Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (36 page)

On one occasion, a man talks at length to a worker, and when she starts talking to me, he kisses her and leaves. A prospective customer probably would not have done that. Later, I see him loitering outside her window. A few days later, I saw an apparent pimp arguing with a woman at her window. She does not chase him away as she would an ordinary, disputatious man.
¹⁷⁷

Pimps often target immigrant women, who they see as more vulnerable due to their foreigner status.
¹⁷⁸

The city of Eindhoven has experimented with harassing suspected pimps. When a man is observed lingering in the city’s window area where loitering is not allowed, the police invite him to the police station for a conversation.
¹⁷⁹
It is easy for the police to identify suspected pimps in Eindhoven because the RLD is in a courtyard with few people walking around, making loiterers readily visible.

What about coercive sex trafficking? In the past five years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of eastern European women entering the country, especially from Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, as a result of the expansion of the EU and the migration rights associated with EU status. Most of these individuals have been assisted by others in migrating to the Netherlands. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, some politicians and
activists claim that coercive sex trafficking has increased dramatically in recent years, but these claims are questionable. The director of an organization that works closely with prostitutes in the Wallen, when questioned about the women working there, stated, “There are women who don’t know they will work in prostitution, but they are usually in escort work. Nowadays a lot of eastern European women know beforehand that they will be working in prostitution in the Netherlands. They’ve been informed by their friends, their girlfriends, who are already working here and convince them to move to Holland.”
¹⁸⁰
Other analysts confirm that one of the main “pull factors” in the migration of foreign women into the sex industry is information provided to them by girlfriends who are already selling sex in the Netherlands and elsewhere in western Europe.

Government statistics on the number of “possible victims” of trafficking show a consistent increase over time, but there are two problems: (1) these statistics aggregate all types of trafficking, labor as well as sex trafficking,
¹⁸¹
and (2) the figures on “possible victims” refer to persons reported to the government’s trafficking office, not necessarily actual victims. It is noteworthy that the number of persons
convicted
of trafficking offenses has remained fairly stable: 79 in 2003 and 73 in 2007.
¹⁸²
This does not mean that the number of persons trafficked is itself stable, but it does cast doubt on the claim that trafficking has skyrocketed since prostitution was legalized in 2000. And most of the cases involving sex trafficking have involved persons working in the illegal sector, not in the windows or licensed brothels, according to government reports.
¹⁸³

While it is always difficult to draw conclusions about the magnitude of trafficking, the Dutch authorities report that legalization has helped reduce trafficking in the legal, licensed sector due to greater government oversight. The government’s Rapporteur on Trafficking makes this point eloquently:

It is often said in the media that the lifting of the general ban on brothels [in 2000] has led to more THB [trafficking in human beings]. This is not a correct conclusion. Before the lifting of the general ban on brothels, THB and other (criminal) abuses were taking place in all sectors of prostitution. Some of these sectors are now under control and can be assumed to have rid themselves of their former criminal excesses, or are doing so. … It is possible that THB is increasing in the illegal, non-regulated or non-controlled sectors. If this were to be the case, it still cannot be assumed that the extent of THB is now at the same or even above the “old” level it was before the ban on brothels was lifted. It is in fact likely that this is not the case.
¹⁸⁴

If sex trafficking is minimal in the licensed, regulated sector—as these government agencies suggest—this can be interpreted as a major advantage of legalized prostitution as implemented in the Netherlands.

Sixth, what about underage prostitution? A study of 557 street and indoor prostitutes working in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague between 2002 and 2005 found that the median age of entry into prostitution was 25 for drug-using female workers, 27 for non-drug-using female workers, and 24 for transgender workers (the age range was 20–33).
¹⁸⁵
This was not a random sample, but it was a fairly large and diverse sample—drawn from the streets, windows, brothels, clubs, drug relief centers, and elsewhere. In a 2010 survey of 94 window workers in Amsterdam, none was a minor (23 percent were 18–21 years old, 33 percent were 22–25, and 20 percent were 26–30).
¹⁸⁶
Research sponsored by the Ministry of Justice concluded in 2007 that there is “hardly any prostitution by minors in the licensed sector and there are no indications of a great presence of minors within the non-licensed sector either.”
¹⁸⁷
Only 5 percent of the 354 legal prostitutes interviewed started selling sex when they were younger than 18, and 10 percent of those working as unlicensed escorts began as minors.
¹⁸⁸
Moreover, “During inspections of licensed prostitution businesses, inspectors encounter underage prostitutes only very incidentally.”
¹⁸⁹
For the five-year period between 2001 and 2005, none of the suspected victims of trafficking (i.e., those reported to the Dutch trafficking office) was 10–14 years old, 8 percent were 15–17, 39 percent were 18–23, and the remainder were 24 and older.
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Seventh, does stigma still color the sex trade a decade after legal reform? Legalization of vice does not imply respectability, and the individuals involved in Dutch prostitution—workers, clients, and business owners/managers—continue to experience disrepute. Although surveys mentioned earlier in the chapter suggest greater Dutch tolerance for sex work than elsewhere in Europe, this is not tantamount to full acceptance. A perfect example of this is the Dutch university student who told me that she considered prostitution “normal but also immoral.” Stigma is evident in sex workers’ desire to remain anonymous, including not asserting their rights when doing so would mean public identification. Few Dutch women work in the visible window sector and instead prefer the more hidden escorting or brothel work. Similarly, clients continue to feel that the public disapproves of their conduct. A survey of clients in Rotterdam found that “despite the lifting of the brothel ban seven years ago, most men feel that visiting prostitutes still belongs to the taboo sphere and many fear the possible consequences in terms of social censure and stigmatization.”
¹⁹¹

The owners of sex businesses struggle with stigma as well. Klein Beekman, the director of a brothel owners’ association in the 1990s, told me in 1997 that his organization encouraged its members to present themselves as normal businessmen: “Get a good organization. Start talking with the government. Pay taxes. Talk with the police. Talk with everybody. … In the past, everybody who was working in prostitution closed the door. Now you can go to a club, and they will talk with you.”
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Beekman also tried to break down stereotypes in his frequent media appearances and in his everyday contacts with Dutch people. On one occasion, he encountered a female mayor of a small town in a bar:

She talked loud: “So you are the pimp!” I said, “Maybe.” And then I asked her, “Have you been inside a house?” She said, “No, I never was. What do you think of me?” I said, “You tell these people how bad the place is. How can you do that when you never went inside a house? You have to have been inside a house to talk like you do, or you are telling a [fictional] story. Maybe it’s better that you come inside the house. I invite you, come. … Come with me right now. I’ll take you to a place and show you everything. You can talk with everybody, and after that you can tell what you’ve seen.” … I took her to the house, and the atmosphere inside the house was real good. And after ten minutes, she was sitting at the [brothel’s] bar next to a guest, and she was talking with him and to the girls. And after one hour, I said, “I’ll bring you back,” but she said, “Oh, I’d like to stay here.” And then I brought her back [to the bar], and everyone was waiting and looking. And then she said to the owner of the pub, “You should go there. It’s better than here!” … And I see her now and then, and she never says anything wrong about the brothel anymore. And that is what I tell my [brothel-owner] colleagues—open it, show the people, [and] do the same with the government. … Afterward, you can say, “Okay, you want to change some things. Now, you know what’s going on. Let’s talk about the changes.”
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If individual actors remain disreputable, brothels and escort agencies have become somewhat “normalized,” insofar as they are officially treated as ordinary businesses. One possible by-product of legalized prostitution is that it can create a climate in which policies can be discussed in an open, conventional manner. Furthermore, the very existence and longevity of trade associations for brothel and window owners increases their credibility. In the Netherlands they are routinely consulted by government agencies and
are seen as important players in policy discussions. Over a lengthy period of time, therefore, legal prostitution may win a measure of legitimacy that is not possible when it is criminalized and marginalized. But this outcome is unlikely where organized opposition is robust—where forces within the state, domestic interest groups, or foreign critics continue to condemn sex work and demand repeal of the laws legalizing it. Such opposition is growing in the Netherlands today.

Myths often eclipse facts when it comes to popular images of prostitution and other kinds of sex work. These myths are promulgated in the media and by politicians and partisan interest groups. Some are rooted in centuries-old stereotypes, while others are of more recent origin, such as the conflation of prostitution with sex trafficking. The fictions are only reinforced by writers who define prostitution monolithically—reducing it to patriarchal exploitation and violence or, by contrast, highlighting empowerment and therapeutic recreation. This essentialist quest is misguided. To define prostitution in such reductionist ways is to reify constructs that are best treated as
variables
, not constants.

I offer an alternative—a perspective that recognizes the complexity of sex work across time, place, and type. Empirically grounded and theoretically nuanced, the polymorphous paradigm is superior to simplistic monolithic approaches. This paradigm requires (1) major rethinking of commonsense understandings of prostitution, (2) reexamination of the factors typically associated with prostitution (e.g., violence, disease, drug addiction, organized crime, and trafficking), and (3) careful documentation of how prostitution manifests itself in different geographical settings and in different sectors of the trade. The material presented in the book provides strong evidence contradicting some popular myths as well as the central tenets of the oppression paradigm. While certain experiences are common to prostitution (coping with stigma, managing client behavior, avoiding risks), research indicates that other work-related experiences, as well as the harms typically associated with prostitution, vary greatly.

Examination of legal prostitution systems further shatters popular stereotypes. This book, along with a few other recent studies of legal prostitution,
¹
throws light on a world that differs in some important respects from the conventional images of prostitution held by most people. Although no existing system is problem free, the evidence presented in this book suggests that prostitution
can
be organized in a way that is
superior to blanket criminalization and marginalization. There is nothing inherent in prostitution that prevents it from being structured like other service occupations, aside from the stigma associated with it (the stigma attached to pornography and stripping does not prevent them from operating as quasi-conventional businesses). Stigma is extremely important, however, as it interferes with the smooth functioning of any legal prostitution system. Indeed, philosopher Lars Ericsson considers moralistic public attitudes toward sexuality in general and commercial sex in particular to be the biggest obstacle to the evolution of what he calls “sound prostitution.” Ericsson writes,

Our outlook as far as sex roles, relations between the sexes, and sexuality are concerned [is archaic and has] … negative effects not only on prostitution and prostitutes but also on the relations between the sexes generally. … A sound prostitution is, first of all, prostitution that is allowed to function in a social climate freed from emotional prejudice. … In order to improve prostitution we must first and foremost improve our attitudes toward it.
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A yoke of disreputability hangs over commercial sex that, if lifted, would allow existing legal prostitution systems to operate more openly and less controversially.

If stigma casts a shadow over legal prostitution systems, these regimes also face a host of practical challenges—to be expected whenever a vice is decriminalized and legalized. The magnitude and kinds of challenges vary from place to place and are usually most acute during the early formative years postlegalization. Although some jurisdictions have faced relatively few problems from a regulatory standpoint (e.g., Nevada, New Zealand, New South Wales), most others have confronted significant challenges in the aftermath of legalization. Implementing legal reforms is often a difficult and uneven process and may ignite criticism or stiff resistance from various quarters—sex workers, business owners, residents, the media, churches, local officials tasked with new responsibilities, and antiprostitution groups. In addition to opposition from forces in civil society, a legal prostitution system is usually vulnerable to denunciation from abroad as well, by some other governments and international organizations. All of this can render the normalization process quite precarious.