Cirrus@Austlit

'This is a book with an axe to grind. Specifically, the author is very aggrieved at the way in which Melbourne’s colonial sex work and sex workers are represented in what she calls ‘tabloid histories’, especially historical tours and websites relating to Little Lonsdale Street’s brothels. She characterises this tabloid history as history that ‘prefers titillation to truth, and values sales above respect for its subjects, breathing sensationalism and the colourful language of denigration’ (2). Curiously, though, she provides few specific examples of the target of her annoyance – in the case of offending websites she states that she ‘refuses to dignify any of these efforts with references’ (279). As a result, the argument has a very ‘straw man’ feel. This reader was irritated by the approach, and the frequent chastising meted out to ‘historians’ (without the earlier qualification of ‘tabloid’) throughout the book, again with few specific examples. Although Minchinton’s published work in refereed journals indicates that she is aware of the broader academic historiography of sex work in Australia as a subject that has attracted solid research and subtle analysis, very little of this historical scholarship is referred to, leaving the reader with the impression that she is the only writer with valid historical skills. And her claims to focus on the ‘facts’ rather than the sensational are belied by the very cover of the book, which features a raunchy photo of a sex worker in Vienna, not Melbourne or even Australia.'(Introduction)