A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible. – Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics
The stream slowed down somewhat this week, probably due in part to several major news stories consuming a lot of the intellectual bandwidth. That is not by any means a complaint or criticism; it’s just that I don’t generally cover major news stories outside of the harlosphere because I feel that others have already covered them in far greater depth than either my format or time allows. I do have some personal news, though: those of you who just can’t get enough Maggie will be glad to hear that I have joined the British website Cliterati as a regular contributor, and will be publishing there every Sunday starting next week. Most of the essays will be new ones, some will be cross-posts and a few will be reposts of older articles which I feel deserve new attention; my first, “Speech and More Speech“, appeared a few days early so that it would still be timely (since it’s on the subject of a controversy which unfolded last weekend).
This week’s leading contributor was Radley Balko, occupying the top-dog slot above the first video (a card trick posted by Teller which says a lot about how easy it is to manipulate human perception). The second video, “The Vertical Pole”, was provided by Feminist Whore, and the links between the two by Nun Ya (“Hell’s Angels”), Offgridman (“brick wall” and “baby step”), C. Andrew (“infanticide”), Grace (“Lance Armstrong” and “biggest thing”), Thomas Larson (“mouse”), Popehat (“Cthulhu”), Brooke Magnanti (“hidden mothers”), Baylen Linnekin (“robot restaurant”), and Antonio Lorusso (“fungal sex”).
- Craigslist, Pat Robertson and the Ab Rocket.
- Sounds like he was trying to make up for lost time.
- SWAT team murders man for having too many cats.
- Cops shoot man for riding his bicycle on the sidewalk.
- Urban safety precaution: lock and bolt your door to keep cops from unexpectedly opening it and murdering your loved ones.
- In June of 2010 a German university student mooned a group of Hell’s Angels, threw a puppy at them and then escaped on a stolen bulldozer.
- Cops excuse murder by claiming a man too drunk to see a brick wall was able to “aim” his car at them…twice.
- Washington D.C. cop murdered his mistress and left his infant daughter to die in an overheated car.
- Why Lance Armstrong’s “confession” should worry you.
- R.I.P. Stanley Cohen, great scholar of moral panics.
- A carnivorous mouse which howls at the moon.
- Dread Cthulhu leads his cult to milestone year.
- Hidden mothers in Victorian portraits.
- The biggest thing in the universe.
- Another baby step.
- Robot restaurant.
- Fungal sex.
From the Archives
- Unlike their American brethren, Canadian reporters usually blame harm to sex workers on the bad laws and the evil actions of the police.
- Government defines consenting individuals as victims or victims as consenting individuals, depending on what’s most convenient.
- Indian “rescue” group tries to solve problem of their victims escaping by abducting their children instead.
- Control freaks often use rhetoric startlingly similar to that regularly employed against whores.
- Porn companies issue first warning about leaving LA due to condom law.
- Positive profile of a streetwalker from the prohibitionist New York Times.
- Why would anyone want to work at a place where she was unwanted?
- Official Norwegian study condemns Swedish model as a public menace.
- Politician claims persecuting transgender people “protects everybody”.
- The Netherlands only started collecting sex work taxes two years ago.
- Why Friday the Thirteenth is a day to speak out for sex worker rights.
- Why was everyone so surprised that Silvio Berlusconi hired hookers?
- “Sex Workers Want To Stop Trafficking”, a video from SWOP Chicago.
- Sweden says prostitutes can infallibly be recognized by their clothes.
- How creating criminals from citizens establishes universal criminality.
- Prohibitionists try to blame Backpage for the actions of a serial killer.
- Meet Anna, a prisoner in a world something like ours…but not quite.
- What harm reduction is about, and why sex work is a form of it.
- HIV-positive psycho tried to infect as many people as possible.
- Cosmopolitan‘s juvenile, absurd and ass-backward sex advice.
- Elena Jeffreys on the ridiculous prejudices against sex work.
- Reluctant sex workers are prohibitionists’ best weapons.
- The flu, Jesus Christ Superstar and the invisible majority.
- Sleazy company will test stolen underwear for semen.
- Crypto-moralists wage war on bacon and cheese.
- After 60 years, science still can’t find the G-spot.
- Doublethink in Modesto, California.
- A short tribute to Dolly Parton.
- Is there a “hooker gene”?
- Ottawa’s human library.
- 2011 in review.
