Consent or Compliance?

The thin and fragile veil between prostitution and sex trafficking can be more clearly defined by what some call consent and others know to be compliance. How can buyers tell if it is consent or compliance?

Liberty…

The argument for decriminalized prostitution by libertarians is that: “we should not inject legal prohibitions on private activity between two consenting adults.” In the commercial sex trade, as with the salve trade of the past, compliance is often seen as equal to consent and used to justify clear human rights violations.

People who love liberty can be easily swayed by the notion that consent should be the standard for whether or not activity should be prohibited. But how far should that go? I consented at 14 years old, after months of gentle persuasion by a man ten years older than I was. What about a 12 year old? Or a nine year old? Our statutes prohibit sex with a child because we recognize the inability to consent. Children do not have the capacity, experience, or executive reasoning in place to consent.

80-90% of adults exploited for sex disclosed child sexual abuse. Neuroscience researchers have discovered that there is physical evidence of diminished interaction of the brain structures that process emotion and rational thought in people who have suffered childhood trauma. This diminished interaction retards a person’s ability to develop executive reasoning skills. Those skills are attributed to adult thought: consideration of repercussions and outcomes of action or communication. In other words, they have stunted ability to consent.

Add poverty, poor attachments, lack of education, lack of social support, or drug and alcohol use and you have a recipe for a vulnerable adult. Is consent really the standard to be used in this situation given the magnitude of what it is they would be to consenting to? Disease, deprivations, violence and abuses of all kinds by some buyers, and disparity of power in almost all cases are present in the sex trade.

This can hardly be called liberty.

Equality…

There are a very few vocal activists calling for the decriminalization of commercial sex. The vast majority of people involved are sexually exploited and they would get out if they could. They are subjugated by the buyers, pimps and traffickers.

The majority of buyers are white affluent men. Instead of benevolence, called for in the Scriptures, they lord it over the vulnerable for their own sexual gratification. Buyers are often unaware of whether or not they are paying for sex with a consenting adult or a compliment victim of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is the action of compelling someone by force, fraud, or coercion to engage in labor or commercial sex. While people say trafficking is bad, they couldn’t tell if that is the situation without some difficult questions. Often, public awareness campaigns often use graphics that include ropes, chains, or cages. We can all see that this is a horrific injustice with a taskmaster and a slave, but that is seldom what human trafficking looks like in the real world.

A person trafficked for the purpose of prostitution looks just like one who is consenting. Buyers will not usually see the signs, even if they had any thought to look. In both cases, the one with the money is in control.

Work…

The latest in verbal gymnastics calls prostitution and all of the people involved, “sex workers.” This term could encompass many people, from pimps to brothel owners to pornographers and sex toy shop personnel. While some of those positions might be work, a person sold for sex is not working. Sex work is neither sex nor work. It is the use of one person’s body for the gratification of another.

The misnomer has people who love liberty teetering on the edge of exploitation.

Even the most ardent lovers of liberty would have to admit that the working conditions for reasonable people would not include those experienced in the commercial sex trade. Women are regularly slapped, kicked, pinched, punched, and choked. They are required to exchange of body fluids. They are exposed to diseases without the ability to use appropriate protective gear. Rape and forced abortion are also common reasons to prohibit prostitution. My experience bears this out, as well as many of the survivors that I personally know.

The violence endured by the majority of people exploited in commercial sex is the reason prostitution is illegal.

It is completely unacceptable for a civil society to normalize commercial sexual exploitation.

Compliance…

Compliance is not the same as consent.

If I comply to your demands because of fear of bodily harm, I am not consenting of my own free will. When a person has become accustomed to abuse and numbs the pain by using dissociation and drugs, they are not consenting. If one has to pay money to get you to do something, you are not consenting. You are complying.