History of Feminism

through agencies or on their own - whose clients are vetted, who can freely say no to a client without going hungry or getting beaten, who can get violent clients blacklisted - they may have freely chosen their career.

The vast majority are women and men without this security and who are forced, either by their pimps or by money needs, to see 8-10 johns a day, without any safety measure except instinct and perhaps some fellow street walkers. I am willing to bet that most of them want to get out of it, if they could see a way out, or if they thought they themselves were worth the effort. I think many do not see any alternative - some are addicts, some are school drop-outs, some have had their self esteem destroyed by abusive families and their abuser pimps - they are wise enough to see that getting out of prostitution is hard work, and that you need something of a break as well.

Harriet Tubman said that she could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves. I think with many prostitutes, many would get out of the business if they knew they were worth it.

Edited to add: And it isn't just many prostitutes that that don't value themselves as much as they are worth - too many workers in the US don't value themselves and their labor highly enough, so they continue to vote republican. I believe it's the same mental mechanism, and it is based on the same cultural exploit - that they should be happy to have work, and if they can't manage on what they earn/can't get a regular job, it's their own fault.