potrero view

August 2009

Sex Workers Suffer During Economic Downturn

By Andrea de Brito

In sexually indulgent San Francisco, many sex workers consider themselves lucky to be free of the harassment, repression, and persecution their profession is subject to elsewhere. But even in the City the sex business is under pressure.  Last fall, Proposition K, a municipal ballot measure to decriminalize sex work, lost to a well-funded anti-trafficking campaign led by Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney (DA) Kamala Harris. Then came the financial crisis, resulting in job-loss and steady cuts to health and welfare services.  Sex workers and their advocates agree:  sex work is not a recession-proof business.

“Business is definitely slower in this economy. We spent years in this artificially inflated economy and a ridiculous amount of money was being thrown around. I think people are being very cautious,” said Rich, a male sex worker and performance artist who dropped out of college, moved to San Francisco, and became a sex worker twelve years ago after discovering he really liked older men.  “We all are suffering right now,” agreed Acire, a dominatrix, escort, and Tantric masseuse, as well the co-founder of San Francisco Sex Workers Outreach Project. “Once our clients lose their jobs, we lose business.”  According to Acire, when long-term clients tell her they don’t have the money, she’s happy to give them breaks, calling the discounts “recessions specials.”

“I worked in brothels, and brothels are all about who’s the new girl,” said a sex worker from Toronto, who entered the profession two years ago and immediately moved to Sydney, Australia, where licensed brothels are legal. “So I’d be like, hey I’m the Canadian girl, and they’d be like, alright. But there’s sometimes fifty percent less guys coming in.”

Bucking the trend, demand for Roberta, a middle-aged sex worker from Seattle, who left a job in corporate accounting six and half years ago, remains steady. “I’ve been hearing so much about the recession and I’ve had more business than I’ve ever had. I think there are definitely people hurting in this industry but I think people do have an established reputation with regulars. People are more afraid to just play, and it’s being seen as more an investment of their money. If they’re parting with it they have to know it’s going to work.”  The majority of Roberta’s clients are people dealing with lifelong neurological disorders who benefit from bodywork and sensual touch. Her clientele is considered a niche market, but she works hard to maintain a website, consulting lawyers to make sure the content is legal.  

According to Roberta, her attorney cautions her against organizing meetings, where she and fellow sex workers can discuss health and safety issues.  Since Bush-era anti-trafficking laws, such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, providing support to colleagues in the sex business can be considered aiding and abetting prostitution or trafficking.  As a result, many sex workers feel they can’t be activists, relying on allies or former sex workers for political support.

After the shuttering of Craigslist’s Erotic Services section in May, the online sex trade shifted to the Adult Services section.  However, ads cost $10 – with associated revenues sent to anti-trafficking organizations – identification and a phone number has to be provided, and postings are screened for content by a Craigslist moderator. The changes have scared off sex workers and potential clients, who fear that law enforcement could be looming behind the screen.  “Several ladies said this [Craigslist] is my main money maker, and it was easier to screen my clients,” Acire said. “A lot of the ladies were street workers before, and Craigslist helped them get off the street…many of them went back to the streets.”  According to Acire, since the erotic services section closed down, clients are paying sex workers less. Women who were charging $150 to $300 an hour are now charging $150 or less.  She believes that the phenomenon is a result of a different mix of clients since the Craigslist change, and new sex workers coming into the profession and “not knowing what’s going on.”

“The great thing about this industry is that no matter how much we’ve been kicked down, we always find our way back up, even if it does mean going back out to the streets. That’s how we all started! They were sad and mad and depressed about [the loss of Craigslist], but they said we all need to feed our families,” said Acire.

According to Rachel West, a long-time organizer for U.S. Prostitutes Collective, more people turn to sex work when they’re left with no safety net. “They’re talking about getting rid of basic survival money like CalWorks; things you can fall back on,” said West.  CalWorks, the state’s welfare program, which provides cash assistance and support services to roughly one million Californians, is facing draconian cuts due to the budget crises.  “At the same time, they’re bringing increased decriminalization,” said West. “San Francisco spends $11.4 million a year at least on busting prostitution.”

West and other sex worker advocates lobbied the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to vote against the Penalties for Violation of Massage Practitioner Licensing and Regulation Ordinance, but in June the board unanimously endorsed the law.   The ordinance, which was sponsored by Supervisor Carmen Chu, increased penalties for massage parlor owners who violate permit requirements.  Fines of up to $1,000, or up to six months of jail time, can be levied for masseuses wearing revealing clothing, operating after 10 p.m., employing unlicensed masseuses, or not displaying a permit. The ordinance requires any business that wants to provide massage therapy as an accessory to its main business to apply to the Planning Commission for permission, and demonstrate that the service is “necessary, desirable and appropriate for the neighborhood.”  Massage parlor owners who are fined or whose licenses are suspended or revoked must reimburse the City for all enforcement costs, including inspection time and attorney’s fees.

According to West, concern over human trafficking is being used to target and deport immigrants.  She pointed to Operation Gilded Cage, a 2005 nine-month federal anti-trafficking investigation that resulted in raids of 10 San Francisco massage parlors by 400 federal and local police officers.  In that case, more than half of the one hundred Korean women who were taken into custody were deported.  While the investigation focused on cracking down on trafficking, the defense attorney in charge of the case said that none of the women involved were trafficking victims.

“Supervisor Carmen Chu has used trafficking to confuse the issue. San Francisco has gotten federal and state funding for anti-trafficking. There are financial incentives for keeping it criminalized,” said West, adding that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) received $100,000 for anti-trafficking enforcement.  “The Department of Health is cutting all these services and they’re going to pour money into policing the parlors. Why is that a priority in this economic crisis?” asked West. The San Francisco Department of Health (DPH) spent a half-million dollars on attorneys fees to defend itself in massage parlor cases over the last two years.  According to West, most parlor employees “work consensually, often collectively and with no force or coercion.”

After the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 passed the U.S. Congress, a network of anti-trafficking nonprofit agencies funded by federal and state dollars popped up.   Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), which was founded in 1992, has received millions of dollars from the federal government since the passage of anti-trafficking laws. SAGE, which works directly with the SFPD, DPH, and DA’s office, is a treatment program to which judges refer arrested sex workers in exchange for which they can avoid jail time and a conviction.  SAGE operates the First Offender Prostitution Program (FOPP), also know as the John’s School, in which sex purchasers and purveyors must pay up to $1,000 and attend an educational program, or face prosecution.  “We’ve talked to women who have gone through SAGE, and there’s very little in terms of real services. There’s a lot of condemnation. They go right back into it afterwards,” said West. “We’ve been pressing for the millions of dollars spent on criminalizing women to be diverted into resources and services.”

According to West, many sex workers are single mothers struggling to live off a welfare grant, or daughters who need to take care of their elderly parents, whose services are also being cut.  Arrests and convictions mean their children can be taken away by Child Protective Services. “If a girl gets arrested in San Francisco – she’s a streetwalker supporting her family on the corner – let’s say she decides not to fight the case.  They fine her $1,000 that goes to SAGE and the District Attorney’s office.  I’ve seen girls get arrested, disappear for two days, and go right back out. When they send them to the SAGE project, they say they’re going to correct them,” said Acire.

“In a depression whores have always made out when other products and services failed to survive. Countries which have experienced World War I and II have had a much more humane attitude toward those women who have hooked to survive,” said Margo St. James, founder of St. James Infirmary, a South-of-Market-based health clinic run by sex workers.  “You bet more women are turning to sex work when times are tough, but the abolitionists of today have criminalized just the customers,” said St. James. “This has resulted in more violence against women and the efforts here around trafficking are just as bad. The prohibition keeps racism alive and well and makes sex work more dangerous than AIDS to those who do not have resources.  But that is no reason to misspend the monies of the taxpayers on repressive enforcement and continued stigmatizing of women and girls.”  Individuals who have an arrest on their record find it hard to secure legitimate employment, forcing them back into the sex businesses.  “This is how all women are controlled and exploited for their labor at home and in the work force and kept divided,” said St. James.

Like other nonprofits, St. James Infirmary has seen its funding support decline.  Last year local and state contract monies were cut by $125,000.  An additional loss of endowments and individual donations meant that the clinic’s budget had to be reduced by 40 percent, resulting in nine lay-offs, fewer clinic hours, and the closing of their outreach program.  The ongoing budget crises will likely trigger additional funding reductions this year.  “We’re a sex worker clinic only open to sex workers,” said Naomi Akers, St. James Infirmary’s executive director. “If we close, that really only impacts the sex worker community.  If we close services, they just need to go to other clinics. Frankly, I don’t know what those clinics look like.”  There are no other clinics open at night besides St. James Infirmary and San Francisco General Hospital’s Emergency Room. Akers says that sex workers complain about being treated differently by their providers, who focus on whether they have a sexually transmitted infection or obsess over whether they use heroin.  

Shawn works out of Potrero Hill and the Bayview for Pink and White Productions, an “award-winning feminist porn company that creates beautiful and gender-blurring images of queer sexuality.” Because Pink and White serves a niche market and has an international subscriber base, it continues to do well even during the recession.  However, according to Shawn other production companies are suffering, and sex workers in the production industry are struggling to find work.

Despite Shawn’s work stability, she’s been affected by the recession in non-monetary ways.  “It’s vital to have legal support and community that can be a voice. When you become vocal you become visible, and when you become visible, you become a target,” said Shawn. “Having a network of peers to provide emotional and moral support, especially in a time when services are being reduced, is a key component.”  Cuts to HIV/AIDS treatment, care, and services could reach $400 million, threatening treatment for 35,000 HIV/AIDS patients. “The outcome we’re going to see is death,” Shawn said.  “This affects our entire community. A lot of the sex work community is very aware of what’s going on. It’s very sad.”

“People need touch,” said Roberta. “We know this about babies, and then as adults, there’s something wrong about touch if it’s not in certain sanctioned ways. We need to be seen, we need to be witnessed, and we need to be sexual beings because that’s what we are. People are numb, they’re on anti-depressants, nobody’s happy, there’s this social ill that’s happening, and I don’t believe it’s a mental illness that’s happening.  I believe it starts at this energetic level that people are so disconnected from.”

“I love my life so much more now. I was so much more of a whore when I was working 70 hours a week,” Roberta said. “I wake up loving my days instead of waking up to four hours of sleep, a pot of coffee, dragging my ass into the office, so that someone somewhere up the ladder could show the shareholders that we were now making more money than we were last year. Corporate America is a deck of cards. I’m so happy not to be part of that.”

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