Adult World News

The decriminalisation of sex work in Belgium was approved by Federal Parliament on March 18th 2022 and came into effect on 1st June 2022. However, under the new law it remained illegal for sex workers to work under an employment contract. This left sex workers with the choice between self-employment or a semi-legal contract in a grey zone with no guaranteed rights or protection.

In response, the Belgian Labor, Health and Justice Cabinets worked with sex worker-led organisations to develop a labour law for sex work. On 2nd May 2024, this law was approved by Belgian federal Parliament. The law enables sex workers to work under an employment contract and gain access to social protection benefits.

The sex worker trade group, UTSOPI, wrote of the new law:

In the first place, this means access to social security: pension, unemployment, health insurance, family benefits, annual vacation, maternity leave, etc. At the same time, the law ensures that sex workers in the workplace are protected from work-related risks and not anyone can become an employer.

Central to the new law are the freedoms of sex workers: any sex worker may choose to refuse a client or a sexual act, interrupt an act or perform it however they wish. Those who wish to become employers must not have incurred convictions for serious crimes, must appoint a reference person for the sex worker's safety and provide an alarm button that immediately connects to the reference person.

The International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) has revealed that Thailand is home to 250,000 sex workers, one of the highest numbers worldwide. Despite this, the profession remains illegal in the country and workers are lacking basic employment rights.

In a recent report titled Sex Worker Statistics by Country, Gender , the IUSW provided a breakdown of the worldwide sex industry. The findings suggest there are over 50 million sex workers globally, with 41.6 million female and 10.4 million male. They predict this number will rise over time due to the increasing options for offering sexual services.

The report also ranked the countries with the highest number of sex workers. Standing at the top is China, with 5 million workers, followed by India (3 million), the US (1 million), the Philippines (800,000), Mexico (500,000), Germany (400,000), Brazil (250,000), Thailand (250,000), Bangladesh (200,000), and South Korea (147,000).

Georgia's state governor Brian Kemp has signed into law a bill that requires age verification on adult websites, a law which likely will cause the sites to shut down in the state.

Senate Bill 351 sponsored by Sen. Jason Anavitarte, aims at protecting children from cyberbullying and exposure to pornographic content, as well as regulates the usage of social media.

The law requires parental consent before allowing minors to create social media accounts. It also echoes a Texas law that would mandate age verification on pornography sites by requiring users to upload a government-issued photo ID before allowing them to view adult content. Any sites that do not enforce these rules would receive a $10,000 fine for each child who accesses content deemed harmful to minors.

The Ohio state legislature is debating House Bill (HB) 295 , introduced last October by Republican state Rep. Steve Demetriou. HB 295 would require adult entertainment websites with content considered harmful to minors to verify users' ages using government identification or transactional data, with felony penalties for website operators who violate the law.

An amended version of the bill, dropping the penalties for website operators to a misdemeanor, was adopted during the hearing before the House Criminal Justice Committee on April 3.

However, one of the more controversial elements of the bill is the establishment of a misdemeanor charge against minors who manage to circumvent the age gate through falsified records or the use of a virtual private network that spoofs an IP address.

David Waterfield is one of pioneers of the UK hardcore porn business. He passed on the Sunday morning in Thailand, his home since 1996.

Waterfield was born 9 August 1943. He first flirted with the adult entertainment business in the mid-1960s, working as a stage manager for a Soho strip club. Later, Waterfield joined the Merchant Navy as a commis waiter, serving first-class passengers on trips from Southampton to New York. It was in New York that he noticed the large queues for the film Deep Throat . The entrepreneurially minded Waterfield, sensed a business opportunity and managed to obtain a small-gauge print of the film and smuggled in back to the UK. Advert for Waterfield's Exxon Cinema.

On his return, Waterfield opened two London-based cinema clubs in 1971 -- the Exxon and Archibald's -- which both screened hardcore films. As the Cinematograph Act 1952 did not apply to all film shows, Waterfield was able to use the cinema club model to show porn.

Later Waterfield and his wife Clark had the idea to start Your Choice , a business hosted in the Netherlands that dispatched pornographic video tapes to UK customers. Rather than risk customs seizure, they employed agents across the UK who copies video tape masters that had been smuggled into the country.

Your Choice was a success. Clark and Waterfield moved to Amsterdam, registering the business. They licensed titles from American and European studios, who were eager to enter the British market.  The company also became well known for its own successful series of porn videos, Viewers Wives.

The Melon Farmers would like to thanks David Waterfield and YourChoice for its well run affiliate scheme that helped fund the website.

See the full story of British sdult trade pioneering in a fascinating article from under-the-counter.com