5 Things You Need to Know About The Craigslist Adult Services Censor

"This weekend, Craigslist censored the Adult Services section of their site," Lori Adelman writes of the much-publicized controversy in which Melissa Farley and other anti-prostitution activists have hypocritially accused the company of facilitating child sex trafficking. Using wildly inflated numbers, misguided or just plain ignorant activists along with 17 "criminally shortsighted" attorneys general eager to jump on the panic-wagon put enough public pressure on Craigslist to make them self-censor part of the website.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. And what ideologically-motivated anti-trafficking groups ought to know is what they most don't want to hear: censoring Craigslist helps traffickers, hurting women, children, and cops.

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Sex and Censorship: What Recent Attacks on Online Sex Discussions Have to Do With Your Blog | BlogHer

With 3 stories of anti-porn's inherent pro-censorship stance, Anaiis Flox illustrates what's at stake: "This isn't an issue of us vs. them, morality versus indecency, conservatives versus liberals, [but] a matter of freedom to speak, freedom to congregate, freedom to learn about ourselves and to share that knowledge."

Anaiis discusses Facebook's rash of censorship, attacks on Jason Goldman's column and Donna M. Hughes' sex-fear-mageddon by way of attacking KinkForAll. Then she turns the "think of the children" argument on its head:

Yes, think of the children—that is, think about what you do when a child disagrees with someone. Do we tell them to make their points by attacking the dissenting opinion or by crafting an argument that is valid and useful?

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Denying Sex Workers HIV Funds | Mother Jones

After years of discrimination, sex workers and NGOs staged the largest protest against the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) ever at this year's International AIDS Conference. Back in 2003, mandated by the Republican-controlled Congress and former President Bush, PEPFAR was heralded by many conservatives and liberals as a big step forward for HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa. What many don't know is that an anti-prostitution clause embedded in the bill severed US funding to one of the highest at-risk populations: sex workers.

PEPFAR mandates that any organization receiving US funds enforce "a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking." But, Titania Kumeh notes, "it's not clear whether [PEPFAR's proponents] recognized the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution, spoke to any sex worker-run organizations that combat exploitation, or spoke to groups that seek HIV preventative care and battle sex trafficking," thus harming PEPFAR's own goal.

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Anti-gay protesters: Sick perverts – get out of Jerusalem – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Gay rights issues in Israel are often dwarfed by coverage of religious wars, but GLBT people face harsh treatment under the Jewish State's theocracy, just as they do in Arab and Muslim countries.

This Thursday, as "several hundred gay activists preparing to march in the eighth annual Jerusalem Gay Pride parade," they were met with anti-gay orthodox Jews who hoisted banners saying "sick perverts—get out of Jerusalem" and compared them to animals such as donkeys, Liel Kyzer reports. Similar activists from the United Torah Judaism party were expected outside the Knesset Building holding signs above the gay marchers reading "the marchers who do what beasts do." "It is a disease of choice, and a man can change his taste and his ways," said Baruch Marzel, an extreme rightist activist.

Openly gay MK Nitzan Horowitz criticized Jerusalem's mayor for his support of the extremists, saying: "calling the marchers names such as beasts and donkeys, are incitement which leads to heavy violence."

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Law.com – Atlanta Lawyer Takes on Botched Circumcision Claims Nationwide

"I didn't set out to be a circumcision lawyer; it just sort of happened," said David J. Llewellyn of his legal practice suing doctors, hospitals, and medical supply makers around the United States. Llewellyn recently won a $10.7 million default judgment "against Mogen Circumcision Instruments, claiming one of its devices severed the head of the boy's penis during a bris, a Jewish ceremony for a male infant," Katheryn Hayes Tucker reports.

"The circumcision of infants is the American sickness, and unfortunately, we're spreading it around the world because of a small group that's pushing it," Llewellyn said. He recalls his early days fighting the practice, being routinely confronted with jokes and questions like "what does it matter?" The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) remains neutral on the matter, claiming "most of the complications that do occur are minor," and advising parents to "determine what is in the best interest of the child." But how, I wonder, are parents to know?

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2010 World Cup: Jemele Hil on HIV-Positive, Co-Ed Soccer Leagues – ESPN Soccernet

South Africa has garnered much praise, internationally, for its hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. But in a suburb of Johannesburg, other soccer games are taking place, where the players are all female and all wear jerseys with bold lettering "HIV Positive." It's a game played by HIV patients from around the city and surrounding area, with doctors and activists in attendance, organized to help return some visibility to the issue of HIV in Africa generally and South Africa in specific. If everyone is looking at soccer, then HIV activists will play soccer. South Africa has the third highest rate of HIV among adult populations of any nation in the world – some 18% of adult South Africans are HIV positive. And while the current administration has generally had proactive and forward moving policies on this, activists and doctors fear that the World Cup has taken both attention and funds away from the struggle with HIV.

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Log Cabin Condoms Promote Offshore Drilling | News | Advocate.com

In Minnesota, members of the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), a GLBT advocacy group loyal to the American political right, "distributed condoms in wrappers emblazoned with the phrase 'Drill, baby, drill!'," Julie Bolcer reports. Spokesman Alan Shilepsky said his group "tries to present something unique every year at Pride," and that this was a "no brainer." The text on the wrappers added "…just don't spill" to the Republican slogan. LCR national spokesman Charles Moran said he wasn't aware of the local chapter's initiative. "[W]e leave it to each chapter to design and produce their own tchotchke," he said, "Sometimes they are a hit, sometimes not so much, but it gets people talking and having the conversation about what it means to be a conservative in the LGBT movement."

Although I don't understand how some gay people are loyal to a party that literally wants to criminalize their sex life, I do admire their willingness to inspire conversation.

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NY Bill Allows Sex Trafficking Victims to Clear Prostitution Convictions — The Curvature

A bill amending NY State Criminal Procedure Law could let victims of sex trafficking clear their prostitution convictions. If signed into law by Gov. Paterson, the bill would be the first of its kind in the US. Although she admits it's a huge victory, Cara says, "I find the need for such legislation in the first place to be very sad. […T]he thought of women being tried in a court of law and convicted for the 'crime' of having been repeatedly raped, since that’s what non-consensual sex work is…an utterly appalling system." That's why I call it the legal system, not the justice system.

Advocates from the Sex Workers Project helped draft the bill. "[H]elping to write a piece of important and passed legislation is a major success, and one that deserves to be celebrated and applauded," Cara says. But "the Feminist Majority Foundation didn’t seem to think so." Cara outlines how a major FMF publication, Ms. Magazine, "didn’t see fit as to so much mention the Sex Workers Project’s name."

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On Being Anti Anti-Porn | Sex In The Public Square

At a press event on Tuesday, anti-porn activists Dr. Gail Dines and others called on Congress to use obscenity laws to curb the proliferation and prevalence of porn. "We are now in the midst of a massive social experiment, as no other generation has been so bombarded with so much pornography," Dines said, but assistant professor of sociology Elizabeth Wood says the anti-porn movement's drum-banging is nothing other than an "overblown metaphor."

Wood challenges Dines' statement with simple logic, and urges activists to counter moral panic with real information. "Rates of HPV and of Herpes are high across the US and are rampant even among those with no connection to the porn industry. And we are not in the midst of a great social experiment. Porn is not new. Access to porn is not new. […] If this were really akin to an experiment we'd have to hold everything constant except the porn, and that's obviously impossible." She says a War on Porn will be as (in)effective as the War on Drugs.

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Feminisnt » An argument for more sex workers to be out?

Citing Andrew Sullivans' analysis of "Why The Gay Movement is Winning," highlighting that 77% of people say they know a gay or lesbian person today compared with 42% in 1992, independent pornographer Furry Girl urges sex workers to come out of the closet. She says that "Being out [does] loads of good by humanizing a stigmatized part of our society, of which almost no one openly admits they're either a creator/provider or consumer. You can help dispel stereotypes simply by showing people that sex workers are not a monolithic caricature of abused, drug-addled illiterates covered in open sores. […] When your opposition depends on secrecy and shame to influence public opinion, openness is a powerful weapon."

As more gay people come out of the closet, discriminating against them is made harder. Would the same hold true for sex workers? We think so.

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