Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T08:54:12.045Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Men Who Pay for Sex and the Sex Work Movement? Client Responses to Stigma and Increased Regulation of Commercial Sex Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2014

Natalie Hammond
Natalie Hammond*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Care and Social Work, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: N.Hammond@mmu.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increase in sex worker organisation, with sex workers and their allies forming unions and collectives, protesting in defence of sex workers’ rights, contesting working conditions, opposing criminalisation and aiming to decrease the stigma associated with sex work. However, the actions of male clients have remained invisible. Drawing on empirical data collected from interviews with thirty-five men who pay for sex, and borrowing from social movement literature, specifically Diani's (1992) framework of social movements, this article examines the role of collective identity and the way some clients negotiate political and media constructions of the client figure, and respond to policy processes surrounding the regulation of commercial sex. By taking a cultural studies approach to the sex industry, the article locates commercial sex and its actors within the wider social, cultural and political landscape, reflecting how wider trends regarding the mobilisation and resistance of marginalised groups are apparent within the most unlikely communities.

Keywords

Men who pay for sexsex worksocial movementsstigma
Type
Themed Section on The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex: Taking a Policy Perspective
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 93 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agustin, L. (2005) ‘New research directions: the cultural study of commercial sex’, Sexualities, 8, 5, 618–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agustin, L. (2007) ‘Introduction to the cultural study of commercial sex’, Sexualities, 10, 4, 403–7.Google Scholar
Barnes, M., Newman, J. and Sullivan, H. (2004) ‘Power, participation, and political renewal: theoretical perspectives on public participation under New Labour in Britain’, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 11, 2, 267–79.Google Scholar
Bernstein, E. (2005) ‘Sex work for the middle classes’, Sexualities, 10, 4, 473–88.Google Scholar
Blevins, K. and Holt, T. (2009) ‘Examining the virtual subculture of johns’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 38, 5, 619–48.Google Scholar
Bochel, C., Bochel, H., Somerville, P. and Worley, C. (2008) ‘Marginalised or enabled voices? “User participation” in policy and practice’, Social Policy and Society, 7, 2, 201–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks-Gordon, B. (2010) ‘Bellwether citizens: the regulation of male clients of sex workers’, Journal of Law and Society, 37, 1, 145–70.Google Scholar
Campbell, R. and Storr, M. (2001) ‘Challenging the kerb crawler rehabilitation programme’, Feminist Review, 67, 1, 94–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castle, T. and Lee, J. (2008) ‘Ordering sex in cyberspace: a content analysis of escort websites’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 11, 1, 107–21.Google Scholar
Colosi, R. (2013) ‘Over “sexed” regulation and the disregarded worker: an overview of the impact of sexual entertainment policy on lap-dancing club workers’, Social Policy and Society, 12, 2, 241–52.Google Scholar
Crago, A. L. (2008) ‘Our lives matter: sex workers unite for health and rights’, Open Society Foundation, www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/Our%2520Lives%2520Matter%2520%2520Sex%2520Workers%2520Unite%2520for%2520Health%2520and%2520Rights.pdf (accessed 15 November 2013).Google Scholar
DeSouza, R. and Jyoti Dutta, M. (2008) ‘Global and local networking for HIV/AIDS prevention: the case of the Saathii E-forum’, Journal of Health Communication, 13, 4, 326–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diani, M. (1992) ‘The concept of social movement’, The Sociological Review, 40, 1, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditmore, M. (2010) ‘Pushing boundaries in sex work activism’, in Ditmore, M. H., Levy, A. and Willman, A. (eds.), Sex Work Matters, London: Zed Books, pp. 239–42.Google Scholar
Ditmore, M. H., Levy, A. and Willman, A. (eds.) (2010) Sex Work Matters, London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Earle, S. and Sharp, K. (2008) ‘Sex on the net: online relations between men who pay for sex’, in Holland, S. (ed.), Remote Relationships in a Small World, Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 262–71.Google Scholar
Gall, G. (2006) Sex Worker Union Organising: An International Study, Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Gall, G. (2010) ‘Sex worker collective organization: between advocacy group and labour union?’, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 29, 3, 289–304.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1968) Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Harmondsmith: Penguin.Google Scholar
Great, Britain (2009) Policing and Crime Act 2009, London, The Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Hammond, N.(2010) ‘Tackling taboos: men who pay for sex and the emotional researcher’, in Hardy, K., Kingston, S. and Sanders, T. (eds.), New Sociologies of Sex Work, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 59–74.Google Scholar
Hammond, N. and Kingston, S. (2014) ‘Experiencing stigma as sex work researchers in professional and personal lives’, Sexualities, 17, 3, 329–47.Google Scholar
Hara, N. and Estrada, Z. (2005) ‘Analyzing the mobilization of grassroots activities via the internet: a case study’, Journal of Information Science, 31, 6, 503–14.Google Scholar
Hara, N. and Huang, B. Y. (2011) ‘Online social movements’, Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, V,1, 489–522.Google Scholar
Hardy, K (2010a) ‘“If you shut up, they kill you”: sex worker resistance in Argentina’, in Hardy, K., Kingston, S. and Sanders, T. (eds.), New Sociologies of Sex Work, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 167–80.Google Scholar
Hardy, K. (2010b) ‘Incorporating sex workers into the Argentine labor movement’, International Labor and Working-Class History, 77, 01, 89–108.Google Scholar
Home Office (2004) Paying the Price: A Consultation Paper on Prostitution, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Home Office (2006) A Co-ordinated Prostitution Strategy and a Summary of Responses to Paying the Price, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Home Office (2008) Tackling the Demand for Prostitution: A Review, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
ICRSE (2013) ‘Hands off our clients: an activism and advocacy guide for challenging the “Swedish Model” of criminalising the clients of sex workers in Europe’, http://www.sexworkeurope.org/resources/resources-download/advocacy/hands-our-clients-advocacy-and-activism-tool-kit-against (accessed 18 November 2013).Google Scholar
Jackson, C. (2013) ‘Sex worker rights organizing as Social movement unionism: responding to criminalisation of work’, unpublished thesis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, available from http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations/1844 (accessed 18 August 2014).Google Scholar
Jenkins, R. (2008) Social Identity, 3rd edn, Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kempadoo, K. and Doezema, J. (eds.) (1998) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kingston, S. (2010) ‘Intent to criminalize: men who buy sex and prostitution policy in the UK’, in Hardy, K., Kingston, S. and Sanders, T. (eds.), New Sociologies of Sex Work, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 23–38.Google Scholar
Kingston, S. and Thomas, T. (2014) ‘The police, sex work, and Section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009’, The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, doi:10.1111/hojo.12060.Google Scholar
Lamont, M. and Molnar, V. (2002) ‘The study of boundaries in the social sciences’, Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 167–95.Google Scholar
Lopes, A. (2006) ‘Sex workers and the labour movement in the UK’, in Campbell, R. and O’Neill, M. (eds.), Sex Work Now, Cullompton: Willan, pp. 263–90.Google Scholar
Matthieu, L. (2003) ‘The emergence and uncertain outcomes of prostitutes’ social movements’, The European Journal of Women Studies, 10,1, 29–50.Google Scholar
Pettinger, L. (2014) ‘The judgement machine: markets, internet technologies and policies in commercial sex’, Social Policy and Society, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Pheterson, G. (1993) ‘The whore stigma: female dishonor and male unworthiness’, Social Text, 37, 39–64.Google Scholar
Phoenix, J. and Oerton, S. (2005) Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control, Cullompten: Willan.Google Scholar
Plummer, K. (1995) Telling Sexual Stories: Power, Change and Social Worlds, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sanders, T. (2005) ‘Researching the online sex work community’, in Hine, C. (ed.), Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet, Oxford: Berg, pp. 67–80Google Scholar
Sanders, T. (2008) Paying for Pleasure: Men Who Buy Sex, Cullompton: Willan.Google Scholar
Sanders, T. and Campbell, R. (2007) ‘Designing out violence, building in respect: violence, safety and sex work policy’, British Journal of Sociology, 58, 1, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sanders, T. and Campbell, R. (2008) ‘Why hate men who pay for sex? Investigating the shift to tackling demand and the calls to criminalise paying for sex’, in Munro, V. (ed.), Demanding Sex? Critical Reflections on the Supply/Demand Dynamic in Prostitution, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.193–79.Google Scholar
Sanders, T., Hardy, K. and Campbell, R. (2014) ‘Regulating strip-based entertainment: sexual entertainment venue policy and the ex/inclusion of dancers’ perspectives and needs’, Social Policy and Society, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Sanders, T., O’Neill, M. and Pitcher, J. (2009) Prostitution Sex Work, Policy and Politics, London: Sage.Google Scholar
Sharp, K. and Earle, S. (2003) ‘Cyberpunters and cyberwhores: prostitution on the Internet’, in Jewkes, Y., (ed.), Dot.Cons: Crime, Deviance and Identity on the Internet, Cullompton: Willan, pp. 36–52.Google Scholar
Weeks, J. (1991) Against Nature: Essays on History, Sexuality and Identity, London: Rivers Oram Press.Google Scholar
Weitzer, R. (2005) ‘Flawed theory and method in studies of prostitution’, Violence Against Women, 1, 7, 934–49.Google Scholar
Weitzer, R. (2007) ‘The social construction of sex trafficking: ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade’, Politics and Society, 353, 3, 447–75.Google Scholar
Weitzer, R. J. (2012) Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar