Photo by Alejandro Forero Cuervo | CC BY 2.0
December 17th was the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. Annie Sprinkle, the sexologist, educator and former prostitute, launched the campaign in 2003 in the wake of a series of killings of women, many young female runaways and sex workers, in King County, WA. The killer, Gary Ridgway, dubbed the Green River Killer, was convicted of murdering at least 49 women, but likely killed as many as 75-80 women from 1982 through 1998.
Ridgway was caught in 2001 when matched in a DNA test and was convicted; he received multiple life sentences. He admitted targeting women “because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”
Since the nation was first settled, prostitution has been viewed as an immoral, if not an illegal, commercial exchange between mostly male customers and female sex workers. In four centuries, this relationship has not changed. Women (mostly) still ply their demeaning trade to (mostly) male clients. Weirder still, the same shame applies to the commercial sex workers today as it did when the nation was first settled.
Sex workers are busted for selling their sexual labor power, the ability to erotically please a client. In 2014, 47,600 people were arrested nationally for engaging in what the FBI…