The Honest Courtesan

A fool is very dangerous when in power.  –  Denis Fonvizin

Two new items, twelve updates and one metaupdate.

End Demand

More Bizarro behavior from Zimbabwe:

A Zimbabwean politician has…[suggested] the spread of HIV can be curbed if women…deliberately make themselves…unattractive.  Morgan Femai…said the measures were required because men were finding it difficult to resist well-dressed, attractive women…“…I propose…a law that compels women to have their heads clean-shaven…they should also not bathe because that is what has caused all these problems.”  Senator Femai also appeared to suggest female circumcision would help stop the spread of disease…“Women have got more moisture in their organs as compared to men so there is need to research on how to deal with that…because it is conducive for bacteria breeding”…another…Senator, Sithembile Mlotshwa…recently suggested men be injected with drugs that reduce their libidos.  She also called for prisoners to be given sex toys to satisfy their sexual desires.

You may laugh or cry, but are these suggestions really any more stupid than Western “end demand” rhetoric?

Femme Fatale

“…67 year old…Robert Gene got multiple lap dances during his time at the Red Parrot in El Paso, [but]…suffered from a heart attack, which the strippers failed to notice…employees tried to give Gene CPR but were unsuccessful in reviving him…”

Updates

Lying Down With Dogs (November 24^th, 2010)

Another example of the strong resemblance between anti-whore policies in the US and Uganda:

…police authorities in…Gulu…raided [a sex worker drop-in centre] and arrested two staff and three members of the Women’s Organization Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA)…This raid…appears to be part of a deliberate strategy by the Gulu Police to play tough…[it] is in direct violation of the rights of…human rights defenders at WONETHA…“they are accusing us of promoting prostitution…of sleeping with other women and recruiting girls into prostitution.”  All five arrested advocates were finally charged with “Living off the earnings of prostitution,” an accusation that they vehemently denounce…

Compare with attacks against Backpage and other advertising venues for “facilitating prostitution”.

Law of the Instrument (August 26^th, 2011)

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail,” wrote Abraham Maslow; Wendy Lyon writes at length on how Irish authorities who desperately need “human trafficking” cases to justify their crackdowns are using the label for everything from undocumented immigration to attempted rape.

The Crumbling Dam (October 14^th, 2011)

Organized persecution of Canadian whores continues to crumble in the face of the recent court decisions; under the embattled law, even a landlord who knowingly rents an apartment to a hooker could be prosecuted for “brothel keeping”, but one Vancouver charity openly violates it anyway:

…Janice Abbott, CEO of the Atira Women’s Resource Society, said tenants of…housing complexes for low-income women are entitled to the same rights as any other renter…even if they are sex workers…when Atira opened Bridge Housing in 2001…there was no conscious decision to create a safe…space for women to do sex work…[but] Atira decided not to question the women’s guests… “They’re paying rent and it’s their home and they get to do everything all the rest of us take for granted in our homes, which is have guests come and go, among many other things”…

The article also mentions that “…the City of Vancouver has proposed a new…policy…indicating that consensual adult sex work is not an enforcement priority for the police and that their priority should be ensuring the safety of sex workers.”  Apparently, Toronto feels the same way:

…The Toronto Police Service confirmed…the force has put “on hold”…sweeps in which female officers pose as street prostitutes to arrest men willing to pay for sex…spokesman Mark Pugash said…the decision…is based on the force’s reluctance to use “finite” resources to arrest people when so much “uncertainty” currently surrounds prostitution laws…[however] investigations into illegal massage parlours, brothels and escort agencies will carry on as usual…City Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti…[criticized] the policy…”When you’re sleeping with a prostitute, you’re probably sleeping with 150 guys at the same time”…

It’s good to see officials brushing aside politicians spouting the “dirty whore” myth to justify imposing their personal morals on others.

Bad Fantasy, Good Reality (October 27^th, 2011)

Another female academic dares to tell the truth about prostitution in East Asia:

Kimberly Hoang…won the American Sociological Association’s…award for her doctoral dissertation on sex work in Vietnam.  The winning entry, New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam, was based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Ho Chi Minh City, where Hoang worked as a bartender and hostess in four bars that catered to different groups of clients…Hoang’s research “highlights not just the structure and practices of sex work in Vietnam, but demonstrates how it serves as a vital form of currency in Vietnam’s political economy.”  In her nominating letter, [sociology professor Raka] Ray called the dissertation “a stunning piece of work” by “an absolutely fearless and creative thinker,” adding that Hoang had done “the sort of fieldwork few others dare”…

Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4^th, 2011)

Contrary to what you may have heard, the upcoming 5^th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not greatly increase the number of things labeled as “addictions”; in fact, it entirely eliminates the word “addiction”:  “Instead, they are labeled ‘use disorders’…[because the] group thought the word…was less pejorative and stigmatizing.”  I’m willing to bet it’s also to put a stop to pop psychologists’ labeling everything an “addiction”:

Despite substantial pressure…the…workgroup rejected proposals to recognize addictions to sex, food, the Internet, and caffeine…[workgroup chairman Charles O’Brien, MD] said…emphasis on scientific justification precluded listing them…”We looked at sex addiction, but there was no science at all.  None.”

Another positive change is the replacement of DSM-IV’s false dichotomy of “drug abuse” and “drug dependence”:

…research conducted in recent decades pointed to substance-related problems as occurring on a continuum, such that the abuse-dependence distinction was purely arbitrary…[a new] requirement [is] that the patient…demonstrate craving for the particular substance…[which is] the key symptom that separates addiction from mere heavy use…

Legal Is as Legal Does (December 14^th, 2011)

Here’s a generally objective article on prostitution in Turkey which demonstrates the problems of legalization.  The country has licensed brothels since the late days of the Ottoman Empire, but it will surprise none of my readers to hear that 97% of Turkish harlots prefer to work illegally than to be registered and subjugated to politically-connected brothel owners who keep their employees in conditions virtually indistinguishable from slavery.  This government-approved abuse is now being used by Islamist politicians to justify closing all brothels and forcing the girls onto the street, thus establishing the state as their pimp by setting them up for fine-garnering police “crackdowns”.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (December 29^th, 2012)

This week, Rob Arthur sent me a copy of his book You Will Die, and a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a DVD of The Wicker Tree, writer/director Robin Hardy’s “re-imagining” of his classic, The Wicker Man.  My sincere thanks to both of you for thinking of me!

Above the Law (March 8^th, 2012)

The police have always used sexual assault as a weapon of oppression, but in the US the tactic was generally reserved for sex workers; however, as police brutality and immunity from prosecution have increased, amateurs have been on the receiving end as well.  Female Occupy protesters are now reporting being repeatedly groped by cops:

…No doubt it’s partly…to brutalize those you think are weak, and more easily traumatized.  But another reason is, almost certainly, the hope of provoking violent reactions on the part of male protestors…Soldiers who oppose allowing a combat role for women almost invariably say they do so not because they are afraid women would not behave effectively in battle, but because they are afraid men would…become so obsessed with the possibility of women in their unit being captured and sexually assaulted that they would behave irrationally.  If the police were trying to provoke a violent reaction on the part of studiously non-violent protestors, as a way of justifying even greater brutality and felony charges, this would clearly be the most effective means of doing so…

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

In the US, “feminists” encourage police to persecute sex workers; in India such behavior provokes protest marches:

Women’s groups and progressive organisations in India are shocked that Ms. Anu Mokal, a pregnant sex worker in Satara, was beaten up by police inspector Dayanand Dhome on April 2, along with her friend Ms. Anjana Ghadge.  Three days later, on 5^th April, she suffered a miscarriage…[the women] were bringing dinner for their friend…in the…hospital…[when] Dhome accused them of soliciting and when they refuted it abused them and called them liars.  Dhome and his subordinates started beating…[and kicking] them and said that women like Anu are a ‘shame’.  Her pleas that she was four months pregnant fell on deaf ears…Women’s organisations are outraged that…no action has been taken against the policemen…Anu…feels that the [incident is]…not taken seriously because she is a sex worker.  In fact, the police had the audacity to tell these women that sex workers cannot be mothers…

Hard Numbers (April 20^th, 2012)

While Western Australia continues its self-destructive drive toward the Swedish Model, South Australian politicians apparently comprehend the concept of “evidence” and are moving toward decriminalization:

…Status of Women Minister Gail Gago and former minister Steph Key [spoke about]…Bills aimed at decriminalising prostitution.  Ms Key aims to introduce her Bill…on May 31 – the eve of International Whores’ Day…It would decriminalise all forms of prostitution…but retain soliciting as an offence where it occurred in the presence of other people…Minors would be banned from sex work and there would also be provisions making it an offence to practise unsafe sex…Ms Key believes there is growing support for the move…

The Pygmalion Fallacy
(May 6^th, 2012)

It’s good to see that at least one tech writer has his eyes partially open on the subject of sexbots; though this article by Sebastian Anthony still buys “sex trafficking” myth, it at least understands that any gynoid real enough to please a normal man (as opposed to one with a robot fetish) is also real enough to be considered a sentient being with rights.

Mother’s Day (May 13^th, 2012)

After a journalist made shockingly clueless statements about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, Christopher Ryan (co-author of Sex At Dawn) published a reaction which echoes many of the same points I made in this column:

NPR’s Scott Simon…suggests that the real scandal may be the original decision to hold the Summit…in Cartagena…”Why were world leaders meeting in a place with legalized prostitution?”…there are a host of very ugly realities often associated with prostitution…But all these things are mitigated by legalization, and Simon wasn’t suggesting the meeting shouldn’t have been held in a place where prostitution exists, but in a place where it’s legal…Simon asks, “Would you want someone you love to live that way?”  No, probably not.  But…I wouldn’t want someone I love working in a steel mill or a coal mine, either…nor…sent off to distant deserts…in defense of jingoistic abstractions…But nobody’s proposing that we make industry [or] the military…illegal…we gain nothing from legally prohibiting the expression of human nature, and what we lose is…the opportunity to…mitigate the damage…If someone you love chose to work as a prostitute, would you rather she had legal and medical protection, or would you prefer she be forced into the shadows…That’s the question we need to be asking.

Metaupdates

Against Their Will in August Updates (Part Two) (August 4^th, 2011)

Add Malaysia to the list of countries the US State Department encourages to violently persecute whores:  “In 2008 the US…gave Malaysia the lowest rating in its annual Trafficking In Persons Report…Now nearly all brothels…have been shut.  Sex workers are forced to work in dangerous and difficult conditions on streets throughout the capital.  For its violent efforts to suppress the sex industry the US Government raised Malaysia to tier 2 level in its 2009 TIP report.”

One Year Ago Today

“A Procrustean Bed” explains how a new Massachusetts law defines women as helpless infants and men as international gangsters.

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