Few sociological subjects excite so much passion – and fantasies – as prostitution. Relying on a thirty year-long study of the French case, Lilian Mathieu offers an objective and comprehensive account of prostitution realities, first by analyzing the sex market as a social world with its own rules, hierarchies, and vulnerabilities, but also by stressing how prostitutes’ practice and living conditions are framed and shaped by moral campaigns, public controversies, and state policies. By doing so, the book offers a new understanding of how the “deviant” and “normal” worlds...