Body Autonomy: Decolonizing Sex Work and Drug Use through Lived Experience, Harm Reduction, and Bodily Sovereignty

Body Autonomy is a 17-essay collection edited by Justice Rivera that examines how criminalization of sex work and drug use restricts bodily autonomy. Advocates, sex workers, scholars, health and policy reformers, and healers with direct experience of these systems connect the War on Drugs to broader patterns of American neocolonialism, state violence, marginalization, and community disenfranchisement. The collection centers decolonial perspectives and harm reduction, challenging punishment-based approaches while emphasizing dignity, healing, survival, care, and embodied freedom. Its central argument is that reclaiming sovereignty over the body requires confronting the policies and institutions that regulate touch, erotic labor, psychoactive substance use, and consciousness exploration. Published in 2024, the 352-page paperback and eBook feature contributions from named writers including Kate D’Adamo, Ismail Ali, Paula Kahn, Zara Raven, Richael Faithful, Amira Barakat Al-Baladi, and Mona Knotte.