Gloria Steinem recently gave a talk in New Delhi about prostitution and trafficking. Again defying that old trope, forever pushed by advocates for the full decriminalization and/or legalization of prostitution, that pretends abolitionists are concerned with some kind of puritan morality and “sin,” Steinem stated: “Prostitution is not inevitable, it is only about unequal distribution of power.”

If you've been following the sex work-y blogs, you'll no doubt already be well informed that any rise in global temperatures, sea levels, acid rain or general climate meltdown is wholly due to big bad whores selling sex to UN delegates in Scandanavia. What??

I was walking down the street in London today, all kind of swine fluey and mucousy, when, almost like an apparition from the bottom of my bottle of cough medicine, came marching toward me the only thing that could possibly save a soul as wretched as mine: an earnest, young woman with an Amnesty International flyer.

Salvation!

"Do you think we have a moral obligation to free sex slaves?" she greeted me.

"Uhhh...," my swine flu stammered.

"Look!" she commanded, and she handed me a coaster.

"Ok..."

Contrary to popular perceptions, only a minority of migrant sex workers in the UK feel they were trafficked into the sex industry, according to a recent study led by Dr. Nick Mai of the Institute for the Study of European Transformations (ISET) at London Metropolitan University.

A copy of the press release about the study, ‘Migrant Workers in the UK Sex Industry’, can be found below.  You can also read the final policy-relevant report here.

It’s a sad irony that a President who wants to unite opposing factions presides over an increasingly entrenched and partisan political landscape. There seems to be no satisfactory compromise for both the health care and immigration reform debates. Well-worn rallying cries and talking points are tooled and retooled until the root issues are nearly forgotten. The situation is tragic because the people’s needs are made secondary to an unending war between two political entities.