This Is Not, Repeat, Not a Joke

From CBS News.com:

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.

Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.

[...]

"We hypothesize that the venue-based intervention will change and enhance the protective social norms and institutional policies at the establishment level and such enhancement, accompanied by individual skill training among FSW*s, will demonstrate a sustainable effect within commercial sex establishments in decreasing problem drinking and alcohol-related sexual risk, increasing consistent and correct condom use, and reducing rates of HIV/STD infection among FSWs," says the NIH abstract.

*FSW means female sex workers. Darn -- just when I thought we were getting somewhere with sexual equality, along comes this slap in the face to MSW's (Male Sex Workers) ... and from academe. Tsk Tsk.