Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker provides a compelling account of how sex workers are represented and produced in New Zealand media to create the ‘accepted’ and ‘unaccepted’ sex worker. Easterbrook-Smith very eloquently argues that racist, classist, transphobic and xenophobic media reporting has functioned to reinforce a ‘whorearchy’ amongst sex workers through the shifting of stigma. The book is a thought-provoking read from beginning to end and a must-read for all who have an interest in sex work.

Dr. Gillian Abel, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand

A sensitive, multi-layered account of what stigma looks like, how it is produced, and how it operates through media portrayals of sex workers and debates about sex work itself. Skillfully traces the function of multiple discourses—from sex positivity to transmisogyny—to reproduce stigma and privilege. Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker is written to be read widely—clear, engaging, poignant, and forthright; a useful volume for scholars and activists both in and out of the academy.

Carisa R. Showden, University of Auckland

This important book offers a nuanced analysis of how media draw on a cultural imaginary of the sex industry to produce and reify the stigmas associated with sex work. Easterbrook-Smith deftly reveals the implicit hierarchies of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” sex workers and how intersectional oppressions of gender, race, class, and citizenship status are implicated in this stratification. This book should be key reading for sex work and labour researchers and activists, students of sociology and communication, journalists writing about sex work, and anyone concerned with the rights and legal protections owed to people doing sex work.

Stacey Hannem, professor, Wilfrid Laurier University