NPL Home  /  Online Resources  /  Web Guides  /   Sex Work

 

Sex Work

 

 

Sex Worker Led Activism

 

Local

 

New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance

NJRUA is an alliance of activists dedicated to promoting the human rights of sex workers in New Jersey

 

National

 

Sex Workers Outreach Project - USA

We aim to represent all sex workers in the United States, specifically centering those at the greatest risk for police violence.

 

SWOP Behind Bars

We serve incarcerated sex workers in the United States by offering a monthly newsletters, pen pals and Book donations. Our incarcerated members include Male, Female, Trans folks, adults and juveniles who were sentenced as adults in the State and Federal Criminal Justice systems in the United States. We are partnered with other like minded organizations who currently provide services and support to sex workers who are incarcerated and organizations who provide services and support to folks who are released into the community after the end of their prison sentence.

 

International

 

Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP)

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) exists to uphold the voice of sex workers globally and connect regional networks advocating for the rights of female, male, and transgender sex workers. NSWP is a membership organisation. Our members are local, national or regional sex worker-led organisations and networks across five regions: Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America and the Caribbean.

 

Red Umbrella Fund 

The Red Umbrella Fund is the first global fund guided by and for sex workers. Launched in 2012, the Red Umbrella Fund joins together funders and sex workers in support of the human rights of sex workers.

 

 

---

 

Resources

 

Databases

 

Academic Search Premier

An academic multi-disciplinary database that provides full text for nearly 4,650 serials, and full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed (scholarly) titles.

 

Business Source Elite

Provides full text for nearly 1,100 business publications, including nearly 500 peer-reviewed sources. Business Source Elite provides information dating back to 1985, and is updated daily.

 

Business Source Ultimate

Business Source Ultimate offers peer-reviewed, full-text journal articles and other resources that provide historical information and current trends in business. Can be used from home or work.

 

Gale Legal Forms

Use this collection of several thousand New Jersey state and multi-state legal forms to address the most common areas of law, including bankruptcy, bill of sale, contracts, divorce, landlord/tenant, living wills, power of attorney, real estate, last will and testament, and more. Please note: This database is for informational purposes; always consult an attorney before proceeding with any transaction involving laws.

 

Health Reference Center

Provides information on key research, medical terms, and treatments in various health-related fields. Available from the Facts on File database group

 

Health Source: Consumer Edition

Provides information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health. Contains searchable full text for nearly 150 journals.

 

The O’Reilly for Public Libraries Complete

This collection includes 900+ books from the For Dummies series; and more than 150 titles on job-seeking and career development. If you want to find a job or job promotion, or to learn business and technology trends, or to explore new software—this database of over 45,000 books and over 30,000 hours of video instruction is for you. This O’Reilly collection will also interest for makers and gamers: it has titles like STEAM Lab for Kids and The Lego Build-It Book, Volumes 1 & 2. 

 

Small Business Reference Center

A comprehensive resource for small business owners and those interested in starting a business, offering full-text periodicals and reports, sample business plans, U.S. tax forms, videos and reference books.

 

 

Webguides

 

Digital Privacy

Encrypted alternatives to common online communication.

 

Disappear Online

How to remove your personal information from the largest public records searches.

 

Multipurpose Directories

Public records searches and reverse phone and email searches.

 

Protest Safety

Information on protecting yourself from physical and legal harm at protests

 

Social Services

Collection of guides on available social services.

---

 

 

Library Materials on Sex Work

 

Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work

"The cliche is that prostitution is the oldest profession. Isn't it time that the subject received a full reference treatment? This major 2-volume set is the first to treat in an inclusive reference what is usually considered a societal failing and the underside of sexuality and economic survival. The A-to-Z encyclopedia offers wide-ranging entries related to prostitution and the sex industry, past and present, both worldwide (mostly in the West) and in the United States. The topic of prostitution has high-interest appeal across disciplines, and the narrative entries illuminate literature, art, law, medicine, economics, politics, women's studies, religion, sociology, sexuality, film, popular culture, public health, nonfiction, American and world history, business, gender, media, education, crime, race, technology, performing arts, family, social work, social mores, pornography, the military, tourism, child labor, and more. It is targeted to the general reader, who will gain useful insight into the human race through time via its sex industry and prostitution."

 

Getting Past "The Pimp" : Management in the Sex Industry

"Getting Past "the Pimp" makes a compelling case for rethinking Canada's response to sex work by highlighting the limits of criminal justice solutions and drawing our attention to the experiences and perspectives of those targeted."

 

Getting Screwed : Sex Workers and the Law

"Alison Bass weaves the true stories of sex workers with the latest research on prostitution into a gripping journalistic account of how women (and some men) navigate a culture that routinely accepts the implicit exchange of sex for money, status, or even a good meal, but imposes heavy penalties on those who make such bargains explicit. Along the way, Bass examines why an increasing number of middle-class white women choose to become sex workers and explores how prostitution has become a thriving industry in the 21st-century global economy. Situating her book in American history more broadly, she also discusses the impact of the sexual revolution, the rise of the Nevada brothels, and the growing war on sex trafficking after 9/11. Drawing on recent studies that show lower rates of violence and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, in regions where adult prostitution is legal and regulated, Bass makes a powerful case for decriminalizing sex work. Through comparisons of the impact of criminalization versus decriminalization in other countries, her book offers strategies for making prostitution safer for American sex workers and the communities in which they dwell. This riveting assessment of how U.S. anti-prostitution laws harm the public health and safety of sex workers and other citizens--and affect larger societal attitudes toward women--will interest feminists, sociologists, lawyers, health-care professionals, and policy makers. The book also will appeal to anyone with an interest in American history and our society's evolving attitudes toward sexuality and marriage."

 

To Live Freely in this World : Sex Worker Activism in Africa

"Sex worker activists throughout Africa are demanding an end to the criminalization of sex work and the recognition of their human rights to safe working conditions, health and justice services, and lives free from violence and discrimination. To Live Freely in This World is the first book to tell the story of the brave activists at the beating heart of the sex workers' rights movement in Africa, the newest and most vibrant face of the global sex workers' rights struggle. African sex worker activists are proving that communities facing human rights abuses are not bereft of agency. They're challenging politicians, religious fundamentalists, and anti-prostitution advocates; confronting the multiple stigmas that affect the diverse members of their communities; engaging in intersectional movement building with similarly marginalized groups; and participating in the larger global sex workers' rights struggle in order to determine their social and political fate. By locating this counter-narrative in Africa, To Live Freely in This World challenges disempowering and one-dimensional depictions of degraded Third World prostitutes and helps fill what has been a gaping hole in feminist scholarship regarding sex work in the African context. Based on original fieldwork in seven African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, Chi Adanna Mgbako draws on extensive interviews with over 160 African female and male (cisgender and transgender) sex worker activists, and weaves their voices and experiences into a fascinating, richly-detailed, and powerful examination of the history and continuing activism of this young movement."

 

Male Sex Work and Society

"This new collection explores for the first time male sex work from a rich array of perspectives and disciplines. It aims to help enrich the ways in which we view both male sex work as a field of commerce and male sex worker themselves. Leading contributors examine the field both historically and cross-culturally from fields including public health, sociology, psychology, social services, history, filmography, economics, mental health, criminal justice, geography, and migration studies, and more. Synthesizing introductions by the editors help the reader understand the implications of the findings and conclusions for scholars, practitioners, students, and members of the interested/concerned public"

 

Mobile Orientations : An Intimate Autoethnography of Migration, Sex Work, and Humanitarian Borders

Despite continued public and legislative concern about sex trafficking across international borders, the actual lives of the individuals involved - and, more importantly, the decisions that led them to sex work - are often overlooked. The author shows that, far from being victims of a system beyond their control, many contemporary sex workers choose their profession as a means to forge a path toward fulfillment. Using a blend of personal narrative and autoethnography, the author provides portrayals of sex workers from sites including the Balkans, the Maghreb, and West Africa who decided to sell sex as a means to achieve a better life. This book explores the contrast between how migrants understand themselves and their work and how humanitarian and governmental agencies conceal their stories, often unwittingly, by addressing them all as helpless victims. The culmination of two decades of research, this book sheds light on the desires and ambitions of migrant sex workers across the world.

 

Negotiating Sex Work : Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism

"Globally, discussions about sex work focus on exploitation. The media regularly provides us with stories about teen girls coerced to perform sexual acts for money, frequently beaten and robbed by their pimps or traffickers. While one would have to be hard pressed to deny that sex workers are victimized, the popular media and our political leaders emphasize sex work as exclusively exploitative. In Negotiating Sex Work, Carisa R. Showden and Samantha Majic present a series of essays that depict sex work as an issue far more complex than generally perceived. Positions on sex work are primarily divided between those who consider that selling sexual acts is legitimate work and those who consider it a form of exploitation. Organized into three parts, Negotiating Sex Work rejects this either/or framework and offers instead diverse and compelling contributions that aim to reframe these viewpoints. Part I addresses how knowledge about sex work and sex workers is generated. The next section explores how nations and political actors who claim to protect individuals in sex work often further marginalize them. Finally, part III examines sex workers' own political-organizational efforts to combat laws and policies that deem them deviant, sinful, or total victims. A timely and necessary intervention into sex work debates, this volume challenges how policy makers and the broader public regard sex workers' capacity to advocate for their own interests." 

 

Policing Pleasure : Sex work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective

Monica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail. Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences. Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world--from South Africa to India--to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between "abolitionists" and "sex workers' rights advocates" to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.

 

Red Light Labour : Sex Work Regulation, Agency, and Resistance

"In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Canada v. Bedford that key prostitution laws were unconstitutional. Red Light Labour addresses the new legal regime regulating sex work by analyzing how laws and those who uphold them have constructed, controlled, and criminalized sex workers, their clients, and their workspaces. This ... collection also offers nuanced interpretations of commercial sexual labour from the perspectives of workers, activists, and researchers. The contributors highlight the struggle for civic and social inclusion by considering sex workers' advocacy tactics, successes, and challenges."

 

Revolting Prostitutes : The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights

"Do you have to endorse prostitution to support sex worker rights? Should clients be criminalized, and can the police deliver justice? In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. 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, they make it clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement."

 

Sex and Stigma : Stories of Everyday Life in Nevada's Legal Brothels

"The state of Nevada is the only jurisdiction in the United States where prostitution is legal. The stigma and secrecy pervading sex work contribute to experiences of oppression and unfair labor practices for many legal prostitutes in Nevada. Sex and stigma engages with stories of women living and working in these "hidden" organizations to interrogate issues related to labor rights, secrecy, privacy, and discrimination in the current legal brothel system. Including interviews with current and former legal sex workers, brothel owners, madams, local police, and others, Sex and stigma examines how widespread beliefs about the immorality of selling sexual services have influenced the history and laws of legal brothel prostitution. With unique access to a difficult-to-reach population, the authors privilege the voices of brothel workers throughout the book as they reflect on their struggles to engage in their communities, conduct business, maintain personal relationships, and transition out of the industry. Further, the authors examine how these brothels operate like other kinds of legal entities, and how individuals contend with balancing work and non-work commitments. Sex and stigma provides an intimate look at the lived experiences of women performing sex work."

 

Sex Workers Unite : A History of the Movement from Stonewall to Slutwalk

Documenting five decades of sex-worker activism, Sex Workers Unite is a fresh history that places prostitutes, hustlers, escorts, call girls, strippers, and porn stars in the center of America's major civil rights struggles. Although their presence has largely been ignored and obscured, in this provocative history Melinda Chateauvert recasts sex workers as savvy political organizers - not as helpless victims in need of rescue.

 

Sex Work Matters : Exploring Money, Power, and Intimacy in the Sex Industry

Brings sex workers, scholars, and activists together to present pioneering essays on the economics and sociology of sex work.

 

Sex Work: Rethinking the Job, Respecting the Workers

"In the early twentieth century, abolitionists sought to stamp out sex work by penalizing all involved. In the generation that followed, neo-abolitionists looked at the sex industry from a feminist perspective, claiming that workers were victims caught in a patriarchal matrix. Yet both groups agreed that the industry was a destructive and corrupting force that should be eliminated. In this radical volume, five academics and activists present their vision of prostitution as work through chapters that explore the nature of the sex industry, the legal framework that seeks to control it, historical debates over its existence, the spectre of human trafficking, and community-based activism. The authors not only reclaim the place of sex workers in discussions of their lives and work but also oppose discourses that position sex workers as merely victims without agency."

 

$Pread : The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution

From its first issue, $pread, the Utne Award-winning magazine published from 2005-2011, was the place where sex workers defined the job themselves This ... collection brings us some of the magazine's best--interviews, first-person accounts, informational columns, original illustrations, and even haikus. A book for feminist activists, labor organizers, porn consumers, art lovers, and anyone with an opinion about the sex industry.

 

Transgender Sex Work and Society

This is the only book that systematically examines transgender sex work in the United States and globally. Bringing together perspectives from a rich range of disciplines and experiences, it is an invaluable resource on issues related to commercial sex in the transgender community and in the lives of trans sex workers, including mental health, substance use, relationship dynamics, encounters with the criminal justice system, and opportunities and challenges in the realm of public health.The volume covers trans sex workers' interactions with health, social service, and mental-health agencies, featuring more than forty contributors from across the globe. Synthesizing introductions by the editor help organize and put into context a vast and scattered research and empirical literature. The book is essential for researchers, health practitioners, and policy analysts in the areas of sex-work research, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ/gender studies.

 

The War on Sex

"The past 50 years are conventionally understood to have witnessed an uninterrupted expansion of sexual rights and liberties in the United States. This...collection tells a different story: while progress has been made in marriage equality, reproductive rights, access to birth control, and other areas, government and civil society are waging a war on stigmatized sex by means of law, surveillance, and social control. The contributors document the history and operation of sex offender registries and the criminalization of HIV, as well as highly punitive measures against sex work that do more to harm women than to combat human trafficking. They reveal that sex crimes are punished more harshly than other crimes, while new legal and administrative regulations drastically restrict who is permitted to have sex. By examining how the ever-intensifying war on sex affects both privileged and marginalized communities, the essays collected here show why sexual liberation is indispensable to social justice and human rights."