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Rating: 
Summary: So true!!!
Review: For years I've considered myself to be a freak of sorts: I consider myself to be a feminist and a strong, secure woman who has a positive self and body image, yet, at the same time, I've wanted to strip. Not for money, but for my own enjoyment. In this book, it's explained that there is room for all of us in the feminist movement. It's about time that we as women stop demonizing men and begin to understand that women can be whores or porn stars, or stripers an not be an automatic victim. I found this book to be VERY refreshing.
Rating: 
Summary: The trick's in the title
Review: I am mystified by some of the negative customer reviews of this book. Jill Nagle's anthology of essays across the sex worker theme did nothing short of smash every stereotype I had ever held about prostitutes, exotic dancers and other sex workers. These stereotypes have undoubtedly been created by the alternate over-glamorous and sub-realist portrayals from Hollywood. While any critically thinking reader will understand that Nagle doesn't cover the seedy underbelly of child prostitution and harmful sex services, what she shows is voluntary sex work on an equal par with any other skilled profession, though with a healthy dose of self-reflection, feminism and personal growth on the part of the workers themselves. I probably bought five additional copies to send to friends. It's an eye-opener.
Rating:
Summary: Jill Nagle Smashes Stereotypes
Review: I am mystified by some of the negative customer reviews of this book. Jill Nagle's anthology of essays across the sex worker theme did nothing short of smash every stereotype I had ever held about prostitutes, exotic dancers and other sex workers. These stereotypes have undoubtedly been created by the alternate over-glamorous and sub-realist portrayals from Hollywood. While any critically thinking reader will understand that Nagle doesn't cover the seedy underbelly of child prostitution and harmful sex services, what she shows is voluntary sex work on an equal par with any other skilled profession, though with a healthy dose of self-reflection, feminism and personal growth on the part of the workers themselves. I probably bought five additional copies to send to friends. It's an eye-opener.
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful but lacking
Review: jill nagle's anthology of essays provides a multitude of complex visions of sex workers - the essays in nagle's collection range in topics from a discussion of the term "sex worker" to a discussion about women of color in the sex work industry(ies). nagle's book always paints a picture of nuanced multiplicity and complexity and never falls into broad generalizations. it is definitely a book worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Did Twiss Butler Read Beyond the Title?
Review: That prostitution is one of only two professions in which women make more than men says to me that it is not solely a system that "pay[s] off for men at women's expense." Holding men responsible for what they "do to" women? Framing an act of paid sex between consenting adults as solely a man "doing something to" a woman robs that woman of her autonomy as surely as anything else the reader accuses Nagle of. The reader has a point about the scripts being written by men, but do tell me, what does she do for a living, and who writes her script? Do we not every day, all of us negotiate a world not solely of our choosing? And is prostitution any more misogynist than secretarial work, housecleaning or other scripted female jobs because it involves sex? The burden is on those who equate sex with misogyny to show why sex is particularly sexist, not the other way around. This book calls those very notions into question.
Rating:
Summary: Did Twiss Butler Read Beyond the Title?
Review: That prostitution is one of only two professions in which women make more than men says to me that it is not solely a system that "pay[s] off for men at women's expense." Holding men responsible for what they "do to" women? Framing an act of paid sex between consenting adults as solely a man "doing something to" a woman robs that woman of her autonomy as surely as anything else the reader accuses Nagle of. The reader has a point about the scripts being written by men, but do tell me, what does she do for a living, and who writes her script? Do we not every day, all of us negotiate a world not solely of our choosing? And is prostitution any more misogynist than secretarial work, housecleaning or other scripted female jobs because it involves sex? The burden is on those who equate sex with misogyny to show why sex is particularly sexist, not the other way around. This book calls those very notions into question.
Rating:
Summary: Part of me has always wanted to be a sex worker
Review: The contributors to this book are more than "feminists"; more specifically, these women are capable, intelligent, articulate feminists who have chosen the sex industry over all the other "legitimate" fields for which they are equally qualified.Who hasn't imagined, even once, that it might be interesting to be an expensive call girl, or a giver of healing erotic massage, or a sexy actor in porn movies? The women in this book have made these types of sex work (and many more) into careers, and it's fascinating to read their experienced take on the sex industry and on American cultural attitudes. If you've ever been curious about sex work and sex workers, Jill Nagle's book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: This book will change you.
Review: The perspectives presented in Nagle's revolutionary book made me re-think a lot of my politically correct feminist dogma. I realized that perhaps prostitutes are not victims at all. In fact, they may possibly be the most empowered women of all. Men are charged for every minute they spend with them, they screen their clients, and they don't sugar coat the services they provide with foolish and dishonest romantic rhetoric.
I was left with the astonishing conclusion that misogyny's victims are most often housewives, mistresses and girlfriends. These women allow men free access to their bodies, plus they serve as maids, cooks, nurturers, escorts, masseuses and companions. Whores prove that a woman's time and sexual attention has real economic value.
This book is a must read for any critical thinker. It will change you.
Rating:
Summary: A POWERFUL BOOK
Review: What is most fascinating about the war for sexual equality is that sex itself is the principle battlefield. The average American male idolizes Hugh Hefner for having seven girl friends all one-third his age and enjoying a lavish life style that was paid for by the fleshy attributes, surgically enhanced and otherwise, of thousands of women. Yet if a woman claims to have had hundreds of sexual partners and profited from those ventures, she's a social outcast whose potential husbands or boyfriends are silently held to "you're not going to get serious about her, are you?" As far back as the middle 18th Century, the most lascivious of the mainstream women's rights campaigners, Wicked Victoria Woodhull, who coined the term Free Love, was written out of feminist history by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as an embarrassment to the more serious elements of the struggle. Jill Nagle's book challenges the debate on its most fundamental playing field: is sex part of sexual equality? Is profiting from and enjoying one's sexual skills and powers only a male option? This book is funny, entertaining, sexy, provocative, uncompromising and above all, marvelously intelligent and insightful. Yes, that woman in the Eros Guide ad has a master's degree and finds more freedom, fun, and financial gain in tying up and spanking the bank president than she once had fetching his coffee and dodging his ass-grabbing. Really, not all women who strut about in high heels and nothing else at the Mitchell Brothers theater are the victims of sexual abuse. And yes, if a woman has the right to say no, she has the right to say yes to whatever might feel good and look good and accept the array of consequences without selling out anyone else's political expectations. I loved this book: any man who feels threatened by smart, sexy, independent women has missed the best of them. Read and enjoy, and while you're at it, learn a few things. It will stay on my book shelf for a long time. James Dalessandro, author/screenwriter, Bohemian Heart, 1906
Rating:
Summary: A POWERFUL BOOK
Review: What is most fascinating about the war for sexual equality is that sex itself is the principle battlefield. The average American male idolizes Hugh Hefner for having seven girl friends all one-third his age and enjoying a lavish life style that was paid for by the fleshy attributes, surgically enhanced and otherwise, of thousands of women. Yet if a woman claims to have had hundreds of sexual partners and profited from those ventures, she's a social outcast whose potential husbands or boyfriends are silently held to "you're not going to get serious about her, are you?" As far back as the middle 18th Century, the most lascivious of the mainstream women's rights campaigners, Wicked Victoria Woodhull, who coined the term Free Love, was written out of feminist history by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony as an embarrassment to the more serious elements of the struggle. Jill Nagle's book challenges the debate on its most fundamental playing field: is sex part of sexual equality? Is profiting from and enjoying one's sexual skills and powers only a male option? This book is funny, entertaining, sexy, provocative, uncompromising and above all, marvelously intelligent and insightful. Yes, that woman in the Eros Guide ad has a master's degree and finds more freedom, fun, and financial gain in tying up and spanking the bank president than she once had fetching his coffee and dodging his ass-grabbing. Really, not all women who strut about in high heels and nothing else at the Mitchell Brothers theater are the victims of sexual abuse. And yes, if a woman has the right to say no, she has the right to say yes to whatever might feel good and look good and accept the array of consequences without selling out anyone else's political expectations. I loved this book: any man who feels threatened by smart, sexy, independent women has missed the best of them. Read and enjoy, and while you're at it, learn a few things. It will stay on my book shelf for a long time. James Dalessandro, author/screenwriter, Bohemian Heart, 1906
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