Portal:Sex work

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Introduction

Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to voluntary sexual transactions; thus, the term does not refer to human trafficking and other coerced or nonconsensual sexual transactions such as child prostitution. The transaction must take place between consenting adults of the legal age and mental capacity to consent and must take place without any methods of coercion, other than payment. The term emphasizes the labor and economic implications of this type of work. Furthermore, some prefer the use of the term because it grants more agency to the sellers of these services. (Full article...)

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Phone sex is a conversation between two or more people by means of the telephone which is sexually explicit and is intended to provoke sexual arousal in one or more participants. As a practice between individuals temporarily separated, it is as old as dial telephones, on which no operator could eavesdrop. In the later 20th century businesses emerged offering, for a fee, sexual conversations with a phone sex worker.

Phone sex takes imagination on both individuals' part, as each party imagines virtual sex. The sexually explicit conversation takes place between two or more persons via telephone, especially when at least one of the participants either masturbates or engages in sexual fantasy.

Phone sex conversation may take many forms, including: guided fantasy, sexual sounds, narrated and enacted suggestions, sexual anecdotes and confessions, candid expression of sexual fantasies, feelings, or love, or discussion of personal and sensitive sexual topics. Once means of transmitting payment were developed, phone sex turned into primarily a commercial activity, with customers and sellers. (Full article...)

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Selected images

Image 1Sex workers demonstrating for better working conditions at the 2009 Marcha Gay in Mexico City (from Sex work)
Image 2Stickers affixed to a payphone in São Paulo, 2006 (from Prostitution)
Image 3Prostitutes on display in Yoshiwara during the Meiji Period, Japan (from Prostitution)
Image 4
  Legalization – prostitution legal and regulated
  Decriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitution
  Abolitionism – prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated
  Neo-abolitionism – illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex
  Prohibitionism – prostitution illegal
  Legality varies with local laws
(from Prostitution)
Image 5Women in an early San Francisco bordello in 1870 (from Prostitution)
Image 6Tart cards in a British phone box advertising call girls, 2005 (from Prostitution)
Image 7A prostitute and her customer illustrated on an ancient Greek wine cup; the act of prostitution is indicated by the coin purse above the figures. (from Prostitution)
Image 8A prostitute in Amsterdam's red-light district talks with a potential customer. (from Prostitution)
Image 9Boat based window prostitute in Utrecht (from Prostitution)
Image 10A sex worker in Berlin in 2001 (from Sex work)
Image 11Femmes de Maison, painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, c. 1893—1895 (from Prostitution)
Image 12News report about three brothels operating in Albuquerque, New Mexico that were raided by police in 1922 (from Prostitution)
Image 13Brothel scene; Brunswick Monogrammist, 1537; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (from Prostitution)
Image 14Kisaeng women from outcast or slave families. (from Prostitution)
Image 15A political cartoon from 1787 jesting about the notion of taxation affecting prostitutes (from Prostitution)
Image 16An oiran preparing herself for a client, ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Haronubu (1765) (from Prostitution)
Image 17Fresco from the Pompeii brothel (from Prostitution)
Image 18The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen (1622) (from Prostitution)
Image 19World map of prostitution laws
  Decriminalization – No criminal penalties for prostitution
  Legalization (regulation) – Prostitution legal and regulated
  Abolitionism – Prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated
  Neo-abolitionism (Nordic model) – Illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex
  Prohibitionism – Prostitution illegal in all aspects (selling and buying)
  Legality varies with local laws
(from Sex work)
Image 20Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam (from Prostitution)
Image 21The red light district in Amsterdam (from Sex work)
Image 22An Ancient Greek urn depicts a prostitute and her client. (from Sex work)
Image 23A detail from plate 1 of William Hogarth's (1697–1764) The Harlot's Progress, showing brothel-keeper Elizabeth Needham, on the right, procuring a young woman who has just arrived in London (from Prostitution)
Image 24Prostitute c. 1890. (from Prostitution)
Image 25Statue to honor the sex workers of the world. Installed March 2007 in Amsterdam, Oudekerksplein, in front of the Oude Kerk, in Amsterdam's red-light district De Wallen. Titled Belle, the inscription to the piece says "Respect sex workers all over the world." (from Prostitution)
Image 26A liberated Chinese girl who had been forced in to sexual slavery by the Japanese military sits on a stretcher and speaks to a Royal Air Force officer. (from Prostitution)

Related portals

Selected general sex worker

Image 1

Reid in October 2019

Riley Reid (born July 9, 1991) is an American pornographic actress. She has won over 45 awards, including the 2014 XBIZ Award for Female Performer of the Year and the AVN Award for Female Performer of the Year in 2016. (Full article...)
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Kross in 2013

Kayden Kross (born 1985) is an American pornographic actress and director. She is a member of the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 3
Projekt Melody, or more commonly known as Melody (Japanese: メロディー) for short, is an American 3D anime-styled live streamer, or VTuber, and pornographic actress. She first appeared when her Twitter account opened in July 2019, and she has live streamed on Chaturbate and Twitch since early 2020. During her first three days of Chaturbate streaming, Melody's Twitter followers rose from 700 to over 20,000, and her sudden rise in popularity had mixed reactions. In late 2020, Melody became a founding member of VShojo, one of the first VTuber talent agencies based in the Western world. She describes herself as an artificial intelligence, although she is performed by a real person. (Full article...)
Image 4

Tatum in 2017

Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut in the drama Coach Carter (2005), and had his breakthrough with the sports comedy film She's the Man (2006) and the dance film Step Up (2006). He rose to prominence for playing Duke in the action films G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), the title role in the comedy-drama films Magic Mike (2012), Magic Mike XXL (2015) and Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023), and an undercover cop in the action-comedy films 21 Jump Street (2012) and 22 Jump Street (2014).

Tatum's other films include White House Down (2013), Foxcatcher (2014), The Hateful Eight (2015), Hail, Caesar! (2016), Logan Lucky (2017), and The Lost City (2022). He has produced several of his films, including the road film Dog (2022), which he also starred in and co-directed. He was named People's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2012 and one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. (Full article...)
Image 5

Emily Willis during a scene

Emily Willis (born 1998 or 1999) is an American former pornographic film actress. She was a Penthouse Pet of the Month in 2019, and has won multiple AVN Awards, including Female Performer of the Year in 2021. (Full article...)
Image 6

Johnny Hazzard (born Frankie Valenti) is an American former pornographic actor, model, and recording artist who performs in gay and bisexual pornographic films for a number of studios, mainly Rascal Video, and has appeared in mainstream film and television productions under his own name.^{[better source needed]}
He began his career in porn in 2003. Most of his porn videos were directed by Chi Chi LaRue. In August 2008, he worked on a controversial bisexual film directed by LaRue titled Shifting Gears, although he only performed in an all-male scene. He was also a music reviewer for the now defunct Frontiers magazine. (Full article...)
Image 7

Tran at 2010

Céline Tran (born 9 April 1979) is a French actress, writer, martial artist, blogger, and former pornographic actress, previously known under the stage name Katsuni, and before that Katsumi. She started her adult film career in 2001, working first in France, then in the United States.

She received numerous awards in the course of the adult career, most notably the AVN Award for Female Foreign Performer of the Year which she has won three times. (Full article...)
Image 8

Tate at the 2015 Exxxotica Expo in Dallas, Texas on 9 August 2015

Tanya Tate (born 31 March 1979) is an English glamour model, writer, international cosplayer, and pornographic actress. In 2023, she was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 9
Noriko Tatsumi (辰巳典子, Tatsumi Noriko, born October 12, 1947 in Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese actress known primarily for her appearances in pink films of the 1960s. During the "First Wave" of pink film, Tatsumi became known as the first "Queen" of Japanese softcore sex movies, a title which she held from 1967 through 1970. She most often appeared in the films of the World Eiga and Nihon Cinema studios, and is best known for her work with director Kōji Seki, especially Whore (1967) and Erotic Culture Shock (1969). She also appeared in director and Seijun Suzuki script-writer, Atsushi Yamatoya's influential 1967 cult film, Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands. (Full article...)
Image 10

Judson in 2005

Tom Judson (born November 14, 1960) is an American musical theatre actor and composer, particularly for off-Broadway plays (including Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and White Cotton Sheets), and a retired pornographic film actor. His credits include writing music for the films Metropolitan, Good Money and The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, as well as performing on Broadway and in national stage tours of the musicals 42nd Street and Cabaret.

In 2003 he embarked on a gay pornographic career under the stage name of Gus Mattox. He retired from the pornography industry in 2006 to concentrate on his career as an actor and musician, and was promptly cast in the world premiere of Terrence McNally's Some Men. As Mattox, he received the 2006 GayVN Awards Performer of the Year Award for his work in the industry. His final role under the stage name Gus Mattox was as RuPaul's leading man in Starrbooty. (Full article...)
Image 11

Love in 2014

Tracey Lynn Livermore (born March 29, 1973), known professionally as Brandi Love, is an American pornographic actress. She is a member of the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame

. (Full article...)
Image 12

DeArmond in 2010

Dana DeArmond is an American pornographic actress and director. She entered the industry in 2004 and is a member of the AVN, XRCO, and Urban X Halls of Fame. (Full article...)
Image 13

Saint wins the 2006 Best Newcomer Germany eLine Award.

Leonie Saint (born 23 April 1986), also known with the stage names Leonie Luder or simply Leonie is a German actress, TV presenter and former pornographic actress. (Full article...)
Image 14
Rui Sakuragi (Japanese: 桜樹ルイ, Hepburn: Sakuragi Rui), is a former Japanese AV Idol, gravure idol and erotic dancer who has been described as a "real AV Queen", the "top Japanese AV idol of the mid-1990s" and the "biggest star" in AV in 1992. She has also appeared widely in mainstream films and videos and on TV. (Full article...)
Image 15
Abigail Clayton is an American retired pornographic actress active during the Golden Age of Porn. She was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2008. (Full article...)
Image 16
María Calvo Nodarse (1892 in Guanajay – 15 June 1977, in Havana), better known as La Macorina, was a Cuban prostitute who was a friend of ex-president José Miguel Gómez, whom she supported during the Chambelona War. She was the first woman to hold a driving license in the Americas. (Full article...)
Image 17
Griffin Barrows is an American gay pornographic film actor. After a video of him giving a handjob went viral online in 2017, he gained popularity on Twitter and on the subscription services OnlyFans and JustForFans; on the latter site, he was the most subscribed-to gay pornographic performer in both 2018 and 2019. (Full article...)
Image 18
Patricia Rhomberg (born 15 September 1953) is an Austrian former pornographic film actress from the 1970s. (Full article...)
Image 19

Nance on the poster for Eraserhead (1977)

Marvin John Nance (December 21, 1943 – December 30, 1996), known professionally as Jack Nance, was an American actor. A longtime collaborator of filmmaker David Lynch, Nance portrayed the lead in Lynch's directorial debut Eraserhead (1977). He continued to work with Lynch throughout his career, which included a recurring role as Pete Martell on Twin Peaks (1990–1991). (Full article...)
Image 20

Zee in 2000

Ona Zee is an American pornographic actress, director, and producer of pornographic films. (Full article...)
Image 21

Herrington in Tokyo in 2011

William Glen Harold Herrington (July 14, 1969 – March 2, 2018), was an American model and pornographic film actor. In the late 2000s, his appearances in various gay pornography movies led him to become a popular Internet meme on video-sharing websites such as Japan's Nico Nico Douga, where he was referred to by the sobriquet "Aniki" (兄貴, lit. "older brother"). Since then, at least 15,000 short mash-up parodies of his clips—known as "Gachimuchi Pants Wrestling" (Japanese: ガチムチパンツレスリング, Hepburn: Gachimuchi Pantsu Resuringu, lit. "Beefy Briefs Wrestling")—have been produced by users. (Full article...)
Image 22

Pierce in Hollywood, California on December 5, 2014

Derrick Pierce (born March 1, 1973) is an American pornographic actor, director, radio personality, and personal trainer. Pierce has received several adult industry awards, including the 2009 NightMoves Award for Best Male Performer and the 2016 XRCO Award for Best Actor. (Full article...)
Image 23

Tyler in 2001

Nikki Tyler (born December 4, 1972, in Berkeley, California) is a former pornographic actress best known for her work in the 1990s and for her selection as the December 1995 Penthouse Pet of the Month. (Full article...)
Image 24

Morgan in poster for Deadly Weapons (1974)

Ilana Wajc (born October 15, 1937), better known by her stage name Chesty Morgan, and also known as Liliana Wilczkowska and Lillian Stello, is a Polish-born, retired exotic dancer of Jewish descent, who also starred in two films directed by Doris Wishman. Morgan was billed as having a 73 inch (1.9 m) bust measurement. (Full article...)
Image 25

Centauro in a scene from the 2002 film French Beauty

Greg Centauro (January 10, 1977 – March 26, 2011) was a French pornographic actor and director. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that the posthumously released documentary Clean centered on the life of Sandra Pankhurst, a former sex worker, drag queen, and crime scene cleaner?
... that a Harvey's franchise known for being a hub for sex work was described by one artist as a "legendary Toronto icon"?
... that Lea Ackermann, a German nun of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, fought against forced prostitution and sex tourism in East Africa?
... that Indonesian politician Sanusi's parents discouraged him from becoming a government employee, because his salary would be paid partly from taxes on alcohol and prostitution?