Officialdom should never have the right to tell grown adults when, how, with whom and for what reason they can have sex. – Ella Whelan
The capacity of lawheads for denying reality is nothing short of astonishing:
The [Samoan] Ministry of Health has made it a priority to educate and counsel “commercial sex workers” despite the government downplaying their existence…the number of female sex workers in Samoa was estimated at around 400. It was also revealed that most women are doing sex work for economic reasons…The…report was rubbished by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi who laughed at claims that poverty and hardship are to blame for the growing number of sex workers in Samoa…
Massage parlors are popular targets of “anti-trafficking” pogroms because they’re low-hanging fruit:
A woman who works at a Tulsa massage parlor…has been charged with trying to persuade colleagues to not testify against their employer. Stefanie Lea Thomas…was charged…with intimidation of a witness…Thomas is the manager…The owner…Willie Charles Whitman, was arrested earlier this month as the result of a…[sting and] charged with two counts of human trafficking…On the night of Whitman’s arrest, he called Thomas from the county jail and told her he “needed the other girls in the shop to go to court and say that he was not human trafficking anyone”…
Of course, he’d have said the same things if he was innocent & simply intelligent enough to realize that the pigs are trying to pin BS “sex trafficking” charges on him, but of course that’s not important now that presumption of innocence is a thing of the past.
For 46 hours, Andrew Holland’s legs and arms were shackled to a chair in the San Luis Obispo County jail. The [helpless human being], who suffered from schizophrenia, was left in his own filth, eating and drinking almost nothing. He was naked, except for a helmet and mask covering his face and a blanket that slipped off his lap, exposing him to jail staff who passed by his glass-fronted cell. When he was finally unbound, [screws] dumped him to the floor of a nearby cell. Within 40 minutes, he [died]…
It’s not “erroneous”, which implies an honest mistake; it’s a willful conflation:
…The way police involved in…sting[s] chose to spin their costly efforts to entrap the buyers and sellers of sex is just one more example of how law enforcement and others routinely conflate consensual prostitution with far rarer instances of actual sex trafficking…in [a recent “Operation Cross-Country”]…which cost taxpayers millions of dollars, only six underage prostitutes were found out of a total 85 prostitutes…only 14 “pimps” were arrested and there is no evidence that any of them actually engaged in trafficking according to the legal definition. It’s not just law enforcement that…[conflates] victimless sex work with trafficking. Many politicians…and others persist in conflating the two for their own political benefit…
Melissa Petro on her post-sex work dating experiences:
Aside from losing my career in dramatic fashion, dating was one of the toughest parts of being someone with sex work experience. Whether you’re a dancer or an escort, a porn star or a cam girl, the same questions arise: how and when to tell the person you’re dating, and then, how to manage their reaction (they always have one). “Do prostitutes really date and marry?” is an actual question some men ask. And some men think the answer ought to be no. Whether our experiences in the industry are positive, negative, or — as they very frequently are — neutral, many people paint all sex workers with the same broad brush. They’re morally corrupt, or else so emotionally and even physically damaged by their experiences as to be undatable…
Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#698)
As regular readers know, “expert sex therapists” have never labelled “sex addiction” a disorder:
In the world of sex therapy, there is no consensus on what constitutes a sex addict…Answers from therapists vary wildly. And for now, nobody is right and nobody is wrong, as there is no standardized “sex addiction” diagnosis. This could soon change, and a bitter battle is raging behind the scenes over whether it should change…
No, there is no “bitter battle” among actual, qualified sex therapists; those who wish this imaginary syndrome labeled a true disorder are opportunists, few with actual qualifications as therapists, who want their pet label officially recognized so they can cash in on insurance. But credulous reporters don’t want to hear that.
Did you ever wonder why the government stopped harassing bitcoin?
Computer science [bootlickers] at the University of California, Berkeley have developed new tools to identify sex [workers]…making them easier for law enforcement to target and prosecute…The new technique [pretends to]…find…stylistic similarities between ads for sex services posted to sites like Backpage.com…[in order to pretend they’re all posted by] criminal organizations posting multiple ads…Because Backpage is the most used portal for advertising sex services, credit card processors like Visa [were threatened into choking off payment processing by a megalomaniacal Chicago politician]…starting in 2015. That left Bitcoin as the preferred means of paying for ads. The Berkeley researchers took advantage of Bitcoin’s public blockchain — a record of all transactions — to identify payments for sex ads…and even to connect them to real-world names…
I’m really enjoying “grocery store sex trafficking” hysteria:
A creepy trend has been scaring mothers across Sarasota County who say strangers are approaching women in stores and parking lots, asking intrusive questions about their children. This has…many people panicked on social media…[one hysteric] says two pretend shoppers [no doubt wearing labels that said “pretend shopper”] approached them in the toy aisle…one woman asked strange religious questions while the other was fixated on her daughter…asking direct questions about [her] looks and features…“It just made me even more afraid that they were going to try to grab either just my daughter or both of us”…
Because nobody but a “sex trafficker” ever attempts to be polite by complimenting a child’s looks.
The leading edge of a wedge is often extremely thin:
A bill that will allow homes to be searched without a warrant was passed with overwhelming support by the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Trump—and it happened with no media coverage and very little fanfare. On the surface, House Joint Resolution 76 looks harmless…However, there is one major red flag buried within the text of the bill that stems from the list of “powers” given to the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, and it violates one of the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution…The text gives the Commission the authority to enter property near the Metro Rail System “without limitation” and without a warrant, for the purpose of “making inspections, investigations, examinations, and testing.” This clearly goes against the Fourth Amendment…[but] only five Congressmen…voted against it…This is not the first time Congress has quietly passed a bill that will take away some of the most basic rights from law-abiding citizens in the U.S…and while it may only affect the Washington D.C. metro area now, it could be laying the blueprint for future legislation across the country.
Buttons, Bags & Banknotes (#767) 
Bindel is increasingly becoming a transparent laughing stock:
…In framing prostitution as modern slavery, something that holds women captive, Bindel plays on the classic and sexist damsel-in-distress motif. Yes, in other countries women do not enjoy the same rights as we do in the UK. But sticking with the country Bindel is based in and writes about in her piece – Britain – there is simply no epidemic of “sex slavery” here. Prostitution happens, often in unpleasant circumstances, but these women are not chattel; they can make decisions…
