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.
सम्पादकीय नोट : इस लेख का पहला भाग अप्रैल के पहले संस्करण में प्रकाशित हुआ था सेक्स वर्कर के अधिकारों…
Imtiaz Ali’s 5-minute film begins as any trite gangster flick but rapidly flips things around both in narrative and in audience perception.
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”.
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.
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…
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.
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.
Who is this person? What does this person want? Is it random cruising? Is money the goal, is it adventure? Why does it make me think of selling strawberries by the dusty roadside? I don’t have a single answer. Sex work is a lurking unknown in the world of sexuality.
Abortion and sex work share the distinction of being topics on which even feminist activists sometimes find it difficult to remain non-judgmental, confronting feminists with the question: to what lengths are we really willing to go to respect and enable women’s choices and bodily autonomy?
अनीता जो महाराष्ट्र में एक देवदासी हैं, के इस आत्म कथ्य से पता चलता है कि सहमति और हिंसा के मुद्दे हमेशा स्पष्ट और सीधे रूप में सामने नहीं आते। अनीता का कथ्य बताता है कि जीवन की कई परिस्थितियों में वो अपना रास्ता खुद मर्ज़ी अनुसार चुन पाई हैं ।
A discussion between sex workers of different ages, work contexts and backgrounds at the Empower Foundation centre in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
They say the world is a book and those who do not travel only read a page. I had a very un-travel-ish childhood. Like every other middle-class Indian family, my parents did not believe in travelling or even holidaying for that matter. The only vacation we used to take as an annual trip was to visit my maternal grandparents who thankfully lived in Dehradun – away from bad and polluted Delhi (my hometown).
There’s a pregnant pause as he fumbles for his keys, and I, for a definitive answer. Packaged as an innocuous statement, there hangs a question between us: No one even knows your name here, in this remote corner of the antiquated town we’ve found ourselves in. And yet, we’re in front of a door, planning to know so much more.
I ressurected my account to be more pointed about who should swipe me left or right. But the problem wasn’t…