March 24, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
Expungement...is an intentionally fairly hard process. - Sasha Naiman
What the Hell Were You Thinking?Ally Deviant Ollam on internet security for sex workers:
End Demand (#586)A thorough analysis of the awfulness of "end demand" policies from the superlative Savannah Sly:
It Looks Good On Paper (#746)Combined with fear and ignorance, simple stories can be powerful propaganda vehicles used to justify state oppression...End Demand suggests that cutting off cash flow to the sex trade economy will discourage profiteering exploiters, and force sex workers to find "real" jobs. However...sex workers...don't respond to a reduction of business by simply deciding to "quit the industry" and go get full time corporate jobs with a company car and a full benefits package. The notion that tough times will motivate people who sell sex to simply move on to greener pastures is absurd, privileged, and fails completely to comprehend the reasons why people become sex trade involved in the first place. In reality, End Demand is a form of economic siege that's had catastrophic consequences on sex worker welfare. Ham fisted and reckless, End Demand tactics have increased instability and scarcity in the sex trade, fostering circumstances ripe for exploitation...
This time they actually admit this shit law is designed to put people through hell:
Negative Secondary Effects (#974)Bipartisan bills about to be introduced in both the Ohio House and Senate would allow [people branded] sex trafficking victims [by the state] to [beg] courts to expunge past crimes even if they had not been convicted of prostitution or related offenses...[bill sponsor] Teresa Fedor [bloviated nonsense about being]..."forced to steal or sell drugs for their trafficking"...and [seems to imagine that]...use of the internet, cell phones, and massage parlors [have only become part of sex work since the last Ohio bloviation about the topic in 2018. Another bureaucrat]...noted applicants must [somehow] prove they had been trafficked and that the crimes they are seeking to have expunged resulted from that..."Frankly, it's a fairly heavy burden on the survivor, but [we want them to prove that they are inert dolls without agency rather than bad girls who had bills to pay]"...
This pro-censorship screed is so larded with dysphemisms barely any escaped my editing:
Torture Chamber (#1039)Bristol is set to become the biggest city in the [UK] to ban lap-dancing clubs in a move [prohibitionists] claim will [magically rewrite the neural pathways in human brains. Politicians bloviated a lot of tabula rasa nonsense about sex rays causing]...violence against women... Not Buying It, which [publishes revenge porn of sex workers], said councils had a duty to pr[event consensual] sex...
Your regular reminder that rapist screws are not confined to the US:
Canadian prisons...do...not keep track of employees [who rape prisoners]...The problem is also fueled by the [refusal] to believe prisoners when they [report rapes]...In recent years [only] three guards have been charged with sex crimes a[lthough the actual number of rapes is dramatically higher]...
The Next Target 
Prohibitionists' next target isn't just Pornhub; it's all online sex work:
Germany's most vocal proponent of state censorship, an obscure local bureaucrat named Tobias Schmid who serves as the head of the State Media Authority (LMA) of North Rhine-Westphalia, has announced...his [animosity toward]...OnlyFans..."We are registering that OnlyFans...are [ sic] increasingly attracting erotic providers...and we will take care of it," Schmid ominously warned ...Schmid...like...fellow War on Porn crusaders worldwide, claim[s] his campaigns have a purpose to "protect the children," although with the German twist that he is proudly an obsessive of "Ordnung" (order)...
...a California judge ruled that, although the contracts signed by a former [porn] performer were valid, the arbitration agreements that were part of them should be disregarded...Judge Michael Anello denied a motion by porn studios to implement the arbitration clauses in the contracts signed by a Jane Doe for scenes they had distributed...Doe...briefly worked in the adult industry around 2009-2010. At the time, she alleges, she was represented by someone named Cissy Steele...[whom she apparently was also involved in an abusive] relationship with...[the pro-censorship group Morality in Media is behind the suit, which]...names a number of adult studios and sites active a decade ago...as co-defendants on the basis that they distributed scenes...Doe [contracted with them to distribute]...
