On the last day of the legislative session, the Florida legislature approved a bill prohibiting anyone younger than 21 years old from working or performing at adult entertainment venues. Supporters of the bill say it will help curb sex trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable youth.
"We have to change the way that we view strip clubs and adult theaters because what we are regulating is not just sexual conduct," Rep. David Borrero of Sweetwater said prior to the House vote on March 8. "It's trafficking. It's sexual abuse, human exploitation because there truly are victims and traffickers involved in this industry."
The "Anti-Human Trafficking" bill would raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 to work in adult entertainment venues, including strip clubs, cabarets, adult bookstores, adult theaters, and unlicensed massage establishments. Other provisions include statutory tweaks such as replacing the national hotline with a state hotline on human-trafficking awareness signs at certain businesses such as massage parlors.
The Florida Senate passed the bill on March 5, followed by an affirmative House vote on March 8. Only three state senators and three members of the Florida House voted against the bill."Why would we want 18 year olds, 19 year olds, teenagers — some are still in high school — in environments where they are targeted, recruited by pimps?"
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"Why would we want 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds, teenagers — some are still in high school — in environments where they are targeted, recruited by pimps?" Borrero said. "They are likely to be trafficked and sold into prostitution and sex slavery."
While some lawmakers applauded the anti-trafficking bill as a whole, they said they were concerned the stripping provision is trying to legislate conservative values and control adult women (coincidentally on International Women's Day). Rep. Michele Rayner of St. Petersburg pointed to some legislators' attempts to lower the minimum age for certain gun purchases in Florida from 21 to 18.
"If we have filed bills that say folks can have guns at 18 and they are able to use guns at 18, I'm not understanding why a young woman would not be able to make a choice to decide to be an exotic dancer or stripper," Rep. Rayner said during legislative debate. "That might not be your value, but we are not here to legislate values.""If we have filed bills that say folks can have guns at 18...I'm not understanding why a young woman would not be able to make a choice to decide to be an exotic dancer."
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Rayner, who ultimately voted in favor of the bill, said the legislature should be focused solely on protecting human trafficking victims. She points out that young adults under 21 years old could now be "pulled into private parties," where they can fall victim to sex trafficking.
"Yet once again, this body is trying to legislate what women can and cannot do with their bodies and it is overwhelmingly a lot of men who are trying to do that," she added. "Some of you like strip clubs, so I don't understand."
The legislation would make it a second-degree felony "to knowingly employ, contract with, or otherwise permit" a person younger than 21 years old to perform or work while nude, which is defined as "the showing of male or female genitals, pubic area, or buttock with less than a fully opaque covering, or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering" below the top of the nipple.
The definition of "nude" would also include the display of a clothed penis in a "discernibly turgid state."
It would be a first-degree misdemeanor for an adult entertainment venue to hire employees younger than 21 even if they are fully clothed, according to the bill. An owner, manager, or employee could not escape criminal liability even if the person lied during the hiring process, raising the specter that a strip club's failure to spot a fake ID could yield severe criminal charges.
"A person's ignorance of another person's age or a person's misrepresentation of his or her age may not be raised as a defense," the bill reads.
If Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the bill or declines to veto it, it will take effect July 1.
