Sex Worker Task Force for West Hollywood Delayed

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran had big plans for sex workers in the Los Angeles area—many of whom, it might be noted, live and work in his district. At the December 16 Council meeting, Duran had planned to introduce a bill which would establish a "Sex Worker Task Force" whose mission would be to study the "lived experience of sex workers in West Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles area" and compile a report on its findings that could be used as a resource for both the City and County of Los Angeles. But at that Council meeting, the plan was shelved, at least temporarily. Under Duran's plan, the West Hollywood (WeHo) City Manager would have appointed the task force members who, according to Wehoville.com, would have included "experts in the field of sex work, people with experience as sex workers and representatives from the city’s Transgender Advisory Board, Public Safety Commission, and Human Services Commission," and would have studied the "abuse and exploitation of sex workers and what can be done to prevent that." As defined in Duran's task force proposal, the term "sex worker" would have been defined as "female, male and transgender adults who have consensual sex in exchange for money or goods, either regularly or occasionally. Sex work may or may not involve physical contact. Under this definition, sex workers include (but are not limited to): escorts, strippers, professional dominants and submissives, fetish and fantasy performers, erotic massage providers, sex surrogates, phone sex operators, porn performers, and more." Duran took to Facebook to promote the task force formation, writing, "West Hollywood has a local economy with various forms of sex workers. While most people readily identify escorts/prostitution as a form of sex worker—do not forget the strippers at the Body Shop on the Sunset Strip, the GoGo boys at Mickey’s, Revolver, the Abbey, Flaming Saddles. There are also people involved in the porn industry or the 'only fans' websites. There are the massage parlors and massage therapists. And if you are on grindr/scruff, you know there are plenty of guys looking for 'GEN' or 'GENEROUS'. There is lots of cash being traded for sexuality, sexual expression and entertainment. And the SW range from heterosexual to transgender to gay men—all sexual orientations. All genders. All ages. All races. We also know that this population is extremely vulnerable to abuse, violence, discrimination, stigma and being treated as 'sub-human.' To the extreme, serial killers historically prey on female sex workers. Drunks feel for a $1 tip, that they can manhandle or physically assault dancers. When crimes are committed against escorts or prostitutes, they are loathe to report the crime out of fear of being prosecuted." But Duran, whose relationship with the council has been rocky, to say the least—he was forced to resign as West Hollywood's mayor last spring and as Chair of the Board of the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles following multiple allegations of sexual harassment of chorus members—did manage to raise interest in the idea, even as his fellow councilmembers felt that such a task force could be better handled by other city agencies. For example, Councilmember Lindsey Horvath suggested that the very agencies and commissions from which Duran wanted to draw task force members—the Transgender Advisory Board, the Human Services Commission, the Lesbian and Gay Advisory Board and the Public Safety Commission—would better be able to form such a task force on their own, while Councilmember Lauren Meister wanted the task force to have multiple sponsors rather than just the Council itself. She suggested including the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP), the American Civil Liberties Union, Bet Tzedek (which offers free legal services for the poor), and the Los Angeles County Public Health Department. There was also much discussion about where such a task force would meet, and that if such meetings were public, whether sex workers would be willing to "break cover" to attend the meetings. The complexity of the nuts-and-bolts surrounding a task force formation impelled Duran to withdraw his proposal, and when the Council then moved to ask WeHo's City Manager to speak with interested parties and perhaps create a task force that was independent of the city itself, Duran abstained from that vote, and it's unclear how aggressive other Councilmembers will be in promoting and helping to organize such a task force. Images of West Hollywood City Hall and John Duran courtesy of Wikimedia Commons