Fall Issue — November 2005
Destigmatizing the sex trade: Bringing the oldest profession into the 21st century
Criminology Professors Colette Parent
and Christine Bruckert have set out to destigmatize and encourage public
acceptance of the world’s oldest profession, the sex trade. It is one challenge
that most academic researchers have traditionally not wanted to touch with the
proverbial ten foot pole.
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Whether we acknowledge it or
not,” says Dr. Bruckert, “there’s often a sexual undertone involved in
day-to-day commercial interactions in the service industry; the restaurant
server who flirts with a customer or the hairdresser who finds that dressing in
a certain way leads to a bigger tip are two simple examples that come to mind.”
“Why, then, do we look down on sex workers, but not,
for example, on licensed massage therapists who provide intimate but non-sexual
services? Aren’t both just doing a job using
a specific set of skills?”
a specific set of skills?”
Armed with such provocative questions, and funding
from SSHRC and the University
of Ottawa’s Faculty of
Social Sciences, the two researchers have undertaken a three-year study of the
personal and professional negotiations that take place in the daily lives of
men and women who work in the sex industry. Working in collaboration with the
Université du Québec à Montréal and Maria Nengeh Mensah of UQÀM’s Institut de
recherches et d’études féministes, Bruckert and Parent hope to gain not only a
better understanding of the paid sex work escorts perform, but also insights
into the sexual dynamic in the economy’s growing
service sector.
“Our research is designed to be an element of this
transformation to a new way of thinking and talking about sexuality and living
as sexual beings.” Specifically,
the researchers would
like to establish an empirical outline of the interpersonal processes involved
in establishing professional roles within the sex trade that vary according to
client demands, and to understand how individuals who engage in this type of
marginalized labour experience sexuality and intimacy in their private lives.
The study
will take place in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, as well as in Montreal
and Toronto
through the investigators’ contacts with various organizations designed to
defend the rights and the safety of people employed in the sex industry.
Gathering their information through a series of in-depth interviews with male
and female sex workers and their customers, Parent hopes to gain a basic
understanding of the labour elements of escort work such as what skills the
escorts feel they have acquired through their work, and what they do to attract
clients — and improve their business.
“By setting ourselves a goal to
contribute to the destigmatization of sex work, we believe we will help ensure
the safety and improve the working conditions of people who hold such jobs as
masseurs or masseuses, erotic dancers, and personal escorts,” says Bruckert.
“In our view, public acknowledgment and acceptance of
professions such as these will lead to better protection, both legal and
financial, for people who work in them –protection that North American society
already affords to individuals who work in most other service domains.”
Related Links
- Sex workers’ rights and related issues
- Sex trade advocacy and research
- Simon Fraser University Professor John Lowman researches street prostitution
- Department of Criminology
- Information for sex workers
- Collette Parent’s Home Page
- Christine Bruckert’s Home Page
- Sex Professionals of Canada
- SSHRC