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As ongoing controversies over commercial sex attest, the relationship between capitalism and sexuality is deeply contentious.
Economic and sexual practices are assumed to be not only separable but antithetical, hence why paid sex is so often criminalized and morally condemned. Yet, while sexuality is highly politicized in moral terms, it has largely been overlooked in the discipline devoted to the study of global capitalism, international political economy (IPE). Likewise, the prevailing field in sexuality studies, queer theory, has frequently sidelined questions of political economy. This book calls for critical scholarship to challenge the economy/sexuality dichotomy as it not only structures disciplinary debates but is part and parcel of capitalism itself.
Capitalism's Sexual History brings IPE and queer theory into close dialogue to explore how the division between economy and sexuality has been historically produced to appear both natural and moral. By examining sex work in Britain, Nicola J. Smith draws on in-depth archival research to chart a history of capitalism's sexual relations from medieval times to the present day. She shows how capitalist development was made possible by the appropriation of unpaid sexual labor that relied, in turn, on the repression and production of paid sex. By tracing the historical construction of boundaries around sex and work, this book exposes how capitalism has long profited from the notion that the sexual and economic spheres can and must be kept apart. In so doing, it offers a distinctive contribution to the study of sex and work as well as to wider scholarly, activist, and policy debates about political economy, reproductive labor, gender equality, and sexual justice.
Author: Nicola J. Smith
Paperback Published 6 October 2020 200 pages
"Capitalism's Sexual History is an important book that makes visible the relationship between economy and sexuality. Smith does this by centering her analysis on the commercial sex sector, examining how sex work matters in the interwoven histories of the rise of capitalism and the emergence of a modern sexual and moral order centred on the institution of marriage...Smith makes compelling arguments for scholars to better recognise the work that sexuality does in the reproduction of markets. This, then, is a vital contribution, one that through its engagements with both queer theory and social reproduction scholarship forges important new directions for the study of International Political Economy. A well-written, brilliantly assembled, must-read book!" - Juanita Elias, University of Warwick
"Capitalism's Sexual History writes back into the field of international political economy untold stories about bodies as work spaces—indeed, about their centrality in the forging of capitalist social relations. By zooming onto England—through its ascendancy and decline—as the motherboard of global capitalism, Nicola Smith excavates the role that sex work played in the construction of dichotomies instrumental to capitalism's reproduction: states/markets, public/private, economy/sexuality. This is a book that must be read by all IPE scholars who understand that the way to transform the world we live in is always predicated upon the way we interpret and re-interpret history." - Aida A. Hozić, University of Florida
"This is a stunning book! I have been waiting for Capitalism's Sexual History for a long time—rich in analysis and creative imagination, it focuses upon the most important issues of today ( the relationship between economics and sexual practices) through the lens of critical sexual histories (Foucault and Frederici) towards sexual justice. A tour de force!" - Maggie O'Neill, University College Cork, Ireland