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Legal Wrap: More States Pass Early Abortion Bans as Federal Courts Continue...
Legal Wrap is a weekly round-up of key legal reproductive rights and justice news. Late last week, a federal court permanently struck down Arkansas’ restrictive 12-week abortion ban in an opinion that...
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Hawaii House Votes to Continue Allowing Police to Have Sex With Prostitutes
Police in Hawaii successfully lobbied house lawmakers to leave in place a decades-old provision that allows police to have sex with prostitutes, arguing that the measure is necessary for them to catch...
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The NYPD Finally Changes Condoms-as-Evidence Policy, But Leaves Giant Loophole
On Monday, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) announced that it would no longer seize condoms from suspected sex workers and use them as evidence of prostitution. However, the new policy still...
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Why the ‘End Demand’ Approach to Sex Work Doesn’t Work
For the last seven years, I’ve been working as an escort in Ottawa and, most recently, in Toronto. I’ve seen approximately 100 unique clients (this does not include repeat clients) per year and not one...
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Beyond Birth Control: Recent Reproductive Justice Stories That Fewer People...
Recent Supreme Court rulings have not been great for reproductive justice. If the destruction of Massachusetts’ clinic buffer zone law wasn’t enough of a gut punch, the Hobby Lobby decision was a solid...
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The Evidence Is In: Decriminalizing Sex Work Is Critical to Public Health
During the 2014 International AIDS conference, The Lancet medical journal released a series of articles focused exclusively on HIV and sex work. One study by Kate Shannon et al., demonstrates that...
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House Passes Problematic Human Trafficking Bill
The U.S. House overwhelmingly passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA) on Tuesday, sending the bill to President Obama’s desk. The vote was 420-3, with only Reps. John Conyers (D-MI),...
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How Sex Workers’ Rights Made the Mainstream
Homeland Security agents raided Rentboy.com in late August, seizing the escort ads website and displacing an estimated 10,000 advertisers. As with similar crackdowns on online sex work, sex worker...
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How New York City’s Treatment of Sex Workers Continues to Harm Us
I am a native New Yorker and a product of its foster system. I’m currently a community organizer at the Red Umbrella Project, which works to build power with cis and trans women who are impacted by the...
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With Sex Workers Too, Rape Is Still Rape
In the last several months, there have been a number of rape allegations involving sex workers in the news. Most recently, a number of sex workers accused porn star James Deen of rape. Several websites...
View ArticleBuilding Solidarity to Overcome Invisibility: Sex Workers and HIV-Focused...
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in February published a study of HIV rates among female sex workers in the United States. The authors of the review—which was...
View ArticlePrEP and Sex Workers: A Chance to Do Better
Finally, we have a highly effective HIV prevention method that isn’t a condom! By taking one PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) pill daily without fail, a cisgender women can get 90 percent protection...
View ArticleCalifornia’s Proposition 60 Is About More Than Just Condoms in Porn
Voters in California this year are considering an astounding 18 statewide propositions, and one in particular could have a direct effect on a very small group of state residents: the estimated...
View ArticleProposition 60 Ignores Unique Needs of Porn Industry, Perpetuates Falsehoods
It was July 2012, and I had just ended a second successful Skype interview with my first porn studio. I’d already been working in the sex industry for six years as a burlesque performer, stripper, and...
View ArticleNo One in the Porn Industry Likes a Broken Vagina
Last Wednesday started off like many weekdays had before it. I woke up around 9 a.m., fed my animals, and prepared breakfast. My breakfast was high in good fat and lean protein, and it was accompanied...
View ArticleSo You’re Dating a Sex Worker? Here’s What Not to Do
For a current or former sex worker to fall in love is a dangerous, potentially radical act. I say this because, too often—in a world that hates sex workers—we are simply not treated as people worth...
View ArticleSESTA Is Already Having Devastating Impacts on Sex Workers—Just Like They...
UPDATE, April 11, 4:24 p.m.: President Donald Trump signed SESTA-FOSTA into law on Wednesday. For sex workers, watching websites serving as their main source for work close because of government action...
View ArticleHow to Avoid Pissing Off Your Dominatrix
Sex work is one of the few labor industries where your skill and experience are not commensurate with receiving increased respect or regard. I’ve been a ho for 11 years now, and that fact still trips...
View ArticleFor Disabled Sex Workers, Congress’ Anti-Trafficking Legislation Is Life...
Before Freya Wynn entered the sex industry, she worked as a custodian for an urban school district. Wynn lives with a “right lung glued in place” as a result of “a spontaneous hemopneumothorax/tension...
View ArticleAdvocates Gather in New York City to Demand Decriminalization of Sex Work
As a teenager in the foster care system, Jessica Raven experienced sexual abuse several times. Each time, she found no recourse. At age 15, she ran away. That was when she began trading sex. “I decided...
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