Surveillance had been a fact of life for sex workers wherever they have faced prohibition. Only two elements, communication and association, can differentiate between commercial and personal sex, criminal enforcement of prostitution laws have necessarily meant targeting the speech and affiliation of perceived sex workers. Enforcement of this nature is facilitated by profiling, institutional bias, and broad overreaching policies that fundamentally violate individual human rights. This has included condoms as evidence, non-consensual medical screenings, and targeted harassment of black transgender women as well as license plate recording projects and stings that focus disrupting immigration or migrant workers.
For all of its risks, screening potential clients is safer over email than it is in person during a street based negotiation often in an isolated part of town. SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) comes at a time when compelling research demonstrates that Craigslist resulted in a 17% drop in the female homicide rate. SESTA will also put victims at risk by delaying their identification and recovery by eliminating a digital paper trail. Additionally, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a vital protection for a free internet. Subverting SESTA will create greater economic disparity between sex workers and ultimately empower pimps and agencies over independent providers.
Maggie Mayhem is a sex worker, birth worker, and death worker from San Francisco, CA. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Sex Worker Outreach Project-USA and founded the health, hygiene, and harm reduction project HarmReduxSF. She has been involved in public health since 2003 and is an international advocate for sex worker rights and reproductive justice. She has spoken about sexual biometrics at SxSW; debated pornography at Yale with Gail Dines; shared the history of pre-WWII porn at the University of Toronto; was artist-in-residence at the Museumsquartier in Vienna; talked about developing sex worker centered policy at DymaxiCon in Helsinki; presented her crack pipe distribution project at the Harm Reduction Coalition conference; shared statistics and research on sex workers and violence at the University of Winchester; and examined public mourning in human rights activism at the University of Southampton. Her independent adult website MeetTheMayhems was the recipient of a feminist porn award. @MsMaggieMayhem // Insta @MaggieMayhem // Web MaggieMayhem.Com //