Meet Dora DuFran and her cat house of Deadwood; Perle De Vere and the working girls of Cripple Creek; Annie Chambers of Kansas City; and Squirrel Tooth Alice of Sweetwater. In the wild west, prostitution was one of the few career options for women. Western history is filled with many colorful tales of shady ladies and legendary madams. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 21, 2008 - 15 comments

Radar magazine: Secrets of a hipster hooker.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Sep 7, 2008 - 168 comments

Sebastian Horsley - a man who's slept with more than 1,000 prostitutes - gives a controversial and candid account of his experience of paying for sex
posted by zeoslap on Sep 24, 2004 - 40 comments

Winnipeg Police Service's Operation Snapshot: Winnipeg is the first Canadian city to post pictures of johns picking up hookers on their website: "The goal is to discourage customers of street prostitution in these areas. It is NOT to publicly identify individuals. These are random video clips of vehicular and pedestrian traffic in the areas known to be frequented by sex trade workers and their customers. The Winnipeg Police Service acknowledges that not everyone depicted in these clips are sex trade workers or their customers. As a result the faces of all persons and the license plates of all vehicles have been blurred out." However, at least one activist is posting licence plate numbers of johns: "Rev. Lehotsky, of the New Life Ministries, said some people complain he is violating their privacy, but he doesn't have much sympathy. "People have privacy concerns," he said. "But I say, if you're pulling your weenie out in a laneway, you've forfeited your right to privacy." ('Police 'john-cam' riles critics', Winnipeg Free Press, August 26, 2004)
posted by Esco757 on Aug 26, 2004 - 50 comments

"A court found 19 inhabitants of the same village guilty of systematically raping or sexually abusing an eleven-year-old girl who had been prostituted by her own father."

Third-world litany? Try Belgium.
posted by donkeyschlong on Sep 3, 2002 - 42 comments

Brothel Goes Live on Net RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Rio de Janeiro's Vila Mimoza (Pamper Village) brothel is propelling the oldest profession in the world into the 21st century. Within the next two weeks, the Vila Mimoza prostitution cooperative, just north of downtown Rio, plans to launch a Web site (http://www.vilamimoza.com.br) aimed at luring customers and making the "village'' a major stop on the tourism trail. Oh boy. Not much different than porn sites, but the "sex workers' labor movement in the 1970s" history tidbit could be interesting.
posted by adampsyche on Aug 27, 2001 - 1 comment