This is not about resolving sex trafficking; this is about a moral crusade to appease local NIBMYs who can’t stand the idea of whores operating in their neighborhoods. – Savannah Sly
Anything that helps demystify sex work is a good thing:
“Amelia” is a 50-year-old woman from China who has worked in massage parlors off and on for the last three years…“Most of the owners, they don’t have the budget to offer you a dormitory somewhere nearby.… It’s the same thing for a restaurant. When people work in a restaurant, you can’t give everybody a place to sleep somewhere nearby. This is an additional cost. And if you want to work longer hours, it is a good choice to just stay there. I don’t think massage parlors are some kind of an underground corner in this society. This is right there in the neighborhood; it’s in the plaza, it’s in the mall…what kind of a secret business is it if you walk in? You can walk into a barbershop, you can walk into a nail salon, you can walk into a massage parlor…The authorities [claim] you’re being trafficked…but when you go to a Manhattan restaurant, that’s the same workers behind the kitchen”…
There’s no way this thug is going to be able to claim it was “consensual”:
A former [Georgia screw]…was arrested [Friday, March 8th] on rape charges…Kirk Taylor Martin…is accused of sexually assaulting a woman from Thursday afternoon until Friday morning…He faces charges of rape, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated assault…attempt[ed anal rape]…false imprisonment and hindering an emergency call…Martin…was fired [from his job as a screw] in April 2018…after multiple violations of jail policy…the scratches across Martin’s chest and neck, which are visible in his booking photo, are from the victim fighting back. Both of his eyes are also swollen from the…struggle…
So Close and Yet So Far (#767)
It’s sad that even people who support decriminalization feel the need to promote myths, lies & insulting tropes:
…more than 1 million people engage in sex work in the United States…The vast majority of sex workers (80%) are female, and 90% of them depend on a pimp. If sex work were decriminalized, prostitutes wouldn’t need pimps, who often steal their money and physically abuse them…government bans on prostitution and alcohol consumption have not eradicated these behaviors…proponents of legalizing prostitution include the United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch…decriminaliz[ing] sex work…will…curb human trafficking by violent cartels…Prostitutes are far less likely to get tested for sexually transmitted infections because they’re afraid to tell healthcare workers what they do for a living…No one is arguing that prostitution is an ideal job that anyone would ever aspire to…
WHAT. THE. FUCK? “90% depend on a pimp“? “Violent cartels“? “Far less likely to get tested for STIs“? “No one would aspire to [sex work]“? Using “legalization” and “decriminalization” interchangeably? Please, Samantha Chang, either talk to actual sex workers before you write on this topic again, or just shut the fuck up, because you’re an ignoramus.
If Men Were Angels (#786)
Churchy child molesters often seem to seek younger victims than other molesters:
[Jacop Hazlett,] a volunteer at the NewSpring Church campus in North Charleston, South Carolina faces charges for sexually abusing more than a dozen young boys in his care last year…volunteer [Leo LaSalle Comissiong]…was charged in 2016 for kissing and fondling a teenage boy at the NewSpring church campus [in Florence]…In Anderson…volunteer [Chaz Mckinsey Wood]…faced charges in 2016 after police say he fondled a 10-year-old boy…In early 2018, police arrested…youth pastor [Caleb Lide Jordan]…for sexual exploitation and solicitation of a minor…The Anderson…based megachurch NewSpring has 14 campuses around the state…Each time NewSpring reckoned with the fallout from these allegations, the church…offered nearly identical explanations…The accused individuals had been removed from their posts. Evil was to blame…In the most recent case…Hazlett was caring for 3- and 4-year-old boys at the church when he was accused of performing oral sex on one of the boys in a bathroom…When a parent complained, church officials reviewed 90 days of video from the daycare room and found more than a dozen incidents with Hazlett assaulting the preschoolers…
Cops and Robbers (#794)
Prohibitionist creeps move from stalking & harassing streetwalkers to stalking & harassing escorts:
The grim reality is that if I pulled out my phone right now, day or night, I could have a woman or even a child at my home or office within thirty minutes. And there would be a strong possibility that, however willing she might seem, she would not be there by choice…our Reach Out Campaign in Tampa Bay, Florida…developed in partnership with Seattle Against Slavery, uses web scraping technology to obtain phone numbers off [escort ad] sites…and…mass texting blocks of these numbers with a phone number and a [prohibitionist propaganda] website…The 13 percent percent response rate we have received in only a matter of weeks, with just a small block of texts, has been extremely encouraging. Seattle Against Slavery has been running Reach Out Campaigns in Chicago and cities throughout Washington State with similar response rates…Many…are victims of Stockholm Syndrome, held captive by a trauma bond with their trafficker…we [also]…target [men with]…fake [escort] ads…and then [threatens him with the pigs]…Many of these men suffer from sex addictions that can be treated…
Can’t you just hear the fapping? I wish the moronic fantasy that a man can have an escort in 30 minutes was limited to prohibitionist wankers, but unfortunately it’s common among inexperienced clients as well. Even in my agency days, it was rare that a girl could make it that fast, and nowadays it’s virtually impossible even for semi-pros who don’t screen. As for the rest, these misogynistic idiots are spamming every escort they can find online; I even had one of them text me last month. My guess is that their 13% “response rate” includes people replying with “Who is this?” or telling them off as I did, just as their “hotlines” count every single phone call as a “sex trafficking case”.
The Puritan Recrudescence (#795)
The BBC produces evidence–free anti-sex propaganda, complete with “addiction” nonsense:
…six young Brits…travelled to Spain to explore the booming sex industry for BBC3 documentary Porn Laid Bare…Their journey takes them into the dark underbelly of the scene, where they hear tales of human trafficking, forced drug taking and violence…the group meet former porn addict Jesús Gomis…As a member of [the misogynistic anti-masturbation group] NoFap…Jesús now helps others to overcome their addiction…Jesús…recommends [one of the group] detox, including from porn stars he follows on social media…1 in 5 18-25 year olds think they might be addicted to porn…In Barcelona, they meet Ismael López Fauste, a porn magazine journalist turned [prohibitionist and] police informant [who claims] he…witness[ed] “human trafficking, drugs, lots of violence and a lot of prostitution”…[an anonymous] woman…[claimed] over the phone [to be] a former porn actress [and said] “In some scenes I was made to take drugs and if I didn’t I would be sent home without the money”…
The Pygmalion Fallacy (#804) 
Notice that there aren’t any men protesting or obsessing about this?
…The dildo has a butt. And feet. And huge hands, I guess so he can hold onto the ENORMOUS DICK that’s growing out of his torso? Is this the natural progression of our old friend the Battery-Operated Boyfriend? Has he grown into a… manchild? Most arousingly of all, the dildo has a human face. A custom, hyper-realistic, hand-sculpted bobblehead that will no doubt end up nodding at you condescendingly mid-thrust. Customers are asked to first upload photos of various angles of somebody’s head, selecting hair color, eye color, and skin color…and the company then brings it to life, apparently checking in to get your approval throughout the process…the idea of having my boyfriend’s noggin on a dildo, grinning at me like that, and the notion that I would want such a thing…it all feels like a fucking zero on the Kinsey scale to me. So heterosexual I can barely comprehend it..
Fallen Idol (#821)
I’d be much more sympathetic had these performers not tried to boost their claims with ugly whorearchy:
One of the porn industry’s top agents has been accused by women whom he represents of fraud, sexual abuse and links to an illegal escort business — accusations including coercing performers to pay off “unconscionable” fees and penalties either in cash or by performing sexual acts on him. Derek Hay, the owner of LA Direct Models in Los Angeles…”coerces some of his performers into ‘escorting’ and then, should they seek to terminate their (illegal) contracts, threatens to ‘out’ them for performing illegal sex work,” says the complaint. If they do not comply, Hay destroys their careers by refusing to book them for work, even if they have been requested specifically, it says…
Any sex worker who uses the word “illegal” pejoratively, as in this lawsuit, instantly loses my support. There are living porn veterans who can tell you that not so long ago, their business was “illegal” too.
On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#897)
…with the help of Working Washington, a grassroots bill…to improve the working conditions of exotic dancers has made its way successfully through the House…[the bill would] implement mandatory trainings for exotic dancers meant to educate them about their rights as workers and how they should be treated…The bill will establish an adult entertainer advisory committee with the Department of Labor and Standards. Half of that committee will be made up of dancers…The bill also seeks to create…a list of [bad clients] and ban them from the club for three years…These safety problems are indicative of a strained and restricted industry in Washington state…[because] Seattle…is highly puritanical about sex and nudity…a 15-year ban on creating new strip clubs that started in 1988…created a virtual monopoly in the strip club business, something that’s shaped how the industry operates in Seattle to this day…Deja Vu has very little competition in the city and it’s been the dominant player since that morality crackdown in the ’80s. That makes it so dancers have to accept the conditions in the workplace or face not being able to work…
Disaster (#909)
The sweet smell of schadenfreude:
Tumblr’s ban on adult content has cost the sharing platform over one-fifth of its users in its first month of being instituted…Visits to…Tumblr…fell from 521 million in December to 437 million in January…In defending the [censorship] Tumblr [absurdly claimed] it still wanted to still be a platform for LGBT conversations…“Tumblr has always been home to marginalized communities and always will be,” Tumblr wrote…
Click on the title link to see which “marginalized communities” the site is now “home” to.
Pyrrhic Victory (#916)
The dystopian future of Minority Report has arrived:
Police [and other government busybodies] in Canada are using shared databases to track the behavior of…people…with little oversight and…without [the subjects’] consent…at least two provinces—Ontario and Saskatchewan—maintain a “Risk-driven Tracking Database” that is used to amass highly sensitive information about people’s lives…[this] is part of a [fascist] approach to policing called the Hub model that…[lets] cops [conspire with other busybodies to surveil and control people. Those pretended]…to be “at risk” of becoming criminals or victims of harm is shared between…agencies [without their consent] and [allows] police…[to] evaluate…[subjects]…for a rapid intervention…[which] can range from a[n attempt to intimidate their way into homes without a warrant]…to forced [institution]alization or arrest…officials [pretend the] data…is “de-identified” by removing details such as people’s names and birthdates, [but]…scrubbing data so it may never be used to identify an individual is…impossible [and would invalidate the whole point of the surveillance system]…
Safe Position (#919)
At long last, anti-sex “feminists” are being revealed as the bigots they are:
…Members of the National Organization [Against] Women, the Coalition Against…Women and other anti-[sex worker] organizations teamed up to oppose [a] bill, slated to be introduced in the New York State Senate this session, which would remove all criminal penalties for the consensual sale of sex between adults. The participants [vomited out nonsense about “]pimps and johns[“]…But…[were] interrupted by two current sex workers who shouted, “Listen to sex workers!”…NOW New York President Sonia Ossorio [pompously mansplained]…that [sex workers know less about our own lives than she does and]…“haven’t thought [our desire to not be raped by cops and starved via persecution of or clients] through”…Rally participants…included [a prohibitionist politician and] members of OBJECT, a U.K.-based [anti-sex worker] organization that [also blovi]ates against…“transgenderism”…Both NOW and [the politician tried to distance themselves from]…OBJECT…on Twitter…[even] though they were prominently featured in the crowd of supporters behind the podium…
An Avalanche of Bullshit (#921)
While the Seattle Times obediently parrots porcine propaganda, The Stranger gives us this instead:
…the five people arrested in these raids aren’t actually charged with human trafficking or any other human rights violations; they’re being charged with money laundering and promoting prostitution. Why? Maybe it’s because there’s no evidence that trafficking was actually taking place…In Florida, police took six months to shut down these massage parlors, and this was after multiple undercover visits from detectives working the case (and, yes, they did engage in sex acts with the “victims” they later “rescued” themselves). In Seattle, the sting took three and a half years. The SPD [claims] that their officers didn’t engage in sex acts during the investigation and made up an excuse to leave when it came time to drop their pants…but…if they actually were being held and forced to perform sex acts against their will, why in the world would the police wait three years to rescue them?…According to Butterfly, an organization that is run by and works to support migrant sex workers in Canada, “Asian migrant sex workers are perceived to be at risk of abuse from their ‘traffickers,’ who are often in fact their colleagues, partners, or friends. In fact, Asian migrant sex workers who are being targeted through these policies are rarely (and based on current data, never) trafficking victims, and become at risk through these anti-trafficking policies which allow them to be exploited, locked up, abused, and violated by law enforcement officers”…Savannah Sly told me in an email. “The narrative that all Asian women working in massage parlors [are trafficked] is racist, infantilizing, and lacks any realistic understanding of how the sex trade actually works”…
