VOLUME 33 • NUMBER 2 SIECUS REPORT Sex Workers: Perspectives in Public Health and Human Rights SPRING 2005 SIECUS REPORT VOL. 33, NO. 2 • SPRING 2005 Martha E. Kempner, M.A. Director of Public Information The SIECUS Report is published quarterly and distributed to professionals, organizations, gov- ernment officials, libraries, the media, and the general public. The SIECUS Report publishes work from a variety of disciplines and perspectives about sexuality, including medicine, law, philosophy, business, and the social sciences. Annual SIECUS Report subscription is $49, single issues $9.20. Outside the United States, add $10 to these fees (in Canada and Mexico, add $5).The SIECUS Report is available on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road,Ann Arbor, MI 48106. 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Proofreading by Jane Morris Printing by Fulton Press Library of Congress catalog card number 72-627361 ISSN: 0091-3995 CONTENTS Sex Workers: Perspectives in Public Health and Human Rights ARTICLES 3 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: AN ANALYSIS OF INDOOR SEX WORK IN NEW YORK CITY Juhu Thukral Director, Sex Workers Project Urban Justice Center New York, NY 10 A VIEW FROM THE FIELD: SEX WORK IN D.C. Maxwell Ciardullo Public Policy Assistant SIECUS Washington, DC 12 EXOTIC DANCING AND UNIONIZING: THE CHALLENGES OF FEMINIST AND ANTIRACIST ORGANIZING AT THE LUSTY LADY THEATER Siobhan Brooks Graduate Student The New School University New York, NY 16 AMONG OURSELVES: FEMALE SEX WORKERS CONSTRUCT THEIR SEXUAL HEALTH Esther Corona President Mexican Association for Sex Education (AMES) Mexico City, Mexico 18 HEALTH RISKS AND POWER AMONG FEMALE SEX WORKERS IN MOSCOW Julie A. Stachowiak PhD, Susan Sherman PhD, MPH, Anya Konakova, Irina Krushkova MD, Chris Beyrer MD, MPH Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; Alena Peryskina MA AIDS infoshare Russia, Moscow, RF; and Steffanie Strathdee PhD University of California San Diego School of Public Health 26 NEW U.S. FUNDING POLICIES ON TRAFFICKING AFFECT SEX WORK AND HIV-PREVENTION EFFORTS WORLD WIDE Melissa Ditmore Core Group, Network of Sex Work Projects New York, NY ALSO IN THIS ISSUE... 2 FROM THE EDITOR: SEX WORKERS: A GLIMPSE INTO PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVES By Martha E. Kempner, M.A. VOLUME 33 NUMBER 2 SPRING 2005 SIECUS REPORT FROM THE EDITOR: SEX WORKERS: A GLIMPSE INTO PUBLIC HEALTH PERSPECTIVES Martha E. Kempner, M.A. Director of Public Information F ew issues have the potential to cause as much debate IN THIS ISSUE among public health professionals as commercial sex It is against this backdrop of ongoing debate that we present work. Commercial sex work is a broad term that includes street this SIECUS Report. It is not designed to settle any of these prostitution, massage parlors, brothels, escort services, strip clubs, arguments—no 30 pages could do that. Instead, it provides phone sex lines, and pornography.The term sex workers can many first-hand accounts of the issues sex workers face and refer to anyone who sells sexual services for money. some interventions that follow a rights-based, harm reduc- Historically, public health has focused on sex workers as tion model. disease vectors—those who would spread sexually transmitted Two articles, one by Juhu Thukral and the other by diseases (STDs), and more recently HIV,to the wider popula- Julie Stachowiak and colleagues, present detailed data of tion. Interventions, therefore, focused not on the health of sex studies with sex workers in New York and Moscow respec- workers but on their role in shaping the health of society. tively. The women surveyed discuss, in their own words, Many,including the World Health Organization (WHO), working conditions, relationships with law enforcement, however, suggest that this approach is problematic.They argue violence, and efforts to minimize health risks. that this approach increases the marginalization and stigma We then switch to the educators point-of-view as both already faced by these individuals and as such can breed Esther Corona and Maxwell Ciardullo provide us with first- resentment amongst the target audience, drive commercial sex hand accounts of interventions in which they have participated. work further underground, and undermine success. Corona explains that she was initially reluctant to become The WHO believes that interventions can have a positive involved but that the program she helped to create was an impact on both the course of epidemics and the lives of those extraordinary experience for both the sex workers and edu- involved in commercial sex work. However, it and others in cators who attended. the public health field are calling for an approach that has as its And, in her first hand account of efforts to unionize primary goal the health and well-being of sex workers. exotic dancers at San Fransisco’s Lusty Lady, Siobhan Brooks According to the WHO such an approach would reminds us that sex work is, by its nature, linked to issues of follow certain key principles including adopting a non- race and social class. judgmental attitude, respecting sex workers’ human rights, Finally, Melissa Dittmore, looks into a new policy put involving sex workers in program development, and recog- forth by the Bush Administration that may bring an end to nizing that sex workers are part of the solution.1 many harm reduction programs by withholding funds from Harm reduction models such as this are often contro- any international organization that does explicitly condemn versial as they seek to improve conditions and health with- prostitution and sex trafficking. out necessarily eliminating potentially harmful behavior. At the center of this argument as it concerns sex workers is the SMALL GLIMPSE question of free will. Commercial sex work does not oper- Most topics seem smaller or more manageable to me by the ate in a vacuum but is instead inextricably linked with social time I have finished editing an issue of the SIECUS Report.I and economic issues including poverty, race, class, lack of cannot say the same thing about commercial sex work. It is education, and the low status of women in many societies. truly the crossroads of public health, public policy, and human By its nature, this harm reduction approach suggests that we rights and touches on such equally large issues as race, gender, respect the choices of individuals who become involved in and socio-economic status. Nonetheless I am pleased to be sex work and focus our efforts on preventing heath risks. able to provide readers with this small glimpse into such a vast Here the public health approach becomes even more issue. I have learned a great deal and I hope you do as well. mired in the political debate and questions of whether current Reference practices in which most countries make selling sex for money 1. Sex Work Toolkit: Targeted HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care in Sex illegal are helping or hurting sex workers and societies. Work Settings (Geneva,World Health Organization, 2004), accessed 22 June 2005, <http://who.arvkit.net/sw/en/index.jsp>. 2 SIECUS REPORT VOLUME 33, NUMBER 2 BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: AN ANALYSIS OF INDOOR SEX WORK IN NEW YORK CITY Juhu Thukral Director, Sex Workers Project Urban Justice Center New York, NY I started when the father of my child decided to take makeshift), independently in their own homes, and as off with another woman. I was living in the Bronx, escorts; strippers and bar patrons who connect with couldn’t make rent, and [had to] take care of my two prospective clients in these venues and make dates for later children. So, I moved in with my parents. But I couldn’t find a job and still have time for my kids. I meetings; and dominatrices whose services may potentially knew that my boyfriend’s friends wanted to get up be defined as “sexual conduct.” with me, wanted to sleep with me. I was flirting and The title of this report also refers to the pervasiveness said, “I’ll fuck you for $100.”They said, “Yeah,” and of the indoor sex industry.Sex workers are woven into most then they asked if I wanted to meet their friends. It neighborhoods in New York City, and are pivotal in the was easy money. I didn’t have to get up and go to underground economy, with a large involvement by immi- work. I did it when I wanted, and I just had to buy grants and others who are unable to earn a living wage in nothing [to do it], no clothes, nothing. And since it the mainstream economy. was usually friends of people I knew,I felt pretty safe. This report focuses on indoor sex work primarily So, I guess it was really because I had to take care of because, while these sex workers are largely invisible, they my kids and I really couldn’t pay my bills. When I face many of the same problems as the more visible street- made enough, I was able to move to the projects and based prostitutes.