Sex, Work, and Criminalization

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-191
Author(s):  
Michelle Madden Dempsey
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Response ◽  
State Coercion

This chapter provides a philosophical examination of the various dimensions of commercial sex as a form of work. It then offers perspectives on the legitimate role of the criminal law in regulating commercial sex, based upon three limiting principles. The first is a principle of ‘minimalism’ such that the criminal law should only be used as a last resort. The second is a principle of ‘modest legal moralism’ such that the criminal law should be reserved as a legal response to public wrongs. Finally, the third principle is a ‘presumption of non-interference’ based in the liberal harm principle, so that state coercion is limited to situations of direct or indirect harm. Given these three limiting principles, the chapter asks if the criminal law has a legitimate role in regulating, restricting, or prohibiting sex work.

Doing Tricks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Borba
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Business Transaction ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Social Scientific

Sex work has long been of interest to a variety of fields, among them anthropology, sociology, public health, and feminist theory, to name but a few. However, with very few exceptions, sociolinguistics seems to have ignored the fact that commercial sex, as an intersubjective business transaction, is primarily negotiated in embodied linguistic interaction. By reviewing publications in distinct social scientific areas that directly or indirectly discuss the role of language in the sex industry, this chapter critically assesses the analytical affordances and methodological challenges for a sociolinguistics of sex work. It does so by discussing the “tricks” played by sex work, as a power-infused context of language use in which issues of agency (or lack thereof) are paramount, on sociolinguistic theory and methods. The chapter concludes that the study of language in commercial sex venues is sociolinguistically promising and epistemologically timely.

Sex, Work, and the Victorians

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-80
Author(s):  
Nicola J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sexual Deviance ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Capitalist Development ◽  
The Public ◽  
Stimulation Of

Focusing on Victorian England, this chapter examines how sex was increasingly constructed as something that was primarily biological in nature, and how this was bound up with discourses of prostitution as a threat to the reproduction of the body politic. In the first section, the author considers how the pathologization of commercial sex as abnormal and unhealthy worked to naturalize the public/private split on which capitalist development rested. In the second section, the author connects the medical, moral, and juridical regulation of sex work to the suppression and stimulation of other modes of sexual deviance including homosexuality. In the final section, the author explores the role of race and empire in constituting white, bourgeois sexuality as natural, privileged, and the antithesis of commercialized sex.

Doing Tricks: Affordances and Challenges for a Sociolinguistics of Sex Work

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Borba
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Business Transaction ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Social Scientific

Sex work has long been of interest to a variety of fields, among them anthropology, sociology, public health, and feminist theory, to name but a few. However, with very few exceptions, sociolinguistics seems to have ignored the fact that commercial sex, as an intersubjective business transaction, is primarily negotiated in embodied linguistic interaction. By reviewing publications in distinct social scientific areas that directly or indirectly discuss the role of language in the sex industry, this chapter critically assesses the analytical affordances and methodological challenges for a sociolinguistics of sex work. It does so by discussing the “tricks” played by sex work on sociolinguistic theory and methods, as a power-infused context of language use in which issues of agency (or lack thereof) and embodiment are paramount. The chapter concludes that the study of language in commercial sex venues is sociolinguistically promising and epistemologically timely.

Reasons to Criminalize

2018 ◽  
pp. 143-181
Author(s):  
Vincent Chiao
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
The Way

This chapter extends the public law conception to the theory of criminalization. The first half of the chapter is devoted to considering whether the criminal law has a privileged subject matter or “core,” focusing especially on Feinberg’s influential account of the criminal law as a system of direct prohibitions. The chapter argues that a subject-matter-based approach has difficulty coming to grips with actual criminal law systems in modern administrative states, in which so-called mala prohibita offenses predominate. The second half of the chapter turns to sketching how we might approach the question of criminalization from a public law point of view, both in general and with reference to the political ideal of anti-deference (sketched in Chapter 3) in particular. Along the way, the chapter argues that the (very popular) wrongfulness principle turns out to be either empty or implausible, and hence that we should reject any version of the harm principle, or of legal moralism, that presupposes it.

scholarly journals Criminalising fabricated images of child pornography: a matter of harm or morality?

Legal Studies ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Ost
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Child Pornography ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
Liberal Perspective ◽  
The Harm Principle

This paper addresses the criminalisation of fabricated images of child pornography. Focusing on the new offence of possessing ‘non-photographic pornographic images of children’ (NPPIC) under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, it assesses whether harm- and morality-based arguments legitimate the extension of the criminal law to this activity. I contend that harm may be caused to children by NPPIC that are depictions of real child sexual abuse, and images that depict the fantasy sexual abuse of a real, recognisable child. However, it is extremely difficult to find a legitimate basis for prohibiting the possession of fantasy, completely fabricated NPPIC through a reasoned application of the harm principle and thus criminalisation of such images is not justified. Adopting a liberal perspective, I argue that moral harm-based arguments ultimately fail to convince, since legal moralism or moral paternalism should not be acceptable grounds for criminalisation. I conclude that a stronger case for criminalisation would have been made had the offence been limited to NPPIC depicting real child sexual abuse, or featuring real, recognisable children, or targeted at creators and distributors rather than possessors.

Considering Causation in Criminal Law

2014 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Erik Witjens
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
The Third ◽  
Proximate Causation ◽  
The Law

According to the dominant view, causation in criminal law is a bifurcated test consisting of cause in fact and proximate causation. In the first section of this article the theoretical underpinnings of causation are explored, for instance concerning the underlying interrogations of causal questions in the law. In the second section, the traditional view on bifurcation is challenged, weaknesses are uncovered, and the shortcomings of counterfactual tests as a heuristic test for factual or ‘empirical’ causation are assessed. By reviewing R v Williams and R v Hughes, the third section of the article seeks to elucidate the nature of the causal requirement in law. It is suggested, that legal influences permeate the causal requirement in law to the extent that it is dominated by them. The article consequently concludes that the bifurcation needs to be rejected to better reflect the role of (empirical) causation in criminal law better.

Street Soliciting, Harm Principle and Decriminalisation

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-361
Author(s):  
Zia Akhtar
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Victim Sex

There has been great deal of speculation in recent times about the effects of street soliciting and the harm it causes to society. This debate has been viewed in terms of the potential decriminalisation of sex work in England and Wales. There is also an argument for a comparative approach based on the approaches adopted in European Nordic countries that focus on the victim-sex worker issue impact on society, which need consideration in the wider framework of criminal law. The general policy is that that contextualisation cannot be within morals or the harm principle. The research question is - can such public policy approach in the criminal law framework be implemented in the UK that links the decriminalisation of sex from street vendors and the licensing be permitted as piloted in some parts of the UK? This paper takes into consideration the empirical studies and compares the jurisdictions in order to arrive at its findings.

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