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The Week In Links—June 13

 

A march organized by Honduran sex workers' rights organization RedTraSex Honduras (Photo via upsidedownworld.org)
A march organized by Honduran sex workers’ rights organization RedTraSex Honduras (Photo via upsidedownworld.org)

Honduran sex workers marched for recognition and protection, protesting the murder of sixteen Honduran sex workers since September of last year.

Canadian sex workers keep it cute: “Jesus had love for Duke Ellington too!”: Tabatha Southey’s cute-but-cogent rebuttal of the current debate around the Nordic model is a must read. Vanessa D’Alessio puts Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay on the Bad Date list after elaborating on measures workers take to keep themselves safe and the way the proposed Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act undermines these measures.

Who needs a shelter when you can suck dick for cash? Tits and Sass contributor Tara Burns asks in this post for Vice on surviving foster care through survival sex work.

Lawyers say China’s police-run “custody and education” system for sex workers are the same as re-education labor camps and call for their abolition.

File under The Many Ways To Pole Dance. No, seriously, folks, this video made our week.

In a blow to the grand tradition of dinner dates, a Florida man was arrested after agreeing to an undercover cop’s proposed exchange of a blowjob for salad.

Republicans are casing Kansas City as a potential site for the 2016 RNC and one strip club covered up its sign in hopes of not offending their delicate sensibilities.

Clumsy rewording in Rhode Island bill 2602 does more than equate sex trafficking with sex work: it also equates carpooling with sex workers to trafficking, punishable by the same penalties.

This week in “nope:” A Long Island City strip club offers free lap dances to dads on Father’s Day.

Daddy (2014)

adaddycoverMadison Young’s memoir Daddy tackles head-on the daddy issues sex workers are always accused of having. Young skillfully and responsibly presents her journey from a little girl who misses her daddy to an accomplished gallery owner, feminist erotic film producer, author, and “sex positive Tasmanian devil.” She begins by tackling the issue of consent: yours. “I cannot hear the consenting ‘yes’ seep from your lips,” she writes, “but by the simple turn of this page you will be physically consenting to this journey, this scene, between you and I.”

I remember first hearing of Young years ago when a friend quoted her now-famous line, “How many anal scenes does it take to open a feminist art space?” Young made her place in the few areas of the sex industry I have no experience with: San Francisco, the mecca of sex worker culture; pro-subbing on Kink.com; and shooting dozens of anal scenes for mainstream porn. Although our experiences are different, I found myself nodding and occasionally clapping through every interview and article of hers I read over the years.

Usually, I am eager to read sex worker memoirs because of the ways that other peoples’ stories of sex work echo and offer new perspectives on my own experiences. Madison Young’s book was different: I had no idea what it was like to be a pro-sub porn star in a full time D/S relationship, and I wanted to know.

The first thing I noticed was the beauty and honesty of the writing. Young obviously has major skills with words and relating to an audience. She promises to lay her “heart bare, simple, raw, beating, human, and emotional with truth of honesty and vulnerability, fear and heroism,” and she delivers.

Exposing Snapchat: What Adult Performers Need To Know

photoscI live a double life. By day, I am a software developer, living in a world where your choice of hoodie, afternoon beer, and text editor mark your rank within the social tribe. At night, my mousy ponytail comes down and the Givenchy Rouge goes on as I fire up my snowball microphone and HD webcam. No doubt, I’m probably getting naked for guys whose open source code I use day to day in my projects. I’m a tech geek and proud cam model. That’s why last month’s  Federal Trade Commission ruling that the popular photo sharing mobile app Snapchat deceived its users has me fuming.

The story of Snapchat reads like the typical Silicon Valley tech bromance novel. Founded by Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel when they were students at Stanford and living in the school’s Kappa Sigma fraternity house, the early years of Snapchat are chronicled in Forbes. They were frat-bro misogynists with little regard for the women of Stanford, illustrated by some emails obtained by Valleywag that Spiegel sent to his Kappa Sigma brothers which included the term “sororisluts.”

Snapchat’s main value proposition is that the app allows users to send mobile photos that are secure and which are deleted from the recipient’s phone after one viewing. However, the FTC found that the app is not secure at all. The FTC’s ruling details that the company failed to communicate security holes to users. These security holes include a hacker security breach, a recipient’s ability to take a screenshot of a photo without notifying the sender, and the fact that images were not deleted after a recipient opened them. According to a press release from the FTC, “Snapchat deceptively told its users that the sender would be notified if a recipient took a screenshot of a snap. In fact, any recipient with an Apple device that has an operating system pre-dating iOS 7 can use a simple method to evade the app’s screenshot detection, and the app will not notify the sender.” The FTC also found that Snapchat “tracked and transmitted some users’ location information and collected data from their address books without consent.” Although many users who trusted Snapchat with their private photos were surprised to learn about the FTC’s findings, the history of the company points to a disregard for user security almost from the start.

Stacks & Cats

Amelia's Cat

Hi, I’m Amelie, a full-service sex worker from London, England. I lost my mojo but after a very profitable day at work it’s returned.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a real-life cat, but if I did it would look something like this. It would probably take a 50% cut of my earnings and make me buy it expensive catnip.

Sex workers, submit pictures of your furballs and funds here.

The Week In Links—June 6

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image via Bénédicte DESRUS Photography/Facebook

If you can get past the tone (sex workers “submit” to this lifestyle and “are often diseased”) this article about a retirement home for Mexico City sex workers is fascinating and the book is probably much better (it’s “non-patronizing or glorifying,” unlike the article, which is just the former) .

More discussion of Somaly Mam: Melissa Gira Grant at the New York Times elaborates on the damage done by Mam, more here on the dubious ethics of “donor bait”, even more about the repercussions, Jesse Walker looks at Kristof’s personal investment in believing and promoting Somaly Mam’s lies, and Margaret Walker demands a better explanation from Kristof. Remember when Kristof wrote:

“Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad. But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough.”

In Canada, new antiprostitution legislation has been introduced to replace that which was struck down in the Bedford decision. So far, it looks like it would be unconstitutional in similar ways. “Bill C-36, dubbed the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, brings the so-called Nordic model to Canada. It introduces a new prohibition—the purchase of sexual services, and communication that surrounds it.” International Business Times and the National Post refute the so-called benefits of the Nordic Model, while polls show most Canadians still know very little about the sex industry or the various legal options being considered.

Meanwhile, “Justin Trudeau! You’re our only hope!” We’ve been saying you’d better come around.

Over 1,000 Indonesian sex workers protested plans to close down one of Southeast Asia’s biggest red light districts.

There’s a secret strip club in Manhattan and the Times is on it. We’re disappointed the story doesn’t talk about the city’s tradition of private lap dance clubs, especially Lou Posner’s Hot Lap Dance Club.

Brazil is cracking down on sex workers, and it’s getting really ugly. 100 sex workers were illegally arrested, robbed, and sexually assaulted in Rio on May 23rd.

Romeo Miller (FKA Lil’ Romeo) will star in “urban stripper dramaChocolate City.