Sex Workers and Their Clients

This book draws on the voices of sex workers and their clients to critically assess the criminalization of prostitution in favour of decriminalization. It does so by contrasting their voices with the claims made by prohibitionists: those advocating the prohibition of prostitution or, at least, the prohibition of the purchase of sexual services, and notes scholarly research that gives context to those accounts and claims. Eachchapter is dedicated to a particular issue which is given currency in academic and public debates on sex work. The first part of each chapterreviews the state of research and publicly-aired contentions and the second part compares sex workers' voices withclaims from prohibitionists. Ithighlights the gap between what many sex workers have to say about themselves and what theorizing prohibitionists say about all prostitution. It argues that there is oftena striking contrast in attitude, perspective, interpretation and valuation.This books speaksprimarily to prohibitionist thinking and sex work stereotyping and, secondarily, to the debate on decriminalization of sex work.