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The Week In Links: April 29

As bodies continue to be uncovered in Long Island, LI sex workers arm themselves for work. Meanwhile, local police keep “cracking down” on prostitutes, claiming that their press for arrests was in place before the serial killer gained national attention.

Audacia Ray offers a concise critique of the so called “superheroes” of New York who are pledging to protect prostitutes from the Long Island serial killer with their martial art skills. Everything about their approach and the media surrounding it is, frankly, a bunch of unhelpful paternalistic bullshit.

A photo has been released of the Seattle man charged with raping and torturing a sex worker. Police are asking other victims to come forward. .

Brooke Magnanti (Belle De Jour) addresses the obfuscation and hysteria that dominates discussions of  trafficking, porn, and sex work.

Hawaii is considering two different bills to suppress prostitution, neither of which is well-considered.

A former stripper is suing a Detroit strip club for firing her after she refused to perform sex acts on customers. Check out the video; the plaintiff uses the term “modern day sex slaves” but doesn’t provide any evidence of coercion and instead talks rampant drug use by her fellow dancers and ends with a moral plea to protect women from stripping altogether. The strip club owner admits there’s drug use at his club, but points out that there’s drug (ab)use in many professions.

Dickish Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew fame is running for mayor of Miami on the platform of requiring strippers to buy work permits. (“Fellas, relax,” he tells the customers. Because god knows dudes spending their expendable income shouldn’t be the ones paying more when you can tax the women trying to make a living.)

Police are looking into unsolved prostitute murders across the entire country in attempt to connect them with a recently charged serial killer suspect from Reno. Joseph Naso is charged with murdering four women. The media is speculating that some of those women were prostitutes but the police won’t confirm.

Tina Fey Hates Sex Workers: Part Two of Infinity

There she is, being Not Remotely Like A Sex Worker!

Oh Tina Fey, you sex worker-obsessed mess. I love 30 Rock with all the passion of a fake orgasm, but sometimes it’s more in spite of you than because of you. Let’s start with last week’s episode, shall we?

Once again, Tracy Jordan (played by comedian Tracy Morgan) finds himself in a strip club with Liz Lemon (Tina Fey.) But for once, their visit was Liz’s idea. She’s become desperate to restore her unpredictable, outrageous TV star to his former self after a bout of serious-actor-itis, and she figures watching “someone’s daughter shake her crack”—yes Tina, every woman is someone’s daughter, what a relevant point—will snap him out of his funk. Sadly, the dancers in the club all flock around Jordan and begin congratulating him on how his film “Hard To Watch” changed their lives, and their confessions about estrangement from their biological fathers (ha! never saw that one coming) is the last thing he wants to hear.

Behind Lame Film Reviews

Leslie Zemeckis (wife of director Robert) released a documentary about a year ago called Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque. I haven’t seen it yet, but maybe I will some day. Burlesque seems cool from what I know; I’ve only seen a little bit of it, but am interested in watching talented dancers, whatever genre they’re in. I’ve definitely heard burlesque girls trash-talk strippers, but so do most people, so it’s not like I hold the entire burlesque community accountable for the words of a judgmental few.

Bill Gibron of PopMatters posted a review of the documentary last week. He engages in some pretty gratuitous stripper-hating that appears irrelevant to the film, while unknowingly clarifying many of the similarities between the worlds of sex work and burlesque dance.

DuBarry Was a Lady (1943)

Du Barry Was A Lady (1943)

This film! Gene Kelly, Red Skelton, and Lucille Ball (who is a most epic redhead in color, I have to say) star in this musical where a hat check boy busts his head and dreams he is Louis XV, and Lucy is his Madame Du Barry. Sex work is, obviously, never mentioned. I mean, this film was made in 1943 y’all, I’d be expecting quite a lot if I needed them to say she was what she was. But. BUT. Anyone who knows their Ho-story knows that Madame Du Barry was a Courtesan. Courtesans fucked for cash . . . among other things, obviously.

Working Mother Arrested in Sting Operation


I woke up one morning last week to this story: During a sting operation in West Oakland, a 25-year-old woman was arrested when she agreed to have sex with an undercover officer in exchange for money. After being arrested, she told the police that her two twins (some reports state their age as one year, others as one month) were sleeping in her locked car nearby where she had left them to work. The children were then turned over to Alameda County child protective services, and the woman was charged with willful cruelty to a child in addition to solicitation.