Politics

3 of the Most F*cked Up Ways the Feds are Controlling Sex Work

From telling hotel workers to look for used condoms to shuttering escort sites to nation-wide stings, cops are going after prostitutes with new energy.

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From the Department of Homeland Security calling attention to used condoms in hotel rooms to shuttering the gay-escort site Rentboy to a nation-wide prostitution sting during Super Bowl 50, law enforcement agencies are cracking down on sex work like never before.

As Reason's Elizabeth Nolan Brown has documented, this new scrutiny isn't due to any sort of increase in prostitution or sex trafficking. Instead, it's the outcome of an unlikely coalition of radical feminists, evangelical Christians, and police to label all sex work as coerced and thus akin to slavery. By ignoring a basic distinction between consensual prostitution and forced sex work, government efforts to police the latter are increasingly invading privacy rights and limiting personal choices.

About 5 minutes.

Shoot by Todd Krainin and Austin Bragg; edited and produced by Joshua Swain. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

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