Shame, moral outrage, and the regulation of sex shops
For months, the city of Manassas has engaged in a protracted legislative battle with KK’s Temptations, a little lingerie and sex toy boutique tucked into the city’s Old Town retail strip. When the mother-daughter owned sex shop announced plans to set up shop in Old Town, hundreds of neighbors descended upon the Manassas town hall to warn that the store’s wares could attract pedophiles, child pornographers, and “real perverts” to the city’s quaint business district. Legislators invested $70,000 of city funds in the argument, and commissioned a report to prove that sexually-oriented businesses like KK’s ought to be firmly regulated.
The Manassas residents who protested KK’s opening mainly raised moral and religious objections to the shop; one man argued that a sex shop would invite the work of the Devil into the community. The commissioned report attempted to justify those moral concerns with real-world “secondary effects”—evidence that the moral scourge would actually increase crime rates, or drive down down property values, or otherwise negatively affect the business of the area.
The report, released this month, confirms that stores hawking sexually explicit material can sometimes attract criminals. But the new criminal element isn’t pedophiles and pornographers looking to prey on the town’s children—it’s opportunistic criminals looking to prey on the sex shop’s customers. And why can they do that? Shame.
Criminals are attracted to businesses that serve up easy targets. The leading creator of easy targets? Booze. Bars and clubs attract a clientele that’s drunk, disoriented, and carrying cash. (And Old Town Manassas already hosts several bars). Sexually-oriented businesses attract another type of soft crime target—this type often travels alone, inspires little sympathy from bystanders, and is sometimes reluctant to report his or her own crime. The report quotes a telling line of inquiry: “’If your cell phone was stolen at Target, would you report the theft?’ ‘If the same phone were stolen at a strip club, would you report the theft?’ Many people who say ‘yes’ to the first question demur to the second.”
Why? Maybe because people who are known to have frequented a sexually-oriented business are publicly dismissed as pedophiles, child pornographers, and perverts. At the town hall concerning the KK’s opening, one local resident offered a plan to sabotage the store’s success: “Videotape [the store’s patrons] and put it on the Web,” he advised the council. “Stream them on the Internet.” In a town where patronizing a sex shop is a matter of public shame, street crime can thrive. Later, that crime is used to justify regulating the business out of existence—the report recommends preventing sexually-oriented businesses from opening up near any residences, nursing homes, day cares, schools, parks, libraries, museums, churches, hotels, motels, ballfields, or other adult businesses.
But despite the public outcry, KK’s Temptations just isn’t the type of sexually-oriented business that churns out soft targets. For one, the shame factor is relatively low. KK’s doesn’t provide live entertainment like nude dancers or pornographic film screenings. It doesn’t serve alcohol. And it’s more likely to attract women looking to spice up a bachelorette party than men seeking a heavily stigmatized sexual release (read the report’s odd ruminations on glory holes here). As the report notes, KK’s “is clearly merchandised to appeal to women, a demographic less likely to attract criminal activity than is a business that caters more heavily to young men.” According to shop owner Kim Skokan, the fiery protests against her shop abated after the store actually opened, exposing its nonthreatening selection of lingerie and novelty toys to the community.
The report presented no evidence that a sex shop like KK’s increases a neighborhood’s crime rate. But a sex shop that has glancing similarities to KK’s could increase crime—and the city can use that link to satisfy the town’s moral objection to all sexually-oriented wares. “It is important to remember . . . that lawful sex businesses do not generally ’cause’ crime and some may have little or no effect on crime rates around them,” the report reads. “Despite the controversy around it, KK’s Temptations is not the type of business that is likely to attract the sort of criminal activity found at some sex businesses in other communities. . . . The problem is that a business with similar merchandise but a different style, a different location and different operating hours might very well attract” criminals. Because of that possibility, the report recommends that benign shops like KK’s be subjected to regulation as well.
There’s one sex shop in Manassas that fits the description of a potentially problematic outlet: MVC Couples Boutique. But according to the report, even MVC hasn’t increased crime on its block: “Manassas Police report no criminal problems with it, either.” The report reads that the store “was clean, brightly-lighted, and appointed and merchandised as well as many mall stores. Managers on duty during two visits were alert to activities around them. The combination of clean premises, good lighting and good management go a long way toward discouraging criminal activities—and driving away people likely to engage in them.”
So: Sex shops like KK’s Temptations don’t attract crime. The town’s more classically problematic sex shops don’t attract crime, either. The real problem is other residents—like the ones presenting far-fetched pedophilia concerns at a town hall meeting—who perceive these businesses to be crime magnets. According to the report, neighbors typically reject a sex shop not because of the “content of the materials handled by the businesses,” but rather because they think the store is “trashy,” a “bad influence on children,” and that it “draws unsavory people.” Due to the opinions of surrounding neighbors, appraisers see a sex shop as a property value killer. The report concludes that “even the tamest of sex businesses can have a negative secondary effect on the market values of nearby properties.”
Sexually-oriented businesses don’t attract crime or drive down property values in and of themselves. Persistent negative perceptions of these businesses, however, can have a devastating effect on the surrounding area. The city of Manassas could spend more money regulating businesses like KK’s Temptations out of sight. Or its residents could simply attempt a bit of an attitude adjustment.
