Sex writer Melissa Gira Grant published a piece in the Guardian last week questioning the rhetoric of anti-sex work activists—particularly Ashton Kutcher, who’s been collaborating with wife Demi Moore in a highly publicized “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” campaign. (Kutcher and Moore’s “activism” has been discussed previously in several other Tits and Sass posts, like this one, this one, and this one, to name just a few.)
In her article, Grant deconstructs the myth of clients “buying” prostitutes instead of exchanging money for labor. Sex workers don’t “sell our bodies” any more than pro-athletes, construction workers, ballerinas or models do. We use our bodies for labor; they’re not “things” that clients can purchase. To buy something implies a permanent change of ownership. After several years of being a prostitute I find that I still very much own my body—despite all the men who have allegedly “bought” me. [READ MORE]
The totally irrelevant cover of the New York Post, Wednesday, August 10
Melissa Petro (once deemed “hooker teacher” by the New York Post) responds to the Post‘s Wednesday headline.
Wendy Babcock, Toronto-based sex work activist and law student, passed away on Tuesday.
There are only five days left to donate to the SWAAY Epic Step billboard.
Irish sex workers rights organization Turn Off the Blue Light recently claimed victory in a dispute with Google. The group had paid for an advertisement with Google AdWords, but found that, beginning in May, people looking for their site through the search engine were instead diverted to anti-sex work campaign websites.
A patron at the Pretty Woman Lounge, a Detroit strip club, shot and killed a club employee after being denied admission.
Even though she turned down an offer from Vivid to appear in an adult movie, apparently most Americans still think Pippa Middleton is a porn star.
Three American pole dancers and one Argentinean took home top honors at the International Pole dancing Competition last weekend in Denver.
Lee Grace Dougherty and her two brothers, who allegedly shot a cop in Florida and robbed a bank in Georgia, were caught Wednesday morning in Colorado. Since Dougherty worked as a stripper in Cocoa Beach, some clever writers at the New York Post (perhaps the same ones who wrote the “stox” headline above?) were sure to make up puns about her “rack” in reporting the story. [READ MORE]
