the complexities of supply & demand: intimacy, sexual labour & commerce
Post on 10-Feb-2016
39 Views
Preview:
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
The Complexities of Supply & Demand: Intimacy, Sexual Labour & Commerce
Dr Teela SandersUniversity of Leeds
t.l.m.sanders@leeds.ac.uk
Drawing on sociological studies• Ten month study • Observations and
interviews in brothels, street, escorts in UK
• 300 people across industry
• What are risks?• How are they
managed?• Sex as ‘work’ – what
this means ?
Other side of the coin…
• Interviews with 50 men• Self selecting sample• Observations of
Internet message boards
• Motivations, Experiences, Meanings, Understandings of Buying sex
Is the oldest profession the most adaptable?
“Why is it that a practice so thoroughly disapproved, so widely outlawed in Western civilization, can yet flourish so universally?’
(Davis, 1938:744) American Sociological Review
Outline of presentation• The law, informal
economies and criminalisation
• UK policy – victimhood narrative and criminalisation of sex workers / ‘Tackling Demand’ Review
• Push & Pull factors that engage men
• Is there such a thing as intimacy in commercial sex?
• Supply chains – why women enter into sex industry
• Respectability, class, embourgeoisiement
• Consumerism and late capitalism
Recent Policy Developments
Being Outside: constructing a response to street prostitution (Scottish Executive,2004)
Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland)Act 2007 Paying the Price (Home Office, 2004) Co-ordinated Prostitution Strategy (Home Office,
2006) New ‘Tackling Demand’ Review (July 2008) Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (2008):
Section 71: Removal of “common prostitute” Section 72: Orders to promote rehabilitation Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders
Coordinated Prostitution Strategy 2006
Rejected managed zones – condoning
Rejected licensed brothel system
Eradication of street prostitution through…
‘Exiting’ and/or criminalisation of sex workers - ASBOs
‘Tackling Demand’ Trafficking and sexual
exploitation Move from victim to
offender Move from fines to
ASBOs / imprisonment Increase in sex
workers sent to prison
‘Tipplezones’ in Holland
Redefining who is the ‘problem’ 1980’s + men who buy sex problematised Increase in laws against ‘the kerbcrawler’ 1985 Sexual Offences Act - shift in who was the
problem 2001 Criminal Justice & Police Act - kerbcrawling
an arrestable offence 2003 Criminal Justice Act - conditional cautioning Peak between 2000-4: 993 men arrested (2002)
Coordinated Prostitution Strategy: Tackling Demand Enforcement of existing laws for kerbcrawling Addressing concerns from communities Informal warning / court diversion / prosecution Crackdowns, zero tolerance decoys, supporting naming
and shaming, media coverage, driving licenses revoked, fines, rehabilitation programmes
High profile naming and shaming – Aberdeen / Leeds: impact on families??
2008 – another review of ‘tackling demand’ with view to criminalising men who buy
Yet the UK market blossoms• Street beats still exist• Website where men
post reports about their commercial sexual encounters in the UK
• 80,000 reports written since 1999
• £10 million expenditure
• Lap dancing annual turnover of £300 million
• Private parlours - £5 million – same as cinema expenditure
• Male migrant Sex markets In london
Whether legal, illegal, or somewhere in the middle
Sex industries are thriving, expanding, adapting in late
capitalism across the globe. WHY?
Who buys sex and why ?Who buys sex and why ?Push FactorsPush Factors Stages of life – ritual & circumstance Older men and sexuality Unsatisfactory sexual relationships Unease with conventional dating etiquette Emotional needs beyond sex ‘Time out’ & quality of life in ‘overwork’
culture – acceptability of buying sex in some occupational cultures
Performing the ‘male Performing the ‘male client’ roleclient’ role
5 key features of the 5 key features of the traditional male traditional male sexual script that are sexual script that are also prominent in also prominent in commercial sexual commercial sexual relationships relationships between between regularsregulars and sex workers.and sex workers.
(Sanders, 2008) (Sanders, 2008)
role of communicationrole of communication courtship ritualscourtship rituals sexual familiaritysexual familiarity mutual ‘satisfaction’mutual ‘satisfaction’ development of development of
‘friendship’ and ‘friendship’ and emotional emotional connections connections
Social factors: opportunity and changeSocial factors: opportunity and change
Pull factors: 1Pull factors: 1 Social environment
presents opportunity Internet Travel / tourism Accessibility and
availability Pleasure saturated
culture (Illouz,1997) Shifting acceptability
to buy sex. Reduced stigma
Pull factors: 2Pull factors: 2 ‘Sex as leisure’
(Hawkes, 1996) Sexualization of
the night time economy
Fantasy as corporate strategy
McDonaldization of sex industry (Hausbeck & Brents, 2002) …… ‘
Who works in the sex Who works in the sex industry?industry?SupplySupply
Low wages for long hours Low wages for long hours OROR
Higher wages for less Higher wages for less hourshours
Mainstream economy for Mainstream economy for migrant workersmigrant workers
Rational decision making Rational decision making processprocess
Many reasons for enteringMany reasons for entering Single parentsSingle parents StudentsStudents Fast money / debtFast money / debt
Sex as ‘work’Sex as ‘work’ Sexual labour Sexual labour Emotional labour Emotional labour (Hochschild,1979)(Hochschild,1979) Bodily capital – not selling Bodily capital – not selling
‘themselves’ but services‘themselves’ but services Women exploiting their Women exploiting their
sexuality / femininitysexuality / femininity Selling a fantasy within Selling a fantasy within
commercially bounded commercially bounded contractcontract
Exploitation within this Exploitation within this meaning: working conditions / meaning: working conditions / stigmastigma
Demand & Supply InteractDemand & Supply Interact
Abolitionist arguments fail to understand the interactions between supply, demand and the market
Persistent inequalities and opportunities / entrepreneurship for women ($£) = supply
Persistent push and pull factors for men = demandConsumerism as key force in late capitalism:1) Commodification of sexuality2) ‘Mainstreaming’ of sex and commerce
So, why do Western civilizations So, why do Western civilizations tolerate the sex industry?tolerate the sex industry?
• Capitalism = economic framework that commodifies everything
• The market/profit most powerful dynamic in cultural change?
• Sex, bodies, sexuality, pleasure are not exempt• Respectability, professionalization, embourgeoisiement
ensures expansion & mainstreaming• Tension between ‘the market’ and ‘morals’ BUT shifts in
economic place of the sex industry through mainstreaming means that social and cultural norms adapt as capitalism embraces sexual and bodily commodification.
The universality of a LESS disapproved of practice
References• Bernstein, E. 2001 'The Meaning of the Purchase : Desire, Demand and
the Commerce of Sex', Ethnography 2(3): 389-420.• — 2007 'Sex work for the Middle Classes', Sexualities 10(4): 473-488 • Brents, B. and Hausbeck, K. 2007 'Marketing Sex: U.S Legal Brothels and
Late Capitalist Consumption', Sexualities 10(4).• Davis, K. 1937 'The Sociology of Prostitution', American Journal of
Sociology 2(5): 744-755.• Hausbeck, K. and Brents, B. G. 2002 'McDonaldization of the Sex
Industries? The Business of Sex', in G. Ritzer (ed) McDonaldization: The Reader: Pine Forge Press.
• Hawkes, G. 1996 A Sociology of Sex and Sexuality, Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Hochschild, A. 1979 'Emotion Work, Feeling Rules and Social Structure', American Journal of Sociology 85(3): 551-75.
• Illouz, E. 1997 Consuming the Romantic Utopia, Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Sanders , T. 2008 'Male Sexual Scripts: Intimacy, Sexuality and Pleasure in the Purchase of Commercial Sex, ' Sociology 42(1).
top related