The Week In Links—April 10

Just in time for Tax Day: Sex workers deserve tax breaks and bank accounts! We do. 

The New York Post (seriously) published a nuanced look at the city’s erotic massage scene, including a discussion of immigration and the problems with the federal definition of sex trafficking.

Ontario’s Attorney General has found C-36, the bill that implemented End Demand in Canada, constitutional and Kathleen Wynne will uphold it. The protests over the verdict in the Cindy Gladue murder trial only serve to underscore Wynne’s initial misgivings about it.

Kenyan sex workers stick together to advocate for their rights.

400 sex workers will be offered Truvada, a pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, as part of a study at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute.  The study is simply to see whether sex workers, considered an “at risk” group for HIV infection, will take the drug regularly. The trial will also give 300 HIV-positive sex workers anti-retrovirals, which, if taken properly, can reduce the possibility of HIV transmission to zero. 

Tits and Sass interviewee Meg Munoz’s sex worker and trafficking survivors’ rights organization, Abeni, has an opportunity to partner with Orange County’s first needle exchange program, OCNEP, to provide a variety of services to drug-using sex workers. Unfortunately, conservative opposition is flooding the public comment process on this burgeoning project in an attempt to sway the Public Health office away from approving the exchange program. California residents can e-mail Maria.sevilla@cdph.ca.gov with public support for needle exchange, particularly if you are a drug user or former drug user, a service provider, a mental health or public health professional, a member of a faith community, or have any other experience that might persuade public health officials to take you more seriously.

Sex workers in Catalonia now have a lobby group representing their interests in Barcelona! More on this from the Guardian.

Mya Hall, a trans sex worker in the Baltimore area, was killed this week when she drove into a police vehicle outside the National Security Agency.

Last week South African sex workers and activists held a memorial and protest for nine men, including seven sex workers, who were murdered at a massage parlor in Sea Point.

“Nobody is helping us by taking away our work places.”  Sex workers in the Netherlands sum it up as they too face a Red Light District clean up effort.

Sex workers in Nicaragua are being trained to act as facilitators for their communities, working to connect community members with the justice system.

Racism and rape culture continues to flourish in Canada, where First Nations’ sex worker Cindy Gladue’s murderer walked free last week, sending a strong message to First Nations’ women about how they are valued. Hundreds of people protested the verdict.

Alana Massey talks about the tremendous gap between the fantasy of 8 Minutes and the reality of sex workers’ lives:

“In the public imagination, sex workers exist in a vacuum devoid of family, romantic relationships, neighbors, and colleagues. They are headless bodies in high heels, leaning into car windows on street corners in perpetuity. They are never off duty. They have never encountered someone who might answer their prayers to help them leave the sex trades. The reality, of course, is different.”

Hey, independent Nevada escorts! Might be time to reconsider having boyfriends or male loved ones: Nevada lawmaker suggests that a castration amendment should join an anti-trafficking bill.

Here’s more detailed data from that UK study of student sex workers.

Another civilian makes documenting sex workers a career move: This time a photojournalist in Istanbul photographs African sex workers working in the city.

The tension over attempts to implement End Demand in France continues as the Senate debates and French sex workers protest.

Is bikini barista-ing sex work? Is working at Hooters? How old is the “breast-aurant” concept anyway? The Atlantic investigates.

Sheri’s Ranch offered to host Harry Reid’s retirement party.

Alex Alexander wants you to know that she stripper-proofed her husband. “How?” you may be asking yourself.  “How did she accomplish this feat (and what does it even mean)?” I’m here to explain!   Luckily, her lovely attitude is already stripper-anathema:

“The first time I went was with another friend and I held onto a five-dollar bill until I saw I girl on stage earn it.”

Yet, she went to the club with her husband, acted a fool and did not let him tip anyone, and, when her insecurity became so obvious that she could no longer deny it even to herself, took her husband off home. And that, ladies, is how you let your husband know he can no longer tell you about his trips to the club.