The Law’s Tougher on Sex Workers Today Than It Was in the 19th Century - Pacific Standard
We like to think that, over time, our laws become less prejudiced and discriminatory. Even Martin Luther King, not always an optimist, took an optimistic approach to the evolution of American law: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” he said in 1965. The 20th and 21st centuries, indeed, saw some major civil rights victories: It was in this period that women won the right to vote, the Jim Crow laws were eradicated, and marriage equality became a Constitutional right. The legal system hasn’t abolished prejudice exactly, but it has improved for some groups who were, not so long ago, marginalized by it.
For sex workers, however, the law hasn’t bent in the direction of greater equality. Over the last 150 years, rights for sex workers have in many ways diminished, according to West Virginia University journalism professor Alison Bass. In her book Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, released today, Bass surveys the history of laws regulating prostitution in America and abroad. In the past and today, Bass finds, sex workers have been marginalized by stigma that portrays them as immoral, dangerous, even diseased figures. But while the stigma hasn’t changed, the laws have—in many cases, from the point of view of the sex worker, for the worse. Law has gotten even tougher on sex workers than it was a century and a half ago.
It may come as a surprise that sex workers enjoyed more rights in Victorian-era America than they do now, post-sexual revolution. But smaller government, and a very limited number of women in frontier towns, contributed to a less restrictive legal environment in the 19th century, especially in the West, Bass says. “In many cities, sex work was legal in certain districts—that’s what led to the storied red light districts,” Bass says. “In New Orleans and Denver and San Francisco, and in other cities in the Midwest, it was actually legal to have brothels.” Other cities, such as New York, technically had laws against prostitution; police, however, tended to accept bribes to look the other way.
…
The semi-legality of sex work—and the lax execution of the laws that were in place—didn’t make prostitution any easier in the 19th century than it is today. Women still faced violence from clients and the threat of venereal diseases. Nevertheless, prostitution was one of the few professions open to female entrepreneurs. “There wasn’t a lot of things that single women could do in the 19th century,” Bass says. “There was also a dearth of women in the mining economies of the American West. So a good-looking smart woman could set herself up and do decently.” A self-employed sex worker could also make a pretty decent living: In a Renegade History of the United States, Occidental College history professor Thaddeus Russell writes, “Prostitutes made, by far, the highest wages of all American women.” In the West, brothel owners (colloquially known as “madams”) were accepted as part of the community—according to both Russell and Bass, many had good relationships with law enforcement, and even hired police officers for protection.
More: The Law’s Tougher on Sex Workers Today Than It Was in the 19th Century - Pacific Standard