Prostitution: The Oldest Profession, or The Oldest Oppression?

Short answer:  perhaps a bit of both, as there is a great deal of nuance to the issue of sex work.

Last year, I wrote an article for this blog titled "What the 'Nordic Model' Gets Wrong", basically arguing against the model and maintaining that sex work in general should be fully decriminalized or legalized, at least as long as Women are the ones who control it.  This is still what I generally prefer.  However, after doing some more research on this highly fraught and complex issue since then, however, I now realize that I may have been a bit too harsh on the Nordic Model and those who support it, even though I still don't entirely favor it overall.

For those who don't know, the Nordic Model (also known as the Sex Buyer Law) refers to the policy currently in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland (and now Canada, France, South Korea, Northern Ireland, and Ireland as well) of 1) decriminalizing the sex workers themselves, while 2) criminalizing the buyers (i.e. the "johns" or "punters"), and 3) providing support and exit services for those currently in prostitution.  This is also combined with effective laws against pimping and trafficking as well.  In contrast, full criminalization (such as in the USA, except Nevada) criminalizes both buyers and sellers of sex, full decriminalization (such as in Denmark, New Zealand and parts of Australia) removes all laws prohibiting both buyers and sellers of sex, as well as pimps and brothel owners in some places, but does not regulate such activities, and legalization (such as the Netherlands, Germany, and parts of the state of Nevada) where the state completely legalizes and regulates the entire business of prostitution.  Still other countries have it where which prostitution is "quasi-legal" or decriminalized to one degree or another.  Examples include the UK and several European nations, as well as the aforementioned ones before they changed their laws in 1999-2003.

On the supporters' side, there is a very good website called "Nordic Model Now!" that explains the benefits of the model in contrast to the other models, and much of what they say seems to be very true overall, even if I don't necessarily agree 100%.   They have a good slideshow and handout that explains their overall position very well and contrasts it with the other models mentioned above, which I recommend reading.  Also of note is one of the pages on their site (trigger warning!) full of actual quotes from "punters" ("johns") on the site Punternet detailing how they really feel about (and treat) the Women that they buy (spoiler alert, it isn't good), and it becomes clear that 99% of these guys give the other 1% a bad name.  After all, the genesis of the Nordic Model is the idea that prostitution is inherently violent and exploitative, and that the sex workers are in fact victims of both the pimps and the "johns".  The sex trade, whether legal or illegal, clearly has a dark side as long as men are in charge, and the distinction between "forced" and "unforced" is not always as clear-cut as it may seem.

So what are the practical results of each of the models under discussion here?  While I have noted that the Nordic Model does have its downsides and that its success has been called into question, there is some evidence suggesting that 1) In Sweden, the prostitution market dropped by roughly half since 1999 when the model was first implemented, and that human trafficking decreased there as well, at a time when both seemed to be increasing in other European countries, and 2) In the Netherlands and Germany, both the legal and illegal prostitution markets increased significantly in the years following full legalization in 2000 and 2002, and it appears that human trafficking also increased there as well.  The reason is simple--under the Nordic Model, demand goes down, while under the Dutch/German Model, demand goes up, and the market adjusts to meet the demand.  Evidently, while men's demand for sex in general is typically quite inelastic, it appears that their demand for commercialized sex is far more elastic, at least for a significantly large subset that seems to be driving the market.  Based on the page of quotes from "johns", it seems that this subset consists of mainly narcissists who are buying sex in order to feed their own egos.  And when it becomes too costly or risky for them to do so, they simply don't do it anymore, or as much.  Even if some of the market remains relatively insensitive to price and risk, that seems to be true for a fairly large chunk of it.  (Caveat lector, though, as such statistics have been disputed.)

What about full decriminalization, then?  That is the model that groups like Amnesty International currently endorse, and its currently in effect in Denmark, New Zealand, and parts of Australia.  Though the data are a bit less clear, it seems that the effects can be similar to those of full legalization, though in some ways marginally better as regulation can indeed backfire on the sex workers.   Note again that full decriminalization also often decriminalizes the pimps and brothel owners too, so that might have something to do with its effects as well.  That said, when done properly, full decriminalization does seem to be, on balance, the least-worst choice overall.

Interestingly, a natural experiment in (partial) decriminalization was in fact conducted by accident in the state of Rhode Island from 2003-2009, when the courts discovered a big loophole in the law that had been in place since 1980.  Apparently, there was no law on the books that specifically prohibited the act of prostitution itself, as that law was inadvertently deleted in 1980.  Thus, indoor prostitution was effectively decriminalized for both the buyers and sellers from 2003 until 2009 when a new law was passed to close that loophole and re-criminalize both.  So what were the results of that natural experiment?  While the indoor prostitution market appears to have increased somewhat, most notably the rates of both rape and sexually transmitted diseases went down in Rhode Island during that time.  There was a 39% drop in gonorrhea rates and a 31% drop in the number of rapes reported to the police, which is a fairly large effect size.  As for trafficking, there was not enough data for the study to determine what effect, if any, the policy change actually had.  Overall, though, the Rhode Island model seems to have been an improvement over the status quo ante of full criminalization even if it wasn't perfect.

True, the sex industry is notorious for great evils, especially human trafficking.  No argument from me there.  But we need to get to the root causes of such evils--and those root causes are (surprise, surprise) capitalism and patriarchy.  From the desperation that Women and children are driven to as a result of such systems, to the fact that men dominate the industry (and world), these are the real issues, and the evils of the industry are simply symptoms of such wholesale and systemic evil.

In light of the above facts, I still prefer at least partial, if not full decriminalization as the least worst choice.  Ideally, the sex trade should be controlled entirely by Women, not men.  And what prevailed in Rhode Island from 2003-2009 indeed points us in that general direction.  However, at the same time I no longer oppose the Nordic Model being implemented in the USA either, as it is still a step up from the status quo--even if I don't agree with it entirely.  It seems any model is better than the status quo.

But back to the question in the title of this article:  the real question is, who has the power?  When men are in charge, the results can indeed be disastrous for Women.  But when Women are in charge, sex work can be a very good thing indeed. The patriarchy has always had a love-hate relationship with sex work due to its dual nature.  They want to use the sex trade to use, abuse, and control Women, but also fear the power that Women can gain from it too.

Regardless, there is ultimately only one solution, short of Women taking over--society must welcome sex workers of all varieties back into the fold unconditionally, and refrain from mistreating them in any way.  If you can't be nice to them, then leave them alone.  And it should go without saying that we must concretely address the adverse social and economic conditions that drive far too many into "the life" out of sheer desperation.  Anything less would be uncivilized.

2018 UPDATE:  A new study finds that legal prostitution zones in the Netherlands seem to reduce rape rather than increase it.  This dovetails quite nicely with what the aforementioned Rhode Islanders have already known.