A School for Johns

Harris says that programs like the johns school help sensitize those who buy sexual services to the true working conditions of sex workers—and refute the notion that many of them are in the business voluntarily. "It forces the john to deal with the reality of prostitution instead of their fantasy of what's happening," she says.

Dismantling that fantasy is precisely what Emmanuelle and several other ex-sex workers have come to the johns school to do. Emmanuelle (who requested that NEWSWEEK not use her real name in print) explains that the women she worked with were often mentally and physically ill. "I have posttraumatic stress disorder from [the work]," she says. "I want to be one of those people who has a good job, a long marriage. But because of my illness, I'm scarred for life from this industry, and I have to restart my life at 41." By the time she finishes telling the men about her life on the street, many of the men in the room are openly weeping or sniffling. They applaud as she walks away and another ex-prostitute, Jenna, 33, takes the stage to tell her story.

Jenna, a 33-year-old redhead, started working as a cigarette vendor at a club as a teen. She tells the men that she "didn't start off wanting to be a prostitute" but that the attention she got from men at nightspots and a $200-a-day heroin addiction she developed helped propel her into that lifestyle. Soon, Jenna (who declined to provide her last name) would find herself homeless and infected with hepatitis C, the victim of repeated beatings by abusive clients. Now, she says, even though she's been out of the sex industry for three years, she can't maintain a relationship with a guy longer than a few weeks. "I'm damaged, but it has to be true for some of you, too," she says to the johns. "You don't realize when you're getting yourself off what you're doing to these women. You're causing a lot of damage. We're damaged, but you guys are, too."

And they work hard for the money. According to a preliminary report released this year by researchers at the University of Chicago, based on a study of prostitution in Chicago from Aug. 19, 2005 to May 1, 2007, a streetwalker makes on average $27 per hour; given the limited hours prostitutes normally work, this would generate less than $20,000 annually. The women also reported frequent physical abuse. According to the study, a woman working on the street could expect an annual average of a dozen acts of violence and 300 instances of unprotected sex.

The johns school was founded by Norma Hotaling, a 56-year-old ex-prostitute who founded FOPP in 1995; she also launched an umbrella group, SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation), which combats sex trafficking and helps those trapped in the trade get out and find mainstream jobs. Both organizations aim to put pressure on the other people involved in the prostitution transaction—and both stand to lose city funding if the anti-prosecution measure is adopted this fall.) "It's taken until now to realize there are men involved," Hotaling says. "But if you want to tackle prostitution and trafficking, you have to start with demand reduction."

That's where the johns school seems to be having an effect. The San Francisco program shows it is possible to appeal to the customers' sense of "empathy for those harmed," says Michael Shively, a sociologist who reviewed the program for the Department of Justice, which provides some of its funding. Shively's study, released in May, found that recidivism rates of those who completed "Johns school" were 30 percent less likely to be rearrested for soliciting sex than were men who did not opt for the program. And an earlier study of a similar program in Buffalo, N.Y., resulted in an 87.5 percent drop in the recidivism rate for attendees. Shively admits he was skeptical at first. "It didn't seem realistic that one eight-hour day of talking at men would change their behavior," he says. "Now I'm an advocate."