A review by ellagrant26
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights by Molly Smith, Juno Mac

5.0

This is a book that shines a radically new light on a topic I only vaguely comprehended. It masterfully takes on the fraught issue of prostitution by always centring the experience and working conditions of sex workers. It makes it blindingly obvious that any policy that affects sex workers must take into account the voice and concerns of the very people who are forced to live with the consequences. It showed examples of some almost comical laws criminalising sex work, such as a US law that forced an underage mother to quit school to make time for the state forced art therapy sessions after being arrested for prostitution. It underpins how the seemingly quick and easy solution of criminalising prostitution to 'protect' sex workers, instead throws the most vulnerable women to the wolves. It is an undeniably cruel act to arrest, evict and steal from sex workers for simply living in the same flat in a bid to protect each other from violent clients. To laud this treatment as a feminist win is a sickening joke. Criminalising sex work does absolutely nothing to address the root cause and if issues like poverty or restrictive immigration controls persist then vulnerable women will inevitably turn to sex work, regardless of its legality.

The laws that criminalise any part of sex work as illustrated in this book push more women into poverty and death. You can't protect sex workers by making their existence a crime.