Business of Sex

Mainstream feminist discourse has failed to fully engage with commercial sex work. In a series of groundbreaking, previously unpublished essays, "The Business of Sex" corrects this lacuna.

Moving beyond the traditional feminist focus on slavery and trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and other health issues, the contributors to this volume engage fully with the political and theoretical implications of sex work. Dismissing old antagonisms, they argue that feminism – thanks to its role in revolutionizing perspectives on sexuality and labor – is a natural ally for the sex workers' rights movement. In the process, these innovative scholars provocatively critique the dominant moral paradigm of heterosexual monogamy, which has created a pervasive "victim" discourse and limited our understanding of sex work's complex realities.

Drawing on first-hand stories of sex workers and prostitutes, this volume gives voice to newly articulated movements such as "whore feminism" and "queer feminism" – feminisms that have the potential to move discussions about sex work onto new and fruitful terrain.