What’s Love Got to Do With It? This Valentine’s Day Let’s Celebrate Maine’s Stand on Sex
In all of the United States — except select locations in Nevada — it is illegal to buy or sell sex. That is, until last summer, when Governor Janet Mills of Maine signed a law that eliminates penalties for selling sex, while making it still illegal to buy sex. In other words, Maine is going to stop arresting the Janes and start arresting the Johns.
The bill, similar to others in Canada and Europe, is unprecedented in the United States. It’s based on the idea that arresting, prosecuting, and fining or imprisoning sex workers, many of whom are trafficked or otherwise victimized, impedes sex workers’ ability to redirect their lives while doing little to stem the flow of prostitution. From a feminist perspective, it shifts the crime from the oppressed to the oppressor. From an economic vantage, it acknowledges that targeting the supply side doesn’t do anything but keep sex workers down, so let’s target demand.
The bill is wrongheaded to naysayers, who protest that arrested sex workers provide important leads to traffickers. Meanwhile, advocates for legalizing sex work, with the health and safety benefits that could come with operating above board, argue the bill does not go far enough.
Nevertheless, I applaud Maine on trying a fresh approach to in intractable situation in which too many people are trafficked while too many sex buyers escape unscathed.
But my truly larger wish is that everyone enjoys a Happy Valentine’s Day, enveloped in the arms of someone you love. Perhaps that may even lead to lovely, consensual sex. And maybe, one day, sex will move beyond being a commodity of power bought and sold, and be a human delight enjoyed by all.
