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Posts Tagged ‘United Arab Emirates’

We lie together on the floor until someone buys us.  –  Margarita

Counterfeit Comfort 

Facts have absolutely nothing to do with US sex laws:

When Henry was 18, he had sex with a 16-year-old he met on a dating app who said they were 18 too.  The 16-year-old’s parents found out, summoned the cops, and Henry was charged with a sex offense.  He took a plea: no jail time, and seven years on the sex offense registry…this…made it nearly impossible to find work…After three years with little income—and several hundred dollars a year in payments for court-mandated polygraph tests—Henry moved back in with his parents.  The neighbors got up in arms, so all three of them moved to Henry’s grandmother’s house…At last, Henry found a good job.  But when he gave his probation officer his office address, he was told it was too close to a school…Henry begged his probation officer to let him keep this hard-won job.  The officer said he could continue working until a judge ruled on his request.  But when Henry got to court…the judge issued the harshest ruling possible, sentencing Henry to six years in state prison…

To Molest and Rape

They usually make these cases sound like the rapist was doing his victims a favor:

[A typical and representative Idaho cop named] Ryan A. Bendawald…[has been charged with rap]ing…at least seven women[, often by threatening them with criminal charges if they refused to submit]…

The Missing Word (#838)

If only there were a specific word for this sort of thing:

Women seeking jobs as domestic workers in the UAE…are being detained and abused in squalid accommodation, while recruiters sell them over apps and social media platforms to household employers…women…[a]re denied food, held captive and treated violently…[while] being marketed in an “exploitative” way reminiscent of slavery…with employers charged less for the services of black domestic workers and being told they do not even need to provide them with proper bedrooms…migrants wait, in limbo, for an employer to take them on…a process that can take months, with women often being returned to the agencies at the whim of an employer…

So this is only “reminiscent” of slavery, whereas highly-paid, flexible, self-employment is slavery if it involves sex.  That makes so much sense.

You Were Warned (#1177)

Child porn will only be the first of many excuses to bleed internet companies:

Australia’s [internet control agency has]…fined…Twitter — 610,500 Australian dollars ($385,000) for failing to…explain [to bureaucrats’ satisfaction] how it [deals with] child [porn]…because…[it did not fully fill out] a…question[aire]…

The Puritan Recrudescence (#1344)

Pseudoscience is much more useful as a tool of social control than science could ever be:

Texas recently passed a law that would require some websites to display a lengthy claim concerning the supposed scientifically-based harms of pornography…I study the effects of pornography on humans.  I was unable to find any truthful scientific statement in this state-forced speech…Texas has created a completely false statement by misrepresenting the science of myself and other scholars.  If they want to continue to make such outlandish, false claims, I and other scientists will continue to accurately describe the actual state of the science…

You Were Warned (#1370)

These tyrannies often start with sex workers, but never stop with us:

KOSA…would [invent] a “duty of care” requiring social media apps and websites to “prevent and mitigate” [anything any politician chooses to declare a “]harm[“] to children…the bill would allow state Attorneys General to sue apps and sites if they [pretend] certain content is harmful to minors—meaning AGs could weaponize the law to attack content they simply disagree with.  In response, platforms likely would preemptively block content they think could get them sued.  Much has been made of the bill’s potential to lead to online censorship of LGBT…content and sex ed info for everyone, not just kids, and [much to the surprise of silly people who believe in “wing” mythology] …22 Democratic Senators co-sponsor it—including…[pro-censorship politician] Elizabeth Warren…KOSA could also censor content about abortion on sites ranging from social platforms…to abortion resource websites…

Property of the State (#1376)

Etowah County is one of those jurisdictions which needs to be sued into oblivion:

In March 2021, [pigs] in Etowah county, Alabama, arrested Ashley Caswell [using the pretext] that she’d tested positive for methamphetamine while pregnant and was “endangering” her fetus.  Caswell, who was two months pregnant at the time, became one of a growing number of women imprisoned in the county in the name of protecting their “unborn children”.  But over the next seven months [locked in a cage] for “chemical endangerment”…Caswell was denied regular access to prenatal visits, even as officials were aware her pregnancy was high-risk…She was also denied her prescribed psychiatric medication and slept on a thin mat on the concrete floor…for her entire pregnancy.  In October, when her water broke and she pleaded to be taken to a hospital…[screws] told her to “sleep [labor] off” and “wait until Monday” to deliver – two days away.  During nearly 12 hours of labor, staff…[shouted at] her to “stop screaming”, to “deal with the pain” and that she was “not in full labor”.  Caswell…was alone and standing up in a jail shower when she ultimately delivered her child…and…nearly bled to death…The baby survived, but…was immediately [abducted by “authorities”]…he[r] lawsuit, filed by…Pregnancy Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center, is the first case to challenge the conditions for jailed pregnant women in Etowah county…the national leader in arresting women under the guise of protecting their fetuses…

 

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No genetic information can be safe.  –  Erin Murphy

The Public Eye (#660) 

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

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

A Moral Cancer (#790)

Prohibitionism is a kind of mental illness:

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

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

Disaster (#883)

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

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

Micromanagement (#927)

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

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

A Broker in Pillage (#937)

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

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

Business As Usual (#956)

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

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

Top Cop (#962)

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

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

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

I Spy (#979)

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

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

If It Were Legal (#981)

While stigma and criminalization exist, this will keep happening:

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

Safe Position (#983)

Everyone unsurprised by this, please roll your eyes:

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

Torture Chamber (#987)

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

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

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It seems odd … to make…integrity of…intimate body cavities dependent on who it is that does the…penetrating.  –  Judge John Z. Lee

Where Are the Protests? 

A lot of editing was needed here:

…Portland Police [are]…merging [the] human trafficking [gang]…with its [vice gang.  Prohibitionists]…are concerned the consolidation will result in [fewer pigs raping and persecuting sex workers, but in reality the point is to have more cops harassing women and fewer investigating actual labor exploitation]…

Pride Goeth

We don’t see many good articles about “Straight Pride” events, but the ones we do see are hilarious:

Netflix has threatened the organisers of Boston’s Straight Pride with legal action after they listed the streaming platform as a “prospective corporate sponsor” for their anti-LGBT+ event.  Netflix sent a cease-and-desist order to Super Happy Fun America, the group organising the parade, which has several ties with…white nationalist organisations…Super Happy Fun America were ordered to “immediately” remove the Netflix logo from all materials associated with the event, with the threat of further legal action if this is not done within 24 hours…The parade organisers hit back at Netflix on their website in a post entitled “Netflix hates the straight” which accuses Netflix’s legal team of being staffed by “gay supremacists”…Super Happy Fun America previously tried to use Brad Pitt as their movement’s “mascot,” but were forced to stop following a complaint from Pitt’s representatives…

Torture Chamber 

Our government refers to this as “correction”:

Screenshots of a private group chat…show several [screws] at a Florida prison making [vile] remarks about an inmate beating days before a video of that [beating]…was uploaded to YouTube…by inmates using a [hidden] cell phone…the sister of the [beaten] inmate…and a Florida [politician] who interviewed the inmate in person…have [reported that] officials at the institution [are lying]…about what transpired and attempting to cover up the [flagrant] abuse…Otis Miller [is now locked up in a different stack of cages]…The video [clearly] show[s a gang of screws]…punching [Miller] in the head…[even though] he…is [only] five feet tall and weighs 140 pounds…the [screws clearly took] pride in the damage they had inflicted on [a helpless human being, oinking out such pleasantries as]…“That [inmate] looks like beetle juice [sic]”…“I want more lol”…[and] “Fuck him”…Department of Corrections Secretary Mark Inch responded with [the usual denials and bullshit]…

That Old Black Magic (#442)

Remember that witchcraft charges were once a popular way to persecute sex workers:

Two residents of the city of Gudermes were [arrested by cops in] Chechnya…for practicing…witchcraft…persecution of medicine men and psychics began in Chechnya six years ago, but in recent years has intensified…The detained women may be facing criminal prosecution…Sorcery and magic contradict Islamic dogma…but…the current campaign…is less connected with religious motives, and to a greater extent with comparatively stronger police control…believes Mikhail Roshchin…of…the Russian Academy of Sciences…

Other modern “wars on witchcraft” are taking place in IndonesiaSaudi Arabia (including online censorship), and to a lesser extent the UK (subtitle link).

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#684) 

This is the worst crime I’ve ever seen “sex addiction” used as a defense for:

A…son of a priest blamed a porn overload for him raping and killing a California scientist who vanished from a conference in Crete…Giannis Paraskakis, who confessed to the murder of 59-year-old Suzanne Eaton, [claimed]…watching too much hardcore porn led him to murder…Paraskakis…encountered Eaton on June 2 and…rammed into her twice with his car…he [then] stuffed an unconscious Eaton in the trunk of his vehicle…drove to a remote World War II bunker near Xamoudochori…raped her and left her for dead…Eaton — a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany — was reported missing by colleagues after she missed several sessions at an Orthodox Academy of Crete conference.  Her [remains were] recovered from inside the bunker July 8 with “many broken ribs and face bones as well as multiple injuries to both hands”…cause of death was ruled asphyxiation…

License to Rape (#836)

US court rules mass sexual assault is legal as long as other wannabe rapists are allowed to watch and learn:

Early one March morning inside an Illinois prison, a tactical unit armed with batons and shields stormed two women’s housing units to round up about 200 handcuffed inmates and march them to a gymnasium…[where] they stood facing the wall for more than an hour…until the guards started taking groups of four to 10 into the adjoining bathroom and beauty shop.  There, they were ordered to strip.  Standing shoulder to shoulder, women on their periods were asked to remove their tampons and pads…They were ordered to lift their breasts and hair, to cough and squat, and then, finally, to bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities…male guards [stared at] the naked prisoners…[throughout] the humiliating mass strip search…[which was pretended to be] a training exercise for incoming cadets. Now, after eight years of litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has ruled in a divided 2-1 opinion that the entire 2011 episode was legal…

Change a Few Words (#868)

Another good example of why “legalized” sex work is a bad idea:

[Violent thugs] in Southern California have conducted a massive drug bust that includes 14.9 tons of illegally-grown marijuana in one area…[the thugs also stole] 37 guns, multiple dogs and a honey oil lab at the properties in the Perris area, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles…[pigs raided] 48 [private properties]…and have…[locked] 27 [human beings in cages for farming]…

Oh noes, they grew plants without asking “Mother may I?” first!  WHAT MONSTERS!

Welcome To Our World (#888)

Not an attempt to control women’s bodies, no sirree:

Phnom Penh Municipal Court…charged three women with human trafficking in connection to a surrogacy business after they were arrested and deported from Vietnam…two of them are still pregnant…

Pyrrhic Victory (#915)

More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever:

On [July 18th], Amazon’s [fascist surveillance] partnership with the Orlando Police Department [supposedly] ended, and…city officials [claim] it didn’t work…[because] the city’s technology infrastructure simply wasn’t advanced enough and didn’t have the bandwidth to support the artificial intelligence software on more than one camera at a time…Amazon proposed to outfit the city with more advanced surveillance cameras…since the cameras already installed downtown weren’t proving to be compatible with Rekognition, but the city [suppos]edly declined.  This failure rather neatly illustrates a reality standing in the way of a [fascist] panopticon:  extremely normal technical problems.  If Amazon wants to market a surveillance product to local governments, it will have to deal with the fact that many municipal computer systems run outdated software, that police departments’ cameras aren’t all high-definition, and not all the equipment is neatly networked with a…reliable internet connection.  Amazon appears to be having better luck looking to civilian customers to help it break into the police surveillance market…[by] hand[ing] out free or discounted Ring systems to residents, which allows police to…access footage directly from the…doorbell cameras using Ring’s Neighbors app…cities as big as Dallas, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Phoenix, and Oklahoma City all have joined Ring’s police program, according to a new map from…Fight for the Future…The map also lists smaller cities that have contracts, like Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Maywood, New Jersey…

Elephant in the Parlor (#926) 

Pederast politicians are nearly as common as those who hire adult women:

A businessman who [w]as a key witness in…Robert Mueller’s investigation now faces a charge of child sex trafficking in addition to transporting child pornography…Lebanese-American businessman George Nader…transport[ed] a 14-year-old boy from Europe to Washington, D.C. [for sexual purposes] in February 2000…Nader…[w]as [a] liaison between Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian banker close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and members of President Donald Trump’s transition team.  Nader also served as an adviser to the United Arab Emirates…Nader was convicted in the Czech Republic…of 10 cases of sexually abusing minors and sentenced to a one-year prison term in 2003….[and] also pleaded guilty to a charge of transporting child-pornography images in Virginia in 1991.  The current investigation…began last year when images depicting child pornography and bestiality were found on his phone after it was [seized] under a search warrant connected to the Mueller probe…

Overripe

More from Liz Brown on the Epstein case:

R. Kelly. Jeffrey Epstein. Keith Raniere.  For more than a decade, each of these men escaped largely unscathed as allegations of sexual misconduct — sometimes involving minors — piled up…the recent prosecution of all three on federal sex crime charges…represent all-too-rare instances of “sex trafficking” cases that seem to involve real predatory behavior.  It’s a nice change.  In recent years, sex trafficking charges have largely been lobbed against sex workers and those who work with them.  In both the media and the halls of justice these days, the terms “sex trafficking” and “human trafficking” are often used interchangeably with “prostitution”…“Human trafficking operations” are all too frequently just rebranded stings…The Mann Act is a favorite for federal prosecutors wanting to butt into prostitution stings when there are no minors or evidence of coercion.  That’s because the law prevents driving another person — technically it’s gender neutral, but in practice these cases almost always involve a female sex worker — across state lines for prostitution purposes…In its annual Operation Cross Country, the FBI often ratchets up federal arrest numbers by conducting stings in cities like Kansas City, where driving from one part of the city to another means crossing from Kansas into Missouri…

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When [cops] weren’t groping you, they were having sex with you, and if you had any money they took it from you.  – Mérida, Mexico City sex worker

Here We Go Again

Jesse Walker on the long American tradition of rescue fantasies:

On December 4, Edgar M. Welch carried a rifle into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria…to rescue [“child sex slaves”]…This is hardly the first time someone has filled up on fantasies that a conspiracy was holding innocents captive and exploiting them.  It isn’t the first time a fantasist has set off on a potentially bloody rescue mission either.  Take the mob that burned down the Ursuline convent and boarding school in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1834…the rumors that prompted the riot took an oft-told form:  Girls were being held prisoner, and they needed to be saved…Throughout the era, paranoid Protestants became convinced that convents contained sex slaves, secret tunnels, and other staples of the modern pizzeria; more than once, they invaded intending to liberate the nuns…A couple decades before…a youngster named Ithamar Johnson was “rescued” from a Shaker community in Ohio.  He promptly returned the next day, and remained a Shaker until he died in his eighties.  Much more recently, the cult scare that took off in the 1970s produced a whole profession of “deprogrammers”, some of whom felt the best way to liberate a cultist was to kidnap and torture him…the Satanic panic of the 1980s and ’90s…[claimed] a web of devil-worshippers was raping, kidnapping, and even killing children…In the white-slavery panic of the early 20th century, a flood of exposés—there’s that “fake news” again—made lurid claims about prostitution, greatly exaggerating both the number of women coerced into the profession and the extent to which the trade was controlled by a centralized conspiracy…

Whore Madonnas

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I love it when they feed on each other:

Larry Harmel, executive director of the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association, is the latest criminal-justice official to get caught up in his colleagues’ own undercover prostitution stings…Harmel was arrested after approaching an undercover [sow on a stroll in]…Baltimore…Also…Raymond Edward Bernasconi…a deputy sheriff…[in] Los Angeles…Bernasconi was…arrested on November 21 in a sting…though his hearing has now been postponed until January for unspecified reasons…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling 

We haven’t seen claims this ridiculous in quite a while:

…In Atlanta, a sex trafficker can make an average of $30,000 a day, according to Doug Crumbly, one of the organizers of End Slavery Georgia…[which is] raising money to build a safe haven for survivors of the sex trade…near…where Crumbly serves as pastor…Every two minutes, a girl is taken by force or tricked into working in the sex trade, he said…“The average age of a victim of sex trafficking in Georgia is 13.  The average lifespan is seven years from the time they are taken”…Susan Roberts [fantasizes]…“I guess I was kind of his prize cow.  There was a lot of violence…He poured alcohol down my throat and threatened to kill me and my family”…The pimps have total control, Roberts [fantasized]…“He constantly fed me Xanax, cocaine, whatever drug he could.  If I tried to leave the house, he had cameras everywhere and would call me and tell me ‘I’m watching you right now’…They lurk in places like DFCS offices”…

Because farmers beat and drug their prize cows.  Why can’t most people see this nonsense as the paranoid delusion it clearly is?  Cameras everywhere?  Pimps hanging out in welfare offices?  Seriously?  This woman needs help from psychiatric professionals, not exploitation from religious fanatics trying to make a fast buck.

Gullible’s Travels

The panic industry at work:

You don’t have to buy into the drug panic narratives…to believe that it’s good news that today’s teens are smoking less marijuana.  If use of alcohol and smoking among teens went down, we’d see that as a good sign, too. Those substances are legal (as it seems marijuana is destined to become) but it doesn’t mean we want kids using them at such a young age.  But when your career involves promoting teen addiction panics as a way of shaping public policy, well, perhaps that’s not the best news…[prohibitionists] were so certain that marijuana legalization would lead to a culture where teens thought toking up was just fine and the numbers would go up.  Nevertheless, [Nora] Volkow [of the National Institute on Drug Abuse] was quick to try to turn good news into bad news…”The development of very, very fancy video games has resulted in a pattern of compulsive use…that may serve as a substitute for drug-taking”…It doesn’t take a whole lot of speculating to figure out what could prompt such a quick attempt to redirect.  The rest of her response, “it needs to be tested,” says a whole lot.  It’s a call for more research, more funding, more spending.  The problem can never be “solved”.  There’s more to do!  If one panic gets disproven, look for another…

The Widening Gyre

Ever more hilarious:

A grandmother who sells painted life-like dolls had to try desperately to convince police she wasn’t selling real babies.  Kathy Cadle, who paints and sells the dolls, was reported [by a busybody] as a suspected human trafficker…She later found out that police had spent much of the day questioning her friends…[but the cops were so stupid they still believed the ridiculous “trafficking” story until Cadle handed] one of her realistic dolls to [the pigs to see for themselves]…the dolls…are made from vinyl…and…sold under company name Bunny Bundles Reborns…[they] have featured in front page spreads and are used as therapy dolls for patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s…

Imaginary Evils

Theresa May is really dedicated to competing with the US in using “sex trafficking” as an excuse to destroy civil liberties:

…Theresa May…convinced six Gulf countries to sign up to the WeProtect Global Alliance – a British-led international coalition dedicated to [persecuting sex workers]…Recent [propaganda touts the ludicrous idea]…that there are around 46 million people in some form of slavery around the world…[prohibitionists pretend] that there are currently 10,000 – 13,000 people enslaved in Britain [despite a complete lack of evidence for even 1% of that number]…

An Example to the West (#429)

More than two years after a landmark court decision, Mexico City’s whores are still fighting:

A 2014 court decision recognized…[the] status [of] non-salaried sex worker[s]…A legislative bill seeking to recognize these guarantees in the Mexican capital’s new constitution has opened a fresh breach between those seeking to eradicate [sex workers, whom]…they view as [subhuman], and those who defend [human rights]…The decision said that…authorities are obliged to respect these workers’ decision to sell sex…

The More the Better (#512)

Despite being a humor site, Cracked has a far more realistic view of sex work than the mainstream media:

In movies, prostitutes are either walking tragedies — invariably addicted to drugs and doomed to a life of crime and sadness — or used as comedic relief — pure fodder for a series of wacky misunderstandings.  In reality, of course, neither is accurate.  We exist, all of us, on a complicated spectrum somewhere between Oscar Bait and Rob Schneider bit.  So we spoke to “Felicia,” whose mother worked at a New Zealand brothel when Felicia was a teenager, and she told us…

Ashley Madison (#653) 

“…past business practices that may have allegedly been misleading to consumers.”

The Toronto-based parent company of the infidelity dating site Ashley Madison…has paid more than $1.6 million US in settlements as part of an investigation led by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission…half the money went to the FTC and half to the states participating in the probe.  The company says that as part of the agreement, it will also…”refrain from past business practices that may have allegedly been misleading to consumers.”  But it…neither admits nor denies the [proven fact]…that it resorted to fake profiles of women — commonly known as bots — to lure unsuspecting male customers

Too Close To Home (#672)

Another round of persecution of TRB users:

At least twelve more men face felony charges in Washington for posting comments to the now-defunct web forum known as The Review Board (TRB).  The dozen defendants, most of whom [were] arraigned in King County District Court on December 14, face one count each of promoting prostitution in the second degree—a charge historically used to target people who profit off of the prostitution of others but more recently favored by King County prosecutors to go after people who write positively online about area prostitution…law enforcement needn’t show that defendants actually engaged in pay-to-play sexual activity themselves.  All they must show is that the men “advanced” the prostitution careers of others by saying positive things about them online…authorities present no evidence that the women these men “promoted” were being exploited, other than the mere fact that the women were engaging in sex work at all.  At least a couple of the “prostituted women” mentioned in charging documents are prominent sex-worker rights activists.  In the Certification for the Determination of Probable Cause against one defendant, emails from nonprofit groups such as the Sex Worker’s Outreach Project (SWOP) and Center for Sex Positive Culture are even presented among evidence…Clients of Sex Workers Allied for Change (CoSWAC) issued a Tuesday statement “condemn[ing] this continuing crusade”…

Opting Out (#694) attempts-to-block-xhamster

On the futility of attempts to block porn:

As the United Kingdom considers banning “nonconventional” pornography, xHamster is offering up a warning:  It won’t work — or, at least, not very well.  The porn site has released new data on the more than 1 billion visits that it received in the past year from countries that have blocked its url.  “Despite the best attempts of censors, users are finding their way to [xHamster] using web-based proxies, VPNs, and networks like Tor…porn bans may have the opposite of the intended effect by pushing otherwise apolitical citizens into networks that bypass government blockades.”  xHamster looked at nine countries that have reportedly blocked its site — China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates — and the number of visitors from these countries accessing xHamster using proxies or VPNs…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#696)

Americans disapprove of teaching kids about sex, but they’re all for filling their heads with stupid anti-sex propaganda:

Orange County leads the state in reports of human trafficking cases involving children…Florida Abolitionists…[fantasizes that] children are top targets for traffickers–girls between 12 and 14 are in high demand, and boys as young as 10 are targets.  That’s why [the group] is in talks with Orange County Public Schools to bring [propaganda] to classrooms…and make human trafficking a part of [indoctrination] in the classroom…“just like bullying and ‘say no to drugs’”…

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A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.  –  Norman Mailer

Just after midnight Wednesday night, I reached half a million total page views; thanks to all my readers for making it happen!  And here are twelve other things that happened this week, in the form of updates:

The Rescuers (August 25th, 2010)

This story is an update both to “The Rescuers” and “Bad Girls”…which, strangely enough, was published the day before:

…Erik Garcia…ventured on to [sic] the Houston back pages [sic] website with the idea of calling up an escort service…”I would preach to that person and try to get them [sic] to change their [sic] ways, and low [sic] and behold, I got mugged,” Garcia said.  Investigators say the woman who answered…was Jamie Vaughn…who’s been arrested more than 10 times…for drugs and prostitution…she picked up Garcia…and allegedly robbed him…

I also made a comment on the story, commenting on its numerous factual errors and pointing out that, while I’m glad Garcia wasn’t hurt, one might point out that he attempted to trick someone and was tricked in return.

What a Week! (November 28th, 2010)

Remember the man with half a head who was victimized by cops for trying to hire a hooker?  Well, somebody who knows him made a video, as reported on Huffington Post:

…The Miami New Times, who first spotted the cheerful alleged prostitute-solicitor in its “Mugshots Friday” series, ran across a YouTube account…in which the gentleman himself explains the traumatic injury.  Answering to the name “Halfy” and smoking what looks an awful lot like a blunt, he suggests it’s best to stay off drugs…[he] then alleges the president of the United States uses drugs, affirms his love of large women, and makes several sexually explicit remarks…

The video was removed from YouTube but is still available here, at least for now.  As you can see Halfy’s statements aren’t anti-drug, they’re against impaired driving and marijuana criminalization.

The Coffee Klatsch (April 28th, 2011)

Our friend Kelly James is now a full-time libertarian activist in Keene, New Hampshire; some of you have probably seen her “Don’t Strip Our Rights” video, which documents her handing out anti-TSA pamphlets clad only in lingerie.  Well, it’s attracted a lot of attention, including this recent story on Huffington Post.  Congratulations, Kelly, and good luck!

A Procrustean Bed (May 19th, 2011)

Massachusetts has enacted a new law which defines all prostitutes as raped infants and all men who have anything at all to do with them as international gangsters.  Fortunately, somebody at the Boston Herald thought to ask the actual experts their opinions:

…a sweeping new human-trafficking law…[is supposedly] aimed at protecting child prostitutes but also hits adult hookers’ clients with fines of up to $5,000 and up to 2½ years behind bars, as part of a broad crackdown aimed at snuffing out prostitution…women of the night…are treated as victims of human trafficking, still facing the same misdemeanor charges but with new rights to sue those who exploited them.  “The penalties we’ve had have been far too low,” [said] Attorney General Martha Coakley…But one high-priced online hooker said she’s no victim — and she doesn’t know any women who are.  “If you are an escort, you go into it of your own free will,” she said.  “Absolutely no one is forced into doing this…”  Another call girl who’s happily hooking online said she doesn’t feel like a victim either.  Her johns even provide references from other prostitutes…Coakley said the law brings equity to enforcement that for decades targeted streetwalkers almost exclusively, often letting their clients and pimps walk away scot-free.  “This is about leveling the playing field and making it fair…”

I’m sure you recognize the Swedish reek on all this, complete with Orwellian redefinitions.  I wonder if any crafty attorney will be willing to take on a class-action suit in which escorts sue politicians for exploiting them for PR value by robbing them of a livelihood?

A False Dichotomy (June 22nd, 2011)

In Pardis Mahdavi’s new book Gridlock:  Labor, Migration, and Human Trafficking in Dubai she  joins Laura Agustín and many others in criticizing the whole “trafficking” paradigm; here’s a review from Rights Work:

Gridlock offers a fascinating report of the negative consequences…the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Dubai [suffer] as a result of…the UN Trafficking Protocol and the U.S. anti-trafficking law.  Mahdavi focuses…[on] migrant workers, ranging from…construction workers to…sex workers…[and offers] a powerful critique of the current paradigm of international anti-trafficking law…arguing that [the laws] hurt the very people they seek to protect…[She says] contemporary anti-trafficking discourse has been inordinately preoccupied with the increased criminalization of sex work…[and] successfully argues for reframing trafficking as an international migration and human rights issue…the term trafficking is used…primarily [to] connote women…who have been duped or forced into sex work…Consequently, the exploitative conditions under which a large percentage of Dubai’s migrant non-sex worker population labors is not considered seriously…[but] all sex workers…are considered to be trafficked…This has been reinforced by US influence on trafficking discourse, particularly, the US TIP Report…which…political and social actors in the UAE experience…as an instance of US imperialism and hegemony…

…sex workers cannot be easily characterised solely as victims or agents…Any attempt to ignore this reality and dictate that all sex workers are ‘victims’ translates into rescue operations, which go against sex workers’ wishes…women who can legally enter…domestic work often choose to enter…sex work for the relative autonomy and higher pay that it offers.  They prefer sex work to the highly exploitative working conditions…they face as domestic workers…[furthermore, maltreated] domestic workers [may]…run away from their employers…[rendering] their immigration status illegal…many women [thus] enter sex work through legal migration channels…[US pressure drove] the UAE to step up law enforcement efforts…tighten borders…and dramatically [increase] surveillance of female migrant workers…anti-trafficking discourse…renders abuse in non-sex work sectors invisible, while ‘fetishizing victimisation’ in the sex industry…

Mahdavi characterizes “trafficking” hysteria as a “global moral panic” and states that officials need to stop obsessing about sex work and border crossing and instead improve migrant workers’ rights by improving work conditions.  We need more researchers like her, and more organizations like Rights Work which are more concerned with facts and helping people than with promoting anti-sex agendas.

In Denial (Part Two) (August 16th, 2011)

I just love it when actresses clearly demonstrate that our professions haven’t diverged much:  “…Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel…got engaged over the holidays…’She wants a fidelity clause in the prenup giving her at least $500,000 if he [strays]’…[Timberlake]…is offering a cash settlement with no fidelity clause or alimony…”

Counterfeit Comfort (August 28th, 2011)

Control freaks won’t be satisfied until every conceivable behavior of “sex offenders” is criminalized; then they can get to work on expanding the list of registerable crimes to include everyone who isn’t a politician or cop:

A federal judge in…Louisiana has struck down a state law barring sex offenders from using Facebook and other social media…Chief Judge Brian Jackson ruled…that the law…imposed “a sweeping ban on many commonly read news and information websites”…The definition of “chat room” in the law is so broad…the court’s own website could fall under the ban, he said…


Unsurprisingly, a spokesman for Facebook said it supports the law, and the governor’s office opined that it was “necessary” to keep prostitutes, guys who relieved themselves in the wrong place while drunk and other “dangerous predators” from magically reaching through the internet to molest “innocent children.”

Neither Addiction nor Epidemic (December 4th, 2011)

Sex isn’t the only thing busybodies attack with ridiculous exaggerations and addiction rhetoric:

…Britain’s boozing has reached ‘scandalous’ proportions…UK prime minister David Cameron declared last week, referring to what he called the “rising tide” of irresponsible drinking across the country.  But it’s not just loud yobbish drunks…it’s also the ‘hidden alcoholics’, the middle-class wine drinkers…As well as emphasising the ‘anti-social behaviour’ alcohol causes, the government and campaigners alike are quick to point to what the Observercalled “the intolerable burden being placed on the health services”.  Even by overindulging on the vino by ourselves at home, we are apparently being irresponsible and causing a public nuisance – by potentially contributing to what David Cameron claims could be between £17 billion and £22 billion per year spent on “alcohol-related costs”…The precise way such figures are arrived at is questionable.  It is certainly the case that the amount of revenue brought in through taxation on alcohol covers the NHS bill for alcohol-related issues, with a couple of billion pounds left to spare.  And, strikingly, the increase in hype about a drinking ‘epidemic’ in Britain coincides with…a steady drop in the amount…drunk by people of all ages…

Just one teensy thing more; remember how some of you thought I was being alarmist when I pointed out that a government which provides health care will eventually make laws against consensual behaviors that tend to increase medical bills?

The More the Better (January 9th, 2012)

My heart lifts a little every time I see another article about how single mothers are increasingly turning to sex work to support their kids; here’s a long one entitled “The Family Prostitute” from LA Weekly.  Think the prohibitionists will still be able to sell doom, degradation, “violence against women” and “no real choice” once most women at least have acquaintances who have been there, done that?

Scapegoats (January 26th, 2012)

Though Oklahoma is in the “Bible Belt”, even there the old religious rationalizations for bestiality laws are giving way to “abuse” rhetoric:

…[After a] Pittsburg County woman [traded a dog for two laptops]…she discovered videos depicting a man engaging in sex acts with a dog…[and] drove all the way back to Owasso to alert police about the former computer owner…she worried the dog she traded for the computers was in danger of being molested…[police said] the nineteen year-old Owasso woman [who previously owned the laptops] was being investigated for sodomy and crimes against nature, but once she was booked in jail, she was held on a felony complaint of…distributing obscene material…

The story also states that Lori Hall, the head of Tulsa’s SPCA, said animals can be victims of sexual abuse, “just like children”.  Does anyone else wonder what the Owasso police were smoking?  The video showed a man shagging a dog, but they arrested a woman instead?  Did they suspect her of being a shapeshifter?  And now she’s accused of “distributing obscene material”, i.e. giving someone a computer with porn on it.  Don’t they have any actual crime in Oklahoma, or is this just the usual police preference for victimizing women rather than going after criminals who might shoot back?

Sex, Lies and Busybodies (January 27th, 2012)

Remember the claims that Aussie whores were spreading disease in mining towns?

Absolute total rubbish, was the response from Sexual Health Services specialist Dr Arun Menon to [newspaper claims]…that the rise in syphilis cases in the North West was due to dubious sex practices in illegitimate brothels in Mount Isa.  “The problem isn’t with sex workers or brothels; it’s with young people aged 15 to 30…” Dr Menon said…Queensland Health’s senior director of Communicable Diseases, Dr Christine Selvey, also took exception to the article…”There have been NO cases of syphilis involving the sex trade industry, illegal or otherwise, or indeed the mining industry workforce,” she wrote.

The Course of a Disease (February 16th, 2012)

According to an article in the Jerusalem Post, a new poll shows that 59% of Israelis oppose the proposed client criminalization law, and only 34% claim to support it.  But considering that proponents of the Swedish Model never care what sex workers, health experts or anyone else thinks, I hardly believe this will matter.

One Year Ago Today

Crime Against Society” discusses activists’ efforts to defeat Louisiana’s vile “Crime Against Nature” law.

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Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent. –  Roman proverb

I encountered this article via a link from the SWOP site, and saw something very interesting about it which I decided to illustrate via a little judicious alteration.  Read my modified version first:

A planned conference by sex workers, which was scheduled to start yesterday in Baltimore, was abruptly halted by the government, saying it was illegal. The conference was organized by the Committee for Women’s Sexual Autonomy, an international women’s rights organization with offices in Boston, and was to be held in a hotel in Baltimore.  Addressing journalists in Annapolis yesterday, Attorney General Douglas Gansler said the conference, which government learnt of on Wednesday, had attracted prostitutes from New England, Virginia and Pennsylvania. “Government reiterates its position that prostitution is a punishable offence. While it is true that we have had problems with enforcing the law, the government is determined to defend innocent children who very often fall victim to selfish as well as misguided individuals who are promoting prostitution,” Gansler said, adding he informed the hotel that it could be held liable as an accessory to the crime of human trafficking.  “Promotion of criminal acts under the claim of defense of one’s human rights is not one for this government.”

One of the officials of the organization, who refused to reveal her identity, only said: “If the meeting has been stopped, how can it continue?”  She added that she was not aware of the topic and the function of the conference.  Most sex workers in the United States, especially in cities, are less than 35 years old and join the sex trade due to different problems like poverty, unemployment and illiteracy.  Last year, participants discussed ways of protecting sex workers from HIV/AIDS amidst calls from the public to ban the meeting.

Not anything unusual, is it?  In fact, it’s pretty typical prohibitionist grandstanding, right?  Except for one thing:  It isn’t true as I presented it; I changed the places and names and rewrote one sentence slightly.  Here’s the original article; note the easy way American names fit into a story about a third-world country not exactly known for its stellar record on human rights.  Are you disgusted?  You certainly should be. Here is a list of all the countries in which prostitution is still illegal: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belarus, Bhutan, Bosnia, Botswana, Brunei, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, China, Comoros, The Congo, Croatia, Djibouti, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritria, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Korea (both), Kuwait, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauretania, Mauritius, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nauru, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, The Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.  Take a good look at it; with a couple of exceptions every country on the list is either a totalitarian state, a country only recently emerged from totalitarianism, a theocracy or near-theocracy, a postage stamp, a third-world shithole or some combination of two or more of those categories.

Is this the company you want our country to be in?  Apparently it’s the one our elected officials (and uneleted bureaucrats) want, and they’re working hard to make sure we look more and more like our comrades on the list all the time.  In order to more closely resemble China and Islamic theocracies we need much more stringent internet censorship, and as I reported on October 2nd and November 17th, our Congress is trying to enact a law which will establish exactly that.  This report appeared on the Techdirt website this past Thursday (November 18th):

This is hardly a surprise but, this morning (as previously  announced), the lame duck Senate Judiciary Committee  unanimously voted to move forward with censoring the internet via the COICA bill — despite a bunch of law professors explaining to them how this law is a clear violation of the First Amendment.  What’s really amazing is that many of the same Senators have been speaking out against internet censorship in other countries, yet they happily vote to approve it here because it’s seen as a way to make many of their largest campaign contributors happy.  There’s very little chance that the bill will actually get passed by the end of the term but, in the meantime, we figured it might be useful to highlight the 19 Senators who voted to censor the internet this morning:

Patrick J. Leahy — Vermont
Herb Kohl — Wisconsin
Jeff Sessions — Alabama
Dianne Feinstein — California
Orrin G. Hatch — Utah
Russ Feingold — Wisconsin
Chuck Grassley — Iowa
Arlen Specter — Pennsylvania
Jon Kyl — Arizona
Chuck Schumer — New York
Lindsey Graham — South Carolina
Dick Durbin — Illinois
John Cornyn — Texas
Benjamin L. Cardin — Maryland
Tom Coburn — Oklahoma
Sheldon Whitehouse — Rhode Island
Amy Klobuchar — Minnesota
Al Franken — Minnesota
Chris Coons — Delaware

This should be a list of shame.  You would think that our own elected officials would understand the First Amendment but, apparently, they have no problem turning the US into one of the small list of authoritarian countries that censors internet content it does not like (in this case, content some of its largest campaign contributors do not like).  We already have laws in place to deal with infringing content, so don’t buy the excuse that this law is about stopping infringement.  This law takes down entire websites based on the government’s say-so.  First Amendment protections make clear that if you are going to stop any specific speech, it has to be extremely specific speech.  This law has no such restrictions.  It’s really quite unfortunate that these 19 US Senators are the first American politicians to publicly vote in favor of censoring speech in America.

I feel constrained to point out that this list contains individuals from both of what Americans laughably refer to as “political parties”, and that some of these individuals call themselves “conservatives” while others pretend to be “liberals”; the truth, of course, is that they all belong to the Huge Bloated Government Party and their shared aim (it was a unanimous vote, remember) is the subjugation and thought control of the American people.  It’s too bad we whores can’t unify enough to buy ourselves a couple of politicians; with the natural lobbying abilities inherent in our profession I’m sure we could swing a number of the “undecideds” and then the prostitution laws would start dropping quicker than you can say “campaign contribution”.  Alas, we do not constitute a giant, faceless corporation with more money than God and therefore our opinions don’t count in the good old U$A.

“Freedom” used to mean something to Americans; politicians in every time and place have always tried to grab more power and suppress individual rights, but in the United States the people always resisted such attempts in the past.  Our culture has grown tired and indolent, resisting tyranny is hard work, and the average modern American would rather surrender his wallet, weapons, privacy, rights and balls to the “authorities” in return for the empty promise of “protection”.  He’s happy to go where he’s told to go, eat what he’s told to eat, watch what he’s allowed to watch and think what he’s told to think, and it does not seem to alarm him that his Uncle Sam is keeping company with a most unsavory crowd of late.  And considering the sort of mangy mutts he’s chosen to lie down with, I shudder to think of the sort of plague the inevitable fleas might be carrying.

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