Houston Working On Shutting Down A Robot Sex Brothel

I loved the 2013-14 FOX TV science fiction cop show Almost Human, which starred Michael Ealy, Karl Urban and Minka Kelly as near future human and android police officers fighting high tech crimes

One of the interesting episodes of that short lived TV show set in the year 2049 was one entitled 'Skin'.   It involved android sex workers, a murder of a businessman, and a missing person's case.

Women were being kidnapped off the streets and held captive for engineers to harvest skin grafts from them to create more lifelike skin for the unregistered underworld android sex bots that would make the bots far more valuable and desirable for customers to buy or use.

The reason android sex bots were legal in the Almost Human show universe is because when they were introduced, human trafficking crimes went down 40%.

I'm bringing up the TV show because life in Houston is somewhat imitating sci-fi art. 

While my hometown is always eager to encourage high tech businesses to set up shop here, in this case they are not wanting us to be the first city in the US to call a robot brothel home.

The Canadian company Kinky S Dolls has a robot brothel in Toronto, and owner Yuval Gavriel wanted to set up its first US location here in Houston.    He plans to have 10 of them in the US by 2020.

It not only sells the 'love dolls', that are able to touch users while providing vocal responses for $2500-$5000, but would also rent them to be used in private rooms by the hour or half hour at the Kinky S Dolls location, a former Galleria area beauty salon on Richmond Ave and Chimney Rock Rd that was being renovated for that purpose.

But Kinky S Dolls ran into a few snags.   Elijah Rising, a faith based anti- sex trafficking organization, got wind of the project and alerted the city and Mayor Sylvester Turner about it.  They also cranked up an online petition that gathered 12,000 signatures.

The owner of the building also wasn't happy to find out he'd been lied to about what Kinky S Dolls actually wanted to do in their leased building.

Because the dolls aren't human beings, Kinky S Dolls cannot be considered a sexually oriented business. 

While Mayor Turner has said publicly he isn't interested in becoming the 'morality police', he is having the city attorney review the sexually oriented business (SOB) ordinance to see if changes can be made to it by Wednesday's upcoming city council meeting to prevent its opening.

Kinky S Dolls also got busted by Houston building inspectors doing construction renovations to their rented space they didn't get permits to do.  They 'red tagged' the building, which means that not only is construction halted, the owners will get hauled into municipal court if they try to do any construction without the necessary permits.

I also won't be surprised if those permits for Kinky S Dolls get slow walked until they can pass the necessary changes in the SOB ordinance.

Stay tuned.   This is going to get interesting

TransGriot Update:  Houston City Council on Wednesday passed an update to the arcade ordinance that classifies the sexbots in that category.   While you can still buy them, it's now illegal for you to get your freak on with them at the Kinky S Dolls facility.  

Trans World, Stop Bashing Trans Sex Workers!

"I know sex work to be work.  It's not something I need to tiptoe around. It's not a radical statement, it's a fact."
-Janet Mock


In the wake of the passage of SESTA, the Stop Enablings Sex Traffickers Act on a 97-2 vote by the Senate, one of the consequences of its passage and expected signature into law by 45 is that several
websites that our trans community who are sex workers depend on to pay their bills, shut down or took down those sections of their websites to avoid potential lawsuit from sex trafficking victims. . 

And I wasn't happy when I heard as a result some sanctimonious comments from the trans peanut gallery cheering that while saying those folks need to 'get a real job'.

As Janet and others have repeatedly stated, and I agree with that sentiment, sex work is work. 

Your trans family doing sex work to survive is STILL your trans family, and I'm not liking the sanctimonious comments coming from some peeps on the Net that they 'need to get a real job'.

What makes you think these folks haven't tried that? Anti-trans discrimination in employment is real, even in TBLGQ World   If you think I'm kidding about that, check the 2015 US Trans Survey and look at the unemployment statistics.

If you don't like the fact some trans folks have to do that to live and pay bills, I have a suggestion for you.  The next time a lobby day is held in your locale, get off your azz, go to your state capitol and  lobby your legislators to pass non-discrimination bills that prohibit discrimination against transgender and gender variant people.

Implore businesses and organizations to hire qualified trans people.  If you're a big baller and shot caller and have influence on hiring decisions, suggest that the folks making hiring decision add trans people to their mix of diverse candidates for open job positions.What  we will not do today or at any time in the future is shame other trans people who are  engaged in sex work to pay the bills. 

You want to get your jollies shaming and screaming at someone, do it at the politicians who refuse to pass non discrimination laws that cover gender identity discrimination so they CAN if they wish to do so get and keep the 'real jobs' you screech about.

TransWorld, we don't need to be bashing other trans folks in our community ranks. They get enough of that from the Republican Party, TERF's, the conservafool media and white fundamentalists

I repeat, the folks who engage in sex work are still and will always be your trans family and deserve your respect and empathy,  not derision.    Save that derision for the people who gleefully oppress us.

So TransWorld,  stop bashing trans sex workers who are simply trying to live their lives to the best of their ability.

'Boys From Brazil' Documentary

This 1993 documentary introduces us to the world of Brazilian travestis Samira, Luciana and their friend Gaspar.   It discusses their lives in Brazil, their first failed attempt to enter Italy and follows Gaspar as he later does so alone and hooks up with another another group of Brazilian travestis living in Rome named Claudia, Sabrina and Marcela. 

There's also a segment of it in which we see Luciana in the hospital getting silicone removed from one of her hips.   Yep, injecting silicone is a problemn for the Brazilian girls too just like it is here in the States..

Some of the video is NSFW, so you'lll probably need to wait until you get home to watch it.. 

But once again it drive home the point of trans people being part of the diverse mosaic of human life and how in many case the issues of transpeople in different parts of the world sometimes has a common thread running through them. 




Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part4


Part 5