MADRID — Spanish sex workers and adult industry figures are sounding the alarm about a new law, supported by politicians from the ruling PSOE (Socialist) and opposition parties, aiming to outlaw all forms of paid sex work, including commercial pornography.

Last week, PSOE introduced a proposal for an “abolitionist law against sexual exploitation,” as they had anticipated on their platform.

But the new draft included a new section, 187, which explicitly outlaws audiovisual productions, magazines or internet content deemed “pornographic,” the El Español newspaper reported yesterday.

Prominent Socialist politicians within PSOE, which seized power in 2019 after several years of conservative rule under the Partido Popular (PP), have taken up the abolition of sex work as their personal cause. These include the party’s General Vice-Secretary Adriana Lastra, who last month took to the press to promote a change in the Spanish Penal Code to mandate up to three years of jail time for anyone paying for sex.

Lastra framed the effort as an attempt to reach out to the right, saying, “We introduced the proposal and we hope that the [conservative] PP will vote for it, and, above all, [left-wing minority alliance] Unidas Podemos.” 

PSOE seeks to revive the crimes of “proxenetism” (pimping or pandering) and “tercería locativa” (brothel keeping), which were removed from the Penal Code in 1995 by a previous Socialist administration.

The language used by the PSOE exclusively uses the Spanish feminine “prostituta,” which is both stigmatizing and criminalizing, and also essentializes sex work as a female occupation.

The law also conflates legal minors with the much vaguer “persons in situation of vulnerability,” which could be deployed by authorities to apply to whomever they wish.

A Left-Right Alliance to Re-Criminalize Consensual Sex Work

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has actively campaigned for “the abolition of prostitution,” including during the last PSOE convention in Valencia last October.

Last month, PSOE attempted to sneak the new criminalization into a popular “Sólo Sí Es Sí” (Only Yes Means Yes) sexual consent law.

An amendment was slapped onto that much less controversial law, a last-minute addition which outlawed sex work was requested by the conservative PP and Sánchez negotiated to add it behind the backs of the minority parties that are part of his legislative alliance.

But those parties — Unidas Podemos, ERC, Bildu — threatened to “vote against the entire ‘Sólo Sí Es Sí’ law if it included the PP-driven anti-sex work amendment,” government sources leaked to the press.

PSOE decided to remove the amendment and reintroduce the abolitionist reform on its own. The ruling party also has shown a strange desire to rush the process “as soon as possible,” government sources confirmed to El Español.

Lastra told the press that Spain “must be a dignified country” and cannot continue “turning a blind eye to this grave violation of human rights.”

According to the PSOE, any opposition to their extreme Nordic Model reform means to be on the side of the “exploitation of women” and against “human rights.”

Noted Industry Voices Erika Lust, Paulita Pappel Speak Out Against the Law

Noted Swedish-Spanish adult filmmaker, producer and studio owner Erika Lust took to Twitter today to sound the alarm about the impeding government attempt to ban all sex work, including adult performance.

“This International Sex Workers Day, I want to take the opportunity to express my unconditional support to all sex performers currently based in Spain, where the government is once again threatening their safety with prohibitionist bills that claim to ‘protect their rights,’” Lust tweeted.

“The proposed [Penal Code reform] by PSOE, as it is right now, calls for the abolition of all forms of making a profit from the prostitution of others, including porn production,” Lust added. “According to the political parties behind this bill, it would not matter whether the practice is carried out under exploitation — banned under current law — or if it is independent labor, with consent from all parties involved, following ethical production standards.

“What is presented as an effort to stop exploitation and violence in defense of human rights, in particular women’s rights, ends up being the main source of violence, precariousness and lack of protection for all sex workers — who are already vulnerable as it is,” the Barcelona-based feminist filmmaker continued.

Lust added that “if the government really cares about women’s rights, they should ask how women are treated in the porn industry? Are these women entirely in charge of their own careers? How can we guarantee the basic labor rights of sex workers?”

She quoted fellow pornographer and FSC Europe activist, Spanish-born Paulita Pappel, in noting that “sex work is only safe when it is decriminalized, and pornography is artistic expression and thus a right under freedom of speech.”

By condemning the porn industry “without taking all of these aspects into account, this bill only reinforces the stigma on sex workers and confuses sex work with sex trafficking,” Lust concluded.

Pappel herself issued an impassioned video through her social media explaining the background of the government’s attack on consensual sex work and urging support for the voices of actual sex workers and adult industry stakeholders.

Main Image: Spain’s self-described ‘prostitution abolitionist’ Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez

Jun 2, 2022 3:45 PM PDT

Jun 2, 2022 3:27 PM PDT

WASHINGTON — Two prominent conservative newspapers, the Washington Times and the Echo Times, have now published evidence-free op-eds blaming “pornography” as one of the causes of the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and other locations.

Tom Basile, who bills himself as “the host of ‘America Right Now’ on Newsmax Television, an author and a former Bush administration official,” penned an op-ed on Friday for the Washington Times where he minimizes the effect gun control and other policies may have in curbing repeated occurrences of mass violence.

“Faith and wisdom, not government and politics, will elevate the nation and strengthen the souls of those who otherwise might turn to drugs, pornography, self-mutilation and violence,” Basile wrote.

The only recently recorded link between pornography and a mass shooting — the Atlanta massacre of spa workers by a Christian terrorist on March 16, 2021 — actually underscored the connection between targeted violence and anti-porn rhetoric and dubious “conversion therapies” for supposed “porn addicts.”

Fellow right-wing news source the Epoch Times published Saturday an op-ed by Wesley J. Smith, whom the paper describes as “host of the ‘Humanize Podcast,’ chairman of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant to the Patients Rights Council,” who linked the Uvalde massacre to “abortion,”  “transgender panic” and “ready access to obscene pornography on the internet, which reports say can distort the development of healthy sexuality.”

Smith’s poorly fact-grounded diatribe is headlined “America’s Anti-Child Culture.”

A Slew of Right-Wing Messaging Blaming ‘Pornography’ for Mass Violence

These editorials both surfaced around the time West Virginia governor, mainstream Republican Jim Justice, gave a rambling response to a local clergyman’s call for gun control reform, stating, “We absolutely know without any question, to me, at least, that why in the world is an 18-year-old buying an assault weapon? A 21-year-old, I’d welcome it. But really and truly, we know all of the stuff that’s going on on social media, all across the land. We know the profanity. We know all the different stuff, all the porn, all the bad stuff that is out there that is getting in the minds of our children. We know all the violent video games getting in the mind of our children. Why don’t we do something about it?”

He added, “My world would say, ‘Let’s stop all the porn that our kids are absorbing every day.’ Stop the stuff on social media that is deteriorating their minds, worthlessly deteriorating their minds. Stop all the video violence that’s out there that’s doing the exact same thing. Let young men [be] on the pathway of growing up and being men. There’s nothing to be ashamed of about young men growing up and being men and protecting women, protecting kids, protecting people.”

According to local TV station WTRF, Gov. Justice also said, “How were things in America 50 years ago? I think in most people’s eyes, we have regressed. Think of the pornographic material our young are able to have access to now, think about the violence in video games that we continue to promote to our youngest.”

Concurrently with conservative messaging attempting to blame “pornography” for America’s unique record of mass shootings involving assault weapons, unknown sources revived a 2021 interview with J.D. Vance, the GOP senatorial candidate for Ohio, venture capitalist and “Hillbilly Elegy” author, where he calls for an “outright ban” of all porn.

Main Image: Newsmax TV host and Washington Times editorialist Tom Basile

Jun 2, 2022 2:00 PM PDT

Jun 1, 2022 2:40 PM PDT

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities have confirmed they will continue the criminal prosecution of popular OnlyFans creator Dea Gresaids, days after the influencer told the court that she is pregnant.

Gresaids was charged under the country’s draconian obscenity laws for creating consensual sexual content and selling it through her OnlyFans account.

Charges were prompted by her appearance on the popular Deddy Corbuzier podcast, thus failing to make her identity completely anonymous, as most of the country’s sex workers are forced to do.

She is being charged with “spreading pornographic content online” and was detained in late March in Malang, East Java. She was freed at the time, but she is still required to regularly report to the police.

Last month, her attorney Abdillah Syarifudin asked for leniency from the authorities due to her six-month pregnancy, local English-language news site Coconuts Jakarta reported.

Gresaids’ fate is in the hands of the District Attorney’s Office, and her lawyer has “asked that her pregnancy be taken into account when deciding whether or not she should be placed in detention during her trial,” Coconuts Jakarta reports.

“From a humanitarian perspective, no detentions have been carried out, but the legal process is still ongoing,” Jakarta Metro Police Spokesman Endra Zulpan told reporters.

The authorities zeroed in on Grisaids after “her popularity had skyrocketed after appearing in a popular podcast discussing her online sex work,” the news report explained.

Gresaids told Corbuzier that she had started her OnlyFans account to satisfy her passion for cosplay, and only later produced sexually oriented videos.

Her appearance as an open sex worker “was seen as a gutsy move… [W]hile there are several Indonesian content creators on OnlyFans, most have chosen to remain anonymous due to the country’s draconian anti-pornography laws.”

In early April, police also questioned someone known as DRZ, the male who performed with Gresaid in her OnlyFans videos. He alleged that Gresaids had promised him “the sex tapes were only intended for personal use, and had no knowledge that they were uploaded to OnlyFans.”

As XBIZ reported, recently Indonesian police have ramped up a crackdown on tourists making adult content in recognizable locations in the country — which includes prime destination Bali — and busting them for content made in the privacy of their rooms.