Quitting the Sex Trade: Keeping Narratives inside the Debates on Prostitution Policy and Legislation

Recently, the public heard intimate details of powerful men in the U.S. buying sex, e.g., the case of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft charged with soliciting prostitution, possibly from sex trafficking victims. These sex scandals sometimes raise questions about whether the sex worker is acting voluntarily, under pimp-control, or due to force, fraud or coercion. These scandals also generate conversations about how such cases are handled and how similar situations can be prevented. There are generally a few interrelated questions 1) is it voluntary? 2) how can supply and demand be reduced? 3) can policies or laws accomplish this by inciting buyers, sellers and sex market facilitators to quit? 4) what other factors will prompt these social actors to exit the market? All of the questions are important; however, the answers are generally interdependent.

Sex scandals, such as the one discussed, raise some awareness about social actors within the sex trade, but the public is not very informed about their perspectives. There are many policies and laws that try to encourage, incite or force sex workers or pimps to quit the sex trade. These policies and laws are rarely evidence-based. The perspectives of different social actors in the sex trade, particularly their reasons for slowing down or quitting, should be given more weight in the crafting of prostitution policy and legislation.

The anti-trafficking movement has gained momentum with some academics hoping to abolish prostitution because they view it as inherently coercive and inextricably linked to sex trafficking (see Farley, 2004; Hughes and de Compostela, 2004) to those with harm reduction perspectives to those who are critical of the reductive and harmful impact of the anti-trafficking movement (see Bernstein, 2012; Blanchette & Da Silva, 2012; Weitzer, 2007). Many prostitution policies are created to disrupt business to decrease its prevalence. Sweden crafted the Nordic Model in 1999, which is a legal policy where buying sex is criminalized, and sex work is decriminalized (Leander, 2005). This model does not account for sex workers’ voices (Jordan, 2012) and it pushes typical buyers out (Dodillet & Östergren, 2011). In Sweden, there are indications that sex workers face more danger because on the street their exchanges are rushed and the remaining street buyers are “crazy.” Alternatively, some rely on sex market facilitators in indoor brothels (Dodillet & Östergren, 2011) According to Skilbrie (2019), the Nordic Model is also geared towards changing the publics’ attitudes about masculinity and sexuality. In Sweden’s plight to change public opinion, sex workers are in harm’s way. Recently, the Nordic Model is spreading as it has been adopted by many other European countries, as well as Canada and Israel.

In 2018, the U.S. passed anti-trafficking legislation, that is, Fighting Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Senate bill, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) that target online sites where sex is sold, such as Backpage, by making these sites responsible if third parties post ads for prostitution, including consensual sex work. This legislation has adversely affected independent sex workers because it drives them to street-based work and it has given legitimacy to pimp-controlled sex work (Chamberlain, 2019). Prostitution policies geared towards curbing buyers or sex market facilitators or disrupting how buyers and sellers meet often produce ‘occupational risks’ or dangerous work conditions as discussed by Preble and Cimino (2019) in this special issue. These occupational risks may incite quitting for some, but at what cost to human life? These types of policies force sex workers to seek dangerous and possibly lethal alternative routes to labor, such as hiring a pimp or trafficker or accepting risky clients. Preble (2019) calls for more awareness of occupational risks that are physical, emotional or legal.

In the U.S., sex traffickers face lengthy sentences, from 15 to 25 years. However, we know that deterrence based on sentence length rarely reduces rates of illegal activities (Tonry, 2012), especially in illicit markets (Dorn & South, 1990). In the U.S., some states have adopted the Human Trafficking Initiative Courts (HTIC), where if victims of sex trafficking successfully quit, then prostitution charges and related charges are expunged. These problem-solving courts are well-meaning, but there are not quantitative studies showing that they work. In this special issue, Luminais & Lovell (2019) conduct qualitative research on a juvenile HTIC in Ohio, and they find that court staff discusses poor success rates and successive admissions. According to Luminais and Lovell (2019), the court’s idea of “success” should be re-assessed.

In some countries, such as New Zealand, legalizing prostitution has led to increased employment, health and safety rights for sex workers (Abel, Fitzgerald, Healy, & Taylor, 2010). In the U.S., sex work as a labor movement is gaining momentum. Some groups in the California sex trade, such as exotic dancers are debating whether they want to unionize. The regulation of indoor markets may not be the safe or correct solution (see Sanders, 2007). There is a drive to legalize voluntary sex work in the U.S. (aside from Nevada where it is already legal). Some researchers have found that legalizing prostitution increases sex trafficking (e.g., Cho, Dreher, & Neumayer, 2013) and others have fond that it reduces trafficking (Abel et al., 2010). Cunningham and Shah (2017) found during the decriminalization of prostitution in Rhode Island that there were overall reduced rates of sexual assault and sexually transmitted infections (STI’s). Several studies have found that decriminalizing sex work brings stability and safety to sex worker lives (e.g., Brents & Hausbeck, 2005; Harcourt et al., 2010).

Within academia, why sex workers quit has been documented by researchers, such as Baker, Dalla, and Williamson (2010) and Oselin (2014), but there have been only a few studies about domestic minor trafficking victims (e.g., Clawson & Goldblatt Grace, 2007) or pimps quitting the sex trade (i.e., Davis, 2017). There are many studies on the perspectives of minor sex trafficking victims (e.g., Dank, 2011; Horning, 2013; Marcus et al., 2014; Williamson & Prior, 2009) and a few about pimps (e.g., Dank et al., 2014; Horning, Thomas, Marcus, & Sriken, 2018; Stalans & Finn, 2016). The time frame or the historical moment and current legal/policy changes, e.g., the War on Drugs, the Crack era, or SESTA/FOSTA contextualize accounts of quitting. The context can influence individual reasons for quitting, such as detrimental changes in markets increasing occupational risks or increases in sentencing heightening fear of punishment, yet as illustrated in this special issue there are other crucial reasons. These reasons are individual, such as life course reasons and they often involve cognitive changes that are related to participants’ values or identities.

This special issue contains primarily qualitative studies where sex workers, domestically trafficked minors or pimps within the sex trade where interviewed. Generally, in studies about quitting, there are debates about who qualifies as a desister, with some researchers having rigid criteria, e.g., Farrington & Hawken, 1991) to some with less lengthy qualifications, e.g., Maruna, 2001. The earlier stages or states of quitting are just as relevant as stopping for more extended periods or “forever.” This special issue contains studies about those in the sex trade in various stages of quitting. Most of the studies do not profess to detail the accounts of desisters; however, many rely on desistance theories to explain quitting that may or may not be desistance. The more common type of quitter may not be committed to stopping and this can be explained by “drift” (Matza, 1964; 2018) or haphazardly moving in and out of crime or as part of “yo-yo-ing” (Oselin, 2014) or having the idea of returning to crime, or life-course or routine activities reasons, which are initially more external (Laub & Sampson, 1993; Sampson & Laub, 1993).

A few studies in this special issue address how shifts in the illicit marketplace, such as the Crack Era or the War on Drugs can incite people to temporarily or permanently quit or at the least it contextualizes quitters’ reasons for stopping. In Bachman and Kerrison’s study, The Recursive Relationship Between Substance Abuse, Prostitution, and Incarceration: Voices from a Long-Term Cohort of Women they analyze the narratives of drug-involved women who also worked as sex workers with a focus on this nexus of drugs and sex work. Their participants were released from prison in the 1990s and were re-interviewed in 2010/2011. They find support for Paternoster and Bushway’s ‘Identity Theory of Desistance’ where participants imagine a “feared” self who is often one who “ended up dead” and a viable “possible” self. Both exist in their quitting accounts. Overall, personal reasons that involve identity work mattered more to them. However, most of their participants entered the sex trade to support drug habits during the Crack Era. Due to stringent criminal justice policies during that iteration of the War on Drugs meant that they spent long stretches in prison. That Era shaped their “feared” selves and contextualizes perceptions of occupational risks and it also adversely influenced their experiences within the criminal justice system, which did not prompt their quitting.

In Cimino’s (2019) study, Uncovering Intentions to Exit Prostitution: Findings from a Qualitative Study, she also tests a process-oriented model of intentions to exit sex work called the Intention to Exit Prostitution (or Sex Work). The reasons include glamorization, risk-recognition attitudes, stigma from significant others, one’s own resilient self-efficacy beliefs, and agency. She finds that participants’ weigh the risks and rewards and that quitting is a cumulative process. Cimino also finds support for the “Identity Theory of Desistance” because those who could not imagine a feared self with a dangerous fate persist.

Occupational hazards increase or decrease depending upon changes in open air illicit markets (Curtis and Wendel, 2007) with heightened danger in drug markets spilling over into sex markets. In Preble and Cimino (2019) study, “It’s Like Being an Electrician, You’re Gonna Got Shocked”: Differences in the Perceived Risks of Indoor and Outdoor Sex Work and its Impact on Exiting, she explores how perceptions of risk vary depending upon whether sex workers’ labor indoors or outdoors. Occupational risks increased during the Crack Era, and this influenced their decisions to exit. Horning, Thompson and Thomas’s study Harlem Pimps’ Reflections on Quitting: External and Internal Reasons analyzes 43 ex-pimps’ accounts, also finding that those who worked during the Crack Era feared the violence and volatility of that illicit marketplace. They express great concern about what could happen to them and their workers. Additionally, ex-pimps in their sample had a lot of trouble managing workers who were using crack.

Despite increases in U.S. sex trafficking sentences and law enforcement’s crackdown on prostitution, fear of punishment or prison are not principal reasons for pimps’ quitting in these samples. Horning, Thompson, and Thomas (2019) find that some younger ex-pimps fear sex trafficking sentences because they tend to work with women in their age bracket, including those under eighteen (also see Horning, 2013). Stalans and Finn’s (2019) study, Self-Narratives of Persistent Pimps and Those Anticipating Desistance: Emotions, Conventional Work, and Moral Profitability Calculus, show that persisters continue to do legitimate work to avoid arrest. They safeguard the risk of arrest and punishment as opposed to quitting the sex trade.

Luminais and Lovell’s study, A Safe Harbor is Temporary Shelter, Not a Pathway Forward: How Court-Mandated Sex Trafficking Intervention Fails to Help Girls Quit the Sex Trade, explores the Human Trafficking Intervention Court (HTIC) for juveniles in the State of Ohio. Most strikingly, these researchers are unable to get many young people to participate in the study. They speculate that many did not identify as trafficking victims or the program did not resonate with them. This problem-solving court that is supposed to be victim-forward has only a handful of graduation parties thrown by court staff for minors who finish the program. This type of court may not be the best solution for these young people who may not identify with the trafficking victim label, and who may feel stigmatized by it.

This special issue includes two studies about pimps quitting the sex trade. These studies document the gamut of quitting from those only considering quitting (Stalans and Finn, 2019) to those who have stopped for a long time, but who have never entirely given up the pimp identity (Horning et al., 2019). In Horning at al. (2019), they found that most ex-pimps accounts are interdiscursive and can include external, e.g., occupational, environmental or policy reasons and life course, and internal, e.g., moral reasons for quitting. Stalans and Finn interview 49 active pimps or drivers managing sex workers and ask them questions about why they persist and discuss anticipated desistance. Those with “double lives” discuss work as financial security and enhanced social identity, whereas the persisters value legitimate work as a strategy to avoid arrest. These typical “hooks for change” incite staying or quitting depending on social relationships and contexts. It is moral and emotional dilemmas in line with McAdams (2013) that prompt thoughts of quitting. Davis (2017) applies how ex-pimps never fully leave the “pimp” mindset. In part, this is due to pimping being a high-point and a glamorized part of their lives, which is a well-documented pull (Dank et al., 2014; Davis, 2017; Horning et al., 2018) and this is reflected in Horning et al.’s article where the “bad ass” me theme or the theme where pimps reflect on pimping as their “golden years” or as “high status” is prevalent in the majority of accounts.

In this special issue, the themes that are similar across studies are risk and stigma. The theme of risk is not a surprise because many of these samples are lower-echelon social actors who were involved in street-based work. Another recurrent theme is stigma related to worrying about family members, especially children knowing how they make money and judging them. On the flipside of stigma, some of these participants stay for the glamor and money or reminisce about it, though this is primarily evident with ex-pimps. Across studies, participants’ reasons for quitting are cumulative, that is they often involved a series of external, life course or internal reasons and they tend to be interdiscursive with multiple themes present in single accounts.

Policies and laws that aim at decreasing the sex trade should take into account social actors’ perspectives within the sex trade. Overwhelmingly, these participants do not stop primarily due to changes in policy or law. Some participants quit due to occupational hazards created due to changes in illicit markets that draw other members of the sex trade into more dangerous or even lethal situations. Creating dangerous and uninhabitable markets is never a viable policy angle. Accounts from the participants in this special issue contain many personal reasons for quitting, such as life course changes, e.g., having a child or internal reasons related to cumulative dissatisfaction with that lifestyle. Many of the life course or internal changes require cognitive and identity work where participants grapple with processing new ways of feeling and being. Any policy or legal system attempting to curb social actors’ participation in the sex trade needs to focus on the quality of the participants’ self-described changes and the long-term processes of quitting rather than on creating dangerous, punitive or stigmatizing approaches.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.