The sex worker activist Carol Leigh protests a San Francisco measure by a group called the Commission on the Status of Women (CoSW) seeking to close private, VIP room-type areas in strip clubs. The measure maintains that such places are coercive of prostitution, AIDS, and drug use.
Leigh argues (I’m paraphrasing) that while there might be coercion involved, it is only the economic coercion that drives most of us to work at jobs that aren’t 100 percent agreeable.
Leigh notes that the anti-lap dance measure was drafted with the help of disgruntled strip club employees but that “droves” of other sex workers opposed it.
Leigh writes:
Forced labor and coercion are serious crimes in the legal framework. But economic coercion is the motivation for many types of work, and the fact that women are coerced or forced into this work is being used to justify prohibitions that affect all sex workers. The term “sexual exploitation,” which also comes up in the legislation, has been used to describe (and curtail) the voluntary commercial activity of sex workers.
While it is probably true that many women would not be strippers if the money wasn’t so good, the solution is not to close the champagne room but to raise salaries for teachers, cable installers, and sous chefs.
Previously: Northridge porn art; Tough time for Arizona prostitutes; Louisville police behaving dishonorably
See also: Saving Women from Themselves
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