A few weeks back, I got this push alert on my phone.

It said the district attorney in Manhattan, Sy Vance, had decided to stop prosecuting prostitution.

I also got the alert. I knew it was coming.

I called up Melissa Jira Grant because I wanted to know what that alert really meant.

From what I could tell, the DA planned to continue bringing charges against people buying sex.

Just not those selling it.

This was widely reported as a victory for sex workers,

a change that would keep people safer.

But Melissa, who's covered sex work activism for more than 15 years,

she saw this change a little differently.

What's surprising, though, about this policy

is that it's coming out of the Manhattan DA's office, which is historically, but incredibly anti-sex work.

In a way, it's not that much of a departure, but the fact that they wanted people to, like, celebrate him for it is really worth drawing some attention to.

You know, he wants credit for having done something good for sex workers.

What Melissa's talking about here is a shifting power dynamic.

It's actually pretty subtle until you know the history.

In the past, doing something good for sex workers has meant finding new ways to control their

behavior.

Like a few years back, Melissa was covering a diversion program. Some

Brooklyn prosecutors had set up. It was a way for sex workers to avoid prison time. But they

were still getting arrested, still going to court. And so I was sitting on the bench outside the

courtroom with a woman who was about to go in and have her case heard. And she was telling me about, you know, the arrest that she was there for.

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