Strategic in/visibility: Does agency make sex workers invisible?

Abstract

This article examines the links between in/visibility, agency and mobility through the narratives of 55 predominantly indoor sex workers interviewed in Melbourne, Australia, where state government regulations permit some forms of sex work under a licensing framework. This article explores the tensions around the requirement for visibility in the regulation of sex work, the utility of 'strategic' invisibility in the lived realities of sex work and the discursive 'invisibilizing' of sex workers' agency in anti-prostitution discourses. For the workers we interviewed, 'strategic invisibility' was an agentic strategy that prevented stigma and protected social, economic and geographical mobility within and outside the sex industry. In Melbourne, workers' careful management of their 'invisibility' as sex workers contrasted with the state's harm minimization framework that insists on sex workers' visibility within healthcare and licensing systems. This article draws on empirical data to suggest that regulation through licensing can both alleviate and contribute to vulnerabilizing contexts of sex work, providing useful lessons to those considering a similar system of regulation.

Associations between sex work laws and sex workers’ health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative studies

“…Studies showed how registration and mandatory testing necessitated more frequent contact with healthcare systems [100,108,115,132] and were viewed positively by authors in Nevada, US, as a way of maintaining a low level of STIs [100] and by some sex workers as a form of self-responsibility for health [108,126]. However, in Guatemala the decision to comply with testing requirements was mostly motivated by fear of police harassment and detention rather than health considerations [126,132].…”

“…However, in Guatemala the decision to comply with testing requirements was mostly motivated by fear of police harassment and detention rather than health considerations [126,132]. In Turkey, unregistered migrant sex workers were forcibly tested upon arrest [107], and in Australia, some sex workers experienced judgement and were refused testing by health professionals [108]. Mandatory testing of sex workers is considered a rights violation by the UN Refugee Agency and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS that can create barriers to sex workers accessing voluntary services and can facilitate discrimination against sex workers living with HIV.…”

Invisible mobilities: stigma, immobilities, and female sex workers’ mundane socio-legal negotiations of Dhaka’s urban space

“…Hence, HRSWs are agents whose maneuverings through the city result in actions that allow them to keep in balance their private and work lives. While Ham and Gerard (2014), rightfully conclude that strategic invisibility is an agentic strategy that prevents experiencing or confronting the outcomes of stigma, it nonetheless has its limits. Paradoxically, maintaining invisibility through mobility simultaneously creates social and political immobility.…”

Sex Workers Who Provide Services to Clients with Disability in New South Wales, Australia

“…This has been proven to be a fallacy, with sex workers ranging from their teens all the way through to their seventies and eighties (Ham & Gerard, 2014). Recently the media has run a number of articles about more mature sex workers, including 'It's just like working in the Post Office!'…”