Minneapolis bathhouse ordinance opens a door to sexual exploitation

On June 28, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey signed an ordinance, passed by the City Council in a 9-2 vote, to repeal the adult bathhouse ban. 

Bathhouses — also known as baths or gay saunas — are establishments where gay men meet to socialize and have sex. The ordinance, however, not only authorizes public bathhouses, but creates a new section, authorizing  any adult sex venues, which in effect, legalizes prostitution in Minneapolis.  

The advocates and elected officials pushing for legalized adult sex venues are framing this ordinance as supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and gay men’s health. But this is not an issue of either protecting the community’s health, nor the human rights of queer people. Quite the opposite.

Related: Minneapolis City Council vote on bathhouse ban

Remembering Minneapolis in the 1980s brings me both smiles and head-scratching memories of what the city looked like then. Hennepin Avenue was not the vibrant theater district and great downtown dining spot it is today. It was gritty and sordid, hosting the likes of Moby Dick’s, Gay 90s, The Saloon, Roaring 20s, Empress XXX Theater, adult bookstores and several strip clubs. 

It was also known as one of the big “‘ho’ strolls,” with rampant prostitution on the street and in commercial sex establishments. Why would our mayor want to reopen these corridors of sexual exploitation?

Legal venues for public sex are where prostitution occurs. I should know.

As a survivor with lived experience, I am fortunate that I am not “in the life” anymore. The world is far more complicated today with fewer opportunities for marginalized people coupled with far more risks for violence, sexual exploitation and chronic health challenges. 

Many of us who survived the streets and became leaders in the community understand the connections and trajectory of what this ordinance means for Minneapolis.

What rules the game is the demand for sexual acts. Whether in the trap house, at the hotel, in the brothel, in escort services or in the backseat of a car – sex buyers drive the business of exploitation, sexual harassment and rape. 

When news of the signed ordinance reached us, a friend reminded me how much her pimp loved the bathhouses in downtown Minneapolis when the brothels were in full swing in the 1980s. 

Although women rarely frequented the bathhouses, our traffickers’ business doubled as patrons leaving the bathhouses would then call to buy their girls. 

Promoters of the ordinance claim it was discriminatory against LGBTQ people and will support public health. But research shows that adult sex venues are not safe spaces, particularly in this instance for queer youth looking to explore their sexuality. In fact, research shows that queer youth are twice as likely to be sex-trafficked than their peers.

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Other supporters reassure the public that the majority of individuals involved here are “consenting adults” — as if those who are purchased for sex have the agency, choice and desire equal to that of their buyers. 

The notion of consent is meaningless or nonexistent in an exchange where one party holds all the financial, social, and typically, physical power, and the other holds onto coercive thread for survival. The truth is that money can never buy consent. 

The other narrative we often hear is that of ‘harm reduction,’ giving the false impression that the City could tame the sex trade and guarantee less violence, less organized crime, and less risks of adverse health outcomes to people in prostitution. This is at best wishful thinking, and at worst, insanity.

Every jurisdiction in the world that has legalized or decriminalized the commercial sex industry — from counties in Nevada to New Zealand, from Germany to the Netherlands — have tried and failed to improve the lives of prostituted people. 

The New Zealand government’s own report showed that coercion, sexual exploitation, abuse and social stigma rage on despite decriminalizing sex venues. The Minneapolis ordinance legalizing adult sex venues will be no better. 

The question is not whether individuals have a right to earn money however they choose, but whether the city of Minneapolis will offer vulnerable people access to real economic opportunities, rather than greenlight the right of men to exploit their vulnerability for sexual gratification. 

Minnesota was proud to be one of the first states to implement Safe Harbor, which ended the criminalization of sex trafficked youth and provided them services, so true sadness kicks in as our mayor and City Council want us to move backwards. We continue to call for an end to the criminalization of people in prostitution — but not the decriminalization of sex buyers, whose entitlement fuels the commercial sex trade and the exploitation it depends on. 

Over the past two decades, I have personally worked with hundreds of women, girls and boys, who were sexually exploited, trafficked, assaulted locally, nationally and internationally. 

The majority of my friends, primarily Black and brown, who shared Minneapolis streets and brothels with me are deceased. Several of my Native sisters died violent deaths, which often included murder by sex buyers. The trauma runs so deep that we now witness second and third generations of familial prostitution and sex trafficking.  

One commonality binds them: the physiological, psychological, emotional and spiritual harm that prostitution inflicts feels the same from one end of the world to the other. Exposing vulnerable boys, young men and queer youth to these unspeakable harms with no exit will make our city complicit in sexual exploitation. 

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Unless the brave people of Minneapolis prevent the City Council from taking the next steps necessary to open brothels and other adult sex establishments, we will create a renewed pathway of suffering for the most marginalized among us.

It’s time for us to wake up and stop the City Council and Mayor Frey from allowing this multibillion-dollar sex industry to turn Minneapolis into a Sanctuary City for sexual exploiters. 

Our response to legalized brothels must be to create a safe and healthy Minneapolis free from sexual exploitation so that we can all thrive free from violence and discrimination.  

Terry Forliti is a survivor of sexual exploitation. She works to offer hope, encouragement and empowerment through her testimony and direct services to those who experienced the sex trade.

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