Legalizing Sex Work

It’s estimated that there are more than a million sex workers in America. A survey of U.S. sex workers conducted in 2014 found that 33 percent identified as Black, 17 percent as white, 11 percent as Latino, and 8 percent as multiracial. More than three-quarters (78 percent) were cisgender females, 19 percent transgender females, and 3 percent were male.

Sex work became prominent in American cities in the early 19th century, when young men began moving to more metropolitan areas as soldiers or laborers. Women of that time found that sex work could be profitable and provided an otherwise-unattainable financial independence. By mid-century, most cities had “red light” districts where brothels thrived as part of the urban sporting culture. 

Fear of women being coerced into sex work led to the “white slavery” scare of 1910, which brought on a concerted attack by progressive reformists. These reformists used the emergency of World War I to close public brothels, pushing America’s sex markets into clandestine spaces and empowering pimps’ control over women’s sexual labor. During World War II, concern for soldiers’ venereal health led to the military experimenting with regulating sex work using precedents set in the Spanish-American war. 

Post-World War II, the celebration of marriage and family pushed sex work to the margins of society. Where women who sold sex were seen as psychologically deviant, men who purchased sex were thought to be sexually liberated. 

Liberation

The dawning of second-wave feminism in the 1960s brought momentum to the sex workers’ rights movement, which became entangled with the fight for LGBTQ equality. 

A collective study done by the ACLU, HRC, and Women’s March found in 2020 that an outright majority (52 percent) of voters across all political IDs support decriminalization of sex work. The report’s policy platform calls on:

• Legislative bodies to repeal statutes and create expungement systems

• Prosecutors to issue decline-to-prosecute policies and to return civil asset forfeiture taken because of prostitution-related charges

•  Cities and counties to defund vice policing units and conduct investigations into law enforcement misconduct, especially sexual misconduct, against people in the sex trades

•   Local, state, and federal governments to fund LGBTQ-youth-affirming shelters, invest in affordable housing for all, and fund services for people in the sex trades that are non-stigmatizing and not tied to arrest or police.

The Experts Say

“It’s very simple; decriminalizing sex work is the future. One, real wages haven’t risen, 13 percent of Americans know someone who has died because they couldn’t afford healthcare, and we have a $1.5 trillion student debt crisis. The economy is leaving people behind, so if you’re not doing sex work, you know someone who is. It’s harder to call for the criminalization of something that more and more people in your community are relying on for survival.” – Nina Luo, data for progress fellow, Decrim NY organizer.

“The criminalization of sex work hurts our communities and advances the epidemic of violence targeting Black, trans women. These policies feed police profiling of trans women of color and make it harder for those LGBTQ people who rely on sex work for income to stay safe. While legislative reforms move forward with growing public support, we call on district attorneys who want to lower their local jail populations and decrease racial disparities to stop enforcement of these discriminatory laws. Doing so will also reduce violence and save lives.” – LaLa Zannell, Trans Justice campaign manager, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“As Latinx people for justice and self-determination for all people, Mijente calls for the decriminalization of sex work in solidarity with all workers. Criminalization is a constant threat to the lives and precarious safety of our most vulnerable people, including immigrants and trans folks. It’s no coincidence that the communities who most need protection are disproportionately laboring in unprotected industries such as sex work, domestic work, and agricultural work. It is way past time to end the abuse and stigma—decriminalize sex work now!” – Sofia Campos, director of First Impressions, Mijente

Legalizing the Work

With legalization would come government regulation, which many hope would help to protect sex workers from violent crimes and human trafficking. One local activist, Megan Lundstrom of Greeley, has sparked conversation and provided an inside look into human trafficking in our own backyard. 

“As a young adult and single mom, I was trafficked for about five years, I was arrested 11 times on prostitution charges, and on the arrest sheets—I will never forget this—there’s a line where the officers are supposed to fill out if there was a victim. And on one of them, it said I had victimized society,” Lundstrom told Westword in 2019. 

There are three levels of reforming sex work laws. Full criminalization, which is where we stand now, means that either buying or selling sex acts is illegal. Decriminalization would mean you can’t be held accountable, or face legal charges related to sex work, but doesn’t regulate the industry. Finally, full legalization would make sex work a regulated industry, further protecting sex workers rights and shrinking the black market. Public opinion is already on the side for full regulation; now, its up to lawmakers at both the state and federal levels to put America’s beliefs into practice.