Research & Scholarship
My research and scholarship centers on the critical study of social inequality, focusing on the relationship between sexuality, power, and context (including: organizational, institutional, cultural, and global contexts).
Current Projects
- Book project: Sexuality: The Basics (Routledge Press)
- Sex work/trafficking research and advocacy:
- Member of an ongoing U.S. team of human rights/sex worker activists and academics responding to the United Nation's Universal Periodic Review in Nov. 2010. To learn more about this work see: my team's policy brief, blog posts about our initial efforts including one on RhReality Check, an article in Insight Magazine, and a journal article describing our efforts in Anti-Trafficking Review.
- PI of a community-based empirical research project assessing the needs of transgender sex workers in the Seattle area (funded by grants from the Harry Bridges Labor Center and the Pride Foundation).
- Co-author of a "state of the field" paper on "sex work and human trafficking" (emerging from the 2012 American Sociological Association mini-conference on sexualities).
- Co-editor (with Barb Brents, UNLV) of a special issue of Sociological Perspectives on Sex Work and Human Trafficking.
Select Publications
(For a full listing of my publications, please see my CV)
Peer reviewed Journal Articles:
- Lerum, K. 2015. “A FemmeNist ManiPedifesto.” Cultural Studies <--> Critical Methodologies 15 (2): 156-162. First published on December 16, 2014 doi: 10.1177/1532708614562886.
- Lerum, K, McCurtis, K., Saunders, P. Wahab, S. 2012. "Using human rights to hold the US accountable for its anti-sex work agenda. The Universal Periodic Review and new directions for US policy." Anti Trafficking Review, 1, pp. 80-103.
- Wahab, S., Baker, L., Smith, J. Cooper, K., Lerum, K.. 2010. "Exotic Dance Research: A Review of the Literature from 1970 to 2008." Sexuality & Culture.
- Lerum, K., and Dworkin, S. 2009. “‘Bad Girls Rule’: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Commentary on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.” Journal of Sex Research 46. 4.
- Lerum, K., and Dworkin, S. 2009. “Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth, Sexualization, and Health.” Journal of Sex Research 46. 4.
- Lerum, K. 2004. “Sexuality, Power, and Camaraderie in Service Work.” Gender & Society, 18, 6. 756-776.
- Lerum, K. 2001. “Subjects of Desire: Academic Armor, Intimate Ethnography, & the Production of Critical Knowledge.” Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 4, Pp. 466-483.
- Lerum, Kari. 1998. "12-Step Feminism Makes Sex Workers Sick: How the State and the Recovery Movement Turn Radical Women into ‘Useless Citizens’." Sexuality & Culture, 2, Pp. 7-36.
Academic Book & Encyclopedia Chapters:
- Forthcoming. "Sex Work and Criminalization" For Encyclopedia of GLBTQ Studies. Sage.
- Lerum, K. 2013. "Sexuality." In Encycolopedia of Work. Sage.
- Lerum, K. 2012. “What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Life Lessons from Multiracial Feminism.”In Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Salt Lake: University of Utah Press
- Lerum, K. 2008. “Sexuality and Reproduction.” In Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, v. 2. Sage.
- Lerum, K. 2001. "'Precarious Situations' in a Strip Club: Exotic Dancers and the Problem of Reality Maintenance." In The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings in Social Psychology (3rd edition), Pp. 279-287, edited by Peter Kollock and Jodi O'Brien. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001. (Reprinted in the 4th edition, 2006).
Creative Non-Fiction Publications:
- Lerum, K. 2012. "My Trojan Dress." In Here Come the Brides: Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage, Pp. 59-71, edited by Michelle Kort and Audrey Bilger. Seal Press.
- Lerum, K. 2012. “Circus.” Trivia: Voices of Feminism, issue 13. (special issue on "Death"). Available online: http://www.triviavoices.com/current-issue.html#.UK2ENY76rqE
Book Reviews:
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland. By Brents, B., Jackson, C., and Hausbeck, K. In Gender & Society.
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of Strip Club: Gender, Power, and Sex Work. By Price-Glynn, K. In American Journal of Sociology 117, 1, Pp. 345-347. 2011.
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies, and the Politics of Care. Edited by Boris, E. and Parrenas, R. In International Review of Modern Sociology. Pp. 150-153.
- Lerum, K. 2007. Review of Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy & Identity, edited by Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner. In Contemporary Sociology, 36, 6, Pp. 559-561.
- Lerum, K. 2004. “Defining the Emotional Contours of Exotic Dance." A Review of G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire by Katherine Frank, and Bare: On Women, Sex, and Power by Elizabeth Eaves. Sexuality & Culture 8, 1.
Blog Articles:
Ms. Magazine blog (sample publications; for full list of my Ms. Blog publications see: http://msmagazine.com/blog/author/karilerum/)
- Trafficking Policy should focus on Empowerment, not Coercion. April 10, 2015 Ms Magazine Blog.
- Burlesque Is So Gay. And That’s A Good Thing. December 2, 2010 Ms Magazine Blog. http://msmagazine.com/blog/2010/12/02/burlesque-is-so-gay-and-thats-a-good-thing/
- Toward a human rights approach to sex work policy. March 22, 2011. http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/03/22/settingglobal-mandate-towardhuman-rights-approach-work-policy/ Republished on Alternet.com on March 24, 2011.
Sexuality & Society I am the founder, co-editor and frequent writer for Sexuality & Society, a blog hosted by The Society Pages and the American Sociological Association. (Sept. 2009-present). A sample of my Sexuality & Society publications are below.
- How Popular Sex Trafficking Stories Like Abduction of Eden Justify Bad Policy and Hurt Sex Workers, March 8, 2015 Sexuality and Society.
- Interested in Bully-Free Zones? (or Not?). Nov 18, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- Sex Addiction clinics as Capitalist confession booths. May 2, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- Catholic Priests, Sexual Abuse, and learning how to talk about sex in church
Mar 29, 2010.Sexuality & Society. - Making Hate Fun: Facebook users continue to joke en masse about killing “hookers”. Feb 12, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- The real problem with “sexting”: Adult complicity in labeling teens “sluts,” “perverts,” and “criminals” Dec 23, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- Pure Fashion Policing, Dec 7, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- The New Abolitionists and their critics (second in a series on Anti-Trafficking efforts). Oct 21, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- Abstaining from evidence during National Sex Education week. Oct 2, 2009. Sexuality & Society.