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Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex
University Of Chicago Press
November 2007
On Sale: November 1, 2007
288 pages
ISBN: 0226044580
EAN: 9780226044583
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
Generations of social thinkers have assumed that access to
legitimate paid employment and a decline in the ‘double
standard’ would eliminate the reasons behind women’s
participation in prostitution. Yet in both the developing
world and in postindustrial cities of the West, sexual
commerce has continued to flourish, diversifying along
technological, spatial, and social lines. In this deeply
engaging and theoretically provocative study, Elizabeth
Bernstein examines the social features that undergird the
expansion and diversification of commercialized sex,
demonstrating the ways that postindustrial economic and
cultural formations have spawned rapid and unforeseen
changes in the forms, meanings, and spatial organization of
sexual labor. Drawing upon dynamic and innovative research with sex
workers, their clients, and state actors, Bernstein argues
that in cities such as San Francisco, Stockholm, and
Amstersdam, the nature of what is purchased in commercial
sexual encounters is also new. Rather than the expedient
exchange of cash for sexual relations, what sex workers are
increasingly paid to offer their clients is an erotic
experience premised upon the performance of authentic
interpersonal connection. As such, contemporary sex markets
are emblematic of a cultural moment in which the boundaries
between intimacy and commerce—and between public life and
private—have been radically redrawn. Not simply a compelling
exploration of the changing landscape of sex-work,
Temporarily Yours ultimately lays bare the intimate
intersections of political economy, desire, and culture.
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