A client talks about his positive experiences with escorts.
(via isabellarosebris)
This is a contraceptive sponge that I use if I’m on my period and have an appointment, for all you fellow American escorts/sex workers. I got this at Rite Aid and it was $20 for a three pack. You can leave it in for 24 hours. It has a spermicide in it but you can rinse it out if you don’t want that.. It fits nice and snug in there and it is easy-ish to take out. I was nervous about it being stuck up there but I got it out the first couple of tries, the first time I ever used one. It was a lifesaver because without it I could not have gone to my appointment, and $20 is pocket change when you compare it to the escorting fee.
“Redcross way was quiet, empty, and suddenly a bit eerie. I felt quite alone in this still stretch of lane that runs between two busy roads just south of the Thames.
A plaque told me that this was the site of the Crossbones Graveyard, from late medieval times an unconsecrated burial site for…
Members of the Victorian sex industry are calling on the state government to decriminalise street-based sex work after the death of a woman in St Kilda last week.
Tracy Connelly, a 40-year-old sex worker known professionally as Kelly, was murdered in daylight in St Kilda on July 21. She was found dead in a van in Greeves Street about 3pm. Police said she had severe face and upper-body injuries and had suffered a “horrific” death.
She was killed in the van that had been her home for the past month. It is believed Ms Connelly’s boyfriend found her.
Janelle Fawkes, chief executive of the national sex-worker organisation Scarlett Alliance, said by decriminalising street-based sex work, workers would look to police as protector rather than prosecutor, and thus feel safe to speak out when threatened or assaulted.
“By decriminalising it, it means that street-based sex work is able to occur, but in a way that reduces tensions between community and street-based sex workers, and provides safe working locations for the street-based sex workers,” Ms Fawkes said.
She said at present, street-based sex workers were unlikely to report harassment or threats to police for fear that they would put themselves at risk of conviction themselves.
Ms Fawkes said in NSW, where street-based sex work is decriminalised, some councils had put in place initiatives to regulate safe houses as short-term venues for sex workers to take clients.
She said such initiatives reduced violence in the industry and made it safer for the community and street-based sex workers.
Ms Fawkes said heavy policing of street-based sex workers in Port Phillip in recent months made them feel as though they had nowhere to go to for help.
Port Phillip police Inspector Paul Breen said the death was “shocking”. “In relation to the laws, it is up to the legislators. However, having said that, it would be interesting research to see if decriminalising street prostitution would reduce the instance of bashings and assaults,” Inspector Breen said.
“It has been a long time since a street prostitute has been murdered under these circumstances and we certainly don’t want to see it again.”
Port Phillip mayor Amanda Stevens said legislation to regulate the sex industry was a state government decision.
“Council’s approach to street sex workers in the municipality has been largely focused on harm minimisation, and we recognise that street sex work occurs whether it is illegal or not, and as such we focus on maintaining a strong network with other key agencies in the municipality, including Victoria Police to focus on reducing harm associated with the industry,” Cr Stevens said.
“As part of harm minimisation, council is committed to supporting local agencies who work at the face of street sex work.”
Anyone with information in relation to the murder is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Katherine Frank stripped, interviewed her customers and then wrote a thesis about male desire.
Haha they stole the font from Judas Priest. -E.C.
The “Working Group to Reduce Prostitution" (WGOP — Atlanta Police Department & friends) is in the process of re-introducing its sex worker banishment ordinance, which was delayed several months ago by activist pressure from the SNaP Coalition. The ordinance is racist, transmisogynistic and inhumane — it has been plainly and openly designed to target for removal the TWoC street-level sex workers who work in rapidly gentrifying Midtown.
SNaPCO - the Solutions Not Punishments Coalition - has continued to organize the effort against this ordinance, and is encouraging concerned people to attend WGOP’s “community meeting," which will be held from 9am-11am, on Friday, August 9th. This is a horrible, horrible mess - apparently, the only SNaPCO member of the WGRP is being harassed by the APD and told to “help the plan move forward smoothly."
Please read Cheryl’s post - she’s been hooked into this from day one and as a matter of course she knows what she’s talking about (way more than I do). Also, please signal boost this!!
STAVVERS: "To work is not a free choice. No work is. Work is a product of capitalist patriarchy. You may like your job. You may hate your job. You may feel that your job changes the world. You may feel as though your job is pointless… For most of us, work is a necessity to survive… Ultimately, we are all being coerced into work: sometimes gently, and sometimes forcibly, as is seen in workfare programmes.
Sexual consent is not a free choice. Not completely, not 100%. We have all absorbed some of capitalist patriarchy, and may feel obliged, or feel pity, or feel horny or drunk or any of the other emotions that may lead to sex which under other circumstances we would not have had sex. There are power differentials under patriarchy: in heterosexual sex, the man will have more power.
Sex and work are full of problems which require addressing, which require criticism and discussion with an eye to radical, revolutionary solutions. Yet at present, we must know that these things are full of compromise, and we are not making completely free choices, but merely the freest choice possible. Many are not thinking this broadly, which is precisely why there is so much nonsense levelled at sex workers.
The fact is, the work we do and the sex we have (or do not have) is a compromise under capitalist patriarchy. Every single one of us makes a compromise. It is not a truly free choice, but it is as free as possible. Some people choose sex work.
Likewise, there are many of us who definitely do not choose the work we do or the sex we have. Human trafficking extends far beyond forcing people into sex work: there are people forced to work for long hours in sweatshops or to fight in wars. Rape affects a frighteningly large number of people, and the majority of people affected are not sex workers.
From a revolutionary perspective, merely turning our focus on sex work and treating it as having exceptional inherent problems which makes it somehow distinct from the rest of capitalist patriarchy means that we can never make any progress. Perhaps it feels easier to attack a kind of work we do not do or a kind of sex we are not having: it is easier.
Perhaps more importantly, though, is that the blinkered analysis of sex work is harmful to sex workers themselves. It is not pleasant to be told repeatedly that the work you do should be illegal, or that you are a victim of false consciousness, or that the work you do is devastatingly immoral and is harming everyone else.Yet this is something sex workers put up with from people who are claiming to be saving them.
We must not single out sex workers, but resolve to dismantle the entire repulsive system. We must stop harming sex workers with deeds and words born from paternalism, which ultimately serve to maintain capitalist patriarchy rather than destroy it."
(via Another Angry Woman 27 Dec 2012)
Not sure I agree with all the language but the sentiment is definitely spot-on. -E.C.
In this industry we are all well aware of what a hater is. The person who watches, is jealous, always has an opinion that no one wants to hear, spreads rumours, has theories as to why everyone else is doing better than her…
Chances are, you have been a hater. I have been a hater… hell, I AM a hater.
“Identifying victims of violent crime as “prostitutes” has a distancing effect: it makes “normal” women feel safe. This good girl/bad girl binary interacts with the normal man/client binary to create “extraordinary” circumstances within which this violence can occur. Arguably, when “good” women are murdered by men, this creates a threat to all women and a woman’s place/space of work or how outside of normalised sexual activities she steps is no longer relevant […] The term “prostitute” does not simply mean a person who sells her or his sexual labour (although rarely used to describe men in sex work), but brings with it layers of “knowledge” about her worth, drug status, childhood, integrity, personal hygiene and sexual health. When the media refers to a woman as a prostitute, or when such a story remains on the news cycle for only a day, it is not done in isolation, but in the context of this complex history.”—
Dehumanising sex workers: what’s ‘prostitute’ got to do with it?
Recent debates about sex and sexuality, in the context of moral panics and attempts at censorship, have revealed a lack of understanding among “experts" of the core subject itself: human sexuality…."Those who cling to the old order attack sluts, contraception, abortion and prostitution, not because they want to protect women, but because they want to restrain female economic power. They claim that these things weaken, rather than strengthen, women, and (in order to protect the poor, delicate things) they must be outlawed."
As recent killings highlight, society is creating an environment that places sex workers at risk, not their profession.tw for murder, abuse, and transphobia incl. some problematic discussion in the article around transmisogyny. Overall a good piece tho.
SWerfs/Terfs, the Westboro Baptist Church of feminism.
Swerf = sex work exclusionary radical feminist Terf =trans* exclusionary radical feminist. They go…
Shannon Williams discusses her experience being arrested for prostitution in 2003.
An interesting experience of arrest. It should be noted that the practice/policy of having a woman officer at prostitution stings varies within the US and internationally.
