When Men Resent the “Temptation” of Sex Workers, Women Die
That’s the takeaway from the March 16th shooting of seven sex workers in Atlanta, Georgia.
On March 16th, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long killed eight people, seven of whom were women who worked at three different massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia. Not only is this the worst mass killing to occur in the U.S. in almost two years, but to many, it appeared to be a racially motivated attack against Asians.
The killing spree in Atlanta comes in the wake of other recent hate attacks against Asian people all around the U.S. While this is terrible news, no one is touching on how violence is a daily concern in the lives of sex workers because our jobs are illegal and stigmatized. No one is discussing how our sex-negative culture may have also prompted Long, a self-declared “sex addict,” to want to destroy the sources of his “temptation”: women employed in the sex industry.
Sex work is dangerous work.
What happened on March 16th at three different massage parlors in Atlanta underlines yet again just how dangerous it is to do sex work. As a sex worker, I can attest that the risks of my job are constantly on my mind.
