Call Off Your
Old Tired Ethics

COYOTE (Call Off Your Tired Ethics) was founded by Margo St. James in 1973 to work for the repeal of the prostitution laws and an end to the stigma associated with sexual work. In addition to engaging in public education regarding a wide range of issues related to prostitution, COYOTE has provided crisis counseling, support groups, and referrals to legal and other service providers to thousands of prostitutes, mostly women. COYOTE members have also testified at government hearings, served as expert witnesses in trials, helped police with investigations of crimes against prostitutes, and provided sensitivity training to government and private non-profit agencies that provide services to prostitutes.

COYOTE works for the rights of all sex workers: strippers, phone operators, prostitutes, porn actresses etc. of all genders and persuasions.

COYOTE supports programs to assist sex workers in their choice to change their occupation, works to prevent the scapegoating of sex workers for AIDS and other STDs, and to educate sex workers, their clients and the general public about safe sex.

COYOTE is affiliated with the Sex Workers' Action Coaltion (SWAC), the North American Task Force on Prostitution (NTFP) in New York, Hooking Is Real Employment (HIRE) in Atlanta, Prostitutes of New York (PONY) and other national and international sex workers rights organizations.

What do We Want?

The laws prohibiting the soliciting or engaging in an act of prostitution, or patronizing a prostitute, should be repealed.

The laws against pimping (living off the earnings of a prostitute) and pandering (encouraging someone to work as a prostitute) should also be repealed, to be replaced with labor laws dealing with working conditions in third-party owned and managed prostitution businesses.

Commissions, a majority of whose members should be prostitutes or ex-prostitutes, including individuals who have worked on the street, in massage parlors and brothels, and for escort services, should develop guidelines for the operation of third-party owned and managed businesses, including but not limited to health and safety issues, commissions, and employer/employee relationships.

* This information was taken in part from Testimony on Prostitution by
Margo St. James and Priscilla Alexander. c.1985

Check out the 1997 International Congress on Prostitution (outside link)
An academic conference for the purpose of exchanging research information and to begin a dialogue between researchers and those in the sex industry. March 13 -16, 1997. Sex-worker-only preconference March 11-13. Sponsored by COYOTE Los Angeles and the Center for Sex Research, Institute for Social and Behavior Sciences, Cal State University Northridge.

Check out the Margo St. James' Hookers' Ball 1995! (outside link)

To contact COYOTE:

• COYOTE San Francisco
  2269 Chestnut St., No. 452
  San Francisco, CA
  94123-2607
  Samantha Miller (Director)
  +1 (415) 435-7950
• COYOTE Los Angeles
  1626 N. Wilcox Ave, No. 580
  Hollywood, CA
  90028
  Norma Jean Almodovar (Director)
  +1 (818) 892-1859
  normaja@FreedomUSA.org