As I stated in Chapter 1, the task of conceptualising the people who I planned on studying was a contentious issue that raised questions about gender and sexual power relations.
Ultimately, I decide to employ the term „sex worker‟ that was introduced by writers and gender activists critical of the judgmental connotations the term „prostitute‟ carries. By employing this term, I was able to engage with the subject matter in a non-stigmatising matter, yet, during my interaction with independent escorts I realised that this term had no purchase with them, similarly to the sex workers in Trotter‟s (2008) study of the dockside sex work industry in Durban, who also found this term pejorative.
The findings of my study also illustrated exactly how different the independent escorts I interviewed are from those individuals to whom this term is generally applied namely, sex workers who solicit clients from the street, who the participants believed experience the most extreme forms of stigmatisation. I believe that this exemplifies the diversity of the commercial sex trade and that homogeneity simply cannot be assumed. It also highlights the importance of listening to sex workers about how they want to be presented and constructed.
If we do not, we are also patronising sex workers and contributing to the problematic construction of them as the „Other‟, incapable of thinking and speaking for themselves.
I also found „Intimate labour‟ to be a useful concept for examining how some independent escorts commoditise intimacy and care. By employing this term, I offer a critique of the essentialist view, in some patriarchal societies, that women are natural providers of care and intimacy and also emphasise the large amount of (hard) work required for intimacy to be provided via the GFE. These women have to listen and counsel their clients, embody the image of the „ideal‟ girlfriend, engage in behaviour such as kissing, hugging and foreplay that Pateman (1988) argues, jeopardises the home and work boundary. This concept was also useful because it does justice to the manner through which the independent escorts I
124 interviewed, describe the GFE: as something that does not occur „naturally‟, but a distinct service offered (enabling the women to charge more than those escorts only providing sex), that encompasses either a performance of intimacy or an authentic relationship bounded by money, space and time.
7.3.2 Theoretical and policy implications
I conducted this study from a liberal feminist perspective where I am critical of the criminalisation of sex work in South Africa and many other countries and view this as a form of patriarchal stigmatisation. However, I have to emphasise that instead of adopting a specific feminist view and „forcing‟ it upon the data, the onus was put on the experiences and constructions of the independent escort. Thus, I allowed the data to inform and guide the theory. This is in line with the call of authors such Shrage (1994), Weitzer (2005) and Bernstein (1999) who suggest that when studying sex work, researchers should adopt a polymorphous feminist approach as different varieties of sex work may have different social meanings and thus, demand different feminist responses.
By employing a polymorphous feminist perspective, I was free to adapt „prescribed‟ terms, such as „sex worker‟ that had no purchase with the women, and also to move beyond the mere construction of sex work as work and engage with an aspect that has not received enough attention – the manifestation of intimacy in the relationships some sex workers have with their clients.
My study also emphasises that it is crucial that policy reform regarding sex work in South Africa can only be made once a clear understanding of all the diverse forms of sex work have been established. There should be different recommendations for different forms of sex work.
For example, policy reforms are pertinent to improving the safety and health of sex workers who solicit clients from the street and the focus should be on improving the relationships these workers have with the police and health care officials. Conversely, policy reforms for improving the safety of individuals, who work independently as escorts, should focus on establishing a formal online database of “unsafe clients” that would simplify the screening process these men and women employ. Regardless of what the recommendations are, it is crucial that sex workers and organisations working with sex workers are consulted and are able to set the agenda regarding the direction of policy reforms.
125 7.3.3 Recommendations for SWEAT
During an interview with the director of SWEAT, Sally Shackleton, it became apparent that there is a great need for research on how sex workers are employing technology and the internet in their profession. Shackelteon believes that in a situation where “visibility counts against you”, sex workers who solicit clients via the internet can work without necessarily having to be placed in a vulnerable position. However, she did express concern regarding the amount of control independent escorts have over their working conditions.
The mapping of Redlace.com shows that 80% of 499 advertisements posted were by independent escorts, while only 20% were by escorts employed at an escort agency. Thus, the majority of the women on this site did place the advertisements themselves. In addition, the reason why many of the escorts I interviewed, who previously worked at agencies, chose to work independently was because they wanted more control over their working conditions.
These included not having to share their income with a third party and being able to take control of their own marketing (for some participants this was constructed as a disadvantage), and being able to select which clients they see.
The numerous roles punter forums fulfil in escorting was one of the unexpected findings of my study. The independent escorts constructed these forums as spaces for marketing, policing, and abuse. Taking into account how much the escorts enjoy and are invested in preserving the anonymity soliciting clients via the internet provides them, I argue that these forums could be a useful tool that organisations such as SWEAT can employ to reach out to, even if it is anonymously, to sex workers and clients in terms of safer sex, addressing stigmatisation, or any other related questions they might have. By engaging with this „virtual community‟ on a virtual platform, SWEAT can gain access to a publically invisible group of workers and make their services available to these escorts, without jeopardising their investments by not allowing „sex workers‟ to become the mistress status.
126 7.4 Conclusion
At the start of this thesis, I argued that discourses about people who are marginalised, such as sex workers in many societies, render these men and women as the „Other‟ through forms of homogenisation, and attributions of infantilisation, which construct sex workers as bad or helpless victims with little or no agency. One of the primary concerns of this study was to encourage the voices of sex workers, and if we listen to the voices of the escorts featured in this study, it is evident that these women are not helpless victims with no-agency. By listening to the voices of these escorts, we become aware that the commercial sex trade is not a homogenous industry, even for men and women employing the same method of solicitation.
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