What It Feels Like For A Whore: The Body Politics of Women Performing Erotic Labour in Hong Kong

Academic PapersWHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A WHOREGENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 13 No. 5 September 2006
What It Feels Like for a Whore: The

Body Politics of Women Performing
Erotic Labour in Hong Kong
Travis S.K. Kong*
This article seeks to investigate the complexity of the working experiences

of female prostitutes in Hong Kong, using an oral history approach. Based
on 13 in-depth interviews, I depict my respondents as performing the
skilled emotional labour of sex in exchange for their clients’ money.
Looking at the ways in which the women manage the job, the self and the
business, I argue that their major problem is not with the commercial
transaction (that is, the content of the work itself), nor with the ‘conflict’
between their personal and work selves, but with the social stigma, sur-
veillance and dangers at their workplaces. Inspired by a post-structuralist
conception of power and identity formation, I propose a women-centred
lived-experience feminist approach in the hope of filling the gap between
the bipolar imageries of ‘sexual slavery’ or ‘sex radical’ that have been
thrown up in the feminist debate over the meaning of prostitution. This
approach emphasizes the inter-relationships among women’s lived expe-
riences, the micro-sites of social surveillance and the macro-condition of
wider society. Although Hong Kong female prostitutes are not ‘political’ in
fighting for their rights and benefits, they have tended to take the path of
micro-resistance in combating societal domination. They negotiate an
identity of the ‘prostitute’ that is sensitive and flexible to different insti-
tutional areas that seems to jeopardize the neat binaries of madonna/
whore, good girl/bad girl, victim/warrior, conformist/radical. This allows
them to create their own space to work and survive.
Keywords: emotional labour of sex, female prostitution, lived experience,

micro-resistance, whore stigma
Address for correspondence: *Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and
Humanities, University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomas Pereira S.J., Taipa, Macau, E-mail:
travisk@umac.mo
© 2006 The Author(s)

Journal compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
410 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION
Introduction
T his article draws on, and contributes to, recent developments in the fem-
inist debate on prostitution and in the contemporary sociology of work
by examining the complexity of the working experiences of female prosti-
tutes in Hong Kong based on 13 in-depth interviews. I start with a brief fem-
inist discussion on the meaning of prostitution which centres around the
sexual victim versus sexual agent debate (for example, Chapkis, 1997;
Jeffreys, 2004; Nagle, 1997; O’Neill, 2001). Looking at the ways in which the
women manage the job, the self, and the business through the concept of the
emotional labour of sex (Hochschild, 1983), I argue that their major problem
is not the work itself or the discrepancy between personal and work identities
but the social control and surveillance at their workplaces and the social
stigma (particularly the whore stigma, [Pheterson, 1996]) from the wider
society. It is from this point that I, inspired by a post-structuralist approach to
power and identity formation (Foucault, 1977, 1980; de Certeau, 1984),
propose a women-centred lived-experience feminist approach in the hope
of going beyond the sexual victim/sexual radical dyad. This approach
acknowledges the working complexity of Hong Kong female prostitutes and
views women as possessing strategic identities from which they derive
tactics to react against various forms of domination in order to survive in a
complex web of power and domination.
The feminist debate on prostitution: ‘sexual victim’ versus

‘sex radical’
Traditional accounts of prostitution were mainly drawn from a biological
perspective (for example, where female prostitutes were said to have salient
‘demonic’ features that become observable when their skulls are measured
precisely (Lombroso and Ferrero, 1895), a psycho-pathological perspective
(for example, where it was argued that female prostitutes had a childhood of
deprivation and abuse (Glover, 1960), or a functional perspective (for exam-
ple, where prostitution is regarded an outlet for marriage (Davis, 1976).
Whether or not they were sympathetic, such studies were usually strongly
clinical. They tended to humanize the ‘deviant’, advocate tolerance and
weaken the language of the exotic, but prostitutes were basically seen as ‘the
other’ and forced to talk about what made them that way and just how ‘evil’
or ‘bad’ or ‘different’ they were as women.
In contrast to these approaches, recent studies arising from feminist,
social constructionist and/or discursive approaches stress the socio-
historical, cultural, economic and political contexts that have mediated and
given rise to the institution of prostitution in contemporary society (Brewis
and Linstead, 2000; Scambler and Scambler, 1997; Weitzer, 2000). Their
Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A WHORE 411
concerns range more widely to include such issues as how the history of
prostitution has been tied to the history of sexuality, cathexis and the social
organization of desire. This, in turn, has given rise to new discussions of
unequal patriarchal relations, notions of femininity and masculinity and
capitalist relations of exchange in a world in which everyday life, even
love, is increasingly commodified. Recent approaches also stress the voices
of the prostitutes themselves. In this approach, the stories of individual
prostitutes are told. Some researchers, themselves claiming to be (ex-)
prostitutes, have even written their own stories (for example, Chapkis,
1997; Kesler, 2002).
Among feminists, two broad but opposing positions on the issue of pros-
titution in feminism are documented in the existing literature (Chapkis, 1997;
Jeffreys, 2004; Kesler, 2002; Nagle, 1997; O’Neill, 2001; Overall, 1992; Shrage,
1989, 1994). One position views prostitution and the wider sex industry (for
example, pornography) as one of the purest expressions of patriarchal dom-
ination over women and the most brutal form of male sexual oppression and
exploitation. Prostitution tends to reinforce male domination (and thus the
whole patriarchal institution) and reduces women to nothing but bought
objects in the market. This position usually leads the discussion to the idea of
cultural cleansing and to calls for a total abolition of the institution of pros-
titution. Chapkis (1997) has called this position ‘radical feminism’ as it views
‘commodified sex as a form of — and incitement to — sexual violence’ (1997,
p. 1). She articulates two further positions within it: pro-‘positive’ sex femi-
nists, drawing upon the work of Kathleen Barry (1979, 1992) and Carole Pate-
man (1980, 1988) for examples; and anti-sex feminists, referring to the work
of Catherine MacKinnon (1979, 1987) and Andrew Dworkin (1987, 1988) for
illustration. Chapkis argued that the former group believes that love, rela-
tionships and mutual pleasure are the only appropriate contexts for sex. ‘Pos-
itive’ sex, as an expression of passionate love, must be based on trust and
sharing. Sex cannot be purchased and the practice of prostitution is not really
sex at all, but only an abuse of sex:
For pro-‘positive’ sex feminists, then, sexuality may be able to be reclaimed
from the patriarchy, but not in forms easily recognizable to us as sex.
Because prostitution and pornography have already infiltrated our imag-
inations, women’s fantasies and sexual activities must be cleansed of their
residue. Pro-‘positive’ sex feminists advocate the abolition of practices of
prostitution both in order to prevent further contamination of the erotic by
the pornographic, and to free women from the burdens of sexual objecti-
fication by men. (Chapkis, 1997, p. 16)
Chapkis (1997) argued that the latter group flatly postulates that sex itself
must be abolished: ‘Catherine MacKinnon insists “... men say all women are
whores. We say men have the power to make this our fundamental
condition” ’ (MacKinnon, 1987, p. 59, quoted in Chapkis, 1997, p. 19). If the
© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

very meaning of sex is a social construct of male power, then ‘there is nothing
sexual to recover or reclaim’ (1997, p. 13). No matter which position one
takes, Chapkis concludes that ‘the prostitute becomes the symbol of women’s
abject powerlessness under conditions of male objectification and domina-
tion’ (1997, p. 19). In a similar vein, Nagle (1997) has called this position ‘tra-
ditional’ or ‘stop’ feminism because of its attempt to abolish the sex industry,
bounded by moral agendas. A similar position also mentioned is ‘for prosti-
tutes, against prostitution’ — a position that is sympathetic to the ‘wrong’
doings of prostitutes but that lobbies for improvements to their demeaning
working conditions with the long-term goal of abolishing the institution of
prostitution, which is believed to be exploitative in nature (Jeffreys, 2004;
O’Neill, 2001; Shrage, 1989).
There is another approach; one that draws heavily on the tradition of civic
rights and sexual libertarianism, that emphasizes the right to free sexual
expression and stresses the skills and control wielded by the prostitutes in the
commercial exchange itself. This approach sees female equality as being
based on free choice, which should include the right to engage in prostitu-
tion. Those advocating this approach see a woman’s association with sex not
as the root of her oppression and abuse but as the source of her greatest
power. The ‘whore is dangerously free’ (Roberts, 1992) because she effec-
tively resists and defies male power by refusing to allow her sexuality to be
owned by one man and also because she enjoys the financial and sexual
autonomy that is almost always denied to the majority of women in patriar-
chal societies. Chapkis (1997) has called this position ‘sex radical feminism’,
drawing upon the work of Annie Sprinkle (1991) and Pat Califia (1980, 1988,
1994) as examples. She has argued that prostitution (or recreational or com-
mercial sex) is a ‘potentially liberatory terrain for women’ (Chapkis, 1997, p.
1). Those holding this position view the prostitute as a symbol of sexual
autonomy and as a potential threat to patriarchal control over women’s sex-
uality. They embrace ‘the prostitute’, together with ‘the slut’ and ‘the dyke’,
as a potent symbolic challenge to the notion of proper womanhood and as
subverting conventional sexuality. Similarly, Nagle (1997) has called this
position ‘sex-positive’ feminism because it views the sex industry as allowing
space for the empowerment of women and for a celebration of the sexual
pleasure of women. Others label it ‘whore feminism’, which is ‘ “pro-sex”
and against or subversive of “traditional” feminism and sexual oppression’
(O’Neill, 2001, p. 26).
Thus, at one pole, the prostitute is portrayed as a humiliated, bought
object and as a victim of sexual slavery, while at the other pole, she is per-
ceived as some kind of sex radical who freely chooses to become a prostitute,
fight for the rights of sex workers and subvert conventional sexual norms.
The feminist prostitution debate seems to be polarized around two diamet-
rically opposed positions of victim/agency. Jeffreys (2004, p. 74, brackets
included) has summarized the situation succinctly:

This conflict ... revolves around the question of whether female desire is
always/already subordinate to male power, and therefore an expres-
sion of women’s sexual colonization and victimization under the sys-
tem of hetero-patriarchy (the so-called ‘victim’ model), or whether
women’s liberation might be better achieved by rejecting the traditional
dichotomization of women into good girls/bad girls, madonnas/
whores, and hence refusing to organize one’s sexual desire and plea-
sure in terms of the repressive and passive roles that are traditionally
ascribed to female sexuality within dominant discourses (the so-called
‘agency’ model).
For the sake of simplicity, I call the first feminist position (for example, ‘rad-
ical feminism’, ‘traditional/stop feminism’, ‘for prostitutes, against prostitu-
tion’) ‘anti-prostitution feminism’ because of its proponents’ normative (or
essentialist) definition of sex (or sexual pleasure), their basic assumption that
sexual exploitation is inherent in prostitution and their agenda to abolish the
institution of prostitution. As for the latter (for example, ‘civic rights femi-
nism’, ‘sex radical feminism’, ‘sex-positive feminism’, ‘whore feminism’), I
call it ‘pro-prostitution feminism’ because of the emphasis its proponents
place on the free choice of women to engage in prostitution, their affirmation
of prostitution as (sex) work and their insistence on improving the working
conditions of prostitutes without necessarily abolishing the institution of
prostitution itself.
This article fully acknowledges the merits of the work of these two
camps: the emphasis of the former on the vulnerability of women who per-
form erotic labour and their insistence on challenging social injustice and
structural constraints, and the view of latter of the prostitute as a transgres-
sive sexual and political identity in which subversion can be seen as a
means of opposition. In the battles over the meaning of prostitution, how-
ever, the ‘prostitute’ has become a symbol, while the actual complexity of a
prostitute’s experiences — as a woman who performs erotic labour —
seems to be under-researched (Bell, 1994; Chapkis, 1997; Kesler, 2002;
O’Connell Davidson, 1994; O’Neill, 2001; Pheterson, 1996). Initial interviews
conducted for this study with some female prostitutes in Hong Kong sug-
gested that the issues of power, control and consent may be more complex
than depicted by either of these positions. This article hopes to address this
gap. Inspired by the post-structuralist conception of power and identity for-
mation, it proposes a women-centred lived-experience feminist approach
that goes beyond the images of sexual victim/radical and links the experi-
ences of women’s everyday lives with the micro-sites of social surveillance,
while taking the macro-structural constraints into consideration. In this
study, the ‘prostitute’ is viewed as a person with a multifaceted and poten-
tially strategic identity who is struggling to survive in a complex web of
power and domination.

Methodology
For this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 women prosti-
tutes in 2001 in collaboration with Zi Teng (a non-governmental organiza-
tion in Hong Kong that fights for prostitutes’ rights), using an oral history
method (Thompson, 1988).1 All those interviewed were women in their
early twenties to mid-fifties, but clustering more in the mid-forties. They
had mainly a primary or secondary level of schooling, with the exception of
one, who was a university graduate. The interviews were conducted in the
presence of a Zi Teng staff member who had established a rapport with the
interviewees through Zi Teng’s outreach work. The interviews mainly took
place in the office of Zi Teng or in the workplace of the interviewees. One
was conducted in a hospital. Some of the interviewees worked as well in
different occupational settings such as nightclubs, escort agencies, massage
parlours, karaoke bars or even in the streets, but most during the time of
interview were mainly independent prostitutes who operated (or worked
at) one-woman brothels.
The length of the interviews ranged from one-and-a-half to three hours,
for a total of approximately 24 hours of interview time. The interviews, which
were tape-recorded, transcribed and translated (from Chinese to English),
were free-flowing in style but focused on these women’s working experi-
ences and life stories. A grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin,
1997) was used to guide the interviews.
My initial assumption, inspired by the victim model of anti-
prostitution feminism, was that most prostitutes were forced (or at least
not willing) to enter the sex industry. Thus, the basic question was how
difficult they found it to ‘sell’ their bodies, and the aim was to examine
how much they were being exploited and dominated by their clients and
the whole institution of prostitution. Particular attention was paid to the
problem of choice and the issue of their control over the work. Contrary
to my initial thoughts, most of my interviewees had chosen to work as
prostitutes and seemed to have control and autonomy in the whole pro-
cess of the commercial transaction. I found Hochschild (1983)’s notion of
emotional management useful in viewing their work through the con-
cept of ‘emotional labour’. Because of the nature of their work, an exami-
nation was then made of the discrepancies between their working and
their personal identity. I discovered that the women have to employ
extra effort to handle this stigmatized job, and that they do it mainly
through ‘closeting’, a phrase borrowed from the gay and lesbian libera-
tion movement.
Although the interviewees could manage their work quite well and dis-
tance their personal selves from their work selves, they had extreme dif-
ficulty handling their business, mainly because of the micro-sites of
domination through various agents (for example, clients, police, landlords,

neighbours, triad members2). However, they had very little desire to confront
the law directly or to organize any kind of visible and confrontational labour
movement. In addition, in their sexual values they shared the same preju-
dices as those of the dominant culture. Their apolitical and conventional
characteristics seemed to be at odds with the image of a transgressive sexual
and political minority that has been portrayed in the agency model of pro-
prostitution feminism.
In sum, my initial intention in the study of forcing them to fit into the cat-
egory of either sexual slave or sex radical failed. Instead, I employed a post-
structuralist notion of power and resistance (de Certeau, 1984; Foucault,
1977, 1980; Scott, 1985) and of identity formation (Hall, 1996; Mouffe, 1995) to
examine the everyday lives of these women, taking into account the micro-
sites of social surveillance and the macro-societal conditions that constrain
their lives. I found a women-centred lived-experience feminist approach
(O’Neill, 2001) useful, as such an approach on the one hand acknowledges
the societal constraints and prejudices crystallized as the whore stigma
(Pheterson, 1996) from the gendered sex hierarchy (Rubin, 1993) and embed-
ded in the micro lives of prostitutes via the local surveillance of agents; while,
on the other hand, it stresses the women’s possession of strategic and flexible
identities as prostitutes that seem to permit them to create their own space for
survival. Before spelling out this approach, let us examine these women’s
lives in terms of three aspects: their management of the work, of the self and
of the business.
Managing the work

This section discusses the nature of sex work through interviews. The focal
point is on their choice in engaging in this occupation, the degree to which
the women can control their work (especially during the process of the com-
mercial transaction) and how their work is different from or similar to other
types of work.
Choice and consent

Viewing prostitution as woman’s choice is a way to reduce all women to
the lowest and most contemptible status of women in any male-dominated
society ... if we accept prostitution as a form of women’s work, then we
must accept sex and women’s bodies as commodities, an idea that is at core
of so much sexual exploitation and violation. ... Prostitution is intricately
interrelated with the exploitation and oppression of all women. Sexual
violence and sexual slavery are the most obvious connections. (Barry, 1988,
p. 290)

The anti-prostitution feminist position is clearly illustrated in this quote:

women are forced to engage in prostitution. Even if they enter into pro-
stitution by choice, it is not the right choice and they will simply be reduced
to the lowest level of being a human being. Prostitution is exploitative in
nature and sexual slavery is the logical outcome of women who perform
erotic labour.
However, most of the people interviewed for this study (ten out of 13)
chose to work in this profession. For example, Ann is in her late thirties, mar-
ried with two daughters. She moved to Hong Kong from mainland China in
1994. Although she was caught by the police once and was sent to jail for 18
days, she thought that being a prostitute was the right choice:
I think I did make the right choice. Since coming here [Hong Kong], I
couldn’t adjust in the first few jobs. ... It’s the problem of human interac-
tion, and you have to please your boss. ... Life was very hard when we
were there [mainland China], so I really wanted to make good money here
[Hong Kong] for a better life. ... No one forces me to do it, it is my choice.
The problem of choice is always grounded in the assumption that prostitu-
tion is a monolithic entity. There are, indeed, many stories about women who
have been forced into prostitution (Chan, 2002; Davies, 2000), but there are
also some women (for example, the interviewees in this study and others
mentioned in studies such as Ho, 2000; Kesler, 2002; Oerton and Phoenix,
2001) who choose to do this job. Some prostitutes have little control over their
choice of job, while others certainly have more power over their lives than an
average married housewife. Prostitutes, like any other wage labourer, work
from positions of unequal privilege.
Secondly, it might be dangerous to second-guess women who tell us that
they have chosen their work and enjoy it:
[T]o tell women that their choice in this situation is always an illusion is to
force victimization of women, many of whom are no more victims than
non-prostitute women under our current, patriarchal capitalist system.
(Kesler, 2002, p. 223)
Thus, a lack of choice should not be considered as inherent in prostitution.
Thirdly, the issue of choice sometimes does not refer to the matter of free
choice, but to the matter of right choice. That this argument of the right choice
seems to rely on the whore stigma will be discussed later.
Job autonomy
With regard to the issue of job autonomy, prostitutes, like other wage labour-
ers, render themselves temporarily unfree in relation to their own body dur-
ing the sexual transaction. The prostitute–client exchange can hardly be

argued to be completely voluntary, as the capitalist employment relation has

always been involuntary:
[T]o make a living from prostitution, it is necessary to surrender control
over whom to have sex with, and how and when, just as it is necessary to
surrender control over who directs your labour power and to what ends
when you enter employment. (O’Connell Davidson, 1996, p. 193)
But, unlike the sexual slave that seems to be generally depicted in the anti-
prostitution feminist rhetoric (for example, ‘sexual violence and sexual sla-
very are the most obvious connections’ (Barry, 1988, p. 290), prostitutes enter
into a series of one-off sexual transactions with numerous men (not into a
permanent agreement to be the legal property of any one man) and, again
unlike the slave, prostitutes presumably may freely withdraw from these
contracts.
Not only did my respondents chose to work in this occupation, a detailed
look at their work shows that they can actually exert a certain degree of con-
trol over it through tactics such as client screening and service provision. As
prostitutes mainly work on their own, carrying cash and operating in a
situation of social isolation, it is of utmost importance to them that they can
control their work and protect themselves (for example, by avoiding robber-
ies or rapes, and preventing themselves from being caught by police, usually
disguised as clients, laying a trap for them). Client screening is the main tactic
that they employ to exert control over and protect themselves in their work:
You can choose your clients, you can say ‘no’ to someone who looks dirty
or who doesn’t want to use condoms, you could do whatever you want to
do. The most important thing is that you shouldn’t have any debts to pay,
otherwise you would have to work under great pressure. By the way, you
can even tell a client not to come again if you don’t like him. (Lucy, 52, a
single mother with a daughter and a son)
You must be smart; otherwise you will die very soon. If you see a guy who
doesn’t look all right, you say, ‘I am busy: another time, please’. (Maggie,
45, a single mother with a son)
I’d mark up the price, and then he’d say ‘no’. For example, I’d say $500,
and he’d then say, ‘You! Do you deserve this price?’ (Wendy, mid-40s, a
single mother with a daughter)
Most of the interviewees offer a service package that include showering, fell-
atio and vaginal intercourse. The price ranges from HK$200 to $500 (roughly
£15–45) and the duration is around 20 to 30 minutes. However, they impose
quite a few restrictions on the sexual practices they are willing to perform or
on the types of clients they will accept. For example, nearly all the women
insist on using condoms while performing vaginal intercourse (but are quite
ambivalent about the use of condoms for fellatio). The main reason is to

avoid contracting sexual diseases. In addition, they refuse to engage in any

type of anal sex (such as anal intercourse, rimming, fisting) as they find this
‘dirty’ and ‘cheap’. From their point of view, such acts would only be per-
formed by ‘desperate’ prostitutes, such as trafficked women from mainland
China or south-east Asian countries (for example, Thailand). Moreover, they
do not engage in sado-masochism (S & M) (especially masochism) as they
think S & M is ‘perverse’. They reject foreigners as clients, as they think that
their penises are ‘bigger’ and that they ‘smell’ (mainly referring to Indians).
They also think that foreigners ‘know more about sex’ and thus would do it
for ‘longer’, which would shorten the amount of time they would have to
earn money. They also reject women, as they find sex with women ‘filthy,
dirty and weird’. The negotiations or the boundaries of the services they are
willing to provide not only shows their control over their work (and thus
refutes the common myth that many men means random men [Pheterson,
1996], but also reflects their own moral standards. As is evident, they share
the same prejudices as those who are part of the dominant culture in Hong
Kong (Kong, 2001a, 2001b).
Emotional labour of sex

The notion of sex ‘work’ has always been challenged, as prostitutes are ‘only
doing what comes naturally’ and thus they are deprived of the status of
‘worker’. Quite contrary to what some people believe, the work seems to
require certain skills. For instance, Mary is in her forties, a single mother and
with two daughters. She has been working as a prostitute for about five
years. Without knowing anyone in the industry, she simply walked into a
villa and asked for a job. But her first experience was dreadful,
I thought I simply sold my body, I didn’t know that there were so many
other things I had to do. ... I remember the weather was quite cold so I
asked him [the client] if it would be okay not to take off my shirt but only
my trousers. He didn’t say anything but after we finished, he went out to
complain about me, ‘What the hell’s going on? Didn’t she know what to
do? She didn’t take off her clothes, didn’t give me a blow (job), nothing!’ I
was completely unaware that there were so many other things I had to do.
Mary learned later that the standard process involves showering, fellatio and
vaginal intercourse.
Ann is in her late thirties, married and currently living with her husband
and two daughters. She started working in saunas first. She said she learned
a lot in her first few months of work:
At first, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to use my mouth [fell-
atio]; my clients taught me. I didn’t do it [fellatio] with my husband. I have
learned a lot [from this job] ... so I do think that this [job] is a professional

job because I had to learn how to do it. Money doesn’t come to your hand.
You have to give before you take.
Performing oral sex, taking certain sexual positions, ‘finishing’ a client
within a certain period of time all involve skills and techniques that most of
my respondents learned through the process of labouring. It is thus ques-
tionable whether one may dismiss sex work as unlike other forms of physi-
cal labour such as massage, with the argument that the body is merely sold
or that no technical skills are required. And it is also doubtful that the
mechanics of sexual stimulation are not complex and thus require no exper-
tise to accomplish.
A basic assumption about prostitution is that the sale of sexuality involves
a fundamental sale of the self. Since sexuality cannot be separated from the
person, prostitutes who provide such services inevitably sell out their whole
self. As argued by Pateman (1988):
When a prostitute contracts out use of her body she is thus selling herself in
a very real sense ... when women’s bodies are on sale as commodities in the
capitalist market, the terms of the original contract cannot be forgotten; the
law of male sex-right is publicly affirmed, and men gain public acknowl-
edgement as women’s sexual masters — that is what is wrong with pros-
titution. (Pp. 207–8, emphasis in original)
In The Managed Heart (1983), Hochschild challenges the idea that emotion is
a natural and endangered resource. She further suggests that emotion is
always already social — and thus ‘can be performed, created, objectified
and exchanged’ (Chapkis, 1997, p. 73). Hochschild (1983) defines ‘emotion
work’ (or ‘emotion management’) as an internal process of managing our
feelings and emotions, while ‘emotion labour’ is an external process where
the aim is to ‘create a publicly observable facial and bodily display’ (1983, p.
7n) to be sold for a wage. In exploring the effects of the ‘commercialization
of human feeling’ among flight attendants she argues that flight attendants
are, indeed, engaged in emotional labour. Emotion is not something ‘natu-
ral’ that exists independently of its social expression and management. ‘In
managing feeling, we contribute to the creation of it’ (Hochschild, 1983,
p. 18). The awareness and expression of feeling is necessarily a form of
objectification.
Hochschild’s notion of emotional labour can be applied to the case of pros-
titution (for example, Sanders, 2004). Prostitutes create a work persona that
not only gives them a sense of control but also protects them by allowing
them to employ techniques of boundary maintenance:
The prostitute’s skill and art lies in her ability to completely conceal all
genuine feelings, beliefs, desires, preferences and personality (in short, her
self) and appear as nothing more than the living embodiment of the client’s
fantasies. (O’Connell Davidson, 1996, p. 190)

The first tactic of prostitution — the emotional labour of sex — is to show

affection; for example, acting gentle, talking with a smile or showing warmth.
When asked what she normally did when she opened the door, Angel (35,
single) replied, ‘You know, I typically smile and say, “Please come in. Are you
alone, sir?” ’
It is an unspoken understanding that the transaction concludes after the
client has ejaculated. If a client were to come too early, Joey (42, single) would
comfort him by saying, ‘Don’t worry, come back next time, I will give you a
discount.’ Apart from these ‘diplomatic’ skills, most of my respondents know
very well how to make their clients feel good about the size of their penis or
their sexual performance, or to fake an orgasm in order to please their clients.
The second tactic is care-giving and even providing some sort of
counselling:
It is very common for our clients to be married. They are quite unhappy
about their work and so they find us, talk about it, and ejaculate. ... Since
they have ejaculated on us ... they won’t rape other women ... and they
wouldn’t lose their temper when they go home ... they won’t ejaculate on
their wives when they get home. ... And they complain about their wives.
... I listen to their quarrels and try to sort out the problems. ... I do find
myself acting like a counsellor. (Maggie, 45, a single mother with a son)
Providing care, concern and offering a sympathetic ear to clients seem to be
essential skills in their work.
The third tactic is to set up an emotional boundary with some clients. For
example, kissing is regarded as an intimate act and an expression of love.
Almost none of the interviewees kiss their clients. When faced with a client
who has a crush on them, they normally refuse him:
I always treat it as a business, I said to him [a client who fancied her] very
frankly, ‘I treated you as a client, I couldn’t accept your love’. I was very
honest and I thought I did hurt him. (Mary, mid-forties, a single mother
with two daughters)
I have my own family. ... I have a clear boundary with my clients. They are
not my boyfriends. Maybe I could treat some of them as friends, but no
more than friends. (Ann, late thirties, married with two daughters)
There are many reasons for this emotional boundary. Some (like Ann) are
married and do not want to have any romantic affairs arising from their
work. Some (like Joey and Mary) are afraid of the risk that the clients might
want to take an advantage of them (such as, to obtain free sex). Some (like
Lisa) have completely given up the idea of finding a man, as they have com-
pletely lost interest in men. Some (like Angel) who wish to find a man would
prefer to find one outside the industry, although they know that this is not
very realistic. Their different responses seem to suggest that they have the

ability to separate their (sex) work from personal (love) relationships and that
they can love or be sexually responsive to their boyfriends, husbands or even
their clients if they choose to do so.
By consciously offering smiles, care, concern and consideration, Hong
Kong female prostitutes suppress and falsify feelings and actively manufac-
ture a work persona in order to control their work and to prevent their work
selves from collapsing into their ‘real’ selves. Their lives seem to confirm the
statement that they are selling their bodies, but keeping their souls.
Managing the self

When asked about their attitudes to their jobs, Maggie and Joey were very
positive:
I quite like my job, I am quite happy with it. Nothing really bothers me and
my clients are quite nice to me. I do think that it is a job. ... I work with con-
science, I never cheat, steal or rob, I never seduce other women’s husbands,
they come to me. ... I think of this as a job. (Maggie, 45, a single mother with
a son)
This is definitely a job. ... I don’t think it is any different from other kinds
of jobs. I treat it as a business, what’s the difference? ... This is an old job
and has its own value. I treat it as a business and thus I don’t find this job
any different from other kinds of jobs. There is really no difference. (Joey,
42, single)
This positive job attitude, however, seems to be in contradiction with the neg-
ative feelings that they commonly experience:
(This work is) very, very depressing. People discriminate against us. ... I
dare not speak out. I have always been lying to other people. (Lucy, 52, a
single mother with a daughter and a son)
What is the most unbearable aspect of this work? I think everyone should
have some basic pride. There are many kinds of ‘normal’ work ... and to
my family and my friends, I have been telling a big lie for many years. ...
I really want to live a normal life. (Angel, 35, single)
I still cannot accept how people look at me. You can’t tell people that you
are a whore, or sex worker, I can’t speak out ... but if I were working at a
nightclub, I could tell people. ... But what I am doing now (working in a
one-woman brothel), I can’t tell people. Its status is much lower than work-
ing at a nightclub ... but if I ask myself, I have done all right, I have never
hurt anyone, especially in love. I never cheat. ... But you know that people
still look down on you. (Mary, in her forties, a single mother with two
daughters)

Pheterson (1996) has argued that the whore stigma is a female gendered
stigma, ‘a mark of shame or disease on an unchaste female slave or criminal’
(1996, p. 65). A prostitute is a ‘bad’ woman with a ‘spoiled identity’ (Goffman,
1963), while a customer is merely a naughty boy or a dirty old man with
sleazy habits. In other words, ‘she is bad for who she is and he is bad for what
he does’ (Pheterson, 1996, p. 48). Women engaging in illicit sexual activities
may be regarded as unchaste. Above all, ‘many’ (sex with more than one
partner) and ‘money’ (sex for money) seem to be the two defining features of
a ‘whore’. This whore stigma also applies to the status hierarchy within the
industry; i.e., the lowest status is the street prostitute (maybe too many men
but too little money), followed by those who work in a one-woman brothel,
then those who work in a massage parlour, karaoke bar or nightclub. Thus,
what some of the interviewees (like Lucy, Angel and Mary) find unbearable
about their work is not the content of the work itself but the social stigma
from society and within the industry.
Originating from the gay and lesbian liberation movement, the term ‘com-
ing out’ describes the process of a person recognizing his/her homosexuality,
coming to personal terms with it and then informing his/her family and the
public. But nowadays coming out can broadly refer to the practice of an open
recognition of a stigmatized identity (for example, that of an HIV carrier,
prostitute or drug addict) or even practices (S & M). Although people who
stay in the closet have been accused of lacking political responsibility by fash-
ioning a self-loathing, stigmatized persona, closet practices should also be
seen as productive. Staying in the closet not only allows people to avoid the
risk of unintended exposure, but also allows them to create a protected social
space that permits the individual (in this case, a prostitute) to fashion a work-
ing self and to navigate a path between the outer world and the sex industry
(Kong, 2002).
Nearly all the interviewees had not come out and had no intention of com-
ing out to their family or relatives:
Never, I won’t let them know, ever. ... I do mind my relatives knowing
what I am doing. I think I would have no face. (Barbara, in her forties,
single)
Lying seems to be one of the main tactics of living in the closet. Maggie has
a son who is 16-years-old:
I said I am now working at a beauty salon in Cheung Sha Wan, but I told
him that I don’t really work there as I have some old customers and so I
work in private practice. ... You know, this is to prevent him from really
finding the salon. (Maggie, 45, a single mother with a son)
Ann was charged by the police once and put into jail for 18 days. She thinks
her husband knows that she has been involved in the sex industry, but she
tries to hide the other side of the story:

He doesn’t know very clearly, and I don’t want him to know. He only
knows that I rent a flat for some girls to do it, that’s why I was charged by
the police, but I guess he doesn’t know that I did it as well. (Ann, late thir-
ties, married with two daughters)
To sum up, prostitution is not only a kind of physical work that entails skills
and techniques, it is not something that can be done naturally, but is also a
kind of emotional labour. Prostitutes have to manage their feelings in order to
create a publicly observable facial and bodily display in order to attract or
please their clients. On the one hand, prostitutes are similar to other kinds of
emotional labourers, such as flight attendants, nurses, or sales representa-
tives, as the worker has to monitor and control her emotional behaviour
(especially with clients and other powerful people), provide appropriate
care, support and ‘counselling’, define working boundaries and engage in a
presentation of a self that is appropriate for the interaction, regardless of her
true emotional reactions at the moment. Furthermore, prostitution is also
similar to other ‘bodywork’ such as that carried out by therapeutic massage
practitioners, as both involve forms of physical touching, primarily engaged
in for monetary gain (Oerton and Phoenix, 2001). On the other hand, how-
ever, the prostitute is different from all these emotional labourers not because
she is involved in selling emotion or even selling her body but because of the
very fact that she is selling her body for sex. It is the whole emotional cost and
labour attached to managing the stigma and to crafting an identity that
marks the prostitute off from other emotional labourers.
The prostitute’s handling of the emotional labour of stigmatized work first
of all depends on her status within the sex industry. Secondly, nearly all those
interviewed for this study had no intention of subverting the meaning of
being a whore and none claimed that she was proud of being a whore! In fact,
their moral standards conform very much to those of the existing patriarchal
and sexist order. They do not seem inclined to challenge male domination,
heterosexual supremacy and sexual normalcy (for example, in their unques-
tioned assumption that male sexuality was impulsive and should be accom-
modated by women; their rejection of sado-masochism and kinky sex and
their homophobic reaction towards lesbianism). They are not sexual slaves,
nor are they sex radicals. They accommodate the whore stigma mainly
through closeting, and manoeuvre between a stigmatized working persona
(the whore) and a public self of good woman/wife/mother.
Managing the business

In comparison to their management of their work (the sexual transaction) or
their selves (closeting), the interviewees are more vulnerable when managing
their business. They are constantly exposed to different forms of danger,

abuse and violence. This is the major site of domination that they seem quite
unable to handle.
Although client screening may be useful in screening out unwanted cli-
ents, since the whole screening process is usually based on their sixth sense
or experience the women will sometimes make a wrong decision. For exam-
ple, Angel (35, single) sometimes has clients who remove the condom during
intercourse. On one occasion when this happened, ‘I was very angry, I
shouted at him but you know, I couldn’t really shout at him as he might have
attacked me if he got angry!’
Joey (42, single) persuades her clients to use condoms by saying
You are so young, why do you take this risk? Don’t trust me, I am unclean;
if you catch something, don’t blame me. But even for myself, I really want
to live longer.
Apart from clients who remove condoms during intercourse or who are
reluctant to wear one, the interviewees are constantly exposed to various
abuses, such as being robbed, receiving less than the negotiated amount of
money or even no money, receiving counterfeit money, being beaten by cli-
ents or even being raped (Kong and Zi Teng, 2003). Their vulnerability seems
to lie in their occupational setting (a one-woman brothel), where the whole
transaction takes place in a private context and premises, and in their unwill-
ingness to report the crimes that sometimes result.
Visits from the police seem to be a everyday activity in the lives of most
Hong Kong female brothel prostitutes. Police visits can be classified into
three main types. The first is the most direct. The police enter the brothel in
order to ‘check their license’. As there is, literally speaking, no license to
check, the term is thus a generic reference to a police visit. What the police
actually do is check a tenant’s lease, ask for information on the landlord and
mark down the worker’s identification number and other information. If
they find a woman and her client in the middle of a transaction, they will
probably charge the woman, although the police might not witness the act of
soliciting. In some cases, police will verbally ask the woman to move out. The
second type of visit is directed, not at the prostitutes themselves but at poten-
tial clients. Police can stand in front of the door of the brothel to stop clients
from entering or they may guard the main entrance of the building to deter
potential clients. The third type is an entrapment exercise. Disguised as a
potential customer, a policeman simply goes to visit a prostitute. Regardless
of who initiates the soliciting, once the transaction starts (or sometimes after
it is finished), the woman will probably be arrested.
Barbara has had to move many times. The month that she was working in
Tsuen Wan seemed to be the most horrible period for her:
It was the most horrible month in my [work] life. ... When I started to work,
the first day, the police came, but it was all right. They did the usual stuff,

noted down my name, looked at the lease, asked me how much I’d charge
for a client, etc., which is the normal procedure. ... But a week later, a group
of policemen came and they were very rude and hostile. They said fiercely,
‘You can’t work here, don’t you know that? ... I tell you, you have to get
lost.’ They then left and informed the landlord. That night, the landlord
came with a friend to my flat and they looked at me as if they would beat
me up, saying, ‘I didn’t know you were a whore!’ I said that it was my busi-
ness and I would pay the rent. ... But she said, ‘Come on, you’d better get
out of here.’ The woman was very angry. I kept walking backwards and at
last my back was against the wall. I was so scared that they would really hit
me. She came with another friend and both of them were very big. I was
really scared. ... I then called the police. But when they came, they said,
‘You’d better go. This is a place for people to live’. I told them that I called
them up to rescue me but, like the landlord, they only wanted to kick me
out. ... Then, two days later, more then ten young kids from a triad society
came to ask for a protection fee. ... That month was really the most horrible
month. I couldn’t really be at peace. I was scared most of the time by the
police ... the landlord, the triad society ...
Not all prostitutes experience such hassles from the police, landlords, triad
societies or neighbours. The frequency of visits from the police varies from
one district to another, as does the harassment from other agents. The degree
to which the police will suppress prostitution also depends on the current
political climate and even on national festive events.3 Their working difficul-
ties reflect the stratified nature of the sex industry. Generally speaking, pros-
titutes of a higher status (who work at nightclubs, massage parlours or
karaoke bars) have to work with agents or are controlled by triad members to
whom they have to pay a commission, and thus earn less. Brothel or street
prostitutes are freer but more vulnerable when confronted by the police,
neighbours or triad members.
Power, resistance and the practice of the self

I have argued that my interviewees have chosen to work as prostitutes, and
have gained control and autonomy through the management of their work;
that is, through performing the emotional labour of sex. However, they have
to employ extra effort to handle this stigmatized job and they do this mainly
through closeting. The practice of closeting not only protects them but also
their families, as living on the earnings of the prostitution of others is an
offence. Although they can manage their work quite well and distance their
personal selves from their work selves, they have extreme difficulty handling
their business, mainly because of the micro-sites of domination through var-
ious agents (for example, clients, police, landlords, neighbours and triad

members). With very little intention to confront the law directly or to orga-
nize any kind of visible and confrontational labour movement, female pros-
titutes in Hong Kong are prone to resorting to passive solutions, such as
keeping silent or leaving premises in order to prevent or minimize abuse.
What kind of image, then, can be imagined and what kind of feminist posi-
tion created of such work? The ways in which anti-prostitution feminists
depict social injustice in relation to female bodies are insightful, but their
ways of looking at the meaning of sex and their presumption that there is
hardly any choice (or that choice is only an illusion) in prostitution is debat-
able. First of all, the meaning of sex is not fixed but multiple, and is deeply
implicated in structures of power and inequality:
To focus only on pleasure and gratification ignores the patriarchal struc-
ture in which women act, yet to speak only of sexual violence and oppres-
sion ignores women’s experience with sexual agency and choice and
unwittingly increases the sexual terror and despair in which women live.
(Vance, 1984, p. 1)
Sex has no intrinsic meaning; a loving relationship can be abusive while a
commercial transaction can be fair and equal. Sex is not necessarily equated
with male domination or prostitution with exploitation. Sex should be
treated as a terrain of struggle, not fully determined by the sexist order.
Secondly, it is the case that many female prostitutes (including my inter-
viewees) choose to work in this occupation. If we accept that we all choose a
job because our options are limited, lack of choice should not be seen as
inherent to prostitution and it is dangerous to second-guess their decisions
(Kesler, 2002). Although one may argue that prostitution is not a good option,
their choice should be respected. The respondents in this study are not sexual
victims in terms of their choice and control over the work, but they are vic-
tims in terms of their vulnerability in dealing with the micro-sites of surveil-
lance and with societal prejudice. Therefore, what should be abolished is not
prostitution per se but the poverty, poor working conditions, abuse and
despair that are usually associated with the profession. Prostitutes, like other
workers, want to change their circumstances without necessarily changing
their trade (Pheterson, 1996).
It would seem to be more accurate to view prostitution as an occupation,
as proposed by pro-prostitution feminists. However, the prostitute may not
act as a political (sex) radical. The interviewees in this study primarily
focused on the issues of economic survival and security for themselves and
their families. Some (like Ann and Angel) treat prostitution as only a tempo-
rary job, most of them have no intention of organizing any movement to pro-
mote the rights of sex workers and none of them are ‘sex radicals’ in the sense
that they would try to subvert sexual norms. They even share the same prej-
udices as are held by society as a whole towards certain sexual practices
(such as sado-masochism, lesbianism and inter-racial sex). They enjoy and

are proud of their work but they are not transgressive enough to challenge
the sexist order.
Margo St. James from COYOTE (Call for Your Tired Ethics) has stated
that ‘any theory dealing with prostitution should be generated “from the
inside out” … otherwise, it is likely to add to the stigmatization of prosti-
tutes rather than being helpful’ (quoted in Kesler, 2002, p. 220). Power
manifests itself through visible and overt forms of domination, especially
through legal practices. Although prostitution itself is not illegal in Hong
Kong, virtually every activity connected with it is. Soliciting in a public
place for ‘immoral’ purposes, exercising control over people for the pur-
poses of prostitution, or keeping or permitting a premise to be used for
prostitution are but a few examples of the criminal offences connected with
the trade.4
Moreover, power circulates and consolidates through the perpetuation of
ideology. Contemporary views of both love and marriage are that they are
absolute and are the preconditions for sex. A lifelong, heterosexual and
monogamous marriage has thus become the ideal form of love and the only
standard against which to measure one’s love. As argued by Rubin’s (1993)
notion of sex hierarchy, good, normal and natural sex should ideally be het-
erosexual, marital, monogamous, reproductive and non-commercial, while
prostitution is regarded as bad, abnormal or unnatural, as it is promiscuous,
non-procreative, casual and commercial. In addition, this hierarchy is gen-
dered, as the prostitute is marked by a female-gendered stigma (Pheterson,
1996), namely, ‘the whore’.
As post-structural or cultural studies theorists have persuasively argued,
the dominant ideology constructs our identities and regulates our behaviour
according to prevailing social norms. For example, Roland Barthes (1977,
1979) has argued that popular myth (in this case, the gendered sex hierarchy,
crystallized as the whore stigma) normalizes ideological meanings and rati-
fies the social status quo. Likewise, Bourdieu (1986, 1989) has employed the
notion of habitus to refer to social power, which causes us to regard the status
quo as inevitable and natural and thus justifies our class distinctions and taste
(in this case, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sex). Similarly, Foucault (1980) argued that the
subject (in this case, the prostitute) is constructed as an effect through and
within the rules of formation, and that discourses employ ‘modalities of
enunciation’ under professional regimes of truth (for example, psychiatry,
medicine and biology). Originally discussing how prisoners learn to inter-
nalize the idea of spectacle in terms of discipline, Foucault’s discourse of
power/knowledge (1977) in effect culminates in assuring us that individuals
internalize specific values, and that this can be related more widely to expe-
riences of other ‘docile bodies’. For example, Bartky (1989) has argued that
the subjectivity of women has been formulated under the process of social
surveillance and objectification, just as in the case of the prisoner who is
being watched.

So in the case of prostitution, it can be argued that a rigid, gendered sex

hierarchy is installed through various social and cultural institutions (for
example, laws, the media, education, family and religion) that provide
sites for the production of a ‘good’ sexuality. This gendered sex hierarchy
produces the binary opposition of the madonna/whore. Such a definition
correlates with other pairings such as good girl/bad girl, free/commer-
cial, normal/perverted and health/illness, which in turn structures our
modes of thought, knowledge and culture. It is through disciplining sur-
veillant gazes from local social institutions (for example, landlords, neigh-
bours, police, triad society members, family and friends) that Hong Kong
female prostitutes are constituted and internalized as ‘bad/unchaste’
women — as ‘whores’. It is this whore stigma that prevents them from
coming out, that silences them and forces them to accept their abusive
working environment.
However, no matter how explicit political leanings, sexualities, or agendas
might be, the social construction of sexuality has never been fully installed. If
Foucault (1980) is right, ‘power is tolerable only on condition that it masks a
substantial part of itself. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its
own mechanism’ (1980, p. 86). Ideology is the winning and securing of hege-
mony over time. As suggested by Hall (1977):
It is crucial to the concept that hegemony is not a ‘given’ and permanent
state of affairs, but has to be actively won and secured; it can also be lost.
(1977, p. 333)
Counter-hegemonic tendencies, or resistance, can take many forms (Dun-
combe, 2002). It can be overt and directly confront dominant cultural values.
Resistance to this form of the ‘macrophysics of power’ usually takes the form
of visible political action through, for example, the unionizing of prostitutes
as a type of pressure group. Prostitutes can employ different strategies in
order to speak against a specific enemy (for example, the government), or to
change the situation (for example, the law) or to create a new field (for exam-
ple, reclaim a prostitute-tolerant space).
Resistance, however, can also be covert and indirect. In The Practice of
Everyday Life, de Certeau (1984) articulated the importance of tactics in his
discussion of the micro-politics of everyday life, in terms of resistance to the
norm. Tactics are ways of making use of the ready-made cultural system to
achieve one’s own desires by introducing alternative meanings to the dom-
inant cultural system. Tactics are the art of the weak or, in Foucault’s (1977)
terminology, ‘a technology of the self’, or in Scott’s (1985) idea of ‘everyday
forms of resistance’. These tactical ways of operating, relying on ambiva-
lence, camouflage, clever tricks and knowing how to get away with things,
do not in any sense constitute an open and confrontational approach to deal-
ing with the powerful, but consist of more subtle and nuanced activities that
continuously upset sexual norms. These practices of micro-resistance are

what seem to characterize the response of most Hong Kong prostitutes to

sexual norms.
Hong Kong’s female prostitutes are not interested in becoming involved
in any form of institutionalized politics that is formal, overt and confronta-
tional. Rather, they are engaging in an everyday resistance that is informal
and covert and are seizing the opportunity to make immediate gains. They
employ tactical ‘ways of operating’ in order to ‘destabilize male power as
well as to reinforce it’ (Chapkis, 1997, p. 29). For example, they agree with
the idea that male sexual desires are impulsive and should be accommo-
dated, and they even offer their bodies to satisfy men’s needs, but only
according to their own rules. These rules are that men not only have to pay
for access to women’s bodies, but are also denied unlimited access. The
women sell their bodies, but for a limited period of time and only to certain
types of clients. They know very well how to fulfil their clients’ requests, but
they control the process of labour by setting their own terms — what they
will or will not do during the transaction (for example, with regard to con-
dom use and sexual practices). They are very good at playing out a client’s
fantasies (through the emotional labour of sex) but use tricks to ensure that
not too much time is wasted before the next client can be taken on. They also
distance themselves emotionally from their clients, so as not to confuse their
personal selves from their work selves. They manoeuvre between the closet
persona of a working ‘whore’ and a public self of the ‘good’ woman. Extra
work has to be done to maintain this closeting practice, which also reinforces
the madonna/whore dichotomy in our society. They are vulnerable in the
face of various forms of harassment, but choose to keep silent, bear the pain,
or change their workplace rather than directly confront their abusers or pro-
test against the law.
As argued by Pheterson (1996), ‘being a prostitute is a female role for
which there is a mixture of radical contempt, compassion, support, and
opposition.’ (1996, p. 63) Indeed, the prostitutes that I interviewed are poor
women and they have chosen to work in this occupation for the simple
motive of earning money. They are business women who know very well
how to operate their trade, although they are also deprived of many of the
rights and benefits of a worker. They play out the script of ‘a slut’ during the
time they are engaged in their labour but they are basically ‘traditional’
women — as mothers, housewives and/or daughters — whose paramount
concern is to take care of their families. They are not ‘sex warriors’ as they
have never attempted to challenge the sexist social order.
Apart from the fact that a prostitute can take up different subject posi-
tions, prostitutes are stratified according to the status hierarchy in the
industry (for example, call girls, escorts, massage parlours girls, brothel
women, street prostitutes) as well as from within the hierarchy along
the lines of ethnicity, age or physical appearance. Prostitutes, like any
other wage labourer, work from positions of unequal privilege. The life

experiences of a prostitute (for example, her control over her working

conditions, her experiences at work, her adjustment to her work and its
impact on the community) vary greatly according to these components
that she embodies.
Therefore, the possibility of resistance and the forms through which resis-
tance might be expressed depend very much on the subject’s position.
Every identity has a history, and one’s identity cannot be separated from
one’s racial, sexual, national or class positions, age, and even physical fit-
ness (Hall, 1996; Mouffe, 1995). Just as in Bourdieu’s (1986, 1989) discussion
of class, the extent of economic, social, cultural and symbolic capital a pros-
titute possesses greatly affects her position within and outside the sex
industry. Identity should therefore be understood in terms of this ‘politics of
difference’; whereby our identities embody, through various forms and
meanings, a vast and rambling multiple positioning and re-positioning of
the self.
Whether or not the tactical practices of Hong Kong prostitutes might
‘slowly and silently wear down the power of the powerful, and perhaps even
serve as an off-stage rehearsal for open assault’ (Duncombe, 2002, p. 89) is
uncertain. However, it is important to consider the multiple identities of
prostitutes and the ways in which they respond to their immediate working
difficulties according to their attachment to the status hierarchy within the
sex industry. Although they might not be political enough to challenge the
whore stigma of the gendered sex hierarchy or to openly protest against
the law, they nevertheless make use of their strategic and flexible identity to
create a space to live their own lives.
Conclusion
Based on 13 in-depth interviews, I have argued that the body politics of Hong
Kong female prostitutes should best be understood as involving the multi-
faceted and potentially strategic identities of women struggling to survive
within a complex web of power and resistance. The working complexity of
Hong Kong female prostitutes goes beyond the simple imageries of ‘sexual
slavery’ or ‘sex radical’. The gendered sex hierarchy, crystallized as the whore
stigma, is strongly installed in their lives through different local social agents
of surveillance and also embedded in various social and political institutions.
Dominance, however, is not securely held, but must constantly be won.
Although Hong Kong female prostitutes are not enthusiastic about politiciz-
ing their work, their body politics lie in their daily life practices which show
their micro-resistance in the process of making money out of their bodies,
their cunning tricks in handling various abuses and dangers and their
survival strategies in manoeuvring through a complex web of power and
domination.

Acknowledgements
This article would not have been possible without the help of Zi Teng. I also
give many thanks to all the women workers whose voices appear on these
pages. I hope I have done justice to their stories. Moreover, I am very grate-
ful to the anonymous reviewers and editors from Gender, Work & Organiza-
tion for their valuable and insightful comments on the earlier drafts of this
article.
Notes
1. Apart from these in-depth interviews, an opinion survey of female prostitutes
currently working at one-woman brothels in Hong Kong was also conducted,
from December 2000 to March 2001. One hundred and fifty respondents were suc-
cessfully interviewed (response rate = 24.3 per cent, N = 617 [Kong and Zi Teng,
2003]). The quantitative research shows the general profile of aggregate data in
order to establish an overall social pattern of the individuals researched; however,
qualitative research seemed to capture best the complexity of their life experiences
(for example, the flux, ambiguity, contradiction, and diversity of an individual).
This article focuses only on the 13 in-depth interviews that were conducted.
2. Triad societies are underground secret societies that have particular joining rituals
and numerous identification signals and signs of ranks. Triad gangsters seem to
be responsible for a number of serious crimes and they commonly ask hawkers,
sex workers or filmmakers whose working locations fall into their marked terri-
tories to pay protection fees.
3. During the year there are usually a few occasions when the police aggressively
combat prostitution. Those periods fall before important events such as National
Day (1 October) and Chinese New Year, or political elections. The police try to
‘clean up’ Hong Kong before these big days by showing their ability to catch
‘moral devils’, such as prostitutes.
4. The criminal offences with which prostituted are usually charged include keeping
a vice establishment (Cap 200 s 139); soliciting for an immoral purpose (Cap 200
s 147); prohibition of signs advertising prostitution (Cap 200 s 147A); causing
prostitution (Cap 200 s 131); control over persons for the purpose of unlawful
sexual intercourse or prostitution (Cap 200 s 130); living on the earnings of the
prostitution of others (Cap 200 s 137); prohibition on operating etc. massage estab-
lishment without a license (Cap 266 s 4); letting premises for use as a vice estab-
lishment (Cap 200 s 143); tenant etc. permitting premises or vessel to be kept as a
vice establishment (Cap 200 s 144); tenant etc. permitting premises or vessel to be
used for prostitution (Cap 200 s 145).
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Academic PapersWHAT IT FEELS LIKE FOR A WHOREGENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 13 No. 5 September 2006

What It Feels Like for a Whore: The

This article seeks to investigate the complexity of the working experiences

Keywords: emotional labour of sex, female prostitution, lived experience,

© 2006 The Author(s)

The feminist debate on prostitution: ‘sexual victim’ versus

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

Managing the work

Choice and consent

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

The anti-prostitution feminist position is clearly illustrated in this quote:

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

argued to be completely voluntary, as the capitalist employment relation has

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

avoid contracting sexual diseases. In addition, they refuse to engage in any

Emotional labour of sex

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

The ﬁrst tactic of prostitution — the emotional labour of sex — is to show

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

Managing the self

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

Managing the business

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

Power, resistance and the practice of the self

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

So in the case of prostitution, it can be argued that a rigid, gendered sex

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

what seem to characterize the response of most Hong Kong prostitutes to

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

experiences of a prostitute (for example, her control over her working

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

Ho, Chuen Juei Josephine (2000) Self-empowerment and ‘professionalism’: conversa-

© 2006 The Author(s) Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006

Volume 13 Number 5 September 2006 © 2006 The Author(s)

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