Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Sex Workers in the Maritimes Talk Back, by Leslie Ann Jeffrey of UNBSJ and Gayle MacDonald of STU (UBC Press, 2006), 273 pages.

"... the media portrays us as non-people ... They use the word 'prostitute' or 'hooker' as opposed to 'a woman who was working as a prostitute.' It's a job -- it's not a person. They've made it a person and they've made it a stereotypical low-life person and a disposable person and the more that the media continues to do that, the more the tricks feel that they are allowed to be violent." (Dana, Halifax)

 

"The cop says to me ... 'Listen, you're so young, so pretty. Why don't you get a real job, like work in Tim Hortons or something?' I said, 'Listen,

you

work in Tim Hortons ...' (Alison, Halifax)

Literature dealing with sex work in the Maritimes is not plentiful, so when I noticed this book mentioned on the Stepping Stone website, it caught my interest.

 

The book is based on interviews with 60 sex workers in Saint John, Moncton, Fredericton, and Halifax. (An additional 50 interviews were also conducted with police, justice officials, community advocates, lawyers and politicians -- but not clients.) The sex workers were contacted mostly through community agencies, and thus tended to be mostly street workers, not indoor workers. They ranged in age from 18 to 52 (with a mean of 32) years.

 

The workers were asked about "what was good and bad about the job, what their concerns were, and what they would like to say to society at large ... we asked questions designed to evoke a sex worker's own prioritization, and understanding, of issues ... this book presents the voices of sex workers in the Maritimes 'talking back' on economics, work, law, health, media, and politics and challenging those who would interpret their lives for them".

 

Professors Jeffrey and MacDonald provide analysis and framing of issues, mostly within the context raised by the workers' own comments. (Their observations on Phonse Jessome's Somebody's Daughter, and their analysis of the coverage of prostitution in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald from 1987 to 2003, I found particularly interesting. Also their recap of the various efforts that have been made over the years by the city of Halifax to combat sex work.)

 

Approximately one-third of the text consists of interview transcriptions -- the words of the workers themselves. The workers quoted in this book are outspoken and have a diversity of nuanced opinion on a wide range of industry-specific and societal issues; this diversity comes through clearly in the book. They bluntly tell it like it is, from their perspective ... exactly what you'd expect from true Maritimers!

[VedaSloan 119179]

Sweet. I'm going to have to see if I can get Mother Tongue to order that for me. I have a gift certifcate to spend. Mwahahaha!

 

I loved the first quote.

[Kathryn Bardot 99339]

Erin, I have a copy from a crim course, if you'd like to borrow it. It's an interesting read!

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[Annessa 22743]

this is definitely something that I wanna check out too

[VedaSloan 119179]

Erin, I have a copy from a crim course, if you'd like to borrow it. It's an interesting read!

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That'd be sweet, thanks!

[Kathryn Bardot 99339]

Let me unpack it and the two of you can fight over it LOL. I have a few other related titles if you're interested. I have a friend who's doing a Masters in Sociology with a focus on sex work, so I get the interesting reads.