Kink as healing professional

ABSTRACT

Too often, the power dynamics between a service provider and a client can contribute to a foundation that is difficult to overcome. For sex workers, seeking social services can be a fraught experience tinged in judgment, assumptions, and negative perceptions, even for the best-intentioned practitioner. This article asks the reader to re-consider a person trading sex not simply as a client seeking support, but as a peer - another healing professional with a skill set and unique offering that can mirror some of the best aspects of social work. Reframing professional, sexualized kink as a synecdoche of the broader industry, we can explore how sex workers offer a valuable and important space to clients, reform healing through somatic engagement, and possess a powerful skillset of nonjudgment and creativity that should be honored as a valuable strength. By re-shaping how we think about people who trade sex as peers engaged in healing work, service providers can begin to invert the power dynamics of service provision and find new avenues of seeing strengths, instead of stigmas, for sex workers.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• kink
• intimate labour
• healing work and culturally responsive practice

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

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6 Thomas, 5.

7 Sexual Masochism Disorder DSM-5 302.83(F65.51)

8 Sexual Sadism Disorder DSM-5 302.84 (F65.52)

9 Fetishistic Disorder DSM-5 302.81 (F65.0)

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12 NJ Rev Stat § 2C:34-1 (2013)

13 “Students Seek to Compel NYPD to Release Records Related to Prostitution Arrests and Dungeon Raids,” Columbia Law School: Stories and News. April 19, 2010. Found at: https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/students-seek-compel-nypd-release-records-related-prostitution-arrests-and-dungeon-raids

14 Cecilia Benoit, S. Mikael Jansson, Michaela Smith & Jackson Flagg (2018) Prostitution Stigma and Its Effect on the Working Conditions, Personal Lives, and Health of Sex Workers, The Journal of Sex Research, 55:4-5, 457-471, DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2017.1393652

15 Benoit 460.

16 Benoit 462.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate D’Adamo

Kate D'Adamo (she/they) is a sex worker rights advocate with a focus on economic justice, anti-policing and incarceration and public health and a partner at Reframe Health and Justice. Previously, she was the National Policy Advocate at the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center focusing on laws, policies and advocacy focused on folks who trade sex, including the criminalization of sex work, anti-trafficking policies, and HIV-specific laws. Prior to joining the Sex Workers Project, Kate was a community organizer and advocate with the Sex Workers Outreach Project and Sex Workers Action New York. In this role, she developed programming to promote community building, provided peer support and advanced political advocacy to support the rights and well-being of people engaged in the sex trade both on and off the job. She holds degrees from California Polytechnic State University and The New School.