Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference

Julie Ham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317407232
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Public discourses around migrant sex workers are often more confident about what migrant sex workers signify morally but are less clear about who the 'migrant' is. Based on interviews with immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia, Sex Work, Immigration and Social Difference challenges the 'migrant sex worker' category by investigating the experiences of women who are often assumed to be 'migrant sex workers' in Australia and Canada.

Many 'migrant sex workers' in Melbourne and Vancouver are in fact, naturalized citizens or permanent residents, whose involvement in the sex industry intersects with diverse ideas and experiences of citizenship in Australia and Canada. This book examines how immigrant, migrant and racialized sex workers in Vancouver and Melbourne wield or negotiate ideas of illegality and legality to obtain desired outcomes in their day-to-day work.

Sex work continues to be the subject of fierce debate in the public sphere, at the policy level, and within research discourses. This study interrogates these perceptions of the 'migrant sex worker' by presenting the lived realities of women who embody or experience dimensions of this category. This book is interdisciplinary and will appeal to those engaged in criminology, sociology, law, and women's studies.

1 Introduction

Given the often sensational accounts of sex work in the media, it may be a surprise to hear that researching sex work by immigrant, migrant and racialised women in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia was, for the most part, a relatively straightforward and undramatic process.¹ That is not to say that discussions with sex workers were not rich, lively and illuminating—they were, very much so. But rather than introducing this study with a dramatic anecdote, I offer a simple walk through some of the sex workspaces in both cities, in order to set the scene for the conversations that follow.

In Vancouver, a significant part of research involved visiting massage shops in various neighbourhoods.² For the most part, this was relatively straight-forward. In Vancouver, these are typically small-scale shopfront businesses, often located beside neighbouring restaurants, shops, grocery stores and other small businesses in a wide socio-economic range of neighbourhoods. In terms of appearance, they are not ‘hidden’ or ‘underground’, but they are discreet and more or less blend in with local neighbourhood economies. They are perhaps most noticeable by the reduced presence of shopfront advertising, in contrast to the busy windows typical of neighbouring businesses. Interiors leaned towards simple spa furnishings, with massage tables as the norm in most workrooms (as opposed to beds, which are permitted in Melbourne’s licensed brothels). Decor was often feminine, which could perhaps permit an easy transition or ‘passing’ as a spa or beauty salon for female clientele. Indeed, there were a few businesses where the nature of services provided was ambiguous. In some of these businesses, workers confirmed that a range of services was available, including both sexual services (e.g. masturbation, oral sex, body rubs, intercourse), which may constitute the majority of an establishment’s business, as well as non-sexual services such as cosmetic treatments for a minority of male and female clients. The feminine, standardised decor of workrooms across different establishments contrasted with the much greater diversity and individualisation of workers’ lounges (i.e. staff rooms, break rooms). In contrast to the tidy and somewhat homogeneous workrooms, staff lounges often included a comfortable jumble of sofas, chairs or beds for workers to recline on, small lockers or bureaus with lockable drawers for individual workers and stacks of magazines, take-out menus, clothing and cosmetics on various surfaces.

Given the cultural or urban similarities between Melbourne and Vancouver, the differences between sex workplaces across the two cities were striking; that is, between massage shops in Vancouver and licensed brothels in Melbourne. The first noticeable difference was the placement of sex work-related businesses within the city. In contrast to Vancouver, where businesses typically operate within a range of bustling local commercial areas, my visits to licensed brothels in Melbourne involved commuting much further distances to largely industrial areas in suburbs across the city. There are licensed brothels that operate in or close to the city centre, but there also appears to be a greater number of businesses operating further away from local commercial areas. Numerous licensed brothels were located in industrial areas, which ranged from light industrial office complexes to commercial areas with industrial, construction or repair-based businesses; autobody yards; and heavy industrial activity marked by signs and warnings about chemical and environmental hazards. Licensed brothels in these areas were not overtly visible in terms of signage or advertising, but they were noticeably different as one of the few non-industrial businesses in their respective neighbourhoods. As a female Asian researcher, moving through these spaces required taking particular considerations. For example, conducting interviews at night required more careful management of transportation schedules, not necessarily because these areas felt unsafe, but because they were noticeably quieter and less well-lit after business hours. In fact, when conducting fieldwork in Melbourne, it was often a comfort to see a brothel with a few lights around the door at the end of an otherwise deserted street after the business day ended and as evening fell.

As will be discussed in later chapters, the criminalisation of sex work in Vancouver contrasts to the legalisation of sex work in Melbourne. The legal and regulatory differences between the two cities infuses many dimensions of the sex industry, from workers’ experiences to the geographies of sex work in each city. I was reminded of this continually throughout the study. Given the legalisation of sex work through a licensing framework, it is perhaps not surprising that Melbourne’s brothels could be more open but it also struck me that they could be much more established or permanent. Whereas Vancouver’s environment demands that businesses remain ambiguous, discreet and in conformity with other businesses in the area, I was struck by the diversity in the architecture of Melbourne’s licensed brothels and the permanence of the facilities: for example, having the business name etched into the floor of the brothel. While many of the establishments I visited in Vancouver resembled beauty salons or spas, licensed brothels in Melbourne were much more varied, with some establishments aiming for a clubbish atmosphere, while others resembled small bed-and-breakfast hotels, and others still that could easily be imagined as a previous or future yoga studio or health club. The regulatory framework in Melbourne allows licensed brothels to be upfront about the services they provide, and it was common to see signs detailing rates for particular sexual services (e.g. oral sex, intercourse, massage), blocks of time and, at times, rates depending on how many orgasms a client could have during a session. Other considerations were provided for clients in Melbourne’s licensed brothels. For example, it was common to see cubicles in the reception area, similar in structure to changing rooms or changing stalls in clothing stores. These provided areas where individual clients could wait without being seen by other clients. Other businesses had curtains that could quickly be drawn around the waiting area for greater privacy. Many licensed establishments in Melbourne were relatively spacious compared to businesses in Vancouver, and it was more common to see beds or bunk beds in staff lounge areas where workers had greater space to make use of between bookings.

Moving through these prosaic, workaday environments with relatively little fuss or drama provided a stark contrast to the highly fraught, politicised debates that are more common in public and policy spheres. Sex work, or the commercial provision of sexual services, continues to be the subject of fierce debate across many international, national and local jurisdictions. These debates occur in the public sphere, at the policy level and within research discourses. Although sex work is practised by a diverse range of genders (e.g. women, men and trans), debates about sex work often grapple with contested understandings of women’s agency, power, vulnerability and exploitation, which are the focus of this study. In debates about sex work, gendered ideas about women’s sexuality intersect with ideas about commerce; shifting conceptualisations of women’s labour; and social constructions of ‘Othered’ femininities, sexualities and labour. The persistent and enduring feminist debate revolves around whether sex work constitutes labour, which should be recognised and governed as such, or a form of gendered exploitation that should be eliminated. This debate still remains the dominant political backdrop for most sex work research, policy and law reform discussions, as well as public understandings of sex work (this debate is discussed further in Chapter 2). The ambivalence, confusion and fear about the morality and governance of sex work parallel public and policy debate about migration and movement across borders. These debates have been concerned with determining who is allowed within national borders, and how to assess the legitimacy, risk and value of those seeking entry into the nation. The fusion of global tensions around migration and global tensions around sex work are arguably most visible, and most contested, in debates about sex trafficking. The anti-trafficking industry’s persistent confusion between human trafficking,³ sex work and migration has also shaped how women’s sexuality and labour are read or understood across borders.

This study began by seeking to understand the experiences of women who occupy the ‘migrant sex worker’ category at the centre of these charged debates, and their experiences of agency, security and mobility. In doing so, this research starts from the lived realities of a group that often remains more imagined than understood. Research, policy and public discourses about ‘migrant sex workers’ are often much more confident about what migrant sex workers signify (i.e. vulnerability, criminality) but are often less clear about who the ‘migrant’ is. Determining who is or is not a migrant is not a simple empirical exercise but a process of social construction that is, in the case of sex work, significantly shaped by ideas about race, class, nationality and gender. Based on 67 interviews across Melbourne and Vancouver, this study interrogates public and policy perceptions of the ‘migrant sex worker’ by starting from the lived realities of women who embody or experience dimensions of this category. This includes (1) women who are legally identified as migrants or immigrants, (2) women who self-identify as migrants or immigrants, (3) women who may be assumed to be migrants by those tasked with governing sex work, and (4) women who may perform immigrant- or migrant-related identities in their work, such as exoticised ethnic identities. Adopting this broad definitional approach offers an opportunity to capture a diverse range of experience and social difference often subsumed under the ‘migrant sex worker’ category.

As this study involves an investigation of the ‘migrant sex worker’ category, a brief note about terminology is included here. First, I use the term sex work (rather than prostitution) to situate this study within a labour perspective or the view that sex work constitutes a form of labour that should be recognised as such. The term sex work is also used as this is the preferred term by most sex worker rights organisations, researchers and stakeholders that work from a sex workers’ rights perspective (e.g. Arthur, 2013). Second, I use the term ‘migrant sex worker’ in quotation marks to signify the diverse range of meanings and uses contained in this category. In doing so, I distinguish ‘migrant sex worker’ as a label or category, as something distinct from a migrant sex worker (no quotation marks) to indicate a sex worker who is legally or self-identified as a temporary migrant. Related to this are the distinctions between the terms immigrant, migrant, racialised and ‘culturally and linguistically diverse’ (CaLD) sex workers. I use the term immigrant to indicate an individual who has moved from one country to another for the purposes of settlement or residency. In this study, the term immigrant includes naturalised citizens, permanent residents or persons who have settled or intend to settle in Australia or Canada. I use the term migrant to indicate individuals with temporary or precarious migrant status in Australia and Canada, and, therefore, individuals who are granted fewer rights and protection than naturalised citizens or permanent residents. The term racialised includes non-White individuals who are born in Australia or Canada, as well non-White immigrants and migrants.⁴ Lastly, ‘culturally and linguistically diverse’ (CaLD) reflects a term or acronym used among community organisations in Australia to indicate a range of ethnic individuals and communities, including those who: are not White; are not from a Western, English-speaking country; do not speak English as a first language; or do not speak English with a Western accent (e.g. American, Australian, British). The term CaLD is used periodically when discussing the social construction of immigrant, migrant and racialised sex workers in Australia. Finally, I make the following distinctions between race, ethnicity and nationality. For the purposes of this study, race refers to (at times contested) social identities that broadly relate to one’s physiognomy or how one’s body or face is ‘read’. Asian and White are the main racial categories referred to in this study. Ethnicity is used to refer to more specific groupings that can be both linked to or separate from cultural identity and nationality; for example, Chinese, Korean and Thai would constitute ethnic identities rather than racial identities. Nationality is used to refer to one’s state identity or, more simply, what passport or citizenship a person holds.

The definitions outlined in the preceding paragraph speak to the constructions of social difference that ground the objective and research questions for this study. My research objective is to investigate how immigrant, migrant and racialised women in sex work negotiate their security, agency and mobility across sex work and migration regulatory frameworks in Melbourne, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. These cities offer different regulatory environments for sex work but share a similar British settler/colonial history, numerous ethnic communities and a similar urban ethos that values multiculturalism. The research is not focused on comparative analysis alone; rather, it brings together 67 interviews across both research sites (with 65 workers, one receptionist and one manager) to better understand the ways in which sex workers negotiate differing forms of regulation. This study is guided by three research questions. First, how do women sex workers’ social differences (e.g. race, class) shift across workplaces and borders? And how do these shifts shape spaces for agency, mobility and security in sex work? Second, how do regulatory frameworks produce illegality and legality in sex work and migration? And how are these fluctuations of illegality and legality (in movement and within the workplace) negotiated by immigrant, migrant and racialised women sex workers in order to secure their agency, security and mobility? Third, how does agency in collective workspaces affect immigrant, migrant and racialised sex workers’ security and mobility in sex work? And how is agency in collective workspaces challenged or enabled by sex work and migration regulatory frameworks?

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 provide a theoretical and methodological foundation for these questions. Chapter 2 examines the construction of the migrant sex worker and women’s agency in sex work research and examines research in two spheres where agency is exercised, specifically collective work environments such as brothels and massage shops, and law and regulation. Chapter 3 outlines how intersectionality theory, or the study of social difference (e.g. race, class, gender), informs analyses of sex work. The numerous identities immigrants, migrants and racialised workers embody across workplaces and borders offer an innovative application of intersectionality theory in criminology. An intersectional analysis of sex workers’ fluid social locations also helps to contest current policy and practice reliance on static conceptualisations of the ‘migrant sex worker’. Specifically, I employ Leslie McCall’s (2005) three intersectional methodologies, as discussed in the overview of Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Chapter 4 discusses key ethical dimensions of sex work research. This chapter draws on insights from post-colonial, feminist and sex work research to analyse how researcher identities (e.g. social locations, political views) are negotiated throughout the research process. This discussion of researcher positioning in the field also includes a brief overview of the history of exploitation in sex work research and how my position within a sex worker rights framework shaped my responses to questions of power, trust and reciprocity during the research process.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 answer the research questions stated previously and present the research findings relating to: (1) citizenship, immigration and migration; (2) the production and mobilisation of legal and illegal identities and knowledge; and (3) the construction and use of social difference by immigrant, migrant and racialised women in sex work. The research findings challenge previous mainstream understandings of the ‘migrant sex worker’ category in three key ways. First, Chapter 5 considers the non-migrant ‘migrant’ in sex work. This chapter addresses the first research question and utilises McCall’s (2005) ‘anti-categorical’ methodology to contrast the legal or administrative uses of the ‘migrant sex worker’ category with the social and affective dimensions of immigration, migration and citizenship. Contrary to public and policy assumptions, m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Investigating agency in sex work research
• 3 Intersectionality and social difference in sex work research
• 4 Power, positioning and other methodological challenges in sex work research
• 5 Sex work and the non-migrant ‘migrant’
• 6 Using legalities and illegalities in sex work
• 7 Co-workers, clients and knowledge production in sex work
• 8 Agency, security, mobility and social difference in sex work
• Index