17/01/09

For Obama’s inauguration, DC hookers get vaccation

Pic by Jason Cragg via DCist

Pic by Jason Cragg via DCist

Many people are thrilled that the Bush Years are almost over. Few more so than sex workers, who have essentially been declared not to exist under the administration’s HIV funding rules. Though many are disappointed that Mark Dybul will stay at the helm of PEPFAR for a while, some of us hope that he’ll do away with the most egregious of his old boss’s idiocies, starting with the “anti-prostitution oath”. So yes, we should be thrilled that Bush is out and Obama in. But I’m not sure how thrilled sex workers in DC will be at the vaccation being forced on them in honour of Obama’s inauguration.

DC has declared downtown a hooker free zone until January 25th. No work during the party or the hangover, then. Seems like a shame; in these difficult times it would have been nice to take advantage of the boost in business that will almost inevitably come with tens of thousands of out-of-towners all intent on having a good time.

Thanks to Lisa M.

Spread the Wisdom:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Reddit
  • Technorati
  • Identi.ca
  • MySpace
  • NewsVine
  • SphereIt
  • StumbleUpon
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • email
  • Live
  • Twitter

This post was published on 17/01/09 in The sex trade.

Send this post to a friend Send this post to a friend

2 comments

You can follow the comments on this post via this RSS feed. You can also leave a trackback from your own site.

Tags: , , , , , , , .

  1. Comment by Amanda, 18/01/09, 03:14:

    I’m just laughing. The threat of jail (or death in some countries) doesn’t deter sex workers of any stripe. I’m doubting red pieces of paper will. What exactly is the purpose behind this notice? Did either of the Bush inagurations have these notices? (I don’t recall hearing about it, but I might not have been paying attention.)

    On a serious note, I had high hopes for Obama, but he’s already making noise about equating sexual trafficking with all prostitution. Sigh.

    XX

  2. Comment by Holly, 05/03/09, 04:37:

    I think Obama’s comment about trafficking was taken out of context. He acknowledged that human trafficking occurs in various industries and specified prostitution as one of the industries, but he didn’t equate all prostitution with trafficking or argue that criminalizing prostitution is an effective way to fight trafficking.

Leave a comment