The internet: is there anything it can't ruin? First, Craigslist destroys the newspaper; ebooks are destroying publishing; and, most heinous of all, internet porn is destroying the legal Nevada brothel business. Well, technically the economy is causing the problem, but it's much easier to blame the internet, what with its free nude photos and easy access. The story really can't get anything straight; it seems to want to talk about business, but heads off into weird moral channels, including inviting an anti-prostitution talking head with no evidence to back them up. Hey, Bloomberg: save your exploitation sob-stories for talking about the minimum wage; this is one place people are at least doing an honest job, give them some credit for riding out the economic downturn when so many other businesses couldn't cut it.

Everyone jokes about going to Las Vegas to get a hooker, or watch 'reality' shows about women who work in the brothels - but do you really know how it works? The Smoking Jacket has everything you need to know about how Nevada brothels work, and then some. Before you embarass yourself, read this before you book that discount Vegas flight you and the guys are always talking about.

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LinkedIn has apparently changed its user agreement to include this bit of magic:

i. Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

You know, for years I've been blowing off the LinkedIn requests that everyone sends me -- and only now I find out you can find a hooker on LinkedIn. They even had a whole freakin' category for it, which I assume is going to disappear soon, although I suppose guys like Nathan Dayler, Training Constable at Toronto Police Service, is going to keep that title despite the number of inappropriate emails he gets. In fact, everyone I can see in the "Prostitution" category seems to be rather anti-prostitution, so, LinkedIn, have you ever thought about just changing your category names? It's like having a "Obesity" category full of Ben & Jerry's flavor designers. Just a little misleading. I guess I'll have to stick to finding my prostitutes on Monster.com.

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A hundred and fifty years ago, prostitutes flocked to the Bay Area because there were a lot of sweaty rich men around there and few women. That was the gold rush, but today a different kind of gold rush is happening: sex workers are setting up shop in Silicon Valley, to service all the young, single men getting rich writing apps. Apparently all it takes is wearing geeky t-shirts to play yourself as a nerdy hooker, but, really, they should learn some Ruby on Rails before jumping into such a high-tech career.

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Someone has taken the time to chart ten thousand porn stars by a variety of statistics, and comes up with the fact that porn star women are pretty generically pretty: white, dark-haired, b-cup, 5'5". Can't complain about that. Some of the statistical data is a bit skewed: the "where pornstars are born" doesn't seem to weight based on population -- he's surprised that the west, with its very thin population density, produced very few pornstars? And, just the fact that he trusts truth from the online records - when the women's visible and quantifiable qualities are pretty close to the truth but the documented weights are a bit lower than the norm, that should be a sign, and when a porn star claims to be from LA rather than Butte Montana, it shouldn't be a surprise either. But, still, when it comes to actual movies, it becomes a bit surprising: anal is far more common in porn than reality, and female porn stars actually stick with the industry for a while before finding something else to do. Still, can't complain about some statistics porn, especially on something so easy on the eyes as real-life human porn.

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It's not often that you hear about male sex workers, let alone heterosexual sex workers, the kind hired by women to fuck. That is, other than the retarded men on Gigolos, but that should should at least give a clue that there's a market for women wanting to pay a hot man to fuck them and then leave. For a relatively honest and even-handed look at the world of male escorts, this article at the Good Men Project, which focuses on the reason women want the services of a professional fuck-buddy.

But don't call them hookers, of course: they're 'sugar babies'. Nearly 90 San Diego college students are whoring for tuition by joining the site seekingarrangement.com, who are damn proud of the slutty college students that partake of their services. I'm not sure who's more innocent and naiive here: the 21-year-old who thinks it'll be easy to just sign up on a website and get paid $5,000 a month for blowjobs, or the guy who has a spare $5,000 a month lying around and believes these are sweet, innocent college girls who are just trying to get through this crazy life. But, if you're willing to believe in true...love?...you might just find that the pairings that come from this website are pure Randian commerce brought to its 21st century perfection. Plus, if you're a business major and on this site, start writing your Master's thesis now, you'll kill two birds with one stone.

With the 2014 World Cup getting ready to go to Brazil, the South American country is doing all it needs to in order to be prepared: improving roads, building facilities, training the hookers to speak English...wait, why would they do that? Americans don't watch the World Cup, silly! The goal is to get all the people that might have contact with foreign sports fans to speak the lingua franca of today, English. CNN, not realizing that most of the rest of the world has legalized prostitution as a valid business model, had to publish their little giggle fit over the fact that prostitutes get taught anything. No wonder Brazil is not interested if any Americans show up or not.

A company in Spain is providing business classes to prospective entrepreneurs, in one particular industry: prostitution. For 100 euros (about $5,800 I think) aspiring hookers can learn how to use toys, read the Kama Sutra, and otherwise provide a top-notch product. It took eight years for the authorities to notice, but in the end the class gets to continue, because there's nothing illegal about informing escorts how to do their job - it's the actual doing the job that's against the law in Spain. Thanks for being smart, Spain. Over here in the U.S., you better believe a class in doing illegal things will get the authorities' jackboots all shined up and ready for some door-kickin'. Via.

With Greece's cash-strapped, well, everything, it's tough to find somebody to sponsor your sporting events. When you need money, you go looking for the people who have a positive money flow, and that path led one Greek soccer team to the doorstep of their local brothel. The gals of Villa Erotica ponied up and bought pink uniforms, emblazoned with their logo, to dress up their newly acquired players. No word yet on whether or not this has improved team morale, but if the players seem depressed or stressed out in any way, I'm sure the team sponsor can help them out in that regard.

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I'm a bit too scared to use a gloryhole - I imagine meat grinders on the other side, but I'm a bit fucked up in the head - but this story from a worker at a sex-service-station and how her gloryhole job goes, I might just have to go stick my dick in a wall for once. Well, the right wall, of course, after the first time you're banned from the Applebee's bathroom, you learn to be more judicious of where you're sticking it.

Ah, just a day in the life of a PSO's boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, in at least this case, I think, I don't really get it. I hope she remembers to turn that voice off when her grandma calls to wish her a happy birthday, that could be embarrassing.

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As if Zumba doesn't already make my pants tight, I have even more reason to be excited. A Zumba workshop in Maine decided to pick up some extra clients on the side, and has been shut down for prostitution. Proprietor Alexis Wright allegedly serviced male customers when she wasn't shaking her moneymaker helping middle-aged women feel better about themselves. Supposedly her clientele was more than just your average man on the street: there's rumors that a local TV personality may have been caught up in the sting, seeing as they're likely to reveal her client list.

The Rumpus has an interview with a john, the interviewee being a former sexworker, talking about what it's like to be a guy paying for sex. Overall, rather unshocking, except in it's candidness. Who knew that people who are lonely want to be with other people in an intimate way, sexual or not? About the 'dark side' of the world that the article encounters is the amount of troubled people involved in the sex trade...which, like the drug war, would be a lot easier to police and clean up if there wasn't blanket prohibition. The more people can sit and talk openly about such things, though, the closer life gets to something productive when it comes to sex work.

WHAT?!?? Somebody has actually had the audacity to say that sometimes, even educated women become prostitutes because they money's so good. It's almost like prostitution isn't all about pimp canes and latenight drug beatings. The article does make the distinction, however, that these educated ladies of the evening head for the high-end escort market, while the coerced and beaten women are the streetwalkers. You know what would be nice? If somebody, y'know, actually used this information to do something of value for sex workers, but that's asking for a lot from our politicians. They've got the economy to worry about, it's not like they're making sweeping freedom-destroying reproductive and sexual health laws or anything.

Good news for proponents of safe sex: condom use with prostitutes is at an all-time high. In motherfucking Bangkok, that is. In a town with a reputation for anything-goes sex, 95% of respondents used condoms with prostitutes, 65% with non-hooker strangers, and a third with their regular partners. Worldwide, the average is under 80% - which also mentions Thailand's 100% condom use goal. It's kinda nice when a government steps up to protect it's hardworking citizens from hazards of their jobs.

If you're ever time travelling, fucking your way through the centuries, the New York Times has your back: they've found a guide to New York whorehouses from 1870, complete with addresses and thumbs-up and thumbs-down, plus advice on how not to get fucked over in the process. There's even an interactive guide - purely for historical purposes, of course. Bro Bible has some more analysis, for those inclined to take advice from bros about hos.

Wired magazine wants you to know just how New York hooking works. First of all, if you're still using your 1991 Map To The Prostitutes of Manhattan, Wired finally has an update for you. Second of all: it nicely plays up the business of the trade, rather than making it look desperate and creepy - unfortunately, it glosses over the desperate and creepy levels that streetwalkers end up in. I do love, however, that 9% are in publishing. That explains how Twilight gets published - somebody must have whored themselves out there.

Tony Clifton, who may or may not be Andy Kaufman depending on what performance you saw, starts out talking about business, but then starts talking about how awesome the Nevada prostitution industry is. I don't know how full of shit he is (90% of the time it sounds like 100%), but he's got good things to say, so I gotta respect the guy for that.