Researchers in the history of prostitution have only very rarely questioned the notion of labour relations in prostitution in a comparative perspective. 1 Similarly, the role of prostitution in the early modern economy or in the family economy has not been discussed in depth. However, prostitution was an essential component of the economy of makeshift of eighteenth-century urban working-class women, as highlighted by Olwen Hufton in 1974, but very little since then has been said on the means at the disposal of the prostitute to negotiate working conditions and labour relations. 2 Under a Marxist interpretation, “prostitution is only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the labourer”, meaning that in a capitalist economy, any sale of service creates a relation of subordination that transforms the worker into a commodified object. 3 In economistic analyses of prostitution, such as the work of Rosner, prostitution is seen as a viable and cost-effective choice, maximizing the utility of one’s body. 4 Prostitution follows the mechanisms of the free market and responds to an important demand from mainly male clients. 5 And with the rise of prostitutes’ activist groups staking claims for their rights as sex workers, a call has been made for historical studies on their working conditions as well as on the networks and exchanges facilitating or restraining their rights and their struggles to be recognized as citizens and workers.
The prostitutional exchange seems to be a very basic paradigm for labour relations: one producer and one buyer, with the production of surplus (historically
The organizational structures and relations in prostitution are diverse and complex, and the analytical tools of labour history seem particularly adequate for analysing in depth the working relations that are built up in the sex market. The study of labour relations looks at the relationships between different instances (employees, unions, management, the state, and consumers) in a working environment and how the work is organized in terms of contracts, payment, and use of surplus value. It differs from the study of working conditions which focus on the outcome of the negotiation process. Early labour relations studies focused on the analysis of relations between unions and the state, and how unions’ claims were negotiated in a capitalist economy. This approach is particularly relevant when studying contemporary prostitution and the protests of unionized sex workers but this scope would limit our research only to the past fifty years, whereas the construction and recognition of prostitutes as a group of workers are the results of a long-term evolution of working practices that have been defined and negotiated by various people and subjected to important legal and social changes over the past four centuries. Only by studying these interactions can we consider prostitution as a form of labour and understand the evolution of labour relations from a pre-modern to a global economy. The aim of this chapter is therefore twofold: firstly, to categorize the type of labour relations prostitutes established over time and space and how they negotiated them; secondly, to point out the different factors that influence labour relations and to show how changing patterns can be connected globally.
This chapter on labour relations in prostitution is based on the overviews collected for the project Selling Sex in the City, many of which appear in this volume. Though it focuses on the economy of prostitution and labour relations in particular, working conditions, gender issues, and migration studies
Types of Labour Relations in Prostitution 9
In most papers, the word “whore” (and its equivalents in other languages) does not refer to a type of work. It refers to and denigrates the “morality” of women as regards their sexuality. At the beginning of the period studied, judicial archives on trials for scolding shows the omnipresence of the word “whore” as an insult.
10
In Bolivia nowadays, prostitutes themselves make a difference between una puta and una meretriz: one is giving her body to anyone, without payment, while the other is a working woman.
11
By avoiding the word puta,
Prostitution and the Family Economy
The family economy is not always the first issue that comes to mind when talking about commercial sex and labour relations; however, the importance of the family when a woman decides (or is obliged) to enter prostitution often first comes into play, before the involvement of third parties. Too often and for too long the role of women and prostitutes in particular has been neglected in research on the family economy. In reality, very different structures have been put in place that include prostitution in the family economy, and based on the information provided in the urban overviews, it becomes clear that the surplus produced by prostitutes was included in the family economy in six different ways. As an household kin producer: A subordinate kin, such as a spouse or children of the head of household who live mainly through self-subsistence and contributes to the maintenance of the household by performing productive work for the household. As an household kin non-producer: subordinate kin such as a spouse (man or woman) and children of heads of households who can support the household (under either reciprocal or commodified labour relations), so the spouse and kin dependants are free from productive work but they contribute to the maintenance of the household by performing reproductive work for the household. Other labour positions in a family economy include being an indentured worker, a leading household producer, a self-employed worker or a wage-earner. 17
Analyses of the labour relations in a family economy are based on four variables: Who claims the money earned by the woman? What type of labour relation is put in place? Is it part- or full-time labour? And what is the surplus value used for? In most of the overviews collected here, the social structures are based on a patriarchal society and based on this basic family structure, a wide array of labour relations exist in which women produce reciprocal and commodified labour, from slave work to independent wage work. The difficulty of studying labour relations in prostitution in a family economy is based on the fact that a woman often carries out unpaid services for her father or husband, upon which prostitution can be superimposed. For instance, a daughter can contribute directly towards the earnings of the household by being a prostitute, with her mother or parents being the brokers. The daughter lives with the family but her earnings are taken by the head of the household, and thus she directly contributes to the family needs, whilst she is also requested to carry out domestic chores. In 1753 in Nantes for example, neighbours complained
A more reciprocal labour relation can be developed when a prostitute works with a sister or another member of a family and they form an independent household; this leaves them more freedom to dispose of the surplus value as wish. In Nigeria in the Hausa culture, kinship networks become an important tool for negotiating the difficult space of prostitutional work; it offers protection and “know-how” for adapting to and being integrated in the world of commercial sex. 20
Another type of labour relation found in a family economy is based on indentured work and the pawning of wife and daughter into the sex trade. This type of contract seems to have been especially developed in the Middle East (in Istanbul until recently) and Asia (China, Singapore and India) but cases of brothers pimping their sisters have also been found in Havana.
21
The family makes the first move to get the wife or daughter involved in the trade and finds a suitable broker, either to get a loan or to repay a debt. The woman works most likely on a full-time basis and all of her earnings are used to repay the debt.
Wives working as part-time prostitutes and whose earnings partly contribute to household revenues or are the only revenue in the family are in a particularly difficult situation. Family labour relations place intense pressure on women, and even though they earn enough to be more independent, they are forced to remain in the household structure. This situation can also trigger tensions relative to gender expectations in the household. By contributing actively to the earning of monetary capital for the household, the woman goes against the traditional pattern confining her to domestic duties and an economic situation of dependence. Ghosh, who studied such women in Kolkata, claims that their “gendered identity of housewife contradicts [their] class identity as a worker.” 22 By confiscating her income or not acknowledging these essential resources, as is the case in India for the “Flying Prostitute”, male relatives succeed in keeping the woman in an exploitative relation. Approval and recognition within the family is not always easy and many women have been struggling to find a compromise between their domestic position (i.e. as a married woman) and their working position. Women who have to complement the income of the family by selling their bodies intermittently are neither recognized as full-time prostitutes (registered officially in certain countries) nor as full-time housewives. This puts them in a difficult social situation and leaves them isolated as they struggle to be socially recognized and identified as workers. They remain part of the familial economy and their wages are the basis for the survival of the family, but through the denial of their work and the source of their wages, they are “excluded even from the category of marginal worker.” 23 In many ways, the situation of these women can be compared with the “housewifization” of garment workers studied by Mies, in the sense that their contribution to the household is not recognized by the community, their family, or their “employer”. 24 It is also interesting to note that if a woman’s job is well-integrated in the family economy and is accepted, the power relation between gender in the house remains unaffected by the fact that the woman is earning more than the man; expectations from male kin and the community remain the same (respect for the male head of the household and carrying out required female domestic duties) even if she is active in the labour market.
The Brothel Economy
If the woman is not working at home, she is either working indoors or outdoors; these situations lead to different labour relations with the people that employ her. In an indoor setting that is not privately rented, such as a brothel, karaoke bar, or massage parlour, women’s work is often based on an oral contract with the brothel owner or the manager of the place, although written contracts can also be drawn up—but they are of little value if prostitution has not been legalized and subjected to employment laws. The employment status of a prostitute
Regardless of whether a man or a woman owns and supervises the working space, the monetary aspect remains the basis of the labour relation; a third to half of the money earned by the woman goes to the brothel keeper to pay for rent, clothes, laundry, and food. A debt system is commonly put in place, which limits the possibility of exiting prostitution or leaving the establishment. By living in the brothel, the woman loses most of her negotiating power in dealing with the owner. This debt-bondage can be added to a family’s debt if the daughter or wife has been pawned. By putting in place a debt system, the labour relation of employer-wage earner is biased and becomes an indentured relation.
This situation, however, should not occur in countries or states where prostitution and the running of brothels are legal and regulated. For example in contemporary Amsterdam, prostitutes working in brothels are to be duly registered and are most often wage-earners.
31
They do not live in the brothel, and in practice, only rent a room from the establishment’s owner. In this case, no employment contract exists between the owner and the woman as she is not working for him/her.
32
By legalizing brothels, the Dutch government sought to limit the exploitation of women and the development of clandestine establishments by putting in place, at a local level, a licensing system and therefore
Pimps and Brokers
Intermediaries aside from the family can take part in the negotiation of prostitutes’ work. Working with a pimp, especially when soliciting outdoors, offers protection and facilitates making contact with customers. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (oed), the term “pimp” originally meant “procurer”, someone who facilitates illegal encounters; nowadays it refers to someone living off the earnings of a prostitute in exchange for protection and setting up meetings with clients.
33
The difference between a pimp and brothel owner lies in the environment, the spatial context; while a brothel owner negotiates labour conditions in connection with a specific place, a pimp does not own a place for the woman to work, and he can be working or hired just as a temporary broker. Different intermediaries can be used by migrants to negotiate working contracts. In Buenos Aires, casas de comisionistas, or agent houses, made the link between rural and urban work placement; women were often aware of the work they were going to do, and the agencies made the arrangements with brothel owners in the city.
34
Reciprocal dependence can sometimes be the basis of a labour contract. In Argentina, for certain self-employed women pimps were used to get them out of the system put in place by employment agencies and they “helped” prostitutes gain more independence.
35
In Nigeria, women use Jaguda boys to interact with clients and give them protection but these men have no control over the more experienced women.
36
Relations with a pimp are based on two factors: the experience of the woman (young prostitutes in Cairo were said to pay fixed wages to pimps whereas this was not economically viable)
37
and if a woman has been coerced and therefore is in a relation of dependence with the pimp. The situation of prostitutes working in cabarets and
The economy of prostitution became part of the global or at least transnational economy and market at a very early stage. Migrant women have almost always been the main contingent of prostitutes in cities. In eighteenth century Nantes for instance, only 40 per cent of the prostitutes were born in the city, a figure similar to London and Paris. Female migrants who became prostitutes in early modern Europe were usually from the surrounding villages, often from the same region and almost always from the same country; only capital cities such as London and Paris and “touristic” cities such as Florence and Venice had foreign prostitutes. Colonial cities and penal colonies also drew female migrants from surrounding countries. European prostitutes could be found in Singapore, though these women mainly entertained (white) officials only and had relatively good living conditions compared to indigenous women; they were able to negotiate with their customers and came to those areas with the aim of working as prostitutes. In parallel with free migration, the trade in women existed already at the beginning of the early modern period in cities such as
It should be noted that on a global level, there exists some confusion about the definition of trafficking; coercion or an exploitative relation is the basis of trafficking according to some but for others, the crossing of borders is the key; another definition relies on a third party as a necessary element of trafficking. In between these migrant categories (voluntary and coerced), we can find women who are not being trafficked but smuggled across borders to work in prostitution. Indeed, transnational prostitution is characterized by economic inequalities and it flourishes in socially unstable countries (e.g. eastern European trafficking after the collapse of the Soviet regime). 40 Women’s motivations for leaving their home countries are often economic and/or a desire to escape a situation of violence, either domestic violence or warfare. To be able to cross borders they rely on criminal organizations which take care of their transport for a certain fee, payable in advance or by working for them at the final destination. These women usually have a certain amount of control over their earnings and should be free to leave once their debts are paid, 41 but some are forced into very coercive working conditions that prevent their release, such as migrants from North Africa and eastern Europe in Jaffa/Tel Aviv at the beginning of the 2000s. 42
Union movements have called for national and international changes and they often challenge the role of the state in discrimination against prostitutes and condemn the alienating conditions in which they work, conditions that could be improved by legal requirements and the recognition of business relations between prostitutes, clients, and brokers. But the role of the state in labour relations in prostitution is very complex as policies vary. As Conner points out, even in France where the state has defended abolitionist policies since 1960, its actions regarding prostitutes are very uncertain and even contradictory.
43
Self-employment
With the development of the internet and mobile phones, communications have been made sex work easier and offers for private sex are increasing; the number of self-employed women is on the rise, as procurers are not needed to get in touch with clients. 44 Historically, self-employed women were mostly from the labouring class and engaged in survival sex, and prostitution was part of their makeshift economy. Nowadays, these women are from different social classes and some of them have university educations, though women from the labouring class remain the most numerous. Voluntary migrants (with or without papers) can also be self-employed; often they have previous experience in prostitution and can travel alone more easily from one city to another. Demand fluctuates and as customers may get “tired” of the same women, it is therefore more profitable to move to another city. These experienced women are self-employed, though they can stop at a specific brothel for a while (i.e. in Bolivia where registration is on a national basis) 45 and be in a position to negotiate with the brothel owner and the customers for fair prices and inexpensive accommodations. Another example of women’s migration motivated by demand was observed by Bradley in the 1970s; the number of sex workers increased around the Persian Gulf after the oil boom and there was an increasing number of wealthy Arab men in the region.
Being self-employed does not always entail security and choice, and in the case of streetwalkers working on their own, it can even be dangerous. The living conditions of self-employed women are therefore defined on a large spectrum; a relatively wealthy student in Nigeria taking up escorting so she can afford luxury items is not as vulnerable as a drug addict in Paris Bois de Boulogne. Negotiating power over price, security, and safety, or the possibility of being able to refuse a client, is increased only if the self-employed prostitute is not in a dire economic and/or physical situation (perhaps suffering from an addiction). Research shows that self-employed women are more likely to suffer violence at the hands of their customers than prostitutes in brothels or those under the protection of a pimp.
46
The poorest of these women, those who are self-employed but practicing survival sex, suffer the long-lasting
The motivations given for their entry into prostitution are wide-ranging; historically, economic needs were the most common reason given for getting involved in prostitution (whether self-employed or not) and this could have been triggered by a traumatizing event such as rape (sometimes by employers), violence, and domestic abuse. The risk of being a target of bosses and co-workers has also pushed women into prostitution; rather than enduring work harassment, they leave their place of work and choose prostitution instead. But recently, more and more self-employed women have another middle-class job (in business, management, or in teaching) and say that they have chosen prostitution not out of necessity, but because they are hoping to earn enough money so they can take part in consumer society. This seems to be a new trend in the current market as women who are already financially secure use prostitution as a source of extra income. Bernstein also found that “a new ethic of fun, sexual experimentations and freedom” led middle-class European women to take up prostitution. 48
Negotiating with Customers
So far customers have been absent from this discussion, but that is for a reason; even though prostitution exists where there is demand, it is important to consider the network that is in place before the prostitute reaches the client. But the interaction with the client is also the result of a set of negotiations based on power relations between genders. These power relations can be distorted or even culturally inversed from the usual man-woman relation. In local brothels in Bolivia, women can mock customers with the blessing of the brothel owner when customers refuse a drink or ask for a bargain.
49
For “passenger women” in the Papua New Guinea Huli culture, the fact that the man offers money for sexual intercourse is proof that the woman has vanquished him and debilitated his integrity.
50
In the case of internet dating and self-employment,
However, the customer is not always a simple consumer. The possibility of choice for customers for example is greatly reduced when the women are under the control of a pimp or brothel owner. Similarly, women in dire economic situations or in need of money to fuel their addiction are not in a position to choose or to negotiate the terms of the transaction. This puts them in a situation where the client, who should only be a consumer, has sufficient power to negotiate the sexual transaction to his advantage, by asking more for less, by refusing to wear a condom, or in particularly violent situations by refusing to pay or by forcing the woman to provide sexual acts that were not part of the initial deal. Donovan and Harcourt drew tables on “risk levels” linked with certain types of prostitution and labour relations which summarize well the power relation in place between prostitutes and clients according to location.
53
For instance, they argue that women working in a legal brothel or behind a window are at lower risk of violence as a relatively similar status existed between the customer and the woman (also a wage-earner). Besides, massage-parlours where non-penetrative sex is the norm lower the health risks for the women working in these establishments. Security mechanisms may vary but they are not accessible to every prostitute, and the context and location of the sexual intercourse have a major impact on women’s power to negotiate and thus on their health and safety as well. In this way, customers create a labour relation with prostitutes as soon as they are able to bargain during a transaction; negotiating a deal can also often lead to a dangerous situation for prostitutes (also
Factors Influencing Labour Relations in Prostitution
The Regulation System
In order to rationalize the labour market and control the economic and social environment surrounding prostitutes, early modern states/cities implemented different acts of legislation that recognized prostitutes as workers. In early modern Cairo, though no state-run brothels existed, pimps were organized in a type of guild; this meant that women had to pay taxes but it also allowed them to have access to the court and be able to participate in the traditional parade of the guilds every year.
54
In early modern Florence, a court for prostitutes was instated and women were required to pay taxes; they enjoyed more freedom and had more opportunities to use the city’s institutions and had larger properties than other women.
55
In imperial China, the whole market of prostitution was de facto regulated and categorized, offering a relatively safe environment for prostitutes.
56
By recognizing and also taxing prostitutes, these states and cities allowed prostitutes to live in an economically and legally bound environment, which was preferable to a hazy and blurred legal setting, as was the case in European countries. However, with the rise of the state and nineteenth-century colonial expansion, new regulation systems were put in place and exported to the colonies. The French system of regulation was tried in Cairo when Napoleon’s troops were stationed in Egypt, and it was implemented for a longer period than in other colonies.
57
Later in the century, England imposed the Contagious Disease Act on its colonial territories.
58
These legislations restricted the movement of prostitutes and implemented stricter controls on their health; these regulations were created in response to increasing fears over venereal diseases but could only be implemented effectively with the development of bureaucratization and the strict policing of urban environments. The system relied on the will to protect customers and society in general from being “infected” (physically and morally) by prostitutes; this fear
Distinctions were made in cities that had a system of regulation between registered and non-registered prostitutes. In terms of labour relations, non-registered women, whose number had always been higher than the number of registered prostitutes, could engage in less oppressive forms of work in the sense that they could move in and out of prostitution more easily. But they risked being arrested, harassed by the police, or denounced by their neighbours, and thus they lived in a socially tense situation. Registered women (often registered by force) had to endure discrimination and suffered major spatial and physical restrictions. 60 They were also harassed by the police (i.e., to submit to health checks) and became dependent on brothel owners, the unofficial agents of the state. This had a long-term effect on the development of labour relations in prostitution both in Europe and in the colonies; clandestine prostitutes had to go underground whilst registered prostitutes had to submit to harsh legal requirements. The regulatory system can indeed create oppressive labour conditions for prostitutes, still visible today in certain countries: leaving prostitution is made extremely difficult due to the registration process in Istanbul, whereas in the Netherlands, even though the registration process is reversible, a certain wariness remains among sex workers. 61
Space and Negotiating Power
By confining and restricting prostitutes’ use of the urban space, the state weakened their negotiating power and limited both their independence and their use of urban areas; first, prostitutes were unable to negotiate their working conditions as they were forced to work under the supervision of the police or brothel owners. Secondly, the use of space in prostitution is extremely meaningful in the negotiating process; in mid-nineteenth century Shanghai, when high class courtesans migrated to the city, “they redefined their use of time and space, to attract customers (rather merchants than literati), to take their own lovers in their private houses and to use parks and carriages as newly defined public spaces for their own purposes.”
62
The importance of the spatial context is clearly underlined here: by reshaping their use of space, both private
The figure of the brothel keeper has changed over time, mostly according to the legislation in place; in Europe, before the development in the nineteenth century of the regulation system which generally forbade men from living off the wages of prostitutes, men, women, and couples were tenants of “disorderly houses” where prostitutes could be found. Prostitutes either lodged there on a full-time basis or were called in by the owner when needed. Contemporary interviews as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reports have noted that a process of mimetization of family relations was sometimes visible within the brothel, notably in small establishments (with 3 to 4 prostitutes). This was often seen when a madam was in charge, a woman who played the role of a surrogate mother and took part in the prostitutes’ life experiences such as pregnancy or illnesses (at least as long as the women remained an economic asset). In Florence, for example, until recently and due to the large amount of migrants and trafficked women, prostitution was an all-woman trade. 64 Observers also noticed that madams were often former prostitutes who had managed to earn enough money to reinvest it in a business (as in eighteenth-century London and twentieth-century Mexico City and Cairo). 65 The gendering process in labour relations is important when working indoors because it can change the basic employer-wage earner relation into a relation comparable to a family economy and dependence; as noted for Shanghai, “powerful ties existed within these establishments, though many verged on the abusive.” 66
The domination of brothel keepers over prostitutes in western Europe diminished by the beginning of the twentieth century but labour relations were
A Homogenous Group of Workers? Labour Relations between Prostitutes and a Sense of Belonging
Labour relations are also affected by distinctions within the prostitutes’ group; these can be based on social class, ethnicity, or services provided and be fuelled by officials and prostitutes’ attitudes. By turning a blind eye to European prostitutes in colonial times and the owners of luxurious brothels, officials created a double standard that accentuated the tensions between sex workers who struggled to recognize themselves as members of a singular group. We can therefore see a double dynamic in state efforts to define prostitution; historically it has accepted some forms of prostitution whilst denigrating others. By implementing regulation, the state tried to create a homogenous group of prostitutes but officials continued to discriminate against certain women and so did society. This double standard was accentuated by the ethnicity, age, and economic situation of the prostitutes. 69 As a result, the dynamics within a group of women working in the same trade is also dual. Aims and motivations do not always mesh and labour relations clearly reflect the impact of this discontinuity between sex workers’ identities, and exploitative agents can benefit from these discrepancies.
Further collective actions were carried out in the course of the twentieth century; in 1970 in France, after an increase of police harassment, sex workers demonstrated in Lyon and Paris side by side with feminist activists. But it was only with the aids pandemic, the fear of global trafficking due to the high number of women being smuggled across borders to work in prostitution, and the development of women’s rights groups that prostitutes finally made their voice heard internationally as a group in the 1990s and early 2000s. In order to respond to the physical risks faced by sex workers and to be recognized as workers, different movements were born with the aim of defending prostitutes’ rights at the national level. Two trends have motivated these groups; first, the abolitionist trend considers prostitution to be a form of slavery and sees it as the ultimate commodification of women. They fight with the aim of eliminating prostitution by condemning traffickers, customers, and anyone living off the money made through prostitution; they also describe prostitutes as victims who should not be condemned for the economic situation that pushed them into the trade. The second trend is motivated by groups who support decriminalization and call for the legalization of prostitution so that it can be recognized as a legitimate form of labour (as is the case in Australia, the Netherlands, Curacao, and Bolivia to some extent). Movements uniting sex workers (the choice of expression has a strong significance) demand improvements in working conditions, ask for the same social benefits as other workers, and call for a halt to police harassment and discrimination. Their voice is being echoed by human rights ngos at the national and international level. In some instances, results can already be seen; in Bolivia, the police lost the power to
At a local level, the relations between sex workers have an influence on their daily lives, their work, and the security mechanisms they can put in place. On a daily basis, it is common to see women working in the same area talking together, even looking after each other, for example by keeping track of how long a woman is with a customer. Even before the expansion of the use of cars, prostitutes tended to walk in groups of two or three to create a feeling of security. However, such labour arrangements do not indicate the existence of a group mentality or the feeling of belonging to a large workers’ group. They are the result of private negotiations on a one-to-one basis. Sex workers often see themselves as part of different categories based on the type of work they do and the wages they receive. This distinction is key to understanding labour relations in these networks: elite escorts would not compare themselves to streetwalkers, as they claim that they provide both entertainment and company to their customers, not exclusively sexual intercourse. Labour relations are therefore based on the economic value of the women but also on the spaces in which they work. Both factors affect the network and the labour relations they develop by framing their expectations and the people surrounding them.
The Globalization of Prostitution: Homogenization?
This reflection on the labour relations in prostitution had two aims. First, to show the intricacies of the labour relations in prostitution and to reveal how prostitutes have negotiated these relations. Secondly, it sought to outline the effects of the globalizing process and the role of the state in the creation of group identities. Over the centuries, prostitutes, like most labouring women, have mostly been engaged in dependent labour relations, from slave work to wage earning in combination with domestic duties. However, some prostitutes have been able to negotiate their working conditions and have engaged in reciprocal or independent relations with brothel owners, pimps, and even the state. In parallel with this, the number of women working part-time in prostitution in order to build up capital and not only as a means of subsistence has exploded in the course of the last century as they are motivated by a desire to enter consumer society. In the past, however, prostitution was part of a makeshift economy and was clearly dominated by the poor working class but we see nowadays a multiplication of middle-class women using prostitution as a
I believe this statement should be re-evaluated as regards the previous arguments. It is undeniable that the profits made through the sex trade and the number of women trafficked or smuggled purposely for this trade reached, during these past decades, unprecedented levels, 72 which meshes with Jeffreys’ notion of industrialization. But it also appears that prostitution has been part of the transnational economy for centuries; voluntary female migration and women forced into prostitution could already be seen integrating with the international market in the early modern period and it boomed with colonization and the revolution of transportation. Prostitution can neither be considered an “illegal, small scale, largely local form of abuse” in the period preceding the 1970s, firstly because it is only since the twentieth century via prohibitionist policies that prostitution became illegal in countries such as Egypt, China, the us (Nevada excepted) and Russia. 73 Certain prohibitionist countries such as Norway and Sweden have made purchasing sexual acts illegal, but they have targeted clients and do not condemn the women who sell sex. Even in abolitionist countries, prostitution itself is not illegal, only the activities surrounding it are. Secondly, though we are lacking definite figures here, prostitution was probably not “small scale”; it had become part of the makeshift economy for many single women in urban environments already in the eighteenth century when the job market for women started to shrink. It was also part of the makeshift economy of women who moved to newly built colonial towns such[…] in recent decades prostitution has been industrialized and globalized. […] [T]raditional forms of organization of prostitution are being changed by economic and social forces to become large scale and concentrated, normalized and part of the mainstream corporate sphere. Prostitution has been transformed from an illegal, small scale, largely local and socially despised form of abuse of women into a hugely profitable and either legal or tolerated international industry. 71
It has become clear that there are various types of sex workers (not to mention the other aspects of the sex trade such as pornography and lap dancing) and these differences have been recognized and promoted by sex workers
Quoted from an interview with a sex worker in Kolkata in Dasgupta, this volume, Calcutta.
Note the exception of Lex Heerma van Voss, “The Worst Class of Workers: Migration, Labor Relations and Living Strategies of Prostitutes around 1900” in Marcel van der Linden and Leo Lucassen, (eds), Working on Labor: Essays in Honor of Jan Lucassen (Leiden, 2012), pp. 153–170.
Olwen H. Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1974).
Quoted in Jessica Spector, Prostitution and Pornography (Stanford, 2006), p. 64.
Richard Posner, Sex and Reason (Cambridge, 1992).
Marjolein van der Veen, “Rethinking Commodification and Prostitution: An Effort at Peacemaking in the Battles over Prostitution”, Rethinking Marxism, 13 (2001), pp. 30–51, 30.
Lin Lean Lim, The Sex Sector (Geneva, 1998), p. 10.
The categories of labour relations are based on the iish definitions from the global project on the history of labour relations. Available at: https://collab.iisg.nl/web/labourrelations/explanation-of-the-different-labour-relations; last accessed 9 January 2015.
The expression “survival sex” is open to debate but in this paper “survival sex” refers to people who engaged in sexual relations for subsistence needs. Melissa Ditmore, Prostitution and Sex Work (Historical Guides to Controversial Issues in America) (Westport, 2010). Jody M. Greene et al., “Prevalence and Correlates of Survival Sex among Runaway and Homeless Youth”, American Journal of Public Health, 89 (1999), pp. 1406–1409.
Note that the position of slave will not be described under a specific subheading, as it appears that women could be owned and used as slaves in different labouring contexts such as within the family economy or in a brothel; each time a relation similar to slave work can develop, it will be discussed.
See for example, Sandy Bardsley, Venomous Tongues: Speech and Gender in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2006).
Absi, this volume, Bolivia.
“A prostitute is a woman who abandons herself to the lubricity of man for wrong and mercenary reasons”, Diderot and D’Alembert, L’Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (Paris, 1775), p. 450.
Available at: http://www.oed.com; last accessed 10 July 2017.
Frederique Delacoste et al., Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry (1997).
van der Veen, “Rethinking Commodification and Prostitution”, p. 32.
Holly Wardlow, “Anger, Economy, Female Agency: Problematizing ‘Prostitution’ and ‘Sex Work’ among the Huli of Papua New Guinea”, Signs, 29 (2004), pp. 1017–1040, 1018. “Sex worker” is far from being a neutral expression and academics have often discussed the implications underlying this term, not always being able to reach a consensus.
Available at: https://collab.iisg.nl/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=273223&folderId=277142&name=DLFE-186110.pdf; last accessed 10 July 2017.
Marion Pluskota, Prostitution and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Ports (Abingdon, 2015).
Ziyad Choonara, “Selling Sex in Johannesburg: From 1886 to the Present”, unpublished paper collected for the project “Selling Sex in the City”, 2013.
Ekpootu, this volume, Nigeria.
Wyers, this volume, Istanbul; Gronewold, this volume, Shanghai; Herzog, this volume, Singapore; Dasgupta, this volume, Calcutta; Cabezas, this volume, Havana.
Swati Ghosh, “The Flying Prostitute: Identity of the (Im)possible Other”, Hecate, 29 (2003), pp. 199–214.
Ibid., p. 202.
Quoted in Peter Custers, Capital Accumulation and Women’s Labour in Asian Economies (New York, 2012), pp. 170–177 and 190–191.
Marjorie Muecke, “Mother Sold Food, Daughter Sells her Body: The Cultural Continuity of Prostitution”, Social Sciences and Medicine, 35 (1992), pp. 891–901.
See also Lisa Taylor, “Dangerous Trade‐offs: The Behavioral Ecology of Child Labor and Prostitution in Rural Northern Thailand”, Cultural Anthropology, 46 (2005), pp. 411–435.
Ekpootu, this volume, Nigeria.
Pluskota, Prostitution and Social Control, pp. 25–48.
Amir et al., this volume, Tel-Aviv/Jaffa.
Blanchette and Schettini, this volume, Rio; Wyers, this volume, Istanbul; Dasgupta, this volume, Calcutta.
Pluskota, this volume, Amsterdam.
Available at: http://prostitution.procon.org/sourcefiles/NetherlandsPolicyOnProstitutionQ&A2005.pdf, from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs; last accessed 10 July 2017.
Schettini, this volume, Buenos Aires.
Schettini, this volume, Buenos Aires.
Ekpootu, this volume, Nigeria.
Hammad and Biancani, this volume, Cairo.
Tracol-Huyn, this volume, Hanoi.
Hammad and Biancani, this volume, Cairo; Gronewold, this volume, Shanghai; Schettini, this volume, Buenos Aires; on Switzerland, see Marjan Wijers and Lin Lap-Chew, Trafficking in Women (Utrecht, 1997), p. 143.
Amir et al., this volume, Tel-Aviv/Jaffa.
See Rutvica Andrijasevic, Migration, Agency and Citizenship in Sex Trafficking (Amsterdam, 2010) on eastern European women migrating to Italy to work as prostitutes.
Amir et al., this volume, Tel-Aviv/Jaffa.
Conner, this volume, Paris.
Scott Cunningham and Todd Kendall, “Prostitution 2.0: The Changing Face of Sex Work”, Journal of Urban Economics, 69 (2011), pp. 273–287, 274.
Absi, this volume, Bolivia.
Gail Pheterson, “The Whore Stigma”, Social Text, 37 (1993), pp. 39–64, 40.
Lin Leam Lin also notes that children are often self-employed in the Philippines, selling sex as well as other services. The Sex Sector, p. 5.
Elizabeth Bernstein, Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex (Chicago, 2007) quoted in Ine Vanwesenbeeck, “Prostitution Push and Pull: Male and Female Perspectives”, The Journal of Sex Research, 50 (2013), pp. 11–16, 13.
Absi, this volume, Bolivia.
Wardlow, “Anger, Economy, Female Agency”, p. 1032.
Gronewold, this volume, Shanghai.
Manuel B. Aalbers, “Big Sister Is Watching You! Gender Interaction and the Unwritten Rules of the Amsterdam Red-Light District”, Journal of Sex Research, 42 (2005), pp. 54–62, 57–58.
Christine Harcourt and Basil Donovan, “The Many Faces of Sex Work”, Sexually Transmitted Infections, 81 (2005), pp. 201–206, 202–204.
Hammad and Biancani, this volume, Cairo.
Turno, this volume, Florence.
Gronewold, this volume, Shanghai.
Hammad and Biancani, this volume, Cairo.
Rhys Glyn Llwyd Williams, “Towards a Social History of London Prostitution”, unpublished paper collected for the project “Selling Sex in the City”, 2013.
See Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race, and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York, 2003).
Judith Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society (Cambridge, 1980).
Wyers, this volume, Istanbul; Pluskota, this volume, Amsterdam.
Catherine Yeh, “Playing with the Public”, in Wendy Larson (ed.), Gender in Motion (Lanham, 2005), pp. 145–156.
Registration does not always mean confinement in a brothel. The Chinese system and early modern Florentine system, which sought to supervise prostitutes, did not have such an oppressive impact on women engaging in sex work.
Turno, this volume, Florence.
Nuñez and Fuentes, this volume, Mexico City; Hammad and Biancani, this volume, Cairo.
Sue Gronewold, Beautiful Merchandise: Prostitution in China 1860–1936 (New York, 1985).
Lim, The Sex Sector, p. 29.
Frances, this volume, Sydney/Perth.
Researchers working on British colonial prostitution have been particularly active. See for example Philip Howell, Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire (New York, 2009); Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics; Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi (Chicago, 1990).
Absi, this volume, Bolivia.
Sheila Jeffreys, The Industrial Vagina (London, 2008), p. 3.
Paola Monzini, Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime, and Exploitation (London, 2005).
This is a non-exhaustive list.
Choonara, “Selling Sex in Johannesburg”; Frances, this volume, Sydney/Perth; Herzog, this volume, Singapore.
Tracol-Huynh, this volume, Hanoi; Gronewold, this volume, Shanghai; Herzog, this volume, Singapore.
Ashwini Tambe, Codes of Misconduct (New Delhi, 2009).
Kathleen Barry, The Prostitution of Sexuality (New York, 1995), p. 122.
See also Jackie West, “Prostitution: Collectives and the Politics of Regulation”, Gender, Work and Organization, 7 (2000), pp. 106–118.