CARNAL NATION

One of CNN.com's top stories this week was a small news item on seven individuals accused of operating a New York prostitution agency through Craigslist. For the most part, the article is stultifying. It routinely uses quotes around the word "johns," raising the question of why journalists just don't use "clients" if they're so uncomfortable with sex industry shoptalk. (Their awkward appropriation of terms like "GFE" is as cringe-inducing as reading poorly written Southern dialects.) The article also includes direct wording from officials on such thrilling points as how those working for the company would "continuously" post ads because—who knew?—the more recent your posting, the closer to the top of the list it appears.

Craigslist offered sex workers the opportunity to more effectively meet and screen clients. Taking that away doesn't punish Craigslist, but it does endanger sex workers. If you're asking yourself why exactly this is headline news, you're not the only one. Craigslist-facilitated prostitution busts are incredibly common across the country, as proven by Bound, Not Gagged's "Bust Tracker", an impressive—but by no means comprehensive—list of news stories on the topic. It's somewhat unusual that the targets in this situation were managers rather than workers. (Note that rather than use terms like "agency" or "booking service," the reporter opted to use the seedier-sounding "ring," as in "child porn," to describe the operation.) But the only real reason this is national news is that the War on Craigslist is now in full swing, and attorneys general like New York's Andrew Cuomo are seizing upon every available opportunity to further scapegoat the much-maligned site.

When Craigslist announced it would yield to the demands that they eradicate their "Erotic Services" category and instead establish closely monitored "Adult Services" section, their most vociferous critics were unsatisfied. Carnal Nation has already covered the aggressive anti-Craigslist campaign of South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster, whose obsession has resulted in Craigslist filing suit to request a restraining order. A histrionic article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution accused Craigslist of still making it "way too easy for someone to buy an underage girl" and claimed that 176 "girls" were "prostituted for sex" since February (presumably of this year) on the site. Only one specific case, including a 17 year old, was offered as evidence.

Room Service Entertainment, the subject of the CNN report, seems not to have participated in any type of victimization. There are no accusations that the women working for the service were trafficked or coerced or underage. There's no evidence of the agency ripping off clients by having girls leave with money after the man pays upfront, a con that flourishes due to prostitution's illegal status. Yet if convicted of their charges, all accused persons, company owners and the women who worked as receptionists, could spend 25 years in prison. That means that here, in the United States, self-proclaimed land of the free, seven human beings could be incarcerated for a third of their lives for arranging consensual sexual contact between adults. Is this something you're comfortable with, or proud of? Is this what you'd like your tax money to go towards instead of education or medical research or even highway maintenance?

While there's no denying that, if they did indeed run a prostitution service, these seven individuals are guilty under our existing laws, there's refreshingly little pretense in the news coverage that these people did anything morally wrong. The focus remains on shaming Craigslist, transparently so, as evidenced by the words of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. "Until Craigslist gets serious about putting real protections in place," he told The New York Times, "it will continue to be an environment where criminal operations thrive with impunity." It's alarming that Cuomo thinks "impunity" means impending jail sentences and the publication of full legal names and pictures in Internet outlets and printed papers; but even more disturbing that he's clearly more interested in having an impact on Craigslist's style of operation than he is on any positive effect on citizen life. The supposition here isn't that without Craigslist, criminal activity of all types will evaporate. It's that, without Craigslist, certain criminal activity will evaporate on Craigslist. And Craigslist representatives have routinely pointed out that, while they believe crimes committed through their site are rare, when something bad does occur, they're uniquely equipped to bring guilty parties to justice given the internet record left behind.

It's time to move past the idea that criminal activity can be eliminated by being made more challenging. It can't. Greater penalties, more aggressive prosecution, public shaming, and so forth are all deterrents but not eradicants. When a criminal activity becomes even more high risk—all criminal activities are inherently risky given the possibility of punishment—criminals take those risks anyway and those who get away with it make more money. This is why the War on Drugs (like Prohibition before it, and the undeclared War on Sex Work) is such a massive failure. People don't turn to crimes like drug trafficking or gunrunning because they're easy. They do it because they're desperate and there are no better options, or they can't fathom any other way of life. Stiffer penalties and a more underground status don't change that circumstance and therefore don't stem the flow of willing participants.

The reality (unpleasant to some) is that sex in exchange for services or goods takes place regularly, habitually, often unrepentantly, in virtually every city of every country on this planet, and there's little evidence of a time when this wasn't the case. It comes in myriad forms (sex for money, sex for food, sex for protection) and has no demographic (all genders, races, sizes are welcome on either side of the transaction.) While many individuals (myself included) would argue that sex work shares little in common with drug dealing or arms smuggling besides an illegal status, the state is determined to treat it as such and so it's useful to extend a similar logic. If sex workers are victims from poor, disadvantaged backgrounds without competent education, then their career path is not one diverted by increased prosecution. If you are only capable of making money by selling sex, then you will continue to sell sex even when it's difficult and dangerous to do so. Craigslist offered sex workers the opportunity to more effectively meet and screen clients, as well as negotiate the circumstances that would help the encounter take place safely. Taking this outlet away doesn't punish Craigslist, but it does endanger sex workers.

(Addendum: Audacia Ray generated a form letter you can use if you'd like to write Attorney General Cuomo to express your displeasure with his Craigslist prosecution, and Surgeon on Bound, Not Gagged has an excellent appeal to sex workers about supporting Craigslist during this time.