CSC To Host Panel Opposing Prop 35 'Anti-Trafficking' Measure

SAN FRANCISCO—This Sunday, the Center for Sex & Culture will host a press event that will include a panel discussion both to inform voters and to unpack the rhetoric behind the California state anti-"trafficking" ballot initiative, Proposition 35. Sex worker activists and advocates have warned that California's Prop. 35, the CASE Act (Californians Against Sexual Exploitation), while claiming to primarily target human trafficking, actually expands the definition of trafficking well beyond that currently recognized by global experts. It also expands prison sentences and sex offender registration, including in some cases for the people it claims it will protect. In addition, it further criminalizes sex workers' associates, including their partners; erodes affected persons' online privacy; and seeks to channel fines to police agencies, sex work abolition agencies, and nonprofits associated with Homeland Security. AVN previously wrote about Prop. 35 here. Funded mostly by former Facebook executive and failed candidate for California Attorney General Christopher M. Kelly, and riding a wave of anti-trafficking activism, the CASE Act is likely to spawn comparable attempts at law reform in other states. The Center for Sex & Culture will convene a panel this Sunday to discuss this proposed law from a sex worker rights point of view. Featured on the panel will be such prominent "No on 35" voices as Maxine Doogan of the Erotic Service Providers Union, Rachel West of US Prostitutes Collective, Carol Leigh of BaySWAN (Bay Area Sex Workers' Action Network), and Carol Queen, Ph.D. of the Center for Sex & Culture. For more about Prop 35, click here, here and here. The panel discussion will take place at the Center for Sex & Culture, 1349 Mission between 9th and 10th, San Francisco, on Sunday, October 14 at 2 pm. There will be no charge for admission, but donations are always gratefully accepted to cover space use. The Center for Sex & Culture is a three-time winner of the SF Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay award (Best Emerging Sex Non-profit, 2005, Best Erotic Resurrection for its Erotic Reading Circle, 2007, and Best Contest for Wankers, 2009) and was included in SF Weekly's 2005 Best Of San Francisco listing as "Best Place to Watch Pornos (and Be Considered Intellectual)" and as its 2011 winner as "Best Palace of Self-Pleasure." CSC hosts educational and cultural events having to do with sexuality for adults of every orientation and gender that span the continuum from didactic to experiential. It maintains a sexuality library and archive and supports sex-related research projects. CSC is a 501(c)(3) educational organization; for more detail, to sign up for twice-monthly e-mailed event updates and/or its press list, please email carol@sexandculture.org. To peruse the events calendar or learn more about the Center for Sex & Culture, click here.