Should Prostitution Be Decriminalized?

A WOMAN I know was arrested on her birthday for the crime of solicitation for prostitution—agreeing to a sex act for money. She spent 18 days in jail, enough time for a brutal detox from the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Tara (name changed to protect her identity) is not an empowered sex worker, at least not in the way that sex worker rights activists would like to describe her in their vehemence against her arrest. Nor does Tara identify as a sex trafficking “victim” or “survivor.” She would tell you that she chose the street life and all that comes with it.

Though I am constantly learning from my friends in the sex trade, here is what I understand after spending 10 years with this population:

1. There is no one-size-fits-all term claimed by those in the sex trade. Victim. Survivor. Whore. Prostitute. Sex Worker. Streetwalker. A sex worker can be female, male, nonbinary, or transgender. Words matter, of course. But let’s not be so married to our preferred label that we fail to be curious about someone’s story.

2. Local governments should decriminalize crimes of poverty, including sex work. About one million people in this country are incarcerated for offenses indirectly related to their poverty (for example, low-level drug offenses, property crimes, homelessness, and prostitution). About half a million are imprisoned because they cannot pay for their own release. Our political economy is built on extracting from the poor what little wealth they have. That’s no different than what happens in the sex trade. Decriminalization refers to the removal of all criminal and administrative prohibitions and penalties on sex work. Even where sex work is decriminalized, the prostitution of minors and human trafficking can and should remain criminal acts.

3. Sex workers have autonomy and can make choices—but those choices are severely limited by their material conditions. The complexity here is that people are agents who make the best choices about their lives that they can, and many marginalized people simply don’t have as many choices as the more privileged. So much debate exists around the role of choice in the sex trade—sex worker rights’ activists wanting to emphasize agency and choice, and radical feminist communities wanting to emphasize the lack of choices and coercion into the sex trade. I advocate a nuanced view that honors and respects individual choice while working to change the material conditions that often keep those choices limited. Any person deprived of secure housing, sufficient income, and robust communal solidarity may turn to sex work as a means of survival. As one former sex worker stated, “Fight the industry, support the worker.”

4. Buyers of sex also reveal something of the image of God. This is something I’ve learned mostly from my friends who are in or who have exited the sex trade. Many who want to “fight human trafficking” do so by focusing on “ending demand” and demonizing those who buy sex. This is not what sex workers are asking us to do. What I have heard instead is a call for greater compassion for those who buy sex. The sex workers I have spoken to seem more adept at seeing their shared humanity with the men who buy sex—men who may not be living with the same limited choices but are, somehow, made of the same stuff. The buyers of sex are fully human. Restorative justice demands that they too be brought into the fold of equitable community.

Feminist liberation theologian Thia Cooper writes: “Jesus Christ is in the ‘other’ with whom I deal, whether I am a buyer, seller or manager of sex. Jesus is a poor prostitute trying to put food on the table for her children. ... The question is often asked ‘what would Jesus do?’ I would argue a more important question is ‘how would I treat Jesus?’”

I imagine a world where those involved in the sex trade not only know where to go to get help, but they know of their tangible inclusion in the beloved community. They have many needs, and they are desperately needed. This is what solidarity looks like.

I run Sanctuary Night drop-in center in Columbus, Ohio, where we provide a safe space for vulnerable women. Not long ago, two women showed up just as we were about to close. One was desperately hungry—and we were out of food for the night. The people around started searching for food. The second woman looked at her friend and said, “When have you asked for food, and I have not fed you?” (See Luke 11:9-13.)

Standing there on Sullivant Avenue in Columbus, I heard the voice of Jesus from the mouth of a sex worker: “Ask, and it shall be given to you.” Mutual need; mutual belovedness.