REFLECTIONS

Whores. Harlots. Hustlers. Hookers. Strumpets. Prostitutes. Street walkers. Courtesans. Companions. Call girls, Escorts. Pros. Jezebels. Bawds. Fallen women. Working girls.

Sex Workers.

We all have an idea in our head now. Maybe it’s a woman under a streetlamp, torn fishnets under a short red skirt, or maybe it’s limbs wrapped around a chrome pole ending in flourescent pink nails. Is it accurate, though? Does it account for a life outside of their labor? Their families? Their homes? Their sweatpants?

It is said everyone knows a sex worker and anyone thinking that doesn’t apply to them has been deemed untrustworthy by the sex workers in their life. The ideas that person projects onto sex work are considered to be so invalid as to be dangerous. So what happens when the ideas we project onto sex work are projected onto ourselves? Who do the women become, and who do we become when, past close-cropped bangs or face-framing layers, it is our face staring back at us, soul windows opened for a breath of fresh air?