The FBI will relax hiring standards for applicants to the agency. One of those hiring standards used to automatically disqualify applicants who engaged in sexual relations with a sex worker. Although having paid for sex is no longer an automatic disqualifier from the agency, anyone who engaged in relations with a sex worker in the […]
Cute Journalist Turned Cute Sex Worker
Australian journalist Bension Siebert believes that he’s recently “stumbled onto a cheat code to capitalism,” having found out firsthand that he could earn way more moolah in far less time as a sex worker. Last year, at 31 years of age, Siebert, an award-winning Australian investigative journalist, lost his journalism job, prompting a turn to […]
Violence Against Sex Workers
A report authored by Spanish anthropologist Irene Adán has just been released by the Organization of Sex Workers (Organización de Trabajadoras Sexuales). It surveyed 1068 sex workers in Madrid about their experiences with “sexual violence” broadly construed: over 70% of those surveyed had clients attempting to remove condoms without their consent, and over 40% encountered […]
American Foreign Aid Cuts and Its Consequences
The funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) by the Trump administration have led to the closure of more than 1,700 HIV clinics and service sites across 46 countries, according to a new study by the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). The report found that at least 16,000 health workers lost […]
Is This Sex-For-Rent Ban a Slippery Slope?
In mid-July New legislation came into effect in Ireland that criminalizes “sex-for-rent” arrangements around the country. The ban – which spans beyond sexual acts to advertisements as well – is being touted as a step in the right direction toward combatting sexual violence and exploitation of marginalized populations, including migrants, students, and those escaping domestic […]
Japanese Host Clubs
Japanese lawmakers have attempted to curb the manipulative tactics used in the country’s “host clubs,” pricey establishments where lonely women (and sometimes gay men) are encouraged to run up huge tabs by attractive male “hosts” who feign romantic attraction. Women are then forced into prostitution if they cannot otherwise pay off their debts. Despite legislative […]
India Supreme Court Legalizes Voluntary Sex Work
Public opinion and police enforcement in India have long assumed that all sex work is illegal, and women found engaged in the trade are often confined against their will to “protective homes.” In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court has clarified that the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act only criminalizes public solicitation and third persons profiting […]
Montreal Sex Workers Strike During Grand Prix Weekend
During Montreal’s F1 weekend, the city’s sex workers working in clubs went on strike to protest working conditions and practices. The timing of the strike was significant as the F1 weekend is one of the busiest times of the year for the city’s clubs. The striking workers are pushing back against their status as independent […]
High-Heeled Activism
It is important to note that there has been some sassy pushback in response to the anti-LGBTQ+ antics of the current cruel and out-of-touch American administration. More than 1,000 people attended a fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union at a gay bar in Brooklyn on April 16. The drag event raised $25,000, and the […]
Sex Work Exhibition Opens at German Museum
The Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn opens a special exhibition on the cultural history of sex work, based on a collaboration with sex worker researchers, based on the principle “Nothing About Us Without Us.” From the museum’s online announcement: “The exhibition highlights the creative and artistic role that sex workers also play. To tell a cultural history […]