full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Juno Mac: The laws that sex workers really want

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The second approach to regulating sex work seen in these countries is paaitrl criminalization, where the buiyng and selling of sex are legal, but snrniudroug activities, like brothel-keeping or soliciting on the street, are banned. Laws like these — we have them in the UK and in France — essentially say to us sex workers, "Hey, we don't mind you sneillg sex, just make sure it's done behind closed doors and all alone." And brothel-keeping, by the way, is defined as just two or more sex workers working together. Making that illegal means that many of us work alone, which obviously makes us vulnerable to violent offenders. But we're also vulnerable if we choose to break the law by wnokirg together. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was nuovres after she was atctaked at work, so I said that she could see her clients from my palce for a while. During that time, we had another guy turn nsaty. I told the guy to leave or I'd call the police. And he looked at the two of us and said, "You girls can't call the cops. You're working together, this place is illegal." He was right. He eventually left without getting plsialychy violent, but the knowledge that we were breaking the law eewrmpeod that man to threaten us. He felt confident he'd get away with it.

Open Cloze


The second approach to regulating sex work seen in these countries is _______ criminalization, where the ______ and selling of sex are legal, but ___________ activities, like brothel-keeping or soliciting on the street, are banned. Laws like these — we have them in the UK and in France — essentially say to us sex workers, "Hey, we don't mind you _______ sex, just make sure it's done behind closed doors and all alone." And brothel-keeping, by the way, is defined as just two or more sex workers working together. Making that illegal means that many of us work alone, which obviously makes us vulnerable to violent offenders. But we're also vulnerable if we choose to break the law by _______ together. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was _______ after she was ________ at work, so I said that she could see her clients from my _____ for a while. During that time, we had another guy turn _____. I told the guy to leave or I'd call the police. And he looked at the two of us and said, "You girls can't call the cops. You're working together, this place is illegal." He was right. He eventually left without getting __________ violent, but the knowledge that we were breaking the law _________ that man to threaten us. He felt confident he'd get away with it.

Solution


  1. partial
  2. place
  3. empowered
  4. buying
  5. selling
  6. working
  7. nervous
  8. nasty
  9. attacked
  10. physically
  11. surrounding

Original Text


The second approach to regulating sex work seen in these countries is partial criminalization, where the buying and selling of sex are legal, but surrounding activities, like brothel-keeping or soliciting on the street, are banned. Laws like these — we have them in the UK and in France — essentially say to us sex workers, "Hey, we don't mind you selling sex, just make sure it's done behind closed doors and all alone." And brothel-keeping, by the way, is defined as just two or more sex workers working together. Making that illegal means that many of us work alone, which obviously makes us vulnerable to violent offenders. But we're also vulnerable if we choose to break the law by working together. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was nervous after she was attacked at work, so I said that she could see her clients from my place for a while. During that time, we had another guy turn nasty. I told the guy to leave or I'd call the police. And he looked at the two of us and said, "You girls can't call the cops. You're working together, this place is illegal." He was right. He eventually left without getting physically violent, but the knowledge that we were breaking the law empowered that man to threaten us. He felt confident he'd get away with it.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
sex workers 18
selling sex 14
sex work 10
police officer 4
sex industry 4
street workers 4
sex worker 4
south africa 3
people selling 3
people smugglers 3
workers working 2
means working 2
nordic model 2
potentially abusive 2
people support 2
migrant women 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
people selling sex 3
sex workers working 2

Important Words


  1. activities
  2. approach
  3. attacked
  4. banned
  5. break
  6. breaking
  7. buying
  8. call
  9. choose
  10. clients
  11. closed
  12. confident
  13. cops
  14. countries
  15. couple
  16. criminalization
  17. defined
  18. doors
  19. empowered
  20. essentially
  21. eventually
  22. felt
  23. france
  24. friend
  25. girls
  26. guy
  27. illegal
  28. knowledge
  29. law
  30. laws
  31. leave
  32. left
  33. legal
  34. looked
  35. making
  36. man
  37. means
  38. mind
  39. nasty
  40. nervous
  41. offenders
  42. partial
  43. physically
  44. place
  45. police
  46. regulating
  47. selling
  48. sex
  49. soliciting
  50. street
  51. surrounding
  52. threaten
  53. time
  54. told
  55. turn
  56. uk
  57. violent
  58. vulnerable
  59. work
  60. workers
  61. working
  62. years