Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work

Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work

episodes

Interviews with scholars of sex, sexuality and sex work about their new books.

Elizabeth J. Letourneau and Luke Malone, "One in Five: Why Child Sexual Abuse Is Our Biggest Public Health Crisis—And What We Can Do to Stop It" (Basic Books, 2026)

August 28, 2026

One in Five

Elizabeth J. Letourneau and Luke Malone

One in five children will be sexually abused before their eighteenth birthday. This isn't a problem confined to a single country, city, or neighborhoo…

Jeana Jorgensen, "Sex Education 101: Approachable Essays on Folklore, Culture, & History" (Fox Folk Press, 2023)

August 17, 2026

Sex Education 101

Jeana Jorgensen
Hosted by Rachel Hopkin

Do you look back at your sex ed classes and wonder WTF?! Are you a parent looking at your kid’s curriculum and asking the same question? Sex Educ…

Leopoldina Fortunati, "The Arcana of Reproduction: Housewives, Prostitutes, Workers and Capital" (Verso, 2025)

August 8, 2026

The Arcana of Reproduction

Leopoldina Fortunati

The definitive feminist analysis of reproductive and ‘caring’ labor to emerge from Italian feminism of the 1970s. Emerging from the great social uphe…

Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)

August 1, 2026

The Kiss

Katie Barclay
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: th…

Debolina Dutta, "A Jurisprudence of Conversations: Law, Life and Feminism in Post-colonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

July 22, 2026

A Jurisprudence of Conversations

Debolina Dutta
Hosted by Saumya Dadoo

Grounded in empirical studies, this book is both a history of the emergence of feminist jurisprudence in post-colonial India and a model of innovative…

Nick Yablon, "From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower: C. G. Hine's 1905 Photographic Survey of Broadway" (Columbia UP, 2026)

July 22, 2026

From the Skyscraper to the Wildflower

Nick Yablon
Hosted by Robert Snyder

In 1905, when Broadway was already the most famous thoroughfare in New York City, a recreational photographer from Newark, New Jersey named Charles Gi…

Molly M. Brookfield, "Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States" (UNC Press, 2026)

July 19, 2026

Watching the Girls Go By

Molly M. Brookfield
Hosted by Mariam Olugbodi

Molly Brookfield’s book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) expl…

Jay Szpilka, "BDSM Practices in Contemporary Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

July 7, 2026

BDSM Practices in Contemporary Poland

Jay Szpilka

In BDSM Practices in Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), cultural anthropologist and …

Rosa Campbell, "The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared: Shere Hite and the Hite Report" (Melville House, 2026)

July 2, 2026

The Book That Taught the World to Orgasm and Then Disappeared

Rosa Campbell
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Despite being one of the leading thinkers of the second wave feminist movement, today Shere Hite is little known, little written about, and, unsurpris…

Michelle Chase and Isabella Cosse eds., "The Cuban Revolution and the New Left: Transnational Histories of Gender, Sexuality, and Family" (U Florida Press, 2026)

June 25, 2026

The Cuban Revolution and the New Left

Michelle Chase and Isabella Cosse
Hosted by Katie Coldiron

Understanding overlooked dimensions of the Cuban Revolution and its impact on the global left in the 1960s and beyond. This volume, The Cuban Revolut…

Karl Whittington, "Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025)

June 15, 2026

Queer Making

Karl Whittington
Hosted by Jana Byars

Karl Whittington joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe (Pennsylvania State University Pr…

Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)

June 14, 2026

For Better and Worse

Stephanie Coontz

Marriage rates have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Yet far from devaluing marriage, people still overwhelmingly describe marriage as the highest…

Dating Apps, Queer Stigma, and Digital Intimacy in Kazakhstan

June 8, 2026

Dating Apps, Queer Stigma, and Digital Intimacy in Kazakhstan

Yerkebulan Sairambay

How queer men in Kazakhstan navigate dating apps in a context of stigma, surveillance, and limited legal protections. It shows how platforms like Grin…

Jonatan Leer and Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager, "Food Porn: Food Aesthetics in a Digital Age" (Bristol UP, 2026)

May 31, 2026

Food Porn

Jonatan Leer and Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Is food porn a vibrant and democratic new expression of modern food culture or a superficial addition to an image-saturated world? Tracing its o…

David Petruccelli, "A Scourge of Humanity: The Origins of Interpol and the End of Empire in Central and Eastern Europe" (Oxford UP, 2025)

May 31, 2026

A Scourge of Humanity

David Petruccelli
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

As the First World War came to a chaotic end, Europeans feared that a wave of crime and anarchy would sweep across their continent. The upheavals …

Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle, "Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors" (Rutgers UP, 2026)

May 27, 2026

Campus Whisper Networks

Janet Hinson Shope and Richard Pringle
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Campus Whisper Networks: Knowing with Sexual Assault Survivors (Rutgers University Press, 2026) examines how personal knowledge about student sexu…

Timothy McCall, "Making the Renaissance Man: Masculinity in the Courts of Renaissance Italy" (Reaktion Books, 2023)

May 25, 2026

Making the Renaissance Man

Timothy McCall
Hosted by Jana Byars

Looking beyond the marble elegance of Michelangelo's David, the pugnacious, passionate, and--crucially--important story of Renaissance manhood. Timo…

Eloise Moss, "The Secret Life of the Hotel: Sex, Crime and Protest in British Guesthouses Since 1918" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

May 17, 2026

The Secret Life of the Hotel

Eloise Moss
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Hotels represent nations, hosting visiting monarchs, politicians, and diplomats. Hotels underpin global networks of travel and communication, on which…

Jewish Anarchist Women 1920–1950: The Politics of Sexuality

May 8, 2026

Jewish Anarchist Women 1920–1950

Hosted by YIVO Institute

Anarchist theory includes the belief in freedom for all - that no one person, nor group of people, should have power over any others; that individuals…

Max Morris, "Not Sex Work: Queer Intimacy, Post-identity, and Incidental Encounters in the Digital Era" (Routledge, 2025)

May 6, 2026

Not Sex Work

Max Morris
Hosted by Rine Vieth

Max Morris's Not Sex Work: Queer Intimacy, Post-identity, and Incidental Encounters in the Digital Era (Routledge, 2025) brings together feminist theo…