Bella Robinson, a libertarian and sex worker rights activist, has worked in the sex industry for over thirty years. She is the executive director of Rhode Island chapter of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) since 2009, and a member of ESPU (Erotic Service Providers Union) and the ESPLER Project, or ESPLERP (The Erotic Service Providers Union Legal, Education and Research Project). 

In 1976 the Rhode Island chapter of COYOTE sued the Rhode Island Attorney General, in the landmark case COYOTE vs. Roberts, regarding the constitutionality of the state’s prostitution laws, resulting in the decriminalization of indoor sex work between consenting adults. 

Founded in 2004, ESPU is a California based non-profit supporting the decriminalization of prostitution. ESPU envisions sex workers gaining agency through the model of industrial organizing for legal, occupational, social, and economic rights.

Bella is also a board member of ESPU affiliate, the ESPLER Project. ESPLERP is a diverse community based—erotic service provider led—group seeking to empower the erotic community, and advance sexual privacy rights through legal advocacy, education, and research. In our legal advocacy, we seek to create change through a combination of impact litigation, policy statements, and by voicing our concerns for our community in political arenas. Through educational training and outreach, we will empower and build capacity to address discrimination of erotic service providers and the greater erotic community. Lastly, ESPLERP strives to archive and rate much of the research which has been done by the sex worker community and build on this history with research which seeks to be increasingly inclusive, respectful, and ultimately, relevant to the erotic service providers, the larger erotic community, and those who need factual information on our community.

Featured in the 2013 award winning film American Courtesans as Gina Robinson, Bella is now known around the world as an authentic activist and advocate with a lifetime of authentic sex industry experience.