In the News (#979)

(There’s) little [government] interest in the importance of consent and choice.  –  Martin Drago

Dirty Whores (#44)

Here’s an interesting article about how the UK’s horrible Contagious Disease Acts – laws which infringed on human rights so severely they actually inspired English church ladies to fight on the side of whores for a while – affected the landscape of sex work in India, with special attention to Calcutta.  While the article does get some things wrong (as is nigh-universal among articles about sex work written by amateurs), most of the errors are minor and the author appears pretty solidly on the side of the whores, even to the point of describing how 19th-century whore stigma is still alive and harming Indian sex workers to this day via other vestiges of British colonial law.

The Truth About “The Truth About…”

Another of those nonexistent false sexual assault accusations:

Shannon Maley [of Airdrie, Scotland] had a…vendetta against a 20-year-old man with learning disabilities who was dating her sister.  She barely knew him, yet claimed he sexually assaulted her and her friends.  Maley then created multiple social media accounts under the young man’s name and sent herself disturbing and threatening messages in order to frame him.  She has since pleaded guilty to “perverting the course of justice and also to harassing witnesses”…Maley’s messages to herself included threats “to set you on fire and watch you burn alive”…Maley had apparently intimidated her friends into making accusations against [the young man] as well.  One of those friends eventually admitted that…he…had not sexually assaulted her and that Maley had harassed her and tried to influence their testimony…Maley’s story unraveled after she accused [her victim] of sending a threatening message while he was in prison without access to the Internet…

A Modest Proposal (#527)

Women make pragmatic decisions to survive!  Other cultures have different sexual and marital traditions than white Europeans do!  The age of consent varies from country to country!  Clergymen often believe religious law trumps civil law!  Islamic laws are usually pretty shitty toward women!  Lots of men are exploitative fuckwads who take advantage of naive young women!  Laws don’t stop people from exploiting each other!  Opportunists will use unpopular laws as excuses to make money!  And the BBC is on it!

The Widening Gyre (#735)

Nigerian sex trafficking juju mafia terrorists.  I am not making this up:

Stockholm police [are trying to spread hysteria about]…the “Black Ax”, [which they claim is] a Nigerian criminal gang connected to drug trafficking and prostitution involving illegal migrants…The Nigerian mafia is…[fantasized by racist Europeans] to use juju, a Nigerian equivalent of voodoo, to force migrants to become drug traffickers or prostitutes. This [racist fantasy] has been [claimed]…in…Italy…where…earlier this year…police [fantasized]…that the influence of terrorist groups like Boko Haram was spreading among mafia members…

I especially love that the Swedish police are clearly right at home on Breitbart.

Check Your Premises (#809)

Yes, this really is as stupid and evil as it seems at first glance:

[Pigs oinked that] many of the women arrested…in a [prostitution sting] in [Houston] are likely victims.  Many are asking why they were arrested if they are victims themselves.  “They’ve been brainwashed, they’ve been threatened, they’ve been physically abused,” [oinked spokespig] John Wall [while making furtive movements in his pants pockets]…“Certainly we know there are women who choose a life of prostitution, but more often than not…women are prostituted,” s[lurped copsucker] Rania Mankarious…[who] said it’s up to a district attorney to decide if a prostitution suspect is actually a sex-trafficking victim [because women are much too stupid to know that for ourselves]…Trafficking [fetishists] said many times the victims are unwilling to cooperate with [disguised predators who hunt, rape and cage them]…“’It’s going to be better,’ ‘You won’t have to do this much longer,’” are things pi[g]s tell their victims…

Do As I Say, Not As I Do (#817) 

Another slap on the wrist for a sexually-entitled cop:

A [typical and representative] NYPD cop [who hired] a 15-year-old prostitute [on at least ten occasions] and record[ed] their [sessions, plea-bargained]…felony rape and sex abuse charges [down to]…official misconduct and witness tampering…Raul Olmeda…refused to admit that he knew his victim…in…photos…found on his computer and cellphone.  Nor would he identify his bedroom and living room furniture, which were in the photos [and because he’s a cop, his self-evidently false denials were enough]…

Pyrrhic Victory (#899)

You know how wannabe “civil liberties advocates” keep bleating that the main problem with facial recognition systems are that they’re less acurate on dark-skinned people?  Yeah, about that:

In July, Google admitted it has employees pounding the pavement in a variety of US cities, looking for people willing to sell their facial data for a $5 gift certificate…But…a Google contractor may be using some questionable methods to get those facial scans, including targeting groups of homeless people and tricking college students who didn’t know they were being recorded…a contracting agency named Randstad sent teams to Atlanta explicitly to target homeless people and those with dark skin, often without saying they were working for Google, and without letting on that they were actually recording people’s faces…

Subtle Pimping (#903)

Yet another “virtual reality” game based on lies about us, this one intended to teach pigs racist fantasies about Asian sex workers:

A team of Cal Poly students is using virtual reality to [lick cop boots and endanger sex workers]…”We’re building a…[racist fantasy of an Asian] massage parlor in virtual reality to [indoctrinate pigs into misinterpreting even the most innocuous]…things [as ‘evidence’ of ‘crime’]” said Marco Zuniga…he researched [prohibitionist propaganda]…as he developed the VR [game instead of talking to sex workers]…“What do massage parlors even look like?”…he asked himself [moronically, instead of actually going to find out]…The [game] has other object[s] for its [players to find, just like players of other video games can] find [magic potions, creatures to enlave, and other fantasy treatures]…

The Crumbling Dam (#917)

Those who gain power from opioid hysteria aren’t going to like this:

A judge has ruled that a Philadelphia nonprofit group’s plan to open the first [public] site in the U.S. where people can use…opioids under medical supervision does not violate federal drug laws, delivering a major setback to Justice Department lawyers who launched a legal challenge to block the [life-saving] facility.  U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh ruled…that…”The ultimate goal of Safehouse’s proposed operation is to reduce drug use, not facilitate it,” McHugh wrote in…the first legal decision about whether supervised injection sites can be legally permissible under U.S. law…”The Department of Justice remains committed to preventing…drug [users] from [accessing basic harm reduction],” said Bill McSwain, U.S. Attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania…

A Broker in Pillage (#935)

Burying government in lawsuits is the only way to slow its depredations:

The city of Chicago says retired grandmother Allie Nelson owes it $6,000 in fines and fees after [it stole] her car…in 2017, even though the criminal case that led to [the seizure]…was dismissed, and even though she wasn’t driving her car, or even in the state…Nelson was in fact…in Houston, recuperating from cancer treatment, when she got a call from a family member saying [cops had stolen] her car…[when they] found her granddaughter’s boyfriend driving [it], allegedly along with some marijuana…Nelson is also one of two named plaintiffs added this week to a class-action lawsuit challenging Chicago’s [extortion scam, which]…violates residents’ guarantee of due process, as well as protections against excessive fines and unreasonable seizures, under both the Illinois and U.S. constitutions…

Pyrrhic Victory (#946)

As I keep saying, it’s already far too late to stop this tyranny:

France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a [supposedly] secure digital identity — whether they want it or not.  Saying it wants to make the state more efficient [like Communist China, the]…government is pushing through plans to roll out an ID program, dubbed Alicem, in November…the program breaches the European rule of consent and a privacy group is challenging it in France’s highest administrative court…France [lies that] the ID system won’t be used to keep tabs on residents…[and pretends] the facial recognition data collected will be deleted when the enrollment process is over…the app [clearly] violates Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which makes free choice mandatory…Authorities say the security of Alicem is at the “highest, state level”.  Yet in April, Robert Baptiste, a hacker who goes by Elliot Alderson on Twitter, was able to access one of the government’s “highly secure” apps within 75 minutes…

Pyrrhic Victory (#961)

Where “public safety” is used to mean “accessibility to government snooping”:

Attorney General Bill Barr, along with officials from the United Kingdom and Australia, is set to publish an open letter to…Mark Zuckerberg asking [Facebook] to delay plans for end-to-end encryption across its messaging services until it can guarantee the added privacy does not reduce [what the politicians absurdly label] public safety…the letter raises concerns that…encryption i[s a mathematical process which]…will prevent [government busybod]ies from [spying on people in the same way it prevents other malware]…The letter calls on Facebook to prioritize [government snooping even though that will also enable non-government snooping]…

Little Boxes (#975)

The puritans are already arguing a federal court ruling doesn’t apply to them:

Tilli Buchanan and her husband had been installing insulation in their garage, and had stripped off their clothes just inside their home to get the itchy materials off their skin.  She was topless when her stepchildren bounded down the stairs…but Buchanan told them they shouldn’t treat her differently because she was a woman…But [the children’s biological mother found out and reported her to pigs, who]…filed criminal charges…of lewdness involving a child…If convicted, Buchanan could…[be condemned to] the sex offender registry for the next 10 years…her attorney Randy Richards plans to ask a judge to find that Utah’s lewdness statute is unconstitutional because it discriminates against women…her husband was also in the same state of undress and is not charged…the…10th Circuit Court…which includes Utah [recently made the incredibly-obvious ruling that laws which single women out for]…condemn[ation]…as…child sex offender[s discriminate]…on the basis of sex…But…prosecutors argued…that…Utah’s lewdness statute [prohibiting only female toplessness somehow] does not discriminate on the basis of gender [and that even if it did that would be a good thing]…

Grown adults are trying to destroy a woman’s life for getting undressed to shower in her own home, and using public funds to argue that a clearly-discriminatory law isn’t discriminatory, but the US isn’t a police state, no sirree.

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Links #462

I can’t breathe.  –  Derek Williams

I’ve shared a lot of Sesame Street shorts in this space over the years, but for some reason I had completely forgotten about this one, which was one of my favorites as a child.  The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker, Tim Cushing, Zuri Davis, Charles Hill, Eric Sprankle, and Wendy Lyon, in that order.

• Garfield horror.
• Just protecting and serving.
• But for video, delayed edition.
• Those who’ve played it already knew this.
• The beginnings of dark ages are fascinating.
• In Biblical times, this would’ve been seen as a sign from God.

From the Archives

• Kaytlin’s sex work past isn’t germane to this; reporter goes there anyhow.
• Stop pretending Tom Dart’s actions are other than a power & money grab.
• FOSTA may have been a serious miscalculation on the government’s part.
• Don’t want people spreading stupid rumors? Stop spreading ’em yourself.
• People kept out of the formal economy survive via the informal economy.
• I’m glad silly protectionist whores couldn’t wreck decrim in New Zealand.
• Destroying men’s ability to support their families is latest anti-whore fad.
• “Rescuers” are so invested in their own fantasies they’ll believe anything.
• How many kids need to be sacrificed to this obscenity before it’s enough?
• Why are people surprised when cops push for the “right” to rape whores?
• UK cops have never found more than a tiny # of “sex trafficking” cases.
• Nevada is now one of the most vile fonts of anti-whore vomit in the US.
• Can I regain the spiritual dimension of sex I used to have with my wife?
• Coalitions of fundamentalist anti-sex groups are in no way “surprising”.
• This will be much more common due to the ramped-up war on whores.
• Sullying a sex worker by surrounding her words with prohibitionist lies.
• Another cowboy raid staged for the entertainment of rich US moralists.
• Sex workers can only help men before they turn into deranged “incels”.
• NBC News publishes an article which openly calls for decriminalization.
• In the contemporary US, people can be fired from jobs for blasphemy.
• Seattle cops aren’t the only ones with a fetish for creepy surveillance.
• Seattle “officials” still adore prohibition of things other than cannabis.
• I’m delighted to see “creepy clown” hysteria still has a bit of life in it.
• Why have you remained a sex worker for so much longer than most?
• If this is a “brothel”, then a room with a foosball table is a “stadium”.
• It’s no longer taboo for reporters to come out in support of decrim.
• Another example of the War on Whores as the new War on Drugs.
• The stupidity and evil of politicians is sometimes mind-boggling.
• The term for nonconsensual sex isn’t “sleeping with”, it’s “rape”.
• Fascism is much more effective at repression than communism.
• Cops, thoughtcrime, Jesus, jumping machines and much more.
• An excellent article by stalwart friend of whores Mark Draughn.
• Pretended “secondary effects” aren’t usually silly nebulosities.
• Indian court rules that acts which aren’t illegal, aren’t illegal.
• Long time readers may remember “Fake Internet Girlfriend”.
• The global south is far ahead of the US in sex worker rights.
• A simple primer on interacting with sex workers on Twitter.
• Another racist anti-whore pogrom in “progressive” Seattle.
• More racist infantilization of Nigerian sex workers in Italy.
• Eternal life would be a horror literally beyond imagining.
• Prohibitionists just can’t stop beating this dead horse.
• An excerpt from Brooke Magnanti’s The Turning Tide.
• Surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi.
• Cops, Australia, prohibition, Prince and much more.
• Once in a very great while, the bad guys still lose.
• US prisons are hotbeds of rape in every form.
• “Evil” is not a noun; it is an adjective.
• Lorelei & I at The Secret Garden.
• Rapist cops of the week.
• My sexuality is money.

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In the News (#903)

Is this going to school or going to prison?  –  anonymous Chinese citizen

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake 

I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop:

Lawsuits alleging improper classification of workers and a recent California Supreme Court labor law ruling are impacting…adult dancers in San Francisco, many of whom once relied on daily cash payouts to survive…dancers, previously considered independent contractors, now are walking out of club doors with biweekly employee paychecks and not with cash in hands after their shifts end.  The move to convert adult dancers to employee status is causing an exodus…[from] those establishments…BSC Management…operates the majority of adult clubs in San Francisco…According to Axel Sang, BSC’s marketing director…“The BSC-managed clubs now have matching payroll taxes, unemployment compensation, workman’s compensation, Healthy San Francisco costs, Affordable Care Insurance costs and San Francisco sick leave pay for several hundred new employee entertainers in addition to the hourly wage”…Sang estimated that 200 dancers have quit their jobs since the policy change to paychecks…

Blunt Instrument (#596)

Due to their visibility, massage parlors are taking the brunt of the “sex trafficking” hysteria in smaller cities:

…the New Port Richey [Florida] City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance that would ban bathhouses in the city…[in an attempt to strangle] massage parlors…The ordinance would ban any establishment that’s not a medical facility from [letting water touch] clients.  Anyone who violates the law would be fined up to $500 for each violation and possibly imprisoned for up to 60 days…

Subtle Pimping (#802) 

Yet another scumbag profits from the criminalization of sex work by basing a game on lies about us:

Billy Cain…started searching for a way to use virtual reality technology — or VR — to [profit from] people…[by promoting hysteria] about sex trafficking…Texas has been a hub for…human trafficking [hysteria] for [a] decade…[one typically disgusting masturbatory fantasy claims] 79,000 children are being sex trafficked in Texas at any given moment…[in] his sex trafficking [sex fantasy] simulation…people put on a special pair of goggles to [roleplay an imaginary] 13-year-old girl who fell victim to trafficking.  In “Trapped: VR Detective Story”, players see where the girl is being held and interact with objects to [flesh out the fantasy prior to masturbation]…players will learn…who is most vulnerable to being trafficked — anyone.  Anywhere.  From any background…

TRAFFICKERS ARE EVERYWHERE!  THEY’RE WAITING TO GET YOU!  EVERYBODY PANIC, THEN BUY MY GAME!

Overdue

Collapsing empires are obsessed with form over substance:

“We’ve made a conscious effort in TSA … to use floppy ear dogs,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske told the Washington Examiner…”We find the passenger acceptance of floppy ear dogs is just better…Doesn’t scare children”…in the last year, 80 percent of dogs purchased by TSA…were…breeds…[with] droopy ears…which are deemed less intimidating…

Yes, the people who literally grope children’s genitals claim they’re worried that dogs will frighten them.

Choke Point (#850) 

Useful idiots are unable to understand how precedent works:

…a death metal/black metal record label has shut down in the wake of PayPal pulling out support for processing purchases, along with the creditors at Visa and MasterCard because the company was labeled as “high risk”, “promoting hatred”, “promoting violence”, and “promoting hate speech”…Elegy Records, a label that hosted all sorts of death metal music since 1996…[has closed due to] the inability to sign with a normal credit processor due to being…classified as “high risk” by the banks and credit processors, which meant that he was effectively blacklisted from the banking industry…the only way to accept payments from customers was…via cash or money orders.  For online businesses it’s not possible to operate without some sort of banking institution, or credit card processing since all purchases are made electronically…

It always starts with a politically-unpopular group like sex workers or gun owners, but never stops there.

Pyrrhic Victory (#857) 

Where US schools are soon headed:

In China’s latest quest to build an all-seeing surveillance state, schools…in…one of China’s poorest provinces…are now required to wear…uniforms…embedded with electronic chips that track their movements…[they] keep track of the exact times that students leave or enter the school…an[d]…facial-recognition equipment stationed at the school entrance can match a student’s face with the chip embedded in the uniform…The chips…can activate an alarm when the sensor detects that a student has fallen asleep in class…

Pyrrhic Victory (#884) 

While activists and Amazon’s own shareholders & employees were asking for the company not to support fascism, Bezos was doing this:

The FBI is piloting…Amazon Rekognition…as a means to sift through mountains of video surveillance footage the agency routinely collects…While Amazon is now a significant supplier of technology to the government…[and] includes the CIA and Defense Department as customers—it is less clear how its facial recognition software is being used in the [police state]…the company pitched the software to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last summer, a move that has…Amazon employees asking questions.  The company does not list any federal clients on its customer page, and currently only identifies as a customer one local law enforcement agency, the Washington County Sheriff Office…[yet]…the city of Orlando recently began a second pilot of…[the] software…

Imaginary Victims (#896) 

The Cyntoia Brown case has attracted attention to the cases of other underage sex workers who killed abusive clients:

…Chrystul Kizer, 18, is charged with first-degree homicide, arson and auto theft for the June 5 shooting death of Randall Volar III.  She was 17 when Volar was killed…he had been shot twice, and that the fire to the house appeared to have been set…Investigators said…Volar had paid for an Uber driver to bring Kizer from Milwaukee to his home…she initially denied knowing Volar, but later told police that “he (Volar) helped her with money and places to stay”…she reportedly confessed, saying “she got upset and was tired of Volar touching her” and that she had shot him…before his death Volar was under investigation by the Kenosha Police Department for sexual conduct with underage girls.  In a motion to compel discovery…[her lawyer stated] “The defense believes that the discovery in this case suggests that Ms. Kizer acted in self-defense”…

First They Came for the Hookers… (#900) 

It’s rare that judges side with sex workers against the government:

Imagine a symphony orchestra barred by the state from performing again because a musician was [accused of selling] marijuana to a colleague backstage…In Providence, Rhode Island…it happened to a strip club called the Foxy Lady.  On Dec. 19, the Providence Board of Licenses voted to permanently shut down the…[club] after police arrested three employees [and accused them of prostitution]…By doing so, the board threw more than 200 people out of work less than a week before Christmas.  Within days, the state Department of Business Regulation quickly restored the club’s liquor license, but the Foxy Lady’s owners were required by law to petition the state Supreme Court to regain its entertainment license…the state Supreme Court agreed to issue a stay, allowing the club to reopen for now, but the threat of future closure remains…

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Links #435

I got a rock.  –  Charlie Brown

As usual, I don’t find any good Halloween videos until it’s too late to feature them before Halloween.  I’ve actually featured this one before, back in 2012, but at that time it was only available on the Funny or Die site and couldn’t be embedded; thanks to Franklin Harris for bringing this YouTube copy to my attention.  The links above it were provided by Tim Cushing, Popehat, Walter Olson, Nun Ya, Tim Cushing again and ACLU.

• As one does.
• What, again?
• Gotta catch ’em all.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• STOP CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!

From the Archives

• Woman-shaped toasters have no “moral code”; they are mindless objects.
• Watching “sex trafficking” hysteria spin out of control is deeply gratifying.
• Low-population states have the silliest supposed “gypsy whore” magnets.
• San Diego has become one of the US’s most corrupt pocket police states.
• How many hand jobs did these “heroes” get during their “investigation”?
• The age-old story of a mother refusing to accept her daughter’s choices.
• Cops, chickens, Dali, Fred Flintstone, Florida, monsters and much more.
• Criticize Playboy if you like, but it’s always been ahead on social issues.
• Do idiots who use the phrase “child rape” even remember being teens?
• Truth from a politician: rarer than an anti-prohibition stance in Ireland.
• Cops non-consensually use sex workers as props in wanking fantasies.
• When NPR questions “sex trafficking” hysteria, its days are numbered.
• Intelligence is not a prerequisite for public office or local news media.
• Conditioning kids to accept surveillance of every aspect of their lives.
• Why shouldn’t sex workers charge different prices for different acts?
• Some companies will destroy the internet for a business advantage.
• Crappy sci-fi TV show inspires pearl-clutching over a sex fantasy.
• I’m glad to see this dangerous placebo is flopping on the market.
• What’s “shocking” is most people’s ignorance about sex workers.
• The narrower the neck, the more “illegal” sex work there will be.
• When “child sex trafficking” really means “giving a friend a ride”.
• “Authorities” claim credit for streetwalkers shifting to online ads.
• Once Patreon caved to PayPal the first time, this was inevitable.
• “There was no evidence…[of] threat…or any form of…coercion…”
• Cops, skeletons, Louisiana, amateurs, Cthulhu and much more.
• Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
• Court rules that SAVE Act doesn’t apply to regular escort ads.
• Why do massage parlors bring puritans out of the woodwork?
• It’s good to see so many challenges to these medieval laws.
• Frankie Mullin on the then-recent Soho & Chinatown raids.
• Ugly regurgitated sexual fantasies from a sexual predator.
• Sadly nearing the end of the Great Clown Panic of 2016.
• Surveillance beyond the wildest dreams of the Stasi.
• Sweden is so liberal, so pro-social, so just and kind!
• The 2017 clown panic was extremely disappointing.
• Indefinite imprisonment without trial or sentence.
• We need anarchy to protect us from government.
• Like reading something from the 17th century.
• “Youth pastors” are nearly as bad as cops.
• Rapist cops of the week, 2016 and 2017.
• My two previous columns for Halloween.
• My birthday week, 2016 and 2017.
• So much for human uniqueness.
• Let’s play “count the idiocies”.
• You are going to die.  Soon.

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In the News (#829)

Sex workers…are human beings who[se]…rights to health, safety, self-determination, and bodily autonomy should not be subject to debate or sacrifice to abstract principles.  –  Green Party proposal

If It Were Legal

I’m willing to bet this was either a findom arrangement or a blackmail fantasy:

The second in command of the Harris County [Texas] Treasurer’s Office is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a county credit union to pay a dominatrix who was blackmailing him.  Gregory Lueb was arrested…and charged with felony theft of up to $30,000…Lueb told investigators…the woman eventually demanded money and threatened to tell his wife…

If he’s telling the truth, and if sex work weren’t illegal and stigmatized, he could’ve gone to an established professional instead of some sleazy amateur.

The Punitive Mindset

The need to censor is one of the most twisted of perversions:

A federal judge is considering whether South Dakota’s statewide ban on porn in prisons is constitutional.  The case arose from an inmate, Charles Sisney, who says all sorts of non-pornographic content got caught up in porn prohibition, including a yoga magazine, images of Michaelangelo’s work, and Japanese comics. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South Dakota and the National Coalition have filed briefs in support of Sisney’s case…the parameters of the ban go way beyond adult films, nude images, or other things that most people would consider to be porn.  Prisoners are banned from writing sexually explicit letters or receiving them, and from receiving any visual or written material that’s deemed sexually explicit…

Three Steps Back

In December 2010, New Orleans decided to de facto decriminalize marijuana and prostitution, then it changed its collective mind and recriminalized them.  We’re all familiar with what happened afterward with sex work, but two years ago the city actually went ahead and truly decriminalized weed, with the following results:

…newly released city statistics show that New Orleans police have taken the city’s cannabis decriminalization efforts seriously, and now make arrests in only 1% of minor cannabis incidents.  The New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance two years ago  decriminalizing minor cannabis possession, giving [cops] the discretion to ticket rather than arrest suspects found with small amounts of pot…NOPD has all but eliminated marijuana charges from their protocol, reducing the rate of possession-related arrests from 72% of all police and pot interactions in 2011-2014, to the newly released number of only 1% in the last half of 2016 and first half of 2017…last year saw 5,000 fewer cannabis-related arrests in New Orleans than took place half a decade ago…

And yet they can’t seem to grasp that decriminalizing sex work would have similar benefits.

Stand-Up Guys 

Shift in the Wind

It looks like the Greens are poised to become the second US political party (the Libertarians have held the position for decades) to adopt decriminalization as an official position.  The new position has apparently been approved by Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Utah, and by the party’s Black Caucus, Lavender Greens and Young Greens.  The explanation of the reasons for the change starts like this:

It is the opinion of the authors of this document that the party’s current stance on sex work…is morally indefensible, ideologically incoherent, and politically damaging.  The submitted revisions represent an effort to eliminate derogatory language, move the Green Party’s stated policy prescriptions away from carceral state solutions and more in line with the current thought of human rights groups such as Amnesty International, and…condemn…violence against women without condemning or negating the existence of individual sex workers…

Worse Than I Thought

Anti-whore assholes just keep getting bolder:

California Senate Bill 1204…sponsored by…Patricia Bates…is aimed at broadening the definition of “pandering” within the State of California…to [include anyone] “who arranges, causes, encourages, induces, persuades, or procures another person to be a prostitute”…What does “encourages” mean? If I say to my friend “hey you would make a great prostitute!” – have I just encouraged that person to be a prostitute and therefore I am guilty of the crime of pandering?  What about my free speech rights?  What if my friend who is a prostitute says, “gee I wish I could see a client today because I really need to feed my child/pay my rent but I cannot afford condoms” and I give that person condoms, have I encouraged the act of prostitution?  What if I as a lawyer – give advice to a prostitute…have I just committed pandering?…I would encourage you to contact Senator Patricia Bates office and encourage her to kill her own bill…

The Punitive Mindset (#688) 

Long-time readers know that I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons since 1981, and that it’s my all-time favorite game.  I’ve alluded to it many times and even written a few columns touching on it, and though I haven’t played in about 8 years now I’ve recently started thinking about starting up a new game for some friends.  So I quite enjoyed this long-form article about the game, its history and its long record of being attacked by authoritarians for promoting imagination and free thought.  I decided to list it under this category because the article includes a section on prison officials banning the game (because of course they would), which I reported on in the above-linked column.  But really, I just couldn’t pass up calling it to your attention at a time when most of the contents of this blog are darker than any imaginary dungeon, and the real world is dominated by far scarier monsters than any I ever made up for the heroes to defeat.

The Pygmalion Fallacy (#787) 

Yes, this is a supposedly sane adult arguing that toasters have “feelings” and can “suffer”, while classifying sex workers as subhuman:

Late in 2017 at a tech fair in Austria, a sex robot was “molested” repeatedly and left in a “filthy” state.  The robot, named Samantha, received a barrage of male attention, which resulted in her sustaining two broken fingers.  This incident confirms worries that the possibility of fully functioning sex robots raises both tantalising possibilities for human desire (by mirroring human/sex-worker relationships), as well as serious ethical questions …there are certain elements of relationships between humans and sex workers that we may not wish to repeat.  But to me, it is the ethical aspects of the way we think about human-robot desire that are particularly key…

Yes, moral retard Victoria Brooks there describes vandalism of a machine as “molestation” and waxes poetic about this object’s “suffering”, while twice in a short section referring to sex workers as things apart from humans.

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#792) 

Possibly the most pathetic of all things: a gay male prude:

…how Grindr is affecting gay men….doesn’t look good.  The most common reason users gave for going on the app is that sex feels great and Grindr makes it accessible, right at your fingertips…Neuroscientists have shown that orgasm causes activation of pleasure areas of the brain like the ventral tegmental area while deactivating areas involved with self-control.  And these patterns of activation in men are strikingly similar to what researchers see in the brain of individuals using heroin or cocaine.  So when a neutral action (clicking on Grindr) is paired with a pleasurable response in the brain (orgasm), humans learn to do that action over and over again.  This can be…a setup for addiction…

Disaster

It usually starts with us, but it never, ever stops with us:

…Sex workers are the canaries in the digital coal mine, and SESTA, if it isn’t fought and reversed, is a disaster for all kinds of online speech…It’s no surprise that a bill like this has manifested alongside the #MeToo movement — it challenges what it means to for sex workers to consent, and takes aim at the online speech that acts as evidence that we have…The ambiguously written bill creates what is in effect a special loophole to target the speech of sex workers within the sweeping legal protections given to online speech.  And because marginalized groups often act as Patient Zero for regressive new laws, it will be no surprise when this new approach to censorship eventually spreads across the internet…The difference between what sex workers and their advocates say — that trafficking is a relatively minor issue in their industry — and what anti-sex trafficking legislators believe reflects the country’s long held reluctance to believe women when they tell the truth, especially when it involves sex.  One place where that truth is told daily is the internet communities where sex workers reside in safety and solidarity, and SESTA is designed to break up these communities…

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Links #400

If Jesus was coming up the escalator three or four steps lower than you are, would He consider what you were wearing was acceptable?  –  Christian modesty guide (2016)

When this song came on my “Bohemian Rhapsody” Pandora station last week (yes, I have a station based on “Bohemian Rhapsody”; why don’t you?) I hadn’t heard it in decades.  But it’s one I have thought about often, and upon re-listening I realized that it’s one of the inspirations for my story “Millennium“.  The links above it were provided by Tim Cushing, Elizabeth N. Brown, Mike Siegel, Rick Horowitz,  Lenore Skenazy, and Tim Cushing again, in that order.

• Stranger than fiction.
• I hate it when this happens.
• Why is “not for any reason” so hard to understand?
• An even better metaphor now than it was last week.
• Cops categorize a math problem as a “terrorist threat”.
• Should we tell them “thigh” is a Biblical euphemism for male genitalia?

From the Archives

• Scum brothel owners push prohibitionist lies to further their own interests.
• I never thought there was a Western culture more puritanical than the US.
• Maybe the Times thinks if it backs away slowly enough, nobody will notice.
• Once they succeed in defining whores as mindless vegetables, who’s next?
• Trump’s ideas mostly involve deporting people & giving cops more power.
• Everyone harmed by “prostitution stings” needs to sue the cops for them.
• If this is a “brothel”, then a room with a foosball table in it is a “stadium”.
• Imbecile clucks about non-experiences as though they meant something.
• Did serial rapist Matt Hickey think ignoring this would make it go away?
• I’m amused to see Hollywood-promoted hysteria coming home to roost.
• I wish they hadn’t surrounded my friend’s words with prohibitionist lies.
• This isn’t “odd” at all; it’s the typical pattern of “sex trafficking” rumors.
• Preacher ignores sex worker, blathers about imaginary “pimps” instead.
• Another group throws whores under bus to curry favor with their lords.
• Oppression committed in the name of “fighting sex trafficking” rolls on.
• Missing woman last seen with gang member; family blames bogeymen.
• Nuns shocked their magical proclamation didn’t erase economic reality.
• Linking support for a police state with a famous victim of such a state.
• A good, thorough article on what to do if you fall in love with a whore.
• These are the same cops politicians keep urging sex workers to trust.
• Did some wealthy prohibitionist pay The Atlantic to run this garbage?
• Great idea: make people unable to work & provide for their families!
• “Cuckoo Clock” McCain wants to vomit poison over the entire world.
• Another step toward getting completely rid of these tyrannical laws.
• It’s illegal to pay for sex in Sweden, unless you’re the government.
• Officials try to prevent repeat fiasco by means of extreme violence.
• A short interview with a dear friend, the superlative Savannah Sly.
• Not every reporter thinks “journalism” means “fellating authority”.
• Two previous columns for International Sex Worker Rights Day.
• 3 of the most fucked up ways the feds are controlling sex work.
• “Sex trafficking” fetishists are becoming increasingly unhinged.
• Fact: Young woman leaves hotel. Conclusion: “sex trafficking”!
• Cops, iPhones, laws, words, Lindsey Stirling and much more.
• Gee, I can’t imagine why a teenager would want a fake ID.
• Wisconsin’s cheesy attempt to extort money from whores.
• Life continues as usual when foreign politicians visit city.
• Is it a good idea for a newbie escort to hire a manager?
• Evidence-free claims are used to argue for censorship.
• I honestly don’t get why this is considered news at all.
• Another shrug-inducing interview with Jami Rodman.
• An absolutely fucking brilliant act of harlotry.
• The deaths of two more black transwomen.
• Cops, bills, understatement & much more.
• Another woman senselessly murdered.
• One can practically hear the fapping.
• Thoughts on SASS and Mardi Gras.
• Awesome whores being awesome.
• More good news about bad laws.
• Some people are just so hateful.
• On the UK’s rescue industry.
• What do sex workers want?
• Much more of this, please.
• Rapist cop of the week.
• Four years ago today.
• SASS week, 2016.

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In the News (#802)

There is no “Truckers Against Trafficking Truckers” to help me safely return to the freedom and independence of sex work.  –  Kelly Michaels

Backfire

Pathetic “sex trafficking” fetishists are recycling an old failed propaganda campaign to convince men that it’s “cool” to let anti-sex lunatics control their sex lives, to infantilize women, and to empower the pigs to spy on people even more than they already do and to persecute them for seeking consensual sex.  It would be hilarious if it weren’t a direct threat to the sexual freedom and civil liberties of every adult in the world.

See No Evil 

It’s both fascinating and horrifying to watch a culture lobotomize itself:

An elementary school in…Utah fired an art teacher [for showing his students art]…One parent even called the police, accusing the teacher of showing the students pornography.  The saga began when Mateo Rueda had fifth and sixth grade students do a color study exercise…Rueda had students go to the library and look through art books and boxes of postcards so they could select which paintings best exemplified the color relationships they had been studying.  That’s when Rueda realized that some of the postcards, which…had been in the library long before he started teaching there, included some nude paintings, including Iris Tree by Amedeo Modigliani, François Boucher’s Brown Odalisque, and The Valpincon Bather by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres…He…then went through the pack to remove paintings he thought were inappropriate.  Still, he explained to the students that nudity in art is normal…Some students…expressed discomfort with the paintings and Rueda allegedly encouraged them to discuss things with their parents.  But some of the parents then proceeded to complain to the school, which fired Rueda on Dec. 8…

The Truth About “The Truth About…”

Two similar cases in just a few weeks:

Danny Kay…will greet the New Year as a free man after being convicted of a rape that was based on altered evidence submitted by the alleged victim.  His freedom is due not to police work but the work of his sister in law Sarah Maddison…[who] found…that the police used [Facebook] messages that were misleadingly edited by the woman and that the real messages directly contradicted her claims.  The police revealed an utter incompetence in the investigation and the prosecutors have expressed no intent in looking at possible charges against the woman who is accused of changing the meaning of the messages from exculpatory to incriminating…Archived versions of the original messages found by Maddison showed not only a consensual relationship but a desire to continue the relationship…

Banishment

Do these idiots think everyone in a crowded shelter will be contaminated by sex rays?

Our eastern and northern states, preparing for snow, ice, and plummeting temperatures, also prepare their ready-made speeches: “Sex offenders will not be allowed”…A Christian ministry in Alabama, not often a state that must prepare for sub-freezing weather, says that it “wants to make sure no one is without shelter Sunday” when the temperatures are expected to drop drastically…“The ministry will be taking in anyone who wants to escape the cold”…It is not until the last paragraph that we are told, “…sex offenders will not be allowed to stay because of children”…What about “sex offenders” who have children?  What about “sex offenders” who ARE children?…

Case Study

A sow seeks her 15 minutes by spinning tragedy-porn for her audience’s masturbatory pleasure:

…PCSO Jacqui Fairbanks…has been [harassing] the women in Hessle Road, Hull for a decade…“Some of these women have come from backgrounds of child abuse, both physical and sexual…Quite a number suffer from mental health problems and there are issues of trafficking and coercion by pimps and boyfriends…But the biggest issue is drugs and many of these women are on the streets to pay for theirs and their partner’s next fix.  One woman had a baby and, within half an hour, was back out on the streets. That’s how desperate some of these women are…Our problem is that these women will not come and deal with us.  Their self-esteem is so low that they [would rather do productive work than let us force them into menial labor for a fraction of the income]”…

All-Purpose Excuse

As if this weren’t already bad enough, take a look at the government’s excuse for flushing what little is left of the Fourth Amendment:

In the summer of 2014, Terrence Byrd was driving a rental car on an interstate highway in Pennsylvania.  His fiancée had rented it, and he was using it with her permission.  But he was not listed on the rental agreement as an authorized driver.  A state trooper, David Long, [tailed] Mr. Byrd and…[later] testified that Mr. Byrd had aroused his suspicion by holding the steering wheel as driving instructors recommend…and by sitting far back in his seat…Because Mr. Byrd was not listed as an authorized driver, Trooper Long said he was free to search the car without Mr. Byrd’s consent.  He found body armor and 49 bricks of heroin in the trunk.  After a judge refused to suppress the evidence, Mr. Byrd was convicted of federal drug charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.  Next week, the Supreme Court will consider whether privacy rights turn on the fine-print contracts signed by the more than 115 million people who rent cars every year…In a brief supporting the federal government, 15 states said criminals often used cars rented by others to transport drugs, victims of human trafficking and unauthorized immigrants…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#580) 

Predictable in the current Neo-Victorian climate:

…Playboy Enterprises Inc.’s controlling shareholder—private-equity firm Rizvi Traverse—is in talks to acquire the 35% stake Mr. Hefner left in trust to his heirs…the company says it is doubling down on efforts to make money from brand partnerships and licensing deals built around the Playboy name, ethos and bunny logo, with increasingly less focus on its editorial roots.  “We want to focus on what we call the ‘World of Playboy’ which is so much larger than a small, legacy print publication,” said Ben Kohn, a managing partner at Rizvi who took over as Playboy Enterprises’ chief executive in May 2016.  “We plan to spend 2018 transitioning it from a media business to a brand-management company”…

Naked Truth (#601)

Elizabeth Nolan Brown presents her picks for the best sex work writing of the year:

…Traditional media is not known for its nuanced and accurate portrayals of erotic industries, but more than a few fair accounts managed to slip through the mainstream cracks this year, in the form of both commentary and original reporting.  Meanwhile, sex-worker blogs, platforms like Medium, and indie press outlets have continued to allow current and former sex workers to tell their own stories.  I hope [this] list…provides some idea of the awesome breadth of sex worker experiences in 2017, the outlets and writers capturing them, and the devastating toll that current cultural panic and government policy responses are taking on people in a range of “adult” occupations and circumstances…

To Molest and Rape 

Rapist cops don’t limit themselves to any particular group of victims:

A former auxiliary cop [reports] her two NYPD bosses teamed up to pressure her for sex in the back of a police van.  The complaint…comes just a few months after two other city cops [violent]ly raped a [handcuffed] teen in their NYPD van…Huma Ayyaz…was targeted by…Andrew Thaler and…Rohnit Singh…because she comes from a conservative Pakistani Muslim family and they assumed she wouldn’t risk her reputation by speaking out…

Subtle Pimping (#767)

India has more that its share of scumbags profiting from sex workers by promoting harmful lies:

The Missing Public Art Project and Awareness Campaign exists [to profit by exploiting sex workers…Missing: The Complete saga is a role-playing game for PC where you play as a trafficking victim…It’s meant to capture the hopelessness of sex trafficking victims.  In order to do so, it’s being intentionally designed to feel unfair…

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Links #392

This call was little peculiar for us.  –  murder apologist Troy Livingston

Though there are plenty of falling domino videos on the internet, I’m enchanted by the whimsy and cleverness of the presentations designed by Hevesh, the lady who created last week’s Christmas video.  The links above the video were provided by ManCrack, Adjective Girl, Tim Cushing, Mike Siegel, Scott Greenfield, and  Radley Balko, in that order.

• I hate it when this happens.
• Why is “never” such a difficult concept?
• How a mouse is choking a whole culture.
• Looks like I’ll need to watch Chekhov more carefully.
• Calling the fucking pigs on someone is not a “prank”; it’s murder.
• Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.

From the Archives

• Pretend your unsold product “fights sex trafficking” & watch profits roll in!
• “Gypsy whores” myth is so discredited, politicians need to spread it alone.
• Seattle cops destroy the Review Board where I & many others advertised.
• Despite a good start, this is a typical “whores are mindless victims” mess.
• Empowering cops to indefinitely detain underage whores for “protection”.
• Plus the fact that so-called “virtually reality” doesn’t involve actual touch.
• She has “big chunks of…memory gone”, so she filled the spaces with lies.
• Every attack on the edifice of criminalization helps to hasten its collapse.
• Myths and agency denial narrow the bottleneck for legal Swiss sex work.
• At least this new version doesn’t look as ridiculous as the prototype did.
• Anyone “alarmed” by a nipple needs to stay home with a coloring book.
• Will gullible reporters ever stop publishing Ashley Madison ads for free?
• Let’s hope Snopes will start doing more to debunk “sex trafficking” lies.
• Another example of how people’s memories can be rewritten by others.
• Laura Agustín’s new novel dramatizes the problems faced by migrants.
• This is a supposedly rational adult with power to inflict violence at will.
• Cops, Darwin, decay, lost cities, tarot cards, Matthew Hopkins & more.
• Prohibitionist seems to understand that going after websites is asinine.
• Even when they question a few elements, they can’t let go of the rest.
• Can the “anti-pimp personal hygiene product” trope get any stupider?
• Can you imagine US feminists criticizing a cop’s anti-whore fantasies?
• Another attempt to censor the internet, from an unfamiliar direction.
• This is what prohibition looks like when given perspective by time.
• Don’t take Uber unless you actually want to be “rescued” into jail.
• $750,000, no strings, to spread propaganda & infantilize women.
• The vile and self-contradictory sexual fantasies of prohibitionists.
• Public funds for anti-whore hate groups will soon start to dry up.
• Cops, proofreading, commercials, action figures & much more.
• My two previous columns for Epiphany (AKA Little Christmas).
• Prohibition turns every individual’s body into a “crime scene”.
• Sex workers are subhuman so “teen hooker” is good enough.
• “She was so desperate to raise money she got a better job!”
• According to Hong Kong “authorities”, I operate a “brothel”.
• I hope this rapist scum is both bankrupted and imprisoned.
• An 18-year-old “man” and a 17-year-old “girl”.  SHAZAM!
• Immigration raids cloaked under the pretense of “rescue”.
• A ridiculous and insulting new law takes effect in Florida.
• This is a man who claims he wants to “protect” women.
• In the US, this business would be violently suppressed.
• A decent review of 2015’s top sex work stories, except…
• Laura Lee published an open letter to prohibitionists.
• Can you give me advice on blogging anonymously?
• Despite the ICE, the odor of this is unmistakable.
• How my predictions from 2012 are developing.
• The year sex workers exploded into the media.
• In case you think Denmark’s “sexually liberal”.
• Finally, a compromise on the comfort women.
• Could this bootlicking be any more pompous?
• Attack of the cross-dressing prohibitionists.
• Cops, Carmilla, KKK, Dick and much more.
• On the intensity of my feelings for friends.
• The true intent of “brothel keeping” laws.
• Still think you don’t live in a police state?
• Human trafficking is EVERYWHERE!!!
• I’ve been saying this for 30 years.
• Best sex work books of 2015.
• I’ll just leave this right here.
• Rapist cops of the week.
• A lovely holiday season.
• Die young, stay pretty.
• Well, this is different.

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Links #391

I will eat Mum on Christmas Day.  –  Debra Parsons

Add to your list of Maggie’s weird little personality quirks: I love Rube Goldberg machines.  Always have, ever since childhood; I was very fond of the game “Mousetrap”, and loved such gimmicks in cartoons.  So naturally I’m kind of a sucker for elaborate domino layouts like this one (and it’s seasonal)!  The links above it were provided by Tim Cushing (“oops”), Eddie J Cunningham (“does”),  Maura Alwyen (“again”), Elizabeth N. Brown (“whatsoever” and “court”), Adjective Girl (“ago”), and Ed Krayewski (“bystander”).

• Oops.
• As one does.
• Everything old is new again.
• Not for ANY reason WHATSOEVER.
• Why didn’t he just take them to small clams court?
• Cops sue family of boy they murdered two Christmases ago.
• Crime: car theft. Penalty: execution of thief & 6-year old bystander.

From the Archives

• Positive portrayals of whores are becoming more common in video games.
• Everyone wants to cash in on “sex trafficking” hysteria before it collapses.
• Is there anything narrower and meaner than the mind of a prison official?
• Believing government “sex trafficking” propaganda makes you its stooge.
• In Mozambique, sex workers have been trained as peer health educators.
• Local “authorities” only wanted to charge rapists with “accepting bribes”.
• Sacramento classifies women as passive objects, but pretends it doesn’t.
• Ethics, cops, obsolete industries, George Clayton Johnson & much more.
• Cops don’t like non-cops poaching on what they consider their territory.
• Nobody would believe North Dakota was a “hub”, so now it’s a “funnel”.
• As I predicted in 2012, “sex trafficking” hysteria is starting to collapse.
• Another pogrom in the pocket police-state that is Polk County, Florida.
• The Open Society Foundation backs an anti-criminalization campaign.
• Of all the semi-whores, none are as pompous as licensed masseuses.
• New payment processor, new rhetoric, same old anti-whore bullshit.
• Remember, kids, the Swedish model eliminates “human trafficking”!
• Do they really think a basket of ham & bog rolls will replace a job?
• We can’t find any “victims”, yet the “problem” is “overwhelming”.
• Pro-decriminalization articles are becoming much more common.
• Cops aren’t charging these kids only because there are so many.
• It’s always great to see good December 17^th essays from allies.
• A retrospective of my columns from December 2012 and 2013.
• Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
• Prohibition turns every individual’s body into a “crime scene”.
• Maybe someone should tell them the AJWS supports decrim?
• Anti-trans people just can’t get their minds out of the toilet.
• What’s that, Asstoon? “Real men don’t buy girls”, you say?
• Reporter talks to escorts who use the German hooker app.
• Previous columns for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
• Cops, three dead celebrities, Monty Python & much more.
• The first in-blog hinting about my upcoming move.
• These articles are even more common in Canada.
• For those of you who still insist I’m an alarmist.
• America’s fascist statism is indeed a religion.
• Rapist cops of the week, 2015 and 2016.
• The murder of sex worker Daria Pionko.
• This is what a moral panic looks like.
• Called it.  Five and a half years ago.
• The rescue industry is big business.
• Me, on the Politics of Sex Work.
• Video game “addiction”.
• Recognize the rhetoric?
• R.I.P. Madame Claude.
• Legal is as legal does.

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Diary #388

This year, just about everyone who took advantage of my Toys for Tots special gave me cash, so I’ve made several shopping trips; Jae was a tomboy when she was young, so she came along on the second trip and helped me pick out boys’ toys.  I try to roughly balance boys’ toys, girls’ toys, unisex toys (such as games & puzzles) and small children’s toys, and while I usually make more than one trip to the dropoff location I think I might do it all in one load this time, just because it’s more impressive.  Remember, the last day is Monday the 11^th, only six days from today; if you don’t have time to see me before that, you can send the $100 in advance and I’ll honor it for your appointment later.  In case you’ve forgotten the details, here they are again:

…book a session with me and bring up to six new, unwrapped toys with you, and I’ll add ten minutes per toy to your time!  If you prefer, bring an extra $100 and I’ll extend your time by half an hour (then use the hundred to buy toys).  Please let me know when booking you want to take advantage of the special, so I can allow for the time in my schedule.  If you don’t want a full date but would like to meet me, for $100 and three toys (or $150 cash) I will have an hour-long coffee meeting with you anywhere in the Seattle area.  And if you don’t live near me, please consider donating via PayPal or Google wallet anyway; use my regular email address (maggiemcneill@earthlink.net) and make sure you note what part of your donation is for toys and what part for me (it’s perfectly OK to tell me to spend it all on toys; I don’t mind)…

Whores and children are Saint Nick’s favorites, so it has always seemed appropriate to me that at his special time of year, the former should make a special effort to help the latter.

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