Abstract
Recent scholarship on sex work, such as exotic dancers, focus on sex workers’ agency and structural constraints that shape their choices and working conditions, such as the need for income and club regulations. Does this trend indicate that scholars in this field have resolved the central debate (e.g., agency versus oppression) of the feminist sex war in the 1970s? This collection of essays, edited by Melissa Hope Ditmore, Antonia Levy and Alys Willman, is a timely work that examines the changing nature of the sex industry, with up-to-date research, and a future agenda for sex work research and the direction of the sex workers’ movement. The book includes writings by scholars, sex workers, and activists. This inclusive nature avoids privileging scholarly perspectives or marginalizing perspectives based on sex workers’ lived experiences and activists’ grassroots efforts. The inclusion of multiple voices helps facilitate a mutual and, one hopes, an equal dialogue among ‘participants’ in the field of sex work.
The book is divided into five sections, on the changing nature of sex industry, empirical studies, sex workers’ perspectives, recent state regulations in several national contexts, and the international sex workers’ movement. As Willman and Levy point out in the introduction, the collection attempts to bridge three historical divides. First, it focuses on one major debate within the feminist community: Can women/men ‘choose’ sex work without sacrificing their integrity? Are women/men in the sex industry automatically oppressed by the heterosexist patriarchal system? The second divide is concerned with disciplinary boundaries. Different disciplines study sex work based on diverse epistemological, theoretical, and methodological orientations and approaches. For example, sex work is often examined as a deviance in sociology whereas psychology focuses on trauma and abuse. This disciplinary fragmentation makes it difficult to provide a well-rounded picture of sex work and sex workers. The third divide is between academic and activist communities. Scholarship and activism should be inseparable. Yet this is not necessarily the case.
Due to space limitations, I will focus on a few chapters that exemplify key issues. One central insight raised by Brents and Hausbeck in the chapter ‘Sex work now: What the blurring of boundaries around the sex industry means for sex work, research, and activism’ is the mainstreaming of the sex industry due to the sexualization of culture and the consumption of sex as a commodity in late global capitalism. The sexualization of culture, sex as a commodity, the liberalization of state regulations, and the proliferation of sex businesses have reshaped the public attitude toward the sex industry. Although prostitution is still illegal in the US except in Nevada, businesses in the sex industry, such as gentlemen’s clubs, strive to create an upper- and middle-class upscale image befitting the mainstream culture. Sex industry and mainstream businesses are thus converging. The authors rightly point out that class is an important defining factor in the process of convergence. Sex industry businesses transform themselves to appeal to white middle- and upper-class clientele, which creates a stratified system in sex work. For example, escorts might not be as stigmatized as street walkers. Due to this porous boundary, sex work, although still stigmatized, increasingly becomes similar to other types of service work. Sex work involves emotional labor, similar to the service industry, which also requires workers to enact appropriate emotional performances. The parallel between sex and service work helps destigmatize the former. It legitimates the argument that sex work is work and a form of labor, thus facilitating the sex workers’ movement and sex workers’ rights.
Another central issue is who has the authority to define the meaning of sex work. In Koken’s chapter, ‘The meaning of the “whore”: How feminist theories on prostitution shape research on female sex workers,’ she traces historical feminist debates on agency versus oppression as well as wording, such as prostitution versus sex work. Second Wave feminists view sex workers as victims of patriarchal oppression and disregard the agency exercised by these women. The coining of the term ‘sex worker’ by Carol Leigh, a sex worker activist, in 1980, with its emphasis on sex work as a form of erotic labor, is viewed as legitimating prostitution and perpetuating women’s oppression. These debates raise the issue concerning the politics of knowledge production. The theoretical framing of sex workers as victims shapes the ways researchers form questions and interpret data, thus reaching conclusions consistent with their political beliefs and ideologies. To address this issue requires researchers to reflect upon their own privileged perspectives in academia.
A chapter in the third section utilizes the voices of sex workers to problematize biases embedded in scholarly work. Sex workers’ lived experiences and situated perspectives contribute to a deeper understanding of the sex industry. Indeed, including their voices is a major strength of the book. In the chapter, ‘Show me the money: A sex worker reflects on research into the sex industry,’ Weddon, a sex worker, reflects upon her experiences of being interviewed by scholars. Most scholars assume that women enter the sex industry because of sexual abuse and trauma in their childhood. Questions are usually framed to elicit predetermined answers. This psychological approach presumes the pathology of sex workers. She points out that, regardless of their initial reason, earning sufficient income is one major factor for sex workers, just like workers in other service occupations. The prejudice that assumes sex workers make bad financial decisions is also prevalent. This general prejudice and the psychological approach sets them apart and presumes that they are different from other workers.
This book has one major drawback. Although the editors intend to incorporate the most current scholarship, it is surprising that no chapter examines sex work in the context of globalization, particularly the transnational movement of women for sex work and its assumed connection to sex trafficking. Although Koken discusses the problematic discourse on sexual trafficking adopted by the US government, it would have made sense to have a separate chapter for this discussion. Women who cross borders for sex work are usually depicted as ‘victims’ in need of rescue and rehabilitation. They are assumed to have been deceived or coerced to work overseas by traffickers, with their movements restricted, legal documents confiscated, forced to have sex, and caught in debt bondage. Many scholars have argued that the official assessment of the scope of sex trafficking is not based on empirical studies nor are women’s subjectivities taken into consideration. The rhetoric of public officials and anti-trafficking activists as well as the media mainly focuses on sex trafficking as the sole defining feature of human trafficking. TV programs and movies dramatize and/or sensationalize the plight of trafficking victims, mostly women from Asia and Eastern Europe. The dominant discourse on sex trafficking, espoused by many Western feminists, denies women’s agency and leads to their disempowerment. The anti-trafficking discourse and the transnational migration of women for sex work under the context of globalization deserve an in-depth examination. A chapter like this could have been incorporated in the section on state regulations to provide a comparison between the United States and other countries.
Overall, this is a good book. Although a couple of chapters involve personal reflections, the book mainly caters to academic scholars. Even though a collection as such should probably appeal to a wider audience, it is still a good read for people interested in the field of sex work.