Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook132 pages2 hours
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this ebook
The sex industry is an endless source of prurient drama for the mainstream media. Recent years have seen a panic over "online red-light districts," which supposedly seduce vulnerable young women into a life of degradation, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's live tweeting of a Cambodian brothel raid. The current trend for writing about and describing actual experiences of sex work fuels a culture obsessed with the behaviour of sex workers. Rarely do these fearful dispatches come from sex workers themselves, and they never seem to deviate from the position that sex workers must be rescued from their condition, and the industry simply abolished-a position common among feminists and conservatives alike.
In Playing the Whore, journalist Melissa Gira Grant turns these pieties on their head, arguing for an overhaul in the way we think about sex work. Based on ten years of writing and reporting on the sex trade, and grounded in her experience as an organizer, advocate, and former sex worker, Playing the Whore dismantles pervasive myths about sex work, criticizes both conditions within the sex industry and its criminalization, and argues that separating sex work from the "legitimate" economy only harms those who perform sexual labor.
In Playing the Whore, sex workers' demands, too long relegated to the margins, take center stage: sex work is work, and sex workers' rights are human rights.
In Playing the Whore, journalist Melissa Gira Grant turns these pieties on their head, arguing for an overhaul in the way we think about sex work. Based on ten years of writing and reporting on the sex trade, and grounded in her experience as an organizer, advocate, and former sex worker, Playing the Whore dismantles pervasive myths about sex work, criticizes both conditions within the sex industry and its criminalization, and argues that separating sex work from the "legitimate" economy only harms those who perform sexual labor.
In Playing the Whore, sex workers' demands, too long relegated to the margins, take center stage: sex work is work, and sex workers' rights are human rights.
Unavailable
Author
Melissa Gira Grant
Melissa Gira Grant is a writer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Glamour, the Guardian, the Nation, Wired, and the Atlantic. She is also a contributing editor to Jacobin. Her website is melissagiragrant.com.
Related to Playing the Whore
Related ebooks
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Behind Closed Doors: Sex Education Transformed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival: Essays on Sex Work and Survival Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revolutionary Feminisms: Conversations on Collective Action and Radical Thought Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGlitch Feminism: A Manifesto Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Transgender Marxism Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things That Helped: essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMe, not you: The trouble with mainstream feminism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism and Sexual Diversity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHear #MeToo in India: News, Social Media, and Anti-Rape and Sexual Harassment Activism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPorn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Split: Class Divides Uncovered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gender in the Twenty-First Century: The Stalled Revolution and the Road to Equality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThey Called Me Queer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invention of Heterosexuality Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSo Sad Today: personal essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sexual Essays: Gender, Desire, and Nakedness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Anti-Social Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Politics For You
The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anarchist Cookbook Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Awakening: Defeating the Globalists and Launching the Next Great Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capitalism and Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The U.S. Constitution with The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race: The Sunday Times Bestseller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Closing of the American Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear: Trump in the White House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S.-Israeli War on the Palestinians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quest for Cosmic Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Playing the Whore
Rating: 3.574468034042553 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
47 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book was mostly very well done. I think it was it was a great exploration of this topic and takedown of many of the arguments in this issue. Even more so, it called out a variety of problems feminism promotes when dealing with this issue including transexclusion, the perfect victim, and forgetting/ignoring that race/sexuality/everything besides white, middle-class, straight, and cis exists.
Even though it was pretty accessible in writing, I wouldn't say it was an entry-level book. There were some places where you had to have known the theory behind it to understand what she was explaining. However, overall very well done and I enjoyed it immensely and will be checking out other works referenced within it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“Sex work can indeed be empowering. But that is not the point. Money is the fucking point.”
- Melissa Gira Grant, Playing the Whore
Growing up I had three basic images of sex work (although I didn’t call it that then): the Julia Roberts / Pretty Woman version; the desperate, drug addicted woman; and the ‘sex slave’ in another country who was ‘rescued’ regularly on Dateline and 48 Hours. I didn’t spend time thinking about sex workers, but I did wonder why sex work was illegal in most places.
Recently I’ve become more interested in labor rights; specifically how society views certain types of labor as worthy (of money or legality) and others as deserving of criminalization or at least disdain. I live in Seattle, where the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour was met with such charming arguments from non-shift workers as ‘what did a McDonald’s worker do to deserve that? I barely make that!’ as though people in the fast food industry aren’t working just as hard as people sitting in air conditioned offices, able to take coffee and bathroom breaks whenever they want.
This interest led me to Ms. Grant’s book. She takes a perspective that is missing in coverage of sex work and workers – one that does not start by asking ‘should people do sex work’ but instead asks what can we do to improve the lives of the people who work in that industry. The book is well-written and educated me on the topic, but when asked to describe it in a few sentences I have a hard time. Each chapter feels like a separate essay in a broader collection, and initially I was not sure of the main purpose of the book, as it covers a broad area. It is not a linear history of sex work, nor is it an argument (primarily) for the decriminalization or legalization of sex work. It is more than that.
Going back through my notes and rereading the portions I highlighted does bring more clarity to me. That is a function not of Ms. Grant’s writing, but of my need to re-read the book to better take in all of the information she shares. Her purpose seems to be to point out all of the ways in which people who seek to help sex workers fail, and in doing so Ms. Grant draws the reader’s attention to the need for the reader to take actions in solidarity with these workers, and support those who can change the conditions of their lives for the better, not pull them out of sex work or make it more dangerous for them to perform the work they do.
Ms. Grant illustrates this in many ways, including critiquing the fight against online posting of sex worker ads and the large anti-sex work organizations that purport to rescue sex workers from horrible conditions. Ms. Grant points out that so many of the ‘rescued’ end up in worse situations, with less agency than they had when doing sex work, and concludes that this stems from the inability of so many to see these women and men as people doing a job and not as one-dimensional ‘whores.’
“The goal, these antiprostitute advocates say, of eradicating men’s desire for paid sex isn’t ‘antisex’ but to restore the personhood of prostitutes, that is, of people who are already people except to those who claim to want to fix them.”
That’s the point, really. Sex workers are people first, people who make their money in the sex work industry. The problems these workers face doesn’t stem from the morality of sex work – they originate with the rest of society, which is invested in making sex work dangerous. The question the reader is left with – that I am left with – is what am I going to do to benefit these workers? - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The overall thrust of Playing the Whore can be summed up in two fairly short sentences: 1. In the public debate regarding sex work and its improvement/eradication, the voices of sex workers have not been heard. 2. Sex workers' work should be recognized as labor and treated as such, not criminalized. Gira Grant is at once a reporter, sociologist, activist, historian, and a sex worker. This book traces the ways in which the policing of sex work endangers women and trans lives, rather than preserves and protects them. Anti-prostitution feminists purport to stand in solidarity with sex workers by promising to "rescue them," but they have not bothered to ask sex workers if they want to be rescued. Citing a USAID report, M.G.G. claims that 88% of them have made the uncoerced decision to pursue sex work as their preferred form of labor. Rather than focusing on the 12% of sex workers that genuinely need rescuing (they are victims of human trafficking), anti-prostitution groups cast a wider net, and view all sex workers as in need of rescuing. Their campaigns against sex work/escort ads (in print and online)have pushed sex workers ever more to the margins of society. Without doing anything to eradicate sex work, anti-prostitution groups just make it more difficult (and dangerous) for sex workers to get their jobs done. There is a lot to chew over in this book. Not being a sex worker, M.G.G. reminds me towards the end, I am not in a particularly good position to comment or reflect on how the lives of sex workers can be improved, at least not if I have never taken the time to listen to a sex worker discuss her labor as labor without moralizing or fearing it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grant's work is great for foregrounding sex workers' own agency and humanity, rather than using them as pawns or allegories for a larger morality. This seems like a trivial bar to clear, but so few writers even make the attempt, and reading Grant is so damn refreshing as a result. Sadly, though, the piece doesn't have much structure to hold it together. So you get a bunch of great insights that don't really cohere into a book or a wider plan. Still a really worthwhile and important read, but it feels like the prelude to something even better from her soon. :[
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found this book interesting and thought provoking. On the other hand, I am not willing to condemn the recent legal changes here that limit prostitutes working on the streets in areas where people live. These laws have freed other women who had become afraid to leave their homes after dark. They also seem to have reduced the number of young teenagers trafficed from Eastern Europe and forced into sex work by their illegal status. But I do understand that she is overstating her position in opposition to real problems with those she is reacting against.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I found this book extremely difficult to read.
the majority of the time I couldn't follow the author's arguments, or at least my train of thought did not follow that of the author. The author's conclusions and arguments for the most part did not make sense to me.
I was extremely interested in this topic,and don't have a lot of prior knowledge, so was very disappointed in the writing of this book. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely interesting insight into sex work from someone with an inside knowledge. Very informative without being voyeuristic. Would recommend.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the first in-depth reading I've done on sex work and sex workers and I found it fascinating and eye opening. I especially enjoyed the author positing that instead of sex work being oppressive or empowering--as different sides in the feminist argument over it insist--that it is value neutral and that it's okay to be that way.
I think I'll be returning to this book again as I continue my research in this area.
(Provided by publisher)