Filed under: hookers, people from rhode island | Tags: prostitution, rhode island, smalltown boy
Audacia Ray and Eliyanna Kaiser of Sex Work Awareness co-wrote an interesting article about Rhode Island the other day. Not about the prostitution law itself, but about the way advocates on both sides of the issue have been handling the discussion. Ray and Kaiser are concerned–probably rightfully–that people’s strong personal feelings are derailing the effectiveness of any discussion that might happen. More importantly, they stress–and this is really important–that pretty much the only group that hasn’t come forward with an opinion are the state’s sex workers themselves. And while some anti-prostitution advocates might argue that the lack of support from within Rhode Island is in and of itself a sign that prostitutes are all oppressed victims of trafficking, that is far, far from the truth.
[Continuing my review of my 10 favorite pairs of songs from 2002.]
#8. No Doubt, Underneath It All and Pink, Just Like A Pill
2002 was New York’s year. Consciously or not, after 9/11 the world’s pop cultural attention turned back to the Big Apple in a it hadn’t in years, maybe decades. Wildly-hyped bands like the The Strokes and Interpol were praised for somehow capturing the (white, male, privileged) essence of their home city, and it truly seemed like the dawn of a new golden age for a city that so recently endured an appalling tragedy. And the big city love wasn’t just contained within the five buroughs; while Paper Magazine spent much of 2002 rapturing about the arrival of the city’s first Target, the Minnesota-based retail behemoth chose iconic New York designer Stephen Sprouse to put out its line of patriotic hoo-hah.* And though most music critics’ attention was on all the indie bands that year, some of the bigger names in pop were clearly paying homage to that most New York-ish of New Yorkers, Debbie Harry.
