Erased: The Impact of FOSTA-SESTA & the Removal of Backpage

Hacking//Hustling surveyed sex workers about how their lives have changed post-FOSTA-SESTA, concluding that the law has had “detrimental effects on online workers’ financial stability, safety, access to community, and health outcomes.”

Danielle Blunt, Ariel Wolf, 2020

Research

Sex, Lies and Classifieds: The Fall of Backpage

An engaging guide into the weeds of the history, issues, players, and fallout around FOSTA-SESTA and related internet legislation.

RIP Corp, 2021

Podcast

Operator

An entertaining history of the rise and fall of commercial phone sex in the 1990s, with insights into building communication technologies in a stigmatized industry.

Wondery, 2021

Podcast

Algorithmic Bias Report

A community report finds that “social media algorithms adversely affect queer people, women, BIPOCs, people with disabilities, sex workers and plus size people.”

Salty Algorithmic Bias Research collective and the University of Michigan, 2021

Research

Smart Sex Worker’s Guide to Digital Security

A guide to the varied ways sex workers use communication technologies and navigate their benefits and threats, concluding with recommendations for stakeholders including technologists.

Global Network of Sex Work Projects, 2021

Research

OnlyBans

This interactive, browser-based game, created by a team of sex workers and allies, was made to “empathetically teach people about discrimination faced by sex workers online.”

Lena Chen and Maggie Oates, ongoing

Game

Posting into the Void: Studying the Impact of Shadowbanning on Sex Workers and Activists

Hacking//Hustling’s peer-led survey finds that online content moderation affects respondents’ livelihoods, free speech, and organizing efforts, and concludes with harm reduction suggestions for technologists.

Danielle Blunt, Emily Coombes, Shanelle Mullin, Ariel Wolf, 2021

Research

The Cybernetic Sex Worker

An essay tracing the perennial love affair between sex work and telecommunications while challenging the internet’s current state of censorship, surveillance, and bias.

Gabriella Garcia, 2021

Essay

European Sex Workers Rights Alliance

Sex worker-led network proudly representing more than 100 organizations in 30 countries across Europe and Central Asia.

Europe, Central Asia

Network

Desiree Alliance

Sex workers, health professionals, social scientists, professional sex educators working to understand the sex industry and its human, social and political impacts.

United States

Coalition

Black Sex Workers Collective

Amplifying the voices of Black Sex Workers by addressing their needs through peer support, legal assistance, housing and other basic needs assessment.

United States

Collective

HIPS

Advancing the health rights and dignity of people and communities impacted by sex work and drug use by providing non-judgmental harm reduction services, advocacy, and community engagement led by those with lived experience.

Washington, DC

Nonprofit

SWARM

Campaigning for the rights and safety of everyone who sells sexual service through skill-shares and support meet-ups just for sex workers, as well as public events.

United Kingdom

Collective

Hacking//Hustling

Collective of sex workers, survivors, and accomplices working at the intersection of tech and social justice to interrupt violence facilitated by technology.

NYC-based, global

Collective

Red Canary Song

A grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers and allies, organizing transnationally.

NYC-based, global

Collective

Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) USA

Dedicated to the human rights of sex workers and their communities, focusing on ending violence and stigma through education, community building, and advocacy.

United States

Network

BIPOC Adult Industry Collective

Upholding the voices of sex workers, in all our diversity, and protecting our health and human rights globally.

NYC-based, United States

Collective

Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center

Destigmatizing and decriminalizing people in the sex trades through free legal services, education, research, and policy advocacy.

NYC-based, United States

Nonprofit

The Heaux History Project

A multimedia archival project exploring Black, Brown, & Indigenous erotic labor and sex worker histories.

Ongoing

Archive

Trains, Texts and Tits: Sex Work, Technology and Movement

A four-part course covering the history of sex work and tech in the US from the 1800s to today, with readings, videos and experts from the sex worker community.

Hacking//Hustling, 2021

Videos

Sex Work Centered Guide for Academics

This guide for college-level educators includes readings, covers ways to assess good and bad sources, and offers suggestions for study topics related to sex work.

Support Ho(s)e, 2020

Guide

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights

Sex workers Mac and Smith situate the sex worker rights movement and fight for justice within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy.

Juno Mac and Molly Smith, Verso Press, 2018

Book

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work

A foundational text that dismantles myths about sex work and argues that separating sex work from the “legitimate” economy only harms those who perform sexual labor.

Melissa Gira Grant, Verso Press, 2014

Book

85 Ways to Make Sex Workers’ Lives a Little Easier

Writer, theorist, and erotic laborer femi babylon offers “some simple strategies for educating yourself and generally being less of a jerk about sex work.”

femi babylon, Vice, 2020

Article

We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival

Sex workers from across the industry complicate narratives of sexual harassment and violence, and expand labor conversations often limited to normative workplaces.

Edited by Natalie West, with Tina Horn, The Feminist Press, 2021

Book

Sex Work: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

An excellent introduction to legal and ethical issues around sex work, policing, labor rights, and the fight for decriminalization.

2022

Video