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).