The Problem with Tyra Banks: Sex Work and Slut Shaming

Between 2005 and 2011, Tyra Banks, former model and judge of America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), hosted her talk show, The Tyra Banks Show.

Throughout the series, episodes focused on bullying, drug abuse, sex work, and racial inequalities. Amongst these were less groundbreaking installments of extreme makeovers, dating disasters, Tyra Banks wearing a fat suit for a week, and ‘ANTM Graduation Parties’.

In 2007, The Tyra Banks Show aired ‘Teens in the Sex Trade’. Banks spoke with a fourteen-year-old sex worker, an…