Mixtapes for Hookers

Why Rhode Island Prostitutes Maybe Aren’t Speaking Out

Audacia Ray and Eliyanna Kaiser of Sex Work Awareness co-wrote an interesting article about Rhode Island the other day. Not about the prostitution law itself, but about the way advocates on both sides of the issue have been handling the discussion.  Ray and Kaiser are concerned–probably rightfully–that people’s strong personal feelings are derailing the effectiveness of any discussion that might happen. More importantly, they stress–and this is really important–that pretty much the only group that hasn’t come forward with an opinion are the state’s sex workers themselves.  And while some anti-prostitution advocates might argue that the lack of support from within Rhode Island is in and of itself a sign that prostitutes are all oppressed victims of trafficking, that is far, far from the truth.

Because one thing about Rhode Island that can’t be stressed enough is that it’s small.  Very small, both physically and culturally.  And people know each other.  For instance, when I posted on another blog about a reporter’s unnecessarily damaging publication of personal information about an assaulted prostitute, I was reprimanded the following day by one of my co-bloggers, who happened to be a close friend of the reporter.  Everyone knows everyone here, it’s a simple fact of life.

This can make sexual encounters–those involving money or otherwise–a challenge.  It’s genuinely frustrating when, say, a new pizza place opens up down the street and you realize it’s owned by the terrible blowjob-giver you had nicknamed Mr. Chompers.  Or when you go home with someone one night, only to find out too late that they’re married to someone you know.  It’s annoying, and annoying to deal with, and it happens a lot.  And it’s only worse for escorts, who sometimes see their clients at bars, on the street, or (for part-time sex workers) at their day jobs.  And it does happen.  An escort friend of mine once asked me for directions to her appointment, whereupon I realized her client was someone we already both knew pretty well.

Personally, I’m in kind of an odd position here.  On the one hand, I think it is desperately important that local sex workers should make their voices heard.  On the other hand, I doubt I’d be able to myself.  I have a boyfriend, and because he’s extremely sociable and successful we’re both pretty well-known around town; I wouldn’t want anything I said publicly to affect his career, or our relationship.  Plus I’m job-hunting right now, and with the state’s massively high unemployment rate I don’t want a bad reputation to ruin my chances of getting work.  Not to mention that my parents live about five minutes away from me, and 90% of my tight-knit extended Italian Catholic family is local, too.  I can’t even comment on the prostitution-related news links I post to Facebook without having to consider whether the info is appropriate for my mother and my teenaged cousins to see.

Other sex workers I have known have been in similar situations.  Family obligations are often a priority, and so are future career prospects; a majority of the escorts I’ve known over the years have been Brown and RISD students, earning money now to avoid a lifetime of student loan debt later.  None of these men and women were coerced into it and all of them liked it, to the extent that most people like their jobs, but none of them are now in a position to say that to state legislators or the media.  And while I realize that my own social circle–urban, educated, largely white and largely queer–does not represent the whole of sex workers, I strongly doubt that most other Rhode Islanders feel much differently.

But I do wish that someone would say something.  Just as I wish that at least one Rhode Island-based academic had signed the letter written by Elizabeth Wood and Ronald Weitzel.  Because, as Ray and Kaiser point out in their article, legislators listen to their constituents.  And while maybe it’s a little bit harsh to say that they only listen to their constituents, an eerie silence from within certainly doesn’t help the case for continued decriminalization.

Sadly, this is something the zealous anti-prostitution advocates have picked up on.  When my call for the Mixtapes For Hookers anniversary party was mentioned in a Citizens Against Trafficking newsletter, author Donna Hughes remarked that she didn’t even know that Rhode Island was the center of a national sex work debate.  And while her unsourced, fear-mongering accusations are easy–sometimes too easy–to mock, she sort of almost has a point.*  While lots of people on the street are talking about prostitution these days–and, incidentally, about two-thirds of them are against changing the current law–there has been virtually no response from sex workers themselves.

*I mean, she doesn’t have a point.  If she doesn’t think there’s a debate happening around this issue then I’d like her to explain why she spends all day writing editorials about it.

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