Columns, Opinion

Modern Musings: Legalizing sex work would make it a safer, less stigmatized job

The sports world has been set abuzz by the Robert Kraft scandal, in which the New England Patriots owner solicited prostitution in Florida. On Monday, Kraft was charged with two counts of first-degree solicitation after an investigation into Florida spas and parlors found that multiple were running sex trafficking rings.

Prostitution has also been a major topic in the news recently as New York state lawmakers are working on a bill that would decriminalize sex work in the state. Senators Jessica Ramos, Julia Salazar and Brad Hoylman and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried are working with Decrim NY, an organization that aims to decriminalize sex work, free those who have been imprisoned because of it and end the stigma surrounding sex work.

Senators Ramos and Salazar penned an opinion piece in the Daily News to push for decriminalization.

This recent news got me interested in how legalizing prostitution could change the landscape of sex work in the United States. Though the women in the Florida parlor solicited by Kraft were victims of a sex trafficking ring, and legalization wouldn’t have helped them escape their situation, it’s possible it may have prevented such a ring from operating in the country.

In an ideal world, sex work would be completely eradicated, and women wouldn’t have to sell their bodies in order to survive and make a living. But this is not our reality, and it’s hard to imagine the industry just vanishing into thin air any time soon. The reality is that men will continue to solicit prostitutes whether it’s legal or not, so it would be much safer for sex workers if their work was legal.

Prostitution should be regarded as a job, which it ultimately is — sex workers indeed make their living doing sex work. Why, then, should these women have to go to work every day in dangerous, unregulated conditions?

Risk may be part of the job, but that risk should be as diminished as possible. Legalizing sex work would prevent sexual abuse and rape, minimize the risk of STDs and ensure workers are rightfully paid.

Legalization may also help to legitimize and erase the stigma around sex work so that sex workers can be viewed as the human beings they are rather than objects or pariahs. This would improve sex workers’ working conditions and mental and physical health.

A major argument against legalizing prostitution is that it would make the exploitation of women’s bodies more prevalent and more acceptable and that it would do more harm in the long run. But the truth of the matter is that prostitution will happen whether or not it’s legal — and if prostitution is kept underground, sex work will be more dangerous.

Legalization has already been proven to be beneficial to sex workers. A 2014 study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that when indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island between 2003 to 2009 because of a legal loophole, the number of rape reports in the state decreased by 31 percent, and the incidence of gonorrhea decreased by approximately 2,000 cases.

Similarly, in Dutch cities that legalized prostitution, rape and sexual abuse reports decreased by as much as 30 to 40 percent in the first two years, according to a 2015 study by a Dutch research institute.

It is possible to discourage the prevalence of sex work by criminalizing solicitation, but at the same time, decriminalizing the sale of sex. Sweden, often regarded as one of the most progressive nations in the world, was the first country to make soliciting sex illegal in 1999. As a result, prostitution solicitation dropped from 13.6 percent in 1996 to 7.4 percent in 2014.

Human trafficking in Sweden has decreased and violence against prostitutes, which many feared would rise, has not increased. Implementing legislation like this in the United States could reduce the stigma against sex workers, as they would not be punished and could also make sex work less prevalent.

Legalizing prostitution in the United States would transform the working environment and health of sex workers. It’s crucial that sex workers are involved in the legalization process to ensure that any legislation is tailored to their needs to make their jobs as safe as possible.

This would be a major step in ending the stigma against sex workers and creating an open-minded society that views them simply as people making a living.





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