How does the sex industry look? a facebook album
16 February 2009 in sex work by | 12 comments | 
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With all uproar focused on the morality of buying and selling sex, most people have little idea what much of the sex industry actually looks like. Or rather, the media repeatedly show the same images of women in short skirts and high boots leaning into car windows, giving the impression that street hooking is the dominant situation, which is far from the truth. And, of course, we are constantly shown horrifying images of the worst sites and victims of trafficking and exploitation (you can provide those yourselves, so no link).
At the same time, millions of people the world over work in the sex industry, in jobs other than providing sexual services. And more millions visit, drive or walk 
past sites without even thinking about it because they look ordinary. I’ve created a theoretical framework for doing research about the sex industry in all its detail, called the Cultural Study of Commercial Sex, and other researchers are doing this ethnographic and evidence-based work. So I think it’s interesting to show some ordinary pictures, and I’ve made an album on Facebook that’s accessible to everyone (even people who would rather die than join social networking sites themselves – you know who you are). You can click on each photo to see it larger, with its caption, and comment on it if you like.
Photos include strippers, a Soho walk-up, brothels in the Czech Republic, Austria, Cambodia, Mexico, Australia, the USA and Germany, Soi Cowboy and Pattaya in Thailand, sex shops in Finland and Taiwan, hostess and karaoke clubs in Japan and China, brothel paintings by Toulouse Lautrec and Vincent Van Gogh and historical pictures. See the album here. It’s a work in progress, so if anyone has pictures to contribute, let me know, as long as you have permission to send them.
Tags: culture, demand, money, sex tourism, sexwork
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Right on, Laura! We all have the right to use our own time, money, body, and justly acquired property as we choose, so long as it does not involve initiating force or fraud against others. Decriminalize prostitution now!
For more on the philosophy of liberty, this video is highly recommended: http://www.isil.org/resources/introduction.swf
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Pingback from The Sex Round Up « Neuroanthropology on 21 February 2009 at 15:25
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I will like to join film idustry
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Posted this same comment at soc. images where your site and album were noted, but am posting it here too as you’ve really got me thinking and asking some questions and here they are:
Is there a reason soc. images (and Laura herself at her blog) chose to show only pictures of European or American brothels (with the exception of the old 19th century pic from Japan)? In the facebook album, there are few pictures of Asian brothels as well as non-European sex workers, though the European exterior shots seem to dominate there as well. Is the assumption here (interesting in and of itself) that westerners will find sex trafficking or sex work more palatable and acceptable if it’s show as being “European”-ized? Thus, in an album attempting to show how sex work is (or should be thought to be) normalized, are we intentionally being shown the Euro/American/first-world/unionized and/or legalized vision, as opposed to less salubrious but nonetheless equally real visions? I appreciate the effort to get people to think outside of the box, but it also seems a little bit like we’re white-washing the box here, and that doesn’t seem to help us think critically, no?
Also, is the question that we should be focusing on here really that of the exterior? It seems to me that what a brothel looks like on the outside matters far less than what is going on on the inside and in the individual lives of the sex workers. Shouldn’t our focus be not on the exterior presentation, but on whether or not we’re looking at the homes of sex workers with agency and some measure of safety, or that of sexually trafficked people (mostly women) working against their will? How does looking at a building help us address either end of the spectrum, or those in between?
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Awesome blog. Will visit again. Thanks
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Sex at the Margins
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