Sex Work Against Work
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Department
Women and Gender Studies
Abstract
Sex work and the sex workers’ rights movement have a long history as a contentious issue within feminist theory. The demographic of sex workers skews disproportionately toward minority groups, and sex workers face enormous risk and marginalization from both the men who pay for their services and the justice system. This paper aims to use social reproductive theory and Marxist feminism to analyze the role sex work plays in modern capitalism, to outline the contemporary movement for sex workers’ rights, and to bring to its logical conclusion the disruptive potential of a politics of sex work. This paper will focus primarily on the exchange of money for in person sexual services (called full service sex work [FSSW] and prostitution interchangeably). This paper will argue that full decriminalization of prostitution is a necessary and life saving reform, using a politics of sex work to formulate a general feminist critique of work while maintaining the ultimate abolition of sex work is a desirable goal.
Sex Work Against Work
Sex work and the sex workers’ rights movement have a long history as a contentious issue within feminist theory. The demographic of sex workers skews disproportionately toward minority groups, and sex workers face enormous risk and marginalization from both the men who pay for their services and the justice system. This paper aims to use social reproductive theory and Marxist feminism to analyze the role sex work plays in modern capitalism, to outline the contemporary movement for sex workers’ rights, and to bring to its logical conclusion the disruptive potential of a politics of sex work. This paper will focus primarily on the exchange of money for in person sexual services (called full service sex work [FSSW] and prostitution interchangeably). This paper will argue that full decriminalization of prostitution is a necessary and life saving reform, using a politics of sex work to formulate a general feminist critique of work while maintaining the ultimate abolition of sex work is a desirable goal.
