Brooke Magnanti’s “deranged Samuel Pepys” of an ex-boyfriend actually kept his own diary where he talked about her sex work: so much for his claims that she made it all up, inspired by dead sex workers she saw in the morgue.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown explains why the lay-feminist should also be glad that the Senate trafficking bill is currently dead. Why do we need another bill for things that are already illegal? Brown points out that
Federal law already prohibits a wide range of conduct related to human trafficking, slavery, and child sexual exploitation. It’s against the law to “recruit” or “entice” anyone for forced sex or labor, or any person under 18 years old for commercial sexual activity. “Harboring,” “transporting,” or in any way “obtaining” them is also illegal. So is “providing” or “benefiting from” them. Additionally, all 50 states have laws specifically criminalizing human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of minors.
Jon Stewart should maybe read more of Elizabeth Nolan Brown’s work.
Monica Jones spoke at the UN in Geneva about the need for increased action to protect the human rights of sex workers.
The South Carolina Supreme Court awarded workers’ comp to a dancer who was shot on stage and had previously had her claim denied by a lower court.
Carol Leigh writes about the damage that anti-trafficking campaigns do to sex workers for Open Democracy.
San Diego non-profits Via International and Women’s Empowerment International are teaming up to offer micro-loans to Tijuana sex workers.
The LGBT community in Indonesia, already doubly marginalized through homophobia and the stigma of sex work many in the community engage in to survive, now has to deal with an unofficial fatwa.
Over 50 sex workers in Zambia have been trained by Corridors of Hope, USAIDS, and US President’s Plan for Emergency Aids Relief to act as peer educators in teaching safer sex skills and HIV prevention tactics.
7,200 sex workers met in Santo Domingo for the “Public Policy Forum on Violence and Health in Sexual Work” hosted by the United Women’s Movement. Modemu focuses on empowering sex workers to advocate for themselves, defend their rights, and protect themselves against disease.
Rescued Cambodian sex workers are now providing uniforms for an Australian high school, among other consumers of their [marginally better paid] sweatshop labor.
Full service sex workers, strippers, and online sex workers all just got redefined as victims of “commercial sexual exploitation” in Perth, with a concomitant task force to help them out. Phone sex operators and fetish workers, one gathers, are on their own.
BioMedCentral writes about male sex workers and public health.
Talk about grasping at straws: a Republican politician in Baltimore was reduced to referencing the fictional movie “Taken” as she argued for HB 241 which, like many other anti-trafficking initiatives, only serves to make what’s already illegal more profitable for state officials and law enforcement.
Yet another report reveals why sex workers do sex work: the flexibility, greater pay, and higher standard of living.
The filmmakers behind the web series Hot Mom made a teaser for a new series they’re trying to get funded, about sugar babies.
When sex work isn’t criminalized, sex workers can report assaults and sometimes rapists get arrested, which just happened in the case of 24-year-old UK university student Ashley Mitton.
Also in the UK: a camera man who was illegally taping models and at least one sex worker has gone to jail after threatening the sex worker and her workplace, tweeting the names of two victims, and sending one a clip of his footage.
Saskatchewan is banning stripping in environments that serve alcohol to cut down on trafficking, a move that will not affect trafficking in the slightest, but may affect alcohol sales and will certainly affect the incomes of young women with little social capital.
Several street workers on Hessle Road in Hull, England, have been kicked off their stroll after residents complained.
Despite the arrest of serial rapist and murderer Adrian Bayley, street workers in Australia are still slow to trust police, and say that only decriminalization can really change that.
Chris Hedges really does need to pay attention to this article and yes, to sex workers. But he won’t. For the more responsible, however, this article is a really good reprisal of all the reasons that ignoring sex workers and supporting End Demand ends in damage to sex workers:
The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (agreeing with a 2014 report by the Stockholm County Administrative Board) found the decrease in street-based sex work may have more to do with the use of cell phones and the internet to connect buyers and sellers than the law. What the law has actually done is increase stigma for sex workers, cutting them off from health and other services and limiting their abilities to negotiate with and refuse clients. The Association stated that the law is putting those who sell sex “in an even more precarious position” and that it should be changed to better protect sex workers’ rights.
Laura Lee, a Scottish sex worker who travels to Northern Ireland to work, is challenging Northern Ireland’s End Demand laws.
More on ESPLERP’s suit on the unconstitutionality of California’s prostitution laws.
A South Carolina stripper has pled guilty to attacking one of her coworkers with her lucite heel, puncturing the other woman’s scalp.
I just don’t know about this one: a Berlin brothel is looking to pay someone to be a quality inspector of the services provided. Will the women be paid while their services are being rated? What’s the incentive to provide good service if they have to do this for free? Why should they have to do that for free? So many questions.
Pretty Woman is 25 years old—why are we still talking about it?
Amy and I (Red, the Week In Links editor) did an interview with local Portland radio station XRAY FM on our case against Portland strip club Casa Diablo.
Unfortunately, Jill Meagher’s husband has become an advocate of the Swedish model in Ireland 🙁