This is the Cato Daily podcast for Friday, February 7th, 2025. I'm Caleb Brown. Sex work is typically

like any other capitalist act between consenting adults, and yet so many law enforcement agencies

and state lawmakers view it as effectively synonymous with sex trafficking. The difference between the two

matters. Elizabeth Nolan Brown, a reason, discusses a state Supreme Court case in Massachusetts,

Commonwealth v. Garofalo that may end up defining all prostitution as identical to sex trafficking.

We spoke earlier this week.

We have talked about how sex workers are viewed by law enforcement and by governments a couple of times.

And there's, you know, this consistent theme of sex workers are at all times the exploited that they are being taken advantage of. And now it seems that at least in the state of Massachusetts, there is this

question that they are attempting to resolve that would make all sex work sex trafficking?

Is that by definition?

Yeah, so this is a case that came for the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

And, you know, it essentially involves police doing a prostitution sting, a reverse sting, they call it,

where they're trying to, you know, trap prostitution customers.

So, you know, they post the ads online.

They pretend to be consenting adult sex workers.

People respond and say, yeah, sure, I'll pay you.

Let's meet up.

And then they arrest them, you know.

This is a pretty standard thing across, you know,

vice departments and has been for a very long time.

But Massachusetts is saying that, you know,

that agreeing to meet up for sex falls under the definition of sex trafficking.

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