Suggested Reading

Contact: Research@coyoteri.org

COYOTE RIs Sex Work Policy- A tribute to December 17th:

Defining Sex Work in the US

  • The New Virtual Crackdown on Sex Workers’ Rights: Perspectives from the United States [Link]
  • Kamala Kempadoo- Global sex workers: rights, resistance, and redefinition
  • Frédérique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander – Sex work: writings by women in the sex industry [Link]
  • Robinson- Shih- The History of Sex Work Law in Rhode Island [Link]
  • “Understanding Sex for Sale: Meanings of Moralities of Sexual Commerce” by May-Len Skilbrei and Marlene Spanger [Link
  • “Are You Being Sex Trafficked?” By Tara Burns [Link
  • “Eight reasons why we shouldn’t use the term ‘modern slavery’” by Michael Dottridge [Link
  • “California Assemblyman: ‘We Have to Distinguish Between’ Prostitution and Sex Trafficking to Help Victims” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link
  • “Sex-Trafficking Victim Arrested for Selling Sex” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • Theorizing Sex Work: A Sectoral Approach (2024) by Ronald Weitzer [Link]

History of Sex Work in the US

  • Alison Bass – Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law [Link
  • Mary Laing, Katy Pilcher and Nicola Smith – Queer Sex Work [Link]
  • The Subject of Prostitution: Sex Work, Law, And Social Theory [Link]
  • Alexandra Frell Levy – The Virtues of Unvirtuous Spaces [Link]
  • POLICING SEXUALITY: THE MANN ACT AND THE MAKING OF THE FBI [Link]
  • Congress passes Mann Act, aimed at curbing sex trafficking [Link]
  • The FBI and the Madams {Link}
  • Hoke v. United States :: 227 U.S. 308 (1913) {Link}
  • The ‘Social Hygiene’ Campaign That Sent Thousands of American Women to Jail [Link}
  • 1870- A Vest Pocket Guide to Brothels in 19th-Century New York for Gentlemen on the Go {Link}

History of Sex Work in the Rhode Island

  • Robinson- Shih- The History of Sex Work Law in Rhode Island [Link]
  • RI ACLU PRESENTATION BEFORE THE SPECIAL LEGISLATIVE COMMISSION TO STUDY ENSURING RACIAL EQUITY AND OPTIMIZING HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS AFFECTING MARGINALIZED INDIVIDUALS February 28, 2022 Link
  • Members of House Sex Work Commission critical of both process and final report {Link}

GLOBAL SEX WORKER DAYS

  • International Whores’ Day June 2, 1975 Link
  • International Sex Worker Rights Day March 3, 2001  {Link}
  • International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers December 17, 20023 {Link}

Sex Work and the Trafficking Industrial Complex: 

  • 10 After Re-Criminalization- Reflecting on a Decade of Anti Trafficking Activism in Rhode Island 2019 (Coyote RI- CSSJ- Brown 2019) [Link]
  • Group Opposing Sex Work Fund Prosectors to do Stings (Melissa Grant 20180 [Link]
  • Fact check: Mask-wearing not connected to child trafficking- August 11th, 2020-[Link]
  • “The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade” by Ronald Weitzer
  • “The Priestess Identified Sex Worker: Prostitution as a Spiritual Revival” by Aphrodite Phoenix [Link]
  • “The Issue of Consent in the UN’s Anti-Trafficking Conventions of 1949 and 2000 and the Ramifications on Female Sex Workers’ Rights in Thailand” by Jennie Alexandra Williams [ Link]
  • “The Movement to Criminalize Sex Work” by Ronald Weitzer [Link]
  • “The Fight to Decriminalize Sex Work” by OpenDemocracy [ Link]
  • “Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs” by Alison Brysk [Link]
  • “Projects of Humanitarianism: Sex Trafficking and Migration in the Twenty-First Century United States” by Roxana Galusca [Link
  • “Beyond Sexual Humanitarianism: A Postcolonial Approach to Anti-Trafficking Law” Prabha Kotiswaran [Link
  • “Domestic Sex Trafficking and Exploitation of Aboriginal Women and Girls” by Nine Koebel [Link
  • “Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking” by Ronald Weitzer [Link
  • “Trafficking in Numbers: The Social Construction of Human Trafficking Data” by David A. Feingold [Link]
  • “Transgender People and Human Trafficking: Intersectional Exclusion of Transgender Migrants and People of Color from Anti-trafficking Protection in the United States” by Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Jennifer Musto, Heidi Hoefinger, Nicola Mai, P.G. Macioti, Calogero Giametta & Calum Bennachie [Link]
  • “Using Human Rights to Hold the US Accountable for its Anti-Sex Trafficking Agenda: The Universal Periodic Review and New Directions for US Policy” by Kari Lerum, Kiesha McCurtis, Penelope Saunders, Stephanie Wahab [Link]
  • “What’s the Cost of a Rumour? A guide to sorting out the myths and the facts about sporting events and trafficking” [Link
  • “Base Motives: The case for an increased focus on wage theft against migrant workers” by Benjamin Harkins [Link]
  • “Raising Awareness: of what? For what? By whom? For whom?” by David Feingold [Link]
  • “Rich in funds but short on facts: the high cost of human trafficking awareness campaigns” by Anne Elizabeth Moore [Link]  
  • “Behind the Rescue: How Anti-Trafficking Investigations and Policies Harm Migrant Sex Workers BUTTERFLY editor & author: Elene Lam [Link
  • “The anti-trafficking rehabilitation complex: commodity activism and slave-free goods” by Elena Shih [Link
  • “Marketing mass hysteria: anti-trafficking awareness campaigns go rogue” by Christine Sardina [Link
  • “Rescued from rights: the misogyny of anti-trafficking” by Kimberly Walters [Link
  • “Rescue by ‘force’ or rescue by ‘choice’” by Barnali Das [Link
  • “Trafficking in Lies” by Juno Mac and Molly Smith [Link
  • “Why shelter homes feel like prisons for sex trafficking survivors, and how to change this” by Rumpa Gupta [Link]
  • “Scandals in sex worker rescue shelters: is ‘awful’ distracting from ‘lawful’?” by Kimberly Walters [Link
  • “Se. Josh Hawley Says He ‘Took on an Asian Trafficking Ring’ and ‘Freed a Dozen Women in Sex Slavery.’ That’s Not True.”by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • “The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link
  • “Charging Child Sex-Trafficking Victims With Prostitution Is the Only Way to Save Them, Say California Prosecutors” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • Not in My “Backyard Abolitionism”: Vigilante Rescue against American Sex Trafficking {Link}

Sex Work Activism

  • Open Democracy- Beyond Trafficking and Slavery- Decarceral Alliances in the Fight to Decriminalize Sex Work- (Robinson-Chin 2020) [Link]
  • Open Democracy- Beyond Trafficking and Slavery- The Fight to Decriminalize Sex Work 2020 [Link]
  • Sex Workers Enter the National Landscape as Presidential Candidate Consider Sex Work-Study (Robinson-Singh 2020) [Link]
  • COYOTE RI- Global Implications of FOSTA (Peterson 2018) [Link]
  • COYOTE RI Interviews Scott Cunningham- Baylor University (Peterson 2019) [Link]
  • Melinda Chateauvert- Sex workers unite: a history of the movement from Stonewall to Slutwalk [Link]
  • Mgbako, Chi – To live freely in this world: sex worker activism in Africa- [Link]
  • Clayton Conn – The former sex worker who set up a retirement home. [Link]
  • Beyond Strange Bedfellows- Political Research Association (Melissa Grant ) [Link]
  • “Sex Workers Speak. Who Listens?” by P.G. Macioti and Giulia Garofalo Geymonat [Link]
  • “Do Evidence-Based Approaches Alienate Canadian Anti-Trafficking Funders?” by Alison Clancey, Noushin Khushrushahi, Julie Ham [Link
  • “When Services Allow Organizing, Trafficked Workers Win” by Tiffany Williams [Link]
  • “Anti-trafficking campaign harms migrant sex workers” [Link
  • “Sex workers speak: who listens?” by Giulia Garofalo Geymonat [Link
  • “Introduction: do the hidden costs outweigh the practical benefits of human trafficking awareness campaigns?” by Elena Shih and Joel Quirk [Link
  • “Putting sex workers’ rights at the centre” by Chus Alvarez [Link
  • How to Survive Being Rescued from Sex Trafficking by Tara Burns {Link}
  • From Teenaged Prostitute to Sex Workers’ Rights Advocate by Tara Burns {Link}
  • Are You Being Sex Trafficked? By Tara Burns {Link}

Current Issues: Policy, Perception, and SW Organizing Today

POLICE VIOLENCE & EXPLOITATION

  • When Police Are the Pimps: The SBB Exclusive Interview with Donah Sandford – June 18th, 2020 [Link]
  • Navigating Force and Choice: Experiences in the New York City Sex Trade and the Criminal Justice System’s Response [Link]
  • “Survey on the Criminalization of Clients in France” Nicola Mai [Link]
  • “How to Stage a Raid: Police, Media and the master narrative of trafficking” by Annie Hill [Link
  • “Beyond ‘raid and rescue’: time to acknowledge the damage being done” by Kimberly Walters [Link
  • “Chicago Cop Arrested for Sex Trafficking and Child Porn, Accused of Paying Teens — Including Braces-Weating 14-Year Old — for Sex” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link
  • “‘National Sex Trafficking Crackdown’ Nets Zero Sex Traffickers” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • “Congress Wants to Let Cops Wiretap Sex Workers, the CDC Study Them, and Homeland Security Screen Them” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • “ICE Agents Fight Sex Trafficking by Paying Potential Victims for Hand Jobs” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]  
  • “Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart Creating National Database of Sex Buyers” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link
  • “Lewd Acts and Prostitution Among Charges for California Cops — If Alleged Victim Gets out of Florida Jail” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link
  • “Prostitution-Ring-Running Cop Sees Court, But Police Who Extort Sex Often Go Unpunished” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link]
  • “D.C. Cop Pays 15-Year-Old for Sex, Steals the Money Back at Gunpoint Afterward” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown [Link

A Reading List on SESTA/ FOSTA

Sex Workers Rights

  • The Cut (Melissa Gira Grant), 7 Sex Workers on what it means to lose backpage: [Link]
  • Tits and Sass, sex workers are not collateral damage an interview with Kate D’Adamo: [Link]
  • Tits and Sass, Post-SESTA/FOSTA Self-Censoring for Twitter, Reddit, and other Social Media: [Link]
  • Jezebel, Facing SESTA and Political Threats [Link]
  • Vice, Sex Trafficking Bill Will Take Away Online Spaces Sex Workers Need to Survive [Link]
  • “Rights not rescue for migrant sex workers” by Luca Stevenson [Link
  • “We have the right not to be ‘rescued’: When Anti-Trafficking Programmes Undermine the Health and Well-Being of Sex Workers” by Aziza Ahmed and Meena Seshu [Link

Dating/Online Community (LGBTQ rights, not explicitly sex work)

  • Washington Post, As Craigslist personal ads shut down, we’re losing an important queer space [Link]

Digital Censorship

  • Slate, Why Internet Advocates Are Against the Anti–Sex Trafficking Bill: [Link]
  • Tech Freedom, Merging SESTA & FOSTA Would Harm, Not Help, Trafficking Victims: [Link]
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation, Stop SESTA/FOSTA: Don’t Let Congress Censor the Internet: [Link]
  • The technology liberation front, Revised FOSTA is a big improvement over SESTA—but still not perfect: [Link]
  • Technology, Marketing, and Law Blog, Why FOSTA’s Restriction on Prostitution Promotion Violates the First Amendment: [Link]
  • The EARN it Bill is the Government’s Plan to Scan Evert Message Online [Link]

Other

  • Webcam Startup, List of Services That Have Impacted By SESTA/FOSTA [Link]
  • Sex Ed, The Verge, ANTI-SEX TRAFFICKING LAW FOSTA IS HURTING ONLINE SEX EDUCATORS, TOO [Link]

New Zealand

  • The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand: An Estimation- 2005 [Link]
  • The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade- RONALD WEITZER (Need to add pdf link)
  • The Nature and Extent of the Sex Industry in New Zealand: An Estimation- 2005 [Link]

More Research @ https://coyoteri.org/sex-work-policy/