Sanctioning Sex Work: Examining Generational Differences and Attitudinal Correlates in Policy Preferences for Legalization

ABSTRACT

Research on public perceptions of sex work in the United States (U.S.) has narrowly focused on street sex work, rather than including many other forms of sex work, such as sexual services provided online. With recent federal legislation aimed at addressing human trafficking (FOSTA-SESTA) facing criticism for harming sex workers, especially those who work in online spaces, examining policy preferences for a wide range of forms of sex work is necessary. Analyzing these preferences can help inform policy development that reflects the realities of sex work and protects sex workers’ physical and economic health. Using a web-based survey of U.S. adults (N = 549), policy preferences were examined for the legalization and regulation of sex work. Thirteen forms of sex work were included, varying along dimensions of contact, space (in-person vs virtual), and entrepreneurship. Using a one-way analysis of variance, we examined generational differences in these attributions and found important age-related differences in both policy preferences and the reasons why respondents thought sex work should be illegal. We also addressed previously unexamined attitudinal correlates of these policy preferences using multivariate regression. We found that policy preferences for the illegality of sex work were negatively associated with attitudes toward abortion and positively associated with perceptions of government legitimacy. The findings of this study suggest that there are nuances in public opinion of sex work that are not currently reflected in U.S. policy, with generational differences indicating a shift away from criminalization.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ There are many terms defined as the exchange of sex for money such as prostitution (Mancini et al., 2020), paid sex (McMillan et al., 2018), and transactional sex (Hansen & Johansson, 2023). The most common term coined by Carol Leigh (Leigh, 1997) – and the one most adopted by sociologists and policymakers – is “sex work.” To capture the full extent of sex work perceptions, we use Gerassi’s (2015) conceptualization of sex work, defined as “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation and can refer to direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation (p. 593).”

² For a comprehensive review of global sex work policies, see Vanwesenbeeck (2020) and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (https://www.nswp.org/sex-work-laws-map).

³ Sensitivity analyses were conducted using more nuanced operationalizations of political preference and the conclusions were not substantially different.