What seems like a straightforward news article can often reveal hidden depths when examined critically by an informed mind; the biases, knowledge gaps and outright lies of both the author and the interviewees then stand out in sharp relief, like a computer-enhanced photo of the Earth taken from a satellite. Many of you probably saw this item about the decline of Nevada brothels, but let’s apply some image enhancement to the picture:
…As state legislators ponder levying an 8% sales tax on brothels and other live entertainment, the director of the Nevada Brothel Association says that a bad economy and an abundance of illegal prostitutes is already killing off the business. “When I started as the lobbyist for the industry in 1985, we had 37 brothels in the state,” [said] George Flint…“Now we have just 18, and 12 to 14 of them are not doing very well”…Since the recession…many women [have gone] into business for themselves so as to avoid handing over 50 percent of their fee to brothel owners.
There’s so much more to see in this short paragraph than meets the uninformed and uncritical eye; let’s take it in order of appearance. First, it’s interesting that brothel owners are complaining about plans to tax them when they themselves agitated in favor of it for years, because they recognize that once a government becomes used to income from an industry it will generally work to build up that industry in order to increase revenues. So I suspect Flint’s complaint is just poor-mouthing intended to set up some request for concessions to the brothel industry or a crackdown on independent operators; despite his claim that it’s the economy which has hurt the brothels, the fact of the matter is that it’s a combination of the internet and women’s social progress. Since 1985, the average American woman’s opportunity cost has risen due to increased education and removal of impediments to employment, and it has been demonstrated that women of higher opportunity cost prefer to work illegally rather than submitting to the relatively exploitative conditions in Nevada brothels. The internet then made it much easier for women to make that choice, and so they have; only a hopeless lawhead could fail to understand that arbitrary “legality” is very far down the list of factors used by the typical woman when considering her means of survival.
As a result…prices for sex have fallen. “Instead of paying $400…these guys can now go out and get the same service for a third of the money,” Flint said.
This is an outright lie, as any man who has ever hired an escort in Vegas will tell you. I don’t know if even the streetwalkers there can be hired for $130, much less an escort, and to pretend that’s the “same service” one receives from a brothel is more like something one might expect to hear from a prohibitionist (in close proximity to phrases like “selling her body” and “prostituted woman”).
State officials estimate that there are some 30,000 sex workers just in Las Vegas…“Look in the phone book, there are what, 100 pages for nude dancers who’ll come to your hotel room?” Flint said. “The big hotels have their own girls. The strip clubs have upstairs rooms. You have a variety of different levels of prostitution in Vegas.” With those many layers, the city has no shortage of problems, from violent pimps to the proliferation of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV. “Since 1987, we’ve never had a single woman test positive for HIV who worked in a brothel,” Flint said.
I probably don’t need to remind you that whores are not a significant vector for any STI anywhere in the developed world, but you may not realize that the invasive, degrading weekly disease checks required by Nevada law are one of the reasons so many women prefer to work independently or for escort service owners who treat them like adults capable of taking care of their own health. I’ve also previously addressed the “violent pimp” propaganda and explained how politicians and brothel owners spread it in order to maintain public support for the status quo, but of course that’s not how they spin it:
A PPP poll conducted in 2012 found that 66% of Nevada residents believed that brothels should be legal across the state. Few politicians, however, have shown the political will to take on the issue. “My constituents are not ready for it,” former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman…[said] in 2011. ”They are always ready to have a good discussion because they are smart people, but they are not ready to legalize prostitution because they have moral objections.”
We’ll pause for a few moments here so everyone can finish laughing at the idea that the majority of Las Vegas residents have “moral objections” to vice businesses, and to give y’all time to clean the coffee off of your monitor screens.
Barring a sudden economic turnaround or what he sees as an unlikely political awakening, Flint sees continued trouble for the brothel industry. “I’m an optimistic guy, but I’m not optimistic that this business will bounce back very quickly,” Flint said.
This is the only wholly truthful statement Flint made in the whole article. As an officially-sanctioned but ersatz replacement for escorts, the brothel industry is doomed; its only hope is gentrification, the transformation of brothels into attractive resorts to which men can take their friends, clients or open-minded wives, places which can offer an experience not available in a hotel room or even a typical incall. When in the 1970s and ‘80s strip clubs went from being seedy dives to upscale gentlemen’s clubs, everyone benefitted except the prohibitionists (who had to invent the myth of “negative secondary effects” to shore up their “sin and degradation” catechism); the same thing will happen as Americans lose their ignorance-spawned fear of bordellos. Here’s some free advice, Nevada brothel owners: stop getting in bed with the prohibitionists and instead work toward decriminalization and eradicating stigma. Then you can invest in turning your businesses into showplaces and possibly even franchise operations, and you’ll make more money than you ever did catering to guys who were just too scared to call “illegal” hookers to come to them.
Feminism still feels like someone rescuing me from the patriarchy so that I may be told what to do by “sisters” who need to get their opinions out of my knickers. - Sarah Woolley
Justice minister Francisco Dominguez’s warning…that…men…who seek [paid] sex…will be…[prosecuted] has roiled [Dominican] workers… “There are customers who’ve called us to tell us that they won’t come”…said Carla Matos…who…said she had to become a prostitute…to raise her children…”What we’ll have to do in a couple of days will be to go out and rob and kill people, because imagine, we can’t do nothing else. I will not let my children starve,” [Jennifer] Paniagua said.
Not only is “prostitution” a tagged skill you can select on LinkedIn, there are actually escorts who advertise their services [there]…[but] LinkedIn…now explicitly bans escorts from using the site…The new user agreement states that you must not: ”Create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution” even if [they are] legal where you live…Not only can you list “prostitution” as a skill, you can list a whole lot of other unsavory skills like “rape,” “shoplifting,” “gangs,” “manslaughter,” and “drug trafficking”…
…Shona Langley, a street sex worker support officer, and Charlotte Crossland, a harm reduction nurse…[work for] the Harm Reduction project…[in] Lancashire…twice a week…they load their van with…condoms, panic alarms, needles and bank note checker pens, while Charlotte offers Hepatitis B and other vaccinations…[and] treatment for minor health issues…Shona said: “We don’t judge. We are not here to criticise or bully them into stopping what they do”…
Feminists at Cambridge University lead such privileged, unchallenging lives that they imagine jelly wrestling (girls grappling in gelatin in front of male spectators) has “a significant role to play in the degradation and abuse of women,” and imagine they’ve won a great victory for womankind via a petition which caused the event to be cancelled. Sarah Woolley explains why this is pure bollocks:
…”objectification” is a herd word used by women who can rarely recall the name of their last waitress…If a person sees a woman arse-deep in jelly and regards her as subhuman because of it, then that shit is on them…it takes more than nudity to cancel out a man’s regard for a woman as a human being. There will be misogynists in any crowd but –newsflash- a true woman hater will dehumanise you no matter how you behave or what you wear…Cambridge feminists …[are affiliated] with Object…a group known for lobbying against sex worker rights and for spreading irresponsible misinformation -particularly the fantasy that the Olympics would usher in an “explosion of prostitution.” Also on the list is “Smash Miss Contest” who “set off stink bombs”…at beauty pageants…
…mayoral candidates…argued for tougher penalties. Joseph J. Lhota…[called] for “a john list every day in the newspaper”…Adolfo Carrión Jr…went further, saying he would publish their license plate numbers…the moderator…took note of Edward I. Koch’s controversial directive…to read the names of convicted male customers on air…Christine C. Quinn…said she disagreed with publicizing the names…[but] favored an “incredibly effective” program in Brooklyn…that forces “johns” to sit through a program intended to deter bad behavior…
Translation: ”There’s no evidence whatsoever and the real experts say otherwise, but this makes a perfect excuse to ask for more power to stick our noses into people’s private business.”
Prostitutes helped clean up the streets of Murcia, Spain, in an effort to draw attention to…[a] proposed bylaw…aimed at curbing prostitution and sexual exploitation [which] would damage [their] livelihood…”We’ve spoken with neighbors and local business owners and…they’ve told us that there’s no problem as long as we follow some of the requests that they’ve made, such as sticking to a timetable and keeping the streets clean…That’s why we decided to hold a clean-up day. We wanted to show that we…want to get on well with everyone”…
As I predicted, the cancer of incredibly-broad “sex trafficking” laws based on the CASE Act is spreading, now to Pennsylvania:
…House Bill 663, which was unanimously passed 195-0…expands what the state considers “commercial sex acts” and raises the crime of buying or selling people for sex work from a third-degree to a…first-degree felony. Under the new bill, the definition of commercial sex includes being forced to perform “any sexual activity…in which anything of value is given…or received”…
The bill’s sponsor complains that the “current law is vague”, but what he actually means is that it isn’t vague enough.
Another would-be ally misses the bus by not bothering to check with sex workers first; though she makes several very good arguments against criminalization and recognizes from the title on that sex work is work, she also overestimates the role of pimps and the prevalence of street work, accepts the false “sex trafficking” dichotomy, supports regulation and licensing and ends by undermining her own argument with the typical mealy-mouthed disclaimer, “I am not endorsing the act of selling sex.”
Cecilia Flores-Oebanda has…become the face of the Philippines anti-trafficking movement…but now she is fighting a battle that could truly ruin her. Fraud allegations made by Philippine investigators threaten to destroy her reputation and the anti-trafficking organization she’s run for more than two decades…
Nonetheless, the credulous CNN reporters spends about 95% of the story lauding her and repeating her bullshit stories, apparently forgetting about that word “fraud”.
The owners of an over-21s nightclub in Inverness have been issued a licence to introduce lap dancing…Rhoda Grant…said…“The commodification of woman in society is damaging and I would have hoped the objections raised by the Highland Violence Against Women Strategy Group would have been listened to”…
…Osaka Mayor…Toru Hashimoto…told reporters…that Japan’s wartime sex slave system… “were necessary in order to provide relaxation for those brave soldiers who had been in the line of fire”…Hours later [he said]…he’d…told [U.S. military brass] that…there were legal facilities for releasing sexual energy, and that unless soldiers in Okinawa made more use of similar facilities, it would be difficult to control the sexual energy of the marines…
The media have conflated two totally different statements. What Hashimoto said about military personnel needing whores is true and every experienced commander knows it, no matter what political crap the Pentagon may emit. But that isn’t the same as his disgusting rationalization of the enslavement of the comfort women, who were neither professional sex workers nor volunteers.
“anti-trafficking”…essentialises gender and childhood, it confuses and obfuscates, and…it…acts against the interests of many that it purports to serve…the state is directly and inescapably the source of vulnerability…those formally excluded are given…the right NOT to enter, to be protected from movement. The [victim of "trafficking"]…is supposed to return home. Indeed the narrative is that she wants to return home, and part of her innocence and victimhood is that she never wanted to move in the first place…immigration controls are claimed to be a mechanism of protection for migrants, rather than a mechanism of oppression…
…data is often taken from methodologies that are not…estimates…media…have often reported that 79% of trafficking is for sexual exploitation, based on the “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons” by UNODC…[but] the data is of victims identified by state authorities and of convicted traffickers…The internationally recognized definition of human trafficking states the purpose of human trafficking is for exploitation…yet [it] is…equated with sex work or irregular…migration…as a result…data on trafficked persons almost exclusively focused on women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation…
The feminist antiporn group Stop Porn Culture has sponsored a petition…to change the editorial board and title of Routledge’s forthcoming…publication, Porn Studies…Constance Penley…co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book…[said] “[The petition] reveals a total lack of understanding about academic freedom, academic integrity and the nature of scholarship…and…how desperate the antiporn people are to prevent any research being done that might not support their ideological position”…
St. John’s, Newfoundland has just over 200,000 people, which means fewer than 100,000 males. The escort interviewed for this article (“Iris”) says there are about 30 escorts working there full-time, and doing such good business travelling girls are stopping in as well. Now, ask yourself: is it credible that only about 14,000 of those men have ever paid, that the majority of those who did are now regulars and that those working girls are doing well on an average of 1 client per day? Or is it more likely that the claim few men ever pay for sex is completely absurd? As Iris said, “We wouldn’t be doing this well if your husbands and boyfriends and friends weren’t coming to see us. It’s that simple.”
The laws just don’t make sense. They don’t help sex workers. They don’t protect sex workers. They increase their risks and they make it harder for them to do their jobs. – Chris Bruckert
Ugandan men are even worse about condoms than American and European ones; the sex workers interviewed for this article say that only about 20% of clients will agree to use one, even when the worker tells them she is HIV+. The problem is that many workers there will provide bareback (“live” in Ugandan slang) on demand, so a woman who insists on condoms is at a competitive disadvantage.
Heidi Fleiss…is…helping to renovate Dennis Hof’s Love Ranch…in Crystal, Nevada… “this…was very similar to a women’s penitentiary…You had to go through all these weird bars and buzzers, and someone’s peering out the little peephole, scoping you up and down… It was really a creepy feeling.” [Fleiss says she wants the brothel to be] ”…not the dirty little secret where people drive up and sneak in…and then afterwards they’re full of shame…It’s something where people are so proud to be here, not only do they come back, but bring their friends back.”
In The Client List…Jennifer Love Hewitt plays a struggling housewife who takes a rub-down side job in order to support her kids after her husband disappears. The show…has always struck us as more campy nonsense than an accurate portrayal of the erotic massage business. But how could we tell? We asked an escort to watch the show and help us tell fact from fiction…
Young people being pragmatic and sensible about sex? We can’t have that!
…around 85 per cent of sexually active teens in the Bahamas are engaging in some kind of transactional sex…the majority of middle and high schoolers…are not sexually active. But of those who are, the majority are involved in risky behaviour…Transactional sex…differs from prostitution in the sense that only a portion of the needs of the person providing the sex are met through the practice…“Many young people put themselves through high school and college in this way…They feel that if a man wants to deal with them he has to pay in some way and they are not prostituting themselves by doing this,” [NGO official Prodesta] Moore said…
Somehow I doubt an American court would accept “this isn’t prostitution because I have another source of income” as a defense.
A Coweta strip club was busted on prostitution charges…Cherokee County deputies [investigated] the Secret Cavern strip club [for] a total of four months…[Alcohol Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission] agent [Pedro] Zardeneta…[said] “different agencies from different parts of the state worked well together to keep the citizens safe”…
Dear Michelle Obama…you were recently quoted as saying that Beyonce is a great “role model” to your two daughters…I think it’s time to stop suggesting to very young girls that ultimate feminine success…comes with the…expectation for them to undress…Variations of Beyonce’s body suit can be found in brothels, strip clubs and red light districts across the world – where sex is for sale…Remember that in the USA, the average age of a girl when she is trafficked for sex for the first time is 13…by drug dealers who promise her a celebrity lifestyle, clothes like the ones Beyonce wears…we are feeding a demonic myth that women must make themselves sexually available to enjoy ultimate success…It can take years of a young girl’s life away from her when she tries to escape a life of abuse at home…only to be sold for sex, beaten, and made addicted to drugs…
A study conducted by a University of Ottawa criminology professor has confirmed what sex workers and those in the industry have said and known for years — the laws meant to protect sex workers from exploitation by targeting people who work in the industry but don’t actually do sex work end up putting those who do at much greater risk…These could include drivers…security personnel…website designers or photographers…receptionists…or the more traditional pimps or madams…Under current Canadian laws, all of those people, even the ones doing jobs that have mainstream counterparts, could be criminally charged…[despite the fact that] anything a third party could do to exploit a sex worker is already illegal if it were done to someone else…
…Jules Kim – migration project manager at Scarlet Alliance…told the [federal] inquiry into slavery and human trafficking…[that] the current “scatter-gun” approach in which police look for trafficking victims by raiding Asian brothels was an “enormous waste of time, resources and misdirected energy…that has resulted in a gap between law enforcement bodies and…sex industry workers…People change the nature of their work to avoid that harassment…because constant raids on your business have an implication…None of the cases involved deception or trickery of the fact the person would be doing sex work. Instead of an evidence-based approach addressing real vulnerabilities, Australia’s approach continues to try to detect the mythical trafficking victim and trafficker that is a media-driven stereotype”…
According to a report released in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, watching porn only affects [young adult] sexual behavior in a negligible way. Other influences such as personality type, educational and family background and poverty hold more girth than viewing sexually explicit material. The study…surveyed 4,600…people between the ages of 15 and 25 living in the Netherlands during 2008-2009…
The fight in the SCOTUS over the “anti-prostitution pledge” began Monday. On the side of Good: The Open Society Foundation, the ACLU, the Cato Institute, the Gates Foundation and even such unlikely supporters as Fox News, the New York Timesand MSNBC. On the side of Evil: The usual suspects, including the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Here’s Melissa Gira Grant’s look at the battle-lines as they were set up on Monday; note the important point that the whole thing has been framed as a question of free speech (hence the support of otherwise-hostile media outlets) rather than a referendum on the rectitude of the War on Whores. No matter which way this goes, the persecution will go on until our “allies” stop vomiting out moronic filth like “Sex work is everywhere. It is a brutal system. It is an exploitative system. Nobody thinks it’s OK.”
An excellent article, though I must point out that only someone hopelessly mired in the “left-right” myth could seriously consider Iceland “ultra-liberal”:
Ultra-liberal Iceland wants to ban online pornography…[as] the latest step in its attempts to eliminate the sex industry entirely. In 2009 it introduced fines and jail terms for those who patronise prostitutes (whom it treats as victims). In 2010 it outlawed strip clubs…No country has yet wholly succeeded in controlling commercial sex, either through legalisation or criminalisation…Iceland’s proposal is in its early stages and may lose momentum after an election on April 27th, which the government is expected to lose. But its plan puts it in some odd company. Saudi Arabia similarly bans strip clubs, prostitution and pornography…Prostitution has proved hard…to police and stamp out…[but] regulating pornography is hardest of all. Distributing and selling it has been illegal in Iceland since 1869…[but] a ban would be legally dubious, technically unfeasible and ineffective, argues Smari McCarthy…of the International Modern Media Institute…In an open letter to Ogmundur Jonasson, the interior minister, he and other opponents compared banning online pornography to repression in China, Iran and North Korea. Iceland’s constitution forbids censorship…and…Studies in America, Denmark, Germany…Sweden…China, Finland and Japan…show that as pornography became increasingly available, the number of rapes in those countries remained stable or even decreased…
Florida rapists are cleverer, excusing themselves via the moral panic du jour:
…Police in Florida [went nude] during an undercover prostitution investigation at a Hallandale Beach massage parlor…and…arrested three women…attorney…Howard Finkelstein…said. “It is seedy, back-alley, icky, and we don’t want our cops doing that, especially so when it’s meaningless.” But Florida ranks third in the nation in the number of reported cases of human trafficking…”This is not just an act of solicitation, but an organized crime effort,” [said] Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy…”It is not just a street-walker. It is a more sophisticated operation…”
Linda Fondren, a mayoral candidate in Vicksburg, Miss., not only admits to a past life in prostitution, she says her husband was one of her Johns. ”I was a working girl in a legal brothel over 30 years ago. It’s true, my husband was my client…[we've] been married for 28 years”…Fondren tried to hold off making that admission for weeks…she…[says] she only did it to support herself after she got pregnant at age 14 and…her mom died of cancer…“I hated it. I hated it.” She also said that she would not support legal prostitution if elected…
That last bus-throwing line earns her a nomination for my Hall of Shame, though she’ll have to be still more disgusting to actually be inducted.
After years of dispute, Germany’s center-right governing coalition has agreed to enact tougher penalties for human trafficking and forced prostitution…and [to] more strictly regulate the commercial activities of brothels…brothel operators will need special authorization…authorities will be required to enforce hygienic standards and operators will be screened for prior criminal offences…recently, a report by the European Union…showed that human trafficking in Europe has risen sharply.
Step 4 (early next year): Complain that “criminality” has increased, and repeat step 3. Proceed until full criminalization is achieved.
Down near the end of this article about another idiotic and dangerous “sex trafficking” law is a reason for hope: “A bill focused on tightening punishments for pimps…[which] would require some to register as sex offenders, is progressing in [Texas]…Opponents believe the…requirement for sex offender registration may overwhelm an ‘overly broad database that includes too many offenders who are not threats to the community’…” In other words, these opponents recognize the “pimp menace” as hype and the “sex offender registry” as far too large. The same could be said for the reporter covering this story in which a Florida police department is claiming that the law says it “has to” humiliate so-called “sex predators” with huge red warning signs in their yards; she seems extremely skeptical of these theatrics, and asks a number of very sensible questions which the police chief of course answers dishonestly and smugly.
There are people who believe that migrant women who sell sex need to be saved; that they must want to go home; that they must want another job and they have 200-year-old ideas about what those jobs should be. -
Laura Agustín
My favorite comic book artist of all time has passed away at the age of 87. It’s impossible to overstate his influence on the industry, nor how iconic his style was for those of us who grew up with Silver Age comics. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, take a moment to look at this portrait of one of my favorite heroines and this 8-page story (written by Gardner Fox).
Homestead Officer Ronald DePellegrin, 48, admits that he allowed Diana Gross, 26, to give him oral sex before he informed her that he was actually a cop…attorney…Michael Waltman…says DePellegrin’s conduct is unacceptable…”The police…are engaging in the exact type of…activity that they’re…[allegedly] trying to protect the community from”…
What do you do when you’re detained by powerful officials, everything you say is presumed deceptive, arbitrary “evidence” is held against you, and you’re treated like a moral deviant?…It happened three times in two weeks — being detained by U.S. border officials…my…“sexy underwear” were mentioned…[and my] condoms…were looked upon scathingly…[one official told me] that adultery was a crime in America — a crime that he could deny me entry for…I was detained, yelled at, patted down, fingerprinted, interrogated, searched, moved from room to room…without food, water or being told what was going on…
Furry Girl explains how laws supposedly intended to “protect children” were really intended to harass the porn industry:
…”2257″ is shorthand for the…irritatingly-named Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act…when you appear in adult productions in the US, you as the performer/model must give the production company/photographer two forms of identification and sign…paperwork promising that you are over 18…fake IDs [exist]…and any contract a minor signs is void anyway [so this]…doesn’t do a thing to guarantee age…Any random person can search for companies reselling and licensing adult content, and with a purchase, buy performer’s legal names, social security numbers, and addresses…a determined stalker can comb through enough adult content resellers and have a good shot at finding their target…Independent pornographers…have to choose between a fear of federal prosecutions and prison time…and a fear of…stalkers coming to our homes to rape or assault us…
One of the few concessions New Zealand has made to “sex trafficking” hysteria (and one of the few things that keep it from absolute decriminalization) is its ban on international students in sex work. Of course this creates a bottleneck which leads, predictably, to the very type of exploitation the law is supposedly intended to prevent. The New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective of course understands this and is calling on the government to end the restriction; Catherine Healy explains:
Just recently I was dealing with a case of a young woman who…had gone into this agreement with a brothel operator who said…I’ll look after your money until you need it to pay for your student fees, and of course when that time arrived, the money wasn’t handed over…She couldn’t stomp off to the police, she couldn’t talk to…the university, so really…the law…contributed to her exploitation…back in 2003…the then minister of immigration had hatched this dopey clause in the 11th hour, and we said look, this will have the opposite effect of what you’re intending…
A Kuwaiti woman who once ran for parliament has called for sex slavery to be legalized – and suggested that non-Muslim prisoners from war-torn countries would make suitable concubines. Salwa al Mutairi argued buying a sex-slave would protect decent, devout and “virile” Kuwaiti men from adultery because buying an imported sex partner would be tantamount to marriage…[she] even suggested that it would be…better…for women in warring countries as they might die of starvation…offices could be opened to run the sex trade in the same way that recruitment agencies provide housemaids…
To sum up: prostitution under individual control = sin. Compulsory prostitution under government control = good.
Michael Byars’ effort to modify [Iowa] sex offender laws was a case study for effective citizen activism…until…he was arrested and fired from his job…[because] he didn’t update the state sex offender registry to reflect his voluntary, unpaid and, so far, largely successful attempt to persuade lawmakers to change the law…Byars…was convicted in 2008 of lascivious acts with a child…[for] a short, consensual relationship with a 13-year-old high school freshman while he was an 18-year-old high school senior. The conviction…saddled him with a lifetime…sentence that requires him to check in regularly with a parole officer and stringently limits his interaction with children, including his own son…
24-year-old Byars was such an amazingly successful lobbyist that an opponent called the cops, claiming that his advocacy is a “job” and demanding he be arrested for failing to register it (despite the fact that when he tried to do so he was told it was unnecessary). The cops were of course happy to comply, because we can’t have those dirty girlfriend-daters demanding their rights.
…Vancouver police are investigating the disappearance of 16-year-old Isabella Castillo, and her family…thinks she’s caught up in sex trafficking because one of her friends told them they’d seen her around with another girl who is known in the local sex-trafficking world. That girl is used by sex traffickers to recruit other girls by befriending them. She then lures them in, grooms them and gets them to run away. The girls are never heard from again…
“The local sex trafficking world?” Was it really necessary for cops and fanatics to fill the family’s head full of this kind of nonsense? Young women don’t leave home because they’re induced to run away by “traffickers”; they leave because home has become intolerable for some reason, often sexual abuse. And if they enter the sex trade it’s because the laws have made that their only means of support, not because they’re “trafficked”.
A prostitute in Bulowayo, Zimbabwe…[apparently] died during an encounter with a customer…[but] came back to life just as officials placed her in a metal coffin…she suddenly woke up in a panic screaming, “You want to kill me!“ at the officers…Seeing a woman presumed to be dead spring back to life shocked onlookers, many of whom ran away in fear…
Apparently the word “legal” is not part of this reporter’s vocabulary: “Vicksburg [Mississippi] mayoral candidate Linda Fondren and her husband once owned a [brothel] in Nevada…it’s not clear…if the Fondrens are still involved…[and] Linda…denies she ever was…” After the actual evidence, the fact that Mr. Fondren once publicly defended adults’ right to have consensual sex with other people is presented (presumably on the “only a witch…” principle).
Another interview (this one in Reveal) with Becky Adams about her plans for a brothel for the disabled: ”More than 700 people have already agreed to work for a reduced price…’We’re expecting the local council to object, but we are prepared to take the argument all the way to the European Court of Human Rights‘”…
[In November 2000]…a Swedish radical feminist named Alexa Wolf…showed her “documentary”…Shocking Truth…[which]…shows what seems to be a rape scene…Wolf…[slowed] down the film making it appear as the woman was helpless and drugged…[thus creating] a moral panic…The pay per view-channels promised that there would be no “violent porn”…Video stores removed porn from the shelves. 57% of the Swedish population wanted to ban ALL porn…in conservative Norway we had more or less the same reaction…The woman seen “drugged and raped” in the film…is…award winning porn actress…Mila Shegol [who stated in an interview that] she was not on drugs, she was not raped, it was all acting, she actually took part in directing the scenes…she was not a suffering, oppressed or exploited woman, and she had no idea there had been made a documentary about her alleged rape…
Here’s that weird “pay back” euphemism again: “A…brothel owner who made thousands exploiting vulnerable women was…ordered to pay back…£75,000 of his sordid gains within six months [or] he [will] be locked up for…two years…” Because money gained via business is “sordid”, but that gained via extortion is “just”.
Montana lawmakers are looking at ways to prevent and punish human trafficking in response to reports of increased prostitution [among]…people who have come to find work in the Bakken oil boom…there is no actual proof that trafficking is a problem in Montana, said…Rep. Sarah Laszloffy…But without the language on the books…authorities [lack] the tools needed to track it…
…Melissa Woodward…helps train law enforcement about how to spot a child that may have been sold into prostitution…”Does she have physical markings on her? Tattoos that are often visible…things like wearing very provocative clothes…”
You heard it here first, kids! Tattoos, sexy clothes and looking for work are all signs of “sex trafficking”! If you see a woman with any of those telltale signs, call the cops immediately so she can be “rescued” into the nearest jail!
Like an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.-Eric Hoffer
Though moral panics may differ in their particulars, they all share two important characteristics: the menace is claimed to be both enormous and all-pervasive, and to represent an existential threat to Our Treasured Way of Life. During the “Red Scare” of the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that communists had so infiltrated the United States that there was practically “a red under every bed”; he stated that 20% of all government employees were communists, that they presented a clear and present danger to American liberty, and that it was therefore permissible to abrogate that liberty in a crusade to ferret out communists and neutralize the threat they presented. And today, we are repeatedly told that “traffickers” are everywhere, that they are lying in wait on the internet to abduct “innocent children” into “sex slavery”, and that widespread human rights violations and the expenditure of millions are necessary to stop them. Every small town and rural state in America scrambles for its place on the “trafficking” gravy train by insisting that “trafficking happens here, too!” and eagerly labeling every streetwalker a “victim” and every hapless client or driver a “trafficker” in order to create statistics where there were none. Larger towns join the “king of the hill” competition, each proudly claiming to be a leading source, destination or “hub” for the imaginary slave caravans (usually on the bizarre basis that interstate highways pass through the area). And even poor countries within the American sphere of influence get into the act, accepting whatever arbitrary “grade” is assigned them by the US State Department in its methodology-free “TIP Report”, then persecuting whores and clients in a twisted game of “fetch” to please their prudish masters.
Stories spouting these myths are so common now, I could literally reprint one every day and not ever run out of them; to demonstrate, here are six examples from a six-day period early last month. The first appeared on March 6th and comes to us from the big booming metropolis of Rapid City, South Dakota:
Human trafficking for sex is not a crime that only occurs in other countries or in large cities. It also happens in South Dakota, according to U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson…trafficking is more prevalent in the Sioux Falls area, but it will happen eventually in Rapid City, Johnson said. Sex traffickers target…vulnerable girls that they ultimately end up selling for sex…Once they’re inside, women feel they can’t ever leave the commercial sex-trafficking ring…
Then 87 minutes later and roughly 600 kilometers south, we got this one:
Human trafficking is occurring all over the state, according to Nebraska Family Council Executive Director Al Riskowski, and current laws do little to prevent or punish offenses…Riskowski said that Interstate 80 is part of the main route that victims, most often female minors, are shuffled along as they are forced from city to city by their captors…[a proposed law] would make it nearly impossible for an escort service to operate within the state because it would require these businesses to register for a permit…Riskowski said he was compelled to take up the issue of human trafficking after finding escort services in the Lincoln phonebook. He went to the chief of police, who said he knew very well that the escort services were prostitution rings. “My only thought was, ‘How could they be advertising prostitution in the phonebook?’” Riskowski said. “The ad even said that a minor would be sent out on request”…
He was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to discover escort services in the phone book! That last whopper is incredible even by prohibitionist standards; “Minors available upon request?” Really? Does Riskowski assume his audience can’t look the ads up for themselves, or just that they won’t? The hilarious lawhead delusion that passing a permit law will somehow stop harlotry isn’t limited to the hinterlands, though:
This week the Huntington Beach City Council voted in support of…[a] proposed ordinance [which] would require establishments to obtain certification from the city and would prohibit massage therapists from performing services in their own homes…Police Chief Kenneth Small…urged council members to pass the ordinance…and…expressed significant concern for the sex workers themselves. “Overwhelmingly based on our investigations in Huntington Beach and throughout Orange County and Southern California, the women involved in most of these massage parlors are trafficked in,” said the Chief, who explained that many were forced to work six days a week at the coercion of pimps and panderers…In 2011 the [Orange County] Weeklyreported on the issue of human trafficking, child sexual slavery and the difficulty in accurately reporting its numbers. While crusaders such as Ashton Kutcher were pegging the figure between 100,000 and 300,000 sex slaves in America, most researchers offered significantly smaller numbers…
The Orange County Weekly is a Village Voice property, hence the skeptical tone which is wholly absent from this lugubrious idiocy published three days later in Denver (despite the fact that it does quote sex workers rights advocates down near the end):
Describe the tragedy of a 12-year-old being controlled by someone…who takes payment from scumbags for acts that shatter the child’s innocence, and repeatedly damage her body and soul…”We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of cases involving the commercial sexual exploitation of children, forced and coerced prostitution and organized prostitution,” according to Sgt. Dan Steele of the Denver Police Department…It’s called sex trafficking when a vulnerable person (of any age) is forced, coerced or lured…into providing sex acts for cash…the prostitute is a victim who may not even recognize that fact…Nina Martinez, executive director for Street’s Hope…[says] “We are unique in that we are faith-based, and right now a lot of our funding comes from churches”…Billie McIntire…[of the] Sex Workers Alliance Network…says the issue of sex trafficking has been seized by…”abolitionist feminists” and members of ultra-conservative Christian groups, as a way to help push their desire to eradicate the sex industry entirely…
Yes, you read that correctly; a prohibitionist group claims that being religious makes it “unique”. But while FBI collaborations with local cops in Colorado are liable to involve “sting” operations and psychological abuse of sex workers, those conducted in small countries to satisfy State Department demands involve far less refined tactics:
…immigration officials, along with San Fernando CID officers, swooped down on the popular Classic Seamen Hotel…[in] Marabella, where they found 76 scantily dressed women, allegedly soliciting clients…the women ran at the sight of officers but were easily captured as the premises is surrounded by high walls topped by barbed wire…In 2012, the US Department of State’s Human Trafficking Report said that [Trinidad and Tobago] was “a destination, source and transit country for adults and children subjected to sex trafficking”…
…members of The Jacksonville Bar Association…[were told that] Florida ranks third in the U.S. in human trafficking cases behind California and New York…2.5 million people are in forced labor at any given time as a result of trafficking, 1.2 million children are annually trafficked, a majority of victims are 18-24 years of age and 95 percent of victims experience physical or sexual violence during trafficking…”Human trafficking rivals Microsoft in what it makes annually in sheer profits. It’s one of the greatest growth industries that we currently have in the world, which is a sobering statistic for all of us,” said [Terry] Coonan [of the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights]…the…trafficking symposium…included Telisia Espinosa telling her story of being a victim of human trafficking…Members of the law enforcement panel agreed that one of the problems in human trafficking is that some people don’t think that they are victims…
Just a few days after Albany Law School had the sense to feature an actual sex worker on the panel of its “trafficking” symposium, the Florida Bar Association instead featured an attention-seeking religious fanatic whose unverifiable horror tales contradict both the experiences of thousands of sex workers and plain common sense. But that’s the way it is with moral panics; the numbers grow ever higher, and the stories ever more ridiculous, until even the lowest common denominator can no longer believe in them and the whole hysteria collapses like a punctured balloon.
In the field of human trafficking, I detest data because most of it is made up and bogus. - Martina Vandenberg, Human Trafficking Legal Resource Center
There is no law that says…condoms [are] illegal…and yet NYPD…routinely…[uses them] as…evidence for…prostitution…one city agency conducts a public-health campaign and…[those] who take advantage of it are…promptly arrested by a different city agency—leading to cases being thrown out of court, a suppressed and redacted…study of the problem, and a bill to address the matter in…the state legislature…arresting people because they are in possession of condoms…distributed…by the city itself…looks an awful lot like entrapment…
I love seeing profiles like this one of Australian escort Grace Bellavue; the more the public sees of real sex workers, the harder it will be for prohibitionists to sell their stereotypes and myths about us.
A sex-trafficking case got the hook in…Brooklyn…when prosecutors revealed their victim was advertising herself as an escort…the woman, now 19, who claimed defendant Robert Pannell forced her into prostitution in April 2011…advertised herself online…last month. The stunning revelation contradicted the accuser’s testimony that her ordeal as a 17-year-old runaway was the only time she ever turned tricks…
The Women’s Legal Centre…in Cape Town…provides legal services for sex workers…[who] face routine harassment, intimidation, and…abuse from police…[who] threaten, arrest, or detain [them] for days at a time…many are released only after paying large fines…WLC began its outreach by offering weekly group workshops…[but] soon expanded, employing four former and current sex workers as paralegals…
An internal investigation of the Wilmington [North Carolina] Police Department’s narcotics enforcement team revealed inadequate documentation of funds, poor…supervision…and a “code of silence” cover-up of a March 2012 undercover prostitution operation…Police Chief Ralph Evangelous…[claimed] the undercover operation was in response to a citizen complaint about…escort services…the narcotics enforcement unit came up with a “unique approach” in [which]…more than $2,000 in city funds…were used…
Translation: The narcotics squad had a party but got caught, and it took the police chief a year to come up with a cock-and-bull excuse.
A federal appeals court struck down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law…a decade after…Lawrence v. Texas…The appeal originated in a 2005 case in which a 47-year-old man was convicted of soliciting a 17-year-old girl for sex. The girl refused and reported the incident to police, resulting in a “crimes against nature” charge…
Surrogate motherhood is a serious crime against women’s human rights…Even when the woman has voluntarily become a surrogate…she gives up the rights to her own body…surrogacy…opens the door for viewing women and children as goods, and to regarding women as containers…having children is not a human right…
Nor, in the minds of neofeminists, is using one’s natural abilities in a way which violates the neofeminist religion. Though this collectivist stance is evil because it denies women the right to control their bodies, it is more philosophically consistent than that of the US (which allows surrogacy but bans sex work) and Australia (vice-versa). But lest you believe that Swedish neofeminists are truly motivated by concern for women’s well-being:
Equality Minister Maria Arnholm wants Sweden to keep the right to deport women whose relationships with Swedish spouses end within two years…The…rule was introduced in an effort to clamp down on sham marriages and to put an end to so-called “wife imports”. But it has been blamed for forcing women to remain in abusive relationships…[and] a 2012 government-ordered inquiry [recommended it] be abolished…The Centre Party’s Women’s Association has also demanded that the…rule be…[replaced with] “immediate action” against “the practice of wife importation”…
Prohibitionists just love to tout “diversion programs” which supposedly “help” whores instead of criminalizing them, but if these are so great why do they need cops to force women into them, and why are their standards so strict that very few qualify to avoid jail? In a recent example from Tucson, Arizona, members of SWOP warned sex workers away from a sting they had learned about, but 13 women still got caught…and only four qualified to escape jail. The scheme’s organizer Steve Kozachik, a local politician with a reputation as a control freak, claimed SWOP’s protecting women from cops was “unnecessary” and that “This is not anti sex worker.” Tell that to the nine women whom the prohibitionists “helped” into cages and branded with lifelong criminal records for trying to earn a living.
The verb is transitive: someone gives power to another, or encourages them to take power or find power in themselves. It’s used among those who want to help others identified as oppressed…[the] emphasis [is] on the helper and her vision of her capacity to help, encourage and show the way…To empower me as a sex worker you assume the role of acting on me…
…a California…law prohibits women from being compensated for donating their eggs for medical research, despite payments to subjects in other human research studies…[and] eggs…donated for fertility treatments…[but] a recently introduced bill…would allow women to be compensated…the California Family Council…[claims sponsor Susan] Bonilla’s bill opens up “dangerous medical ground.” The…anti-abortion group…said eggs should be treated like organs and should not be sold…Bonilla said…”I think women are able to decide for themselves if they want to participate in a clinical trial”…
…The dopamine theory of addiction is extremely popular today…[but] if you view addiction as essentially about reward (pleasure), surely that means…anything pleasurable could…be addictive?…if…addiction is the direct consequence of over-indulgence in a reward, then aren’t you saying that reward itself is ultimately what’s addictive?…If everything from food to friends to music are rewarding because they trigger dopamine release, then surely all of those things could be ‘addictive’…The more fun, the more (potentially) addictive…this idea – for all its medical, neurobiological, scientific language – actually undermines the concept of addiction as a ‘disease’ and reduces it to what amounts to a moral failing – it casts addiction as over-indulgence…
Ministers, the police and social workers have been accused of a “shocking” failure to prevent the spread of modern slavery in the UK, leading to sexual exploitation, forced labour and the domestic servitude of adults and children…Describing government ministers as “clueless”…[about] human trafficking…the most exhaustive inquiry yet conducted into the phenomenon concludes that the approach to eradicating modern slavery is fundamentally wrong-headed. Instead of helping vulnerable victims…the legal system prosecutes many for immigration offences…
Though I hate to defend government officials, I feel compelled to point out that it’s difficult to adapt to ever-expanding definitions, and impossible to produce enough “victims” to satisfy “estimates” which are essentially just made up.
Gloria…Giammalva…was [sentenced]…to…[21] months in prison and to be partially responsible for a $600,000 money judgment…U.S. Attorney Trent Shores…[claimed] the conspiracy…charged $30 per encounter, which he said meant that 20,000 commercial sex acts were performed by the women who were exploited…Giammalva…conspired with others in the operation of a multistate prostitution business that coerced and enticed women across state lines to participate in commercial sex acts…
Trim off all the dysphemisms and what remains is: she owned an escort service and the prosecutor lied about the fee to ratchet up the number of “counts”.
Dallas officials are trying to push their “prostitution diversion” scheme on the rest of Texas as a replacement for locking women up. While any move away from incarceration is good news, the motivation is a desire to save money rather than a recognition that criminalization of consensual adult behavior is wrong; whores are still regarded as “criminals” to be “rehabilitated”, and all are assumed to be miserable victims who want out of sex work.
When Rob Arthur (author of You Will Die) noticed that Chester Brown (author of Paying For It) had expressed interest in his book in the comment thread of this post, he asked me to forward his email address to Chester and the two of them each sent the other a book. I am both pleased and honored to have facilitated the meeting of two awesome authors whose works I greatly enjoyed.
…Steph Key will introduce new laws to [the South Australian] Parliament…to decriminalise all forms of sex work, after a previous attempt was rejected by one vote in November. The new Bill, based on a New Zealand model, would…allow local government…regulatory control…but…prevent councils from outlawing brothels simply because they offer sex work…Ms Key and [Status of Women Minister Gail] Gago were confident the new attempt was more likely to pass…
…This figure comes from a paper that surveyed only street-based sex workers, who represent less than 20% of prostitution…we should be…wary of…any group that throws around this number as if it represents sex work in general…Similarly, we are regularly told that the “average” age of entry into sex work is 13. This is actually incredibly mathematically unlikely, unless there is an epidemic of infants being sexually exploited we don’t yet know about. Former librarian and escort Maggie McNeill has broken down why this oft-repeated assumption is incorrect…The Comic Relief site continues: “The UK is a major destination country for trafficked young people. They are at a very high risk of being sexually exploited.” No source is given for this statement – probably because no such data exists. Confirmed trafficking cases in the UK are more likely to enter other jobs like agriculture, hospitality, and domestic service than they are to become sex workers…
…Prostitution in the U.S. was largely legal until changing women’s sexual norms led to a “white slavery” panic that resulted in the closing of brothels with the White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act in 1910…The reality was numerous young women were drawn into prostitution for “mundane” economic reasons [but] the ambiguous language of the Mann Act…was used to criminalize forms of consensual sexual behavior for many years…The [American] conception…developed because a crusade against prostitution…[conflated it] with human trafficking, a claim for which there is no evidence, even according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. An executive summary of human trafficking put forth by the non-profit Center for Health and Gender Equity concludes that “conflating human trafficking with prostitution results in ineffective anti-trafficking efforts and human rights violations because domestic policing efforts focus on shutting down brothels and arresting sex workers, rather than targeting the more elusive traffickers”…investigations…[focus] almost entirely on commercial sex. It is a structure built on vice squads rather than labor investigators…
This essay first appeared on Cliterati on February 17th; I have modified it only slightly so as to fit the format of this blog.
The fashionable anti-sex work dogma of our times is that prostitution is “paid rape”, an exertion of “patriarchal dominance” by violent men acting out their misogyny through the “buying” of women. The most fanatical of the True Believers proclaim that all sex workers are in reality “slaves” who are “owned” by pimps and traded like cattle, while those with a slightly less tenuous grasp on reality will (if pressed) admit that it actually isn’t like that most of the time, but that we simply don’t recognize our enslavement because we suffer from “false consciousness” as a result of the “social construction” of our sex roles under evil, evil Patriarchy. “End Demand” strategies, the Swedish model and “sex trafficking” hysteria all draw on this bizarre paradigm, which is an almost exact reversal of the typical harlot-client relationship; there is a vulnerable party in the transaction, all right, but it isn’t the woman.
Because I insisted that my escort service advertising appeal to my own aesthetics, it was perhaps more “female-friendly” than that of some of the other agencies; as a result I attracted a disproportionate number of young, inexperienced applicants. And because the three other agencies with which I was friendly all knew that I was more maternal and patient than they were, they usually sent inexperienced girls to me as well. Many a time I sat on the couch with a young lady who was understandably nervous about going on a call for the first time, and asked how she should handle her fears; I replied that it was not really all that different from a blind date, and that after a week or so she would discover that the clients were often far more nervous than she was. I never once had a girl come back to me weeks later and say that I was wrong, and many took the time to tell me how right I had been.
As I explained to those who wanted me to elaborate on the subject, the client faces just as many unknowns as his escort. Even after phone or email conversation, neither knows what the other will really be like in person; either could intend to cheat or harm the other, either could be unbalanced or stoned, and under criminalization either could be a cop. And while it’s certainly true that the average man is much stronger than the average woman, many clients are elderly, infirm or in poor health while escorts tend to be young, active and physically fit; it’s also not unknown for female thieves to work with a male confederate in order to entice men into private quarters with intent to rob them. Furthermore, on average the client has a lot more to lose than the sex worker; while he is likely to be established and married with a reputation he does not want to lose, she is likely to be far less well-known in the community. And if she’s done her screening properly, she knows his legal name and a great deal of personal information, while he knows only her stage name and (if he’s done his screening properly) her professional reputation.
As if all that weren’t enough, there’s the familiarity factor; every person gets more comfortable with doing something through repetition. The more anyone goes into a similar situation the more he learns its ins and outs, its highs and lows, its likelihoods and its rarities; he develops instincts regarding it, is able to assess potential problems, and learns how to solve or escape those problems. But while the typical sex worker might see ten or twenty clients per week, the typical regular client won’t exceed ten or twenty escorts per year; a hooker who’s been on the job for a month has the equivalent experience of a punter who’s been hiring professionals for years. And that’s really an apples-to-oranges comparison; while probably 60% of sex workers see that typical rate, most clients only indulge themselves occasionally rather than regularly. Experience leads to mastery and confidence, which increases self-esteem; over 72% of escorts report that their self-esteem increased after entering the trade. Clients, on the other hand, have to contend with demeaning or demonizing cultural messages about men who buy sex in addition to their doubts or fears about a comparatively less familiar transaction.
As any experienced escort could tell you, it shows. Many clients are as nervous as the proverbial long-tailed cat, sometimes to such a degree that they get cold feet and cancel (or merely fail to show up or answer the door). Others require “liquid courage”, sometimes to the point that it impairs their performance; others insist on looking around for hidden pimps or asking questions intended to reveal police affiliation or (in the case of younger girls) legal age status. I receive far more questions from men than women, and many of them reveal other fears and concerns: they worry about penis size, performance, unattractiveness or disease; about accidentally causing harm or contributing to exploitation; about ethics, guilt and the proper way to treat their escorts; and even about falling in love with a working girl. I’m currently corresponding with one gentleman who is so nervous that he has angered several ladies by his vacillation, and has sought my advice in overcoming it. To be sure, these men are not the majority; most clients seeing a particular escort for the first time are either a little shy or else no more visibly unsure than a man going into any new business relationship. But the very nervous are a substantial minority, and vastly outnumber the abusive monsters on which prohibitionists are so firmly fixated.
You don’t know this world. You’re making judgments [based] on what you see on television. - Suzy Favor Hamilton
Sometimes my highly-organized format makes it difficult to write about breaking news stories; if the story is too involved for a short item in “That Was the Week That Was”, but the schedule is too tight to bump anything for a full-fledged column, I either have to postpone my coverage (possibly past the limit of freshness) or just ignore it. This was the case with the outing of Suzy Hamilton; appearing as it did on Yule Eve, there was simply no way to work it in before King Day and what I wanted to say wouldn’t fit into a TW3 blurb. This turned out to be a good thing, however; my thoughts about Hamilton, her choices and the judgmentalism and evil-mindedness of the public reaction would barely fill a paragraph, but my opinions of the yellow press coverage are a different matter. And because I’m going to say these things without raising my voice, perhaps they’ll get more attention now that the media noise has died down.
Regular readers of this blog understand that there is nothing “shocking”, weird or even terribly unusual about an educated, accomplished woman doing sex work; the extremely high income and self-esteem boost alone (Hamilton is known to have a history of depression) are more than enough reason, no matter what filthy-minded reporters and pundits have claimed. Furthermore, how she conducts her private life is no more anyone else’s business than how gay celebrities conduct theirs, and if anyone disagrees I suggest he insert his opinions (and the computer on which he types them) into the least comfortable orifice available. While I might question Hamilton’s wisdom in outing herself to some clients, and her morality in continuing to escort (supposedly) against the wishes of her husband, I do that as her sister harlot who knows what our world is actually like, and not as some holier-than-thou, hypocritical ignoramus who has appointed herself moral arbiter over another’s life. Had she asked me for advice I would have told her exactly what I just wrote, but out of concern for the damage her poor choices might inflict upon her, not for some imagined injury to “society” or “decency”.
Have you actually read any of the rubbish these pompous busybodies wrote about a woman who never did them any harm? The pearl-clutching in the original Smoking Gun article is practically audible; it reads like something written by a 70-year-old spinster Victorian schoolmarm rather than by an early-21st century journalist who evidently considers herself urbane:
…she inexplicably shared her true identity with several male clients, believing that her secret was somehow safe with strangers who paid for her company by leaving envelopes stuffed with cash…Hamilton expressed concern that her story would be “sensationalized” by a reporter. It is hard, though, to imagine how that could occur. The actual events of the ex-Olympian’s past year already seem like the fever dreams of a Lifetime producer who decided to adapt Luis Bunuel’s Belle de Jour for basic cable…it was…a credulous notion that client and escort were morally bound by some implicit pledge of omerta. Why would her secret be safe with guys about whom she knew nothing (except that many were paying for sex while their spouse was back home)? These johns slept with an attractive former Olympian, an All-American girl with a Wikipedia page and a Nike commercial on YouTube. How could they not boast about their costly Las Vegas escapades?…
The author also brandishes the word “illegal” as though it actually carried moral weight, which I submit makes her far more naïve than Hamilton could ever be. The Daily Beast was even more astonishingly ignorant, attempting to harass Las Vegas escort services by phone for information on competitor Haley Heston (the agency Hamilton worked for) and publishing Melissa Farley’s paranoid drivel as though it constituted something other than the diseased masturbatory fantasies of a dried-up, deeply frustrated misandrist:
Melissa Farley…says that…whoever is behind Haley Heston is most likely a pimp or group of pimps. “They are receiving money from prostitution and they have a great deal of control – both physical and mental – over the women that are in their employ”…
Obviously, Hamilton must have been suffering from “false consciousness” when she said, “I take full responsibility for my mistakes. I’m not the victim and I’m not going that route.”
The only exception to this parade of condemnation came from, interestingly enough, Fox News. Though their consultant, Dr. Keith Ablow, felt it necessary to include truly moronic statements such as “[prostitution] is extremely dangerous psychologically and medically,” to make some highly questionable associations and to add two rather creepy caveats to his conclusion, these do not ring true with the rest of his article and I suspect they were either demanded by editors or voluntarily inserted by Ablow to soften the blow of an article in which he subtly denies three prohibitionist myths and calls for legalization:
…there are likely women whose interest in being hired for sex is so strong that, for all intents and purposes, it is their “sexual orientation”…these women are not different…from other women (and men) who want to be hurt during sex…A woman wanting to sell herself because she thinks it is exciting is not much more dramatic than a man who wants to dress as a ballerina in order to feel excited…there are [also]…women (and men) in the business of prostitution for whom it carries no stigma and is lucrative. If we assume that Ms. Hamilton had ten clients a week…then she could have been making $300,000 a year in cash…If she had 20 clients a week (and some of the prostitutes I have treated as a psychiatrist have had 20 clients a week), then she would have made $600,000 a year –in cash…high-priced prostitution is…available in every city. Millions of American men with families and professions are customers. And not every prostitute is devastated psychologically by the experience. As one lawyer and prostitute put it to me…“I suppose that…[it’s] more complicated to have a boyfriend…but I don’t know if it’s more complicated than getting back home from working as a police officer or pediatric neurosurgeon or gynecologist. Lots of professions are incredibly complicated, emotionally”…I take no moral position on the matter…it is time to legalize prostitution, put in place safeguards to help protect those who participate in it, and, of course, tax it.
In case you’re counting, he denies the myths that sex work is inherently devastating, that hookers see dozens of clients per day and that only a small fraction of the male population are clients. And though he does seem to buy into the “damaged goods” myth and clearly has a skewed perception of the fraction of whores motivated by psychological drives rather than pragmatic concerns, it’s heartening that he nonetheless sees criminalization as an unproductive evil; furthermore, it’s very telling that a so-called “conservative” news source is actually promoting a more enlightened view of the subject than two other sources which do not share that political bent.
To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. ― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat
Because I’ve done so many Q & A columns, I’m starting to see some repetition in the questions readers ask. This isn’t exactly surprising, considering that there are over 900 daily columns now and even a person who’s good at using indexes and searches might not phrase the question in the same way as the original questioner. So, I’ve decided to publish this linked list of all the questions I’ve answered so far, rephrased for simplicity and clarity; within the next few days it will be duplicated in a static page that will grow as I answer new questions, and that I can then link in each new Q & A column.
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers. - Thomas Pynchon
I’m getting so many questions nowadays that I find myself stacking them months in advance (these were answered in late October). That’s just silly, so I’m going to start answering these individually in short columns rather than saving them up for the ends of months. If you have a question of your own, please email me at maggiemcneill@earthlink.net.
My girlfriend and I are interested in engaging the services of a sex worker as an ongoing part of our relationship. While there seem to be many online resources, we’d like to understand how to narrow down the choices to someone who will be of the high caliber (we are in Dallas). Any guidance on how to sift through all of the information to make sure we connect with a reputable person?
Living in Dallas has its advantages and disadvantages for you; on the one hand you’ll have more selection than in most cities and may pay less, but on the other hand you have many more names and profiles to go through. Unfortunately, due to criminalization it’s hard to be “sure” of anything in this business, but I have a couple of suggestions that will help you. First of all, make use of ECCIE, the most popular escort review board in the Dallas area. Find a woman you both like who advertises that she enjoys working with couples, and check her reviews; even if none of them are for couple calls specifically, that shouldn’t really matter because her friendliness, reliability, customer service and the like will be just the same for a couple as they are for an individual. If anything, a good escort will be even more on her “best behavior” with another woman present. Once you find someone who seems right to both of you, contact her in whatever way she asks on her website, providing all the information she asks for, and make sure you specify it’s for a couple. Don’t be surprised if her rate is a little higher for a couple than for a man alone, but it probably won’t be double (if it is you may want to consider someone else, because unlike dealing with two male clients, a couple is NOT twice the work). Let her know that you’ve discussed this together and you’re both game; you’d be surprised how often men will inquire about couple calls without discussing the matter with their ladies first! By assuring her that you’re not wasting her time you are more likely to start out on the right foot.
It’s possible that even if you do all your homework, the experience may not be as good as you wanted; remember, there are three interpersonal reactions to consider here rather than only one. If that happens, it doesn’t necessarily mean three-ways aren’t for y’all; it may just mean the chemistry in that particular case was wrong, and you need to try another escort. Have y’all read my two part “Couples” column? The second part gives examples of a nearly-perfect couple call, and a disastrous one; it may help y’all to gather your thoughts before proceeding.
You’ve often warned against people seeking escorts via Backpage, but what if there isn’t any alternative? My state is mostly rural, and barely listed on sites like ECCIE (if at all).
It’s not quite fair to say that I’ve warned people against Backpage; what I actually said is that if you really want to play it safe, maximize the chance of finding exactly what you want and minimize the chances of a run-in with cops, it’s probably better to contact only established, well-reviewed escorts. It’s definitely true that Backpage has a larger fraction of amateurs, set-up traps, scammers and low-quality girls, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some good girls there as well; in fact, most of the active escorts I know use Backpage in addition to the hooker boards, especially when travelling. In order to use Backpage safely you should probably avoid very young girls and those whose advertising seems to indicate a lack of experience and good judgment; vulgar phraseology is a dead giveaway, and very low prices are a sure sign of a scam. If the lady seems established but the ad is recent she is probably on tour, so try to find previous ads in whatever city she claims to come from. Even if a girl doesn’t advertise on one of the review boards, that doesn’t necessarily mean nobody has reviewed her; check for that in her home city (e.g., “Heather from Backpage” or the like; if she changes her stage name frequently you don’t want to see her anyhow). Tineye is a very useful tool; with it you can search to see if her picture has appeared elsewhere, and if you discover (or even just suspect) that the picture is stolen stay far away, because that signifies either a scam or cops. Finally, trust your instincts and use common sense, and insist on talking to her by phone at least once for a few minutes before meeting; I always advise escorts to do that in order to feel clients out, and it works the same way from your side as from hers.
I’ve seen references to screening of clients from you and from escort ads; I gather it involves getting enough information about the client to be sure that he’s not a cop, but exactly what information is asked for? How does one “pass” a screening without also exposing oneself in the event that the whore is arrested, as in the Kennebunk case?
As in so many other cases, the answer is “it depends.” Escorts aren’t only trying to screen out cops, but rather any kind of dangerous or exceptionally troublesome characters. That’s why so many depend on referrals: other escorts can report not only whether a potential client is what he represents himself to be, but whether he’s unnecessarily rough, habitually late, prone to haggle or stand girls up, etc. For an escort whose primary screening is the checking of references, the necessary information threshold is really quite low: she simply needs to be reasonably sure that the man with whom she’s dealing is the true owner of the alias to which the references refer. Most simply assume that he is, which is a safe assumption in the vast majority of cases (but obviously doesn’t preclude cops managing to pressure him into turning over his information for them to misuse). Other escorts ask for much more information, possibly including work telephone numbers and the like; some will only see men who have been screened by a verification service such as P411. And a large fraction simply trust their guts, as nearly all of us did in the days before the internet had quite so much information on it.
When I owned my agency, I never kept records for any clients who paid cash; the only information I had for them was names, phone numbers and addresses on the day’s notebook page, which was shredded at the end of the night (and would have been shredded immediately had cops started pounding on my door). However, a client can’t count on that; most escorts and agencies do indeed keep records, sometimes very detailed ones. So there’s only one real way for a client to ensure he can pass most screenings, yet not reveal anything cops or prosecutors could make use of: he must establish a consistent and unvarying “hobby” alias with a name, screen name, email address and phone number which he never changes, yet bear no ties to his real information; fortunately, prepaid cell phones and anonymous webmail make this easy. He must then find a few girls who will see him on instinct, use them as references for other girls, and thus build up a reputation. He won’t be able to hire every escort he might fancy because some insist on verifiable identifying data, but a well-established alias will get him in most women’s doors as long as he continues to treat every lady he dates honorably.
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There’s so much more to see in this short paragraph than meets the uninformed and uncritical eye; let’s take it in order of appearance. First, it’s interesting that brothel owners are complaining about plans to tax them when they themselves agitated in favor of it for years, because they recognize that once a government becomes used to income from an industry it will generally work to build up that industry in order to increase revenues. So I suspect Flint’s complaint is just poor-mouthing intended to set up some request for concessions to the brothel industry or a crackdown on independent operators; despite his claim that it’s the economy which has hurt the brothels, the fact of the matter is that it’s a combination of the internet and women’s social progress. Since 1985, the average American woman’s opportunity cost has risen due to increased education and removal of impediments to employment, and it has been demonstrated that women of higher opportunity cost prefer to work illegally rather than submitting to the relatively exploitative conditions in Nevada brothels. The internet then made it much easier for women to make that choice, and so they have; only a hopeless lawhead could fail to understand that arbitrary “legality” is very far down the list of factors used by the typical woman when considering her means of survival.
I probably don’t need to remind you that whores are not a significant vector for any STI anywhere in the developed world, but you may not realize that the invasive, degrading weekly disease checks required by Nevada law are one of the reasons so many women prefer to work independently or for escort service owners who treat them like adults capable of taking care of their own health. I’ve also previously addressed the “violent pimp” propaganda and explained how politicians and brothel owners spread it in order to maintain public support for the status quo, but of course that’s not how they spin it:
