WASHINGTON, D.C.—Last Thursday, the District of Columbia City Council held a hearing on the "Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019," Bill No. 23-0318—introduced by Councilmembers David Grosso, Anita Bonds, Brianne Nadeau and Robert White—a bill which would decriminalize women offering sex for pay as long as the woman is an adult, is arranging the liaison for herself, and the arrangement doesn't involve force, fraud, coercion or human trafficking.
To say the hearing, which lasted 14 hours and saw a crowd overflowing the hearing room, was contentious is putting it mildly—and sadly, most attendees appeared to oppose the bill. Grosso, an at-large independent, introduced a similar bill in 2017, which had White's support then but never got a public hearing—but this year, with his multiple co-sponsors, the Council pretty much had to take it up.
"This is not going to solve poverty; this is not going to be the solution to racism or gentrification in our city," said Grosso. "This is just one small thing I can do in this city to try to stop putting people in jail simply because they are someone who is trying to make it in this world."
D.C., of course, is no stranger to prostitution. BDSM clubs abound, politicians attract prostitutes and vice-versa (no pun intended) much like shiny playthings attract house pets, and over the years, there have been several prostitution-related scandals in the District, the most famous of which is the one from 2008 involving Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called "D.C. Madam."
But there's no shortage of individuals and groups who want to see that line of work remain illegal, some for purely religious reasons, some because they are members of outreach groups who help trafficked women and fear legalization will increase their workload, and others who simply fear that legalized sex work will somehow adversely affect their own interpersonal relations.
But proponents of the bill see it mainly as a way of keeping sex workers—most notably, black and trans workers, who are the ones most frequently targeted—out of the criminal justice system, which, like those proverbial "black marks" on a person's high school transcript, really will follow the women for the rest of their lives, especially after they quit sex work and try for more mainstream jobs. When the website DCist.com spoke with DC police about the issue, they stated that their primary targets have been the customers, and that this summer, they've arrested approximately five johns for every sex worker—and that from 2017 to 2018, the number of sex work-related charges more than doubled.
For instance, take Tamika Spellman, a trans sex worker and an advocate at harm reduction nonprofit HIPS DC, who helped write Bill 23-0318, who's been targeted by police stings on multiple occasions, and who told DCist.com that she doesn't trust the cops, lamenting, "I should be able to go to them when I am in dire need of assistance."
Among the witnesses who vehemently oppose the bill was Bradley Myles, CEO of anti-trafficking nonprofit Polaris Project, who stated, "Literally, I don’t have enough words in the English language to say how dangerous it would be to pass this bill. It could have major impacts on human trafficking."
Clearly, Myles is correct about that last part: Legalized sex work should greatly diminish sex trafficking among underage girls whom pimps put out on the street. Under the bill if passed, adult hookers could simply show their IDs to be let go, while underage ones could be detained and helped.
Myles also floated the idea that D.C. could adopt what's been called the "Nordic model," under which the prostitutes themselves are not targeted, but customers and pimps could be charged. This model is not favored by sex workers since it would make it much more difficult for them to screen out potentially violent or otherwise objectionable johns.
"Under the Nordic model ... people still feel unsafe, and when people feel unsafe, they take less time to negotiate for safety, or for their health,” argued Cyndee Clay, executive director of HIPS DC.
"Sex workers came together and said, ‘This is what we need,’ knowing there is a partial-decrim model. I am for total decriminalization and total decrim only," Spellman added.
The Washington Post also sent a reporter, Marissa J. Lang, to cover the hearing, though the paper has editorially been opposed to the measure, and its columnist Colbert King has written against legalization several times. Lang quoted several opponents of the legislation, including former Councilmenber LaRuby May, who opined, "Residents of the District of Columbia should not be subjected to a social science experiment that we already know the consequences of. This legislation will create more victims and subject our residents to more trauma."
May got lots of disagreement with that position, including from, of all places, the ultra-conservative daily Washington Examiner, whose Brad Polumbo editorialized, "Conservatives don’t have to like it, and they certainly don’t have to view prostitution as moral or acceptable. But if they want to embrace practical reality over moral idealism and help women, they’ll begrudgingly accept that we must stop waging state-led war on the world’s oldest profession.
"Criminalizing prostitution only pushes it underground, making it significantly more dangerous for the women that participate. Pimps and johns alike have carte blanche to rape, beat, and abuse the women involved, because those women cannot go to the police without putting themselves in legal jeopardy.
"Decriminalization doesn’t magically make the sex industry a wonderful place to work or eliminate the moral qualms that reasonable people might have with prostitution," her added. "But it does do a great deal to make the trade, which always will exist and always has existed, much safer for everyone involved."
Several anti-sex work groups have weighed in on the bill as well, not the least of which is Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, Alveda King, now a prominent evangelist.
"I began praying for victims of child abuse and sexual molestation as well. All too often, these victims end up in trades called 'sex work'," she wrote in the aftermath of the hearing. "Other less pleasant monikers for these situations where people are called 'sex workers' are 'prostitution' and 'whore mongering,' among other shady terms. It's the same as calling baby murders abortion. Changing the name of evil deeds doesn't cure the evil."
And what would a bill to make sex workers' lives better be without a comment from the anti-porn crowd, notably the National Center on Sexual Exploitation—and of course, the lies abounded.
For instance, NCOSE's screed, titled "D.C. Poised to Open Floodgate of Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking," stated, "Some supporters of the bill, including Grosso, believe that minors can consent to participating in the sex trade." That's a lie; Grosso doesn't hold that position, nor do the vast majority of the bill's supporters.
"Supporters also fail to see the grotesque power imbalance between the person purchased in sex, and the purchaser. Simply put, the person with the money, is the person with the power." No, jackasses, that's exactly what this bill is intended to rectify by giving power back to the workers, so they can screen johns before they're alone in a room together.
"If D.C. Councilmembers pass this bill, prostitution venues will spring up in residences across the city—residences where children reside—putting them and others in the daily proximity of sex buyers, some of whom have no qualms about using minors for sex or with sexually assaulting adults." Paranoid much? Most "sex buyers" know exactly what they're looking for, and it's generally not kids.
NCOSE's screed mainly proves that people with an agenda against sex work will say pretty much anything to keep legalization from happening. (We know: What a surprise!)
Of course, since this is D.C., the ultra-religio-conservative Family Research Council would have to weigh in.
As Patrina Mosley, FRC's Director of Life, Culture and Women's Advocacy, stated, "[l]egitimizing the buying and selling of human beings only makes it easier for pimps and traffickers to groom vulnerable women, boys, and girls into thinking that sexual violence is normal and acceptable," claiming that, "empowering the business of exploitation doesn't protect anyone except the exploiters." Quoth FRC "Research Fellow for Legal and Policy Studies" Katherina Beck Johnson, "The many survivors of sex trafficking are the first to observe that they feel powerless, rather than powerful, when they are being sold and used for their bodies." That's the point, dumb-dumbs: This bill only legalizes consensual paid-sex arrangements. Trafficked women are by definition coerced into sex work, and this bill tries to protect against that.
The Council has yet to vote on the bill, and it continues to be discussed in closed-door sessions.
