prostitution legalization

Prostitution, Hotel Housekeeping Staff, and the Arrogant Entitlement That Arises When Prostitution is Illegal

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2011-05-27 11:10

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.

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Finally, a Credible, No-Drama Economic Assessment of Prostitution in America Offers Nuanced Policy Recommendations

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2011-05-19 10:44

Via Em & Lo Jennifer Hafer, a PhD candidate at the University of Arkansas Walton School of Business working under the supervision of Prof. Amy Farmer, has done a non-gonzo, non-freakonomics analysis of women's entry into prostitution.

Contrary to assumptions that women enter the prostitution market only because they are desperate – that they need money to pay bills or buy drugs – the study indicates that many women, especially educated, affluent women, are making a rational decision to enter certain segments of the prostitution market. However, the research confirmed that women do not explicitly choose to enter the streetwalking segment of the prostitution market.

“Our model demonstrated that the prostitution market may be pulling educated women – these so-called ‘high-opportunity-cost’ women – out of the conventional labor market and the marriage market, in many cases,” said Jennifer Hafer, a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Arkansas. “The findings suggest that these women are not forced into the prostitution market but rather choose to enter it for many of the same reasons that people enter the conventional job market – money, stability, autonomy and even job satisfaction.”

Source: University of Arkansas Newswire

(Quick note: Obviously not all prostitutes are women, but since women are the subset Hafer chose to study that's what I'm going to talk about here.)

What I like about Hafer's work is that it just is what it is, an academic analysis of a poorly-understood category of work, minus all the eye-rolling, breathlessness, nervous chuckling, heart-of-golding, or you-go-girling that goes with too much other reporting on prostitution.

Another thing I like about her work is her entirely non-controversial division of prostitution into categories that conform to one traditional side's version of the story -- subsistence/street prostitution which people with other options would generally avoid, and the other traditional side's version -- work that is undertaken with greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasms but that is also undertaken voluntarily and optionally.

The problem with most conventional debates being that if you can't agree on your definitions then you can't have an argument.  And one of the problems with definition is that in most people's minds "prostitution" equals "street/subsistence prostitution."  That's significant because a) street/subsistence prostitutes are the most visible to passers by, b) they're the most-often depicted in pop-culture references, and c) as Hafer says, it's most often a job for people who'd rather be doing anything else (possibly but not necessarily including other, non-street prostitution.)

It's problematic because despite its visibility, and despite the fact that mainstream opponents frame that category of prostitution accounts for only about 15% of all prostitution.

The article ends with (gasp!) Hafer's discussion of intelligent policy implications.  (In my experience policy recommendations are fairly rare in research papers.  Intelligent ones even less so.)  There's something in it for everyone... or possibly something for everyone to object to depending on their prior assumptions:

Hafer discussed the findings’ potential impact on policy. Due to negative externalities, streetwalking should remain illegal with continued enforcement, she said. Based purely on the outcomes of the model, brothel prostitution should be legalized and regulated in expanded locations. Her policy attention to escort and Internet prostitution focused on regulation, such as licensing, health testing and possibly taxation, as a means to ensure safety and security for both the prostitute and the consumer. For the escort and Internet markets to be regulated, they must be legalized.

“The major question concerning policy is what is the overall goal?” Hafer said. “Is it better for society to make prostitution illegal in all circumstances? Legalize prostitution subject to regulation? If the demand for prostitution is present, there will always be supply.”

I think that's about right.  Street/subsistence prostitution is extraordinarily risky, and subject to incredible violence from pimps, traffickers, police, customers, passers by, and of course serial predators.  Whether it becomes legal or remains illegal it should still be vigorously policed and, to the extent possible, community organized.  I'm actually extremely wary of brothels.  I agree they should be legal but also think they should be heavily regulated in order to make sure first that they're not employing coerced or financially abused workers but also to make sure they're not the owner-friendly slut-shamed-employee hell holes they are in Nevada or Australia.  And middle and professional class prostitutes probably don't need to be regulated any more than any other sole-proprietor business or independent contractors are.

Finally, Hafer's final line seems like the key to a lot of the prostitution controversy.  As long as the demand is present supply will be present.  Since prostitution is by-definition transactional sex, and since transactional sex remains the dominant paradigm for all heterosexual sex, policing either prostitutes or customers only serves to increase the transaction cost... but leaves the transactional model completely intact.  It's my strong feeling that overturning the dominant paradigm would not only benefit all of heterosexuality in general, it would also reduce the role of prostitution, and the demand, to roughly the level of Arthur Murray dance instructors.

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Amanda Brooks's Sister and the Spill-Over Effect on Non-Prostitutes of Keeping Prostitution Illegal

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-05-16 14:34

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.

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Charming How Current Law Makes it A Crime For Some Workers to Protect Themselves (Not Scott Walker Edition)

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sun, 2011-04-24 21:31

Photo of suspect's home by Seattle Times staff reporter. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo of suspect's home via The Seattle Times. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Sara Jean Green says committing one or more felonies and misdemeanors may have saved the life of a woman who works just a half mile from me.

On the face of it you wouldn't expect the following paragraph to be triggery. And it won't be at all clear what crimes the woman absolutely, certainly committed. But that'll mostly be because there's no surrounding context.

As they drove to Tacoma, the woman became concerned for her safety and asked him to stop for cigarettes. While out of the car, the woman sent a text message to her boyfriend with the vehicle's license-plate number. She also texted that she was going with a man who lived in Tacoma, and requested that her boyfriend call police if he didn't hear from her by midnight.

Source: The Seattle Times, April

Care to guess what's wrong with the above picture?

Well, for starters, the woman's a street/subsistence prostitute who works along a notorious (and notoriously dangerous!) section of highway that runs near my neighborhood. So that in itself would be one crime, though probably a misdemeanor.Sex-worker location via Google Maps. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Sex-worker Pickup Location via Google Maps

Another more serious crime would be conspiracy, as evidenced by her communicating information about her prostitution activities to another party.  I'm not sure about Washington State (ironically) but in many jurisdictions, if she shares expenses and/or provides any support for the boyfriend she communicated with then he can legally be considered her pimp and be prosecuted for it.  (Of course he actually could be her pimp, but wouldn't have to be to face charges.)

So those are just some of the crimes and misdemeanors the woman committed.

In this case, though, she's really not likely to be charged because...

Her customer in this case seems to have a habit of kidnapping prostitutes, dragging them to a specially-prepared dungeon in a mobile home, and then torturing them.  And (police are concerned) possibly murdering them.

In this woman's case he changed his tune only after she showed him the photo of his license plate in her cell-phone outbox.  Which, remember, in other circumstances would be considered evidence of various crimes.

But here's the real kicker, from the same Seattle Times article (emphasis mine)

On Wednesday, Seattle police appealed for other potential victims to come forward. Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said detectives "believe there are more" victims, but think people may be reluctant to contact police because of possible drug use and involvement in prostitution.

"We're overlooking that because this guy is so dangerous," Whitcomb said. "We're more concerned about the serious, violent crimes of kidnapping, rape and torture."

Got that?  Under normal circumstances a prostitute who takes the same elementary precautions a young woman or man leaving a frat party with a hook-up might take they'd ordinarily be putting themselves and the recipient at risk of prosecution.  But this time the police want to make an exception.

Gee, I wonder if that could be just one more reason serial killers and other predators might single out street prostitutes?  Gee, do you wonder?

Gee, I sure am glad that prostitution is illegal!  Because...

  • Otherwise prostitutes who were kidnapped, raped, tortured in a trailer-home dungeon, and then either escaped or were released could go to the fucking cops instead of keeping quiet about it!!!
  • Otherwise prostitutes could just routinely text contact info and license-plate photos to their friends, fellow sex-workers, or boyfriends without risking prosecution if they're caught!!!
  • For that matter, otherwise prostitutes could just routinely text contact and license-plate info to the cops!

And then where would we be?!?!

Actually I think it's pretty fucking appalling that the human being in question had to risk additional jail time in order to protect herself, and even more so that other human beings have and may continue to fare far, far worse because they didn't.

@#$%!%

As always I'm pretty sour on prostitution for the same reason I'm down on all forms of transactional sex.  But living in the heart of serial-killer country, as I do, and living literally blocks from the last place too many sex workers have been last seen alive precisely because their work is illegal, I think it's pretty fucking atrocious that it continues to be illegal in the face of ongoing slaughter.

Did I just say @#$%!%?  I believe I did.

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On the Structural Advantage Held by Predators Vs Victims Who Are Prostitutes or Other Illegal Sex Workers

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2010-12-27 15:20

Her context is slightly different but while enumerating sometimes-spurious points raised in Manassas, Virginia, in opposition to opening a proposed sex-toy shop, Amanda Hess of TBD identifies one of the entirely impersonal, structural reasons prostitutes -- of all sexes, identities, and bodies -- are so often victimized:

"The author sometimes asks participants in training sessions, 'If your cell phone was stolen at Target, would you report the theft?' 'If the same phone were stolen at a strip club, would you report the theft?' Many people who say 'yes' to the first question demur to the second."

Source: Amanda Hess

Now consider the case of two street/subsistence people of equal evident presence of mind and physical ability, one a panhandler and the other a streetwalker. A mugger assessing the risks while deciding who to rob is going to naturally gravitate towards... which? The one who can file a complaint with the police or the one who can't afford the risk?

Now in the eyes of a conservative Republican on the one hand and in the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth on the other, there might be little difference between a street beggar and a streetwalker. But for too many others, from crusading anti-feminist anti-prostitute activists to serial killers like Gary Ridgeway, the differences are and should remain stark: working prostitutes should always, always be kept sufficiently worried about afraid of arrest that they remain properly vulnerable to robbery, rape, roughing up, murder, or extortion of sex by police.

As always, one needn't approve of prostitution to be appalled by the collateral, non-moral, non-sex-related impact of its criminalization.

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Since Legalized Vices Become Less Profitable for Both Organized and Disorganized Criminals Let's Legalize Prostitution Too

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2010-11-01 22:09

Jonathan Chait of The Plank inadvertently puts his finger on why I think prostitution should be legal despite my lack of enthusiasm for prostitution itself.

La Cosa Nostra has always made a lot of money from illegal gambling. In the 1940s, elements of the mob moved into Las Vegas, obviously thinking, “This will be great — we can do what we’ve always done, but this time openly.” Bugsy Seigel tried to open a swanky hotel in Vegas but he did a ridiculously bad job of managing the project. His skill was killing people, but managing construction projects. It’s bizarre that these gangsters forgot that the whole reason they were involved in gambling in the first place is that it was illegal. Once you make it legal, then gangsters have very little added value in the business world.

Source: The Plank.

I think that’s about right. Whereas I happen to believe gambling itself remains pernicious, legalization has mitigated almost all the collateral damage that went with it. Same with post-prohibition alcohol.

Since even extremely high-quality cannabis costs about eleven dollars a pound to grow, and since surgical cocaine still costs seven dollars a gram (even after extortionate medical markups!), there’d be pretty much no money in illegal drugs if it weren’t, well, illegal. Given that drug-crime related deaths far, far outweigh drug-use deaths, and given that drug-related crime (from drive-by shootings to boosting car stereos) is astronomical compared to drug-use crimes, the profit margins on legalized drugs just wouldn’t ever be high enough to justify a) selling to schoolchildren, b) robbing stores to support habits, c) buying bullets, let alone guns, let alone using them to enlarge or defend drug-dealer’s “turf.” And I say that even though I think most drug users are… well… dopes.

Same with porn, I might add. Back when organized crime was responsible for almost all pornography a lot of the hoary stereotypes that continue today were often dead… and deadly… true. Today? I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that while the total amount of available porn is orders of magnitude greater than it was before the 1980s when porn became legally generally acceptable the amount of coercion and exploitation in commercial porn has gone down. I am going to go out on a limb and say I think part of this is due to the much-despised but also much-complied-with Title 18 U.S.C. 2257 records-keeping requirement.

And so for the same reasons I think prostitution should be legal. Because there simply wouldn’t be much use in the system for… well… abuse such as pimping, trafficking, recruitment, let alone the almost routine rape, robbery, assault, serial murder, extortion by law enforcement, and trafficking that seems part and parcel with contemporary illegal prostitution, particularly subsistence/street prostitution. So even though I happen to believe prostitution as currently constructed both reflects and further distorts society’s baffling faith in the egregious Two Rules of Desire.

Update: See also economist Tyler Cowen on a British Journal of Criminology on the generally benign outcome of Portugal’s 2001 decision to decriminalize most illegal drugs. (Hint: consumption of more dangerous drugs declined slightly.)

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Unlike Some People, NYC Schoolteacher Melissa Petro No Longer Prostitutes Herself to Support Her Academic Career

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2010-10-08 16:08

Diva of Debauched Domestic Diva asks, sweetly, “Margaret Brooks, Melanie Shapiro, Donna Hughes, Gail Dines Where Are You?”

Last week while the majority of my time was being focused on the NYC Sex Blogger Calendar release a teacher in NYC was being removed from her classroom.

On Thursday morning while having coffee at my hotel I skimmed through a newspaper and a quote from Mayor Bloomberg caught my eye. It said:

“We’re just not going to have this woman in front of a class”

This women?

The women in question was Melissa Petro, an elementary school art and writing teacher in the Bronx who was outed last week as having a past as a stripper and a prostitute.

The key word in that statement is “Past”

Not current. Not an active sex worker. But a past sex worker.

A women who once made her living, supported herself and possibly paid for her education with sex work. Part of that sex work even being legal in New York state.

In reading the articles and catching some of the news about this online something stuck out to me. I saw other sex workers or former sex workers such as Audacia Ray defending Melissa’s right to teach but nowhere did I see Margaret Brooks, Melanie Shapiro, Donna Hughes, Gail Dines or any of the other people who speak out against sex work come to the defense of Melissa and I have to wonder why that is.

Isn’t this what they are fighting for? Isn’t the fact that Melissa left sex work and was now in a ‘respectable’ job exactly what the Citizens Against Trafficking organization was about?

She said it here.

Searching “Melissa-Petro Gail-Dines“ on Google turns up no statements by Gail Dines. Searching “Melissa-Petro Margaret-Brooks“ turns up no statements by Margaret Brooks. Same with variations on Melissa Petro and Donna (M.) Hughes. Same with “Melissa-Petro Melanie-Shapiro.”

I’d say don’t hold your breath though. The proximate cause of the unrest appears to be not so much that Petro was ever a stripper or prostitute but that she’s (never) denied it.

She didn’t deny it as a New School University student at the 2006 Sex Work Matters conference (session: What’s Money Got to Do With It?
Sex Work in Socioeconomic Context.) She didn’t deny it in the pages of the fall/winter issue of Post Road Magazine when she was still pursuing her MFA. And she didn’t deny it when criticizing CraigsList’s decision to shut down its “adult services” section last month in the Huffington Post. She didn’t deny it for however long it took her to earn tenure in the New York City school system. And presumably she won’t stop denying it now that her long history of not denying it has “suddenly” been discovered.

As far as Brooks, Hughes, Shapiro, and Dines are concerned the last thing on earth they’re going to do is defend a bright, articulate, employed woman with an advanced degree who’s experiences stubbornly didn’t reduce her to cat food and hankie twisting. Someone who instead seems to have treated it as a sort of ok way to get through grad school without racking up a mountain of debt.

All four authors, incidentally, have a pretty solid record of ignoring those they wish to pretend can’t exist in the first place.

Disgraceful, sure. But also entirely understandable for anyone who’s accurate assessment of the most reliable sources of foundation and grant money for their work makes prostituting one’s own academic and intellectual integrity in the service of those profoundly anti-feminist interests a savvy professional choice that’s… not that dissimilar to Petro’s.

They knowing, as they do, which side slips the check in their garters they’re no more likely to have a kind word to say about Melissa Petro than they’d ever have a nasty word about, say, right-wing “family values” foundation darling Senator David Vitter (not Hughes, not Shapiro, not Dines, not Brooks.)

The difference? Unlike some people Petro left prostitution.

Update Exception that rather proves the rule? Eliot Spitzer. He was a Democrat, an antagonist of Wall St., not a Bible beater, and didn’t direct millions of right-wing and neocon foundation funding into anti-“trafficking” activism. So unlike their benefactors has evidently been fair game. But good luck finding a ‘winger money-funneler in the news for hiring sex workers who’s drawn so much as a squeak of their wrath. It’s just not in their self-interest.

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Questioning, But Not Challenging, Lawrence Taylor's Indictment for Raping a Sex-Trafficked 16-Year-Old

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sun, 2010-07-18 07:28

A staffer at TMZ Sports says

A woman has come forward in the Lawrence Taylor case to say the NFL legend did not have sex with the 16-year-old girl he is accused of raping.

The witness — a 23-year-old stripper who says she was living with the 16-year-old girl and her alleged pimp at the time — gave a sworn statement to investigators from the defense team, saying she was waiting outside the hotel at the time of the alleged incident. According to the AP, the woman says the teenager returned to the car with $300 in cash and said, “It was weird … we didn’t even have sex.”

Read the quote in context here.

According to another source, nfl.fanhouse.com, the defense witness claims “Taylor rubbed himself on the girl, but they did not have sex.” Which, I guess, is supposed to make it all better.

At the end of the day, though, what really matters… what the case boils down to… what’s wrong with the entire picture can be summed up in something else the woman is reported to have been concerned about. Again from the nfl.fanhouse newswire

The woman said in her statement that she did not come forward initially because she worried she would get in trouble because she knew the girl was underage.

Um. Yeah. She was living with this 51-year-old pimp and a 16-year-old girl she knew he was pimping, she accompanied the girl and the pimp to a customer’s hotel room and stood outside waiting while an act of teen prostitution took place. If it wasn’t for the evident fact that the word “prostitution” magically washes away all traces of “statutory rape,” “sexual assault of a child,” “sex offender registry,” “corruption of a minor,” and every other offense prosecutors, judges, and juries are usually (and, I think, correctly) willing to throw at people who have sex with minors, the woman had every reason to worry she’d get in trouble.

For that matter I’m really inclined to question (but certainly not challenge) the rape charges leveled against Taylor in the first place. It’s extremely unusual for prosecutors to charge johns with sexual assault… even when the johns commit violent assault against adult sex workers rather than statutory sexual assault against minor ones.

I’m not knocking their decision because I think it’s a really good idea to hold johns accountable for not meticulously verifying the age of the sex workers they hire. (Taylor claims he asked and the girl told him she was 19. Which doesn’t wash in my book — if she’d said she was Mother Theresa he’d probably have asked to see her ID so…)

But it’s so unusual I’m curious about the particulars that led to this, well, particular charge being brought.

Anyway, bottom line here is that a) yes, whatever one can say about voluntary, entrepreneurial sex work there are also sex workers who are conscripted and coerced, sometimes by violence, b) yes, whatever one can say about consenting adults we do not say the same thing about minors, even consenting ones, and c) while it’s laudable that prosecutors appear to be charging Lawrence with rape and the pimp with sex trafficking they’re still failing to bring with perfectly-accurate and well-deserved charges against them for crimes that would put them on sex-offender registries for life.

It’s perfectly possible to support legalizing the sale and purchase of sexual services from autonomous, uncoerced adults (as I am, even though I’m not terrifically enthusiastic about it) while also supporting draconian measures against the sale or purchase of sexual access to the bodies of those who are conscripted, coerced, trafficked, or otherwise unable to freely and legally consent.

It’s a mistake to imagine that rape is the right word for voluntary commercial sexual services. It’s an even bigger mistake to imagine any other word will do for those who are coerced into sexual servitude.

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Police Don't Really Protect Victims of Battery or Sexual Assault... Why Believe They "Protect" Sex Workers?

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2010-06-30 18:44

Amanda Brooks of Bound, Not Gagged posts the story of a 40-year-old business owner and mother of three who was arrested while moonlighting as an escort. One needn’t favor legalization of sex work (as I do) to appreciate either her story or the following, really fucking critical point:

When I called the police after being beaten by my first husband, they refused to protect me. In fact, they blamed me for his drinking and womanizing. Even after the doctors told the cops that I was one blow from having my skull shattered, they blamed me. When I was brutally raped on a date rape, kicking and screaming, and went to the police, they did nothing. They blamed me because I’d been drinking. And, you know, for being female. Great. So now I’m happily making money, stimulating both the economy and the gentlemen of the area, and here they are banging down my door. Like the Gestapo. They told me they were “protecting” me. From what? As an escort, I could afford condoms, blood screens, regular medical checks. Gentlemen who are willing to pay for sex are, in my experience, much more respectful than the ones who expect it for free. The ones who raped and battered me were getting free sex. The ones who paid, were kind and respectful.

She said it here.

Point #1: the police (or, more correctly, society and its instructions to and constraints on police) aren’t particularly effective at protecting women from assault, abuse, rape, or battery. Consequently anyone who argues they’re trying to “protect” the sex workers they rescue is a liar.

Point #2: Considering the conservative bona fides of your average anti-prostitution activist, her words about the differences between men who pay for sex and the men who expect it for free ought to resonate with Über-conservative silverback Newt Gingrich’s repeated point that humans have an astonishing tendency to abuse and neglect that which they don’t pay for. I happen to believe Gingrich is mostly batshit insane, but that shouldn’t be a problem for conservatives. The point remains, though, that in the eyes of their abusers there really doesn’t appear to be much more consideration, nor less resentment, of sex workers who charge men for money, and “ordinary” sex-partners who don’t.

Point #3: How exactly is it the case that notifying a sex worker’s employer (who, fortunately in this case, was also her daylight-business partner) “protecting” her? The common reaction for employers (all too common!) is to find cause to fire the sex worker, with the result that her odds of leaving sex work go down. And her odds of having to return to sex work go up.

Point #4: None of this implies that all sex workers are hearty, happy self-determined entrepreneurs. Many are not. Many, in fact, not only don’t enjoy their work but are trapped either by circumstance, conscription, or outright coercion! It’s not exactly clear to me, however, how making their work or even their customers illegal improves anyone’s odds of getting out or moving on. Based on conversations with individuals who’ve made poor choices in the past, it’s not clear to me at all how an arrest record, let alone a conviction record, let alone a jail record, let alone public record of one’s activities, makes any form of employment other than either marginal/minimum-wage or criminal ones possible.

Point #5: If society and/or the police really were interested in protecting sex workers they’re fucking protect sex workers instead of, well, policing them. Instead of arresting them they’d let sex workers put their numbers in speed dial. Instead of arresting them they’d establish clear relationships with sex workers and sex-worker alliances to instead police of the very-large number of people who currently get away with raping, robbing, roughing up, and murdering sex workers (and, cough, non-sex workers.)

Point #6: As I said above, you don’t have to like prostitution to see the arguably-intractable problems with current policies regarding its legality.

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Sex Worker Sues John for Removing Condom and Other Benefits of New Zealand Model of Prostitution

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sun, 2010-05-23 17:05

Via Laura Agustín of Border Thinking on Migration, Culture, Economy and Sex, a report out of New Zealand discusses one of the non-surprising benefits of their recent legalization of prostitution: increased leverage for prostitutes in relation to their customers.

After interviewing 772 sex workers, Otago University’s Gillian Abel found workers are more empowered to insist on safe sex and assert employment rights with both brothel operators and clients. Relationships with police have also improved.

‘When it was criminalised, the negotiations were much more covert to try and enforce condom use, whereas now they’ve got the law behind them. One sex worker in Christchurch has taken a client to court for removing a condom. ‘

Read the quote in context here.

One needn’t be enthusiastic about prostitution as a cultural institution to see this as a very, very positive outcome.

The power imbalance between typical workers on the one hand, and their customers, employers/agents, and law enforcement on the other is a huge, huge problem that’s further exacerbated by criminalization. In particular, independent of any social or philosophical problems one might have with sex work*, or legalization of it, and independent of any questions of whether sex work “empowers” those who do it, the blunt fact of legalization provides a tremendous lever that has traditionally been unavailable in negotiations with customers, employers such as pimps or escort agencies, and law-enforcement or other civil entities.

If you’re pro-sex-work it’s a positive development because it brings prostitution a lot closer to the level of enforceable civil and workplace law all other employed or self-employed worker have the right to receive — for instance the right to take legal action against a customer, employer, police officer, or passer by who attempts to rob, rape, rough them up… or even just refuse to leave on a condom. And if you’re anti-sex-trafficking it’s a positive development because it makes it far, far easier for coerced sex workers to come forward and, perhaps even more importantly, it gives sex workers themselves legal avenues for reporting when they become aware of other workers who are being coerced.**

In fact the only two kinds of people I think would be bothered by the direction of this change in the sex-worker status-quo would be people like pimps, cops, and johns who believe sex workers should have no autonomy and no rights because that gives them virtually unlimited power to exploit them and… sex-work abolitionists who believe sex workers should have no autonomy and no rights because that gives them virtually unlimited power to “rescue” them. (Hmm… gee, see a pattern there?)

* And I do have problems with it. The biggest, by far, being the way sex work appears in terms of the no-sex class paradigm’s construction of heterosexual sex as perpetually scarce, inevitably transactional, and desire as necessarily disjoint (men want sex, women want something else) rather than matched. Consequently sex work for me is a symptom rather than a root cause, and therefore there’s zero benefit to society, and quite a bit of harm for workers and even customers, in opposing it in isolation.

** I’m actually curious whether law-enforcement and social-service groups where prostitution isn’t illegal ever recruit legal sex workers to help identify sex workers who really are coerced. To the extent sex workers are altruistic they’re likely to be as concerned about coercion as any other law-abiding citizen. And to the extent they’re no more altruistic than any other law-abiding citizen there’s still the fact that illegal or coerced workers undercut both safety and prices.

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