Abstract
Sex Work Politics: From Protest to Service Provision is a much needed contribution to studies of sex work politics that moves beyond tired recapitulations of ideological “sex wars” over pornography and prostitution and a historically heavy focus in social movements literature on only the most active political protest groups. As a corrective, this book examines how social movements struggle to produce lasting social change as they become formalized and begin to interact with mainstream institutions, especially the State. Using organizational documents, interviews, and field research methods, Majic examines the practical work and struggles of two social movement–borne nonprofit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area, CAL-PEP (California Prostitutes Education Project) and the St. James Infirmary Clinic, to understand how they have negotiated the institutional constraints posed by funding mandates and 501c3 nonprofit laws, while still advancing oppositional political claims about sex work in an institutional environment that is hostile to their perspectives. The book documents how these nonprofits engage in resistance maintenance; by carefully and strategically building their position as indispensible outreach points for health and social services to sex workers, a historically difficult population for criminalizing states to reach, these organizations are able to continue opposing dominant state policies, minimize their co-optation, and continue their pursuit of broader social change. This constitutes an important contribution and extension of new institutional literature, as most organizational and political scholarship predicts that oppositional politics are largely defused when organizations become formalized and institutionalized.
The book documents two primary ways in which CAL-PEP and the St. James Infirmary engaged in resistance maintenance. First, both of these organizations foster practices of community engagement by directly involving the constituents that they serve in peer service delivery and organizational management. In doing this, Majic demonstrates how such organizations may serve as arenas for civic socialization and professionalization, which may empower stigmatized and marginalized groups to engage in their own care and become more involved in advancing movement-based political goals. Moreover, Majic asserts that by engaging in peer-hiring practices, CAL-PEP and the St. James Infirmary directly challenge prevailing understandings of sex workers as irresponsible with regards to their own health and the health of the larger community.
Second, social movement–borne organizations may continue to engage in claims-making activities, despite the constraints imposed by their nonprofit and funding statuses. Although nonprofits may not support specific pieces of legislation, they may still engage the State in oppositional politics by making the H-election to their nonprofit status, staging unbiased nonpartisan public forums that equally air opposing views, participating in approved election-related activities, and engaging in educational public-policy advocacy. The ability of these groups to continue pressing oppositional claims, even while largely being funded by and accountable to the government, counters dominant social movement and civic engagement literature that predicts that actors are more likely to challenge status quo politics when their work is far removed from governmental influence. Moreover, their proximity to State actors and organizations may actually facilitate their influence on policies by fostering dynamic and enduring relationships between oppositional organizations and the State.
The one disappointment that I have with this book is that it situates the State as the primary institutional actor that CAL-PEP and the St. James Infirmary must negotiate and resist through their oppositional politics. To be fair, Majic does a good job of demonstrating how these organizations achieve political goals that aren’t directed at the State (such as the empowerment of sex workers through peer education and service delivery), and she acknowledges that the State has adopted a prostitution abolitionist perspective that is rooted in the activism of prostitution abolitionist and anti–sex trafficking activist groups. However, the book does not address or acknowledge the ways in which interactions between nonprofits born from the sex worker rights movement and those born of the prostitution abolitionist and anti–sex trafficking movement may influence the very same institutional contexts that CAL-PEP and the St. James Infirmary are negotiating. For instance, the language of Prop K, a failed 2008 ballot initiative to decriminalize prostitution in the city and county of San Francisco that was proposed by a local sex worker rights organization, directly targeted the programs of a local abolitionist service-providing group to be defunded. How do interactions like this change the issue context in which social movement–borne organizations operate, and how does this impact their ability to negotiate dominant institutions and engage in resistance maintenance?
Overall though, this is an excellent book that makes an interesting contribution, and as such, it is well worth reading for scholars of sex work, social movements, and organizations. Part historical documentation of the evolution of sex worker rights struggles in the San Francisco Bay Area, and part institutional analysis, Majic’s work paves the way for future work at the intersection of sex work, politics, and organizational analysis.