Client #9 is
1) The masculine answer to Chanel #5. Gives men the aura of the populist crusader, protecting the common people from Wall Street crime and prostitution rings. For the steamroller in your life.
2) A great name for a punk rock band. With songs like "How much to skull fuck you" and "I'm too broke to buy blow jobs", these drinking class heros have built a loyal following among horny, angry, immature young men.
3) The last of nine contestants on the TV game show "Who Wants To Be A John", in which married middle-aged men compete for the affections of pretty young women by asking for unprotected sex.
4) What Miss Moneypenny called Agent 007 behind his back.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Foreign Language Sex (work news)
I'm working on some blog posts about the expected criminalization of sex purchases in Norway. I'm reading a bunch of old articles from Aftenposten and Verdens Gang for background information.
I've been reading Isabella Lund's blog. Maybe "reading" isn't the right word. My Swedish sucks, so I've been doing a lot of staring at words and wondering what they might mean. I understand enough to get the impression that she has interesting things to say, but I'm missing a lot.
That led me to start wondering about a volunteer sex work foreign news service. If you have competence in a language other than English, pick one information source and do a short summary whenever something appears in that source. Translating entire articles probably isn't a good idea, since it probably violates the author's copyright. Also, that much translation is a pain in the ass and may lead to burnout. But a brief synopsis along with a couple of translated quotes under the Fair Use principle would allow those of us who don't speak that language to keep up with that particular information source.
I'm thinking about tracking Aftenposten during the lead up to the sex purchase ban, which will take place in January 2009 if the law is passed as expected. I think Lund's blog would make a good project, since it's written by a Swedish sex worker and reports on relevant news in Scandinavia. If other people take on similar projects in other languages, we'd need a central place to post notices whenever we do a new synopsis. Or Amanda Brooks may want to post the notices with her News Bits posts on the SWOP-East blog. I haven't talked to anyone about this. I'm just throwing it up on the blog to see if I get any response.
I've been reading Isabella Lund's blog. Maybe "reading" isn't the right word. My Swedish sucks, so I've been doing a lot of staring at words and wondering what they might mean. I understand enough to get the impression that she has interesting things to say, but I'm missing a lot.
That led me to start wondering about a volunteer sex work foreign news service. If you have competence in a language other than English, pick one information source and do a short summary whenever something appears in that source. Translating entire articles probably isn't a good idea, since it probably violates the author's copyright. Also, that much translation is a pain in the ass and may lead to burnout. But a brief synopsis along with a couple of translated quotes under the Fair Use principle would allow those of us who don't speak that language to keep up with that particular information source.
I'm thinking about tracking Aftenposten during the lead up to the sex purchase ban, which will take place in January 2009 if the law is passed as expected. I think Lund's blog would make a good project, since it's written by a Swedish sex worker and reports on relevant news in Scandinavia. If other people take on similar projects in other languages, we'd need a central place to post notices whenever we do a new synopsis. Or Amanda Brooks may want to post the notices with her News Bits posts on the SWOP-East blog. I haven't talked to anyone about this. I'm just throwing it up on the blog to see if I get any response.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Norwegian Crown Princess Visits Prostitutes, Ticks Off Feminists
My information comes from this article in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. It's interesting because the crown princess's visit ties into the unique ways in which the politics of sex work work themselves out in Norway.
According to the article, dated March 8, 2008, the Norwegian crown princess Mette-Marit visited the Pro Senter in the capital city of Oslo during the center's Open Day. The Pro Senter is a government funded organization that provides services for prostitutes, including help for men and women who want to continue as prostitutes, and help for men and women who want to leave prostitution. In addition, it does social research and provides information on prostitution to anyone who asks for it. In other words, in addition to providing help to prostitutes, it also functions as a de facto advocacy and rights group. During the visit, Mette-Marit saw woman of various nationalities preparing food, listened to music, and viewed some art installations.
This promptly ticked off the feminist group Ottar, which strongly supports banning prostitution. Norway is considering a ban on the purchase of sex, similar to Sweden's, and in fact it appears to be a done deal; it will most likely take effect in 2009. However, it is still being hotly debated. Under the Norwegian constitution, the royal family is required to remain neutral in political debates. While the article doesn't mention Mette-Marit expressing any opinions, and the visit has the general air of a royal gracing a charitable event with her earnestly well-meaning presence, Ottar demanded that the crown princess take part the following day in a yearly march in support of womens' issues; specifically, that she support the criminalization of prostitutes' customers. According to Ottar's spokeswoman, this was necessary to restore balance.
While the crown princess never expressed an opinion on the criminalization issue, she may have been involved in some subtle advocacy. When she and the crown prince met, she was a waitress. Before they met, Mette-Marit lived out of wedlock with another man who is the father of her first son. Prior to her wedding, she admitted to using drugs before meeting the prince, and there are rumors of one or more sex tapes with her and her ex-boyfriend. Since marriage, she's been behaving like the ideal royal wife, but she still seems to identify with and sympathize with people whose life styles are frowned upon. So her visit may have been intended as a tacit show of opposition to the criminalization of sex purchases. I haven't seen any articles that indicated that she met Ottar's demands and showed up for a pro-criminalization event, or otherwise tried to "restore balance".
According to the article, dated March 8, 2008, the Norwegian crown princess Mette-Marit visited the Pro Senter in the capital city of Oslo during the center's Open Day. The Pro Senter is a government funded organization that provides services for prostitutes, including help for men and women who want to continue as prostitutes, and help for men and women who want to leave prostitution. In addition, it does social research and provides information on prostitution to anyone who asks for it. In other words, in addition to providing help to prostitutes, it also functions as a de facto advocacy and rights group. During the visit, Mette-Marit saw woman of various nationalities preparing food, listened to music, and viewed some art installations.
This promptly ticked off the feminist group Ottar, which strongly supports banning prostitution. Norway is considering a ban on the purchase of sex, similar to Sweden's, and in fact it appears to be a done deal; it will most likely take effect in 2009. However, it is still being hotly debated. Under the Norwegian constitution, the royal family is required to remain neutral in political debates. While the article doesn't mention Mette-Marit expressing any opinions, and the visit has the general air of a royal gracing a charitable event with her earnestly well-meaning presence, Ottar demanded that the crown princess take part the following day in a yearly march in support of womens' issues; specifically, that she support the criminalization of prostitutes' customers. According to Ottar's spokeswoman, this was necessary to restore balance.
While the crown princess never expressed an opinion on the criminalization issue, she may have been involved in some subtle advocacy. When she and the crown prince met, she was a waitress. Before they met, Mette-Marit lived out of wedlock with another man who is the father of her first son. Prior to her wedding, she admitted to using drugs before meeting the prince, and there are rumors of one or more sex tapes with her and her ex-boyfriend. Since marriage, she's been behaving like the ideal royal wife, but she still seems to identify with and sympathize with people whose life styles are frowned upon. So her visit may have been intended as a tacit show of opposition to the criminalization of sex purchases. I haven't seen any articles that indicated that she met Ottar's demands and showed up for a pro-criminalization event, or otherwise tried to "restore balance".
Monday, March 17, 2008
To 5150
You wrote in a comment here:
St. Augustine wrote that he committed the same sins over and over. He also said that it was possible that he could commit them again.
In Zen we say that the eye doesn't see itself. The mind doesn't ask how it perceives, or why it makes certain decisions. Even neuroscientists don't investigate their own minds; they stick their electrodes in other peoples' brains.
People whose lives go well will probably never give any serious thought to this. It's the fuck-ups who notice that we are not what we think we are. With sins and failures comes the realization that we have no special knowledge. Without knowing who or what we are, without possessing wisdom or holiness, we have to allow the mind to operate blindly, trusting the act itself and accepting the consequences.
Not that we have any choice.
...I kept doing it...over and over again...and I'll probably do it sometime in the future. Why? I haven't quite figured that part out yet.
St. Augustine wrote that he committed the same sins over and over. He also said that it was possible that he could commit them again.
When my mind speculates upon its own capabilities, it realizes that it cannot safely trust its own judgment, because its inner workings are generally so obscure that they are only revealed in the light of experience...
— Augustine Confessions X:34
In Zen we say that the eye doesn't see itself. The mind doesn't ask how it perceives, or why it makes certain decisions. Even neuroscientists don't investigate their own minds; they stick their electrodes in other peoples' brains.
People whose lives go well will probably never give any serious thought to this. It's the fuck-ups who notice that we are not what we think we are. With sins and failures comes the realization that we have no special knowledge. Without knowing who or what we are, without possessing wisdom or holiness, we have to allow the mind to operate blindly, trusting the act itself and accepting the consequences.
If a man wishes to be sure of the road he is traveling on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.
— St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul
Not that we have any choice.
Why I'm Right
5150 made a comment on my Spitzer post pointing out that she does things even though she feels guilty about them. That's a pretty significant objection to my claim that Spitzer was buying sex because he didn't feel guilty about it.
As a matter of honesty, I feel obliged to list the reasons why I may be wrong. First, I quoted a statistic that said that twenty percent of the US population doesn't see anything wrong with paying for sex. That statistic came from an Internet poll. There are lots of problems with Internet polls. I won't go into the problems, but polls where the respondents are self-selected are considered less than perfectly reliable. I've seen other polls with similar statistics, but it's been a long time and I don't remember where. And I quoted the statistic from memory, and my memory may be faulty.
Second, I quoted a statistic from interview with a sociologist that said that one fifth to one sixth of the male population has paid for sex. I don't know whether that's the sociologist's opinion, or whether it's backed by research. Even if it's backed by research, an interview is not a peer-reviewed publication. There could be problems with the research.
Third, I made the assumption that the guys who were buying sex where the same ones who didn't feel guilty about it, and the guys that didn't buy sex were the ones that would feel guilty about it. The assumption was based on the fact that the statistics were roughly the same, and the assumption seemed to be carried out in the posts on the Letters From Johns blog, a very small and self-selected sample of johns. And note further that this unproven assumption was also my conclusion, that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it.
Fourth, even if my data and my assumptions were correct, they were correct for most men. That doesn't mean that every individual acts that way. As 5150 points out, she has done something she felt guilty about. And when I think about it, so have I.
I did point some of this out in the post, but not all of it. One thing I didn't talk about in detail was the importance of which aspect of an act one feels guilty about. I worry about pollution, but I don't feel guilty about the specific act of buying a car, and so I own a car. On the other hand, I do feel guilty about frequent unnecessary use of the car, and so I use public transportation to get to work. My guilt affects the specific acts I feel guilty about, but not associated acts.
However, I'm not perfectly consistent. I feel guilty about driving too fast, because that is a risk to myself and everyone else on the road. But sometimes I drive too fast. Guilt has caused a marked decrease in the amount of speeding I do, but it hasn't eliminated it entirely. 5150 felt guilty about prostitution, but did it anyway. And most of us can think of things that we feel guilty about, but do anyway.
I still believe that there's a good possibility that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it. But I have to admit that it's far from proven.
The title of this post is Why I'm Right, and I'm obligated to explain why, in spite of everything I've just written, I'm still right. The reason is that it's my blog and I'll be right if I want to. Dammit! ;)
As a matter of honesty, I feel obliged to list the reasons why I may be wrong. First, I quoted a statistic that said that twenty percent of the US population doesn't see anything wrong with paying for sex. That statistic came from an Internet poll. There are lots of problems with Internet polls. I won't go into the problems, but polls where the respondents are self-selected are considered less than perfectly reliable. I've seen other polls with similar statistics, but it's been a long time and I don't remember where. And I quoted the statistic from memory, and my memory may be faulty.
Second, I quoted a statistic from interview with a sociologist that said that one fifth to one sixth of the male population has paid for sex. I don't know whether that's the sociologist's opinion, or whether it's backed by research. Even if it's backed by research, an interview is not a peer-reviewed publication. There could be problems with the research.
Third, I made the assumption that the guys who were buying sex where the same ones who didn't feel guilty about it, and the guys that didn't buy sex were the ones that would feel guilty about it. The assumption was based on the fact that the statistics were roughly the same, and the assumption seemed to be carried out in the posts on the Letters From Johns blog, a very small and self-selected sample of johns. And note further that this unproven assumption was also my conclusion, that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it.
Fourth, even if my data and my assumptions were correct, they were correct for most men. That doesn't mean that every individual acts that way. As 5150 points out, she has done something she felt guilty about. And when I think about it, so have I.
I did point some of this out in the post, but not all of it. One thing I didn't talk about in detail was the importance of which aspect of an act one feels guilty about. I worry about pollution, but I don't feel guilty about the specific act of buying a car, and so I own a car. On the other hand, I do feel guilty about frequent unnecessary use of the car, and so I use public transportation to get to work. My guilt affects the specific acts I feel guilty about, but not associated acts.
However, I'm not perfectly consistent. I feel guilty about driving too fast, because that is a risk to myself and everyone else on the road. But sometimes I drive too fast. Guilt has caused a marked decrease in the amount of speeding I do, but it hasn't eliminated it entirely. 5150 felt guilty about prostitution, but did it anyway. And most of us can think of things that we feel guilty about, but do anyway.
I still believe that there's a good possibility that Spitzer bought sex because he didn't feel guilty about it. But I have to admit that it's far from proven.
The title of this post is Why I'm Right, and I'm obligated to explain why, in spite of everything I've just written, I'm still right. The reason is that it's my blog and I'll be right if I want to. Dammit! ;)
Friday, March 14, 2008
Spitzer Unbound
I've seen a lot of explanations for Spitzer's practice of hiring prostitutes. One explanation I haven't seen anyone propose is that he didn't see anything wrong with it.
Note that I'm not saying that he didn't see anything wrong with hurting his wife, or damaging his career. And he probably accepted conventional public morality, meaning that if everyone said something is wrong, he went along. But saying that he went along with a prohibition doesn't mean that he felt any guilt or revulsion about violating it. It just means that he paid lip service without questioning whether his commitment to the prohibition had any depth.
Periodically, someone will do a survey about sexual morals in the US, and roughly one fifth of the respondants will state that they see nothing wrong with exchanging sex for money. (That figure is from memory.) I read a statement recently from a sociologist who studies sexual behavior who said that only one fifth to one sixth of men in the US have ever bought sex from a prostitute. Assuming that the men who think it's OK to pay for sex are the ones who are paying for it, it appears that men who don't think it's OK to pay for sex don't do it. I don't have any data to confirm that, but it seems reasonable that if one fifth of men think it's OK to pay for sex, and one fifth of men have paid for sex, then the two groups consist mostly of the same men. And if four fifths of men don't think it's OK to pay for sex, and four fifths of men haven't paid for it, then it also seems reasonable to suppose that the two groups are also, roughly, the same.
The web site Letters From Johns contains anonymous descriptions of various mens' experiences with prostitutes. This is hardly a scientific survey, but it does describe how a small group of men responded to the experience of paying for sex. Generally, the men who tried it once and never did it again report feelings of shame, guilt, or revulsion. The men who continued doing it report no negative feelings. These types of feelings convey our values; in other words, they're an expression of our morality. Someone who has no feelings of shame or guilt over paying for sex doesn't see it as immoral. They may pay lip service to the morality of the eighty percent who oppose paying for sex, but it's not part of their own morality and it doesn't drive their behavior.
Spitzer was a repeat customer for the escort agency he dealt with, and newspapers report that he hired prostitutes from other sources. So he apparently had no feelings of revulsion about paying for sex. He may be strongly committed to his own moral principles, but he based his career on being the representative of a public morality with a different set of principles. Even now that he's been forced to resign, he's talking about himself as if the public morality were his own; he talks about failing to meet his own standards. He had the misfortune to be unbound from a publicly accepted moral principle, but to be unable to acknowledge it. He had no feelings of moral guilt to prevent him from revealing his unbound state.
Note that I'm not saying that he didn't see anything wrong with hurting his wife, or damaging his career. And he probably accepted conventional public morality, meaning that if everyone said something is wrong, he went along. But saying that he went along with a prohibition doesn't mean that he felt any guilt or revulsion about violating it. It just means that he paid lip service without questioning whether his commitment to the prohibition had any depth.
Periodically, someone will do a survey about sexual morals in the US, and roughly one fifth of the respondants will state that they see nothing wrong with exchanging sex for money. (That figure is from memory.) I read a statement recently from a sociologist who studies sexual behavior who said that only one fifth to one sixth of men in the US have ever bought sex from a prostitute. Assuming that the men who think it's OK to pay for sex are the ones who are paying for it, it appears that men who don't think it's OK to pay for sex don't do it. I don't have any data to confirm that, but it seems reasonable that if one fifth of men think it's OK to pay for sex, and one fifth of men have paid for sex, then the two groups consist mostly of the same men. And if four fifths of men don't think it's OK to pay for sex, and four fifths of men haven't paid for it, then it also seems reasonable to suppose that the two groups are also, roughly, the same.
The web site Letters From Johns contains anonymous descriptions of various mens' experiences with prostitutes. This is hardly a scientific survey, but it does describe how a small group of men responded to the experience of paying for sex. Generally, the men who tried it once and never did it again report feelings of shame, guilt, or revulsion. The men who continued doing it report no negative feelings. These types of feelings convey our values; in other words, they're an expression of our morality. Someone who has no feelings of shame or guilt over paying for sex doesn't see it as immoral. They may pay lip service to the morality of the eighty percent who oppose paying for sex, but it's not part of their own morality and it doesn't drive their behavior.
Spitzer was a repeat customer for the escort agency he dealt with, and newspapers report that he hired prostitutes from other sources. So he apparently had no feelings of revulsion about paying for sex. He may be strongly committed to his own moral principles, but he based his career on being the representative of a public morality with a different set of principles. Even now that he's been forced to resign, he's talking about himself as if the public morality were his own; he talks about failing to meet his own standards. He had the misfortune to be unbound from a publicly accepted moral principle, but to be unable to acknowledge it. He had no feelings of moral guilt to prevent him from revealing his unbound state.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
About Blogging
First of all, apologies for not posting. I have regular readers, and when I don't post for a week, they become terribly disappointed. Both of them.
Or maybe they're both figments of my imagination and I have no readers at all. How vain I must be to think that anybody is interested in my opinions. :)
And apologies for not checking and posting comments. Unfortunately, when I'm too busy to post, I'm often busy enough that I forget to check for comments. It's rude of me and I'm very sorry.
I actually have a back log of posts on the subject of bias, but I've been too busy to post material that already written. Yea, that busy.
When I started this blog, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about readership. I know how to set up the blog so that I can track visitors and view readership stats, but I haven't done it because I don't expect to develop a following. I don't write the sort of blog that attracts attention. My posts aren't sexy, and I don't have stories about sex. I don't focus on the bizarre or extreme aspects of sex work. I don't condemn, or try to provoke controversy, or try to show why one group of human beings is inferior or dumber or more hypocritical than another. Or at least, I don't do that most of the time, although I probably slip occasionally. No, I'm just a regular fucking voice of reason, and isn't that boring?
Aside from occasional lapses into sarcasm, I'm more interested in understanding people than judging them. By that, I don't mean that I think I know what it's like to be a sex worker. I have been part of a sector of society different from the one I occupy now as a college educated knowledge worker. I've seen college students visit my previous world for a summer, and leave thinking that they understand it all. Belle de Jour wrote that if you haven't been a prostitute, you have no fucking clue, and I have no reason to think that that doesn't apply to me. As far as the instant empathy that comes from shared experience, I don't have it. So I don't speak for any group of sex workers that I write about.
I have been close to, and had conversations with sex workers and ex-sex workers. Not a lot, but enough to recognize that our similarities far outweigh our differences. I know that certain aspects of sex workers' behavior are singled out for derision, and yet these same behaviors are found in everyone. I know that finding work is not as simple or straightforward as it is portrayed, and that chance and circumstance play a larger role in our careers than we want to believe. If you compared Malissa Farley with the average sex worker, you would probably find that they found their professions in similar ways, and that they engage in similar patterns of thought.
As for me, I'm opinionated, prone to jump to conclusions, and probably hypocritical more often than I realize. I'm always sure that I'm right, even when I haven't taken the trouble to thoroughly study the subject I'm opining on. I've done some study on the subject of sex work, but I'm not an academic expert. I blog in order to talk about the things that I have in common with sex workers, which includes some aspects of human behavior that aren't very pretty. My motivation, and the thing that gives me the strength to be honest about myself, is my religious faith. Being a Buddhist doesn't give me any special insight into humanity, but it does give me a kick in the ass.
So the only thing I have to offer a reader is a fairly normal human being trying to make sense of other human beings. And in the process of doing that, I expose my own weaknesses and stupidities. If that were enough to attract a large readership, we'd all be celebrities, wouldn't we?
Or maybe they're both figments of my imagination and I have no readers at all. How vain I must be to think that anybody is interested in my opinions. :)
And apologies for not checking and posting comments. Unfortunately, when I'm too busy to post, I'm often busy enough that I forget to check for comments. It's rude of me and I'm very sorry.
I actually have a back log of posts on the subject of bias, but I've been too busy to post material that already written. Yea, that busy.
When I started this blog, I decided that I wasn't going to worry about readership. I know how to set up the blog so that I can track visitors and view readership stats, but I haven't done it because I don't expect to develop a following. I don't write the sort of blog that attracts attention. My posts aren't sexy, and I don't have stories about sex. I don't focus on the bizarre or extreme aspects of sex work. I don't condemn, or try to provoke controversy, or try to show why one group of human beings is inferior or dumber or more hypocritical than another. Or at least, I don't do that most of the time, although I probably slip occasionally. No, I'm just a regular fucking voice of reason, and isn't that boring?
Aside from occasional lapses into sarcasm, I'm more interested in understanding people than judging them. By that, I don't mean that I think I know what it's like to be a sex worker. I have been part of a sector of society different from the one I occupy now as a college educated knowledge worker. I've seen college students visit my previous world for a summer, and leave thinking that they understand it all. Belle de Jour wrote that if you haven't been a prostitute, you have no fucking clue, and I have no reason to think that that doesn't apply to me. As far as the instant empathy that comes from shared experience, I don't have it. So I don't speak for any group of sex workers that I write about.
I have been close to, and had conversations with sex workers and ex-sex workers. Not a lot, but enough to recognize that our similarities far outweigh our differences. I know that certain aspects of sex workers' behavior are singled out for derision, and yet these same behaviors are found in everyone. I know that finding work is not as simple or straightforward as it is portrayed, and that chance and circumstance play a larger role in our careers than we want to believe. If you compared Malissa Farley with the average sex worker, you would probably find that they found their professions in similar ways, and that they engage in similar patterns of thought.
As for me, I'm opinionated, prone to jump to conclusions, and probably hypocritical more often than I realize. I'm always sure that I'm right, even when I haven't taken the trouble to thoroughly study the subject I'm opining on. I've done some study on the subject of sex work, but I'm not an academic expert. I blog in order to talk about the things that I have in common with sex workers, which includes some aspects of human behavior that aren't very pretty. My motivation, and the thing that gives me the strength to be honest about myself, is my religious faith. Being a Buddhist doesn't give me any special insight into humanity, but it does give me a kick in the ass.
So the only thing I have to offer a reader is a fairly normal human being trying to make sense of other human beings. And in the process of doing that, I expose my own weaknesses and stupidities. If that were enough to attract a large readership, we'd all be celebrities, wouldn't we?
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