Sex workers are often the “objects” of study for academics and policy makers. Theories about their lives and the policies that affect their work are usually developed without input from the sex workers themselves, as they are rarely seen as capable of analyzing the social and political world in which they work.

In this book, however, sex workers set the tone. Leslie Ann Jeffrey and Gayle MacDonald interview sex workers in three Maritime cities and those who work around them: police, health-care providers, community workers/advocates, members of neighbourhood associations, and politicians. The sex workers discuss such issues as violence and safety, health and risk, politics and policy, media influence, and public perception of the trade, portraying the best and the worst facets of their working lives and expressing sentiments refreshingly at odds with commonly held opinions.

Given recent Parliamentary recommendations to decriminalize prostitution, Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back represents a timely shift to public discussions about sex work. Engaging and accessible, this book will be of interest to public policy practitioners, students of social and political science, community advocates, police, and sex workers and their families.

Leslie Ann Jeffrey's profile page

Gayle MacDonald is professor of Sociology at St. Thomas University in Fredericton. She is the co-author of Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back (2006-7), the editor of Social Location and Social Context in the Sociology of Law (2002), and is currently editing a collection on women's resistance to law, with Ellen Faulkner.

Gayle MacDonald's profile page