Lexual's Library: Sex Worker History

In this edition of Lexual’s Library, released in conjunction with the new video Sexcess, let’s focus on women in sex work— a complex history. These works detail how desire, misogyny, and survival have converged to give us the sexual attitudes, trends, and economy we have now! How much have things changed— or stayed the same? These texts, along with my own experiences and research, have informed my thoughts on sex work because they humanized whores and filled in my understanding of past world events.

Whores In History: Prostitution in Western Society (Nickie Roberts)

“Every woman ought to be filled with the shame at the thought that she is a woman,” said Clement of Alexandria, whom Roberts quoted in Chapter Four: The Martyrdom of Sexuality. After touring through myths of ancient people and sex work and slavery amongst the earliest empires, Roberts explained the ways misogyny and whorephobia were embedded into Christianity. “The proliferation of guilt, trapping human beings in an endless cycle of sin-and-repentance, was the culture legacy of the Dark Age of Early Christianity.” 

This seminal text takes you through sex work in antiquity, on to Europe and America, weaving in the story of forced exploitation and consensual labor into the story of imperialism. How has the flesh trade underpinned political and religion throughout time? Roberts published the book in 1992, hoping to alter public perceptions about sex workers away from damaging stereotypes that stripped them of their humanity. This book thoroughly details the evolving relationships between the worker, pimps, their clients, and law enforcement by not sugarcoating the cycles of permissiveness and regression. It’s also stunning just how many European streets and areas are named after sex workers and naughty slang. In chapter six, Roberts discussed the “Unholy Trinity” between sex workers, the church, and royalty. You will learn about corruption and be entertained while doing so. Unfortunately, details on black sex workers are slimmer than if the book was written today, and it hasn’t been updated. But it’s a great reference book to have on your shelf as well as a great narrative read. 

Sex Workers: A History of The Movement From Stonewall to SlutWalk (Melinda Chateauvert) 

As Chateauvert acknowledges early on, sex workers have always fought back and been survivors. Whether fighting stereotypes, laws, or clients, they’re strong and brave. The bravery exhibited at the Stonewall Inn by LGBT people, many of them sex workers, along with the Civil Rights, Welfare, and other movements of the 60s stimulated activists like Margo St. James. By detailing COYOTE and other activism in the midst of second wave feminism, Chateauvert contextualizes the sex wars, backlash to feminist theory from the broader public, and ties sex work to the broader labor movement. She mentions a variety of professions, from Playboy bunnies to massage parlor workers to strippers. What drew me to this book was the recommendation from Dr. Joycelyn Elders,   the first black Surgeon’s General. This is a great book for Modern American history about sex workers that includes LGBT history too. 

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight For Sex Workers Rights (Juno Mac and Molly Smith)

Mac and Smith warn that this book will not be empowering or fun. When I finished reading, it was clear, as they pointed out, that “For as long as people continue to navigate the margins by selling sex, all the social issues affecting them are sex workers rights issues.” This book details the legal and political side of sex work from a global perspective by examining modern laws (and reactions to those laws) that punish or attempt to legalize/decriminalize sex work. If you want to know the difference between legalizing and decriminalizing, read this book. If you want to understand how the legal system has been further weaponized against sex workers through ‘carceral feminism’,  this is your book. This is a radical text that explains the pros and cons of the heavily romanticized Nordic model, which include increased dependence of pimps, routine evictions and deportations. They wrote, “There are no utopias… people of colour, migrants, transgender people, and people who use drugs are among those whom the generous, feminist Swedish state has a tendency to surveil and police, perceive as they are to fall outside Swedishness.” They believe decriminalization of sex work, not legalization, is the best way forward. This is an important, though not particularly enjoyable read about why supporting sex worker's rights doesn't mean you necessarily support what they do.

Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital In The Stripping Industry (Siobhan Brooks)

Like Mirielle Miller-Young’s assessment of black porn stars in A Taste For Brown Sugar, Siobhan Brooks details the racism that plagues black sex workers in strip clubs. This slim volume gives several anecdotes about the realities of dancing while navigating a bevy of -phobias and -isms. Of particular importance to me was the way black dancers spoke negatively about most clubs— whether it be racist whites or cheap black men— and how both groups expected more for less. In addition to discussing the aesthetics of black clubs (and their menus), Brooks dove into the black lesbian club Girlielicious in Oakland, contextualizing gender roles and performance among lesbians in Oakland. 

Playing The Whore (Melissa Gira Grant) 

“For opponents of sexualization, the danger is not only that a woman will be reduced to a sexual being for the enjoyment of others, but that if a woman is sexualized, it obliterates her as a real woman— that is, it is a violence that renders her a lesser woman, a whore.” In this book, Grant succinctly sums up the ways that sex work is actually work— and details how online sex labor was a continuation of past red-light districts. She points out the hypocrisy of anti-sex work feminists who paint everyone as victims. 

Whores and Other Feminists (Edited by Jill Nagle) 

This book of essays includes insight from porn star Nina Hartley, former dancer Tawnya Dudash, and the activist Carol ‘Scarlot Harlot’ Leigh and over two dozen others. Sex work at the intersection of fatphobia (Confessions of a Fat Sex Worker by Drew Campbell) and racism (Showing Up Fully: Black Women of Color Discuss Sex Work). Its a great reference book because it discusses sexual positivity, sexual radicalism, organizing, problems, etc from different labors, erasing the lines of the whorearchy and linking everyone together (including domes in Professional Dominance by Liz Highleyman).

I’ve Got To Make My Living: Black Womens Sex Work in Turn of the Century Chicago (Cynthia M. Blair) 

This book seeks to upend traditional beliefs that black women’s engagement in sex work is a continuation of sexual exploitation of slavery. Nor are black sex workers wholly like white ones, whose turn towards “leisure work” in the early 20th century was used as fodder for progressivism and moralizing. By examining the unique challenges facing black women in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Blair presents a complex story of economic coercion, entrepreneurship, and stigma. How did the black church respond to the sex workers underpinning the community’s economy? How were black girls preyed on early in life when they had few other options? How  This book also fills in the gap for those interested in Black Chicago history as a whole. 

Get more sources when you check out Lets Talk About Sex History, my Youtube series!