Different people have different types of sex for all sorts of reasons that are really no one else’s business. – Steve Chapman
Here’s a good article on how New Zealand achieved decriminalization:
…Tim Barnett…became involved with the PRA shortly after he won his first campaign for Christchurch Central’s parliamentary seat in 1996. He did so on the request of Catherine Healy, the national coordinator of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective (NZPC), who actively sought out his support for decriminalisation after the election…Barnett entered into an already vibrant political field. The Massage Parlours Act of 1978 was, nearly a decade after its implementation, suddenly causing controversy because police had announced that the legislation effectively allowed indoor commercial sex work. As a result, a working group comprised of NZPC and mainstream liberal feminist groups…began work on a pro-decriminalisation reform bill…
Anti-trans people just can’t get their minds out of the toilet:
…Jared Woodfill…and his group, the “Campaign For Houston”, are trying to get “no” votes for the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance…which voters will vote on in November…“No men in women’s bathrooms,” the ad actually begins. “This ordinance will allow men to freely go into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and showers. That is filthy, that is disgusting, and that is unsafe,” the [female announcer says, claiming] to represent “all moms, sisters, and daughters”…
Far too many sex worker rights activists are afraid to discuss this topic:
…Generally, if someone is working underage, it’s because they’re aware their alternatives are worse. With a system that entirely fails to protect and serve young people, either forcing them back into abusive homes or shuffling them into new, potentially even more violent environments such as group homes, foster homes, and juvenile halls, it’s no wonder these young people take their fate into their own hands. The few jobs that will hire young workers pay a pittance, and signing a lease isn’t even an option for minors…
If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this badge-licking article; it is, however, refreshing to see “sex trafficking” mentioned only in passing after all the talk of “morality” and dirty whores. Note also the bizarre use of scare quotes around ordinary words like “time”:
…Websites like Backpage.com are a playground for people looking for “escorts,” and the people who put up ads are barely discrete [sic] about what they’re selling. While some allege that anyone who responds is paying for their “time” and “companionship,” others say things like, “No pimp, no drama”…Some people believe that prostitution arrests are just about the actual sex acts…Police say they’re not. “It was important to make these arrests for the sake of prostitution itself, but it also curtails other crimes as well, such as drugs and robberies…You have to realize prostitution not only offends some citizens as far as moral standards, it can become a nuisance to businesses and residents”…
The number of prostitutes using Zurich’s [tippelzones] has nearly doubled over the last year say city authorities, who are hailing the two-year-old scheme a success. Around 25-30 sex workers are now using the guarded drive-in brothel, up from around 15 this time last year…
This is what really happens when a wannabe “pimp” abducts a girl:
A 16-year-old girl snatched right off an Indianapolis street and sold into prostitution is back home after a terrifying weekend…The victim [was] walking home when a young man pulled up and offered her a ride…the…man…24-year old Kevryn Gaines-Dukes [raped her] then met up with a second suspect, Myeisha White…the two [drove her to]…Nashville, Tenn., where White took pictures of the teen and posted them on backpage.com, a site known by solicitors and investigators for sex trafficking…”If they ever outlawed backpage.com, we’d have trouble finding victims,” said Sgt. Jon Daggy, who investigates human trafficking as part of the Vice Unit with IMPD. The 16-year old told police her captors made a thousand dollars that weekend, forcing her to have sex with at least 10 men…She had been secretly texting messages like “police” to her father and sister….Gaines-Dukes then texted the father, demanding $25,000 in ransom…The texts were traced to a Nashville motel…
Yet we’re supposed to believe that 100,000 cases a year go unnoticed. By the by, John Daggy “investigates human trafficking” by making excuses for cops who rape sex workers.
…the world of Ashley Madison was a far more dystopian place than anyone had realized. This isn’t a debauched wonderland of men cheating on their wives…it’s like a science fictional future where every woman on Earth is dead, and some Dilbert-like engineer has replaced them with badly-designed robots…the more I examined those 5.5 million female profiles, the more obvious it became that none of them had ever talked to men on the site, or even used the site at all after creating a profile…the overwhelming majority of men using Ashley Madison weren’t having affairs. They were paying for a fantasy…About two-thirds of the men, or 20.2 million of them, had checked the messages in their accounts at least once. But only 1,492 women had ever checked their messages…
And all those guys who didn’t listen to me? Well, they’re not very happy: “Two Canadian law firms have filed a $578m class-action lawsuit against the companies that run Ashley Madison after a hacker group’s data breach exposed some 39 million memberships in the adultery website earlier this week“…
A federal judge…denied a preliminary injunction request that would have forced Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart to retract statements he made in lobbying credit card companies to block their cards from being used to buy sex ads on Backpage.com…Judge John Tharp wrote that the “cease and desist” letters Dart wrote to Visa and Mastercard…could have been construed as threats. But they did not amount to censorship, since the sheriff had no legal authority to force the credit card companies to act…The judge also said he considered “the profound interests of the victims of the human trafficking that Backpage’s advertising facilitates”…The ruling does not affect the underlying lawsuit against Dart seeking damages…
Something Rotten in Sweden (#564)
Dave Ross of KIRO radio interviews Mistress Matisse about her debunking of Seattle politicians’ agency-denying garbage; what never ceases to amaze me is the tenacity with which reasonably-intelligent people cling to stupid preconceptions and asinine myths when the subject is sex. And that crack about her age…really, Dave? Matisse was much more charming to you than you deserved.
Just in case you didn’t think the approval of flibanserin could’ve been any shadier:
If you happen to be a woman interested in taking Addyi…your doctor will…tell you…You absolutely cannot drink — at all — as long as you’re taking the drug, because alcohol has been shown to exacerbate its side effects, including fainting, dizziness, and low blood pressure…but…Nobody actually even knows what would happen if a woman taking Addyi were to cheat and have, say, a glass of wine with dinner — because the research…was done almost entirely on men. The alcohol-safety study included 23 men, and a grand total of two women…alcohol affects men and women very differently…and women are more susceptible to toxicity effects than are men…
What Were You All Waiting For?
It’s as though every anti-prohibitionist was just waiting for Amnesty:
Banning things you don’t like has a long history, though not a happy one. Americans have tried banning alcohol, marijuana, pornography and homosexuality. All of them persisted anyway. So we learned to not only tolerate but allow them. Nowadays, you can have a glass of scotch in a gay bar while looking at porn on your iPad, and the police won’t care. In Colorado and Washington, you can walk out and buy weed at a state-licensed dispensary. Prohibition has also been a failure for commercial sex…banning prostitution doesn’t get rid of it. It merely pushes it underground, where abuses are more likely and harder to detect…The denunciations of decriminalization come from a strange alliance of feminists who regard all sex workers…as victims of oppression and Christians who see them as drenched in depravity. Both exploit the sense that some types of sex are shameful, dangerous and intolerable — an attitude that long fueled the persecution of gays…
And speaking of gays, this denunciation of Amnesty by two Swedish politicians taking their travelling medicine show to Los Angeles could win some kind of award for bad timing; it was published the day after the federal raid on Rentboy.com triggered a groundswell of public support for decriminalization, thus making its moronic representation of sex work as a form of gendered violence look utterly tone-deaf in addition to being dishonest and fascist. The Swedes refer to their snake oil as a “middle way” between criminalization and decriminalization, which is exactly the same as saying, “There is a middle way between Jim Crow and treating black people like human beings.”
As I pointed out yesterday, many people who didn’t give a shit about the criminalization of sex work when it was women, our clients and our advertising venues being attacked, suddenly care very much now that they see the anti-sex machine is also going to be turned loose on the queer sex trade. And while I absolutely welcome these folks as allies, I’m not going to accept this kind of sexist, patronizing bullshit from queer boys who couldn’t be bothered to speak up for me and my sisters last week:
Yesterday’s raid on the offices of Rentboy.com…was a bizarre, unprovoked crackdown on people it’s easy for “respectable” folks to stigmatize or ignore…this thoroughly unnecessary bust should be the impetus to legalize and regulate consensual sex work. It should become the “Stonewall” of sex workers, the moment in which they and their allies say: Enough…this is not about sex trafficking…it’s not alleged in the government’s complaint in this case…Want to fight sex trafficking? Fight sex trafficking. Not Rentboy…No one is disputing that prostitution can be exploitative, especially to women and minors, and that the global sex trade is often a kind of slavery. Even legal prostitution can trap women in exploitative power relationships. The question is how best to address these problems, and the emerging answer is that legalization-and-regulation…is better than criminalization…
Fuck you, Jay Michaelson. Fuck your patronizing picket-fence queer bullshit. Fuck your attempt to pretend that sex workers (backed by Amnesty International and many others) are asking for “legalization and regulation” because women (though obviously not men) are too fucking weak and stupid to protect ourselves from “exploitation”. Fuck your trying to co-opt our movement, which was already going on for forty fucking years before you deigned to fucking notice it. Stonewall was the fucking Stonewall of sex workers, you asshole; the riot that started the avalanche that gave gay amateurs their rights was started by professionals. And I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to remain silent while sleazy douchebags like you call for my body and my choices to be “regulated” by the same kind of fucking pigs those rioters were fighting against, just so middle-class vanilla fucks like you don’t have to feel threatened by my unregulated sexuality.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-rate
Interesting to see where prudish Sweden, “decadent puritan” United States, and “WTF?” Japan fall in their rates for rape. Makes you wonder if the prohibitionists are willfully ignorant of what their work does or simply don’t want to lose their gig. As a punk, the last paragraph warms the cockles of my heart: get angry. Anger is good. Evil exists in the world because the world is not angry enough (thank you, George Santayana).
However, we don’t know what these differences mean. They simply reflect police activity. This is the same problem as with comparing trafficking statistics between countries.
Different countries have different definition of rape, different rates of report, different ways of handling cases, etc. A country with a higher rate could just mean they have the same number of victims, but more prosecutions.
In a country where sexual violence is no big deal, there would effectively be very little rapes because it would not be investigated in most cases. In another country where every little thing is considered violence against women, you can expect cases of rapes to be through the roof.
Re: The Face of Trafficking
Unfortunately even though this story may be true it only fuels the sex trafficking hysteria, just take a look at the comments and you’ll see what I mean. A good number of the commenters go around stating that sex trafficking is happening all the time and now they have a concrete case of it.
Re: Now they Notice
I see my comment about this from yesterday is proving to be quite accurate. Gay activists like Mr. Michealson, who decided it was more important to be seen as ‘respectable’ by the state, the very people who were oppressing them in the first place, and thus decided to ape the state in every way are not going to be any one’s friends except to themselves and those who can deign to give them more power and ‘respectability.’
Sex workers, gay, straight or otherwise, will not be able to rely on them. They are betting on the wrong horse.
And as far as anger goes, wanfuforever, anger may be good but if it is not focused into concrete, imitable action that yields actual gains may produce heat but will give very little light.
{Sorry if this comment is posted twice. WordPress, somehow, had me signed in as Claudia and under my former blog name simultaneously.}
Neither Jay Michaelson nor The Daily Beast addressed our Tweets about decrim vs. legalization and other issues that were raised with that article. “Allies”, for the win.
in my opinion, Ashley Madison is both immoral and a fraud. It is immoral because it promotes adultery. It is amoral and a fraud for lying about prostitution specificly the disease rates of whores saying that they are more likely to have STDs than amatuers and for taking so many men’s money and offering nothing in return. Even I am surprised and shocked by how little women were interested in this site and how hopeless it was for these men to get sex from this site. These men should have tried Tinder, a dating web site, a sugar daddy website to get better results for getting laid. Actually, they all would have gotten the best results for getting laid by seeking prostitutes. Whores as a whole really are the most honest women you will ever meet at least while they are on duty because when they are off duty they are just like the amateur women.
Maggie McNeiil
The whole idea by our ruling elite and easily led and duped masses is to criminalize male heterosexuality. Both leftists and conservatives are guilty. Whores become casualties as a result of this for actually servicing men. First they attack the women whores servicing heterosexual men and then they attack the men whores servicing homosexual men. Many leftist feminists along with many leftist gay men ally with rightist religious conservatives to demonize heterosexual men. Prostitution prohibitionists be they leftist feminists, leftist gay men or rightist religious conservatives are less likely to say something negative about Ashley Madison than they are about prostitution. I may have low standards but these people have low and sick and twisted standards. Our society is sick and has too many people who would respect sluts and adulteresses more than whores; and, it should be the opposite. Whores deserve more respect than sluts or adulteresses for they are better women and people. The reason why whores should get more respect than sluts is that at least the whores were smart enough to pick up the money, but the sluts weren’t. I find adultery reprehensible especially when the other person never agreed to it. Why marry if you are not going to be faithful and especially if you will not be truthful with your spouse? it makes no sense.
There are a lot more people to say fuck you to. Feminists opposed to prostitution, religious conservatives opposed to prostitution and gay men opposed to prostitution should be old to fuck off especially if they are against heterosexual men getting sex from prostitutes. There’s hardly such a thing as a involuntary female celibate and this includes involuntary virgins. I suspect that there is a higher percentage of involuntary lesbian virgins than strait heterosexual women virgins, but simply don’t know. I suspect that lesbian women are more likely on average to pay women for sex than heterosexual women are to pay men for sex. I believe that women especially heterosexual women find it easier to get sex than both gay men and especially heterosexual men from amateurs. I also believe that gay men find it easier to get sex than heterosexual men from amateurs, yet even gay men require prostitution to get more of their sexual needs met. Heterosexual men find it more difficult to get sex than anyone else from amateurs and this is why prostitution exists in my humble opinion. As a heterosexual man I say fuck you to all who support the prohibition of prostitution. Prostitution prohibition harms both the johns and whores. .
One of the reasons I think it is easier for gay men to get sex from amateurs than heterosexual men is because all men are more likely to say yes to sex than women no matter their sexual orientation. I also believe that amateur gay men are less likely to waste someone’s time and money when someone is interested in having sex with them on average. Amateur heterosexual women are the most likely to waste someone’s time and money when this person is obviously interested in having sex with them on average. Professional prostitutes be they men or women are the least likely people to waste someone’s time and money when this person is interested in them on average. Professional prostitutes are the least likely to string someone along and offer nothing in return. Amateur Gay men are second, Amateur heterosexual women are the most likely to string someone along and offer nothing in return, Amateur American women in particular have a reputation for treating nice guys poorly and assholes very well. Let me offer amateur ladies a hint: Getting sex is part of treating a man well. Assholes also have a reputation for getting more offers of sex from amateur women than nice guys especially from American women. Much of the manosphere especially seduction, GAME or pick up artist blogs say this. Hell, I was born in 1968 and am an American and most men my age I knew almost 30 years ago when I was young said this, and even now more men my age that I know say this. Most of the young men my age also say this whom I know. Paying money and being a supplicating nice guy is more likely to get a man especially an American man treated well and get sex from a professional prostitute than it is with an amateur woman especially an amateur American woman. Being a paying asshole john is more likely to be refused by professional whores than being a paying nice guy. Sad but true. You may disagree with some or all of what I’ve said, but there is a large percentage, at least a large enough minority, if not a majority of men who say this be they or I right or wrong.
Well-deserved curb-stomp of Jay Michaelson
Sex work is exploitative of women but men can, of course, handle it. Double standard much?