First Impression

I use Twitter for two main purposes:  promoting my writing and collecting news stories for my writing.  Because I’ve discovered that the latter task is made far more difficult if there’s too much traffic in my timeline, I never follow more than 200 people at a time and I don’t do “courtesy following”, and I often mute retweets from people I follow if they retweet a lot of stuff I’m not interested in (including porn).  Furthermore, my Direct Messages are not open to people I don’t follow; far too many time-wasters think its OK to flood a sex worker’s DMs with “hi”, “avail?”, dick pics and all the other idiotic garbage they try in text messaging.  That means if a person finds me on Twitter and wants to interact with me, the only way to do so is by replying to one of my tweets or starting a new one with my handle in it so it will show in my notifications.  Since I like being accessible to my fans, I watch my notifications pretty carefully, but of course any fool, sophist or troll can address me that way just as easily as my fans can; what this means is that if some prohibitionist, cop or other moron with a big following decides to attack me, his or her mindless minions will follow and clog up my notifications.  This jams up my Twitter and makes it difficult to see worthwhile responses, just as a wanted letter can get lost in a mailbox crammed with junk mail; furthermore, my time is valuable and I have exactly zero patience for ninnies and cretins trying to lay claim on it without paying me.  And that, my friends, is the reason for my legendary hair-trigger muting:  decent, sensible people can interact with me for years without once tempting me to mute them, but prohibitionists, sophists, trolls, partisans and bootlickers can’t usually tweet me twice without being banished to the outer darkness where they can shout into their own arseholes all day long without the slightest chance of annoying me.

Read Full Post »

Twit Bits

If you don’t follow me on Twitter, here’s a sample of recent tweets you missed out on:

I don't like the odor of that line, "Workers whose jobs are legal." It smells like an oncoming bus. https://t.co/HMTR1TqEJu

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) June 25, 2019

"Problematic" is a projection of an individual's distaste onto the object of that distaste. It's like a person who has a cat allergy blaming that on the cat ("You are allergenic") rather than herself ("I have a cat allergy").

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 20, 2019

So, what hacker wants to start an overseas-hosted website dedicated to outing vice pigs? These are men who are allowed to rape sex workers in order to destroy their lives, yet the press conspires with the cops to hide these rapists' identities. They need to ALL be outed.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 20, 2019

Remember "your mama" insults? Now whores are delivering "your dad" insults on Twitter and it's hilarious.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 19, 2019

Amateurs are so weird I have given up trying to understand them at all. It's clearly some kind of cognitive disorder.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 23, 2019

These people really do believe dollars have a set value and that banks have giant vaults like Scrooge McDuck, don't they?

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 23, 2019

Guys: my availability to you is subsidiary to your acceptability to me. The former isn't important until we determine the latter, so asking when I'm available is pointless until screening is complete.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 23, 2019

Pelosi has exactly one redeeming feature: she isn't running for president.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 25, 2019

Bindel is a drunk and a charlatan who is paid to spout out quack nonsense. She is fond of quoting thoroughly-debunked "studies" and making moronic, misogynistic statements about consent that make no sense to anyone with a functional moral compass. https://t.co/2gyScuMwfE

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 25, 2019

The wages of sin have kept my bank account in the black for over two decades.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 24, 2019

Please don't use ugly euphemisms in my timeline. If you mean "cop", say so; "pig" and "thug" are also acceptable.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 26, 2019

They're not leaders, they're politicians. And the sooner people learn that, the better.

— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) July 26, 2019

Read Full Post »

Diary #474

Any week which includes a Who night with Lorelei is a good week, but last week was good in other ways as well.  It started early Monday morning with a lecture (via video link) to an anthropology class at the University of Michigan, then continued Tuesday with one of my regular beauty treatments and a lovely evening with Lorelei (which beside Doctor Who also included the last two episodes of Good Omens).  I had a productive week of both remunerative work and writing (after editing my video lecture for Renegade University last week), and I even got two lovely presents:  the seventh season of Bewitched from Chekhov, and a Stornoway black pudding all the way from Scotland via Brooke Magnanti!  I like regular black pudding, but the Stornoway variety is without peer and at the time of this writing I’m still savoring the memory of the flavor from dinner a few hours ago; I’m going to take what’s left of this one out to Sunset on Thursday to share with Grace for Lammas.  Anyhow, that’s all I have to say for now; the selfie is simply one I took last Thursday and thought my hair looked extra-nice.

Read Full Post »

Back Issue #73

The most heroic actions are those which are performed only because they are right, and not for glory.  –  “Whore Madonnas”

• Cops raping whores is so ubiquitous, others pose as cops to facilitate rape.
• “Pimp” classification schemes are among the stupidest tropes of the panic.
• Bizarre, stilted language is used to describe a very ordinary escort service.
• The “big events” that supposedly attract “sex trafficking” grow ever sillier.
• A craptastic mixture of the obvious, the pearl-clutching & the dead wrong.
• Prohibition turns bodies into “crime scenes” which cops can violate at will.
• Media never tire of presenting ordinary sexwork practices as new & novel.
• Sex workers who pretend they aren’t are almost as bad as prohibitionists.
• I wonder if any of them recognize how pathetic their denials sound to us?
• Another crime victim caged to force participation in a state morality play.
• In case you thought cops raping whores to arrest us was just a US thing.
• Aussie reporters lap up noxious idiocy vomited out by “rescue” fetishists.
• Calling a prison an “immigration centre” doesn’t make it less of a prison.
• There aren’t enough real “victims”, so the rescue industry creates fakes.
• Pro-censorship loon wants parents to panic about “artificial necrophilia”.
• Remember, cops: raping whores is OK; it’s paying them fairly that isn’t.
• They “see it as a business transaction” because that’s exactly what it is.
• The gap between what actually happened & what cops claim happened.
• Let’s hope this myth is dead, or at least nearly so, by the next election.
• “Religious” guy spends time gawking at, then defacing escort websites.
• Why idiocies like “mid-range prostitution is new” infuriate me so much.
• Hawaii joins other states in recriminalizing acts that are already illegal.
• This is obvious to whores, but it’s nice to see academics discovering it.
• Seoul adopts ever-sleazier tactics to please its masters in Washington.
• Migrant women harassed by cops who declare them infantile “victims”.
• Every little bit helps to undermine the “sin and degradation” narrative.
• Calling a prison “Freedom Place” is as Orwellian as one could imagine.
• Portraying whores as depraved monsters rather than pathetic victims.
• A thorough debunking of “sex trafficking” hysteria by Brittany Turner.
• It’s great to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins.
• It’s only a “shock” to those who live with their heads in their rectums.
• Scaling back claims about Charlotte, NC being a “sex trafficking hub”.
• Florida cops claim to “help” marginalized women by brutalizing them.
• Government uses especially nasty crimes to undermine liberty for all.
• Even among “sex trafficking” publicity stunts, this is painfully stupid.
• When will lawheads learn whores can’t be vanished by proclamation?
• Note this was accomplished by the usual whorearchical line-drawing.
• How about “calling on police” to stop arresting sex workers, period?
• Pro-censorship morons are still trying to destroy the entire internet.
• No, you fucking filthy liar, it’s not “unique” and you fucking know it.
• Clueless reporter is surprised that most whores’ clients are married.
• Ever wonder where all those supposed “sex trafficking victims” are?
• People need to be frequently reminded of what Ruhama actually is.
• Batman, Sesame Street, socialism, cops, “rescue” and much more.
• Labeling a particular street a “hotbed” of sex work or “trafficking”.
• “Fancy”, “It’s All the Same”, and “Texas Has a Whorehouse In It”.
• If interstate highways are so dangerous, why don’t we ban them?
• More mainstream media are debunking “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• Anybody we claim is a victim is one, regardless of what she says.
• You know things have changed when this can appear in the VOA.
• Is it OK to ask a sex worker friend if she’d see me professionally?
• Do you want prosecution for acts that weren’t illegal at the time?
• This is pretty typical of the level of “evidence” in sex work trials.
• “Anti-trafficking” publicity stunts are growing ever more bizarre.
• Are clients of sex work as varied as those of other service work?
• A vile collection of prohibitionist lies, mostly from a prosecutor.
• The deep connection between the rescue & garment industries.
• Is the ACLU finally beginning to do the right thing, at long last?
• I hope people don’t get the idea that this is unique to Oakland.
• Marin County isn’t really small, but this is still patently absurd.
• Without full decriminalization, cops will always harass whores.
• Note how closely this resembles “sex trafficking” propaganda.
• Prohibition turns every individual’s body into a “crime scene”.
• This is not “decriminalization” as some sources are reporting.
• This story has far too many lapses to be considered credible.
• Even when Vice isn’t being directly prohibitionist, it’s no ally.
• Yet another surveillance tool for hunting down sex workers.
• Dr. Marty Klein on the recent upsurge in anti-porn hysteria.
• An article so totally ridiculous I felt compelled to vivisect it.
• A guest columnist writes about Dennis Hof & Lamar Odom.
• This is pretty appalling, especially given the disease factor.
• It’s impossible to overstate how important this reversal is.
• Another in an anti-“sex offender” registry series from Vox.
• How “authorities” intentionally spread diseases in prisons.
• Seattle pigs conspire to destroy literally hundreds of lives.
• Judge orders jury to find an “authority” not guilty of rape.
• The answer is, “Because it doesn’t actually exist as such”.
• Germany prepares a horrible new set of anti-whore laws.
• This campaign has Swanee Hunt’s foul stench all over it.
• This jewel of self-contradiction was too good to pass up.
• “Sex trafficking” is a convenient excuse for any tyranny.
• Prohibitionist nuns hunt down American whores as well.
• NPR licks the arsehole of “Truckers Against Trafficking”.
• Another small country stands up to American bullying.
• Hey, kids! Fight “human trafficking” for fun and profit!
• There aren’t many genuine cases of coercion like this.
• Don’t try to get freebies from sex workers. Seriously.
• Chi Adanna Mgbako on sex worker activism in Africa.
• But picket-fence queers say cops aren’t our enemies.
• $60 would’ve been a cheap price to pay for a lesson.
• Another example of what real sex slavery looks like.
• The Philippines’ weird crusade against “cybersex”.
• I’m rather skeptical of the claimed disparity here.
• And her police record is important…why, exactly?
• Laura Lee braves the hostile waters of Mumsnet.
• A nice article on the Desiree Alliance conference.
• The woman I’ll always think of as my “little girl”.
• Kate Iselin gets it, though four years after I did.
• Notable American proponents of “end demand”.
• A rebuttal to Madison Graham’s guest column.
• Heading to the Desiree Alliance conference.
• The “condoms in porn” controversy begins.
• The madonna/whore dichotomy is bullshit.
• More on EMPOWER’s sex work museum.
• Don’t think this is unique to Oakland.
• China aspires to be more like the US.
• The Desiree Alliance in New Orleans.
• An apology for inadvertent offense.
• My favorite New Orleans eateries.
• Don’t say I didn’t tell you before.
• This is what “rescue” looks like.
• It’s enough to make one vomit.
• Good riddance to bad rubbish.
• More articles like this, please.
• Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
• “Next generation of condom”.
• My very first update column.
• Glenn Kessler does it again.
• Writing a column in the air.
• A lovely weekend-long gig.
• Fault Lines interviews me.
• Rapist cops of July 2016.
• A short trip to Portland.
• The story of Storyville.
• My sixth anniversary.
• Say their names.

Read Full Post »

Diary #472

Last week was relatively quiet, which is probably for the best because my seasonal anxiety is very high right now.  My time-sense is rather off because of the extra sunlight, so sometimes my brain thinks it’s much earlier than it actually is.  Luckily, cannabis edibles kinda reset that by making me relax, and even though I felt listless all week I actually had a fairly productive week.  I got some projects out of the way, did a bit of planning for Sunset, presented The War on Whores at a Pride event in Tacoma, had dinner with Kaytlin Bailey (who was in town for a few days), and edited my lecture on the politics of sex work for Thaddeus Russell’s Renegade University.  Actually, I haven’t done that last yet at the time of this writing, but I promised to work on it today, so I’m saying it here in hopes it will push me to actually do it.  Here’s hoping!  And if I’m really ambitious, maybe I’ll even manage to get my flights for Woodhull scheduled this week.

Read Full Post »

Diary #471

I always enjoy the time I spend at Sunset, especially when it’s mostly doing nothing.  This time, besides just relaxing and eating and drinking and getting stoned and actually staying basically on track with my writing, I helped Grace to scope out what’s going on under my floor.  After moving the bathroom linen closet (which is not built-in) we drilled some test holes in the floor beneath it, and once we had a space large enough to admit a certain dainty white hand I was able to feel around to ensure we wouldn’t drill into a pipe, wire or other hidden obstacle.  We soon had a hatch large enough for me to slither through and with the help of a cellphone camera Grace was able to analyze the problem.  From what we can tell, the original house (which was built in 1927) had only three rooms: parlor, bedroom and kitchen.  The plumbing was probably outdoor, not unusual in rural parts of the US prior to the Great Depression.  Then in the early ’50s or thereabouts, the owners added an upstairs bedroom and two plumbed rooms to the east of the kitchen, a bathroom and a laundry room.  But they did not allow for the weight of those added structures, and the supports were placed several inches east of the load-bearing wall instead of directly beneath it, with the result that for the past 6 or 7 decades the joists supporting the east wall have slowly cracked and several have broken loose.  So now we need to redo the plumbing so we can cut out the old pipes to make an adequate crawlspace under the house (the current one would be barely adequate for a leprechaun) in order to install footings and an I-beam to properly distribute and support the weight of the eastern portion of the house after jacking it back into level (it has dropped about two inches, which doesn’t sound like much but is noticeable when crossing the floor above).  I’ve already bought the new pipe and tools, and Grace started the work yesterday.  Once the new plumbing is in we can assess the next step, and though it’s going to be a lot of (dirty, difficult, & expensive) work it’ll be nice to know that my country place is on a solid foundation again whenever I’m sitting around watching animals grazing in my yard.

Read Full Post »

Ninth Anniversary

I can always be counted on to persevere as long as it is humanly possible to do so, and then just a bit longer.  –  “Eighth Anniversary”

As I wrote one year ago today, “There are quite a few older blogs, but I daresay not many bigger ones; despite travels, travails and troubles, I’ve somehow managed to produce a post every single day since July 10th, 2010.  That’s [well over] 3000 of them now, and that isn’t even counting the books, essays for other publications, audio and video interviews, and speeches I’ve given in public (not to mention the innumerable unrecorded rants to which I’ve subjected my admiring clients and long-suffering friends, the latter not always while entirely sober).”  On top of all that, I now have my own documentary (which you should watch if you haven’t already).  I’ve reached the point where I summarize that as “for the past decade”, and given the incredible density of posts I think that’s acceptable shorthand; in fact, those who follow this blog closely have probably noticed that I’m already shifting toward looking back at essays from ten years back rather than a mere three (expect a new feature in January).  I’ve sometimes said that I’m not entirely sure how I’ve managed to continue for this long, but that’s a self-effacing lie rooted in my Southern Belle upbringing.  In reality, I know exactly how I’ve done it:  it’s a formula consisting of personality force, righteous indignation, stubbornness, anger, and OCD, in roughly equal proportion.  And though (like most people) I’m not entirely sure how much longer I have in this incarnation, I have no plans to stop fighting this war until there is no breath left in me.  And truth be told, I’m not even sure I could stop even if I wanted to.

Read Full Post »