The Pimping of Prostitution: Abolishing the Sex Work Myth
This book examines one of the most contested issues facing feminists, human rights activists and governments around the globe – the international sex trade. For decades, the liberal left has been conflicted as to whether ‘sex worker’ activists or abolitionists hold the correct view, and debates are ongoing as to who holds the key to the solutions facing the women and girls involved.
Over the course of two years, Bindel conducted 250 interviews in almost 40 countries, cities and states, travelling around Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and countries in East Africa. Visiting legal brothels all around the world, Bindel got to know pimps, pornographers, survivors of the sex trade, and the women being sold by men classed as ‘business entrepreneurs’. Whilst meeting feminist abolitionists, pro-prostitution campaigners, police and government officials, and the men who pay for sex, Bindel uncovered the lies, mythology and criminal activity that shroud this global trade, and suggests a way forward for the women seeking to abolish the oldest oppression. Informed by the lived human experience of those interviewed, this book will be of great interest to feminists, students, criminal justice advocates, criminologists and human rights activists.
2017 | ISBN 9781925581232 | Paperback | 210 x 148 mm | 382 pp
Reviews
Julie Bindel is courageous and unrelenting in her advocacy and activism for those involved in the sex trade, and her book - rich in testimonies, scholarship, and her own experience - is a welcome addition to the mounting case against the legalisation of prostitution.
Read the full review here.—Pauline Cooper-Ioelu, www.mercatornet.com
The book contains an impressive level of detail that is frequently based on interviews with those directly involved in the sex trade. The Pimping of Prostitution provides a refreshing contrast to the highly conjectural and half-baked assertions that are prominent in much of the existing literature on prostitution. It is a powerful, provocative, and highly original text, which will no doubt add some impetus to the growing abolitionist movement, and may even encourage the less doctrinaire members of the pro-prostitution group to reflect on their position critically. I believe that this book should be widely recommended and made available to students since it would at least help them to develop a more balanced view of these highly contestedissues.
—Roger Matthews, Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence
The Pimping of Prostitution is the most comprehensive account of the politics of the sex trade I have ever read. It goes well beyond raging at the crimes perpetrated against women and girls, although there is a great deal of justified rage at the heart of this book. It is a thorough refutation of the myths peddled by the pro-prostitution lobby.
—Louise Perry, Feminist Current
This book is comprehensive, authoritative, personally revealing, and a clear headed rage against a tide of modern double think. It will help feminism untangle itself from all the knots of faux progressiveness about prostitution, which is repackaging sexual abuse as empowerment. Bindel is a fearless, uncompromising voice who deserves to be universally heard.
—Janice Turner, Times Newspaper columnist
Julie Bindel knows violence against women when she sees it. In this amazing investigative book, she manages to break through the mist and exposes the realities of how the sex trade actually works - and who it benefits.
—Nimco Ali, activist and writer
A profoundly impressive piece of reporting and polemic into a commercial industry. You may love Bindel’s work, you may profoundly disagree with it. But it will never leave you indifferent, and it will always make you question, which is why there should be more of it.
—Rose George, Author and journalist
Julie Bindel shatters the myths, misconceptions and outright lies about the buying and selling of women’s bodies for sex. Her research into this devastating human rights violation against women and girls worldwide is powerful, profound and most important of all, irrefutable. It is the most thorough analysis of prostitution I have ever read!
—Victor Malarek, author of 'The Natashas: Inside the Global Sex Trade', and 'The Johns, Sex for Sale and the Men who Buy it'.
Bold, brilliant and brave. This is Julie Bindel at her best, demolishing the myths around prostitution and asking us to listen to survivors, the women and men who know the ugly reality first-hand.
—Joan Smith, author of 'Misogynies'