Sex workers throughout the world share a uniquely maligned mystique that simultaneously positions them as sexually desirable and socially stigmatized. In order to better understand how these processes function cross-culturally, ‘Demystifying Sex Work and Sex Workers’ combines thirteen articles by scholar-activists and sex workers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Thailand, Uganda and the U.S. that focus on the everyday lives of sex workers, broadly defined as those who exchange sexual services for something of value. Papers in this issue locate sex workers as actors and agents despite pervasive social messages and discourses to the contrary.

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