Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board Member Suggests Sex Workers Cannot Be Raped
In a September 12 column, the Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell wrote about criminal charges against an Illinois man who is accused of raping a sex worker at gunpoint, claiming that the case “is making a mockery of rape victims” and arguing that “it’s tough to see this unidentified prostitute as a victim.”
Mitchell contended that the case is “actually more like theft of services” rather than sexual assault to push the false suggestion that sex workers cannot be raped.
There is no legal loophole that exempts rapists from criminal charges if their victim was a sex worker.
Furthermore, sex workers have a dramatically higher-than-average chance (45 to 75 percent) of experiencing sexual violence at some point during their careers, and the homicide rate for female prostitutes “constitutes a higher occupational mortality rate than any other group of women ever studied,” according to a 2012 report from anti-human trafficking group Fondation Scelles.
In her column, Mitchell also engaged in victim blaming, writing that “when you agree to meet a strange man in a strange place for the purpose of having strange sex for money, you are putting yourself at risk for harm.” Mitchell even asserted that she is “grateful” that the man charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault in the case “isn’t being accused of snatching an innocent woman off the street,” absurdly implying the victim had a hand in bringing on her own assault. From Mitchell’s column (emphasis added):
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