Hello ladies,

I am 21 years old and am doing my Masters in the London School of Economics and want to research sex work and attitudes to sex work and workers and related issues for my dissertation. At the moment the question is not very well defined at all because my methodological stance is to let my subjects pick the issues they consider should be talked about. I was considering entering the sex industry myself to do some good ethnography involving participant observation but I am not sexually active yet and have 1001 issues regarding my sexuality,which I am willing to discuss if anyone cares to ask. I could maybe work as an escort or erotic phone calls when I am relatively freer.

In any case, my paper will emphasise the importance of letting sex workers have control over their working conditions, rules, laws, ethics and status. I also feel that since my project is about giving you voice rather than me dictating the research issues, I will let you have your say about what should be talked about. I have already got this idea from a lady here called Amy (thank you!) about asking female and male university students why they don't enter the sex industry to earn money to pay for their expenses.

So you raise the issues and help me finetune them into something that is doable for my current project and let me do the legwork and be your spokesperson in the bastion of academic knowledge and perhaps someday policy making.

P.S.: If this note or anything I have said here offends anyone here, please put it down to my ignorance and correct me promptly.

Thank You.

Maitrayee Basu.
tinab49@gmail.com
(Phone number available upon request)

Ermm, did that sound too pretentious, lol? Sorry.

Blush and sorry!

There might have been once a ?golden? time ago when being a temple prostitute was an honourable and highly respected endeavour although the cynic in me things someone even back then benefitted from sacrifices made to enter some ?holy union? to honour some goddess or other.  The fact is that while there always been high ranking courtesans and maitresses ? their social standing was always complicated and they may have still been ostracised by the society at large despite their riches and powerful influence.       

The history of prostitution is fascinating stuff. Dunno about things ever being golden - as you say, Honey, it was not always for the benefit of the woman. Being unfortunate enough to be female has usually, throughout the ages, meant you've got to be a wife or a whore in order to have a hope of supporting yourself and your children and perhaps even getting a smidgen of respect from people (as a wife, not a whore). Not to get too negative about it all, though - women have always been able to make the best of a crappy situation. And nowadays, in this feminist utopia we live in (/sarcasm ) we have something quite unusual and new - the ability to make our own choices! It's so new that it's really confounding society and the media, apparently. Perhaps we should just knock up some leaflets with super-simple bullet points on and hand them out. "Have you met a woman before? Did you notice her doing things like, A) Working in a real job that she's highly qualified for and/or generally good at and enjoys doing? B) Paying her own rent and bills? C) Spending her own time and money however she pleases? If you answered yes to all three, consider yourself invited to a tea party."

Thanks Trafford, that was very useful info. I was actually going to use the theoretical framework about the functional regulatory power of the whore stigma (Gail Pheterson has a fantastic book called The Prostitution Prism). I am not silly enough to think that most women in this profession are forced or drug addicts or victims. I also think that 'the whore' is not just a profession (as it rightfully should be) the stigma attached to it permeates and every woman is suspect to transgressing the rules. However, Pheterson says that the reflexivity between the woman prostitute and male client is 'unequal' and I am a bit cautious about accepting that.

Maybe I don't have the 'right voice' to speak about this. Then again maybe one day I will. Representation of a view doesn't mean that the group being represented are less independent. It merely means that the researcher felt that the group was under-represented. I know there is so much literature on sex work over the centuries. It's daunting. But I want to find a maximal objective view of this cultural norm and how it functions.

I was looking at the historical angle. The temple 'prostitutes' though they wouldn't agree with the term - 'devdasis' were the highest form of cultural performers. They were talented dancers, poets, singers, much like the Japanese geishas. But meanings change over time and I am suspicious about the writers who claim that the 'prostitutes' in India were culturally accepted. They were certainly rich, relatively independent and a part of the public life, more than can be said for most other women. Anyway, just my interpretation of this.

Trafford thanks so much, I find  this link really useful. I will certainly contact her. Thank you for your kind help and welcome.