We’ve expressed our concern in the past about the inability of activists to see the difference between sex trafficking victims and those who engage in prostitution by choice and how failing to make that distinction hurts everyone involved. Yet the more we point that out, the more organizations spring from the woodwork, clamoring to stop the sale of human beings without regard for how their campaigns may conflate the two distinct situations, like in this video from Stop the Traffik:
Knee-jerk reactions to campaigns like these lead to the criminalization of prostitution, creating environments where exploitation, abuse, coercion and trafficking are made easier, not harder. … Continue Reading
Meet Sarah Tressler. By day, she writes about Houston society for the Houston Chronicle. It’s not the most fascinating job, but a great place to start for a journalist trying to make her way through the decaying body of an industry that still hasn’t managed to come up with a model that supports their costs in this time of the open web.
Once deadlines are met, assuming she’s not teaching writing as an adjunct professor at University of Houston, Tressler packs it up and heads to her other gig — at any of a handful strip clubs in Houston. Unsurprisingly, this job is the one that inspires the bulk of her writing. … Continue Reading
The e-commerce startup Sqoot could not believe the shitstorm. All they had done was advertised their Boston hack-a-thon by listing some of the perks they were offering at the event, you know, things like DJs, massages, food trucks, top-notch booze, energy drinks, snacks…
Topsy is an indexing platform primarily developed to enable businesses to understand social trends. As such, their dealings are of primary interest to people in the social marketing space, so when Topsy released their Google+ comment searching tool in October of last year, the reception was limited to people in that niche.
In the past could of days, however, the function has been spreading among regular users of the network, creating something of a frenzy. Usage is simple: all you need is a Google+ user number, which appears in their profile URL. You take that and input it at the end of the Topsy Google+ search URL (http://plus.topsy.com/googleplus/), hit enter and voila! All public comments made across the social network appear before you awaiting your perusal. … Continue Reading
At her bail hearing a week ago in New York, Anna Gristina had a resolute look about her. She’d spent the past couple of weeks at Rikers Island weighing her options. She’s facing charges of promoting prostitution after a five-year investigation uncovered the high class escort business she was running out of a Manhattan Upper East Side apartment. … Continue Reading
Arizona Senator John McCain initially supported the Blunt Amendment, a measure that would have allowed individual employers to choose whether they wanted to allow employee health plans to cover birth control. Recently, however, he seems to have changed his mind regarding controlling women’s reproductive choices. … Continue Reading
Having a few foreigners on staff requires us to do a bit of explaining when it comes to American politics. Usually, any questions posed to us are answered rather quickly, and we take great pleasure (and pride) in seeing their faces light up with understanding. However bizarre our way of doing things may appear, one thing is clear: democracy is of the utmost importance in the United States. No matter where they come from, foreigners understand and respect that.
But there is one question we just haven’t been able to answer to our satisfaction — at least not without exposing the absolutely disgusting hypocrisy of people who claim to be interested in preserving the beautiful tradition of freedom and autonomy that this country represents. The question was posed simply enough: “The conservative party’s devotion to preserving the life of the unborn is admirable, but their concern seems to only extend to the unborn. Why are people so devoted to life in the name of God treat the very children they have saved as unnecessary burdens on the state, to be excised like so many malignant tumors?” … Continue Reading
Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican Arizona Senator John McCain (and former presidential candidate), is appearing in Playboy next month. Though herself a conservative, the young McCain’s approach to politics is much more liberal and candid than her father’s. In the interview that accompanies the photographs (in which she appears fully clothed), McCain opens up about herself with characteristic candor. … Continue Reading
The Huffingtom Post has a great video of best-selling young adult author Judy Blume speaking out about reproductive choice in women, hoping to remind this generation what it was like to have no options in her time. It’s a needful reminder — we have the vote and we need to use it, to remind the government that we need to have authority over our bodies and ourselves.
Whether we would ever get an abortion ourselves if it came to that, whether our church supports the use of contraceptives — these should be our choices for us to select according to our consciences and our faith, not for someone to decide for us. … Continue Reading
The Houston Press unceremoniously outted Sarah Tressler as a writer, adjunct professor and stripper, suggesting that she’s only doing what she’s doing because she wants a book deal and a movie made about her life. “It’s all pretty much what you’d expect,” he says. “Writing in the style that really, really wants to be described as ‘fearless’ and ‘intelligent’ and ‘funny’ and ‘sexy.’”
In a world where employers can easily find out everything about you, where insurance companies can decide to give or deny coverage because they see some status update as representing a liability, where a judge at family court can take away your children because — God forbid — you had a photo taken at Playboy West some Halloween… It’s not a matter of the web exposing you. It’s a matter of no longer having the ability to segregate different aspects of your life as we were once easily able to do and the concern is entirely valid.
But there is one question we just haven’t been able to answer to our satisfaction — at least not without exposing the absolutely disgusting hypocrisy of people who claim to be interested in preserving the beautiful tradition of freedom and autonomy that this country represents. The question was posed simply enough: “The conservative party’s devotion to preserving the life of the unborn is admirable, but their concern seems to only extend to the unborn. Why are people so devoted to life in the name of God treat the very children they have saved as unnecessary burdens on the state, to be excised like so many malignant tumors?”
Every woman knows the word slut has power. Whether you love it or hate it, the word “slut” is an evocation of a gender double standard used to control women and no woman alive hasn’t thought about what it means to be labeled in this way. In some cultures, where honor killings take place, it is a matter of life or death. If you’re a “good” woman, don’t kid yourself. It means you’ve spent your life and will continue to spend your life calibrating your appearance, speech and behavior so that you are not a slut.
Initially, it is unclear whether Limbaugh repeatedly cites this fraudulent article as a means to justify his dishonest tirade or if he truly failed to do the appropriate research regarding Fluke’s remarks, but as his show continues and Limbaugh plays more clips from Sandra Fluke’s congressional hearing, it becomes evident that he is picking and choosing what he wants his listeners to hear, in order to corroborate the allegation he made in a previous show that Fluke is nothing but a slut who wants everyone else to pay for her birth control.
Hoping to provide pro-choice supporters a space to counter anti-abortion rhetoric and activity surrounding the “40 Days for Life” Lent campaign, a Tumblr has been erected to cheer on those who believe that a woman’s body doesn’t belong to society.
Sex and the 405 is what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.
Here you’ll find news about the latest research being conducted to figure out what drives desire, passion, and other sex habits; reviews of sex toys, porn and other sexy things; coverage of the latest sex-related news that have our mainstream media's panties up in a bunch; human interest pieces about sex and desire; interviews with people who love sex, or hate sex, or work in sex, or work to enable you to have better sex; opinion pieces that relate to sex and society; and the sex-related side of celebrity gossip. More...
