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A
victimless crime? Sex workers defend legal prostitution
By Alicia Portillo, Staff Writer UNLV Rebel Yell
Published on September 20, 2007
“Criminalization of sex work and sex workers that are legal
adults and consenting solves nothing,” said Jill Brenneman of
Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) East, an advocacy group
for sex worker rights, at an online press conference Monday
night.
The conference was held by workers and advocates of the sex
industry as a rebuttal to the New York Times article written
by columnist Bob Herbert, and a recent book-length report by
Dr. Melissa Farley, a psychologist and researcher stressing
that the sex industry in Las Vegas is responsible for the degradation
of women and for sex trafficking.
Bound Not Gagged is a sex worker outreach project with a blog
where participants include prostitutes, escorts, exotic dancers
and pornography performers, and was developed by Desiree
Alliance as an online resource for sex workers to respond
publicly to those such as Farley and Herbert.
Farley’s book, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making
the Connection, was published earlier this month through her
organization, Prostitution Research and Education, and can only
be purchased on her website. Farley was asked to study the consequences
of the Nevada sex trade by John Miller, who was the former head
of the U.S. State Department committee to fight human trafficking
around the world.
The book details Farley’s findings of the working of the illegal
sex industry within Las Vegas. Farley suggests that Nevada is
the hub of North American prostitution and sex trafficking.
She also suggests that those within the industry are exploited
and the industry itself is harmful and dangerous to women.
“Women’s experiences working in the sex industry are far more
complex and varied than [Farley’s] research or [Herbert’s] column
suggest,” said Lynn Comella, UNLV assistant professor of Woman’s
Studies. Many of the participants at Monday’s conference claim
that Farley’s research lacks accountability because the research
methods used by Farley discredits and misrepresents women working
within the sex industry. She has been accused of “ignoring those
who do not agree with her views.”
“I have never been able to fathom how [Farley] could claim such
commitment to the protection of women without listening to the
voices of the very women they claim to protect,” said Jessica
Land, a sex worker, during the conference.
Sex workers’ rights was a highlighted topic, with many bloggers
stressing for an end of criminalization involving consenting
adults, entitled protection from coercion, violence, sexual
abuse and child labor related to the sex industry.
In a statement written by SWOP East’s Brenneman and Ayoola Silvera,
“critics will state that youth should not be in the sex industry,
they are correct. However, this requires more than press releases,
position statements and pusillanimous policies of government.”
The statement goes on to say, “This is a social issue that has
to be addressed at the source.”
Not all participants were proponents of the sex industry. A
blogger by the name of “Josie” stated, “You do not have a right
to do anything you want with your body in this country. There
are other people involved and impacted by these decisions.”
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