Crackdown on Rentboy:
An Issue of Legality?
Or Actually Money, Discrimination and Homophobia?
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Three simple facts to start you off:
- Founded in 1997, Rentboy sells itself as the world’s largest male escort website, with over 10,000 men in its network over more than 2,000 cities across the world.
- On Tuesday, August 25th, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with help from the New York Police Department (NYPD), raided the 18-years-old company’s headquarters in Manhattan. The CEO, Jeffrey Hurant, and six other current and former employees were arrested at their homes across New York City for the charge of promoting prostitution.
- Prostitution is illegal in all of America except for the state of Nevada.
The Issue of Legality
Even though the terms of service on Rentboy.com (which has since been seized for investigation) previously specified that users are not to advertise sexual services or engage in activities requiring payment of money for sex, Kelly T. Currie, acting United States attorney for New York’s Eastern District, countered in a official statement that the website has in fact “attempted to present a veneer of legality, when in fact this Internet brothel made millions of dollars from the promotion of illegal prostitution.”
“Escorts are selling their time only.
What happens between you and the escort is up to you.”
— Michael Sean Belman, Director of Rentboy website
Outside the Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Tuesday, Hurant’s lawyer, Charles Hochbaum supported the above stance: “My client advertises for people who are willing to be escorts, to accompany people for their time and be paid.” Hurant also added, “I don’t think we do anything to promote prostitution, I think we do good things for good people, and bring good people together.”
The DHS put forward that the site operated as a male prostitution ring, just cutting out the middle man. In my opinion, I agree that sex-for-pay had happened via the connections made through Rentboy.com. However, the next question goes,
Who is the DHS trying to protect?
Because for something to be a crime, there has to be victims, right?
As pointed out by Scott Shackford of Reason.com, nobody is charged with trafficking. And NOWHERE in the federal complaint had reported anybody who has been harmed by/because of Rentboy.com. Yes, you heard me — No rape, no assault, no involvement of minors, no non-consensual undertakings, no extortion, no exploitation, no nothing. So two words:
No Victims.
Instead, one of the main focuses is the MILLIONS of dollars that the company has made over the years — “$10 million in sales since 2010,” the criminal complaint says.
As for Tuesday’s raid, an estimate of $1.4 million is to be seized from Rentboy’s six associated bank accounts, on top of the physical assets taken from the company’s offices. And by the federal asset forfeiture rules, the money is likely to *surprise!* be split among the agencies involved — the DHS and the NYPD.
The Criminalisation of Sex Work
So far, the only good thing that came out of this saga is the increased attention given to the topic of decriminalisation of sex work, which was recently voted by Amnesty International as a policy to pursue for better protection of the human rights of sex workers. Other organisations that also support such a policy include the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, UN Women, the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women, The Lancet and many more.
Why should we decriminalise sex work? Well, the common argument people tell us or we tell ourselves is that sex work involves innocent victims who are trafficked and exploited in the process. Yes, sex trafficking and slavery are bad, and we all need to work together to eliminate such hateful crimes against humanity. BUT consensual sex work isn’t the same. Consenting adults connecting online aren’t victims.
And very importantly, we need to understand that criminalisation of sex work doesn’t only affect the sex workers, but all of us. It is about human agency —our capacity to act according to our will.
“The conversation surrounding sex work affects all human beings, even if we aren’t sex workers ourselves or hire sex workers. This issue is, at its core, about our bodies and the agency we should have over them and our actions.”
- JamesMichael Nichols, Editor at The Huffington Post
As a direct meeting platform cutting out the middlemen aka pimps, RentBoy allows escorts to set their own rules and take-homes. It is a safe place where escorts and clients can communicate their needs to each other clearly and directly. The level of agency enjoyed by both sides of the transaction would hardly exist for sex workers on the streets managed and exploited by pimps. Evidence has shown that pimps are responsible for much of the abuse suffered by sex workers.
“Pimps. And you know what pimps are, right? They’re those violent and exploitative monsters that anti-sex-work activists and law enforcement officials insist they’re trying to protect sex workers from. So the anti-sex-work logic goes like this: Pimps are terrible! Sites like Rentboy.com put pimps out of business! We have to shut down those sites!”
— Dan Savage, American gay activist and writer
So, why is Rentboy even a target?
Moreover the site has been in operation within the public eye for over a decade. It’s not some shabby web enterprise that had wanted to evade from public attention. Rentboy had its own annual celebrations and regular party events catered to hundreds and thousands of people. It even had floats at pride parades.
Since the forced closure of the site, escorts who have been depending on the site as a source of income are suddenly faced with a crisis. Not only is their way of livelihood disrupted, some fear that legal threats might follow.
It is essential that we stop seeing sex work as a vice in the society. The truth is, sex work has always been around, since time immemorial, and it’s not going away.
We need to see that sex work is work. And people performing such work aren’t lowly life forms to be tucked away from public debates and open discussions. In fact, the more we talk about it, the more we get to understand the plights of those in the industry, and how we can better assist and protect them.
“It’s troubling to think that we’re investing resources and time to target Rentboy and sex workers when what we really should be having is a reasonable and thoughtful conversation about the decriminalisation of sex work. We have an entire police force we should be overhauling,
we have murders of trans women happening in large numbers, we’re devoting our time and energy to cracking down on sex work. Who’s choosing to prioritise it?”
— Alex Garner, a writer and activist in Washington
It Isn’t Just About Sex Work,
It’s About People’s Lives.
It’s about GENDER. SEXUALITY. RACE. POVERTY. HEALTHCARE. EDUCATION. HUMAN RIGHTS.
It is important that this Rentboy incident and the debate on sex work aren’t isolated and scrutinised as an social issue on its own, but to be taken to discussion alongside others such as the #BlackLivesMatter and #SayHerName movements. It would give us the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the most marginalised of our society, and how we can better help them.
“Events like the Rentboy raid don’t just affect sex workers —
they impact all people affected by policing, incarceration,
surveillance and institutionalised racism, sexism,
homophobia, xenophobia and transphobia.”
— JamesMichael Nichols, Editor at The Huffington Post
Indeed, it would be myopic to assume that the oppression of one minority community would not spill over to other areas that might eventually affect your life and mine. It would be unwise to stay silent. If we do not fight back against such systems of power that persecute people based on outdated laws, questionable intentions, bigotry and discrimination, next time it might be our other liberties that get interrupted. Imagine a bigger kid shoving another kid in the playground. If nobody says anything, do you think the bully’s gonna stop just there?
The Rentboy bust feels like a sharp slap in the face for many people, not just for the LGBT community. Like a timely wake-up call, it reminds us that there is still much more to be done.
Let’s move forward and not back.
And here’s a quick 3-minute education for you on the whole saga:
UPDATE: 31st August 2015
The Huffington Post posted an article by Jake Jaxson, founder of gay porn site, Cockyboys, on the Rentboy bust saga. He believes that the company was targeted and brought down because of PRIDE. In his writing, Jaxson also introduced to us the story of Rob Yaeger, who was working as a escort via Rentboy. Check out this video below for Yaeger’s personal and deepy emotional story of how he got into the porn and escort scene. It might shock you how some people who seem to be living such different and exotic lives are just humans dealing with life and everyday situations, just like you and I.
“One thing that is very clear to me when it comes to the politics of sex — whoever is screaming sin, adulterer, slut, and prostitute the loudest — while holding themselves out as “better than,” are usually the ones doing exactly what they are alerting and warning others to avoid.” — Jake Jaxson
