Beyond Exploitative or Empowering: Sex Work and Embodiment

This thesis seeks to push beyond the idea that sex work is either exploitative and traumatic or empowering and pleasurable, two different stances that are often debated in feminist circles. The work is grounded in the experiences of sex workers themselves and highlights the ways in which sex work is an embodied experience. My work uses a qualitative approach to center the experiences of sex work through interviews. I use scholarly articles to inform and theorize my findings