This article addresses feminist approaches to sex work. Radical feminists, who see prostitution as firmly grounded on gender inequalities, refuse to conceptualize it as work. Conversely, liberal feminists and sex workers’ movements mobilize for sex workers’ rights, their self-determination, and the normalization of sex services as a legal activity. Due to how their profession has been constructed along its history, social workers tend to adopt a radical feminist perspective. For that reason, their professional intervention with sex workers may not meet sex workers’ demands.
Sex work; radical feminism; liberal feminism; social work; Portugal