Part of the Christian Kyriarchy Project
Last updated 08/22/2025
You can check my site glossary in case any terms are unfamiliar.
You'll see the word “decriminalize” come up a lot. This is because many activists have argued removing restrictions on sex work will do more to help workers than “legalizing” such labor will. This also addresses forms of sex work that are technically legal but are often subject to onerous rules that make things more difficult and unsafe for the workers.
1. Many Christians tend to see sex work as inherently exploitative. They frequently conflate full service sex work with human trafficking (see the rape culture entry for how this can harm trafficking victims). This mindset encourages people to reject concept of sex work as a job that can be exploitative but isn't intrinsically so and can be made less so.
Notice how sex workers in some of these articles are referred to with condescending pity.
Uncritical examples
Nuns reach out to sex workers in fight against prostitution in the Philippines by N.J. Viehland | Global Sisters Report (July 2014, mentions child sexual abuse)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Sisters Rescuing Women from Sex Trades by Elizabeth Scalia | The Anchoress (August 2014)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
To Fight Sex Trafficking, Fight the Ideology That Creates It, Expert Says By Napp Nazworth | Christian Post (February 2013, quotes someone who claims sex trafficking is caused by sex being disconnected from marriage and procreation)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Iº international Meeting of Pastoral Care for the Liberation of Women of the Street | La Santa Sede (June 2005, describes sex workers as "dead psychologically and spiritually")
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
How You Can Help | Hookers For Jesus
Archived on Wayback Machine
Fighting the War on Pornography: Q&A with Dawn E. Hawkins by Sean Salai | America Magazine (July 2015)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Protestant bodies, Protestant bedrooms, & our furious need for a theology thereof | Beth Felker Jones (March 2023, the section "1. Pornography and the Christian imagination" comments on sex work. There's also a footnote that treats sex workers as victims who needed to be saved from their clients)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Claims That NZ is Good for Sex Workers 'Laughable' by Family First | Scoop News (May 2015)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Ala. Megachurch Pastor David Platt: Sex Trafficking Opponents Need to Stop Watching Porn, Which Fuels Prostitution by Stephanie Samuel | Christian Post (February 2015)
Archived on Wayback Machine and Archive.today
Demand No More Sex | Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking
Archived on Wayback Machine and Archive.today
Bill would punish countries that legalize prostitution for driving human trafficking and sex slavery by Dustin Siggins | LifeSite (May 2014)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
STATEMENT – NCOSE Expresses Sympathy for Atlanta Shooting Victims | National Center On Sexual Exploitation (March 2017, uses the murders of workers at massage parlors by a Christian “sex addict” as an excuse to claim that sex work is intrisically dangerous and misogynist)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
"Pimping isn't a sex game, it's a Skull Game" an interview w/Michele Block & Samantha Summers-Rivas | Generally Irritable (January 2023, in addition to being in favor of criminializing sex work, claims that arresting trafficking victims can be a good thing)
Archived on Wayback Machine
Commentary
Fighting sex trafficking with Jesus: How the religious right's "healing" hurts by Melissa Gira Grant | Salon (April 2014)
From Somaly Mam to “Eden”: How Sex Trafficking Sensationalism Hurts Sex Workers by Mike Ludwig | Truthout (July 2014)
I Am A Human Trafficking Survivor & Here's What I Want To Ask Christian Activists | The Official Blog of Benjamin L. Corey (July 2015)
Available on Patheos and Benjamin L. Corey's website
Feminists and religious conservatives in strange alliance over transactional sex by Fionola Meredith | The Irish Times (December 2013)
Let us prey: How Christian anti-trafficking orgs exploit sex workers and victims by Erin Louis | OnlySky (August 2022)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Trafficking: Sound of Freedom/OUR Part 5 | Not Peer Reviewed: By Laura Robinson (July 2023)
Militarized Humanitarianism Meets Carceral Feminism: The Politics of Sex, Rights, and Freedom in Contemporary Antitrafficking Campaigns by Elizabeth Bernstein | Interdisciplinary Project on Human Trafficking (July 2012 I think?)
The Dark Tales of the Christian Sex Addiction Industry by Kelsy Burke | Slate (March 2021)
Parsing a Miserable But All-Too-Typical Article Concerning Sex Work Which Ostensibly is Not Attempting To Be Whorephobic But In Fact Is by AH | Support Ho(s)e (February 2017, refers to men, women, and trans people as separate groups)
2. Anti sex work Christians are unsuprisingly in favor of criminializing it. They will try to present people fighting for decriminalization as morally suspect and unfair to sex workers who have been abused on the job.
Uncritical examples
Claims That NZ is Good for Sex Workers 'Laughable' by Family First | Scoop News (May 2015)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Deevers Introduces Slate of Legislation to Restore Moral Sanity in Oklahoma | Oklahoma Senate (January 2025)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Bill would punish countries that legalize prostitution for driving human trafficking and sex slavery by Dustin Siggins | LifeSite (May 2014)
Archived on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Patrick Henry College Student Handbook (see page 22, which says that porn merits no legal protection)
Approved By The Board Of Trustees On April 11, 2011
Archived on Wayback Machine
"Pimping isn't a sex game, it's a Skull Game" an interview w/Michele Block & Samantha Summers-Rivas | Generally Irritable (January 2023, in addition to being in favor of criminializing sex work, claims that arresting trafficking victims can be a good thing)
Archived on Wayback Machine
Commentary
Sex workers rights are not up for debate by Pandora Blake and Niki Adams | UK Politics (May 2015, addresses stigma at large and briefly brings up Christian fundamentalism)
Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers proposes bill to ban all pornography: What to know about SB593 by Josh Kelly | The Oklahoman (January 2025)
Additional commentary on whoreantagonism in Christian spaces
Are You There, God? Sex Workers Struggle To Find Acceptance in Religion. Religious Leaders Can Change That by Mx. Fettie Peaches | Cashmere Magazine (September 2023, includes discussion of whoreantagonism among both Christians and Muslims)
Preserved on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
How the Government and the Christian Lobby Quash Real Research on Sex Workers by Juniper Fitzgerald | Pacific Standard (May 2017)
Popular Claims vs. Evidence-Based Conclusions in Human Trafficking by Ronald Weitzer (April 2013)
You are nothing without your pimp Jesus Christ by Erin Louis | OnlySky (February 2022)
Preserved on Wayback Machine, Archive.today, and Ghost Archive
Evangelicalism: Where Aaron Long Learned to Destroy His Temptations by Captain Cassidy | Roll To Disbelieve (March 2021, discusses a mass shooting motivated by racialized misogyny and dangerous notions of sexual purity)
She Was Fired From Taco Bell for Being in Porn by Marlow Stern (January 2021)
Available on Daily Beast (which is subscriber exclusive) and Yahoo Entertainment News
Project ROSE Is Arresting Sex Workers in Arizona to Save Their Souls by Molly Crabapple | Vice (February 2014, brings up racism, transantagonism, and the death of an imprisoned sex worker thanks to her jailer's neglect)
The Online Christian Counterinsurgency Against Sex Workers by Jack Poulson and Sam Biddle | The Intercept (July 2023)
Further information
'I never want to be rescued again' by Melissa Ditmore | New Internationalist (September 2007, discusses sexual violence and other attacks on sex workers)
Sex Work Centered Guide for Media & Journalism Professionals | Support Ho(s)e (March 2021)
Frequently Told Lies | The Honest Courtesan
Anti-trafficking campaigns, sex workers and the roots of damage by Carol Leigh | Open Democracy (March 2015)
Cyntoia Brown and the Commodification of the Good Victim by Laura LeMoon | Tits And Sass (November 2017)
'Escort' web firm hits out at RTE sex work expose by Jim Cusack | Irish Independent (February 2013, mentions “Two of these groups [responsible for the expose] have associations with the religious orders who ran the Magdalene Laundries”, which is worrisome)
The False Promise of “End Demand” Laws by Sebastian Kohn | Open Society Foundations (June 2017)
The right's bogus sex work stance: Taking power away from women by Melissa Gira Grant | Salon (February 2014)
Sex Is Not the Problem with Sex Work by Juno Mac and Molly Smith | Boston Review (October 2018, is an excerpt from the book Revolting Prostitutes:The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights)
“You Won't Believe What Happened”: The Wild, Disturbing Saga of Robert Kraft's Visit to a Strip Mall Sex Spa by May Jeong | Vanity Fair (October 2019)
We Deserve Better: Reflections On The War On Backpage by Cyd Nova | Tits And Sass (October 2016)
Criminalisation of clients: reproducing vulnerabilities for violence and poor health among street-based sex workers in Canada—a qualitative study | BMJ Open (appears to have been published in 2013)
October 22nd And After: The Movement Against Police Violence And Black Sex Workers by Cherno Biko | Tits And Sass (October 2015)
Sex Trafficking: A Media Guide by Tara Burns | Tits and Sass (March 2016)
Online Platforms and Sex Worker Discrimination | Hacking//Hustling
Sex Workers Don't Deserve to be Raped by Jillian Keenan | The Daily Beast (September 2014)
Christian whoreantagonism
various | anti-porn attitudes and activism