Policing a Profession: Interview with Beatrice Codianni
By: Marina Albanese
Tags: Sex Work, Feminism, Features

MA: A large part of your work seems to be about getting rid of the violence in a sex worker’s life, from clients to police to pimps. There’s a radical feminist argument against decriminalization that believes the selling of sex is intrinsically abusive of the female body. Do you believe that sex workers can live and work free from violence?

BC: Our members — and we call them members, not clients, not users — are people who are trying to survive. What are these people [who are against decriminalization] doing for them? How are they trying to help them? They can have their opinion, and that’s fine. But the reality is that unless people are providing services, housing, and treatments for substance abuse disorders or mental health issues, unless people reach out to sex workers and offer this, like we do, then they need to shut the fuck up.

MA: Do you think that the radical feminist position which condemns the decriminalization of sex work is an anti-women or anti-feminist position?

BC: You know, people are out there doing what they have to do to survive and they make their own decision[s]. Don’t tell them what they have to do. We’re a harm reduction organization. We don’t tell people they have to stop. We don’t tell them they have to get treatment. What we say is: What do you need? How can we keep you safer and healthier? And then we go about our business, doing just that. It’s not about moral issues. We don’t involve ourselves in sex workers’ choices or decisions. Once you’ve made the choice, we’re here to support you. If you’d like to stop, then that’s your decision. If you don’t want to stop or you can’t stop, that’s also your choice. And there’s not a lot of services for women, so sometimes people want to stop, but there’s no bed for them, there’s no doctor for their medical problems. Whether they want to stop or don’t or can’t, we are here for them and we’ll do whatever we can.

MA: Do you think that a policy of criminalizing the purchase of sex, but not the selling of it, would be helpful to improve the situations of sex workers?

No, I don’t think it would, because it takes away someone’s livelihood and their way to survive, without giving them any alternative.

MA: It was sad to see that, in this past year, there were two deaths of New Haven sex workers (Inez Perez and Leila Rivera). I wonder what you foresee as a permanent solution to the problem of danger in sex work, whether that’s new state laws or changing attitudes of police?

BC: I think it’s all those things. I mean, we need to change the attitudes not just of police, but of society. People think that Connecticut is progressive, but Connecticut is a puritanical state, as are other states. Sex is nasty to a lot of people. It’s forbidden, and we need to get over that. Sex is natural. It’s human. It’s human nature. And I think that decriminalization is a great start. But when we start talking about changing the laws, everybody wants to have their hands in it, to control it.

MA: Because the selling of sex has for so long been an exercise of patriarchal power, I’m wondering if you think it can shed those power dynamics associated with it.

BC: It takes a lot to change attitudes, but yeah. There are other places where trading sex for money or sex work is legal. Right now, it just seems like old white men are running the whole country, as usual, and they’re making sex work out to be something terrible, while not offering anything else as an alternative.

MA: A big part of sex worker activism is about not making sex workers into victims. How do you reconcile this position with the fact that sex workers are not protected by laws and are often in positions where they are abused?

Well, I think that’s the case for women who are not sex workers too. But I think it happens more to sex workers because these women have to live in the shadows. Because the police are out to get them and they don’t trust the police. Because society looks down upon them and makes them feel terrible about themselves. Until sex workers are allowed to be treated with respect, it will be like that. People prey upon sex workers because they know, in most cases, they will not go to the police. They are easy targets. So yeah, abuse happens. They get beaten, raped, and robbed. But women get beaten, raped, and robbed too. And so do men. In these cases, people go to the police, but there’s no trust in the case of sex workers. For example, one woman went to a female officer and said that she was raped and robbed. And the female officer responded, “Well what do you expect? You’re out there because prostitutes can get raped.” That’s the attitude.

MA: How can this relationship between sex workers and the police be improved?

BC: Well, we’ve talked to the police about this and we actually had sex workers meet with them, the Special Victims Unit. We suggested it and a lot of the women wanted to do it, so that they could see that they could go to police and the police would do something. That they don’t have to live in the shadows. That they are not going to arrest them for sex work, but will go after the person who committed the big crime.

Some people are upset that we do this. We have a “Bad Date List” and we ask the women. when something happens to them, “Do you want to talk to the police? Do you want to report it?” And most often they say no. Then we ask, “Do you want us to keep the description?” They say yes. People ask us how we can work with the police, but why are they trying to shut up the women? Why are they trying to keep them down? This is their voice. They want these bastards off the street before they do anything more. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to protect them? It pisses me off.

MA: Have you noticed transgender sex workers facing a heightened stigma from the police?

BC: I would say so. There’s been a handful of transgender sex workers, and the police just don’t understand or they don’t know how to talk to anybody that doesn’t fit their description of [a sex worker]. The worst thing is for transgender women to be arrested and then put in the male jail. We’ve seen that happen a lot, and that’s traumatizing.

MA: What ways do you you think are useful and productive for helping change negative societal opinions of sex workers?

BC: In general terms, education. We do panel discussions, where we bring former and current sex workers, and when people hear these stories of what it’s like to be on the streets, engaged in sex work, hungry all the time, no place to live, they see sex workers as human beings instead of prostitutes, or whatever society wants to call them. We see people talking about sex workers on the streets, having sex in the backyard — that’s bullshit. Sex workers don’t want to be caught, they don’t want to be [visible].

We’re never going to arrest this problem away. Sex workers are still being harassed by the police, even though they can’t get arrested, at least for sex work. But the police are giving them tickets for “loitering,” if they’re in a known drug zone. All of New Haven is a drug zone. Including Yale Campus. But you don’t see students harassed [for loitering]. Anyway, it’s a tough sell, but we’re trying to put a human face on our people and let people know that it’s work. That sex work is real work.