Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry

Apparently the book may have hit a little too close to home for some. One of the book's researchers (a dancer in the sex industry) disappeared not too long after the release of the book. It is still unknown if the disappearance was a result of her work on this book or some of her other reasearch in writing about Vampyre Cults. If you ever catch the documentary "Stripped", you can find more of the details there - but it seems fairly certain that foul play was involved. Anyway, just a little interesting fact that may make the book more interesting for some.

Published in 1996, "Red Light" is a quick, interesting read that opens a window to the everyday world of New York and New Jersey sex work. Focusing primarily upon different types of prostitution and "exotic" dancing, writer James Ridgeway also touches upon porn films, phone sex, and computer-oriented enterprises. The black and white photos by Sylvia Plachy ably illustrate the world that's being delved into here.Because "Red Light" was published in '96 the subject of computer oriented work is out of date, but the predictions regarding that arena have turned out to be mostly true. Frustratingly, Ridgeway occasionally makes sweeping or trite generalizations - particularly in the introduction - without presenting information beforehand to bolster his statements. The biggest drawback to this book is that it is geographically focused on New York and New Jersey, which are unique to anywhere else in America. Lastly, while it is often understandable, Ridgeway sometimes uses language that hinders the reader from deciding how he or she feels about a certain situation or person; or he turns the narrative in a negative direction if an interviewee starts to express something positive. Even so, since I'm interested in human sexuality, our society's dichotomous, hypocritical and confused views on sex, and because I believe in freedom of choice, I thought "Red Light" would provide uncensored insight into the sex worker's life. It did that, though not to the extent I'd hoped. Mr. Ridgeway mainly focuses on the squalid side of the business (e.g. street prostitution and small time go-go dancing), and limiting this exposé to New York and New Jersey says more about the culture of sex work in those areas than it says about sex work everywhere else. However, even within that limited area the authors had their work cut out for them, which they presented in a bold and visceral style that gripped my attention."Red Light" will undoubtedly get people to re-evaluate their perceptions of the sex industry. The inherent dynamics of sex work - greed, laziness, male lust, fear, danger, fantasy, and denial - ultimately reveal the banality of commercialized sex.

An excellent survey of all types of sex work, from phone sex, massage parlor, brothel and street prostitution to stripping. The author presents a balanced and readable work. I recommend it highly.

Red Light promotes the radical notion that sex workers are people, too. Here "sex worker" carries far beyond the stigmatized streetwalker stereotype. This biz provides the legal livelihood of folks as diverse as the vice cop, the cosmetic surgeon who creates the outlandishly enlarged tools of the trade, the porn star, the publisher, the dominatrix and the vibrator dealer. Their voices, as well as those of the neglected other half of the equation, their customers, humanize the daily commerce of desire. Ridgeway's eloquent and stylish prose probes the relationship of the sex industry to family values, gender inequality, censorship, anti-porn feminism, sexual liberation, puritanism, government repression and the fulfillment of fantasy. But the focus is always on the people: go-go dancers including men who shake it for audiences of both straight gals and gay guys, fetish mistresses, peep show performers and a midwest massage parlor madam, among many others, tell their stories. Their articulate observations about their professions in their own words comprise the most compelling part of the text. Plachy's intimate photographs are likewise non-judgemental, neither romanticizing or demonizing the workers or their patrons. Depictions of on-stage professional personas engaged in enacting male expectations alternate with moments of quiet, backstage reflection and many pictures of nothing more or less than workers at work. Red Light ranges from the oldest profession to lap dancing, cybersex chatrooms, gender bending customers of size XXX lingerie, the trials of male porn film performers, phone sex, zines, the Goth/vampyre scene, S/M dungeons, immigrant brothels, erotic shaving services, the sexual performance art of Annie Sprinkle and Ron Athey, the hustles, the mob, the impact of AIDS and drugs, and back to the age-old fear of the inevitable descent to the street. An intellectually provocative work, no matter what side of the debate you're on, Red Light is a consummately professional journalistic collaboration that illuminates a thriving enterprise that many would prefer remained in the darkness.