Is Sex Work Queer?
Corina McKay
In western society sexuality is grounded in
romance and morality. So we see boy meets girl,
they fall in love, they get married, procreate and
live happily ever after. Boy is not supposed to ring
girl of ill repute, visit same, get laid, pay girt of ill
repute for sexual pleasure and leave. Although this
is a common occurrence, it is frowned upon and
criminalised and those involved in selling sex for
money are stigmatised and punished. In this paper I
utilise Queer Theory to contest this treatment of sex
workers.Queer Theory is concerned with the social
production and regulation of sexuality and its
object is to challenge het-
eronormativity (that is, the
power exerted over both sex work should also
individuals and whole pop-
ulations by the enforce-
ment of heterosexual
be seen as ^queer ^
norms). Queer Theory is
usually concerned with
because it engages in
non-normative, 'queer",
sexualities like gay, les- a direct challenge to
bian, bisexual, transgender
etc. In this paper I argue the power of
that sex work should also
be seen as 'queer' because
it engages in a direct chal-
heteronormativity
lenge to the power of heteronormativity.
The darker side of sexual relations, highlighted so
effortlessly by the sex industry, clearly intrigues
writers, scientists, feminists and your garden-vari-
ety moralist. The 'body' of the sex worker has been
conceptualised in many and often contradictory
ways - as diseased and sick, immoral and deviant,
criminal, working, passive and victimized and
empowered. In this paper I begin - in Act I - with a
discussion of how the body of the sex worker/pros-
titute/whore was constructed in scientific and med-
ical discourse in the nineteenth century. In Act II, I
explore feminist theories of sex work which stig-
matize sex workers and reinforce heteronormative
(also white and middle class) understandings of
* Corina McKay has been a Welfare Worker at Self-Health for Queensland Workers in the Sex Industry
(SQWISI) for the last three years. She is about to begin a Masters degree in drama in the UK.
48 Social Alternatives Vol. 18 No. 3, July 1999
what a socially acceptable woman should be. In Act
III, I show how Queer Theory can liberate sex
workers from such dominant social/sexual ideolo-
gies, helping them to create alternative discourses
which challenge the power of heteronormativity
allowing them to enjoy sexual and social citizen-
ship on their own terms.
Act I - The Magdalenism of the Nineteenth
Century.
In the nineteenth century the body of the prosti-
tute became the object of a whole range of scientif-
ic, political, cultural and
psychological discourses.
An intense and often hys-
terical public debate about
sexuality took place.
These debates were
embedded in legal, med-
ical and psychiatric texts
(Bell 1994: 42) and
framed within Christian
moralism. Doctors,
lawyers, social reformers,
clergymen and judges
responded to the 'great
social evil' of prostitution
by writing a plethora of reports outlining the caus-
es and 'cures' of prostitution. William Acton's
Prostitution Considered in its Moral, Social and
Sanitary Aspects in London and Other Large Cities
and Garrison Towns (1857), Alexandre Parent-
Duchatelet's De la Prostitution dans la Vdle de
Paris (1838) and the report of the British Royal
Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts
(1871) are just three texts, out of a multitude, that
sought to define and categorize the body of the
prostitute.
In these texts prostitutes were perceived as an
inversion of the 'respectable woman'. Prostitutes
were 'distinct' from other female bodies, because
the prostitute body operated outside the 'reproduc-
-
tive body" and between sexual and
was, therefore, economic exploita-
'deviant'. Sex tion in the act of
workers were seduction". Quot-
positioned as the ing from My Secret
'other'. Never the Life, an account in
'Madonna', 'wife' eleven volumes of
or 'good girl', the the copious sexual
prostitute was escapades of a Vic-
located as torian 'gentleman',
she recounts how
'whore', while the
'Walter' picked up
virtuous, repro-
a destitute young
ductive woman
girl in the streets
remained sexually
and saw: 'her want
passive, an object
was my opportuni-
men were required
ty'. Once a woman
to protect. For
was seduced, she
Acton, the ideal
departed from
English wife and
virtue and entered a
mother was 'kind,
life of prostitution,
considerate, self-
'as a matter of
sacrificing and
course' (Nead
sensible, so pure-
1982: 319). Seduc-
hearted as to be
tion led to prostitu-
utterly ignorant of
tion and progressed
and averse to any
to death. Once a
sensual indul-
woman 'fell' into a
gence' (Nead
lifestyle of
1984: 311). In
other words, nice 'deviance' she led a
girls didn't cum 'Strippers' Poster produced by Sex Workers Outreach Project mi.serable life
and prostitutes (NSW) 'until, finally, gin-
were not nice girls (whether they came or not). mad and ridden with guilt she either died of vene-
Acton's influential moral and medical writings real disease or committed suicide' (Nead 1982:
called for the regulation of prostitution and this was 311). While Acton wished to modify the customary
achieved in Britain through the Contagious Dis- symbol of the prostitute as 'the dirty intoxicated
eases Acts passed in the 1860s. slattern in tawdry finery and an inch thick in paint'
In Acton's text, women are asexual and incapable (cited in Bell 1994: 52), he branded the prostitute as
of sexual passion. Women were seduced into pros- 'diseased", *a social pest, carrying contamination to
titution due to 'moral frailty' and 'natural weak- every quarter' and the 'mere instrument of impuri-
nesses' of vanity, pride, idleness and a 'love of ty'(cited in Bel! 1994:55).
dress' (Nead 1982: 310). Furthermore, the insis- Parent-Duchatlet's work created a modem dis-
tence on seduction was a direct result of bourgeois course on the 'identity' of the prostitute and went
Victorian notions concerning female sexuality. on to become the basis for investigations into pros-
Women who worked outside the home and who titution by other would-be social scientists. Parent-
were unprotected by their fathers and husbands, Duchatelet originally concerned himself with sew-
were susceptible to 'defeminisation' . They were erage and public hygiene. The public health model
'exposed to temptations and promiscuity and there- continued to be the main intluence on his work on
fore risked their virtue and damaged family life, the prostitutes. Parent-Duchatelet's study (read opin-
anchor of social stability' (Nead 1982:317). Their ion) can be credited with stereotyping the prostitute
'seducers' were men who belonged to the wealthy as 'degenerate' and as equated with filth. He
middle and upper classes and who exploited the argued:
needs of poverty stricken women. There was, 'A distinctive character of prostitutes is a
argues Nead (1982: 312), 'an absolute connection .. remarkable negligence regarding cleanliness.

Sodai Alternatives Vol. 18 No. 3, Juiy 1999 49

 of the body and of clothing; exceptions to this
regularity can be considered as rare; it is said
that these women are happy in mire andfilth\
they only care about their dress and external
cover, the rest is neglected entirely (emphasis
added. Cited in Bell 1994: 48).
Parent-Duchalet identified prostitutes as being
plump (due to too many hot baths) and thought
low-class prostitutes had 'harsh', 'raucous', and
'husky' voices. He produced a physiognomy and
physiological catalogue that represented the family
background, education, hair colour, vocal distinc-
tions, physicality and sexual profiles of prostitutes.
He also examined the genitalia and reproductive
aptitude of both prostitutes and
virtuous, married women (Bell
1994: 47-48). Parent-Duchatelet's
thought the genitals of prostitutes
The voices of
would somehow be different from
other women, that the clitoris prostitutes/sex
would be larger in prostitutes and
this would account for their 'lust- workers were
fulness and shameful vice'. Much
to his surprise, he found non-pros-
titute women and prostitute
not to be
women had the same size clitoris-
es. However, Parent-Duchatelet
audible until
concluded that the genitals of
prosfitutes were prone to abscess- the 1970s and
es and tumors. Hence, the 'prosti-
tute body' was a diseased site and 1980s
should be kept clean through
social regulation.
The British Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864,
1866 and 1869, encoded the prostitute body as a
site of disease and pollution. The Acts were used
not only to cleanse towns and military encamp-
ments of the 'mere masses of rottenness and vehi-
cles of disease' (Bell 1994:59), they were also used
to provide troops with disease-free prostitutes. The
laws provided for the compulsory examinations of
women suspected of prostitution. Women found to
be infected were forcibly detained in special lock
hospitals, where they underwent moral and reli-
gious instruction, comprising domestic labour and
personal hygiene.
Unlike their British counterparts, the Australian
colonies applied Contagious Diseases legislation to
all women in Queensland and Tasmania. Queens-
land introduced the Acts without any prompting
from the military in order to protect the male civil-
ian population.
Primarily a health measure, the Acts also regulat-
ed and constrained the behaviour of prostitutes.
50 Sociai Aiternatives Voi. 18 No. 3, Juiyl999
Men were never subjected to medical examinations.
The British Royal Commission into the Contagious
Diseases Acts (1871) stated, 'there is no compari-
son to be made between prostitutes and the men
who consort with them'; the men were seen to be
engaged in an 'irregular indulgence of a natural
impulse' (cited in Bell 1994: 58). The prostitute
body was never seen as a victim of male pollution
but was earmarked as 'dangerous'. While, the voice
of prostitutes remained silent, their bodies were
constituted as highly contested sites.
Act II - Contentious Issues for Feminists star-
ring *8ex Work' (aka Prostitution)
The voices of prostitutes/sex
workers were not to be audible
until the 1970s and 1980s during
the so-called 'sex wars' between
feminists. Feminists variously
constructed the body of the sex
worker as a site of 'work, a site of
abuse, power, sex, addiction and
even pleasure" (Bell 1994: 99).
Radical feminists argued (and still
do) that prostitution was 'oppres-
sive' to women because it was a
practice which 'legitimates
women's social subordination'
(Shrage 1997: 335); they called
for its elimination. From this per-
spective, prostitution is the ulti-
mate form of sexual violence per-
petrated by male dominance. Correspondingly, the
sex worker is represented as a 'victim', a passive
'site' coerced (seduced?) into prostitution due to
economic circumstances (Jeffreys 1997). Radical
feminists, such as Shrage and Overall, also accused
sex workers of sustaining patriarchial practices.
According to Shrage, the 'prostitute's actions, and
the industry as a whole, serve to
perpetuate...socially hegemonic beliefs which
oppress all women' (Shrage 1997: 328). Unfortu-
nately, these sort of feminist theories don't offer
solid solutions to the realities of money and sur-
vival. A discourse that identifies sex work as being
tied to the capitalist market and to commodification
is all very interesting but it does not pay the rent.
Since the 1970s other feminists, sex workers and
sex worker feminists have started to conceptualize
prostitution as work (see Perkins 1991, Sullivan
1997). They see sex work as an occupation in its
own right and advocate both decriminalization and
safer working conditions. They also see sex work-
ers as sex educators who provide a service on their
own terms; 'choice' and 'consent' are negotiated
within the material and social sphere of the sex
industry and is ongoing. The sex industry has its
own power relations and social space. These define
and redefine 'choice' and 'consent' on a number of
levels. Firstly, the act of sex between a client and a
sex worker is based on a business premise. The
client knows he/she will hand over money for a ser-
vice decided on by the sex worker as part of the
business transaction. For example, some workers
choose to kiss their clients while others do not. Sec-
ondly, the site of the sexual transaction will affect
the power held by each party in the transaction. A
client who goes to a brothel or massage parlour is
entering the worker's space (set up for the worker's
needs). He must approach her which is a daunting
task for some clients. Alter-
natively, street sex workers
approach the client, usually
in his car, that is she enters
Feminist discourses
his space to negotiate and set
conditions. Thirdly, laws
which ignore the
regulating prostitution
decide how, when and where voices of sex
sex work can legally occur.
As these laws differ state to workers only
state, and are ammended at
various times, the issue of disempower and
'choice' and 'consent' are
frequently negotiated by sex
workers to enable some
disadvantage sex
form of control over their
work.
workers
Feminist discourses which ignore the voices of
sex workers only disempower and disadvantage sex
workers. Feminist theory has, in the past and pre-
sent, concerned itself with male-female relations
within a heterosexual framework. The danger here
is that the focus on gender relations can only be
sustained on the back of a patriarchal morality
which emphasises the protection of heteronorma-
tivity. The privileged positions of heteronormativi-
ty can only exist if women continue to be available
for classification as either 'whore' or 'chaste'. Fem-
inists who censure sex workers only uphold and
promote heteronormativity. , tory of conflict and hostility from religion, medi-
Act III - The Mattress Actress meets Queer
Theory.
Queer theorists attempt to destabilize the system
of heteronormativity by interrogating and challeng-
ing (historical and contemporary) constructions of
sexuality. Sex workers participate in this process by
various means. Heterosexuality is the 'norm' and
those who operate outside of this norm are a threat.
According to Creed (1994), the term 'queer' is now
used as an umbrella term for a wide range of les-
bian, lesbian feminist and gay male theory which
promotes the value of diversity, difference and a
plurality of sexual identities. Feminist sex workers
and queer theorists are, in many ways, compatible
bedfellows. Firstly, both groups are familiar with
marginalization. The social system of heterosexual-
ity is dependent on the notion that sexuality is a nat-
ural 'given' and this is used as a means of control-
ling the individual who is reduced to his/her sexual
desire (Creed 1994: 156). Just as the term 'queer'
has been used to label deviant sexual behavior, the
social-sexual identity of 'the prostitute' or 'whore'
has been used to control women and their behavior.
Sex worker feminists refuse
the good girl/bad girl
dichotomy of 'the prosti-
tute'. Instead they explicitly
invert it by entering the
industry and becoming
financially independent by
engaging in behaviour that
destabilizes heteronormativ-
ity.
Secondly, Queer Theory
challenges the idea that there
is a unified or fixed concept
of sexual identity. The sex
worker identity, criticised
both by those outside and
inside the industry, oscillates
from 'victim' to 'worker'. Queer Theory allows sex
workers to challenge the limited identities of sex
workers who disapprove of other sex workers who
say they enjoy their work and choose to enter the
industry, not just for financial opportunities, but as
an opportunity to explore different sexual dimen-
sions. Queer theory enables a recognition of a
range of different identities which offer new sites of
debate and challenge for heterononnativity.
Nestle (cited in Bell 1994: 119) has demonstrat-
ed important links between lesbians and sex work-
ers. Sex workers and lesbians have a common his-
cine and the law. Both groups have been labeled as
'deviant', 'sick', 'sinful', 'polluters'; both have
been severely policed and punished. In Nazi Ger-
many, both sex workers and lesbians were forced to
wear a black triangle, signifying their status as
'asocial' women, and were sent to concentration
camps. Vera Lasker says 'Among the first women in
Auschwitz were German prostitutes and Jewish
Social Alternatives Voi. 18 No. 3, July 1999 SI
 girls from Slovakia. These women were issued
evening gowns in which they were forced to help
build Auschwitz in rain or snow. Of the hundreds,
only a handful survived by 1944' (Nestle in Dela-
coste and Alexander 1987: 244).
Sex workers challenge compulsory heterosexual-
ity by various means. First, queer theory removes
discussion of the sex worker/other from the frame-
work where sex workers are disempowered and
marginalised and relocates it within a hybrid of
queer, feminist and sex worker feminist theory. The
recalcitrant 'other' of the sex worker then becomes
an active site for challenging heteronormativity
and, more importantly, the voices of sex workers
can be heard. Second, the act of sex work becomes
a 'performance of heterosexuality' that works to
challenge dominant arrangements of power
(Pendleton 1997: 76). The sex worker performs a
set of 'highly charged feminine
gender codes' (Pendleton 1997:
78) and inverts the 'male gaze'
by creating what the male gaze If the act of
desires but on the sex worker's
own terms. Sex workers deliber- selling sex is
ately invent a persona that
includes the accoutrements of
femininity and male fantasy and
queer, is the act
obtain financial gain for doing
this. As Pendleton (1997:78-79)
of buying sex
argues:
One must assume the fem-
queer?
inine role deliberately.
Which means already to convert a form of
subordination into an affirmation and thus to
begin to thwart it. To play in this way...is thus,
for a woman, to try to recover the place of her
exploitation by discourse without allowing
herself to be simply reduced to it.
Performing like this allows sex workers to mimic
a hackneyed image of the feminine role in an obvi-
ous and banal manner in order to exploit it. For
example street sex workers manipulate the ele-
ments of theatre/drama to entice clientele. Street
sex workers use dress (costume), makeup, lighting
(the stage), movement and gesture to their advan-
tage. They know how the punter wants to see them:
as sexually provocative and 'available'. Some street
sex workers are scriptwriters in their own plays cre-
ating a 'character" (work name), background and
language {'you're the biggest I've seen; baby you
are the best; I love you') to produce what the punter
wants to hear. She sells an 'image' of herself, de-
eroticized by the use of a 'work' name and persona.
In essence, the sex worker becomes the seducer in
52 Sociai Aiternatives Vol. 18 No. 3, July 1999
the client/worker relationship: his want is her
opportunity, which is the reverse of the nineteenth
century, male seducer/female victim, dichotomy
discussed above. .J
When taken to an extreme like this performing
the 'bad girl' enters the realm of the camivalesque.
The term "camivar refers to a 'mobile set of sym-
bolic practices, images and discourses' (Stallybrass
1986: 15) that engage in symbolic inversion and
cultural negation. Everyday hierarchies, structures,
rules and customs are reversed: kings become ser-
vants, men dress as women etc. The material body
may be exaggerated in its features and become
grotesque: the feet, knees, buttocks, genitals, anus
are given a comic privileging over the rational and
spiritual control of the head (Stallybrass 1986:183).
By exaggerating femininity, and by flaunting the
material body as excessive and disobedient, sex
workers engage in a camiva-
lesque subversion of the struc-
tures, rules and customs of het-
eronormativity.
To perform 'femininity' for
economic gain not only exposes
the constmctedness of feminin-
ity within heterosexuality but
also challenges normal eco-
nomic relationships between
men and women. Sex workers
'queer' heteronormativity when
they exchange sex for money
because it is an overt act.
Pendleton (1997: 78) contends the overt economy
of sex work calls attention to the general economy
of heterosexuality. Sex workers remove themselves
from the ambiguous terms of the heterosexual
economy and engage in transparent and honest eco-
nomic exchange. That women choose to sell sex to
men who are willing to buy it will always be ques-
tionable. Perhaps it is because men are given a lim-
ited access to women's bodies based on the sex
worker's permission and negotiation. This negotia-
tion is seemingly absent within 'normal' heterosex-
ual encounters: for example, when a man and
woman go out for dinner, the man will not usually
say he expects her to sleep with him because he has
bought her dinner. Sexual negotiation is usually
unspoken and framed in behaviour and manners.
The institution of heterosexuality leaves women
few choices. As Pendleton argues (1997:78), 'The
parameters under which white, middle-class
women must operate in order to stay on the "good"
side of the good girl^ad girl divide are quite nar-
row', 'f '• • I ^i* '-"" • '
 Epilogue: The voice of *john smith\ O brave new world...
Where then is the voice of the 'client'? If the act a haibun by Gloria B. Yates
of selling sex is queer, is the act of buying sex
queer? Clients of sex workers remain lurking in the Shopping for shampoo in the supermarket suddenly
background of this analysis. Perhaps the thought of a special promotion
the client having a 'voice' is so unpleasant (as some I'm faced with
clients are) sex worker feminists are loath to liquorice-flavoured condoms
include it in any discourse. Currently in West York-
shire, Britain, feminists and ex-sex workers have "We make ttie sweetest
liquorice
set up the Kerb Crawlers Rehabilitation School.
inAusttalia."
This aims to educate men to stop paying for sex. A
paternalistic gesture? Surely clients (and sex work- At home I suspect 1 imagined the scene.
ers) are autonomous individuals who make But is my imagination so audacious? Probably not.
informed decisions on their own behalf. The client
going back
has a voice, the question is do we want to hear it? one day later
they're sold out
References
This starts me taking an interest in condoms. Female and
Bell, S. 1994. Reading, Writing and Rewriting the faithful and 66,1 never bothered about them before.
Soon I learn that there are many varieties:
Prostitute Body. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press. ribbed condoms &
studded condoms for
Creed, B. 1994. 'Queer Theory and its Discon- greater stimulation
tents: Queer Desires. Queer Cinema' in N. Grieve
and A. bums, eds. Australian Women. Contempo- fruit-flavoured condoms
rary Feminist Theory. Melbourne: Oxford Univeri- & coloured condoms &
extra large sizes
ty Press, pp.151-164.
But
Jeffreys, S. 1997. The Idea of Prostitution. North next to the condoms: • • ••
Melbourne: Spinifex Press. ^ , . pregnancy-testing kits

This gets me brooding. My mind is full of questions, Do

Nead, L. 1982. 'Seduction, Prostitution, Suicide:
On the Brink by Alfred Elmore' Art History. 5(3) ..
Nestle, J. 1987. in F. Delacoste and P.Alexander,
eds. Sex Work. Writings By Women in the Sex Indus-
try. London: Virago, pp.231-247. , ,, .
they expect their condoms to fail? do they burst
spontaneously in the heat of passion or do liquorice-
maddened maidens weaken them by frantic licking?
Why no one has yet produced a coloured, flavoured &
studded condom coated with caramel & milk chocolate?
But who would want sex if such things were on sale?
Some people are gluttons...

Pendleton, E. 1997. 'Love for Sale. Queering 0 brave new world

Heterosexuality' in J. Nagle, ed. Whores and Other that hath such , -•.
Feminists. NY: Routledge. pp.73-82. . ^. condoms in it

Perkins, R. 1991. Working Girls. Canberra: Aus-

tralian Institute of Criminology.

Shrage, L. 1997. Moral Dilemmas of Feminism. Tanka

Prostitution. Adultery and Abortion. NY: Rout-
I voice opinion
ledge. and like the unwanted
note of discord
Stallybrass, P. and A. White.1986. The Politics it cannot be returned
and Poetics of Transgression. London: Methuen. to the hollowed instrument

Janice M.Bostok
Sullivan, B. 1997. The Politics of Sex. Prostitu-
tion and Pornography in Australia Since 1945.
Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

Social Altematives Vol. IS No. 3, July 1999 53