What is ESPLER?
The Erotic Service Providers Legal, Educational, and Research (ESPLER) Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for the rights, safety, and dignity of erotic service providers. Founded in 2009 and formalized in 2012, we seek to empower the erotic community and advance sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research. Our efforts include impact litigation, policy statements, and speaking out in political arenas to create change. Through educational trainings and outreach, we address discrimination against erotic service providers and the greater erotic community. We pursue original research and also archive and evaluate external research that builds on our history with inclusive and respectful studies relevant to erotic service providers and the larger erotic community.
Our Mission
ESPLER is a diverse community-based erotic service provider led group that empowers the erotic community and advances sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research. Our movement lawyering creates change through impact litigation, policy statements, and speaking out for our community in political arenas. Through educational trainings and outreach, we empower and capacity build to address discrimination against erotic service providers and the greater erotic community. We pursue original research and archive and evaluate external research that builds on our history with inclusive and respectful studies relevant to the erotic service providers and the larger erotic community.
Our Vision
We envision a world of sexual liberty where sexual privacy rights, as defined under federal and state constitutional, criminal, and civil law, includes the right of adults to partake in consensual sex regardless of status or circumstance including marital status, sexual orientation, sexual preference, sexual identity, or remuneration; and, regardless of such status or circumstance, adults are able to partake in sex under equal protection of the law, and free from discrimination – enfranchising erotic service providers into the American social compact.
Our Values
Education: We seek to educate the public, politicians, and academicians about the true social and economic costs associated with the criminalization of adult consensual sex.
Empowerment: We amplify the voices of those who work as erotic service providers as well as the voices of those in the erotic community at large.
Integrity: We support our constituency – erotic service providers and the larger erotic community – with honor and integrity.
Justice: Every person, including erotic service providers and the larger erotic community, must be enfranchised to basic human rights such as the right to legally work in the profession of one’s choice, including sex work; and, the right to privacy, including the right of adults to legally engage in consensual sexual relationships, regardless of remuneration.
Leadership: We demonstrate leadership by posing legal challenges to unjust laws prohibiting prostitution; and alternatively, we propose just laws to legitimize prostitution; and, evaluate the scientific methodology and techniques applied to sex worker research to ensure scientifically sound and unbiased results.
Respect: We extend our deep sense of self-respect to one another and to the sex industry and the erotic service provider community at large.
Accountability: We are accountable to each other, and the larger erotic service provider community, to accomplish concrete results while displaying respect and integrity.
Innovation: Our theory of change generates and embraces innovative solutions for accomplishing our goals including education, empowerment, justice, leadership, respect, and accountability for erotic service providers and erotic community at large
Advisory Boards
We currently are hosting Advisory Boards for those who consider themselves one of us and would like to do more for our community.
Contact the Research Advisory Board
info@esplerp.org