Portal:Sex work
Introduction
Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services. (Full article...)
Selected article -
A brothel, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub parlours, studios, or by some other description. Sex work in a brothel is considered safer than street prostitution. (Full article...)
Selected images
-
-
Women in an early San Francisco bordello in 1870 (from Prostitution) -
An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765) (from Prostitution) -
Prostitute c. 1890. (from Prostitution) -
-
-
A prostitute and her customer illustrated on an ancient Greek wine cup; the act of prostitution is indicated by the coin purse above the figures. (from Prostitution) -
-
Boat based window prostitute in Utrecht (from Prostitution) -
A sex worker in Berlin in 2001 (from Sex work) -
Statue to honor the sex workers of the world. Installed March 2007 in Amsterdam, Oudekerksplein, in front of the Oude Kerk, in Amsterdam's red-light district De Wallen. Titled Belle, the inscription to the piece says "Respect sex workers all over the world." (from Prostitution) -
A political cartoon from 1787 jesting about the notion of taxation affecting prostitutes (from Prostitution) -
A liberated Chinese girl who had been forced in to sexual slavery by the Japanese military sits on a stretcher and speaks to a Royal Air Force officer. (from Prostitution) -
News report about three brothels operating in Albuquerque, New Mexico that were raided by police in 1922 (from Prostitution) -
-
Sex workers demonstrating for better working conditions at the 2009 Marcha Gay in Mexico City (from Sex work) -
Stickers affixed to a payphone in São Paulo, 2006 (from Prostitution) -
A prostitute in Amsterdam's red-light district talks with a potential customer. (from Prostitution) -
-
Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam (from Prostitution) -
-
Legalization – prostitution legal and regulatedDecriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitutionAbolitionism – prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulatedNeo-abolitionism – illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sexProhibitionism – prostitution illegalLegality varies with local laws(from Prostitution) -
Kisaeng women from outcast or slave families. (from Prostitution) -
An Ancient Greek urn depicts a prostitute and her client. (from Sex work) -
World map of prostitution lawsDecriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitutionLegalization (regulation) – Prostitution legal and regulatedAbolitionism – Prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulatedNeo-abolitionism (Nordic model) – Illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sexProhibitionism – Prostitution illegal in all aspects (selling and buying)Legality varies with local laws(from Sex work)
-
A detail from plate 1 of William Hogarth's (1697–1764) The Harlot's Progress, showing brothel-keeper Elizabeth Needham, on the right, procuring a young woman who has just arrived in London (from Prostitution)
Related portals
.svg){kind=small}
Selected general sex worker
-
Sylvia Bourdon (born 1949 in Cologne, West Germany) is a French activist who speaks four languages and is an expert in French art and design. (Full article...) -
Fumio Watanabe (渡辺文雄, Watanabe Fumio) (October 31, 1929 – August 4, 2004) was a Japanese actor most known for his work with Japanese New Wave director Nagisa Oshima. He was born in Tokyo and graduated from the University of Tokyo before joining the Shōchiku studio in 1956. (Full article...)
-
Jill Kelly (born February 1, 1971) is an American pornographic actress, director and producer. Kelly is an AVN Hall of Fame inductee. (Full article...) -
Lynn LeMay (born in Tacoma, Washington) is an American pornographic actress. She was also a featured dancer in the U.S. and Europe. In fall 2006, she founded the adult production company LeMayzing Pictures. (Full article...) -
Yurizan Beltrán (November 2, 1986 – December 13, 2017) was an American pornographic actress, model, and mainstream actress. In addition to her successful pornographic and modeling career, Beltran also starred in the 2006 horror film Werewolf in a Women's Prison and the 2017 romantic comedy Rice on White.
During her pornographic career, Beltran received positive attention from her critics and peers. Over the course of her career, Beltran received multiple high industry award nominations from AVN, NMA, XBIZ, and the XRCO. (Full article...) -
Karen Lancaume (born Karine Bach, 19 January 1973 – 28 January 2005) was a French pornographic film actress. She appeared in over 83 pornographic films between 1996 and 2000. She starred as Nadine in the 2000 film, Baise-moi, a mainstream film in which she performed unsimulated penetration and fellatio.
She was a nominee for the Best French Actress Hot d'Or in March 2000. (Full article...) -
Samantha Bentley (born 8 October 1987) is an English former pornographic actress, musician and writer. (Full article...) -
Aiden Shaw (born Aiden Brady, 22 February 1966) is an English author, model, and former pornographic film actor. (Full article...) -
Tiziana Zennaro, best known as Vittoria Risi (born 3 November 1978) is an Italian pornographic actress and television personality. (Full article...) -
Carter Stevens (October 17, 1944 – December 30, 2020) was a pornographic film actor, director, grip, gaffer, and film processing lab technician.
Stevens earned a degree in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology, worked at Eastman Kodak Company and was a shift supervisor at Movielab, the largest independent motion picture processing facility in New York, before going into film-making. He made 8 mm loops, appeared in over 50 adult films between around 1973 and 1993, and directed about 40 films between 1972 and 1996, including a series of films for the Avon Theater chain.[citation needed] (Full article...) -
Freda Josephine Baker (née McDonald; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 French silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.
During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue Un vent de folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. (Full article...) -
Michaela Schaffrath (née Jänke; born 6 December 1970) is a German television actress and former pornographic actress.
A former nurse, she got started in the adult film industry after she posed nude for Coupé, a German adult magazine. She gained international notoriety during her career as a pornographic actress under the stage name Gina Wild. She won two Venus Awards, for Best New Starlet in 1999 and Best German Actress in 2000. (Full article...) -
Vednita Carter is an American anti-sex trafficking and anti-prostitution activist. Carter is an author and the executive director of Breaking Free, an organization which helps women seeking to leave prostitution. (Full article...)
-
Kelly Shibari (born 9 September 1972) is an American former pornographic actress and plus-size model. (Full article...) -
Tericka Dye (born 1972/1973) is an American former pornographic actress who performed under the stage name of Rikki Andersin. Later known by the name Tera Myers, she made national headlines when, after retiring from the adult industry and becoming a high school science teacher in Kentucky, her brief pornographic career was discovered, leading to her dismissal. (Full article...)
-
C. Shakeela, known mononymously as Shakeela, is an Indian actress and politician who has predominantly acted in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu language films. She is a member of Indian National Congress.
Shakeela debuted in the softcore pornographic film Playgirls (1995) at the age of 18. She became a popular figure in Kerala with the release of Malayalam softcore film Kinnara Thumbikal in 2000. This film would go on to pioneer a new wave of low-budget softcore porn films in the state, with Shakeela starring in many of them. In Kerala's hero-centric mainstream industry of her time, Shakeela's emergence as a liberated woman, who displays her sexuality in defiance of social norms led to what became known as Malayalam cinema's Shakeela tharangam (Shakeela wave). (Full article...) -
Leonie Saint (born 23 April 1986), also known with the stage names Leonie Luder or simply Leonie is a German actress, TV presenter and former pornographic actress. (Full article...) -
Philipp Tanzer (born 31 December 1977) is a German men's rights activist and former adult entertainer in gay films, in which he performed under the stage name Logan McCree.
After serving in the German military, Tanzer was part of the leather subculture in Germany. He began working with the adult entertainment company Raging Stallion Studios in the mid-2000s and became popular with both audiences and critics, being named Performer of the Year at the 2009 GayVN Awards and Gay Performer of the Year at the 2010 XBIZ Awards. He was known in the industry for his heavily tattooed body, which he views as an expression of his spiritual beliefs. (Full article...) -
Mick Yanai at 2008 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo
Micky Yanai (Japanese: ミッキー 柳井, b. 1959) is a well-known Japanese male porn actor. (Full article...) -
Armin Hagen Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene (born 28 December 1942) is a German-American photographer, artist, filmmaker, clothing designer/sewer, and model best known by his stage name Peter Berlin. In the early to mid-1970s.
His two films, Nights in Black Leather (1973) and That Boy (1974) (credited in the latter as Peter Burian) helped bring gay male erotic films artistic legitimacy. (Full article...) -
-
Shannon Eaves, known professionally as Nikki Charm, is an American pornographic film actor. She is a member of the Adult Video News Hall of Fame and the XRCO Hall of Fame.
Between 1984 and 1990, Charm appeared in nearly 50 videos and was a contract performer with Vivid Entertainment for some time. Charm stopped appearing in adult videos in 1990, but spent some time as an exotic dancer. She made a brief return to the adult-entertainment industry between 1998 and 2000, when she appeared in six titles. (Full article...) -
Manuel Jeannin (French pronunciation: [manɥɛl ʒanɛ̃]; born 1 November 1975), known professionally as Manuel Ferrara, is a French-American adult entertainer and director.
One of the leading actors in the porn industry, Ferrara has won over 64 adult industry awards including six AVN Awards as Male Performer of the Year—the record for the accolade, and was inducted into the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame. (Full article...) -
-
Mr. Marcus (born September 4, 1970) is the stage name of Jesse Spencer, an American pornographic film actor and director known for acting in or directing over 1,800 pornographic films.
In 2009, he was inducted into the AVN Awards Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
_cropped.jpg)
.jpg)
Did you know...
- ... that the posthumously released documentary Clean centered on the life of Sandra Pankhurst, a former sex worker, drag queen, and crime scene cleaner?
- ... that Indonesian politician Sanusi's parents discouraged him from becoming a government employee, because his salary would be paid partly from taxes on alcohol and prostitution?
- ... that Lea Ackermann, a German nun of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, fought against forced prostitution and sex tourism in East Africa?
- ... that a Harvey's franchise known for being a hub for sex work was described by one artist as a "legendary Toronto icon"?
Subcategories
- Select [►] to view subcategories
Get involved
For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Sex work-related articles, see WikiProject Sex work.
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
Discover Wikipedia using portals
