The Pimping of Prostitution

Abolishing the Sex Work Myth

By: Julie Bindel

Narrated by: Eunice Wong

This book examines one of the most contested issues facing feminists, human rights activists, and governments around the globe - the international sex trade. For decades, the liberal left has been conflicted as to whether pro-prostitution activists or abolitionists hold the correct view, and debates are ongoing as to who holds the key to the solutions facing the women and girls involved.

Over the course of two years, Bindel conducted 250 interviews in almost 40 countries, cities, and states, traveling around Europe, Asia, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and East and South Africa. Visiting legal brothels all around the world, Bindel got to know pimps, pornographers, survivors of the sex trade, and the women being sold by men classed as "business entrepreneurs". Whilst meeting feminist abolitionists, pro-prostitution campaigners, police and government officials, and the men who drive the demand, Bindel uncovered the lies, mythology, and criminal activity that shroud this global trade and suggests here a way forward for the women seeking to abolish the oldest oppression.

Informed by the lived human experience of those interviewed, this book will be of great interest to feminists, students, criminal justice advocates, criminologists, and human rights activists.

©2017 Julie Bindel (P)2021 Julie Bindel

An excellent history of the movement to abolish prostitution.

This is a thorough history of the abolitionist movement, and its arguments. I was thrilled to find that the authors did not overlook the world-changing work of the great survivor theorist, Evelina Giobbe. This book inspires me to write about my experience in prostitution, the 90s-00s abolitionist movement, and the problems with the legislation that was intended to redefine the issue, by recognizing prostitution as oppression as an insidious, sometimes sanctioned, form of slavery. The great abolitionists established this accurate definition, the most notable of whom did so by relating and defending their own experience. Problems, invariably, arise when we use established systems to secure and protect our human rights. There is always a difference between the intentions of those fighting for legislative change and the implementation of new laws, by those in power. This book honors the original movement to end prostitution as violence against women. It motivates me to seek solutions that are true to our original vision. The narration was good, overall…delivered with appropriate urgency and fury (though the best example of this is Giobbe’s recorded debates and legal arguments, IMO). Some names of key theorists were mispronounced, but the narration is evocative of the spirit of the originators of the abolitionist movement. If you are concerned about Human Trafficking and human rights, do not miss this important work!