Sex and the City

Countries and cultures throughout history have dealt with the ancient occupation of sex work. In the vast majority of the world, the purchase and sale of erotic services are illegal. Though this status is thought to protect citizens, it often makes this labor dangerous for sex workers. By contrast, places where sex work is legal have observed more positive outcomes for sex workers’ mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.[1] It is evident that the decriminalization, legalization, and destigmatization of sex work are important avenues for supporting and protecting sex workers and the communities of which they are a part.

What is sex work?

Sex work is consensual, transactional sex, and it is distinct from human trafficking. When people are trafficked, they are forced to perform sexually, and it is crucial to note trafficking’s non-consensual nature, remaining mindful of its separation from sex work. Additionally, it is of note that while some begin sex work while navigating limited occupational or financial opportunities, people also delve into sex work as a conscious, thoroughly weighed decision.[2]

Although media representations of sex work often include pan-overs of women in high heels pacing, watching, and near-prowling city streets, sex work takes many forms. There are people who mainly meet their clients in outdoor venues such as street corners, but there are also people who work as independent contractors, leasing their services through online communications, for example, rather than through a third party (often conceptualized as a “pimp”) or in an organized group. Online platforms, such as Backpage, have been essential mediums for advertising sexual services, communicating with clients about terms, screening clients for safety, and communicating with other sex workers about verbally, physically, or sexually abusive clients. They also serve as a space for fellowship and social connection for sex workers as a community.

In April 2018, Congress passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, also known as SESTA/FOSTA.[3] This law federally criminalizes any internet platform operating with the “intent to promote or facilitate the prostitution of another person,” observing that those websites “have been reckless in allowing the sale of sex trafficking victims.”[4] In this way, this law creates and perpetuates a fallacious fusion of trafficking and sex work which, again, are two different and independent operations related to transactional sex. In response to FOSTA, websites advertising or organizing sex work, even those created for the purpose of alerting other workers about abusive clients, were shut down. According to a recently introduced bill known as the SAFE Sex Workers Study Act, this shut-down has created tremendous problems in many areas.[5] This bill mandates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services conduct a study about FOSTA’s effect on sex workers’ lives, including their mental health, housing stability, and workplace abuse experienced after FOSTA’s institution. It is also noteworthy that people of color and folks who are part of the LGBTQ+ community comprise a significant portion of communities in sex work, meaning legislation affecting this population complicates the livelihoods of already marginalized groups.[6]

Legalizing and Venerating Sex Work

As a criminalized industry, sex work is currently a dangerous occupation, and, according to a meta-analysis of 80+ U.S.-based and international studies and research projects related to sex work conducted by the ACLU, it becomes significantly safer when completely legalized, as evidenced by the state of New Zealand since 2003.[7] Criminalization of this work acts as facilitatory oil for customary violence against sex workers. Because many sex workers aim to avoid arrest for the work itself, they are often hesitant to report to the authorities violence perpetrated by clients or police officers who extort sex workers by making sexual contact with them a condition of freedom (from detainment or arrest).[8] Mechanically, these circumstances mean that there is a section of the population people are aware they can “get away” with battering and abusing.

In an effort to minimize this abuse, a number of countries have decriminalized the purchase and not the sale of sex. This method of partial decriminalization, known as the “end-demand” model, is often thought to improve sex workers’ lives because it logistically eliminates lawful arrest for transactional sex (though not necessarily police harassment).[9] However, this model still does not have the effect of minimizing or mitigating violence against sex workers, in part due to the remaining stigmatization’s comorbidity with remaining criminalization.[10]

In New Zealand and sections of the United States when and where sex work was completely legalized (such as Rhode Island from 1980-2009), the “safety, health, and financial wellbeing of sex workers” significantly increases.[11],[12] The title of the ACLU’s research brief asks readers if “decriminalization [is] the answer” and, based on this and other research done about the lives of sex workers around the globe, it appears to be.

To better protect and support the overall flourishing of this population and the lives of the people and communities of which they are a part, it is imperative to (1) decriminalize sex work, (2) amend FOSTA such that it more precisely affects websites related to trafficking and not consensual, contractual sex, and (3) create and operationalize a national and eventually international institutionalization and formalization of sex work as a vocation. One manifestation of this could be the expansion of companies that manufacture contraceptive resources. This change would not only create more jobs, but it would also constitute a significant increase in the supply of condoms that could be sent to indoor establishments for sex work. Such a change could happen in a similar vein to the increase in the production of masks in the age of COVID-19 to protect people as a whole.

By decriminalizing sex work, legislators can also take part in the destigmatization effort, a significant part of making this labor physically and emotionally safer. Because the law as a concept is often understood to be a society’s moral and not simply logistical code of conduct (as evidenced by the ways in which many would regard theft as “wrong” and not just as “illegal,” for example). In criminalizing certain behaviors, the state sends messages to the population about what is and is not acceptable. These messages are then internalized. For example, part of the moral qualm many had with racial segregation in the United States was the power and messaging of codified interiorization of people of color in this country. Thus, legitimizing sex work by legalizing it is an important avenue for infusing dignity (and in turn safety) into this labor, as people increasingly begin to regard it as laudable as being a masseuse, physical therapist, chiropractor, or engaging in any other axis of the workforce.

References

[1] “Is Sex Work Decriminalization The Answer? What The Research Tells Us,” ACLU, last modified October 21, 2020, https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu_sex_work_decrim_research_brief_new.pdf, p. 15.

[2] “LGBTQ Communities and Sex Work,” Survivors Against SESTA, accessed March 21, 2021, https://survivorsagainstsesta.org/lgbtq/.

[3] Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, Public Law 115-164, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ164/PLAW-115publ164.pdf/.

[4] Ibid.

[5] U.S. Congress, House, SAFE SEX Workers Study Act, HR 5448, 116th Cong., 1st sess, Congressional Record, introduced in the House December 17, 2019, https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr5448/BILLS-116hr5448ih.pdf.

[6]“LGBTQ Communities and Sex Work.”

[7] “Is Sex Work Decriminalization The Answer? What The Research Tells Us,” ACLU, last modified October 21, 2020, https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu_sex_work_decrim_research_brief_new.pdf, p. 15.

[8] Ibid, p. 6.

[9] Ibid, p. 7.

[10] Ibid, p. 5.

[11] Ibid, p. 1.

[12] Ibid, p. 15.