The True Cost of Legalizing Paid Sex
I'm not calling it sex work and you can't make me
In February, Illinois state rep Will Guzzardi out of Chicago introduced the Keeping Sex Workers Safe Act, which decriminalizes prostitution1. It would make Illinois the first state to legalize the selling of sex on a statewide basis. The bill “provides that sex workers shall not be subject to criminal prosecution for engaging in consensual sex work. Provides that law enforcement agencies are prohibited from arresting, charging, or prosecuting individuals solely for performing or engaging in sex work.”
Guzzardi says that “I think when we get out of the sort-of like Victorian stigma around sex stuff, when we look at this issue with clear eyes, you see that sex work is work. It's just another form of employment that's happening in our world."
But “sex work”, or prostitution, is not work; nor is it sex. Prostitution is one of the oldest forms of women’s oppression to exist and keeps millions of women around the globe in constant danger. To continue to clamor for its legitimization is to abandon the women who have found themselves there—in the “occupation” with the highest murder rate, with a 75% chance of experiencing sexual violence on the job.
Guzzardi and his ilk will gleefully claim that anyone who opposes this just has a “Victorian” view of sex and wants to wind up women and throw them in prison. But virtually no serious anti-prostitution activists believe in jailing prostituted women. This is a straw man argument to which there is no real rival. The Nordic model, which promotes going after the buyers of sex, has become the far-and-away model of choice for those who believe prostitution is inherently abusive.
"Are you trying to tell me that there's any set of parents anywhere on this planet that when their daughter is born, and they're looking at that little angel, and they’re holding her hand, they're saying, ‘You know what? Oh my God, I hope she grows up to be a sex worker. Oh my God, that would be our dream.’ I mean, give me a break," - Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, in response to criticism for a recent sex work sting in Chicago
Here is what is likely to happen were Illinois to legalize prostitution: