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The
stigmatisation of sex workers
Pambazuka News 279 Feature
By Nicole Fick
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[Mods note: Stigmatisation and discrimination against sex
workers are important issues to be aware of in the context of
equal access to quality health care services and the attitudes
of health workers. Health care is not a guaranteed service for
sex workers, whose work, in addition to being illegal, is
considered 'immoral' by many. The HIV/AIDS epidemic is of
particular importance, with countries who openly and practically
address the institution of sex work and the needs of sex workers
(for example by providing condoms, access to voluntary
counselling and testing, and by applying harm reduction)
experiencing greater success in curbing HIV prevalence rates
overall. Addressing violence against sex workers should form an
integral part of HIV/AIDS-related interventions in this
sector.]**********************************
During the 16 days of activism campaign to end violence against
women and children, some thought needs to be given to adult sex
workers, who experience violence on a number of levels: from
police, agency bosses, clients and on a domestic level like
other women. Sex workers are isolated and stigmatised and this
prevents them from being able to access the protection services
of the police. It also means that law enforcement agencies often
discriminate against sex workers, denying them assistance when
they experience violence and crime.
Stigma can be defined as a brand, a mark of shame or a stain on
one's character. Social stigmatisation of an act entails severe
disapproval from society for behaviour that is considered to be
outside the bounds of social norms.
The normative message that society has traditionally given to
women is that sex is only acceptable within marriage or at least
within a significant relationship. [1] This message can be
understood as part of society's attempt to keep women's
sexuality controlled within the bounds of marriage. Sexual
relationships that do not occur within marriage, or at least
within a committed relationship, are seen as deviating from this
social norm. The further a relationship is from the norm-setting
nuclear family the more likely it is to be categorised as
"abnormal".
Thus, for example, unmarried heterosexual couples are still
close enough to this norm to be considered nominally
acceptable, while homosexual relationships fall further outside
of the norm and are thus often seen as "suspect". Sex with a
stranger, as part of an economic transaction, is as far away
from the norm as you can get.[2]
Selling sex is thus seen as "abnormal" and therefore morally
wrong and sex workers as a group are stigmatised.[3] It is
significant, however, that the resultant "whore" stigma does not
only apply to sex workers and is often attached to any woman
that is sexually assertive or seen as impure or unchaste.[4]
Gail Pheterson speaks of the "whore" stigma as a stigma that
aims to silence and degrade those that it targets, emphasising
their "shameful differentness".
This stigma also prevents women from "freely exploring,
experiencing and naming their own sexuality for fear of being
called a whore".[5] The sex workers in this study spoke of
their "shameful differentness" and of their own experience of
feeling stigmatised.
"I don't think anyone is born a prostitute, so I think at any
given time, doesn't matter whether she has been brought up ill
treated or abused or whatever, she never actually has that
image in her mind of her doing that you know... because society
condemns it... you still look in the mirror and you still know
that you are inevitably you are still selling your body for
money... so you have got inner conflict already you know trying
to lift your spirit and not breaking yourself down."
"I know that people believe - that there's that perception out
there - that prostitutes are filthy."
For one participant one of the main things that she finds
difficult about her work is coming to understand what she does
and justifying it to herself. Another participant spoke of her
feelings of guilt after having been with a client and how it
makes one question one's worth as a person:
"You have all got a conscience and conscience means that you
will, that after you have been with a client you obviously will
feel dirty. You feel like am I worth this or whatever?
Especially, especially when how the clients, some of the
clients do treat you ..... You will finish a booking, sometimes
when you have finished a booking you just have to get out."
At the same time, one of the participants speaks articulately
about how being involved in sex work allowed her to think more
critically about this kind of stigma and how she has started to
explore her own sexuality:
"I've come to terms with my own sexuality, I think. I've
definitely sort of realised that it is just, well in my opinion,
a physical act of pleasure. It's OK for a woman to actually
enjoy sex. There I've grown in leaps and bounds, but just
coming from ... a conservative upbringing, you know as a woman
you are brought up not to sleep around. And then you're a slut
and a whore and so on..."
Consequences of stigma
The way in which the participants quoted above speak about
themselves illustrates how stigma can sometimes become
internalised. Often the perceptions that others have of us can
become the perceptions that we have of ourselves. Resisting the
internalisation of these derogatory perceptions is difficult and
it can be easier just to accept these insulting labels than to
challenge them.[6]
Persons engaged in sex work are often blamed for social problems
or perceived as victims.[7] Some of the myths and stereotypes
that exist about sex workers are that they are dirty and spread
disease, that they all come from dysfunctional families, that
they all abuse drugs and alcohol, that sex work is always
associated with or the cause of other crimes, or that sex
workers are women that need a sexual outlet.
Participants in the study use some of these stereotypes to
describe themselves when they talk about themselves as "dirty",
or when they make the assumption that sex workers come from
families where they are ill treated and sexually abused. They
also expressed their awareness of the condemnation of society,
as well as their own feelings of guilt and self blame for doing
the work they do:
"I think it's sort of coming to understand or justifying what
you do. And then sort of coming to terms with it. And forgiving
yourself or you can sugarcoat it any which way you like, and
justify it as much as you can, but it still is what it is, you
know."
"... many a times we feel down and... we feel broken because of
the type of business we're in..." "They just, we all just feel
that we are not, we are not good enough, you know, and that
makes you just let yourself go. I know I've let myself go... I
just felt I wasn't worthy of anybody..."
Participants in the study also spoke about experiencing feelings
of guilt and self-judgment, particularly when they had just
started doing sex work. A number of researchers describe this
internalised stigma as one of the worst dangers that people
engaged in sex work face and they assert that it is mainly
stigma that causes psychological distress for sex workers.[8]
One participant describes this experience as follows:
"What I really find difficult is the stigma, the stigma that
gets attached to you, by society. They don't understand why,
and people... That's the thing that I find the worst is the
stigma of the work."
Some of the psychological consequences of internalised stigma
are difficulties with self-esteem, feelings of shame, despair
and powerlessness.[9] A participant in the study spoke of
people she works with who become depressed as a result of the
stigma attached to the work and who then use drugs as a means of
escape:
"Yes there is, self esteem, just because you're in the industry,
you don't, yes this is probably the last thing that a lot of
people will consider doing, okay... As we feel dirty when we
have been with a client, some of my colleagues, or ex colleagues
that actually went into a depression. Like in the sense of, this
is not really for me and, and their way is also to cut it off,
doing like abuse in order for you to escape from what you are
doing..."
Research has shown that one of the main strategies employed by
sex workers to cope with stigma is distancing. One of the
distancing techniques used by some sex workers is to avoid
referring to what they do directly, referring to it as "working"
and never directly mentioning the sexual aspect of their
work.[10]
This has also been our experience, with some sex workers
preferring to speak of themselves as "working girls" rather
than "sex workers", thereby distancing themselves from the
sexual nature of the work they do in the way that they speak
about the work.
Most of the women we work with also use a pseudonym as their
working name. Taking on a different name when working is another
distancing strategy that allows sex workers to separate their
identity when working from their private selves. A sex worker
interviewed in Campbell's study explains it in this way:
"My street name is not the name I take home with me. At home I
am just an ordinary person like my name is..." [11]
Participants in this research also spoke of keeping their work
identity and their home identity separate from each other.
"Ek is nie 'n hoer nie. Hierbinne doen ek my werk. As ek
buitekant toe gaan, is ek 'n hele 'different' tipe mens. Ek vat
nie eers 'n man se nommer buite nie..."
[I am not a 'whore'. I do my work here inside this place. When I
go outside, I am a totally different person. I don't even take a
man's number outside this place...]
When people are stigmatised for doing something, it is natural
for them to attempt to hide the activity or the attribute for
which they are being stigmatised and to attempt to pass as
"normal".[12] But hiding is not always effective as a strategy
to cope with stigma. Passing for "normal" requires constant
alertness to ensure that you don't expose yourself and so can
create additional anxiety and isolation. Although our experience
at SWEAT shows that some sex workers are open about the work
they do, many hide the nature of their work. Eleven of the
seventeen participants in this research spoke about the
difficulty of keeping the work they do a secret from family and
friends as well as more generally in their everyday
interactions. A participant in the study indicated that hiding
the work she does is important to protect her children, who are
still at school, from stigma.
"No one knows I do this work. First of all, it's like, when I
leave this house, it's like I've got my own life outside."
"Nobody knows in the community that I am doing this kind of a
job..."
"Difficulties in my personal life, is basically the fact that we
have to lie about this. And people do start asking questions. It
gets a bit tough..."
"No. We don't actually describe this work to people. You lie."
"And some people say, what type of work do you do and then you
feel a little afraid to say, no, I'm a sex worker and then you
just say, I work under (name of an organisation)... Do you
understand? And because you don't want to have people looking
down on you..."
Participants also spoke of their constant worry and anxiety
that someone they know will find out about the work that they
do:
"... hoping that your parents doesn't find out, friends doesn't
find out, that kind of thing, you know."
"Other things worrying me, is basically people coming in here
that may know me or my family. Probably one of the main
things..."
"So you're always lying and making up excuses... 'Where you
going?' 'I'm going to work.' ...especially with your friends as
well, when they wanna drop you off at work. Now you have to let
them drop you at the hotel. And then you have to walk, always
check, not actually running yet. Hoping no one's gonna see
you."
This was confirmed by participants in the study who spoke of
their fear that a member of their family would drive past while
they were standing in the road, working. Those working at
agencies said that they worried about their boyfriend walking in
at the agency where they work. This constant need for subterfuge
can have an isolating effect on sex workers.
One participant indicated that she purposefully doesn't
initiate contact with people in order to avoid having to
constantly lie or to deceive them about what she does.
"You don't allow someone in your life. I cut most of my friends,
most of my family. And of course it's not something ... You
can't explain where you're going, you can't make friends when
you're in this business. There's always lying, deceiving. And I
don't like that, that you can't. So while you're in this
business you're actually very cut off from the world and people.
You don't really actually make friends or allow people, as you
would if you weren't in the business. I love making friends, but
you just don't. You actually reflect being a bad friend or, but
you're not really, you just don't know how to tell them, or you
don't want to tell them, or you think they won't be able to
handle it, so you don't go there. You just avoid friendships at
all costs."
Participants spoke of the kinds of stresses that the hidden
nature of their work also places on their personal
relationships. Two participants spoke about difficulties with
trust in their personal relationships:
"Yes. I guess because we've both been in the industry, and we
know the emotional stress that it leaves behind, in the
personal relationships, it kind of messes you around.
Trusting-wise. That kind of thing." "You struggle trusting
men... As you should. Alsostanding behind the door as well you
know... if you understand what I mean. You're doing something
that you don't actually want other people to know. Therefore
they can't trust you 100% and therefore you won't trust them
100% because you are deceiving them in the first place."
Difficulties were also experienced by participants in hiding
what they do from their intimate partner although, as one
participant says, it is a difficult situation to cope with,
whether your partner knows about the work you do or not:
"I think that every girl that works in this industry that has
either families that know about it or has a partner, and if the
partner knows about it, it makes it even worse. I think it makes
it difficult if the partner doesn't know about it. Because then
you sort of, you've got to watch what you do, your times, you
know the whole story. And I've got such empathy for them. I can
imagine it's like not easy at all. And if you have a partner
that knows about it, there's always, always little fights and
tiffs and things like that."
Sometimes hiding the work they do makes it very complicated for
sex workers to manage their personal and social lives. For one
participant this means planning her social life in order to keep
the people in her life who know of the work she does completely
separate from those who do not know:
"I don't have any friends of the past that have stayed in my
life that I've kept this from... Friends that don't know are
the friends that I've met while I'm in the industry. And that
gets a bit tricky because then you have to start lying about
what you do, your working hours, where you're working, what do
you do, that kind of stuff. So that's a bit tricky. ... Try not
to intermingle the friends because then everybody's got to be on
their toes and nobody really, everybody likes to relax. Say if I
go out and have a braai or something I'll only invite the
friends that know, what each other do cause it's ... more
relaxed."
Managing a life where you hide the work you do is not only
stressful, but it also makes it more difficult to use normal
sources of social support like family or friends if you have a
problem or something that you need to talk about.[13] A
participant in this study spoke of not being able to share even
day-to-day difficulties with family or friends:
"In sex work even the girls downstairs in the street, some of
them don't have some people to speak to... Because obviously
their family doesn't know what they're doing, and you can't
actually go and speak to your mother regarding what happened at
work, as if you've got sort of a normal job... So you can't go
to your mother, oh this happened on the streets today. I'm sure
she will chuck you out of your, out of the house."
-- This is an extract from a report by Nicole Fick of the Sex
Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce entitled "Coping with
stigma, discrimination and violence: Sex Workers talk about
their experiences". The full report is available on
www.sweat.org.za
-- Please send comments to
editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at
www.pambazuka.org
References
[1] Goffman, 1968; Pheterson, 1998)
[2] Augustin, 2001
[3] Alexander, 1998
[4] Pheterson, 1998
[5] Alexander, 1998: 184
[6] Erikson, Butters, McGillcuddy & Halgren, 2000
[7] Erikson et al, 2000; Pheterson, 1998
[8] Erikson et al, 2000; Vanwesenbeeck, 2001; Benoit & Millar,
2001
[9] Goffman, 1968; Moane, 2003[10] Campbell, 2000
[11] Campbell, 2000[12] Goffman, 1968
[13] El Bassel cited in Vanwesenbeeck, 2001
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Stay Connected - Speak your world!
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