Abstract:Premises associated with commercial sex-including brothels, striptease clubs, sex cinemas, and sex shops-have increasingly been accepted as legitimate land uses, albeit ones whose location needs to be controlled because of assumed 'negative externalities'. However, the planning and licensing regulations excluding such premises from areas of residential land use are often predicated on assumptions of nuisance that have not been empirically substantiated. Accordingly, this paper reports on a survey of those livi… Show more
“…Instead of pom shops, Dundas Street West is now lined with wholesome and organic food purveyors" (Kaminer, 2009). In this narrative, transformation is accomplished as ideas about 'dirty' work and 'dirty' workers intra-act with and produce the neighbourhood's 'withering', while wholesome consumption practices become its saviour (Hubbard et al, 2013). Gentrification is cast not as a turf war between working-class residents and middle-class newcomers, but as a war between sex workers and vegan restaurants-in other words, between two types of seemingly very different embodied consumption practices.…”
This paper takes up the challenge o f extending and enhancing the literature on environm ental gentrification by considering bodies and embodied practices as significant dimensions o f this process. In considering the question o f how a polluted past can be mobilized as an asset for neighbourhood rebranding and gentrification, this research suggests that the conflation o f both pollution and 'health' with different kinds o f urban bodies and practices is an im portant strategy for solidifying a clean and green neighbourhood future. I argue that some bodies are constituted as 'dirty' by the symbolic and substantive displacement o f environmental pollution onto those bodies, in ways that allow the neighbourhood to redefine itself as clean (whether it is environmentally clean or not) once those bodies are displaced, contained, or made invisible. This perspective requires us to consider the radically coconstitutive character o f representations and materiality, bodies and cities, nature and social relations. Based on a case study of T oronto's Junction neighbourhood, this paper m aintains th at bringing bodies to the foreground attends to the power o f em bodim ent in producing and reproducing urban change and, critically, urban inequalities.
“…Instead of pom shops, Dundas Street West is now lined with wholesome and organic food purveyors" (Kaminer, 2009). In this narrative, transformation is accomplished as ideas about 'dirty' work and 'dirty' workers intra-act with and produce the neighbourhood's 'withering', while wholesome consumption practices become its saviour (Hubbard et al, 2013). Gentrification is cast not as a turf war between working-class residents and middle-class newcomers, but as a war between sex workers and vegan restaurants-in other words, between two types of seemingly very different embodied consumption practices.…”
This paper takes up the challenge o f extending and enhancing the literature on environm ental gentrification by considering bodies and embodied practices as significant dimensions o f this process. In considering the question o f how a polluted past can be mobilized as an asset for neighbourhood rebranding and gentrification, this research suggests that the conflation o f both pollution and 'health' with different kinds o f urban bodies and practices is an im portant strategy for solidifying a clean and green neighbourhood future. I argue that some bodies are constituted as 'dirty' by the symbolic and substantive displacement o f environmental pollution onto those bodies, in ways that allow the neighbourhood to redefine itself as clean (whether it is environmentally clean or not) once those bodies are displaced, contained, or made invisible. This perspective requires us to consider the radically coconstitutive character o f representations and materiality, bodies and cities, nature and social relations. Based on a case study of T oronto's Junction neighbourhood, this paper m aintains th at bringing bodies to the foreground attends to the power o f em bodim ent in producing and reproducing urban change and, critically, urban inequalities.
“…In this sense, notions of class, immorality and deviance were connected via the materialization of lap dance clubs in the landscape, leading to in situ reactions based on notions of disgust (see also Sibley, ). This implies that while most claim they are not opposed to sexual entertainment venues in general terms, when such clubs become visible in particular settings they can arouse widely shared concerns and anxieties (cf Hubbard et al ., ). This geographically informed perspective on disgust suggests that the interpretation of respectable standards of behaviour and comportment is something that needs to be understood relationally and contextually, with the transgression of ‘civilized’ standards of comportment mapped onto specific places and objects.…”
Section: Vibrant Clubs or A Vulgar Presence?mentioning
confidence: 97%
“…The suggestion here is that those claiming to belong to the ‘respectable classes’ do this by complaining about, and dissociating themselves from, the excessive and vulgar behaviour they associate with the faction of the working classes that is disrespectful and ill‐mannered (Tomsen, ). Inevitably, this is mapped onto space, and finds in expression in NIMBY (‘Not in My Back Yard’) protests against ‘sex premises’ (Hubbard et al ., ): our respondents hence frequently spoke of customers as failing to recognize local norms of behaviour, and disturbing community ways of life: The club is a venue for the binge‐drinkers who is [ sic ] seeking drugs and prostitution: their loud behaviour, screaming, shouting, swearing, running echoes round the streets. Empty bottles, broken glass vomit and urine can be seen around the pavement in this area.…”
Section: Gentlemen or ‘Unsavoury’ Males?mentioning
The night-time economy is often described as repelling consumers fearful of the 'undesirable Others' imagined dominant within such time-spaces. In this paper we explore this by describing attitudes towards, and reactions to, one particularly contentious site: the 'lap dance' club. Often targeted by campaigners in England and Wales as a source of criminality and anti-sociality, in this paper we shift the focus from fear to disgust, and argue that Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs) are opposed on the basis of moral judgments that reflect distinctions of both class and gender. Drawing on documentary analysis, survey results and interview data collected during guided walks, we detail the concerns voiced by those anxious about the presence of lap dance or striptease clubs in their town or city, particularly the notion that they 'lower the tone' of particular streets or neighbourhoods. Our conclusion is that the opposition expressed to lap dance clubs is part of an attempt to police the boundaries of respectable masculinities and femininities, marginalizing the producers and consumers of sexual entertainment through 'speech acts' which identify such entertainment as unruly, vulgar and uncivilized. These findings are considered in the light of ongoing debates concerning the relations of morality, respectability and disgust.
“…Our survey found that residents across both these areas were far less aware of the existence of a commercial sex premises within their local area (56.9%, 228 out of 401) than they were of other known types of commercial premises such as cafes/restaurants (91.8%, 368 out of 401) and pubs/bars and clubs (88.0%, 353 out of 401). In addition, of those aware of sex premises, nearly half (49%, 112 out of 228) evaluated the impact as neutral, while there were nearly as many respondents rating the impact positively (24%, 55 out of 228) as negative (27%, 62 out of 228) (see Hubbard et al ., ).…”
Section: Community Awareness and Perceptions Of Offensementioning
Emerging research in sexuality and space outlines the diverse forms of spatial governmentality used to discipline non‐normative sexual behaviours, exploring how exclusion, concealment, and repression combines to ensure that ‘immoral’ sexualities are out of the sight of the ‘moral majority’. In this paper, we explore this contention in relation to planning for sex service premises (brothels) in New South Wales, Australia. Though such sex service premises are now legal, our analysis nonetheless considers the way that these premises have been subject to forms of planning constraint that reflect planners' assumptions about the appropriate manifestation of sex premises within the urban landscape. By exposing the assumptions written into planning law that sex premises are legal but potentially disorderly, we demonstrate the evidential power of planning to reinforce dominant moral geographies through instruments which, at first glance, appear to be focused on objective questions of amenity and the ‘best use of land’. This paper hence explores the ways in which planners have translated assumptions of disorder into categories of visibility and distance, meaning that brothels have become hidden in plain view so as not to disturb the integrity of residential ‘family’ spaces.
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