Politics Of Prostitution Research Articles

Nationalising Women’s Bodies: Discourse and Politics of Prostitution in Ireland and Spain

This article explores how women’s sexuality has played a central role in building and reproducing the collective identity of the nation in two countries, Ireland and Spain. It argues how a nationalisation of women’s bodies created a symbolic and idealised version of womanhood, reinforced by a complex infrastructure of criminal code, places of rehabilitation and a system of surveillance operating through government, medical and religious institutions. We explore these processes through an analysis of the discourses governing prostitution in leading newspapers between 1939 and 1975, corresponding to the public nation-building projects to Catholic nationalism through the idealisation of family, motherhood and domestic life. Three key discourses from the newspaper coverage have been identified around prostitution: protecting the national body, the exile of women in prostitution and ordinary women as a threat, to trace the process of renewed nation building that occurred in both countries from the 1940s onwards.

Andando entre cabarés: conhecendo os saberes da putaria*

Abstract This article uses narratives about the experiences of sex workers' in three different prostitution zones in the states of São Paulo and Espírito Santo to analyze the relationships and knowledge present in the internal politics of prostitution. To counter perspectives that understand prostitutes as passive victims incapable of producing feminist knowledge and practices in the workplace, Walter Benjamin's politics of narrativity are used as a research method, combined with feminist and “putafeminist” propositions.

Social justice for sex workers as a ‘politics of doing’: Research, policy and practice

The Republic of Ireland is a good case study to highlight the problems associated with uncritical appeals to criminal law as the only appropriate tool to tackle demand and protect sex workers from harm. In 2017, the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act came into force in the Republic of Ireland (hereafter Ireland) making it a criminal offence to purchase sex in the jurisdiction. Ireland’s decision to introduce Swedish-style laws followed a protracted public campaign instigated in 2009 by the Irish and radical feminist inspired neo-abolitionist organisation, Turn off the Red Light. In this article, we confront and de-centre the Turn off the Red Light campaign’s hegemonic narrative that the criminal rather than social justice responses provide a more effective vehicle for sex workers’ empowerment. Undertaking our intervention in Irish feminist prostitution politics as a ‘politics of doing’ social justice through our separate and combined research, we extend our analysis by invoking Nancy Fraser and Barbara Hudson’s theoretical work on social and restorative justice. We wish to develop a theoretical framework that can serve as a roadmap for restorative social justice – the process of achieving rights, recognition and redistribution through relational, reflective and discursive interventions in sex work research, policy and practice. We argue that by ‘thinking’ sex workers’ positionality in social relations differently, the ‘doings’ of restorative social justice for sex workers can begin or take place.

Feminism and the Politics of Prostitution in King's Cross in the 1980s.

In the 1980s, prostitution resurfaced as the object of feminist politics as second-wave activists grappled with Thatcherism, prostitute rights, tenant activism, anti-violence movements, and changes in the street sex trade and in policing. These conflicting imperatives converged on King's Cross, London. Events in King's Cross highlight some general trends, especially shifts in policing and in the geographic dispersal of the street sex trade. King's Cross also possessed singular features. It was the epicentre of street prostitution in London and the destination for hundreds of northern women migrating to the metropolis to sell sex. Intensified policing of the street trade provoked a heated neighbourhood dispute between council tenants and a media-savvy prostitute rights group. The year 1982 also marked a new configuration in local politics: the control of Camden Council by Labour Left and the formation of the Camden Women's Committee. In this challenging environment, newly elected municipal feminists in Camden set out to devise a feminist practice around prostitution. They found themselves embroiled in local disputes over public space, gender justice, policing, municipal progressivism, and resident action.

The Politics of Prostitution and Sexual Labour

The Politics of Prostitution and Sexual Labour

"Squaring the circle" : Greek prostitution politics in a comparatist perspective

Partant du fait que la conception et l’application du droit grec a l’egard de la prostitution sont inscrites dans une longue tradition reglementariste, cet article analyse les politiques de la prostitution en vigueur en Grece a l’epreuve des normes de genre et de sexualite. Il en ressort que ces politiques representent un modele specifique de « neo-reglementarisme » conservant les aspects hygienistes, carceraux et masculinistes de l’ancien regime. En effectuant une comparaison avec le droit et la politique respectifs en France, nous constatons toutefois une convergence des objectifs principaux, a savoir l’invisibilisation de la prostitution et l’eloignement de personnes migrantes en situation irreguliere. L’importation en Grece des normes internationales en matiere de lutte contre la traite a des fins d’exploitation sexuelle produit une superposition entre ideologies « neo-reglementaristes » et « neo-abolitionnistes ».

Introduction: Sexual Economies and New Regimes of Governance

In the final weeks of 2013, two divergent interventions into the politics of prostitution met with a raft of international media attention, reigniting longstanding debates about the relationship between sexual commerce, gendered power, states and social policies. In France, the lower house of Parliament passed a bill which would impose heavy fines on prostitutes’ clients, at the same time offering job training and social assistance to sex workers to help them find other employment. In so doing, the bill’s supporters reflected the increasingly prevalent consensus among policymakers in Europe that prostitutes should be treated as victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation, rather than criminal offenders. A mere two weeks later, the Canadian Supreme Court made headlines when it struck down the entirety of the nation’s anti-prostitution laws, declaring that state restrictions on activities such as brothel-keeping, public communications between sex workers and their clients, and living off the profits of prostitution were far too sweeping. Notably, the successful challenge to the Canadian criminal code was filed by both former and current sex workers, who argued that the legal prohibitions—but not sex work itself—gravely endangered their health and safety. Given the history of the contentious and sharply divided feminist debate around the state regulation of sexual commerce, what was perhaps less surprising was that both the Canadian ruling and the French bill were celebrated as unambiguous victories by their respective sides. 2 And yet, as discussions of the French and Canadian cases continue to unfold, 3 they have a very familiar ring to those of us who have been following political debates around prostitution over the span of recent decades. For example, in a remarkable foreshadowing of current French/Canadian contrasts, in the late 1990s and early 2000s feminists polarized around the relative merits of the “Swedish” versus the “Dutch” policy models. In 1998, Sweden became the first country in the world to criminalize the customers of prostitutes, while at the same time, the Dutch were attempting to legally regulate a previously decriminalized sex industry. 4 Following my own ethnographic investigations into the impact of the new policies in Stockholm and Amsterdam, I was most struck by the common reconfigurations of sexual commerce that characterized the two cases: despite radically different policies pertaining to the sex trade, both cities were moving towards the elimination of prostitution from city streets and to the

Prostitution Politics and Feminist Activism in Modern America: Sophonisba Breckinridge and the Morals Court in Prohibition-Era Chicago

In 1930, Sophonisba Breckinridge, a feminist social work professor at the University of Chicago, initiated a campaign to reform the branch of Chicago's Municipal Court system that dealt with prostitutes. A product of an international anti-prostitution movement, the Morals Court was considered a model reform at the time of its inception in 1913. Yet as scholars have observed, reformers' efforts to abolish prostitution resulted in repressive policies that sanctioned state control and police harassment of sex workers. Although most studies note feminist critiques of prostitution policies on civil libertarian grounds, few have explored this phenomenon, particularly after 1920. Breckinridge's crusade to secure civil rights for accused prostitutes in Prohibition-era Chicago offers a new perspective on the politics of prostitution, prompts a reexamination of American feminism after the achievement of suffrage, and sheds light on current debates about the international traffic in women.

Selling sex overseas: Chinese women and the realities of prostitution and global sex trafficking

Acknowledgments 1. What Is Sex Trafficking? 2. Going Down to the Sea 3. The Women 4. The Destinations 5. The Sex Markets 6. The Traffickers 7. Supply and Demand: Follow the Money 8. Response and Rescue: How the System Works 9. The Reality and the Myths: A Critical Analysis of Sex Trafficking 10. The Politics of Prostitution and Sex Trafficking Notes References Index About the Authors

Of Gender, Race, and Class: The Politics of Prostitution in Lagos, Nigeria, 1923–1954

Of Gender, Race, and Class: The Politics of Prostitution in Lagos, Nigeria, 1923–1954

Of Gender, Race, and Class: The Politics of Prostitution in Lagos, Nigeria, 1923–1954

Of Gender, Race, and Class: The Politics of Prostitution in Lagos, Nigeria, 1923–1954

From Slave to Sex Worker. Feminist Debates and Prostitution Politics in the Netherlands, 1880–2000

From Slave to Sex Worker. Feminist Debates and Prostitution Politics in the Netherlands, 1880–2000

The politics of prostitution and the politics of public health in the Irish Free State: a response to Susannah Riordan

In an earlier article inIrish Historical Studiesthe present author argued that the beginnings of the Irish Free State’s campaign against venereal disease were caught up in a politics of prostitution that mobilised nationalist, republican and post-colonial sentiments, revolving around the struggle between military and civilian authority, and invoking the moral arbitration of the Catholic church. Susannah Riordan’s recent response has clarified the administrative history of interdepartmental inquiries into the threat posed by venereal diseases, setting concerns over the role of prostitution in propagating disease within the context of the wider public health programme. She properly identifies inquiry references to ‘prophylaxis’ with chemical disinfection following exposure to infection, and rightly separates the report filed by Major Donal Carroll, the army’s chief sanitary officer, from that of Dr Robert Percy McDonnell, Medical Inspector of the Department of Local Government and Public Health.

Venereal disease in the Irish Free State: the politics of public health

In his article ‘Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State’ Philip Howell argues that in 1926, following the submission of the Report of the interdepartmental committee of inquiry regarding venereal disease, the Irish government was confronted with ‘a series of proposals to regulate prostitution in the Free State’ These proposals are associated with the influence brought to bear by the army on the committee’s deliberations, and it is suggested that this preferred military solution to venereal disease falls into a European pattern in which state formation was frequently accompanied by such regulation. The example of Italy is offered as the most pertinent. However, Howell suggests, the government rejected the regulation of prostitution in favour of ‘a moral regulation of sexuality marked by elements of Catholic social purity’.

Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, and: The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce, and: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (review)

Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography, and: The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce, and: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic (review)

Book Review: The Politics of Prostitution. Women’s Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce and Not for Sale. Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography

Book Review: <i>The Politics of Prostitution. Women’s Movements, Democratic States and the Globalisation of Sex Commerce</i> and <i>Not for Sale. Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography</i>

The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalization of Sex Commerce

The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalization of Sex Commerce

The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalization of Sex Commerce

The Politics of Prostitution: Women's Movements, Democratic States, and the Globalization of Sex Commerce

Pragmatism in the Polder: Changing Prostitution Policy in The Netherlands

Pragmatism in the Polder: Changing Prostitution Policy in The Netherlands

Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918. By Jeffrey Nichols. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. xii, 247 pp. $34.95, isbn 0-252-02768-X.)

Jeffrey Nichols's study of the politics of prostitution in the Mormon stronghold of Salt Lake City is a useful contribution to the history of both commercial sex and western politics. He begins with the central irony of the early period: non-Mormon “gentiles” worked to attract mining and railroad investment to the region in part because the influx of workers would offset Mormon power and undermine the institution of plural marriage (polygyny), which many gentiles equated with prostitution. Yet the miners and railroad workers attracted sex workers, and some local men (apparently including Mormons) welcomed the prostitutes as “a sign that the city was becoming more modern and American” (p. 213). Before 1890, the issue of plural marriage divided activists—especially women—along religious lines, weakening their efforts to oppose prostitution. After 1890, Mormon rejection of plural marriage led to greater cooperation, and gentile and Mormon women became occasional allies. The spirit of cooperation was fragile, however. In politics, Mormon and gentile purity advocates continually failed to find common ground, leaving the proponents of regulated prostitution to push their policies into reality.