Sex Work and Sexuality
The Editorial: Sex Work and Sexuality
Not only has evolving discourse on sexuality influenced the fate of how sex work is understood, but also with the growth of sex workers’ rights movements, discourses on sex work are now being able to influence how we think about sexuality. In our issues on Sex Work and Sexuality this month, we hope to be able to traverse some of these convergences.
By TARSHI
April 18, 2016
Issue In Focus: Is ‘Dhanda’ (Sex Business) Work? – II
Is business work? Can business that involves providing sexual services be understood as work? If work is any mental or physical activity performed for a result, then for the individual performing the activity sex work is work. If work is any activity performed as a means of survival, then sex work is work.
By Meena Saraswathi Seshu and Aarthi Pai
April 18, 2016
क्या ‘धंधा’ (यौनकर्म) भी काम होता है? – भाग II
सम्पादकीय नोट : इस लेख का पहला भाग अप्रैल के पहले संस्करण में प्रकाशित हुआ था सेक्स वर्कर के अधिकारों…
By Meena Saraswathi Seshu and Aarthi Pai
April 18, 2016
Walk in Our Shoes
“How different it would be if for a moment health care providers could feel what we feel when we go to a hospital and are challenged…”
And so, the women sex workers of RedTraSex (Network of Women Sex Workers from Latin America and the Caribbean) developed Ponte en Nuestros Zapatos (re-edited 2015). Now, reaching out to a wider community, is the brand new English version Walk in our Shoes: Good Practices Guide for Health Care Staff (2016, translated by Alejandra Sardá-Chandiramani). Yes, it is so brand new that it is not up on their website as yet, though we have permission to use it here.
By RedTraSex
April 18, 2016
Porn. Panic. Ban.
I’m convinced we’re having the wrong conversation around digital porn. If we really want to have a meaningful conversation around porn, it’s time we stopped talking about its imagined harms. It’s time we started talking about actual harms. It’s time we started talking about the fault lines of consent.
By Curated Content
April 18, 2016
Video Page: Imtiaz Ali’s New Short Film Has a Rockstar
Imtiaz Ali’s 5-minute film begins as any trite gangster flick but rapidly flips things around both in narrative and in audience perception.
By Curated Content
April 18, 2016
How Do You Battle AIDS if No One Talks About Sex? KP’s Transgenders Speak Out
In Peshawar alone, the community consists of over 500 transgenders. At least 20 per cent of these have AIDS. Their risk of contracting AIDS is higher, since 59 per cent of khawaja saras report to have at least one sexually transmitted infection.
By Curated Content
Notes from Special Court No. 54
Special Court No. 54 is a hall filled with whizzing ceiling fans. When the magistrate enters or exits, people rise to bow. Lawyers in black coats and white pants or saree/suit, sit at a long desk in plastic chairs a level below the magistrate with a clutch of researchers like myself, and anti-trafficking missionaries who “rescue fallen women”.
By Manjima Bhattacharjya
April 18, 2016
Interview: Varsha Kale on the Dance Bar Girls’ Movement in Maharashtra
We interview the honorary president of the Bharatiya Bar Girls Union (BBGU), Varsha Kale, on the occasion of dance bars reopening in Maharashtra after being banned for 11 years by the state government.
By Shaifali Agrawal
Review: What Sex Work Taught Feminism: Tales of the Night Fairies
Note: Five sex workers – four women and one man – along with the filmmaker/narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Shohini Ghosh’s Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organising and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex work. The labyrinthine city of Kolkata (Calcutta) forms the backdrop for personal and musical journeys.
By Moulshri Mohan
Why Being a Feminist Funder Means Supporting Sex Worker Activism
Sex work remains a highly contested issue. In most places in the world, societies and laws impose horrendous stigma and abuses on sex workers. But even within human rights movements there are disputes about whether sex work should be seen as labour or as exploitation…
By Barbara Lotti
Providing Sexual Services to Clients with Disability
Sex workers also are renowned for being educators – teaching people about safer sex practices and letting them explore their sexual expression in a safe and supportive environment. Seeing a sex worker can assist in one’s rehabilitation, allowing people to rediscover their sexual functioning after an accident and also learn to adapt to new sexual positioning with their new limited mobility.
By Curated Content
April 18, 2016
Issue In Focus: Is ‘Dhanda’ (Sex Business) Work? – I
Sex work is adult consensual provision of sexual services for money. What part of this definition challenges the notion of work? A service provided for money? A service provided by adults for money? A service provided consensually by adults for money? None of the above.
By Meena Saraswathi Seshu and Aarthi Pai
April 5, 2016
क्या ‘धंधा’ (सेक्स वर्क) भी काम होता है? – भाग १
किसी व्यस्क व्यक्ति द्वारा अपनी इच्छा से पैसों के भुगतान के बदले दी जाने वाली यौन सेवाओं को सेक्स वर्क (यौन कर्म या आम बोलचाल की भाषा में धंधा करना) कहते हैं। सेक्स वर्क की इस परिभाषा का कौन सा भाग ‘काम’ के बारे में हमारी सोच का उल्लंघन करता है? क्या पैसे के बदले दी जाने वाली सेवाएं? या फिर किसी व्यस्क व्यक्ति द्वारा पैसे के बदले दी जाने वाली सेवा? या, वयस्कों द्वारा आपसी सहमति से पैसे के बदले दी जाने वाली सेवा?
By Meena Saraswathi Seshu and Aarthi Pai
April 5, 2016
Brushstrokes: Sex + Work ≠ Sex Work? We Wonder Why
If there are hordes of reasons for having sex, and all kinds of activities that count as work, why is it that the act of performing sexual services cannot be accepted as legitimate work?
Liz Hilton illustrates the puzzle in a booklet published by Empower Foundation, Thailand.
By Curated Content
April 5, 2016