Selling French Sex: Prostitution, Trafficking, and Global Migrations

Selling French Sex provides an insightful look into the cultural, social, and economic history of the sale of French sex, exploring the debate on sex trafficking and the motivations of French women who engaged in cross-border migrations for sexual labor.

Format: Hardback
Length: 306 pages
Publication date: 25 January 2024
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Selling French Sex is a comprehensive exploration of the cultural, social, and economic history of the sale of French sex. It delves into the discourses and experiences surrounding the early twentieth-century debate on sex trafficking, which galvanized various international reform movements to combat the coercive prostitution of young women abroad. According to popular legend and empirical studies, French women were prevalent in brothels across the globe, where they were highly sought after and earned the highest wages in the industry. However, the question remains: Were they trafficking victims or willing migrants? In this timely book, Elisa Camiscioli reconstructs the networks and mechanisms of cross-border migrations for sexual labor, elucidates women's motives for leaving and staying, and explains why French migrant sexual labor occupied such a prominent place in the underworld of prostitution and in the imaginations of anti-trafficking campaigners, immigration officials, and ordinary consumers of vice.

Selling French Sex is a comprehensive exploration of the cultural, social, and economic history of the sale of French sex. It delves into the discourses and experiences surrounding the early twentieth-century debate on sex trafficking, which galvanized various international reform movements to combat the coercive prostitution of young women abroad. According to popular legend and empirical studies, French women were prevalent in brothels across the globe, where they were highly sought after and earned the highest wages in the industry. However, the question remains: Were they trafficking victims or willing migrants? In this timely book, Elisa Camiscioli reconstructs the networks and mechanisms of cross-border migrations for sexual labor, elucidates women's motives for leaving and staying, and explains why French migrant sexual labor occupied such a prominent place in the underworld of prostitution and in the imaginations of anti-trafficking campaigners, immigration officials, and ordinary consumers of vice.

ISBN-13: 9781009418379