Following the recent decision by Australian Customs to ask travellers to declare any pornography they may have on their laptops and mobiles, the Australian Sex Party has produced a series of luggage stickers designed to protest the stupidity of the decision.

Sex Party President Fiona Patten said that the stickers were made to point out not only the stupidity of the new question but the legislative sleight of hand that had underwritten it. The effect of these stickers will be to take the fight against this draconian and invasive question on the incoming passenger forms, to the front line of Customs, she said. I am sending a suite of stickers to the Customs Minister today and asking him to personally examine the use of the word 'pornography' in this issue. This word has no legal definition and Customs should not be using legally undefinable terms.

Ms Patten said that the federal government had made a fundamental error in interpreting and defining the nature of material being evaluated by Customs as well as material caught up in the internet filter. Up until the last couple of years, the term Refused Classification (RC) was used as a benchmark to determine and define material that could not be sold in Australia. Under the Classification Act (1995) the RC rating was created for the regulation of commercial media and entertainment content and had nothing to do with what an individual could access or own. It is still perfectly legal for individuals to possess, view and purchase RC rated material.

However both Customs and Senator Conroy have tried to extend the definition of this rating to include personal possession - which it was never intended to cover.

The Australian Customs Service and Senator Conroy are trying to align their initiatives with the Classification Act but are now saying that if something is unsuitable to be sold, its also unsuitable to be possessed or viewed as well. As a result, Australia has two competing definitions of Refused Classification. This is why you can be jailed for trying to bring material through Customs which is legal to possess, as soon as you walk out of the airport. It's also the reason that under Senator Conroy's filtering proposals sites containing material that is legal to view and possess will be blacklisted and blocked. ISPs can be fined large amounts for hosting material that is legal to possess.

We the undersigned request that the Customs Minister Mr Brendan O'Connor repeal the CEO Instrument of Approval that included the word pornography on all incoming passenger cards.

Sign the petition

Background Information

The Australian Sex Party is demanding the new question that has appeared on Incoming Passenger Cards at the Customs point of entry into Australia be removed. The new question asks if they are carrying any pornography.

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that this development now gave Government officials an unfettered right to examine someone's laptop or mobile phone as they re-entered the country. A senior Customs official, Richard Janeczko, has been quoted as saying that materials stored on electronic media devices such as laptops, thumb drives and iPhones are on their target list.

If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer 'Yes' to the question or you will be breaking the law, she said. Travellers must now also declare perfectly legal materials such as Category 1 and 2 Restricted magazines, X18+ films and quite probably a large section of R18+ films which have explicit sex in them. Ms Patten said the change marked the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people's private lives – being investigated or searched on the basis that you might have legal material in your possession.

She said that by answering YES to the new Question One on the declarations, people would then be asked whether they are declaring a weapon, illicit drugs or pornography. When they answered pornography their materials would then be examined by one and possibly a number of Customs Officers. If people were at all embarrassed by the question, often surrounded by family and friends, they could be taken into a private room and even have their person searched. Is it fair that Customs officers rummage through someone's luggage and pull out a legal men's magazine or a lesbian journal in front of their children or their mother-in-law, she said?

Customs' official reasoning behind the changes states that No consultation was undertaken under section 17 of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 before this instrument was made as it is of a minor or machinery nature and does not substantially alter existing arrangements.

The term 'pornography' is not referred to at all in the federal Classification Act which Customs rely on to classify their material .

The Australian Sex Party is demanding an enquiry into why a new question has appeared on Incoming Passenger Cards at the Customs point of entry into Australia. The new question asks if they are carrying any pornography.

Sex Party President, Fiona Patten, said that this development now gave Government officials an unfettered right to examine someone's laptop or mobile phone as they re-entered the country. A senior Customs official, Richard Janeczko, has been quoted as saying that materials stored on electronic media devices such as laptops, thumb drives and iPhones are on their target list.

Travellers must now also declare perfectly legal materials such as Category 1 and 2 Restricted magazines, X18+ films and quite probably a large section of R18+ films which have explicit sex in them. Ms Patten said the change marked the beginning of a new era of official investigation into people's private lives – being investigated or searched on the basis that you might have legal material in your possession.

She said that by answering YES to the new Question One on the declarations, people would then be asked whether they are declaring a weapon, illicit drugs or pornography. When they answered pornography their materials would then be examined by one and possibly a number of Customs Officers. If people were at all embarrassed by the question, often surrounded by family and friends, they could be taken into a private room and even have their person searched.

Is it fair that Customs officers rummage through someone's luggage and pull out a legal men's magazine or a lesbian journal in front of their children or their mother-in-law, she said?

Customs' official reasoning behind the changes states that No consultation was undertaken under section 17 of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 before this instrument was made as it is of a minor or machinery nature and does not substantially alter existing arrangements.

How can the Minister call this monstrous invasion of people's privacy and the criminalisation of hundreds of thousands of people who will answer NO to this question out of embarrassment, a 'minor' or 'machinery' change, she said? If the question was designed to stop child pornography being smuggled into the country then the question should have asked about 'child pornography' and not about a product that one in four Australians use on a regular basis. (La Trobe University, Sex In Australia, 2006).

Ms Patten said the changes were part of a continuation of the demonisation of sex by the Christian leaders of both major parties.

Women walked topless through Portland in Maine in demonstration in support of topless rights

Organiser Ty MacDowell said the protest was aimed at showing the double standards in the state of Maine.

Men are allowed to walk down the street shirtless but, although not illegal, women are too afraid to go topless.

Police gave the two dozen women an escort as they bared their breasts for a stroll through Maine's biggest city. Hundreds of onlookers, mostly men, turned out to watch the topless demo.

MacDowell said she was upset that many of the men were taking photos on their mobile phones at the spectacle. She said: I'm really upset by the men ... watching it like it's a parade.

Maine has some of the most relaxed nudity laws in the US. Women are allowed to go topless, but very few choose to strip off for fear of being ogled.

Copenhagen prostitutes say they have been left out in the cold and victimised after a court ruled against a pornographic cinema that rented video booths out to sex workers to conduct their business.

Copenhagen City Court gave the operator of the porn cinema on Istedgade Street a six month suspended sentence for renting his premises out to prostitutes.

The video booths had been rented to the prostitutes for 90 kroner for 45 minutes over the last number of years. The defendant was also ordered to hand over the earnings obtained from the rental which were estimated at 3.3 million kroner over a five year period.

The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges and is now appealing his ruling to the High Court.

A tax on prostitution that is earning Cologne hundreds of thousands of euros a year is gaining favour elsewhere in Germany, with other big cities also considering a levy on sex work.

The WAZ media group reported that other municipalities in the large western state of North Rhine-Westphalia were eyeing such a tax, and that the state's Interior Minister, Ingo Wolf, was favourable to the idea. Big cities such as Essen, Duisburg and Dortmund, were looking into the plan and the ministry already has proposals from Oberhausen, Dorsten, Gladbeck and Sprockhovel.

Cologne made headlines in 2004 as one of the first cities in the world to introduce such a sex tax. There, the levy is simple: it is charged on establishments that operate legal prostitution, either on individual sex workers at a rate of €150 tax per month, or on the size of the establishment, at €3 per 10 square metres of area.

It remains legally controversial, however, whether the sex tax is a variant of the long-practised entertainment tax or should be assessed as an entirely new one. For a new tax, a city municipality needs the green light from the state government.

At the moment the sex tax is paid as a so-called miscellaneous tax along with pleasure taxes and dog licenses, which put €590 million in cities' coffers in 2008.

Dozens of French sex workers proclaiming themselves proud to be prostitutes marched to protest a lawmaker's proposal to legalize brothels in France, arguing that such a law would deny them the freedom to work on their own.

A lawmaker in France's governing party has proposed reopening brothels just over six decades after they were banned in order to move prostitutes off the streets and provide them with medical, financial and legal protection.

The protesters say the proposal limits their options to make their own decisions — and are demanding, instead, a repeal of a 2003 law that outlaws solicitation.

The men and women marched through Paris' Left Bank, many dressed in their skimpy work attire. Some carried signs reading, You sleep with us, you vote against us.

We are workers and we want the choice to work as we want, said Thierry Schaffauser, 27, a sex worker from Paris now living in London. For doctors, they can work for a company or they can be independent. I think the importance is to let people choose how they want to work.

Brothels were legally outlawed in France in 1946. The 2003 law tightened restrictions against prostitution by making solicitation punishable with two months in prison and a euro3,750 ($5,000) fine.

Sweden's nasty injustice minister, Beatrice Ask, wants families to know if their husbands or fathers are suspected of buying sex.

It is a little like being shamed on the town square, the government minister said in at a seminar on Thursday.

Ask made her controversial statements at a parliament seminar on prostitution on saying that a sex-buyer's family and friends should be informed: I could imagine having envelopes in a very garish colour and sending them home to people suspected of this offence. I think that the worst thing which can happen to many of them who are out there buying sex, is that someone in their circles finds out about it.

Speaking to the Aftonbladet tabloid Ask conceded that the garish envelope idea was perhaps not the best idea in practice, but defended the idea in principle: In practice maybe we can't have coloured envelopes, but we have to show who they are and let those around them know, she said to the newspaper.

Ask now plans to discuss the idea with her colleagues.

Update: Beatrice Ask shamed

28th March 2010. Based on article from thelocal.se

Sweden's injustice minister Beatrice Ask has bowed to mounting criticism and performed a public u-turn on her suggestion that colour-coded envelopes be sent to suspected sex-buyers.

I regret that I expressed myself so clumsily, the minister told news agency TT.

Ask has now 'conceded' that it is important to respect the principle of innocent until proven guilty and that offenders and suspects of all crimes should be treated equally.

I do not propose that the justice system should send envelopes of a certain colour home to either suspects or the convicted and the government does not plan to introduce any such measure, Ask said.

Cases of syphilis have increased four-fold in Britain's Facebook capital as users meet up for unprotected sex, it was revealed.

Figures released last month showed that people in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside were 25% more likely to log on regularly.

And an NHS trust chief said Facebook and similar sites were to blame for a shocking rise in cases of potentially-lethal syphilis in the region.

Professor Peter Kelly, director of Public Health for NHS Tees, said: There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected. He said staff had found a link to social networking sites among those infected.

Prof Kelly said: I don't get the names of people affected, just figures. And I saw that several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites. Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms.

After two months and just 10 paying customers, the first legal gigolo in the United States has left a Nevada brothel to return to his first love, making porn.

Markus (his sex worker pseudonym) joined the ranch in January, after its owners won a decision allowing them to legally hire him from Nye County and the state of Nevada, where prostitution is legal and dominated by female sex workers.

For $200, ladies could buy 40 minutes with Markus, who told Details magazine in January that he was less of a prostitute and more of an artist, surrogate lover and pioneer for the gigolo community.

Owner Bobbi Davis said the Shady Lady Ranch hired another male prostitute on the heels of Markus' departure, a Las Vegas man who went by the handle Y. Not.

After seeing about 10 clients, he too departed the brothel after an electrical problem in his bungalow forced Davis to temporarily close it.

We're just taking a little break, she told the Review-Journal: We're going to try it for a while longer.

The Icelandic Parliament is debating a bill proposing a ban on striptease in Iceland to be effective on July first.

An evaluation by the Capital Region Police states that around a hundred foreign women come to Iceland annually to dance at strip clubs and that it has proven difficult to determine whether they are being forced into such practices. Presumably that is simply because there is no evidence that these women are forced into stripping.

The evaluation concludes that clubs should not be permitted to organize striptease on the grounds of human rights, the public's interest and policing.

The parliament's General Committee concludes that in light of the information from police authorities it is highly likely that some of the women working in strip clubs in Iceland don't enjoy full personal rights and are possibly victims of human trafficking or other abuse.

The bill therefore proposes the abolishment of a legal exemption which permits clubs to stage striptease for profit. An unequivocal ban on striptease and profiting from the nudity of employees or other attendees of clubs is recommended, the report said.

Minister of Social Affairs presented an action plan against human trafficking last March to put a ban on operating strip clubs and purchasing sexual services. After the presentation of the action plan, MP for the Left-Greens Atli Gislason presented a bill on banning the purchase of sexual services, which is backed by other MPs from the government parties and the 'Progressive' Party.

Update: Cold Hearted

26th March 2010. Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

Iceland has voted to ban striptease shows, making it an offence for any business to profit from the nudity of its employees. Iceland's legislature, the Althingi, passed the ban with just two abstentions and no votes against, although almost half the country's 63 MPs were absent.

Both opponents and supporters of the bill said yesterday it was a European first. With the exception of the Vatican and tiny principalities like Andorra, strip clubs operate across the continent.

I am quite happy about Iceland being the first European country to take this step, said Steinunn Valdis Oskarsdottir, a Social Democrat MP who supported the ban.

Kolbrun Halldorsdottir, a former MP who was the first to propose the bill, said the law made it clear that society does not accept that access to a woman's body is sold.

Club operators dispute the notion that strippers are unwilling victims. They are closing striptease (clubs) because they think there is prostitution there, said Asgeir Davidsson, owner of Iceland's largest strip club, Goldfinger. They think there is organised crime. They have had the police running around, and they have not found anything.

Davidsson said he would fight the ban, which takes effect on 1 July.

Labour's nasty proposals to clamp down on prostitution through new legislation could drive the sex trade further underground, MSPs have heard.

A police chief and a prostitute support service rejected the plans, which would make it a criminal offence to engage in, advertise or facilitate paid-for sexual activity.

Lothian and Borders Police Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone said further consultation was necessary and expressed fears that new legislation would only drive prostitution further underground. Livingstone said: We do have some concerns that you will increasingly drive, or potentially drive, more prostitution further off-street, so it's harder to identify vulnerable women.

He also said he believed police had sufficient powers to deal with prostitution. If the legislation were approved, officers would robustly enforce it but he had concerns about evidence-gathering. Despite being supportive of the overall principle about banning adverts for sex,  Livingstone thought the legislation was narrowly worded. He added: I still have an anxiety about legislating for a social phenomena.

George Lewis, co-chairman of Scot-PEP, an education project for prostitutes, said Labour MSP Trish Godman's amendments for the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill would not tackle the real problems. He said: It just feels like a blunt instrument … it will not work in addressing real issues of trafficking and violence.

However, Ann Hamilton, head of equalities and women's services for Glasgow Community and Safety Services, said there was a need for extra powers, particularly in relation to advertising. She said: What we'd like to see is something that challenges the acceptability of prostitution. At the moment, buying sex is seen as something men do, that is an entitlement and causes no harm.

The vote is taking place after Easter .

See also an excellent article on the topic from Margo MacDonald MSP:

Sex trade needs to be managed from news.scotsman.com

It's been déja vu week in the Scottish Parliament, all over again. The same group of Glaswegian gals who tried and failed to abolish prostitution in Scotland found another route into trying to change the law without going to the trouble of drawing up a Bill, putting their propositions on the table and fighting for them.

The high-minded group that includes MSPs, council officials and councillors has latched on to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill and tabled amendments that would create a ridiculous situation were they to pass into law.

...Read the full article

The committee will also consider proposals by the nutter Nationalist MSP Sandra White to limit the number of lap-dancing clubs in certain areas.

As many as 6,000 trees have been axed in a forest near a British town to prevent couples from having sex there.

The trees were hacked at the 12-hectare site on the outskirts of Darwen, the Daily Express reported Tuesday.

Officials claimed the forest that runs for kilometres along the busy A666 was cleared as some of the trees, planted after the Second World War, were in danger of falling. But Police and councillors have confirmed another reason was to discourage strangers from the known dogging area.

Dogging is a term for people having sex with strangers in public places, or watching others have sex, often in woods or country lay-bys.

It's awful that a public green space, an asset to the local community, has been destroyed mindlessly. If the law was enforced properly then there would be no need to chop down these trees, Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, was quoted as saying.

Alistair Foster, an environmentalist, said: It is such a terrible thing to do. Old trees do not just fall down. What next, chop down 300-year-old oak trees in case they suddenly fall over one day? And to do it to reduce people having sex in the woods is farcical.

Sergeant Mark Wilson said the sexual activities in the area were an on-going problem and very worrying for members of the public. It's far too early to tell if cutting the trees back has had any impact on the dogging situation, but we'll be paying regular attention to the area.

I'm more than happy this is being carried out and it has a double whammy in terms of the sexual behaviour. I've heard anecdotally that since the trees have been cleared it's quietened down a lot, ward councillor Jean Rigby was quoted as saying.

About to be fucked... by British 'justice'

A man has been warned he faces a custodial sentence after pleading guilty to possession of what prosecutors described as extreme porn at Mold Crown Court last week.

The charge alleged that Holland had downloaded and viewed a six-second clip of human-on-human extreme porn.

According to Holland, this was sent to him as a joke - he viewed it just once, but made the mistake of not getting round to deleting it.

At the Crown Court in Mold, last week, before Mr Justice Medland, Holland pleaded guilty to a charge of possession, in the expectation that this would count as mitigation and lead to a lighter sentence.

Holland told the Register last week that he was therefore shocked in the extreme to be told to return home pending reports – and that a custodial sentence was likely.

...Read full article

More than 60 years after Paris shut its famed maisons closes, or brothels, an MP from President Sarkozy's UMP party is campaigning to legalise them again.

Chantal Brunel, who was appointed last month to head the national watchdog on sexual equality, is arguing that crime would be cut and sex workers would benefit from sexual services centres similar to those run by most of France's neighbours.

A national poll by the CSA agency found that 59% of the French public approved the reopening of the regulated brothels that were a fixture of French life and culture until they were abolished in 1946. The proposal was supported by 70% of men and 49% of women. Only 13% of women were opposed, with 38% undecided, according to the poll for Le Parisien newspaper.

The idea is not to go back to the situation before 1946. I propose that we should consider the creation of places where the purchase of sexual services would be possible with medical, legal and financial protection, Ms Brunel said. Her campaign is outlined in a book to be published this month and comes after controversial results from a previous attempt to curb prostitution.

A tough law introduced by Sarkozy in 2002, when he was Interior Minister, created an offence of passive soliciting, allowing police to charge any woman deemed by her appearance to be seeking custom in public, even if she makes no approach to potential clients.

The Sarkozy law has resulted in the removal of prostitutes from the boulevards of Paris and other towns, driving them to more dangerous back streets, parks and on to the internet, campaigners say.

Ms Brunel is part of a working group at the Interior Ministry that is assessing the impact of the law and looking at policies among France's neighbours. Her proposal has yet to elicit a response from the Government.

One small section of a crowd of 40,000

David Beckham might not be going to the World Cup in South Africa this year, but 40,000 hookers will be. That is literally what a headline on the NBC sports website claims: 40,000 hookers making their way to South Africa for World Cup.

Other media outlets have been a bit more PC: 40,000 prostitutes to enter South Africa, says the UK Daily Telegraph; 40,000 prostitutes bound for South Africa, says the New York Daily News. Apparently many of these hookers will be trafficked into South Africa against their will, forced into a life of grimy prostitution for the satisfaction of drunken football fans.

...Read the full article

Stag dos are tricky beasts, aren't they? You're going to get drunk, you're going to be sick, and, chances are, you're going to be very close to absolute strangers' naked breasts - and pay for it, too.

So in an effort to make your next prospective trip to the top of a lamppost more comfortable, we've had a look around to see what's what in the world of dancing girls, feather boas, high kicking and general sexy times so that you can make an informed decision about where you pass out on your next stag.

...Read full article

Nigel Dan has proposed an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill.

From amendments [pdf] from scottish.parliament.uk

The Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 (asp 9) to be amended to add:

11E Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force etc.

(1) A person (A) commits an offence, to be known as the offence of paying for sexual services of a coerced prostitute, if—

(a) A makes or promises payment for the sexual services of a prostitute (B),

(b) a third person (C) has engaged in exploitative conduct of a kind likely to induce or encourage B to provide the sexual services for which A has made or promised payment, and

(c) C engaged in that conduct for or in the expectation of gain for C or another person (apart from A or B).

(2) The following are irrelevant—

(a) where in the world the sexual services are to be provided and whether those services are provided,

(b) whether A is, or ought to be, aware that C has engaged in exploitative conduct.

(3) C engages in exploitative conduct if—

(a) C uses force, threats (whether or not relating to violence) or any other form of coercion, or

(b) C practises any form of deception..

Oral evidence is going to be taken by the Justice Committee on all the myriad of prostitution proposals from the following:

• ACPOS (Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland)
• Glasgow City Council ('End Prostitution Now' Campaign)
• Scot-PEP (Scottish Prostitutes Education Project)

See agenda [pdf] from scottish.parliament.uk

Scot-PEP is generally against any proposal which will make sex work more dangerous (which is most of them), Glasgow City Council will no doubt support the BAN EVERYTHING NOW, AND WHO CARES ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES approach, and I don't know what line ACPOS will take.

As previously reported, the mean minded Labour MSP Trish Godman is using a series of amendments to attempt to make it a criminal offence to engage in, advertise or facilitate paid-for sexual activity.

The independent Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald, suggest to make the buying and selling of sex an offence only where it causes alarm or nuisance to another person.

Written evidence can still be submitted for now.

Plans by a Toowoomba brothel owner to enter a float in the Australian town's Carnival of Flowers parade have been quashed before they could get off the ground.

Jim Welch, owner of Deviations, had planned to enter the float in conjunction with the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities, saying it would have featured sex workers and other volunteers promoting a safe sex message.

But the plan was rejected by the Prostitution Licensing Authority which reportedly deemed it inappropriate.

We operate above board and everything we do is legal so, being a legal business in the town, we thought we had every right to do it, Welch said.

London mayor Boris Johnson has urged shoppers to challenge newsagents who allow their windows to become advertising boards for prostitutes.

Johnson said people did not realise calling cards offering massage services were often directly linked to organised crime and violence.

Speaking on International Women's Day at London Bridge, he said members of the public should play their part: I think this is one of those areas where the public can have a huge influence.

Launching his strategy for tackling violence against women, Johnson said he wanted more work to be done to reduce the demand for prostitutes. He said this could be achieved through the better use of existing laws and licensing regulations, publicity campaigns and education for school pupils.

But Sarah Walker from the International Prostitutes Collective criticised the mayor's plans, saying: It's outrageous that Boris Johnson is using International Woman's Day to attack prostitutes. Banning women from putting cards in windows will drive them out of premises on to the streets, which is 10 times worse. Whatever policies are put place, we have to prioritise woman's safety.

Men seeking out paid-for sex on the street can now be arrested on their first offence with nasty new measures to tackle the demand for prostitution, Home Office Minister Alan Campbell announced to coincide with International Women's Day.

A series of laws to protect vulnerable women by reducing the demand for prostitution, including the police no longer having to show kerb-crawlers are persistent before arresting them, will come into effect on 1 April.

A new poster campaign was also launched today, warning of the criminal penalties involved in paying for sex with someone who has been exploited.

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: We are determined to tackle the demand for prostitution and provide help for those who wish to leave prostitution.

 Prostitution measures introduced from 1 April include:

• a new strict liability offence that will make it illegal to pay for sexual services with a prostitute who is subject to exploitative conduct, which includes force, deception or threats. It will no longer be an excuse to say I did not know and men who ignore this risk a fine of up to £1,000 and a criminal record.
   
• giving courts the power to close down premises associated with certain prostitution and pornography offences. Currently there is little to stop such premises continuing to operate even when they have been raided by the police.
   
• a new penalty for the offence of loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. The penalty will include a requirement for women to attend meetings to address the causes of their involvement and is supposedly designed to help them to leave street prostitution, it can be used by courts instead of a fine.
   
• changing the law to amend the term common prostitute as this term is outdated and offensive.

The prostitution measures come into effect on 1 April as part of the Crime and Policing Act 2009.

Senior Labour figures in Scotland were shocked last week to learn that the city council leader had a drug problem and had been warned by police that he was in danger of being blackmailed by suppliers.

Even politicians who considered themselves to be close friends of Purcell said that they had no idea about his problems.

Purcell resigned as a councillor on Friday, spelling the end of his high-flying political career, as speculation about the extent of his problems continued to mount. He had hoped that by quitting as leader earlier in the week he could take time out to recover and make a comeback in several months. However, as revelations continued to emerge about his lifestyle that strategy had to be abandoned.

It emerged yesterday that officers from the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforecement Agency visited him at his office in the city chambers last May to warn that he could be open to blackmail. The agency told him that it was aware of a dealer claiming to have evidence of drug use which could end his career.

Fellow moralist, Jim Coleman, will remain the acting leader of Scotland's biggest local authority until an annual general meeting is held in May.

Call to Review Purcell's Decisions

Based on article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

Glasgow City Council have refused to review any decisions made by its former leader Steven Purcell following revelations about drugs abuse.

Calls were made for decisions at the council to be looked at again. The demands by the GMB union and SNP opponents came just after the former council leader quit as a councillor and reportedly fled to Australia to recuperate.

Comment: Perhaps to time to review Glasgow Council's Moralising campaigns

Perhaps campaigns such as End Prostitution Now

From their website www.endprostitutionnow.org

End Prostitution Now is a campaign led by Glasgow City Council which aims to raise awareness of the harm caused through prostitution and put the focus on the buyers of sex - the DEMAND - who have in the past been invisible from public debate.

But Glasgow Council seem to be denying that they are running it.

There are no references to this campaign in the most recent annual Company report of the Glasgow Community and Safety Services Limited Company. And even stranger when Glasgow City Council were approached under the Freedom of Information Act (Scotland 2002)

The Council is treating your request as a request under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

On inspecting our records, it would appear that Glasgow City Council does not hold the information which you have requested. Neither does anyone else hold it on our behalf. Accordingly we are unable to comply with your request.

I can confirm that Glasgow City Council does not run political campaigns.

Brisbane's Sexpo may be celebrating its 10th birthday, but organisers say local residents still don't get a full frontal experience.

Essentially it's knickers on at Sexpo Brisbane, Sexpo general manager Rob Godwin said: One of the biggest challenges in having Sexpo in Queensland is fitting around the legislation.

Queensland has the nation's strictest laws on the sale of adult magazines, meaning the Brisbane show has fewer products on sale than similar shows in Sydney and Melbourne.

While print publications with M+15 restrictions such as Zoo or Penthouse are legal in Queensland, Restricted Category 1 softcore and Category 2 hardcore material is unable to be bought or sold in the state.

Category 1 magazines can be displayed for sale in all other States and Territories when in sealed, opaque wrapping and bought by customers with proof of age; Category 2 magazines may be sold to adults from prescribed, registered or restricted areas.

Godwin said Australian laws on the levels of nudity permissible in adult performances and the ban on X-rated films cost him up to $4 million dollars in potential profits, based on similar sex shows in New Zealand and Germany where X-rated content commonly took up over two thirds of floor space.

Under the Classification of Films Act 1991, the making, display and sale of such objectionable films that, if classified, would carry an X rating carries a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment.

Fiona Patten of Australian Sex Party said: Quite often, when you ban something you create a much higher demand for it. You certainly see that when you look at Australia at large, where we sell more explicit adult films per capita then places like Norway or Denmark where it's all much more legal and relaxed.

Following the recent resignation of Steven Purcell due to ill health, Councillor Jim Coleman is now the acting leader of Glasgow City Council - highly likely he now believes it was an 'act of God' and the 'crusade' to rid Scotland of any sexual pleasure/titilation must continue.

Scottish Parliament's 'Justice' Committee is calling for evidence on Trish Godman`s attempt to ban all 'paid-for sexual activity' (among other things).

See article from scottish.parliament.uk:

Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill - call for written evidence on Stage 2 amendments

The Justice Committee has agreed to take evidence at Stage 2 on some of the amendments lodged for Stage 2 which it considers raise significant new issues that were not considered during the Committee's Stage 1 inquiry.

Amendment 8 (lodged by Trish Godman) proposes changes to the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 to create three new offences – engaging in a paid-for sexual activity, advertising paid-for sexual activities, and facilitating engagement in a paid-for sexual activity, all to be subject, on summary conviction, to a fine of up to £1,000.

Amendments to amendment 8 (8A-8D, lodged by Margo Macdonald) propose the addition of two further offences – causing alarm etc. by engaging in a paid-for sexual activity and profiting from coerced paid-for sexual activities – subject to the same penalties.

These amendments are grouped for debate with consequential amendments 9 and 9A, which specify which of the new offences are to be classed as “exploitation offences” for the purposes of the Antisocial Behaviour (Scotland) Act 2004.

Oral evidence

The Committee plans to take oral evidence on all three topics at its meeting on Tuesday 23 March.

Formal proceedings on the amendments will not take place until the oral evidence has been heard.

 

Call for written submissions

 

The Committee would welcome written submissions

The closing date for written submissions is Wednesday 17 March (to enable all submissions to be circulated in advance of the 23 March meeting).  

Submissions should not normally exceed four sides of A4.  The Committee prefers to receive written submissions electronically in MS Word format. These should be sent to:

cjlb@scottish.parliament.uk

You may also make hard copy written submissions to:

Justice Committee

Room T3.60

The Scottish Parliament

Edinburgh
EH99 1SP

Already some submissions have been received and published here, including some from sex workers themselves. These include those from Margo MacDonald, UK Network Sex Work Projects and Teela Sanders.

A sex club has moved into an art gallery with the stated aim of helping visitors to a Gustav Klimt exhibition confront their sexual inhibitions.

The Secession, a contemporary art venue in Vienna, has incorporated the club, named Element6, as part of a project by Swiss artist Christoph Buechel.

Visitors must walk through it to reach one of Klimt's paintings.

A spokesman said Buechel hoped to spark a scandal similar to when Klimt's Beethoven Frieze was exhibited in 1902.

It has already attracted opposition from Austria's far-right 'Freedom' Party, which issued no fewer than six press releases denouncing the project. By abusing artistic freedom, the significance of Austria as a country of culture and of Vienna as a cultural capital is being dragged in the mud, said local 'Freedom' Party politician Gerald Ebinger.

Vienna's Mayor, Michael Haeupl, said that he did not approve of the club, but noted that outraged politicians and newspapers were playing into the artist's hands

Klimt's 1902 painting Beethoven Frieze was once considered obscene and pornographic because of the way women's bodies were depicted, but it is now seen as one of the Austrian artist's key works.

While the club only opens at night, long after the art hall closes, daytime visitors aged 18 and older pass through its dimly lit rooms, complete with mattresses, bar and spa bath.

The club, which is normally located in another part of town, said its participation aims to give as many people as possible the opportunity to overcome their inhibitions. In the framework of this exhibition at the Secession, each individual can test for himself or herself whether this opens up new dimensions for his or her own sexuality, the club said in a statement.

Detroit City Council have approved further repression of the city's 31 topless clubs. They have banned VIP rooms and lap dancing, but still allow the clubs to serve booze.

The council also voted unanimously to pass new zoning regulations limiting where new clubs could open.

The action comes one day after more than 500 people attended a 3.5 hour public hearing on the issue. The majority backed tougher regulations, which included the alcohol prohibition and opaque pasties that the council has abandoned. The watering-down of the rules infuriated religious nutters.

The Reverend Nutter Marvin Winans, pastor of Perfecting Church who led the fight for tougher rules, promised to continue the battle: Detroit deserves better, said Winans, who added he had no specific plans for a next step. The people are going to have the last word.

Strip club owners and employees said the crackdown would cripple their business, but after the vote, Larry Kaplan of the Association of Club Executives said they would do our best to live within the restrictions.

During the debate, Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee warned an alcohol ban at topless clubs could drive the behavior underground, creating more blind pigs. He added it would be harder for police to make sure underage girls aren't dancing at the blind pigs. Licensed clubs could lose their liquor license for certain violations.

The new rules would ban VIP rooms, require most employees get licenses from the city and limit dancers to 18-inch tall stages, which essentially bans lap dancing. The rules also ban touching, even when dancers are clothed.

Other changes include:

• All employees would have to get licenses and pass background checks except bathroom attendants, valets and repair and delivery workers. The city has yet to determine the cost of the licenses.
• Employees couldn't get licenses if they have certain criminal convictions, including sexual or drug related crimes.
• New clubs have to be at least 1,000 feet from another club, house, park, school or church.

Adult industry legend Jamie Gillis succumbed Friday to a battle with cancer in his hometown of New York City. He was 66.

A longtime New York acquaintance of Gillis' tells AVN the strain of cancer afflicting him was melanoma. The disease was diagnosed a mere four to five months ago, the source said.

Gillis will be cremated at a private ceremony. He requested that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the NYC Police Athletic League, an organization that assisted him as a boy and continues to aid New York City children.

Vetern adult director Cass Paley (aka Wesley Emerson) said the following in an email to AVN Friday evening regarding Gillis' death: It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Jamie Gillis. A wonderful and charismatic man and most treasured friend, he will be greatly missed by his partner Zarela, his family, his many friends, and countless fans around the world.

Jenny Joyce, a familiar face to fans of mature women videos, died on Feb. 9 at the age of 63 in Las Vegas of polycystic kidney disease after a long illness.

The actress, who appeared in about 35 movies between 1993 and 2007, worked mostly for specialty producers Totally Tasteless Video and Filmco Releasing, as well as amateur company Mike Hott Video. She appeared in several volumes of the Aged to Perfection series, and even starred in two volumes of Shooting Star Productions' Secret Life of Jenny Joyce.

She was well-known in her private life as an advocate for the disabled and those with Down syndrome, even going so far as to direct a play featuring only disabled actors.

The truth is that what actually happens during moralistic periods is virtually the same as what goes on in more liberal times; what differs is the lack of openness about people's behaviour and the hidden nature of any harmful consequences. In moralistic periods, sin, crime and vice get pushed so far under the carpet that moralisers, believing (rather as children do) that what they cannot see does not exist, feel great self-satisfaction. The honesty of more liberal times, and the fact that everyone can then see harm when it occurs, affronts the moralisers; and they hasten to force it back into darkness.

This is exactly what is happening now. The most obvious example is the profoundly mistaken proposal to further criminalise the sex trade in Scotland, by making the purchase of sexual services a crime. Already in England it is a crime for anyone to buy the services of a person trafficked into sex work, whether or not the client knows that the individual is a victim of coercion.

...Read the full article

The exaggeration of numbers of trafficked sex workers and sex slaves has been going on for over a decade. Much of this stems from a general misunderstanding about the differences between sex work per se, sex slavery and trafficking…a misunderstanding amplified by the fact that in many countries, ALL of these activities are crimes, and ALL are under the gaze of a migration-sensitive and politically astute police force, media and government trying to jockey for brownie points among a difficult public landscape of financial crisis and celebrity sensationalism. Career politicians, conservative feminists and desperate journalists have exploited the public's penchant for stories about sex and the ethnic other to replicated the lie that all migrant sex workers are trafficked sex slaves.

...Read full article

Advertisements for massage parlours and escort agencies are to be banned in the next government assault on the sex industry. 

Ministers plan to disrupt the sex industry by banning newspaper advertisements for prostitutes and brothels in a new law put forward in Labour's election manifesto. Failure to comply with the law could carry a £10,000 fine.

The clampdown is being led by Vera Baird, the solicitor-general, and Harriet Harman, the equality minister.

They are concerned that a request to remove the adverts has had only partial success. Although The Newspaper Society succeeded in persuading some newspaper groups to stop carrying them, ministers are concerned that many others have failed to do so.

The Crown Prosecution Service has already studied a similar law in Ireland and concluded that it would work in the UK.

The new law would also inform publishers which kind of ads will be banned by defining, for example, the difference between a massage parlour which is actually a brothel and spas offering therapeutic massages.

Sex phone lines, carried in many tabloid newspapers, would not be caught by the law unless they are a front for arranging prostitution.

It would also make it a criminal offence to print or distribute telephone-box cards advertising prostitutes. Under the current law, it is an offence only to be caught in the act of posting such a card.

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.

The nightclub boss Peter Stringfellow has warned that he would appeal under human rights laws if he was forced to close his lapdancing clubs under new government regulations.

Hundreds of lap-dancing clubs will have to seek new licences under powers that are expected to force some premises to close. The new licensing regime will start on April 6, when clubs will be called sexual entertainment venues. They will all have to apply for a fresh licence.

Local councils in England and Wales will be able to ban clubs from opening near schools or other buildings in quiet or busy neighbourhoods. The public will be given the right to oppose an application to open a club on the basis that the premises are inappropriate.

Stringfellow and the Lap Dancing Association are threatening to go to the European Court of Human Rights if any club given specific permission to conduct lap dancing loses its licence. They claim that loss of the licence breaches human rights because it deprives them of their possession.

Stringfellow said that the regulations had been brought forward because Jacqui Smith, the former Home Secretary, and Harriet Harman, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, were entranced by the radical feminist organisation known as the Fawcett Society.

Britain wants to prosecute YOU!

An attempt to prosecute a man for asking a woman for sex in a Nottingham red light district was slammed as reprehensible by a High Court Judge

The case, from July 2008, had been thrown out by magistrates previously, but prosecutors tried to reopen it.

A police sting operation took place after complaints from Mapperley residents about the impact of prostitution in the area. A police officer posed as Sarah, a prostitute, and agreed a price for sex with the man after he approached her.

The man was arrested but magistrates cleared him of any offence, ruling he had done nothing wrong.

But the Director of Public Prosecutions tried to re-open the case in the High Court.

However, Lord Justice Elias said the attempt was quite hopeless and upheld the ruling a single incident of asking a woman for sex in a known red light district could not amount to a nuisance.

He added a single, otherwise lawful, act does not become a criminal offence just because other people are carrying out similar, otherwise lawful, activity in the same area.

Observing prosecuting authorities were using wholly artificial concepts to criminalise lawful conduct which they considered to be reprehensible, Lord Justice Elias urged all courts to have no truck with it.

18 Swedish soldiers who bought sex in a brothel while on military exercise in Germany last August have escaped punishment.

Sweden's prostitution law, like Norway, makes it illegal to buy sex but not to sell it, with the prostitute seen as a victim. However unlike Norway, Sweden's law doesn't stretch to forbidding sex with a prostitute abroad, while prostitution is legal in Germany.

Following an investigation by the Swedish armed forces, it was explained the troops can neither be charged or face disciplinary measures.

The 18 soldiers from K3 platoon in Karlsborg were in Germany for a joint exercise with German soldiers. They had a few days free time after the exercise was finished and it was then that they visited the brothel.

Investigator Gunnar Jonason told Swedish public service radio Ekot that they couldn't be charged because buying sex in germany was not illegal and because the men were using their own free time then they couldn't face disciplinary measures from the army.

We obviously think that it feels very wrong not to do something, because we have very clear values in the armed forces., Jonason told Ekot.

The Policing and Crime Act 2009 amends the Sexual Offences Act 2003  which specifies supposed offences relating to prostitution.

Here are few of the sections of interest in the amended Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Note that Section 52/53 is currently being used against a British man previously involved in running an ordinary bar in Thailand.

52 Causing or inciting prostitution for gain

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he intentionally causes or incites another person to become a prostitute in any part of the world, and

(b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.

(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction [ie at magistrate's Court level], to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment [ie at the Crown Court level], to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years.

53 Controlling prostitution for gain

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he intentionally controls any of the activities of another person relating to that person's prostitution in any part of the world, and

(b) he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.

(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years.

53A Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force etc.

(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—

(a) A makes or promises payment for the sexual services of a prostitute (B),

(b) a third person (C) has engaged in exploitative conduct of a kind likely to induce or encourage B to provide the sexual services for which A has made or promised payment, and

(c) C engaged in that conduct for or in the expectation of gain for C or another person (apart from A or B).

(2) The following are irrelevant—

(a) where in the world the sexual services are to be provided and whether those services are provided,

(b) whether A is, or ought to be, aware that C has engaged in exploitative conduct.

(3) C engages in exploitative conduct if—

(a) C uses force, threats (whether or not relating to violence) or any other form of coercion, or

(b) C practises any form of deception.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

Definitions

(1) gain means—

(a) any financial advantage, including the discharge of an obligation to pay or the provision of goods or services (including sexual services) gratuitously or at a discount; or

(b) the goodwill of any person which is or appears likely, in time, to bring financial advantage.

(2) prostitute, prostitution means--

a person (A) who, on at least one occasion and whether or not compelled to do so, offers or provides sexual services to another person in return for payment or a promise of payment to A or a third person;

and prostitution is to be interpreted accordingly.

Note on the law as regards to British Residents abroad

Note that although the Section 53A offence of paying for sex specifically includes the provision of sex abroad, the payment or promise of payment must be be made in Britain.

Section 72 describes how the law applies outside of the UK and Schedule 2 lists the clauses that worldwide UK enforcement applies to. Thankfully the paying for sex clause 53A is not listed.

So the jurisdiction of Section 53A remains payment/promise of payment in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (but fulfilling the deal anywhere in the world)

Similarly the Section 52 & 53 offences are restricted to people controlling or inciting prostitution abroad whilst residing in the UK.

72 Offences outside the United Kingdom

(1) Subject to subsection (2), any act done by a person in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom which—

(a) constituted an offence under the law in force in that country or territory, and
(b) would constitute a sexual offence to which this section applies if it had been done in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland,

constitutes that sexual offence under the law of that part of the United Kingdom.

(2) Proceedings by virtue of this section may be brought only against a person who was on 1st September 1997, or has since become, a British citizen or resident in the United Kingdom.

(3) An act punishable under the law in force in any country or territory constitutes an offence under that law for the purposes of this section, however it is described in that law.

(4) Subject to subsection (5), the condition in subsection (1)(a) is to be taken to be met unless, not later than rules of court may provide, the defendant serves on the prosecution a notice—

(a) stating that, on the facts as alleged with respect to the act in question, the condition is not in his opinion met,
(b) showing his grounds for that opinion, and
(c) requiring the prosecution to prove that it is met.

(5) The court, if it thinks fit, may permit the defendant to require the prosecution to prove that the condition is met without service of a notice under subsection (4).

(6) In the Crown Court the question whether the condition is met is to be decided by the judge alone.

(7) Schedule 2 lists the sexual offences to which this section applies.

SCHEDULE 2 Sexual offences to which section 72 applies England and Wales

1 In relation to England and Wales, the following are sexual offences to which section 72 applies—

(a) an offence under any of sections 5 to 15 (offences against children under 13 or under 16);
(b) an offence under any of sections 1 to 4, 16 to 41, 47 to 50 and 61 where the victim of the offence was under 16 at the time of the offence;
(c) an offence under section 62 or 63 where the intended offence was an offence against a person under 16;
(d) an offence under—

(i) section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (c. 37) (indecent photographs of children), or
(ii) section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (c. 33) (possession of indecent photograph of child),

in relation to a photograph or pseudo-photograph showing a child under 16.

Five coffee shop workers in Everett, north of Seattle, US, are facing prostitution charges for putting on sex shows for customers in return of cash.

The five baristas work in bikini coffee shops where the staff is required to wear swimsuits, but they are said to have gone further by wearing thongs and nipple tassels.

According to the police, the five indulged in lewd behaviour bordering on the obscene, and have been accused of charging up to 80 dollars to let customers fondle or photograph them as they put on erotic shows. They face court dates on prostitution charges later this month.

Dozens of bikini coffee shops, with names like Brewlesque, Twin Perks and Java Juggs, have sprung up in the Seattle area as competition for customers mounted.

Bill Wheeler, who runs four Grab-N-Go bikini espresso stands in the Everett area, said the prostitution charges has damaged business: You have a bunch of church groups that got together and decided they just don't like women in bikinis.

But at Java Juggs business is booming, with workers picking up close to 150 dollars in tips during a six-hour shift: We just wear lingerie, or bras and panties instead of pasties (nipple tassels) and thongs. We have a lot of regulars. They don't really care too much, barista Jade Layng added.

Update: Grinding out a Repressive Deal

7th March 2010. Based on article from google.com

Prosecutors in Washington state have dropped prostitution charges against a bikini barista accused of selling more than coffee at an espresso stand.

The Daily Herald reports that Everett Municipal Court Judge Timothy O'Dell approved a deal between Everett prosecutors and the 21-year-old Kirkland woman that would drop the charges if she promised to stay out of trouble for two years.

If she fails, she could face prosecution in municipal court for violating the adult entertainment ordinance.

The woman also agreed to testify against four other Grab-n-Go baristas charged last year with prostitution and violating city ordinances. They were accused of charging customers for touching certain body parts and for stripping down while fixing drinks.

Update: No Fun in Washington

22nd May 2010. See article from seattletimes.nwsource.com

A Bikini barista who had faced a prostitution charge pleaded guilty to working without an adult entertainment license and was sentenced to 20 days in jail.

The Daily Herald reports she is allowed to serve her time under home electronic monitoring. Judge Timothy O'Dell also ordered the woman to be fully clothed - no bikini or lingerie - when she works at an espresso stand.

The 21-year-old had been charged with prostitution after detectives photographed her licking whipped cream off another barista.

Four other baristas charged after a lewd behavior investigation last year at the Grab-n-Go Espresso stand will have charges dropped if they stay out of trouble for two years.

German police raided about 600 brothels in 13 states Tuesday night targeting human trafficking from West Africa.

The Federal Criminal Police Office said Wednesday that it was interviewing more than 100 women from different West African countries who were forced to work as prostitutes, some of them minors.

Tuesday's raids follow an investigation of several years. Only if we manage to win the trust of victims and persuade them to cooperate with the authorities can we break the cycle of repression, intimidation and dependency, said federal police chief Joerg Ziercke in Wiesbaden.

Sara's Secrets/Condoms To Go chain has 12 stores in the conservative state of Texas. It has come up with a couple of knee-slappers for an advertising campaign, including the pictured billboard on I-35 and the TV ad that gave rise to it.

We ran that at the end of last year, explained Sara's Secret VP. We try to make our advertising entertaining and edgy; those are the two words we keep in mind. Because anybody can watch a whole evening of TV and I bet that they cannot recall one commercial, so obviously you've got to do something that will stand out from the noise, and this commercial hits the spot, and the billboards are kind of a follow-up to it.

What we want to do is create advertising that will stir people, he continued. Whether they're stirred because they don't like the advertising or stirred because they find it really funny, this particular combination really hit the spot. Here in Texas, which is a pretty conservative state, the churchgoers certainly give us their opinion, but CBS-11 did a story on it last night, and if you go to the comments underneath it, you'll see that the positive comments are overwhelming compared to the negative ones. People have come to our website and commented, and we're getting more positive comments there too.

Caligula director Tinto Brass, has announced plans to make the world's first 3D pornographic film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Brass plans to revisit an abandoned project about a Roman emperor that was ruined by Americans, suggesting that the film will be a remake of Caligula.

Brass's 3D version, the first 3D film to be made in Italy, will begin shooting in May.

You will have seen the advertisements in the back of some newspapers: New young models. Open 24 hours. Come and relax and have a professional massage.

If Vera Baird, the UK Solicitor General has her way such ads will soon be a thing of the past. Baird, along with Fiona Mactaggart, Harriet Harman and other feminists in Westminster, is looking to the Republic of Ireland for inspiration on how to legislate against third-party profiteering from the sex industry – namely by newspapers. Ireland's legislation, in place since 1994, reads:

A person who publishes or causes to be published or distributes or causes to be distributed an advertisement which advertises a brothel or the services of a prostitute in the State or any premises or service in the State in terms, circumstances or manner which gives rise to the reasonable inference that the premises is a brothel or that the service is one of prostitution shall be guilty of an offence.

The legislation includes those advertising prostitution services in other ways, for example displaying notices or posters, circulating leaflets or cards (such as those in telephone boxes) or on radio, television, computer, telephone, fax or photography.

At Baird's instigation the Crown Prosecution Service here in the UK has taken a close look at the legislation and decided that it could be useful in prosecuting those directly involved in profiting from this abusive industry and could also reduce the numbers of men paying for sex.

If police can confirm that an ad being published or distributed is for a brothel the publisher is sent a warning of possible arrest and prosecution if the ad runs again. The penalty is a fine of up to £10,000.

The Australian Censor Board has started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.

This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year.

Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.

Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party said: We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size, she said. It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.

Patten explained that Australian culture was being dumbed down in the sexual department and that political leaders were actively propagating an increasingly narrow window of acceptable sexual acts and cultures. She said that all new appointees to the Classification Board and the Classification Review Board should undergo a short course in the latest scientific developments around sexuality and some sort of biology course to bring them up to date with the broad range of acceptable adult sexuality and body types.

Update: Australian Censors Respond

30th January 2010. Based on article from somebodythinkofthechildren.com

The misleadingly named Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told somebodythinkofthechildren.com that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are, or appear to be, persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be banned.

They said the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

A Singapore nightclub has launched an initiative which rewards gals with free booze depending on the size of their chests, the China Times reports.

The OverEasy club decided to launch its Fill My Cups promotion to punt events featuring Oz DJ DCUP. Cheryl Ho, spokeswoman for the venue's owner, explained: It was really a play on the guest DJ's name. When we heard that it was DCUP, we decided to give the event an added spin.

One man and one woman have been tasked with assessing customers' assets. Ho said: They are not boob experts, and neither are they from a bra company. They are our personal friends who will simply guestimate as to the women's bra cup sizes. We don't condone touch tests.

The rewards for a jub guestimation are one free drink for an A-cup, two for a B-cup, three for a C-cup and a free bottle of vodka for D-cups.*

The mamtastic promotion has provoked a mixed response. One local 19-year-old woman said: I think the concept is funny but I would not degrade myself by being a part of it.

One woman who apparently had no problem with popping in there was student Lek Ning, 20, who described herself as rather proud of her C-cup mams, and said the idea was hilarious. ?

Indonesian authorities will prosecute four exotic dancers arrested at clubs on New Year's Eve for allegedly violating a new anti-pornography law, a police spokesman has said.

The female dancers and two male club managers were detained in the city of Bandung said West Java provincial police spokesman Col. Dade Ahmad. They appeared to have been preparing for a striptease and were wearing sexy clothing, Ahmad said, when the police raided the Bellair Cafe and the Music Lounge after midnight.

Indonesia's 2008 anti-pornography law was pushed through parliament by conservative Muslim parties, but opposed by rights groups that argue it criminalizes traditional dance and art, particularly in far flung provinces where partial nudity is culturally accepted.

Ahmad said that they could be sentenced to prison terms of five to 10 years if convicted. Ahmad said the six will be the first people prosecuted under the law in Bandung.

Bandung Mayor Dada Rosada said he was also considering revoking the cafes' operating permits.

Update: Empty Tables at the Belair Cafe

24th January 2010. Based on article from scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com

The arrest of four women for sexy dancing during a Hogmanay party in Bandung has raised worries this may be the prelude to wider Islamist restrictions in Indonesia. The women, as well as a manager and event organiser, could become the first people charged under a one-year-old anti-pornography law banning public displays of naked flesh.

The law was brought in with the backing of the small but influential Islamist political parties in the country. Critics said the parties' real intention was to use the law to spread fundamentalist Islam to control artistic and cultural expression in a multicultural society. The law, they warned, threatens pre-Islamic cultures, which have long co-existed with moderate Islam.

Hafizh Utsman, leader of the West Java branch of the Indonesian Ulama Council, the leading clerical organisation, is pleased with Islam's growing influence in Bandung, and would like to see a more widespread crackdown: We are trying to eliminate the non-Islamic parts of West Java's traditional culture, to make it more Islamic, Utsman boasted. For example, he said that participants at weddings are urged to celebrate by reciting Koranic verses, not by dancing, as is the custom.

Though a couple of weeks have passed since the arrests, it was still not clear what happened at Belair, which showcased bikini-clad women dancing on a bar counter.

Arman Achdiat, the Bandung police chief of detectives, said the authorities had received complaints, via text messages, that the dancers had gone beyond bikini dancing and offered customers flashes of full nudity. This happened at private table dances, said Achdiat, declining to say whether investigators caught the dancers in the act.

Holding a copy of the anti-pornography law, Achdiat said more questioning of the dancers was needed to determine whether to charge them under the criminal law or the more severe anti-pornography law, which entails punishment of up to 10 years in prison for the dancers and 15 years for the manager and organiser.

Clubs such as Belair came to Saritem in Bandung more than a decade ago, and about 10 now offer what is known here as sexy dancing, often featuring some nudity, said Budi Rajab, a sociologist and expert on Bandung at the local Padjadjaran University.

The crackdown seems to be working and Saritem's business has yet to recover fully. On a recent evening there were few customers in the district's warren of narrow streets, where family-owned brothels employed young women from rural Java. A lot of people think Saritem is still closed, or they're afraid to come, said Rully, whose family has worked in Saritem for four generations.

A survey by Tempep, an EU-funded network of sex industry health agencies, found that one in eight foreign prostitutes in Europe was Romanian, replacing Russians as the main nationality since the previous assessment in 2006.

This week Evenimentul zilei, a Bucharest newspaper, under the headline Romania top exporter of prostitution, wrote: Barely three years after its accession to the EU, the country can lay claim to yet another lofty distinction.

The newspaper called for a fresh debate on calls for prostitution to be legalised, in line with a proposal by a presidential commission four months ago. That was blocked by an alliance of civic and religious groups including the powerful Romanian Orthodox Church. The result of Europe's strictest anti-prostitution laws, according to sex workers, is that prostitutes are regularly sent to prison while their clients are hardly punished.

The report assessed that about two fifths of Britain's estimated 80,000 prostitutes were migrants, most commonly from Lithuania, Thailand and Poland. The proportion of foreign prostitutes was highest in London at 70-80%.

Where they come from:

1 Romania 12% of migrant total
2 Russia 9%
3 Bulgaria 8%
4= Ukraine, Nigeria 7%
6 Brazil 5%
7= Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Thailand 4%

Dozens of prostitutes, most using headscarves or hoods to hide their faces, demonstrated in central Athens, demanding working licenses for brothels across Greece.

Prostitution is legal in Greece, and sex workers have personal permits to exercise their profession, but not to operate brothels. As a result, many end up working illegally and facing arrest because they operate out of brothels.

We are here to put an end to our hardship and degradation, said Dimitra Kanellopoulou, president of Greece's sex workers' association, SEPE. The situation is tragic, hypocritical and miserable.

About 100 sex workers held a rally outside the Interior Ministry, chanting: We will not back down until we are given justice.

Kanellopoulou, the head of the union, said Interior Minister Yannis Ragoussis met briefly with union members and agreed to discuss their grievances, including cutting red tape and making it easier for prostitutes to obtain licenses.

The Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces has introduced a law making sex on the street punishable by a fine of 3,000 euros. The new framework also outlaws prostitution, begging and any other activity that disturbs the tranquillity of neighbours. Also included for the first time is legislation that aims to control the behaviour of club doormen.

The law, which will apply everywhere within the City of Valencia, provides for penalties of up to 3,000 euros for having sex in a car within the city or 400 euros for people who buy pirated DVDs and CDs in the street.

The legislation has been unanimously approved by the council representatives.

The law seeks to end prostitution in the street and is aimed equally at prostitutes and their clients. For a first offence clients and prostitutes face penalties of between 1,500 and 3,000 euros. If sex workers continue to offend they will suffer imprisonment. The document warns that any person who has sexual intercourse in a vehicle in the street will also be fined up to 3,000 euros.

Denmark's Blue Movie adult shop, believed to be the world's oldest adult store, having opened its doors before the country legalized pornography in 1969, will be closing March 31, local sources disclosed.

Established nearly 45 years ago, Blue Movie is located on a busy main street in central Copenhagen with a porn-themed facade and huge window displays showing explicit images.

According to a long-time customer, the store is an old-school XXX shop with an endless selection of very kinky hardcore videos, books and magazines, plus a smaller selection of bondage equipment.

Although extremely popular for many years, the store is now closing due to diminishing sales as a result of customers moving online to buy their adult material, according to reports in Denmark's press.

Amsterdam Councillor Lodewijk Asscher has launched a plan to raise the minimum age of prostitutes from 18 to 23. Asscher wants to 'clean up' Amsterdam's Red Light district and is proposing a whole raft of measures. In addition to raising the minimum age, he also wants the red light district in the Wallen area to close down between 04:00 and 08:00 in the morning.

Speaking to Dutch daily De Telegraaf, the councillor denied that he wants to turn Amsterdam into a prudish bourgeois paradise. Look, Amsterdam is a metropolis and prostitution is part of that. There is nothing against prostitution if the women are doing it of their own free will...BUT...there are many of examples where that is not the case. Imagine it's your mother or your sister working as a prostitute.

Asscher's proposal will probably be presented to the city council after the 3 March municipal elections, so the plan is in the hands of the voters.

The Shady Lady Ranch in the Nevada desert has got a job for male prostitutes (female clients only) charging an estimated $300 (£187) per hour.

Although legalised prostitution is nothing new in the wilderness beyond Las Vegas, pimping out men has been long been against the rules — largely because it was assumed by state officials that the only people interested in paying for such a service would be other men.

Until last month, Nevada's state regulations demanded that all licenced prostitutes undergo frequent cervical testing — something that was obviously impossible for those without cervixes to do. But after a long and bitter fight, the law has finally been changed, with male prostitutes now able to undergo urethral testing instead.

Hence the Shady Lady Ranch, located between the Nevada dust towns of Beatty and Tonopah, is ready to offer an entirely new menu of services, marketed directly at women.

With so many male revues going on in Las Vegas, we thought it was time to give this a try, said Bobbi Davis, proprietor of the ranch, adding that her first two male employees will be hired as soon as her establishment gets approval from officials in Nye County.

So far, the Shady Lady's madam has received applications from 150 candidates, with by far the most of them coming from Detroit and Las Vegas, where unemployment rates are among the highest in the US.

Ms Davis is making a great deal of effort to ensure that male prostitutes expand the brothel market rather than destroying it. For example, female customers who make the two hour drive to the Shady Lady Ranch from Las Vegas won't have to mix with male clients who've gone there to meet women—instead, they'll be ushered into a separate, private cabin on the brothel's grounds.

Meanwhile, sex will be advertised as The Boyfriend Experience, with an emphasis on romance.

Given Go-Ahead

Based on article from content.usatoday.com

A Nevada brothel has gotten the green light to be the first to add a new red-light special to its sex menu: male prostitutes. Officials in Nye County, where prostitution is legal, gave the go-ahead yesterday for the Shady Lady Ranch to hire the first legal male sex workers.

Owner Bobbi Davis is looking for a few good men to work at her high-desert brothel, about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where an hour costs $300, condoms are a must and workers get regular blood tests.

The criteria:

• Between 21 and 40.
• Have a Good Work Ethic.
• Must be Service Oriented.
• Have a Willingness to Please.
• Have a Positive Attitude.

Update: Given Go-Ahead

17th January 2010. Based on article from myfoxdetroit.com

One of the few legal brothels in America has hired Markus, its first male prostitute.

Last week the Shady Lady Ranch in Tonopah, Nevada, was given the OK by the county board to hire men for its business, reported The Los Angeles Times .

Markus arrived by Greyhound bus at the brothel, located about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Details magazine interviewed the 25-year-old man from Los Angeles who compared himself to civil-rights icon Rosa Parks: Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, 'I want to do this for a living.' And be protected under law to do it, Markus said in the article . It's just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I'm doing the same.

The porn industry is embracing 3D mania stoked by stunning new television sets and the blockbuster film Avatar.

An unprecedented exclusive online 3D porn library has been unveiled by Bad Girls In 3D at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo over the weekend in Las Vegas, boasting a first-of-a-kind turnkey digital 3D viewing system.

For several decades, the adult entertainment industry has driven adoption of every significant new entertainment delivery system - the VHS home-video craze in the 1980s, the satellite television mania in the 1990s and the present day internet, said Bad Girls producer Lance Johnson: 2010 and beyond will be all about 3D.

The firm's package consists of a 60-inch (152cm) 3D TV; a compact computer server, and shutter glasses that synch with the screen to trick eyes into viewing in 3D.

The Bad Girls system is priced at $US4000 ($4304), and a subscription to the online video library costs $US20 ($21.54) a month, according to a spokesperson.

The potential of 3D in adult entertainment was proven decades ago by a 1969 soft-core 3D film The Stewardess, which raked in over $29 million in theaters over two years, according to Johnson.

A prostitute has been fined £500,000 for failing to pay tax on sex work earnings of at least £3million.

The unnamed woman told Polish tax investigators that she had very generous customers.

One of her clients reportedly paid her 5million zlotys, or £1.1million, between 1997 and 2002.

Officials in the southern city of Katowice had raised concerns because she was formally unemployed.

The porn producer Pink Visual is using augmented reality technology to let viewers virtually join in the on-screen action.

Software being tested online at ipinkvisualpass.com superimposes animated sexy characters onto scenes captured by Web cameras linked to home computers in what Pink calls a move to augmented reality.

Augmented reality will let people put themselves into the scene, Pink's Kim Kysar told AFP at an AVN Adult Entertainment Expo taking place in Las Vegas this week: There is also a way to get the girls into your kitchen, on your bed... We provide the images and you provide the scene.

The interactive system is based on Adobe Flash Player software and is controlled for now by holding a card printed with a Pink Visual logo icon in front of Web cameras to cue the online program. The Web camera takes in the room, then puts a porn star or stripper in the scene, Pink producer Matt Morningwood said while demonstrating the augmented reality for AFP.

The body of Juliet Carr, better known by her adult career name Juliet Anderson, and even more frequently recognized as one of the characters she portrayed, Aunt Peg, was discovered this morning in her residence in Berkeley by a friend. The cause of death is not yet known, but the actress suffered for many years with Crohn's disease, which had only recently been diagnosed, though she had suffered from it for most of her life.

Carr's adult career was unusual, to say the least. Born in Burbank in 1938, the diminuitive blonde began acting in adult at the age of 39, when, as an employee at an advertising and engineering firm, she was discovered by famed director Alex DeRenzy, who cast her in his 1978 blockbuster hit Pretty Peaches. Her career took off quickly, and she performed in more than 80 movies over the following 10 years.

Her best-known role, however, was as Aunt Peg, her character in the movie of the same name. Aunt Peg was a Hollywood agent who had an unusual method of choosing her clients and of getting them work, as displayed in Aunt Peg Goes Hollywood and Aunt Peg's Fulfillment. She also appeared in such top hits as Tangerine, Vista Valley PTA, Dixie Ray Hollywood Star, Outlaw Ladies, Taboo 1 & 2, Hustler Video Magazine 1, and in half of the first 24 volumes of the Swedish Erotica series.

We have been designing Roxxxy TrueCompanion, your True Companion sex robot, for many years, making sure that she: knows your name, your likes and dislikes, can carry on a discussion and expresses her love to you and be your loving friend.

She can talk to you, listen to you and feel your touch. She can even have an orgasm! (We will be releasing a male robot sex doll soon, Rocky TrueCompanion).

Roxxxy is also anatomically consistent with a human, so you can have a talk or have sex. She is Always Turned On and Ready to Talk or Play! Have a Conversation or Sex – It is Up to You!

Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

The dark-haired, negligee-clad, life-size robotic girlfriend comes complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin.

Standing five feet, seven inches tall, the doll weighs 120 pounds, comes with five personalities, is ready for action her developers said.

Aspiring partners can customise her features, including race, hair colour and breast size.

Roxxxy, who can chat with her flesh-and-blood mate about subjects including Manchester United, also elicits comments depending on how she is touched. The anatomically-correct robot, who can even snore, has an articulated skeleton that can move like a person but can't walk or independently move its limbs.

Coming with a laptop the doll, priced between US$7,000 (£4,350) to US$9,000 (£5,993), was unveiled at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas at the weekend.

Douglas Hines, the robot's football loving inventor, said the real aim was to make the doll someone the owner can talk to and relate to.

Hines, from TrueCompanion, said the doll could carry out simple conversations and was designed to know exactly what you like. Sex only goes so far, then you want to be able to talk to the person,. She knows exactly what you like. If you like Porsches, she likes Porsches. If you like soccer, she likes soccer.

The sex robot is available in Europe and the United States and will eventually be available all over the world.

South Africa could legalise prostitution during the 2010 World Cup amid fears that the tournament will spread the HIV epidemic.

Due to the rise in demand, health bosses want the government to consider making prostitution legal so sex workers can come forward to be screened for sexually transmitted infections and get free condoms.

Eric Harper, director of the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce, said: It could be a potential recipe for disaster both for clients and sex workers.