ABSTRACT
Sex work has been loosely defined to encompass multiple forms of erotic labor, ranging from phone sex workers to dancers to street-walking prostitutes to call girls. Although some women disagree that “choice” and freedom are fruitful ideals around which to organize debates about sex work, most see freedom and choice as the crux of the argument. The debates about sex work often turn around the axes of what constitutes “freedom” for women in the context of sexual relationships, in working arrangements, and in the processes of identity and representation. Scholars and activists who argue that sex work is exploitation generally argue from a radical feminist perspective that views heterosexual sex as a location of inequality between men and women. Feminists who espouse this position often see all sex as exploitive, and prostitution as especially so. Despite their beliefs about the nature of sex work, women overwhelmingly report economic pressures as the reason they entered the sex trade.
