Just Say No started with drugs, then spread to sex education. It didn’t work effectively in either setting. – David Ley
As I’ve explained many times, “safe harbor” laws are nothing but Potemkin villages, empty legal husks designed to please the ignorant while actually sparing nobody from the injustice system: “Lawmakers [pretending] to help children escape prostitution are advancing a bill to decriminalize the act for minors…SB1322…would…allow them to be taken into temporary custody…to keep [them] away from pimps…” Translations: “Children” = young adults. “Temporary custody” = indefinite imprisonment; all prison sentences other than death or life without parole are “temporary”.
Sex workers in Kazakhstan want to make the world’s oldest profession a legal trade…an open letter signed by 597…sex workers…called for the legalization of prostitution and its regulation by the state…the sex workers argued that legalization would better protect them from potential harassment and harm done by customers and pimps…state regulation would better protect Kazakhstani prostitutes from competition on the part of migrant sex workers from…Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine…taxation of the commercial sex trade could contribute a tidy sum to…government coffers at a time when state revenue streams in other areas…are declining. The positions…are similar to those advocated by…Amnesty International…
Above the Law
It always pleases me to see a political name I know in front of the verb “sentenced” or “convicted”:
Harry Morel Jr., the former St. Charles Parish district attorney who pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice during a sex investigation, was sentenced…to three years in prison — the most allowed by law. The…judge…also fined Morel $20,000, well short of the maximum of $250,000, and ordered him to serve a year of probation after his release from prison. Morel was St. Charles’ top prosecutor for 33 years. He admitted his guilt in April after a three-year federal inquiry into whether he solicited sexual favors from women in exchange for help on cases pending in Louisiana’s 29th Judicial District Court. Authorities labeled Morel a “sexual predator” and said his pattern of misconduct in office spanned 20 years and included at least 20 women. Although not charged with trading sex for official help, Morel admitted [it] as part of his plea bargain agreement…in May, the Louisiana Supreme Court stripped Morel of his law license, barring him from practice for life…
The Immunity Syndrome (#21)
For decades, the majority of sex education provided to adolescents in the US has focused on encouraging young people to refrain from sex. Our country has taken the approach that it is young people’s moral obligation to not engage in sex until they are adults…Even programs that aren’t “abstinence-only” typically promote abstinence as the best strategy…In July 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended to its nationwide membership, that they must educate children and teens about sex. They joined countless other groups of experts, physicians, and educators, all of whom oppose abstinence-based education…[which] puts these teens at great risk for sexual problems, and increased chances of unsafe sex…
Under Every Bed
This woman is so puffed up, I think she’s pop if one stuck her with a pin:
Nita Belles, who founded…In Our Backyard…[bloviated] “It has long been known that Central Oregon is a recruiting ground. Traffickers…find this a good place to find and groom trusting young people — and then after they have been “turned out” they are usually taken out of the area to be trafficked in what is called the circuit…Central Oregon is a place where traffickers can get more money for their victims because we are a small town…Additionally, we have a lot of conventions, vacations and other gatherings here…victims become traumatically bonded to the trafficker, something like the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’…traffickers take pictures while stalking their victim’s family and when a victim indicates she is unhappy, her trafficker responds ‘Here is a picture I took of your little sister last week, she gets out of school at 2:40 p.m. and I will be there to pick her up tomorrow if you don’t do what I tell you’…I have known of cases where traffickers have burnt down their victim’s family’s home just to prove to their victims that they will do anything to keep them under their control”…
Do sane people actually, genuinely believe this ridiculous, completely unsubstantiated nonsense? This is literally pure fantasy.
Agony Aunt
“Dear Prudence” calls a reader on her whorephobia:
I am trying to imagine why, if you had a suspicion that your sister was molesting your son, you did not ask more questions of her immediately. Her past work as a dominatrix has nothing to do with your current situation, although it sounds like at least part of you believes that if she was willing to tie up adult, consenting men for a living she’d be equally willing to abuse a prepubescent child, which is a horrific false equivalence. Set aside your assumptions about her former employment…
Banishment (#434)
Ignoring for a moment the moronic modifier “very”, this situation is not even close to “unique”:
It as “a very unique” situation, Union County [Pennsylvania] District Attorney D. Peter Johnson says about a…man who has been [held illegally in]…jail because he can’t get an approved housing plan…a Commonwealth Court panel [has now] vacated his most recent sentence. Since 2002 [Samuel] Grove has been in jail for all but two days serving a sentence of four to eight years followed by 12 years of probation…He completed his prison sentence in 2011 but has been charged three times since with violating his probation by not having an approved home plan…The third time…expired on May 29, 2015. The prosecution immediately again accused Grove of violating his probation by not having an approved home plan…[but when that was proven untrue the prosecutor immediately] accused [Grove] of violating his supervision [by] not obtaining sex offender treatment [and a judge played along by sentencing him]…to…86 months in jail…The state court panel vacated that sentence, saying…none of the sentencing orders required Grove to undergo sex offender treatment during imprisonment…
Follow the title link for earlier examples of “sex offenders” being imprisoned indefinitely by similar state shenanigans.
Another Fine Mess
OMG, WHORES KNOW HOW TO USE PHONES!!!!!!!
…many…fresh-faced high school girls in Hong Kong…[use] online forums to run [their] own [businesses] as…“compensated daters”…without the help of a middleman…it’s common for one girl to find an ad she likes, and then copy it—with just minor adjustments…there are some 2,500 compensated daters in the city…police have been slow to catch on to these girls now that they’ve taken refuge online…So long as they’re not soliciting clients in public spaces, they’re not breaking the law in Hong Kong…
Now They Notice
The former chief executive of…Rentboy.com is finalizing a plea agreement after his indictment for promoting prostitution…lawyers for Jeffrey Hurant…asked that a plea hearing be scheduled for the week of Aug. 29…The case prompted criticism from some gay rights activists and sex worker rights groups, who questioned why prosecutors were targeting the service after it had operated transparently for nearly two decades…Following the criticism, federal prosecutors in February dropped charges against the six Rentboy employees. But they continued to prosecute Hurant and the company itself…
To Molest and Rape
A shining example of the ethics of “law enforcement officers”:
An Illinois [cop] who raped a…girl…to testify in court in order to torment her one last time before he entered a guilty plea…David Wright…pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping the unnamed girl for 10 years, beginning when she was only 7 years old. Wright was arrested in 2015, but continued to collect paychecks…right up until he entered his…plea. He was charged with 33 felonies that carried a combined minimum prison sentence of 143 years and a maximum of 648 years…[but] was allowed to enter into a plea deal where he will have the chance for parole in less than 20 years…Wright first raped the girl in the bathroom at a children’s party, telling her, “This is gonna hurt” before the assault…in November of 2005…in April of 2015…the victim finally overcame her fear and reported the abuse. Up to that point, she told prosecutors, she’d been afraid she would cost Wright his livelihood…
Across the Pond (#653)
How prohibitionists want to “help” sex workers:
An editorial in the British Medical Journal, published this week, warned of “avoidable harms and disastrous long-term costs” of ongoing funding cuts to services available to sex workers…[which] have so far controlled outbreaks of HIV, syphilis and tuberculosis…outreach programmes have halved the risk of them contracting sexually transmitted infections…An estimated 10,000 sex workers use such services , according to National Ugly Mugs…Georgina Perry, a former manager at Open Doors…resigned last week over the cuts…after Open Doors was asked to share confidential client information…[with] police and immigration officers…
Rubbing Elbows (#653)
An ally uses the Desiree Alliance conference as a springboard to discuss larger issues:
Sex workers and their allies gathered in New Orleans recently for the 6th…Desiree Alliance Conference…This year’s conference was about 50 percent bigger than the one held in Las Vegas three years ago. There were about 300 attendees, about three-quarters of whom were current or former workers. The rest were allies, like myself…the sex worker’s rights movement…is shaping up to be the next great civil rights effort in the United States and elsewhere…Fears over human trafficking have been used to create a massive anti-prostitution moral crusade. Falsehoods about the nature of the industry are widely repeated, with sex workers seldom allowed access to media to rebut them. Broad-based laws that attack all sorts of harmless people have been passed and justified in the hysteria over trafficking…A…self-serving rescue industry, funding for which is contingent on there being lots of trafficking victims to save, has grown around the country…
So Close and Yet So Far (#661)
Gary Johnson’s position on sex work wasn’t quite so muddled in 1991: