I often hear comments about the spread of STDs relating to prostitution. The tendency people have to blame sex workers for this or to suggest that we should have mandatory STD checks as part of a “legal model” for sex work tells me that people utterly misunderstand this issue.
It is often claimed that sex work poses a risk to public health in the form of STDs and should therefore be regulated. However, it is not sex work alone which is a public health risk, it is unprotected sex as a whole which is the risk. The foundation of the belief that sex workers are to blame for STD spread from sex work, is the assumption that we intentionally avoid using protection.
It is not sex workers who are avoiding using protection, it is clients. Clients can simply use a condom. I have never met a sex worker, street worker or escort or otherwise, who refuses all condom use. I have met many clients who do. When sex work is decriminalised, STD rates go down! There’s no need to wildly speculate on this, we have data and it tells us that people engaging in prostitution do want to get checked and do try our best to use protection! If we consider the fact that clients are the ones pushing not to use condoms and that sex workers are trying to use them, it’s easy to see why rates go down with decriminalisation. When we aren’t being criminalised, it’s easier for us to have our requirements met. If we’re allowed to advertise, we have a wider pool of clients to choose from and we can refuse those who won’t use condoms.
Beyond that, we can’t be threatened into not using condoms with the suggestion of police involvement if we don’t comply. The reality of the situation is that sex workers don’t have a higher STD rate because we don’t care about protection, sex workers as a whole have a higher rate because we’re being pressured into not using them.
Requiring sex workers to have mandatory checks only creates a worse situation for the poorest and most marginalized, who now have even more requirements to meet. Suddenly they’re required to get checked every time the interval passes – what if you’re too poor to get to the clinic, or you can’t afford it if you’re in the US? Well, then you’re going to get a fine. How are you going to pay that off? With more sex work!
Mandatory testing would likely be required to start before engaging in prostitution at all, so now anyone who turns to prostitution in a moment of desperation (homeless people, people who can’t make rent, people who have a large unexpected bill) will automatically be criminals because they haven’t been tested. How would the government even enforce this? Would you only face trouble if caught, or would there be a registry of prostitutes so that the government would know if you missed your date for testing?
These are issues that people don’t seem to consider when they say that sex work should be regulated. There are laws that give rights to workers that cover all industries, which would apply to brothels and their conditions, but specifically regulating all of sex work is not going to protect anyone. It certainly won’t lessen the prevalence of STDs.
Clients would only be more emboldened to push for sex without a condom, knowing the sex worker they book is forced to be tested regularly, and if they go to a street worker who they think it is likely isn’t complying they can threaten them with the police. The issue stems from clients, and regulating the behaviour of sex workers (who are predominantly women) is a misogynistic idea that would make sex workers responsible for an issue that clients cause.
For the record, I get tested on roughly a monthly basis, because I have access to a clinic very close to me. I insist on condoms because I am fortunate enough to be in a position to be able to do so. I wasn’t always in that position, and I did have to make decisions about whether or not to agree to sex without a condom so that I could afford to meet my basic needs. Sometimes intimidation was involved, sometimes not. None of that would have changed if I’d been required by law to get STD tested.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 