Book Description
Scarlot Harlot, unrepentant whore, activist, and artist, is a brazen hooker with a brain. Since the late 1970s, Harlot (a.k.a. Carol Leigh) has written, performed, and produced work in a variety of genres on women's issues and her experiences in the sex industry. This collection of articles and essays documents more than 20 years of hooker radicalism from a leader of the sex workers' rights movement. Heady, political, and sexy, these autobiographical missives defend sex, queer rights, and reproductive freedom and attack fundamentalist feminism, economic injustice, and discrimination. Leigh's writings explore a historic cultural and artistic underground from an irreverent point of view, challenging conventions of sexuality, aesthetics, technology, and prevailing social mores. Included are photographs of boudoir scenes, nudes, and political street theater by notable photographers including Annie Sprinkle, Ann Marie Rousseau, and Michelle Clement.
About the Author
Carol Leigh has received numerous awards for her video documentaries on women's and gay/lesbian issues, including three awards from Visions of Us at the American Film Institute. As the cofounder of BAY SWAN, Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network, Leigh organizes outreach workers at various agencies. She has appeared on Nightline, Donahue, Court TV, and Geraldo. Her one-woman play, The Adventures of Scarlot Harlot, was featured at the National Festival of Women's Theater in Santa Cruz. She lives in San Francisco, California.
