Sex Workers

As human beings most of us experience at least some sort of lust or desire. Sometimes these desires are fulfilled by our partners and other times on our own. At times, however, many individuals choose to solicit a third party in fulfilling their sexual needs in the form of a sex worker. In the movie, "Monster", Aileen Worhnin, played by Charlize Theron, is one of these sex workers, but has taken a different path involving her johns. This was a true story of a sex worker who after experiencing extreme amounts of abuse from men throughout her life decided to enact her revenge by killing her solicitors.

This movie was extremely graphic and showed many of the negative experiences that a sex worker may encounter in an unstructured work environment. I had mixed emotions about the murders that Aileen committed because as much as murder is never necessarily justified she had gone through so much torment throughout her life that I can at least somewhat understand her acting out against those who she assumed were out to hurt her. This is most apparent in her first murder because the man is raping her and she must defend herself, but I think that once she gets the taste and feeling of killing these men she becomes addicted to the adrenaline rush.

The image that was portrayed in the movie showed a woman who had been sexually abused during her childhood and also during her years as a prostitute. "One study found that 73% of female prostitutes had been sexually abused in childhood (Carroll 580)." This, however, does not directly imply that the majority of prostitutes were sexually abused as children and many times this is the assumption that most people make. I think that this movie may further cement this stereotype in the minds of most people when in actual reality the majority of sex workers come from a variety of different backgrounds and work this particular career for a wide variety of reasons.