Audiences watched as the strong and domineering Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute who now works to help get women off the streets, took on the problems of a city over miles away from them. The rest of the documentary follows Myers-Powell through her normal days of balancing being a mother to a boy that is not hers, helping teenagers in an after-school program and trying to get girls off the streets. Instead, it shows the support that is available for women in the male-dominated sex industry and allows for the stories of the people behind prostitution to be told in their way, and it succeeds in every way imaginable.
Prostitution has been a part of cultures around the world and throughout many centuries. In places like New Zealand and Austria, prostitution is a reputable career path to take, and sex workers have health benefits, pay taxes and are required to undergo annual health exams. However, it has been illegal in the U.
Street solicitation carries a lighter sentence and smaller fines, but the possibility of being arrested by a supposed client is a daily fear for those who work on the streets.
Regardless, the illegal sex industry has continued on, whether there are people who stand out on the streets, take shelter in brothels or go through online chatrooms to find clients. They are often looked down upon and seen as lesser than people , but in a society that is so accepting of sugar daddies and sites like Seeking Arrangement, the way that prostitution is viewed can be surprising. The prostitution scene in Chicago is less than glamorous, though. The West Side is put on full display in the documentary, where women go to the most dangerous part of the city looking for work and knowing they might not make it home in the morning.
Though it is hard to get any accurate statistics when it comes to sex worker because it is illegal, it has become known throughout the sex work community that the women in the business are beaten, stabbed, shot and sometimes even kept as slaves when they enter into prostitution.
