1 Regulating Sex Work Adrienne D. Davis VERY ROUGH DRAFT ...

There is an interesting divide within the sex work industry. In the case of prostitution,
some workers seem to value community, predictability, and safety and choose to work in
brothels. Others, though, place a premium on autonomy, discretion, and privacy, and
prefer outcall work. In fact, many outcall prostitutes are drawn to the work because of
the relative autonomy compared to other options. 336 A similar dynamic is at work in
dance markets.
E. Summary
In sum, contrary to invocations of professional sex as “just work,” the political
feasibility calculus turns on several factors. Important questions include whether a
regulatory regime would be best administered by federal, state, or self-regulation need to
be determined, as does whether a dedicated agency is feasible or desirable. Political will
also needs to considered, which entails a variety of issues, including public perception of
sex work and sex professionals, the gravitational pull of marriage and the relegation of
sex to the private sphere, and the management of externalities and spill-over effects.
Finally, substitution effects demonstrate that not all work can be regulated to the same
degree of efficacy. Sex work may be a classic instance of where there is a highly elastic
trade-off between regulation and substitution. Thus, all work can be regulated, but,
because of administrability concerns, political will, and substitution effects, not all work
can regulated to the same degree of efficacy.
CONCLUSION
By casting it as labor, sex as work advocates hope to lay claim to an array of
effects—including normalizing and legitimizing the practice; changing endowments
through enforceability; and accessing legal regulation to ameliorate some of the worst
aspects of contemporary sex markets. But is the factory floor really like the sex
worksite(s)? Almost certainly not. And yet, the commodified sex as labor claim/analogy
is revelatory—about both the discourse and the regulation of commodified sex.
[conclude conclusion!]
services to brothels. Street prostitution raises the most serious risks of violence, sexually
transmitted disease, and offence to community sensibility and public life. Thus, the Inquiry
recommended that prohibitions on street solicitation be retained, but within a context that allowed
alternative means of negotiating commercial sex relations.
Law, supra note [x], at [add pincite].
336
[add quotes]. See also Nussbaum, supra note [x], (emphasizing discretion and autonomy in prostitution
compared to other work).
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