“The Stripper” celebrated its 5oth anniversary of topping the charts this week.
STOP EVERYTHING—there will be a sequel to Magic Mike. We like the sound of it being “bigger.” (Wink wink.)
Texas police publicly held down and beat a pregnant woman with an outstanding prostitution charge. Officials maintain that the three officers involved “followed procedure.”
Octomom Nadya Suleman pulled a Danielle Staub when she violated the terms of her contract with a Florida strip club, so now she’s being sued.
A British former prostitute was sent to jail for 16 months after not paying taxes, prompting this fabulous New Statesman take on how the state hobbles prostitutes’ labor by not allowing them to operate as true businesspeople.
Chris Dangerfield is the Chester Brown of the UK: “I pay whores and make no secret of it. I talk about it with family and friends when they ask and often when they don’t.”
Jezebel posted a first-person narrative from male stripper Tyson Cole.
Washington DC’s local magazine ran an interview with a district dominatrix—pretty progressive for such a buttoned up city. Thanks for loosening up the media, 50 Shades of Grey!
India’s Supreme Court will determine whether sex workers should be allowed to work legally and “with dignity” or if all permutations of prostitution should be banned.
In a huge coup for sex worker rights, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law has officially recommended that all laws prohibiting consensual sex work (and those that target activities tangential to such work) be eliminated. It was specifically critical of the anti-prostitution pledge established during Bush Jr.’s presidency and allowed to remain in place during Obama’s.
“Dancing Days,” an essay by Elizabeth Greenwood at The New Inquiry, asks why female strippers are psychoanalyzed while male strippers are laughed at.
In South Africa, sex workers want prostitution legalized, in part to put an end to rape and harassment by the police.
In Germany, a former prostitute murdered her husband (50 years her senior) who was credited with “saving” her and paying for her medical school tuition.
MoveOn.Org has jumped onto the “close down Backpage” bandwagon. Melissa Gira’s response: “This email might be better titled, “Village Voice, stop making us feel bad about not having a reasonable analysis of sex, class, and the law for so many years that we went in for this sensational mess.”
SWOP-NYC dismantles the notion that everyone connected to any aspect of sex work is a “pimp.”