05.27.08
Posted in Fetishes, Legal system at 6:58 am by admin
This is amazing to me. A Japanese man was arrested for calling a food company’s toll-free number 500 times in 16 months for a total of 3,100 hours worth of free calls, costing the company ¥ 4 million, £19,500, or $38,752. They are checking to see if he has done the same thing to other companies as well.
I guess he has a “recorded female voice” fetish. Or he’s a frickin’ cheapskate. Or both.
Yeah, the people at the other end of the toll-free number are paying for the call, which is why we have the ability to block cheap wankers who want to waste our time by calling to hear us say “hello” or who call looking for a menu of sexy voice recordings to listen to.
But, um, that’s not only a lot of money. It’s also a lot of time spent on calls. It’s 6.2 hours per call. Every damned day. They’re also paying .21 a minute for their toll-free service, which may be the going rate in Japan, but it’s way out of line in the US to pay that much for toll-free service.
It’s 186,000 minutes. I earn $1 a minute and up, and if he calls I won’t sue him. I promise. I might even give him a special rate if he pays up front for the whole thing.
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01.08.08
Posted in Fetishes, Legal system at 9:59 pm by admin
I’m sorry. I may not be the nicest girl around, and I may not have the cleanest mind, but a girl’s got to have some standards. Heck, everybody ought to have some standards. It’s pretty clear, though, that the folks at the DMV in South Carolina are not those people. They’ve been sitting back, smoking god knows what while you-know-what has ricocheted from one end of the internet to the other. There’s all kinds of things they won’t let you put on license plates for fear they might offend the tender christian ears of some conservative old lady, and then they allow a direct reference to the most offensive video in the universe. 
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03.18.07
Posted in Legal system, Politics, Sex work, Women's rights at 10:23 am by principalquattrano
This entry is based on Identification of the Adult Entertainment Industry as a Social Taboo is a Social Construct — Thursday, March 15, 2007
Read it. Think. Then read this.
A basic point missed is that the subjugation, etc. of (female) sex workers is not merely done by men. Women who are not sex workers probably do this even more than men. Men who use the services of sex workers have a variety of attitudes toward them. Most respect them, understanding that they serve a need. I have never run into the attitude that my customers would be happier if I were poor and desperate. They are glad that I am earning a good living, so I can continue to provide them with services.
The attitude is different in the general public, and differences within vary mostly by degrees.
Women and men both project their sexual fears and anxieties on female sex workers — and this is a society with many sexual fears. They feel sex is dirty. They villify female sex workers and scapegoat them in an effort to feel cleansed themselves.
If there was no demand, obviously we would all voluntarily find another line of business. Society’s disapproval of our profession is based on the fanciful notion that supply determines demand, that if supply were to be cut off, demand would go away. Society at large is unable to face the fact that their own are voluntarily purchasing our services. It must be something evil that we have done to suck them in. This is not normal. Sex is not one of OUR family values. Good men are chaste, aside from when they are with their wives, and forever if their wives decide they are no longer interested.
All of which, biologically speaking, is bullshit.
Remember Mom’s motherly advice to her daughter. Sex is dirty and disgusting. Save it for someone you love. Women would only do something so degrading if they were forced to do it. But even if they were forced, it’s their own fault. No self-respecting woman would do such a thing. She would do absolutely anything to avoid it — live on the street, stay married to a man who beats her, even work at Walmart, which pays so little she would qualify for food stamps and other social services.
But here we are, not only not dead in the gutter — as we would be in a “fair” world where THEIR rules are actually applicable — but doing quite well both economically and emotionally. It is a slap in the face to those who already are having trouble reconciling their values with reality, and finding a poor fit.
Therefore, anything bad that happens to female sex workers is perfectly all right. It’s acceptable in the eyes of people who feel this way to pass laws that make our lives unsafe and to cause our lives to be less safe if they selectively fail to enforce the ones that exist.
There is the dangerous attitude among many men that they deserve sex from whatever woman they want it from. They feel it is an injustice whenever a woman might reject them. They feel that the sex worker has chosen the work (and these are people who feel that choosing one form of sex work is the same as choosing them all) and they feel no inhibition whatever when it comes to acting on these feelings. It is these men who are dangerous to women sex workers, and this attitude in general that threatens women in the industry.
Some men who use the services of sex workers are unable to perceive boundaries. Like the guys who call a phone sex operator looking for a domme, or an escort, or gfe, they think that the fact that a woman has chosen one form of sex work means she has chosen all types. Or they think that we really don’t want to be here, and we’re just trolling for a husband. Guys like this probably have issues with boundaries for women in other sorts of relationships, too. Since I know so few of them - in comparison to the apparently normal guys I’ve met in the business - I think that they are atypical and not representative of customers at large. When I say this, I am not saying that the attitude is atypical, but that it is atypical among true paying customers.
It is men who pay for sexual services who truly respect women.
Prostitution and Sex Work
This topic is a difficult one that lies at the crossroads of feminism, morals, pleasure, gender inequality, exploitation and male violence. The difficulty in discussing it is compounded by the large degree of diversity and stratification of experiences within prostitution: from straight and gay prostitutes on the street to elite escort services. The range of experiences increases again if we explore sex work, which takes into account exotic dancing, the adult movie industry and an increasing number of people who run an adult-oriented website that features themselves. Further, the level of exploitation in sex work should be compared and contrasted with a variety of exploitative, meaningless and alienating work produced by a technologically advanced, consumption oriented capitalist society. The question is thus not whether sex work is exploitative, but how does it compare with being a waitress, working in a factory or a McDonalds - perhaps even a graduate assistant?
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1996 interview with Carol Leigh, sex worker and activist
Feminist Perspectives on Sex Markets
Another Perspective
Prostitution is not “sex work;” it is violence against women. It exists because significant numbers of men are given social, moral and legal permission to buy women on demand. It exists because pimps and traffickers prey on women’s poverty and inequality. It exists because it is a last ditch survival strategy, not a choice, for millions of the world’s women.
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How Pornography is Inherently Damaging to Women
This is long and boring. I’ll give you a brief summary. Pornography is always damaging because the customer is not seeking to relate to the sex worker as a whole person. He only seeks a part of her, her “image”. But it’s not just simply damaging, it is “violent”. Hmm… I’m trying to think of the last time I interacted with anyone out there, seeking the whole person. I don’t want to bring home the clerks at the corner store or the guy who pumps my gas. I want them to stay on their side of the divide. Is that violent of me?
Read more, if you dare
Bayswan - Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network.
Letter to “Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons” challenging information in “The Link Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking”
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