Sex workers: the biggest losers at the World Cup (SA)

Written by Doreen Gaura
Thursday, 02 September 2010

While many are still coming down from the excitement of the World Cup, Zodwa Sangweni* is one South African who was disappointed by how the much-hyped event turned out. A sex worker in Johannesburg, Sangweni said despite predictions that sex business would be booming, the World Cup season was actually a bust.

“We didn’t work well, there was no money,” she said. “Maybe for those who work in hotels but for us on the streets, we didn’t get any business.”

Ahead of the global sporting spectacle – which has a reputation for off-the-pitch debauchery – many were speculating that the real winners of the event would be sex workers. An influx of as many as 40,000 sex workers was anticipated, mostly from Zimbabwe, but also from as far away as Russia.

Inquiry into sex trafficking in Scotland wants to hear from men who use prostitutes

Jun 30 2010 By Annie Brown

AN inquiry into sex trafficking in Scotland is asking punters who use prostitutes to talk to them – in secret.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, who is heading the probe, said men who buy sex can help build a realistic picture of the extent of the trade.

Kennedy said: “I want to hear from these men. I need to hear directly from people who have experiences of trafficking.

“I think if you want to have a proper sense of the problem, it is better to hear from witnesses themselves directly.

“It might be they are men who have used prostitutes and they have had an experience where they have been with a woman who was clearly coerced into prostitution.

“We need help to understand the scope of the problem but those who can do that are often the very people who, through shame or fear, don’t want to step forward.

Lebanon’s sex industry: hidden in plain sight

By Ben Gilbert – GlobalPost
Published: June 17, 2010 10:21 ET in Middle East

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Twenty minutes north of Beirut, in the Christian heartland of Lebanon is Jounieh, the country’s little Las Vegas, where dozens of “super nightclubs,” Lebanon’s equivalent of strip clubs, line the main street.

Inside one club, called Excalibur, a young woman from the Dominican Republic wore white denim-shorts cut just below the crotch, stiletto heels and a tight T-shirt that stopped just above her navel. She also wore braces on her teeth.

She was in Lebanon legally, classified by immigration authorities as an “artist,” owing to the fact that she dances on stage at some point during the night. About 4000 Ukrainian, Russian and Moroccan women like her come to Lebanon every year to work in Lebanon’s adult entertainment industry, of which the estimated 130 super nightclubs in the country are a staple.

SA: Debunking World Cup’s biggest myth

By Les Carpenter, Yahoo! Sports jun 10, 15:34 EDT

JOHANNESBURG – Of all the wild, fantastic stories that blossomed in the months before the World Cup, there was the rumor that South Africa would soon be flooded with 40,000 prostitutes. They would come streaming across the border from places like Zimbabwe and Mozambique, all of them ready to satisfy the demands of a half-million soccer fans in an endless futbol orgy.

HIV warnings were sounded. Churches shouted their scorn. And a wary country braced for the impending onslaught of sex-hungry soccer pilgrims.

Men and football: a recipe for sexual violence?

From Laura Agustin’s Border Thinking

Men and football: the assumption that these make a super-volatile combination that will lead to violence against women is everywhere, yet there is no real research backing it up. It feels intuitive, something like Oh my god, they get so worked up and nationalistic at those matches, they scream and take off their shirts, and look at how some hooligans bash each other, and they get so drunk they don’t know what they’re doing. Okay, but the connexion with sex is? Some think that these activities involve a rise in testosterone, which could mean fans become rapacious about wanting to have sex, and in their blind fervour go racing off to fuck anything in sight. Or, correlations have been made between drinking alcohol in heavy quantities and becoming aggressive – for some people, not all – but the aggression usually comes in the form of fighting amongst other drinking men. Or is the idea that some general amoral, violent side rises up via the enthusiasm for sport in a way that makes fans want to grab women? Sometimes the assumption is just that when bunches of guys get together they are liable to run amok. The World Cup is feared to bring out the worst in its fans.

It’s muddled thinking, however. Stag parties, in which groups of men ritualistically drink and whoop it up together, often have a sexual element, but that usually consists of …

Read the rest at Border Thinking

Australia: No money, no honey

April 21, 2010

Paying for sex is no longer a male preserve. In the final part of our series, Mary-Anne Toy explores the world of male escorts and why more women want their services.

SHE is well educated, well spoken and very well groomed: an attractive blonde in her 30s used to men hitting on her in bars. So why did ”Eva”* pay a man to have sex with her? And how did that encounter lead her, a single mother with a full-time professional job, into secretly running a male escort business?

About two years ago, fed up with internet dating and the desultory randomness of the bar scene, but missing male company, Eva toyed with the idea of using a male escort.

Pattaya Police clear Pattaya Beach of suspected Prostitutes

25th February 2010

Following orders from the new Pattaya Police Chief, Police Colonel Nantawoot, a team of Pattaya Police Officers assisted by civil volunteers, known in Thai as “O-Po-Po-Lor”, conducted a late night operation on Wednesday to clear Pattaya Beach of Prostitutes and others suspected of loitering with intent to engage in anti-social or criminal activity. A total of 60 people were rounded-up, including 20 transsexuals and 40 women. All were charged with offences relating to loitering with intent and prostitution and paid a small fine before being released back onto the Beach where they presumably continued with whatever they were doing prior to their arrest.

See original at Pattaya One news

Country’s first legal gigolo starts work in Nevada

By Oskar Garcia
Associated Press Writer / January 22, 2010

This undated photo provided by OC Modeling of Chatsworth, Calif. shows "Markus" Nevada's first male prostitute. A brothel in an isolated Nevada town has hired the state's first male prostitute, a muscular college dropout who abandoned a brief stint as a porn actor in Los Angeles to become the only legal gigolo in the United States. (AP Photo/OC Modeling)

BEATTY, Nev.—A brothel in a Nevada desert town has hired the state’s first male prostitute, a muscular college dropout who abandoned a brief stint as a porn actor in Los Angeles to become the only legal gigolo in the United States.

The Shady Lady Ranch successfully won state and county approval to clear the way for the “prostidude,” as Nevada’s newest sex worker is already being called. After a slow first week on the job, his first appointments are scheduled for this weekend.

The male prostitute — known as “Markus” — has quickly become the center of attention in Nevada’s brothel industry.

He has been criticized by female counterparts for not being willing to have sex with men. And he created a dustup after telling Details Magazine that his pioneering role in the sex business was “just the same” as civil rights icon Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus. Not surprisingly, he has been forbidden from doing interviews after the remarks.

Thailand: Police Crackdown On Foreign Operated Sex Bars

PATTAYA: — Informed sources from several police divisions have told the Pattaya Times that a very serious crackdown will begin next month to catch foreign business people who are financial backers of gay bars, beer bars and a go-gos where there is sex for sale in Pattaya.

These bars charge a “bar fine” to the customer and let the employee leave for the night or a “short time” usually about two to three hours. It is suspected that many of these rendezvous are sexually related, police said. Police investigations will determine who pays the bills and gets the profits. If the person is a foreigner then their visa will be revoked and they will be expelled from the Kingdom. If it is a Thai they will be arrested if sex is for sale. There is much concern about organized crime in the nightlife venues, said one official.

Sex and Soccer: The World Cup vice trade

October 16, 2009 — Updated 1701 GMT (0101 HKT)
By Chris Murphy
For CNN

(CNN) — The beginning of the World Cup in South Africa next June kicks-off a festival of football on the pitch, but there are a wealth of issues for the host country to tackle off the field too.

Up to half-a-million fans are expected to visit for the tournament and a string of sparkling new stadiums and hotels have sprung up to accommodate them.

But that influx of supporters also brings with it a danger of an explosion in the sex trade and the threat of increased trafficking to service demand.

A similar flood of vice business was forecast leading up to the previous World Cup, in Germany in 2006, especially as prostitution had been legalized in the country.