Where Are the Victims? | The Honest Courtesan

Posts Tagged ‘Where Are the Victims?’

In the News (#1189)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged advertising, agency denial, Arizona, Believe Them, cops, domestic violence, Europe, fantasy, fascism, hysteria, internet, Israel, language, Missouri, pizza!, politicians, prisons, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rape, Rooted in Racism, serial killers, Stalkers in Blue, Stop faking!, Surplus Women, surveillance, The Cop Myth, The Implosion Begins, To Molest and Rape, Torture Chamber, transgender, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims?, Yellow Fever, yellow journalism on November 17, 2021| 2 Comments »

A system that allows this level of sustained incompetence and cruelty…is morally bankrupt. – Tod Wilcox

Where Are the Victims?

They’re talking about ordinary-sounding escort agencies or phone services:

…a BBC [news show claims it]…has evidence that…pimps are using Vivastreet to advertise multiple women under their control…one mobile phone number was being used for 78 ads on the site – which suggests the women might be controlled by a single person [because obviously, women are much too stupid to hire answering services like other businesses do]…some of the adverts for sex contained [what prohibitionists, cops, and others who wank to fantasies of passive, doll-like women enjoy calling] the warning signs of sexual exploitation. One such sign is when multiple women [use the same phone answering service]…Diana Johnson, chair of the [politicians’] Group [trying once again to impose Swedish criminalization on the UK, barfed up childish nonsense about]…”a pimp’s paradise”…Stuart Peall…a…Lancashire [vice cop, made furtive movements in his pants while burbling about how]…”it’s like a takeaway menu”…

It’s really sad that the BBC has sunk to the “IT’S LIKE PIZZA!” level of journalism.

Surplus Women

Your government wants this to happen more often:

Police have arrested a man believed to be the serial killer responsible for six murders and several shootings that happened in St. Louis…and Kansas City…during a span of several weeks in September and late October…Perez Reed…used the same gun to shoot all of the victims…He is also suspected of multiple other homicides in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas…[but his] motive remains unknown. Most of the victims were women…some were involved in sex work. And other[s appear to have been transwomen]…Some…were shot in the back of their heads…some victims didn’t fit into any type of pattern and some survived. One man was waiting for a bus when he was shot but survived…most of the…[victims]…did not know their killer — who does not have much of a criminal history…

Missouri cops of course had to demonstrate what they are by misgendering some of the dead.

Rooted in Racism (#966)

The racism of European “anti-trafficking” schemes is getting harder to disguise:

EU [politicians want to]…e[conomically] sa[botage] Minsk…[for allowing] large numbers of [brown people into]…Belarus…in hopes of [stopping them] crossing into Polish territory…European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called…[the migration of brown people a] “hybrid attack”…[and said] that the EU “will explore how to…blacklist…third-country airlines” that a[llow brown people to buy tickets, referring to the sales as]…”human trafficking”…[another politician bloviated that] “All airlines of the world should understand that they cooperate with the criminal regime by flying to Belarus”…

Pyrrhic Victory (#996)

A tactic pioneered by China:

The Israeli military has been conducting a broad surveillance effort in the occupied West Bank to monitor Palestinians by integrating facial recognition with a growing network of cameras and smartphones…a…technology called Blue Wolf…captures photos of Palestinians’ faces and matches them to a database of images so extensive that one former soldier described it as the army’s secret “Facebook for Palestinians.” The phone app flashes in different colors to alert soldiers if a person is to be [harassed], arrested or left alone. To build the database…soldiers competed last year in photographing Palestinians, including children and the elderly, with prizes for the most pictures collected by each unit…The surveillance program was described…by…soldiers…to…Breaking the Silence…an advocacy group composed of Israeli army veterans that opposes the occupation…

The Implosion Begins (#1172)

Everyone who spread “sex trafficking” hysteria contributed to this atrocity:

John Eisenman [of Spokane fantasized] that his underage daughter’s boyfriend had…sold her into a [“]sex trafficking organization[“] in Seattle. [After the daughter returned home, an event described by] Eisenman…as…rescue…[he stalked] the boyfriend, 19-year-old Aaron Sorensen…[and murdered] him…by beating and stabbing…[then put his] body in the trunk [of a car, which he] then abandoned in North Spokane County where it sat for nearly a full year. In October 2021…[someone found the car and] drove [it] back into Spokane…On Oct. 22, [police] received calls from [someone]…who discovered the body when rummaging through the abandoned vehicle…

Here’s the wholly predictable chaser:

The family of Andrew Sorensen…[pointed out that this supposed “trafficker”] “was born with cerebral palsy, autism, and [was] developmentally delayed…Both the FBI and Washington State Patrol said there is no sex trafficking investigation”…John Eisenman…is facing the charge of first-degree murder and is being held in jail on a $1 million bond…

Torture Chamber (#1184)

Arizona screws are notably devoted to yelling “Stop faking!” at the sick and dying:

A paraplegic man was left to physically deteriorate until his penis had to be amputated. A man with undiagnosed, untreated lung cancer lost 90 pounds and died “slowly and agonizingly” without pain medication. A woman’s multiple sclerosis was ignored and misdiagnosed until she was left, at age 36, nearly completely paralyzed. Arizona’s prison system is on trial once again in a long-running civil lawsuit over [systemic] medical neglect…and a doctor’s testimony in the case paints a stomach-churning picture of unnecessary suffering, malpractice, and death…medical neglect is widespread in American prisons and jails, despite the Eighth Amendment’s supposed guarantee of basic medical care, hygiene, and living conditions. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and several law firms have been litigating the case since 2012…

To Molest and Rape (Long Hidden)

UK reporters have discussed this more in weeks than US ones have in years:

More than 30 a[ccus]ations of sexual misconduct were made against Suffolk [cops] in the past five years…the figures come amid fresh focus on police conduct after the kidnap, rape and killing of Sarah Everard by [typical and representative cop] Wayne Couzens in March…The case has raised questions about how police forces [refuse to] deal with sexual misconduct amongst their own rank and file after it emerged that Couzens was referred to by his own colleagues as “the rapist”. Three days before he [raped and murdered a young woman], Couzens also…exposed himself in a McDonald’s restaurant…

Yet reporters still feel the need to include denials and excuses from spokespigs who want to expose even more women to the danger of rape and other violence from cops:

A scheme that will see [disguised cops secretly spying on] clubs and bars [using the excuse of] safeguard[ing] women will instead put them at risk of police violence…the government…first announced plans to roll the scheme out nationwide in the spring…after the kidnapping, murder and rape of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer…Deniz Ugur…of the End Violence Against Women Coalition said trying to safeguard women from predatory men using [other predatory men] would not tackle the root of the problem…“Given that one woman a week reports domestic abuse by a police officer and that police abuse of power for a sexual purpose is…the most common form of police corruption…these plans will be ineffective and…leave women…at risk of police violence”…

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In the News (#1108)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, brothels, censorship, cops, disease, domestic violence, Enablers, fantasy, Florida, Guinea Pigs, hysteria, internet, License To Rape, Norway, politicians, rescue industry, Social Distancing, surveillance, Swedish model, teachers, Top Cop, TSA, Twitter, Under Every Bed, Where Are the Victims?, Wyoming, yellow journalism, You Were Warned on January 30, 2021| 2 Comments »

Public health expert…warnings were largely ignored by governments. – Heather Barr

Where Are the Victims?

Do cops realize how stupid their inability to stick with one narrative per statement makes them sound?

…a…ho[us]e in a gated country club…was being used as a brothel…[spokespig] Mike Bruno…[oinked]…“No one is immune from it…[oink oink] victim of human trafficking…[oink oink] protect the [41 and 50 year old] girls…[oink oink] these women may not even know that they are a victim…because obviously someone is making money”…

Under Every Bed

578,759 people total at a density of about 2 per km²:

…sex trafficking…is happening in Wyoming, and it’s very unidentified here…Terri Markham…founde[d]…Uprising…[an] organization…committed to [mak]ing [money from hysteria] about sex trafficking in the state…she…[claims] sex trafficking is often misidentified as sexual abuse, domestic violence or some other crime instead…she a[lso] said if your child has any kind of online presence, there is a 100 percent chance the child has been seen by a predator…

Fetishists often turn things backward (in reality, domestic violence and other crimes are often mislabeled “sex trafficking” in order to win grants and whip up support for more police-statery), but the most amusing part of this is the claim that for a “predator” to merely see a teenager (which is what she really means by “child”) is some sort of cause for concern (presumably due to sex rays emitted by the dangerous “male gaze” and somehow propagated through the internet).

Guinea Pigs (#1013)

The snitching “apps” and hotlines first sold as anti-whore technology are widening their nets:

Teachers, students and staff [in Oklahoma] can now report [each other] through text messages…For years…students have been able to r[at on each other]…through a [snitch] line…But [t]hat [didn’t fool them into thinking they’d have]…anonymity, and the…[new snitch line pretends]…a…text messaging system [somehow is. Surveillance minister Jon]…Parker said once a student reports a[nother student], a s[pook]…will follow up with questions…[because the snitch texts go] right…[to] the[state] fusion center…[informants] also may send…videos and pictures [taken without the victim’s consent]…

Civil rights violations often start with whores, but never stop with us.

License to Rape (#1014)

TSA goons can usually molest citizens without consequence, but this was a bit too blatant:

A [typical and representative TSA goon]…who…[bullied and] trick[ed] a traveler into showing her breasts as she went through security [theater] at [LAX] pleaded no contest…to false imprisonment [in return for a slap on the wrist and bogus “sex addiction” classes]…Johnathon Lomeli…was also barred from working as a security guard [in California]…

Since the government still insists on hiding the identity of this budding rapist from women he might endanger, here’s California AG Xavier Becerra’s picture instead.

Social Distancing (#1043)

Don’t worry, the Swedish model “decriminalizes the seller”!

Norwegian police have arrested sex workers [using the pretext] that they violated quarantine restrictions…the[y now]…face detention and expulsion from Norway…some have already been forced to leave although their clients do not appear to have been arrested…Rights organizations drew attention early in the pandemic to its devastating impact on sex workers…[who] often struggle to access financial safety nets due to the marginalized nature of their work and because many are migrants or members of other groups facing discrimination. These problems are worsened by laws criminalizing sex work…including…[those] us[ing] the so-called “Nordic model”…[which] harms people who sell sex…[by] mak[ing] it harder for them to find safe places to work, work together, advocate for their rights, or even open a bank account. It stigmatizes sex workers and leaves them vulnerable to abuse by police…

You Were Warned (#1071)

Prohibitionists, censors and profiteers will continue to harass businesses thus until FOSTA is overturned:

Morality in Media…helped file a lawsuit…against Twitter over a third-party user post, based on the Section 230 loophole opened by…FOSTA-SESTA…The civil lawsuit for damages was filed under the federal Trafficking Victims’ Protection Reauthorization Act…but [the pro-censorship group] makes the argument for Twitter’s liability for a user’s post by invoking FOSTA-SESTA. The case involves a video compilation uploaded by two Twitter accounts that allegedly contain material that an underage “John Doe” shot for strangers who catfished him through Snapchat claiming to be a girl his age…The lawsuit…timed to the inauguration of Kamala Harris as Vice President, makes allegations…that mirror the campaign to shut down…Backpage …The lawsuit is the first…of copycat proceedings that religious groups had announced for the first weeks of the Biden-Harris administration…under an effort known as “Project Blitz”…

Top Cop (#1103)

Authoritarian media want people to forget about the true nature of this psychopath, now only an old man’s heartbeat from the power she so desperately craves:

When The Washington Post published a 2019 campaign trail feature about…Kamala Harris’ close relationship with her sister, it opened with a memorable anecdote in which Harris bizarrely compared the rigors of the campaign trail to…life behind bars. And then proceeded to laugh—at the idea of an inmate begging for a sip of water…But now that Harris is vice president, that awful moment…vanished from the Post’s website after the paper “updated” the piece earlier this month…The scene…did what few political features can accomplish: showing, rather than telling, something about the candidate…Harris made her name as a prosecutor, and her track record includes…laughing off criticism of her history of throwing poor parents in jail when their kids missed school. The Post profile provided a mask-slipping moment that seemed to perfectly capture a warped sense of justice and lack of basic human dignity…[instead] the Post…[replaced it] with a new opening anecdote…by…Chelsea Janes…who has authored several fawning pieces about Harris…

Caught red-handed, the Post restored the original and downplayed their attempt to whitewash a tyrant as a kind of editorial oversight.

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In the News (#1035)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, Bait and Switch, California, censorship, cops, disease, ethics, Facebook, fascism, hotels, hysteria, I Spy, language, Like Houses, Maryland, Mexico, scams, sex work is work, Social Distancing, surveillance, Utah, Virginia, Washington DC, Where Are the Victims? on May 2, 2020| 1 Comment »

Government needs to back off…[Christian] moral…judgments…when it comes to women’s work. – Leah LaGrone

Where Are the Victims?

Does this fit your idea of what “sex trafficking” is?

The owner of The Salt City Inn…Rezvan “Ray” Saisani, and the inn’s manager…Sameer Syed, are both facing numerous felony charges related to using the motel to run [what pigs and prosecutors fantasize was] a sex trafficking operation…Saisani and Syed would…charg[e clients a] $10 [incall fee]…[and] rent…rooms to…sex workers in exchange for sexual favors…Saisani and Syed would not charge them upfront for the room, knowing they would make money by using the room for sex work and would be able to pay later…

Bait and Switch

When cops call other people “predators”, refer to the original of this title:

[Virginia cops fantasy role-played as women interested in ageplay in order to entrap]…30 men…during [a cop fantasy-fest absurdly labeled] Operation COVID Crackdown…[predictably, most of] the men [targeted for this “operation” were racial minorities, as is typical in cop “stings”]…

All-Purpose Excuse

With their anti-whore schtick failing, the rescue industry is desperate to find new things they can call “human trafficking”:

Buyers of [wooden] products…may unknowingly be financing organized crime gangs, human trafficking and deforestation in an industry tainted by illegal logging, [profiteers claim]…Criminal groups are increasingly involved in the illegal timber trade in the [Mexican] state of Chihuahua which borders the United States, according to [claims] by [a group alling itself] the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime…Diana Siller, director of the…profit[eer] group Jade [shouted]…”The…children[!]”…

Social Distancing

Cassandra wishes to share this with you:

…Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts…Five key facts are being ignored by those calling for continuing the near-total lockdown. Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19. The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent…Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding…Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem…Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections…Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures. The overwhelming evidence…consistently shows that a clearly defined group — older people and others with underlying conditions — is more likely to have a serious illness requiring hospitalization and more likely to die from COVID-19…it is a commonsense, achievable goal to target isolation policy to that group, including strictly monitoring those who interact with them…

I Spy (#1029)

When it comes to mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down:

…public health [commissars] desperately want the ability to track people’s movements to [see if the proles are obeying] social-distancing [diktats] and also to trace contacts between people who carry the disease and [non-consenting] members of the public they [contact]…cellphone tracking…promises to fulfill every Big Brother-ish fear privacy advocates have ever raised. “When California officials…tapped…Facebook [to] provide…location coordinates of tens of millions of smartphones [without their owners’ knowledge or permission]…show[ing]…that large numbers of people were still [visit]ing…beaches and in public parks. So…Gov. Gavin Newsom…ordered them closed to vehicles, sharply restricting…people’s…ability to escape to the healthy outdoors…

Social Distancing (#1032)

Op-eds like this have become very common since FOSTA:

…businesses that provide “live or recorded performances” or “receive more than 5 percent of [their] gross revenue” from the sale of products with any depictions of a “prurient nature” are ineligible for [pandemic loans]. Owners of clubs and other small businesses may file lawsuits over their exclusion, but it is the women carrying the industry who will suffer. Though…sex [workers]…can still file for aid through unemployment and possibly receive the $1,200 stimulus checks given to millions of Americans, they are ineligible for the…far larger [SBA] loans…When the government excludes the sex industry from economic help, it is because it considers this work immoral, a judgment that devalues women’s labor and sex work more broadly. Treating the sex industry as illicit reinforces flawed moral judgments and makes workers in this industry, especially women, particularly vulnerable…

Like Houses (#1034)

If you didn’t expect the pandemic to be used as an excuse for censorship, you are hopelessly naive:

It has been six weeks since…[cops murdered] 21-year-old Duncan Lemp in a 4:30 a.m. raid at his family’s home in Potomac, Maryland, an affluent and sedate suburb of Washington, D.C. Montgomery County Police have thus far refused to provide any e[xcuse for murdering] Lemp. But a county prosecutor leaped to action…[by] threatening any Lemp family members who attend a protest over his killing with a $5000 fine and a year in jail…[using the excuse of]…Maryland’s strict stay-at-home [diktat]…

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In the News (#1020)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged activism, All Wet, BDSM, bogus studies, California, Catholicism, cops, escort services, fascism, Florida, France, Ireland, law, Malta, Monsters, neofeminism, porn, Pyrrhic Victory, Safe Position, scams, streetwalkers, stripping, surveillance, Swedish model, Texas, The Course of a Disease, transgender, Tyranny by Consensus, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC, Where Are the Victims?, Worse Than I Thought on March 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Divided in this way, we all lose. – Kaytlin Bailey

R.I.P. Jack Hammer

The adult community lost a unique and intriguing personality this week with the death of veteran performer Jack Hammer XL…Hammer was…a former Marine who pursued his love of bondage and “sexual demolition” on his own website…this physically powerful performer also was a practitioner of Brazilian jiu jitsu, Muay Thai and crossfit…the 53-year-old…died at home unexpectedly of natural causes…The XL in Hammer’s name was not for “extra large”…it was the number 40 in Roman numerals…the year in his life that he started in porn…

Where Are the Victims?

Just imagine how much money was wasted to entrap a woman for the “crime” of introducing people:

A Dallas [escort service] owner was sentenced…to nearly four years in federal prison for agreeing to [provide very ordinary escort services]…to a group of [pigs pretending to be decent human beings looking for company]…Helen Kim…[took a] plea…[to avoid decades in a cage on made-up charges]…a number of foreign-born commercial sex workers [were arrested and deported in a scam involving]…about 50 [perverted pigs]…

Monsters

The Swedish model protects sex workers!

On the night of February 20-21, Jessyca Sarmiento was killed at her workplace in Bois de Boulogne. She was struck by a car traveling at high speed….[which] did not even stop or slow…down…the attack [appears] deliberate. Her murder is part of an increasing wave of attacks against the sex workers community in France after the “Swedish model” of clients’ criminalisation took place. In the last 6 months, at least…10 sex workers were murdered…

All Wet

When a “study” claims only an impossibly-tiny fraction of men pay for sex, you can safely dismiss it as pure garbage:

On[ly one] in 15 men [admit] that they purchase sex occasionally — a 2% drop since [Swedish criminalization was implemented] in Ireland…77% of men [are to frightened to tell the truth even though 50% of men have paid for sex at least once, because]…purchasing sex is now a criminal offence in Ireland…[prohibitionist organization] Ruhama, [run by the same nuns who enslaved women in the horrific Magdalene laundries, was]…behind [the bogus study]…

Worse Than I Thought (#994)

Florida prohibitionists are completely out of control:

Jacksonville [Florida]…Mayor Lenny Curry…sign[ed] into law…a new bill that places tougher regulations on strip clubs [using the fashionable excuse of] sex trafficking…[prohibitionists vomited out “King of the Hill” fantasies about]…the bill [which raises]…the [minimum legal] erotic dance performer age from 18 to 21…increases the license fee for strip clubs…requires that everyone who works in a club…be [indoctrinated i prohibitionist sexual fantasies, and requires]…all clubs…to keep a file of everyone who’s danced there [so cops know which women they can rape with impunity. The prohibitionists masturbated furiously while gasping that]…Jacksonville is a hub for human trafficking because it’s surrounded by water [and] has an airport and…interstate [highways]…

WATER CAUSES “SEX TRAFFICKING”!!!

The Course of a Disease (#1000)

The reaction of prohibitionists to rejection of Swedish criminalization demonstrates their sociopathic sense of entitlement to control others’ lives:

A group of 40 [prohibitionist] NGOs…hit out at…[plans by the government of] Malta…to decriminalise prostitution [instead of imposing Swedish criminalization]…The [prohibitionists are angry that]…the…government [is following]…science and [facts rather than anti-sex religious beliefs]…”How can…the…government [not] want…to continue facilitating [our control]…and objectification of women’s bodies?” the [prohibitionists whined]…

Safe Position (#1015)

Why we can’t have nice things:

A national organization that advocates for the decriminalization of sex work announced…that it has withdrawn a petition it filed…before the D.C. Board of Elections to place a bill to decriminalize prostitution in the nation’s capital on the D.C. ballot in November. Decriminalize Sex Work…said strong opposition…by a coalition of local sex worker advocacy groups prompted it to withdraw the proposal…

Tyranny By Consensus (#1017)

The typical politician’s response to criticism: doubling down:

[Politician] Cristina Garcia…has no…expertise in sex work issues and…introduced [a sex worker surveillance bill without reading it]…she…[will] not entertain withdrawing [it, instead vomiting out idiocy about]…”basic training to identify human trafficking”…she has sponsored other bills mandating “human trafficking” training for “hotel workers”…”We want to i[ndocrinate]…folks t[o rat people out to the cops],” she added, confirming the suspicions of adult performers that AB2389 is a law enforcement bill disguised as a workers’ safety bill…

Pyrrhic Victory (#1019)

Still think this djinni can be stuffed back into its bottle?

Clearview AI…has been testing its facial recognition software on surveillance cameras and augmented reality glasses…under a division called Insight Camera, which has been tested by at least two potential clients…its website…was taken offline after BuzzFeed…was able to link it to [Clearview]…by comparing the code from Insight and Clearview’s respective log-in pages, which both shared numerous references to Clearview…

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In the News (#975)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Moral Cancer, A Tale That Grew in the Telling, advertising, agency denial, asset seizure, censorship, Colorado, cops, Dirty Laundry, Disaster, drugs, escort services, FBI, Florida, Germany, hysteria, Illinois, internet, Ireland, Kansas, language, law, Little Boxes, New Mexico, Oklahoma, pragmatism, prisons, rape, Real People, screening, sex rays, sexting, shame, statistics, The Mote and the Beam, tits, To Molest and Rape, Utah, Where Are the Victims?, Wyoming, yin and yang on September 28, 2019| 5 Comments »

We’re not going to sit around and wait to be prosecuted before we fight this law. – Skye Wheeler

Real People

Even shitty and somewhat exploitative sex work doesn’t really resemble prohibitionist fantasies:

Elke Margarete Lehrenkrauss’ poignant documentary Lovemobil observes the Nigerian Rita and the Bulgarian Milena as they perform sex work in caravans (trailers) along a German country road. The young women have escaped difficult economic circumstances in their home countries and are looking to earn money; they feel obligated to send Euros back to their families…they work for Uschi, a tough older woman who keeps them in line and advises them about pricing their services, but also appears to care for them, even as she chides Rita for trying to cheat her out of payments…Lovemobil deliberately keeps the sex acts off camera to focus on the larger issues of globalization, feminism and economic inequality that are part of this fascinating subculture of sex work…

Where Are the Victims?

Note the bizarre, stilted language used to describe a very ordinary-sounding escort service:

Jessica Nesbitt [of Chicago was]…charged with [various pompously-named]…prostitution [“crimes”]…for…own[ing] and operat[ing] a company called Kink Extraordinaires, which employed several individuals who engaged in prostitution…Nesbitt advertised prostitution services on multiple websites…and…also emailed her clients invitations to paid sex and fetish parties…In addition to activity in Chicago, Nesbitt arranged for herself and her employees to perform acts of prostitution in California, Washington, D.C., Florida, Indiana, Nevada, and Wisconsin…

Dirty Laundry (#452)

At least this judge gave the stolen money to someone other than Ruhama:

Money [stolen] by Laois gardai from [two sex workers was]…donated to two local charities by the court…the two [sensibly fled] and have not returned…Judge Catherine Staines directed that €3,410 got to the Laois Domestic Abuse Service, and around €1300 go to the Garda Youth Diversion Projects…

To Molest and Rape

Just another typical, representative cop:

A Miami-Dade [screw]…has been charged with raping a woman he was supposed to be supervising while she was on house arrest. Yulian Gonzalez…paid regular visits to the alleged victim’s home during the course of his work as a case manager…Gonzalez threatened to issue a violation of her house arrest and send her back to jail if she did not [submit to rape]…Gonzalez rented a room at the Nexx Motel…and drove the woman there in his [pigmobile]…so as not to set off any alarms, Gonzalez tampered with the woman’s ankle monitor…

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#754)

I love seeing prohibitionists hoist with their own petard:

A report compiled by the Department of Justice has revealed that the [Swedish model]…in Northern Ireland is not fit for purpose…“This report…shows that there has not been a decrease in demand for sex work since the introduction of client criminalisation…in 2015,” [said] Kate McGrew…”Instead, we have seen an increase in sex trafficking by 26%…In the north, it led to massive increase in advertising (on one site alone over 1700 new ads) and demand (in one jurisdiction by 134%) and a 200% increase threatening behaviour in clients. In the south, it led to an increase in violent crime against sex workers by 92%“…

Once the government started defining all third parties as “sex traffickers” and then passed a law whose natural consequence would be increased reliance on such parties, naturally “sex trafficking” by their definition increased. And since prohibitionists pretended the intent of their anti-whore law was to “fight sex trafficking”, they now have no choice but to admit the law was a “failure”. Oops.

Little Boxes (#792)

A federal court finally recognizes what should’ve been obvious years ago:

Fort Collins, Colorado, decided not to continue its challenge to a federal court’s decision that a ban on going topless in the city amounts to unconstitutional discrimination…The city decided not to appeal the decision…after [wast]ing hundreds of thousands of [public] dollars on the legal battle already…[this] effectively legalizes [female toplessness] in the six states covered by the 10^th Circuit court…Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming…

Given that the 7^th Circuit ruled exactly the opposite two years ago (see subtitle link), a SCOTUS showdown is now inevitable.

The Mote and the Beam (#900)

This is much worse than the typical government propaganda such as “DARE”:

…the FBI is launching its #StopSextortion [propaganda] campaign to [convince parents] and schools [that teenage sexting is a]…growing problem [called] sextortion…[affecting] kids…as young as seven or eight…The [FBI wants parents to believe that peer “sexting” is actually the product of an adult] extortionist [who] finds children and teens on social media [to]…convince…to send a naked photo—and…the[n]…telling the child that he will send the photo to friends and family or post online…the extortionist continues to threaten while escalating demands, which can include…sex acts…

The FBI is intentionally representing a rare crime as the norm so as to give the federal government power over teen sexting. If you thought FOSTA and the drug war were great, you’re going to love the “war on sextortion”.

Disaster (#935)

News about the FOSTA challenge:

Human Rights Watch and four other plaintiffs…present[ed] arguments on September 20 against the dismissal of their challenge to a…law that imposes criminal liability for online speech about sex work…FOSTA…’s language is [so] broad and vague, it could prevent sex workers and others from writing about sex work and posting about critically important health and safety issues, and it would restrict organisations like Human Rights Watch from effectively reporting on and advocating for the decriminalisation of sex work…FOSTA has [already] endangered [sex workers because]…websites that made it easier for sex workers to screen clients and to sell sex in safer locations have stopped sex workers from posting. The co-plaintiffs in the case with Human Rights Watch are the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the Internet Archive, and individuals Alex Andrews and Eric Koszyk. The lower court [incorrectly] dismissed the case [a year ago]…without addressing the substantive claims, on the [pretense] that plaintiffs faced no imminent risk of prosecution…[but] in cases involving free expression, the appropriate lens is whether speech will be unconstitutionally burdened or chilled…

A Moral Cancer (#972)

Authoritarian idiots respond to deaths from a black market product by dramatically expanding the black market:

Walmart said…that it would stop selling e-cigarettes at its stores in the United States, dealing a new blow to the vaping industry as [hysteria] mount[s] over the health risks of [black market] products [which have nothing to do with the banned e-cigarettes]…The decision…comes amid a [dumpster fire full] of new [moral panic] about the potential health risks of [black market THC cartridges] that has [inspired prohibitionists to]…increas[e the danger by banning completely different currently-legal] products…

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In the News (#964)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged Across the Pond, agency denial, Between the Lines, censorship, China, cops, Disaster, Ecuador, end demand, fascism, FBI, Germany, harm reduction, hysteria, Iowa, Ireland, law, politicians, Pyrrhic Victory, racism, rescue industry, Soap Opera, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, Torture Chamber, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Welcome to the Future, Where Are the Victims? on August 21, 2019| 1 Comment »

This is how the United States of America, the mightiest and richest nation there is or ever has been, treats incarcerated people. – Ken White

Torture Chamber

Ken White on the inhuman abominations that the US calls “correction”:

Jeffrey Epstein’s name and face are everywhere following his death…Americans who believe in their justice system assert that it is obvious that he was murdered, and that jailers could not possibly be so incompetent, cruel, or indifferent as to let such a high-profile prisoner commit suicide. Here, to help you evaluate that claim, are 32 short stories about in-custody deaths or near-deaths in America…

Regular readers know these stories are nauseating, but you really need to read them all. Every last one.

Uncommon Sense (#435)

The correct term is “tippelzone”, not “sex booth” or some other snickering adolescent coinage:

The mayor of [Berlin]…is proposing “Verichtungsboxen”…at Tempelhof Airport. His proposal for the establishment of the sex booths…came as part of a discussion about street prostitution in his district and how to improve the safety of Berlin’s sex workers…

Across the Pond (#757)

UK cops are increasingly using the jolly, kumbaya word “team” to mean “vice squad”:

More than 200 letters have been delivered to residents [near a stroll] in…Nottingham…to [intimidate] residents…in[to informing on their neighbors]…the…letters were hand delivered to [make the]…int[imidation feal more real]…Since 2004, Nottinghamshire Police’s Prostitution Task Force has been working to find ways of [pretending that harassing and stigmatizing] sex workers [is] get[ting] the[m] help…whilst gradually removing the[ir income. The cops bizarrely imagine harassing people and choking off their income will]…break down the barrier between sex workers and the police…

Soap Opera (#809)

Magical stickers, secret-squirrel codes…this is like a bad episode of Get Smart!

An Iowa newspaper employee recently {claimed to have] helped save a[n unnamed] woman trapped in a sex trafficking ring…after she flagged the delivery driver down on the side of the road…a 25-year-old East Dubuque Woman was arrested and charged with pimping….[a Cedar Rapids, Iowa] Bar…[posted a] sign in the woman’s restroom [reading]…”are you in an uncomfortable situation, do you need our help?”…[and] lists a code word drink…that customers can order to alert the bartender they’re in need of help… Teresa Davidson…of Chains Interrupted [wants] more …stickers that read “Are you safe” in bathrooms across the state….The organization is also working to [indoctrinate] convenience store employees…

Pyrrhic Victory (#931)

As I’ve repeatedly stated, it is far too late to put this evil djinni back into its bottle:

…Beijing has gone to [great lengths to] identify and control Uighurs…Within Kashgar…residents must line up to…swipe [ID cards] at each checkpoint….[and] expose their faces to [omnipresent]…facial recognition…[cops] need neither probable cause nor a warrant to detain Uighurs and check their phones for the surveillance software that they’re legally required to install….”re-education” camp[s imprison]…hundreds of thousands, or even millions of Muslims…[now] Ecuador is using a “national emergency response and video surveillance system built entirely by Chinese companies and financed by Chinese state loans”…As this technology improves and gets cheaper, it will likely become affordable to every two-bit dictator on Earth…

Disaster (#935)

The sweet smell of schadenfreude:

Verizon is set to sell the social network Tumblr to Automattic Inc, the owner of online publishing tool WordPress. A source familiar with the deal puts the price-tag…below $10 million…Tumblr…was…considered a major player in the social media space.[when it]…was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, before moving under Verizon’s umbrella through the carrier’s acquisition of Yahoo in 2017. [But] Verizon…[intentionally destroyed the network by ill-considered censorship]…last year. Automattic’s Chief Executive Matt Mullenweg told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to maintain the ban [so as to use the dying site as a tax write-off]…

Where Are the Victims? (#945)

Despite their pious posturing to the contrary, this is exactly the outcome prohibitionists wanted:

Fianna Fáil has called for an anti-prostitution law to be reviewed, because of the consequences it has on sex workers who live together. The main opposition party has suggested that it would be open to considering decriminalising sex workers who live together. The majority of Irish political parties want the government to review and possibly scrap a law which punishes sex workers who live together under a harsher “brothel keeping” offence which was brought in two yeas ago…It follows a high profile case earlier this summer where two migrant sex workers were both jailed for nine months after they were prosecuted for brothel keeping. One of the women was pregnant when she was jailed…Sex worker advocates had warned at the time that most of the people who were being prosecuted for brothel-keeping were independent sex workers…B[u]t…Fianna Fáil had voted down the amendment…now…it wants the law to be reviewed, after…the “[wholly]…intended consequences” [became public]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#956)

More on Amazon’s campaign to end privacy forever:

Amazon Web Services…has rolled out more terrifying features for its cloud-based facial recognition system—including, it claims, the ability to detect fear…Emotion recognition is a facial analysis technique that…works by training a machine learning system to look for certain features on a detected face which indicate emotional content…Amazon has updated the range of detectable emotions for Rekognition’s face analysis to include “fear,” adding to a list of seven other emotional states: “Happy”, “Sad”, “Angry”, “Surprised”, “Disgusted”, “Calm”, and “Confused”…the efficacy of emotion recognition is in dispute…[but used by] government agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement…and Customs and Border Patrol…

Between the Lines (#962)

Liz Brown tries to assess the damage from the rebranded “Operation Cross Country” pogroms:

…The FBI no longer reports the number of adult sex workers whom these initiatives claim as collateral…However, local news and law enforcement agencies often do..in Alabama, 49 “sex workers and their facilitators” were arrested around the Birmingham area…[and] 14 [in Homewood]……Northern Ohio [arrested nine] women…Pennsylvania [two]…Mississippi [five]…In South Carolina [five]…In…Florida [three]…In the San Diego area, six…Louisiana…25…in Shreveport…and…seven…in Baton Rouge…Police have portrayed the 4-year-old [abducted from one of their victims] as being rescued from “human traffickers”…

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In the News (#953)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged A Broker in Pillage, agency denial, All-Purpose Excuse, Arizona, asset seizure, Backpage, California, Checklist, cops, Dangerous Speech, drivers, drugs, France, hysteria, illegal aliens, Indiana, internet, Italy, language, Little Tin Gods, Louisiana, Montana, Morality Lessons, Nevada, Nigeria, politicians, porn, propaganda, racism, rape, rescue industry, Rooted in Racism, Safe Targets, Shame Shame, Singapore, Swedish model, The Course of a Disease, United Kingdom, Utah, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Where Are the Victims? on July 13, 2019| 6 Comments »

[Indiana’s] boundless view of governmental power cannot be squared with the Constitution. – Sam Gedge

Safe Targets

Please tell us more about how legalization “protects” sex workers:

The [Singaporean] television show Crime Watch…served as the source of inspiration that motivated three youths to hatch a plot to rob sex workers at knifepoint. On…June 28…Theophileous Jebaraj, 16, and John Karan, 18, were convicted…the third co-accused, a 14-year-old…cannot be named as he is a minor…the trio agreed…[that] the “safest” way to commit a crime…would be preying on…sex workers…given the illicit [government designation] of their work…Armed with knives, they…[robbed] the victim…of…about S$100…and…ransack[ed] the house for other valuables…

Where Are the Victims?

When giving someone a ride to work is a “felony”. Because “ring”:

A Billings massage parlor owner has agreed to plead guilty to one count related to [what masturbating pigs and prosecutors fantasized was] a sex-trafficking ring…Scot Donald Petrie…agree[d] to plead guilty [to] transporting a woman from Nevada to Billings to work…at his parlor…[giving adult women rides] carries a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and an additional $5,000 special assessment and five years to life supervised release…prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges of conspiracy and coercion and entitlement, which could have added 25 years to Petrie’s sentence…

Little Tin Gods (#588)

People sometimes ask me why I moved out of Louisiana.

[A pig who murdered] a 6-year-old autistic boy is out of prison after serving less than two years…Norris Greenhouse Jr…[was given a] plea…[bargain for] negligent homicide and malfeasance…[and was given a] seven-year prison sentence…[which] was reduced due to [his being a pig]…Greenhouse will be on parole until 2025…Greenhouse [had a history of rape and molestation, including being caught trying to molest]…a 14-year-old…He was also accused of making “sexual advances” towards a girlfriend of [one of his murder victims]…

The Course of a Disease (#793)

The Swedish model “helps” sex workers!

Olivier Arsac, deputy mayor in charge of…safety…in Toulouse [said] “We must not hesitate to be brutal…to obtain…[sex workers’] departure [from the city]”…[the statement] caused controversy [among those who want to pretend policing is not intrinsically violent]…Arsac [has also called for]…eviction…of prostitutes [as is typical in Swedish model regimes]…

Rooted in Racism (#913)

In Europe as in the US, the real humanitarians are fighting against racist “anti-trafficking” schemes:

The sea captain who rammed a police boat while bringing 40 rescued immigrants to an Italian port…must be freed…a judge ruled…Carola Rackete…was arrested after she docked the rescue ship of…Sea-Watch at Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island [on June 29th], 17 days after taking the immigrant passengers aboard…Rackete was “doing her duty saving lives,” Judge Alessandra Vella concluded in denying prosecutors’ request to keep the German captain under house arrest…Italy’s virulently anti-immigrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini, banned [rescue] ships…from Italian waters and ports, [pre]tending they…encourage human trafficking. Italian…authorities had repeatedly denied Rackete’s request to enter the port…[so] she steered into…Lampedusa…without authorization…Supporters in Italy and Germany pledged over 1.3 million euros ($1.48 million)…[to] an online fundraiser for her and for Sea-Watch…several impromptu street rallies were held in her support in Italy…[Italian pigs oinked that] the immigrants on board were not in a desperate state of need…[even though] 13 [of them had] to be…medical[ly evacuated from the ship soon after arrival]…

Dangerous Speech (#917)

The government keeps demonstrating that it doesn’t really care that its war on thought is wholly and incontrovertibly unconstitutional:

…federal Judge Susan Brnovich ruled against the wishes of prosecutors and in favor of a defense motion to reset the start date for the trial of six ex-Backpage honchos, allowing two newly-appointed defense attorneys an additional four months of prep time in [the] wildly complex case…Brnovich rescheduled the first day of trial for May 5, 2020 and reset several pretrial deadlines. [Andrew] Padilla and [Joye] Vaught are relative small-fry in the case. Out of a 100-count indictment, the feds have charged them with 51 counts: 50 for promoting prostitution in violation of the federal Travel Act, and one count of conspiracy…Though the criminal charges were brought in Arizona, the federal government chose to go through the Central District of California in order to [steal] millions of dollars in assets as part of the operation…[including designated] funds [set aside long before the raids for] legal defense…The reason why Padilla and Vaught have new counsel…is in part due to the feds’ [theft] of [these] accounts…

A Broker in Pillage (#917)

Indiana continues to pursue the “right” to rob anyone within its borders blind:

After losing at the U.S Supreme Court, the state of Indiana still hasn’t given up its argument that there are virtually no Eighth Amendment limits on what it can [steal from anyone cops point at]…In oral arguments before the Indiana Supreme Court last week, Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said the state’s position that it would be constitutional to seize any and every car that [a cop claims] went over the speed limit—a line of argument that elicited laughter from the nation’s highest court last year—hasn’t budged…The Indiana Supreme Court is now reconsidering the case of Tyson Timbs’ $42,000 Land Rover, and whether the state’s 2015 [theft] of Timbs’ car after he was convicted of a drug felony violated his Eighth Amendment protections against excessive fines and fees…The Indiana Supreme Court will now have to decide how to determine whether a [theft] is excessive or not, a decision that could either check or reinforce the state government’s power in these cases…last year, Fisher argued…that the excessive fines clause, even if it applied to the states, did not apply to the practice of civil asset forfeiture, which operates under the legal fiction that it is an action against the property itself, not the owner…

Morality Lessons (#921)

The FBI should’ve just run their child porn sites on DoD computers:

…An untold number of Department of Defense (DOD) employees and contractors have subscriptions to child pornography websites, and…”hundreds of DoD-affiliated individuals” were recently identified as suspects in child pornography cases…an investigation by the National Criminal Justice Training Program found DOD computers were among the top networks nationwide for peer-to-peer sharing of pornographic images of minors. DOD’s network ranked 19th out of 2,891 computer networks studied…

All-Purpose Excuse (#923)

I love seeing governments fight the rescue industry for control of the “sex trafficking” narrative:

A [UK] Home Office policy document on…Nigeria[n sex workers] says that those who become “wealthy from prostitution” enjoy “high socio-economic status” and are “often held in high regard” when they return home…[rescue industry perv]erts retorted that [the migrant women they label] trafficking victims [are]…“very young women plucked from the streets of Benin City or Lagos and brought to the UK to be raped, for months and sometimes years”…

Now that the greedy and the power-hungry all recognize the proven power of this ugly, racist sexual fantasy to frighten the Great Unwashed into giving them what they want, they’ll keep struggling for control of it until it implodes.

Checklist (#934)

The scheme to cut sex workers off from the healthcare system continues:

EvergreenHealth Medical Center in Kirkland partnered with Seattle Against Slavery on June 21 to continue the [indoctrin]ation [of] health care professionals [in denying the sexual agency of adult women who seek healthcare services]…Claudia Lawrence…delivered a presentation to nursing staff, physicians and social workers on [how to project fantasies] of exploitation…[onto] adults…“Not everyone who is trafficked is aware they are trafficked,” said Lawrence…

Shame, Shame (#951)

An existing crime (extortion) doesn’t magically become a different thing (“sextortion”) when sex is involved:

Gabe Ryan Gilbert, 19, was charged with contacting juvenile girls on social media and threatening to photo-edit nude images of them if they would not send him real nude photos…A 15-year-old girl reported…that Gilbert “had threatened to photoshop images of her face onto nude photos unless she sent real nude pictures of herself”…When [cops] looked into Gilbert’s Snapchat account…”it was obvious the user had been engaging in very similar behavior with…over 50 potential victims”…

The solution to this problem isn’t increasing the censorship powers of the already-bloated police state as authoritarians demand; it’s fighting the idea that a woman’s body is something to be ashamed of.

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In the News (#950)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged agency denial, animals, avails laws, Backpage, censorship, Check Your Premises, Colorado, cops, Dangerous Speech, Divided We Fall, Divination, hysteria, illegal aliens, internet, Japan, Japanese Prostitution, lawheads, LGBT rights, Louisiana, neofeminism, Oregon, politicians, porn, prohibitionist myths, rescue industry, Saving Them from Themselves, sex offender registry, sexting, Shazam!, sporting events, Storyville, streetwalkers, Swedish model, The Widening Gyre, This Means War, Torture Chamber, transgender, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Victims? on July 3, 2019| 3 Comments »

People whose brains and morals haven’t been totally warped by partisan politics don’t write off…horrors just because The Other Side started them. – Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Where Are the Victims?

It’s always a “gang”, even when it isn’t:

A Chinese madam linked to a[n imaginary] “Snakehead” people smuggling ring, who [provided clients and an incall for migrant sex workers]…in…Scotland…was [sentenced to] 27 months…Yen Huang, 62…was [snitched on by racist busybodies at]…a bank in Dundee [after she went into the bank with] a 48-year-old [migrant] woman…Police…[had branded] the woman…a victim of human trafficking [so they arrested her]…and…she…[is] now [in prison] in England, waiting to be [deported]…Huang…eventually abandoned her claims to have been just a cleaner with “no connection” to…prostitution, and…[instead] claimed she herself was victim of human trafficking…brought to the UK…by “Snakehead” [an imaginary criminal cartel out of racist “Fu Manchu” style fantasies]…

Divided We Fall

Perhaps if Gay, Inc had stood with sex workers to fight these kinds of lies from the beginning, they wouldn’t have grown so popular and bold:

According to Diane Gramley, head of the American Family Association’s (AFA) Pennsylvania chapter, the 1969 Stonewall uprising wasn’t caused by queer people fighting against police harassment, it was caused by police trying to rescue a young transgender boy who was being sexually abused by the bar’s queer patrons. Gramley [told her fantasy] on a recent broadcast of Stand in the Gap, a radio show produced by the American Pastors Network…Gramley [also] said…“Pride is definitely a menace to children…because they use these Pride events to desensitize us to the dangers of their lifestyle”…By claiming that police were trying to rescue a sexually abused transgender youth, Gramely continues to [advance the myth that cops exist to “help” people and to] repeat the old canard that LGBTQ people are pedophiles who groom and sexually prey on young children, “turning” some of them gay, bi or trans…

A “young transgender boy”? How interesting, considering that people like Gramley claim that being trans is a “lifestyle” rather than a characteristic, and therefore deny that any young person can actually be trans.

The Widening Gyre (#431)

Prohibitionists just keep trying the same stupid publicity stunts:

[A pig oinked that] it was time to consider stopping drivers using the residential…Rosary Road [in] Norwich…”to prevent kerb crawlers doing laps” [even though cops admit this won’t have any affect on street work]…residents…[say they are] not bothered by kerb crawling traffic [though some virtue-signaled that they have read the propaganda about]…”women who are being exploited in all this”…

Click the subtitle link to see what happened the last time this Stupid Cop Trick was tried.

Japanese Prostitution (#502)

Japanese attempts to suppress and hide sex work prior to the Olympics are insufficient to please gaijin “sex trafficking” profiteers:

As the next Olympic host, Japan has become the focus of…global [hysteria over] child prostitution…with [profiteers] working to [spread disinformation] on “hidden crimes” they [pretend] have a symbiotic relationship with mega-events. Major sporting events attract troves [sic] of [rescue industry]…organizations…looking to cash in by exploiting [public ignorance about sex work in order to convince them that sex workers are] vulnerable children…Despite [a total lack of evidence for any issues]…Japan is far from immune, according to It’s a Penalty, a Britain-based [prohibition]ist group. “It does exist here, it is just that [the evidence says the opposite]” said Sarah de Carvalho, founder and CEO of IAP…

Saving Them From Themselves (#626)

Oink oink, but he was on the wrong side of an imaginary line, so we HAVE TO destroy his life! SHAZAM!

As of January 2018, teenagers in Colorado who use their cellphones to exchange nude selfies can no longer be prosecuted for “sexual exploitation of a child.” But that change, which state legislators approved after [considerable pressure from sane, normal people]…came five years too late for “T.B.”, a 15-year-old boy who in 2012 and 2013 swapped erotic pictures with two girls [his own age]…the Colorado Supreme Court upheld [destroying] T.B.’s [life by condemning him to]…sex offender [hell] for at least 20 years. The majority conceded that its decision “may strike some as [insane but typical police-state violence]”…but T.B. violated the law that applied at the time, the court said, so he is out of luck. Two dissenting justices argued that their colleagues had misread the statute and that the majority’s interpretation [was completely devoid of anything resembling justice]…

Divination

Yes, people really are stupid enough to believe a dog can smell electronic images:

Louisiana State Police have acquired a new tool to help solve child porn cases: a dog named Maggie who’s trained to sniff out even the smallest electronic devices that might be used to store images and videos, including memory cards and flash drives. At a press conference [pigs and politicians bloviated a lot of nonsense about magic pictures and infinitely-growing problems]…

Check Your Premises (#777)

This is, of course, based on the deeply-flawed premise that “anti-trafficking” politicians actually want to protect sex workers, which they absolutely don’t:

…If you speak out in favour of decriminalisation of sex work as a member of the UK anti-trafficking sector, you risk losing partnerships, allies and funding. But…unless the sector comes to a united understanding on sex work and the laws surrounding it, we risk trafficking being used as a rhetorical tool which harms some of the most marginalised women in our communities. The major divide on this battlefield is between those promoting decriminalisation of sex work and those pushing the “sex buyer law”. Tackling trafficking for sexual exploitation is often used as the reason to support this law…This approach can feel instinctively right because it punishes the buyers. I don’t know a single sex worker who likes their clients. I’m sure there are some, but they are few and far between…

The author is clearly delusional. First off, she refuses to recognize that “trafficking” is and always has been specifically a “rhetorical tool which harms some of the most marginalised women in our communities”, because that’s exactly what it was intended to be; it paints sex workers as “victims” so damaged by the supposed “trauma” of pragmatic sex that we don’t know what is good for us and can therefore be disregarded. And anyone so out of touch with reality that she imagines the sex workers she “knows” (already an absurd assumption because whores aren’t generally honest with self-appointed saviors) are in any way representative of the great majority who wouldn’t even consent to talk to someone whose avowed purpose is the disruption of their entire profession, is too lost in her own navel to even bother correcting.

Storyville (#807)

It wasn’t just sex workers who thrived in the “Wild West”:

…people who did not conform to traditional gender norms were a part of daily life in the Old West, according to Peter Boag, a historian at Washington State University and the author of Re-Dressing America’s Frontier Past. While researching a book about the gay history of Portland, Boag stumbled upon hundreds and hundreds of stories concerning people who dressed against their assigned gender…He was shocked at the size of this population, which he’d never before encountered in his time as a queer historian of the American West…Boag expanded his research beyond the Northwest, but limited it to towns west of the Mississippi, and the period of time from the California Gold Rush through statehood for all the Western continental territories. It wasn’t that this time and place was more open or accepting of trans people, but that it was more diffuse and unruly, which may have enabled more people to live according to their true identities…“My theory is that people who were transgender…saw the West as a place where they could live and get jobs and carry on a life that they couldn’t have in the more congested East”…

Torture Chamber (#878)

Liz Brown delivers a scathing indictment of the government’s horrific child abuse:

For years, U.S. propagandists have spread scare stories about trafficked children being housed in warehouses and forced to sleep on mats or rickety cots, with inadequate nutrition, zero privacy, and a lack of basic sanitation…[but actually] it’s the U.S. government that is doing that…ferreting [abducted] children off to secretive warehouse locations where neon lights shine 24 hours per day. Kids are crowded into large cages where they sleep on shared mats—or sometimes concrete floors…denied soap, toothbrushes, and medicine, amid outbreaks of lice and flu…Some sociopaths argue that abusing children is necessary to send a message to their parents…but…that innocent children should not suffer for the sins of their parents has long been a principle civil societies agree on…As Ken White writes at The Atlantic …“The sheer effrontery of the government’s argument may be explained, but not excused, by its long backstory”…Like civilian criminal counterparts, [Trump and company are] essentially threatening to keep on kidnapping and traumatizing kids until Democrats meet their demands…

Dangerous Speech (#948)

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In the News (#948)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged adolescence, agency denial, Alaska, Backpage, brothels, Censor Chic, censorship, China, Colorado, Dangerous Speech, Germany, Google, If Men Were Angels, internet, language, Opting Out, politicians, porn, rape, sex offender registry, Shazam!, The End of the Beginning, The More the Better, Uncommon Sense, United Kingdom, Watershed, Where Are the Victims? on June 26, 2019| 4 Comments »

The state may not use a butcher knife on a problem that requires a scalpel to fix. – Judge John T. Nixon

Where Are the Victims?

It’s always a “gang”, even when it clearly isn’t:

Hu Shuangyan…was part of a[n imaginary] gang that [rented] flats [to sex workers] in Kent, Essex and London…[she and her parter Zhang Dongning] tricked estate agents by posing as employees of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei…[she] was also convicted of money laundering…

A couple is not a “gang”, and if there wasn’t a stupid law against renting rooms to people engaged in a legal trade, there would have been no need for them to lie.

The More the Better

“Mommy whores” are good, but “gramma whores” are even better:

…grandmother-of-seven Abby Roberts is…working six days a week selling sex to make ends meet. With disabled husband Sorren unable to work, the 58 year old spends eight hours a day…[working] via…webcam…[and] also shoots six adult movies a month…”As an average I work about eight hours a day. Some people call me a workaholic but I just love it actually,” she says…that’s the way it has been for 18 years because when I fell in love with my husband I knew he had a very heavy disability”…She and Sorren…were regular swingers before he suffered a heart attack and was told he couldn’t have sex again…

If Men Were Angels

“Youth pastors” are as bad as cops:

A youth pastor at a Colorado Springs church has been arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a child…Stephen Michael Houlihan…[of] Fellowship of the Rockies church, was booked June 8 on charges of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, internet luring of a child, and obscenity…

Censor Chic (#894)

Google is now so big it isn’t even accountable to its own shareholders:

A shareholder resolution aimed at halting Google’s efforts to bring a censored version of its search engine to China has failed. Shareholders tabled a resolution to demand Google put the brakes on its controversial search engine efforts in China. The program, internally dubbed “Dragonfly”, is…a censorship-friendly search engine with the capability to hide results at the behest of Beijing…Google chief Sundar Pichai…describ[es] China as an “important” market…

Whereas just not being evil (as Google used to claim in its motto) is not so important.

The End of the Beginning (#915)

Maybe we’re about to witness the beginning of the end of these evil laws:

The Supreme Court of Alaska ruled on Friday that Alaska’s sex offender registration statute violated the due process rights of out of state offenders by requiring them to register as sex offenders without allowing them to be heard. The court…concluded that the statute…was overbroad and violated due process because it did not provide them an opportunity to demonstrate they were no[t]…a threat to the public. The court elected not to invalidate the ASORA but rather to allow…the individual who brought the case…to file a civil action in the state’s superior court in an attempt to prove that he no longer poses a risk…

Uncommon Sense (#916)

Because whores are morons whose lives and businesses must be micromanaged by governments:

A flurry of recent media reports have suggested the Prostitutes Protection Act (herafter ProstSchG) had failed to achieve its stated goals and would not sufficiently protect people engaged in prostitution. Voice4Sexworkers…firmly rejects that notion: The ProstSchG is well on its way to achieve all of the federal government’s desired goals and effects…Germany’s Basic Law…which grants the inviolability of one’s home…no longer applies to sex workers. Occupational freedom…is being undermined through the registration procedures…It was clear from the outset that the law would be particularly problematic for people from countries where prostitution is illegal, such as Bulgaria or Romania. If they register as sex workers in Germany, they risk receiving mail in their countries of origin, despite the promised option to have any related mail delivered to a different mailing address…Tax offices flout this provision knowingly and deliberately, and in doing so, they greatly endanger the lives of sex workers in their countries of origin…The entire construct of the ProstSchG is intended to deter people from entering prostitution and render sex work impossible in most places…

Opting Out (#926)

Any non-politician would have given this up as a bad idea by now:

The government is under pressure to delay its controversial online pornography age verification scheme for a third time [from July 15^th to October 15^th], or risk “nefarious” companies “using this opportunity to harvest and manipulate user data”…the Digital Policy Alliance…[ex]plains that…unless the scheme is delayed there will be “less protection for public data”…

Here’s more detail on that from the Open Rights Group:

New age restrictions on pornography…are a “privacy timebomb”…[because in typical government fashion] the data protection in place to protect consumers is “vague, imprecise and largely a ‘tick box’ exercise”…The UK government claims the new measures are necessary in order to prevent children and young adults from accessing adult content online…[even though] the new rules are unlikely to prevent tech-savvy children from reaching restricted websites…

Watershed (#934)

It took prohibitionists two months to freak out over an article saying everyone has human rights:

Teen Vogue tweeted an article titled, “Why Sex Work Is Real Work,” and many clutched their pearls at the audacity of talking to teens about sex work…sex therapist Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng[‘s]…central argument was that sex workers provide services that help people meet and understand their sexual needs in the same way that her sex counseling does…[prohibitionist] talking heads quickly posted their disdain: “Why is a teen magazine promoting prostitution to their 13-year-old readers?” Others falsely equated sex work with sex trafficking…One commenter pointed out that Teen Vogue is a part of Condé Nast in [a bizarre stretch] to falsely equate discussing sex work with pedophilia…Of course, Dr. Mofokeng’s article defends nothing other than the safe exchange of sexual services between consenting adults…Furthermore, scandalized reactions to teens learning about sex work are out of touch with reality. About 40% of high school teens report to be sexually active, making conversations about sexual health and women’s issues crucially relevant in teens’ lives…

Dangerous Speech (#942)

Another deep dive into the facts of the persecution of Backpage:

…In the years before their arrest, Lacey and Larkin had successfully beat back charges like these in court. They took refuge not only in the First Amendment but also in Section 230…Congress’ great gift to the internet….[which] wouldn’t exist without it. After all, you can’t build or sustain a giant network if you’re getting sued every time a user says or does something objectionable…Lacey and Larkin…won case after case, with the support of Big Tech and civil libertarians alike. But by the time the Feds descended on Paradise Valley that morning in the spring of 2018…the tech industry…had thrown them under the bus. Their top lieutenant had flipped. And Congress had used them as an excuse to finally accomplish what it had been trying to do for more than 20 years—tear a hole in Section 230…Silicon Valley had better hope they win. United States v. Lacey is a dangerous case, with potential consequences far beyond the freedom of two aging antiauthoritarians…

There’s a lot of good info here, but watch for the writer’s bias; she seems to be a crypto-prohibitionist and it’s visible in a few places (such as calling Lacey & Larkin “digital pimps”). That’s hardly unusual for Wired, which seems unable to publish an article about sex work that lacks major issues.

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In the News (#945)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged Africa, agency denial, Arizona, brothels, Central Asia, China, cops, dirty, Dysphemisms Galore, ethics, evidence, If Men Were Angels, illegal aliens, Ireland, Kentucky, Lack of Evidence, law, New York, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, prohibitionist myths, Pyrrhic Victory, red-light districts, restaurants, streetwalkers, surveillance, Swedish model, teachers, Thailand, The Course of a Disease, transgender, Turkey, Unchristian Nation, United Kingdom, violence vs. sex workers, Where Are the Protests?, Where Are the Victims? on June 15, 2019| 1 Comment »

I usually assign 1984 to my students; now we will be living it. – a teacher in Lockport, NY

Dysphemisms Galore

If this headline had been written by a normal adult sane person, it would be something like “Border Controls Expose Migrant Women to Exploitation”. But because “sex trafficking” hysteria has not yet imploded, this interview about the difficulties encountered by migrant sex workers under repressive criminalization regimes such as China and Middle-Eastern countries (bribes, rape by cops, deportation, etc) is capped with a ridiculous headline about “sex slavery” despite the fact that the interviewee clearly discusses three-month contracts, visiting home, girls going back once they know how to game the system without middlemen, etc, with nary a “slave” in sight.

If Men Were Angels

You mean he wasn’t a “youth pastor”?

Bobby J. Blackburn, pastor of the Elevate Church in Prestonsburg, [Kentucky] was arrested…and charged with using an electronic communication system to get a minor to commit a sex act…Blackburn also owns a local Giovanni’s pizza place, which plays Christian music and puts Bible verses on receipts…Blackburn’s business employs the girls, one of whom showed [cops] the sexual messages from Blackburn…[who] also…threaten[ed] to fire a third girl if she didn’t take the blame for sending the messages…

Where Are the Protests? (#596)

The US is too busy forcing African “authorities” to keep their people from migrating to bother policing its own food supply chains:

…The world’s chocolate companies have missed deadlines to uproot child labor from their cocoa supply chains in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Next year, they face another target date and…they…will miss that, too…the odds are substantial that a chocolate bar bought in the United States is the product of child labor. About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where…more than 2 million children [a]re engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions. When asked this spring, representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands — Hershey, Mars and Nestlé — could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor…Mars…can trace only 24 percent of its cocoa…Hershey…less than half; Nestlé can trace 49 percent of its global cocoa supply to farms…Other companies…such as Mondelez and [white bourgeois American woman favorite] Godiva…likewise would not guarantee that any of their products were free of child labor…

Naturally, American women are only concerned about how other women have sex; they don’t actually want to know where the candy they stuff into their faces comes from. Besides, imaginary enslaved white girls take precedence over real enslaved black boys, dontchaknow.

Unchristian Nation (#838)

Government thugs continue their crusade against Christian charity:

…Scott Warren, on trial for providing humanitarian aid to two migrants…faces a possible 20-year prison sentence for two counts of harboring undocumented immigrants and one count of conspiracy…his alleged crimes amount to nothing more than basic human kindness. On January 14, 2018…two Central American migrants—Kristian Perez-Villanueva and Jose Arnaldo Sacaria-Goday—arrived unexpectedly at “the Barn,” a building in Ajo, Arizona, used by No More Deaths and other aid groups…the migrants…were suffering from blisters, dehydration, and exhaustion…[so] Warren…arranged a check-up by a doctor, who advised that the two migrants stay off their feet. Warren allowed the men to remain in the Barn for the next three days…Nate Walters, the [prosecutor, characterizes]…humanitarian aid…[as] a nefarious plot “to shield illegal aliens from [thugs who would have murdered or caged them] for several days”…

Pyrrhic Victory (#857)

Putting young people into a facial recognition database will help the government to analyze how people’s faces change over time, so nobody can ever escape surveillance:

Western New York’s Lockport City School District…[has begun] a wasteful and dangerous experiment…the district’s eight public schools began testing a system called Aegis, which includes facial recognition technology, that could eventually be used to track and map student movements…in 2015, in the wake of Sandy Hook and other high-profile school shootings, our district was approached by Tony Olivo, a [soi-disant] security consultant, who [made a sales pitch he sold to paranoid officials as]…a free threat assessment of our schools…he encouraged the school district to purchase and install…[Aegis, and received a] $95,450 annual…[commission from its makers] for five years…the…district held only one public meeting to discuss the purchase…on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-August 2016, when most parents were away or at work…the system…[has] the capacity to go back and create a map of the movements and associations of any student or teacher the district might choose. It can tell them who has been seen with whom, where and how often. District officials pledge that they would never deploy the software in that way, but…what matters is not what those in charge promise but what an intrusive technology has the capacity to do…Thanks to the efforts of the New York Civil Liberties Union, state officials have finally begun to ask the kinds of questions they should have asked before the project was approved…[but] the school district is forging ahead with its testing and its plans to make the cameras fully operational when school starts up again in the fall…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#885)

Why are politicians so enamored of violent Disnification campaigns that virtually never work?

A Bangkok red light district is set to be remodelled – in the style of the…region of England known as the Cotswolds. The Rattanakosin Island area…has been…for decades…[an] area [where sex workers] cater to local Thai men rather than…foreigners in the country’s tourist hotspots. But…military [dictator] Prayut Chan-o-cha now wants to [Disnify] the…district [by painting things]…yellow [and blanketing the area with mass surveillance to facilitate police violence. Bureaucrats fantasize they can force sex workers into menial labor that earns about ¹/₁₀ as much]…

Lack of Evidence (#900)

Most of these “settlements” are just dodges that force cops to find a different excuse for harassing women:

The NYPD is changing the [excuses] it [uses when wielding] the loitering law [as a weapon against citizens] after it was sued for illegally profiling and arresting women, transgender people and others on prostitution charges that were based largely on looks…The Legal Aid Society sued the department on behalf of people who[m cops] had arrested…[under the evidence-free claim] they were working as prostitutes. One cop admitted in a deposition that he would look for “Adam’s apples” when…[hunting victims] to detain…Under the settlement, the NYPD is amending the Patrol Guide to [force cops to use a different excuse other than]…gender, gender identity, clothing and location to enforce the loitering law. The change also requires [cops] to provide more [elaborate excuses]…for why they detained someone…Loitering arrests will also be audited by the NYPD’s Legal Bureau [after the victim has sat in a filthy, dangerous jail for a few months. Legal Aid Society chief Tina]…Luongo called on the state Legislature to repeal the loitering law…

Where Are the Victims? (#906)

This is exactly the outcome prohibitionists wanted:

Two women who were [working together for safety]…in Newbridge, [Ireland] have been [sentenced to] jail…for nine months…Adrina Podaru…and Ana Tomascu…were [peacefully minding their own business]…when [they were attacked by state-employed thugs] on November 18, 2018…following [a report from a snitch]…the women admitted that they were [legally] working as prostitutes, [which is not against the law. Luckily it was early so]…no significant money was [ar]ound [for the pigs to steal]…Ms Podaru is currently expecting a child with her partner…but Judge Desmond Zaidan…sentenced the pair to nine months in prison…Ms Podaru has lodged an appeal and has been released on bail…

It might be better for my mental health if I actually believed there was a Hell to punish evil people who cage pregnant women for peacefully supporting themselves because they broke a moronic, arbitrary rule imposed by sociopaths who have never actually done the work. But since I know there isn’t, I’ll just have to deal with it.

The Course of a Disease (#932)

In which perennial drunk, incompetent liar, sloppy fabulist and serial lawsuit-abuser Julie Bindel shares her fantasies of what sex is like:

Julie Bindel, the [plagiar]ist and author of the book The Pimping of Prostitution [recently the subject of a libel suit which Bindel lost]…appeared before the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on commercial sexual exploitation this week, and [fantasized] that “decriminalising sex work means decriminalising violence against women and children”…Bindel [also fantasized that in] sex work… “women are…vessels for men to masturbate into”…

Disaster (#941)

Facebook’s policies make harassing and exploiting women easy:

…Omid…has…claimed responsibility for shutting down hundreds of Instagram accounts by reporting performers for violating the company’s [censorship rules]…driven by a moralistic anti-porn agenda…[one of his victims, Bella] Bathory…[heard] about a…social media management company that purported to have the ability to restore shuttered Instagram accounts...she agreed to pay…the $450 they quoted her…Within hours of the agency telling her that her account was about to be restored, it was. Then, when Bathory declined to follow through with payment, the…account…once again disappeared…an…Instagram…spokesperson said that there is no evidence that a single entity was behind the restoration or deletion of her account…[but] the agency that Bathory contacted…provided purported evidence via screenshot…If the agency’s allegations are true, it shows how a third party can profit handsomely from Instagram’s opaque and convoluted moderation policies. And if [not]…it shows how a shadow economy can thrive on desperation. Either way, it’s sex workers who suffer…

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