Criminalizing Their Choices: Following Up on AB 1576

Now that California’s AB 1576—which would mandate condom use on porn sets—is in committee in the  California State Senate, we wanted to follow up on our earlier coverage of the legislation. We asked two progressive porn performers, Jiz Lee and Conner Habib, about how they felt the proposed law would affect the future of California… Continue reading Criminalizing Their Choices: Following Up on AB 1576

Stop AB1576: Compulsory Condom Use Won’t Make Porn Performers Safer

Tomorrow the California Assembly’s Appropriations Committee will vote on AB 1576 , a bill that would mandate condoms for all penetrative sex acts in porn. It also requires porn companies to indefinitely carry medical records for each contractor they shoot, and the vague language of the bill leaves room for Cal-OSHA to also mandate barriers, including protective eyewear and gloves,… Continue reading Stop AB1576: Compulsory Condom Use Won’t Make Porn Performers Safer

Outdated Fear: Criminalizing HIV+ Sex Workers

(Image via the Stigma Project)

With thanks to members of SWOP-USA Laws that criminalize HIV exposure are supposed to benefit public health, but in practice are extremely harmful to public health and to the targeted HIV-positive individuals. Sex workers are highly vulnerable to these laws, which sometimes target HIV-positive prostitution specifically. Many require forcible HIV testing, and sometimes they simply… Continue reading Outdated Fear: Criminalizing HIV+ Sex Workers

A Sex Worker’s Open Letter to the Australian Media

Victorian sex workers at a December 17th event (photo courtesy of Jane Green)

After the Sydney Morning Herald published an editorial promoting the Swedish model of criminalizing sex workers’ clients, exploiting the murder of Australian street sex worker Tracy Connelly to further an anti-sex worker agenda, many sex workers responded to the piece by writing to the news outlets that printed or re-printed it. Jane Green wrote a… Continue reading A Sex Worker’s Open Letter to the Australian Media

The Week In Links—August 23

  Veteran activist Emi Koyama writes in Shakesville about how her talk at the 38th National Conference of Men and Masculinities on the problems with anti-trafficking discourse was censored and how she and other women of color were subsequently harassed by a group of so-called “feminist men”, members of a group called the National Organization of… Continue reading The Week In Links—August 23