Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade

Reviews

Prostitution Narratives is a compelling collection of first-person accounts of survival in the brutal prostitution market in industrialised countries. The women describe the way prostitution destroys a person’s identity, health and self-worth, leaving them without safety or a rightful place in the world. The world owes a debt of gratitude to these women for their courage in speaking out against the most cruel, organized economic system in the world. These narratives should serve as a rallying cry for action to end this modern-day slave trade.

—Donna M. Hughes, Professor & Eleanor M. and Oscar M. Carlson Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies, University of Rhode Island

Whatever your stand on prostitution, it’s the first-hand stories of women that have to be listened to first. These accounts are among the most unsettling you will ever read, dispelling in just a few pages the comforting fairytales our society has built around ‘sex work’.

—Steve Biddulph, author of 'Raising Boys'

Debates about prostitution and possible ways to end it allow all of us to distance ourselves into thinking about the practice as essentially harmless.  Reading the stories of women who have lived through it changes that immediately.

—M.D. Brady, Me, You, and Books

Compiled by feminists Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, the curtain is yanked back and what it reveals is not a pretty sight. Exploitation, trafficking, violence, degradation, depression, drug and alcohol addiction, suicide and murder are part of the territory – not to mention the misogynistic and sadistic nature of the “punters”.

—Judith Baragwanath, North & South Magazine

Informed and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking, Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade is a compelling and exceptional read from beginning to end, making it very highly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary Social Issues reference collections

—Mary Cowper, Midwest Book Review

Tanja Rahm, 35, from Denmark spent three years working as a prostitute from the age of 20 and has written the letter to her former clients to let them know she was never attracted to them and that she saw through all of their attempts to come across as caring. Her letter is included in a new book Prostitution Narratives, which includes accounts from women from all over the world who have survived the sex industry. 

—Siofra Brennan

I hate the term sex work. It is a lie. It is mental violence to those of us who have the reality of being prostituted inside every cell of our bodies. It is a language that erases male violence, erases how organised the sex trade is, and erases any access to human rights for the prostituted. Alongside the term sex work, are other terms or lies, such as – empowerment, choice and female liberation

—Rebecca Mott

“I was groomed very young by society, a neoliberal culture,” former prostitute Simone Watson, from Western Australia, told news.com.au. “I came from a pretty lovely family. I called myself a feminist.

—Emma Reynolds

FORMER PROSTITUTE TAKES AIM AT HER CLIENTS IN SCATHING LETTER

This letter, adapted from one that first appeared on the Danish website Welt, is one of 18 personal stories published in Prostitution Narratives: Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, a new book by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist.

—news.com.au

The recent publication of Prostitution Narratives - Stories of Survival in the Sex Trade, edited by Caroline Norma and Melinda Tankard Reist, has certainly made me rethink the validity of consent in the case of what we nowadays euphemistically call "sex work".

—Michael Jensen, The Drum

Powerful and painful. Read it and weep. This book is an essential tool in the fight for freedom.

—Danielle Strickland, anti-trafficking advocate and author

Prostitution Narratives sunders any notions we have that the majority of ‘sex workers’ have full choice, full bodily autonomy, in the sex trade. Their voices are powerful, disturbing, complicated, honest and extraordinarily brave. Listen to their words. And pass them on.

—Victoria A. Brownworth, columnist, Pulitzer Prize nominee, author of Lost in America: The Story of Juvenile Prostitution.

This book is courageous and lucid truth-telling about a global industry that anyone who is remotely thoughtful or ethical would know is saturated with extreme forms of exploitation, crime, violence and systemic corruption. Their voices are a wake-up call to all of those who claim to defend human rights.

—Abigail Bray, academic, author of Misogyny Re-loaded and co-editor of Big Porn Inc.

These survivors of prostitution are the leading edge of the abolitionist movement; their voices are the bedrock on which our movement is built. Like slave narratives, prostitution survivors’ truths are compelling, revealing, and deeply disturbing.

—Melissa Farley, PhD, Executive Director, Prostitution Research & Education

Reading these generous Survivor Narratives is a humbling experience for any man. Hearing this ‘common language’ may be the key to substantive solidarity with women, against profiteers and politicians.

—Martin Dufresne, Tradfem translation collective, anti-sexism activist, Canada

How precious the voices of women! Those trying to end male violence against women are confirmed by this truth-telling. Their valiant endurance and escapes confirm what we theorized: that prostitution is best understood as an institution of men’s dominance of women, its methods as violent and oppressive as any right wing dictator’s death squad.

—Lee Lakeman, feminist activist, front line anti-violence worker at the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, Canada

An antidote to the hollow cant that prostitution is inevitable, a choice, and just a job like any other. These are the voices that tell the truth about prostitution. These are the voices that the media ignores. These are the voices that Amnesty International rejected when it resolved to decriminalize pimps and prostitution users. A heartrendingly frank and honest account about the brutality of prostitution from the women who have been there.

—Janice Raymond, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts, and Board of Directors, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

In this book, brave articulate prostitution survivors describe the myriad forms of violence they suffered in stripclubs, web-camming, pornography and other forms of prostitution. At last their voices join those of other women survivors, of rape, child rape, violence against women in the home, whose knowledge and activism inspired feminist campaigns and changes in the law. It is hard to believe anyone reading this book could still seriously say that prostitution is a job like any other and that it should be called ‘sex work’. This book is an invaluable foundation for defining prostitution as a form of men’s violence that should be outlawed in law and culture.

—Sheila Jeffreys, Professorial Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, author of The Idea of Prostitution and The Industrial Vagina

Prostitution Narratives is a call to revolutionary action. In these pages you will graphically understand that prostitution is the degradation of and cruelty to women. You will be sickened. You will be enraged. You will be filled with disgust that this sexual violence and enslavement of women and girls not only is allowed to continue but is facilitated by governments and even so-called human rights organizations. Most of all, you will be inspired by the courage, resilience and fortitude of these survivors. You cannot read this book and say “I didn’t know.”

—Kathy Sloan, feminist advocate and author specializing in the sexual and reproductive objectification of women

As you read, be prepared to feel both grief and rage. Prostitution Narratives forces us to face the routine cruelty of the sexual-exploitation industries and go beyond the diversionary arguments of those who glorify ‘sex work.’ Most importantly, this book asks men to choose: What do we value more, our own sexual pleasure or the humanity of women? Our answer reveals whether we believe in our own humanity.

—Robert Jensen, University of Texas at Austin, author of 'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity'