On June 18 Capital Video underwent a long-awaited violation hearing in Springfield. At issue was the viewing booth entertainment license of its Amazing.net porn shop in Apremont Triangle. This store has been controversial since its installation in 1990. The viewing booths were added in 1992. Several Springfield police officers and undercover detectives testified during the […]
Continue reading Gazette: “Porn store’s viewing booths raise stink in Springfield”
“Go-Go Pattaya Thailand, Open 24 Hours”, says one of Old Navy’s Summer Destination Tees for Men, now on sale for $8.70. Pattaya, for those who don’t know, is a notorious center for Thailand’s prostitution industry. Many sailors in the US Navy are familiar with it. Salon writes, Pattaya Beach — which the Toronto Star once […]
Continue reading Old Navy Celebrates Notorious Thailand Prostitution Center on T-Shirt
Candid comments from people who work in porn routinely skewer attempts by academics and porn defenders to ennoble the porn industry.“Billy Watson” is the blogmaster at I Shoot Porn (explicit). In his June 1 post, “I Be Google’n”, he laughs at the notion that porn actresses are not prostitutes. He also gives ranges for what […]
Our opponents like to focus on the handful of women who have become relatively rich selling sex, women who have achieved a measure of choice and control in their lives (example). The reality for vast numbers of other participants in the sex trade is far less appealing, as The New York Times makes clear in […]
Continue reading New York Times: “The Girls Next Door”; Worldwide Sex Trafficking; Role of Porn
Gloria Steinem gave the commencement address today at Smith College. Steinem’s efforts to call attention to the exploitation of women in America began soon after graduation… Steinem’s lifelong career as a writer and journalist began when she graduated from Smith in 1956. Her early freelance articles include an investigative piece for Show magazine on the […]
Continue reading Gloria Steinem at Smith: Cooperation, Not Domination
Massachusetts legislators heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on March 16, 1992. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.417-419). Written Submission of JW, Boston, MassachusettsThe following testimony contains descriptions of incidents which occurred over a period of eight years in which I worked as a […]
Today’s Daily Hampshire Gazette publishes a letter from Jendi Reiter. Jendi is a co-founder of NoPornNorthampton. One can characterize prostitution and promiscuity as ‘personal choices’, but the problem of containing serious diseases remains. The fact that third parties, such as the spouses of men who frequent prostitutes, are affected by these diseases must also be […]
Continue reading Letter to the Gazette: “Addressing prostitution, promiscuity in war on AIDS”
Hugo Schwyzer is a gender studies professor at Pasadena City College. His blog often explores the issues surrounding commercial sex. Yesterday he discussed the harm of prostitution, and the benefits of ‘naming and shaming’ (emphasis in original): I want the names to come out because I am convinced that prostitution is never, ever, a victimless […]
Continue reading Schwyzer: Why Exchanging Sex for Money is Wrong
Advocates for ‘sex work’ say it is or should be about free choice and the empowerment of women. They claim that if prostitutes have troubled lives, this stems from the fact that many (unenlightened) people find prostitution offensive and the government doesn’t care enough about prostitutes’ working conditions, rather than anything inherent in exchanging sex […]
Massachusetts legislators heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on March 16, 1992. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.381-382). Testimony of L. B. Once this videotape was on, he would make me submit to various sexual acts on the hardwood floors directly in front of […]