Melissa Farley
Violence Against Women (2005) 11:950

This article describes the social invisibility of indoor prostitution, the lack of evidence suggesting that indoor prostitution is “safe,” and summarizes testimony of women who reported violence in strip club prostitution and warnings about violence from groups promoting indoor prostitution.

Farley outlines the main issues that those who promote indoor prostitution bring up as criticism of the abolitionist perspective on prostitution. The abolitionist perspective reflects an understanding that all prostitution is harmful, regardless of its physical location, and that while people selling sex should be decriminalized, those who buy and sell others should be strongly criminalized.

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