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meringued's review
4.0
"Sex workers should not be expected to defend the existence of sex work in order to have the right to do it free from harm."
Sex work seems to be one of the most divisive issue among feminists. My opinions of sex work have gone back and forth over the years (but so have almost all of my opinions on feminist issues tbh because I'm a growing and changing human bean). But reading more articles and opinions by actual sex workers has swayed me to the side of pro-sex work (which is different from sex trafficking btw); Melissa Gira Grant's work lays several convincing arguments for why feminists should be supportive of sex workers and their voices. It is kind of amazing to me how much we exclude sex workers from conversations about their own lives and labors. Like Grant says, we only include them in a weird, voyeuristic "peeping at the keyhole" look at their jobs. And sex work is a job, which requires a service and a fantasy, which the workers don't always feel amazing about but that pays the bills better than other jobs. I worked at McDonald's for 3 years, and having to smile a people who thought I was an idiot was degrading and paid far less stripping does, I'm sure. Sex workers shouldn't have to sell us on how empowering their jobs are to receive the rights and respect that other workers receive. There are so many other great points in this book I could list here, but you should just read the book.
ricoocri's review
4.0
This was a really good anticaptailist analysis of the history of sex work and the material conditions of it and a very convincing argument for the decriminalization of sex work and the rejection of the Nordic Model.
colin_cox's review
3.0
Near the end of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work, Grant asserts, "So long as there are women who are called whores, there will be women who are trained to believe it is next to death to be one or to be mistaken for one. And so long as that is, men will feel they can leave whores for dead with impunity. The fear of the whore, or of being the whore, is the engine that drives the whole thing" (201). Throughout Playing the Whore, Grant argues that sex workers are stigmatized for a variety of reasons such as misogyny and negative cultural assumptions regarding sex work. The notion, however, that sex workers are excluded from discourses regarding sex work itself is interesting, revealing, and one of the more thought-provoking arguments in the book. The exclusion of women from meaningful conversations about topics relevant to women is not new. Several news and media organizations have reported on this trend whether the issue in question is reproductive rights or contraception (see the links below).
Regrettably, this book suffers from a lack of argumentative clarity. While Grant makes several thought-provoking claims, each chapter is wildly inconsistent and moves in such a cavalier way from one disconnected point to the next.
There are many interesting ideas to take from Playing the Whore, but the book would have been more satisfying with targeted, judicious editing.
On all-male Congressional Committee discussing reproductive rights: https://thinkprogress.org/all-male-congressional-committee-considers-imposing-far-reaching-abortion-restrictions-e87f96f25451#.khaxy9ocu
On all-male UN conference on gender equality: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/oct/06/men-only-un-conference-gender-equality-if-only-it-was-a-joke
Regrettably, this book suffers from a lack of argumentative clarity. While Grant makes several thought-provoking claims, each chapter is wildly inconsistent and moves in such a cavalier way from one disconnected point to the next.
There are many interesting ideas to take from Playing the Whore, but the book would have been more satisfying with targeted, judicious editing.
On all-male Congressional Committee discussing reproductive rights: https://thinkprogress.org/all-male-congressional-committee-considers-imposing-far-reaching-abortion-restrictions-e87f96f25451#.khaxy9ocu
On all-male UN conference on gender equality: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/oct/06/men-only-un-conference-gender-equality-if-only-it-was-a-joke
chloelikedolivia's review against another edition
3.0
This is a good introduction to the concepts of a liberation theory of sex work, but doesn’t go much further than that. Grant counters a number of popular progressive truisms about sex work and sex workers, however, she doesn’t offer any concrete replacements. It’s a great book for progressives who haven’t thought much about sex work as an economic issue or the intersectional oppression of sex workers and are looking for a way into that conversation. Incredibly readable and engaging.