Interviews by Johnny Lemuria and Maggie McNeill
Two bloggers have interviewed me on the occasion of publishing a new book. First I’ll show you Maggie McNeill’s, because it’s written; after that I’ll give the link…
Tag: Sex work
Interview with Radio Ava, sexworker radio in London
In February I was interviewed by RadioAva (DIY sexworker radio, a project of x:talk). When I arrived at the pub in mid-afternoon a fight was blowing up in…
Pimping as a job: Blood on Snow and The Three-Headed Dog
In the popular imaginary a pimp is a mean man engaged in pushing a few prostitutes around and taking their money. Usually portrayed as black or foreign, he…
Thinking about sex work as work: Dublin Anarchist Book Fair
I gave a talk called Thinking about sex work as work on 6 April 2013 at the Dublin Anarchist Book Fair. Local abolitionists and anti-prostitution folks were attacking…
Sexwork and migration fiction (4): To go with sex tourists or smugglers?
Of all the characters destined to work selling sex in The Three-Headed Dog, Marina has the most experience. Now in Spain for the second time, Marina comes from…
Sexwork and migration fiction, part 2 : Jobs in the sex industry
I wrote The Three-Headed Dog to get away from the straitjacket of a debate where one side is always moralising and the other reacting with rational debunking. In…
Migrants in novels: James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia
It wasn’t always all called trafficking. Whether or not migrants were officially or sentimentally designated refugees, they were portrayed as taking action. Getting screwed – certainly …
Sexwork and migration fiction, part 1: Melodrama and archetypes
I wrote a novel, The Three-Headed Dog, for more than one reason. Here is the first of a series in which I tell why, not in any greatly structured…
The Three-Headed Dog: Sexwork and Migration Mystery
Despite how it might look to those who’ve known me only since Sex at the Margins, I’m not making a sudden switch to fiction. It’s one of the…
Sexwork expressionism from Edvard Munch, or Everyday life in a brothel
Christmas in the Brothel is from 1905. There’s a tree, a woman with little black book and pencil, a man reading, figures in the background and empty space.…
Exploring Boundaries: From Access to Female Sexworkers to the Question of Research
When designing a research project, a researcher’s initial plans are often interrupted by what data we actually can access. Whether negotiating political structures, cultural taboos, necessary permissi…
Research is not activism: And whose interests are at stake, anyway?
Recently Amnesty International voted to pursue a policy advocating the decriminalisation of sex work (sort of). If you were judging the issues by what Big Media told you,…
(How) Do Anthropologists Celebrate Valentine’s Day?
As an anthropologist, the first thought that comes to mind as we approach an upcoming holiday is typically, How do they celebrate this holiday in X?—X being a…
Is Sex at the Margins (going to be) a classic?
I nearly didn’t bother to publish Sex at the Margins. In 1998 Zed Books wanted to publish a thesis I’d written for a Master’s degree in Education, but…
‘Sex Work is Not Sex Trafficking’: An idea whose time has not come
Anti-prostitution advocates routinely use absurd over-simplications to make their crusade crystal-clear easy to understand. Campaigning works better when arguments are black and white and slogans are …
Fantasies that matter: Images of sex work in media and art
I am looking forward to being in Hamburg, Germany, in August, for this unusually interesting event. My own talk is called Disqualified: Why sex workers suffer social death…