The Sean Combs Verdict, and the Misunderstanding of Exploitation

On July 2, 2025, a Manhattan federal jury delivered a split verdict: Sean “Diddy” Combs was acquitted of racketeering and sex trafficking, but convicted on two counts under the Mann Act—transporting individuals across state lines for prostitution. The public reaction was swift and polarized. Some called it justice served; others saw it as yet another reminder that wealth and fame insulate men from real accountability.

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But what few are talking about is what the trial actually revealed—and obscured—about exploitation, coercion, and the tangled web of consent.

Sex workers know what coercion looks like stretched out over time—how it builds slowly through control, dependency, and isolation, not just violence. We recognize the long game: the grooming, the love-bombing, the manufactured loyalty that makes exploitation feel like devotion. That’s why the testimony of the sex workers in the Combs trial rang so true to so many of us—they didn’t describe a single moment of force, but a sustained campaign of control. And yet, the jury’s split verdict—especially their refusal to validate Cassie Ventura’s story—makes it clear: they either didn’t understand that kind of coercion, or they didn’t believe her. Either way, it’s a reminder that unless abuse fits a narrow, dramatic mold, our courts—and our culture—still dismiss it.

Sex workers are often the first to recognize coerced consent—because we’ve lived it, navigated it, and learned to spot the difference between an empowered “yes” and one spoken through clenched teeth. We know when someone is saying yes because they need a place to sleep, avoid violence, or keep a connection that feels like survival. Our labor has taught us to read the subtext—and that intuition is something the courts, media, and so-called rescuers would do well to learn from.

Coercion Without Chains

The prosecution didn’t rely on sensational imagery of kidnapping or armed threats. Instead, they introduced a more unsettling and nuanced concept: coercive control—a sustained pattern of emotional abuse, surveillance, and violence that distorts intimacy and erodes autonomy.

Key witnesses, including Cassie Ventura and another woman identified as “Jane,” testified to years of “freak-off” parties, rampant drug use, emotional blackmail, forced abortions, and physical assaults. Ventura described being dragged down a hallway by her hair and said she “felt dead.” These weren’t movie-script allegations. They were raw, painful accounts of how abuse can be normalized when the abuser has power.

Yet the jury only convicted Combs on transportation charges, sidestepping the core questions about coercion and exploitation. That’s not just a legal technicality—it’s a societal failure to recognize abuse unless it comes gift-wrapped in physical violence and dramatic rescues.

The Public’s Perpetual Confusion

To much of the public, exploitation still looks like Liam Neeson kicking down doors to rescue girls in chains. If there’s no dungeon or zip ties, they struggle to see harm. But coercion lives in the gray areas—where love, fear, money, and control blur the lines between “choice” and survival. It hides in toxic relationships and power dynamics, not in white vans.

And when survivors try to explain this complexity, they’re met with tired questions like, “Why didn’t she just leave?”

That question reveals how poorly we understand what leaving actually costs. For many, “leaving” means sacrificing housing, career, safety, children, reputation. It means stepping into a world with no safety net, while your abuser keeps their connections, their cash, and their credibility.

Consent Is Not a Binary

This is where the conversation must evolve. Consent is not “yes or no”—it’s a spectrum. People can consent out of fear, desperation, or because every other option has been systematically stripped away. And exploitation? It’s not a single act—it’s a long game. It builds slowly, invisibly, through trauma bonding, manipulation, and economic coercion.

This is what the anti-trafficking industry and Nordic Model advocates can’t seem to wrap their heads around. They cling to simplistic narratives of violent pimps and helpless victims, waiting for a rescue that looks good in a press release—while ignoring the lived reality of survivors trapped in webs of power, shame, and strategic dependency. The truth is, most of us don’t get rescued. We claw our way out—or we stay, because “out” isn’t always safer.

What the Jury Should’ve Known About from the Prosecution

1. Did she say yes… or did she say yes because she had to? Sex workers know this gray zone well. Sometimes we agree to something not out of desire, but necessity—because it’s the rent, or the ride, or the “least bad” option in a world that punishes our survival.

2. What does freedom look like when your choices are curated by power? Consent without real alternatives is not consent—it’s compliance. When a man controls your money, safety, reputation, or housing, a “yes” might be the only answer that keeps you alive.

3. When does sex work stop being labor and start being coerced performance? Sex work is labor when it’s chosen freely, with autonomy. But when it’s extracted through fear, surveillance, or emotional manipulation—under the guise of luxury or lifestyle—it becomes something else entirely.

4. Are we failing survivors by demanding they be perfect victims? When survivors have histories of sex work, partying, or public sexual expression, their credibility is shredded before they speak. They’re expected to perform pain in a way the court finds “believable”—and punished if they don’t.

   
   

Intimacy, Labor, and the Illusion of Choice

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: when coercion is cloaked in love, money, or fame, our legal and cultural systems look the other way. A manager taking a dancer’s cut? Business. A rapper coercing sex? Lifestyle. A woman exchanging sex for safety? Hustle. But normal doesn’t mean not exploitative. It just means it's easier to ignore.

The Combs trial didn’t just reveal one man’s behavior—it exposed a much deeper societal rot. Until juries, media, and everyday people learn to ask not “What did she do?” but “What were her options?”—we will continue to fail those most harmed and least believed.

If your definition of trafficking only includes zip ties and handcuffs, you’ll miss the majority of what trafficking actually looks like. And if your model of justice requires victims to be innocent, silent, and saintly, then justice isn’t designed for real people—it’s designed for a fantasy.