Stigma, invisibility and unattainable ‘choices’ in sex work

Abstract

Sex work in New Zealand was decriminalized by the Prostitution Reform Act 2003. News media is one of the key sites where stigma against sex workers is reproduced, negotiated and can be resisted. Depictions of sex workers in New Zealand vary significantly according to where and how they work. News media texts which discuss modes of sex work constructed as less acceptable sometimes call for sex workers to change how and where they work, typically to modes of work which would make them less visible, in the sense of removing them from public space or of making them invisible as sex workers. The ‘solutions’ for these sex workers are typically proposed by outsiders to the industry, who generally do not acknowledge the benefits, drawbacks and barriers which sex workers perceive to be attached to different ways of working. The demands placed upon sex workers to make the correct ‘choice’ about how and where to work recall neoliberal discourses of entrepreneurialism and further marginalize women who fail to engage in sex work in the ‘correct’ manner. This article examines these media discourses with reference to theories of neoliberal postfeminism, to establish how these discourses function to establish a mode of sex work most accessible to white, middle class, cisgender women as more ‘acceptable’. The concomitant effect of these discourses is to blame sex workers who disproportionately suffer the effects of stigma and harassment for their own ill-treatment, invoking ideas of ‘personal responsibility’.

The courage to ‘get naked’: Stigma, disclosure and lived experience in sex work research

“…This framing, coupled with the dominance of laws which criminalise aspects of sex work, has created a context in which it is risky to publicly disclose sex work experience. Stigma is produced and reinforced in multiple contexts – in mainstream media, popular culture, in public consultations, debates and in laws (Benoit et al, 2018; Bruckert and Hannem, 2013; Easterbrook-Smith, 2022) – and is enacted in a vast range of environments. Recent research has highlighted how sex work stigma is embedded in a range of institutions, creating barriers for sex workers accessing justice if they are victims of violence, and accessing housing, and mental health support they may need (see e.g.…”