Sex Work Matters Exploring Money, Power and Intimacy in the Sex Industry

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.

Melissa Hope Dittmore is Interim Director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center, New York.

Introduction: New Perspectives on the "Oldest Profession" - Antonia Levy and Alys Willman. * A. Beyond Divides: New Frameworks for Understanding the Sex Industry * Sex Work Now: What the blurring boundaries around the sex industry means for sex work, research and activism - Barbara G. Brents and Kathryn Hausbeck * The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex - Laura Agustín * The Meaning of the Whore - Juline Koken * B. Managing Multiple Roles * To Love, Honor, and Strip: An Investigation of Exotic Dancer Romantic Relationships - Mindy S. Bradley and Carrie Hobbs-Keith * Sex and the Unspoken in Male Street Prostitution - Kerwin Kaye * Enforced Ab/Normalcy: Sex Worker Hijras and the ReAppropriation of Identity in Bangladesh - Mashrur Hossain * C. Money and Sex * Show Me the Money: A Sex Worker Reflects on Research Into the Sex Industry - Jo Weldon * Selling Sex: Women's Participation in the Sex Industry - Melissa Petro * D. Sex Work and the State * Pimping the Pueblo: State Regulated Commercial Sex in Neoliberal Mexico - Patty Kelly * Poor girls, Empowered Professionals, Deviant Subjects: On the official Construction and Regulation of Sex Workers in Germany - Anne Dölemeyer, Rebecca Pates, Daniel Schmidt * Sex Work, Communities and Public Policy in the UK - Maggie O'Neill and Jane Pitcher * E. Organizing Across Borders * How a Gay Rights Activist Became a Sex Workers. Rights Activist - Michael Hendricks * The Brussels Conference: Orientations - Giulia Garofalo * Conclusion: Pushing Boundaries in Sex Work Activism and Research - Melissa Ditmore