Archive-name: alt-sex/prostitution/faq Posting-Frequency: bi-weekly (monthly to *.answers) Last-modified: 08/25/97 ***** Welcome to Alt.Sex.Prostitution! ***** We're glad that you've found us. Please take a moment to read this Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file, as it will help you understand the standard etiquette (netiquette) for this newsgroup. This file is Part 1 of 4 which will be posted every two or three weeks. The FAQ is divided into 4 parts as follows: Part 1: General information about the newsgroup and the World Sex Guide. Part 2: Questions and information about prostitution in general, plus information on fighting spam. Part 3: List of organizations that support prostitution or prostitutes or are working to decriminalize prostitution. Part 4: Suggested reading list on prostitution and prostitutes' rights. A special thanks to Ms. Margo (co-founder of alt.sex.femdom) for originating this FAQ and to AGentleMan for adding to it, shaping it, and improving it in many ways. Thanks also to Catherine La Croix of COYOTE/Seattle and Carol Leigh of the Prostitutes’ Education Network for supplying additional material, and a special thanks to all of you who have made comments and suggestions. ***** What Is Alt.Sex.Prostitution? Alt.sex.prostitution was chartered as an unmoderated newsgroup intended for discussion and information exchange about all aspects of prostitution, including but not limited to the legal situation in different countries, prices, reviews of brothels, bars, clubs, massage parlors, escort services, call girls, street prostitutes, and requests for information. It was newgrouped in August 1995 to replace the dying alt.sex.services and alt.sex.brothels. If your internet provider does not carry alt.sex.prostitution you can usually get them to do so by simply making a request (you can try email to webmaster@your.site, i.e, your internet provider address, not the words "your.site"). Meanwhile, you can also find it at Deja News (see below). This newsgroup supports prostitution and encourages efforts to decriminalize it (see definition in Part 2), but discussion of other viewpoints, including anti-prostitution viewpoints, is also welcome. The newsgroup charter also states that commercial ads are not allowed, but obviously in an unmoderated newsgroup this is impossible to enforce (efforts to discourage ads are discussed below). It will unfortunately be necessary for you to wade through the ads and spams (irrelevant cross-postings to multiple groups) to get to the good information in this newsgroup. The quickest way to do this is to look for articles with [ASP] at the beginning of the subject line. For more information, see the section on "How Can I Help Readers Find My Posts?" This is not an appropriate group for discussion of strip-clubs or phone sex, and it is not appropriate for posting of advertisements, binary files, or fiction stories. There are specialized newsgroups for these types of items (see below). ***** Where Can I Get Laid in ...(Mytown, the Place I’m Going to Visit, etc. etc.)? This is, quite naturally, the most frequently asked question in this newsgroup. The first place you should look for answers is the World Sex Guide, maintained by Atta and located at: http://www.paranoia.com/faq/prostitution/ It is also available by email using instructions given below, or it can be downloaded via ftp as a large (800Kb) gzipped tar file at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/electronic-publications/twsg The bulk of the World Sex Guide consists of a compilation of posts from this newsgroup about where to find prostitutes and at what price. The World Sex Guide is updated irregularly every two or three months when Atta has a free weekend to devote to the task. The "From" lines and the signatures are always deleted before an article is archived in the World Sex Guide. If you send something in and you specifically want your email address to be left in, please indicate this. If you specifically do not want your article archived at the web site, feel free to mention that as well. New people are encouraged to check the World Sex Guide before posting requests for information to this newsgroup. Often the information you are looking for will already be there. The World Sex Guide also contains articles giving general advice on how to deal with escorts, massage parlors, streetwalkers, etc. Such articles can be found at the beginning of the United States section and at the end of the JayHawk report. There is also some information about the legal status of prostitution around the world, and other general information about prostitution. Virtually every prostitution-related resource on the internet should be accessible from there. ***** This Is Cool! How Can I Help? Simple: Post your reports on the availability of various sexual services in your area or areas you visit. If you are a geographer and you just discovered the lay of the land, let us know. If you got ripped off, expose the rip-off artist here (it’s a good way to get even). Pooling our information is, after all, the only way we get the information at all. This newsgroup is only as good as its participants. As in any form of social intercourse, politeness goes a long way. A number of people who have posted here have been swamped with semi-literate requests for more information instead of with Thank You’s or, much better yet, a posting of more information. Show your appreciation for what other people post by posting what information you obtain. Information of the type being sought here often gets out of date very quickly. Please do your part by contributing regularly anything you know that would be useful to others in the group. That is the best way to help create a healthy group where you can also find the information you want. ****** How Can I Help Readers Find My Posts? Rule #1: Identify your post with [ASP]: To help differentiate the wheat from the chaff in this newsgroup, it has become standard to begin on-topic reports with [ASP] in the subject line. Using the brackets around [ASP] helps it stand out much better than using ASP without the brackets. Posts denoted in this fashion will generally float to the top or bottom of alphabetized news lists, and even if they don't they are much easier to recognize. You can also perform find searches for ASP in the subject lines. Rule #2: Identify your information requests with REQ: It has become standard in a number of newsgroups to identify requests with "REQ:", but regardless of how you do it, requests for information should always be clearly identified as requests in the subject line. Otherwise, they are more likely to irritate readers and less likely to get a reply. Readers may get irritated when they open a post that says, for example, "[ASP] Dayton outcall" in the subject line, only to find out that it is a request for information rather than a report or recommendation. Requests are welcome in the newsgroup, but they are easier to identify as such if they are denoted with "REQ:" or by other means, even just a question mark, e.g. "[ASP] Dayton request" or "[ASP] Dayton outcall?" This enables readers to identify more easily the queries that they might be able to help somebody out with. To reiterate, the following subject lines for information requests would all be appropriate, but the first one is the general standard: [ASP] REQ: Dayton, OH [ASP] Request Info on Dayton, OH [ASP] Need info on Dayton, OH [ASP] Dayton, Ohio ??? You should NOT ask for info in any of the following ways (doing so will incur the wrath of the real info providers, who will be less likely to help you out): [ASP] Info on Dayton, OH [ASP] Dayton, OH [ASP] Dayton, OH info [ASP] Hot action in Dayton, OH [ASP] Report on Dayton, OH Here are a few other suggestions: 1. If you are a sex worker or an agency wishing to announce your availability, you should make that known in the subject line. A phrase such as "escort available" will help your post stand out and differentiate it from reports and posts that don't adhere to the posting guidelines. For example, "[ASP] Dayton escort available" makes it abundantly clear what the post deals with, whereas "[ASP] Dayton escort" is a poorly phrased subject line that could be a request, a report, or a notice of availability. 2. It is generally easier to identify posts if the geographic reference is placed early in the subject line. For example, "[ASP] Dayton escort sought" jumps out more quickly than "[ASP] Escort sought in Dayton." 3. When testing anonymous posting methods (see below), use [TEST] instead of [ASP] in the header. This still makes it easier to find amidst the spam, but does not interfere with the information sources found under the [ASP] header. 4. Subject lines in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS are often ignored because they are characteristic of spam and are considered SHOUTING. Don’t use all capital letters except for the [ASP] and REQ designations. 5. It is also a good idea to avoid using any words in your subject line that readers might have in their "kill files" which are used to automatically screen out some of the spam in the newsgroups. Such words could include the likes of the following: 1-800, 1-900, 011, (800), (900), $/min, WWW, nigger, homo, queer, Clinton, Newt, jpg, mpg, jpeg, avi, gif, free, phone, cum, cunt, pussy, ass, fuck, cock, crave, hole, tight, ass, slut, whore. You get the idea. One of the best spam filters is one which ignores anything that is cross-posted to five or more newsgroups (although that will eliminate this FAQ, which is posted to six newsgroups). ****** How Can I Post Anonymously? Posting anonymously is very common in the alt.sex newsgroups because people may not want their neighbors, families, co-workers, or other associates to know about their activities (or even their thoughts) on topics in these newsgroups. There are several ways to accomplish this objective, listed below. They vary in the degree of security and anonymity they offer, and it is up to you to decide what degree is sufficient for your needs. Available means of posting anonymously seem to change rapidly as remailers come and go. Anonymous remailers often bite the dust, primarily due to spam abuse. This situation is likely to continue as the internet undergoes its growing pains. This FAQ endeavors as best it can to keep up with this rapidly changing subject. If you are reading an older version of this FAQ, try to find a newer version if you have trouble posting anonymously. Note: If you want to post something anonymously, it’s not a bad idea to check your method first by posting a short test message with [TEST] in the header rather than [ASP]. This message won't bother anyone because it will be lost in the spam, but you will still be able find it and see whether your method is really anonymous by looking at the article and all its headers. A common trap is to leave a signature in your post. 1. Type I anonymous remailers. One method to post anonymously to this newsgroup is to use an anonymous remailer in conjunction with a mail-to-news (mail2news) gateway. There are several such remailers, but only two gateways that I know of that will post to this newsgroup. These two gateways are myriad.alias.net and newspost.zippo.com. This method is more secure than other methods because your real email address is not kept on the remailer’s computer. However, this also means that you cannot get email replies. Any of the following remailers will anonymize your message using the technique described below: remailer@replay.com remailer@cypherpunks.ca This information keeps changing faster than I can update it, so if your post doesn't work, look at this web site: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html For a currently working remailer. If you have a report, I will post it with all information about you removed. Just email it to me. If it isn't a report, don't bother asking. STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS: Here’s how to post anonymously: 1. Email to any one of the above remailers 2. The subject should be the subject of your post 3. On the first line of your message type a double colon ("::") 4. On the second line type: Anon-To: alt.sex.prostitution@myriad.alias.net OR post-alt.sex.prostitution@newspost.zippo.com 5. The third line should be blank 6. Start your message on the fourth line 7. Remember not to use a signature!!!!!!!!! In other words, the body of your email should look like this: :: Anon-To: alt.sex.prostitution@myriad.alias.net ; ;Hello, I'm reporting on.....(whatever) That’s it! Send it off, and the nice folks at the remailer will strip off all the identifying headers and send your message along to the nice folks at the mail2news gateway (either myriad.alias.net or newspost.zippo.com) who will make it pop up in the newsgroup. The folks at myriad.alias.net were even kind enough to add this newsgroup to their gateway at my request. You can post anonymously this way, but you will not be able to get replies by email. You can get more information about the remailers by sending a message to any of the remailers with the subject "remailer-help" (without the quotation marks). The help files you will receive are essentially identical for all of these remailers, so one such help file should be sufficient. A few of the remailers have an "Anon-Post-To" function, but this function usually will not work for this newsgroup so you will need to modify their instructions as indicated above (i.e. go through a gateway) to post here. Since remailers and gateways are subject to change and periodic down times, and since both must be operative for this to work, these methods may at times be unreliable. If your post does not appear within two days, you can assume it was lost and should try again, perhaps with another remailer or gateway. 2. Encrypted remailers. All of the remailers listed above (and others) provide greater security if you use encryption. Setting up an encrypted reply block is also possible. This subject is complicated and is beyond the scope of this FAQ. Updated information and links on anonymous remailers can be found at http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html. The links will lead to the necessary PGP encryption software and the optional Private Idaho software interface. The software is all free but it takes a while to master it. 3. With your newsreader. One way to be somewhat anonymous is to simply place a fictitious name and email address in the user profile of your newsreader software. Your internet provider will be identified, but you won’t be. You should test this first by posting to alt.test (or some other newsgroup where you don’t care if you are anonymous) to make sure that your name and email address do not appear in the headers. The information on who you are will still be in your internet provider’s log files, so if someone files a complaint on something you posted that could be interpreted as spamming or illegal, your provider could identify you. This method would generally not be a good idea if you want to post from work, since if you are using your employer’s server they would be able to identify you. This method may be sufficient for your needs, however, if your only concern is that you don’t want your family or friends to know that you are posting here. 4. Other email services. There are a number of other email services available which may be anonymous enough for your purposes, although in all cases you are relying on the provider to keep you anonymous. You will need to decide if this provides the degree of security you want. Some of these services are listed below. To post to this newsgroup from any of these services, you can send email directly through a gateway, i.e. to alt.sex.prostitution@myriad.alias.net or post-alt.sex.prostitution@newspost.zippo.com. You can also post to this newsgroup directly from The Nymserver and Mailanon. AOL. AOL has been called "the largest anonymous remailer in the world" because it allows up to five screen names, each of which is a pseudonym traceable only by AOL and law enforcement. POSTONE. PostOne is a free email forwarding service based in Singapore. They forward email to your regular email address, and you can mail from them either from their web page or by placing appropriate footers at the end of your message. They make money by placing short ads at the end of your incoming mail (these are not very intrusive). Whatever name you place in the name field when you register will appear in your email, so place your anonymous moniker (not your real name) in the name field when you sign up. The system is very easy to use and very fast. The Singapore company states: "We undertake not to track, alter or reveal private communication. Our service is bound by the law and public policy." Despite the fact that prostitution is legal there, Singapore does not have a good track record on civil liberties, and it has been reported that Singapore recently started to monitor and censor all incoming web traffic. You’ll have to decide if you trust this situation. You can get more information and sign up for the service at <http://www.mailhost.com>. THE NYMSERVER. The Nymserver offers a service that works much like the old anon.penet.fi did, but at a cost of $35 per year. It also requires a credit card to secure against abuse of the system. They can be found at http://www.nymserver.com. The site contains lots of information about anonymity on the internet. MAILANON. Mailanon (formerly Edtec) offers a service that works much like anon.penet.fi did, but at a cost of $5 a month. They can be found at http://www.mailanon.com/anon.html; or send email to infos@mailanon.com for an automated reply with more information. ***** Are There Other Prostitution-Related FAQs? There is an FAQ specific to legal prostitution in Nevada (U.S.A.) maintained by Bashful and located at: http://www.paranoia.com/~bashful/ Other prostitution FAQ files, some of which are area-specific, are posted from time to time by various users, so keep your eyes open for them. These will also be added to the World Sex Guide website whenever it is updated. ***** Is Alt.Sex.Prostitution Archived Anywhere Else? Yes. All newsgroups are archived at Deja News http://www.dejanews.com. This is a good place to search for articles that have not yet been archived in the World Sex Guide. Go to Deja News and click on "Power Search." Then click on "Create a Query Filter" and put alt.sex.prostitution in the field. Then specify the dates you want the search to include and submit the query filter. Then initiate a search for the city or country you are interested in. If you would like to pull up all articles for the past month or so, go to "Power Search" and put "~g alt.sex.prostitution" (without the quotation marks) in the field. Better yet, do a search for "~g alt.sex.prostitution and ~s ASP". This will pull up only relevant articles and no ads or spams. Very slick! Use the help files at Deja News if you need more help. ***** Can I Access the World Sex Guide by email? Yes. If you don’t have web access, you can still get the World Sex Guide (or any other web page) by email. All you need to know is the Uniform Resource Locator (or URL, that long ugly string starting with "http:", "gopher:", or "ftp:") which defines the address of the document, and you can retrieve it by sending email to one of the following: agora@dna.affrc.go.jp (Japan) agora@kamakura.mss.co.jp (Japan) agora@info.lanic.utexas.edu (USA) agora@cobra.tec.mn.us (USA) agora@mx.nsu.nsk.su (Russia ONLY) agora@www.undp.org (restricted to "developing" countries) agora@mail.w3.org (out of service) In the body of your note include one of these lines, replacing "URL" with the actual URL specification. send URL or rsend return-address URL (to override your return address) This will send you back the document you requested, with a list of all the documents referenced within, so that you may make further requests. The URL for the World Sex Guide home page is http://www.paranoia.com/faq/prostitution/ There are also ftp-to-email gateways. These are treated in the "How to access the Internet via email FAQ" which is posted to comp.mail.misc. ***** Do Any Sex Workers Read this Newsgroup? Yes, there are several sex workers who regularly read and sometimes post to this newsgroup. Their input is particularly valued and if you see one post, please don't swamp her mailbox with wannas (wannafucks) unless she asks for them. Sex workers are strongly encouraged to post to this group. Please feel free to post anonymously if it makes you feel more comfortable about posting here. ***** Where Can I Find Related Newsgroups? You might enjoy some of the following newsgroups as well: alt.sex.strip-clubs - Discussion of strip clubs and strippers. alt.sex.telephone - Discussion of phone sex and phone sex ads. alt.sex.brothels - Discussion of brothels worldwide. alt.sex.femdom - Discussion of female domination (Dominatrix). alt.sex.services - A mixed bag of sex-related services. alt.sex.movies - Discussion of X-rated movies, videos, & pornstars. alt.sex.wizards - General sex questions and answers. alt.sex.safe - Safe sex questions and answers. sci.med.aids - About HIV/AIDS, mostly by medical professionals. ***** What Can I Post Here? No one runs (moderates) this newsgroup and no one can stop you from posting (even though ads are prohibited by the newsgroup charter). As a part of the alt (alternative) hierarchy this newsgroup is technically open to any and all postings. However, it is proper netiquette (net-etiquette) to keep your posts to the topic of the newsgroup. Off-topic posts are not welcome and will only irk people and will not generate interest in whatever it is you are trying to push. If your reply is directed to one specific person, please use an e-mail reply. If you are replying to a long post, please use your editor to cut the material you quote down to a manageable size. If you quote 180 lines and then add "Me too!" at the bottom you will look like a jerk. Keeping your line length to 78 characters will stop the last word of your post from wrapping around onto a new line when it's read by others. Don't post a message in ALL CAPS since that means that you're SHOUTING! This newsgroup has always been fairly friendly, so please keep flames to a minimum. If you flame someone you open yourself up to being flamed even worse. Spelling and grammar flames are inappropriate. It is information that’s important, not perfect spelling. All of us make occasional typros anyway. A.O.L.-bashing is now passe. If you're flaming someone privately, keep in mind that tactics like mailbombing and forged cancels can cause you to lose your own account. If you want to complain about someone's post, send e-mail to postmaster@their.site or root@their.site. This is preferred over filling up the newsgroup with flames about an obvious jerk. Spams (posts to many off-topic newsgroups) and posting chain letters or pyramid schemes such as Quickcash, Make Money Fast (MMF), and the Recipes scam will usually cause you to lose your account. Posts such as MMF are considered fraud and are illegal in many areas. It will also make everyone on the net hate you and think you're retarded. Don't do it. ***** Can I Post An Advertisement Here? Ads are not welcome here. Part of the reason that alt.sex.prostitution was created was to try (in vain) to escape the crush of advertisements. Several people are actively working to send letters of complaint to the Postmaster of anyone who posts commercial ads to this group. The posting of advertisements to *discussion* newsgroups is also prohibited by the providers of most services including .edu sites, .mil sites, A.O.L., Delphi, Prodigy, Compuserve, Netcom, Earthlink, The Well, and most others (check with Support or Postmaster at your site if you're unsure of your own rules). If you have something to advertise, please use the following newsgroups which are O.K. for ads: alt.sex.erotica.marketplace - General products/services for sale. alt.sex.telephone - Phone sex ads. alt.bbs.ads - BBS ads. alt.sex.magazines - Magazines for sale and wanted. alt.sex.wanted - Looking for love or just a little relaxation. Please note that many Internet services offer "kill lists" or "kill files" that allow users to automatically kill all messages from specific posters or specific sites. Therefore, if you post an ad, you are likely to end up in many kill files and then *none* of your messages will get through to anyone. ***** Can I Post a Personal Ad Here? You can, but it's a dumb thing to do. There are very few females who read this newsgroup and most of those are business Ladies. If your personal doesn't involve payment for services it belongs in alt.sex.wanted or one of the many alt.personals.* newsgroups. ***** Why Don't I See Answers to Most of the Requests for Information? Some people don't want to post publicly about their possibly illegal activities. Many of these questions are answered in private e-mail. This doesn't help everyone else reading, but that's the way it goes. If you have a specific question, post it and hope for a response. If your request is seen as too crude, you may not get a response. A poster's words are the only way readers have of judging him. A poster who can't put a sentence together with a subject and a verb in the right place, who doesn't know where the shift key is, and who doesn't know the difference between a period and the space bar, is perhaps less likely to get a response. A lot of our readers are looking out for the ladies and respect them too much to refer somebody to them who might not treat them as they should be treated. Another reason that responses might be lacking is that people get tired of responding to information requests after a while if they don’t get at least a few strokes for doing so. If you put in a request for information on a particular city, and someone emails you 30 kilobytes of information that was posted a couple of weeks earlier, send that person a nice Thank You and then post an item to the group about what you were able to confirm about the information or what you found to be different. This helps keep the group going smoothly and makes it more likely that the next person will get a response as well. If you would like to respond to an information request, but don't feel comfortable doing so, please use one of the anonymous remailers (see above) to post your answer. Many of the other readers will appreciate seeing a response. ***** Where Are the Pictures/FTP Sites/ Secret Porn/Me Too/Me Too/Me Too Binary pictures can be found on-line in the alt.binaries.pictures.* newsgroups. If you can't get these newsgroups from your site then get a provider who carries them; don't whine that people should post them here. Binaries take up a lot of space on systems and in downloads of mail packets, so please be considerate and keep them in their place. Stories can be found in alt.sex.stories (basic porn) or rec.arts.erotica (literary porn). Stories can also be found in the various alt.sex.fetish.* groups that are specific to the topic of the group. Don't ask that people post the addresses of secret ftp sites of porn. If someone actually did post (which has happened), 100,000 people would try to access the site, the Sysadmin of the site would notice, and it would immediately be shut down. The best you can do is ask that someone send you one by e-mail. If you don't have one to trade you're not likely to get any takers. Postings offering lists of erotic binary sites, or adult binaries by mail, or nude binaries of famous women are all pranks or scams. The people posting these messages are either trying to see how many idiots they can get to follow-up and ask for this stuff, or are trying to get you to send them money. Be smart and don't be taken in. If someone requests something don't be one of the hundred fools posting a "Me too!" follow-up. Either write the original poster via e-mail asking for the information or wait for the information to be posted. ***** Who The Hell Are You Anyway? Starting in July of 1997, the task of maintaining this FAQ was transferred to a new person who goes by the name of "22 Rimfire". The name has no special significance; it was picked because I was the 22nd new customer on my anonymous news server. The real credit for this FAQ should go to the original author, AGentleMan. I can be reached at 00022@mailanon.com (22 Rimfire). Don’t bother asking me where to find a prostitute in your city, as I won’t bother to respond. All I could do is repeat what’s in this FAQ by referring you to the World Sex Guide and to the a.s.p newsgroup. If you email me, I will never reveal your identity. Why do do this? My main purpose is to spread information about how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. If you don't read any other part of this FAQ, read the section on STD's in section 2. My second purpose is because I believe that the present laws agains victimless crimes such as prostitution and drug use do more harm than good. My third purpose is to help and support sex workers, who are often harrassed by both criminals and police. Remember, always treat your sex worker with respect! [ Via MailAnon Remail Service infos@mailanon.com ]