This podcast explores the latest sexology research – including the topics that are still too taboo to get funding. We talk to sex robot experts and find out how sex work has moved online.
Little Lonsdale Street in the 1870s: a number of brothels were located in the area known as ‘Little Lon’.
State Library of New South Wales.
Rubbish excavated from brothels sheds light on sex workers’ lives in the 19th century. Despite the dangers, prostitution offered an independent living free of male control.
Legislative issues around prostitution have the ability to lead the conversation and determine research priorities. Here, Terri-Jean Bedford makes a victory sign with Nikki Thomas, left, and Valerie Scott, right, after the Ontario’s Court of Appeal struck down a ban on brothels in 2012.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim
Prostitution is now illegal in Canada. Is prostitution harmful and exploitative? Or is sex work a legitimate form of labour?
Anti-trafficking evangelical activists are often sensationalist and incite fear, prurient interest, and a sense of moral righteousness in their crusade against sex work.
(A21)
In the past two decades, the fight against human sex trafficking has become an evangelical mission but sex-worker rights advocates have rejected the conflation of sex trafficking and prostitution.
The study shows the negative effects of sex work’s criminalisation, including a reluctance of workers to go to police and clients using it as an excuse to abuse workers.
“Gritty,” “authentic” are words of praise often used for TV director David Simon: No less so with The Deuce, his new series about the rise of the porn industry in New York City in the 1970s.
Sex workers deserve justice and protection, too.
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Stigma continues to inform legal, social and cultural attitudes towards sex work and remains a barrier to health, human rights and justice. Developing stigma indicators is one step towards change.
Due to a fear of being harassed or assaulted, many women go out of their way to avoid travelling through parts of the city where sexual entertainment venues are concentrated.
Blemished Paradise/flickr
Despite the rise of feminism, strip clubs and other ‘sexual entertainment’ businesses have proliferated in our cities. And women are feeling the harmful impacts of the industry’s presence.
Criminalising an entire industry because of isolated examples takes away choice from free-will participants based exclusively on the behaviour of abusers.
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The car, the phone and the internet have changed the way the sex work industry operates, but debates about regulation have not advanced with new technologies.
Decriminalisation allowed sex workers to step out of the shadows and into active participation in public life.
Scarlett Alliance/Author provided
Full decriminalisation of sex work is advocated by many health and human rights organisations around the world. Sex workers in New South Wales kick-started the process 40 years ago.
In 2016, a UK Home Affairs Committee report highlighted that street-based sex work has diminished significantly over the last two to three decades.
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Consensual sex work, like non-commercial sex, mostly happens behind closed doors. Yet stigma toward and ignorance about sex workers makes people panic when we try to talk about reform.
Different local or state government laws apply in different parts of the country in Australia, Germany, the US and Mexico.
Reuters/Kimberly White
Understanding laws that govern sex work can be complicated and confusing, especially because laws are not uniform globally, or even within each country.
Ngwe Thein says he was forced to work on a fishing trawler with inadequate food and little or no pay.
APTN, Esther Htusan/AP Photo
July 30 marks the United Nations’ World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. How can computer scientists help combat this problem?
Activists supporting the decriminalisation of sex work at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa.
International AIDS Society/Abhi Indrarajan
South Africa has launched a plan to tackle HIV, TB and sexually transmitted infections – but much depends on its implementation over the next five years.
Interim Director, UWA Public Policy Institute; Associate Professor & Programme Co-ordinator (Masters of Public Policy), The University of Western Australia