Sex Work

The U.S. State Department has denied allegations from a former department investigator who claimed top officials tried to halt or delay several potentially damaging investigations into prostitutions and drugs.

Aurelia Fedenisn, the whistle-blowing former investigator, also claimed that when the department’s Office of Inspector General tried to expose the interference in the report, the language was scrubbed.

While laws vary from state to state, prostitution in some form is legal throughout the nation. But sex work is not included among the approved professions eligible for entry under the 457 visa. The Australian Sex Workers Association, also known as the Scarlet Alliance, wants to change that.

A Salon article published today outlines the extent to which Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom there is generally no love lost among the perennially liberal, actually finds common ground with left-leaning SCOTUS colleagues when it comes to a “raft” of Fourth Amendment cases.

The Fourth Amendment, for those who have forgotten, reads, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Client demand for unprotected sex is contributing to the HIV epidemic among female sex workers, according to Canadian research published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Investigators in Vancouver found that approximately three-quarters of sex workers were offered more money by clients for sex without a condom and that 19% accepted this money. Transgender women were more likely to accept extra money for unsafe sex, as were women who experienced client violence and users of methamphetamine.

Work visa holders moonlighting in part-time sex work are being denied entry to New Zealand.

In the 12 months to April, 45 foreigners holding valid working visas were refused entry for breaching their visa conditions, including working as prostitutes.

A North Shore International Academy graduate on a job search work visa was last month turned away at Auckland Airport after a baggage check found items used for sex work.

Being both a writer and a sex worker is hard.

It’s not a question of time, nor is it a question of money; it’s really a question of discretion. My work requires so much secrecy. I keep secrets for my safety, for my co-workers’ safety, and for the protection of the men who pay us. I don’t write under my real name because I don’t want to incur the wrath of the law. I can never be entirely truthful because so much of what I do is at least legally dubious, if not downright illegal. Saying too much could absolutely ruin my co-workers, my clients, and even myself.

I wish this wasn’t true. Telling true stories of the ho life to a wide audience and showing that sex workers are not the flamingos stock photos portray us as, but are actually real people who stand on two legs and have normal lives is one of the things that will gradually bring us greater acceptance. Being unable to speak openly and freely does no favors for us.

The idea that sex workers are ‘used’ or that their bodies are commodities is a fallacy. But many feminists use this argument to claim that sex work is degrading, anti feminist, commodifies women or is harmful to them. Moralists (who are sometimes indistinguishable from the radical feminists) use the argument to justify looking down on sex workers or pitying them because they’re “degraded”. The radfem myths of ‘false consciousness’ and sexworkers’ lack of agency are also  heavily dependent on seeing them as used bodies, as sex slaves.

But if you think that sex workers are used by clients, that idea is actually made up of several patriarchal ideas about gender and gender rules.

A BUSINESSWOMAN who went on a £461,000 spending spree is facing jail after being convicted of running a lucrative prostitution racket.

Like most things in Brazil, prostitution is legal.

Sex work even has its own holiday — June 2nd was International Day of the Prostitute. To raise awareness about safe prostitution and to work against the stigma that surrounds the profession, Brazil recently launched an online campaign called "I'm happy being a prostitute." And then they quickly canceled it.

There are men out there who're turned on by the idea of their girlfriends/wives having sex with other men; some men are turned on by the idea of their girlfriends/wives being paid for sex. You're clearly one of those guys. And you're within your rights to share this information with your girlfriend and to try to convince her to return to sex work. Because your fantasies of sex work---of her doing sex work---turn you on. Again, that's fine. But you could make a more convincing case, PIMP, if you were better acquainted with the realities of sex work.

You should suck off strange men for money.

AN ALLIANCE of sex workers are lobbying state MPs to support a legal bid to decriminalise prostitution.

Labor MP Steph Key has introduced a Bill to State Parliament which would decriminalise all forms of sex work for people aged over 18, make it illegal to discriminate against a sex worker and wipe clean past convictions.

Yesterday, members of the Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association, SA South Australian Sex Industry Network and Sex Worker Action Group: Gaining Empowerment, Rights & Recognition joined forces to rally on the steps of Parliament.

A previous attempt to decriminalise sex work by Ms Key was rejected by one vote last November.