Portal:Sex work

Introduction

Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services. (Full article...)

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The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related services, such as prostitution, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs, and sex-related pastimes, such as pornography, sex-oriented men's magazines, women's magazines, sex movies, sex toys, and fetish or BDSM paraphernalia. Sex channels for television and pre-paid sex movies for video on demand, are part of the sex industry, as are adult movie theaters, sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs. The sex industry employs millions of people worldwide, mainly women. These range from the sex worker, also called adult service provider (ASP), who provides sexual services, to a multitude of support personnel. (Full article...)

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Selected images

Image 1Kisaeng women from outcast or slave families. (from Prostitution)
Image 2Femmes de Maison, painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 1893—1895 (from Prostitution)
Image 3Tart cards in a British phone box advertising call girls, 2005 (from Prostitution)
Image 4World map of prostitution laws
  Decriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitution
  Legalization (regulation) – Prostitution legal and regulated
  Abolitionism – Prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated
  Neo-abolitionism (Nordic model) – Illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex
  Prohibitionism – Prostitution illegal in all aspects (selling and buying)
  Legality varies with local laws
(from Sex work)
Image 5Statue to honor the sex workers of the world. Installed March 2007 in Amsterdam, Oudekerksplein, in front of the Oude Kerk, in Amsterdam's red-light district De Wallen. Titled Belle, the inscription to the piece says "Respect sex workers all over the world." (from Prostitution)
Image 6Sex workers demonstrating for better working conditions at the 2009 Marcha Gay in Mexico City (from Sex work)
Image 7News report about three brothels operating in Albuquerque, New Mexico that were raided by police in 1922 (from Prostitution)
Image 8A detail from plate 1 of William Hogarth's (1697–1764) The Harlot's Progress, showing brothel-keeper Elizabeth Needham, on the right, procuring a young woman who has just arrived in London (from Prostitution)
Image 9Brothel scene; Brunswick Monogrammist, 1537; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Prostitution)
Image 10Boat based window prostitute in Utrecht (from Prostitution)
Image 11Prostitutes on display in Yoshiwara during the Meiji Period, Japan (from Prostitution)
Image 12A prostitute and her customer illustrated on an ancient Greek wine cup; the act of prostitution is indicated by the coin purse above the figures. (from Prostitution)
Image 13An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765) (from Prostitution)
Image 14Prostitute c. 1890. (from Prostitution)
Image 15A liberated Chinese girl who had been forced in to sexual slavery by the Japanese military sits on a stretcher and speaks to a Royal Air Force officer. (from Prostitution)
Image 16Stickers affixed to a payphone in São Paulo, 2006 (from Prostitution)
Image 17Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam (from Prostitution)
Image 18A prostitute in Amsterdam's red-light district talks with a potential customer. (from Prostitution)
Image 19The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (1622) (from Prostitution)
Image 20An Ancient Greek urn depicts a prostitute and her client. (from Sex work)
Image 21Women in an early San Francisco bordello in 1870 (from Prostitution)
Image 22A political cartoon from 1787 jesting about the notion of taxation affecting prostitutes (from Prostitution)
Image 23The red light district in Amsterdam (from Sex work)
Image 24Fresco from the Pompeii brothel (from Prostitution)
Image 25
  Legalization – prostitution legal and regulated
  Decriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitution
  Abolitionism – prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated
  Neo-abolitionism – illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex
  Prohibitionism – prostitution illegal
  Legality varies with local laws
(from Prostitution)
Image 26A sex worker in Berlin in 2001 (from Sex work)

Related portals

Selected general sex worker

Image 1

Carolin Ebert on 23 October 2010

Sexy Cora (born Carolin Ebert, civil name Carolin Wosnitza; 2 May 1987 – 20 January 2011) was a German pornographic actress, model, singer, exotic dancer, wife of Tim Wosnitza, and reality show participant.

Cora was born in Berlin. She was one of the participants of the 10th season of Big Brother Germany. Cora released two music singles after her Big Brother participation: "My Love – La, La, La" and "Lass uns kicken (Alles klar wunderbar)". (Full article...)
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María Calvo Nodarse (1892 in Guanajay – 15 June 1977, in Havana), better known as La Macorina, was a Cuban prostitute who was a friend of ex-president José Miguel Gómez, whom she supported during the Chambelona War. She was the first woman to hold a driving license in the Americas. (Full article...)
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Julia Bulette (c. 1832 – January 19/20, 1867) was an English-born American prostitute in Virginia City, Nevada, a boomtown serving the Comstock Lode silver mine. She was murdered in 1867, and a French drifter named John Millain was quickly convicted and hanged for the crime. Subsequent legends surrounding Julia's life and status as a sex worker and a madam have grown over time and become a part of Virginia City's folklore. (Full article...)
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Jennie Lee (born Virginia Lee Hicks, October 23, 1928 – March 24, 1990) was an American stripper, burlesque entertainer, pin-up model, union activist, and a minor role movie actress, who performed several striptease acts in nightclubs during the 1950s and 1960s. She was also known as "the Bazoom Girl", "the Burlesque Version of Jayne Mansfield", and "Miss 44 and Plenty More". (Full article...)
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María Magdalena, by Manuel Ussel de Guimbarda. Caridad la Negra served as a model for the painting, which is on display at the Basilica of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Cartagena (Spain).

María de la Caridad Norberta Pacheco Sánchez (6 June 1879 – 1 March 1960), better known by her nickname Caridad la Negra, was a Spanish prostitute and madam, renowned for her activity during the last years of the Restoration and her protection of people and property during the Spanish Civil War. (Full article...)
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Annie Sprinkle in 2005

Annie M. Sprinkle (born Ellen F. Steinberg on July 23, 1954) is an American certified sexologist, performance artist, former sex worker, and advocate for sex work and health care.

Sprinkle has worked as a prostitute, sex educator, feminist stripper, pornographic film actress, and sex film producer and director. In 1996, she became the first known porn star to get a doctoral degree, earning a PhD in human sexuality from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. (Full article...)
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Cardi B in 2021

Belcalis Marlenis Cephus (née Almánzar; born October 11, 1992), known professionally as Cardi B, is an American rapper. Noted for her unfiltered public image and lyrics, Cardi B is one of the most successful female rappers. From 2015 to early 2017, she gained recognition on Vine and Instagram, as a cast member on VH1's Love & Hip Hop: New York, and by releasing two mixtapes.

Her first studio album, Invasion of Privacy (2018), debuted atop the Billboard 200 with the largest female rap album streaming week of all time, and was later ranked the top female rap album of the 2010s by Billboard. Critically acclaimed, it made Cardi B the first solo female artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, and Rolling Stone ranked it the best debut album of all time by a female rapper. Its singles "Bodak Yellow" and "I Like It" both topped the Billboard Hot 100 and were certified diamond by the RIAA; the former made Cardi B the first female rapper to top the Hot 100 with a solo song in the 21st century and the first to achieve a diamond-certified song, while the latter made her the first with multiple number-one songs. Her third US number-one, the collaboration "Girls Like You" (2018) with Maroon 5, made her the first female rapper to earn multiple RIAA diamond-certified songs. Cardi's upcoming second studio album Am I the Drama? (2025), was preceded by the US number-one singles "WAP" (with Megan Thee Stallion) and "Up"; the former is the only female rap collaboration to debut atop the Hot 100, made Cardi B the first lead artist to top the Billboard Global 200, and had a large cultural impact. (Full article...)
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Baker in 1940

Freda Josephine Baker (née McDonald; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 French silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue Un vent de folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She adopted 12 children which she referred to as Rainbow Tribe and raised them in France. (Full article...)
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Metairie Cemetery tomb originally of Josie Arlington

Josie Arlington (1864 – February 14, 1914) was a brothel madam in the Storyville district of New Orleans, Louisiana. Arlington started her life as a prostitute at 17–18 years old as a means to support her family. Arlington used her experience to open a brothel in 1890, which she named "Chateau Lobrano d'Arlington". Shortly after Storyville was established as the red-light district for New Orleans, Arlington moved her business into this area. After her building was destroyed by fire in 1905 she moved her business into a saloon owned by Tom Anderson, which was known as 'The Arlington Annex'. Josie retired from the business in 1909 and sold her assets off to Tom Anderson. Arlington died in 1913 and was buried in Metairie Cemetery, where her grave had to be moved because it had become such a tourist attraction. (Full article...)
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Carol Ann Doda (August 29, 1937 – November 9, 2015) was an American topless dancer based in San Francisco, California, who was active from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was the first public topless dancer in the United States.

In 1964, Doda made international news, first by dancing topless at the city's Condor Club, then by reportedly enlarging her breasts from size 34B to 44DD through silicone injections. Notably, this reported transition would have been impossible. Possibly, Doda enlarged her breasts to measure 44 inches around the bust, and the 44DD assertion resulted from journalists misunderstanding how bra sizing works. A year later, she was arrested along with the owners of the Condor Club, but all three of them were cleared of charges. Her breasts became known as Doda's "twin 44s" and "the new Twin Peaks of San Francisco". (Full article...)
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Louise Fitzgerald Wightman (née Johnson), also known as Lucy Wightman (born June 18, 1959) is an American former exotic dancer who performed in Boston and Providence during the 1970s and 1980s, using the stage name Princess Cheyenne. The juxtaposition of her education and class background with her career attracted media attention. In the spring of 2007, she again attracted public interest, this time for being convicted of being a practicing psychologist without a license in two South Shore Massachusetts communities. Since then she has worked as a writer, photographer, and blogger. (Full article...)
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Velma Fern Worden (born June 18, 1935), better known by the stage name April March, is an exotic dancer and prominent star of American burlesque. Billed as April March, The First Lady of Burlesque, she was a headline act in burlesque from 1952 to 1978. During her more than thirty-year career, she gained popularity throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe for her classy and sophisticated striptease. March was one of the innovators of the elegant strip tease. (Full article...)
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Gangubai Harjeevandas (1907 – 8 September 1977), better known as Gangubai Kothewali or Gangubai Kathiawadi, was an Indian social activist, sex worker and madam of a brothel in the Kamathipura area of Mumbai during the 1960s. Gangubai worked for the rights of sex workers and for the well-being of orphans. She gradually ended up operating her own brothel and is known to also have lobbied for the rights of commercial sex workers. (Full article...)
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Theresa Berkley or Berkeley (died September 1836) was a 19th-century English dominatrix who ran a brothel in Hallam Street, just to the east of Portland Place, Marylebone, London, specialising in flagellation. She is notable as the inventor of the "chevalet" or "Berkley Horse", a BDSM apparatus. (Full article...)
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Valérie Tasso is a French writer, lecturer, research worker, and sex therapist, currently living in Barcelona, Spain. She has several university degrees (Economical Sciences, Foreign Applied languages), and in 2006, she graduated in Sex Therapy from The Institute of Sexology (IN.CI.SEX El Instituto de Sexología,) in Madrid.

In 1999, she worked as a prostitute for six months, out of curiosity. In 2003, she wrote her sexual experiences in the book Insatiable – The sexual adventures of a French Girl in Spain. This first book has been an international best-seller, and is the basis of the script for the film Diary of a Nymphomaniac directed by Christian Molina. She has written three more books. (Full article...)
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Von Teese in 2018

Heather Renée Sweet (born September 28, 1972), known professionally as Dita Von Teese, is an American vedette, burlesque dancer, model, actress, and businesswoman. She is credited with re-popularizing burlesque performance, earning the moniker "Queen of Burlesque".

Von Teese has been seen in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Masked Dancer, The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell, among other television productions. She is also known for her short marriage to singer Marilyn Manson as well as performing in his music videos. Von Teese has released two books on burlesque history, fetishism and beauty. She has toured the world with her burlesque shows in cities like London, Berlin, New York and Paris. Among her special guests on the tours are Dirty Martini, Perle Noire, Ginger Valentine, Jett Adore and Playboy model Gia Genevieve. Von Teese has been a special guest at the Parisian venue Crazy Horse several times. From 2007 to 2013, she was a global ambassador for Cointreau and in 2010–2011 she was the face of Perrier. She has also created four perfumes under the brand Dita Von Teese Perfumes. She also has her own brand of lingerie, as well as stockings under the name Secrets in Lace and luxurious cardigans for Australian online store Wheels & Dollbaby. (Full article...)
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Kimberly Daniels (born June 12, 1961) is an American minister, religious author, politician, wife and mother of four from Jacksonville, Florida. She is a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing House District 14 (part of Duval County). She began her political career as an at-large member of the Jacksonville City Council. She served as a member of the Florida House of Representatives, representing House District 14 (part of Duval County) as a member of the Democratic Party from 2016–2020. Though she lost her re-election campaign in 2020, she has won every election since, taking House District 14 back. On the last day of qualifying for the 2022 election, Daniels entered the race for the House District 14 seat in 2022. On August 23, 2022, she easily took the Democratic Primary for House District 14, winning all of the district's 41 precincts. Shortly thereafter, the write-in candidate withdrew from the race, securing Daniels' return to the Florida House of Representatives, this time without ever having to win a general election campaign. (Full article...)
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Famous nude painting of Emma Dupont by Jean-Léon Gérôme on his original canvas with scratches

Emma Dupont (fl. 1876–1890) was a French model, known for posing for paintings and sculptures for various 19th-century artists, mainly Jean-Léon Gérôme. She is known for modeling for several of Gérôme's famous works depicting scenes from antiquity, including Pool in a Harem, Omphale, Tanagra, and Pygmalion and Galatea. Dupont began modeling out of necessity after being abandoned in Paris as a teenager but went on to have a successful career posing for celebrated artists of the era. Her regular income allowed her to maintain a modest apartment that displayed artworks gifted to her by the painters and sculptors she modeled for. (Full article...)
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Charlotte Rose is an English sex worker, dominatrix, sexual trainer and political candidate from Nottingham, who lives in London. In 2013 she won the award of "Sex Worker of the Year" at the Sexual Freedom Awards where she is now a resident judge. In 2014 she took up politics, campaigning for sexual freedom as an independent candidate in the Clacton and Rochester and Strood by-elections. (Full article...)
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Phyllis Dixey (10 February 1914 – 2 June 1964) was an English singer, actress, dancer and impresario. Her earlier career was as a singer in variety shows in Britain. During World War II, she joined ENSA and entertained the British forces. She sang, recited and posed in naked tableaux which were very popular. (Full article...)
Image 21

Daniels in January 2015

Stephanie A. Gregory Clifford (born Stephanie A. Gregory; March 17, 1979), known professionally as Stormy Daniels, is an American pornographic film actress, director and former stripper. She has won many industry awards and is a member of the NightMoves Hall of Fame, AVN Hall of Fame, XRCO Hall of Fame, and Vanity Fair Hall of Fame. In 2009, a recruitment effort led her to consider challenging incumbent David Vitter in the 2010 Senate election in her native Louisiana.

Daniels became involved in a legal dispute with U.S. president Donald Trump in 2018. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen paid $130,000 in hush money to silence her about an affair she says she had with Trump in 2006. Trump denied the affair and accused her of lying. He was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to Daniels, and was convicted on May 30, 2024. (Full article...)
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Juanita Dale Slusher (July 6, 1935 – December 30, 2005), better known by her stage name Candy Barr, was an American stripper, burlesque dancer, actress, and adult model in men's magazines of the mid-20th century.

During the 1950s, she received nationwide attention for her stripping career in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, her encounters with the law, shooting her second husband, and her sentence to a prison term for drug possession. Barr was also in relationships with Mickey Cohen and Jack Ruby. (Full article...)
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Generally accepted to be a picture of Earp in Prescott, Arizona Territory, in 1880.

Josephine Sarah "Sadie" Earp (née Marcus; 1861 – December 19, 1944) was the common-law wife of Wyatt Earp, a famed Old West lawman and gambler. She met Wyatt in 1881 in the frontier boom town of Tombstone in Arizona Territory, when she was living with Johnny Behan, sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona.

Josephine was born in New York to a Prussian Jewish family. Her father was a baker. They moved to San Francisco, where Josephine attended dance school as a girl. When her father had difficulty finding work, the family moved in with her older sister and brother-in-law in a working-class tenement. Josephine ran away, possibly as early as age 14, and traveled to Arizona, where she said she went "looking for adventure". Much of her life from about 1874 to 1882 (when she lived in the Arizona Territory) is uncertain; she worked hard to keep this period of her life private, even threatening legal action against writers and movie producers. She may have arrived in Prescott, Arizona, as early as 1874. The book I Married Wyatt Earp (1967), based on a manuscript allegedly written in part by her, describes events she witnessed in Arizona that occurred before 1879, the year she claimed at other times to have first arrived in Tombstone. There is some evidence that she lived from 1874 to 1876 in Prescott and Tip Top, Arizona Territory under the assumed name of Sadie Mansfield, who was a prostitute, before becoming ill and returning to San Francisco. The name Sadie Mansfield was also recorded in Tombstone. Researchers^[who?] have found that the two names share extremely similar characteristics and circumstances. (Full article...)
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Mata Hari, c. 1910

Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle, Dutch: [mɑrɣaːˈreːtaː ɣeːrˈtrœydaː ˈzɛlə]; 7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (/ˈmɑːtə ˈhɑːri/ MAH-tə HAR-ee, Dutch: [ˈmaːtaː ˈɦaːri]; Malay for 'sun', lit. 'eye of the day'), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed by firing squad in France.

The idea of a beautiful exotic dancer using her powers of seduction as a spy made her name synonymous with the femme fatale. Mata Hari's story has inspired books, films, and other works. It has been said that she was convicted and condemned because the French Army needed a scapegoat, and that the files used to secure her conviction contained falsifications. Some have even stated that she could not have been a spy and was innocent. (Full article...)
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Danni Ashe (and early in her career sometimes as Danielle Ashe; born January 16, 1968) is a retired American nude model, former erotic dancer and web developer who is the founder and former CEO of Danni's Hard Drive, a popular adult web site from the 90's. She started her adult Internet site in 1995. She has been an industry advocate and testified before a government panel. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that Indonesian politician Sanusi's parents discouraged him from becoming a government employee, because his salary would be paid partly from taxes on alcohol and prostitution?
... that Lea Ackermann, a German nun of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, fought against forced prostitution and sex tourism in East Africa?
... that the posthumously released documentary Clean centered on the life of Sandra Pankhurst, a former sex worker, drag queen, and crime scene cleaner?
... that An Amorous History of the Silver Screen has been read as a biographic metafilm, paralleling its lead's rise from prostitution into film stardom?
... that a Harvey's franchise known for being a hub for sex work was described by one artist as a "legendary Toronto icon"?