Posted on by Nathan Riley

Legalize Sex Work So Sex Workers Can Become Citizens

If sex work is legal:

* Sex workers could file rape charges against violent Johns.

* Sex workers could accuse angry and intimidating Johns of witness tampering if temper tantrums prevent calls to police for help

* Sex workers could insist on condoms unless other arrangements are clearly specified. Taking condoms off during sex without permission is a legal offense in many states.

* Sex workers could keep records that help identify clients who might cause them harm.

* Johns can file robbery, extortion and blackmail charges if sex workers hold up Johns for extra money.

In other words, making sex work legal gives sex workers their rights as citizens and offers them the protection of the law.

This is a good thing, and it will curb abuse. It dramatically changes the relationship between police and sex workers. Rather than perps facing arrests, sex workers become citizens with rights the police are obligated to protect.

Across the globe, nations have decades of experience with legalization. The Netherlands is world-famous for the protections it offers sex workers and their clients. In parts of Australia and all of New Zealand, sex work became legal at the start of this century, and it persists; even if problems crop up, they are confronted, but the legality of sex work continues. If the United States gives sex workers their civil rights, it will not be inventing the wheel.

In the United States, legal protection of sex workers is a life-or-death matter. In recent years, on what feels like a weekly basis, transgender persons are murdered, even if they are not sex workers. Legalizing sex work is one step towards ending these ghastly killings. Republican attacks on trans persons only heighten the tension and perhaps offer excuses to murderers.

New York State is often dangerous to sex work. The Gilgo Beach serial killings started in the early 1990s and may total eleven victims. The exact number may never be known. Wikipedia reports “many of the victims’ remains were found over a period of months in 2010 and 2011” after the arrest of a Suffolk County police chief led to new policies. The repetitious killings were discovered when a woman disappeared after making frantic phone call to 911. DNA evidence and witness statements led to an arrest. Rex A. Heuermann was arrested in July 2023 and charged with the murders of six women. As of October 15, 2024 Heuermann has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

One victim worked at a motel. Many of the victims were very petite, Maureen Brainard-Barnes was 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) tall and 105 pounds (48 kg).[7] Brainard-Barnes left behind a 7-year-old daughter, another victim was a mother and telemarketer who faced foreclosure on her mortgage, another mom had a boyfriend living off her earnings, and an Asian trans person was also a victim.

After making a date, friends of a heroin user gave police tips that led to the identification of the suspect and his vehicle.

Rather than the common practice of labeling sex workers as drug addicts and losers, many of these women were working at low paying jobs, who had to supplement their income. They weren’t losers; like many of us, they were working at wages that required a second income.

Clients of sex workers are often overweight and worried about rejection. This is especially true if their sexual preferences are for good-looking people. Senior citizens are regular clients, especially those who like younger adults. Workers whose families live in foreign countries are another group of clients, and then of course there are people with money to spare, who just want to get off. Customers of sex workers are regular people, so are sex workers.

The shame and stigma attached to sex work is unjustified. In a free society, people should control their bodies and that includes renting them for sex work.

Freedom Democrats offers sex workers, clients, LGBTQ+ persons, drug users, porn watchers and performers, college graduates, and people without high school diplomas time to socialize, work jointly on important projects, and get to know each other without feeling compelled to hide important parts of their lives. In this way, the weekly parties offered by Freedom Democrats undermines stigma and promotes the dignity of each person.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Sex Work Isn’t the End of the World

The last place you’d expect to find a thoughtful discussion of teenage prostitution is a four-dollar Amazon gay romance.

Dark Angel is Corbin’s tale of trading sex for money. A key reason this novella deserves serious consideration is his family’s circumstances. His mom’s job doesn’t cover living expenses, a predicament tens of thousands of families face every week.

It isn’t a sociological study; it’s a dramatic story. Corbin shouts at his fourteen-year-old brother “Shut up!  Someone has to support this family…” “Don’t be naïve.  You think Mom can magically support us now that she found a crappy ass job that likely pays next to nothing? Don’t you understand, Charles?  Financially, we’re fucked.”

Mark Roeder has an ear for dialogue; whether it is a bunch of jocks ribbing each other or a teacher talking to a student, you immediately recognize that this is the way people talk to each other all over the United States. For years, followers of his work have recognized this as a strength of his writing. But Dark Angel turns a new page with its sympathetic portrayal of the pressures young Corbin faces in high school. Roeder, who often writes fantasy novels, becomes realistic without losing his charm.

Corbin’s predicament is powerful but also so common that it deserves serious consideration in discussions of legalizing sex work.

The family is already living on the edge when the father walks out. Corbin and his older brother kick in cash to help their desperate mom and keep the family together. It’s money earned from older guys paying for sex. It’s shady money. Both Corbin and his older brother, Marc, move easily into other scams that pay. Corbin believes there is little difference between prostitution, stealing, and drug dealing. Corbin is convinced they are equally bad, and he is scarred for life by his participation in the underworld. But the reader is unconvinced. His devotion to his mom and family leads him to use the money to pay for the electric bill and groceries.

How Corbin breaks out of this cycle forms the book’s dramatic tension.

His mom doesn’t get rich but does find a good man. The book never wavers from its depiction of low-wage work and the harsh effects it has on family life.

The father’s cruelty works its harshest effects on the oldest child, Marc, who had the strongest ties to his dad. A subplot depicts the horrid results.

Set in 1972, in small-town America, the book makes it clear that teenagers will find ways to meet men with money. Corbin is introduced to sex work by his older brother. Other characters in the book seek money for college or every day expenses. There is nothing in the predicament faced by these teenagers that can be solved easily. People looking for policies that will end these practices that have existed for centuries will find little encouragement. Teenage sex workers exist all over the world.

But Corbin is lucky and, of course, a teenage romance has a happy ending. Once his secret is discovered by his teacher, who is also his mom’s new boyfriend, Corbin goes into therapy.

There he learns that his brother and the Johns didn’t “make him gay.”  But advocates of legalization recognize that this confusion causes great pain and often leads to deep-seated hatred of gay men. Legalization ends the myth that behavior like sex work or gambling are soul-destroying activities. It enables people mixed up in these activities to see that they are good people.

Corbin escapes when a good man ends the family’s desperate struggle to make ends meet. Sex worker after sex worker have long insisted that they must have good jobs if they are to start new lives.

It’s a measure of the wisdom of Dark Angels that Mark Roeder recognizes this gut economic reality. The pleasure of reading this work comes from meeting the family, and one presumes there will be a sequel.