ABSTRACT
This chapter, co-authored with Meagan Tyler, locates pornography, prostitution, and trafficking for sexual exploitation on the continuum (Kelly, 1988) of patriarchal violence (hooks, 2000) and presents an overview of the sex trade in the United States. Evidence about the harms of pornography and connections with violence are explored. There is also considerable evidence about the motivations and attitudes of men who pay for sex, whose own narratives frame their actions as rooted in constructs of masculinity and consumerism. Survivor-leaders in the United States analyze racism and colonization as foundational to systems of prostitution and challenge the perspective that prostitution is ‘sex work.’ Their voices and experiences highlight the harms of systems of prostitution and pornography. This chapter concludes by linking survivor-leader analysis to the increasing international momentum around the Nordic or Equality Model of asymmetric decriminalization which names prostitution as a violation of human rights and gender equality.
