Saving Women
from Themselves Silliness
by Carol Leigh 9/8/06 highlights
Why so many have to leave the U.S. to find adult freedoms (Canada close example
Dave so much enjoys vs U.S.)
In the name of protecting sex workers, a few San Francisco activists have
adopted the rhetoric of antiprostitution advocates and taken their case to the
San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women (COSW). The commission,
following this lead, has adopted a controversial strategy opposed by the vast
majority of dancers, activists, and sex educators to close down VIP rooms,
private booths, and private areas in adult clubs and repeal "encounter studio"
permits, claiming that privacy in commercial sexual contexts must be stopped
because it causes prostitution, sexual assault, and AIDS.
The legislation put forward by the COSW echoes contemporary moral panic. This
law uses terms that have historically been used to curtail our freedom under the
guise of protecting women. For example, the proposed bill claims that
prostitution is "coerced"
Forced labor and coercion are serious crimes in the legal framework. But
economic coercion is the motivation for many types of work, and the fact that
women are coerced or forced into this work is being used to justify prohibitions
that affect all sex workers. The term "sexual exploitation," which also comes up
in the legislation, has been used to describe (and curtail) the voluntary
commercial activity of sex workers.
The commission claims it based the proposal on testimony from dancers but omits
the fact that the vast majority of dancers rejected the approach, showing up in
droves at hearings.
Carol Leigh, author of Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Works of Scarlot Harlot
(Last Gasp), is dean of academic studies at Whore College. To read the
legislation, go to
http://www.whorecollege.org/badlegislation.