Let’s talk about sex, baby: Sex work and resistance in New Orleans

Men at Southern Decadence in 2016. (Photo from: Wikimedia Commons)

The Issue:

Historian Rebicca Poole writes, “When the United States entered World War II, the US military and the Social Protection division (SPD) declared war on prostitution and used New Orleans as a prime target and model for the rest of the United States in order to protect soldiers from venereal diseases.” After New Orleans city officials, including Mayor Robert Maestri, refused to do anything to regulate the city’s prostitutes, Colonel George M. Halloran (commander of Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg, MS) contacted higher-ups in the US military and SPD. Those higher-ups “decided to use the city’s sinful reputation as the basis for their campaign with targeted sex workers and promiscuous women, labeling them as enemies similar to the Axis powers.” 

I point out that it was not only known prostitutes who were being targeted, but any woman whose behavior was deemed suspicious, or not conforming with mid-century gendered norms: “When officers could not prove the women were prostitutes, they instead charged them with crimes such as intoxication, vagrancy and disturbing the peace. Any woman with suspicious behavior was in danger of being accused and treated as a prostitute.”

The surveillance and policing of women’s behaviors did not stop there, however. Instead of encouraging their soldiers to stop visiting the prostitutes of New Orleans, “the SPD and the US military pushed for a change in the women’s lifestyle to protect soldiers from venereal disease. They created an education campaign filled with posters and radio shows that vilified women’s sexuality while educating citizens in New Orleans and the rest of the country on the threat of venereal diseases.”

These educational materials even went so far as to “emphasize women’s breasts . . . singl[ing] them out as venereal disease carriers.”

Not only was the act of prostitution being criminalized, resulting in the incarceration and gross violations of the human rights of hundreds of New Orleans citizens, but women’s bodies were also criminalized, treated as grotesque carriers of disease. The reinforcement of domestic gender roles was encouraged since “Women were pressured to adhere to their gender roles in the household or short term factory work for the sake of the American war effort” while the infected soldiers went unpunished. The scars of this campaign linger among the American psyche and are apparent in the continued stigma surrounding women’s sexuality. The state of prostitution in New Orleans itself is not in much better shape, even over 70 years later.

Writer Matt Nadel highlighted a Louisiana law that has been on the books since 1982 named the Crime Against Nature by Solicitation statute, which criminalizes the solicitation of oral or anal sex. Black transgender activist Wendi Cooper claims that that law “has been used as a tool for the lifelong subjugation of trans women of color in Louisiana ever since.” Cooper goes so far as to refer to CANS as “the matriarch of our destruction.”

The state lawmaker who wrote the bill, Republican Jim Donelon, used the outrageous and sensationalist claims of a 15-part expose on New Orleans’ male prostitution industry titled “Cruisin’ the Streets” to underscore his point that “‘male hustlers were lurking in the shadows of the French Quarter, working the streets as prostitutes and evading police apprehension.” The law itself makes it a crime to “‘solicit . . . unnatural carnal copulation for compensation’ and would punish such conduct with up to five years in prison on a first offense.” The crisis Donelan was referring to was nonexistent (there was not an epidemic of male prostitution in the streets of Louisiana in the early 1980s— “if ‘Cruisin’ the Streets’ was journalism, it was yellow”) and furthermore, prostitution was already illegal.

To what end did Donelon intend to reach with CANS?

Nadel asserts that “CANS was part of something larger, a nationwide movement that was more concerned with denouncing ‘homosexual deviants’ than with helping young sex workers. That movement, a reactionary right-wing pushback against ‘gay rights,’ is at the heart of CANS.” The crux of CANS is as follows: normal prostitution laws classify the act as a misdemeanor, which means “it’s punishable by a fine of $500 or a jail sentence of up to six months.” CANS,  however, “made these acts a felony.” Prosecutors could now “push for sentences up to five years with hard labor for a first offense.”

Since its instatement, Louisiana and New Orleans law enforcement has used CANS to target minority groups. At the time of its conception, the targeted population were the so-called “homosexual deviants”: “The public, verbal, subjective nature of CANS made it an effective way for law enforcement to actually arrest (rather than just symbolically denounce) gay men . . . law enforcement routinely raided gay bars and bookstores and charged dozens of men with CANS.” CANS went through a period of hibernation while the AIDS epidemic effectively stopped street sex work, but “the psychic space once occupied by the ‘homosexual deviant’ was not left vacant.”

With the renaissance of CANS, a new target had to be identified: Black trans women. There was also a new measure passed in 1991 that made the impact of CANS even harsher. Prompted by a federal mandate, Louisiana legislators added CANS to a list of laws which if convicted for, people would have to register as sex offenders. Nadel reports that “40 percent of all people on the sex offender registry in New Orleans were there exclusively because of CANS. Of those, 75 percent were women and 80 percent were Black.” A DOJ report found that “‘NOPD practices lead to discriminatory treatment of LGBT individuals,’ including unjustified, prostitution-related arrests.” For those like Wendi Cooper, “the fight against CANS isn’t over until the law is fully off the books.” 

The Solution: Let’s go back to the suffragists 

In 1848, “American abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott decided to call the ‘First Woman’s Rights Convention” after being excluded from all-male anti-slavery societies. At the convention they drafted a statement “modeled after the Declaration of Independence” called the Declaration of Sentiments, which “listed ‘repeated injuries’ by men against women [that] . . . included forcing women to obey laws they had no voice in passing . . . and making married women ‘civilly dead’ in the eyes of the law.” It was also at this convention that the first concentrated effort to obtain the right to vote for women was declared.

Following the Civil War, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), to “work for a federal constitutional amendment guaranteeing all American women the right to vote.” The NWSA devoted their resources to forming connections with sympathetic members of Congress, an aim which paid off: “In 1878, the NWSA succeeded in getting a constitutional amendment introduced in Congress.

The proposed amendment stated, ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied to abridged by the United States on account of sex.’” At the same time, another group called the American Woman Suffrage Association was campaigning for women’s right to vote specifically in individual states and territories. A precedent was set when Wyoming, a state that allowed women to vote in its elections, was allowed to join the Union. After this, “a few other states pass[ed] women’s suffrage laws.” However, by the turn of the century, most efforts in state congresses and at the federal level had failed.

What helped to revitalize the women’s suffrage movement was “the concept of a new American woman emerg[ing] after 1900 . . . described as independent and well-educated.” It helped that “by 1910, ‘feminist’ was another term being used to describe the ‘new woman’ . . . [it] referred to a new spirit among a few middle-class women to liberate themselves from the old notion of ‘separate spheres.’” The dominoes began to fall: “Western states continued to lead the way in granting women’s suffrage” with Washington, California, Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon all passing laws between 1910-1912.

Alice Paul, member of the merged organization National American Woman Suffrage Association (made up of the NWSA and the American Woman Suffrage Association) organized public marches to lobby Congress to pass an amendment protecting women’s right to vote. Paul upped the ante by picketing daily directly outside the White House in an effort to convert President Woodrow Wilson to the suffragists’ cause. At the same time, women were taking more and more jobs in the wartime economy, further legitimizing their places outside the home: “By 1920, women made up 25 percent of the entire labor force of the country.” Paul’s efforts paid off, with “President Wilson [being] disturbed that the push for women’s suffrage was causing division during the war.” He announced his support for the women’s suffrage amendment in January 1918, and it was approved by the House and Senate by the summer of 1919.

The implementation:

The fight against the criminalization of prostitution in New Orleans and CANS can be won. I propose a possible path forward based on the strategies of the 20th century women’s suffrage movement:

1. Advocate:

Without Alice Paul’s daily picketing outside of the White House or her marches in Washington, the cause of women’s suffrage might have quietly faded. Black trans activist Wendi Cooper led a protest during 2019 Southern Decadence, during which she denounced both CANS and the cultural stigma surrounding sex work. It is demonstrations like these that have the most potential to gain the attention of the masses and turn the tide of public opinion. By being vocal and imploring the local public to listen, one can bring awareness to injustices that would go otherwise unchecked. Social media networks and independent publications can also be vital to these ends—they can reach a far wider range of people and might help shore up grassroots support. 

1. Organize:

If not for the joint efforts of several women’s suffrage movements, like the NWSA and the American Woman Suffrage Association, the 19th amendment would have never been passed. This probably goes without saying, but the organization of activists who are all dedicated to righting the wrongs that CANS has wrought upon the New Orleans community is vital. Above, I discussed Wendi Cooper, who has partnered with the organization Women with a Vision and their initiative, the New Orleans Justice Project. This partnership led to the overturning of several of the most severe punitive measures of CANS, such as the requirement that someone convicted through CANS register as a sex offender. However, CANS is still on the books, and the only way to remedy that is by community action. 

1. Lobby:

The women’s suffrage movement targeted specific lawmakers to persuade them to join the cause. Forming connections with those who have the legislative power to overturn CANS and decriminalize sex work is as necessary as advocating for the rights of Black trans sex workers and organizing around bringing public awareness to CANS. State representative Mandie Landry has been working on passing House Bill 67, which would decriminalize sex work in Louisiana. Supporting Landry through fundraising or partnering with her office to develop further legislation that would improve the lives of Black trans sex workers are two ways to ensure that her efforts do not sputter out. Lobbying non-sympathetic lawmakers is just as important. There are a multitude of ways to contact representatives and tell them about HB 67 and how it will benefit the citizens of Louisiana. 

Bibliography

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 Nadel, Matt. “Prostitution was already illegal in Louisiana. Then Republicans crafted an even 

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https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/world-war-ii-prostitution-new-orleans.  

“Women with a vision,” last modified December 2022, https://wwav-no.org/. 

Women with a vision, “NO Justice project archive,” last modified December 2022, https://wwav-no.org/no-justice-project/.