'Holy hell, this book was intense...it kept me on edge the whole time. I absolutely LOVED this book.' Reader Review 'Ben, I need you. Help me.' 'PLEASE HELP ME!' 'It was an accident...but there's so much blood...' In a frantic late-night phone call, Ben learns his wife, Mia, has killed a man. And she needs his help. When Ben arrives at Mia's hotel room, the scene is horrific - but over the course of the night it will get much worse. All their secrets will be uncovered, and they will discover how far they'll go to protect themselves and each other... will they kill for love? Or will they die for it? One phone call. Twelve hours to save their marriage. And their lives. Told in real-time half-hour chapters, this is a read-in-one-sitting thriller that fans of T.M. Logan and Harlan Coben will devour. Sit down and strap yourself in for the rollercoaster read of 2022. Readers are hooked on answering The Call: 'It grabs you on the first page and the tension doesn't let up. Atmospheric, twisted and utterly compelling - I couldn't put it down.' Debbie Howells, author of The Secret 'Incredibly fast-paced and well plotted, a cracking read.' Araminta Hall, author of Perfect Strangers 'An excellent book - I flew through it...A dark, chilling, twisted delight that had me hooked from the start' Susi Holliday, author of Substitute and The Last Resort 'I loved it! A very fast-paced, action-packed story with lots of craziness and suspense to keep you reading straight to the very end!' Reader Review 'Go with the flow and enjoy the rollercoaster ride...A gripping thriller that surprises, at times, by being laugh-out-loud funny.' Reader Review 'Don't start it unless you have a spare few hours...you won't want to put it down.' Reader Review 'So gripping that I couldn't have put it down even if I had wanted to...full of suspense and mystery, I loved it.' Reader Review 'This one is certainly worth a read. A fun ride through a very dark night. Recommended.' Reader Review 'A fun, high-energy read...this thriller offers you a rollercoaster of a ride.' Reader Review 'Wow... It's intense, gory and gripping, and I really enjoyed it!' Reader Review 'I really enjoyed this book, it grabbed me from the very first page.' Reader Review 'From the very first page this book draws you in. The suspense starts straight away... it kept me hooked throughout' Reader Review 'A twisty and scary read that I couldn't put down!' Reader Review 'A psych thriller, domestic suspense mash-up that is filled to the brim with lies and secrets' Reader Review 'I read The Call in one sitting. It was fast-paced and twisty and kept me intrigued right to the end.' Reader Review

-- Regarded as the seminal collection of studies in the field of sex work, this volume introduces readers to comprehensive and cutting-edge research on commercial sex and sexual economies. - Examines a variety of issues related to sex work, such as prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, escorts, male and female clients through a sociological, political, and legal lens. - The volume offers important scholarship on deviance, as well as on gender, sexuality, crime, and sex work, specifically, making it a highly relevant choice for courses across sociology, criminology & criminal justice, and women's and gender studies disciplines. - The third edition offers new and/or updated writings on "traditional" forms of sexual labour, incl. street prostitution, pornography, and escorting, as well as all new and original contributions on topics of ever-increasing importance in the field: internet facilitation, transgender work, sex workers rights movement, decriminalization and alternative policies, etc. - New chapters offer historical perspectives as well as alternative measures/policies, both of which strengthen the overall context for which the empirically-based chapters are grounded.

Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution is about sex work and prostitution third sector organizations (TSOs): non-governmental and non-profit organizations that provide support services to, and advocate for the well-being of people operating in the sex industries. With a focus on three vast and extremely diverse regions, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, this book provides a unique vantage point that shows how interlinked these organizations' histories and configurations are. TSOs are fascinating research sites because they operate as zones of contestation which translate their understandings of sex work and prostitution into different support practices and advocacy initiatives. This book reveals that these organizations are not external to normative power but participate in it and are subject to it, conditioning how they can exist, who they can reach out to, where, and what they can achieve. Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution is a resource for scholars, policymakers, and activists involved in research on, and work with third sector organizations in the fields of sex work and prostitution, gender and sexuality, and human rights among others.

This book presents an analysis of the concepts of female empowerment and resilience against violence in the informal entertainment and sex industries. Generally, the key debates on sex work have centred on arguments proposed by the oppressive and empowerment paradigms. This book moves away from such debates to look widely at the micro issues such as the role of income in the lives of sex workers, the significance of peer organisations and networks of women, and how resilience is enacted and empowerment experienced. It also uses positive deviancy theory as a useful strategy to bring about notable changes in terms of empowerment and agency for women working in this sector and also for addressing the wider issues of migration, HIV/AIDS, and violence against women and girls. The focus is on moving beyond a victimisation framework without downplaying the extent of the violence that women in this industry experience. It conceptualises the theories of empowerment and power which have not been tested against women who work in this sector, combined with in-depth interviews with women working in the industry as well as academics, activists, and personnel in the NGO and donor sector. In doing so, it informs the reader of the numerous social, political, and economic factors that structure and sustain the global growth of the industry and analyses the diverse factors that lead many thousands of women and girls around the world to work in this sector. The work presents an important contribution to the study of citizenship and rights from a non-Western angle and will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policymakers across human rights, sociology, economics, and development studies.

Winner of the British Society of Criminology Annual Book Prize 2022. As the labour market continues to exploit workers by offering precarious, low-paid and temporary jobs, for some duality offers much-needed flexibility and staves off poverty. Based on extensive empirical work, this book illustrates contemporary accounts of individuals taking extraordinary risks to hold jobs in both sex industries and non-sex work employment. It also opens a dialogue about how sex industries are stratified in the UK in terms of race and culture against the backdrop of Brexit. Debunking stereotypes of sex workers and challenging our stigmatisation of them, this book makes an invaluable contribution to discourses about work, society and future policy.

This is a richly detailed account of the way the sex industry works, and one of the few empirical studies that investigates the off street industry in Britain. The book seeks to advance a greater knowledge of the social organisation of the sex industry by uncovering the day-to-day activities of women involved in the indoor markets. What types of occupational risks do women experience in work of this kind? How do these hazards affect their personal lives? A key concern throughout the book is to assess whether women are passive victims of the circumstances of prostitution or whether they understand and calculate their responses to danger. Drawing upon both sociological and criminological theories, and on detailed research in the city of Birmingham, the author addresses these questions by estimating the rationality of those responses and by providing a measure of how women make sense of different risks. Sex Work: a risky business describes how women create complex psychological and emotional techniques to maintain their sanity while selling sex, and goes on to argue that the indoor sex markets in Britain have a distinct 'occupational culture' with a set of social norms, code of conduct and moral hierarchies that make it a high regulated workplace despite its illicit and sometimes illegal nature.

The black heart of human exploitation and the brave few seeking change

A child is sold for sex every ten miles on Brazil's BR-116 motorway. This 2,700-mile road is "The Highway to Hell" for the thousands of children, some as young as nine, who are trapped in sophisticated child prostitution rackets organized by businessmen and politicians.

An experienced journalist, Matt Roper has witnessed the extent of the trafficking firsthand. Highway to Hell documents his journey on this road. He meets the girls and hears their stories; he interviews truck drivers, pimps, brothel owners, and traffickers; and talks to the brave souls who are trying to make a difference.

Part documentary, part personal memoir, Matt honestly shares his struggles to understand what his Christian faith has to say about the things he encounters and how God wants him to respond.

The problem of prostitution, sex work or sex for sale can often be misunderstood, if we do not take into consideration its spatial, temporal and political context. Understanding Sex for Sale aims to understand how prostitution, sex work or sex for sale are delineated, contested and understood in different spaces, places and times; with a particular focus on identifying how the relation between sex and money is interpreted and enacted. Divided into three parts, this interdisciplinary volume offers contributions that discuss ongoing theoretical issues and analytical challenges. Some chapters focus on how prostitution, sex work, or sex for sale have been regulated by the authorities and on the understandings that regulations are built upon. Other chapters investigate the experiences of sex workers and sex buyers, examining how these actors adjust to or resist the categorisation processes, control and stigma they are subjected to. Finally, a third group of chapters discuss contemporary definitional issues produced by various actors tasked with controlling prostitution or offering social services to its participants. Advancing and placing analytical tools at the forefront of the discussion, Understanding Sex for Sale appeals to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as researchers interested in fields such as, sociology, anthropology, criminology, history, human geography and gender studies.

Written by the founder of `Street Talk' - a charity which takes therapy to women in street prostitution, this unique title sheds light on this marginalised and forgotten group. Pip Hockton defines the clinical model which has emerged in order to support the practice within Street Talk, to ensure that those carrying out the work, as well as those who might carry it forward, have a clear understanding of the model. The author has worked with this group of women for more than thirteen years and has learnt a vast amount from them - she is still learning to this day. Street Talk's therapists are all highly trained and have discovered ways of engaging with these women by applying principles of object relations theory. A central guiding principle is to help the women encounter their own humanity, to make human contact, to listen and hear their stories. This is not an easy task, we hear of the barriers to engagement and how they can be overcome by patience, compassion, courage and faith that listening, hearing and bearing witness can help release deep wounds. The voices of the women come across vividly as the therapeutic approach pioneered by the authors is told through their stories.

The starting point for this book is the question of how we research sex for sale and the implications of the choices we make in terms of epistemology and ethics. Which dilemmas and ethical aspects need to be taken into account when producing qualitative data within a highly politicised and moral-infected realm? These two questions are exactly what Spanger and Skilbrei aim to unpack in this unusual interdisciplinary methodology book, Prostitution Research in Context. The book offers contributions from a number of scholars who, based on their reflections on their own research practice and the existing knowledge field, discuss ongoing methodological issues and challenges representative of international research on sex for sale. Some chapters deal explicitly with methodological dilemmas in research; others thematise the encounter between prostitution research and general texts on epistemology. Other chapters again actively engage with the ethical dilemmas that research on the topic of sex for sale can entail. The authors represent different disciplines, but share an interest in engaging in reflexive research practices informed by feminism and feminist epistemologies. An authoritative contribution to the field, this innovative volume will appeal to international scholars and students from across the social sciences and humanities in areas such as sociology, anthropology, criminology, media studies, feminist studies, human geography and history.

This book critically analyzes the sex industry in Israel, using feminist concepts and scholarship to elaborate on the power of prostitution to shape a world in which women are objects for fulfilling men's desires. A comprehensive collection of research-based articles that examine prostitution, trafficking in women and pornography from divergent disciplinary angles, it reveals the interconnectedness of these three aspects of the sex trade which objectifies, commercializes and exploits human - and in particular women's - sexuality. Showing these practices to be embedded in a capitalist and patriarchal oppressive context that is accommodated by state institutions, this volume rejects the argument that it is possible to choose prostitution, and that feminist pornography is possible. With case studies including the conspicuous context of migration that attracts sex traffickers, the liberal discourse introduced by cinema, the media and the arts that serve to legitimate prostitution and pornography, the chauvinist-macho culture that perceives and treats women as sex objects, and the issues of male prostitution and men as clients, Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking in Women: Israel's Blood Money constitutes a study of Israel as a unique context in which the sex trade can prosper, in spite of geographical, religious and institutional constraints. As such, it will be of interest to scholars of sociology, anthropology, history, cultural studies and gender and women's studies.

First published in 2004. Major changes have taken place in the sex industry in Europe. Over the past decade we have seen increasing migration and diversification, along with major shifts in policy towards the industry. There is very little published on sex work in Europe, but the demand is growing for information and analyses of the situation today from people working on health, policy, gender and employment. The authors of this book examine sex work in terms of economic and social restructuring, concerns about infection and recent policy developments on prostitution.

Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the 'migrant' is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the 'migrant sex worker' category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be 'migrant sex workers' in Australia and Canada. Many 'migrant sex workers' in Melbourne and Vancouver are in fact, naturalized citizens or permanent residents, whose involvement in the sex industry intersects with diverse ideas and experiences of citizenship in Australia and Canada. This book examines how immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver and Melbourne wield or negotiate ideas of illegality and legality to obtain desired outcomes in their day-to-day work. Sex work continues to be the subject of fierce debate in the public sphere, at the policy level, and within research discourses. This study interrogates these perceptions of the 'migrant sex worker' by presenting the lived realities of women who embody or experience dimensions of this category. This book is interdisciplinary and will appeal to those engaged in criminology, sociology, law, and women's studies.

This book explores 'sex work' in Nepal as a social and analytical category. Narrating stories of those subsumed under such definition, it examines changes as well as continuities characterising socio-cultural norms and perceptions through an analysis of sexual consumption. It also highlights the ways in which the development sector, media, and local community discourses frame 'sex work' as a distinct category. How does the work of development aid projects affect the understanding of the sex worker category? How are visual and media images employed to mark spaces of perdition in the Nepalese urban setting and what forms of imagination do they trigger? How are intimate practices and relations transformed by imported notions of love, and how do standards of propriety related to such interactions shift? This book attempts to answer some of these questions. An in-depth and intimate ethnography, the book deconstructs the sex worker category against the backdrop of global influences within local urban surroundings and points to the contradictions therein. Furthermore, through thorough descriptions of the experiences, agency, decision-making processes, and lives of those labelled as sex workers, the book challenges concepts such as deviance and victimhood. It proposes a counternarrative by rethinking ideas of gender, objectification, marginality, symbolic violence, and discrimination. This book will greatly interest researchers and scholars in women and gender studies, sociology and social anthropology, South Asian studies and social sciences, as well as NGOs and those involved in the development sector.

(Sub)Urban Sexscapes brings together a collection of theoretically-informed and empirically rich case studies from internationally renowned and emerging scholars highlighting the contemporary and historical geographies and regulation of the commercial sex industry. Contributions in this edited volume examine the spatial and regulatory contours of the sex industry from a range of disciplinary perspectives-urban planning, urban geography, urban sociology, and, cultural and media studies-and geographical contexts-Australia, the UK, US and North Africa. In overall terms, (Sub)urban Sexscapes highlights the mainstreaming of commercial sex premises-sex shops, brothels, strip clubs and queer spaces-and products-sex toys, erotic literature and pornography-now being commonplace in night time economy spaces, the high street, suburban shopping centres and the home. In addition, the aesthetics of commercial and alternative sexual practices-BDSM and pornography-permeate the (sub)urban landscape via billboards, newspapers and magazines, television, music videos and the Internet. The role of sex, sexuality and commercialized sex, in contributing to the general character of our cities cannot be ignored. In short, there is a need for policy-makers to be realistic about the historical, contemporary and future presence of the sex industry. Ultimately, the regulation of the sex industry should be informed by evidence as opposed to moral panics. *** Winner of the Planning Institute of Australia (WA) 2015 Award for Excellence in Cutting Edge Research and Teaching ***

The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and the law's ability to meet the competing demands of empowerment by sex workers and protection by radical feminists who view prostitution as the epitome of patriarchal sexual and economic relations. Its central focus is the role of law in both structuring and responding to the 'problem of prostitution'. By developing a distinctive constitutive approach to law, the author offers a more advanced analytical framework from which to understand how law matters in contemporary debates and also suggests how law could matter in more imaginative justice reforms. This is particularly pertinent in a period of unprecedented legal reform, both internationally and nationally, as legal norms simultaneously attempt to protect, empower and criminalise parties involved in the purchase of sexual services. The Subject of Prostitution aims to overcome the current aporia in these debates and suggest new ways to engage with the subject and law. As such, The Subject of Prostitution provides an advanced theoretical resource for policymakers, researchers and activists involved in contemporary struggles over the meanings and place of sex work in late modernity.

Sex work has been a contentious issue in a variety of ways throughout history - socially, morally, ethically, religiously and politically. Traditionally noted as one of the oldest professions in the world, sex work has commonly been demonised and is often viewed as a social disgrace. While sex work involves both providers of sexual services, most commonly women, and purchasers of sexual services, most commonly men, providers have attracted the most social commentary. Recent research shows that a limited number of studies have been conducted since 1990 concerning men who procure sexual services. This book aims to help reset this balance. In this book, Philip Birch examines the procurement of female sexual services with a focus on the personal and social aspects of men who procure such exchanges and offers insight into the demographics amongst men who purchase sexual services, alongside an analysis of the reasons why they purchase sex. This book brings together existing literature with analyses of new data to develop a multi-factor model reflecting men's procurement of sexual services and demonstrates the complexities surrounding the procuration of these sexual services in exchange for money. The book considers what contribution the understanding of the personal and social aspects of men who procure sexual services has on re-theorising the purchasing of sex in the 21st Century and will be of interest to academics and students involved in the study of criminology, criminal justice, social policy, law, sociology, sexuality and gender studies.

Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution is about sex work and prostitution third sector organizations (TSOs): non-governmental and non-profit organizations that provide support services to, and advocate for the well-being of people operating in the sex industries. With a focus on three vast and extremely diverse regions, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, this book provides a unique vantage point that shows how interlinked these organizations' histories and configurations are. TSOs are fascinating research sites because they operate as zones of contestation which translate their understandings of sex work and prostitution into different support practices and advocacy initiatives. This book reveals that these organizations are not external to normative power but participate in it and are subject to it, conditioning how they can exist, who they can reach out to, where, and what they can achieve. Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution is a resource for scholars, policymakers, and activists involved in research on, and work with third sector organizations in the fields of sex work and prostitution, gender and sexuality, and human rights among others.

Sex work is a subject of significant contestation across academic disciplines, as well as within legal, medical, moral, feminist, political and socio-cultural discourses. A large body of research exists, but much of this focuses on the sale of sex by women to men and ignores other performances, practices, meanings and embodiments in the contemporary sex industry. A queer agenda is important in order to challenge hetero-centric gender norms and to develop new insights into how gender, sex, power, crime, work, migration, space/place, health and intimacy are understood in the context of commercial sexual encounters. Queer Sex Work explores what it might mean to 'be', 'do' and 'think' queer(ly) in the study and practice of commercial sex. It brings together a multiplicity of empirical case studies - including erotic dance venues, online sex working, pornography, grey sexual economies, and BSDM - and offers a variety of perspectives from academic scholars, policy practitioners, activists and sex workers themselves. In so doing, the book advances a queer politics of sex work that aims to disrupt heteronormative logics whilst also making space for different voices in academic and political debates about commercial sex. This unique and multidisciplinary volume will be indispensable for scholars and students of the global sex trade and of gender, sexuality, feminism and queer theory more broadly, as well as policymakers, activists and practitioners interested in the politics and practice of sex work in local, national and international contexts.

Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the 'migrant' is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the 'migrant sex worker' category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be 'migrant sex workers' in Australia and Canada. Many 'migrant sex workers' in Melbourne and Vancouver are in fact, naturalized citizens or permanent residents, whose involvement in the sex industry intersects with diverse ideas and experiences of citizenship in Australia and Canada. This book examines how immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver and Melbourne wield or negotiate ideas of illegality and legality to obtain desired outcomes in their day-to-day work. Sex work continues to be the subject of fierce debate in the public sphere, at the policy level, and within research discourses. This study interrogates these perceptions of the 'migrant sex worker' by presenting the lived realities of women who embody or experience dimensions of this category. This book is interdisciplinary and will appeal to those engaged in criminology, sociology, law, and women's studies.

This book brings an important new perspective to the study of sex trafficking by considering the different types of social contracts which existed in the past that had sexual labour or activity as an inherent component. It outlines the nature of these social institutions - marriage, temporary marriage, debt bondage, and slavery - which were recognized in local law, carried no stigma, and endured for long periods. It discusses how labour pledged in return for a loan of cash or as a result of a punishment dictated by the state often included sexual labour, and how this could take the form of servicing the master of the house, his guests, or foreign travellers, who paid the debt-holder for the privilege, and how even wives of different ranks, temporary or permanent, and children, were pledged as sureties for loans. The book, which covers the modern states of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, argues that cultural norms are not static, that sexual contracts are more complicated than simply 'marriage' or 'prostitution', and that as trafficking for sexual purposes increases, those engaging in humanitarian intervention should improve their knowledge of the historical underpinnings of cultural understandings of familial and contractual obligations.

Prior research has tended to mirror popular representations of the female sex worker as a morally flawed individual and a victim of circumstances beyond her control. Sex Work and Female Self-Empowerment presents a fresh perspective on "the world's oldest profession" by considering the relationship between sex work and female self-empowerment from a variety of disciplinary and practical perspectives and presenting new data derived from the author's study of six self-employed indoor female sex workers (IFSWs). Informed by the author's training in clinical psychology and human sexuality studies and her more than fifteen years of involvement in the sex work profession, this book extends beyond social stereotyping and stigmatization and presents a more balanced view of the identities and aspirations of sex workers in contemporary society.

In an attempt to abolish prostitution, Sweden criminalised the purchase of sex in 1999, while simultaneously decriminalising its sale. In so doing, it set itself apart from other European states, promoting itself as the pioneer of a radical approach to prostitution. What has come to be referred to as 'the Swedish model' has been enormously influential, and has since been adopted and proposed by other countries. This book establishes the outcomes of this law - and the law's justifying narratives - for the dynamics of Swedish sex work, and upon the lives of sex workers. Drawing on recent fieldwork undertaken in Sweden over several years, including qualitative interviewing and participant observation, Jay Levy argues that far from being a law to be emulated, the Swedish model has had many detrimental impacts, and has failed to demonstrably decrease levels of prostitution. Criminalising the Purchase of Sex: Lessons from Sweden utilises a wealth of respondent testimony and secondary research to redress the current lack of primary academic research and to contribute to academic discussion on this politically-charged and internationally relevant topic. This original and timely work will be of interest to sex worker rights organisations, policy makers and politicians, as well as researchers, academics and students across a number of related disciplines, including law, sociology, criminology, human geography and gender studies.

Attwood examines Victorian attitudes to prostitution across a number of sources: medical, literary, pornographic.

The Subject of Prostitution offers a distinctive analysis of the links between prostitution and social theory in order to advance a critical analysis of the relationship of law to sex work. Using the lens of social theory to disrupt fixed meanings the book provides an advanced analytical framework through which to understand the complexity and contingencies of sex work in late modernity. The book analyses contemporary citizenship discourse and the law's ability to meet the competing demands of empowerment by sex workers and protection by radical feminists who view prostitution as the epitome of patriarchal sexual and economic relations. Its central focus is the role of law in both structuring and responding to the 'problem of prostitution'. By developing a distinctive constitutive approach to law, the author offers a more advanced analytical framework from which to understand how law matters in contemporary debates and also suggests how law could matter in more imaginative justice reforms. This is particularly pertinent in a period of unprecedented legal reform, both internationally and nationally, as legal norms simultaneously attempt to protect, empower and criminalise parties involved in the purchase of sexual services. The Subject of Prostitution aims to overcome the current aporia in these debates and suggest new ways to engage with the subject and law. As such, The Subject of Prostitution provides an advanced theoretical resource for policymakers, researchers and activists involved in contemporary struggles over the meanings and place of sex work in late modernity.