We covered NYC’s new prostitution courts last week.  This week, Robin Richardson of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center sent a great letter to the editor in the New York Times discussing the courts and challenging the criminalization of prostitution. In even more exciting news, the Melissa Harris-Perry Show hosted a dialogue on the courts and on sex work featuring Deon Haywood of Women With a Vision.  It was a remarkable discussion, the likes of which we’ve never seen before on network television.  In November, Melissa Harris-Perry will also be hosting a panel discussion, featuring Deon Haywood and formerly incarcerated activists and scholars, on female incarceration at Tulane University.

Following recent (often negative) media exposure, brothel workers in Nairobi, Kenya have taken to confiscating recording equipment such as smartphones from clients to protect their privacy.

Sex workers’ rights activists are starting to respond to Equality Now’s campaign, which we mentioned last week, condemning the UN and Global Law Commission’s recommendations to decriminalize sex work. India’s National Network of Sex Workers and the African Sex Worker Alliance have both released statements.

The Los Angeles Times ran a positive review, rife with comparisons to “Belle de Jour”, of “Concussion,” a film about a housewife turned high end escort who caters to women clients exclusively. How we wish this were actually a market that existed in the real world. One thing, though: as our contributor Lori Adorable notes in her tumblr, “Just FYI: I often insist on meeting my clients in public first, and it is not really that unorthodox and definitely just for business. Try harder, people who review media about sex work.”

Ed Sheeran, who won prizes for a shitty song about a sex worker, said of Miley Cyrus ” I think encouraging young people to twerk might be a bad thing. It’s a stripper’s move. If I had a daughter of mine, I wouldn’t want her twerking.” If we had a daughter, we wouldn’t want her listening to Ed Sheeran.

A Bangkok police official defended the role of sex workers by claiming they reduced rape, angering local sex workers’ rights organizations. Chantawipa Abhisuk, director of the Empower, responded saying, “The belief that prostitution can help reduce rape cases in society is just a misunderstanding. There are still many rape cases in our society and they are usually perpetrated by someone close to the victims, not by some total stranger.”