Melissa Gira Grant | |
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 Grant on The Laura Flanders Show in 2014 | |
| Born | Melissa Grant 1978 (age 44–45) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Massachusetts Amherst San Francisco State University |
| Occupation | Writer |
Melissa Gira Grant (born 1978)[ citation needed ] is an American journalist. She is a staff writer at The New Republic and the author of Playing the Whore (Verso, 2014), and co-editor of the ebook Coming and Crying (Glass Houses, 2010). [1]
Melissa Gira Grant was born in Boston, Massachusetts. [2] She attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at San Francisco State University. [3] [4]
Grant is a former sex worker [5] [6] who began sex work to pay for being a writer. [2]
Grant was a member of the Exotic Dancers Union [7] and a board member at the Lusty Lady Theater in San Francisco.[ citation needed ] Grant worked at St. James Infirmary Clinic in San Francisco from 2006 to 2009.[ citation needed ] Later she was on the staff of Third Wave Foundation, a social justice and feminist foundation in New York.[ citation needed ]
Grant’s writing covers the intersection of sex, politics, and technology. She is the author of Playing the Whore (2014) published by Verso and a staff writer at The New Republic. [8] She previously worked as a contributing writer for Pacific Standard, Village Voice, a reporter at Valleywag and a contributing editor at Jacobin. [9] Grant also has written for the Appeal, the Nation, Pacific Standard, the Village Voice, [10] the Atlantic, Wired, the Guardian, Reason, Glamour, Slate, Jezebel, Rhizome, AlterNet, In These Times, Valleywag and $pread. [11]
Decriminalization or decriminalisation is the reclassification in law relating to certain acts or aspects of such to the effect that they are no longer considered a crime, including the removal of criminal penalties in relation to them. This reform is sometimes applied retroactively but otherwise comes into force from either the enactment of the law or from a specified date. In some cases regulated permits or fines may still apply, and associated aspects of the original criminalized act may remain or become specifically classified as crimes. The term was coined by anthropologist Jennifer James to express sex workers' movements' "goals of removing laws used to target prostitutes", although it is now commonly applied to drug policies. The reverse process is criminalization.
Siobhan Brooks is an African-American lesbian feminist sociologist known for her work with African-American women sex workers. She holds a B.A. in women's studies from San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in sociology from New School University in New York City. She is currently Professor of African-American studies at California State University, Fullerton.
Margaret Jean "Margo" St. James was an American prostitute and sex-positive feminist. In San Francisco, she founded COYOTE, an organization advocating decriminalization of prostitution, and co-founded the St. James Infirmary Clinic, a medical and social service organization serving sex workers in the Tenderloin.
Valleywag was a Gawker Media blog with gossip and news about Silicon Valley personalities. It was initially launched under the direction of editor Nick Douglas in February 2006. After Douglas was fired, the blog was taken over by Owen Thomas. Thomas left in May 2009, and was replaced by Ryan Tate.
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.
Melissa Ann Benn is a British journalist and writer. She is the daughter of Tony Benn and Caroline Benn.
Nathalie Handal is a French-American poet, writer and professor, described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” A New Yorker and a quintessential global citizen, she has published 10 prize-winning books, including Life in a Country Album. She is praised for her “diverse, and innovative body of work.”
Emily Mitchell is an Anglo-American writer. Her debut novel, The Last Summer of the World, was published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2007. It concerns the photographer Edward Steichen in the context of World War I and was a finalist for the 2008 Young Lions Award for fiction.
Carol Leigh, also known as The Scarlot Harlot, was an American artist, author, filmmaker, sex worker, and sex workers' rights activist. She is credited with coining the term sex work and founded the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival and was the co-founder of BAYSWAN, the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network.
The World Charter for Prostitutes' Rights is a declaration of rights adopted in 1985 to protect sex workers' rights worldwide. It was adopted on 15 February 1985 at the first World Whores Congress in Amsterdam by the newly formed International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights (ICPR). The Charter established a human rights-based approach to prostitution, demanding that sex workers be guaranteed freedom of speech, travel, immigration, work, marriage, motherhood, health, and housing, amongst other things. This approach has subsequently been further elaborated by the sex workers' rights movement.
David Henry Sterry is an American author, actor/comic, activist and former sex worker.
Audacia Ray is an American human sexuality and culture author, who focuses on the influences of modern technology. She is a sex worker rights advocate and leads media skills workshops intended to train sex workers to deal with interviews.
Melissa Farley is an American clinical psychologist, researcher and radical feminist anti-pornography and anti-prostitution activist. Farley is best known for her studies of the effects of prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. She is the founder and director of the San Francisco-based organization, Prostitution Research and Education.
Siouxsie Q is an American journalist, pornographic actress, and sex workers’ rights activist who identifies herself as a feminist and sex worker. She is a podcaster, singer/songwriter and playwright as well as a widely read columnist with SF Weekly in San Francisco.
The Red Umbrella Project is a New York based non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of sex workers and strives to empower them by giving them a voice.
The occupation of Saint-Nizier Church by Lyon prostitutes refers to the ten-day occupation of Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon by more than a hundred prostitutes on 2 June 1975 to draw attention to their "inhumane" working conditions. The occupation lasted eight days until the women were removed by the police on 10 June. Sympathetic occupations of churches by prostitutes followed in Paris, Marseille, Grenoble, Saint-Étienne and Montpellier.
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers' Rights is a 2018 book by sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith. They analyse the effects of varying sex work policies, arguing for full decriminalisation. The book covers topics including survival sex, migrant sex work, feminist views on sex work, and drug use among sex workers. The authors believe that common criticisms of sex work are more general issues with capitalism. The book received positive critical reception.
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work is a 2014 book by Melissa Gira Grant about the politics of sex work. The author—a journalist and former sex worker—views sex work as labor and analyzes public narratives about what a prostitute is. Grant identifies systemic economic issues relating to sex work while dissenting with anti–sex-work feminists and organizations which aim to "rescue" sex workers. She argues against efforts to criminalize sex work and describes how traditional methods of sex-work solicitation such as red-light districts have changed as such districts become gentrified and much sex work moves online. The book was published by Verso Books in collaboration with Jacobin and received positive critical reception.
Whore of New York: A Confession is a novella-sized memoir and tell-all personal account released in 2021 by debut author Liara Roux, detailing her early life and her voluntary decision to become a sex worker, alongside experiences of abuse that influenced her. The book, which features a wide variety of taboo and controversial topics, has earned praise in feminist and literary circles, owing largely to Roux's candid admissions.
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