This stunning look at the global sex industry brings fresh analysis and new approaches to the baffling and complex issues that surround prostitution. Religion and society have both cast stones at prostitutes, seeing them as archetypal sinners and blaming them for their situation. Brock and Thistlethwaite, after many years of research, travel, and interviews, offer this cross-cultural study. They compare and highlight structures that sustain prostitution as a global system of exploitation of the most vulnerable in the United States as well as Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan. This structural analysis is then submitted to a theological critique of doctrines of sin and karma, the traditional rubrics under which religion (in this instance, Christianity and Buddhism) has considered prostitution. The heart of their project is rethinking the deeper cultural and religious notions of sexuality, power, and violence that undergird sexual exploitation. New approaches to prostitution through religious and social change are proposed. Brock and Thistlethwaite make the case to all persons of conscience that prostitution is a serious social justice issue, and they suggest modes of analysis and practical ways to make a difference. They demand each reader to ask, "Who am I to cast the first stone?"
Rita Nakashima Brock is at The Bunting Institute, Radcliffe University. She is the author of Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, President of Chicago Theological Seminary, is a theologian and social ethicist whose many influential books include Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the U.S. (with Rita Nakashima Brock; Fortress Press, 1996), Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside (with Mary Potter Engel, 1998), and Sex, Race, and God: Christian Feminism in Black and White (1989).
Preface Introduction: The Loathsome Thing PART I: A SYSTEMIC ANALYSIS OF PROSTITUTION IN ASIA AND THE UNITED STATES Sex and the Female Body Shooting for Fun and Seeking Salvation If Women Counted: The Economics of the Sex Industry Prostitution and the Law Power and Prostitution: The Social/Psychological Dynamics of the Sex Industry Tricks, Trauma, and Terror: The Psychological Impacts of Prostitution PART II: A LIBERATION RESPONSE Jokes, Lies, and Stereotypes: Introduction to a Liberation Analysis of Prostitution Lying in the Beds We Do Not Make: Sin, Karma, and the Sex Industry Movements of Grace and Compassion Strategies for Change and Solidarity: What Are We to Do? Afterword Appendix: Men in Prostitution Notes Index
