Title: Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex Author: Elizabeth Bernstein Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publish Date: 2007 Pages: 289 Genres:: Sociology, Non-Fiction Reviewer: Chris R. Morgan

Rating:

When people, especially loved ones, and especially your parents, tell you that you can indeed think for yourself, it rings more than a little dubious when you up and start to think freely—for instance, eschewing the opinion that prostitution isn't all that evil. That may be the statistics about girls being forced into slave labor and the sufferings of whore under the long arm of their pimp are, at the very least, a tad out of sync with objectivity. Though that's not the be all and end all of freethinking, it's one of the more controversial and your mom will, at the very least, smack you up the mouth for it or, at the very worst, stop you dead with a stupid non-argument that you can't possibly debate. The simplistic thinking that surrounds the rather complex sex industry is the main reason why no reasonable person can argue much further about without being taken for a stereotypical libertarian cook. But along comes scholars like Elizabeth Bernstein to use her thought process and impressive handle on culture and ideas to give it a serious examination.

Bernstein is a rare kind of scholar who takes an interesting, somewhat taboo subject and reexamines it in a context that shows the subject (like privatized sex) is as relevant a topic for society as "going green" is. The crux of Bernstein's study is that as society and culture evolves from industrial to postindustrial, so too does the sex industry, and it's not just limited to the Internet though that does play a crucial role. It seems that for the most part, prostitution has come out from under the black market racket rock and into the light as a bona fide, albeit no more legal, business. The postindustrial world with its most massive of mass media has allotted the industry exposure on a grander, much more varied scale.

Bernstein's prose weaves in and out of the journalistic and the academic, but with considerable ease. Her overall language is both lush with descriptions, details, reasoned arguments and evidence and accessibility above all. From within the text are accounts from those actually living her thesis. Sex workers, be them prostitutes, strippers or otherwise, draw parallels between their jobs and that of their customers as sex workers come into the modern world with more normalcy than their predecessors. Interactions with clients are higher in professionalism and low in coarseness. Customers come from average, stable lives in search of some sort of gratifying escape for which the sex workers are happy to provide. 

Aside from such firsthand accounts, Bernstein also uses detailed analysis that veers over multiple disciplines including sociology, political science (the state in relation to sex work) and economics. Bernstein does much in looking at how the sex industry thrives in the world of demand, privatization, commerce, in general, the modern capitalist market. Much of what is said in the book is incredibly compelling and is certainly in need of being address. Cultural enthusiasts, freethinkers, radical capitalists and other curious parties are encouraged to pick up a copy and mull it over. Not everything will sit well with some readers, be it because of the salacious content or the academic presentation of the content. But there is no denying that the sex industry, in all of its forms, is widespread throughout the undeveloped, developing and developed worlds. It's a cosmopolitan cultural force and will adapt to any shift in culture and still thrive. I mean come on, it is a cliché and all but they don't call it the world's oldest profession for nothing.