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.
Burbank Hookers, Beware “The Burbank Police Department will not allow prostitutes and their customers to believe that they can use Burbank as their meeting place.” By OLSEN EBRIGHT
Police in Burbank have issued a warning to pimps, prostitutes and anyone else benefiting from prostitution-related crimes.
“The Burbank Police Department will not allow prostitutes and their customers to believe that they can use Burbank as their meeting place,” Lt. Armen Dermenjian told the Burbank Leader.
The warning coincides with a beefed-up effort from cops to curb sex trade.
On Feb 23, police arrested three women at the Ramada Burbank Airport Hotel, said Burbank Police Sgt. Robert Quesada. On Feb. 16, a 19-year-old Poway woman and 26-year-old San Diego man were arrested on prostitution-related charges, according to police records.
Other recent incidents include the arrest of two Oakland men at the Extended StayAmerica Los Angeles-Burbank Airport on suspicion of pimping a minor under the age of 16, Quesada told the newspaper.
“We want these people to know that if they’re going to engage in this kind of conduct that the police and citizens won’t put up with it, and we’ll be out there targeting it,” Quesada said. “We don’t want to let them get comfortable.”
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.
And the South Park Madame Story closes its final chapter. Read more at WBTV.com…
“South Park Madame” released from jail
By Cameron Easley
Sallie Saxon, the “South Park Madame,” was released Tuesday from prison after completing her two-year federal prison sentence.
The 60-year-old woman and her husband, Donald, were sentenced back in 2008 for running a high-end prostitution ring out of hotels in SouthPark and uptown Charlotte.
Saxon’s enterprise was known as “Hush Hush” and claimed to offer non-sexual companionship on its website for fees in excess of $700.
According to prosecutors, Saxon made as much as $3 million.
Clients would pay up to a thousand dollars or more for the escorts.
It’s dangerous out there, guys. Read more at The Scotsman…
Man’s killers ‘used prostitution lure’
By Victoria Allen
A BUSINESSMAN was murdered after he visited a known red-light district and left there with a female companion, a court heard yesterday.
Alan Bennett, 56, was on a night out with work colleagues before he headed to the streets of Aberdeen’s harbour, an area that is frequented by prostitutes.
Almost three hours later, a reveller in a different part of the city centre found Mr Bennett’s body. He had been stabbed to death.
Paul Balgowan and Julie Carroll, both 25, are accused of luring him to his death by promising him sex.
On the first day of their trial at the High Court in Aberdeen the jury was shown CCTV footage of Mr Bennett at Regent Quay on the night he died.
Detective Constable Andrew Barclay of Grampian Police told the court: “Regent Quay is known as a red-light district. Further along is a former Grampian Police tolerance zone for prostitution, and prostitutes meet in that area.”
The footage showed Mr Bennett heading to the harbour at at about 1:35am on 30 May last year and leaving with a woman thought to be Carroll.
Following just 30 seconds behind them were two figures, one of which was said to be Carroll’s partner, Balgowan. It is not clear if Mr Bennett knew he was being followed, but DC Barclay said Carroll kept looking back over her shoulder.
The pair are accused of persuading the victim to go with Carroll, then pulling a knife on him.
It is claimed he was forced to hand over his wallet and then repeatedly punched and stabbed in the head and body.
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.
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.
Cops: Sussex County woman charged $450/hour for sex in Parsippany hotel
BY TEHANI SCHNEIDER
A Sussex County woman who used an alias to solicit sex at a local hotel allegedly offered an undercover Parsippany police officer sexual acts at a rate of $450 an hour, police said.
The 43-year-old woman was charged with promoting prostitution Wednesday following a two-week investigation into alleged activities at the hotel, police said.
Sgt. Yvonne Christiano said the woman worked under the alias ‘Gia Pilazzo’ and police had received four anonymous tips about ‘Pilazzo’ advertising services at the hotel.
“(The tips) named (Gia Pilazzo) specifically,” Christiano said.
Parsippany detectives found a Web site had been established for ‘Pilazzo’s’ clients and ‘Pilazzo’ had occupied a room at the Sierra Suites for 60 of the past 90 days, according to hotel records.
…
The Web site for ‘Gia Pilazzo’, which was still up and running on Thursday morning, was established this year.
It billed her as a female escort companion in New York and lists her physical traits and preferences for potential clients. ‘Pilazzo’, who said she will be turning 30 in February, calls herself a statuesque blond who is “Southern born, southern bred and NYC raised”, according to the site.
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.
