You are now logged in. Forgot your password? On August 30, a year-old woman in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was arrested after a prospective client called on her. He claimed she raised her fee for services after their initial online contact. The cops took her away in handcuffs. There's nothing particularly unusual about this story, which initially appeared on AnnArbor.
It's one of dozens you can find every day in police blotters and local newspapers around the country, often accompanied by mug shots. No women's rights organization compiles comprehensive data on how many people are arrested, tried, convicted, and incarcerated for prostitution-related charges. But their names and photos are lodged in search engines in perpetuity, no matter the outcome of their cases.
The consequences of such arrests can be life shattering. In Louisiana some women arrested for prostitution have been charged under a year-old statute prohibiting "crimes against nature. In Texas a third prostitution arrest counts as an automatic felony. Women's prisons are so overloaded that the state is rethinking the law to cut costs.
In Chicago police post mug shots of all those arrested for solicitation online, a shaming campaign intended to target men who buy sex. But researchers at DePaul University found that 10 percent of the photos are of trans women who were wrongly gendered as men by cops and arrested as "johns. Not all people who do sex work are women, but women disproportionately suffer the stigma, discrimination, and violence against sex workers.
The result is a war on women that is nearly imperceptible, unless you are involved in the sex trade yourself. This war is spearheaded and defended largely by other women: a coalition of feminists, conservatives, and even some human rights activists who subject sex workers to poverty, violence, and imprisonmentβall in the name of defending women's rights.
