The Peers Victoria Resources Society, which serves over 2000 sex workers in Victoria, BC, has in its 30 years of existence grown to have over 50 employees and an annual budget of $3.5 million. As such, it stands as a model NGO in providing social services to a stigmatized sexual minority, providing safe sex supplies, […]
Meta Censors Sex Activism
Meta was criticized by sex worker activists in the UK for deleting the Instagram accounts of sex-worker led art collectives, including Sexquisite, Cybertease, and UK Sex Worker Pride. Advocates say these accounts, with over 52,000 followers, were fully compliant with Instagram’s rules, but were deleted without notice. This appears to be part of a larger […]
Montreal Museum Celebrates Sex Worker History
The exhibition “By and For: 30 Years of Sex Worker Resistance” not only celebrates the struggle for sex worker rights, but the intersectional coordinates of this movement with activism on behalf of other marginalized communities in Canada. The exhibit not only features old news clippings and photographs of marches and symposia, but also a large […]
French Right Wants to Re-open Brothels
Liberalized sex work proposals are often associated with the Left, but in France, it is the populist right-wing National Rally party that is pushing this reform, with support from former leader Marine LePen. The National Rally proposal is to make the brothels cooperatives run by the sex workers themselves: legislator Jean-Philippe Tanguy said, they “would […]
Sex Work at UK’s Elite Universities
A recently released study of 2000 UK university students reveals that 4% of female and 3% of male students admit engaging in some form of sex work. However, the real figure might be even higher, as about a quarter of students said they knew a fellow student who did so, suggesting that the practice is […]
Celebrity Chef Hosts Sex Workers
Chef Paris Rosina hosts in her West London home a glitzy supper club every month, reserved for sex workers, both male and female. Called “Let Me Fill You Up,” they feature stuffed food as a key element of her menu: “I like food inside of food, basically.” The extravagant dinners usually come with a show. […]
How the Anti-Trafficking Industry Unites Right and Left
Investigative reporter Michael Tracey looks at the anti-trafficking industry. In the wake of the moral panic and conspiracy theories surrounding the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, about whom much still remains unknown, politicians on both the right and left as well as NGOs have exploited the ever-expanding concept of “sex trafficking” to characterize virtually all commercial […]
Controversial Sex Worker Statue Restored
When originally erected on a street corner in Sydney’s red-light district of Darlinghurst in 1995, the statue of “Joy” provoked local controversy and was subject to vandalism, including a hammer attack by an outraged mother who thought it looked like her daughter. It was removed two years later, but has now been reproduced in more […]
Bill Aims at Complete Sex Work Decriminalization in Ireland
With support from Irish sex worker organizations, parliamentarian Ruth Coppinger has introduced a bill to repeal key provisions of Ireland’s Sexual Offenses Act 2017, which decriminalized the selling of sex, but outlawed its purchase or the keeping of brothels. Sex workers have argued that the bill has failed in its intent to reduce the prevalence […]
Finnish MP Reveals Sex Worker Past
Finnish MP, Anna Kontula, who has served as a leftist deputy in Finland’s parliament since 2011 and has championed sex worker rights consistently, revealed in an interview with a Finnish newspaper that she had herself been a sex worker since the age of 16. “I wanted to make a living and this was a pretty […]