Cambridge’s high profile “brothel” case was the reason a City Council committee came together to discuss sex work and sex trafficking May 28, but it also complicated the meeting’s look at decriminalizing the work.
Even when advocates, researchers and residents at the Human Services and Veterans Committee meeting shared common views, they disagreed on some effects of decriminalization and whether the underlying Cambridge case was sex work or exploitation.
All 11 public speakers, though, spoke in support of decriminalization, with many sharing personal testimonies or anonymous statements on behalf of sex workers. Many described positive experiences in sex work, including its financial freedom and a deep sense of community.
Speakers noted the importance of their clients. “I don’t want my clients demonized, arrested or incarcerated. They are not predators. They are lifelines who pay me more than any job I’ve ever had,” said Ryan Black, reading a statement for an anonymous friend who does sex work.
Sex work in Massachusetts is fully criminalized. In the case of the “brothel” ring set up with apartments in the Alewife area and broken up in November 2023, city councillor Paul Toner is one of 34 men charged with misdemeanors. The case continues to unfold this summer.
“This is not about litigating that case. This is not about our colleague. This is not about who should resign or shouldn’t resign, or who did what,” committee co-chair Ayesha Wilson said in opening the meeting. “The purpose of the meeting is really to hear from folks who know a lot more than we do about this subject … and for us to learn and educate ourselves and the public so that we can hopefully work together to make sure that everybody is safe in what they do.”
Among the experts at the meeting were volunteers with the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective, a sex worker-led organization advocating for decriminalization.
Where sex work is criminalized, that includes “the criminalization of clients,” said Mary Carol, co-chair of Bswac. “When clients are criminalized, sex workers must compete for fewer clients and have to lower their prices, or perhaps accept dangerous clients or clients they’re uncertain about who they would otherwise refuse.”
Decriminalization legislation
The group is trying to promote four bills for passage on Beacon Hill: an act fully decriminalizing independent adult sex workers and modernizing Massachusetts antitrafficking laws; an act to study the decriminalization of sex work; an act to enhance safe reporting for sex workers without fear of arrest; and an act to prevent sexual assault by police officers.
Another group with experts at the meeting, the Emma Coalition, opposed the first three of those proposals but has its own Sex Trade Survivors Act that seeks to amend Massachusetts policy so people to leave the sex trade without a criminal record.
Bswac community outreach chair Madison Crees spoke to specific challenges in Cambridge that jeopardize sex workers under criminalization, including high rent and broker fees that are difficult to manage – particularly when sex workers are unable to show pay stubs or employment documents.
In looking for other employment, sex workers often have gaps in employment that can’t be accounted for, despite having “a large swath of business skills,” Crees said. She also described difficulty accessing health care and space in shelters where drug use and sex work is restricted and curfews are enforced. Many homeless shelters are religious and bar trans people.
Harms from decriminalization
Other speakers were concerned with the effects of decriminalization. “Anytime we make a really radical change to anything very rapidly, we see a lot of other unintended consequences,” said Mary Speta, executive director of Amirah, which provides resources to women leaving the sex trade.
Naming Germany, Belgium and New Zealand as places with full decriminalization of sex work, Speta cited a London School of Economics survey that found that “anywhere where sex buying was decriminalized or legalized, sex trafficking skyrocketed and it stayed high and then did not come back down,” she said.
In counter remarks, Harvard doctoral candidate and founding member of Bswac Jessica Van Meir said there were reasons to be skeptical of the study. “It is just as possible that this evidence shows that it’s easier to report human trafficking when sex work is illegal, but we don’t have that causal evidence,” Van Meir said.
Background on the sex trade
Speta detailed the different categories of the sex trade, including sex trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation and consensual sex trading, and said most was in the first two categories – and that sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation is what federal prosecutors labeled the case in Cambridge taking into account factors such as a lack of fluency in English or that a third party was responsible for negotiating a client contract. They are “opportunity for exploitation,” Speta said.
Speta and speakers throughout the meeting noted other data on demographics and intersections of the sex trade, particularly the vulnerability for youth, female-identifying people, people of color and LGBTQ+ people. They named factors such as poverty, housing insecurity, substance use and immigrant status as “entry points” into the trade.
Additional speakers included Audrey Morrissey, executive director of My Life My Choice, which works to protect youth from sexual exploitation, and a member of the Emma Coalition; Dawn Sauma, co-executive director of the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, which supports Asian victims of trauma and violence; and Audra Doody, co-executive director of Safe Exit Initiative, which helps people leave exploitative situations and the sex trade.
Narratives in sex work
Bswac and the Cambridge group The Black Response have said that the common portrayal of the brothel case lacks nuance and information – including testimony from the women who were employed in Alewife.
During public comment, there was more concerns with rhetoric about the sex trade that assumes or implies coercion, particularly relating to financial need. “The narrative that sex work for survival is somehow less shameful than by choice has been harmful to me,” said Carol, also reading an anonymous statement from a disabled sex worker who described the agency and flexibility their work affords them. “Oftentimes, when explained, people find somehow find my sex work excusable, while anyone who does it for other reasons or by pure preference might not be granted the same grace.”
Committee members assured the meeting will not be the last on the subject. Some speakers emphasized the need for action from the City Council, particularly on preventing the exploitation of young people, encouraging language accessibility and cultural understanding, broadening data and information collection, creating more safe spaces in Cambridge and expanding resources.
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Yup, that’s JUST what Cambridge needs for that certain “Je ne sais quoi”….
Shouldn’t Paul Toner recuse himself of these conversations?
Unbelievable! What has this city come to?
Sex work is work, and decriminalizing sex work protects sex workers and their customers.
Decriminalization in sanctuary cities would likely lead to more trafficking. There is a reason that sanctuary cities were chosen for brothel locations. Most of the women appear not to be US nationals.