Upcoming online forum on sex work, trafficking, and human rights

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Elizabeth Wood
Phone: provided upon request
Email: elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org
Co-founder, SexInThePublicSquare.org
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Nassau Community College

Sex In The Public Square Presents:
Sex Work, Trafficking, and Human Rights: A Public Forum

New York, February 20, 2008 — Ten prominent sex worker advocates, writers, researchers will be publicly discussing the issues of sex work and trafficking from a human rights and harm reduction perspective, February 25 - March 3, on SexInThePublicSquare.org. The week-long online conversation will conclude with a summary statement on March 3, International Sex Worker Rights Day.

Sex work and trafficking are two issues that must be discussed as distinct yet intersecting, and we've invited some of the smartest sex worker advocates we know to help sort out the complexities. "This forum is not about debating whether or not we should be using a harm reduction and human rights approach instead of the more mainstream abolitionist and prohibitionist approach to sex work," explains Elizabeth Wood, co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. "Instead our goal is to create a space for nuanced exploration of the human rights and harm reduction approach so that we can use it more persuasively."

Wood explains: "The human rights and harm reduction approach seeks to reduce the dangers that sex workers face and to stop human rights abuses involved in the movement of labor across borders, a movement which occurs in the service of so many industries. We want people to be able to learn about this perspective, and to develop and refine it, without having to dilute that conversation by debating the legitimacy of sex work."

Questions and themes include:

Defining our terms: Is the way that we define "porn" clear? "Prostitution"? "Sex work" in general? What happens when we say "porn" and mean all sexually explicit imagery made for the purpose of generating arousal and others hear "porn" as indicating just the "bad stuff" while reserving "erotica" for everything they find acceptable? When we say sex work is it clear what kinds of jobs we're including?

Understanding our differences: How do inequalities of race, class and gender affect the sex worker rights movement? Are we effective in organizing across those differences?

Identifying common ground: What are the areas of agreement between the abolitionist/prohibitionist perspective and the human rights/harm reduction perspective? For example, we all agree that forced labor is wrong. We all agree that nonconsensual sex is wrong. Is it a helpful strategic move to by highlighting our areas of agreement and then demonstrating why a harm reduction/human rights perspective is better suited to addressing those shared concerns, or are we better served by distancing ourselves from the abolition/prohibition-oriented thinkers?

Evaluating research: What do we think of the actual research generated by prominent abolitionist/prohibitionist scholars like Melissa Farley, Gail Dines, and Robert Jensen? Can we comment on the methods they use to generate the data on which they base their analysis, and then can we comment on the logic of their conclusions based on the data they have?

Framing the issues: What are our biggest frustrations with the way that the human rights/harm reduction perspective is characterized by the abolitionist/prohibitionist folks? How can we effectively respond to or reframe this misrepresentations? What happens when "I oppose human trafficking" becomes a political shield that deflects focus away from issues of migration, labor and human rights?

Exploring broader economic questions: How does the demand for cheap labor undermine human rights-based solutions to exploitation in all industries, including the sex industry?

Confirmed participants include:

• Melissa Gira is a co-founder of the sex worker blog Bound, Not Gagged, the editor of Sexerati.com, and reports on sex for Gawker Media's Valleywag.
• Chris Hall is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square and also writes the blog Literate Perversions.
• Kerwin Kay has written about the history and present of male street prostitution, and about the politics of sex trafficking. He has been active in the sex workers rights movement for some 10 years. He also edited the anthology Male Lust: Pleasure, Power and Transformation (Haworth Press, 2000) and is finishing a Ph.D. in American Studies at NYU.
• Anthony Kennerson blogs on race, class, gender, politics and culture at SmackDog Chronicles, and is a regular contributor to the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism.
• Antonia Levy co-chaired the international "Sex Work Matters: Beyond Divides" conference in 2006 and the 2nd Annual Feminist Pedagogy Conference in 2007. She teaches at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and is finishing her Ph.D. at the Graduate Center at CUNY.
• Audacia Ray is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads and Cashing In On Internet Sexploration (Seal Press, 2007), and the writer/producer/director of The Bi Apple. She blogs at WakingVixen.com hosts and edits Live Girl Review and was longtime executive editor of $pread Magazine
• Amber Rhea is a sex worker advocate, blogger, and organizer of the Sex 2.0 conference on feminism, sexuality and social media, and co-founder of the Georgia Podcast Network. Her blog is Being Amber Rhea.
• Ren is a sex worker advocate, a stripper, Internet porn performer, swinger, gonzo fan, BDSM tourist, blogger, history buff, feminist expatriate who blogs at Renegade Evolution. She is a founder of the Blog for Pro-Porn Activism and a contributor to Bound, Not Gagged and Sex Workers Outreach Project - East.
• Stacey Swimme has worked in the sex industry for 10 years. She is a vocal sex worker advocate and is a founding member of Desiree Alliance and Sex Workers Outreach Project USA.
• Elizabeth Wood is co-founder of Sex In The Public Square, and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College. She has written about gender, power and interaction in strip clubs, about labor organization at the Lusty Lady Theater, and she blogs regularly about sex and society.

To read or participate in the forum log on to http://sexinthepublicsquare.org

For more information contact Elizabeth Wood at elizabeth (at) sexinthepublicsquare (dot) org.

New Federal anti-sex work legislation passes House

A new version of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TPRVA 2007/11) just passed the House (as H.R. 3887) and is now on its way to the Senate. While it contains some laudable legislation combatting forced labor and child soldiering, it also, once again, targets voluntary sexual labor by conflating it with forced prostitution and sex trafficking. It contains a very sweeping section outlawing "sex tourism" (the section in question can be found on pages 69–72 of the text of the bill), which it basically defines as any movement over into or out of the United States for purposes of performing or purchasing "illicit sexual acts", which includes any and all commercial sexual services. Existing legislation prohibits traveling abroad to purchase sex with minors; the new legislation expands this to include sex with consenting adults, even in countries where this is legal. (For example, an American who buys sex in an Amsterdam brothel would be subject to Federal prosecution back in the US.) Notably, it also criminalizes travel to or from the US to sell sexual services as well. (For example, a Montreal escort who travels to an American city to sell sex would be further criminalized under Federal law, in addition to existing local law.) Basically, it resurrects the Mann Act and internationalizes it.

Maxine Doogan of the Erotic Service Providers Union posted about the legislation over Bay Area Indymedia. Lisa Roellig, also of ESPU, has this to say over at Bound, Not Gagged:

TVPRA 2007/11 passed the house Tuesday. Below is the link for anyone who has the time to read it in in its entirety. The sections relating to the sex industry clearly conflate all sex work with sex trafficking and the consequences for all workers in our industry I believe could be quite horrific. I believe the passage of the TVPRA 2007/11 through the house should be considered an emergency and all workers and allies should mobilize before the legislation gets to the Senate for a vote.

I want to know if the porn industry has had any concerns with this legislation. In reading the legislation, I believe sex workers who work on camera have every reason to be as concerned as the sex workers who work “off camera.”

The most troubling aspect of this legislation is that not only does it conflate all sex work with sex trafficking but also that for the way our industry operates, where workers are frequently crossing borders to work, be it national or international, the potential for massive arrests and long periods of prison time are very distressing. Note, up to 10 years for the worker and up to 30 years for the support staff.

Anybody else feeling this?

Roellig raises an interesting question about how this affects the porn industry and porn industry workers, since porn models often travel internationally for the purpose of having sex on camera. Under present American legal interpretation, hiring somebody to act in a porn movie is considered distinct from prostitution under the legal precedent established by California v. Freeman; however, this decision is not binding outside of California (even though porn is shot in quite a few other US States) and is not binding on the Federal government. Hence, the Federal government could very well use this legislation to come down on porn production involving an international cast. (I've also heard some suggestions about attempting to apply Lawrence v. Texas to commercial sexual encounters, but as of yet, this is an entirely untested approach.)

The area of international anti-trafficking legislation is an area where "porn lobby" groups like the Free Speech Coalition have been really asleep at the wheel and needs to be more on top of.

Writing one's Senators and asking them to remove the "sex tourism" section and similar sections of the bill as harmful toward sex workers and criminalizing legal, consensual behavior might be worthwhile, though considering the sexual conservatism of most politicians and the overwrought rhetoric of prostitution abolitionists, changing politicians minds on the subject is a long shot. But then again, hearing more "I support sex workers, oppose the criminalization of consensual adult behaviors, and, BTW, I vote" messages from their constituency might just plant a seed.

Oh, and one other thing struck me about this legislation – about a month ago, I was listening to a story about problems in Iraq with Blackwater mercenaries, about how they were guilty of outright war crimes, but nobody in the US government can figure out their legal status, that is, whether they're under jurisdiction of Iraqi or US military or civilian law. Yet, when it comes to the simple act of buying sex, something that's legal in much of the world, suddenly sweeping international jurisdiction is real easy to come up with!

Pornography and sex trafficking: is there a relationship?

Daisy raises an interesting question in the responses to my previous "anti-anti-porn" post:

"I am concerned about the traffickers; I just flagged a blog with a bunch of Asian kids, couldn't have been more than 12-13. This kind of thing, probably filmed in Singapore, Bangkok or wherever (my sources tell me the language was not Japanese, Chinese or Korean) is the wave of the future. I saw the Amnesty International documentary on the traffickers, who are mostly working in Burma, Thailand, eastern Europe... but I'm sure you already know this. Most are teenagers. How can we deal with these people? Is there an effort in the porn industry to identify and isolate the traffickers?

I'd take the pro-porn activists far more seriously if I knew they were on the case. They are obviously hurting your business too. Using traffickers to discredit pornographers working with consensual adult models/actors is wrong, but you need to take a very principled stand on this. (The way some dope dealers refuse to sell meth or deal with people on meth, for instance.)"

First off, I don't think sites like the one you've found are "the wave of the future". There has always been child pornography (which is what the above site sounds like), but its not part of the mainstream porn industry, nor is it what the vast majority of porn viewers are looking for. Most people (even "barely legal" porn fans) are simply not attracted to pre-pubescent children and are repulsed by the thought of them being in porn. It is, needless to say, very illegal, and its unlikely that the above site even had any kind of 2257 documentation, which should be a red flag concerning the legal status of the content.

As for the larger issue of trafficking, you are right about it being an important issue vis a vis the sex industry and sex workers rights, specifically, in prostitution, or at least some segments of that industry. However, I don't think its a major issue in the porn industry, because I simply see no evidence that trafficked women make up any significant portion of the models in the commercial porn industry. That's not to say I don't think there aren't dodgy practices in the porn industry, I just don't think use of unfree, trafficked women is among those sins.

I do see this charge coming from anti-porn folks a lot, but I never see anything in terms of concrete examples to actually back it up. As in, such and such model who appeared in this video or that site was trafficked/coerced into doing this. The group "Captive Daughters" has come out with an antiporn anthology focusing on the subject, " Pornography: Driving the Demand for International Sex Trafficking". I am interested in seeing the book and perhaps I'll try and get it through interlibrary loan. However, based on the introduction to the book I read at the website I just linked to, I don't think they're even making a case that the porn industry directly employs trafficked women, but simply that the pornography and the sex industry in general drive attitudes and a general demand for sex work that inevitably creates demand for unfree sex workers. I don't buy that argument, of course.

The introduction does note that MacKinnon makes a rather creative redefinition of "sex trafficking" to include any transnational migration for the purpose of doing sex work. By that measure, every porn industry in the world has "trafficked" women. But its a bogus argument, really – its simply muddying the waters by saying "immigrant sex worker = trafficked = unfree". That's almost never the case, not by a long shot.

There's a lot of suspicion cast on the East European sex industry since Budepest and, particularly Prague, have emerged as major centers of porn production, particularly since the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been named as destination points for trafficked prostitutes. (And, I think, there's a generalized stereotype of the "Natasha", that is any East European female sex worker as being trafficked or otherwise some kind of sex slave.) Unlike the American porn industry, there's very little inside story on what the Czech porn industry is like, at least in English language media. Here's a couple I know of:

"Talent, profits cause boom in porn", The Prague Post, October 05, 2005.
"Evil Porn Werewolf Enslavers Debunked", ErosBlog, October 22nd, 2005.

Based on what I've read, and Czech- and Hungarian-produced sites and videos I've seen, the porn industry there seems to be pretty above-board. I see no evidence that the porn industry there is using trafficked women. (Immigrants, yes – from several East European countries.) The biggest criticism I've heard is that their pay scale doesn't measure up to what American porn models make.

Some of the porn I see coming directly out of Russia and Ukraine itself is more dodgy, with some of their "barely legel" models looking, well, not even "barely". I personally have no problem if they're 18-year-olds who just look real young, but its hard to tell. All of these sites claim to have their 2257 documentation in order (so as to be able to market their porn in the US and elsewhere), but I've also read that in Russia, primary ID is not nearly as secure as it is in the US and is easily forged.

What can be done about this, as well as for the abusive pornographers I named in my prior post, is not so easy. As I'll say, once again, the porn industry is not a monolith, and there's nobody sitting in an office at Larry Flynt Productions controlling what does and doesn't get marketed as pornography. If somebody can film or photograph some sexual content anywhere in the world, get it on the internet, and set up a credit card payment system – they're in business. They are are upsides to this (eg, much greater diversity in the kind of pornography being made, even compared to just 10 years ago), but also definite downsides (that is, highly dodgy people easily marketing porn).

So, while it would be a good thing for more responsible pornographers to isolate themselves from less responsible ones, how this would be done is less clear. There have been efforts to come up with some kind of "ethical porn" certification, meaning models are of legal age, consent is fully given, there have been adequate STD checks, etc. This kind of proposal inevitable gets hung up on is gray areas, such as whether "condom optional" shoots are OK, use of 18-20 year-old models, etc. Also, nobody has come up with a mechanism of how an "ethical porn" certification would actually be monitored and enforced.