In this day-long conference student leaders and off-campus educators team up to offer workshops and panels that address crucial but often ignored topics surrounding sexuality.
This conference is open to and inclusive of everyone, and will give people a platform to discuss things that are normally labeled off-limits and taboo. Our goal is to provide a safe, engaging, and much-needed learning environment.
Megan Andelloux will be presenting:
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of….Orgasms?!?
Take a tour among America’s obsessions with spanking, erotic literature and fetishes. Discover why handcuffs have more than one meaning when we examine the American cultural sexual landscape through the use of the media, current events and court cases.
This interactive, fun and thought provoking workshop examines your sexual rights and erotic potential, before it is stripped away.
A. B. is a 27 YO Sex Worker Who Presents With….Medical Care of the Sex Worker
What is Sex Work? Who is a Sex Worker? How do I treat Sex Workers? Although they occupy a shadowy realm outside the public’s sphere, the health care needs of sex workers are very real and often go unrecognized and undiagnosed. Yet any (and every!) doctor can provide the care needed to this underserved population. This workshop will provide an introduction to the state of sex work in America today, the common concerns sex workers have, and how you can be a health care provider for them.
Objective: Students will discuss common myths and learn the facts surrounding sex work.
Objective: Students will examine how to recognize the most common health concerns sex workers face.
Objective: Students will learn appropriate interviewing techniques for the sex worker population.
A sexologist in Rhode Island is trying to open an adult-ed center focused in part on the female pleasure principle. Her battle has been complicated by the recent passage of a ban on indoor prostitution, which she opposed.
PAWTUCKET, R. I. (WOMENSENEWS)–Megan Andelloux’s clash with authorities in this heavily Catholic city of about 73,000 began two months ago.
After 12 years of teaching sex education at colleges, nonprofits, churches, schools and the Providence sex store Miko Exoticwear, Andelloux, a certified sexologist who frequently speaks at Brown University, wanted to create a “safe space for adults to be able to come in and access information about sexuality.”
Andelloux’s classes cover everything from female orgasms to fellatio and expound on an intimate connection between health and pleasure.
A few days before the planned Sept. 26 opening of the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in downtown Pawtucket, a policeman called to say she couldn’t hold her event. He cited her lack of zoning approval and objected to plans for a sex toy raffle.
A zoning official then informed Andelloux that she couldn’t teach classes either because the area was zoned for residential and commercial use. Since Andelloux’s battle began, a chess center and a weaving workshop have also come under scrutiny by the city.
Andelloux moved the opening event to a club in Providence, while she geared up to fight for the right to provide education and other resources in the building.
“This is really a straightforward zoning issue,” said Ronald Travers, Pawtucket’s zoning director. Travers said the owners of a downtown karate studio faced a similar battle a few years ago and were eventually granted permission to open.
Andelloux appealed Travers’s decision, appearing before the zoning appeals board with 20 of her supporters on Nov. 30. The board will vote Dec. 7 on whether she can operate her center.
Prostitution Politics
Andelloux’s efforts to open the center coincided with the run-up to the state legislature’s decision to ban indoor prostitution.
Before the ban was signed into law by Gov. Don Carcieri in early November, Rhode Island was the only state–besides parts of Nevada–where indoor prostitution was legal.
Andelloux voiced opposition to an indoor prostitution ban at a state legislative hearing in June, saying it would hurt victims of sexual trafficking by criminalizing their behavior, making it harder for them to get jobs and traumatizing them through interactions with police.
Her stance may have been what led local professor and renowned anti-trafficking activist Donna M. Hughes to denounce Andelloux on the radio, calling her a “prostitute” and a “sex radical.” Hughes admitted on the same radio program that she wrote an email tipping off city officials about Andelloux’s plans to open the center. Andelloux was told she could not hold her opening event days after the email was sent.
Harvey E. Goulet, Jr., director of administration for the city, said he and some other city officials take special exception to Andelloux’s plans. “I would prefer that it not be in Pawtucket. That’s my opinion and that’s the mayor’s opinion . . . I think some of these things would be better off in an office somewhere than a storefront,” he told Women’s eNews.
If the zoning appeals board votes against her, Andelloux will have 20 days to appeal her case in Rhode Island Superior Court.
Discrediting Pleasure
“They’re trying to discredit me because I’m talking about pleasure,” said Andelloux. “I was very deliberate in putting the (word) pleasure in there and I think it’s very important that we talk about (health and pleasure) together, because they’re connected.”
“The title freaked everybody out,” said City Councilor-At-Large Albert J. Vitali, Jr., who supports Andelloux. “The ‘sexual pleasure’ end of the title flipped a few people on their heads. They didn’t know what she was talking about. They assumed it was a strip club or something.”
“It would be neat to have a Dr. Ruth in the city of Pawtucket,” said Vitali, who added that he would want his 20-year-old daughter to be able to access such resources if she needed them.
Andelloux cited a recent Indiana University study that showed women who feel positively about female genitalia not only find it easier to experience orgasm, but are more likely to seek gynecological exams and engage in other health-promoting behaviors.
Her opponents, however, are uneasy about the self-pleasuring aids–dildos, vibrators, and lubricants–that she keeps as learning tools.
Andelloux said a city official recently asked her if she would be “inserting” the teaching devices or using them on students during class.
“People don’t often frame sex education in terms of sexual pleasure,” said Lynn Comella, assistant professor of women’s studies at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “I really think that you end up with some confused people who don’t understand what that might really be about.”
Comella sees the center as a continuation of over three decades of “feminist work around creating cultural spaces where the issue of women’s sexual pleasure and empowerment could be taken seriously.”
Supporters Rally Behind Andelloux
Sex educators, activists and local supporters have rallied behind Andelloux by sending petitions to the City Council and speaking out about the connection between her work and the larger struggle for open discussion about female sexuality.
“If what she did was called the Center for Health and Education, no one would have blinked,” said Brian Flaherty, director of development for the Boston-based nonprofit sex education group Partners in Sex Education. He added that some people become upset over the issue of women taking control of their sexuality.
If the zoning board approves Andelloux’s right to operate, she will also need the City Council’s blessing.
The all-male, nine-member council is about evenly split over whether to issue a license to Andelloux’s center.
“It’s not a sex shop, it’s a place to go to talk about problems,” said City Councilor James F. Chadwick, Jr., who supports Andelloux. Chadwick said “untruths” were circulating about Andelloux’s intentions to open a sex shop instead of a teaching center that offers classes on female sexual pleasure, safety and achieving sexual satisfaction.
As Andelloux waits for the council’s decision, books with titles such as “Women’s Orgasm” and “America’s War on Sex” pack two bookshelves in the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health. A stand near the entrance has pamphlets called “Correct Use of the Male Condom” and “Love.”
A few couches circle a coffee table and colorful dildos and other teaching aids litter the shelves. In the corner is a glass cabinet covered with a heavy blue curtain. If you pull back the curtain, you find a display of sex toys.
Andelloux has covered the case to tamp down on the public controversy, which has focused on the toys themselves. One day, she hopes to remove it. But for now the curtain is drawn and the Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health stays closed.
Amy Littlefield is a freelance reporter who lives in Providence, R.I.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Global Health Affairs Hubert H. Humphrey Building Room 639H 200 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20201
Comments on Office of Global Health Affairs; Regulation on the Organizational Integrity of Entities Implementing Leadership Act Programs and Activities, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 74 Fed. Reg. 61,096 November 23, 2009
Dear Secretary Sebelius:
The undersigned organizations and individuals submit these comments on the proposed regulation implementing the “anti-prostitution policy requirement,” 22 U.S.C. § 7631(f), contained in the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 (“Leadership Act”).
HIV prevention goals – as well as the human rights of individuals – are undermined by the Leadership Act’s “pledge requirement,” which requires recipients of funding to have a “policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” We oppose the requirement because it compromises much-needed health and social services and the right to those services, as well as free speech. The law is bad – and the proposed regulations do not make a bad situation any better. Moreover, the proposed regulations are unworkable for foreign NGOs.
The Bush Administration originally found that the pledge requirement was unconstitutional as applied to US NGOs and, accordingly, prevented agencies from enforcing it against US NGOs. They reversed course in 2005 and a broad coalition of groups sued the US government on First Amendment grounds to stop enforcement. The draft regulation makes no mention of this litigation even though a federal court has twice found the pledge and its implementation unconstitutional. Instead, the draft proposes an extremely burdensome scheme for US groups to exercise their free speech rights. Moreover, the proposed regulation continues to be so vague that affected NGOs do notknow how to operate under it. The draft regulation is therefore deeply disappointing.
In order to cure the ongoing constitutional violation, HHS should refrain again from enforcing the policy requirement against U.S.-based non-governmental organizations, as it did from May 2003 through May 2005, and as it has been substantially ordered to do by the District Court.
The proposed regulations do not clarify what it means to “oppose prostitution” and leave it unknown whether the following activities are allowable:
1. A recipient uses private funds to support a “safe house” where meetings, counseling, and health services are provided for sex workers. The program supports efforts to negotiate with the police to assure that the sex workers will not be subjected to illegal harassment and exploitation. By ensuring a safe environment, health workers are able to engage and consistently reach vulnerable groups in need of services.
2. A recipient provides private funds to a group of sex workers that has come together as a collective to help them obtain access to such rights as wearing shoes outside a brothel and a proper burial. That group of sex workers either has no policy on prostitution or, on its own accord, takes a public position promoting or advocating the legalization of prostitution.
3. A recipient supports with private funds a range of health care providers, including some private entities that operate their own clinics. Such health care providers might advocate for the legalization of prostitution, conduct research, publish papers, or speak publicly on the topic of legalization of prostitution.
4. A recipient uses private grants to conducts trials on microbicides. These trials require the enrollment of individuals at very high risk of contracting HIV, such as sex workers, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of new products in preventing HIV transmission. Such trials must be carefully constructed to ensure that such women are not exploited as human subjects. Previous trials involving sex worker populations have been unsuccessful due to protests by sex worker groups (among others) over the perceived ethics of such trials. The recipient wants to work with this community in order to build bridges and help sex workers and their allies understand the potential of microbicides and prevention research. It also wants to contract with members of the community to conduct research and engage in outreach with their peers. The coalitions, NGOs and unions representing sex workers all take different positions on the issue of prostitution and its legalization.
5. Countries have experimented with a range of legal and health approaches with regard to prostitution. It is the responsibility of public health professionals to objectively examine these various approaches and to present evidence on their outcomes. A recipient uses private funds to engage in public health research and discourse related to the pros and cons of various legal regimes and health approaches to stemming the transmission of HIV/AIDS among this high risk group.
6. A recipient supports a privately funded study to examine the reproductive health needs of HIV positive women, including commercial sex workers. The study occurs in several countries, including some where commercial sex work is legal. The research findings indicate possible benefits arising from the decriminalization and/or legalization of sex work in stemming the transmission of HIV/AIDS and the organization publishes such findings.
7. A recipient provides privately funded technical HIV/AIDS support to a U.S. academic institution, in which faculty members take a wide range of positions on the legal status of prostitution and how it affects public health outcomes. The recipient would like to continue providing technical support.
There are additional concerns about the requirements to maintain separate organizations, because they are unworkable in most practical situations. Additionally, the regulations do not provide a process for approval of affiliate organization proposals and given the penalties for being out of compliance, this lack of clarity may make it more likely that organizations simply cannot provide the needed services.
In addition, the regulation calls for funding recipients to maintain “objective integrity and independence from any affiliated organization” that engages in undefined “restricted” activities. A recipient must be “to the extent practicable in the circumstances, legally, physically and financially separate from the affiliated organization.” Rather than listing clear standards, there are five non-exclusive factors, none of which is given any particular weight. The agency reserves the right to determine, “on a case-by-case basis and based on the totality of the facts, whether sufficient legal, physical and financial separation exists” and reserves the right to take other, as yet undisclosed, factors into account.
The harsh separation requirement is unnecessary, and has been rejected by HHS in other arenas. In regulations for the faith-based initiative, HHS required that federally funded activities are conducted either at a different time or in a different place than any privately funded, religious activities such as worship and proselytization. HHS has recognized that this level of separation is sufficient to ensure that the government neither funds nor endorses a grantee’s message. Therefore, such separation would be sufficient to ensure that HHS does not endorse any privately funded speech related to prostitution by recipients.
The unconstitutional limitation on free speech lead us to believe that the pledge should not be enforced against US-based NGOs. We also maintain that the proposed regulations are unworkable and stand in the way of providing essential services to human being, both because they fail to answer basic questions about what is required and they propose a budensome affiliation scheme.
Thank you for consideration of our comments. Sex Work Awareness, New York
Alan Clear, Harm Reduction Coalition, New York Sienna Baskin, New York Jeanne Bergman, New York, NY Jake Wolfhart, Capitan, NM
Jill Brenneman, Durham, NC Christopher Brown, Springfield, MO Ginger Ruth-Virago, San Francisco, CA Marie Camacho, Dallas, TX Juline Koken, Ph.D., New York Chris O’Sullivan, El Cerrito, CA Dee Dennis, Connecticut Melissa Hope Ditmore, Ph.D, New York, NY Lillian Cohen-Moore, Everett, WA Eric Wunderman, New York, NY Shelly Resnick, Portland, OR Karem Dion, Wahiawa, HI Melissa Gira Grant, Brooklyn, NY Christina Jones, Wichita, KS Analía Lavin, Montevideo, Uruguay Carol Leigh, California Sean Mannion, Brooklyn, NY Kevin Silvey, Seminole, FL Audacia Ray, Brooklyn, NY
Alicia Relles, San Francisco, CA Ilse Rumes, Brooklyn, NY Laura-Marie Taylor, Sacramento, CA Mae Quilty, Boston, MA
Julia Gelbort, Chicago, IL Kenneth Knoppik, Boca Raton, FL Amanda Brooks, Las Vegas, NV David Phillips, Berwyn Heights, MD Joan E Loza Mobry, Madison, WI Elizabeth Wood, Kew Gardens, NY Christiane Henker, Bad Laer, Germany Elisabeth Kelly, Washington, DC Linda Gottschalk, Green Bay, WI Rev Bookburn, Collingswood, NJ Slava Osowska, San Francisco, CA Candy Leblanc, Sacramento, CA Ron. Price, Pasadena, TX Catherine Simon, Northampton, MA Chelsea Ricker, Brooklyn, NY Dana Eckhoff, San Francisco, CA Lily Rocco, New York, NY Kim Carter, Van Wert, OH Darryl Warner, Rockaway Beach, NY
Elizabeth Barrette, Charleston, IL Stacey Swimme, San Francisco, CA Jenifer Mitchell, Tucson, AZ Kelli Wells, Rocklin, CA
Ginger Geronimo, Birmingham, AL Thierry Schaffauser, London, NY Lynn Maurine, Land o Lakes, FL Bill Piper, Washington, DC
Bob O’Connor, South China, ME James M Nordlund, Fargo, ND Anthony Bowles, Silver Spring, MD SWOP East, Raleigh, NC
AV Flox, Los Angeles, CA Bryan D. Freehling, Lahaska, PA Kee Hinckley, Winchester, MA John Bitters, Portland, OR Rebecca Dundon, Lexington, KY Evelyn Wolke, Manassas, VA Adjoa Tetteh, New York, NY Samantha Maloney, Bridgewater, NJ Jesse Evans, Berkeley, CA Cha-Cha Connor, Worcester, MA Elizabeth Nanas, Canton, MI
Lisa Skibenes, Yorktown Hts, NY Katharine Fisher, Berkeley, CA Anne Jonas, New York, NY Rachel Aimee, Brooklyn, NY Zanne Frandsen, Copenhagen, NE Kimberly Cornwell, Sacramento, CA Rachel Grinstein, Brooklyn, NY Julie Iversen, Copenhagen, CA Aoife Swane, Ludwigshafen/Rhein, DE Jenny Heilbronn, Offenbach, DE Barbara Carrellas, New York, NY Mark Woodward, Alexandria, TN
Lisa B Schwartz, Yardley, PA Juliana Williamson-Page, Monterey, CA Tara Hurley, Pawtucket, RI Katrin Redfern, Brooklyn, NY Kelly Boyker, Seattle, WA Carol Leigh, San Francisco, CA Veronica Monet, Nevada City, CA Ingrida Platais, Brooklyn, NY Diviana Ingravallo, L.A., CA Benny Jack Jerne, Vejen, DE David Henry Sterry, Montclair, NJ
Catherine Stephens, New York Shawna Colubriale, Las Vegas, NV Paul Arons, Friday Harbor, WA Padma Govindan, Brooklyn, NY Vanessa Forro, Cleveland, OH Claus Petersen, Århus, Denmark Meitar Moscovitz, San Francisco, CA Petra Timmermans, Amsterdam, CA Berta Avila, San Leandro, CA Shannon Williams, Oakland, CA Michelle Aldrich, San Francisco, CA Heather Bowlan, Long Beach, CA Barb Brents, Las Vegas, NV Edward Rippy, Concord, CA Caroline Coppola, Phoenix, AZ Soodle Billy, Co.Dublin, Ireland Jerry Isom, Lake Oswego, OR Flannery Rogers, Brooklyn, NY Bruce Evans, Portland, OR Laura Place, Takoma Park, MD Ashley Fairburn, Fresno, CA Mike Toohey, York, SC Robin Head, Las Vegas, NV
Jessie Abraham, Darwin, WY Erin Gannon, San Francisco, CA Juliana Piccillo, Tucson, AZ Kristen DeLuca, Pittsfield, MA Gregoire Bolduc, Flint, MI Janice Rocke, Carmel, CA Sue Metzenrath, ACT, CA Billie Jackson, M.A., Westminster, CO Jason Bowman, Sacramento, CA Danna Freedman-Shara, North Kingstown, RI Megan Andelloux, Pawtucket, RI Ledena Mattox, Portland, OR Monica Shores, Washington, DC Jason Flores, Merced, CA Tamara O’Doherty, Burnaby, WA Shawn Tamaribuchi, San Francisco, CA Peter Werner, Sausalito, CA William Colwell, Sturbridge, MA Sarah Grinstein, San Francisco, CA Renee Lamont, Washington, DC E. McInate, Oakland, CA Diego Basdeo, Richmond, VA Antonia Levy, Leipzig, NY
Jomeka Barnett, Murfreesboro, TN Melissa Broudo, Brooklyn, NY Dan Powers, Denver, CO Edward Miller, Johns Creek, GA Ceceilia Morrow, Astoria, NY Jenny Barto, Lakewood, OH Allena Gabosch, Seattle, WA Haven Wheelock, Portland, OR Loretta Bengivenga, Pen Argyl, PA Jennifer Wilen, Brooklyn, NY
Liz Coplen, Tucson, AZ Eric Mortensen, Brooklyn, NY Fred Cook, Hollywood, CA Jake Christian, Los Angeles, CA Annie Sprinkle, San Francisco, CA Deborah Valentine, Murrieta, CA Dara Cohen, Minneapolis, MN Kirsten Aspengren, Eugene, OR Michelle Holshue, Ambler, PA Urooj Arshad, Washington, DC Shanna Katz, Phoenix, AZ David Beasley, Brooklyn, NY Kay West, Tucson, AZ
Mark Reinert, Boston, MA
Juline Koken, Brooklyn, NY
Ellen Marshall, Louisville, Colorado
Maryse Mitchell Brody, New York
Mabel Bianco, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Julie Bates, Australia
Ted Cheng, Taiwan
Kate DeMaere, Australia
Jo Doezema, Ph.D., Visiting Fellow IDS University of Sussex
Kara Gillies, Program Development and Education Coordinator at Maggie’s: The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project
Dr. Michael Goodyear, Halifax, Canada Anneke Hut, Amersfoort, Netherlands Ingrid Peeters, Torremolinos, Spain Norrie May Welby, Australia
Global Network of Sex Work Projects, United Kingdom Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network Glyde Health, Australia Scarlet Alliance, Australia
Sex Workers Interest Organization, Denmark Syndicat du TRAvail Sexuel (STRASS), France
Megan Andelloux, a professionally certified sex educator with 8 years experience working as a sex educator for Planned Parenthood affiliates, was looking forward to the grand opening of her not-for-profit Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health in Pawtucket when she suddenly found herself in the middle of a firestorm. On the morning of September 15 she received a phone call from the Pawtucket Police Department telling her that a “concerned citizen” had emailed members of the Pawtucket City Council, alerting them that a “sex center” was coming to Pawtucket, a city of 72,000 located just outside of Providence.
“Hello,” the email began, “A center for “sexual rights” and “sexual pleasure” is opening in Pawtucket.” Included in the email was a link to the center’s website. Short, sweet, and intentionally vague, the email was enough to set off alarms among the city’s elected officials.
The police officer who called Andelloux that morning informed her that without proper zoning approval, the grand opening event, which included noted experts on human sexuality and a short burlesque performance, could not take place and the center itself could not legally operate in the city of Pawtucket.
As soon as Andelloux saw a copy of the email, which was forwarded to her at her request, she knew that the issue at hand was much bigger than her small, not-for-profit health and education center. Andelloux’s center, it seemed, was caught in a broader political maelstrom surrounding the regulation of prostitution and commercialized sexuality in Rhode Island.
The “concerned citizen” behind the email to city councilors was Donna M. Hughes, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island and a leading anti-prostitution and anti-sex trafficking advocate. Over the spring and summer months, Hughes was at the forefront of efforts to convince Rhode Island legislators to enact harsher laws aimed at combating sex trafficking and outlawing prostitution, including indoor prostitution, which was decriminalized in Rhode Island in 1980.
Andelloux testified in front of the Rhode Island Legislature in June to speak out against efforts to criminalize prostitution, which many opponents feared would lead to more arrests of women yet do little to address the issue of trafficking. In an op-ed piece published in the Providence Journal following the hearing, Hughes openly disparaged those who had shown up to oppose the legislation. Describing the hearing as a “sordid circus” and a “carnival,” she attacked speakers based on their appearance, the smell of cigarette smoke, and “other odors” allegedly emanating from their bodies, successfully invoking a specter of disgust. She also deployed her penchant for using quotation marks to discredit those whom she perceives as her adversaries, referring to Andelloux as “a tattooed woman, calling herself a ‘sexologist and sex educator.’”
Perhaps it felt like political payback to Hughes when she fired off the email to members of the Pawtucket City Council. Whatever her motivation—genuine concern or something more nefarious—she is an experienced enough political player (by her own account she has testified at hearings in the State House on a number of occasions) to realize that her email would likely result in an alarmist response sure to cause a headache, if not larger problems, for Andelloux and her center.
For those who lived through, or who are familiar with, the feminist sex wars of the 1970s and 80s, Hughes’ strategy of throwing the “enemy” under the bus will ring eerily familiar. Indeed, there are elements of this story that resemble the unsavory tactics employed by anti-pornography feminists at the infamous Barnard Conference on female sexuality in 1982, where ideological divisions resulted in personal attacks on individual women whose positions on pornography, sex work, and other forms of so-called “deviant” sexuality were at odds with the anti-pornography feminist platform, resulting in sharp divisions between supposedly “good” and “bad” feminists.
For Andelloux, the immediate issue was zoning. Zoning ordinances have become an effective strategy for regulating the location of adult businesses and policing public expressions of commercialized sexuality. In New York City, zoning was the lynchpin in the city’s efforts to “clean up” the “seedier” elements of Times Square in preparation for family-friendly Disney’s commercial occupation in the mid-1990s. Zoning ordinances typically require that adult arcades, bookstores, and video stores, for example, cannot be located within several hundred feet of schools, places of worship, or other adult businesses. In many locales, this means that adult businesses are exiled to the most desolate, and very often the most dangerous, fringes of cities and towns.
Unlike typical adult businesses, however, Andelloux’s center is not a retail venture; it is a not-for-profit sexuality education center that she describes as a cross between Planned Parenthood and a feminist sex toy store, a place where she plans to hold educational workshops and maintain a library of sexuality resources. But in contrast to feminist sex toy businesses, such as Good Vibrations and Babeland, which have longstanding missions of sexual education combined with a commercial imperative, Andelloux is not planning on selling any products. As a result, her center falls into a nebulous, gray area when it comes to zoning. If it is not an “adult business,” what is it?
It was precisely this gray area that Andelloux found herself navigating in the days following the phone call from the Pawtucket Police Department. She met with zoning officials and city council members, several of whom toured her space, and she clarified for them that she would not be selling any adult products; she also cancelled the burlesque performance that was to be part of the grand opening, hoping that in doing so she might allay some of the city councilors’ concerns about the kind of establishment she was opening. Despite this, it was unclear to both Andelloux and those working in the zoning office what legal code her enterprise should be zoned under. Many visits to City Hall and many phone calls later, Andelloux was told she should apply for zoning as an “individual educator.” She did. On September 18 she was informed by an official letter from the City of Pawtucket’s Zoning Department that her application had been denied because the building in downtown Pawtucket where she had leased her space was not zoned for “education.”
It remains unclear what will happen next. In a meeting that took place in late September with Mayor James E. Doyle, which was also attended by the head of the Pawtucket’s Zoning Department, Ronald Travers, the Mayor made it clear that he did not think the city of Pawtucket would accept Andelloux’s center. But it is precisely because Andelloux has received so many requests from people in the community for a sexual education and resource center that she moved forward with her plans for the center in the first place.
Andelloux held her grand opening fete on September 26 as planned – albeit at an alternative location. According to her, the event was a success: it was attended by approximately 200 people and there were no protesters. The event also raised $1,000, which will go toward offsetting her legal expenses. Andelloux has retained a lawyer who plans to challenge the city’s zoning decision. It is also highly probable that a public hearing will take place where members of the community can weigh in on how they feel about the center’s presence in their neighborhood.
The irony of all of this is that if Andelloux was in fact opening a feminist sex toy business, or even a more traditional adult business, this brouhaha may have been avoided. For it would have been clear from the outset what kind of zoning she would have needed to move forward with her venture and the city could have responded accordingly. There are few models, however, for what she is attempting to do: a not-for-profit enterprise dedicated to adult sexuality education and health. According to Andelloux, “The city has said to me that they don’t know what to do with me. If I was a retail store, they could zone me or not zone me, but because there is nothing on the books [that reflects the kind of business I am proposing], they don’t know what to do.”
In an era overwhelmingly defined by abstinence-only education, which has created a generation of sexually illiterate adults, there is more need than ever for places like Andelloux’s Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health. But sex education, especially when it addresses questions of sexual pleasure, clearly remains an embattled issue, a cause for concern, and a source of moral panic for many – even, in this case, when the target population is adults.
My hope is that once the powers that be in Pawtucket, and “concerned citizens” such as Professor Hughes, realize that Andelloux’s center is exactly what she says it is – a not-for-profit sexuality resource center with an educational mission – and not a haven for child prostitutes and pimps, this ruckus will be put to rest and Andelloux can get on with the business of educating adults about how to get off in safe, consensual, and pleasurable ways.
A lot of her difficulties in opening the CSPH stem from Donna Hughes, the University of Rhode Island professor, who takes exception to Megan’s speaking out against criminalizing sexwork on the grounds that it makes the lives of sexworkers worse. Prof. Hughes, by the way, likes to use scare quotes when talking about people who identify as sex educators, presumably as a way to denigrate a perfectly valid career choice. Given that Megan is highly-trained and is certified by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors & Therapists, I don’t see why Hughes feels the need to put her down, but then, I’m also certified by AASECT and I’m a sex educator, so maybe I’m a bit touchy. Nah. In any case, it has started to look like Hughes got angry with Megan for speaking against her and has stirred up trouble for her.
Anyway, one of the things that I see over and over in the controversy over sexwork is that the anti-sexwork folks focus a lot on the trafficking and lack of choice that many women face around it. And I 100% get that. Being forced or tricked into having sex for money is an awful situation and there is no justification for it. I would love to live in a world where nobody ever had that happen to them.
And at the same time, I invite you to step back for a moment and think about all of the other people who are forced into labor that they don’t control. The migrant laborers who harvest our food, for example. Or the housekeepers who are brought to the US in order to work for below-living wages and without the resources to escape. Or the people who work in factories around the world who get paid a pittance in order to keep costs down so people in wealthy countries can have lots of disposable stuff. Or the women in the sweatshops who make clothing for minimal pay. These are also terrible things that are happening right now in this country and in other countries around the world.Take a look at the United Nations Office on Drugs and CrimeGlobal Report on Trafficking in Persons for an in-depth analysis of how trafficking takes place on a world-wide scale.
But when we look at non-sexwork trafficking situations (although we rarely do since the issue is often ignored by the general population), I’ve never heard anyone say “people who are trafficked to work in sweatshops should be locked up.” Nor have I ever heard anyone say that all garment manufacturing is evil and should be abolished. Instead, people focus on the unfair wages, the lack of agency, and the structures that make it possible for people to be treated as slaves, separately from the nature of the work that they’re doing. After all, there are some fortunate people who create garments or cook food or work in factories who love (or at least, like) what they do, who choose to do it out of a genuine desire to do the work, and who are paid well (or at least, sufficiently) for their labor. And there are people who engage in those kinds of labor because they need the money. The fact that they would quit if they suddenly won the lottery doesn’t make their decision to do the work less valid. Any reasonable person understands that and recognizes the difference between being forced into labor and choosing to do it for whatever reason.
Similarly, I’ve never heard anyone talk about sweatshop workers “selling their bodies.” After all, can you truly be said to sell your body if you still have it when you go home? Sexworkers don’t sell their bodies anymore than garment-makers, housekeepers or, for that matter, lawyers. To call it “selling their bodies” is a scare tactic designed to foment a moral panic but it’s ultimately disrespectful of the people under discussion.
What we need is an approach that addresses the real problems of people being forced to have sex for money through violence, drugs use, economic circumstances, etc. without criminalizing them. And we need an approach that makes room for the people who are making informed choices about what they want to do with their bodies. If we start with the premise that some people who work as housekeepers, garment makers, or sexworkers are choosing to do so, for whatever reason, then we can begin to look for ways to deal with the fact that other people are forced or tricked into those kinds of labor.
Similarly, if we start with the understanding that some people hire housekeepers, garment makers or sexworkers out of a desire to meet a valid and justifiable need, that they pay people fairly for their time and skill, and that they treat them with respect, then we can look at the changes that we could make to increase the frequency of those situations. And if you believe that no sexworkers ever have clients treat them that way, you probably need to learn more about sexwork by listening to the stories of the people who do it. Myfirstprofessionalsex.com is a good place to start.
Yes, I get that these more fortunate situations are not as common as I’d like. But they do happen and I think that the best way to move forward is to ask ourselves what we could do to make them more likely. Denying that they happen only makes it easier to come up with overly-broad laws that criminalize people who aren’t doing anything wrong.
Of course, if you believe that the act of selling sexual services for money is inherently wrong, you’re probably not convinced by any of this. If you consider sexual labor to be different from any other kind of labor, perhaps you can take a look at why that is. But that’s a topic for another post.
PAWTUCKET, R. I. (WOMENSENEWS)–Megan Andelloux’s clash with authorities in this heavily Catholic city of about 73,000 began two months ago.
And at the same time, I invite you to step back for a moment and think about all of the other people who are forced into labor that they don’t control. The migrant laborers who harvest our food, for example. Or the housekeepers who are brought to the US in order to work for below-living wages and without the resources to escape. Or the people who work in factories around the world who get paid a pittance in order to keep costs down so people in wealthy countries can have lots of disposable stuff. Or the women in the sweatshops who make clothing for minimal pay. These are also terrible things that are happening right now in this country and in other countries around the world.Take a look at the 
