Last week at the National Organization for Women’s New York office, women’s rights advocates, anti-trafficking groups and former prostitutes convened to galvanize New Yorkers to take action against the city’s booming sex trade. In addition to arguing for enforcement of existing laws — and for the penalization of buyers and pimps as opposed to the women and children who are their victims — they wanted to send an important message about the language used around the problem.
“The media uses terms like ‘sex work’ and ‘sex worker’ in their reporting, treating prostitution as a job like any other,” said Melanie Thompson, a 27-year-old woman from New York City who introduced herself as a “Black sex-trafficking and prostitution survivor.” The language of “sex work,” she argued, implies falsely that engaging in the sex trade is a choice most often made willingly; it also absolves sex buyers of responsibility. (My colleague Nicholas Kristof recently profiled Thompson, who now works for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.)
“I urge the media to remove the terms ‘sex work’ and ‘sex worker’ from your style handbooks,” she said.
