The fractal queerness of non-heteronormative migrants working in the UK sex industry

Abstract

Contemporary debates on migration and the sex industry have been characterized by a marked emphasis on the extent of trafficking and exploitation of migrant women in heterosexist contexts and relationships. Migrant sex workers’ complex understandings of exploitation and advantage have been reductively manipulated into a heteronormative dichotomy between free (male) migrants and (female) coerced victims. In the process, non-heteronormative migrant sex workers’ experiences of advantage and exploitation were neglected. This article draws on original research material and findings about the specific life and work trajectories of non-heteronormative people working in the UK sex industry. It focuses on the way they understand the opportunities and predicaments posed by the homonormative and heteronormative worlds they ambivalently reproduce and challenge by migrating and working in the global sex industry.