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Defensive Punting?

Lawmakers in Colorado are proposing a way of educating men who buy sex from escorts. They’re billing it like a “Scared Straight” for hobbyists. But you know what a diversion program for busted Johns also sounds like? Traffic school. Maybe it will be eight hours long, have a brief lunch break, include a few sex trafficking equivalents of Red Asphalt, a shame workbook, and end with a multiple choice quiz. You know, because if only the guys spending money for pleasure knew that the women they were seeing were basically glorified comfort women, then maybe they’d think twice about it.

The fact that most of those guys are seeing women who participate in consensual sex work is probably not on the table, which bores me. YAWN, more evidence that people think we can’t consent to sex work, YAWN more evidence that people are cool with taking our agency away from us, YAWN more evidence that people think we couldn’t possibly want to have sex for money…

Anyway, I would love it if there were a school for Johns, but only if it were run by sex workers; Do you know how many grody men I have to point toward a shower because they showed up to a session without showering?

You’re Not Funny: The Content Farm

Screenshot from The Content Farm

Last week I saw a SXSW panel called “Secrets of Fake Twitter Accounts.” The speakers included @BPGlobalPR, @JasperSloburushe, @MayorEmanuel, and @FakeAPStylebook. They were all pretty diverse in their reasons for starting fake Twitter accounts, from “What’s going on in the world outrages me” to “Those guys are dicks” to “We were just emailing jokes.” The guys behind @FakeAPStylebook, the “just making jokes” dudes, also have a mock eHow/Demand Media parody site called The Content Farm, where they publish fake how-tos like “How to Pour Milk” and “How to Tell If You Are Bleeding From the Scalp.” It’s a pretty great idea for a humor site. The submission page warns “We are a content farm, so odds are you won’t be paid.”

But today in You’re Not Funny, we bring you the recent “How to Bury a Hooker in the Nevada Desert.” “Note that this guide offers no instruction on how to bury a prostitute, escort or stripper in any region but the Nevada desert. Refer to the article, ‘How to Bury a Prostitute, Escort or Stripper in Areas Outside the Nevada Desert.'” OH HILARITY. I look forward to future “How to Lynch a Black Man” and “How to Kill Your Domestic Worker” articles from this dude. Making sport of the real dangers created by the marginalization of sex workers? Buddy, you’re not funny.

Interview with Sarah Katherine Lewis

I first heard of Sarah Katherine Lewis in 2006 after she published her first book, a sex work memoir titled Indecent: How I Make it and Fake it as a Girl for Hire, then interviewed her after her 2008 essay and recipe collection Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me. With writing that’s painfully honest, funny and sharp, I had fallen deep in literary love. So I was psyched when I heard she has a new book out, titled—with characteristic self-deprecation—My Boring-Ass Rehab Diary. Other than not really being boring-ass (the quick skimming I’ve done already has been making me laugh), the title is pretty straightforward: Lewis started the journal on January 19, 2011 and had it finished and ready to sell by early March. You can get your own copy here.

 

Stripper Music Monday: SXSW Edition

This year marked my 17th South by Southwest music festival. Despite the Mardi-Gras style crowds, traffic clusterfuck, and corporate sponsorship that swallowed Austin, it was a fabulous week. Here’s the stripper-relevant artists and music I saw.

Ted Leo at the East Side Drive In

“86 the Violence” performance celebrates UPR Recommendation 86

We agree that no one should face violence or discrimination in access to public services based on sexual orientation or their status as a person in prostitution, as this recommendation suggests.

The above language, derived from Recommendation 86 of the U.N.’s Universal Periodic Review is now an official part of U.S. human rights policy thanks to the efforts of hundreds of activist groups. It’s a huge, heartening step towards affirming the rights of sex workers.  While Tits and Sass is not an activist blog, one of the reasons this site exists is because there is a need to publicly state that people who accept payment to have sex, talk dirty, have sex on camera, strip, masturbate in front of a webcam, provide sensual touch, or pose for adult photos are not disposable and are not a special class of people who are fair game for violence and crime because of what they do for money.