‘People Pay Me for Sex’: Contemporary Lived Experiences of Indigenous Australian Sex Workers

ABSTRACT

The everyday lived experiences of Indigenous Australian sex workers are often made to be invisible. Frequently, they are embedded and left unrecognised within non-Indigenous sex workers’ experiences; alternately, stereotypes about Indigenous sex workers mean their experiences are often overgeneralised and relegated to discussion of exploitation and victimhood. Based on interviews with Indigenous Australians who identify as sex workers, this article examines what sex work means for Indigenous Australians, their views of sex work, and the factors influencing their reasons for engaging in sex work, to bring their experiences to the forefront of contemporary discussions. This research goes beyond the polarised and simplistic arguments which have circulated in sex workers’ research leading to important understandings of the complex and nuanced choices made in relation to work, finances, gender, sexuality and race.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous
• sex work
• agency
• sexual autonomy
• stigma
• economics

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge and thank my supervisors Associate Professor Sandie Suchet-Pearson and Dr Jess McLean for their unwavering support of me and of my research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes to contributor

Corrinne Sullivan is an Aboriginal scholar from the Wiradjuri Nation in Central-West New South Wales. She is an Associate Professor in Geography, and Associate Dean (Indigenous Education) in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, Sydney, Australia. Her research interests are multi-disciplinary and focus broadly on experiences and effects of body and Identity in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Corrinne’s knowledge stem from the disciplines of Indigenous Studies and Human Geography, and she utilises both to understand the ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are affected by their experiences of space and place.