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A review by jesterclown
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant
4.0
Contrary to the slew of negative reviews on here, I found this moving and instructive. This is a short and eminently readable primer on the complexities around sex worker's rights. I say "complexities" because there is some reference to academic theory and readers will have to at least possess a rudimentary understanding of the topic. But I say "primer" because it's digestible and short.
You have to come to this book with the very basic (and I would say it's a low bar to entry) understanding that sex workers are human beings (and vulnerable ones at that) and so they have a humanity that is not up for debate. If you're looking to be "persuaded" that sex workers are human, have voices, opinions and feelings, then this won't be the book for you. Nor will it be the book for you if you're expecting endless facts and figures to pull out in a debate setting (as is referenced endlessly in the book, reliable facts and figures are hard to come by, anyway).
What you will get out of this is a sense of the history of the sex workers' rights movements, the basic demands, the theories, the splinter groups, the terminology and the nuts and bolts of arguments around safety and exploitation. I found it helpful in vocalising ideas and feelings I'd had that I hadn't seen written down or expressed out loud. I read incredibly slowly for reasons that are none of your business, so it took me almost exactly a month to finish this but not because it's hard or boring to read. It's not dry and I loved how Gira Grant is unafraid to dip heavily into anecdotes, yearning memories of specific times and places and heirloom advice from friends and mentors. The history of sex work is, in many senses, an oral history, for very obvious reasons (stigma, access, marginalisation).
This is 130-ish pages. You could get it done in a day or even just an afternoon if you read at a normal pace and I suggest you give it a go.
You have to come to this book with the very basic (and I would say it's a low bar to entry) understanding that sex workers are human beings (and vulnerable ones at that) and so they have a humanity that is not up for debate. If you're looking to be "persuaded" that sex workers are human, have voices, opinions and feelings, then this won't be the book for you. Nor will it be the book for you if you're expecting endless facts and figures to pull out in a debate setting (as is referenced endlessly in the book, reliable facts and figures are hard to come by, anyway).
What you will get out of this is a sense of the history of the sex workers' rights movements, the basic demands, the theories, the splinter groups, the terminology and the nuts and bolts of arguments around safety and exploitation. I found it helpful in vocalising ideas and feelings I'd had that I hadn't seen written down or expressed out loud. I read incredibly slowly for reasons that are none of your business, so it took me almost exactly a month to finish this but not because it's hard or boring to read. It's not dry and I loved how Gira Grant is unafraid to dip heavily into anecdotes, yearning memories of specific times and places and heirloom advice from friends and mentors. The history of sex work is, in many senses, an oral history, for very obvious reasons (stigma, access, marginalisation).
This is 130-ish pages. You could get it done in a day or even just an afternoon if you read at a normal pace and I suggest you give it a go.