Throughout history, those who have traded sex have been the object of judgment, exclusion, and violence, and religious people have been their biggest accusers. Even today, with laws like FOSTA (Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and SESTA (the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act), PEPFAR (the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the primary funding for HIV/AIDS prevention in the world, which contains an anti-prostitution pledge) sex workers are simultaneously treated as both offender and victim, and barred from banks, using the internet for business, and receiving help from HIV prevention programs.

In acts of both resistance and defiance, sex workers create alternative communities, substitute economies, and harm-reduction strategies aimed at keeping them safe. Join Meg Vallee and Lia Scholl as we seek to understand the ways of sex worker communities, and what Christian communities might learn from them about radical acceptance, non-traditional trade, and life-saving harm reduction techniques.

Can sex worker communities teach us how to be the Kingdom of God?