Based on a multi-year ethnography of street prostitution in Denver, Colorado, this chapter offers a holistic portrait of the women's work and everyday lives. It distinguishes different types of street workers, describes the women's demographic backgrounds and working styles, and examines their relationships with other actors (local residents, drug dealers, clients) as well as with the police and social service professionals. Based on a multi-year ethnography of street prostitution in Denver, Colorado, this chapter offers a holistic portrait of the women's work and everyday lives. It distinguishes different types of street workers, describes the women's demographic backgrounds and working styles, and examines their relationships with other actors as well as with the police and social service professionals. The men are often men of color, in their late teens to early thirties, observing passersby who are attempting to purchase small amounts of illicit drugs, usually crack cocaine although other substances are on offer. Sex industry researchers often regard street prostitution as an over-studied sector due to the large number of publications about it, yet these publications largely derive from the fields of public health, criminal justice, and social work, and accordingly interpret participants' lives by focusing on problems of interest to those particular fields.

This chapter describes the logic of three policy models, and then draws on studies that directly compare two or three of them in practice. The analysis shows that criminalization produces multiple harms for the participants. Simple decriminalization - which is rare internationally - amounts to a laissez-faire approach lacking the specific safeguards and official oversight that are central to the legalization model. However, under legalization the types of regulation vary tremendously cross-nationally, with some rules being overbearing or counterproductive, so it is important that the regulations be aligned with a standard set of "best practices," which are outlined here. Rather than simply declaring one model superior to the others in the abstract, it is imperative that scholars and policy makers identify what works best in practice in advancing the health and safety of all participants involved in sex for sale.

The chapter reports the results of research that examined the characteristics of 177 pornography actresses from three different perspectives. The first details the motivations, likes, and dislikes of the adult entertainment industry. The second compares pornography actresses to the perceptions held by college students regarding work-related behaviors, non-work-related sexual behaviors and attitudes, and attitudes and behaviors regarding STDs. And the third compared pornography actresses to a group of non-sex workers who were matched on age, ethnicity, and marital status. The groups were compared on childhood sexual abuse, sexual behaviors and attitudes, self-esteem, quality of life, and alcohol and drug use, and the findings challenge some common assumptions about the women involved in pornography.

This chapter describes sexually oriented illicit massage parlors based on a spatial analysis of massage parlor locations and interviews with 116 Asian immigrant women working in such parlors in Los Angeles County and New York City. By "illicit," we mean massage parlors that purport to operate as legal businesses but where sexual services are illegally bought and sold. This chapter discusses whether such parlors cluster geographically; pathways for immigrant women into massage parlor work; relationships between workers and their managers; and the degree to which the work is exploitative and stigmatizing. This chapter describes the illicit massage parlor industry, which was brought into sharp focus with the murders in early 2021 of six Asian women who worked in massage parlors in Atlanta, Georgia. One study examined a 2006 federal case in which 41 Korean owners, managers, and associates were arrested for operating illicit massage parlors in the US The researchers identified three key roles: middlemen, owners, and money transmitters. Middlemen recruited workers, transported them to illicit massage parlors throughout the Northeastern US, and acted as a conduit for communications between and among owners and Korean women workers. While illicit massage parlor workers are at high risk of being targets of sexual violence and robbery, they are isolated from police protection because of the criminalization of prostitution or their undocumented immigration status. Studying illicit massage parlors, therefore, can give insight into the plight of many Asian immigrant women and extend our understanding of the range of immigrant employment experiences.

While commercial stripping has been an attractive topic among sociologists for several decades, much of the existing research concentrates on women who dance for men. In this chapter, I use qualitative methods to understand the experiences of men who dance for women. I spent 18 months at a club where I conducted 22 in-depth interviews with male strippers. The chapter explores how the male strip show reproduces traditional, stereotypical gender roles in two main ways: dancers' physical interactions with customers and customers' hypermasculine behavior. This chapter explores how the male strip show reproduces traditional, stereotypical gender roles in two main ways: dancers' physical interactions with customers and customers' hypermasculine behavior. While commercial stripping has been an attractive topic among sociologists for several decades, much of the existing research concentrates on women who dance for men. Gendered performances are magnified and exaggerated at strip clubs because both dancers and customers rely on traditional, stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity while engaging in impression management. The remaining participants described their ethnicity as Hawaiian, Hungarian, Laotian, Italian, Spanish, Latino, French/Native American, or Puerto Rican. All identified as heterosexual. The space contained four octagonal stages, two bars, and a large dance floor. Disco balls, strobe lights, and multi-colored spotlights hung from the ceiling, and almost all the walls were lined with mirrors. The illustration of gender roles was the physically aggressive ways in which participants handled female patrons.

Most of the women in my study of alternative pornography see their work as activism, centering on feminism, sex-positivity, identity politics, and/or sex education. A background in activism or sex education are two of the main motivations for entering this sector of the industry and these orientations were used in crafting their product. Producers and performers seek to create pornography that is an alternative to the mainstream: centering women's pleasure, paying attention to gender and race representations, producing products created by women and for women, and creating diverse representations. For some, the goal is to make fundamental changes to the mainstream industry that will benefit those actors and audiences as well.

Recent media coverage has often characterized purchasing sex as part of a "human trafficking problem," applying a framework that inaccurately describes most consensual prostitution encounters. Relying on a diverse body of research on sex buying, this chapter describes people who pay for sex, their motives, and the scope of demand for transactional sex. We find that male sex buyers are not generally distinct from other men and that most of those who are arrested are inexperienced. We also find that some men who have never paid for sex would consider doing so under some circumstances. We then describe women who pay for sex and the dynamics associated with those exchanges. We continue by examining clients' motives, finding that they are diverse and varied, with a substantial proportion of buyers seeking emotional and relational experiences similar to those found in conventional non-commercial relationships. Additionally, we describe "sugar dating," a legal form of relational and sexual exchange that further requires reconsidering the nature of sex work and its framing in our cultural discourse.

The Internet has revolutionized sex work. Yet most research on digital sex work has focused on indoor workers, including escorts and cam girls, rather than considering how the proliferation of online classified and phone apps may create more opportunities for street-based workers. In our interviews with 59 street-based workers in Washington, DC, three-quarters used Internet advertising either currently or in the past. Workers who stopped using online platforms cited safety, lack of privacy, and poverty as major barriers to continuing this work. Our findings call for researchers to reconsider the common practice of labeling workers by a "primary" marketplace. This chapter discusses the workers in identity-associated strolls are primarily motivated by lack of employment opportunities rather than the procurement of drugs. The Internet has radically changed how businesses reach and interact with their customers. Sex workers were among the first proprietors to set up business online, recognizing its value in reaching new markets. In both media accounts and research, street-based sex work is frequently depicted as a fleeting interaction, with limited emotional connection between worker and client, making providers essentially interchangeable. Recruitment for this study, then, followed previous methods used by other researchers to reach street-based sex workers. When contacted, participants were actively working along the stroll and met individually with the authors in the van. Besides enhancing their comfort, certain participants felt working online was safer since it enabled more thorough evaluation and screening of clients than street-based work.

This chapter examines the historical developments in pornographic media, popularity, and consumption patterns since the late 1960s, describing the central role of technological developments in reshaping both the industry and its place in society over the last five decades. The chapter describes the gradual normalization of pornography and identifies four broad trends in the demographics of pornography's viewership, viewers' preferences, pornographic performers, and the content available to viewers. These include an increase in female viewership, growth in the supply and consumption of amateur pornography, younger performers and consumers, and the mainstreaming of BDSM. This chapter discusses the key historical developments in pornographic media, popularity, and consumption patterns since the late 1960s. In tandem with their broader role in normalizing pornography, digital technologies may be enabling women's consumption of online pornography and influencing women's sexual desires. Still, the complex picture presented above may serve to mitigate some of the concerns expressed by anti-pornography scholars about the harmful impacts of normalization, particularly concerning sexual objectification and aggression. In contrast to gonzo and pro-am genres, in amateur pornography couples often construct the scene jointly, which may work toward rebalancing power and autonomy. A third notable trend is the growing involvement of younger people, on both the production and consumption side. Members of the BDSM community have also noted the lack of explicit consent in BDSM pornography. The invention and availability of videocassette recorders in the early 1980s ended pornography's golden age and launched the video era, which lasted until the early 1990s.

This chapter describes commonalities and differences in the experiences of men and women engaged in escorting, including methods of advertising and client outreach, screening protocols, safer sex practices, and niche markets within escorting. Experiences of stigma, ways of managing or resisting stigma, and racial and ethnic differences in escorting experiences are reported. The findings were drawn from two samples of escorts advertising online in the Northeastern U.S. based on survey and qualitative interview data. While many commonalities were documented across the experiences of men and women escorts, key gender differences were found as well. This chapter describes commonalities and differences in the experiences of men and women engaged in escorting, including methods of advertising and client outreach, screening protocols, safer sex practices, and niche markets within escorting. Research on sex work has often reflected society's perceptions rather than those of sex workers themselves. Street prostitution continues to dominate the discourse on sex work, neglecting the diversity of venues and differences among the workers themselves. The business of escorting requires skill in marketing, building, and maintaining relationships with clients, as well as responding to the needs and variations of the market. While some previous studies have described a period of training and apprenticeship within sex work - typically brothel-based work - independent and agency-based escorts often learn the ropes through trial and error. The sample roughly reflected the demographic characteristics of women advertising online and working in other indoor sex work venues.