TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law HB 7063, “an act relating to human trafficking.” Among other things, the new law prohibits “the employment of persons younger than 21 years of age in adult entertainment establishments.”

The text of HB 7063 asserts that “adult entertainment establishments are widely recognized as being a significant part of the sex trafficking network used by traffickers to coerce and facilitate men, women, and children into performing sexual acts.” The law also maintains that “restricting the employment of persons younger than 21 years of age at adult entertainment establishments furthers an important state interest of protecting those vulnerable individuals from sex trafficking, drug abuse, and other harm.”

In signing the bill, DeSantis said the state is “going to stand strong for those who may not be in a position to defend themselves.”

“Our state is a great state,” DeSantis added. “We are a united front here saying that we’re not going to just stand idly by.”

What stuck out to me wasn’t DeSantis’ well-worn rhetoric about standing up for the vulnerable (although perhaps not those who are vulnerable to certain upper respiratory infections), but what one of the bill’s legislative sponsors said.

“My vision for the young women of Florida is to not work in the adult entertainment (industry) but rather get a job, an education and career and have a good quality of life,” said Rep. Carolina Amesty.

For starters, just as it’s possible for someone to avoid working in the adult entertainment industry and still not obtain an education, develop a promising career or reach a good quality of life, it’s also possible for people who work in the adult industry to have all three.

When I read Amesty’s words, I don’t hear concern about human trafficking; I hear a concern young people in Florida might choose a vocation of which she doesn’t approve.

I’m old enough to remember when conservatives like DeSantis and Amesty thought it wasn’t the government’s place to dictate career choices to its citizens. True, many conservatives have always been hostile to adult entertainment on ‘moral’ grounds, and they’ve long asserted any involvement in adult entertainment had ruinous consequences for participants and viewers alike. But in eras past they generally didn’t couch their opposition to adult entertainment in high-minded rhetoric of protecting the vulnerable – or the implicit suggestion that anyone 21 years or older is somehow less vulnerable to human trafficking, simply because they’ve been present on the planet more than 7671 days.

If it’s true “adult entertainment establishments are widely recognized as being a significant part of the sex trafficking network used by traffickers to coerce and facilitate men, women, and children into performing sexual acts,” why stop at prohibiting people under the age of 21 from working in such establishments?

Do we cease to care what happens to vulnerable people when they turn 21? Are human traffickers less interested in trafficking people who are over 21? Is there something magical about a 21st birthday which makes a potential trafficking victim less at-risk than the day before?

As noted in reporting by the Tallahassee Democrat, in previous litigation surrounding a similar ordinance adopted in Jacksonville, “no arrest for human trafficking has ever been made in an exotic dance establishment” in Jacksonville, a fact which might lead a person to reasonably question whether the ordinance was trying to solve a problem, or simply providing a rationale to impose restrictions on adult entertainment establishments favored by certain legislators, but which might prove difficult to impose based solely on the type and form of entertainment provided within.

If Florida’s strip clubs are the hotbeds of human trafficking and sex trafficking the supporters of this law claim the clubs are, it ought to be easily proven through investigative work. Seeing as how human trafficking and sex trafficking are illegal with respect to victims of any age, Florida law enforcement could then take the proceeds of their investigations and prosecute the offenders under existing laws, without aid from HB 7063.

I don’t doubt there have been exotic dancers who were also victims of human trafficking, just as I don’t doubt there have been people in many other vocations who have also been victims of human trafficking.

What I doubt is the claim this new Florida law is primarily motivated by a desire to curb human trafficking, as opposed to a desire to keep young Floridians out of earning money in a way the likes of DeSantis and Amesty find distasteful.

Man with megaphone image by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels