It’s easy to see the vast gap between the reality of sex workers’ lives and the bleak fiction peddled by the anti-sex work industry. – Lux Alptraum
Against Their Will
The Indian press just can’t let go of the word “rescue”, even when it’s patently absurd:
Eight sex workers from Thailand, who were rescued from a spa at Bapuji Nagar on May 19, were deported…and were given 48 hours to leave the country…
Gorged With Meaning
Posturing, hair-splitting and moral panic create a strange stew out of normal and age-old behavior:
…”part-time girlfriend” is a euphemism often used by young women in the city who may be studying or have jobs, but who also offer sex on the side. By using variations of the hashtag #ptgf as shorthand, they connect with men on networks such as Instagram and then switch to direct messaging to offer services and arrange to meet. Instagram says it has made #ptgf and #hkptgf unsearchable, but a host of new alternatives that add Chinese characters or initials to the original tag circumvent the block…[as usual, busybodies blame a lot of nonsense other than] financial pressures [as] key motivators for young women …Bowie Lam, executive director of Teen’s Key…[claims] the age of “part-time girlfriends” is getting lower…These young women often do not see themselves as sex workers because the…[propaganda has misled them as to what sex work is like]…Hong Kong police said they have taken action against websites, chat rooms and discussion forums to combat illegal prostitution activities. The act of prostitution in itself is not illegal in Hong Kong…but soliciting is…
Cops and Robbers
Bigots try to cover racism and misogyny by blaming imaginary “gangs” for this:
Prostitutes blamed for robbing and pick-pocketing British tourists in Magaluf, Spain, have been chased off the streets by angry protesters. Spanish taxi drivers led a [mob]…against the women by recording them with their mobile phones and chanting: “No prostitutes on the streets”…It is claimed that the women have come to Spain via organised crime in Nigeria, and they are blamed by local businesses for a drop in tourist trade…
End Demand (#638)
Swanee Hunt can recycle this propaganda from Seattle because modern “reporters” never fact-check:
Nearly two dozen businesses and institutions joined…a new initiative called Employers Against Sex Trafficking (EAST) to create a coalition of business leaders who have committed to zero-tolerance policies on sex buying…[propaganda invented] by Demand Abolition…showed that nearly 13 percent of calls responding to…decoy ads originated from local businesses, and that the peak time people are searching online to buy sex is during the workday, at 2 p.m. The…study revealed…more than 9,000 searches for sex-buying opportunities happening in Boston each day and that more than 20,000 ads selling people for sex are posted online every month, with each ad receiving an average of 52 responses. Many sex buyers have said they buy illegal sex while traveling for business…
If you don’t recognize businesses “partnering” with government to infringe on civil rights as fascism, perhaps the horrific phrase “illegal sex” might give you a clue.
Traffic Jam (#704) 
How many moronic prohibitionist plays can the market bear?
After a year of co-writing, directing and now acting in Jane Doe in Wonderland, Erin Johnston is even more adamant about the play’s impact in [spreading propaganda against] sex [work]. “We’re excited about this production,” she said. “It allows people to get used to theater to tell the story and the performance is digestible and accessible. And…we don’t curse or show physical violence. The focus is on the emotional and psychological process that’s experienced.” As part of the [rescue industry] Game Over organization, Jane Doe in Wonderland visits around 20 Bay Area cities on its current tour…
Spotlight (#715)
I wonder if Asstoon will ever get professional help for his delusions of grandeur?
Ashton Kutcher’s non-profit organisation Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children [claims to have] identified almost 6,000 child victims of human sex trafficking last year…Impact reports from the organisation for 2017, show that Thorn’s software allowed law enforcement and investigators to identify 5,791 child sex trafficking victims…They were able to [arrest] 103 [legal minors]…Thorn uses web application Spotlight which provides [cops] with information and leads on [sex workers]…in order to [arrest them]…In 2016, during an appearance on the Today show, the actor said “We’ve identified and recovered more than 6,000 trafficking victims this year. We identified and recovered more than 2,000 traffickers.” He also stated his next mission was to eliminate child pornography from the internet…
The same figures for two years in a row, and the Mail doesn’t find it fishy. The reporter also didn’t bother to read Liz Brown’s debunking (see title link).
Monsters (#730)
All around the world, monsters torture sexual minorities under the excuse of “helping” or “curing” us:
When he was 15, his family found out that Ibrahim…was gay…from that moment on, local mullahs and “old wives” (faith healers and local women reputed to be witches) “tried to ‘treat’…my homosexuality…[with] bloodletting…herbs (after which I had hallucinations, nausea, stomach pains), strong pressure on the painful points of the body, and…electric shocks onto the penis. There were also some ‘spells’ or nashidas (though to no effect)…It went on and off…till I turned 18.” Ibrahim is all right, for now, having escaped Chechnya. He is living under the care of Stimul, a Russian LGBT organization…that…arranges safe housing and advice and advocacy…for…LGBT people seeking asylum from Central Asian countries…and…Chechnya, where homosexuality is not only against the law…but…viciously persecuted…Stimul aims to…place LGBT people…in European countries, the U.S., and Canada…
Hard Numbers (#756)
Good news from South Australia:
South Australian Attorney-General, Vickie Chapman, says she will sponsor a bill to decriminalise sex work when it comes to the state’s Lower House, boosting its chances of becoming law…The Decriminalisation of Sex Work Bill was introduced by Greens MLC Tammy Franks last month and is the same as one sponsored by Liberal Upper House MP Michelle Lensink in 2015. That bill passed the Legislative Council but failed to go to a conscience vote in the House of Assembly before the March election…
Choke Point (#767)
“Choke Point Mark II” would be statutory rather than mere policy, and laser-focused on sex workers:
…Of four quick and easy tests for bad legislation, the [End Banking for Human Traffickers Act] passes three: First, it’s “bipartisan”…Rubio and Warren are aligned on both elements of the issue. Both of them want control of your genitalia and both of them want control of your bank account. Secondly, it exploits moral panic to discourage scrutiny of its actual effects. In this case, the trending buzz word is “human trafficking”…another excuse for harassing adult sex workers trying to make a living and, contra all the “for the chillllllldren” posturing, taking food out of the mouths of THEIR children (if not taking away their children entirely). Thirdly, it doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that it’s yet another attempt to conscript supposedly private sector actors into conducting…intrusive search-like activity that, if done directly by government employees…might be held accountable to inconvenient standards like probable cause, warrants, etc. The only test the bill fails is the “warm, fuzzy, and/or patriotic-sounding acronym” test…if this bill passes the Senate and is signed into law, sex workers — already pushed to the economic margins in various ways by law enforcement, social stigma, and…poverty…are going to have an even harder time opening or keeping…accounts at traditional banks…
As I wrote in the title-linked piece: “Since ‘Choke Point’ was never declared unconstitutional by a court nor officially banned by a law, there’s nothing to stop future tyrants from simply bringing it back.”
Comfort Zone (#774)
Sometimes the attempt to hide migration control behind the “sex trafficking” narrative is especially apparent:
In France, two separate…activists are [on trial for] human trafficking for helping migrants on humanitarian grounds. The law on which they are being charged is currently under review in the Constitutional Court. Martine Landry, a 73-year-old pensioner working with…Amnesty International, faces up to five years in prison and a 30,000-euro fine…[for] facilitating the passage of two Guinean boys, then aged 15 and 16, into France…a separate trial…[concerns] two Swiss nationals…and one Italian…who accompanied migrants through a mountain pass on 22 April 2018. They face up to 10 years in prison, 750,000 euros in fines and a ban from French territory…“If I become friends with a migrant who has no papers and invite them to sleep on my sofa, I become a criminal, and if I become a trafficker and have Nigerian prostitutes come into France, I am a criminal under the same provision,” says Lucile Abassade, a lawyer in the Paris region…As the trials open, France’s Constitutional Court is reviewing the law…to decide whether the law violates the French constitutional principle of fraternity…Such cases have become relatively common in France in recent years…
Legislators Gone Wild (#833)
One can never have too many debunkings of prohibitionist bullshit:
…The No Little Girl campaign has argued that Nevada’s brothels have a negative effect on the state. In reality, research shows that the lives of Nevada citizens have improved due to the legalization of sex work in the state. Nevada’s system isn’t perfect — but it’s a considerable improvement over the national policy of criminalization. No Little Girl has three major [claims] for shutting down the legal brothel industry: Brothels do not significantly contribute to their counties’ economies while deterring other businesses from setting up shop; they increase violence against women who don’t work in the sex industry; and they’re inherently abusive (because, as the campaign’s tagline reminds visitors, “no little girl grows up wanting to be a prostitute”)…combing through the data — even the data the organization links to on its site — suggests that many of No Little Girl’s claims are exaggerated at best and misleading at worst…
Elephant in the Parlor (#844)
My irony meter just overloaded and burned out:
President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said…Stormy Daniels has no credibility because of her profession…”If you’re going to sell your body for money, you just don’t have a reputation”…Giuliani said in Israel…”If you’re involved in a sort of slimy business, (that) says something about you — says something about how far you’ll go to make money”…
Disaster (#844)
When a highway is destroyed, the traffic has to go into side streets:
…Wall Street Journal has an article on the potentially negative impact of our country’s new “anti-trafficking” law—not on sex workers, mind you, but on the big business of online dating. Yes…FOSTA…is endangering sex workers’ livelihoods and lives—but, oh, won’t someone think of the multi-million-dollar companies? As the article warns its conservative, money-minded readers, “The booming business of online dating faces new risks from a law designed to prevent sex trafficking and prostitution”…The bill’s opponents warned that it would lead to sweeping censorship and, in its few weeks of life, it already has…As Heidi Vogt and John D. McKinnon write, FOSTA has led to the shuttering of sites used by sex workers—and “some worry that could drive the pay-for-sex market to legitimate dating platforms.” They continue to explain, paraphrasing a legal expert, that “it could easily create liability for legitimate services if sex workers simply use their platforms.” The article is filled with moralizing language that poses “legitimate dating platforms” and “legitimate services” opposite “prostitutes”. It’s Match.com versus “bad behavior”. OKCupid versus “illicit behavior”. Tinder versus “those peddling sex”…
