Prostitution, Power and Freedom |  | Author: Julia O'connell Davidson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Category: Book
Buy New: $65.00
New (2) Used (3) from $54.15
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 6110208
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0472096958
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.74
EAN: 9780472096954
ASIN: 0472096958
Publication Date: February 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Prostitution, Power and Freedom brings new insights to the ongoing debate among scholars, activists, and others on the controversial subject of prostitution. Sociologist Julia O'Connell Davidson's concise, accessibly-written study is based on wide research from various corners of the world. The study employs a range of theoretical analyses and argues against simplistic explanations of the prostitution phenomenon, showing it to be a complex relationship where economics, power relations, gender, age, class, and "choice" intersect.
The author has conducted an impressive amount of research in nine countries, including conversations with male and female sex tourists, adult and child prostitutes, procurers, and clients. Through her research, O'Connell Davidson demonstrates the complexity of prostitution, arguing that it is not simply an effect of male oppression and violence or insatiable sexual needs, nor is it an unproblematic economic encounter. The book provides a sophisticated explanation of the economic and political inequalities underlying prostitution, but also shows that while prostitution necessarily implies certain freedoms for the clients, the amount of freedom experienced by individual prostititutes varies greatly.
This highly accessible book will be of great interest to those in gender and women's studies, sexuality and cultural studies, the sociology of work and organizations, and social policy. General readers will also appreciate having new ways of thinking about this age-old social phenomenon.
Julia O'Connell Davidson is Lecturer in Sociology, University of Leicester.
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| Customer Reviews:
 An excellent survey January 21, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
O'Connell's book does a scholarly, impartial job of describing prostitution practices all over the world, and is a very useful resource for any scholars who write on related topics. The information is often presented in anecdotal form, based on interviews with practitioners. O'Connell also does a good job describing the legal and cultural regimes in which different prostitution practices exist. As an empirical survey of practices as they exist, it's really very good. The economic analysis utilized in the book was perhaps weak (there were places where it was starkly wrong), and, given the economic, or at least commoditized, nature of the subject matter, this is too bad. But, in any event, I do not think that this at all detracts very much from the overall merit of the work. Worth owning.
 Fantastic, sensitive and thought provoking 10/10 February 13, 2001
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This a profoundly powerful book, the clear and incisive way it examines its subject finds a path through a disturbing and confused field. A unique academic work, capable of make one laugh and cry (sometimes at the same time), this should be essential reading for any one studying or thinking about studying sociology or the social sciences. Surely Julia O'Connell Davidson is one and the same author as "Sylvia O'Conner Davidson" (Methods, Sex and Madness).
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