Molly Smith (4)

A sprawling and unclear book that should have been about a hundred pages shorter. The authors deploy and rely heavily on the overused argument that prohibiting something merely makes it more “dangerous” or that people will keep doing it regardless of the prohibition. This is a ridiculous argument if you take more than three seconds to think about it: it could be made against literally any law. Behold: Prohibiting murder for hire won’t stop people from hiring people to commit murder; if we want to reduce harm, perhaps the best approach is to legalize and regulate it!

The use of this argument always belies and obscures a substantive disagreement about the ethics of the thing prohibited. Yet the authors of the book never really engage in any serious way with the MacKinnon-esque arguments about the harm of sex work. The result is a very thin treatment of the debate over sex work and a completely unconvincing response to sex critical feminism.… (mere)