Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry

Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
by Laura Maria Agustin

Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
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Book Summary Information

Author: Laura Maria Agustin
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-07
ISBN: 1842778609
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Zed Books

Book Reviews of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry

Book Review: Excellent book, and not just for the sex.
Summary: 5 Stars

This book is an excellent antidote to all the fantasies about rescue that the high-minded indulge in when they want to save sex workers from their allegedly miserable fate. There are many complex reasons why people - and it's not just women, as Agustin reminds us - perform sexual acts for money, and it would be a good idea for their self-nominated saviors to listen. And there are many complex reasons why people patronize sex workers - it's not just "exploitation," as sex-work abolitionists believe.

Oh and it illuminates the weird affinity between some "fundamentalist feminists" and the religious right, not an attractive alliance.

Though the book is mostly about sex workers who travel from their homelands to ply their trade, the book also helps us think about the whole issue of migration, and our contemporary paranoia about immigrants. The whole notion of "migrants" is deeply class biased; no one ever called an Indian bond trader working in New York a migrant. But he or she has travelled for the same reasons as dishwashers, nannies, and strippers - to make money, for sure, but also to see the world, or escape suffocating origins.

Summary of Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry

This groundbreaking book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work; that migrants who sell sex are passive victims; and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label "trafficked" does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the "rescue industry" disempowers them. Based on extensive research among migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustín, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry. Although they are treated like a marginalized group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice.

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