[Emotional] manipulation is where censorship pulls its strength, and keeps the discussion of porn within the realm of saving women and children. – Violet Blue
Mea Culpa
I don’t often make errors worth noting in the blog, which may be why I never had this heading before. But when I do, they’re usually because my VEWWY SEEWEEUSS thought processes failed to recognize a joke or parody as such; that was the case in Sunday’s “Links #308“. Author Christopher Seaton explains:
When I write at Fault Lines I usually do so from a very serious perspective. This is because keeping the cracks in our criminal justice system visible and educating the public about the law is serious. When the weekend comes, we usually loosen our belts, let our hair down, and have fun. My mischief caught the attention of Maggie McNeill this week, and the whole story is a great lesson in communication…Maggie McNeill is one of the most interesting people on the web, if you don’t read her work regularly. She’s a writer, an academic, and a sex worker. This is not someone you want to get into a fight with when it comes to criminalization of conduct in any way, shape, or form. It’s not that I’m afraid of a good verbal spar with Maggie, I just know my limits…so I tweeted Maggie and told her it was a joke…she replies with an apology and says she had no idea Fault Lines posted anything but 100% dead serious content…I also appreciate Maggie letting her readership know I’m not on the side of over-criminalization…
Aversions
Margaret Corvid asked several sex workers what made their favorite clients special:
…sex work is work, and my favorite clients are like a writer’s, or a plumber’s: they’re the ones who treat me with respect…our favorite clients are the ones that respect our screening processes, that pay us, that don’t bully us or stalk us or subject us to their racist rants while we, on the clock, smile and nod. My favorites read my website properly, learning my hours, fees, services and how I prefer to be contacted. They don’t whinge if I ask for a deposit, and they don’t request services I don’t provide. They respect my time. They don’t call with cocks in hand for free sexy chat, or show up early while I’m still lacing myself into my corset…
The New Victorianism
So this happened to my friend Maggie McMuffin:
A burlesque dancer from Seattle, Washington, was informed that she would need to change her clothing if she wanted to board a flight from Boston to Seattle because her shorts were deemed “too short” by the flight crew. The crew felt that the shorts may be deemed inappropriate by families on the flight and should be changed as not to offend anyone…Maggie McMuffin says that she had successfully flown on a JetBlue flight from New York To Boston without incident in the same pair of “too short” black and white shorts earlier in the day. However, when she approached the gate to fly her second leg of her flight back home to Seattle, she was informed the shorts were not appropriate and that she needed to cover up more, as there were families on the flight that may find the attire inappropriate. JetBlue says they personally called and apologized to Maggie about the incident and refunded her for the shorts she was forced to purchase in the terminal while also providing the woman with a $200 credit to use on future flights as a “goodwill gesture”…
Mentoring
Paint By Numbers
Why hike or stand when you can motorcycle?
[An Oregon] woman is using her love for motorcycling to spread awareness about child sex trafficking. Gwen Feero is a special education teacher who is preparing to bike to all four corners of the United States for what she calls the Freedom Ride. She decided to make the more than 11,000-mile ride after overhearing a sex trafficking conversation in Portland…
I think my profession must be the only one in the world that people think they’re “experts” in after eavesdropping on a conversation between two other lackwits.
Thou Shalt Not (#413)
Because prohibition always works so well:
Six out of ten Norwegians support a proposal from the Norwegian Medical Association…to ban the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2000…NMA [fantasized] in January that Norway [could] create “a tobacco-free generation” by 2035…NMA president Marit Hermansen said in January that it is not a basic human right to begin using tobacco…Health Minister Bent Høie [said]…the government has no plans to take up any legislation that would lead to a ban of tobacco sales.
Broken Record (#579)
I’m not sure which part is more pathetic: this ass insisting that there’s rampant “sex trafficking” in South Dakota, or thinking a vacation in Southeast Asia makes her an “expert”:
…you’d be surprised how many people don’t think sex trafficking is a thing that happens here…in South Dakota…one of my favorite things we have done so far is our work with Whittier Middle School…This is how sex trafficking numbers go down. These kids need a reason to believe that they are worth more than a number some trafficker puts on them. Traffickers only have power when they find those that believe their worth is so small that it can be bought…
Sales Pitch (#626)
Aphrodite bless Wendy Lyon for enduring Swedish cops’ self-congratulatory pig porn to bring us the parts that most show up their “model” for what it is:
Swedish super cop Simon Haggstrom – you’ll know him from his frequent visits to other countries to proselytise for the sex purchase ban – has now published his memoirs. Only in Swedish, alas, but that’s why God made Google Translate. Here are some of his views on how the law actually functions in practice…it provides the cops with “excitement” and plenty of wank material, in which they themselves play a starring role in the action…it hasn’t changed men’s attitudes. It isn’t deterring them from paying for sex. It isn’t stopping women from selling sex (indeed, they have to engage in a sexual act before enforcement will take place at all). It is subjecting them to unwanted interactions with the police, up to and including detention, and deportation for those who refuse to accept the cops’ “help”…even Amnesty might be surprised at the clumsy, cringeworthy porn that Haggstrom illustrates his accounts with..Is it any wonder he’s such an advocate for the law? Without it, he’d have to get off with only his imagination again.
Among other lovely bits, Haggstrom reveals that Swedish cops harvest sex workers’ used tampons as “evidence”; he includes a photo of such in the book. Hooray for “feminism”!
Gorged With Meaning (#639)
Articles on sugar dating appear to be starting to shed the moral panic:
“Sugar Daddy” arrangements have existed for ages, and it’s unclear if they are becoming more common because the phenomenon is not well studied. But experts say at the very least the internet has made these transactions far easier to arrange and negotiate…U.S. undergraduate students last year finished school with an average of $35,000 in student debt — a figure that has risen steadily every year…The average graduate debt load is $75,000, and some longer programs force students into much deeper debt. Many students say their loans don’t cover the cost of living, and with rent skyrocketing in most major cities, they are left scrambling to make up the difference. One graduate student at Columbia University in New York had a scholarship that covered almost all of her tuition, but not her living expenses. She spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the potential impact on her job prospects…she plans to continue “sugaring” after she graduates to buy herself time to find a more traditional job and remain officially unemployed so she can defer repaying the roughly $70,000 in loans she had already racked up. “There is a lot of moral panic about it,” she said. “But what are the real estate and academic funding situations that led to this?”…
Almost the only negative statement is a quote near the end from a fanatic who claims that violence magically arises from money.
The Pro-Rape Coalition (#641)
Violet Blue exposes the connection between a number of recent anti-sex op-eds:
…under the guise of demonstrating objectivity and presenting a range of opposing views on pornography, the [Washington] Post ran its “In Theory” porn series…Out of seven articles, only one presents an opposing viewpoint…When the two essays that could be considered positive or neutral viewpoints were published, they were simultaneously published with anti-porn essays…The Washington Post not only deceived readers about the agenda of its “In Theory” porn series, the outlet also deceived readers about the sources of these writings. For instance, its final day in the series featured an article by Haley Halverson which depicts the anti-porn movement as a cultural zeitgeist brought on by public common sense, thanks to the good efforts of The National Center on Sexual Exploitation. What readers are not told is that NCSE is the re-branded faith-based group Morality In Media, Inc., which changed its name in 2015. Halverson runs its PR department. This organization is a thread connecting most of the Post’s authors…