Sex Work

The local sex industry has almost doubled in the past 20 years and much of it occurs between the sheets in motel rooms across the New England North West.

Sex workers steer clear of hustling work off the street because in order for them to make money in country areas, they must be discreet.

The claims might startle some but it’s just some of the cold, hard evidence that has landed in front of UNE expert Professor John Scott, who’s been researching the industry for almost 20 years.

As we all know, sex work is about making money, so for anyone who is a sex worker because school is so goddamned expensive, the threat of job loss would effectively bar them from researching their own occupations. Or would special ethics restrictions only apply to students who get into sex work forresearch — the already-sullied are good to go, but the Research Ethics Board must defend the chastity of the non-whoring students? Would they “protect” other feminists and labour scholars from conducting autoethnographic research?

I’m writing a paper right this second using an autoethnographic approach to sex work research. It’s scary enough to write about sex, work, sexual assault, disability, stigmatization, fear, shame, coercion and the host of other issues that have cropped up, without subjecting myself to regulation and discipline by an institution that is fundamentally uninterested in sex workers’ rights. The kind of pressure Bindel suggests putting on sex workers — and the kind of pressure the PAR-L poster does put on sex workers by highlighting “students direct involvement with the sex industry” in an attempt to generate moral panic — would have a chilling effect on sex worker-led research and a negative impact on sex workers’ access to education.

A NEW non-governmental organisation has discovered that around 85 per cent of sexually active teens in the Bahamas are engaging in some kind of transactional sex.

Officials at the Bahamas Urban Youth Development Centre have also found that whatever the conventional wisdom on the matter, the majority of middle and high schoolers in the Bahamas are not sexually active. But of those who are, the majority are involved in risky behaviour.

“Say if we have a group of 30 students 25-30 per cent are sexually active and of those, 85 per cent are involved in some type of transactional sex,”  president and CEO at Bahamas Urban Youth Development Centre Prodesta Moore told The Tribune yesterday.

Transactional sex relationships are created when gifts, money or services are given in exchange for sex. It differs from prostitution in the sense that only a portion of the needs of the person providing the sex are met through the practice.

Ms Moore said that young Bahamian women can often create for themselves a network of “regulars” – several men who they can count on to fulfil a number of their needs, ranging anywhere from school supplies, exam fees or lunch money.

“Many young people put themselves through high school and college in this way. They see it as a means of taking care of themselves, that’s the culture. They feel that if a man wants to deal with them he has to pay in some way and they are not prostituting themselves by doing this,” Ms Moore said.

But the familiarity between the young women and the persons they sleep with creates a worrying situation which places teens in the Bahamas as one of the groups most at risk for contracting HIV/AIDS.

A study conducted by a University of Ottawa criminology professor has confirmed what sex workers and those in the industry have said and known for years — the laws meant to protect sex workers from exploitation by targeting people who work in the industry but don’t actually do sex work end up putting those who do at much greater risk.

The stereotype that female porn stars are "damaged goods" who have experienced sexual abuse as a child is inaccurate, according to a new study.

[See? When studies are unbiased, they reveal truths.]

ACADEMICS conducting a pioneering study into the sex industry want to interview male sex workers in Armidale.

Feona Attwood (Middlesex University) and Clarissa Smith (University of Sunderland), and Routledge are pleased to announce the launch of a new journal devoted to the study of pornography.

Porn Studies is the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts. Porn Studies will publish innovative work examining specifically sexual and explicit media forms, their connections to wider media landscapes and their links to the broader spheres of (sex) work across historical periods and national contexts.

Porn Studies is an interdisciplinary journal informed by critical sexuality studies and work exploring the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, class, age and ability. It

focuses on developing knowledge of pornographies past and present, in all their variations and around the world. Because pornography studies are still in their infancy we are also interested in discussions that focus on theoretical approaches, methodology and research ethics. Alongside articles, the journal includes a forum devoted to shorter observations, developments, debates or issues in porn studies, designed to encourage exchange and debate.

Porn Studies invites submissions for publication, commencing with its first issue in Spring 2014. Articles should be between 5000 and 8000 words. Forum submissions should be 500-1500 words. Book reviews should be between 800 and 1500 words. Submissions will be refereed anonymously by at least two referees.

In the first instance submissions, queries and suggestions should be sent to: editorspstudies@gmail.com

While the media is replete with examples of "normal" men who seek out prostitutes regularly, how common are prostitute-seeking men and how much do they differ from men in the normal population? According to a new comparison study by Dr. Martin A. Monto, University of Portland, and Dr. Christine Milrod, only about 14% of men across the U.S. have ever paid for sex in their lives and only 1% of those men had done so in the previous year. In addition, the majority of these men do not possess any "peculiar" qualities that distinguish them from the normal population. The study was published in the SAGE journal International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (IJO).

...Dr. Milrod discussed the implications of this finding, "Privileged men, such as our wealthier sample of review website clients, are generally not marginalized or threatened due to their sexual behavior. In contrast, customers associated with street prostitution are likely to have fewer financial and social resources and it could be argued that these men are explicitly targeted by law enforcement in marginalized areas or transitional neighborhoods. The emphasis on teaching about 'sex addiction' and 'healthy relationships' to arrested men further supports the notion that customers of street prostitutes are endowed with some form of psychopathology that needs reorientation toward more accepted forms of sexual relations. The focus on treatment fails to separate paying for sex and being psychologically impaired."