Jessica Land

“Occupations are at the heart of sex workers’ rights movements. Think back to the Lyon occupation in France in the1970′s. Taking Times Square last Saturday was a full circle moment, given the history of sex work in Times Square, and the joined forces of corporate and political interests that have displaced sex workers from not just Times Square but any public space. For sex workers, occupying public space is about economics as much as it is free speech.” 

-Melissa Gira Grant, writer and former sex worker

It would seem that no one enjoys being called a “hooker,” whether you are a sex worker or not.

When looking at the ways in which the media in the United States continues to use the term, it’s not difficult to ascertain why sex workers still have an impossible time being visible and out in this country.

It’s also easy to see how shaming sex workers, or even shaming someone for purportedly being a sex worker, is easy to do in a society in which calling someone a “hooker” is defamatory enough to bespeak the second class status of sex workers in general.