Body Autonomy: Decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use

From erotic labor, to the rights of people who use psychoactive substances, to reproductive health and carcerality—we are living through a political moment when debates about bodily autonomy are at a fever pitch.

Body Autonomy: Decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use is a bold and timely collection that confronts these charged issues at the intersection of social justice and public health. It reveals the histories behind the United State's ideological wars and illustrates their costs to all of us. It is a primer on healing-centered harm reduction, which presents a visionary framework and set of practical strategies to advance unity and care while working to transform conditions for communities that bear the brunt of interpersonal and systemic violence, overdose deaths, and health inequities. In the words of leading advocates, service providers, and the scholars whose lives and communities have been harmed by American neo-colonial policies, Body Autonomy offers promising, healing-centered interventions that represent a critical culture shift. 

This collection features trusted voices on health and social policy reform, including Kate D'Adamo, Justice Rivera, Ismail Ali, Paula Kahn, and Sasanka Jinadasa, as well as respected healers like Richael Faithful, Amira Barakat Al-Baladi, and Mona Knotte. The articles, interviews, worksheets, and poems within are an offering to expand our collective understanding of survival, healing, and embodied freedom. Body Autonomy is a must read for anyone with a compassionate worldview, people seeking to know more about underground economies, and those who know that punishment doesn't lead to security. It is a liberatory design and a prayer for what's possible.

Justice Rivera’s professional and artistic work is grounded in principles of harm reduction, anti-oppression, and healing justice. Her expressions seek to deconstruct carceral and punishment driven paradigms to race, gender, and bodily autonomy. She currently works to uplift compassionate community-led solutions to social injustices through her role as Partner with Reframe Health and Justice and through her creative offerings including Candy Coated: A Memoir and Body Autonomy: Decolonizing Sex Work & Drug Use. When she isn’t working or writing, Justice loves to travel, dance to EDM, cook, shop, volunteer, cuddle with her cat, and laugh with friends and family.