The Final

And, as promised, though a little bit late, here is the final draft of the report I was assigned in my English 127 course.

As you’ll probably remember, I decided, after a small argument with the instructor, on the topic of Legalizing Prostitution. The guy was only barely able to keep himself from telling me “No” on this topic. And then once he thought about me conducting interviews with local working girls, I was informed that they weren’t going to be necessary and that their inclusion would be unwanted.

So sorry guys, no pics of “Ladies of the Evening”. Though I did do a decent amount of research into the topic and have the contact info of some very middle of the price spectrum and up ladies for you local dudes, if anyone wants it.

The assignment instructions stated that a “catchy” or eye grabbing” title was a good idea, so I decided to make some word play on the movie title “Legends of the Fall”. Sadly, it appears that that movie is too old and one of the complaints I repeatedly got in the forums was that they didn’t understand the title. Whippersnappers.

The very last assignment in this class was a “Self Assessment” paper, in which we were supposed to describe what we’d learned/discovered/liked/disliked/etc. during the class. It is moderately interesting and I’ll probably post that up Wednesday.

Below the fold you’ll find it in all 12 pages of its glory (when double spaced, minus the four pages of literary and other research references). I hope you enjoy it. I think I made the case pretty well.

My grade on this final draft was a 3.25.

Legends of the Call: Is the Normalization of Prostitution in America Realistic?

Abstract

The idea of normalizing the sex trades is not a new one. However, while some small areas in America have legalized the business, the vast majority of the nation continue treating both sex workers and their customers as criminals and punishing them as such. The paper reports on the changing attitudes towards sex workers in America as well as proposed legislation and the lobbying efforts behind it.

Introduction

It is often called “The World’s Oldest Profession” and depending on the personal opinion with whom you are speaking it is derided, either esteemed, or simply ignored. Laws covering prostitution have changed based upon social mores of the subject society. By many accounts, attitudes towards the sex trades in 21st Century America are liberalizing. However, does this mean that the nation is ready for the normalization of the sex trades?

Prostitution laws in the United States date back much further than the US Constitution. Early French and Dutch settlement governments looked down heavily on the sex trade, setting high fines and other overbearing punishments, though mostly upon the women and not the men who hired them. As the states formed and united, these laws were relaxed. (Davis, N, 1993)

It did not take long for anti-sexual freedom groups to surface, however. Surprisingly, in a large number of cases these groups were led by women. “The New York Female Moral Reform Society (1834), led by the wife of revivalist Charles G. Finney, spearheaded an early effort to combat prostitution.” (Daley, R, Johan, N, 2005) Despite the urgent moral authority held by these groups, and the heavy-handed laws they pushed to enact, prostitution continued. However, it moved further, and more dangerously, underground.

The advocacy group Feminists for Free Expression argues “The idea that consensual sex between adults involving financial or other remuneration is symptomatic of moral turpitude is based not on civil code but on religious ethics.” This way of thinking leads the group to fight the legislation of morality by stating that the illegality of prostitution is a violation of the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment. (Friedan, B, 2009)

In the latter part of the 20th Century, some states decided they would relax their laws to allow some limited sex work. For example, California’s laws regarding the sale of sex were relaxed so that, as long as a working camera was recording the event, payment could legally be made for the sex. This led to California becoming the epicenter of the Pornographic Film industry. In Nevada, the state legislature gave counties and cities the option to legalize the brothel model, and 11 of Nevada’s 17 counties have declared brothels legal within their boundaries. (McWilliams, P, 2006)

In other, less liberal states, such as Washington, current punishments for sex workers and their johns consist of up to 90 days in jail and/or $1000 fine. The active crackdowns on this illegal activity usually focus on the sex workers and not those who hire them. Marc Phillips, on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog, has written, “Any police resources being spent on going after sex workers should be shifted to catching would-be customers. I’d bet a few weeks of flooding the area with undercover cops posing as women of the night and arresting everyone asking “How much?” would have an impact pretty quickly, and would certainly be a better use of our remaining tax money than continuing to go after the exploited women providing a desired service.” (Phillips, M, 2010)

Literature Review

Summary

The changing attitudes towards the sex trades have given up a plethora of ideas as to what the modern iteration should be. While a certain segment of the population still believes in harsh punishments, (Weitzer, R, 1999, p.85) an ever-growing portion has liberalized their views. One of the groups that is changing their collective attitude is the modern feminist movement.(Kessler, K, 2002, p. 219) Introspective members of this group frequently host discussions amongst the larger population of self-proclaimed feminists in an attempt to sway them to a position of advocacy. Another, smaller, group presenting the advocacy position are current and former sex workers themselves. (Sanders, T, 2005, p. 320) Far from being the derogatory stereotype of under-educated girls having fallen into a base profession for sustenance, these protagonists are successful professional women. Through their testimonials we read their harsh struggles, both emotional and physical, to get to the more comfortable position they occupy.

There are legal struggles as well, of course. Under the Giuliani administration of New York City, the laws governing prostitution were expanded so as to keep sex workers from walking the streets and help make the city, and particularly Times Square, more tourist friendly. As odd as it may seem to the intellectual, this slowed down the sale of sex in the city only for a short period. Instead of walking the streets, sex workers moved indoors. (Murphy, A, & Venkatesh, S, 2006, p. 150) The bars, clubs and hotels of the city became the preferred venues as they both kept the New York Police Department from “having cause to enforce the new laws” and made the job moderately safer. This new sense of freedom may have actually caused an increase in the number of sex workers. Nevertheless, due to the underground nature of the trade, this is only anecdotal. Something similar to this same phenomenon also occurred in Seattle when a “3 Foot” rule was put into place to keep exotic dancers from having physical contact with those watching them. (Wahab, S, 2004, p. 144) The women were not allowed to touch the men, as in the common practice of “grinding”, and the men were not allowed to make physical contact with the women, such as putting their dollar bills in the women’s quickly disappearing clothing. Patrons swiftly noticed the modifications of behavior by the dancers and business went on as it always had.

All of these changes lead some people to come to the understanding that you cannot fight the inevitable. Sexual gratification will be sought out, and that means it will be bought and sold. These “realists”, as they call themselves, tend to spend a fair amount of time proposing changes to current laws covering sex work. (Weitzer, R, 1999, p. 84) Because of this, terms such as “normalization” have replaced “legalization”. This is mostly in an attempt to quiet the fears imagined by the public of rampant street-walking and other crimes, such as physical assault, robbery and drug abuse, which sometimes accompany the sex trades. The majority of these proposals suggest actually treating these accompanying crimes more harshly as a way to distance them from the industry.

Discussion and Evaluation

There is a plethora of research articles on the topic of the sex trades, and among the Social Science community there are many who wonder what harm it would do to society in general if it were legal. Both Stephanie Wahab in her report “Tricks of the Trade” (2004), and Teela Sanders in “It’s Just Acting” (2005), use qualitative interviews of women working in the sex industry to bring readers into their lives. From exotic dancers to independent working girls, topics range from how they first started and how, if they did decide they wanted to leave, how they would plan to do so.

Alexandra Murphy and Sudhir Venkatesh use their research in “Vice Careers: The Changing Contours of Sex Work in New York City” (2006) to show the changes individual sex workers made to “work around” new legislation in New York City. Likewise, Ronald Weitzer writes in his 1999 report, “Prostitution Control in America: Rethinking Public Policy”, about how he finds that prostitution is nigh uncontrollable. He then goes on to suggest multiple ideas on the topic of new legislation that would normalize the industry.

Lastly, even within like-minded communities who each purport to advocate for the best interests of all women, the debate between a continuance of heavy legislation and either normalization or legalization still rages. Kari Kessler explored this debate in her 2002 report “Is a feminist stance in support of prostitution possible?” In speaking with both successful members of the sex trade and members of various politically active feminist groups, she found common points of interest and was able to start a small amount of discussion between the two groups.

Argument

America is purported to be a “Land of Liberty”. However, as a nation we restrict many activities for what is usually labeled “The Common Good”. We license and regulate private businesses that sell numerous products and services. We do this because as a society we recognize that some people are particularly suited to working for themselves. They get enjoyment from selling their knowledge and skills or from selling the products their knowledge and skills have created. As an example, plumbers, carpenters and electricians are trained, tested and licensed in a hierarchical system meant to instill confidence among the public that the work they hire an individual for will be done correctly, safely and up to local codes. Psychotherapists and dermatologists go to school for many years to gain their certifications and licenses so that they may practice their therapeutic and healing skills. So why is it impossible for these to be models for the sex trades?

Some of the current arguments for criminalizing the sex trades are that it will lead to a rise in divorce rates because of infidelity or even a decline in overall marital rates when men or women decide they prefer to not engage in a long-term sexual relationship (Taylor, J, 2002). Others argue that prostitution will cause the rate of sexually transmitted diseases to skyrocket. (Pham, A, 2008) However, if we look at the current examples of large-scale legalized sex work, we see that these fears are unfounded. For example, in Nevada where eleven of its seventeen counties have legalized some form of prostitution during the past four decades, marital rates have not declined, nor have disease rates risen. (Swanson, H, 2008)

In the Netherlands (Wikipedia, 2011), the government has kept an eye on both of these statistics. While no noticeable effect has been seen in the nation’s marriage or divorce rates, the only measurable rise in sexually transmitted diseases has been attributed to people becoming infected outside the country, and not from the sex workers. (Treurniet, H F, et al, 1993, p. 435) In Germany (Wikipedia, 2011), which legalized prostitution in 2002, the government is still gathering data on what effects the trade is having within the nation.

Currently, their only real concern is the emigration of women from the former Soviet-bloc states under less than amicable circumstances. Which leads us into another, more realistic, argument against the legalized sex trades: Human Trafficking? (UNDOC, 2000)

One of the universal laws of life is that if a demand exists, a supply will be created to cater to it. This is true whether we are talking about the automotive industry, farming or prostitution. This very real concern of indentured servitude can be countered, however, by the enforcement of existing laws. Immigration laws are already on the books, and when properly enforced, would make importing people to work in the sex trades so difficult, costly and dangerous that only the truly desperate would engage in the activity. In Germany’s case, their exceptionally lax immigration laws (Graupner, H, 2006) are more than partly to blame for the rise in human trafficking.

At this stage in American history there is currently a battle raging over same sex marriages. Some of the states have passed laws to stop the joining of homosexual couples in legally recognized marriage contracts. Other states have pushed through laws explicitly allowing them. (Wolfson, E, 2004) The main thrust of the argument of the side fighting for the right to marry is that denial of a marriage license to same-sex couple is unequal access to the law as a consequence of social mores. While the counter argument is that the individuals are deny themselves equal access because of an abstract concept known as love, and their “choice” to love a member of the same gender.

Likewise, it can be argued that individuals who choose to work in the sex trades are denied their right of equal access to a business license because of social mores. Unlike the argument against same-sex marriage, however, the counter argument against licensing the sale of sex falls apart, and comes down to the fact that someone in a seat of power finds it unfavorable.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the discussion of what to do about prostitution will continue no matter which laws are currently on the books. This in no way means that the discussion is a waste of time. Quite the opposite, in fact. A healthy society is one that can look at itself honestly. We know that the sex trades were with us before today and will be with us tomorrow no matter what legalities are thrown in front of it. We have also found that it is not solely a “fall-back” position for women, and that it can be both empowering and lucrative. Eventually the discussion will have to lead to new legislation to deal with these realities and have an honest look at the rights of the individual to buy or sell sexual proclivities.