DSW Newsletter #27 (June 2021) Archives

The Charge of Soliciting Prostitution

In this comprehensive guide to the charge of soliciting prostitution, DSW answers the most frequently asked questions about solicitation and other prostitution laws.

Is soliciting prostitution defined differently in every State?

Yes, the definition of soliciting prostitution in the criminal law varies in different jurisdictions. For example, states may define “anything of value” differently, and they may list specific sexual conduct that is encompassed in prostitution laws. In some states, soliciting prostitution is its own statute; in others, it is written into a prostitution law that encompasses the purchase and sale of sex alongside other related charges and definitions.

What is soliciting prostitution?

The dictionary describes solicitation as “the act of accosting someone and offering one's or someone else's services as a prostitute,” but legally speaking, what is soliciting prostitution? Soliciting prostitution is a criminal law in many states forbidding the offer to exchange anything of value for sexual acts; definitions vary by state. Because prostitution laws vary greatly from state to state, we’ve created this informational resource to help you find prostitution laws by state.

What is patronizing prostitution?

The dictionary defines “patronizing” as “to frequent as a customer,” but related to the legal framework around prostitution, what is patronizing prostitution? A patronizing prostitution charge arises out of the purchase of sexual services. Like solicitation, patronizing is codified differently around the country.
What is promoting prostitution?

The answer to the question “what is promoting prostitution?” may vary greatly state-to-state. It can refer to a number of acts related to prostitution that go beyond the basic purchase and sale of sex — for example, receiving money acquired through prostitution or owning a place where prostitution occurs.
What is compelling prostitution?

Explanations for soliciting, patronizing, and promoting prostitution are above — so what is compelling prostitution? Compelling usually refers to the use of force, fraud, and/or coercion to encourage another person to engage in prostitution; this is also known as human trafficking, though the language in compelling prostitution and trafficking laws differ in some states.

Is soliciting prostitution a felony?

People learning about prostitution laws may ask, is soliciting prostitution a felony? Again, it is best to consult the laws in your state. However, soliciting is usually a misdemeanor crime.

Can I face jail time for soliciting prostitution?

Possible jail time for soliciting prostitution differs from state to state, so it is important to look to the laws in your state. Because soliciting tends to be a misdemeanor, jail sentences are less than a year at maximum.
What happens when someone is arrested for solicitation of prostitution?

Just because someone is arrested for solicitation of prostitution does not mean they will be sent to jail. Usually prosecutors can choose to only require a defendant to pay a fine.
How long can you go to jail for prostitution?

People often ask, “how long can you go to jail for prostitution?” There is no simple answer because laws may vary state to state and depend on the facts of the case. Generally, prostitution crimes involving adults are misdemeanors so they are not associated with large fines or significant jail time. Further, many jurisdictions have begun implementing diversion programs such as Human Trafficking Intervention Courts to minimize punishments and instead connect sex workers with social services.
Is soliciting prostitution online legal?

Soliciting prostitution online is illegal and, in fact, a federal law enacted in 2018 called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA/FOSTA) allows websites to be held liable for hosting advertisements for sexual services. SESTA/FOSTA shut down many websites that were used for the solicitation of prostitution such as Backpage and parts of Craigslist. Decriminalize Sex Work supports the full repeal of SESTA/FOSTA, which was supposed to prevent the online exploitation of trafficked persons. In effect, these laws have hurt the people they intended to help, pushing sex workers and trafficking victims into more dangerous and exploitative situations.
Solicitation of prostitution text message correspondence

As with other forms of communication, solicitation of prostitution text message correspondence can also be illegal when it falls under the local statutory definition of soliciting.

What is a prostitution sting?

In discussing prostitution laws, one of the questions that inevitably arises is: what is a prostitution sting?

How do prostitution stings work?

There are a few different answers to the question: why do prostitution stings work? Stings can take different forms, but ultimately are a tool that law enforcement uses to arrest people under prostitution laws. Prostitution stings can go after people seeking to buy sex or people seeking to sell it.
How to tell if it’s a prostitution sting

If you are wondering how to tell if it’s a prostitution sting, unfortunately there is no easy answer. Since there are many strategies for policing around prostitution, the answer could differ depending on where you are or what they are looking for.

How could the laws around solicitation of prostitution change?

The above explains the criminalization of some prostitution-related crimes. There are several other legal models that have been proposed to change prostitution laws. Partial decriminalization (also known as the Nordic model, the entrapment model, the end demand model, and the equality model) seeks to abolish laws prohibiting the sale of sex but continue criminalizing soliciting and purchasing prostitution. Legalization makes prostitution a regulated trade. Total decriminalization abolishes all prostitution laws concerning the consensual sale and purchase of sex between adults.

How to stop prostitution according to Nordic model advocates

The goal of Nordic model advocates is to stop prostitution. The Nordic model of prostitution is based on the theory that if the purchase of sex, but not its sale, is criminalized, then there will no longer be any demand for paid sexual services and the sex trade will cease to exist. They also believe that prostitution denigrates women and that clients of the sex industry are inherently harmful. However, research on the Nordic model of prostitution has shown that it does not stop or significantly reduce prostitution, but it does make sex work more dangerous for sex workers.

What are Nordic model misconceptions about soliciting prostitution?

Nordic model advocates believe that soliciting prostitution will no longer happen if it is criminalized because there will be no demand for sex work. However, Nordic model research show that the sex trade continues to operate under both criminalization and partial decriminalization because full service sex work is an important source of income for many people, and regardless of criminalization people still have the desire or need to purchase or sell sex. Further, research also shows that the Nordic model harms the health and safety and well-being of sex workers.

What is the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution?

The discussion about changing prostitution laws often brings up questions about stopping sex trafficking, so what is the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution? Prostitution refers to the laws governing adult consensual sex work, which is a transaction between two consenting adults. Sex trafficking, which falls under the umbrella of human trafficking, involves the use of force, fraud, and/or coercion to have another person engage in prostitution for the trafficker’s benefit. No legal model, including total decriminalization, advocates for the abolishment of anti-trafficking laws because trafficking is distinct from prostitution.

What does research indicate about the effects of legalizing prostitution?

When learning about the different legal models around prostitution laws, many wonder “what does research indicate about the effects of legalizing prostitution?” Legalization refers to the sex trade becoming like other forms of commerce that are regulated by the government. While legalization creates avenues to stable employment for some sex workers, there are still barriers to access for others who are unable to work in regulated brothels. Legal brothels also allow for worker exploitation because brothel owners control the working conditions. Even where prostitution is legalized, the sex trade continues to exist outside of regulated spaces.
Under legalization, what happens if I solicit a prostitute?

If you solicit a prostitute outside of a legal brothel in a place where prostitution is legal, you are still committing a crime because prostitution is only legal within brothels.
How is porn not prostitution?

People unfamiliar with the language around sex work may ask, how is porn not prostitution? It is important to remember that “prostitution” is a strictly legal term that only refers to the laws governing the purchase and sale of sex. “Sex work” is an umbrella term for various kinds of work, including full service sex work that is punishable under prostitution laws. Sex work can also refer to stripping, porn acting, phone and webcam services, and more.

Is soliciting for prostitution considered sex trafficking?

Soliciting for prostitution where both parties are under no form of coercion is a prostitution crime. If there is force, fraud, or coercion involved, then it is classified as trafficking.

Please consider supporting the movement for total decriminalization of prostitution.

The total decriminalization of prostitution is the only model that recognizes prostitution as a victimless crime that will continue to exist whether or not it is criminalized. Decriminalization allows those engaged in adult consensual sex work to operate free of the danger of exploitation and unnecessary involvement in the criminal legal system. Your donations to Decriminalize Sex Work help us lobby state legislatures to change laws and improve public attitudes towards sex work and decriminalization.

DSW’s Ceyenne Doroshow Is Grand Marshal of NYC Pride

The New York City Pride Parade, one of the most famous celebrations of Pride Month and historically the largest parade in the world, canceled its in-person festivities last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the parade so central to New York’s identity was back with a vengeance. The celebrations were streamed on news stations to minimize crowding, but that did not stop the city from showing up with pride in many colors.

DSW’s own Ceyenne Doroshow was named a Grand Marshal of this year’s event, leading the parade that kicked off on 25th Street, processed down 5th Avenue, before making a right into the West Village, past the Stonewall Memorial, and ending just before the Christopher Street Pier. Melissa Broudo, J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Rebecca Cleary, and Frances Steele of DSW processed just behind her. Doroshow, a cornerstone figure of the international transgender and sex worker rights movements, was interviewed by Angelica Ross of Pose before commencing the march.

Ceyenne Doroshow is the founder and executive director of Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society (G.L.I.T.S.) Inc. The Organization works to provide holistic care to LGBTQ sex workers and recently broke ground on the first-ever trans-owned and run housing cooperative for transgender sex workers. In addition, Doroshow is on the board of SWOP Behind Bars, the Caribbean Equality Project, the SOAR Institute, the Sex Workers Project, TGJIP of San Francisco, and the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG). Doroshow was honored to act as Grand Marshal for Pride. In an interview with ABC 7, she said, “I've been doing this work for 30 years, not wanting to be a part of just one thing, but wanting to be a part of the bigger picture … making sure people get what they need. So Pride to me and being a part of this year looks very different. It's kind of a hot and spicy feeling or a sweet and spicy feeling.”

DSW staffers also took part in the Queer Liberation March that occurred later that day. The Reclaim Pride Coalition organized the parade as a protest to the Heritage Pride March two years ago. It began at Bryant Park and processed down 7th Avenue with rainbow flags and signs that included "Liberation and Justice." Later, the celebration continued in and around Greenwich Village.

The week before Pride, Governor Cuomo signed the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) into law in New York State. The GRA recognizes non-binary gender designation on official documentation and eases the process of name changes and birth certificate alterations. J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly and Frances Steele attended the ceremony.

As DSW’s work highlights, LGBTQ justice is intimately connected with sex worker rights, health, and safety, an intersection that organizers and policy-makers have increasingly recognized. This year’s event is a reminder of how far we have come since the Stonewall Uprising inaugurated NYC Pride in 1969. It also recognizes how far we have to go. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two leaders of Stonewall, marched for sex worker rights and the abolition of HIV/AIDS, as well as LGTBQ pride, but sex workers are still criminalized and abused across the country. To address issues of gender equity and diversity and sexual identity justice, we must decriminalize consensual adult sex work as a legitimate form of labor that allows resource access for disenfranchised and marginalized individuals.

DSW Newsletter Archive

DSW Staff Featured in Documentary on Decriminalization

DSW’s J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Melissa Broudo and Ceyenne Doroshow are featured in “Sex Work is Work,” a powerful short-film that explores the push for the decriminalization of sex work. Produced by BRIC TV, the documentary features Broudo and Oshiro-Brantly, along with sex worker Nikki Sweet, explaining why decriminalization is critical to the health and safety of individual sex workers and communities more broadly.

BRIC is a leading arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action. For over forty years, BRIC has shaped Brooklyn's cultural and media landscape by presenting and incubating artists, creators, students, and media makers.

DSW Newsletter Archive

Hero of the Month: Elisa Crespo

Elisa Crespo is fighting for a world where all people feel “included, safe, seen, and heard.” Right now, she is focusing on the rights and dignity of Black and Brown transgender women, but her quest for tolerance and inclusivity seems boundless. Crespo took a big step this year — running for the NYC Council. Had she been elected, she would have been the first transgender woman of color to occupy a seat on the council. Though Crespo is open about her identity, she is explicit that her desire to run for political office was not about identity but policy. She remains hopeful that individuals who have not previously seen their identities represented in the spaces she occupied during her campaign will know that they matter.

Crespo is frustrated that in New York City, seemingly one of the most progressive cities in the world, Black and Brown transgender women are not represented in the social and political spaces where the decisions that significantly impact their lives are made. While many of the issues LGBTQIA individuals face are not unique to them, the solutions to these issues have to be intentional, strategic, and specific to LGBTQIA communities to have the necessary impact. Legislation on critical issues such as housing, employment, and education still regularly obscures those who are already marginalized and fighting for access. “Those who have struggled the most often have the best solutions,” says Crespo.

Crespo will assume a new role as executive director of The New Pride Agenda, an organization whose “purpose is civic engagement and public policy advocacy on behalf of New York’s diverse LGBTQIA community.” She has laid out an ambitious agenda for the organization and the state. Crespo admits that pursuing electoral politics took some of her time and energy away from working with policymakers to make the change she is so desperate to see and is ready to hit the ground running in her new role.

Combining her lived experience, education, organizing experience, and fierce determination, she is “excited to build coalitions” and to “hold elected officials accountable.” Crespo ultimately wants to see communities thrive but recognizes how much groundwork there is to be done to create better material conditions for people, first and foremost.

Two years ago, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) became law in New York. It added gender identity and gender expression as protected classes under the state's human rights and hate crime laws and banned discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations based on gender identity and gender expression. The fact that it was legal in New York to discriminate against an individual because of their gender identity or expression up until 2019 is one of the myriad reasons that transgender individuals, especially women of color, remain so vulnerable. Crespo became a sex worker at a young age and experienced the “horror of the criminal justice system as a trans woman of color.” She credits the LGBTQIA community with helping her access feelings she had denied herself for so long in order to survive and for encouraging her to look towards her future — a challenging thought for trans women of color who are murdered at alarming rates.

Crespo is determined to fix this. Her priorities at New Pride Agenda include specific reforms that will bring immediate relief to those in need and long-term investments in future generations. She plans to seek protections for incarcerated individuals and to continue fighting to decriminalize sex work. She mentions scholarships and apprenticeship programs as examples of plans to help individuals move from simply surviving towards thriving. Crespo wants schools to adopt comprehensive, inclusive, age-appropriate sexual education curriculums that will reduce stigma at an early age and allow LGBTQIA children to feel safe and accepted, along with reducing sexual violence. DSW staffers J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Frances Steele, Crystal DeBoise, and Melissa Broudo have an article coming out in the Charleston law review this year detailing how essential inclusive sex education is to the fight against human trafficking.

We must “teach children at a young age that no matter who people go to bed with or who they go to bed AS … everyone deserves to be treated with dignity,” says Crespo. She laments that queer youth still feel alone and experience suicidal thoughts at much higher rates than non-queer youth but knows that this opportunity to educate people can help change that. Crespo encourages allies to speak out and take the initiative and for those feeling unseen and unheard to ask for help. “A closed mouth doesn’t get fed,” she says. Crespo has blazed a trail for many people who never thought they could aspire to a public life and have felt powerless to change the trajectory of their own lives away from the margins.

DSW Newsletter Archive

Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Is Marked With Intersectional Pride Series

Each of the panels presented as part of Tulsa 100: Remember, Activate, Heal was impactful, educational, and transformative. If you missed them or want to rewatch them, they are available at the links below. J. Leigh Brantly-Oshiro, DSW’s research and project manager, conceived of the Intersectional Pride Series. Along with NY-based, national, and Tulsa-based organizations, they brought together individuals with a wide breadth of knowledge and experience to participate in the three-day event.

June 1: The Legacy of Black Art in Oklahoma | WATCH NOW

A virtual panel discussion featuring “Transcend” artists Nathan Lee, Brenna King-Sabbi, Suzanne Thomas, and Skip Hill, and moderated by “Tulsa 1921” filmmaker Marlon Ladd about the legacy of Black art in Oklahoma. Introduction by “Transcend” filmmaker J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Consultant for New York Transgender Advocacy Group and Research and Project Manager for Decriminalize Sex Work.

June 2: Sex Work Decriminalization and Incarceration in Oklahoma | WATCH NOW

Live-streamed panel celebrating International Sex Workers’ Day co-presented by Decriminalize Sex Work and moderated by sex worker advocate and Decriminalize Sex Work Legal Director Melissa Broudo, featuring filmmaker and former police officer, Marlon Ladd, sex worker and advocate Mistress Mia Darque, former Tulsa DA and former public defender Chase Overstreet, and Still She Rises criminal defender Janay Clougherty discussing the current state of sex work decriminalization and incarceration in Oklahoma.

June 3: “Healing With Pride” | WATCH NOW

Virtual panel co-presented with Oklahomans for Equality, moderated by healing justice facilitator and LGBTQ+ ally, Quraysh Ali Lansana, featuring LGBTQ+ advocate and board advisor for Oklahomans for Equality, Dani Byrd, licensed therapist and co-chair of the Central Oklahoma Two-Spirit Society, Kelley Blair, Latinx Outreach and Library Services Coordinator at Oklahomans for Equality, Donovid Sekulits, and other Oklahoma-based LGBTQIA2S+ leaders discussing the ways the LGBTQIA2S+ community finds healing and resilience within our community.

Learn more about the significance of the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the history of Black Wall Street in Greenwood, Oklahoma.

Watch a Virtual Film Screening

Tulsa 1921, directed by Marlon Ladd

These films were discussed during the June 1 panel, “The Legacy of Black Art in Oklahoma.”

Presented in collaboration with:

The CODE Foundation
Inclusion in Art
Living Arts of Tulsa
New York Transgender Advocacy Group
OSU Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
Diversity Center of Oklahoma
Still, She Rises Tulsa
Oklahomans for Equality

Is soliciting prostitution defined differently in every State?

What is soliciting prostitution?

What is patronizing prostitution?

What is promoting prostitution?

What is compelling prostitution?

Is soliciting prostitution a felony?

Can I face jail time for soliciting prostitution?

What happens when someone is arrested for solicitation of prostitution?

How long can you go to jail for prostitution?

Is soliciting prostitution online legal?

Solicitation of prostitution text message correspondence

What is a prostitution sting?

How do prostitution stings work?

How to tell if it’s a prostitution sting

How could the laws around solicitation of prostitution change?

How to stop prostitution according to Nordic model advocates

What are Nordic model misconceptions about soliciting prostitution?

What is the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution?

What does research indicate about the effects of legalizing prostitution?

Under legalization, what happens if I solicit a prostitute?

How is porn not prostitution?

Is soliciting for prostitution considered sex trafficking?

Please consider supporting the movement for total decriminalization of prostitution.

June 27, 2021

Ceyenne Doroshow pictured just before the parade commenced on Fifth Avennue (DSW 2021).

DSW’s Frances Steele, J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Allison Kolins, Rebecca Cleary, and Melissa Broudo celebrate the conclusion of the Heritage Pride March (DSW 2021)

DSW’s Frances Steele, J. Leigh Oshiro-Brantly, Allison Kolins, Rebecca Cleary, and Melissa Broudo celebrate the conclusion of the Heritage Pride March (DSW 2021)

DSW and G.L.I.T.S. Inc. staffers carry the G.L.I.T.S. banner through Greenwich Village towards the end of the march (DSW 2021)