scholarly journals Precarious or Protected? Evaluating Work Quality in the Legal Sex Industry

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Orchiston
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Industry Regulation ◽  
Regulatory Model ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Legal Sex

Decriminalising (or legalising) sex work is argued to improve sex workers’ safety and provide access to labour rights. However, there is a paucity of empirical research comparing how different regulatory approaches affect working conditions in the sex industry, especially in relation to venues that are managed by third parties. This article uses a mixed methods study of the Australian legal brothel sector to critically explore the relationship between external regulation and working conditions. Two dominant models of sex industry regulation are compared: decriminalisation and licensing. First, the article documents workplace practices in the Australian legal brothel sector, examining sex workers’ agency, autonomy and control over the labour process. Second, it analyses the capacity of each regulatory model to protect sex workers from unsafe and unfair working conditions. On the basis of these findings, the article concludes that brothel-based sex work is precarious and substantively excluded from the protective mantle of labour law, notwithstanding its legality. It is argued that the key determinant of conditions in the legal brothel sector is the extent to which the state enforces formal labour protections, as distinct from the underlying regulatory model adopted.

scholarly journals Sex Worker Health Outcomes in High-Income Countries of Varied Regulatory Environments: A Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 3956
Author(s):  
Jessica McCann ◽  
Gemma Crawford ◽  
Jonathan Hallett
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
High Income ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Sex Worker ◽  
Industry Regulation ◽  
Worker Health ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Regulatory Models

There is significant debate regarding the regulation of the sex industry, with a complex range of cultural, political and social factors influencing regulatory models which vary considerably between and within countries. This systematic review examined the available evidence on the relationship between different approaches to sex industry regulation in high-income countries, and associated effects on sex worker health status. Objectives included identification of sex worker health outcomes, including sexual health, substance use and experience of stigma and violence. A search was performed electronically in eight scholarly databases which yielded 95 articles which met the criteria for inclusion. Findings suggested that sex workers in legalised and decriminalized countries demonstrated greater health outcomes, including awareness of health conditions and risk factors.

scholarly journals On Our Own Terms: The Working Conditions of Internet-Based Sex Workers in the UK

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 133-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teela Sanders ◽  
Laura Connelly ◽  
Laura Jarvis King
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Reporting Scheme ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

The sex industry is increasingly operated through online technologies, whether this is selling services online through webcam or advertising, marketing or organising sex work through the Internet and digital technologies. Using data from a survey of 240 internet-based sex workers (members of the National Ugly Mug reporting scheme in the UK), we discuss the working conditions of this type of work. We look at the basic working patterns, trajectories and everyday experiences of doing sex work via an online medium and the impact this has on the lives of sex workers. For instance, we look at levels of control individuals have over their working conditions, prices, clientele and services sold, and discuss how this is mediated online and placed in relation to job satisfaction. The second key finding is the experience of different forms of crimes individuals are exposed to such as harassment and blackmail via the new technologies. We explore the relationship internet-based sex workers have with the police and discuss how current laws in the UK have detrimental effects in terms of safety and access to justice. These findings are placed in the context of the changing landscape of sex markets as the digital turn determines the nature of the majority of commercial sex encounters. These findings contribute significantly to the populist coercion/choice political debates by demonstrating levels and types of agency and autonomy experienced by some sex workers despite working in a criminalized, precarious and sometimes dangerous context.

scholarly journals Hustling the Platform

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-551
Author(s):  
Kate Hardy ◽  
Camille Barbagallo
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Risky Behaviors ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Power And Control ◽  
Security Checks ◽  
Sexual Services ◽  
And Control

An increasing amount of sex work in the United Kingdom is now digitally mediated, as workers and clients identify each other, agree prices and services, undertake security checks, and often make payment through various platforms and websites. Existing accounts of “digital sex work” have been both overly technological deterministic and optimistic, largely invisibilizing capital and the new forms of power and control it enables. The authors argue that the dominant platform for digital sex work in the United Kingdom, AdultWork, is reshaping the market in direct sexual services, driving down standards and prices, and normalizing risky behaviors. The article posits that these changes in the sex industry are symptomatic and reflective of wider shifts in labor-capital relations and technology and therefore argues that bringing research on platform work and sex work into closer dialogue is mutually productive. Studies of digital sex work would benefit from critical insights into power and control in platform work, while scholars of platform work—and of work and employment more generally—have much to learn from paying attention to the gendered labor of sex workers. In particular, resistance and collective organizing among sex workers, some of the most marginalized workers in contemporary capitalism, can suggest wider strategies of labor resistance and transformation in platform work and beyond.

scholarly journals 'I've Never Been So Exploited': The consequences of FOSTA-SESTA in Aotearoa New Zealand

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Tichenor
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Health And Safety Risks

Aotearoa New Zealand’s 2003 decriminalisation of sex work has reduced the exploitation of sex workers, as well as the health and safety risks in the industry. Nevertheless, United States-driven criminalising policies still influence sex workers abroad. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Acts (FOSTA-SESTA) effectively criminalised websites where sex workers advertise. Shortly before that, the FBI shut down the internationally used Backpage.com, leading many sex workers in both countries to return to the streets or brothels. These events contributed to the rising dominance of one advertising website, NewZealandGirls.com. Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews and four observation cases with sex workers in Auckland, in this paper, I explore the international consequences of FOSTA-SESTA and the closure of Backpage on my participants. I show that this punitive approach to segments of the online sex industry has not only placed sex workers in greater financial insecurity, but has reduced their ability to control their working conditions. These outcomes, I conclude, have undermined the positive impacts of decriminalisation, while exacerbating socioeconomic, racial, gender, and legal inequalities in Auckland’s sex industry.

scholarly journals The Loss of Boystown and Transition to Online Sex Work: Strategies and Barriers to Increase Safety Among Men Sex Workers and Clients of Men

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1994-2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Argento ◽  
Matthew Taylor ◽  
Jody Jollimore ◽  
Chrissy Taylor ◽  
James Jennex ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Health Assessment ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Protective Measures ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
Work Strategies ◽  
And Control

Men sex workers in Vancouver have largely transitioned from street to online solicitation coinciding with losing “Boystown,” the main outdoor sex work stroll for men. This article explores strategies and barriers to increase safety among men and trans sex workers and clients of men in Vancouver, Canada. Qualitative interviews were conducted (2012-2013) with 61 self-identifed men who currently buy and/or sell sex in a community-based research project known as CHAPS (Community Health Assessment of Men Who Purchase and Sell Sex). Drawing on a socioecological framework, thematic analysis of interview transcripts was conducted utilizing ATLAS.ti 7 software among men (39 workers; 8 buyers). Narratives indicate that gentrification and urban planning led to social isolation and loss of social support networks among men in the sex industry. Concurrently, the restructuring of sex work to online increased workers’ safety and control. Narratives reveal how the Internet can provide greater opportunities to negotiate terms of sex work and enhanced screening using webcams, reducing risks of violence, stigma, and police harassment for both workers and clients compared with the street. This study highlights how losing Boystown led to a loss of community and solidarity: key protective measures for sex workers. Online solicitation increased workers’ capacity to screen prospective clients and prevent violence. Recent legal reforms in Canada to further criminalize sex work raise significant concern for human rights and health of individuals in the sex industry, and point to the critical need to include voices of men and trans sex workers and buyers in policy discussions.

scholarly journals Labouring in the Sex Industry: A Conversation with Sex Workers on Consent and Exploitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 86
Author(s):  
Francine Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Service Industry ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Cultural Symbol

Sex work in all its forms is an occupation that belongs to the service industry, and like any other work, sexual labour is open to exploitation. However, the reason why sex work is seen to be different from other forms of labour is that it betrays the socially accepted rules of love and intimacy and is exercised within a criminalised environment. As a cultural symbol, sex work remains steadfastly linked to aberration and dangerousness. This article juxtaposes the legal and lay definitions of consent and exploitation based on conversations with fourteen Canadian sex workers. The objective of this exploratory article is to delve within two ill-defined and highly contested notions related to the sex industry—consent and exploitation.

What Is the Relationship between Online Sex Workers and Cybersecurity?

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 762-766
Author(s):  
Stephanie Do ◽  
Dan Nathan-Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Work Safety ◽  
Labor Practices ◽  
Theory Application ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
The Relationship

Although online sex work has become more accessible to people of all socio-economic statuses, labor practices and work safety have not improved since the widespread use of the internet. One way that we can help empower sex workers is to understand their motivations and experiences when using the internet. In a survey conducted by Sanders et al. (2017), the highest crime that 56.2% sex workers experienced was being threatened or harassed through texts, calls, and emails. Because there is no theory application to date on this marginalized group, three theories were proposed. This literature review highlights the need to explore why sex workers, as end-users, should be included in the user cybersecurity defense conversation, such as the cybercrimes that they face, their relationship with law enforcement, and what other factors affect their safety.

scholarly journals Del paradigma higienista a las teorías de la interseccionalidad. La construcción social de la ocupación de trabajadoras sexuales

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Teodora Hurtado Saa
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Colombian Women ◽  
Las Mujeres ◽  
Trabajadoras Sexuales ◽  
Sex Market

Resumen: Este artículo versa sobre el actual estado    de la teorización, de la terminología y del conocimien- to empírico relativo a la producción social y ejercicio del trabajo sexual, con atención especial a las teorías    y conceptos que estructuran el tema de la participación diferenciada de las mujeres en general, y de las muje- res con características étnicas/raciales subalternizadas en particular, en el mercado del sexo. Se delinea una postura alternativa a los planteamientos convenciona- les higienistas, criminalistas o victimistas desde donde tradicionalmente se ha analizado la cuestión. Adicio- nalmente, se reflexiona sobre el crecimiento, expansión y modernización de la industria del sexo, en la que algu- nos países post-industrializados asumen la condición de demandantes y los países en vía de desarrollo, la de ofer- tantes de mano de obra para el consumo de experiencias sexuales de diferente índole. De igual modo, se delibera sobre la importancia que tiene la comercialización del sexo, para el desarrollo económico de algunos países y el trabajo sexual como estrategia de “rebusque” frente a los embates de la vida cotidiana. Asimismo, describimos las formas de explotación y de ejercicio del oficio de tra- bajadoras del sexo.Palabras claves: Mercado global del sexo, construcción de la ocupación, interseccionalidad, trabajo sexual, mu- jeres afrocolombianas, sexualidades disidentesFrom the Hygienist Paradigm to Intersectionality. The Social Construction of Sexual WorkAbstract: The present article deals with the current state of the theorizing, the terminology and the empirical knowledge about the social production and exercise of sex work, with special attention to theories and concepts that structure the subject of the different participation in the sex trade of women in general, and of women with subalternized ethnic/racial features in particular. It de- lineates an alternative view to conventional hygienist approaches, or criminal or victimization approaches, traditionally used to analyze the issue. In addition, this paper reflects on the growth, expansion and moderniza- tion of the sex industry, in which some post-industrialized countries provide the demand and developing countries provide the supply of labor for the consumption of sexual experiences. Similarly, it discusses the importance of the commercialization of sex for the economic development of some countries and of sex work as a strategy of look- ing for informal work while coping with the ravages of everyday life. It also describes the forms of exploitation of sex workers in the exercise of their profession. Key words: global sex market, occupation, intersection- ality, sex work, Afro-Colombian women, dissident sexu- alities

scholarly journals Female Subversion through Sex Work: Transgressive Discourses

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-137
Author(s):  
Marta Olasik
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Lesbian Studies ◽  
The One

The main objective of this article is to provide a multi-faceted and spatially-sensitive reflection on sex work. Taking as a point of departure subversive feminist politics on the one hand and the much contingent notion of citizenship on the other, I intend to present various forms of prostitution as potentially positive and empowering modes of sexual and emotional auto-creation. Informed by the leading research of the subject, as well as inspired and educated by Australia-based Dr Elizabeth Smith from La Trobe University in Melbourne, who had researched and presented female sex workers as self-caring and subversive subjects who make own choices and derive satisfaction from their occupation, I wish to seek academic justice for all those women (and men or trans people, for that matter) in the sex industry who feel stigmatized by political pressure and ultra-feminist circles across Europe. Translating Dr Smith’s significant research into European (and Polish) social realities would be a valuable contribution to the local discussions on gender and sexuality, and axes they intersect with. More importantly, however, a framework of a conceptual interdisciplinary approach needs to be adopted—one in which a specific queer form of lesbian feminist reflection is combined with human geography, both of which have much to offer to various strands of sociological theory and practice. Therefore, as a queer lesbian scholar based in Poland, I would like to diverge a bit from my usual topic in order to pay an academic and activist tribute to the much neglected strand of sociology of sex work. However, my multi-faceted and interdisciplinary academic activity allows me to combine the matter in question with the field of lesbian studies. Both a female sex worker and a lesbian have been culturally positioned through the lens of what so-called femininity is, without a possibility to establish control over their own subjectivities. Hence, on the one hand the article is going to be an academic re-interpretation of sex work as such, but on the other, methodological possibilities of acknowledging and researching lesbian sex workers will be additionally considered with special attention to feminist epistemologies and praxis. While a sensitivity to a given locality is of utmost importance when dealing with gender and sexuality issues, I would like to suggest a somewhat overall approach to investigating both female empowerment through sex work and lesbian studies inclusive of sex workers. Importantly, the more common understandings of the sex industry need to be de-constructed in order for a diversity of transgressive discourses to emerge.

The Work of Sex Work

2020 ◽  
pp. 192-209
Author(s):  
Katie Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Sex Work ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Commercial Sex ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Commercial Sex Work ◽  
Structural Coupling ◽  
Work Relations ◽  
Structural Context

This chapter analyses the legal treatment of sex work, and specifically prostitution, from the perspective of Marxist feminism. Here, the work of sex work must be understood in its wider structural context of gendered and racialized capitalism. The chapter argues that sex work should be understood as work. Furthermore, the features of ‘unfreedom’ associated with sex work do not vitiate its identity as a form of work, and therefore as an activity that warrants the application of protective norms of labour law. This marks an important distinction from the previous chapter’s taxonomy of commercial sex work. In fact, this chapter argues that all work under capitalism is structurally coupled with exploitation and alienation (unfreedom) that ebbs and flows according to the balance of class forces. Given this structural coupling, it is problematic to use the exploitation and alienation in sex work as a basis for excluding it from the domain of personal work relations and for barring sex workers from worker protective laws.

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