Wowzie! Economics professor Marina Adshade has some pointed things to say about assumptions about prostitution and customers in the hotel industry that has a lot of direct bearing on the recent assault on a housekeeper at New York's Sofitel Hotel.  I'd just add that her experience and the story she recounts strongly emphasizes several toxic dynamics that, I'm convinced, would be altered if prostitution was not illegal.  The following excerpt is longer than I usually provide but it's telling.  My analysis follows the excerpt.  Here's Prof. Adshade:

Apparently, I am the only person not surprised by the alleged events that took place in Sofitel Hotel in New York City that lead to Dominique Strauss Kahn’s arrest. My lack of surprise has nothing to do with the man in question, but rather stems from my time, as a teenager, working as a chamber maid in a major Toronto hotel. During this period I gained intimate knowledge of the behavior of international travellers in hotels; especially that of powerful, and somewhat entitled, men toward the often vulnerable women working the hotel floors.

My personal experience is that those men expect hotel workers to provide sexual services.

...

A few weeks after the filmed version of [a] pimp interview was shown to my Economics of Sex and Love class a student came to me with the following story. He had recently started working at the over-night desk in a local hotel (which, by the way is part of a major hotel chain). His very first night on the job an angry hotel guest arrived at the front the desk in the early hours of the morning demanding assistance.

It turned out that the guest had asked for a prostitute to be sent to his room, presumably through the concierge, but when the girl had arrived she refused to perform the all of the services he demanded. He tried to force her to cooperate and when she managed to escape the room he pursued her down the hallway. To his chagrin, she escaped, which is what lead him to go to the front desk to complain.

What makes this a revealing story is that the reason I am able to tell you these details is not because this girl went to police and pressed charges against her attacker but because the man in question went to the front desk of the hotel and asked the clerk what he planned to do to solve HIS problem –he had paid for a service that he did not receive and clearly felt the hotel was responsible.

...

I am not suggesting that the woman who made the accusation against DSK was a sex worker, far from it. I am suggesting that some employees at hotels, such as the concierge mentioned in my pimp piece, have perpetuated an expectation among international travellers that they are entitled to sex services that are, at the minimum, illegal, and do not necessarily involve the consent of the women involved. This expectation of sexual services is putting women who work in hotels at risk and unless hotels are prepared to act to protect them, and rid themselves of the pimps on their payroll, it will only continue.

Source: Big Think

That sounds extremely, disgracefully, likely.

Now you might be wondering how, since I'm an advocate for the legalization and labor organization of prostitution, I could possibly spin this into a case for legalization.  If sex work were legal wouldn't that make it even easier for irate assholes to chase prostitutes down hotel room halls and then demand that the concierge help find them and force them to comply?

Um.  No.

First of all, hard as this might seem for slut-shamers to process, if the sex worker had a legal right to do business she could have called the cops and/or pressed their panic button the instant the customer became abusive.  As it is, since her business is illegal she would have instead been arrested had she called the police.  Oh, and extra credit?  Since the hotel doesn't have to admit any formal relationship with the prostitute, even though the concierge might have made the actual appointment the hotel can charge a recalcitrant sex worker with trespassing!

Secondly, contrary to slut-shaming expectations, prostitutes, alike all human beings have the exact same right and expectation to have their consent respected as house cleaners, concierges, or, for that matter, cab drivers or cabinet ministers!  Not to sound too picky or anything but a customer has no more right or legal standing to force a prostitute to give him a blow job she hasn't agreed to than he has a right to force a cab driver to give him one.  Not even if the prostitute has agreed to, say, intercourse.  Again, that takes a little while to soak in if you've got that "you poke it you own it" attitude, or that "she gave up all her rights to say no the first time she said yes" attitude, or especially that "what, she's just a dirty whore" attitude.

But, yeah, doesn't work that way.

Oops!  Let me rephrase that.  It shouldn't work that way.  But it does.  And why would that be?  Why is there an expectation that one can force one's self on a prostitute in a way one can't on a car mechanic?  Because you try it on a car mechanic and he or she can tell their manager.  She or he can call the cops.  He or she can pepper spray you if necessary!  And in so doing expect, you know, to be treated like a victim instead of a fucking criminal!  Prostitutes?  Not so much.

And here's where it gets really hinky: it gets to a point where customers can gain such a sense of entitlement that they imagine they actually can demand sex from unwilling housekeeping staff.  Though evidently, at least so far, not car hops or cab drivers.

In my very strong opinion legalization completely alters that dynamic.  Not only for the sex workers themselves, who could then legally check in with the concierge but could also legally inform colleagues of her whereabouts and legally call the police if she felt threatened or coerced.  That's just the most obvious change.  But more subtly it would change the in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound attitude of, um, gentlemen who imagine they can impose themselves on any hotel staff and expect to have any "misunderstandings" cleared up by the front desk.

So anyway, yeah, I think legalizing prostitution would still be a good idea even in instances like the DSK arrest where the victim clearly wasn't a sex worker at all.

Sex-work activist and sex worker Amanda Brooks says

My sister is an LMT (licensed massage therapist). As I’ve stated here before, she has never had a desire to enter the adult industry in any capacity, though she too is drawn to service-industry work. (My feeling is that sex work straddles the entertainment and service industries, depending on what aspect of sex work we’re talking about.) She is happy doing fully-legal and non- wink wink nudge nudge massages. She offers a new perspective on the wisdom of criminalization. Okay, not totally new, but the way she put it was new to me.

Recently, an Asian massage parlour in her small city was busted. Of course the community crowed about getting rid of “those women” and naturally — since the women were “gone” then so were the men; who, of course, are members of the community and live right next door. Since the men seeking Happy Endings suddenly had nowhere to find women who consensually offered those services, they started haunting the local LMTs in hopes they would find a much-cheaper substitute.

All this does is annoy the LMTs or perhaps makes them feel threatened. LMTs do not want to fear permanently losing their license or dealing with an irate man in a small room. It certainly doesn’t make them happy to have to deal with a situation they do not want, time and time again. My sister prefers for a Happy Ending massage parlour to exist in her city because the men who wish to have that experience know exactly where to find it. The women who wish to offer it know where to go to make their living. Everyone does exactly what they wish and no one is forced into situations with very unhappy endings. The stupid laws making such consensual activities illegal just made her life a bit more difficult.

Source: After Hours

This is an ongoing source of annoyance for all manner of service workers from, of course, massage therapists to bartenders to hotel employees to, I don't think I'm going on a limb here, strippers and other "exotic" dancers.

As it happens there's a perfectly reasonable argument for why this isn't a good argument.  If LMTs, bartenders, and strippers don't want to be prostitutes what makes you think prostitutes want to be prostitutes?

Fortunately I've got an answer.

You don't need a lot of people who do want to be prostitutes to solve the communication problem for people who don't. Specifically, if prostitution is legal, even if prostitution is expensive, inconvenient, closely regulated, or even rare then when a customer starts hinting around an LMP can say "it sounds like you're asking if I do prostitution services.  I don't.  If you're interested in prostitution services I can refer you."

Now you could argue, again reasonably, that there's nothing stopping an LMP from doing this now should a customer get a little iffy, and thus no reason to legalize prostitution to solve this particular* problem.

I'd say close but no cigar.  First, if prostitution is illegal then soliciting a prostitute is illegal. Thus an LMP asking "it sounds like you're asking if I do prostitution services" is accusing a potential customer of committing a crime.  Second, it's also a crime to refer someone to a known provider of prostitution services, which makes difficult to send the customer on his (or somewhat possibly her) way with a minimum of fuss and bother for both parties.  And finally, without being able to refer a customer to a known provider or providers an LMT might be able to boost the customer out of his or her hair.  What the LMT can't be certain of, though, is that the customer won't simply go fishing at the next LMP in the phonebook... or, conversely, that one who's been sent away from the previous LMT in the book won't show up in their office next.

Since I know a number of LMTs I'm aware that they actually have to go to a fair amount of trouble to avoid iffy customers in the first place, and to steer them away when they're too thick to get the hint on the way in.  I also know there are a number of techniques a lot of therapists would offer if there wasn't a risk that in making those offers they weren't also inviting the interest of customers who might hope for more.  And finally, I know that LMTs actually have a tough time convincing lawmakers, non-sexworker customers, and customer's friends and families that massage therapy isn't some kind of "cover" for sex work.  It would be a lot easier for them if they could just say "no, what you're thinking about happens over there, not here."

I'm fairly confident that massage therapists are not the only non-sex-workers who'd benefit from clearer distinctions.

* There are other problems legalizing prostitution would solve but this is a post about, well, this problem.

Audacia Ray calls out a genuinely egregious form of discrimination against a former prostitute based on a Louisiana state law from... the year 1806!

The words “sex offender” now appear on her driver’s license. “I have tried desperately to change my life,” she says, but her status as a sex offender stands in the way of housing and other programs. “When I present my ID for anything,” she says, “the assumption is that you’re a child molester or a rapist. The discrimination is just ongoing and ongoing.” Eve was penalized under Louisiana’s 205-year-old Crime Against Nature statute, a blatantly discriminatory law that legislators have maneuvered to keep on the state’s books for the purpose of turning sex workers into felons. As enforced, the law specifically singles out oral and anal sex for greater punishment for those arrested for prostitution

Source: Waking Vixen

This is a form of reflex prosecutorial piling on that's just inexcusable. In what conceivable universe is a prostitute who performs fellatio a registerable sex offender in a way that a prostitute who "merely" performs intercourse isn't?  Or that a prostitute's customer isn't.  My personal and 100% correct opinion is of course that a prostitute is never a registerable sex offender and, for that matter, shouldn't be considered a criminal at all.   And while there's a bit more division in the ranks over this, with one interesting exception it's also my opinion that simply being a prostitute's customer should never be considered either a sex offender or a criminal either.

The exception, of course, is when the customer engages in behavior that would normally get them charged as a criminal or sex offender.  But, in today's... morally conflicted environment is considered boys-will-be-boys, hearty-fellow-well-done when a customer does it.

In other words, when customer has paid for sexual activity with someone who through age or coercion couldn't or wouldn't ordinarily be considered a freely consenting adult.  So paying for sex with a trafficked person?  If you weren't paying it would be rape, and thus a registrable sexual offense -- therefore if you get caught paying for it you should go on a sex-offender registry as well.  Same with sex with minors.

I happen to think it's appalling that prosecutors or judges in Louisiana, or any other state, would use such a heavy tool to penalize a voluntary adult prostituted or his or her customer.  But I also think it's appalling that they leave the same tool on the table when it comes to customers who have sex with children or slaves.

Sex-worker activist Amanda Brooks of After Hours says

Though I repeat (ad nauseam) that you pay for my time/energy, I have now figured out how to prove it! I don’t sell my body — it’s still with me when I leave. Though I have occasionally left possessions behind, I’ve yet to leave behind any bit or piece of me.

Source: After Hours

It is absolutely true that some customers think of prostitution as buying a person instead of contracting for her time. And it’s absolutely true that patriarchy’s virginity fetish creates the impression that by “taking” someone’s virginity you’ve actually taken possession of the individual herself. And it’s also absolutely true that anti-prostitution activiest of all stripes from evangelical to radfem insist with almost Catholic faith that sex transubstantiates activity into flesh.

In this construction the abstinence-only clowns with their metaphors of socks, gum, roses, and sticky tape are actually closer to the mark: they see sex merely as a depreciation of property, not an outright transfer of it.

I think it’s really important to get that. Because, even more so than patriarchal rhetoric so much of anti-prostitution rhetoric invites dehumanization. It encourages it. It creates an expectation of it.

If you’ve followed my blog for very long you know my call to action on sex-worker’s rights was a horrified realization that serial killers in my region, city, and possibly even my neighborhood were able to get away with murdering between one and two hundred sex workers (you read that right) not just because they’re easy marks (they are) and not just because society thinks they’re less than human (it does) but because they themselves buy the line that sex workers are less than human.

For this reason if no other reason I think it’s really, really, really important that even well-meaning opponents of sex work stop creating the social expectation that they’re literal, transubstantiated, diminished, dehumanized quantities of meat. They’re not. They’re people, not things.

And to return to Amanda Brook’s point, they’re people, not their jobs.