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As a blogger, you're eager to get your message out to the world. You've probably been inspired by other blogs' designs and have a vision of how you want your blog to look.
Then, you look at your post and realize it doesn't look at all like all those other popular blogs you've seen.
How in the world do people make their blog look good? Is it some kind of special design skill wizardry?
Thankfully, you don't need any experience to create a great-looking blog.
Table of Contents
WordPress themes change the look of your site
This is an awesome feature of WordPress, because you can make your site look great without having to hire a designer or programmer.
It's vital to pick a theme that will let you build your blog exactly how you want.
But how do you know what's the best theme for your site?
You browse other people's blogs and they all look great. Yet, no matter what you do, your blog just doesn't look "good".
Everyone else is able to make their site look great, so why can't you?
Every blogger has been in exactly the same situation when they started out, including us.
Is it actually that hard to make an excellent looking site? Are you at the mercy of whatever the default theme looks like? Thankfully, the answer to these questions is no!
Most of the frustration in getting your WordPress blog looking the way you want boils down to the theme you use.
Some themes are easy to work with, and some are nearly impossible.
All themes are not created equal. It's important to choose a theme that both looks good and is easy to use.
By easy I don't mean the theme is only aimed at beginning bloggers.
Experienced bloggers also want a theme that's easy to customize so they can focus on writing great content.
A good theme saves much time and frustration.
When we first started out, we would search endlessly for the perfect theme.
Then after spending $50+ dollars, we would spend weeks trying to make the theme look great like it did in the demo version.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before we figured out how to make a great looking site by picking the best WordPress theme with the right features.
In this article we're going to show you exactly what a WordPress theme is and how to pick the best one for your blog.
You'll learn what you should watch out for when buying a theme, and most importantly we'll share the exact themes we use on our sites.
We have extensive experience with all the themes we recommend.
We use these themes specifically because they are easy to use and we can do all the design changes we want ourselves.
Neither of us are designers so you don't have to have any special experience to be able to use these WordPress themes.
What is a WordPress Theme?
A WordPress theme is simply a template system installed on your blog that defines the appearance.
The theme controls things like color, menus, fonts, etc.
The neat thing about WordPress is that themes allow us to customize our site in an easy interface.
With the theme we can make changes to:
- Headers
- Sidebars
- Images
- Logo
- Author box
- Colors
And a whole lot more.
It's important to understand that not all WordPress themes are the same.
Themes are developed by people who write code, so each theme has a different framework around it.
Most themes allow you to make the big changes like adding your logo, changing colors, changing fonts, and more.
Beyond that, every theme has a different way of accomplishing this. This is what makes some themes easier to use than others.
For example, a good theme will allow you to edit what you want quickly. You shouldn't have to drill through different hidden menus to make changes.
A 'bad' theme can be clunky to use or at worst force you to write some actual code yourself.
This is the kind of thing we use themes to avoid in the first place!
Two important things we can tell you from our experience:
- Some themes look great but are very difficult to work with
- There is no perfect theme out there
Also, there's something way more important than a good looking theme…
Everyone wants their blog to look good and you should too.
However, the #1 thing that will determine your success as a blogger is your content.
New bloggers often focus on all the fancy bells and whistles to make their blog stand out. This looks good, but creates other problems.
The more visual elements and fancy features on your blog, the harder it is for people to just simply read your content and that's what they came for in the first place.
If you've read our other posts on blogging or gone through our blogging course, you know that content is the most important thing to a successful blog strategy.
You do want your blog to look good, but keep it simple. The most successful blogs that we run and know about have little 'visual clutter'.
Keep this in mind and remember, you want readers to have the best experience on your site and read the information they want without any distractions.
If you follow this guide, you will save countless hours trying to hunt down and work your way through various themes.
Just a quick rundown on what you need before working with a WordPress theme:
You need to register a domain name, sign up for web hosting and install WordPress.
If you've done all that, you can jump in and start customizing your blog.
If you're new to all of this don't worry, we have a free guide on how to start your blog you can read through.
Why Free WordPress Themes Aren't the Best Choice
When you first install WordPress, the default theme is automatically installed and applied. This is a free theme that comes with WordPress and it's very basic.
There are countless free themes you can install, but you really get what you pay for.
The limitations you'll run into with free themes are:
– Fewer customization options
– Fewer design choices
– Less or even sometimes no support from the theme creator
– Potential conflicts with any plug-ins you install
Any one of the above limitations can cost countless hours in lost productivity.
We started out with free WordPress themes, and they provided a basic site we could blog on. Free themes worked great until we tried to customize them.
We spent more time trying to fix errors or get support than we did actually writing blog posts.
As you can imagine, all this troubleshooting didn't result in any additional income.
Time is money. Looking back, we could have spent $50 for a good theme and saved days (ok, maybe weeks!) trying to design our blog. If we used that time to write more posts, we would have been that much further along.
We know many of you will be on a budget when you start off, and that's perfectly fine!
We only mention this about free themes so you know ahead of time.
There's nothing worse than installing a free theme and expecting you'll have all the customization options and features of a paid theme.
It won't hurt anything to use a free theme, so don't worry about that.
However, when you decide how you want your site to look, your best bet is to go with a premium theme.
We will give you a couple options for free themes that are great to get you started.
We're sure there are other good free themes out there, but it's so hit and miss you can save a lot of time using the themes we've tested.
One more thing to mention is that paid themes aren't all good either! They can have just as many, or potentially more headaches than some free themes.
Why is this? It usually has to do with how the theme is coded.
Every programmer who builds a WordPress theme uses their own development methods.
Sometimes these translate into great themes that are easy to use, but often the result in slow, clunky themes that are difficult to achieve the look you want.
The takeaway is this: Free themes aren't always bad and paid themes definitely aren't always good.
The 7 Best WordPress Themes for Beginners in 2020
1. Astra
Astra is our favorite wWordpress theme, and one we consistently recommend. They even have a great free version to get you started.
Astra has a number of things going for it.
They have an extensive library of starter sites that you can import with one click to make your blog look good with minimal work.
The starter sides also include templates for any other type of website you might want to build like an e-commerce store, a fashion magazine or a fitness studio among others.
Astra is easy to navigate and makes changing elements on your blog a quick and painless process.
In one area you can manage the layout of your website, header, blog, posts, colors, sidebar, and more.
It typically only takes a couple clicks to change the element you want.
This is great because you don't have to dig through lots of submenus or hidden areas of the theme to customize it.
The Astra theme is well coded and helps your blog load fast.
Why does that matter?
For one thing, your readers don't want to wait around forever for your website to load.
How many times have you sat there waiting for a website to load and just close the window out of frustration?
Site loading speed is also somewhat of a ranking factor Google uses to determine your site ranking in the search engine results.
There are other things that affect site loading speed, but those can all be fixed and optimized.
There isn't much you can do to speed up a poorly coded theme.
Astra also works great with page builders like Elementor.
Who the Astra blog theme is great for: Anyone from beginner to experience blogger who wants an easy to use, highly customizable, insatiable WordPress theme.
Who the Astra theme is not for: Astra is an incredibly capable theme without many downsides. Since there's a free version, anyone who blogs should try it.
Astra has a free version that is more than capable enough to get you started. Some features are limited so if you want full control over your site upgrade to Astro Pro for the extra customization options it offers.
2. Ocean WP
Ocean WP is an elegant and simple theme made specifically for bloggers or businesses that need a simple website.
We've used ocean WP on several sites, and the performance is great.
The Ocean WP WordPress theme is lightweight, which helps us create a quick loading blog.
Like other WordPress themes on this list, ocean, WP helps you build websites by importing demo sites in a single click. This is great if you just want to apply a template and be done with it.
The template selection in Ocean WP isn't quite as good as the Astra theme, but they seem to be adding new demos all the time.
Who Ocean WP is perfect for: Bloggers who want to get up and running fast with a simple and straightforward theme.
Who Ocean WP is not for: Bloggers who need full customization options. Ocean WP has have some, but they're limited in comparison to other themes in this list.
3. Neve
Neve is a powerful, clean, and easy to use theme from Themeisle.
They offer a free version and a paid version with more customization options.
Neve shares many of the same features as Heista, but the main difference is that Neve takes a mobile first approach.
This means Neve is built to look and function great on mobile devices.
Does this mean that any other themes are not well optimized for mobile? Definitely not.
However, it can be difficult to find themes that look good on both desktop and mobile without a lot of tinkering and tweaking.
Having your site optimized for mobile traffic is essential in this day and age, since most people browse the Internet through their smartphone or tablet.
The other themes we included in this article all work great on mobile devices.
Another great theme from Themeisle is Hestia – a sleek, modern looking blog theme that's worth checking out. It shares many of the same features as Neve.
Neve comes with 80+ ready to import starter sites in a variety of niches.
Who the Neve theme is perfect for: Bloggers who specifically need a theme that works great on mobile devices.
Who the Neve WordPress theme is not for: Bloggers who need more starter templates, or different customization options.
4. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is a no-frills WordPress theme that's lightweight and super fast loading.
Generate press is heavily focused on page speed and site loading time.
We previously mentioned speed is important for your readers' experience and helps with Google rankings.
GeneratePress is free, but it doesn't offer a lot in the way of customization options. The free version is perfectly fine if what you want is a simple site that showcases your content.
If you need some extra customization options, they do offer a premium version.
The premium version gives you greater customization over colors, typography, menus, and access to in portable demo sites.
Who the GeneratePress theme is perfect for: Anyone who wants a simple site that focuses on fast loading time and simplicity.
Who the GeneratePress theme is not for: Anyone who needs a lot in the way of customization options.
The premium version of GeneratePress doesn't offer the number of customization options you would find in the other themes listed here.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing – what really matters is the content on your site, and GeneratePress might be a perfect fit for you.
5. Divi
Divi is a popular theme created by Elegant Themes.
Divi has a unique page builder where you can customize not only your site's layout, but you can also build almost any kind of specialized page you want.
Divi uses a visual editor where you change elements on your site without needing to touch any code.
The builder allows you to create unique layouts that would be difficult if not impossible to do in other themes without a page builder plug-in like Elementor.
You can save custom templates to reuse in other parts of your site.
Divi is popular, but there are a few drawbacks to using it. They aren't deal breakers, just something to be aware of.
Divi can have issues with site speed and loading time compared to other themes in this article.
It's not that the performance is terrible, but with people's attention spans being so short today, you want a site to load as fast as humanly….err…computerly(?) possible.
The biggest drawback is what happens if you ever decide to move away from the Divi theme later on.
Divi has a unique page building system so if you switch to another theme down the road that theme won't be able to display the pages you've built using Divi.
In other words, pages built with Divi need Divi in order to be displayed properly.
There are some ways around this, but in the sake of transparency it can be a giant headache if you were to switch themes in the future.
Who Divi is for: Bloggers who want a full suite of customization options.
Who Divi isn't for: Bloggers who want a more straightforward theme framework, and value a fast loading blog.
6. Elementor
Elementor started out as a page builder, but you can also use it to build your entire site layout or theme.
Elementor is unique in this regard. Other page builders are focused on building single pages and not giving you control over your entire site's appearance.
Elementor isn't a theme in the traditional sense. You still need a theme installed to be able to use it, but almost any theme will do.
Elementor basically sits on top of that theme, which lets you change the look and feel of your theme all from Elementor's interface.
This might sound confusing if you're just starting out, but we promise it's easier than it sounds.
You can use Elementor as your theme, or alongside your favorite theme. We often use the Astra theme and Elementor combo.
The folks at Elementor have a free theme called 'Hello', which is meant to be a simple theme you customize with Elementor.
7. Hello
There is a slight learning curve with Elementor. It's easy to use, but it might take a few days to get up to speed since it's different from traditional themes.
Your time learning Elementor will be well spent. After learning how to use it, you'll be able to create any type of blog or website you want.
Elementor has a free version, but you'll want to get Elementor Pro for access to more widgets, templates, and elements.
There are also many third party plugins for Elementor that extend its library even more. You really can build almost anything you can imagine.
Another awesome feature of Elementor – you can create opt-in forms and even pop-up opt in forms for your site.
Usually you need a separate plugin to build opt-in forms or pop-up's. Elementor saves time and money here.
We're big fans of Elementor and have it installed on every site we have.
Who Elementor is for: Anyone who wants complete control over the look and feel of their blog, plus anyone who needs to build specific pages you can't achieve with a normal WordPress theme.
Who Elementor isn't for: Someone who isn't ready to do much customizing, and just needs a simple setup to get going.
Summary of Our Recommended WordPress Themes for Bloggers
What do we use?
Our all around choice is the Astra theme + Elementor page builder combo. You can install the free version of each, which might be all the customization you need at this point.
If you're about to scream 'I just want to write a blog post!' – give Generate Press a try. With the exception of Divi, you can switch between the themes listed here without any issue.
Bonus Tip – Find Out What Theme any WordPress Blog is Using
Have you seen blogs you like, but can't figure out which theme they're using?
Thankfully, a few free tools exist to help you find the WordPress theme a site is using.
These free blog theme detection tools function the same way, but sometimes one tool will give you results when another one doesn't.
- WP Theme Detector – Simply input the blog's URL and wait for the results.
- Scan WP – This free tool functions the same way where you input a URL and wait for the magic to happen.
- Isitwp – Another theme detector that also checks for plugins being used and even the hosting company.
What if those tools still can't find the theme? In that case, the theme is more likely to be custom meaning someone hired a designer to create their own theme. If you're still dying to know what the theme is, you'll have to dig into the site's code which isn't as tough as it sounds.
Step 1. Visit the blog's URL
Step 2. If you're on Chrome or Firefox – right click and select 'view page source' or even easier, just hit crtl + u on your keyboard.
Step 3. Search through the code/text until you see 'wp-content/themes/theme-name'. That should show what theme the blog is using. You could also use the keyboard shortcut 'ctrl+f' and search for 'themes'.
If you liked this post, please let us know in the comments below. Have you had a chance to try these themes? Which is your favorite so far?


text: The Value of Fort Wayne Healthy Living 11/21/2017Healthy living. How do you describe that? Do you live it? What are healthy living behaviors? Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc is all for healthy living. Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc sees chiropractic care as a healthy behavior! Fort Wayne chiropractic patients can believe their Fort Wayne chiropractor to be an escort to the healthy lifestyle behaviors that can not only assist them deal with exisiting spine pain issues but also avent future bouts of spine pain, neck pain, and back pain, and other health issues that are best avoided. HEALTHY BEHAVIORS What are some healthy behaviors? A good diet. Exercise. Non-smoking. Low/No alcohol intake. Those sound about right, do they not? A new study described that men who took advantage of more of these healthy choices had lower possibility of long lasting low back pain and women for neck pain. (1) Eating fruit and vegetables is another positive healthy behavior. This plus the other behaviors are shown to reduce the chance of having long term disturbing low back pain in women and even potentially improve the prognosis of low back pain relief. (2) Taking part in a community based musculoskeletal physiotherapy program improves the health-related quality of life for patients. (3) Utilizing a lumbar support orthosis increases postural control when standing on unstable ground. This may be especially welcomed by34 patients with non-specific low back pain as they are predisposed to be more unsteady. (4) Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc works with our Fort Wayne back pain patients on their balance and proprioception to help improve their steadiness. CHOICE OF CARE Choice of care for health care issues encourages more healthy behaviors. When patients are able to choose their provider for back pain or neck pain relief (in one study: physical therapy care), costs were less than if they sought care from their medical doctor first and were referred. Direct access makes a difference in costs and outcomes. (5) A study of women and their choices of providers for back pain relief reports that their familiarity with the doctor's treatment, social network endorsements, geographical proximity, and doctor's qualifications prompted their choice. (6) MAKE THE CHOICE TO CONTACT Cox Chiropractic Medicine Inc NOW Schedule your Fort Wayne chiropractic appointment today. It is your choice to find the way to a healthy life and pain relief when needed. « View All Featured Exercises"This information and website content is not intended to diagnose, guarantee results, or recommend specific treatment or activity. It is designed to educate and inform only. Please consult your physician for a thorough examination leading to a diagnosis and well-planned treatment strategy. See more details on the DISCLAIMER page. Content is reviewed by Dr. James M. Cox I."

subset: commoncrawl


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A Scottsdale-based investment firm purchased the 84,087 SF McDowell Mountain Marketplace for $14.125,000. Price per square foot was $167.98. The neighborhood retail center is located at the southwest corner of Thompson Peak Parkway and Bell Road.
The Bashas' grocery-anchored shopping center was built in 2002 and sits on 12.45 acres. The center also features a Chase Bank and several local area merchants and is in close proximity of the Loop 101 Freeway.
The center was purchased by YAM Management of Scottsdale. Pat Dempsey and Jan Fincham, Principals with Lee & Associates represented the seller.


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Multiple Sclerosis Centers of Excellence
Community Matters
Suzanne O'Connell -- Floyd County, Virginia
I served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. I am a member of our nation's vast military community. I was diagnosed with MS in 1983 and am also a member of the multiple sclerosis community. While I have always been blessed with the support of family and friends, following my diagnosis with MS, I quickly learned the importance of receiving support from people who understand where I've been, what I'm going through, and what might be around the corner. I am a member of an MS support group that has improved my life in ways that I never imagined.
I had my first encounter with MS while at boot camp in Florida. It was late August when the temperatures were at their highest and I found that the heat affected my body in unexpected ways. I had several illnesses, found myself falling out of the blue, and even broke my ankle one day. After a few years of service, I was honorably discharged because of my MS symptoms, although nobody knew it was MS at the time. Almost 10 years passed before I was diagnosed with MS, before I knew the cause of all the crazy things I was experiencing. I've met many people with MS who have had similar experiences; the years of not knowing why they felt so bad. I was not alone.
I've experienced just about every MS symptom there is, with fatigue, cognition, and balance being my most common symptoms. MS symptoms can be unpredictable, and I've learned to take each day as it comes, make adjustments, and move forward. One of my biggest struggles living with MS is that I don't think people can really understand the disease unless they've lived with it. I sometimes wonder how I can expect anyone to understand MS when I don't always understand it myself. Within my MS support group, I've met people of all ages and stages of MS who understand my struggles. I know that I'm not losing my mind because they are going through the same things as me.
I didn't start out as an advocate of meeting others with MS. Following my diagnosis with MS, I made a cocoon around myself to feel safe and comfortable. I found reasons not to do new things or push myself too hard. If there was an excuse, I could find it. In time, I learned that life on the couch wasn't really living. I forced myself to branch out, and while it was hard, really hard, I'm so glad I did. That one step out the door soon led me to meet amazing people and experience wonderful things.
I started out by attending the local MS support group, and in time was asked to lead the group. While I was reluctant, and a little scared, I said yes. I did marketing for a living before my retirement and decided I would use that talent to advertise the group. Our MS support group started small, but quickly expanded to over 300 members. As the group became larger and more organized, someone recommended starting a non-profit.
In January 2016, the MS Alliance of Virginia (MSAV), a totally volunteer organization, received its 501c3 non-profit status. I am the founder and current president of MSAV. The Board of Trustees is composed of people who have been affected by MS. Our organization provides programs, events, and opportunities for people living with MS in the southwest Virginia area. MSAV contributes to MS awareness in the community and educates, assists, and empowers people with MS, as well as their care partners, friends, and family.
The MSAV has helped start several new support groups in the area and created an outreach program to visit people who cannot come to meetings; providing information from the last group speaker or program. We have several current projects, including our Annual MS Patient Educational Conference, MS Coloring Parties, Strike Out MS Pool Tournament, Be Anything but MS Halloween Party, and Winter Holiday Gala to name a few. One of the MSAV projects dearest to my heart is Cinderella's Closet, an opportunity for people whose lives have been affected by MS to attend a ball with music and dancing, but only after they've visited the "closet" for a new outfit and some pampering. The ball is one magical night for people who rarely put looking pretty at the top of their list to feel better about themselves and life.
I find such joy in being around others who understand me and am so proud of all the projects I've been able to be a part of. I've found that the secret to living with MS is not just staying active, but getting out of your comfort zone and pushing yourself to do new things and meet new people. If there isn't an MS support group in your area, join the MS community through Facebook or an on-line organization dedicated to MS. Make the choice to make a positive change in your life and then make that change happen, no matter how hard or scary it might seem.


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Wholesale dropshippers are a retail method in which you don't hold products in share. Instead, you partner having a wholesale supplier that stocks its inventory – you transfer customer requests and shipment details for them, and they ship the goods directly to the consumer. The biggest benefit of drop shipping is you don't need to worry about fulfillment or inventory concerns. The best point about wholesale dropshippers are the assurance you earn big profits within short time frame. A lot of people are interested in doing drop shipping organization. Finding the suitable drop shipper that will help you achieve success in your business is easy.
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Your life is God's most valuable gift God to you. When we choose to believe in God, we are projected into an upward journey of eternal life. Throughout the journey, God gives us the keys to wisdom to live a more abundant life and as we implement these keys, our lives change for the better.
"Give & It Will Be Given"
God empowers us to be a source for others. The world may not operate by this principle but Got teaches us that when we give to others, we actually reap the reward.
"Do Unto Others"
God created us to be a channel of blessing for others. When we get around other people, they are blessed because God lives inside of us. This is a key to abundant life: we are blessed with the ability to do good, not evil to others.
"Be Quick to Listen"
The Bible encourages us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. This is a conscious decision on our part, a kernel of truth from scripture that can help us avoid many difficult situations. Being slow to anger is sometimes harder than it looks, but with the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to choose patience.
"Guard Your Heart"
Our hearts were designed to be a wellspring of life and God calls us to pay careful attention to guard it. We all need to question ourselves when we feel certain emotions, such as, 'Why am I aggravated?', or 'Why am I worried?'. God will teach us how to guard our hearts from these toxic feelings.
God's Word is full of truths and keys to wisdom to help us live our best life for Him. Only God knows what you're going through. Ask him to guide you through all of life's situations, using the keys of wisdom.


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Ghosts of Prostitution Debates Past
published at Feminist Current October 31, 2013
Halloween is my Christmas. Even if I wasn't born on November 1st and named after a witch, the Samhain season would still be holiday numero uno for me due to the candy, costumes, and supernatural spookies celebrated in the absence of religious, nationalist or familial obligations.
Since autumn reaps harvests of nostalgia, I thought it might be festive to brush aromatic leaves off the headstones of pro-prostitution arguments put in the ground years ago. Not the dippy slogan "sex work is work", not comparisons to Prohibition regularly karate chopped with reminders that women are people and not beverages, I'm talking the doozies that haven't horrified me with their lazy logic in a long time.
Only flyby commenters and paid-by-the-pageview writers pull out the "world's oldest profession" artifact anymore because there's no winning reply to the retort that slavery is historical but shouldn't be legal. However, it pokes its victim-blaming head into the media enough to be disqualified from my criteria that these moans haven't been heard by me in the last year. Progress!
1. Men will use prostituted children less if legal, adult prostitutes are made available.
Anyone with the slightest sociological curiosity could have debunked the catharsis theory where men can ejaculate the will to rape children out of their systems. Note the twisted appeal to "think of the children!" while offering up young women's bodies as collateral damage.
As ruthlessly libertarian as the champions of swapping gals for girls imagine themselves, the precedent hasn't been set in any marketplace because men who want to rape little girls don't do so in the absence of adult women owned by the same pimp. Libertarians have gone apoplectic when I propose the precedent they're actually operating from is the misogynistic, homophobic Bible story of Lot giving gay rapists his daughters so they wouldn't sodomize male angels:
"Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof," (Gen. 19:8).
The oxymoronic variant, "Men will rape some women less if allowed to rape some women more" remains popular but the specific appeal to reduce pedophilia with prostitution hasn't made me want to punch someone for about a decade.
2. Legal prostitution will lead women to pay for sex in nearly the numbers men pay for sex.
Here's one that used to ride with the equally addlebrained, "More porn for women will improve the porn industry" some morbidly optimistic yahoos still believe. Folks, even Susie Bright has stopped repeating that mainstay of her repertoire, give it a rest.
The last time I encountered this ghost was 2009 when convicted pimp Heidi Fleiss opened the Shady Lady Ranch for women despite the Nevada law forbidding convicted pimps from running brothels. After two months and less than ten paying customers, Nevada's first legal male prostitute Markus quit and the brothel went kaput soon after. I think women are a statistically insignificant number of prostitute-users for the same reason 80-85% of men don't use prostitutes, because the idea of being intimate with a stranger faking desire for you is repugnant.
Every feminist has met the Women-Do-It-Too dude who insists women are inherently just as violent as men. Many women believe that too, unfortunately, and they show off their use of pornstituted women (mainly through porn and strippers) as a performance of how aspirationally masculine their sexuality is. I'll never forget the woman who beamed to me with pride that her lover said she fucked like a man.
Men's sadistic sexuality, including prostitutes used in the flesh and via the canned cunt of porn, is the default norm in our culture. It takes a whole lot of capitalistic indoctrination to come to the conclusion that women NOT paying for sex is a misogynistic aberration that will be fixed when women have enough economic and social power to comfortably consume sex workers.
I hope this argument is vanishing because we have evolved from wishing women could be as exploitative as men are to considering that men can be as bad as women and rape as infrequently as women do.
3. Making condoms 100% mandatory, as was done in Thailand in the 1990s, saves sex worker lives.
In 1991, Thailand put concerted effort into reducing the spread of HIV by adopting a goal of 100% condom usage in the illegal brothels. It was a successful campaign with some reports stating new infections had decreased 75% in five years, and Thailand's safer sex example was held up as an international model. Disease rates have since risen and research from 2009 reports that Thailand has the highest prevalence of HIV in all of Asia.
Prostitution defenders praised the mandatory condom policy as a lifesaver. Abolitionists and sex capitalists alike agreed that mandatory health regulations were necessary, so what happened to this seemingly rational policy to push it out of favor with sex capitalists?
The proverbial poop flew when healthcare professionals in California decided to import Thailand's model to the porn industry which had gotten used to getting away with ignoring workplace safety laws. Suddenly the same pro-prostitution mouthpieces who praised the Thai model and supported an ACLU lawsuit premised on selling condoms cheaply in Asian brothels began trashing condoms as more dangerous to sex workers than unprotected sex.
Pornographers like Nina Hartley and pornstitution profiteers like Charlie Glickman and Hugo Schwyzer writing for Jezebel.com declared themselves more knowledgeable about condoms than the venerable Alan Guttmacher Institute. They told stories of potential death by latex allergies, condom friction increasing disease transmission, and threats to move porn production into dangerous underground lairs if forced to protect employee health. I can't think of a reason why they would say mandating condoms will push Californian sex workers underground when they had lauded mandatory condoms for Thai sex workers as a means to bring brothels 'above ground' where transparency provides safety. Oh wait, I forgot racism, greed, and sexsationalistic clickbaiting.
The contradictions and fake science coming from the porn lobby were bad public relations that inhibited a slick retreat to their prior "yay condoms!" stance. This particular specter is one I wouldn't mind seeing sex worker rights groups reincarnate.
4. Under the Nordic Model, women (not necessarily sex workers) will make fake accusations of prostitution solicitation to blackmail men.
When the Swedish law passed in 1999, a flurry of blogs, articles, and position papers were published decrying the injustice to men. Professor Don Kulick wrote a paper implying that women with the ability to accuse men of commercial sexual predation will abuse it to hurt innocent men because women are conniving gold-diggers like that:
"The only positive thing for sexworkers that perhaps can to be said to have emerged from this law is that it seems that some of them have used it to rob clients or blackmail them, telling them that if they didn't cough up more money, they would turn them into the police."
Kulick doesn't provide examples or sources to verify if any femme fatale extortions happened and he offers a mild counter argument:
"Of course, both robbery and blackmail are much more serious crimes than purchasing sexual services, so if a client goes to the police, the sexworker risks much harsher penalties than the client she robbed or attempted to blackmail."
Because Kulick is a man incapable of empathizing with prostituted women, he neglects what women know about the kinds of "harsher penalties" men inflict on disobedient prostitutes.
While it's theoretically possible women might pretend to be prostitutes (who don't fear men's insane amount of violence towards hookers for some reason) to extort money from men, women have been able to "cry rape" against any man, punter or not, for many years and that hasn't been occurring.
5. The worst harm of prostitution is the shame/stigma.
Some "professional erotic technicians" have said the weight of the shame should their families and friends discover their criminal secret is their biggest problem. Frankly, as someone who had a loved one suffer and die from prostitution, I find that declaration a relief because I believe sex workers when they say they haven't dealt with violent johns or pimps and I'm grateful for their good luck.
The tightest argument against stigma causing the bulk of damage to sex workers is that the men most likely to seriously harm them are precisely the pimps and johns most likely to accept prostitution as a natural, necessary business transaction. By the stigma rationale, paying johns should be the least likely to harm prostituted women, yet the evidence overwhelmingly shows otherwise. The oft-repeated description of men's experiences with prostitutes being "emotionless" sex doesn't translate into "stigmaless" sex, but someone intent on attributing rape to criminalization instead of toxic masculinity has to detach the rapist from his motivation to rape somehow.
On the sex worker side of things I agree that feeling ashamed sucks, but I can provide a very long list of prostitution-related harms that suck a whole lot more. Thanks to trafficking awareness campaigns plus the eternally creative imaginations of pimpographers, the average citizen can also whip up a hefty list of brutal nasties faced by the average prostituted woman which transcend shame. Consequently, I more commonly see stigma listed among prostitution's many problems or as a thematic connection between a group of problems than as The Problem.
Industry lobbyists think they can replace the well-known threat pimps and johns pose to prostitutes with the specious assertion that feminists and police officers are worse. Fortunately that's not been working well for them.
I tried to think of a new pro-prostitution argument encountered in the past year and the only one that comes to mind declares Sweden a sexually repressive, totalitarian gender dystopia disguised as a socialist democracy. Iceland also got some slander slapped on it in 2013 when they stopped pretending that the women in pornography can be sex workers without consumers of pornography being sex worker clients, aka johns.
Such weak lobs play well to the Julian Assange fanclub but I'm quite sure, "Scandinavia hates sexual freedom" has fresh dirt under its nails from digging a grave in the cemetery of pointless pro-prostitution polemics.
Rain & Thunder Activist Spotlight: Samantha Berg, United States
Published in feminist journal Rain & Thunder issue #56, Spring 2013
Laurel Long took the time to interview Samantha Berg, a generation X radical feminist and anti-pornstitution activist. Berg was a lead organizer for Radfem Reboot, an all-womyn gathering held in Portland, Oregon in July 2012.
Laurel Long (LL): How did you discover radical feminism?
Samantha Berg (SB): A woman once wrote that her feminist process was: liberal, feminist, pro-sex feminist, radical feminist. My radicalization process looks a lot like that, landing on radicalism in my mid 20s.
The first change was realizing that being feminist is believing in women's liberation as per the femin- part, but it's equally grounded in the suffix -ist marking someone who takes action. Usually there will be overlap in what serves all women and what serves me, but I'm speaking in the deepest philosophical sense of committing oneself to bettering the lives of all women.
Then I began reading and openly identified as a feminist. Soon I learned enough to realize my use of and support for pornography (strip clubs, other pornstitution) fit under pro-sex feminism, and I accepted that. The shift from pro-sex to radical took about two years beginning to end. Still a porn user, I moved from NYC to Portland, a city famous for its unconventional politics and booming sex industry. I continued my poverty-relief campaigning while honoring my feminism through pro-choice activism. These forces collided when I began to find myself turned off by the idea of using pornography from 1) a feminist viewpoint 2) an anti-corporate control over media viewpoint 3) a sexual health educator's viewpoint.
In the longer version there are the people I've loved who suffered from and lost their lives to prostitution, but I'll skip that personal portion of the narrative for now. This is the part where I find through the internet that there are other feminists who feel about pornstitution the same way I had come to feel about it. They also turned out to be anti-war and pro-environmentalism just like me. They called themselves radical feminists and after more reading I decided it was a fitting term.
LL: Some women have said that discovering radical feminism saved their lives. Would you say this is true for you?
SB: I wouldn't say that's accurate for me. Anti-pornstitution activism gives me purpose and pride and it makes me feel less crazy in a world where the insanity of male supremacy lords over us all, but it didn't spark renewed life in me. The people in my life who have cared for and supported me are the ones who "saved my life," radical feminism is the love that I'm able to give back now that I'm in a safe and trusting place.
LL: What do you think are the biggest obstacles facing women today?
SB: Media's exploitation of women's fears and insecurities. From movies to music to the internet, my generation of women consumes images produced by others (almost entirely men) at a greater rate than ever before. We're drowning in a sea of woman-negative media that would be hard to stay afloat in with rafts, and we don't have those. As we struggle uphill to procure basic tools like critical analysis and freedom from unwanted media intrusion, corporate psychologists work harder to worm into the subconscious minds of the most skeptical media consumers.
LL: One problem women with your politics face is finding other women with similar politics. How many other radical feminists do you know near where you're located?
SB: There are about a dozen radfem acquaintances in the Portland area. I've worked with them on and off for years on specific protests and projects.
Lately there's been a resurgence of anti-prostitution energy as housewives, businesswomen, and retirees are coming together to address the Pacific Northwest's especially large problems with human trafficking. They are my friends and colleagues, but most wouldn't call themselves radical feminists. No matter, they're targeting johns and talking honestly about porn, which makes them more woman-centered than the poseurs of popular feminism.
LL: Are you active on the feminist blogosphere? Does this help keep you sane? In any case, what else do you do to maintain as much sanity as possible in this f-ed up world?
SB: Yes and yes. Fighting back is the healthiest thing a woman can do. I make no claims to having maintained my sanity.
LL: What is your vision for change in the next 5-10 years?
SB: Nordic model all the way, baby. Mandatory health protections for pornstitutes and strippers. Actual application of laws that are supposed to keep pornography away from kids.
LL: What do you wish you had known five years ago?
SB: The johns, the johns, the johns. Stay on target. Capitalists and apologists will do everything to talk about anything but the johns.
LL: This is your moment! What would you like to say to young women today?
SB: The situation is grim, but we have the solution. Susan B. Anthony watched as nation after nation passed women's suffrage, and in my lifetime I've seen the same global sweep with the Swedish model of prostitution. We are living through an exciting and productive time to be a radical feminist.
LL: I'm curious to know more about the Radfem Reboot event held in July 2012. What were the successes?
SB: Feedback has been that Reboot was a particularly congenial event as such political gatherings go. I'm a veteran of anti-trafficking conferences, but I haven't clocked as many years as some of the women who told me how pleased they were with the overall civility of the weekend. Personally, I'm most proud of the behind-the-scenes chaos being handled well enough that attendees were none the wiser.
LL: What would you do differently if you held the event again?
SB: Honestly, it was the conference of my dreams and I wouldn't make any big changes. This was my chance to do a radfem conference Bergstyle and I'm pleased as a peach with how it went. The speakers were women I wanted to learn from, the breadth of topics was impressive and favored my anti-pornstitution interests by design, and friends I've been collaborating with for years flew across the planet to give me hugs. Organizing Radfem Reboot made me feel so useful, respected, and loved that it would be greedy to ask for more.
LL: Is there anything that came out of the event that would be good for Rain & Thunder readers to know about?
SB: Preliminary plans for more conferences would probably be of most practical interest to readers and I'm sure the details of those are forthcoming, so I'd like to share a more spiritual anecdote.
There was one woman who participated not because she was a radfem or knew anyone there, but because she lived down the street from the venue and stepped inside to use the bathroom Saturday morning. Seeing our large gathering of only women, she took a seat and wound up staying through Sunday night. The Portland sisterhood grew by one and once again I felt vindicated about radical feminism because our advanced theory workshops spoke to the soul of a woman simply passing through. At our most philosophical we don't stray from the axis of real women's lives and truths.
That's the first story I tell non-radical feminist friends when they ask how my conference went, but my favorite story came out of Saturday night's group activism. Alas, that can only be told in person so you'll have to get yourself to the next radfem gathering and ask me or someone else who participated about it. I promise it will be worth it.
Laurel Long is a 26-year-old radical feminist activist who first "met" Sam Berg through her fantastic online website www.genderberg.com When not engaging in radical feminist activism, Long works as a sexual assault and mental health crisis counselor.
Norwegian prostitution research solid like iceberg
published at Feminist Current February 8, 2013
Samantha Berg elaborates on Pro Sentret's research into violence against prostituted women under the Nordic model.
The third page of Pro Sentret's Dangerous Liaisons report lays out the mission statement for the 2012 investigation:
"The purpose is to evaluate whether the women are more exposed to violence after the introduction of the law."
The methodology of choice was a comparison of 2007/08 numbers with new 20012 numbers:
"The design of the questionnaire was approximately the same as the questionnaire that was used in 2007/2008, albeit perhaps somewhat shorter."
Comparable numbers were compared. Murder attempts weren't asked about in 2007/08 so those numbers are broken down for race and indoor/outdoor but left off the graph comparing dates.
When I noticed the potential discrepancy between years in prostitution before and after the law change I played the responsible journalist and emailed Pro Sentret. The unspeakably high mortality rate in prostitution reduces "career" longevity by a fair degree (aka women don't last long), and the notorious influx of young foreigners from poverty-stricken countries made me suspect the pre-2007/08 average time in prostitution wouldn't have been many years.
Pro Sentret's senior officer Camilla Hammergren's replied that the data hasn't been translated into English and added, "The women were asked how long they had been in prostitution. The data/results were not given room in the report must mean they gave no significant findings regarding vulnerability." She also suggested author Ulla Bjorndahl might offer more information when she returns from personal leave in late February.
Provide me with the translated raw data and I'll read every speck. Berg blood is valkyrie blood and I'm a linguist with training in Germanic languages, so if anyone wants to pay for the educational materials and give me a few weeks I'll read it in Norwegian. Until then, I'm taking the Dangerous Liaisons report on its own terms. Pro Sentret set the board, they put down the pieces, and they explained the rules according to them. The Nordic model won the game.
If you consider the methodology too sketchy to trust, all right. The report is dead to you, you can stop reading now, goodbye.
For the rest I have another game, still on Pro Sentret's board and using their pieces, but played by the rules of those who are trying to discredit the research.
Imagine that the average time in prostitution before 2007/08 is triple the three year research window since, nine years prior to three years post. As intended, that generous hypothetical would lessen the impact of the very dramatic reductions in rape, pimp violence, and client violence currently reported.
Here's the home viewer participation portion of the game; how does that hypothetical affect the 150% leap in biting and 167% increase in hair pulling since 2007/08?
Pardon the intemperance, but I believe my theory explaining the already formidable rise in biting and hair pulling was perfect. Add up an imaginary nine years of pre-2007/08 biting and hair pulling and set them next to what men did in the last three years to see a downright unholy rise in these very specific violations.
Contemplate your answer while we advance to the second level: quotes! No numbers allowed, this is the round where proof that criminalizing punters is effective scores big points on the strength of words and common sense.
Meghan Murphy recently wrote, "The sad truth is that, if buying sex is legal, the police aren't likely to start going after or charging johns who rape and abuse prostitutes on their own accord. We know this. We know the police have been ignoring violence against prostituted women, particularly those who are poor and racialized, for years."
We do know, and thanks to Pro Sentret's report we also know:
"Most of the women who said they would seek help to protect against violence said that they called or threatened to call the police when they found themselves in a dangerous or threatening situation. This would often scare the customers, or others, who were acting threatening/violent away."
Remember my email to Camilla Hammergren? I had included a request for clarification on 'most' and 'often' in numbers because I'm thorough like that, but honestly it doesn't matter. Putting the power of police in prostituted women's hands is the theory behind the Nordic model and it works.
We also know there were no reports of police committing any kind of violence whatsoever against prostituted women in the 2012 research, which is a card I can play this round because "nothing" isn't a number.
My final hand from Pro Sentret's deck:
"A fairly large amount of the women said that there was little they could do to protect themselves against violence. The reason they gave for this was usually that they already did what they could, and that prostitution was so risky that it was impossible to protect yourself against violence. Some of the women who said there was little they could do, also said the only thing they might be able to do was quit prostitution."
Let's play again soon.
Radfem Reboot Wrap-up
Radfem Reboot has been a whirlwind of weeks for me and one of the best experiences of my rather experienced life. Thanks to all sixty of you (and wellwishers from afar) for contributing much, traveling far, and genuinely embracing the sisterhood-making focus of the conference.
My least favorite part, the financial accounting, is finally reconciled. I was bummed about the small shortfall in funds until I was reminded that we gave out a significant sum for travel expenses. $1400 to be exact. Giving women those subsidies was my favorite part of the Reboot project.
There was one woman who participated not because she was a radfem or knew anyone there, but because she lived down the street from the venue and stepped inside to use the bathroom Saturday morning. Seeing our large gathering of only women, she took a seat and wound up staying through Sunday night. That's how the Portland sisterhood grew by one and once again I felt vindicated in every way about radical feminism because our advanced theory workshops spoke to the soul of a woman simply passing through. At our most philosophical we don't stray from the axis of real women's lives and truths.
The energy poured into Reboot for the last few months came back to me in the last three weeks. Knowing that as I write there are women organizing 2012 radical feminist conferences in Canada, Australia, and the UK is an inspiration, and I hope you too will remember the global resurgence of our political movement when misogynists get threateningly mean and prostitution apologists dribble out half-baked theories of empowered professionals.
Yours in sisterhood,
Sam Berg
Christine Stark's "Nickels", a tale of association
published at Radfem Hub Feb 3, 2012
Christine Stark has been a role model of mine since 2004. That was the year she co-edited Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, which immediately soared up my book chart and remains a Berg top five today.
Not For Sale contains my favorite essay on prostitution, but Stark's direct confrontation with so-called 'sex radicals' in the essay "Girls to Boyz: Sex radical women promoting prostitution and pornography" has the most forthright chutzpah of the collection. My admiration for her anti-pornstitution work led me to take special note of her various creative works released through radical feminist and artistic media.
Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation is Stark's debut novel and it's a doozy. The freestyle narrative announces itself on the first page through two fairy tales as understood by a small child. Stark plays with linguistic forms to translate the thoughts in a child's mind, and it's a testament to her skill that the unconventional style comes off much more genuine than parlor tricky. The punctuation and odd sentence breaks lend a breathless air and the cadence is tricky to catch at first, but much like watching a Scottish film, the initial confusion of familiar words in an unfamiliar dialect soon resolves and you're hooked into the storyteller's groove.
The story follows Little Miss So and So from age four through twenty-six. Her stream of consciousness survival of incestuous rape makes the early pages rough reading, so don't pack Nickels for the beach. Not that there isn't an inherent entertainment in stories of terrified and tortured children — as the stratospheric popularity of Stephen King proves — it's just that Nickels is a different kind of horror story.
My fear to face was being forced to remember the powerlessness of childhood. Great literature makes readers see the world through another person's eyes in a way that connects to their soul. What I saw through Little Miss So and So's eyes was my world as a child, my own fractured soul trying to make sense of the cowardly cruelty of child abusers. Little Miss So and So was five-years-old when the school nurses saw the bruises and filed a failed lawsuit to remove her from her abusive family. I was six when the same events happened to me. There's even a scene involving a bite-size apple pie and tears of gratitude for a family member showing kindness that rather eerily echoes an apple pie anecdote from my past. I write a lot, often about violence against women, yet I don't write about my childhood for reasons I'm still unpacking.
History kept interfering with my reading, a feeling exacerbated by starting the book right before the traditionally family-infected Thanksgiving holiday. I had to keep putting the book down the same way I frequently pause while reading Andrea Dworkin, because the gut-felt truths come fast and tap on spots so sensitive that pushing past the discomfort without consideration feels like a wasted opportunity.
The years in Nickels tick by in five year chunks of time, and in the process my intimate connection to Little Miss So and So faded enough that reading felt less like picking at scabs. Stark's heroine becomes her own entity and less of the allegory the abstract name evokes. By the time she grows into a young woman I no longer recognized myself in her new pursuits but I liked her just the same. We could be friends, Little Miss So and So and me, though I don't share her fervor for sports and I'm not a lesbian.
The last two lines of Chris's biography in Not For Sale are,
"She is a member of the Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition and completing her MFA in Writing from Minnesota State University. Christine is a survivor of incest and a racist prostitution and pornography ring."
Knowing some pieces of Stark's past inadvertently made reading a puzzle in which I tried to sort the facts of her life from the fictions of the story. It's a pointless game and a little unfair to writers who necessarily draw upon what they know to create stories of unreal people. Stark took a formless, nameless girl called Little Miss So and So and fused the tragedy of her lived facts into a useful fiction. Women who can do this, who can write the indescribable violations of girls in authentic words that resonate with survivors, are treasures to feminism and womenkind.
There are more books inside Ms. Christine Stark, more people's stories to tell. I look forward to meeting them and the pieces of myself I'll see in them.
Prostitution FAQ
- Prostitution is not work: The crib sheet April 17, 2021
- Melania Trump, America's first sex worker First Lady December 22, 2016
- Brock Turner and porn users share a culture of sexual entitlement July 22, 2016
- Dead Rentboys tell no tales September 7, 2015
- From Norway to New Zealand, pro-prostitution research is its own worst enemy November 24, 2014
- I want 140 characters which will end rape June 12, 2014
- "The City of Roses shall no longer tolerate feminism!" May 30, 2014
- Ghosts of Prostitution Debates Past October 31, 2013
- Rain & Thunder Activist Spotlight: Samantha Berg, United States June 12, 2013
- Norwegian prostitution research solid like iceberg February 8, 2013
- New research shows violence decreases under Nordic model: Why the radio silence? January 22, 2013
- Who votes against decriminalizing prostituted children? November 9, 2012
- Radfem Reboot Wrap-up August 20, 2012
- Christine Stark's "Nickels", a tale of association January 17, 2012
- The Internet Swear Jar December 15, 2011
- Feminism and Occupy Portland November 6, 2011
- Three days of radical feminist SCUM October 25, 2011
- On the Feminists-in-Underwear Walks October 9, 2011
- Scotland: Don't be like US May 5, 2010
- New coalition challenges the status quo of "Pornland, OR" February 14, 2010
- Extra, extra! Newspaper reporter interviews radical feminist! January 2, 2010
- Radical Feminism on the Web: The Carnival of Radical Feminists November 9, 2009
- Samantha Berg: HerStories interview October 28, 2008
- Paradigm shifts and paying for sex May 2, 2008
- The quest to be human: An interview with "Getting Off" author Robert Jensen November 22, 2007
- Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip-Hop Culture September 14, 2007
- The New Antipornography Slide Show September 14, 2007
- Pornography, Prostitution & Sex Trafficking: How Do You Tell the Difference? September 14, 2007
- Hey, progressives! Cathouse got your tongue? July 9, 2006
- Portland at crossroads of human trafficking April 6, 2006
- "It's up to you": Prostitution, Censorship and Sweden January 4, 2006
- Female Chauvinist Liz: Third wave feminism through the songs of Liz Phair October 31, 2005
- The Harms of Gay Male Pornography: A Sexual Equality Perspective August 14, 2005
- Memorial for civil rights leader Andrea Dworkin July 1, 2005
- Giving the marginalized the tools to speak their voices April 10, 2005
- Sex trafficking strikes closer to home than thought November 13, 2004
- Media critics blind towards Playboy's soft porn June 1, 2004
- All naked women are created equal January 3, 2004


text:
Thursday, September 26, 7pm
in the Woodbury Room of the Jones Library
Join us for:
London 1818: a secret love affair begins between 23-year-old English poet, John Keats, and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, an outspoken student of fashion. Starting at odds with each other, the illness of Keats' younger brother drew them together. Intensely and helplessly absorbed in each other, the young lovers were swept into powerful new sensations. Together they rode a wave of romantic obsession that deepened as their troubles mounted and only Keats' illness proved insurmountable.
Free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Janet Ryan at 413/259-3223.


text:
What the hell is in the water today?
FYI – "Select" resources in Northeast Advisory are getting notified that they will be getting a small holiday bonus (ranging from $500 – $2000) in their next paycheck.
Happy Holidays 🙂
If you're not "select" feel free to get Grinchy in the comments and if you are, then go but an iPad.


text:
Baptism Hymn Lyrics
Hymn No.24
First Line: Tis done! that new and heavenly birth,
'Tis done! that new and heavenly birth,
Which re-creates the sons of earth,
Has cleansed from guilt of Adam's sin
A soul which Jesus died to win.
'Tis done! the cross upon the brow
Is marked for weal or sorrow now,
To shine with heavenly luster bright,
Or burn in everlasting night.
O ye who came that babe to lay
Within a Savior's arms today,
Watch well and guard with careful eye
The heir of immortality.
Teach him to know a Father's love,
And seek for happiness above,
To Christ his heart and treasures give
And in the Spirit ever live.
That so before the judgment seat
In joy and triumph ye may meet;
The battle fought, the struggle o'er,
The kingdom yours forevermore.
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below,
Praise Him above, angelic host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.


text:
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If parents cannot reach agreement, even with the help of their attorneys, they can go before a court and ask the judge for a ruling on their parenting rights and responsibilities. The two types of custody in Minnesota are:
Minnesota courts presume legal custody is shared between parents, and physical custody can be either solely granted to one parent or jointly shared between parents. Shared physical custody does not necessarily mean equal parenting time.
If a couple cannot agree on custody or parenting time arrangements, the court uses statutory factors to assist when making a ruling on the living arrangements of minor children.
High conflict is rarely in the best interest of a child. When you have questions or concerns about custody in Minnesota, speak with an experienced attorney with our firm.
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text:
Albert L. Neisser (1855-1916),
Microbiologist and Venereologist
Albert Ludwig Neisser* is remembered mainly as the discoverer of the etiologic agent of gonorrhea and because he is memorialized eponymically with the bacterial genus to which it belongs. The generic name "Neisseria" was already proposed in 1885 by V. Trevisan, an Italian bacteriologist (1), but it was not adopted generally until the 1930s. Thus, for example, Neisseria meningitides, first cultured by Anton Weichselbaum (1845-1920, Vienna) in 1887, for long remained Diplococcus interellularis meningitides.
Not only are the circumstances of Neisser's professional development of interest, but his scientific career was more complex than a single important discovery. He was born Jan. 22, 1855 in a small Prussian town near the university city of Breslau. His father, Moritz Neisser, was a physician who was widowed during Albert's infancy and he was raised largely by his stepmother. After attending a local elementary school, he attended Gymnasium in Breslau. Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) was a classmate, beginning a life-long relationship. Between 1872 and 1877 he attended the University of Breslau, with some time also at the University of Erlangen (Nurnberg). He obtained his medical degree and license in 1877. Neisser wanted to remain in Breslau and, because the residency that he sought in internal medicine was not available, he accepted a residency in dermatology-venereology. At least the departments of pathology and dermatology lacked the prevailing anti-semitism. The latter department was already highly regarded in 1878, when it was chaired by Oscar Simon (1845-1882). Neisser's interest in the new field of bacteriology probably was stimulated by Ferdinand Cohn (1828-1898), the professor of botany, a pioneer bacteriologist, and the Danish bacteriologist Carl J. Salomonsen (1847-1924), temporarily in Breslau. Neisser knew the pathologists Julius Cohnheim (1839-1884) and Carl Weigert (1845-1904) long enough before they left for the University of Leipzig in 1877 and '78 to learn histologic staining techniques. Upon completion of his training, Neisser in 1880 obtained a junior faculty position at the University of Leipzig. The next two years became the only period during which he was not affiliated with the University of Breslau (2-5).
During his residency the 24 year old Neisser in 1879 made both of his principal discoveries. He demonstrated a morphologically consistent coccus in 26 adults with typical gonorrheal urethritis, seven cases of neonatal infection and two adult cases of ophthalmia. He stained the "micrococci" with methyl violet. Neisser's microscopic finding was soon confirmed, but he was unable to find a reliable culture medium (6). In 1882 Neisser made a more detailed morphologic description and introduced the term "gonococcus (7)." Although gonococci had been demonstrated microscopically in synovial fluid in cases of acute arthritis as early as 1883 (8), Neisser in 1893 became the first to report having grown the gonococcus in culture from synovial fluid (9). The pathologic significance of the gonococcus remained in dispute into the 1890s, mainly because of inability to infect laboratory animals with it.
Simon died unexpectedly in 1882 and, perhaps aided by political influence (5), Neisser at age 27 was recalled from Leipzig to head the dermatology department, a position he retained for the last 34 years of his life. In addition to his clinical and scientific work he became an effective fund-raiser, especially in the Jewish business community. These efforts culminated in 1892 with a new building to accommodate the dermatology-venereology department (4).
In 1874 G.A. Hansen (1841-1912), a physician at the leprosarium in Bergen, Norway, published his discovery of the possible bacterial cause of leprosy, made the year before (10). An English translation of this Norwegian article was published in 1875 (11). Only two human diseases had at that time been acknowledged to have a bacterial etiology: anthrax in 1850 and relapsing fever in 1868. Thus there was great skepticism about Hansen's allegation, not least by his chief, D.C. Danielssen (1815-1894). Hansen explained in 1880: "Everyone can easily see from the report of my examinations in 1873 that I could assume that bacteria exist in the leprous lesions. But nevertheless, based on these examinations alone, I dared only to express a suspicion that these bacteria are the actual poison that elicits the disease when they enter the body (12)."
How Neisser learned of Hansen's publication is uncertain. However, in July 1879 he traveled to Norway, where leprosy was still endemic and visited three leprosaria. In Bergen he met Hansen with whom he saw many patients and was given cutaneous biopsies and visceral specimens, as well as unstained slide preparations. As soon as Neisser returned to Breslau he prepared slides from this material, stained with fuchsin and with gentian violet, in all of which he could clearly demonstrate the bacilli. In October he presented his findings at a meeting of the Silesian Society for National Culture, which soon thereafter were published in the local Breslau medical journal (13).
A few months later Hansen published an article in German that was intended mainly to defend the priority of his discovery, but acknowledged Neisser's priority in regard to staining of the bacteria. "To explain why these [microscopic] preparations [of biopsies of lepromatous nodules] previously did not succeed I cite a reply from Dr. Koch, whom I had asked for advice: It was either the property of the dyes I had available or the circumstance that I had not dyed energetically enough. This error, as Dr. Koch told me, was also made by Dr. Neisser, so that he only later succeeded in achieving better preparations, which most probably depended on the proven experience of Dr. Koch (12)." In the following year Neisser published a lengthy, illustrated article in the same journal, in which he stated that he had not sought to deny Hansen's priority. However, he had by staining proven the finding about which even Hansen had been uncertain. Neisser considered his clear description of the lepra bacillus to have been a greater scientific contribution than the discovery of the gonococcus (2). He continued research on the bacteriology of leprosy, including unsuccessful attempts at culturing, until 1886 (14, 15).
Clinical dermatology
Between 1883 and 1901 Neisser also published on various problems in clinical dermatology, emphasizing differential diagnosis. The only non-venereal disease after leprosy with which he was concerned for long was lupus vulgaris (cutaneous tuberculosis). His writings on this appeared from 1908 until 1913 and, as with venereal diseases, dealt both with clinical and public health aspects.
Public health and venereal disease control
Throughout his career Neisser was interested not only in the diagnostic and therapeutic aspects of venereal diseases, but also in their public health ramifications. In an 1890 article he revealed his attitude about prostitutes: "Much more is achieved when one recognizes that one is always dealing with sick people, sick not only in the physical, but frequently also in the psychological sense, and very frequently with people who are not automatically detestable, but rather are to be pitied and in need of help." (16) Statistics regarding the admission to the Breslau City Hospital for gonorrhea were begun in 1886 when the diagnosis accounted for 9.3% of VD admissions. Two years later this diagnosis accounted for 54%, which Neisser attributed to the supplementation of physical examinations with microscopic examination (not cultures) of secretions. This new diagnostic sensitivity created financial problems for the hospital because, on average, admissions for gonorrhea lasted a month (16). Numerous ineffective oral and instilled medications were employed, to which he added Protargol, a silver proteinate for urethral instillation that he had devised (17).
Ten years later he presented various civilian and military statistics regarding the prevalence of gonorrhea and its public health costs. "… [W]ith the enormous distribution of the disease and its severe complications, everyone must feel that it is high time to sound a warning on the matter. Gonorrhea is a social danger for the people and requires the most careful attention from the authorities who are responsible for the public health." (18) In 1899 Neisser became one of the founders of the German Dermatologic Society, and in 1902 he organized the German Society for Combating Venereal Diseases. Most of the publications in his last years pertained to the control of venereal diseases in the civilian and military populations.
Experimentation on transmissibility and immunity of syphilis
In the 1850s experiments had been conducted in which contents of secondary syphilitic lesions were injected into healthy persons to determine whether such lesions are contagious (19) Even then the disastrous results were anticipated by some and caused an ethical scandal, although "syphilization" experiments continued to the end of the century. In 1892 Neisser conducted somewhat similar human experiments on which he reported in 1898 in a review article entitled "What do we know about the serum therapy of syphilis (20)?" Although a microbe was suspected, this investigation preceded the identification of the etiologic agent and development of a serologic diagnostic test. Neisser wanted to test the hypothesis that the disease could be ameliorated or prevented by injections of blood serum from syphilitics from which bacteria had been thoroughly removed. In the less problematic trial, syphilitics in the early stages of the disease were infused intravenously with serum from patients with late syphilis. He concluded that "The result of all of these attempts, 28 in all, should be considered absolutely negative."
While this study was being conducted, three young female in-patients and a 24 year old woman with gonorrhea received a subcutaneous injection of syphilitic serum and developed no signs of syphilis. With this "assurance of safety," four prostitutes ages 17-20, one of whom had gonorrhea, were given an intravenous injection of syphilitic serum. All soon demonstrated signs of secondary syphilis and Neisser concluded that such prophylactic immunization was ineffective.
In March 1900 a disciplinary proceeding against Neisser was held because he had inoculated patients "without having ascertained the consent of these persons or their legal representatives." According to Josef Jadassohn (1863-1936), a former student, Neisser "was so convinced of the correctness of his experiments that he was quite amazed at the attacks he received (21)." He had written in 1898: "The possibility that the intravenous infusions might have been injurious can not be absolutely denied. I of course, am entirely convinced that these prostitutes were infected in another "normal" way (20)." This argument was rejected and Neisser was fined 300 Mark. However, neither his licensure or academic position were affected (22).
Experimental syphilis
Since the 1860s numerous micro-organisms had been claimed to be the pathogen of syphilis (23). In 1904 investigators in Neisser's laboratory showed that the pathogen of syphilis is not a filterable virus (24). In 1903 Elie I. Metchnikoff (1845-1916) and Pierre P. Roux (1853-1933) at the Pasteur Institute succeeded in infecting chimpanzees with the unknown pathogen of syphilis (25). Neisser soon determined to verify their findings. This work began in September 1903 with chimpanzees from the Breslau zoo, and his first detailed report was published a year later (26). In the absence of a serologic test, before autopsy the question whether an animal had actually been infected depended entirely on the development of symptoms that resembled those of human syphilis. Furthermore, the incubation period was unknown and animals frequently died a few weeks after having had syphilitic human serum or tissue administered, usually of pneumonia.
In 1905 Neisser organized a privately funded expedition to Java (27). This island was chosen because of information that syphilis was more prevalent there than on Borneo or Sumatra. Participants included his wife and at least one of his trainees, Gustav Baermann. This was an enormous undertaking. According to Neisser, at any one time they had 10-20 orangutans, imported from Borneo, 20-30 gibbons and 600-800 monkeys (mainly macaques) in captivity. Many also died, not of pneumonia as in Breslau, but of gastroenteritides. Apes were more easily infected with syphilis than monkeys. The incubation period typically was 3-5 weeks. To test for the dissemination of the pathogen, tissue was taken from various organs of infected animals and inserted into healthy ones. It was found that marrow and, secondly, spleen were the most consistent sites of the pathogen. Blood was never infectious. Although secondary lesions occurred only in apes, it was demonstrated that unresponsiveness did not indicate lack of dissemination in monkeys.
While they were in Java in 1905, Fritz Schaudinnn (1871-1906) and Erich Hoffmann (1868-1959) in Berlin discovered the Spirochaeta pallida, the pathogen of syphilis (28). How Neisser learned of this discovery is uncertain, but he at once attempted to verify the finding. This was successful in humans, as well as in a few apes and monkeys. Neisser credited most of this work to Baermann. A government-funded second expedition to Java was made in 1906-07. In this, in addition to continuing the experiments with primates and monkeys, attempts were made to transmit syphilis to other mammals and chickens (29). Success occurred only in guinea pigs, but thereby introduced a more practical animal for syphilis experimentation. This investigation, to which Rudolf Pürckhauer was assigned, continued in Breslau until 1909 (29).
Metchnikoff had concluded from his experiments that the pathogen of syphilis is weakened by passage through several rhesus monkeys. If true, development of an active anti-syphilitic vaccine might become feasible. Beginning during the second Batavia expedition and continuing in Breslau until 1910, Neisser and Bruck experimented with monkeys and guinea pigs to evaluate Metchnikoff's conclusions (30). They disagreed with Metchnikoff and extended the investigation to immunization with killed spirochaetes and serum made from attempts to "immunize" monkeys, horses, cattle and sheep, as well as chickens. They concluded that no immunologic technique provides either preventive or therapeutic benefits.
Serologic testing
In 1903 Jules Bordet (1870-1961) and Octave Gengou (1875-1957) invented the complement fixation test for the identification of cholera vibrios (31). In winter 1905-06 Neisser visited August von Wassermann (1866-1925) at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. In the course of their conversation about the complement fixation reaction Neisser suggested that it should be adapted to test for syphilis, since its pathogen was now known (32). As the first source of spirochaetes Neisser provided the liver of a syphilitic fetus and, for testing, sera from syphilitic patients. Wassermann assigned Carl Bruck (1879-1944), then one of his trainees, to develop the test (33). Bruck subsequently joined Neisser's second Java expedition and became a member of his faculty until 1911. A few months after the initial announcement of the test Neisser, Bruck and Schucht reported their preliminary experience. The reaction succeeded in syphilitic apes as well as in patients, although it was positive in only 70% of symptomatic syphilitics. Some cases became positive on re-testing, but some positive tests when repeated became negative (34). Not surprisingly, the Wassermann test elicited considerable skepticism in the first years of its use (35). Neisser staunchly defended its validity, but did not participate in subsequent research to improve and understand the reaction. In an English language review in 1908 he stated that "Already in hundreds of cases in my own practice the application of [the Wassermann] reaction has given us clear evidence of syphilis…" even in the absence of definite clinical signs (35). Never "in many thousands of examinations" has the reaction occurred in health men.
Treatment of Syphilis
Neisser was satisfied with the efficacy of mercury treatment for syphilis and mainly experimented with its optimal means of administration. He even used the improvement of primary and secondary lesions following an "energetic course of mercury" for the differential diagnosis of syphilis. Nevertheless, he considered mercury to be bacteriostatic, not bactericidal (19). Iodine compounds were also not believed to be spirochaeticidal, but "exert a special curative action on tertiary processes." (34). Nevertheless, with some hesitance, Neisser in 1910 accepted Ehrlich's new arsenical preparation (37). "It is almost funny when some, in their enthusiasm about "606" alone or in combination, take the position that heretofore we have been powerless against syphilis." He considered "606" especially important for cases of intolerance of mercury, cases that appear to have become resistant to mercury, and for various tertiary symptoms. "Arsenobenzol, designated "606," whatever the future may bring to justify the present enthusiasm, is now actually a more or less incredible advance in the treatment of syphilis and in many ways is superior to the old mercury - as valuable as this will continue to be – because of its eminently powerful and eminently rapid spirochaeticidal property." In later publications he became a strong advocate of arsenical therapy.
Final years
Although Neisser became increasingly incapacitated during the last four years of his life, he continued to attend conferences and to publish. In 1912 he suffered an accidental hip fracture from which recovery was slow (38). Next he suffered repeated bouts of renal colic, and diabetes mellitus developed. He finally submitted to surgical nephrolithotomy, but became septic and died on July 30, 1916, 61 years of age.
1. Trevisan, V: Carratteri di alcuni nuovi generi di Batteriacee. Atti della Accademia Fisica-Medica-Statistica in Milano (ser. 4) 1885, 3:92-107.
2. Oriel, JD: Eminent venereologists. 1. Albert Neisser. Genitourin Med., 1989, 65:229-34.
3. Scholz, A, Wasik, F: Albert Neisser, 1855-1916. Internat J Dermat., 1985, 28:373-77.
4. Wasik, F, Scholz, A: Erinnerungen an Albert Neisser. Hautarzt, 1980, 31:328-33.
5. Schadewalt, H: Neisser, Albert Ludwig Sigismund in Gillespie, CC, editor, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, New York, C.C. Scribner's Sons, 1974, 10:17-19.
6. Neisser, A: Über eine der Gonorrhoe eigenthümliche Micrococcusform. Ctrbl f med Wiss., 1879, 17:497-500. Trans in Med Life, 1932, 39:507-10.
7. Neisser, A: Die Mikrokokken der Gonorrhoe. Deut med Wchnschr., 1882, 9:279-82. Trans in Med Life, 1932, 39:514-24.
8. Petrone, LM: Sulla natura parasitaria dell'artrite blennorragica, Riv Clin Bologna, 1883, 3:94-113.
9. Neisser, A: Über die Züchtung der Gonococcen bei einem Fall von Arthritis gonorrhoica. Deut med Wchnschr., 1894, 20:160.
10. Irgens, LM: The discovery of Mycobacterium leprae. Am J Dermatopath., 1984, 6:337-43.
11. Hansen, GA: On the etiology of leprosy. Brit & Foreign Med-Chir Rev., 1875, 55:459-89.
12. Hansen, GA: Bacillus leprae. Arch path Anat., 1880, 79:32-42.
13. Fite, GL, Wade, HW: The contribution of Neisser to the establishment of the Hansen bacillus as the etiologic agent of leprosy and the so-called Hansen-Neisser controversy. Internat J Leprosy, 1955, 23:418-27.
14. Neisser, A: Weitere Beiträge zur Aetiologie der Lepra. Virchow's Arch path Anat., 1881, 84:514-42.
15. Neisser, A: Histologische und bakeriologische Lepra-untersuchungen. Virchow's Arch path Anat., 1886, 103:355-87.
16. Neisser, A: Ueber die Mängel der zur Zeit üblichen Prostituirten-untersuchung. Deut med Wchnschr., 1890, 16:834-37.
17. Neisser, A: Zur Behandlung der acuten Gonorrhoe; ein neues Silberpreparat: Protargol; prolongierte Injection. Dermat Ctrlbl., 1897, 1:3-8.
18. Neisser, A: Gonorrhea; Its danger to society. Med News, New York. 1900, 76:41-45, 85-89.
19. Dracobly, A: Ethics and experimentation on human subjects in mid-nineteenth century France: The story of the 1859 syphilis experiments. Bull Hist Med., 2003, 77:332-66.
20. Neisser, A: Was wissen wir von einer Serumtherapie bei Syphilis und was haben wir von ihr erhoffen? In Festschrift gewidmet F.J. Pick, Arch Derm u Syph, 1898, 44:431-539. See 486-88.
21. Jadassohn, J: Albert Neisser. 1855-1916. Arch Derm u Syph., 1916, 123:17-64. 36.
22. Elkeles, B: Medizinische Menschenversuche gegen Ende des 19s Jahrhunderts und der Fall Neisser. Medizinhist J., 1985, 23:418-27.
23. Ingraham, NR: Spirochaeta pallida and the etiology of syphilis. pp 40-46 in Moulton, FR, editor: Syphilis. Publ. 6 of Am Assoc Adv Sci., Lancaster, PA: Science Press, 1938.
24. Klingmüller, V, Baermann, G: Ist das Syphilisvirus filtrierbar? Deut med Wchnschr., 1904, 30:766.
25. Metchnikoff, EI, Roux, PP: Études expérimentales sur la syphilis. Ann Inst Pasteur, 1903, 17:809-21, 1904, 18:1-6.
26. Neisser, A: Meine Versuche zur Übertragung der Syphilis auf Affen. Deut med Wchnschr., 1904, 30:1369-73, 1431-34.
27. Neisser, A: Versuche zur Übertragung der Syphilis auf Affen. Deut med Wchnschr., 1906, 32:1-5, 49-53, 97-102.
28. Schaudinn, FR, Hoffmann, E: Vorlaufiger Bericht uber das Vorkommen von Spirochaeten in syphilitischen Krankheitsprodukten und bei Papillomen. Arb d k Gesundheitsamt, 1905, 22:527-34.
29. Neisser, A, Pürckhauer, R.: Syphilisübertragung auf verschiedene Tiere. Arb d k Gesundheitsamt., 1911, 37:568-587.
30. Neisser, A,, Bruck, C.: Immunisierungsversuche. Arb d k Gesundheitsamt., 1911, 37:203-24, 1911.
31. Bordet, JJ, Gengou, O: Sur l'existence de substances sensibilisatrices dans la plupart des serums antimicrobiens. Ann Inst Pasteur, 1901, 15:289-302.
32. Hecht, H: Half a century of serodiagnosis of syphilis. Arch of Dermat., 1956, 426-40.
33. Wassermann, A v, Neisser, A, Bruck, C: Eine serodiagnostische Reaktion bei Syphilis. Deut med Wchnschr., 1906, 32:745-46.
34. Neisser, A, Bruck, C, Schucht, A: Diagnostische Gewebs- und Blutuntersuchungen bei Syphilis. Deut med Wchnschr., 1906, 32:1937-42.
35. Neisser, A: Syphilis, with special reference to experimental work on the subject. Brit Med J. 1908, 2:1085-89.
36. Neisser, A: Ueber die Bedeutung der Wassermannschen Serodiagnose für die Praxis. Münch med Wchnschr., 1909, 56:1076.
37. Neisser, A: Die Behandlung der Syphilis mit dem Ehrlichschen Präparat 606. Deut med Wchnschr., 1910, 36:1889-93.
38. Gardner, FT: Albert Neisser (1855-1916). Bull Hist Med., 1944, 16:469-510.
• Albert Neisser was not related to Max Neisser (1869-1938), a bacteriologist who also was educated in Breslau, but had his career in Frankfurt am Main.


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Category Archives: original-short-announcements
We're pleased to announce that BULL SPEC ORIGINAL SHORT #1 will be: "Rise Up" by C. S. Fuqua.
Wynne shouted Bobby's name as the guitar case in the backseat bounced against the ceiling, then back down. Time suspended. Undergrowth tore at the car, and a tree slammed into the passenger side. The airbags exploded. BULL SPEC is pleased … Continue reading


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The village of Jeravna
The village of Jeravna
The village of Jeravna is situated in the east part of the Balkan.
Jeravna is an attractive tourist destination with its nature, architecture and age-old history.
It keeps many wooden houses with identical construction.
Some of them are over 300 years old.
The houses have been preserved up to the present day in a way that retains their original face from the period of the Bulgarian revival.
That`s why the village was declared a National Architectural Reserve.
One of the most interesting houses is a birthplace of the famous Bulgarian writer Yordan Yovkov.
There is a museum exposition of the writer`s most significant photographs, documents, manuscript.
Another impressive house is Sava Filaretov`s one; the house features elegant woodcarvings. The interior decoration is preserved as of the time of the Bulgarian revival so to be visualized the manner of life in this period.


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The gaming industry has been growing consistently for the past one decade with more operators entering the online gaming stage. For this reason, it implies that it is now more and more challenging to enter and stay ahead of the competition and make yourself an icon to emulate and attract more clients. You need to know the following to start your online gaming business.
- A dedicated server
- A merchant account
- A gambling license
- A professional gaming software
Is this all you need to attract gamblers and reach your highest level of success?
Mobile apps and website development agencies that specialize in the industry of gaming deal with numerous stages and projects. One of the common challenges for the new online gambling business is having a good comprehension of the working of the business. You also need to understand the resources you need to deliver a successful and robust product. If you want to develop an online winning gaming website through all the licensing stages, read below for more information.
Remote Gambling Software License
The gambling industry has numerous regulations. For this reason, there are also many specific standards that all operators must meet before they are licensed to continue with their online gaming business. The requirement needed for you to create the online gaming website is the license. The developer is required to secure a remote gambling license whether they commission an agency or built it in-house. For some, other country-specific licenses are needed to get the licenses you need.
As an operator, you have always required the specific license needed for your gambling service or product you need in the country. If you are considering developing a gambling business, ensuring you and your website or application developer has the necessary licenses in place ahead of the launch.
Complying With the Security Standards
There are a lot of sensitive customer data that online gamblers deal with. Some of this information regarding clients includes their banking details, their addresses, and their credit card numbers. Ensure that you put in place all the possible measures needed for your business. This is the reason why you must be complaint with the ISO/IEC 27001 along with the remote online gambling license and regulations on security management and information security. This involves the need for a strict data protection process in the industry. They include the provision of relevant training and education for your employees, keeping a log of events and guarding all data and information concerning the clients, keeping a tight authentication level of data access with your online gambling experience.
Understanding the Gambling Industry
Many new companies need to enter the online gaming industry. However, most of them have limited knowledge and experience about the operation of this industry. You must have a clear comprehension of how the industry works to tailor your services and products to the correct clients.
Many factors have come for you to consider when developing a new online gaming company. They include the compliance regulations, bespoke system integrations, affiliate organizations as well as tackling challenges that come with the use of these capabilities. For instance, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of the integration between an affiliate website and the back-end system. They should also include the payment provider integration with the live scores. Moreover, you are prohibited from using copyrighted information on your site before you pay for them.
Knowing Your Customer
Before you release the gambling website or application, it is imperative to understand the behavior of your target audience. It is also different from accessing the real-life casinos and bookies. The capability to identify the needs and preferences of your clients is the best way to provide explicit information about your clients. Extensive analysis and market research will help you understand you can address the special needs of your clients.
Selecting the Right Partner
If you are new in this industry and with the lack of enough resources to create the online gaming site or application, ensure you seek to partner with someone with enough experience to help you design a consultancy as well as develop the system. You must also secure the licenses necessary to propel your business without the interference of the feds.


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