This groundbreaking collection celebrates the intertwining needs for touch and the exploration of our consciousness, helping us understand how these experiences have been suppressed and inviting us all into self-sovereignty by imagining otherwise.
Body Autonomy brings together 17 powerful essays from advocates, sex workers, and scholars directly impacted by these systems. The collection explores how policies shaped by American neocolonial frameworks continue to control and restrict bodily autonomy—especially through the criminalization of sex work and drug use.
Through bold analysis and lived experience, this book reveals how the same mechanisms behind the War on Drugs are used to marginalize and disenfranchise communities today.
At its core, Body Autonomy is a call to reclaim sovereignty over our own bodies. It connects themes of erotic labor, psychoactive substances, and state violence, while offering a vision rooted in dignity, healing, and liberation.
By centering decolonial perspectives and harm reduction practices, the book invites us to imagine a future grounded in compassion rather than punishment—one that expands how we understand survival, care, and embodied freedom.
Featuring contributions from leading voices in health and policy reform—including Kate D’Adamo, Justice Rivera, Ismail Ali, Paula Kahn, and Zara Raven—alongside respected healers such as Richael Faithful, Amira Barakat Al-Baladi, and Mona Knotte.
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Why this book matters
- Challenges the criminalization of sex work and drug use by exposing the neocolonial frameworks that continue to restrict bodily autonomy
- Centers the voices of advocates, sex workers, and scholars with direct lived experience of these systems
- Connects the War on Drugs to broader patterns of state violence, marginalization, and community disenfranchisement
- Advances a decolonial, harm-reduction framework that reimagines care, survival, and embodied freedom
- Offers a vision of liberation rooted in dignity and compassion, with contributions from leading voices in health, policy reform, and healing
