Consent and Its Discontents: On the Traffic in Words and Women

Abstract

This article examines local forms of women's solidarity and political resistance in Madre de Dios, Peru, within the context of international feminist debates about freedom and "consent" in the sex industry. Through the figures of two "madams" who played integral roles in organizing the sex workers of Puerto Maldonado, the regional capital, I address issues of voice in constructing policies aimed to protect sex workers. These women's experiences both enrich and trouble analyses of "consent" in prostitution and sextrafficking economies, where nongovernmental organizations and the state also stand to profit, adding to the traffic in ideas about agency, power, and responsibility. From the perspective of a "middle ground" feminist, I argue that ignoring the voices of the very women affected by antiprostitution and anti-trafficking policies only hinders efforts to create solidarity across race and class.Este artículo examina las formas locales de la solidaridad de las mujeres y la resistencia política en Madre de Dios, Perú, en el contexto de los debates feministas internacionales sobre la libertad y el "consentimiento" de la industria del sexo. A través de dos proxenetas de sexo femenino que tenían un rol integral en la organización de las trabajadoras sexuales de Puerto Maldonado, restituyo el discurso para la construcción de políticas destinadas a proteger a las trabajadoras sexuales. Las experiencias de estas mujeres enriquecen y también cuestionan los análisis de "consentimiento" en las economías de la prostitución y la trata sexual, donde las ONG y el Estado también se benefician, por lo que incorporo en el análisis ideas de agencia, poder y responsabilidad. Desde la perspectiva de una feminista de "terreno medio", sostengo que no hacer caso a las voces de las propias mujeres afectadas por las políticas de lucha contra la prostitución y contra la trata sólo obstaculiza los esfuerzos para crear solidaridad entre las mujeres.

Affirmative biopolitics: Social and vocational education for Quechua girls in the postcolonial “affectsphere” of Cusco, Peru

“…Studies in the Peruvian Andes and surrounding regions have shed light on multiple other types of informal, low-paid labor that poorer girls and women often perform in new tourism, urban, or mining economies (e.g., child vendors, see Bromley and Mackie, 2009;Sinervo, 2013; weavers and sa´camefotos, 9 see Ypeij, 2012, and sex workers or forced laborers, see Goldstein, 2014). Runachay's affective "training" does not seem to lead girls like Yolanda to challenge or problematize mainstream stigmatization or sensationalization of these other types of gendered/sexed precarious labor.…”

Life in Traffic: Riddling Field Notes on the Political Economy of “Sex” and Nature

“…Drawn to the mining boom, sex workers, miners, and traffickers travel from neighboring countries or other parts of Peru. The sex industry is a diverse one, though, where workers operate under varying conditions of consent: from outright deception, often trafficked by another woman, to intentionally planned sex‐work trips to the mines (Goldstein 2014, 2019a). Resonant with forms of reproductive labor like embryo exchange, sex traffic “between women” exists (Roberts 2012): sex work often funds tuition, schoolbooks, or a family member's surgery.…”

“…Radical feminists often capitalize on narratives of captive (cis)women prostitutes, relying on narrow categories of agency and consent that do not allow for lived complexity or desire (Salazar Parreñas, Hwang, and Lee 2012; Kempadoo 2004; Hofmann and Moreno 2016). The concern over sex trafficking pivots on the virgin/mother opposition, clouding the sociopolitical and economic relations that create few options for narrating or actualizing womanhood (Goldstein 2014, 2019a).…”

For an analytics of affective life: marginalized youths, social interventions and development affectspheres in Cusco, Peru

“…Studies in the Peruvian Andes and surrounding regions have shed light on multiple other types of informal, low-paid labor that poorer girls and women often perform in new tourism, urban, or mining economies (e.g., child vendors, see Bromley and Mackie, 2009;Sinervo, 2013; weavers and sácamefotos, 50 see Ypeij, 2012; and sex workers or forced laborers, see Goldstein, 2014 economies in Peru differentially rely on and exploit. Attending to the less explicit affective aspects thus also helps reveal some "collateral training," limits, and "(side-)effects" of Runachay's affirmative biopolitical interventions.…”

“…For another example, I would like to turn to social protection and inclusion of adolescent mothers in poverty and without adequate care and support, among whom there are victim-survivors of sexual abuse or assault. There is ongoing difficulty with, if not lack of, policymaking will and synergy, which severely inhibit better development of policies and programmes for sexual and reproductive health and rights, against sexual and domestic violence and for the social support and inclusion of marginalized adolescent mothers (see also Ames and Crisóstomo, 2019;Ames et al, 2018;Boesten, 2014;Goldstein, 2014;Luttrell-Rowland, 2012;Panepinto, 2018). Meanwhile, other recent research findings on adolescent pregnancy and motherhood in different regions in Peru indicate that young mothers often experience mental health problems, social stigma and exclusion, prolonged poverty, difficulty in pursuing education and employment, resource dependence on partners and families and even domestic violence (Sánchez, 2018;Tavara et al, 2015).…”