March 25, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
All too often, human tragedies are wholly predictable. Busybodies, control freaks, and social engineers, in and out of government, create an elaborate propaganda narrative around people and things they want to control, and then some weak-brained individual or gang (usually young, male, and maladjusted), with or without magic government costumes, go out and inflict violence on strangers (usually minorities of one kind or another and often female) using that propanda narrative as an excuse and framework. Then those with blood on their hands start victim-blaming or otherwise pointing fingers at others, while politicians use the tragedy as an excuse to increase state power and violence,
and the hopelessly clueless wring their hands and cry, "How did this happen?" This formula, with few variations, has repeated itself throughout history on a smaller or larger scale. Sometimes the tragedy is so awful the instigators are hoist with their own petard and public opinion turns against them and in favor of the people they've worked so hard to demonize, but more often the dimwits continue to believe the opportunists' lies and the violence simply grows more deadly and general.
The tragedy at hand exploded on Tuesday of last week at three Asian massage parlors in greater Atlanta:
[Robert Aaron Long] targeted th[ree massage] businesses because he had "issues" with sexual addiction and had been planning to commit more shootings before he was captured...Long...targeted businesses that he had been to before...A total of eight people were killed and another was injured...The shooting began just before 5 p.m...at Young's Asian Massage...Two Asian women, one white woman and one white man were killed inside the spa. Another man...was walking out of the store next door when he was hit by a bullet. He was rushed to the hospital...[Long] then drove into the city of Atlanta, where he...killed [three people] at Gold Spa and one...at Aromatherapy...all four [of those] were Asian women...Long was on his way to Florida to carry out more shootings [presumably at other parlors he had previously patronized, but his]...family [recognized him from publicized surveillance images]...and [gave cops his phone number so they]...were able to track his phone...and...[stop him by ramming his] car...Long [has already] confessed to the shootings...[saying] he blames the massage parlors for providing an outlet for his [imagined] addiction to sex...[he] said...he wanted to "eliminate the temptation"...
Of course, politicians, cops, and others who have promoted hysteria around sexuality in general and paid sex in particular for this entire century so far don't want you to think too hard about their role in spreading the manure that this evil took root in, so they're trying to frame the attacks as based in race-hatred rather than the obvious (he didn't shoot up nail parlors & Asian restaurants) and self-admitted motive of whore-hatred. Lest you are tempted to give that narrative even a particle of credence:
Robert Long...had attended rehab for sex addiction and felt extreme guilt about his sexual urges, two former roommates said...Long has...[admitted] he committed the shootings because he [imagines he] has a "sex addiction" and wanted to eliminate his temptation...Tyler Bayless...spent months living with Long in an Atlanta halfway house named Maverick Recovery [a year ago]...He said Long was being treated for [so-called] sex addiction and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt over visiting massage parlors "for explicitly sexual activity...[which] he...[called] 'relapses'...He would have a deep feeling of remorse and shame and say he needed to return to prayer and to return to God"...Bronson Lillemon, a second former housemate of Long's, echoed Bayless' account...Both housemates [said] that they never heard Long use racist language and had no knowledge that he ever visited racist message boards online...
Some media outlets appear to understand that this is about sex work rather than broad racism or misogyny, but want to shift the blame for creating Long's sick weltanschauung from their aggressively-promoted mythology to the victims; this strategy is so utterly vile I'm not even going to quote it, but here are three examples, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Washington Post, and the arch-prohibitionist New York Times. Instead, here are quotes from three articles by people who actually know what they're talking about:
Cathy Reisenwitz:
...By perpetuating the myth of sex addiction and conflating sex work with sex trafficking the anti...sex worker movement has convinced men that they're not responsible for their behavior and that sex workers...aren't deserving of basic human dignity..."The modern sex addiction dialogue doesn't encourage people to understand, accept and manage their sexual desires," Dr. David Ley said of the attack. "Instead, it teaches people to hate"...By pushing the sex addiction myth, anti-sex worker, Evangelical groups like ExodusCry, [Morality in Media], and Polaris teach men that they aren't in control of their sexuality. Rather...the[y]...teach people, especially men, to feel ashamed of and hate both their own sexuality and the people and media they find sexually arousing. They teach men to blame sex workers for their own feelings and behavior...Polaris, for example, spends millions pushing racist stereotypes. Their express purpose is to use state violence to deprive Asian massage owners and workers of their businesses and jobs...
...Despite my Asian background, I find [Long's] disavowal of racism strangely credible. Like a lot of people, I've experienced bias and ethnic profiling, but I've also been a sex worker, and I have encountered more prejudice, more name-calling, more fear, anger and hostility in connection with my sex work than regarding my race...Mainstream Americans, including many Asian Americans, are quick to blame racism yet unready to discuss an older hatred - what my French friends call "la putophobie" (a term more pleasing to the eye than the clunky compound "whorephobia"). It's the last acceptable form of hate speech...Speculation about the spas...is fed by prejudice. Amplified by so-called antitrafficking voices, this prejudice is dangerously toxic. Fueled by religious fanaticism and illiberal forms of feminism, by punitive laws and tabloid headlines, this bias breeds self-loathing in young men who should be learning how to nurture, not extinguish, the varieties of human connection...
Religion writer Chissy Stroop:
...The moment I read that [Long] was the son of a youth pastor who told police he had a "sex addiction"...According to [psychologist Joshua] Grubbs..."conservative religious values are strongly linked to feelings of sex addiction...men...interpret normal sexual urges as pathological and then act on them in ways that they find to be problematic"...In evangelical...churches and...schools, discussions of sex are usually steeped in purity culture ...a complex of beliefs and practices associated with an unhealthy fear of sexuality and intense pressure to remain...sexually inexperienced...before marriage...victims of...sexual assault in evangelical communities are often blamed for "tempting" the perpetrators...
I'll leave the last word for Red Canary Song, the Asian sex worker organization; if you feel moved to donate to help the victims' families, you can find links to do so at their website. There's also an NPR interview here, and as usual, further updates will appear in subsequent news columns under this heading.
...We are concerned that many of those calling for action in this moment have and will continue to endorse violence towards Asian sex workers [and] massage workers...We reject the call for increased policing in response to this tragedy...[and] rising anti-Asian violence...Policing has never been an effective response to violence because the police are agents of white supremacy. Policing has never kept sex workers or massage workers or immigrants safe. The criminalization and demonization of sex work has hurt and killed countless people - many at the hands of the police both directly and indirectly...Asian massage workers are harmed by the criminalization of sex work, regardless of whether they engage in it themselves. Decriminalization of sex work is the only way that...anyone criminalized for their survival and/or livelihood will ever be safe...
