Book Reviews : Being a Prostitute:Roberta Perkins and Garry Bennett. Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1985. 318 pp. $18.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)
Abstract
328 Book ReviewsBeing a ProstituteRoberta Perkins and Garry Bennett. Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1985. 318 pp. $18.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper) SAGE Publications, Inc.1986DOI: 10.1177/144078338602200229 Anne Edwards Department of Anthropology and Sociology Monash University Constant media coverage and popular concern about prostitution, recent changes to legal and administrative regulations gover- ning prostitution in its various forms in several States, and the emergence oforganised groups to represent the views and interests of prostitutes in public discussions and to influence policy formation ensure that the subject retains a high level of visibility and social significance. At the same time there have been remarkably few empirical studies ofprostitution in Australia and our knowledge is largely confined to sensationalised reports ofcriminal cases and media exposes. So a book giving detailed accounts of the perceptions and experiences of a variety of prostitutes, male and female, homosexual and heterosexual, of different ages and background, and covering the diversity of forms of occupational types and organisational settings of prostitution at the present time would seem to be timely. Both the authors have extensive personal knowledge of the current nature of prostitution in Sydney, one as a worker with gay youth and the other involved in