Bay Area men, who want to fulfill their most secret fantasies without having to give more than their money in return, can pick up any free newsweekly in the nearest newspaper box, go to the back pages and pick among an abundance of sex ads.

Large breasts, glossy lips and naked butt cheeks meet the eyes when looking through this section. There are choices such as “Hawaiian Day Spa – Relaxing deep tissue and Swedish massage by beautiful young Asian girls,” and “Fully functional petite! New in town! Very Discreet.”

Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in San Francisco, indoor forms of it flourish in the Bay Area and the weeklies contribute to that, says Melissa Farley, a research and clinical psychologist who has addressed the realities of prostitution and trafficking for the past ten years, and worked on issues of violence against women for the past 25 years.

Advocates, researchers and feminist theorists alike agree that most prostitution in the United States doesn’t take place on the streets, but in massage parlors, strip clubs, hotels, motels and private homes.

Unless they receive complaints, police ignore indoor prostitution in most jurisdictions; owners of massage parlors, strip clubs and escort firms, as well as pimps, are mostly left alone. Newsweeklies, such as the (i)SF Bay Guardian(i) and (i)SFWeekly(i), who fill their five-to-six back pages with sex ads, don’t seem to be bothered by the police either.

Farley argues that sex ads both support the sex industry and signal to the public that using a prostitute is not only okay, but is also encouraged.

No one besides the involved can know for sure if the women on the other end really charge money in exchange for sex, but on (i)SFWeekly’s(i) Web site, under “escorts and massage ads,” prices for the services are sometimes spelled out, leaving the uncertain a little more certain. For instance, Kelly’s ad asks for outcall only, “$250 all inclusive for the best in town. Longer, more relaxed session second hour half price.”

A Web site called worldsexguide.com reviews the services of various prostitutes who work both independently, for pimps, massage parlors and escort firms in the Bay Area and around the world. The Web site states (i)SFWeekly(i) and the (i)Bay Guardian(i) as “two great places to find prostitutes.” This might be the last piece of evidence needed for most people to feel fully certain that many of the services in the sex ads includes an exchange of money for sex.

Roxanne Cooper, director of sales and marketing at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, however, is not convinced.

“People assume it’s prostitution, but there is really no way of knowing,” she says.

The city editor at the SF Bay Guardian, Steven T. Jones, rejects the idea that the paper would be dependent on sex ads, but doesn’t try to cover up the fact that they advertise prostitution. Jones says that the adult ads are in the paper because they have always been there, and that the paper’s cornerstone is about the freedom of speech; therefore anyone has the right to post ads in their paper.

“We are all for the legalization of drugs and prostitution,” he says. “And because the media environment is so competitive, we are not going to stop taking money from businesses we don’t have a problem with.”

Jones believes that there are worse problems to focus on, such as sex trafficking, which according to him is a direct result of prostitution being illegal. This is a very common view, and shared by many in San Francisco.

“Prostitution has been redefined by the progressive and the left in San Francisco as sex work, but in that one word – work – the sexism and the physical and psychological violence of prostitution are made invisible,” says Farley. “A battle is being waged by those who promote prostitution as a good-enough job for poor women against those of us who consider prostitution an institution that is so intrinsically unjust, discriminatory and abusive that it can’t be fixed, only abolished.“

Jones agrees that prostitution is a problem of poverty, but does not want to censor ‘sex workers’ in San Francisco.

“What people do between the sheets is vigorously private,” he says, and explains one more time that the paper believes in strong dialogue and will therefore not consider to banish sex ads in their paper.

Most people interviewed for this article didn’t want to comment on the economical factor tied to the sex ads, nor did they like responding to the question, “Do you believe that your paper supports the sex industry and consequently the violence against the people trapped within it?”

(i)SFWeekly(i) belongs to the media corporation Village Voice Media. It uses a company, called backpages.com, that handles all their advertisement. Andrew Padilla, who didn’t want to specify what exactly his role at backpages.com is, says that the incentive of the sex ads is money; however, he doesn’t want to reveal how much money is involved. Regarding the second question, he says that he can’t see the connection.

The (i)SF Bay Guardian(i) is independently owned and obviously need their advertisers too, but on behalf of what? Are there no other options? The (i)Dallas Observer(i) in Texas and the (i)Boulder Weekly(i) in Oregon banned adult ads in their papers a few years ago. Pamela White, editor at the (i)Boulder Weekly(i), says that it was an ethical issue, which the publisher, Stewart Sallo, and the staff felt very strongly about.

“The images were objectifying and demeaning to women,” White says. “We wanted to re-encounter how the community feel about gender issues.”
White emphasizes the fact that their decision wasn’t based on any prudish reasons.
“We are not anti-sex,” she says. “We’re actually very sex positive, but we don’t want to earn money from a questionable industry. No papers run ads for drugs, because that’s not acceptable, but somehow ads for prostitution are.”

Withdrawing sex ads from the paper was a big deal, explains White. The publisher got many calls from a range of different people and media outlets. Weeklies from San Francisco called and said that they couldn’t understand why the (i)Boulder Weekly(i) had taken such a stand. The Association of Alternative Newspapers called and complained that the Oregon based paper would get into economical troubles. Even people from within the prostitution community were angry. White recalls how a pimp called and said that his business had become more difficult since the paper stopped the explicit sex ads.

The (i)Boulder Weekly(i) kept to its decision, hoping that more people would pick up the paper and read it for its great journalism. The paper lost $100,000 the first year, and had to struggle for a while but managed to get back on their feet again. Now, their wishes have been granted: in the month of April this year, the (i)Boulder Weekly(i) had its most profitable month in its entire history. The (i)Boulder Weekly(i) still has some classified ads that surely sell sexual services, but are tamer and not as blatantly sexist, according to White.

“Before half our paper was run by tits, now you have to want to read the ads and really look through them to find what you want,” she says.
Farley says that the voices promoting legalization of prostitution are loud in San Francisco but don’t reflect the real voices of most prostituted women – who have told her they want to get out, but in order to do that they need housing, job training, and drug/alcohol addiction treatment. She feels that before change in the attitude about prostitution can happen, it’s critical to examine the nature and origin of men’s attitudes and behaviors in prostitution. She believes that alternative media, such as the newsweeklies that reach many people in different age groups, could play an important role in this change.

“People say that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and therefore should be accepted, just because it’s been around forever, but what about murder – it’s been around just as long as prostitution and nobody defends murder,” she sighs.