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“This semester, I had another former sex worker come talk to my [college] class. Let’s call her Lauren. She was very different from Kiki. Polished. Articulate. Totally mini-van-driving soccer-mom looking young woman. Currently wrapping up her master’s degree in epidemiology. In order to work her way through an expensive private college, she was a call girl for two years. She was neither ashamed nor apologetic. Actually, she was more interested in educating my students about sex workers in other countries in the world. Lauren was also very knowledgeable about the difference between making sex work legal and ‘decriminalizing’ it. Then she spoke about sex workers’ unions and told us that in countries where sex workers are unionized and have health benefits, rates of HIV/AIDS and other STIs (in the entire population, not just among sex workers) are significantly lower than countries where sex workers are not unionized.
