Brooke Phillips, who used the name Hayden Brooks in the show, has been found shot dead in a house in Oklahoma City which was then set fire to. Three other people also died.
She appeared in the HBO series Cat House, which was about the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee has threatened to sue a local taekwondo athlete who plans to finance his 2012 London Games bid with the proceeds from a brothel.
Logan Campbell, whose participation in the Beijing Olympics last year cost him NZ$150,000 ($110,600) -- most of which came from his parents -- opened a brothel with a friend in Auckland earlier this year.
Campbell went public with the scheme in July and the 23-year-old said he hoped to raise NZ$300,000 to alleviate any financial burden on his parents and to have more time to concentrate on training.
After remaining silent on the issue for three months, the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) had written a letter to Campbell demanding he cease linking the Olympics to his business or face legal action, the athlete told New Zealand television Wednesday.The New Zealand Olympic Committee has threatened to sue a local taekwondo athlete who... more
Unless you’re among the super rich, the chances are you have had to cut back on some of life’s little luxuries since the beginning of the recession. To entice customers back, brothel owners have looked to other industries for inspiration.Unless you’re among the super rich, the chances are you have had to cut back on some... more
Sex workers are routinely portrayed in the media as victims.
At London’s first ever Sex Worker Open University, over two hundred sex workers and allies from the UK and abroad took part in workshops, discussions and actions.
This film presents an alternative and empowered image of the sex worker.
A German brothel is going green in a bid to attract more business in tough economic times.
Customers who arrive by bicycle at Berlin's Maison d'Envie will receive a five-euro ($7, £4.30) discount on the usual fee of 70 euros.
The discount also applies to those who can prove they took public transport to get there, owner Thomas Goetz said.
"It's good for business, it's good for the environment and it's good for the girls," he said.
The recession had hit his industry hard, he told the Reuters news agency. But he said that the offer did appear to be working.
"We have around three to five new customers coming in daily to take advantage of the discount," he said.
And, he added, it had helped ease traffic congestion and free up parking in the neighbourhood.
Prostitution is legal in Germany, with an estimated 400,000 people thought to work in the sex industry.A German brothel is going green in a bid to attract more business in tough economic... more
Cheap sex is for the taking in Berlin - if you show up on a bicycle. The Maison d'envie brothel there is offering discounts to those who arrive on bikes.
The brothel's owner, Thomas Goetz, said: "Obviously we hope that the discount will attract more people. It's good for business, it's good for the environment - and it's good for the girls."
Um, how exactly is it good for the girls?
Cyclists (or those who can prove they took public transportation) get a 5 euro discount from the usual 70 euro fee for 45 minute sessions.Cheap sex is for the taking in Berlin - if you show up on a bicycle. The Maison... more
THIS is Britain’s cheapest brothel with hookers offering sex for as little as ONE CIGARETTE. The cat house was raided by cops after one satisfied customer boasted to an undercover police woman how cheaply he got his rocks off.
Officers swooped on the knocking shop, which masqueraded as a massage parlour, called Lush Lasses, and unearthed a seedy world of cut-price romping.
The hookers had a price list on the wall which staggered even the most experienced of officers. It offered a HAND JOB for an unbelievable THREE DRAGS of a tab, a BLOW JOB for HALF A FAG and FULL SEX for the amazing price of ONE CIGARETTE.
The prostitutes, who called themselves Poundland Pussies, operated their cut-price whorehouse in Litherland, Merseyside.
And in court this week, Litherland magistrates were told how the horny mothers would sell sex to mucky Liverpudlians for peanuts.
David Robespierre for the prosecution, said: “These strumpets would hawk their vaginal wares for next to nothing.
“They would service men for the drag of a cigarette, pleasure males for £1 and even perform disgusting sex acts for chocolate buttons.”
He added: “There was one example of a woman who allowed herself to be digitally penetrated for a mere Rizla paper.
“And another case of a woman being sodomised for a Cuban cigar. The depths these women had sunk to are beyond comprehension.”
Arthur Peasegood, who lived across the road from the brothel, told how men would enter the premises morning, noon and night carrying boxes of 200 cigarettes.
Racket He said: “At first I thought there was a cigarette smuggling racket going on, so I went to have a closer look.
“Inside the place was like a Victorian opium den heavily laden with smoke and the smell of sex.” After the two-day hearing, hookers Gina Woods, 47, Sheila Johnson, 45, Brenda Halliday, 50, and Dawn Thealis, 42, were all found guilty of running a brothel and fined £250 plus costs.THIS is Britain’s cheapest brothel with hookers offering sex for as little as ONE... more
"For the second straight year, a play originating in Chicago has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. This year’s winner is Lynn Nottage’s “Ruined, ” her play set in an African brothel.
In an interview Monday afternoon, Nottage described herself as “jubilant” over the honor. “I don’t write a play expecting to get produced,” she said, “let alone win a Pulitzer Prize.”
“Ruined,” commissioned and first produced by Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, is a hard-hitting homage to Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage,” with the action moved from Europe to a bar and whorehouse in the crossfire of the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite the Brechtian nods, it is an intensely original work.
It is the first Goodman commission, and the first play to premiere at the Goodman, ever to win the Pulitzer. (David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” which had its American premiere at the Goodman, won the Pulitzer in 1984, but that play premiered in London.) Last year, Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County,” produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Following “Ruined”’s Chicago premiere last November, it moved to the Manhattan Theatre Club, where it currently plays through May 10. Nottage said that aside from small nips and tucks, the play did not change between Chicago and New York. The play’s development and premiere at the Goodman “was one of those rare, beautiful experiences that you sometimes have in the theater,” she said.""For the second straight year, a play originating in Chicago has won the Pulitzer... more
Story is from earlier this month but wasn't picked up by many news outlets for some reason!
These are hard times even for the oldest trade in the world. A Berlin brothel has responded to the economic crisis by launching a flat-rate service to woo customers.
Unique circumstances call for unique measures, as politicians combating the global financial crisis have been declaring in recent months, and a Berlin brothel has taken those words to heart.
The city's "Pussy Club" has made headlines in the local press by giving clients unlimited access to all its ladies for €70, which includes an all-you-can-eat-and-drink offer, in a bid to weather Germany's worst economic slump since World War II.
To clinch the deal, it is even offering men the opportunity to bring their wives along.
"Seventy euros, that includes everything -- ladies, drinks and food," a member of staff contacted by phone told SPIEGEL ONLINE, confirming media reports. The offer runs during off-peak times. On weekdays it applies between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. On weekends, it's extended by an hour until five p.m.
It's unclear if the new offer will boost business. So far, it doesn't appear to have. "Business is normal," the Pussy Club spokeswoman said.Story is from earlier this month but wasn't picked up by many news outlets for some... more
Reverend David Gilmore is defending the drug activity at a brothel in Soho, despite police claims that the venue attracts drug dealers and theives.Reverend David Gilmore is defending the drug activity at a brothel in Soho, despite... more
Heidi Fleiss, best known as the Hollywood Madam, had always had plans of opening up an above-board brothel in the Las Vegas area. But the economy has changed, and so have her plans:
"I think I'm going to put all my property up for sale in Crystal," Fleiss said recently by phone from her house in Pahrump. "I don't want to work so hard ... and deal with all the nonsense in the sex business."
Instead, she is focusing her attention on an alternative energy project she said is "perfect for Nevada."
"That's where the money is," she said. "That's the wave of the future."
And maybe that's true -- green consumers want more, more, more and there are a few other positive signs:
*Wind now employs more people than coal
*New York State thinks it can revive the economy and the environment at the same time
*Green jobs are looking safer than other jobs
But can renewables really beat the sex industry? Maybe it's best if they just work together.Heidi Fleiss, best known as the Hollywood Madam, had always had plans of opening up an... more
Three top Frankfurt police officers are being held in custody following a fight in a brothel.Three top Frankfurt police officers are being held in custody following a fight in a... more
“In recent years, millions of women and girls have been trafficked across borders and within countries. The global trafficking industry generates an estimated five to seven billion U.S. dollars each year, more than the profits generated by the arms and narcotics trades,” quotes a Feb 2001, Asia Foundation and Horizons Project Population Council report.
In the late 17th century, the brothel area of Kamathipura was first established to service British troops in what was then called Bombay, India. In 2004, the cost to buy a sex-trafficked girl from Nepal in what is now called Mumbai, has risen to 100,000 - 120,000 Indian rupees (approx $2,004 - 2,405 USD). Girls trafficked from Nepal are known as a “tsukris.” They are those who have been indentured (forced) to work under a “never ending” contract commonly found with human trafficking.
The industry in the trafficking of Nepali girls is a very lucrative business. It can include forced labor, domestic and factory work. Young girls who are teenagers are often used in the sex-trafficking industries, though, because of the extreme profit for traffickers and the very low incidence of law enforcement arrests against sex-industry racketeers.
Arresting the traffickers can be very tricky. In rural Nepal this is a constant challenge as adequate police enforcement is often non-existent. Seen only as an investment to brothel owners, trafficked girls, in addition to cooperating in the daily sex-servicing of clients, are used by the brothel owners as “virgins,” as owners attempt to sell a girl’s virginity over and over again. This insidious crime can be found throughout the back alleys of Mumbai today.
So, why are most brothel owners interested much more in owning girls from Nepal versus girls from India?
The answer is obvious. Sex sells and girls from villages like Ichowk, Mahankal and Talmarang in the Sindhupalchowk district in northern central Nepal are full of girls who are more than anxious for a better life.
Besides this, Nepalese girls are cheaper to buy, much more cooperative and much easier to control and enslave. Girls from the rural regions are known to be much more obedient and considered more attractive for brothel owners who may want to resell them. Nepali girls coming from the rural farming areas, because of their naïveté, are much more easy to cheat and to force into debt bondage. This is because they have very little, if any, education and they usually do not speak any of the native languages of India.
“Annually, according to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors,” reports the US Department of State in a 2008 study.
************CONTINUES*************“In recent years, millions of women and girls have been trafficked across borders... more
Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
The city is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including gambling parlors, and the so-called "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly. Also targeted are peep shows, massage parlors and souvenir shops used by drug dealers for money-laundering.
"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said Lodewijk Asscher, a city council member and one of the main proponents of the plan.
The news comes just one day after Amsterdam's mayor said he would search for loopholes in new rules laid down by the national government that would close marijuana cafes near schools citywide. The measures announced Saturday would affect about 36 coffee shops in the center itself - a little less than 20 percent of the city total.
I think this is a great idea. Instead of closing down all of them (which they could be doing) they are only closing down the ones that generate the most crime. I think this would bring even more tourists because I have never been but I have friends who have told me that there are places there that you just do not want to go near.
At first glance this seems like Amsterdam is destroying it's own reputation but I think they have the right idea with this...Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in... more
Would you want to be branded a Brothel-user for life? No, well your one of a few. Cologne überbrothel Pascha has been surprised at the large number of punters rushing to avail themselves of its free-membership-for-life promotion, a permanent tattoo of the establishments name.
"more than 40 men have already come forward to have the name inked onto their arm in large blue letters, and the brothel's tattoo artist is having to work extra shifts to keep up with demand", the Telegraph explains.
Doesn't the presence of this branding bother them outside the brothel? Well it seems apparently not. Among those looking to earn free passage was 46-year-old Herbert Manske, who said: "My wife doesn't mind. I get free drinks all night and can look at all the pretty girls."Would you want to be branded a Brothel-user for life? No, well your one of a few.... more
Girls as young as 14 work in brothels' around Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, and while the industry is often shown as serving predatory foreign tourists, local men have been found to be the mainstay of clients.
Thousands of children are bought and sold for sex every day in Cambodia an investigation by Al Jazeera found.
Al Jazeera filmed secretly at several brothels, and in each case found much the same thing - rooms full of young women in their early twenties, as well as teenagers.
"For my virginity they gave me $200," Ya Da, a 16-year-old former prostitute, said.
Ya Da worked in a brothel for two years before she ran away. Now, she lives in a safe house with other former prostitutes and abused children.
"There were just a few foreign customers [at the brothel]," she said. "I never slept with any, I slept only with Cambodian men."
'Local customers'
Mu Sochua, a politician with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former minister for women's affairs, told Al Jazeera that most of Cambodia's sex industry was supported "by local customers".
"And some of these local customers are high-ranking officials. You have the military, the police and civil servants. you have rich businessmen who have lots of money," she said.
The involvement of high-ranking officials has been one reasons, NGOs say, that the sex industry has thrived in Cambodia.
"Very often these brothels and criminal networks are being supported and protected by high ranking officials," Mark Capaldi, from Ecpat International, an orgnaisation working to eliminate child prostitution, said.
"The problem is not just as abusers but also the impunity and lack of law enforcement in closing down these brothels and karaoke bars."
Daniela Reale, an advisor from Save the Children, told Al Jazeera: "The reality is that we do know local demand is the force driving this abuse.
"We also know it is around 70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism."
But General Bith Kim Hong, from the Cambodian national police force, rejected allegations that the officials focused their efforts to curb prostitution almost exclusively on foreigners.
"The national police are concerned about anyone who commits a crime, who has sex with children, whether they are foreigners or Cambodian," he told Al Jazeera.
"We have a very high commitment to prevent child prostitution."
Few arrests
Last year, the Cambodian police arrested only 21 people for committing sex crimes with children - eight of those arrested were foreigners and 13 were Cambodians.
The police also admit that the brothels they shut down in high-profile raids often reopen a few weeks later.
In 2002, Gary Glitter, the British pop star, was expelled from Cambodia amid child-sex allegations.
But while the arrest and conviction of foreigners make the headlines, most child sex trafficking supplies local demand, Mu Sochua said.
"It is easier to catch a foreigner and also the government wants to have showcases to make itself look good - that Cambodia is actually taking care of this problem of human trafficking, which is really not the truth," she told Al Jazeera.
Reale said that governments need to combat the worldwide problem: "They need to address their legal system and their law enforcement."
To tackle the poverty that forces girls into prostitution, Reale said that governments must provide support systems to help families match their needs.
She said that the 3rd World Conference on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Rio de Janeiro next month will be as a big opportunity to make real and genuine committments.Girls as young as 14 work in brothels' around Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, and... more
A clampdown on kerbcrawlers and men who pay for sex with women who have been the victim of trafficking was launched today by Jacqui Smith.
Announcing at the Labour Party conference the Home Secretary aims to make it an offence to pay prostitutes who have been forced into the sex trade.
She went on to pledge new police powers to close brothels for three months. At present they can only shut them if there is evidence of drug abuse or anti-social behaviour. She also signalled that ministers would tighten regulations for lap-dancing clubs amid fears that local authorities have too little power to restrict where they open and how they operate.
Will criminals be the ones to suffer with these 'proposed' laws or is this another case of policy top trumps with the Tories?A clampdown on kerbcrawlers and men who pay for sex with women who have been the... more
MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish politician's public description of how he lost his virginity in a brothel has angered his female counterparts, who accused him of encouraging prostitution.
Miguel Angel Revilla, head of the government of the northern region of Cantabria, told a television interviewer earlier this week that he had paid the first time he had sex at the age of 18.
Female members of the regional parliament from the opposition conservative Popular Party were outraged. "As the head of the regional government, he should be an example for the young people of Cantabria," they said in a communique.
"Instead he encourages them to pay for their first sexual experience."
Thursday, Revilla, a member of a regional party, accused his critics of hypocrisy and said they were unable to find matters of substance on which to attack him.
"There are major problems which need to be addressed now, not what a poor 18-year-old did," said Revilla, who is now 65, adding: " Ninety-nine percent of Spanish men did it back then."MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish politician's public description of how he lost his... more
