An ally asked today: "Are we supposed to be ok with pimping? Genuine question."

Here's our response:

We are absolutely against any kind of violence or exploitation by management in the sex industry. We ideally want sex workers to be able to work for themselves, without any...

2...intermediaries, or form collectives and partnerships with other sex workers for safety, without anyone exploiting anyone else's labor for financial gain.

Currently the laws against "pimping" are overly broad and end up criminalizing anyone that sex workers associate with...

3...including landlords, drivers, partners who share an apartment or living expenses, and especially other sex workers sharing space. This effectively isolates sex workers and makes the work more dangerous.

4. We want to be able to organize together as workers to get rid of exploitative management.

The New Zealand Model deals with this issue by decriminalizing small collectives of 4 or fewer sex workers, where no one is controlling schedule or income of another worker. For any...

5. ...operation with more than 4 workers, an "Operator's Certificate" is required, audited by government - essentially a "pimping" license.

These operators need to show that they are employed by sex workers, providing fiduciary services for workers, rather than control as boss.

6. We believe that management needs to be licensed and regulated by labor laws, not criminalized.

We believe that sex workers working independently and without controlling, or being controlled by others, should simply be decriminalized, like all other consensual sexual activity.

7. The reason we want decriminalization, with labor regulations on management, is this:

Criminalization is NOT working right now. "Pimps" are operating with impunity even though it's already a crime to be a pimp. Why would it work differently under "partial criminalization"?

8. How would "partial criminalization" protect sex workers from violence and exploitation if FULL criminalization of pimps and johns -- the model we have now -- is already CLEARLY failing to protect sex workers from violence?

9. Sex workers, more than anyone, are eager to get rid of exploitative pimps! Most would rather work for ourselves but feel unsafe to do so when we can't trust police to protect us from assault or theft.

That's why "pimps" are paid - to do the job that cops won't do.

10. Criminalization is the ROOT CAUSE of pimping.

Because sex work is not treated like work, and sex workers are not protected by laws protecting any other form of exchange of services.

11. Criminal laws are too broad for dealing with day-to-day exploitation experienced by sex workers.

To really change the sex industry, we need fine grained labor laws, specifically dealing w/ every specific type of exploitation or abuse we experience in any given environment.

12. Criminalization makes it impossible for workers to organize and actually improve the sex industry from the inside out.

Sex workers are unable to access safer or create more equal working conditions, or alternative options. We need to empower workers to build alternatives and

13...control our own lives, not push workers underground and strip us of bargaining power in negotiation with our bosses/clients through "partial criminalization" -- which STILL polices & stigmatizes sex workers, and in so doing, MAKES IT SO that our work can't be made safer.

14. Law enforcement focuses on criminalizing communities of color. There's so much corruption and violence in POLICING.

We enable abuse when we entrust police officers with discretion on issues of labor exploitation, instead of listening to sex workers asking for labor rights.

15. No, we don't want to prosecute ALL "johns & pimps". Yes, we DO want protection from specific acts of violence & exploitation.

There are already laws against violence. Criminalization is what gets in the way of sex workers receiving equal protection under these existing laws.