Carol Leigh

Carol Leigh, a.k.a. The Scarlot Harlot, born 1951 in New York City, is an artist, author, film maker, and sex workers' rights activist.[1][2] She coined the term "sex worker"[3] at a Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media conference in the late 1970s. The terminology used at the conference for the sex industry was the “Sex Use Industry”. The phrasing bothered her because it objectified sex workers and trivialized the agency they had when organizing their labor. She suggested that the panel be renamed “Sex Work Industry” and began to use the term in her one-woman plays before the first published use of “sex worker” appeared in a 1984 Associated Press newswire.[4]

She explains in a later essay named “Inventing Sex Work” that

“I invented sex work. Not the activity, of course. The term. This invention was motivated by my desire to reconcile my feminist goals with the reality of my life and the lives of the women I knew. I wanted to create an atmosphere of tolerance within and outside the women's movement for women working in the sex industry.”

[5] She currently chairs the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival and is the director of BAYSWAN, the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network.[6] She lives in San Francisco. She is bisexual.[7]

Works

  • Leigh, Carol (2004). Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Writings of Scarlot Harlot. San Francisco: Carol Leigh Productions.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stephan Lemons (21 July 2000). "Sex with latex". Salon. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  2. ↑ Alexandra Juhasz (2001). Women of vision: histories in feminist film and video. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 4, 13 and 342. ISBN 978-0-8166-3372-2. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  3. ↑ "Inaugural Hong Kong sex workers' film festival offers nuanced, diverse portrait of trade". Malaysia Star. AP. August 14, 2006. Archived from the original on June 22, 2011. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  4. ↑ "Carol Leigh coins the term "sex work"".
  5. ↑
    • Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Writings of Scarlot Harlot by Carol Leigh, 2004. ISBN 0-86719-584-3, p. 69
  6. ↑ Nate Tabak (January 28, 2002). "Illicit Career of an Adult Escort Offers the Allure of Big Money with the Risk of Violence and Disease". Daily Cal. Archived from the original on June 3, 2009. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
  7. ↑ Leigh, Carol (2004-01-01). Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Works of Scarlot Harlot. Last Gasp. ISBN 9780867195842.


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