World Sex Sells News

The major British online retailer, LoveHoney, has launched a new U.S. venture to bring Sqweel and the UK company's other hit products to retailers in the States.

LoveHoney founders Richard Longhurst and Neal Slateford have formed LoveHoney LLC with Dean Elliott, founder of Sliquid, one of the fastest growing lubricant companies in the U.S.

We couldn't be more excited about the opportunity to bring our products to retailers in the US, Longhurst said. We have every reason to expect they will perform as well for U.S. retailers as they have for us in the UK.

The first product launched into the U.S. by the new venture will be the LoveHoney Sqweel, the unique ten-tongued oral sex simulator, already a smash hit in the UK.

Sqweel has already received extensive U.S. press coverage online from sex sites such as Em & Lo, The Frisky and About.com, and tech blogs Gizmodo and TechCrunch and even CNBC.

Sqweel is the perfect example of the products that LoveHoney will bring to the U.S., Elliott said. It's a unique, new style of toy that gives retail customers a genuine reason to buy. It expands the market rather than cannibalizing sales with another me-too vibrator.

Starting next year, consumers in Finnish supermarkets will be able to add items such as dildos to their shopping lists, as the stores such as Kesko's Citymarket chain add sex toys to their range of products.

Shoppers will be able to pile items such as dildos, stimulator rings and massage oils into their shopping carts, making Finland the first Nordic country to offer sex aids in supermarkets.

Maria Kaisa Aula, Finland's Ombudsman for Children, says there seems to have been little forethought behind the decision to introduce sex toys to supermarket shelves. Aula pointed out that the advertising trades had a duty to respect parents' responsibility to raise their children appropriately.

The Ombudsman said that the placement of sex aids should not force parents into premature discussions about sex with young children. Finland's Consumer Agency has also weighed in on the issue, advising that products intended for adults should not be placed within children's reach.

In spite of her concerns, Aula is not calling for the removal of the sex products from supermarkets.

Children should not be unnecessarily confused by these things. Children who haven't encountered these items before wouldn't necessarily know about them, or what they're for. There's no point in needlessly confusing them, and for that reason it would be good to place them in such a way that children won't see them, Aula said

A group of sex workers from across the country at a conclave have demanded legalization of their profession to end incidences of violence and discrimination against them.

The conclave, titled Sex Workers Rights Activism in India: Achievements and Challenges, is the first of its kind in the country where sex workers discussed various issues and challenges facing them.

The event, which saw participation of around 100 sex workers from across the country, was organised by Karnataka Sex Workers Union in association with several other groups working for the rights of sex workers and sexual minorities in the country.

Geeta, the president of the Karnataka Sex Workers Union, told IANS that her organization was fighting to make prostitution legal: On one hand police use force and violence against us. The society also discriminates against us because of our profession. All these violence and discrimination will end once our profession is legalized, said Geeta.

Echoing her sentiments, Nalini Jameel, a sex worker from Kerala, said the biggest battle for her community was to make the profession legal: Once our profession is legalized, nobody can harass us, said Nalini.

India is estimated to have two million female sex workers. According to a Human Rights Watch report, brothels are illegal de jure , but in practice they are restricted in location to certain areas of any cities and towns.

India's Supreme Court suggested legalising prostitution as a solution to the rampant sex trade that has flourished despite a raft of laws, a report said.

When you say it is the world's oldest profession and when you are not able to curb it by laws, why don't you legalise it? the Press Trust of India quoted the court as telling the country's solicitor general.

Prostitution is illegal in India but police often turn a blind eye to the trade. There are around 1.2 million sex workers in the country, according to the National AIDS Control Organisation, many of whom have been pressing for full legalisation for years.

Last year sex workers were granted rights to collect life insurance and they have also been fighting for protection under India's labour laws.

The court, presided over by a bench of two judges, said no legislation anywhere in the world had successfully managed to stop the sex trade, and legalising it would allow authorities to monitor the trade, rehabilitate and provide medical aid to those involved .

The Press Trust of India said solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam would consider the court's proposal.

A group of prostitutes has decided to offer free sex to delegates taking part in UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in protest against the city's attempt to dissuade conference participants from visiting brothels.

The city council has contacted 160 hotels asking them not to arrange prostitutes for guests, reports Avisen.dk.

In collaboration with The Nest International – an anti-trafficking organisation – and tourist organisation Wonderful Copenhagen, postcards with the slogan Be sustainable – don't buy sex have been distributed to hotels as part of the campaign.

As mayor I have a duty over which image of Copenhagen will be shown during the summit and I think it's deplorable that you can buy a woman for sex, said Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard, who is hosting her own climate conference for mayors.

But sex workers interest organisation SIO is outraged by the unfounded claims that sex tourism increases during high-level summits, and a group of prostitutes are offering free sex to counteract the council's efforts.

It's completely discriminatory. Ritt Bjerregaard is abusing her position when she uses her power to prevent us from carrying out our legal work, SIO spokeswoman Susanne Møller said.

The group has now decided to offer a free service to people who present one of the council's anti-prostitution postcards, along with their official COP15 ID during the two-week conference.

In addition to the postcard campaign, the mayor has written to each of the 500 participants taking part in the Climate Summit for Mayors asking them to abstain from using the services of prostitutes.

Update: Gropenhagen

10th December 2009. Based on article from timesofindia.indiatimes.com

While the climate talks remain frosty in Copenhagen, there's something else that's generating heat in the Baltic city. Capitalizing on a statement last week from the Copenhagen sex workers' union offering free sex to the climate conference delegates, an enterprising shirt maker has started selling Gropenhagen t-shirts.

The T-shirts carry the punchline — Gropenhagen, The Climax Conference 2009 — and can be bought online.

It all started with Copenhagen mayor Ritt Bjeregaard sending postcards to the city's 150-plus hotels, urging them to advise guests coming for the climate summit not to patronize sex workers. Be sustainable — don't buy sex, the cards read.

The prostitutes didn't take the move lying down. Their union, the Sex Workers Interest Group, declared they would offer sex for free to all delegates who produce the offending postcard and their conference ID.

Jorgen Angel, a rock photographer who is said to have suggested the Gropenhagen idea to a UK shirt-maker, was quoted in the media as saying, I found the Lady Mayor of Copenhagen's postcard very silly... I mean, no fossil fuel is used during 'the act,' as far as I know, and there isn't much CO2 emission, is there?

Two Nigerians accused of using curses to force about 140 Nigerian girls into prostitution in Europe were sentenced to jail terms of four and and four-and-a-half years.

Four other defendants received terms of one or two years while three were found not guilty by a court in the Netherlands.

The trial, on charges of human trafficking and membership of a criminal organisation, opened in March.

Prosecutors said about 140 Nigerian girls brought by the gang into the Netherlands as asylum seekers had disappeared from asylum centres in 2006 and 2007.

About a dozen of the girls were traced, while the rest were thought to have been forced into prostitution in Italy, Spain and France. Their ages ranged from 16 to 23.

The Netherlands allegedly served as a transit point for the girls, sent by the suspects from Nigeria with false identity papers and instructions for an asylum application.

The suspects used voodoo to influence the girls, said a prosecution statement. They had to give blood, nails or a piece of clothing and make a promise to a voodoo priest to repay the 'debts' incurred for their travel to Europe -- between 30,000 euros (44,400 dollars) and 60,000 euros each.

That means that they would have had to have forced sex about 3,000 times and give up the proceeds. In a foreign country, far from home, with no way out -- living with the fear of going crazy or dying if they disobey their handlers, said the statement.

Amsterdam and prostitution have for a long time been bedfellows and the city's red light district attracts thousands of tourists who come to take advantages of the liberal laws. But these thrill seekers may soon have to get their kicks elsewhere, because the Dutch government wants to criminalise sex tourism.

The Netherlands has proposed a Prostitution Regulation Law targeting both those who buy sex as well as those who sell it. Lawmakers say it will identify women who are forced into the industry against their will.

At the moment only prostitutes who work in brothels require a license – many choose to work as escorts or provide services from their homes instead. Under the new law, all women working in the industry would be forced to register, and their details will be available to the police and justice department.

The idea has caused concern in a number of organisations, including the Red Thread, which represents sex workers. Jan Fisher is its chairman: It will be the reverse. The ones who want to work know how devastating the stigma could be, and will be. They will try to work outside this system and they'll be vulnerable when they're detected by the police and tax office, and the ones who are trafficked may be forced by their pimps to register so they have a kind of legal status.

Another major fear is that the Netherlands will move towards a Swedish model, where it is a crime for men to visit prostitutes. Pye Jakobsson, who has worked in the Swedish sex industry for several years, says the Dutch plan is even more stupid than the restrictive regime she works under: The Swedish experience tells us that if you're vulnerable or under the radar – as you will be if you're unregistered – you're more prone to meet dangerous clients as the good ones, the decent ones, who will want to buy sex from registered workers. And there will be women, for one reason or another, who don't want to register and they won't have the choice to say 'no' to bad clients.

Increase in violence Pye believes there will be an increase in violence against sex workers if the law is introduced in the Netherlands and is urging lawmakers to rethink the plans. If the idea is to combat people trafficking, she says, the government should use existing labour laws. Pye argues most women in the trade do the job through choice.

Several hundred Muslim protestors have staged rallies in Indonesia to urge the government to prevent the spread of HIV by implementing Islamic law.

Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, members of the Hizbut Tahrir group took to the streets in several cities including Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta and Makassar.

We urge everybody to support the application of sharia in an Islamic caliphate so that, God willing, all of us will be free from the HIV/AIDS threat, Hizbut spokeswoman Febrianti Abassuni said in a statement.

In the capital, more than 200 female demonstrators urged the government to close down brothels and ban condoms, which they said encouraged free sex and unhealthy behaviour .

One banner read: Prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals are the agents of immorality.

Presidential candidate Sergey Tigipko has said he supports the legalization of prostitution in Ukraine.

I would support this. Actually we should not be hypocrites. If certain things exist we should speak about them openly and resolve [problems] if necessary, he said during an Internet chat on the Korrespondent Web site.

Today we say that we have free medicine, although everybody pays for its, we say that we have free education, although everybody pays for it. That's why we should be honest with ourselves and it will be easier to

The government of Marbella gave green light to a new regulation, which among other things, would prohibit the offering and demand of sexual services in the the street, i.e. prostitution.

The new regulation claims to be in response to neighbourhood requests.

Rammstein's much discussed and highly sought-after Liebe Ist Fr Alle Da box set, which features six sex toys, lubricant, handcuffs and a special album version packaged in a custom flight case, is now available to U.S. fans via Rammstein-Deluxe.com.

In keeping with the sexually charged nature of Liebe Ist Fr Alle Da , Rammstein's video for the first single, Pussy, made music history as the first major recording artist to create an adult-themed video. Recently, the band has seen their album banned and/or available with age restrictions in their native Germany, Switzerland, and Australia.

Over 1,000 men pay for sex in Ireland every day, according to Fine Gael's Denis Naughten.

In a Dáil debate on a Fine Gael motion aimed at stamping out people trafficking, he said that 97% of the 1,000 women believed to be involved in indoor prostitution were migrants.

The Fine Gael Private members motion criticises Government policy and calls for an urgent examination of our prostitution laws.

Naughten said changes to the law on prostitution in the UK could push illegal traffickers out of Northern Ireland and into the Republic, making us a red light country.

His party colleague Simon Coveney said prostitution would never be eradicated entirely, but if we were to help those people who were trafficked in here, then those who paid for prostitution had to be criminalised.

He said it had been claimed that trafficking produced €15.5 billion in profits during 2005, so it was probably higher now. Most of them were aged between 18 and 24 years and in this country, most were women.

The Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, denied allegations that the gardaí or the national immigration unit were not doing enough to target people traffickers.

Romania's independent presidential candidate Sorin Oprescu has said he was inclined to support decriminalisation of prostitution.

But, he claimed that the country's healthcare system wasn't ready for such a move and added he was strongly opposed to legalisation of recreational drugs.

Sorin Oprescu, currently Bucharest mayor, said: As a doctor, as someone who has operated on AIDS patients and patients with sexually-transmitted infections, I am inclined to say I would agree that prostitution should be kept under control. But state control entails dedicated police and medical structures. Romania's healthcare system can't handle that right now.

A presidential commission analyzing social and demographic risks released a report in September proposing the decriminalisation of drug consumption and prostitution, claiming that would reduce, in certain conditions, several public-health risks.

For years, prostitutes caught in police raids in Taiwan were punished under the law, while their clients walked free. However, this law was challenged as unfair by two judges in a recent case involving two elderly prostitutes, and the justices' petition for a judicial review has led to an upcoming change in the rules.

The Constitutional Court has decided that the relevant article in the Social Order Maintenance Act violates the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution, and that new regulations should be worked out by the administration and the legislature.

As amendment of the regulations and penalties pertaining to prostitution requires administrative and legislative review and planning, the Constitutional Court ruled that the existing law will be retained for two more years until Nov. 5, 2011.

Meanwhile, the judges suggested that the police and judicial authorities show leniency when dealing with the punishment of prostitutes, whom they described as socially disadvantaged individuals.

Clients of unlicensed prostitutes in the Netherlands may in future risk prosecution under a proposed new law, the cabinet said.

The draft law, yet to be approved by parliament, will make it compulsory for prostitutes to go through a registration process.

Municipalities will decide how many brothels to allow in their borders, and where.

Prostitutes will become liable for prosecution if they work without the required registration, or in a business with no permit, said the statement.

Clients who make use of the services of illegal prostitutes can be prosecuted, because by doing so they help sustain a form of prostitution in which abuses and exploitation are more difficult to prevent.

Prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since 2000, but only brothels and businesses letting out streetside windows to prostitutes have hitherto required municipal authorisation.

The Amsterdam city authorities were on the verge of shutting down landmark erotic theatre Casa Rosso in the red light district. Owner Jan Otten resisted - and won.

Jan Otten is the face of the Amsterdam red light district. His erotic theatre Casa Rosso is the most prominent landmark in the historic area of window prostitutes, sex shops and cannabis selling coffee shops. Its illuminated facade has appeared on TV shows across the world and Otten has contracts with 180 travel organisations.

Otten prefers to sit behind the till himself, welcoming guests to the shows, which feature intercourse on the stage.

It was world news therefore when it was announced three years ago that Otten's businesses were being shut down by the municipality. In addition to Casa Rosso, Otten owns the Banana bar and a number of peep shows and sex shops in Amsterdam's red light district. On Tuesday it was disclosed that Otten will after all be granted his entertainment and operating licences from the municipality of Amsterdam, after a long legal battle.

The national Bibob agency, which supervises the integrity of licensees, had advised against Otten's retaining his licences. It alleged Otten had connections with criminal circles and that criminal money may have been laundered via Casa Rosso.

At first I thought it was a comedy, Otten said. I said: go ahead and look into it, none of those stories about criminal money are true. I've done nothing wrong. But when the licences were not forthcoming, it turned into a very bad movie. Once, when he got into an argument with one of his employees, he thought about selling the whole damn business .

Shutting down his windows became part of the city's plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes to drive organised crime out of the tourist haven. The Bibob agency connected Otten with laundering ransom money that had been paid in the 1983 for kidnapped beer magnate Freddy Heineken. Those stories were quickly refuted, Otten said. Nonetheless the investigation took a very long time because not all of his investments were transparent.

In the meantime Casa Rosso suffered under the threat of closure. I have had a great deal of trouble from all the stories that have come out since 2007. Whether involving human trafficking or forced prostitution, Casa Rosso is brought into the picture in all the stories about abuses in the red light district. And I have nothing to do with that, Otten said.

And then there are the costs he has had to incur to secure his licence. All those lawyers and advisers. It certainly cost a million euros. For a licence. That ruins a business owner, Otten said. In retrospect I do have the feeling that they wanted to ruin me.

In a rare instance of sexual frankness, a Chinese official has called for conjugal homes and short-stay hotels to meet the needs of sex-starved migrant workers in Guangdong, the province known as the workshop of the world .

The family planning official, Zhang Feng, said millions of workers lived a lonely existence away from their families and he encouraged them to use sex toys rather than the thriving prostitution industry.

In this province we have 30m migrants living apart from their wives or husbands whose hunger for sex has never been recognised by society or the government, Zhang said.

If we go on like this our society will end up riddled with Aids, so I suggest that we provide conjugal homes and rooms by the hour and I also suggest using sex toys — it's not shameful and it avoids disease.

Zhang was speaking in a local newspaper interview to coincide with the opening of the seventh Guangdong Sex Festival, which is attracting hordes of visitors to an exhibition hall this weekend. On display were scanty underwear, inflatable dolls, medicines and sex toys, manufactured by the million in factories around the city.

Many are made by the very migrants Zhang was talking about — young people from the countryside who live in factory dormitories or cramped communal rooms, divided by gender and often policed by security guards.

People who are full should understand those who are hungry, said Zhang, whose titles include vice-chairman of the China Sexual Association, a professional body.

The United Nations claimed there could be around 270,000 victims of human trafficking in the European Union and urged greater efforts to combat the illegal trade.

Authorities in Europe were aware of only a tiny proportion of the victims, said the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), estimating there were 30 times more people affected than were known about.

The claims came on European Anti-Trafficking Day on Sunday, which aims to draw attention to the plight of victims of the trade who are forced to work illegally after being smuggled across borders.

Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC executive director, highlighted few human traffickers were caught and blamed police for not taking enough action. Less than one in 100,000 people were convicted for human trafficking in Europe, he said in a statement, adding this was less than for rare crimes like kidnapping. Perhaps police are not finding the traffickers and victims because they are not looking for them, he added.

A large majority of people in Spain back a proposal that would make prostitution a regular occupation, according to a poll by Instituto Noxa published in La Vanguardia. 76% of respondents support regularizing prostitution, while 17% oppose it.

While prostitution in Spain is not illegal, owning or running a brothel has been illegal since 1956.

The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)—a Catalan nationalist party—is proposing that prostitution be regularized across Spain, in order to offer protection to voluntary sex workers and combat illicit human trafficking organizations. The ERC has also put forward a bill that would ban all ads selling prostitution in print publications. ERC lawmaker Joan Tardà has called the ads disgusting and said that they denigrate women.

Last month, Tardà declared: Regulating is the only way to guarantee social and labour rights to the people that practice it [prostitution], bring them back from the fringes....It will also make it easier to track crime associated with it.

Australia's leading adult entertainment entrepreneurs are set to do battle after Angelo Abela's company Sexyland launched a $5.2 million takeover for Adultshop.com, the Perth-based adult website.

Abela owns a chain of 11 warehouse-style adult shops in Melbourne, which he has built over the course of the last decade. He has billed his bid as a chance for Adultshop.com shareholders to exit an underperforming company .

Adultshop.com listed in 1999 and had a market capitalisation of $600 million at the height of the dotcom boom. But the company's value has since fallen to $3 million and Abela argues it has racked up almost $8 million of losses in the last five years.

For now, Adultshop.com's directors have urged shareholders to do nothing while they review the bid.

The Sexyland bid is expected to close in late November.

Update: Repressive censorship law means that retailers who toe the line are unprofitable compared with those that don't

13th October 2009. Based on article from theaustralian.news.com.au

Adultshop.com managing director Malcolm Day blames the poor enforcement of pornography sales regulations for his company's failure to turn a profit over the past four years.

Day said the $7.8m in losses his company has accumulated since 2004 were directly attributable to rival retailers illegally selling X-rated material outside the ACT and Northern Territory -- the only jurisdictions that allow it.

I put most of it down to the lack of regulation in Australia on the sale of X-rated DVDs in the states, he said.

All the shops on the east coast openly sell them. If it was regulated they'd be forced to buy them from a wholesaler, and we're the only wholesaler that submits DVDs to the OFLC (Office for Film and Literature Classification) for classification and editing.

Fiona Patten, chief executive of sex-industry lobby group The Eros Foundation, estimates that about 8% of X-rated material purchased in Australia is sold illegally in states other than the ACT or NT. In addition, Eros estimates about 70% of pornographic material sold in Australia has not been approved for sale by the OFLC, and is therefore illegal to sell.

In contrast, the Adultshop.com website includes only videos that have been cleared by the OFLC, with all online orders being posted from Canberra. For Adultshop to grow our sales and profitability, we need a similar licensing system as they have in the ACT throughout the states of Australia -- consistent laws that are properly policed, Day said.

Update: Sexyland Offer Rejected

5th February 2010. See article from tradingroom.com.au

AdultShop.com Ltd has put its core businesses on the market less than a week after it rejected a takeover offer by fellow online sex shop Sexyland.

Canada's prostitution laws will be put to the test by a trio of sex-trade workers in a court challenge that has begun in Toronto.

Terri-Jean Bedford, a dominatrix, along with two other prostitutes, Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch, have filed papers in Ontario Superior Court arguing that the criminal code violates their constitutional rights and threatens their physical safety.

The criminal code prohibits communicating for the purposes of prostitution or the keeping of a common bawdy house. But the women say they are professionals and are urging the courts to strike down those laws, which force them to work on the streets and not in their homes.

The women have compiled a wide range of documents as part of their case, including parliamentary and government reports, as well as various affidavits from academics, experts and NDP MP Libby Davies.

Update: Reserved Judgement

29th October 2009. See article from nationalpost.com

Judge Himel has heard the case and has reserved her decision until a later date.

More than half of Romanians would agree to the legalisation of prostitution, a survey shows, following the recent proposal of a presidential committee.

But Romanians are against decriminalization of drug consumption, the survey made by eResearch Corp shows.

56% agreed to legalisation of prostitution, which was considered a necessary evil , according to the study.

The Presidential Committee for the Analysis of Social and Demographic Risks recently proposed the legalisation of prostitution, claiming they would reduce, in certain conditions, several public-health risks.

The committee also recommended the creation of services and special centres where prostitutes could receive free condoms as well as medical, social and psychological assistance.