Links #457

I thought they was going to shoot me, and my brother, and everybody else.  –  Samari Boswell

Last week Emma Evans tweeted an article about breakfast cereal marketing of the ’80s, which in turn reminded me of one of my favorite breakfast cereals of the previous decades; here is a collection of all the commercials (starting in 1974).  I had all of the magnets, too.  The links above the video were provided by Scott Greenfield, Walter Olson, Scott Greenfield again, Kevin Wilson, Peter Roman, and Popehat, in that order.

• Just protecting and serving.
• The resurrection of a dead cuisine.
• Cops shoot man for closing his door.
• Much, MUCH, MUCH more of this, please.
• Tell me again how cops in school is a good idea.
• Murder instigator gets 20 years; murderer not even charged.

From the Archives

• Puritans hate that some women are comfortable paying our bills with sex.
• Even bootlicking Time seems to grasp that something bad has happened.
• Judge lectures young sex workers about cop-created danger of sex work.
• When the loon behind “mandatory porn filter” bills did a massive pratfall.
• Laura Lee on the possible wider effects of her Swedish model challenge.
• Raising pullets was like having a box of tiny clowns in my laundry room.
• Seeing this one power taken from cops is a small but important victory.
• A deeper look at the sleazy lies politicians use to destroy women’s jobs.
• “Sex trafficking” is such a convenient weapon against adult businesses.
• Delicious schadenfreude: prohibitionists’ lies coming back to bite them.
• It’s especially important that women make anti-prohibition arguments.
• New self-aggrandizing name for pro-censorship nuts Morality in Media.
• If only amateurs realized that this is the norm, not a deviation from it.
• Hysterical phone calls don’t correlate meaningfully with actual events.
• Gentrification is a common motivation for persecution of sex workers.
• Facts magically become evil when somebody says “THE CHILDREN!!!”
• Pigs claim they have to stick their snouts into people’s personal lives.
• Americans want anyone who ever did wrong to be punished forever.
• SCOTUS recently reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of loyalty oaths.
• NCMEC is among the most dangerous of the anti-sex organizations.
• Headline blames girls because busybodies want them unemployed.
• Cops telling “sex slave” fantasies are just dangerous time-wasters.
• Looks like at least one dangerous censor-moron is on his way out.
• “Competition” from fancy fleshlights?  Really, ladies, calm down.
• If I weren’t already sterile, I’d get myself sterilized immediately.
• When sex is involved, a poison pen letter is considered “proof”.
• Cops, cuteness, mirrors, Babylon 5, Joe Satriani & much more.
• The Democratic party did half the work of creating this lunacy.
• Even if PROUD supports this, I’m still skeptical of the subtext.
• There’re so many reasons sex worker licensing is a bad idea.
• The coven in which I feel safe and loved grows a little larger.
• The censors who want the internet destroyed are at it again.
• Is it just me, or are you less patient than you used to be?
• How can a newlywed woman increase her sexual desire?
• Cops, amateurs, Jesus Christ Superstar and much more.
• This is over three years old, but it’s too good to pass up.
• Corporations are becoming the favored tool of censors.
• Five years in prison for talking to someone online.
• The panic industry’s latest dumb “teen fad” panic.
• More on the oppression of Ukrainian sex workers.
• The next generation of sex worker security apps.
• Once again, actual figures disprove the hysteria.
• Massage parlor pogroms are coming to Canada.
• 23 “sex trafficking” idiocies in one short article.
• Sex is an exchange, whether you like it or not.
• My dear friend Savannah Sly in Teen Vogue.
• The 7th murdered transwoman of 2018.
• Toward the end of privacy, everywhere.
• Now they notice. Good going, Gay, Inc!
• An argument I’ve often made myself.
• Miranda Kane on annoying clients.
• Do as cops say, not as they do.
• Is this dumbass for real?
• Population 36,000.

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Links #455

I can’t breathe.  –  Lamekia Dockery

The gentleman I call Daedalus shared this video with me last week, and besides being extremely funny it is absolutely brilliant.  The links above it were provided by Lucy Steigerwald, Joe Setyon, Kevin Wilson, Jesse Walker, Nun Ya, and Tushy Galore, in that order.

• Stop faking!
• Lawheads gone wild.
• How to find Kentucky.
• What overcivilization looks like.
• Dog refuses to be narc; becomes scientist instead.
• If only we had some law to protect freedom of speech.

From the Archives

• Authoritarians refuse to admit that a child-shaped toaster is still a toaster.
• Say your product “fights sex trafficking” & the stupid will give you money.
• I’d be much happier if the money went to his victims instead of the State.
• What hysteria about Italian “crime” would be complete without the Mafia?
• In case you thought screws restricted their petty sadism to the prisoners.
• UK politicians are unhappy people see through their surveillance scheme.
• “At least one person noted that the UK was at risk of looking like idiots”.
• Another sleazy attempt to hurt sex workers from a billionaire sociopath.
• Prohibitionists exhume rotting corpse of the “Scottish model” yet again.
• Five years ago, Ipswitch was claiming to have “eradicated” street work.
• A periodic reminder of the psychopathic behavior of the Ruhama nuns.
• If every “anti-trafficking” org were like GAATW, there’d be no hysteria.
• Everyone harmed by prostitution laws needs to keep suing over them.
• How to prop up a turgid conglomeration of myths, lies and ignorance.
• This is what robo-fetishists want you to believe will take my job soon.
• 1st-amendment lawyers speak out against the Backpage persecution.
• California produces the most racist anti-massage-parlor propaganda.
• Cops, banality, absurdity, sanity, legendary dancing and much more.
• A few sane people oppose the bizarre schemes of Oregon politicians.
• Miniature baby dinosaurs that run around banging into one another.
• Saying Mary Magdalene was a whore is the opposite of “orthodoxy”.
• Incredibly bad law skated through a legislature?  Follow the money.
• This wouldn’t be OK even if the notions it’s based on weren’t idiotic.
• Any advice for a lesbian relationship that started as escort & client?
• A list of payment processors that are openly hostile to sex workers.
• Disaster followed the passage of FOSTA by hours, as we predicted.
• Please don’t let non-doctors inject who-knows-what into your butt.
• Every New Orleanian knows that cockroaches can’t stand sunlight.
• Cops, Chuck Berry, Venezuela, robots, medicine and much more.
• Politicians hire male sex workers almost as often as female ones.
• The state calls these subhuman monsters “correctional officers”.
• It’s good to see academics in the afflicted countries saying this.
• Sometimes “trafficking” just means “bringing in brown people“.
• There’s a xenophobic stink of the “blood libel” about this story.
• Another of those nonexistent false sexual assault accusations.
• The word for government/corporate collaboration is “fascism”.
• This is a lot better than Vice‘s last article on leaving sex work.
• India’s pigheaded resistance to decriminalization continues.
• Quite possibly the stupidest “sex trafficking” story of 2018.
• Even in Ireland, the truth is dawning on many feminists.
• What terrible “crimes” these “gangsters” are accused of.
• A generous special and a tour that failed to materialize.
• Is anyone actually still surprised when this happens?
• The old strip club business model is a dead duck.
• My two previous columns for the vernal equinox.
• “Fainting-couch feminism” is a brilliant coinage.
• Seriously, has this girl been living under a rock?
• How you can help support sex worker activism.
• What do sex workers think of married clients?
• More “grocery store sex trafficking” lunacy.
• Still another abomination from Alabama.
• I’m quite enjoying this whole saga.
• So much for human uniqueness.
• A brief look at women in porn.
• Because NHI is so feminist.
• Little by little, bit by bit.
• Rapist cop of the week.

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Links #448

He was being very aggressive.  –  Juan Lopez-Razo, of a man having a seizure

Last weekend Franklin Harris shared this video of a camera test from The Muppet Movie (1979); the improvisation between Jim Henson and Frank Oz is both brilliant and hilarious.  The links above it were provided by Radley Balko, Jesse Walker (x2), Tim Cushing (x2), and Nun Ya, in that order.

• Stop faking!
• Just being Florida man.
• Beware of the shoggoths.
• Cop is a cop is a cop is a cop.
• Stop. Calling. The. Fucking. Cops.
• Too bad most people cops murder aren’t other cops.

From the Archives

• It’s good to see at least a few judges recognizing these fantasies as such.
• Canadian prohibitionists really want to whip up “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• In matters of mass surveillance, fascism beats communism hands down.
• Woman does sex work to fund her son’s medical care; Ireland says “So?”
• Seattle “officials” think harm reduction principles only apply to drug use.
• Two white women call tens of thousands of brown ones a “tiny minority”.
• Sex work app developers don’t bother to consult any actual sex workers.
• Oh, honey, I hope you don’t really believe this doesn’t happen in Florida.
• I’m surprised the “forced sex trafficking abortions” trope didn’t catch on.
• Snagglepuss, Ringo, cops, Ikea, tyranny, “hate crimes” and much more.
• Young Liberals have pushed for repeal of this awful law since it passed.
• Hotline calls reflect prevalence of beliefs & paranoia, not actual crimes.
• Why are most people surprised to find out that cops are habitual liars?
• Prohibitionists think women are so stupid they can’t remember  “911”.
• The woman who set up a home for retired sex workers in Mexico City.
• Thoughtful people are coming to realize how awful anti-sex laws are.
• Seriously, ladies, y’all really ought to opt for permanent sterilization.
• Sports Illustrated calls the “gypsy whores” trope a debunked myth.
• Who else has arrested people for dancing near public monuments?
• Another attempt to rob businesses using “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• Cops, straws, irony, Star Trek, Quentin Tarantino and much more.
• A constantly-updated spreadsheet of sex worker advertising sites.
• How can street sex workers be controlled without criminalization?
• NYPD “guidelines” say majority of US citizens are “sex trafficked”.
• This was the last club I danced in before moving on to escorting.
• More on the useful idiots who are trying to destroy the internet.
• Naturally, Cassandra McNeill was warning about this years ago.
• It’s a good sign that headlines like this are now fairly common.
• Another of those cases whose reported details don’t add up.
• We’re seeing more editorials critical of the War on Whores.
• As usual, studies prove what we’ve been saying all along.
• Slowly but surely, feminists are coming over to our side.
• Prohibitionists chop down trees to get at sex workers.
• Spitzer is a prohibitionist, so outing him is justified.
• A retrospective of my blogging from January 2015.
• Regulated brothels in 19th-century St. Petersburg.
• We need anarchy to protect us from government.
• Porn isn’t sex education, but Pornhub supports it.
• Sex workers reaching out to the public via art.
• San Diego ramps up its anti-whore pogroms.
• Those who cannot remember the past, etc.
• Back to work after my vacation in Mexico.
• Rapist cops of the week, 2017 and 2018.
• Australian police practice “NHI” as well.
• The real result of “sex trafficking” laws.
• The law is an ass, and so is this judge.
• My two previous columns for Imbolc.
• Back to Seattle after my 2017 tour.
• How long can this scam go on?
• Stop faking!

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Links #447

History shows again and again how Nature points up the folly of men.

This week’s video is here mostly because it hasn’t been featured before, and come ON.  The links above it were provided by Scott Greenfield, Jesse Walker, Tim Cushing, Franklin Harris, Phoenix Calida, and Dave Krueger, in that order.

• Florida woman.
• The missing link at last?
• Just protecting and serving.
• Preparing them for life in a modern police state.
• Another cop shoots another black kid in the back.
• Crime: Improper parking. Penalty: beaten and caged.

From the Archives

• “Circuits”, highways & the inability of adult women to drive or book hotels.
• The idea that women have free will is incomprehensible to prohibitionists.
• Say you’re “fighting sex trafficking” & stupid people will give you money.
• They wouldn’t have to “hide” if sex work were decriminalized in Victoria.
• “Feminists” were happy when sex worker rights was the forbidden topic.
• What kind of idiot believes it really takes 20 cops to inspect a strip club?
• Good to see credit given to sex workers for all we’ve done for America.
• Tucson’s claim for a “sex trafficking magnet” is jaw-droppingly absurd.
• Edmonton has a long history of abusing & dehumanizing sex workers.
• Using elaborate wanking fantasies to justify destroying people’s lives.
• We’re gradually seeing less anti-whore propaganda and more of this.
• The egregious lie that the “sex offender” registry isn’t a punishment.
• Rubmaps may become the new prohibitionist target after Backpage.
• The Pope continues to recklessly promote “sex trafficking” hysteria.
• “Progressive” paper publishes racist, police-state-worshiping op-ed.
• When “illicit” is used to describe sex, it’s prohibitionist propaganda.
• The gay couple in Lawrence were NOT in a committed relationship.
• Cops need far fewer excuses to force interaction with sex workers.
• Another woman’s child abducted by the state because of her work.
• Even cops who pay whores may use threats to obtain compliance.
• The United States is not, and never has been, a “Christian nation”.
• When “authorities” try to regain control of a runaway moral panic.
• Cops, Prince, Ursula K. Leguin, horror, SHAZAM! and much more.
• Cops, steakification, John Hurt, time, politicians and much more.
• Mistress Matisse weighs in on the Trump golden shower report.
• Just in case you think being a “legal” sex worker protects you.
• In which the word “children” is defined as “people under 26”.
• Don’t they know sex ray contamination can last for decades?
• Hanging out & having fun with beautiful, awesome whores.
• Another monster who thinks other people are disposable.
• In case you wonder just how dedicated to this blog I am.
• Think anti-whore policies don’t affect you?  Think again.
• Melissa Ditmore on Russia’s terrible anti-whore policies.
• Liz Brown on the incredible ignorance of prohibitionists.
• “Sex trafficking” laws keep getting broader and scarier.
• The “anti-trafficking hair color” idiots are still at it.
• A former sex worker has written a children’s book.
• Why doesn’t my lady like it when I delay orgasm?
• I’m not sure which aspect of this is the stupidest.
• Scumbag rapist gets far less than he deserves.
• Yet another dumb “awareness-raising” stunt.
• It’s good to see them feeding on each other.
• The next step in the ESPLERP challenge.
• The broadest “gypsy whore” claim ever.
• My Muse of Fiction shows herself again.
• January 2013 and 2014 in retrospect.
• How to be a stupid, greedy whore.
• Whores are as eternal as the sea.
• Prohibitionists call this “rescue”.
• Two thousand signatures.
• Rapist cops of the week.
• On writing drunk.
• Yawning.

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Links #445

If your dog gets aggressive, I’m going to shoot it.  –  “Officer” Keenan Wallace, referencing a 9# animal

Lovecraft-inspired pop culture stuff is often very gimmicky, but I quite enjoyed this little concerto inspired by “The Call of Cthulhu” (which was called to my attention by The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, natch).  The links above it were provided by Tim Cushing, Scott Greenfield, Brooke Magnanti, Popehat, Mistress Matisse, and Jesse Walker.

• But for video.
• MUCH more of this, please.
• How a wealthy Florida man behaves.
• A primitive form of Keynesian economics.
• Disembodied feet of the Pacific Northwest.
• And now for something completely different: New Jersey man.

From the Archives

• “Rescuers” invariably want to push sex workers into menial crafting work.
• “Ally” parrots Swedish propaganda, pretends human rights are debatable.
• Amateurs: a menace to public health who should be licensed & regulated.
• I don’t think I‘ve ever seen the word “molest” used in this context before.
• Always good to see a sex worker run for office, especially when she wins.
• This will continue until people recognize that “filtering” is just censorship.
• How many fakumentaries there will be before “trafficking” hysteria ends?
• Florida “authorities” don’t think their magic posters cage enough people.
• Mistress Matisse offers advice on the “how do I find an escort” question.
• “We did not believe it should be legal for adults to have consensual sex.”
• Another court continues the trend of classifying strippers as employees.
• Fascism, futurism, progressivism, Florida, cops, celibacy & much more.
• It’s always “gangs”; women are too stupid to use AirBnB for ourselves.
• Pompous men taking it upon themselves to “disrupt” women’s income.
• Declare anything a “public health crisis” and it can be harassed at will.
• To hear these yo-yos ranting, you’d swear this film had magic powers.
• India eliminated high-denomination currency; guess who it hurt most?
• Gentrification is a common motivation for persecution of sex workers.
• 80% of all violence vs sex workers in Hong Kong is inflicted by cops.
• Is anything narrower and meaner than the mind of a prison official?
• The “sex trafficking” myth is rooted in Protestant Christian dogma.
• Pigs harass migrant sex workers no matter how they’re portrayed.
• “People who need money do lucrative work to get it!” is not news.
• The subjects of moral panics continually grow “worse than ever”.
• Propaganda for the rebranded “Operation Northern Spotlight”.
• My two previous columns for Epiphany (AKA Little Christmas).
• The primary customers for male sex robots will also be male.
• How many moronic prohibitionist plays can the market bear?
• I’m sure useful idiots will cheer this expansion of censorship.
• Cops, dates, partisans, childhood, rainbows and much more.
• If only amateurs realized how common this sort of thing is.
• In the US, she would’ve been arrested if she reported this.
• “Sex trafficking” hysteria is now almost pure self-parody.
• Losers try to cash in with debunked bullshit a year early.
• Enterprising pervert invents a spooge-squirting system.
• Slowly but surely, public opinion is turning in our favor.
• It’s so nice to watch them feeding on their own.
• Facebook can’t even follow its own “standards”.
• Tit-for-tat non-monogamy can never work.
• I’m afraid this might be too little, too late.
• Rapist cops of the week, 2017 and 2018.
• I meet a pro-decriminalization politician.
• What wonderful company the US is in!
• I head for Mexico with Lorelei Rivers.
• Hypocrisy, thy name is Washington.
• I’m sure he did it to “protect” them.
• In which I leave for my 2017 tour.
• A list of alternatives to Backpage.
• Another setback for due process.
• Cows still cause “sex trafficking”!
• The end of my annual reviews.
• Rapist judge of the week.
• Preparing for FOSTA.
• Whores of Yore.
• 2016 in review.

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Links #438

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Two days before the last Links column posted, author and screenwriter William Goldman, best known for The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid passed away.  But I wasn’t about to elbow that news into the same column as Stan Lee’s obituary; losing two master storytellers in one week was already bad enough without cheating one of them of his proper respect.  The links above the video (which I think you’ll agree is an appropriate choice) were provided by Mike Siegel, Phoenix Calida, Franklin Harris, Thaddeus Russell, David Ley, and Kevin Wilson, in that order.

• As one does.
• Florida woman.
• Ban Spaghetti-Os!
• STOP CALLING THE FUCKING COPS!
• Don’t let an algorithm call them on you, either.
• A previously-unknown branch of the Tree of Life.

From the Archives

• The “generous cop” scam isn’t “nice”; it’s a threatening consent violation.
• Unless the unit deposits $400 into my bank, I’m not remotely interested.
• Naturally, the bootlicking media doesn’t report the cost to sex workers.
• The Swedish model especially increases violence vs trans sex workers.
• It’s disturbing to get even a whiff of the Swedish filth in Latin America.
• Brave hero cops save The Children!^TM from desperately-needy people.
• The more out sex workers there are, the harder it will be to ignore us.
• It’s satisfying when the mask of concern for “trafficking victims” slips.
• It’s satisfying watching the “sex addiction” myth implode in real time.
• A disgusting hypocrite, but not a “child sex trafficker” by any stretch.
• Any call for more laws policing sexuality is authoritarian propaganda.
• The “most dangerously delusional ‘sex trafficking’ propaganda” race.
• Finally, a US court finds something it isn’t willing to call “trafficking”.
• I just love the pictures of the little animal whores holding their cash.
• Convicted of “sex trafficking” for running an ordinary escort service.
• The “Facebook pimps” myth is one of the silliest of the whole panic.
• If sex work weren’t illegal laws like this would be easily overturned.
• Another look at Nevada’s deeply-oppressive crony brothel system.
• Netflix produces another lurid wanking fantasy about teenagers.
• If you think this as a positive development, read more carefully.
• Ron Jeremy’s bad behavior has been an open secret for a while.
• Cops, isolation, Catholicism, goats, John Cage and much more.
• Quite possibly the stupidest “sex trafficking” propaganda ever.
• Politicians work to get sex workers evicted & enrich the state.
• Cops, fascism, skunks, The Partridge Family and much more.
• Dianne Feinstein never met a police-state law she didn’t like.
• Why I hate “Black Friday” and too-early Christmas displays.
• It looks like Samantha Azzopardi is back to her usual tricks.
• The beginning of my Doctor Who dates with Lorelei Rivers.
• Another argument in favor of sex workers for the disabled.
• Really, guys?  Is it really so hard to just hire an escort?
• Note that this kind of abuse is also typical in the US.
• Once again, prudishness trumps the Constitution.
• A nice look at the religious beliefs of sex workers.
• Who could have possibly predicted this outcome?
• We need to keep protesting every damned sting.
• SWOP’s annual fundraiser is going on right now!
• “A few critics call it a form of human trafficking.”
• It’s good to have Grace nearby for the holidays.
• The 100^th anniversary of Mata Hari’s execution.
• Because laws are more important than people.
• The McNeill Rule, like its namesake, is a bitch.
• The bioethicists are now on our side as well.
• Young-relative-molesting cops of the week.
• A rare decision in favor of self-ownership.
• November 2013 and 2014 in retrospect.
• Very little has changed for James Deen.
• That’ll teach them dirty “sex offenders”!
• My last two columns for Thanksgiving.
• Sweden, the feminist Utopia.
• Are these people for real?
• Rapist cop of the week.
• SCIENCE!

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In the News (#889)

With all the legitimately pressing problems facing America today, it’s astonishing that anyone could earnestly advocate for more obscenity prosecutions.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Above the Law  …

We’re so lucky to have these brave heroes to protect us from refugees:

Police in Alpine, Texas, have charged a National Guardsman stationed near the Mexico border with sexual assault after…he drunkenly tried to rape a woman in a hotel.  Luis Ontiveros…is accused of assaulting…[another] member of the National Guard…[who] had…thrown up from drinking too much…He took her clothes off before she was able to get out of the hotel room…and knocked on the hotel room door next to hers, telling the man who answered that Ontiveros had tried to rape her…

A Mound of Filth (#506)

More “sex slave” fantasies from Dominique “Body Fluids” Roe-Sepowitz:

The latest numbers from the FBI show in 2017 Arizona was third in the nation for human trafficking offenses…[Ignorant prohibitionists fantasize] it is impacting people from all walks of life.  “It is anybody.  Businessmen, junkies from the street, anybody looking for sex,” said an [anonymous prohibitionist]…Dominique Roe-Sepowitz is an associate professor [who makes a living stoking “sex trafficking” hysteria by making up fake statistics.]…”In Arizona, we [claim] we have about 250 kids a year and about 800 adults a year [involved in sex trafficking],” [she] said…She [moaned and put her hand down her pants while fantasizing that]…traffickers are creative and calculating when targeting their victims…It happens through social media, in public buildings and parks and even in front of schools.  “They’re going to find that child wherever they are”…

Forward and Backward (#604)

UK politicians don’t like policies that oppose their harm magnification agenda:

…Leeds Council [is considering]…closure of the Leeds ‘managed zone’, in which sex workers are able to solicit for business in a designated area without fear of arrest…Regulation via zoning is not ideal but any solution which increases safety for sex workers, allows them to report crimes and brings down the number of arrests is important.  Working without fear of arrest means sex workers aren’t running from the police are more able to use basic safety measures like working in close proximity to each other and sharing information about clients…outreach charity Basis Yorkshire [says]…97% of sex workers are now willing to report crimes to the police, compared with just 7% before the scheme launched.  There has been a dramatic uptake in engagement with health and support services…

For over a year now, the Leeds red light district has been the subject of a smear campaign by prohibitionists, with the help of the BBC.

Welcome to the Future (#607)

“Immigrant Council of Ireland” is the deceptive name of one of the most vile prohibitionist organizations in Europe:

Police across Europe should be given the resources to spy on…sex workers’ homes to prevent prostitution, a report has said.  The Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) was one of six organisations to examine laws on sex work and trafficking across Europe.  The group’s Disrupt Demand report called for more [police violence vs. sex workers and clients]…and [more] “surveillance operations on indoor locations”…

Most news coverage of this “report” tries to make it sound like a study, when in fact it’s just a collection of prohibitionist fantasies and demands with no new material of any kind.

The Puritan Recrudescence

The natural result of widespread kowtowing to the heckler’s veto:

…Nina Hartley went to University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to give an optional lecture to students…about STI testing, the importance of consent, and the potential pitfalls of learning about sex from porn.  The talk was soberly titled, “Fantasy vs. Reality: A critical view of adult media.”  There were no explicit images or videos, just an informational Powerpoint slide.  And yet, of course, conservative media outlets are losing their shit over it, because a porn star (who is also a sex educator and activist) spoke with our kids (who are actually legal adults) about fucking (but really much more).  Hartley was invited to speak by Joe Gow, the chancellor of the university…with…$5,000 from Gow’s office fund, as opposed to with state tax dollars…sensationalistic headlines…desperately attempted to turn it into a tawdry sex scandal…Then Fox News jumped into the fray.  The outcry was such that Gow felt the need to pen an op-ed in the La Crosse Tribune…in [which]…he…agreed to personally compensate the university for Hartley’s $5,000 appearance fee…[and] book…a speaker from Fight the New Drug, a [Mormon-backed prohibitionist organization]…infamous for using bad science, shoddy data, and alarmist first-person stories to demonize pornography…

Count the Idiocies

Since this is suburban Seattle, I could’ve done this one stoned:

Sex trafficking is happening in plain sight in Snohomish County¹, according to nurse practitioner Paula Newman-Skomski².  “It’s most visible is along Highway 99,” she said.³  This past weekend [Operation Cross-Country] found 13 female victims of sex trafficking – two of the victims are juveniles⁴. No arrests were made.  The FBI said the victims were offered referrals to a variety of resources.⁵…”Every year we identify 40 to 45 juveniles involved in the trafficking trade here in Snohomish County,” said Newman-Skomski.⁶…”…easily transported up and down the I-5 corridor.”⁷  It is the kind of illegal activity the FBI focused on when it shut down Backpage.com⁸…Peoria Home in Everett…is a two-year, residential recovery program for women 18 and over who have been exploited through sex trafficking and prostitution.  It opened in April⁹…

¹ No, it isn’t. If it were cops would be crowing about it.
² Whom nobody around here has ever heard of before.
³ No, Those are street workers.
⁴ No, they got 13 bites in a sting; the fact that they didn’t arrest them could mean several different things.
⁵ Such as finger-painting classes and the number of the welfare office.
⁶ No, they don’t; that would represent some 20% of all sex workers in Greater Seattle.  Underage sex workers represent only about 3-4% of all sex workers.
⁷ Interstates cause sex trafficking!
⁸ No, it isn’t.
⁹ “Rescue” profiteers are utterly shameless.

Why I Wait (#812)

Most of this article is the usual garbage: equating dating with sex, pointedly ignoring commercial sex, pretending that people answer surveys on stigmatized subjects honestly, etc.  But there was one paragraph which contained some possible clues to the reasons any actual decrease (however small) might exist:

…it might be a consequence of…surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use…of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics [and soy products], of dropping testosterone levels…of helicopter parents…of sleep deprivation, of obesity…

In my estimation, the most likely candidate for this supposed decline is the ongoing culture war on sex, which discourages people from being honest about their sexuality (especially activity involving sex workers).  In other words they aren’t really having less sex; they’re just admitting it less.

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#815) 

Regular readers will recognize Alberta’s article as completely unmoored from reality:

There’s been a “total abandonment of pornography as a battleground in America’s culture war,” writes Politico reporter Tim Alberta in “How the GOP Gave Up on Porn“.  He couldn’t be more wrong.  The flashpoints have shifted certainly since the 1970s and ’80s, when Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority teamed with second-wave feminists to take on Playboy and Hustler.  And social conservatives’ embrace of President Donald Trump does present a stark contrast to earlier eras…But such hypocrisy should not be mistaken for a radical repositioning of Republican dogma on “obscenity”…it was just two years ago that Republicans added language to their official party platform that declared porn “has become a public health crisis that is destroying the lives of millions“…Last year, Republicans in at least a dozen state legislatures introduced measures to ban porn access for anyone who wouldn’t pay a $20 fine…But never mind reality.  Fresh from declaring that there’s been no recent Republican action against porn because he doesn’t personally remember it, Alberta gets right to theorizing about why…

See No Evil (#854) 

Prosecutors want to cage a man for twenty years for drawings of fictional characters:

…a Rapid City, South Dakota, man was charged in federal district court with…Possession of Obscene Visual Representations of the Sexual Abuse of Children…Andrew Hallock…pleaded not guilty to the charges…[which carry] a mandatory minimum of 5 years up to 20 years in federal prison and/or a $250,000 fine…The charges [derive from] Hallock…possessing…sexually explicit drawings and cartoons of minors…The investigation is being conducted by the I[maginary] Crimes Against [Imaginary] Children Taskforce…

Only Rights Can Stop the Wrongs (#885)

Politicians send thugs to violently assault women to advance vain Disnification campaign:

Police and military personnel [brutalized] and detained 53 Laotians–50 women and three girls who were allegedly employed as sex workers–during raids on karaoke bars in southern Thailand’s Narathiwat province…Authorities could not find and arrest the bar owners during the raids, but they were…[threatening] the…sex workers…[with] prosecut[ion] for prostitution [to intimidate as many of them as possible into claiming to be “trafficking victims”]…

No Difference (#886)

Tanzania ramps up its pogroms against gay men:

International human rights organisations have condemned…the harassment and arrest of gay men in Tanzania, following comments from a government official on plans to establish a task force to identify, track down and arrest people suspected of being gay…ten men were arrested on suspicion of being gay on…Zanzibar after members of the public [ratted] them [out] to police.  They are being held…with[out] charge…for allegedly conducting a same-sex marriage ceremony, and the police reported they found the men sitting in pairs “two by two”…

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