“On August 25, 2015, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raided the New York offices of Rentboy.com, an online advertising network featuring gay escorts. Seven individuals were arrested, including the owner, Jeff Hurant. All of Mr. Hurant’s business and personal assets have been seized, and are subject to forfeiture. He is left without any realistic ability to sustain himself, or pay for private defense lawyers. Walters Law Group, along with other lawyers in New York and San Francisco, have agreed to represent Mr. Hurant in his fight for justice. We are appealing to you for help with legal fees and basic living expenses.”
This is a quote from the defense and support page erected for Rentboy.com. This is not the first raid on the escort industry by any means, but the particulars of this case have mobilized advocacy groups like never before. Diane Duke, CEO of the Free Speech Coalition, released a statement which reads in part:
“Unfortunately, we in the adult industry have plenty of experience with these raids. From our inception as a legal business in the late ’60s, adult film makers and workers have been surveilled, censored, raided and harassed by law enforcement units from vice squads to the FBI. In the past few years, adult performers, producers and service providers have protested as their bank accounts were shut down, their health records subpoenaed and their right-to-work violated by misguided moralists. No matter what the tactic, the goal is the same: push us into the shadows and silence our voices.”
Like most escort sites, Rentboy.com was not simply a catalogue of male escorts. It was a hub of information, a supportive community for sex workers. Escorting is a dangerous occupation by default, but websites like Rentboy and Redbook (which was raided earlier this year) make it safer by taking solicitation off of the streets and offering a pre-screening process. The simple ability to communicate verbally with a client before meeting them in person drops the risk to the escort significantly. The ability to advertise specific services to a wide group of people both increases revenue, and decreases the risk of encountering a john with a fetish which the escort is not comfortable with.
Advertising, pre-screening, and community are all ways for the adult industry to police itself. Since America has decided that prostitution is immoral and icky, all adult work lives in a grey area. Even the most legitimate, legal, and transparent pornography studio is subject to abuse by the justice system simply because they are selling sex. When raids like this happen, and online advertising for sex workers is shut down, it increases risk across the board. Adult sex workers are forced underground. This in turn provides insulation for the real criminals: sex slave traders, and exploiters of children.
Clean adult prostitution is a victimless crime. Were the justice system logical, it would not be a crime at all. It is imperative for the adult industry to pull together and support one another. To work towards the de-stigmatization of the industry as a whole, and the de-decriminalization of prostitution specifically. When one advertising agency is shut down due to government interference, we must not look at it as eliminating the competition. It is symptomatic of a flawed system which is one complaint away from destroying the livelihoods – and lives, for that matter – of everyone in the business.
