anti-porn parenting tips

A porn actress found Jesus and now finds Jesus for others. She provides helpful hints for parents as to why their little girls might become a porn actress. She and I agree that bad parenting (especially abuse), contributes to problems. She almost gets it in #4, except she decides to define prostitution vs pornography (in order to let everyone know she’s not a prostitute), instead of focusing on the fact that juvenile prostitution is nearly always caused by abusive parents or parents who have kicked their children out of their home. I’ve said it for years: underage prostitution could be eradicated almost entirely by focusing the law on abusive parents and having more readily available resources for abused or homeless children. (This would also remove underage trafficking and lots of people would be out of well-paying jobs and grant money.)

compensation for victims of violence

California provides compensation for victims of rape and other violence. Except, of course, when the victim is a sex worker (even if the violence occurred when the person wasn’t working). Sign a petition to close this gaping hole in the law. Victims of violence are victims of violence. Violence is not part of anyone’s job description and something no one “asks” for.

Laura Agustin’s essay

One of the best essays on sex work, criminalization and stigma, Laura Agustin has also written one of the best sex work books ever (Sex at the Margins). I particularly liked that she makes a very important point for any discussion about sex work: “My focus on the female is deliberate. All who propose prostitution policy are aware that men sell sex, but they are not concerned about men, who simply do not suffer the disgrace and shame that fall on women who do it.”

men are emotional

A survey about men and women in the workplace confirms what I’ve always believed: men are more emotional. Both men and women seem timid about asking for raises.

seduce a politician for no tangible benefits

How to seduce a politician for free with Tweeting, sexting and selfies. If you have a lot of spare time, this is the recipe to follow.

food porn — but not what you think

If you eat food, you may not want to watch this lesson on the difference between porn sex and real sex. OTH, I’d love to see an escort do graphic food pix now. It would be much more creative than simply listing a string of acronyms (along with the usual disclaimer that the money being paid isn’t for sex).

Brazilian brothel

An upscale brothel in Brazil. Sounds like a lot of fun. There are a lot of ideas US brothels need to import to make their system more appealing to both sex workers and clients.

NV brothels — legal and outmoded

Speaking of US brothels, the economy is kicking NV brothels out of business. Fortunately, Dennis Hof (and his grossly oversized cigar — in this case, a cigar is not just a cigar) is there to buy them. But it’s not just the economy, it’s all the horrible, diseased, “illegal” prostitutes online that helping to kill the brothels. “‘As business has fallen off, many of the girls have moved from the brothels to illegal prostitution,’ Flint said. ‘They don’t always do that in an attempt to be illegal, but in the high-tech world we live in, a lot of girls have their own website, or ads on Craigslist, and a lot of girls are taking some pretty big chances right now.'”

Managerial types who comment on brothel news always forget a few facts (like Craigslist is no longer the go-to place for adult classified ads). Girls have been working online for years, it’s not an attempt to be “illegal” but an attempt to cut out the pimp that is the brothel. It also conveniently gets the state out of their bedrooms and bodies (and off their state records). Not to mention these types always seem to forget that Nevada is only one state out of the entire country and that the population of online sex workers easily numbers into the six figures; not all of whom want or are able to work in a brothel in the middle of the desert. If every online sex worker decided to work in a legal brothel tomorrow, the brothels could not possibly handle the influx of workers.

And…they also forget that condoms work just as well outside the brothels as they do inside. Billions of sexually-active people, sex workers and non, all over the globe, can attest to that. It’s not disease-testing that prevents disease, it’s condom-use. I have to wonder if Dennis Hof or George Flint get tested on a weekly basis. You know, because sex is sex and germs don’t care whether or not you’ve paid for it. Can’t be too safe if you’re a sexually-active adult. Isn’t that the point of mandatory disease-testing and the campaign against sex workers who don’t submit to state-regulated testing?

The Internet keeps getting blamed for the decline of brothel business. If brothels want to stay viable and competitive, they’re going to have to implement some changes: some of these changes will be in-house and easy (so long as the managers are willing to stop thinking like pimps), some of them are going to require state legislative action and be a tough sell.

Sex workers generally aren’t against brothel work, per se, and are generally in favor of safer, legal working environments. The US brothel system as it stands doesn’t mesh well with personal or professional automony. Since most sex workers are used to working under heavy criminalization and answering to themselves, having personal and professional automony in their work environment is key. Not having the state invade their bodies and privacy is key as well. Not every sex worker is unfortunate enough to get arrested, but every sex worker registering to work at an NV brothel has a state and medical record of it.

escort Most Likely To…

…get kicked off a social media site. That would be me.

Years ago, when Squidoo debuted, I was all over it. It was fun, though as the site developed it became a time-suck. Then it made adult content pages move to a different section. Fine. Then it started deleting some of my pages with no explanation. I was done. I deleted my account and vowed to just stick with putting content on my own sites instead of wasting hours building content on someone else’s site.

I ended up with a Facebook account. It turned fun as I connected with people I knew and interesting people I’d never met. It was a time-suck but the interaction aspect was great. Two years ago, someone (presumably) complained to Facebook about me and FB responded by deleting me as if I had never been there in the first place. (If you ever want to fully delete your FB account, just have someone report you for violating some mysterious Terms of Service and you’ll get your wish.) I now have a FB page, but it’s not as fun, not by a long shot. I’m also not investing a lot in it since I assume as some point it will get yanked.

Today, Google+ has decided to suspend my account for violating its Terms of Service. Years ago, it kicked me out of Adwords because I was selling my books with Adwords (it worked pretty well too!). It suspended my Google+ page because I not only linked to my book site in my bio but imported my latest blog post from there (an interview with an escort photographer) and from here (the movie/TV thing). Google really doesn’t like that I’m selling books about escort work. I rarely post racy pictures, rarely get sexually explicit and make sure to stay within my First Amendment rights without getting into civil lawsuit territory. The whole reason I was even working on my Google+ page (dead since I signed up for it) was because Google required it for my book site’s SEO. A whole bunch of totally wasted hours when I could have been posting to my own sites. (Google is known for being censorship-friendly, so I can’t say I’m shocked, just mad.)

I currently have a Twitter account (and the FB page). That’s pretty much it for the social media, I think. If anyone would like to suggest sites I could join, waste hours building my profile on to have yanked with no explanation, please let me know. I really have nothing better to do.