Overview

A cutting-edge volume on current trends in sex work, from sugar relationships and cyber brothels to financial domination, sex worker activism, and feminist porn Sex is for sale in more ways than ever. It can be bought and sold online, in sex clubs, on the street, and around the world. As with many industries, discrimination, exploitation, and inequality persist in sex work. Yet it also offers autonomy, job satisfaction, and even pleasurable experiences for those involved. Sex Work Today explores these contradictions, offering an intimate look at the benefits and challenges of sex work across geographic contexts. Featuring thirty-one original essays by sex workers, advocates, researchers, and activists, Sex Work Today is the first compilation of research on new forms of digital sex such as camming, sugar dating, and AI sex dolls. Providing a lens to understand contemporary labor dynamics and the nature of sex work itself, this collection captures formerly ignored aspects of the sex industry including: fatphobia and disability; transmasculine and nonbinary sex workers; racialized emotional labor in the digital sex industry; high job satisfaction among professional dominatrixes; and sex worker scholars. With federal policies ostensibly aimed at combating sex trafficking–affecting all sex workers–understanding this industry is more vital than ever. Decentering Western, white, cisgender voices, Sex Work Today underscores the global repercussions of these misaligned policies, which make sex work more challenging and less safe, and provides valuable insights for those seeking to shape policies, challenge prejudices, and foster a safer and more equitable world for all.

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9781479821310

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Reviews

Sex Work Today is a groundbreaking collection that delves into the multifaceted and evolving landscape of sex work. This anthology brings together leading scholars in the field of sex work studies to explore critical issues such as the impact of new technologies, racial and gender discrimination, labor rights, decriminalization, and the intersection of sex work with disability. Sex Work Today is a vital contribution to the ongoing dialogue on sex work, human rights, and social justice. * Mireille Miller-Young, co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book * This exciting volume brings us sex work studies 2.0. Scholars of sexual labor will find a lot here, but so will those interested in how working people take care of each other, how technology mediates work, and what to do about the regulatory state. * Heather Berg, author of Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism * Sex Work Today brings together a vital chorus of voices that elucidate the unique contemporary sex work issues including digitalization, criminalization, shifting geographies of work, and sex worker activism and mutual aid. This robust volume raises a host of fresh questions that orient sex work in relation to race, gender, ability, class, and national subjectivities, while all the while prioritizing sex workers as central experts and narrators. * Elena Shih, author of Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab, and the Racial Wages of Rescue *

Indispensable. Sex Work Today is a revelatory, in-depth essay collection that allows sex workers to speak for themselves about the benefits, risks, and complexities of modern erotic labor. * Foreword Reviews, STARRED * Sex Work Today is a groundbreaking collection that delves into the multifaceted and evolving landscape of sex work. This anthology brings together leading scholars in the field of sex work studies to explore critical issues such as the impact of new technologies, racial and gender discrimination, labor rights, decriminalization, and the intersection of sex work with disability. Sex Work Today is a vital contribution to the ongoing dialogue on sex work, human rights, and social justice. * Mireille Miller-Young, co-editor of The Feminist Porn Book * This exciting volume brings us sex work studies 2.0. Scholars of sexual labor will find a lot here, but so will those interested in how working people take care of each other, how technology mediates work, and what to do about the regulatory state. * Heather Berg, author of Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism * Sex Work Today brings together a vital chorus of voices that elucidate the unique contemporary sex work issues including digitalization, criminalization, shifting geographies of work, and sex worker activism and mutual aid. This robust volume raises a host of fresh questions that orient sex work in relation to race, gender, ability, class, and national subjectivities, while all the while prioritizing sex workers as central experts and narrators. * Elena Shih, author of Manufacturing Freedom: Sex Work, Anti-Trafficking Rehab, and the Racial Wages of Rescue *

Author Information

Bernadette Barton (Editor) Bernadette Barton is Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Morehead State University. She is the author of The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture is Ruining Our Society, Stripped: More Stories from Exotic Dancers, and Pray the Gay Away: The Extraordinary Lives of Bible Belt Gays. Barbara G. Brents (Editor) Barbara G. Brents is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the co-author of Paying for Sex in a Digital Age: US and UK Perspectives and The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland. Angela Jones (Editor) Angela Jones is Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. They are the author of Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry and co-author of Black Lives Matter: A Reference Book.

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