The phrase 'sex worker' was invented by an activist in 1978
Carol Leigh, an activist from inside the industry, coined 'sex worker' in 1978 to describe a job rather than brand a person. The label spread to the World Health Organization and major dictionaries, yet it remains a battleground: some feminists and social conservatives reject it precisely because it frames the trade as ordinary labour.
The term gained traction after a 1987 anthology of writing by women in the sex industry, edited by Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander, and it now appears in academic papers, union documents and the Oxford English Dictionary. Supporters say it sheds the stigma of 'prostitute', covers a wider range of work, and separates what someone does from who they are. Opponents among anti-prostitution feminists see prostitution as victimisation and argue the label dresses exploitation up as employment.
The category is broad: prostitution, stripping, pornography, phone sex and webcam modelling all fall under it, and people of any gender do the work, alone, for companies or in brothels. Motives range from debt, coercion and survival to simply earning a living; one Canadian study found a quarter of those interviewed had started because the work appealed to them. Researchers struggle to measure any of this, because where the trade is illegal, workers have strong reasons to stay hidden and nobody knows the true size of the population.
Law varies widely. Pornography is legal across the United States while prostitution is banned in most of it; New Zealand's Prostitution Reform Act legalised the full range and gave workers in managed premises access to labour and human rights claims in court. Money is another pressure point. A US Justice Department initiative launched in 2013, Operation Choke Point, nudged banks to drop 'high risk' clients including adult businesses, and the 2018 FOSTA-SESTA laws made platforms liable for trafficking by users, prompting payment firms to close sex workers' accounts.
Health research paints a stark picture. A review in Frontiers in Public Health reports disproportionately high rates of depression, anxiety and PTSD, with risk rising in criminalised settings and where workers have less control, while peer and community networks emerged as strong protective factors.
Source: Sex worker
