Selling sex, negotiating identity(ies): gendered dimensions of the whore stigma and strategies of stigma-resistance

Abstract

The importance of stigma in the lives of sex workers has been increasingly recognised by academic research over the last two decades. However, the existing literature has not satisfactorily addressed a number of vital questions about gender and the whore stigma. There has been almost no research which has explored the gendered nature of the stigma associated with sex work, and very little research which has recognised and compared the experiences of differently gendered sex workers. Almost all of the published research in this area, has focused upon the experiences of cisgender female sex workers, and/or has not compared these with the experiences of male and transgender sex workers. Thus, existing research has failed to examine the whore stigma as a gendered experience. This thesis explores and interrogates the gendered dimensions of the ‘whore stigma’, and whether transgender and cisgender male and female sex workers experience and negotiate this stigma differently. Key to the research is the extent to which differently gendered sex workers internalise and/or develop strategies to manage and resist stigma, and whether this is mediated by the experience of stigma(s) other than and/or in addition to the ‘whore stigma’ including, for example, stigma relating to racism, homophobia and transphobia. In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with 30 sex workers in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia. These participants had experience of working across different sex work sectors, including street work, bar work, working in licenced and unlicenced brothels, for escort agencies, and as independent workers. Observations of their day-to-day working lives were also made, where possible, to help further sketch out their lived realities. This research found that the ‘whore stigma’ was indeed gendered, and that trans and cis women and men experienced and negotiated the stigma of sex work in quantitatively and qualitatively different ways. Female sex workers (particularly cis-women) were far more likely to have been treated in negative and discriminatory ways that stigmatised them. Not only did they document quantitatively more instances of stigma, they were also more likely to face stigma in a wider range of contexts and experience the most serious forms of stigma. Whilst trans-women and gay men were less likely than cis-women to experience stigma, their experiences were closer to those of cis-women than to heterosexual men, who experienced far less stigma than any of the other workers. Given that the experience of stigma was found to be deeply gendered for the sex workers in this study, it was not surprising that the extent to which differently gendered workers engaged in various stigma-management strategies reflected these particular experiences. Whilst the women in this study (both cis and trans) were likely to utilise a range of techniques across the gamut of safety-management, emotion-management and information-management strategies, the men (particularly those identifying as heterosexual) were far less likely to employ strategies to manage the stigma of sex work.