Tuesday morning, Homeland Security and Brooklyn police raided the offices of Rentboy.com, arresting its CEO and several current and former workers, seizing six bank accounts, and freezing the website in what the U.S. Department of Justice’s press release bragged was a raid on the “largest online male escort service.” Coming right on the heels of… Continue reading What The Rentboy Raid Tells Us About The Gendered Rhetoric Of Trafficking
Tag: New York City
A Tidal Wave, Not A Fire Hose: Access To Condoms In New York And Why It Is Important To Decriminalization Struggles
I’m a community organizer for Red Umbrella Project, and for the past year and a half I’ve been one of the leaders in the struggle to ban the use of condoms as evidence of all prostitution-related offenses in New York. We recently had a great victory in this campaign with a NYPD directive issued that… Continue reading A Tidal Wave, Not A Fire Hose: Access To Condoms In New York And Why It Is Important To Decriminalization Struggles
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
Quote of the Week
By viewing sex workers as both victims and perpetrators, End Demand promoters get to pick and choose whatever is most convenient for their arguments and ignore the demands of a community against which violence is being perpetrated. This ignores and dehumanizes those impacted in the sex trade, turning very real and complex experiences and needs… Continue reading Quote of the Week
Activist Spotlight: Audacia Ray, on Telling Stories and the Tricky Politics of Inclusion
Audacia Ray is perhaps most renowned in the sex workers’ rights movement for her longtime editing of the now sadly defunct $pread magazine. But as a sex workers’ rights movement activist, Audacia has really been everywhere and done everything: blogging for years about her sex working experience as Waking Vixen; publishing her book, Naked on… Continue reading Activist Spotlight: Audacia Ray, on Telling Stories and the Tricky Politics of Inclusion