Winter Olympics’ boost for Vancouver sex trade as business triples at brothel
By Megan Taylor
Vancouver’s estimated 1,000 sex workers agree: The Olympic Games are good for business.
Business at a brothel near downtown Vancouver tripled during the Winter Olympics, AOL News reports. But instead of the expected foreign visitors, Sexy Nina, who owns the house of ill repute, found local clients excited by the competitive spirit.
“The Games gave us the desire and willingness to connect, the energy to move,” she told AOL News. “What an amazing two weeks!”
Despite fears that out-of-town sex workers could make work riskier, some street workers reported that business was slow, said Kerry Porth, the executive director of Prostitution Alternatives Counseling & Education Society (PACE), which offered nightly outreach sessions during the Games.
Porth said the increased police presence may be to blame for some of the slowdown in street business.
“There were police on foot and in cars, all over the usual sex worker neighborhoods,” she said.
Although sex work is legal in Vancouver, some associated activities are not, such as running a brothel. But the Vancouver Police Department usually leaves sex workers alone.
It’s not the punchline to a joke. It’s true! Read the whole story at The Telegraph…
Swiss prostitutes trained to use defibrillators in brothels to prevent clients dying
Brothel owners in the Lugano area say electric shock treatment to restart customer’s hearts is needed because so many elderly customers are using their services.
The most recent victim was a pensioner, thought to be having fun with the help of anti-impotence medication.
His death followed a series of other incidents, some fatal, in which heart attacks have claimed brothel customers in the area.
The owner of one sex club said: “Having customers die on us isn’t exactly good publicity”.
There are now 38 sex clubs and brothel in the Lugano area. And more are planned, according to Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, in order to accommodate the thousands of customers who pour over the border from Italy, where brothels are illegal. Around 80 per cent of the men who pay for sex in the area are thought to be Italian.
Selling Sex to Pay the Bills SWFL Women turn to prostitution
By WINK News
It’s the world’s oldest profession, and the bad economy might be breathing new life into the seedy world of prostitution.
“I’m doing the same thing everybody else is doing, I’m sacrificing my time for money,” said “Britney”, an articulate mother of two and prostitute.
For obvious reasons she did not want to be identified by her real name or show her face on camera but she was willing to detail why she chose her profession.
“I saw that the money was real good, and i could make ends meet that way.”
“Britney” says the bad economy forced her to turn to prostitution, but police say that is an excuse.
“A lot of them don’t want to take responsibility for the decision they made, they were forced into because of the economy, forced into because of bad circumstances,” said Troy Bettencourt with the Punta Gorda Police Department.
Punta Gorda police have turned to several sites on the internet to crack down on prostitution in their area, but they can only regulate what’s within their jurisdiction.
A popular escort site has more postings for areas in Lee and Collier county than any other metropolitan area in Florida, with over 1,000 prostitutes listed.
Reports give details of undercover police raids on massage parlors
By AMY LEIGH WOMACK
Closed police files from raids at Macon massage parlors shed light on operations that undercover officers found there.
In 2008 and 2009, a series of raids targeted more than a dozen Macon-area massage parlors and spas that police suspected of being houses of prostitution. As a result, more than 20 women were arrested on various sex charges.
Seven closed Macon police case files describe how undercover police officers entered businesses and paid for massages. Costs ranged from $40 for a half-hour massage to $140 for sex.
In most cases, the officers were led to rooms where they were asked to undress. Some of them were led to showers or were bathed by women working at the massage parlors.
…
In each of the cases, the women asked the officers if they wanted additional services. In at least two cases, the women gestured that they were offering sex.
At one massage parlor, a woman asked an officer in June 2008 if he wanted other services after a 10-minute massage. When he replied that he just wanted a massage, the woman said “$40 is for the house, massage, bath and relaxation. We are extra,” according to a police report.
Some of the women touched the officers’ genitals before offering additional services.
At another massage parlor, a woman initiated a sex act on an officer against the officer’s will in July 2008. Then she stood in front of the door, keeping the officer from leaving until she was paid for the act, according to one report.
The heat is on in West Midtown, New York City. Read more at NJ.com…
West New York police to pimps and prostitutes: No more sex!
By Karina Arrue
Coy S. Gordon expected it to be a normal night of work — a transsexual sex romp with a “john” for anywhere from $100 to $180. But like his clients, Gordon got more than he bargained for one night last week.
Gordon, 42, was arrested by a West New York undercover cop.
If the 6-foot-2 Gordon — who was wearing a yellow splash negligee and 5-inch heels when she was arrested — had been reading The Jersey Journal lately, it wouldn’t have come as a big surprise.
Gordon is the latest in a string of arrests by West New York police, who received an anonymous complaint about her a few weeks ago, officials said.
The tip was corroborated by an advertisement at backpage.com in which Gordon, who goes by the name “Tasty and Silky the New Milk Ms. Society,” offered “transsexual escort” services for a steep price — $100 for 15 minutes, $140 for 30 minutes and $180 for an hour, police said.
Since Dec. 31, 25 people have been arrested in West New York as a result of eight sting operations. Of the eight busts, Gordon is the first that used the Internet to spur business. West New York police say the seven other times they received a tip about people handing out business cards in the street.
The arrests stem from “community outcry,” says Police Director Albert Bringa, who took the helm of the department Dec. 2.
Chinese students lured to become sex workers
By Lincoln Tan
Sex workers are using a bilingual sex information leaflet to recruit international students and other young Chinese women into the industry.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a 20-year-old Chinese international student told the Weekend Herald she decided to become a sex worker after being given the Working in New Zealand leaflet, which is produced by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective.
“It is not easy for international students to find employment in New Zealand, and reading the brochure made me feel less afraid of getting into sex work,” she said in Mandarin.
Older, more experienced prostitutes hand the booklets to young Chinese women.
The brochure spells out, in Chinese and English, exactly how to start working in the sex industry – including advice on what to wear, getting started, how to select a working name and how to perform sex tricks.
“Young Asian girls are being recruited by older sex workers, who use us to get new customers, and work with them to provide a bi-double service to make more money,” she said.
Working privately from a North Shore City suburb, the business student, who came to New Zealand on a student permit, said she knew of at least three other Chinese students – not all on student permits – who turned to sex work after receiving the leaflets. The brochures are readily available for pickup at the reception counter at the collective’s Auckland office in Karangahape Rd, but they are also distributed by its volunteers and staff.
Prostitution racket run by ’spiritual’ centre busted
Delhi Police today claimed to have busted a prostitution racket being run at a ’spiritual’ centre with the arrest of two alleged pimps and six women, including two air-hostesses.
One of the arrested persons had set up a ‘temple’ in south Delhi’s Khanpur, police said.
Six women were arrested, including two air-hostesses, one an MBA student and an aspiring Bollywood actress.
The racket was unearthed yesterday after police received inputs about the pimps and sex workers who were to come to PVR Saket. A Sub-Inspector was sent as a decoy customer and after a deal was struck, police swooped down and arrested them.
Nothing even remotely resembling a fresh or original thought in this opinion piece regarding legalization of prostitution. Read the whole thing at the venerable Northern Iowan…
What’s so bad about prostitution anyways?
By Nick Krob
Isn’t it time for the world’s oldest profession to become legal? In a world of religious activists fighting to end abortion, crush the thought of gay marriage, abolish birth control and put religion into the schools and take sex education out, though, prostitution will never stand a chance.
Christian America will die before considering the arguments behind legalizing prostitution. Because it’s gross right? It’s immoral! It’s disgusting!
In our modern world, pornography is legal, as is stripping. Both involve nudity and sexual content, and rely on the internal sex-drive in both men and women. Neither serves a positive role in society, other than a gateway for horny America to release their collective hormones. The same can be said for prostitution. What negative trait does prostitution have that porn and stripping doesn’t?
The most common argument behind the legalization of prostitution is taxes. But the issue goes much deeper than that. While the country could benefit from increased income, there are humane issues that are much more crucial to our modern society than dollars and cents.
Opponents to the legalization of prostitution seem to care more about morals than health and safety. Looking at Nevada, where prostitution is legal (in brothels in counties with less than 400,000 people), it is reported by Reade, Richwald and Williams in their AIDS prevention study, that the AIDS rate among workers, more than 350, was zero in 1990, while illegal prostitution was measured to be above 25 percent infected. If prostitution were legalized, measures could be made to have regular health checks, and prevent diseases such as AIDS from spreading. Mandatory use of condoms and birth control could help fight disease and lower unplanned pregnancies, and thus, abortion rates.
Lee County deputies bust brothel in Bonita Springs
Lee County deputies investigating a possible crime in Bonita Springs didn’t find what they were looking for but instead stumbled upon a brothel.
When deputies arrived they met a prostitute and found several men playing cards.
“This is a common method for South and Central American prostitution organizations use to indicate payment for the services of a prostitute,” the arrest report states.
A stunning development across the pond! Read more at The Telegraph…
Brothels and prostitutes to be banned from advertising
By Heidi Blake
Massage parlours and escort agencies will be banned from advertising their services in newspapers under Government plans to stifle the sex industry.
Publications carrying advertisements for prostitution could be fined £10,000 under the new law, which will be put forward in Labour’s election manifesto.
The assault on the sex industry is being led Harriet Harman, the women’s minister, and Vera Baird, the solicitor general, amid concerns that many of the advertisements are offering women who have been forced into prostitution by criminal gangs.
A request by the Newspaper Society to remove the adverts in 2008 has had only partial success, with many publications continuing to print them.
The Crown Prosecution Service has already studied a similar law in Ireland and concluded that it could work in the UK.
Mrs Baird said: “It is now appropriate to move against people who make money from advertising prostitutes. The Newspaper Society tightened its guidance on taking such ads but there is still a market that we now have to look to legislation to disrupt.”
A survey of London’s sex industry commissioned in 2008 by Poppy Project, a government-funded group that helps trafficked women, estimated that the 921 brothels it examined made at least £86m a year through their newspaper advertisements alone.
The new law would set clear guidelines about which advertisements will be banned by defining the difference between brothels masquerading as massage parlours and spas offering therapeutic massages.
Advertisements for sex phone lines, carried in many tabloid newspapers, would not fall under the law unless they were a front for arranging prostitution.
It would also become a criminal offence to print cards advertising prostitutes for distribution in telephone boxes and shop windows. Under the current law, it is only an offence to be caught in the act of posting such a card.
Massage parlours and escort agencies will be banned from advertising their services in newspapers under Government plans to stifle the sex industry.
