Walking, Talking, Imagining: Ethical Engagement with Sex Workers

ABSTRACT

This article describes a walking interview with a sex worker who is an advocate for sex worker rights in Ireland. Walking interviews have been proposed as a biographical method which can be used to explore the relationship between personal concerns and public questions, and the method is characterised by mobile, relational and embodied practice (O’Neill and Roberts [2019. Walking Methods: Research on the Move. London: Routledge]). Walking with research participants addresses the power imbalances inherent in interviews, striving for ethical praxis, by allowing a shared perspective and a shared sensory experience. Together we investigate the ethics of sex work research, allyship and education, and we consider ways to strengthen alliances between sex working and non-sex working feminists. Opportunities for social justice for sex workers are considered, and a radical democratic imaginary is proposed, where sex workers are afforded full citizenship of an inclusive society. This imaginary follows work by O’Neill [2010. “Cultural Criminology and Sex Work: Resisting Regulation Through Radical Democracy and Participatory Action Research PAR.” Journal of Law and Society 37 (1): 210–232], O’Neill and Seal [2012. Transgressive Imaginations: Crime, Deviance and Culture. London: Palgrave Macmillan] and FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie [2020b. “Social Justice for Sex Workers as a ‘Politics of Doing’: Research, Policy and Practice.” Irish Journal of Sociology 28 (3): 257–279], who have imagined full participation for sex workers in civic, political and social spheres. Starting with a radical openness to and acceptance of each other, as well as a firm dedication to bodily autonomy and social justice for all, we propose a path towards this imagined society.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• ethical research
• feminist ethic of care
• walking interview
• participatory action research

Introduction

Sex work research in Ireland is a relatively young field. The Irish Sex Work Research Network (ISWRN) was established to promote ethical sex work research, in line with the sex workers’ human rights agenda (FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie 2020a). The ISWRN is a network of feminist researchers who embody feminist research principles and practice. These principles include a commitment to emancipatory and transformative research, which is reflexive, ethical and accessible (Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002). A recent special issue of the Irish Journal of Sociology was guest-edited by ISWRN members and featured the latest sex work research in Ireland. In their introduction to the special issue, the Guest Editors espoused their hopes for a social justice approach to sex workers’ rights (FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie 2020a). They elaborated further in a full-length article on how social justice is a ‘politics of doing’, which can be applied to policy, research and practice (FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie 2020b). This social justice approach is in direct opposition to the carceral approach which dominates sex work legislation internationally, and which has hegemonic status in Ireland (FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie 2020b). Carceral feminism refers to the demand for criminalisation and punishment of those responsible for gender-based violence (Arruzza, Bhattacharya, and Fraser 2019). FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie (2020b) assert that this carceral approach is essentialist, and reduces sex workers to having a one-dimensional identity, rather than full and complex roles and relationships, where their profession constitutes only one strand. The authors opine that a social justice approach to sex work would instead recognise the complexity of sex workers’ lives and relationships, and support their safety and autonomy (FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie 2020b). In the same special issue, Éilis Ward explored the carceral feminist ‘Turn off the Red Light’ (ToRL) campaign, which lobbied successfully for the introduction of the ‘Swedish model’ of legislation in Ireland (Ward 2020). Ward (2020) briefly explained the myriad shortcomings of the research report by Kelleher et al. (2009) upon which the ToRL campaign drew heavily. This report was funded by the Religious Sisters of Charity, a religious order who ran Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, and who own the site of the new Irish national maternity hospital (Meskill 2021). In the report, the number of sex workers working daily in Ireland was estimated using flawed methods, and the percentage therein of migrant workers was a ‘guesstimate’ at best. Migrant sex workers were conflated with trafficking victims repeatedly, which impacted on the debate around sex work legislation (Ward 2020). Kelleher et al. (2009, 153) state that they ‘have found that trafficking for sexual exploitation and prostitution are inextricably connected’. The skewed framing and flawed figures of the ToRL campaign were repeated ad nauseam, in parliamentary debates and elsewhere, until they gained truth status (Ward 2020). Sex workers, sex worker-led organisations and sex work researchers advocating a social justice approach could not compete with the deafening clamour of ToRL claims and supporters. This resulted in the successful introduction of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, which criminalised the purchase of sexual services, and increased penalties for brothel keeping. Ryan and Ward (2017) noted that the parliamentary process which introduced the 2017 legislation was skewed ideologically, in that 29 of the 37 witnesses were members of the ToRL campaign. This did not allow sex workers a fair chance to be represented in the political sphere. Bowen (2015) observed that we reproduce structural inequalities and stigma when we exclude sex workers from policy design. Nancy Fraser (2007, 22) notes that when a group is excluded from making justice claims ‘they become non-persons with respect to justice’.

Campbell et al. (2020) co-authored a paper within the special issue which explored trends in violence against sex workers in the Republic of Ireland (ROI). The authors work mostly in sex worker support organisations, so were well placed to investigate the violence that sex workers experience in Ireland. The study analysed over 14,000 reports made by sex workers to UglyMugs.ie (UM), a third-party reporting and alerting platform used by sex workers (Campbell et al. 2020). The authors compared reports from the two years prior to the introduction of the 2017 legislation, to reports from the two-year period after the legislation was enacted. There was a 92% increase in UM reports of violent harm against sex workers in the two years post-legislation (Campbell et al. 2020). There was a notable increase in violence against trans sex workers in this period also. Campbell et al. (2020) noted that the majority of these incidents were not reported to An Garda Síochána (AGS – the national police force of the ROI). This could be because of the lack of trust between sex workers and AGS, which FitzGerald, O’Neill, and Wylie (2020b) alluded to in their paper when noting that in contexts where sex work is criminalised, police enact cultural values based on stigma. Stigma prevents sex workers from reporting crime, and when they do report crimes, they are treated with suspicion by the police, who view them as agents of crime, rather than as citizens who have crimes done to them.

McGarry and Ryan (2020) recently published a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study funded by HIV Ireland. Members of the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) acted as peer co-researchers for the study, which used focus groups to investigate the lived experiences of sex workers under the Criminal (Sexual Offence) Act 2017. The authors reported that the new law had led to increased mistrust in AGS by sex workers, fear of reporting abuse to AGS, and thus reduced access to justice for sex workers (McGarry and Ryan 2020). McGarry and Ryan (2020) call for repeal of the 2017 legislation, and the introduction of policies that address the violation of sex workers’ rights. Sex workers in the study noted wide-ranging examples of AGS abuse and police involvement in evictions and deportations (McGarry and Ryan 2020). Sex workers in the study also outlined the barriers to healthcare that they experience, across multiple domains, including mental health, sexual health and physical health (McGarry and Ryan 2020). Ryan and McGarry (2021) interrogated the data from their aforementioned study and used a structural violence frame to understand the harm done to sex workers by criminalisation. Structural violence refers to how life experiences are shaped by social structures which create unequal conditions, and unequal access to power. Ryan and McGarry (2021, 3) explain that ‘inequalities are mediated through macro-social arrangements (e.g. criminalisation of sex work, poverty) rooted in socio-historical and economic processes (e.g. colonialism, globalisation) inflicting injury upon more vulnerable populations’. Sex workers’ barriers to healthcare were explored further in an article by Sweeney, Taylor, and Molcho (2020) within the Irish Journal of Sociology special issue. This paper explored service providers’ opinions on these barriers and used a social justice framework to propose the development of future services that would be ‘available, acceptable, accessible and good quality to sex workers’ (2020, 344). The authors opine that the National Sexual Health Strategy (2015–20) acts as a barrier to sex workers’ health, as it frames sex workers as victims of violence or coercion (Sweeney, Taylor, and Molcho 2020). This framing reduces sex workers to passive, non-agentic objects, rather than acknowledging their full subjectivity and agency. The authors conclude that a paradigm shift is required so that sex workers can access non-judgemental services in Ireland (Sweeney, Taylor, and Molcho 2020).

SWAI conducted peer research which they published for the 2020 review of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 (SWAI 2020). The research showed that the majority of sex workers feared arrest were scared to live with another sex worker for safety due to brothel-keeping laws and were more worried about violence and abuse than they were before the 2017 law (SWAI 2020). SWAI (2020) concluded that the spirit of the law has failed, as sex workers feel less safe, despite their purported decriminalisation.

This has prompted me to consider the care that sex workers experience in their daily lives in Ireland. It is clear that social harm, stigma and violence have been interrogated at length in the Irish sex work context. Care has been a central theme of my research thus far (Murphy 2020), and I think that applying a feminist ethic of care to sex work research will provide a new philosophical approach to sex work research in Ireland. This article aims to unpick some of the ethical dilemmas when engaging in sex work research as an academic with no lived experience. I am not a sex worker, and thus I am cognisant of my positionality as an outsider to the community which I am researching. In endeavouring to keep a feminist ethic of care at the centre of my academic work, I am partnering with a sex worker-led organisation to engage in Participatory Action Research. This paper forms part of my PhD research project. It documents a pilot interview with a sex worker, and ongoing discussions and ethical dilemmas which the researcher faces. Within this article, I partner with a sex worker activist to interrogate and problematise ethical engagement with sex workers, in the domains of research, education and allyship. This article focuses on the situation in the Republic of Ireland.

My philosophical position is that sex workers are human beings with all attendant human rights and responsibilities. Furthermore, sex work is work, and sex workers need to be afforded all attendant labour rights (cf. Bernstein 2010; Brooks-Gordon 2006; FitzGerald 2018; Grant 2014; Kapur 2001; McGarry and Ryan 2020; O’Neill 1991, 2001, 2017, 2010; Pheterson 1993, 1989; Ryan 2016; Sanders 2016; Sweeney and FitzGerald 2017). A sex worker activist on Twitter explained the idea of sex work being work very succinctly (@afrenchstripper, 2021):

Once again “sex work is work” doesn’t mean that it’s inherently good but it acknowledges that all work is exploitative, which means that sex workers need access to the same rights as all workers to be able to organise themselves and improve their working conditions.

This position thus does not impose moralising judgements on whether sex work is right or wrong but instead accepts that it exists, and that those in the profession should be entitled to all of the same protections as other workers. Östergren (2018) discusses an opposing theoretical framework (neo-abolitionism) from which the so-called ‘Swedish’ or ‘Nordic’ model of legislation arose in Sweden, and was subsequently exported to multiple countries, including the Republic of Ireland. This mode of sex work regulation incorporates a ban on purchasing sexual services and a ban on brothel keeping. Within this framework, sex work is conflated with human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation, by abolitionists, politicians and police services, who use ‘trafficking panic to open the door for the oppression of all sex workers’ (Kenway 2021, 83). Kenway (2021, 89) notes that there is no evidence that the Swedish model of legislation reduces trafficking, but it is still lauded as ‘a silver bullet’. An in-depth analysis of the framing of ‘sex trafficking’ is outside the scope of this article.

The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 regulates sex work in the Republic of Ireland. As noted above, it follows the Swedish model of regulation, in that it criminalises the purchase of sexual services. It also criminalises the organisation of prostitution, living off the earnings of prostitution, and brothel keeping – these three crimes are collectively referred to as ‘brothel-keeping’ colloquially. The law nominally decriminalised sex workers, but sex workers who work together for safety remain criminalised, because of brothel-keeping laws. This law was enacted after sustained lobbying by the Turn off the Red Light (ToRL) campaign, a broad-based group of civil society organisations with a neo-abolitionist philosophy, who essentialised all sex workers as exploited victims (for detailed analysis of the ToRL campaign see Ward 2020; Ward and Wylie 2017). Sex worker-led organisations opposed the legislation, but they were unsuccessful against the might of groups such as the National Women’s Council, the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation. This legislative context is important to situate the discussion around ethical engagement with sex workers in Ireland. For further information on legislation and policing of sex work in the Republic of Ireland see Murphy (forthcoming), Ryan and Ward (2017) and Berry and Frazer (2021).

In this article, a walking method is used as part of Participatory Action Research to interrogate the issues at hand. The discussion then focuses on how to achieve ethical engagement with sex workers in research, education and allyship. A radical democratic imaginary is developed as the conclusion of this article.

Walking

Walking methods

The Walking Interview as a Biographical Method (WIBM) by O’Neill and Roberts (2019) is a recently proposed creative research method for uncovering knowledge but builds on a long history of using walking as a participatory way of doing research with marginalised groups by the authors. Walking research is grounded in the daily lives of research participants, allowing the researcher to relate to and understand them more fully (O’Neill and Roberts 2019, 38). By walking with participants in areas of meaning to them, the researcher can begin to understand the participants’ positionalities more fully. Walking research creates a shared viewpoint and understanding, which allows collaborative knowledge production (O’Neill and Roberts 2019, 156), in line with feminist epistemologies. The researcher and participant proceed side-by-side on the walk, allowing them to experience the same sensory experiences – views, smells, textures. Walking with, and talking with the participant allows the uncovering of information, which can be built upon in discussion. This disrupts the power imbalance of a face-to-face structured interview, which can at times resemble an interrogation. This attempt at balancing the power structures in research methods is a feminist epistemology, and by inserting oneself into the conversation, we are encapsulating standpoint feminist approaches. Walking research emphasises the idea that we are socially located, but also mobile (O’Neill and Roberts 2019, 17). Walking with the participant in their social environment allows for the consideration of the person in their context, in line with C. Wright Mills’ sociological imagination (1959) – grasping the person’s biography within their historical and geographical context. While these methodologies are categorised as walking methodologies, this does not preclude those who are non-ambulatory, the conversations can proceed in motion using mobility aids or any mode of transport which the participant prefers.

For the larger project of which this article forms a part, the WIBM will entail walking with sex workers in an area of meaning to each participant, while conducting life-history interviews. This pilot interview was conducted with one sex worker activist, who has been involved with the project from its inception. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we were unable to complete the walking interview in person. Therefore, we completed a phone call while both of us were walking in our respective neighbourhoods. This was designed to investigate whether walking while not together provided any additional value to the interview. We discussed the WIBM, and how that might be interpreted by sex workers. She remarked that ‘walking will break down the barriers too, it’s not the zookeeper thing’. The barriers to which she refers could be seen as physical barriers – e.g. the desk across which a traditional face-to-face interview might take place, but also metaphorical barriers, such as the hierarchical power structure inherent in traditional researcher-participant interviews, where the researcher holds all of the power, establishes the setting, and asks all of the questions. This chimes with the idea of walking research as a side-by-side endeavour which is non-confrontational, and avoids the interrogative style associated with research interviews. We also discussed the possibility of a peer researcher participating in the walking interviews. Peer researchers are members of the community being researched, who are trained in research methodologies, and work as co-researchers for a project. The idea that there would be an outsider (me) and two insiders (the peer researcher and the sex worker participant) creates a dynamic which my pilot interviewee considered to be generative. She observed that having a peer researcher who is very close to the research topic, and another researcher who is more distant to the topic might result in different conversational pathways that generate different types of information, conversation and analysis than one or the other researcher would have created on their own.

The format of the walking interviews within the larger project has not been finalised, as fieldwork at present is dependent on COVID-19 public health restrictions. It is possible that if the interviews can continue in person, that I will have to revert to a one-to-one situation, in line with social distancing guidelines. Negotiating these details with representatives from the community is an integral part of Participatory Action Research, which will be discussed next.

Participatory action research

This research is grounded in feminist epistemologies and practice and aims for social transformation (Ramazanoglu and Holland 2002). It is Participatory Action Research (PAR), which emerged in the 1970s in the social sciences, but has its roots in psychologist Kurt Lewin’s action research theorising in the 1940s. Methodologically, three key aspects of PAR include: collaborative working and developing a subject-subject ethos from research design to analysis and write-up; critical recovery of history based upon community knowledge; and sharing knowledge in understandable and meaningful ways (Fals-Borda 1985; O’Neill 2001). This research has been designed in collaboration with SWAI (Sex Workers Alliance Ireland). This is a crucial step when conducting PAR with integrity. PAR is a process and a practice directed towards social change with the participants (Campbell, Coleman, and Torkington 1996; O’Neill 1991; Campbell and O'Neill 2013). O’Neill (2010) noted that we must move beyond discussing sex workers in terms of deviancy, and consider a fuller picture of their lives, suggesting PAR as a method for this. Sex workers must be consulted in the design of research that will impact on their lives (Bowen and O’Doherty 2014). This pilot interview is part of this process of PAR and will contribute to the ethos and design of the ongoing project. There has not yet been any official training of peer researchers in interview methodologies, etc. but this will be undertaken if it is possible for peer researchers to participate in the interview process (considering COVID-19 restrictions). PAR is a methodology which coalesces well with a feminist ethic of care, which I will discuss briefly next.

Feminist ethic of care

Carol Gilligan (1993, 2011) has written at length about a feminist ethic of care, which she notes is an important tool with which to resist neoliberal individualism. Gilligan (1993, 62) defined care as follows:

The ideal of care is thus an activity of relationship, of seeing and responding to need, taking care of the world by sustaining the web of connection so that no one is left alone.

Nancy Fraser (1989) conceptualised need as a phenomenon which is interpreted and deeply political, and Daly (2021) built further upon this, suggesting that care is ‘situated at the intersection of need, relations/actors, resources and values’ (Daly 2021, 113). A relational view is also espoused by Rosi Braidotti (2020), who suggests that we need to use relational ethics to develop different ways of caring. This feminist ethic of care is a guiding principle for this research.

Talking

While researchers state in ethical approval forms that their projects have rigorous ethics at their core, it is unclear whether members of marginalised groups would define rigorous ethics in the same way as academics. Issues such as the centrality of informed consent dominate the researchers’ mind, whereas consent forms might just represent more bureaucracy for the research participant. For a sex worker, often construed as lacking agency and power, addressing power imbalances in the research process is as important as the right to withdraw at any time. Research projects further researchers’ careers, so this benefit needs to be balanced with benefits for the community who provide access and stories to the researcher. Hence, it is important to create useful, transformative and accessible research, which will benefit the marginalised community in question, and influence public health and social policy. This is in line with a feminist ethic of care which this project endeavours to create. These issues were discussed further with the sex worker activist who participated in this pilot interview.

Insider/outsider dilemma in research

As a starting point, she advised ‘asking open-ended enough questions that give people space’. Reflecting on research in general, she remarked:

How can you really ever objectively look at someone and be able to put yourself in their shoes? You are always asking questions through the filter of your own life. It’s about keeping that in mind and checking in with the people that you are researching.

She made this statement when considering the insider/outsider research dilemma, but its veracity remains for all research. There is no such thing as an impartial researcher or objective research, as we all bring our own biases to bear on our projects. Being reflexive and honest about our biases and prejudices is a vital step in conducting research with a feminist ethic of care. Confronting one's own biases is an uncomfortable process, but it is necessary. It can also lead to epistemic insights, as proposed by Ward and Wylie (2014), when they examined their discomfort at being accused of sympathising with pimps when opposing the Swedish model of legislation. These authors noted that it was challenging to discuss the complexity and ambiguities of sex work, when opposing those who constructed a simplistic, negative view of sex work (Ward and Wylie 2014, 258). This was echoed by Agustín (2007, 59), who noted that ‘any absence of moral indignation are all interpreted as ‘promoting’ the sex industry’. However, this reflexivity is a vital part of academic rigour. Agustín (2005, 627) emphasised this point:

Reflexivity on the part of the researcher will be an essential element of the work, a continual questioning of where moral reactions come from and a humble attempt to leave them aside.

As our conversation moved on, we focused specifically on the insider/outsider dilemma of research. My interviewee advised ‘acknowledging, especially if you’re not a sex worker, we might be from a similar demographic, but the fact that you have not done sex work places you as an outsider’. She continued:

People have experience of sex, uncomfortable sex, but they haven’t actually taken the step to sex work … People have an understanding of these things, but they still don’t know what being a sex worker is.

We contemplated the familiarity of sex – we know what it is, we have had a variety of sexual encounters, but still, the majority of people do not know what it is to be a sex worker. Thus, it is important to avoid over-familiarity and assumptions that you as a researcher can identify with these issues. Conversely, we discussed the possibility of being overly cautious as a result of one’s positionality as an outsider, and how tentativeness should be avoided – ‘It really is about good conversational skills … Not being afraid to put something on the nose’. She encouraged researchers not to be afraid to challenge contradictions and noted that distance from a topic can often be illuminating. Recognising our own positionality as external to the community, but not being restrained in such a way that we compromise our commitment to rigorous research, is one of the foremost ethical dilemmas faced by researchers with a feminist ethic of care.

Ethical allyship with sex workers

Sex worker rights organisations are often led by active or retired sex workers. It is imperative that well-meaning allies and advocates do not speak over, or for, sex workers, but instead take the lead from them. Allies can use their power, platform, and cultural capital to create space for sex worker voices. Hoagland (2020, 54) noted that members of marginalised communities might be ‘requesting advocacy, but that request does not authorize a researcher and advocate to make her into either a text to be studied or an object to be rescued’. This echoes the campaign from the European Sex Workers’ Rights Alliance (ESWA), formerly known as the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE 2021) for ‘rights not rescue’. This programme provided financial support to sex worker rights organisations to tackle exploitation within the sex work industry, and to amplify migrant sex workers’ voices in the fight against trafficking. Agustín (2007, 176) admonished against speaking over in the name of helping – ‘when their own words are not taken into account, helpers (including theorists) become ventriloquists occupying the main stage while the helped sit mutely in the wings’. In our conversation, the sex worker activist noted that the simplest act of allyship was ‘listening to the people, and amplifying their voices’. The act required is two-fold: to listen to and actually hear sex workers; and to amplify their voices rather than speaking over them. She went on to say that ‘normalisation of sex work is a good thing, as it allows people to have the conversation’. During our discussion, we alluded to various people in our lives who did not know anything about sex work, and who thus were ambivalent to legislation or campaigns pertaining to sex work. This ambivalence needs to be countered if people are to develop compassionate responses to sex workers. The sex worker activist suggested that allies having conversations about sex work with uninformed associates was an important aspect of allyship. We also discussed the power of merchandise – ‘wearing badges and wearing jumpers’ – which was shown for example during the Repeal the 8th campaign in the Republic of Ireland, when reproductive rights activists wore black jumpers with the word ‘REPEAL’ emblazoned across them in white capital letters. These instantly identifiable jumpers were the starting point for numerous conversations about abortion rights. The sex worker activist and I were both active during the Repeal the eighth campaign and considered that perhaps some jumpers or badges emblazoned with sex worker rights slogans might be useful conversation starters. We then discussed how allyship could lead to public education on sex worker rights.

Ethical public education on sex worker rights

There is a requirement for public education on sex work, sex workers’ rights and how the current legislation is harming sex workers (Campbell et al. 2020). During our walking interview, the activist remarked:

There’s space for ourselves as a key demographic to take it down a notch as regards our expertise and telling people that it is not our job to educate them. “Google it” … where is the humanity in that?

This response is illuminating, as it differs from the idea that public education is unpaid labour which marginalised groups should avoid. Audre Lorde (1995) clearly explained this position:

Black and Third-World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbian and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions.

Nora Berenstain (2016) coined the term epistemic exploitation for this phenomenon, and defined it as follows – ‘Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalised persons to produce an education or explanation about the nature of the oppression they face’ (2016, 570). Reni Eddo-Lodge (2020) also discussed this phenomenon in her influential book ‘Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race’. However, the interviewee did not agree with this position. Instead, she saw these moments as opportunities to connect with people, make them aware of sex workers’ experiences, and perhaps recruit further allies. Discussing the variety of questions asked, she opined that ‘we shouldn’t shy away from stupid questions, devil’s advocate or challenging questions, that’s where we need to go and unpack, because that’s where change occurs’. Furthermore, when discussing inclusion in spaces where sex workers had previously been excluded, she noted the following:

If you’re being asked to sit at the table, take a seat and talk. Those spaces are not the enemy, they are the battlefield …  That’s the way that change occurs [incrementally] … You can give them more information, move them further again.

The interviewee was of the opinion that it was better to be present and represented in organisations that have had hostile opinions to sex workers, or who perhaps align themselves with the aforementioned neo-abolitionist position on sex work, rather than remaining outside them. This viewpoint is not necessarily shared by other sex workers in Ireland. To my mind, this debate parallels second-wave feminist debates between liberal feminists who were interested in reforming institutions from the inside and radical feminists who believed that real change could only happen from outside these patriarchal institutions. This participant believed that being included in the institution was a good starting point, whereas others might hold the opinion that an organisation which has caused active harm to sex workers is not one with which they want to be aligned.

We also discussed the importance of moving away from harmful binaries, towards more nuanced, complex representations of sex workers. There is a perception that sex workers are either empowered ‘happy hookers’, or exploited victims (Mac and Smith 2018). The idea of the ‘happy hooker’ relates to independent sex workers who are self-employed business people, in charge of their destiny. The exploited victim is someone who has been coerced into sex work and has no control over their engagement in the industry. In reality, many people exist in the grey area between these two extremes. The activist noted ‘if we are too afraid of perpetuating that line between happy hooker and sex slave …  people will get away with passing these dangerous laws’. The sex worker activist noted that if we continue to avoid difficult conversations, powerful lobbyists and legislators succeed in shaping the narrative and implementing harmful policies. Kenway (2021) observed that sex workers have been abused for speaking up for their rights, and labelled as trafficking apologists. These intimidation tactics have resulted in the silencing of sex workers, and the perpetuation of hegemonic discourse and unconsidered binaries, which do not acknowledge the nuances and spectrum of experiences in sex work. It is imperative that a counter-hegemonic narrative is developed, which recognises the full humanity of sex workers. The possibility of creating counter-hegemonic spaces is developed in the next section of the paper.

Imagining

During our conversation, the sex worker activist and I discussed what a better society for sex workers would look like. Luce Irigaray (1993, 52) observed that ‘there is an interaction between the lived experience, the imaginary, and the discursive and social construction of both’. This discussion uses the idea of a radical democratic imaginary, following O’Neill and Seal (2012, 82) who noted that ‘opening up new and more democratic ways of “being” and “becoming” are dependent upon imagination, imaginaries and hope for the future’. To move towards a better future, we must first imagine it. Aruzza et al. (2019, 80) suggested one version of this imaginary, which seemed fitting – ‘A world in which people of every gender, nationality, sexuality, and color combine social-reproductive activities with safe, well-remunerated, and harassment-free work’. O’Neill (2010, 232) considered steps towards this better society for sex workers, and suggested the following:

The need to strengthen belonging and participation in the civic (the right to work and the right to dignity), political (rights to participate and to a political voice), and social (legal and social rights) spheres.

Decriminalisation

I asked the sex worker activist what the first step could be in developing a better society for sex workers. She replied ‘legal status of working where we can legally avail of protections that we need … and the infrastructure that’s necessary to engage with the criminal justice system’. Research by McGarry and Ryan (2020) has shown that under the current legislation, sex workers do not feel that they have access to the criminal justice system, and are reluctant to report abuse to the police. In this regard, the interviewee noted that ‘decrim[inalisation] is as flexible as possible as a legal structure’. Decriminalisation of all aspects of sex work would allow basic rights for all involved in sex work. Sex workers would not be operating in dangerous criminalised environments, which have been shown to negatively impact on the health and wellbeing of sex workers (Platt et al. 2018). Sex worker-led organisations have been leading the call for decriminalisation (Kenway 2021), and the benefits of decriminalisation have been researched in depth in New Zealand, where decriminalisation of sex work occurred in 2003 (Abel 2014).

Systemic inequalities

As we walked, we also talked about underlying issues which would need to be addressed to move towards our imagined society. The activist noted that we need to consider ‘root causes of people ending up in sex work that don’t want to be there at all’. She discussed some of the systemic inequalities which result in people becoming sex workers ‘systemic inequalities – domestic violence, single mothers, trans inclusivity, disability inclusivity’. We talked about the fact that racialised capitalism does not allow equal job opportunities to people who are members of marginalised groups – trans people, disabled people, single parents, and that sex work becomes the last hope of making money for members of these communities. In our radical democratic imaginary, these systemic inequalities would not exist, and so people would only enter and remain in sex work by choice.

Respect

When considering what other concepts might be important in our radical democratic imaginary, the activist suggested two basic tenets – respect and value. She explained further ‘Respect and value. This is so complicated for me … when I talk openly about the complicated feelings I have for the work, because of the way that the conversations are at the moment … ’ She felt that she could not express dissatisfaction with elements of the job, and when I asked, she noted ‘I need a safe and legal space to be able to do that’. This relates back to our earlier discussion of harmful binaries, which flatten the experiences of sex workers. She noted that any expression of dissatisfaction could be construed as ammunition for those who lobby against sex work.

Safety …  but still some magic

We also discussed that even though sex work is just another job, there can still be something magical and exciting about the sexual interactions that sex workers have.

She finally commented: “I need for it to be safe, legal and respectful, without taking away the … ”

Doris: “je ne sais quoi or magic?”

Activist: “yes, perfect”.

Conclusion

This paper has used walking methodologies, Participatory Action Research and a feminist ethic of care to interrogate ethical engagement with sex workers. The themes that emerged were ethical research as an outsider to sex work, ethical allyship with sex workers and ethical public education about sex work. We also proposed some steps to a radical democratic imaginary where sex workers would be able to participate fully as citizens of a fair and inclusive society. This radical democratic imaginary follows work by O’Neill and Seal (2012), but adds to it by having someone from the affected community propose their own imaginary, rather than imposing an academic’s view on the issue. When the larger project and interviews are completed, the imaginaries of the sex worker participants will be analysed to find common themes, and to propose a radical democratic imaginary which will be generalisable to the wider population. This imaginary can then be used in lobbying, advocacy and activism to propose steps to a better society for sex workers. A newly formed collective of sex workers in Ireland, the Red Umbrella Front (2021), proposed a list of ‘radical demands’ on Instagram in December 2021, which shows a lot of similarities to the imaginary proposed in this research:

Picture from Red Umbrella Front, available at: 〈https://www.instagram.com/p/CXESwkcofBN/?utm_medium=copy_link〉

The similarities demonstrate that there is an appetite for radical change in Irish society, to make life more livable for all those engaged in sex work.

Limitations and directions for future research

This research documents a pilot/case study with one sex worker, and so cannot be considered representative of the views of all sex workers in Ireland. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the originally planned methodology of walking interviews was unable to be completed, and a phone interview was conducted. This undermined the utility of the interview as a pilot study for the larger project. It will be useful to conduct further interviews with other sex workers, to see if the findings are similar across a group. It would also be interesting to conduct a walking interview with the sex worker who participated in this phone interview, to interrogate what walking in person with the participant adds to the conversation.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology under GOIPG-2021-1401.

Notes on contributors

Doris Murphy

Doris Murphy is a PhD candidate in Sociology and Women’s Studies in University College Cork. She is exploring sex work, disability and care through Participatory Action Research. She is interested in the gendered nature of care, and how sex workers experience care in relationships at personal and societal levels. She is an ardent supporter of the decriminalisation of sex work, and of full labour and human rights for sex workers. Doris completed her MA in Women’s Studies in University College Cork in 2019. Her thesis focused on the experiences of reproductive rights campaigners during the campaign to legalise abortion in Ireland, and underlying care structures supporting feminist activism. She is the co-founder of Pro-Choice Wexford, a regional group which campaigned for abortion rights. She is a board member of the Irish Sex Work Research Network, and of the Sibéal Network. Doris is a qualified Speech and Language Therapist.