Sex Work and Language

This collection brings together established and exciting new voices to shed light on the language of and about sex work, offering an empirically nuanced understanding of commercial sex through language.

While there is burgeoning literature on sex work in the social sciences, there has been little work to date centering it from a linguistic perspective. Chapters make the case for language as central to sex work practices and the transactions of intimacy in the negotiation of services, promotional strategies and the performance of desire. Featuring insights from diverse geographic contexts, the chapters critically reflect on different dimensions of language and sex work, including sex work, gender and desire; online sex work; sex work and race; sex worker advocacy; and the language of victimization and exploitation. The volume illuminates the ways in which commercial sex work is negotiated in embodied linguistic interaction and attendant issues of power, identity, gender, race and desire.

This book systematizes the body of growing knowledge around language and sex work from an interdisciplinary lens. It is key reading for scholars, policymakers and activists in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis, as well as fields such as anthropology, sociology, criminology and health and social care.

Benedict J.L. Rowlett is Associate Professor in the Academy of Language and Culture at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Rodrigo Borba is Associate Professor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme in Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.