@LeilaMoon may have been here

Whenever my job is mentioned in newspapers, blogs, or magazines, the same tropes tend to pop up: moral panic, drug abuse, violence. Journalists quote us selectively, so that it sounds as if we’re living out the sex-negative, whorephobic stereotypes the public are used to consuming.

Setting up business as an independent sex worker means putting a lot of information about ourselves online: our photos, our carefully-written advertising text, and our working names. This content is valuable because it brings in clients (and income).

Clinical psychologist and sex therapist Dr. David Ley has long been critical of the sex addiction framework, and wrote the book The Myth of Sex Addiction to explain why. I sat down with him to explore why sex addiction is a problematic concept, and how it contributes to whorephobia.

Want to find out more about sex workers? Unfortunately, mainstream media will only get you so far.

Fighting stigma can be one of the most gruelling and dangerous parts of existing as a sex worker. With mainstream media projecting harmful and often false assumptions as to who sex workers are while simultaneously coopting our aesthetics, the battle to tell our own stories is ongoing. Today we speak to editor and creative director Penelope Dario about her new industry focused magazine Petit Mort [https://www.petitmortmag.com/] and the importance of documenting and showcasing the creativity of th