: Is it illegal to write a book about how to do something illegal in some places? If I wrote a book about how to do something that is legal in some places but illegal in others, would I

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Simply put, it depends on the jurisdiction where you publish. Look no further than Phil Zimmerman. His cryptography work was considered illegal to export, but he published a book with his source code, and it removed the possibility of further accusations. In some areas you may be issued a fatwa for writing certain things even if never published. In other areas you can write anything you want.

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In the United States, you can write a how-to manual for lots of stuff that's illegal to actually do. A famous use case is The Anarchist's Cookbook -- not the various PDF and text files that have been all over the Internet since it came online, but the late 1970s large format paperback which included detailed instructions for making explosives, and bombs from the explosives, drugs, and assassination tools.

If it were illegal (then) to write and publish such material, I can be pretty confident I wouldn't have been able to openly buy a copy from B. Dalton Books in 1979.

Now, this is not to say you won't get "on a list" if you publish a book about how to commit certain kinds of crime, but honestly, in this world, sex work isn't where the government's eyes (at least in America) are turned -- they're much more interested in various kinds of terrorism. As such, it might not be possible to find a publisher to buy The Anarchist's Cookbook if it were newly written today, but today, one doesn't need a publisher -- an editor, a few proofreaders, a cover artist, and an Amazon account will do the job. At least until Amazon pulls a book they don't like, legal or not...

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