Posts Tagged 'My Body My Choice'
My Body is Not Yours
Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged bisexuality, dating, gay rights, My Body My Choice, psychology, tabula rasa, transgender on January 19, 2018| 8 Comments »
I'm really pretty damned sick of social engineers claiming that it's "bigoted" or "sexist" or whatever for men (or lesbians) not to socially date (ie, have sex with) women of some particular group (such as older women, obese women, trans women, kinky women, etc). Tellingly, nobody (except the "women don't date nice guys" cult) tries to put similar pressure on straight women or gay men; apparently, it's perfectly OK to refuse to date any man for any reason. Only women apparently need to be "protected" by forcing people to have sex with them whether they like it or not, and the authoritarians who subscribe to this revolting policy usually appear to have no issue with queer people refusing to socially date those of the opposite sex. So according to them, all factors of attraction except homosexuality are purely voluntary and can be changed as easily as I change my underwear. Well, I'm here to tell you that this is 100% pure, reeking bullshit. Nobody can help who they're attracted to, and nobody has the right to demand any individual socially date any people of a certain group (not talking about sex work here). For example, I'm too old, too busty, too muscular, too intellectual, too talkative, too intense, too kinky, etc for some guys, and just the fact that I'm female means a lot of women aren't interested in me sexually. Similarly, I'm extremely picky about who I sleep with for free. And that's all perfectly OK. Nobody, repeat NOBODY, has the right to demand anyone else have sex with them or anyone else, any more than they have the right to stop anyone from having sex with consenting partners or policing their reasons for having sex. Furthermore, to make such a demand, or to insult and socially pressure people for refusing sexual contact with some others, demonstrates an utter disregard for the most basic principles of consent. It's not only reprehensible and, frankly, disgusting; it is the mindset of a rapist, and nobody with the faintest modicum of respect for individual rights should tolerate it in even the slightest degree.
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged activism, asset seizure, Aversions, bad customers, Blunt Instrument, Bottleneck, brothels, Canada, censorship, Challenge, cops, Europe, Florida, hysteria, I Swear To God, internet, Ireland, My Body My Choice, New Hampshire, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, politicians, prohibitionist myths, robots, Spain, Standard Operating Procedure, stripping, Swedish model, The Mote and the Beam, The Pygmalion Fallacy, The Widening Gyre, Ukraine, violence vs. sex workers, Washington DC on April 8, 2017| 5 Comments »
The civil rights victory of the near future will be led by heroes with Twitter handles like @mistressmatisse, @SavannahSly, and @Maggie_McNeill. – Brendan Trainor
My Body, My Choice
An argument I've often made myself:
The belief that you should be able to ingest any substance…because you own your own body is a profoundly libertarian, not progressive, idea…It was the progressives who gave us alcohol prohibition in the first place…Progressivism is the belief that good things come from government—from laws and regulations and central planning and generals and spies and bureaucrats…it is none of the state's business whether you buy sex with flowers and dinner, or with marriage and mortgage, or with cold hard cash on the dresser…The feminist establishment will soon be forced to accept women's dominion over body parts besides the womb.
I Swear To God
Remember, the SCOTUS reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of loyalty oaths just a few years ago:
Manchester [New Hampshire] police officials said…they want to see Kate D'Adamo, who has advocated for the [decriminalization] of prostitution, fired from her job overseeing a federally funded task force designed to [suppress sex work] in the state. Assistant Police Chief Carlo Capano said D'Adamo's statements last week, in which she reportedly presented arguments in favor of the decriminalization of prostitution, potentially violated the federal grant that pays her salary…"Obviously, we're a little concerned that Kate's personal opinions are becoming a distraction to [our trying to destroy the lives of sex workers]," said Maria Gagnon…According to…stipulations of the grant, the Manchester Police Department cannot promote, support or advocate for the legalization of prostitution…
Bottleneck
There are so many reasons sex worker licensing is a bad idea; here's another:
In Palm Beach County, Florida, all topless dancers are required to register with county officials and obtain an Adult Entertainment Work Identification Card (AEIC), at the cost of $75 per year…Anita Pedemey… "diverted" at least $28,875 (and possibly an additional $3,305) from county coffers between October 2013 and mid-November 2016…from both adult-entertainer fees—approximately 70 percent of which were paid in cash—and court-ordered payments intended for a crime Victims Services Fund…Because she manipulated reports but left the underlying database unaltered, the county still received records of adult-entertainment ID applications even if accounting never received their payments, which means that at least most applicants whose money was taken were still legitimately registered with the county…
Remember, New South Wales decriminalized sex work specifically because corruption like this (and far worse) was rampant.
If only amateurs realized that this is the norm, not a deviation from it:
…a Secret Service agent on Vice President Mike Pence's detail has been suspended from official duties after meeting a prostitute at a Maryland hotel…police saw him exiting the hotel…[after responding] to a [snitch] from the hotel manager…The agent was arrested and was charged with solicitation. He then self-reported his arrest to the Secret Service…the agent was off-duty and did not present himself in his official capacity…
Seriously, I have had more G-men between my legs than most amateur women have had of any kind of man. Show me a G-man who's never been with a whore & I'll show you a rookie.
Blunt Instrument
Massage parlor pogroms are coming to Canada:
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre is asking for the power to crack down on…massage parlours…he wants the city to be able to shut down businesses engaging in such activity by revoking their certificates of occupancy…The director of the Montreal-based sex work organization Chez Stella, Sandra Wesley, says shutting down massage parlours will do more harm than good…"If [Coderre's] going to go after massage parlours, then he's going after migrant women," she…says…closing massage parlours won't end the sex trade — it will only make it more dangerous for sex workers…[and that] Coderre and others are using sex workers as "pawns in their next re-election campaign"…
The censors who want the internet destroyed are at it again:
A…new House measure, sponsored by…Ann Wagner…and dubbed the "No Immunity for Sex Traffickers Online Act," would carve out an exception to Section 230 for sex-trafficking offenses involving minors. Supporters portray it as a way to "hold sex traffickers accountable," but we already have sufficient penalties—at the state and federal level—for people who force, decieve, or coerce others into prostitution…What the change would do is make it possible for states to indict any app, website, or platform that introduces an underage person to a possible sex buyer as a conspirator in sex trafficking. And it would allow any underage person who was paid for sex to subsequently sue any website or web service remotely involved in the transaction…the change would not merely apply to classified-ad sites like Backpage, or to sites and services specializing in escort advertising…With the proposed change, victims will have the right to sue any third-party web service that enabled their participation or exploitation in the sex trade. And in this case, victim means anyone under 18 whom someone paid for sex, regardless of whether any force, fraud, coercion, or middlemen and women were involved…It gives victims—most of whom fall prey to petty pimps with few assets, not organized criminals—a civil-suit target with much deeper pockets than the criminals who exploited them, and the same for state prosecutors with asset-forfeiture fever…A huge number of "child sex trafficking stings" in this country involve police posing online as sex workers…and, once a customer is interested, "admitting" that they're actually underage (usually 16 or 17). The men who still agree to meet for sex are greeted by police officers and charged with…child sex trafficking. Their vehicles and sometimes other assets are seized. Imagine if cops could do this sort of "random virtue testing" (as Ars Technica's Nate Anderson aptly described it) but then go after big web publishers and platforms instead of just impounding a few cars…
Bad Girls (#540)
American "authorities" are dedicated to the philosophy that anyone who ever did anything wrong should keep paying for it, forever:
A prostitute who injected a Google executive with a lethal dose of heroin in 2013 while aboard his yacht in Santa Cruz harbor and spent more than two years in jail was taken into custody by federal immigration agents as soon as she was released…Alix Tichelman — who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of 51-year-old Forrest Hayes — was released by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office around 5 a.m. on [March 29th]…ICE agents waiting outside the jail in the predawn hours came into the building to detain Tichelman…
Aversions (#642)
Miranda Kane on annoying clients:
The (non) expert…[wants to] get his own rocks off by thinking he's amazing in bed, when all he's really done is delivered a few sloppy snogs while rubbing my cunt in a style that makes me think he wants a genie to pop out of my vagina…The bashful one…will…stay silent, move with about as much enthusiasm as a gutted fish, and 55 minutes into an hour appointment he'll say: "Umm…this was nice, but really all I wanted was to lick your feet with a dildo up my arse, dance for you wearing women's stockings while you sang the greatest hits from the popular disco band Boney M"…
Challenge (#677)
Laura Lee on the possible wider effects of her challenge to the Swedish model in Northern Ireland:
Sex worker and law graduate Laura Lee is steeling herself for a battle in Belfast's high court that she believes could make European legal history…Lee…[is] aiming to establish that the criminalisation of her clients violates her right to work under European human rights law…[this] is only the start of a Europe-wide campaign to overturn the model…Lee's next target is the Irish Republic, which…has introduced a similar ban aimed at criminalising clients. "A win for us in Belfast will have a knock-on effect and set a precedent across Europe. If successful up north there will be a challenge in Dublin and sex workers across Europe can use the precedent to overturn the so-called 'Nordic model' in their countries," she said…
The Pygmalion Fallacy (#718)
"Competition" from fancy fleshlights? Really, ladies, calm down:
Europe's first sex robot [arcade] has been forced to move after real-life prostitutes complained sex dolls were stealing their trade. The original location in Barcelona at 2 Baixada de Sant Miquel had been in the Spanish city's Gothic quarter, north of the cathedral…[it] has now moved to a mystery new location with a receptionist saying the address would only be given out to paying customers. Prostitutes who work in the city with Aprosex – the Association of Sex Professionals – objected saying a doll cannot match the services of a real person and denigrates real sex workers to merely being an object…
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#720)
More on the oppression of Ukrainian sex workers:
Ukraine used to be depicted as a paradise for sex tourists. The news that the country would co-host the European Football Championship in 2012 was followed by…moral panic…the city of Kropyvnytsky, in central Ukraine, is…home to Legalife, Ukraine's leading sex workers' organisation…Their organisation got its start following an episode of police abuse in 2009, when Isaeva, a former sex worker who conducted outreach work with sex workers, was unlawfully detained by an anti-trafficking police unit. They threatened to charge her with pimping, and when Isaeva tried to file a complaint the next day, there was no trace of her detention. She did, however, obtain an apology. The head of the anti-trafficking unit was transferred and the officers' bonuses slashed. This incident prompted the women to stand for sex workers' rights, attracting the attention of international donors such as Open Society who have funded Legalife ever since…
Ah, the delicious schadenfreude of prohibitionists' lies coming back to bite them in the arse:
A viral Facebook entry about child sex trafficking posted by…Diandra Toyos…is a misinformed and ultimately harmful depiction of what this crime is about…There are zero indicators of human trafficking in Toyos' story…it so misrepresents the dangers, warning signs and risks associated with sex trafficking that its readers and likers may now try to protect kids by watching for the wrong things in the wrong places…I'm a professional in the anti-trafficking field, and…I have never seen, read or heard about a real sex-trafficking situation in which a child was abducted by traffickers in broad daylight at a busy store under a mother's watchful eye…The most pernicious part of the viral Facebook post is its comments section. As sex-trafficking survivors and anti-trafficking advocates — myself included — tried to correct the misconceptions in it, and tried to alert the public to the harms caused by misunderstandings and sensationalism, we were met with anger and outrage. Sound bite quotes and statistics were thrown back at me in an attempt to highlight my "ignorance" on the subject. "Human trafficking happens everywhere," I was reminded. "It's in our own backyards." These are the exact phrases my colleagues and the anti-trafficking movement publicized years ago to raise awareness. We never imagined they'd be used to challenge our own expertise and in defense of efforts that threaten victims…
Here's some free advice, Miss "Trafficking Expert": if you don't want hysteria, don't promote it yourself. And if you want people to defer to "experts" on prostitution, you need to set an example by shutting the fuck up, sitting the fuck down and listening to the real experts, sex workers themselves.
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged A Whore in Church, activism, agency denial, Alabama, Backwards into the Future, Banishment, cops, diversion programs, drugs, evidence, Fallen Idol, Florida, Georgia, Gingerbread House, I'm Sure You Feel Safer Now, It Looks Good On Paper, language, Madonna/whore, My Body My Choice, Namibia, New Jersey, New Orleans, Ohio, One Size Fits All, Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs, Pennsylvania, porn, prisons, psychology, Puerto Rico, rape, scams, sex offender registry, sex rays, streetwalkers, To Molest and Rape, underage, violence vs. sex workers, Virtual Unreality, Where Are the Protests?, Wisconsin, yin and yang on November 26, 2016| 2 Comments »
I don't trust the value system of somebody else…because my life isn't their life. – Nadia Yasmeen
Finally, a US court finds something it isn't willing to call "trafficking":
…[Milwaukee] prosecutors charged [Kevin] Long…with child trafficking because he admitted that he paid a 16-year-old Milwaukee boy to lick or kiss his feet, and offered to pay that boy's 17-year-old friend to do the same. That boy said he wasn't interested…[so] Long apologized…took the 17-year-old to the mall and bought him shoes…In his home, police found materials referencing foot fetish websites and a journal of Long's prior encounters…Long's attorney, Ray Dall'Osto…[argued] there was no [vanilla] sexual touching, no exposure or even discussion of genitals…Dall'Osto mounted a full-on constitutional attack on the child trafficking law, calling it vague and overbroad…Long wound up pleading guilty to reduced charges…pandering and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child, all misdemeanors …Judge Jeffrey Wagner…stayed Long's registration as a sex offender until after [a forthcoming] review…
It Looks Good On Paper
If you're inclined to view this as a positive development, read more carefully; it's justified by, and would reinforce, the dogma that sex workers are pathetic victims who need to be treated as wards of the state. It's also another weapon prosecutors can use to coerce sex workers into "cooperating" with police to betray their clients and other sex workers, and note the "escort registration" provision:
It's illegal to publish official post-arrest photographs of people accused of prostitution, under an Alabama law that went into effect Aug. 1…press advocates say it's probably unconstitutional…[sponsor] Jack Williams…has been pushing for years for changes to the state's prostitution laws, arguing that prostitutes themselves are in most cases victims of human trafficking…Williams' bill, the Alabama Human Trafficking Safe Harbor Act, allows people arrested for prostitution to be held for 72 hours, with a hearing to assess their financial situation, mental health and other issues within 48 hours — with an eye toward [forcing] the alleged prostitute…through a…diversion program…The law also requires "escort services of companionship" to register with the Alabama secretary of state's office…[which threatened] to report [unregistered escorts to the pigs]…
Where Are the Protests?
Only "A few critics call it a form of human trafficking." Because there's no sex and the traffickers are government actors and clergymen:
Percida Ramos was losing her son to heroin…[A lying pig told her about] Kensington, where ministers run resort-like, anti-addiction estates where the…demons are chased from young people's brains as they ride horses, swim in blue pools, and play day and night on basketball courts…Her son would even have a job within five months, she was promised…All Ramos…had to do was get [her son] to Philadelphia and wire $150 to an address on North Front Street…What [Kelvin Aldarondo] found was far different from what he and his mother were promised…a grim, three-story building under the El with around 20 other men sleeping on bunk beds in four bedrooms and sharing three bathrooms…Since the late 1990s, pastors, police, and mayors in Puerto Rico have been sending hundreds of heroin addicts, many of them HIV-positive, to Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and other cities. The officials work with mainland ministers, some of whom travel from Philadelphia to the island to recruit addicts, offering drug treatment based on abstinence and prayer. [The practice is known as Air Bridge]…and…[it] has increased the numbers of homeless and HIV-positive people in the city, torn apart families, and confounded advocates…
A Whore in Church
Tits & Sass presents a nice look at the religious beliefs of sex workers:
Many people think of whores as being as far from God as possible. We are seen as "fallen women," people whose moral deficiency has put them at odds with God. When God, morality, and religion are discussed in tandem with sex work, these conversations often promote religious dogma which serves to justify the marginalization of sex workers. Sex workers are rarely heard from on their own relationships with religion or spirituality, even though we have roots in religious and spiritual life as far back as Biblical times…
Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs
SWOP's annual fundraiser is going on right now! Many of you have asked me how you can support sex worker rights; well, this is an excellent way, and your donations are tax-deductible! So please don't hesitate; donate today!
I'm Sure You Feel Safer Now
Brave hero cops save The Children!TM from the menace of desperately-needy people, both in Ohio: "…Crystal D. Hotlosz…told [a lying pig] she would provide a sex act for $60 and nachos…She was arrested, and charged for solicitation and criminal tools…" and in Florida: "Eight homeless prostitutes, one homeless 68-year-old pimp and a hooker with an address were among those arrested in the most recent prostitution sting…[a lying pig] hunting for streetwalkers asked some of the women if they were cops and even encouraged one of the suspects to grab his genitals…" Judging by her language, sleazebag "reporter" Lyda Longa thinks she's clever; I wonder how she'd feel if a pig came to her place of work and tricked her into doing something so he could arrest her? N.B: in Ohio, "criminal tools" means condoms and/or a cell phone.
Banishment
Because laws are more important than people:
In Florida, a wheelchair-bound man with end-stage Alzheimer's must move out of the hospice where he's dying, because he is a registered sex offender and the hospice is too close to a preschool…Jack Ehrhart…was convicted of a sex offense about 30 years ago, when he was a doctor. Several patients accused him of touching them sexually during their gynecological exams—with a nurse present. He now faces arrest unless he gets…out of the Heartland Hospice…Ehrhart's wife is arguing that the residency restrictions apply only to people who have deliberately chosen to live where they live…her husband's condition means he not only had no say in where he's living, he has no idea where he is now. Still, Heartland is trying to ship him out, but having a hard time, because it can't find other hospices that will take him. Meanwhile, Ehrhart's attorney is trying to get him off the sex offender registry, arguing that Florida allows some former offenders to be removed from the list after being on it 25 years…
What kind of warped mind thinks this is OK?
My Body, My Choice (#319)
A rare decision in favor of self-ownership:
The 69-pound woman has battled anorexia for the majority of her life…after spending nearly two years in a New Jersey psychiatric hospital, the 29-year-old woman with a bone density of a 92-year-old told a court that she refused to eat any food, and wished to enter palliative care instead…A Superior Court judge ruled…that she cannot be fed against her will…and…has the mental capacity to choose not to accept nutrition. The state…argued the woman is mentally ill due to depression, and that by approving the withdrawal of force-feeding the court would essentially be allowing her passive suicide…Palliative care would simply provide drugs to numb her pain and ease her…death…Her treating psychiatrist, Joshua Braun, said force feeding A.G. would be "cruel and torturous at this point," because restraining her could cause her delicate bones to break…
Backwards Into the Future (#323)
Note that this kind of abuse is also typical in the US:
Namibian authorities stand accused of failing to meet multiple obligations under the Convention Against Torture…in relation to addressing severe abuse suffered by Namibian sex workers at the hands of authorities and the community…a group of local and international NGOs working with sex workers detailed an extensive list of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of sex workers in Namibia…One of the recommendations contained in the report is to decriminalise sex work in Namibia in order to effectively deal with the abuse and to establish legal procedures to investigate allegations of torture and provide victims with redress…criminalisation…has given free rein to police officers, health workers and clients and the community at large to abuse sex workers in a multitude of ways, without fear of consequences…
Gingerbread House (#542)
It's satisfying when the mask of concern for "trafficking victims" slips:
Straight Street Revolution Ministries…plan to build housing for women who are fleeing sex trafficking on 50 acres of land…in southeast Hall County [Georgia]…But opponents have made it clear they don't want it in their rural community…residents [pretend]…crime and safety concerns, fearing the place could draw a bad element…
Yes folks, sex rays are also magnetic and can draw "bad elements".
Fallen Idol (#612)
It's been nearly a year since James Deen…was first accused of assault. In the days after the first allegation…porn studios began to cut ties with Deen…But, a year later, it's clear that while Deen's career might have taken a slight hit, it isn't going anywhere. "Very little has changed in James' life over the last year," said Howard Bragman, Deen's spokesperson. "He is not subject to any cases either criminal or civil and he is continuing the same work he did before"…analysis of adult film releases, as well as industry interviews, show this isn't just the boasting of a publicist trying to make his client look good…
Virtual Unreality
Unless the VR unit deposits $400 into my bank account before the show starts, I'm not remotely interested:
…the firm WankzVR premiered FemalePOV, its new virtual reality porn series filmed from a woman's viewpoint — meaning, headset wearers occupy the perspective of a female porn performer or, in gamer speak, avatar…WankzVR…found was that women…who either used their product or frequented Reddit VR threads…did not want to see the gentle, less explicit content that they are so often said to desire. These ladies wanted something in-between the hardcore gonzo cliché of porn for men and the gauzy soft-focus cliché of porn for women…in VR porn for men, male performers are often instructed to keep their hands out of the frame and let their female co-stars do all the work…because male viewers typically report that seeing their avatar's hands interacting in the scene takes them out of the illusion of being in the film…however, WankzVR found that female viewers expressed that they were disturbed to see their avatar just lying there, relatively motionless…it…looks a bit too much like sexual assault…
To Molest and Rape (#687)
For every assault a rapist cop is caught in, you can be sure there are others yet undetected:
…[Rapist cop Marcellus White] was rebooked…Nov. 21…on 16 new counts…five new rape charges as well as two counts of sexual battery, two counts of oral sexual battery, two counts of molestation of a juvenile, two counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and one count each of simple kidnapping, false imprisonment and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number…
That Was the Week That Was (#427)
Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, Music, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged A Whore in Church, abortion, Above the Law, agency denial, BDSM, Bone of Contention, brothels, Buried Truth, California, Cambodia, Canada, Central Asia, Check Your Premises, China, Comfort Zone, consensual crime, cops, Deafening Silence, dirty, Divided We Fall, fantasy, France, gay rights, Harm Magnification, hysteria, If Men Were Angels, illegal aliens, Ireland, Islam, King of the Hill, Latin America, Louisiana, Lying Down With Dogs, Maine, Michigan, Monsters, Montana, My Body My Choice, neofeminism, New York, New Zealand, Ohio, Oregon, Parable, porn, prohibitionist myths, rape, rescue industry, Rough Trade, See No Evil, sex rays, streetwalkers, Swedish model, Tajikistan, Tales from the Dark Side, The Enlightenment Police, The Roof Caves In, The Widening Gyre, Think of the Children!, Traffic Jam, transgender, United Kingdom, video, violence vs. sex workers, Washington (state), Whither Canada? on July 5, 2014| 4 Comments »
If [Bill C-36] becomes law, johns will become the new "fags" – the people fed into the fear factory of career-ending public exposure and the criminal underground because of their personal sexual choices. – Alice Klein
Think of the Children!
But, but, he was in the same BUILDING!!!!!!!
John is a U.K.-based father and sex blogger who publishes original erotica and toy reviews on his website, the Bawdy Bloke…Until recently, John also held what he refers to only as an unpaid, part-time "position of civic responsibility" in a local school. Apparently John's boss thought the two positions were mutually exclusive. After discovering John's career as an online erotica author, he asked John to resign from his position immediately…John…[did] not…work…with children in any capacity…it sounds like [his job was] a pretty general IT/administrative support role…
A good essay against client criminalization; here's the heart of it:
…I find it very ironic that many of the arguments used to suggest that it is morally offensive for men to buy sex from women are adopted from extreme feminist views. Many of these same feminists are pro-choice, rightly declaring that no one has the right to tell a woman what she can do with her body…yet when it comes to sex, these very same people are now here to say that a woman does not have the right to choose. Her body is her own so long as she does nothing with it that these moral guardians find objectionable…
Lying Down With Dogs
This was going on at the same time as the recent FBI pogroms in the US:
Amnesty International has drawn attention to violent police harassment of sex workers in Tajikistan…as part of the government's "morality" campaign…500 sex workers have been arrested…since…June [6th]…Men suspected of "homosexual behaviour" have also been targeted…officers beat people…and…subjected to…forced testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections…[there were also] reports…of rape and…officers demanding sex in exchange for release…police allege that this violent crackdown is because they have been "inundated" with complaints from citizens…
Because 15-year-olds are only "innocent children" until cops say otherwise:
Three women and a 15-year-old girl were arrested…and booked with soliciting and inciting prostitution…at the 7 Star Foot Massage parlor in LaPlace…[after] a month-long investigation, dubbed Operation Happy Feet, by the St. John Sheriff's Office…the 15-year-old girl was employed to work the front desk…
Bone of Contention
This is a good article about the myths surrounding streetwalkers, including 1) That they make huge amounts of money; 2) That they're all addicts; 3) That they're all foreign and "trafficked"; 4) That they're dominated by pimps and gangs; 5) That they need rescue; and 6) That arrest and prison "help" them. Unfortunately, it's far too accepting of the false claims made by Swedish model proponents, which in the end makes it hard to recommend.
The Enlightenment Police
[The] European Court of Human Rights judgment upholding a…ban on wearing full-face veils in public…represents a profound retreat for the right to freedom of expression and religion…The…Court recognised that arguments for the ban based on security and gender equality were unfounded. But it accepted the argument that wearing full-face veils runs counter to established social norms…The judgment was handed down by the European Court's Grand Chamber, meaning it cannot be appealed…
It's always great to see enthusiastic support from the queer community:
Sorry to ruin your WorldPride. Sexual shaming is on the prowl, not just somewhere far away but, sadly, right here, right now…While [Toronto] celebrates our beauty and our outrageousness, the government is busy unleashing a moral panic…It used to be us, my queer brothers and sisters, who were the targets. Now…men who purchase sexual services are the…new category to be targeted for their sexual preferences. They are to be criminalized for what? For seeking and hopefully finding an uncomplicated and pleasurable way to satisfy their sexual hunger?…
More people are beginning to protest this evil lunacy:
…If I…made a throw away mail account and sent you a file called "Very Important.pdf" but it was actually a .zip file of child porn, I could call the police and claim you had child porn in a disguised file — and that might well be enough to ruin your life, even if everyone involved was pretty sure you never even saw the pictures…prosecutors are so inhuman and irresponsible [that they]…charge people with crimes they know aren't in the spirit of the law…The career incentives are that investigations must lead to charges, and charges must lead to convictions…once something is investigated prosecutors are motivated to make sure someone goes to jail…the law effectively treats every bit of crufty data, every teenage file system mistake or selfie indiscretion as if the possessor had abused the child themselves. This is insane, and it doesn't help children — it distracts time and attention from the real ways children get hurt…
A Muslim who stabbed a pregnant Romanian prostitute to death after warning her not to work near a mosque was jailed for at least 29 years…Farooq Shah, 21, plunged a knife into Mariana Popa's chest while riding his bicycle along a stretch of road notorious for sex workers. Miss Popa, 24, had been in Britain for just three weeks and was trying to earn the money to support her family when she was stabbed in Ilford, Essex…on October 28…
Harm Magnification (The Beat Goes On)
A recent study has concluded that the Nordic Model of prostitution laws could endanger sex trade workers…and does not affect the demand for prostitution…John Lowman, an SFU criminology professor, said that…similar policies in the 1990s…[created] "the killing field of Vancouver…where Mr. Pickton picked up most of [his] victims"…the report [states] that decriminalization of sex work…is the best way to ensure the safety of sex workers…
At least Los Angeles has the marginal decency to properly label sexual assault by a cop: "A…detective pleaded no contest…to assaulting three [masseuses]…Oris Pace allegedly forced three women at separate [massage] parlors to undress…and fondled their bodies…" Montana prefers to dismiss oral rape as "non-consensual oral sex":
Michael Connelly…was sentenced…to 24 months in prison and three years of supervised release…the victim reported that Connelly took her to a secluded place on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation…and threatened her with jail if she did not perform oral sex…Connelly was acquitted of the sexual abuse charge and convicted of the civil rights and false statement charges…
The Widening Gyre
Cops demand everyone serve them as unpaid informants, or else:
…Police say the staff at the Super 8 Motel off Route 161 knew drug deals and prostitution happened inside the rooms, and possibly tracked it themselves…police [claimed] "…the motel placed the drug dealers and prostitutes in certain rooms…to keep them isolated from other guests." Police say that…[constitutes] promoting prostitution …charges could lead to a ten year prison sentence…
Irish Central brags that "A new US State Department report has named Ireland the top destination and transit country for sex trafficking…" And what prodigious number of wailing victims earned this dubious distinction? "44 potential trafficking victims were identified…" That's potential victims, i.e. someone a cop pointed to. It is to laugh.
Buried Truth
John Balyo…an on-air personality at WCSG-FM, a Christian radio station [in Michigan]…was arrested…[for] sexual encounters with minors…Balyo paid…Ronald Moser…to arrange sexual encounters with…young boys…
A New Zealand trans woman is in intensive care, after she was savagely attacked by a group of unknown men. Anahera Rangitaawa…was reportedly attacked by three men…while on her way home from a quilting exhibition. [She] suffered multiple fractures, including her skull, cheekbones, shoulder blades, and eye sockets…[and] will require facial reconstruction surgery…
Traffic Jam (TW3 #318)
I love scathing reviews of "sex trafficking" theatrical productions:
…Anya17…[is an] 80-minute opera…which features an acerbic, graceless score by composer Adam Gorb and a ham-fisted libretto by Ben Kaye, plunges the audience into the horrific milieu of international sex slavery…The degradation and brutality on display are almost unbearable…it was never clear what artistic purpose was served by these horrors. Neither concrete enough to be journalism nor sufficiently probing or inventive for art, Anya17 winds up as simply a slog…
Tales from the Dark Side
The…conviction of a former New York City police officer in a plot to kidnap, torture, kill and eat women was overturned…by a federal judge…[for lack of] evidence…No women were ever abducted or harmed in the plot, but prosecutors [claimed] that [Gilberto] Valle had "crossed the line" while immersing himself in a fetish website where he communicated electronically with others…
Deafening Silence
The official narrative, touted by Western journalists and Maoist sympathizers, is that sex work was magically abolished by proclamation during Mao's reign. Here's a refutation of that, courtesy of a former political prisoner:
…In China now, problems such as prostitution and crimes are often blamed as the results of spiritual pollution and capitalist liberalization due to Western influence…In fact, prostitution and crimes were not the results of the reform and opening-up but the results of Mao's tyranny and Cultural Revolution…
Whither Canada?
A sensible article on this topic in a US newspaper is like a breath of fresh air:
…it's clear that sex work takes place in Maine. But public conversations…typically revolve around the same salacious and misinformed tropes…Meanwhile, just north of the border, Canada is taking a much different approach to policymaking around commercial sex…While Maine politicians, law enforcement officials, and social service agencies seem resistant to anything other than outright prohibition, more progressive thinkers should consider other ways of looking at this unnecessarily controversial issue…
And though they're not so rare in Canadian papers, I still love them:
…non-coercive adult sexual behaviour lacks the element of potential misconduct that might justify bringing it into the ambit of the law in a free, secular society…[making] a man a lawbreaker because he offers to pay for a sexual service he could freely ask for as a gift or a favour…is a repudiation of the fundamental principles of free enterprise…Declaring female sexuality illegitimate, as patriarchal societies have done from time to time, has been as useless as declaring male sexuality illegitimate, as our matriarchal society is proposing to do. The fact is, both are legitimate. What is illegitimate is for the state to annoy and humiliate a taxpayer for attempting to communicate terms for a transaction that is nobody else's business…
Rough Trade (TW3 #421)
More of this, please:
Four women raped by Danford Grant…have sued the Seattle attorney and his wife…Jennifer Grant…who helped hide her husband's car from police after his arrest…Having denied the allegations and maligned his victims as lying prostitutes, Grant ultimately admitted to raping the women…
Comfort Zone (TW3 #422)
It's good to see the government hoist with its own petard:
The White House [wants]…Congress…to allow fast-track deportation of…unaccompanied children from Central America who cross the US border illegally…More than 52,000…have been stopped at the border since the start of October…many of them girls under the age of 13…The administration has had to adhere to anti-trafficking laws passed during the presidency of George W Bush which…[have] the potential for delaying deportation…Obama…is trying to counter a perception that unaccompanied children who arrive in the US are guaranteed the chance to stay…
The Roof Caves In
Boo fucking hoo:
In what appear to be Somaly Mam's first public comments on…her resignation from the Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF)…last month, posts to one of her Facebook pages say that she will sell her house to support girls formerly under her care after SMF cut funding to an NGO she founded…In a number of posts…there is an outpouring of despair at SMF's decision to cut off funding to Afesip…
If Men Were Angels
Police arrested a former church pastor on sex abuse charges…Michael George Sperou…used to be a senior pastor at North Clackamas Bible Community Church…the charges stem from a series of police reports involving juvenile girls who lived within the community in 1997…
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Obituary, Perception, Tyranny, tagged A Tale That Grew in the Telling, activism, Africa, agency denial, All the Difference, Anatomy of a Boondoggle, Backpage, Bad Girls, bogus studies, brothels, Check Your Premises, China, Colorado, Connecticut, cops, Craigslist, dehumanization, ethics, Europe, evidence, Florida, Halfway Updates, halfway whores, Held Together With Lies, Hollywood, hysteria, Illinois, imaginative fiction, India, Indiana, internet, Lack of Evidence, language, Monsters, My Body My Choice, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, Obfuscation via Dysphemisms, Ohio, Oklahoma, One Born Every Minute, Philippines, pimps, porn, pragmatism, prisons, prohibitionist myths, psychology, rape, red-light districts, rescue industry, Romania, scams, sex rays, sex work is work, Sweden, The Cold Grey Light of Dawn, The Proper Study, The Widening Gyre, transgender, Uganda, video, Where Are the Protests? on May 10, 2013| 32 Comments »
Who needs misogynists when you describe women engaged in sex work as "objects" whose humanity "can be forgotten"? – Maddie Collier
R.I.P. Ray Harryhausen
The greatest special-effects artist of all time has passed away at the age of 92. His movies are among my all-time favorites, and no digital creature has ever entertained me as much as Ray's masterful puppetry still does. And even though he's been retired for 32 years, I don't think I'm alone in feeling that the world will be just a little less magical without him.
…[An] unnamed 14-year-old used his iPad to find…Dareka R. Brooks through a website used for sexual hookups…believing [her] to be a sex worker, [he] invited her to his…home, [where she]…pepper-sprayed the boy and made off with his piggy bank and the…iPad…Brooks was tracked down a short time later…and arrested after she used the iPad…Brooks was charged with armed robbery…[but] the…boy will not face charges for solicitation.
I suspect the cops' "kindness" means the boy's family is well-connected.
Halfway Whores
Dr. Laura Agustín on "Good-time girls and other non-professionals taking money for sex":
Formalised money-sex exchanges get the attention and conflict…lots of other exchanges are ignored, a line is drawn between commercial and non-commercial sex. But that line is imaginary. Many people who expect to be compensated for their company will never call themselves sex workers or escorts…
A Colorado woman was convicted of prostitution for answering a personal ad; after trying to talk her into having sex in a parking lot, a disguised cop "shoved a fistful of cash in front of her face and issued a command: 'TAKE IT!'…Moments later, the car was surrounded [by] 'Guns and guys in black with masks on'…the prosecution focused on the word 'roses' in the Craigslist ad…" Maybe if this sort of thing starts to happen more often, amateurs will start to wake up to the fact that anti-whore laws harm everyone.
My Body, My Choice (Holiday Leftovers)
[For] five years…[William Coleman has been] force-fed…Starving himself…is the only way he has to…protest his conviction. Not eating is his only available free speech act…He and his lawyer have gone to court to stop the force-feedings, but a judge ruled against him in March…Coleman is…[not at] Guantánamo…where a mass hunger strike of 100 prisoners has brought…force-feeding to American newspapers, if not American consciences…but…in Connecticut…Guantánamo is not an anomaly. Prisoners…are routinely and systematically force-fed every day…force-feedings…are considered torture by most of the world's medical and governing bodies…yet most media outlets continue to portray feeding tube use as a "complex ethical debate." It's not. Competent prisoners go on hunger strike because they have something to say and no other way to say it. Prison officials choose not to hear — and silence them with tubes…
A Hialeah [Florida] police sergeant…Tomas Muñoz…has been suspended with pay after being…charged with cocaine possession and carrying drug paraphernalia…he told reporters…"I met a girl — she happens to have a pimp, and we fell in love…And he doesn't let her be free. This came about because he set the whole thing up."
He "doesn't let her be free", except to fuck cops. For free.
American's mathematical illiteracy goes clear up to the White House, whose spokesman recently claimed that almost 4% of school-age American girls have become "child sex slaves" since the beginning of the panic a decade ago. Also of note: since the government was unable to shut down Backpage via unconstitutional censorship demands, it is now claiming that it intentionally gave up trying.
Another step in the right direction:
Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) have announced…a new journal devoted to the study of pornography. Porn Studies, to be edited by Professor Feona Attwood of Middlesex University and Dr Clarissa Smith of the University of Sunderland, will be the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts…
One Born Every Minute
…Thousands of sex workers in Sonagachi have lost their lifelong savings…in Ponzi schemes…"about [30 million rupees] has been lost"…[said] Bharati [of Durbar Mahila Samanaya Committee]…Till 2004-05…sex workers [only] deposited their earnings and took loans…[at] Usha Bank…but…7-8 agents [who] were sacked by [the] Bank…continued to operate in the red light area. "Sex workers were easily trapped because the agents were well known to them or were their relatives…" [said a bank officer]…Bharati says, "We…repeatedly issued warnings…But you can't stop anyone…hell bent to invest her hard earned money in schemes promising much higher returns." The Durbar has recently launched a massive awareness programme…
Workers' Paradise vs. Gold Diggers
…Dongguan…has a population of about 7 million and a reputation as the Chinese capital of sex…Between 500,000 and 800,000 people – some 10 per cent of Dongguan's migrant population – are in some way employed in the world's oldest profession…[including] 300,000 sex workers…[but] authorities are now…trying to push prostitution off Dongguan's streets with a crackdown…
Note that the word "trafficking" is entirely absent:
A company within Sweden's home care services…mistreated migrant workers by making false promises about work conditions…Hassan…said that his official job offer stated that he would be employed full-time by…TPS Vårdteam…with a monthly wage of 26,500 kronor ($4,000)…"In the beginning I didn't get any work at all…Then I had to work seven days a week….[for] only…8,000 kronor per month"…the company had not paid in any taxes at all for Hassan…
End demand for home health care!
Obfuscation via Dysphemisms
Tulsa, Oklahoma's sleazy war on whores reaches a new level of evil:
Tulsa police have…charged 23 individuals under a state law that permits a felony to be filed when a person suspected of prostitution is arrested within 1,000 feet of a church or school. "It's just a nightmare," said defense attorney, Charles Kania…a "scarlet letter on their foreheads that follows them forever"…The felony charges are part of a stepped-up effort by police to get tough on prostitution…Sgt. Todd Evans said…"Most of Tulsa is within a thousand feet of a church or school"…[and] police have sometimes opted to book individuals under another statute that makes it a felony to utilize a computer to violate any state law…
All the Difference
…Active Blessing Uganda…[promised that children] would get an education and live a better life…instead [they were] denied basic rights and exploited…76 children, aged between four and 16 years, have been rescued from the alleged human traffickers…the children are malnourished…do domestic work…in return for food and when they fall sick…are not cared for…the parents [were]…always prevented…from visiting…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (TW3 #49)
On May 22, the American Psychiatric Association will release the…DSM-5…[practicing psychotherapist] Gary Greenberg, one of the book's biggest critics, claims these disorders aren't real — they're invented…The Book of Woe: The Making of the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry is his exposé of the business behind the creation of the new manual…
The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn (TW3 #137)
A powerful statement from Filipino sex workers:
…Being poor in the Philippines…means…no matter how much you believe things to be wrong you must believe it to be right when the rich, your master (amo)…[says] so…That…[is] why it was not difficult for the feminist (abolitionists) to appropriate our voices and to start…speaking for themselves in our name…For years, we could only stand , mouths gagged, as we watched our new "amos" build their careers speaking for other underprivileged and "mindless" women in their list who they claim do not have the ability to speak for themselves…We…do not understand the arrogance by which they have anointed themselves our saviors…what we want is save ourselves from them instead…we really do not care about "patriarchy", "commodification" and other words they spew. Those matters don't bring food on our table nor pay for our rent. All we are interested in is work undisturbed…It is time to tell the world that only sex workers [can] speak for sex workers…
Held Together With Lies (TW3 #316)
Wendy Lyon does her usual thorough job ripping apart a bogus study:
Last month saw the publication of the EU's first Trafficking in Human Beings report, which…is (properly) littered with disclaimers…Unfortunately…the press release…[went] for the handy soundbite…so we've been deluged with headlines like "Human trafficking increased by 18%" when…the report doesn't show it did any such thing…if all the statistics were accepted as readily as the "18% increase" has been, it would be a little bit inconvenient for some…Contrary to what we're constantly told by the anti-trafficking movement, the most recent figures make it hard to discern any link between trafficking and the legal status of sex work. The Dutch rate is very high, but the Cyprus rate is higher – and Cyprus has much stricter laws than the Netherlands…Romania, where sex work itself is illegal, is nearly as high. Hungary (legal), Portugal (legal) and Lithuania (illegal) are tied for last. Austria and Germany are also relatively low – in fact, Germany and Sweden are tied, at 0.8 per 100,000. And the German rate has remained more or less constant over the three years surveyed, while Sweden's has quadrupled…But sex workers' rights advocates shouldn't leap on those figures, either, because truthfully the whole report is pretty hopelessly undermined by its methodological weaknesses…
Sometime…[in] April, an Ohio transgender woman was…stabbed repeatedly and then tied to a concrete block and cast into a pond. She was left with no clothes below the waist, perhaps to shame her…But…insensitive stories by the local press…[wrote] about [her] as if she were a bizarre spectacle, not a victimized human being…the Cleveland Plain Dealer…used a mugshot of [Cemia] Acoff instead of the other readily available photos…the [headline which now reads]…"Oddly dressed body found in Olmsted Township identified," originally said "oddly dressed man," (you can see it in the url; it was changed after readers and activists protested)…the story [also] refers to her as Carl Acoff (her birth name) and uses a male pronoun...[a follow-up] story…details what she was wearing…lists old petty "crimes"…[and refers to the] hormones [she was carrying as] "dangerous drugs"…
The Widening Gyre (TW3 #317)
Maddie Collier's response to Rakhi "pop stars cause sex trafficking" Kumar is well worth reading in its entirety, but here's a sample:
…The anti-sex trafficking cause is already thick with moral panic, misinformation, and ill-informed, PR-boosting celebrity activists, and you're cluttering the already-diminished discourse with further nonsense….[which spawns] attitudes and policies that actively harm sex workers. You are ignoring the freely-available perspectives and requests of real-life sex workers because they interfere with your romantic notion of the Prostituted Woman as a forlorn, passive victim who needs to be saved. If you engage with sex workers before you form a view on what's oppressing them, you might find that criminalisation and stigma are higher-priority concerns than mythical drug-dealing pimps wielding persuasive charm and Beyoncé's hotpants…
Anatomy of a Boondoggle (TW3 #317)
The newest excuse for police rape of sex workers is that Asian massage parlors are "sophisticated":
…an undercover police officer…[repeatedly paid for sex] over five months…in a fight against prostitution and human trafficking. Officers say such methods led to…[their raiding] two businesses [and] arresting…four alleged prostitutes and two alleged pimps. But the methods…were criticized…by legal…experts and women's advocates as excessive, unnecessary and misapplied…prostitutes can be arrested and charged in Indiana as soon as an agreement to pay for a sex act is made…Plus…if the women indeed had been…working…against their will, the sex acts they performed on the officer only contributed to their humiliation, exploitation and degradation…Aaron Dietz, head of the…Task Force…which conducted the nine-month sting, said…the sophisticated nature of the prostitution ring required officers to take more extreme measures…Dietz and others wanted to emphasize that it was not a pleasurable experience for the officer, but entirely necessary. "No one…really wants to go into these…It's something that's ethically and morally very trying, so I'd do anything to keep guys out of there."
You'd do anything? Then how about advocating for decriminalization, you fucking filthy liar?
That Was the Week That Was (#42)
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, Above the Law, activism, Africa, agency denial, Argentina, asset seizure, Backwards into the Future, bogus studies, brothels, California, cops, dirty, disease, drugs, East Asia, escort services, Europe, False Target, fantasy, France, Greece, harm reduction, hysteria, Indiana, Ireland, J'accuse, Latin America, law, Maryland, My Body My Choice, Naked Truth, neofeminism, psychology, rape, sex rays, sex work is work, stage names, stereotypes, streetwalkers, Swedish model, tabula rasa, teachers, That Old Black Magic, The Course of a Disease, The More the Better, The Public Eye, Think of the Children!, United Kingdom, vaccines, video, Vietnam, Washington DC, What If They Threw a Party?, Wholesale Hypocrisy, witchcraft on October 20, 2012| 21 Comments »
For all the talk about women involved in the sex industry as "victims", there is no apparent appetite for actually speaking with them in order to assess what the real issues are. – Graham Ellison
Sex Work is Work
"Nairobi Mayor George Aladwa has warned…sex workers that they risk being arrested if they will not stop conducting their business in Central Business District…The mayor urged the sex workers to use their talents in seeking income…" This is, of course, exactly what he is threatening them for doing.
Indiana school officials believe that sex radiation is so dangerous that exposed students must be quarantined in order to contain the contamination:
Some students…in Anderson, Ind. [who] got a peek of their teacher's bare breasts on a school-issued iPad…have been suspended and threatened with expulsion…Joshua Troutt, 13…and three other students were in their classroom, playing a game on [the] iPad…[and when] one of the students pressed a button…[the] photograph…was revealed. "It's not our fault that she had the photo on there," Troutt said. "We couldn't do anything not to look at it…She had to have pressed something to make all of her [iPhone] photos synch on there"…
Let that be a lesson to you, kids: never tell any authority figure about anything unusual that happens, ever.
Wholesale Hypocrisy
Even though the prosecutor euphemistically refers to armed robbery and grand larceny as "improper use of forfeiture funds", it's still a pleasure to see this coming up to trial at last: "Former Romulus [Michigan] Police Chief Michael St. Andre, his wife, and five…detectives pled not guilty…to using asset forfeiture funds…[from] narcotics and prostitution investigations to buy…narcotics and prostitutes… The officers are accused of spending $40,000 in forfeiture funds in one year…[and] St. Andre also used $75,000 from drug forfeiture funds to buy a tanning salon…for his wife."
Yet again: As long as government actors have excessive power over individuals, this will keep happening:
A woman in Maryland who was allegedly raped…by a deputy sheriff has filed a $15 million lawsuit against the Prince George's County Sheriff's Office…Lamar McIntyre allegedly…took [the woman, who was awaiting trial] into an isolated holding cell and told her to get naked, [forced her into] oral…and vaginal sex without a condom…"[slapped] her buttocks extremely hard"…[then] took pictures with his camera phone…McIntyre [then] took the woman to the court room "as if nothing ever happened"…McIntyre…admitted to police that he was involved…
Dr. Brooke Magnanti's Telegraph article on "sex trafficking" hysteria covers familiar ground, but she's always a pleasure to read. Furthermore, because she was born in Florida but did sex work in the UK, she qualifies as "trafficked" herself under the official criteria. She mentions several useful statistics:
…of the trafficking referrals made to police in the UK, one in four are men, and domestic and agricultural exploitation counts for six of every 10 cases…Liz Kelly and Linda Regan of the University of North London attempted to estimate the number of women brought into the UK for sex in 1998 by surveying [police] reports…they came up with…71…[but this] included…women who willingly arrived…for sex work…In 2007…[Operation] Pentameter Two resulted in five convictions…406 arrests were made…153 of those…were released without charge. Most of the rest were charged with immigration breaches and unrelated offences. Twenty-two were prosecuted for trafficking; 7 of those were acquitted. Ten of the remaining lot turned out not to have coerced the women they brought into the country. This left five actual traffickers…none of [whom] were detected specifically by actions in the Pentameter Two effort…
She also mentions that the "80% of sex workers are coerced" claim promoted by MP Fiona Mactaggart (and repeated ad nauseum by other prohibitionists) originally came from a 1982 survey of San Francisco streetwalkers.
False Target
"People want to believe that any behavior they dislike…is either wholly voluntary or the result of 'socialization'…but…[these are] better explained by evolution and neurology than by ludicrous tabula rasa notions. Why they prefer to believe that people are programmed by "society" or "the Patriarchy" than to acknowledge we are programmed by Nature I cannot say; perhaps they fear that instinct is harder to overcome than learning and therefore choose to deny the terrifying reality…" More on this same line of thought from Dr. Gad Saad:
…"blank slate" explanations are ubiquitous in the social sciences…men stray from their marriages…due to their viewing of pornography …people succumb to juicy burgers…[because of] those alluring advertising jingles…women [suffer]…eating disorders…[due to] media images that attack [their] self-worth…young [men's]…violent and reckless behaviors…[are caused by] video games…these arguments are pure fiction…rooted in a perfectly erroneous view of human nature. Each of [these] is linked to evolutionary and biological principles that have little to do with…socialization…the blank slate view [is] so pervasive…[because] it caters to…the endless pursuit for hope…[and] provides people with the illusion of control. Alter the supposed culprit environmental cause and the issue will apparently be resolved…
Though this item from the East Bay Express is largely based around the harm Proposition 35 will do if enacted, it is less an analysis of the proposed law and more an honest and accepting profile of a number of sex workers in the San Francisco Bay area, including regular reader Jolene Parton. The more articles like this we see, the harder it will be for prohibitionists to support the lie that well-adjusted sex workers are an unrepresentative minority.
Most of this story about a "huge crackdown on human trafficking" in Scotland is the same old bombastic rhetoric, turgid "estimates" and endless repetition of lurid claims about the escort service owners convicted of "trafficking" last year. But there was an embedded link proclaiming that "Sex trafficking victims reveal horror of witchcraft and torture being used to ensalve [sic] women in Scotland!" which led to an article I missed in January notable not only for the "magical slave control" pap, but also for being published just before the popular exaggeration increased from "15 men a day" to 50. Stories like this are an excellent development, because they throw a spotlight on the close resemblance between "sex trafficking" hysteria and the Satanic Panic.
Metaupdates
What If They Threw a Party and Nobody Came? in October Updates (Part One)
Since it's apparent that prudes prefer their daughters to die than to have sex, this study was necessary no matter how totally obvious its conclusions were from the start:
There did not appear to be any difference in the sexual behaviors of adolescent girls who received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and their unvaccinated peers…Among girls ages 11 and 12 enrolled in a large, managed-care organization, there were no between-group differences in the rate of pregnancy…sexually transmitted infection, or receipt of contraceptive counseling…In addition, the average age at the first composite outcome was no different between vaccinated and unvaccinated girls…
That's especially good now that a new version of the vaccine may help women who are already infected:
…the experimental vaccine…was given to 18 women with cervical dysplasia, a precancerous condition…caused by a chronic HPV infection…after vaccination, the women produced immune cells that were capable of attacking and killing HPV-infected cells…this…could clear chronic HPV infections, and prevent precancerous cells from becoming cancerous…it's possible a [similar] vaccine…could treat other types of cancer caused by HPV, such as some head and neck cancers…
J'accuse in TW3 (#13)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is trying to get his "aggravated pimping" charge dismissed; apparently he's just noticed that Western society, following behind the US like a flock of obedient sheep, is trying to "criminalize lust":
…That defense and the investigation, which is facing a critical judicial hearing in late November, have offered a keyhole view into a clandestine practice in certain powerful circles of French society: secret soirees with lawyers, judges, police officials, journalists and musicians that start with a fine meal and end with naked guests and public sex with multiple partners…the most perplexing question in the Strauss-Kahn affair is how a career politician…was blinded to the possibility that his zest for sex parties could present a liability, or risk blackmail…
It's only "perplexing" to female American journalists whose dedication to a PC agenda has totally conquered any critical thinking skills they may once have had. Another one who's just waking up to reality is Hubert Delarue, the lawyer for one of Strauss-Kahn's co-defendants, who apparently thinks halfway whores are something new: "Prostitution was…for a certain type of population…[but] today…there are occasional prostitutes, and sometimes they're top models who try to make ends meet. They aren't miserable women on the sidewalk."
Backwards into the Future in TW3 (#27)
Baby steps, I guess:
Vietnam will free about 900 sex workers…from compulsory rehabilitation centres…when a newly amended…law comes into effect…[next] July…Since July [of] this year, sex workers have no longer been sent to…[the] centres…but…fined up to five million dong [$240 US] instead…drug addicts will continue to be sent to detoxification centres…
The More the Better in TW3 (#32)
I really like this trend of brothels funding athletics: "…[Members of] a cash-strapped Greek soccer team…are wearing…practice jerseys emblazoned with the logos of the Villa Erotica and Soula's House of History, a pair of…bordellos recruited to sponsor the team after drastic government spending cuts left the country's sports organizations facing ruin. One team took on a deal with a local funeral home and others have wooed kebab shops, a jam factory, and producers of…feta cheese…"
The Course of a Disease in TW3 (#34)
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we in America could see articles like this strong criticism of an attempt to impose the Swedish model on Northern Ireland?
…Lord Morrow's Bill…is ill-thought through, confusing and based on rather dubious evidence. Sex trafficking is conflated solely with prostitution…and…is…accompanied by increasingly fantastical (and unsubstantiated) media claims about the number of "victims"…[yet] there has…been only one prosecution of a "trafficker"…and the women he "trafficked" were two Czech prostitutes that flew of their own volition to Belfast to operate out of [an] apartment that they rented from [him]…
The author, criminologist Graham Ellison, goes on to ridicule the impossible claims made about the Swedish model's "success" and to correctly present it as the agenda of fundamentalist neofeminists and Christians.
My Body, My Choice in TW3 (#40)
Since the founder of Shared Hope International says that anti-trafficking activism "should be an extension of the 'pro-life' cause", one wonders what her thoughts on this might be:
Argentina's Supreme Court has ruled that a woman rescued from a prostitution ring must be allowed to have the abortion she wants…Argentina allows legal abortions in rape cases or to protect a woman's health. But politicians, doctors and judges often continue to block them…and…in this case, a judge intervened…saying there was no proof of rape even though the woman had been kidnapped and forced into prostitution…
This decriminalization video was produced by an organization named "Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights"; when will American human rights organizations take this unambiguous a stand against prostitution law?
This Week in 2010 and 2011
There were two columns on the multiplying cracks in the prohibitionist dam, a juxtaposition of sex work with another form of labor, a look at whether prevailing religious views in a country determine its treatment of whores, a meditation on modern society's attempts to ignore Nature, and news about HIV prevention. We also delved into the truth about neofeminists, the destruction of civil liberties in the US, the horror of American prisons and the production of prohibitionist propaganda through collusion of cops and the media. Finally, I examined the vital social role played by harlots in controlling male sexuality and ministering to the disabled, and called attention to society's galling denial of it.
Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged abortion, acting, Acting and Activism, activism, Africa, Australia, Backwards into the Future, BDSM, California, Catholicism, contraception, cops, Cosmopolitan, Counterfeit Comfort, dirty, disease, Down Under, drugs, end demand, ethics, Europe, Feet of Clay, Follow Your Bliss, Good Fantasy-Bad Reality, harm reduction, holidays, Hollywood, hysteria, imaginative fiction, Iran, Ireland, King of the Hill, Latin America, law, Little Boxes, Madonna/whore, Middle East, Misdirection, Missouri, My Body My Choice, Neither Addiction nor Epidemic, neofeminism, porn, Presents, Profit from Panic, Prudish Pedants, psychology, sex offender registry, sex rays, South Africa, streetwalkers, tabula rasa, The Public Eye, Think of the Children!, TSA, video, virginity, yin and yang on October 6, 2012| 22 Comments »
[A] silly uberfeminist crusader…once called me a sex addict in a national newspaper…To some…[that] would be the gravest insult; to me it was the intellectual equivalent of claiming I am Father Christmas. – Brooke Magnanti
The latest entry in the contest to claim bragging rights for "biggest sex trafficking hub in the United States": "Reports from cities with federal Innocence Lost Task Forces lists Toledo [Ohio] as the third largest city for human trafficking and sex slavery…" Previous claimants include New York, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Phoenix, Arizona; and the entire state of Tennessee.
Good Fantasy, Bad Reality
A southwest Missouri woman who says she shared her bed for years with her husband and his sex slave has decided she needs help defending herself against five federal charges. Marilyn Bagley… is charged with conspiracy, sex trafficking, forced labor trafficking, document servitude and use of an interstate facility to facilitate unlawful activity. She and her husband, Edward, are scheduled for trial in February.
Note that prohibitionist "feminists" had no comment on this: "Former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith…[who] founded Shared Hope International…said that efforts to stop the sell [sic] and trade of minors in the sex industry should be an extension of the 'pro-life' cause."
Acting and Activism
"President Obama is not alone in the fight to end sex trafficking. Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino…[is] starring in a new Hollywood film, Trade of Innocents, following a sex trafficking ring in Cambodia." Thanks, CNN; had you not told me that Obama wasn't alone in pandering to hysteria, I would never have known.
Backwards into the Future
Even some politicians in Zimbabwe have more respect for human rights than their American counterparts:
Zimbabwe Parliamentarians against HIV and AIDS…wants government to decriminalise commercial sex work…The Director of the Public Personalities against AIDS Trust, Tendai Westerhof, [also] condemned criminalisation of sex workers…"It is disappointing that the country still criminalises sex work…these people suffer a lot as a result of the discriminatory laws…They are raped and cannot report such abuses. As a result, they cannot access health services"…
Meanwhile, in South Africa, sex worker rights group SWEAT recently made a presentation in their parliament.
Though the Australian cops in this story subscribe to fashionable "end demand" malarkey, some of them also admit that client persecution harms streetwalkers:
As a crackdown on kerb crawlers in St Kilda intensifies, street sex workers could be moving…to…Dandenong or Footscray, or [using smartphone] apps to meet clients in unsafe areas. Police tried unsuccessfully for decades to curb the trade by targeting workers…But halfway through the new two-year strategy, they noticed that the switch to targeting clients was having unwanted consequences. "If we do push them out of the area, they won't necessarily all leave the industry – and they'll either adopt online or they'll go and work in another location"…said [Senior Sergeant Brad Daly]. "We might be creating things that we haven't thought of yet"…lawyer Vanda Hamilton works with more than 50 legal and illegal sex workers and said…she feared many were being forced into troubling scenarios. She said the only way to ensure safety was to follow New South Wales' example by legalising street-sex work…"You're never going to stop sex work, you're just going to push it so far underground that you can't help people"…
Guess what, Brad? Virtually none of them are leaving the industry; they're just going where you can't see them.
More of this, please (but where's the ACLU?)
Less than a month after approving restrictions on Halloween activities by registered sex offenders, the city of Simi Valley has been sued…the…law bans Halloween displays and outside lighting every Oct. 31…[and] requires a sign on the front door in letters at least an inch tall: "No candy or treats at this residence." Both the prohibition on decorations and the mandatory sign violate free speech rights, according to the lawsuit. A total of 119 registered sex offenders live in Simi Valley…None has been involved in crimes involving children on Halloween, according to police, who say they have no records of any such crime occurring in Simi Valley during Halloween trick-or-treating…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic
Dr. Brooke Magnanti on the newest, even stupider adjunct to "sex addiction":
…The Daily Mail…claims [that young men] are addicted…[to] Viagra…[which unlike sex] is a pharmaceutical drug…[which] could [conceivably produce] physical dependency…[their "proof" consists of an]…interview [with] exactly one guy who uses Viagra a lot during sex…and…one…"psychosexual counselor"…who says this is "just a small sample of the problem"…Any studies…Any scientific research in any labs anywhere? Because I…don't see any. At. All. Reading further down the article I see their real target: porn "addiction"…[and] sexually empowered women…How dare the ladies express interest and enjoyment in sex! Why won't we just lie back and think of England like we're supposed to!?…
Presents, Presents, Presents!
Mere days after I added it to my Amazon wishlist, a reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent me a copy of The Handmaid's Tale, which I somehow never got around to reading before. Thank you so very much!
Profit from Panic
Hey, kids! Fight "human trafficking" for fun and profit! Implicate your neighbors! Persecute sex workers! Win big prizes! "To raise awareness of human trafficking…the Department of Justice and Equality in Dublin and the Department of Justice in Belfast will launch a photography and video competition for Third Level students…Research human trafficking and present your understanding of the issue through a photograph or short video…Winners of each category will receive…1st prize €1,000…2nd prize €500…3rd prize €250."
Prudish Pedants
Here's an interesting article debunking the fallacious notion that some kinds of porn are more "positive" than others, that "erotica" is intrinsically different from porn and that men can be "taught" to reject the kind of porn they prefer in favor of the kind women prefer…argued from a marketing perspective rather than a traditionally psychological one. One important point: "Human minds are not passive and infinitely malleable receptacles prone to any form of socialization and learning. Successful marketers are well aware of this reality. Ideologues, including some academics in the ivory tower, have much to learn!"
Remember when controversy over contraception was only something we read about in history books or in reference to unusually conservative Catholics? I sure do. But over the last two decades that equine carcass has been dragged out of the glue factory and is once again being set upon by sex-hating control freaks trying to call attention away from the uncontrolled tumescence of government, national debt and the police state. The fact that the public obediently paid attention to this distraction has enabled lots of crazy people, including a group of nuns who produced an anti-contraception video chock full of propaganda because they obviously forgot that lying makes Baby Jesus cry:
Anne Elizabeth Moore and Melissa Gira Grant write:
This week Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn's book Half The Sky premieres on PBS as a two-part miniseries, providing an opportunity for his audience to step into his well-worn white savior shoes…viewers will survey the lives of young women whom Kristof and WuDunn have chosen as the best ciphers for their agenda…to…"turn oppression into opportunity"…[by] proposing dubious schemes for advancing women's rights—like arresting sex workers in order to "rescue" them from prostitution, or enthusiastically supporting the creation of "sweatshops" to accommodate sex workers and other women in the global south…
In response, Moore & Grant presented a "collective evaluation" of Nicholas Kristof, in other words excerpts from essays by Laura Agustín, Teju Cole and many others (including yours truly). The article is also mentioned in this Buzzfeed article, which shows the outcry is getting big enough for even the usually-oblivious media to notice.
Catarina Migliorini says that cooking, driving, reading and every other human activity magically become different things if one only does them once:
…A 20-year-old Brazilian woman is auctioning off her virginity for a one-time tryst on an airplane…Catarina Migliorini says she'll donate some of the money to provide housing for poor families in her native Santa Catarina…the Internet bidding [has already] reached $160,000…[and] ends Oct. 15…Migliorini insisted in a statement to the Sao Paulo daily Folha that…"For me, it's not prostitution…when someone does something once in his or her life, this is not considered a profession. If you take a picture and it comes out good, you are not a photographer because of it"…The Daily Mail reported that Migliorini is [also]…part of an Australian film project called Virgins Wanted. She's getting $20,000 and a 90-percent cut of the auction price…
The HuffPo comments are, of course, predictably disgusting. Meanwhile, Slate presents this series of portraits of female Iranian singers, who are legally barred from singing on stage for a general audiences because it is "immodest". This is not a hypothetical reductio ad absurdum; it is the natural result of busybodies having control over women's interactions with men and attempting to draw imaginary lines between "good" and "immoral" behavior.
Rachel Aimee, one of the founders of the late $pread magazine, covers one specific aspect of the "sex workers as mothers" topic: deciding if, when and how to tell one's children that one is a sex worker. She interviews an escort, a stripper, a dominatrix, a nude model and a sex educator, and though as you might expect she doesn't reach a definitive conclusion, she presents a lot of worthwhile food for thought.
Think of the Children! in TW3 (#11)
Another good, clean organization refuses charity from nasty, dirty whores:
A pornographic website has launched a fundraising effort for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, but the nonprofit says it wants nothing to do with the campaign…the…website said it would donate 1 cent for every 30 views of certain videos featuring breasts during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month…[but the Komen organization said] "We are not a partner, not accepting donations, and have asked them to stop using our name"…
Obviously, the Komen Foundation has not yet learned that they are supposed to care more about women's health than about prudishness.
I Really Shouldn't Even LOOK at an Issue of Cosmopolitan in TW3 (#25)
Priya-Alika Elias imagines what it would be like if Homer, Shakespeare, Joyce, Tolkien and others wrote Cosmo sex tips. Alas, she didn't do Lovecraft, but it's still pretty damned funny.
Follow Your Bliss in TW3 (#37)
The…TSA…didn't bother to do a background check on a priest who had been defrocked for molesting girls before they gave him a job, which included doing pat downs on children at Philadelphia International Airport. The Philadelphia Inquirer…reported that…65-year-old Thomas Harkins…has since been promoted from the…job that required him to pat down children and now oversees screening operations for checked baggage.
This Week in 2011
I answered questions on NBA policies, Wikipedia, gravatars and epigrams, discussed busybody control freaks who use women's dignity as an excuse for oppression, introduced you to a young courtesan named Su Xiaoxiao, reported on a complaint to the APA about Melissa Farley's numerous ethical violations, and shared short items on marital sex issues, Gardasil, a Sydney mega-brothel, a pervert cop, BDSM persecution, Edmonton's attempt to create a bottleneck, a claim that the average hooker is 13, cops' armed robbery of a strip club, AHF and an essay by Catherine Hakim.
I introduced the concept of "sex rays", talked about my boob job, explained how criminalization exposes whores to danger from real criminals, discussed the families of sex workers, presented brief biographies of the five victims of Jack the Ripper, looked at the archetypal "hooker with a heart of gold", and shared short items about Congress' first attempt to control the internet and two creepy men's attempts to sexually violate women unnoticed.