Tin Horn Gamblers and Dirty Prostitutes: Vice in 19th Century Council Bluffs (2014)

Minnie Bradley, a an Omaha sex worker who refused to look at the camera in her 1902 mug shot. (Via Nebraska State Historical Society)

I usually regret the rare moments in which I’m prevailed on to cut whorephobes a break. My empathetic nature is almost always taken advantage of in these instances and I’m left feeling as if I’ve been had. As compensation, I exude coolness in interactions with potential whorephobes. It’s come to be the most significant way… Continue reading Tin Horn Gamblers and Dirty Prostitutes: Vice in 19th Century Council Bluffs (2014)

It Happened To Me: I Read And Believed Nick Kristof

Despite ample warnings about the prevalence of con men seeking to prey on easily malleable puppets like me, it is indeed a sad truth that I almost became the victim of a murky, seedy, dark, sex trafficking ring operated by equally murky, seedy, dark (-skinned) men. Eww! As we all know, prostitution—er, sex trafficking?— is never… Continue reading It Happened To Me: I Read And Believed Nick Kristof

Slave Hunter and Cultural Boners

Appropriately bleak looking promo for Slave Hunter (via msnbc.com)

In 2011, I had the privilege of speaking on a local television program, Face to Face with John Ralston in Las Vegas. At the time, I worked on a national research initiative called the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), a federally funded project. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) created CSEC in an effort to… Continue reading Slave Hunter and Cultural Boners

Don Jon (2013)

Jon and the Repackaged Whore

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s much anticipated writing and directorial debut, Don Jon, is a romantic comedy about the shared struggle for intimacy between two shallow New Jerseyites, one with a propensity for porn and the other for Hollywood fairytales. Unfortunately, the film’s “satire” is so uncritical it mirrors the very problems it claims to critique. For starters,… Continue reading Don Jon (2013)