People say [sex work] is…easy money…those are people who have never done sex work. – Christa Daring
Slowly but surely, public opinion is turning in our favor:
…Baltimore’s observation of the International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers on Dec. 17…was organized by Sex Workers Outreach Project, or SWOP, and held in a small room in Impact Hub on North Avenue, just a few short blocks from “the stroll” on Charles Street…the Baltimore Police Department routinely refuse[s] to investigate sexual assaults and often harasse[s] victims of sexual assault, and that in cases of sexual assault or violence against sex workers, [cops] often [try] “to coerce sexual favors from them in exchange for avoiding arrest”…
This will continue until people recognize that “filtering” is a euphemism for “censorship”:
In school districts across the country…censorship takes place invisibly, through the use of internet filtering programs that block certain categories of websites — or even websites that mention specific words — when students use school computers to access the internet. Although primarily designed to prevent access to pornography, the deeply flawed software, and school districts’ widespread embrace of it, has a significant impact on classroom teaching. In Rhode Island…in 2013, the ACLU found that, whether by design or just due to the inevitably clumsy nature of such filtering, teachers and their students were blocked from viewing such varied and innocuous websites as those for PBS Kids and National Stop Bullying Day, a video clip of the Nutcracker ballet, and a website on climate change, among many others. One science teacher expressed frustration that a lesson plan of his was ruined when students couldn’t search for information about “polyvinyl alcohol” on their computers because the term contained the blocked word “alcohol.” Four years later…school districts continue to block sites that prevent students from researching all sorts of topical subjects. Some districts took the censorship to ridiculous extremes — using their filtering software to block sites designated as “political,” “news,” and even “dictionary”…
The entire “sex trafficking” myth is rooted in the anti-sex dogma of Protestant Christianity:
…The rhetoric of evangelical anti-trafficking activists…is sensationalist…it works to incite fear, prurient interest, and a sense of moral righteousness…In the last two decades, the fight against [sex work] has become something of an evangelical mission. One now finds fundraising walks , prayer weekends, Bible studies, self-help books and even praise songs devoted to [it]…the crusades’ rhetoric…is grounded in…conservative Protestant sexual morality. A traditional script of sexual and gender roles is foundational to anti-trafficking activism. Girls are rehabilitated so that they can occupy their [approved] positions…as married women and mothers. This is ultimately what anti-trafficking activists mean by freedom, Yvonne Sherman argues in Other Dreams of Freedom: Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking…conservative Protestants have argued that marriage alone is the appropriate sexual relationship, divinely ordained…As such, sexual relations outside of marriage are imagined as bondage…Conservative Protestant women have a long history of fashioning themselves as guardians of the moral order, more specifically of marriage and the family, a strategy they have employed to legitimate their political and social campaigns, from suffrage and temperance to abortion and same-sex marriage debates…
I wonder how many of these Reefer Madness-style fakumentaries there will be before the hysteria ends?
Gridshock is a feature-length investigative documentary that exposes the sex trafficking industry in Iowa. It will explore the insidious network of sexual enslavement that is flourishing in our communities RIGHT NOW…in our neighborhoods IN EVERY SINGLE IOWA COUNTY…all around us is a thinly veiled market trading in sexually enslaved human beings, mostly women and children. In two online clicks, you can purchase – for sex against their will – an infant, child, or adolescent; a woman or man; in any county in Iowa…
It’s good to see this scam flopping. Maybe people are starting to understand that no, you can’t “buy a slave with two online clicks”, not in Iowa nor anywhere else in the world.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Washington:
Washington’s attorney general is suing Motel 6, saying the budget hotel disclosed the personal information of thousands of guests to federal immigration authorities in violation of state law…Bob Ferguson said…Motel 6’s “actions are disturbing and they are unlawful.” He said the motel divulged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement the names, dates of birth, license plate numbers and room numbers of more than 9,000 guests at six locations throughout the state…
Remember, this is the state which regularly enters into corrupt fascist deals with prohibitionists and pressures businesses to snitch to the pigs about their employees’ private sexual activities.
Cop uses typical cop deception tactics to lure teen girls he can molest:
A U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of posing online as a [teen] boy to share nude photos and sexually explicit messages with teen girls now faces a federal sex crime charge. Micah Mardo…was arrested…at a northwest Washington state Border Patrol station after…a complaint to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was forwarded to a Bellingham-based FBI agent…the [snitch] reported Mardo’s wife had discovered child pornography and…”emails to minors with pornographic photos, conversations between her husband and a coworker…where her husband described sexual fantasies about his own minor daughter and her friends”…[Mardo also pressured girls for nude photos, sent obscene images of himself and shared sexually explicit messages]…
A Woman’s Point of View (#706)
While one of the sponsors of the New Hampshire decriminalization bill has made comments that reek of the Swedish rot, I had a pleasant exchange with one of the other sponsors on Twitter the other day. When I asked her to clarify her stand on the Swedish model, this was her encouraging response:
I do not support Nordic model. I think that "pimps and johns" rhetoric is misguided, endangers sex workers, misses the point of consent, and leads to a policy that contravenes evidence & human rights. Current bill as amended would study all options tho – long story.
— Representative Elizabeth Edwards (@RepEEdwards) January 3, 2018
As I told her at the time, I’ve had enough politicians as clients to understand that sausage-making can be a nasty process. But its good to see that this lady has laudable goals, even if they’re later undermined by other legislators.
As usual, I’m sure useful idiots will be cheering this expansion of censorship:
Social media platforms doing business in Germany can look forward to a year filled with fines of up to €50m. Germany’s hate speech law went into effect on January 1st, providing the country with a new revenue stream it can tap into for the rest of whatever…The law gives social media platforms 24 hours to remove “obviously illegal” content. This, of course, raises the question about how obvious “obviously illegal” content needs to be…Presumably, the government gets to decide how “obvious” the illegality is and how often it gets to collect millions of euros…Not only are service providers fined…EMPLOYEES of these companies can be directly fined as well…A regime with an interest in censorship and curtailing criticism has already pushed out a carbon-copy of Germany’s law. This gives Russia the opportunity to push companies into performing censorship on its behalf, with Germany to point at when critics start questioning [its] actions…
More pompous, misogynistic men taking it upon themselves to “disrupt” women’s income:
…Over 74,000 attempts to purchase sex have been disrupted…[by] men…in Portland, San Diego, Boston, Foster City, Oakland, Fort Worth, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City and Los Angeles…[the program has] enthusiastic support from [pigs, prohibitionists and politicians]…
