There may be truth to the clich "sex sells," but when it comes to the sale of sex, everyone pays.
This is the central argument by both opponents and supporters of Proposition K, which would make San Francisco the first U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution.
Many sex workers say there's a cost to their line of work that goes beyond dollars and cents: Routinely exposing themselves to dangerous, sometimes violent situations, prostitutes are unable to seek the protection of the law without simultaneously exposing themselves to prosecution.
"What a horrible thing it is that sex workers are sitting ducks," said Carol Leigh, aka Scarlot Harlot, a mostly retired prostitute in her late 50s and founder of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network.
Leigh, who was raped during a stint at an area brothel massage parlor almost 30 years ago, said she felt she couldn't report it to police because sex workers had no recourse for security, and that little has changed between then and now.
Yet the proposition's critics warn decriminalization of sex work could come at too high a price. Beyond the day-to-day protection of sex workers, they say it would draw pimps and traffickers to San Francisco like moths to a flame.
"I don't see any good coming from a law, which, if passed, would codify the exploitation of women and create a greater demand for human-trafficking victims," said Sharmin Eshraghi Bock, an Alameda County deputy district Advertisementattorney who heads the Human Exploitation and Trafficking unit.
If Proposition K passes, Bock said she fears it will thwart prosecution of pimps and traffickers in Alameda County and other neighboring areas.
Not only would the proposition decriminalize prostitution, it would also prohibit law enforcement agencies from applying for or receiving federal and state money for programs that require compilation of racial information, a commonly used tactic in investigating human trafficking. These funds — more than $11 million, the city Budget Analyst's Office estimates — would be reallocated to programs that aim to reduce violence and discrimination against sex workers, under the proposal.
The proposition would stop enforcement of all prostitution laws. It would also block funding for the First Offender Prostitution Program, a diversionary program for men who are arrested for soliciting prostitutes. Men pay $1,000 to attend the one-day "John School," which is split between the district attorney's office, police department, and nonprofit Standing Against Global Exploitation.
But while Proposition K has received keystone endorsements from political groups such as the California Democratic Central Committee and Harvey Milk Democratic Club, contention is coming from high places.
San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, Mayor Gavin Newsom and several members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors oppose the measure, echoing the opinion that decriminalization would be a Pandora's box the city should resist opening.
"This ballot measure reflects the myth that prostitution is a victimless crime. But the reality is this is a billion-dollar international industry of commercial sexual exploitation and child molestation," Harris said. "If passed, the measure would severely hamper the city's ability to investigate and prosecute human-trafficking cases."
City officials fear San Francisco will become a haven for human traffickers because of the provision that would prevent investigations based on racial profiling.
But the measure's proponents hope the proposal would create an even playing field for sex workers, who often say they are targeted by police based on their race, particularly Asians.
"Things that have to do with coercion, force, violence — that includes trafficking — those things aren't being made legal," said Carol Queen, founder of San Francisco's Center for Sex and Culture, where "Yes on K" held a fundraiser Sept. 19.
The proposition was petitioned onto the ballot with 12,000 signatures gathered by area sex workers and members of the Erotic Service Providers Union and Industrial Workers of the World, an international union that aims to unify all laborers regardless of trade.
Slava Osowka, an Industrial Workers of the World member who is not a sex worker, collected about a third of the signatures on the petition. From his standpoint, decriminalizing prostitution would let sex workers unionize and organize to improve their working conditions.
This is the second attempt to get a decriminalization measure on the ballot in San Francisco. A similar effort failed two years ago, but Nov. 4 won't be the first time a Bay Area city weighs in on this issue at the polls.
Berkeley residents voted down a similar item in 2004. Dubbed "Angel's Initiative," the measure, which only garnered 37 percent of the vote, was named after Angel Lopez, a transgender prostitute from San Francisco who was killed in 1993.
San Francisco's prostitution reform initiative reaches further than Berkeley's. In addition to ending enforcement of prostitution laws, it prevents the police and district attorney from using racial profiling to investigate human trafficking. This mandate has been deemed unrealistic by the legislation's critics.
Melissa Farley, executive director of Prostitution Research and Education, based in San Francisco, actively campaigned against the Berkeley measure four years ago and is now a driving force behind "No on K."
Farley, a psychologist, said the proposition's ban on collecting racial data would severely limit the city's ability to provide culturally targeted outreach to sex workers, most of whom, she said, have succumbed to prostitution out of financial need rather than choice.
Lisa Roellig, 44, of Alameda, is a former prostitute who started working on the streets at 17 and stayed there for more than 20 years, said even though she wanted to work a straight job, she wouldn't have earned enough to support her three children. Roellig is now actively involved with the Erotic Service Provider's Union in San Francisco.
Queen, who holds a doctorate in education in human sexuality, doesn't see the measure as a welcome mat for a bigger sex industry.
"There's not going to be any more sex work here than the market will bear," she said. "And most of us around here are not clear that the market will bear a whole lot more than there is now."
Queen estimates that only 10 percent of the city's prostitutes are on the street, and the majority of the rest work indoors or on the Internet. However, measuring an underground population has many obstacles.
The St. James Infirmary, a free, peer-run sex worker clinic in San Francisco, found that 70 percent of sex workers have not disclosed their job to doctors or clinicians.
"Sex workers know how to keep themselves healthy," said Wendy Vinaigrette, the clinic's outreach coordinator. "But a lot of times the fact that they are criminalized prevents them from being able to protect themselves."
Roellig is outraged sex workers don't have access to police and other services, and that's what drives her support.
"If decriminalization comes tomorrow, I don't think it's totally going to reverse the stigma against us, but it's a step forward in the right direction," she said. "It's going to make women more likely, I believe, to report crimes against them."
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