Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker: An Analysis of Media Representations

by Gwyn Easterbrook-Smith

Overview

This book considers sex worker representation in the news, where the public draws their understanding of the industry in the absence of lived interaction with it. Using New Zealand as a case study, the author encourages emerging acceptability based on neoliberal postfeminist discourses of choice, desire, authenticity, and personal responsibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538168349
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/05/2023
Pages:	212
Sales rank:	806,858
Product dimensions:	5.97(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Gwyn Easterbrook-Smith is a researcher, lecturer and commentator currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. They have most recently taught at Massey University. They were awarded a PhD in Media Studies from the Victoria University of Wellington in 2018. Their research deals primarily with media representations of the sex industry, with a particular interest in how these operate under New Zealand's legal model of decriminalisation.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction Sex and Work Sex work in New Zealand Sex work as work Researcher positionality Stigma and the Sex Industry What is stigma? How is stigma applied to sex work? How does this stigma affect sex workers? What approaches exist to resist this stigma? Sex Work in the News Media The role of the media People don’t know sex workers, but they watch TV Media analysis and news media New Zealand’s media landscape Chapter 2: Objects of Study Existing Research into Media Representations Naming the Sex Working Subject Who Speaks and Who is Spoken About Discursive Slippage and Questions of Voice Images and Motifs of Sex Work Chapter 3: Intertextuality and Responding to Stigma In/Visibility as Acceptability Normative Identity Categories and Community The Sex Worker as Disease Vector Sex Work and the Assumption of Violence The Constrained Nature of Intertextual Narratives Chapter 4: Comparative Acceptability Cisgender and Transgender Sex Workers: Vulnerable or Vilified Transgender workers as a physical threat Transgender workers as a moral contagion Migrant Sex Workers and Narratives of Economic Scarcity The early 2010s: the Rugby World Cup and Student Sex Work Migrant sex workers and trafficking Migrant sex workers as an economic threat in 2018 Indoor Workers, Work Volume, and Class Position Conclusion Chapter 5: Denying Legitimate Labor Migrant Workers: Deceptive or Exploited Street-Based Sex Work: Disrupting ‘Legitimate Businesses’ Indoor Sex Work: A Conflation of Work and Play Sex work as temporary or supplementary Invisible affective labour Anything But Work Chapter 6: Neoliberal Discourses of Choice and Pleasure Sexual Labour, Sexual Pleasure, and the Right ‘Choice’ The Un/Availability of Choices Removing Management from the Picture Chapter 7: The Making of the Sex Worker, the Remaking of Stigma Bibliography References Media Texts About The Author

Editorial Reviews

A sensitive, multi-layered account of what stigma looks like, how it is produced, and how it operates through media portrayals of sex workers and debates about sex work itself. Skillfully traces the function of multiple discourses--from sex positivity to transmisogyny--to reproduce stigma and privilege. Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker is written to be read widely--clear, engaging, poignant, and forthright; a useful volume for scholars and activists both in and out of the academy.

Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker provides a compelling account of how sex workers are represented and produced in New Zealand media to create the 'accepted' and 'unaccepted' sex worker. Easterbrook-Smith very eloquently argues that racist, classist, transphobic and xenophobic media reporting has functioned to reinforce a 'whorearchy' amongst sex workers through the shifting of stigma. The book is a thought-provoking read from beginning to end and a must-read for all who have an interest in sex work.

This important book offers a nuanced analysis of how media draw on a cultural imaginary of the sex industry to produce and reify the stigmas associated with sex work. Easterbrook-Smith deftly reveals the implicit hierarchies of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" sex workers and how intersectional oppressions of gender, race, class, and citizenship status are implicated in this stratification. This book should be key reading for sex work and labour researchers and activists, students of sociology and communication, journalists writing about sex work, and anyone concerned with the rights and legal protections owed to people doing sex work.

From the Publisher

A sensitive, multi-layered account of what stigma looks like, how it is produced, and how it operates through media portrayals of sex workers and debates about sex work itself. Skillfully traces the function of multiple discourses—from sex positivity to transmisogyny—to reproduce stigma and privilege. Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker is written to be read widely—clear, engaging, poignant, and forthright; a useful volume for scholars and activists both in and out of the academy.

Carisa R. Showden

Producing the Acceptable Sex Worker provides a compelling account of how sex workers are represented and produced in New Zealand media to create the ‘accepted’ and ‘unaccepted’ sex worker. Easterbrook-Smith very eloquently argues that racist, classist, transphobic and xenophobic media reporting has functioned to reinforce a ‘whorearchy’ amongst sex workers through the shifting of stigma. The book is a thought-provoking read from beginning to end and a must-read for all who have an interest in sex work.

Dr. Gillian Abel

This important book offers a nuanced analysis of how media draw on a cultural imaginary of the sex industry to produce and reify the stigmas associated with sex work. Easterbrook-Smith deftly reveals the implicit hierarchies of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” sex workers and how intersectional oppressions of gender, race, class, and citizenship status are implicated in this stratification. This book should be key reading for sex work and labour researchers and activists, students of sociology and communication, journalists writing about sex work, and anyone concerned with the rights and legal protections owed to people doing sex work.

Stacey Hannem