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Posts Tagged ‘United Kingdom’

In the News (#765)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2017| Leave a Comment »

It’s psychologically damaging to stay 12 hours in an office getting paid a minimum wage.  –  Andra Chirnogeanu

See No Evil

I’m sure you feel safer now:

Police dug through Walter Korte’s trash four times.  They searched his car, his office, and his home.  They found thousands of…”erotic and pornographic pictures that appeared to be printed off websites.”  The “vast majority” of the images “appeared legal and depicted adults and transgender individuals.”  Some of the photos showed “young men clothed and unclothed,” some of whom “appeared to be in their late teens.”  One of those pictures was ultimately determined to qualify as child pornography under Virginia law, meaning that it was a “sexually explicit” image of “an identifiable minor,” i.e., someone younger than 18.  As a result, Korte, a [73 year old] former film studies professor at the University of Virginia with no criminal record, faces up to a year in jail and registration as a sex offender…According to the proposed plea deal, Korte “knowingly possess[ed] child pornography”…[even though] the police did not know that the single purportedly illegal image, showing a boy in his “late teens,” was child pornography until they consulted experts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  It also is not clear why prosecutors, who noted that “police did not find evidence of any hands-on crimes against minors”…are insisting that he register as a sex offender, which is not required by statute for possession of child pornography unless it is a second offense…

The More the Better 

This is actually a very reasonable article, especially considering the BBC’s usual prudishness:

…Working an eight-hour day, [Lana] earns close to 4,000 euros (£3,600) per month – nearly 10 times the Romanian average wage.  As Lana’s employer, Studio 20 also makes 4,000 euros per month from her online sessions.  And at the top of the video chat money-making pyramid, LiveJasmin – the online cam site that streams Studio 20’s content and is responsible for collecting payment from the credit cards of clients – takes double that: 8,000 euros…LiveJasmin is the largest internet cam host in the world.  Between 35 and 40 million users visit it daily, and at any given moment, there are 2,000 models live online…Studio 20 is the largest studio webcam franchise in the world.  It has nine branches in Romania, including one employing “cam-boys” who service the gay market.  Its other branches are in the Colombian city of Cali, Budapest and Los Angeles…

Naturally, they felt compelled to quote a prohibitionist about magical “damage” and camming being a “gateway” to whoredom, and the reporter had to end with an absurd little Utopian “feminist” homily.  But these come across as tacked-on detraction from an otherwise truthful article.

Sex Rays

Half the population of New York City would be contaminated by sex rays!

Porn streaming site RedTube has offered to take Gov. Andrew Cuomo up on his idea to sell naming rights to subway stations…Owned by porn giant MindGeek, RedTube is a YouTube-like service that focuses on pornographic videos.  It boasts 20 million daily users…Required donations range up to $600,000…Earlier this year, RedTube paid to have its logo placed on the shirts of a Massachusetts amateur soccer club.  And three years ago, sister site YouPorn (another MindGeek holding) became the title sponsor of a Madrid, Spain-based esports team – now called Team YP.

Shifting the Blame (#553)

Compare “Hood’s trial on white slavery charges comes as Mr. Bell’s telephone company is under increasing scrutiny for connecting prostitution calls“:

The teen…described being prostituted around the Washington area by two brothers she met at a Virginia motel…Danielle H…testified that one of the brothers, Christian Hood, posted ads for her on…Backpage earlier this year.  His half brother Abdul Bangura was her boyfriend and her pimp, she said.  Hood’s trial on sex trafficking charges comes as Backpage is under increasing scrutiny for hosting prostitution ads that include child-trafficking victims…

Full of Themselves (#591)

What is it about massage parlors that brings the puritans out of the woodwork?

The booming spa and massage parlour business in India has led to an increasing demand for women from Thailand, many of whom are being duped and trafficked into slavery in the country’s sex industry, [cops], [politicians] and [prohibitionists] said…At least 40 Thai women have been [arrested and deported] in 2017 during police raids on massage parlours acting as fronts for prostitution in western cities such as Mumbai and Pune…There are an estimated 40 million sex workers globally, according to French [prohibition profiteers] Fondation Scelles.  [Prohibitionists fantasize] most have been lured, duped or forced into sexual slavery by pimps and traffickers…

Comfort Zone (#651)

Sometimes the attempt to hide migration control behind the “sex trafficking” narrative is especially apparent:

…in the downtown area and hotel zone of Cancun, more than twenty women of several nationalities were [arrested by] National Institute of Migration (INM) authorities, in order to determine their legal immigration status [using the excuse that] all the detained women were alleged victims of forced prostitution…[pigs] raided night clubs with a warrant to detect any [migrants]…

Theatrics (#677) 

These fake “sex trafficking” websites set up by prohibitionists demonstrate the depravity of their lurid fantasies about our lives and work:

A new hotel ad campaign launched by Toronto Crime Stoppers online is [spreading anti-sex worker propaganda]…in hotels across the Greater Toronto Area.  From a restaurant menu of OxyContin, marijuana, cocaine and heroin, to room service amenities, such as intercourse, threesome, backrubs and bondage, Hotel de Jeunesse’s website aims to [spread disinformation] about sex [work]…The ad also [fantasizes about so-called]…warning signs that hotel staff need to look for…

Pyrrhic Victory (#697)

The word for collaboration between government & private industry to control people is “fascism”:

…the British government has announced  plans…to partner with businesses to come up with the best ways to implement surveillance and crowd-control techniques at heavily-populated venues…The British government already has the “most sweeping” surveillance powers in the western world, thanks to a bill passed last fall.  The new focus of combining that massive surveillance apparatus with crowd-control techniques is what makes this new initiative so jarring.  DASA is offering up to £1 million of funding in the first round to companies that can come up with the best ways to improve current surveillance and use crowds as “sensors” to detect dangers through the use of behavioural sciences…the goal is to find a way to [indoctrinate] the public to…keep a distrustful eye on those around them.  Those ideas seem similar to American initiatives such as the Department of Homeland Security’s “If You See Something, Say Something” program, which essentially incentivizes a sense of paranoia when riding the metro or attending an event where a large crowd is present…

The Crumbling Dam (#709)

I’m rather pleased that somebody beat the pompous, priggish politicians of Seattle to the punch:

For nearly three years, in an undisclosed US city, a social service agency has quietly been inviting people to inject illegal drugs at a clandestine site, without the government’s approval.  More than 100 people have injected drugs at the site…This data provides the first glimpse of what it would look like if the US decided to follow 10 other countries and open supervised injection facilities…two people’s lives were saved because they overdosed at the site, where staff had immediate access to…naloxone, and 90% of people who used there said they would have injected in a public restroom, street, park or parking lot if the site had not been available…The secret site is modeled after legal facilities in countries including Canada, Denmark and France, where users can take drugs in a safe space with clean supplies…

Stupor Bowl (#752)

Even cop-fellating pieces like this one now mostly admit that “Super Bowl sex trafficking” is a myth, but they’re trying to turn the truth on its head by pretending the reason there’s no surge is that the “demand” for “victims” is always sky-high:

Minneapolis [prohibitionists fantasize that] criminal sexual enterprise has taken root in the state and will remain long after the Super Bowl leaves town…So law enforcement agencies and nonprofit groups are [lying about] the big game to bring fresh…funding to anti-sex-[worker pogroms]…It includes coordinated stings and [indoctrination to] train…bus drivers, hotel workers and 10,000 Super Bowl volunteers [spy on people for the pigs]…Authorities aren’t expecting a massive spike in trafficking during the Super Bowl…

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In the News (#764)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 12, 2017| 6 Comments »

Radfems…use terms like “sell herself” as though, at the end of the transaction, a woman has sold off a body part.  –  Lauren Rosewarne

Saving Them From Themselves

Apparently Dan Rubinstein has never heard of this thing called “pregnancy”:

…Ronald Lee Love faces a felony child sexual-exploitation charge for exchanging explicit text-messages with someone with whom it would have been legal for him to have had sex.  Love, who lives in Mesa County, Colorado, began corresponding last summer when he was 25 with a 15-year-old girl who lives in New England…he explicitly insisted that their relationship remain digital because he believed physical activity was illegal…In Colorado, however, the age of consent is 15, so long as a sexual partner is not 10 or more years older…Yet authorities in this same state have decided someone…Receiving or possessing sexually-oriented images of someone under age 18…is a felony punishable by one to six years per offense…Local authorities defended their position that sexting is worse than actual sex, contending that…while a real-life sexual liaison might be a one-or limited-time thing, the teen sending Love her photo could “potentially come back to haunt this girl 30 years from now,” said Mesa County District Attorney District Attorney Dan Rubinstein.

Because obviously being saddled with a brat at 15 wouldn’t be NEARLY as bad as the kind of nudie pics that every ordinarily-sexual woman in the developed world has floating around.  Do pigs (I count DAs as part of that species) ever sound as stupid as they do when coming up with moronic rationalizations for moronic laws?

I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now

Heroic Irish “authorities” save a man from getting his kidney transplant paid for:

A 73-year-old Brazilian prostitute…working in a brothel in…Kildare…walked free from court because she planned to return home as soon as the…case was over…She…was running the brothel…to pay for her 40-year-old son’s kidney transplant.  She also wanted to return home to her seriously ill 98-year-old mother…gardai…found just €80 in cash at the property…but…Judge Zaidan…[stole it anyway] and [gave it to Ruhama]…

Irish judges have a long an sadistic history of robbing sex workers and giving the money to those who want us imprisoned in workhouses and our families destroyed.

The Notorious Badge

You know peak hysteria has been reached when a moral panic features in afternoon soaps:

Young and the Restless (Y&R) spoilers for the week of August 7 and 14 reveal that Sharon…finds herself in grave danger while investigating a sex ring in Genoa City…Crystal…claims she is being held against her will by a prostitution ring…[and] is trying to escape from her captors who are following her… Zack is involved in the prostitution ring and…his dating app project with Abby Newman is linked with the operations of the criminal ring.  Abby Newman will soon find out that the dating app she is developing with Zack is part of a sex trafficking operation…

End Demand

Authoritarians would be even more dangerous if they could actually get their shit together:

People convicted of buying sex have, since February, been eligible for a program to [indoctrinate] them [in anti-sex propaganda]…But no one has been sentenced to it yet…[because] Bismarck [North Dakota]…City Attorney Jason Hammes…did not know it existed…”It appears the municipal prosecutors and judges may not be aware of it,” Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem wrote in a letter to city attorneys and municipal judges on July 25…

Watershed

Australia has far more sane feminists than does the US:

While women’s libbers have spent decades fighting to get us dominion over our own bodies, radical feminists have spent almost as long trying to insert caveats.  Apparently there are right and egregiously  wrong ways to use our bodies – more specifically our genitals – particularly when dollars are involved…I not only vehemently disagree with the radfem position, but I view it as fundamentally un-feminist…If feminists aren’t fighting for my right to use my body how I choose, then they’ve dramatically detoured from their mission…

Decentralization (#444)

Remember “titcoin”?

“Lust” is an initial coin offering based on the Ethereum blockchain platform, designed for prostitutes and their customers to exchange money for sexual services.  It uses…anonymity features to escrow funding of the parties and keep their identities private, in order to avoid law-enforcement scrutiny and public shaming.  Leaving aside the thorny moral and social questions raised by the currency’s intended use…the “smart contracts” favor one side of the bargain: the “key has to be scanned later if they make an agreement and meet otherwise the contract gets automatically closed in 48 hours, and the client gets his Etherium tokens back in the wallet”…if the “client” has sex with the worker, and then does not scan her (sic) token, the client gets to have sex, and the worker gets nothing.  Despite high-minded talk about preventing violence against sex-workers, the major threat-model addressed by these smart-contracts is men who don’t feel like they got value for money when having sex, not women who perform sex-for-money and don’t get paid for it…

Despite Cory Doctorow’s pompous pearl-clutching (since when is consensual sex a “thorny moral question” to anyone but authoritarians?) he’s right about the way this would work, which means no sane sex worker will ever use it.  Cash up front, guys, or you get nothing.

Shift in the Wind (#510)

The Adam Smith Institute continues its support of decriminalization with a commentary on a new paper by Ron Weitzer:

…sociologist Ronald Weitzer…gives new insight into the sorry state of the academic literature on these topics.  First on his list of grievances is the unreliability of the data that is often used…[but] Flawed data is just the tip of the iceberg…[often] the authors’ approach to study design also leaves a lot to be desired…”The authors use aggregate national trafficking estimates (which combine labor, sex, and other kinds of trafficking) in their attempt to assess whether legal prostitution makes a difference. This means that there is a gross mismatch between the trafficking figures and prostitution law:  In assessing whether prostitution law is related to the incidence of trafficking, figures on sex trafficking alone should be used, not the totals for all types if trafficking“…A subsequent study by Cho (2016) using a different data source contains another howler…”Without citing any source, Cho claims that ‘prostitution is closely linked to human trafficking because sex trafficking for the purpose of prostitution is the most common form of human trafficking and constitutes the largest fraction of trafficking victims’…This claim is contradicted by the International Labour Organization (ILO)…[which states] ‘Forced commercial sexual exploitation represents 11% of all cases’ of forced labor worldwide“…Weitzer’s paper would be an interesting academic exercise in the perils of low-quality data and poor research methodology, except for the fact that policies being enacted on the basis of [these bad] studies are hurting marginalized women…when it comes to scaremongering stories about sex trafficking epidemics and accompanying calls for the “Nordic Model”, extra caution should be exercised.

Cops and Robbers (#629) 

More vigilantes playing with people’s lives and lying to men in an attempt to steal income from sex workers who may need it to pay rent and feed their children:

A new [chat]bot built by Microsoft employees in their spare time…[was] tested recently in Seattle, Atlanta, and Washington…[it] lurks behind fake online ads…posted by [anti-sex worker profiteers]…and responds to text messages sent to the number listed.  The software initially pretends to be the person in the ad, and can converse about its purported age, body, fetish services, and pricing.  But if a would-be buyer signals an intent to purchase sex, the bot pivots sharply into [prohibitionist propaganda]…”Buying sex from anyone is illegal and can cause serious long term harm to the victim, as well as further the cycle of human trafficking…Details of this incident will be reviewed further and you may be contacted by law enforcement for questioning”…Project Intercept’s lead partner, Seattle Against Slavery, is working with counterparts in 21 other U.S. cities, including Boston and Houston, to deploy the bot more widely…Project Intercept was started in 2012 by two Microsoft employees after seeing a [movie] about sex trafficking…

Given the involvement of the vile SAS and the list of cities involved, methinks Swanee Hunt’s foul reek is all over this.

Lack of Evidence (#696)

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

On July 31, an undercover cop in Columbus, Georgia, invited a 51-year-old woman into his car and offered her $5 for oral sex. When she rebuffed his offer and tried to get out, he arrested the woman for loitering for the purpose of prostitution…a controversial charge commonly used by the Columbus Police Department (CPD) to target those such as homeless women, people who’ve previously been arrested on prostitution charges, or people who don’t meet a [cop’s] standard of gender conformity.  On Sunday morning, CPD officers arrested a 24-year-old homeless woman for allegedly waving at two passing cars from the side of the road…Last summer, 24-year-old C. Williams was arrested while sitting at a bus stop because…Williams was carrying condoms and “dressed as a woman”…the city statute…expressly says evidence of an intent to commit prostitution or sodomy includes the person being “a known prostitute, pimp or sodomist”…

The Widening Gyre (#696) 

Given the number of companies profiting from “sex trafficking” hysteria, it should come as no surprise when individuals start using it for publicity stunts:

British model Chloe Ayling…claims she was held captive for almost a week after being lured to Milan, Italy, for what she was told was a photo shoot.  Her alleged captor, Lukasz Pawel Herba, [supposedly] drugged her and placed her in a large suitcase in a car boot…Ayling was allegedly held hostage for up to six days as her abductors [supposedly a group called “Black Death” with ties to the Russian mafia] tried to sell her as a sex slave…The gang says its victims can be “transported globally” and advertises its activities, saying: “If you wish, we can kidnap a specific target for your needs…The advert claims the abductors “do not sell girls that are terminally ill, pregnant, have STDs or are young mothers”.  It has been suggested the gang let Ms Ayling go after realising she had a two-year-old son…While [sensible] people have raised doubts about her story, her lawyer, Francesco Pesce, said investigators believed her claims…

That cops, whose credulity on the topic of crime knows no bounds, believe the story is an argument against its being true, not for it.  Another is the notion of a gang which has no problem selling women into slavery, yet revere the sanctity of motherhood, and yet another is the fact that Ayling was seen shopping for shoes with her alleged abductor during the time she was supposedly bound to a chest of drawers (?) at a farmhouse.

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In the News (#763)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2017| 2 Comments »

My business was…illegal, but it shouldn’t have been.  –  Jeffrey Hurant

Safe Targets 

Naturally; they can steal more money from whores, and we don’t shoot back:

…Scotland Yard has been…threatening to prosecute women who work in brothels rather than pursue an armed gang of robbers who have been repeatedly targeting premises used for sex work…The shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer…has written to the Metropolitan police in support of one of the victims…who is a constituent of his…Starmer said letters sent by the Met threatening women with prosecution…“could make it more difficult to stay in touch with victims of violent crimes”…The Met denies there is evidence of connected attacks on brothels and [pretends] that criminalising prostitutes is not a priority…

Rooted in Racism

Sometimes “trafficking” just means “bringing in brown people“:

A huge human trafficking ring that has been flying hundreds of Iranian migrants, some as young as five, into Britain has been smashed…The alleged leader of the criminal gang was detained at Heathrow as he tried to escape justice by flying to Brazil.  Another 14 gang members were held in Malaga…more than 200 people a year had been smuggled by the gang for around 10 years…Europol said the gang had run a “perfectly structured” criminal operation in which each migrant was charged around £22,000 and provided with accommodation, transfers and flights.  There was no immediate information from the Home Office about how many Iranians have managed to enter Britain illegally or whether any of those detained have been removed from the country…

Notice the use of “ring” as dysphemism for “business”, and “gang members” as dysphemisms for “employees”; note also the pretense that just because a business violates stupid laws makes it somehow surprising that it’s well-run.  Nobody would consider it newsworthy that an ordinary travel agency had only 200 customers a year; if anything, that qualifies as a rather small business.  Note also the phrase “as young as five”, borrowed from “sex trafficking” propaganda; why are we supposed to be shocked that people moving to another country would take their children along? Personally, I think it’d be more newsworthy if they left them behind.

Dutch Threat 

A rare victory for sex workers against “sex trafficking” hysteria:

Amsterdam’s policy that prostitutes must share personal information with brothel owners, is in violation of the Personal Data Protection Act, the court in Amsterdam ruled…The court was dissatisfied with Amsterdam’s policy on various points, especially on the intake conversation brothel operators have to have with prostitutes before they start working there.  The municipality made this intake conversation obligatory in 2013, with the idea that operators will notice [magical] signals of human trafficking during the talk…The intake forms also contain information about the sexual life of the sex worker and operators must store these forms and present them during inspections…

Policing for Profit

Almost nobody still believes cops’ pretense that this is about anything other than profit:

…Adrienne Chapa was arrested [in Minneapolis] and spent a few days in jail before she went home to Las Vegas…[but] the Hennepin County attorney’s office filed a lawsuit to keep [her] money through [legalized robbery]…It took two years to resolve the legal cases, and $21,000 is finally getting distributed [among various pigpens]…Minnesota legislators outlawed civil forfeiture in 2014…[but Chapa eventually plead guilty on condition that the conviction will be erased in two years]…her attorney, Avery Appelman, said seizing the cash was a “large motivating factor” for her prosecution and that police use forfeited property as a “slush fund”…

What’s that word for men who use force to take money that a woman earns via prostitution?

Lack of Evidence (#678) 

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

…New York Penal Law Section 240.37 has criminalized loitering in a public place by anyone the police determine is present for the purpose of prostitution.  “Purpose” is not defined…thus the reason for one’s presence is ultimately decided by the opinions of arresting officers…A woman may be surveilled, searched, and detained, in part because an officer takes issue with her clothing…pre-printed affidavits…include “indications of prostitution,” such as:  the defendant was standing somewhere other than a bus stop or taxi stand; the defendant was carrying money or “sexual paraphernalia”; the defendant was with someone known to have been previously arrested for prostitution-related offenses…The…N.Y.P.D…Patrol Guide…offers no objective criteria on what attire is suspect, thus failing citizens the ability to anticipate how their fashion could establish cause for their arrest…From 2012 through 2015, nearly 1,300 individuals were arrested in New York City under the law…85 percent of them were black or Latina.  According to a class-action lawsuit filed September 30, 2016 by the Legal Aid Society of New York…transgender women are especially victimized…

Now They Notice (#680)

It’s sick and sad how, after an initial show of calculated outrage, Gay, Inc abandoned him to the government:

A federal judge…sentenced Rentboy.com founder Jeffrey Hurant to a six-month prison term…Federal authorities [had] already [stolen] about $1.5 million that they claim was laundered money from Hurant’s company…[but] did not pursue a seizure of $101,000 from Hurant’s personal bank account…the…judge…also fined him $7,500.  After sentencing, Hurant told reporters…that…sex work between adults should be decriminalized and destigmatized…

Backwards into the Future (#743)

Virtually no government “commission” will ever suggest taking power away from government:

…the South African Law Reform Commission chose fiction over facts…After taking two decades to draft its final report, it has recommended the continued full criminalisation of consensual adult sex work…The commission also included a last-minute secondary option of [The Swedish model]…These recommendations were made despite mounting evidence that shows that the full decriminalisation of sex work is the most effective and respectful model to ensure improved access to health, justice and support services for sex workers…We have had this apartheid-era model in South Africa for a long time now.  What have the results been?  High levels of violence and abuse, stigma and discrimination when sex workers attempt to access basic services, and high rates of new HIV infections…And this violence is most often committed by police officers, as illustrated by a review by the Women’s Legal Centre of cases reported between 2011 and 2015.  Of the abuse reported to the centre by sex workers, more than 60% of cases identified the police as perpetrators…

The Widening Gyre (#756) 

I am so enjoying watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control of the “authorities”:

A Facebook post [reporting] illegal immigrants are trying to kidnap young girls for human trafficking…[states] Mentor [Ohio] Police are aware…that men are sitting in parked cars in…parking lots…Police [claim] they have received no reports of any human trafficking or related suspicious behavior.  Police also [allege] they’ve reached out to security at Great Lakes Mall and the mall has not received any reports…

The War Goes On (#757) 

If Backpage is so awful, why do politicians need lies to attack it?

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley claimed he has “new evidence” showing that the classifieds site “Backpage has directly and actively promoted illegal sex trafficking.”  But the only thing new is Hawley’s level of desperation and deceit…Among the “new” evidence…is a January report from the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.  Despite the senators having access to all of the internal Backpage data and hosting a theatrical in-person inquiry, they found nothing sufficient to spur a criminal investigation or any charges.  Hawley also submitted the transcript of an audio recording seized from Philippines company Avion, in which an Avion employee contacts a London sex worker…A state attorney general cannot attempt to prosecute foreign contractors for ads created and posted in foreign countries.  And it is legal for Backpage contractors to generate adult ads abroad, where the rules governing web-publishing platforms and legal liability for content vary (and prostitution in certain forms may be legal).  Hawley’s actions here should be seen for what they are: a sneaky attempt to build credibility in his illegal crusade…

The Mote and the Beam (#762) 

The Unsinkable Liz Brown with more on the censors who want to destroy the internet in the name of “fighting sex trafficking”:

…The underlying reason why no one’s been able to pin criminal charges on Backpage isn’t a “loophole” in federal law that lets Backpage knowingly profit from human trafficking but the fact that the evidence doesn’t support claims that it does so.  If it did, Section 230 would be irrelevant, and Backpage execs could be charged under a number of laws—including one 2015 law crafted for just this purpose. The Stop Advertising Victims of Sexual Exploitation Act specifically prohibits the knowing advertisement of sex trafficking victims, under threat of a 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentence…Section 230 doesn’t apply to content that a platform has itself created “in whole or part,” nor to one that…”is directly involved” in the alleged crime.  But a website operator “who edits user-created content… retains his immunity for any illegality in the user-created content”…If Backpage is more like the first category, it’s already punishable under criminal statutes and subject to civil claims.  If it’s only the former, than opening up Backpage to criminal charges and civil payouts opens up all of the internet to the same…

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Links #370

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2017| 1 Comment »

I regret that we had not sufficiently understood that others would see this event so differently.  –  Archbishop Terrence Prendergast

Longtime readers will appreciate this video…what if one of my favorite musicians did a version of the theme music of one of my favorite shows?  The links above it are from Tim Cushing (“does”), Clarissa (“pro”), Tushy Galore (“headline” and “never”), Walter Olson (“books”), and Brooke Magnanti (“tender”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#761)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

The cops are the villains of this story, not the heroes.  –  Elizabeth N. Brown

Torture Chamber 

It’s unusual to see them actually use the word “rape” in this context:

A deputy jailer at Hardin County [Kentucky] jail has been arrested after…inmate Amanda Chambers [reported] that Deputy Stephen Renfrow provided her with tobacco dip in exchange for sex…He was arrested on Friday and is facing charges for rape, promoting contraband, and official misconduct…

If it was a true “exchange” as the story suggests, why did Chambers report him, and why the charge of rape?  It seems more likely he raped her and then gave her the tobacco in an attempt to bribe her into silence.

Case Study

Is it sexist of me to wonder why men seem to be pearl-clutching even more than women these days?

There are two brothels operating…[in an apartment building]…each containing several “sex workers”.  They advertise their services openly on websites.  Clients pick a woman from a menu of hundreds and make a phone call to get directions…A garda familiar with the case confirms there are several brothels operating out of apartment complexes in the area, as well as “pop-up” brothels in the local hotel.  He says there is little that can be done unless they witness cash been handed over…Street prostitution still exists but the vast majority of prostitution is now advertised on the internet.  Ruth Breslin of Ruhama, an organisation [that persecutes sex workers]…estimates there are no more than 70 prostitutes working on the streets in Dublin…“Women are moved around an awful lot in the indoor trade because the market is all about new girls. Buyers are often not interested in going back to the same woman,” Breslin says…

Scare quotes for a job title.  Advertising being described as “open” as though there were another way for it to be effective.  Can you imagine a site featuring ads for physicians or lawyers being described as a “menu”?  Ruhama interviewed instead of sex workers.  Women described as passive objects who “are moved” rather than being able to move themselves. And it goes on from there…

Moving Pictures 

Salon’s definition of “everyone” excludes all people who actually know anything about sex work, or have critical thinking skills and access to Google:

“It’s all a lie. It’s all a big lie.”  That’s how director Josie Swantek Heitz, her face stunned and expressionless as she leans against a wall, informs director/cinematographer Dave Adams that they have been hoodwinked.  This discovery occurs moments into the intro of their film The Wrong Light…[first intended to be a fakumentary] about trafficked girls in the stateless Hill Tribe communities that border Northern Thailand.  After this initial confusion…we are suddenly plunged headlong into the world of Mickey Choothesa and COSA (Children’s Organization of Southeast Asia), a [rescue profiteering] organization…A half hour in, the film flips to include an intricately woven fiction that fooled everyone, including both filmmakers, the producers, a slew of international donors, a parade of interns, and even foreign correspondent Adam Ramsey…It is as though the [fantasy] of witnessing pretty girls being trafficked…[turns moralists on so much that they]…open…their…wallets without further investigation…

Readers with long memories will remember that I debunked COSA in this blog five and a half years ago.

Theatrics (#549)

People who can’t admit their kinks unknowingly display them to the world:

The group ‘Yet She Rise’ hopes people will see their human trafficking displays this weekend in [Chicago’s] Wicker Park and feel uncomfortable…there is a box with two child actors inside it, tape over their mouths and wrists.  “In a box, you know, roped and tied, with tape across their mouth, just to show how [sexy], and how [arousing], this situation is,” sa[livate]d Lamar Flowers, who’s with the organization…

This is at least the fourth iteration we’ve seen of this same inane stunt.

The Widening Gyre (#663)

Italy sends its navy to stop brown people from coming into the country; everyone pretends it isn’t racist:

Italy’s prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni…announced…that the Italian navy would be patrolling with Libyan ships just off the Libyan coastline…to curb human trafficking and [turn] migrants back…to Libya…Italy has already threatened to stop allowing boats carrying rescued migrants to dock in Italian ports…Most of the migrants are from African countries, and many try to travel on to France…However, the border is being policed by French officials.  Migrants who are caught are sent back to Italy.  Austria has announced that it too will close its border with Italy if the number of migrants starts to rise…The interior ministry has…announced that it will reinforce repatriation programs…

“Repatriation” is the currently-fashionable euphemism for “deportation”.

Power Play (#701)

The only part of this I disagree strongly with is Petro’s conciliatory statement that “There are lots of good reasons to root for Kamala Harris”:

…Like racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all the rest, casual whorephobia and anti-sex work sentiment and views — even among so-called progressives — is endemic…The latest and most vivid example of this is the growing popularity of superstar Democrat Kamala Harris…[who] has been called a “liberal hero” and a “rising star” in the party…There are lots of good reasons to root for Kamala Harris…But the fact that Harris was an active force behind a campaign that endangered the lives of sex workers makes it understandably difficult for people with experiences in the sex trades to throw her our support…

No, there are no good reasons to root for Harris; she’s a corrupt, self-serving, two-faced demagogue who, in addition to her anti-whore campaigns, participated in political cover-ups and actively campaigned against prison reform because, she claims, California needs the slave labor prisoners are forced to do.  She is a vile, loathsome monster even by the standards of politicians, and that’s saying something.

Devil’s Advocate (#723) 

Your periodic reminder that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster:

A surge in the number of seizures of child-like sex dolls by border officers has led investigators to identify dozens of previously unknown suspected paedophiles.  The…dolls…are a “relatively new phenomenon” in the UK and should be criminalised, said Hazel Stewart [a sex cop]…those who order them can be prosecuted under a specific charge of importing an indecent or obscene article…[but] it is not illegal to own a child sex doll…Stewart said: “I think it’s got to be through the full range of this criminality, from manufacturer to sale, to import, to possess – the full range.  And we need to make sure it’s future-proofed in case there is the introduction of…sex robots”…

I’m sure you guessed this would merge with the sex robot hysteria.

The War Goes On (#731) 

Prohibitionists just don’t realize how obvious their masturbation to the “pimp” fantasy is, bless their little hearts:

For pimps and prostitutes, gift cards have become a currency to pay for sex ads on Backpage.com, anti-prostitution activists say…Credit card companies [were illegally threatened into cutting off] business with the website two years ago.  People could still buy Backpage ads, but it became more difficult:  They had to mail in checks or use complicated digital currencies like bitcoin.  But now, Backpage has begun accepting gift cards from major retailers…that means a pimp could walk into any local grocery store and pick up a convenient, untraceable way to pay the site to post ads selling women…[prohibitionists publicly masturbate to the fantasy that] Backpage’s new payment system will make it easier to sell vulnerable girls online…

What’s also fascinating is the number of anti-sex women who insist that other women are far too stupid to do anything as simple as pay for an online service by themselves, without an all-powerful male doing it for them.

Too Close To Home (#760)

Liz Brown on the warped thought patterns of Seattle prosecutor Val Richey:

In Seattle, sex must be a “leisure activity” for both parties or it’s nonconsensual, according to…Val Richey—a senior deputy prosecuting attorney for King County…”What you have is someone paying this person essentially to turn a ‘no’ into a ‘yes,'” Richey [said]…”these women, as a leisure activity, are not looking to have sex with 10 guys in a day. They’re doing it for the money.”  By that logic, anyone who wouldn’t perform their job without remuneration is a victim of labor trafficking!  But Richey is “adamant”…that what Korean sex workers…”were doing could not be called consensual because they were being paid”…

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In the News (#760)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 29, 2017| 4 Comments »

This is the most disgusting way of profiting from sex workers I’ve ever seen.  –  Felicia Anna

Maggie in the Media 

Two years ago, during a weekend I mentioned in a diary column, I gave an interview to Dr. Heather Branstetter for her recently-published book, Selling Sex in the Silver Valley.  Sadly, the interview didn’t make it into the final text (such are the ways of editing!), but Dr. Branstetter recently published a post about the interview in her blog (in which she says some very lovely and flattering things about me).  Do give it a look, and if the subject intrigues you be sure to buy a copy of the book!

The Notorious Badge

Why does everyone involved in any show about sex work feel compelled to vomit out all kinds of neofeminist nonsense?

The Deuce producers and stars want to draw a [whorearchical] line about the series:  It’s about porn, but is not porn itself.  That means that all of the problems associated with porn — the misogyny, the abuse, the objectification – are featured…as part of the exploration of the topic, not for gratuitous storytelling…co-creator David Simon [bloviated]…“It would be a mistake to look at this and think that we are in any way trafficking in misogynistic imagery or objectification”…As an actress playing one of those objectified women, [Maggie] Gyllenhaal also weighed in…“It should make you consider your position in how sex is commodified”…

But it’s OK when it’s “commodified” by actresses with six-or-seven-figure paychecks, isn’t it Maggie?  It’s just not OK for us lowly three-or-four-figure a pop girls.

Subtle Pimping (#330)

Remember that moronic “escape the pimp” video game? Now there’s a live-action version:

…how about visiting the Red Light District Escape Room, where you have to escape from a window brothel before your “pimp” returns, isn’t that a fun idea?!  Yes, this is now possible in the Red Light District of Amsterdam.  A great way to profit over the existence of prostitutes…plus as as a  bonus you get to increase the stigma of sex workers as victims!…Original Tours & Activities Nederland B.V. is now offering…a fun experience, where you get locked up in a fake window brothel, and you have to “escape” by following the clues in the room within 60 minutes, before your “pimp” comes back.  According to the website the hilarious rating is 8/10, with a difficulty degree of 4 stars and an escape ratio of 63%.  The costs?  Only €14,50 per person, or €12,50 with 13 people or more…

Case Study

Another dumb, sensationalized article, now with added whorearchy:

…Peter Dandos…[has been accused] of operating a brothel…a lot…lately:  protests have been held outside his massage parlour for more than six weeks…Dandos is confused by the protests.  “If they really want to stop something, why don’t they start with the escorts?…if they want to stop something they should start there”…

Too Close To Home (#672)

The fanatically-prohibitionist Seattle Times has once again revisited the takedown of The Review Board, vomiting out the same old cop lies and masturbatory fantasies as they have on the subject for the past 19 months.  Compare this exercise in cop fellation and myth-regurgitation with Liz Brown’s thorough & well-researched piece on the subject (linked in the subtitle above), and then understand the the reporter who prepared this new trash read Liz’s one and completely ignored it, except for the lines she plagiarized without attribution.

Send In the Clowns 

Only another month or so before the “creepy clown” hysteria returns!

A man is accused of drunkenly strolling down a Maine road wearing a black-hooded sweatshirt and a clown mask and brandishing a machete taped to where his arm had been amputated…Corey Berry…was arrested…and charged with criminal threatening…

Checklist (#732)

Clearly, critical thinking skills are not a prerequisite for passing medical school:

As physicians who have treated victims of human trafficking and research this scourge, we believe that this form of severe exploitation is under-recognized in health care settings and live are being lost because of that.  The International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes aim to describe diseases and causes of death and disease.  These codes, which are used for everything from hospital billing to research, establish legitimacy for the conditions that harm and kill people every day.  As the World Health Organization works toward its 11th iteration of these codes, we urge that “victim of human trafficking” be recognized as an official diagnosis…

A medical diagnosis.  Seriously.

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#735) 

Even for the prohibitionist New York Times, this is pretty jaw-dropping; somehow this reporter imagines that going from writing an anti-porn rant to producing two anti-porn documentaries somehow constitutes Rashida Jones “changing her mind about porn”.  The stupidity and colossal ignorance on display here are almost unbelievable.

Bogeymen (#754)

Remember this story the next time you hear pigs oinking about how they “busted” some “pimps”:

Ms Norman, the 70-year-old woman who was arrested because she stayed to try to save the life of a man who had collapsed in the brothel where she was working as a cleaner, was…found guilty of assisting in the management of a brothel…This prosecution sends a signal to sex workers everywhere that the police are more concerned with their targets…than with the value of human life…Ms Norman…got paid £6 an hour…We now wait to see if the police and courts further persecute Ms Norman by trying to take her savings and assets under proceeds of crime law…

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In the News (#759)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 26, 2017| 4 Comments »

I suggest we listen to the…people we are trying to protect.  –  Kate Lister

License to Rape

Prohibition turns the body of every citizen into a “crime scene”, which can be violated by “authorities” at will:

…drug law enforcement is…often accompanied by…sexual shakedowns, in which women…are given the choice between performing sexual acts or facing what could be decades in prison…women…[are] almost three times as likely as men…to be subject to humiliating strip-searches…body cavity searches and monitored bowel movements…roadside cavity search[es] by [cops] who claimed to have smelled marijuana…eventually prompted the Texas Legislature to pass a bill banning cavity searches during traffic stops absent a warrant…Can [pigs] actually get a warrant to search someone’s vagina?  The answer is yes.  One night in 1986 Massachusetts police officers showed up at Shirley Rodriques’s house, forced open her door and, finding her sleeping in bed with her husband, told her that they had a warrant to search her vagina for drugs.  When she refused their order to reach inside herself and take out the “stuff,” police took her to a hospital where…a physician forcefully searched her vagina while a nurse held her down on the table.  No drugs were found.  But when Ms. Rodriques filed a lawsuit…courts found no wrongdoing…It is still possible to get such a warrant today…

Check Your Premises

So having sex with strangers because of animal-brain lust is wonderful and commendable, but having the same kind of sex with the same kind of people for rational, human-brain reasons is a “grey area” that needs to be “monitored” by authoritarian busybodies:

Manchester has seen a huge uptick in the number of men…selling their bodies for money…Fergal McCullough…explains that…the lines between sex and sex work have grown fuzzier…“There are a lot of grey areas…I’ve had people say ‘If I fancy him I won’t charge him’.  That’s the reality for a young, out, gay sex worker”…Unlike female sex workers…a lot of male sex workers advertise their services online…While the exchange of sexual activities for money or other goods is legal in the U.K., police still need to monitor the situation…

Yes, the writer is also claiming that men advertise sex work online more than women do.  Picket-fence gays have become an active threat to sexual freedom.

Subtle Pimping

Another amateur profiting from sex workers while giving us nothing:

The [unprincipled] director Jane Campion has revealed that her research for the new series of Top of the Lake involved sneaking into Sydney brothels in disguise in order to hear the real stories of sex workers in the city…this series will move from wild backdrop of New Zealand to Sydney, delving into the world of [decriminalized sex work].  “Sexual tourism in Sydney…has always really annoyed me because [I’m a busybody who thinks my opinion is more important than those]…of people who…have [actually done sex work.  Like most prudes, I enjoy pretending that]…the legalisation of brothels is not a simple issue at all [and my sexual fantasies involve] the ownership of someone else’s body…”

With Friends Like These…

Why can’t wannabe allies actually be bothered to talk to sex workers before publishing ignorant pro-regulation drivel that assumes we’re childlike morons in need of licensed handlers?

…the issue of legalizing and regulating the sex trade remains conspicuously off limits for our legislators.  Allowing responsibly-operated brothels…has it been legalized in New Zealand, Germany…Eastern Australia…and…Nevada…this policy would help to protect currently-vulnerable sex workers from abuse and disease…there is no popular nationwide movement to stop the ongoing abuse of sex workers by unlicensed, unregulated pimps…

Sexual Predators 

That this creepy entrapment & surveillance game isn’t seen for what it is shows how much American society has degenerated:

Detectives from…Monroe County [Pennsylvania]…conducted a web-based prostitution sting [under cover of the myth of]…human trafficking…the detectives posted decoy ads on backpage.com…Each call was initially fielded by Detective Kim Lippincott, who would engage the man in conversation while Detective Brian Webbe used the number to find his information…so they can address the [victims] by name, mention their address and bring up other relationships…The men that fell into the trap were not arrested…the goal was to [spread propaganda that dehumanizes sex workers and casts them as pathetic victims who deserve to be cheated of a fair income]…

Under Every Bed

No doubt caused by the presence of corn and I-35:

A task force that works to [manufacture] crimes against children is [inventing] an increase in the number of sex trafficking cases in Kansas…Richard Powell of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office says…”perpetrators are…utilizing a lot of social media to recruit victims.”  Powell says there are more than 8000 registered sex offenders living in Kansas, and about 15 percent are in the greater Wichita…area…

An Angel of Mercy (#320)

No cops.  No cages.  No shaming or brainwashing:

A charity that supports sex workers in Nottingham has secured funding for a new van that will deliver food and hot drinks to them…The Jericho Road Project…was set up 17 years ago and supports approximately 25 women a month…[project manager Julia Terry said] “The aim is to show them love and if they would like help in exiting (the work) then we will support them, but even if they don’t want to exit then we still offer support”…The charity will also support women if they have been attacked, and pass on the details to website Ugly Mugs…

The only sour note in the story is the list of reasons women do sex work which somehow fails to include “earning money”.

First They Came for the Hookers…(#623)

It doesn’t matter what a sex worker does after leaving sex work; to the media, they’ll always be a whore:

A former Russian government official—and business partner of Donald Trump’s—is gaining new notoriety, as the federal investigation into alleged election meddling widens…this Kazakh-born real estate mogul, Tevfik Arif, is doing his best to clean up his past, trying to purge the web of references to his arrest in an underage prostitution bust.  He was later acquitted in the matter…

Opting Out (#700)

Naturally, Cassandra McNeill was saying this years ago:

…the UK government…formally announc[ed] that age verification for all online pornographic content will be mandatory from April 2018…it’s expected that you will need to submit your credit card details to a site before being allowed to access adult content (credit cards can’t be issued to under-18s).  The appointed regulator will almost certainly be the British Board of Film Classification who will have the authority to levy fines of up to £250,000 or shut down sites that do not comply…This act will potentially censor any UK site that carries adult content, which is broadly defined by the BBFC as “that it was produced solely or principally for the purposes of sexual arousal”…anyone in the adult industry who markets their business with a website, can all be termed pornographic and forced to buy expensive software to screen their users or risk being shut down or fined…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#719) 

One wonders if this loon thinks it’s a danger to society to force her vaguely-phallic vibrator against her genitalia without asking for its consent:

What does a rape-able robot say about our attitudes to consent, sex, violence and humanism?  Do sex robots…eroticise and normalise male sexual aggression?  Or does allowing men to “act out” these “most private sexual dreams” on inanimate objects actually make real women safer?  The idea that allowing men to “rape” robots could reduce rates of sexual violence is fundamentally flawed.  Sex robot settings that eroticise a woman’s lack of consent, coupled with male aggression, risk normalising rape.  It sends a message to the user that it is sexually fulfilling to violate a woman’s “No”…

For the nth time: a woman-shaped toaster is still a toaster, not a woman. It has no power to consent, and there are no “ethical dilemmas” raised by fucking it, painting it green, sticking it in a closet, dismembering it or modifying it into a woman-shaped drink dispenser. Only childlike primitives believe that the shape of an object imbues it with sympathetic-magical powers over humans.  And finally: anyone who un-ironically uses the phrase “send a message” in a screed urging limitation of others’ individual freedoms is an authoritarian who “makes the world more dangerous for women, not less”.

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Links #368

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2017| 2 Comments »

The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.  –  Malcolm Turnbull

This video is two years old, but it first came to my attention last week and was too good to pass up!  The links above it were contributed by Marijke Vonk  (“lawheadedness”), Franklin Harris (“eels”), Jesse Walker (“happens”), Kevin Wilson (“never”), Radley Balko (“sitters”), and Tim Cushing (“together”).

From the Archives

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In the News (#758)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2017| 4 Comments »

It defies logic to say a teenager can be guilty of sexually exploiting herself.  –  Jacob Sullum

A Tale That Grew in the Telling 

Future historians will view exhibits like this as our century’s answer to Malleus Maleficarum:

The True Stories Project, an exhibition that aims to [stoke panic and increase]…trafficking [hysteria] has begun at the Patan Museum…The exhibition seeks to [spread the myth that]…sex trafficking has become the fastest growing business in organised crime and the third largest criminal enterprise in the world…A [masturbatory fantasy used]…by organisers reveals [the sick fantasies these fetishists wank to]…“According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), more than 100,000 children are sold for sex in the United States each year.  They range in age from nine years to 19; the average age of child sex workers in Oakland, California is 12 years”…

The Pro-Rape Coalition 

This dude’s clutching his pearls so hard, he’s starting to turn blue:

At a conservative Christian college not long ago, a campus minister told me that every single young man he works with…is addicted to pornography…This is…a social…crisis that is destroying something vital and precious…We are conducting a radical experiment that has never before in history been tried, because it has never been possible.  What happens to individuals and societies when images — moving images — of the most bizarre and violent sex acts imaginable can be instantly accessed by anyone, anywhere, at any time?…Think about what the ubiquity of porn does to the prospect of finding life partners who are capable of loving [a person who watches videos]…we have to rescue those of our children who have been ensnared by it.  This British general practitioner is treating teenage girls under the age of consent for incontinence.  They cannot keep from soiling themselves because the muscles in their rectums have been stretched out from anal sex…

Another person who doesn’t know how muscles work.  Seriously, dude, I’d be more discreet about sharing my masturbatory fantasies if I were you.

Absolute Corruption

Still more victims of the Satanic panic released from prison:

A pair of inmates wrongfully imprisoned for over 22 years on murder convictions [report that] the Louisville Police Department fabricated evidence and a story about a Satanic ritual killing to convict them.  Jeffrey Clark and Garr Hardin were released…in August 2016 after DNA evidence exonerated them for the killing of 19-year-old Sue Warford…on April 5, 1992…Louisville Police Detective Mark Handy “immediately focused the investigation on [them] and developed the [fantasy]…that they had murdered the victim in a Satanic ritual killing”…when they refused to confess to Warford’s killing, [Handy claimed they had done so]…Another investigator “conspired with Clark’s estranged girlfriend…to manufacture an inculpatory statement…because he had witnessed her sexually abusing her son and reported the abuse”…the…Police…also falsely asserted a bloodstained handkerchief found in his home had been used to clean up animal sacrifices, despite having no DNA evidence to support the claim…

To Molest and Rape 

In the looking-glass world inhabited by people who believe in the virtue of cops, sexual coercion magically becomes “bribery”:

As a part of a plea deal, a…Honolulu [cop] accused in a corruption scandal pleaded guilty in federal court…Maulia LaBarre…promised a prostitute via text messages that another [cop] would not testify against her if she had sex with him…

Of Course It Is

I hope none of you find these even remotely surprising:

While Kamala Harris was bringing trumped-up child-exploitation charges against a classifieds website, a cadre of California cops was actually paying, pimping, and passing around an underage girl for sex and getting away with it.  A damning new report explains the extent that the Oakland Police Department (OPD) was involved with…Celeste Guap, and also details OPD leadership’s myriad attempts to make the scandal disappear.  Throughout the investigation of the cops, Guap, now 19, was treated like a suspect.  One investigator even called Guap a “whore”.  Others accused her of lying and later misrepresented her statements to their bosses…

Saving Them From Themselves (#678)

And people wonder why I’m critical of “child porn” laws:

…Marion County [Iowa] Attorney Ed Bull, who last year threatened to prosecute a teenager for…tak[ing] pictures of herself in her underwear, has promised not to bring charges.  In exchange, the ACLU has withdrawn the lawsuit it filed on behalf of the girl’s parents…If Bull truly believes that threatening a girl with prison and lifelong registration as a sex offender over a couple of risqué selfies has anything to do with justice, he is demonstrably unqualified for his job…[he] told the girl she could avoid prosecution only if she participated in “a pretrial diversion program wherein she must discuss why her conduct was wrong, sign a statement of admission as to her alleged conduct, listen to how she could potentially have to register as a sex offender for life, and give up her laptop and cell phone for an unspecified period of time”…Bull [claims he] was trying to teach the girl an important lesson about “the life-altering consequences that could arise from being labeled as a sex offender.”  Since he was the one threatening to label her as a sex offender, this exercise was rather like burning down a kid’s house to teach him the danger of playing with matches…

Send In the Clowns 

It’s too bad the “creepy clown” panic doesn’t have the juice to derail “sex trafficking” hysteria:

Last summer…a 12-year-old boy from Montgomery, Ohio, was…arrested at his middle school and suspended for the comments he made on an Instagram page for “scary clowns”.  Now, that boy’s parents are suing his school, the arresting [cop], and the county prosecutor…John and Catherine Wood’s son…C.W…visited Clown.Clann—one of many Instagram pages dedicated to the viral hoax and its fandom—and wrote “DUMB FUCKS COME TO SYCAMORE YOU WON’T”…He was cuffed during a test and arrested in front of his peers by the…[cops] the next day…the Hamilton County Prosectors Office is still pursuing charges against him.  After an initial “inducing panic” charge was dropped, they decided to go after him for harassment and causing public alarm.  The lawsuit…is aiming to get all his charges dropped and seeks damages for “emotional distress”…

Maggie in the Media (#733)

Dr. David Ley interviewed me for his “No More Sex Shame” series.  I apologize for the distortion & slight muffling of my voice, which probably resulted from a balky internet connection on my end.

Welcome To Our World (#746)

Another crime victim caged to force her participation in the state’s morality play:

The…prosecutor’s website [claims] that the Honolulu Family Justice Center is a safe haven, a domestic violence shelter that “will help victims break away from their abusers, regain their self-esteem…and make new lives for themselves.”  What the website doesn’t mention is that victims can’t bring their children…they also must turn over their cellphones and laptops, and they will be turned away unless they promise to testify against their abusers.  While Honolulu’s prosecutor-run “shelter” with extreme strings attached is unusual, its prosecution-first, victim-second approach to domestic violence cases isn’t…domestic violence victims who turn to law enforcement for help can be punished if they later decide that a criminal justice response isn’t in their best interest…At the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Family Justice Center, prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro…boasted that his office “did a lot of things to help victims of domestic violence, even when the victims did not know what’s good for them”…[in 2011] he had a woman arrested at her graduation party to guarantee her testimony against an ex-boyfriend who’d allegedly abused her.  Kaneshiro’s stop-at-nothing approach is part of his office’s “no-drop” policy for domestic violence cases…

Just a reminder: “no drop” policies were originally dreamed up & pushed by useful idiot “feminists”.

Across the Pond (#757)

UK cops keep pretending they want to “help” the women they stalk and harass:

…Norfolk’s police and crime commissioner Lorne Green joined [cops] in an operation to curb nuisance behaviour in the city’s Rosary Road.  Sergeant Mark Shepherd…said the police action [is]…“an ongoing operation targeting sex workers, aggressive street begging, and anti-social street drinking…Our approach is to try and divert them away from this lifestyle…We need to understand why these girls are there and then…get them off the streets…[but] if [they don’t want us meddling in their lives]…they are arrested”…

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In the News (#757)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2017| 2 Comments »

Give up hope — we’ll find you, too!  –  Je Suis Maidan

Bad Girls 

Translation: some robbers employ female accomplices who pose as sex workers to attract victims:

Hundreds of thousands of UK ­tourists travel to Sunny Beach resort in Bulgaria, where pints are as cheap as 80p…But the flocks of drunk Brits are attracting criminals, the Foreign Office said.  It added: “Tourists are targeted by thieves and pickpockets in Sunny Beach.  There has been an increase in burglaries from hotel rooms.”  Prostitution is not illegal in Bulgaria…but it is believed [by cops] to be linked to the criminal underworld…”We’ve received numerous reports of muggings and assaults of British nationals by prostitutes and their minders…Tourists have been victims of overcharging in strip clubs [and] threatened with violence if they don’t pay”…

This scam has existed for as long as there have been cities; the Romans referred to such women as gallinae (“hens”).  To report this as “news” is like pretending the existence of pickpockets and panhandlers is.  Also:  Try buying something at any business in the US or UK and refusing to pay, and let’s see if you aren’t threatened with violence.  The fact that the thugs you’ll be threatened with in those places are more likely to wear costumes doesn’t change the fact that you’re being threatened with violence.

The Course of a Disease (#8)

A watered-down disease culture, but a disease culture nonetheless:

…[Israeli] lawmakers [who happen to have vaginas]…announced they would present legislation punishing the clients of prostitutes…as the Justice Ministry wrapped up a year-long evaluation of the issue…The issue in recent months earned overwhelming support in the Knesset, with 71 lawmakers from both the coalition and opposition lending their support…Justice Ministry Director-General Emi Palmor ruled out leveling fines against those who paid for sex, saying it was not legally viable.  However, Palmor said she was “very, very much in favor” of instituting gradual criminal penalties against those who pay for sex, beginning with a warning and building up to court-ordered “John school” attendance, and other criminal punishments…Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked…will then decide whether to pursue legislation that would both punish clients and set up [re-education] programs for the sex workers…

The Immunity Syndrome (#321)

The last “super gonorrhea” scare turned out to be bogus, and I strongly suspect this one is as well:

…the World Health Association is now warning of an globally spreading gonorrhoea superbug which is resistant to all antibiotics…Thus far there have been only three identified cases of people with a strain resistant to all antibiotics, so it’s far from too late for us to stop this becoming a pandemic, or for you to protect yourself…

Observation: three cases of a dangerous disease.  Conclusion: “globally spreading” pandemic!  Everybody panic!

Pimping the Pimp (#446) 

With her exaggerated claims, naked opportunism, and ludicrous misuse of terminology, this woman reminds me very much of Annie Lobert of “Liars for Jesus”:

Elle Snow laces up her combat boots, prepared once again, to go to war with “The Game”…says Snow…”The [sex] traffickers like to move their victims frequently so they can’t get to know anyone and it’s harder for law enforcement to track them”…Snow…says she was 19 when she was first approached by an older man [named David Bernard Anderson] who…[coerced her into prostitution]…Anderson was one of many men and women following a set of carefully laid-out rules and guidelines for how to force women into prostitution.  “What happened to me was called ‘The Game,’ this monstrous beast that is this world of sex trafficking…These guys have a complete structure, they have books, they have documentaries, they have podcasts”…Now Snow spends many of her days monitoring sex ads on online classified sites, looking for trends …”I’m looking for tattoos because traffickers like to brand their victims”…

Yes, Snow is intentionally conflating the street term “The Game” (which, like “john”, is used far more often among cops and prohibitionists than among streetwalkers, and virtually never by other sex workers) with “Game”, the pickup artist system.  Anyone who’s ever researched the latter knows that it has nothing to do with pimping, but Snow doesn’t let that stop her any more than she lets the demonstrated falsity of that tattoo nonsense stop her from claiming that.  Neither CNN nor her intended marks will bother to do any research, because they’re eager to hear more masturbatory fantasies they can pretend are about fighting evil rather than appealing to their prurient interests.

Guinea Pigs (#634) 

New surveillance weapons are usually used against sex workers first, but it never stops with us:

In late June, someone launched a website called Je Suis Maidan, identifying people captured in photographs from Moscow’s June 12 anti-corruption protest.  On July 7, the website also started identifying demonstrators who attended protests that day in regions throughout the country.  Je Suis Maidan relies on the controversial app “FindFace,” which makes it possible to find a random person’s social-media page on Vkontakte [Russian Facebook] with a photograph of that person.  Using images that appeared in the news media (including a gigapixel photograph published by the pro-Kremlin tabloid Life.ru), the website finds people through FindFace, listing their real names and Vkontakte pages…

The War Goes On (#705) 

Politicians will keep persecuting Backpage until they find a new website to demonize:

Five members of Congress who [ride anti-whore hobbyhorses]…called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to launch a criminal investigation of Backpage.com after a trove of documents revealed that the website hired a company in the Philippines to lure advertisers and customers…The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations…[claimed] in January that Backpage was removing offensive terms from its sex ads but allowing the ads, some with [imagined] child-trafficking content, to remain posted…

Some of the five named politicians are the same ones working to gut Section 230, thereby destroying the internet as we know it.

Business As Usual (#738) 

Even though there’s nothing here which wasn’t already covered in earlier articles on the topic (including mine), its appearance in a mainstream and controversy-averse publication like Glamour is an extremely promising sign:

There’s a heated debate going on right now in Alaska between the police department and sex workers’ rights advocates over a bill that would make it illegal for [cops] to [rape or molest] sex workers before arresting them.  If Alaska passes this bill, they’ll become the first state to outlaw any sexual contact between police and the people they’re [trying to entrap]…Advocates…[point out] that police catching sex workers in the act by engaging with them sexually is a human rights violation, and Amnesty International has made an official statement…that…“Such conduct is an abuse of authority and…amounts to rape and/or entrapment”…

Across the Pond (#744)

Here’s that vile use of “safer neighborhood team” to mean “vice squad” again:

After a [supposed] spike in complaints…[cops] are launching the new campaign which they hope will stop the sex trade in Redbridge…Sgt Matt Taylor…was quick to [hide the persecution behind the faddish claim]…that his detectives are targeting the pimps and criminals which organise and use the prostitutes, and not the girls themselves…“We want to [force] them…out of prostitution”…Sgt Taylor said police [pretend] the gangs are “organised”…Insp Lee Canter, the head of Redbridge Safer Neighbourhoods, commented: “I would like to send a strong message out to those who intend to use the services of sex workers as we will seek to prosecute you and if convicted your picture may be published in the local papers”…

Total Eclipse of the Brain 

Though it’s too early in the implosion to tell for sure, we may have a winner in the “stupidest gypsy whore magnet” competition:

The eyes of the world will be on Hopkinsville [Kentucky] next month when a total solar eclipse brings tens of thousands of people to the small city.  But law enforcement and activists are warning everyone of sex trafficking, a dangerous threat they hope does not become a reality…[profiteer] Amy Leenerts [claims]…“yes, it will definitely happen…it’s a human trafficking ring.  And we expect that to probably end up in Hopkinsville”…The FBI is looking into the credibility of human trafficking threats during the eclipse.  Meanwhile, the Christian County Sheriff Department is wasting no time preparing for the worst…

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#755)

One way to tell a moral scold’s head is inextricably embedded in his own rectal cavity:  he claims supposed disastrous effects of whatever-it-is that are the exact opposite of those claimed by other moral scolds:

The Salvation Army has condemned…sex robots, warning that the technology could increase demand for people trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation…rather than decrease demand for real sex workers…Kathryn Taylor, of the Salvation Army’s anti-[whore]…unit said…”In the same way that pornography normalises certain behaviours, the availability of sexbots could normalise a distorted power dynamic which devalues the other person involved when transferred to human interactions.  This could encourage increased objectification of women and children and a lack of respect for their fellow human beings”…Prof Noel Sharkey…said compliant and uncomplaining sexbots could encourage objectification, abuse, rape and paedophilia…

You know, kind of like Agatha Christie novels and TV cop shows increase real crimes.  It’s funny how prudes expect everyone to believe that human beings are only volitionless tabulae rasae when sex is involved.

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