Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry

by Annie Oakley

Being a sex worker isn’t something to write home about for most women (and men) in the $12 billion-a-year sex industry.

Prostitutes, strippers, and adult film stars put themselves, and what they do for a living, out on the street, stage, and TV screen every day, but they often keep their working lives hidden from friends, family, and other employers. They do this because sex work is widely considered illegal, unhealthy, and immoral.

Edited by Annie Oakley, Working Sex, New Voices from a Changing Industry features stories and contributions from sex workers—strippers, prostitutes, domes, film stars, phone sex operators, and internet models—who are speaking out. This provocative anthology showcases voices from a vibrant community intent on unmasking the jobs they do with dignity and pride.

Contributors tackling issues of class, gender, race, labor, and sexuality with blazing insight and critical observations include Michelle Tea, Stephen Elliot, Nomy Lamm, Ana Voog, Vaginal Davis, and Mirha-Soleil Ross.

Genres: Sex Work, Nonfiction, Feminism, Sexuality, Anthologies, Adult, Queer

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

American sharpshooter Annie Oakley, originally Phoebe Ann Moses, worked as the star attraction of show of Wild West of William Frederick Cody, known as Buffalo Bill.

From the association of the punched ticket with one bullet-riddled target, "Annie Oakley" means a free pass.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_O...

Reviews

[John Turner]

How do you objectively write a review for a sex book? Answer. In the dark. Under the covers. With an alias or pseudonym. Incognito. I was scanning shelves at a clearance sale at a closing bookstore when "sex" just jumped right off the shelf at me. Some words just do that, you know. I perused the title, I'll admit, with some prurient interest. I read the front and back covers, the "about the editor" page and perused some of the chapter titles. With the exception of the editor, Annie Oakley, I didn't recognize a single name . . . to my credit. I recognized Annie Oakley as an in-your-face advocate for legalizing prostitution in the SF Bay Area in the 1990s, along with one of the book's featured authors, Gloria Lockett, one of the co-directors of Oakland-based COYOTE (Cast Off Your Old Tied Ethics), also an advocacy group seeking rights for sex workers.

The book consisted of 31 unique and diverse short stories, poems and songs by sex workers, porn stars, cross dressers, strippers, stage performers, gay and straight, transsexuals, etc. Some of the stories were biographical, some were graphic performances,. Others championed their decision, while some expressed regret. Writers, lecturers, filmmakers, photographers, publishers, advocates -- but sex workers all and proud of it. There is little shame between the covers of this book.

Chapter titles include: "Pimp," "College Graduate Makes Good as Courtesan," "Sugar and Me," and "My Strpper Year." The book was not as titilating as I expected.

[lola]

Check it out--a sex worker anthology! More recent with a hipper cover than Whores and Other Feminists and Sex Work: An Anthology.

Cool, okay, so let's see--we've got the non-sex-worker Brown graduates doing their dissertations on real sex workers--at least we've got them actually interviewing them this time instead of lensing what they've said--we've got the hilarious and sympathetic phone girls, strippers, the dommes, we are lucky and Stephen Elliot gets TWO essays, an essay from a real pimp, Vaginal Creme Davis lyrics. OK women of color representation, OK trans and male sex worker representation. Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, secret treat essay by Anna-Joy Springer that you should read even if you have to stand looking casual next to the bookcases in Barnes & Noble to do it. It's near the back of the book.

I feel like there should be a big sticker on this that says, "Only approximately 65% San Francisco bullshit!"

[Jeannie]

I could not relate to any of the stories in this book. it was actually painful for me to finish reading it. I do not recommend anyone to waste their time reading this. ..it is good for only one thing...starting a fire.

[Dana Jerman]

3.5 ⭐️🌟⭐️
Syntax was confusing in certain places in some of these pieces. The ones I wanted to last longer and go further felt purposefully halted! The range of voices present however is fabulous and I appreciate such thoughtful execution and inclusion on the subject found herein.

[noey ♡☁️]

this anthology had me nodding one minute and squinting the next. great stories, wild typos. the editor of this book must’ve gone on strike halfway through. 3 stars out of respect for the workers, not the commas (or lack of).

[Hannah Erb]

Some of the short stories were really good but some of them sucked

[Courtney Trouble]

I've been to over 6 Sex Worker Art Shows, and this book feels like that, except for that you can take it home, keep it forever, and visit that mental place whenever you want to or need to. Some of the best SWAS performers, as well as others you never made it into that fateful van, provide a wonderful, dramaticly varied, collection of stories. Also, I must say that it's quite fun to open a book and say to myself, "I know that girl! I'm so happy she's published!" ;)

[Chris]

This book is a good step on humanizing sex workers. To the general public its easy to overlook that hookers and others who work in the sex industry are real people with opinions and feelings as well.

[Julia]

Love own voices books from one of the most marginalized groups around. The Anna Joy Springer story blew my mind. Should I have opened this first thing in the morning to try to finish it by the due date? Maybe not. But that’s on me

[Madelyn]

Really enjoyed the diverse stories from so many different avenues of the industry! And cool to hear about all these stories pre smartphone/social media. Truly the good bad & ugly of the industry.

[Shana]

One of the books I read last week = Working Sex: Sex Workers Write about a Changing Industry, edited by Annie Oakley. The collection of essays are from women, men, transgenders, and any other categorization you can think of and their involvement in sex work includes pornographic films, websites, exotic dancing, escorts, and more. Just as the work is varied, so are the people and the ways in which they express themselves. Some essays read very scholarly and others are like stream of consciousness poetry. It’s definitely worth reading if you’re looking to get the perspective that only someone who has done the work would know.

[Lani]

It turns out that being a sexworker doesn't make you a very good writer! Having interesting and fascinating stories to tell doesn't mean you can tell them well.

So... this was not a collection of great writing. But I liked that there was a variety - male and female and trans, queer and straight, good experiences and bad ones, strippers and hookers, poems and songs, stream of consciousness fantasy and first person stories. The book makes an effort to show the broad range of sex work, who experiences it, and how they experience it.

But it wasn't very good.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez]

I didn't finish this so I'm using the two star, 'it was okay', rating from what i did read. I got almost halfway before I realized just how much I was avoiding it.
I assumed this was more like cut-and-dry essays from different types of sex workers and while some of them do seem to be slightly like that, this is far too artsy for me.

[Catherine]

I'd recommend reading this book alongside something else (perhaps alongside several other books) as opposed to using it as your daily subway reading. Because this is a collection of vignettes and poems rather than a whole story, reading snippets about sex workers' lives became somewhat tedious ... which is probably not the goal of this collection.

[Bart]

All of the pieces in Working Sex are short and maybe this length is for the better. I enjoyed the interview with Gloria Lockett and a couple of the other essays were good; the rest of the pieces were just okay.

[Christa]

I generally enjoyed this book. Like any collection, not all of the pieces were fantastic, but enough of them were to make it an enjoyable read.

Some of my favorites were:
Staged ~Janelle Galazia
An Interview with Gloria Lockett ~Siobhan Brooks
Dear John ~Mirha-Soleil Ross

[Michelle Hoogterp]

This is a great collection. I highly recommend this book to folks interested in human sexuality, history of it, or about sex workers. My favorite piece is "my pride and broken buzzers" which is written using a unique way to talk about her body and breast implants. She's great at using metaphors.

[Hannah]

First-hand accounts of sex workers' lives from people of both sexes and from a variety of social strata. You'll leave this book with less of an idea of what sex work is than when you started--it complicates your ideas in a variety of ways, and lets you really consider the human element to sex work.

[Ariel]

A very interesting look at various aspects of the sex industry, told in funny and heart-wrenching ways by a variety of workers.
I really enjoyed it! Some of the stories I skipped over, because I didn't quite like the writing style, and others I couldn't get enough of!

[Angel S]

Some good stories, some difficult to get through, some entertaining, some informative. A good mix of stories from sex workers.

[Sarah York-Bertram]

This was a fun read but there were a lot of editing issues throughout.

[Raja Arslan]

i want to read.

[Krysta Sa]

vaginal davis is the shit.

[Astrosleuththepoet]

Nice little anecdotes and stories in there from all walks in the sex industry.

[Ckiara Fleurima]

That people are people and some are hornier than others. Don't burst their bubble.

[Mara]

Some of these recollections are fluid in their structure; others are overly pretentious.