Adult World News

New regulations supposedly aimed at the hygiene of sex toys have irked Red Light District window operators, who are now appealing the rules change by Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan.

As part of the new licensing conditions, window landlords are responsible for ensuring that sex toys maintain proper hygiene standards rather than the sex workers who use them.

Under the united front Wallen Ondernemers Prostitutie (WOP) window operators say the responsibility for the cleanliness of sex toys should rest with the people who rent the windows, and they have filed an official complaint with the city over the change, according to the Telegraaf.

In July 2013, new regulations imposed much stricter rules on window operators across the Red Light District. To receive a license, operators must ensure that each window is adequately supplied with clean towels, condoms and disinfectant soap, with checks carried out eight times annually. The addition of sex toy hygiene proved to be too much for operators, they said.

When the burger joint Hot Buns opened in Copenhagen in March, the tank-top and hot pants attire of its female wait staff inevitable wound up local feminists. But having survived the initial wave of protests unscathed, the restaurant has upped the ante. Big time. Hot Buns will now open Denmark's first combination burger bar and sex shop.

Burgers can be purchased right next to dildos, fries can be enjoyed while checking out the selection of whips, chains and cock rings.

The new naughty combo will be known as Hot Buns After Dark and as the name suggests it will only be open in the wee hours.

Hot Buns owner Mathias Kaer told The Local that the new concept is meant to take advantage of the restaurant's prime location on Gothersgade, one of Copenhagen's biggest party streets. That the new concept is meeting resistance isn't surprising to Kaer who noted:

When we opened in March, we had a lot of press, and a lot of politicians and feminists who were against this concept. But we aren't doing this just for the attention, we are doing it because we believe in it as a business concept.

Boodigo bills itself as an adult-oriented search engine. On the surface, it looks like a regular search engine, aside from the pop-up message that warns you must be at least 18 years old to access it.

Boodigo lets you do a regular web search or target it exclusively to Tumblr sites -- as that photo blog platform is often used for pornographic content. All the results from any search should be links to porn. And these searches won't be cached in the history or tracked so you can be more discrete about your fetishes. Boodigo explains:

Boodigo is designed to return accurate adult entertainment search results for our customers in a secure, private and anonymous environment. Boodigo does not use cookies or other user-tracking technologies to gather information about our users. We aren't interested in building a 'profile' on our users; our core mission is simply to help you find what you're looking for in a way that's as efficient, effective and enjoyable as possible. In other words, using Boodigo means finding what you're looking for without having to worry about what someone else might be finding out about you.

But, at least so far, Boodigo doesn't even really seem to measure up to Google. Daily Dot gives some comparisons in its article gave examples of searches in both Google and Boodigo and the results were mixed. Boodigo provides links to individual performer websites and pay porn sites and so touts itself as being more ethical than porn search engines, such as Search.xxx and PornMD, which provides links to pirated content.

Finnish authorities are in general backing the proposal that buying sex from a victim of pimping or sex trafficking would become illegal, even if the buyer is unaware of the sex worker's circumstances. A court could sentence a person paying for sex if it considers that there was reason to suspect that pimping or human trafficking was involved.

The proposal was sparked by a previous ruling by the Supreme Court in 2012 when the court dismissed the charges against a young man suspected of abusing a victim of sex trafficking. According to the court, the accused could not have known for certain that the Estonian woman was a victim of pimping, even though there were many circumstances that pointed to that assumption.

The Supreme Court's ruling raised the threshold for sentencing a person paying for sex so high that the Ministry of Justice decided that a law reform was necessary. The changes would mean that sex workers' customers are liable to prosecution if there is reason to suspect pimping or sex trafficking. The maximum sentence for this offence would go up to a year.

The proposed reform has garnered support from the National Police Board, the Tukinainen support centre for rape victims, the Finnish Bar Association and the Ombudsman for Equality.

Porn veteran Larry Flynt is celebrating the 40th birthday of his X-rated magazine Hustler. He told AFP:

I'm the largest content provider in the world for adult material, (operating in) 60-70 countries and still growing.

While celebrating his magazine's four decades in print, he admits it is struggling, with circulation down from a peak of around three million during its heyday to a couple of hundred thousand today , according to a Hustler spokesman. Flynt added:

Publishing is not good .. for anybody in America because Internet is replacing print. We'll continue the magazine as long as it is profitable. Then we'll go online.

Hustler's website doesn't make much money either, competing with a tsunami of hardcore porn online which is often free, and made by amateurs. His business' future lies above all in TV porn channels and on-demand videos, but also in Hustler-themed sex accessory and clothing stores and casinos, which he is opening everywhere. In fact so much so that Flynt claimed;

We're having our best year this year.

A Japanese oppai pub is a hostess club in which women's breasts take top billing. And now to take it one step further, an icha-kyaba establishment has all the trappings of a hostess club , in that seated women pour drinks while engaging in pleasant conversation, and the shoulder-to-shoulder closeness of an oppai pub, but with one crucial difference: Touching is allowed.

A writer for Weekly Playboy , which covers such topics, explains:

The term 'icha-kyaba' came into vogue about a year ago. Right now, Tokyo has about 50 such clubs. Over the past six months, the genre has exploded.

Since there is a bit of variation from club to club, there is no strict definition as of yet about what comprises an icha-kyaba. But, in general, there are some services that are common, such as the hostess slinging her legs over the knee of the customer, who can also fondle the upper half of her clothed torso.

Though rare, kissing is possible, as is the chance to touch the bare breasts of the hostess.

While kyabakura joints may have lower cover charges than hostess clubs, customers wind up paying a lot via the drinks they buy for girls.

A group of Japanese porn actresses are preparing to have their breasts squeezed by fans for 24 hours this weekend for a charity event loosely translated as Boob Aid .

The nine adult movie stars will take part in the Stop! AIDS campaign event which will be televised live. Rina Serina told the Tokyo Sports newspaper:

I'm really looking forward to lots of people fondling my boobs. But I would be very happy if you would please be delicate.

The event, the 12th since its launch in 2003, will be broadcast on adult cable television, with lucky participants donating to the anti-AIDS campaign in exchange for a feel.

The 24-hour squeeze-a-thon begins at 8pm on Saturday (1100 GMT) and is backed by the Japan Foundation for AIDS Prevention.

Update: Fondle fun raises $50k

1st September 2014. See article from thenewsnigeria.com.ng

A group of Japanese porn actresses raised about five million yen ($50,000) at the weekend by having their breasts fondled by fans at a Boob Aid charity event for AIDS prevention.

The nine adult movie stars, sporting yellow campaign T-shirts rolled up to reveal their breasts, flashed a big smile as punters approached them at an event that opened Saturday.

Fans sprayed their hands with disinfectant before touching and women were occasionally spotted in the mostly male crowd.

The event was part of a 24-hour Stop! AIDS campaign event in Tokyo, which was also televised live on a Japanese adult cable channel.

Nearly 6,000 pairs of hands groped for a total of over 15 hours until Sunday evening, organisers said.

The world's first drive-thru brothels has been deemed a success by Swiss social services, a year after being created.

The drive-in sex boxes were installed in Zurich last year, offering sex workers a safer place to provide their services rather than the street. Set up on the edge of the city, the facility provides bathrooms, laundry and even has its own security.

The creation cost the government 2million Euros to build and has risen in popularity over the last 12 months. Around 30 to 40 women ply their trade there each night.

Zurich authorities believe the idea has been extremely positive and want prostitution, which has been legal in Switzerland since 1942, to continue running safely. A statement from social services read:

The new regulation of street prostitution has attained its objectives of protecting the population and the sex workers. The first year of the service has been positive.

Philadelphia officials have decided not to keep appealing in court to revive the lap dance tax.

The 30-day window to file an appeal has officially passed since Judge Ellen Ceisler ruled Philadelphia cannot impose its entertainment tax on what goes on inside strip clubs. The tax already applies to cover charges at the clubs.

Attorney George Bochetto represents two of the strip clubs the city unsuccessfully targeted for collection of the lap dance tax . He explained:

The fact of the matter is they had no authority to impose this kind of new tax in the manner they attempted to do so. It doesn't mean they aren't entitled to seek the additional taxes, but they just can't do it by unilaterally imposing it.

If the city wants to tax this activity, it would have to craft a new law. They are going to have to do in a manner that treats all types of interior entertainment equally. So it's potentially an issue that doesn't affect just gentlemen's clubs, but every place of entertainment in the city of Philadelphia.

The ruling coalition of Conservatives and Social Democrats in Germany has agreed on restrictions to the Prostitution Act of 2002.

In the future, sex workers will have to register with the authorities, the owners of brothels will have to submit to reliability checks, and flat rate sex and gang bang parties are going to be outlawed.

Manuela Schwesig , Federal Minister for Family Affairs (Social Democrats), declared that the new regulations meant that for the first time, there would be clear rules for legal prostitution in Germany that will protect the women .

Social Democrats (SPD) and Conservatives (CDU/CSU) still negotiate on other items, including a minimum age for sex workers of 21. Conservatives want to raise the minimum age for sex workers from 18 to 21.

A law demanding mandatory registration would harm the women, criticised Fabienne Freymadl, political spokeswoman of the Professional Organisation for Erotic and Sexual Services (BesD) , where sex workers in Germany are organised{

Especially sex workers who work on a part-time basis do not want to register due to the risk that their data may be passed on to third parties and women could be outed for their stigmatised professionl. If women experienced assaults, they could henceforward not report them to the police anymore, if they weren't registered with the authorities.

The BesD is also critical of the planned statutory permission requirements and reliability checks for brothel owners. According to the new regulations, brothel owners with criminal records can be barred from operating brothels. However, an exemption from the statutory permission requirements is planned, if individual persons sell sex in private apartments. Freymadl said:

Outlawing flat rate sex and so-called gang bang parties showed how moralising the debate actually was. Outlawing certain business models and practices, which the public perceived as particularly demeaning, contributed nothing to fight forced prostitution , since criminals wouldn't heed such bans anyway.

The remaining points of contention regarding the reform of the prostitution law are to be clarified in the early fall. The plan of the Conservatives to punish customers of forced prostitutes remains controversial. Critics fear that even less customers would then provide tip-offs to the police about forced prostitution , should they involuntarily encounter such women.

kink is a 2013 USA biography by Christina Voros.
Starring Peter Acworth, Van Darkholme and Princess Donna.

The Promotional material reads:

Director Christina Voros and producer James Franco pull back the curtain on the fetish empire of Kink.com, the Internet's largest producer of BDSM content. In a particularly obscure corner of an industry that operates largely out of public view, Kink.com's directors and models strive for authenticity. In an enterprise often known for exploitative practices, Kink.com upholds an ironclad set of values to foster an environment that is safe, sane, and consensual. They aim to demystify the BDSM lifestyle, and to serve as an example and an educational resource for the BDSM community. In kink, we discover not only a fascinating and often misunderstood subculture, but also, in a career far from the mainstream, a group of intelligent, charismatic, and driven people who really, truly love what they do.

At kink.com, each performer's limits and boundaries are discussed and agreed on beforehand. The ideology, then, becomes that the actors are in control, that they dictate the limits of their sexual exploration. This film leads us to believe that this is what kink.com, and BDSM in general, is about; being brave and courageous and sexually curious enough to go places within a rulebook of pre-determined confines involving dominance and submissiveness (Choking is fine, but not the word bitch , someone gives as an example). Yes, she is being hammered with a device throttling at the speed of a machine gun, but, as all members of kink.com would point out, this is all consensual and, of course, stoppable.

There is no way to escape explicit images in a documentary on Internet pornography, and if private parts being threatened by electrical toys and pounding machines makes you squeamish, perhaps you should steer clear of this documentary (or just look away when something unpleasant ends up onscreen).

This level of authenticity is the hallmark of kink.com, a fetish empire where almost very conceivable sexual fantasy can exist. The actors and directors, all surprisingly normal, charismatic, and intelligent, pride themselves on the truthfulness of their twisted pornographic endeavors, and speak about their experiences in an almost artistic way.

...Read the full article

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) and the Freedom Network (USA) have condemned a new bill, introduced into the US House of Representatives by Congressman Hultgren, which seeks to put pressure on countries that "do not prohibit the purchase of commercial sex acts".

If passed, bill H.R.4703 will amend the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to demand that the State Department take a country's prostitution laws into consideration when determining its rankings in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Placement in the lowest tier of the Trafficking in Persons Report can trigger sanctions including the reduction or loss of non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance.

GAATW and the Freedom Network believe that this move is not about preventing human trafficking or protecting its victims. Under the guise of addressing trafficking in persons, the amendment instead seeks to include efforts to eradicate prostitution. Creating such a strong link between prostitution and trafficking in persons is not uncommon but it is mistaken. GAATW has documented the harm done to sex workers, migrants and to people who have been trafficked by anti-trafficking laws, policies, programmes and initiatives that conflate the two.

There is no evidence that criminalising or otherwise penalising sex workers' clients has reduced either trafficking in persons or sex work. International law on trafficking in persons makes a distinction between prostitution and trafficking. The USA's international anti-trafficking work too makes this distinction plain, as several countries in the top tier of the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report -- i.e. those countries who meet the minimum standards for addressing trafficking -- indeed do not criminalise sex work. If anything, we can look to the 14 years of the Trafficking in Persons Report as the evidentiary link that sex work and trafficking are not connected.

The text of bill H.R.4703 is available here . The bill has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Sex work must be decriminalised if the world is to stand a chance of controlling the Aids pandemic, say scientists contributing to a series of research papers in the Lancet medical journal.

Sex workers, whether female, male or transgender, are subject to repression, violence and abuse even at the hands of those who are supposed to uphold the law, according to the series of seven research papers presented at the International Aids Conference in Melbourne, Australia. Fear of the police and other authorities, as well as the abuse itself, prevents sex workers protecting themselves from HIV infection.

Studies in Canada, India and Kenya contain testimony from sex workers who report having condoms confiscated by police, who regard them as evidence of crimes, and being subjected to physical or sexual violence. Both the sex workers and their clients are put at risk of infection by this.

Governments and the police should uphold the human rights of all people, including sex workers, say the series authors. Reducing sexual violence by clients and abusers could reduce HIV infection rates by around a fifth in both high- and low-income settings, they say, and getting more sex workers on antiretroviral treatment for HIV would reduce the amount of active virus in their bodies and cut the rate of new infections by a third. But decriminalisation of sex work would be the preventative measure with the biggest impact, they say. Across all settings, it would reduce HIV infections by 33% to 46% over the next decade.

Lancet editor Richard Horton and senior executive editor Pamela Das said in a commentary:

We might prefer to think that sex and money were unrelated, that sex was somehow immune from the transactions so common elsewhere in our lives. But why should this exception be so? And why should we condemn and criminalise the exchange of money for sex, especially if the severely adverse conditions we create for such exchange hurt women and men, and often fatally so?

Sex work is part of the human story. Accepting and embracing sex work -- supporting those engaged in sex work to protect their health and bodily integrity and autonomy -- should be our humane, as well as our pragmatic, approach to the reality of our human lives. And to our common efforts to defeat Aids.

Canada's government is fast-tracking a nasty Bill C-36 to criminalise people who buy sex. Here's a glance at what the government is proposing, and what critics say about the changes.

1. Going after the buyers

The bill criminalizes the buying of sex -- or obtain[ing] for consideration... the sexual services of a person. The penalties include jail time -- up to five years in some cases -- and minimum cash fines that go up after a first offence.

2. What's a sexual service ?

The bill doesn't say, meaning it would likely be up to a court to decide where the line was drawn. A government legal brief, submitted to the committee as it considered the bill, says the courts have found lap-dancing and masturbation in a massage parlour? count as a sexual service or prostitution, but not stripping or the production of pornography.

3. What about sex workers?

They also face penalties under the bill, though the government says it is largely trying to go after the buyers of sex. Under the bill, it would be illegal for a sex worker to discuss the sale of sex in certain areas -- a government amendment Tuesday appears set to reduce what areas would be protected -- and it would also be illegal for a person to get a material benefit from the sale of sexual services by anyone other than themselves. Some critics have warned that latter clause could, for instance, prevent sex workers from working together, which some do to improve safety.

4. What about those who work with sex workers?

Anyone who receives a financial or other material benefit, knowing that it is obtained by or derived directly or indirectly from the sale of a sexual service, faces up to 10 years in prison. This excludes those who have a legitimate living arrangement with a sex worker, those who receives the benefit as a result of a legal or moral obligation of the sex worker, those who sell the sex worker a service or good on the same terms to the general public, and those who offer a private service to sex workers but do so for a fee proportionate to the service and so long as they do not counsel or encourage sex work.

5. Can sex workers advertise their services?

This is a key plank of the bill, which makes it a crime to knowingly advertise an offer to provide sexual services for consideration, or money. This could potentially include newspapers, such as weekly publications that include personal ads from sex workers, or websites that publish similar ads. Justice Minister Peter MacKay appears to believe the ban could go after such publications. It affects all forms of advertising, including online. And anything that enables or furthers what we think is an inherently dangerous practice of prostitution will be subject to prosecution, but the courts will determine what fits that definition, he told reporters after speaking to the committee July 7. This has been welcomed by some, including Janine Benedet, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who supports the bill overall, though she called for some changes. I didn't actually expect to see this advertising provision in this bill but I would say it's actually a really important step, to say that kind of profiteering needs to stop, she said. ]

6. Can anyone still advertise the sale of sex?

Yes -- sex workers themselves. The bill includes an exemption that says no one will be prosecuted for an advertisement of their own sexual services, though platforms that actually knowingly run the ads may face prosecution.

...

10. What's the status of the bill?

Canada's current laws, struck down by the Court, officially expire in December, and the government has pledged to pass Bill C-36 by then.

At least seven Indonesian red-light districts in Malang regency, East Java, are to be closed down by the end of November.

Malang administration secretary Abdul Malik said that the prostitution centers would be given a deadline of November 28, 2014 to shut down business, the date of the regency's 1254th anniversary. The closures will be a gift for the regency's anniversary, Malik said.

The seven red-light districts to be closed are Suko in Sumberpucung district, Kebobang in Wonosari, Kalikudu in Pujon, Slorok in Kromengan, Girun in Gondanglegi, Embong Miring in Ngantang and Sendangbiru in Sumbermanjing Wetan district.

Malik said the buildings of the red-light districts would be converted into new businesses.

Ostensibly keen to be seen to be making an effort to rid South Korean of its vices and corruption, South Korean Prime Minister, Ms. Park Geun-Hye, has implemented a national job scheme offered to those with a simple penchant for nosiness, or possibly an overzealous sense of nationalism.

Park has expanded a policy in which citizens act as professional whistleblowers or bounty hunters for organised crime . Under the legislative interpretation of Korea's current sex industry legislation, virtually aspect of sex work falls under the definition of organised crime . Park has failed to specifically identify whether the sex industry will fall under her organised crime whistleblower program; however, given that the outsourcing of law enforcement has also been something of a boon for local governments and administration with, local administrators claiming that They can save money on hiring (police) officers, and that the fines imposed on offenders generally outstrip the rewards paid to informers. For example, the reward for reporting illegal garbage dumping is about $40, whilst the fine is about 10 times as much.

Currently the professional-do-gooders for money community , as they refer to themselves, have concentrated on anti-social crimes such as dumping garbage at camping sites, coin-operated coffee machines in Internet sites lacking proper sanitary tags, and publically disposing of cigarette butts inappropriately. However, as more South Koreans are attracted to the seemingly well-paid and romanticism of the self made spy , whistleblower or bounty hunter industry, some are taking on specialities; for example, professional spies who sell information about the sex industry to the government are known within their community as seongparazzi .

As for the Park regime's new plan to stamp out organised crime, Korean sex workers have made the following statement:

Prostitution is already illegal in Korea. That is why sex workers cannot ask for protection during their work. Rather than protecting sex workers, the police violate their human rights during crackdowns. Amidst all this, this new policy will pose a new threat to the survival of sex workers. With bounty hunters at large, sex workers will have to hide in the shadows where there is neither safety nor a regular income. This policy is also dangerous as it may direct public frustration at the Park administration's incompetency, incapacity and dishonesty towards sex workers by defining sex workers as the delinquent others. Stigmatising minorities as criminals and putting them into dangerous circumstances represents nothing short of a witch hunt.

To most of male, female and transgender sex workers, sex work is a matter of survival. Before asking sex workers why would they go into this business, the government should reflect on the circumstances that renders sex work inevitable. A weak social safety net, prejudices within Korean society, and the attitude of Korean society towards poverty should be held accountable. Sex workers constantly have to be afraid and will have no access to workers' rights and human rights as long as prostitution is deemed a crime and prostitutes as filthy.

We, the members of Giant Girls, the Network for Sex Workers' Rights, express our outrage over this incompetent and irresponsible government announcement and declare that we will take every measure against the situation.

The International Committee for the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) has welcomed the withdrawal of the criminalisation of clients of sex workers from the law proposal that will be presented to the French Senate.

In the words of STRASS , the French Union of Sex Workers:

the Senate Select Committee has taken the time to organise real hearings, to listen to all points of view, including those of national and international health and human rights organisations and considered the evidence of the negative impact of the criminalisation of clients of sex workers. Above all, the Senate Select Committee has taken into account the voices of those first concerned, sex workers themselves.

This is a great victory for sex workers who have fought tirelessly against this law proposal not only in France but in every country where this dangerous approach has threatened our livelihood and our safety.

ICRSE hope that this victory in France will inspire sex workers to keep fighting for their rights and for organisations and policy-makers supporting the failed Swedish Model to really consider the growing amount of evidence against it, to follow the steps of the French Senate Select Committee and to abandon the criminalisation of clients in favour of the only human rights based approach to sex work: full decriminalisation.

On Wednesday, June 25th , the long-running San Francisco area sex worker advertising/community website MyRedbook was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Two employees were arrested and the site, which featured listings and discussions forums for sex workers; a review section, and a bad date list, was shut down.

CNN is reporting that the raid was part of Operation Cross Country , a national anti-trafficking effort. CNN cites an anonymous law enforcement source saying that some of the children rescued in the sweep were identified through My Redbook. However, the F.B.I's indictment of My Redbook cites no trafficking charges. Both suspects are charged with one count of interstate travel in the aid of a racketeering enterprise, and one is charged with 24 counts of money laundering.

A statement from the F.B.I describes the grounds for its actions:

According to information available on the publically accessible website as of the date of its seizure by the FBI, myredbook.com purported to provide Escort, Massage, and Strip Club Reviews. Instead, however, the website hosted advertisements for prostitutes, complete with explicit photos, lewd physical descriptions, menus of sexual services, hourly and nightly rates, and customer reviews of the prostitutes' services.

The Indictment seeks the forfeiture of more than $5 million in property and money derived from the facilitation of prostitution, as well as the Internet domain names myredbook.com and sfredbook.com.

As my Redbook was a free service for sex workers, allowing workers to advertise services in a safe environment and to screen potential clients, it is the most marginalised sex workers who are likely feeling the biggest impact. Sex workers of The Sex Workers' Outreach Project addressed this concern with the following statement on their website :

We are very alarmed by the seizure of Myredbook. Many Bay Area sex workers have been able to improve their working conditions by using Myredbook as the site provided a private, discreet venue for negotiations that otherwise often happen in a public venues or on the street. Now that the only free local online female sex worker ad hosting site is gone, where will people go to work? We are very concerned for those who may be forced into more dangerous working conditions at this time.

Today we also lost extensive online forums for a community of sex workers to keep each other safe, screen clients, and blacklist predators. Myredbook also hosted resource guides for sex workers who were struggling and created a venue for community counseling for those in need. Many local outreach organisations used this forum to connect with vulnerable sex workers.

While we are certainly concerned with the issue of sex trafficking, this misguided effort only pushes the most marginalised of us further into the underground. The current anti trafficking moral panic is causing so much unnecessary harm, which we will continue to see as a result of this seizure. Sex workers want to end trafficking. The answer is the decriminalisation of prostitution, which would effectively end the black market, and give workers the ability to unionise and report crimes committed against and around us. It would then be much easier to see the difference between choice and coercion or force. Increasing criminalisation of poor working women in the Bay Area is a dangerous move and the most marginalised of us will suffer the worst.

Comment: Why Everyone Should be Concerned By the Seizure of MyRedBook.Com

5th July 2014. See article from eff.org

Last week, an online community for sex workers disappeared from the Internet. Visit SFRedbook.com, MyPinkBook.com, or MyRedBook.com right now, and you'll only find the seals of the law enforcement agencies--the FBI, the DOJ, and the IRS--that seized the sites as part of a prostitution and money laundering investigation.

The seizure is part of a disturbing trend of targeting sex workers, but more than that, it is an attack on the rights to free speech and free association exercised by a diverse group of people, many of whom have nothing to do with the alleged crimes.

MyRedBook and its companion sites served a large and diverse community of sex workers. The sites functioned as social media platforms, with discussion boards for users in topics from politics to financial tips. It also served as a resource guide with information ranging from explanations of the law as it pertains to sex work to health information. For archived versions of the forums sex workers no longer have access to, click here .

These sites were essential tools for First Amendment protected speech and association--especially important for a community that values its privacy for a variety of legitimate reasons. This platform has been pulled out from under the feet of this community. As the Bay Area Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP) said in a statement:

Today we also lost extensive online forums for a community of sex workers to keep each other safe, screen clients, and blacklist predators. Myredbook also hosted resource guides for sex workers who were struggling and created a venue for community counseling for those in need. Many local outreach organizations used this forum to connect with vulnerable sex workers.

To compound the destruction of this indispensible forum, the users of these sites now have cause to worry that their private information, such as IP addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, may be in the hands of the FBI. In fact, news reports specifically note : [FBI]Agents seized several boxes of evidence @ including business documents and computer hardware.

SWOP spokesperson Kristina Dolgin put it mildly when she said , It's a very scary thing.

EFF has always supported freedom of association and free speech, no matter who is doing the talking. In fact, these rights are especially important for controversial groups. That's why we are so concerned to see these sites shut down--especially on the heels of the bank account closures of sex workers nationwide.

It's true that in many states, some forms of sex work are illegal. But sex workers have First Amendment rights to speak out about the issues that concern them, to advocate for changes in the law, to counsel each other, to discuss the issues that are important to them, and to advertise legally permissible services. And sex workers have First Amendment rights to associate with each other on Internet forums and elsewhere.

As society changes, its values and laws change as well. But the oppression of disfavored groups uses the same tactics. Today, sex workers are being oppressed, but it will be a different group tomorrow. When we allow any group to be silenced and targeted, we are paving the way for it to happen again.

EFF is keeping an eye on what happens in the case, and the ripple effect in the sex worker community as the criminal charges associated with this seizure move forward. In the meantime, we've compiled a list of resources and strategies sex workers can use to protect their anonymity.

A pub called Harry's Bar in Vaxjo in south central Sweden had a policy where they refused entry to "Asian-looking women". This policy was put in place on the grounds that the pub were trying to prevent prostitution from taking place on their premises as the pub owner had been informed by the police that prostitution was taking place in the area and that Asian women were involved.

A group of Asian women (who were not sex workers) and who had been refused entry to this particular pub in 2012 pursued a claim for race discrimination against the pub owner and six members of the security staff. Talking about the experience one of the women, Merlita Malmstrom, said it was a traumatic experience. No one should be treated the way they treated us.

The case was heard by the Vaxjo District Court in 2013. While prosecutors believed strongly that the actions of the pub had amounted to unlawful discrimination the court disagreed and the women lost their case. The court found that the prevention of prostitution, a 'criminal activity', was a 'legitimate reason' to refuse entry to the women. In a nonsensical judgment the court said that the women had been refused entry not on the grounds of their appearance but on the suspicion of criminal activity.

Some of the women pursued an appeal and the decision of the Appeal Court was released a few weeks ago. Sadly, the Appeal Court upheld the decision of the lower court finding again that no discrimination had taken place. The Appeal Court agreed with the lower court that the prevention of prostitution was a 'legitimate reason' for the actions taken by the pub in refusing entry to Asian-looking women.

Wendy Lyon, blogging at Feminist Ire , analyses the decision:

First, of course, there's the blatantly racist nature of the policy, now formally endorsed and legitimated by a Swedish judiciary which sees nothing wrong with singling out women of colour for whore stigma. The second thing is that this decision exposes the lie that the Swedish law is not about targeting sex workers. Of course it is. They may not be targeted for prosecution, but the Swedish authorities are more than happy to go after them with any other means at their disposal.

This decision from the Swedish courts is highly disturbing. Not only does it condone the racial profiling of women of colour but it also gives services in Sweden the green light to discriminate against sex workers. While the women in this case were not sex workers the courts have stated that preventing prostitution is a 'legitimate reason' for permitting discrimination that would ordinarily be unlawful. That means that any discrimination against people who do actually sell sex can be justified on the same grounds and discrimination against sex workers will go unpunished. This confirms what we already know -- that the Swedish approach to sex work hurts most those it is supposedly designed to protect.

A Belgian court has ordered a brothel owner to change the name of his DSK sex club, which shares its initials with those of fallen one-time French presidential contender Dominique Strauss Kahn. He objected to the name in a lawsuit.

Owner Dominique Alderweireld or Dodo la Saumure , is linked to sex parties attended by Strauss-Kahn and dubbed his latest brothel DSKlub, in an admitted reference to the scandal-hit politician.

The court decided in favour of Strauss-Kahn who is well known by his initials DSK in France and neighbouring French-speaking countries such as Belgium and Switzerland. Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they sued Alderweireld for deliberately choosing a name that reproduces his (Strauss-Kahn's) initials which identify him to all.

Alderweireld chose the acronym for the new brothel Dodo Sex Klub which opened this year in the town of Blaton, near the French border in Belgium where prostitution and brothel ownership are legal.