Sex workers have long argued that online erotic services platforms make their jobs safer. A new study proves it.
Despite all the law enforcement resources expended, empirical research on the dangers or benefits of erotic services ads has been sparse. But a new study provides strong evidence that when law enforcement closes down sites like Craigslist or Redbook, women die.
The September 2017 study, authored by West Virginia University and Baylor University economics and information systems experts, analyzes rates of female homicides in various cities before and after Craigslist opened an erotic services section on its website. The authors found a shocking 17 percent decrease in homicides with female victims after Craigslist erotic services were introduced.
The data does not provide a single clear explanation as to why female homicide rates drop so steeply, Scott Cunningham, one of the paper’s authors, told ThinkProgress. It’s possible, for example, that when Craigslist opens erotic services ads, some women in abusive domestic situations decide to become sex workers, move out, and so escape violent homicide at the hands of their spouses or boyfriends.
The most likely explanation, though, Cunningham says, is that sex workers simply make up a huge percentage of female homicide victims. When sex workers are safer, female homicide rates drop significantly.
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Once sex workers move indoors, they are much safer for a number of reasons, Cunningham said. When you’re indoors, “you can screen your clients more efficiently. When you’re soliciting a client on the street, there is no real screening opportunity. The sex worker just has to make the split second decision. She relies on very limited and complete information about the client’s identity and purposes. Whereas when a sex worker solicits indoors through digital means, she has Google, she has a lot of correspondence, she can ask a lot of questions. It’s not perfect screening, but it’s better.”
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In theory, closing down advertising is supposed to reduce exploitation of women. In practice, when resources are taken away from people living on the edge of poverty, they have fewer options and are less able to protect themselves.
For all these reasons access to the Internet can transform the experience of sex work. Young women who have been able to screen clients using sites like Craigslist, “almost feel like this is a safe job because they have these tools,” DiAngelo said.
Sex workers report that free online advertising makes them safer. There is now data showing that erotic services ads significantly decrease female homicide rates. So, will law enforcement back down and allow these sites to operate again?
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