Working Sex

"Despite being dubbed "the world's oldest profession," prostitution has rarely been viewed as a legitimate form of labour. Instead, it has been criminalized, sensationalized, and polemicized across the socio-political spectrum by everyone from politicians to journalists to women's groups. Interest in and concern over sex work is not grounded in the lived realities of those who work in the industry, but rather in inflammatory ideas about who is participating, how they wound up in this line of work, and what form it takes. In Selling Sex, Emily van der Meulen, Elya M. Durisin, and Victoria Love present a more nuanced, balanced, and realistic view of the sex industry. They bring together a vast collection of voices - including researchers, feminists, academics, and advocates, as well as sex workers of differing ages, genders, and sectors - to engage in a dialogue that challenges the dominant narratives surrounding the sex industry and advances the idea that sex work is in fact work. Presenting a variety of opinions and perspectives on such diverse topics as the social stigma of sex work, police violence, labour organizing, anti-prostitution feminism, human trafficking, and harm reduction, Selling Sex is an eye-opening, challenging, and necessary book."--Publisher's website.

A self-help book for sex workers.Sex work is ?easy money? Hardly. The adult industry is riddled with pitfalls and dangers. Erotic labor is often emotionally demanding, draining, and complex. It can be hard to know who to turn to for advice on keeping yourself safe and sane. Lola Davina, former stripper, dominatrix, porn actress and escort, provides the life skills you need to prosper, including: ? Cultivating friendships, community, and romance ? Mastering money? Debunking sex industry myths such as you have to be flawless, or clients hate to hear ?no? Avoiding trigger states, like loneliness, fatigue, boredom, anxiety and depression, that lead to bad decision-making and burnout? Surviving bad calls, shifts, and shoots ? and so much more?Thriving in sex work means having a healthy body, mind, heart, and bank account. No matter your job title or gender, whether you're independent or work for someone else, if you want to succeed in sex work, then this book is for you.

Sex Work Matters brings together sex workers, scholars and activists to present pioneering essays on the economics and sociology of sex work. From insights by sex workers on how they handle money, intimate relationships and daily harassment by the police, to the experience of male and transgender sex work, this fascinating and original book offers new theoretical frameworks for understanding the sex industry. The result is a vital new contribution to sex-worker rights that explores the topic in new ways, especially its cultural, economic and political dimensions. Readers weary of the sensational and often salacious treatment of the sex industry in the media and literature will find Sex Work Matters refreshing.

In the early twentieth century, abolitionists sought to stamp out sex work by penalizing all involved. In the generation that followed, neo-abolitionists looked at the sex industry from a feminist perspective, claiming that workers were victims caught in a patriarchal matrix. Yet both agreed that the industry was a destructive and corrupting force that should be eliminated. In this radical volume, five academics and activists convey their vision of prostitution as work, reclaiming the place of sex workers in the discussion of their lives and their work, and opposing discourses that position them as merely victims without agency.

Being a sex worker isn’t something to write home about for most women (and men) in the $12 billion-a-year sex industry. Prostitutes, strippers, and adult film stars put themselves, and what they do for a living, out on the street, stage, and TV screen every day, but they often keep their working lives hidden from friends, family, and other employers. They do this because sex work is widely considered illegal, unhealthy, and immoral. Edited by Annie Oakley, Working Sex, New Voices from a Changing Industry features stories and contributions from sex workers—strippers, prostitutes, domes, film stars, phone sex operators, and internet models—who are speaking out. This provocative anthology showcases voices from a vibrant community intent on unmasking the jobs they do with dignity and pride. Contributors tackling issues of class, gender, race, labor, and sexuality with blazing insight and critical observations include Michelle Tea, Stephen Elliot, Nomy Lamm, Ana Voog, Vaginal Davis, and Mirha-Soleil Ross.

Sex Work Now provides an authoritative overview of female sex work and policy in the UK, and addresses a number of key contemporary issues and debates. These include sex worker unionization, migrant sex work and trafficking, communities and sex work, male clients of sex workers, the policing of prostitution, zoning of street sex work, young people and sexual exploitation, drug use and sex work, exiting, violence and sex work. Throughout the book is shaped by the lives and experiences of sex workers themselves drawing on applied, policy or participatory action research. This book approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, cutting across conventional boundaries of sociology, criminology, politics and social policy. Contributors to the book include academics, researchers, practitioners and activists who are among the leading commentators on prostitution in the UK. provides overview of sex work in UK considers impact of recent legislation and policy, especially Sex Offences Act 2003 focus on lives and experiences of sex workers themselves

This is a richly detailed account of the way the sex industry works, and one of the few empirical studies that investigates the off street industry in Britain. The book seeks to advance a greater knowledge of the social organisation of the sex industry by uncovering the day-to-day activities of women involved in the indoor markets. What types of occupational risks do women experience in work of this kind? How do these hazards affect their personal lives? A key concern throughout the book is to assess whether women are passive victims of the circumstances of prostitution or whether they understand and calculate their responses to danger. Drawing upon both sociological and criminological theories, and on detailed research in the city of Birmingham, the author addresses these questions by estimating the rationality of those responses and by providing a measure of how women make sense of different risks. Sex Work: a risky business describes how women create complex psychological and emotional techniques to maintain their sanity while selling sex, and goes on to argue that the indoor sex markets in Britain have a distinct 'occupational culture' with a set of social norms, code of conduct and moral hierarchies that make it a high regulated workplace despite its illicit and sometimes illegal nature.

'Sex Work' describes how women create complex psychological and emotional techniques to maintain their sanity while selling sex and explains how the indoor sex markets in Britain have a distinct 'occupational culture' with a set of social norms, code of conduct and moral hierarchies.