Last Monday, Ears To The House ran an article where we attempted to explain why naming an EP after ladies of the night is not exactly the most sensible release strategy. Admittedly, this wasn’t quite the post we’d expected to be writing up over that particular weekend – but such is the way the cookie sometimes crumbles.

It’s not just the heavily romanticised description on the Phonica Records website we take issue with. For example, they speak of “fighting for justice and retribution for women who’ve been abused and wronged.”. We suspect that the majority of those working in this industry are just trying to pay their own bills rather than going on missions to save others.

But don’t take our word for it. The English Collective of Prostitutes cites a study from 2004 which “found that 74% of off-street sex workers ‘cited the need to pay household expenses and support their children’.”, and that many are forced to do so due to government austerity programmes. Not exactly the vigilante image the vivid release description suggests, is it?

So what’s the latest story to come out of that world? Er, that would be one from the USA where no less than 160 people have recently been arrested in a Florida sting operation into sex trafficking. The list includes a police chief from Georgia, two employees who work for Disney, two teachers and a high school IT expert – accused of soliciting a prostitute.

Last week, we asked whether naming this EP as “Sex Worker” was smart or stupid. It looks more and more like the latter…