Who needs a unifying theme anyway?

Parents, predictably, are outraged. Grace Ventura, the mother of a third grader, says, “I don’t want nobody that used to do that to be around my kid. People like that should not be allowed to be anywhere near children.” Fellow parent Yocelyn Quezada adds, “She’s not a good role model. I do not want my daughters to find out about this, and I do not want my daughters to be around that kind of person.” The idea that contact with a sex worker, current or former, might somehow contaminate children — or, the implication goes, turn them into sex workers some day — echoes certain homophobic arguments. How many times have we heard that gay people shouldn’t be around children because they will “recruit” them?