The Sex Worker Counterpublic Sphere

Abstract Through textual analysis of 36 English-language articles by eight predominantly U.S.-based sex worker journalists published between 2014 and 2025 across 19 online platforms, this article examines how sex worker journalists seek to influence public opinion around sex work and online platforms as they relate to regulation, criminalization, and labor rights. Sex workers report on U.S. federal legislation including the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and the Enabling Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, arguing that these laws further criminalize sex work and undermine the labor rights of sex workers. In the process, they challenge negative media frames of sex work and build sex worker community and expertise by developing alternative modes of address, articulating alternative viewpoints based on their lived experience in the sex trades, and interviewing sex workers and sex worker organizers alongside politicians and other progressive organizers. This additionally supports coalition building between the sex workers’ rights movement and other movements for social justice.