Instead of Scheherazade telling a sociopathic Persian king a thousand stories to save herself and her sisters, McNeill taps away at a laptop with posts that reach sex workers across the world. – Sydney Brownstone
DON’T THEY KNOW SEX RAYS CAN PENETRATE WALLS, LOCKED DOORS & PRIVACY PANELS?
A new business, a baby store for adults, is sparking outrage in suburban Mt. Prospect, Illinois…Dozens of residents showed up at village hall…calling for the business to be shut down or moved. However, officials said they had no legal basis to bar the business, Tykables, which includes features such as a seven-foot crib, an over-sized high chair and adult-sized playpen…the primary focus of the business is selling adult diapers for medical needs and for “ABDL” or “Adult Baby Diaper Lovers”…Residents…said…the store has no place near schools and homes. “It’s hard for us to swallow in this community,” one concerned resident said…”we’re supposed to sit back and watch,” another…complained. The doors are locked…and customers can only enter by appointment. White panels cover the windows, for privacy…The village is investigating whether the store owner lied on the business application. However, the village attorney said civil rights laws may protect against any action against the business.
The jokes write themselves.
Because anything can be “evidence of prostitution”, even if you’re 12:
[A Zimbabwe] regional magistrate Dambudzo Malunga has lashed out at a Grade Seven pupil for alleging that she was raped and infected with a sexually transmitted infection, only for medical results to reveal that her alleged rapist never had an STI. The…suspect…has been found not guilty…Magistrate Malunga then…lashed out at the…girl [claiming she] “has experience in having sex with different men and would charge them for her services”…
Does this writer actually understand the meanings of these words?
The Telangana Government…has been organising campaigns to drive [sex workers] out of the town. The victims who have been depending on this profession for generations, though ready to comply with the government’s move, demand rehabilitation for themselves and quality education for their children. The government has vowed to end the flesh trade…Most of them are either forced into this or enter it on their own to meet their family’s needs…
Another sleaze tricks young would-be sex workers in order to rape them:
According to her Facebook profile, she was “Deja Stwalley,” and her photo showed a youngish blonde woman in a blue romper. Stwalley claimed she was a recruiter for indie porn studios…Stwalley’s webcam was always broken, and she could never speak by phone. But she could always type. If the person Stwalley was chatting with seemed skeptical of the porn recruiter’s legitimacy, Stwalley added that she got into this business to protect women from getting lured into sketchy situations…Liz Shearer was 20 years old when she met Stwalley online…Stwalley told her that she could audition with her ex-boyfriend, a photographer named Matt. Stwalley told Shearer that she would also have to have sex with Matt. “To prove to production companies that having sex with someone I didn’t know was something that I could handle”…Allysia Bishop…and Shearer are two of at least six women who…met online after one woman’s account of her experience with Stwalley went viral on Facebook. Now, after sharing their stories with one another, they believe that the Deja Stwalley profile was fake…the two e-mail addresses—Stwalley’s e-mail that had supposedly been sent from Las Vegas and Matt’s e-mail sent from Seattle…used the same IP address near the University District…Matt…is local freelance tech journalist Matt Hickey…who…did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the specific allegations…Scammers…target sex workers…so often…that Seattle-based sex worker, writer, and activist Maggie McNeill has a regular feature on her website documenting these sorts of scams…
“Authorities” want you to panic about young women’s “sex trafficking” tattoos while they secretly analyze yours:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling for an end to government research that could be used to map connections or make inferences about people based on their tattoos. The National Institute for Standards and Technology began its initiative to refine automated tattoo recognition technology for the FBI in 2014…[it] collected 15,000 images of tattoos from arrestees and inmates and distributed the images to third parties…to test tattoo recognition algorithms…Now the institute is prepared to begin a new, larger experiment using 100,000 tattoo images that will sort people and their tattoos based on images…the institute…says tattoos can suggest affiliation to gangs, subcultures, religious or ritualistic beliefs or political ideology…EFF says…“This type of tattoo matching could sweep up fans of the same bands or members of the same labor union or military unit. This application has a high likelihood of generating false positives—matching someone whose tattoo may be visually similar, but not actually symbolically similar. That could result in people being improperly associated with groups, such as gangs, with which they have no actual affiliation”…
Oklahoma police agencies are being equipped with devices that allow officers to scan prepaid debit cards and [steal] funds linked to them…The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machines for installation in Oklahoma Highway Patrol and Oklahoma City police cruisers…The device [allows pigs to root in] the balance of prepaid debit cards and gift cards, and allows them to [steal] the money if they [pretend] it’s suspicious. ERAD readers also can provide limited information about pretty much any card with a magnetic strip, including bank debit cards and credit cards. Oklahoma has become a battleground in the debate over civil asset forfeiture reform in recent years, prompted by high-profile cases of cops using the practice to [steal] cash and property from innocent people…Each ERAD reader is costing the state about $5,000, plus…7.7 percent of all funds [stolen] with the readers…
A feminist pornographer has won the right to re-launch her fetish website…Pandora Blake, who runs DreamsofSpanking.com, was among UK pornographers forced to close their websites after a 2014 law brought porn made in the UK in line with rules binding DVDs sold [in] shops. The Audio Visual Media Services regulations (AVMS) banned sex acts that were deemed morally damaging or life-threatening, including strangulation, face-sitting and fisting. Spanking beyond what was deemed to be a gentle level, humiliation, full bondage and restraint…female ejaculation, and depictions of non-consensual sex were also forbidden…Blake is believed to be the first pornographer to be granted the right to re-open her website in the wake of the law, and is one of only two UK producers who can legally publish videos of face-sitting, female ejaculation and spanking which leaves a mark…she…now plans to continue campaigning and fundraising to see the anti-porn regulations scrapped entirely, alongside obscenity lawyer Myles Jackman who helped her with her case…
Regular readers know that last year the The Fact Checker exposed a series of false statistics associated with sex trafficking of children. All too often, we found, politicians and organizations credulously accepted flimsy or poorly researched statistics…advocates only harm their cause when they tout statistics that are so easily disproved. Our fact checks led many politicians and organizations to be more careful in their use of statistics concerning sex trafficking, but problems continue to surface. Case in point: a billboard campaign launched by Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, tied to the recent Indy 500…One of the billboards offered a statistic we had thoroughly debunked last year — that 13 is the average age for children to get involved in the sex trade…
Deon Haywood of Women With a Vision on The Girlfriend Experience:
…Most sex workers operate in the shadows…[they are criminalized] for the simple act of surviving. Decriminalizing this work is the way toward providing health, safety and true economic opportunity for marginalized women. As it stands, sex work is wrapped up into the language of anti-trafficking, the new war on drugs. And like that war, it fuels the incarceration of mostly poor black and brown people just as the misbegotten drug war has done for 40 years…the so-called war on trafficking has been a vehicle for expanding criminalization because incarceration—including for a woman’s “own good”—is touted as the chief tool of justice…About 55,000 prostitution arrests occur in the U.S. annually, and more than two-thirds are women…
Say what you like about Larry Flynt, but he’s a dedicated foe of censorship:
Every member of the Utah State Legislature is getting a free copy of Hustler…as part of a protest of the state’s declaration that pornography is a “public health crisis”. The magazines began arriving in the mailboxes of lawmakers on Monday…publisher Larry Flynt…has famously sent members of Congress subscriptions to Hustler since 1998…Jim Dabakis…the only openly gay member of the…Legislature, joked that the magazine was “wasted on me”…[but] many lawmakers [used the arrival as an opportunity for moral signaling since they]…recently passed a law that allows [them] to throw away publications they get in the mail…
Practically a definition of “wrongheaded”: A popular porn site is shaming its customers for enjoying one popular type of porn:
In response to media coverage of the recent, high-profile Stanford University sexual assault case, porn giant xHamster is taking on rape fantasies. When a user searches for the term “rape” on the site, they are greeted with a pop-up window reading, “If you are searching for this category, probably it’s time you consulted with a professional psychologist.” It then links to a free online therapy website…David Ley…says it’s…“a gross exaggeration to suggest that all people who have a fantasy regarding rape or forced sexual behavior are…psychologically ill”…more than half of women have fantasies of being “overpowered” by a man…Dan Savage…agrees. “I get letters constantly from women who feel deeply conflicted about having rape fantasies while viewing themselves as feminists, progressive and opponents of rape culture—and to shame people, I don’t see that as helpful”…
A cop’s idea of “courtesy”:
Scottsdale [Arizona] police arrested…[rapist cop] Jay Hun Wu…[molesting] a woman in his custody…On March 29, Wu gave the woman a courtesy ride to her home…she asked…Wu to let her out at her residence but…he pulled over…next to a residential wall…and said he needed to pat the woman down before he [groped] her under her clothing. He then gave her his business card and told her to call if she ever needed anything. The victim immediately told her family and Scottsdale police about the encounter…She recalls “nightmares and a lot of crying,” saying the incident has “really impacted me emotionally…to have trust in a law officer an then feel violated”…Sgt. Ben Hoster [lied]…”when police find a bad apple among their ranks, they’re quick to remove them”…
Cops are such clueless narcissists, they just can’t resist any excuse to belch out pathetic, self-congratulatory lies. And prosecutors use any excuse to reduce their penalties:
A [cop] charged with sexual assault has taken a plea deal. Troy Estree pleaded no contest to assault by strangulation…In return, prosecutors agreed to drop one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct…Estree was [previously charged with and acquitted of] sexually assaulting a teen relative…
In which Facebook demonstrates the dirty-mindedness of its censors:
…this actually is…an attempt…to show how similar the bone structure of human beings and horses are by aligning their respective physiology in this way. A rep from the publisher told BuzzFeed: “Obviously, we never wanted to shock our readers with that drawing…our goal was to make the child visually comprehend that the bone structure of the horse and the human being are similar…Putting them in the same position makes the likening more understandable and concrete”…BuzzFeed wrote a post on the image, only to find that — you guessed it — Facebook had begun flagging the article as it was being shared on the site….And this is why Facebook should get out of the morality business to every last degree possible…