Part of an excellent article by Jennifer Abel for the Graun on adult service ads being banned from Craigslist:
‘…”Adult” services, of course, is a euphemism for “sexual” services. Lawmakers hated Craigslist from the get-go because sex workers used it to advertise their services. Yet if you listen to politicians praise themselves now that the ads are gone, you won’t hear much talk about banning activity between consenting adults. No, politicos prefer to invoke The Children. In a statement her office released Saturday, California congresswoman Jackie Speier blamed websites such as Craigslist for child prostitution. “We can’t forget the victims, we can’t rest easy. Child sex trafficking continues and lawmakers need to fight future machinations of internet-driven sites that peddle children.”
No argument there: forcing children into prostitution is an utterly abhorrent crime. Forcing anybody into prostitution is, and when callous sociopaths turn innocent victims into sexual slaves for their own profit, it’s undeniably good when police shut down these loathsome enterprises.
Yet when attorneys general started crusading against Craigslist, it wasn’t kidnapping rapists they worried about, but adults who made money selling consensual services. In my own state of Connecticut, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (now a Senate candidate) has been on the Craigslist warpath since at least 2008. That March, his office put out a press release saying: “As a small step in response to my concerns, Craigslist now requires anyone posting a listing in the erotic services section to provide a phone number. This step, however, will hardly deter the prostitution problem on the site, and may indeed make it worse. Many of the most graphic solicitations already include a telephone number to enable prospective patrons of their services to contact them.”
But now it’s about the children. Why do so many politicos cling to the fiction that the best way to stop coerced sex acts is to criminalise consensual ones? Maybe that’s an unfair question; it’s not just lawmakers who claim this. Any time you suggest legalised prostitution might be better than the dangerous, illegal status quo, opponents always raise the spectre of sexual slavery.
And it’s not only prostitutes whose opponents blur the line between coercion and consent; any sex-themed work inspires such dishonesty. I’ve faced it personally: in my university days I worked as a stripper and now, years later, occasionally wax nostalgic about it on websites like this. Without fail, whenever I write on the theme “Ich bin ein ex-go go dancer,” a subset of the commentariat insists I was exploited, whether I knew it or not. Contributed to the oppression of others. And what about enslaved women forced to become strippers, huh?
The protests are exponentially more heated when ex-prostitutes write to defend their trade. Too many otherwise sensible people believe sex, alone among all forms of human interaction, spawns some malignant magic whenever money changes hands. It’s still perfectly legal to search for sex on Craigslist; you just can’t exchange cash for it…’
Full article here.