Monica Jones was barred from entering Australia for the last three weeks of her student placement and ultimately deported back to the United States. Eloise Brook at the Guardian wrote an intelligent and pointed response, asking how a social work student becomes a national threat.
Gloria Steinem’s latest move, signing the open letter to the AP Stylebook, shows that her politics remain firmly in the abolitionist camp. Steinem crossed the line from “dated” to “damaging” this spring with her writing for the New York Times on Indian escorts and her baseless claims that funding for condoms and sexual health actually went to pimps and traffickers.
This strange Cosmo interview with three anonymous sex workers purports to show “What It’s Really Like to Be a Sex Worker,” although the straight-out-of Farley talking points responses of the third woman, who is, excuse you, a survivor of prostitution, make it sound like she’s actually Rachel Moran.
The UK just banned certain acts, including face-sitting and golden showers, from being depicted in porn. The acts themselves remain legal, but filming them is not.
The Safe Harbour Outreach Project has written a letter to Newfoundland premier Paul Davis, requesting that he postpone implementation of C-36 because of the inevitable danger it places sex workers in.
SHOP is also working with provincial police on best practices for working with hookers in light of the new legislation.
Decriminalization is the only way to begin to empower sex workers to enforce condom use and access life saving protections, as Stephanie Wahab and Noël Busch-Armendariz reiterate.
Sex workers appeal to Kathleen Wynne to reject C-36, which comes into effect on December 6th, Day of Action On Violence Against Women, a sick twist.
Rescued hookers at the Fatima House of Light in Sierra Leone will be learning a new job skill: recognizing and fighting the Ebola virus. While formerly the rescued women could learn automechanics, hair styling or other skill sets, the family who run the House of Light decided to switch the focus to fighting Ebola.
Former Girl Next Door Kendra Wilkinson admits that having sex with Hugh Hefner was like a job:
“Clock in, clock out,” she said. “It’s not like I enjoyed having sex with him.”
Irish reality tv star Kate McGrew is having trouble finding places to live since outing herself as a stripper and escort for the show Connected.
For World AIDS Day AllAfrica profiles commercial truckers driving across Africa, visiting street workers as they progress along their routes. Interestingly enough for a World AIDS Day feature, condoms are mentioned only twice at the end of the article. No indication is given whether the truckers use protection or not.
The city of Winter Park, FL, is buying a breast-shaped strip club to tear it down. Rest in Power, the Booby Trap.
A Richmond, VA club came under fire after its “White Trash Bash.” One upset local said “I live in a trailer park myself now. We are hardworking people and not people to made fun of. I felt that is what the clubs were doing.”
Police officers in Louisiana are being trained how to differentiate commercial sex workers from trafficking victims, using a definition of “trafficking” that entirely excludes agricultural and domestic workers, who, apparently, aren’t being abused enough to deserve rescue. Unlike sex workers.
SWEAT demonstrated in support of Cynthia Joni and sex workers’ human and legal rights after Joni was recently mistaken for a hooker and attacked.
“He’s admitted to assaulting someone on the basis that he believed she was a sex worker. That’s a very loaded statement. What he was saying because you’re a sex worker it’s okay that I assault you.”
Six months after the restructuring that led to the finances of the Delhi State AIDS Control Society being redirected through another branch of government and six months without any funding have left HIV NGOs shedding volunteers and staff alike, struggling to get by without budgets.
The Ministry of State for Women and Child Welfare is setting up a committee to make a plan for aiding sex workers, whether through legalization or rehabilitation.
This World AIDS Day PLOS has come out with a collection on HIV prevention work with sex workers.
This is an interesting breakdown of HIV positive populations in Nepal.
Margaret Corvid writes in the New Statesman about English sex workers pushing for full decriminalization to come up in the next general election after defeating the End Demand section of the End Modern Slavery Bill.
Willamette Week has an oral history of Suicide Girls as their cover story this week.
It’s hard not to be jealous of Canada after reading this account of the Miss Nude B.C. pageant:
The entrance of the second contestant — Justice, a petite woman in her 30s — was preceded by the dramatic inflation of her animatronic pirate ship. The prop, featuring mechanical characters with moving limbs, was the size of those jumbo inflatables people put in their front yards at Christmas.