Red Light Realities: A Visual Journey into Sex Work Legislation

Prostitution has been engaged illegally throughout humankind's history across all cultures, with predominately women providing sexual services to men for exchange of monetary gains. Engaging in this sexual labour was typically associated with the worker being perceived within society as lower class, possessing addiction issues to drugs or alcohol, low self-worth, lack of education, and money scarcity (Kempadoo and Doezema, 2018). The main forms of sexual services include, but are not exclusively: stripping, escorting, lap dancing, cam cording, and sensual massage (Sanders, 2005). Current laws and the degree of lawfulness surrounding this occupation differ depending on the country that these workers reside in. In Germany they hold a progressive stance on the industry and have passed legislation that allows regulated sex work and for people engaging in the industry to be taxed on their income (WPR, 2021). On the contrary, in Thailand it is illegal for anyone to engage in this labour, however, the laws surrounding sex work are ambiguous and rarely enforced (WPR, 2021). Countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Croatia and states within Australia currently have laws criminalizing people who participate in any area of this industry with jail time as the consequence in most cases (WPR, 2021). Sex work is such a divisive issue as it is seen as problematic within certain cultures, religions and feminist theories (Kempadoo and Doezema, 2018: 4). In recent decades, ​​the concept of ‘sex work’ emerged in the 1970s, straying away from the traditional derogatory language that was utilised to describe women and men in the industry such as ‘prostitute’, ‘whore’, ‘jigglo’ or ‘hooker’. This push for a shift in language emerged from the prostitute’s rights movement in the United States (US) and Western Europe at this time. The movement had the intention to legitimise the sex industry based on the idea that ‘sexual labour’ should be considered similar to other forms of labour that humankind performs to sustain itself- such as mental and manual labour, all of which involve similar parts of the body and particular types of energy and skills (Kempadoo and Doezema, 2018: 4).

This essay will endeavour to discuss this polarising industry and the obstacles it faces to ultimately allow sexual freedom, safety, regulation, and legitimisation through a written and image analysis. In addition, for the purpose of this analysis, the area of sex work that will be analysed will be ‘sexual services’ which was described earlier in the analysis. Some current feminist ideations that sex work is currently perceived through perpetuate the very opposite fundamental message that feminism is trying to achieve and the damaging effects that these perceptions have on the industry making progress towards allowing people to engage in their sexual freedoms. Further, this essay will discuss how laws that have been created to address the engagement of sex work within society only address certain pitfalls but ignore the positive effects that sexual labour can bring to people’s lives. In addition, the essay will explore the damaging stereotypes that have been created around gender and the common misconceptions surrounding male dominance and the use of prostitution.

(The Canadian Press, 2014)

Sex work is seen as a significant issue within radical feminism, due to the short sighted nature of the perspective. Western Hegonomic feminists or also referred to as ‘radical feminists’ believe that sex work is harmful to women, reinforces the patriarchy, and gender norms and solidifies stereotypical views that women are merely at the mercy of men and their pursuit for sexual gratification (Stabile, 2020). The main point that they address with this stance on the discourse is that if criminalisation of prostitution was implemented across every country, it would halt the large volumes of sex trafficking that is occurring throughout the global arena (Stabile, 2020). In the image above, it displays two radical feminist women in Canada, engaging in intersectionality in order to carry more merit towards their agenda for the abolition of the sex industry. This image is powerful due to their demographic location, gender, and lived experience. By protesting this agenda for change, it fails to take in consideration a major population that rely on sex work as a means of survival. According to the 2015 National Survey on Transgender Discrimination in the United States found that 26.4% of respondents to the question of sexual market participation were trans men or transmasculine (Stabile, 2020). The reason for this high statistic of trans men and transmasculine working within the sexual labour market is because they face rejection from support and medical services, family, and discrimination when trying to enter the traditional labour market (Stabile, 2020). Therefore, ultimately meaning that sexual labour is their most viable means of survival. By these two women protesting for the criminalisation of sex work it takes away over a quarter of the industry's right to freedom of occupation and equal opportunity. This feminist perspective is short-sighted and only considers the rights of women within the industry, rather than looking at the discourse holistically.

(Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker's Journey, 2016)

The continuation of criminalising sex workers acts as a gatekeeper to certain demographics accessing their sexual freedoms. Instead of many governments legalising and regulating the industry, many choose to marginalise low levels of representation groups such as people with disabilities, and strip them of their ability to legally access their primal need to perform sexual acts. Due to the nature of the spectrum of disabilities that many people live with, they are either partially or entirely incapable of satisfying this need to fulfil their sexual desires (Thomsen, 2014). This is because many don’t have the ability to take the generic avenues that able people can due to physical, and stigma-based barriers (Thomsen, 2014). The image displayed depicts a woman who is a sex worker and a man who suffers from cerebral palsy. This image is powerful as it demonstrates the need for at the minimum exemption to the criminalisation of the sex industry. Without this avenue being legalised and regulated not only would it ensure that the sex worker's rights are secured, but also training can be provided to the sex workers to ensure that the safety of the person with a disability is upheld whilst they are exercising their right to sexual freedom (Thomsen, 2014). The criminalisation of the sex industry fails to consider all people’s rights.

(CBL, 2017)

The monologue that sex and gender are inherently associated with is one of the main obstacles that the industry faces in their pursuit to decriminalisation. According to gender theory both males and females have performative roles that they play within society, being the ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’(Freeman, 2001). The man encompassing masculinity and the females encompassing femininity (Freeman, 2001). The image displayed above is a female sex worker being interviewed (CBL, 2019). She is unidentifiable as her face and body has been blacked out to hide her identity and the lighting in the room is dark and ominous. This deliberate choice to portray the worker in this metaphorical light automatically assumes that the work that she was engaging in is damaging to her reputation as a cis-gendered woman. It perpetuates that to be identified in this context would be detrimental to her life as it would go against the notion that to be a ‘woman’, one can only associate sex with love, rather than it purely being performing a sexual service in the exchange for monetary compensation (Butler, 1988). Further, the image to the left (National Geographic, 2018) is captured of an African-decent cis-gendered female sex worker and a cis-gendered male of caucasian decent after she had just provided him with a sexual service. This image demonstrates that sex work does not have to be inextricably linked with male domination over women, but rather a gratitude for their ability to grant them access to their sexual desires that they would not have been able to be granted without their service. Without the widespread acceptance of separating gender roles from sexual relations, the sex industry will not be able to achieve autonomy to trade on a legal level globally.

Without overcoming the aforementioned obstacles, the sexual service section of the sex industry will never be able to reach a state of legitimacy. Troubling feminist views, the lack of understanding of the scope and need for the industry from marginalised groups and society's inability to separate people from their inherent gender roles are the largest obstacles that need to be tackled in order for the industry to ever be considered to be globally accepted as a form of legitimate legal labour.

References

Butler, J., 1988. Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, 40(4), pp.519-531.

CBL, 2017. [image].

Kempadoo, K. and Doezema, J., 2018. Global Sex Workers. Florence: Routledge.

Frej Klem Thomsen & Frej Klem Thomsen 2015, ‘Prostitution, disability and prohibition’, Journal of Medical Ethics, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 451–459, viewed 11 September 2021

Freeman, C., 2001. Is Local: Global as Feminine: Masculine? Rethinking the Gender of Globalization. 26(4), pp.1007-1037.

Sanders, T 2005, Sex work : a risky business, Willan Pub.

Scarlet Road: A Sex Worker's Journey, 2016. [image].

Stabile, L da M 2020, ‘Sex work abolitionism and hegemonic feminisms: Implications for gender-diverse sex workers and migrants from Brazil’, Sociological Review, vol. 68, no. 4, pp. 852–869, viewed 10 September 2021.

The Canadian Press, 2014. [image].

The National Demographic, 2018. [image]

Worldpopulationreview.com. 2021. Countries Where Prostitution Is Legal 2021.