ECONOMY

'Am I Going to Have to Kill You?': The Horrific Ways Abusive Debt Collectors Threaten and Harass Their Victims

In an economic downturn, some debt collectors have concluded that violating federal law is simply the cost of doing business.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, April 17, 2011

Bart Bryant remembers all too well the day a very nasty and confrontational debt collector called to speak to his wife. By the time Bryant decided to take legal action, the Connecticut-based blues-rock musician had been subjected to everything from racial and anti-Semitic slurs and sexually degrading comments about his wife to taunts urging him to commit suicide.

It started when an employee of a debt collection agency based in New York State pretended to be an attorney and asked to speak to Bryants wife about a small gas card debt his son owed. Bryant offered to take a message, but the collector had no interest in having a polite conversation. Bryant recalled: The guy says to me, Why dont you mind your own fucking business and put your wife on the phone? I said, I dont know who you think youre talking to, buddy. It turns into a shouting match between me and him. He hangs up. I get the caller ID. I call the number back.

Things only went downhill from there. Said Bryant: They said things like, We know your father has been molesting you. Why dont you have him take his cock out of your ass and stick it in your mouth? You know you like it. Why dont you have your wife come over here and give us blow jobs? Youre a loser. Why dont you jump in front of a train and kill yourself? I recorded all of it and sent it to my attorney, Joseph Mauro.

Hoping that Bryant might be African American, the debt collector called him the n-word; hoping he might be Jewish, the collector said, Shalom, motherfucker. Bryant, a white male who was raised Christian, is neither African American nor Jewish. But the debt collector who made those remarks was looking for anything that might intimidate Bryant, and all he succeeded in doing was inspiring Bryant to fight back. With Mauro representing him, Bryant took the collection agency to court; a settlement was reached.

These guys are sick and twisted and will do anything to make a buck, Bryant said. And when they made the comment about my wife, thats when I had to call the police.

Mauro, a Long Island-based attorney who specializes in consumer rights and has represented many victims of abusive debt collectors, said, Barts case is fairly extreme. Unfortunately, its not isolated.

From racial epithets to impersonating police officers to trying to collect debts from the wrong people, some debt collectors have become increasingly abusive in recent yearsand in the economic downturn of the late 2000s and early 2010s, those abuses are only becoming worse. In March, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that next to identity theft, complaints about debt collectors were the most common complaints it received in 2010; last year, the FTC said, it received over 144,000 complaints about debt collectors, which was a 17 percent increase from the 119,609 debt collector-related complaints it received in 2009. The FTC said more than 4,100 of the complaints it received about debt collectors in 2010 involved threats of physical violence.

The level of abuse and harassment in the debt collection industry is reaching epic proportions, said Ira J. Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) in Washington, DC. For example, calling people at work inappropriately, calling neighbors inappropriately, people on the phone being particularly abusivewere seeing more of that type of abuse than we ever have before.

In the United States, debt collection is governed at the federal level by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act of 1977 (FDCPA), which is very specific about what debt collectors are and arent allowed to do in pursuit of a debt. Profane, abusive, insulting or threatening language is strictly prohibited, as are deceitful communications such as debt collectors pretending to be attorneys or law enforcement agents. The FDCPA also governs the communications that debt collectors may have with third parties; the FDCPA permits debt collectors to contact third parties (neighbors or co-workers, for example) to obtain information about ones whereabouts, although they arent allowed to discuss the specifics of a debt with third parties.

And the FDCPA states that if a consumer sends a debt collector a letter asking him/her to cease communications, the collector must do so immediately; debt collectors who continue to call a person after they have been asked not to are violating federal law. But blatant violations of the FDCPA, according to Rheingold, are common, and he said that abusive debt collectors have concluded that violating federal law is simply the cost of doing business.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act has been around for a long time, Rheingold said, but I think the debt collection industry has sort of felt like there is so much money to be made that whatever pain they might suffer from violating the law becomes less important.

Debt collection horror stories are not hard to find, and in many cases, those who have been verbally abused have actual recordings of the abuse. Tammy Henshaw of Bellville, Missouri told KMOV-TV (St. Louis CBS affiliate) that she was hounded by a Los Angeles-based debt collection agency after the death of her daughter Angie. When Henshaws daughter died, she was left with a considerable amount of medical debt; as a result, Henshaw was unable to pay the funeral-related expenses. The funeral home sold the debt to that collection agency, and abusive messages were left on her answering machine. In addition to calling her white trash and a deadbeat piece of crap, one of the agencys collectors threatened to dig up her daughters dead body and hang it from a tree if she didnt pay the debt immediately. KMOV-TV played a recording of the collector telling Henshaw, Are you going to pay this bill or not, or am I going to have to kill you?

In 2009, the office of Andrew Cuomo (who was attorney general for New York State at the time and is now governor of that state) filed a lawsuit against a group of Buffalo-based debt collection companies (which were operating under the umbrella name Benning-Smith Group) for violations of the FDCPA that included impersonating police officers and repeated use of abusive language. One of Benning-Smiths debt collectors, Cuomo told reporters, threatened to rape a persons daughter if a debt was not paid. Cuomos office (which had received more than 900 complaints about Benning-Smith) also told the media that Rochester resident Dorothy Gilbert, an African American, was abused by a debt collector over a $187 bill she had already paid. The Benning-Smith collector left racist messages on her answering machine saying You are totally ghetto and You might want to try to get educated enough to at least be able to say 'payment plan' instead of 'payment pan,' you uneducated reject.

In San Diego, an African-American woman named Romanda Lucas filed a lawsuit against a debt collector who left insulting messages on her answering machine that included repeated use of the n-word and the phrase you piece of shit. In 2009, Michelle Minton of Springville, NY told CNN that she was abused by a debt collector who falsely claimed to be an attorney and threatened to have child protective services take her child away. Minton told the media that although she didnt actually owe the debt, the collector bullied her into giving him the number of her bank accountand she lost $900.

Representatives of ACA International, a trade association for the debt collection industry, have spoken out against abusive debt collectors and claim that collectors who resort to racial slurs, threats of violence and other violations of the FDCPA are not representative of the industry as a while. Rozanne M. Anderson, ACAs former CEO and spokesperson, has claimed that no more than 10 percent of debt collectors resort to extreme or illegal tactics and that the 10 percent are giving the industry a bad name it doesnt deserve. But Buffalo-based journalist Fred Williams (author of the bookFight Back Against Unfair Debt Collection Practices) has said that when he spent three months working undercover at a debt collection agency, his supervisors trained and encouraged employees to do illegal things. According to Rheingold, debt collectors who cross the line and blatantly violate the FDCPA are not anomaliesthey have become the norm. Its not just a few rogue debt collectors, Rheingold said. I think the nature of the debt collection industry as a whole has grown more aggressive.

Rheingold added that debt collection abuses have increased in the U.S. for a number of reasons. A record number of American consumers are buried in debtand in the digital age, collection agencies are buying huge amounts of electronic data from banks, credit card companies and other businesses. Debts are typically sold for pennies on the dollar, which can make data collection extremely profitable but also extremely competitive. Further, Rheingold said, the fact that debt collectors often work on commission encourages them to turn up the heat.

You have much more debt out there than ever existed before, Rheingold said. And so, if youre a debt collector who is going after a consumer who has a lot of debt, how are you going to get them to pay the debt you have bought over the debt somebody else has bought? Being nice and kind isnt the way that industry is trained to work. Youre not talking about really high-wage workers, and they are getting paid on commission based on how much they bring in. So aggressiveness works.

Rheingold added: I think this is an industry thats broken. The level of abuses has reached all-time records.

Attorney Mauro said there is both good and bad news for American consumers. The good news is that thanks to the Internet, American consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about their legal rights than they were in the past; the bad news is that abusive debt collectors are also Internet-savvy.

I wouldnt say that the Internet is leveling the playing field for consumers, Mauro explained, but it is making it more level. An uninformed consumer can become informed in a matter of moments by jumping on the Internet, which makes it easier to find the people who can help consumers. In the past, it would take a series of phone calls and a lot of cooperating people to get a consumer to the right place. And those phone calls would have taken a significant amount of time, during which the harassment would continue. At this point, consumers are able to access information about their rights and find somebody who can help them in a very short time period. To some degree, that is leveling things. Unfortunately, the Internet also helps debt collectors identify people and identify where people work and helps them identify peoples cell phone numbers and identify peoples neighbors. So the Internet has changed the playing field. Im not sure who benefited the most, but there are certainly good points and bad points about the Internet as it relates to debt collectors.

The economic downturn, Mauro noted, has been hard on both consumers and businessesand the businesses that are struggling include some debt collection agencies. Unquestionably, there has been an increase in debt collection harassment, Mauro observed. I think that some debt collectors themselves are strapped for money, like most people in the business world these days. And because of that, they have stepped up the pressure on consumers; unfortunately, that has led to unnecessary harassment."

Mauro said that ironically, some debt collectors have complained about being harassed by other debt collectors. Theres less money to get out of consumers these days, he said, and if the collection agencies arent collecting, they are getting into financial trouble themselves. I have had numerous debt collectors through the years seek representation because they were being harassed by another debt collector.

Asked to list some of the most common ways in which abusive debt collectors blatantly violate federal law, Mauro said, Its everything. False threats of lawsuits, false threats of freezing bank accounts, false threats of garnishing pay, outright harassment in terms of name-calling and profanities, debt collectors acting like they are lawyers, debt collectors saying or implying that they are law enforcement, persistent telephone calls multiple times in a day.

Mauro cited some more things that abusive debt collectors are guilty of: Threats of rape, threats of immediate arrest, threats of physical violence, racial comments, speaking to consumers children. Those are some of the more outrageous ones. Ive seen a decent amount of cases where debt collectors threaten violence and where people would actually go to the homes.

Mauro stressed that he is not opposed to debt collection per se and has no problem with collectors who obey the FDCPA. "Collections can be done civilly, he said. It doesnt have to be harassing. The collection industry can exist and does exist based on completely legitimate collections. I think that if the illegal and harassing collections were eliminated, the industry would still exist....One of the purposes that is specifically explicated and laid out in the preamble of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is to ensure that debt collection companies that want to collect debt legally are not disadvantaged by competitors who are operating illegally. Collections can exist fruitfully, with all of the nonsense eliminated.

Bart Bryant said that he once did collections for a Florida-based cable company, and he found that consumers would make an honest effort to get caught up with unpaid bills when they were treated with respect. I found that I got a lot more money out of people when I asked for little bits over a long period of time and was respectful and explained to them what the implications would be to their credit and how they could repair their credit, Bryant said. And people who cared about their credit and getting ahead financially were usually grateful that I wasnt being an ass. They would agree to send me 10 or 20 dollars a week, and before you knew it, the bill was settledas opposed to, Youre a no-good loser. Why dont you jump in front of a train and kill yourself?

Sometimes, Bryant said, the consumers that unscrupulous debt collectors abuse arent even the ones who actually owe the debt.

According to Rheingold, cases of mistaken identity are not uncommon in the debt collection industry which he said is full of sloppy, reckless behavior. All too often, he said, collection agencies that acquire large amounts of electronic data dont bother to do their research and make sure they are going after the right people. Rheingold added that is it is also common for collectors to harass people for debts that have already been paid.

If you have a John Rodriguez who owes a debt and lives in California, anybody in California named John Rodriguez may be fair game, Rheingold said. Thats how it often happens. Other times, the debt has already been paid. You get a lot of bad information in the system where you have millions of data points without the original contracts, without the right addressand when a debt collector is paying five cents or 10 cents on the dollar for this debt, all bets are off. A debt collector can go out there and file a complaint, and when no one shows up in court, theyre going to get a judgment against somebody whether they owe it or not or whether they can prove it or not.

One well-documented example of an abusive debt collection agency failing to research the validity of a debt occurred when New Jersey-based New Century Financial Services went after Judith Guillet, a retired nurse who was living on disability in New York City. In 2006, theNew York Timesreported that Guillets ordeal began in 2003, when she received a $2,300 credit card bill from Chase Bank that contained charges she didnt make (including charges at Amoco gas stations in the Bronxalthough Guillet didnt drive or have a drivers license). Guillet immediately filed a police report, and Chase agreed the charges were not legitimate. But Chase sold the debt to New Century, which obtained a court order freezing Guillets checking account with Emigrant Savings Bank. A nonprofit legal clinic, MFY Legal Services, was able to get her Emigrant checking account unfrozen in 2006, and New Century eventually agreed to drop the case. New Century has refused to discuss Guillets case with the media.

Rheingold said that abusive debt collectors also cause a lot of misery by causing negative informationwhich may not even be accurateto end up on consumers credit reports. It may be old debt or debt that has passed the statute of limitations," he said. "Or they might put it on your credit report even though they dont have much information. Someone goes to get a loan, and suddenly, they cant get a loan because there is a debt sitting on their credit report.

In 2010, some debt collection agencies were hit with seven-figure fines for their abusive actions. Last October, the Minnesota-based debt collection agency Allied Interstate, Inc. (a subsidiary of IntelliRisk Management Corporation) agreed to pay FTC a fine of $1.75 million to settle federal charges that it repeatedly broke the law by trying to collect debts that people did not owe. And in May 2010, a Dallas jury ordered the debt collection agency Advanced Call Center Technologies to pay plaintiff Allen Jones (who is African American) $1.5 million in punitive damages and an additional $50,000 for mental stress for leaving an abundance of racial slurs on his answering machine, including extensive use of the n-word; the company claimed that Jones owed $200 for a credit card debt, which Jones said he had already paid.

Rheingold said that while those seven-figure fines were a step in the right direction, a lot more needs to be done at both the federal and state levels to discourage debt collectors from breaking the law.

So what exactly will it take to rein in all the abusive debt collectors and force them to obey the FDCPA? Real punishment," Rheingold said. "Making the fines much bigger, shutting down some of these places, having the FTC being more aggressive.

Rheingold said because many unethical debt collectors think of fines as simply the cost of doing business, fines need to be increased to the point where violating the FDCPA in any way will be cost-prohibitive.

Youve got an industry that, as far as Im concerned, is incredibly aggressive and is more often than not acting inappropriately, Rheingold said. We have not done a good enough job of policing the debt collection industry. I think the FTC is doing a better job now, and there are private attorneys who work with me who are doing the best that they can. But youre putting your finger in a dike that has lots of holes in it.

Alex Henderson's work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the Pasadena Weekly and many other publications.

CULTURE

Living the Good Life in Europe: Ex-Pats Enjoy Better Health, Schools

Universal health care, better public education systems, socially liberal attitudes, a frustration with American politics ... there are many reasons to live in Europe.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, March 1, 2011

Even with the U.S. dollars weakness against the euro and the pound, Europe continues to be a major vacation spot for American tourists. But for many other Americans, Europe is more than a place to visit or go on holiday; it is where they live, work, get married and are possibly raising a family. According to the Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO), more than 5.08 million Americans (not counting those serving in the U.S. military) are living outside the United Statesand roughly 1.2 million of them can be found in different parts of Europe.

But what are the main things that make American expatriates want to live in Europe permanently or indefinitely? Universal health care, better public education systems, lower crime rates, socially liberal attitudes, a frustration with American politics? The reasons why some American expatriates prefer life in Europe over life in the U.S. can vary, but according to Joanna Hubbs (president and senior editor of the expatriate-oriented website TransitionsAbroad.com and author of the book Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture), the main reason why Americans initially decide to move to Europe is because they fall in love with all the cultural beauty that Europe has to offer. And after they have taken the plunge and become situated, things like universal health care, a social safety net, a strong infrastructure and socially liberal attitudes may encourage them to stay.

According to AARO, European countries that have more than 100,000 American expatriates include Germany, France, Spain, the U.K., Italy and Greece. And one of the Americans who has spent many years living in Spain is Angela Carson, a Los Angeles native who specializes in marketing for high-tech start-up companies and has been raising her daughter in the Barcelona area. Carson first moved to Barcelona in 1993; she moved back to Southern California in 1997 but returned to Northeastern Spain in 2003 and has been raising her daughter (who is now 15) there ever since.

Carson said that there is a long list of reasons why she likes raising her teenage daughter in Spain, including universal health care, low rates of violent crime, socially liberal attitudes and Spains educational system. Carson asserted that although Spainwith its same-sex marriage (which the Spanish parliament legalized in 2005), topless beaches, legal prostitution, widespread acceptance of erotic entertainment and comprehensive sex education programswould be considered permissive in the American Bible Belt, she finds that there is less social dysfunction in Spain than in the United States.

Ive been living in Spain on and off for 18 years, Carson said, and I have never seen a pregnant teenager here like you see in the States. Never. I live in a small village south of Barcelona where everyone talks, and I just dont hear about pregnant teenagers. Theres just a responsibility level here thats different than in the States. Sex is a discussion here; you can see nudity on television here in Spain, and families joke around about sexwhereas in the States, you dont have any of that, but you have high teenage pregnancy rates, high divorce rates, high incest rates, and high molestation rates. Everything is so controlled in the States, much more so than it is here in Spain. And yet, so many social problems are much worse in the States.

Ask a Europe-based American expatriate what things he/she misses the most about the U.S., and the answer could be anything from baseball games to shopping at Trader Joes. American expatriates might choose Florence for its art galleries, pasta and cappuccino or Paris for its museums and architecture, but a part of them might miss the great Mexican food in San Diego or the trips to Yankee Stadium. However, one thing about American life that the expatriates interviewed for this article certainly dont miss is the American health care system. Of the four Europe-based expatriates interviewed for this article, not one of them believed that they would be better off under the U.S. health care system that they left behind.

Political activist/blogger Avedon Carol, known for her work with the organization Feminists Against Censorship (FAC), is an American expatriate who grew up in Maryland and has lived in London since 1985. Carol has used the U.K.s National Health Service (NHS) extensively over the years, and she has no major complaints. Comparing the American health care system with socialized medicine in Great Britain, Carol said: There are many differences, but the only one where the U.S. does better is that doctor's offices have nicer furniture. In every other way, I would say the NHS is superior.

Carol elaborated: If I want to see my doctor, who used to be right across the street but moved a couple blocks farther away, I phone and can usually get an appointment for the same afternoonmaybe the next day if it's flu season and I'm not actually in a hurry to see the doc. If it's for my annual blood tests, they might ask me to wait until tomorrow, but even then, they don't usually ask me to wait. I can usually be seen exactly when I want to be seen. Once I get there, I might wait as long as ten minutes to actually see the doctor. If I'm there to see the nurse, I might wait around a bit, but I usually see the doc within a few minutes of my actual appointment time. If my doc thinks I need to see a specialist, he sends the request and I get contacted with an appointment. How long I wait for that appointment depends on how urgent the problem is, but I never have to do anything to ensure that I am seen. I don't have to phone anyone unless I actually need to change the appointment date.

Carol added: When I needed surgery, I got great and timely care. No one presents me with a bill. Period. And Carol said of prescription drug costs under the NHS, I pay a fixed price for prescriptionsan affordable price I barely notice.

Angela Carson has high praise for Spains universal health care system. I think the Spanish health care system is great, Carson asserted. Its fantastic. In the States, how many people die each year just from not having health care insurance? That never happens here in Spain. No matter what your status iswhether you are on welfare here or whether you are the richest personyou have great quality health care.

Carson not only praised the quality of health care she received when she gave birth to her daughter in a Spanish hospitalshe even had nice things to say about the hospital food. My daughter was born in the Clinica Tres Torres, which is a hospital in Barcelona, Carson recalled. I remember the food coming, and it was beautiful steaks with mushroom sauces. The food was amazing; it was two different courses, and they brought your dessert. It wasnt a Jell-O pack.

In the U.S., there are countless examples of patients who suffered medical bankruptcies even if they had health insurance. But Carson recalled that when her former father-in-law experienced a major illness, he had a much more favorable outcome under Spains health care system. Carson said: My ex-husbands father had cancer and dealt with it. Hes had great results and is still with us. I think that demonstrates that Spains health care system works really well.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in fact, has said that Spain has the seventh best health care system in the worldand Spain, according to the CIA World Factbooks estimate for 2010, now has a life expectancy of 81 (factoring in both men and women). But the worlds best health care system, according to WHO, can be found in France. Linda Lee Hopkins, an American R&B/jazz/gospel singer who was born in North Carolina but has lived in Paris for 20 years, said of the French health care system: I have nothing to say against this health care system because for me, it has supplied every need I have presented. For example, I needed extensive work done on my teeth because I am an entertainer and it is very important that you present yourself in a certain manner. I had about $8000 worth of work done, and it was all paid for by my insurance. I never have to pay for prescriptions, and I am reimbursed a large part of my doctor visits as well as full payment for my glasses. I don't think that this leaves me much room to complain. I am sure that this would never happen with the health care system in the U.S.

Nancy Falkow, an American singer/songwriter who moved to Dublin from Philadelphia in 2004, described health care in the Republic of Ireland as a mixture of public and private systems; Falkow has private insurance, which she said is much more affordable than private insurance in the United States. Falkow has used the Irish health care system extensively since her arrival; she had a baby in Dublin in 2006. But Ireland has been hit hard by the global economic crisis, and Falkow said that while she got great care and had a healthy baby five years ago, she also has her worries about a health care system she described as overburdened. Falkow said: Insurance or no insurance, there's not enough consultants, not enough hospital beds, etc.

Long-time expatriate Kathleen Peddicord, author of the book How to Retire Overseas and publisher of the expatriate-oriented website LiveandInvestOverseas.com, said that American expatriates need to know that in Europe, some health care systems are doing much better than othersand like Falkow, she said that the Republic of Irelands health care system has been having problems. Each countrys system is independent, explained Peddicord, who moved from Baltimore to Europe but now lives in Panama. For example, the system in Irelanda country I know well, as I lived there for seven years and stay in touch with Irish friends stillis collapsing and cannot support the need. Francethe other European country with which I have first-hand experience, having lived there for four yearshas great health care, probably the worlds best. However, you are eligible for the national health plan only if you work or have worked legally in the country or can transfer credit for social contributions in other EU countries.

One argument that Republicans in the U.S. often make against Europes social welfare model is the amount of taxation, but Carson felt that tax-wise, she was getting her moneys worth in Spain. Carson said that at one point (before the Spanish economy seriously tanked), she was in a high-income tax bracket and was paying a tax rate of about 40%. But those taxes, she said, support a lot of things that she likes about Spain, including infrastructure, universal health care, a quality education system, and a broader social safety net.

In countries like Denmark, Carson pointed out, people are paying a high amount of taxes. But the benefits they receive are nice. They go to the university for free. I wish Americans could see the benefit of that socialized system instead of just seeing the deduction of another $40 from their paychecks.

Although all of the American expatriates interviewed for this article said that they were enjoying life in their adopted countries, some of them also said they would consider a return to the U.S. under the right circumstances. A few years ago, Falkow was considering moving back to the U.S. with her husband (who is Irish) but decided against it. We did everything to come home in 2008, but the economy went south, Falkow remembered. We couldn't find work, and the last place I wanted to relocate to without health insurance was America. So in 2009, we decided to buy a house here, and without saying I'm here permanently, I've made a commitment to stay awhile.

Reflecting on her life in the Republic of Ireland, Falkow said that despite its economic woes, this country is a great place for me to bring up my child. And she feels somewhat safer in Ireland than she did in Philadelphia. Crime rates are high in the dodgy parts of the major (Irish) cities, Falkow observed, but it's nothing like it is in America. There's rarely a child abduction, and people don't carry guns the way they do in the U.S. But there are drug problems in Ireland. There's major poverty, especially now, leading people to break into homes looking for cash for gold.

Carson, meanwhile, said that as much as she enjoys living in Spain, there is one thing that may force her to leave: the Spanish economy, which has been hit especially hard by the global economic downturn. In general, I would be very happy continuing to live here in Spain for a long time, emphasized Carson, who has considered possible job opportunities in London and Hong Kong. And if it wasnt for the change in the Spanish economy, I would never even think about leaving. Barcelona is so charming. But the economy in Spain has taken such a turn for the worse. Times are just getting really hard here in Spain.

While one of Peddicords areas of expertise has been advising Americans on ways to retire in Europe, Hopkins has considered moving from Paris back to the U.S. when the time comes to retire. I really am not interested in investing in property in a foreign country, Hopkins said. If anything should happen to me here, it would probably be too difficult for my family to take care of my business because of the language barrier.

And when Avedon Carol was asked if she has considered returning to the U.S., she replied: I used to think about it a lot, but as the U.S. has become nastier, that's a less attractive prospect than it once was. I also used to try to go back home every year to see friends and family and eat decent pizza, but flying has become horribleand as more and more things change, it's a lot less like visiting home than it used to be. London is my home now.

Before Americans become expatriates in Europe, they have to decide if they are really willing to uproot themselvesand initially, Joanna Hubbs said, it is aesthetic factors that inspire them to take the plunge. According to most of the articles weve received at Transitions Abroad over the years, the reasons Americans move to Europe are really more aesthetic than ethical or practical, explained Hubbs, whose late husband Clayton Hubbs founded Transitions Abroad as a printed magazine back in 1977 (these days, it is published online exclusively). When I say aesthetic, I mean, for example, they fall in love with Italy because of the beautiful landscape, the people, the food and the culture in general. They feel comfortable, and they try to find work to settle there. And those who have the funds to retire are even more likely to move to Europe purely on aesthetic grounds; they love the culture, they love the scenery, they love the ambiance.

The 71-year-old Hubbs, who now lives in Massachusetts but grew up in various parts of Europe, has had extensive dealings with American expatriates along the wayand she said that once Americans are situated overseas, the sense of community can make them determined to stay. American expatriates, in our experience, have many different reasons for wishing to stay abroad after they arrive, Hubbs observed. But the primary one mentioned is the sense of community, which is the cause and result of the social safety net in most European countries. Of course, the cost of those safety nets is beginning to take its toll in Europe due to the global recession and pressures of the global economy. But if you follow the news, you will see that there is an enormous resistancea rebellion in England, strikes in Franceagainst any infringement on the social safety net.

For Americans who want to work in Europe, the greatest obstacle can be European hiring laws. In many European countries, labor laws state that businesses cannot hire someone from outside of Europe for a position that a European can do. Peddicord cautioned: Americans do not and should not move to Europe for job opportunities. Its not typically possible and certainly not easy for an American to get a job in Europe. And Hubbs said: In the EU and in Europeespecially since the Schengen Agreement, which covers an area of about 25 countriesthe primary challenge for Americans is getting a work visa, which usually involves getting sponsored by a European company willing to say you can provide a service that no one in that given country can provide.

Regulations for this really differ from country to country, but some European countries do allow (American) applicants to start a business there. A substantial amount of money must be proven to be invested, and Europeans must be employed.

Some Americans who move to Europe worry about possible language barriers, but that is another thing that can vary considerably from one European country to another. For example, English is much more widely spoken in Greece than it is in Spain. In England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, there is obviously much less of a language barrier for Americans aside from different accents, Hubbs explained. And in Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, so many people are really fluent in English as a second language. So theres a minimal language barrier for Americans in those countries. However, one should not take that for granted and not try to learn the language of whatever country one is in. Not learning the language makes you an outsider.

Carson didnt want to be an outsider when she moved to Spain; thus, she made a point of increasing her proficiency in Spanish, and she said that having already learned some Spanish back in Southern California (which has a large Hispanic population) made the transition easier. Carol, meanwhile, said that she chose another English-speaking country because she didnt want to feel like an outsider. I suppose if I spoke French or German, I might have felt differently, Carol said, but since my only other language is sign language, I was never going to move to a place where English wasn't the dominant language.

The political blogosphere is full of Americans who complain that if Sarah Palin becomes president in 2012, they will seriously consider a move to Europe, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. But whatever happens politically in the United States in the future, its safe to say that there will continue to be plenty of Americans who have a strong desire to become a part of Europe.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in Billboard, The L.A. Weekly, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other publications.



How Conservatives and the GOP Destroyed the "Traditional Family" They Claim to Treasure

Thanks in part to the GOP's failed policies, America is such a hard place to raise a family that many people are delaying getting married and having kids.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, August 30, 2010

For decades, social conservatives have had a lot to say about the decline of “family values” in the United States, and they have a long list of people they like to blame, including gays and lesbians, Hollywood, the adult entertainment industry, feminists, rappers, the ACLU and abortion providers. As the Christian Right sees it, a major cultural war has been taking place in the U.S. -- and the American family is being attacked by everyone from Larry Flynt and Planned Parenthood to 50 Cent and proponents of gay marriage.

Social conservatives are right about one thing: the American family is under attack, but not from cultural liberals. The greatest threat to the American family is economic stress -- and the modern-day Republicans and social conservatives who preach family values are the ones who have done the most to imperil the American family. From union-busting and the outsourcing of jobs to developing countries and opposing universal health care, social conservatives have not only endangered the American middle class -- they have also made it increasingly hard to raise a "traditional" family.

Economic Hardship Makes People Delay Marriage and Childbearing

Many Americans are well aware of the economic pressures families are facing in the United States, influencing their attitudes toward marriage and childbearing. During the summer of 2009, the Guttmacher Institute surveyed 947 fertile women (18–34 years of age) with annual incomes under $75,000. Guttmacher reported that because of the economic downturn, 44 percent of the women surveyed wanted “to reduce or delay their childbearing” -- and 64 percent agreed with the following statement: “With the economy the way it is, I can’t afford to have a baby right now.” That 64 percent increased to 77 percent among the women who had annual household incomes under $25,000.

Meanwhile, physicians all over the U.S. have been reporting a sharp increase in the number of men inquiring about permanent sterilization. In 2009, Planned Parenthood reported that requests for vasectomies had increased by more than 30 percent at some of their clinics in Southern California, while Dr. Marc Goldstein of the Cornell Institute for Reproductive Medicine in New York City estimated that he was seeing a 48 percent increase in consultations for vasectomies. The Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio has reported a 50 percent increase in the number of vasectomies performed in that facility.

“In some ways, you can compare fertility patterns to what we’re seeing with consumer spending,” said Laura Lindberg, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute. “People are saying, ‘This isn’t the time I want to make major purchases or take on major expenses’ -- and there is nothing bigger in your expenses than having a child. I think that even women who might be able to afford to have children are hesitating because they’re thinking, ‘Is this really the time that I want to go on maternity leave? Will my job still be here when I get back? Will I make myself vulnerable to losing my job if I go on maternity leave?’”

Tough economic conditions not only discourage procreation -- they also discourage people from getting married in the first place. In a 2009 survey, the legal Web site FindLaw.com found that 21 percent of people between the ages of 18-34 were postponing their marriage plans because of the economy. That survey also found that 40 percent of participants between the ages of 18-34 were putting off marriage, divorce or procreation for economic reasons. FindLaw.com’s survey indicated that on one hand, people who are already married are more likely to want to avoid the expense of a divorce during recessions -- and on the other hand, the unmarried want to avoid the costs of getting married when times are bad.

If present economic trends continue, the U.S. may experience its greatest dip in procreation and marriage since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

But the economic assault on middle-class American families didn’t begin with the recession of 2007-2010. It has been in the works for decades, and in order to understand how the U.S. went from being family-friendly to being so unfriendly to families, one needs to take a look at the economic trends of the last 80 years.

The Decline of the Middle Class

After recovering from the Great Depression, the U.S. boasted a robust middle class (both white collar and blue collar) and became an environment in which it made sense financially for many married couples to have at least two children. Economist Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, has described the period of roughly 1946-1975 as the U.S.’ “not quite Golden Age” -- a time in which the U.S., inequalities and all, exemplified “suburban middle-class affluence.”

Ironically, the decade that social conservatives point to as a cultural ideal -- the 1950s -- was also a time when unions were at their strongest and, under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who supported elements of the New Deal and would be much too centrist to receive a GOP presidential nomination today), Americans in the highest income bracket paid income tax rates of up to 92 percent. There were some major economic injustices in the 1950s and 1960s, of course -- especially for the many African Americans who found themselves on the outside of the American Dream looking in. But on the whole, American families were better able to afford a middle-class life. A college degree practically guaranteed a living wage for white-collar workers, and many blue-collar men went to trade schools, joined unions, bought houses and raised two or three kids on a single salary.

John Schmitt, senior economist for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), said the U.S. is actually a more prosperous country now than it was in 1950s, '60s or '70s; unfortunately, Schmitt said, most of the prosperity is concentrated at the very top.

“The U.S. economy is much richer now than it was in the 1950s or 1960s; the problem is the economic distribution that we have now,” Schmitt explained. “The economic distribution was better in the 1950s and 1960s, although there were big pockets of people who were excluded. For example, African Americans were excluded in the 1950s because of segregation, and women’s economic rights were greatly curtailed compared to where they are now. But even so, if you looked at the economic distribution of the 1950s and the 1960s, it was much more equal then than it is today. So even though we are much richer as a country than we were 50 years ago, the distributional effects have been so negative.”

Politically and economically, the 1980s were a bad time for many blue-collar Americans. The decade in which the GOP became synonymous with Christian Right “family values” groups like the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority was also a decade in which unions became weaker and many manufacturing jobs were lost. Organized labor suffered a major blow when President Reagan fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, which was a victory for union-busting and proved terrible for American families. Steven Greenhouse, who has covered labor issues for the New York Times, summarized the effects perfectly when he said: “I remember in the 1980s when the air traffic controllers union was wiped out. For 15 years after that, employers all across the country cut jobs, cut pensions, cut health coverage and stepped onto workers' rights.”

Deregulation of large corporations and tax cuts for the wealthy were two cornerstones of the Reagan/Bush Sr. era, and proponents of Reaganomics -- most of them social conservatives -- insisted that if the people at the very top prospered, their profits would “trickle down” to the middle class and the poor. Socially conservative Christian fundamentalist churches preached a “gospel of prosperity” to their middle-class and low-income flocks, urging them to vote Republican and assuring them that profits for the wealthiest Americans would also result in profits for them. Falwell, in his sermons and speeches, was as quick to praise Reaganomics as he was to condemn homosexuality, abortion, rock music and adult entertainment. But the economic data indicates that those corporate profits and tax breaks for the rich didn’t have a trickling-down effect but rather, set in motion a trend of more of the overall wealth being concentrated at the top.

From 1952-1977, the top 10 percent of American wage earners never accounted for more than 35 percent of overall national income; in 1992, they were bringing home just over 40 percent -- and in 2006, the top 10 percent of wage earners accounted for 50 percent of overall national income. Reich has noted that “even as late as 1980, the richest 1 percent of Americans received only about 9 percent of the nation’s total income” and that by 2007, that 1 percent was bringing home 23.5 percent of the nation’s total income.

“The argument in favor of deregulation,” Schmitt said, “was always, ‘Oh, this is going to be great for increasing efficiency in the United States.’ I don’t see a lot of evidence that efficiency has improved, but what we do know is that working conditions in those deregulated industries have declined a lot. Trucking, for example, was hard work in the past, but you got paid well. Now, it’s still hard work, and most truckers are really struggling. Or look at the airline industry, which used to be regulated and was a good source of union jobs with good working conditions and good benefits -- and since deregulation, there has been massive pressure on workers in that sector. Telecommunications used to be another source of good union jobs, but that changed after deregulation.”

In the 1980s, white-collar workers often assumed that their college degrees shielded them from the economic turmoil many blue-collar families experienced. But the recession of the early 1990s demonstrated that white-collar workers could also be quite vulnerable to downsizing and layoffs. The early 1990s were full of anecdotes of university graduates flipping burgers and waiting tables -- which, Schmitt noted, was unheard of in the 1950s, '60s or '70s.

“The first time people started noticing that white-collar workers were getting hit was actually in the early 1990s recession,” Schmitt said. “During that recession, white-collar workers were definitely hit a lot harder than they had been in the past. But you were still at a much bigger disadvantage if you were in manufacturing.”

The perception that President George H.W. Bush was out of touch with the hardships that both blue-collar and white-collar workers were experiencing in that recession led to Bill Clinton’s presidential victory in 1992. There was a considerable amount of prosperity during the Clinton years, which saw the creation of more than 22 million new jobs. But while the Clinton era was an economic success story in many respects, some problems persisted, including the loss of manufacturing jobs, the decline of unionization and a broken health insurance system. And the Republican administration that followed Clinton’s two terms, the George W. Bush administration, proved disastrous for both white-collar and blue-collar families, leaving the U.S. with record deficits and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Reagan on Steroids

The George W. Bush years were like the Reagan/Bush Sr. years on steroids when it came to social conservatism and economic policy. A strident social conservative, Bush Jr. had an even closer relationship with the Christian Right than his father and Reagan; Bush Jr. repeatedly called for an end to legal abortion and wanted a constitutional amendment that would have banned gay marriage nationwide. And federal obscenity prosecutions of adult entertainment companies -- which had come to a halt under Clinton’s attorney general Janet Reno -- were a high priority for John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, two of Bush, Jr.’s attorney generals.

But while Bush Jr. was preaching family values and railing against abortion, gay marriage and porn, his policies of corporate deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy were making life harder for families. From tax cuts for the richest Americans to creating a huge federal deficit (after inheriting a budget surplus from Clinton) to letting Wall Street and banking institutions run wild, Bush’s economic policies left many American families in bad shape. Arianna Huffington was not exaggerating when she said, “America is in danger of becoming a Third World nation.”

For eight years, the Bush administration ignored the health care crisis -- which has been an ongoing hardship for American families. In fact, the modern Republican Party has a long history of siding with health insurance companies over patients; first in 1994 (when the GOP and lobbyists for the health insurance industry defeated Hillary Clinton’s attempts at health care reform), and then in 2010, when Republicans opposed even the modest reforms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The GOP’s resistance to health insurance reform has played a major role in numerous families going broke from medical expenses. When Dr. Steffie Woolhandler (a professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program) conducted a study on medical bankruptcies in 2009, she reported that 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. were due to medical expenses -- and out of that 62 percent, 78 percent were Americans who had health insurance. It was also in 2009 that the Harvard Medical School reported that the deaths of 45,000 Americans per year can be attributed to a lack of health insurance.

When Republicans and health insurance lobbyists defeated Clinton's efforts to reform health care in 1994, they didn’t propose any type of alternative. As a result, a bad situation became worse; premiums continued to rise substantially, and the abusive practices of health insurance companies -- excluding people with preexisting conditions, dropping patients’ coverage when they get sick, rescission -- went unchallenged by Republicans in Congress. It wasn’t until 2009 -- after Barack Obama had been sworn in as president and Democrats were the majority in both houses of Congress -- that the health insurance reform debate seriously regained momentum. And when the House of Representatives finally passed a health care reform package in 2010, it did so without a single Republican vote. No matter how much Democrats compromised and watered down health insurance reform -- even when Democrats gave up the public option -- they couldn’t get Republicans on board.

Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010, and Republicans haven’t wasted any time trying to roll back that legislation -- or at least parts of it. In March, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and 12 other state attorney generals (all but one of them Republican) filed a lawsuit against part of the reform package. McCollum described the lawsuit as bipartisan, but that is barely true because the only Democratic state attorney general involved was James D. "Buddy" Caldwell of Louisiana. In Virginia, a separate lawsuit challenging part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was filed by State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli earlier this year.

Schmitt pointed out that wages alone cannot be used to analyze conditions for working parents. One must also take into account health care benefits, retirement plans and paid vacation time -- and in all of those areas, American workers in general have been losing ground.

“For me, the biggest problems facing U.S. families are not wages,” Schmitt asserted. “Obviously, wages are an important issue -- you have to have a job to support a family -- but I think the biggest problems affecting American families have to do with the terms and conditions of employment. For me, one of the biggest factors in determining a good job versus a bad job if you’re trying to support a family is whether you have health insurance or not. You can tell me that one job pays $10 an hour and another job pays $25 an hour, and at first glance, I’m going to say that the $25-an-hour job is probably better than the $10-an-hour job. But if the $10-an-hour job has good health insurance and covers your family and the $25-an-hour job doesn’t -- if you have to buy your own health insurance for you and your family with the $25-an-hour job -- then in my view, the $10-an-hour job is probably better. We’ll see what happens, but I’m hoping that health care reform will start to make a difference so that even if you lose a high-paying job and are forced to go work at the local Wal-Mart, you’ll still have access to a decent, affordable health care package for your family.”

Europe is the continent social conservatives love to hate, but Western Europe is much more family-friendly than the United States. Universal health care is the norm in Western Europe, where working parents also benefit from more vacation time and paid maternity leave.

Schmitt noted: “To be unemployed in a country where there is universal health care is a completely different experience from being unemployed in the U.S., where most people’s health insurance -- if they have health insurance -- is tied to their employer so that when they lose their jobs, they also lose their health insurance.”

Ideally, Schmitt said, he would like to see the U.S. regain the strong middle class it had in the 1950s and '60s minus the racial and gender inequality of that era. But he said that in order to restore middle-class prosperity, many things will need to change. Health insurance reform, he said, will need to be expanded -- not rolled back -- and unions will need to regain their strength. American businesses and politicians, according to Schmitt, will need to look at Western Europe’s social safety net as a positive rather than a negative.

“If you want to talk about building a society that is family-friendly,” Schmitt said, “you need to have universal health insurance. You need to have some reform in the ways we deal with paid time off, including paid sick days, paid vacation time and paid parental leave.”

Clearly, economic stress -- not cultural liberalism -- is placing a heavy burden on family life in the United States. And unless present economic trends are reversed, the U.S. will continue to be a harsh place to raise a family.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in Billboard, The L.A. Weekly, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other publications.



Fighting the Culture Wars With Hate, Violence and Even Bullets: Meet the Most Extreme of the Radical Christians

From the Army of God to the Hutaree Militia to Gary North and his Christian reconstructionists, radical Christianity is alive and well in the United States.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, June 27, 2011

If there is one name some residents of Amarillo, Texas wish they could forget, its Repent Amarillo. Based in that North Texas city, Repent Amarillo is a militant Christian fundamentalist group whose antics have ranged from staging a mock execution of Santa Claus by firing squad to posting a spiritual warfare map on its Web site that cited a Buddhist temple, an Islamic center, gay bars, strip clubs and sex shops as places of demonic activity.

Repent Amarillo is also infamous for mercilessly harassing a local swingers club called Route 66. Throughout 2009, members of Repent Amarillo made a point of showing up at Route 66s events, where they would typically wear military fatigues, shout at Route 66 members through bullhorns and write down the license plate numbers of people attending the events. After finding out who the swingers were, Repent Amarillos members would find out where they worked and try to get them fired from their jobs (according to Route 66 coordinator Mac Mead, at least two members of the club lost their jobs because of Repent Amarillo).

None of that has kept Repent Amarillo founder David H. Grisham from dabbling in local politics; earlier this year, he ran for mayor of Amarillo and lost to former city commissioner Paul Harpole.

But Repent Amarillo is hardly alone when it comes to promoting a decidedly radical and militant brand of Christianity. From the Army of God to the Hutaree Militia to Gary North and his Christian reconstructionists, radical Christianity is alive and well in the United Statesand Christianists arent shy about turning up the heat when it comes to fighting the "culture war." Some radical Christianists have employed bully tactics and hate-mongering rhetoric without resorting to actual violence (Repent Amarillo, the Rev. Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church), while others have committed acts of terrorism and said the culture war will have to be won with bombs and bullets.

When religion is discussed, it is important to make a distinction between radical and non-radical practitioners. Radical Christianity is not representative of Christianity any more than al-Qaeda is representative of Islam. The average Lutheran or Episcopalian minister is no more a threat to public safety than the average member of Islams Sufi sect, who are arguably the Hare Krishnas of Islam. Not all Christians are Christianists; not all Muslims are Islamists. But an abundance of disturbing events bear out the fact that radical Christianity, like radical Islam, is quite capable of violenceand contrary to what Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter would have us believe, the examples are numerous.

Active since the early 1980s, the Army of God is a loose network of radical anti-abortionists with a long history of promoting terrorism and premeditated murder in the name of Christianity. The Army of God has published an anti-abortion training manual that offers instructions on bomb-making, arson and other ways to attack clinics.

The groups Web site praises a long list of Christian terrorists who have been convicted of violent crimes, including Paul Jennings Hill (who was executed by lethal injection in 2003 for the murders of abortion provider John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett), Scott Roeder (who was convicted of first-degree murder for the 2009 shooting of George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions), Michael Frederick Griffin (who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn, an ob/gyn based in Pensacola, Florida), James Charles Kopp (who shot and killed Barnett Slepian, a physician who performed abortions, in 1998), Matthew Lee Derosia (who, in 2009, rammed his SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul and told police that Jesus ordered him to carry out that attack) and John C. Salvi (who attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1994, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others).

The Web site describes Tillers murder as justifiable homicide and describes Lowney and Nichols not as victims of domestic terrorism, but as women who got exactly what they deserved; Salvi, who died in prison in 1996 and may have committed suicide, is hailed as a hero for killing them. The Army of God exalts Hill, Rudolph, Roeder, Griffin, Derosia and Salvi as martyrs for Christianity in much the same way al-Qaeda consider Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers martyrs for Islam.

The Army of God has also been a vocal supporter of Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolphs crimes include bombing an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs,a suburb of Atlanta,in 1997; bombing the Otherwise Lounge (a lesbian bar in Atlanta) in 1997; and bombing an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998. The Birmingham bombing caused the death of Robert Sanderson, a Birmingham police officer and part-time security guard, and resulted in serious injuries for nurse Emily Lyons, who lost an eye. Rudolph is best known, however, for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics; that blast killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others.

Another Christian terrorist who has been associated with the Army of God is Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in 1993 but didnt kill him; in addition to being convicted of attempted murder for her attack on Tiller, Shannon was involved in a series of arson attacks on abortion clinics in different states. One person who considered Shannon a good friend was fellow Army of God terrorist Scott Roeder, who visited her frequently in prison and finished what she started when he murdered Tiller in 2009. The Army of God Web site calls Shannon a warrior soldier in the Army of God.

In 2010, a North Carolina-based Christianist named Justin Carl Moose was arrested by the FBI for plotting to help blow up an abortion clinic; Moose, the FBI said, considers himself an Army of God member and an organizer of a terrorist cell for that group. According to the FBI, Moose described himself as a Christian equivalent of Osama bin Laden on his Facebook page but openly advocated violence against Muslims; he also praised Timothy McVeigh (mastermind of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing of 1995, which killed 168 people and injured 450 others).

The FBI said that Moose wrote on his Facebook page: If a mosque is built on Ground Zero, it will be removed Oklahoma City style. Tims not the only man out there that knows how to do it....I have learned a lot from the Muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics. Moose, according to the FBI, met with an FBI informant and offered advice on how to make TATP, the explosive used in the London subway bombings of 2005. Earlier this year, Moose was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The Army of Gods Web site has, in the past, been managed by the Rev. Donald Spitz, who is so extreme that even the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue disowned him for promoting violence. The Virginia-based Spitz has publicly argued that killing abortion doctors is justifiable homicide, and Spitz has published the writings of Paul Jennings Hill, Eric Rudolph, Shelley Shannon and other Christian terrorists on the Army of Gods Web site. Spitz, who considered himself Hills spiritual adviser during the final months of Hills life, heads his own Christianist group, Pro-Life Virginia, and has said that Muslims should not be allowed to live in the United States.

In the U.S., the far-right militia movement has often been secular in nature; Timothy McVeigh, for example, was raised Catholic but described himself as an agnostic. But occasionally, the militia movement and radical Christianity have overlapped. A perfect example is the Hutaree Militia, a Michigan-based group with extreme Christianist views. In 2010, nine members of Hutaree were arrested for an alleged plot to assassinate police officers using firearms and explosives; allegedly, Hutaree saw that plot as part of a battle with forces of the "Antichrist."

Christian reconstructionism is one of the most disturbing schools of radical Christianist ideology. Founded by the late Calvinist theologian Rousas John Rushdoony (who died in 2001), the Christian reconstructionist movement believes in abolishing any separation of church and state and establishing a government that adheres to a rigid approach to Mosaic Old Testament law; adultery, homosexuality and blasphemy would be punishable by death under a Christian reconstructionist government.

Even on the Christian Right, Rushdoony (who was a defender of slavery and considered democracy incompatible with Christianity) is controversial. The type of government Christian reconstructionists long for would, in many respects, mirror the Taliban of radical Islam. Rushdoonys teachings have a following that includes his son, the Rev. Mark Rushdoony (who now heads the Chalcedon Foundation, the organization his father founded) and Gary North (who was R.J. Rushdoonys son-in-law and now heads his own Christian reconstructionist organization, the Institute for Christian Economics). According to David Holthouse (formerly of the Southern Poverty Law Center and now with Media Matters), Mark Rushdoony now leads a small army of true believers whose fundamentalism is so hardcore they make garden-variety right-wing evangelicals seem like Unitarians at a Peter, Paul and Mary sing-along.

North has written that under a Christian reconstructionist government, stoning should be the method of execution for gay men, adulterers and women who have had abortions. North has said that stoning (which is still practiced by radical Islamists in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other countries) is preferable to other methods of execution because it is more economical; he has also said that a stoning can be a community event for Christian families.

Of course, not everyone on the Christian Right is guilty of committing or promoting violence. But even without actual violence, Christianists often resort to bully tactics and violent rhetoric. After the January 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona thatkilled six people andleft Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seriously wounded, Fred Phelps praised the shooter and said that he was doing Gods work. Phelps, who ran for political office several times as a Democrat in the 1990s, said, Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby killing, was shot for that mischiefWestboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters...and more dead.

Journalist Chris Hedges has often said that actual violence is preceded by the "language of violence, and the language of violence is quite common among Christianists.In 2007, when Hindu minister Rajan Zed was asked to deliver an opening prayer for the Senate, Christianist groups like the American Family Association, Operation Rescue/Operation Save America and Faith2Action angrily protested and made it clear that they had no use for Hinduism. And Repent Amarillo isn't shy about trying to bully its victims into accepting the group's extremist view of Christianity. Certainly, the language and rhetoric of violence is a part of Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a video game that deals with holy war in the name of Christianity and is part of the Rev. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins apocalypse-obsessed Left Behind series. Author Frank Schaeffer, who used to be part of the Christian Right but has since renounced it, has said that the Left Behind novels and games represents everything that is most deranged about religion.

But despite all the extremist views, hate-mongering and terrorist violence associated with Christianists, radical Christianity typically gets a pass from Republican politicians and the Republican talk radio hosts who support them. When, in 2009, Janet Napolitano warned of the threat of violence coming from the far right (including anti-abortion extremists), she was called anti-Christian by many people on the Christian Right. But when Rep. Peter King of New York called for Congressional hearings on radical Islamic activity in the U.S., he was applauded by neocons and many of his fellow Republicans.

Far-right talk show hosts have spent a considerable amount of time talking about radical Islam, but they seldom, if ever, have anything to say about radical Christianity. They have no problem with a group like Repent Amarillo, which hasn't actually resorted to physical violence even though it has employed an abundance of violent, militaristic imagery. Its safe to say that if an Islamist group held a mock execution of Santa Claus and harassed people at work, it wouldnt be taken lightly in GOP circles. And if an Islamist group released a video game as twisted as Left Behind: Eternal Forces, it wouldnt get a pass from Republican talk radio.

One person who has been outspoken about the Republican/far-right double standard when it comes to radical Christianity vs. radical Islam is Rob Boston, senior policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and author of three books on the Christian Right. From where Im sitting, the main organizations that are trying to impose religion on other people in this country are fundamentalist Christian in nature, Boston said:

I cant remember the last time, for example, that a Muslim group tried to get Islamic doctrine posted in a courthouse or attempted to ban same-sex marriage by pointing to passages in the Koran, or tried to force Islamic prayers in the public schools. But fundamentalist Christian groups do these things all the time. So if anybody is trying to impose religion on Americans, its not Muslims; its extreme fundamentalist Christian groups.

Boston added that just as it is wrong for atheists to make broad generalizations about people of faith, it is equally wrong to automatically associate terrorism and extremism with Islam:

Christian groups will complain if they are painted with too broad a brushand rightly so. Christianity in America is diverse. There are Christian groups that are theologically very moderate, and there are Christian groups that are very, very conservative. Not everyone who is a Christian in America is a fundamentalist or an evangelical. We always have to remember that there is a lot of diversity out there. Yet, the same conservative Christian groups that complain about being caricatured will do the same thing to Islam; they portray the one billion Muslims in the world as if they are exactly the same. But anybody who has spent any time talking to Muslims quickly learns that there is just as much diversity in that community as there is in the Christian community about how holy books are to be interpreted and how society is to be ordered.

Boston continued:

I just find the whole thing ironic because if you look at the agenda of the Islamic extremists, their agenda is anti-womens rights and anti-gay rights, and its about religion controlling the government. Well, what other movement do you know of that believes in those things? The Christian Right. Culturally, those movements are very similar. And theres a reason for that. Its not religion thats the problem; its fundamentalism thats the problem. I always remind people of that when Im giving speeches. Sometimes, I run across people who think that religion in general is bad and that religion is why we have all these problems. And I tell them, well, religion can persuade people to do a lot of good things in the world. Its not religion thats the problemits fundamentalism."

Some people have described Timothy McVeigh as the ultimate Christian terrorist. This is inaccurate, because whileMcVeigh was raised Catholic, heappeared to be motivated by extreme anti-government/militia beliefs rather than religious motives. But there is no doubt that McVeigh was responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil prior to 9/11.

American Muslim activist Haroon Moghul, who serves as executive director of the Maydan Institute and frequently lectures on Islam, said he sees a major disparity between the way radical Christianity and radical Islam are covered by the right-wing media.I think the biggest difference in the way Islam and Christianity are covered by the right is that when it comes to Islam, the assumption has been that Islam is inherently violent or inherently political and that Islam has to prove otherwise, the New York City-based Moghul said.

When it comes to radical forms of Christianity or more extreme forms of Christianity, its always seen as an aberration by the right. But any sort of Muslim behavior that is violent or extreme or intolerant is assumed to be inherent to Islam. So the burden of proof is on a Muslim community or a Muslim individual to prove otherwise. If Osama bin Laden said something, it was assumed that it was inherent to Islam. If its Hutaree or something like that, its assumed that it is just a lone wolf or a fringe groupand its disconnected from the rest of whats happening in America. Hutaree isnt assumed to be the product of something bigger than themselves.

Moghul views the Christianity good/Islam bad narrative of the far right as symptomatic of the soundbite culture that exists in America. There really isnt room for a lot of different opinions in our political discourse in the United States, Moghul said. Whether the two-party system makes that better or worse, I dont really know. But you generally see that nuance disappears in our political discourse.

Another voice of sanity on the subject of Islam and Christianity is journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr., author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood and a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald. In his columns, Pitts has had a lot to say about the way some people on the far right will try to paint Islam in general as a violent religion (as opposed to making a distinction between radical and non-radical Islam). And they get away with that double standard, according to Pitts, because it is easier to attack what is a minority religion in the U.S.

Christianity is a known element in the United States, whereas Islam is a foreign faith, Pitts explained. He continued:

Most people of faith in the United States are Christian. Most Americans know a lot of Christians but dont know any Muslims. So its easy to look at the craziest, most dangerous Muslims and assume that they are representative of Islam as a whole. Christians in the United States will look at the Army of God and say, That has no relation to any Christianity I have ever known. That has absolutely nothing to do with any Christianity I have ever known, but moderate Muslims will say the same thing about Muslims who commit acts of violence.

In one of his columns, Pitts pointed to four scriptural quotes that could be construed as violentone from the Quran, three from the Bible. His point was that cherry-picking parts of the Quran in order to prove that Islam is an inherently violent or dangerous religion is as intellectually dishonest as cherry-picking parts of the Bible in order to depict Christianity as inherently violent.

The far right, according to Pitts, often neglects to mention the fact that Muslims themselves have been the victims of Muslim extremists, including the Muslims killed on 9/11. People forget that a lot of Muslims died that day, Pitts said. Youre not going to attack Lower Manhattan that way and not kill Muslim people. Headded: I don't fear Muslims, I dont fear Christians. But I fear Muslim and Christian extremists. I fear extremists period.

If stoning proponent Gary North is mentioned at all in the Republican media, he is painted as a harmless eccentric and not part of a radical Christianist movement. But if someone in a mosque in Detroit or Oakland promoted stoning, talk-radio Republicans would be screaming about it for days.

The bottom line is that extremism in the name of religion is cause for concern regardless of whether the extremists identify themselves as Christian or Muslim. Those who claim that Christian extremism is any less dangerous than Islamic extremism are being disingenuous.

When people embrace any kind of extreme ideology, whether its religious or secular, and can tolerate no dissent, Boston said, were in for trouble."

Alex Henderson's work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, and other publications.

Women Who Like to Be Dominated in Bed: Talking to BDSM Submissives

Submissive kinky women are far from the shrinking violets that BDSM's critics have characterized them as being. Often they're women who know exactly what they want.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, October 27, 2010

BDSM has come a long way in the last 20 years. A subculture that was once very underground has been infiltrating mainstream American pop culture in a major way since the early 1990s; pop stars like Christina Aguilera, Nine Inch Nails, Madonna and Joan Jett have employed BDSM imagery, and kinky references have popped up in mainstream television programs ranging from Frasier to The Young and the Restless.

Most college-age adults of the 1960s and '70s had no idea what a dominatrix was; now, its hard to find a college student who doesnt know what a dominatrix is. But as ubiquitous as BDSM has become, there is one area of BDSM that continues to be widely misunderstood: female submission. From the anti-porn school of radical feminism exemplified by Catherine MacKinnon and the late Andrea Dworkin to Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Phyllis Schlafly on the religious right, BDSMs opponents have often denounced female submission as misogyny taken to the extreme. Even people who are relatively BDSM-friendly may have some wrong ideas about women who volunteer to be tied up and spanked.

But the reality is that submissive kinky women are far from the shrinking violets that BDSMs critics have characterized them as being, and in many cases, they are women who know exactly what they want in a relationship.

Outside of the BDSM scene, there are many misconceptions about submissive women. Non-kinky individuals might assume that submissive women are passive, indecisive or weak individuals who lack ambitionin other words, the anti-feminists. But spend some time around the BDSM community, and one encounters plenty of submissive women who describe themselves as card-carrying feminists. A female submissive might be a corporate lawyer or an emergency room physician, or she might be signing a major book deal. The fact that she is voluntarily submissive in the dungeon doesnt mean that she is submissive outside of the dungeon.

One card-carrying feminist who is deeply involved in the BDSM community is New York City-based Susan Wright, founder/president of a sexual rights organization called the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF). Wright, who founded NCSF in 1997, is also a widely published science fiction author and a long-time member of the National Organization for Women (NOW). It was Wright who successfully petitioned NOW to drop its anti-BDSM positionand thanks to Wright, NOWs official position against BDSM became a thing of the past.

The common misconceptions about submissive women are that what they are doing is not consensual, that they have been coerced, or that they are doing something that they really dont want to do, Wright explained. Thats a misconception because submissive women know exactly what kinds of partners they want and what they want to do and how they want to play. Submissive women have a fantasy. I think that everybody who is into BDSM has some type of fantasy that they want to fulfill, and that includes submissive women.

Wright continued: Being submissive is very compatible with feminism because it is choosing your own form of sexual expression. In the end, sexuality is empoweringand you can empower people in all the diverse ways that they enjoy sexuality. Power exchanges are one of those ways. Thats certainly why I did the SM policy project for the National Organization for Women. Ive been a NOW member since I was 16, and when I found out that NOW had an anti-sadomasochism stance, I couldnt understand why. I didnt believe that feminism and BDSM were at all incompatible.

Another self-described feminist who is quite active in the BDSM community is California-based Mollena Williams, who has written and lectured about female submission extensively. Williams stressed that there is absolutely no contradiction between the fact that she is openly submissive and the fact that she describes herself as a feminist. She emphasized that being submissive in a BDSM relationship doesnt mean a woman is going to be submissive in all areas of her life.

The fact is that in day-to-day life, you cant walk around being submissive to everyone, Williams asserted. You have to make decisions. You cant be submissive to the person in front of you on the freeway who is driving at 40 miles an hour; you have to make a decision and go around them. So the idea that your submission bleeds into the rest of your life in a way that cripples you is patently untrue. People outside of kink assume that thats how submissive women live our lives, but it isnt.

Williams said that although BDSM is much more visible in mainstream pop culture than it was 30 or 40 years ago, female submission can still be a controversial subjectwhich is why, she said, a soap opera or sitcom that depicts BDSM in a lighthearted way is more likely to depict a woman as dominant rather than submissive. Some people have a reaction to BDSM based on the gender involved, Williams noted. Seeing a submissive man doesnt bother them, but seeing a submissive woman does. The idea of a dominatrix is kind of hot and sexy to them, but seeing a submissive female makes them uncomfortable. If you see a man crawling across the floor to a woman and licking her high-heel boots, its like, Ooo, thats a bit naughty. But if you get a movie like 9 Weeks where the female is the submissive, people have a harder time digesting that.

Because female submission is still widely misunderstood, Williams said, one of her goals has been to help women realize that if they have submission fantasies, there is nothing wrong with that.

Rachel Kramer Bussel has also been doing her part to promote understanding of female submission. Bussel, a widely published sex writer and editor of two books on the subject of female submission has had much to say about her own experiences as a submissive. She said that being submissive is actually a feminist act because a submissive woman and her dominant partners spend a lot of time discussing what does and doesnt turn her on. Bussel said a dominant/submissive relationship may have more of a feminist component than a vanilla relationship because the womans likes and dislikes are discussed in such great detail.

Theres no reason why a womans feminist thoughts or credentials or beliefs should be somehow demoted because shes sexually submissive, Bussel said. If you are a feminist and you tap into that as a submissive, it can be empoweringmaybe not in a political way, but in a personal way. Being submissive can be less about kink and more about finding what turns you onand that discovery process can be empowering. Theres a stereotype that being in a dominant/submissive relationship means that the submissive isnt figuring out what she wants, but I think that negotiating the terms of the relationship and mutually figuring out what both of you want can be an empowering experience. The process of figuring out what your boundaries arewhether its by trial and error or fantasiescan be a confidence-building experience. Its the opposite of passive, I would say.

Indeed, a considerable amount of negotiation inevitably occurs in BDSM relationships. The very fact that a submissive is agreeing to be restrained gives the top a considerable amount of responsibility; thus, dominant males who act responsibly go to great lengths to ascertain what a submissive woman does or doesnt enjoy. A submissive woman, for example, might tell her dom that her fantasies involve being bound, gagged and spanked but not whippedin which case, she wont be whipped. A submissive woman might want a lot of bondage but no pain; or, on the other hand, whipping might be a big part of her fantasies. Different submissive women have different fantasies, and Bussel said that dominant men who spend a lot of time hearing intricate, detailed descriptions of a womans needs and desires may become better listeners than vanilla men.

In kinky relationships, Bussel explained, there is always going to be some degree of negotiation. There is always going to be some degree of trying to figure out what the other person likes and doesnt likeand I think that doesnt always happen in non-kinky relationships. That process of negotiating is healthy for both parties in a relationship, but there isnt always enough negotiating in non-kinky relationships. I can definitely say that the men that Ive submitted to are very respectful and are men I would consider feminists. The dominant men Ive been submissive with have been very respectful of my career and very supportive of me; theyre good guys, for lack of a better word.

Bussel added: Its a huge mistake to assume that submissive women are weak or that men who want to dominate women in the bedroom are sexist pigs. For scenes to work, you have to let go, to some extent, of that organized, take-charge persona. You have to let go of that take-charge aspect of your personality in order for the submissive fantasy to work. But that doesnt mean that women who are submissive in a relationship or submissive in a fantasy are submissive in all aspects of our lives. Theres a big difference between structural sexism and negotiating power with someone you trust in the bedroom. Giving up power, within boundaries, for X amount of time is not societal sexism. I think that one thing some non-kinky people miss is that a submissive woman isnt giving up power in her daily life.

Many BDSM-related articles have tried to shed some light on what submissive males are like both inside and outside of the dungeonand those men have often been characterized as busy, overworked white-collar professionals who use submission as a way to unwind and escape. When the accountant or IT professional is hogtied, ballgagged and locked in a cage (either by a professional dominatrix or his dominant girlfriend or boyfriend), he is temporarily liberated from all the decision-making and responsibility he faces in his professional life. And similarly, there are submissive women who have so much responsibility working as doctors or attorneys that they need a place in their lives where they can let someone else take charge for once. But Wright said that while some submissive females do fit the profile of the overworked, stressed-out MBA, others could be anything.

You can find all kinds of women who are submissive, Wright noted. You can find the entrepreneurial corporate leaders, and you can find women who want to be stay-at-home housewives. There are so many different kinds of women choosing to be submissive just as there are so many different kinds of women who are heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual. And this is a choice that were making. It isnt a consequence of male domination in the past or a consequence of a patriarchal society.

BDSM has a sizable vocabulary, and three of the most widely used BDSM terms are top, bottom and switch. Male and female dominants are known as tops, while male and female submissives (or subs for short) are called bottoms. And a switch is a man or woman who can be either a top or a bottom. There are BDSM women who only want to be dominant or only want to be submissive, but there are also female switches who enjoy being the whip-cracking dominatrix as much as they enjoy being the one getting whipped.

At least one-third of the people in BDSM switch, Wright observed. There are a lot of people out there who want to be a top one night and want to be a bottom another night. Switches might want to be in control some nights but other nights, being submissive is more comforting for them.

Switching, in fact, even found its way to what is widely regarded as the ultimate tale of female submission: The Story of O (LHistoire dO), an erotic novel by the late French author Anne Desclos, a.k.a. Pauline Rage or Dominique Aury, and first published in 1954. Twenty-one years later in 1975, French director Just Jaeckin made a film adaptation starring Corinne Clery as the submissive O and Udo Kier as her dominant lover Ren. Voluntarily obeying Rens commands, O agrees to be sexually submissive to other menfirst to the men at a kinky chateau called Roissy, then to Rens stepbrother Sir Stephen (played by the late Anthony Steel). O ends up falling in love with the very dominant Sir Stephen, who isn't shy about chaining her up and whipping her. But at the very end of the film, O appears to be switchingand the viewer is led to believe that O is finding her inner dominatrix and getting ready to put Sir Stephen on the receiving end of the whip.

Its safe to say that some of the worlds least homophobic straight men can be found in the BDSM community, where leathermen (kinky gay men known for their leather attire) have long been iconic figures. The Leather Man, a West Village BDSM shop that has been open in New York City since 1965, serves a predominantly gay clientele but has also had its share of loyal heterosexual customers over the years. Leathermen also have a lot of kinky lesbian admirers. That said, BDSM isnt without lesbian criticsand Williams said while female submission can be controversial among heterosexuals, it can be even more controversial in the lesbian community.

I can say that in the gay womens community, submission is an even more difficult choice because you have very radical feminism and you have very big riffs, Williams explained. Leathersex and BDSM cause big riffs in the gay womens community or queer womens community because you have very radical feminists who say, Not only are you betraying your feminism, but you are also mimicking a male-dominated society. You are mimicking male patterns of abuse. But that type of thinking really frustrates me. My response is, Feminism is giving me the right to choose what is right for me, not giving you the right to choose what you think is right for me.

And in Williams view, most vanilla couples (both gay and straight) have some type of dominant/submissive element to their relationship regardless of what they know or dont know about BDSM. OK, lets say that I walk a couple into a dungeon, Williams said. Heres the whip, heres the spanking bench. Who would be running the scene? Who would be the top? And 99 percent of the time, they know who has the upper hand in their relationship. Most relationships are like that. They might say, Oh, we dont do power in that way, but its still the same result. There is still a top and a bottom in that relationship even if they dont consider themselves kinky. They havent necessarily negotiated that level of awareness, but they got to it somehow in their relationship. I think we have a shortcut in BDSM in that were like, OK, thats what you want. How can we work that out?

Williams added that in everyday life outside the dungeon, even the most dominant dungeonmaster has his submissive moments; he submits to a traffic light that has turned red, or he submits to a line at the grocery store. I think that cognitively, were all kind of switches anyway, Williams observed. There are times in your life when youre going to be submissive; there are times in your life when youre doing to be dominant.

And as Sir Stephen learned, even O eventually found her inner dominatrix.

Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in Billboard, The L.A. Weekly, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other publications.

Rise of the Dominatrix: How to Make $300 an Hour Doing Sex Work ... Without Having Sex

For some women who become pro-dommes, working in a dungeon can be one way to cope with a brutal economy.

By Alex Henderson
AlterNet, December 26, 2011

Professional dominatrices (dominant women who submissive men hire for consensual sadomasochism) are not a recent addition to the workforce; before her death in 1836, a London-based dominatrix named Theresa Berkley operated an early 19th century equivalent of what would be called a BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism and masochism) dungeon today. Submissive men went to Berkleys establishment to be chained up, whipped, birched and caned, and she enjoyed a loyal clientele. But in Berkleys day, professional domination was very underground; for that matter, it was very underground as recently as the 1970s and 1980s. But with BDSM having become increasingly visible (at least a more softcore version of BDSM), professional domination has become increasingly plentiful. And in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, more and more women have (according to well-known professional dominatrices like Mistress Nina Payne in New York City and Mistress Bella Vendetta in Massachusetts) been looking to professional domination as a possible source of income.The 1990s were a major turning point for BDSM, which invaded mainstream pop culture in a big way during that decade. Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, Joan Jett and other musical stars brought sadomasochistic imagery to their audiences, and Hollywood films like 1994s Exit to Eden (starring Dana Delaney and Rosie ODonnell) depicted sadomasochists as a combination of sexy, humorous, fun and edgy. References to BDSM have even found their way to mainstream television programs ranging from the sitcom Frasier to the long-running daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless. Before the 1990s, vanilla porn films (that is, porn films that arent sadomasochistic in nature) avoided depictions of even light BDSM; now, it isnt unusual for vanilla porn to include scenes that involve mild spanking or light bondage. Clearly, the depictions of BDSM one found in Exit to Eden, sitcoms, daytime soaps and San Fernando Valley porn films during the 1990s were depictions of softcore BDSM rather than extreme BDSM, but even so, they made pop culture kinkier than it had been in the past. And as BDSM became more visible and more talked about, professional domination became less controversial.

With the public awareness of BDSM having increased considerably , struggling actresses and struggling singer/songwriters realized that there was more money to be made working in dungeons than waiting tables or working at Starbucksand during the economic crisis of 2008-2011, people in the creative arts arent the only ones who are struggling. There is no shortage of unemployed women with advanced business degrees from major universities; these days, having an MBA doesnt necessarily mean that one wont end up working in a dollar store. And for some women who become pro-dommes, working in a dungeon can be one way to cope with a brutal economy.In the BDSM world, some pro-dommes work on a full-time basis and dont have any type of job outside of professional domination. But pro-dommes arent necessarily full-time pro-dommes; many pro-dommes approach professional domination as part-time work or temp work. And in a terrible economy, the thought of making $200 or $300 an hour (which is what some experienced pro-dommes are still making) is certainly appealing to a woman who is struggling financially. But women who are experienced in the BDSM scene are quick to point out that professional domination is much more challenging than some novices might think it is.There are always a lot of young girls wanting to get into stripping or pro-domming or some other kind of sex work, and they think its going to be a lot of easy money, explained Massachusetts-based Bella Vendetta, who has been a professional dominatrix for 11 years and has done fetish modeling for BurningAngel.com, Wasteland.com and other well-known adult websites. But that is definitely not the case. Its a lot of hard work. There is certainly money to be madecertainly more than working at the grocery store or some other minimum-wage job. But pro-domming is not easy money, and there are tons of competition.Susan Wright, president/founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (a BDSM rights organization), said that the majority of women who get into professional domination do so on a part-time or freelance basisand she has found that many college students and single mothers like professional domination because of the flexible hours.A lot of women who go into pro-domination are looking for something to help bridge the gap, Wright observed. There are some women who go into pro-domination services and really feel a calling for it; its something they intend to make their long-term career. But I think the percentage of women who feel that way is smaller than the percentage of women who are looking for something to help bridge the gap. I think there is a larger percentage of women who are looking at it as something to do part-time or something to do until their career gets started. You find a lot of students doing it, and women in the arts are drawn to pro-domination services because they can do that part-time and still have time to devote to their art. Its something they can do to make money without having to work a 40-hour week, and its also good for single mothers for that reason; they can spend more time with the kids.

Wright added that women who get into professional domination also like the fact that they wont be having vaginal intercourse with clients (unlike prostitution) and wont be asked to take their clothes off (unlike stripping). Being a pro-domme typically involves restraining and torturing naked men, but the dominatrix, unlike the submissive, keeps her clothes on during sessions.

Being a pro-domme is not prostitution and is not stripping, Wright said. Its more a mixture of performance art and sexual stimulation. And a pro-domme is in a position of power, which is very different from being a stripper or an escort. That puts being a pro-domme in a very different category of sex work.New York City-based dominatrix/fetish model/BDSM educator Nina Payne, a.k.a. Kimi Inch, has been training pro-dommes since 2005and Payne, who heads her own company Domi Dollz, estimated that perhaps about 20% of the women she trains are planning to pursue professional domination as a full-time career. I would say that about 80% of the women who come to see me start off as just kind of curious, Payne noted. They heard that you can make good money doing this, they heard that it doesnt involve sex or prostitution or whatever, and they feel that it is something they could be open to. All kinds of women have come to me; Ive had pre-med students, Ive had women that were in law school, Ive had women that were dancers or actresses. Its all types. I meet women who are 18 years old and just graduated from high school, and I have women who are 40 years old or 50 years old and have steady careers but are interested in pursuing it as a side joband not necessarily just to make money, but also, for the excitement of it. But overall, I would say it is younger women who are in college or are right out of college and are trying to find that first job. Theyre hoping to make some extra money and maybe learn some things about their sexuality.In the past, many people in the adult entertainment industry (which includes everything from Internet porn to BDSM-related activities to stripping to phone sex) claimed that adult entertainment was recession-proof or at least recession-resistant. But BDSM, like other areas of erotic entertainment, has been feeling the economic pinchand Wright said that the economic downturn has been making professional domination both more competitive and more crowded. I think its a double-edged sword, Wright explained. When the economy is tough and people are looking around for part-time jobs or alternate careers, I think you will have more women becoming pro-dommes and seeing it as a way to make a lot of money very fastparticularly if theyre trying to go to school. But the other side of that is that in a bad economy, there is less spending moneywhich means there is less demand for pro-domination services.Payne, in fact, has observed that while the number of women who want to get into professional domination is greater than ever, fewer submissive men are booking sessions. And Vendetta explained: People keep saying that during an economic collapse, sex work is the one recession-proof thingand I have seen that to not be true in the last few years... Its harder to make a buck now doing pro-domme work.Vendetta pointed out that for novices, professional domination can have a high overhead. The BDSM equipment necessary to create ones own dungeon, she said, can cost thousands of dollarsand that is in addition to the expensive leather, latex or rubber fetish attire that pro-dommes wear during sessions. A dominatrix who uses someone elses dungeon, Vendetta noted, typically gives a percentage of her tribute to the owners of the dungeon she is using.The term gig economy has been used to describe a world in which more and more people are self-employed freelancers who work on a project-by-project/independent contractor basis instead of having full-time jobs. Most pro-dommes are very much a part of that gig economy, which means that if they live in the United States, they are likely to do a Schedule C on their tax returns and are probably buying their own health insurance. Pro-dommes can write off a lot of kinky purchases; handcuffs, whips, paddles, ballgags, blindfolds, leather masks, nipple clamps, butt plugs and other items are legitimate tax deductions if used in the line of work.A self-employed pro-domme who does enough sessions might create a nice income stream for herself, but Payne noted that if a pro-domme is only doing sessions sporadically, it isnt going to add up to a great deal of income. There are a lot of ladies out there looking for (pro-domination) work, Payne said, and I think they kind of get allured by the hope that, Oh, wow, I can make so much money in one hour. But what they dont realize is that while you can get a large tribute for the hour, how many hours a week do you end up working? Its totally a crapshoot. The fact that you could potentially make $250 an hour doesnt mean much if you dont have any bookings for the next three weeks.

Payne added: I do know that when I speak to (pro-dommes) and ask them how busy they are, they say that there has been a drop in businessand they arent as busy as they usually are or as busy as they would like to be.One thing that experienced pro-dommes often complain about these days is the abundance of women who get into professional domination despite having a limited knowledge of BDSM. There are a lot of amateurs out there, Payne commented. Its pretty horrendous.

Vendetta said that some dungeons are more selective than others when it comes to hiring new dommes. Some dungeons, she said, require really extensive training, while others have a less rigorous training process. There are plenty of dungeons around that will pull any girl off the street if she happens to be pretty, give her a ten-minute lesson and put a whip in her hand, Vendetta asserted, but La Domaine, the dungeon where I work, is not like that. It isnt cookie-cutter Barbie Doll Land over there. Its pretty intensive training.Vendetta added: I think that now, BDSM is almost too mainstream. People think that if they wear a leather corset and hold a whip, theyre a domme. They dont realize that its a whole lifestyle, a whole scene and a whole community of peopleand there are all kinds of things going on.

Indeed, there is quite a learning curve for women who become pro-dommes for the first timeat least if they want to do it well. Submissive men are not one-dimensional, and a skillful pro-domme realizes that five different clients will have five different sets of needs. One client might request a great deal of corporal activity (whipping, spanking, caning, paddling) and have a high tolerance for pain; another client might be into really hardcore bondage but with little or no interest in corporal. Some clients might enjoy a great deal of humiliation.The importance of BDSM safety is something that reputable dungeons stress to new pro-dommes; if one is going to play with a cat-o-nine tails and chain people up, it is important to know what is and isnt safe. And Wright said it is crucial that dungeons continue to offer informative training to new pro-dommes.When bondage isnt done correctly, Wright explained, you can cut off circulation. You can strain ligaments. One of the basics in BDSM is that you never leave someone alone when theyre in bondage, and women who are new to pro-domination learn that in the dungeon system. Thats why, at NCSF, we really do support the dungeons. When the dungeons in New York City were being raided and shut down, it was really a problem because we were losing the structure in which women are taught how to do BDSM safely. The most dangerous thing you can do is drive any type of BDSM education underground. We want our pro-dommes educated.The fact that some pro-dommes arent getting as much work as they were before the economic downturn isnt a reflection of BDSMs popularity but rather, a reflection of the fact that some of their clients have less money to spend; theyre tightening their belts not because they want to, but because they have to. BDSMs popularity, Wright said, is showing no signs of decreasingand Wright said that whether a new pro-domme hopes to make a full-time career of it or is only interested in being a freelancer, BDSM is well served by the dommes who receive the best training and education.

In BDSM, having the proper skills is important; thats why we have this entire network of educational groups, Wright stressed. You need to have skills in order to do BDSM in a safe way and in an interesting way. The more variety a dominatrix has in her repertoire, the more types of people she can satisfy. To be a really good pro-domme, you either have to have that real streak of being a dominant in you or you have to be a very good actress.

Alex Henderson's work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the Pasadena Weekly and many other publications.