“I Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again”: Hegemonic Masculinity in Relation to the Purchase of Street-Level Sex

Shumka, Leah; Strega, Susan; Hallgrímsdóttir, Helga Kristín

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2017.00015

Cited by 25 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…The data presented here are drawn from two sources: individual interviews with workers conducted as part of a research project examining street sex workers, their families, and transitioning out of street sex work (Strega et al, 2015), and focus group interviews with workers conducted as part of a study focused on male customers of street sex workers (Shumka et al, 2017). Our analysis of all interviews relied on a narrative approach informed by Indigenous storytelling methods (Iseke, 2013;Thomas, 2015), a strategy intended to acknowledge and respect the significant proportion of Indigenous participants in both projects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Sociological Equation”: Intersections Between Street Sex Workers’ Agency and Their Theories about Their Customers

Strega

Shumka

Hallgrímsdóttir

2020

The Journal of Sex Research

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Street sex work is deeply stratified, embedded in power imbalances and inequities; workers are multiply marginalized, relative to customers, in terms of race, class and gender. At the same time, these imbalances should not be equated with worker powerlessness. In this paper, we seek to counter the existing limited and polarized conceptualizations of agency that dominate the sex work literature by providing an assessment of the ways in which female street sex workers seek to realize and exercise agency and enact strategies of resistance despite the violence ubiquitous in their work. We draw from worker narratives collected through individual and focus group interviews in five Canadian cities to highlight the nuanced and layered ways in which workers, collectively and individually, apply reasoning and argumentation to the risks represented by customers, as well as to other aspects of their working environment. Workers offered three significant theories related to which men buy sex on the street and why (some) men buy sex; we describe how they employ these to negotiate the conditions of their work, nesting our findings within a broader socio-cultural analysis of the risks workers experience as they navigate complex, highly politicized working environments. Finally, we show how workers appropriate hegemonic masculinity discourses as well as intersecting race, class and gender discourses to inform their rationales for choosing some customers over others, setting our discussion within existing literature on male sex work customers.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The “Sociological Equation”: Intersections Between Street Sex Workers’ Agency and Their Theories about Their Customers

Strega

Shumka

Hallgrímsdóttir

2020

The Journal of Sex Research

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“…The analyses on this field are centered mainly on the study of how hegemonic gender models are socialized and reproduced (Kimmel, 2000;Connell, 2005;Javaid, 2017). Concerning the study of masculine gender models, research has especially highlighted the perpetuation of a traditional and hegemonic masculinity model through cultural dominance and violence (Connell, 2005;Shumka et al, 2017). From that position, the definition of two central gender models has been conceptualized from the studies of Connell et al (1985): emphasized femininity and hegemonic masculinity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Language of Ethics and Double Standards in the Affective and Sexual Socialization of Youth. Communicative Acts in the Family Environment as Protective or Risk Factors of Intimate Partner Violence

et al. 2018

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One of the explanatory factors for the perpetuation of intimate partner violence (IPV) is the socialization process. There is broad literature on the role of family in socializing gender roles and the influence on reproducing IPV. However, less research has been developed on the effects of communicative acts in the family environment as a protective or risk factor in front of IPV. This article presents sound evidence confirming the presence of language of ethics that is reproducing stereotyped models of attraction in heterosexual relationships, which empties good people of attractiveness and indirectly contributes to maintain the link between desire and aggressiveness. The language of ethics is characterized by integrating speech acts that exclusively include ethics and exclude desire when talking about egalitarian boys or men. To analyze this reality, a qualitative study has been conducted framed in the communicative methodology. This methodology has been recommended by the European Commission to conduct research on vulnerable groups and social inequalities, which has the aim to advance knowledge on social transformation. Drawing on this approach, three different data-collection techniques have been implemented: in-depth interviews, daily-life stories and focus groups. The fieldwork includes a sample of 52 young men and women between the ages of 18 and 23 from a vocational training high school, and 4 fathers and 4 mothers of some of these young people. The findings confirm the existence of a model of socialization that replicates family relations based on the maintenance of the double standards. Thus, mothers used to employ the language of ethics with their daughters fostering a controversial effect, that is, the latter prefer to start affective and sexual relationships with boys who are aggressive and not egalitarian. On the other hand, fathers used to employ language of desire with their sons stimulating the performance of chauvinist behaviors that denigrate women and girls.

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“…Although there is extensive literature on the characteristics and motivations of clients of commercial sex (Earle and Sharpe 2008a;Huysamen and Boonzaier 2015;Joseph and Black 2012;Katsulis 2010;Milrod and Weitzer 2012;Sanders 2008), most of those studies have focused on consumers who buy sex from women working at off-street locations. According to Shumka et al (2017), the absence of literature on men who purchase street-based sex, represents a bias on the part of researchers who see them as a less relevant population to study. The perception of buying sex on the street as a casual and opportunistic activity shifts the focus from the clients and onto sex workers.…”

Section: Street-based Sex Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the sexual encounter on the street is considered a marginal and declining sector that contains quick and impersonal "sexual release" (Bernstein 2001), scholars have been less attuned to the (potentially) deep meaning of purchasing sex on the street. The exceptions to these are the studies of Vaughn (2019) on systems of power and their influence on South African clients and Shumka et al (2017) on hegemonic masculinity concerning the purchase of street-level sex. Both studies emphasise different aspects of hegemonic masculinity.…”

Section: Street-based Sex Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Vaughn (2019) show how clients tended to discuss outdoor sex workers as objects one purchases rather than an individual providing services, hence suggesting that clients' perception of their own (structural or interpersonal) power within the sex work transaction may empower clients to enact violence to achieve their desired end. Shumka et al (2017) argue that the purchase of street-level sex is motivated by a sense of failure to successfully align with classed and gendered 1 3 "Hunting on the Streets": Masculine Repertoires Among Israeli… norms of hegemonic masculinity in which the purchase of sex was an attempt to "feel like a man again". Thus, the purchase of street-level sex can both confirm and undermine the sense of manhood.…”

Section: Street-based Sex Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Hunting on the Streets”: Masculine Repertoires Among Israeli Clients of Street-Based Sex Work

Lahav-Raz

2019

Sexuality & Culture

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In this article, I discuss the unique masculine repertoire of Israeli clients of streetbased sex work. In doing so, I aim to reveal the deep meaning of sex consumption on the street while reflecting on the way in which universal and local masculine repertoires are negotiated and contested. Based on a discourse analysis of online sexual reports, the article focuses on clients' metaphoric language of themselves as hunters when describing sexual encounters on the street, arguing that the hunting metaphor has become a channel through which a community of "warriors" has been built. The sexual script of the hunter is a mixture of intersecting characteristics from the universal dominant repertoire of hegemonic, heteronormative hyper-masculinity with characteristics from the two Israeli masculine hegemonic repertoires: the combat soldier and the Halutz (pioneer). The sexual script of the hunter thus functions as a platform on which other relations of power, especially between men themselves, are played out and contested.

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“I Wanted to Feel Like a Man Again”: Hegemonic Masculinity in Relation to the Purchase of Street-Level Sex

Cited by 25 publications

References 44 publications

The “Sociological Equation”: Intersections Between Street Sex Workers’ Agency and Their Theories about Their Customers

The “Sociological Equation”: Intersections Between Street Sex Workers’ Agency and Their Theories about Their Customers

The Language of Ethics and Double Standards in the Affective and Sexual Socialization of Youth. Communicative Acts in the Family Environment as Protective or Risk Factors of Intimate Partner Violence

“Hunting on the Streets”: Masculine Repertoires Among Israeli Clients of Street-Based Sex Work

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