L. Wynn in American Sexuality Magazine

Maybe this is out of line, but I wanted to post a link to a story I just stumbled across: our own Lisa Wynn has gotten a high traffic posting in American Sexuality Magazine:What is a Prostitute? In Egypt the oldest profession isn’t just a sex-for-cash exchange.

I’m not going to give away too much of the content of the story because everyone should click on the link and drive readership numbers of the original piece through the roof. In the piece, she reports her own attempts to understand how Egyptians used the term, ‘prostitute,’ especially their judgments of other women’s morality. As Lisa points out, it’s not money that sullies a sexual or romantic relationship (as it would be in the United States, for example) because money changes hands in all these sorts of relationships as a matter of course. Rather, the label ‘prostitute’ gets invoked when, due to a woman’s poverty or social position, the critics think her sexuality and sociability is no longer operating within the respectable confines controlled by her family.

The posting is being cross-listed on Alternet, so it’ll get great traffic; a good example of an anthropologist getting our research and thinking in front of a broader public. The Alternet cross-posting of the story is already starting to attract some comments.