A Gossamer Consensus: Discourses of Vulnerability in the Westminster Prostitution Policy Subsystem

Abstract

Within much feminist scholarship, the concept of vulnerability is understood to possess progressive potential. Troubling Liberalism’s individualism, vulnerability theorists conceive of the subject as situated and formed through her various relational dependencies. Concurrently, the term vulnerability appears in much contemporary social policy. An emergent literature suggests, however, that policy and academic representations of vulnerability diverge in ideologically significant ways. In this article, I make a significant contribution to this body of work. I explore how 21 prostitution policy actors and 4 prostitution policy documents represent vulnerability, as they understand it to pertain to the sale and purchase of sex. I trace the many narratives strands which contribute to policy conversations regarding vulnerability and conclude by suggesting ‘vulnerability’ has become a ‘floating signifier’ – a surface of inscription encompassing contradictory political projects. Despite this, I suggest that the feminist ‘lens’ of vulnerability may provide us with a new way to understand prostitution debates.

The Language of Violence: Exploring the Contested Relationship Between Violence Against Women and Sex-Work/Prostitution

“…In turn, and in concert with the participants cited above, he suggests that it is possible to deplore all manner of human suffering, without resorting to conceptual expansion. Whilst I am broadly sympathetic to concerns regarding terminological inflation (Hewer, 2018), I think it necessary to critically engage with which conceptualisations are embraced, which are not, and why. Why are certain interpersonal harms furnished with the brutality connoted by violence, whilst the injustices of poverty are not?…”

Producing the vulnerable subject in English drug policy

“…Whilst the meaning of vulnerability is often taken as self-evident, many critiques of vulnerability comment on the slipperiness of the concept (see Cole, 2016), with some questioning whether it is so vague as to render it useless (Daniel, 2010). Others have argued its fluidity makes it well-suited to facilitating understandings of the diversity of depth of the human experience (Wallbank and Herring, 2014), allowing space for shared meaning-making to operate in contested areas of policy and practice (Hewer, 2018). Detailed explorations can be found elsewhere (see Brown, 2015;, but debates centre on how the 'vulnerability zeitgeist' threatens or advances social justice.…”

Pragmatic, Progressive, Problematic: Addressing Vulnerability through a Local Street Sex Work Partnership Initiative

“…The language of vulnerability has become a prominent feature of UK prostitution policy in recent decades (Carline, 2009; Phoenix, 2012; Munro and Scoular, 2013; Hewer, 2015). Such narratives have been evident for some time.…”

“…Under New Labour in particular, vulnerability narratives focused on ‘victimhood’ further permeated policy and practice (Munro and Scoular, 2013), as radical feminist accounts of sex work enjoyed considerable prominence at the political level. The 2004 Paying the Price consultation on prostitution policy, for example, brought violence and vulnerability firmly to centre stage (Hewer, 2015). The document explicitly states at one point that ‘vulnerability is the key’ (Home Office, 2004: 33 and 63), with the notion configured mainly in relation to gendered exploitation/violence but also making passing acknowledgement to ‘economic’ and ‘emotional’ dimensions.…”

“…Barry (1995: 316), for example, argues that ‘prostitution makes all women vulnerable, exposed to danger, open to attack’. Whilst some argue that this vulnerability narrative can offer a basis for countering individualising ‘neo-liberal’ discourses through attention to systemic gender inequalities in violence (see Hewer, 2015); controversially such accounts leave little room for recognition of sex worker agency. Scholars focusing more on the institutions and environments which structure the risks attached to sex work tend to use vulnerability to highlight differences in, and variations of, individual experiences shaped by environmental, social and political factors (see Sanders and Campbell, 2007; Carline, 2009), with stigma and prejudice being key.…”