Prostitution, Power and Freedom - Hardcover

Davidson, Julia O’Connell

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9780472096954: Prostitution, Power and Freedom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0472096958 ISBN 13: 9780472096954

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 1998

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Prostitution, Power and Freedom brings new insights to the ongoing debate among scholars, activists, and others on the controversial subject of prostitution. Sociologist Julia O'Connell Davidson's concise, accessibly-written study is based on wide research from various corners of the world. The study employs a range of theoretical analyses and argues against simplistic explanations of the prostitution phenomenon, showing it to be a complex relationship where economics, power relations, gender, age, class, and "choice" intersect.
The author has conducted an impressive amount of research in nine countries, including conversations with male and female sex tourists, adult and child prostitutes, procurers, and clients. Through her research, O'Connell Davidson demonstrates the complexity of prostitution, arguing that it is not simply an effect of male oppression and violence or insatiable sexual needs, nor is it an unproblematic economic encounter. The book provides a sophisticated explanation of the economic and political inequalities underlying prostitution, but also shows that while prostitution necessarily implies certain freedoms for the clients, the amount of freedom experienced by individual prostititutes varies greatly.
This highly accessible book will be of great interest to those in gender and women's studies, sexuality and cultural studies, the sociology of work and organizations, and social policy. General readers will also appreciate having new ways of thinking about this age-old social phenomenon.
Julia O'Connell Davidson is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Leicester.

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From the Back Cover

Prostitution is still the subject of intense controversy among feminists but theoretical and political analyses are often only loosely grounded in empirical research. This book offers new perspectives on prostitution based on wide-ranging research in nine countries and extensive work with prostitute users.

Prostitution, Power and Freedom contains a great deal of original research including interviews with male and female sex tourists, adult and child prostitutes, procurers, and clients. O'Connell Davidson demonstrates the complexity of prostitution, arguing that it is not simply an expression of male oppression and violence or insatiable sexual needs, nor is it an unproblematic economic encounter. Using a range of theoretical analyses, she shows it to be a complex relationship where economics, gender, age, race, class, power and 'choice' intersect.

The result is a more sophisticated understanding that uncovers the economic and political inequalities underlying prostitution, but also shows that while prostitution necessarily implies certain freedoms for the client, the unfreedoms experienced by individual prostitutes vary greatly.

This highly accessible book will be of great interest to those in gender and women's studies, sexuality and cultural studies, the sociology of work and organization, and social policy as well as the general reader.