The Prostitution of Sexuality

Identifies the global conditions of sexual exploitation, from sex industrialisation in developing countries, to the normalisation of prostitution in the West. It considers sexual exploitation a political condition that is the foundation of women's subordination.

---

In 1979, Kathleen Barry's book, "Female Sexual Slavery", pulled back the curtain on a world of abuse that shocked the world and documented in detail the lives of street prostitutes and the international traffic in women. In "The Prostitution of Sexuality" Barry assesses where we are 15 years later, how far we've come and, more importantly, how far we still have to go. Shifting her focus from the sexuality of prostitution to the prostitution of sexuality, Barry exposes the practice of teenage sexual exploitation and the flourishing Asian "sex tour" industry, emphasising the world-wide role of the expanding multi-billion dollar pornography industry. The work identifies the global conditions of sexual exploitation, from sex industrialisation in developing countries, to the normalisation of prostitution in the West. "The Prostitution of Sexuality" considers sexual exploitation a political condition that is the foundation of women's subordination and the base from which discrimination against women is constructed and enacted.
Barry argues for the need to integrate the struggle against sexual exploitation in prostitution into broader feminist struggles and to place it, as one of several connected issues, in the forefront of the feminist agenda. She concludes the book with a sampling of strategies - international, regional, local and personal - that feminist activists have employed successfully since the early 1980s, highlighting new international legal strategies for human rights that have resulted from her work.