Are They Bad Girls or Brilliant?: The Truths Behind the Fight for Independent Prostitutes' Rights - Softcover

This epic-sized tome shouts the worldwide plain truth that prostitutes won't go away. Sex workers exist, universally persist, and they doggedly endure the world's hatred. Contrary to popular perceptions, she attests, most of them haven't been forced. They literally embody the torturous collision of human rights and women's rights issues, and Phoenix explains it with a staggering fusion of adroitness and poignant revelation. Phoenix has indeed done her research, but more importantly, she's a seasoned insider. This is the rave-reviewed book set by Aphrodite Phoenix, previously entitled "A Woman Whose Calling is Men", updated and retitled. No longer bound as a two-book series, what was once two separate purchases is now, more conveniently, one. Phoenix's creative nonfiction is now paired with her richly iconoclastic essays. This newest edition reflects the latest developments---the victories as well as the challenges---for the American sex workers' rights movement up to 2012. The first section spans Phoenix's autobiographical journey as a poor but well-educated single mom who finds good solutions as an escort. This is a riveting, emotionally engaging read intended for the general public. The essays that make up the following section continue the same conversational style, but demand academic perspectives. They are not in chronological order and can be read selectively. Two books rendered into one imply a hefty price, but such is not the case. Phoenix wants everything she has to say inexpensively accessed. That way her message of compassion may be much more widely spread, as well as her sex-positive viewpoint and her groundbreaking vision of high standards for sex workers. The book as also available on Kindle. To see readers' rave reviews, please visit www.aphroditephoenix.com.

Aphrodite Phoenix was born and raised in New York State, including Long Island and Manhattan's Upper East Side. As a young adult, she relocated to eastern Massachusetts, and has since then mostly lived there. The Greater Boston Area has also been the setting for most of her escort sex work. Phoenix holds a B.A. in English. She cites her past trials as a parentless, poor single mother, bereft of support from the father, as the drive behind her makeover into an independent, financially secure escort. She is now an author-advocate for the human rights and women's rights issues, as well as the unsung spirituality, inherent in the prostitutes' rights movement.