This Week In Tourist Reports

You're Not Funny

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March 24, 2011

One of these tourist reports typically pops up in my Google alerts every week. Someone ventures inside a strip club for the first time and shares his/her tale with the world as if he/she is Neil Armstrong. Last week it was an insecure lesbian who felt threatened when a stripper at Jumbo’s talked to her date. Even cool writers are guilty of lame tourist reports where they sound grateful to have made it out alive.

This week’s gem is featured on dating advice website, YourTango, and it’s a doozy. (YourTango was never even on my radar until the founder/CEO embarrassed herself last summer with that bizarre Indian fetishist piece in the Huffington Post.) The author starts off by letting us know that she’s boldly going where no woman has gone before: a bachelor party weekend in Atlantic City with 27 dudes.

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Sex Work Sells: Wódka Vodka

By

Bubbles

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February 13, 2012

What's the sheep doing there? — photo courtesy of visitordesign / visitordesign.com

Friend of the blog Visitor Design sent this to us via Twitter on Friday night. Get it? It means that Wódka is the kind of vodka that’s here to pay off its student loans and has its own well-designed website, but it costs the same as the kind of cheap hooch hustling the corner for enough cash for another night at the motel. It’s a smooth marketing take on the commonly assumption that sex workers are doing one of two things: either ho-ing from sheer desperation or enjoying a pampered, rarefied existence thanks to the largesse of generous men. Because you know the language: escorts are expensive and hookers are cheap. While there are certainly sex workers who charge a lot and sex workers who don’t charge so much, I can’t imagine this ad saying something like “Model Quality, Girl Next Door Pricing.” Oh, wait. This is a liquor ad. That could totally happen.

But: There’s a sheep in that ad. In this context, the image of the sheep leads us to a darker place, one where, when desperate men think of the relative pricing and availability of prostitutes, may ponder the free option. Wódka, what are you going to do to that lamb? A willingness to associate your product with bestiality is truly a maverick move.

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Tits and Sass at SXSW PanelPicker

By

Bubbles

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August 27, 2012

Mad Men to Magic Mike: Sex Work in Popular Culture from Tits and Sass

Hello, readers! If you’re the sort of person who’s interested in these things, Tits and Sass has a panel proposal up at the South by Southwest PanelPicker. We’d greatly appreciate your support. If you enjoy reading us chat about Mad Men and Magic Mike, along with our discussions of why it’s not cool for pop culture figures to joke about how sex workers were abused as children, you’ll want to see this panel happen. Please go vote for us and help spread the word.

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You’re Not Funny: SNL Can’t Parody Porn Stars

By

Stoya

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June 27, 2013

I spent the better part of last June gluing rhinestones to this one wall in my apartment. At some point during the second week I started wearing a toolbelt full of E6000 glue, wadded up paper towels, sparkly bits and the syringes I use to control where the glue goes. I should mention that the toolbelt was being worn instead of pants as opposed to on top of pants. I should also mention that my apartment has horrible ventilation and I was probably kind of high on glue fumes. The glue fumes may have contributed to my decision to climb the radiator instead of using a ladder.

On the night of the 14th there was a knock on my door. The only person who knocks on the inside door is my superintendent. His name is Jorge. I yelled “Come in” and then realized that he might be upset about the fact that I was sticking things to the wall with heavy-duty glue. Fortunately, Jorge is a very special creature. He took in the whole spectacle, exclaimed “Oh my god!” and proceeded to gush in his Puerto Rican-Brooklynite accent about how much he loved where I was going with the concept. Then he ran upstairs and came back with a giant box of “Sarchovskys? Warsovskys? Whatevah. I thought you might be able to use them for your project.” See, at some point in the past decade someone had left a giant box of Swarovski crystals at his apartment. Happy Birthday to me. No, seriously. The next day was my birthday.

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Two VICE Writers Walk Into A Bar

By

Kat

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May 8, 2012

I try not to let the positions of the sun, moon, and other planetary objects dictate how I go about my daily life. That being said, there are two things I really try to avoid when there is a full moon: using public transportation and working at the strip club. People get weird. Hipster girls on lesbianic friend dates find their way into the club, act like assholes, and then blog about it.

I’ve never been to Pumps myself, but I can visualize a strip club with the lights on and the music off, the bartender counting out the till, the bouncer placing stools on the bar, and the dancers getting dressed. On a busy Friday night, this might be the first time they’ve all been in the same place at the same time. They can finally ask each other “what was up with those really drunk bitches?” and “did you see when they got kicked out and one of them screamed that she left her scarf and that we’re mean? It was amazing.” And then someone will note that maybe the supermoon brought out such bad behavior from a pair of women who didn’t look like they would be jerks. Some of them would give the two the benefit of the doubt and agree that they are probably nicer people when they’re not doing shots underneath a 14% bigger, 30% brighter moon.

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