Work, fight, spread

For more than thirty years of struggle and mobilization for the rights of sex workers, Grisélidis Réal, writer, painter and “ revolutionary courtesan", methodically collected everything that related from near or far to the sex trades, in Switzerland and around the world. Press articles, correspondence, research work, reports, taking of position, reports of seminars, colloquiums or congresses, posters, pamphlets, manifestos… Her ambition was to create, at home, a “Center international documentation on prostitution”. Using its photocopier, she made thematic files which she put then available to anyone interested in the topic of work sex. For Grisélidis, it was essential that daily reality and the the experiences of sex workers can be heard. This Geneva-based collection is unique in Europe and covers large areas geographical, from San Francisco to Milan, from London to Geneva, from New York to Paris. The publication contains a rich iconographic apparatus, accompanied by texts offering varied perspectives, on the history of combat as much as on the question of the archive and the document in a contemporary context. She highlights the activist dimension of the fund and its role in the birth of the international movement for the rights of TdS. It also highlights the most emblematic pieces from the archives and their graphic potential, with some 200 reproductions of the most important aspects of the mobilization of TdS since the 1970s, posters originals, invitation cards or flyers from all over the world. reproductions highlight the network and international solidarity of TdS and their allies since the birth of the movement to fight for their rights, as well as the genesis and creation of the first defense associations and TdS unions. These documents illustrate the dynamism of this commitment, progress, but also the difficulties and suffering of the struggle as well as the rise of repressive policies, under the influence very powerful abolitionist organizations than Grisélidis and his peers. have not stopped fighting. The book offers an international perspective on the history of this commitment with the intervention of different authors, researchers, actors and activists. Talking about sex work today means talking about the issues of migration, labor law, LGBTQI+ struggles, women in public space, at the center of current debates.