Barb Brents (Sociology) recently published “Neoliberalism’s Market Morality and Heteroflexibility: Protectionist and Free Market Discourses in Debates for Legal Prostitution” in the journal Sexuality Research and Social Policy. She demonstrates how prostitution supporters and opponents both draw from neoliberal discourses to construct and deploy widely divergent arguments. She explains that neoliberalism’s market morality offers flexibility to justify very different ideas about sexuality that challenge conservative, heterosexual norms.
In the spring she co-edited a special edition of Sociological Perspectives on Sex Work and Human Trafficking, including her co-authored data-driven piece on the myths and realities of sex work and trafficking.
