John Donvan
This is Open To Debate. Hi everybody. I’m John Donvan, and in this episode we are looking at whether when sex is traded for money, the customers are the ones who should be punished as criminals, not the sellers, which has been the case most places most of the time. Punishing the customer captures a legal approach known as the Nordic model. It started in Sweden 25 years ago. It’s being adopted in several countries, in at least one US state. It holds that the payer for sex and payers are overwhelmingly men, they’re the ones committing a crime. The goal is to protect sex workers who are overwhelmingly women from all manner of documented abuse, discrimination, and threat. How has that worked out?

And what about another option? Deciding that sex work is not a crime at all, that no one is doing anything wrong and nobody should get punished. How would that impact the safety, the dignity, and the rights of sex workers? Well, these are questions we’re gonna be debating with the participation of two impassioned advocates as we take on this question. Is it okay to pay for sex? So let me introduce our debaters. Answering yes to that question is Kaytlin Bailey. Kaytlin is a sex worker rights advocate, a former sex worker herself, mostly a comedian and a writer and founder and executive director of Old Pros, a nonprofit media organization working to change the status of sex workers in society. In acknowledgement of her work, she’s been invited to speak at Yale Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, and now Open To Debate. Thank you so much for joining us on Open To Debate.

Kaytlin Bailey
Thank you for having me.

John Donvan
And here to answer no to the question, is it okay to pay for sex, is Yasmin Vafa. Yasmin is a human rights attorney, an advocate and co-founder and executive Director of Rights4Girls, which advocates for the protection of women and girls from gender-based violence and exploitation. She has worked to support the passage of several laws at the federal level, testifying before the US Senate and International Human Rights bodies, and has been featured in several news outlets on this very topic. And Yasmin, I noticed that you’re all over YouTube. There are lots of things that you’re talking about so there people can, can look you up and learn a lot of things that you’re working on. Thanks so much for joining us on the program on Open To Debate.

Yasmin Vafa
Thanks for having me.

John Donvan
And as we get started, one clarification I wanna make on some of the terminology you may hear that will be useful, uh, it’s the distinction between legalization and decriminalization as we’ll be using those terms. Legalization refers to sex work being permitted according to a set of regulations and permits and licenses and zoning rules, et cetera. Decriminalization means that sex work, per se, is not a crime under the law. There are no rules and regulations around it for the government to enforce. Alright, let’s move on to our first round in our opening statements. Uh, we’d like to a- ask each of you to take a few minutes to explain your position in answering our question, is it okay to pay for sex? Kaytlin, you are up first. And your answer to that question is yes. Please tell us why.

Kaytlin Bailey
I do believe that it is okay to pay for sex, but you don’t have to believe that buying sexual services is okay to know that criminalizing people who do leads to bad outcomes. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the World Health Organization don’t support the decriminalization of sex work because they love the sex industry. But because it is the, simply the only policy that reduces violence. We know what prohibition does to markets, and it doesn’t make them safer. Now, all labor exists on a spectrum of choice, circumstance, and coercion and exploitation is wrong across labor sectors. It is just as wrong to force somebody to work in a slaughterhouse or to pick fruit as to force somebody to work in a brothel. Now, prostitution has become a symbol of violence against women, but there are absolutely people who choose to have sex for money like I did.

Kaytlin Bailey
And I have met hundreds of people who felt called to this work and many more who did this work without regret in order to pay their bills. The problem with sex trafficking is the trafficking and not the sex. And sex that would not be a crime if money were not being exchanged shouldn’t become a crime just because somebody is getting paid. And people who pay for sex more often than not are looking for connection. And that isn’t just my experience. Sociologists, researchers, and sex workers all over the world know that the overwhelming majority of clients are looking to have their very human, very understandable needs met. And it’s okay to pay for services even sex, in the same way that it is okay to pay for daycare or for a pedicure or for somebody to clean your house. Clients help people pay their bills, go to school and start businesses.

And according to the SWP at Urban Justice Center, in New York City, more victims are rescued by concerned clients than by law enforcement. Now, predators absolutely exist, and we can and should arrest people who prey on sex workers and vulnerable people. But we can’t do that by conflating respectful clients with violent criminals. And when clients are criminalized, it gets harder for sex workers to report crimes committed against us and to advocate for our own safety and health. And everywhere these policies have been implemented, people who sell sex are made more vulnerable. We have decades of data showing that decriminalizing sex work not only reduces violence and STIs, but it also creates opportunities for sex workers to hold people accountable who try to hurt us. And that isn’t true in places where the explicit goal of policies is to eliminate prostitution, where everyone involved has really good reasons to fear the police.

You don’t have to be somebody who would ever buy or sell sexual services to support policies that reduce violence and exploitation. We can and should make it easier for people to report crimes committed against them and aggressively prosecute people who prey on children and desperately poor people doing what they can to survive. And we should provide shelter and real resources to people who are fleeing violent relationships and employers. But we will not do any of that by arresting people for paying for sex. Thank you.

John Donvan
Thank you very much, Kaytlin. Yasmin, you disagree, you are answering no to the question, is it okay to pay for sex. This is your turn to tell us why.

Yasmin Vafa
Well, it’s important to note that our opposition is not coming from a place of morality. It’s not based on paternalism, but it’s based on the practical reality of what’s currently happening and what will inevitably result from these policies. First, policies that allow for the payment of sex inevitably increase sex trafficking regardless of their intent. I think it’s first important to understand that according to the Department of Justice and every leading anti-trafficking organization in the country, sex trafficking occurs in every state throughout the United States today. And so what that means is that even though it’s currently illegal to purchase sex virtually everywhere throughout the US, there are enough men who are perfectly content to break the law in order to buy sex that the demand already outpaces the supply. Meaning that there are already not enough willing participants to provide that sexual service that traffickers and exploiters are currently grooming, coercing, and forcing vulnerable people into the sex trade in order to capitalize off the demand that already exists.

Yasmin Vafa
Data shows that if we were to legalize or decriminalize sex buying even more men would enter the market as new clients, not just from that one jurisdiction, but from surrounding areas through sex tourism. This is similar to what we see in places like Amsterdam or Germany, where there’s an estimated 1.1 million sex buyers per day. And so who would be required to meet this enormous increase in demand for paid sex after decriminalization? Well, we know from our work that traffickers always target our most vulnerable communities, including our youth, who are much easier to recruit and control. Second, data on the sex trade shows strong evidence that there are power differentials that would lead to even further exploitation if buying sex were permitted. Here, it’s critical to note that the racial and gender disparities among sex buyers and individuals in the sex trade stand in stark contrast. Not only are women and girls of color overrepresented among individuals in the sex trade, but they’re also much more likely to be criminalized for their participation in it.

Yasmin Vafa
So take for example, King County, which is the area around Seattle, Washington. There, black people represent roughly 7% of the overall population. In that same jurisdiction, black girls represent more than 40% of sex trafficking victims. In that same county, sex buyers are over 72% white men, but it’s not just Seattle. All across the country where states have begun to disaggregate their sex buyer data, they have found overwhelmingly that sex buyers tend to be affluent white men. So think Robert Kraft, Eliot Spitzer, Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer. In Pennsylvania, for example, they found 74% of buyers in their state were white men. In Ohio, 85% of buyers identified by law enforcement were white men. In Minnesota, who recently published this data as part of their Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s Task Force noted that the majority of buyers in their state were white, middle-aged, married men looking to buy indigenous women for sex.

And so when you consider this info with the fact that most of those bought are women and youth of color, LGBTQ, have histories of foster care, childhood sexual abuse, suffer from disabilities, et cetera, it becomes very clear who holds the power in this industry and who actually needs legal protection. If the Me Too movement has shown us anything, it’s that survivors can come forward to unapologetically demand safety and accountability from powerful men who use their privilege to elicit sex acts from them. If we as, as a society can unequivocally agree that someone like Harvey Weinstein must be held accountable for using his power to extort sex acts from Hollywood actresses in exchange for movie roles and awards, then why can’t we insist on calling out the powerful men in our society that insist on using their power and privilege to solicit sex acts from some of the most marginalized people who are often only doing so as a matter of survival?

John Donvan
Thank you very much, Yasmin. We’re gonna come up to a break, but before we do, I just wanna very, very quickly touch in, base with each of you and, and just to understand fully, um, w- whether, where this divide lies. I want to go to you first, Yasmin. My question for both of you, and just very briefly, is, Yasmin, you’re making the argument that, um, de- decreasing demand would decrease the amount, you believe would decrease the amount of, um, sex for money going on out there. Um, my question is, is the world better off the less of that there is overall?

Yasmin Vafa
Absolutely. I mean, in our view, we measure success by reducing the number of people involved in the sex trade. Um, when we talk to survivors, when we look at some of the studies that have been produced internationally, the vast majority of individuals in the sex trade want out, uh, if they can find some other viable means of, uh, making money and being able to support themselves and their families. And so for us, we measure success by reducing the overall number of people involved in the industry. And one of the primary methods of prevention is to curb the demand for commercial sex.

John Donvan
Kaytlin, the same question for you are, is the, is it a better world where there is like less sex for money going on?

Kaytlin Bailey
I believe that the world is better off with less exploitation across labor sectors. And Yasmin and I both support programs that increase the negotiating power of vulnerable people, fa- people facing extreme poverty or gender-based violence. But I don’t believe that prostitution is synonymous with exploitation, and I don’t believe that you improve the lives of desperate people by making it harder for them to make money.

John Donvan
All right. So now, now have a better idea of where you both stand and why. We’re gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we’ll get deeper into the question, is it okay to pay for sex? I’m John Donvan and this is Open To Debate.

John Donvan
Welcome back to Open To Debate. I’m your moderator, John Donvan. And we’re taking on the question, is it okay to pay for sex? And, uh, we have two debaters who are both passionate about, uh, being advocates for the rights of sex workers, but they have very, very different takes on what sorts of legal regimes should apply to, uh, to, to encourage, uh, better outcomes for, for sex workers. So we’ve heard opening statements from our two debaters, Kaytlin Bailey and Yasmin Vafa.

John Donvan
So this is the argument we’re hearing from Kaytlin. Sex work is essentially a private matter. It’s really not the government’s business that it does have redeeming, uh, qualities to it in terms of meeting certain needs of certain individuals who perhaps otherwise would not be able to have those needs met. You make a distinction between good clients and bad clients. You, I think, take issue with the notion that there’s an inevita- inevitable, inevitable, uh, negative consequence for sex workers, particularly sex, women sex workers, although you do concede that some bad stuff really does happen. But to you, the the way to address that is not through, uh, through further regulation, but through decriminalization.

John Donvan
Uh, on your side, Yasmin, you are arguing that sex work may or may not be, uh, a moral question. It’s not one that you’re, a case that you’re making, you’re talking about a practical outcome of the, uh, the, as you say, nearly inevitable interlinkage between, um, abusive women, particularly, um, women who are, uh, uh, in, in vulnerable populations with the power differential almost always in play. That’s sex trafficking, always crops up where there is, uh, prostitution in general. And that decriminalization you feel would increase demand and therefore worsen a problem that you’re saying is already pretty terrible.

John Donvan
As I said in the beginning, one thing that, uh, is out there is the, what’s called the Nordic model. And this is a, uh, uh, a model that was developed by Sweden in 1999, is still in place, is being reproduced in other places around the world. And it, uh, es- essentially finds not the seller of the, uh, sexual service, but the purchaser. It’s actually, it was called a purchaser law by Sweden in the beginning. Uh, I, I wanna examine what we know about the impact of that law, and I’ll start with you, Yasmin.

Yasmin Vafa
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we, we have seen tremendous success, not only in terms of its intended effects, which was to dramatically shrink the sex trade, but also to change the culture, um, and also improve gender equality. So since that law was implemented in Sweden, prostitution dropped 40%. It’s remained, uh, at a significantly lower level. The number of men purchasing sex dropped from, uh, over 13% to a roughly around 7%. People in the country, uh, overwhelmingly support the law. Uh, it’s now no longer socially acceptable to buy sex objectify women, um, you know, go to strip clubs. And then Norway has also adopted the law. Uh, it’s, you know, decreased prostitution significantly.

And France being one of the latest countries to adopt this model has seen tremendous success. So in the seven years since France adopted the model, um, no prostituted person has been arrested, uh, in the last seven years as compared to 2,500 arrests per year since before the law. As of January 2023, over 1200 prostituted people have benefited from one of the over 564 exit programs throughout the country, and 95% have achieved stable employment. Uh, the number of criminal prosecutions for traffickers and exploiters has gone up 54%, and they’ve collected over 2.35 million euros from exploiters [inaudible

].

John Donvan
I’m just gonna jump in, I’m just gonna jump in, Yasmin. So to give Kaytlin a chance to respond to some of what you were saying there.

Kaytlin Bailey
Sure. Everywhere that these policies have been implemented, violence against sex workers goes up because policies that criminalize paying for and facilitating sexual services hurts the people that they claim to help. Because the real goal of this law is to eliminate prostitution, and you simply cannot help people that you are trying to eradicate. Uh, everywhere that these laws are implemented, our ability to advocate for safer sex, higher rates and better working conditions goes down because end demand laws push the entire industry further underground, forcing people to do more for less and making it harder for us to identify abusers, all while doing nothing to alleviate poverty or gender-based violence. End demand laws make purchasing our services a crime, but they also make it illegal to work with or for other people. So these laws not only take away our livelihood, but they also undermine the strategies that we use to keep ourselves safe.

And also, I understand that it might be difficult for listeners to understand that when, so-called pimps and Johns are criminalized, that means that our clients, our landlords, our roommates, and our colleagues, including other sex workers are also criminalized. Northern Ireland implemented the Nordic model in 2015, and a government report in 2019 showed that not only did the law have no impact on demand, but it actually increased violence against sex workers. And when they implemented the law in Norway, Amnesty International released a scathing report on the human rights abuses that this policy inflicted on people in the sex trade.

John Donvan
All right let me, let me bring this back to, Yasmin. We, we have very, very conflicting, um, assessments of, of the impact of the, uh, of the Nordic model, including different numbers. Uh, what, what does, what does that tell us about what’s going on?

Yasmin Vafa
What it tells us is that the sex trade is a multi-billion dollar industry. And so, like other multi-billion dollar industries, they have an army of lobbyists and PR people and researchers. And so when you look at, you know, for example, the study that was referenced from Northern Ireland, a report came out in January 2024 that debunked much of that evidence. And so, for example, when they said that it didn’t have any impact on reducing the size of the sex trade, that was largely debunked because the data that was looked at was from prior to the law’s implementation. When you control for this, they actually found that in fact, post laws enactment, there was a 28.5 reduction in the rate of commercial sex advertisements and 50% reduction in people engaging in street prostitution. And in terms of reporting violence, the app that was used in that report that was referenced actually came from a site called Ugly Mugs. Now, when you look at what Ugly Mugs was, it is connected to the largest pimping ring in the history of the Irish state. So of course they’re going to argue in their own interest.

Kaytlin Bailey
I’m sorry. The study that came out of Northern Ireland was conducted by the government of Ireland, which is absolutely not beholden to the sex industry. And a study out of Sweden in 2006 showed that sex workers are having a hard time screening clients before sessions. They’re more vulnerable to evictions and exploitation by landlords because of the implications of criminalizing living on the earnings of sex work. And in places like Sweden, where selling sex isn’t a crime, but buying or facilitating prostitution is, sex workers are arrested for working together, and they are charged with pimping. And Ugly Mugs is a fantastic sex worker led organization whose sole job is to help sex workers keep each other safe by providing information about bad clients. And the best way for sex workers to keep each other safe is being able to freely exchange information with one another, which is criminalized under the Nordic model.

Yasmin Vafa
Again, Ugly Mugs is registered under the domain of Audrey Campbell, who is married to a convicted pimp, Peter McCormick and his son Mark McCormick, who’s also a convicted pimp. And together they run Escort Ireland, which is a, the largest pimping ring in the state of Ireland. And so it doesn’t matter who wrote the report, if they relied on information that’s coming from that source, all of that data is highly suspect.

Kaytlin Bailey
Yasmin, I’m just trying to understand, are you claiming that Amnesty International and the World Health Organization are funded by pimps and the sex industry?

Yasmin Vafa
No, but I, I am happy you brought that up because these orgs have done excellent work in a number of areas. But these organizations lack a child rights lens, they lack an anti-trafficking lens, and they lack a gender lens. The head of Human Rights Watch defended decriminalizing pimps and brothels saying quote, “Of course, we all wanna eliminate poverty, but in the meantime, why deny poor women the option of voluntary sex work?” Imagine if the head of a international NGO said, “Why deny poor children the option of voluntary sweatshop labor?” Why is it that we can make these, you know, comments when it comes to the mass sale of women’s bodies? And I would argue it’s precisely because it’s predominantly women’s bodies and girls’ bodies that are being sold for the profit and pleasure of men. And so they’re not infallible organizations.

Yasmin Vafa
But going back to the lack of a child and anti-trafficking lens, when the full decriminalization bill came to Washington, DC, every major anti-trafficking organization in the country denounced the bill, including major child rights organizations, including the National Center for Missing Exploited Children, the National Children’s Alliance, which is the umbrella organization-

Kaytlin Bailey
Many-

Yasmin Vafa
… for the thousand-

Kaytlin Bailey
Many of these organizations-

Yasmin Vafa
… child advocacy organizations in the country, and Girls Inc.

Kaytlin Bailey
I think it’s really important to recognize that the largest provider of services to trafficking victims in the United States, the Freedom Network supports the decriminalization of sex work because it reduces violence. I think it’s also important to recognize that many of the organizations that Yasmin just named are funded by conservative religious organizations that are more committed to stripping women of bodily autonomy and hunting homosexuals than to reducing exploitation. Exploitation is wrong across labor sectors, but there are more people who are trafficked into cleaning hotel rooms than are posting on Trist.

John Donvan
I think we’ve reached an impasse on this particular point, and there are other things that I would like to get to in another model that I would like to bring into the conversation. And that’s New Zealand, which New Zealand in 2003 instituted a regime very similar to that, which, uh, you are advocating Kaytlin, decriminalization.

Kaytlin Bailey
Yes.

John Donvan
What’s been the outcome? How has it worked?

Kaytlin Bailey
Sure. Uh, New Zealand became the first country in the world to decriminalize sex work in 2003. And the Prostitution Law Review Committee and an independent review from the Christchurch School of Medicine found that 64% of sex workers found it easier to refuse clients. 57% that police attitudes to sex workers changed for the better. There was no evidence that the sex industry increased in size and 90% of sex workers believed that the PRA gave them employment, legal and health rights. New South Wales decriminalized sex work in 1995 and Queensland, Australia just became the fourth jurisdiction in Australia to decriminalize. Everywhere that decriminalization happens, violence and STIs go down. Rhode Island actually decriminalized indoor prostitution between 2003 and 2009. Statisticians found that gonorrhea rates dropped 40% and reported rapes dropped 30% during that period of time.

John Donvan
Okay. Kaytlin, I wanna jump in now to let Yasmin have a say back on that one.

Yasmin Vafa
If I can respond to first New Zealand. So, New Zealand is often, you know, heralded as, as a nirvana for decriminalization. However, in the last few years, the United States State Department and its trafficking and persons report has noted that New Zealand fails to meet its minimum requirements with respect to sex trafficking. The government of New Zealand hasn’t initiated, prosecuted, or convicted any sex traffickers in years, that the government has never identified a single adult victim of sex trafficking because they’ve basically removed the entire legal apparatus to address sex trafficking. The trafficking of indigenous women and girls is rampant. The trafficking of Pacific Islander women and girls is rampant, and that’s, uh, South Asian, uh, women and girls, uh, are continued to be trafficked all over the islands. It’s a failed model. We have tons of survivor anecdotes from New Zealand that the brothels continue to be incredibly exploitative.

Yasmin Vafa
We have a number of survivor, uh, anecdotes about how they were promised that once decriminalization was instituted, they would still be able to negotiate their prices. Uh, but it, of course, it instituted a race to the bottom. The all inclusives became, uh, rampant everywhere, and that, you know, they would be able to work together for safety in these single owner occupied brothels. But of course, organized crime came in and started buying, uh, up dozens of these, uh, apartments. And so it, it’s not what we have heard at all.

And in fact, a Ministry of Justice report from New Zealand talked about how the sex trafficking of children was not reduced by full decrim. It’s difficult for police to discover abuses of exploitation because they have less contact with the industry. Quote, sex workers do not feel safer. Uh, sex workers still face stigma despite decriminalization harassment of street-based sex, quote unquote, sex workers by the public is common, no great change in their access to health services. And so again-

John Donvan
Okay. Your point, your point is, is powerfully made. Yasmin, I wanna let Kaytlin respond to some of.

Kaytlin Bailey
Absolutely. The reason that New Zealand fails the US standard for trafficking is because the United States conflates sex work with trafficking. Uh-

John Donvan
Let me, let me stop you on a, for a moment on that, Kaytlin, because I, I think a lot of people have the impression, and certainly Yasmin is making this case that these two things may not be the same thing, but they go hand in hand often. That a, a culture where prostitution is not just allowed, but perhaps even supported, makes the ground fertile for trafficking, that it happens again and again and again. What’s your response to that?

Kaytlin Bailey
The conditions, um, that create vulnerabilities to trafficking are poverty and gender-based violence and trying to eliminate, the oldest profession does nothing to address either of those issues. But in New Zealand, sex workers do hold people accountable for hurting them. For example, in 2014, a sex worker from Wellington sued a brothel manager for sexual harassment, and she was awarded $25,000 for emotional harm. And a sex worker in New Zealand successfully prosecuted a client for removing a condom during a session, which is more negotiating power than I had as a college student. I actually had the opportunity to tour a brothel in New Zealand, and I took a picture of a sign that read, “If during your booking your behavior is not acceptable at any time, the lady has every right to end the booking and leave the room.”

Yasmin Vafa
So irrespective of what’s written on the wall of the brothel, here’s a quote from Chelsea Geddes, who’s a survivor. Uh, and she worked in Fem Fatal, which is the largest and most well-known brothel in Auckland. Quote, “There are 12-hour shifts, the men paid $250, the club took their cut of 150. The club charged me $40 shift fee, a $40 ad fee, and $20 for condom use and lube making the first booking of the night of freebie, for which I was paid nothing.”

Kaytlin Bailey
You don’t have to take my anecdotal evidence because a 2017 study confirmed that decriminalization in New South Wales and New Zealand allows for a highly visible focus on workplace health and safety in brothels and massage parlors. And because consensual sex work between consenting adults is not a crime, that allows sex workers to report crimes committed against them, whether those crimes are being committed by a client, a domestic partner, or a, a manager.

Yasmin Vafa
And if I can respond to the Australia and Rhode Island claims that were made. Um, Australia, for example, uh, there’s been a 30% increase in femicide in the last year with one woman murdered every four days. And mainstream advocates and the media are connecting this to quote damaging industries such as the sex trade, pornography, gambling, social media, and calling for more strict regulations of these industries. Uh, and, and everywhere that you have these decriminalized industries, the illegal thrives with the legal. And so in Melbourne, for example, there are 500 illegal massage businesses that are operating among the 90 registered ones with 90% of the women working in them being Asian women from China, Thailand, Korean, Philippines, and the Pacific Island. So again, exploitation is rife.

Yasmin Vafa
And with respect to the claim that, you know, decriminalization fuels, um, you know, the reduction of rape or STIs, this study in Rhode Island has been largely debunked because the study erroneously presumed that the period of decriminalization began in 2003 when it’s widely known that the period of decriminalization began in 1980.

Kaytlin Bailey
I think it’s really important for listeners to understand what happened in Rhode Island. In the 1970s, coyote, uh, its sex worker led organizations sued Rhode Island for sex discrimination because buying and selling sexual services were both crimes, but only sellers, overwhelmingly women were being arrested. A judge agreed with that assessment and tasked the Rhode Island legislature with fixing the law. And Yasmin is correct. The statue is changed in 1980. But that was not widely known, and sex workers were still being arrested all the way up to 2003 when a sex worker contacted a personal injury attorney and begged for his assistance to get her friend out of jail. Because this was not his area of law, he looked up the statue and became the first attorney to make the case that indoor sex work in Rhode Island has been decriminalized. That’s when it became widely known-

John Donvan
I’m gonna break in because I wanna move on to another topic while we still have time. And that is male sex workers, men sex workers. Um, Yasmin, if you can share how their experience figures into your argument.

Yasmin Vafa
Well, the most important thing to real- uh, realize about men in the sex trade is that they’re being purchased by men (laughs). So again, this is a male driven industry once again. And so we have worked with, uh, several men who have been bought and sold in the sex industry and boys. And so again, I think, you know, they are often subject to the same exact experiences of violence, exploitation. Um, many of them are undocumented, have suffered, uh, all of the same vulnerabilities that I discussed previously. Many of them come from marginalized backgrounds. And so, you know, I think much of what we’ve been discussing applies to the young men and boys and gender expansive young people who are also exploited in the sex trade.

John Donvan
So, Kaytlin, what is your response to that?

Kaytlin Bailey
People of all genders have always done this work, and Yasmin is correct. The overwhelming majority of people purchasing sexual services are men. But that’s because for most of human history, men have controlled the overwhelming majority of assets. And we have a long history of being much more interested in controlling the sexual behavior of women than men, which is why we are so focused on, on this aspect of the work.

John Donvan
All right. We’re gonna take a break and when we come back, we’re gonna bring some other voices into the conversation. Our question is, is it okay to pay for sex? I’m John Donvan, this is Open To Debate and we’ll be right back.

Welcome back to Open To Debate, where we’re taking on the question, is it okay to pay for sex? I’m John Donvan and I’m joined by our debaters, Kaytlin Bailey, the founder and executive director of Old Pros and host of the Oldest Profession podcast. And Yasmin Vafa, the co-founder and executive director at Rights4Girls.

I, I, I, I feel like I wanna clarify what we mean by sex work in this context, because these, these, the, the, the practice of, of, uh, criminalizing the purchaser of the service. There are services that don’t in- involve individual interaction in the same room, which is where I think the question of physical danger comes in. There are, you know, dancers in strip clubs, there are people on OnlyFans sites, that’s sex work also. And again, by and large, probably there are men paying. And Yasmin, what would you do, if at all, anything about criminalizing the purchasers in those situations?

Yasmin Vafa
Well, I think this raises a really important point. Um, you know, sex work is not a defined legal term. You know, we use the term prostitution, uh, and the laws that we’re discussing, uh, for the purposes of this debate have to deal with prostitution. So I think both Kaytlin and I would agree, we’re talking about-

John Donvan
Mm-hmm.

Yasmin Vafa
… prostitution policy here.

Kaytlin Bailey
Mm-hmm.

Yasmin Vafa
Um, but I think it raises an important point that when people talk about sex work, it’s a very broad term. There are individuals who, you know, would consider themselves pimps, sometimes they’re called managers, um, who identify as sex workers. And so, you know, we don’t use that language because the survivors that we work with take issue with that term. You know, they, they’re very clear that their experience was neither sex nor work. They feel very adamant about that. So that’s not terminology that I use or my colleagues use, or the survivors that we work with use. But one of the other kind of flaws of that terminology is that it is very broad and it encompasses, uh, large aspects of the sex industry, many of which are currently legal. And so I think for the purposes of our conversation, we’re, we’re largely talking about prostitution, which is a legally defined term.

John Donvan
Kaytlin?

Kaytlin Bailey
Yes. Uh, the phrase sex work was coined by Carol Lee, uh, to push back against prohibitionists who were calling us prostituted women. And I agree with Yasmin that sex work is a broad umbrella term that encompasses all kinds of erotic performers, porn performers, strip performers, foot fetish models, phone sex operators. And also that for this conversation, we are talking about criminalized sex workers or prostitutes, people that have sex in person, uh, in exchange for money or something of value.

John Donvan
So Yasmin, the sort of extreme negative consequences that you’re talking about, such as a, a terrain that’s rife for trafficking and rape and violence, those all would apply to the situation we’re calling prostitution, but not, not those other categories like pornographic workers or, um, OnlyFans or dancers in strip clubs.

Yasmin Vafa
That’s not necessarily the case. And, and oftentimes what’s complicated about this issue and why we talk about, um, prostitution and sex trafficking and these issues as inextricably linked, is because oftentimes in the life of an individual in the sex industry, they transcend the line between these different aspects of the industry many times in the course of their, uh, time in the sex trade. So, you know, during the course of several years, several months, even several day, days. Uh, and so, uh, the harms, um, and, and both psychological and physical, uh, come in in various forms.

Yasmin Vafa
So there can be people who engage in OnlyFans. All you have to do is do a simple Google search for women who have been killed, uh, who are OnlyFans models. You know, um, it’s a very dangerous industry precisely because of the men, um, who are, you know, soliciting and, and purchasing and sustaining it. I mean, every dollar that’s made in this multi-billion dollar industry is fueled by the sex buyers.

Kaytlin Bailey
I just wanna say that Yasmin and I both agree that domestic violence and gender-based violence are real problems, but the sex industry did not create those problems. And it is not unique. There are people who are beaten by abusers that have never engaged in sex work, and there’s no evidence to suggest that eradicating the sex industry eradicates gender-based violence.

John Donvan
So I’d like to bring in some other, uh, voices to the conversation. Uh, as I said before, people who, uh, study and care about this situation and know a good deal about it, to see what questions they would have for our two debaters. And I wanna start with Lisa Thompson, who is Vice President of Research at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. Uh, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us, and, uh, please come on in with your question.

Lisa Thompson
Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. It’s been a very fascinating debate so far. My question stems from the case study that’s currently unfolding in Queens, New York. So that’s where prostitution has been defacto decriminalized by the local prosecutor who’s no longer prosecuting prostitution related cases. And this has led to a huge explosion in street level prostitution, open air, um, sex markets operating in broad daylight, composed largely of migrant and minority women. These are the ones that are being purchased by sex buyers there. So I’m wondering, like if dis- if decriminalization is supposed to bring about safety and equity, why is it when we see a case of where the laws aren’t being applied, um, we’re seeing it occurring on the street, we’re seeing, um, immigrants and, and minority women making up the, the bulk of those being, uh, purchased by sex buyers in New York.

John Donvan
Kaytlin, that sounds like it’s a challenge primarily to your position. So why don’t you go first?

Kaytlin Bailey
Sure. Um, I will say that, you know, New York, uh, has had an influx of migrants and it’s resulted in a lot of reactionary policies. Um, but I don’t think that we can arrest our way out of poverty. I don’t believe that the solution to people doing desperate things for money is further criminalization. I think that we can and should expand resources for folks that are struggling, but we’re not going to do that by criminalizing either sellers of sexual services, buyers of sexual services, or facilitators of sexual services. And there’s a lot of examples in New York of, uh, you know, visible poverty creating, uh, you know, community anxiety. But we have to stop trying to arrest our way out of these problems.

John Donvan
Yasmin, you’re, you get to respond as well.

Yasmin Vafa
Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, we work with a lot of, uh, survivors in New York who are very concerned about this issue. And, um, you know, I, I agree with Kaytlin in the sense that we can’t arrest our way out of this problem. And, you know, certainly we support and we work hard every day to disrupt what we call the sexual abuse to prison pipeline, which is the unjust criminalization of, you know, people who are prostituted in the sex trade. Um, but we believe that these individual lose any bargaining power that they gain when you also offer legal protection to the men who are purchasing them, and certainly to the exploiters, the pimps, the escort services, the brothel owners, and, um, you know, others who are profiting off of their exploitation.

And so we really believe in maintaining those legal prohibitions against purchasing, pimping and brothels while, uh, working to make sure that we are decriminalizing prostituted people and offering them viable pathways out of the industry, including services and support.

John Donvan
Thanks very much Yasmin. And Lisa, I wanna thank you very much for your question. Thanks for joining us on Open To Debate.

Lisa Thompson
Thanks for having me.

John Donvan
Our next question comes from Violeta Felix, who’s a founding member of the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective. Violeta, thanks for joining us. Please, uh, come on to Open To Debate with your question for our debaters.

Violeta Felix
Hello everybody. Just to give a bit of, um, a background, my name is Violeta. I’ve been a sex worker for six years. I am Puerto Rican refugee from Hurricane Maria, and I have also worked in exploitative collective work environments as a sex worker. So recently Belgium decriminalized sex work, and right now they are doing regulation over collective working environments such as making brothels give out employment contracts, giving access to health insurance, holidays, maternity leave, plus banning anybody with a criminal record to own a brothel, purchase a brothel, et cetera. So, I would like to know what is the issue with this?

John Donvan
Violeta, this sounds like the legalization we were talking about in the beginning, that it’s, that it’s, um, it’s permitted, but with a great deal of regulation. And I just wanna be clear, are, the sense of your question is that sounds like if it could work that it solves a lot of problems. Am I correct that that’s what you’re addressing?

Violeta Felix
Yes.

John Donvan
Yeah. Okay.

Violeta Felix
Usually when I see decriminalization discussed, it is decriminalizing where there’s no legal oversight-

John Donvan
Right.

Violeta Felix
… over individual sex workers.

John Donvan
Okay, so lemme, lemme take that first to, um, to Yasmin.

Yasmin Vafa
You know, in our view, legalization has basically been shown to be an abject failure everywhere it’s been, uh, implemented and tried. So for example, in the Netherlands, they have been forced to shut down a third of the, uh, window brothels in the Red Light District. Um, they’ve reported extreme rates of violence, uh, inside those areas. Uh, for example, 41% of women reported physical assaults by sex buyers. Only 54% percent of women surveyed were able to enforce condom use, uh, in those settings. Uh, and then when you look at the brothels of, uh, Nevada, for example, also rife with exploitation, uh, many people don’t realize you can’t willingly leave the brothels, uh, if you want, many of them are surrounded by barbed wire and it leads to a culture of violence and objectification.

Yasmin Vafa
So, for example, according to CDC data, um, you know, Nevada is consistently ranks first in the nation for domestic violence fatalities. Third in the nation for rape and sexual assault, fourth in the nation for women murdered by men. 48% of women in Nevada have experienced rape, physical violence, stalking by an intimate partner. And so Germany as well, very serious problems with sex trafficking, human trafficking and organized crimes similar to the Netherlands who have all legalized prostitution and even Germany is now looking to adopt the Nordic model. And so, um, in our view, it just hasn’t worked. Uh, legalization really provides a cover for organized criminals and, uh, other, uh, illegal activity to thrive. And so those, um, you know, it’s the reason why the European Parliament has endorsed the Nordic model and it’s really promoting that, uh, throughout Europe.

John Donvan
Okay. Kaytlin, same question to you.

Kaytlin Bailey
I actually agree with Yasmin on this, that regulatory structures that are more focused on containing and controlling prostitution have negative outcomes for sex workers. Nevada, for example, is the only place in the country with legal regulated prostitution. It has the highest arrest rate per capita in the entire country. However, what’s happening in Belgium is different. Uh, Belgium decriminalized in 2022 and just last week they, uh, sex workers organized and fought for access to benefits that all other workers in Belgium have. So I’m really excited about the example that’s being set there, and I think it’s too early to tell what the results will be.

John Donvan
Thank you very much. And Violeta, thanks for, you found a point where our two debaters have agreed for the first time, uh, throughout the program.

Violeta Felix
(laughs).

John Donvan
Thank you very much. I now wanna bring in Allison Schrager. Uh, Allison is an economist and a journalist and co-founder of the risk advisory firm, LifeCycle Finance Partners, an author of a book called An Economist Walks into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk. Allison, it’s great to have you on the program and please come in with your question.

Allison Schrager
Thanks. Good to be here. So my question’s for Yasmin. I’m wondering if there is any situation where you would find paying for sex acceptable? I mean, I, I hear your point about the power imbalance that often exists, but that’s not always the case with a sex transaction. For instance, a lot of sex customers are mentally handicapped people, or a lot of sex workers I’ve spoken to have had clients who are, um, veterans named in battle, who then after, uh, visiting a sex worker several times then actually feel more comfortable and empowered to go on and have a real relationship. So there can be a therapeutic aspect of this, uh, that I think a lot of people don’t realize in the power imbalance in those situations isn’t quite so clear.

Yasmin Vafa
You know, thanks for that question. Um, you know, I think it’s a really interesting academic point, um, but important to note that this isn’t what’s driving the industry. But nevertheless, I think it raises, uh, an interesting question of, you know, when is it okay to subordinate the rights of one group of marginalized people at the expense of another group of marginalized people? Uh, and who gets to decide, right, who gets to create this hierarchy of oppression? Uh, I think it sets a really very dangerous precedent to say that, you know, one group of marginalized or oppressed individuals who suffer from disabilities get to subordinate the rights of an oppressed class, uh, of prostituted people for their own, uh, sexual gratification and pleasure. And so I think, uh, it really raises, uh, s- a troubling precedent in my view.

John Donvan
Kaytlin?

Kaytlin Bailey
Um, yeah, I can speak to that directly actually. I had several clients, uh, when I was working who were veterans coming from war. Uh, clients that did not enjoy my socioeconomic or cultural privilege. Um, and it was a privilege to hold space for people who were processing their own trauma and to provide an avenue for them to reconnect with their bodies.

John Donvan
All right. Thank you, Allison. Thank you very much for the question. And it’s just in time for us to go to our closing round. And in our closing rounds, each of our two debaters one more time, uh, make their argument and try to persuade you to agree with them, yes or no on the question of whether it’s okay to pay for sex. And Kaytlin, you are up first on that. Your closing remarks come now, it’s your turn.

Kaytlin Bailey
There is so much that Yasmin and I agree on. We agree that nobody should be forced to do this work against their will, and that sex workers should never be arrested. We both believe that domestic violence and trafficking are real problems, and we both support efforts to expand access to services and resources that make it easier for people to leave abusive relationships and employers. And we both wanna hold predators accountable. However, criminalizing the clients of adult consensual sex workers does not achieve any of those goals. I remember when I was working as a sex worker, it was very common for me to ask my client for his ID. And while I was holding it in his hand, I would call a friend of mine. And that way somebody knew where I was, who I was with, and what time to expect to hear from me. And that guy, those men would never hand me their ID if they were the one facing criminalization.

Kaytlin Bailey
You don’t have to think that sex work is right for you, uh, or to be able to imagine yourself ever doing this work to understand that people do this and will continue to do this, whether it is criminalized or not, we will never make the oldest profession go away, but we can make it safer by taking it out of the shadows. Consensual sex that would not be a crime if money were not being exchanged, should not become a crime just because somebody is getting paid. Thank you.
John Donvan (47:01):
Thank you, Kaytlin. And Yasmin, you have the last word in this debate. Um, your closing remarks, please.
Yasmin Vafa (47:06):
It’s beyond time to decriminalize people in prostitution who are some of the most marginalized members of our society, but offering legal protection to the men who purchase them for their own sexual gratification is a dangerous policy that threatens to grow the sex trade. Unleashing market forces that poor, vulnerable people, including children into the market to meet this ever-growing demand. The evidence is clear.

Yasmin Vafa
Do we wanna emulate countries like Germany with its 12-story mega brothels where even pillows are banned for fear buyers will suffocate the women inside? Or where you can buy a braw- a woman and a beer for 50 euro? Or New Zealand where the trafficking of South Asian Pacific Islander and indigenous women and girls is rampant, but the government is powerless to address it because their entire legal apparatus has been repealed, such that they can’t even identify much less prosecute traffickers? Or where both of these countries encourage migrant women and refugees to enter the sex trade as a sustainable pathway out of poverty?

Are we as a society ready to deny poor women unemployment benefits for refusing to be prostituted? Or do we wanna prioritize survivor’s right to exit the industry, recognize prostitution for the violence it is given the lifelong physical and psychological trauma it causes the way nations such as Sweden, Norway, and Iceland do? Coincidentally, the nations with the highest levels of gender equality. This is why the European Parliament has endorsed this model and why it continues to be the prevailing global policy response to performing the sex trade with countries such as Canada, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and most recently the state of Maine adopting this approach. A young trafficking survivor summarized this issue best when she described how she’d first heard about it. She said that she’d first heard about the decriminalization bill from her trafficker who was excited about it. You have to ask, if you’re on the same side of a policy issue as pimps and traffickers, don’t you think you ought to reconsider your stance?

John Donvan
Thank you very much, Yasmin. Uh, and I, I wanna say that that is a wrap on this debate and I want to thank both of our debaters, uh, Kaytlin Bailey and Yasmin Vafa for engaging with one another. That’s what we try to encourage is for people who disagree to at least meet across the table and have it out, talk it out and hear each other out. And you both did that with, with intellect and power and insight that was beneficial to all, for all of us to hear. So thank you very, very much for, uh, taking part in this Open To Debate episode.

Yasmin Vafa
No, it was a real pleasure. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kaytlin.

Kaytlin Bailey
It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Yasmin.

John Donvan
And I also want thank my fellow questioners who came into the conversation Violeta, Lisa and Allison for, for moving the conversation in some interesting new directions. And finally, a big thank you to you, our audience for tuning into this episode of Open To Debate. Open To Debate is working as a nonprofit to combat extreme polarization through civil debate. And our work has made possible by listeners like you, by the Rosenkranz Foundation and by supporters of Open To Debate.

John Donvan
Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman. Our CEO is Clea Conner. And Lia Matthow is our Chief Content Officer. Elizabeth Kitzenberg is our Chief Advancement Officer. This episode was produced by Alexis Pancrazi and Marlette Sandoval. Editorial and research by Gabriella Mayer and Andrew Foot. Andrew Lipson and Max Fulton provided production support. Mili Shah is Director of Audience Development. And the Open To Debate team also includes Gabrielle Iannucelli, Rachel Kemp, Linda Lee, and Devin Shermer. Damon Whittemore mixed this episode. Our theme music is by Alex Clement, and I’m your host, John Donvan. We’ll see you next time on Open To Debate.