Sex Workers before Sex Work

Abstract

The modern prostitute and, thus, sex worker, movement is commonly believed to have begun with two events in two separate cities, namely, San Francisco in 1973 and Lyon in 1975. In San Francisco, COYOTE (Call Off Your Tired Old Ethics) was founded as the first ever advocacy and pressure group for prostitutes, subsequently operating with the subtitle, ‘The Sex Workers’ Rights Organization’. In Lyon, in 1975, an occupation of a church by prostitutes was carried out to protest against lack of police vigour in arresting murderers of prostitutes and lack of adequate police protection for those who continued to work as prostitutes as well as to oppose increased police harassment through fines and imprisonment. The two events led to the emergence of a large number of other similar pressure group and advocacy organizations for prostitutes around the world over the next ten to 20 years. Part and parcel of the development of these organizations was the emergence of the sex work discourse. In time, these organizations campaigning for civil and human rights led to the emergence of proto-unions which concentrated upon the worker, labour and economic rights of sex workers. Therefore, they can be viewed as existing as antecedents which facilitated sex workers defining themselves as wider than just comprising prostitutes and provided inspiration for the creation of the organs of collective self-representation of sex worker as workers.