June 22, 2009
Melissa Farley
Excerpts from Indoor versus Outdoor Prostitution

“Nobody really wants to be sold,” a woman in a Nevada legal brothel explained to me. Even if you know that simple fact -- that prostitution is an abusive institution for any human -- maybe you still think it can be made not so bad. Maybe you think that if prostitution happens under a roof, it is better than outside on the street.

Actually, the human rights abuses of prostitution lie in the violative, exploitive nature of the sex industry, not in where it happens. Debating whether indoor prostitution should be legal is missing the point....

Current Rhode Island law is out of step with volumes of evidence that prostitution arises from adverse social conditions including sexual abuse in childhood, often desperate poverty, homelessness, racism, sex discrimination in employment and sex-based lack of educational and economic opportunities, disability, and a culture that increasingly commodifies girls. Those in the industry are subjected to breathtaking rates of battering, rape, and forced drug addiction, along with plummeting life expectancy. Wherever prostitution happens, it harms the women in it. When asked what they most want, an average of 90% worldwide say they want to leave prostitution. Leaving johns and pimps free of criminal sanctions amounts to open season on women and children. What does legal tolerance of such a cruel institution say about the citizens of Rhode Island?
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