Sex workers are people too!

. What is a sex worker? By definition, a sex worker is someone who works in the sex industry. But what exactly does that mean? Someone working in the sex industry could be involved in many different aspects of the sex industry such as pornography, nude dancing, or telephone sex. Many women earn some or all of their living as a sex worker. Yes, these women are involved in the sex industry but they are still people and deserve to be treated like them. Too often, people who work in the sex industry, particularly women, are criticized and taken advantage of just because they work in the sex industry. Men have the idea in their head that since a woman acts in porn or dances nude, she’s asking for it, and it’s simply untrue. One example of this can be found in an episode of Law and Order: SVU in which a young woman named Evie trying to pay for college decides to act in a pornographic film. Two of her fellow male students see the video and decide to invite her to a party and rape her. It is clear that Evie was not consenting to what they were doing to her, but since what they see was a “pornstar” the men thought they had the right to do whatever they wanted to her.

. This idea that men have the right to a woman’s body is very alive in our society today. Saying that “she deserved it” because she was wearing a short skirt or because she “led him on” or in the case because she was in a porn, happens to women every day. Some people argue that rape culture is not a real thing, but it can be seen everywhere.

. Since she was in a porn video the guys thought that it was ok to sexually assault her. This is a mistaken ideology that typically young men have drawn up in their mind that if a girl has sex a lot or dresses in a revealing way then she can be degraded and not treated like a human being and they can be treated anyway. After the assault in the show Evie tries to charge the guys that assaulted her with rape but finds herself having to persuade detectives, a jury, a judge, and even her parents that she was the victim here. This brought up the discussion of rape culture to the audience, which is normalizing mens sexual assault on women and blaming women for being sexually assaulted. A majority of the male characters in this episode didn’t believe Evie when she said she was raped because she was a sex worker. They actually were blaming the incident on Evie because of her line of work. Evie then stated in the courtroom to the jury “People who work in entertainment are still people and we don’t deserve to be subjected to assault.” This I thought was a powerful message for her to say because it’s absolutely true that no matter what line of work someone is in, nobody deserves to be assaulted.

. Another aspect of rape culture that was exhibited in the show is one of the guys who raped Evie, was trying to play the victim stating he was “taking a stand for falsely accused men”, by denying the charges against him. It seems like men who are accused of rape are favored in our culture and protected. They get defended with the excuse that it wasn’t their fault, or people make excuses for them by saying “boys will be boys”. This type of thought has to change in our country and around the world for sexual assault to be a thing of the past.