This is Sarah Stewart Holland, and this is Beth Silverz, thank you for joining us for

Pantsuit Politics.

In case the title didn't alert you, today's episode features mature themes and

language, please take care as you need to. While I was on my gene sabbatical,

we got an email that had our team saying yes out loud. The pitch came from old

pros, a non-profit media organization working to change the status of sex

workers in society, at least quickly arranged an interview which Sarah

recorded in short order. Why did this email stand out in the sea of pitches

that we receive each week? Sex work had not been on our white board of topics for

this quarter. I think it's because we see sex and our attitudes about sex at

the root of many, if not most, of our major controversies. You can't have a real

conversation about abortion without talking about sex, and just a quick shout out

here to Ohio voters for getting to the polls in August in order to keep the rules

the same for their November abortion initiative. Gender identity and masculinity,

the whole of the Barbie movie, pretty much everything connected to what

Republicans love to term as wokeness, conspiracy theories, legitimate concerns

about trafficking and human dignity, all of it relates to sex, and you really

can't have a complete conversation about sex without talking about sex

work. The criminalization of sex work in particular says so much about the gaps

between who we say we want to protect and who we actually protect. What we say is

dangerous and what is actually dangerous. We know this topic will push a lot of

buttons. When I try to step back and make a list of declarative sentences,

...