Activist Spotlight: Melissa Gira Grant on Playing The Whore and Policing the Policers, Part One

Melissa in a pilgrimage to Frida Kahlo's house. O, roving reporter. (Photo via Melissa's flickr)

In the early aughts when I was a novice escort and On Our Backs was still being published, I was wowed by Melissa Gira Grant, an internet porn-making, geeky, theory-spouting phenom, even managing to be friends with her despite the fact that she was an Anais Nïn devotee. Over the years I’ve kept in touch… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: Melissa Gira Grant on Playing The Whore and Policing the Policers, Part One

Equality Now, Or Else?

Meena Seshu (via her twitter)

While Western-led feminist groups such as Equality Now continue to conflate consensual sex work with trafficking and violence, where do sex workers themselves  fit into concepts of feminism and gender equality, especially if they live in countries like India? “When you are coming from a place like India, you have the whole caste system, stigma… Continue reading Equality Now, Or Else?

The Week In Links—November 1st

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… Continue reading The Week In Links—November 1st

The Week In Links—October 11th

An open letter extravaganza began this week when Sinead O’Connor wrote to Miley Cyrus, warning her that the music industry “will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its[sic] what YOU wanted.. and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves… Continue reading The Week In Links—October 11th

The Week In Links—October 4th

We covered NYC’s new prostitution courts last week.  This week, Robin Richardson of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center sent a great letter to the editor in the New York Times discussing the courts and challenging the criminalization of prostitution. In even more exciting news, the Melissa Harris-Perry Show hosted a dialogue on… Continue reading The Week In Links—October 4th