‘Killing off’ the (unbearable) sex worker: prostitution law reform in Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article draws on the work of Jessica Benjamin and of Sarah Ahmed to argue that the adoption of a Sex Purchase Ban (SPB) by the Irish state constituted a form of affective governmentality that was derived from a deep psychic discomfort towards the presence of ‘errant’ female sexuality. The ban, enshrined in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, followed a long campaign by radical feminist activists but also saw, for the first time in Irish history, pro-sex work activism in the form of sex worker organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychoanalysis
• the state
• sex work
• affective governmentality

Acknowledgments

The author would like to her two co-editors, the two anonymous reviewers and Gillian Wylie all of whose insights and suggestions at various stages were enormously helpful. The article also benefited greatly from feedback at the COST workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark in March 2017, and the ECPG workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland in June 2017.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Throughout both processes examined here the prostitute/sex worker was assumed to be predominantly female.

2. See www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/committees/justice/Witnesses-and-Submissions-on-Review-of-Legislation-on-Prostitution.pdf for all submissions.

3. See Atlas (2013) for a summary. Benjamin, contra Freud, argued that the masculine identity is a secondary phenomenon, defined by separation from the mother’s body and identity and is essential to gender polarity (ibid. p. 53).

4. SWAI was established specifically in response to the ToRL campaign.

5. The ICI was established in 2001 with financial assistance from the Religious Sisters of Ireland, an order of Catholic nuns. Ruhama is a faith-based organisation that works with on-street prostitution.

6. Ruhama, Forced or Free: the issue of consent or compliance, (Ruhama, Dublin, 2008). Available at www.ruhama.ie/ … /4.Prostitution%20as%20so-called%20free%20choice1Latest%2008. Accessed 16 November 2016.

7. Established in the19th Century to rehabilitate sexually promiscuous women, Magdalene Asylums and Mother and Baby Homes were reinvigorated in the early 20^th Century with the inclusion of women pregnant outside marriage (see Luddy 2007, pp. 111–114).

8. Personal communication with the author 29 July 2015.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eilís Ward

Eilís Ward is lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology, NUI Galway, Ireland. Her research interests include Buddhism and politics and the politics of the sex trade.