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NY Mayor Bloomberg ordered teacher out

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Former prostitute turned elementary school teacher Melissa Petro was apparently ordered removed from her teaching position by none other than New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. According to UPI:

“What our legal rights are, whether she broke the law in terms of applying and getting tenure or whether the system just broke down, that’s being investigated,” Bloomberg said in the Post report.

Ms Petro made the egregious mistake of admitting to having once been a prostitute in a column she wrote for the Huffington Post that criticized the war against Craigslist.

As an example of someone who has left her past behind and created a new future outside the sex busines, the rescue industry has been strangely quiet about the public attacks leveled against her and her suspension from teaching. One can only guess why none of those organizations who so strongly proclaim to be looking out for the welfare of women and children, and who insist that all prostitution is exploitation, wouldn’t be there standing by her side to proclaim that Ms. Petro was a victim and that she shouldn’t be condemned for a past that wasn’t her fault.

No one even knows if she’s broken any laws (although you can bet they’re working feverishly to pin something on her). It’s not like they suddenly discovered she misbehaved in her classroom and are acting to protect the kids. As it stands right now, she simply made the mistake of exercising her First Amendment rights. Do women lose their rights when they become teachers? Why aren’t woman’s rights groups raising a shit storm over her treatment?

Oh, wait. I forgot. Respect and free speech rights are reserved for women who have the right attitude. She sacrificed that when she spoke out against the wrong people. I’m pretty certain that her past history would be of much less consequence had she simply cowered under the pressure of popular opinion and adopted a more morally righteous stance toward the demon Craigslist. If the local school administrators suggested she write under a pseudonym, then they clearly knew of her history and didn’t consider it a problem. That leaves only her position on the topic that is making her a target for attack now.

I suspect she will ultimately be fired for giving voice to her opinions. It would be unfortunate if she were forced back into prostitution, but at least she would probably be in the company of a better class of people.

Posted in Censorship, New York, Politics, Prostitution, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Prostitutes who deny being victims. How rude!

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Melanie Phillips at the Daily Mail has some observations about how prostitution has recently been exhibiting a trend away from the stereotypes portrayed in the media.

Something strange is happening to the oldest profession. It’s switching off its red light and becoming respectable.

To put it another way, girls from comfortable backgrounds are now treating it as a profession.

Almost every week, it seems, we read of middle-class girls openly working as prostitutes.

The article goes on to note this disturbing development:

It also seems that our colleges and universities are providing a steady stream of highly educated hookers, while prostitution has become an increasingly popular way for students to pay their way through college.

How dare they! Far better to stay stupid or go deep into debt than “work” your way through college.

Of course, there have always been high-class prostitutes and courtesans: girls from respectable families who have chosen to lead unrespectable lives. But that’s just the point. Respectable people considered their activities to be shameful.

But today’s middle class hookers apparently are reaping all the benefits of the life without paying the obligatory price of being shamed by society.

Yet behaviour that once led to certain disgrace is becoming openly accepted, even flaunted. Prostitution even has a respectable new title - the ‘sex industry’ - as though it has equal status with, say, electronics, publishing or the motor trade.

Or journalist?

With sexuality having been remorselessly stripped of any higher meaning than physical pleasure, the line between the predatory one-night stand and paying for sex has inevitably become very blurred.

Predatory one night stand? Perhaps Melanie needs to raise her threshold for what qualifies as predatory behavior to something a bit higher than not coming back for seconds.

Prostitution, accordingly, looks like joining the list of behaviour once viewed with disapproval - sex outside marriage, children born out of wedlock, homosexuality - but which has now become a ‘ lifestyle choice’.

We can only hope.

The article largely degenerates from there.

But prostitution is not an acceptable lifestyle to choose. It is a form of slavery.

…

Such commodification of the body and of the most intimate activity between men and women coarsens and barbarises not just the individuals involved, but society in general.

…

This is because it treats the female body with at best indifference and at worst contempt.

Yada, yada, yada. Then later in the article she blames feminism for it. She must not hang around many feminists.

Posted in Prostitution, Relgious Zealotry, Trafficking, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Freedom is about having choices

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Former prostitute turned elementary school teacher, Melissa Petro posted a reaction to the Craigslist witch hunt on the Huffington Post.

From October 2006 to January 2007 I accepted money in exchange for sexual services I provided to men I met online in what was then called the “erotic services” section of Craigslist.org.

Commenting about Craigslist closing it’s adult services section:

This, after years of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark fighting such pressure, is a disappointing display of him abandoning the very principles of freedom on which his site was founded and feels more a violation than ever I experienced on even my worst “dates.”

And, about the movement to save others like her:

For all the “victims” of the “adult services” section of Craigslist.org, I would venture there are a considerable number of individuals like myself — free thinking, entrepreneurial human beings with choices and responsibilities — whose real-life experiences, not to mention sources of income — are being stifled by our so-called advocates.

I recommend reading the entire article. For further reading, Petro expands on how her past affects her present teaching endeavors in an article entitled, Not Safe for Work. While not advocating sex work, Petro understands that the choice was and should be hers to make.

Having choices is what freedom is about. Freedom is certainly not about being denied the option to make mistakes as defined by some organization that has predetermined that all sex work is bad and therefore excluded from women’s rights.

Posted in Prostitution, United States, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Your tax dollars are used to prohibit discussion about legalizing prostitution

Monday, September 13th, 2010

In 2003, Congress passed the $15 billion U.S. Global AIDS Act to distribute U.S. federal aid to organizations fighting AIDS. But, in order to get the funds, an organization mush sign an Anti-Prostitution Pledge which included the following clauses:

“No funds [...] may be used to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking.”
“No funds [...] may be used to provide assistance to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.”

Cool, huh? So, this is the government saying that it will withhold funding for AIDS treatment and prevention, essentially holding people in need of medical services hostage, unless the organizations agree to explicitly adopt specific political point of view even if that point of view undermines their efforts to mitigate the spread of AIDS.

Posted in Censorship, Politics, Sex Education, United States, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Where is the rescue industry when you need it?

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

Because if anyone needed to be rescued, it was Marcia Powell. Powell, 48, died May 20, 2009, after being kept in a human cage in Goodyear’s Perryville Prison in Arizona.

Witnesses say she was repeatedly denied water by corrections officers, though the c.o.’s deny this. The weather the day she collapsed from the heat (May 19 — she died in the early morning hours of May 20) arched just above a 107 degree high.

According to a 3,000 page report released by the ADC, she pleaded to be taken back inside, but was ignored. Similarly, she was not allowed to use the restroom. When she was found unconscious, her body was covered with excrement from soiling herself.

Powell, who was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution, actually expired after being transported to West Valley Hospital, where acting ADC Director Charles Ryan made the decision to have her life support suspended.

I read the article, but didn’t notice any catchy quotes by any spokespeople from organizations concerned about the welfare of victims of sex trafficking. I guess they were too busy with their campaign to crucify Craig’s List to be bothered by someone who was merely cooked to death in a cage in the hot Arizona sun for the “crime” of selling sex.

And where is the uproar over the fact that those responsible for it are not going to be charged? What Attorney General is complaining about that? Why isn’t CNN ambushing the Maricopa County Attorney, demanding that justice be served?

Posted in Arizona, Prostitution, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Arrested because you might possibly maybe be thinking of committing a victimless crime

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

The Crime Report has an interesting story about New York’s law against “loitering for the purpose of engaging in a prostitution offense”.

And that was pretty much it. The officer didn’t hear her say anything; nor did he ask any of the men he saw her talking to what she had said. That didn’t faze the assistant district attorney, who attempted to get condoms found in the defendant’s purse admitted as evidence.

Of course, prostitution has migrated from the street to the internet:

Before the Internet, vice cops had it relatively easy. Most cities had specific areas known for street prostitution where undercover officers posing as johns could chat up a lady, strike a deal to pay for a sex act, and then pull out the cuffs. But in the last decade, the oldest profession has “gone high-tech,” says Jaime Ayala, Deputy Chief of Police in Arlington, Texas.

Gee, one would think that getting it off the street would be a good thing…

And then there’s the obligatory reference to Craig’s List. Of course, no one really knows how many women and children are actually victimized by Craig’s List, but you can be certain it’s “a lot”.

Anyone who has perused the adult sections of Craigslist or Backpage knows that men and women (and boys and girls) advertise their sexual services online. What this means for police is a lot more legwork. At the same time, a rise in awareness about the ugly world of human trafficking, where women from abroad—and, in some cases, American children—are held hostage in brothels disguised as massage parlors, has shifted law enforcement focus and resources away from traditional vice work, according to many attorneys.

These days, most vice work is simply tricking someone into committing a “crime”. Pardon my skepticism that the internet makes it more difficult for cops to arrest prostitutes. If anything, it makes it easy to set up a sting without even having to leave the office until you’re ready to spring the trap.

The Prostitution Free Zone is a novel idea that codifies the crime of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” by permitting cops to arrest anyone with a prior record of prostitution who happen to be in the PFZ.

Washington, D.C. also created PFZs in 2006. But, according to Professor John Copacino of the Georgetown University Criminal Justice Clinic, the district “gets around the constitutionality” by making the zones temporary: they can be in effect for just 10 days at a time. Portions of the district’s downtown area were declared PFZs during the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009.

I guess it’s ok to suspend people’s Constitutional rights if it’s only in ten day chunks. And then there are the folks who just want to get laid without having to ante up the cash:

Georgetown’s Copacino also sees problems. Standing around, even propositioning potential (non-paying) sexual partners while wearing a short skirt and stilettos, is not illegal. “You can’t criminalize normal behavior, ” says Copacino.

It gets worse:

The problem, says [Portland defense attorney Elizabeth Wakefield], is that the city is now issuing many of these charges as violations rather than crimes, which under Oregon law means that the defendants don’t qualify for court-appointed counsel who could encourage them to challenge the arrest.

Poor people = fair game.

Posted in District of Columbia, New York, Oregon, Prostitution, Texas, Trafficking, Women's Rights | Comments Off

The naked and the veiled

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Morrocan artist Majida Khattari is taking on the controversy surrounding the wearing of the burqa, a traditional Islamic veil for women that completely covers the head and body. Khattari is presenting at the Martine and Thibault de la Châtre art gallery in France where she now lives. France has recently been considering legislation that would ban the wearing of the burqa in public. As the issue heats up, there are now reports of ‘burqa rage‘.

Of course, the real incitement is the juxtaposing of nudity with intense religious fundamentalism and confronting the supposition that the burqa is necessarily evidence of oppression. The topic is bound to ignite some strong feelings. The artist makes an interesting statement:

“Art is provocation. And we need provocation to move forward. I’m trying to highlight the ambiguity and the complexity of the situation,” she says.

This is, of course, precisely the opposite of what art has become at almost all public venues in all but the largest and most liberal cities in the United States. Most government run museums shun any kind of controversy in what they display, sanitizing exhibits to be fit for third graders and avoiding anything that challenges the social mainstream. A visit to the vast majority of art museums and public galleries in the U.S. is like entering a vast empty cavern where you can count the other visitors on one hand. Rather than being a center of popular community interest, it is instead a shrine to some self-serving politician paid for by the taxpayers.

Khattari makes another interesting observation:

Khattari doesn’t understand why, in France, laws must be passed to decide how people should be dressed. “It’s absurd to create laws to tell us that veils need to be banned in public places. After all, we are in France because it protects our freedom.”

Indeed, France is often thought to be one of the more liberal of European countries toward the issue of sensuality and social conformity. In contrast, the U.S. is proudly called “the land of the free” even though intolerance of non-conforming appearance is a continuous topic of local legislative consideration whether it be nudity or baggy pants.

But then there’s the perspective that the burqa needs to be eliminated because those who wear it are victims.

“It’s as if you’re saying that women not capable of making their own decisions and you’ll decide for them. Or that they must have chosen to wear the veil because they are completely dominated, that there could be no other reason for such a choice. I’m sorry, there are many women who wear the veil out of their own free will,” says Khattari.

Well, that sounds familiar. Sounds exactly like the attitude many people have toward women in the sex industry. They must be completely dominated and couldn’t possibly be involved with such a despicable business voluntarily. The only thing surprising about that is that many women accept and even endorse that insult to their intelligence and autonomy.

Posted in Art, France, Relgious Zealotry, United States, Women's Rights | Comments Off

French prostitutes reject legalization of brothels

Friday, May 14th, 2010

As some French lawmakers consider the legalization of brothels, prostitutes are rejecting the idea. According to CBS News the sex workers union in France outlined their perspective:

Among the reasons the union cites for opposing the government’s proposal is the fear that brothel keepers who want to receive a cut of their proceeds would exploit the workers.

So, they reject the idea that, when they conduct a profitable business on someone else’s property, the property owner should get a cut of the profits? Or do they expect someone to donate the use of their property as charity? Perhaps they should consider purchasing their own property.

Plus, the union argues, mandatory testing for sexually transmitted diseases could lead to discriminatory policies that might bar those infected from working. Instances of HIV in the pornography industry has led politicians to ask if they should be doing more to police that industry — a scenario prostitutes would like to avoid.

That sounds more like an argument for why the public should be aggressively demanding legal brothels. Even huge chemical companies don’t argue against regulation by complaining that it might impede their plans to continue polluting the environment.

They are also against a system that might divide workers into camps of regular brothel workers and others who refuse to work within that system.

Why? Is the sex workers union only in favor of freedom if it conforms with their idea of what’s permissible and only if they stand to profit from it? Sounds odd coming from one of the most legally restricted industries on the planet. Of course, when was he last time you heard of a drug dealer in favor of legalizing drugs?

It’s hard to have much sympathy for their position. In any case, the freedom to earn a living from the labor of one’s own body should not be a matter for union approval. It’s a basic human right.

Posted in France, Politics, Prostitution, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Portand, Maine goes topless for a day

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

According to the Portland Press Herald:

About two dozen women took a walk down Congress Street topless Saturday, attracting a large crowd as they tried to preach that partial female nudity is not worthy of attracting a crowd.

The point of the march was that a topless woman out in public should attract no more attention than a man walking around without a shirt on, said Ty MacDowell, 20, of Westbrook, who organized Saturday’s event and promoted it on Facebook.

Topless Parade in Portland Maine from Jared Anderson on Vimeo.

It’s interesting that virtually none of the mainstream press coverage of the event showed, unedited, the topless women from the front. Another example of media self-censorship in response to America’s irrational paranoia regarding sex and nudity. While practically everyone worries about how nudity affects children, does it ever occur to anyone that this phobia of the human body might not have a psychologically beneficial impact on children?

There is a Canadian website dedicated to “topfree equal rights“, but they were apparently not involved in this particular event. While it’s certainly a novel concept that women and men should be treated equally, it would be far more interesting and challenging for them to be crusading against laws that make simple nudity a crime.

And if they are really interested in equality of the sexes, perhaps they might want to express a position on the concept of unisex restrooms. There is no place for “separate but equal” as applied to sex anymore than it was permissible as applied to race, right?

Posted in Maine, Nudity, Women's Rights | Comments Off

Speaking of women’s rights…

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Last night I watched a movie called The Stoning of Soraya M. It’s a true story of an Iranian woman who is falsely accused of adultery by her husband who wants out of their marriage. The story is exceptionally well produced, dramatic, and is intense from beginning to end.

I think the movie vividly exemplifies the mindless mob mentality that engulfs morality crusades, propelling them out of control. It’s also a stark reminder of the power of religion to fuel hate, defy reason, and perpetuate injustice.

If you’re a woman concerned about women’s rights on a worldwide scale, there certainly seem to be a lot more worthy targets of your moral crusade than women who engage in sex work. At least have the integrity to focus your zealotry on those who want your help instead of declaring that any woman who does sex work by choice is in denial.

Anyone who thinks that porn is an assault on women ought to see this movie to get a little perspective of what a real assault looks like.

Posted in Iran, Persecution, Relgious Zealotry, Rights of the Accused, Women's Rights | Comments Off

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