Tag: sex work

Jul 27 2013

Another dead transwoman of color…this time in Philadelphia (again)

Diamond Williams is described as someone who had a big personality and even bigger heart.

She was so full of life. She was funny and we used to laugh. And I remember just acting silly with her and I just miss her because we had a lot of great times.

She was a very loving, caring, and creative person. We were family. We were like sisters and she loved her sisters. No one should ever have to die the way she died.

–Rachel Rose

Williams, 31, was killed last week after having sexual relations with Charles Sargent, 43.  Sargent allegedly dismembered her in his apartment and then dumped her body parts in a field in North Philadelphia.

I don’t care if he knew or he didn’t know.  Nobody deserves to die like that.  That’s someone’s life that (you) just brutally murdered and dismembered and threw her parts in a field.

—Rose

Apr 24 2011

A Comprehensive Look at Sex Work

On this Easter Sunday, I reflect that among the followers of Jesus were sex workers.  In the Gospel of Matthew, an particularly telling exchange takes place between Chief Priests and Elders who have questioned Jesus’ very authority.  In response, he tells a parable, which concludes, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”  Though much has changed between now and then, this statement still has the power to shock and offend.    

Oct 11 2008

Sex and The City

This past April, newspapers were a twitter with the discovery made by two Cambridge University researchers: John Coates, a former trading floor manager on Wall Street, and Joe Herbert, a neuroscientist. In their abstract, they wrote:

We found that a trader’s morning testosterone level predicts his day’s profitability. We also found that a trader’s cortisol rises with both the variance of his trading results and the volatility of the market. Our results suggest that higher testosterone may contribute to economic return, whereas cortisol is increased by risk.

Their research findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Endogenous steroids and financial risk taking on a London trading floor.

So, as The Guardian observed Testosterone is the secret ingredient for making (and losing) lots of money. “Money doesn’t make the world go round: it’s testosterone. The more that traders have, the richer they’ll become – up to a point.”