From claims that the porn industry now dwarfs Hollywood, to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's live-tweeting of a Cambodian brothel raid, the sex industry is a frequent topic of discussion in mainstream media. But rarely do these discussions include sex workers themselves, and rarely do they deviate from the position that sex workers must be rescued from their condition, and the industry simply abolished-a position Kristof advocates.
In Playing the Whore, journalist and former sex worker Melissa Gira Grant turns this position on its head, arguing for an overhaul in the way we think about the sex industry. Based on ten years of writing and reporting on the sex trade, and grounded in the author's personal experience as a sex worker, community organizer and health educator, Playing the Whore dismantles pervasive myths of prostitution, criticizes conditions within the sex industry and argues that separating sex work from the 'legitimate' economy only harms those who perform sexual labor.
