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by Katie Herzog

Ender was 14 when he realized something was up.

He’d known he liked boys from a young age. This was in the ‘80s, before homosexuality was widely accepted in society, and Ender grew up in a Catholic family. The prospect of being gay was dangerous enough. But the problem wasn’t just that Ender was gay, it was that as he got older, the boys he found himself attracted to stayed the same age.

Ender is a prominent member of the online “virtuous pedophile” community (or, as Dan Savage has called them, "gold star pedophiles"), a network of both adults and youth who are attracted to children but are committed to never, ever acting on those attractions. They are pedophiles, but they aren’t child molesters. While his attractions have made his life difficult in plenty of ways (society doesn’t generally look well upon pedophiles, whether they have ever touched a child or not), contrary to the popular belief that pedophiles have uncontrollable urges, Ender says that’s not actually true in his case. And it’s not true for many other virtuous pedophiles either.

“Not abusing a child has never been a battle,” Ender told me. “It’s literally the easiest part of being a pedophile. Not even when I was a teenager full of hormones and poor judgment was I ever even remotely tempted to attempt something with a younger boy. For some reason, I intuitively knew it was something I couldn’t act on. I never needed anyone to tell me it was wrong and I was never even tempted or close to actually doing anything with a boy.”

But not acting on the attractions doesn’t mean they go away, and there are few outlets for Ender and other non-offending pedophiles to find support. In the U.S., therapists are obligated to report their clients to authorities if they think there is a chance the client will abuse a child. But even if there’s no chance that a child is in harm’s way, just disclosing the attraction can be a risk: “Therapists are human beings and are affected by social stigma as much as the general population,” Ender told me. “Some believe we’re monsters that are going to inevitably abuse a child.”

In 2014, the public radio show This American Life aired an episode about Adam, a teenage pedophile who, after much struggle with his attraction, sought out a therapist. After Adam disclosed his attraction, the therapist reacted how you might expect: She was appalled and immediately told the boy’s mother.

Adam got lucky. His mother, though upset, didn’t disavow her son or kick him out of the house, and, like Ender, Adam found solace and support online, one of the few places pedophiles can anonymously discuss their problems. These forums aren’t places to trade kiddie porn or solicit sex (there are strict rules against this); they are places where pedophiles can talk honestly about how to deal with their attractions and exist in a society that views them as subhuman. But these online communities don’t always last. Message boards and forums have been targeted and shut down by hackers, and this week, an online community run by Ender with over 400 members was shut down by Discord, the company that hosted their server.

In a message to Ender, the Discord Trust and Safety Team said that the group had “been flagged by the Discord community for violations of our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.” They abruptly disabled the server, and Ender responded with a lengthy email, detailing who he is, what the community is, and why the space was so valuable. “I can say with total certainty that our server did not breach Discord's terms of service or community guidelines in any way,” Ender wrote, and referenced the community rules, which prohibit sharing images of children, discussing unadjudicated illegal activities, and, the first, and possibly most important rule: “You must be committed to never engaging in sexual activity with a child.”

While much of society may assume that pedophilia is the result of childhood trauma or a moral failing, according to current research, it more likely has a biological basis. (This isn’t true, however, of all child molesters, who may have an array of motivations for their crimes besides simple attraction.) Sex researcher James Cantor has done neuroimaging studies of the brains of people with pedophilia and found that there are significant differences in the white matter of brains of pedophiles and non-pedophiles and that there is some “cross-wiring” that occurs in the brains of people with pedophilia. While acting on an attraction to children may be a choice, the attraction itself is no more a choice than being straight or being gay.

Despite an increasing understanding of the biological roots of pedophilia, society hasn’t exactly embraced pedophiles as victims themselves. A well-founded fear of what would happen if they were ever found out keeps pedophiles in the closet, and before Ender found online support groups, he thought he’d take his secret to his grave. Through talking with other pedophiles, however, he came to see that some people are able to successfully come out to loved ones. And so, after ten years of marriage, he wrote a letter to his wife, telling someone he loved, for the first time, the truth.

She was shocked, understandably, but also understood that her husband had never and would never harm a child (including their own children). She accepted him for who he is. (Ender says that while his sexual attraction is exclusively towards boys between the ages of 8 and 12, he loves his wife and they have a companionate marriage.) Later, he came out to both his priest and a therapist, both of whom have been supportive as well, but it’s the peer support group on which he leans the hardest. And support groups aren’t only good for pedophiles themselves: They also help protect children—both sex researchers and pedophiles say that the pedophile with no support is more likely to become a child molester than the one who can talk about his or her feelings.

After Ender appealed to Discord, the company responded, and it wasn’t what he wanted to hear: The community was still banned, and banned permanently. They will likely rebuild (they’ve found a temporary server on another service), but, still, Ender worries for fellow pedophiles. He’s known several community members who have attempted suicide, and when an active member of the community disappears, he always wonders if they’ve taken their own lives.

“It’s important for people to realize that literally anyone can be a pedophile and that there are literally children every day discovering that they have these kinds of feelings,” Ender says. “When these kids start discovering this about themselves, they go out on the internet to learn about what’s happening to them, and are terrified to discover that everyone thinks they’re worthless, scum, subhuman, and that they deserve to die a terrible death or be physically castrated and dismembered in a public square.”

But pedophiles aren’t monsters. They’re people—people with an affliction no one would choose. “I’m a grown man with a thick skin but young boys and girls are incredibly vulnerable to these societal messages and often fall into deep bouts of depression, have suicidal feelings and very often actually attempt (and often succeed) to kill themselves,” Ender says. He wants to prevent these unnecessary deaths and the harm that radiates out from them. But every time their support groups get shut down, saving virtuous pedophiles gets harder and less likely to happen.

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by Stranger Things To Do Staff

Lucky Laurelhurst gets two new spots this week, as Renee Erickson's General Porpoise opens a new location there and the cozy neighborhood brewery Burke-Gilman Brewing launches on Saturday. Find out about those and more essential food news for your weekend, like the grand opening of the award-winning Heritage Distilling Company on Capitol Hill today, the new Fremont French restaurant Le Coin, and the Bite of Seattle. For more ideas, check out our list of July food and drink specials and our complete food and drink calendar.

OPENINGS
Burke-Gilman Brewing
Named for the famed bike trail it's located on, this small kid-friendly, dog-friendly, family-friendly neighborhood brewery, which opens in the former space of Ciao Bella at noon this Saturday, July 21, describes itself as "gezellig," a Dutch word meaning cozy, fun, and relaxed, and it certainly looks it, with a rustic wood interior. Head brewer Phil Pesheck says to expect experimental session IPAs, double IPAs, strong ales, barleywines, kettle sours, and barrel-aged brews. There's no food, but outside food is encouraged.
Laurelhurst

The Supreme Court should simply republish Citizens United in order to finish flushing what’s left of their reputation down the shitter.

Posted by Original Andrew

@9:

It sure sounds like you're making an excuse - otherwise why even mention the "pressures" of the job in the context of a domestic violence call?

Posted by COMTE

Rentberry is suing Seattle. by Heidi Groover

The libertarians who love to sue Seattle are back. This time they're filing a lawsuit over the city's temporary ban on websites where tenants are asked to bid on housing rates.

Back in March, the Seattle City Council passed a one-year moratorium on rent-bidding websites. Sites like Rentberry and Biddwell allow landlords to post rental units and then ask tenants to bid on how much they would pay in rent. Although neither of the sites had launched in Seattle when the council passed the moratorium, skeptics cautioned that the sites could exacerbate high rental costs or violate city housing laws. Council Member Teresa Mosqueda, who sponsored the moratorium, said at the time it was an effort to "be proactive and get ahead of new platforms as they come on the market to make sure we’re looking at any unintended consequences."

On Wednesday, the Pacific Legal Foundation announced it will represent Rentberry and one Seattle landlord in a federal lawsuit challenging the moratorium.

PLF is a conservative law firm with an office in Bellevue and a penchant for defending landlords and property rights. In its complaint, PLF argues that the rent-bidding moratorium violates landlords' free speech rights because sites like Rentberry allow communication between landlords and tenants. The firm argues the council "has no evidence" that rental bidding platforms violate Seattle's housing laws, affect equitable access to Seattle's rental housing market, or that banning them "directly advances a substantial governmental interests."

PLF's client, a Seattle landlord named Delaney Wysingle, has for three years owned and rented out a single family home in Seattle, according to the complaint. He wants to use a bidding platform to find a new tenant this summer. The site would allow him to "save time, settle on a mutually beneficial arrangement with prospective tenants, and determine the best market rent through bidding," the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, claims.

The complaint marks PLF's fifth active case against the City of Seattle. They've also sued over Seattle's income tax, democracy vouchers, first-in-time rental law, and law barring landlords' use of most criminal records when selecting tenants.

A spokesperson for Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said the office has not yet received the complaint but "will review [it]...then evaluate our next steps from there."

UPDATE: In a statement, Mosqueda defended the moratorium. “I do not believe there are any ‘free speech’ violations associated with this legislation,” Mosqueda said. “Landlords still retain the right to post rental listings on whatever sites they choose.” The city is “working with landlords and consumers as we study this issue in anticipation of revisiting the moratorium next year,” she said.

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13 Thanks for the laugh.

You made the comment section so readable.

Posted by Ivy R. Nightscales

And here's an idea, Seattle City Council members: strengthen this city's online ad transparency laws. by Eli Sanders

That was fast! Earlier today, I told Stranger readers about a mysterious online ad campaign aimed at influencing the debate over Seattle's homelessness crisis.

The campaign—which involved Facebook ads, a slick web site, and ads on other platforms—was called "City Council: Make It Better," and it was harshly critical of the Seattle City Council in general and Council Member Mike O'Brien in particular.

For example, it prominently quoted O'Brien as saying, "We have no plan"—insinuating that he and the council had zero plan on homelessness. (O'Brien did in fact say "we have no plan" during a KUOW appearance on March 15, but he was referring to, and criticizing, the city's lack of a comprehensive plan for one facet of the homelessness crisis: people living in vehicles.)

So who was behind this O'Brien-bashing, Seattle City Council-bashing, head tax-hating campaign?

As requested, a bunch of Stranger readers sent me clues, tips, screengrabs, and personal ad targeting information over the last couple of hours. But I'd also encouraged the person or group behind the ad campaign to come forward and e-mail me, and at 12:01 pm today this landed in my in-box:

Hi, Eli-

Glad you liked our website! The Chamber has been clear that we’re very frustrated with City Council’s ineffectiveness in their response to our homelessness crisis. We believe this is a regional issue that requires a coordinated regional response with measurable outcomes.

We want more people in stable, permanent housing, and we want to make sure that the City is putting resources towards solutions that help achieve that goal.

We think that this effort has helped focus the public’s attention on this issue and, for now, this campaign has run its course.

Hope that clarifies things—though it might disappoint the conspiracy theorists out there.

Best,

Kathryn Robertson
Communications Manager
Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce

The Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, it's worth noting, wrangled $611,000 in independent expenditure contributions to help Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan win election last year.

I wrote back to Kathryn Robertson:

Hi Kathryn,

Thanks very much!

To be clear: You’re saying that the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce is behind the MakeItBetterCityCouncil.com web site, as well as the "City Council: Make it Better" Facebook page and the online ads associated with that page?

Interesting to know that this campaign is now over. How much was spent in total on the web site and the online ads?

And do you believe this is an expense that must be publicly reported?

Best,
Eli

To which the Chamber of Commerce communications manager replied:

Yes, confirming those are our ads and website. Nothing further to add at this time.

Thanks, Eli.

-Kathryn

Notice that Robertson did not answer my questions about the cost of this ad campaign or whether she believes the campaign was an expense that must be publicly reported.

I'm still waiting to hear from Seattle Ethics and Elections Director Wayne Barnett on whether this political ad campaign is covered by Seattle's unique law on digital ad transparency. My guess is that it may not be, and that these non-election-time issue ads may fall into an unregulated gray area.

So here's an idea, Seattle City Council members:

Strengthen this city's transparency laws—and encourage openness and personal responsibility in our democratic discourse—by making it clear that section 2.04.280 of the Seattle Municipal Code applies not just to online election-year political advertising, but to online political issue ad campaigns like this one, too.

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Kudos to Dan on correcting this IDIOT's assertion that he "deserved to be hit in the face", in a great reply. I was surprised that a letter that long kept me engaged, and that the LW was generally sympathetic.

Off topic, as an IT pro I must caution against a good backup solution (which Google Photos probably ought to be part of) being abandoned as the easy solution, because when one decides to not back up data, one is deciding to lose it (sooner or later).

I suggest that IDIOT reconfigure his sharing somehow so that Alan only sees the part of his Google Photos that IDIOT actively chooses.

(I don't use a smartphone myself, but googling tells me that one can share only specific albums. I'm assuming that some configuration of user accounts and/or Google Photos for the father and son will allow the adult to monitor all his son's photos, but for the son to only see what the father actively chooses for him to.)

Posted by curious2

Title: Muxes
Author:
Imprint: [[Place of publication not identified], New York, N.Y.] : Guardian News & Media Ltd and Distributed by Infobase
Call #: EVIDEO ACCESSVID
Format: Streaming Video
Series:
Description:

In Juchitán, Mexico, muxes—children identified as male at birth, but who choose at a young age to be raised as female—are embraced as part of the community. Being muxe is often confused with being transgender, but it is an identity specific to the Oaxaca region and the indigenous Zapoteca culture. Having a muxe person in the family has come to be seen as good luck and even a blessing. But life outside Juchitán is not always

Read More

CMD @7,

Why should I argue? I've been completely vindicated. Last time the chorus was singing "No deception, no cuckoldry". Now everyone, Dan included, recognizes that cuckoldry, in all its graphic permutations, includes non-deceptive consensual forms.
Posted by Hunter78

@1: imagine if republicans had "gotten over it", the way they're whining for us to do now, and actually allowed him to govern: filling judgeships, using the filibuster judiciously, not attacking his legitimacy as an American, and then electing the chief proponent of that racist bullshit to replace him. imagine if republicans hadn't bitten his hand every time he extended it. and he did extend it, even up to the end when they were conspiring with Putin.
Posted by Max Solomon

by Dan Savage

DREAMERs won again in court and SCOTUS is going to rule on the constitutionality of Trump's anti-Muslim travel ban. (Court watchers say it doesn't look good.) But those aren't the Trump administration's only efforts to de-brown America. While the travel ban and DREAMERs are the highest profile and most consequential, Trump and his chief racist stooge are busily tossing every brown person they can out of the country:

November 2017:
Trump Administration Kicks 59,000 Displaced Haitian Earthquake Victims Out of the US

November 2017:
Trump administration ending protections for thousands of Nicaraguan migrants

January 2018:
Trump orders 200,000 Salvadorans to leave U.S.

March 2018:
Trump gives Liberian immigrants 1 year to leave or face deportation

April 2018:
Thousands of Indian Women Could Lose Their Jobs Because of Trump's Racist Whims

April 2018:
Trump administration could deport thousands of Nepalis on temporary residency permits

April 2018:
More migrants may face deportation as Trump weighs ending temporary protection for Hondurans

These headlines kindasorta point to, I dunno, a pattern of racial animus maybe? Expanding on what I wrote here...

What's the goal here? It's not about making America greater or safer or richer. It's about making America whiter. Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, John Kelly, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell all hope to make America as white as possible, for as long as possible.

"The White House is assertively working to make America white again," as Steve Phillips wrote on the opinion pages of the New York Times recently. "The aggressive pace of deportations of immigrants of color, the elimination of the DACA program protecting immigrant children and the proposals propounded by the anti-immigration voices in the administration will all have the undeniable effect of slowing the rapid racial diversification of the United States population."

This is a campaign to de-brown this country, to first round up undocumented immigrants—like that chemistry professor in Kansas—before moving on to the DREAMers, while at the same time pushing for "reforms" that will radically decrease the numbers of non-white people allowed to immigrate to the United States.

...it's clear that the Trump administration isn't satisfied with merely blocking further immigration by non-white people into the United States. They're fighting tooth and nail to toss hundreds of thousands of DREAMERs out and right now while we're focused on DACA and the travel ban they're tossing every brown person they legally can out of the country.

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by Ryan J. Prado

When Khruangbin released their 2015 debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, the Houston trio was still relatively unknown. The record’s groovy instrumentals reframe Thai psych jams and surf pop, reveling in a globally inspired paradigm of lush 1970s cool. With their sophomore record, Con Todo El Mundo (released in January via Dead Oceans), the group expands the scope of their sonic explorations to include Middle Eastern, Indian, and Caribbean sounds.

There’s room for commentary about the borderless cultural power of music, especially since the band casting such a wide musical net comes from a border state. For Khruangbin, however, the groove is in the heart.

“We’re a feel band; we all like feel-based stuff,” says bassist Laura Lee. “When you’re at a certain headspace and you’re writing with that feeling, I think it comes out. You see people emotionally dance and it’s powerful, or you see a painting that feels emotional. I think a lot of that is just literally the energy that goes into it.”

More is more when it comes to Infinity Wars. by Andrew Wright

So it’s finally here, and it’s goddamned enormous. Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel’s attempt to put an exploding bow on 10 years of corporate synergy, is a lurching, ungainly colossus of a blockbuster, with far too many characters and storylines stretching across a series of planets that resemble 1970s prog-rock album covers. The thing is, though, while you’re watching it? None of these elements feel like debits. Sometimes, excess hits the spot.

Picking up roughly where Thor: Ragnarok left off, the plot finds bad guy Thanos (a surprisingly nuanced Josh Brolin) assembling a weapon that will wipe out half of the galaxy’s population, and it’s up to every hero in the universe (except Hawkeye) to stop him. No more details will be given, other to say that fans of Dr. Strange and the latest Spider-Man will be very happy, and that Dave Bautista’s turn as Drax the Destroyer continues to be a thing of beauty.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo deserve a huge amount of credit for simply making sure all of Infinity War’s 5,000 performers hit their marks—but they also find room for most of these characters to get an honest-to-god character moment or two. The Russos aren’t exactly stylists, however, and there’s a flatness to the establishing scenes here that feels similar to Marvel’s first wave of films. A little bit of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther panache would’ve gone a long way.

But once the action kicks in, the ridiculous scope of this thing takes over and sweeps away any quibbles—particularly during a multi-world final battle that somehow keeps finding new ways to trot out severely cool stuff. (Speaking as a comics fan, the only element missing is a moment where a villain is thwarted by Hostess Fruit Pies.) By the time Infinity War draws to its enigmatic whopper of a close, even viewers feeling burned out by the guys-in-long-underwear genre will find themselves eager for the sequel. Is it next summer yet?

... How about now?

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by Dan Savage

Before I say anything else: I agree with Rachel Fagen. She wrote the above tweet in response to someone who asked why "incels" don't just go see sex workers. I have good friends who do sex work—women and men—and they're not human shields. Their lives are valuable and, like Fagen says, they're not here to soak up male rage. They deserve safe working conditions and they deserve our respect—not despite the work they do, but because of it.

And let me say this: I have no sympathy for "incels" lurking in dark corners of the Internet cheering on misogynistic violence. I have no sympathy for anyone who picks up a gun or gets in a van to mow down women on their way to class or work. And anyone who attempts to pin the blame on women or feminism for George Sodini or Elliot Rodger or Alek Minassian is an asshole.

Now let's talk about incels. Alex Heard explains who they are in The Guardian today…

Incel is short for “involuntarily celibate”. The term rose to prominence because of its adoption by a subsection of the “manosphere”, a loose collection of movements united by misogyny that also includes some men’s rights activists, pick-up artists, and Mgtow/volcel—heterosexual men who refuse to have sex with women for political reasons. Men who identify as incel tend to congregate on a few forums, including the message board 4chan, the forum SlutHate and, until the community was banned from the site, the incel page on Reddit. They are united by the fact that women will not have sex with them, usually attributed to shallow obsessions with looks or superficial personality, and by their hatred of “Chads” and “Stacys”, the men and women who have sex.

Sexual deprivation can make a person miserable, even suicidal. I hear every day from men and women in their twenties, thirties, forties, and up who are virgins or haven’t had sex for decades; some have never received so much as a kiss, much less experienced a romantic relationship. Most are deeply unhappy—and none who’ve contacted me identify as “incel” or have contemplated committing acts of violence. But sexual and romantic deprivation does create misery, and, as a society, we seem fine with that. People who can't get sex are often told that sex and intimacy aren't like air or water—a person deprived of air isn't going to live for very long but no one has ever dropped dead as a result of being deprived of sex. (Loneliness, however, can hasten death; it may be a greater risk factor for early death than smoking or obesity.)

There are sexually deprived people out there who do identify as incels, as many people learned in the last 24 hours. Instead of feeling depressed or blaming themselves (like the sexually deprived people who reach out to me), these involuntary celibates are filled with rage and blame others. No, wait: they blame women. The incel “community” is entirely male and, so far as I know, entirely straight. And when an incel with social or mental health issues—issues that doubtless contributed to his being an “involuntarily celibate” in the first place—violently attacks women (men are often killed too), the online incel breaks into cheers.

Involuntarily celibate women write me long, sad letters. There are no examples of women picking up guns and gunning down good-looking men in aerobics classes (Sodini) or shooting young men outside frat houses (Rodgers) or running down random men on a sidewalk (Minassian). It's the toxic combination of male entitlement (men feeling entitled to women's bodies and emotional labor), the misogyny that grows like a black mold all over the Internet (maybe “ending the Internet as we know it” wouldn't be such a bad thing), and the male propensity toward violence that creates the kind of carnage we saw yesterday in Toronto.

Before I go any further (I’m going to qualify the shit out of this post knowing parts of it will be taken out of context anyway): I don't think throwing sex workers at violent, deranged incels will solve the violent, deranged incel problem. Our culture has to change in enormous ways to solve this problem. First and most importantly, men have to stop being socialized to believe they're entitled to women's bodies. This leads some men to conclude they’ve been wronged when romantic and/or sexual success doesn't come easily to them or at all.

Another cultural transformation that’s long overdue: adults who do sex work of their own free will shouldn’t be stigmatized (or treated like criminals) and adults who hire adults doing sex work of their own free will shouldn’t be stigmatized (or treated like criminals). The former cultural transformation will solve the “incel” problem; the latter will solve the problem of sexual deprivation, i.e. involuntary celibacy.

We are capable of recognizing the legitimacy of sex work—even the moral good of sex work—in certain cases. We see compassion, tenderness, and necessity in some commercial sex transactions. We recognize, for instance, the importance of touch and sexual release for the profoundly physically disabled. So when a mother hires a sex worker to meet the sexual needs of her profoundly disabled son, newspapers publish stories with headlines like “The sex workers giving disabled people a chance to live out their dreams”:

[Many] mothers call the sex and disability helpline, which I run, worried that their disabled son is physically unable to masturbate and desperately needs an outlet. Hiring a sex worker is one option. They can find responsible sex workers on the TLC-Trust website which was created in 2000 by myself and a disabled man, James Palmer, who was sad about being a virgin in his mid 40s. The hundred or so sex workers who have profiles on the site say they each see about eight disabled clients a month... If a disabled person loses their virginity with a sex worker in a way that teaches them about their body and how to please a partner, it can set them up to become a confident, knowledgeable and sexually skilled individual who can proceed to finding a partner. However, if they have a progressive condition, their life can feel too full of disappointment and loss to try to find a partner and they may prefer to stay seeing sex workers, with whom a good outcome is guaranteed.

There are people who are so profoundly physically disabled that their chances of finding sex and/or romance the way the most people do—dating apps, social circles, chance meetings in bars and clubs or other venues—are slim to impossible. We see our way clear to allowing them to seek physical comfort and sexual release in the arms/between the legs of sex workers. Hollywood makes films that portray disabled people buying sex in a sympathetic light.

Well, there are men out there who are so profoundly socially disabled—so socially awkward or maladapted or damaged—that they just as incapable of finding finding sex and/or romance through “normal” channels as a quadriplegic confined to a bed in his mother’s home.

These are the guys who find their way to hateful, misogynistic online incel forums.

I don't want any sex workers I know—I don't want any sex workers at all—to be alone in a room with a man filled with rage about being denied access to women’s bodies. I also don’t want sex workers to be alone with men filled with rage and self-loathing about “having” to pay for sex if paying for sex is the only way they can get it. Stigmatizing men who pay for sex as losers and running emasculating PSA campaigns ("Real Men Don't Buy Girls ," “Cool Men Don’t Buy Sex”) makes it harder for men who may be profoundly socially disabled to access the sex they can actually have—paid sex—without feeling worse about themselves than they already did.

One way to de-stigmatize sex work: the rest of us, those of us who don't "have to" pay for sex, could acknowledge this awkward truth: we all pay for it. We don’t all pay cash but we all pay. All sexual and romantic relationships involve an exchange. In most cases the goods (sexual and/or emotional) exchanged for services (sexual and/or emotional) are intangible or physical and the exchange is roughly value. (Or we convince ourselves it is.) It's a barter system. I give my husband emotional, social, and sexual support and attention in exchange for the same from him. If we weren’t both "paying in" emotionally, socially, and sexually, our relationship would collapse. A sincere bond of affection prompts us to pay up, yes, but pay up we do.

We have an example on the national level of a deeply commodified marital relationship that involves an exchange and isn't sustained by a bond of affection:

It's not clear why she was there, but according to this month's Glamour, Donald Trump's wife, the model Melania Knauss, recently found herself addressing a New York University business school class. Showing an attitude that would probably have been judged inappropriate on Mr. Trump's television show, "The Apprentice," one student asked the current Mrs. Trump—she is No.3 for those keeping score—if her husband weren't rich, would she still be with him. Her response? "If I weren't beautiful, do you think he'd be with me?"

I mean, come on.

De-stigmatizing sex work won't save us from incels or incels from themselves. (An incel attack is always a suicide mission; Sodini and Rodgers killed themselves, Minassian begged a cop to kill him.) But if we can manage to stop socializing men to believe they are entitled to women's bodies and stop stigmatizing and punishing sex workers and sex buyers—if we can stop telling men who "have to" pay for sex that they're losers or monsters or not real men and acknowledge instead that we're all paying for it—male entitlement will be less likely to combine with sexual deprivation and explode in our faces.

Like I said, I have no sympathy for the self-identified, ranting, raving "incels" of online forums. I do, however, sympathize with the plight of people—men and women—who experience sexual deprivation and are miserable (but not hateful) as a result. Those of us in the advice racket offer lonely, inexperienced, and sexually deprived people support, pointers, and encouragement. But following the standard-issue advice doesn't always alleviate their misery. A culture that honored sex workers and sex work and didn't shame people for purchasing sex? That would go a long way toward alleviating a lot of misery and help create a world with fewer miserable involuntary celibates and no "incels."

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@71
"Its argument is that "sex work" isn't "work" because, by its nature, it can't comply with U.S. employment law."

the purpose of groups like OSHA is to serve the worker, not the other way around. Only an authoritarian places the needs of souless bureaucracies like the DMV or OSHA before human rights of and the dignity of the individual.

"You're convinced that I think prostituted women are immoral and am trying to hide that belief."

You appear to be the last person on earth oblivious to your own complete distain for sex workers. You cannot deny an entire group agency over consensual adult sex while simultaneously claiming you have anything other than disdain for them.

Until 20 years ago the criminal system argued that a sex worker could not be raped because that is what they signed up for when they became a sex worker.

Now people like you argue it is always rape because she is incapable of giving consent without your approval.

The the result and sick mindset that idea springs from come from is the same place.
Posted by Aurellaur

The reviewer summed up my thoughts perfectly. Couldn't agree more.
Posted by fretghouse

• Obama sends free trade deals to congress despite concern over jobs, environment and human rights violations
• At Occupy Wall Street encampment, organization and independent media take hold
• France criticized over treatment of Roma as raids continue
• Report ties Shell to human rights abuse, environmental destruction in Niger Delta
• In Nigeria, innovate project turns plastic bottles into homes

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HEADLINES

Truck bomb shatters weeks of relative calm in Mogadishu – 70 dead

A powerful truck bomb killed as many as 70 people at the entrance to Somalia’s Ministry of Education today.  Mogadishu had been relatively calm in recent weeks after al Shabaab pulled out of the city in August, but the militant group has claimed responsibility for today’s attacks.   Just a few hundred miles to the west near the Kenyan border, the United Nations appealed to militant groups to stop killing civilians. UN spokesperson Adrian Edwards says that many Somalis fleeing not only the violence but also the drought and famine are caught in fighting near the town of Dobley.

Our partners are tracking the movements of populations inside Somalia. They report that some 65 families make the journey from Dobley to Liboi in Kenya each day en route to Dadaab. Many also use alternate routes. On average, 1,000 new Somali refugees continue to arrive in Dadaab every day. [.18]

According to the UN, tens of thousands of Somali people have already died, and hundreds of thousands more are on the brink of starvation.

Acapulco schools slowly reopen with increased security

Public schools in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco are slowly beginning to reopen,  amidst a major operation to provide security for students and teachers facing extortion threats. Shannon Young reports.

Dozens of schools in and around Acapulco refused to open at the start of the school year in late August after teachers and administrative workers received demands for protection money. The de facto strike soon spread, shuttering around 450 schools in the coastal region. The state government of Guerrero minimized the threats and ordered teachers back to their classrooms with the assurance that panic alarms would be installed to alert security forces in the event of an attack. The teachers’ union was not convinced. Five human heads left outside of an elementary school last week only seemed to reinforce the feeling of insecurity. Soldiers stepped up their patrols on Monday as the government announced the return to classes. While some schools have re-opened, the majority of schools in the port city’s marginalized neighborhoods remain closed until further notice. Shannon Young, FSRN, Oaxaca.

Egyptian blogger expands hunger strike after hearing postponed

A 26-year old imprisoned law student and blogger in Egypt says he’ll expand his 40 plus day hunger strike and refuse even water until he is released.  In April Maikel Nabil was sentenced by a military tribunal to three years in prison for insulting the military. An appeal hearing scheduled for today in Cairo was postponed for a week after the court said it did not have his file handy. Nabil’s brother, Mark, was outside the court.

“Maikel is not the only one who insulted the military. There have been many others. Why is he the one singled out by a three year verdict. He is dying in custody.”

Nabil was the first blogger to be tried in a military court after former leader Hosni Mubark was ousted.   According to Reporters Without Borders, Maikel Nabil is suffering from kidney problems, is anemic and has been denied medical care.

Bahrain sentences many for alleged involvement in pro-democracy protests

A court in Bahrain convicted dozens more pro-democracy protesters today. All told 60 people have been  found guilty in the past two days and sentenced to between 5 to 15 years in prison.  And 20 medical professionals were sentenced yesterday, also to 5 – 15 years. Anesthesiologist Dr. Zahra Al-Sammak spoke to al Jazeera from Manama. She says they were convicted solely on the basis of secret evidence.

“On the other hand, despite the fabricated charges, we have so many witnesses so many documents which prove that we are innocent and we didn’t do any of these fabricated crimes and that we were only doing our jobs. We were only helping patients and treating patients.”

Appeals are set for October 23rd.  Just last month,  the US  Department of Defense announced plans to sell Bahrain 53 million dollars worth of military equipment.

El Salvadoran man dies in ICE custody

A 33-year old El Salvadoran man with no known medical problems died while in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody over the weekend. Anibal Ramirez-Ramirez was picked up by Virginia police last week and delivered to ICE authorities.  ICE officers found him unconscious on Saturday and transported him for medical care. He was diagnosed with liver failure and died Sunday.

 

FEATURES

Obama sends free trade deals to congress despite concern over jobs, environment and human rights violations

Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama have finally traveled from the White House to the Capitol, along with a bill that would aid workers who lose their jobs as a result of the agreements. Hundreds of union members from across the country came to the Hill today to oppose the agreements, and vowed to fight their passage in the weeks ahead. FSRN’s Alice Ollstein reports from Washington.

At Occupy Wall Street encampment, organization and independent media take hold

Today marks the 18th day that Occupy Wall Street protesters have camped out in Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district bringing attention to what they see as a morally bankrupt economic system in the United States. Despite two weekends of mass arrests, protesters vow to stay in the half-acre park indefinitely, even as the harsh weather of winter approaches. FSRN’s Kelly Benjamin is at the occupation in New York and files this report.

France criticized over treatment of Roma as raids continue

In recent weeks, French police raided Roma camps in Marseilles and rounded up more than 160 people including women and children. Last year, France came under heavy criticism for mass evictions of ethnic Roma. European authorities say the French government has been obeying rules that protect EU citizens from discriminatory treatment. But human rights advocates say the country is still illegally targeting Roma for harassment and expulsion. Liam Moriarty has more.

Report ties Shell to human rights abuse, environmental destruction in Niger Delta

A report out this week finds that Shell oil company routinely paid armed militants in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, during a decade of killings and rampant environmental destruction. The study also charges that Shell Oil is complicit with the Nigerian government in the “systematic killing and torture of local residents.” Counting the Cost is the report and it’s released by the NGO Platform, a UK-based oil industry watchdog. We’re joined now from London by its author, Ben Amunwa.

In Nigeria, innovate project turns plastic bottles into homes

Now we stay in Nigeria and turn to an innovative solution to the region’s waste problem. Trash remains a major problem throughout Africa where recycling is limited. One waste product that the continent is battling to cope with is plastic bottles used for water and soft drinks. But local residents are taking part in a project to clean the environment by using these discarded plastic bottles to build houses. FSRN’s Sam Olukoya reports from Yelwa, in Northern Nigeria where the first bottle house has just been built.

@4 As a postdoc, I most definitely don't need shit from the University. I already have a PhD and could be working in industry. The important name is that of my boss. The university gets more from me than I get from it.

You've also clearly never been in a lab if you think academic labs can get by without postdocs. We are incredibly cheap, highly skilled, massively educated labor.
Posted by Queue517

I believe in the opportunity for restorative justice, especially in cases where harm may be responded to and behavior may change. To that end, I will continue to listen to what women have to say about their experiences with Mr. Alexie, and what they need to heal. I will also continue to listen to what Sherman Alexie has to say, as he has earned my respect. I can not easily forget the courage he has displayed in speaking up about his own sexual abuse and that of others in his community, including his mother. I have faith in the ability of people to heal and change.
Posted by MelissaBees

by Derek Erdman

This story is presented as part of this week's New to Town issue.

Congrats on the new job, Deb. (Mind if I call you Deb?) Good for you for getting that signing bonus (God, I hope you have one) and moving to a city you've heard so much about.

As a person who lived in Seattle for the last seven years, I have some thoughts about what Seattle is like to live in. I know what it's like to be new here, because I was new here seven years ago. And I also know what it's like to move away: I recently moved back to the Midwest, to a part of the country not frantically under construction, an area where the overall attitude toward life has eased into menopause. As innocuous as that analogy may seem, I can assure you that a Cap Hill resident is seething wildly after reading it.*

When I first moved to Seattle, the complaints from longtime residents were mostly that the old days of the early 2000s were long over—music venues with boxing rings or laundromats with pancake bars were replaced by off-white storefronts with a fiddle-leaf fig in the window. When I left Seattle six months ago, the sole complaint on everyone's lips was that Amazon had ruined everything. I don't know about that, but you should know there's a neighborhood with an Amazon chute system that delivers items to your Fjallraven Kanken backpack before you even know that you want them. I can't remember the name of that neighborhood, but I know they sell "keep [neighborhood] weird" T-shirts.

by Katie Herzog

In their 2018 Annual Letter, Seattle-area billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates address some frequently asked questions about influence, inequality, the perils of aid, and, of course, the Twitter troll currently sullying the White House.

It's an interesting read: While the couple's optimism may seem slightly out-of-touch to those who don't have a few billion dollars at our disposal, they are fairly candid and they acknowledge the problems with charitable giving. Just look at the Red Cross—the No. 1 organization in charitable giving has long been plagued by allegations of corruption and mismanagement, and the Gates Foundation has detractors of its own, especially those against their vision for education. The foundation, which has spent billions on education in the US, bankrolled and pushed for the development of Common Core, a set of national educational standards that proved to be hugely controversial (and which Trump promised to do away with, even though he can't). They also funded hundreds of new secondary schools in the US, and paid for some of the most aggressive school reforms in the last 20 years—with very mixed results.

However, unlike some people, the Gateses are committed to giving away their fortune, not collecting more and more of the world's capital while putting everyone from booksellers to grocery checkers out of business, and so despite what the Lord God Jesus Christ said about it being easier for a rich man to jump through a needle than get into Heaven, perhaps the clouds will part for the Gates family yet.

Here's what they had to say about Trump:

How are President Trump’s policies affecting your foundation’s work?
Bill: In the past year, I’ve been asked about President Trump and his policies more often than all the other topics in this letter combined.
The administration’s policies affect our foundation’s work in a number of areas. The most concrete example is foreign aid. For decades the United States has been a leader in the fight against disease and poverty abroad. These efforts save lives. They also create U.S. jobs. And they make Americans more secure by making poor countries more stable and stopping disease outbreaks before they become pandemics. The world is not a safer place when more people are sick or hungry.

President Trump proposed severe cuts to foreign aid. To its credit, Congress has moved to put the money back in the budget. It’s better for the United States when it leads, through both hard power and soft power.

More broadly, the America First worldview concerns me. It’s not that the United States shouldn’t look out for its people. The question is how best to do that. My view is that engaging with the world has proven over time to benefit everyone, including Americans, more than withdrawing does. Even if we measured everything the government did only by how much it helped American citizens, global engagement would still be a smart investment.

We have met with President Trump and his team, just as we have met with people in previous administrations. With every administration—Republican and Democrat—we agree on some things and disagree on others. Although we disagree with this administration more than the others we’ve met with, we believe it's still important to work together whenever possible. We keep talking to them because if the U.S. cuts back on its investments abroad, people in other countries will die, and Americans will be worse off.

Melinda: We need to work with the administration to garner as much support as we can for policies that will benefit the most impoverished people in the world. In our U.S. work, one premise we start with is that a college degree or career certificate is critical to a successful future. In short, a college education should be a pathway to prosperity for all Americans. The Trump administration’s leadership, along with Congress’s, will have a lot to do with whether it is.

Specifically, student aid programs need to work better for low-income students. Right now, 2 million students who are eligible for aid don’t even apply for it, because the process is so burdensome. Some go into debt. Even worse, many don’t go to college at all. The government must continue to be generous in funding aid programs while following through on simplifying the application process. The futures of millions of young Americans are on the line.

I would also say that I believe one of the duties of the president of the United States is to role model American values in the world. I wish our president would treat people, and especially women, with more respect when he speaks and tweets. Equality is an important national principle. The sanctity of each individual, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender, is part of our country’s spirit. The president has a responsibility to set a good example and empower all Americans through his statements and his policies.

Later in the letter, they acknowledge something perhaps even more disturbing than the current state of the White House: Why they have so much power and the rest of us have so little.

Is it fair that you have so much influence?
Melinda: No. It’s not fair that we have so much wealth when billions of others have so little. And it’s not fair that our wealth opens doors that are closed to most people. World leaders tend to take our phone calls and seriously consider what we have to say. Cash-strapped school districts are more likely to divert money and talent toward ideas they think we will fund.

But there is nothing secret about our objectives as a foundation. We are committed to being open about what we fund and what the results have been. (It’s not always immediately clear what’s been successful and what hasn’t, but we work hard to assess our impact, course correct, and share lessons.) We do this work, and use whatever influence we have, to help as many people as possible and to advance equity around the world. Although we’ve had some success, I think it would be hard to argue at this point that we made the world focus too much on health, education, or poverty.

Bill: As much as we try to encourage feedback, we know that some of our critics don’t speak up because they don’t want to risk losing money. That means we need to hire well, consult experts, learn constantly, and seek out different viewpoints.

Even though our foundation is the biggest in the world, the money we have is very small compared to what businesses and governments spend. For example, California spends more than our entire endowment just to run its public school system for one year.

So we use our resources in a very specific way: to test out promising innovations, collect and analyze the data, and let businesses and governments scale up and sustain what works. We’re like an incubator in that way. We aim to improve the quality of the ideas that go into public policies and to steer funding toward those ideas that have the most impact.

There’s another issue at the heart of this question. If we think it’s unfair that we have so much wealth, why don’t we give it all to the government? The answer is that we think there’s always going to be a unique role for foundations. They’re able to take a global view to find the greatest needs, take a long-term approach to solving problems, and manage high-risk projects that governments can’t take on and corporations won’t. If a government tries an idea that fails, someone wasn’t doing their job. Whereas if we don’t try some ideas that fail, we’re not doing our jobs.

Under normal circumstances, I would disagree with them here. If the United States (and Washington State) taxed our rich adequately (say... anyone with more than a half billion dollars in wealth has a tax rate of 100 percent), the government could distribute that money in an equitable way that doesn't depend on the whims of billionaires and their pet causes. However, with Cadet Bone Spurs (as Tammy Duckworth has so vividly named him) in the White House, and the GOP running (or failing to run) Congress, it seems unlikely that the feds would spend Bill Gates' tax dollars on anything more important than say... a military parade.

There's a lot more in the letter, from how they resolve disagreements to why they work with corporations. And while I'm generally more in favor of eating the rich than complimenting them, it's refreshing to see that not all billionaires (or, in the case of Donald Trump, "billionaires") are ego-driven blood-suckers—just most of them.

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