This chapter introduces the concept and content of the book to the readers. It describes the aim of the book to be to elaborate the contingency of how we understand prostitution, and argues that it is often taken for granted in debates and scholarship on what prostitution, sex work or sex for sale are, but rarely investigated further. It further describes some of the literature that offers insightful perspectives on this and that in different ways serves as an inspiration for the book. The chapter then describes the three parts of the book, 'Historically speaking', 'Speaking from experience' and 'Speaking about control', and how the chapters offers different inroads into the exploration of the meanings and moralities of sexual commerce. CHAPTER TEXT The aim of the book Social anthropologist Marilyn Strathern argued that (1992: 2), "You can tell a culture by what it can and cannot bring together". In this book we are interested in how definitions of and unease with prostitution, sex work or sex for sale 1 bring together sex and money. To us Strathern's expression encapsulates the value of looking for the meanings and moralities that are applied to commercial sex. Debaters and others often take for granted what prostitution, sex work or sex for sale are, often taking as their point of departure the definition in criminal law on paper, the types of acts towards which policies are directed and definitions in encyclopedias. Furthermore, they often take for granted that prostitution is a problem and a particular type of problem, even though prostitution, sex work or sex for sale take on different forms, consist of different acts and are regulated differently in different settings and times, and are thus contingent on our historical, spatial, temporal and political positions. Money and
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