I found these two related articles from the SF Examiner and all I could think is what filthy whores the SF police, courts and district attorneys are. This "sting" operation was obviously set up for the sole purpose of driving gentlemen into this "class" to pay $500 for the sake of nothing but generating revenue. On top of that their whole presentation is a contrived lie. What filthy whores!

I apologize for the language and also for that fact that you have to read the articles to understand what I'm talking about.

Johns learn who really pays for prostitution
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.johnmain.0510w


Reform program doesn't do it for this S.F. john
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.johnside.0510w0

rik

He Said:

Next, it's the health department's turn. The lesson seems to be this: The hooker on the corner is a bigger risk than the lady at the party (maybe not much, though), and you better practice safe sex with both.

I Say: Yes! Be careful and play safe no matter what.

He Said:

We get another five-minute break. Next up is the ex-hooker assault. First one gets up, then another, then another. It's all the same: their real mother was a junkie, the father was in the pen, the uncle raped her at 7, the sister started prostitution at 12, the brother got her hooked on heroin at 15. But it's us son-of-a-bitch johns who have ruined their lives.

I'm beginning to see a pattern, and it's not the one these girls see. But who am I to figure things out?

This sorry, hateful band before us got into prostitution for all the wrong reasons -- and they give it a bad name.

I Say:  

Some girls "DO" get in this business for the wrong reasons, and they "DO" give our industry a bad name. It is sad to see a desperate drug addicted crack wh*re on every other street in America(sorry I used the word too). Every girl who gets in this business needs to take responsibility for their own choices in life and not blame anyone else for what is happening to them. They (LE/The Government) spend so much time and waste so much money trying to stop johns from seeing prostitutes...NEVER GONNA HAPPEN.

HE SAID:

Finally, it's over and class is finished. As most of us are filing out, cursing under our breath, about eight jerks are lined up taking turns reprimanding themselves to Sgt. Rock and the saved-again ex-hookers and begging their forgiveness. Sgt. Rock and his entourage are nodding solemnly, knowing that once again they have saved a small part of the world.

I say: perhaps these guys truly are sorry...but if S.F. LE/DA thinks they are going to stop prostitution with an 8 hour class they are NUTS.

Why dont they just LEGALIZE it? The government get the taxes, Le does not waste their time and money anymore with bs arrests - they can go arrest REAL crimminals, the girls lives dont get ruined with a "Ho Charge" on their record, and everybody is happy!

WHAT I DONT UNDERSTAND IS THIS...

If I go to a Casino bar (I live in Nevada) and "do" every single man there for FREE (Go up to his room and spend time with him) then...THAT'S OK!!!!!!!!!!! As long as it's FREE no one will bother me.

On the other hand, if I go to the same bar and have the "nerve" to ask to be compensated for my time....THAT IS ILLEGAL. I did the exact same thing (went up to a gentlemans room to spend time with him for FREE), but it's "not" okay because I asked for $$$.

That's like saying: If you "Pay" for murder (Murder for Hire) then that's not okay...but if you murder the person for FREE, then that's okay. NO! Murder is murder, whether you pay for it or not...it's wrong. So...sex is sex, whether you pay for it or not. If sex was illegal for FREE as well as for $$$ then I'd understand...but the fact that I can have sex for FREE with "just about anyone", "just about anywhere", "just about anytime" and it's legal...ask for $$$ and it's a crime.?????

I realize that is a "simplistic" view...but I still dont get it.

my .02 cents

Sable
xooxo

I can understand any municipality wanting to discourage street soliciting. It drives off business, scares people and is unsavory. Police tactics are a subject of another discussion, but anytime the cops have a chance to generate revenue, be it speeding tickets or John's classes, they're going to do it.

Sex services could easily be regulated, taxed and controlled in this country. But first it has to be decriminalized. It's done in Europe and other places and we do it right here in the good old US in Nevada brothels.

I do find it somewhat bemusing when a reformed practicioner of a particular vice finds religion and lectures us on our conduct. Calling these guys scum as she did and the rest of her tirade, makes me think that just maybe she's taking out some old animosites/grudges against her former clients. The same clients who helped pay her rent, put food on her table, and unfortunately, possibly put dope in her arm. MfSD.

Sable, you are very correct.  The core problem in America is the struggle of who controls the reproductive organs of women.  The Judo-Christian movement has used the dogma of their faith to justify the oppression of women since our constitution was ratified.  It is no different that in a strict Islamic country were women are non-citizens or at least second class and have limited or no basic rights. It is only the degree of oppression between them and the USA.  It has been less than 100 years since women in America obtained the right to vote and in some states own property.  The struggle continues; i.e. abortion, nude or semi-nude dancing, beach attire, porno, and utilizing your body for financial gain and fun.  It boils down to control and basic civil liberties. As long as religious tenets infiltrate public law, the patriarch attitude toward women will continue. The ultra feminist movement has not helped.  Some have declared that any sex act with a man is an act of submission to the will of the man and equals sexual abuse, which will not to be tolerated. They further state that any women who must use their body for “love” has no self esteem. When in fact it requires great self-esteem and pride in oneself to feel comfortable with strangers and make them feel special. I would submit that many women carry through their lives this attitude that they must not allow themselves to enjoy their sexuality and the control and empowerment it give them. We wonder why so many “housewives” (not that being a housewife is degrading or less important than other responsibilities of a family) are depressed and use substances from legally prescribed Prozac to illegal Heroin to release them from this bondage.

It would be great if a new women’s movement would rise and shed the shackles of oppression and declare that the state or judiciary have zero right to control women’s reproductive organs and any law restricting a women’s right is in violation of basic human rights.

Just my thoughts…

I agree with both of you on several points, altho Sable... I'd prefer decriminalization to legalization... I'd rather not have it be REGULATED by the government and have their hands down my panties even more than they already are =:O

I believe Andrea Dworkin was one of the big proponents of that "any act of sex is an act of rape" concept, and of course it's all nonsense from some bitter, sad, miserable woman. These people project their OWN discomfort with their sexuality onto everyone and expect everyone to agree... OR ELSE!

And I agree with you STRONGLY that this is just another way for the government to try to tell women what to do with their bodies... as if they didn't learn that we don't LIKE that idea from Roe Vs. Wade. HELLO??? Maybe they'll catch on someday.  

I really think there is a trend right now of strong, sexually pro-active, intelligent, wonderful women who are enjoying their bodies and themselves in all kinds of ways... the swinging community is on the upswing (so to speak hehe), so is being bisexual for women, and more and more people are buying sex toys and becoming more willing to *explore* their sexuality rather than buy into the old stereotypes.  

Yes, those women exist who are drug addicts, or alcoholics, or were abused to the point that this is their only form of existence, or... whatever sob story you want to put in there.  I have little patience for those who spend their lives blaming everyone else for their own misery... we all have our own problems, it is up to us if we let those problems overtake us or if we move past them.  Blaming the johns who provided them with a living is the worst straight up lie I've ever heard... it's not the johns fault they're out there on the street corner, or shooting up with heroin, or whatever... it's THEIR OWN responsibility.

This country would improve in SO MANY amazing ways if each of us could just take responsibility for ourselves and GROW UP.

Hugs*
Nicole

Sex Work Cyber Resource click on link below. This is some very interesting info.

1)What makes Sex for Money not Prostitution?
2)Sex for Money vs. Sex for Free
3)Are Escorts Prostitutes or professional providers of legal services?
4)Escort Services as Surrogate Relationships







-- Modified on 5/15/2002 11:12:47 PM

"Andrea Dworkin was one of the big proponents of that "any act of sex is an act of rape" concept"

May she some day find peace. Whoa, how sad......imagine just how unhappy you have to be to feel this way?

I've got $100 that says she is pretty unattractive as well, isn't she?

Has anyone ever met an ultrafeminist that any right minded man would WANT to sleep with?

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/LieDetect.html

I read an article by her years ago that talked about this... that's where I got it... and it was signed with her name. That's all I know But it was so shocking to me, I never forgot it, altho it did make me ill to read it... it surely is possible that she's recanted since!

Hugs*
Nicole

I feel like this site is trying to make her look good... here are a few quotes from articles by her on their own site...

(http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/PornMen&Boys1.html)

"The dimension of menace is especially important in enabling men to value bits and pieces of themselves. Sperm, for instance, is seen as an agent of death, the woman's death, even when it is viewed as the originator of life, male life. Childbearing is glorified in part because women die from it."

"The obsessive belief that the penis/sperm, once lodged in the woman, is a male fetus, together with the erotic dimension of the penis/sperm as agent of female death, accounts in large part for the continuing male commitment to forced female pregnancy. The vagina/womb, as Erik Erikson articulated, is perceived by the male as empty space that must be filled by a penis or a child (male until proven otherwise, in which case devalued), which is the penis realized--or the woman herself is empty, that is, a nonentity, worthless."

"Force--the violence of the male confirming his masculinity--is seen as the essential purpose of the penis, its animating principle as it were, just as sperm ideally impregnates the woman either without reference to or against her will."

"With a disgust common to all feminists who have tried to be participants in the so-called humanism of men, only to discover through bitter experience that the culture of males does not allow honest female participation, Virginia Woolf wrote: "I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by his heroism, virtue, and honour. I think the best these men can do is not to talk about themselves anymore."

It's a pretty interetsing article, seems to sum up how she feels about men... and all I can say is that I did indeed read an article at one point by her that DID state "All acts of sex with a woman involve rape," probably not in those EXACT words... but had I not read it myself I wouldn't have posted it.  I think this site is SUPPORTING her and thus trying to present her in a more positive light, but reading her own articles on the site say some pretty strong things about her feelings towards men and sex between men and women.

Hugs*
Nicole

Waaaaaayyyyyyy down on the second page of the article she wrote about het sex, she DOES say how much she enjoyed having sex with men for a while... and then says...

"I did not feel what was being done to me until, many years later, I read Kate Millets Sexual Politics. Something in me moved then, shifted, changed forever. Suddenly I discovered something inside me, to feel what I had felt somewhere but had had no name for, no place for. I began to feel what was being done to me, to experience it, to recognize it, to find the right names for it. I began to know that there was nothing good or romantic or noble in the myths I was living out; that, in fact, the effect of these myths was to deprive me of my bodily intergrity, to cripple me creatively, to take me from myself. I began to change in a way so fundamental that there was no longer any place for me in the world--I was no longer a woman as I had been a woman before. I experienced this change as an agony. There was no place for me anywhere in the world. I began to feel anger, rage, bitterness, despair, fury, absolute fury, as I began to know that they, those writers and their kind, had taken cruelty and rape and named it for me, "life," "sex," "lovemaking," "freedom," and I hated them for it, and I hate them for it still."


Woo Hoo!!!!!
This girl has some issues methinks.
Now see what you've started? I'm getting myself all horrified by Andrea Dworkin all over again! You should read this stuff it is kinda fascinating in the same way people rubberneck at car crashes... =:O

Hugs*
Nicole

I agree with you, but their verbally spanking these guys doesn't bemuse me at all... it makes me sick... you know I just wish so much that once in a while, people would take responsibility for their OWN ACTIONS instead of blaming others. It wasn't the johns fault that those girls chose to get hooked on drugs, and then chose to walk the streets to pay their habits, or WHATEVER sob story they throw at them. It's their OWN choice... everyone has choices in this life and whatever their background is, we all need to take responsibility for our own decisions and choices.  Blaming it on someone else might make you feel better for a little while, but it doesn't address the WHY they chose to do something they hated so much in the first place, which is obviously self-destructive behavior.

I don't need to blame anyone for my presence here because I chose this with full thought, full knowledge, and I am loving every minute of it... and I'm perfectly happy to take 100% responsibility for every ounce of joy and pleasure I get from this.

Hugs, kisses, naughty thoughts...
Nicole

And I promise I'm done!
Remember this is from the SAME SITE, this is the article they use to say she DOES NOT believe that sex is rape.

"I am saying that my body was colonialized, owned by others, imperialists who robbed it of its richest resources--possessed, taken, conquered, all the words those male writers use to describe ecstatic sexuality. And I am saying that I was that slave woman, that caricature of a human being, that sevant whose core and vessel belonged to those who had conquered it. I was that slave woman who accepted the conquerors naming of my experience and called it, their dreadful brutality, their possessing and taking, "lovemaking," "ecstasy," "freedom." That was the woman you knew."

So she's dancing around it here but please believe she has written many more articles, books, etc, than they have posted on this site.

Hugsssss*
Nicole

I didn’t even have to read the articles or Nicole’s comments to see that the statements on the front page were nothing more than propaganda. The sensationalized, absolute language is obvious, as Nicole says; they are trying to make her look good. Whenever I see writing that is designed to aggrandize a person, as this site is doing, I immediately suspect that the opposite is likely true or that they’re hiding something. “Thou dost protest too loudly.”

I have a sister who shares this opinion that all sex is rape. She likes sex, however (and who shouldn’t?) so she’s in a constant conflict with herself. The whole thing is seriously twisted.

rik

Well, I don't think they straight up LIE... but they might do a lil' selective omitting... hehe Same as any politician really!

But on a brighter note it got me digging on the 'net and I found all kinds of fun things. Shut your door and go exploring!

http://www.gatesofheck.com/annie/gallery/40reasons.html

http://www.gatesofheck.com/annie/gallery/guidelines.html

http://www.gatesofheck.com/annie/gallery/101hazards.html

http://www.gatesofheck.com/annie/gallery/cervixmain.html

Susie Bright has an interesting article about Andrea Dworkin...
http://www.susiebright.com/sexpert/dworkin.html

Shucks I've been having a great time! And let me just say that... men and women are different... and I LOVE that we are different! I revel in the beauty of that difference. I love men... I love those broad shoulders, big strong hands, hairy chests, and male butts, and ummmm other male body parts too.. hehe... I love WOMEN, with their sweet sensual soft curves, juicy curves that make your mouth water looking at them. I love my SELF and how I glory in all of this, and gawwwwwwwwwd, I LOVE my job!

Hugs, kisses, naughty thoughts...
Nicole

Norma Hotaling, who runs the johns school, is the co-founder of SAGE, which stands for Standing Against Global Exploitation. She has run the monthly program since March 1995.

"It really feels like we've saved some lives," she says.

About $84,000 a month from the First Offenders Prostitution Program goes to Hotaling's group, with the remainder of the some $280,000 a month divided between the courts, the San Francisco Police Department and the District Attorney's Office.

Looks to me like Hotaling made a good retirement from prostitution to this.  I guess for 84K a month, I'd tell you I was abused and hate men too haha

Thank you Misty, that's exactly my point. They're raking it in using unscrupulous and dubious means, far more immoral in my view than any consenting adult arrangement. It is exploitation in the extreme. This defines them as filthy whores.