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Can a prostitute be raped? Are pregnancy and STIs an Occupational Health and Safety issue? What sort of society buys and sells women and children for sex? Does legalisation solve the dangers of sex work? Sex worker advocates have argued for many years that legalising prostitution is the way to make the industry safer both for workers and clients. In 1984, the State of Victoria did just that.

Making Sex Work shows with great clarity that the legalisation of prostitution backfires. It further hurts prostituted people and encourages illegal sex industry activities that grow at three times the rate of the legal industry.

In this book, Mary Lucille Sullivan looks at the evidence of Victoria’s experience, and asks whether the concept of sex work as ‘a job like any other’ matches the reality. Discussing the practicalities of brothels as regular businesses, the author unearths astounding facts about both the legal and illegal sectors. Covering issues such as violence, organised crime, women’s health, and mainstream businesses’ involvement in the sex trade, Making Sex Work is a compelling read. This book gives an insight into the sex industry, and into a society where women and children have become just another consumer item. If you’ve ever thought of prostitution as simply a choice some women make, read this book and then ask yourself: Could you do this job? How would you feel if your friend, sister, or daughter chose this career?

Mary Lucille Sullivan is the author of What Happens When Prostitution Becomes Work: An update on legalised prostitution in Australia (2006). She has written two other books on social justice issues, An Australian Pilgrimage: Muslims in Australia from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (1993) and Colony to Community (1997). Mary Lucille Sullivan has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Melbourne. She has toured the US, Britain and Norway discussing the impact of legalised prostitution.