Adult World News

Some members of the public will be given a greater say on whether table-dancing clubs are given licences under new plans unveiled by the Scottish Government.

Ministers will consult on proposals to establishnew licensing restrictions for sexual entertainment venues. The Government said the consultation also seeks specific views on whether licensing authorities should be able to totally ban such venues.

The Government is launching the consultation after similar plans were rejected in the last Parliament.

The move has the support of MSPs and gender extremists. The Women's Support Project in Glasgow said:

This move recognises that what is for sale on premises is sexual arousal and such premises should have their own specific license and no longer fall in the same category as leisure or entertainment venues.

This move also provides better consistency with the overall approach in Scotland which sees lap dancing as a form of exploitation and helps support a culture in which women are viewed in narrow and objectifying ways.

'Justice' Secretary Kenny MacAskill claimed:

This consultation seeks views on proposals that will give licensing authorities the powers to reflect local views and control the presence and operation of such venues in their areas.

These venues undoubtedly divide opinion. However, the proposed licensing regime is about ensuring the safety and protection of customers and workers while making sure the interests of local communities are protected.

The newspaper chose not to include opinions from the venues, employees or customers.

Nordic Choice Hotels have been pedalling ludicrous propaganda equating porn with child sex trafficking.

The HR & Manager for the company spewed that 1.2 million children are trafficked annually and many of them are sold into the porn industry. To show their commitment to this nonsense, the hotel chain has now banned adult entertainment from the in-room offerings at its 168-properties around the Nordic region.

Nordic Choice Hotels CEO, Torgeir Silseth spouted:

We believe it is a natural part of our social responsibility to not support an industry that contributes to trafficking or other forms of trafficking.

So if you must stay at Comfort Inns, 'Quality' Inns or Clarion hotels, you had better take your own entertainment.

The Prague Assembly has approved a bill to control prostitution giving it the status of regular business that is to be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament.

Under the bill, sex worker would have to apply for a licence and brothels would need an official consent to their activities as well. Municipalities would issue the respective permits and thus influence the number and location of brothels on their area.

According to the legislation, sex workers would have to be over 18, without criminal record and in good health. They would have to undergo regular medical check-ups. They would also ask the respective municipal authority for permit. Subsequently, sex workers would pay taxes.

Those working without a permit would face a fine from 15,000 (£500) to two million crowns (£66,000).

It is hoped that the Chamber of Deputies would debate the bill in the autumn. However there is an alternative approach with Deputy Viktor Paggio preparing another bill to legalise prostitution.

The US government has just published the 2013 annual report on Trafficking in People.

This grades 188 countries and territories on their efforts to tackle trafficking. Tier 1 is compliant with US wishes, Tier 2 isn't but is moving in the right direction, and Tier 3 is incompliant. Then there is an extra category of Tier 2 Watch List which means making the right noises but not actually making progress.

The report places Thailand on its Tier 2 Watch List for a fourth consecutive year. Thailand was previusly granted a waiver from an automatic downgrade to Tier 3 this year, because the government has written a plan that could mean it soon meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, if implemented. But the country will not be eligible for another waiver in 2014, so has just one year to make progress on the issue

In fact Luis CdeBaca, a US ambassador at Large, who introduced the report made special mention of Thailand, perhaps at least understanding that government rules often have little effect in the country:

Well, I think Thailand is an interesting issue. I think a lot of folks came to the human trafficking issue about 15 years ago. In many ways, it was Thailand and specifically the flight of the hill tribe girls from up north, in sex slavery in the tourist zones, that caught a lot of people's attention when we were first putting together the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in the late 1990s. But I think with time, what we've seen is a much more nuanced anti-trafficking profile in Thailand, with it being a source country and a destination country with folks in labor as well as sex, so everything from fishing, agriculture, textiles, domestic servants.

The notion of the Thai fishing fleet has been something that we've been raising more and more as we've come to realize that there is just so much abuse out on those boats. I think it was a United Nations intelligence project that came out a couple years ago with some research -- they interviewed a bunch of Cambodian men who had escaped from the boats, and over half of them had seen one of their fellow crewmembers murdered by the captains. And I think that there's just that level of abuse that we see.

It's about closing the zones of impunity, whether the zone of impunity is being out past the 12 mile limit and so feeling like you can operate without any police or coast guard oversight, whether it's a zone of impunity because the victims are, say for instance, illegal immigrants from Burma or Cambodia, or are members of ethnic minorities like those hill tribes girls, or whether there's a zone of impunity because of corruption. And we know that that's a problem. It's something that we've raised with the Thais. But we see such limited anti-corruption efforts, with only one public official this last year being convicted for forced labor related charges.

So it's something that is kind of a multifaceted problem, but also as a result then it has many reasons why it would be hard to address it under the current Thai approach. Now, we'd like the see the Royal Thai Police and the new -- what's called the DSI, which is kind of their equivalent of the FBI, be able to come together in an interagency way to investigate and prosecute these cases. We'd like to see them working with the -- what's the MSDHS, which is the social and health service, which has assisted almost 300 victims in government-run facilities over the last year, so it's not that nothing is being done. But in a country when you have so many victims in that country, when you have so many people who are being held in forced labor or sex trafficking, there just needs to be so much more done.

Again, it's I think the classic case of a country on the Watch List where there are some activities, but it just never -- it's like an engine that just doesn't catch. So it's certainly not having the results that we would need to see to be able to upgrade the country. On the other hand, there are results, and so as a result, you did not see a downgrade to Tier 3 of Thailand in this reporting cycle.

Comment: The usual nonsense from Gail Dines

17th June 2013. From Alan

Interesting piece by Carole Cadwalladr. In many respects, it's fair-minded and makes some effort at balance, even if she does seem a bit naive in being shocked that a Google search for rape porn turned up, err, rape porn. I quite like Cadwalladr, who seems a much more grounded writer that some of the scribblers at the Graun and Obs who identify themselves as feminists.

To what extent the anti-porn writers on the Graun titles really are feminists I'm not sure. To my mind, there doesn't seem to be much feminism about a mindset which insists upon seeing women as permanent little girls who need protecting . The blinkers seem to stay on even when they encounter, say, Dr Brooke Magnanti or the feisty ladies in the Max Mosley hanky-spanky case. Mr Justice Eady's order notwithstanding, the names by which they are known on the BDSM scene are pretty widely known. Woman D , for instance, has completed her doctoral thesis but continues to work as a professional submissive (now also branching out as a dom) and as one of the big names in spanking erotica. Presumably she finds it a better earner than organic chemistry. Maybe a progressive newspaper might take more interest in wages in the research sector so crap that a Ph.D. prefers to turn a copper having her arse spanked.

Dines' predictable whinge takes your breath away. One of the editorial board has actually worked in porn. Shock! Horror!!! Pass the smelling salts!!!!!! In my own field of expertise, industrial relations, it's not unknown for journals to be edited by, and publish articles by, academics who have been, or are still, engaged practically as HR managers or trade union officials. The British Medical Journal does from time to time publish articles by people who have dispensed a pill or removed an appendix. Some academic articles on the Dangerous Pictures Act in academic legal journals are written by lawyers who have prosecuted or defended such cases. If I wished to find out more about spanking porn, I think I would learn more from Woman D, with Ph.D. in chemistry but plenty of experience, than from Prof. Dines with her apparently more relevant academic qualifications.

Licensees are warned following the conviction of Tony Bowman for knowingly allowing hands-on lap dancing to take place in breach of miserable licensing conditions.

The case centred on the operation of the Divas Lap Dancing Club during 2011 up until the premises licence was revoked by Plymouth City Council Licensing Sub-Committee in January 2012.

The supposed offences centred around a condition on the premises licence which prohibited Any form of Physical contact between the customer and the dancer...

Acting Inspector Martin Worthington of Force Alcohol Licensing and Crime Reduction Team said:

This is not the first time an adult entertainment establishment has fallen foul of conditions prohibiting physical contact between dancers and customers. We work in partnership with Licensees to ensure that business operate so as to promote the licensing objectives. We make regular checks to ensure that all licence holders adhere to the conditions of the premises licence and where appropriate the police Local Authority and other responsible authorities are prepared to take further action to ensure these standards are maintained including utilsing the Criminal Justice System where appropriate.

Bowman was sentenced to an £ 800 fine, £ 620 costs and £ 15 victim surcharge including the forfeiture of his personal licence.

This Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada is set to hear Bedford vs. Canada , a case on the constitutionality of criminal laws governing sex work. The case, brought forward by three sex workers, Terry-Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch, and Valerie Scott, is a direct result of the refusal of consecutive federal governments to respond to enormous volumes of evidence that these laws do more harm than they prevent.

The science is unequivocal: criminalization of sex work in Canada, and globally, has been an abject failure in protecting sex workers from violence, predation and murder, and has exacerbated vulnerability to HIV and other health inequities among sex workers. While the buying and selling of sex between consensual adults has never been illegal in Canada, criminal laws prohibit working together indoors, owning or renting an indoor place for sex work, living off the avails of prostitution, or communicating in public spaces for the purposes of sex work by sex workers, clients or third parties. Together, these laws make it virtually impossible for a sex worker to work legally, even though the act itself is not forbidden. Evidence has consistently shown that these criminal laws engender stigma, force sex workers to work in isolated and hidden spaces, and prevent access to basic health and support services, including legal and social protections.

...Read the full article

A new documentary has revealed how making prostitution legal in Germany has created a booming industry.

Show on public broadcaster ARD, Sex -- Made in Germany shook up the country's normally mundane Monday television offerings, examining the subject of prostitution just over ten years after it became legal in Germany.

The film, which frequently used hidden cameras at red light establishments, did not quite show a total success story. Two years of interviews, brothel visits and undercover reporting showed an industry flourishing -- but one in which women have become a resource, which are being used as efficiently as possible, (just like any business).

Over a million men pay for sex each day in Germany. Many of these now visit flat-rate brothels where men can paid a mere EUR49 for a night of as much sex as they can muster. These have become an increasingly popular business model in Berlin where sex is cheaper than anywhere else, a brothel owner told the journalists.

So popular are the country's cut-price offerings, that specialist holiday operators now offer tailored sex-holidays for groups of men from Asian, the Middle East and North America. They are taken around brothels for six straight days of drunken fun. Guests also travel from closer afield, with one Danish man explaining that the quality is good and everything is alright.

The reporters also visited Europe's biggest brothel in Stuttgart, where 55,000 men came in and out of its doors each year. Many of the women there are not German though, as 65% working in the country are foreign, often from eastern European countries Like Romania and Bulgaria. Some were homegrown though, with one prostitute admitting that lots of girls who are taking their high school diploma come and work for a day or two over the weekend to earn a bit of money, because they no longer see it as something bad.

The film touched on several cases where eastern European women had come to Germany for a better life, which wasn't to be. One Romanian woman, found herself having sex with up to 40 men a day until, eventually, authorities shut the business down for violating health codes.

What the government does seem to be profiting from since legalizing prostitution though, is the tax it generates. Even street walkers have to pay special sex work tax es.

A proposed new name for a Leeds table dancing club could inflict moral or psychological harm on children, licensing officials ludicrously claim.

Owners of the Black Diamond club, on New Briggate in the city centre, have applied to Leeds City Council to double the size of the premises, from two floors to four. They also want to rename it Tantric Blue .

But the council's own licensing department has now criticised the application -- because the suggested new name would undermine the requirement to protect children from harm. In a letter of objection, the department spewed:

Whilst 'Tantric' is linked to spiritualism and certain religious practices, for the purpose of a lap dancing venue it takes on another interpretation and associates the premises with sexual practice.

The licensing authority is of the opinion that the name of the premises has the potential to cause moral and/or psychological harm to children as well as offence and embarrassment to parents when visiting the city with children.

The sub-committee is due to make a decision at a meeting on 10th June.

The Brazilian Health Ministry has dropped an online campaign entitled I'm happy being a prostitute .

The message was part of an education programme about sexually-transmitted diseases and was aimed at reducing prejudice against sex workers.

Health Minister Alexandre Padilha said he had never endorsed the advert:

I do not think this is a message the ministry should be sending. For as long as I remain in office, an ad like that will not be part of our campaigns.

The Brazilian government is highly praised for its Aids programme, which includes the distribution of free condoms and a pragmatic approach to the problem in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country.

The current campaign of awareness to sexually-transmitted diseases, entitled Not ashamed of using a condom , will now go ahead without the happy prostitute reference.

A proposal to criminalise the purchase of sex has found support according to the results of a public consultation.

Almost 1,000 people responded to Labour MSP Rhoda Grant's plan which she hopes will become law in Scotland. Of the total, 80% favour her ban. Grant claimed:

There has been an excellent response, and I now hope we can use the evidence provided to change society's attitude towards buying and selling sex, thereby protecting vulnerable people.

The primary argument that the demand to buy sex will decrease was acknowledged in the responses of those in favour and against the proposed Bill. This would have a knock-on effect on sex trafficking as Scotland would not be seen as a profitable market by traffickers. This will ultimately mean an overall decrease in the level of prostitution in the country.

Of 953 responses, 758 favoured her approach which is based on legislation in Sweden.

Of the individual responses, 47 are from people who work or worked in the sex industry . One anonymous respondent wrote:

I chose to escort for money. I enjoy it. I do not feel exploited or dehumanised. I feel liberated, excited, expressive, creative and earning good money. I am one of very few people who actually enjoys their job.

Thankfully Sweden's nasty, and soon 15-year-old, law that bans buying sex has not resulted in any convicted sex buyers spending time behind bars.

In 2011, 'Justice' Minister Beatrice Ask previously raised the red flag about supposedly lenient sentencing doled out in Swedish courts. In July 2012, the law was rewritten, allowing courts to send offenders to jail for a maximum of one year, rather than the six months previously allowed.

Yet the rewrite has had little effect, noted Johan Linander, Centre Party MP and vice-chairman of Riksdag Committee on 'Justice' (Justitieutskottet). He whinged to the Local:

The courts make limited use of the range of sentencing available to them

A review of sentencing in the past few years by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper revealed that no one has been sentenced to prison for buying sex from an adult - neither before nor after the reform.

We see that the courts use the lower quarter of punishments with little variation, which is true for most crimes, not just sex purchases, said Linander, who has long argued that the punishments needed to be stricter.

Social Democrat MEP Anna Hedh, said she was hesitant toward filling Swedish prisons up with one-time offenders:

BUT ... if you are a repeat offender, you should of course end up in jail.

Maltese lap dancer Rebecca Camilleri has been acquitted of immoral acts in public after police claimed she was dancing topless on a man's lap inside a club in Paceville.

In his judgement, Magistrate Ian Farrugia said the fact that Camilleri was topless inside a club did not constitute an immoral act when the location, the time and the age group of the people inside the club are taken into consideration. He said:

It is not the competence of the court to decree if frequenting such places is good or not, that decision has to be faced by each individual according to his conscience.

There is no way someone can be surprised or scandalised by what they see inside as one would have entered such a place in full knowledge of what is inside.

Police raided the gentleman's club Steam Bar in June 2012. A policeman alleged that he had seen Camilleri's breast exposed.

Defence lawyer Joe Giglio argued that crimes against morals had to be viewed within the context of time and place:

In a time when the country is overhauling its censorship laws, the police cannot impose their own set of 'morals' upon society.

In commenting further on his judgement, Magistrate Ian Farrugia held even if the dancer had her breast exposed, that was not sufficiently immoral nor scandalous , acquitting the dancer of all charges against her.

Business networking site LinkedIn has banned sex workers from creating profiles or using the platform to promote their services.

LinkedIn has advised its 225 million members of changes to its terms of service in a post on its site. The revised terms of use state that users are not to create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

The updated User Agreement says members are not to undertake the following:

Upload, post, email, InMail, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that ... Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

LinkedIn previously prohibited the advertising of unlawful services on its site but prostitution is legal in some of the jurisdictions where the website's users are based.

China's punitive laws and policing practices against sex workers are leading to serious abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report published today. These abuses include police violence, arbitrary detention of up to two years in re-education through labor and custody and education centers, and coercive HIV testing. There are an estimated four to six million sex workers in China, the overwhelming majority of them women.

The report, Swept Away: Abuses Against Sex Workers in China , documents abuses by the police against female sex workers in Beijing, including torture, beatings, physical assaults, arbitrary detentions, and fines, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses, and state agents. The report also documents abuses by public health agencies, such as coercive HIV testing, privacy infringements, and mistreatment by health officials.

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch said:

In China, the police often act as if by engaging in sex work, women had forfeited their rights. The government must abandon its repressive laws against sex workers, discipline abusive police, and end the suppression of sex workers rights advocates.

The Chinese government has allowed the unchecked growth of the sex industry in recent decades, with millions of women turning to sex work as a way of earning a living. Yet the government maintains officially a blanket ban on sex work, viewing it as an ugly social phenomenon that goes against socialist spiritual civilization, and treating it as a misdemeanor punishable by fines or short-term detention.

During periodic anti-prostitution drives, often lasting several weeks and linked to larger strike hard campaigns against crime, police repeatedly raid entertainment venues, hair salons, massage parlors, and other spaces where sex work occurs, detaining large numbers of women suspected of being sex workers. Sex workers are most at risk of abuses such as police brutality and arbitrary detention during these drives. Domestic activists working on rights for Chinese sex workers have also denounced these police raids.

Chinese police can also send suspected sex workers, without due process or a trial, for up to two years' detention in a re-education through labor camp or so-called custody and education centers. While the government announced in January 2013 that it would reform re-education through labor, there has been no similar announcement for the estimated 183 custody and education centers, holding more than 15,000 inmates, most of whom are women. Both institutions constitute forms of arbitrary detention under international law, Human Rights Watch said, since they allow people to be deprived of their liberty without due process of law.

Human Rights Watch calls on the Chinese government to enact legislation to remove criminal and administrative sanctions against voluntary, consensual sex work and related offenses such as solicitation. Human Rights Watch also called for an end to the periodic anti-prostitution mobilization campaigns that have generated severe abuses against women engaging in sex work.

Abuses by law-enforcement agencies deter sex workers from seeking help from the police when they are victims of crime, or from public health services when they are in need of assistance, said Richardson. This makes them more vulnerable to abuses and exploitation. If China is serious about protecting and promoting women's rights, it cannot ignore the millions of women who engage in sex work.

The Invisible Men Project aims to selectively reveal what some men who visit sex workers say about the women involved.

PunterNet is a website forum where men can comment on and review sex workers. It includes warnings about reporting any potentially underage or trafficked women, and it offers sex workers a right of reply to bad reviews.

Now, The Invisible Men Project is gathering a selection of posts from Punternet to ask a simple question: never mind the debates about the ethics of sex workers themselves, what do you think of the men who pay them? As the site puts it: Without seeking to prove, disprove or debate choice on the part of the women described, we invite you to consider: what do you think of his choice?

However the comments being published are clearly cherry picked to support the anti-sex work cause.

The makers of an online commercial advertising Come4 , a not-for-profit website promising a new vision of sex , have expressed disappointment after it was withdrawn from YouTube because the video-hosting site judged that its content violated its terms of service .

The provocative film opens with an unseen narrator relating an early episode of unrequited love before going on to talk about his experiences with prostitutes. As the imagery becomes increasingly explicit, the mystery voice describes visiting brothels with his father and reveals that together they take time to choose the right one and explains that he loved his first time so much, he decided to come back with his friends .

This frank series of admissions is being provided by disability rights campaigner Asta Philpot, who is describing a trip he made to a Spanish brothel with a group of disabled virgins, the subject of a 2007 documentary broadcast by the BBC.

Philpot describes YouTube's decision as pretty disgusting and feels that if they'd seen beyond the naked breasts and recognised the message behind the film, they'd have realised that it's actually ethical. A friend of mine died without ever having a [sexual] experience and I don't ever want to let that happen again.

A pub in Singapore's famous sexy nightlife centre, Orchard Towers has got in trouble with the police.

Managers Ng Kian Boon and Ridzawi Ali were fined $22,000 each. They had pleaded guilty to four charges of abetting the pub owner to receive the earnings from prostitution and to one charge of assisting him to manage a brothel. The owner and three other employees will face the court later.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Joshua Lai said two police officers in plain clothes went to the now-defunct Famous Hot Models pub on the third floor of Orchard Towers at 1am on May 25 last year after a tip-off.

Pretending to be customers, they were joined by three Filipino hostesses, who told them that oral sex was available in the pub's three karaoke rooms at a cost of $182. If a customer wanted to have sex, he would have to pay the pub $268 for two hours of the woman's company. Other police officers then moved in and arrested 26 Filipino women, aged 19 to 31.

The hostess' job scope included encouraging customers to buy her lady drinks. Prices ranged from $30 to $120 for each drink - for every $10, she would earn $3. The women were also urged to provide sexual services to earn more money - keeping half of what they were paid.

Legislation to criminalise the purchase of sex will be introduced to the Dail tomorrow. The Criminal Law Sexual Offences Bill, to be introduced by Independent TD Thomas Pringle, sets out to impose harsh criminal sanctions on those who pay for sex.

Persecution of men via the so called Swedish model is being advocated in Ireland by the Turn off the Red Light Campaign. The campaign, is endorsed by 68 organisations including various gender extremist groups eg Ruhama, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Labour Party and Barnardos.

Pringle claimed:

[The Bill] will reduce the demand for sexual services, thereby reducing the incidence of prostitution in society. It will create a situation that will remove the attractiveness of prostitution and trafficking from organised criminal elements by creating the risk for purchasers of sexual services to be prosecuted with the element of 'name and shame' acting as a deterrent.

Penalties The Bill provides for an ascending scale of penalties, from a fixed-notice fine of EUR500 for first-time offenders, to a EUR4,000 fine and/or four-week jail sentence for repeat offenders.

Iceland's PC extremist government that proposed a ban on internet porn has been booted out of office.

An election victory on Saturday for the center-right opposition win probably means the planned ban will be no more. But you never know.

Edinburgh's sex industry is facing a double threat to its future after it emerged legal and political moves are under way which could spell the end of the capital's licensed saunas.

A legal appeal against the city council's decision to renew a sauna license will be heard next month. Anti-sex work activists hope to use this as a test case to mount a wider assault on sex work.

While massage parlours are to be found in most major cities in the UK Edinburgh is noted for both the number of massage parlours and their high visibility. Defenders of the Edinburgh approach explain the status quo keeps female sex workers safe and lets the sex industry be managed in a pragmatic way.

In the past the sauna operators have had few problems with the committee, but Mike Anthony, a moral crusader liaising with Edinburgh-based Zero Tolerance activist group, which claims that sex work is a cause of violence against women, objected to the applications en masse, triggering an evidence session in the city chambers. However the objects were dismissed.

Anthony said :

I am not a moral crusader....[BUT]...What I am steadfastly against is any public authority colluding with organised criminals.

In another development, Labour, which runs the council in coalition with the SNP, appears to be preparing the ground for taking a tougher line on the issue. A new internal working group in Edinburgh is reviewing the party's position on the license issue.

Germany's center-right governing coalition has agreed to enact restrictions on sex work in the country.

Members of the coalition -- made up of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) -- say that an agreement over an appropriate set of regulations has nearly been reached.

Prostitution is legal in Germany, but the coalition plans to toughen criminal penalties against human trafficking and more strictly restrict the commercial activities of brothels.

In future, brothel operators will need special authorization to open such an establishment. Moreover, authorities will be required to enforce hygienic standards and operators will be screened for prior criminal offences.

There is still resistance, however, from Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP), who wants to prevent harsher criminal laws in the sex industry.

Costa Rica is fast becoming a top sex-tourism destination where prostitution is not only legal, it's embraced.

The Costa Rican government, of course, would prefer that its wedge of the Central American isthmus not be so well regarded among American men trolling for sex. The tourist board is much more enthusiastic about their beaches, rain forests, and volcanoes, and the country's official slogan---no artificial ingredients---would seem to have nothing at all to do with picking up prostitutes in bars. True, every horny American who comes down here is renting a hotel room, eating in restaurants, probably drinking, maybe gambling, and definitely paying the $26 departure tax on his way out; at least some of the money he's spending on sex goes back into the local economy. But what self-respecting country wants to shill for those dollars? You might be sure that this type of tourist are not wanted here, says one Costa Rican official. We only want the people that want to spend a 'Pura Vida' time.

Yet the whoremongers came in droves anyway. And by the early 1990s, they'd branded Costa Rica with a reputation as a sex haven---a reputation that stuck and then exploded near the end of the century. Why that happened isn't complicated. For one thing, prostitution is legal, or at least isn't illegal: The business isn't taxed or regulated like, say, casinos or bars, but there is no law against an adult selling his or her body for cash. So you're not going to come down to San Jose' and get busted by an undercover cop. Prostitution is also indigenously rampant and culturally, if quietly, acceptable---70 percent of those who pay for sex are locals---so you don't feel all that awkward with your arm around a whore.

...Read the full article [part 1] + article [part 2]

Condom-maker Durex has introduced app-controlled underwear that vibrates, the company announced in a YouTube video. The promo features a demonstration by an Australian couple remotely touching each other.

The premise is that if you and the main squeeze want to get busy while you're apart, you can put on the Fundawear and buzz each other via iPhones. You simply drag your fingers across an app diagram of the body parts you want to stimulate remotely. Wires and sensors convey what actual touch cannot.

Fundawear is still in the experimental stage, so no word on a release date.

A Brisbane barber shop says it is attracting customers from hundreds of miles away - after offering topless trims.

Barber Babes, based in the city's central business district, features topless female barbers cutting hair wearing only hot pants or underwear.

Owner operator Jasmine Robson said all her stylists were fully qualified hairdressers. She said the response has been excellent since the salon opened in February with some customers coming in every couple of days for a shave.

An Indian lawmaker has threatened to go on hunger strike if a Playboy nightclub is allowed to open in Goa, claiming it would promote prostitution in the tourist hub. Michael Lobo, a state legislator in India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said:

I will resort to hunger strike until death if the Playboy club is allowed in Goa. Playboy will project Goa as international destination for prostitution, which is a worrying sign for the tourism industry.

Despite assurances of no nudity in the clubs, Lobo said it was obvious nobody would pay for membership just to sit and eat groundnuts.

PB Lifestyle, the Indian franchisee of the Playboy brand, announced plans in November to open 120 clubs, hotels, fashion cafes and shops in India over the next 10 years. Playboy has unveiled a modest costume for the bunny girl waitresses in Indian outlets. This consists of a sari-inspired two-piece costume, comprising a one-shoulder top, a bare midriff and a sheer, full-length skirt with a split. The ears, bow-ties and fluffy tails remain.

Goa's Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar says the application for the first such club is under consideration, but reiterated warnings that they would never allow vulgarity .

Update: Playboy Club Banned

16th April 2013. See  article from  theaustralian.com.au

The Indian state of Goa has decided to refuse a proposal for India's first Playboy club on one of its beaches.

A local lawmaker threatened to go on hunger strike last week if the nightclub was allowed to open on Candolim Beach.

Chief Minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar, claimed to a state assembly session in state capital Panaji that Playboy's application had failed because it did not meet requirements to set up a beach shack.

The shack policy of the state makes it mandatory that the application for any shack should be applied for by a local individual in his name and we can't grant shack permission for a brand.

Here's an interesting conundrum that is taking place in China. It involves the rapid spike of sex toy consumption courtesy of men who simply can't find themselves a female partner.

More leftover men in China are buying adult toys, confirmed manufacturers who reported a significant jump in sales last year. Much of the sale had to do with gender imbalance in the country where young men outnumber young women, the makers of the toys said. This is the consequence of a one child per couple policy where, one way or another, parents choose to have a boy rather than a girl.

At the 10th annual China International Adult Toys and Reproductive Health Exhibition, which opened at the Shanghai International Exhibition Center, vendors said sales, especially those for men, increased by 30 to 40% last year.

Retired Italian porn star Llona Staller, better known as Cicciolina , has said she would like to return to politics and will run for Rome's city council.

She said she would be running for the historic Italian Liberal Party and would campaign to legalise prostitution, cannabis for medicinal use and civil unions:

My programme will be liberal, libertarian and environmentalist.

The ex-model first ran for parliament in the Green Party in 1979. She was later elected to parliament in 1987. In 1991, she founded a party called the Party of Love with fellow Italian porn star Moana Pozzi.

A report says that sex workers in Westminster are at greater risk of violence because of a fall in demand and an increase in those selling sex.

The study by Westminster Council shows the recession has led sex workers to cut their prices, accept more clients and take greater risks. The police, the NHS, council workers and sex work projects contributed to the report. The report says:

Saturation of the market has had the impact of increased competition, meaning some sex workers are now selling sex for less money and providing a wider range of services.

Sex workers interviewed for the report said there had been about a 50% reduction in prices over the last few years. This has meant many are accepting clients who appear to be more dangerous in order to make enough money. They are also having to travel further afield to find clients which means it is harder for police and outreach agencies to keep track of them and provide help.

The study found there is an unsurprisingly high level of under-reporting to the police as the police will prosecute the sex worker reporting the violence, and when sex workers do report violence they do not always receive the help they need.

The report also points out that it can cost the authorities a lot of money when the unreported crimes develop into more serious crimes due to lack of intervention at an early stage.

A new Playboy app promises a bespoke Playboy lifestyle for guys into travel, clothes, food, cars, girls and beyond.

Given that Apple prudes have banned anything remotely porny, then Scott Flanders, CEO of Playboy Enterprises had to do some careful spinning:

We've rebuilt Playboy for iPhone from the ground up to attract the new generation of Gen Y fans who enjoy the indulgences of the artisanal good life and modern culture.

iPhone users across the globe can enjoy the new app, now found in the App Store. The three subscription options offered to consumers include: a recurring monthly subscription for $1.99, a recurring six-month subscription for $10.99 and a recurring yearly subscription for $19.99.

There will be app-only content, as well as material selectively chosen from the current issue of the magazine, ie selecting only that suitable for Apple censors.

The opening video of the app will star Miss February 2011, Kylie Johnson. The Good Life's Food section of the app debuts with a conversation with Chef Eddie Huang, owner of BaoHaus restaurant in New York's East Village . Under Drink, Jeffrey Morgenthaler, bar manager at Clyde Common in Portland, mixes up a classic Easter Day cocktail. An exploration of the resurgence of the station wagon's popularity in Cars. For Girls, Miss November 2004, Cara Zavaleta, makes a striking appearance in Playmate "Redux".

Josh Schollmeyer, Playboy's Director of Digital Content noted:

We're taking everything that has made Playboy great and re-imagining it for the iPhone, while reinventing our aesthetic with exclusive pictorials and a beautiful, image-heavy navigation. It truly is Playboy 2.0.

Which all translates to: "no tits".