A profile of the history of sex work and the sexual economy in Mumbai,
India's cultural and financial capital.
In Intimate City, Manjima Bhattacharjya examines how globalization and
technology have changed where and how sexual commerce is transacted. She
maps offline and online geographies of sex work and unearths new
perspectives: from changing red-light areas to the world of escort
services; from the experiences of massage boys to men in search of
casual encounters cruising the internet highways. Through these
fascinating narratives, Bhattacharjya analyzes how the internet has
reconfigured intimacies in the digital age. In doing so, she offers a
new lens to look at long-held feminist understandings of sex work,
choice, consent, and agency against the backdrop of the "maximum city"
of Mumbai.