Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 227 with Sex Worker Rights Advocate Mariah Grant

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Mariah is a human rights expert who focuses on migrant and sex worker rights, freedom of movement and labor exploitation. She’s a highly effective advocate who works to end systems of oppression and collaboration with impacted communities and individuals, including sex workers, drug users, migrants and people who are currently or were previously incarcerated. Mariah combines her many years of experience providing direct services to migrant and refugee children and families within the United States and Europe and researching and documenting human rights abuses throughout the Americas, the Middle East and Asia Pacific to push for long term policy solutions at the local, national and international levels. She’s currently a freelance consultant working on projects related to sex worker rights, human trafficking prevention and service provision for survivors. Before consulting, she was the director of research and advocacy with the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center, where she oversaw research on the harms of sex work criminalization, including police violence, as well as local state and federal policy advocacy to decriminalize and destigmatize sex work. She’s consulted and worked with the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, the International Organization for Migration, the US Department of State, the US Department of Labor, ICF International, Woodhole Freedom Foundation, the Free Speech Coalition, Decriminalized Sex Work, Freedom Network USA, New Moon Network, Protection International, Morrison Child and Family Service, Minority Rights Group International, and the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. In her previous roles, Mariah successfully introduced and helped pass state and federal US laws and policies to protect the health and human rights of sex workers and survivors of human trafficking. She’s also led several groundbreaking research projects on topics ranging from the experiences of sex workers in conflict zones and humanitarian crises to the impacts of district attorney non-prosecution policies in the context of sex work criminalization. And I’m sorry, Mariah, that’s all the time we have for today. Right? Yeah, that’s a long intro. Indeed, you’ve done a lot. A lot in your tender years. So Mariah, talk about your background working on protecting the rights of sex workers and preventing human trafficking. Yeah, well, thank you again for having me on the podcast today. I’m looking forward to having this conversation about sex workers’ rights and how it really is integral to preventing human trafficking as well. So I’ve been working in this field for over a decade. I studied at University of Sydney and Mahidon University, which is a university based in Thailand. Oh, wow. So I didn’t talk. Yeah, I know that you’re based in Thailand as well. Yeah, I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for most of my 20s, I was living between Australia and Southeast Asia. So I got my start really kind of in the academic field, working on my masters in human rights and democratization. And through my field research for my thesis, I was looking at ways to assess the impacts of anti-trafficking policies, whether that be state level or national policies and also NGO policies. And really looking at how the two issues of sex worker rights and prevention of human trafficking can intertwine. And from that, from kind of my academic work, I’ve been able to parlay that into working with, as noted in the intro, a lot of different organizations, some who really specifically focus on anti-trafficking, labor rights issues, and others that really are specifically focusing on sex worker rights. And I think it’s been really critical throughout the work that I’ve done to be looking at anti-trafficking as a sex worker rights issue and sex worker rights as a anti-trafficking issue. So I’ve done research work, I’ve done human rights documentation work, I’ve done policy level work specifically in the United States mostly at the local, state, and national levels. So I really like to use my background to be able to focus on an area that I think gets lost a lot when we’re talking about anti-trafficking. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of misperceptions and misconceptions when it comes to sex worker rights in this area. Absolutely. What got you interested in that? So it actually started in Cambodia, so next door to Thailand. When I was in undergrad, I did a study abroad. I was based between Phnom Penh for a period of time in CMRI. And that was the first time that I was introduced to the issue of human trafficking. I was studying post-conflict nation building. So we were looking specifically at the period of civil war in Cambodia, but also the period in which the United Nations came in and was basically kind of like working as the government for a period of time. And during this post-conflict period, a lot of international organizations also came in. So we learned about human trafficking from this very sort of Western perspective. And what I found was there wasn’t a lot of conversation about sex work in the Spain of choice. And so I kind of came back from that experience thinking, of course, people experiencing exploitation in any labor sector needs to be addressed. But I wasn’t convinced by what I was hearing from these organizations that were significantly from outside of Cambodia, many of them from the United States, that we’re saying we need to eradicate sex work entirely from this country and also globally. So I got curious from that time going forward. I went back to the University of Oregon where I was studying for my undergrad and tried to find organizations that were working on anti-trafficking. I only found one that was at the campus. And it was an organization that was very faith-based, I will say, specifically the Christian faith. And what I found was it was an organization that only thought about sex work in one way. And it thought about it in a way that was very one-sided. And so I did some work with the organization. And I had an interesting experience because at that time, there was an individual they had come and speak on campus. It was an open conversation for anybody to attend around human trafficking. And so he presented this also kind of very specific idea of what trafficking was. It didn’t talk about sex worker rights in any way. It was very focused on trafficking in the sex trades, though. And he actually claimed that his daughter had been trafficked, and that was what spurred him into action. He also claimed that he had been high level in the US military. He claimed that he was an anti-terrorism and anti-trafficking expert. And he was quite successful in getting gigs to train military personnel, to train people who are truly working in anti-trafficking based on what turned out to be a false bill of goods. He made the claim actually that the movie Taken was based off of his life. So I returned to Southeast Asia after having heard this story from him. And you hear these things, and you don’t immediately think this can’t be true. You hear what you believe to be a father expressing some of the worst days of his life and having to deal with the fact that he had a child who he claimed to have been trafficked and to be severely harmed. And so your mind doesn’t initially go to this can’t be true. I don’t believe you. But when I moved back to Southeast Asia, I reached back out to the organization that had brought him on to give this talk. And I was asking what had happened with him was maybe thinking he claimed he had connections in Southeast Asia. I was going to be doing research on human trafficking programs in the region. And they informed me that he had actually recently been arrested on charges based around the lies he had told about his story. He was ultimately convicted of those charges and sent to jail because of this. So that also fit into this sort of curiosity that I had coming from my time in Cambodia. And now I’m back in Thailand. I’m looking at organizations that are working on anti trafficking and continued to make me really kind of curious and wanting to better understand what was becoming to me an anti trafficking industry. It was these organizations that were making a lot of money and getting a lot of money from different governments, a lot of money from the US government to do these anti trafficking programs and to run these organizations in Southeast Asia that were all specifically focused on what they called sex trafficking, trafficking into the sex trade. And I wanted to find the organizations that had a different perspective. And so that’s where I found the global alliance against trafficking women. That’s where I found Empower Foundation. Empower Foundation is one of the longest running advocacy organizations in Southeast Asia that is sex worker run. I wanted to better understand, you know, what is the perspective of the people that work within this industry? And I was extremely fortunate to be welcomed by both of these organizations to do part of my field research for my masters with them. And that really clarified to me that that one perspective on what trafficking is, is not the entire story. Ain’t that the truth? Ain’t that the truth? So what kind of work are you currently doing to protect the health and rights of sex workers while also preventing human trafficking? Yeah. So I was very fortunate to work for several years with the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center. I was their director of research and advocacy. With that organization, I was able to do some really important research projects that even though I’m no longer with the organization itself, I’ve been able to move some of that research just from words on paper into actual action. I think if you’re somebody who does research, it can feel kind of really challenging at times to put in all of the work into research projects and then not see it really affect change. So one of the projects that I did at SWP, which is the acronym for the organization, is a handbook on district attorney non-prosecution policies. So it’s based around the US legal system, specifically the US criminal legal system, which has a few flaws, I will say. Just a few. Right. Yeah. So a handbook was written with the intention to influence both DA offices throughout the country. So it’s something that DA offices can pick up online. It’s something that they can implement and utilize. It has what a district attorney non-prosecution policy, non-prosecution for sex work related charges would look like. So DA offices can just use the handbook themselves, but it’s also really geared towards advocates, sex worker rights advocates. And thank you to New Moon Network, which is physically sponsored by Wood Hall Freedom Foundation. I’ve been able to do a series of trainings with the DA handbook, with one of the co-authors, Francesca. So we’ve been able to do these online trainings webinars and then also last year ran a cohort series where we brought together advocates with sex work experience who work in different states throughout the US so that they could implement the handbook themselves. And that’s really where it moves from just being, like I said, words on paper into actual changes. And hopefully we would see that DA non-prosecution policies would be implemented in various states throughout the country. Are you seeing results from it? So it’s been an interesting time with progressive, what they call like progressive DAs. There was a lot of movement a few years back, especially around 2020, especially as the Black Lives Matter movement really picked up speed. And we saw a really strong call for changes to the criminal legal system, changes to the way that policing works in the United States. So there was some progress in that regard with DAs. We saw great progress in Baltimore City with the DA, who was previously in office, who actually implemented a non-prosecution policy related to sex work charges and other quality of life charges. We saw in Michigan in the district where Ann Arbor in Michigan is, that the DA there implemented a non-prosecution policy. That policy is still in place. Unfortunately, the state’s attorney who was in Baltimore City was voted out of office. And part of one of the arguments that the person who was running against them, who ultimately was successful made, was around this non-prosecution policy. And so we’ve seen this progress. And then we’ve also seen, as is so often and unfortunately the case, that sometimes progress leads then to regression. So we’ve seen that there’s been some pushback on these non-prosecution policies. But I still have a lot of hope that it’s a really important part of the entire effort towards decriminalization of sex work. And so I still am a big advocate for this very hyper-local way of pushing for change. Sure. So how did you come to distinguish sex worker rights as being different from human trafficking? Yeah, I think that came a lot with the experiences that I had in Southeast Asia initially, but also within my work in the United States with sex worker rights organizers, where through having those conversations with folks who have experience in the sex trades, that they were telling me, this is distinct from human trafficking. I know people who have experienced abuse in this industry and it’s distinct from my experience. And I want to do everything I can to make sure that this industry is safer. And we can’t make it safer if there’s just this assumption that everyone is being exploited. Because then that lends itself to the argument that the industry itself just is irredeemable. And that’s what we hear from folks who really don’t understand what sex work is and don’t understand those nuances or are being purposefully, I would say obtuse on the issue and are misleading what happens within the sex trade itself. So really I came to distinguish sex worker rights from human trafficking from the people who have the experience, from the people who are sex workers and also from the people who have experienced trafficking in the sex trade and are very, very vocal about the fact that conflating the two issues, conflating sex work with human trafficking is actually causing harm. Let’s talk about foster system because there isn’t a better example of that than what happened with the passing of that and how it’s impacted sex worker rights really both domestically and abroad. Yes, absolutely. That is really clear example of how US policy doesn’t just affect the United States. It has global ramifications in so many ways. And I think CESTA foster day is also a very clear example. I don’t know how much your listeners need to lead in on what that is, but. I think it’s been pretty well publicized that it’s an anti-trafficking law, but it really ended up being anti-sex worker because they took down all the safe spaces online. Right, yeah. And sex workers were the ones leading the charge before it was passed in 2018. They were the ones who were going to their representatives in the house, going to their senators and saying, "We understand that politically this seems difficult to oppose because it is being sold to you as an anti-trafficking piece of legislation." And it was very creatively crafted for that express purpose that is going to make you feel like you can’t come out and oppose it. But I would say one of the clearest examples of why folks who were going to pass it needed to be cautious about it, not just in what the sex workers were telling them this is going to cause direct harm, but also one of the most vocal opponents to it in the Senate was Senator Wyden from Oregon, the senior senator from Oregon, who was actually one of the senators who crafted Section 230, the Communication Jeans and Seat Act, what ultimately would be carved out by CESTA Foster to make it so that online platforms were going to be held liable for content that was posted on their sites that were related to not just sex trafficking, but prostitution as the term is legally in the legislation, sex work broadly. And so if the person who deeply understands the implications of changes to Section 230 to the Communications Jeans and Seat Act is saying, "Have some caution in what you’re trying to do here," that is somebody that should be listened to. Sex workers should be listened to. They should have been listened to and they were correct when they were warning senators, when they were warning representatives that this bill is going to cause harm. The things that it says it’s going to do that are going to help trafficking victims, it is not, and it’s actually going to make people more vulnerable to exploitation. It’s going to make sex workers who had learned ways to stay safe through using online websites by being able to build community online are not going to have access to that anymore. It’s actually going to make them more vulnerable to trafficking. It’s going to do the opposite of what you’re thinking it’s going to do. Yeah, it pushed a lot of people back on the streets. And it forced people to have third parties be managers. We saw from the great reporting that came from sex workers who were documenting the experiences they were having post-SESTA FOSTA that they were immediately being contacted by people who knew that online spaces they’d previously used to vet clients were no longer going to be available and they would need somebody to fill in that gap and that creates a lot of vulnerability. Which actually ends up making it sex trafficking in the end. Because pimps do traffic. I caution against the term "pimp it." I mean, I think sometimes that is the terminology that may be correct, but I tend towards third party or manager. Okay. It’s a semantic thing, but I think there can also be a lot of importance in being precise with language, especially when it comes to sex work. But those people do traffic. Well, I mean, trafficking in any industry happens by somebody who’s in a position of power. Yes, there are people who are in positions of power who traffic people. Exactly. My whole point is FOSTA says did the opposite of what it was supposed to do. Right. And it made it actually more difficult to investigate cases of trafficking. If you think that looking to me as a source, looking to sex workers as a source is something that you would bucket for whatever reason with your own biases, I would suggest that those folks look at what the federal government, what the government accountability office specifically is saying in regards to how FOSTA has actually made it harder to investigate cases of trafficking because websites that law enforcement used to rely on to investigate trafficking are no longer available to them. Exactly. Exactly. So why is it critical for the public to understand the difference between sex work and human trafficking? It is critical for people to understand the difference because if they don’t understand that sex work is a job that happens and that trafficking is something that happens within the context of sex work potentially, then they’re going to believe that we need these policies that end up being so harmful that actually aren’t preventing trafficking. So having that nuanced understanding that when you hear a story, a new story, you see something online about trafficking to be thoughtful about it and think, am I being told something that’s accurate? Is this the truth? Because if we don’t have, if the public doesn’t have an accurate perception of what trafficking is, then we’re going to see that politicians or groups that are seeking to do things that are harmful to sex workers have a lot of influence and have a lot of sway. It also is about making sure that people are safe in a lot of different industries. So when the public believes that trafficking really only happens within the sex trade, we’re going to think it’s okay that all the government is doing is focusing on this one industry, which leaves a lot of people really, really vulnerable. And it leaves a lot of people who are experiencing trafficking without resources, without support. We see, and I say this with caution because data around trafficking is also one of the issues is that we don’t have good data because by the very nature of trafficking, it is a clandestine activity. It’s something that is generally not done out in the open. So with that said, we do know that there’s a lot more just kind of logically thinking like there’s a lot more industries than just the sex trade. So there’s a lot of industries in which trafficking could happen. Trafficking can happen really in any industry. So agriculture, people working within manufacturing, people working as domestic workers within homes, people working as hotel staff. There’s a lot of different industries in which trafficking could occur. So if we’re spending all of our time only focusing on one industry in which trafficking occurs, we’re leaving all of these other people at risk or relieving all of these other survivors of trafficking without access to redress, without access to support. So that’s why it’s really critical for the general public to understand that when we’re talking about trafficking, it isn’t just in this one industry. And also when we’re talking about sex work, it isn’t all trafficking and people need to be able to do the work that they’re choosing to do without these impediments. Hey, let’s face it. The vast majority by a good margin is not trafficking. Most probably 90% is not trafficking. It’s people doing sex work on their own free will. Yeah, we’re talking about adults doing consensual sexual activities. Which should be legal. Let’s face it. Okay. I say it’s the oldest profession and there’s no doubt in my mind it should be legal. I felt that way my entire life. What are some of the persistent myths spread about human trafficking? I would say as we’ve been talking about that most trafficking happens within the sex trade, there’s also some myths that are shared by anti-trafficking organizations that just aren’t logical. So some of those are that most people who engage in sex work started an average age of 12. So that would indicate that there’s a lot of very, very, very young children who are trafficked into the sex trade, which we just don’t see the data to bear that out. We also need to understand that just in general that sex work is a chosen profession by many, many people. I also think some of the myths are around the nature of sex work itself. So we don’t have an expansive enough understanding of what we mean by that. It is an umbrella term. It includes people working in a wide range of industries within the United States that can include people working within legal regulated sectors doing adult video, what would be porn. It can include people who are independent running their own small company doing content creation, who are self-employed, who are able to do their work from home independently. It includes people who are doing more like fetish work or BDSM. It can include people who are doing in-person full service sex work. So I think one of the things is just understanding the vastness of the industry. So you’re including millions of workers around the world. I think another myth that is highly perpetuated is around the harms of porn and that in no way is there like a safe way for people to produce porn or to view and consume porn that it only has a harmful effect, which I also just don’t believe to be true. Well, it’s not true. Then there is data to back that up. Right. Yeah. Exactly. I think also the idea that we have to eradicate the industry entirely, it’s just it’s not a reasonable approach. We’re not going to eradicate any industry entirely when there’s abuses that have happened. What we’re going to do is address the conditions under which those abuses occur. We can’t eradicate an entire industry when there’s bad things that happen. You hear about Iran Jeremy and the mainstream media makes it a really, really big deal. And it was a big story. There’s no two ways about it. But there’s only one of those and granted some of the old time porn stars were like Ron Jeremy. But that’s definitely yesterday’s news. I mean, there’s no two ways about it. That kind of stuff just is not allowed. Right. And I think that you actually that speaks on a really important issue that the organizations that are focused on anti trafficking from a lens of eradicating the sex sector from existing are not doing what is necessary to actually make the work safer. And that’s one of the things that I find to be extremely harmful is that they’re saying they’re doing this work in the service of people who are being exploited within the sex sector, but they’re doing nothing to actually make the industry safer. Whereas sex worker rights organizations are like, yeah, there’s things that happen that need to be addressed. There’s abuses that have occurred. Here’s the ways that we can stop it. Yeah. Well, organizations and I’ll call them out like NCOSE, they’re enriching themselves. And I just saw a couple of days ago, I saw a list of the salaries of their top people and they’re the ones getting enriched and they’re not worried about trafficking. They really don’t even care about porn. All they really care about is making money and getting contributions that end up going into their pockets. So let’s just call that out for what it is. What are some myths about sex work in general beyond what you’ve already said? I would say that nobody would choose it as a job. You hear that a lot that it’s not something that anyone would willfully choose, which is just factually untrue. I have many close loved ones in my life who very much have looked at, you know, their array of options when it comes to making money. And this is the job that they choose and they thrive in it and they love it. And it’s a form of creative expression. It’s a way of feeling in your body, in your work and feeling powerful. So I would say that that is just, it’s absolutely false. And it’s a really harmful perception that is used by people that claim to be feminists in a lot of way. And they’re saying that there’s a false consciousness that happens among people who do sex work, that they’re so abused that they can’t possibly know what they’re choosing to do. And that’s extremely disrespectful to the reality of people who are doing sex work. And that is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve been in rooms where the people that I see as incredible advocates for their rights, for the rights of their community, are expressing to these individuals, "I am choosing to do this work." And they’re being told to their faces that you don’t know your own reality. It’s a form of abuse and gaslighting. All you gotta do is listen to this podcast and tune in and listen to Sheree Deville and someone like that talk. And you’re never going to think for a second that the people in this industry are anything but bright and talented. Absolutely. And we also owe a debt of gratitude to people who’ve been doing sex work for decades who were critical in creating the internet that we know today. Sex workers were at the absolute forefront, continued to be at the forefront of tech innovation. They are vanguards of the tech that we all use today. The internet exists because of sex workers and we should all be applauding them and thanking them instead of trying to destroy the industry that they work within. Absolutely. Another person that’s been on our podcast who’s a companion, Amy Taylor, and she’s phenomenal. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s an elite companion out of New York and we’ll talk about Wicked Smart. Oh my goodness. I have many, many friends who are creators, who are porn actors, who are companions and they’re my equals. Analysts put it that way. How has US policy or US-based NGOs influenced public perception of human trafficking? Yes. So the US has huge influence around the world just as we were talking about with Cesta Fosta. So that is a law that has impacted sex workers across the entire globe. But also there’s a lot of organizations within Southeast Asia, as I was discussing earlier, but also globally that perpetuate a very US mindset, a very anti-sex work, anti-sex mindset. And so they’ve had huge influence in countries around the world really forcing people out of doing sex work. There’s a lot of organizations that have these mandates where if you’re going to receive services from them, you can no longer engage in sex work, having people be forced to think of themselves as victims of trafficking when in fact they may have experienced an abuse within the confines of the work that they were doing the sex trade, but they needed that abuse to be addressed, not change jobs entirely. A lot of forcing people to work within other industries that these organizations deem as I don’t know how to use quote marks, respectable. So pushing people into labor sectors like manufacturing, working in really dangerous jobs, dangerous industries that actually benefit global capitalism versus their individual well-being. That’s both US-based organizations that have been doing that, a lot of faith-based organizations that also force people into potentially attending or being participating in faith-based activities that may not be in alignment with their own faith. A very Protestant mindset being expanded not just in the United States, but around the world. Pray it away. What policies such as decriminalization would better protect sex worker rights and safety as well as prevent human trafficking? Yeah. So I think the things that prevent human trafficking are making sure that labor, I would say, exist under capitalism at this present day. People need to work to survive. We can address, we can talk about that we want to see a different economic system around the world, which I think would also prevent trafficking, but we’re working within the confines of the reality we exist within. So at this present moment, I would say decriminalization of sex work is key to protecting sex worker rights while also preventing human trafficking. So that would remove the criminal penalties for engaging in generally speaking full service sex work. But I think in addition to that, it’s not enough to just have there be no criminal penalties for sex work. I want to see an industry that really protects the labor rights of the people within it. So I want to see that perhaps there’s unionized union efforts within different industries of the sex trades, that there’s really worker rights at the center of it so that people are in control of their own work life. And I think that that would go a long way to preventing abuses within the sex industry, would go a long way to preventing human trafficking, that people really are at the center of the work that they’re doing and that they’re not under the control of people that don’t have their best interests at heart and making sure that people have opportunities to choose sex work if they want to and also have opportunities to choose to do something else when they want to as well. So decriminalization is a key policy that we need to see happen both in the United States and a lot of different countries. But I think it’s just the beginning of what we need to see policy wise and it’s not the end goal. It’s really actually the beginning. Well you know, I’m sure that decriminalization of sex work is very close to happening here in Thailand. Yeah, I’ve seen that. So first they legalize pot then that. Hey, Thailand’s become an example for the world, but now they’re talking about unlegalizing pot so who knows? Well, I think that’s actually a really key part is that advocates for things like decriminalization of drugs, decriminalization of sex work, we really do need to be forward thinking and think about when we are successful because I think we will be successful. What does the world look like once we have decriminalized drug use, once we have decriminalized sex work? And that’s why I want to talk about what is workers rights look like when we have decriminalization and power foundation in Thailand, the organization I mentioned before, they’ve been at the forefront of advocating for Decrim and they’ve also got a really interesting model in Thailand where they have a bar up in Chiang Mai in that area that is a collective, it’s worker run. So they’ve been sort of an incubator of what the ideal world could look like where the powers and the hands of the workers. Well, that’s very cool. They should do that here in Patayans, the sex trade capital of Southeast Asia. I’ll go get a drink. In working towards decriminalization, are there other policies that would help protect sex worker rights such as at the local level through district attorney, non prosecution policies? Yeah. So that’s what I was thinking too earlier. So the handbook that I helped produce when I was at SWP, we produced it in collaboration with Yale University’s global health justice partnership. So that’s a collaborative between their public health school and their law school. So this is where we see that we would implement non prosecution policies kind of as like what I would see as test cases and be able to do a lot of really important research around what it looks like when an individual jurisdiction has effectively decriminalized sex work. Because I think that one of the issues that we run into when we’re trying to work towards decrim is that sometimes politicians want to be the first at something, but a lot of times they don’t and they want to have evidence of what they’re going to do is going to work and it’s not going to backfire and it’s not going to end up getting them removed from office. So we need to have the evidence to also influence policymakers. And so having these sort of little individual examples of how effective decrim is at protecting the rights of sex workers, at preventing trafficking, at freeing up resources to law enforcement to go and investigate cases of trafficking is going to be critical towards making decrim happen. I think also we have to have better housing policy. We have to have better access to healthcare. We have to have access to educational opportunities. So there’s a lot of policies that you might not think of as sex worker rights related. You might not think of as anti-trafficking, but really, really are a key part of what we need to see to protect the rights and health of everyone. Got it. So you’ve worked with several anti-trafficking sex worker rights groups. Can you tell me more about some of the projects you’ve worked on? Yeah, one of the things that I did last year, which I found to be really interesting in an area that is not focused on enough. So the global network of sex work projects, which is an amazing organization. They’re a member-based organization. So they get the insights and brilliance of sex worker rights-led organizations from around the world. And they put out these policy briefs pretty frequently on a lot of different subjects. So one of them that I worked on last year was on sex work in humanitarian crises and conflict zones. And what are the policy issues that we see within those contexts? So the things that we see issue of around the world in times of peace, sex work is not decriminalized, sex workers are being harassed by police, sex workers are being potentially harmed by clients with impunity. These things are just heightened and escalated in conflict zones. And it also could potentially lead to, you know, there’s military personnel within a conflict zone. What are sex workers’ interactions with those individuals? What is their process for seeking or just if they experience abuses by military? And unfortunately, we see that there’s a lot of harm and bias from humanitarian workers. So one of the key tenants of humanitarian work is that you provide assistance without, you know, your own political feelings or influence getting in the way that you’re going to be providing it unbiased to everybody who needs assistance. And unfortunately, we don’t see that in the case of sex workers. So people who have been doing sex work and end up in humanitarian settings and being up in conflict zones are not able to access assistance in the way that people who may not be, who aren’t involved in sex work may be able to. Yeah. I mean, you hear about police abusing sex workers all the time. I was just reading another article about it and it’s just sad, you know, because you know so much more of it happens than what you read about. But unfortunately, because of the dynamic of the power dynamics there, you know, most of them don’t get reported. It’s just not going to happen. That’s the worst part. What kinds of preventative approaches to trafficking would help stop abuses happening in the sex trade while protecting sex workers’ health and safety? As I’ve kind of spoken to some of the things that we need to see happen are assistant access to housing, especially in the United States. We see that that is a key risk factor when it comes to trafficking. It’s a key risk factor to people who are doing sex work for a variety of reasons. But if they lose housing, that makes them a lot more vulnerable. It makes everyone a lot more vulnerable. So really working on access to housing, as I’ve talked about before, access to education so that people can have a variety of options to them. So whether they want to be doing sex work or want to be doing something else, that they’re able to have that real choice, that we want to see people being able to have economic freedom so that we need a better safety net in the United States in general. We see that addressing poverty, addressing issues related to economic stability are key factors in being able to prevent trafficking. And it also makes it so that people who are doing sex work are able to access the thing that makes their job safer, access to condoms, active to reproductive health care, access to health care more broadly, access to health care that’s not stigmatizing so that people are able to go and get assistance as they need to so they’re able to do their work in a safe and healthy way. So these are all things that are both going to be effective at preventing trafficking while also making sure that sex workers’ health and safety is protected. Yes. How does freedom of expression online relate to sex worker rights? So as we’re discussing sex workers, we owe a debt of gratitude to them for the way that the internet runs today. And we also see that freedom of expression online is under threat. So cute. And we see that sex workers are really, this is sort of a common phrase we hear, the canary and the coal mine. So with Sastra Foster, we are seeing that they were the sacrificial lamb when it came to changing online policy and restricting freedom of expression online. So sex worker rights is deeply intertwined with freedom of expression on the internet. We see that because section 230 of the communications decency act is under threat, that sex workers were the first ones to be having their freedom of expression. Fringed upon even organizations that are working on sex worker rights, there’s been huge impacts for their advocacy efforts. So when I was with the sex workers project, we saw that after Sastra Foster and having it be implemented, that the ways that we would advocate online were being infringed. So a lot of times we’ll self-center. So instead of spelling S-E-X, we’ll put S-Asterix-X or spell it S-E-G-G-S. And just a lot of ways that we have to get around being shadow banned on social media or not having our posts get as much attention, which directly impedes the democratic process. So when I was with SWP, we were trying to get a bill passed in Congress that would have studied the impacts of S-E-S-T-A-F-O-S-T on the health and rights of sex workers. But to get enough attention to it, to get people to want to call their legislator and say, you know, this is important to me, I want to see this bill passed, you have to get people to know about it. And if we have to change the way that we spell a word so that it isn’t blocked or that our account isn’t shut down, that really impedes our ability to run an effective campaign. So if anyone cares about freedom of expression, which I think most of us should, you need to see how sex workers are being, having their rights infringed upon and how their expression is being diminished. Yeah. And as scared as I am about Donald Trump being back in the White House, people also shouldn’t forget who was largely behind foster system. So I still think she’s the better choice, but she’s no friend to our industry. Let’s put it that way. She’s no politician. No politicians are our friend, except maybe the Wyden who you mentioned in Oregon is about the only one who’s come out in our favor because we have very few political friends for obvious reasons. And it’s just, it’s sad. And he’s also had an evolution on this issue. You know, like he wasn’t always in favor of sex worker rights. And I saw that he had an evolution on his own understanding of trafficking. So I would say I agree with you that we don’t have a lot of political allies, especially in high power positions in the federal government. But I really, I hope that people can evolve on this issue and listen to sex workers who forever have been saying, we need your support, the policies, solutions that you think our solutions are not. They’re actually the exact opposite and they’re causing a lot, a lot of harm. Well I was at the X-Biz show in LA in January and I heard our lobbyist with the FSC speak. And let me just tell you that that is a dynamic, I can’t remember his name right now, that is a dynamic young man who is getting things done. So there is hope, there definitely is. And the FSC spends a lot of time in DC talking to, and also in state houses. So they’re working their butts off, Alice and Bowdoin and you know, and her team are just really kicking some butt and I’m very proud of them. Yeah, I would absolutely sing their praises as well. They’ve been doing incredible work. That’s part of what I’ve actually been able to do this past year is work with them on a forthcoming white paper around financial discrimination against sex workers and the sex industry. Yes, we had a whole seminar on that and talk about starting a credit union and I know they’re working really hard, Allison and Mike Stabile and the team. So very, very proud of them and I’m behind them a thousand percent. How does tech policy intersect with sex worker rights? Why should the public be concerned about proposed internet regulation under the guise of protecting children? And of course, I’m speaking about the age verification laws. Right, yeah, which again, Free Speech Coalition has been forefront of fighting these really unjust laws that are very much using the issue of protecting children as the way to push them forward and to make it against you like politically impossible for a politician to speak out against it. So we also see that with the, I mean, expertly named Kids Online Safety Act, which is anything but that. So we’ve seen several organizations come out in opposition to it that would actually make it harder for a lot of children to access really critical information, especially children who come from more marginalized communities, LGBTQ youth, children trying to access even just like health information, the implications of these sorts of tech policy bills that are really censorship bills under the guise of child protection bills. Of course, I want to see the internet be a safe and welcoming place for children. I want it, I want the issues that we see online to be addressed, but these bills, the age verification bills are not the solution. I think the work that FSC has done to come up with really effective alternatives to these age verification bills, being very supportive of point of device age verification, that that is a way to effectively ensure that children are not accessing the content that they shouldn’t be. I think also legislators are just lying about what the industry is, is or is not doing to protect children. The adult industry has protections in place and is working very hard to ensure that their industry is safe, that children aren’t accessing the materials that they shouldn’t be. And is there more work to be done? Absolutely. But we are now having to spend so much time fighting these really harmful laws when we could be using that time and energy to actually make the internet safer and actually make it a place that everybody can be represented and have access to and have freedom of expression online instead of us having to fight these laws that are really going to cause a lot of damage and aren’t going to be effective at the thing that they should be. Now, kids know how to use VPNs and there will always be places that they can point their VPN at and they’ll be able to get the same porn or they’re going to go to sites that don’t follow the rules and have all kinds of nasty things on there that they definitely shouldn’t see. Right, exactly. They’re going to see legal porn if they see the sites that are having to deal with the age verification laws. But in that case, they’re going to see overseas sites, right? Right, yeah, because that’s a big issue with these is the jurisdiction of it. So if they’re only affecting US sites and kids will be pushed to sites that are less regulated, that’s a key factor, risk factor with all of these age verification bills. Yes. Mariah, I’d like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk and I hope we’ll get a chance to do this again soon. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. My broker tip today is part one on how to buy a site. The first question to ask yourself is what kind of site would you like to buy? Would you like a tube site, a cam site, a dating site, a membership site, a social media site or something else? If you want to buy a membership site, what type of site do you want and in what niche? There are literally hundreds of niches and many sub-niches. For instance, let’s say you want to buy a gay site. Under gay, there’s bears or mature, bearback, Asian, Latino, amateur, bi, black, Euro and fetish along with many fetishes under that classification. Plus there’s hardcore, jocks, porn stars, solo, trans, twinks and uniforms. Straight has even more sub-niches. I can’t tell you how many people contact me and just say I want to buy a site or I want to buy a pay site. I need more information than that. How you make this decision should be based on these factors. What interests you? What you enjoy should definitely play a part in what you buy. If you like men and want to make money on a straight site, that’s probably a really bad idea. Same thing if you’re straight and want to buy a gay site. So what you’d like plays a part. What’s your budget? This is something you need to establish at the very beginning. Not only do you need to know what it is you’re working with, but some classifications of sites are more expensive than others. For instance, if you want a cam site with any traffic or revenue at all, you’re going to need a lot of money. In fact, to buy any established and successful site will be somewhat expensive. If you buy a site that’s pretty much just a platform without traffic or sales, you’re going to need a huge investment to build it up. In that case, it might actually be as good or better just to start your own site. That way you get exactly what it is you’re looking for. We’ll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we’ll be speaking with Dan Cooper of Clip Page. And that’s it for this week’s Adult Site Broker Talk. I’d once again like to thank my guest, Mariah Grant. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I’m Bruce Friedman. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]