Recent history[ edit ] In November , the Californian government passed Proposition 35 through ballot initiative, meaning that anyone who is a registered sex offenderβincluding sex workers and those whose actions were not Internet-basedβto turn over a list of all their Internet identifiers and service providers to law enforcement.
The law expands the definition of trafficking to anyone who benefits financially from prostitution, regardless of intent, and sex workers have not only opposed the further criminalization of their work, but also the portrayal of all sex workers as victims that the law perpetuates.
A media article published on February 8, , provided details of a police sting operation in the Sonoma County area of California and the police officers involved experienced difficulties with the very high number of respondents to the false advertisement that they published on the Internet.
After several hours, 10 men were arrested, followed by the arrest of former prosecutor and judicial candidate John LemMonβthe authorities involved stated that the market is overwhelming. Maxine Doogan, an organizer with the Erotic Service Providers Union, stated: "Their goal is to disappear the whole sex industry by criminalizing the people that participate in it.
Targeting our customers is a flawed approach. They submitted that the prostitution laws violate the rights of people to engage in consensual sex and cited a Supreme Court ruling that revoked laws against gay sex acts. Court of Appeals rejected the challenge in January on the grounds that prohibition of prostitution was in the public interest. The chapter represents the sex-positive and activist ethos that underpins the local sex-workers' movement that also included the East Bay's Lusty Lady cooperative that, while it was open, remained the only business of its kind globally to be fully unionized and worker-owned.
