Youth Who Trade Sex in the U.S.: Intersectionality, Agency, and Vulnerability

by Carisa R. Showden, Samantha Majic

Overview

When cases of domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) by predatory men are reported in the media, it is often presented that a young, innocent girl has been abused by bad men with their demand for sex and profit. This narrative has shaped popular understandings of young people in the commercialized sex trades, sparking new policy responses. However, the authors of Youth Who Trade Sex in the U.S. challenge this dominant narrative as incomplete. Carisa Showden and Samantha Majic investigate young people’s engagement in the sex trades through an intersectional lens. 

The authors examine the dominant policy narrative’s history and the political circumstances generating its emergence and current form. With this background, Showden and Majic review and analyze research published since 2000 about young people who trade sex since 2000 to develop an intersectional “matrix of agency and vulnerability” designed to improve research, policy, and community interventions that center the needs of these young people. Ultimately, they derive an understanding of the complex reality for most young people who sell or trade sex, and are committed to ending such exploitation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439916209
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	06/29/2018
Edition description:	1
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Carisa R. Showden is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Discipline Convenor for Gender Studies at the University of Auckland. She is the author of Choices Women Make: Agency in Domestic Violence, Assisted Reproduction, and Sex Work and the co-editor (with Samantha Majic) of Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism.  Samantha Majic is an Associate Professor of Political Science at John Jay College at the City University of New York. She is the author of Sex Work Politics: From Protest to Service Provision and the co-editor (with Carisa Showden) of Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking and the Innocent Girl-Predatory Man Narrative 1

1 The Making of a Narrative 19

2 Research on Young People Who Trade Sex: A Comprehensive Narrative Analysis Co-authored with David Allan Jun-Rong Ting 53

3 Beyond the "Young, Innocent Girl": The Complex Narrative of the "Knowing, Needy Adolescent" 108

4 Applying the Matrix of Agency and Vulnerability 140

Appendix 1 Additional Information on the 128 Studies Reviewed in Chapter 2 167

Appendix 2 The 128 Empirical Studies Included in the Comprehensive Narrative Analysis 179

References 183

Index 215

Editorial Reviews

"Anyone who keeps abreast of the news is aware of the master narrative of youth sex trafficking in the US.... This book argues that the narrative conceals far more than it explains.... The authors base their conclusions on a rigorous methodological analysis and critique of 128 peer-reviewed studies.... The strengths and weaknesses of each approach are detailed in what the authors call a comprehensive narrative analysis (CNA), which is amply supported by informative tables. This book should be required reading for all graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences. The intersectional methodological analysis is superb. Summing Up: Essential.— CHOICE

From the Publisher