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Carol Leigh (January 11, 1951 – November 16, 2022),[1][2] a.k.a. The Scarlot Harlot, was an American artist, author, filmmaker, and sex workers' rights activist.[3][4] She is credited with coining the term "sex work"[5][6] and chaired the Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival and was the director of BAYSWAN, the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network.[7]

Carol Leigh
Born	(1951-01-11)January 11, 1951 New York City, U.S.
Died	November 16, 2022(2022-11-16) (aged 71) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Other names	The Scarlot Harlot
Education	Binghamton University Empire State College Boston University
Occupation	Artist, author, filmmaker, sex worker, sex workers' rights activist
Known for	Coined the term "sex work" Co-producer of San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival Director and co-founder of BAYSWAN (Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network)
Website	scarlotharlot.com

Biography

Leigh was born in New York City and grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens.[8] She later attended Binghamton University (1968–70), Empire State College (1972-74), where she obtained a BA[9] in creative writing,[1] and Boston University[7] (1974–75).

By 1978, Leigh moved to San Francisco and started engaging in sex work.[9] Two years later she was raped by two men at the establishment she worked at. She did not report this to the police for fear of the establishment being shut down. Leigh describes the rape as a defining moment in her life and prompted her activism for sex workers' rights.[1]

Leigh joined COYOTE and became involved in its activities,[1] and through the Coalition on Prostitution coordinated a street outreach project for street workers in San Francisco.[10]

In the early 1980s, Leigh wrote her one-woman satirical play The Adventures of Scarlot Harlot.[9] She performed in San Francisco[9] and at the 1983 National Festival of Women's Theater in Santa Cruz.[1] She also performed the play at clubs, theaters, rallies and as part of the Sex Workers Art Show tour.[10]

During the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, Leigh was an advocate for safe sex but opposed mandatory HIV testing. Leigh decided to leave San Francisco, where HIV was dominating everybody's thoughts and headed to Texas where she intended to form an organisation: T.W.A.T. ("Texas Whores And Tricks"). During the journey to Texas her car broke down in Tucson, Arizona. Whilst in Tucson she answered a classified small-ad from media-life-artist Dennis Williams, who had a weekly two-hour live comedy programme on Tucson Western International Television. Leigh joined the show and created and developed several characters for it. After two years Leigh decided she needed a more bohemian setting to develop her individuality and returned to San Francisco.[8]

On her return to San Francisco, Leigh joined the AIDS activist organisation Citizens For Medical Justice and organised demos and press conferences. She also collaborated with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.[8] In the 1990s, she was part of a San Francisco Board of Supervisors commission on prostitution.[9] She was one of the main contributors to the San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution, whose report calling for the decriminalization of prostitution was published in 1996.[1]

Leigh began making videos in 1985,[10] and received awards from the American Film Institute for Yes Means Yes, No Means No; Outlaw Poverty, Not Prostitutes and Mother's Mink.[1] The San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival was founded by Leigh in 1999, which she also co-produced with Erica Elena and Jovelyn Richards.[11]

In 2006 Leigh received a grant from the Creative Work Fund to establish, in collaboration with the Center for Sex & Culture, the Sex Worker Media Library.[10] In 2008, she prominently advocated for a San Francisco ballot initiative to decriminalize prostitution.[9]

Leigh lived in San Francisco and was bisexual.[12] She died of cancer on November 16, 2022, at the age of 71.[2]

The term "sex work"

Carol Leigh is credited with coining the term "sex work" at an anti-pornography conference in 1982.[5][6] The terminology used at the Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media conference for the sex industry was the "Sex Use Industry".[9][5] The phrasing bothered her because it objectified sex workers and trivialized the agency they had in the transaction.[5] She suggested the panel be renamed "Sex Work Industry" (later writing "because that described what women did")[5] and began to use the term in her one-woman plays before the first published use of "sex worker" appeared in a 1984 Associated Press newswire.[13] She explained in a 1997 essay titled "Inventing Sex Work" that

“I invented sex work. Not the activity, of course. The term. This invention was motivated by my desire to reconcile my feminist goals with the reality of my life and the lives of the women I knew. I wanted to create an atmosphere of tolerance within and outside the women's movement for women working in the sex industry.”[14][15]

Works

Books

• Leigh, Carol (2004). Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Writings of Scarlot Harlot. San Francisco: Last Gasp. ISBN 9780867195842.

Film appearances

As listed by WorldCat.[16]

• Annie Sprinkle's amazing world of orgasm (2004)
• Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of porn : reel to real
• Dr. Annie Sprinkle's How to be a sex goddess in 101 easy steps (1992)
• Mutantes : féminisme porno punk = Punk porn feminism (2011) (in French)
• Mutantes : punk porn feminism (2011)
• Our bodies, our minds (2005)
• Released : 5 short videos about women and prison (2001)
• Sphinxes without secrets : women performance artists speak out (1991)
• Straight for the money : interviews with queer sex workers (1994)

Videos produced

As listed by Western Connecticut State University.[17]

• Die Yuppie Scum (1989) 30 min
• Outlaw Poverty, Not Prostitutes (1989) 21 min
• Safe Sex Slut (1987) 30 min
• Spiritual Warfare: The G.H.O.S.T.* Campaign (1990) 28 min
• Taking Back the Night (1990) 28 min
• Whores and Healers (1990) 28 min
• Yes Means Yes, No Means No (1990) 8 min
• Whore in the Gulf (1991) 30 min

See also

• AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power

References

Bibliography

• Juhasz, Alexandra (2001). Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video. Visible evidence. Vol. 9. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9781452904252.
• Leigh, Carol (2004). Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Writings of Scarlot Harlot. San Francisco: Last Gasp. ISBN 9780867195842.
• Nagle, Jill, ed. (1997). Whores and Other Feminists. Psychology Press. ISBN 9780415918220.

External links

• San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival
• Sex Worker Media Library

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