Commercial Sex Work 101
What is sex work? ┃ Why is prostitution criminalized? ┃Impact of criminalization ┃What we want and need
What is Sex Work?
What is the sex trade?
The sex trade, also known as commercial sex or transactional sex, is the exchange of sexual services or labor for anything of value.
People participate in the sex trade for a myriad of reasons that fall on a spectrum of choice, circumstance, and coercion.
On one end you have people who’s first choice of employment is sex work. On the other end are minors or people who are forced to do sexual labor against their will, known as human trafficking for the purpose of commercial sex, or sex trafficking. Sex trafficking involves coercion or the transport of people across geographical borders for the purposes of exploitative, nonconsensual sexual labor. The vast majority of people in the sex trade fall somewhere in the middle. Given their circumstances, they chose to do sex work for reasons most people generally do their jobs: it is the most personally fulfilling and/or lucrative way for them to earn a living.
What is sex work, exactly?
Sex work is the consensual exchange of sexual labor or services for money, housing, food, drugs, healthcare, or any other kind of resource.
‘Sex worker’ is an umbrella term for people who do sexual labor, including selling sexual performances, materials, and services. It is most often used to refer to people who have sex for money, and those in the industry generally prefer it to the label “prostitute.”
When we talk about sex workers, we are only referring to adults who engage in transactional sex by choice, whether they love their job or simply find it to be the best way to make ends meet.
Is sex work legal?
The short answer is no, the entire sex trade is currently criminalized. Certain types of sex work (stripping, porn) are legal because they qualify as performances. However, the practice of exchanging sex for money is illegal in Wisconsin and all 50 of the United States, save 10 counties in Nevada (where it is allowed under specific conditions). The prohibition on consensual transactional sex is enforced through prostitution laws at the state and municipal level. The heinous crime of sex trafficking is illegal at both the federal and state level (Wisconsin’s anti-trafficking laws linked here).
Aren’t all sex workers victims?
No. Sex work and sex trafficking are not synonymous.
Sex work and sex trafficking are not the same thing, though they are often conflated. Sex trafficking is the exploitation of people in the sex trade. The key difference is consent; sex workers agree to trade sexual services under specific conditions for a desired resource. Sex trafficking victims are stripped of their personal agency and are forced to engage in sexual activities they do not choose or benefit from.
This is not to deny the complex reality many sex workers live in. Some people who chose to do sex work have similar vulnerabilities as those who have been trafficked, some sex workers chose to work with managers (“pimps”), and there can be power imbalances between buyers and sellers of sexual services. These circumstances - which should be addressed - do not negate the agency of sex workers or their consent to engage in transactional sex to meet their needs.
Why is prostitution criminalized?
Why is consensual transactional sex between adults criminalized?
Sex work was outlawed relatively recently. Wisconsin’s laws criminalizing prostitution were some of the first in the nation, created in the late 19th century at the behest of white Christian women with Victorian ideas about sex and an unfounded, racist paranoia about the emergence of a ‘white slave trade.’
Today, many well-meaning people and policymakers still believe the myth that prostitution laws are necessary to protect women and girls from violent men who will abuse and traffic them into sexual slavery. However, there is no evidence of increased sex trafficking in countries that have repealed criminal prostitution laws. Vast amounts of research shows that criminalizing consensual transactional sex does nothing to end exploitation in the sex trade. In fact, criminalization not only harms sex workers, but increases the vulnerability of trafficking victims.
The Women's Christian Temperance Union was a driving force behind the prohibition of alcohol and sex work. (Photo: Library of Congress)
Sex work is not criminalized because it’s dangerous; it is dangerous because it is criminalized.
Impact of Criminalization
The conflation of prostitution and sex trafficking and the punitive treatment of people working in the sex trade is misleading, ineffective, and dangerous. Despite the intention to reduce trafficking and improve public safety, these policies actually harm sex workers, victims of human trafficking, and communities stigmatized by the criminalization of sexual labor.
Criminalization results in people in the sex trade experiencing more violence at the hands of both clients and police.
Research on violence against sex workers shows the most contentious relationships sex workers have are with law enforcement who surveil, harass, and arrest us -- not our clients. While sex workers do encounter problematic clients, the risk of experiencing violence is greatly exacerbated by the fact that our work is criminalized and stigmatized. Dangerous clients know we can’t report crimes against us to the police, for fear we will be arrested or further victimized by law enforcement. Clients are also less likely to provide their names and proper safety screening information for fear they will be caught and arrested for soliciting a prostitute. The effect of criminalization creates conditions that make it easier for bad actors to exploit sex workers with impunity.
Criminalization only further perpetuates cycles of poverty and discrimination that lead many to rely on sex work in the first place.
Most people sell sex to meet their material needs. Fines, jail time, and mandatory diversion programs - the effects of criminalization - only cause further harm to sex workers without providing them with what they need: money, housing, food, alcohol and other drug addiction (AODA) support. In addition, criminal records related to prostitution charges create additional barriers to alternative employment, trapping people in the sex trade.
Criminalization of consensual transactional sex does not stop the crime of human trafficking - in fact it empowers traffickers.
The stigma associated with engaging in a criminalized industry increases the risk that vulnerable people with become trafficking victims, and that they will be less likely to ask for help out of a coercive situation. Police stings aimed at combatting sex trafficking are especially inefficient and harmful. Police themselves report that stings have helped identify at most only 8% of all confirmed trafficking cases in Wisconsin. Instead, interaction with law enforcement typically results in fines, arrests, or court-ordered diversion programing, increasing the burden on already marginalized and low-income communities. In addition, contact with the criminal justice system is often traumatizing and stigmatizing in itself, especially for already over-policed black, brown, and LGBTQ+ communities.
What We Want and Need
Sex workers deserve human rights. Victims of human trafficking deserve policies that help them heal and effectively combat and prevent exploitation in the sex trade. The best policy is the full decriminalization of consensual sex work.
Decriminalization is the repealing of laws that criminalize sex work and activities associated with performing sexual labor, including selling sex, buying sex, accessing housing as a sex worker, and occupying public spaces as a sex worker. To be clear, repealing laws against sex work does not also decriminalize human trafficking. The exploitation of youth and adults in the sex trade should and always will remain illegal.
Legalizing sex work is not the same as decriminalizing sex work. Legalization creates a system in which sex work is still regulated by government and law enforcement agencies. Unnecessary background checks (which can be difficult for poor and trans people to complete due to the lack of state identification documents), onerous licensing requirements, and bureaucratic discrimination will continue to create barriers and problems for adults engaging in sex work. Consenting adults should have the right to have sex in private how and when they choose - including for pay - without invasive government regulations.
Some advocates believe the best solution is to “end the demand” for the sex trade by only criminalizing those soliciting sex, not selling it. However, this approach has been proven to make sex workers less safe. Instead, sex workers, public health experts, leading human rights organizations, and national anti-trafficking advocates overwhelmingly support the full decriminalization of sex work.
The red umbrella is the international symbol for sex worker rights
