Bell shows how the flesh-and-blood sexual female body engaged in sexual interaction for payment has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in different cultures or discourses. The author contends that modernity has produced "the prostitute" as the other within the categorical other woman.
An Inclusive Litany
10/21/94
Promotional material for Shannon Bell's
Reading, Writing and Rewriting the Prostitute Body,
published by Indiana University Press: