On July 2nd, 24 year old Turkish trans sex worker Dora Oezer was murdered by a client. The following Friday, a 100 plus person protest against transphobic violence, organized by Turkish sex workers’ rights organization Red Umbrella Sexual Health and Human Rights Association, was held in Istanbul, while a similar protest was held in Berlin. International sex worker community outrage over Dora’s murder and the murder of Swedish sex worker Petite Jasmine have led to plans for further Justice for Dora/Justice for Jasmine protests in eighteen European cities, six Australian cities, three North American cities, and Seoul today outside of Swedish and Turkish embassies. While most of the mainstream media has maintained silence on this topic, HuffPo UK did run a sympathetic piece, as did The Local. Stay tuned for a Tits and Sass exclusive interview with Turkish sex workers on Dora’s murder and the realities of trans sex workers’ lives in Turkey, to be posted next week.
What the anti-prostitution loyalty pledge has to do with the brutal beating of a pregnant Indian sex worker.
NYC sex workers’ rights org The Red Umbrella Project and its lit mag, Prose and Lore, hit the big time with a profile on ABC News.
Occasionally, Jezebel renews our faith in it by doing things like running this great piece on copwatching escort Nicole Masterson.
Toronto police have yet to classify homeless sex worker Kassandra Bolduc’s death as a murder. Local charities and the homeless community are concerned that there have not been enough press releases urging people with information on the case to come forward.
This week, it’s Farrah Abrahams’ visit to a strip club which is apparently big news.
The four religious congregations that have refused to contribute to the compensation fund for residents of their former Magdalene laundries have combined assets worth €1.5 billion, the Irish Times reports.
Greece has reintroduced mandatory HIV testing—as if interning drug users, sex workers, migrants, and radicals in detention camps weren’t enough to give it that fascist vibe.
An Alwaba article on Syrian refugees in Lebanon turning to survival sex work is more nuanced than most on “the delicate line between prostitution and sexual exploitation.”
Apparently, we should legalize prostitution to fight terrorism (?) and to provide lonely men with companionship, not because, you know, sex workers might want labor rights. As the kids on the internet say, FAIL.
South Australian Labor MP Steph Key placed an ad in the adult relaxation services of a local paper’s classified section urging sex worker clients to support her bill to decriminalize prostitution.
File under This Week’s Cop Hypocrisy: a Memphis police officer has been charged with soliciting a minor and patronizing prostitution.
Despite the defeat of MP Rhoda Grant’s End Demand bill , the issue of prostitution is still being debated in Scotland as sauna raids in Edinburgh and Glasgow continue. The Guardian quotes activist sex worker Laura Lee and sex workers’ rights org SCOT-PEP, but of course the intro to the article profiles a sex worker whose face is “scarred by drug use and abuse.”
A Nashville attorney is suing Apple for not protecting him from his porn addiction. Accountability, anyone?
Could a former stripper be elected president? Tracy Quan schools the Washington Post.
Activist/dominatrix Kitty Stryker is interviewed by the Handbag.
In South Africa, SWEAT and other sex workers’ rights orgs struggle with abolitionists and their distorted rhetoric.
Marie Calloway quotes Tits and Sass co-editor Caty Simon explaining why condemning clients is misguided in an AnimalNY feature on john shaming projects like the Invisible Men and German photographer Bettina Flitner’s recent piece on the Paradise brothel in Stuttengart.
Look out, Yahoo is coming for your tumblr porn.
Jesse Hansen, an aspiring ballet star, is accusing the Royal Winnipeg Ballet of unfairly kicking him out after he began acting in porn.
The Indonesian Social Affairs Ministry’s plans to close down 50 red-light districts across the country have alarmed Argorejo red-light district inhabitants, who fear that the sex trade will be driven underground.
AnOther interviewed photographer Bronia Stewart on the nine months she spent documenting the off screen activities of the men and women who work at Babestation, a Central London adult television and phone sex line.
Time to feel betrayed by the left, as usual. Mother Jones interviews Alexander Perlman on his lurid, condescending and exploitative documentary on the lives of truck stop sex workers. In between the bullshit, though, there are some interesting tidbits about lot lizards’ lives.
Many social media sites are still restricting sex work ads, even from countries where sex work is legalized or decriminalized. Good thing us savvy sex workers are so good at finding loopholes.
Despite its imbecilic title ( “Sex Workers Learn Safe Sex In Indonesia”—actually, sex workers know all about safe sex, thank you, but as the article itself states, the problem is getting clients to practice it) this profile of HIV/AIDS prevention programs for Indonesian sex workers is worth a read.
An insightful feature on Seven Days compares the lives of a migrant sex worker and a migrant farm worker.
More migrant “trafficking victims” arrested and detained in Thailand while awaiting deportation. More quotes from the women involved stating that they were involved in sex work voluntarily. Gee, it feels like we have an item like this every week.
A Martinsburg, WV police captain states,”We try to put an emphasis on the [sex workers] that are the most visible.” That is, the sex workers that are most marginalized.
The Gay News Network interviews Tim Spencer on his meta meta play, consisting of the playwright in dialogue with a male sex worker about both their lives.