When Sex is Work: Exploring Diversity in the Relations Street-Based Sex Workers have with their Clients
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Frances M Shaver PhD |
In an earlier study examining the sexuality of street-based sex workers, my colleagues and I found that women were less likely than men to enjoy sexual activities with their clients and much less likely to experience orgasm. No such differences were found in sexual pleasure in the personal lives of these women and men (Weinberg, Shaver & Williams 1999). But, sexuality is more complex than the physical enjoyment of hand-jobs or giving and receiving oral sex — it also includes emotional and relational elements.
Thus, along with the gender difference regarding sexual enjoyment with clients, there is likely to be much diversity within gender categories in the way sex workers relate sexually and otherwise with their clients. Drawing on a study of 107 sex workers (women & men) conducted in Montreal and Toronto in 1993 & 1994, this paper will explore the extent and nature of this diversity.
The analysis is based on a closer look at the responses of women and men working in the sex industry to a series of open-ended questions about their work activities and how they perceive and manage the sexual nature of their work. Relying on the 3-fold definition of sexuality adopted in the New View manifesto (available at http://www.fsd-alert.org/manifesto.html), the detailed responses to these questions are thoroughly examined in order to provide some clues about the physical, emotional, relational aspects of the sex worker-client interactions.
The results from this study suggest that sexual relations between workers and clients is complex and better studied when adopting the 3-fold definition. Gender diversity was not as prominent as expected. There seemed to be many equivalencies between women and men sex workers suggesting that men too care about the emotional and relational elements of sexuality—at least with respect to sex work.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: Social Sciences And Humanities Research Council Of Canada; Concordia University, General Research Fund
Sydney Australia, April 2007
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Frances M Shaver
other talks by the speaker
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Frances M Shaver PhD
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Dr Shaver 'received her doctoral degree in Sociology from the Université de Montréal in 1987. Currently she is Professor and Chair in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University. Since 1990, she has participated in three Canadian government funded research projects focusing on people working in the sex industry (PWSI), two as the principal investigator and one as a co-investigator.
The first explored gender differences in the work patterns of street-based sex workers in Montreal and San Francisco while the second compared the working experiences of sex workers and hospital workers in Montreal and Toronto. In the third and most recent of these studies, Frances Shaver, along with Jacqueline Lewis (Principal Investigator) and Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale (University of Windsor, Ontario Canada) partnered with several community organizations in Toronto and Montreal (Exotic Dancers’ Association of Canada, Maggie’s, Stella, and Peel Public Health) to conduct a five year Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada study to examine the impact of public policy on the health and well-being of PWSI in 2 major Canadian cities. This Sex Trade Advocacy and Research project (STAR) produced two reports for policy makers and a series of information pamphlets for workers in the sex industry.'
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