Edited by Magaly Rodríguez García, Lex Heerma van Voss, and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk

Selling Sex in the City offers a worldwide analysis of prostitution that takes a long historical approach which covers a time period from 1600 to the 2000s. The overviews in this volume examine sex work in more than twenty notorious “sin cities” around the world, ranging from Sydney to Singapore and from Casablanca to Chicago. Situated within a comparative framework of local developments, the book takes up themes such as labour relations, coercion, agency, gender, and living and working conditions. Selling Sex in the City thus reveals how prostitution and societal reactions to the trade have been influenced by colonization, industrialization, urbanization, the rise of nation states, imperialism, and war, as well as by revolutions in politics, transport, and communication.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017. 909p.

By John Davies

This book challenges every common presumption that exists about the trafficking of women for the sex trade. It is a detailed account of an entire population of trafficked Albanian women whose varied experiences, including selling sex on the streets of France, clearly demonstrate how much the present discourse about trafficked women is misplaced and inadequate. The heterogeneity of the women involved and their relationships with various men is clearly presented as is the way women actively created a panoptical surveillance of themselves as a means of self-policing. There is no artificial divide between women who were deceived and abused and those who "choose" sex work; in fact the book clearly shows how peripheral involvement in sex work was to the real agenda of the women involved. Most of the women described in this book were not making economic decisions to escape desperate poverty nor were they the uneducated naïve entrapped into sexual slavery. The women's success in transiting trafficking to achieve their own goals without the assistance of any outside agency is a testimony to their resilience and resolve.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009. 325p.

By Hélène Le Bail, Calogero Giametta, Noémie Rassouw

The main objective of this study is to assess the impact on sex workers’ living and working conditions of the act of law n° 2016-444 (adopted by France’s parliament on the 13th of April 2016 with the aim of reinforcing the fight against the prostitution system and supporting people in prostitution).1 This is a qualitative study focused on the viewpoints of sex workers themselves who are directly affected by the law. For the purposes of this analysis interviews were conducted with 70 sex workers (a further 38 sex workers were consulted via focus groups and workshops). A further 24 interviews and focus groups were conducted with sex worker groups or other organisations working with sex workers across France. Two researchers (in political science and sociology) supervised the study and analysed the results in close collaboration with 11 outreach organisations. Alongside this qualitative study, a quantitative survey was also conducted between January and February 2018 involving 583 sex workers the results of which were integrated into this report.\

Saint-Denis, France: Médecins du Monde. 2019, 96p.

By Terah J. Stewart.

Sex Work On Campus examines the experiences of college students engaged in sex work and sparks dialogue about the ways educators might develop a deeper appreciation for—and praxis of—equity and justice on campus. Analysing a study conducted with seven college student sex workers, the book focuses on sex work histories, student motivations and how power (or lack thereof) associated with social identity shapes experiences of student sex work. It examines what these students learn because of sex work, and what college and university leaders can do to support them. These findings are combined in tandem with analysis of current research, popular culture, sex work rights movements, and exploration of legal contexts. This fresh and important writing is suitable for students and scholars in sexuality studies, gender studies, sociology, and education.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 219p.