It Is, Oregon, Philippines, pimps, pizza!, prohibitionist myths, propaganda, racism, rape, red-light districts, Saving Them from Themselves, sexting, South Carolina, stripping, They Still Don't Get It, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, transgender, United Kingdom, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims? on October 5, 2016| 1 Comment »

[Sex workers] report…violence more often from law enforcement officials than from any other group. – Alexandra Lutnick

Lack of Evidence

As long as these laws exist, all women are vulnerable to persecution by cops:

…a 40-year-old statute in the [New York] penal code…allows the police broad discretion in arresting anyone they deem to be loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution…The law is vague enough to make almost any posture vulnerable to suspicion. You could be arrested while talking to two men on a corner; while talking to someone through a car window; while walking down the street with a bottle of Korbel; for going to your job selling sofas; if it happens that you have worked as a prostitute before; just for wearing something [a cop] decides is too provocative…the Legal Aid Society of New York has handled so many of these cases of wrongful arrest, particularly among transgender women who are black and Hispanic, that…it filed a federal civil rights suit…on behalf of several plaintiffs…challenging the constitutionality of the law. Between 2012 and 2015…nearly 1,300 people were arrested in New York City under the loitering law. More than 600 were convicted, and close to 240 served some time in jail…five precincts…were responsible for more than two-thirds of the arrests, each [ruling over]…neighborhoods that are predominantly black and Hispanic…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I love it when they feed on each other: “North Charleston Police arrested Deputy Jason Mitchell at a motel…[after he] contacted [an] undercover cop by phone after seeing a [fake] post on Backpage.com…”

Where Are the Victims?

She “thought she was helping her friends” in the same way I “think” I’m Maggie McNeill:

A transgender woman and her partner who helped bring prostitutes to the UK from abroad have been spared jail by a judge, who said the couple believed they were “helping” their friends. Brazilian former sex worker Angel Gomes and her civil partner Leon Foster ran an organised prostitution ring for four years…they helped to bring in Gomes’ friends from the transgender community in South America, where they were already selling sex…the couple paid for travel expenses and sex aids including condoms. The business traded under the name “Kelly Shemales”…

In other words, it was an ordinary escort service specializing in transwomen.

Droit du Seigneur

Prohibitionists want these guys to “protect” us from pimps:

…Oak Grove [Kentucky] Police Sgt. Benjamin R. Walden [was arrested as a violent pimp after]…the state police…found that three adult women were being held against their will and forced to have sex with men at a…motel…Walden…[also] faces…charges…including first-degree sodomy, first-degree rape…assault…terroristic threatening and intimidating a participant in a legal process…Also arrested in the case were Michael Helton…and Kiersten Napodano…[Dennis] Cunningham, the Oak Grove police chief…described Walden as a “good officer”…

Saving Them From Themselves

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

An Iowa county attorney has threatened to brand a teen a “sex offender” because she sent a friend photos of herself scantily clad, the girl’s family [reported] in federal court. The photos…depict a 14-year-old girl, named only as Nancy Doe in the lawsuit, in her underwear. In one photo, she wears a sports bra, and in the other she is topless with her long hair covering her breasts…But the photos emerged again last spring when two male students were caught printing them off using a school printer, along with other photos of nude or partially nude male and female classmates…The school district turned the photographs over to the Knoxville Police Department…the girl’s parents wondered “what the fuss was about,” as the images…”were less ‘racy’ than photographs they see in fashion magazines and on television every day”…To escape…criminal charges, the students [were forced] to participate in a “diversion program” that required them to engage in community service, complete a [brainwashing program] on the [imaginary] dangers…of “sexting,” give up their laptops and cell phones for an unspecified period of time, and submit a written confession about their conduct to juvenile court services…When the Does refused to fill out the questionnaire or to enroll Nancy in the diversion program, [county attorney] Bull continued to threaten her with criminal prosecution…

They Still Don’t Get It

Let’s play “count the idiocies”:

Prosecutors from around the world say the fight against sex trafficking is moving online as traffickers use popular websites to advertise sexual services…an international sex trafficking summit in Waikiki that drew prosecutors from Asia, the US and Canada…victims are often unwilling to cooperate with investigators because they have endured a history of abuse…Jackie Lacey, Los Angeles County’s district attorney [bloviated moronically]…“It’s not like in the 80s and 90s where women were on the street. It’s all done by social media, cellphones, emails, text messages.” Michael Ramos, president of the National District Attorneys Association, said he plans to push for legislation in the US to make it illegal to use websites to solicit illegal sex and to hold internet companies accountable for sex trafficking on their platforms…“It’s just so easy right now…Instead of having prostitutes out on the corner like they used to in a red light district, now they just go online, they hit a button, and it’s like ordering a pizza”…Sonia Paquet, a Canadian prosecutor…said…“If we go on the internet site, we see the girls naked”…

1) “Sex trafficking” as a dysphemism for “sex work”. 2) Women are too stupid to post our own ads, so male “traffickers” must be doing it. 3) Streetwalkers have always been a minority of sex workers, even in classical times. The fraction has dropped from about 12-15% in the “80s and 90s” to maybe 8% now, hardly a vast shift. 4) Women who deny cop/prosecutor BDSM wanking fantasies must be “victims” who are “unwilling to cooperate” because of phantom abusers, not because cops & prosecutors are evil fucks out to destroy their lives; 5) It’s already illegal in the US to “solicit” for prostitution, whether online or off. 6) Courts have repeatedly declared that Section 230 protects websites from being “held accountable” (a moralistic euphemism for “scapegoated”) for third-party content. 7) Is anyone actually stupid enough to think he can get an escort just by “hitting a button”? 8) Do these assholes really expect people to believe getting a date with someone like me is easier than driving over to a stroll? 9) Pizza! 10) Ms. Pacquet unwittingly reveals the real issue with all this posturing & mouth-foaming: pictures of naked women, as always. Ten idiocies in 13 sentences is a pretty high score, even for prosecutors.

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake

This is actually an excellent analogy:

…As a stripper, the club does not pay you. There is no hourly wage you earn to stand around waiting for someone to ask you to take your clothes off…people believe strippers are independent contractors because they think that the money they pay for dances is given to the club, which in turn is doled out to the dancer in the form of a stipend or salary…but…it is exactly the opposite…Money paid for dances is paid to the dancer, who pays the club an agreed-upon rate for the privilege of conducting her business there. In essence, she is paying rent, or leasing space from the club for commerce…This is how many hairdressers operate their businesses…That hairdresser is running their own business out of that chair, which they pay rent on. Their calendar is their livelihood, and they might even be able to set their own rates based on their level of skill and expertise…they have certain branding to display and house rules they have to play by, and they have to pay rent to their landlord. But beyond that, they are the owner of a business and have their own customers that will often follow them if they move salons…

Dutch Threat

Not even close; the majority of sex businesses worldwide are controlled by sex workers. This level of ignorance is truly astonishing:

A social investment fund has agreed to operate several brothels in Amsterdam’s red light district…The Start Foundation helps vulnerable people find jobs…and…has now agreed to buy four buildings from the city council which had been taken over as part of the city’s [gentrification] efforts for the district…the 14 windows will be rented out to a new foundation called My Red Light…[which] describes itself as “the first sex company in the Netherlands and Europe in which sex workers have control”…Sex worker lobby group Proud has described the project as deceptive. “Lots of sex workers want to be their own bosses but they never get a permit”, [said] spokeswoman Yvette Luhrs…

If Men Were Angels

Sometimes even a little bit of “authority” is enough:

…Mark Alan Laverdure…[was charged in Oregon with 27] counts of…sexual abuse…[against] 5 [underage] female victims…from March 2003 through June 2014…there [may be] additional victims…Laverdure had once been employed with the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA)…

Business As Usual

I find it darkly amusing that amateurs are so shocked by this:

…the scandal isn’t just about [Celeste Guap], now known by her [legal] name, Jasmine Abuslin…“If you step back from it, how is it possible that this many [cops] could be engaged in this kind of activity over this period of time and she be the only one?” [Abuslin’s lawyer Pamela] Price [said]…Former victims say this type of police sexual misconduct is not a one-off…FBI [pig] Marty Parker [defends rapist cops by pretending most are impostors]…

If you want to understand the depth of Parker’s treason vs her own gender, compare the number of real-rapist-cop reports which appear under “To Molest and Rape” and “Above the Law” with the number of fake-rapist-cop reports under “License To Rape“.

To Molest and Rape

Cops love to claim they’re “helping” and “protecting” women when they molest or rape us:

…Florida…Trooper David Gonzalez was [only] charged with [simple] battery…after…he…pulled [a woman] over…and said, “you really look good tonight,” before directing her to move her car to a side street…he [then]…took her cell phone and added himself to her Snapchap account…[then] took a selfie with the woman, and…sent it to her friends “to see if she thought he was cute”…he…began hugging the woman “because she looked nervous”…then kissed her neck and reached under her shirt to grope her breast…After the woman reported Gonzalez…investigators began monitoring Snapchat communications between the two….[he told her] “I wanted to treat you with respect and do away with you(r) insecurities about yourself”…

Male readers: do you think you’d only be charged with simple battery if you did that to a woman?

Harm Magnification (#668)

The Philippines’ new president is carrying the “War on Drugs” to its logical conclusion:

…President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday that he would like to kill millions of drug addicts in the Philippines, defying international criticism of his country’s [more severe version of the same] war on narcotics [they all participate in] and escalating his brutal rhetoric with a reference to the Holocaust. “Hitler massacred three million Jews…there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” Killing that number of drug users would “finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition,” he said…

Too Close To Home (#672)

Liz Brown takes a scalpel to the King County sheriff’s incompetent response to her article, and man, there is blood everywhere:

…The sheriff of King County, Washington, John Urquhart, said [on a poplar Seattle radio show that] my article was not unfair and even “partially true”. What he objected to was the supposedly naive and “unicorn-ish” view it took toward prostitution clients; the idea that it was law enforcement, rather than the press, that sensationalized the story; the implication that finding prostitution customers online is safer than out on the streets; and the suggestion that King County could have acted differently considering existing laws…Urquhart [said] “You’re asking me not to enforce state law.” Nobody is asking that. But there is a huge amount of prioritization that goes into police work, and solving crimes where there are actual victims and public-safety concerns should take precedence. Which probably means not concocting elaborate, expensive, and years-long sting operations in order to entrap adults engaging in consensual sexual exchange and then misrepresent this as some sort of major blow against a sinister syndicate of international sex traffickers…

Please, please read the whole thing, unless you’re squeamish at the sight of a metaphorical evisceration.

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In the News (#677)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Alaska, Austria, BDSM, California, Challenge, Checklist, cops, France, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, I Spy, Idaho, Ireland, It Looks Good On Paper, It's What They Do, language, law, Louisiana, neofeminism, politicians, Pyrrhic Victory, sex offender registry, Still a Child, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, The End of the Beginning, Theatrics, Too Close To Home, underage, United Kingdom, Washington (state) on October 1, 2016| 2 Comments »

No woman is made safer by laws which deny her right to consent to sex. – Catherine Staples

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

“Contracts” like this offer no protection and can actually be damning in court should something go wrong:

An Austrian sex worker has been convicted over the death of a sadomasochist client left to die with a noose and a shoelace around his neck in a Vienna hotel room…[she] only received a two-year suspended sentence…due to attenuating circumstances. The woman said the…client paid her…to help him lose consciousness by strangling him with the shoelace while he tightened a rope attached to the wall around his neck. She said the man had signed a piece of paper saying he assumed “complete responsibility for all risks and health damages” and that he was “fully aware that such a fetish can lead to death”…With his head in the noose, his face a different colour and his hands and feet twitching, the woman tightened the lace for a few seconds…She then eased it, got dressed and left, as agreed. But some 90 minutes later after the man failed to contact her, she began to panic…

Theatrics (#446)

A new low in prohibitionist vileness: using fake images of murdered sex workers to campaign for laws that will result in more violence against us:

…French [prohibitionist] organization Le Mouvement du Nid launched its own [fake] escort website, with help from McCann Paris…Girls of Paradise looks like a basic escort service. You can check out profiles and pictures, and opt to chat or call the women you’re interested in before arranging a date. But…each woman featured in Girls of Paradise is [supposedly] already dead…when clients initiate a chat or a phone call…they’re shown [fake] photos of the woman, beat up and bloody, or simply told that she isn’t available tonight because she was killed in a manner most grisly…Le Mouvement du Nid…seeks to…victimize [sex workers further by supporting the Swedish model]…Girls of Paradise will score a gold Clio…

You read that correctly: the sociopaths behind the Clio awards (the advertising industry’s Oscars) gave this ethical abomination a fucking award.

Checklist (#542)

Another state plans to “fight sex trafficking” with magical posters:

…Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz wants to require certain types of Anchorage businesses…to hang up posters [pretended] to combat labor trafficking…Berkowitz is seeking to update the city penal code on prostitution…to…reflect what he called “modern [propaganda]…surrounding prostitution and sex trafficking.” For instance, changing the word “solicitation” to “sexual exploitation” in city law…

Too Close To Home

Remember that this is a sheriff who imagines he has the right to destroy hundreds of people’s lives because he doesn’t like their sexual choices:

The former head of internal affairs for the King County Sheriff’s Office now seeks whistleblower protection after saying Sheriff John Urquhart made troubling comments about women and meddled in internal investigations involving female officers who complained of discrimination. Capt. D.J. Nesel recently testified that a county prosecutor threatened him prior to a court-ordered deposition in which he roundly criticized Urquhart…as a bitterly fought lawsuit involving discrimination claims against Urquhart and his office reached a boiling point. Urquhart has been ordered to testify as attorneys for the county fight to keep Nesel from divulging details of the sheriff’s comments…

Challenge (#615)

I am proud to call this incredible woman my friend:

A sex worker has won the right to have a judicial review over a law that makes it illegal to pay for sexual services in Northern Ireland. Laura Lee…for a legal challenge to the Human Trafficking Act at the high court in Belfast on Wednesday…A full hearing date for the judicial review will be set in 11 weeks’ time…Lee, a law graduate, had stated previously that she was prepared to go to the European court of human rights to challenge the law, which she and fellow sex workers [explain] discriminates against their rights to privacy, to earn a living and physical protection…

Pyrrhic Victory (#648)

Seattle cops have a positive fetish for illegal surveillance:

Beginning two years ago, but unbeknownst to the public—until now…the Seattle Police Department…acquired the ability to watch your social media posts in real time, using software that can place those posts on a digital map. This tracking software, which the SPD purchased in October 2014 from a CIA-funded company called Geofeedia, is designed to tell [cops] where you posted from and what you said. It can also show hundreds of other tweets, Instagrams, and other social media posts from anyone else in the vicinity, and then file all of that information into one big database. The secret purchase of the Geofeedia software—for $14,125—violated a Seattle law requiring a city official outside of the police department to be notified of such acquisitions…The secret use of the software…also violated the city’s 2013 surveillance ordinance, which requires “any City department intending to acquire surveillance equipment” to “obtain City Council approval”…SPD spokesperson Sean Whitcomb [lied] to The Stranger on September 23 that…”We are no longer using Geofeedia”…another SPD official…Brian Maxey said the department is now using software from a firm called Babel Street “to support lawful criminal investigations.” On its website, that company offers…the ability to “geo-locate the origin of e-chatter”…

Remember, Seattle ladies, we’re all “criminals”, which makes spying on us a “lawful criminal investigation”.

Still a Child (#663)

I’m pleased to see this lawsuit, but sad to see they felt compelled to employ ugly whorearchical bullshit to further it:

Jane Does I, II and III say the state of Louisiana is robbing them of their ability to express themselves, and doing so in a way that discriminates against their gender. These women are exotic dancers younger than 21, and therefore will be barred from performing in strip clubs in about a week…In a federal lawsuit, the dancers say the law violates the First Amendment by denying them freedom of expression, and violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause by unfairly targeting women…the law’s definition of strip club performers as “entertainers whose breasts or buttocks are exposed to view” fails to prohibit the same conduct by men who are between the ages of 18 and 21…the lawsuit cites comments by legislators to bolster its case for gender discrimination…[politicians] said the law was aimed at protecting young women…[but] the law is already endangering young woman. One plaintiff says she has witnessed pimps and prostitutes trying to use the new law…to “recruit entertainers who are now lawfully employed, but who will lose their jobs as a result of the Act.” Another plaintiff…says other dancers under 21 have told her they plan to switch to prostitution once they can no longer dance…

Oh, and CBS? I don’t think the law is trying to stop anyone from “bearing” breasts and butts; how would such a statute be enforced, mass mutilation?

It Looks Good On Paper (#666)

What this law actually does is empower the cops to indefinitely detain underage sex workers “for their own protection”:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed legislation decriminalizing prostitution for minors. By prohibiting law enforcement from arresting people under the age of 18 for soliciting or loitering with intent [but not for whatever other reason might pop into their piggy heads], Senate Bill 1322 [pretends to] shield…those young people from criminal penalties…While embracing the idea of treating young sex workers as [incompetent] victims [they can lock up at will], law enforcement groups warned that removing penalties would remove a crucial tool for [caging] young people and keeping them away from their [friends]…

The End of the Beginning (#668)

They’re only saying this because it’s true:

…A federal lawsuit filed [against Idaho] argues that retroactively imposing…requirements on sex offenders, in some cases more than two decades after they were convicted, violates the Constitution’s ban on ex post facto laws. Whether the courts agree will depend on whether they view registration and the burdens associated with it as a punishment…in August the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit concluded that Michigan’s Sex Offender Registration Act goes far enough beyond Alaska’s law that applying it retroactively is unconstitutional. The 6th Circuit focused on the act’s arbitrary classification scheme, residence restrictions, and burdensome reporting requirements—all features shared by Idaho’s law…

It’s What They Do

Are headline writers the most clueless people in news organizations, or does it just seem that way?

…[prohibitionist MP] Thangam Debbonaire [vomited out Swedish model poison and called for]…the Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry into prostitution – which recommended “soliciting” for sex be made legal – to be “redone” after its chair, Keith Vaz MP, was found to be paying rent boys for sex…[sex worker] Catherine Staples…replied by telling the MP her argument was helping to promote a negative stigma of her life choice, [correctly] calling her and fellow panelist, Dr Madeliene Coy, “anti-women’s rights”…

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In the News (#674)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, Arizona, asset seizure, Bad Fantasy-Good Reality, Between the Ears, California, cops, cult of the child, Eavesdropping, escort review sites, hysteria, internet, marriage, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Nice While It Lasted, Of Course It Is, Policing for Profit, pragmatism, propaganda, rape, shame, Social Autoimmune Disorder, Still a Child, streetwalkers, surveillance, The Widening Gyre, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Too Young To Know, Turning Point, Vendetta, Vietnam, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), yellow journalism on September 21, 2016| 4 Comments »

The courts, instead of keeping our lawmakers honest, have instead opted to craft ostensibly thoughtful and well-reasoned opinions allowing the legislature to do whatever ridiculous and often horrible things pop into their heads. – Matt Brown

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (#12)

Criminalization always makes sex work conditions shittier:

…the International Labor Organization interviewed…sex workers…and local authorities in Vietnam, and strongly suggested that the country do something about the occupational safety and health risks that come with the industry. Most workers had casual jobs before they chose to enter the sex industry, after considering it a better option. Out of the 73 workers surveyed, only one reported to having been deceived into selling sex, but many workers had their movements controlled by employers and some had their identity papers held…According to the workers, conditions would be better in well-maintained, expensive bars, discotheques, spas, massage parlors and restaurants, while brothels and cheap cafés, restaurants, karaoke bars and parlors are dirty and do not guarantee security and safety. However, no matter where they work, there is always the threat of violence and police raids, especially for women working on the streets…

Too Young To Know

Despite the emphasis on asinine dysphemisms like “resorting to sex work” and “selling their body” [sic], at least this article understands that young people nearly always sell sex out of necessity, and not because they’re abducted by bogeyman “pimps”:

Teenagers in America are resorting to sex work because they cannot afford food, according to a study…by the Urban Institute…Evidence of teenage girls turning to “transactional dating” with older men is likely to cause particular alarm…The consistency of the findings across gender, race and geography was a surprise…Teens would overwhelmingly prefer to earn money through a formal job but prospects for youth employment are extremely limited…

The two red flags I see here are 1) the Urban Institute has produced shoddy sex work studies in the recent past; and 2) the study seems to rely more heavily on anecdotes told by teens about other, unidentified teens, rather than on reports given by teens about their own behavior.

Still a Child

It’s shocking & saddening to see how low the journalistic standards of PBS and the New York Times have dropped:

An exposé on the shocking number of girls who continue to be forced into marriage in the United States will air…as part of a two-part special for PBS NewsHour….“This is a story so few know is happening right down their street,” [Gayle] Lemmon [said]…in an email…Among the stories featured will be that of a New Jersey girl named Jada, whose father brought her with him to live in Saudi Arabia. At the age of 12, her father decided to marry her off…he…forced her to walk on his right side while they were together in public — so other Saudi men would know that she was for sale. Apparently, it’s a cultural signal there. Another woman…is Nina, a 33-year-old Michigan woman, who said she was seeking an annulment because she had been married against her will at the age of 19. The case is perhaps the first of its kind in the U.S., and could shape future legal precedent…Nina…talks about [how] sex with her “husband” came to feel like imprisonment and tantamount to rape…

“Right down their street” sounds like something borrowed from “sex trafficking” hysteria, which this whole story resembles. “Apparently, it’s a cultural signal…” “Apparently“? Didn’t y’all bother to fucking find out, like by consulting an expert on Saudi culture? And as for Nina, last I checked, 19 was not considered a “child” anywhere in the US, at least not yet. I’m certainly sympathetic to women who may feel economically trapped in a bad marriage, or feel unable to leave due to threats of violence, but this seems to be conflating adult women with 12-year-old girls, and that’s an extremely dangerous road for self-respecting women to be allowing our culture & media to follow without speaking up.

Policing for Profit

This excuse is pathetic, even by cop standards:

NYPD brass testified before the…City Council…that it has no idea how much money it [steals] from citizens each year…and an attempt to collect the data would crash its computer systems…NYC councilmember Ritchie Torres introduced legislation this year that would require annual reports from the police department about how much money it [steals], but at Thursday’s hearing, the NYPD said it has no technologically feasible way to track [thefts that were]…not [challenged by the rightful owners in court]…Bronx Defenders…is suing the NYPD for public records on its asset forfeiture program, which rakes in millions in seized cash and property…every year. According to the scant records Bronx Defenders did manage to get back, the NYPD reported more than $6 million in revenue in 2013 from seized cash, forfeitures, and property sold at auction, and it had a balance of more than $68 million in seized currency in any given month of that year…the vast majority of [stolen] assets are simply forfeited…after the…property owner fails to go through the burdensome and Byzantine process of trying to retrieve them by the deadline…

Nice While It Lasted

Now that the precedent’s firmly established, you’re going to see an increasing number of laws that presume guilt:

In Arizona, the legislature…decided to define sexual abuse and molestation of a child in such a way that intentionally or knowingly touching the genitals or anus of a child or the breast of a female younger than fifteen is a felony. That should come as no surprise to anyone who is remotely familiar with Arizona, as the one thing the legislature is good at is passing the broadest and most Draconian criminal laws they can imagine…thanks to the Supreme Court of Arizona’s opinion in State v. Holle, the terms of the statute are to be applied literally…the defense that there was no sexual motivation is one the defendant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence…the court justifies making every parent in Arizona a sex offender tasked with proving his or her innocence should a prosecutor decide to ruin his or her life with charges…

Vendetta (Traffic Updates)

More anti-sex violence and attempted brainwashing funded by the sociopathic Swanee Hunt:

[Boston] is stepping up efforts to shame prostitution customers — including the prospect of sending them off to “john school” to [indoctrinate them in the religion of] human trafficking. It’s all part of a police [fantasy that they can] reduce the online sex trade in the city by 20 percent over the next year…Police are set to receive a $30,000 grant from Demand Abolition…

Between the Ears (#545)

Have a device that connects to the internet? Assume it can be used to spy on you:

…in a class-action lawsuit representing…tens of thousands of users, [an] Illinois woman has…[sued] sex-toy company Standard Innovation. She accuses the company, which is based in Ottawa, Canada, of consumer fraud, unjust enrichment, intrusion upon seclusion, and violating the Federal Wiretap Act and the Illinois Eavesdropping Statute…The woman reportedly bought her We-Vibe Rave for $130 in May and proceeded to use it several times before learning via a Defcon hacking convention talk…that her extremely personal usage was being scrutinized for marketing purposes by its maker…the toy can connect to a smartphone for such activities as adjusting vibration type…and intensity…not to mention allowing someone else to be at the controls from afar…

The Widening Gyre (#545)

I guess that “outside agency” never heard of Snopes:

The Boys and Girls Club in Chico [California] was notified…about a suspicious job flyer…Devon Saul says these flyers are raising some serious questions. “For very minimal work it does through [sic] up a red flag to say okay what’s the catch…It promises great pay. 60, 80, 100 dollars a day. Great trips, great gifts and bonuses and things like that”…His concerns were solidified when an outside agency in Tehama County notified then non-profit that this may be a sex trafficking scam…the club decided education on human trafficking was needed for staff…

Actually, it says $60 to $100 a week, which is about $12-$20 a day; not exactly a fortune. But I guess we can’t expect literacy from a man who mixes metaphors so egregiously and thinks that if two people are both hysterical, that “solidifies” their fantasies. And I guess it’s too much to expect these people to actually call the number to investigate what it’s about instead of jumping at their own shadows.

Social Autoimmune Disorder (#594)

I encourage residents to use public computers to report every police car and other official vehicle they can find:

Oakland is…introducing a website…[where busybodies can report] the license plate numbers of suspected johns’ vehicles and describe the specific activity they witnessed. The sightings are uploaded to the police, who will send a letter to the address where the vehicle is registered…The predecessor…was a program called Dear John, introduced in 2013, which allowed residents to fill out a form that they submitted to the police. That program generated more than 300 “Dear John” letters mailed to the owners of the vehicles spotted by residents…[cops pretend that] there had been no signs of false reporting in [that] program…

The crowning hypocrisy? This is Oakland.

To Molest and Rape

Another woman raped by cops answers headline: “Almost certainly.”

A woman who was…raped by a [cop] said much of which she recalled from that night was “blurry,” but that at one point she woke up and “he was on top of me”…an acquaintance…[drove] her [home from a bar] because she wasn’t in a condition to drive…[Erich] Fritz pulled the man over…and arrested him for operating while intoxicated…Fritz [then] took her to…a hotel room [and raped her]…

Turning Point

Tina Horn uses the New York Times Magazine cover story as a jumping-off point for an article entitled “10 Reasons Decriminalizing Sex Work Is A Feminist Issue“. And though I think there are much better arguments to be made than most of these, every little bit helps and it’s great to see the number of articles like this one ever increasing.

Too Close To Home (#672)

Read Liz Brown’s fantastic expose, then understand that this is talking about the same events through an anti-sex filter:

The men didn’t know that Hillman, the man they had invited into their elite circle, was actually an undercover detective. Law enforcement is beginning to take notice of so-called “John boards” — review sites where customers rate prostitutes. The men busted in this Seattle group earlier this year exposed a secretive world where online sex buyers are treading on a whole new level of criminal behavior…Hillman wrote fake reviews and was invited to join a subgroup that called itself “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”…The League attracted the attention of law enforcement not because its members bought a lot of sex, but because of how they worked together…After six months of undercover surveillance, law enforcement closed in. They busted eight brothels. A dozen Korean women were offered human trafficking victim services and released…

Hillman didn’t write “fake reviews”; he paid and wrote reviews just like the others, which (considering he used the acts to harm us) makes him a serial rapist. And no, those women weren’t “offered” anything, nor were they “released”, because the cops never got their filthy hands on them; they were tipped off and fled. But because that would ruin the narrative of “exploited victims”, this story was invented so the “authorities” could look benevolent to ignoramuses. Also note this story doesn’t bother to mention the ruined lives and the suicide this ham-fisted pogrom left in its ugly wake.

Of Course It Is (#673)

I hope she gets every damned penny:

…a lawsuit was filed against the city of Oakland [by] attorneys for Jasmine Abuslin, formerly known as Celeste Guap…her attorneys expect to file similar suits against other jurisdictions involved in this sex scandal. So far, only two [cops] have been formally charged…

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In the News (#672)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, Anatomy of a Boondoggle, Backpage, bisexuality, brothels, censorship, cops, Cyprus, dating, Divided We Fall, escort review sites, Eye of the Beholder, Finding What Isn’t There, Georgia, hysteria, Indonesia, internet, Islam, Latin America, LGBT rights, Maine, male prostitutes, marriage, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, Oklahoma, One Born Every Minute, psychology, racism, rape, Something Rotten In Sweden, Swedish model, Texas, The Mote and the Beam, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, Washington (state) on September 14, 2016| 1 Comment »

Almost none of [the “sex trafficking” narrative] is true—and the little that is technically true is so lacking in context that it’s utterly misleading. – Elizabeth N. Brown

Anatomy of a Boondoggle

Just another example of “authorities” paying men to rape whores:

Police raided two flats used as brothels…in Nicosia [Cyprus], arresting a woman from China and detaining another female sex worker [pretended] to be a victim of human trafficking. A civilian associate of the police visited the brothel and used marked bills to buy sexual services…After [raping the women] the man signalled the police by sending them an SMS message…Police located the two marked bills and [stole] 347 condoms, four of which had been used, along with four mobile phones, sex toys, a computer, and the amount of €345 in cash…

Something Rotten in Sweden

It’s good to see that even reporters who credulously parrot cop anti-whore propaganda now feel compelled to at least mention Amnesty’s findings:

…It can be difficult for police to build cases against traffickers when their primary witnesses — victims — are too afraid to talk [and] don’t trust police [who]…still conduct stings against sex workers…To create more trust among potential victims and curb the demand for commercial sex, sting operations should focus more on catching johns and pimps, [fetishist cop Mark Keller] said…He also suggested changing state law to the so-called Nordic model, which makes it legal for people to prostitute themselves but illegal to pimp, traffick or purchase sex…The model could help [cops] gain the trust of sex trafficking victims…Keller said. However, it was recently scrutinized in a report by…Amnesty International…which found it subjected sex workers to increased police scrutiny, evictions and other penalties…

The Eye of the Beholder (June Updates)

Given that there is no possibility of a child, what exactly is the rationale behind this prosecution, other than “The ‘authorities’ find this skeevy” or “The law is the law”?

A mother and daughter are facing incest charges in…Oklahoma after authorities learned they were legally married earlier this year. It is unclear what motivated Patricia Ann Spann, 43, and her daughter, Misty Velvet Dawn Spann, 25, to wed…Investigators also found Patricia Spann married her son in 2008. He filed for an annulment 15 months later, citing “incest”…Police discovered the marriages late last month during a child welfare check-up. Patricia Spann told investigators she had lost custody of her biological children as a young mother and only came into contact with her daughter two years ago…the couple believed the union was legal, since she was not listed as the biological mother on her daughter’s birth certificate. Each woman faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Maybe if we keep repeating this enough, it will eventually sink into the thick public skull:

…Despite popular headlines and self-promoting TV doctors’ proclamations to the contrary, sex addiction isn’t real…There is no doubt that some people have trouble regulating their sexual thoughts, desires, and behaviors. But addiction has a real meaning and a real clinical definition…When addicts…are shown pictures of their drug of choice there is a clear and uniform response in their P300 brain waves…However, when UCLA researchers studied the response to viewing sexually explicit images in people who self-defined as being unable to regulate their porn viewing, the results showed no similar response…In fact, they found the only thing correlated with brain wave activity was sexual desire such that the higher their self-reported sexual desire, the more brain wave activity they showed. The authors concluded that there was no evidence to say that even problem sexual regulation fit the definition of addiction as defined by brain response and that these people simply had high sex drives…

Divided We Fall (#13)

Why does Gay, Inc never speak up for sex worker rights until it’s too late?

Indonesian police are taking aim at Grindr and other gay social networking apps following the arrest of three men accused of running a “gay prostitution ring” [advertising] underaged boys for sex. The arrests come amid an unprecedented uproar about homosexuality in the country, where it has never been a major political issue before this year. Members of the legislature announced…they would…ban “gay propaganda” online. The country’s Constitutional Court is likewise currently in the middle of hearings on a petition to [criminalize]…all sex outside of marriage…Police have told local media they have identified 148 victims of the network, though only 27 of them are [supposedly younger than 18]…“More than a few gay communities have been growing and targeting kids as victims,” said Asruron Ni’am Sholeh, chair of the Child Protection Commission…

“Targeting kids”…hmm, where have we heard that accusation before? But back when the moral retards were just warring on female sex workers, the big GLBT organizations couldn’t be bothered to notice.

Finding What Isn’t There

Note how dysphemisms and weasel-words are used to conjure a story out of nothing but rumors, exaggerations and hysteria:

More than 1,000 women and girls have been apparent victims of sex trafficking in illicit cantinas in the United States that largely operate beyond the reach of law enforcement, the anti-[sex work] group Polaris [fantasized]…Half of the…cases…arose in Houston, Texas, a city near the Mexican border with a large Latino population…Cantinas…may disguise the cost of commercial sex in very high drink prices, and women are forced to flirt and drink with patrons…hotlines run by Polaris got reports of 201 cases of sex and labor trafficking, involving 1,300 potential victims at cantinas and bars in 20 U.S. states from 2007 to 2016. More than half the victims were underage…At one illicit cantina in Houston, some victims were forced to have sex as often as 50 times a day, it said. The cantina owner, convicted of sex trafficking, conspiracy and other charges, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year…Cases can be hard to investigate and prosecute because traffickers and owners may hide their ownership of cantinas or liquor licenses, and because victims are too scared to testify in court, afraid that traffickers will retaliate by hurting their families…

“Apparent” victims, meaning reports from busybodies that added up to nothing. Reports of “force” that don’t hold up because there isn’t any, which Polaris then insists are real except that the “victims” won’t admit it. Impossibly-high claims of clients per day such as we haven’t seen in a couple of years now, using a high-profile racism-based railroading case as “evidence”, and moving the entire city of Houston hundreds of miles south to bolster their fantasy. This is absurd even by Polaris’ standards.

Too Close To Home

Serious question: How do we nominate Liz Brown for a Pulitzer?

…On January 7, Washington officials [claimed]…women [had been] lured from South Korea under false pretenses and “held against their will” at local brothels. [They crowed about seizing] a website where deviant men promoted and reviewed these enslaved women…King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg [said]…”The systematic importation of vulnerable young women for sexual abuse, exploitation, and criminal profiteering has been going on for years and it came to a stop this week…This is what human trafficking looks like.” But as more information about the case has become available, Satterberg’s narrative starts to break down. The reality—as evidenced by police reports, court documents, online records, and statements from those involved—is…a story of immigration, economics, the pull of companionship and connection, the structures and dynamism that drive black markets, and a criminal-justice system all too eager to declare women victims of the choices they make…

The piece is long, thorough and damning. I strongly urge you to read the whole thing, even if you need to do so in three sittings (it’s broken into three parts). The “sex trafficking” narrative has been slowly crumbling, and in this important article Liz has handily taken a sledgehammer to a very prominent outcropping of it.

The Mote and the Beam (#613)

Another victory against a political witch hunt:

The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a congressional subpoena that seeks information on how Backpage.com screens for possible sex trafficking in classifieds advertising. The order…came hours after Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer asked the high court to intervene, saying the case threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers…the…stay means that Backpage need not comply…until further action from the Supreme Court…The Senate panel has tried for nearly a year to make Backpage produce certain documents as part of its [persecution of sex work advertisements] over the internet. After the website refused to comply, the Senate voted 96-0 in March to hold the website in contempt…

To Molest and Rape

Go on, keep giving male cops power over women; what could possibly go wrong?

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations arrested Riverdale [cop] James Robinson Jr…[for] raping a woman he was transporting to jail…Robinson stopped the car next to an empty building near a Custom tire shop…as soon as the woman was released from jail she…asked the shop for footage from its security cameras…

One Born Every Minute (#644)

Interesting that this article doesn’t mention the anti-Backpage mob:

In a 2014 opinion in a case involving a woman who was drugged, raped, and filmed by men she met through the website ModelMayhem.com…the Ninth Circuit wrote that the CDA was not “an all purpose get-out-of-jail-free card for businesses that publish user content on the internet.” The court found that Model Mayhem…could be sued for failure to warn as the site was aware of the model’s rapists because they were the subject of a criminal investigation for doing the same thing to other Model Mayhem users…the court found that Section 230 did not protect the website when it failed to do anything about the rapists it knew were prowling its site…a…Match.com case is very similar. [Wade] Ridley, the suit claimed, had attacked other women using Match.com and the company had done nothing to warn love-seeking online daters about the possibility of attack. The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of some claims, but it found that the logic supporting the court’s Model Mayhem ruling applied here, too…

Of Course It Is

A step in the right direction, at least:

…Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley [announced] criminal charges against seven [cops]…O’Malley [also] said she found evidence of [rapist cops]…in Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Joaquin counties, all outside her jurisdiction. She said she has contacted her counterparts there to pursue criminal action…The most serious Alameda County charges — felony oral copulation with a minor — will be filed against Oakland [cop] Giovanni LoVerde and Contra Costa Sheriff’s deputy Ricardo Perez…Oakland [cop] Brian Bunton also faces a felony charge of obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor charge of engaging in prostitution. Three other Oakland [cops] will be charged with crimes…Terryl Smith…LeRoy Johnson…and…Warit Uttapa…Dan C. Black of the Livermore Police Department…faces [four] misdemeanor charges…O’Malley said it’s likely that formal charges against the officers will not be filed until Guap, the case’s primary witness, returns to California…“If the [City of Richmond] does not pay for her to come back, we will pay for her airfare,” O’Malley said…

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In the News (#664)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, Above the Law, agency denial, asset seizure, Business As Usual, California, censorship, Check Your Premises, China, cops, dirty, drivers, end demand, fantasy, Feminists and Other Puritans, hysteria, Illinois, imaginative fiction, Iowa, Israel, law, Louisiana, Monsters, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Ohio, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, statistics, Subtle Pimping, Swedish model, tabula rasa, Things We Choose To Do Together, To Molest and Rape, Too Close To Home, transgender, underage, United Kingdom, Vendetta, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Welcome to Our Updates, welcome to our world, yin and yang on August 17, 2016| 5 Comments »

A treatment becomes an industry…when its scope creeps to include anyone who is having the kind of sex that someone…deems to be a problem. – Michael Aaron

Welcome To Our World

Profiting from donations gathered to fight an imaginary child-abducting conspiracy…hmm, where have I heard that before?

Three Jerusalem residents who allegedly swindled donors into giving money to combat a nonexistent Christian cult they claimed was kidnapping, sexually abusing and forcibly converting hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish children to Christianity have been arrested…investigators launched an investigation into the supposed cult two years ago…the…investigation…soon determined that no such cult ever existed…

Check Your Premises

In the warped minds of US “authorities”, driving a friend to work is “child sex trafficking”:

An Oregon woman has been sentenced to nearly two years in prison in connection to an alleged commercial child sex trafficking operation…Veronica Britt…was identified as the driver for an underage girl who was meeting up with someone at a hotel for sexual purposes…

Surplus Women

One of the rare times you’ll ever see me actually assist the cops:

Investigators with the York Regional Police Homicide Unit continue to appeal to the public for assistance in locating Jiarui (Jerry) TANG, wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for Manslaughter in connection with disappearance of 36-year-old Annie LI. Investigators believe that Mr. TANG has recently attempted to seek the services of women working in the sex trade. Police believe that he poses a significant threat to these women and we are warning anyone who encounters him in person or online to use caution and contact police immediately. Ying Chun (Annie) LI was last seen by her family on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in the area of Denison Street and Markham Road…police have reason to believe that Annie Li is deceased…Investigators believe that Mr. TANG frequents the Chinatown area of Toronto and he is believed to be still within the area…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This interesting article traces the origin of the myth of “sex addiction” to another myth beloved by sex-haters: “social construction of gender”:

…David Reimer…committed suicide in 2004, never having recovered from the trauma suffered under the hands of Dr. Money…in…early 1970s Los Angeles…UCLA researchers George Rekers and Ivar Lovaas pioneered an experimental new type of treatment to literally “knock out” the effeminate behavior of young “sissy boys” through the use of severe corporal punishment. Like Money before them, they triumphantly published their…findings in 1974…under the title “The Behavioral Treatment of a ‘Transsexual’ Preadolescent Boy“…This “successfully” treated boy, now a grown man of 38 named Kirk Murphy, committed suicide in 2003 due to feeling “broken” by his participation in the research. These are just two examples of the horrors of…social constructionist ideology. Despite all this, social constructionism is still alive and well, influencing both the social sciences and public policy. Take a look at this this article for example about an elementary school teacher who pushes her female students to play with Legos, while forbidding her male students to do the same, all in the name of “gender equity”…the rise of the social construction of desire [occurred in] the same 1970s period in which all of these other troubling experiments were conducted…sex addiction [is the] offspring…of the cultural belief that sexuality is a social construct…that can be controlled, modified, and neatly packaged according to the social norms and mores of the time. Indeed, the very first sex addiction 12-step group, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLA) met in Boston in 1977…[the] sex addiction [model is the attempt]…to fit sexual behavior into a socially constructed paradigm of monogamy, pair bonding, and…even intimacy…

A Broker in Pillage

Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together:

Federal drug agents regularly mine Americans’ travel information to profile people…[as] narcotics traffickers — though they almost never use what they learn to make arrests or build criminal cases. Instead, that targeting has helped the Drug Enforcement Administration seize a small fortune in cash. DEA agents have profiled passengers on Amtrak trains and nearly every major U.S. airline, drawing on reports from a network of travel-industry informants…Agents…singled out passengers for questioning or searches for reasons as seemingly benign as traveling one-way to California or having paid for a ticket in cash…DEA units assigned to patrol 15 of the nation’s busiest airports seized more than $209 million in cash from at least 5,200 people over the past decade [by pretending] the money was linked to drug trafficking…most of the money was passed on to local police departments that lend [cops] to [act as DEA goons]…

Monsters

Rae’Lynn Thomas…was shot and then beaten by her mother’s ex-boyfriend in their Columbus [Ohio] home…Thomas is the 19^th trans person known to have been murdered in the U.S. this year. While Thomas’s family was accepting of her…an ex-boyfriend of her mother’s who still lived with the women, James Allen Byrd, made no secret of his transphobic attitudes. He reportedly often referred to the transgender woman as “the devil”…Renee Thomas…described the attack to police and media. ” He was in the bedroom and he just came around the corner and shot [Rae’Lynn],” she said. After firing at her twice, Byrd — who was nearly a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than the petite Thomas — proceeded to beat her with any heavy object handy…

Business As Usual

Prohibitionists want everyone to believe that clients inflict the most violence on sex workers, and that the police are welcome “rescuers” from it:

According to surveys conducted periodically by Zi Teng…an organization promoting the rights of sex workers…Hong Kong police sexually abuse workers…in the first four months of 2016 the organization received 206 complaints of violence…Nineteen cases related to abuse by clients while 187 related to the police. NGOs told Amnesty International that police are legally allowed to [rape]…sex workers…[while pretending] to be clients [in order to arrest]…them…

In case you missed it, that said over 90% of violence against Hong Kong sex workers comes from the police, an number not-dissimilar to figures from other places where cops are allowed to “regulate” us.

Feminists and Other Puritans

Yet “leftists” are still surprised that “feminists” are anti-sex:

[Sex workers] face…a strange alliance of opponents including Labour councillors, feminist activists, trade unionists and…religious groups…their hostility to [sex workers contrasts] oddly with their stated desire to “rescue” them…these activists were armed with feminist battle-cries, and were more likely to be seen reading the liberal Guardian than the right-wing Daily Mail…Object, a “feminist human rights” organisation…[is] part of a far broader alliance of feminist and left groups with a wide range of anti-sex and pro-censorship objectives…similar feminist organisations such as UK Feminista, rolled out a series of anti-sex campaigns…each…loyally supported by the Guardian, by voices from the Labour and Green parties, by trade unionists, and others that I had previously considered part of my progressive tribe…the old anti-prostitution movement was reinvigorated by a flood of new, feminist and left-wing campaigners under the End Demand banner…apparently, the right to middle-class feminist outrage trumped the more fundamental right to work…

Vendetta (#570)

Roughly 0.02% of all US men who purchased sex in that period. Wow, that’s some MIGHTY “suppression” there!

Yet another nationwide “sex trafficking sting” where the main targets of police attention are men who solicit sex from consenting, adult women. The sting, part of a bi-annual “National Johns Suppression Initiative,” ran from July 1 to August 7 and netted 1,358 arrests for solicitation of prostitution, in 18 states…thirty-eight agencies participated, issuing more than $1 million in fines during the operation and [stealing]…421 vehicles. New York City and Philadelphia…joined…for the first time…Oakland, California…arrested 42 people…Seattle had the second-highest number of arrests, 204, followed by Columbus, Ohio (167), Harris County, Texas (143), Houston (82), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations (74), Portland, Oregon (63), Boston (57), and McLennan County, Texas (55). Agencies not listed in these top-tier sex thwarters—including those in or around Phoenix, San Diego, Denver, New York City, Las Vegas, Reno, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia—arrested a combined total of around 250 sex solicitors…no word on how many sex workers were arrested, though that’s usually part and parcel for these john stings…

Above the Law (#599)

Another blameless hero is given power over vulnerable women:

A Shreveport police detective who was fired after [raping] a woman…is back on the job. James Greene…was…arrested and charged with abuse of office…he…was [given two weeks of paid vacation, then]…terminated…In January, Greene was found not guilty [after prosecutors stalled and fumbled for almost a year]…a civil suit has been filed against him by his [victim]…

Subtle Pimping (#603)

If there are so many “sex trafficking victims”, why do they need to keep making up stories about it?

Rena Olsen is a licensed therapist in Des Moines who…works with children. But she hadn’t heard much about human trafficking…until she watched a documentary about it…Olsen [then wrote a novel called]…The Girl Before…She makes it clear that the fictional characters are not based on any story she has heard with clients…In Olsen’s book, a 6-year-old girl is taken from a park and told by her captors that her parents don’t want her anymore. Through years of “training” for sale to clients who desire young virgins, her past is wiped out…Eventually, she becomes a perpetrator herself, training young girls snatched off the streets…

IOW, an ignoramus representing herself as an “expert” wrote a novel based on her own twisted BDSM fantasies, and morons are pretending this has something to do with reality.

Too Close To Home (#618)

Actually, this isn’t the “Nordic model” at all, and neither King County nor any part of the US has that because sex workers are definitely still criminalized here. But the yellow little liar Val Richey (who’s afraid to look me in the eye when he’s in the same room as I am) is only too happy to use that known brand to sell his masters’ brand of snake oil:

Skagit County Coalition Against Trafficking…is hosting a…meeting on Aug. 23 to share [propaganda] about a model of addressing human trafficking — going after the traffickers and customers while [infantilizing sex workers and denying their agency]…Val Richey, King County prosecutor, will present the blueprint that is helping King County reduce human trafficking…The Nordic model is a three-pronged program…the Nordic model’s first prong goes after the pimp and treats prostitutes as victims who…need…mental health treatment…the second prong is arresting the buyer and instituting a financial penalty, half going to law enforcement and half to programs that [incarcerate & brainwash] prostitutes. The third prong is education…[Gayle] Kersten [pretended] the Nordic model has worked in other countries and King County has had great success…

To Molest and Rape

Just a typical case in a typical American prison:

DeEtta Williams…has filed a federal lawsuit against…Michael Ewell, who has since been fired, and the California department of corrections and rehabilitation. She wants…the world to know what happens behind bars…there is a pattern of sexual assault at…women’s prison and…officials “know and just don’t bother” to do anything about it…“Ewell had a history of sexually assaulting women, a history well known to CDC,” according to the suit…In September of 2013, Ewell was accused of sexually assaulting “a fellow CDC officer, [and] was inexplicably transferred to a women’s prison. He was assigned his own unit to supervise, giving him unfettered access and power over the female prisoners in his unit”…Ewell engineered her transfer to a unit where he worked and had her assigned to a job cleaning the guards’ office and small bathroom…He would “pop” her out of her cell at 5.30am, when no other officers were on shift, and have her clean the secluded area…He groped her…forced her to kiss him…slap her, rape her, choke her. He threatened her children. He…[orally raped] her…She lost weight. Her hair fell out. She tried to kill herself. And she told warden Kimberly Hughes that she had been raped over and over again…Hughes was sympathetic…And…transferred Williams to a single cell…Two months later…[Ewell] was “terminated”…

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Scrupleless in Seattle

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged asset seizure, brothels, cops, end demand, Scrupleless in Seattle, Too Close To Home, Washington (state) on July 18, 2016| 16 Comments »

This is ridiculous; this cost a lot of money and is tomfoolery. – Don O’Neill

Once again, so-called “liberal” Seattle has demonstrated its deep conservatism, prudishness, hypocrisy and dishonesty by setting up an elaborate entrapment scheme intended to humiliate the clients of sex workers, deprive us of income and produce a severe chilling effect on the market. Sara Jean Green, who should know better than to believe the anti-whore garbage vomited out by cops, told it this way [with a few corrections from me] in the deeply-prohibitionist Seattle Times:

…members of the Seattle Police Department’s Vice…Unit arrested 204 men during the 10-day operation that began July 5, netting more than $22,000 in cash…“We never anticipated this volume,” [lied] Sgt. Tom Umporowicz [about]…the police-operated Euro Spa, the first sting operation of its kind in the city. He estimated court fines from the operation — $2,733 for a first-time offender, with repeat offenders paying more — will total at least $550,000. Formerly known as Bamboo Spa, the business was shut down in May by Umporowicz and his squad…Umporowicz’s [scam artists] posted ads for Euro Spa on backpage.com…For the “average john,” hiring an escort “is a crapshoot … because you don’t know who is going to show up at the door,” Umporowicz said. Picking up a woman on Aurora Avenue North is also risky since “you could easily get … ripped off and you’re more visible to law enforcement…Most of these guys going to massage parlors think they’re fairly safe”…In many of the vice unit’s earlier stings, men were arrested then released, later receiving summonses in the mail. But [politicians declared]…that…there should be mandatory jail bookings for men arrested for sexual exploitation. It’s the relatively new name adopted by the City Attorney’s Office for the misdemeanor crime of what used to be known as patronizing a prostitute. The hope is that the experience of changing into orange jail garb, being photographed and fingerprinted, and undergoing the jail’s process of verifying names, addresses and phone numbers will serve as a future deterrent…[one] veteran [sleazy sow is referred to]…as “the vice queen.” Dressed in a tight tank top, a short skirt and four-inch heels, the [sociopath is expert]…in making men comfortable [in order] to [destroy their lives]…“Some guys won’t even hand me the money — they throw it on the bed or they throw it on the floor,” she said. “It’s degrading…They would never treat their wives or girlfriends or someone they were trying to pick up in a bar like that.”

As usual, the pigs grunt and oink a lot of filthy lies in order to rationalize that their robbery scam is somehow justifiable, and that it serves some constructive purpose other than pleasing busybodies, getting votes for amoral politicians and letting pervert cops (like the sociopathic policewoman described at the end) get their jollies in a massive nonconsensual public humiliation scene. The lies are so thick and obvious here I’m sure most of y’all can spot them; for example, the pretense that the average client doesn’t “know who is going to show up at the door”, when in fact most modern escorts have websites, reviews and an established online presence. And the pretense that not directly handing the sex worker the money is “degrading”, when in fact most don’t want the money directly handed to them (in the mistaken belief that this will protect them), is especially vile considering that the police and the prohibitionist laws they enforce are the direct cause of this so-called “degradation”. Sorry, amateurs; the truth is our clients generally treat us better than they treat women silly enough to give it to them for free, no matter what sickos who get off on pretending to be whores tell you.

But while the cops boast about their contribution to destroying the fabric of society and fascist media companies obediently parrot the propaganda, the faltering “sin and degradation” narrative has lost considerable popularity and stings like this are recognized for what they are by many other journalists:

…KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill…noted that the [Seattle police department] is understaffed by more than 340 officers and they are currently being paid tons of overtime to deal with the recent protests related to shootings around the country…That’s why, to him, the sting was a “colossal waste of time…You pick up the phone and call the police and they’re not coming…because we’re using our man- and women-power to do stuff like this.” O’Neill said…it’s…an attack on the lives of tech workers and lonely Seattle residents…“there will be divorces over this, families will be embarrassed and they may end up losing their jobs”…

And Tana Ganeva of The Influence wrote:

…Female officers were tarted up in tight clothes and high heels and offered men sexual acts for cash…The sting caught 204 so-called “johns” and netted the department $22,000 in cash. But that’s only the beginning of the city’s profiteering…all the court fines…could total $550,000. And who were these monsters? They ranged from surgeons to a nurse to bus drivers to a journalist…The operation, of course, is presented as a means to protect exploited women…But…there wasn’t even the pretext of trying to catch johns who were looking to hook up with under-aged or trafficked women…in what business on earth does it benefit workers to have their customers arrested? As many sex worker activists have pointed out, depleting the customer pool of men who have the most the lose if they get caught makes sex workers’ lives harder and more dangerous…

And there, as the Bard put it, is the rub; well-established escorts with large client bases aren’t going to be affected by this beyond the usual two- or three-week lull that results every time the cops stage one of their high-profile pogroms. Nor will celebrity whores like me, whom potential clients can verify with a quick Google search. No, it’s going to be the immigrant women and other marginalized sex workers, those who work in massage parlors, on Backpage or on the street, who will suffer the most from this evil game. Sex work isn’t going anywhere, no matter what cops, prosecutors and morally-retarded billionaires want you to believe; it fulfills a very real and important social function and new sex workers and clients enter the demimonde every day. These crusades do nothing but hurt the most vulnerable individuals on both sides of the transaction, just as all prohibition disproportionately harms the most marginalized. One might think that at a time when the public is beginning to awaken to the realities of overpolicing, public officials would have more sense than to approve of these sadistic spectacles; however, that would assume that said officials aren’t echo-chamber-dwelling narcissists. The only way to stop this will be for those who approve of it to suffer actual consequences, and that isn’t going to happen until all of you clients out there get off of your duffs and fight. Regular clients outnumber full-time whores by at least 60 to 1; gentlemen, I suggest you had better rethink your current silence, unless you want to be the next one with your name and picture splashed across newspapers, TV screens and websites.

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In the News (#626)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, An Example to the West, Bad Fantasy-Good Reality, brothels, Cambodia, Canada, Challenge, Colorado, cops, dehumanization, Denmark, Europe, fantasy, Georgia, Ireland, language, law, Madonna/whore, Mumbo Jumbo, neofeminism, Not For Everybody, politicians, porn, Profit from Panic, prohibitionist myths, psychology, racism, rescue industry, Rooted in Racism, Sales Pitch, Saving Them from Themselves, Sex Rays (updates), sex work is work, sexting, shame, stereotypes, Sweden, Swedish model, Thailand, Too Close To Home, United Kingdom, video, Washington (state) on April 3, 2016| 8 Comments »

Arrest is not a service and it doesn’t help people. – Tara Burns

Sales Pitch

The indispensable Wendy Lyon has for several years been looking at Swedish police reports which reveal the truth about the country’s much-ballyhooed “model”; the most recent one contains this bomb:

…On page 43, we find what may be the single most heinous thing I’ve ever read about this law. Discussing penalties (and why the doubling of them doesn’t seem to have worked as well as expected, although of course that’s not stated in so many words) the report says: “classification of the offence by several severity levels could bring more disadvantages for the fight against [sex work]…Police…fear that graduation would lead to resources being exclusively devoted to crimes considered more reprehensible and that the investigation of the crime of purchase of sexual services would therefore not be prioritised“…One of the arguments that has been made against the introduction of this law in Ireland is that it would divert resources away from serious offences (like actual trafficking and exploitation) because the police would need to use those resources going after just any man who pays for sex. So, here the Swedish police are confirming that that’s exactly what they want it to do. As with the increase in stigma against sex workers, the reduced ability of the police to focus on “more reprehensible” crimes against them is a feature, not a bug of the law…

Rooted in Racism

Danish prohibitionists claim sex work is “spreading”. You know, like a disease:

There are now so many foreign women working as prostitutes in Copenhagen that the sex trade has expanded beyond its traditional locales in the city and into more visible and tourist-packed areas, [prohibitionists claim]…“When it spreads this much, there is clearly not enough being done to fight prostitution and to help these women, who are controlled by organizers in their home countries,” [bloviated] Sisse Marie Welling of the Socialist People’s Party…[prohibitionist] Kira West…said that most of the prostitutes…come from either Nigeria or Eastern Europe. They are often brought to Denmark by financial backers who they then need to pay off…

Profit from Panic

“Sex trafficking” fetishists’ ignorance is exceeded only by their delusions of grandeur:

…marketing professor Tammy Crutchfield is passionate about fighting sex trafficking in Middle Georgia. She said parents should be wary of their younger daughters’ older boyfriends…[who will] lure the girls into prostitution…”All you have to do is get on Backpage and see how many young girls are offered,” [salivated] Crutchfield, who teaches a yearlong capstone marketing course based on Traffick Jam, a student organization that [indoctrinates] high school students…[in] sex trafficking [propaganda]…The group…created its own brand to market…T-shirts and jewelry…Their goal is to establish similar Traffick Jam groups on college campuses across the country…

Challenge

How convenient for the State:

A court case that would have tested the right of sex workers to offer services together…to protect themselves has collapsed after a police officer refused to give evidence. Three women appeared before a crown court after the brothel they had run together in Greater Manchester was raided in July 2011. Jane Young, Deborah Daniels and Catherine McGarr had all been charged with keeping a brothel and faced up to seven years in jail if they were found guilty…the women were planning to argue that under the Human Rights Act it was against the rights of sex workers not to allow them to work together in safety…[but] DC Philip Anderson, who had brought the case against the women, [claimed he] would not be able to give evidence…due to his “worsening health”…

Mumbo Jumbo

Oooooh, it’s a SPOOOOOOKY hub!

…human trafficking is what Angels of Hope founder Cristina Scarpellini calls a “ghost crime,” for its hidden nature and the slipperiness of its largely male perpetrators. “It’s so hard to prosecute, because the girl is your evidence — and try keeping the girl all the way up until trial,” she says…the victims also become ghosts to their family members…disappearing without a trace…”I deal with a lot of young girls who will tell me they’ve been approached to be sold” she says…Sudbury is even “a hub” for human trafficking…trafficked girls and their oppressors will often “ask for a hotel room near an exit, so they can make a quick escape if they have to”…a girl who is naive or needy will simply be swayed by a Svengali…

In case you missed the reference, there’s the “magical pimp mind control” again in the last sentence there.

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (#342)

Eyes gouged out for insolence, moms selling daughters to pimps, girls showered with maggots — if it happened in a Cambodian brothel, the story is never too shocking for Westerners to believe. These tales, all propagated by fundraising charities in Cambodia, depict the nation’s sex trade as an otherworldly hellscape…most of these women aren’t so clueless and weak, says…Heidi Hoefinger…an anthropologist and Berkeley College professor who’s spent more than a decade befriending, interviewing and, at times, living with women who work in Cambodia’s hostess bars…Her research has produced a counter-narrative that is strikingly different from the “trauma porn”…churned out by fundraisers…[like the now-disgraced] Somaly Mam…one of the more authoritative studies, published in 2011 by the United Nations’ top human trafficking agency, estimated only 1,058 sex trafficking cases in Cambodia; 127 were underage. (An estimate from Somaly Mam’s foundation? A whopping 40,000 Cambodian “sex slaves”)…

An Example To the West (#343)

Thai sex worker activists are made of awesome:

Chantawipa Apisuk is tired of hearing…that…”free sex” with [a] lover is morally better than an encounter with a professional sex worker. But to Apisuk, it’s all just sex, whether money exchanges hands or not…For three decades, Apisuk has challenged conventional beliefs about the sex industry. Through educational services and international summits, Empower provides support to the 250,000 women estimated to work in Thailand’s…sex trade without pressuring them to leave it. One day, Apisuk hopes to see sex work treated with the same respect as other professions…Now, she has opened This Is Us, an appointment-only museum that celebrates Thailand’s centuries-old reputation as a hub for brothels. Housed in an innocuous building on the outskirts of Bangkok, it “brings a different perspective to the issue of sex work”…

Not for Everybody (#411)

Even most women who really were coerced into sex work know criminalization is horrible:

The reason why trafficking works so well is because there are no resources that could exist to help victims out of their situation. It is majorly fear and conditioning that traps [them]…Telling a sex worker they are naive to their own exploitation feels like another way to assert control over them and dismiss their autonomy. It can’t help them…Nordic model supporters…think victims of trafficking are silent and that they have a right to be our voice, saying criminalisation is best for us and that it’s what we would want…they really couldn’t be more wrong. My experiences have been treated with much more sensitivity and respect by sex worker rights activists than those opposing them…I’m pro-legalisation on a political and personal level. I know that for traffickers, it would be really, really bad for business, and I’d love to see how fast their empire would crumble…

Habitable Room

Molly Smith debunks Swedish model proponents’ claims that their pet tyranny “decriminalizes” sex workers:

…the…Irish…”Swedish Model” Bill omitted to decriminalise soliciting…the most clear and direct form of criminalisation that sex workers in Ireland are subject to. Then, in January 2016, [Justice Minister Frances] Fitzgerald amended her Bill to increase the penalties for [solicitation, yet]…A press release from CATW…lauded Irish policymakers for…“decriminalizing prostituted individuals”…In Scotland…Trish Godman [used Swedish rhetoric]…while launching a Bill titled Criminalisation of the Purchase and Sale of Sex [bold mine]…MSP Rhoda Grant attempted…to introduce…a Bill presented as the Nordic Model….[which] did not include repeal of the soliciting law…

Sex Rays (#549)

Sex Work is Work (#575)

Tara Burns with a guide on reporting about “sex trafficking”:

…Words mean things. Sex trafficking is a legal term with many different definitions in different states and countries. The legal term has become confused with the common mainstream usage—which tends to involve people being forced into prostitution—and this has led to a lot of confusion all around. As journalists, our job is to be precise with language and provide accurate information to the public. When reporting on sex trafficking, or sex trafficking cases, consider describing what has been alleged or what the statute the person is being charged with actually says—because it rarely refers to people being forced into prostitution…

Too Close To Home

The Seattle Times continues its revolting badge-licking; though this reporter seems to be struggling to be more fair, the story is still full of nauseating cop pontification like this:

“I haven’t seen a lot of people who are not damaged in this life,” [a vice pig vomited out]. “If you’ve got prostitution, you’ve got drug dealing. And if you’ve got those two things, you’ve definitely got gang activity, and that fuels other crimes. It’s all connected.”

Because clearly, the first word anyone thinks of when they meet me is “damaged”, and my drug-dealing is well-known. The most revolting part? Somebody in this story is part of a violent criminal “gang”, all right, but it ain’t the whores.

Saving Them From Themselves (#613)

A Colorado bill that would reduce the criminal penalties for teenagers who exchange nude images of each other has run into opposition from critics who say it still treats such behavior too harshly. Under current law, consensual sexting involving anyone younger than 18 qualifies as “sexual exploitation of a child“, a felony that triggers registration as a sex offender and a penalty of up to six years in prison, even for teenagers who take and send pictures of themselves. H.B. 1058 would make underage sexting a misdemeanor known as “misuse of electronic images by a juvenile,” punishable by three to 12 months in jail, with no registration requirement. Although that sounds like a big improvement, lighter penalties are apt to encourage prosecution, and it is not clear why this sort of activity should be treated as a crime at all. In Kansas, where the state Senate last month approved a similar bill, its chief sponsor explicitly argues that it will lead to more prosecution…

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Posts Tagged ‘Too Close To Home’

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