Government officials…think it’s not easy enough to steal people’s things. – Elizabeth N. Brown
Why is it so hard for US journalists to use the word “rape” when whores are the victims?
…a South Florida man told a prostitute that he was a police officer and that he would arrest her if she refused to have sex without a condom…22-year-old Mark William Rose was arrested…and charged with impersonating a police officer in the commission of a felony and false imprisonment…Rose told arresting deputies he had previously used the…bluff about a dozen times, with three women conceding to sex…
Get Out of the 19th Century Often?
News reports about prostitution stings in southern states are usually shockingly stupid, and often have not one word about “sex trafficking”:
Over two dozen men were arrested [after falling for]…a cop [decoy]. “We dirtied her up. We told her, you know, you gotta, you can’t be, this is not Pretty Woman,” [pig mouthpiece Joey] Davis [oinked]…Davis explains prostitution is a day job…”a little kid, they don’t need to see that stuff going on”…Some of the women get paid in heroin further spreading disease. Unknowing wives may become victims. “Was it worth it? They didn’t ask for that. And you don’t know, you might be signing your own death warrant”…
That’s right, kiddies; heroin causes disease!
Tyranny By Consensus
I wonder how much Michael Weinstein has cost the state of California so far?
Adult performers are speaking out against a ballot initiative that mandates condoms in porn throughout the state of California…The measure empowers everyday citizens to sue adult film producers for creating condomless porn—and offers a financial incentive for doing so. Several industry insiders…[say] they worry this would expose them to harassment from stalkers, trolls, disapproving family members and anti-porn activists…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic
Josh Duggar…has “checked himself into a long-term treatment center,” according to a statement issued…by the Duggar family. Several media outlets reported that “Josh Duggar is going to rehab for porn addiction“, as if a “porn addiction” were a demonstrably real thing instead of a concept that should be relegated to the scariest of scare quotes. Duggar’s problems are many but porn addiction is a psychological fiction propped up by the same moralism that Duggar has espoused for years. By crying “addiction” and going to rehab, Duggar…gets to appear penitent while implicitly sending the pious message that pornography is an evil from which one must be saved…
Above the Law
Although the term “gay” has now come to include women, I’m honestly not sure what it’s doing in the victim’s description here:
A gay transgender inmate transitioning into a woman was repeatedly raped by a Rikers Island [guard] and jail officials did nothing to stop it, a new suit charges. The inmate, identified in court papers only as M.T., was assaulted on Dec. 2, 2012 by…L. Galan after months of harassment…Galan gave M.T. gifts like an iPod Touch, headphones, a charger, a case and $20 in cash to not report the abuse…
Bottleneck
…commercial sex wasn’t “illegal” in Germany prior to 2002…ProstG removed morality language…”pimping” [laws]…limited legal recognition for contracts…and…ensuring sex worker access to employment benefits…What the 2002 Act failed to do was create federal mandates on zoning, registration, health and safety, and police power. This left substantial jurisdiction to German states…an estimated 98% of Germany geographically, and over 90% of German towns and cities are restricted areas, and over two-thirds of German residents live in a city where commercial sex is prohibited…Berlin is one of only three german cities without restricted areas. In other cities, street-based sex work is limited to a few blocks…if not completely forbidden…In Munich, which only allows commercial sex in 3% of the city, sex workers say police regularly stage sting operations to lure sex workers into prohibited zones. Also unchanged by ProstG…are state police laws, which–even in liberal cities like Berlin–give police the free reign to enter wherever they suspect commercial sex is taking place…including a sex worker’s home…
Uncharted Seas
The title says it all: “All the Bad Arguments Against Polygamy, Debunked“:
Since the marriage equality movement’s recent triumph in the Obergefell vs. Hodges decision, national attention has settled on the status of polygamy, or the legal recognition of marriage between more than two partners. Several national publications have printed arguments both for and against polygamy rights…Both right and left have taken turns making the case for polygamous marriage, and both right and left have taken turns criticizing the idea…but it’s remarkable just how many bad, sloppy, unconvincing arguments have been marshalled. Let’s go through and refute them one by one…
My First Million (#437)
I hit the 4 million pageview mark at about 19:30 UTC last Sunday, August 30th. Thanks to all the readers who made it happen!
Vendetta (#518)
Let’s hope the moralists all start devouring one another:
A billboard along an exit from Phoenix Sky Harbor airport could give visitors the wrong impression, according to some…travelers. The billboard…urges men not to buy sex from prostitutes. “Buy sex [,] lose everything” is the billboard’s message…”We need to remove it, take it down,” said John Rejebian…”I think the public needs to be spared these things”…A logo for CEASE Network is in the lower-right corner of the billboard…
New Excuse (#544)
Elizabeth N. Brown examines the profit motive behind the War on Whores:
…the government’s interest in stopping commercial gay sex is surely more motivated by the commercial aspect here than the man-on-man component. We’re riding high on a wave of state successes in shutting down prostitution-related businesses…[under] the guise of stopping “human trafficking,” and aided by massive amounts of federal funding plus newly granted wiretapping, asset forfeiture, and other law enforcement powers. As Scott Shackford pointed out, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) didn’t go after Rentboy.com out of a conviction that gay sex workers pose a threat to national safety but because they could seize $1.4 million from employee bank accounts, along with their homes and other assets. This is not so much a moral crusade—not for police, prosecutors, or federal agencies anyway—as a money-grubbing one…
Ashley Madison (#557)
Computer security expert John McAfee on the Ashley Madison “hack”:
Ashley Madison was not hacked – the data was stolen by a woman operating on her own who worked for Avid Life Media…A hacker is someone who uses a combination of high-tech cybertools and social engineering to gain illicit access to someone else’s data. But this job was done by someone who already had the keys to the Kingdom. It was an inside job…In my first IBTimes UK article about Act One of the Ashley Madison Affair, I alleged that the group of hackers claiming responsibility for the “hack” simply did not exist. I gleaned this information from reliable sources within the Dark Web – which have yet to fail me. I also claimed that it was the act of a single person. Any adept social engineer would have easily seen this from the wording in the first manifesto published by the alleged hacking group…
I have to wonder if this employee wasn’t the anonymous tipster who provided the material for “Show and Tell“. I also found this tidbit rather amusing:
The chief executive of…Ashley Madison is resigning…following a hack that revealed millions of user names meant to be kept secret. Noel Biderman founded the site in 2002 to make it easier for married people to find other married people to have affairs with…Biderman…has sworn that he would never cheat or use the site. But the hack…uncovered emails suggesting that he was conducting multiple affairs…
What Were You All Waiting For?
The Amnesty International statement is such a big deal, even the 38 “anti-trafficking” groups that make up the “Freedom Network” came out in support of it. This is not the first time people who adhere to a version of the “trafficking” paradigm have come out for decriminalization; the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women is the most important one, and Kate D’Adamo (first listed author of the statement) is well-known as an opponent of criminalization. But the fact that a number of organizations who fly the “trafficking” flag are willing to break ranks with the others is a powerful sign of the beginning of the end of the hysteria.
