Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2007, 40(2): 127-142

This article examines 51 court judgments between 1829 and 2004 made in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand where evidence of prostitution was presented. The author describes a notable change in the 1980s and 1990s when men began to be prosecuted and convicted for raping sex workers. This change is attributed partly to law reform, but also to feminist activism and changing social attitudes changes to rape. The author argues that sex workers are now seen in law as women vulnerable to rape, although further legal rights for prostitutes as workers need to be developed. However the view of prostitutes as individuals able to give and withhold sexual consent calls into question the concept held in both conservative and feminist thought that prostitution always involves rape as it is a violent and coercive act perpetrated on the vulnerable. The author argues that a feminist politics of prostitution needs to engage with power relations in this area.