I fucking love this movie and the brilliant women in it. This movie comprehensively sums up exactly what is at stake when we allow the state to use false and hypocritcal "moralities" to inhibit and restrict the autonomous choices of consenting adults. 

I get tingles down my spine, in my nipples and in the cunt each time I stumble across another woman taking control of her body, her sexuality and her voice. So you can imagine how strongly my body reacted to this bevy of brainy beauties that I found in this movie. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VIEWING:

I know it is a faux pas in the sex-positive porn industry these days to mention it if you've been raped. This is due to the fact mentioning it feeds that old assumption that sex workers have all been sexually abused or assaulted in some way and that sex work is not the kind of work a healthy woman who has not experienced abuse would ever choose.

In this interview hijra and sex worker rights activist, Laxsmi Tripathi, talks about the difficulties of attaining legal rights for sex workers, especially in the transgender community. A note about hijras:

Hijras have been a part of Indian culture for some time. They are considered a third sex, which is why trying to understand hijras using a male/female or homosexual/heterosexual model is not very helpful. Here is an  essay about Hijras, which can serve as an introduction to the understanding of this "third sex".

The NY Times article about SeekingArrangements.com, a website that hooks up Sugar Babies with Sugar Mommies and Sugar Daddies, showed up just after I posted my essay “The Business of Sex.” I knew I was going to like the author, Ruth Padawer with the heading: “Heterosexual relationships have long involved economic transactions.” No kidding! She could have added "Homosexual relationships" to the mix.

It brought to mind my original 1972 feminist manifesto titled “Liberating Masturbation” that I turned into Ms. Magazine when I was asked to write an article. The opening sentence stated: “Among the many issues involved in the liberation of women, the two major fronts in my own personal liberation have been economics and sexuality. Ultimately they are not separable – not as long as the female genitals have economic value instead of sexual value for women.” Over the next twenty years, I reworded and rehashed that concept endlessly. It was like I'd been given a Zen koan as I tried to fathom, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" My rational mind knew that personally speaking; I had to earn my own money in order to be sexually independent. Whenever I was financially dependent on a lover or my husband, I was unable to speak the whole truth about my sexual desires or share my sexual thoughts.

Back in the early 70's Margot St. James created COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) to decriminalize prostitution.  She had a fundraising ball that was the talk of San Francisco and I attended one as a gender bender with my shaved head, eye brow penciled mustache, and bare breasts.  Finally, time binding is kicking in and the new generation is learning from the one before it.  Bravo, Patricia West!

San Francisco would become the first major US city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K - a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex not involving minors.