Rethinking the Politics of “Sex Work”

Many in favor of the legalization of prostitution refer to it as “sex work” and employ concepts such as “consent,” “agency,” “sexual freedom,” “the right to work,” and even “human rights” in the course of making their defense.[1] Consider some of the common claims defenders of legalization advance: sex work is work just like any…

INTRODUCTION The current debate about sex work among feminists generates more heat than light. Accusations of bad faith fly back and forth across the two sides, research findings are mobilized to undercut the other side even when the research itself is limited by its methods and scope, different sex worker voices are authorized by each…

If only for the purpose of revealing a tacit but unstated privilege acquired by men at the instant of what Friedrich Engels called “the historic defeat of womankind,” the current debate on sex work vs prostitution is important. For the other side of this coin of defeat was a triumph, if one were to view…

INTRODUCTION  The current debate regarding sex work is frustrating, which is one of the reasons I am writing this article. Counter-posed positions are a good way to generate debate, but when they are false counter-positions, it is not likely to be a fruitful debate. The title of this symposium Sex Work: Emancipation or Oppression is…

Introduction Efforts to engage both politically and academically with questions of “sex work” have most often looked at the male “client” or “buyer” and the female “worker” or “seller.” But what happens when the client is also a worker? Many of the men who buy sex do so outside of the country in which they…

Introduction The first aspect of this article is a definition of sex work as a kind of labor. Next, I define class and discuss class relationships.The last part of this article considers class analytics as a way to escape some of the ideological conditions of sex work in America including misogynistic, religious, moral condemnation of…