Travels in the Skin Trade

This text poses questions about the sex industry: are the workers or their clients the real beggars?; how do they feel about what they do?; and what sort of regulation of the industry do sex workers want and need? It seeks to explain the cultural, economic and social pressures leading to this work.

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Press coverage of the sex trade in Thailand routinely consists of moralizing and sensationalist denunciations of this infamous "industry". Through the words of sex workers, performers, and all those who provide services within the sex industry - and their clients - this book poses some controversial questions: who are the real beggars - those who sell their bodies for derisory amounts of money, or those who travel halfway around the world for the sake of experiences not available at home?; how do the sex industry workers really feel about what they do, and what sort of regulation/control of the industry do they want and need? Their answers - sometimes surprising, often both shocking and moving - explain the cultural, economic and social pressures which lead young men and women to offer their bodies on the open tourist market.