I was a prostitute for 15 years and I have never met a sex worker, I think the name stems from the movie Pretty Woman... and is embraced by the people who support and benefit from the commodification of women. The term seems to want society to believe that prostitution is a fair exchange of goods and services and is an attempt to pretty up and sanitize the world’s oldest oppression, as if society is unaware of what it really is, violence against women. I know prostituted women - I have even been one - and we are and were there out of poverty, racism, classism, sexism, child abuse and we were coerced, whether it was by fist, mind games, the money its self and even by the belief that women do choose and are empowered by performing sex acts on 3,5,8,15 + men a day.

When I was being prostituted, I would have told you it was empowering and liberating, so would most of the other gals  - how could I/we look at ourselves in the mirror otherwise?  How else can you get your body to do things with people you would never be naked with otherwise except for the money they give you to use your body.