The Sexy Bits: Wednesday Roundup 27/4

• Commentary on last week's 'men worried about porn use' survey and headlines [blog]

A timely reminder that how you select participants for your survey - and how the questions are worded - can drastically affect outcome. I've contacted the researchers who worked on the survey asking to see their questionnaire, sampling methods and raw data; no reply yet.

• Free Porn Lowers Rape Rates? [blog]

Data suggest the rate of rape is declining hand-in-hand with the increase of broadband access and porn access in the US. Correlation is not causation, but in all the sexualisation hoo-ha it's an interesting topic to ponder.

• Russians never had sex in space [news]

Strange Bedfellows

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Sexual Ability

One of the more common questions I am asked as an ex-sex worker is "what sort of a man uses prostitutes"? The answer, if I'm feeling flippant? "All of them."

The reality is that while sex workers can (and we certainly do) have a laugh among ourselves about certain annoying client 'types', it's really no different from a group of friends laughing about non-paid dates. Sex work literally does take all kinds.

One of the most frustrating stereotypes is that of the faceless, nameless, conscience-less "John" who is somehow both ubiquitous (he'd have to be, to be supporting the fictional 80,000-woman-a-year forced sex trade) and at the same time, not a person anyone will admit to having met. Because we'd hate to think people we know bought sex, wouldn't we? And yet, of course they do!

Anyway. One of the best tools to challenging this assumption is asking those who stereotype clients: what about disabled people?

How the Anti-Sex Lobby Profits

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The Sexy Bits: Wednesday Roundup

• Dr Petra Boynton on why we are not a nation 'addicted' to porn [blog]

Insight on how recent 'porn panic' articles in the media solicit information from experts, then ignore it.

• Dr Teela Sanders on her ESRC-funded research on lap dancers [video]

Good summary of her group's findings, and touches on some issues of how to collect and curate relevant, representative, and ethical data. More about the project.

• Gentleman's club in Hexham gets the thumbs-up as site was used as a "bawdy house" since the 19th century [article]

How trafficking is counted

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Preaching to the Coverted

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What Women Want...

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Sex + Sport = Trafficking Hype

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Happy hookers: myth or reality?

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So, why this blog?

First off, I'd like to assure you I won't always be writing about rape. Hopefully I'll also be writing about lighter stuff (that is also interesting).

I've been working on the Camden/rape reanalysis stats for a while, so it seemed fitting to post them here as an opener. You can also see it as a green paper at Scribd, and it has been covered at International Union of Sex Workers, the Camden New Journal, Women's Views on News, the Grauniad, and Hackney Citizen.

Part of what interests me about these topics is how entrenched the debate is in ideological and emotional reactions. Rape is but one example. Even writing about rape in a scientific manner, taking almost an epidemiological viewpoint, is a hot potato. It's a terrible thing, and tough to handle both effectively and sensitively.

But then, so is cancer. We gain little by sugarcoating it - better to tackle the hard stuff head-on. Just like all of you I would like rape to end. I happen to believe the best way to do it is to attack the problem with our methodical hats on. There are a lot of people doing exactly that: unfortunately, their work doesn't get much press.

I sincerely hope you'll keep reading. There's much more to come.

Lap dancing and rape in Camden: part 5

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Lap dancing and rape in Camden: part 4

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Lap dancing and rape in Camden: part 3

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Lap dancing and rape in Camden: part 2

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Lap dancing and rape in Camden: part 1

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