some sex work links

http://www.thetelegram.com/Opinion/Columnists/2014-10-20/article-3908526/Where-is-the-outrage/1

Where is the outrage?

Almost three weeks ago, the Safe Harbour Outreach Project (SHOP), a new support program for sex workers operated by the St. John’s Status of Women Council, issued a red alert warning to the province’s sex workers.





http://www.nfb.ca/film/buying_sex/

Timely and wise, this feature documentary explores the state of prostitution laws in Canada.Buying Sex captures the complexity of the issue by listening to the frequently conflicting voices of sex workers, policy-makers, lawyers and even the male buyers who make their claim for why prostitution is good for society. With the landmark Supreme Court decision in Canada, the film examines the realities in Sweden and New Zealand. The film also challenges us to think for ourselves and offers a gripping and invaluable account of just what is at stake for all of us.

Digital Labour

http://www.digitallabor.org/about

DIGITAL LABOUR
The incursion against waged employment in favor of contingent work undermines worker rights in ways that are even more harmful than the actions by Thatcher and Reagan against miners and air traffic controllers in the 1980s.

The shift away from employment to freelancing, independent contract work, and other emerging forms of labor is an affront to one hundred years of labor struggles for the 8-hour-workday, employer-covered health insurance, minimum wage, the abolition of child care, workplace harassment, and many other protections that were established under the New Deal to foster social harmony and keep class warfare at bay.

 ideological rhetoric that falsely describes emerging forms of digital labor through the lens of flexibility, self-reliance, and autonomy.

 almost half of all Americans are economically insecure. They cannot afford basic needs like housing, childcare, food, healthcare, utilities, and other essentials.

It is imperative to ask and find answers to the question of who is watching out for the workers who toil under the auspices of labor brokers like CrowdFlower, Taskrabbit, Amazon, oDesk, and Uber, or “logo mills” like 99Designs

workers who wake up to go to work online every day are a complete blind spot in these discussions

Ultimately, the impulse behind this event is to shape new concepts and theories as they relate to the realities of wage theft and precarization but also proposals including guaranteed basic income and shorter working hours.

we hope to facilitate an advocacy group for some of the poorest and most exploited workers in the digital economy

Tiziana Terranova puts forward the idea of a “social strike,” as “a permanent experiment of invention and diffusion of forms of strikes that can be practiced also by those who cannot strike according to the traditional mode: the unemployed, the precarious, the domestic worker, the crowd worker.”
 In this context she discusses Anonymous-style denial of service attacks, but also experimentation with popular forms of social network life such as personality tests, games, and viral link factories.


The Internet as Playground and Factory (Scholz, ed.), Living Labor (Hoegsberg and Fisher), and Cognitive Capitalism, Education, Digital Labour (Peters, Bulut, et al, eds.), and Dead Man Working (Cederstron and Fleming). Christian Fuchs’ book Digital Labor and Karl Marx was published months ago.

Glitch Studies Manifesto

GLITCH STUDIES MANIFESTO
http://www.slideshare.net/r00s/glitch-studies-manifesto?related=1

+ https://vimeo.com/groups/artifacts
+ http://videoscapes.blogspot.ca/

“The user has to realize that improving is nothing more than a proprietary protocol.  a deluded consumer myth about progression of a holy grail of perfection.”

“here noise exists within a void opposite to what already has a meaning.”

“a negative feeling makes place for an intimate, personal experience of a machine (or a program), a system show its formations.  inner workings and flaws. as a holistic celebration rather than a particular perfection.”

“the glitch is a new and ephemeral. a personal experience”

“glitch art exists within different systems - the system of production and the system of reception”

“the foriegn input (wrongly encoded syntaxes that lead to forbidden leakages and data promiscuity), the hardware and the software (the channel that shows the functional collisions) and the audience (who is in charge of the reception, the decoding)

conservative glitch art - skip process of creation-by-destruction, focus directly on creation of a formally new design, focused on rectreating or simulating glitches.  focuses more on design and end products than procedural breaking of flows and politics.

to design a glitch is to domesticate it… loses its enchantment and becomes predictable… what was once understood as a glitch has now become a commodity.

to the audience, these designed experiences are still experienced as glitches

“the glitch emphasizes what is normally rejected as a flaw and subsequently shows that accidents and errors can also be welcomed as new forms of usability.  the glitch does not onl invoke the death of the author, but also the death of the apparatus, medium or tool (at least from the perspective of the technologicaly determinist spectator) and is often used as an anti ‘software deterministic’ form”

“glitch art … a procedural activity demonstrating against and within multiple technologies… critical transmedia aesthetics… show meidum in a critical state (ruined, unwanted, not recognized, accidental and horrendous)… these aesthetics transform the way a consumer perceives the normal (every accident transforms the normal) and describes the passing of a tipping point after which a medium (might) become new.

“some people see glitches as only a technological thing, while others perceive them as a social construction… glitch studies needs to take place in between, both, neither and beyond”



>> although i am pretty crazy about using glitch art / glitch aesthetic, i am resistant to using because xyz … 2010 is four years ago, I guess …is my problem.  However, in reading about theories behind glitches, much of it seems to align with the nature of camming versus other aspects of the sex industry.

Johnny 500 Summary

In Johnny 500, Cooper Chenning is responsible for running an escort dispatching service, called Gone by Sunrise, in Toronto.  The work environment is a flurry of activity, a team of men taking and processing orders, directing women to locations, and striving to get orders out with the greatest efficiency, so they can reach Johnny 500 before midnight - before their competing team in Vancouver.

Cooper Chenning works on the fifth floor of a building, half of which, including the kitchen and break space, has recently become shared with a Women’s Helpline.  The Helpline is run by Lynette, a woman of over 50, who has a strong dislike for Cooper, whether it is due to his personality, the treatment of their shared space, the nature of his work, or all three, we do not know.  The Women’s Helpline has a competitive bowling team, and store bowling paraphenalia in the kitchen.

The escort dispatching service’s phone number, which remains largely unused, is different from the Kid’s Helphone number by only one digit. During a particularly intense period, as the orders are rolling in, and the Johnny number rising closer and closer to their goal, Cooper’s phone rings. It is a child.  Cooper instructs him to the correct number, but the child calls back, and tells Cooper he has lost his father’s trophy, that he needs it for show and tell, and the woman at the Helpline can’t help him because it isn’t a crisis.  But he needs to win.  With this, Cooper puts his work on hold, takes down the child’s address, sneaks into the kitchen, covertly retrieves one of the Women’s Helpline’s bowling championship trophies, and rushes out the door.

REVIEW: Work: Capitalism, Economics, Resistance - CrimethInc

REVIEW: Work: Capitalism, Economics, Resistance - CrimethInc
https://www.academia.edu/3279673/_2013_Work_Capitalism._Economics._Resistance_Book_Review_

“Even if you don’t know what capitalism or wage slavery is, you know oppression because yo know the frustration, alienation and drudgery of work”

The capitalists, the exploited, and the excluded
- Capitalists - profit from other’s labour - direct the way capital is created, owned and managed
- Exploited - activity turns a profit for others - all manner of labourers, office workers and students to service workers and educators
- Excluded - “left out of the equation and have to survive on the fringes of the economy” - lack of interaction in the regulated economy of wage slavery - sex workers, soldiers, illegal theft and drug sales, waged workers at bottom of hierarchy “undocumented” workers, prisons workers

CrimethInc on The Sex Industry
- sex workers are “demanding payment upfront for things everyone else sells in a roundabout fashion”
- sex work as service work
- flow of sex work profits beyond the individual street workers, towards sexualized sale of hollywood products, commercial pornography, etc
- Intersectional theory - sale of sex interaction w/ gender construction and physical sexing

Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks, by Theresa M. Senft > BOOK REVIEW

http://terrisenft.net/writing/Camgirls/Attachment%20B_senft_camgirls_book%20copy.pdf
Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social networks, by Theresa M. Senft
> Review  http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/120/120

"what it means for feminists to speak of the personal as political in the age of networks" (115).

>REVIEW http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/120/120

>>2009

defines politics as "leveraging of power between connected entities"

political and personal—make commentators forget to analyze and understand the political values of personal blogs and of other online network/community-building tools, exemplified here by Webcamming (that is, dramatizing one's life and views on the Web with a camera)

ideology of publicity, for camgirls: theatrical authenticity, self branding, microcelebrity

identity amounts to little more than a series of performances directed to particular audiences in our lives.

celebrities are commodities masquerading as people, while those engaged in microcelebrity are people experimenting with branding themselves as commodities, a point that the author discusses in chapter

inherently transformative online aesthetic of the "grab," which allows viewers/consumers to take what they want and rework or discard the rest, makes Webcamming a relentlessly confrontational activity.

emotional labour - how much can a camgirl have in common with other first and third world emotional labourers who don’t broadcast on the web?

"tele-ethicality": that is, to "engage, rather than forestall action in our mediated communities, despite the potential for fakery and fraud"

> Senft refers to Haraway's usage of the word cyborg in discussing a pornographic ideology, defined as the belief that specific, feminized bodies ought to be scapegoats for shifting relationships between public and private in a culture—even if this definition seems to describe a social interpretation of the phenomenon, and not the phenomenon per se. >>??

throughout history, women have responded to their exclusion from the public sphere by establishing counter–public places where democracy is regularly critiqued and strengthened. Camgirls specifically resist the intimate public sphere through performance, creating networks through what is called "strange familiarity"—that is, the familiarity arising from exchanging private information with otherwise remote strangers.

According to the concept of ethical narcissism, if the author of a blog (or any other personal space on the Web) accepts the possibility of interaction with a network, as opposed to a purely nonconfrontational exposition, the narcissistic practice of personal blogs can become ethical in the sense that it becomes dialectic and creates the opportunity to spread a dialogue beyond the established network in which it was originally formulated.

Camgirls is an innovative take on the ethics of rules building in online communities. The book makes a strong point of showing the fallacy of naive beliefs in the not-political nature of narcissism and pornography, two positions stereotypically associated with camgirls and in general with developing personal spaces online.

>> First, tele-ethicality allows women to have a stronger political impact on the Web, and it helps build a larger and more significant arena for micropolitics. Second, activism can spring from spaces not designed for political action but that end up facilitating it, such as Web communities based on the ostensibly personal practice of Webcamming.

 it provides an ethical theorization of community building online filtered through a feminist point of view


Next Wave Cultures: Feminism, Subcultures, Activism edited by Anita Harris
http://books.google.ca/books?id=hOVIXxLfqOUC&pg=PT143&lpg=PT143&dq=camgirl+art&source=bl&ots=en-4HNN620&sig=oMX_5i7UVHvPn6lltq0BBzJv41Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SA4jVKaoKoWNyATR7oGQDg&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=camgirl%20art&f=false
> camgirl archetypes

Shannon Bell Book Review - Whore Carnival

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3704173?seq=3


Shannon Bell - postmodern feminist, teaches classical political theory.  Raunchy feminist pornographer.

Whore Carnival celebratory / confessional.

Her project is not just to deconstruct the old texts but to construct some kind of voice and privilege to the modern (largely young, middle class, western) whore.

New socialisms futures beyond globalization // Queer Socialist Pornography

New socialisms futures beyond globalization
http://books.google.ca/books?id=YUGAAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT242&dq=New+socialisms+futures+beyond+globalization.+queer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZTsrVNG0EsGTyAS984L4CQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=New%20socialisms%20futures%20beyond%20globalization.%20queer&f=false

The moral pornographer would be an artist who uses pornographic material as part of the acceptance of the logic f a world of absolute sexual license for all the genderes, and projects a model of the way such a world might work.  A moral pornographer might use pornography as a as a critique of current relations between the sexes.  His/her busness would be the total demystification of the flesh and the subsequent revelation, through the infinite modulations of the sexual act, of the real relations of man and his kind [diverse degendered relations of humankind].  CARTER 1978

it is art of the disaster whose saying witnesses the singularity of beings

if sexual actions construct meaning between bodies, then the labour of performative sexual praxis constructs and records new meanings between sexual bodies

performative sexual praxis, belonging to marx’s broad understanding of labour as creative, self-affirming life-activity, is not reduced to labour-power in hegemonic pornography

the sexual practices take place in the context of an “eight billion dollar a year industry” in which sex is presented according to industrial formulae premised on variations of an overarching sexual script according to which females re endlessly fuckable, lustfully unable to control their sexuality, and “bad girls”, the repressively desublimated remnant of the phallic mother, exist under the law and pleasure principle of the father.  what is implied about male sexuality is equally alienating: men are always hard, big and masterful, and able to temporarily give up control when it suits them.

sssspread = nonnormative pornography

SM is a really powerful way of acknowledging embodiement, especially for people who are “elsewhere than their body because your body isn’t where you’re at home”.

she discloses how the capacity for female ejaculation was socially designed out of the female body during the eighteenth century, only to be submerged in male pornography in the nineteenth century and codified as psychological and medical problem until well into the latter part of the twentith century, when it was rediscovered and redesigned by the lesbian and transgendered communities.

ssspreaad images, stories and interviews demonstrate that it is possible the produce nonrecuperable pornography and that this production falls necessarily into the terrirtory of the pervert.

phallic-widow mother, the post-male/post-female bastard orphan and the de-oedipalized stranger, those who are outside, don’t belong, incapable of belonging to heterosexuality.  content is collectively determined by those involved in making the images and writing the texts and those actively viewing these images and texts.

Sex Work Laws in Canada as Dialogue

Prostitution Law in Canada: Will the Charter Dialogue Continue? - See more at: http://www.lawnow.org/prostitution-law-canada-will-charter-dialogue-continue/#sthash.YqDNQDgQ.dpuf

Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) + Parliament = dialogue.
Parliament passes a law, challenged as contrary to Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter). SCC delays effect of declaration to give Parliament to revise law. SCC may send Parliament back to rework law.  This is dialogue theory.

Dec 2013 - Canada v. Bedford - keeping a bawdy house (section 210), living off the avails of prostitution (section 212(1)(j)), and communicating in public with respect to a proposed act of prostitution (section 213(1(c)) were unconstitutional.

Online consultation - http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cons/curr-cours/proscons-conspros/
Questions:
1. Do you think that purchasing sexual services from an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.
2. Do you think that selling sexual services by an adult should be a criminal offence? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.
3. If you support allowing the sale or purchase of sexual services, what limitations should there be, if any, on where or how this can be conducted? Please explain.
4. Do you think that it should be a criminal offence for a person to benefit economically from the prostitution of an adult? Should there be any exceptions? Please explain.
5. Are there any other comments you wish to offer to inform the Government's response to the Bedford decision?
6. Are you writing on behalf of an organization? If so, please identify the organization and your title or role:


Bill C-36:
- create an offence that prohibits purchasing sexual services or communicating in any place for that purpose;
- create an offence that prohibits receiving a material benefit that derived from the commission of an offence referred to in paragraph (a);
- create an offence that prohibits the advertisement of sexual services offered for sale and to authorize the courts to order the seizure of materials containing such advertisements and their removal from the Internet;
modernize the offence that prohibits the procurement of persons for the purpose of prostitution;
- create an offence that prohibits communicating — for the purpose of selling sexual services — in a public place, or in any place open to public view, that is or is next to a place where persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present;
ensure consistency between prostitution offences and the existing human trafficking offences; and
- specify that, for the purposes of certain offences, a weapon includes anything used, designed to be used or intended for use in binding or tying up a person against their will.

Concerns:
- sex workers forced to negotiate in hidden locations
- illegal to advertise sex services
- law must consider promoting dignity and equality and protecting children and communities.






Confused about changing prostitution laws in Canada? Bill C-36 primer
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/confused-about-changing-prostitution-laws-in-canada-bill-c-36-primer-1.1902440/comments-7.534468

New Zealand - legal and regulated under labour and public health laws (Decriminalization)
US - (Prohibition)
Nevada, US - regulated (Legalization)
Nordic Model - buying sex is illegal, selling is not (Abolition)

Old law - selling is legal, bawdy house, living off the avails, soliciting in public is not.
New law - selling is legal, buying is not. Illegal to communicate for the purposes of prostitution, illegal to advertise the sexual services of others.

Pros - sex workers will be allowed to rent apartments, screen clients, hire a receptionist / security guard, advertise own services
Cons - still pushes sex workers to the fringes

Quotes:
"These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not. They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster. I conclude that they do not." -- Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing the decision in the Bedford case.
"We believe prostitution is inherently dangerous and exploitative." -- Justice Minister Peter MacKay, testifying at a Commons committee.
"They are not harmful because they are illegal. They are illegal because they are harmful." -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper, speaking of activities in the sex trade.





Put out the red light: Are sex workers being heard in the legal dialogue over prostitution?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/put-out-the-red-light-are-sex-workers-being-heard-in-the-legal-dialogue-over-prostitution/article17502956/

Chanelle Grant - “What really protects sex workers is when sex workers get to have control over their workplace. If we want effective policy that protects the safety, dignity, and human rights of sex workers, then sex workers must be at the centre of all decision making and policies.”

- Online consultation - 500 words or less, any canadian Citizen can express feelings on SCC ruling.
- No indication of what kind of weight will be given.
- No indication that sex worker voices will be prioritized.
- “Everyone shouting and no one being heard”
- “endless conversations about how sex work makes you feel”
- “feelings are spoken as facts and etched into law”






Proposed prostitution laws aim to shut down conversation
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/proposed-prostitution-laws-aim-to-shut-down-conversation/article19059986/

- higher order = protecting women, children and communitites from being exploited and degraded
- more of a monologue than a dialogue
- new law contradicts overall concern of the safety of sex workers
- Toronto Now will not be able to post sex worker ads
- government views sex workers as victims
- ban on selling sex where people under 18 could reasonably be found pushes sex workers to fringes
- 

Paying For It

- not wanting to pay a prostitute for concern about getting in trouble witha  future girlfriend
- look like a loser
- how would you define exploitation
- whats unfair about paying for sex?
- is it worn’g for someone whose
- review boards: prostitutes expect a level of privacy and discretion from johns

- thinking the typical john is a guy who beats and murder a prostitute is like thinking a the guy who beats and murders his wife is a typical husband
- not all ways of making money are regulated.  we make money as cartoonists, but cartooning isn’t regulated
- johns don’t buy women - when you buy something you take it home and own it.  when you pay for sex, you part ways.
- power - sex workers dictate what they do and do not want to do.
- money influence - sex because of money is no different than sex because of love.
- self respect - stigma of being homosexual made homosexuals feel shame, depression, guilt etc before the sexual revolution. many sex workers find sex work empowering.
- choice - telling adults who had bad childhood they are not able to make responsible choices is not a good path. many women working in the sex industry feel less exploited than they would in other lines of work.
- violence - typically paid sex is pretty much the same as unpaid sex.  higher rates of violence are a result of sex workers being afraid to go to the police because of the legalities of their work situation (despite selling sex being legal)
- sexual objectification - emotional indifference.  what proof is there that being a john increases emotional indifference to women?
- human traffiking and sex slaves - what is human trafficking? who is demanding trafficked women?
- pimping - pimps lure women in by romancing them.  how many sex workers have pimps?
- exploitation - exploitation is when people are not fairly compensated for their work.

- “paying for it” - many think there’s an emotional cost in being a john - sad and lonely. health cost of sti risk. legal cost of arrest. social cost of exposure, loss of job.
- book - leaving mother lake

Playing the Whore

the stigma and violence faced by sex workers are far greater harms than sex work itself

Prostitution is, much of the time, a talking crime.

Sex workers are called to give testimony on the nature of their work and lives in ever more venues: in secret diaries; on cable specials, opposite the “disgraced” politicians who hire them; to social workers, psychotherapists, and other members of the helping classes; and inside tabloids if they— or the ginned-up scandals created around them— have made headlines. Very rarely does sharing anything in these venues serve them, or the public. Sex workers are there for the sake of some unseen owners’ profits.

Questions asked of Sex Workers
• Is prostitution violence against women?
• Are prostitutes “exploited” or are they “empowered”?
• What are the factors that lead women (and it’s always women, and most often not trans women) to enter into or be forced to enter into prostitution?
• What about “the men”/ “the johns”/ “the demand side”?
• How can we help women “escape” / “exit from” / “leave” prostitution?
• How can we “raise awareness” about “this issue”?

Questions asked by Sex workers
• How do we define “prostitution”?
• How do people who sell sex describe it?
• What are some of the factors that lead women to not sell sex?
• What are some of the factors that lead women to oppose prostitution?
• How can we help women (and anyone else) better understand what selling sex is really like?
• How can we ensure that sex workers are leading any public debates on “this issue”— that is, about their own lives?

The problem at hand is not, How do we improve the lives of sex workers?, but, How should we continue to think and talk about the lives of sex workers, to carry on our discourse on prostitution regardless of how little sex workers are involved in it?

Their complaints about sex work shouldn’t be construed, as they often are, as evidence of sex workers’ desire to exit sex work.

 physiological

emma goldman - “the prostitution panic will help create a few more fat political jobs - parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives and so forth”

“whore stigma” exposure for breaking with “compulsory virtue” - be virtuous, appear virtuous.  term invented to unit women in and out of sex work.

sex worker feminists add to the feminist discourse: challenging whore stigma (“slut shaming” loses centrality)

whore stigma makes central the racial and class hiearchy reinforced in dividing women into pure and impure, clean and unclear, the white and virgin and all the others.

If woman is other, whore is the other’s other

pornification - a phenomenon in which the conventions of commercial sex are polluting all sexual relations

if a woman is sexualized, it obliterates her as a real woman - it is a violence that renders her a whore.  to be thought of as a whore is a challenge to one’s real womanhood.

Porn and stripping get the rap for driving sexualization, though critiques of them only go as far as representations of our labor— the pole, the thong, the waxed pussy— and not to our labor itself, not to our lives. Critics get close to the truth: Acting ; as if we share our customers’ desires is the work of sex work, But that’s not the same as allowing our customers to define our sexuality. When critics do venture outside the representational, it’s to insist that sex workers are victims of sexualization, that I
they are responsible for the sexualization of all women. This is a return to older claims that sex workers suffer from “false * consciousness,” only now with a dash of social science and perhaps in tinier underwear than was available to the second wave

description of the child’s violation mimics a pornographic revelation

what if being sexualized is neither dehumanizing nor empowering, and is simply value neutral?

Sex workers know they are objectified; they move in the world as women too, and through their work they have to become fluent in the narrow and kaleidoscopic visions through which men would like to relate to them as sexual fantasies embodied.Sex workers know they are objectified; they move in the world as women too, and through their work they have to
become fluent in the narrow and kaleidoscopic visions through which men would like to relate to them as sexual fantasies embodied.

demands to demonstrate one’s empowerment reproduces victim class among sex workers

sex workers are continually negotiating varying levels of intimacy

in a service economy, workers of all kinds are called on to produce an experience (smile, personal greeting, etc)

critics misread interconnections between mainstream and sex economies and media as one of contamination, not coexistance

sex work informs their analysis of sexualization not because sex worker’s lives are important but because sex work makes women who don’t do it feel things they prefer not to feel.  it is the whore stigma exercised and upheld by other women.

how different might our analysis of the relationship between sex, value, and womanhood be if we could see through the panic of sexualization to the tectonic social and economic shifts that have pushed commercial sex and its representations up the service?

the convergence of commercial sex with service economies gives us a way to understand what looks like the mainstreaming of commercial sex: it also provides and alternative framework to sexualization for understanding this transformation.  locas commercial sex on a continuum of other commercial services -- travel, beauty, dining. it doesn’t regard sex worka s service work to imagine it could be, it acknowledges sex work and service work already overlap.

anti-sex work reformers carry on far more about customers than sex workers do, insiting that they are their sexual demands are all powerful.

Hookers and housewives, considered rivals, opposite sides of economic circle. Labour considered illegitimate, caretaking and sex should be offered freely, with genuine affection and out of love. Both diminished and confined by same system that keep women dependant on men for survival.

“we, like they, are in the situation of prostitutes in that forced to marry we are obliged to sell ourselves body and soul to our lord and master in order to survive and have a respectable place in this male society”

Margo St James, Sylvia Rivera

post aids sex panic

sex work to support unpaid activism

documentary Live Nude Girls Unite

Annie Sprinkle

US forces sex worker support groups in Brazil to sign loyalty oaths declaring opposition to sex work in order to keep AIDS funds, Brazil refuses and loses 40 mil.

condoms in purses as evidence of intent to do sex work

travel ban on sexworkers and drug users

“one thing i want eveyone to understand is that when people scream about how empowering sex work is, they are reacting directly to whorephobia.  it does not mean our work is about sex rather than economics.  it means you have left them no room for a complicated relationshi with work or any possible other paradigms. sex work can indeed be empoweri. but that’s not the point. money is the fucking point.”

movement focusing not on why sex work is outlawed but why sex is a vehicle by which people are made outlaws.

not a movement to reclaim the value of sex but a movement to reject the systems that use sex to render certain people less valuable.

sex worker as a class identity as workers that they can’t use at work.

sex worker identity gives shape to the demand that sex workers are as defined by their work as they are by their sexuality; it deroticizes the public perception of the sex worker, not despite sex but to force recognitition of sex workers outside of a sexual transaction

political work still understood as sex, as if we cannot speak without producing pornography

reporters, academics, filmmakers, activists want to speak to sex workers to tell their stories without considering that sex workers are already playing that role

how to embrace sex worker identity without being expected to perform someone else’s sexual fantasy

whore solidarity - no one else’s value is robbed by whatever it is that’s happening between my legs.

jacobin “an imagined community” all politics are identity politics

so long as there are woman who are called whores, there will be women who believe it is next to death to be called one. men will feel they can leave whores for dead. the fear of the whore, of being a whore, is what drives it. whore as the original intersectional insult.

not just laws against prostitution that make the act of selling sex illega; it is the laws against prostitution that are used to target a class of people as whores whether or not they are selling sex

sex workers rights movements not explicity about sex workers rights: queer and trans, radical women-of-colour, harm reduction organizing, prison abolition movement, welfare women’s movements, migrants movements, labour movements, feminist movements.

rights movements lose in endless circular discussions on how sex work makes you feel (as someone who has not done it) that serve only to stand in for taking action. what relevance are your feelings to those working tonight?

people who have never thought about taking their clothes off form money have a lot of ideas about how others should do so.

within criminalization, cops are management

the first step to talking about meaningful standards for sex work is to make space for sex workers to lead that process.  impossible when cops are managing.

sex workers are excluded from developing the policies that rule their lives:
- if it were legal, we could tax them - ignores all taxes currently paid by sex workers on income and what they purchase
- if it were legal, we could test them : sex workers already have an economic interest to maintain their sexual health. STI and HIV rates have more to do with ability to negotiate safe sex than number of partners. Global health community considers mandatory HIV testing to cause people to avoid health professionals, increasing health risks.  Standards by UNAIDS and international labour organization, forcing someone to be tested for HIV is considered a violation of human rights.
- if it were legal, we could register them: forced registration looks like policing by a different name.  those who refuse to register would work under ground.

in what way do any of these proposals serve sex workers?

If sex work were not criminal, sex workers could do more for themselves and each other.

Encyclopedia o f Prostitution and Sex Work. Melissa Hope Ditmore, ed.(Greenwood Publishing Group: 2006)
Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition. Kamala Kempadoo,Jo Doezema, eds. (Routledge: 1998)
Flesh fo r Fantasy: Producing and Consuming Exotic Dance. R. Danielle Egan,
Katherine Frank, Merri Lisa Johnson, eds. (Seal Press: 2005)
Indecent: How I Fake It and Make It As A Girl For Hire. Sarah Katherine Lewis(Seal Press: 2006)
The Last o f the Live Nude Girls: A Memoir. Sheila M cClear (Soft Skull Press:
2011)
The Little Black Book o f Griselidis Real: Days and Nights o f an Anarchist
Whore. Jean-Luc Henning; Ariana Reines, trans. (semiotext(e): 2009)
Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. Wendy Chapkis (Routledge:
1996)
The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America 1900-1918. Ruth Rosen (Johns
Hopkins University Press: 1983)
M y Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming H er Way Home. Amber L.
Hollibaugh (Duke University Press: 2000)
Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing in on Internet
Sexploration. Audacia Ray-(Seal Press: 2007)
Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective. Susan
Dewey, Patty Kelly, eds. (New York University Press: 2011)
Queer (Injjustice: The Criminalization o f L G B T People in the United States.
Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, Kay Whitlock, eds. (Beacon Press:
2011)
Race, Sex, and Class: The Perspective o f Winning, A Selection o f Writings
1952-2011. Selma James (PM Press: 2012)
R eal Liv e Nude Girl: Chronicles o f Sex-Positive Culture. Carol Queen (Cleis
Press: 1997)
Reading, Writing, and Rewriting the Prostitute Body. Shannon Bell (Indiana
University Press: 1994)
Rent Girl. Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin (Last Gasp: 2004)
Prose and Lore: Memoir Stories About Sex Work, vols. 1—3. Audacia Ray, ed.
(Red Umbrella Project)
Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry. Laura
Maria Agustin (Zed Books: 2007)
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction o f Trafficking. Jo Doezema
(Zed Books: 2010)
Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry. Frederique Delacoste,
Priscilla Alexander, eds. (Cleis Press: 1998)
Sex Work Matters: Exploring Money, Power, and Intimacy in the Sex Industry.
Melissa Hope Ditmore, Antonia Levy, Alys Willman, eds. (Zed Books:
2010)
Sex Workers Unite: A History o f the Movement from Stonewall to SlutWalk,
Melinda Chateauvert (Beacon Press: 2014)
The State o f Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland.
Barbara G. Brents, Crystal A. Jackson, and Kathryn Hausbeck (Routledge:
2009)
“State Violence, Sex Trade, and the Failure o f Anti-Trafficking Policies.”
Emi Koyama (eminism.org, 2013)
Strip City: A Stripper’s Farewell Journey Across America. Lily Burana
(Miramax: 2003)
St. Jam es Infirmary: Occupational Health and Safety Handbook, Third Edition.
(stjamesinfirmary.org, 2010)
Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce o f Sex. Elizabeth
Bernstein (University of Chicago Press: 2010)
“A Theory of Violence: In Honor of Kasandra, CeCe, Savita, and
Anonymous.” Eesha Pandit (Crunk Feminist Collective, January 4,2013)
Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Works o f Scarlot Harlot. Carol Leigh (Last
Gasp Books: 2004)
Whores and Other Feminists. Jill Nagle, ed. (Routledge: 1997)
Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry. Annie Oakley,
ed. (Seal Press: 2008)

Criticism of Studies + Sources

Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/oct/20/trafficking-numbers-women-exaggerated

- trafficking stats increased by media hype + speculation.  real data is unknown.
- majority of migrant sex workers do so as a way to avoid exploitation experienced in previous non-sexual jobs.


Women's Funding Network Sex Trafficking Study Is Junk Science
Schapiro Group data wasn't questioned by mainstream media
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-03-23/news/women-s-funding-network-sex-trafficking-study-is-junk-science/

- craigslist adult services section was shut down based on erroneous (guessed ages based on photos) data about juvenile prostitution


http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21611074-how-new-technology-shaking-up-oldest-business-more-bang-your-buck:3

Stats on Women + Children

Guess who's watching porn: these days it's kids as young as eight or 10. As boys get hooked ever earlier, Net porn is reshaping youth sexuality
http://hn3zr6vl7l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=GUESS+WHO%27S+WATCHING+PORN&rft.jtitle=Maclean%27s&rft.au=Monique+Polak&rft.date=2008-06-30&rft.pub=Rogers+Publishing+Limited&rft.issn=0024-9262&rft.volume=121&rft.issue=25&rft.spage=37&rft.externalDocID=1504838801&paramdict=en-US

- 9/10 children between ages 8 - 16 have viewed porn
- 25% of girls 12 - 13 say they know friends who regularly download porn, boys 37%
- majority of children’s exposure to porn is unintentional
- 45% of children who accidentally view porn are upset by what they saw
- parents worry about children downloading child porn + repurcussions
- 45% of 15-17 year olds say viewing online porn is no big deal
- danger of isolating sexuality from emotional intimacy
- problematic use of porn as stress relief / escapism

Why I love porn: a new generation of feminists are reclaiming porn, both as consumers and producers. A (very) intimate journey
http://hn3zr6vl7l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=WHY+I+LOVE+PORN&rft.jtitle=This&rft.au=Alison+Lee&rft.date=2008-11-01&rft.issn=1491-2678&rft.volume=42&rft.issue=3&rft.spage=16&rft.externalDBID=THMG&rft.externalDocID=1609268191&paramdict=en-US

- porn for disabilities
deaf: deafbunny.com
blind: pornfortheblind.org
- women visit porn sites at a rate of 1 for every 2 men
- 70% of women keep their porn habit a secret
- obscenity laws restrict queer art + expression
- free porn sites are limiting revenue (therefore motivation) for creative + adventurous content

Psychology (lazy notes)

Psychological, relational, and sexual correlates of pornography use on young adult heterosexual men in romantic relationships
http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy-library.ocad.ca/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CA361943998&v=2.1&u=toro37158&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1

Findings revealed that both frequency of pornography use and problematic pornography use were related to greater gender role conflict, more avoidant and anxious attachment styles, poorer relationship quality, and less sexual satisfaction. In addition, the findings provided support for a theorized mediated model in which gender role conflict was linked to relational outcomes both directly and indirectly via attachment styles and pornography use. Finally, psychometric support for the Pornography Use Scale developed for this study is provided.

Research indicates that pornography use has increased over the past decade (Ropelato). In addition, males tend to use pornography more than females with differences producing large effect sizes (for a meta-analysis see Peterson & Hyde, 2010). Furthermore, men tend to feel more positively about pornography than women (Carroll, Padilla-Walker, Nelson, Olson, McNamara, & Madsen, 2008).

Anticapitalist Dictionary on sex industry, Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence on Abolitionist, Decriminalization and Pornography

ANTICAPITALIST DICTIONARY sex industry
http://search.credoreference.com.ezproxy-library.ocad.ca/content/entry/zedacd/sex_industry/0

- term pornography used to refer to anything designed to encourage sexual arousal without emotional attachment = obscene
- erotica - direct, perverted, physical, psychical and sublimated forms of love
- capitalism is responsible for emphasizing genital sexuality + gratification because process of production needs bodies that are desensitized of erotic energy
- repression of libidinal freedom, natural human desire, form of alienation, imperative aspect of how / why sex industry prospers
- sex industry exploits people work for it and those who use it, dehumanizing effect of capitalism
- sexual service providers = presented as objects for sexual gratification
- message reinforced by fashion + film industries, advertising and media
- modes of exploitation and oppression by male sex = patriarchy, typically involve acts of abuse, degradation, violence
- exploitation of women as prostitutes = vulnerable, left home, child abuse, addicted to drugs, subject to violent control of a pimp
- consequence of human trafficking: criminal gangs offer women help w/ immigration, withhold passports + travel documents when unable to pay debts, no access to law protection as illegal immigrants
- sexual slavery in military conflict (japan, south korea)
- in south asia, children abducted by criminal gangs + sold for prostitution, sex tourism-
- sex tourists take advantage of conditions of poverty, drawn by ethnicity + subservience
- Bayswan, International Prostitutes Collective, International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education, the Sexual Freedom Coalition and the Sex Work Cyber Resources Centre advocate for decriminalization





Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Violence
Claire M. Renzetti & Jeffrey L. Edleson
Abolitionist Approach to Prostitution
Decrimilization of sex work
http://hn3zr6vl7l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:book&rft.genre=book%20item&rft.title=Encyclopedia+of+Interpersonal+Violence&rft.atitle=International+Sex+Industry&rft.date=2008-01-01&rft.pub=Sage+Publications&rft.isbn=9781412918008&rft.externalDocID=9296984&paramdict=en-US

Abolitionist Approach to Prostitution
- prostitution is exploitation
- women involved are “prostituted women”, abused under a patriarchal society of male domination + sexual exploitation
- several US studies support view that prostitution is associated with drug abuse, hiv/aids, violence, poor physical emotional and mental health
- connection between drug abuse + street prostitution, to cope with shame, violence, trauma, finance drug habit
- upward of 70% of women experience frequent + varied attacks of violence
- studies of psychosocial well-being and prostitution find prostituted women typically have low self esteem + high depression + ptsd
- polices - support decriminalization for victims, stiff penalties / interventions for pimps or traffickers + customers.  social service programs to help women address their needs w/ substance abuse treatment, shelter, transitional housing, case management, trauma treatment, group work, interpersonal counselling, education, job training programs
- efforts focused on moving women from victim to survivor
- long term goals of primary prevention + early intervention
- reduction of violence against women, view that prostitution is violence against women. not a choice, chosen for women because of impoverished circumstances, abuses in past, blocked opportunities at conventional economic success

Decrimilization of sex work
- selling sex for money is not inherently harmful to women
- consensual sexual activity among adults is an occupational choice
- no difference between a woman who sells her vagina for intercourse + one who sells her hands for dishwashing, body for modeling, or brain for calculating
- to view that all women in prostitution as exploited is to reject a fundamental feminist principle of valuing + accepting existence of multiple realities in women’s lives
- view that to dismiss sex worker’s claims that they are not exploited is to deny their reality, is maternalistic and services to silence their voice
- prostitution as a crime oppresses sex workers and prevents their right to self-determination + denied basic human right to control their own body
- feminists agree that women should control decision to have an abortion, because each woman’s body is her own, but will not assign the same right to selling for sex
- why is sex work among consenting adults demonized by society? women and male ownership of a woman’s sexuality through marriage or commitment. sex work challenges the system built to maintain status quo
- prostitution is one of the few experiences where women dominate field, challenge beliefs about gender + sexuality = stigmatized + unaccepted, pushes sex work underground where it becomes dangerous psychologically + physically
- legalization not popular as it means state control of women’s activities, may involve taxes, restrictions, regulations on when, where how to work, mandated licenses + registration, other costs designed to be financially coercive
- sex work may be temporary but require health care, prevention, awareness, interventions to keep them safe, healthy and prosperous.
- support harm reduction programs to prevent/reduce violence, hiv, poor health outcomes, promote health safety, overall wellbeing
- advocates conduct outreach, clinics, social services
- local, national and international advocacy to facilitate discussion, promote sex worker decriminalization, push for more sex worker friendly agendas in their own communities
- attempting to rescue women who are not victims is viewed as demeaning and disrespectful
- acknowledge that street prostitution is fraught with violence, hiv, poor mental health and drug addiction
- street prostitution occupies 30% of prostitution, most research focused on street prostutition and generalizes experiences to all forms of sex work.  unfair and biased reporting
- violence against sex workers would be reduced if such work were viewed as a legitimate profession
- decriminalization is the best way to respond to this violence, removes fear that women have of reporting violence to authorities

Pornography
- mass industry in the late 1950’s
- porn - all sexually explicit books, magazines, movies, internet sites
- softcore: nudity with limited sexual activity, not including penetration
- hard-core graphic images of actual, not simulated, sexual activity including penetration
- erotica - material that depicts sexual behavior with mutuality and respect
- pornography depicting sex with domination or degradation
- Laboratory studies of pornography effects studies three categories: overtly violent; nonviolent, but degrading; and sexually explicit, but neither violent nor degrading.
- features - traditional three act script w/ plot + characters
- wall to wall / gonzo, no pretense of plot of dialogue performers acknowledge camera + speak to audience
- hard-core include oral, vaginal, anal sex, ending with ejaculation on woman. double penetration, aggressive oral penetration, hair pulling, slapping, rough treatment common.
-  Does pornography, particularly material that explicitly eroticizes violence and/or domination, result in sexual violence against women, children, and other vulnerable people?
- No one argues that pornography is the sole causal factor in rape; the question is whether the use of pornography can be considered a sufficient condition for triggering a sexual assault.
- experimental research on such topics using minors is ethically problematic, little data about pornography’s effect on children and adolescents
-  pornography can (a) be an important factor in shaping a male-dominant view of sexuality, (b) contribute to a user's difficulty in separating sexual fantasy and reality, (c) be used to initiate victims and break down resistance to sexual activity, and (d) provide a training manual for abuse.

Psychology

A Comparison of Sexual Behaviors and Attitudes, Self-Esteem, Quality of Life, and Drug Use Among Pornography Actors and a Matched Sample
http://hn3zr6vl7l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=A+Comparison+of+Sexual+Behaviors+and+Attitudes%2C+Self-Esteem%2C+Quality+of+Life%2C+and+Drug+Use+Among+Pornography+Actors+and+a+Matched+Sample&rft.jtitle=International+Journal+of+Sexual+Health&rft.au=James+D+Griffith&rft.au=Sharon+Mitchell&rft.au=Brian+Hammond&rft.au=Lucy+L+Gu&rft.date=2012-10-01&rft.pub=Taylor+%26+Francis+Group&rft.issn=1931-7611&rft.eissn=1931-762X&rft.volume=24&rft.issue=4&rft.spage=254&rft.externalDocID=2832178211&paramdict=en-US

- 105 porn actors (male)
- comparisons with sample group on sexual behaviours, attitudes, self-esteem, quality of ilfe, drug use.
- first sex at an earlier age, more sexual partners, higher enjoyment of sex, more concerned about catching sti, less likely to use condom during first sex encounter, no differences in childhood sexual abuse
- higher levels of self esteem, quality of life
- more likely to have used 5 different types of drugs, more likely to have used marijuana in the past 6 months
- data supporting or refuting claims that actresses are more likely to have been sexually abused, struggling with drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, being pimped has not been found
- rate of condom use in heterosexual films: 17%.
- only 2 of 200 adult film production companies require use of condoms
- reported 18 positive HIV tests + thousands of other STIs in pornography industry since 2004
- one of the few occupations in which women make more than men.  actresses make nearly twice as much as male coworkers per scene, but actors work on more projects due to smaller pool
- 5 primary reasons for choosing a porn career: money, fame/glamour, freedom/independance, opportunity/socialiblity, having sex.
- requirement of being tested once a month keeps STIs at the forefront of their mind
- unclear if drug usage frequency related to industry


Watching Pornographic Pictures on the Internet: Role of Sexual Arousal Ratings and Psychological-Psychiatric Symptoms for Using Internet Sex Sites Excessively.
http://hn3zr6vl7l.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Watching+Pornographic+Pictures+on+the+Internet%3A+Role+of+Sexual+Arousal+Ratings+and+Psychological%E2%80%93Psychiatric+Symptoms+for+Using+Internet+Sex+Sites+Excessively&rft.jtitle=Cyberpsychology%2C+Behavior%2C+and+Social+Networking&rft.au=Brand%2C+Matthias&rft.au=Laier%2C+Christian&rft.au=Pawlikowski%2C+Mirko&rft.au=Sch%C3%A4chtle%2C+Ulrich&rft.date=2011-06-01&rft.issn=2152-2715&rft.eissn=2152-2723&rft.volume=14&rft.issue=6&rft.spage=371&rft.epage=377&rft_id=info:doi/10.1089%2Fcyber.2010.0222&rft.externalDBID=n%2Fa&rft.externalDocID=10_1089_cyber_2010_0222&paramdict=en-US

- form of internet addiction: cybersex, some claim it is the highest potential for developing internet addiction.
- negative consequences: use of online porn in workplace, increased risk of acquiring stis in individuals who seek sexual partners through internet, potential link between pornography consumption and aggression.

Results indicate that self-reported problems in daily life linked to online sexual activities were predicted by subjective sexual arousal ratings of the pornographic material, global severity of psychological symptoms, and the number of sex applications used when being on Internet sex sites in daily life, while the time spent on Internet sex sites (minutes per day) did not significantly contribute to explanation of variance in IATsex score. Personality facets were not significantly correlated with the IATsex score. The study demonstrates the important role of subjective arousal and psychological symptoms as potential correlates of development or maintenance of excessive online sexual activity.

Blog Posts

Pornography Is Not a Major Industry (via Opposing Viewpoints)
http://ic.galegroup.com.ezproxy-library.ocad.ca/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?failOverType=&query=&prodId=OVIC&windowstate=normal&contentModules=&display-query=&mode=view&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&limiter=&u=toro37158&currPage=&disableHighlighting=false&displayGroups=&sortBy=&source=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&action=e&catId=&activityType=&scanId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010456235

Susannah Breslin (They Shoot Pornstars Don’t They)
- argues pornography has never been the $10 billion industry claimed, likely $1-$2 billion eaten up by piracy, amateurs, small players producing a little content
- porn business is like no other
- nobody knows how much americans spend on porn
- federal obscenity indictments imposed by bus administration chilled porn valley
- performers do not use condoms, tested for hiv every 30 days.  some fake tests. every few years a performer is positive.

cause & effect: sex industry -- burton broadcast
http://burtonbroadcast.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/cause-effect-sex-industry/
- abused teens escape home
- no self respect
- pimp for protection like an abusive husband (security, comfort)
- effects on women: drug usage, mental instability, death
- drug usage occurs after entering into prostitution
- dilute the mind with narcotics
- alter ego + stigma results in ptsd, depression, schizophrenia
FROM COMMENTS…
- laws against brothers prevent women from working together/forming a network
- laws force prostitutes into unfamiliar territory
- drug-taking survival streetworkers do so to fund their habit (formed before working)
- survial street sex workers represent 1/5 workers
- visibility + vulnerability of street workers results in violence
- violence to street workers correlates with homelessness, inability access drug treatment, servicing in cars or public spaces, prior assault by police, displacement
- half factors correlating with increased violence are caused by police intervention
- 70% in study experienced no violence in 18 months despite having several clients a day
- among the 30% the violence most reported was verbal
- majority of sex workers as addicted = myth
- most workers consider themselves to be exploiting rather than exploited, taking advantage of people’s loneliness, expecting them to pay more than they could reasonably afford.




Is swinging (not) part of the sex industry?
Laura Agustin (Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex.
http://sexgenderbody.com/content/swinging-not-part-sex-industry#ixzz3DGHk3aom

- people assume swinging / polyamory has nothing to do with sex work despite visitation of sex clubs / swinging parties
- what is the differentiating factor of commercial sex vs non commercial sex




No, Virginia, This is not a study of The Underground Commercial Sex Economy
(laura agustin)
http://www.lauraagustin.com/no-virginia-this-is-not-a-study-of-the-underground-commercial-sex-economy

- research piece funded by US National Institute of Justice - Estimating the Size + Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities
- research relied on interviews with pimps, traffickers, sex workers, child pornographers, police
- findings reported: Pimps claimed inaccuracy in media portrayals. Pimps manipulate women into sex work. Women, family, and friends facilitate entry into sex work. Unexpected parties benefit from the commercial sex economy. The Internet is changing the limitations of the trade. Child pornography is escalating. The underground sex economy is perceived as low risk.
- not a study about sex workers -- an attempt to view particular sex economies through a lens offered by convicted pimps.  designed to assure bias.
- pimps that were interviewed were incarcerated, black men highest population of prisons, perpetuates the idea that black men pimp white women
- why did the researchers accept prisoner’s stories as fact?
- researchers were funded by crime orientated agency to confirm everything the IS government already does

Liberal Conspiracy

Contrary to the media, the sex industry doesn’t empower women
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/25/contrary-to-the-media-the-sex-industry-doesnt-empower-women/

- real story of sex industry: ptsd, sexual assault, drug abuse, trafficking
- sex industry as a class issue
- recent application to open lap-dancing club: upon inappropriate touching would reject client not report to police for a crime.
- women in sex industry 60-100 times more likely to be murdered
- trans women at higher risk
- 68% of women working in industry suffer ptsd
- those who promote sex industry deny women voices


Betraying sex workers
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2009/01/11/betraying-sex-workers/

- International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) branch of GMB, one of Britian’s Biggest Trade Unions
- Douglas Fox works as a male sex worker.
- Douglas Fox + John Dockerty run large agencies + advocate for sex workers rights.  Is this for concern of the rights of the women or for their profit margins?
- Campaigning to “punters” to donate to the IUSW
- anyone can join IUSW
- How can a trade union represent the interests of workers and employers at the same time?
- Has Douglas Fox abused the rights of any women in his employment, or abused his position as a union spokesperson?

They Shoot Pornstars Don’t They

They Shoot Pornstars Don’t They
Susannah Breslin
http://theyshootstars.com/

- Jim and Artie Mitchell produced Behind the Green Door (1970s porno chic), jim shot artie

- DVD doesn’t take the place of VHS

- Online - Reality Kings, Brazzers, Bang Brothers (“content”).  Tube sites, free.

- John Ashcroft (attorney general) planned attack on adult movie business, foiled by 9/11

- Stunt sex - world’s biggest gang bang, Greg Dark, Rob Black, Max Hardcore (simulated rape, feigned pedophilia, wholesale degradation)

- $10 - $14 billion dismissed by forbes.com

- 1973 - Marvin Miller v. State of California: Miller test of obscenity: a) the work, judged by the average American using community standards, appeals to the prurient interest, b) depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and c) lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value (aka the “SLAPS test”), it is obscene, and, therefore, not protected by the First Amendment.

- Mike Norton (JM Productions) Adam Glasser (Seymore Butts).

- Alberto Gonzales (2005 attorney general) - 10-count federal obscenity indictment vs Robert Zicari (Robert Black), Janet Romana (Lizzy Borden).. Extreme Associates.

- Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, Adult Obscenity Squad

- Ira Isaacs, distributor of scat + beastaility videos

- Max Hardcore (Paul Little)

- Porn star tested for HIV

- why do men do porn / bukkake? they were lonely. They were horny. This was their fantasy. They wanted to be porn stars. They were fresh out of jail. They were social outcasts. They longed to be somebody, if only for a few minutes. “I'm not involved with anyone right now.”

- extreme porn: casting couch

- interactive movies: viewers “control” action through scene selection etc (purchase dvd for interactive experience)

Sex Industry - Encyclopedia of Urban Studies

Sex Industry - Encyclopedia of Urban Studies
Phil Hubbard
http://knowledge.sagepub.com.ezproxy-library.ocad.ca/view/urbanstudies/n249.xml

- most visible in towns / cities
- female prostitution, off-street work: adult orientated businesses, sex clubs, cinemas, sex shops, peep shows.
- migrant women poorly served by social security systems
- zone in transition -- high numbers of immigrants, houses in multiple occupation

HISTORICALLY
- medieval cities: forbade prostitutes from living/working within city walls. religious authorities argued female prostitutes fulfill service by providing outlet for male sexual energy + help maintain sancity of family life. officially sanctioned brothers, bawds, stews.  regulation / legal control.

- modern period (1800’s): wedge between feminized suburbs + masculine city centre. concern that sight of prostitutes on street would corrupt women + children.  undermine moral values of heterosexual family unit.  subject to surveillence + containment, restrict visibility of sex work. anxieties about disease = demeaning medical inspections.

REGULATION

- changing geographies reveal distinctive spatial formations of control + policing (confinement, surveillance, exlusion).  pushing of prostitution to twilight areas where citizens lack motivation or power to resist their presence.  areas also associated with drug dealing, deprivation, criminality, media representation of sex work w/ sexual immorality, violence, disease, poverty.  moral geography, “streets of shame”.  some sexual behaviours only acceptable in certain places.

- regulating diverse sites of sexual exchange (bars, restaurants, cabarets, clubs, brothels, discotheques, saunas, massage parlors, sex shops w/ private booths, hotels, flats, dungeons, internet sites, cinemas, etc) = legal + logistical challenges.
- most nations laws + policies attempt to confine nudity to specific private spaces.

- most important consideration in the regulation of sexual goods + services is to protect those deemed vulnerable to corruption

- mid-victorian period, 1857 Obscene Publications Act (England + Wales) - potential “deadly” impact of pornography on working classes + working class women.

- now: protection of children = justification

- limit sale / display of pornographic material to spaces not part of the public realm but accessible to the public

- command+control techniques, obscentiy laws, licensing, zoning + planning powers.  zoning laws prevent sexually orientated businesses from operating close to residences, schools, religious facilities = push adult businesses to fringes of the city + away from middle class.  prevent sexually orientated businesses from operating close to one another (basis = such businesses associated with nuisance + criminality… evidence??)

- separation between “family friendly” spaces + spaces of commercial sex help construct divid between “good” + “bad” feminity.

- protecting women from danger … “conceptually + semiologically separates women from experiencing parts of the city that remain open to exploration by men” (Stephanie Lasker)

- reproduces gendered assuptioms, containment + isolation of spaces enhances commercial value of erotic goods (scarcity). restricted economy = capitalist values.

- association of commercial sex w/ immorality + neighbourhood nuisance = effective strategy for asserting sexual values + displacing sex work from city centre sites

- possible to interpret ongoing attempts to regulate commercial sex as strategies of capital accumulation (enhancing value of specific tracts of land) + social reproduction (normalizing assumptions that porn should not be consumed by minors / visible in public).

- zero tolerance approaches to commercial sex = lucrative in real estate locations.  zoning laws + police power used to displace sex work to “protect local communities” … but really for gentrication

- “upmarket” lapdancing + gentalmen’s clubs = totally okay?