Criminals and Sex, Not Exactly The Same Thing

There is a fine line between outlawing porn or sex work completely and arresting folks working in any industry who might be committing illegal acts. But as is often lost on anti-porn/anti-sex work crusaders, people working in adult businesses are not committing illegal acts merely because they work…in adult businesses. If laws are in place that allow these workers to create and sell adult content, or themselves, then all people, even anti-porn crusaders, must abide by them.

It seems the Dutch lawmakers are trying to make this distinction.

Where it is legal

Just last week, the APN newswire service reported that the Dutch Cabinet will initiate an investigation into industry abuse allegations after a group of lawmakers in the Tweede Kamer, the country’s House of Representatives, officially requested it.

This marks the second investigation in the Dutch adult industry. A year ago, the minister's agency looked into abuse charges but came away with no specific cases. This latest attempt to find illegal acts seems to be connected with the Dutch government’s new national call to raise the age for legal sex work to 21.

As are many legislative branches across the world, the Dutch government is interested in exploring rumors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women that their media has seemingly outed. In a country where sex work is indeed legal, plenty of sex workers come to the Netherlands to ply their trade. And although the population is large on this count, as stated above, under Dutch law one is not committing an illegal act when engaging in sex work…if they are over the age of 18.

Not just the Dutch

Beyond this investigation, we are seeing constant reports and highly publicized anti-porn crusades, that might as much could be taken as broad brush swipes across the sex industry, personal reactions, and/or heartfelt investigations.

(I leave it to readers to determine which in the below)

Then there is the constant press coming from the ‘Does he/or doesn’t he,’ question of Donald Trump’s cozying up to Project 2025. Just last week Mashable published a piece on this issue. And, to be fair, there are claims against Kamala Harris as well from sex workers who claim she has demonized porn and sex work in her career.

Even when critics are trying to find and possibly prosecute underage workers being exploited, shut down sex trafficking, and clamp down on any other activity of abuse the law deems illegal, the march to do so sometimes all too easily mixes into campaigns to outlaw adult content altogether. We need be careful of the big steps we take.