‘All work is prostitution’: an exploration of sex work, exploitation, and dis-organising

Thesis

The sex workers’ rights movement has rallied around the slogan that ‘sex work is work’. However, this tells us surprisingly little about how this work can and should be understood. Through approaching sex work as a form of work, this project explores and clarifies how this work is best understood. This thesis constructs a conceptual framework for understanding sex work as a kind of work. The archives of the English Collective of Prostitutes and the Wages for Housework movement, available at the Bishopsgate Institute London, are used to historicises a perspective of approaching sex work as a form of work. This thesis expands upon the existing analysis of how exploitation in sex work can be conceptualised by incorporating the testimonies and writings of sex workers. Through an analysis of Nicholas Vrousalis’ account of ‘exploitation as domination’ applied to independent sex workers, this thesis develops the existing ‘anti-work’ reading of sex work. The ‘anti-work’ perspective offered by some sex worker radicals is found to be the most fruitful for developing an understanding of the harms of sex work, including exploitation, and for constructing a critique of work generally. Finally, this thesis explores organising in the sex workplace and the potential for this to be a rich resource for other kinds of work organising. Drawing on the work of incarcerated queer abolitionist Stephen Wilson in his essay ‘Dis-Organising Prisons’, the concept of ‘dis-organising’ is adopted to offer insight into discussions on organising around marginalised and criminalised forms of work. The concept of ‘dis-organising’ is used to further illuminate the kind of ‘non-reformist reforms’ that sex worker radicals are aiming at. In particular, the discussion focuses on attempts by sex worker radicals to reform sex work whilst simultaneously seeking to deconstruct this work under existing systems of racialised capitalism.

Authors: Westwood, K

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zbgxz2ya1
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: archives; anti-work; Marxist feminism; English Collective of Prostitutes; Wages for Housework; abolition; labour organising; exploitation; Marxism; sex work; social movements; political theory; feminist theory
• Subjects: Feminist theory--Political aspects