We must respect sex workers as humans with rights and choices, and crusade against exploitation. Media freak-outs about sex work and trafficking accomplish neither.
Protecting the human rights of sex workers is connected with broader efforts to ensure sexual and reproductive rights and address the problems of the U.S. criminal justice system.
The stories of consensual adult sex workers, who are often the targets of police busts, are missing in all the hysteria about sex trafficking and underage prostitution.
My partner decided to become an escort to pay the bills. When she got her first gig, I knew that she would need someone to do security and didn't hesitate to volunteer myself.
When I worked as a street prostitute, men paid me to do things you'd never imagine -- like pretend to be their girlfriend and take me on all-expense paid trips.
Bong Nguyen, Andrew Lam, New America Media. April 19, 2010.
Girls at the brothel were beaten and raped. Many were dying of AIDS. Who were their customers? All kind of foreigners. Americans. Thai. Vietnamese. Cambodian.
The Philippines suffers from a significant problem with child sex exploitation, but it also provides more fertile ground for US work on anti-trafficking.
David Henry Sterry, R.J. Martin Jr., Soft Skull Press. September 26, 2009.
This excerpt from "Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex" details what a 17-year-old in 1974 decided to do for money.
