Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business
Read Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business Online
Authors: Ronald Weitzer
Tags: #Itzy, #kickass.to
Legalizing Prostitution
From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business
Ronald Weitzer
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2012 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
All photos are the author’s unless otherwise indicated.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weitzer, Ronald
Legalizing prostitution : from illicit vice to lawful business/Ronald Weitzer.
p. cm.
ISBN 978–0–8147–9463–0 (hardback : acid-free paper)
ISBN 978–0–8147–8463–1 (ebook)
ISBN 978–0–8147–7054–2 (ebook)
1. Prostitution—United States. 2. Prostitution—Law and legislation.
3. Prostitution—Netherlands—Case studies. 4. Prostitution—Belgium—
Case studies. 5. Prostitution—Germany—Case studies. I. Title.
HQ144.W447 2011
306.74′209051—dc23 2011028190
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
2 Indoor Prostitution: What Makes It Special?
PART II
POLICIES
:
AMERICA
AND
BEYOND
3 American Policies and Trends
4 Legal Prostitution: A New Frontier
PART III
CASE
STUDIES
:
THREE RED-LIGHT CITIES
TABLES
1.1. Selected types of prostitution
2.1. Victimization rates, street and indoor prostitutes
3.1. Attitudes toward prostitution policies, United States
4.1. Attitudes toward legalization of prostitution, selected nations
4.2. Attitudes regarding acceptability of prostitution, selected nations
6.1. Code of conduct, Dutch police
FIGURES
5.2. Antwerp’s red-light district
5.4. Breite Gasse red-light district
5.5. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district
6.7. Singel red-light district
6.8. Ruysdaelkade red-light district
6.9. The Wallen red-light district
In recent years, America has witnessed major trends in the normalization of some types of vice or previously stigmatized behavior. Marijuana has been decriminalized in some places; gay rights are increasingly protected by the law; casino gambling and state-sponsored lotteries have become quite popular; and pornography, strip clubs, and other sexual entertainment have proliferated. Prostitution is a glaring exception to these trends, not only in the United States but in many other countries as well. The very notion of legal prostitution is alarming to many people; they simply cannot fathom it.
Yet in some nations, prostitution has been decriminalized and is regulated by the government. People who live outside these countries know very little about legal prostitution—what is permitted, how it is regulated, and what the effects of legalization are on those involved. Likewise, many Americans are unaware that prostitution is legal and regulated by local authorities in a number of counties in Nevada and that this legal order has existed for four decades, beginning in 1971. Americans might also be surprised to learn that, until recently, Rhode Island had no prostitution law on the books. The state controlled street prostitution with a loitering law, but indoor prostitution was not an offense and was freely carried out in the state’s many massage parlors and by escorts who worked either independently or for an agency. This situation ended in 2009 when the legislature voted to criminalize those who buy and sell sex as well as landlords who allow prostitution on their premises.
The Rhode Island and Nevada cases show that decriminalized prostitution is not a totally foreign idea in modern America. But there are several other countries where prostitution has been legalized as well, and I think that we can learn much from their experiences.
Legalizing Prostitution
sheds light on these systems, with a special focus on three cases—Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. The book is intended to help readers think outside the box, to consider alternatives that may be superior to the criminalization approach that reigns almost everywhere in the United
States and in many other nations as well. After describing key dimensions of prostitution, contrasting alternative theoretical perspectives, and considering a variety of policy issues in
chapters 1
–
4
, the book presents my research on the red-light landscapes in three cities: Antwerp, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.
Amsterdam hosts one of the most famous red-light districts in the world, so it is an obvious choice for investigating legal prostitution. But several other cities—including Bangkok, Brussels, Hamburg, The Hague, Singapore, Tokyo—also have well-established and officially tolerated red-light districts featuring a variety of sex businesses and attracting large numbers of customers. The three cities that I studied were selected because they share some basic features as well as differing in some intriguing respects. Antwerp, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam are major northern European cities hosting at least one geographically distinct red-light district that has existed for decades. The national contexts differ somewhat in their legal regimes—certain types of prostitution are de facto legal in parts of Belgium, whereas they are de jure legal in Germany and the Netherlands. They are regulated by the government in all three places, but the regulations differ across the settings. In addition, each city’s sexual geography differs in at least some respects from that of other cities. Each red-light district can be distinguished by its social organization—including the constellation of businesses (sex related and other) in the area, the district’s appearance and ambience, the location and visibility of sex workers, and the kinds of people who visit or work in the area. Each city also differs in the kinds of sex businesses that are located
outside
the parameters of the red-light district, in other parts of the city. In this book, a red-light district is defined as an area where sexually oriented businesses are clustered and does not include areas where prostitution is confined to street-level transactions.
Scholars are just beginning to draw connections between the social ecology of different red-light areas and the experiences and perceptions of workers, clients, residents, and visitors. These structural-experiential links are explored in the book with the help of ethnographic material on the three red-light landscapes. In addition, the social structure of a commercial sex district can have important public-policy implications. Different kinds of arrangements present unique challenges for authorities responsible for maintaining order and public safety; they affect workers and clients in different ways; they are more or less likely to generate complaints from local residents and merchants; and they influence whether the commercial sex sector will become politicized and perhaps subjected to greater restrictions. Comparative
analysis of different cases can help in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of various models and contribute to the larger enterprise of identifying best practices in the legal regulation of prostitution, a theme explored in the book’s conclusion.
I conducted countless hours of street observations in the three cities: photographing and mapping the configuration of businesses in each red-light area; recording observations of people on the street and their interactions with each other and with local sex workers; and talking with some workers in each setting. I conducted in-depth interviews with key players, including government officials, brothel and window owners, and sex worker advocates. The data are more extensive for Amsterdam and Frankfurt than for Antwerp, largely because Antwerp’s red-light district is small, fairly isolated, and single purpose, whereas the other two are major commercial sex emporiums and thus more complex and challenging study sites. I have studied Amsterdam (and other Dutch cities) for more than a decade, whereas my fieldwork in Antwerp and Frankfurt was more limited and more recent. My ethnographic data are presented in conjunction with information from other sources, including government documents, newspaper reports, scholarly articles, public opinion polls, and online discussion boards where clients converse about their experiences in and observations of the various red-light districts.
The field research would not have been possible without the assistance and insights of local experts and friends who have helped me tremendously over the years. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Sietske Altink, Frank Bovenkerk, Sander Flight, Juanita Henning, Lorraine Nencel, Joyce Outshoorn, Maurice Punch, Marieke van Doorninck, Jan Visser, Henk Wagenaar, Gerhard Walentowitz, and Hans Willems. These experts informed me about policy changes, shared their own research findings, and advised me on practical matters, such as whom to interview and how to gain access to them. I am extremely indebted to my interviewees in Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Frankfurt as well as the individuals in the sex industry who provided information but were not formally interviewed. Juanita Henning deserves special thanks, for helping me arrange and conduct interviews in Frankfurt. The Frankfurt data would have been very thin had it not been for her extraordinary help and insights. Additional help with the German situation was provided by Gerhard Walentowitz, who clarified many issues for me.
Shannon Dolan served as my research assistant during the final years of the project and deserves special thanks. Michael Goodyear, Christine Milrod, John Dombrink, Henk Wagenaar, Gerhard Walentowitz, Sander Flight,
Hans Willems, Sietske Altink, and Kathy Guidroz read various chapters and provided extremely valuable feedback, as did the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. Finally, my wonderful editor at NYU Press, Ilene Kalish, supported this project enthusiastically from the very beginning, and I am delighted that we had a chance to work together on the book.
Sex Work
Understanding Prostitution
It is taken for granted by most people that buying and selling sex is degrading, dishonorable, or despicable, and there is a deep-rooted belief that prostitution has always been and will forever remain taboo. Mention prostitution to someone and you will usually see them react with disgust, while any mention of legalizing prostitution is often met with laughter, incredulity, or shock. There is a widespread sense that prostitution simply cannot be taken seriously or ever achieve the status of other service occupations. Yet this folk wisdom is just that—a narrow, surface understanding that does not come close to recognizing the myriad dimensions of sex for sale, how it is experienced by workers and clients, and the value of considering policy alternatives “outside the box” of criminalization and marginalization.
There are many myths about prostitution—myths that shape both the popular imagination and public policies throughout the world. This chapter examines these myths, as well as the facts. I show that many popular assumptions about prostitutes, their clients, and their managers are either entirely fictional or valid for only a segment of the trade.
1
I begin by sketching the basic dimensions of the sex industry.