Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:21:40.100Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Introduction: The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex: Taking a policy perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2014

Natalie Hammond  and
Feona Attwood
Natalie Hammond
Affiliation:
Department of Social Care and Social Work, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: [email protected]
Feona Attwood
Affiliation:
School of Media and Performing Arts, Middlesex University E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The transformation of the sex industry since 2000 has meant that the image of the ‘street prostitute’ touting for business on dark street corners is less representative of sex work or sex workers than it has ever been. Much of our knowledge about the sex industry, and about wider transformations of economic, intimate and cultural life, is out of date (Bernstein, 2007a), and policy processes are taking place within the context of limited or outdated knowledge. The growth in visibility, consumption and diversity of sexual commerce is now well recognised (Weitzer, 2000; Agustín, 2005; Scoular and Sanders, 2010) and commercial sex industries are known to operate across a variety of locations, and within specific modes of production and consumption, which are historically, contextually and culturally contingent and where ‘the meaning of buying and selling sex is not always the same’ (Agustín, 2005: 619).

Type
Themed Section on The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex: Taking a Policy Perspective
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 79 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agustín, L. (2005) ‘New research directions: the cultural study of commercial sex’, Sexualities, 8, 5, 618–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agustín, L. (2007) ‘Introduction to the cultural study of commercial sex’, Sexualities, 10, 4, 403–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, E. (2007a) Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity and the Commerce of Sex, London and Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, E. (2007b) ‘Sex work for the middle classes’, Sexualities, 10, 4, 473–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brents, B. and Sanders, T. (2010) ‘Mainstreaming the sex industry: economic inclusion and social ambivalence’, Journal of Law and Society, 37, 1, 40–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holt, T. and Blevins, K. (2007) ‘Examining sex work from a clients’ perspective: assessing johns using on-line data’, Deviant Behaviour, 28, 40, 333–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katsulis, Y. (2009) ‘“Living like a king”: conspicuous consumption, virtual communities, and the social construction of paid sexual encounters by US sex tourists’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 2, 210–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettinger, L. (2013) ‘Market moralities in the field of commercial sex’, Journal of Cultural Economy, 6, 2, 184–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, T. and Campbell, R. (2008) ‘Why hate men who pay for sex? Investigating the shift to tackling demand and the calls to criminalise paying for sex’, in Munro, V. (ed.), Demanding Sex? Critical Reflections on the Supply/Demand Dynamic in Prostitution, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 193–79.Google Scholar
Scoular, J. and Sanders, T. (2010) ‘Introduction: the changing social and legal context of sexual commerce: why regulation matters’, Journal of Law and Society, 37, 1, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weitzer, R. (2000) ‘Why we need more research on sex work’, in Weitzer, R. (ed.), Sex for Sale, London: Routledge, pp. 1–16.Google Scholar
Weitzer, R. (2007) ‘The social construction of sex trafficking: ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade’, Politics and Society, 35, 3, 447–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar