What do you think?
Rate this book
Prostitution, Power and Freedom
Prostitution, Power and Freedom brings new insights to the ongoing debate among scholars, activists, and others on the controversial subject of prostitution. Sociologist Julia O'Connell Davidson's concise, accessibly-written study is based on wide research from various corners of the world. The study employs a range of theoretical analyses and argues against simplistic explanations of the prostitution phenomenon, showing it to be a complex relationship where economics, power relations, gender, age, class, and "choice" intersect.
The author has conducted an impressive amount of research in nine countries, including conversations with male and female sex tourists, adult and child prostitutes, procurers, and clients. Through her research, O'Connell Davidson demonstrates the complexity of prostitution, arguing that it is not simply an effect of male oppression and violence or insatiable sexual needs, nor is it an unproblematic economic encounter. The book provides a sophisticated explanation of the economic and political inequalities underlying prostitution, but also shows that while prostitution necessarily implies certain freedoms for the clients, the amount of freedom experienced by individual prostititutes varies greatly.
This highly accessible book will be of great interest to those in gender and women's studies, sexuality and cultural studies, the sociology of work and organizations, and social policy. General readers will also appreciate having new ways of thinking about this age-old social phenomenon.
Julia O'Connell Davidson is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Leicester.
The author has conducted an impressive amount of research in nine countries, including conversations with male and female sex tourists, adult and child prostitutes, procurers, and clients. Through her research, O'Connell Davidson demonstrates the complexity of prostitution, arguing that it is not simply an effect of male oppression and violence or insatiable sexual needs, nor is it an unproblematic economic encounter. The book provides a sophisticated explanation of the economic and political inequalities underlying prostitution, but also shows that while prostitution necessarily implies certain freedoms for the clients, the amount of freedom experienced by individual prostititutes varies greatly.
This highly accessible book will be of great interest to those in gender and women's studies, sexuality and cultural studies, the sociology of work and organizations, and social policy. General readers will also appreciate having new ways of thinking about this age-old social phenomenon.
Julia O'Connell Davidson is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Leicester.
240 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1998
44 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 4, 2010
I admire Davidson for being part of a very small group of people dedicated to doing real study of prostitution as it functions in "real life," but there are so many of the same familiar sociological mistakes so far--grouping independent "entrepreneurs" with child trafficking as somehow part of the same industry, ostensibly because there are orificies and dollars involved--makes it difficult for me to support her project wholeheartedly. We'll see how well her Marxism holds up as I get further along.
August 30, 2007
Very smart book. Really disentangles morality from our understanding of sex work. A+
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews