In order to secure itself a ‘Happy Ending’ to an otherwise unsuccessful session, the Rhode Island legislature has decided to hatchet its successful policy of allowing legal indoor sex-work. Seeing as how most sex workers prefer to keep very private, they make for a very easy scapegoat for Representatives and Senators who want to ‘feel good’ without having to tick too many people off. Rhode Islanders aren’t buying it, though.

A ProJo.com poll shows that support for even the most agreeable form of criminalization, criminalizing the purchase of sex, is only about 35%.

Still, even with two-thirds of the population’s support and thousands of requests to ‘tax and regulate’ instead of ‘incarcerate and re-incarcerate’, legislators are finding it very hard to do the right thing and vote ‘nay’ on bad policy. I can’t help but think that the main reason is Donna Hughes and her ‘army of two’ hounding the legislature and media daily, purporting to be the voice of truth and reason.

In order to get the real truth and reason out there, several concerned citizens (disclaimer: I am the webmaster) have put together a website with a summary of the issues and links to articles on the issue. Please point your browsers at Citizens Against Criminalization and read the whole thing. When you’re done, call your legislators and ask them to do the right thing, or at -least- table the issue until actual studies have been done in Rhode Island.

State legislators will be gathering again next week, and more likely than not they’ll be voting on proposed legislation to change the state’s prostitution law.  One of the primary people trying to force this legislation through has been URI professor Donna M Hughes, who earlier this year started an organization called Citizens Against Trafficking.  Those interested in the problem of trafficking have probably heard of her, and may even get her newsletters which, it just so happens, are really crazy and misleading.  (This should come as no surprise, really, if you’ve been following the issue.  See here, here, and here.)

Citizens Against Trafficking calls itself a “broad-based coalition formed to combat all forms of human trafficking in 2009.”  In reality, from what its own website indicates, it is a coalition of two:  Donna M. Hughes, a Women’s Studies professor at the University of Rhode Island, and Melanie Shapiro, the office manager in the Women’s Studies department at the University of Rhode Island.  No other names of other coalition members are mentioned anywhere on the site.

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In their most recent bulletin (PDF), Citizens Against Trafficking told a story about a guy who allegedly got a nasty rash while at one of the spas in town. Apparently the guy mentioned his affliction on a message board, warning others to stay away and wondering what to say to his new girlfriend.

Citizens Against Trafficking had some advice:  “Citizens Against Trafficking strongly advises the new girlfriend to find another boyfriend!”

Anyway, that’s the most exciting part of the newsletter, except for the totally insane footnote at the end of the article, wherein the anti-Megan Andelloux advocates ask for some advice of their own:

Note on the use of the term “john”: Some people, particularly men who are named John, object to referring to men who buy sex by the slang term “john.” Citizens Against Trafficking understands this, but we refuse to give them legitimacy by calling them “clients” or “customers.” Please help us come up with another name for these offenders. We need a unique term like batterer, molester, or rapist for the act of using a woman or child in prostitution.

Aside from light-heartedly joking about rape, which no one was talking about, and children, which no one was talking about, the CAT people do have a good point. We don’t want to upset all the people named John out there; I mean, after all, they already have that whole toilet slang to deal with, right?  So how can we talk about people who buy services from someone else, but without using the words “client” or “customer”?  It’s kind of like playing Taboo!

Leave your suggestions in the comments; the best entry by Monday morning won’t actually win anything, but we will go out of our way to tell everyone how neat we think you are.