Squirming in the Dark: Playful Occupations for Sex Workers in the 1870 Census

By Holly Marquess Archives of Desire, Sexual Labour

Uncovering the playful occupations listed for sex workers in the 1870 census.

Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia

By Colleen Lucey Author Interviews, Modern Europe, Sexual Labour

How was prostitution represented in Imperial Russia?

Wolfenden’s Women: Prostitution in Post-war Britain

By Julia Laite Author Interviews, Sexual Labour, United Kingdom

How was prostitution presented in the Wolfenden Report?

Prostitution and Subjectivity in Late Medieval Germany

By Jamie Page Author Interviews, Medieval, Sexual Labour

What was life like for the women who worked in medieval brothels?

Constructing the Pornographic Object of Knowledge

By Whitney Strub 20th and 21st Century United States, Author Interviews, Sexual Labour

Contemporary pornography has become a massive archive of sexual scripts. To some extent pornography has replaced sexology, psychoanalysis and sex manuals as a form of knowledge about sexuality.

‘An Equality of Injustice’: The Sex Buyers’ Bill and Lessons from History

By Julia Laite Sexual Labour, Sexual Violence, United Kingdom

Sex workers living under these regimes have to keep selling sex in a climate made significantly more hostile by further criminalization.

Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Social Thought

By Durba Mitra Asian Sexualities, Author Interviews, Empire and Colonialism, Sexual Labour

How ideas of deviant female sexuality became foundational to modern social thought in colonial India.