scholarly journals Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Brown ◽  
Teela Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
National Policy ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Local Initiatives ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Street Sex Work ◽  
Policy Arena

Whilst it remains a criminal activity to solicit sex publicly in the UK, it has become increasingly popular to configure sex workers as ‘vulnerable’, often as a means of foregrounding the significant levels of violence faced by female street sex workers. Sex work scholars have highlighted that this discourse can play an enabling role in a moralistic national policy agenda which criminalises and marginalises those who sell sex. Yet multiple and overlapping narratives of vulnerability circulate in this policy arena, raising questions about how these might operate at ground level. Drawing on empirical data gathered in the development of an innovative local street sex work multi-agency partnership in Leeds, this article explores debates, discourses and realities of sex worker vulnerability. Setting applied insights within more theoretically inclined analysis, we suggest how vulnerability might usefully be understood in relation to sex work, but also highlight how social justice for sex workers requires more than progressive discourses and local initiatives. Empirical findings highlight that whilst addressing vulnerability through a local street sex work multi-agency partnership initiative, a valuable platform for shared action on violence in particular can be created. However, an increase in fundamental legal and social reform is required in order to address the differentiated and diverse lived experiences of sex worker vulnerability.

scholarly journals ‘I’m Not a Bloody Slave, I Get Paid and if I Don’t Get Paid Then Nothing Happens’: Sarah’s Experience of Being a Student Sex Worker

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Simpson ◽  
Sarah Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Gig Economy ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Competitive Nature

Sex work remains a contentious area of debate. Whether or not sex work is considered to be a form of labour is in itself contested. As discussion is often about rather than with sex workers, this article brings Sarah’s experiences of being both a student and a sex worker, in two different areas of the UK, to centre stage. This candid account highlights the precarious and competitive nature of being self-employed within the current neoliberal climate, as well as the similarities sex work shares with other ‘mainstream’ forms of labour particularly within the ‘gig economy’. Existing research has focused on how/why students enter the sex industry leaving a gap in the literature regarding what happens after university in this context. It appears from Sarah’s account that leaving sex work behind may not be as straightforward as she had originally anticipated, for reasons other than just making money.

scholarly journals Students, sex work and negotiations of stigma in the UK and Australia

Sexualities ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 136346072092273
Author(s):  
Jessica Simpson ◽  
Cassandra Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
The Uk

How stigma is negotiated by female university students working in the sex industry remains under-researched and is limited to the context of erotic dancing. This article combines data collected in the UK and Australia with a total of 14 student sex workers and expands the scope by including individuals working in legal brothels, as independent escorts, webcammers and erotic dancers. Findings reveal that the use of the internet offered some women protection from discrimination, while at the same time exposing others to ‘new’ and intensified forms of stigma; which required alternative strategies to negate the negative effects. Despite the diverse nature of the sex industry, regardless of the sector, women in both countries were similar in their approach to sex work and their response to stigma. Given their relatively ‘respectable’ social standing, students were able to claim ‘respectability’ not available to all. Some women also shared an increased capacity to live openly as sex workers while simultaneously considering their engagement in the industry to be temporary. Rather than living a double life, respondents aspired to a singular, authentic selfhood. Close relationships were built with co-workers and many women felt a strong sense of rootedness within sex-worker communities, with sex work becoming an important part of their identity.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) on the Health and Social Needs of Sex Workers in Singapore

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rayner Kay Jin Tan ◽  
Vanessa Ho ◽  
Sherry Sherqueshaa ◽  
Wany Dee ◽  
Jane Mingjie Lim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Insecurity ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Permanent Resident ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractWe evaluated the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on the sex work industry and assessed how it has impacted the health and social conditions of sex workers in Singapore. We conducted a sequential exploratory mixed methods study amidst the COVID-19 pandemic from April to October 2020, including in-depth interviews with 24 stakeholders from the sex work industry and surveyor-administered structured surveys with 171 sex workers. COVID-19 had a substantial impact on sex workers' income. The illegality of sex work, stigma, and the lack of work documentation were cited as exclusionary factors for access to alternative jobs or government relief. Sex workers had experienced an increase in food insecurity (57.3%), housing insecurity (32.8%), and sexual compromise (8.2%), as well as a decrease in access to medical services (16.4%). Being transgender female was positively associated with increased food insecurity (aPR = 1.23, 95% CI [1.08, 1.41]), housing insecurity (aPR = 1.28, 95% CI [1.03, 1.60]), and decreased access to medical services (aPR = 1.74, 95% CI [1.23, 2.46]); being a venue-based sex worker was positively associated with increased food insecurity (aPR = 1.46, 95% CI [1.00, 2.13]), and being a non-Singaporean citizen or permanent resident was positively associated with increased housing insecurity (aPR = 2.59, 95% CI [1.73, 3.85]). Our findings suggest that COVID-19 has led to a loss of income for sex workers, greater food and housing insecurity, increased sexual compromise, and reduced access to medical services for sex workers. A lack of access to government relief among sex workers exacerbated such conditions. Efforts to address such population health inequities should be implemented.

scholarly journals The Female Sex Work Industry in a District of India in the Context of HIV Prevention

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raluca Buzdugan ◽  
Shiva S. Halli ◽  
Jyoti M. Hiremath ◽  
Krishnamurthy Jayanna ◽  
T. Raghavendra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Female Sex Workers ◽  
Work Setting ◽  
Vulnerability Factors ◽  
Modes Of Operation ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Female Sex Work

HIV prevalence in India remains high among female sex workers. This paper presents the main findings of a qualitative study of the modes of operation of female sex work in Belgaum district, Karnataka, India, incorporating fifty interviews with sex workers. Thirteen sex work settings (distinguished by sex workers' main places of solicitation and sex) are identified. In addition to previously documented brothel, lodge, street,dhaba(highway restaurant), and highway-based sex workers, under-researched or newly emerging sex worker categories are identified, including phone-based sex workers, parlour girls, and agricultural workers. Women working in brothels, lodges,dhabas, and on highways describe factors that put them at high HIV risk. Of these,dhabaand highway-based sex workers are poorly covered by existing interventions. The paper examines the HIV-related vulnerability factors specific to each sex work setting. The modes of operation and HIV-vulnerabilities of sex work settings identified in this paper have important implications for the local programme.

“Sex Work Is Star Shaped”

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-590
Author(s):  
Vanessa Carlisle
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Sexual Performance ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Racial Capitalism ◽  
Real Work ◽  
The Common

This article interrogates the common sex worker rights’ slogan “sex work is real work,” a claim that yokes sex worker struggles to labor struggles worldwide. This article argues that US-based sex worker rights activism, which relies on the labor rights framework to confront stigma and criminalization, is unable to undo how racial capitalism constructs sex work as not a legitimate form of work. While labor protections are important, sex work offers opportunity for the development of antiwork potentials. Many people engaging in sexual performance or trading sex are already creating spaces where sex work itself exceeds analysis as a job. By foregrounding sex workers’ lived experiences and the theoretical moves of antiracist anticapitalism, antiwork politics, queer liberationists, and disability justice, this article locates sex workers at the nexus of important forms of subjugated knowledge crucial for undermining the criminalization of marginalized people.

Stigma, decriminalisation, and violence against street-based sex workers: Changing the narrative

Sexualities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 1288-1308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynzi Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Worker Safety ◽  
Worker Rights ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Multiple Risks ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
Starting Point

It is well documented that sex workers manage risks in their work – such as the potential for violence and the multiple risks associated with stigma. While sex workers are commonly understood to be a stigmatised population, few studies have considered in depth how stigma operates in different legislative contexts, how it relates to sex-worker safety, and how it may be reduced. Stigma is understood to be exacerbated by the criminalisation of sex work, which defines sex workers as deviant others and consequently renders them more vulnerable to violence. However, as full decriminalisation of sex work is still relatively rare, there has been little in-depth exploration into the relationship between this legislative approach, risks of violence, and stigma. Drawing on the findings of in-depth interviews with street-based sex workers and sex-worker rights advocates, in this article I explore the links between stigma and violence, and discuss the challenges of reducing stigma associated with sex work in New Zealand, post-decriminalisation. I argue that while decriminalisation has undoubtedly benefited sex workers in New Zealand, stigma continues to have a negative impact – particularly for street-based sex workers. Decriminalisation should therefore be considered an essential starting point. However, ongoing work must focus on countering stigmatising narratives, to enable a safer society for all sex workers.

scholarly journals Of Raids and Returns: Sex work movement, police oppression, and the politics of the ordinary in Sonagachi, India

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-139
Author(s):  
Simanti Dasgupta
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Red Light ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Labour Movement ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Labour Rights ◽  
Red Light District

Drawing on ethnographic work with Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a grassroots sex worker organisation in Sonagachi, the iconic red-light district in Kolkata, India, this paper explores the politics of the detritus generated by raids as a form of state violence. While the current literature mainly focuses on its institutional ramifications, this article explores the significance of the raid in its immediate relation to the brothel as a home and a space to collectivise for labour rights. Drawing on atyachar (oppression), the Bengali word sex workers use to depict the violence of raids, I argue that they experience the raid not as a spectacle, but as an ordinary form of violence in contrast to their extraordinary experience of return to rebuild their lives. Return signals both a reclamation of the detritus as well as subversion of the state’s attempt to undermine DMSC’s labour movement.

scholarly journals BEYOND THE MARKED WOMAN: THE NEW SEX WORKER IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 2006-2016

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Kirshner
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Patriarchal Ideology ◽  
Feminist Media Studies ◽  
Feminist Theories ◽  
Care Worker

This dissertation argues that between 2006 and 2016, in a context of rising tolerance for sex workers, economic shifts under neoliberal capitalism, and the normalization of transactional intimate labour, popular culture began to offer new and humanizing images of the sex worker as an entrepreneur and care worker. This new popular culture legitimatizes sex workers in a growing services industry and carries important de-stigmatizing messages about sex workers, who continue to be among the most stigmatized of women workers in the U.S. These new representations challenge stereotypical portrayals of sex workers – as immoral criminals or exploited victims – that support conservative and patriarchal ideologies. Drawing upon feminist theories of sex work, labour theory, and feminist media studies methodology for exploring the nexus of gender, sexuality, and popular culture, this dissertation examines feature films, TV series, and TV and online documentaries that depict five sex work occupations – erotic dancers, massage parlour workers, webcam models, call girls, and sex surrogates – to illustrate the new figure of the sex worker as entrepreneur and care worker under neoliberal capitalism. By emphasizing sex workers’ agency to choose their work, dignifying their skills, underscoring sex work as a means of economic mobility, and highlighting the positive contributions sex workers make to their clients’ lives, these popular culture representations challenge the anti-sex work position espoused by conservative patriarchal ideology and prohibitionist feminists. Some of these new representations, however, intertwine with a neoliberal post-feminist sensibility that frames empowerment as realizable through individualism and the market alone, rather than in collective ways, and pose few concrete solutions to the challenges faced by sex workers today, namely criminalization. Even so, this dissertation argues that these emerging twenty-first century representations of the sex worker as entrepreneur and care worker are progressive and mark a growing social tolerance for the idea that, for some women, sex work is legitimate work.

scholarly journals Female street sex work in Belgrade as risk environment for a syndemic production: A qualitative study

2017 ◽  
Vol 145 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 611-617
Author(s):  
Bojan Zikic ◽  
Milos Milenkovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Medical Conditions ◽  
Risk Environment ◽  
Environment Factors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Street Sex Work ◽  
Syndemic Theory

Introduction/Objective. Although female street sex workers are contextually vulnerable to numerous health-endangering factors, they also contribute in re-producing them. This synergetic production is approached by syndemic theory developed within medical anthropology. The objective of the study is to present an analysis of the results of a qualitative ethnographic study conducted in Belgrade, Serbia in 2015, and reflect upon social environment factors influencing syndemic development of medical conditions. Methods. The risk environment factors enhancing possibilities of developing particular medical conditions were investigated by applying qualitative anthropological methodology, emphasizing semi-structured in-depth interviews, a standard qualitative sample, and respondents? self-reporting. Results. Social environment of sex work, generally considered risky due to sexually and blood-transmitted diseases, in this study also proved as receptive for many other illnesses, whose syndemic character has been insufficiently addressed. The study confirmed the syndemic nature of street sex work. Conclusion. The social science perspective should be used in health policy conceptualization and implementation not only during latter stages, i.e. in the interpretation of the social conditions influencing medical related issues, but during early stages of understanding how those conditions and issues circularly constitute each other.

scholarly journals Sex Work and Occupational Homicide: Analysis of a U.K. Murder Database

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart Cunningham ◽  
Teela Sanders ◽  
Lucy Platt ◽  
Pippa Grenfell ◽  
P.G. Macioti
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Prostitution Policy ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

This article presents an analysis of occupational homicides of sex workers in the United Kingdom, 1990-2016. Characteristics of 110 people murdered between 1990 and 2016 are explored including the location of their murder, ethnicity, migration status, and gender. Key changes over time are noted including an increase in the number of sex workers murdered indoors as well as an increase in murdered migrant sex workers. By developing the concept of “occupational homicide,” we argue that sex worker homicide should be viewed as an occupational issue and that the distinction between work-related homicide and nonwork-related homicide should be accounted for in future studies and is essential to inform prostitution policy.

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