Are You F—ing Kidding Me?

I am a bit too angry to see straight, but need to share the utter, reprehensible ridiculousness of this:

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An ex-stripper who went on to law school and later was elected a judge was found dead inside her Nevada home Sunday, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Her body was discovered during a welfare check, the report said, and authorities do not suspect foul play.

Municipal Judge Diana Hampton, who was 50, was known by colleagues as a hard worker and appeared to be the perfect picture of health. Her death shocked colleagues, one of whom told the paper he planned to have lunch with the judge this week.

Hampton, who served as a municipal judge for more than a decade, worked with youth in the community to discourage them from crime.

Hampton took an unusual route to her judgeship. She was criticized during her 2005 run for Henderson Department 3 for working as a stripper in Las Vegas prior to pursuing law school. It was a part of her past she did not disavow and reaffirmed that her past had nothing to do with how she would rule from the bench.

“From the very beginning, she decided she was going to be a judge,” said Joe Sciscento, a justice of the peace who knew Hampton for more than 20 years. “She was dedicated to that. She was focused on that, and she wouldn’t let things get in her way.”

[Emphasis added] Continue reading

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Point/Counterpoint

I cam across this tweet from the comedian Jim Norton, which sets up an interesting point/counterpoint:


Norton’s piece has the eye-catching click-baity title “In Defense of Johns,” while Alter’s rebuttal is entitled “Dear Johns: Actually, You Should Be Ashamed to Buy Sex.”

I’m pretty much on record as supporting the decriminalization of sex work, for a variety of reasons*.

Part of Norton’s piece is a rather squicky pontification on men who frequent sex workers**, followed by an argument for decriminalization that I tend to find convincing: Continue reading

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What I’m Reading, May 21, 2014

By Flickr user Romeo Reidl from Budapest, Hungary (Respect sexworkers statue) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsInvisible Sex Workers, Charlotte Shane, Jacobin, May 14, 2014

Journalists, policy-makers, and self-appointed experts repeatedly say that the Internet facilitated an explosion of activity for sex sellers of all stripes, yet that activity was somehow entirely covert. Similarly, the “end demand” crowd, who would like to see the sex trade eradicated but catch flack for explicitly supporting policies that criminalize those selling it, assert that sex work proliferates because of an endless male appetite for bought sex.

But very few sex workers use the “Dark Net,” and even that private corner of the web is now subject to busts. So some connecting of the dots is long overdue. If sex workers are so hard to find, how do clients responsible for making the sex industry the “fastest growing and second largest criminal industry in the world” find them? How do the cops who continue to arrest them?

The Feminist Version of American History You Never Hear About In School, Maureen Shaw, PolicyMic, May 13, 2014 Continue reading

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