Oakland, CA — In observance of International Whores’ Day, more than 200 people rallied outside Oakland’s City Hall in protest of SESTA/FOSTA, which was signed into law in April.
SESTA/FOSTA’s stated intent is to combat online sex trafficking by holding websites accountable for user content. The law’s implicit conflation of sex trafficking with sex work, however, has resulted in the almost total gutting of sex workers’ online resources.
Protesters also called for a boycott of celebrities who lobbied for the legislation, several of who performed at Comedy Central’s Clusterfest this past weekend. Comedian Amy Schumer was called out specifically for her exploitation of sex work as a comedic narrative and trivialization of sex work overall, as well as her support of SESTA/FOSTA.
In a 2015 “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch, Schumer’s character aims to impress her men co-workers by “being cool” with stereotypical “boys’ club” activities, which range from conventional (going out after work) to criminal (covering up a stripper’s murder). The sketch may allegedly be intended to draw attention to gender pay inequality, but some sex workers maintain that Schumer is perpetuating stigma. Schumer is also engaging problematic narratives and tropes about sex work for the sake of lowbrow punch lines.
Schumer also appeared prominently in the following PSA, supporting SESTA/FOSTA:
According to a statement from protest organizers, Schumer is among the prominent and privileged, yet industry-unrelated, voices who actively lobbied for a law that reduced their rights:
June 2nd is significant because it is International [Whores’] Day. We are proud to be sex workers. We take pride in who we are, our lives and our work as Erotic Service Providers. We want to stand with the historic resistance to bad laws like those that were passed in France decades ago, recently passed laws SESTA and FOSTA and the continued criminalization of our labor.
Specifically, we want to address the stigma produced by comedians who use us as punchlines in their acts while these same comedians lobby for laws which further restrict our free speech and our right to associate on and offline, while reducing us to second class citizens- which have real world consequences for us.
YNOT spoke to Maxine Doogan, a sex worker activist and founder of the ESPLER (Sex Workers and Erotic Service Provider Legal, Educational and Research) Project, in order to get some additional perspective on the event and issues.
“[SESTA/FOSTA] threatens everybody’s online free speech,” Doogan stated, establishing relevance – including those in legal segments of sex work like porn performance and webcam modeling.
According to Doogan, the banning of certain hashtags (e.g., Instagram’s treatment of #stripper, which was recently banned and reinstated) is directly related to SESTA/FOSTA and is a clear example of why everyone in the sex media industry should care about the implications this law.
“The [mainstream] media has played a big huge role in proliferating false and misleading information about forced labor in the sex worker industry,” she added. This includes Schumer’s comedic work.
Some have written off objections to Schumer as hypersensitivity or excessive political correctness. Doogan countered these assertions, pointing out that sex workers must to be sensitive to these issues because they do not have equal protections under existing law.
“[Schumer] is using us as her punchline, an already marginalized community,” she explained.
According to Doogan, laws are a “failed approach” that are “not working.” She explained that, if sex work was legal, other workers could bring issues to the attention of law enforcement – things that looked odd or were possible, actual trafficking cases. This cannot happen within the current system however for fear of legal action against consensual sex workers.
Though politicians like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Diane Feinstein – all of who supported SESTA/FOSTA according to Doogan – have not spoken to sex worker activist groups like ESPLER, “They should be sitting down with us” Doogan asserted.
“We all need to work together and change these laws,” Doogan said. “Even for the legal part of the sex industry, like the cam performers, we need to rail against [this] shit.”
According to Doogan, the Free Speech Coalition, though “very good people” are not fully backing efforts in opposition of SESTA/FOSTA.
“The adult industry has huge political and media capital to spend but is not spending it. They’re not doing anything,” she said. “They have no idea what’s in these bills.”
Given this lack of unified support from the industry overall, Doogan said the next best option is funding.
“We need some money… for a political operation for the sex industry and to lobby,” she stated. “If there’s no central organized push or message, politicians won’t care.”
