The Blowfish Blog

[The Pro Circuit] Prostitution and Paranoia

Prostitution scandals have been in the news a lot lately. This past week the scandalscape took an even more tragic turn than usual with the apparent suicide of Deborah Jeanne Palfrey, the alleged D.C. Madam, who published her client list in 20 compressed files of phone records on deborahjeanpalfrey.com, which now returns a 404 error, as if in an unintentionally eerie comment.

Sex worker advocacy group Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK) drew a broader societal message from Ms. Palfrey’s death, publishing a press statement that said “We—prostitutes, strippers, pro-dommes, porn stars, sex experts, and allies—extend our sympathies to all of those hurt by this most recent chapter of the ‘Pink Scare,’ in which oppressive legislation and social stigma partner to generate hysteria around what, for us, can prove to be simply a decent way to make a living.”

But the “Pink Scare” that SWANK refers to is part of a larger paranoia about sex, especially the commerce in sex, that is nothing new. To hear SWANK tell it, “From New York to California, daily reports of Pink Scare-fueled police busts, e-stings and raids, even at legal venues like strip clubs and dungeons, have reached a fever pitch.” Whether or not that’s true, the comments are a look into the kind of legal and social paranoia that sex workers have to operate under every day. With the exception of porn actors—who just about never get busted, though they have other troubles—all sex workers have to worry about the law on some level. Strippers can and do get busted for doing a little too much during a private dance; professional dominants sometimes get arrested for running a house of ill repute even if they don’t provide, or might not provide, “sex” by most peoples’ definition. What’s more, video and novelty stores in many jurisdictions could get cited for zoning violations, obscenity and more. Then there are the street prostitutes, who account for the vast majority of sex work busts—they’re pretty nervous about the cops, I understand.

The number of busts is relatively small compared to the number of transactions. However many sex workers get busted, thousands more feel that nervous anxiety that goes with doing something legal and popular—or not so legal, or maybe borderline illegal, or definitely illegal—and potentially prosecutable and definitely embarrassing. And I would submit that almost none of them feels the anxiety as acutely as the callgirl, because the callgirl by her very nature must walk in the middle and upper classes. She’s the sex worker who engages in the most clearly illegal activity, but must appear not to be doing so, or she loses her ability to work. She’s usually not full-time; she has another job, making it even more important that she maintains her middle-class status—to lose it by getting busted means a fine and jail time, but it also means exposure in an even more destructive way. Rebecca Dickinson, one of Palfrey’s employees who testified against her, is a perfect example—a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, she faces administrative punishment up to and including dishonorable discharge because of her work for Palfrey. Many thousands of other callgirls face similar repercussions of varying extremity if they’re busted—or even if they’re not busted. Blogger and sex worker Debauchette, interviewed about the Eliot Spitzer scandal in silhouette on TV, was recognized by her Mom—bad news. It’s a rare sex worker who wants to have that conversation with her or his mother.

In short, it’s no wonder sex workers tend to worry about their social and physical well-being. That might be why, as observed by Patrick J. Lyons blogging at The Lede in The New York Times:

All over the Internet, from reader comments on The Lede to the far misty corners of conspiracy-theory land, hardly anyone seems inclined to accept the initial police judgment that Ms. Palfrey simply committed suicide. A quick search turns up scores of variations on the same theme: She knew too much about too many powerful men, so it must have been murder.

According to infowars.com, as far back as 1991 Palfrey was sure her suicide would be faked:

“If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized,” she wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial, “Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me,” said Palfrey in a handwritten letter to the judge accusing the San Diego police vice squad of having a vendetta against her.

Does that mean Palfrey didn’t kill herself? I have no idea, but the prospect of prison doesn’t sit well with anyone. The callgirl keeps the secrets of the rich and middle-class, and scandal of varying proportions awaits every callgirl who is busted and almost every callgirl who is outed. If Palfrey was murdered because she “knew too much,” it’s a shocking crime. But if she killed herself, it’s still a crime—albeit a crime of a system that outlaws, persecutes and prosecutes sex workers while the same men that make those laws patronize them. It speaks to a wider culture in which sex is so shameful that it must be outlawed—and wanting sex is so shameful that it must be sequestered, so it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal, because otherwise law-abiding citizens will break that law.

The whole thing shows not only contempt for sex and therefore a contempt for sex workers, but also tragic disrespect for human nature and for the function of law.

It builds a society that’s crazymaking—but I guess that’s not news to anyone.

Thomas Roche is the PR Manager at Kink.com, an educator at San Francisco Sex Information and has written or edited ten books under his own name plus a bunch more under pseudonym. He can be found at thomasroche.com.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, 6 May 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Industry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.