Even the right is boarding the decrim sex work train

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My old friend from my DC days Corie Whalen reached out to me about a new paper, Examining Alternatives to Criminalizing Sex Work in the United States. It’s a good read, especially if you’re new to the arguments for decriminalizing sex work rather than criminalizing it, legalizing it, or implementing “end demand” policies.

It was written by Stacey McKenna, Resident Senior Fellow, Integrated Harm Reduction and Chelsea Boyd, Research Fellow, Harm Reduction, both at R Street Institute, a right-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C.

Chelsea Boyd, left and Stacey McKenna, right

I liked how the paper brought up two things in particular. First, that criminalization means the negotiation between the worker and the client itself is considered a criminal activity. Which makes it much more difficult and unsafe for workers to ask for the money, ID, etc. they need.

From the report:

[T]hat means I’m not super comfortable saying to you, ‘Hey, this is what I’ll do. These are my boundaries and this is how much it’s going to cost.’ So people don’t disclose that information, and then you end up in a private space with a person you don’t really know who might get angry because they thought you were going to do something that you’re like, ‘I will absolutely not do that,’ or ‘I will do that for a lot more money.’

Second, that sex workers in Nevada’s brothels have lower rates of STIs such as gonorrhea and syphilis than the general population. Which I’m not surprised by but it’s cool there’s data on.

I spoke with Stacey via chat about the report. Our interview is below:

Cathy: Can you tell me a little about the timing of the report? What’s happened recently that helped it come about?

Stacey: Sure, we track state-level legislation related to harm reduction throughout the year. And I noticed that a few states had sex work decriminalization bills come up. None made it through to law, but I thought it was an interesting trend and worth looking into.

Cathy: You write sex work regulations exist primarily at the state level. My understanding is that most regulations are local, for example I believe full-service sex work is usually criminalized and decriminalized on a city-by-city basis and strip clubs are also regulated at the city level. I guess my question is am I confused or can you tell me more about how sex work is regulated?

Stacey: So, without reading the exact context of the statement, that is likely an indication that it differs from state to state. However, from our conversations with experts in the field, I believe much outright criminalization of sex work is at the state level.

Cathy: What’s the best path forward for sex work decrim in the US? Several cities as well as states have proposed decrim bills. Do you think it makes more sense to focus on the city, state, or on trying to pass something at the federal level?

Stacey: So, what we learned from the study is that, the most pragmatic approach to reducing the harms associated with the prohibition of full-service sex work may be incremental legislation.

And a lot of that is happening at the local level.

R Street does not advocate for a particular approach.

Cathy: Do you know of any good model incremental legislation?

Stacey: We discuss some in the paper. Immunity laws.

Cathy: Cool, ty. Anything else you’d like people to know?

Stacey: Two things. First, sex work and sex trafficking are not one and the same. It is possible to make legislative changes that reducing the prohibition-related harms to voluntary sex workers while continuing to criminalize individuals who are coercing people into sex work.

Cathy: Well, yes and decriminalizing sex work is shown to reduce rates of sex trafficking and make it easier to find, identify, and rescue victims

Stacey: Yes. Prohibition of sex work comes with harms to both voluntary and coerced sex workers. Which is something that often gets overlooked in the mainstream conversation.

Cathy: Totally

Stacey: The second major point—Lawmakers need to listen to people who work in the industry. Like, really listen and understand the things that are a priority.

Cathy: Absolutely. It’s extremely frustrating that biased Evangelicals who spread misinformation are invited to testify before congress but sex workers are blocked. What industry is regulated without any input from the people who work in that industry? It’s ridiculous.

Stacey: Finally, and this is a bit tangential, but I think there would be a benefit to looking at the trafficking side of the issue alongside human trafficking for labor more generally.

Agreed! It’s really an interesting omission.

Cathy: It’s telling that sex trafficking is a tiny percentage of labor trafficking but gets ALL the attention.

Stacey: Another thing that came up from our conversations was that any decrim efforts will really need to come at state and local levels. That there may in fact not be a model approach that will work all over the US.

Cathy: It’s almost like the fight against trafficking is just a new branding on an old fight to make sex work as dangerous as possible.

Great, well I appreciate your time so much and I’m so glad R St and you two are working on this extremely important issue.

Stacey: Definitely!