Kristen Davis aka the Manhattan Madam is claiming that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the (former) IMF head recently charged with attempted rape, used her services in 2006. Meanwhile, the heinous defense lawyers for Strauss-Kahn have announced their intent to look for a history for sex work in the accuser’s past, based on the suspicion that she might be HIV positive.
Speaking of HIV, it looks like not all sex workers in the Philippines are infected with it which is a big shock to health officials: “This […] has shattered the traditional belief that HIV-AIDS only infects sex workers and homosexuals.”
Cris Sardina of Desiree Alliance holds up pictures of Marcia Powell (Photo by P.J. Starr, via the NO HUMAN INVOLVED Facebook page)
A Sydney sex worker was set alight with petrol by two men. One of her attackers has just been sentenced to only three years in jail. S Kim suffered burns to 45% of her body and her face, and her top lip had to be partially removed. As a result of being outed by articles about the attack, she has lost friends and support. A former client of Kim’s began fundraising towards her medical costs. You can join him using this information: BSB: 062 016 ACCT NUMBER: 1075 6113 Name: S Kim
The mayor of Surabaya is monitoring the Dolly district—which has been the scene of ongoing protests over her attempts to curtail sex work by evicting sex workers and closing down the area—through CCTV cameras. Not unlike some club owners I know.
Though Amanda Goff says that her children will not be affected by her decision to write a memoir about her work as an escort, the Australian Herald Sun begs to differ, and worries greatly about the potential horrific effects this choice will have on her children, all the while vocally supporting her agency and empowerment. It’s a wild ride.
Monica Jones, Arizona State University social work student, trans activist, and SWOP Phoenix member, is fighting to stay out of jail after the police targeted her for a false “manifestation of prostitution” arrest, reacting to her participation in a SWOP protest against their recent stings. (Photo via indiegogo)
Michael Musto’s Lou Reed obituary in the Daily Beast goes on at length about Reed’s penchant for including street sex workers and trans sex workers in his songwriting. Therefore, we can mention Lou Reed’s death in the Week In Links without going off topic.
Fellow Phoenix activists have started an indiegogo fundraiser site for the legal defense of Monica Jones, a trans activist, student sex worker, and SWOP-Phoenix member, who was falsely arrested for “manifestation of prostitution” as part of the Project Rose sting after her participation in a SWOP-Phoenix protest against the project.
Philadelphia voters will have an opportunity to vote against the retention of Judge Teresa Carr Deni, who famously ruled a sex worker’s rape “theft of services” in 2007. Philadelphia feminist activists are rallying to get out the “no” vote.
A petition against the abolition of prostitution, the so-called “Manifesto of 343 bastards” (named in homage to Simone de Beauvoir’s 1971 abortion manifesto, the signers of whom were nicknamed the “343 sluts/bitches”) created an uproar in France in part because it claimed public intellectuals and authors among its signers.
The FBI says killer truckers are abducting street sex workers and other women at truck stops, raping them and leaving their bodies along the nation’s highways. If we never hear the phrase “high risk lifestyles” again, it’ll be too soon.
Spiegel Online interviews Johanna Weber, the founder of Germany’s first professional association for sex workers, the Professional Association of Erotic and Sexual Services.
The porn star hired to play Hannah Horvath in Hustler’s XXX reinterpretation of the HBO hit Girlsdoesn’t understand why Lena Dunham can’t appreciate her work. After all, performer Alex Chance maintains that “while Dunham ‘never has normal, hot, oh my God that’s porno sex’ in Girls and is ‘always second guessing’ to cater to her partner, the porn star has had some of her best sexual experiences on camera. (Although the This Ain’t Girls XXX sex had to be more awkward than normal porn to stay in character.)” Plus, “since Girls is ‘pretty much like a softcore porn to start, we didn’t think it was much of a stretch to go on and put the hardcore in it.’ ”
Canberra sex workers want changes to the law that will support their safety and privacy. Naturally, anti sex work folks (masquerading as anti sex-trafficking, and putting quotes around “safety for sex workers”) are not okay with that.
Performing artist and sex worker Annie Sprinkle is getting married for the tenth time this Saturday, and you can buy a ticket!
“2 Broke Girls” appropriated stripper signifiers “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” poledancing, and thigh high PVC boots for a Super Bowl commercial, and then an Idaho congressman fired an aide who tweeted salaciously about it. In the words of the Awl, “Something about ‘Two Broke Girls’ Finally Funny.”
This isn’t really about strippers, but it’s a hilarious hand-wringing editorial called “The Stripper Bowl” about how inappropriate Beyoncé’s costuming and outfits were.
In unfunny Super Bowl news, the sex trafficking hysteria that is now a regular part of the coverage of large sporting events continues to do damage to both actual trafficked workers, neglected in other industries, and sex workers. Melissa Gira Grant is on it at The Guardian.
