Melissa Gira Grant

This is the first in-depth reading I've done on sex work and sex workers and I found it fascinating and eye opening. I especially enjoyed the author positing that instead of sex work being oppressive or empowering--as different sides in the feminist argument over it insist--that it is value neutral and that it's okay to be that way.

I think I'll be returning to this book again as I continue my research in this area.

(Provided by publisher)

“Sex work can indeed be empowering. But that is not the point. Money is the fucking point.”
- Melissa Gira Grant, Playing the Whore

Growing up I had three basic images of sex work (although I didn’t call it that then): the Julia Roberts / Pretty Woman version; the desperate, drug addicted woman; and the ‘sex slave’ in another country who was ‘rescued’ regularly on Dateline and 48 Hours. I didn’t spend time thinking about sex workers, but I did wonder why sex work was illegal in show more most places.

Recently I’ve become more interested in labor rights; specifically how society views certain types of labor as worthy (of money or legality) and others as deserving of criminalization or at least disdain. I live in Seattle, where the fight to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour was met with such charming arguments from non-shift workers as ‘what did a McDonald’s worker do to deserve that? I barely make that!’ as though people in the fast food industry aren’t working just as hard as people sitting in air conditioned offices, able to take coffee and bathroom breaks whenever they want.

This interest led me to Ms. Grant’s book. She takes a perspective that is missing in coverage of sex work and workers – one that does not start by asking ‘should people do sex work’ but instead asks what can we do to improve the lives of the people who work in that industry. The book is well-written and educated me on the topic, but when asked to describe it in a few sentences I have a hard time. Each chapter feels like a separate essay in a broader collection, and initially I was not sure of the main purpose of the book, as it covers a broad area. It is not a linear history of sex work, nor is it an argument (primarily) for the decriminalization or legalization of sex work. It is more than that.

Going back through my notes and rereading the portions I highlighted does bring more clarity to me. That is a function not of Ms. Grant’s writing, but of my need to re-read the book to better take in all of the information she shares. Her purpose seems to be to point out all of the ways in which people who seek to help sex workers fail, and in doing so Ms. Grant draws the reader’s attention to the need for the reader to take actions in solidarity with these workers, and support those who can change the conditions of their lives for the better, not pull them out of sex work or make it more dangerous for them to perform the work they do.

Ms. Grant illustrates this in many ways, including critiquing the fight against online posting of sex worker ads and the large anti-sex work organizations that purport to rescue sex workers from horrible conditions. Ms. Grant points out that so many of the ‘rescued’ end up in worse situations, with less agency than they had when doing sex work, and concludes that this stems from the inability of so many to see these women and men as people doing a job and not as one-dimensional ‘whores.’

“The goal, these antiprostitute advocates say, of eradicating men’s desire for paid sex isn’t ‘antisex’ but to restore the personhood of prostitutes, that is, of people who are already people except to those who claim to want to fix them.”

That’s the point, really. Sex workers are people first, people who make their money in the sex work industry. The problems these workers face doesn’t stem from the morality of sex work – they originate with the rest of society, which is invested in making sex work dangerous. The question the reader is left with – that I am left with – is what am I going to do to benefit these workers? show less

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant is part of a series of books intended to provide "short interrogations on politics, economics, and culture from a socialist perspective". I frankly, like books that make me question my perspective on something that I feel fairly settled on. Even if I don't end up agreeing with the ideas presented, at least I have considered a new point of view and hopefully more deeply examined why I hold the opinions that I do. This book show more definitely made me rethink some of my ideas about sex work, even if I ultimately wasn't convinced by several of the author's arguments.

It is hard to summarize the content of this book, which contains both practical (i.e., "in any conversation about sex work, sex workers should take the lead in shaping the discussion, since it is about their work and their lives") and academic (i.e., discussions about the terminology that should be used to talk about people who do sex work). The book consists of several chapters with a different focus (police, stigmatization of sex workers, people trying to "save" sex workers, etc.) that all attempt to reshape the way in which we might have conventionally viewed the topic. Thus, the topic on sex workers and the police argues that undercover sting operations, mandatory health testing and sexual exams, and public shaming (such as "caught on tape" shows or internet videos, or forced parades of accused sex workers in China) are part of a "widespread matrix of police misconduct" and demonstrate that we consider certain forms of violence against sex workers acceptable, even while we deplore the violence that they may experience from customers (which Grant argues is far less than they experience from the police).

In other chapters, Grant continues to challenge the view of sex workers by criticizing the way the term "prostitute" turns a behavior - selling sex - into an identity. She argues that the word obfuscates both the myriad of activities included in the sex work industry (stripping, no-sex escort services, naked photography, sex services, etc.) and the very fact that sex work is work like any other job in the service industry that involves negotiation between a client and a service provider, fees for services rendered, and that sex workers are often more able to set the terms of their service than, say, fast food employees or workers in the third world garment industry. Grant argues that viewing a sex worker as a victim who wants to leave the job but is unable to obscures the fact that many woman
(and she does concentrate mostly on cisgender women - women identified at birth as female who identify as female - while acknowledging men and transgender people who do sex work) freely choose sex work because it offers a benefit that another job might not. Grant wonders why we see sex worker complaints about "working conditions" in the industry as evidence of systemic exploitation and desire to leave when we do not view complaints from other parts of the service industry in the same way. Why are low-income Wal-Mart employees who remain in their jobs despite poor working conditions, lack of medical benefits, and significant gender or race-based discrimination not viewed as victims in need to similar saving, Grant might ask.

I confess this is where I started to have significant squirminess with this book. Because Grant is making a very good point. Just because we are most familiar with the Dickensian image of a sex worker as some desperate, downtrodden slag forced onto the streets by poverty and lack of options, doesn't mean that stereotype applies to anyone. Lots of people do work they don't find rewarding, why should selling sex and not "enjoying" it be any different, as long as the individual selling controls the terms of the transaction. And yet.... I squirm. Grant seems to flippant to me. Surely this cannot be right. And yet....why not? Perhaps I have just been too culturally conditioned to view work involving sex as "something different".

My biggest overall problem with this book was that Grant goes so far in problematizing conventional ways of looking at sex work that she sometimes seems to forget to acknowledge the times when this happy fantasy-land doesn't apply. And the fact that this happy fantasy-land cannot by definition exist when kids are involved. Grant brings up human trafficking and the worldwide exploitation of children almost as an afterthought, to criticize activists who work to stop it. When discussing the work of groups in Cambodia that work to free trafficked children, suggests that people like Kristof view "all sex work as a worst case merely for existing" and "cannot accommodate the range of experiences sex workers have..." This is fine and dandy when discussing adults, but to apply this same logic to children just smacks of willful blindness. Grant wants us to acknowledge the diversity of sex work but only if it is acknowledged as largely positive?

It's too bad this book ended on such a horrible note for me, because it did really push me to think deeply about my feelings about sex work. On a separate note, I really hated the cover. I get it - gears = work, sexy lady legs in heels = sex, very clever Mr. Publisher. But haven't we all had enough of dismembered lady parts on things?

I received this advance review copy through Net Galley. show less

It’s all in a day’s work

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant (Verson, $14.95)

The number one claim made by Melissa Gira Grant, a former sex worker, in Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work, is simple and clear: Sex work is work, and as such, needs to be considered as labor performed by workers who have a right to decent work conditions.

This neatly separates discussion of sex work from “human trafficking” or any type of sex abuse that involves an unwilling show more person; if s/he didn’t give consent, they’re enslaved, not working. It’s important to keep this distinction in mind when discussing sex work, because those who simply oppose the existence of it will always be moving toward the non-consensual—and rightly, criminal—human trafficking, sex abuse and forced prostitution.

Grant’s argument is purely from a labor perspective, which is, on the one hand, refreshing, and on the other, a bit disturbing. It’s possible to seek a middle ground where sex work is destigmatized and at the same time, the economic conditions that make people potential workers are alleviated. Grant is definitely dead-on in calling out the media for allowing the conflation of human trafficking and sex work, and for the salacious way that sex work is portrayed.

As a book about a particular type of labor, this is an insightful and interesting argument. However, the decision not to acknowledge the non-labor conditions that affect sex work (misogyny and poverty as they are practiced in late-industrial capitalism) makes Playing the Whore less comprehensive than it might be.



A shorter version of this review was published in the print and online editions of the Sacramento News & Review. Read it here: “Rethinking Sex Work.” show less