mcmahan-parra headshot

Victoria Nelle McMahan-Parra

PhD Student in Sociology, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
Chapter Member: Nevada SSN
Areas of Expertise:

About Victoria

McMahan-Parra received her Master of Science and Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, where she primarily studies sexuality and criminal justice. Her work thus far has prioritized the lived realities of sex workers, which she mixes with political organizing to fight for sex worker rights.

Publications

"The Political Economy of Pleasure" (with Barbara Gayle Brents, Mary Underwood Hood, Rachel Howard, Foster Kamanga, Drue Belliveau Sahuc, Roen Sagun, and Antonio Ball), in Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Rights, edited by Peter Aggleton, Rob Cover, Carmen H. Logie, Christy E. Newman & Richard Parker (Routledge, 2023).

Explores the concept of pleasure and how it has been shaped by social, historical, and economic contexts. Finds that pleasure has played a key role in the development of modern culture and capitalist political economy, and has been used to reproduce intersecting inequalities in race, class, ability, gender, and sexuality.