Portal:Sex work

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), is a city in India which contains the neighborhood of Kamathipura, one of the largest red-light districts in Asia. India is regarded as having one of the largest commercial sex trades globally. These neighborhoods are so large and popular that Mumbai has been called the "ultimate destination" for sex tourism. The red-light districts or lal bazaars in Mumbai are inhabited by thousands of sex workers including women, men, children, and transgender people. (Full article...)

Selected images

Image 1Stickers affixed to a payphone in São Paulo, 2006 (from Prostitution)
Image 2World map of pornography (18+) laws
  Pornography legal
  Pornography legal under some restrictions
  Pornography illegal
  Data unavailable
(from Sex work)
Image 3Tart cards in a British phone box advertising the services of call girls (from Prostitution)
Image 4Fresco from the Pompeii brothel (from Prostitution)
Image 5A prostitute in Amsterdam's red-light district talks with a potential customer. (from Prostitution)
Image 6Prostitute c. 1890 (from Prostitution)
Image 7World 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 8Kisaeng women from outcast or slave families. (from Prostitution)
Image 9Prostitutes on display in Yoshiwara during the Meiji Period, Japan (from Prostitution)
Image 10Sex workers demonstrating for better working conditions at the 2009 Marcha Gay in Mexico City (from Sex work)
Image 11The red light district in Amsterdam (from Sex work)
Image 12De Wallen red-light district in Amsterdam (from Prostitution)
Image 13
  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 14A 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 15News report about three brothels operating in Albuquerque, New Mexico that were raided by police in 1922 (from Prostitution)
Image 16Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam (from Prostitution)
Image 17Brothel scene; Brunswick Monogrammist, 1537; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Prostitution)
Image 18The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (1622) (from Prostitution)
Image 19A political cartoon from 1787 jesting about the notion of taxation affecting prostitutes (from Prostitution)
Image 20Statue 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 21Women in an early San Francisco bordello in 1870 (from Prostitution)
Image 22An Ancient Greek urn depicts a prostitute and her client. (from Sex work)
Image 23A street prostitute talking to a potential customer in Turin, Italy, 2005 (from Prostitution)
Image 24A sex worker in Berlin in 2001 (from Sex work)
Image 25A liberated Chinese girl who had been forced in to sexual slavery by the Japanese military sits on a stretcher and speaks to a British military serviceman. (from Prostitution)
Image 26A 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 27An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765) (from Prostitution)

Related portals

Selected general sex worker

Image 1

Blaze Starr in 1974

Blaze Starr (born Fannie Belle Fleming; April 10, 1932 – June 15, 2015) was an American stripper and burlesque star. Her vivacious presence and inventive use of stage props earned her the nickname "The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque". She was also known for her affair with Louisiana Governor Earl Kemp Long. Based on her memoir Blaze Starr! My Life as Told to Huey Perry (published in 1974), the 1989 film Blaze told the story of that affair starring Paul Newman as Long and Lolita Davidovich as Starr, with Starr herself acting in a cameo role and as a consultant. (Full article...)
Image 2

Molly Luft at the 10th Venus Berlin, October 2006

Molly Luft (19 March 1944 – 24 November 2010) was a German prostitute, noted for her obesity and lurid make-up. (Full article...)
Image 3

Mata Hari, c. 1910

Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (/ˈmɑːtə ˈhɑːri/; from Malay, "sun" or "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. Her story has served as an inspiration for many 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 several falsifications. Some have even stated that Mata Hari could not have been a spy and was innocent. (Full article...)
Image 4

Welles at the 2013 AVN Awards

Tori Welles (born Brittania Carroll Paris on June 17, 1967) is an American former pornographic actress. (Full article...)
Image 5
Portrait of Lizzie, taken in Shelby, Ohio, circa 1903, Burt Mossholder Studio

Lizzie Lape (August 15, 1853 – sometime after Thanksgiving 1917) was a mid-Ohio madam who owned and operated multiple bordellos at the end of the 19th century and early into the 20th. (Full article...)
Image 6

Anderson in 1998

Raffaëla Anderson (born Malika Amrane on 8 January 1976) is a French former adult film performer. During her porn career, she was often credited as Raphaëlla (also spelled Raphaëla). (Full article...)
Image 7
Justin Slayer (born Eugene Bell on September 10, 1972) is an American pornographic film actor and director. He is from Los Angeles, Ca.

He won the 2007 Adult Video News Awards "Best Ethnic Series - Latin" for the Mami Culo Grande series and "Best Ethnic Series - Black" for the Phatty Girls series. (Full article...)
Image 8

Shane in 1998

Shane (born December 16, 1969) is an American former pornographic actress, director, and web personality, known for creating the Shane's World series of adult videos after having debuted in the Seymore Butts video series. She is also the founder of an adult film production company of the same name. Shane is a member of the AVN Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 9
Wesley Lawrence (born January 20, 1969), better known by his stage name Wesley Pipes, is a retired American pornographic actor. (Full article...)
Image 10
Laure Sainclair (French pronunciation: [lɔʁ sɛ̃klɛʁ]; born 24 April 1972) is a French former adult film actress.

Sainclair first worked as a model for nude photography. She eventually met pornographic actresses at an adult entertainment convention in Rennes, and decided to try her hand at the sex industry. She worked for a time as a stripper, then made her first adult film in 1995, a semi-amateur production titled Maud s'offre à toi. Her first experience was a negative one but she eventually met producer Marc Dorcel who made her his first contract performer. and "brand ambassador". Sainclair went on to be the most popular adult film actress in France during the second half of the 1990s. (Full article...)
Image 11
Max Konnor is an American gay pornographic film actor and webcam model. After starting his pornographic career under the name Isaiah Foxx in 2009, he left the industry in 2012 to pursue a career in stage and television acting. In 2017, he became a webcam model on CAM4 and started pornographic accounts on OnlyFans and Twitter. He soon started performing in studio-made pornographic films and later became the most-followed Black gay pornographic actor on Twitter and CAM4's first male ambassador.

As a pornographic film actor, he has won five Grabby Awards, five GayVN Awards—including for Performer of the Year in 2022—the XBIZ Award for Gay Performer of the Year, and two Fleshbot Awards. Outside of pornography, he was one of the subjects of the 2021 documentary Being Black in Porn, has appeared as a main cast member on the OutTV reality television series X-Rated: NYC since 2023, and starred in the off-Broadway musical Waiting in the Wings: The Musical in 2023. In 2019, he launched Haus of Konnor, a pornographic agency and studio geared toward gay pornographic actors of color. (Full article...)
Image 12

Golden in a scene from the film Exhibition 99 (1998)

Dolly Golden (born 28 August 1973) is a former pornographic actress. (Full article...)
Image 13

Payton in 1953

Barbara Lee Payton (born Redfield; November 16, 1927 – May 8, 1967) was an American film actress best known for her stormy social life and battles with alcoholism and drug addiction. Her life has been the subject of several books, including her autobiography I Am Not Ashamed (1963). Also, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story (2007) by John O'Dowd, L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes and Bad Times (2005) by John Gilmore and B Movie: A Play in Two Acts (2014) by Michael B. Druxman. She married five times. (Full article...)
Image 14

Vespoli at the 2014 AVN Awards

Dana Vespoli is an American pornographic actress and film director. (Full article...)
Image 15

Hillary Scott at the 2007 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo

Hillary Scott is an American former pornographic actress. She won the 2007 XRCO, AFWG, and AVN Female Performer of the Year Awards and the NightMoves and AVN Award for Best Actress. In 2016, she was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame. In 2024, she was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 16

Ireland at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2008

Kylie Ireland (born May 26, 1970) is an American pornographic actress, film director, producer, publicist, and satellite radio show host. She is an inductee into the AVN, XRCO, and NightMoves Halls of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 17

DeArmond in 2010

Dana DeArmond is an American pornographic actress and director. She entered the industry in 2004 and is a member of the AVN, XRCO, and Urban X Halls of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 18
Liara Roux is an American author, sex worker, pornography director, internet personality and sex worker human rights activist (Full article...)
Image 19
Ryan Idol (born August 10, 1966) is an American gay pornographic film actor who performed in the 1990s and later onstage in mainstream theater. He has French, Irish, and Native American ancestry. Idol describes himself as "the creation of Marc Anthony Donais". (Full article...)
Image 20

Adams in 2006

Tracey Adams is an American former pornographic film actress who has also appeared in mainstream films. She is an AVN Hall of Fame founding inductee. (Full article...)
Image 21
File://cdn.24.co.za/files/Cms/General/d/7310/708d9f584d8c4c9d869f7eb9a78e39b6.jpg

Glenda Kemp (born 1949) is a South African stripper, activist, and teacher. (Full article...)
Image 22

Poppy Morgan (born 17 February 1983) is an English pornographic actress, model and director. (Full article...)
Image 23

portrait of Laura Thistlethwayte by Richard Buckner

Laura Eliza Jane Seymour Bell (1829–1894, married name Thistlethwayte) was an Irish-born courtesan of Victorian England. She was most notorious for the Nepalese Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana reputedly spending £250,000 on her. She later experienced a religious conversion and became a revivalist preacher on morality. (Full article...)
Image 24

Carrera in 2003

Asia Carrera Lemmon (born Jessica Steinhauser, August 6, 1973) is an American former pornographic actress. (Full article...)
Image 25

Diamond signing autographs

Júlia Koroknai (born 11 April 1981), known by her stage name Mya Diamond, is a Hungarian erotic model and former pornographic actress. In 2006 she won the Ninfa Award for best actress. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... 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 Sadhana Mahila Sangha protected Bangalore sex workers from the police and from HIV, but they now help feed them during the pandemic?
... that a Harvey's franchise known for being a hub for sex work was described by one artist as a "legendary Toronto icon"?