Juliana Piccillo of Whore Madonna, who I found via a Twitter link from Audacia Ray, makes a startlingly bold, pragmatic point about a Knoxville, TN, case where a sex-worker’s charges were upgraded from misdemeanor to felony because he or she turned out to be HIV positve.
I would argue it’s not criminal in any case. All sexually active adults in this country are well aware of the risks of STDS, STIs, HIV, etc. If they choose to not use protection or even if they choose to use protection and that protection fails, it was a risk they consented to.
It’s cool post and an interesting point: she’s clear that it’s certainly unethical, immoral, and outrageous not to disclose one’s status. And to at least a certain extent she, like I, may not mind that it’s illegal (though it shouldn’t be any more illegal when a sex-worker does it.)
But conceptually the law as it stands serves more to protect a mindset of denial — about condoms, about sex, about the “cleanliness” of all of us, about sex education, and especially, about male responsibility (sex-workers are roughly as likely to get STIs from customers as vice versa), and, for that matter, about expectations about protecting the “innocence,” ignorance or denial of sexually “virtuous” women.
This isn’t to “blame the victim” for failing to practice sex safety and it’s definitely not saying HIV, or really any illness, is a proportionate, let alone appropriate “that’ll teach you” consequence of failing to practice sex safety.
But let’s locate the agency for contraction of STIs where it belongs — with those who exercise sexual agency. Yes, not everyone who has sex has agency. But everyone else does. Certainly commercial-sex customers do (which is why singling out ill sex workers for prosecution is especially counterproductive.) But so does every other consenting adult.
Pretty useful way to look at it.
