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Prostitution

V Sailakshmi, 39, says sex work helped pay for her sister's wedding and for her father's funeral

‘We are demanding full decriminalization’: Sex workers in India rally for labor rights

Women & Gender

Sex work is technically legal in India, but workers say they face stigma, harassment and violence — especially by the police. In recent years, sex worker collectives have formed to demand full decriminalization of sex work and recognition of their labor as worthy of protections and rights.

A roulette wheel is spun.

The economics of risk taking in the workplace

Business, Economics and Jobs
A woman holds a sign that says "Sex workers and residents against police raids and closures."

This English collective says Brexit unfairly targets sex workers for deportation

Women & Gender
red light district

This Israeli Facebook group is a lifeline for women caught in a cycle of prostitution

Women & Gender
A street is shown filled with many women with arms raised rallying against prostitution.

Prostitution takes center stage as Spanish feminists rally to eliminate violence against women

Sexuality
Nuria at My Red Light, a social project in the form of a brothel in Amsterdam. Nuria plans to retire from sex work later this year and work full-time in an administrative role at My Red Light.

A Dutch brothel where women work for themselves

Women & Gender

My Red Light in Amsterdam is almost entirely run by former or current sex workers. And it’s designed to ensure that those who rent rooms there aren’t being trafficked or exploited. But some maintain that the work itself is inherently exploitative.

Special Guest: Paula Vogel

Arts, Culture & Media

Paula Vogel is an award-winning playwright and drama professor who crafts her plays around difficult subjects like AIDS, incest, and prostitution. In 1998 she received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for How I Learned to Drive. Her other plays include The Long Christmas Ride Home, The Baltimore Waltz, Hot’N’Throbbing, Desdemona, and The Oldest Profession— about […]

Song for Wuornos

Arts, Culture & Media

Last year the movie Monster told the brutal, horrific story of the real life hooker Aileen Wuornos, who was executed by the state of Florida for killing 7 of her clients. One of the artists who spoke out against her execution was the avant-garde singer Diamanda Galas. Galas dedicated several of her songs to Aileen […]

In Bed with the Collector

Arts, Culture & Media

Most people outside the art world had never heard of performance artist Andrea Fraser until she installed a video piece called “Untitled” in a New York gallery. In the video, Fraser has sex in a hotel with an art collector she had never met, and who paid her dealer handsomely. But Fraser told Tamar Brott […]

Born Into Brothels

Arts, Culture & Media

First-time director Zana Briski’s documentary Born into Brothels is short-listed for this year’s Oscars. A few years ago Briski, a photographer, found herself giving photography lessons to children living in the brothels of Calcutta’s red light district. She told Lu Olkowski about the challenges of trying to change people’s lives with art.