Sex Work

Rethinking the Job, Respecting the Workers

By Colette Parent, Chris Bruckert, Patrice Corriveau, Maria Nengeh Mensah, and Louise Toupin
Translated by Käthe Roth
Categories: Social Sciences, Criminology, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Women’s Studies, Political Science, Work & Labour Studies
Series: Sexuality Studies
Publisher: Les Presses de l'Université du Québec, UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774826112, 160 pages, September 2013
Paperback : 9780774826129, 160 pages, July 2014
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774826136, 160 pages, September 2013

Table of contents

Introduction / Colette Parent, Chris Bruckert, Patrice Corriveau, Maria Nengeh Mensah, and Louise Toupin

1 The Current Debate on Sex Work / Colette Parent and Chris Bruckert

2 Regulating Sex Work: Between Victimization and Freedom to Choose / Patrice Corriveau

3 The Work of Sex Work / Chris Bruckert and Colette Parent

4 The Idea of Community and Collective Action: Reflections on Forum XXX / Maria Nengeh Mensah

5 Clandestine Migrations by Women and the Risk of Trafficking / Louise Toupin

Index

A radical reconsideration of sex work that looks beyond moral arguments to the opinions of the workers.

Description

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.