A conversation with a sociopath (with M.E. Thomas)
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Caitlin Bailey about the evolutionary sociology of sex and the institutional prejudices and systemic oppression of sex workers. They discuss the harms of criminalization, the nuances of sex worker safety, and the importance of decriminalization for public health and human rights.
Deep Dive Analysis
21 Topic Outline
The Travesty of Sex Worker Treatment in the US
Defining Sex Work and Its Broad Scope
Impact of Criminalization on Broader Freedoms
Origins of Sex Work Stigma and Whorephobia
Evolutionary and Cultural Perspectives on Mating Strategies
Religious Influence on Sexual Morality and Prostitution
Sex Work and STI Transmission: Debunking Myths
Personal Experience Entering Sex Work
Client Screening and Safety Protocols for Sex Workers
Psychological Impact of Sex Work Versus Other Jobs
Sex as a Special Human Activity vs. Intimate Labor
Spectrum of Choice, Circumstance, and Coercion in Sex Work
The Role of Pimps and Criminalization's Impact
Decriminalization vs. Eradication: The Nordic Model
Decriminalization vs. Legalization and Regulation Models
Balancing Privacy, Autonomy, and Community Standards
Sex Work, Infidelity, and the Effects of Prohibition
Intersection of Drugs and Sex Work
Changing Attitudes and Historical Context of Sex Work
Public Opinion and Demographics on Decriminalizing Sex Work
Final Message: Reframing Perception of Sex Workers
6 Key Concepts
SESTA-FOSTA
The Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, signed in 2018, created an exception to Article 230, holding platforms liable for user-posted content. This led to widespread censorship of sex work and sexual content online, impacting sex educators and free expression.
Whorephobia
The guest's theory that this is the foundation of misogyny, stemming from societal obsession with paternity and controlling women's sexual choices. It leads to policies that restrict women's movement and access to public spaces, often under the guise of cracking down on prostitution.
Hidden Estrus
A biological characteristic of human women where ovulation is not outwardly obvious to themselves, partners, or communities. This biological trait complicates mate-guarding behavior as an evolutionary strategy, suggesting that transactional sex may have been a survival strategy for early humans.
Nordic Model
Also known as 'end demand laws,' this policy criminalizes the buying or facilitating of sexual services but not the selling. While intended to reduce exploitation, it often increases sex workers' vulnerability by making client screening harder and disrupting their ability to work safely, as seen in countries like Sweden and Norway.
Decriminalization of Sex Work
A model that removes criminal penalties from buying, selling, and facilitating sex work, while still maintaining community standards for public nuisance issues. This approach aims to increase sex worker safety and access to healthcare by removing the fear of legal repercussions, as implemented in New Zealand.
White Slave Panic Narrative
A historical and ongoing narrative that portrays sex workers as literal slaves, often to violent strangers or addiction, typically involving a 'black or brown person kidnapping a white girl' for forced sex work. The guest describes this as a misrepresentation, arguing that actual exploitation often stems from domestic abuse within communities.
11 Questions Answered
The travesty is that full-service sex work is criminalized in most of the US, leading to widespread discrimination, increased vulnerability to predation, and the erosion of foundational freedoms like privacy and expression for all citizens.
Criminalization, exemplified by laws like SESTA-FOSTA, incentivizes platforms to censor sexual content, affecting sex educators and the free internet, and anti-immigration policies prevent known sex workers from entering countries even for legal activities like attending conferences.
The guest theorizes that 'whorephobia' is the foundation of misogyny, rooted in societal obsession with paternity and controlling women's reproductive choices, which historically led to policies restricting women's movement and public access.
While sex workers are vulnerable to STIs, they often take more precautions and share harm reduction information, making them potentially better at prevention than the general public, especially when compared to isolated individuals or military populations.
Sex workers rely on community-shared safety protocols, such as screening clients by asking for references from other sex workers, verifying employment ties, checking IDs, and informing a trusted person of their location and client's identity.
The guest argues that sex work is not uniquely psychologically damaging, noting that many other jobs (e.g., waitressing, military, slaughterhouses) can also cause significant trauma or erode humanity, but these are not similarly targeted for eradication.
Pimps are a direct product of criminalization, emerging after brothels were shut down and sex workers needed male intermediaries to connect with clients safely. While their role can be abusive, the violence is compounded by criminalization, not inherent to the work itself.
Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for buying, selling, and facilitating sex work while maintaining community standards, prioritizing privacy and autonomy. Legalization/regulation, like in Nevada, often involves strict licensing, mandatory tests, and limited freedom, serving more to control and contain sex workers.
Sex workers generally oppose the Nordic Model because it makes screening for safety harder, disrupts the market, reduces their negotiating power, and often leads to increased vulnerability and homelessness, despite its stated goal of reducing exploitation.
Sex work has increased visibility due to platforms like OnlyFans and advocacy efforts, but there's also a cultural backlash, with a majority of Zoomers viewing pornography as violence and a broader societal trend of conflating obscenity with information about women's bodies and contraception.
Public opinion shows increasing support for decriminalization, with 44% of the American electorate in 2018 and 55% in D.C. in 2020 believing consensual sex work shouldn't be a crime. It's a bipartisan issue, with support from small-government conservatives, harm reduction liberals, and libertarians.
14 Actionable Insights
1. Advocate for Decriminalization
Support decriminalization of sex work to improve public health outcomes, as it encourages sex workers to seek healthcare, be honest with providers, and use protective measures like condoms, unlike criminalization which pushes practices underground.
2. Implement Sex Worker Safety Protocols
For sex workers, adopt specific, multi-layered safety measures such as asking for multiple industry references, verifying employment ties, checking ID, and informing a trusted contact of your whereabouts and expected check-in time to mitigate risks.
3. Challenge Gendered Purity Narratives
Critically examine ‘purity’ narratives that disproportionately devalue women based on sexual activity, recognizing their historical link to women as property rather than genuine public health concerns.
4. Feminist Solidarity with Sex Workers
Feminists should foster solidarity with sex worker rights movements, understanding that shared struggles against censorship and control over women’s bodies are interconnected and crucial for broader women’s rights.
5. Support Decriminalization, Not Legalization
Advocate for decriminalization of sex work, which removes criminal penalties and allows for privacy and autonomy, rather than legalization models that often impose restrictive, coercive controls and do not increase worker negotiating power.
6. Distinguish Eroticism from Exploitation
Reframe discussions around sex work to clearly distinguish between consensual erotic labor and genuine exploitation, advocating for labor rights and protections across all vulnerable professions instead of censoring sexual content.
7. Understand Pimps and Criminalization
Recognize that the existence of pimps and associated violence is largely a consequence of sex work criminalization, as it creates vulnerabilities that exploitative intermediaries can leverage, rather than being inherent to the work itself.
8. Oppose Mandatory STI Testing
Oppose mandatory STI testing for sex workers, as it is ineffective at reducing disease transmission and instead drives sex work underground, hindering access to care; instead, support policies that make healthcare accessible and non-punitive.
9. Recognize Prohibition’s Ineffectiveness
When considering policy, understand that criminalizing activities like sex work, gambling, or drug use historically fails to eliminate them and instead creates unsafe black markets, advocating for alternative approaches that prioritize safety and regulation.
10. Learn from History of Moral Panics
When evaluating current social or policy issues, especially those related to morality or sexuality, research historical precedents to understand past failures and avoid repeating missteps driven by moral panics.
11. Challenge ‘White Slavery’ Narratives
Critically evaluate media portrayals and narratives about sex trafficking, recognizing that they often sensationalize and misrepresent the issue, diverting attention from the true sources of exploitation within communities.
12. Understand SESTA-FOSTA’s Broad Impact
Be aware that laws like SESTA-FOSTA lead to widespread censorship beyond just sex work, affecting sex educators and general freedom of expression online due to platforms’ fear of liability.
13. Recognize Sex Work Stigma
Shift your perspective on the diverse nature of sex work by understanding that various forms (escort, stripping, erotic content, BDSM) share a common stigma, which is the root cause of detrimental laws and policies.
14. Consider Grandmothers in Sex Work
To combat stigma, reframe your perception of sex workers by considering them as ordinary, contributing members of society, including potentially your own ancestors, to challenge ingrained biases.
5 Key Quotes
I actually believe that whorephobia is the foundation of misogyny.
Caitlin Bailey
If we are asking the question, you know, what would Jesus do? Then according to scripture, the answer is be nice to sex workers.
Caitlin Bailey
The forcing that is the problem, not the erotic part of it.
Caitlin Bailey
It's really hard to help people that you're hunting.
Caitlin Bailey
We will never eliminate this work. We can only make it less safe.
Caitlin Bailey
1 Protocols
Independent Sex Worker Client Screening Protocol
Caitlin Bailey- Ask the potential client for the name and contact information of other sex workers they have already seen (e.g., two references).
- Contact these references to verify the client's behavior and reliability, looking for 'nothing to report' or useful warnings.
- Confirm the client has some ties to the community, such as employment listed on a public website, to ensure their identity can be verified.
- Check the client's ID upon arrival, ensuring it matches the information gathered during screening.
- Call a friend or trusted person in front of the client to inform them of your location, who you are with, and what time to expect to hear from you.