Power, identity and precarity: Sex workers’ “lived experience” of violence and social injustice in Bangladesh

During the late nineties, leading voices of the sex worker rights movement began to publicly question queer theory’s virtual silence on the subject of prostitution and sex work. However, this attempt by sex workers to “come out of the closet” into the larger queer theoretical community has thus far failed to bring much attention to sex work as an explicitly queer issue. Refusing the obvious conclusion—that queer theory’s silence on sex work somehow proves its insignificance to this field of inquiry—I trace in Foucault’s oeuvre signs of an alternate (albeit differently) queer genealogy of prostitution and sex work. Both challenging and responding to long-standing debates about prostitution within feminist theory, I offer a new queer genealogy of sex work that aims to move beyond the rigid oppositions that continue to divide theorists of sexuality and gender. Focusing specifically on History of Madness (1961), Discipline and Punish (1975), and History of Sexuality Volume I (1976), I make the case for an alternate genealogy of sex work that takes seriously both the historical construction of prostitution and the lived experience of contemporary sex workers.

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At the Intersection of COVID-19 and Sex Work in the United States: A Call for Social Work Action

Affilia ◽

10.1177/0886109920985131 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088610992098513

Author(s):

Nicole F. Bromfield ◽

Meg Panichelli ◽

Moshoula Capous-Desyllas

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Social Work ◽

Lived Experience ◽

Sex Work ◽

Sex Workers ◽

Well Being ◽

The United States ◽

Community Action ◽

Sex Trade ◽

The Impact

The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States in early 2020 has severely disrupted the lives of most Americans, and people engaged in sex trade are no exception. People in sex work encounter multiple challenges when trying to access the services they need, particularly as they fear arrest, stigma, and pathology related to their work. These barriers have been amplified during the global COVID-19 pandemic, as sex trade workers may further lack access to crucially needed health care and may not have a mechanism for generating a basic income to meet their daily survival needs. Using an intersectional feminist lens, in this article, we discuss the impact of COVID-19 on people in sex work while highlighting sex workers’ resiliency and community action in the face of the pandemic. We highlight empowerment work led by black and brown sex worker communities. As authors and advocates, we call for critical feminist social work action that situates social workers as advocates for the human rights, well-being, and health of individuals in sex work, with a focus on centering the voices of those with lived experience and a focus on harm reduction, during and in the lingering aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Masculinities, vulnerability and negotiated identity: Understanding the reporting behaviours of men who experience violence or otherwise harmful behaviour, within a sex work context

10.23889/suthesis.59162 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Jordan L. Dawson

Keyword(s):

Lived Experience ◽

Social Environment ◽

Sex Work ◽

Police Officers ◽

Sex Workers ◽

Work Context ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Male Sex Workers ◽

The Social ◽

Male Sex

Context The focus of sex work related discussions most commonly falls on female providers of sexual services, and male purchasers. As a result, the often victim-oriented policy response in England and Wales falls short of truly addressing the needs of men who are involved in the sale of sex, with there being limited support available for them and a systemic approach which does not fully recognise the potential for men to face harm within this context. Methods The aim of this study is to explore experiences of and reactions to violence, and otherwise harmful behaviours, faced by men in the context of their sex working, by understanding the lived realities of a sample of men who engage in this type of work. The study takes a phased approach which combines an initial informative quantitative survey, with three subsequent phases of semi-structured interviews with male sex workers, sex work-focused practitioners and police officers. The method is guided by feminist research principles which suggest that reality is situated within those with lived experience, and also by an element of co-creation which has grounded this study within the perspectives of male sex workers from its conception. Findings The findings of this research suggest that all of the men involved in the study had faced at least one of the violent or otherwise harmful behaviours outlined, though reporting of these behaviours was not at all common. Discussions with the male sex working participants, practitioners and the police highlighted the issues related to the structural influences of authority, such as the police, and the social environment, and the internalisation of these wider factors, which create barriers to reporting for groups such as male sex workers and others who face similar social marginalisation. Conclusions This study challenges existing gendered understandings of violence and otherwise harmful behaviour within a sex work context, by highlighting the harmful experiences of men. By exploring these experiences and the reporting behaviours of those involved, the study also proposes a new framework for understanding barriers to reporting, which suggests that these are formed through the influences of formal and informal measures of social control, and the internalisation of these outside influences by the individual. By better understanding the experiences of men, and the barriers to their reporting, this study attempts to nuance a gendered discussion. Within, I propose that in order to better support male sex workers, responses must begin by appreciating the heterogeneity of those involved in sex work and the influence of their individual circumstances and the social environment on their willingness to seek support.

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Rewriting the Victim

10.1093/oso/9780190840099.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Erin M. Kamler

Keyword(s):

Lived Experience ◽

Sex Workers ◽

Musical Theater ◽

Field Research ◽

Governmental Organization ◽

The People ◽

Migrant Laborers ◽

Feminist Scholar ◽

Three Phase ◽

The Social

This book unites feminist international research with the writing, composing, and production of a musical designed to critique the discourse about the trafficking of women in Thailand. Through writing and producing “Land of Smiles,” a two-act, fifteen-song musical inspired by field research that includes over fifty interviews with female migrant laborers, sex workers, community-based women’s rights activists, non-governmental organization (NGO) employees, and other development actors in Thailand’s anti-trafficking movement, playwright, composer and feminist scholar Erin Kamler presents one of the dominant stories about human trafficking and shows that the voices of the people, most often women, can illuminate the problems and highlight the difficulties in finding solutions. This project was designed to serve as a platform for dialogue among stakeholders in Thailand’s anti-trafficking movement through a three-phase process of uncovering, recovering and articulating the lived experience of the “subject”—the trafficking “victim”—who the movement seeks to rescue, as well as the NGO employees who are embedded in the social catastrophe that underscores this movement. Through researching, writing and performing the musical for the communities on whom its story is based, Kamler shows the importance of lived experience as a framework for understanding social catastrophe, and the power of musical theater in conveying that understanding through a feminist, liberatory praxis. She calls this praxis Dramatization as Research, or DAR.

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