World Sex Sells News

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has vowed to stop temporary visa-holders from working as prostitutes.

Under existing laws, women whose visas have work rights attached are allowed to work in the sex industry.

Most commonly, this involves women from Southeast Asia who are able to enter Australia on a range of temporary visas and legally work, including working holidaymaker and student visas, Andrews said in a statement. The coalition believes that it is morally inappropriate for temporary visas to be used as a means for people to enter Australia with the intent purpose of working in the sex industry, including in legal brothels.

Andrews said a re-elected coalition government would amend migration regulations to prohibit the practice.

Prostitution Behind the Veil is narrated by the director, Nahid Persson, who fled Iran 20 years ago. Her commentary adds her perspective and contextual information to the film's events. An element of the film is the difficulties faced by a female director shooting a film. Filming prostitution in the street was hard and dangerous, as is evident in the film.

Minna and Fariba are neighbours and good friends. They support one another. Both have to live under the pervasive curtailment of women's rights and the double standards of today's Iranian society. They make a living walking the streets looking for men. They have a choice between leaving their small children at home alone or bringing them along when they have sex with men.

The film is a sympathetic portrait of the two women, exploring their day-to-day life and the workings of prostitution in a country that bans it and prosecutes adulterers, sometimes with the penalty of capital punishment.

Many of the clients find a way to buy sex and still comply with Muslim law: they marry the women in what is called 'Sighe', a temporary marriage sanctioned in Shia Islam. Sighe can last from two hours up to 99 years. Both Minna and Fariba enter into Sighe with clients, and Fariba is in a Sighe marriage with a neighbour, Habib, that lasts six months. Giving his perspective on temporary marriage, Habib says that Sighe is a way to help poor women, it is an act of mercy in the name of Allah.

The film follows the two women for more than a year. It describes their middle-class backgrounds and their submission to treacherous men and drugs. We see how Fariba manages to quit drugs and prostitution, only to find herself temporarily married to a man who will not let her leave the house.

Japan has come up with a fine idea for a fun bar, a 'panty bar'.

It is a place where one drinks, gets drunk, and then drops one's inhibitions. Particularly when women drop their underthings.

Shukan Taishu's reporter was spotted this unfamiliar term, which appeared in a cryptic classified ad in one of Tokyo's evening tabloids. The ad simply read: Panty bar. Lewd women. Exhibitionism. Peeping.

This particular panty bar, according to our reporter, operates on a members-only basis. The first-time outlay comes to 15,000 yen, with each subsequent visit 10,000 yen.

The establishment is lushly carpeted, requiring arrivals to remove their shoes at the entrance. Instead of chairs, there's a sunken well in the floor, similar to the "hori-kotatsu" in Japanese-style restaurants, which enables patrons' legs to dangle beneath while seated at the counter. It seats a maximum of 10.

In addition to the counter, the room features a "show space" the size of a queen-size bed. Red and yellow lamps are strategically positioned to create an erotic ambience -- suggestively subdued, but by no means too dark to conceal the activities therein.

The reporter plopped himself down beside an unaccompanied woman. Glancing up at the ceiling, he saw it was festooned with women's panties of all sizes, shapes and colors.

Oh those? says the proprietor. They were all left behind by our customers. Would you like to take a whiff? Some are still fairly fresh, if you get my drift...

And Kyo-chan, as the woman's name turned out to be, required very little encouragement. Goaded on by the proprietor, she sloshed down the remaining contents of her scotch and clambered over to the show space, gesturing for our reporter to follow. Whereupon she hiked up her skirt, revealing diaphanous panties, beneath which an abundant black bush beckoned.

The reporter was soon running his fingers up and down against her crotch, and felt secretions -- first heat, followed by considerable moisture -- percolating within.

Do you want to see more? she asks in a husky voice. She slid the material to one side and spread herself invitingly. His finger took the plunge.

Just as there are exhibitionistic women who will bring themselves to orgasm before a panting male audience, there are women who, after losing their inhibitions to strong drink, seem to have no objection to snatching a strange man's schlong and giving it a friendly fondle. That's the kind of promiscuous place a panty bar is.

The female patrons of this particular shop are known to be somewhat domineering, and there have been occasions when, encountering a male of masochistic proclivities, the two will engage in a full-fledged SM session.

There's something about my place that really brings out people's suppressed libidos, The proprietor winks.

  Comment:

Tommy Ducks

26th November 2007

Thanks to Patrick

There was once a pub in Manchester  where panties festooned the ceiling - quote taken from a travel website:

Tommy Ducks used to be famous for having a ceiling festooned with the underwear of it's female clientele. The tradition was that if you were a female, you had to donate the underwear you were wearing if visiting Tommy Ducks for the first time.

Unfortunately, Tommy ducks is no more. It is an EX duck. It has ceased to be. It has gone to meet its maker. It is pining for the fjords. It was bulldozed in the early nineties to make way for the car park of the Bridgewater Hall.

 

South Korean authorities have punished nearly 24,000 prostitutes, pimps or clients in a two-month operation against the sex trade, the National Police Agency have said.

Most the 23,626 caught, of which about 19,900 were clients, were fined. 32 people accused of more serious offences were formally arrested and detained pending trial.

Clients faced a maximum fine of three million won (3,315 dollars) and brothel owners up to 10 years in jail or 100 million won in fines.

It was our third special crackdown on prostitution this year. The next one will begin in late December, the officer said of the latest operation, which began in August.

It was one of a series of police crackdowns since a new anti-prostitution law with tougher penalties was passed in 2004. Last year alone 35,000 clients were persecuted.

The anti-prostitution drive has resulted in a sharp increase in incidents of South Koreans involved in the foreign sex trade. The government plans to revise the law to punish citizens caught buying sex abroad.

It is been two years since dance bars were banned in Mumbai but many are still running, and the Mumbai Police is cracking down on them.

Recently, nine girls were arrested for soliciting customers at one such bar during a late night raid. A few days ago, six girls were arrested in a similar raid. Nine girls were arrested. They were soliciting customers, says Police Inspector R B Mane.

Many dance bars continue to thrive in some form or the other. Some feature live orchestras to entertain customers, and have women waiters. Though it is legally allowed only up to 9: 30 pm, the bars generally close around 1:30 am.

Dance bar owners say the police crackdown is not justified, as the Supreme Court is still hearing their case. This is legal extortion, says president, Dance Bars Association, Manjeet Singh Sethi.

While many of the dance bars still survive, reinvented as Orchestra Bars, fate hasn't been this kind to the dance bar girls themselves. Prostitution is up 10 fold. They have so many expenses and can only earn 100 -200 rupees a day as waiters, says Singh.

Plans for a sex shop at Nelson Bay, in the New South Wales Hunter region, have been shelved, now that the Land and Environment Court has rejected the proposal.

John Mudie wanted to open the adult shop but Port Stephens council knocked it back after receiving 200 letters of objection.

He appealed to the Land and Environment Court, which has upheld the council's decision because of fears the shop could impact on the social amenity of the area.

Mudie says the reaction to the shop has been blown out of proportion: There's no evidence to suggest an adult shop will create social issues in the community, I mean a pub offers more social problems, gambling offers more social problems than ours.

Finnish Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund says that the law making it a crime to buy sex services under certain conditions is not working well in its present form. It has been a crime in Finland to buy sex services from victims of pimping and human trafficking since October 2006.

However, there have been no convictions under the new law, even though the police have uncovered a few procurement organisations while the law has been in force.

Police in Helsinki reported that they had uncovered a large Russian-led organisation, which is suspected of running a prostitution ring involving 150 women in 19 Finnish cities and towns from 2005 to 2007. No customers were arrested in the case.

A year is a short time to draw any conclusions, but it seems that the law is not working as it is written now , Holmlund said to Helsingin Sanomat. According to the Interior Minister it is hard for a buyer to know if a prostitute is a victim of human trafficking or pimping. Furthermore, even if the buyer knows, it would be hard to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Holmlund feels that it would be clearer if the purchase of sex services were either completely forbidden, or fully allowed.

The Ministry of Justice, which prepared the draft legislation, initially wanted a total ban on buying sex services. Parliament changed the draft to the form that is on the books now.

Minister of Justice Tuija Brax says that the Ministry of Justice has set up a working group a few weeks ago to consider the issue. According to Brax's aide Ari Heikkinen, it is premature to assess whether or not the working group will come out in favour of changing the law.

Plans for a giant bordello in Berlin have caused the usual uproar. Nutters want a ban on prostitution in the neighborhood.

The corner of Kurfrstenstrasse and Potsdamer Strasse in the Schöneberg district of the German capital Berlin has become an unofficial red-light district, dominated by a six-story "sex mall" called Love Sex and Dreams (LSD). The owners want to install a 40-room bordello in the same building -- much to the consternation of nutters, who are now calling for a prostitution ban in the city district.

We have nothing against prostitution, which we've always lived with here... BUT ...we are against its expansion, Heidrun Abraham, a member of the Potsdamer Strasse neighborhood society that opposes the bordello, told the newspaperDie Welt.

Prostitution is legal in Germany as long as the women work for themselves and not under a pimp. Berlin also has no "district bans" on sex work, which has kept prostitution from clustering in one part of the city.

But Ekkehard Band, the mayor of the district Tempelhof-Schöneberg, has suggested a ban on prostitution in the district as a way to keep the bordello out: We will use all legal means ... to keep the neighborhood from completely falling apart. The social effects (of the sex mall) are already severe for the area.

But such a ban would be unprecedented in Berlin. Stephanie Klee, from the German Society of Sexual Services, told another paper, Die Tageszeitung, that a district ban could eventually lead to a concentration of sex work elsewhere and create a red-light district resembling Hamburg's notorious Reeperbahn.

Klee said a more even distribution of smaller bordellos around Berlin has kept the sex-work scene relatively free of crime.

Illegal brothels operating in the Ku-ring-gai local government area could become the first adult entertainment establishments in Australia's News South Wales to have their gas, electricity and water cut off under new legislation.

The laws mean councils now only have to gain circumstantial evidence, such as ads in newspapers, to prove to a court that a property is being used illegally for sexual services.

Councils previously had to acquire direct evidence, which involved private detectives being paid thousands of dollars of ratepayers' money to have sex in brothels suspected of operating without council approval.

Illegal brothels that fail to comply with a court's closure orders now also run the risk of having their power and water supplies switched off.

The laws came into effect a fortnight ago.

The Adult Business Association, which represents about 60 legal brothels, welcomed the commencement of the Brothels Legislation Amendment Act. Its spokesman, Chris Seage, said illegal brothels tarnished the reputation of approved establishments because illegal ones often offered unsafe sex as part of their services: They are a menace to the community.

Janelle Fawkes, a spokeswoman for the Scarlet Alliance, which represents sex workers, rejected Seage's comments: Brothels receiving council approval does not equate to better or safer working conditions for sex workers. The large commercial brothels see smaller brothels and individual sex workers as competition. Obviously legal brothel lobbyists are promoting the new laws to cut down competition … Recent ICAC cases indicate council regulation of brothels creates an opportunity for corruption. Extra powers will increase that potential.

The Victorian Government is considering radical News South Wales (NSW) style measures to crack down on illegal brothels.

Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson said he was considering reforms similar to those in place in NSW to make it easier to close illegal brothels.

Robinson had not decided on what shape the legislation might take but the measures could include allowing extensive use of circumstantial evidence so councils and other bodies could mount cases against illegal brothels.

Other measures included letting councils or police use evidence of sexual activity without identifying clients and employees.

Electricity, water and gas could also be cut off if brothels failed to obey closure orders, the definition of an illegal brothel could be expanded, and a new offence created of failing to comply with an order to close an illegal brothel.

The moves come after the City of Melbourne wrote to the state government urging it to introduce tougher legislation to help control illegal brothels.

Hundreds of outraged prostitutes are ready to fight a morality campaign targeting their trade by marching nude in the streets of Bolivia's capital.

The threat comes after angry mob on Wednesday destroyed bars and brothels in El Alto, a suburb near La Paz.

After the violence, authorities decided to close more than a thousand houses of prostitution in El Alto.

Lily, speaking on behalf of the prostitutes, warned that prostitutes would march nude in the streets of La Paz and threatened to forsake checks from health authorities: Our businesses are burned and we are left in the street, our money is stolen and we are beaten. They want to deprive us of our source of income.

For three days, about 30 bars and more than a dozen brothels have been ransacked and furniture torched, said Ronald Perez, a security official.

Organizers of the morality campaign have demanded the mayor close several hundred illegal brothels and enforce a ban on minors visiting them. The activists have also called for ensuring the houses of prostitution operate a good distance from churches, schools and hospitals.

The intervention of a legislator led Bolivian prostitutes on Friday to suspend their drastic protest over the closing of brothels in the city of El Alto.

Scores of the city's prostitutes started a hunger strike on Monday at a health centre, and three of the women had their lips sewn shut under partial anaesthesia at the clinic on Wednesday in protest.

The women also drew blood from their bodies to write protest slogans. They were planning to be buried in caskets in grounds belonging to the municipality of El Alto.

We trust the good faith of legislator Guillermo Mendoza, who is keen on finding a solution, Lily Cortez, the leader of about 500 affected prostitutes in El Alto, said on Friday.

Last week, violent protests led to the plundering and arson of the city's brothels. Under pressure from residents, city authorities decided to close all brothels.

City authorities closed about 20 brothels and 30 bars, after angry residents demonstrated for weeks against the brothels on the so-called "Sin Street" in El Alto's red light district. Protesters said the businesses had a bad influence on young men and attracted crime.

Prostitutes accused the demonstrators of hypocrisy, saying most of their clients are family men.

El Alto Mayor Fanor Nava said Thursday that 370 bars and 20 brothels have been authorised to operate. However, he noted that the city has over 1,500 clandestine bars and an undetermined number of dating brothels.

Nutter politicians have responded positively after Policing Minister Paul Goggins told the Commons Northern Ireland Grand Committee he plans to introduce legislation next year to outlaw the practice of men cruising the streets looking for prostitutes.

Former Lord Mayor, the SDLP's Pat McCarthy, whose council ward represents the area, said: Kerb crawling is an absolute plague for residential areas and I am quite sure that it even deters some business investment. A ban will mean that people will have the right to seek proper protection from the police and ensure that their community functions as they want it to.

After Mr Goggins disclosed details to a Commons Grand Committee, the Northern Ireland Office confirmed that details would be released before Christmas.

A spokeswoman said: Draft legislation containing proposed new offences on kerb crawling and soliciting will be published before the end of the year.

The proposals will form part of the Sexual Offences Order which will go out for further public consultation.

When a spokesman for the NIO was asked if the new legislation would legalise "mini-brothels" which had been proposed in consultation, she said: In July 2006 the Government published a policy consultation on reforming the law on sexual offences. The views expressed following that consultation have been considered and draft legislation will be published before the end of the year.

Asked about the policy of legalising "mini-brothels" in the UK, a Home Office spokesman said: The proposal to amend the definition of a brothel to enable two or three women to work from a private premises in order to increase their safety remains an important part of the Government's Prostitution Strategy, although initial work on implementation has focused very much on street-based sex markets and the commercial sexual exploitation of children and those who have been trafficked.

Concerns have been raised about the potential impact of such a change and so we intend to consult further to ensure that the proposal would achieve our objectives of increasing safety, without inadvertently causing more difficulties, either for enforcement agencies, the women involved or for their neighbours.

South Koreans are increasingly turning to the Internet and mobile phones to buy sex following a tougher anti-prostitution law in 2004 targeting brothels.

Major red-light districts throughout South Korea dropped 42% since 2004 to 992 this year, according to National Police Agency records released by a legislative office.

But the number of alternative more discrete locations where sex can be bought — karaoke bars, barber shops and massage parlors — increased 26% to 139,273 during that period, the records showed.

In a news release, the office of Ahn Myoung-ock, a member of the National Assembly's health and welfare committee, said the Internet and mobile phones are emerging as key conduits for prostitution. Sex Web sites are posting prices and services along with photographs: In particular, female university students are looking for easy, convenient part-time jobs through these sites, but the oversight over these sites has been insufficient .

Prostitution is illegal in South Korea, and the 2004 law imposed tougher punishment on human traffickers, pimps and others involved in prostitution.

The Bulgarian government has abruptly reversed its longstanding move toward legalizing prostitution, part of a broader trend in Europe to make prostitution illegal as a way to combat sexual trafficking.

Prostitution exists in a legal gray area in Bulgaria, a small but key country for the European sex trade.

We should be very definite in saying that selling flesh is a crime, Interior Minister Rumen Petkov said at a forum on human trafficking that was also attended by the president, the minister of justice and the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria.

Bulgaria is only the latest European country to shift its approach to prostitution. Finland changed its law last year and Norway is on the verge of following suit. Even in Amsterdam, the city government has proposed shutting down more than a quarter of the famed storefront brothels in the city's red-light district. And in the Czech Republic and the three Baltic republics, pushes for legalization similar to the Bulgarian one have also been turned back.

The fight against legal prostitution has been led by an unusual coalition of allies, including the Bush administration, feminist groups and the Swedish government. The Swedish model, which punishes the customers rather than the prostitutes themselves, is seen as successful in Europe precisely because it targets the demand for paid sex without criminalizing those involved, mostly women, who proponents of such measures describe as the real victims.

The Swedish model is by no means the only one. The Hungarian government announced in September that it would give entrepreneur permits to prostitutes to help bring them into the legal economy - and to collect tax revenues.

The most common arguments against the Swedish model are those that have long been used in the legalization debate, that prostitution is all but impossible to eradicate and it is better with some measure of control. Even if it is not a crime for the women, they would be forced to hide to protect their clients.

If they make the prostitution illegal, it will go much more underground, more inaccessible for services and help, for police and for protection, said Nadia Kozhouharova, a psychotherapist who works with abused women.

The Swedish law went into effect on Jan. 1, 1999, prohibiting the purchase of sexual services. While the law allows for jail sentences, so far customers have only been punished with fines.