Making Sense of Prostitution

Making Sense of Prostitution explores the social and symbolic conditions which help to sustain women within prostitution. It examines the ways in which the law understands prostitutes, and the dominant explanations that are on offer which account for prostitutes and prostitution, before providing a detailed and rigorous explication of the strategies by which some prostitutes, whose lives are torn apart by the effects of destitution-level poverty and violence from partners, parents, police and punters, come to understand their involvement in prostitution. The book shows how many of the experiences of prostitutes are shaped and structured by economic relations between men and women generally. Based on a major empirical study, Making Sense of Prostitution provides a unique glimpse into women's struggle to survive conditions over which they have little or no control. It is essential reading for practitioners, students and academics who work with or are interested in prostitution, women's poverty and violence against women.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.