Behind Closed Doors: An Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in New York City

Urban Justice Center 666 Broadway, 10th floor, New York, NY 10012 Tel: (646) 602-5617 - Fax: (212) 533-4598

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:	Contact:	Juhu Thukral (646) 602-5690 jthukral@urbanjustice.org
Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Juhu Thukral (646) 602-5690 jthukral@urbanjustice.org Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Indoor Sex Workers Are Isolated and Fear Violence
Urban Justice Center Interviews U.S.-Born and Immigrant Sex Workers About Police Contacts

(New York City, March 30, 2005) - The Sex Workers Project (SWP) of the Urban Justice Center (UJC) has released the first-ever in-depth report in the U.S. examining indoor sex work. Behind Closed Doors: An Analysis of Indoor Sex Work in New York City, released today, includes interviews with sex workers who work independently or for brothels, escort agencies, dungeons, and private clubs. The report highlights the extreme violence that sex workers experience from customers, and the dangerous effects of isolation and stigma.

According to the report, 46% of sex workers experienced violence in the course of their work, and 42% had been threatened or beaten for being a sex worker. Additionally, 14% reported violence at the hands of the police, and 16% encountered sexual situations with the police. Sara, a respondent in the report, describes a client "who came in and had a knife ... I was cornered and I was about to be attacked and raped ... I didn't go to the police because it would be coming out about what I've been doing." "Many people are unsympathetic to prostitutes," says Juhu Thukral, Director of the SWP, "however, this level of violence is unacceptable, even if they are engaging in unlawful activity."

Leticia, another respondent, adds, "Just find a way to help us with the police ... we need somebody to protect us when we get beat up. Around here, they don't arrest you, they just mess with you like they own you."

Eight percent of the report's respondents were trafficked into the country for prostitution. The trafficked women told of being threatened, beaten, raped, and having their money withheld by the traffickers. The respondents were ethnically diverse and included women, transgender women, and men. Sex workers interviewed ranged in age from 19 to 54. Forty percent were born outside the U.S. and its territories.

Shockingly, 67% of respondents got involved with sex work because they were unable to find other work which provided a living wage. Previous jobs included waitressing, retail, and domestic work. Immigrants without work permits saw sex work as their best economically viable option. The unlawful nature of most sex work often results in extreme isolation, which serves as a barrier to accessing legal, financial, educational, and other necessary services. Prostitutes explained that they feared arrest and its consequences, and expressed a need for peer support and substantive services.

New York City's quality of life initiatives have always caught prostitutes in their net. However, Thukral stresses that "these police operations result in arrests that destabilize the lives of many sex workers who are members of the working poor, and jeopardize other legal employment." "This activity comes at an extremely high cost to the public, and is a waste of valuable public resources," added Melissa Ditmore, a co-author of the report. "Stringent policing creates an environment of fear and isolation that prevents sex workers from coming forward when they are victims of violence and other crimes."

Thukral aims to have the City do two things: ensure that all violence against sex workers is taken seriously by law enforcement authorities; and offer in-depth and appropriate services that lead to long-term solutions. "There is clearly a need for a fact-based public discussion around the problems of police and violence that include the voices of sex workers themselves in order to effectively and productively address the needs of sex workers and the community's concerns."

The full report can be found at http://www.sexworkersproject.org/ or http://www.urbanjustice.org/.

January Seraph Discusses Adult Performers Association

LOS ANGELES — January Seraph, co-founder of the newly formed Adult Performers Association (APA), tells XBIZ that the organization has received a “really warm” reception in its first full week.

“We’ve been getting five to 10 emails a day with people wanting to be involved and to be kept abreast of the things we’re doing,” Seraph said.

A six-year industry veteran performer, producer and webmaster, Seraph started APA with producer/director Nica Noelle in an effort to provide assistance and resources to the adult talent community.

The Bay Area-native said she reconnected with Noelle through Twitter after realizing she was “talking about a lot of the same things that I was.”

“I’ve been joining in the discussion off and on for the last two years but I didn’t feel there was anybody committed to it,” Seraph said. “Nica was all about it though, so we compared ideas and we were pretty much on the same page with our core values.”

Seraph had already been privately compiling a list of “adult performer friendly” resources for some time. But as her concerns grew during the past two HIV scares and the problems caused by the rogue site Porn WikiLeaks, she was moved to act.

“I had the intention of starting a resource site about three years ago,” Seraph said. “I kept hearing stories about other women and the problems they’ve been facing. So we thought this was a really good time to start something like this. I feel that adult performers aren’t represented enough and I think there is a need for it.”

Seraph explained the APA is primarily about “harm reduction” and providing good information.

“We wanted to start something without causing more hatred, without looking like a labor union,” she continued. “We wanted to start just a supportive organization that assists you in how to get into adult, how to get through adult and how to segue out of it when the time comes.”

The APA Contact Form (AdultPerformers.org/contact) is discreet — it asks only for name/email/subject/message — so talent does not have to worry about possible “bullying,” Seraph noted.

She added that APA would soon be launching a KickStarter account to begin developing some educational videos targeting individuals who are thinking about entering adult and exiting the industry.

“It’s really exciting,” Seraph said. “We’ve had a lot of positive feedback.”

For more information about the launch, click here.

Judge Dismisses Sex Trafficking Suit Against Backpage.com

MISSOURI—U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas C. Mummert has dismissed a lawsuit brought against Village Voice Media in Sept. 2010 by an unnamed 15-year-old girl who was a victim of sex trafficking through the company's Backpage.com online classified website when she was 14 years old. The woman who pimped the minor out on the site, Latasha Jewell McFarland, pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in December and was sentenced to five years in prison.

The victim held Backpage.com responsible as well, alleging in a four-page complaint that it “had knowledge that: explicit sexual photographs were being posted on its website; that postings on their website were advertisements for prostitution services; that minors were included in these postings for prostitution on its website; that sex trafficking of minors was prolific in the United States of America; and that the internet including their service was being used to advertise illegal sexual services, including child exploitation.” The minor sought $150,000 per alleged violation.

In his dismissal, however, Mummert found that Backpage.com, as an “interactive computer service,” is immune under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for content posted to its site by third parties. The plaintiff made several arguments that attempted to override the immunity, but Mummert found none of them viable.

Indeed, in response to the claim that Backpage should not be immune under § 230 because it "is aware of prior cases of minors being sexually trafficked on its website and based upon the posted ads and photography, no reasonable person could review the postings in the adult categories and deny prostitution was the object of almost each and every ad,” the judge noted a 2007 First Circuit finding that it "is, by now, well established that notice of the unlawful nature of the information provided is not enough to make it the service provider's own speech."

In other words, even if a service provider knows that third parties are posting illegal content, under § 230, the service provider is under no obligation to intervene, and is in fact immunized from being held legally responsible. This immunization held in the earlier Craigslist case as well, in which a sheriff brought suit against the online classified giant for having “the single largest source for prostitution, including child exploitation, in the country.” Regardless of the allegations, § 230 immunized Craigslist, as it does Backpage.com, unless it had created the ads itself.

In conclusion, Judge Mummert wrote, “"Plaintiff artfully and eloquently attempts to phrase her allegations to avoid the reach of (the communications decency act). Those allegations, however, do not distinguish the complained-of actions of Backpage from any other website that posted content that led to an innocent person's injury. Congress has declared such websites to be immune from suits arising from such injuries. It is for Congress to change the policy that gave rise to such immunity."

The Order by Judge Mummert can be accessed here.

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MESA, Ariz. — GoDaddy, the Internet's largest registrar, has announced pricing for .XXX domain names. .XXX domains acquired through GoDaddy are priced the following: During the Sunrise A period, .XXX domains through GoDaddy will be priced at $209.99 for the non-refundable application fee and first year of domain name registration. Renewals are $99.99 per year. Sunrise A applicants must have either verifiable trademark rights or are owners of exact matching domains in other TLDs. During Sunrise B, created for non-adult industry intellectual property holders, GoDaddy plans on charging $199.99 for the one-time, non-refundable, non-reversible processing fee that blocks the domain name from .XXX registration for 10 years. Sunrise B allows companies to block their domains in the .XXX sTLD. Pricing for Landrush, where there are no qualification requirements, is at $199.99 for the non-refundable application fee and first year of domain name registration. Renewals are $99.99 per year. Landrush is designed for online adult operators but is not on a first-come, first-served basis and applications for competing names will go to a closed-auction at the end of the period. General Availability pricing for GoDaddy .XXX domain names is $99.99 for the first year of domain name registration, with renewals at $99.99 per year. The domain names for General Availability are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

ASACP Contributes to ‘Dreamboard’ Child Porn Takedown

WASHINGTON —  The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) was instrumental in the takedown of the online child abuse fan forum Dreamboard, the organization announced today.

The notorious website, called “a nightmare” by those familiar with it, was the subject of a 20-month long investigation, dubbed Operation Delego, which has resulted in charges against 72 people over their involvement with this site, where users shared images of child sexual abuse equivalent to 16,000 DVDs of content.

“ASACP’s CP Reporting Hotline has received a number of complaints in reference to this heinous website,” ASACP executive director Tim Henning said.

“Once confirmed, these ‘Red Flag’ reports were forwarded to our contacts at the Justice Department and elsewhere, in an effort to spur and further the investigation into this criminal enterprise.”

Henning added, “Rarely do we get to discuss the results of our Red Flag investigations. ASACP is proud of the role it played in putting an end to this living ‘nightmare.’”

According to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the website depicted the abuse of infants and young children.

“The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the pre-eminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation,” Holder stated. “But for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare.”

U.S. officials are reported to be currently holding at least 43 of those charged in custody; while nine suspects are being held overseas; and a further 20 now being pursued.

Sentences for those convicted of participating in Dreamboard are expected to range from 20 years to life in prison.

ASACP said that since 1996 it has processed more than 600,000 reports of suspected illegal child porn, identifying and quantifying its scope and sources, revealing that the legitimate adult entertainment industry has nothing to do with this material.

Henning said, “Dreamboard illustrates the distinction between lawful companies and criminal enterprises — and underscores the continued importance of ASACP’s mission to protect children on the Internet — a mission which can only continue through the generous support of our sponsors, members and contributors.”

.XXX: Lawley, Duke to Debate at XBIZ EU London Conference

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Sherriff Hit With Federal Lawsuit

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