Gender and Sex

Unethical Website of the Month: Piper Rochelle on TikTok

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Piper Rochelle is human civilization rot. The child star turned slut-for-bucks epitomizes how the social media age has curdled childhood, taste and ethics. It’s an ugly story, and one that I was blissfully unaware of until recently.

Piper, 18, has been performing for money since she started winning kiddie beauty pageants—a dubious “ick or ethics” activity itself—from about the age of three. Her mother began uploading clips of her prancing around to YouTube when Piper was 8. The mother, a stage mother from Hell (and hopefully destined to end up there) moved her budding meal-ticket to LA when the girl was 10, “homeschooling” her (it is anyone’s guess how much of the schooling involved actual education) while selling her daughter’s images online. Next, Mom began recruiting “the Squad”, a group of other preteen children to exploit with Piper as the leader. First they were filmed doing darling little girl things until they were transitioned to tween “crush content”: scripted reality show-style drama with episodes about infatuation, coming of age, teenage angst, first kisses and dating.

Piper Rockelle became the most famous online “kidfluencer.” Her tween and teen content was popular and lucrative on YouTube, and Piper built a fan base of millions of bored low-lifes and budding pedophiles on TikTok and Instagram. Then, in 2022, eleven members of the Squad sued Rockelle’s mother Tiffany Smith, and her boyfriend and business partner, Hunter Hill, alleging abuse and exploitation. TheirYouTube channel was demonetised, costing Piper and her mom hundreds of thousands in lost dollars every month.

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Now THIS Is An Unethical Judge!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross of the Northern District of Georgia had a habit of having noisy sex with a police commander in her chambers during office hours. This resulted in a “chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks,” a judicial panel concluded.

Gee, ya think?

Ross was nominated to the bench in the Northern District of Georgia in 2014 by President Obama. Of course she was. She’s a Democrat, she’s black, she’s arrogant, and she’s unqualified to be a judge. A special committee released damning findings of misconduct in a report two weeks ago. Ross was found to have lied about having sexual intercourse in her chambers—judges aren’t supposed to lie either—but inexplicably, the Eleventh Circuit and Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability decided sufficient punishment was to bar Ross from serving as a chief judge and require her to write apology letters to her clerks. Other than that, she only received a private reprimand. The disciplinary report signaled a whitewash by stating, “Although the special committee is deeply troubled by the conduct in which the judge engaged, the subject judge has demonstrated a strong propensity for rehabilitation and continued diligent service to the judiciary.” She lied to investigators! She was screwing around during work hours. That’s “diligent service to the judiciary”?

The lack of serious sanctions is indefensible. Ross shattered the following Canons in the Federal Judicial Code of Ethics:

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Ethics Quiz: “Ick!”or Ethics [Hello Fresh’s Anal Sex Ad]

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments

Nice.

I guess I had to post about that, though I wish I didn’t have to. I feel, and I always have felt, that being “proud” of how you have sex is like being proud of how often you have to visit the bathroom. It’s desperate and stupid, as well as gross.

That ad, and so much else our grovelling to the LGBTQ community has burdened society with, demonstrates how pernicious slippery slopes are. Because ancient taboos held that gay people should hide themselves in shame, some genius decided our society should declare that what one chooses to do with their naughty bits should swing to the other end of the spectrum and be a source of “pride.” No, it shouldn’t. In my experience, only mega-jerks boast about how and where they choose to have sex. I don’t care. It’s none of my business. If I’m interested, I’ll ask, and since I’m not and never will be, I won’t, so shut the hell up.

Hello Fresh has now exposed its marketing department as tasteless and pandering, like all those cowardly, pusillanimous companies that slobbered all over Black Lives Matter. I remember a late night D.C. horror movie TV host got himself fired for suddenly talking about smegma between reels of “The Brain From Planet Arous.” I thought his outburst was hilarious, but it didn’t belong on TV, and that was the end of “Gore DeVol.” This ad should be the end of Hello Fresh if there’s any justice in the world, and we know there isn’t.

I’m going to ask anyway, though I know my answer…

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is the Hello Fresh “Pride” ad alluding to anal sex just in terrible taste and icky, or is it unethical, as in wrong?

________________

Pointer: Willem Reese

Ethics Foul Call: The Jeffrey Epstein Obsession Is a Pure Trump Derangement Symptom and Another “Get Trump!” Hoax, Nothing Else

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

At this point, the statement above must be ruled not an opinion, but a fact. As a fact, it is another indictment against the political forces—“the resistance,” Democrats, the Left’s captive media, its politicized and corrupted justice system, and furious Republicans who resent the overthrow of their weak Bushy establishment—-that have plotted to destroy Donald Trump from the moment he upset Hillary Clinton’s dream of being the first female President.

The New York Times, hardly a neutral bystander in the Left’s unyielding effort to destroy an elected President by any means necessary, recently published a compendium of what their crack reporters have learned about Epstein, who has been dead for seven years. Sixteen years ago, in 2008, he was convicted of soliciting a minor for prostitution, and thanks to a “Dream Team” of high-priced defense lawyers and incompetent prosecutors, was allowed to accept a sweetheart plea deal. Epstein got himself indicted again in 2019 for sex trafficking minors but died in custody awaiting his trial, almost certainly by suicide. It is inconceivable that this single rich sociopath would still be in the news today or even remembered by most Americans if there was not an ongoing effort to use him to take down the President of the United States.

“More than 60 Times journalists have delved into the life of the sexual predator whose secrets spurred an international reckoning over money, power and complicity,” the Times announced in “The Big Questions About Jeffrey Epstein: What The Times Has Learned.” [Gift Link] “Oh!” I thought. “At least I know the Times will move heaven and earth to represent the matter in the most damning way possible regarding Donald Trump. Okay, let’s see it. Give us all the innuendo, the presumed Bad Orange Man criminal perversion sand guilt by association. What have you got, Times Trump Hit Squad? Lay it on me.”

Here is what they have under the “big question” “What were his relationships with Trump and Clinton?” First I should note that combining Trump with Clinton is a cheat and a guilt by association tactic all by itself. They are not equivalent cases. Clinton was involved with Epstein while Bubba was living in the White House and fooling around with a young female intern there. There is substantial circumstantial evidence raising legitimate questions about Clinton’s possible involvement in Epstein’s criminal sex procurement activities. The answer to that “big question” regarding Donald Trump however is, I conclude, zzzzzzzzzzzip.

The Times writes,

“Mr. Epstein was friends with Mr. Trump long before he became president, and he developed a relationship with Mr. Clinton during his time in the White House. Those relationships involved bonding with Trump over their pursuit of young women. The two men became good friends in the late 1980s, hanging out together at casinos, Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and other venues. A note and sexually suggestive drawing containing what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s signature was included in a 2003 book for Mr. Epstein’s birthday. Mr. Trump has denied writing the note. Some of Mr. Epstein’s victims, including [Epstein accuser] Giuffre, were recruited by Ms. Maxwell from Mr. Trump’s Florida club and residence, where Ms. Giuffre worked as a spa attendant. Mr. Trump said last year that he cut ties with Mr. Epstein in the early 2000s because he “stole” his female employees, although the relationship also deteriorated when the men fought over a piece of Florida real estate.”

Wait…that’s it? Based on that, Democrats, Graham Platner, Marjorie Taylor Greene and my Trump Deranged Facebook friends call the President of the United States a pedophile, allege a cover-up, and claim that everything Trump does, eventhe war on Iran, is an effort to “distract from the Epstein scandal”? What scandal? Two billionaires knowing each other isn’t a scandal because one of them breaks the law. Hanging out in casinos isn’t illegal or unethical. Rich guys pursuing young women isn’t a crime; heck, it is inevitable. I don’t know why Trump bothers to deny a doodle included in a birthday book: it proves nothing. And that’s all! That’s all the New York Times has after it has sent 60 reporters to get dirt on the President and seven years of searching.

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Ethics Dunce: Bride-To-Be Rochelle Mindrum

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

When social media over-sharing meets publicity obsession, the result is misbehavior like Rochelle Mindrum’s.

The 29-year-old was expecting her boyfriend Jak Keller to pop the question, and had even gone ring shopping with him. She specified that she wanted the proposal to be done “in nature.” When they took a trip to Georgia together, she figured it must be coming soon. Sure enough, after a hike, on the side of a cliff, Keller set up his phone to take a video. He took Mindrum’s hands in his, got down on one knee, and proposed. But when Mindrum looked down at the ring, she saw that her fiancé had chosen a blue diamond rather than the colorless diamond she’d picked out. And she blurted out her disappointment on camera: “It’s so blue!”

Rochelle accepted, then posted the video on Tik-Tok along with a note that she was disappointed with the color. “I was extremely surprised by the blue diamond,” she says now. “The box it was in was dark blue, so at first I thought it was a reflection of the box. Once it was on my finger though, I was able to see that the diamond was in fact blue.”

The Amityville House has some advice for Jak, her already hen-pecked fiancé:

Unbelievable! This guy tries his best to give his girlfriend the proposal she dreams of, and the thanks he gets is to have her complain about the color of the diamond on TikTok, where it went viral. Why? Because she’s an ungrateful ethics dunce, and viewers were horrified.

It gets worse! Since the video was getting so much attention, “People” magazine, which apparently has nothing better to write about, gave Rachel another platform to bitch from, and sure enough, she did. From the article “Woman Surprised When Boyfriend Got Down on One Knee and Proposed. The Type of Ring He Chose Left Her ‘Shocked’ (Exclusive)”:

“I thought the ring was gorgeous, however, I had always dreamed of my engagement ring being a colorless diamond, so it just didn’t fit my vision,” she explains. “It does not help that my birthstone is aquamarine, so I am used to receiving blue-hued stones.” “It turns out he was trying to get me a higher quality diamond and the website was a little confusing, so he thought the higher quality diamonds all threw off a little blue hue, as the pictures online were a very faint blue,” continues Mindrum. “He was scared to drop the ring, so he never took it out of the box. He only looked at in the box. So he was just as shocked as I was with how blue it was!”

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Confronting My Biases, #29: Absurd Fake Eyelashes

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

This is really a “two-fer,” as in “two-for-one.” Here’s the bonus bias:

I visited the gloomy medical office in which I get my monthly blood analysis—I think I’ve mentioned here that the only decoration in the waiting room is a photograph of gravestones. This time I learned that the sad, monosyllabic tech who had manned the office alone for years finally had hired an assistant, and it would be she who would be sticking a needle in that prominent vein in my right arm.

As I went into the blood-letting area, I greeted her, said hello, introduced myself, cheerfully said that I was looking forward to her expertise, and basically tried to be cordial and friendly to a new acquaintance. The youngish African American woman wouldn’t answer, smile, or look me in the face; she just grimly went about her business. She did it well, too: I barely felt the needle, which is more than I can say for her boss’s performance at least 50% of the time.

However, I resent the sullen freeze-out conduct from service providers, clerks and those in similar jobs, and maybe this is my bigoted imagination, but I seem to get this treatment from young black women more often than not. It is the result of poor training, poor manners, and a rotten attitude. My current house guest, who is much younger than I, says this is a Gen Z thing, “pretending to be autistic.” I don’t care what it is: it makes life and society less pleasant, and there is no excuse for it. In the past, there have been instances where I have forced the issue and confronted such jerks, but I sure wasn’t going to try that approach with a woman about to plunge a needle into me.

Now on to the main bias…

The rude tech also was wearing the longest, thickest, fakest looking false eyelashes I have ever seen in my life. I’ve been checking the web about this phenomenon: it’s apparently part of current “black culture,” so no white person is supposed to question it, because to do so is racist. Whatever. We are doing black women no favors by being afraid to point out that this werewolf look is unprofessional, unattractive, makes women of any race look like not just hookers, but cheap hookers, and is a career handicap.

True, a tech in a back office can dress up in a mushroom suit if she wants, but I wouldn’t hire any woman wearing those lashes for a job requiring her to represent me and my company, even if the woman had the charisma of Gladys Knight. My instant reaction to a woman in eyelashes that would make Bambi self-conscious is to assume that she is not too bright, has bad taste, is inclined to blindly follow fads, and therefore untrustworthy. My conclusions about establishments that hire such woman are also uncomplimentary.

Yes, it’s a bias, just like my bias against young black men a while back who wore their pants slightly above their knees. And, as in that ridiculous case, the bias is absolutely justified.

Unethical Trigger Warning Of The Month: Citizens Free Press

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

That’s one of Elon Musk’s biological sons (he has a lot of them) above, now a trans-female model—not there’s anything wrong with that— named Vivian Wilson. The Daily Mail has a very tabloid story (as in “Who the hell cares about this stuff?”) telling us that Vivian is featured as a model in the latest Savage x Fenty new Pride-themed collection. Be still, my beating heart!

You can read the story here, if your sock drawer is in order and you have no life, but my concern involves how the link to the story was presented by Citizen Free Press, the conservative news aggregator that took over that market from the Drudge Report when Matt went woke and NeverTrump a decade ago. Here’s how the site described the link:

Elon Musk biological son poses for female lingerie ad — Warning, photos are disturbing

I expected Vivian to be posed on disemboweled kittens or famine victims with that trigger warning. No, the photos that are supposed to be “disturbing” are shots like the one above. How much of a weenie cum snowflake would someone have to be to find that photo upsetting enough to mandate a trigger warning? It’s a standard issue fashion shot. Is it supposed to disturb us because its a model with a y chromosome? If that’s the point, then I view the warning as legitimizing transphobia. Even trans-themed photographs that cause my ethics alarms to go off—remember this one, of a Disney “fairy godmother”?—

shouldn’t be considered so trauma-producing that people need an advance warning lest they be struck blind or something.

The somewhat less obnoxious explanation for the “warning” is that it’s a clickbait trick by the site; you know, if it requires a warning, everyone will be curious and click on it. Well, that’s dishonest. As an ethicist, I find the gratuitous trigger warning, indeed trigger warnings in general, far more disturbing than a photo of a biological male doing a convincing female model impression. Good for her! Brava!

It is episodes like this that create needless erosion of respect for conservative values and sensibilities.

Unethical Quote of the Month, and More “Good Bigotry”: New Mexico’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“If women, Democratic women, just show up and vote, we’re good. We don’t need any of the men.”

….New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham

The Governor’s unethical and bigoted statement was made at the recent DNC Ruled and By-laws Committee meeting.

It isn’t only men who should be disgusted with Grisham’s statement, her vision and her attitude. Women of any partisan persuasion should as well. Hers is the feminist equivalent of Nikita Khrushchev’s infamous “We will bury you!” threat. “We have enough power that we don’t have to care what you think, want, believe in or need,” is her message to half the nation.

“Swinging Dick” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

In a case involving a spa for women that refused ​service to a transgender woman, Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke’s dissented from ‌the full court’s decision not to review the spa’s claims that a Washington state anti-discrimination law violated its constitutional rights. (You know, Washington state. It was discrimination not to allow a biological male who had decided he was now female to join and all-female spa and undress in a women’s locker room.) VanDyke’s dissent begins, “This is a case about swinging dicks.”

“You may think that swinging dicks shouldn’t appear in a judicial opinion,” the judge continued. “I hope we all can agree that it is far more ​jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa — some as young as 13 — to be visually assaulted by the real thing.”

Twenty-seven judges denounced VanDyke’s comments as “vulgar barroom talk” that could undermine public trust in the ⁠courts, including my old Georgetown Law Center classmate, Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown, who wrote separately that VanDyke’s “crass” language served only to distract from what she said was a routine case involving discrimination in public accommodations.

“It is certainly not a case involving ‘woke regulators’ and ‘complicit judges’ out ​to harm ‘women and young girls,'” she wrote.”Those assertions describe a case entirely different from the one presented to the panel.”

I hate to disagree with my distinguished classmate, especially since she’s judge and I’m just a…hell, I don’t know what I am. But the case was indeed about “swinging dicks.” Here’s the first paragraph of the decision:

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How Bonkers Is Woke America’s Obsession With Normalizing The Transgender Fad? This Bonkers:

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

How far gone does a fanatic have to be to have an event like this and not expect most people to conclude that the organizers are out of their minds? Menstrual equity? Free period underwear?

The event is scheduled for June 17 and supported by Boston Mayor Wu’s “Office of LGBTQ Advancement.” I am solely tempted to do a riff on this, but I’m going to resist. Mayor Wu, who is about as wokey as a human being can get, is really getting away with this somehow. Wow. Talk about pandering to a minority! This may be an all time record.