We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival

We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival

Author: Natalie West

Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1558612874

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This collection of narrative essays by sex workers presents a crystal-clear rejoinder: there's never been a better time to fight for justice. Responding to the resurgence of the #MeToo movement in 2017, sex workers from across the industry—hookers and prostitutes, strippers and dancers, porn stars, cam models, Dommes and subs alike—complicate narratives of sexual harassment and violence, and expand conversations often limited to normative workplaces. Writing across topics such as homelessness, motherhood, and toxic masculinity, We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival gives voice to the fight for agency and accountability across sex industries. With contributions by leading voices in the movement such as Melissa Gira Grant, Ceyenne Doroshow, Audacia Ray, femi babylon, April Flores, and Yin Q, this anthology explores sex work as work, and sex workers as laboring subjects in need of respect—not rescue. A portion of this book's net proceeds will be donated to SWOP Behind Bars (SBB).


How to Build a Hookers Army

How to Build a Hookers Army

Author: Natalie West

Publisher: Feminist Press

Published: 2021-02-09

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9781558612853

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The most comprehensive personal essay collection by sex workers available, demanding change in a world where bodies, sex, and difference are increasingly policed and politicized.


Pretty Baby

Pretty Baby

Author: Chris Belcher

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-07-12

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1982175842

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“Absolutely not to be missed.” —Vogue “A muscular, canny memoir about labor and power and gender…I couldn’t put it down. What a fucking gorgeous book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House A queer teen rebel escapes small-town Appalachia and becomes Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix in this searing and darkly funny memoir that upends our ideas about desire, class, and power. The dominatrix is the id of American femininity. She says the words that we all wish we could say when we find ourselves frozen in the presence of men. No is principal among them. So writes Chris Belcher, who appeared destined for a life of conventional femininity after she took first place in an infant beauty contest—a minor glory that followed her around a working-class town of 1,600 people in rural West Virginia. But when she came out as queer, the conservative community that had once celebrated its prettiest baby turned on her. A decade later, living in Los Angeles and trying to stay afloat in the early years of a PhD program, Belcher plunges into the work of a pro domme. Branding herself as Los Angeles’s Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix, she specializes in male clients who want a domme to make them feel worthless, shameful, and weak—all the abuse regularly heaped upon women for free. A queer woman whom men can trust with the unorthodox sides of their sexualities, Belcher is paid to be the keeper of the fantasies that they can’t enact in their everyday relationships. But moonlighting as a sex worker also carries risks, like the not-so-submissive who tries to turn the tables and the jealous client out for revenge. As Belcher moves between the embodied world of the pro domme and the abstract realm of academia, she discovers how lessons from the classroom apply to the dungeon, and vice versa. Still, fear that her doctoral program won’t approve burdens her with a double life. Pretty Baby is her second coming out. In this sharp and discerning memoir, we see through Belcher’s eyes how power and desire can be renegotiated—or reinforced.


Sex Work Matters

Sex Work Matters

Author: Melissa Hope Ditmore

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1848138407

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Sex Work Matters brings together sex workers, scholars and activists to present pioneering essays on the economics and sociology of sex work. From insights by sex workers on how they handle money, intimate relationships and daily harassment by the police, to the experience of male and transgender sex work, this fascinating and original book offers new theoretical frameworks for understanding the sex industry. The result is a vital new contribution to sex-worker rights that explores the topic in new ways, especially its cultural, economic and political dimensions. Readers weary of the sensational and often salacious treatment of the sex industry in the media and literature will find Sex Work Matters refreshing.


Revolting Prostitutes

Revolting Prostitutes

Author: Molly Smith

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2018-11-06

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1786633604

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How the law harms sex workers—and what they want instead Do you have to endorse prostitution in order 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.


Survival of the Thickest

Survival of the Thickest

Author: Michelle Buteau

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-02

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1982122595

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*Soon to be a comedy series on Netflix!* From the stand-up comedian, actress, and host beloved for her cheeky swagger, unique voice, and unapologetic frankness comes a book of “zesty and hilarious” (Publishers Weekly) essays for fans of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling and We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union. If you’ve watched television or movies in the past couple of years, you’ve seen Michelle Buteau. With scene-stealing roles in Always Be My Maybe, First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, and Tales of the City; a reality TV show and breakthrough stand-up specials, including her headlining show Welcome to Buteaupia on Netflix; and two podcasts (Late Night Whenever and Adulting), Michelle’s star is on the rise. You’d be forgiven for thinking the road to success—or adulthood or financial stability or self-acceptance or marriage or motherhood—has been easy, but you’d be wrong. Now, in Survival of the Thickest, Michelle reflects on growing up Caribbean, Catholic, and thick in New Jersey, going to college in Miami (where everyone smells like pineapple), her many friendship and dating disasters, working as a newsroom editor during 9/11, getting started in stand-up opening for male strippers, marrying into her husband’s Dutch family, IVF and surrogacy, motherhood, chosen family, and what it feels like to have a full heart, tight jeans, and stardom finally in her grasp.


How Mamas Love Their Babies

How Mamas Love Their Babies

Author: Juniper Fitzgerald

Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 1558613412

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Illustrating the myriad ways that mothers provide for their children—piloting airplanes, washing floors, or dancing at a strip club—this book is the first to depict a sex-worker parent. It provides an expanded notion of working mothers and challenges the idea that only some jobs result in good parenting. We’re reminded that, while every mama’s work looks different, every mama works to make their baby’s world better.


Sex Work

Sex Work

Author: Frédérique Delacoste

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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A landmark collection of writings by street prostitutes, exotic dancers, nude models, escorts, porn stars, and massage parlor workers. Since publication in 1987, SEX WORK has generated much discussion and has changed the language we use to talk about sex for money.


Hot Stew

Hot Stew

Author: Fiona Mozley

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2022-04-12

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 164375260X

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"A contemporary story of class, gender, and property ownership--told through the interconnected lives of the residents of one London building and the real estate heiress who wants to tear it down"--


Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick

Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick

Author: Autumn Stephens

Publisher: New World Library

Published: 2011-02-09

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1608680029

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The title of this anthology riffs on Teddy Roosevelt's phallocentric motto, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Few American women today are interested in cultivating a Teddyesque machismo — but in Roar Softly, women writers recount witty and poignant tales of modern-day survival, from finding love (and sex) as a single mom to overcoming anorexia to adopting a child. Not only do their stories offer reassurance that no woman is alone in her struggles, but they also suggest better battle strategies — more womanly battle strategies, if you will — for those who shrink from the "muscle your way through" approach. As each essay demonstrates, women can overcome the challenges of their lives not only with strength, but also with grace. Contributors include Anne Lamott, Edwidge Danticat, Mary Roach, Elizabeth Fishel, Laura Fraser, and Anneli Rufus.