Hooker

Pretty Woman is a movie about a lovely young woman who is a prostitute. She meets her Prince Charming while working the streets and he changes his appalling character with the force of her good soul and honesty. He keeps her from being raped and then breaks into her home after she tells him ‘good-bye’ to surprise her. Because that’s what every girl wants.

In 1990, when the film was released, it was criticized for its depiction of prostitution. Some even said prostitution was glamorized.

Coercive control and propaganda are topics of The Tell: how it happens, what tactics are used, how to spot it and resist it. Coercive control is the method by which people are forced into, and kept in, prostitution. Some of those tactics are:

• violence

• threats to family or children

• lack of sleep

• a new name

• isolation from friends and family

• leaving you with no money

• drugs.

But when we look at how prostitution is shown in entertainment, it is often through the fantasy lens of the client. Somehow, that aspect of a sex worker’s life is never shown on t.v. or the movies. Let’s just say “lived experience” isn’t part of the show’s research.

Right now, Netflix is showing an Italian t.v. show about rich teenaged prostitutes called “Baby.”