Useful for advocates of legalizing prostitution but unlikely to make converts to the cause.
Current and former sex workers sound off in a collection of essays edited by West, a former professional dominatrix with a doctorate in gender studies.
In this hit-or-miss gathering, West, with the assistance of Horn, brings together original writing and reprints from Tits and Sass and other media. Without arguing that the U.S. should legalize prostitution, contributors show the many forms of harm that result from criminalizing it. Veteran sex workers set limits on acts they will perform, but clients often cross boundaries and claim that assaults—ranging from dangerous chokeholds to rape—were part of BDSM or other agreed-on services. Victims who report such crimes risk prosecution, self-incriminations, or, if they work in pornography, blacklisting in the industry. Some of the most disturbing essays involve the police, who until recently could legally have sex with prostitutes they were investigating—in 2017, Michigan became the last state to outlaw the practice. Other entries fault the anti–human-trafficking law known as FOSTA-SESTA, which shut down the sex-marketplace website Backpage but deprived sex workers of “independence, safety, and community online.” Some show how workers are adapting to the coronavirus pandemic with apps and video calls. In weaker essays, contributors strike chirpy notes on why they’ve leaned into sex work, using clichés about “empowerment” and the “flexible schedule” it allows. These gauzy sections dilute the impact of harder-hitting material on sex workers’ need for dignity and rights, and the book would have benefited from hard data on the high incidence of crimes against sex workers and the public health benefits to countries that have legalized prostitution. Absent such facts, the book has much anecdotal material of interest to supporters of decriminalization, but it isn’t likely to change minds on the issue.
Useful for advocates of legalizing prostitution but unlikely to make converts to the cause.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-55861-285-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Feminist Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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