Dr Kate Lister invited five contributors to share their diverse, profound and often heartbreaking personal experiences of sex work, with each reflecting upon how the stigma of sex work can have a significant impact on sex workers’ mental health, on their place in society and on their physical safety. The result is a series of unique perspectives that question the political and societal reluctance to legitimise sex work and how it might better protect those who are the most vulnerable.
About the contributors
Dr Kate Lister
Editor
Kate Lister is the creator of the award-winning online research project Whores of Yore, which seeks to build public engagement and disseminate research on the history of sex and sexuality through social media. She also lectures at Leeds Trinity University, and is widely published on the sex trade.
Jessa Fairbrother
Artist
Jessa Fairbrother is an award-winning artist concentrating on themes of yearning and the porous body. Initially training as an actor, she later completed an MA in Photographic Studies, amplifying her knowledge of how artwork and audience collide. Jessa uses embroidery, performance, photography and writing in her work. The artist’s book of her work, ‘Conversations with my mother’, is held in collections including Tate Britain and the V&A, London. Her companion piece, ‘Role Play (Woman with Cushion)’, is part of ‘Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood’ – a Hayward Touring exhibition curated by Hettie Judah.