Redburn 1

Cameron Redburn

Visnaw, WRTG 121

11/01/2017

Is Regulating Sex Work Really Beneficial?

Imagine youre at work, just doing your job and minding your own business,

when suddenly, youre being handcuffed and put in the back of a cop car. Doesnt

sound too pleasant, does it? This is how thousands of sex workers feel every year, when

their career is criminalized. Sex work is seen as a lowly industry, a job only chosen as a

very last resort. This is widely caused by the United States stigma around sex and sex

workers, seeing it all as taboo and inappropriate. It is the goal of many legal brothels in

Nevada to end this stigma. So many people ask the question; is regulating sex work

really beneficial?

Many people are unfamiliar with sex work or brothels, and many dont know that

there are many legal licensed brothels in the state of Nevada. The book Playing the

Whore by Melissa Gira Grant shows that sex work has been present in America since the

1900s, with the launch of the 1973 prostitutes rights organization Call Off Your Old

Tired Ethics (COYOTE).

in 1975, more than one hundred prostitutes occupied a church in Lyon, France,

to protest police repression, issuing statements that they would stay until prison

sentences against their members were lifted. The movement for what was then
 Redburn 2

called prostitutes rights may have been born from demands for sexual freedom,

but its own demands were for freedom from police violence (Grant, 22).

In the Business Insider article 7 Reasons Why American Should Legalize Prostitution by

Erin Fuchs, Fuchs explores the world of legal brothels, finding out that they are currently

only allowed in rural counties of Nevada, they must have a license, and their workers

must be tested routinely for sexually transmitted infections. Regulating this kind of work

would allow laws to be made, like the ones in Nevada, about use of condoms and the

health of the sex workers and customers. In an interview with Fredrick Fabian from the

Desert Club Brothel in Nevada, he says that the health checks on his girls are state

regulated and monitored weekly, all interactions between the girl and the customer

require the use of a condom, and that there has never been a girl in his brothel with a

sexually transmitted infection. This shows how safe and healthy sex work really has the

potential to be.

A big problem in the sex work industry today is violence and humiliation. A

perfect example of this Brian Bates, a man who tracks prostitutes and films them with

their pimps, only to post the video to his website, JohnTV.com. He hopes to expose

these women and their pimps to the public, as a way to reduce the act of sex work

through social punishment rather than legal punishment. (Grant, 2) This is complete

invasion of privacy and not to mention utterly humiliating to the workers. The

criminalization of sex work allows people like this to harass women for simply doing
 Redburn 3

their job. ...the camera isnt just a tool for producing evidence: Its his cover for

harassing women he believes are selling sex, pinning a record on them online even

when the law will not. (Grant, 2) Regulating sex work may not end things like this, but it

is definitely the first step. Over time, people may be more comfortable with the idea of

sex work, so humiliating websites such as JohnTV.com would serve no purpose. Not only

does the criminalization of sex work humiliate the workers themselves, but people who

are completely uninvolved with it. Transgender women in Queens, New York are often

humiliated due to the criminalization of sex work. Many times, they are mistaken for

prostitutes, being followed by police in their own neighborhoods. I was just buying

tacos, a transgender Latina woman from Jackson Heights told Make the Road New

York, They grabbed me and handcuffed me. They found condoms in my bra and said I

was doing sex work they asked me to kneel down and they took my wig off. They

arrested me and took me away. (Grant, 2) Innocent women are being punished and

humiliated as a result of these laws. While regulating sex work may not stop the

associations and social humiliation, it will stop innocent women from getting into legal

trouble for presenting themselves a certain way.

Many illegal prostitutes experience violence from customers who are mentally ill,

unsatisfied with their experience, or just plain cruel. A good example of this is present in

the ABC show Desperate Housewives, Season 6, Episode 20, Epiphany, where a

teenager who is mentally unstable strangles a prostitute to death simply because she
 Redburn 4

laughed at him. In the CNN online video Inside a Legal Brothel, Lisa Lang explores the

Moonlight Bunny Ranch, hoping to see the difference between legal brothels and illegal

sex work. She goes on to talk about how in the legal brothels, the workers have the

freedom to say no, and turn down any customer they dont feel safe with or just dont

want to do business with. While in many illegal sex work circles, the workers are

controlled by pimps and have no say in who theyre going to do business with. She later

says that in comparison to illegal sex work, The worlds could not be more different.

(Lang)

With this, Fuchs elaborates on the subject of violence, stating that Prostitutes in

America (mostly women) are vulnerable to violence from customers and pimps. (Fuchs)

In Colorado Springs, prostitutes are 18 times more likely to be murdered than those

who are not prostitutes. (Fuchs) A study of San Francisco prostitutes found that 82% [of

prostitutes] had been assaulted, and 68% had been raped while working... (Fuchs) While

regulating sex work may not stop all violence in the industry, it does offer a lot of

protection. For example, a sex worker who is working legally would be able to report

violence without fear of getting in legal trouble, unlike ones that are working illegally.

(Fuchs) Also, customers are less likely to commit an act of violence if they know it can be

reported with no issue, and that they could get in serious legal trouble for it. Frederick

Fabian of the Desert Club Brothel confirmed this, denying that any violence has ever

happened in his licensed brothel. As of right now, the only victims of prostitution are the
 Redburn 5

prostitutes themselves. Many illegal prostitutes are emotionally abused by pimps, and

physically abused by customers, making it hard for many people to see the benefits of

this kind of work. With the regulation of sex work, prostitution has the potential to be a

victimless crime. (Fuchs)

Outside of the social reasons, Ive found many economic benefits to the

regulation of brothels. The state could issue a tax on brothels, and use the tax revenue

for fixing roads, funding schools, and other things that normally comes out of the

taxpayers pockets. (Fuchs) Regulating sex work could also give the workers legal rights,

such as minimum wage and a safe work environment. Frederick Fabian says that all

licensed brothels in Nevada let the girls set their own wages, and while most split them

50/50, the Desert Club lets the girls keep 60% of their wages. This essentially makes the

workers their own boss, and while many workers do negotiate a price with customers,

brothels allow them to declare a set price, rather than negotiating with pimps or being

forced to take low amounts of money from customers. Regulating sex work also opens

the door for many people who would normally put their time and energy into

committing crimes. These people could use sex work as a way to spend that time and

energy doing something legal. On top of this, investigating illegal sex work is very time

consuming and expensive. Every hour spent going after prostitution is an hour that

couldve been spend going after terrorists and going after people who victimize.

(Dershowitz, qtd. by Fuchs) What I got from this quote was that prostitution is going to
 Redburn 6

happen whether its legal or not, so theres no point trying to stop it. Its the business of

two consenting adults, and the law should be worrying about murderers, rapists,

terrorists, and all of the criminals who actually do bad.

On the other side of the argument, many people have concerns about the

regulation of sex work. I understand that people have their concerns, but these

problems are easily solved. Ive heard many arguments that say it is objectifying women,

giving men the option to buy sex and do whatever they want to the woman, but a girl in

a legal brothel is more than welcome to turn down any customer, at any time. (Lang).

This ensures that the girls are doing nothing that they arent 100% comfortable doing,

and gives them the power to set their own rules for what customers are allowed to do.

Most of the arguments against regulating sex work are religious ones, saying it

condones premarital sex and many forms of sodomy, such as BDSM and homosexuality,

but not everyone in the United States follows one religion, or any at all, so catering to

only one set of beliefs would be unfair. There is also a separation of church and state,

and anyone who doesnt wish to participate in sex work is free to not agree with it and

not participate in it. Many people have said that they dont want their schools (and

many other state funded services) funded by sex work. (Fuchs) Brothels dont always

have to pay state taxes. May licensed brothels in Nevada pay taxes to the county, so the

state is not involved at all. (Fuchs) On a different note, state funded programs are paid

for by everything and every person who pays state taxes, and people cannot pick and
 Redburn 7

choose what part of the money goes where. There is also the problem of sex work not

catering to everyones needs, such as homosexual men and heterosexual women, since

there are currently no licensed brothels that accept male applicants. However, the

regulation of sex work could open the door to male brothels, or even LGBTQ+ specific

brothels, being opened. Many people think that regulating sex work would make it an

option for people who are desperate for money, and that these people may be going

against their own morals or beliefs for the money, which is true. It also, however, opens

the door for people who are interested in going into sex work but were always afraid of

being punished. It allows people to explore interests without fear of being abused or in

legal trouble.

In the United States, there is a very big taboo around sex. People who are

comfortable with their sexuality are seen as morally low, and looked down on.

Regulating sex work could end the stigma around sex, and show people that its okay to

be comfortable talking about and having sex. This could make people more comfortable

with their sexuality and show people that its okay to be open about things like sex and

sexuality. Sex work has the potential to make the people of our country sex positive,

rather than it being an uncomfortable subject that nobody wants to talk about.
 Redburn 8

Sources:

Epiphany. Desperate Housewives, Created by Marc Cherry. Directed by David

Grossman. Season 6, Episode 20, ABC, 25 Apr. 2010

Fabian, Frederick. E-mail interview. 6 Oct. 2017

Fuchs, Erin. 7 Reasons Why America Should Legalize Prostitution. Business Insider,

13 Nov. 2013 http://www.businessinsider.com/why-america-should-legalize-

prostitution-2013-11

Gira Grant, Melissa. Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work. Verso, 2014

Lang, Lisa, Inside a Legal Brothel. CNN,

http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/10/14/lisa-ling-21st-century-brothels-

orig.cnn Accessed 13 Oct. 2017