A lot of people…do not want to accept the reality that, for the most part, sex workers are just ordinary women. – Jennifer Wright
This is going to become much more common due to the ramped-up war on whores:
The three-month-long search for a missing California woman came to a tragic end on the morning of March 25. Kristen Marti’s body was found by authorities after a lengthy search of Prefumo Canyon, about seven miles west of San Luis Obispo. Her January 9 disappearance is now considered a murder investigation…When Marti was last seen, she was with an unknown man in a maroon-colored sedan…Marti was “known to frequent hotels” in the San Luis Obispo-area…
Long time readers may remember “Fake Internet Girlfriend”:
Every morning I…log into the Tinder account of a 45-year-old man from Texas—a client. I flirt with every woman in his queue for 10 minutes, sending their photos and locations to a central database of potential “Opportunities”. For every phone number I get, I make $1.75. I’m what’s called a “Closer” for the online-dating service ViDA (Virtual Dating Assistants). Men and women (though mostly men) from all over the world pay this company to outsource the labor and tedium of online dating. The matches I speak to on behalf of the Texan man and other clients have no idea they’re chatting with a professional…
By the numbers provided, she makes less than $12 an hour maximum. That may be the shittiest-paying sex work ever.
An excellent article by stalwart friend of whores Mark Draughn:
…I’ve long been opposed to all consensual crimes — recreational drugs, gambling, pornography, public drunkenness, vagrancy, homosexuality, food trucks, gun ownership, kink, migration, raw milk, incest, risky sports, transgenderism, loitering, status offenses, braiding hair without a license, whatever — because as long as everybody involved has consented freely and competently…I don’t think it should be a crime. So I’ve always opposed prostitution laws in theory. My opposition became somewhat less theoretical a few years ago when I bumped into Maggie McNeill…I became a steady reader of Maggie’s blog, and I began to learn more about the legal issues that concern sex workers in this country…the situation for sex workers seems to be deteriorating, in ways that are sadly familiar to those of us who know the War on Drugs…cops seem to realize that their pearl-clutching over call girls is a dumb waste of police resources, so they’ve tried to recast what they do as fighting a genuine evil. They’ve hit on the idea of calling everything “sex trafficking,” or even worse, “child sex trafficking”…We’re also starting to see other unpleasant features of the War on Drugs, such as federal funding and inter-agency task forces…I used to get angry whenever I heard of some new atrocity in the War On Drugs, but I was usually able to keep some emotional distance from the worst of it because I didn’t actually know any drug dealers. It wasn’t personal for me…But when it comes to sex workers, I follow far too many of them on Twitter…I know these people. And the last few weeks have been pretty bad. This bullshit is hurting people I know, and they are bitter, hurt, and angry…
Despite FOSTA & the seizure of Backpage (perhaps partly because of them), we’ve definitely passed the watershed on public support for sex worker rights. It’s now no longer taboo for reporters, columnists and even politicians (!!!) to come out in support of decrim. Here’s a recent article (in the very mainstream Harper’s Bazaar) which covers arguments readers of this blog will know well, and starts this way:
“But what if it was your daughter?”…Thus goes the common refrain…I do not have a daughter. But, then, as Elizabeth Nolan Brown points out, the people making this argument do not necessarily have daughters, either. So, here is a brief list of professions I would not want my fictitious daughter to enter into: Professionally playing any sport that involves head trauma…Being a war reporter…Any profession that promises people a quick, easy and most likely ineffective way to solve their problems, like hawking untested diet pills…regardless of how I feel about them, my future daughter has a perfect legal right to pursue them. People are allowed to enter professions that might be unsafe. People are allowed to enter into professions where their body is seen as a tool of the trade. People are allowed to enter professions that seem morally questionable. The only time that isn’t the case is when a woman is having sex as her profession…At least, it isn’t the case in the United States. There are a great many countries where sex work is legal, such as New Zealand, which decriminalized sex work in 2003…
The stupidity and evil of politicians is sometimes mind-boggling:
Sex workers in Victoria are under attack as politicians try to [re-criminalize]…“the world’s oldest profession”…the Liberal Party’s Victorian branch will discuss…a motion…by [prohibitionists claiming]…“sexual services have surged into our suburbs in the guise of massage parlours” and “are now closer to our homes and schools than ever before”…the [prohibitionists are] pushing [their party] for the adoption of the “Nordic model”…
Australian politicians can see the success of decriminalization right there in New South Wales, but are still willing to push this evil bullshit to placate prudes with fantasies of sex rays.
Alas, Seattle “officials” still adore prohibition of things other than cannabis:
Seattle officials announced…that they have filed a motion to vacate all convictions and drop all charges for marijuana possession for anyone arrested in the city in the past few decades…the proposed move would affect 542 people who have convictions on their records. “Vacating charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession is a necessary step to correct the injustices of what was a failed war on drugs, [but we’re going to keep pursuing the even more unjust and failed war on consensual sex because we’re hypocrites],” Mayor Jenny Durkan…said in a statement…
The areas Americans dismiss as the “third world” are far ahead of the US in sex worker rights:
Sex workers in Colombia have started a newspaper that is “flying off the shelves”—a rare distinction for any newspaper these days. La Esquina—which means “The Corner” in English—is made by and for sex workers in Bogotá’s red light district…It’s both distributed as a regular newspaper and, ingeniously, laminated and plastered on the district’s walls for sex workers to read while they wait for clients…The paper was founded last summer by a group of activists and artists…
Tracy Clark-Flory has singlehandedly made Jezebel relevant again.
If this is a “brothel”, then a room with a foosball table is a “stadium”:
Down a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood south of Dortmund’s city center stands Germany’s first sex doll brothel. For €80 ($97) an hour, customers can [play with] one of 12 silicone dolls, including one male doll and a model with both breasts and a penis…Evelyn Schwarz …is the founder and owner of Bordoll, which…also [has an actual] brothel and a…BDSM [dungeon]…
I’m so glad silly protectionist whores weren’t able to wreck decrim in New Zealand:
…Under a new plan, would-be immigrants can claim points as skilled sex workers and escorts. The skill is regarded as providing social companionship in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) list. In order to meet the criteria of a highly qualified sex worker, would-be migrants will be expected to…have relevant recognized qualifications or have at least three years of work experience in the relevant industry…they would [also] need a formal offer of employment [from a brothel or escort service]…