Controversial Dan Savage on the rights of sex workers: “However, to make it worse and more dangerous [for the people who end up in prostitution] because you are claimning to feel bad for prostitutes [...] is retarded.”

Rating 4.00 out of 5

An array of potential formats for microbicides:
gel, ring, cream… exist also in suppository and foam.

Reacting to a peripheries post on microbicides, Cheryl Overs commented “These [definition of microbicides] are a hint of the skewed propaganda about microbicides and an insight into the absence of consideration of how they will affect the millions of sex workers worldwide. Sex workers will lose any hope of using a 99% effective product against STIs, HIV and unwanted pregnancies, condoms” adding that, “The idea that sex workers will buy and use a combination of different …

Children playing in the centre of Phnom Penh. Prohibitive school fees are one of the reasons children do not attend school, notwithstanding the bribe requested by corrupt teachers to let pupils in.
Photo (c) peripheries

Prostitution and sex work are particularly difficult subjects to comment on. They are heavily loaded with emotional and often irrational charge especially when trafficking and children are taken into consideration. I would usually leave these topics to more qualified commentators such as Laura Agustin, but I’ll make an exception when HIV is involved.
What prompted this posting is …

These animations have been produced by Mplus+ a grass roots community-based organisation formed to improve the sexual health of men that have sex with men (MSM), including transgenders, Thai male sex workers (MSW) and migrant male sex workers.
“These four animations aimed at increasing understandings of safe sex practices and addressing low perceptions of personal risk to HIV/AIDS. The project, an international collaboration, was undertaken because MSM and MSW were not adequately reached through HIV prevention programmes in Thailand because little was known about their particular situations, contexts and practices.”

Mplus+ Animation …

It has all the elements of your usual sex worker story, set in the busy alleyway of the red light district of an exotic town, a low-rise stage on which naked, sexy and sweaty bodies gyrate in the night on the sound of thumping music, a crowd of patrons eyeing at the right number, a dancer who believes that “the sex industry is like any other service-oriented profession”; but this time, the dancers are male and the patrons are female.
In a rare report for The Bangkok Post, Yvonne Bohwongprasert unveils …