R

Week01_Slides_History_of_Sex_Work_Research

Psycho-legal History of Sex Work

  • Sexuality, Psychology, & Sex Work

  • Social Construction of Commercial Sex

  • Clients

  • Prof. Belinda Brooks-Gordon

Background

  • Issue: Buying sex as a stigmatised activity

    • Clients depicted as deviant in literature

  • Rationale:

    • Understanding social and psychological mechanisms underlying legislation is crucial.

Research Philosophy

  • Aim: Understand how paying for sex became a so-called ‘deviant’ activity.

    • Investigate mechanisms that led to its stigma.

  • Specific objectives: Explore the underlying mechanisms.

Underlying Mechanisms

  • Trace the psychological, social, and legal history up to 2000-2005.

  • Explore historical mechanisms through text, images, and symbols.

  • Coverage from 2000/5-2020 through course materials.

  • Address contemporary issues from 2020-2025.

Classical Times

  • Visiting sex workers was commonplace (Foucault, 1986).

Virtuous Roman Client

  • Quote from Cato (trans. Burfurd, 1976):

    • "Blessed be they as virtuous, who when they feel their virile members swollen in lust, visit a brothel than grind at some husband’s private mill."

Early Middle Ages

  • No immorality in buying or selling sex.

  • Rise of the Church deemed only married clients as breaking the marriage sacrament.

Medieval Regulation

  • Brothels or stews were normalised and regulated for customer protection from high costs.

Colloquies of Erasmus

  • Text provides a conversation between client and prostitute as reading material for children's manners.

    • Norbert Elias suggests this was a normal part of education for medieval boys.

    • Emperor Sigismund publicly thanks city magistrate for brothel access in 1443.

Part of Medieval Life

  • Main Clients:

    • Included apprentices, servants, foreign merchants, clergy.

    • Visiting sex workers was acceptable for unmarried men.

  • Paying for sex was only an offence if the client was married (adultery).

  • Legal Context:

    • Adultery treated as a crime through ecclesiastical courts.

(Late) Medieval Client Violence

  • Regulation addressed only violence, leading to repayment to brothel owners.

Council of Trent (1545-63)

  • Historical Context: Regarded the moral implications of sexual behavior.

Elizabethan Acceptance

  • Elizabethan clients became numerous, visible and socially accepted in society.

  • Covent Garden emerged as a popular haunt with new coffeehouses.

Covent Garden (1600-1795)

  • Offers a detailed account in Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies, describing celebrated ladies of pleasure in the area.

1700s: Legitimate Client

  • Clients included younger sons and married men.

  • Noted social constructs of fear and risk in sexual encounters (birth control concerns).

Weak Victorian Client

  • Clients viewed as weak souls preyed upon by immoral women.

  • Contagious Diseases Acts (1864/66/69) led to women being sent to lock hospitals.

  • Judith Butler was an advocate against such practices.

Victorian Attitudes

  • Various societal fears illustrated in illustrated media (police news, public notices).

Modernity (1890-1930)

  • Promotion of conjugal love through literature (Marie Stopes, Havelock Ellis).

  • Freudian theory offers explanations on the role of the client.

  • Post-WWII era also labelled clients as deviant.

1950s: Client as Deviant

  • Literature (Women of the Streets by Rolph) highlighted issues.

  • Sexual Offences Act (1956) made soliciting illegal.

  • Wolfenden Report (1957) framed street soliciting as a nuisance.

  • Street Offences Act (1959) criminalised kerb crawling.

Transformation of Intimacy (1960s)

  • Sexual revolution linked to contraception and increased female sexual freedom.

  • Clients categorized as individuals with aberrant sexual desires.

(1970s-1980s) Dangerous Client

  • Media heightened anxieties towards clients, especially linked to crimes.

  • Sexual Offences Act (1985) penalised kerb crawling.

  • Public feelings prompted political action against perceived nuisances.

Tougher Approaches

  • Political refuge for tougher laws; recognition of sex workers' vulnerability.

  • Media narratives fueled negativity towards clients.

1980s-1990s: Dangerous Sexual Offenders

  • Political response to protect public against dangerous sexual offenders.

  • Emergence of HIV/AIDS crisis and socioeconomic concerns (feminization of poverty).

  • Law changes to increase recording of kerb crawling (1997), introduction of DNA regulations (1998).

Construction of Dangerous Client

  • Interplay amongst public pressure, media narratives, and political agendas shaped the view of clients.

2000s Legal Deviance

  • 1998 Crime & Disorder Act introduced ASBOs.

  • Enhanced police powers for arrest under CJP Act 2001.

  • Sexual Offences Act reforms (2003) addressing inciting prostitution for gain.

  • Laws reflect punitive measures influenced by societal norms.

Conclusion

  • By 2003, clients increasingly depicted as deviant individuals.

  • Psychoanalytical, rhetorical, and political influences profoundly shaped the discourse.

  • Historical symbols and narratives contribute to understanding the moral and ideological factors at play.