Based on an article from AVN

Divine Productions, a US web-based adult production company, has recently been winding up nutters by offering sex toys modeled after religious icons. The toys include a "baby Jesus butt plug," a "jackhammer Jesus," and a "diving nun."

In a recent conservative report, Gene McConnell, director of Authentic Relationships International, an organization that fights against what it calls “addictions to pornography,” said: it is clear that [porn] providers like this have to expose their customers to more destructive ideas to get their customers to come back for more. McConnell believes Divine Productions is using sex to communicate hate to the religious community.

James L. Lambert’s story in Agape Press, a Christian news media source, went on to explain that the distributor sells its products by using religious imagery and terminology to make fun of biblical characters, among them Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Judas, and Moses. Company advertising employs slogans such as: Let Judas make a martyr out of you; or find out what it means to be truly touched by God.

Ultra conservative Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University and senior pastor of a Baptist Church says ridicule of the Church is something that has happened since the time of Christ.

From AVN

A recent story noted that changes in the Scottsdale’s Sexually Oriented Business Ordinance is having an impact. Zorba’s adult video store may have to undergo a complete overhaul in order to comply with the ordinance.

The new rules, said the report, require adult store managers to have unobstructed views of the entire building, except for bathrooms, with the space illuminated by at least a 40-watt light bulb. No “doors, curtains, walls, merchandise, display racks or other materials” can obscure any part of the business under the rules.

The East Valley Tribune reported that Mayor Mary Manross said the video store rules are necessary to prevent sexual activity at Zorba’s: There are many known, documented secondary impacts of those kinds of businesses, especially when you have them configured with private booths.

The new ordinance also targets exotic dance clubs. Changes would ban nude dancing and restrict dancers from coming within four feet of patrons. However, the owners and employees of the city’s two dance clubs, Babe’s - which has been purchased by adult star and AVN Hall of Famer, Jenna Jameson and will be renamed Club Jenna after remodeling - and Skin Cabaret, led a referendum drive that gathered more than 8,000 voter signatures, putting the issue on the September ballot.

The report concluded by saying that if passed, the ballot measure would repeal the nudity and distance rules for the clubs, which will enjoy a reprieve from the ordinance until the public vote. Video store provisions in the ordinance, however, were left off the referendum.

From AVN & the Sacrameto Bee

A Sacramento Superior Court Judge has ruled that a Folsom, California ordinance restricting the sale of sex toys does not violate a business owner's First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The challenge to the ordinance was brought by Sam and Misty Dufour, owners of Ms. Teaz, a lingerie shop in Folsom’s Historic District.

A November, 2004, emergency ordinance was passed by the city shortly before Ms. Teaz opened its doors, transparently targeting the store. The ordinance, which prohibited the sale of explicit items such as bondage paraphernalia, as well as requiring blinders on displays of adult magazines, was made permanent in January 2005.

Dufour's attorney, Greg Garrison, argued that the city's ordinance was vague and contradictory. For example, said Garrison, the ordinance prohibits devices with non-sex-related utility being marketed ... in a manner promoting sexual or sadomasochistic uses. Garrison said that language unfairly allows Target or Wal-Mart, for instance, to sell toy handcuffs, while similar handcuffs could not be sold at Ms. Teaz, because, in that context, they would be marketed for their "sexual utility."

However, Judge Connelly rejected that line of reasoning, said the report. A marketing restriction can't be "bootstrapped" into a free-speech issue: If you follow that to its logical conclusion, then every product would fall under the First Amendment.

Based on an article from asahi

Despite the Japanese city's best efforts to drive them underground, Osaka's sex shop information booths are doing a thriving trade.

As part of a campaign against sex shops, the Osaka prefectural government recently imposed new restrictions on the booths, the first such effort in the country. But operators have found ways to work around the rules, and they show no signs of losing business.

Since the ordinance went into effect Feb. 1, the booths are no longer allowed to show provocative pictures that are visible to passers-by. They must not admit anyone under 18, and they are required to abide by new restrictions on operating hours.

Sex shops pay between 40,000 and 50,000 yen a month to advertise their services in the booths, according to operators. A typical information booth displays ads for between 30 and 50 sex shops.

Since another ordinance went into effect in December cracking down on touts working in the red-light district of Minami, more sex shops have come to depend on the booths to drum up trade. The booths have been increasing in numbers, according to police, with the last tally putting the number at 141 in Osaka Prefecture. In Minami in January, there were 60, an increase of 30% over six months earlier.

There are now 20 booths in a 500-meter stretch of Minami's Soemoncho shopping district. The new rules require them to shut by 1 a.m., and most booths have complied. In a few, lights are still visible at 1:30 a.m.

When a reporter peeked inside one, a young worker said, "We can show you a good place." The employee explained, Although we have closed for the day, since you showed up we have to provide you with information.

To work around rules forbidding the booths from displaying explicit posters that can be seen from the sidewalk, many shops now use computers instead. One establishment advertised itself as a "free Internet cafe," and had about 10 computers in the glass-lined outlet.

Others have taken the words "sex shop" off their signs, and instead advertise themselves as offering free information about restaurants and bars.

Despite the ordinance, there are no signs that the booths are declining in popularity. It's convenient because I won't run into rip-off joints, said a company employee who visited an information booth. I will continue to use them in the future.

As soon as a shop goes out of business or becomes vacant, it is usually snapped up by someone who wants to open an information booth.

Toshitsugu Okamoto, who heads the Soemoncho shopping district association, said: We have no intention of forcing the booths to leave. We just want them to abide by the rules so this district will be one that women and families can visit with ease.

from Thanhnien News

Karaoke bars in Vietnam will no longer be allowed to sell or have alcohol on their premises as part of the country's continued campaign against “social ills,”

Under a decree that took effect Thursday, karaoke bars, along with discotheques, would also be required to close down at midnight, Le Anh Tuyen, director of the Legal Department at the Ministry of Culture and Information said: The decree will definitely help reduce negative activities in karaoke bars and discotheques.

Phan An Sa, chief inspector at the Ministry of Culture and Information, told Thanh Nien authorities had discovered 600 people using the drug ecstasy and 60 women offering striptease dances to customers at karaoke bars and discos over the past nine months.

Karaoke was introduced into Vietnam in the late 1980s and mushroomed in the late 1990s, with more than 10,000 establishments licensed to operate in the country.

Based on an article from The Observer

The notable sex district could be shut down if a clean-up campaigner wins Amsterdam's elections. Politicians expected to win power in next month's municipal elections have said that if the De Wallen quarter cannot be cleaned up, it should be shut down.

If we have a choice of losing a tourist attraction or helping to end the abuse of women, I would rather lose the tourist attraction, said Lodewijk Asscher, new chief of the city's ruling Social Democrat Party. It should not be closed immediately but, if there is no reform, we should gradually try to diminish it.

Asscher's policies, part of a manifesto for what is likely to be a successful election campaign, have sparked a fierce reaction. Opponents of the plan include defenders of Amsterdam's famous 'tolerance', while experts on human trafficking and representatives of sex workers are - perhaps predictably - divided.

The problem itself is complicated. First, it depends on which elements of the red-light district are being discussed. Since a change in the law five years ago, many of the brothels are entirely legal. There are 180 official 'sex businesses' in the De Wallen quarter, which employ around 2,000 prostitutes who are registered, inspected and, at least theoretically, pay tax.

Petra Timmerman, of the Prostitutes Information Centre, an association based in the red-light district, told The Observer that 'most of those working in legal establishments are working voluntarily. There is an assumption that everybody is exploited and needs "saving". That is not necessarily true.'

Timmerman said she herself had made a rational decision to work as a prostitute. At that stage I wanted more time and this was a way I could earn lots of money in less time. I had an aspiration that I decided to fulfil like anyone else.

The Prostitutes Information Centre was last week distributing leaflets advertising a 'sex industry open day' aimed, Timmerman said, at countering 'the bad press we have been getting'.

Yet beyond the legalised sector are less well-regulated areas. One problem is European Union labour laws which do not permit non-EU citizens to work. The result is that Eastern European and African women, who make up 47% and 26% respectively of Amsterdam-based prostitutes according to recent government figures, are vulnerable to violent abuse, blackmail and extortion. If they go to the police, as more than 500 did last year, they risk being deported. In Belgium and Italy, residency permits are offered to prostitutes who denounce abuses in the sex industry. There is no such system in Holland.

In 2000 the annual turnover of the prostitutes in Amsterdam was estimated at €80 million (£55 million). 'It's a huge market,' said one police source. It used to be just Dutch gangs and relatively easy to keep an eye on Now it is more international and very hard to monitor. You have dangerous and armed criminals involved in trafficking very large numbers of girls from poor areas. There is a limit to what the authorities can do without massive resources.

The police priorities are elsewhere, said Ruth Hopkins, a researcher based in Holland who has published a book on human trafficking in Europe. It makes no sense to shut down the red-light district. They are looking at the symptoms, not the cause. Dutch politics is all about what looks good on the outside, not about an in-depth approach.

Bas Heijne, a columnist for the NRC-Handelsblad newspaper, said Asscher was part of a wave of Dutch politicians who are moral, or at least using morality, in a highly dubious sense. They are trying to overcompensate for a lack of moral values over a long period. They have ideas that are not very well thought-out but that they think should be implemented immediately.

From The Moscow Times

Strip clubs and gambling -- banned until a decade ago under apartheid -- are now big business in South Africa, thanks to a booming economy and the more liberal attitudes that came with the dawn of democracy and an end to international isolation.

And decadence is the name of the game as companies battle to entice a nouveau riche clientele swollen by the growing ranks of the black middle class.

The old Dutchmen in power had very narrow minds, said Lolly Jackson, chief executive and founder of South Africa's most famous chain of strip clubs, Teazers. When we got democracy, people realized this is what they want to do.

Under stringent apartheid-era censorship laws, magazines were forced to cover breasts with stars, bare legs on a packet of stockings were branded pornographic, and casinos were banned by a government dominated by conservative Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French settlers.

South Africans wanting a naughty weekend of sex and gambling had to travel to neighboring Swaziland or to one of the nominally independent "homelands" for blacks.

Censorship collapsed with South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994. Twelve years on, sex is a commodity like any other and 80 percent of the population gambles regularly if you include playing the national lottery.

We have the most liberal constitution in the world, so people are simply doing what they like to do, said Derek Auret, chief executive of the Casino Association of South Africa.

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but anecdotal evidence shows that the number of strip clubs and amount of pornography is growing fast.

The biggest boom appears to be at the top end of the market, as the once-illicit trade formerly confined to the seedy underground joins the mainstream economy and businessmen seek to capitalize on surging consumer spending.

Under the slogan the teaze without the sleaze, Teazers prides itself on its upmarket clientele and inhabits prime real estate in affluent suburbs of the major cities. It has just launched an aggressive ad campaign in key business hubs aimed at high earners.

Teazers is not alone. Newspapers feature advertisements from a plethora of establishments billed as "executive" or "private clubs for gentlemen," and a recent magazine survey showed that almost nine out of 10 executives had visited a strip club.

As strip clubs shed their seedy image and move upmarket, South African women are increasingly opting to accompany their boyfriends or husbands when they go out to ogle other women.

From The Herald

In some ways, the new Sex Capital in Mexico City´s Historic Center looks like any other modern shopping mall. Unlike most other shopping malls, however, it also has a table dance club, a gay discotheque, peep shows and an 18-and-over age limit. Its shops sell exclusively sex-themed products - marital aids, lingerie, condoms, adult videos and books - and the dining area features a stage where young men and women dance and strip down to their undies.

But Sex Capital also has entire passageways of unoccupied shop fronts and a customer flow that most vendors describe unenthusiastically as "so-so." Four months after opening, Mexico´s first sex-themed shopping mall, a symbol of the nation´s increasing openness toward sexuality, is struggling to attract business.

Alberto Kibrit, the mall´s owner acknowledged that promotion had been subdued, and said he was holding back on an advertising blitz until the complex was closer to full capacity.

Another factor that may help to explain the mall´s slow start: in this predominantly Catholic and traditionally conservative society, many people are still just beginning to feel comfortable with the open discussion of sex.

The Mexico of today would certainly not appear to be a sex-shy nation. Mexican films often feature sex scenes that would likely earn an NC-17 rating in the United States. In Mexico City, magazine stands prominently display adult magazines and unlicensed sidewalk vendors set up graphic displays of pirated porn movies. A five-day sex expo - another brainchild of Kibrit and the inspiration for the sex mall project - attracted 80,000 visitors to the capital´s Sports Palace in 2004 and another 100,000 in 2005.

But cinematic sex scenes, openly displayed pornography and sex expos are relatively new phenomena here. And not everyone is comfortable with their arrival.

What we are seeing is a continuous process of openness for Mexico as a culture and as a society, said Rodolfo Hernández, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. We see how Mexican society is facing secularization, and how people have a stronger sense of self-identity with which to decide the way they pursue satisfaction."

The city found itself under mounting pressure as Sex Capital prepared to open. Neighboring business owners protested that the plaza would scare away their customers and attract crime and prostitution, while others argued that the project was inappropriate for the city´s monument- and museum-filled Historic Center.

In the end, the city granted Kibrit his operating permit, but only after he agreed to implement tight security measures and scuttle his plan to offer live sex shows.

Kibrit acknowledges the concerns of the mall´s critics, but insists that his project is ultimately good for the community. It´s better that this is happening here, in an enclosed, controlled space, than out on the Eje Central where little kids can see it, he said, in reference to an avenue around the corner from Sex Capital where the sidewalk sale of hardcore pornography is widespread.

While the majority of the mall´s customers are men, the clientele is still noticeably diverse. Couples are common, as are groups or pairs of women. And while most patrons fall in the 18-to-40 age demographic, visitors in their 50s and 60s can be seen strolling the passageways as well.

As part of its effort to attract a diverse customer base, Sex Capital recently opened the "Woman´s Club," which features male strippers, and the gay-friendly "Arubis" dance club. Many of the mall´s shops offer products geared toward both straight and gay patrons, and the bookstore has an educational section for parents who want to talk to their children about sex.

Kibrit hopes that such inclusiveness - along with his planned publicity barrage - will help to boost the mall´s current average of 20,000 weekly visitors to 50-60,000.

Kibrit said, in Mexico, it is not that difficult to get people interested in sex. But getting people to patronize a sex-themed shopping center may prove to be a more difficult proposition.

Based on an article from Expatica

Brussels claimed this week it is winning the battle against street prostitution, but some city residents stress the problem persists.

Brussels' street prostitution is primarily centered around the Handels or Alhambra city district.

Brussels is adopting a policy of zero tolerance against street prostitution. Deciding to sharply increase the number of patrols, Brussels now conducts inspections twice per month. It also set up a mobile commissionership to study the problem.

And according to city Mayor Freddy Thielemans, the policy is succeeding. Brussels expelled 173 street prostitutes last year, 126 of whom were repatriated to their country of origin. A further 47 were ordered to leave the city. In light of these figures, Thielemans also said at the end of January the number of street prostitutes in the Belgian capital is gradually declining.

Despite the city's zero tolerance policy on street prostitution, residents still complain that problems around the Royal Flemish Theatre in the Alhambra city district persist.

Residents claim the measures that have already been imposed do not offer a permanent solution. They are urging instead a detailed prostitution plan, similar to that drawn up by the Antwerp City Council.

In Antwerp, city authorities have concentrated all prostitution into three streets and are clamping down strictly on the sex industry elsewhere in the city. One of the city's newest methods is to fine the clients of prostitutes who work outside of the tolerated sex zone.

The Alhambra district committee has suggested that Brussels introduce a similar prostitution zone. Not only would prostitution be concentrated within that zone but other services such as police could also be relocated there.

Brussels announced in November 2005 a crackdown against human smuggling, promising to specifically target street prostitution and pimps. It also said it would combat street prostitution by imposing a severe tax on so-called rendezvous houses, where prostitutes perform their work after being picked up from the street by their clients.

Brussels will impose a tax of EUR 2,500 per room in the rendezvous houses. The amount will quickly increase to become a powerful capital impact on the pimps. In total, there are 14 hotels that are designated as rendezvous houses.

But like some city residents and in spite of the city's intensified battle, mayor Thielemans is not 100% satisfied.

He says debate is still needed about a statute for prostitutes and hopes to introduce a legislative initiative which will indicate to local authorities how they should combat prostitution. Currently, street prostitution is not outlawed.

From The Telegraph

A family doctor who has closed his medical practice in a small New Zealand town will reopen for business next month as a brothel-keeper.

Neil Benson wound up his general practice in the seaside settlement of Coopers Beach, 220 miles north of Auckland, in a bitter row with his local health authority over after-hours rostering.

Licensed brothels are legal under New Zealand law and last week a court granted him an operator's certificate for his former surgery.

Coopers Beach, with a population of only a few hundred, is a popular stopping-off point for yachts and pleasure boats. Dr Benson said his brothel would employ "beautiful, experienced professional girls" from outside the district and cater for tourists and locals: Running a brothel is about providing a private service and maintaining confidentiality. That is what my medical practice was about, so it's not a big leap really. The standards of my medical practice were high and that will cross over to the brothel environment. Prostitution already exists in the community. At least this way it gives sex workers a quality working environment where they are treated well.

Spotted on Pattaya Talk

The US Congress just passed a poorly thought out law, based on the FALSE assumption that American men who seek foreign romance are mostly criminals and abusers. This law then takes away the privacy rights of these American men forcing them to jump throught hoops before they can even say "Hi" to a foreign woman. Those that manage to get to the stage of betrothal and marriage face additional road blocks at USCIS.

We fully believe this law to be unconstitutional and hope that if enough attention and action occurs, ie: letters to your Congressman, class action lawsuits, etc, that eventually it will be overturned. Please follow the links below to get more information and to contact your representatives. In the mean time we have to deal with it.

How this Law Affects Heart of Asia Romance Network.

This unfair law takes effect on March 7, 2006. As you know, Heart of Asia provides contact information of mostly Foreign Ladies to men worldwide who wish to communicate with them and hopefully start up a relationship. Currently, as a client you may purchase the address of any woman shown at our website. With her address in hand you contact her directly. If she likes you she responds. Thousands of happy couples and marriages have occured. The new law requires that before a foreign woman's address can be sold to an American Citizen or resident, the following must occur.

A. The American man must complete a questionaire on his criminal and marital background.

B. Heart of Asia must obtain his record from the National Sex Offenders database.

C. Both questionaire and record must be translated to the womans native language.

D. The translated questionaire and record must be provided to the woman.

E. The woman must then certify that she agrees to permit communication.

(she already has, by the way, when she signed up)

F. Only then is the American man allowed to say "Hi".

From The Local

An explosive device was detonated in a sex shop on Gothenburg's Andra Långgatan early on Monday morning.

The whole apartment block shook and windows in the building shattered. One man in the shop was slightly injured, said police. The property houses 149 apartments.

The bomb exploded at about 1.30am and witnesses reported seeing one or two people running from the scene. There was considerable water damage to the property's garage, cellar and store room.

Both the heating and water pipes which run along the ceiling were burst in the explosion and a lot of water leaked out before we could get a plumber in, said one of the residents. The resident said that just one window was broken in the explosion, which is thought to have been caused by a hand grenade being thrown into the shop.

He explained that there are several sex shops on the street and despite protests against their presence in the area, nothing like this had ever happened before.

However, police are taking the incident seriously and while the motive was still unclear at lunchtime on Monday, investigators had not ruled out a disagreement between gangs linked to the local sex trade.Indeed, in the summer there was a shooting incident at a similar shop in the same street.

From Asian Sex Gazette

Late Thursday night, Munbai's Andheri police arrested 23 former bar dancers, who had allegedly taken to prostitution, from an Andheri (East) bar.

In all, 45 persons, 23 former bar dancers, the bar owner, 11 employees and 10 customers, were arrested at around 11 pm in Mayuri bar.

They were booked under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act, on charges of prostitution and soliciting prostitution.

Initial investigations have revealed that the women are Mumbai residents who worked as bar girls in the same bar, before the ban on dance bars. Jointly owned by Harishprasad and Yashoda Shetty, Mayuri was a popular dance bar.

I had received a tip-off that these bar girls were involved in a prostitution racket under the guise of being singers and waitresses at the bar, said Deputy Commissioner of Police R P Sengaonkar. At about 10.30 pm, we sent a dummy customer with Rs 1,000 to check if prostitution was on. He was instructed to come out within 10 minutes if there was no such activity inside, he added.

According to the police, when the 'customer' did not do so, they raided the bar. We found the dummy customer with a girl inside a bedroom on the first floor. Other customers were also found in compromising positions with the women, said Sengaonkar.