Men’s Health: How OnlyFans Became the Porn Capital of the Pandemic. “Kate Kennedy is a working performer in the adult entertainment industry, but she hasn’t had sex in months. ‘This is the longest I’ve gone without having sex in probably my adult life,’ she says. That’s because Kennedy is a new kind of porn star. Or maybe she’s a porn star in a new kind of porn: one led by a social media website called OnlyFans. The site is the latest shift in the adult industry, and Kennedy is among the legions of porn stars and social media influencers who are using it to sell sexy homemade content during the pandemic.”
sex work
New York Times: Inside the Strip Clubs of Instagram
New York Times: Inside the Strip Clubs of Instagram. “For the past three weeks, Justin LaBoy, 28, a former professional basketball player and a social media personality, and Justin Dior Combs, an entrepreneur and P. Diddy’s 26-year-old son, have been hosting virtual pop-up strip clubs on Instagram Live. ‘If it wasn’t for Justin and his Lives I don’t know what I would have done or how I would have paid my bills or gotten food in my house,’ said Sasha, a dancer who has been featured on the pop-up show.”
Coronavirus: Offline sex workers forced to start again online (BBC)
BBC: Coronavirus: Offline sex workers forced to start again online. “Most sex workers meet customers in person. For them, the coronavirus spells economic ruin. ‘The virus is a disaster for client-facing businesses – and sex work is no different,’ says Goddess Cleo, a dominatrix from London. ‘Most of my income is generated from one-on-one sessions and events. I [normally] only make a bit of money through online avenues.’ But like many others, Cleo has switched focus to digital since the lockdown came into effect.”
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Las Vegas strip club to offer drive-thru peep shows
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Las Vegas strip club to offer drive-thru peep shows. “Little Darlings strip club will begin offering drive-through strip shows for those who want to indulge in some adult entertainment, but do not want to enter the building, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending people keep 6 feet in distance between themselves and others.”
The Daily Beast: The Secret Sex Workers’ Database That Brought Down a Plastic Surgeon Accused of Rape
The Daily Beast: The Secret Sex Workers’ Database That Brought Down a Plastic Surgeon Accused of Rape. “After a high-end escort in Los Angeles believed she was drugged, raped, and filmed without consent by an Ohio plastic surgeon in town for a conference, she logged onto a secret database that women use to warn each other about predatory men. She saw several horrifying reviews of Dr. Manish Gupta, a flashy Toledo doctor who drove a blue Maserati and regularly flew to medical conferences in cities around the U.S.”
The Age (Australia): Melbourne brothel owner sues Google over bad reviews
The Age (Australia): Melbourne brothel owner sues Google over bad reviews. “A South Melbourne brothel owner is taking legal action to force Google to reveal who wrote its bad online reviews, some of which direct customers to a nearby competitor. The Boardroom of Melbourne, which bills itself as one of the city’s top brothels, wants the Federal Court to force Google to hand over the IP addresses linked with the negative reviews after the search engine giant refused to reveal the identities behind them and take them down.”
TechCrunch: An adult sexting site exposed thousands of models’ passports and driver’s licenses
TechCrunch: An adult sexting site exposed thousands of models’ passports and driver’s licenses. “SextPanther, an Arizona-based adult site, stored more than 11,000 identity documents on an exposed Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage bucket, including passports, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers, without a password. The company says on its website that it uses these documents to verify the ages of models with whom users communicate. Most of the exposed identity documents contain personal information, such as names, home addresses, dates of birth, biometrics and their photos.”
Porn Stars Vs. Instagram: Inside The Battle To Remain On The Platform (BuzzFeed News)
BuzzFeed News: Porn Stars Vs. Instagram: Inside The Battle To Remain On The Platform. “Porn stars and other sex workers are furious that Instagram continues to take down their accounts with confusing guidelines and explanations — and despite a summer meeting where actors’ union representatives and platform officials tried to hammer out their differences.”
Florida Sun-Sentinel: Florida to use online registry to shame people who buy sex
Florida Sun-Sentinel: Florida to use online registry to shame people who buy sex. “A new law that took effect Monday will create an online registry of people found guilty of soliciting prostitution. The online database of sex buyers is part of a broader effort to crack down on human trafficking.”
Motherboard: A Government Database for People Who Pay for Sex Is a Terrible, Dangerous Idea
Motherboard: A Government Database for People Who Pay for Sex Is a Terrible, Dangerous Idea. “A set of bills passed the Florida House and Senate earlier this month that would build a database of people convicted for soliciting sex, and which sex workers and advocates say will ruin lives and put them at more risk.”
Wired: Social Media Is Reshaping Sex Work—But Also Threatening It
Wired: Social Media Is Reshaping Sex Work—But Also Threatening It. “ONE MORNING LAST May, Melody Kush discovered that someone was using her Twitter photos to catfish people into paying for a Snapchat premium account that didn’t even exist. Kush is a sex worker—an erotic model, to be precise—and for someone who does much of her work via social media, that kind of scam isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s an existential threat to her brand. She asked the imitator to stop; they refused, and blocked her. So she screenshotted the person’s snapcode and asked her 114,000-person Twitter following to report the account for her.”
