Other Films

A number of other films have explored or exploited the life of the lesbian prostitute, beginning as early as 1912, when Aleksandr Arkatov made a film version of the 1906 Sholom Asch play, God of Vengeance, about a Jewish brothel owner whose daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes who works for him.

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Edward Dmytryk's 1962 film Walk on the Wild Side features Barbara Stanwyck as the madame of a New Orleans bordello in love with one of her prostitutes, played by Capucine.

In 1986, lesbian filmmaker Lizzie Borden used information she gathered from interviewing sex workers to create her film Working Girls, the story of a lesbian photographer who works in a New York house of prostitution. Unlike more sensational portrayals of sex workers' lives, Borden's film presents prostitution as a singularly un-erotic routine, where boredom and violence are all part of the working day.

The lesbian "sex wars" of the 1980s, centered on issues of pornography and s/m, constituted one of the most significant debates among second-wave feminists in North America and Europe.

Although pornography is controversial among lesbians, it has nonetheless been openly embraced by a faction of pro-sex lesbians, and there has emerged a small but growing film and video industry committed to authentic lesbian pornography.

Sex workers range from well-organized professionals who work for escorting agencies, perform in pornographic films, or manage independent escort businesses to those who engage in unpremeditated and sporadic cash transactions resulting from casual encounters.

Sexology, the study of sex or of the interactions between the sexes, first emerged as a field of intellectual inquiry in the second half of the nineteenth century; its practitioners were the first to identify homosexuality as such and to speculate about its prevalence and etiology.

Although art historians have given very little attention to representations of sex workers, images of same-sex prostitution extend far back into history.

Bisexual filmmaker Lizzie Borden brings a feminist perspective and a dynamic authenticity to her films about the unexplored politics of women's lives.

Controversial for defending sadomasochism and pornography, gender outlaw and sexual anarchist Patrick Califia, who recently underwent gender reassignment, is widely admired as a defender of individual freedom.

Controversial radical feminist and anti-pornography crusader Andrea Dworkin wrote and spoke extensively on the cultural subjugation of women.

Through her writing, teaching, editing, and activism, Joan Nestle has devoted her life to promoting awareness of glbtq culture and advancing glbtq equality.

Transgender people--more specifically, people who were born male but present themselves as female--are Brazil's single most marginalized group.