Prostitutes — Jeremy Sandford

Full Title: Prostitutes: Portraits of People in the Sexploitation Business
Jeremy Sandford
Martin Secker & Warburg Limited · London · 1975
First Edition · First Printing

The Book:
The First Edition · First Printing of Jeremy Sandford’s documentary study of prostitution, built substantially from testimony and contributions by people with direct experience of the sex trade. Sandford examines street prostitution, brothels, massage parlours, male prostitution, pornography, pimping, policing, law, economics, and exploitation while shifting attention away from official authorities and toward the people whose lives those institutions regulated. 228 pp., followed by a Select Bibliography. Original red paper-covered boards with white spine lettering retained. No dust jacket present.

Condition:
Near Fine. Original red paper-covered boards remain exceptionally clean, with only very slight handling evidence, minor compression at the spine extremities, and a small unobtrusive mark to the rear board. Binding remains square and tight; interior is clean and bright. No ownership inscription, institutional marking, rebinding, or restoration observed. No dust jacket present.

Story Of The Book

Jeremy Sandford built his career by asking what happened when people usually discussed as social problems were allowed to speak for themselves.

After Cathy Come Home forced British audiences to confront homelessness and Gypsies documented another marginalized community, Sandford turned in 1975 to prostitution.

Prostitutes ranges across street work, brothels, massage parlours, male prostitution, pornography, pimps, policing, law, and the economics of selling sex. But its most important choice is who gets to speak. Much of the book draws upon testimony and contributions from people with direct experience rather than relying on police, courts, medicine, or reformers to explain their lives for them.

Sandford’s argument was provocative for its time: prostitution should not simply be treated as vice, pathology, or crime. Sex workers were people operating under laws, stigma, economic pressure, and police power—and they deserved a voice in determining the conditions governing their lives. He even advocated organization among sex workers, including a prostitutes’ union.

Instead of asking society what should be done about prostitutes, Sandford asked prostitutes what society was doing to them.

Why It’s In The Collection

Prostitutes belongs in Consigned to Darkness because power often begins with deciding who gets to describe someone else’s life.

Sex workers have historically been defined by institutions with authority over them: police classified them as offenders, courts as defendants, medicine as subjects, and newspapers as scandal. Sandford disrupted that arrangement by giving substantial space to the people being classified, prosecuted, stigmatized, and exploited.

The book did not remain isolated from public policy. Its arguments entered contemporary discussion of prostitution law and were later cited during a 1977 House of Lords debate over prostitution and street offences.

The people society had made into a “problem” became participants in defining the problem for themselves.

Collection Categories: Witness Literature · Investigative Journalism · Human Rights · LGBTQ+ History · Women’s History & Feminism · Labor & Economic Justice · Sexuality & Culture · Social Justice · Political History

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Authentication Evidence

• Title page identifies the work as Prostitutes: Portraits of People in the Sexploitation Business by Jeremy Sandford.

• Title page identifies Secker & Warburg · London as publisher.

• Copyright page explicitly states “First published in England 1975 by Martin Secker & Warburg Limited.”

• Copyright page states “Copyright © Jeremy Sandford 1975.”

• Copyright page gives ISBN 436 44134 9, corresponding to ISBN 0-436-44134-9 for the 1975 Secker & Warburg hardcover.

• Copyright page identifies Morrison & Gibb Ltd., London and Edinburgh, as printer and binder.

• Independent bibliographic records identify the 1975 Secker & Warburg hardcover as the First Edition.

• Independent bibliographic records document a revised Sphere edition published in 1977, distinguishing the original 1975 text from the later revision.

• Physical collation reaches page 228, followed by the Select Bibliography.

• Original red paper-covered publisher’s boards remain present.

• Spine retains the original white lettering identifying Jeremy Sandford, Prostitutes, and Secker & Warburg.

• No later-impression notice appears in the original first-publication statement.

• No evidence of the revised 1977 Sphere text or another subsequent issue is present.

• No evidence of book-club manufacture, later publisher issue, rebinding, or restoration is observed.

• Observable physical and bibliographic evidence supports identification as the 1975 First Edition · First Printing.