A version of this review originally appeared in issue 19 of make/shift magazine In March 2016, South African deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa made a historic announcement of a nationwide scheme to prevent and treat HIV among sex workers, proclaiming, “we cannot deny the humanity and inalienable rights of people who engage in sex work.” Though… Continue reading To Live Freely In This World: Sex Worker Activism In Africa (2016)
Category: Books
Uptown Thief (2016)
Slam poet and African American studies professor Aya de León’s new novel, Uptown Thief, is every activist sex worker’s fantasy: her protagonist Marisol Rivera is a women’s health clinic director by day and an escort agency manager and expert safe-cracker to fund that clinic for survival workers by night. True, any enterprising hooker who actually… Continue reading Uptown Thief (2016)
Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: Beyond Victims And Villains (2016)
When I got arrested recently, my copy of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: Beyond Victims and Villains by Alexandra Lutnick came along with me to jail. It’d be fair to blame me, as well as the boys in blue, but I think it’s unlikely that this is the last time this publication will see the inside… Continue reading Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: Beyond Victims And Villains (2016)
Mary Wept Over The Feet of Jesus (2016)
Canadian comic artist Chester Brown is probably the most well-known punter-writer our there. His latest, Mary Wept Over The Feet of Jesus: Prostitution And Religious Obedience In The Bible, is an analysis of the Bible as a graphic novel. (Maybe Brown likes illustration because most clients need pictures in their books.) This review of his newly… Continue reading Mary Wept Over The Feet of Jesus (2016)
The Las Vegas Madam: The Escorts, The Clients, The Truth (2015)
The Las Vegas Madam: The Escorts, The Clients, The Truth is the tell-all memoir of Jami Rodman, the madam who came to fame by employing former Olympic middle distance runner Suzy Favor Hamilton as a high-end escort. It covers her childhood all the way up through the formation and subsequent closure of the escort agency… Continue reading The Las Vegas Madam: The Escorts, The Clients, The Truth (2015)