- The bad news is that sex censorship and sex discrimination is moving into its darkest chapter. The passing of FOSTA/SESTA and its signing into law is equivalent to making hate speech and racial discrimination legal. Its effects are worldwide. In many instances, workers and trafficking victims are now turning to street work for the first time. The positive news is that major media outlets, for the first time in history, are listening to sex workers. Now if only lawmakers would listen … to any of us.
* The War on Sex Workers Needs to Stop Now (Rolling Stone)
* President says “I have to give credit it to Ivanka Trump” at signing an online sex trafficking crackdown bill (Newsweek)
* No one wants to listen to the sex workers (Washington Post)
* After Craigslist personals go dark, sex workers fear what’s next (CNN)
* How the US ‘Sex Trafficking’ Crackdown Is Hurting Sex Workers in Canada (VICE)
* “Erotic Review” blocks US Internet users to prepare for government crackdown (Ars Technica)
* USA Sex Guide Suspends Operation of Website (XBIZ)
* Kiwi sex workers at risk after classifieds website shut down (NewsHub NZ)
* FOSTA-SESTA’s real aim is to silence sex workers online (Engadget)
- “Carl Ferrer, the chief executive of Backpage.com whose name was conspicuously absent from an indictment of seven other Backpage officials unsealed Monday, has pleaded guilty in state courts in California and Texas and federal court in Arizona to charges of money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution.”
* Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer pleads guilty in three states, agrees to testify against other website officials (Washington Post)
See also: New Backpage Ruling Lays Bare Some of the Lies Undergirding FOSTA (Reason)
- This book made me sane and it saved my life. Every person with corresponding gear in their pants should own a copy. “For generations of girls, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” was the starter pack to adulthood: It let you know whether your vulva was weird looking (it wasn’t), what kind of birth control you might want to use and whether you were the only one who had a special relationship with your pillow. (You weren’t, Page 162 assured.) But after nearly 50 years, Our Bodies Ourselves, the Boston nonprofit home of the book, will stop publishing the pubescent tome amid a period of “transition.””
* ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’? It’s Shelved (NYT)
See also: How Learning to Love My Vagina Affirmed My Manhood (Vice)
- “Adult performer Nikki Benz filed a lawsuit Monday against the porn production company Brazzers, its parent company MindGeek, and fellow actors Tony T. and Ramon Nomar for sexual battery. … Benz first made the allegations via Twitter in late December of 2016, following the shoot in question.”
* Porn Actress Nikki Benz Sues MindGeek, Brazzers, Co-Stars for Sexual Battery, Gender Violence (Jezebel)
- “SAG-AFTRA [Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists] has called for a ban on auditions in hotel rooms and residences, where many reported incidents of sexual harassment and assault have occurred.”
* SAG-AFTRA Bans Auditions In Hotel Rooms And Residences (Deadline)
- “The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing a sexual assault case against Kevin Spacey, Variety has confirmed. The former “House of Cards” star has been accused of sexual misconduct by numerous men in the U.S. and in England. Scotland Yard is investigating at least three sexual assault complaints against the Oscar winner.”
* Kevin Spacey Sexual Assault Case to Be Reviewed by L.A. District Attorney (Variety)
- “A pornographic video that falsely claimed to show Hillary Clinton engaged in a sex act has been traced back to an account that Reddit acknowledged on Tuesday is linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency. … The video was viewed more than 250,000 times on Pornhub.”
* Russia-linked account pushed fake Hillary Clinton sex video (NBC News)
- “The Food and Drug Administration has launched a criminal investigation into an offshore herpes research trial that began with secret injections of an unauthorized herpes vaccine in US hotel rooms, according to a report by Kaiser Health News.”
* Report: FDA Launches Investigation Into Research by Peter Thiel-Backed Herpes Vaccine Company (Gizmodo)
- Guardian writes about Control, but won’t link to the artist. “Çağdaş Erdoğan, a 26-year-old Kurdish Turk, is part of SO Collective, an anonymous, independent photo agency set up in 2013 by photojournalists who, for many reasons, have been blacklisted by the authorities and marginalised by the now largely state-run media.”
* Dog fights and sex parties: the man who photographs Istanbul after dark (Guardian)
- “During an interview on Megyn Kelly TODAY on Wednesday, [Stormy] Daniels’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti, suggested that CBS edited out Daniels’s detailed description of the president’s genitals … “60 Minutes and CBS, as you know, they are a conservative network. I mean there is a lot of information that was said during that interview that did not make it into the final 60 Minutes,” Avenatti said, adding, “… For instance, she can describe the president’s genitalia in great detail. That did not make it.””
* Stormy Daniels Can Describe Trump’s Genitals ‘in Detail’ (The Cut)
See also: Donald Trump’s Embrace of Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Is an Absurd Twist on a Failed Policy (Intercept)
- “In a landmark case in California, one of the largest ever judgements in a revenge porn case has seen the United States District Court awarding $6.4 million to a Los Angeles County woman. … It took four years for the case to come to a head … Copyright, not necessarily human decency, won out in the end, with the plaintiff basing the case around the violation of copyright regarding the distributed images.”
* Woman is awarded $6.4 million in one of the largest revenge porn cases ever (Mashable)
- “Reliable data are difficult to come by, but softer services seem to be gaining popularity at the expense of harder ones such as vaginal sex (which is illegal but widely available) or oral sex (which is legal). The sex trade in Japan has long been about not only intercourse, but also the yearning for intimacy and romance, says Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist, and these are the services that are growing.”
* Japan’s sex industry is becoming less sexual (The Economist)
- “Three years after revealing the (AI-enhanced) Realbotix project to the public, the first iteration of the robotic sex doll head will finally make it into bedrooms around the world. This week RealDoll, the makers of the famous silicone love doll line, announced that the RealDoll X will go on sale later this month.”
* RealDoll X: 1st Generation Sexbot from Realbotix Goes on Sale This Month (Future of Sex)
Thinking today of the fiery brilliance of Maori trans woman politician Georgina Beyer, a former sex worker, whose impassioned speech in New Zealand's Parliament helped win the decriminalization of sex work. Listen to @oftvpodcast for more on her: https://t.co/dwnQ2O7Vtk pic.twitter.com/8uHxe5qyCx
— Morgan M Page (@morganmpage) April 13, 2018
