A justice-oriented sex work studies roundtable towards research for the community, not the academy

Engaging with academics’ growing appetite for sex work research and the inclusion of sex workers as research collaborators and co-conspirators, our roundtable paper offers some practical considerations on doing sex work research. The roundtable discussion took place in July 2025. Participants included AJ Bravo, Alex Bruno, Aoife Slater-Parry, Carmela Morgillo, Carolina Are, Helen M. Rand, and Leander/Steven Di Costa. To make participation more accessible, Eccy and Maddie Adore contributed asynchronously. Contributors met in December 2024, during Sexifier, an event organized by Carmela at University College London (UCL) – aimed at centring sex workers’ experiences in higher education settings and academic research. This project is a continuation of the conversations we started around research co-creation. Our roundtable brings together sex workers, academics, and academics with lived experience of the sex industry for a collaborative project that touches upon the challenges of sex work research, the implications of current research practices, and the potential of reconfiguring academic research as a tool for social justice.