Sex workers have very special qualities. They are skilled at giving pleasure in whatever way is required. – Tuppy Owens
Why don’t journalists actually read what they’re writing about?
…In a study of 105 heterosexual Australian women, flaccid penis size, height, and shoulder-to-hip ratio all affected the women’s attractiveness ratings of life-size, computer-generated male figures…The penis effect was so strong that that the study’s authors…[theorized] that it may have driven the evolution of bigger penises in humans…Shoulder-to-hip ratio mattered the most, while both penis size and height mattered about the same amount…there were diminishing returns for everything. That is, how much more attractiveness the figures gained for added height, penis size and shoulder-to-hip ratio decreased as those traits increased. So the attractiveness difference between at 6’1″ man and a 6’2″ man is less than the difference between a 5’1″ man and a 5’2″ man. For penis size, the dropoff in attractiveness gains started at about 7.6 centimeters, or three inches…
In other words, the study doesn’t show that most women are attracted to really big cocks; it shows that they tend to find really small ones unattractive, which isn’t at all the same thing. And BTB, the theory that the comparatively-large human penis is a product of artificial selection is not remotely new; it’s also probable that the same process resulted in human women having prominent tits when we aren’t pregnant or nursing.
A small-town North Carolina cop raped a 13-year-old girl while on duty, and the town hired him without any…screening after he had raped an 11-year-old…Jaymin Lenwood Murphy was sentenced in December 2010 to 41 years in prison for sexual offenses against the two girls…The [13-year-old, who is suing the town]…says that Murphy “threatened her mother and herself with jail” so she “was too terrified…to report it to anyone”…
Femen demonstrates how deeply it cares about women by physically attacking them at work:
I’ve previously pointed out Femen’s deep hypocrisy in claiming that it’s noble for a woman to use her sexuality for politics, but not as a means of earning a living. But it’s actually worse than that: “Each new recruit…has to show off her breasts to audition for the role…each member’s salary allegedly comes to around $1,000…” In other words, they’re paid for using their sexuality; they’re sex workers dedicated to stopping other women from doing sex work.
“Yesterday, Pak Kret police found the bodies of two girls floating near a pier in front of Kredtrakarn Protection and Occupational Development Center…the…girls…reportedly attempted to escape the Center by swimming across the Chao Phraya River…” What this story does not make clear is that this was actually a prison for girls “rescued” from sex work, which explains why they were desperate to escape despite the absurd claims of “authorities”.
Joyce Arthur of FIRST shows what an anti-criminalization article by a non-sex worker should look like:
Within the next year, our Supreme Court may very well strike down Canada’s prostitution laws as unconstitutional because they place sex workers at risk of violence and abuse. Are we ready for full decriminalization? Or will society’s fear of the legal vacuum lead to a panicked rush to pass new legislation to criminalize or control sex work? Most people know little or nothing about actual sex workers…because they’ve been fed negative and false stereotypes from movies and TV, sensationalistic news stories, “do-gooder” organizations that purport to rescue trafficked sex slaves, and various self-appointed “experts” whose views are informed mostly by shoddy research and propaganda. The true experts on sex work have been speaking out more and more, however, and people are finally starting to listen to them…
The Swedish rot reaches South America:
…the Argentine Congress started discussing…[a bill] to penalize anyone who buys sex…regardless of whether the person providing the sex is a consenting adult…No one would contest that actual sex trafficking is a problem in Argentina and that something should be done about it…
Just call me nobody, then. Coercion into commercial sex is rare everywhere, and the rare individuals who are so victimized aren’t helped by wrongheaded “something should be done” legislation. Meanwhile, half a world away, the Scottish Trade Union Conference decided to screw a sex worker outreach event called “Sex Worker Open University” by cancelling the facilities it had agreed to provide at (almost literally) the last minute:
…the Scottish Trades Union conference…issued this statement: “…the specific title of the event…was…“The Scottish Context: Opposing Criminalisation of Clients”…a number of individuals and organisations contacted us to ask why we were taking this view…[which] is diametrically opposed to the position STUC…reached as a consequence of its democratic process…” This suggests that a public meeting was somehow hidden, or that SWOU attempted to keep this information private…If a LGBTQ group wants to hold an event and homophobic groups phone to complain will they cancel the booking? If a Muslim group hosts [an] event and…Islamaphobes demonstrate will the STUC refuse to offer support and solidarity? Will their position always be with the oppressors rather than the oppressed?…[and] why does the STUC have a position that is against the best interests of the workers? They say it was democratically reached but it was not voted for by the full membership, nor were the workers who would be effected consulted…
Runaway maids are turning to prostitution in order to support themselves during their illegal stay in…Sharjah…518 prostitution cases and 10 human trafficking cases were recorded…[in the emirate]…in 2012. Absconding maids topped the prostitution cases…[but] some…came to the country on a visit visa…to work illegally in the sex worker industry…
As I’ve pointed out before, the tendency of recent studies to “find” that impossibly-low numbers of men hire whores has a lot more to do with social stigma and poor question phrasing than with reality; the General Social Survey‘s claim that only 14% of American men have ever paid for sex could only be true if the number of sex workers were a tenth what it is and we each only had two clients per week! But though I respectfully disagree with Dr. Milrod about that survey’s data being credible, I have no respect for those who technically agree with me not because of logic or experience, but because the finding contradicts “trafficking” dogma!
Laura Lee in the Independent on why the Swedish model is a bad idea:
…Rhoda Grant…is pushing…this measure because she believes that prostitution is…inherently harmful and dangerous. I know from years of experience that for the vast majority of sex workers…that simply isn’t true…they made an informed choice to enter the industry and enjoy their work…Grant [stated] in…Glasgow Evening Times [that] “People that use prostitutes are people who would rape and abuse.” Not only is that statement false, it is also offensive in the extreme to every client I have ever met…the solution to the protection of those in the sex industry is complete decriminalisation …any further criminalisation of the sex industry will cost lives.
Judgy Bitch’s excellent take on the “teen girl pimp” case:
…some newbie traffickers scouted and groomed vulnerable girls on social media sites, lured them to a rough part of town, stripped them naked, took nude photos and then blackmailed the young victims into working as escorts. And then took their money. The girls who resisted were physically beaten. The traffickers? Two fifteen year old girls, and one sixteen year old girl…It doesn’t appear that any men, let alone black men, were involved on the pimping side of the equation in Ottawa, but that hasn’t stopped the media from trying to associate any instance of pimping with black men…and…who stepped in to help the girls being victimized? Who took a stand and put a stop to what was going on?…Yeah, that would be the johns. Men called up an escort service, looking for sex in exchange for money, and when they realized the girls were desperately underage and deeply emotionally upset, they intervened. In [two cases] the john drove the young girl home…In a third case, the john flat out refused to have sexual contact with someone who was clearly a minor…
One Born Every Minute (TW3 #51)
Remember Mark Lancaster, the guy who tried to trick naïve coeds into having sex with him as a supposed “audition” for a sugar daddy referral service? He’s being charged with…wait for it…”sex trafficking”. Add that to your list of bizarre uses for this ever-expanding umbrella term.
It’s wonderful to see so many articles arguing that disabled people have the right to see sex workers even if prohibitionists are upset by the idea:
A forthcoming Channel 4 documentary, Can Have Sex Will Have Sex…has been labelled “controversial“, but many mothers call the sex and disability helpline, which I run, worried that their disabled son is physically unable to masturbate and desperately needs an outlet…I really love the idea of sex workers giving disabled people the chance to be touched in a non-medical way, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to be held in a warm pair of arms and have their sexual dreams respected and lived out.
Another prohibitionist screed masquerading as reasoned argument is debunked by Feminist Ire:
In early March…the Huffington Post published…“Debunking The Myths: Why Legalising Prostitution Is A Terrible Idea”…by Jacqui Hunt, London director of Equality Now…despite its title, its scope is not limited to legalisation: she believes decriminalisation is an equally bad idea. At first glance, her article looks fairly reasonable and well researched, citing studies from various countries in which sex work has been legalised or decriminalised…[but] the ways in which…her claims have been made…undermine her credibility…because the primary source for her observations on New Zealand reveals a markedly different picture from the one she has chosen to paint, I’m given to feel that all of her claims ought to be thoroughly investigated…
Clay Nikiforuk, the young woman harassed by US customs officials because they thought she was an escort, appears to “get it”:
There’s no doubt in my mind that one reason my story gained the attention it did was that it screamed “sexy” at every juncture…But another reason…is that…when bad things start happening to innocent, educated white people, they could happen to anyone — or rather, other privileged people…when sex and sexuality are criminalized, people are made illegal and their rights made moot…If I were a sex worker, I might have “deserved” the treatment I received, or my detainment might have “made sense.” If I were from a minority group or were not as educated in the English language, my story might not have provoked the shock and outrage that it did. And rather than receiving the reaction “That should never happen to anyone,” often the reaction I still get is “That should never have happened to you”…
Trafficking, Trafficking Everywhere! (TW3 #314)
What a sane, agenda-free sex work study looks like:
Migrant prostitutes…are in the sex trade for the money…research…in New Zealand has found…Catherine Healy…said…”The findings suggests there are no signs that migrant sex workers here are victims of trafficking” [despite US claims]…
57%: On student, work or visitor visa
86%: From Asia
26%: Came to New Zealand “to study”
35%: Knew someone living here
76%: Did sex work to pay household bills
5%: Could not refuse clients and did not have access to their passports
In other words, only 5% of migrant whores (themselves a minority of the sex worker population) could be described as “coerced” in any valid way.
All over Lakeview, you’ll find signs asking people to be on the lookout for missing teacher Terrilyn Monette…[rumors claim] that the Russian Mafia moved into New Orleans shortly before the Super Bowl…to abduct women for human trafficking…NOPD…is trying to squelch the rumor…
If the NOPD didn’t want a stupid “sex trafficking” panic, it shouldn’t have participated in spreading one.
Way back when I had the great pleasure of Studying under Dr Helena Cronin when she was still a lowly PhD student. She proposed, and i have always agreed, that given the importance of our intelligence and Mental health the fact a male errection is often a sign of good mental health as well as physical is partially responsible for male penis size and the upright stance of humans.
It is basically display behaviour, saying I am not only able to reproduce but my mind and body are healthy.
I’m not the least surprised that it was the “hobbyists” who reacted to help out the young women in the Canadian case. Most hobbyists (customers) I met over the years were very decent men, none were attracted to underage women, or women being coerced
That’s one of the big mistakes that the sex trafficking crowd makes, assuming that unwilling, trafficked women would be appealing to so many of the customer base. They just simply aren’t.
The percentage of men who see sex workers who are attracted to children, or forced women? I’d estimate it to be exactly the same as in any random group of men, very low.
I remember we had an actual trafficking bust here in Chicago where some Russian mob(-ish) guys brought some women over as tourists and got them jobs in strip clubs and then coerced them with threats into giving the guys most of their money. It fell apart when some of the ladies told a few customers what was happening, and the customers helped them go to the FBI.
The bigger problem with the penis study: it used pictures of non-erect phalluses. How often is a penis flaccid the first time a woman gets to see it? And by the time she’s seeing it soft on a regular basis, the two have probably moved beyond the point of simple physical attraction.
I can’t recall the last time I got naked with a girl for the first time and wasn’t erect. Usually we’d been making out for a while, fondling through clothes, etc., and that’s plenty to get me going.
I still can’t figure out what the Hell Femen actually is. They seem to be an extremely bizarre performance art troupe, and I don’t think anyone would pay attention to them if they weren’t showing off their bodies. (Pussy Riot is another group I find a tad baffling.)
The main purpose of this report seems to have been to poo-poo the study. And I wonder: if a similar study had shown that most men don’t find AA boobs to be sexy, would Francie Diep have concluded that that men aren’t happy with anything less than E-cups?
The two standards of justice thing is really bothering me. If I stole money, or raped an eleven-year-old, or tapped somebody’s telephone, or water-boarded somebody, I wouldn’t be sitting in my too-hot apartment following Maggie McNeil’s blog. I’d be in some prison somewhere hoping I didn’t look cute.
FEMEN makes little sense. It would be like PETA publically dismembering animals or something. PETA doesn’t make a whole lot of sense sometimes, but they seem to be a notch better than FEMEN.
Gee, can’t imagine why two women held against their will and denied the chance to earn a living would want to escape.
It’s written the way an anti-criminalization article by a non-sex worker should be because the writer consulted sex workers before writing it. You know that, and I know that, and I suspect very few readers of this blog don’t know that, but a lot of writers don’t seem to even momentarily consider this. I mean hell, when journalists went to write about the Apollo Program, they talked to rocket scientists, no? Well, if they want to write about sex work…
OK, I’ll get to more of this tomorrow. Maybe even late tonight. Catching up, catching up…
I did get to more of this on the 23rd, but didn’t finish. Delayed birthday party for a brudder-in-law.
If the vote was held in such a way that people likely to vote a certain way were unable to vote, then this is hardly a “democratic process.”
Maids should get paid more than they do. I can hardly blame them for taking up prostitution instead. Pays better and you aren’t cleaning up somebody else’s mess.
The General Social Survey is wrong in one direction (too few hookers seeing too few clients) while trafficking dogma is wrong in the other (hundreds of thousands of sex slaves seeing dozens of clients a day). It would be nice if the news media were half as skeptical about such claims as they (quite rightfully) are about the budget claims of politicians.
These men took quite a risk in helping these girls, as they could’ve been arrested both for prostitution and for even being in a remotely sexual situation with minors (let alone driving one around in his car!). One thing they didn’t dare do was to call the cops. I’m not sure why she calls herself “judgybitch,” though. That was one of the least judgmental things I’ve read in a while, and was only a little bitchy.
Wasn’t Lancaster’s crime that he promised to traffic these girls (under the “all prostitution is trafficking” definition), but then didn’t do so? So maybe he should be charged with “Failure to Traffic.”
Disabled people can legally hire others* to do their laundry, bath them, clean house, cook, etc. Not sure why we should draw the line at sex. Oh wait: because sex ALWAYS victimizes the woman. [rolleyes]
New Zealand has decriminalized prostitution AND legalized gay marriage! How are they doing on drugs?
Exactly. Just as AIDS only got the research dollars when it started killing white straight non-drug users. When the zombies rise from their graves, they will be unstoppable if they build their strength by first confining their brain-eating murders to the black, the poor, the gay, the prostitutes, the drug users, and the immigrants. By the time they start eating white folks like me, it’ll be too late.
Waitaminit…
Terrilyn Monette isn’t a blue-eyed blonde-haired white woman, and there’s news coverage of her being missing? Wow, the times they ARE a’changing. If the zombie apocalypse can just wait another fifteen, twenty years to get started, we might have a chance, no matter WHICH group they select for their first meal.
OK, on to Genius Loci.
* Whether or not they can afford to is another question.
Mark Lancaster has been found jailed for 16 months for voyeurism and trafficking:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/computer-consultant-mark-lancaster-jailed-for-16-months-for-voyeurism-and-trafficking-after-using-sex-for-fees-website-to-dupe-student-into-having-sex-with-him-8721078.html