A page for blogs, podcasts, comments, chat etc. If you have a view about something, want to share a blog or amaze us with a new development fill in the form on the 'Contact Us' page or email info@neswf.co.uk
Podcasts and Blogs
Being 60, Mycelial and Me
Catrina McHugh MBE
A new blog by Open Clasp Artistic Director and writer, Catrina McHugh MBE on turning 60 and co-creating and writing Mycelial, their most ambitious production yet. Mycelial is co-created with sex workers based in the North East and across the globe, challenging assumptions made about people involved in sex work. Access the blog below and more information about Open Clasp on our creative methods page here
"I feel safe when I'm working with her": Sex Workers' experiences of management and wider work relationships
Dr Lilith Brouwers
August 2023
Sex work is legal to do in England, but only in isolation: management, co-working for safety, and providing many services to sex workers are criminalised. However, sex worker rights organisations state that this criminalisation reduces sex workers’ safety, forces them to work alone, and prevents them from accessing workers’ rights and workplace protections.
This is an extension of Lilith Brouwers’ PhD research project – “I feel safe when I'm working with her": Sex workers' experiences of management and wider work relationships” – which was started after NGOs and grassroots organisations flagged a large research gap on third parties in sex work - a topic that is legislated without underlying data. Link to the report and a podcast discussing Lilith's report below:
The New Books network is a consortium of author-interview podcast channels dedicated to raising the level of public discourse by introducing scholars and other serious writers to a wide public via new media. Check the website regularly for new weekly podcasts.
Podcast hosted by Christopher B. Patterson an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia.
'Roundtable on Asian Migrant Sex Work'
Alison Clancey, Kelly Go, Lily Wong and Yuri Doolan
April 6th, 2021
This episode features three interviews with organizers and scholars concerned with Asian migrant sex work: SWAN Vancouver (Alison Clancey and Kelly Go), Dr. Lily Wong, and Dr. Yuri Doolan.
On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long targeted three Atlanta-area spas and massage parlours and killed eight people: Delania Ashley Yuan González, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Paul Andre Michels, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue. Six of these victims were Asian women. Within the days following the shooting, many groups representing women, Asian Americans, sex workers, and migrants, have collectively mourned and sent strength and solidarity to the eight victims and their families.
This podcast episode seeks to express solidarity with these groups by highlighting the work of scholars and organizers who have been studying the racially encoded figures and the broader histories of Asian migrant sex work.
Access the podcast here.
Podcasts hosted by Rachel Stuart, a sex work researcher whose primary interest is the lived experiences of sex workers.
'A Curious History of Sex'
Kate Lister
Unbound 2020
The act of sex has not changed since people first worked out what went where, but the ways in which society dictates how sex is culturally understood and performed have varied significantly through the ages. Humans are the only creatures that stigmatise particular sexual practices, and sex remains a deeply divisive issue around the world. Attitudes will change and grow - hopefully for the better - but sex will never be free of stigma or shame unless we acknowledge where it has come from.
Access the podcast here.
'Whoretography'
Camille Melissa
Apple Books 2017
When Camille Melissa emigrated to the UK from Australia via Paris and entered the sex industry in 2005, she always knew that photography would play a crucial role as she navigated the complex structures – both visible and invisible – of this misrepresented community. The rhetoric surrounding sex work is often frustratingly one-dimensional in mainstream media; those who enter the industry are somehow ‘damaged’, labourers of the patriarchy, powerless individuals who need saving from themselves. Sex work activists continue to challenge the victim narrative forced upon them, across politics, film and art.
Access the podcast here.
Stuart P. Green
Oxford University Press 2020
Starting in the latter part of the 20th century, the law of sexual offences, especially in the West, began to reflect a striking divergence. On the one hand, the law became significantly more punitive in its approach to sexual conduct that is non-consensual, as evidenced by a major expansion in the definition of rape and sexual assault, and the creation of new offenses like sex trafficking, child grooming, and revenge porn. On the other hand, it became markedly more permissive in how it dealt with conduct that is consensual, a trend that can be seen, for example, in the legalization or decriminalization of sodomy, adultery, and adult pornography. This book explores the conceptual and normative implications of this divergence.
Access it the podcast here
'Policing Prostitution: Regulating the Lower Classes in Late Imperial Russia'
Siobhán Hearne
Oxford University Press, 2021
Examines the complex world of commercial sex in the late Russian Empire. From the 1840s until 1917, prostitution was legally tolerated across the Russian Empire under a system known as regulation. Medical police were in charge of compiling information about registered prostitutes and ensuring that they followed the strict rules prescribed by the imperial state governing their visibility and behaviour. The vast majority of women who sold sex hailed from the lower classes, as did their managers and clients. This study examines how regulation was implemented, experienced, and resisted amid rapid urbanization, industrialization, and modernization around the turn of the twentieth century.
Access the podcast here. newbooksnetwork.com
Blogs
The Uneven Adjustment to Homeworking Among UK Sex Workers
Blog by Laura Jarvis-King (May, 2020)
The shift to homeworking under lockdown raises important concerns for those whose work involves physical and emotional connection, not least forms of work which have been undertaken in a shroud of secrecy. Here, I highlight the work of sex workers, in particular, who negotiate a sexual and emotional experience with clients through physical touch and emotional conversation.
Read the blog here.
18 Years of bringing Love, Hope and Freedom
Blog by A Way Out
In June 2002 A Way Out Charity was formed.18 years on the organisation has come of age. The charity has developed and matured and, under the current situation of CV19, this maturity has provided a strong and sturdy base upon which to ensure that the families, young people, and women who rely on our services have continued to receive support.
Read the blog here.
Sex Workers in the Crisis of Covid
Teela Sanders, University of Leicester
Issues for sex workers across the world during the pandemic
Access the blog here.
Follow the link to an opportunity for practitioners and service users to publish a short 800 word blog about any current social justice issue/intervention in the British Journal of Community Justice (open access). The example says regarding COVID-19 but can be about anything. Also please send it here aswell!
Access it here.
The Impact of COVID-19 on Sex Workers
Dr Natasha Mulvihill
Regarding the impact of the crisis on people in the sex industry.
Read the blog here.
What's it like to be a whore in academia?
Camille
Click here to read about Camille's experiences of being an out sex worker in academia, and here for more information about her work.
Read a blog here from Laura McIntyre and Dr Angelika Strohmayer about the creative activities that Changing Lives delivered during the COVID-19 crisis:
and more thoughts from Laura regarding International Women's Day
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