The New York state legislature is debating between two bills that decriminalize sex work. The bills agree on the need to decriminalize sex workers but offer very different approaches for doing so.
- The Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act seeks to fully legalize the sex trade.
- The Sex Trade Survivors Justice and Equality Act, which is adapted from the Nordic model, would decriminalize sex workers while keeping in place laws penalizing pimps and clients.
Advocacy for full decriminalization has conjoined itself with vast, increasing leftwing support for police abolition. Leftwing and sex workers’ groups have embraced the abortion rights slogan “My body, my choice,” readapting it to sex workers’ freedom to do whatever they choose with their bodies. Under the slogan “Sex work is work,” the DSA considers full decriminalization as “a central fight for the labor movement and for socialist feminism”.
There are persuasive advantages to full decriminalization. Sex workers would be able to unionize. Third-party workers, like those operating phone lines or client screeners, could work without fear of being prosecuted as pimps, creating a safer workplace. An increased demand of buyers, once decriminalized, would give sex workers more bargaining power. A 2007 study in New Zealand has shown that after full decriminalization, almost 65% of sex workers found it easier to refuse clients, and 57% reported improved police attitudes towards sex workers.