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Journal of Women's History 15.4 (2004) 141



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Sex Work and Women's Labor around the World


Prostitution has frequently been studied as a system of social coercion, part of public health programs to prevent venereal disease, as well as intrinsic to the commodification of and trafficking in women. Exploring prostitution as an integral part of labor history, however, is as infrequent as analyzing the relationship of the erotic to work. As Joanna Brewis and Stephen Linstead have argued, traditional views of labor have avoided analyzing the role of sexuality in work, particularly sex work. Yet they believe that the organization of pleasure is central to an analysis of all forms of work, and therefore sex work is a central rather than marginal topic.1 To remedy the limited historical studies of prostitution as female labor, the Journal of Women's History asked several historians specializing in distinct time periods and cultures to reflect on the issue. The results, seen in the following pieces, range chronologically from the Middle Ages to the present, and geographically from Europe and the United States, to Africa and Latin America. Together, they challenge other historians to reassess the meanings of work in prostitution.



—Donna J. Guy

Endnote

1. Joanna Brewis and Stephen Linstead, Sex, Work, and Sex Work: Eroticizing Organization (London: Routledge, 2000), 1.

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