Links #148

Daddy, I love you so much that I want to cut your head off and carry it around so I can see your face whenever I want.  -  Unnamed child

There was an unusual degree of backlash against the police/nanny state this week; unfortunately, it was more like thrashing about a bit in a fitful sleep than actually waking up, considering that 80% of Americans think that it’s perfectly OK for the government to restrict civil liberties for “safety”, and 26% think they haven’t been restricted enough yet.  And though one of the week’s top stories should have been a former FBI agent’s revelation that the US government now records every single domestic telephone call without bothering to get a warrant, I’ll bet this was the first most of you even heard of it.  There, I figured I’d get the worst of it out of the way up front; most of the rest aren’t quite so bad.  Jesse Walker was our top contributor this week; you can thank him for the first video and all the links above it.  The second video was provided by Nick Tolman, and the first three links between the two by my cat, Wendy Lyon and Luscious Lani (in that order).  The next three were supplied by Grace (except for “AIDS patients” via Women With a Vision), and the rest by Brooke Magnanti  (“Google”), Teller (“conjoined twins”), Walter Olson (“poor pets”), Kevin Wilson  (“Muppets”), EconJeff (“porn law”), Scott Greenfield (“stop & frisk”), and Lenore Skenazy (“tools”).

• Best “selfie” of all time.
• Songs that sound like other songs.
• A collection of quotes to feed your paedophobia.
• Faux superheroes vs. faux anarchist clowns armed with silly string.
• Scientists support girl charged with felony for a mishandled experiment by “tweeting” about all the stuff they’ve blown up.

• Australian Cat Ladies buy abandoned fundamentalist site; hijinks ensue.
• The newsworthy part is that he was actually held accountable.
• Artist draws himself in 100 different animation styles.
• Welcome to our world, drivers and AIDS patients.
• Never do business with a cop, either.
• Paging the Doctor!
• Let me Google that for you.
• Chemical-free chemistry sets.
• 23-year-old conjoined twins are becoming teachers.
• Florida court declares it’s a felony for poor people to own pets.
• Peanuts recalled because bag lacks the words “contains peanuts”.
• Which Muppet would be most likely to successfully assassinate Hitler?
• What’s the difference between a porn magazine editor and a criminal law attorney?
• NYPD officials say they instituted “stop and frisk” program to discourage cops from laziness.
• Teacher suspended, charged with “possessing a weapon” for showing ordinary tools to students.

From the Archives

• Congresscritters challenge the ruling striking down the “anti-prostitution pledge”, while others toothlessly attempt to censor Backpage.
• Reading Pennsylvania sex work articles is like looking into a dirty toilet.
• Lawyer proposes decriminalization of drugs and prostitution in Detroit.
• Humorless neofeminists crucify a respected surgeon over a silly joke.
• The sleazy deal to impose the Swedish Model on Western Australia.
• Do you advocate that escorts adhere strictly to a referral system?
• I decide that the outing of anti-whore politicians is commendable.
• Lawheads love classifying various activities as “legal” or “illegal”.
• Reporter thinks that a cop raping a hooker is a rare occurrence.
• Real-life superheroes offer to protect working girls in New York.
• Cops in riot gear and masks save Houston from evil harlots.
• This is sleazy even by Ashley Madison’s abysmal standards.
• An early draft of one of my favorite books is auctioned off.
• Another serial killer targeting whores, this time in Detroit.
• A biography of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “D.C. Madam”.
• My previous columns for May Day, May Eve and Floralia.
• Octomom says a masturbation video isn’t “really” porn.
• And all it took was triple jeopardy and lying to the jury.
• Drug decriminalization actually decreases usage rates.
• How can I make sure that a lady doesn’t have a pimp?
• Do you mind editing or deleting reader comments?
• Sadistic freak arrested after torturing sex worker.
• Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever.
• Arthur Huntington, AKA Agent Cheapskate.
• The FDA claims wet-nursing is dangerous.
• Genesis, Pretty Baby and Looney Tunes.
• Why “safe harbor” laws don’t work.
• CNN claims fat is like heroin.
• Politician.  Whores.  Yawn.
• Wet shelters.

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The Auctioneer Effect

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.  -  Barry Goldwater

I will never cease to be amazed at the inability of statists to recognize that the expansion of government will never stop until it is somehow forced to.  Every year the American governmental machine adds new employees, new “mandates”, hundreds of new laws and thousands of new regulations (all with the force of law and most with criminal penalties).  Government now consumes approximately 40% of the gross domestic product, and given that any decreases have been both minor and short-lived there is little reason to believe it will not exceed half within the lifetimes of most of y’all reading this.  Meanwhile, the scope of government reach has also increased, though at a much higher rate; modern governments interfere in their citizens’ lives to a vastly greater extent than at any time in history, and in some countries (the US especially) this is more or less a one-way ratchet because only a miniscule fraction of laws enacted, no matter how odious or tyrannical, are ever repealed.  Once a legal precedent is established it provides a base for still more laws, and so the mound continues to grow year after year, getting taller and wider until some irresistible force levels it or (more likely) it collapses of its own weight.  Early last month, an article by A. Barton Hinkle described it this way:

…Call it the auctioneer effect.  Having approved a new law or program to address a circumstance in one year, politicians confront a dilemma in subsequent years…the problem does not disappear.  It wouldn’t do to conclude that, since previous laws and programs have failed, perhaps the problem lies beyond government’s ability to solve.  Answer:  Write more laws and fund more programs!  As in a genuine auction, the winner is the pol who can propose the most.  You can see the auctioneer effect all over the place.  You can see it in public education, where ever-increasing expenditures produce flat test scores, which are then met with calls for even more spending.  You can see it in the war on poverty, which now boasts 126 separate means-tested programs at the federal level alone.  You can see it in gun control, where “high-capacity” once referred to 20- or 30-round magazines but now applies…to those holding as few as eight.  And you can really see it in the war on crime, in which politicians seek to out-Roy Bean one another by perpetually ratcheting down thresholds for offenses – and perpetually ratcheting up penalties for same…

Of course, those who believe in the magical power of government to perform virtually any task with meat cleavers, sledgehammers, steamrollers and guns don’t see this as a problem, but they forget that once a tool or weapon is added to the governmental arsenal there is absolutely nothing to stop others from using it for their own purposes:

…Because they cannot ban abortion outright, conservative politicians have tried to discourage it in heavy-handed and sometimes humiliating ways.  Thirty-four states impose regulations specific to abortion providers; 35 require counseling, and 26 impose waiting periods.  Eight…now require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound.  Last year [Virginia] lawmakers…drew national scorn by proposing…an invasive transvaginal ultrasound…then [last month]…the Indiana Senate approved a bill to require…transvaginal ultrasound…[and demand] that establishments dispensing pills such as RU-486 meet the same construction standards as those performing surgical abortions…

Texas saw that and raised the standards to those for an ambulatory surgical center, a move that will close 38 of the 44 clinics in the state.  Then at the end of March, North Dakota raised that still further by requiring an abortionist to be a doctor with hospital admitting privileges; another measure passed at the same time banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected (possibly as early as six weeks, when many women are just beginning to realize that they’re pregnant).  Of course, this is old hat for sex workers; countries where sex work is legal often try to pass so many ridiculous restrictions that it’s very difficult to actually work within the law, and the newest “sex trafficking” laws define “prostitution” and “coercion” so broadly, at least a third of the population could be charged with “trafficking” and threatened with decades in prison and lifelong “sex offender” registration.  This isn’t a joke, y’all; it’s not a “fallacy”, or “alarmism”, or “anti-government propaganda”.  This is real, and happening in every area of government.  When you arm “your” politicians to give you the goodies you want and to oppress your enemies, you inevitably arm “their” politicians to give them the goodies they want and to oppress their enemies…and the only ones who win are the politicians.

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Links #143

I am appalled at the utter waste of US tax dollars.  -  William Shatner

Like a runner exhausted after a race, the internet was much quieter this week after last week’s link frenzy.  That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of “tweets”, links and blog posts flying about, but most of them seemed to be concentrated on a smaller number of subjects and few were noteworthy enough to inspire me  to grant them space in this column.  In keeping with last week’s Star Trek theme, we heard about how the IRS blew $60,000 on a terrible parody of the classic show, but it was “terrible” in the sense of “jejune” rather than in the sense of “ludicrous”; I couldn’t get through a third of it, so there’s no way I’ll feature it here.  Instead, I present a “bath salts” scare video produced by the US Navy, which I found in a Reason feature entitled “5 Government Videos Every Bit as Terrible as the IRS Star Trek Parody“; if you haven’t seen the Star Trek abortion yet and you’re feeling masochistic, you can watch it there.  In contrast, I’ve also included a good didactic video, a 1974 PSA on carpooling which I enjoyed so much as a child I used the word “kalaka” for decades afterward.  Radley Balko was our champ this week, providing everything down to the first video and the second half of “fascism” (the first half was supplied by Wendy Lyon).  The second and third links between the videos were contributed by  Jesse Walker, and the fourth and fifth by Gideon’s Trumpet.

• De-extinction?
• Fast track to cop promotion:  murder someone.
• Surgeon falsely jailed for over a year in order to seize his property.
• Beating someone for filming you?  Make sure he’s the only one doing it.
• Cops used black neighborhood for SWAT training because it’s “realistic”.

• Welcome to our world, punks.
• The Muslim foot bath that wasn’t.
• The United States of Autocomplete.
• Prosecutor files 141 charges for one murder.
• Congress is planning to make the CFAA much worse.
• Counselors at Scientology drug rehab traded inmates drugs for sex.
• Under fascism, every institution or large company is an arm of the State.

From the Archives

• An inability to tell fantasy from reality would normally be considered evidence of psychosis, but in law enforcement it’s a job requirement.
• Once you win your rights it’s OK to join in with stigmatizing other groups who haven’t yet, just to show you’re part of the gang.
• Book reviews:  All or Nothing, Freakonomics, Harmful To Minors, Tickle My Tush and A Vindication of the Rights of Whores.
• Were many hookers molested as children? Are many drug addicts? And are most lesbians?
• It’s only OK to grope people if one puts on a uniform and does it without their permission.
• Neofeminism is rooted in a deep-seated hatred of one’s own femininity.
• The drive toward increasingly vicious anti-whore and anti-client tactics.
• How do you expose a man pretending to be a woman on a chat site?
• The Ontario Court of Appeal upheld two-thirds of the Himel decision.
• Why do mature escorts want sex when many mature women don’t?
• Helping legal workers to conduct legal business is a crime in France.
• Even when the Feds botch an extortion scheme, they win anyway.
• The predictable failure of the first legal male prostitute in Nevada.
• Activism, backward Satanic messages and my target audience.
• Canadian neofeminists sneak over to Israel to poison the well.
• How South Africa and the US changed places on human rights.
• Police reports are more useful when they contain information.
• Natalia Fabia loves hookers…as a promotional gimmick.
• What’s the best way to perform oral sex on a woman?
• Another criticism of Nick Kristof’s anti-whore crusade.
• Acknowledging the ape does no harm to the angel.
• La Belle Otero, the last of the Grandes Horizontales.
• The chief con man of a group of scammers resigns.
• The weird cognitive impairment of prohibitionists.
• Another day, another politician, another whore.
• “The healthiest sex industry ever documented.”
• The truth about the birth control “controversy”.
• Would an HIV-positive escort quit working?
• A short glossary of prohibitionism.
• New Orleans, Cthulhu and Fear.
• How do Kegels exercises work?
• Modern-day Lysistrata.
• Karayuki and japayuki.
• Timing is everything.

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Links #141

I don’t call him my boyfriend.  He’s more a good spirit friend who happens to be from the octopus race.  -  Stephany Fay Cohen

Sometimes it becomes obvious early in the week who’s going to be the lead contributor, but other times it’s close up until posting time.  And once in a while I have actually collected the leader’s links at the top of the draft, only to have him fall behind in the end.  That’s what happened this week; Jesse Walker only surpassed Radley Balko on Friday afternoon, and then by only one link.  All of the links down to the first video are Jesse’s, as is the last part of “welcome to our world”; the first two parts were contributed by Marginal Utilite and Mike Siegel respectively, and the first three links after it are Radley’s.  Both videos were supplied by Grace; the first one features her kind of guy (her own inventions aren’t quite that Goldbergian), and the second is a primer on a  Supreme Court case I’ve mentioned before.  ”Warrant” and “judicial overreach” were provided by Gideon’s Trumpet, “unnecessary quotes” by Popehat, “new teeth” by Luscious Lani, “penis thieves” by Michael Whiteacre and “errant shooting” by Aspasia.  This week we’ve also got an unusually-high number of articles by link contributors, as the bylines will show.

• Mars peopled by one vast thinking vegetable.
• Pushing back against “zero judgment” policies.
• Woman says her alien lovers are better at sex than any Earthling.

• Welcome to our world, drug users, gay people & domestic abuse victims.
• Cops shoot robbery victim eleven times, then arrest him to cover it up.
• 38 funny local television news captions.
• An encouraging development.
• “Where’s that warrant now?”
• I would call this judicial overreach.
• The “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks.
• The newest criminalization cash cow:  school truancy.
• In the future, it may be possible to induce growth of new teeth.
• Publisher says free speech is bad because he’s afraid of zombies.
• US Air Force shoves drone attack statistics down the memory hole.
• Arizona tried to execute a crime victim on the word of a known liar.
• Mike Siegel dismembers absurd claim that only misogynists like big tits.
• Those who think the US isn’t yet a police state really need to read this.
• West Africans panic over thieves stealing men’s penises via black magic.
• Prosecutors charge man with first-degree murder for allowing his adult wife to voluntarily consume a nontoxic substance.
• If I went on a rampage, firing wildly into random vehicles, somehow I doubt it would be referred to in the media as an “errant shooting”.

From the Archives

• An interview with Stanley Siegel, whose Psychology Today sex blog was cancelled for being about sex.
• In every kind of bondage, government creates the legal climate that allows oppression to flourish.
• The absurd results of following premises of “consensual crime” laws to their logical conclusions.
• A cautionary tale about the dangers of believing in governmental power to alter reality.
• One of the larger prohibitionist groups of the first “sex trafficking” panic.
• Feminists are starting to realize that neofeminist policies hurt feminism.
• The tale of a parallel Maggie in the world envisioned by Ray Bradbury.
• The cause of sex worker rights could use a little help from our friends.
• Another good, clean charity refuses money from nasty, dirty whores.
• In which I actually agree with a prohibitionist district attorney.
• In the UK, being a cop confers expertise in oncology research.
• The bizarre looking-glass world of sex work prohibitionists.
• In Mumbai, there is a bank which serves only sex workers.
• In California, crime is whatever school officials say it is.
• The underage whore who became a fashion designer.
• Michael Weinstein opposes HIV prevention measures.
• A two-part Q & A session with activist Jill Brenneman.
• Just how old is the “world’s oldest profession”?
• Reviews of four movies with hooker heroines.
• Tyrants find neofeminists to be useful idiots.
• How Switzerland deals with streetwalkers.
• PayPal backtracks on a censorship policy.
• Man dies while visiting his sugar baby.
• Iranian women’s topless protest.
• The Healing Power of Sex Work.
• Another Canadian serial killer?
• Man’s inhumanity to whores.
• A few things I did last March.

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That Was the Week That Was (#311)

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

Lack of Evidence

It’s good to see the media finally noticing this:

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…

Nor are the arrests limited to sex workers; as I’ve explained many times, laws which violate whores’ rights invariably violate everyone’s.

Real People

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.

Check Your Premises

This is only “stunning” to those who believe in the “pimps and hos” myth:

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…

Backlash

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…

Recognizing Doubletalk

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.

Peeping Toms

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…

One Size Fits All

As you might expect, Swedish neofeminists do not like surrogate motherhood  and consider it a form of “human trafficking”:

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”…

It Looks Good On Paper

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.

Politicizing the Personal

Dr. Laura Agustín feels the same way I do about the concept of “empowerment”, as she explains in this older essay she recently republished:

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…

Scrambled Eggs

…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”…

Saint Death

Jesse Walker published a good short piece on Santa Muerte which includes links to a recent AP article, an FBI scare-screed and an essay comparing anti-Santa Muerte hysteria to the Satanic Panic.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Neuroskeptic points out the deep connection between addiction rhetoric and crypto-moralism:

…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…

Finding What Isn’t There

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.

Obfuscation Via Dysphemisms

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”.

Coming and Going (TW3 #35)

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.

Book Reviews (October 2012)

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.

Hard Numbers (TW3 #48)

…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…

That’s the Ticket! (TW3 #138)

Dr. Brooke Magnanti on Comic Relief’s subscription to prohibitionist lies:

…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…

No Friend of Ours

In the process of criticizing Nevada’s proposed “Everyone is a Sex Trafficker” Act, Jennifer Reed also debunks the “sex trafficking” panic:

…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…

Comfort Zone

I wrote:  “…many European countries seem more interested in ‘trafficking’ as an excuse to restrict immigration than as a genuine concern for the human rights of migrants.”  Jim Cusack of The Independent wrote:  “The Department of Justice and the courts are turning down ‘nearly all’ asylum requests from African women who say they fled [to Ireland] to escape sex traffickers in other European countries…”

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That Was the Week That Was (#137)

I was not the only one who left crying after being pressed to talk in detail about our…sexual experiences and desires…some of the audio we provided could have sounded like it belonged in a porn, rather than in a critique of it.  -  Beth Brigham

Don’t Buy It

Melissa Gira Grant on how the “gypsy whores” myth directly harms sex workers:

…the modern sex worker is believed to follow a…migratory path…the World Cup, the Grand Prix, the  Super Bowl – all supposedly draw thousands of women offering paid sex.  It’s…the kind of thing you could imagine in a dusty smut book, or serving as winky fodder for escort agencies and strip clubs in their seasonal marketing….we were told that during the 2012 Olympics, London was to be “flooded” with prostitutes, and that for the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, the city would host a “dark underworld” of illicit sex-for-sale. Like all fantasies, the “roving sporting sex workers” trope [is] mostly harmless…until seized upon by those who find it…politically useful…in London…police raided brothels, arrested sex workers, and threatened them with further arrest if they returned to their neighborhoods…A similar pattern…played out in New Orleans in the days before the Super Bowl…Fox News had a camera crew follow a team of volunteers as they attempted to rescue “sex slaves” from streets and strip clubs…With nearly any woman…a potential target…it may be a minor miracle that the New Orleans police department has reported only eight arrests…

Backward, Turn Backward

I can’t even imagine living in the looking-glass world prohibitionists inhabit:

…a survey by the Immigrant Council of Ireland has found…that by far the biggest fear about paying for sex was not that they would be caught but that they would have a bad experience or contract a disease…Of the 58 punters [who answered]…16 (27.5%) said they had [at some point changed their minds after meeting the prostitute]…“six stated…the person appeared controlled, five…because the person appeared unhappy, four…because the person appeared too young, two…because the person appeared unwilling, while two…because the person appeared intimidated, ‘hurt or injured’,”…Denise Charlton…said…“We have now heard from the buyers themselves that such laws would be a deterrent…We know too that the image of the happy, independent hooker which is being portrayed by those opposed to new laws is not the reality; 24% of buyers reconsidered a transaction because they believed the women and girls involved were controlled, unhappy, too young, unwilling, or intimidated.”

Beside the fact that 58 self-selected people is too small a sample to “conclude” anything, the figures suggest exactly the opposite of what Charlton claims.  Only 27% have ever in their lives encountered such a girl (not 27% of all encounters); furthermore, their refusal testifies against the myth that men will eagerly hire coerced women, and finally the option of reporting those situations to the police would be closed by client criminalization, which is precisely the opposite of the stated goal of “protecting” sex workers.

Blasphemy

This must-read profile of neofeminist anti-porn crusader Gail Dines by her ex-disciple Beth Brigham paints a chilling portrait of the brainwashing that goes on in “women’s studies” programs; the similarity to narratives from survivors of other cults is unmistakable, and Brigham’s observation that much of the prohibitionist myth of pimp “recruitment” and “exploitation” of girls more accurately resembles their own behavior is spot on.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

Tracy Clark-Flory can always be counted on to debunk sex hysteria; here’s a short but sweet entry on “sex addiction”:

…“Inventing Sex: The Short History of Sex Addiction”…published in the March issue of the journal Sexuality & Culture, isn’t an objective scientific study.  It’s a paper by cultural historians at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, that attempts to document the growth of the concept of sex addiction…the paper’s pull-no-punches thesis [is]:  “We argue that this strange, short history of social opportunism, diagnostic amorphism, therapeutic self-interest, and popular cultural endorsement is marked by an essential social conservatism–sex addiction has become a convenient term to describe disapproved sex.”  Many of these points should be familiar, especially if you read my piece on sex addiction’s critics…

Presents, Presents, Presents!

This week I received a copy of Soiled Doves, a short history of prostitution in the American West, from Elisabeth Whispers.  Thank you, Elisabeth!

Backwards Into the Future (TW3 #6)

“The Push to Decriminalise Sex Work in Kenya” is a discussion paper from an African think tank which “explores the dangers associated with sex work, the protest movement in Kenya to decriminalise it, and the potential benefits of decriminalisation.”  I’m sure you can guess what conclusion it reaches.

Useful Idiots

Wisconsin expands its police state:

Efforts to collect DNA samples would expand to include any adult or juvenile arrested on a felony charge — and anyone convicted of a crime — under a budget proposal Gov. Scott Walker announced…Walker also announced plans…to allow GPS monitoring of certain people receiving first-time restraining orders who are found to be at higher-risk to cause serious harm…and…[an] increase for the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to add five employees to investigate child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of children…Walker’s plans to expand DNA collection…raised the ire of civil liberties advocates…

If politicians had any sense, they would wait for the outcome of trials involving similar laws before wasting millions on a program that might be recognized as illegal.

The Camel’s Nose (TW3 #16)

…CISPA—the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act…would have effectively [required]…private-sector businesses to hand ordinary citizen data…to the U.S. government in order to thwart primarily cyber…[or] terrorist attacks.  This, as you might expect, caused an uproar among the online community…the White House…threatened to veto the bill…But now…two separate reports…suggest CISPA could be heading back to the Congressional table…[and] President Obama…[has also issued] his own executive order…

The Pygmalion Fallacy

Upcoming erotic game Custom Maid 3D will be bundled with a very special controller…Ju-C Air…is a wireless masturbation toy that will respond and react in real time to your stroke speed and depth, making this motion control of a very particular sort.  Those motions will also cause the in-game characters to react accordingly, too, with different characters reacting, um, differently…Ju-C Air…also has an analog stick and an action button as well as a right and a left click…[so] players don’t even have to take their hands off their penis while playing…

Pyrrhic Victory

Wendy McElroy on “Is America a Police State Yet?”:

If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America’s slide through the nine rings of political hell.  A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens…[it] maintains…control through the pervasive surveillance of peaceful citizenry, through a vast number of laws with draconian enforcement, and by converting rights into privileges that can be withheld…This describes America.  Surveillance of daily life has soared; even the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the “right” of police to perform warrantless searches.  A vast array of laws now dictate the minutia of life, from what you may not eat to the light bulbs you may not use as well products you must buy…A special police force called the Department of Homeland Security…functions without transparency or accountability.  Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim…The difference between America and a communist regime lay in its institutional protection of the individual against the state.  That difference no longer exists.

Backwards into the Future (TW3 #27)

A southern Chinese province has stopped sending prisoners to labor camps, becoming the first in the country to take steps to phase out the much-criticized system…Yunnan’s top law enforcement official Meng Sutie announced…that the province will no longer send people to labor camps on the grounds of threatening national security, petitioning by causing unrest and smearing the image of officials…and…is suspending…sentences for people charged with other offenses, such as drug use and prostitution…

Worse Than I Thought

As I’ve previously explained, any totalitarian law which passes nowadays will invariably be used as the model for similar laws in other jurisdictions:

…Nevada Sex Trafficking Bill AB67 [redefines]…Pandering…and…Living from earnings of prostitute…as “sex trafficking,” thus carrying harsher penalties and requiring registration as a sex offender…Does [this] include…family members supported by…a woman working legally in a Nevada brothel?  Pages 27-28 redefine terms so broadly as to apply to most consensual adult relationships, including marriage…“‘Prostitution’ means engaging in, agreeing to or offering to engage in sexual conduct with another person in return for a fee, monetary consideration or other thing of value…‘Sexual conduct’ means…any intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body or any object manipulated or inserted by a person into the genital or anal openings of the body of a person…”  Is a medical doctor a prostitute for accepting money for a gynecological exam?  Is the husband who drove his pregnant wife to the doctor a sex trafficker?…

Dirty Laundry

This article is two years old, but it’s an interesting short history:

Monto, in the heart of Dublin…was once the biggest…red-light district in Europe.  Celebrated in song and story, it was where Leopold Bloom went for sexual humiliation and where a young Edward VII was said to have gone for some high-end thrills…At its height…1,600 women worked in Monto…but…within only a few years of the foundation of the State and the accession to power of the Roman Catholic church…War was declared on Monto.  The new Catholic state stormed into action and a force of gardai…raided Monto at midnight on March 12, 1925, and literally threw the women working there out on to the street and into the Church-run slave-labour laundries…

Thought Control

New findings on Fredric Wertham, the fanatic who whipped up a moral panic over comic books and almost destroyed the industry in the early ‘50s:

…Wertham’s personal archives…show that the doctor revised children’s ages, distorted their quotes, omitted other causal factors and in general “played fast and loose with the data he gathered on comics,” according to an article by Carol Tilley, published in a recent issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History.  “Lots of people have suspected for years that Wertham fudged his so-called clinical evidence…but there’s been no proof,” Tilley said. “My research is the first definitive indication that he misrepresented and altered children’s own words about comics.”  Wertham died in 1981 [but] his archives…weren’t made widely available to researchers until the spring of 2010…

This sort of prohibitionist behavior is already very familiar to regular readers.

That Old Black Magic

The “Juju sex slaves” myth just keeps on going like a zombie; the most telling aspect of the narrative is the way it clearly links “sex trafficking” hysteria to the Satanic Panic, much as the Swedish Könskriget cult does.

Presents, Presents, Presents! (TW3 #50)

Eric Berkowitz , author of Sex and Punishment, on Reason TV:

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn (TW3 #134)

Filipino sex worker rights advocates call for true decriminalization rather than the legalization erroneously labeled as such by politicians:

…An NGO called “Women Hookers Organizing For Their Rights and Empowerment (WHORE) is treading the thorny path toward government recognition of this history-old job…[an advocate called] Tex said…there are about 500,000 sex workers in the country…“But we are not going for decriminalizing sex workers while criminalizing clients like the Swedish model…It didn’t even work there”…

The article is much better than the propaganda pushed by American journalists; it shows that opponents support criminalization of women and mentions UN support for decriminalization.

Due Consideration

Looks like the US isn’t the only regime using this concept:

The Queensland police union is calling for tougher laws to send risk-taking pregnant women into safe houses in an effort to monitor their behaviour…[saying] the rights of an unborn child should be considered ahead of the mother…Union president Ian Leavers says the state should be able to intervene in cases where children are at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome and drug addictions…

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Wednesday Links

Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.  -  Genesis 3:19

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the solemn liturgical season of Lent; because Church doctrine formerly forbade the eating of meat (and other indulgences) during the season, “Fat Tuesday” was a sort of last goodbye to meat and other pleasures for the next six weeks.  Even the word carnival (whose meaning has shifted a great deal in English, especially American English) was originally derived from the Old Italian carne levare, “taking meat away”.  And though I’m no longer Catholic, I think the modern world has suffered for the lack of holidays like Ash Wednesday and the Day of the Dead, which were intended to remind us of our own mortality; certainly little tin gods and “safety”-hysterics alike could benefit from such rituals at least semi-annually.  In keeping with that thought, today’s first video (which I discovered on EconJeff‘s website) is a reminder that even one of the great necessities of life can kill you.

Everything down to that video was provided by this week’s top contributor, Jesse Walker; those between the videos were contributed by Popehat (“Twitter felony” and “pulp generator”), Radley Balko (“forbidden fun” and “insane judge”), Dean Clark (“cops at play”), Amy Alkon (“imaginary weapons” and “TSA generator”), Nun Ya (“cop gropes woman” and “illiterate librarian”), Grace  (“handicapped parking”), Aspasia (“spiders”), and Franklin Harris (“Mr. Rogers”).

• Tyrannical valentines.
• Cops pretending to be dead kids.
• It’s nice to see democracy beat fascism once in a while.
• Only Republican maps have the magical power to force people to do evil.

• Arizona politician wants to criminalize parody Twitter accounts, while one in Georgia claims that “No one has a right to make fun of anyone.”
• Entire Miami police squad fired after video shows cops shopping, dining and snogging while ignoring 911 calls.
• High school student suspended for picture of a weapon, and a second-grader for a wholly imaginary one.
• Cop follows pregnant woman, restrains and gropes her, then tries to talk his way into her house.
• Workers paint “handicapped parking” markings around woman’s car, then have it towed.
• Judge declared insane and therefore fit to return to the bench.
• How an illiterate librarian foiled the book-burners.
• The pogrom of August 1^st, 1988.
• Welcome to our world.
• It’s raining spiders in Brazil.
• The TSA statement generator.
• Mr. Rogers meets The Incredible Hulk.
• The customizable pulp magazine cover generator.

From the Archives

• If ignorance about sex is grounds for a court order forbidding it, neofeminists and religious fundamentalists need to start worrying.
• In New Zealand, even prohibiting streetwalkers from working in certain areas requires a new law.
• Most people have the sense not to act out abduction fantasies in public.
• Attractive female cops destroy the lives of high-school boys via trickery.
• Sex cannot be an addiction; those who disagree are selling something.
• African countries which are more civilized about sex work than the US.
• Police violence against whores, and follow-ups to those examples.
• Femen protests are less annoying if you just look at the pictures.
• No matter which direction the cash flows, it’s whores who suffer.
• My little sister’s peerless recipe for chicken and andouille gumbo.
• The tale of an escort who falls in love with a most unusual client.
• The prostitute who didn’t want Charles Dickens to “rescue” her.
• Meet Bethany St. James, Jill Brenneman and a sex worker mom.
• A study identifies the genes that cause gendered behavior.
• Must every strong urge now be described as an addiction?
• A prohibitionist “survivor” attempts to infiltrate my blog.
• Josie Arlington, one of the great madams of Storyville.
• A California woman claims porn can’t be copyrighted.
• Streetwalker accused of “knowingly” spreading HIV.
• Yet another debunking of the “gypsy whores” myth.
• Former madam tries to cash in on prohibitionist lies.
• Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
• How well-chosen pictures increase blog traffic.
• There’s more than one way to skin a lawhead.
• A priest who campaigns for sex worker rights.
• Whores are no different from everybody else.
• Walking stereotype’s lawsuit is dismissed.
• Wannabe pimp falls for Super Bowl hype.
• Sex, love and money in Cambodia.
• Another “dog bites man” thing.
• All prohibitionism is the same.
• What Would Orrin Hatch Do?
• Potential HIV vaccines.
• Deadly butt injections.

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That Was the Week That Was (#135)

Sex workers have a special place in society that is never rewarded or recognised.  -  Derek Freedman

No Other Option

My Cliterati article for last Sunday was “Skin To Skin”, a strong criticism of the cruelty of denying commercial sex to men who can’t experience physical intimacy in any other way; the very next day an English council provided a perfect example of that cruelty by announcing an “investigation” of a nursing home which allowed residents to hire sex workers, and I explained what was wrong with that in this week’s essay, “Caring Professionals”.  Then there was this item from Bosnia:

Members of a…wheelchair basketball club are launching a campaign to legalize prostitution…to help disabled people “achieve their right to love.”  Marinko Umicevic, president of the club Vrbas, said Wednesday that Bosnia had to catch up with 21^st century Europe, where…some people with disabilities “even get state subsidies to pay for sex.”  Umicevic said some of his players had never had sex and legalizing the sex trade would help people like them achieve their basic rights…

Something Rotten in Sweden

Prostitution stings are disgusting no matter how they’re justified, but there’s something particularly vile about using “sex trafficking” as an excuse and then arresting hookers as well:

A multi-agency prostitution sting conducted earlier this month on behalf of National Human Trafficking Awareness Month has netted the arrests of…46 [people]…most for misdemeanor solicitation of prostitution…[but] five [for] women alleged to have posted sex ads…Sen. Leticia Van de Putte…[says] she intends to propose…a bill that would pave the way for victims of human trafficking to sue websites that make money off prostitution ads…

Senator Van de Putte could save the state of Texas a lot of money by simply researching the fate of similar ideas.

Decentralization

Bitcoin has become so popular, and its value has risen so much against that of national currencies, that Bloomberg is concerned that “virtual money could undermine the role of central banks”, which as Reason explains is exactly the point.  The end of governments’ ability to directly meddle with the world economy can’t possibly come soon enough to suit me.

Dirty Whores

Dr Derek Freedman told the Irish Sun:  “People from all strands of society use prostitutes from time to time.  It ranges from [politicians], the clergy, the judiciary to people who are socially deprived, physically disabled and people who may be regarded as unattractive and may not be able to meet people”…while people often feel anxious about contracting infections after visiting a prostitute, he believes that “you’re probably safer with a professional than with a gifted amateur”…he added:  “What we forget is that often sex workers give great comfort to people who are lonely”…

Déjà Vu

When even Christians are starting to see this, “trafficking” hysteria’s days are numbered:

…In her new book Other Dreams of Freedom, Yvonne Zimmerman, a professor of Christian Ethics, argues that the theoretical basis of US government anti-trafficking efforts derives directly from Protestant theology and traditional ideas of what she calls “sexually pure and pious womanhood”.  Zimmerman challenges this basis for anti-trafficking efforts, saying that it ends up limiting the freedom of trafficked people, especially women, by conceiving of their “rescue” as them ending up in traditional, heterosexual marriages – or at least refraining from sexual relations outside of marriage…

What the Hell Were You Thinking? (We’re Not Done Yet)

A big improvement on the phone “app” described previously:

…a team [of students]…has invented a mobile panic button for street…sex…workers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.  A voice or text message is first recorded onto a SIM card, which is inserted into a GPS-enabled device such as a pager…Pressing a button…activates the GPS and sends an emergency message and GPS location to a contact who can get help.  Because the GPS is not activated until the device is activated, the anonymity of the user is preserved…Once prototype devices are ordered, the three students will hold focus groups to determine which type of device is more useful…[then] will launch a six-month pilot project by giving devices to 100 women…The group is currently holding a fundraising initiative online…$8,140 [will] cover…the entire pilot project…

Change a Few Words

Arch-prohibitionist Paul Chabot helpfully explains not only that prohibitionism really works, but that all prohibitions are equally valid:  “When asked…why we keep marijuana illegal, Chabot responded:  ”Why do we keep heroin, LSD, prostitution, child pornography illegal?’“  As Matthew Feeney points out, “Comparing marijuana to child pornography is a great way to insult millions of people by comparing them to pedophiles.  Chabot is a free gift to those of us who would like to see drugs legalized.”  And of course, the same goes for prostitution.

The More the Better (TW3 #4)

On Monday I received a press release from Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada, a brothel resort on 20 acres (8 hectares) with a swimming pool, spa and tennis court which actively markets itself to couples as well as single men.  It’s now added “Sheri’s Playland”, a group of bungalows fitted out like movie sets so clients can enact any of six different sexual fantasies with working girls.  As I’ve said before, this is a very positive trend; “it was after Vegas casinos started ‘gentrifying’ in the ‘80s that people from other states dropped their prejudices against gambling, and now casinos are everywhere in the US.”

The Course of a Disease

Sex workers fight an attempt to impose the Swedish model on Indonesia:

Prostitutes and activists…are calling on the government not to prosecute men who pay for sex…The chairwoman of Yogyakarta Women’s Sex Workers Association (P3SY)…said…that [client] criminalization…would decrease the bargaining power and income of sex workers…[and] drive prostitution further underground…[hindering] HIV/AIDS education and mitigation programs…arresting customers would lead to the closure of brothels…and force sex workers to seek customers on the streets…Ignatius Praptoharjono of the Atma Jaya Catholic University’s HIV/AIDS Research Center in Jakarta…cited the cases of Sweden, Canada and other Asia-Pacific nations, where a crackdown on [clients] led to the decline of red-light districts and reduced fees…forcing sex workers to charge less and work more.  “Such a regulation will not protect women, but instead expose them to even higher risk,” [he] said…

Bullies With Badges

Heroic cops display their courage and fortitude by saving the helpless citizens of Connecticut from the menace of a 71-year-old whore: “an undercover cop…met her inside a room…[after] Sygun Liebhart placed a backpage.com ad…”

Little Boxes (TW3 #25)

Forcing massage parlors to close at 10 PM is the latest anti-whore fad:

…a new [Florida] bill…would ban massage establishments from operating between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m…to crack down on human trafficking and sexual exploitation…[it] also would make it illegal for massage establishments to allow anybody to live on the premises…the Florida State Massage Therapy Association questioned the hours restriction…[because] there are legitimate late-night clients including airline pilots and theatrical performers…[bill sponsor Dave] Kerner, a former…police officer, said…late-night massage establishments are a “hotbed” of illicit sexual activity…

Anyone who actually uses the phrase “illicit sexual activity” with a straight face should be barred from public office as a delusional busybody.

I Swear To God

Here’s another article on the PEPFAR “anti-prostitution pledge”, the efforts to overturn it and the importance of doing so from a health perspective, a human rights perspective and a free speech perspective.  It really is beginning to seem like now that the gay rights culture war has essentially been won, many activists are starting to at last turn their attention toward the persecution of sex workers.

Shift in the Wind

Here’s a cute little promo video made at the Sex Worker Freedom Festival, the parallel AIDS conference held in Kolkata last summer by sex workers who were excluded from the US:

False Target

My fellow hot smart chick Amy Alkon wrote this week about that Jezebel favorite, social constructionist and penis apologist Hugo Schwyzer; his latest absurd claim (one which I called him to task about on Twitter a few months ago) is that older men are only attracted to young women because of “social construction”, and that before the advent of television guys were lining up to date old hags (presumably when they weren’t burning them as witches).  In the process Amy discusses the evolutionary basis of lust, debunks the “rape is asexual” myth and quotes good sense from Dr. Gad Saad.

Bottleneck

The story of New York City’s “cabaret card”, an artificial bottleneck imposed on nightclub performers from 1926-1966, is an excellent example of why prostitution licensing doesn’t work; the corruption such a system engenders and the destructive consequences to individuals are virtually the same.

Dirty Laundry

“A divorced couple involved in running a brothel in north Dublin have avoided jail with fines and suspended sentences…Judge Mary Ellen Ring…ordered [Istvan Zeffer] to pay €1,000 to prostitute-support group Ruhama…Bernadette Kiss…is to pay €3,000…”  Ruhama is the new front for the orders of nuns who ran the Magdalene laundries which enslaved whores and many other women; calling them a “prostitute support group” is equivalent to referring to the Nazis as a “Jewish support group”.

King of the Hill

Most of this story is the typical credulous stenography of an evangelical “rescue” organization’s claims, but this passage stood out:  “The United States is the No. 1 destination for human sexual trafficking, with Oklahoma near the top of the most-active state list, the State Department reports…”  As you probably know, the State Department “reports” nothing of the kind.

Change of Heart (TW3 #41)

Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills…threw out 46 of the 59 counts against the alleged co-conspirator in the high-profile Kennebunk prostitution case, setting the stage for another appeal to the state’s highest court.  Mills’ decision…dealt prosecutors a…blow hours before opening arguments…were expected to begin…jury selection…[has already taken four days though] Mills said…it has never taken her longer than one day to seat a jury in her 19 years on the Superior Court…[charges were dropped after defense attorney Daniel] Lilley [argued]…that the notion that Maine privacy laws protect individuals engaged in criminal activity is “ludicrous.”  The invasion of privacy charges are tied to the fact that the alleged sexual interactions…were videotaped without the [clients] knowing…the defense…is [also] free to pursue its…argument that Strong was the subject of police retaliation…

We Told You So (TW3 #131)

Slowly but surely, the press is waking up:

The sad tale of a prostitute being held captive in Chattanooga highlights a problem that appears overstated…it is the only one ever reported, according to area police.  Meanwhile, a 2011 report co-produced by Vanderbilt University and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation estimated there were more than 100 cases of human sex trafficking in Hamilton County.  The study is, apparently, based on erroneous surveys and severely lacking in verifiable facts…

First They Came for the Hookers… (TW3 #132)

More “stripper licensing” idiocy, complete with “sex trafficking” nonsense:

…officials in Moorhead, Minn., are expected to pass an anti-prostitution measure requiring erotic dancers, nude models and adult escorts to obtain licenses and submit to background checks…North Dakota counterparts across the Red River in Fargo and West Fargo are pushing similar ordinances and the regional approach will attempt to stem “a fairly prominent problem here” with prostitution trafficking between their cities and the oil fields…[police hope] the regulations will reduce “a huge problem of runaways and minors trafficked into the sex trade”…adult entertainers would likely have to pay $150 to $250, carry a photo ID and divulge their real names, aliases and criminal histories.  Background checks revealing prostitution or drug convictions would disqualify applicants from receiving permits…

Pompous “authorities” just love creating bottlenecks that turn businesswomen into criminals, don’t they?

Due Consideration

It never takes control freaks very long to prove my points:

A…lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill…that would…require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term…as evidence for a sexual assault trial.  House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown…would charge…[violators]…with a third-degree felony for “tampering with evidence”…

The bill is unlikely to pass, but only due to partisanism rather than because it’s a total abomination.

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That Was the Week That Was (#134)

If we are going to call attacks on reproductive and sexual rights a “war on women,” then let’s talk about a war on women that has actual prisoners and a body count.  -  Melissa Gira Grant

The Biggest Whores

Res ipsa loquitur:

Minnesota’s Supreme Court last week barred attorney Thomas P. Lowe from practicing law for at least the next 15 months after it was revealed that he was billing a client for sex.  Lowe…was approached in August 2011 by an acquaintance who asked him to represent her in a divorce.  Their…relationship soon evolved into a sexual one, but…Lowe…[billed] the woman for [all] the time they spent [together, including] having sex…[after] Lowe…[dumped her] the woman… attempted to commit suicide and was hospitalized…Lowe was previously on probation for purchasing cocaine from a client…

The second lawyer isn’t nearly as bad, though still terribly unprofessional:

A public defender…is facing charges after allegedly exchanging texts with an undercover cop who he thought was a prostitute, and then trying to exchange sex for legal representation.  Christopher Hollander…allegedly sent a text message to a phone formerly used by a prostitute [but now in possession of a cop who] Hollander met…in a hotel room…The two discussed the phony prostitute’s alleged legal trouble.  When the officer asked “How much is it going to cost me” for the legal services, Hollander started to caress her hand…then allegedly began trying to kiss and hug the officer, and told her he had two condoms…

Lawyers, if you want to propose exchange of services just say so; real hookers appreciate honesty, not some clumsy attempt at seduction.

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

Ed Bagley has accepted a bargain in which he pleaded guilty to having sex with his supposed “victim” while she was underage, in return for prosecutors dropping all other charges (despite their insistence that he “swear” that the other accusations are true).  The one is bad enough; it can carry a 20-year sentence, and several of the other “conspirators” (as the state labels them) will also get very hefty sentences.

Something Rotten in Sweden (December Updates)

Remember, prostitution has never been illegal in Canada; these men were arrested for the “crime” of talking about it in public, which demonstrates the importance of taking this kind of power totally out of cops’ hands:  “Ottawa police swept the city’s downtown core…in an effort to find, charge and re-educate men looking for prostitutes…They arrested 15 men, 13 of whom escaped charges and will attend ‘john school’…a partnership with the Salvation Army…”  Please note the Orwellian term “re-educate”.

The Cold, Grey Light of Dawn

Looks like the Philippines is moving toward British-type legalization (erroneously called “decriminalization”):  “The Department of Social Welfare and Development…has endorsed a bill…which would decriminalize prostitution but punish those who control and profit from…[it, repealing] clauses…which punish ‘women who, for money, engage in sexual intercourse, or lascivious conduct’…”

It Looks Good On Paper

Another bit of feel-good legislation which capitalizes on hype but will actually help virtually nobody, due to its basis in fantasy:  “A bill filed in the Oklahoma Legislature…would erase the prostitution records of human trafficking victims…[who] average…12 to 14 years old…”

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic

This article has so much to recommend it:  Dr. Brooke Magnanti debunks “porn addiction”, describing the “studies” which claim to support it as “poorly conducted surveys on a level of market research, not science.”  In the process, she also quotes Dr. Marty Klein and lampoons both Cosmopolitan and Naomi “Stopped Clock” Wolf, all in less than a thousand well-chosen words.

Girls, Girls, Girls!

Of all the media one would expect to be least likely to side with puritans against a business persecuted for supposedly “corrupting public morals”, a rock music radio station has got to be pretty high on the list.  Though the article itself is dry enough, the wording and scare quotes in the headline and lede amply demonstrate the editor’s attitude:  “Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar ‘Improves the Self Esteem’ of the Stripper – seeks to have San Antonio’s strict new strip club law thrown out, also claims stripping is a ‘socially fulfilling experience’.”  It gets much worse; the station appears to have some close association with Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue…author of the titular song celebrating strippers.

A Whore in Church

The most interesting part of this article about sex workers in Malawi wearing hijab to attract Muslim customers is not the mere fact of it (which would simply be an example of the clipboard effect), but rather the fallacious notion (expressed both in text and comments) that a whore cannot be Muslim (or “truly” Christian either).  Also worthy of note is the author’s reversal of the usual feminist complaint that not covering up leads to “objectification”; this only goes to show that the real issue such women have is not some imaginary harm to women, but rather heterosexuality itself.

Above the Law

[Las Vegas] police officer John Norman is going to prison for two years…after pleading guilty to…coercing women to expose their breasts after stopping them on the road…Once Norman is released from prison, he will have to register as a sex offender…

The Crumbling Dam (TW3 #13)

Once again, Canadian government prohibitionists are trying to convince the courts that dangerous, repressive laws which deny sex workers’ agency are actually intended to “protect” them:

Hundreds of shadowy body rub parlours operated by exploitative pimps…are operating on the outskirts of Toronto, the Ontario Crown warns in a court document…[urging] the Supreme Court of Canada to let police keep the powers they have to protect female sex workers, who are often cowed into submissive silence…However, a group of prostitutes who have successfully challenged the ban through two levels of court accuse…Crown lawyers of scaremongering.  In the decision under appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal invalidated the…prohibition on keeping a brothel…[and] granted prostitutes the right to…hire staff to protect them…the…court is scheduled to hear the…challenge in June…

Naked Truth

Melissa Gira Grant’s “The War on Sex Workers” appears in this month’s print edition of Reason; though regular readers will already be familiar with much of the ground she covers, it never hurts to revisit it.  More importantly, for an unrepentant sex worker to have the opportunity to discuss the neofeminist war on whores in a national magazine (albeit a libertarian one) is a sign that this issue is beginning to move into the mainstream.

Imagination Pinned Down

This article entitled “Sex, Lies and Audiotapes” is 12 years old, but is an excellent look at how “fantastic tales of sexual abuse” are instilled into the minds of the vulnerable, and why radical feminists were largely to blame for “sex abuse” hysteria and the Satanic Panic; it is thus still topical as background for the new guise of those moral panics, “sex trafficking”.

Shift in the Wind

Though it may be difficult to recognize for sex workers in the US, British Isles and any place else strongly affected by “trafficking” hysteria, 2012 actually saw net gains for sex workers; Cheryl Overs reviews the high points (without neglecting to mention the low ones) in “A Good Year for Red Umbrellas”.

Texas Tall Tales

Texans aren’t the only ones who can tell tall tales about new technology being used by “human traffickers” to “entrap innocent girls”:

…Mobile phone recharge shops have been reportedly taking advantage of innocent girls who approach them for recharge coupons and give their numbers.  The employees/owners of the shop or their friends call the girls…develop friendships and later misuse them…ruining the girls’ lives…human [traffickers in]…Kundapur…are said to be running a mobile recharge outlet…the accused lure the girls with jobs and then use them for their own ends.  Later, the girls are allegedly blackmailed and trapped, and their escape route is closed…apart from flesh trade, a drugs network is also interwoven in the racket…

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

As expected, a UK judge has ruled that the case of Mark Kennedy, the cop who was allowed to trick women into sex in order to spy on them, will be heard in a Star Chamber proceeding.  What was unexpected was that he would say what Kennedy did was OK because James Bond does it:

James Bond is the most famous fictional example of a member of the intelligence services who used relationships with women to obtain information…[such] fictional accounts…lend credence to the view that the intelligence and police services have for many years deployed both men and women officers to form personal relationships of an intimate sexual nature…in order to obtain information or access.

As Heresy Corner points out, “James Bond isn’t just ‘fiction’, it’s escapist fantasy…[which] doesn’t ‘lend credence’ to anything…and Mark Kennedy’s ‘targets’ weren’t exotic Russian agents with a handbag full of nuclear secrets and the sexual etiquette of a praying mantis…nor were they dangerous international terrorists intent on blowing up airports or shopping malls.  They were…largely peaceful activists engaged primarily in democratic dissent, however misguided or naive…”

Buried Truth

Remember Lisa Biron, the anti-gay lawyer who “transported a teen girl…to Ontario …and coerced her into engaging in sexual acts with another person”?  It turns out the girl was 14, there were two men, and Biron also had sex with her.  Oh, and one more thing:  the girl was her own daughter.  She was convicted of child porn charges on the 11^th.

South of the Border (TW3 #49)

The creation of “sex trafficking rings” from people who used to be called “illegal aliens” continues, complete with childish “code names”, bombastic rhetoric, exaggerated numbers and infantilization of sex workers:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced the results of a lengthy investigation called Operation Dark Night.  It looked into a sex trafficking ring stretching from Florida to Georgia to North and South Carolina…women…were forced into prostitution and traded like slaves in various cities for about a week at a time…11 victims were rescued and 40 customers called Johns were also taken into custody.  Investigators say the women were forced to perform up to 30 sex acts per day…

Like most “trafficking” articles, this one contains the Profession of Faith:  “…‘its a bigger issue than many people thought,’ said Joan Garcia-Melendez…‘Human trafficking is a very hidden crime’…Authorities say this is a wakeup call as to how widespread sex trafficking has become…”  But what will happen to those poor “victims” who were “rescued”?  The BBC says what the American story won’t: “Those who were illegal in the country would be deported.”

Q & A (January 2013)

I mentioned that “the only time [verification services] fail is…when some idiot fails to stick to the plan, gets caught in a sting and then ransoms his worthless hide by giving the busybodies his login info so they can pop several girls before the service gets wise.”  One of my readers supplied more details:  there were several instances, all in the Appleton/Oshkosh area of Wisconsin, and P411 removed those entire cities from the site as a precaution and directly warned all the ladies who might be targeted.  Apparently cops in Little Rock, Arkansas have also attempted the same thing, though less successfully.

Perverse Incentives

Susie Bright on how perverse prosecutorial incentives spawn abominations:

Twice in my career I’ve been asked to serve as an expert witness on the defense team of an obscenity trial…the defendants were low-hanging fruit…targeted because of their…vulnerability…The Justice Department [bags] obscenity law trophies by going after the poor, the suicidal, the insane, the cognitively impaired— because that’s the way they rack up numbers and status.  That’s the way they fuel their careers…not by taking on constitutional issues, or injustice, or fat cats who believe they’re above the law…They find someone who’s drooling, or depressed, or friendless— and then throw the book at them.  It doesn’t take long because the “defendant-target” is overmatched…

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Links #130

Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.  –  Mohandas Gandhi

This was another fairly quiet week for links, as is typical around the holidays; I expect it will start to pick up again after today, though.  The next link column will include an explanation of a few format changes I’m instituting for the new year; like many of my other changes, it is intended to decrease my workload and make the blog more useful for readers.  Because the changes will affect the TW3 columns as well, I’m moving the next links column up to Friday so it will fall before the TW3 this week; that also conveniently opens up next Sunday, January 6^th, for a King Day column.  The top link contributor this week was Michael Whiteacre, who provided every link down to the first video (which was itself provided by my husband).  The second video and the link directly below it were contributed by EconJeff, and the links between the two videos were supplied by Amy Alkon, Aspasia, Grace, Walter Olson, Radley Balko,  Franklin Harris and Jesse Walker, in that order.

• CNN and LAPD try to start a gun scare over an empty 3-kg metal tube.
• Federal employee issued five-page formal reprimand for farting.
• I seem to remember this thing called Kohoutek…
• The whole six yards.

• “Human trafficking” is totally OK when a government is the “trafficker”.
• Facebook claims that my epigram violates its “community guidelines”.
• Here’s a spider that builds large spider decoys to confuse predators.
• Kansas wants to force a sperm donor to pay child support.
• High school student arrested for doodling.
• R.I.P. Jack Klugman and Gerry Anderson.
• Welcome to our world.

• It’s good to know that the UN has a well-developed sense of priorities.
• I’ve survived 72 “apocalypses”; how about you?

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