Women’s Space

Seattle Times archived photo of Frank Colacurcio Sr. (center) in 1958, waiting to be booked on charges of threatening rival jukebox operators. With him are his attorneys, Joseph Moschetto (left) and Thomas Keefe.

I remember hearing about Frank Colacurcio, above center, who is now 92, when I was a small girl in the ’50s and Colacurcio’s buddy, Al Rosellini, was governor of the State of Washington. Way back then, we ordinary citizens knew that Colacurcio was a criminal and sexual predator and that he had friends protecting him in the highest of places. His career as a criminal and sexual predator began in the 40s when he assaulted a 16-year-old girl.

Archived Seattle Times photo of Colacurcio alongside Washington Governor Al Rosellini.

Colacurcio opened the first topless joint in Seattle, the “Twilite Room,” in the 70s. He went on to create a strip joint empire — really a network of brothels — under the umbrella organization “Talents West,” where teenage girls and women would be invited to apply for “waitress” jobs. Women and girls who applied were mostly vulnerable– broke, single moms, women fleeing their batterers, women with substance abuse problems. Colacurcio charged them $130 a shift “rent” to strip and to be prostituted in his clubs. If they missed a shift, were given a bad shift, or for some other reason, they couldn’t pay, this “rent” became a debt they owed Colacurcio. Sometimes struggling dancers would also be offered loans, which added to their accumulating indebtedness to their “employer”. “Managers” would shadow the women, keeping track of how much money they made, paid and owed. Over time, trying to repay this money, the women would end up enslaved, trafficked from club to club between Seattle, cities north of Seattle, California and Alaska and eventually, throughout 10 western states.

I knew some of the women who worked at these places; I knew many who at some time or another considered “applying” to work at Talents West after seeing ads like the one above, which have run in newspapers here for decades. If you’re broke, it sounds like a heck of a deal– $200 a day to “serve beverages”. But that wasn’t the way things ever went down. In Washington, strip joints can’t serve alcohol, so the beverages served are soft drinks. No one is going to make bank serving soft drinks to pervs in strip clubsfor five bucks a pop. So, the pressure would be on for the waitresses to take off their clothes, dance and engage in acts of prostitution in private “VIP” rooms complete with condom machines. Colacurcio and his gang of thugs didn’t want to be directly told about the prostitution; they told the dancers not to tell them, in fact. If they learned about acts of prostitution some other way, they pretended to “discipline” the dancers by shipping them out to some other club in some other city or state, where they would continue, of course, to be prostituted.

…the women at the clubs were exploited by being forced to turn to prostitution to make enough money to pay club management back for exorbitant “rent” fees that were charged for permission to dance in the clubs.

Many dancers have agreed to cooperate in the case in return for immunity from prosecution, Sullivan said.

“All the girls indicated it was almost impossible” to make the “rent” by dancing alone, Sullivan said.

“These men made millions of dollars exploiting these young women in the Seattle and Tacoma areas.”

In fact, Sullivan said, the Colacurcio enterprise may be the largest organized prostitution operation in Western Washington. “I’m not aware of any bigger,” he said.

The women would also be regularly groped and assaulted by Frank Colacurcio and were continually pressured to have sex with him. A few years ago, at age 87, Colacurcio was sentenced to three months on “home monitoring” and fined $2,500 for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old waitress at one of his clubs,only the most recent assault over a lifetime of similar assaults. Colacurcio has served plenty of time behind bars, for sexual assault, racketeering, money laundering and filing false income tax returns, but it’s been nothing but a thing to him, just part of doing business. While he’s been in jail, his son, Frank, Jr., has taken over. When Frank, Sr. got out, he was in charge again.

Seattle Times photo of Colacurcio two years ago.

Last week both Colacurcios and three other men were indicted in Seattle. (Warning, indictment is disturbing and could be triggering.) Law enforcement officials had been able to obtain a court order that allowed them at last to install microphones and recording devices in clubs and Talents West offices, so that they finally were able to gather the evidence they needed to present to a grand jury. The testimony of women and girls over 70 years was never enough to stop this guy. The ongoing prostituting of women over 50 years wasn’t enough either. Repeated instances of Colacurcio assaulting and trafficking in girls and women? Not enough. They only got him now, at 92 years of age — after he and his henchmen have destroyed the lives of hundreds, probably thousands of girls and women. What’s disturbing is, in all of these news reports about Colacurcio, the women remain consistently little more than a footnote. All eyes are on this guy. Sometimes you pick up on an almost-palpable reverence and admiration for him. The lives of the girls and women he harmed just don’t really seem to be all that interesting to most people.

Heart

When researcher Peggy Kleinplatz put out a call for “great lovers” across Canada and the United States, she and her team were deluged with old married people. “Interviewees said that sex became “greater” when it became slower, less focused on orgasm and less “goal-directed” in general. (…) And with experience, one learned that “the great relief of sexual urges is not the same as great sex.”

Link, h/t Sis.

Sex really is one thing that improves with age and practice, as any aging, sexually active person can attest. There is tremendous resistance to saying this, thinking this, or talking about it, though, in cultures as ageist and old-woman-hating as the U.S. and Canada are.

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I don’t know precisely what happened, bfp (and I’m kind of glad). I do know what it is to be targeted, and I’m sorry it’s happened to you.

I just wanted to say so far as I’m concerned, it’s all good. None of us has to like any of us to still want us all to be free.

Respect,

Heart

Bitch Magazine e-mailed me to tell me they liked the post I wrote about Christina Hoff Sommers a while back and had quoted it and linked to it in their latest post about Sommers’ recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship.  It’s a great article, check it out!  And thanks, Bitch Magazine!

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Anyone who’s ever felt left out of history class by the prevalence of masculine pronouns has been waiting for Blood, Bread, and Roses. Grahn, celebrated feminist poet and writer, approaches anthropology from humanity’s very inception with the perspective that menstruation was the mother of invention. She argues that menstrual seclusion rituals, widespread among early societies, established human understanding of separation and synchronicity, and that they conveyed that understanding through metaform, behavior that communicates social mores and shared belief. Scholarly, but readable and stimulating, Grahn draws from prehistoric and modern cultural comparison, etymology, and poetic inference to detail the roots of religion, law, mythology, mathematics, science, clothing and eating. While readers may not agree with all her theories, the book is indispensable for anyone who has wondered about the other half of historical gender bias, and longed for more balanced alternate theories.

Link

Would anyone like to read and discuss this book with me? We could do this privately on a passworded blog. If you’d like to participate, e-mail me.

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Washington, D.C. – The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) today applauded President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for naming Lynn Rosenthal as White House Advisor on Violence Against Women. A champion in the movement against domestic and sexual violence for three decades, Rosenthal led NNEDV from 2000 to 2006

Prior to her service at NNEDV, Rosenthal directed the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence. There, she developed groundbreaking service models for rural and legal services. She also created the state’s first comprehensive plan to help survivors find housing. Rosenthal most recently served as the executive director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

She played a major advocacy role in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2000 and 2005 and has assisted states and local communities with its implementation.

Rosenthal has also worked closely with corporate partners to bring millions of dollars to local communities to respond to domestic violence. She has also partnered with The Allstate Foundation to develop a national initiative to promote economic empowerment for survivors of violence.

By choosing Lynn, the administration is choosing to make a real difference in the lives of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors.”

More here.

Terry O’Neill, 56, attorney, law professor and survivor of domestic violence, has been elected the new president of NOW, to replace Kim Gandy, whose term of service has ended.

Terry O’Neill is an innovative, strategic leader for social justice and change. She has a successful track record in the executive management of women’s organizations, including financial management, fundraising and advocacy. She currently serves as Chief of Staff to a Montgomery County (MD) Councilmember whose successes include passage of a transgender equality law and the establishment of Maryland’s first Family Justice Center for survivors of domestic violence. Previously, Terry served as Executive Director of the National Council of Women’s Organizations (2005-2007) and as NOW’s Vice President – Membership (2001-2005). As Membership Vice President, she directed NOW’s direct marketing program, successfully strengthening membership recruitment despite the financial setbacks brought about by 9/11.

Terry is a community leader who has served on the boards of local organizations addressing reproductive health and justice, domestic violence, at-risk teens, and abused and neglected children. She is also a skilled political organizer, having worked on a volunteer basis on Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and the election of Louisiana’s first woman U.S. Senator, Mary Landrieu.

Link
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Sokari at Global Voices:

The Nigerian government has just launched a “$5 million war” against bloggers and online news media such as Sahara Reporters.

Three security sources, who are privy to the plan, revealed that Yar’adua last week approved the covert operation to stop websites and bloggers from influencing public opinion in Nigeria. The president’s Chief Economic Adviser, Tanimu Kurfi will source the funds for the operations.
On the one hand this is good news as the Nigerian government wakes up to the power of citizens media and that we are watching and reporting on their every step. On the other hand this is very dangerous for bloggers in the country and those outside who may wish to return home whether for a short holiday, work or permanently. We are all very much aware of what happened to two bloggers [Jonathan Elendu and Emeka Asiwe] last year who were met and detained by security officials as they landed at Abuja airport.

The plan by the government which sounds like something out of a spy movie [maybe there is much truth in those films] is to recruit ‘700′ Nigerians at home and abroad to ‘blog’ favorably about the President and his government. And like government agents world wide these people will be paid, in this case given “blogger allowances”.

They’re certainly not the first government to do this and they won’t be the last.

H/t Suzanne Ure on Twitter

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Thank you, Farrah Fawcett, for your legacy. Through your work as the star of The Burning Bed, you brought the issues of wife/girlfriend battering, wife/girlfriend rape and domestic violence, in general, to the attention of millions and millions of people. We will never know how many women have found the support and help they needed to flee their batterers because they saw this movie, felt, maybe for the first time, heard and seen in the watching of it, and so had the courage to call the 1-800 number at the end and ask for help.

Your domestic violence work was just the beginning of all you gave and accomplished in your life. You were a voice for the voiceless, an inspiration to suffering women everywhere, in their homes, struggling in the criminal justice system or in prison. Thank you for the stand you took on behalf of battered, raped women. Thank you for believing us. Thank you for your amazing performance in which you shed your glamorous image in favor of identifying with those of us who have been beaten, battered, and raped by men who said they loved us. Thank you for all you have given to and for women.

Heart

There is a substantial and important divide, I believe, so far as feminist bloggers/internet personalities go, between those of us who blog and comment under our own real life names and those who blog and comment anonymously, under screen names. Those who write anonymously, under screen names, ultimately have no accountability so far as what they have written (or approved). Nobody knows who they are or anything about them, really. If things go too deeply sideways for them somehow, they are free to vanish, delete their blogs, and show up in an hour under a new screen name with a new invented persona and to start over. Nobody is going to call them to account publicly for what they have written, because nobody knows who they really are. They won’t end up on any FBI/CIA watch lists if they threaten people or strategize violence. Their jobs, if they have jobs, aren’t going to be endangered by what they have committed to text. Their families are not going to read, become alarmed, and make trouble for them. The Ann Bartows, Rebecca Motts, Lucinda Marshalls and Marcella Chesters of the internet, women who, like me, write under our own names, are situated differently from those who write anonymously. We must consider our reputations, our credibility, our careers, families and real-life activist lives. Those who write anonymously don’t really have to worry about anything at all. The way the two groups write is going to be different. Our concerns will be very different. Our exposure and the level of our risk will be cosmically different.

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