Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective
Mónica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail.

Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences.

Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world—from South Africa to India—to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between “abolitionists” and “sex workers’ rights advocates” to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.

1102188588
Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective
Mónica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail.

Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences.

Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world—from South Africa to India—to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between “abolitionists” and “sex workers’ rights advocates” to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.

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Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective

Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective

Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective

Policing Pleasure: Sex Work, Policy, and the State in Global Perspective

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Overview

Mónica waits in the Anti-Venereal Medical Service of the Zona Galactica, the legal, state-run brothel where she works in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico. Surrounded by other sex workers, she clutches the Sanitary Control Cards that deem her registered with the city, disease-free, and able to work. On the other side of the world, Min stands singing karaoke with one of her regular clients, warily eyeing the door lest a raid by the anti-trafficking Public Security Bureau disrupt their evening by placing one or both of them in jail.

Whether in Mexico or China, sex work-related public policy varies considerably from one community to the next. A range of policies dictate what is permissible, many of them intending to keep sex workers themselves healthy and free from harm. Yet often, policies with particular goals end up having completely different consequences.

Policing Pleasure examines cross-cultural public policies related to sex work, bringing together ethnographic studies from around the world—from South Africa to India—to offer a nuanced critique of national and municipal approaches to regulating sex work. Contributors offer new theoretical and methodological perspectives that move beyond already well-established debates between “abolitionists” and “sex workers’ rights advocates” to document both the intention of public policies on sex work and their actual impact upon those who sell sex, those who buy sex, and public health more generally.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780814785096
Publisher: New York University Press
Publication date: 12/01/2011
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Susan Dewey is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at University of Alabama. She is the author and editor of many books, including Women of the Street: How the Criminal Justice-Social Services Alliance Fails Women in Prostitution (NYU 2017).

Patty Kelly is Assistant Research Professor of Anthropology at George Washington Universityin Washington, DC. She is the author of Lydia’s Open Door: Inside Mexico’s Most Modern Brothel.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction: Sex Work and the Politics of Public Policy Susan Dewey Patty Kelly 1

2 International Trends in the Control of Sexual Services Michael Goodyear Ronald Weitzer 16

3 Into the Galactic Zone: Managing Sexuality in Neoliberal Mexico Patty Kelly 31

4 Sex Work and the State in Contemporary China Tiantian Zheng 45

5 Smart Sex in the Neoliberal Present: Rethinking Single Parenthood in a Mexican Tourist Destination Dawn Pankonien 59

6 On the Boundaries of the Global Margins: Violence, Labor, and Surveillance in a Rust Belt Topless Bar Susan Dewey 73

7 The Virtues of Dockside Dalliance: Why Maritime Sugar Girls Are Safer Than Urban Streetwalkers in South Africa's Prostitution Industry Henry Trotter 86

8 "Their own way of having power": Female Adolescent Prostitutes' Strategies of Resistance in Cape Town, South Africa Zosa De Sas Kropiwnicki 100

9 "Hata watufanyeje, kazi itaendelea": Everyday Negotiations of State Regulation among Female Sex Workers in Nairobi, Kenya Chimaraoke Izugbara 115

10 Prostitution in Contemporary Rio de Janeiro Thaddeus Gregory Blanchette Ana Paula da Silva 130

11 Prevailing Voices in Debates over Child Prostitution Heather Montgomery 146

12 Organizational Challenges Facing Male Sex Workers in Brazil's Tourist Zones Gregory Mitchell 159

13 "What is the use of getting a cow if you can't make any money from it?": The Reproduction of Inequality within Contemporary Social Reform of Devadasis Treena Orchard 172

14 Moral Panic: Sex Tourism, Trafficking, and the Limits of Transnational Mobility in Bahia Erica Lorraine Williams 189

References 201

About the Contributors 221

Index 223

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A rich and deeply insightful collection of ethnographic studies of sex work, taking us from China to Braziland from South Africa to North America. Probing into the complex nexus of structure and agency, exploitation and liberation, it sensitively exposes the need for public policy that is evidence-based and responsive to the lives and experiences of sex-working adults and children. A tremendously valuable and welcome collection for teaching, research, and analysis of contemporary conditions in the global sex trade.”

-Kamala Kempadoo,author of Sexing the Caribbean: Gender, Race, and Sexual Labour

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