March 17, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
It's complete and utter bullshit. - former member of OUR
Choke Point (#593)Prohibitionists love victim-blaming sex workers:
To Molest and Rape (#869)On March 3rd...Scott Stedman and Aaron Parnas published a hit piece on Forensic News lobbing accusations of fraud, theft, and money laundering at several adult sites...Stedman is rehashing old, baseless accusations for attention...it's the banks, not the adult sites, which are responsible for sex workers losing access to their funds...Sex workers certainly have their gripes with adult sites...But accusations that [they] are particularly rife with fraud, theft, and money laundering seem to be entirely without merit...the only evidence Stedman and Parnas can point to are Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)...[which] anyone can file...without any proof or evidence. Banks have claimed that certain adult sites "may be operating in areas where underage children...might be forced to provide services." Yet not only did no bank report a single instance of underage activity, their only evidence was the fact that MyFreeCams serves users in "high-risk" areas such as Colombia, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, the Philippines, and Russia...In fact, all evidence points to all of these "suspicious" transactions being from adult platforms to content creators abroad...
The "sex offender" registration is the only serious consequence:
Pyrrhic Victory (#1045)A third Louisville [cop]...has [received a slap on the wrist]...for sexually a[ssault]ing a minor [he groomed via]...the department's youth Explorer program. A U.S. District Court judge...[let typical and representative cop] Brad Schuhmann [walk with a mere] six months of home incarceration and two years on probation. In addition, Schuhmann will have to pay a $2,000 fine and register as a sex offender...The [lenient treatment was in spite of the] victim...calling Schuhmann a "monster" and a "predator" who has ruined her life...
Lack of Evidence (#1052)...four individual civil liberties activists and the groups Mijente and NorCal Resist [have filed suit against] Clearview AI [because it] "engages in the widespread collection of California residents' images and biometric information without notice or consent"...The plaintiffs argue Clearview AI enhances [cop shops'] efforts to monitor...activists...and [marginalized people]...
Removing excuses cops use to persecute people is always a good thing:
[New York's] "walking while trans" law...was repealed...in [Februar]y...It could prompt other states and cities that have similar laws on the books to follow suit. California could introduce a bill to repeal a prostitution loitering law this year, and activists in Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans have organized to reverse similar ordinances. Last summer, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to repeal drug trafficking and prostitution loitering laws...
Another step toward a fully-independent demimonde:
Served Cold (#1100)...for many sex workers, corporate platforms aren't revolutionary at all. Censorship, technology failures and heavy-handed fees are just a few of the drawbacks of using social platforms for sex work. Rather than rely solely on mainstream services such as OnlyFans, which keeps 20 percent of performers' earnings, some sex workers use corporate networks only for advertising and conduct their real business on their own websites, which they build and control...
It took almost seven years, but the press has finally caught up with me:
...Operation Underground Railroad...had arrived in a remote village seeking a missing child, acting on what founder Tim Ballard had promised was a solid tip from a source...But the missing child was nowhere to be found. And then...Ballard produced his source: a psychic medium from Utah...Soon after...the villagers became suspicious and increasingly upset as he began circulating through the village with a camera crew...The villagers began to gather, some of them armed with old shotguns, and...elders soon asked the[m]...to leave. Several cars followed them out of the village to make sure they'd gone...The day was...indicative of a larger pattern for OUR...People who participated in and witnessed OUR operations overseas recounted blundering missions...that seemed aimed mainly at generating exciting video footage...Experts and advocates for sex workers and trafficking survivors also questioned whether OUR's ties to a corrupt Thai police agency could lead to repression of pro-democracy activists...one person with extensive experience working overseas with OUR...said...nothing OUR did seemed recognizably informed by professional military or intelligence practice...no meaningful surveillance or identification of targets; no development of assets; no validating that people they sought to rescue had in fact been trafficked, or that people they were targeting were indeed traffickers..."They'd go and just push for pimps to show up with girls." If presented with sex workers of legal age, OUR would insist on younger girls..."He was creating demand...They conflate sex work and trafficking...They're making it worse"...
Even columns like this one by Steve Chapman are no longer rare:
Eliza Orlins...could be remembered for...moving the nation toward decriminalizing sex work...If elected, she says, she will "advocate for the full decriminalization of consensual sex work. This will begin with declining to prosecute all cases of consensual sex work." She is finding plenty of allies. Five other candidates in the eight-person field have taken the same position...Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez is not in favor of full decriminalization, but he has stopped prosecuting sex workers on prostitution charges and recently vacated more than 1,000 warrants...A poll last year found that 52% of Americans think we should "remove criminal penalties for adults to sell and pay for consensual sex"...Among Democrats and voters aged 18 to 44, 2 out of 3 take th[at] view...
