Operation Midnight Climax is a new web series about how the CIA used prostitutes to test LSD on unsuspecting American citizens. "Operation Midnight Climax was a CIA mind-control research program that began in the 1950's. The project consisted of CIA-run safehouses in San Francisco, Marin and New York. It was established in order to study the effects of LSD on unconsenting individuals. Prostitutes on the CIA payroll were instructed to lure clients back to the safehouses, where they were given a wide range of substances, including LSD, and monitored behind two-way mirrors." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jul 4, 2009 - 71 comments

Tart cards [NSFW] are the means by which many London prostitutes advertise their services. Step into almost any central London phone box and you can contemplate up to 80 cards inviting you to be tied, teased, spanked or massaged.... [Wallpaper Magazine] asked designers – from students to superstars – to find the tart hiding in every typeface and create their own graphic numbers.... all 450 cards can be viewed here. [NSFW] [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Jun 26, 2009 - 39 comments

Acting on criticisms and pressure from law enforcement, Craigslist has announced it will shut down its "erotic services" category in the U.S. Reaction is mixed and some are suggesting that online prostitution will simply find a new name.
posted by stinkycheese on May 14, 2009 - 61 comments

Ok, stop me if you’ve heard this one: an ex-cop accused of killing his fourth wife gets engaged a fifth time and tries to get a job in a brothel on a reality t.v. show (video), but before he can, he's arrested today for killing his third wife. [more inside]
posted by Smedleyman on May 7, 2009 - 40 comments

Prostitution is legal in two states: Nevada and Rhode Island. Some legislators in Rhode Island have been trying to close the loophole for years, to no avail. Yesterday, for the first time, the bill took a huge step toward passage. [more inside]
posted by lunit on May 1, 2009 - 65 comments

Two Christian ministries, Hookers for Jesus and JC's Girls aim to "save" Las Vegas sex workers from their professions by introducing them to Christianity. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 14, 2009 - 35 comments

Asymmetrical Information and Hooker-nomics.
posted by chunking express on Mar 16, 2009 - 63 comments

"Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy. But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Second, according to a recent report from the US Council on Foreign Relations, "Iran serves as the major transport hub for opiates produced by [Afghanistan], and the UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that Iran has as many as 1.7 million opiate addicts." That is, 5% of Iran's adult, non-elderly population of 35 million is addicted to opiates. That is an astonishing number, unseen since the peak of Chinese addiction during the 19th century." [more inside]
posted by 445supermag on Feb 24, 2009 - 72 comments

Brothels in Germany (pics): Photographer Patric Fouad's book, Frauenzimmer, takes a look at the insides of German brothels. (mostly SFW unless you are offended by the occasional sex toy hanging on the wall and blurry porn in the background)
posted by chillmost on Oct 15, 2008 - 61 comments

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

Christiane F was a 1981 German film that portrayed the life of young heroin addicts growing up in 1970's Berlin. Notable for the collaboration of David Bowie, the film became well known for its realistic portrayal of drug use. [more inside]
posted by panboi on Jun 29, 2008 - 28 comments

"This might be a weird request, but I just want to cuddle," Nevada Sagebrush columnist Jordan Butler decided to do something for his last column (before graduating college) that he hadn't done before. He decided to solicit a brothel. Here's the catch: he wasn't interested in paying for sex. He just wanted something to write about for his last column. The result is half after school special and half Twilight Zone episode, but it's all funny.
posted by ZachsMind on May 23, 2008 - 55 comments

William Finnegan reports on rescuing the victims of the global sex trade. You can also listen to Finnegan talking about the research for the article. (New Yorker)
posted by fourcheesemac on May 1, 2008 - 11 comments

"I'm not a politician, I'm an artist. Depravity is part of the job description," says self-styled dandy, former drug addict, and controversial British author Sebastian Horsely, who was denied entrance to the US by customs officials at Newark Airport on the grounds of "moral turpitude," a wide net that encompasses everything from fornication to being a "nuisance." Shades of Oscar Wilde.
posted by digaman on Mar 21, 2008 - 42 comments

New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer (Wiki) has been linked to a high-class prostitution ring.
posted by griphus on Mar 10, 2008 - 280 comments

Steven Leavitt and Sudhir Venkatesh, of Freakonomics fame, investigate prostitution. According to the working paper [pdf], prostitutes in Chicago are more likely to sleep with the police than get arrested by them.
posted by Sticherbeast on Jan 12, 2008 - 27 comments

Hooker raped & robbed by justice system. Apparently, if you're a prostitute and you're gang-raped at gunpoint, that's not actually rape, but "theft of services". In Philadelphia, judge Teresa Carr Deni ruled exactly that in a case where a woman posted a Craigslist ad offering sex for money -- but when she met with her John, instead of the agreed upon exhange, he pulled a gun on her, raped her, then invited four other men to rape her as well. As if this weren't sad enough, a near-identical case -- with the same defendant -- came up four days later, and the prosecutor decided not to even try it as to not put the woman through the misery of being so resoundly denied justice. Devolution is real, spuds.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Oct 20, 2007 - 61 comments

Frustrated with perceived inefficacy of local law enforcement and government, residents of Calle de la Montera have started posting video of criminal behaviour (mainly prostitution) on their street to YouTube. The Data Protection Agency (tasked with privacy enforcement) is not amused (in Spanish; machine translation), but the neighbourhood watch group maintains it is not breaking the law (m.t.).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 5, 2007 - 15 comments

Meet Uma Khurana, a government school teacher in Old Delhi, who was almost lynched after rumours that she had forced her students into prostitution started doing the rounds, was vindicated when it was discovered that the sting operation to frame her was a scam.
posted by hadjiboy on Sep 30, 2007 - 4 comments

Amsterdam: a deal has been made that will shut down a third of the prostitute windows in the city's famed red light district [nsfw] and turn the buildings into shops or housing. Advocacy group De Rode Draad (The Red Thread) worries that a shortage of windows will push prostitutes away from the safe, monitored areas. [via QI] [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Sep 25, 2007 - 45 comments

The Price. Confessions of a College Call Girl is a blog by... well a prostitute who is in college. While her posts are mostly entertaining stories about her experiences, her most recent entry addresses e-mailers who have expressed interest in her field.
posted by spec80 on Aug 31, 2007 - 96 comments

The Aphrodite Project : both an homage to Aphrodite and her prostitute-priestesses as well as a practical tool for the contemporary sex worker. Or, GPS platform shoes for street hos. Check the demo.
posted by Burhanistan on Aug 18, 2007 - 23 comments

From Hunter to Hunted "In his quest to free slaves around the world, Aaron Cohen thought he’d seen it all. Then he went to Myanmar."
posted by homunculus on Jul 1, 2007 - 25 comments

"Heavy set, older, red heads and even black chicks can have me if they can pay the bill. No real female will be refused." The director of a film Roger Ebert initially claimed was less entertaining than a colonoscopy (though he recanted after it was recut) is offering the perfect Christmas gift.
posted by hifiparasol on Dec 15, 2006 - 74 comments

Winners of an international poster competition to raise awareness about prostitution (probably NSFW). Quanto "wants to arouse new reflections to bring forward a topic that tends more and more to hide and become unconspicuous," by "attempting to explore the meaning of the word "prostitution" both from a moral and a sexual standpoint." 200 more entrants. the via is also teh NSFW .
posted by Rumple on Nov 20, 2006 - 26 comments

Paradise Lost: Greed, Sex Slavery, Forced Abortions and Right-Wing Moralists. Saipan is not a pleasant place to live or work.
posted by chunking express on Sep 18, 2006 - 41 comments

The demand side of sex trafficking In international policy circles, it is increasingly common to hear talk of the need to address “the demand-side of trafficking”, and a number of research studies on this phenomenon have recently been commissioned. Though the idea that “sex trafficking” is stimulated by the demand for commercial sexual services has a certain commonsense appeal, this paper argues that questions about the relationship between exploitative and abusive labour practices in the sex sector and the demand for commercial sexual services are rather more complicated than is allowed in dominant anti-trafficking discourse.
posted by halekon on Aug 3, 2006 - 30 comments

Pink Expenses is a fun little hack. Select from a list of racy services, get presented with a plausable looking receipt, then cut it out and submit it with your next corporate expense report. Hilarity ensues (or you get fired, which is still kind of funny).
posted by mathowie on Apr 6, 2006 - 22 comments

These folks may do a prostitute’s taxes (nytimes), but who does a prostitute’s laundry? (more Sifl and Olly on YouTube)
posted by jrb223 on Apr 6, 2006 - 17 comments

Farang men and Thai bar girls:
Some farangs quickly lose the plot; some know how to treat a bar girl; some run complicated "free sex" scams; some are exploitative creeps.
Bar girls can be sticky; some like to collect sponsors.
Is true love possible? The odds are against it.
posted by Meatbomb on Mar 29, 2006 - 116 comments

xFamily Values. A collaborative work by former members documenting The Family/Children of God religion/cult. Uniquely reflecting the sexual revolution, they encouraged prostitution as a means of gaining converts and offerings (Flirty Fishing). Plus they had comic books for the kids. But in concordance with other cults, abuse, incest, mind-control, secrecy, charismatic leaders and leaderettes, insanity, and irreparable harm were in full swing. (No more inside. There may be PDFs involved. Please note that much of this material is not safe for work, or anywhere else.)
posted by cytherea on Feb 10, 2006 - 34 comments

Pro-prostitution blog. So you've seen the careful, rational and spell-checked arguments for the decriminalization of prostitution. Now read this instead. And don't forget, the author took time out on christmas eve to tell you what it's like in a central american cathouse.
posted by Mayor Curley on Feb 8, 2006 - 102 comments

He would have been okay in New Zealand, where prostitution is legal. But when James Bond director Lee Tamahori dressed up in women's clothes, and approached an undercover Hollywood police officer with an offer of oral sex, he was arrested and charged with soliciting an act of prostitution and loitering with the intent to commit prostitution. Hugh Grant's career didn't seem too badly affected by his indiscretions with Divine Brown, but some might argue they were more palatable to the general public. (Other Tamahori films include, xXx: State of the Union and New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors.)
posted by The Monkey on Feb 2, 2006 - 24 comments

A brief history of the oldest profession institution. via Explorator.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 22, 2006 - 16 comments

Oddly obsessive statistical analysis of the rates paid by customers of legal Nevada prostitutes, broken down by sex act, attractiveness, body type and presence or absence of a jacuzzi, among other topics. [via Cynical-C, who swears he found it by accident]
posted by mediareport on Jan 9, 2006 - 32 comments

Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor
"A proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced prostitution and labor was drafted by the Pentagon last summer, but five defense lobbying groups oppose key provisions and a final policy still appears to be months away, according to those involved and Defense Department records." ...this is "zero tolerance" ?
posted by specialk420 on Dec 27, 2005 - 42 comments

Heidi Fleiss plans to open a brothel . . . . . . which will cater to women in Nevada. Money quote: " . . . you've got the situation with the old husband leaving his wife for the younger girl, and the lady sitting at home crying. Well, now she has a place to go and say, 'Right back at you, buddy, and on your credit card'.
posted by chai-rista on Nov 18, 2005 - 128 comments

She was, after all, a girl you could take anywhere. One minute she could be the slinkiest cat on the hot tin roof, wrapping her dancer’s body... around a client’s body in a hotel elevator. Then, when the door slid open, she’d look classic, like a wife even, on the arm of a Wall Street CEO or Asian electronics magnate.

Last week, she was busted.
posted by Kwantsar on Aug 4, 2005 - 55 comments

"We must remain faithful to the established principles of the scientific method and not allow theological beliefs and dogma to interfere," Pedro Chequer, director of the Brazilian government's AIDS program, said in an interview in Brasilía. [NYT link] Earlier this year Brazil was the first country to reject US aid for fighting HIV/Aids because of the provision in The Leadership Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 which would have required Brazil, where prositution is regulated and legal, to condemn commercial sex work. Along with the global gag rule, which prevents NGOs receiving US aid from discussing abortion with their clients (or even from advocating for safe and legal abortions with their own governments), US policies based on theological imperatives are endangering women worldwide. "Using a conservative estimate, U.S. assistance could have helped prevent 10 percent of the over 2 million deaths in developing countries from unsafe abortion over the past 30 years." Also: The Global Gag Rule Impact Project.
posted by OmieWise on Jul 25, 2005 - 11 comments

The 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report by the US State Department has been released. It reviews 150 countries.The introduction provides a broad overview of the report with anecdotal stories, legislation imperatives, methodology, definitions, specific country reviews and suggested remedies. It is a commendable document and well worth perusing. UN page. via
posted by peacay on Jun 7, 2005 - 2 comments

Yoda/gigolo a little flash friday fun
posted by hortense on May 27, 2005 - 16 comments

Every now and again, a story or scandal falls off the newswire that reminds you good guys and bad guys don't happen in real life. The fantastic original expose and ongoing coverage of the Dick Dasen case in Montana is one of them. The testimony of dozens or hundreds of women Dick Dasen, a wealthy Christian pillar-of-the-community businessman type, has paid for sex (or sometimes nothing at all) over several years are bringing the Flathead Valley meth scene to light, and thanks to what I personally think is some excellent local reporting by the New West, you can read along as it happens.
posted by saysthis on May 9, 2005 - 38 comments

How Kids (Like Yours) Get Trapped on the Streets Bob Parsons gives a chilling summary of how the vortex of homelessness can suck young people into a world of drugs and prostitution even faster than you might realize. (Makes you wonder how many MeFi users might be in this exact situation.)
posted by oissubke on Feb 15, 2005 - 43 comments

“If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits”

Prostitution was legalized in Germany just over two years ago, and brothel owners, who must pay tax and employee health insurance, have been granted access to official government databases of jobseekers and have equal status with any other employer. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse. Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job or lose her unemployment benefit.

“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry. The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Jan 30, 2005 - 119 comments

A year ago, NYT reporter Nicholas Kristof purchased two Cambodian prostitutes (discussed here). Today, he's published an update, along with a multimedia presentation about the girls' lives.
posted by mudpuppie on Jan 19, 2005 - 19 comments

Abandoned call girl messageboard circa 1998 The unprotected internal board of a call girl service. Wow. [via]
posted by Count Ziggurat on Jan 11, 2005 - 49 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

Working Girls Jay, your average john, discusses his experiences with Working Girls -- as in, they work the "oldest profession". Nicole, a Working Girl, shares her experiences. Together, they try to educate people about what it means to be a "Callgirl" and the motivations behind those who are johns and prostitutes.
posted by SpecialK on Jul 11, 2004 - 92 comments