What is it about?
This article maps the history and legal battles of a 1970s, Seattle-area "sex cult" known as the Church of Venus. Drawing upon archival and oral historical research, I argue that people in the sex trades were early developers of sex-positive ethics. I show that people in the sex trades used sex-positivity to challenge criminalization and social marginalization, taking their case to the WA state supreme court.
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Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
Why is it important?
My research upsets scholarly and popular interpretations that imagine sex-positivity as apolitical or "post-feminist." For people in the sex trades, sex-positivity has been a critical tool for contesting their criminalization, state surveillance, and social marginalization.
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This page is a summary of: Whores in the Religious Marketplace: Sex-Positivity's Roots in Commercial Sex Cultures, Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies, January 2019, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.5250/fronjwomestud.40.2.0093.
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