The 21+ law already in Texas may be coming to Florida

nicespice
What do you guys think?

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/politi…

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – On Friday, Florida lawmakers approved a bill that would raise the age limit for adult entertainers and push back against human trafficking efforts.

The bill — HB 7063 — would require certain groups to post signs with messaging to spread awareness of human trafficking and the phone number for the Florida Human Trafficking Hotline.

Those groups include residential treatment centers for minors, massage parlors and “public lodging establishments.”

In addition, the bill would restrict minors from working for vendors licensed under the state’s Beverage Law, unless they’re given a position that doesn’t involve working with alcohol.

In the Senate, lawmakers attached provisions to the bill that would prohibit anyone under the age of 21 from working in an “adult entertainment establishment,” such as a strip club, adult bookstore or sex shop.

Such a business that hires someone younger than 21 to “perform or work while nude” could face a second-degree felony, according to the bill’s text.

“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 in prosecution for a violation of this section,” the bill reads.

The House ultimately approved the bill by a vote of 104-3 on Friday, sending it to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

If DeSantis signs the bill into law, it would take effect on July 1.

35 comments

Latest

shadowcat
8 months ago
Do human traffickers care about age?
nicespice
8 months ago
Alas, a lot of anti-“human trafficking” is just the rebranded way of hating regular ol’ prostitution. Not to say that trafficking isn’t a thing, but I side eye that term by default.
Muddy
8 months ago
Probably see a ton of cuban dancers moving north.
nicespice
8 months ago
Are the Cubans that young? I’ve never really asked Cuban dancers their age, but a lot of them seemed like they were mid 20s?
Muddy
8 months ago
Even if it's just one, you know they don't want to break the chit chat corner group up.
Papi_Chulo
8 months ago
My SC-history is a little rusty after a 2.5-year SC-hiatus - but if I recall; for the most-part dancers had to be 21 in clubs that sold alcohol which in FL is probably almost all-clubs - bc of this I don't think there were many FL clubs w/ under-21 dancers
MajorBoobage
8 months ago
Vegas makes strippers get a license. That's also not a perfect solution, but if the state is really interested in making sure girls are a) of a certain age, and b) not being trafficked, a quick-o license would be a lot more effective than raising the stripper age.
shailynn
8 months ago
Johnsmith69 is crying somewhere right now over this?
Dolfan
8 months ago
There are quite a few clubs that hired 18-21yr olds in south Florida, I'd say it's about 50-50. Just looking at Pompano, BT and Diamond Dolls are the only two that don't hire 18-21. All the others do. And BT only recently raised the age to 21. I'm not sure Tootsies or Scarlett's current policy, but I know prior to COVID they both had under 21 dancers.

As far as the law goes, yea, its the same ol bullshit. Someone introduced a bill and called it Anti-Human trafficking. Then some other asshole likely refused to vote for it unless they could stick in something for their goals. No one can vote no on an anti human-trafficking bill, so it passes.
wld4tatas
8 months ago
More Republican government overreach trying to control what an adult woman can do with her body.
PAWG_Patrol
8 months ago
Jacksonville did this 3 or so years ago. They also started requiring every dancer to have a "Performer Work Identification" card too.

The latter actually led to MORE Cubans because it's a lot easier to have priors if you've lived your entire life in America versus a few months 😂
5footguy
8 months ago
"More Republican government overreach trying to control what an adult woman can do with her body."

I agree. I don't want the government to tell anyone what to do with their bodes. I don't want them in my lives.
The co-introducers were 16 members and 13 were republican, 3 democrat. Out of 104 votes, 36 were from democrats, and 33 of those voted yes. So, it was largely promoted by republicans but got near unanimous bipartisan support.
5footguy
8 months ago
Government always hides behind the guise of "safety" or "protection" but they always manage to grow their influence and power in the process. See dictator Trudeau for a prime example.
PAWG_Patrol
8 months ago
So it's just government overreach in general. But just as Dolfan said... it's not a great look to vote no on a human trafficking bill. Even if it's not really about human trafficking but rather targeting the sex trade as a whole.

All I know is some of my favorite JAX dancers were 19 y/o college girls... damn haha
Dolfan
8 months ago
@5footguy said "The co-introducers were ..."

I think its important to point out that the bill sponsors aren't the ones who slipped in the prohibition on 18-20 yr olds stripping. As introduced, it was just a simple bill that required people to post signs with a phone number to call to report or ask for help if you were trafficked or suspected someone was. It was Brian Avila (R) who amended it to sneak in the bullshit provisions.

That same scenario is very, very common. It's often pre-planned, where one member will introduce a bill with the explicit intent of another amending it with something that's just loosely enough related to avoid being considered a rider and drawing the extra attention. Other times it's not, and it's used as a form of horse trading. I have no insight into which happened here.
shadowcat
8 months ago
Laws and club rules get broken all of the time. That's why we go. This won't change that. Underage girls will find a way to get fake I.D.'s. I've known after the fact that I got dances from 3 17 yo girls at one famous Atlanta club.
aham5
8 months ago
But it's OK to give puberty blockers to confused teenagers.
Hank Moody
8 months ago
Puberty blockers should only be given to adults. That’s just science.
Dolfan
8 months ago
I know this sounds like bullshit, but I'm not a huge fan of the 18-20yo dancers. It's not like I purposefully avoid them, but most of the time I either don't find them hot or I can't stand talking to them, so we go our separate ways. But, I think this shit really takes away options from vulnerable women. Many of the dancers I know gained their independence from horrible home situations through dancing at a young age. Quite a few girls I went to high school with got out of shitty home situations not by going to college, but by going to the clubs in Miami and stripping.

We often talk about the less than ideal homes strippers come from, but rarely contemplate that this is a way out of those homes for many of them. We joke about these girls stripping through school or whatever, but I think a pretty good number of girls dance for a few months or years to get out of a shitty home and on their own two feet, then move on to other occupations. Taking this option away from them I think only serves to further put them in harms way and make it harder for them to escape. I think, well maybe just hope, this number far exceeds the number who would be helped by this.

Because we Floridians elected a jackass who describes himself as a family man and he decided to sneak his agenda on to this bill.
Dolfan
8 months ago
And I wish we had more options for reactions to posts. Love/Hate is limited. Agree/Disagree/LOL/Eat shit and die/etc. I want options.

Cause puberty blockers only being given to adults is very much something some jackass politician would say. I'd not be surprised if MTG or the Handjob chick would say.
motorhead
8 months ago

wld4tatas says:

“More Republican government overreach trying to control what an adult woman can do with her body.”



I don’t think the democrats are immune from government reach. Things Dems have tried to ban: plastic straws, water bottles, plastic shopping bags, The Pledge of Allegiance, Barbie dolls, Happy Meal toys.
nicespice
8 months ago
I figured if the vote was 104-3, then that would be bipartisan. Though, too bad nobody interviewed Gaetz for his opinion about the bill.
ilbbaicnl
8 months ago
Yes it's a problem that females have problems with predatory males. Probably only a small percentage of them have such problems because they are adult entertainers under 21.

The biggest protection strippers need is to not be discriminated against when they want to switch to a straight job. But laws against employment discrimination are dubiously effective.
Jascoi
8 months ago
damn prudes...
skibum609
8 months ago
Pretty funny watching a bunch of grown men whine about democracy in action.
Elitis
8 months ago
^^ "The biggest protection strippers need is to not be discriminated against when they want to switch to a straight job."

Not wanting your company that presumably has nothing to do with adult products/activities/services to be associated with someone who is or has been involved with those things (and can fairly easily be found out about) isn't such a crazy concept.
Manuellabore
8 months ago
^^ "Not wanting your company that presumably has nothing to do with adult products/activities/services to be associated with someone who is or has been involved with those things (and can fairly easily be found out about) isn't such a crazy concept."
How can a patron of an office or a store "easily" find out that an employee of the establishment formerly danced at a SC? The only obvious way I can see is if a patron recognized her. He's almost certainly not going to care, much less complain to management about her, and even less likely to tell wifey about her.
Manuellabore
8 months ago
I'm with Dolfan in that I have little interest in 18-20 year old dancers, and also agree that depriving them of the opportunity to work at a SC seems more likely to do harm than good.
RonJax2
8 months ago
@nicespice hit the nail on the head here:

> Alas, a lot of anti-“human trafficking” is just the rebranded way of hating regular ol’ prostitution. Not to say that trafficking isn’t a thing, but I side eye that term by default.

Pull back the covers on any group funding "anti human trafficking" legislation and you'll find some right wing religious group, for certain. These are the same people getting pornhub shut down in certain states. There's a fascinating documentary "Money Shot: The Pornhub Story" on Netflix right now, and one of the things it gets into is that all the groups trying to ban content ostensibly to prevent trafficking and exploitation of minors are just fundamentalist religious groups who are anti-sex work in general.

With that said, I'm not 100% opposed to women needing to be 21 to work as dancers. But I don't think this is going to do jack shit to prevent any kind of trafficking. And I guarantee you, if we were to look at who lobbied for this bill, it's going to be some shitty group like Focus on Family or something similar, some organization that opposes all sex work in general.



ilbbaicnl
8 months ago
16 - 20 year olds should be allowed to dance as long as the club is run by Irish nuns. No extras. Your dick gets whacked with a ruler if you take it out.
Muddy
8 months ago
Veteran dancers probably actually like this I'm guessing.
Manuellabore
8 months ago
Skibum: "Pretty funny watching a bunch of grown men whine about democracy in action."
Cool thing about democracy (representative democracy, in this case) is that you are allowed to complain when you disagree with what you're "representatives" are doing
skibum609
8 months ago
^yes I see where complaining about something could be viewed as proactive and not impotent, assuming of course that complaining anonymously ever changed anything.
nicespice
8 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/stripper/s/93dK…

It’s just the word of an anonymous contributor so far, but it looks like the writing is on the wall and some clubs are already going along with it.
Dolfan
8 months ago
Looking back, I wonder if that's why BT Pompano fired all the 18-20yo's not that long ago.
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