Sex related businesses in Japan

Japan is complicated. Here's a story from the Guardian that seems not to involve prostitution, but is nevertheless sex related (and child related).

Schoolgirls for sale: why Tokyo struggles to stop the 'JK business'
The persistent practice of paying underage girls for sex-related services, known in Japan as the ‘JK’ business, has seen charities step in where police have come up short

"Tokyo is famous for its fairly wild red light scene. You can find anything from a handsome man to make you cry and wipe away your tears to a maid to pour your drinks and giggle at your jokes and an encounter in one of the notorious “soapland” brothels.

"You can also pay to spend time with a schoolgirl. Services might include a chat over a cup of tea, a walk in the park or perhaps a photograph – with some places offering rather more intimate options.
...
"The fetishisation of Japanese schoolgirls in Japanese culture has been linked by some academics to a 1985 song called Please Don’t Take Off My School Uniform, released by the female idol group O-nyanko Club, and re-released by no less mainstream a group than AKB48, one of the highest-earning musical performers in Japan and whose single Teacher Teacher sold more than 3m copies in 2018.

"The term “JK business” has become a catch-all for cafes, shops and online agencies which provide a range of “activities”, many of which are not overtly sexual. Young women in school uniforms can be offered for reflexology and massage treatments, photography sessions and “workshops” in which girls reveal glimpses of their underwear as they sit folding origami or creating jewellery.
...
"Japan’s anti-prostitution laws broadly prohibit the sale and purchase of sex, but there are significant loopholes, of which establishments such as soaplands take full advantage. Crucially, in the case of JK businesses, Japan has no specific anti-trafficking laws in place. Ordinarily, a child under 18 involved in sex work is automatically considered trafficked, with harsh penalties for those responsible.

"Pornography laws relating to children are also limited – they do not, for example, cover manga, anime, or virtually created content, allowing games such as 2006’s controversial (and now no longer available) RapeLay, in which the player stalks and attempts to rape a single mother and her two school-age daughters."

Legal brothels and sex trafficking in Germany

Apparently it's hard to staff a really high volume brothel entirely with voluntary sex workers.  The Guardian has the story:

Trouble in Paradise: the rise and fall of Germany's 'brothel king'
Jürgen Rudloff’s chain of ‘wellness spas’ sold sex as a health service for men. But his business model was fatally flawed – as his trial for aiding and abetting trafficking revealed

"Until his dramatic fall from grace, Jürgen Rudloff was the self-proclaimed “brothel king” of Germany. Owner of a chain of clubs he boasted was the “the largest marketplace for sex in Europe”, he was every inch the well-dressed entrepreneur, a regular face on reality TV and chat shows.

"Rudloff is now serving a five-year sentence for aiding and abetting trafficking. His trial laid bare the misery and abuse of women working as prostitutes at his club who, according to court documents, were treated like animals and beaten if they didn’t make enough money. His imprisonment has dismantled the idea of Germany’s “clean prostitution” industry and raised troubling questions about what lies behind the legalised, booming sex trade.

"Prostitution – legalised in Germany in 2002 – is worth an annual €15bn (£13.4bn), and more than a million men visit prostitutes every day. The change in the law led to a rise in “super brothels”, attracting tourists from countries where such establishments are illegal.
...
"The Paradise business model is the same as the hundreds of other “sauna clubs” across Germany – brothel owners provide the premises, and the women are self-employed. Yet Rudloff’s high-volume, low-cost model only works if the supply of women is enough to satisfy demand and bring enough customers through the doors.

"According to court documents, this became a problem for Paradise almost immediately. There weren’t enough women to fill the clubs. So Rudloff’s friends in the industry offered to help him out.

"In 2008, as Rudloff was growing his business, investigators in Augsburg, Bavaria – a hundred miles from Stuttgart – received a tip-off that gangs from the city were trafficking women from eastern Europe, and sending them to work in Paradise. (While prostitution is legal in Germany, pimping and sex trafficking are not.)
...
"Peter Holzwarth, the chief prosecutor at the trial, argued that the owner and management at the clubs were guilty of Organisationsdelikt – aiding and abetting an organisation involved in criminality. “He knew – in the cases brought to court – that the women working at his club were being exploited by pimps,” says Holzwarth. “And he knew the women were trafficked, or rather, he thought that they might be and [still let them work], and that is sufficient for a conviction.”

"The court agreed. Sentencing Rudloff in late February this year, the judge remarked: “A clean brothel of this size is hard to imagine.” He said he hoped the convictions would serve as a warning to the sex industry.
...
"For prosecutors like Holzwarth, Rudloff’s conviction is a warning to those cashing in on Germany’s insatiable demand for commercial sex. “Rudloff’s case was not an isolated incident,” he says. “In my opinion, cooperation between brothel owners and pimps is risky but profitable for both sides. A win-win situation … but the case has had an impact already. I think brothel owners will be more careful about dealing with pimps.”

Fighting trafficking by decriminalizing sex work in Mexico City

The Guardian has the story:

Mexico City will decriminalize sex work in move against trafficking

"Mexico City lawmakers have given the green light to decriminalize sex work in the capital, hoping it will be a first step to a crackdown on sex trafficking that traps thousands of Mexican women and children.

"Lawmakers in Mexico City’s congress on Friday voted 38-0, with eight abstentions, in favor of a bill to remove a line in the civic culture law which said prostitutes and their clients can be fined or arrested if neighbors complained.

"Temistocles Villanueva, a local representative with the ruling center-left Morena party, said the new law recognized that people had the right to engage in sex work.

“It’s a first step that has to lead to regulation of sex work, to fight human trafficking and strengthen the rights of sex workers,” he said. “Exercising sexuality in our country is still a taboo topic that few of us dare to talk about.“

"Sex work is allowed in much of Mexico but states have different and sometimes unclear rules, meaning workers frequently operate in legal vacuums which can leave them vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking by crime gangs.

"Mexico is a source, transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, with Mexican women and children the most at risk from sex trafficking, according to the US state department."

The politics of prostitution in the U.S.

The NY Times has the story:
Could Prostitution Be the Next Vice to Be Decriminalized?  By Jesse McKinley

"Marijuana has gone mainstream, casino gambling is everywhere and sports wagering is spreading. Could prostitution be next?

Lawmakers across the country are beginning to reconsider how to handle prostitution, as calls for decriminalization are slowly gaining momentum.

"Decriminalization bills have been introduced in Maineand Massachusetts; a similar bill is expected to be introduced to the City Council in Washington D.C. in June; and lawmakers in Rhode Island held hearings last month on a proposal to study the impact of decriminalizing prostitution.

"New York may be next: Some Democratic lawmakers are about to propose a comprehensive decriminalization bill that would eliminate penalties for both women and men engaged in prostitution, as well as the johns whom they service.

...

"The debate is unquestionably polarizing in many circles, even among advocates for sex-trafficked and abused women who fear that creating a legal path for prostitution will not eliminate, but rather actually encourage, underground sex trafficking.

...

"Still, the issue has crept into the Democratic Party’s nascent presidential campaign: In late February, Senator Kamala Harris of California became the first candidate to endorse some manner of decriminalization, an idea also floated by another contender, the former Colorado governor, John Hickenlooper.

...

"Supporters of decriminalization see their efforts as part of a larger, decades-long liberalization of American mores, like lifting Sunday bans on selling alcohol and legalizing marijuana. They also frame the issue as an act of harm-reduction for prostitutes and a tacit admission that modern law enforcement and age-old moral indignation has done little to stem the practice.

“We’ve learned this lesson many times with the prohibition of alcohol, or criminalization of abortion, or even the criminalization of marijuana: The black market creates dark circumstances and provides cover for a lot of violence and exploitation,” said Kaytlin Bailey, a comedian and former prostitute who serves as the spokeswoman for Decriminalize Sex Work, which was founded last year."

"Rich meet beautiful" site prosecuted in Belgium

The Guardian has the story:

'Sugar daddy' website owner charged with debauchery in Belgium
Norwegian Sigurd Vedal’s site Rich Meet Beautiful promised to help students meet rich men

"The chief executive of a pan-European “sugar daddy” dating site that targeted students with adverts outside Belgian universities last summer has appeared in court charged with debauchery.

"Norwegian Sigurd Vedal, 47, whose website Rich Meet Beautiful claimed to offer a “Fifty Shades of Grey” experience to young women, is being prosecuted following a complaint by the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
...
"After success in Scandinavia, the Norwegian company behind the website said it aimed to recruit 300,000 Belgian registrations by the end of 2018, but it was forced to end its marketing campaign after an outcry. Similar sites have emerged in the UK targeting female students. The US-based SeekingArrangement.com was found in 2015 to be offering premium membership to users with a university email address.

"Vedal appeared in Brussels criminal court on charges of debauchery, public incitement to debauchery and violating anti-sexism laws."
**********

Earlier post:

Sunday, April 12, 2009  Market for sugar daddies

and see https://www.richmeetbeautiful.com/en_US/

Prosecuting customers in the fight against sex trafficking of illegal immigrants in American massage parlors

Recent headlines from an investigation into sex trafficking have included the arrests of high profile customers, which may do more to limit the market than targeting massage parlor brothels and those who work in them and operate them.

Here's a NY Times headline that has garnered more attention than most prostitution investigations:

Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Charged in Florida Prostitution Investigation
"Robert K. Kraft, the billionaire owner of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, was charged on Friday with two counts of soliciting sex as part of a wide-ranging investigation into prostitution and suspected human trafficking in South Florida.

"The charges against Mr. Kraft, 77, in Jupiter, Fla., came after the police used video surveillance to observe activity inside several day spas and massage parlors. The police said that the parlors had been used for prostitution and that many of the women involved were considered to be victims."
************
And here's a followup story that describes the working conditions, which are themselves violations of American labor laws. But the sex workers are in no position to seek help from the law, since they are vulnerable twice over, first as illegal immigrants (who have typically entered on a short term visa and overstayed) and second as illegal sex workers (although they can be counted as crime victims rather than as criminals in some investigations of trafficking).

Behind Illicit Massage Parlors Lie a Vast Crime Network and Modern Indentured Servitude

"The frequently middle-aged women who work in parlors with names like Orchids of Asia and Rainbow Spa are often struggling to pay off high debts to family members, loan sharks, labor traffickers and lawyers who help them file phony asylum claims. In some cases, their passports are taken and their illegal immigration status keeps them further in the shadows, with some of them rotated every 10 days to two weeks between spas operated by the same owners. Forced to pay for their own supplies and even their own condoms, many women must sleep on the same massage tables where they service customers and cook on hot plates in cramped kitchens or on back steps.
...
"Law enforcement officials said there were an estimated 9,000 illicit massage parlors across the country, from Orlando to Los Angeles.
...
"The women are paid just a sliver of the $60 or more the client pays for an hourlong massage. Their real money — and chance at a better life — comes in the form of tips, which they are encouraged or forced to amplify through illegal means.
...
"The ubiquity of the massage parlors offers an accessibility and sheen of normalcy not offered by traditional brothels. And as the massage parlors have expanded even into small-town America in recent years, meticulously detailed review sites like Rubmaps have served as the Yelp and Foursquare of the illicit parlor business, with graphic anatomical descriptions of the women and explicit breakdowns of the sexual services proffered.
...
"A federal law enforcement official...said that the most common method for smuggling women from Asian countries was either a fraudulent tourist visa or a fraudulent work visa, such as for nursing work.
...
"One reason the Asian massage parlors remain so poorly understood is the extreme reluctance of the women to speak with the police and even with their own lawyers.
...
"Some fear retaliation by traffickers to their families in China, and some feel morally indebted to those who helped find them a job, said Chris Muller, the director of training and external affairs at Restore NYC, an anti-sex-trafficking organization.
...
"Bradley Myles, chief executive of Polaris Project, a nonprofit that works to combat human trafficking, said that the madams arrested on big raids like the recent ones in Florida — known as “mamasans” — are often women in their 60s and 70s who have spent decades in the sex trade but are usually pretty far down in the organization."

Working alone: sex work in Britain

In Britain, prostitutes often feel compelled to work alone because working together puts them at risk of arrest for brothel-keeping.  But working alone is dangerous.  The Guardian has the story:

Decriminalise sex work to protect us from crime, prostitutes say
English collective says laws forcing women to work alone expose them to violence

"Prostitution should be decriminalised in the UK to make it safer for vulnerable women, a sex worker organisation has said.

The English Collective of Prostitutes is calling for the removal of laws relating to consensual adult sexual behaviour, arguing that the legislation forces sex workers to operate alone, leaving them vulnerable to crime and reluctant to report violence to the police because they fear arrest.

...

"The announcement comes ahead of International Sex Workers’ Rights Day, an annual event on 3 March. The government is about to publish research it commissioned on sex workers in coming months.

"In 2016, the home affairs select committee recommended decriminalising prostitution. The interim report on prostitution said the Home Office should immediately change the legislation so that soliciting was no longer an offence, and change brothel-keeping laws to allow sex workers to share premises without losing the ability to prosecute those who used brothels to control or exploit sex workers."

Repugnance in Spain: surrogacy and prostitution

I've relatively recently started to pay attention to repugnance in Spain, here are some useful older links.

From El Pais:
Spain struggles with surrogate pregnancy issue
Practice is illegal here but debate rages over whether surrogacy is a right or a form of exploitation


From la Asociación por la Gestación Subrogada en España
Sobre la Gestación Subrogada

GT "In our country the surrogate pregnancy is illegal: Article 10 of Law 14/2006, of May 26, on Techniques of Assisted Human Reproduction establishes that the contract by which gestation is agreed, with or without price, in charge of a woman who renounces maternal filiation in favor of the contracting party or third party is null and void. 

"However, the Instruction of October 5, 2010 of the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries has left without effective content the prohibition of surrogate pregnancy by contemplating the registration in the Civil Registry of children of this technique provided that the procedure has been carried out in a country where this technique is regulated, that one of the parents is Spanish and that there is a court order that guarantees, among other aspects, the rights of the pregnant woman. The name of this woman will not appear in the annotation made in our records.

"This creates an important discrimination between those Spaniards who can afford treatment outside our borders and those who can not."


From Bright Magazine;
Decriminalizing Sex Work in Spain Made It Safer For Women — and Traffickers
Thirty years ago, most sex workers were Spanish. Today almost 90 percent are immigrants, most under the control of organized crime networks.

Israel adopts the 'Nordic model' of criminalizing the hiring of prostitutes

The Jerusalem Post has the story:

ISRAEL BECOMES 10TH COUNTRY TO CRIMINALIZE HIRING PROSTITUTES
When the law goes into effect, a first-time offender will be fined NIS 2,000 for hiring or attempting to hire a prostitute and NIS 4,000 for further offenses.

"The Knesset on Monday passed a landmark law against prostitution making hiring sex workers a crime, rather than the work itself.

The law makes Israel the 10th country to institute what is called the “Nordic Model” of combating human trafficking and prostitution. 
*********
Here's Haaretz, which speaks about the eradication of prostitution (which seems unlikely to this observer of black markets...):

Israel Passes Law Banning the Buying of Sex

"According to the law, which passed in a 34-0 vote, anyone buying or attempting to buy sex would be fined 2,000 shekels ($534), which doubles for a second offense. For any further violations the offender could be prosecuted and the fine could reach 75,300 shekels.

"The law goes into effect in a year and a half, to give the state a chance to create rehabilitation services for prostitutes. An interministerial committee on reducing prostitution recommended that the government allocate tens of millions of shekels for this purpose.
...
"Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who did not come to the Knesset but turned the bills into a government-sponsored proposal, said that the “consumption of prostitution is a moral failing that seriously harms the status of women. A woman’s body is not an object to be sold to the highest bidder.”

MK Shelly Yacimovich (Zionist Union), who actively promoted the bill, said that “the war on the clients of prostitutes is similar to the war on slavery and the freeing of slaves, no less. In the beginning, the call to make the johns the offenders was considered radical and revolutionary, but in the end we arrived at this law, which is definitely a significant and historic step.”

"Attorney Nitzan Kahana, codirector of the Task Force on Human Trafficking and Prostitution, said the passage of the law ended 2018 with good news for all Israeli women.

“The Knesset is fulfilling its obligation to work with all its might to eradicate the cycle of prostitution,” she said. “We promised to end exploitation for prostitution, which is a social disgrace for us all and initiates many young women into a world of exploitation and violence. Today we took a historic step.”

Is prostitution repugnant if the sex workers are robots?

The Guardian has the story:
Houston mayor pushes back against proposed 'robot brothel'
Sylvester Turner said the city is reviewing ordinances after Kinky S Dolls said it intends to open a ‘love dolls brothel’ there

"A Canadian company wants to open a so-called “robot brothel” in Houston, but is getting pushback from officials and community groups, with the mayor saying the city is reviewing its ordinances to determine if they address public safety and health concerns potentially associated with the business.

"Mayor Sylvester Turner says he’s not trying to be the “moral police” but that this is not the type of business he wants opening in the city.

"Kinky S Dolls says it’s opening a “love dolls brothel” in Houston. It opened a similar venue in Toronto in 2017.
...
"Elijah Rising, a Houston-based not-for-profit focused on ending sex trafficking, has started an online petition asking the business be kept out of the city. "
**********

The expressed concern about sex trafficking reminds of cases in which people have been prosecuted (in England and Canada) for importing sex dolls that resemble children, under laws against child pornography that are intended to fight trafficking in children.

I'm further reminded of the Mencken quote defining Puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun. (Apparently what he actually wrote is very slightly different from what I remembered.)  Perhaps this applies in some cases to the definition of repugnance also.

Prostitution, brothels and police corruption in NYC

The NY Times has the story:
Brothels, Gambling and an Ex-Detective Mastermind: Officials Detail N.Y. Police Scandal

"It was a sweeping and complex criminal enterprise: brothels in Brooklyn, where 15-minute sexual encounters added up to more than $2 million in profits in a 13-month period, and nail salons in Queens, where managers, runners and agents placed bets in an old-school numbers racket.

And the mastermind was a retired New York City police detective who recruited at least seven police officers acting as foot soldiers, according to court documents charging the group on Thursday."

...

Here's an example of the strategic cat and mouse game that used the inside information of the "ex-detective mastermind":

"He knew that undercover officers investigating prostitution are not allowed to expose their genitals during their interactions with suspects, and so he made a rule to check new customers of the brothels: He insisted that the men “undress and allow themselves to be fondled to pass the brothel’s security screening,” the Queens district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the officers and dozens of civilians, said."

Politico summarizes the Backpage story

Here's an article for those who haven't been following this first amendment/prostitution/human trafficking story...

The Sex-Trafficking Case Testing the Limits of the First Amendment
How a couple of crusading journalists made a fortune selling adult escort ads and in the process became unlikely and widely reviled First Amendment advocates.
By PAUL DEMKO July 29, 2018

Many of the people quoted focus on the motivations of the protagonists (get rich, versus defend the First Amendment press freedoms...). I wonder what role if any those questions will play in the legal proceedings.


Here are my other posts about  Backpage and related matters.

Repugnance watch: referendum proposes to end (some) legal prostitution in Nevada

The November ballot will have a referendum on prostitution in two Nevada counties where it is currently legal. The WSJ has the story:

Is the Party Over for Nevada’s Legal Brothels? Possibility of a Ban Looms
Referendum measures, if passed, would outlaw nine bordellos in two Nevada counties as women’s advocates take on working conditions for prostitutes

"A coalition of women’s advocacy groups in Nevada has undertaken referendum initiatives against legal prostitution in Lyon and Nye counties, opposite corners of the state that are home to about half of the state’s brothels.
...
"Nevada began legalizing prostitution on a county basis in 1971, the only state to have done so. Seven of the state’s 16 counties have licensed bordellos; prostitution remains illegal in populous Clark County including Las Vegas, and Washoe County including Reno.

"Women’s activists said they began seeking the bans last year after hearing about prostitutes being assaulted at the brothels. “These are all areas of sexual harassment and assault within the workplace, which is why this is a part of the #MeToo movement,” said Melissa Holland, executive director of Awaken, a Reno women’s nonprofit that teamed with other groups to push for referendums.
...
"Frederick Fabian, manager at the Desert Club brothel in Battle Mountain, Nev., which hasn’t been targeted for a ban, said illegal prostitution is a dangerous profession while legalized prostitution isn’t. “The cathouses and brothels are regulated by the county sheriff and the health facilities,” he said."

More Backpage (.com) news

From the Washington Post:
Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer pleads guilty in three states, agrees to testify against other website officials
"Carl Ferrer, the chief executive of Backpage.com whose name was conspicuously absent from an indictment of seven other Backpage officials unsealed Monday, has pleaded guilty in state courts in California and Texas and federal court in Arizona to charges of money laundering and conspiracy to facilitate prostitution. In addition, he agreed to testify against the men who co-founded Backpage with him, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, who remained in jail Thursday in Arizona on facilitating prostitution charges.

Backpage, in addition to hosting thinly veiled ads for prostitution since 2004, was accused of hosting child sex trafficking ads on its site and even assisting advertisers in wording their copy so they didn’t overtly declare that sex was for sale, federal investigators allege. In a remarkable three-paragraph admission in his federal plea agreement, Ferrer wrote that “I conspired with other Backpage principals … to find ways to knowingly facilitate the state-law prostitution crimes being committed by Backpage’s customers.

...

"Ferrer’s sudden capitulation launched a wild seven days for Backpage. A day after Ferrer’s first secret plea, the federal government arrested seven of Ferrer’s former colleagues, including Lacey and Larkin, and shut down Backpage’s websites in the U.S. and around the world. ...

"Then on Wednesday, President Trump signed into law “FOSTA,” the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, a bill inspired by the stories of children being prostituted on Backpage..."

**********************

And here's a story from Quartz that follows the work of economists researching the (not all bad) effects of internet marketplaces for prostitution.

The unintended consequences of a crackdown on sites selling sex work

Backpage.com, seized by the FBI and indicted by the Department of Justice

The latest development in the legal battle of Backpage.com, an online marketplace for sex and, apparently, trafficking in women and children, has resulted in the closing of the site.

On April 6 2018 the content of the site was replaced with a notice beginning “backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center.” 
The accompanying indictment (https://www.justice.gov/file/1050276/download )suggests that the proprietors of Backpage.com may have helped write the site’s content, and thus not be protected by the 1996 Communications Decency Act. 

In a parallel development, in March (of 2018) the Senate passed (by a vote of 97 to 2) and forwarded to the President for signature the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, as previously passed by the House of Representatives. It amends the Communications Act of 1934, “to  clarify  that  section  230  of  such  Act  does  not  prohibit  the  enforcement  against providers and users of interactive computer services of Federal and State criminal and civil law relating to sexual exploitation of  children  or  sex  trafficking…” https://www.congress.gov/115/crpt/hrpt572/CRPT-115hrpt572-pt1.pdf .  

Cursing sex traffickers in Nigeria

In some religious traditions, curses are performative, i.e. performing a curse is thought to have consequences for those cursed.  In Nigeria, a traditional leader is applying this to public policy.

The NY Times has the story:
A Voodoo Curse on Human Traffickers

"On March 9, Oba Ewuare II, the traditional ruler of the kingdom of Benin, in southern Nigeria, put a voodoo curse on anyone who abets illegal migration within his domain. At the same time, he revoked the curses that leave victims of trafficking afraid that their relatives will die if they go to the police or fail to pay off their debt.

"Before being smuggled into Europe, women and girls in the area, which falls in present-day Edo State, are made to sign a contract with the traffickers who finance their journey, promising to pay them thousands of dollars. The agreement is sealed with a voodoo, or juju, ritual, conducted by a spiritual priest, known here as a native doctor.
...
"Edo is not one of Nigeria’s poorest states. But in the early 1980s women there started traveling to Italy to trade in gold and beads, and “saw a thriving market in prostitution,” said Kokunre Agbontaen-Eghafona, a professor at the University of Benin and a researcher for the International Organization for Migration. She believes this “founders factor” is the main reason Edo has become such a center of human trafficking."

Sex work, Craigslist, and the law; podcast with Scott Cunningham

Here's a link to an interview with Scott Cunningham, whose work on sex work I've blogged about before. There's a surprising amount of discussion about causal inference and differences in differences. (I always suspected that econometrics was sexy, but this is the first time I’ve heard a podcast about that.)

PODCAST

SEX WORK, CRAIGSLIST, AND DECRIMINALIZATION WITH SCOTT CUNNINGHAM

JANUARY 26, 2018 GARRETT M. PETERSEN   

"My guest for this episode is Scott Cunningham of Baylor University. We discuss his work on the decriminalization of indoor sex work and on the impact of Craigslist’s erotic services page on violence against women.

"The working paper on Craigslist generated a lot of media attention, with articles at Huffington Postand ThinkProgress. The most quoted statistic is that “Craigslist erotic services reduced the female homicide rate by 17.4 percent.” We discuss this statistic, its possible causes, and whether or not it is implausibly large.

---

Lynn Arditi’s article on the accidental decriminalization of prostitution in Rhode Island."

Ninth Circuit rules that laws against prostitution are not unconstitutional

The Washington Post has the best headline:
They argued that prostitution is a constitutional right. Nice try, said federal court.

"The Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in the case Lawrence v. Texas is one of its best-known in recent memory. In a 6-3 decision, the justices invalidated every remaining sodomy law in the United States, rendering the country’s archaic and largely unenforced bans on same-sex sexual activity unconstitutional. “Intimate conduct” between consenting adults was a fundamental right protected by the Constitution’s due process clauses, the high court found.
...
"The Erotic Service Provider Legal Education and Research Project, or ESPLERP, filed a lawsuit in federal court in 2015 claiming that, under the Supreme Court’s ruling, California’s anti-prostitution law violates the constitutional rights of prostitutes and clients to engage in consensual sexual activity. They even went so far as to say that the ruling barred laws criminalizing prostitution among adults and that paying for sex was a form of protected commercial speech.
...
"On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based court threw out the lawsuit, ruling that paying for sex didn’t count as the type of “intimate conduct” that Supreme Court justices had in mind.

“There is no constitutional rights to engage in illegal employment, namely, prostitution,” Judge Jane A. Restani wrote for the three-judge panel."
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Here's the story in the SF Chronicle:
Sex for sale is not a constitutional right, court rules

"Three former prostitutes, a would-be client and the Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational and Research Project had argued that the high court, in striking down state laws against gay or lesbian sexual activity, recognized an adult’s right to engage in consensual sex without state interference. They maintained that the ruling extended to adults who consent to sex for a price.

"A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco seemed receptive to that argument at a hearing in October, suggesting that the 1872 state ban might need closer scrutiny.

"One panel member said prostitution had been historically subjected to the same sort of moral disapproval that had once condemned gay sex, and might be more acceptable under the Supreme Court’s current view of individual rights. Another asked why it should be “illegal to sell something that it’s legal to give away.”

"But in a 3-0 ruling Wednesday, the panel ruled that the Supreme Court had not legalized prostitution with its 2003 decision.

"Although the scope of the ruling was not clear, the Supreme Court specified that the gay sex case “does not involve ... prostitution,” Jane Restani, a judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade temporarily assigned to the appeals court, wrote in the panel’s decision."

Change in Swedish law about sexual assault

From The Guardian:
Swedish rape law would require explicit consent before sexual contact

"Sweden is moving closer to making changes to its rape laws that would require people to get explicit consent before sexual contact.
...
"Under current Swedish law someone can be prosecuted for rape only if it has been proved that they used threats or violence. Under the proposal, rape could be proved if the accuser hadn’t given their explicit verbal agreement or clearly demonstrate their desire to engage in sexual activity.
...
"The proposal is part of a series of initiatives being put forward. Others would make it illegal for Swedes to hire prostitutes abroad, and increase sentences for offenders. Buying sex in Sweden is already illegal."

Temporary brothels in Britain

The Guardian has the story:

How ‘pop-up’ brothels transformed Britain’s suburban sex industry
MPs are investigating a surge in flats being used short-term for prostitution – but the women who work in them say they often have no safer option

"Last month, MPs launched an inquiry into the apparent rise of so-called “pop-up” or temporary brothels. The phenomenon, where sex workers use Airbnb, hotels, or short-term holiday lets as a work base, has caused concern among politicians and the police. But what is the reality for women working in brothels in Britain today, and what is driving them to work in temporary set-ups?

“People think we’re either in five-star hotels or we’re on flea-bitten mattresses with a line of men outside the door,” says Amy, a single mother who works in the north London brothel. “Both of those things are real, both of those things happen, but the vast majority of us are just somewhere in the middle. Demystifying it is really important.”

...

"After a year, she found her current place with two others. With CCTV and a panic alarm, she says the more permanent setup means she has better security measures: “I honestly can’t imagine working any other way now and it astounds me that what we’re doing is technically illegal.”

Still, she does not want to paint a rose-tinted picture of her new situation. “When [sex workers] are talking to the press, there’s a lot of pressure for us to be like, ‘Oh I love my job, everything’s great’ when it’s not great. It’s like any other job – you have good days and bad days. It’s just like being in any kind of office job, or a call centre, just with more nudity, and dildos everywhere,” she jokes.

"Like many sex workers, trust and communication with the police is a huge issue for her and her workmates. “At the moment, I have absolutely no trust in the police whatsoever,” she says. “You can literally go from being the victim, to being the criminal in a matter of minutes.”

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"How the law stands

• There are an estimated 72,800 sex workers operating in the UK.
• In a study of 6,000 men, 11% reported paying for sex. More than a half of these said they paid for sex outside the UK.
• The mortality rate for sex workwers is 12 times higher than average.
• Keeping or managing a brothel is illegal under the 1956 Sexual Offences Act.
• The sale and purchase of sexual services is legal in England and Wales, but certain related activities are not.
• In 2015 Northern Ireland made it illegal to pay for sex. The first prosecution was in October 2017."