The Week In Links—April 18

Dr. Brooke Magnanti adds her voice to the chorus of people who are outraged and horrified by Project ROSE and the way the U.S. treats its sex workers. Reason also posted a feature on Monica Jones’ case (citing Tits and Sass’ interview with her!) focusing on the vague “manifestation of prostitution” law used to trump up charges against her.  The Advocate, Think Progress, Ms. Magazine, and Policymic also all ran sympathetic coverage of Jones’ guilty verdict for “walking while trans.”

During a trip to speak at the University of Montana about sex trafficking, prostitution abolitionist Melissa Farley visited two of the clubs that our own Bubbles called home for three years. Here’s a primer on the problems with Farley.

More proof for a position we like to call “pimpin’ ain’t accurate”: a new study, comprising the largest data set ever collected on U.S. underaged sex workers, demonstrated that only a small minority of them were introduced to the industry by pimps: “We argue that the narrative of pimp trickery and coercion distorts reality in three ways. First, it overestimates the role of pimps in street sex markets; second, it overemphasizes the impact of the initial recruitment stage on subsequent practices; and third, it masks or simplifies the difficult and complex choices and contingencies faced by minors who sell sex.”

Oh noes! The scary, scary prostitutes could be working with your children.

More stings, more client arrests.

An NGO based in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Renewed Initiative against Diseases and Poverty (RENAGAIDS), challenged the recent raids, arrests and detention of sex workers in the city. Many workers were arrested and detained for twelve  hours or more without food or access to a phone call.

Can anyone verify this story via the NY Post? Apparently, escorts are using Airbnb in lieu of hotel rooms.

Belle Knox: “People assume that my support for sex workers and porn is somehow invalidated because I chose to do porn for the money rather than for love.” Yup.

Sacré bleu! Zee working weemen of of 18th-century Parees were “obsessively tracked” for reasons unknown. The remaining historical documents are fascinating and make for a historian’s wet dream.

Will celebrated porn performer CoCo Brown become the fourth African-American woman to travel to outer space?

Illinois’ pole tax, a tax on cover charges intended to finance rape crisis centers, generated only a third of the projected revenue. This is due in part to the taxation options it offered, allowing clubs to pay a fee based on size and revenue annually instead of a $3 charge per patron.

The sex work-at-sporting-events cycle never stops. Up now at The Atlantic: “Sex Workers Are Excited for the World Cup Because They Think it Will Make Them Rich.”

Last Friday, the Bundesrat, the upper German house of Parliament, passed a resolution calling for an objective debate and differentiated measures amid plans by the ruling coalition of Conservatives and Social Democrats to reform the German Prostitution Act of 2002.  The resolution stated that there was no evidence that the adoption of the Act had lead to an increase in  trafficking, and called upon  members of Parliament to further develop the legislation to ensure greater protection from violence for sex workers, to enhance sex workers’ right to self-determination and to guarantee fair working conditions.

St Louis police started a program of shaming people charged with being clients of sex workers, sending them brightly colored postcards by mail admonishing them for their crime and listing their court dates.

Senator-turned-strip club manager Patrick Brazeau was arrested during a domestic dispute for assault and cocaine possession. He’s also facing outstanding sexual assault charges and charges of fraud from his time in government.

Ginger Millay discourses on the place of queer chicks in sex work in PQ Monthly.