Gnarly concern trolling in the wake of the murders of sex workers: “Show me a child who deserves to grow up a heroin addicted street sex worker. No one gets to choose their parents.” Thankfully Tracy Connelly’s actual family speaks here, and her partner here.
RIP Gabriella Liete, veteran Brazilian sex workers’ rights activist (photo by Tomas Langel)
An open letter extravaganza began this week when Sinead O’Connor wrote to Miley Cyrus, warning her that the music industry “will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its[sic] what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.” Oh, Sinead, please don’t use the word “prostitute” and all that anti rhetoric—all we want is to keep listening to I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, admiring your bravery for disclosing your Magdalene Laundry trauma. Amanda Palmer joined the fray, writing an open letter on her blog to Sinead, in which she maintains that there should be “room for Miley to rip a page out of stripper culture and run around like a maniac for however long she wants to.” Right, go ahead, Miley, please feel free to keep appropriating Black sex worker culture. Shut up, Amanda Palmer (this should really be said more often.) Autostraddle posited that all this would start a never ending sequence of offensive open letters. O’Connor then wrote a second and a third open letter to Cyrus in which she expostulated further about “acting like a prostitute and calling it feminism,” and how such behavior engenders mental illness (?).
Gabriela Leite, veteran sex workers’ rights activist and founder of Brazilian sex workers’ rights organization Davida, died of cancer yesterday, October tenth, at the age of sixty two.
Tracy Clark-Flory rants in Salon about why she didn’t want her husband to get a lap dance at his bachelor party (but, hey, she’s cool, she’s spent so much time writing about porn!) In the process, she reveals more about her own dysfunctions than any problem with strippers.
Ottawa police officer Sgt. Rohan Beebakhee is under fire in court for meeting with escorts, giving them his card, and saying things like: “I’m just here to let you know, should you have a bad date, or you find yourself in a bad situation, I don’t want you to be hesitant about calling police.”
The World Health organization published a new document informing government agencies and NGOs that sex worker led programs are a fundamental part of the fight against HIV. Sex workers themselves have known for ages how important peer-led projects are, but it’s nice to see it affirmed by mainstream organizations.
In related news, Kenya’s Medical Research Institute states that gay men working in the sex trade need to be included in the country’s HIV prevention strategy. Men who have sex with men are often prevented from accessing HIV testing and medication, and consensual sexual activity between men is illegal under Kenyan law and carries a maximum penalty of fourteen years’ imprisonment.
Cathy Reisenwitz critiques New York’s new prostitution and trafficking courts in Reason. Her op-ed also discusses recent FBI trafficking stings, and there’s a choice quote included from an FBI special agent’s press conference which makes the agency’s agenda of stripping sex workers’ agency abundantly clear: “The FBI is part of the apparatus in place to protect people, sometimes even from their own poor choices.”
In reference to the closing of Edinburgh’s saunas, Vicky Allan writes in a Scotland Herald op-ed that one thing much worse than a world full of super brothels is a world in which sex work is driven underground. At this point, though, we’re pretty tired of feminists prefacing pro-sex workers’ rights sentiments by going on about how uncomfortable they are with sex work. This isn’t about your comfort.
Strip club Rick’s Cabaret banned Giants watching at the club, because their recent string of losses soured customers’ moods.
Socialist PM Maud Olivier, writer of a new proposal for the French government to fine clients of sex workers, acts like she invented the Swedish model. The Local interviewed a spokeswoman for French sex workers’ rights organization STRASS, who explains how the law would further endanger sex workers.
Jessica Pilley, author of Policing Sexuality, the history of the Mann Act, goes over the history of anti-trafficking activism and its ties to racist immigration and border policies as well as the development of the surveillance state.
Mexican sex workers march on May Day to tell people what they should already know—work is work. (Photo via VICE Magazine)
“I just want them to stop fucking with us.” VICE talks to Mexican sex workers participating in a May Day march for labor rights in a piece acknowledging the economic appeal of sex work: “Inflation has caused Mexico’s minimum wage to decrease over the years, and many of the country’s citizens have turned to the streetwalking sector to make ends meet.”
Remember how Prince George’s County was going to live-tweet a prostitution sting? That didn’t happen! Whew! Apparently, the police officers got concerned that their identities would be compromised. I know, right? What a bummer that would be. Additionally, no arrests were made. How much do you think the threat to match every live-tweet with a donation to sex workers’ rights organization HIPS had to do with this decision?
A former Portland State University student who also worked in bondage porn is suing PSU for more than a million dollars after some blatantly inappropriate and unethical behavior on the part of her former advisor, associate professor Marcia Klotz. Klotz displayed a boundary violating interest in the student’s sex work career and history of sexual trauma while overseeing her work in the McNair Scholars program. When the student began working with another advisor, Klotz accused her of plagiarism. It reminds us of a few different episodes of Elementary, but like, way more painful.
The ACLU is investigating Project ROSE. Thank goodness someone is! We can’t really tell what’s up with this article though: “Not only is there an apparent problem with organizing busts to send people to a church-backed charity program…” Is this snark or sincerity?
Italy’s scariest serial killer, the Monster of Florence, is probably not back (despite the sensational headline), which just means yet another serial killer is murdering sex workers. Local residents often hear screams coming from the area where the murdered women are found. Calls concerning the noise saved one woman’s life, but no one called about Andrea Cristina Zamir, who was murdered on Monday.
Deeply ironic image of a protester on her way into the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality in Ireland to debate the criminalization of payment for sex. (Photo by Eric Luke/The Irish Times)
Registration for the Desiree Alliance Conference is still open with hotel room discounts until July 7th.
Tensions over escorting simmer in rural Australian towns, where touring sex workers follow the market that transient miners create, even after the Queensland Supreme Court upheld a ruling that allows hotel owners to refuse accommodations to sex workers.
Beijing police rejected the ruling of a Guangdong court in southern China stating that “happy ending” massages are legal.
Kenyan activists have raised the alarm over increasing attacks targeting gay men, male sex workers and transgender women after three brutal assaults, all within the span of several weeks.
Scotland’s bill to criminalize clients of sex workers seems to have failed. No official coverage on that yet, but MSP Rhoda Grant, the proposed law’s main backer, issued a statement on her web site today about how disappointed she was, which was then taken down. Diligent sex workers’ rights activists kept screenshots, however. [Update—Scottish sex workers’ rights org SCOT-PEP issued a press release announcing the defeat of Grant’s bill.-ed.]
Ireland will pay several hundred former residents of Catholic-run Magdalene laundries at least 34.5 million euros ($45 million) to compensate them for years of unpaid labor and human rights abuses, the government announced Wednesday, following a decade-long campaign by laundry survivors.
Meanwhile, The Irish Times reports that a law criminalizing payment for sex has been recommended by the Oireachtas Committee on Justice. Tellingly, the article quotes a representative of Ruhama, one of the organizations behind the Magdalene Laundries, in which countless sex workers were incarcerated and abused, as being in favor of the bill.
Courtney Trouble, progressive porn maker extraordinaire, asked quirky indie actress Ellen Page what she thought of feminist porn, and she responded with a rousing endorsement. We personally have always wanted Ellen Page’s approval.
