Sex Work
Sex Work
Destigmatize, Decriminalize, Decarcerate: A Racial Justice Lens on Sex Worker Rights and Harm Reduction
Raani Begum and Sultana Bibi, with contributions from Jen Bowles
This essay expresses the issues that of Philadelphia Red Umbrella Alliance and Project Safe advocate for and why “sex work and drug use are not inherently harmful activities. The harm of sex work and drug use comes from policing, settler colonialism, and white supremacy.”
Diversion from Justice: A Rights-Based Analysis of Local “Prostitution Diversion Programs” and their Impacts on People in the Sex Sector in the United States
Amy Kapczynski
This article examines “prostitution diversion programs” and “takes as its starting point a skepticism of criminal justice system involvement in the management and provision of social services, particularly when the communities forced into its gates – in this case, those engaged in the sex sector or presumed to be – are deeply marginalized and disempowered by the same state touting its beneficence.”
read here (see on page five)
Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition
Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema
"Global Sex Workers presents the personal experiences of sex workers around the world. Drawing on their individual narratives, it explores international struggles to uphold the rights of this often marginalized group."
Red Maps
Heaux History and Under the Red Umbrella
“Red Maps seeks to offer a new way to learn about sex work and sex worker history through interactive maps detailing the histories of erotic laborers in different cities - starting with Chicago and San Fransisco.”
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights
Juno Mac and Molly Smith
"Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, [sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith] make clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement."
Sex Worker Syllabus
Curated by Angela Jones, PJ Patella-Rey, and Heather Berg
A collection of sex worker writing and media, "informed by the core principle 'nothing about us without us,' which urges the inclusion of sex worker voices in policymaking, scholarship, and teaching about sexual labor."
The carceral production of transgender poverty: How racialized gender policing deprives transgender women of housing and safety
Dilara Yarbrough
"Based on interviews and ethnography, this article analyzes how racialized gender policing in public space and service organizations deprives transgender women of survival resources."
The Laws That Sex Workers Really Want
Juno Mac
"Everyone has an opinion about how to legislate sex work (whether to legalize it, ban it or even tax it) ... but what do workers themselves think would work best? Activist Juno Mac explains four legal models that are being used around the world and shows us the model that she believes will work best to keep sex workers safe and offer greater self-determination."
Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Works of Scarlot Harlot
Carol Leigh
“This collection of articles and essays documents more than 20 years of hooker radicalism from a leader of the sex workers' rights movement. [...] These autobiographical essays [...] explore a historic cultural and artistic underground from an irreverent point of view, challenging conventions of sexuality, aesthetics, technology, and prevailing social mores.”