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So there was a terrific piece about sex work in the New York Times just a few weeks ago, which is kind of shocking. A lot of daily papers, including the New York Times, don't really cover sex work in a smart way or an empowering way, a way that's realistic about sex work, about prostitution,

about online sex ads.

But this piece by Robert Kolker, who's a contributing editor in New York Magazine, and the author

of a book called Lost Girls in Unresolved American Mystery that's forthcoming, was really smart

about sex work and about how the internet has really impacted sex.

And the piece doesn't stigmatize sex workers, which is huge because usually any piece

that's written about sex workers either shames and stigmatizes sex workers or pathologizes

them or falls into this.

All people who are doing sex work have been sex trafficked and there's no way for sex work to work without it being exploitative and abusive. And the piece goes into really the impact that the web has had. I'm just going to read a little bit from it. The web has been the great disruptor of any number of industries transforming the way people shop for everything. and commercial sex has been no exception.

Posting ads online, escorts find clients without ever having to leave home or walk the streets.

One of the experts at Coker quotes says that the internet said to be the solution to many problems was expected to legitimize the entire field of prostitution, elevate the underclass, and make pimps a thing of the past.

Because so many people who used to walk the streets was just dangerous or go through escort agencies that would rip them off that would keep two-thirds or three-quarters of the hourly

rate or be preyed upon by pimps who would market them and steal their money could just put

an online ad up and go into business

all by themselves.

And it was safer and more lucrative and more empowering.

And here's where I need to tell you that this piece by Kolker is about the victims of the

Long Island serial killer, 10 women, all of whom were sex workers, all of whom were posting

ads online, all whose bodies were found on a beach in Long Island wrapped

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