Janice G. Raymond

An excellent resource to anyone interested in the abolitionist stance towards the sex industry, Not a Choice, Not a Job offers a thorough, well-cited, and even-handed discussion of what prostitution looks like in the world today, and how governments, feminists, human rights activists, and the sex industry have responded. The book covers a lot of ground; although full chapters are devoted to Sweden and the Netherlands, Raymond discusses laws and campaigns in dozens of other countries in detail, including Hungary, Iceland, and India, and she evaluates the reality of prostitution from legal, sociological, feminist, human rights, and linguistic perspectives. Despite its scope and depth, the text is surprisingly readable, and I would recommend it to anyone researching or looking to learn more about the subject.… (mer)

This book asks some interesting questions, but it's has a number of serious problems and should NOT be used as an introduction to this topic.

The first problem is that it is written within the theoretical framework of lesbian feminism, where anyone who wasn't a "woman identified woman" was a problem. There was a philosophical gulf in this theoretical stance between the desire to build a better world for everyone and the theoretical necessity of marginalizing men. The author is not only unable to bridge this gulf, but seems to be unaware of it, blithely switching between these two opposite poles as she starts new paragraphs.

Two, it's old and a lot of the data is out-dated or suspect. I wish I could say we had better data, but mostly in the last 30 years we've only acquired more reasons to suspect what data we have.

Three, although she interviewed a small sample of trans people, she keeps imposing her theory over their statements, rather than letting their statements inform her theory.

Still, her questions about the ethics of extreme medical intervention in what might be a socio-psychological problem are ones that I haven't seen adequately addressed.… (mer)