Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry by Ronald Weitzer Read Free Book Online

is still prosecutable [as] illegal obscenity.”106
    The continuing debate over pornography illustrates the twin trends regarding the sex industry in America. As noted earlier in the chapter, there is evidence of a degree of normalization or mainstreaming of sexual commerce and its growing availability via the Internet. At the same time, this trend runs up against a countertrend fueled by some powerful forces inside and outside local and federal governments—forces intent on criminalizing and stigmatizing the sex industry. The notion of a fierce “sex war” remains as apt today as it was in the past, and these two trends are apparent both in the U.S. and internationally.
    Prostitution: Decriminalization and Legalization
    Prostitution is treated in a more uniform manner in the United States, with criminalization being the reigning policy. This means that solicitation to engage in an act of prostitution is illegal, except in certain counties in Nevada, where about 30 legal brothels exist. Other offenses include pimping, pandering, trafficking, operating a brothel, and running an agency that offers sexual services.
    Approximately 80,000 arrests are made in the United States every year for violation of prostitution laws,107 in addition to an unknown number of arrests of prostitutes under disorderly conduct or loitering statutes. Most arrests involve the street trade, although indoor workers are targeted in some cities. Regarding street prostitution, arrests have the effect of either (1) containment within a particular area, where prostitutes are occasionally subjected to the revolving door of arrest, fines, brief jail time, and release, or (2) displacement to another locale where the same revolving-door dynamic recurs. Containment is the norm throughout the United States; displacement requires sustained police crackdowns, which are rare. During crackdowns, workers may simply relocate to an adjoining police precinct where enforcement is lax or move across the city limits into another jurisdiction.
    Full decriminalization would remove all criminal penalties and leave prostitution unregulated, albeit subject to conventional norms against nuisances, sex in public, or disorderly conduct. Under full decriminalization, street prostitution could exist on any street, so long as the workers and 21

    RONALD WEITZER
    customers did not disturb the peace or violate other ordinances. Partial decriminalization would reduce but not eliminate penalties—the penalty might be a fine instead of incarceration or the charge may be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor or violation. A third possibility is de facto decriminalization , which simply means that the existing law is not enforced, yet the offense remains in the penal code. Decriminalization may or may not be a precursor to legalization (government regulation).
    Proposals for full decriminalization run up against a wall of public opposition. A 1983 poll found that only 7% of Americans thought that there should be “no laws against prostitution” and, in 1990, 22% felt that prostitution should be “left to the individual” and neither outlawed nor regulated by government.108 American policymakers are almost universally opposed to the idea, making it a nonstarter in any serious discussion of policy alternatives. Advocates sometimes manage to get it placed on the public agenda, however. In 1994, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors created a Taskforce on Prostitution to explore alternatives to existing prostitution policy. After months of meetings, a majority of the members voted to recommend decriminalization,109 but the board of supervisors rejected the idea. In 2008, a measure on the ballot in San Francisco stipulated that the police would discontinue enforcing all laws against prostitution; the measure was rejected by 58% of voters. A similar ballot measure in Berkeley, California, in 2004 called on police to give prostitution enforcement the
    “lowest priority.” The measure was