Love & Sex Magazine

That Was the Week That Was (#404)

By Maggiemcneill @Maggie_McNeill

Trafficking has become one of the new “it” words in the bankrupt moral vernacular, craftily used by puritans, property developers and rogue feminists to combat the sex trade in general.  -  Rupert Everett

Think of the Children! Noel

The minute a fragile “child” turns 18, he can turn into a dangerous source of dreaded “sex ray” emissions:

…high school senior…“Noel” has allegedly been suspended and will not graduate this year after several of his [gay porn] flicks found their way onto the principal’s desk…[he was] suspended…for 10 days for “causing a campus disturbance” [which]…will allegedly lead to “an automatic failure from absences,” and he will not be able to graduate come June…

Of course, teachers are still the primary danger:

Edgar Ortiz, a 65-year-old educator…was not fired for sleeping with a sex worker…But…was fined $7,500 by the Department of Education…He’s suing [New York] city to fight the punishment.  “Teachers are not indentured servants subject to school direction and control 24 hours a day”…he argues…A…judge…ordered the city to answer his petition…after it “failed to offer any legal basis for penalizing a teacher for illegal conduct that has little or no apparent connection with his teaching duties”…

License to Rape

Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever:

A young woman in Milwaukee called the cops when someone threw a brick through her window…and…began kicking in her front door…two police officers responded.  One took her 15-year-old brother outside to speak to him.   The other…Ladmarald Cates…asked to see the broken window and [when] she led him…to a bathroom in the back…he…[grabbed] her…by her hair…then [sodomized and] raped her…The cop’s partner had become concerned…and called for back-up.  Other cops began arriving and saw a woman screaming incoherently about being raped.  Cates appeared…handcuffed [her and] charged [her] with assaulting a police officer…She was…held for four days before being released without actually being charged…

A Moral Cancer

A severely repressed individual penned a misogynistic screed called “9 Reasons Why a Man Should Never Go Down on a Woman”, and it’s as ridiculous as you’d expect.  Note that the first four (arguably five) “reasons” are actually one reason, and it is why the article appears under this heading.

Schadenfreude

A new moneymaker for the rescue industry: “sex trafficking” tours!

…New Friends New Life…toured parts of [Dallas]…with [cops], a Homeland Security agent and an assistant city attorney, who talked about…the exploitation of women and young girls…While vice officers…go after the men who pay for sex, they are focused on…[shutting] down complex regional or even international prostitution rings…The bus of [tourists]…gaped at [a poor neighborhood], whispering to one another in disbelief…Shawn McGraw…[of] Homeland Security…[said] “This isn’t a woman’s childhood dream.  She’s doing it to survive.”

Don’t worry if you can’t take a bus tour; they’ll bring one to you!

…Putting on headphones at “SOLD: The Human Trafficking Experience” will teleport you to the life of one of nine victims of sex slavery and trafficking…The exhibit is a multi-sensory, multimedia experience that lasts 40 minutes in nine different rooms…People who attend are encouraged to tweet, video blog and share pictures…The “SOLD” bus [travels around Washington and is based in] Seattle…

Not To Be Taken Internally Elizabeth Starr

…Elizabeth Starr fears her banned boob job will kill her after her breasts ballooned to a whopping O cup.  The adult film star had now-illegal “string” breast implants 15 years ago to boost her career – but says her life has been ruined…Doctors have recommended Elizabeth face a double mastectomy…she…was already a 32F when she opted…in 1999…[for a] procedure [which] involved inserting synthetic string into the breasts to stimulate fluid production and growth.  But [after] just a few days…she began suffering complications…[she] had the string implant removed from her right breast, however, the left one was already too imbedded to be taken out…Over the next 14 years Elizabeth spent a staggering £200,000 on [63] reconstructive operations…

Gullible’s Travels

Portsmouth Middle School [in Rhode Island sent parents a letter] warning them that students may be snorting and smoking ground-up Smarties candies.  The letter warns of risks of cuts, lung infections, nasal passage scarring, nose-wedged maggots (!), and future cigarette and drug use…School [official] Dave Croston…[said] “this behavior raises troubling issue of modeling”…

As a supplement, Radley Balko prepared a short summary of other mind-numbingly stupid pseudo-drug scares of recent years.

Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark

University of Michigan Economics Professor Raj Arunachalam…hired sex workers in Ecuador and Mexico to interview other sex workers…Arunachalam found that beautiful sex workers…earned approximately 15% more than average and unattractive prostitutes…”  Dr. Arunachalam’s next study will demonstrate that people prefer to eat good-tasting food and to listen to music instead of recordings of traffic sounds.

The Mother Learns From Her Children

two of Britain’s most senior police chiefs…have…[denounced] the police approach to prostitution as a mess…saying that [harassment] operations…are “counterproductive” and…put…women at risk…they call for…[allowing] a group of women to work together.  Chris Armitt [said]…”We are not going to enforce our way out of…prostitution.  It goes…on in every country in the world”…Martin Hewitt…said…”On the one hand we sit down with sex workers asking them to trust us and give us information.  On the other hand we are doing enforcement actions”…Hewitt…also condemned…brothel raids as superficial and offering little value other than as a media stunt…

Sex, Lies and Busybodies (TW3 #3) Say NO to the Nordic Model in Canada

…a boom in X-rated production in [Las Vegas was] sparked by a Los Angeles law requiring…condoms…The number of permits…to make porn films in Los Angeles…has declined by…95 percent since the law took effect…from about 480 in 2012 to just 24 through the first nine months of 2013…While Los Angeles charges hundreds of dollars for location permits…Las Vegas…gives [them] for a nominal fee and does not require health permits.  The warehouses are cheaper, and it’s also more affordable to rent out mansions and put actors up in hotels…

The Course of a Disease

The European Parliament’s Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee has voted through [Mary Honeyball’s] report that recommends the adoption of the “Nordic Model” of prostitution laws…The report [now goes] to the full European Parliament…

As I’ve explained before, the European Parliament’s resolutions are not laws, but they’re a good indicator of the growth of totalitarianism on the continent.

Lying Down With Dogs (TW3 #22)

Africa produces the most ridiculous anti-whore rhetoric outside of the US:

…at alluvial gold mining sites [in Liberia]…women [are] roaming from one…mine to another…rooting and indulging into “sex trade”…in return for gold or money.  What is most appalling…is the luring of some of these women into the practice by their peers…”any man who…refuses to settle us financially, will pay the price,” a lady [said]… Several men who stubbornly refused to comply…were taken to the…police…

First They Came for the Hookers… Club Madonna

Florida wants to prove it can harass strip clubs as much as Texas does:

The…Miami Beach strip club where police say a 13-year-old girl danced…has had its business license pulled for six months…Richard Wolfe, an attorney for Club Madonna…and…club owner Leroy Griffith…said they had no knowledge that the girl performed at Madonna…Wolfe…suggested that the city’s actions were retaliatory…[because] Griffith has been locked in a decade-long battle with City Hall to overturn a ban on alcohol in fully nude clubs…

Drama Queens (TW3 #48)

Emil Kirkegaard has translated a recent Danish study comparing the health of sex workers to that of amateurs:

…The percentage with bad mental health and…who often…feel nervous or stressed is smaller among prostitutes…there is no difference between prostitutes and [other] women’s rate of illness…prostitutes have a markedly lower consumption [of medicine]…the prostitutes have more…smoking, alcohol…and use of other drugs…there is a larger percentage [of prostitutes] who are underweight, and a smaller…who are overweight…prostitutes have the same frequency of contact to family and friends…Light violence against prostitutes is more common…[but] other indicators of violence and sexual abuse [are not different]…Prostitutes…often work in bended or crooked positions [and make] repeated and monotonous movements…[but] they [need not carry] heavy objects and [are not] exposed to…noise, cold…and draft.  With respect to psychological working environment, the prostitutes come out ahead as well…

Banishment

The Midtown Ponce Security  Alliance (MPSA)…is approaching  [Georgia] legislators…[with] a law it has dubbed “aggravated prostitution”…“This form of prostitution would be defined along the lines of prostitution in a residential area (we will suggest “within 500 feet of a window or door of any dwelling”), and work to have that designated a felony punishable up to five years incarceration”…

Original Sin

Though there’s plenty of “Super Bowl sex trafficking” nonsense in this story, we’ve seen that so many times before it really isn’t worth noting any more.  What’s more interesting to me is the bizarre soup of Christian, neofeminist and police state dogma which produced the “facts” which are tacked on at the end; bogus “statistics” are arranged beside neofeminist “end demand” cant and Christian dogma about sin, including the relatively-new claim that “pornography is the dominant driver for sex trafficking”.

The More the Better (TW3 #325) Franck-Ribery and Karim-Benzema

In the modern US, prosecutors rule the injustice system; obviously that’s less so in France:

Two French international footballers who are charged with paying for sex with an underage prostitute appeared in court…Franck Ribery and…Karim Benzema both deny the allegations and the young woman involved, Zahia Dehar, testified that neither player knew she was under 18 at the time…Ms Dehar…has since launched her own luxury lingerie line and is reportedly the muse of German fashion designer Karl Lagerfield…prosecutors had sought an acquittal…but investigating judge Andre Dando argued they must have been aware of her real age.

Shift in the Wind (TW3 #328)

First National Review, and now Foreign Policy:

…[Prohibitionists] say they want to protect human rights, but their efforts often undermine those rights:  Campaigns and programs to end prostitution in fact lead to violence, stigmatization, and other problems for the exact people they claim to be helping…there is no convincing evidence that punishing “johns” decreases the incidence of commercial sex…Sweden’s sex workers report that criminalization has simply driven [them] underground, with dangerous consequences…and…evidence shows…that criminalization of sale or purchase…makes sex workers…more vulnerable to violence…committed by law enforcement…the World Health Organization (WHO) wrote in a bulletin that…”sex workers who are rounded up during police raids are beaten” and “coerced into having sex by corrupt police officials in exchange for their release”…

Uncommon Sense (TW3 #345)

Prostitutes [in] Ibiza have formed a sex workers’ cooperative to pay taxes and gain social security benefits…Eleven women registered with local authorities as…members of the Sealeer Cooperative…their spokeswoman, Maria Jose Lopez…[said] “We are the first cooperative in Spain that can give legal cover to the girls”…The group is applying to register 40 more women…

Whatever They Need To Say (TW3 #350)

Sex worker ally Rupert Everett published a long, thorough denunciation of December’s pogrom in Soho:

There is a land grab going on in Soho under the banner of morality…200 of our boys in blue raided more than 20…flats, arresting 30 girls and confiscating their earnings…They broke down doors, intimidated girls into accepting…criminal records…and served…eviction papers that, unless you were a lawyer, you would not know had hidden in their depths (20-odd pages) the time and date you were to appear in court if you wanted to appeal.  All this in the name of human trafficking…while even the police say that more than 90% of prostitutes work of their own accord…

Everett goes into great detail about the hearings which followed, and the IPC collected these statements from the victims of the raid.  Keep in mind when reading them that as bad as they are, the experiences of police victims under fully criminalized regimes like the US are worse.

Little Boxes (TW3 #350)

Devil’s Advocate

A paedophile ring that streamed live child abuse from the Philippines…has been broken up after an operation by UK police and their counterparts in Australia and the US.  The National Crime Agency says…it is an “emerging threat”…in developing countries…


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