TV, Film’s Affair With Prostitutes Could Intensify if San Francisco Bill Passes

By SHEILA MARIKAR

Nov. 4, 2008 —

Pretty soon, a “pretty woman” may be able to work the streets of San Francisco legally.

The city’s residents will vote today on Proposition K, a ballot measure that would stop police from enforcing laws against sex workers and eliminate funding for anti-prostitution programs. If it is passed, the measure will make San Francisco the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution. (In Rhode Island, prostitution is legal as long as it’s conducted indoors. In Nevada, prostitution is legal in counties with under 400,000 residents, which means it’s still against the law in Las Vegas.)

The measure comes at a moment when prostitution’s popping up throughout pop culture.

In the United States, Showtime’s “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” and “Californication” explore what hookers do on and off the clock (and take full advantage of the freedoms granted to them by premium cable).

Earlier this year, prostitutes became the punch line du jour when then-New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer’s indiscretions turned Ashley Dupree into the poster woman for high-end escorts.

Abroad, the French movie “Cliente,” about a TV anchor and director who develops a thing for gigolos after her marriage falls apart, is sparking a discussion about accepting prostitution as part and parcel of human sexuality.

True, prostitution and pop culture go back like, well, prostitution and the dawn of time.

“If the old cliché is true, that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, one could speculate that stories about prostitution are pretty close to being the world’s oldest stories. Who can resist that subject matter?” said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and pop culture.

“They tend to fall in two categories: the prostitute as protagonist. ‘Pretty Woman’ would be the best example of this — ‘Cinderella’ retold where Cinderella is a hooker,” Thompson said. “The other side is the warning tales of the dangers of prostitution, the made-for-TV movies about teens who run off into the sex trade: the slavery like conditions, the violence. Both sides seem to be alive and well in American culture.”

Those supporting Proposition K hope voters are moved enough by the horror stories to enact legislation that can make life better for sex workers by addressing health and safety issues.

“It’s a brutal world; prostitution, pimping. There’s no real future. They’ll either end up in jail, dead or strung out,” said Brent Owens, who produced, directed and narrated seven documentaries on street prostitution for HBO, including “Atlantic City Hookers” and “Pimps Up, Ho’s Down.” He’s currently working on a drama about prostitution called “Pimp’s Law.”

“Some of these women have 500 arrests, 300 arrests, 200 arrests,” he said. “It amounts to harassment in a way. Getting arrested is part of the job. If [Proposition K] passed, it would make life a lot easier for them. It would make something that isn’t really a crime more widely accepted.”

“We’re not going to stop prostitution in San Francisco or anywhere else in the country,” San Francisco-based criminal attorney Stuart Hanlon said. “The key thing in prostitution is making it safe and healthy for the sex workers. I think Prop K does that.”

Even though San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris oppose Proposition K, the measure may pass. A local CBS poll released Oct. 30 found that 35 percent of likely voters supported the measure, while 39 percent were opposed and 26 percent were still undecided.

If voters push the measure through, some San Francisco sex workers said they hope Proposition K can help them shape how pop culture interprets their profession and gets them a higher profile — in the same way porn stars parlayed their niche popularity into the mainstream.

Jenna Jameson went from XXX fame to household name; Katie Morgan harnessed her adult-film experience to land roles on “Entourage” and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.”

“If you let Hollywood determine what images of prostitutes are and not the sex workers themselves, then you’re going to get a negative image,” said Mariko Passion, who’s been a sex worker in San Francisco for 10 years. “If we could have more sex workers in pop culture, maybe that wouldn’t happen. De-criminalization is the first step to de-stigmatization. It will slowly become harder to make prostitution the butt of a joke.”

And to further play into pop culture’s love affair with prostitution, Passion has a specific plan should Proposition K pass.

“Once prostitution is decriminalized in San Francisco, I want to pitch a reality show about sex workers,” she said.

Sex and money? Sounds like the stuff that makes TV execs leap for joy.

SAN FRANCISCO — When Proposition K was added to Tuesday’s ballot, many people likely snickered at the possibility that San Francisco might take its place alongside such prostitute-friendly havens as Amsterdam and a few rural counties in nearby Nevada.

But this week, it became readily apparent that city officials are not laughing anymore about the measure, which would effectively decriminalize the world’s oldest profession in San Francisco. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other opponents seemed genuinely worried that Proposition K might pass.

“This is not cute. This is not fanciful,” Mr. Newsom said, standing in front of the pink-on-pink facade of a closed massage parlor in the Tenderloin district. “This is a big mistake.”

Supporters of the measure say it is a long-overdue correction of a criminal approach toward prostitutes, which neither rehabilitates nor helps them, and often ignores their complaints of abuse.

“Basically, if you feel that you’re a criminal, it can be used against you,” said Carol Leigh, who says she has worked as a prostitute for 25 years and now works as an advocate for those who trade sex for money. “It’s a really serious situation, and ending this criminalization is the only solution I see to protect these other women working now.”

The language in Proposition K is far-reaching. It would forbid the city police from using any resources to investigate or prosecute people who engage in prostitution. It would also bar financing for a “first offender” program for prostitutes and their clients or for mandatory “re-education programs.”

One of the measure’s broadest prohibitions would prevent the city from applying for federal or state grants that use “racial profiling” in anti-prostitution efforts, an apparent reference to raids seeking illegal immigrants.

The fight over the ballot initiative has become an awkward test of San Francisco’s dual attitudes of live-and-let-live and save-the-world. In the campaign’s closing days, the rhetoric on both sides has heated up. Supporters of the measure accuse the city of profiting from prostitution through fines. They also imply that laws against prostitution are inherently racist because minorities are disproportionately arrested.

Proposition K, they say, will increase safety for women, save taxpayer money, and cut down on the number of murders of prostitutes at the hands of serial killers.

But opponents dismiss the notion of legions of prostitutes happily romping through the city’s neighborhoods. “This isn’t ‘Pretty Woman,’ ” was how one put it.

Anti-Proposition K forces paint grim pictures of girls and women from across the country held against their will in dark and dangerous brothels here, forced into unsafe sexual behavior, and often beaten, intimidated and raped.

“You’re going to have young girls recruited and brought to San Francisco, and they are going to be standing on these corners,” said Norma Hotaling, the founder and director of Standing Against Global Exploitation, an outreach project here. “And there’s not going to be any services for them to go to, and the police are not going to have any means of investigating the cases.”

The measure seems particularly abhorrent to San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala D. Harris, who has made fighting human trafficking a priority.

“I think it’s completely ridiculous, just in case there’s any ambiguity about my position,” Ms. Harris said. “It would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco.”

Central to Ms. Harris’s objections is the theory that prostitution is a victimless crime. Instead, she said, it exposes prostitutes to drug, gun and sexual crimes, and “compromises the quality of life in a community.”

She also dismisses the argument that prostitutes would be more likely to come forward if their business were not illegal.

“We’re in the practice and habit of protecting victims, not criminalizing victims,” Ms. Harris said, adding that she often reminds juries that the law protects people even if they are prostitutes or drug users. “Our penal code was not created just to protect Snow White,” she said, noting that 65 percent of cases handled by her department’s sexual assault unit involved sex workers as victims.

Officials with the State Attorney General’s Office would not comment on the measure.

The city’s Board of Supervisors, several of whom have expressed support for the measure in the past, would have the power to amend Proposition K if it passed. San Francisco, which has an exotic dancers’ union and a well-established history of sexual freedom, is not the first liberal outpost to mull legalizing prostitution. A decriminalization bill was defeated by voters in Berkeley, Calif., in 2004.

Heidi Machen, a spokeswoman for the opposition, said her side was hoping for a solid defeat. “We want this to fail by a landslide,” she said. “So it doesn’t come back.”

A local CBS poll released Thursday found that 35 percent of likely voters supported the measure, while 39 percent were opposed. But 26 percent were still undecided.

On Thursday night, about 50 supporters of the measure gathered at a church to press their case. One of them, Patricia West, 22, said she has been working for about a year as an “independent, in-call escort.”

Ms. West said that she enjoyed her work and believed that Proposition K would allow prostitutes to organize into collectives and negotiate for safer working conditions and better wages.

Ms. West concedes that what she does for a living “can be dangerous.” But she hoped Proposition K would make her occupation safer and more legitimate. “Working in a coal mine can be really dangerous, too,” she said “but it pays a lot of money so you’re compensated for your risk.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the number of years Carol Leigh says she has worked as a prostitute. It is 25 years, not 35.