You will hear our voices, because they are becoming louder and louder and you can’t drown us out any longer. – Laura Lee
Male strippers stopped by gardai for having no tax disc performed for female officers to get out of a fine…They…entered the Garda station and began their performance. But one female is understood to have fallen during the incident, injuring her back…an internal investigation is underway…the officer who brokered the “deal” is also being investigated…
I’ve been saying this for 30 years:
In…1975…Susan Brownmiller…asserted that “rape is about power, not sex.” Ever since, the conventional wisdom has been that rapists are misogynistic men seeking domination and power over women, not violent men seeking sex…there has been no significant empirical research to support her claim. Yet, almost everyone repeats it…Social science has demonstrated a strong relationship between age and sexual attractiveness. Heterosexual men are sexually attracted to young women, while homosexual men are attracted to young men…If rapists are primarily motivated by the desire for power and domination, then one would expect them to prefer middle-aged, career women. However, if rapists primarily desire sex, then one would expect them to prefer young women and men…The percentage of female victims who are over 50 is close to zero…A 15-year-old male is more likely to be a victim of a sexual assault than a 40-year-old female…An analysis of whether female robbery victims are sexually assaulted during the incident suggests that the sexual attractiveness of young people is an important factor. Since the robber has already established dominance over a vulnerable victim, the effects of opportunity and vulnerability are removed, and only the effect of the offender’s age preference remains. In such cases, robbers are much more likely to rape victims between the ages of 15 and 29…The reason most rapists target females is that a larger percentage of males are heterosexuals, not that they hate females…Gay men are just as likely to attack males as straight men are to attack females…
The Pygmalion Fallacy
Plus the fact that so-called “virtually reality” doesn’t involve actual touch:
Virtual reality technology is unlikely to kill off real sex work, according to people working in the business, even if the biggest predictions about it come true…Virtual reality allows people to strap on a headset and move around a world as if they are really there, with the image changing as they move their head for an immersive experience. But that experience will never be enough to threaten the business of real sex workers…
Imagination Pinned Down
I’ll just leave this right here:
Stories are so natural that we don’t notice how much they permeate our lives…That’s precisely why they can be such a powerful tool of deception. When we’re immersed in a story, we let down our guard…[and] may absorb things…that would normally pass us by or put us on high alert…In his book Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Jerome Bruner…proposes that we can frame experience in two ways: propositional and narrative. Propositional thought hinges on logic and formality. Narrative thought is the reverse. It’s concrete, imagistic, personally convincing, and emotional. And it’s strong…What kind of person do you need to be to make up a history of…sex trafficking? For one thing, you need to have an intimate grasp of the workings of human psychology—you have to understand that this story, above any other, will elude scrutiny even when the facts that justify it are sparse. Victims, in the right light, stand above reproach. No one questions an escapee from human trafficking…
The central example of the article is the case of Samantha Azzopardi, but I don’t think you need me to point out dozens of other important examples.
Shift in the Wind (#134)
Mary Emily O’Hara of the Daily Dot published a very decent review of the year’s top sex work stories; however, in the course of preparing the article she used some materials without permission, possibly endangering sex workers. Though the materials were removed when their original author protested to O’Hara, the incident just goes to show how little even sex-worker-friendly journalists stop to think about the effect of stigma on sex workers’ lives.
Little Boxes (#138)
Anyone who would be “alarmed” at the sight of a nipple needs to just stay home with a coloring book:
A proposed law in New Hampshire would charge women with a misdemeanor for exposing their nipples in public, with an exemption for the act of breastfeeding. Toplessness is currently legal for both women and men under New Hamphire state law, although some local ordinances forbid it…[the] bill would update the state’s indecent exposure and lewdness statute to include “a woman [who] purposely exposes the areola or nipple of her breast or breasts in a public place and in the presence of another person with reckless disregard for whether a reasonable person would be offended or alarmed by such act.”
Oscillation (#312)
This is what prohibition looks like when given perspective by time:
Hundreds of letters were received by [Irish] President Patrick Hillery in 1985, urging him not to sign legislation that allowed condoms to be purchased without prescription…In a file…released as part of the 30-year rule, letters warned of the “imminent dangers to which young people will be exposed” and claimed the “lives of decent people” would be “threatened in the streets and even in their homes” if [people could buy condoms]…A woman from Clontarf, Dublin, reminded Hillery that it wasn’t long since the people “voted to protect unborn life” in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. “This Bill is totally opposed to the whole concept of unborn life
because it closes the door to the right of unborn life to be conceived,” she said…
Under Every Bed
“…I found out that human trafficking affects every single community. Places big, small, urban or rural, human trafficking is everywhere. The realities of human trafficking are disturbing and unsettling. Experts at a conference I attended in September said the multi-billion dollar industry has now surpassed the drug and arms trades…”
Uncommon Sense (#337)
Once again, myths and agency denial convince Switzerland to narrow the bottleneck for legal sex work:
…Switzerland began awarding eight-month permits in 1995 to women from outside the European Union who wanted to come to the country to work as strippers…The programme was meant to protect people who may have otherwise been vulnerable to sex traffickers…But…Swiss authorities…announced that [blah blah blah sex trafficking so]…the programme will formally be cancelled as of the new year…the visas, called “L permits”…gave women a chance to earn significant money in wealthy Switzerland which they could send home to their families…
This will, of course, result in these women working illegally, thus making them vulnerable to persecution by cops. Progress!
Innocence Never Had
People are so unwilling to let go of the ridiculous “pimps & hos” myth and the “enslaved children” wanking fantasy, that even when they question a few of the elements they can’t let go of the rest:
While headlines tout stories of women and children trafficked from overseas…you need look no further than the streets of Los Angeles to find America’s sexually exploited kids. Over 90 percent of [young people] under 18 [arrested by LAPD]…have not been kidnapped and stuffed into the back of a van, which is Hollywood’s version of sex trafficking…While “trafficked” implies transportation of victims across borders, anyone…under age 18 performing commercial sex acts is considered a trafficking victim…whether or not there is…force or coercion…When [a vice cop] suspects someone on the street is underage, he approaches her and introduces himself as an officer from the trafficking unit…Then, instead of arresting her, he [arrests her]…But girls like this aren’t usually rejoicing to be “rescued.” In fact, they are usually afraid of law enforcement and attached to their pimp…
The Public Eye (#407)
Laura Lee published an open letter to prohibitionists:
…You’ve decided I’m the “dirty girl”, the one who ought to be ashamed. You pour scorn on me when I don’t feel that shame…You tell me I must have been abused as a child, that can be the only explanation. You tell me I’m irrational, I have PTSD or I simply don’t care about myself. You tell me I can’t possibly parent, I can’t look after myself, let alone my daughter…You tell me that if I like what I do so much, I should work for free…you even tell me I target vulnerable disabled men, without one thought for their ability to make their own choices. You lie, you do it all the time. You tell the public that the country is awash with victims of trafficking when you know that simply isn’t true. You put your own funding and career above my life…
No Other Option (#420)
In the US, this business would be violently suppressed and its customers and workers shamed, robbed and caged: “A 24-hour brothel in central Bankstown [NSW] will include…seven rooms for clients, including one [specially fitted] for people with a disability…”
Checklist (#542)
A ridiculous and insulting new law takes effect in Florida:
Posters are going up in adult businesses, airports and other places where human trafficking victims might see them throughout Florida. They are aimed at combating sex trafficking. The FBI says Florida ranks third when it comes to human trafficking. A new state law goes into effect Jan. 1 requiring adult businesses and other locations to display posters with telephone numbers and other information to assist potential human trafficking victims…
