Imagined and Embodied Spaces in the Global Sex Industry

Abstract

This article investigates the space of a sex bar in Finland as a global conjuncture in which new forms of gendered and ethnicized subjectivity and agency emerge. The commercial sex culture in Finland is seen as an effect of the globalization of the world economy and culture. The subjectivities formed in a sex bar are analysed according to Irigaray's formulation of a heterosexual matrix in which women embody a specular function that enables the formation of the masculine subject. This is developed by analysing the position of erotic dancers as listening bodies who perform a position of someone who cares. The narrative method is used to show the constraints and possibilities of these embodied positions and their organization in a sex bar. This is emphasized by the opening narrative that presents the client and the erotic dancer 'the morning after', emphasizing the situatedness and temporality of subjectivities created in a sex bar.

Sprostytuowane, zranione, wrobione: konstruowanie reprezentacji pracownic seksualnych w dyskursie abolicyjnym

“…Celem tych, nierzadko jednostronnych i esencjalizujących, reprezentacji jest uruchamianie silnych emocji: litości i współczucia, które mają motywować solidarność z identyfikowaną na gruncie tego projektu "ofiarą" i leżeć u podstaw podejmowanych na jej rzecz działań (Aradau 2008;por. Fassin 2012;Musto 2010;Penttinen 2008).…”

‘Dirt, Death and Danger? I Don't Recall Any Adverse Reaction …’: Masculinity and the Taint Management of Hospital Private Security Work

“…Dirty work is often considered a position of the lower classes; however, research continues to suggest that work identities, practices and experiences are shaped in tension with other layers of disadvantage such as race (Duffy, 2007), citizenship (Anderson, 2000;Lee-Treweek, 2010) and occupational status (Lewis, 2006;Prokos and Padavic, 2002). Although discourses of gender, femininities and masculinities remain peripheral to our understandings of how women and men negotiate, resist and experience dirty work, many studies explicitly and implicitly locate how gender informs how dirty work is practised by entrepreneurs (Bruni et al, 2004;Lewis, 2006), sex workers (Penttinen, 2008;Sanders, 2005;Selmi, 2012), exotic dancers (Grandy and Mavin, 2012), nurses (Bolton, 2005;Dahle, 2005;Simpson et al, 2012a), slaughterhouse and meat trade employees (Pachirat, 2011), fire fighters (Tracy and Scott, 2006), as well as by employees in other service industries (Forseth, 2005;Warhurst and Nickson, 2009;Williams, 2003). Quite unlike fire fighters, the designated heroes of public safety, private security guards, police and correctional officers do the 'dirty work' of the criminal justice system (Dick, 2005;Heinsler et al, 1990;Kurtz, 2008;Rigakos, 2002;Thumala et al, 2011;Tracy and Scott, 2006).…”

The Embodiment of Women in Wine: Gender Inequality and Gendered Inscriptions of the Working Body in a Corporate Wine Organization

“…These pre‐established norms for bodies and work impact on contemporary ways of doing and gendering work, social structures and practices. Organizational sociology has begun to focus on the body as the target of gendered organizational discourses and has explored topics such as how bodies are managed to suit aesthetic requirements (Gottfried, ), the pregnant working body (Gatrell, ), sex work (Penttinen, ), embodiment and massage work (Oerton, ), and the embodiment of masculinities in occupations (Hall et al ., ; Monaghan, ). These analyses have tended to focus on the experience of embodiment or the ‘lived’ body.…”