Sex In The Public Square

Sex workers and the media

Caroline — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:32:10 +0000

Here's an interesting blog I've found via Dolly. Rebecca Dakin, author of The Girlfriend Experience, is blogging about getting "back into 'normal life' after a whirlwind exciting 9 years of escorting". She wrote it, in her words, "to educate people about the infamous 'girlfriend experience' and challenge peoples views on escorting". So, what's interesting - she's been writing about how the media have portrayed her and her book. She writes,

I was trying to understand why I have been so upset about newspapers printing stuff that's in the book. The thing is I wrote the book to try and show people that there was so much more to escorting than what people think, which is that men only pay for sex. Since the press want to just discuss and print all the graphic sex making me out to be a convent girl and sex crazed loon that became a hooker, it's a little frustrating to say the least. Because the things they printed are taken out of context it doesn't really achieve what I wanted it to achieve. I'm trying my best to think that any publicity is good publicity but I'm having second thoughts (no good now I know!) now as to whether I have done the right thing by putting my face and name to it.

Check out the "I went from convent girl to to hooker" story in the News of the World and file under typical. It's a new blog, so you can catch up very quickly. Do be sure to read her posts News of the World... and More Press.

Jill and Phil Fell Down the Hill

Lou FCD — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:51:52 +0000

I was actually looking for some good sex-ed resources for linking here at SitPS when I recently stumbled across one of the most bizarre and counter-factual rants I've seen outside of the Discovery Institute's network of self-referential web-dust-collection blogs. Admittedly, I don't carouse around the right wing blogs often, preferring to have the straight stuff filtered for me by writers with a firmer grasp on reality. For that reason, I was thoroughly blind-sided by the utter credulity with which some blogger named Jill Stanek breathlessly repeated some pretty outlandish claims by a Canadian child psychiatrist named Dr. Philip Ney. I had never heard of Stanek, but after poking around it seems that she is a leading light of the forced birth/anti-sex-ed religio-political movement.

Apparently, Dr. Ney asserts not only that there is no need for comprehensive sex education for students, but that sex ed is detrimental to their mental health. Stanek doesn't really contribute much to this particular article herself, but opts to simply parrot some of Dr. Ney's "more noteworthy points".

Stanek begins her article with a rather foreboding exclamation.

With renewed debate over how to curb the rampant, irresponsible sexual activity of our youth - the other side pushing more of what sexualized our children to begin with - we thought it a good time to resurrect a good piece on Life Site News last year by Psychiatrist Dr. Philip Ney regarding sex education for children.

Right away, the tone of the article is set by the assumption the reader is supposed to take for granted - that our youth are engaging in rampant, irresponsible sexual activity. Even granting the assumption (a dubious proposition to begin with), the rational response of educating the youth in question is brushed aside without consideration by Stanek. Still, it's not unheard of for scientific findings to be counter-intuitive, so let's take a look at the "more noteworthy points" Stanek points to from Dr. Ney, and the evidence to support them.

Fundamental freedoms or moral soapbox?

Michael — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:56:38 +0000

There are essentially two ways to change unjust laws, by appealing to the legislature, or by referring the statutes to an independent judiciary for a determination of whether they transgress fundamental freedoms protected by the constitution. Both approaches have been tried in Canada with respect to sex work legislation.

The last judicial review ocurred in 1990, and was lost in an interesting split of the Supreme Court along gender lines. It nearly succceeded however. It passed the first test, in that of two sections of the Criminal Code that were being challenged, the majority of the court held that;

Section 195.1(1)(c) of the Code is inconsistent with s. 2(b of the Charter but is justifiable under s. 1 of the Charter

Section 195.11(1)(c), as it was then, dates from 1972 and prohibits solicitation in public. Specifically it states that;

Research for Sex Work 11 is online

Melissa Ditmore — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:42:05 +0000

Research for Sex Work 11 is online. It's the only journal like it, with contributions from sex workers, health workers and NGO staff. Articles from India, Mali, Spain, the UK and the US, illustrated with beautiful photographs by Mathilde Bouvard, discuss pleasure and sex work, the failures of raids to help trafficked persons, violence against sex workers and more.

DANAYA SO, a sex worker organisation in Mali, co-produced this issue with the Network of Sex Work Projects. Photographs were supplied by Mathilde Bouvard. This bilingual issue is in English and French. Migration scholar Laura Agustín was the guest editor for this issue.

Hard copies will be distributed during the IAS Conference on Pathenogenesis to be held in Capetown, South Africa, 19-22 July 2009.

If you would like to receive a paper copy free of charge, please write to
editor at r4sw dot org.

Account Deletion Email

The Editors — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:04:58 +0000

If you got an email today saying that your account was deleted please disregard it. The problem came from deleting some accounts on a test site. We did not realize that the test site sends out the same kinds of system emails that the live site does.

If you want to be extra certain that your account is fine, please try logging in, or resetting your password. We have checked our databases, though, and all accounts appear to be fine.

Please let us know if you experience any problems using the site.

Swimming naked: A declaration of independence

Elizabeth — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:02:21 +0000

It's almost Independence Day weekend in the United States and so I am making my own very specific declaration of independence. In honor of "the personal is political" and in honor of Independence Day (and because I happen to have a very recent photo of me swimming naked near an American Flag) I want to make a simple declaration: I need to be free to swim naked. I dislike the confinement of swimsuits. They cling and bind and besides, other than wet t-shirt contests, why would anyone put on clothes specifically to get them wet? We take off wet clothes! Why put something on to go in the water?

Some Lurid Prostitution Myths Debunked

RonWeitzer — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:30:05 +0000

**Reprinted from the Providence Journal (Rhode Island), June 19, 2009**

by Ronald Weitzer

In the past few weeks, advocates of criminalizing prostitution in Rhode Island have made many assertions about the “horrors” of prostitution to push legislation forward. Most of these claims are myths.

Prostitution decriminalised in Taiwan

Caroline — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:45:30 +0000

via Mistress Aliya - Taiwan OKs legalized prostitution zone.

Taiwan began a process of legalizing prostitution Wednesday making the island the latest place in the world to decriminalize the world's oldest profession.

In six months, authorities will stop punishing Taiwan sex workers after prostitutes successfully campaigned to be given the same protection as their clients, a government spokesman said. [Reuters]

This after much campaigning by The Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters. Why?

Entrenching privilege: Child-care, parenting and politics

Michael — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 14:17:45 +0000

A Father's Day Reflection

The story of Sarah Coral Hanson-Young illustrates two intersecting themes that entrench male privilege - the representation of gender in politics and the imbalance in responsibility for parenting. It is of concern that many (but not all) legislatures under-represent women, ensuring a cycle in which women's interests remain a low priority and decisions that are gendered continue to be taken. Yet so long as women carry an unequal burden of domestic and child-care responsibility this is unlikely to change appreciably.

Two small but important steps forward for same sex couples

Elizabeth — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:29:24 +0000

I hesitate to make too much of small things. On the one hand i don't want to blow them out of proportion. On the other i don't want to jinx a process that might be just in its early stages. But despite those two concerns I am excited by two recent policy changes that the Obama administration has made which seem to indicate at very least a less restrictive interpretation of the Defense of Marriage Act and perhaps more than that: perhaps a slow chipping away at the act itself.

First of all, today the New York Times printed an AP story reporting that the Census Bureau would in fact count same sex married couples as married. That reverses a Bush administration policy that I wrote about here explicitly stating that these couples could not be counted because DOMA prohibited the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages in any way. Apparently the Obama administration disagrees. Then again, the Obama administration also understands the need for accurate research and solid data when making policy decisions, and data provided by a census that did not count such marriages would be inherently flawed.